Minecraft and Me

Block Textures

My favorite blocks

Based on visuals ^^

black block with glowing purple veins. — Crying Obsidian

black block with gold veins. — Guilded Blackstone

Block of elegantly styled dark grey bricks. — Deepslate Tiles

Black block with glowing teal pixels that softly fade in and out. — Sculk

Cobblestone with warm green moss growing between the cracks. — Mossy Cobblestone

Darker brown wood planks. — Spruce Planks

Log with dark bark and darkish rings. — Spruce Log

Best texture updates

old cobblestone block with hard green veins. — Mossy cobblestone went from an ugly eyesore to a beautiful block for building! One of the best texture updates!

current cobblestone block with soft warm toned mossy growth. — Mossy cobblestone went from an ugly eyesore to a beautiful block for building! One of the best texture updates!

old busy red block with fine streaks of dark and light red. — Arguably The Best texture update. Netherack was so so ugly. The current texture is not exactly pretty for building, but its very well designed.

current dark red block with a faint texture of rock chunks. — Arguably The Best texture update. Netherack was so so ugly. The current texture is not exactly pretty for building, but its very well designed.

Blueish green cactus with black spikes. — Not the most drastic update, but still a good one.

Warm green cactus with ivory spikes. — Not the most drastic update, but still a good one.

old yellow topped torch with flat red squares intersecting its planes as its glow. — Also a minor update, but I think it makes the redstone torch look softer and glowier.

new red topped torch full 3D glow and a pinkish center. — Also a minor update, but I think it makes the redstone torch look softer and glowier.

Old brown block with agonized faces. — Honestly both the old and new look good, and I think the new is a very succesful update that perfectly illustrates what the old one was going for while improving it artistically.

New brown block with agonized faces, but smoother. — Honestly both the old and new look good, and I think the new is a very succesful update that perfectly illustrates what the old one was going for while improving it artistically.

Clasic obsidian block with blue streaks running down it. — Kind of a cheat since the old crying obsidian wasn't actually added, but god I'm glad they didn't base the new block on it.

New blackish block with glowing purple veins. — Kind of a cheat since the old crying obsidian wasn't actually added, but god I'm glad they didn't base the new block on it.

Current world screenshots!

Buddie was looking for a nice shader to use for minecraft and found Complementary Shaders Reimagined which I also tried out! I've never used minecraft shaders before and its so pretty! My computer fan struggles but my game doesn't lag which is really impressive (especially since I used to not be able to play fast graphics MC on this same laptop with windows). At the same time we downloaded the shader, we made a new survival world, which these screenshots are of!

Heres some shader pics:

Sunrays shining through trees on a hill. Stars are still visible in the sky. — This shader's sun rays are so beautiful during sunset/sunrise! I have it on the lowest setting so they are quite dithered but I think the pixelation suits the Minecraft vibes.

a rainbow over a forested hill, infront of a lightening blue sky with stars still visible. — This shader has rainbows! Which only occur during sunset or sunrise, thankfully accurately across the sky from the sun. I do wish there were secndary rainbows but thats just because I love rainbows. They are still great. This is the picture I used for the header background on this page

Dark bricks of an ancient city illuminated by warm sunlight, with clouds visible in the background. — Sometimes in big caves, with my short render distance, sunrays will come through during sunset/sunrise, despite it being underground, which is really pretty despite the inaccuracy. Here I'm deep down in an ancient city, yet the clouds and sunrays are visible

A small wood house made of dark oak and regular oak. Dark oak steps lead to a double oak door centered in the front and flanked by windows. Lanterns adorn the house. — Heres the house me and Buddie made together as our base!

The same small wood house made of dark oak and regular oak. A single oak door is on one side, with a window and tall flowers on the other side. On the doors side is two dark oak trees with a happy ghast flying over them. — Our house from the back. Buddie rejuvinated the happy ghast.

Interior of the house facing the wall with the back door and window, barrels on the other side of the window. A fireplace made out of cobbled deepslate is on one side and a couch with the blue skull painting is on the other side. A sitting tamed wolf looks at the viewer. Many lanters and the fireplace warmly light the interior. — The main floor of our house!

Outside the house, across from the front door, an expanse of shining water reflecting forested hills on both sides. — The view across from the front door ^^ Water with this shader is so pretty.

An enchantment room with bookshelves around the enchantment table. A lantern hangs from a ceiling of glittering teal on black sculk. — Our enchantment room! I decorated the ceiling with sculk blocks for the starry effect.

Dedicated to:

The Minecraft Wiki, and its contributors for making a great resource documenting the development of Minecraft. I've valued it as a companion to Minecraft since 2012 <3
My Buddie <333 for playing minecraft with me for a decade, our history and interaction is intertwined with this game, and would not be as deep without it. I love you from the depths of my soul.
Mojang, for making and continuing to develop Minecraft!

Timeline

This is the longest section, considered the home, click the "signs" above for the other sections!

Beginnings

Minecraft exploded in popularity in 2012, but I had been introduced to it by my older brother in 2011. He gave me access to his Minecraft account (he's always been very uh Liberal ;) with sharing media) and I still use it to this day!

I believe my first edition was 1.7 beta, possibly 1.6.6 but I'm not sure. Either way it was before the end, before villagers, before creative mode.

It was a wide open yet starkly lonely world.

The nether was the most exotic you could get, unless you downloaded mods like the Aether mod, which introduced a new world with heavenly themes to contrast with the nether's hellish themes. It featured floating islands with flying animals and new ores. Interestingly enough there were also hostile mobs, though I wasn't very good at fighting hostile mobs as a kid. The portal to the aether was made with a glowstone frame activated by pouring a bucket of water in the frame. Some people did not realize this was a mod, and tried doing this in vanilla minecraft only to enter into dissapointment. The nether itself wasn't very exciting either, glowstone was the most interesting block as a cool lightsource.

I most often played on peaceful and made glass houses over lava lakes or water.

1.8 and 1.9 Beta

The 1.8 update (beta) was a major update to Minecraft, including:

Creative Mode!

With flying and limitless block selection (not even separated by category, afterall there weren't that many blocks yet). Before creative mode I had tried out a mod I swore was called indevedit where you could give yourself any item including monster spawners and single panes of a nether portal, and up to 99 items per stack instead of 64. After creative mode was added I hardly played survival for a long time.

Endermen

An enderman from minecraft, a tall thin black monster with glowing green eyes instead of current purple.

With green eyes

With endermen came strongholds and the end. Strongholds were accidentally left marked with a glass pillar, which allowed me to find one very easily when they were added. I then still mostly played peaceful or creative and never defeated the ender dragon.

Villages!!!

The first sign of sentient life, yet initially empty... adding to the lonely atmosphere. Still I was drawn to them. I had even found a youtube video for an endless village seed for 1.8 and was so jealous, but could not get it to work. I still don't know if that was real or not.

It really wasn't long before villagers were added to the villages, but the vacant houses left a longstanding impression on me. I was excited for the addition of villagers, which were initially supposed to be pigmen, an non-zombie version of what were called zombie pigmen (now called zombified piglin). In game the villagers initially had a floating label of "TESTIFICATE", leading minecraft youtubers to call them "testifates" (also "squidwards" due to their noses). Trading was later added, initially intended to be with rubies instead of emeralds, but this did not make it into the game.

Potions and enchantments were also added in 1.9, though I never really got into them (since I rarely played without peaceful mode on in survival). With potions also came the nether fortress, which added a slight improvement to the nether. Mineshafts were a similar cool addition to the overworld.

1.1 - 1.3 of Official Minecraft

screenshot of a minecraft world where some chunks stand tall in normal world stile, while others are short and flat. The tall chuncks have exposed caves and ores. — (Screenshot by poiihy on minecraftforum.net).

Technically 1.9 beta releases were pre-releases for 1.0 of the offical release of Minecraft (not "2.0" as called in the minecraft youtube videos speculating about its new features). 1.1 added superflat worlds, which became one of my favorite worlds to play in both creative and survival. Sometimes when I made superflat worlds, they would generate with both superflat chunks and regular world chunks, which I though was very cool. I love chunk errors.

1.2 added the jungle biome and ocelots which could be tamed into cats! I destinctly remember watching a youtube video about a snapshot for this update, with obnoxiously fake posh accents. 1.3 added villager trading, emeralds, cocao pods, and a few structures with loot, the desert and jungle pyramids.

This was my most invested minecraft period. I was very excited for each minecraft update, watching videos for each snapshot before manually downloading and testing them out.

1.4 and afterwards I was less invested in minecraft, still aware of the additions, but not investigating them after each update. While some things I took to easily (carpet, stained glass, wood types, new flowers, banners), other things I did not keep up with like beacons, wither, fireworks (1.4), horses (1.6), mesa biome (1.7), ocean monuments (1.8), end cities, etc.

Buddie's Server, 2014 - 2017ish

In 2014 I met a dear friend of mine on deviantArt, who I call "Buddie". He invited me to his family's creative minecraft server later the same year. I was still not invested in updates, more casually building things. With a vast distance between us, Minecraft was the perfect vehicle to "physically" interact. We could hangout without necessaily talking and we could in a way see each other and interact with very basic body language that consisted of crouching and jumping. But of course we did talk a lot in said server. Headcanons for our shared fandom, our characters and their world. We had excellent brainstorming sessions. Of course it was also easier to talk about sensitive things like queer/trans feelings in a temporary chat. Between chatting we made many standing pixel arts, houses, and other structures.

In the summer of 2016 Buddie asked if I would be his QPP (Queerplatonic partner, to me its a commitment to one another but without the romance), and having been thinking of the same thing in my head, I said yes. If we are near each other in minecraft we can usually tell when one another is typing, since that person will be still, and he had looked like he was typing but then started moving around again, which prompted me to ask if he was gonna say something, and thats when he asked.

We have been together and close since then, for nine years now!

2018ish

We slowly fell out of regularly playing minecraft and character brainstorming. Bedrock became more convienent for us, especially me since Java started lagging too bad on my laptop regardless of visual settings. We had worlds here and there, but nothing as long lasting as his family's server. My keeping up with minecraft updates became even worse. Though I did enjoy the addition of underwater structures, ships, and buried tresure (all of which seemed to be excessively common on bedrock). It was around this time that I was playing survival minecraft again, and no longer on peaceful mode! Though I never did set out to beat the ender dragon. I was least attentive to the village and pillage update addition of pillagers, how their raids affect villages, and all the new occupation stations for villagers. Though once barrels were implimented I immediately favored them over chests. Campfires and lanterns are really cool too.

Nether Update (2019)

One of the best updates, and the best thing to happen to the Nether!

Piglins! A villager like mob you can trade with in the nether! How cool is that? Makes the nether worth visiting and gold worth mining. I honestly like that they just toss random items back at you rather than complex mechanics. The obsidian has come in clutch too when I've lost my way. Makes the minecraft world overall feel less desolate. I like that they are a neutral mob that you can anger, yet also be friendly enough with to trade with, not wholey passive nor hostile. Not that there aren't other neutral mobs, but not ones you can trade with.

The crimson forest and teal warped forests are also excellent additions, adding some much needed plant life to the nether, cool mushrooms, vines, grass, and a new glowing block. Also some cool ass wood colors from the giant mushroom structures.

The bastonian remnants are another awesome feature, with desirable blackstone and its beautiful gilded blackstone.

The respawn anchor, a black with a crying obsidian base, a round glowing charge meter, and the swirling purple nether portal inside of its open top.

crafting recipe for the respawn anchor, made with three glowstone blocks in the middle, and three crying obsidian blocks on top and on bottom.

The lodestone and respawn anchor are nice quality of life additions that make the nether more explorable. The usage of glowstone in the respawn anchor is also adds importance to the nether exclusive block (since you can't make an aether portal with it afterall...). The respawn anchor also provides value to the (re)added block, crying obsidian one of my favorite blocks for its asthetics.

Crying obsidian was drafted in 2011, as a respawn anchor in the overworld before beds were implimented, but its drafted texture was rather. Ugly. Still its cool that after all these years it was reimplimented as a respawn anchor for the nether! Fitting considering nether portals are made of obsidian.

Of course there was also the addition of netherite, allowing armour and tools stronger than diamond to be made. Smelted from the new ancient debris ore in the nether, netherite also made the nether more worthwhile. Unfortunately it seems they have added smithing templates in 2023 as a requirement to make netherite armour and tools, which I think is an unnecessary and confusing new item. They would be fine for just the trims, but as necessary for netherite upgrade is irritating.

Caves and Cliffs (2021)

The other best update along with the nether update. Caves are now fun and exciting!

Lush caves with vines, moss, flowering trees, and glowing fruit!
amethyst geodes, aquifers, stalagmites, stalactites, pillars!
expanded lower limits of the world with the dark beautiful deepslate and respective ores, which also produces the best brick block, tiled deepslate
- How to make deepslate tiles: cobbled deepslate > polished deepslate > deepslate bricks > deepslate tiles.
Massive sprawling cave systems! You will get lost and spend an eternity mining in them (and find lots of valuable ore!)
glow squids and axolotl, rather useless, but so endearing and enriching to the enviroment.
Of course there are the mountains and funky upper terrain generation, which is cool, but I am more enamored with the caves.

Minecraft made me switch to Linux

It got to a point where even playing on bedrock with everything else closed, started to lag. I would check task manager and "windows updater" or "windows antivirus" would be hogging my CPU. I also moved out of my parents house, taking with me 4gb/mo of phone data and no wifi, so now I needed to conserve data, something that modern programs like to take for granted.

I tried Linux Mint Mate and haven't looked back since! I don't feel like my laptop is bloated with garbage, and now I can run Java, on fancy graphics even! Hell I added a shader and while my computer's fans struggle, my game still doesn't lag.

Unfortunately this does mean I have lost access to bedrock, since thats a microsoft integration. I'm pissed that in order to play minecraft I have to be connected to the internet for microsoft to "verify" my account and use my own damn skin in my own local computer files. Now I have upgraded my data plan with my raise, so its less of a problem, but I'm still pissed that internet is even necessary when you used to be able to play minecraft offline just fine.

Regardless I don't think my poor lousy laptop would have been able to handle the expanded world height and amplified terrain generation on Java.

Now

I just recently got back into minecraft (really bad, hence this page), playing Java again with Buddie on a free server. Everything since Caves and Cliffs is very new to me, such as:

the warden, the deep dark, and ancient cities! I may not have ever defeated the ender dragon, but in this world I explored the ancient city and looted its chests (and only got killed a few times by the warden <3)!
The cherry biome and its little pink flowers, very cute, the pink wood is delightful
mangrove biome which I haven't seen yet
camels and sniffers? Didn't even know about those until just now consulting the wiki
Trial chambers? Not sure if I'll understand these
Smithing templates, which seem kinda stupid tbh
Bundles! Excited to see they added them, I rememeber they were planned but put on hold. Haven't used one yet, but will be useful for exploring and mining
pale garden biome and the Creaking, I had no idea this existed until my Buddie encountered it and told me live in minecraft chat about a mob that froze while you looked at it, but sprinted towards you when you look away. I was suprised they would add something so horror-esq to minecraft, but its cool! The pale oak pairs well with the cherry wood. Resin bricks are quite ugly though.
Firefly bushes, a delightful atmospheric addition
happy ghasts, an interesting development to ghasts, a long time mob. Seems to be useful and unique for its flying ability.
Shelves!!! Just discovered this and I am so excited! They are coming in 1.21.9. This opens up so many decorative possibilities, with both items on the shelves for bedrooms and kitches, but also as decorative trim! They come in all wood colors!
More uses for copper! I was ignoring this ore while mining, but they are adding copper tools and armour, as well as making it a green variant for torches and lanterns!

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Minecraft & Me