#gnome.fireside.chat

[coffeegnomee]

I'm not the most knowledgeable about season 4 so I would love your thoughts on all the comparisons to it , and also generally on zam's rapidly declining, slightly unstable mental health in the latest stream ( only if you watched it of course! )

This was about the stream "staring into the sun" and I finally finished it (not "crawling", so if anything changed I'm not liable)

So, first off, on a genuine level, I think we have, because of this stream, entered into new and entirely uncharted waters, something that will make season 6 and sunkissed into entirely and completely their own story that no longer has any relations to s4. So not knowing the past isn't a detriment.

Additionally, what actually happened in two years ago isn't relevant to what Zam remembers happening two years ago. And, on a very important note, what happened in season 5 is vitally important to not leave out when comparing s6 to s4. Jumper's betrayal has scarred Zam in ways far deeper than were ever present during the eclipse federation and BOTH seasons are going into what is going on in s6.

That being said I am more than happy to oblige :) I will always and forever yap about how much the past returns to haunt us.

Though THAT being said, I went to look up a Vitalasy quote and got light headed from how DRAMATICALLY terrible and awful and terrible zam and vi were at communication.

There was a sign room on 3/22/23 (vod archive is here) where the only way Zam felt like he could communicate his thoughts to Vi and Subz was by writing them down on signs and hollllyyy shit. That was so awkward I forgot how awkward that was. Zam could literally barely put two words together in defense of his thoughts, could only go "yeah" as Vi read the signs. And Vi literally had his thoughts written down in a book that he kept opening up and reading and highlighting to remind him of his points and would make small frustrated noises at how they were on the same page and yet also not on the same page. And also be unable to just say what he was feeling.

We are in an entirely, and I mean entirely different era of princezam. season 4 princezam could quite literally never bring derap back and tell him how he has hurt him in many words and with examples. The difference is mind boggling.

Ok so. this is going to be rambling because I dont have time to really think things through and there's a lot to cover. buckle up.

The quote I was trying to find, and didn't even really find, was Vi saying to his chat, alone, how zam leaving would be the worst thing to happen to eclipse federation. It's something I vivdly remember him saying and how much I flat out thought he was lying when I heard it the first time. How could Zam leaving or Eclipse breaking up be the worst thing when all it felt like was Vi was trying to control Zam. I didn't believe that Vi truly loved Zam and cared about having him around regardless of what the plot was.

But in the stream he had his book that he read out saying, “We have the gear, we have the hearts, we have the abilities, and we have each other” and throughout the conversation, re-highlights “we have each other” over and over. And once he was alone with chat he said, “I don't even want to build [the prison] without the team’s support”.

At that point in the 3/22 stream above, he was willing to drop the whole project over Zam and Subz being happy with it. And that'll do for my point.

Unluckily for him, between that stream and two days later when they had another meeting, Zam decided that he didn't want to be a burden for the team and would just willingly and excitingly go along with the plan to build a bedrock prison at spawn with the exploited bedrock. He jumped into a hole and killed himself to prove his commitment to the project. Vi also jumped in and also died. Oh my eclipse federation.

As recap if you have no idea what Eclipse is:

The Eclipse Federation started as a team with a goal to not be nice to the server that didn't care about them anymore. The server treated Subz like shit. He had been pacifist all season and kept getting dragged into conflict and killed, and Mapicc (and zam and spoke) blew up his base, and he was tired of being stepped on. So it was time to stand back up.

Vi joined Eclipse with a secret plan that only Subz knew (and ash and spoke) that had been planned since day 1 of the server: he had the wormhole. A game breaking exploit that got them creative mode items and eventually, (after zam betrayed, and only for spoke), op itself. But he wanted to reveal this slowly and excitedly to the server to create a sense of fun and mystery. And he also wanted to balance the server by having the exploits and only using them to defend those he cared about and to create a prison to deter others from trying to be tyrants. He didn't want to be the villain.

Zam joined Eclipse because Mapicc was hunting him down over and over and had just recently banned him off and revived him and left him on one heart. He had betrayed and left Mapicc (and ro) because they had duped thousands of items with a different exploit and Zam was totally done with anyone having an unfair advantage on this server. He burned the dupes and left the team.

Subz took him in when he had nothing, gave him gear and some of his own hearts, gave him a base, a home, and a team to protect him if Mapicc came back after him (and mapicc did. and they protected him).

Eclipse thrived as a team for over a month or so. Laughed and made bases, logged on at odd hours of the night to save Zam, showed up for him and were a great and supportive team. Nothing was wrong.

But that sense of safety would be cracked and then shattered over the coming months.

Bacon said it great at the start of this stream, and if you're new and reading this, honestly so much of what is relevant in comparison of the past is said by the members in the modern era.

But Bacon said that intention and action matter, and maybe action a bit more. Zam agreed and said that what still hurt was how Vi and Subz were good to him. And he wished he didn't kill Vi when he betrayed him, that he only did that because he wanted to twist the knife.

And importantly if you're paying attention at home, Zam is finally in a spot where he accepts that he would have left Eclipse either way. It's just how he left that haunts him.

What the "intention" and "action" were is where Eclipse became the most fucked shakespearean tragedy on levels far past what you could imagine. I'm always one to giggle about how s6 is like s4, but it is maybe 20% like s4. s4 was a fucking crazy ride. I highly recommend it.

Over the coming months, Vi would try and Not reveal to Zam too much about what was planned for the wormhole because he 1) didn't want to spoil it and 2) didn't want ANYONE to figure out how to do this exploit bc it would work on any server.

But also he would desperately, and consistently, and so very very terribly at doing it, was trying to keep Zam on the team... by lying to him.

This is where chat started bringing up s4 when Zam and Derap were talking in the base. Vitalasy lied about a lot of things to Zam, and they specifically had a "no more lies" conversation too.

And from Vitalasy's point of view, he was only holding things back for Zam's own good, to keep Zam happy, to make Zam feel included, to protect Zam from getting scared and running when there was nothing to be scared about.

He also wanted to tell Zam everything, but Zam had said if chat couldn't know, he didn't want to know, and that he trusted Vitalasy.

But Vi had so many moving parts to work with that he would say something like "we have a bedrock farm in the end" to, from his mind, appease chat and keep them off the trail, while also imagining that Zam would understand that there was no bedrock farm. And then he also forgot that he even said that to Zam at all because it was not meant to be taken as the truth.

(Or like Derap says he was the only one to fight against Subz, not because he was but because that's what it felt like to him. It wasn't meant to be taken fully literally, it was just what was important to say)

But Zam would find out it was a lie, and his trust would waver. He'd think about how Vitalasy was adamant he only look at the first 20 (iirc) pages of the wormhole plan and was unwilling to let him see more. In the moment Zam was okay with not getting more info because he trusted Vi implicitly, but Planet eventually saw the book and told Zam that there were only 20 pages and Vi was lying to him.

On that note, another similarity is Bacon talking with Zam. Him and Planet would have tons of conversations with Zam as Zam worked through trusting and then not trusting his team and getting more and more miserable. I made a poll a while back about whether or not they were the reason Zam left Eclipse or if he would have left them anyway and the poll came back a perfect 50/50.

Which is funny because chat in s4 was SO 50/50 on Zam staying or leaving Eclipse. And chat now is so 50/50 on if Derap is being manipulative or not. All that chatter is gonna get loud. And makes it quite reminiscent of s4 all by itself.

Now, now that everything is said and done with s4, it is very very clear that Vitalasy was NOT wanting to be the villain. He said it All the time, but the way that he said it made it Sound like he was straight out lying. He would give examples of the god powers he could do, and how he could be evil, and then immediately say, but I wont do that, i couldn't do that. i don't have the heart to do that.

At times he would look like someone brandishing a knife saying, I'm not going to kill you. That doesn't exactly fill anyone with confidence of not being stabbed.

And when players would ask him to put the exploits down he would say, what exploits? I'm not exploiting right now. While he was flying with potion particles wafting off his character. Somehow, in his mind, since the exploit was obtained in a specific way, one was only exploiting during the moments that they were obtaining the powers, and then after it was just vanilla minecraft bc most of it was potions (with all the positive or negative affects in the game), or it was a double-join glitch and once you set it up it wasn't your fault that you could fly.

And when you watch lifesteal, and specifically princezam, having the heart to commit atrocities is not part of the equation. Mapicc and Zam and Ro committed atrocity after atrocity as Team Awesome, despite Zam clearly having remorse and regrets about the evil he was doing. Despite Zam deciding that he didn't want to be evil and wanted to get rid of the exploits. Despite him leaving Team Awesome. None of those feelings made Zam Not commit those villainous acts.

So to turn around and have Vi insist over and over that he wouldn't use these exploits for real... it just sounded fake. Absurd.

Especially as the plot progressed and Zam betrayed and Vi started Actually Using the exploits constantly, and killed Planet a dozen times in the prison, and was flying around, and was breaking out of the prison when Spoke put him in. He kept using more and more exploits all the while insisting that he wasn't going to be the villain. It was the most fascinating train wreck to watch. And so painful. And so mind bogglingly flabbergasting for truly, and I mean truly, not knowing what was going on in Vitalasy's mind.

But in the end, as Bacon was saying, Vi gave up. As he kept talking to Bacon and Zam and Planet, over time Vi got more and more sad about being the villain, he hated being the villain, he felt misunderstood because he just wanted to use the exploits to protect those he cared about, and he missed princezam and was so SO sad (and mad) about Eclipse falling apart, and so he finally decided to give up all the exploits and burn them in front of the server.

The Server thought he was full of shit and had more exploits at his base and laughed him off the stage.

And Vi banned himself off the server that day. Gave up being the villain in the most permanent way he knew how. And the arc ground to a screeching halt.

...until Subz revived Vitalasy specifically to tour him around the server, reveal a new base, and then tell Vi to kill him. Ban himself off the server because Subz had gotten to a point of missing Zam and Vi and him being a team that he thought maybe, maybe, if he wasn't around they would come back together.

And Zam, well he thought of banning himself off the server too, but ultimately didn't decide to do it, not really but partially because Vi's revival and Subz' subsequent ban, it would have been Too Much to have a trifecta of suicide from one team. But they were literally all doing the same depression plot all on top of each other. It was so much tragedy oh my goodness.

but instead of banning himself, Zam joined Spoke for the wormhole, deciding that it would be best for the server and everyone if he just ended it as fast as possible so they could move on to season 5. (also Pangi bedrocked trapped him to change the trajectory of his life)

So the parallels that keep coming up are the looming doom that Vi/Derap are lying to him. That Zam is unable to tell what is the truth and who to trust.

And that's the terrible part, imo, of s6 and these parallels, and the reason I wanted to find that Vitalasy quote at the start.

You CAN, from a certain angle, when you boil out the wormhole, say that the Vitalasy Zam arc was Vitalasy desperately trying to stay teammates with PrinceZam by telling him anything he needed to hear to be okay with not betraying them.

And there is nothing Zam hates more than being lied to. Even exploits. In the end, before he betrayed, it was more about the fact that Vi lied to him about the bedrock farm and lied to him about changing the prison and lied to him about a bunch of other things, than it was about the exploits themselves. Though, finding a vault of Vi's exploits IS what sealed the bag for Zam betraying.

Which sounds incredibly similar to what Derap is doing.

Even Derap being so accommodating to talking to Zam about his concerns is so Vitalasy. And changing his plans based on Zam, but in a way that Zam doesn't quite trust, is so s4. I don't even know how to begin to describe the actual vi and zam relationship in s4, but this derap one is a fading parallel that is so so so close and also seemingly so so so far.

I do not think Derap is being manipulative on purpose, and esp after this stream I don't think he any sort of master plan like Vi had with the wormhole. And it was mostly the wormhole that drove Zam away from Vi.

But the wormhole was just the convenient glitter that allowed Zam to delve into a greater problem: his communication skills and his hatred of being lied to.

And when you take season 5 into consideration, where Jumper lied to him straight out for three months straight, Zam is now completely triggered by the smallest hint of a lie.

And Derap is manipulating the truth to make himself look good or drive a point home about Zam. He isn't lying to cover some big plan up.

This is where I'm like, this is not going to end like Eclipse at all. This is already so far past were Eclipse was it's crazy. Because Zam has learned how to articulate himself and stand up for himself. He's completely gun-shy about it, but he is learning how to do it and actually practicing the skills he needs to make it happen.

But, I made this comparison a couple of posts ago, with Derap specifically vod-watch stream sniping Zam (which Zam does not know about at all, so no snitches, also it's technically legal bc they're teammates), this pulls s6 back into the realm of s4. Zam Hates stream sniping just as much as he hates exploits. The game is set and we shall have to wait and see what comes of it.

But between vod watching his teammate to find out why he is not trusting him and having the prot 4 exploit, Derap was on thin ice for keeping secrets while manipulating the truth. Now that the prot 4 exploit is out in the open, it doesn't help much, but it does change things. I can only imagine what might happen if Derap keeps accidentally slipping up and mentioning chat messages he's not supposed to have seen.. like needing a PR team.

But without the big evil looking plan like Vi had, idk if the parallels are paralleling. Though Zam ending stream talking about is it even worth continuing is So s4. The constant back and forth and indecision was the hallmark for how Zam ended up being completely miserable in Eclipse by the end and the fertile ground to make him betray the second he found the full exploits.

But the more desperate Derap is to keep Zam on his team, the more Zam is going to panic at the smallest things.

Now, for Zam's deteriorating mental health... this isn't new in the slightest. If anything he is wildly more stable now than the past, as I've mentioned above. I don't really know how to phrase any of this because Zam from a mental health perspective is the largest can of worms you can open. There are so many layers and discoveries and learning and pain and woundedness.

He has a history of paranoia that started from the first moment he stepped onto this server, then he was hunted down in his base multiple times so trading with villagers gives him trauma for being jumped. He is constantly thinking about how he might be betrayed because he was betrayed several times before s5, and then in s5 he was almost completely broken by Jumper's betrayal and now everything triggers that trauma. He also was the betrayer many times and knows what it feels like to be the one hurting others and is anxious he will do it again or that others will do it to him. He's a people pleaser who cannot bear anyone being mad at him and will do whatever it takes to make it better. But he's also a recovering people pleaser and learning how to stand up for himself and his needs.

He doesn't even know what's wrong with himself, but as he said to Derap, Derap saying that makes him feel like there is something terribly wrong with himself. That he's a burden too heavy to bear. And that nobody wants him. The negative self talk is loud.

None of this is new. This is the princezam experience. He gets himself into these situations that make him face some aspect about himself that cuts far deeper than any lore would normally go. And after watching for 2 years it's incredible to see the growth.

And then there's the stone sword mentality. Which I don't necessarily put under mental health though it's adjacent.

You probably don't remember, but early on in s6 Zam had a late night, while making the flame volcano, where he told chat the origin of the stone sword mentality. (7/21/24, about 7:48:00)

His first every youtube video win, he had a public smp with his friends and everyone was xraying and hacking and when someone became the villain and killed Zam, he just set his bed and made stone swords and kept running in, over and over and over. And eventually he actually won. Running at the villain over and over worked.

In terms of lifesteal, stone sword comes from the day in s4 when he died to Mapicc and Ro while fighting for spawn. They went to his respawn and killed him 13 more times. And all throughout Zam was making stone swords trying to kill Ro, but Ro put him on two hearts and left him alone. Mapicc saying they're gods not demons.

But earlier than that, in the finale of s3, Zam made stone axes and ran at Spoke over and over while Spoke slowly farmed him off the sever. And Spoke banned him. Zam accepted the loss and learned that lifesteal is about killing, and gave up being the hero.

And in s5 Zam threw himself at Minute over and over. Usually with Mapicc, but one time in particular he set his bed in front of Minute and fought him until Minute killed him just to see what Minute would do when he respawned right there. This was just before the Joker arc truly started.

In the Joker arc, in the end, after trying for weeks to get Minute and Jumper to kill him, he finally got his wish and got 4v1ed and died almost instantly, banning himself off the server in gayjoker flare, cackling that he won.

Throwing himself at impossible odds and never giving up is princezam. Doing it even if it means death is princezam. The gross disregard for his own life is princezam.

He only looks at the underlying reasonings occasionally. How he runs from his problems by killing himself. Any time he doesn't know what to do, he solves it with a self-ban on someone's sword.

This was actually the very first time that he allowed the connection to be made that he wanted to suicide on Flame's sword and actually used that word.

But it's so heartbreaking to hear him talk about it with Derap.  ZAM: “it is dumb. Its self destructive, its stupid, its everything everyone says about me”

Over the years Zam has been called insane and stupid and been misunderstood and a lot of shitty things by the members. And he hears what they say, and he takes it on too. How can he not believe them when everyone says this about him.

But the stone sword goes so much deeper than a destructive defense mechanism. In so many ways it really strikes the core of who Zam is, how he views lifesteal and minecraft. A place where lives don't matter, where you can fight for what you believe in even if you have no hope.

Stone swording has helped him countless times. Being willing to die so easily has kept him safe in some ways, it makes the pvpers pause and be confused and not understand why he would do this. He does still die, but it makes them pause, and in that pause and in being able to grind back up to full gear so easily, it gives Zam the emotional upper hand in the face of power he could never defeat.

And, potentially, makes the pvper think differently about the server.

So much of the s5 Joker arc was about getting Minute and Jumper to understand that they need to kill people on the killing people sever, and Zam tried teaching them that by being a destructive menace that also set his bed in front of them and asked them to kill him over and over. He tested and pushed and prodded them into doing what this sever was made for. Making them loose the idealogical battle so Mapicc and The Players could win the pvp battle.

And even in this stream with Flame, there was none of the gayjoker flare or off-putting delightful giggles, but Zam was teaching Flame much the same lesson, in many of the same way. That he really doesn't have a plan and he can kill him. That he shouldn't be so paranoid about a trap.

All along the way teaching them something about lifesteal that cannot be taught any other way. Death is not important. Lives don't matter.

This is princezam. This is what he does.

And it's so interesting how an idealogical look on lifesteal and minecraft can so easily turn into a discussion about self destructive coping mechanisms.

And Zam wears his "I'm dumb, stupid, what the fuck is wrong with you" mental health as its own defense mechanism. He claims (or rejects) but still believes the shit people say to him which only furthers the idea that this ideology about minecraft IS fundamentally fucked up, that he is broken beyond repair. Which only serves to spiral the discussion rather than letting Zam just be Zam.

Because as he reminisced about the first stone sword incident on that public smp, he said how lifesteal feels like that server, like home.

But going back to how he learned lifesteal was about killing and gave up being the hero in s3, this was part of why Eclipse fell apart.

Vitalasy partially wanted Zam on the team because he wanted Zam to be their moral backbone and make sure they didn't go too far. Zam gave himself the duty of being "the anchor", and that position weighed on him so heavily. He hated being the voice of what they should or should not do, and in his heart he didn't want them to do exploits at all, but he felt bad that Vi had this plan all season and didn't want to be the reason it didn't happen.

But what Vitalasy didn't realize was just how morally different Zam had become.

It was Vi who spurred Zam on to be the hero at the end of s3, passing the mantle of keeping everyone revived onto Zam while Vi banned himself off for the season. And Zam embraced the mantle, fighting for the people of the server against Spoke and Clown who would rather see everyone banned.

But over the course of the finale, Spoke got nearly everyone to betray Zam at some point, leaking his base over and over, and eventually convinced Zam that this is lifesteal and the server must die.

This hugely marked Zam going into s4. He didn't want to be the main character, he didn't want to be the hero, and for the first time ever (iirc) he started talking about how on lifesteal there are no heroes and villains. He became morally grey.

And in his greyness he joined Team Awesome and committed the above atrocities.

But what Vitalasy didn't realize, not until it was too late, was that all this had happened to Zam, and he had been changed since he last saw him before the finale of s3. Vi was inactive most of s4 until Eclipse, only logging on at the start, killing people (like Mapicc and Ro) and and giving hearts to Mapicc and Ro, and then logging off. And Zam was not on s4 at that time, joining a couple months late. The two didn't speak a word to each other from the day of the s3 finale (actually it might've been before then) until they were both on Eclipse.

So when he asked Zam to be their moral backbone, he thought Zam was morally upright.

But Zam is both morally upright and morally corrupt. He will equally fight for the server and repair spawn and get rid of exploits just as much as he will use exploits and kill innocents and be a cold blooded killer.

And he doesn't know himself what is the right thing to do.

So to put him in the position of being the moral backbone, instead of being a good thing and what Zam was good at, was the actual worst place for him to be.

And I think a similar thing is happening with Derap. Derap doesn't realize how Zam has changed and been changed by the server. He's aware of the lore because he used to watch streams, but he hasn't really truly gotten it into himself (or maybe he's just not acting on it bc his character can't know any of this bc he's new) that Zam has been utterly changed by s4 and s5. He just thinks Zam needs to stick up for himself a bit and get over the past. But Zam is deeply, deeply affected by what happened. And that's going to cause conflict within the team.

In some ways Derap is just like Vitalasy, but in others he is totally and completely wholesome and the best thing that's ever happened to Zam on lifesteal (which you also could have said about Vitalasy at some points), a teammate that really wants to be with him through thick and thin and isn't afraid of any of the darkness.

It's exactly the kind of relationship that heals past wounds, makes you believe there is good in the world again, and that maybe you're lovable even if you're a mess.

But he doesn't understand the darkness, hasn't seen it, so how can he truly understand.

And that's exactly what we're going to be watching unfold in the coming month(s).

Thanks for coming to my tedtalk.

[coffeegnomee]

I feel like Ls!pangi doesn’t get talked about a lot like tr!pangi and I see analysis of other Lifestealers(mostly zam) and pangi just feels like a side piece for character development and want to see some love to ls!pangi

So Pangi on lifesteal doesn't get involved in the lore for like 90% of the time he is online. He used to a hell of a lot more back in s4, but around s5 he really started to hit his stride with his silly, more laid back video style. And in s6 he well full-out on making silly videos because he wanted to publish a video every single week from the start of the season to the end of the year. And in order to make people feel comfortable coming to his recordings, he became a pacifist and did not enter into the lore unless he found it absolutely necessary.

So that's the backstory on why people don't really write about ls!pangi. There just isn't that much to write about. And he isn't active, spending a lot of time on the realm (which is great).

He joked to Flame on the last session (saturday) that on lifesteal he is the weakest player, but on the realm he is the strongest. And that makes him approach the realm so completely differently.

That being said, his pacifism has strangely endeared himself to Flame, who generally hates pacifists but also loves Pangi's silly videos and wants to make sure Pangi can record. He went out of his way to help with the warden situation when mapicc dropped a bunch of wardens on Pangi's Christmas set, he helped stop the fire on the Christmas tree when Mane burnt it down and reprimanded Mane for being too much of a menace, and he is borrowing Pangi hearts (from his own secret backup in-case-i-get-banned-off-the-server-and-need-hearts stash) so all the chunguses involved in his Hunger Games will have 10 hearts.

Charmander duo is amazing and pangi's origin story with the lore is one of my favorite times of ls!pangi

In the early days of the season Flame decided to blow up spawn and Pangi decided to take it upon himself to talk to Flame, give him pseudo-therapy which turned into a really good mutual-understanding session that genuinely transformed Flame's mindset towards blowing up spawn more. He had Flame build a house and was incredibly supportive as Flame reluctantly approached building, and gently encouraged him to think about how much care people put into builds and how much pride you can have in your own accomplishments in building.

Flame was dead set in not playing along. Dead set in not getting any attachments to this house. Determined to say none of it mattered.

Pangi says he will blow up the house, to see what Flame really thinks. Flame gets really sad and asks him not to, and eventually Pangi relents giving the obvious analogy that clearly Flame care about this house and would rather not see it blown up, just as they would rather not see spawn be blown up.

The next day Flame threatens and does blow up spawn because nobody shows up for the fight, but when zam goes to investigate the damages, it is no where near as bad as the first time.

A couple days later, Pangi has been trying to coordinate the server into doing the 10v1 that Flame wants, but when he logs on, Mane starts being a menace to him. Mane stops being a menace to have a convo with Flame and Pangi about the fight, and everything is set. Pangi gets Flame to promise to make sure spawn doesn't get blown up again before the fight.

Pangi leaves but soon enough wemmbu shows up as well and starts threatening to blow up mapicc's castle. Pangi tries to get Flame to see that this is his responsibility, as a teammate of wemmbu, to prevent the destruction as per their agreement. Flame is lackluster and basically taking absolutely zero responsibility for wemmbu and mane, only saying he will not blow up spawn. Wemmbu is his ally, not teammate, he insists. This isn't good enough for Pangi, but Pangi leaves saying anything more and the deal is off.

Five minutes later Flame calls him back to his house, the one they built together. Wemmbu has blown it up. He mocked Flame for having a house then destroyed it in front of him despite Flame's pleas to stop. Flame is absolutely despondent about not being able to stop wemmbu in the slightest and doesn't know what to do. Pangi can see this is a huge struggle for Flame, but still insists Flame is the only one who can do anything; he can't and the server can't. They part for the evening.

Well, low and behold, mapicc was not happy in the slightest that wemmbu blew up his castle (for the second or third time at this point) and he tnt minecarted the circle of fighters that Pangi got together: 6 kills in one cart. It was legendary. Best cart in lifesteal history.

With the failure of this fight, Pangi gave up trying to be involved in the lore. He did what he could. Flame also more or less let go of the spawn battle, waiting a few weeks for a session and arriving with 1000 dogs and just killing whoever was around.

This was an Amazing series of Pangi lore, honestly one of my favorite couple of streams of the season. Watching Pangi genuinely approach the lore without great seriousness, actually using all of his brain to come up with ways to convince Flame and Mane and Wemmbu to stop, dealing with being helpless but pushing though despite it all because he believed Flame had a good heart. It was amazing pangi lore.

It was also in August. (8/25 to 8/29)

So.

Not too recent.

[coffeegnomee]

What exactly are the lifesteal cycles? What does that mean?

I have no idea why the cycles are so hard to describe but like literally idk. they just are. they're like the sun and the sky. like the tides coming in and out. the seasons returning year after year. they come wether you want them to or not. poems can be written about them and never scratch the surface.

there will always be those who feel the cycles beating like a drum in their hearts, and they will always fight to preserve it. if nobody cared or if nobody liked the cycles, lifesteal would cease to be lifesteal.

there are two cycles. the small scale cycle of if you kill someone you gain an heart and if you die you loose a heart. and the large scale of the world ending at the end of each season.

it's too easy to say the small scale cycle is simply a cycle of revenge. it's not that. it can be that but that's not what it is. it's more the cycle of story. if you have a story thread you can pull on, the cycles encourage you to pull on it. and the cycles encourage that to be violent or a troll or an instigation. something to continue the back and forth of story threads.

the large scale cycle is that everyone starts the season fresh and clean, but then the players ruin it. murdering and greifing and killing and dying. the heart economy gets so bad some have near 100 hearts while others have only the max craftable. all this murder and bloodshed and alliances and betrayals and a mid season plot has dictated who cares the most this season and has set the stage for the end game. but it's not about the players not deserving the server because they are too violent. it's actually the opposite of that. it's bigger than that.

in the end one person or group rises from the bloodshed to end this server. by total destruction, removing all the revive resources, getting op, or banning everyone. this is the cycle. it must end. and it must end in war. everything must be destroyed or all the players banned.

the world enders fight to save the server by destroying it. if nobody cared about this final cycle, lifesteal would cease to be lifesteal. s5 nearly saw its destruction. one side thought they could end it in peace and expected to win. but if they won without a fight this would have been anathema for the server. unnatural. if lifesteal ever ends in peace that will be the end of lifesteal.

it must end in a bitter battle, fought for by the world enders, fought against by the resistance. the players prove they deserve the server by caring enough to show up and die. you fight for what you believe in, even if there's no hope.

in the finale you encounter your deepest self. what you are willing to do, how much you're willing to fight back against what you think is evil. you get a measure of who you are. what your limits are. and you get pushed past them. you learn the meaning of fighting for what you believe in, the true meaning. tested by all the resistance the world enders can push upon you. and they learn themselves to. for the same reason.

i think this is why it takes a full, start to end, season for a new member to understand lifesteal. they must begin innocent and safe, no more or less prepared than the best pvper. then the cycles press against them, start showing them how they really react to things, what they're willing to do, how much effort they're really going to put into it.

but during the season there's the ebb and flow of lore, sometimes it's the craziest best week of your life and then there's a month in between. parrot or bacon said that about the cycles actually. like the cycle is that ebb and flow.

but in the finale it's also a week(ish) but there is no continuation after. everything you've said and done all season comes together. you have to put your money where your mouth is. no more talking, no more threats, no more saying you'll do this if they do that. Whatever ending you want you have to fight tooth and nail for and there's no do overs, no second chances. and suddenly you know who you are.

and the next season everything is different.

[coffeegnomee]

Saw a post about trying to understand "new player behavior" from a new viewer standpoint and I thought, let me try and take a stab at explaining it. Anyone who's been around for a while and wants to weigh in, please do.

New player mentality is mostly like running from fights instead of taking them especially if you're good enough or have enough hearts, being absolutely unwilling to die, being unwilling to see if you can survive something you know is a trap, refusing to show up to something because you thought it was suspicious, being paranoid when there is nothing to be paranoid about. Trying to defuse conflict instead of embracing it, not understanding the cycles (even though everyone had their own interpretation of the cycles).

These reflect the unspoken gentlemen's code of honor that exist on the server, though it is notable to note that the main players that care about this are just Mapicc Zam and Clown. Not everyone cares about this, though the older the member, generally the more it is understood and accepted.

But with Mapicc and Zam being consistently two of the only handful of active members at any given time, their opinion will ring loud and with Zam being The most active streamer and the one with The most play time every season, as Zam goes so does the audience go. Creating, admittedly, a feedback loop where we all complain about those dang youngins.

However the mentality is real, and some members, most notably Minute, have genuinely changed from how he was at the start of s5 to who he is now. s5 minute would have NEVER taken a 1v1 he knew he would have lost for the sake of the server.

This risky mentality, story-motivated, picking a side and caring deeply about it, showing up to something you know you have a 30% chance of survival, dying and then retaliating against whoever killed you in that thing you just showed up to (this is the easiest explanation of the cycles), picking a nerf and seeing how it will affect the story, loosing all your hearts willingly, saying yes when someone approaches you for a project and putting your all into supporting this new allyship (despite old teammates or despite old feuds), being loyal to the new teammates because progress forward is better than clinging to the past (betrayal in s1-4 is interesting and can be talked about below), coming up with a plot that will involve the whole server at a risk to yourself, achieving the impossible.

These are all hallmarks of the old members.

Now, there is a layer of nuance here because while all new members fall prey to new member mentality, there have always, always been old members who fall prey to it, no matter how long they've been on lifesteal. The easiest example you'd find looking back at s4 is Pangi and Red running from every single fight even though they had 20 hearts. Red being from s1 and rejoining in s3 and Pangi joining in s2! Hardly new members at the time of infraction.

But that's because, at its core, new member mentality is the fear of death. It's the fear of failure. It's clinging to your hearts for fear of what will happen to you if you loose them.

And what each member needs is time, and experience in difficult situations that challenge their perspective on the server. We call that their Lifesteal Trauma. It's never fun for them and it genuinely challenges everything that they thought they understood about lifesteal. And depending on how it happens it either strengthens their bond to the server and shows them they can withstand anything and everything even abject failure and total betrayal and still be okay, or they take a step back from being as active. It's always different for every player and depends on how they even want to play. I could go through the list of members, but it's primarily and internal belief that they don't articulate and every way of playing the server is okay. And mostly they just need time and a new idea to try.

A final note about betrayals. Lifesteal has always, always been filled with people getting on a team and betraying that team to get the win. So many times a member has been invited to a team and they join and then betray that team. So what do I mean about loyalty to a new team over old teams?

This is something that is growing and changing as the server progresses and isn't as clean cut, also maybe wrong because my memory of everything before s4 is the most shoddy, but in general, those who betrayed a new team had been inactive for a period, were approached by a different new team, and then infiltrated the other new team that was forming,

s1 that was terry being on mapicc's side and then conveniently being in the right place to join the other side and betray them.

I remember nothing from s2 other than MOB and the withers.

s3 that was parrot being added to the resistance group chat while being in a call with decimation and betraying the resistance.

s3 that was leo joining the revive side but being on spoke's side and killing zam and pangi right after the successful getaway.

The betrayals of s4 sparked a new brutality (maybe just because i actually watched the streams and the streams of all those older times are lost) where Spoke did the long con on Parrot before betraying, being loyal to the original wormholers over Parrot.

That was mapicc adding zam to his side of the crown battle against pangi and then betraying him after the fight.

Then there's all the zam betrayals which were ideological differences about the purpose and goals of the teams rather than thought out betrayals that he orchestrated with others. (and in a way his choice of leaving team awesome was an experiment in a what-if that was very enticing)

But the time honored old player mentality towards betrayals is "first come first serve" combined with "old attachments don't matter in the face of new content".

This is why ro betraying the foundation in s5 was a pure act of old player mindset. mapicc is asking? bet.

whereas jumper's betrayal was much closer to spoke's betrayal of parrot: clinging to an original (and secret/non official) team over the new teammates and only after months and months, betraying them.

It's a secret third thing that doesn't fit anywhere into how lifesteal functions and is more a facet of the player themself; are they willing to do that plot.

And yet, because i heaven't yapped enough yet, Jumper's betrayal to me reads far closer to new player mentality because she saved her own skin and her own hearts and never risked anything through her betrayal. she has said multiple times that she likes being on both sides because she never has to worry about dying. If she had gotten caught earlier the worst that would have happened is she lost a single heart because they never knew where her bed was and she could have called minute in as backup in an instant and be protected by the most powerful member under his batman wings. and after she was protected by him at all times.

Whereas Spoke's betrayal of Parrot was The Riskiest thing he could have done. He could have been banned from the server and never completed the impossible task he was trying to do. There was real risk to his own ability to play the game in pulling it off successfully.

[coffeegnomee]

Ooooo you wanna tell me about PrinceZam and Lifesteal lore soo bad 👀👀 (I just started s6 and I'm super interested in it lolol)

Just started season 6. oh me oh my. welcome. I wrote a summary a while ago for s3-5, here it is below.

updated to add the eclipse arc too since i glossed over it last time. and added s6 up to october. 8.5k words.

I didn't hold back on any plot twist/spoilers but like, knowing what happened is very very different from watching it unfold so all videos and vods are well worth watching. but this can give a waypoint as many videos are published months (or years) after the events.

s3 zam made an empire to keep spawn from being grieffed, everyone opposed it because he called it the PrinceZam Empire, they killed him, and he agreed to be executed and banned by Red. He came back for the finale in which vitalasy wanted to revive everyone but then banned himself (or got banned i forget) and keeping everyone unbanned became Zam's job(TM) and he resolved to never give up. After 5 (or so) bases in one week that Spoke leaked every time bc he was secretly still teamed with clownpierce, spoke did a dramatic dialogue with Zam on a hill, "why are you trying to save a world people are actively trying to leave". There was a big war which ended in Zam having another dialogue with Spoke where Zam attacked spoke with a stone ax until spoke continually killed him until he was banned. Spoke got him to give up, spoke won. It was awesome. You can watch Zam's vid on it "i was banned for saving this smp" or the finale streams, both are great recap of s3. (both the spoke dialogues happened in the same vod, it's a really easy watch)

s3 was the best season for yt vids imo, i particularly love clown and branzy's videos on the funhouse, casino, cleansing, and finale vids and if you just watch that you get everything. Everyone had good videos if you start searching channels.

s4 ends with the wormhole, a game breaking glitch that Spoke Vi and Ash found (also Subz was there) and used to completely destroy the server. Before all that the server runs as normal, starting slow with the youtube arc where everyone is making their silly random youtube videos. Zam initially wants to go solo but the joins Team Awesome which is commonly just him Mapicc and Ro but also Spoke and Terrain (iirc). There are many fun shenanigans. a spawn prison, the medusa arc. Around the mid season Team Awesome finds a dupe glitch. They dupe endless gear, god apples, and hearts and get into fights where Mapicc and Zam fight together constantly. this is The Dupe War. There are videos on it, but no streams. It ends with them withering the entirety of spawn, completely annihilating it (there's more to the arc but that is important)

During dupe war Zam and Mapicc thought Spoke was betraying them by orchestrating it with Parrot, turns out it was just Spoke who was orchestrating Everything because part of the wormhole glitch required Spoke to socially engineer Parrot into clicking a sign that would give Ash creative mode. When Ash got creative he loaded his hotbar and the Wormhole Barrel(TM) was brought into the game.

That same day Ash started showing the server the exploits (changing the course of the season DRAMATICALLY). Everything that was going on between the dupe war and this moment got put on pause.

What is everything? Well after the Dupe war Mapicc and Ro were planning on keeping duped items in a stash so they would never have to worry about items. Zam realized he Hated That(TM) bc exploits are unfair. So he left the team dramatically, fought them on the nether roof, and perished fantastically. He then retreated to his sanctuary where he built a castle.

Mapicc finds him at that castle the next day and filled with rage at zam betraying him begins The Castle Arc, fantastic arc, well worth watching as vods on Zam's channel. it's the vod after "the end of team awesome" which is also a great vod. Mapicc torments Zam nearly daily while Zam was also repairing spawn with Subz. Subz, as the finale of his spawn cleanup fights Mapicc and Ro who have become the bbegs of the week, he gets exiled. Zam grows a backbone and ALSO fights them, also looses, and then proceeds to die to Ro 13 more times. This is the Stone Sword Incident.

Left on 2 hearts he does a stream with Clown and Branzy which gets him banned by Mapicc because he had paid Clown one heart to be his protection. So Mapicc thought he still had two. they revive zam and he is left on 3 hearts (or was it 1? I forget. mapicc might've taken two of them back after revival) he turns to his only ally on the server, the only person who came and defended him from mapicc during the castle arc: ItzSubz_.

Subz invited him to his team, the Eclipse Federation. What transpires after here is the most beloved arc in all of lifesteal history, from a fandom perspective. I wrote a whole writeup on why it works so well from a story telling perspective that's one of my first posts on my blog. you can use the #gnome rambles tag to find it easier.

What started as a team, protection, safety from Mapicc, two allies who would come on to fight Mapicc and anyone else whom he got to fight on his side (though subz was more active than vi) turned into a nightmare.

After Ash leaked the wormhole items vi and subz quickly dmed him to meet at the base. Vi (iirc) told him to stop stream and delete the vod, which zam did. Unbeknownst to him, subz accidentally hit go live instead of start recording and for the less than 10 minutes he was live, he and vi implicated themselves as the originators of the wormhole glitch. The secret was out.

By the time they made it to the base to meet with zam they decided to tell zam everything, letting him know that they wanted it to have been a good surprise, something exciting that they could all do together. Vi promised that there was a plan for the items, an arc that he wanted to make happen that he had been planning since the very start of the season. I forget exactly how much they told him, but it was not everything.

Faced with Vi's season long plan, and still not knowing What the plan was, only that it was good, zam agreed to go along with it, trusting subz and vi that they knew what they were doing.

Zam, beyond all reason, had found himself on the very team that was behind the new exploit after just having left Team Awesome over exploits.

He asked if chat could know the plan, and vi and subz both agreed they wanted to keep it secret but that zam could ask off stream. Zam being Zam, could never hide something that huge from chat, didn't want to hide something that huge from chat. So he decided to not know, placing all his trust that Vi would tell him what he needed to know and that everything would be okay.

The doom lifted, for a brief time everything was okay again. But soon enough Vi was ready to start phase 1: a bedrock prison at spawn for the tyrants of the server. Zam didn't like that their team would have the power to imprison people, and he didnt like it was bedrock. He tried to communicate that, and vi and subz both assured him they would only put people in that the server as a whole agreed needed to go in. That helped zam for a short time. i dont remember all the meetings super well, but there were many. one time vi told zam they had "amplified" the glitch. another he said they had a bedrock farm in the end. vi was desperate to keep zam on the team because he loved zam and enjoyed his presence and didnt want the team to fall apart. zam at one point committed fully to the plan and killed himself in a hole to show his commitment (vi also jumped down and also died). the next day they made the prison and the day after zam regretted building out of bedrock. he hated exploits. nothing could shake him from the deep-set hatred that this was unfair for the server. he didnt want to ruin vi's plan, but he didn't know if he could continue supporting it.

around and around he went. changing his thoughts based on what vi said, changing based on subz, changing based on chat, changing based on vi. Feeling trapped, seeing no hope in being understood he roamed the server in despair. filled with the weight that the exploits would get worse in phases 2-5 he shouldered the burden without being able to tell anyone.

Beyond anything else he felt completely indebted to subz and loved subz more than anyone. subz had fought for him and protected him from mapicc, he had taken him in and given him hearts and gear to get back on his feet, he was always there ready to log on and help zam fight or save him when jumped.

Around this time there were many conversations with bacon and planet. They had seen some of the exploits, spoke was leaking them slowly since the prison was built, spawning a warden and endermite that could one tap players, using potions that gave you all the effects in the game. pvp was a thing of the past.

Bacon and Planet were investigating, trying to figure out who was pulling the strings and where the plot might go. Pretty quickly they figured out zam knew a lot, but zam wouldn't tell.

When Vi made the prison, they interviewed him, and planet got so upset that all this plot looked to be was a prison that could be used, not even would be used that he immediately started talking to bacon about getting zam to leave eclipse. he had previously been a proponent of zam sticking it out because being in the thick of content is always good on this server even if you don't love the methods. Zam was ready to leave the team but he was wracked with guilt and the fear of being alone again just like he was after betraying team awesome. they invited him to their team if he left, but he was still hesitant. he cared about subz too much to leave.

A few days later zam one again invited Branzy on, knowing that the next day he would have to make a decision about being on eclipse. There was a meeting scheduled about the next phase tomorrow. Spoke turned branzy into a dolphin with a potion and after the shenanigans, zam asked branzy for advice about what he should do. it's one of my favorite stream moments from s4, branzy approaches the lore with great seriousness and helps zam work through his thoughts to figure out what he wants to do. zam doesn't quite make a decision but has many talking points for the meeting, equipped with new metaphors to explain how he's feeling and how he needs vi to promise change, not just do little things that don't mean anything in the big picture.

At the end of the conversation planet joins call and starts asking zam innocent questions. he finds out about the book that vi once showed zam that had the whole wormhole plan, zam says it's in one of the bases, but not which, and he ends stream soon after. But once stream ends he gets curious to reread what vi wrote so he journeys to the base. Upon arrival though he realizes planet and bacon are both in the area. He sees them through the wall and walks into a room he has never seen before filled with barrels. planet and bacon drag him into a call and show him that the room is filled with every exploit and more, things they hadn't seen yet.

Seeing the extent of where the wormhole would go, and supported (or influenced depending on how you look at it) by planet and bacon, zam finally commits to leaving eclipse. he can't be part of this. this is too much. these exploits are far far worse than anything team awesome did.

So the next day he makes his traitor's requiem. He confronts vi, bacon planet and jaron come through the end portal invis and they kill vi, marking zam's departure from the team. Vi is furious zam didn't come to them, that he would betray so callously and kill him so instantly. Subz resignedly accepts that zam never was going to be able to be a part of the team, he was too against exploits.

Wracked with the pain of betrayal and loosing the person he loved deeply even though he had lied to him, Vi started to embrace the wormhole powers. Through a different glitch he was able to fly in survival, and with the one tap potions he tormented planet in the prison, killing him over and over and giving the heart back. but he insisted that he was not going to use the powers to become evil.

over the next days vi would roam the server using exploits, a ghost on the wind debating what to do with his infinite power. bacon and planet and zam got him in a call to talk about how vi was being a villain and they wanted him to give up the exploits. vi refused to see what they were saying.

but then spoke, lead by parrot and mapicc and ro, took a power play and tried chunk banning vi to end the evil on the server. parrot leaked the plan to vi and vi got out, but once again vi was facing the ridicule of the server for something that he wasn't even wanting to be.

So vi gave up the exploits. summoned the whole server to himself and burned all the items in his echest. but the server didnt believe him for a second. they were convinced he had more exploits hidden in the world. they were convinced he was the villain and were angry he wasn't just doing things with it.

but vi was done. spoke (iirc) killed him and after leaving call vi found himself atop the prison, gazing down at the server he loved, the server that hated him. it was over. he threw himself from its height over and over until he was banned.

after the ban, zam was left listless. he had betrayed eclipse because he feared they would be evil, but vi just banned himself off, sealing into the story that he would not be the villain. he couldn't talk to subz, he was too ashamed. so he became a farmer and lived inside subz's floating islands at spawn.

but one day while he was on subz revived vitalasy. zam wasn't invited but he busied himself at his farm, hoping his old teammates might want to talk to him. But something far far worse was about to happen. a ban message rang through chat. subz was killed by vitalasy. subz left the game.

his world shattered. The one person he cared about was gone. gone and he couldn't even talk to him. couldn't tell him how much he regretted betraying them. he needed to revive subz. right. now. he got vi into a call, a bottle of sunshine, sure it was just a mistake, sure subz was not really gone.

But vi was crying. he didn't explain it all to zam, but subz had brought him back on the server to tour him around their bases. filled with grief vi dragged his feet from location to location. eventually subz brought him to his newest base, and in the corner he could see a room filled with signs spelling out depression. lost, alone, a failed team that he had brought together, now split apart. vi immediately realized what subz was about to do. subz brought him to the end and revealed his masterpiece base, and then told vi to kill him. he wasn't capable of reuniting the team while he was alive, maybe in death vi and zam could reconcile. He was determined to have vi kill him. vi refused for an hour until he finally got subz to promise to return when he needed him most. And he banned him.

vi had zam meet him in the end and faced with that innocent smiling idiot's face, vi had almost no words. subz had left him a book telling him his final wish was for them to reconcile and vi begrudgingly decided to let zam in. he showed zam the end base. zam apologized instantly, wanting nothing more than for everything to be all right. but his focus was completely on reviving subz, almost ignoring vi in his desperation to get subz back. two lost birds.

vi explained that subz wanted to be gone and even if they revived him he wouldn't come back. they agree to be teammed again, and i think it's this zam vod or the next time he talks to vi, but within 30 minutes he's regretting saying yes to everything and wondering if it was the wrong thing to reconcile and get back together with vi. so. still good old princezam.

but it was done. they were reconciled. as the wormhole approached zam reconciled with everyone he had wronged.

but he forgot about pangi. in the wake of vi banning himself zam no longer wanted to do a "trap the gods" idea with pangi since the exploits were over. time and again this season zam had preferred his own plan over pangi's and often fought against him even though the two were friends. even though pangi was always there to help zam with his plans. frustrated at being snubbed, pangi took zam through the course they had made together, ending with the void trap they were going to use to lock the exploiters under the bedrock.

zam jumped in willingly, having taken off all his gear so as to not loose it in the void, but pangi had repaired the bedrock with the bedrock they had stolen from ash. pangi gave a great villain speech and trapped zam in bedrock. zam accepted his fate. so full of regret for all his action this season, this was nothing compared to what he felt he deserved.

And zam broke. he entered his mind and confronted all his past selves. his eclipse self tells him he cant just give up and abandon vi again, not after everything. zam thinks he has hurt vi too much to ever be forgiven. his team awesome (i think) self tells him he should just give up and destroy the server instead of wallowing in self pity.

he kills himself with a water bucket (ooc pangi had dropped it to him so he could get out) and decides to talk to both vi and spoke to figure out what side of the wormhole he would be on. vi isn't available. so he speaks to spoke first.

he meets spoke on a hill just like in s3, and asks to join him in ending the server. spoke reveals that he has not just all the exploits, but op. he gives zam creative mode, shows him custom items he coded, transports a whole chunk of the overworld to the end, gets in a console battle with parrot's admin account and wins. spoke is in complete control of the server.

mapicc was already on spoke's side and so once again devotions are together, fighting side by side just like on team awesome.

zam talks to vi next and iirc doesn't tell him he's already joined spoke, he's aware he has a team secret to keep and either way vi says he doesn't have plans for the finale. i actually dont remember when vi finds out zam is on the wormhole side.

over the next week spoke does prep events for the wormhole, involving inactive server members, mapicc and zam corrupt the world (grass to netherack, wood to basalt) with boots spoke coded for them. devotions wonder if spoke will betray them, they dont like that they're just minions and not equals, spoke isnt giving them actual power, just toys and tricks. they promise to end the server together no matter what happens.

the night before the end zam wonders if he's making the wrong decision again, the chatters fan the flames and he works himself up into second guessing everything. spoke might betray him. planet has found out he's on spokes side and hates him. he's messing everything up again. he was so against exploits and now he put himself on the exploit team.

suddenly he realizes chat is the problem. he's trying to make everyone happy, even chat, and he needs to just decide to do what he thinks he should do. and he decides that he wants to end the server as fast as possible so that subz can return in s4. because it's always been about subz.

the day of the wormhole arrives and about 100 other mcyts join the server to kill parrot, planet, bacon, and jaron. earlier spoke had said if they can survive the wormhole he will give up the exploits and they can save the server before ending it. over the next 48 hours they play a protect the president event.

vi revives subz the first day and suddenly zam is faced with the object of his desires back on this server. they have a final terribly tragic conversation where subz is disappointed in zam for joining spoke, zam cant defend himself because he agrees with subz, vi joins and chews zam out for betraying and tells him if he didn't want to play he should have just logged off. vi and subz are on parrot's side and killing people with leftover exploits vi still had. they leave, and zam even more dejected than ever.

planet decides to live the whole event at 3 hearts despite parrot having gathered 100 over the season. right at the end spoke asks both sides for items to ban and eventually hearts get banned, so planet is stuck at 3. in the final moments he almost gets banned but minute (as a guest) has planet kill him to get a heart again (minute's video on the wormhole was actually really good btw), but mapicc catches up to planet and bans him in the last 10 seconds of the event.

spoke, because the players fought so hard, brings everyone to the control room telling them they can choose to save the server or end it. while the server discusses mapicc and zam message each other and decide to jump in both options at once so that the server has to end. there's a final conversation on the grass where vi says this was the ending he wanted.

the long and complicated season is over.

s5 starts slow, Zam is very much done with being the main character and not much happens for about like 5 months. zam takes a full 3 month break from streaming, but when he returns in january he joins Mapicc and Bacon and they invite Jumper and Pentar to make the Abyss. they start breaking bedrock at spawn and getting players to fall into the void. its a fun and long and shenanigan filled arc that takes a deep turn as themes of players leaving the server start setting in. This season rek left before it started and parrot, poafa, mid, subz, and vi all leave mid way through. lifesteal feels like it's crumbling.

After days of fighting, planet gets zam into a call and asks him why the abyss is doing all of this. zam mentions mulitple things but lands on player activity. planet walks to the void hole and says "if the goal is player activity then, in a way i guess you lost" and then jumps into the void. the ban sound pierces the air announcing planet having been on one heart that whole time.

The abyss is mortified. They did like their idea of player activity but planet was right, just killing memebers made them give up. so they concoct a new plan, a week long scavenger hunt for the rest of the server to complete: if they finish the Abyss will stop voiding all of spawn, if they dont spawn will be destroyed. Minute heads up the opposition in the Foundation.

for multiple 9-12 hour streams zam labors at building the freakinator to destroy 5 layers of bedrock. mapicc joins him most often, usually just sitting in call to keep him company but being there nonetheless. Jumper and Pentar start helping more once the scavenger hunt really starts while bacon joins call to work on the clues. many fun hours of banter and laughter fill the air.

jumper pentar and mapicc take valorant breaks much to zams embitterment. jumper accidentally gets pentar to fall into the void with multiple skulkers of pistons, enraging zam. zam and jumper both are filled with excitement at the future making all of spawn into parkour civilization.

the whole arc zam has to face the concept that he cares more about this project than anyone else on the team, even though the abyss wasn't originally his idea. he has to fight constantly to battle the bitter voices that tell him they don't care about him and are bad teammates. only mapicc stays in the positive light. everyone else drains resources and falls into the void with the pistons he spent hours crafting.

As the scavenger hunt continues (oh day one of the scavenger hunt wemmbu demands 50 hearts or he will orbital strike spawn. foundation and abyss join together to unite the server in stopping him. spoke leaks the orbital coords he got bc he is owner to ash and the foundation take the win at being the one to destroy the canon and spawn trap wemmbu to 2 hearts. though the shot still went off and a large portion of spawn got destroyed despite the server trying to waterlog everything)

the foundation runs through clues faster than the abyss thought they would, so bacon adds some extra steps at the end. minute gets frustrated and decides to log on before the final session starts to try and finish the hunt. zam is planning on breaking the first bedrock to void at 3pm and minute wants to beat him to it.

despite everything, in a mad rush right at the end, the foundation gets the final clue at 2:55pm. they are to give the abyss one task of their choosing. they are in control. they decide the abyss members should die to the void once and never break bedrock again. The players jumped into the void.

But what nobody saw coming, or none dared imagine even when there were signs, was Jumper was secretly on the Foundation's side and leaked the scavenger hunt answers whenever the Foundation got stuck.

All the work, all those pistons, stopped in an instant. The betrayal was one of the most insane things to happen on lifesteal ever. three months of deep cover. actively helping the team. dreaming of parkour civilization together. multiple trust tests and steadfast dedication promised. all lies.

Mapicc immediately tries to kill her, Zam helps but both give up as Minute defends Jumper and both fight them back. There is no resolution to the betrayal. (Clown's video of this arc covers the whole Foundation side and is great)

Mapicc vows to destroy her life, Bacon agrees, Zam is down with it. Leaving Pentar to have the difficult choice: stay on the team and destroy the only member he knew before joining the server, or leave. He leaves. Later he joins Jumper and Minute as a team

Mapicc and Zam try fighting Minute and Jumper over and over but fail again and again.

The Presidency Arc begins, the server elects one person to get legal exploits basically: changing three things about the server. 4C and Reddoons together win, disappointing Mapicc and Zam greatly as red and 4c were extremely inactive and only wanted CaptainSparklez on for one event, removed the heart recipe, and had a third thing so forgettable i dont remember it and it didnt happen.

Basically they stalled out the already stalled progression of the server. Nobody was doing any big arcs since the abyss weeks before, the last arc was soundly destroyed by betrayal and no revenge was possible bc Minute and Jumper were just slightly better pvpers than Mapicc and Zam.

With the captainsparklez event on the horizon, Zam being lower on hearts, and having just died to Minute and Jumper in a fight where he semi-illegally restocked, was called into the principle's office with Ash (owner of s5 with spoke). Ash told him off, and then was reminded that he didn't remove heart crafting recipe, so he did that and told Zam to just kill 4C and Mid if he wanted more hearts.

Once again Ash is changing the trajectory of the server. Zam goes into a moral quandary bc he's kind of evil this season but is he THAT evil to kill two non-pvpers? While they're building? In the middle of the debate Ash logs on again and /msg him why they're still alive. So Zam kills 4c. He feels awful and spirals and goes to his and Pangi's base to think, but upon seeing their bed, realizes he could just farm Pangi off the server. Or just take half his hearts. The idea is so horrible, the depths of darkness so great, that he just starts laughing. and laughing. and laughing. (vod: "an agent of chaos is born")

So begins Zam's Joker arc, incredibly relevant to s6. Throughout the Abyss, Minute had been calling himself batman, and thus became the fixation of the Joker arc.

The presidency had also passed to Minute who had run saying he would do pvp style events but then just added the aether, changed the kit, and added the Blaze and Caves achievement race (BAC). And he was already talking about ending the server in peace.

This upset Mapicc Bacon and Zam, who had become The Players by this time. After consulting with Spoke (bc he always ends the server), they came up with a plan to break up all the teams. Mapicc started reaching out to Clown and Leo to see if they would betray the PMC, their team with Minute. And they came up with the plan to try and steal the presidency from Minute after his term was up (3 weeks, 3 changes) and use it to make the server hardcore, thinking they would finally be able to kill Minute and Jumper.

Zam full on went onto his Joker arc, blowing up builds, having people choose to blow up builds, fight each other, and a host of other Joker inspired moral dilemmas. minute told zam that the reason he wanted to join lifesteal was because he looked up to him for his s3 heroism. (vod: "murder chicken machine") Jumper also had a great yap session with zam at this time ("your president doesn't care about you")

Zam's main tactic was taking all his armor off in front of minute and jumper, taunting them to kill him and break their peaceful ending. If they wanted him to stop destroying the server they could just kill him.

But they refused. over and over.

Then the Blaze and Caves event happened, Minute's final presidency event. whoever got the most achievements from the 900 or so new ones would get a heart cap of 30. Zam being Zam loves small tasks and went on a week of 12 hour streams to get them all, stopping all Joker activities.

In this week Mapicc made fun of Minute for not just killing Zam and over the course of the conversation Minute agreed to bet the presidency bc Mapicc implied that they were just opposing Minute bc Minute stole the presidency from Mapicc bc the vote was rigged after the CaptainSparlez event. If Mapicc could get the majority of the server to vote him out, he would step down.

Wemmbu approached Mapicc and I forget who suggested it first but what came out of it was Wemmbu would pay everyone who voted for him $500, Mapicc wanted Wemmbu to get the presidency bc he thought more people would vote for Wemmbu over him, and then proceeded to convince everyone on the server to vote against minute within like a 2 hour span. (you can watch the entire thing go down live on Zam's vod. it was incredible)

Minute was completely cooked. The presidency was ripped out from under him, Clown and Leo voted against him, everything was rigged from the start while he still believed the server would vote for what was right, not what was interesting, and definitely not for irl money.

Minute's vod "meet the yappers" is a vod of all time.

That Saturday the BAC achievement race was finished and Zam got 30 hearts, Pentar came in second and got 25.

The server got turned to hardcore, and the Players accidentally killed Bacon with an arrow cannon like 5 minutes into it that they were planning on using on the whole server.

With the presidency gone, Pentar, Minute (Brandon), Ash, and Jumper became officially PB(And)J and gave up being the nice guys. They were still self-proclaimed the good guys and they still wanted peace, they just had to kill a few people and then there would be peace on lifesteal.

So they, all four of them, jumped Zam and killed him in a couple minutes flat when zam had threatened to blow up the vitalasy hole, Vi's last place on the server before leaving. It was the classic Joker threat, but he went to actually do it bc Ash was being extra obnoxious in the call. And then got instantly murdered. and Zam was banned.

Then like a week later (iirc?) Jumper asked Mapicc on to talk, she told him she regretted betraying the Abyss, that pb&j wanted to kill people and she just wanted the server to end in peace, and that she wanted Mapicc to kill and ban her so she could end her season on her terms.

It was a trap. Minute shot Mapicc with an arrow cannon. Killing him instantly.

They then got Wemmbu on and used their presidency power that was left over to cancel out his presidency power of immortality (it was just as confusing as that sounds) and killed him instantly.

Wemmbu didn't like that(TM) so he changed the tnt damage to 100 and dropped a nuke on them instantly killing Jumper Ash and Pentar. But that was unfair(TM) (and he lagged the server illegally to do it) so it was undone.

As a result Zam borrowed Pangi's account and Mapic borrowed Spoke's and they were back on to oppose this peaceful ending. Clown and Ro also locked in and were super active in the finale.

Wemmbu's next presidency thing (this was before they killed him. whatever. time moved weirdly in the finale) was the blessings and curses, Zam was pretty much emotionally done with the server, so in a final act of GayJoker flare, blessed Minute with fire res (which was useless bc Minute had 64 notch apples).

Mapicc and Clown were Not Happy with this, Mapicc took it as a betrayal, which upset Zam a lot because his whole thing this season was not betraying his team bc that's all he did s4. So he locked in for the finale. Pangi's account accidentally got banned, so he borrowed Spepticle's account.

Minute and co were not logging on a lot, even though they had a whole meeting about them playing at least a couple of hours a day so The Players could actually try and ban them and it would be a real finale event. Mapicc pulled out Salty Mode and once again got Minute to cave and Jumper and Pentar logged on and they did a 4v3. Clown out general'ed Minute and Minute got banned and Pentar got banned. Speptical logged onto his account to kick Zam off mid fight which was a delightfully great bit of possession control.

Jumper had to survive two days and got Squiddo and Ash to help, the three of them tried chunk banning Clown and Ro and Mapicc (zam got banned by clown so they couldnt use Spep's account to get Mintue back on). Mapicc died bc Squiddo made a mod to tap into Wemmbu's mod from his presidency and she nuked him and he died from an elytra glitch.

Eventually the next day Jumper and co chunk banned everyone, but clown and Ro walked out of it bc you can join and move a bit before you get kicked. Jumper elected to stay canonically in the ban and give up, even though they let the ban despawn by accident and she could log on. She conceded the event.

Everyone went to Branzy's carnival which had been happening in parallel to all of this the past couple months. They celebrate his final moments on lifesteal, and bid adieu to one of lifesteal's most beloved members. He won't be joining season 6.

And then we have s6.

Zam starts the season deciding to never kill a player again. he will just build peacefully at spawn, swearing off violence in the wake of his violence in the joker arc and s5 in general.

within 9 days he is killed by pentar on bacon's suggestion, killed by mapicc 3 times in a row, killed by bacon and planet's trap which they pulled to stop leo from killing him, along with a host of other small moments that almost make zam break.

on the 9th day he tries building a shulker farm for hours and hours. pangi bothers him throughout the whole process and he shoots him with his bow to get him to go away over and over. in a bout of frustration over the farm not working he builds a closet to lock the spirit of the joker in. he tells bacon about the closet and how he has terrible nightmares and the demon in his closet tells him to kill people. eventually he gives up on the farm but later that night he logs on to mess with bacon more. bacon and planet manage to piss him off within a couple of minutes and he again starts using his bow to shoot at them in petty frustration.

but planet takes off all his armor and takes an arrow to the head, popping like a grape. zam got his first kill.

that night he stalks spepticle and is menacing in the distance. he tells spep he wont remember this when he wakes up but spep will.

the next day he's in agony over what he has done. pangi comforts him and tells him its not his fault. zam builds a tree and writes his first oath, swearing to never crit or bow at players ever again.

satisfied that he's learning to control his bloodlust he decides to try and get to 20 hearts from building because mapicc asks him to build him a castle. the next day flame asks him to build him a volcano for 3 hearts which makes him raise the price on mapicc's castle also up to 3 hearts (after two conversations)

at the same time squiddo, 4c, and cube run the peace trials to decide who they will give the mace to. eventually they choose clown because he put his all into it.

as time continues more and more people choose to follow zam in pacifism. woogie swears off violence after mane blows up their base and red kills kab. kab swears off violence after going in a box for a week to process red killing her. pangi swears off violence so people feel comfortable coming to his recording events. zam hates that people are copying him. it was never about making lifesteal peaceful, it was about his own bloodlust.

one day flame comes to spawn during session asking for a 10v1 fight. everyone thinks there has to be a trap, but he denies it. mapicc starts getting people involved for the fight and they get about 5-6 people because zam woogie and pangi all refuse bc pacifism and terrain never pvps and has no gear.

right at the end zam decides to let go of his oath for a day to participate in the fight so flame can do his idea. he wont kill flame but he will crit him. but flame decides there's not enough players and he hears that rek and others will just run if they get low and flame wants to kill them all, not end in running. so he cancels the fight to plan it another day.

everyone disperses and logs off but a bit later wemmbu calls zam back to spawn so he can watch them blow it up. flame is destroying builds to piss off the players so they will want to fight him. zam is horrified and gives himself up as a fight so flame will stop. flame and wemmbu kill him and keep blowing it up because it was never the point. they want a 10v1 not a princezam alone.

flame burns down zam's tree and as the fire consumes the tree zam can only helplessly look on while flame and wemmbu mock him in vc.

Zam almost breaks. But pangi logs on right after and he suddenly realizes he can rebuild spawn over and over from a schematic and nothing is bad at all. Skipping away he starts gaia's hand, a group of players who will help him rebuild spawn and fight flame. He's afraid of getting so involved and so close to fighting because it might make him slip up and break, but if flame burning his tree couldn't make him change he didn't think anything could.

pangi takes it upon himself to talk to flame, giving him lite therapy to get him to see that people take time to build and building is enjoyable by building a house with him. flame begrudgingly builds the house thinking it's dumb the whole time. but pangi gets him to agree to not blow up spawn anymore and pagni will organize flame's fight for him. but minutes later wemmbu logs on and starts blowing up mapicc's castle. pangi is helpless to stop him because of his pacifism and he's pissed that flame can't control his teammates. he leaves telling flame to stop wemmbu or the fight is off. minutes later again flame calls him back to the house they built and wemmbu has blown it up. flame is completely dejected and feels like he cant stop wemmbu and also that it isn't his problem to fix. pangi gives him one final chance, but he's at the end of his rope. but they leave agreeing to get flame the fight.

zam gets into mccr and leaves the server for this week to practice, during his absence the fight happens, but right as the 10 people stand together in a pre-fight pep talk mapicc and spoke tnt minecart the whole circle, killing everyone. the players are pissed and refuse to fight again. mapicc says its because wemmbu blew up his castle, and that flame needs to kill wemmbu and he can have his fight. mapicc and wemmbu end up fighting and bc mapicc was on his phone hotspot he starts to loose so he runs from the fight. in retaliation the server griefs his castle, enemies and friends together.

after the cart incident zam logs on to get updated, pangi and mapicc both hate how flame is bullying the server into getting his fight and they promise to stop flame.

in the ashes of his tree, zam no longer has an oath, so he writes a new one that focuses on refusing to kill and refusing to use violence to solve his problems. he's emboldened by his idea to rebuild spawn over and over whenever flame destroys it, convinced he will outlast him.

flame logs on and zam gets him to admit he can't control wemmbu and also cant betray wemmbu bc wemmbu has something over him that will ruin him. zam this time promises to get flame his fight if he can convince wemmbu to stop blowing up spawn. he logs off to win mccr the following weekend, and the day he returns flame has decided to do his fight during session and uses 1000 dogs to aid him.

also while he was gone kab killed planet twice, almost banning him but then gave back the hearts.

zam is left listless, there is nobody to fight. he builds a field of daisies to frolic in. he doesn't know what he will do. where his journey will take him. but for now he's content. he has completely become the pacifist.

days later mapicc calls him to his castle and reveals that he's been stalking him for months and trying to get him to break and start killing. it has obviously been unsuccessful. at one point about a month before he had taken off his armor and started attacking zam and zam still refused to hit him, only doing it accidentally before running away and getting out. mapicc offers him hearts if he kills him and zam easily refuses. they end the arc teammates rather than enemies.

with nothing going on in the server, bacon decides that while mapicc prefers having zam as a friend, he prefers having zam as an enemy and so he choses to join wemmbu to help guide him to do more interesting arcs. wemmbu takes him in and same day kab leaks spep's location and wemmbu kills spep with bacon in tow and the team starts to form.

that same day bacon starts training kab to learn to escape fights, during it kab sets her bed in front of him. a little later mane logs on and kills kab bc they have a feud going on since the start of the season, and then finds that bed and kills her again. kab immediately thinks bacon betrayed her and sends hannah after him to kill him, he dies in one hit because he's on 4 hearts and then dies again trying to get his stuff back and is overall rather pissed at kab and hannah because he didn't leak the bed. they get wemmbu on and update him and bacon refuses to team if kab doesn't give the heart back. it ends unresolved but a couple days later kab gives bacon the hearts and the california girls becomes a team (name will come later).

zam thinks bacon is being fishy so he investigates him but wemmbu leaks pretty quickly that they're a team. but then wemmbu gets hannah to kill poafa at spawn twice and zam can do nothing but watch and give poafa two of his own hearts. he's left with nothing to do and no ideas of how to fight wemmbu without fighting.

mapicc drops his stalking video and then dies to wemmbu in a 1v1 and zam logs on in time to see him die. bc of both things he's sent into a reflection turmoil over who he is on this server. mapicc has got him feeling like the team awesome days and it scares him. who do the players on the server view him as? he realizes independence was nice, but it's also isolating and he's all alone. he resolves to find teammates. but even so he doesn't have options he likes at all.

then one day bacon revives planet, and wemmbu kills planet twice and all the members of the server are too afraid of wemmbu to attack him and protect planet. zam is crushed but still doesn't know what to do. he gives planet hearts from his own hotbar, but he's running low and he vowed to not kill and he doesn't want to slip and go down a route that will make him evil again.

then while musing over ideas he flies to spawn and sees derap and mid, touching down he intends to chat, but derap kills mid, banning her instantly. horrified zam asks him why but derap just says it's because there were no repercussions to his actions. that word sticks in zam's brain and he realizes wemmbu has never had to face any sort of repercussions for his actions.

bacon and mapicc log on and zam shares his realization and him and mapicc decide to use zam as bait to get wemmbu into a fight where mapicc and spoke can kill wemmbu with zam as support (not using strength). they get the fight, flame joins in, but mapicc and spoke both die and zam gets out. zam, in post fight talking with chat admits that he's felt more happy while fighting than he has most of the season. he starts to very seriously consider changing his oath to allow fighting, but he doesn't want to do it by his own choice so he asks poafa and kab on.

the poafa conversation is very dear to me, zam admits that the whole reason he did pacifism was because of the "chicken murder machine" conversation with minute s5 where minute said he was inspired by zam s3. Zam has been wanting to reconnect with who he was in season 3 so he swore off fighting and vowed to protect the server at all costs. poafa gently helps him see he's not fighting on fair ground and it wouldn't be bad to fight. that he is capable of looking at the reasons he's fighting and choosing to not go too far.

he talks to kab, and feels good enough to choose a new title, pacifism never fit, but first derap comes back asking what the heck happened because he saw the mapicc and spoke death messages and zam and mapiccs banter with flame after the fight so he knows zam fought. zam admits what he said earlier changed everything and that he is going to fight from now on.

after derap leaves he writes a third oath, this one labeling him a protector of spawn, and collects a sword "galaxia, the protector sword" plus a bunch of strength pots from a barrel right by leo's void hole that he has stashed a couple of days ago as he thought over this arc change. (this is the vod PRIDE)

that brings it to 10/15/24

since then there's been small things that may or may not be relevant as the season continues to unfold. zam is still in his protector arc. mane has taken up the mantle of destroying spawn. a couple weekends ago there was a massive battle for spawn trying to kill mane once so he would stop. it all failed. minute became a legend for trying to 1v1 mane and lost but maybe won the ideological battle. mapicc's team built an orbital cannon to use against mane and involved zam. devotions have had incredible lore. kab is doing something with zam that who knows how will end. derap is doing lore with zam.

we are firmly in the mid season where all early things matter and we're establishing all the relationships that will matter for the end of season lore. and this mane spawn destruction may very well be the mid season economic miracle like the cleansing, dupe war, and abyss were in previous seasons. We'll see if anyone does anything bigger after him. Seasons usually end around may/june so there's still plenty of time to go unless they decide to go rogue.

[coffeegnomee]

Hi I really like your character analyses! Do you…prechance..have some yaps about solarflare you can share? Just curious… :3

ok omg im so sorry this took like two months to respond to. I do have solarflares thoughts but also i feel like they're too new for me to have actually deep thoughts on so i keep just being like.

Taken separately, Flame and Zam approach minecraft and smps in almost the most opposite ways possible.

For Flame, everything is statistical. Every drop of durability is counted, his inventory is always max efficiency for the kit, he always has dogs, he thinks of everything inclusive of why you would have an unenchanted shield.

And it's not even just pvp, to throw some meta into it, as a youtuber he is incredibly efficient about everything. he sticks to a schedule, knows what works, and doesn't understand why you would do stuff that isn't optimized to your benefit. why show up to a fight if you're going to loose, how is that good for your video.

He's like pvp civ minutetech but real life.

And then there's Zam. Free spirit, records an entire season of content and never makes a single video on it, plays the server entirely for fun and for the thrill of the story. He shows up with 8 hearts, has an inventory but won't take god apples, doesn't optimize his inventory for killing/winning, is a pacifist but also fights but also doesn't, sometimes traps and sometimes doesn't.

So already he's a mystery to Flame.

But wait there's more. Sometimes this kid rolls up with nothing and still wants a fight. Like what is he doing?!

In so many ways, Zam is incomprehensible to Flame.

And yet. And yet, despite his better judgement Flame finds that the most fun he's had fighting on lifesteal have been fighting against Zam. Sneaking through the woods with wardens around, jumping in and out of creakings. Flame will show up to a yap session and sometimes things just happen. He gets the opportunity to play with tnt, to play with dogs.

He starts so serious but time and again Zam draws him out and before he knows it he's giggling along.

Zam is intoxicating. Fun. Flame is confident he will never drop, but he's drawn back, over and over. Curious. Studying. Provoking.

And with each failed trap, I can't help but wonder if Flame's confidence grows. He learns he can escape anything, it's not that scary. Maybe his guard lowers. And the thrill of figuring out the trap, the thrill of fighting in absurd battles, keeps him coming back for more.

He thought at the start of the server that Zam would need protecting, so he protected him. Never killed him. But suddenly Zam stepped out as an opponent and instantly Flame smelled prey. Zam's still his little guy, he's it's just his little guy to torment.

[coffeegnomee]

hi!! i joined the Lifesteal fandom a few months ago and I’m trying to catch up with all the previous lore, do you mind just giving a quick summary of what happened in season 5? I’m sorry if this is too big of an ask 😭😭

s5. This one is best watched through vods. No videos can come close to encompassing the full story. Mostly bc Zam never made a video.

Important teams pre-january were Gucci gang (mapicc bacon parrot) and PMC (minute clown and leo). Minute, jumper and 4c were the day 1 additions, Jepex, wemmbu, pentar, and squiddo were mid season additions. Pangi and Zam were the pirates.

the season started with the classic youtube era lore which is to say nothing too deep, everything for some silly youtube video idea. gucci gang and jumper had beef, jumper and minute teamed up to fake pulling a trap to convince gucci that they were not teamed. This would become very important for the rest of the season.

In January the Abyss arc started. On Jan 6 Parrot banned himself off saying he wasn't coming back to lifesteal ever. This would mark the 6th member leaving lifesteal (unless some announced later i forget).

Rek never joined s5, waiting to announce his leaving after lifesteal.net was announced, and Subz, Vi, Poafa, and Mid all announced leaving midway through the season. (In the very end of it all, Branzy would also announce he wasn't coming back.)

It was already demoralizing seeing people choose to leave, but even more so when Parrot, owner of lifesteals s2-4, decided he too didn't want to play on this server. Parrot was the member who suggested what if we made a plugin where when you kill someone you gain a heart. He pushed the server to be more than just a hardcore smp of youtubers. Not to mention Rek was wildly influential too; him and Parrot did a sub race on youtube to 1 mil and those videos put lifesteal onto the map and changed mcyt significantly. s3 was wildly influential for defining what lifesteal was like as a youtube server, and s4 was wildly influential for what lifesteal was like as a streamed experience and loosing subz and vi was like loosing everything lore. and then minor characters like mid and poafa just made it feel like every inactive player could decide they were done for good. Nothing was certain.

This context is super important for understanding s5. Now that we know lifesteal survived to s6 (and 7), it seems almost silly looking back and talking about how significant it was that so many members left. But it is of the utmost of significance.

And on top of it they added 7 new members. And oh boy did it show that they were new to lifesteal. Now they are beloved, and understanding what makes them them was a huge part in getting comfortable with them in lore. And every new member needs a solid full season to stake the claim in who they are.

But at the time they were not them. Everyone we lost.

So. Lifesteal was crumbling.

But the members wouldn't give up on the server. They were equally talking about making it to hermitcraft numbers of seasons. They were locked in.

None more so than Mapicc, Bacon, and Zam. Mapicc and Zam had the silly video idea to make a bunch of void traps and try and get people into them.

What started as dumb fun quickly turned into war and it became clear that they needed to form a team to be able to fight back against whoever on the server they would piss off.

So they added Jumper. And Pentar.

Pentar was already a team member of gucci, but he hadn't been around much. Mapicc and Zam in particular were SO excited to have him on lifesteal and so excited to involve him in lore.

For his part, he was wary of everything and everyone. Always an outsider.

They were also excited to add Jumper, another new member, even though they had early season beef. She was solidly average at pvp and didn't have a team really, so it was the perfect way to involve a new member into a bonafide lifesteal plot.

However they wanted her to trap 4c, whom she was... um i honestly don't really remember why they were teamed, but they both saw it as a betrayal when Jumper lured him into the trap. They were chill, friendly even, so it was a betrayal of trust at the very least.

It may have been bc 4c was close to vi and jumper was close to vi so it was like association. the wiki is not jogging my memory on their interactions lol. But association and positive interactions is as good as you sometimes get on lifesteal, especially in your first season when everything is scary and trust is scarce.

So they had her lure 4c to the trap, which she did, and felt vocally terrible about. Then they started asking how she would feel if they asked her to do the same to vitalasy, bc they wanted to get everyone into the void, no matter who they were. she really, really didn't want to, and they agreed it was unlikely anyway bc vi was at school (oh, he hand't officially left ls yet. now im remembering.) and not active.

In the end it resolved that they would cross that bridge when it came to it, but they wanted (and needed) her on the team.

She was the one to name the team the void ponies, after MLP, which she loves.

So it began that the abyss started expanding. With each day the cracks would get wider, more players would try and stop them or get trapped. The Foundation was starting to band together comprised of Minute, Spoke, Ro, Planet, wemmbu.. maybe otheres i forget.

Early on they tested Jumper's loyalty again. In the pervious conversation about trapping vi and 4c they also said she had to cut ties with the PMC, aka minute. This will become a great tragedy as you will soon see.

They asked Minute to take a hit on Jumper, whom she was chill with: see aforementioned teaming up to get gucci gang to think they were not teamed when pulling the PMC hit on them.

Minute was SUPER hesitant, as he is often when asked point blank to do something scummy, but said he would take the hit (his team would do hits for netherite)

They told Jumper he was betraying her, she insisted on talking to minute first. Both got into a call, a call that would change lifesteal s5. Minute explained Mapicc asked for the hit, he wanted to just kill her and give her everything back, she agreed and they staged a killing. And HE suggested that she double agent to destroy the team from within. Minutetech's idea. She went along with it immediately and entirely, but that little fact always blows my mind. Minute went for the throat. Right as he was becoming Batman.

Anyway it was The. Worst. Staged. Killing.

Jumper was in call with the rest of Abyss and said she was in the nether by her base, she shouted Minute was killing her, and then kept freaking out as they asked for coords, and then died almost immediately. This was no s6 kit. It was not that easy to quickdrop. And she isn't bad at pvp.

So of course they ask her for the recording. She says she wasn't recording. They get minute into the call and he reluctantly gives the recording.

the recording showed her, in her base, not even trying to run, in her pov it's even worse, her gapples were right there in the hotbar. Minute just stands there staring at her before awkwardly potting up. it's his pov so you can't hear her comming she's in the nether to the team, nor can they confirm her lies about no gaps in the hotbar.

They of course are extremely suspicious, but mostly just flabbergasted she died so fast. But Jumper pulls off the first of many many flawless explanations. She says she didn't want to loose friendship with Minute so she asked him to kill her. But it didn't mean she didn't want to be on the void ponies. She just wanted to have both teams.

They accept her answer. Zam can see the logic, he even resonates with that feeling of being on a team who's plans you don't agree with. He wants Jumper to be happy and freely choose the team bc he remembers last time when he felt like he wasn't able to freely choose, he ended up betraying.

Oh sweet sweet princezam. He knew the signs from the second she joined the team. He knew she would feel like him in s4. But he believed she would not betray.

How very wrong he was.

Jumper was already betraying.

So the abyss continued. They went on a warpath against the Foundation. Jumper always found herself in the rivers around spawn fish dueling wemmbu. She found herself lost in a cave unable to help the rest of the abyss when the foundation randomly found them. The foundation found Zam's 200 gear set base and looted all 200 gear sets.

Eventually Planet ran out of steam. He, at one point, had gotten 20 hearts. He was a real pvp demon. But this war had taken him down and down and down, and in one day lost like, i forget how many but like 5 hearts. He got into a call with Zam, tried to understand why the abyss was doing this.

Bacon backseated the lore, feeding dumb reasons to zam to say, zam happily said them and added his own twists. But slowly but surely the lore took a serious turn. Zam admitted they just wanted to make the server active again. They wanted to make a war, a reason for players to log onto the server again when player activity was so low (they never outright mentioned the number of players leaving, but it was on everyone's minds)

Planet walked to the edge of the void, said "if your goal is player activity then in a way a guess you lost" and jumped in, banning himself.

Zam and everyone was shocked. Planet was right. endless wars didn't make player activity, they just demoralized the players who lost and made them want to log off. The Abyss got into a call, Mapicc, Zam, Bacon and Pentar that is, i forget where Jumper was but she references having listened to this convo.

They brainstormed how to encourage player activity. Bacon iirc said they needed someone to join the other side, someone to even the teams out and give the Foundation and the server hope they could defeat the Abyss, bc the Abyss was always meant to be defeated.

But of course having someone be the hero and betray the Abyss was a silly idea.

They landed on a one week challenge: defeat my riddles three to prove you deserve the server. ok not three riddles, but a succession of tasks.

the twitter video opened with planet's death and "lifesteal is crumbling" and explained the tasks.

And it worked. So many members logged on. Minute convinced Rek to rejoin as a guest for one week to help out. There were streams galore and bacon was watching them to see how they were doing with his tasks. Zam stayed up for a full week of 12 hour streams clearing the area above bedrock under spawn and bedrock breaking the 5 layers to the void.

By the last day Zam had cleared out all but one layer. They were going to start up the machine, the freakinator, at 3pm at the start of session.

Minute insisted on working on the tasks before then, hopeful to finish in time. Bacon the previous day had added extra tasks bc they were finishing too fast and Bacon wanted it to be more evenly paced. He wanted to give each side a chance at making an impact and winning.

But in a mad dash, at 2:55pm, the Foundation found the last clue. A video that said they won, they were in control, they had to give the abyss their final task.

And so they announced it to the Abyss, asking for them all to jump into the void once (for a brief moment, Minute wanted Bacon to jump in until he was banned. just bacon. ruthless again. but then holding back. sorry. i have a mintue analysis i really want to write. you're getting the cliffnotes) and to stop breaking bedrock.

OMG i forgot about Wemmbu. bro how do i do this every time i get to this point in writing about s5. Im not adding it back in. Wemmbu made an orbital canon the day the Abyss announced the tasks, and rushed the job to get it operational so that HE (and squiddo and 4c) could blast spawn to bedrock before the Abyss did. Bc he thought that they were going to do it that day as their announcement.

Both sides united together to stop him, everyone was online bc it was Abyss announcement day, and a bunch of inactive members kept getting all up in the Abyss' business confused as to what the tasks were. The Abyss got pissed about it bc they were a team and they knew what they were doing and if you were going to help, go join the Foundation. The iconic lines "logout and join blissmp" and "not everyone's bit can be not caring" were said by bacon and zam respectively.

Eventually they found the orbital bc Wemmbu had needed Spoke (who was owner) to rotate his cannon with commands, so Spoke knew the coords, and gave the coords to Ash who was on Foundation. So Mintuetech, now becoming Batman though the Justice League would become the unofficial name of the Foundation, stopped the orbital. He's so heroic. Obviously. He's batman.

This little sidequest would get Ash (and Foundation) mocking Abyss for inventing reasons to destroy spawn and not having consistent morals bc they teamed up to stop wemmbu and all of a sudden cared about spawn. they didnt care, they just cared to do it themselves, they said.

Anyway. 2:55pm. They announce they won. Zam has not broken a single piece of bedrock into the void itself. a week of 12 hour streams. Loosing pistons to the void when Pentar fell in, Valorant breaks leaving him alone as Mapicc Pentar and Jumper comm loudly and joyfully while he labors to make the void a reality. the freakinator breaks over and over and over.

A team filled with new members and old. A team that had excellent banter and joyous moments. Proof that lifesteal would be okay. proof that new members could join and seamlessly enter into the plots for a fun time with friends.

It had to work. The Abyss needed to work. And it did.

But as they all stood above the void, the Foundation looking on to ensure that their punishment was kept, 4 members jumped into the void. 1 did not.

Jumper revealed she was on the Foundation the entire time. 3 months of deep cover. nobody has ever gotten deep cover like that on lifesteal. And she straight out gave Minute the answers to tasks, they conveniently solved problems while nobody was streaming and bacon couldn't see how they did it. She gave the location of the final clue so that they would win by 2:55pm. She ensured that every second of labor was in vain.

The defeat was devastating. Even more so for how much Jumper was just 100% on the team. Her betrayal made them loose, but she was doing evil things right by them. At some point in the middle, Vi said his final goodbye in minecraft and worked with Mapicc and Bacon (not zam, specifically so he wouldn't leak) to force Jumper to choose between him and the void ponies. She killed Vitalasy. Her closest friend and teammate. And he sent her off in victory, satisfied that she would be taken care of by the new team when he was gone.

She was a Void Pony. In truth. In deed. Killing and voiding and piston crafting right next to them all.

And yet she betrayed. She betrayed from day 1.

The pain? still resonating in Zam to this very day. The reason he potted up on Derap was because of this plot.

Mapicc wanted her DEAD. Zam and bacon did too. Pentar wasn't so sure, and in the end decided to leave the team and go on his own.

Zam and Mapicc then spent every day trying to kill minute and jumper. they never did. they never brought enough xp and never could get any drops on them. Zam's heart count fluttered lower and he couldn't keep up with Mapicc, couldn't be the backup he needed in these fights.

The presidency arc began. It's a bit complicated, they voted on president and that person could add 3 things to lifesteal, originally the idea was like a kit change or vip or something. that would change over time. 4c and red won and added captain sparklez and guns and removed the heart crafting recipe.

Bc the heart recipe was gone and Zam needed hearts, he eventually killed 4c and Mid (ok i guess she decided to leave later too. maybe announced she wasn't coming to s6 i think, but was finishing s5. idk. poafa said that too).

The shock of willfully killing an innocent player who was building sent Zam into a spiral, a spiral that left him unable to do anything but laugh as he realized he could spawn kill pangi over and over and take half his hearts. pangi didnt need them, he didnt log on anymore.

So he set up to rebuild his day 1 base with pangi, relive old times. And then kill him. But halfway through the stream he decided he wouldn't. He set his bed in the base and even bed trapped it. But he knew Pangi's bed wasnt there anymore. But he kept going. Made a speech about needing hearts. I think he wanted pangi to kill him and see what pangi would do then when he respawned mere blocks away, stuck in a bedtrap.

But pangi got so scared he /msg Ash who got Minute on, and oh Minutetech Batman was going to save Pangi. Ruin his lore. Zam fought back and escaped, but Minute had flipped a switch within him. If he was Batman, Zam would be the Joker.

After the CaptainSparklez vip day Minute became president and Zam launched the Joker arc in truth, taunting him after the event, asking him about the presidency. Minute was stoic, not one for words. He also was going to be on a trip for a couple days and so whatever arc Zam was doing was going to have to wait.

Zam started by blowing up the Camelot base, while Minute had to decide to kill him or stop the tnt. Next day minute was gone so he had a yap session with Jumper (personal fav stream of the arc, your president doesnt care about you). Another day was i kill you or you kill me and your base or a random base gets blown up based on your decision, but what happened based on what minute chose was flipped. Minute blew up his own tower, which was not an option. So Zam still blew up the lala legion base, but jumper had found it and tried defusing it. Zam had branzy and Terrain puch each other to death until Minute saved them. He made mid choose to blow up the Fallen Kingdom.

And on and on. little joker inspired evil.

The point of the arc was to get Minute and Jumper to understand that this was the killing people sever. and you have to kill people. they couldn't just stand back and say they were these morally upright players and not have any battles.

The presidency arc was slow. weeks passed with nothing happening. Minute added the aether as his first presidency decree, and it was supposed to be this peaceful day exploring the mod. Nothing to make it have fights.

And Mapicc and Zam for their part were bloodthirsty to see Jumper and Minute die. They still had not died a single time this entire arc, except one time when Zam pretended to be Mid in the discord and got Jumper to log on.

But it was more than just not engaging in the fighting.

Zam had gotten to the point where fights weren't really that fun bc Minute would just run and swim until backup came and then he would fight. And zam kept dying.

So the Joker arc was also a lore arc on purpose. It was an, ok fine you won't fight me, I'll fight you on a different field. Win the ideological battle. Fight me with words and not swords.

This is not a battlefront that Minute excels in. Ok, not fair to Minute. He has some of the absolute best lore moments on lifesteal. But casual improv lore is not one of them. He doesn't know what to say. If he's prepared for what he wants to say, my goodness can that kid say voicelines, but put him on the spot and he just.. doesn't. And when he can't pot up bc potting up would be letting Zam get the win since Zam wanted him to kill him, Minute would just have the same 2 voicelines and then not talk. we love minutetech.

but also it created this... i just realized the situation of s5 isnt really important for like, the lore of s5. im getting too in my head with the meta analysis. suffice it to say that pb&j, the team of Pentar, Minute, Ash, and Jumper, who came together during Minute's presidency as his support squad and primarily fought the Joker, were not good at improv lore. But improv lore is entirely what Zam is about, and entirely what the Joker arc is about. It's a yapping arc with a side of blowing himself up with tnt minecarts to end the conversation. It's a fantastic arc.

no, fuck it, the meta is important. it created this situation which was diametrically opposed to the Abyss. In the Abyss you had new and old members playing together, on both sides of the war. Everyone was integrated.

But now it was What Remains: bacon mapicc and zam. Three of the most active old members fighting for the ideology of what makes lifesteal lifesteal on a season where 7 members are leaving, against a team who is made of 3 new members and one old member who has never gotten involved in lore for more than a random bit of godhood around his terrible timezone that always leaves him unavailable for big plots.

The joker arc was about being willing to die for what you believed in, about being able to stand up for your ideology and explain it in a way that made sense, it was about yapping until one side gave up, it was about all the good facets of lore that made s4 into the drama that it was. And s5 needed that infuse of lore to save it, to show the new members that lifesteal was more than just winning the arc. To teach them to give a shit about their actions, be affected by the choices they made, and to be put into difficult situations that forced them to make those choices, and live with the consequences.

The fact that the meta of the joker arc is basically entirely discounted by zam in his s6 lore does indeed drive me a bit crazy. The meta of s5 is amazing. I love meta lore.

the joker arc was about fighting for lifesteal's soul.

And so the plot continued. Minute added the Blaze and Caves achievements to the server, and said whoever gets the most by the end of the week gets 30 heart cap, second place gets 25 heart cap.

Once again, another addition that does not encourage fighting, and doesn't really encourage participation bc after one day the only person getting achievements was zam, who loves getting sidetracked by small tasks and put his all into getting every achievement and stopped Joker activities.

Midway through the Im Feinburg stream, the plot thickens. I havent watched it in a while and the details are fuzzy but basically Mapicc talks to minute to complain about how he's a bad president and not doing any of the fighting based things that he originally said he would do (like custom weapons or a pvp event), and that mapicc felt like minute stole the presidency from him bc the players active on captsparklez day would of course vote for him. mapicc had no chance, he was the villain of the session. he also mocked minute for not killing Zam already even though he was blowing up builds and being a menace.

Minute got so flustered (and in a delightful bit of meta, later iirc zam said they had just been talking ooc about how the plot was stagnant and someone needed to do something to spice it up. i always wonder how much that convo influenced minute here) he bet the presidency. He said fine, if you can get half the server to vote for my removal by the end of the week he would step down.

Mapicc IMMEDIATELY took him up on it, returned to the Zam call and started brainstorming how to oust Minute. Within the next like 3 hours, Mapicc talked to Wemmbu, decided to host him as the next president bc he didnt think he could get the votes for himself, Wemmbu offered $500 real dollars for anyone who voted for him, Mapicc got into calls and dmed everyone on the server to get their votes, and talked to Clown and Leo behind the scenes and got them to betray Minute.

They hosted the voting, Minute lost. They insisted that bc they got majority to vote him out they could immediately vote a new president, everyone voted Wemmbu. Obviously. But not so obvious for Minute. He really, really and truly, believed that the server members would vote for what was right and good, not for evil and not for $500. To say he was crushed is an understatement. His vod is amazing. dangit i forget what it's called. he doesn't have many streams.

pb&j were PISSED. Done. They wanted Mapicc and Zam and Bacon dead. dead dead dead dead dead. They were done being the good guys. Minute still had one more presidential power, bc he was not done with his 3rd week. And he used it to sneak in a kill switch on wemmbu, a way to turn off his immortality which was his first presidential decree. (tho nobody knew that until the reveal)

Mapicc had wemmbu make the server hardcore mode, what remains believed that if it was hardcore they could then just kill minute and jumper once and they would win. Why they thought suddenly they would be able to do that after months of trying and dying over and over is beyond me. But they set up an arrow cannon trap... and killed only Bacon. Dead within minutes of hardcore.

Zam, fresh from blaze and caves and wanting to jump into the joker arc again and rocking 30 hearts, started taunting pb&j, threatening the vitalasy hole again, a common threat, but one that he never really intended to do bc he cared about vi's memory, purposefully leaving the bottom section tnt free (which he recreated in s6). but the threat was a good one to pull, it always got pb&j moving.

And move they did. They landed on the top of the hole, and with barely a word spoken, Minute potted up and they all attacked Zam. He died within minutes.

But started cackling. uncontrollably. He had won. They killed him. They fell to their darker desires. And didn't they feel a little satisfaction from that kill? from seeing him banned?

And so Zam finally rested. Free from lifesteal.

Except Mapicc had just lost both his teammates. He takes up Zam's legacy and uses Wemmbu's president power of spawning in orbital strikes to blow up the vitalasy hole anyway. And intimidated Minute into running by fighting him while immortal.

While still immortal and afk, pentar tired to arrow cannon him while he wasn't live.

But wemmbu's second presidential decree was blessings and curses, and so Mapicc dragged Zam out of the afterlife to give his blessings. and Zam, done with the season, gave his blessing to minute in a last act of gayjoker flair. he gave him fire res which was useless bc minute had a stack of notch apples.

mapicc was not happy with this. not at all. His teammate just betrayed him in the final days of the war. Zam then does everything in his power, giving anyone and everyone an IOU for s6 if they would ban themselves and bless those he wanted and cure those he hated.

For the good guy's side, Pentar had terrain kill himself to bless him, so much for being the good guys. I did always love this bc it was just fully Pentar's choice to do it, iirc Minute and Jumper didn't really want to do anything like that, but pentar didn't care if they had a bad image. and he had slowness and hunger. he was useless. to look like the good guys was always more Minute and Jumper's style, but because they were teammates you'd better believe Zam never let them hear the end of it.

Then jumper asks mapicc to talk, says she doesn't like what her team is doing, she wanted peace (oh yeah, they wanted a peaceful ending) and so she wanted mapicc to ban her after taking him on a tour of the server.

Mapicc followed. willingly. He knew it was sus but figured he could try and escape the trap and he was confused by her sudden wanting to lore.

But Minute launched a claymore arrow cannon to his face. He was banned before he could even say a word.

Then wemmbu logged on, and pb&j, high from realizing he was the last enemy, got him in call. Wemmbu was fine with that, he wanted to talk to lifestealLord (ash's admin account). Wemmbu, also only good at lore when he's prepped his monologue, does do some good lore and very aura farmed, killed the in-creative-mode admin account, banning it.

Ash then uses Minute's presidency thing to turn off wemmbu's immortality and they hunt him down and kill him in seconds.

this is lifesteal sunday. One day and the entire opposition, who were the players trying to do things and willingly showing up to the oppositions's ideas, gone. To say chat crashed out is an understatement. it's an iconic moment, though not a happy one. but it is highly emblematic of the season, this layered meta conflict where pb&j prioritize winning over everything else.

Wemmbu retaliates by doing an illegal lag thing so he could nuke his position (bc you can log on to give blessing and curses and if he could lag it enough he could run a command). The nuke killed Jumper, Pentar AND Ash.

this was all a bit too much. Wemmbu's nuke was highly against the rules for the lag switch, so pb&j got revived.

But in retaliation, Mapicc got Spoke to give him his account and Zam got Pangi to give him his, and devotions were back alive and kicking.

And the war continued. It was a great moment for the meta to give the server a limit for what is acceptable in the end game war. pb&j wanted the win, the Players (as they were now calling themselves) also wanted to fight and win.

this lead to the anti-trap boxTM. A neutral ground created by minute pentar and jumper to have a Conversation with Mapicc (Bacon, dead) Ro and Clown about How The Finale Would Work. It was an obby box in the air that would prove there were no traps. pb&j were desperate to have it bc they wanted an in person meeting for their videos. the Players were NOT going to go there. Not after Mapicc got claymored.

Agony ensued, pb&j wanted to add a beacon that could revive hardcore banned players, the players wanted to let the war play out with no more god powers, the power of friendship would not end this season. Ro iconically said "its a human story, about humans" about lifesteal and how its best when they just figure it out as they go and see what happens. Fight for what they believe in.

And so the finale became a long drawn out war. pb&j wanted to log on only when they could be safe together, clown and zam staked out their base for hours and hours with a tnt trap primed, mapicc goaded minute into logging on and doing one big fight, which he agreed to.

This fight is a favorite of mine, a 3v4 where clown proved to be the better general, and they killed minute and pentar. Zam also had spepticles account by this time bc the pangi one got banned bc tnt was set to do 100x more damage.

Spep then wrestled for control over his body, logging zam in and out. it was an amazing fight.

but the players won for the day, they banned spep/zam so minute couldn't use the account.

The next two days was a long long slow fight trying to kill jumper. She had ash and squiddo (who had a handmade hack client hijacking wemmbu's presidential mod that gave her nukes) and they fought valiantly. A long, dragged out war. Mapicc died to elytra damage. Ash tried chunk banning everyone to win.

Eventually ash did pull off the chunk ban, but clown and ro walked their way out (so ironically doing chunk bans again s6 was doomed to fail, they all knew you could walk out, but i give it full marks for aura)

Jumper logged in and the chunkban had despawned, clown and ro try and kill her, but she elects to remain canonically chunk banned/logged out to not get the death. Clown accepts it as a win.

Also branzy leaked all the 4c/squiddo/jumper plans to clown. including that Minute had added netherite durability to their armor if they named it specially. Always sneaking a way in to win if he has permission from the evil side's actions to do so, our minutetech. They added immortality and had more teammates, so he would increase armor dura. It didn't help him in the end.

And so the season ended in bloody war. until carnival mode when everyone got unbanned and played in Branzy's finale where he announced he was leaving lifesteal. they all jumped off the tower at his carnival and banned themselves.

I feel like I talked a good amount of shit about the improv and meta conflict, and im still riding the high of a happy ending to s6, but s5 was amazing. and s6 had its fair share of horror stories. s5 is well worth the watch, the narrative that each side pulled on the other makes it one of the most iconic seasons for watching all povs just to form your own opinion on the events. Everyone lies about everyone. Everyone makes everyone else look like the worst villain ever. There are no heroes and villains on lifesteal, and this season was a pointed tale to ensure nobody even wanted to look at being a good guy ever again.

and then zam went and did that anyway s6. and suffered for it anyway. and told a wildly different story.

here's to s7!

also reading it back, this is a brief summary. its missing so many side plots and little stories.

[coffeegnomee]

do you have any blindfold brother thoughts i may be cooking but ive been in lifesteal circles for barely five minutes so i may be making shit up

Well now I'm interested to know what you're cooking.

I have only fragmented thoughts on the blindfold brothers. especially as a duo.

They're so Unknown. Because Flame can profess undying loyalty to Mane.. but will he follow through? Will something come before that? Will the allure of something Fun overtake basic loyalty in a similar way Zam and Mapicc are devotions but will similarly be willing to be against each other?

And Mane is so fast and loose with his loyalty, but so far has not really gone against Flame at all unless you count putting Flame above Flame when he was blowing up spawn, telling Pangi he would take up the mantle of blowing it up if Flame didn't get his fight. Even if Flame was willing/wanting to stop blowing it up. He doesn't put Flame's wishes first, but he does put Flame first, choosing what he believes is best for Flame over what Flame says he wants.

And Mane stepped back from being against Mawn when he found out Flame was on Mapicc's side; he was willing to fight Flame if need be, but he didn't end up having to do it.

Flame stands by and watches (or joins attacking) as any other of his loyalties gets attacked by Mane, putting Mane above anyone else, and he told Mapicc he refused to fight Mane if it came down to it.

And yet. Flame back when he died said everyone was kill on sight and Mane slyly asked if that included Zam, to which Flame said, no of course not Zam.

And yet we know he did go against Zam just a few weeks later, and now completely did a torment arc (day) against him. All with zero provocation from Zam except Zam objecting to Flame blowing up spawn. It swapped on a dime when Zam went from neutral innocent cute pacifist at spawn to possible adversary. And has stayed adversarial since. So Flame is capable of being loyal for one month and when the situation arrises that is good enough, he will break that loyalty.

So where they might end up is completely untested, which I find fascinating. Both have such different and unique perspectives about the server, Mane going for BBEG who never dies who has a reason for everything he does, while Flame more goes for wanting his short term video idea and is more willing to jump onto someone else's idea and do what they want to do rather than being the BBEG himself. Flame is more social and willing to show up in person, while Mane is paranoid about traps to a degree even more than Flame, is hesitant with the yap, and more wanting to be mysterious (though this might be changing)

Both exhibit a soft spot for the chunguses, though Flame (esp with like Pangi) is more loyal as support and negotiation, while Mane is more giving of hearts and killing others for them and coming to defend them in person (mane was more around for Zam early season than Flame was).

Flame has a tendency to be very worried about his image, defensive over it, while Mane is willing to risk the embarrassments (being Flame's lawyer, being the BBEG and more or less seeing it through)

They're simultaneously attached at the hip and one unit together and completely unique and nuanced players. I'm just excited to see how they end the season and where they start s7 as because that is going to tell So Much about who they are as lifestealers.