#artisticgryfess

[changeling-rin]

Red: Tbh I could see Red being on just about any team except the Dallas Steaks. He does not have Dad Vibes.

Green: I have been turning this over in my mind and I have no clue. Put him anywhere.

Blue: Philly Pies. Strictly vibes-based assessment. The Pies play to win, but theyre not very good at it. Also idk I feel like Blue might like making pies,

Vio: Houston Spies. Information-gathering is very good, especially with something as complicated and deadly as blaseball can be.

GRBV: this is an alternate placement for putting all 4 of them together: LA Unlimited Tacos. Fairly laid-back competitively, no pressure for Green to manage the other players, center of a particularly strange occurrence (the Grand Unslam) for Vio to try and figure out, lots to explore in the Infinite Cities of Los Angeli <- used to just be the one los angeles but then the grand unslam happened and now its all los angeli fused into one via a timespace rift

Realm: I don’t think hed have a specific team I think he has super roamin’ and switches teams every 9 days. Alternately, Yellowstone Magic

Steam: Core Mechanics. Easy answer hes an engineer theyre engineers its perfect

Dusk: Hellmouth Sunbeams. Theyre the most western team.

Sketch: Anywhere BUT the Miami Dale (boat), Baltimore Crabs (crabs + ocean), Atlantis Georgias (sunken city), or worst of all the Canada Moist Talkers (the wettest team, including the previous three) (youd think it would be the georgias but no somehow the talkers are wetter).

Wind: Miami Dale. They live on a boat. Life of the party, death of the gods! Alternately the Baltimore Crabs

Lore: Charleston Shoe Thieves. Their bit is hilarious, chaotic, absurd, and requires dedication to do well, and I do think Lore could do it well! Alternately: (singing) The Kansas City Breath Mints team is hard to describe…. Seriously though I think Lore would appreciate the dedication to the bit involved in “every single member of the kansas city breath mints has failed the bar exam”.

Mask: Seattle Garages. Theyre a blaseball team, yes, but also a band and also an anarcho-syndicalist commune. I think he would enjoy the band :) also there is an actual band called the garages who write music as though they were the blaseball team their music is really good! Most garages have a vendetta against the sun but I think Mask would have the biggest issue with Our Lady of Perpetual Friday, and therefore would NOT want to be on the Hawaii Fridays He’s had enough of not ageing

Ocarina: I actually do feel like the Fridays are a good fit for Ocarina? They’re about good vibes and doing what feels right in the moment

The Four: Breckenridge Jazz Hands. Idk why exactly this is strictly vibes-based. Alternately, Chicago Firefighters, who are from Chicago. If you’re not from chicago? You are now.

Speck: Ohio Worms? Houston Spies? Both are pretty good options for a player who tends to be pretty quiet. worms has dirt science if that makes a difference

Gen: Putting him on Tokyo Lift, who are like. They work out in the name of taking care of yourself. Alternately Boston Flowers or Dallas Steaks (both extremely vibes-based)

Shadow: Hades Tigers. The edgiest team. Alternately, the Kansas City Breath Mints, because they’re nicknamed the Death Mints and I feel like hed have fun being really dedicated to a fairly obscure team? Alternately, the New York Millennials, because of that one bonus comic in the manga where he spends all day on the computer Oni: Hades Tigers. Theyre from Hades like from Greek mythology and their motto is “never look back”, and I feel like the vibes check out? Idk. Alternately the seattle garages with mask

...I've never been so confused by an Ask before, and I even have prior knowledge of what this is and why you sent it to me.

That said, I'm going to defer to your clearly superior expertise in this manner and agree that you've sorted everyone 100% correctly. I think I read a fic about this once? It kinda sounds familiar, in a way that means I've forgotten nearly everything about it.

That said, every single one of these descriptions is hilarious. Thank you for sharing!

[betweenlands]

[ID: Two asks from my inbox. The first is from @12u3ie and reads "Drop the essay, Solar /nf". The second is from @artisticgryfess and reads "wait no tell me about joe being technos hels". /End ID]

holy shit you guys i'm not even a hermitcraft or dsmp blog rn. fair enough this is a longstanding conspiracy theory of mine, though. ok, so. Joe Is Techno's Hels, the not-an-essay (mainly because i'm not going to cite SHIT, this is PURELY in the realm of headcanon/theory except if i explicitly indicate something is supported by canon)

so, the joke theory starts like this: back when hermitcraft/dsmp crossovers were first getting popular, there were a lot of crack theories about "hels!joe is technoblade" because... well, a lot of factors. they're both loosely english majors (i know joe is a history major just humor me), both slightly strange guys who operate by their own logic, both have somewhat similar (ish?) accents, both have a very deadpan sense of humor and incredible delivery on that deadpan, and most of all both of them Cannot Be Killed In A Way That Matters.

however, i am your local Hels Analyst, no like seriously there's so much weird shit about helsknight we haven't discussed yet, and one (implied? this is a theory but i feel it holds water) thing that's always been key to me about Hels versions is... they represent bad traits present in the original individual. whether or not those bad traits are the Objectively Bad ones or the traits the original self-identifies as bad is pretty up in the air right now (welsknight come off anon i just need you to tell me if helsknight likes pineapple on pizza it is absolutely fucking critical to our understanding of hels lore) but we'll be going with the latter, for reasons i'll explain later and by later i mean right now.

so! assuming there are hels versions of more players than just welsknight (i cannot stress enough how much we technically don't know this in canon -- it can reasonably be extrapolated but we really aren't sure!), that brings up an interesting issue with techno being joe's hels.

joe is not a particularly violent person.

"well solar," you say, "what does that have to do with techno being joe's hels?"

"well, strawman i have made up to make this long-ass post more visually broken-up and less formal-feeling," i reply, "hels versions of players only exhibit traits that are present in the original person." and this is confirmed canon, by the way -- wels himself has explicitly cited specific ways he can sometimes suck that are directly visible in the way helsknight acts!

so. joe is not a particularly violent person, and... okay yes listen i know there's a lot of very good writing on how technoblade isn't entirely 100% down for violence all the time and maybe wants to peacefully retire, okay. i get it. i am not calling techno a murder machine all i'm saying is that one of them enjoys pvp enough that he helped train other people and the other one is recording as he always does from nashville tennessee. i am a variety mcyt blogger and the only dsmp essay i have ever written before now is about how the tftsmp metaplot parallels redstoner. just bear with me.

imo joe also exhibits a lot of self-awareness about his own bad qualities as a character, and none of those traits are really... present in technoblade? but here's where it gets interesting.

i am no genius and certainly no master c!technoblade analyst, but if we assume technoblade trained to become a fighter and identified certain of his traits as being Not Ideal for someone who focuses on pvp and being a strong pigman, we can. kind of see those traits in joe, even if we can assume technoblade has learned enough to stop displaying those traits:

will commit to the bit even if it's inconvenient for him

obnoxious about whatever form of literature is closest to him

will start quoting from that work of literature to fit the situation even when it totally doesn't fit the situation

zero bloodlust and an active need to avoid direct conflict; a tendency towards pacifism even

malicious compliance

perfectly timed awful timing

overwhelming amounts of Just Some Guy and also English Major energy

exceedingly stubborn and would rather go through a problem than around it; will also see a tunnel through a mountain and climb over the hill instead

and. hm! yeah that feels like a joe hills description. you could make a joe hills out of this. add to that the fact that both of them refuse to die, but technoblade never dies whereas joe conquers death by dying over and over and coming back repeatedly out of sheer spite -- yeah i'd say joe could very easily be seen as the hels of the two.

and if Hels, the dimension, is the hostile and horrible place that helsknight claims it is -- where "everyone's unyielding and everyone there rebels" -- well, only one of them has a (mostly) canonical backstory that involves struggling through a hellish landscape designed by a hostile architect who wishes to cause pain and suffering. and it's not technoblade.

[toriels-strange-human-children]

You alright, chara?

[changeling-rin]

are you saying that pitcher plants evolved independently of each other on three separate continents???

Yes! They did!

This is the North American pitcher plant, Sarrecenia (aka Trumpet Pitcher). They grow in marshy, boggy environments, and their trumpet doubles as their leaf. What you see here is the entire plant, and they'll collect rainwater in their throats to lure in prey. They'll stay somewhat narrow, although some varieties can hit several feet in height. Somewhat hard to find if you're looking to buy, but if you're lucky enough to have a specialty greenhouse near you then there's a pretty good chance. I have two, they're both little clumps about six inches tall, and I adore them

This is the Asian pitcher plant, Nepenthes (aka Monkey's Paw). They, unlike the North American ones, grow in trees. They're designed specifically for hanging! They collect rainwater in their pitchers, lure in prey, and will eat whatever falls in. There's reports of finding small mammals and birds in the pitchers of the largest varieties, which can easily be larger than your entire hand at maturity. On the bright side, this is by far the easiest variety to find and own for yourself! I've got three, they're the loves of my life

This is the Australian pitcher plant, Cephalotus (aka Fly-Catcher). These guys are tiny. Hold out your hand, measure your pointer finger from your nail to the first joint. That's how big these are. Their M.O. is almost identical to the Nepenthes, though their prey is a lot smaller. They live on the ground, they like to be wet, and they are stupidly rare and expensive. Good luck getting your hands on one, because I've been quietly trying for months now with no luck

And lastly, special mention to the California pitcher plant, Darlingtonia (aka Cobra Lily). This one, this special gorgeous little sweetheart, is something completely different from Sarracenia. They've actually grown their pitcher upside down, and lure their prey inside by taking advantage of the misconception of insects that up = out. It's insidiously genius. They're native only to California U.S.A., and they're almost as hard to get ahold of as the Cephalotus. I have also been quietly trying to get one of these beauties for several months, with equally poor luck. Someday.

...oh you little devil, you got me blogging about plants.

[betweenlands]

i mean i certainly wouldnt say no to cosmere crossover

I WOULDN'T EITHER it's just also like. i want to write a solo xbcrafted fic. instead of anything helpful my brain provides me with basically an entire essay about hazekillers and survivorism and the idea that generally hazekillers are a fascinating concept, ordinary people trained to fight superpowered ones, and how survivorism as a concept ("do everything you can to survive and be self-reliant") sort of relies very heavily on bootstrap ideology and, you know, that's one thing if you have allomancy and you can shoot coins like they're bullets, but what if you're an ordinary person? and so the idea is that there might eventually be sort of a reform survivorism, based more in hazekiller ideology because when you don't have powers you have numbers and so it would lean less towards individual capacity and more towards the idea of mutual aid, eg "do everything you can to survive and help others do the same" instead of self-centered idealism, and it'd have to come from hazekillers and other ordinary people, and the idea that fascinatingly enough there's a lot of really interesting tools and weaponry hazekillers could be using and they don't in the books and i wonder if there's an entire underground of invention, i wonder if they went off and did their own thing, i wonder if any of them ever came up with the macuahuitl, there's certainly no shortage of obsidian on scadrial,

and i am supposed to be writing minecraft fanfiction,

[betweenlands]

the idea of scar being kelsier is so funny. like. what do you mean hes "The Survivor"???? he died two hundred times in season 8 this guy??? deaths georg?? the survivor??? dsafghcfxdbcv

i mean, name another hermit with that much charisma and barely contained murderous tendencies who also, critically, could start a religion postmortem

[betweenlands]

someone starts a server w the allomancy mod and invites scar, unaware that hes already a full mistborn, once known as kelsier

third life season three: everyone's a misting. except scar. why? ehhh, always another secret

[betweenlands]

have you seen. the. the video. the cosmere one. if not please please go watch it its good news

IT'S #1 TRENDING ON YOUTUBE WHAT THE FUCK

god i knew the punchline was going to be "i accidentally wrote more books" the second i clicked on it but that doesn't stop it from being hilarious. i don't blame sanderson one bit. if i had a universe as well-developed as the cosmere and an otherwise steady income from writing i would just constantly write fanfiction about my own setting. you would not be able to fucking stop me either