Me When People See C!scar As An Innocent Himbo And Victim Who Never Does Anything Wrong Ever

silly

okay so i just caught up on uu finally and i have become somehow even less normal about parrot. specifically about how he is incapable of working in a team anymore. and i. i'm sure someone has pointed this out before but i can't stop talking about it so

okay his first video was mostly him on his own but he was not at all opposed to teaming. he actually actively tried to get people to work with him. he would do shit alone if he had to and still always believed he was right, but he was reasonably quick to trust people and more than willing to team if he could. not at all... whatever he is now.

second video is wifies we all know how that went

they are dating

how is parfies actually not canon i'm. they're so.

anyway, importantly, parrot can always trust wifies 100% of the time from now on. except when they break up but like we'll get there ok

okay hold on this is a long post sorry i am hiding the rest under the cut

then wifies chunkban uhoh!!! parrot tries to break wifies out alone because he's gay and stupid but when that doesn't work he immediately tries to assemble a team. it's specifically people he knows he can trust on this mission, but still. he recruits people, breaks them out of prisons, trusts them to help in the process. and it works. this is important. the team works. (a couple people don't want to join and fantst chunkbans himself, but the team works.)

then we have the brief (two 3 hour long videos) interlude where he's getting hunted down by clownpierce and i haven't actually rewatched that bit so i don't really have thoughts about it? but. there's the reverse prison bit. where his team is supposed to protect him but they just leave him there to die the moment it gets difficult. wifies is the only one who sticks by him because again, they're gay. but parrot lets himself get used as bait for this trap and the team essentially betrays him. he puts his trust in them and they break it. this is important actually.

i remember more of this bit than i thought

parrot almost kills branzy. that's probably relevant but i haven't quite figured out why yet. probably something about wifies. it's always something about wifies.

then we get proton. i love proton i think i've actually rewatched it twice?? proton is one of the last instances of parrot successfully executing a plan as part of a team. even then, it's rocky. ken almost betrays, egg is missing, they don't have enough elytra, they have to leave ken behind. proton barely works.

parrot's abnormal amounts of trust issues and paranoia lead him to Thousands (Millions? I Forgor) Of Blocks Out In The End. end civ! does not fucking work. it all falls apart and people are trying to tear it apart the whole time anyway. they put in so much effort for nothing. also they know about invis mafia now soooooo that does not help anything

mining civ or whatever?? uh???? look i was Not paying attention during that one i think i was literally dying my hair and told my irl (who was watching with me) to tell me if anything important happened while i wasn't looking.

important part is that luigi fucking died. parrot keeps caring about people and terrible things keep happening to them. aha

BUT THEN THE SEARCH FOR FARLANDS CIV AND THAT'S WHERE EVERYTHING STARTS REALLY FALLING APART

wifies not wanting to trust dean really fucks with parrot i think. because these are the two people he cares the most about and they do not seem to want to cooperate ever. wifies is actually weirdly sus for the entire video, i remember that. wifies and dean both. but parrot wants to trust dean. he really wants to. so he ignores wifies warnings until it is far too late.

dean betrays them and i think that shattered parrot's ability to fully trust anyone ever again. he leaves wifies behind and everything. he is having a certified Horrible Time.

actual farlands civ is. bad. bad for parrot. very. it gives him a reason to not trust teams anymore. like yeah he has to be the main character of divergent or something and Unite The Farmers And Warriors! but every single one of the warriors is stupid and they keep sending him out on suicide missions. parrot thinks he's better than them, that his plans are better than theirs, and he's right. this does not help any issues. he's completely right, in this situation, to be paranoid and untrusting and to go against their plans. and then they try to kill him about it so that does NOT help.

and i didn't even MENTION horace. how horace didn't even want to let parrot join because parrot keeps getting horace's builds blown up. how horace said that to his face. how that just contributed to parrot thinking that everything he touches will fall apart.

first war and doomsday uh um. yeah. district 13... doesn't go well. farlands civ also didn't go well but we've been over that. district 13 is what matters here.

the moment things start going wrong, everyone leaves him. parrot places his trust in spoke for one second and spoke doesn't deliver on his promise to find the stasis chambers and every single person leaves him for the mafia. (except wifies. wifies is always the exception.)

ok chat i have to go to bed i'll finish this in the morning (let's see if i leave this in. probably will.)

i'm back. wow i left off at such a moment.

wifies fucking dies.

the one person parrot could always trust. the one person who always had his back. the one person parrot could work with. did they have a perfect relationship? not by any means. but they trusted each other. and wifies died for him. and it's really like the second time this has happened because the chunkban was essentially the same thing, but this time parrot can't do anything about it. he can't save wifies this time.

and yeah he... sort of manages to work with wemmbu, spoke, and co. to take down the mafia. but he mostly just leaves that to them.

parrot's first season 2 episode fucking destroyed me as a person 😁

it's the culmination of everything that has ever gone wrong. all this shit has been happening to him; friends dying, teammates betraying, having to leave people behind, teams falling apart. and now every person that has supported him thus far is gone. not just gone, dead. any semblance of a support system he once had is shattered.

and parrot's never been good at... listening to people, valuing other opinions, admitting when he's wrong, caring about people (especially in a non destructive way), trusting anyone. wifies was the only thing keeping him in check. (we all know how dysfunctional their relationship is and this is the one moment i will admit that part of canon is real. i prefer to pretend parfies is good and happy fjgshbshs)

so now wifies is gone and parrot just goes. fully solo. he's on his batman arc or something he works alone he does not need anyone he can do everything on his own. he's just full paranoia and distrusting everything. that chest that detects when people enter his base was fucking insane he's so far gone at this point

and then leo. leo and co. show up and save parrot and make him join their team, they give him a room, they make him feel valued... and in standard main character fashion, parrot doesn't know how to deal with that. he doesn't know how to let people care about him, he doesn't want to because only bad things ever happen to the people he's close to.

he self destructs so bad. like yeah going behind their backs to modify the trap is pretty bad but to be fair he thinks he's doing the right thing there. he just is currently incapable of trust so he doesn't tell anyone and it makes everything go to shit, which gives him more reasons to think he can't trust anyone else to be competent... but that's not the worst of it

bat gets mad at him, justifiably, but parrot is so fucking deep in his paranoia and untrusting behavior that he just fucking. shuts them out. he doesn't even remotely realize why his actions were wrong and instead thinks that bat are in the wrong here. they try to contact him and instead he breaks his inbox and shuts the blinds on his room.

side note, the shot of just his room covered in lava is really sad but also kind of hilarious i keep thinking about it

at this point the only thing that can make parrot come back to his senses (well. that implies he ever had them.) is a miracle. and this miracle comes in the form of itz trying to kill him. because parrot CANNOT HAVE NICE THINGS??????

but unfortunately this is like the only thing that could fix him at this point. he needs to see that he cannot work alone. he keeps trying to work alone and then people (rightfully) don't let him but then he gets all "ugh it would've gone better if you weren't here" because he's stupid, but no one can disprove that idea because they never let him be alone in stuff. so itz attacking him while he's completely alone in the base is exactly what he needed.

i'm never gonna be normal about parrot trapped alone in a box he put himself in, less than 10 blocks from escaping the airlock, even fewer from dying to itz, whispering a plea for help.

he realizes he can't do this shit alone. and he doesn't have to. because jumper's spies saw his situation and called for backup, and derapchu gets him out and then all of bat shows up and now parrot knows that he needs them, but more importantly that they are always there for him.

ignore his third episode it is not real and cannot hurt me

okay his second s2 episode though?? with mr cube hunting him down??? parrot and derap's friendship means so much to me. where's that fucking quote... "if you want people to see you differently, you have to see yourself differently." it means so much to me. parrot is making connections and forming relationships again, he's trusting and helping people and it's just. so incredible.

parrot's third episode is not real and cannot hurt me.

(... although the fact that parrot is at all willing to trust jumper after everyone tried to kill him, and after she sort of betrayed him once, is crazy. the old parrot would've immediately given up on bat after that, but this time he's actually trying to prove himself to them and get back on the team.)

(also parchu friendship is so good, derapchu was so obviously not on board with killing parrot for the entire video, they mean so much to me)

so like. parrot's never been good at trust. or teams. but he's clearly making an active effort to be better now. he's still very much not perfect, but he's better.

okay yeah that is um. about all. ahahahahahhahaha yeah parrot's season 2 so far has destroyed me i'm kind of insane about it. if you made it to the end of my incomprehensible ramble i love you thank you and you are awesome

The person I reblogged this from is awesome as fuck.

So sorry to rant in your inbox but another part you brought up is spokes narration as this being a silly challenge. But if we’re dipping into the serious narrative and realistic story elements. Spoke is living in someone’s house without them knowing and driving the owners against each other and into insanity. That’s HORRIFYING. And because of the chipper music and the day counter and spokes silly attitude it’s less horrifying, it’s just a silly Minecraft video you don’t have to think too much about it!

But in the terms that the series goes into (with war, grief, all that) it’s something horrible, the fear that someone is watching you. Footsteps in the back of your mind, a shadow that’s moving just too much like a person. A subtle paranoia that you are being watched.

But to spoke it’s just a fun challenge! A game! That’s it, and now he has something to steal and it’s all so fun and silly (and think of how big of a shift this is from spokes season 1 episode, even there it was serious) it truly gives the effect he’s loosing it. And he’s torturing ash and squiddo too, effectively, he admits it himself in the description. That’s weird.

How I feel trying to figure out this episode cause it feels like a atomic bomb dropped in a sitcom haha slice of life episode:

no, yeah, EXACTLY!!!

i've been yapping about how this feels like the most... lifesteal!spoke thing we've seen out of uu!spoke since the whole parrot torture maze thing... it's so interesting to me. because the whole like... living inside someone's base and fucking with them and the whole paranoia is something that feels so lifesteal coded to me... (coughs) and like... the premise is very similar to that mapicc ls video where he lived in spoke's base for a while.

spoke treating it as a fun game/challenge is so reminiscent to how he operated in lifesteal almost? like in his 4hr wormhole video he ends it off by saying he enjoys the puzzle and trying to do something impossible and the challenge behind pulling that stuff off.

this video is like... when i watched those fucking spoke wormhole videos for the first time and thought to myself "haha, what a funny light hearted video haha poopies is a funny name for your endermite haha what a funny bit it is to place bedrock for every subscriber you get... hey how the fuck do you have op btw?"

btw i LOVE reading people's rambles never apologize <3

Can I feel…

magic?

Sorry for the second rb but I drew them!!

wing anatomy probably scuffed asf but its fine

ive been having uh. a lot of thoughts about winged Lew. specifically a kinda phantom hybrid lew.

Why phantom hybrid you ask? well this started because I wanted to give them bone wings. and then I thought well why would they have these. and how would they function. And they would function with probably some kinda magic membrane like phantom wings have, that maybe they could turn off in life serieses and other places they can't be used. ALSO in tibby art they've just got a skeleton mask, which leads in further to just a bone MOTIF not being a skeleton actually.

im putting the rest under a read more cuz I feel like there's a lot

ANYWAYS yeah. lew is also just. So watchery. he is mr grian third life himself, which feels like watcher behavior being so knowledgeable on the games and grian "former watcher" minecraft. they've also been in ten games I believe they said which is a very large number, one probably only achieved if they have something to do with the games in the first place. lew also has the mask which ik isn't technically canon but I'm viewing it as such here. play in this space with me. watchers, in a lot of fanfic/fanart, cover their real eyes for one reason or another. and lew does this. not like, fully, maybe not to give their identity away or smth, but you also can't actually see his eyes. just the dark void created by the mask.

at the end of tibbys autumn life as well, when he's coming out of his "dream" and nobody else remembers anything, Jinx and West are kinda off to the slide and lew turns to tibby and says "You lost the game." I know this is probably a reference that I don't get because lew says it other times too in much less climactic places but we're ignoring that okay. if I could draw there would be a flash of purple in lew's eyes as he smirks at tibby, west and jinx blissfully unaware (or so it seems?? maybe?)

theres. there's other evidence too i feel like that I found. but I can't remember rn. anyways yeah phantom hybrid watcher lew this is a normal amount to write about this minecraft man who doesn't even make videos I don't think and is just featured in others

Sorry, we'll have to put you on hold

The Phenomenon of Mapicc

At some point we all look back at our early teen years and realize that just because we can scam a fellow kid online because the game developers didn’t specifically write it out of the code or write safety procedures to protect their user base doesn’t mean we should scam other kids online. At some point we all realize, almost out the blue, that the other people online are real people and not just slightly more interesting npc’s walking around the world. (Though the tendency to do so anyway is always present)

Mapicc as a character on the lifesteal smp has long eluded definition for me. There are ways in which he simultaneously 1) a blurred line between character and streamer, 2) a clear cut motivated character with clearly defined goals and personality, and 3) simply and completely a guy playing a video game. 

He is all three at the same time. A blurring of real emotions into the Minecraft world, a player curated for a video, and the man who is who he is while he plays video games. I don’t think you can take one out and get a serious understanding of the character of Mapicc.

The battle between all three is constant, and the person who Mapicc plays as the persona of the Mapicc channel is only one part of the lifesteal character that the audience can encounter. The persona of Mapicc, the video Mapicc, is brutal and bloodthirsty, uncaring of past connections, and dedicated to a cause. At least, specifically when you watch that unfold on streams. He’ll be randomly extra brutal for seemingly no reason until you realize he’s got a specific video idea he’s doing. Like killing Pangi and Zam day 1 was bc he was running out of the 24 hours to get to 20 hearts, which is a video idea and also seemingly not caring that (at least Zam) is a close friend. Tbh it’s been a while since I thought about the actual persona of a Mapicc video as told through edited content, honestly, if anything I would say the Mapicc that Mapicc presents to the world on his channel is much closer to himself than how that plays out while watching it as a stream viewer on the server.

Now, you might already be thinking, gnome, this is too much like c! And cc! And I’m tired of all those indicators why can’t it just be blurred and that’s it and it’s all just fun analysis about a small facet of a person that we see only when they want us to and is bound within the four infinite walls of a Minecraft server. 

To which I would say, yes, yes my brain hurts too. 

But there is something about Mapicc that can only ever be understood through the lens of the media that he exists within and from. I might even argue PrinceZam is not in this category despite being notorious for being a blurred line character. This isn’t simply about the nature of blurred lines in mcrp.

Mapicc is not simply a blurred line. Those two facets of strictly a character and strictly the kid who plays Minecraft on top of the blurred line are vastly important.

A blurred line character is a character that smoothly and subconsciously transfers between the real emotions and psychology of a singular real human, and the projected, improved character that they are playing. They might start as a clearly defined experiment such as “what if I played as a pacifist” and divert into something completely complex. They’re almost like a thought experiments. What if I changed this about myself; how would that look?

Every streamer will be a blurred line at some point. We’re watching real people be entertainment; at some point there is a boundary between who they are and how they present themselves. Some will either create a persona to project to the world as themselves, dropping the act only at certain times, while other streamers might pick up a persona/character at times to fulfill a fun facet of the story but then drop it easily to play the game while talking to chat. I would argue that both sides are valid at the same time for interpreting their characters, an easy example being tommyinnit and Philza respectively. Any server they’ve been on has been marked by their respective styles and you can interpret their characters within by looking at both aspects together, and the elements of the character as a whole will be discovered differently in different situations.

Mapicc, once again is not quite that. 

As a streamer who is actually pretty consistent in his upload schedule, he is motivated by the story he tells, the plots he wants to pull off, and the villains he fights against. I find it imminently fascinating that the castle arc was actually supposed to be a video but was scrapped bc Mapicc lost the fight, rather than what was told, sometime earlier, that he just never made it a video and regretted it bc the fans loved the story. 

But he is also a player who plays lifesteal consistently. His breaks while editing are markedly shorter than most other players who upload, and his time on the server while not having a clear video idea are much longer than nearly 2/3 of the player base. Most members of lifesteal only appear when they have a video idea.  

So therefore he plays Minecraft while on his or other’s streams. 

We are all aware to some degree who we are when we play video games. It’s not the same as who we are as people. Whether it’s being more violent, or being a completionist, or farming, or building, or ranking up; everyone has their own preference for why they like playing a video game in the first place. 

Minecraft as the particular sandbox that it is has four entire categories of gameplay that coexist at nearly all times: pvp, optimization (speedrunning/redstone), building, and socializing. 

Throw anyone into a Minecraft world and they’re going to gravitate to some more than others. And each category has subsets: pvp can be split into competitive and hunting people down; optimization can be grinding, or game mechanics, or red stone machining; building can be artistic/creative mode, or just for fun, or secret bases, or tunnel cults, or anything your mind can think of that manipulates the blocks in the game; socializing can be as a shared activity, or trolling other players, or just running around wasting golden carrots together.[1] etc etc etc.

And Mapicc has maxed out the pvp category, at least to the best of his ability. He leans far more towards hunting people down rather than pure competitive gameplay, preferring to “change the world”[2] by killing someone rather than practice mechanics in a practice server. He wants to get on the ground and actually affect the world around him just as much as any builder.

In other words, the bloodlust isn’t just something he does because his character likes blood and he wants to do a villain arc. Mapicc would want to kill on any world he joins, and would be rather bored if that wasn’t an option for him. 

He is also incredibly social, preferring to play with someone else around him rather than taking on solo missions by himself. He’s not a grinder by nature in the slightest, but has learned the skills to be one. 

He’s also honorable, in a world commonly upheld has having no honor, holding to a moral code of killing and being attacked as honorable while running in circles and bow spam and not showing up to fight and avoiding battle are categorically dishonorable acts that he disdains. The rule is the rule of battle. Fight and kill and be killed. Let the cycles commence. 

And as soon as we start thinking about Mapicc in relation to others, we start to see his character give form. 

And this is where we finally loop back around to the point I alluded to in the first paragraph: the phenomenon of growing up. 

Mapicc by the end of s4 and through s5, I would say, was his most consistent era. All the memes and love about dogged devotion, unending bloodlust and run-you-down-to-the-ends-of-the-earth-forever-and-ever were thriving. His patience was surprising, willing to wait for the opportune moment to get revenge, never forgetting what had been done against him. [3]

But something shifted in s6, and not just the responsibility of being the owner of the server. Mapicc is simply maturing. No longer 14 years old like in s1, we’re in the post high-school-graduation era. 

In the past I would’ve called Mapicc a cheater (/aff), an exploiter, willing, so very willing, to do anything to turn the tide of a battle to his advantage. 

But now? I’m not so sure. 

Will he be immune to temptation when it arises? No, not at all. While we are already seeing his willingness to never dupe again, his easy laughing off suggestions to admin abuse, we are also seeing his frustration lead him to launching nukes at spawn with Spoke.

He will still always call in backup when he promises a fair fight. But hey, it’s lifesteal. Lying is part of it. And honor is found in showing up to the fight, not in a fair 1v1. This is war after all. 

But, and I mean this specifically for the entire character that is the story of Mapicc, Mapicc has been changed. This season is so devastatingly different. Duping and being on the wormhole side in s4 changed him, getting beaten by a traitor in the Abyss changed him. 

But s6 has been a slow cooker roasting him into something new. 

Everything points to him wanting to mature, to be different from the past, not so impulsive, more caring of his own time and others, willing to drop the past. 

Bitterness in loosing teammates and friends, loneliness in a world once populated by an awesome team, and the cold cruel hand of suddenly being favored by the Sever, have only brought sorrow and destruction upon him. 

And he’s left purposeless, held together only by what he has left to him, his honor, his pride.

And so, on a much more practical and real world level, Mapicc just does’t have a video idea for s6 anymore and he wants to upload more frequently. Back in s4 he was so much quicker to anger and long-drawn-out to seeing it through. He’s unwilling to drop four months into one video that he doesn’t even upload. This isn’t high school anymore.

And that real world problem of YouTuber-doesn’t-have-video-idea, is part of every character on lifesteal. That ebb and flow of inspiration curates each and every one of them. Wemmbu being done with ls ideas for the season will lead him to ban himself to be rid of the temptation to log on, leading others to be affected by how callously he leaves this world without thought of what they think, thereby curating the character into a complex emotional mess who doesn’t believe people actually care about him or would want him around and who pushes people away and is villainous because he’s never understood what love is. All because he doesn’t have an ls video and has a uu script to write. 

It’s part of any lifestealer who doesn’t naturally gravitate towards the “lore” of the server.

And yet recently I’ve been really feeling like Mapicc absolutely plays lifesteal like it’s actually mcrp. He’s become invested in how Mapicc would react to the elements of the server and the things that happen to him. He’s always cared deeply about the livelihood of the server, but it’s more curated into a story than ever before. Mapicc is The Complainer and The Sass Master and that has made him into pvper who is notorious for running around the server dropping lore lines as trash talk, never missing a chance to really lay it in how dumb he thinks Flame is for logout trapping him and always doing what Mane tells him to do. Why? He doesn’t have a video idea for that 2v1 (unless?), none of that trash talk is necessary, he’s shown he doesn’t say that trash talk when on the practice server just days after the event happened. Like, that is so specifically a rp moment taken advantage of. It has no other use than bc on lifesteal Mapicc Hates Flame. (and because on lifesteal is his only outlet for those emotions; he's not going to start hating on his friends in real life for in game stuff)

Sure, in some ways Mapicc keeps lore distinct and at arms length. And this is, for instance, why I think devotions is as devastatingly dramatic as it is; because Mapicc will never admit how much Zam means to him and yet will be character-motivated by his devotion to Zam at all times. But him as a person just keeps that mostly at arms length; it’s not him caring about Zam it’s about the wardens, guys. Spawning wardens for a video. And owning spawn. Obviously.

You see what I’m getting at? It’s not just blurred, it’s two separate thoughts held at the same time. Mapicc and Mapicc combining together to make Mapicc.

So much of Mapicc is a mashing together of anything and everything he thinks of throwing at the screen. And all of that somehow comes out to an actually understandable and crisp final character who always acts in the most Mapicc way possible at all times always, undefinable except by saying “it’s just Mapicc” and that Meaning something. 

----

So when you see me writing about Mapicc, know this is what is going on in my head.

———

[1] im bringing footnotes into a Tumblr essay. Wemmbu, who I talk about later, would naturally play Minecraft as a run around wasting golden carrots type guy. As a person playing Minecraft he does not gravitate towards doing, well, anything. It is only in making a video that he will move himself to be anything. Despite learning pvp and rising, what, two teirs?, he is not someone who will casually look for fights while on a server. It’s not in his blood. 

[2] ~1:00:00 GREYS prinzezam vod, ZAM: ‘why are you always trying to kill someone mapicc?” MAPICC: ‘I dunno.. Maybe I feel….. Underachieving. Without it. Like I didn't get anything done to day unless I get another kill” ZAM: “but you have 20 hearts” MAPICC: “yea but the killing is changing the world” 

[3] The castle arc lasted from November 27 until March 6. From the day Zam left team awesome to the day they finally got their 1v1 without Spoke spawning a warden. 99 days. (That’s fucking crazy given the 97 days we just went through). I suppose in a very valid way, the mace arc was 8 months and we have no idea where s6 will go and how Mapicc will get revenge on flame, for instance. But as of now he’s just done. That’s very different than any other time in his lifesteal life, and the response, as a long time Mapicc viewer, is more empathetically devastating. But those 8 months are not the same as the four months of the castle arc. The mace was no logged in for most of those days. His dogged determination wasn't the same this season as the past.

senku bc i love him very much (ignore the big ass chunk of white space LMAO)

definitelynottober day 1 - revealing your nature

late start but lesgoo