7 PICTURES OF THINGS I HATE ABOUT THE CRASTLE: a visual essay/complaint based on the crastle construction experience. screenshots are of my own recreation, though the front face is matched as closely as i can to the in-video textures. also, he totally sent those instructions to cleo in a powerpoint deck, as they discuss shortly before his first death in episode 2. bc he's insane <3
note there are precisely six doubled smooth stone slabs on the front - one craft's worth. so one corner is missing it. this is the first omen of the crastle's decadence: missing the cracked stone bricks on lower sections the blueprints called for, but still double smelting cobble to smooth stone. we'll talk about the fucking windows later but note that the windows from the blueprints have andesite stairs; the tower ones were not originally intended and have spruce insets, if any at all, done hastily later to improve sightlines.
oh my god build that door in your own game and try to open it from the outside. it's actually extremely difficult due to the overlapping fencegate and door hitboxes. there are other signs of cheap decadence that were hard to notice (so why bother!!) like the four total granite stairs, the stone arch. also, etho bullied bdubs into collecting two-tall peonies and lilacs, and then them being "too tall" came up after etho decided he was scorned an invite to the crastle.
this roof makes sense until you remember it's on old lightlevels. also, not annotated, but in the creative design bdubs shows a brick chimney with black glass smoke that is never built. i didn't build the moat because this already took a week but the trapdoor drawbridge WORKS when flipped up.
speaking of machicolations (the wall overhangs), it is INSANEEEE that they're functional and never get used except to peek down because the CRENELLATIONS (the up-and-down pattern) are TWO POINT FIVE BLOCKS TALL crenels with ONE POINT FIVE BLOCK merlons. meaning. you cannot see over them. unless you place blocks. also the floor is all regular stone bc it won't be seen much.
the stupid side support with the gates & brick walls aren't in the blueprint but are in the step 3 screenshot (though that version is a little more intricate than the real crastle is); also it contains the only 2 spruce fence gates in the entire build meaning he was extra in crafting them. & once again we see the fucking spruce stair inset that's so ugly but wasn't part of the original build either! the wall-based arrow slits aren't in the build guide either! why that god damn fencepost!!! it's good but why!!! all these edits drive me NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
bunch of extra detailing in the arch, the double-layer entry, the fucking chimney for god knows what reason. not pictured is the nice little barrel and chest setup at the back of the crastle; the opposite wall eventually gets the deadly bubble column. the tower railing sucks & it's so easy to walk off it due to the fucking SLABS. which are inconsistently mixed with stairs in all floors. which was loathsome to decipher btw. and that floor is dirt & gravel & cobble & andesite for some reason - after it's textured, the animals get moved below, a design feature bdubs will repeat for the snow fort. also, note the upper balcony - there is access from the gatehouse via ladder to a floor level with the lowest stair-windows.
yes i skipped the dark oak floor because it also gets destroyed as vaguely outlined in the xray picture. the crastle is so defensible in almost every way but he still picks DARK OAK (FLAMMABLE) stairs & floors for aesthetics + to piss etho off. even before the floors got destroyed it was empty though, purely for function: all the 2nd floor windows are exitable if crouched & do allow bdubs to stop the TNT missiles; the lower floor ones do allow firing arrows out but not really in, exactly like real life medieval arrow slits. the towers are perfect for the floor heights even if hate the stairs. which makes it crazier that the dark oak non-sharing that leads cleo to steal pizza + to the tango-team crastle alliance, which causes etho to build his own Big Castle out of wool (bc it has to be BIGGER, wool is the only thing cheap enough to farm), leads to the need to defend the crastle from etho (who bdubs originally said in ep2 would be "proud" of its defensability) & to its only minor destructions. kind of encapsulates the vision, achievement, and weaknesses of this nearly perfect build all at once.
in short: i loathe the crastle. it's incredible. if you want to go crazy please follow bdubs' official building guide and cross-reference footage from third life itself and think about how he designed and built it between the first episodes releasing and the second episode's filming, because he wasn't thinking of endgame alliance scheming but the moment he saw other people, he decided to make something to protect. and for a total rush job, it's this incredibly historically informed but insanely well-translated to the minecraft medium piece of art that does what no build has really ever done then or since, which is stand the test of time almost unscathed. many of the minor plots and allegiance changes derive from the crastle and its construction. and he tries again for protection in last life, something bdubs never repeats again - but that's another fucking essay i guess.
