Hermitcraft

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Fandom
Name: Hermitcraft
Abbreviation(s): HC
Creator: GenerikB
Date(s): 4/13/2012 - Present
Medium: Minecraft Server
Country of Origin:
External Links: https://hermitcraft.com/
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Hermitcraft is a private Minecraft survival multiplayer (SMP) server. It was founded by GenerikB on April 13th, 2012. Original members of the server include BDoubleO100, Keralis, Hypnotizd, Xisumavoid, and JoeHills. Several members were previously part of Mindcrack and Kingdomcraft.

Most members of Hermitcraft feature the server in YouTube videos. As a series, Hermitcraft is split into seasons, and with each new season the world is reset and moved to a brand new seed. New or returning members, if there are any, tend to be added at the start of a new season. As of February 2023, there have been 9 seasons.

There have been roughly 60 different people active on the main Hermitcraft server since its creation. As of Season 9, there are 26 whitelisted members. An updated whitelist of members can be found on the Hermitcraft website.[1]

Members of the server are known as Hermits.

History

GenerikB founded Hermitcraft after being inspired Mindcrack, a popular Minecraft SMP of the time. He named the server after his self-imposed title as the "Gaming Hermit", and members from then on were referred to as "Hermits". When GenerikB was invited to Mindcrack, he left Hermitcraft and passed on the ownership of the server to Xisumavoid, who took over as prime admin. Since then, several other hermits have been granted admin abilities, and the server runs as a community effort without having to rely on one designated leader.

Hermitcraft is primarily a building and redstone focused server. Members are well known in the Minecraft community for their artistic and technical proficiency in the game, and many of them are pioneers in their specialized crafts. In recent seasons, some members have taken a liking to also incorporating storylines and light roleplaying into their Hermitcraft series. Whether individual or collaborative, most storylines are contained into easily digestible story arcs and may feature events or minigames to wrap up a particular narrative. The server returns to the status quo once the arc is finished, and as such there are never any long-lasting conflicts or effects.

Fanon

Character Headcanons

As is common in the rest of MCYT, extensive headcanons about characters are extremely popular. In particular, many Hermits are headcanoned as non-human in some way, with varying degrees of canon support. Docm77, whose Minecraft skin (the appearance of his in-game character) is a cyborg creeper, is frequently headcanoned as a cyborg creeper. Similarly, iJevin has a skin mimicking a Minecraft slime mob and is frequently headcanoned as a slime while ZombieCleo is frequently headcanoned as a zombie. Grian, who is very skilled at flying with elytra wings in-game is commonly headcanoned as an avian or a bird hybrid (frequently a parrot). Other common non-human headcanons include GeminiTay as a deer, ZedaphPlays as a sheep and TangoTek as a hybrid with the Minecraft blaze mob.

Some fan concepts have later been "canonized" or added to skins. For example, Rendog was not originally a dog, but after continued fan support later added dog ears to his skin. After an extended campaign by a small group of fans, Docm77 officially wears crocs on his Minecraft skin.

Other headcanons incorporate elements from the content creators to add to the characters. The Hermits GoodTimesWithScar and TinFoilChef are disabled in real life, and their characters are often portrayed with disabilities as well, though not always identical or analogous ones. Iskall85, who professionally played the first-person shooter Quake before joining Hermitcraft, is sometimes headcanoned as a former assassin. Although Canada does not exist in Minecraft, real-life Canadians VintageBeef, Etho and GeminiTay are often mentioned to be from Canada, while similar real-life origins are very rarely mentioned for other Hermits.

Since Hermits frequently use different build styles and may create different or incompatible lore during different seasons, headcanons often change after new seasons start. For example, in season 5 Cubfan135 was part of a pranking duo with GoodTimesWithScar called ConVex, resulting in headcanons that Cub was partly or fully a Vex mob. In season 7, though, Cub used an ancient Egypt-themed skin and built pyramids during season 7, resulting in a decrease in Vex headcanons and an increase in headcanons of him as old or immortal.

Ask blogs and surveys[2] about Hermit and Hermitcraft headcanons on Tumblr are also popular.

Watchers

Watchers are a concept from EvolutionSMP (EvoSMP). The original concept was that watchers were analogous to the viewers of a stream or YouTube video; however, the fic And The Universe Shifts expanded the idea and has become the basis for most related fanon. The archetypical Watcher is a member of a high-fantasy repressive secret society in charge of watching Minecraft servers, frequently either to roll out game updates or to prevent cheating. Watchers commonly have full face masks (which may prevent them from seeing directly), wings and powers over Minecraft mechanics. They are associated with the color purple.

Watcher headcanons are most commonly applied to Grian, but have been applied to many other MCYTers, especially fellow EvoSMP member and Hermit PearlescentMoon. Watcher!Grian is frequently called Xelqua, his previous YouTube channel name.

Hels Hermits

Some Hermits have evil clones or alter-egos, most notably Evil Xisuma (Xisuma's evil clone/twin) and Helsknight (an evil alternate version of Welsknight from the Nether). From this, fans extrapolate other evil or inverted versions of Hermits, called Hels Hermits or Helsmits. There are no consistent fanon interpretations of Hels Hemits, but some Hermits have more consistent fanon Hels versions, like BadTimesWithScar as a Hels GoodTimesWithScar. Individual creators often create their own names and appearances for Hels Hermits by inverting names and color schemes. Hermits with bright, cheerful color schemes like StressMonster101 often become dark-themed and angry, although they may retain some personality traits. Names are also inverted, so xBCrafted might become yCService[3]. Other Hels names are based on the camera accounts of Hermits (which may already be opposites). For example, a popular fanon Hels version of FalseSymmetry is named TrueSymmetry, the same name as her camera account.

2019 Schism

In 2019, there was an intense debate in the Hermitcraft fandom over what kinds of fic and fanart were acceptable to write. The two particular sticking points were the acceptability of shipping Hermits together, and the acceptability of writing angst, gore and other heavy topics. Many people who were in favor of shipping and writing angst fic left the fandom or decreased their fandom presence.

Anti-ship arguments include that MCYT is similar to RPF, which many people opposed to shipping saw as inherently immoral. Pro-ship arguments frequently argue that because MCYT includes roleplay to various degrees, it is not actually RPF. The debate over whether or not shipping Hermits is RPF was complicated by the relative lack of obvious roleplay or fictional personas for some Hermits. This divide was characterized with the terms "content creator" for the real person and "character" for the persona, often abbreviated CC and C (e.g. CC!Grian versus C!Grian).

People who were either against or in favor of shipping often congregated in private discord servers. Notable anti-ship servers and groups include the scutes (a friend group who created one of the first hermitblr discord servers in 2018), the Underrated Hermit Fanclub (a public discord server), and the moderators of an early hermit fanzine. Notable anti-hermitshippers include ethoslab on tumblr, commonly referred to as Miles, and ayaptre, the author of And The Universe Shifts, an extremely popular Hermitcraft fanfiction that inspired lots of popular fanon. Although not every member of these groups was vehemently opposed to shipping, the general tone of the spaces was anti-ship.

Within the anti-ship faction, there were also divisions around interpersonal conflicts, such as in the hermitzine. There were also disagreements about what level of angst or depressing content was acceptable. One of the points of conflict was around if portraying disagreeable, dark or romantic content violated the boundaries of the content creators for fandom uses of their characters. As a result, popular gen fics such as The Red Sun Never Sets were also heavily criticized for featuring angst.

Hermitcraft member ZombieCleo commented on the drama on her Tumblr blog in early 2020 in response to people asking her to denounce fics seen as problematic.[4] [5][6] She left tumblr shortly afterwards.

As a result, romantic shipping in the Hermitcraft fandom became much less common. However, with more roleplay-inclusive series such as Third Life, Last Life and Double Life featuring Hermits, shipping has again become somewhat more common (though still less common than in many other popular fandoms). Many people who were previously anti-ship became neutral or positive on shipping as the overall tone of the community shifted. However, Hermit boundaries are still widely passed around, and violating them in fanworks is a fandom taboo.

Ships/Duos/Subgroups

  • Grumbo (Grian/Mumbo Jumbo)
  • Scarian (Grian/GoodTimesWithScar)
    • Desertduo refers to platonic Grian & Scar, but is used more commonly in 3rd Life/Last Life/Double Life contexts. Platonic Grian & Mumbo Jumbo fics and Grian & GoodTimesWithScar fics are extremely popular in the Hermitcraft fandom.
  • ZIT (ZedaphPlays, ImpulseSV, TangoTek)
    • ZITS, with non-Hermit MCSkizzleman is also popular.
    • Both ZIT and ZITS are frequently platonic.
  • Xisuma/Evil Xisuma
  • Evil Xisuma/Helsknight
  • Rendoc (RenDog/Docm77)
  • Ethubs (Etho/BDoubleO100), Cledubs (ZombieCleo/BDoubleO100) and Clethubs (ZombieCleo/Etho/BdoubleO100)
    • Although ZombieCleo, Etho and BDoubleO100 are all Hermits, these ships are more popular for 3rd Life, Last Life and Double Life.
  • Cubfan135/GoodTimesWithScar
    • Sometimes called ConCorp or ConVex after their Season 5 and 6 partnership.
  • FalseSymmetry/Rendog
  • Jleo (Joe Hills/ZombieCleo)
  • Poly nHo (Etho/VintageBeef/BDoubleO100/Docm77)
    • nHo stands for new Hermit order, a play on the wrestling stable the new World order.
    • The nHo is also frequently a platonic group. Many fics featuring the nHo have horror elements involving the jungle.

Fanworks

Fanfiction

Fanvids/AMVs/Fanmixes

Zines

Resources

References

  1. ^ https://hermitcraft.com/
  2. ^ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B5ZZIyXVcx5uYLiy-AHehVL5aB3dYru2u6kbEqqtWfQ/edit
  3. ^ https://biinaberry.tumblr.com/post/682344708634230784/each-helsmit-and-their-names-each-helsmit-is
  4. ^ https://zombiecleoprime.tumblr.com/post/190046157065/how-to-avoid-shipping-problems
  5. ^ https://zombiecleoprime.tumblr.com/post/190063333965/cleo-how-do-i-politely-tell-a-fic-writer-to-maybe
  6. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20220902222604/https://zombiecleoprime.tumblr.com/post/189635996205/ahh-cleo-thankyou-for-the-comment-on-the-shipping
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