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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 2 years

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I read Clementine Book One 9 times so that you don’t have to read it at all

Spoiler-free review: It’s not great. 1.5/5 stars.

"Clementine is back on the road, looking to put her traumatic past behind her and forge new path all her own. But when she comes across an Amish teenager named Amos with his head in the clouds, the unlikely pair journeys North to an abandoned ski resort in Vermont, where they meet up with a small group of teenagers attempting to build a new, walker-free settlement. As friendship, rivalry, and romance begin to blossom amongst the group, the harsh winter soon reveals that the biggest threat to their survival...might be each other. “

The best way I can describe Clementine in this is if TFS never happened and this is an older, slightly less angsty ANF Clementine who also lost a leg. She’s not great.

Amos is the best character. He has a goal, a drive to reach that goal, and an actual personality that shines through in every page he’s in. He’s also the only character Clementine has any real chemistry with, which isn’t good news for her new love interest.

Speaking of which, Ricca didn’t reach the potential I felt she should’ve. She has a fine backstory, but the way it was delivered was info-dumpy and not built up well. Her “romantic chemistry” with Clementine is practically non-existent, rushed, and a little awkward.

The twins, Olivia and Georgia, were bland and annoying.

The baddie of the story is weak as hell. They do something terrible for a reason so overdone that it actually makes my brain mad.

The story is okay for the first half, but takes a steep nose dive in the second half that ruins what little good will it got outta me. Everything mentioned that was from the games felt shoehorned in for fanservice points and not because it contributed to the story. The pacing is all over the place, and the ending is just... annoying. The artwork isn’t Tillie Walden’s best, I know she can do so much better when she’s allowed to play with color and give her work a more dream-like quality, which the story doesn’t.

I originally rated it a 1/5 stars, but after reading it 9 goddamn times, I bumped it up to a 1.5/5 stars mostly for Amos, the few chuckles it got out of me, and one part that I genuinely liked.

My full detailed review is below. It’s long, gives a recap of the 12-page Clementine Lives comic from Skybound X, addresses the harassment Tillie Walden has gotten over this, and spoils everything within book one.

so how the hell did we even get here?

On August 14, 2018, the first episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead: The Final Season was released, a game developed by a team that showed great care and passion for the story they wanted to tell and was meant to give Clementine’s story a satisfying ending. It’s not a game without flaws, both in its storytelling and mechanics. If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know I have my complaints about each of the games but at the end of the day, I love them, flaws and all.

On September 21, 2018, we got the news that Telltale Games would be closing its doors. About 90% of their employees were let go with only about 25 remaining to fulfill the important obligations they couldn’t wiggle out of... y’know, like finishing a version of Minecraft Story Mode made for Netflix.... which if you know me, you know how I feel about MCSM and I’m sure you can guess the speed at which my eyes rolled upon reading that.

With the closure of Telltale Games came hundreds of people suddenly out of a job, the cancellation of several games, and the realization that we wouldn’t get the rest of TFS. Sad times all around, statements were being made by Telltale [ex] employees, not fun in the slightest, you would go to youtube to watch playthroughs of episode 2 when it dropped and every creator was original enough to title their videos “GOODBYE TELLTALE” or “THE END OF CLEMENTINE.”

But then Robert Kirkman told everyone to chill the hell out, Skybound Entertainment worked out a deal with Telltale, they’re going to finish off TFS through their Skybound Games division, all with the original development team who were working on it.

The fans rejoiced, the Telltale team got to complete their game the way they wanted, and Skybound were heroes being praised by the fans. TFS was great, my personal favorite of the four main games. 10/10, would play it 100 more times. Clementine finally got the happy ending she deserved.

....But then we got Clementine Lives as a part of the Skybound X collection...and Clementine Book One was announced for summer 2022.

A lot less happy after that.

“blah blah die a hero or live long enough to be the baddie or something.” -Scarecrow, probably

In hindsight, we should’ve seen this coming. What, Skybound gets all the rights to Clementine and we expected them to respectfully leave the conclusion of her story alone? That’s not how the money is made, babe!

Clementine is a cow who just wants to be free and eat dewy grass all day in the warm sunlight but that isn’t about to stop Skybound from locking her up in a barn stall before getting on their hands and knees to pull and twist and squeeze every single last drop they can get outta her. Even if she runs outta milk, they can just shoot her and turn her meat into steaks and ribs and tenderloins and anything else you can get out of a cow down to the bones. When they’re desperate enough, they can make some bone broth.... I don’t really know where I’m going with this, we can just pretend I meant this as a metaphor for how they butchered her or something.

Anyway, anything to continue making money on a franchise that is still fairly popular... I think? Aside from Telltale’s The Walking Dead, I’m not a big fan of the TWD franchise in general, any other content I tried intaking was meh at best. I lost interest in the show after S1. The books about the Governor weren’t all that interesting. I browsed the comics and they couldn’t hold my attention.

I even played and finished the awful Daryl Dixon prequel game that no one else played. The most interesting thing in that game is if you run for more than 3.5 seconds, sweat blurs and drips down the screen as Daryl shits himself... riveting.

Now we have a Clementine trilogy to throw in there.

Skybound decided they wanted to branch out into the young adult and middle grade world. Makes sense. Reach out to new fans, get some young blood to flow into crevices left by old fans who are no longer interested, expand your reach as far as possible... all they have to do is tell a compelling story in their well-established world with fleshed out characters while also checking all the boxes to ensure success. Sounds easy, right?

Enter Skybound X and within it Clementine Lives, a 12-page comic tying together TFS and Clementine Book One.

I have a full in depth look at that comic here, but for a refresher:

After the events of TFS, Clementine sneaks out of Ericson one morning without telling anyone and we find out that she’s planned her departure for a while. She has maps and supplies hidden away, as well a car stashed somewhere. Before she can get away, though, an older AJ appears wearing Clementine’s hat... Ugh.

He’s rightfully pissed that she would ditch out on everything like this, insists that he’s coming along, and Clementine tells him no. Her explanation for all of this, the reason she’s abandoning AJ and everyone at Ericson, is that she’s not happy... which spoiler alert, is kinda contradicted in chapter 8 of book one??? but we will get into that later. AJ lets Clementine leave and she sets off on her new journey that brings us to the events of book one.

To say Clementine Lives was poorly received would be a vast understatement. Fans ripped it to shreds, they hated the damn thing, and they were vocal about it. There’s no way in hell Skybound didn’t know how much fans despised Clementine Lives. I mean, people were making long-winded posts/videos about how it was an insult to Clementine’s character and asking everyone to not support the Clementine trilogy, to let Skybound know that this isn’t what they wanted.

Fans hated the portrayal of Clementine and AJ. They felt it had more in common with a fanfic written by someone who didn’t play the games themselves but instead watched a youtube playthrough one [1] time, thought Clementine was cool but didn’t like anyone else and said, “Hey what if Clem ditched everyone and hung out with my OC’s instead??” than it did with the canon of the games.

I mean, who wrote this, right? Did they even play the games? Well...

Tillie Walden and the Curious Case of Clementine’s Character [and other short stories involving obnoxious twdg fans who have nothing better to do with their lives than stalk her instagram account]

I hadn’t heard of Tillie Walden prior to the announcement that she would be the one writing this Clementine book trilogy.

I’ll admit, I hated the 12-page comic, too. In my review I said, “...Skybound and Tillie made this comic, they put it out there and asked for money for it, therefore I’m allowed to explain why it’s garbage as well as ponder over the questionable intent and whether or not Tillie actually has played these games.”

“This comic is awful. It misses the point of everything TFS, and the rest of the series, stood for. There is no heart here. I feel no happiness in reading it, and I don’t detect any passion behind it. It’s a lifeless comic that retcons everything in order to throw AJ away and start fresh with a new adventure for Clementine that makes no sense because the cow isn’t profitable unless it’s milked.”

That was then and this is now, though. While I still don’t like the comic and feel it’s not in line with Clementine as a character or a good direction for the comic, I do believe Tillie has played the games... the problem is she admitted during the Skybound Games XPO stream that she hadn’t played the games prior to getting the job. Skybound reached out to her and THEN she played through them, and she played through them fast...and I doubt she played them more than once. That’s an issue.

I’ve read some of her other works- On a Sunbeam, Spinning, A City Inside- and I think they’re good, I think she’s a talented artist. Some of the writing choices/themes are a bit iffy but most times I can overlook that because I genuinely love the art. It’s colorful, surreal, dreamy, creative, the kind of art you look at and feel something, y’know? Oh, and she likes to point out, “very gay.” Even if you hate the Clementine books she’s writing, I still encourage you to give her other works a chance. There’s a lot more life and creativity there. I can see why she was considered, despite Tillie saying herself that she didn’t think she was the “obvious choice” for this project..... which yeah, even she knows.

This one pesky little problem has more to do with Skybound than it does Tillie: creating a continuation of Clementine’s story after TFS is a dumb move... especially when the artist you hired didn’t work on the original games, doesn’t typically write stories in a zombie apocalyptic setting so their art style doesn’t let itself well to this particular project, doesn’t have a good grasp on the main character’s previous establishment, hasn’t played the games more than once or twice, probably has to follow a strict set of rules put in place by Skybound because they’re just like that, is under an extreme time constraint of having to finish a trilogy only three years mostly by herself, and is forced to make shit up about the previous games in order to make this comic’s plot exist.

In my honest opinion, Tillie wasn’t a good match for a Clementine story, and if she was allowed to write something completely original within the TWD universe, then this would’ve been a more compelling story to follow.

Let me say this about Clementine Book One: If anyone else was the protagonist of this story, it would’ve been better. I would’ve given it a 3.5/5 stars if Clementine was replaced with an original character.

That’s the problem.

I know a lot of people put the full blame on Tillie for how bad this whole thing is. She wrote it right? She “ruined” Clementine, it’s all her fault that this beloved character and reputation is “tarnished” and she should just cancel the rest of the series, blah blah blahhh.

I don’t entirely blame Tillie for this. She was hired to write this story because Skybound knew people would buy anything with Clementine’s name on it, good or bad. They knew Tillie had a fanbase who would buy anything she wrote. They knew that no matter how much fans bitched and moaned about it, Clementine Book One would sell. I believe she should’ve familiarized herself with the source material better, but she’s a professional artist. I believe she tried her best to create a good story for this trilogy but it’s weighed down by the fact that the main character had to be Clementine.

Which leads me to this bullshit that pisses me off.

There are plenty of assholes out there who stalk her instagram so they can harass every post she makes [even ones that have nothing to do with Clementine] with “#notmyclementine” and “dis comic make no sense clam wuld never lev aj u sux” as if that’s going to do anything. Not to mention the comments wishing for her to be fired, hoping she loses her entire career over this, calling her a fucking groomer, and other disgusting things that you don’t have to scroll far to find in her instagram comments.

This is the part where I tell everyone to sit the fuck down and stop. There is no reason to harass Tillie for doing the work she was hired to do. Telling her [and Skybound] that she should be fired, making homophobic remarks, insulting her appearance, wishing harm on her, telling her how much you hate her, calling her a groomer, and harassing fans of hers who want to support her is fucking disgusting.

Clementine is not real. She is a fictional character in a video game. This comic doesn’t hurt her feelings because she doesn’t exist. Clementine, the video game character, is not a real life person. I don’t give a single shit how important Clementine is to you. You are not defending anyone’s honor or protecting them from harm when you post shit like that. You’re causing the harm over a fictional character. Tillie Walden is a real person. You can dislike the work while still showing human decency to the creator. You can criticize the work while remaining respectful to the creator. It’s not hard.

Now that you’ve scolded us for the shitty people on instagram, are you gonna actually review the book or are you gonna keep procrastinating...?

Hey, don’t call me out on something I’m totally doing.

And yes, we can review the actual book now that I’ve gone over how we got here and hit you over the head with the “don’t harass Tillie over the comic, shithead” bat.

Yeesh, so impatient.

The Plot: it’s thickening... like curdled cheese

First thing’s first, let’s go over the story, the plot, of this thing. Then I’ll go in depth for each of the characters, talk about the “romance,” finish up with my final thoughts, and then talk about Clementine Book Two coming out June October 2023. Cool? Cool.

Clementine has left Ericson behind and is traveling alone with nothing but a pair of crutches to keep her warm at night. She's discovered by a group of Amish teens after being startled by her own period. Gotta say, I love the attempt to include Clementine having her period tastefully by having one of the other girls be like, “Oh, I just started mine, too,” only for another to be like “Don’t tell her that, ewwwwww!”

Remember how well ANF handled that? No? Just me? Whatever.

Anyway, they notice Clementine has a prosthetic leg and offer to take her back to their town to meet Rabby, a dentist who creates prosthetics. This town they take her to is actually neat. They have high walls, guards who have a system of keeping track of everyone who comes and goes, they’re not rude to her during the entrance procedure, there are several buildings with a lot of people walking the streets, they have horses..... oh and Meredith, one of the girls who found Clementine, calls the walkers “devils,” which is fun.

Clementine gets her new leg before ditching them to go back on the road where she meets Amos, an Amish teen who is out on his Rumspringa [a period when some Amish youth experience greater freedom. The idea is that teens will come back after tasting the modern world] with his horse, Helen, his carriage, and his 16 shirts.

Amos is heading to a mountain base up north in Vermont to help a group build a “strong homestead” throughout the winter, then when the snow melts, he’ll be rewarded with a plane ride. Clementine thinks that’s bullshit, planes don’t fly around anymore, but Amos insists that he saw the plane in the sky.

Y’see, a man showed up looking for recruits to help build these houses and then flew his plane over as proof that this was real. Amos really wants to ride in a plane, something he’s not supposed to do, hence why he’s going on this adventure for his Rumspringa.

Clementine gets a ride from him where they save a group of people who were under attack by walkers. However, one of the guys they saved gropes Clementine and she attacks him.

It’s difficult to tell that’s what happened due to the sloppy art, though. Initially I interpreted it as Clementine thinking he turned into a walker and attacked, but uh no, he groped her. She stomps on his hand after he challenges her with a, “do it,” and then as she’s hurrying to get away, someone else from inside the carriage says, “What did you do to that girl?!”

I would say I’m surprised but given some of the other stuff in Tillie’s works, I’m not.

Anyway, Amos leaves the carriage with those people, takes Helen and catches up with Clementine. He wants to travel with her, she calls him ridiculous and “I’m not interested in being a bodyguard anymore.”

It doesn’t take much to convince to her, though- Amos promises to leave Helen with her once he gets there since he knows she’d take care of her.

And I’m strangely reminded of Clementine’s trauma regarding horses from TFS where dead horses appear in her nightmare due to the one she was riding getting shot at the ranch... no mention of that anywhere, but are we surprised?

They spend a week traveling together. We get a montage of them that I actually like, and adds to my point that Amos has the most chemistry with Clementine in this book.

They make it to the mountain base where a pair of twins are waiting, and they’re suspicious as hell.

Red flag #1: No names. They refuse to give their names.

Red flag #2: One twin shoots Helen without even talking to Clementine or Amos, they just assumed they brought the horse for them to eat when nooo, Amos wanted to leave Helen with Clementine when they parted ways.

Red flag #3: They immediately view Clementine as a liability for her leg and tell her they’re not feeding anyone who can’t pull their weight... two people who refuse to give their names are in charge of your food and shelter, huh?

Red flag #4: Clementine says they’re dangerous and refuses to leave Amos alone with them.

Red flag #5: the mountain they’re on is literally called Killington. My eyes, look at them roll, there they go across the floor...

Hey, do you think these twins might be bad news? Because I dooooo~

But there’s a really sweet hug between Amos and Clementine after she insists she stays with him. You really feel that he’s scared and hurting after Helen’s death and he’s relieved to have her.

Up the mountain, we’re introduced to Ricca and.... y’know, not even Louis and Violet eye-balled Clementine this fast. I’ll save it for the romance section but uh... yeah. Ricca’s interest is apparent pretty quick... like right after their first conversation and then it goes no where.

So the twins explain that they need wood for building and the stove, snow melts down for water. Stick to the paths when out because the twins won’t come looking for them [red flag #6], they work from sunrise to sunset but the days are short up in the mountains so they need to move fast. They lose a lot of days to storms, they need to keep track of all their tools and bring them in during those storms or else they’ll never be seen again. Walkers don’t come up here because it’s too cold.

The twins refuse to answer more questions, and Ricca says she’s been calling the one with the ponytail “Right” and the one with her hair down “Left.”

Side note: I had a helluva time trying to keep these damn twins straight, you cannot tell them apart for shit especially since they change their goddamn hair styles and have the same goddamn face!

Oh but put a pin in the fact that Amos can tell them apart because “Left has much brighter eyes.”

So they all get to work. Clementine, Amos, and Ricca get pretty close. They go on joyrides with the snowmobile, they spend their nights reading novels together, getting into snowball fights that Clem takes too seriously, hunting, and talking about how sus the twins are. These sections are good, I like them. Especially when they’re reading together- Amos and Clementine read out loud, and when they don’t know a word, Ricca looks it up for them in the dictionary. The three of them are curled up in their sleeping bags, reading by candle light, it’s very sweet. It’s too bad there isn’t more of that in here.

While out chopping wood one day, Clementine hears a noise that is supposed to foreshadow walkers being underground, and we find out Ricca is a smoker.

Oh, and Amos gets sick with a fever. Not fun.

Now let’s talk about the generator because this is funny. Not good funny, though, so don’t get too excited.

So they have this portable generator, right? It’s for the other lift that they just fixed, so Clementine and Ricca have to drag it about three miles away from the main base, but can take a shorter way over a bridge the twins built. They take a map, put it on the snowmobile, and Ricca let’s Clementine drive. Smart.

But uh oh, the bridge is broken! Guess they gotta turn around and go the other- just kidding, they’re gonna tie a rope around the generator and swing it to the other side. I wish I was joking but I’m not, aren’t you laughing???

Ricca fucking falls down with the generator and Clementine jumps down after her.

While down in the pit, they’re attacked by walkers. Turns out the twins weren’t entirely truthful about there being no walkers up here. Ricca breaks her glasses, Clem breaks her prosthetic [which we learn she named Kenny UGH] and Ricca dumps her backstory which I’ll get into during her section.

Ricca then climbs back up and promises to come back, we get a flashback of AJ about to cut Clementine’s leg off? for some reason? and then she starts exploring the cave for a way out... only to be overwhelmed by walkers and then saved by this random dude named Tim who comes out of nowhere.

Tim gets bit, or scratched...? I don’t know, you can’t tell what the fuck is going on during the part. He says it’s just a scratch on the cheek but I thought you only turned if you were bit? Or is it a bite and Tim’s trying to downplay it? I don’t fucking know.

Clementine feels super bad that he’s gonna die because of her. They have a heart to heart, and it’s one of the better parts of this book. Tim talks about how he lost his husband at the start of all this, how he actually used to look after the twins [whose names are revealed to be Olivia and Georgie- correction, her name is GeorgIA, not GeorgIE, but characters just call her one or the other and it gets confusing] and how this whole building houses thing is for their sick mother. Clementine opens up about how she can still feel ghost pains in her leg and how she ended up alone- every group was the same, they fell apart, so she wanted to come up north to live alone.

“I can’t... I can’t do this. I can’t keep watching people die. That’s why I wanted to be alone.”

Tim gives her some encouragement about building a better world and lets her to go, she does, and then she reunites with Ricca. Yay.

Back at the base, Clementine tells the twins what happened and they’re freaked out because Tim’s alive. They interrogate her about him, and Right runs outta there to go find him... Left tries to stop her, and it turns to violence.

With Right gone, Left is super sad, and Ricca is super sad that Clementine didn’t tell her about Tim after they were reunited and then outta nowhere just, “I don’t need a girlfriend or to know all your secrets, just... God, I sound stupid. Just... next time you meet a stranger in a cave, a heads up might be nice.”

Feel that romantic tension?

Speaking of romantic tension, Left asks Amos to come behind the curtain to her area, and Amos is like “Can I get you something?”..... and then Clementine’s hears a gasp from behind the curtain and Ricca is like “let them have their fun.”

So apparently Amos and Left were fooling around... remember when Amos said Left had brighter eyes? I guess that was foreshadowing all the smoochin’ they were gonna do in the background? I dunno. I’m surprised Amos would be chill with foolin’ around, and Left just got into a fight with her sister which I don’t imagine is a mood setter.

Right comes back in the middle of the night covered in blood. I believe we’re assuming she found and killed Tim, who was a walker... maybe? She later mentions that Tim told her something sooo did she kill him when he was still alive? Maybe. Who knows? We never find out for sure.

Oh, and Amos was sleeping behind the curtain with Left.... Keep that in mind.

The next morning Amos fixes up Clementine’s leg, and Clementine asks for the whole story behind him and Left, who he calls Olivia... meaning she told him her real name. But Clementine asks him if he wants to take a walk when night falls because they haven’t gotten to spend much time together, to which Amos tells her, “That would be delightful, Clementine.”

Can I just- Clementine, why don’t you ever ask to spend alone time with Ricca? That’s a serious question, why? I’m seriously truly to feel something with Clementine and Ricca but all I can say is she has better chemistry with Amos.... Tillie, I don’t understand, you write wlw and you’ve done it well before, why is this so... full of nothing?

Anyway, Right is being pissy, and Left tells Clementine that she’s going to leave with Amos once they’re all done here. She wants to go back to his town, but her sister can’t know...... because of course not. I’m sure nothing bad will happen because of this.

Right comes in even more pissed off because Amos is gone and so is the snowmobile. Turns out he took the generator [which Left fixed after it was broken in the fall] to save this “screwed up camp,” as Clementine puts it.

And Right goes, “there’s a storm coming in, he’ll never make it... but at least it’ll be one less mouth to feed.”

RED FLAG #8 HELLO??

The storm hits, and Right just stands outside like a brooding, suspicious asshole who refuses to come in. Left then explains that they’re here building houses because of her mother. Her mother grew up in the area and thought this would be the perfect spot to rebuild when the world went to shit. She kept them alive, so the twins feel like they owe her, especially since she’s sick.

Which.... okay? But also what? Like alright, jumping ahead a bit, we do get to see the mother and the place they’re staying in and it’s huge, AND there are people.... why is it just the twins doing this shit? Tim fucking dipped out last winter so why are the twins here? Do they think building houses will make their sick mother magically better? Spoiler alert, it will not!

This whole part doesn’t make sense.

But then RICCA decides to go out looking for Amos, and tells Clementine to stay behind because she doesn’t want to leave Left alone with Right....

But then fucking CLEMENTINE goes out by herself to look for both of them, all while thinking about Ricca and Amos and the nights they spent reading together.

But guess what? You’ll never guess- Amos and Ricca are alive and he did it, Amos got the lift to work! He crashed the snowmobile, but that’s okay! The other lift works now! They rush to bring the twins the good news, everything is happy!

And then Right pushes Amos off a cliff.

...............................Yep.

This is where the story takes a nose dive into shit- Amos is killed because Right found out about Left’s plan to leave with him... apparently?? Left is sobbing on the ground, Right fucking stomps on her back and tells her to shut up, and then pulls out her gun on Clementine and Ricca, who run away.

Are you laughing? because I’m not.

What was the fucking plan, you moron??? “Oh step one, push Amos to his death in front of everyone. Step two, break my sister’s back. Step three, fucking shoot Clem and Ricca. Step four, ??????” It doesn’t make sense.

Up until this point, I was fine. It wasn’t great by any means, the plot is kinda dumb with them building houses in extreme weather, everything with the generator was dumb..... Right’s always been an asshole, but now she’s decided to be evil.

The story just killed off its best character out of nowhere. It feels very “we have to kill someone off, and Tim wasn’t enough, we have to kill off a likable character so that the reader is sad.”

And like... I can’t even say it wasn’t foreshadowed? because right from the start, you know Right is a bitch. You know she’s an asshole, much more so than Left. Then Left starts smooching Amos and asks Clementine not to tell Right? C’mon... even though we get no indication that she knows about Left’s plan to leave with him. Maybe she saw him peeking from behind the curtain where she knows her sister sleeps and figured out they were smoochin’? I don’t know, I really wish things were actually clear in this damn thing.

So yeah, Right decides murder is a good idea because she won’t let anyone take her sister away... I feel like I’ve seen something similar to this before.

We get another Lee flashback, and now Ricca and Clementine are crying. Ricca wants to go looking for him, but Clementine tells her there’s no way Amos survived that fall.... even though he probably could have, we never see his body so I dunno if this is Tillie leaving things open for him to come back or if she didn’t want to show his body to all the middle graders reading this but this is TWD... no body? they can always come back.

Clementine and Ricca decide they can’t just ditch the mountain yet, they have to save Left from Right- oh excuse me, Olivia... they have to save Olivia from Georgia.

So they sit outside of camp and wait for sundown... but here is where I get even more pissed than I was before: Clementine explains why she left Ericson.

“I spent so many years trying to find somewhere safe. And I did. This old school. There were good people there. People I loved. But after I lost my leg, everything felt different. No one said it, but I could feel it- they thought I was a liability. But I think the real issue... was that I couldn’t talk to any of them about it. They were all around my age, and I... I just wanted to talk to Lee about it. Someone older, and... I don’t know...”

“Lee?”

“He, um, was with me in the beginning. Took care of me, as long as he could. After leaving the school, I was alone, like I was when he first found me. And I realized... I was waiting for him. For Lee to come find me. And I was so pissed at him for not trying harder, which doesn’t make any sense, he’s dead... When I was on my own, it was nice for a while. I was so focused, my mind got quiet... I got so sad I would just cry for days, and then I’d get scared... about what my future would be like. That maybe this sadness would never go away.”

“Has it?”

“Honestly? No... not really.”

................I just-

I thought Clementine left because she wasn’t happy? That’s what she told AJ in Clementine Lives, so what? “Well actually, I really left because everyone at Ericson thought I was a liability and I just wanted to talk to Lee again but he’s dead and I’m pissed at him for being dead and not trying hard enough to save me again.”

This “reveal” is so... bad. It’s bad, I don’t like it one bit because I actually played TFS... more than once. I’ve played it several times, I’ve streamed it about what? Four or five times? Shit, maybe more? I know the story, I know the characters, I know Clementine.

You’re gonna look me in my big dumb face and try to convince me that Louis and Violet looked at Clementine like she was a liability? After everything she did for them? After all they went through? Clementine didn’t feel like she could talk to them about how she was feeling? That they didn’t care enough to reach out to her?

I don’t believe you.

I think you’re full of shit.

I’ll rant about this more in Clementine’s section. We gotta move on because believe it or not, we have even more bullshit to cover.

ANYWAY.... Georgia has Olivia gagged and tied up so she can’t escape.... I just, what is the plan?? What does she expect to happen??

Clementine and Ricca trick her into coming outside and-

Clementine gets her with the hatchet, but Georgia has a gun up her sleeve and shoots Ricca. The gunshots cause an avalanche. The place is covered in snow, Ricca and Olivia are *not* okay, and Georgie is just spouting cheesy villain lines about leaving Clementine’s body on the mountain.

Oh, and she starts trying to guilt Olivia with the whole “Everything I did was for you! I’ve always protected you! He was going to take you away from me! Tim told me not to let you go!”

...Again, I feel like this is very familiar.... hmmmmm....

“You’ve never loved anyone, Clementine, I can see it. You have no idea... how far I’ll go... what I’ll do...”

No seriously, why do I feel like there was another, much better written twin character behaving like this.....? hmmmmmm....

Anyway, Georgia gets bit by a walker while trapped in the snow, and Clementine FINALLY says something I agree with:

“Out of everyone in this world that your sister could’ve picked... you were so lucky it was Amos.”

Georgia and Olivia say their goodbyes, Ricca calls Clementine “baby,” and they drag her outta there.

Now it’s just Clementine, Ricca, and Olivia left. The three of them travel to the lift and get off this damn mountain. They get the bullet outta Ricca when Clementine hears a noise outside. She follows it and finds a one-eyed kitten alone under some junk... because sure. They name the kitten Dr. Barnwell.

I can’t wait for that kitten to be tragically killed off for dramatic effect later in the series. To be fair to Tillie, she couldn’t possibly write an beloved pet death as bad as Rueben’s in MCSM.

Now the plan is to get back to Olivia’s place, sneak past her mother, and steal the plane. Reasonable, yes? Planes are easy to steal, and easy to fly, too!

Ricca also mentions that Clementine talks in her sleep, but won’t tell her what she says until they’re in the sky.

They finally make it there, sneak in, Olivia tells her mother she’s sorry before slipping a note under the door, they run around and knock some guards out, and it’s revealed that Olivia’s mother is a walker.

I think.

The art is too sloppy to fully tell but I think that’s the big reveal.

So... did they know that the whole time? This is what they meant when they said she’s sick? or was she sick before and then died during this time so they have no idea? Ugghhh I don’t know.

They find the plane that Olivia just happens to know how to fly thanks to her uncle teaching her, they take off into the sky, and they plan to go back to Vermont so they can fly over and “let’s show Amos the plane one more time.”

Oh, and that note Olivia left?

The FUCKING END.

That’s it, that’s everything that happened in Clementine Book One. I can’t believe I’ve read this time nine times, holy shit-

The Art Style: I have no idea what’s happening

I struggled with this art style.

Remember how I said Tillie’s a talented artist? She is, she truly is... when it’s her original works and she’s allowed to play with color and doesn’t haven’t to be gritty to fit the TWD aesthetic. Her original stuff is so clean and you can actually see what’s happening.

Some examples:

and I get it, her style won’t be for everyone, and that’s fine. I happen to really like it.... but not when it feels like she’s trying to implement elements of TWD grit while also working in greyscale.

Tillie’s style doesn’t lend itself well to this story. Maybe it would if there weren’t such restrictions put on her by Skybound because I’m sure they gave her a bunch.... but this ain’t it, chief.

As I talked about before, trying to tell the twins apart in this was a nightmare. Olivia has a ponytail, Georgia doesn’t.... but when this is so messy and at times sloppy I can’t tell shit about the hair.

There’s also the fact that if you removed Ricca’s glasses, she would look exactly like the twins. Clementine and Amos are the only two of the five who you can always recognize.

Rabby has a good design, and so does Tim... but they aren’t around enough. The walkers- oh god, the walkers- look like blobs most of the time.

And don’t even get my started on Clementine’s face.

I can’t with Clementine’s face.

Clementine: there’s a reason fans are calling her “Tangerine”

This section of the review is the most overwhelming for me because where do I even begin?

There is never a point in this book where I feel like this is the Clementine I remember from the games. And y’know, I always like to remind everyone who plays the games that no Clementine is the same. We all play the games our way, she shape our Clementine through the choices we make, we have different interpretations of her personality, relationships, how she rationalizes her decisions. My Clementine is different than yours, that’s the fun of these games.

When you take a character who has thousands of different interpretations, who can follow several different paths, and try to make her into a condensed version for a graphic novel while also trying to stay true to her character and not invalidate any choices.... it’s not going to work. It’s just not.

So how does Tillie Walden interpret Clementine for this first installment? Who is Clementine here?

She’s dull. Awkward. Angsty. Feels more in line with ANF Clementine than TFS Clementine but toned down. She has a few moments where she teases Amos and Ricca and that’s cute, that’s some personality I want to see... but then she starts on about how talking is hard or makes a rude comment so... that’s cool.

She feels dumbed down when it comes to first aid solely because the book needs a way to inform the reader of proper amputation care... even though we never see Clementine washing her leg after that.

She’s pessimistic, grumpy, and again, only really shows a soft spot for Amos... which is not good news for Ricca, her actual love interest. Even when she opens up to Ricca after Amos’ death, it doesn’t feel... earned? warm? It doesn’t feel tender, or comforting.... ugh, I’ll talk more in the romance portion.

Clementine does get emotional after Amos’ death, she cries and explains why she left Ericson and I’m still shaking my head at the fact that this book is trying to sell this to me.

This would be an emotional moment if it were coming from anyone BUT CLEMENTINE.... I played TFS and this doesn’t add up.

Clementine wasn’t happy at the end of TFS, everyone around her looked at her like she was a liability, so she left. She left AJ.

Except no? What are you talking about?

Oh, and by the way? She never mentions AJ to anyone. Not by name, not in passing, nothing. AJ get a single panel flashing back to when he cut her leg off. That’s it.

Also look at the way he’s drawn. Someone who never played the games would probably think AJ was a baddie who cut off her leg but you and I both know how fucking raw and painful it was for AJ to beg her to get up and come with him. That one lousy image holds nothing from the original.

AJ might as well not exist. If you took that panel out, nothing would change. Honestly? I almost get a bit of bitterness from it. She goes on and on about how she realized she was going to live while everyone around her kept dying, she would spend some days just crying and crying.... it’s not great.

Clementine feels... immature? And yeah, she’s seventeen in this and seventeen-year-olds aren’t the pinnacle of maturity. I feel like Tillie was trying to present her as mature for her age given her life experience in the apocalypse, but it comes off as emo teenager who thinks they’re mature because they write faux deep poetry on tumblr and wear combat boots.

This isn’t like Clementine in TFS where you do feel she’s mature. She has to be, she has a child she’s raising and protecting. She has to be strong and smart for him. She has to be the adult in their relationship... but she has those moments of vulnerability to remind you that she’s not an adult, she’s a teenager who was forced to grow up too fast and it hurts.

In ep4 of TFS, when they’re in the caves after getting separated from the group, she and AJ get into an argument. She tells him that he’s just a child, and he throws it right back at her- “So are you.” and you can see it on her face... y’know?

You want her to be happy, you want to give back the childhood that was taken from her at the start of the apocalypse, you want her to overcome every obstacle thrown her way. You understand her feelings about Lee, why he meant so much to her and why she struggled to let him go even after accepting that he was dead.

You remember that she is a teenager who makes mistakes, she doesn’t know everything, she fucks up. She’s doing everything she can to protect those she loves. You feel that she wouldn’t hesitate to give her life for the little boy she raised. She still has a lot of growing to do but you don’t doubt that she’s gonna do it.

This Clementine? She has none of that. This Clementine doesn’t feel like the kind of person who could raise and protect a child, who would give her life to ensure that child was safe. You don’t get the vibe of a teen who had to grow up too fast in order to survive, someone who is clever in their survival tactics. This Clementine doesn’t know basic first aid. She was mad that Lee didn’t save her despite being dead. This is a Clementine that I can’t imagine breaking onto a boat full of kidnappers to get her friends back... and it’s not the amputation.

TFS Clementine, amputation or not, she would’ve charged that damn boat herself if it meant saving those she loved. Comic Clementine couldn’t even be bothered to check and make sure Amos really was dead, it’s just easier to assume there was no way he survived... but then she turns around and insists they go back for Olivia, a character she has no real connection with. It doesn’t make sense.

It’s just.... not her. I’m sorry, Tillie, but this characterization is okay at best, insulting at worst.

Amos: I’m signing the adoption papers as we speak, he’s my son now

Amos is the best character in this book, and I’ve yet to find anyone who would disagree with that. Every review I’ve read/watched boils down to “this comic was bad but I liked Amos.”

Let’s be real- he was only made so likable so that we’d all be forced to feel something when he died.

Before I get more into his character, I wanna nip something in the butt that I keep seeing even after this book’s release- Amos isn’t just white Louis. Amos isn’t a “hey can I copy your homework” of Louis’ character. The most they have in common is freckles and being the friendliest person in the group.

A key difference being Louis uses cheerfulness as a shield to keep people at a safe distance from him where Amos is just genuinely cheerful in a very naïve and selfless way.

Or uhh, @pi-creates put it much better when we were talking about it-

So no, Amos isn’t just a rehash of Louis, you can stop calling him the white Louis of the comic now, you’re only making it clear that you know nothing about Louis as a character when you do that. As much as I like Amos, he isn’t anywhere near as nuanced and layered as Louis is soooo stop.

Anyway, Amos! My dude! The only character I liked! The only character with an interesting personality, motivation, and a set goal he worked his ass off for.... only to fucking die.

Of all the characters to die in this damn thing, it would be Amos, wouldn’t it? Ugh.

Amos grew up in an Amish community his entire life. When a man, presumably Tim, showed up to recruit workers to help build houses, Amos got to see the promised plane fly over his head and he describes it as the best day of his life.

So, he worked to convince the council to allow him to go on his Rumspringa, they agreed, and here he is on the road. He fights with an axe, he owns 16 shirts, love his horse, and wears a fun hat. Overall positive, glass half full kinda guy.

He wants to help people. It’s mentioned by the townspeople that he brings survivors there often, he saves that group of people while he and Clementine are on the road and even goes as far as to leave his carriage with them to go after Clementine and stay with her.

Amos trusts Clementine enough to leave Helen with her even though they’ve only known each other for only a week, but through the “montage” page you really get a vibe for how well they work together. I wish it wasn’t just a spread of moments but instead gave actual depth to their journey through dialogue, y’know?

He finds Clementine funny [good for him, I wish I did, as well] and likes being around her. Also they share some looks that I feel should’ve been reserved for the love interest.... sooooo what the hell.

When they meet the twins, Amos is quick to be like, “well actually no-” when they start talking about her being a liability for having only one leg, which was sweet.

I felt so bad for him when Olivia just fucking shot his horse, too... he’s so upset and Clementine’s trying to calm him down, really sucks.

Oh speaking of Olivia.... their “romance” makes no sense? There wasn’t any build up to it, the only hint we got that he maybe liked her was the comment about her having brighter eyes than Georgia, and her sticking with him when he was sick... but then she asks him to come behind the curtain with her, there’s a gasp, and I assume they were doin’ kissing stuff. Like... why? Why even bother? Unless you needed an excuse for Georgia to murder him? You couldn’t think of a better way to kill him off? So dumb.

He’s not all that complex or anything, just an all around good dude. His biggest flaws are his naivety and being too trusting of the wrong people [Georgia]. I mean.... he just wanted to fly in a plane. He wanted to help people, work hard, and fly in a plane. It’s hard to dislike him for that.

When Amos died, it was the first time while reading this that I felt something other than “eh this is fine.” I’m still annoyed, pissed even. His death ruined a lot. It marked the start of a steep decline toward the ending. So much bullshit, and for what, y’know?

In conclusion- Amos makes up an entire star of my rating, the only one worth reading this book for, and he’s supposedly dead now so that doesn’t bode well for Book Two. The only way I’ll forgive Tillie is if Amos comes back as a twist villain, angry that they didn’t even try to go after him.

Ricca: wearing glasses doesn’t qualify as an entire personality, baby

Oh good, I get to talk about Glasses now....

Ricca is... fine. She’s not terrible, but not great. I feel like she had the foundation to be a cool character, but a lot about her falls flat. Her best moments are when she’s with both Clementine and Amos, but things become a little more awkward when it’s just her and Clementine.

She’s a smoker, she’s Jewish, she owns 36 pairs of glasses, has a drier sense of humor that works well with Amos, those two have a couple cute moments in this... uhhh let’s see, she threw a snowball at Clementine once, who overreacted and attacked her which prompted Amos to get between them and Ricca was like “whaaa don’t stop, I was just having fun,” so y’know.... flirting, I guess.

She does come off as a bit whiney sometimes, which gets grating... especially when she gets butthurt at Clementine for stuff and then tries to act like “but whatever” about it.

The reason she’s here is to learn how to build houses. That’s why she agreed to work out there, she wants to have the skills to start over, to rebuild what has decayed.

But her big backstory reveal has to do with why she owns 36 pairs of glasses-

At the start of the outbreak, Ricca was with her brother. He looked out for her at first, but as time went on, he started using her as a “canary in a coal mine.” Basically whenever there was any potential danger ahead of them or if he got bored, he’d push her in to things like camps, caves, herds. She was just a little kid, and there was no where else for her to go... but then she got older, and when he sensed that she was going to leave him, he broke her glasses.

Ricca had no way of surviving without him after that. She had no choice but to fight mostly blind and deal with her brother. It got to the point where she started wishing for death.... until she was out looking for food one day in a dark building and felt an entire wall of glasses-

-but I’m gonna ignore that for right now. She tried on every single pair, found one that worked, and then ditched him. She has no idea if he’s still alive or not. Wonder if he’ll come back as a surprise villain, who knows.

Sooo... glasses are a big part of her character, which is fine. I like seeing characters with glasses, personally. There’s also an uncomfortable feeling seeing her talk about her brother and describing how she felt when she got to see clearly again only for the world to be so disgusting that she was sick for weeks.

Unfortunately that’s about as deep as her character goes and I wanted more.

She does want to go after Amos after he dies, which I appreciate, but Clementine tells her no. She gets shot, so that sucks for her.

For being Clementine’s new love interest, and the fact that this is Tillie Walden’s work we’re reading, I expected her to be waaaaay more compelling but she didn’t hit to mark.

But to be fair, she’s going to be in Book Two so I’m assuming that with Amos dead until he comes back as a twist villain we’ll get to focus on her some more and her personality will shine a bit.

Olivia: the left twin

Olivia is bland.

A block of raw tofu has more meat than Olivia does.

I have read this fucking book NINE times now, and the only thing I can tell you about Olivia is that she’s the “nice” twin, she did some smoochin’ with Amos in the background, and she’s super sad that her sister’s an asshole.

Oh and she shot Helen without asking if they brought the horse for food or not, and then is like “oop sorry, I didn’t know, but it’s cool, I get it, my sister ate our hamster when this started.”

If I was Amos, I’d tell her to the hell away from me, you shot my beloved pet! and I certainly wouldn’t let her be smoochin’ on me!

Anyway, she knows how to fly a plane, which upon looking back through the book, it turns out it was her uncle that taught her... so that’s cool. She’s the one who named the kitten, she... gets sad a lot?

I’m sorry, but Olivia is so forgettable and it sucks. I want to be invested in these twins because they clearly have a troubled relationship, and Georgia steps all over her [sometimes physically] and it could’ve been interesting to see her deal with the conflict of staying vs leaving her sister..... kinda like the dilemma Ricca had with her brother..... were those supposed to be connected somehow....? parallels...? hhhnnnnngggggggg thinking too much into it-

ANYWAY... I honestly don’t have much to say about her. Maybe Book two will give her more characterization, but at this point the pothole in my driveway has more depth than she does so... lame.

Georgia: the right “evil” twin

Ugh.

Alright, no more beating around the bush, Georgia is a watered down version of Minerva... but where Minerva is a great, tragic character with good writing... Georgia sucks.

AND she killed off the best character in the book so she sucks extra hard! Oh my god, she fucking sucks.

Like okay, the twins are here to build a community for their sick mother because the mom thinks this would be the perfect spot so they’re gonna build some goddamn houses in the middle of winter for her with the help of strangers... if that sounds like a dumb reason to you, then you’re right, it IS dumb but here we are. I don’t know what Georgia’s deal is, but she’s an asshole. That’s her entire character: ASSHOLE.

Right off the bat from meeting her and Olivia, you can tell she’s the baddie. You can tell where this is going, she’s going to be the one who turns on the group, maybe she’ll convince Olivia to her side and then she’s gonna try to murder everyone on this mountain called Killington.

She’s the one who tells Clementine that she won’t feed anyone who can’t pull their weight, immediately assuming Clementine can’t do shit because of her leg. She never smiles, never cracks a joke, is never kind to anyone, and apparently she’s super possessive and controlling of her sister.

Also, she’s a goddamn moron because what did she think would happen when she killed Amos?? that Olivia would just be like “oh okay sorry” after you murdered her boyfriend and then gagged and tied her up while waiting for Clementine and Ricca to come for her so that you could also shoot them??

Y’know, when Minerva confronted the group on the bridge in order to kill Tenn, it made sense- she was bitten, dying, and had pretty much lost her goddamn mind after a year of trauma and brainwashing, being forced to kill her sister, and then losing her new “family” after Clementine blew up the boat. She was furious, out of control, bitten, covered in guts and completely out of her goddamn mind. There was no saving her from the start, and she had nothing left to lose.

Georgia’s just an asshole who doesn’t give us any real indication that she’s dangerous. She’s all talk and glares... then she comes back covered in blood after finding Tim soooo are we to assume that’s when she lost it? When she was like “I think killing Amos will make everything better,” or was it a sporadic, in the moment decision?

In fact, why wasn’t she the one to shoot Helen then?? Why did you have Olivia, who is supposed to be a thing with Amos later, when you could’ve really established Georgia as the real threat when she shoots the horse and is like, “too bad, so sad” and then have Olivia come in and calm the situation?

Establish that she’s possessive of Olivia early on, not when she’s two seconds from death and spouting, “He was gonna take you away from me! I had to kill him! I did it all for you!” nonsense...

There’s just so many little things that could’ve been tweaked or added to make her a better antagonist, but no, we’re left with nothing with irritation.

God, Joan from ANF was a more layered villain than this and she was boring as hell.... ugh.

Tim: where did he come from?? where did he go?? where did he come from, Cotton-Eye Joe???

Tim’s pretty chill, but a waste of a character.

He comes outta nowhere to save Clementine and gets bit in the process, but he’s fine with it because it was bound to happen sooner or later, and at least he saved Clementine.

There isn’t too much to say about Tim that I haven’t already said. The scene with him was pretty good, but he’s not around enough to feel like an actual character. He’s just here to make sure Clementine feels bad that she got yet another person bit and to give some info on the twins.

But he’s dead now so... cool.

The “Romance”: if you squint hard enough, you might see it?

I don’t understand why the marketing around this book put such an emphasis on the romance aspect. Remember when the trailer dropped and we got a look at Ricca and it was like “ooohhh new love~”

What love? There is no love, there’s no chemistry, there’s no soft sad uwu wlw love story here! What the hell?? Just gonna lie to me like that, huh??

Okay look... I went into this with an open mind about Ricca. Truly, I did. You know me, you know I’m a never gonna change my mind that clouis is the best, but I took both clouis and violentine and set them aside. I put them out of mind and let myself go into this wanting to ship Clementine and Ricca. I was ready for the sad girlfriends trying to survive this bullshit together with their token straight buddy.

And then I came outta this wondering why Amos wasn’t the love interest? I mean, I know the answer to that so a better question: Tillie, why not just make Amos a girl and have Clementine fall for her instead? The foundation was set, there’s a lot of interesting things you could’ve done with that given Amos being Amish and all. They had a solid thing going on and the only reason I knew they weren’t going to end up together was because it was written by Tillie Walden, a queer woman who writes wlw.

So I’m baffled at everything lacking between Clementine and Ricca! I mean, Tillie could be saving the meat of the romance for the next installments which fine, if that’s the case then I will happily keep an open mind and see if this relationship improves since right now? This ain’t it, chief.

Lemme give you an example of something that could’ve been sweet, m’kay? After they have the generator fixed, Clementine asks Ricca why she always leans in so close to her.

Ricca begins to explain that everything has started getting blurry... meaning her eyesight is getting worse and all these glasses she owns may not work for long. A scary thought, especially when you factor in her backstory with her brother.

This feels like a set up for soft moment, something I wanted to see more of... only for it to be rudely interrupted by Amos being murdered.

Like.... C’moooooon maaaaan...

UGH

There’s no warm fuzzy feelings here, and the only time I went, “they could be cute if it could get me invested” was the ending where Ricca is clinging to Clementine as Olivia boots up the plane and starts flying.... but even then, that moment is cut short because Clementine has to be all, “let’s show Amos the plane one more time.”

They don’t kiss here, either. There isn’t a first kiss moment, there isn’t a confession scene, there isn’t even an admission of feelings on either side. Ricca calls her “baby” and now I guess they’re something?

“Clementine, baby, don’t let me die here~”

Ugh. Do you know what I think of when I hear the words “Clementine” and “baby” in the same sentence? I think of the voicemail Clementine’s mother left in ep1 of S1: “Clementine, baby, if you can hear this, call the police... it’s 9-1-1... and we love you... we love you...”

So excuse me if I don’t have a great response to that.

Anyway, maybe it’ll improve with the next book which shouldn’t be too hard given all the nothing this book gave.

The Lee Flashbacks/Nightmares: hey, remember season one? remember Lee? remember when Lee died and Clem was sad? do you remember??

Uuuuggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

To their credit, these flashbacks are pretty loyal to the games as far as dialogue and setting, but the main point of them is for fans of the games to read this and be like “ohhh I remember Lee, he sparks joy!” and for new readers to have a face to a name when Clementine talks about him to Ricca.

But they don’t do much to improve the story. The only time I appreciated how one tied into the story was when Clementine watched Amos fall. We see her and Lee on the train, and we get this dialogue:

“Ask me anything, Clementine.”

“Will the pain ever stop?”

because yeah... watching Amos die was pretty damn painful, ties in well.

But other than that? Meh... which is crazy to say about LEE but that’s the comic for ya.

Final Thoughts: I can’t believe I read this 9 times

What’s that thing called when you keep repeating a thing hoping it’ll be different but never is? Madness? Is that what I’m feeling right now?

9 times, good god....

It wasn’t worth reading that many times and yet, here I am, a mad lass dissecting a comic I don’t like that remains unfaithful to a character I love. I watched and read so many interviews with Tillie, I kept tabs on reddit threads about this book, I pestered my discord buddies about it... can’t wait to do this two more times...

In the end, this book isn’t good. I like a couple things, but the good doesn’t outweigh the bad. It’s definitely not canon with the games, no matter how hard Skybound whines that it is.

I can’t recommend it to any of you. If you’re gonna read it, you can find the whole thing for free on youtube. If you wanna support Tillie Walden without supporting this series, check out her other works. I’d recommend On a Sunbeam or Spinning.

btw did y’all hear they released the description of Book Two?

“Clementine and her new friends are rescued by an island community led by an enigmatic doctor called Miss Morro, but just as Clementine's scars are finally beginning to heal, she discovers dark secrets that threaten to tear her new life apart. Can Miss Morro be trusted? What about the rest of the islanders? And just how far will Clementine go to protect the ones she loves? Tilllie Walden's acclaimed trilogy continues! ”

I dunno how I’m gonna survive Book Two if I don’t even have Amos to look forward to..... guess Tillie’s just gonna have to make me like Ricca, huh?

I also need to keep in mind that this IS a trilogy, so questions I have now and am annoyed about may get answered in the next book, Olivia might go from being stale white bread to a wonderful slick of cinnamon and raisin bread, and the romance may start existing... won’t know until June.

No wait, excuse me, October... they’ve already pushed the release date later for the next one soooo that’s interesting.

This is the part where I ask what you thought. What are your thoughts on Clementine Book One? I’m curious to know. Send an ask or leave a comment on this review. I know this was long but hey, thanks for sticking around to the end, it’s appreciated.

Thanks for reading! 💚

#Clementine Book One Review #twdg clementine #twdg aj #twdg lee #twdg louis #twdg violet #twdg #twdg kenny #long post

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mcsm-rewrite-project · 10 months

Text

What is the MCSM Rewrite Project?

It's exactly what it sounds like!

I'm making what is essentially a new version of Minecraft Story Mode. The characters will be reimagined, keeping core elements alive, but making them overall... better. I believe the original MCSM had a lot of potential, but fell flat in execution. I am attempting to rectify that, more or less, but in book format.

The Important Bit

I'm posting this on tumblr just to sort of say "Hey, I'm making this thing. I think it's really cool, and any ideas would be appreciated." So, that's that! I'm looking for some ideas. Specifically ideas for episodes 6-8.

Things I have planned and established already:

Jesse is nonbinary. It makes sense considering I'm adapting a game to a book.

The main cast are actually competent. Because there's no reason for them to act like they've never existed in this world when they've been here for forever?

Servers exist. This is most important for the second arc (Eps 5-8). I've got some information established regarding servers, but basically all that I'll say here is that they vary in game mode, how many people live there, server operators, and some of them may even be modded.

About episode six... No, I'm not doing the YouTuber cameo thing. I am using original characters for this part of the arc, specifically mine and some friends'.

What about season two? I haven't officially decided if I'm doing anything for the second season. I probably will. But for right now most of my focus is on season one. That being said, I have done some thinking on it thanks to my good friend. We'll see where it goes.

Also, custom skins are going to be a thing. Not nearly enough completely inhuman characters in this game. I've even got it planned how they create these custom skins as well.

The big threat is also different. So I sort of replaced the Wither Storm as well. The new threat is a respawned Ender Dragon, except it's much stronger and also much larger. It also tunnels the way dragons do in the actual game.

If you hadn't figured by Jesse being non-binary, this book will be very queer! I am planning to also make Jesskas (Jesse x Lukas) canon. Sorry, Jetra fans!

I think that's all the important information that I'll be putting in the pinned post here. So that being said, feel free to send me any questions, or ideas for this.

Thanks for reading and taking interest! I'd love to hear quite literally any ideas or concepts anyone may or may not have. Please, I don't bite!

I'm posting the rewrite to both AO3 and Wattpad in hopes of reaching a wider audience. I also know some people may have a preference for either site. Here's the AO3 link, and here is the Wattpad link.

#minecraft story mode #minecraft #writing #crypt's mcsm rewrite project #mcsm

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noromantichero · 3 months

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putting it on this blog but i'm finally at a point in my big fic where the reader could stop reading & be mostly satisfied with that ending. i think it's a really important point to get to tbh; where the reader is no longer obligated to carry on reading BUT the point is to make sure they still do!!

my one example of this is for an mcsm fic called cottfo -- after ch50, you could reasonably just Stop reading & that'd be the end of the story. that's good, because even though you got everything you wanted, the rest of the extra like hundred chapters are available & REALLY good too!

im super excited to get to that point in my fic. you could just walk away after ch15, but it's also a case of why would you? the point is also to leave many threads untied; yes both protagonists have found something happy for themselves, but wouldn't you want to see more of it anyway? their challenges won yet also there are other challenges in the future!!! im just so proud of myself :")... i began writing in august last year, & though i haven't made all the progress i wanted to, i have made good enough progress that i can be happy with it. even if it's just a fanfiction. it gives me a lot of motivation for another fic (oddport oc story? is it Truly a fic) & my original pieces of fiction writing too.

so maybe when i'm finished with it, i can finally find myself the real motivation for my stuff. like "kris you've done this before!!! you're the real deal & can write a Full Novel Length Book because you did it with fanfiction & you've complete D&D campaigns!!!!!!"

but yeah. that's it. just kris reaching a point which means they're proud of themself for making it so far. couldn't have imagined it.

#drabbles from kris

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noitsbecky127 · 1 year

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I posted 1,498 times in 2022

82 posts created (5%)

1,416 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@peterdyckmancampbell

@puttingherinhistory

@tikkunolamorgtfo

@liberalsarecool

@evilwickedme

I tagged 449 of my posts in 2022

#grishaverse - 64 posts

#soc - 56 posts

#rwby - 45 posts

#liveblogging - 44 posts

#star trek liveblog - 41 posts

#star trek - 40 posts

#star trek tos - 38 posts

#star trek the original series - 37 posts

#tos - 36 posts

#star trek the original series liveblog - 26 posts

Longest Tag: 120 characters

#sometimes when i’m looking at fandom posts i like to imagine how they look to someone who knows nothing about the fandom

My Top Posts in 2022:

guys I’m getting the urge to write an mcsm fanfic in the year 2022 please talk me out of this

43 notes - Posted June 2, 2022

I just realized we don’t know Ilia’s Semblance

62 notes - Posted May 3, 2022

on the subject of dr strange I would like to say I support women’s rights and women’s wrongs

287 notes - Posted May 10, 2022

we all talk about how wylan directly asked his crush if he liked guys, but I feel like we need to also acknowledge that he asked this after said crush had spent the entire book flirting with him

703 notes - Posted November 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

in this post I will attempt to summon haiku bot. come find me friend

795 notes - Posted April 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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mcsmseason3 · 4 years

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MCSM Origins Book I: The Trade, the Gem, & the Storm - Part 1

Summary:

Several years later, Jesse and her best pal Reuben support their friend Petra in a trade with Ivor and Emerl - a wither skull in exchange for a diamond. However, the trio are conned when they receive an odd lapis necklace instead, and Jesse quickly learns that it’s no ordinary necklace either...

Previous Chapter: Here

Next Chapter: Coming Soon…

A Few Years Later…

‘…wh…what happened…? I can barely remember anything…I can’t see anything. Where am I…? …I remember…Emerl…I was stopping her from doing…something…we were in the Nether…she was making…something…we fought and…I was poofed…why did she poof me…why can’t I reform…? Something’s wrong…I can hear voices…what’s going on…?’

“Dark. Dark. Very dark in here.”

Two figures and a small pig snuck into an alleyway behind several brick buildings. One of the figures was a woman with long black hair with part of it dyed yellow, and dark green eyes. She wore a red and white t-shirt under light blue dungarees and brown boots.

Right by her side was a small pig with big eyes, a dark patch on his back and a black eye.

They were both following a woman with pale skin, long auburn hair and grey eyes. She wore a turquoise bandanna, a black vest, dark blue shirt, black shorts, and black boots. She also had a long black sleeve on her left arm, and a finger-less glove on her right hand.

“That’s weird – they said the dark, creepy alley close to the gates, but they’re not here.” Petra glanced around the alley with a confused expression, “Maybe they’re late.”

“Are you sure THIS is the dark, creepy alley they meant?” Jesse asked. “Hmm. I WAS.” Petra muttered before turning to face Jesse, “Okay, new plan. You stay here just in case this IS the spot they meant, and I’ll look around.” Jesse seemed a little hesitant but nodded, “Okay, I’ll hold down the fort.”

“Thanks, Jesse.” Petra smiled as she turned to leave, “I’ll be back before you know it. If they show up while I’m gone, just stall for me.”

Jesse watched as Petra left they alley. Something felt off about this ordeal, but she just pushed it to the back of her mind as her attention was grabbed by a small chest that sat in the corner of the alley. It was strange. It felt like something was drawing her to it; like something inside was calling out to her. She and Reuben slowly walked over to the chest and crouched down to open it when-

*SHINK!*

Jesse whipped around only to be met with the point of an emerald blade inches from her face. Jesse looked up from the blade at its wielder. A woman, who was silhouetted by the lights of the street outside the alley, stared daggers at Jesse with piercing yet tired emerald-green eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness of the alley. As Jesse’s eyes adjusted, she could make out short, side-swept, black hair with bright green tips and bangs that looked like it hadn’t been brushed in a long time. She wore a black and green coat with frilled sleeves and an opening in the centre that revealed a shining emerald on her chest she wore trousers and gloves that matched her coat and dark green shoes. She seemed to be in her late 40’s.

The blade she held was an emerald sword with a golden hilt, its point aimed right at Jesse. “At ease, Emerl.” A voice spoke from behind Emerl. Emerl’s eyes narrowed at Jesse in suspicion but complied, dismissing her sword and stepping to the side, allowing another figure to step forward. Ivor glared at Jesse and Reuben, “And just who are YOU?” Jesse just glanced between Ivor and Emerl in surprise for a moment. Emerl glared at Jesse as she growled, “He asked you a question, kid.”

“The name’s Jesse.” Jesse replied, breaking out of her shocked stupor before glaring back at Ivor and Emerl, “What’s it to you?”

“I’m supposed to meet with Petra,” Ivor replied with a snarky tone, “Not whatever you’re supposed to be!”

“You best give us one good reason not to walk out of here right now.” Emerl growled as her hand hovered over her gem which was glowing now, prepared to summon her sword, “Or you might not be walking out of here at all.”

Reuben let out a frightened squeal as he ducked behind Jesse’s leg. Jesse stood defensively in front of Reuben as she replied, “I’m with Petra.”

“Our deal is with her – not her partner.” Ivor replied, looking fed-up.

“She’ll be here. But we can get started without her.”

“Do you have the skull?”

Jesse’s tough act shattered as she glanced around nervously, “Uh…well…”

“You do or you don’t.” Emerl snapped, her hand still hovering over her gem with her eyes trained on Jesse. “Petra has it – and she’ll be back any minute now!” Jesse confessed. “Well.” Ivor seemed to calm down a bit, “As long as she’s bringing it…I suppose it wouldn’t kill us to wait a minute longer.” Emerl, still keeping her eyes on Jesse, removed her hand from her gem as the glow faded, leaning on the wall of the alley as Ivor folded his arms.

Everyone stood in awkward silence before Jesse broke the silence, glancing at Emerl, “So…you’re, uh…you’re a Gem, right?”

Emerl raised an eyebrow, slightly suspicious, “Yeah. How’d you guess?”

“I have a friend – well, not really a friend, more like a rival – who’s a Gem. She’s a rose quartz.”

“Hm…not many quartz Gems leave Kwartzil. She must’ve emerged here…” Emerl muttered, before addressing Jesse, “Well, Jesse, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Emerl, an emerald. I’m a bodyguard for-”

“Ivor.”

Everyone turned to see Petra walking down the alley. “Ah, here she is.” Ivor seemed a lot calmer seeing Petra arrive. “Sorry I’m late,” Petra began, “But good things are worth waiting for. I’ve got what you’ve asked for.”

“IF you have what you promised us.” Jesse added. “You didn’t say anything about an ‘us’ when we first met.” Ivor frowned, “And I don’t like surprises.”

“Ivor, if you don’t mind me saying,” Emerl began, standing up straight from her leaning position as she kept her eyes on Jesse and Petra, “If these are the kind of people Petra associates herself with…it might be in our best interest to call this little trade of ours off.”

“My friend is fine, right, Jesse?” Petra interrupted, glancing at Jesse, “There’s no problem here.”

“I’m cool if he’s cool.” Jesse replied. “Proceed then.” Ivor took a step closer as Emerl kept an eye on everyone, making sure nobody tried anything funny. Petra handed over a wither skull to Ivor, who took it and closely inspected it. Emerl seemed content and took a step back. “I’ll take that diamond now.” Petra spoke up. “Take it.” Ivor motioned with his head to the chest Jesse was inspecting prior, “You’ve earned it.”

Jesse, Petra and Reuben walked over to the chest and Petra opened it up, expecting to see a diamond. “Uh, this isn’t a diamond…” Jesse called behind her. At the bottom of the chest was a round piece of lapis lazuli with a gold trim around it. It was encased in a silver ring with green runes carved into it with a chain emerging from the top. “No, it’s lapis!” Petra growled as she glanced behind her, but Ivor and Emerl had disappeared. Jesse picked up the lapis and put it around her neck. ‘Pretty stylish, though.’ She thought to herself before getting to her feet, “Let’s go after them!” Petra, Jesse and Reuben took off running out of the alley, a determined and agitated look on Petra’s face, “I’m either getting that diamond, or I’m getting my skull back-”

“Or you’ll make them pay, right? Right?” Jesse piped up, almost looking eager to see Petra lay a smack down on Ivor and Emerl. “Come on!” Petra called behind her, dismissing Jesse’s question.

“…ugh…what’s going on…?”

Jesse jumped at the sudden voice in her head, “Huh? Petra did you say something?”

“No, why?” Petra glanced at Jesse with a confused stare. “Uh…nothing. It’s probably nothing.” Jesse replied, shaking it off as being tired from the building contest and saving Reuben. The three ran out into the streets where Endercon was taking place. “Do you see them anywhere?” Petra asked as they looked out over the sea of people. “We lost them.” Jesse sighed. “Then we’ll just have to find them again.” Petra replied, “Go!” Petra and Jesse split up, Reuben following Jesse a few feet behind as they darted off into the crowd. The two searched through the crowds of people by the stalls when…

“There he is! Gabriel!! Gabriel!!!”

A crowd of people pushed past Jesse as Gabriel the Warrior walked by with two ushers who kept the crowd at bay.

“…Gabriel..? He’s…he’s here?”

Jesse jumped as she heard the voice again. She ducked behind the back of an empty stall as she called out, “Hello? I heard your voice. Show yourself!”

“Ugh…not so loud. My head still hurts…” The voice groaned. Jesse’s eyes widened as she watched a slightly transparent, blue figure appear in front of her. She had long hair that seemed dyed in some places, and freckles on her cheeks. She wore a short-sleeved shirt over a slightly longer-sleeved shirt with matching trousers. There was a sash around her waist that was tied at the front and wore shoes with matching gloves. The symbol of the Order of the Stone was on her shirt and on her chest was a stone similar to the lapis Jesse was wearing around her neck.

Lapis held her head in pain before groggily looking at Jesse. Here eye’s widened a bit as she spotted the gem that Jesse wore around her neck. Her gaze kept switching between her own gem and Jesse’s before she eventually stopped and went, “Huh…well this is weird…definitely a first for me…”

“Uh…me too…” Jesse replied, still in shock. “Oh good!” Lapis smiled, “It’s not just me then. Then again, it’d be pretty concerning if you had gone through this before, huh?”

“Uh, yeah…” Jesse shook her head as she snapped out of her surprised state, “Sorry, but who are you?”

“Oh right!” Lapis chuckled, “I’m Lapilisia Lazul, but you can call me Lapis. And that,” Lapis motioned to the gem around Jesse’s neck, “Is my gem you’re wearing. Now this is just a hunch – plus my memory is a bit off right now – but I think I was poofed, sealed inside that necklace, and now I’m in your head because you put it on. Gem magic, am I right?” Lapis went to playfully elbow Jesse, but her elbow just phased right through her, causing Jesse to jump in surprise but Lapis just shrugged it off, “Anyhoo! What’s your name?”

“I’m Jesse.” Jesse replied, recovering from her shock. Jesse then noticed Reuben looking at her with a confused and concerned look. Lapis gasped excitedly, “Oh. My. Stars! That is the cutest pig I’ve ever seen! What’s his name?”

“Oh, that’s my best friend Reuben.” Jesse replied before turning to Reuben, “Bud, I know it looks like I’m talking to air right now, but apparently this isn’t an ordinary lapis Ivor and Emerl traded us.”

“Ivor and Emerl…” Lapis muttered as something seemed to click in her head, “Yeah…yeah I think I remember…”

“Wait, you know them?” Jesse turned back to face Lapis. “Yeah…my memory is really fuzzy right now…but I remember I used to work with them…but I got into a fight with Emerl over…something…we were in the Nether and she…yeah, that’s right!” Lapis’s eyes went wide before she pouted angrily, “She poofed me! She must’ve put me in that necklace. Of course, why didn’t I think of that?! She’s an expert in Gem arcane! Ooh, when I get out of here, she’s gonna get it! I dunno what ‘it’ is yet, but you can bet she’s gonna get ‘it’ big time!”

‘She pretty eccentric…’ Jesse thought to herself before talking to Lapis, “Well, Ivor and Emerl promised to give my friend Petra a diamond for a wither skull but traded us your gemstone instead. Wanna help us find them?”

“Well, I’m along for the ride anyway,” Lapis shrugged motioning to the necklace, “So sure!”

“Alright! Let’s go find them and get that diamond! And maybe we can get Emerl to set you free.”

“Win-win! I love it! Let’s do this thing!”

To Be Continued…

#mcsm #mcsm origins #mcsm origins book I #minecraft story mode #minecraft #lapis lazul #mcsm jesse #mcsm reuben #mcsm Petra #emerl verdyk #mcsm ivor

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poppies-to-potions · 3 years

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some designs for the original Order of the Stone! made these for an animatic i’m planning that may or may not see the light of day lol. i still had a lot of fun figuring out how to draw them! i really wish we had some more moments of all 5 of them together in the game. i still don’t know how old i’d want them to be because the way the describe the order as an ancient legend is so weird?

i’ve been hyperfixating pretty hard on mcsm lately, it’s a really big source of comfort atm. i hope that it’s okay with you guys if i continue to draw it <3

a few small notes/ headcannons under the cut i guess? may update as i think of more

heights wise (tallest to shortest) It’s Ivor, Gabriel, Ellegaard, Soren, Magnus

i actually headcannon Ivor as the original leader of the Order! That’s why him leaving caused so much trouble within the group. Soren took over after Ivor left but the group continued to struggle and eventually disbanded

Ivor’s title from the Order is Ivor the Alchemist :)

Ivor has scars from the Wither Storm from when he first spawned it, but he healed himself before he could catch the sickness

Ivor still suffers really bad survivor’s guilt/ ptsd from the Wither Storm

Soren being an Old Builder is why his books show up in every other world

Soren is the one who designed the Order’s temple.

Gabriel’s outfit in the last image is completely fan made by me because he only ever wears his armor in the game? so i gave him some form of semi formal casualwear to match with the rest of the order

the last image is also how i imagine him looking with the withersickness, he still has scars from it and sometimes still has moments of memory loss

Ellegaard is 100% the brains of the group, she’s also the most mature

Ellegaard and Magnus may have had a relationship at one point but no one knows for sure, this may be the reason that they don’t get along anymore

Magnus is the reason that Ellegaard has the nickname Ellie

I headcannon Magnus as blonde!! he used to have hair but it would constantly get singed so he would wear it as a buzz cut. over time he got burn injuries on his head from tnt that lead to him not being able to grow much hair so now he just stays bald

Magnus’ hearing is also definitely somewhat damaged from being around so many explosions

Magnus’ “fishbowl helmet” as Ellegaard calls it is actually made out of explosive-proof glass

#minecraft #minecraft: story mode #mcsm #minecraft art #mcsm ivor #mcsm soren #mcsm gabriel #mcsm ellegaard #mcsm magnus #order of the stone #mcsm order #character design #my art #artists on tumblr #my post

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dawn-wasabi · 2 years

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MCSM/MCYT - Chaotic Daughters (NG)

~~~~~~~~~~

Oh my God! It’s Minecraft Story Mode— it’s returned to haunt me! Nah, just kidding. :)

I just recently watched bits and pieces from the game and the Netflix series, so it sparked my nostalgia. At the moment, I’m still quite hyperfixated on the Dream SMP and the old iDots SMP, but I’ve thought about Story Mode too. So with these two fandoms both in mind, I decided to make a sort of crossover or divided render depicting characters from my next generations of either. As for the particular families I featured, I thought that my characters Zofija and Belladonna were similar to one another in terms of their powers and magical abilities. For those who need a refresher or do not know, Zofija is the daughter of Romeo and Xara (MCSM NG) and Belladonna is a6d’s adopted daughter (DSMP/iDots AU/NG). Zoe, although the child of mortal human parents, is a full-blooded admin. Bella, on the other hand, is a hybrid, consisting of half human, half draconequus. Despite their different species, they nonetheless share similar powers and as youngens have magical surges as they are unable to properly control them. Seen here, the girls both have the ability to fly. Often, preferably, or perhaps not so, Zoe likes to take a solo flight, while Bella enjoys taking others for a flight.

Just for a clarification for those who have viewed my MCSM next gen artwork from way back when, you will recall that the couple I had was a dynamic between Xara (human) and Romeo (admin). I have not made it official, nor have I thoroughly reworked my next generation and its components, but I think that if I do so, Romeo will no longer have admin powers. However, even with him and Xara both as humans, their family shall still consist of full-blooded admin children because it is the more dominant trait that runs in their genetic heritage. Just a thought, but as I said, this is not official for the MCSM next gen.

~~~~~~~~~~

Romeo @ Ian_The_One (Mineimator forums) Xara @ Ian_The_One (Mineimator forums) Book rig @ XxJRushxX (Mineimator forums) Zofija (Infant Design) @ Pixiemafia137 (N/A) BadBoyHalo @ TheBioticJoker (Planet Minecraft) Skeppy @ Pumpapastej (Planet Minecraft) Skeppy eboy @ P0mp (Planet Minecraft) a6d @ N/A (original uploader deleted or deactivated) (Planet Minecraft) Belladonna (Infant_Outer wear) @ Pixiemafia137 (N/A) The Admins Portrait @ TellTale Games (Minecraft Story Mode Wiki)

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Bad’s YT - https://www.youtube.com/c/thesaintsofgames

Skeppy’s YT - https://www.youtube.com/c/Skeppy

a6d’s YT - https://www.youtube.com/c/a6doff

Romeo - https://minecraftstorymode.fandom.com/wiki/Romeo

Xara - https://minecraftstorymode.fandom.com/wiki/Xara

~~~~~~~~~~

Minecraft Story Mode @ TellTale Games Dream SMP and (former) iDots SMP @ YouTubers These next gens/AUs belong to me.

~~~~~~~~~~

You are NOT permitted to use this render!

#au #mineimator #next generation #next gen #dsmp #dream smp #idots #minecraft story mode #mcsm #minecraft youtubers #mcsm romeo #mcsm xara #mcsm next gen #mcyt badboyhalo #badboyhalo #mcyt skeppy #skeppy #a6d

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minecraftrelatedrandomness · 3 years

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Minecraft Story Mode: YouTuber Headcanons

Reasoning Behind Headcanons

I have respect for the YouTubers’ connection to the Fourth Wall (i.e. adding real life-based elements to the headcanons) but also want to keep the balance between reality and fiction, to at least some degree

I also make mini-crossovers based on the YouTubers’ individual series for their backstories

Some of the headcanons have basis in the YouTubers’ playthroughs of MCSM

I don’t watch videos by CaptainSparklez often, so I’m not giving headcanons about him -- sorry, y’all. Lizzie and Dan might also get less content than the rest, but mainly because 1) I don’t watch that many of their videos; and 2) they both have a chance of dying while Stacy and Stampy are definite survivors

Also a fair warning to y’all that there’s a lot of Stampy content ahead because I watch his videos the most out of all the MCYT cast in MCSM

Before the Mansion

The Tri-Block Tournament consists of the rounds of Building, Redstone, and Combat, in that order [I’m just looking at Stampy’s Minecraft strengths to see how he could be able to win thrice in a row, and yes, Stampy knows how to fight]

All the YouTubers are from different biomes: Stacy’s from the mesa-savanna (based on Mystic Mesa and Bookcraft) but moved around a lot before settling there, Stampy’s from a snowy taiga/regular taiga in the north (based on Lovely World), Dan’s from the border of the desert and the snowy taiga (based on the original Lab) but was also not a native there (as seen in the How I Met Dr Trayaurus video), Lizzie’s from the plains (based on various series)

Stampy still had a massive rivalry against HitTheTarget, who’s about half an evil genius and half a griefer -- they used to be friends but had a massive falling out

Stampy and Anthony used to be friends, naturally, but then Stamps had to deal with Mansion stuff and Anthony went on to wander the worlds eventually and ended up in the same server as Romeo, who put him in the Sunshine Institute because Anthony won against him in a minigame and Romeo’s a sore loser (canon according to the official Tumblr)

A lot of Lovely World stuff still happens and Stampy definitely had past trauma based in Lovely World events -- Veeva Dash’s betrayal and the whole I Lost--Hero Helpers episode arc come first into mind

Speaking of that, spiders aren’t cool in Stampy’s book. Something about HitTheTarget and spider guards

Stampy also used to have that OP enchanted diamond sword (Sharpness III, Looting III, Fire Aspect II, Knockback II) but like Lovely World canon, he lost it in The End due to an accident involving an Enderman (sans the dying part)... but unlike Lovely World canon, he never did get a replacement (hence the gold sword)

Stacy also has trauma because some of the Dogcraft stuff definitely happened, though maybe without the mods

The whole Butch debacle definitely happened and so did that Pigzilla dream

And judging by that dream, Stacy might actually have prophetic visions?? So she could have had prophetic visions of the events of MCSM????

Stacy definitely doesn’t mix well with pork because of Dogcraft-related trauma (*cough* Sooezy *cough*) and she bonds with Jesse over this eventually (please don’t tell them that Stampy feeds his dogs porkchops)

Stacy had a friendly rivalry with Graser (see Mineclash) but of course, they’re friends (and Graser doesn’t show up in MCSM other than in a fanfic iirc)

Real life books have Minecraft counterparts to them -- The Hundred and One Dalmatians is turned into The Hundred and One Wolves. Stampy and Stacy initially bonded over their association with the book, because of similar backstories (Stampy has the HTT issue and Stacy has the Bookcraft/Dogcraft crossover stuff)

Dan and Lizzie essentially had the friendly rival relationship between people on the same server on your typical modded SMP

They’re the “adventurers” of the YouTuber gang because of their tendency to play around with mods in real Minecraft -- Lizzie in modded survival worlds and Dan and his mod showcases and custom mod adventures

Dan actually opened portals to some of the dimensions in the custom mod adventures using the enchanted flint and steel

Was some of that traumatic? Yeah, it might be -- I’m not super familiar with his videos though

Dan can also speak Villagerese

To this day, we have no hecking clue how Dan’s hair changes colour -- some might suspect it’s a magical spell gone either right or wrong, but he refuses to acknowledge it or answer any questions about it, to the point that the YouTubers just don’t ask anymore

The Mansion and Related Trauma

Yes, the survivors have PTSD, what about it?

Actually I’d say this is a slight AU with the YouTubers not actively trying to throw each other under the bus because they’re friends, though the ghost of CaptainSparklez is still salty about Dan pushing the button that killed him

Stampy would be too scared to touch buttons in the first place if he had noticed them (*cough* Don’t Press the Button the Stampy Short... but more deadly *cough*)

Lizzie was too smart to touch the buttons, even if she noticed them

Dan no longer bothers with buttons (if he lives) -- it’s always a lever or something that activates things, and not a button, and if a button is unavoidable, it’s always a wooden button -- not stone, never stone, never again

Stacy was making cookies out of nervousness instead of pumpkin pie because all the pumpkins in the Mansion are white pumpkins and she’s just super weirded out by it all

Stampy didn’t eat that cake in the dining room because he’s learnt his lesson about cakes that he doesn’t know the origin of (it’s a Lovely World thing...)

Also five bucks that the cake in the dining room was poisoned all along but Stampy didn’t fall for the trap this time (good for him, bad for literally everyone because of the killing spree Cassie ended up going on)

Stampy’s also never worked well with poison potions either (another Lovely World thing) and those tipped arrows really did make him uncomfortable

Someone should have told Jesse about all the trauma the YouTubers have

Accusing Stampy gives the biggest angst factor even though the most canon storyline is to not accuse anyone

The YouTubers go back to the Mansion to retrieve their dead friends’ inventories to give them a proper final resting place instead of some crusty old basement lair of their mass murderer

None of the surviving YouTubers are able to look at a diamond axe ever again -- they’ll never even think about making diamond axes

They also avoid swamps like the plague if possible

Stampy did make the Minecraft mini-movies he did in the Lovely World series but never went to the Block of the Dead premiere in Beacontown because it’s a zombie apocalypse movie

Stacy didn’t show up to the premiere either for the same reason

Everyone no longer uses tipped arrows

In the incident that Lizzie dies by being axed by Cassie and Dan lives, he is no longer okay with spiders or cave spiders

In fact, I doubt he would be okay with spiders or cave spiders anyway because if he lives, either he gets attacked from behind by spiders, or Lizzie dies by spiders

If Dan is the one who dies, it’s just even more crushing for Stampy on the anti-spider front

Lizzie would nope out of any expeditions to visit woodland mansions if anyone found any

Actually all the Mansion YouTubers would do the same if they got any invitations to raid a woodland mansion

Also vindicators. Encounter vindicators? Run like hell

Post-Mansion and Pre-Season 2

If the YouTubers move on from the Mansion, there might be some pretty dark inside jokes about what happened in there. For example, the White Pumpkin being Anglophobic (all three YouTubers you can accuse to be the White Pumpkin are British)

If Dan survives, he moves back to the Lab and eventually the Lab does relocate to the jungle

Whoever lives among Dan or Lizzie, they gave the portal key to Stampy and Stacy eventually, which is how they ended up in Beacontown

They only arrived in Beacontown a couple of months or so?? before Season 2 started, and Jesse never noticed because they were too busy

Stampy chose to settle in Beacontown because it reminds him of home (the Lovely World really is similarly bright and colourful)

Stampy originally wanted to make his carpet dark blue like back home but they were out of blue dye conveniently, so he had to use light blue wool instead and never changed it back when they got their supply of dark blue wool again

Stamps also still makes cakes with Lee Bear’s secret recipe :’(

Stacy still spends a lot of time looking after animals

Stacy practically runs an animal shelter through her front yard at the rate she’s saving animals

Everyone just really appreciates her effort <3

Stacy also doesn’t know what got into her to build her house out of blue concrete powder... maybe it was for a dare?

Stacy also ends up writing Wild Rescuers in this universe as well :)

Season 2 and Beyond

From what I could tell, Stampy and Stacy did something to get on Romeo’s bad side to end up as part of the New Ocelots in Episode 5, Above and Beyond

For this... I think Romeo reminds Stampy too much of HitTheTarget. A lot of red and black colour schemes. A lot of destruction. And lava. And spider guards. It hit too close to home for him

Also, the whole blocking out the sky thing. Spoiler alert, HTT did it once as well, and it was nasty stuff

As for Stacy, Romeo was being an a--hole to Wink. Probably kicked him once. Or twice. Or whenever he passed the poor doggo -- EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

And on top of that, Romeo went on a killing spree and murdered all the other animals that Stacy rescued, just like those three pigs that were made into porkchops

As a result, the YouTubers were the first to go into open rebellion against Romeo

It may or may not have involved Stampy finally stepping up his game and challenging Romeo to a duel on the main street of Beacontown, Brit to Brit; and Stacy sending an army of llamas after Romeo to back him up

Romeo ended up “making an example” out of them and also filled the Love Garden pond with lava just to spite Stampy

Stampy doesn’t forgive him for being an a--hole

Neither does Stacy tbh, given her more ruthless MCSM portrayal

Once Lukas’ books about Jesse’s adventures get to Season 1 Episode 6, the YouTubers are gonna be swarmed with people asking about what happened in the Mansion to the point that they’d have to do official interviews for fan interactions and choose not to comment outside of those interviews

Oh, and despite everything that has gone down, no one in Beacontown knows Stampy’s real name. No one. The only ones who know are his fellow YouTubers

Stacy spends a lot of time with Lluna when the New Order is busy, to the point that she’s basically a part-time adoptive llama mom

Stampy and Stacy collaborate to make many different branches of their little bakery across the world they now live in

Anthony eventually makes his way up from the Sunshine Institute and reunites with Stampy (when he said he’s everyone’s friend, we really do mean a lot of people)

Stampy found that for whatever reasons, Polly Reindeer moved to Redstonia and they got in contact again (Lovely World based)

Stampy also ends up rebuilding some of his Funland minigames outside of Beacontown and spends a lot of time running it -- and gets Redstonia residents to help make improvements

Netty (Stampy’s sister and also a MCYTer) still lives in Twin Moons World and she and Stamps still keep in contact

In fact, the Beacontown YouTubers still keep in contact with their friends across the worlds

And basically they try to lead a more peaceful life after everything that has happened

Under the circumstance that the White Pumpkin does return in the Season 3 that could never be... I don’t think either of them would be particularly forgiving towards her, given all the trauma she has caused them

But in the Season 3 that could never be, it might be possible for the other surviving YouTuber (Dan or Lizzie) to return, so cheers to that

Ships

All real life-based romances do happen but I won’t elaborate on them

It would probably be offscreen for Dan/Jemma and Lizzie/Joel, depending on who survives

Sqaishey eventually moves to Beacontown and strikes up a friendship with Stampy and Stacy, and Stampy/Sqaishey becomes a thing eventually

All romances happen after MCSM Season 2 just so that I don’t have to think about it in a MCSM canon context

63 notes · View notes

acraftedmistake · 3 years

Text

A Person Who Has Never Played MCSM Writes A Story About MCSM Chp. 15

CHP 15!!!!! Some good times and bad times lie ahead......

Enjoy!

“Everything okay?” Jess asked. Aiden was about to leave the house but had stopped halfway out the door, turned back around, and scanned the first floor while Jess and Olivia waited for him.

“Yeah.” Aiden said slowly as he began to close the door, twisting the knob to make sure he wouldn’t accidentally lock the three of them out, “Just thought I heard something.” He walked away from the house and patted his hair down. “You two ready to go?”

“Mhm!” Olivia finished zipping up the olive green jacket Stella had lent her. She was hiding her face with the hood of the gray sweatshirt Cassie gave her the day before as well. She knew there weren’t too many people out at this hour, but better safe than sorry.

Jess was wearing the leather jacket and beanie again, but he wasn’t too concerned about hiding his face this time. Earlier, he made a minor complaint that his clothes felt rather stiff after wearing them for a few days straight, to which Aiden promised that once they got back home he would throw their clothes in the washer.

“Let’s get going!” Jess said, adjusting the beanie on his head. Originally, Jess wasn’t too thrilled at the idea of going out at this hour. Knowing there might be Awakening members roaming around, or his alternate self--who had no problem beating Radar in broad daylight--made Jess uncertain over the safety of Obsidian Town’s streets. Aiden assured him that they’d be alright, it’d be three against one, and--in his words--he ‘Wants to do somethin’ nice for Olivia after last night’.

Jess appreciated the thoughtfulness, and in the end, visiting Olivia’s grave was up to… Well, Olivia, but he’d still be ready in case a creep tried to pull something.

Jess couldn’t really blame Olivia for wanting to check out her grave. It’s her place of death. When would you ever get an opportunity to visit a place like that again? Not to mention, Jess had been wanting to get a better look at Obsidian Town rather than getting glimpses or constantly staring at the ground.

The three walked to the left and started their journey to the cemetery. Aiden and Olivia were making small talk, so Jess took this time to absorb his surroundings.

Up ahead, he could spot a tall, crooked, ivory colored tower in the distance. That must’ve been the library Olivia mentioned before. Even from all the way over here Jess could see how ruined the place was. Cracks stretched across it, it was riddled with holes, and it looked moments away from collapsing.

Jess scanned the streets. The long, thin black lamp posts on each side had thin string-lights tied to their tops that stretched across the streets in a zig-zag like manner. It’s a shame they weren’t on at the moment, they must’ve been wonderful when lit.

There were empty stalls they’d pass by occasionally. Colorful, patterned tents protected the bare tables, empty boxes, and scraps sitting underneath. Jess noticed each stall had string lights, small lanterns, or candles for light. He’d catch quick glimpses at folded signs tucked away and papers taped onto poles advertising items and prices. Seeing all of this reminded him of the farmer markets Beacon Town. Jess would always act so crabby when he woke up early for them, but it wouldn’t take long for him to get hyped up and dashing around the place until closing time.

The stalls and all were nice, but Jess couldn’t help but find Obsidian Town’s buildings to be… Underwhelming.

Many of the buildings, from what he could see, were constructed with the same materials: stone, wood, bricks, concrete, the occasional polished granite and diorite, and the rare terracotta. There were variations with the colors, but seeing the same materials got real tiring real fast.

And most structures here were just shapes. That’s all that could really be said. Squared, rectangled, plain shapes to fit the equally-plain materials. Even the sizes of the buildings felt plain. Many were one to two stories, a large handful reached three, and hardly any were four.

Jess was so used to Beacon Town’s monstrous structures, giant jungle trees sprouting from windows, walls of colored glass creating magnificent designs, and bridges stretching from roof to roof that connected the town together. The fun types of builds! It might sound chaotic but that’s what made Beacon Town feel like home. Obsidian Town was just that. A town.

‘Don’t think the people here can risk being experimental, to be fair.’ Jess told himself as he remembered how often quakes struck. He thought back to his town again. He thought about how so many homes would quickly collapse the moment a strong-enough quake would hit. Beacon Town was fun, but it wasn’t built with ‘sturdiness’ in mind, unlike Obsidian Town.

While the construction and sizes of these buildings were on the more ‘basic’ side, the way the citizens decorated the exteriors of their homes and stores was magnificent. Oh, how he loved their decorations. From markets using barrels, wagons, and carefully stacked crates to advertise their fresh fruit and flowers, to cafes that’d have their furniture with their own color schemes and accessories to make them stand out from one another. Some places had porches decorated with flowers and swinging benches, while others had balconies with tiny lights.

Jess would get a second to peer into windows they’d pass by, catching glimpses of interiors that’d tempt him to come closer and press his face against the glass to get a better look. Actually, he hadn’t noticed it right away, but so many windows in Obsidian Town were colored. They didn’t have any intricate designs--a majority of them were one solid color--unlike the stained glass back at the Order Hall, but they were still charming. He pictured in his head how vibrant the streets must be when night comes… The lights from the inside mixing with the colors of the glass must be magnificent.

One place that REALLY caught Jess’ attention was a stone gray building tucked between two larger ones. It had a simple square base, but had a noticeable tilt to it. It had a staircase that wrapped around it’s walls and led to the roof, where a smaller room sat atop, equally slanted. A wooden sign hung from above the door and had the words “Glass Art” on it. Purple, pink, and blue glass shards and chimes were held by opaque strings from the overhang; there was a large, round, beautiful stained glass window with the same colors beside the door.

The glass art reminded Jess of Ivor and his potions. Man… How is Ivor? Is he doing alright? Is he worried? Hopefully he’s not working himself to the bone trying to find a way to save him and Olivia. Jess couldn’t wait to get back home and give that old man a big ol’ hug.

Come to think of it, has anyone mentioned anything about potions while they’ve been here? He doesn’t remember Olivia’s book talking about them, nor any of Aiden’s friends bringing them up… Are there no potions here? Or maybe there’s a lack of materials? They couldn’t go to the Nether or mine without a license--which STILL boggles Jess’ mind--so that probably made gathering resources hard. How would Ivor react to this? He’d probably say: ‘Pah! A universe without potions is a miserable one. Back in my day, we’d travel hundreds of miles to find the finest ingredients for our--’

“Jess!” He heard Olivia call his name. He spun around and saw her and Aiden standing under a stone arch. Olivia had her hands on her hips.

“You done dreamin’?” Aiden asked.

Jess didn’t realize how far he had strayed from the two. He hurried over and joined them at the arch.

“Sorry, sorry, I was busy thinking.” He skidded to a halt and fixed his beanie.

“Just glad nobody saw you.” Aiden said, “I almost stopped her from calling you cause I wanted to see how far you’d walk off.”

“Could you imagine if he got caught like that?” Olivia asked, “One moment he’s strolling through the streets, and the next he’s being pounced on by guards all because he was too busy sightseeing.” Her and Aiden chuckled at the thought.

“Oh, so it’s a crime to appreciate a town now?” Jess dramatically placed his hands on his hips, mimicking Olivia’s posture.

“It's illegal for you.” Aiden said, “Now come on, there’s a shortcut through the park.”

Aiden walked through the moss-covered stone arch. On each side of the arch were thick, green hedges that boxed in the park. Olivia noticed that, unlike the buildings in this town, the hedges didn’t form an actual shape; it would jut in and out at random, creating odd angles and corners. It was strange but charming.

A path that started under the arch and looped around the area, creating a horseshoe-like shape. Aiden ignored the path and continued walking straight through the grass. Olivia saw the usual things most parks had: Benches, lampposts, a sign telling people not to litter. She also noticed leftover chalk on the sidewalk, laying right beside children’s drawings of stick figures and hopscotch.

Obsidian Town’s park was small, nice, simple, and… Honestly a little dark. The thick clouds were already blocking most of the sun’s light, but the few, tall, thick trees had branches that hid nearly every inch of the sky. Despite how dim it was, Olivia could still spot wild flowers sprinkled around the grass, along with the bugs buzzing around them.

Honestly--and Olivia felt bad thinking this--she preferred this sort of park over whatever the heck Beacon Town had going on. Yes, Beacon Town was great in it’s own way. People could build whatever they wanted, and that’s wonderful, but sometimes she’d just like to take a walk without a constant ruckus surrounding her. Sometimes she just wanted peace and quiet--

“That guy’s missing his entire head!” Jess suddenly whisper-shouted as he lightly shook Olivia. Her heart started beating frantically as she hurriedly spun her head around. Her mind was going all over the place. Was it a decapitated corpse? A strange, alternate-universe monster? Or--or--

It was a statue.

“Jess, you nearly gave me a heart attack.” She sighed with relief.

“Sorry,” He took his hands off of her and pointed, “check it out though!”

Both Olivia and Aiden were looking at the statue now. It was a man frozen midrun, an axe held back--stuck in a swinging motion--while the other hand held up his battered shield, which covered his face. If he had a face, that is. It had to be The Impossible Man. Olivia wasn’t sure who else it could’ve been.

“He’s definitely seen better days.” She said under her breath. Besides his entire head missing, a majority of his body was covered in dirt, children’s chalk, and other strange stains. Cracks started from his broken neck and traveled to his chest, his armor was chipped and scratched, and a good portion of his axe had broken off as well.

“Yeah, I think there’s a couple more statues around here?” Aiden mentioned as they continued walking, “They’re all in pretty bad shape. The kids like to mess with them.”

Aiden scanned the park. “There’s one,” He pointed to the upper corner on the left side of the park. A statue was placed on a podium right in front of a tree. Despite the fact one of his legs was missing, he appeared to be sitting comfortably, gazing at the tree tops peacefully.

“Annnndddd…” Aiden kept turning his head in different directions, “I’m pretty sure there was a head somewhere… Oh!” He spun around, walking backwards now as he pointed to the direction of the entrance. Jess and Olivia followed his finger, their eyes landed on a wooden bench--and right beside it was a small column with a broken bust of the man on top. Olivia couldn’t make out much of the man’s face from here, but she kept getting the eerie feeling that his fractured eyes were somehow watching her. Constantly. Unblinking. She shuddered.

“You think the quakes are the reason they’re missing some parts?” She heard Jess ask aloud.

“I find it really hard to believe they somehow stood through all of those quakes and just lost a head or a leg. They might've been stolen.” Olivia theorized.

Jess put his hand on his chin, stroking an imaginary beard, “I think I remember seeing Hadrian have a couple of statue parts at his place…”

“What? You think old people just like to steal random body parts during their free time?” She grinned.

“That’s what I’d like to do when I retire!” He chuckled. Olivia rolled her eyes playfully.

The three came to a stop in front of a wall of hedge that stood a couple inches taller than Aiden. Unlike the rest of the hedges, this one probably hasn’t been trimmed in months. The surface was extremely uneven; hundreds of tiny branches and leaves stuck out and got tangled with one another. This hedge was also covered in flowers. Tons of them. Clusters of fluffy-looking, light pink flowers were scattered throughout, and were nearly as big as Olivia’s face. The ground was covered in old petals.

Olivia made sure that every strand of hair was tucked inside her hood. There was no way she wanted to spend the rest of the day picking out the twigs, leaves, and petals that’d get stuck in there.

Aiden walked to the right, staring into the bush and running his hand over it as he mumbled to himself, trying to remember where the shortcut was. Olivia and Jess awkwardly shuffled along. Aiden soon stopped, crouched down, then put his hand into the bush. He then took it out, huffed, scooched over a couple more inches, and repeated the process.

After a minute of searching, Aiden started talking to himself. “Maybe it’s on the left side? I could’ve sworn we--!” Aiden suddenly fell forward and into a large hole in the hedge.

Man, if Aiden hadn’t fell through, Olivia would’ve also thought he’d forgotten where the entrance was. The branches hid the hole well.

Jess helped Aiden to his feet. Aiden thanked him as he moved aside, motioning towards the hole.

“You guys go ahead.” Aiden said, “I’ll wait for you to go through.”

Jess and Olivia glanced at each other before Jess gave her a little bow, “After you.”

“How kind.” Olivia curtsied. She crouched and crawled through. The dirt was already making her pants a little damp.

Luckily, despite a few scratches, the crawl only lasted a few seconds.

She got up, cleaned herself off, and waited for the boys.

Jess’ head soon popped out from the hole. Leaves and tiny branches were caught in his hair. He wriggled himself out and brushed off his clothes.

“Here, let me help with your hair.” Olivia started plucking the sticks out.

“Thanks!” Jess said happily as he took off and shook the leaves off his beanie.

It was quiet for a couple of moments as they cleaned themselves up. Olivia felt her smile twitch.

“Hey, Jess,” She started slowly, “I’m… I’m sorry.”

Jess put his hat back on, “What for?”

“I know you don’t have the best feelings towards Aiden right now,” She stared at her feet, “I hope it doesn’t feel like I’m dragging you along.”

“What? No, no, no!” Jess exclaimed, “Look, I was real mad last night, but I wanted to go with you!”

Olivia brought her head back up to Jess, a tiny smile of relief on her face.

“And I’m sticking to my word. We’ll stick together no matter what.” Jess shoved his hands into his pockets. “And uh… We don’t really have a choice when it comes to trusting Aiden and his friends, but things aren’t gonna get better if I keep blowing up like I did yesterday--” A sudden grunt interrupted Jess and caused both of them to jump.

They turned to see Aiden struggling to get out of the bush. How much did he hear? Hopefully not too much. Hopefully.

Aiden tries to use his free arm to pull the rest of his body out, but after a few more seconds he stopped fighting and let his face fall to the ground.

“... I’m stuck again.” He could hear Olivia and Jess snicker as they grabbed his hand and began to pull. They were able to pull him out in no time.

“Thanks.” Aiden said as he shook off the dirt--and the embarrassment. “The memorials are on the other side of the cemetery. Should only take a minute to get there.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When they entered the cemetery, Jess kept his eyes peeled for any familiar names on the gravestones. A few graves had rather unusual colors to them. There was a dusty red one, an uncommon shade, but not odd. Then he’d walk by a blue one; he’s never seen a grave that color before--well, Reuben’s memorial had bits of blue in it, does that count?--Then he walked by a purple grave, a green one, an orange one?

“This is… The happiest looking cemetery I’ve ever seen.” Olivia said as she beheld the rest of the graveyard.

“Is that a compliment?” Aiden asked.

Olivia kept staring at tombstones until she finally said “I don’t know, I’ve just never seen a place for the dead look so… Lively.”

Taking in the rest of the graveyard, Jess had to agree . What was usually a dark, gloomy, dreary place was so, so vibrant. Even under this cloudy, dull weather, the many colors still popped. This was more like a miniature festival than a cemetery! Many tombstone tops looked like roofs with their pointed tops and little overhangs. Their heights and widths would range from short and broad to tall and scrawny. Heck, Jess could spot a couple of graves as tall as him.

“What the heck are your cemeteries like?” Aiden glanced back at them.

“Plainer colors, I guess?” Jess shrugged, “You know, blacks, grays, browns, nothing too flashy.” The only exception Jess could think of was, once again, Reuben's memorial.

“Really?” Aiden sounded genuinely baffled by this. “We hardly got any of those. What do they mean?”

Olivia and Jess exchanged confused expressions with each other before Jess faced Aiden again, “Sadness? Loss? I don’t think there’s any real meaning behind those colors, honestly.”

“Right, we don’t typically associate bright colors with the dead.” Olivia added in, viewing the cemetery again. Scrawny trees and tiny flowers with stems that reached her knees that were peppered around the area; most were in between the graves. She thought about Aiden’s question, “I’m assuming the colors here represent something specific?”

“Yeah, buncha things. Too many for me to keep track of, but I remember the important ones.” Aiden started as they continued walking down the damp dirt path. “When a person dies, their friends and family can choose the color of their grave. It’s usually… Like… Hm. It’s supposed to show what the person was like when they were alive, ya know? Yellow for the happy people,” He explained while pointing to a shorter grave of said-color, “orange for determination, that sorta stuff. Stella’s memorized ‘em all. If you ever wanna know more, she’s the person to ask.”

As Aiden kept talking, Olivia and Jess kept taking in their surroundings. Jess had noticed something. Every single grave they passed was decorated with gems. The gems were placed close by the names and dates of those who passed, and seeing so many of them in various shapes, colors, and sizes made him curious…

“Hey, uh, what’s with the gems?” Jess spoke up, “Are they real?” He was wondering if maybe they were regular stones that were carved and painted. There was no way Obsidian Town could have an overabundance of minerals, especially since the citizens needed a mining license.

“Nah, they’re glass.” Aiden replied, “I thought they were real myself until we had to choose some gems for Lukas--” He suddenly stopped in his tracks. Jess and Olivia peered over and saw a lit redstone torch placed in front of a grave. Aiden plucked the torch from its place, a scowl on his face as he blew out the flame then chucked the burnt wood across the cemetery.

“Anyways, what was I sayin’?” He began walking again, as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.

‘What was that about?’ Jess thought to himself. It must’ve been linked to the cult, right? Why else would Aiden have done that?

“Right!” He snapped his fingers,” So the gems are basically like the colors of the graves. We had to go to this special place where the people there pulled out huge chests filled with those things. Took us forever to pick ‘em out.”

“Each color chosen means something for the person that passed…” Jess whispered to himself as Aiden’s words from earlier echoed through his mind. He was rather fond of how Obsidian Town remembered their dead. It was more uplifting than what he was used to. Maybe he could make some changes to the graveyards once they get back to Beacon Town.

Aiden was quiet for a minute before he added, “Gill took the longest. He was real worried his gem wouldn’t be good enough.” He paused. “He… he ended up crying.”

His voice got quieter, “I hated seeing him like that.”

Jess and Olivia both tried to think of what to say, what ‘s the next best thing to do, but Aiden immediately changed the subject.

“What do you guys put on your graves?” Aiden asked, he sounded ‘normal’ again, but kept facing away from the two.

Jess hesitated, “Names. Dates.”

“A description of the person who passed.” Olivia added.

“Just words? Doesn’t that get a little… Depressing?” Aiden narrowed his eyes.

“Oh, you think that’s sad? We once wrote out an entire dictionary on a guy’s grave back in our universe.” Jess answered jokingly. Olivia let out a little giggle, and they even heard a chuckle out of Aiden.

That small chuckle was all Jess needed to hear to continue telling quips and share short, funny stories at Aiden’s way to try and lighten the mood. Aiden was soon sharing his own experiences mixed in with his own humor. Aiden and Jess were bouncing off of each other, making fun of their own universes while Olivia would throw in her commentary every now and then.

‘This is so weird…’ Olivia thought to herself. The three of them laughing while walking through a cemetery… it’s something that’d usually feel inappropriate to do, but here she wasn’t all that bothered.

This whole experience has been surreal. Entering a rainbow of a cemetery through a bush felt like something that’d only happen in her dreams, yet here she was. Honestly, it was a nice change of pace to not feel worried for her and her friend’s life for a moment.

She had nearly forgotten the dread she felt when she originally suggested coming here.

And then Aiden spoke up.

“Okay, okay, we’re finally--” Aiden stopped. “Here.” All happiness in his tone had left.

That didn’t sound good. That didn’t sound good at all. Olivia grabbed onto the string of her hoodie and began to pull on it as she slowly peered over Aiden. Standing before him were two graves. Olivia’s eyes were drawn to the shorter one. She trailed down the grave, the coral color fading into a deep shade of red until she stopped at the flowers laying beside a lit, redstone torch.

Olivia held her breath. Jess got close to her as Aiden approached the torch. He grabbed it by it’s barely-scorched base and brought it to his face to blow out the flame. Instead of throwing it away like the last one, he just placed it to the side, only a few feet away from the grave. He wore an expression neither of them have ever seen on him before. Fear? Heartache? Pain.

“We’re here.” He said again. His voice completely devoid of energy. His body was stiff as he walked to the side of the grave, with his hands curled into tight fists and placed at his sides. There was another redstone torch placed in front of the grave to the right, but Aiden didn’t say anything. Olivia took a few small steps forward and gave him a small nod.

As she knelt down in front of the grave--in front of her grave--she heard Aiden tell Jess ‘Come on’, followed by the sound of footsteps growing distant.

She sat alone at her grave.

She didn’t want to read the text. She really didn’t. Isn’t that funny? That was one of the main reasons she wanted to come here. To see if there was a chance she could read about her death, what happened to her, but now that she was here, she was terrified. She looked everywhere else but the epitaph before her. She stared at the small bouquet of flowers on the dirt--the dirt… She noticed it seemed… Messier compared to the other graves. Like someone tried digging through it. The bouquet, though! There was a mix of flowers held together by a red ribbon. Clusters of tiny, magenta flowers, a few pointed, white flowers with many petals, and a type of flower she actually knew the name of: Lilys.

She then brought her gaze up, catching a quick glimpse of her name written in gold, to observe the gems placed into the tombstone. Two orange gems, one yellow, one gold, another maroon, and the gem in the center was amber. They formed an arch around the words in the center.

‘Stop avoiding it.’ She told herself, but she didn’t listen. She turned to Lukas’ grave. She had to see his. She had to. It was right here and--and he’s her friend.

His grave was turquoise and had thin, white stripes that stretched across the top, and seven gems instead of six. Three on each side, and the last gem placed above his epitaph. He was given flowers as well.

The words engraved in the stone read: “LUKAS: Courageous and loyal. An inspiring leader and a brilliant friend.”

Short but wonderful. It was perfect. Reading it over and over again, she thought about just how lucky she and Jess were with having their friend still around. He’s done so much for them. Constantly helping Jess run Beacon Town, aiding the citizens, always visiting her and Axel whenever he got the chance… He could’ve left them during that Witherstorm. He could’ve ditched them at any moment when things got too rough, but he never did.

‘I need to give Lukas a hug when I get back.’ Olivia thought to herself. Lukas could still leave them one day without warning. He could finally get sick of them, die in a brutal fight, or--or end up being kidnapped like this Lukas--Olivia squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, trying to get those awful thoughts out. Don’t think about that. He’s still alive. He still cares about them. He loves them.

Olivia kept her eyes closed for a moment longer before finally bringing her attention back to her own grave. She forced herself to read the words written for her; “OLIVIA: An intelligent, creative, and hardworking engineer. A bright spark of joy even during the darkest of days.”

Olivia stared at her words. A weird sense of reassurance was arising. She’s never thought highly of herself. She’d sometimes convince herself that others couldn’t tolerate her, and that she was one mistake away from ruining everything. She wondered if this Olivia ever felt a similar way. Was she constantly trying to make sure she said and did the right things? Try to fix any issue immediately so her friends didn’t think she was useless? Always second guessing her own thoughts?

Did this Olivia know her friends always loved her? Or was she riddled with fears and doubts until her sudden end?

‘She died a couple of years ago, didn’t she?’ Olivia tried to recall any mention of her death from Aiden. She wasn’t certain, but whether it was a few years ago, or a few months ago, didn’t change the fact that she died so soon.

She was young.

Younger than her.

To have her life end on an abrupt note… It scared her. It scared her so much. Everything could be taken away one day.

As she sat over her body, she felt her fingers begin to dig into the dirt, like they were trying to reach in and find the other Olivia’s hand. A sick form of curiosity made her want to know more. More about this Olivia. Her life. Her mind. To have a connection with her. It was her body she was sitting over, afterall. Her corpse. Her--

“Olivia?” Jess placed his hand on her shoulder. “Are you doing okay?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Come on.” Aiden gave Jess a light tap with his hand. He started walking away from Olivia. Jess hesitated. He looked at his friend for a second more before leaving with Aiden.

“We just needa give her some space.” Aiden said.

“Right, totally understand.” Jess wanted to stick around for a few minutes longer to study his friends’ graves, but that could wait. He didn’t want to make Olivia feel like he was breathing down her neck.

Jess thought back to the many instances where his friends’ lives were in danger, when they were so close to being taken away from him. He hated seeing his friends’ lives at stake more than anything; he’d go through Hell and back to protect them, and to be in a place where their deaths became a reality was so hard to wrap his head around.

Lukas left without a trace. No familiar faces to comfort him during his last moments, only enemies looming over him while he was in an unknown place. Just thinking about his fate made Jess worry sick about his Lukas back at home.

It was silent for a few minutes. Only their footsteps filled the void.

“So…” Jess started, wanting to make small talk, “What do the colors for Olivia and Lukas’ graves mean?”

“Olivia’s creativity.” Aiden replied, sounding short. “And Lukas’--” He paused and scanned the cemetery. He took a left turn and continued walking between the graves. “He’s…Don’t make fun of us, but his color stands for friendship.”

“Friendship?” Jess perked up at the word.

“I know, it’s probably super cheesy or whatever, but it fits him. It really does.” Aiden said.

“No, no, I completely agree! He’s a great friend--one of the best! If I had to recount all the times he’s been there for me, we’d be here all day.”

“Right. Same here.” They stopped at another grave with another redstone torch in front of it. This grave was short and purple, with many cool-colored gems placed in it. Jess didn’t recognize the name.

Aiden grabbed the torch and blew out the flame. Jess decided to ask another question.

“Any idea why The Awakening puts those torches there?”

“Probably for no good reason.” Aiden answered through gritted teeth as he chucked the wood as hard as he could across the cemetery.

There was something unnerving about the torches left at the grave. Their red glow would take over the colors of the graves, and their light under a thick, cloudy sky would claim your attention and make it hard to pull away. Their soft crackling would fill in the silence whenever he and Aiden didn’t talk; the occasional loud snaps from the flames would make Jess believe there was a threat following them.

Jess stopped at a tombstone and picked up a vase of flowers that had fallen aside. “The gems on their graves, what do they mean? Do you remember ‘em?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’d remember what the gems on my own friends’ graves would mean!” Aiden snapped.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that!” Jess held the vase tighter. “I was just--I wanted to know more about them.” Great. Now they’re both feeling terrible.

Aiden’s demeanor softened when he saw Jess’ reaction. “No, it’s okay. I’m sorry. I’ve been--” He hesitated, “I’ve just been thinking about someone is all.”

“No, it’s no problem.” Jess carefully placed the small vase back upright. He folded his arms and joined Aiden’s side.

“I’m uh, still interested to hear bout those gems if you’re wanting to share.” He said.

“Yeah. I can do that for ya.” Aiden answered.

“For Lukas,” Aiden began, walking through the grass. “Gill chose blue. I remember that one’s loyalty. Gold for compassion. White for safety--he’d always double check our belongings every time to make sure we were prepared.”

Aiden stopped and grabbed a torch, “It was kinda annoying, but I miss it now.” He blew it out and threw the wood.

They kept moving.

“Rose picked pink.” Aiden started running his fingers over the grave tops, “She was real embarrassed when she chose it. Kept refusing to show us cause she thought we’d laugh at her.”

“I’m guessing pink’s for love?” Jess said, trying to make sure he wouldn’t trample any flowers.

“Yeah, and--” Aiden chuckled, “Rose wanted his description to be: Pretty blond dork with a decent sense of style. All of us were actually on board with it.”

“Did you end up pulling through with it?” Jess asked.

“Nah, the guys making the grave wouldn’t allow it.” Aiden spotted a couple of gravestones with torches by them. They were already burnt out. He grabbed two of the torches while Jess grabbed the last.

“What a bunch of killjoys.” Jess joked. Aiden laughed as he prepared to throw the burnt wood. Jess mimicked each step of Aiden’s. Hold, aim, then throw. Once they lost sight of the rubbish, they followed the dirt path to the entrance of the cemetery.

The cemetery wasn’t boxed in by hedges like the park, instead, it had a stone wall.

Aiden leaned against the wall. It didn’t look like the most comfortable surface--the rocks were jagged and would probably fall apart in moments--but he seemed unaffected by it. Jess stood nearby and took a peek through the gate beside them. Unlike the rough, uneven walls, the black fence was tall, sturdy, and had a huge, elegantly curved arch.

“Olivia’s got a few similar gems,” Aiden started, putting his hands in his pocket, “Two golds, yellow… She’s got amber--Man, I always mix those three up. They sound different enough but when they’re placed by each other, they all look the same. Amber’s slightly darker than yellow, but not as dark as gold. Amber’s positivity.”

“Lotta happy ones for her.” Jess commented. He’d been staring at the decorated buildings through the gate’s bars as he listened. He could spot bits of pots filled with flowers on the other side of the wall, their colors as eye-catching as the cemetery.

“Always made us happy.” Aiden said with a shrug. “She also had… Ah…” He pressed his lips together, “Orange! She had that one too. And then there’s…” He had to stop to think again.

“It’s not… Well, it looks like red, but it’s darker… Ah, shoot.” Aiden cursed to himself.

“Carmine? Maroon?” Jess tilted his head.

Aiden snapped his fingers, “Maroon! Right! Creativity; same thing as her grave. Picked it myself.” He said rather proudly.

“You guys really cared about her.” Jess mumbled. He tilted his head towards Aiden, “And I’m sure Olivia loved you guys all the same.”

Aiden stared back at him.

A small smile spread across his face, “Thanks.”

The two became quiet and looked over the array of colorful graves before them. The clouds slowly began to part; gems glistened as the rays of sun shone down on them.

“Should we check on Olivia now?” Jess asked after a few minutes of silence.

Aiden got off the stone wall and stretched his back, “Yeah, let’s go.”

~ ~ ~ ~

When the two returned to Olivia, the last thing they wanted to see was to see her in distress. The tips of her fingers were shoved into the dirt below, her eyes were stuck on the golden words in front of her, her mouth was parted--barely moving--with no voice to match. Jess couldn’t tell if she was trembling or not, but she was scared. Very scared.

Jess bit his lip and approached his friend. Aiden was right behind.

“Olivia?” Jess placed his hand on her shoulder, “Are you doing okay?”

Olivia jumped and jerked her hands out of the dirt.

“Yes--! Yeah, no, no don’t worry, I’m fine. Thanks--thank you for checking on me.” She replied frantically. She took deep breaths.

Before Jess could question anything, Olivia spoke up.

“Aiden, this uh--the substance mixed into the stone,” Her fingers trailed down the tombstone, “is it redstone dust?”

Her voice was shaky.

Aiden glanced at Jess, who was equally nervous as him, then said, “Actually, it is.”

He took a step closer to Olivia, “They don’t usually allow people to mix stuff like redstone or glowstone dust with the colors--especially cause they’re hard to find--but they made an exception for us.”

Olivia nodded along, blinking back tears.

Jess read her epitaph, “Guess all Olivia’s are just the greatest engineers out there, huh?”

“Damn right. She didn’t have a bunch of dust to work with, but she’d still crank out machine after machine like no tomorrow.” Aiden said, “Man, I remember every year for her birthday that’d be all she’d ever ask for. Not weapons, not new journals, not even a dang cake, just redstone dust. Course, the only places you could find ‘em were in caves or old shrines, right?” He asked while facing Lukas’ grave and grabbing the lit redstone torch below.

“Yup, we found a bunch of it yesterday.” Jess said, sitting besides Olivia.

“Right, and since it was so dangerous, she told us to not worry bout gettin’ it because ‘It’d be stupid to risk your life for some red powder’.” Aiden gestured with the torch, the flame getting frighteningly close to his hair.

“Well, I’d always lose track of dates and forget to get her a gift, so one of the other guys would back me up and tell Olivia we bought a gift ‘together’, and I felt so bad.” He thankfully blew out the fire after saying that.

“So then guess what I did one day?” Aiden said.

“Walked out and found a bag of redstone on the ground?” Jess asked sarcastically.

Aiden laughed, “I wish.”

Aiden began pacing, the trail of smoke whirling around him, “But I decided I’d bust into one of those dumb shrine and find some dust for her, and I didn’t tell anyone bout it besides Jesse. He was on board with the plan, he was great at findin’ stuff, plus two people finding dust was much easier than one.” Aiden fiddled with the burnt wood, “We headed off to the nearest shrine and actually found enough dust to fill up a bag and a half, but cause of the state of that dump, some rooms would collapse after you opened the door!”

“You two ended up getting hurt, didn’t you?” Olivia had her hand on her head, already concerned over the direction of this story.

“Course we did!” Aiden threw his arms up. “I swear anytime the two of us were together, things would fall apart or we’d break a bone--” Aiden stopped his talking to quickly chuck the wood away. “Anyways, anyways, we got back home right on time for Olivia’s birthday and man did we look awful. Clothes were all dirty, got some real bad scrapes on my knees, Jesse grabbed so much dust it looked like his fingers were covered in blood, and I somehow got a black eye? I think the top of a chest smacked me...”

Olivia rubbed her temples, “You two really shouldn’t have risked your lives over a birthday present--”

“That’s exactly what she said!” Aiden exclaimed, “Went through all that trouble, and you know how she reacted?”

“Panicked?” Olivia asked.

“Bet she loved it.” Jess said, giving Olivia a nudge.

“She did--but Hero did she freak out! Dropped her cake and rushed over to get us cleaned up. Olivia was wrapping up one of Jesse’s arms--” Aiden thought to himself for a second, “--I think a big rock landed on it? But she was going off on us. Raising her voice and lecturing us like she was our mom, telling us it’s a miracle we were still in one piece, and why in Hero’s name we did something so stupid.”

“I mean, it wasn’t stupid if things worked out for you.” Jess pointed out.

“Yeah, but still.” Aiden chuckled, “It was stupid. It was so, so stupid. But after that, she loved our present. I’d never seen her smile so much. She was working on her machinery, telling me and Jesse how everything worked while we pretended to understand.”

Aiden carefully leaned on Olivia’s grave, “Hero knows I didn’t understand a single thing she was sayin’, but seeing her so happy…” His smile grew as his voice softened, “It was great.”

“That’s all so sweet…” Olivia spoke softly. “I love it.”

She was shaking again.

Jess turned to his friend to mention something, but stopped when he saw Olivia staring at the ground, fingers picking at the dirt just like she was when they came back. That same, terrified expression on her face.

“Liv--?” Jess mumbled, but Olivia started rambling nonsense.

“I don’t know if my words mean much to you--I know I’m not her--but you’re a good friend, Aiden.” Her nails started to dig into the ground, “All of this, all that you’ve done for Olivia--you--you--Even when I just--” She kept stumbling over her words, “Even when she died one day you kept being so kind to me--”

The more she kept talking, the more concerned--the more scared--Aiden and Jess became.

“Hey, hey are you alright?” Jess reached out to hold her, but Olivia shot her head back up.

“I’m under here.” She whispered. Her voice was so unsteady.

Jess was taken aback, “What?”

“I’m under here.” She said again. “I’m so close.”

Her hand began to claw at the dirt, “I’m so close. My body’s all mangled up in that box below, and--and my hair’s so long now.” She felt sick talking about this, she felt sick thinking about it. “It’d be so easy to just dig myself up. For Aiden to see her again. Jesse--Jess, we’re so close. I could look at myself. Look at my body. I’m--”

“Olivia!” Jess shook her, “Do you want to get out of here?”

Aiden wanted to offer his support, but Olivia instantly got on her feet.

“Yes. Yes I want to leave. I want to go home.” She kept repeating that last sentence while she hugged herself, breathing heavily. She was freezing.

“Right, we need to head back anyways.” Aiden’s stomach was in knots seeing Olivia like this. His hands turned to fists, “I should’ve known better. I shouldn’t have taken you here. I’m sorry--”

“Don’t.” Olivia cut in. “I wanted to go. You took me. I saw--I saw what I needed to. I appreciate it. Thank you.” She was stiff as a board.

Olivia took one last deep breath, “Let’s go home.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Damn them.

Damn them all.

Locked every damn door and window in this house. They’re hiding her, he knows they’re hiding her.

Did they really think locking themselves in would stop him? He used to live in this Hero forsaken house; he knows every nail, screw, and plank that makes up this despicable place.

He still remembers that trapdoor on the roof. He knows how to claw his way up there. He’ll pry it open with his own bare hands.

He’ll find her.

He will.

#mcsm #minecraft story mode #mcsm aiden #mcsm jesse #mcsm olivia #THANK U ENORMOUS THIC THANK U TO FRIEND IVY!!!#for reading this over and helping...... appreciate it all VERY much....#HOPE YOU ENJOY!!!#will add more tags in later!!!!! in rush right now dhfgnfdgfngd

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