The Steve Community - A Guide For Confused Mutuals
(and other people seeing my steveposting who may have no idea what im talking about...)
Intro
Hi! I'm your local artist, jsdimensions, who is currently revisting a childhood fandom!
I've come to the realization that some of my most loyal followers and mutuals may have no clue what I'm talking about, since, sadly, this community isn't very well-known at all. I'm here to provide a definitive explanation for everything I'm going to be posting about pretty soon!
The rest of the post is under the cut.
History
Were you ever a kid on YouTube watching Minecraft videos in the mid to late 2010s? I sure was! Even though I knew they were staged, I still found a ton of entertainment from Minecraft creepypastas and other "scary" Minecraft videos. I used to watch channels like GhepoMC, Sharky, and UnspeakableGaming to get my fix.
Have you ever heard of those [color] Steve creepypastas? These guys down below.
(From left to right: Green Steve, Rainbow Steve, Blue Steve)
These are Steves! Often recolors of the default Steve skin in Minecraft, they started out as "scary entities" you can find in your world. Basic, not that scary creepypastas, and that was about it.
However, one day in 2017, a YouTuber by the name of FavreMySabre made a few videos about these Steves. They were the typical "Steves are SCARY and will CORRUPT YOUR WORLD and MAKE YOUR COMPUTER BLUESCREEN!!1!1!1" kind of videos often seen in that era of Minecraft YouTube, but something ended up happening that would eventually cause the birth of the entire genre.
Rainbow Steve was created when a Blue Steve asked Sabre through signs to fuse him, a Green Steve, and a Red Steve together through a redstone machine. At first, Rainbow Steve was treated about the same as thr others - a mysterious, spooky entity that could speak backwards - but after some experimentation on him, Sabre felt bad and decided to set him free into the world to do his own thing. Rainbow Steve was revealed to be a well-natured, quirky guy who built his own house. The first example of a colored Steve not being framed as a scary entity, but a character of their own. This is one of many reasons why I consider Rainbow Steve to be the father of the entire genre! Steves as characters weren't even considered until he came around. Rainbow Steve also had a particular energy about him that helped form the unique sense of humor often seen in Steve-based series as well.
One thing led to another, Dark Steve and Light Steve were introduced, and this first series was dubbed The Steve Saga.
The Steve Saga was a long-running series that lasted 2 years, until about 2019. New villains like Dark Steve arrived and were defeated, new characters introduced and left, and the series really fleshed out its own identity over time. Looking at it now, I can see that it's definitely flawed, but my pre-teen self LOVED this stuff. I remember being there when the final arc of The Steve Saga was being completed, and thus, the series ended.
In the following year, Sabre worked on Steve Saga Origins, a spin-off series centering around Rainbow Steve. He also tried to revive the series at least twice, but both attempts were never completed.
Towards the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, Sabre made a reboot of The Steve Saga called Rainbow Quest. Fans were absolutely hyped to see this new series! Unfortunately, sometime in the middle of Season 2, the series got too dark and depressing for my already-sad self to endure during quarantine, so my personal timeline ends right there. I've heard that, allegedly, I quit watching soon after the series started actually getting good, which kind of sucks.
During all of this, some people in the community decided to make their own series inspired by The Steve Saga and Rainbow Quest, thus forming the Steve RP scene as it is today now that Sabre isn't making Steve content anynore: made up of fan creations!
Rainbow Quest Ramble
A couple of months back, I tried to watch through Rainbow Quest again. I wanted to get back in touch with the community while rewatching a childhood series.
However, I've heard that the series isn't exactly the best early on, and I can't help but agree that, in some ways, it's a bit hard to watch. After watching early Rainbow Quest, I think I understand pretty well why this fandom is so small, but I also understand why people still love it enough to stick around.
(Disclaimer: In my most recent rewatch of Rainbow Quest, I was only able to make it to Episode 43...out of 288. All of my current knowledge is of those first 43 episodes, so anything after that is what I've heard about the series rather than personal experience.)
Let's go over the good and bad of Rainbow Quest!
Good Stuff
Audio balancing issues are non-existent. This may seem like a given, but many fan-made Steve series have music or in-game sounds that drowns out people's voices. Sabre's stuff never has this problem.
The series LOOKS great, too! There are shaders, a couple of mods for immersion, and the builders Sabre hired for the series clearly know what they're doing. Every environment is beautiful and well-made!
Out of every episode I've watched, there's only 1 filler episode where nothing of much substance happens. There's always something important going on in every episode, even if those things are minor sometimes.
When the series is engaging and fun, it's VERY engaging and fun.
This series has gotten me to laugh multiple times.
Orange Steve is a great character...before episode 30. I'll talk about my opinion on him after that episode.
Every episode feels like it's planned out and that the story is going somewhere.
The series knows how to do action that I'll remember. I'm not going to spoil anything, but trust me when I say that Sabre knows how to do action.
Character writing is pretty solid for the most part. Not perfect, but definitely good enough. Characters stand out from each other, which is really important when multiple characters look extremely similar.
Not-so-good Stuff
It's very clear in certain episodes that Sabre is trying so hard to hit that 10 minute mark on his videos. Lots of padding sometimes, from Sabre talking in circles to things going on a little longer than they should. Pacing is an issue sometimes. At some point, I started watching the videos a 2X speed.
I wouldn't be surprised if some people watched the series and found Sabre to be annoying! He doesn't bother me too much, personally, but there are some moments where I'm thinking, "Just get on with it..." He also doesn't drop the YouTuber act that drops the immersion at the beginning and/or end of episodes until season 2, but at least he does it at all, I guess.
A few minor things kind of come out of nowhere with no explanation, like Sabre's knowledge of making redstone machines for particular purposes, such as trapping Steves. Where did that come from? Who knows? Not me.
If you don't like comedic relief characters whose entire personalities are made for comedic relief, Orange Steve from episode 30 and beyond may be a hard watch. I'll put in my personal complaints here - it felt like, in between episode 29 and 30, Sabre gave Orange Steve a lobotomy. He doesn't even realize something happened to him that EVERY OTHER STEVE can clearly notice, and when episode 30 began, he randomly started going on about eating pufferfish. An episode or two before that, he went on about sticks all of a sudden with no explanation. It was hard for me to watch Orange Steve, a character who sticks around Sabre almost constantly since the first few episodes, devolve into this. I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually or it'll improve once I start watching the series again, but this frustrated me so badly I stopped watching.
I'd love to see people outside the community watch Rainbow Quest and form their own opinions, though. These are just my opinions, and I'd say the series is very good for something Sabre uploaded almost daily.
What Is A Steve? (More In-Depth)
This section will go over the most common portrayals of Steves. Some series, like Fragments: Reimagined (PLEASE WATCH FRAGMENTS REINAGINED), imagine Steves slightly differently than the most common interpretation.
Steve series often include:
Main character is either a Steve or a player who came across the Steve world by chance
World inhabited by various different kinds of Steves, most commonly one color of the rainbow, but some are multiple colors or even themed (time, elements, space, etc)
Steves usually have some kind of powers. The more powerful Steves can smite you with lightning, throw fireballs, create blocks or convert blocks into other blocks, cause explosions/fire, create stuff, float/fly, teleport, and more. The weaker/more common the Steve, the less strong their powers are. Steve powers are most often associated with lightning striking, whether it's raining or not. Some series don't give certain Steves any special powers at all.
If they have any, the powers a Steve has usually have some kind of connection to how they look or their name.
Some of the most powerful Steves barely resemble the original Steve skin, and on rare occasions, not at all. This is normal.
Steves are often, if not always portrayed as an all-male species.
There will ALWAYS be a great evil that must be defeated. I've never seen a Steve series without that.
Steves do not know about real-world objects or concepts that don't exist in Minecraft, such as sandwiches or circles.
Having a voice rather than talking in chat means one of two things: either you're the main character, or you're VERY powerful/special in some way.
Very often, there's some kind of powerful item(s) that need to be collected.
Good Steve series are very hard to find. I highly recommend you ask the community for recommendations.
Outro
I hope this guide helps introduce people to this community! If you have any questions, feel free to ask me and I'll probably know the answer.
The Steve community is very small but very welcoming. If there's anything I don't know, I'm sure another more knowledgeable fan will be eager to help.
I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot more steveposting pretty soon, so be prepared for that!!!
@narholz
