Enjoy my animation :D
I spent a month and a bit working on it, and I haven't even finished all the character designs yet (see the one without a face). I'll probably go back and edit once the character is done, but until then she's faceless. Future plans for this is to fully render it, instead of leaving them all as outlines, but that'll be after a break (I've been animating nonstop so far). I'll put that on youtube probably
This has been really fun to make, and I've learned a lot by doing it. For example, I had no idea how backgrounds worked before this. Now I've done 1, 2, and 3 point perspectives, and can do them again if needed.
Gonna infodump a bit about my characters below cause I haven't shared anything anywhere yet. Some context for the animation and stuff. Explanation of use/interpretation of lyrics is below there (four paragraphs down)
So, first character to appear is Nadia (or Naidhur) Dagher. She's a semiaquatic alien who came to the planet not long ago, yet doesn't remember why or how. She knows she had something important with her, but doesn't remember anything about it. She goes looking for it, and comes across the third person, and after a little time, they team up against the common enemy. The item Nadia is looking for is found in the animation, currently looking like an orb bc I haven't worked out the design yet.
Second to appear is Kryvna. She's a retired immortal (or as retired as you can get) with control over the domains Lost and Found. She got her powers through some not so good decisions centuries ago, along with the rest of a group known as the Guardians. They defended the earth from these creatures who came to earth back when they were mortal, and sealed them in a pocket dimension which is temporarily named the Void. The only thing that lives there are the creatures who only live to devour. You can see them at the end, but they're shapeshifters so the appearance isn't certain.
Anyway, Kryvna (and the guardians) inherited the shapeshifting from them, and thus aren't limited to a single form. Kryvna uses this for crime, keeping a separate identity to her home life to do criminal stuff. She also uses her domains to control and manipulate memories. She can make them Lost at any moment, and choose which ones to make more or less Lost. Any interpretation of Lost or Found can be taken to be another ability. She was the one who found Nadia when she first arrived, erased her memories, and took the item she had brought. As compensation she set Nadia up with language, money, and schooling, and nudged her towards making friends with her child.
Said child is the third to appear. This is Xanthe, the MC. Xanthe is genderfluid, and inherited shapeshifting from Kryvna. They lived a (relatively) normal life until they stumbled across some of Kryvna's suspicious stuff, and went investigating. They moved out, and became roommates with Nadia, and there's some fun secret identity shenanigans before they team up. There's more but not really relevant to the animation.
Lyrical interpretations:
This isn't lyrics but I thought the intro music was just right for a sneaking around, trying not to get caught
"Slips you off the needle, drops you into unstitched space" - In the animation, Kryvna pulls Nadia into/away from her mind, the place where thoughts and actions have yet to be decided, and their bodies both go still.
Somewhere between these is a sound that sparkbird mentioned in a clip somewhere, about the "dagger" sound, which I thought was perfect for the start of the cracks
"The wasteland which henceforth shall be referred to as your place" - Should be kinda obvious, Kryvna shatters Nadia's mind/memories, and then leaves her like that. It's a wasteland, the place where mental constructs and memory once stood. And it's now Nadia's.
"The captain lives by the sword" - Kryvna is the captain referred to here. She is a living weapon, in the entire video the only thing she uses is her hands. And she does it all (fairly) calmly. There's power in that.
"The captain loves by the sword" - Kryvna, again, is the captain. On the bottom left is a picture frame. Inside is a photo of Kryvna and Xanthe, plus Kryvna's partner. They're happy, and with it on the desk, it implies that Kryvna does care about them. In contrast, Kryvna real-time is taunting Xanthe, and then getting attacked. She then drops them into the Void. It's not sounding very motherly, but she's convinced that this is how she needs to show her care in this situation. Sometimes love and care doesn't mean what it should. Sometimes people go too far.
"He'll leave you trapped in the cockpit, crying out Mayday!" - Kryvna drops Xanthe into the Void, a pocket dimension. There's one way out, and it's sealed to keep the creatures in. The creatures only live to eat, forever hungry. Xanthe has been dropped into a worse equivalent of a pit full of hungry lions.
Behind the scenes, Kryvna knows that one of the guardians is always near/in there, and Xanthe will survive long enough to get out. It's still bad, and is just another showing of her "loves by the sword"
Wooaah this is long. Good job for reading it all if you didn't skip to the end. If you want a challenge, there's a frame or two with a hand missing.
Just to make a point, every time I finished a panel of this I would export it as a PNG on the perceptual setting and use it as a color reference for the next panel
IT'S BAD
PLEASE CHECK YOUR COLOR SETTINGS
EDIT: If you're still having problems, it might help to switch from "Save/Save as" to "Export (as a) Single Layer". Just. Make SURE the box labeled "Expression Color" is set to RGB. I've been messing with this all day, and it looks like this combination of settings will allow exported PNGs to maintain their colors perfectly. To you. So far both Discord and Toyhouse still only display desaturated images and I cannot for the life of me figure out why
A bowl filled with a thick paste sat between them.
As chanting started, magic filled the air, pulling the book upwards. The flames burned brighter as the casting went on. The paste slowly rose, stretching and bubbling.
The wicks snuffed out, smoke filling the air.
The paste dropped.
The spell didn’t work. Why didn’t it work?! He’s dead, or he’s missing, either way the spell should have worked.
He scrambled, grappling for the book and wrenching it free from the magic.
Quickly flipping back a page, he read over the passage.
This spell may not work if the target soul is; in another world, in a magic nullification field, destroyed through soul flames (see page 486 for more) or a deity has interfered.
The spiral of grief had pulled him down, far further than he had anticipated. He didn’t know why their death - or disappearance - affected him so, but it was dangerous.
He could try to avoid forming relationships with others - but, no. He had seen how that went, with people either becoming assholes, lonely or broken through to by those that became attached. It would just hurt more people in the end.
So he drifted, taking in random pieces of information, rumours and stories. On occasion he would wander back into the End but those times were few.
A century passed, immersed in tumultuous emotions, before he heard of something of interest.
Necromancy.
Someone had figured out a complicated spell, a way of reviving someone with their soul intact. Not a skeleton or zombie, not a variation of them either. Ghostification was unlikely as well.
Possibilities raced through his mind, filling him with a sense of hope.
He asked around, sought to find the creator, only to be turned away when he succeeded. They had said to return when he had at least studied up to the mid-level necromagics.
He went off, stewed in indignation for a while before accepting that they were right in sending him off to learn more.
He returned over a decade later with more than enough knowledge.
Hosting the previous season of the WHSMP, the original Hub was home to the Realm and the Alliance, along with the draconics. We don’t know what happened to it but it’s lost to us now. Some say it was the primordial overseer who created a black hole in a fit of destruction, or that the war eventually caused too much destruction the the land before it fell apart on its own.
The origins of the current WHSMP lie in many different worlds, but this first world is the origins of our origins. There, it all started in a village in a desert. Once abandoned, it soon grew to prosperity with the help of a primordial being in a meteor.
From this village, people spread across the world. As they spread, factions developed.
The two factions, the Realm and the Alliance declared war, and the time of peace was over. A cold war stretched the year, and though battles were planned, what could have been wasn't meant to be.
This village was the start, and it was the end. As said above, we don't know the cause of the destruction.
From this original world, there was a fracture. Two worlds rose, the Myre and the Server.
The one our SMP is on is the Myre, but that does not mean the Server has no relevance. No, some came from that Server to this world, to continue growing and changing, just like those of us behind the screens.
The more distant history of the original server will be posted in separate posts:
Minecraft has zombies and skeletons, zombie horses and skeleton horses, but only zombified piglins. What happened to the piglin skeletons? Calling them all skeletons, while technically correct, would be inaccurate since the bone structure of piglins and humans are different. I suppose you can’t say skelefied piglin, but piglin skeleton works just fine.
That wasn’t what I was going to write about but it came to my mind and won’t leave so you get two for one.
What I was really going to say was do the zombies slowly decay into skeletons? Will all zombies eventually become skeletons? Is there some kind of slowed decay or total freeze? Do they have to undead as they will be forever?
Also, who on earth is reviving all these undead. The sheer numbers each night implies they get renewed each day as the burning stops, so who is going around finding graveyards to rob and reviving all these corpses. Is there a chaotic necromancer on the loose? Is there room for one more?
When you kill the End Dragon, you get the achievement “Free the End”.
What if the endermen are the twisted souls of the late residents.
What if the End Dragon once was a protector. One of many protectors.
What happened for the End Dragon to turn on those they were protecting? Who knows. Maybe they were greedy. Maybe they went mad. Maybe they suffered the same sickness the Wyverns did, and lashed out in hunger.
Either way, the endermen needed to survive. The chorus fruits could bring them away, but it had side effects. It was only fed to shulkers for a reason.
When the endermen had too many chorus fruit, became reliant upon it, they found themselves porting randomly. The shulkers did this too sometimes, but they had control. The endermen did not.
Eventually, the changes grew greater. Their skin turned smokey, their eyes started glowing, and the teleporting became necessary. If they didn’t teleport, they felt trapped. Cornered. About to be caught by their fallen guardian.
The shulkers, the protectors of the cities, were their last line of defence now. But they couldn’t defend against a dragon. They couldn't move far, couldn't leave their posts.
What if the nether is the stomach of a giant creature...
Just like Tartarus from the Greek myths, the Nether is a giant being, like a titan or something else...
The Nether is massive caverns and fire, with an impenetrable roof and oceans of lava. The netherrack is the stomach lining, and the bedrock is the stronger layer of cells. The lava is stomach acid x20.
There are giant bones in the soulsand valleys, larger creatures that were eaten before the giant stopped feasting. Ancient Debris are metals that were melted and turned into an alloy during the digestion of the wielders.
And plants can't survive in extreme heat, so fungi is the only thing that can grow there. Giant Fungi for the giant stomach. and the smaller nether fungi are the baby fungi, which is already kinda true...
And, it's home to monsters. Not many, but there are monsters!
I told my dad about this theory (and had to explain the minecraft dimensions) and he went "The Overworld is on the back of a giant turtle, and the Nether is it's stomach."
I have no arguments. Minecraft is a giant turtle now.
What if the nether is the stomach of a giant creature...
Just like Tartarus from the Greek myths, the Nether is a giant being, like a titan or something else...
The Nether is massive caverns and fire, with an impenetrable roof and oceans of lava. The netherrack is the stomach lining, and the bedrock is the stronger layer of cells. The lava is stomach acid x20.
There are giant bones in the soulsand valleys, larger creatures that were eaten before the giant stopped feasting. Ancient Debris are metals that were melted and turned into an alloy during the digestion of the wielders.
And plants can't survive in extreme heat, so fungi is the only thing that can grow there. Giant Fungi for the giant stomach. and the smaller nether fungi are the baby fungi, which is already kinda true...
And, it's home to monsters. Not many, but there are monsters!
YES. Your story DOES matter. It wouldn’t exist without you. You are in charge of bringing it to life because other writers don’t possess your style / voice. You are the only person capable of creating your story.
You are an unique, creative, worthy human being. Go show the world what you’re capable of.
Shroomlights. Are they edible?!?! They have shroom in the name so supposedly they’re fungus, but good or bad effects are unknown. Are they a berry or a parasite? Are the nether "trees" trees or fungi? cause they're grown from fungi, but have wood. Shroomlights grow on the nether "trees", and they glow, but why do they need to glow? Nether plants don’t need light, as theres lots of lava 24/7 keeping everything bright and lights useless. Is it a warning? A lure, like lantern fish?
Going back to the first question, ARE THEY EDIBLE?? No matter berry or fungi, they should be edible, so why aren't they Minecraft.
Shroomlights. Are they edible?!?! They have shroom in the name so supposedly they’re fungus, but good or bad effects are unknown. Are they a berry or a parasite? Are the nether "trees" trees or fungi? cause they're grown from fungi, but have wood. Shroomlights grow on the nether "trees", and they glow, but why do they need to glow? Nether plants don’t need light, as theres lots of lava 24/7 keeping everything bright and lights useless. Is it a warning? A lure, like lantern fish?
Going back to the first question, ARE THEY EDIBLE?? No matter berry or fungi, they should be edible, so why aren't they Minecraft.
