It's My Birthday! Yippeee ^_^

🎊 it's my birthday! yippeee ^_^ 🎉

hm ok so interestingly, bdubs’s courthouse is built on an odd number of blocks. note the roof of the facade coming to a point, but more importantly, the nine pillars….

you don’t use an odd number of pillars. like ever.

let me get this out of the way first: i get why you’d build with odd numbers in minecraft. i usually do it myself, to not run into problems like double doors or two-wide pointed roofs or frustrating spacing/symmetry between decorative elements. however. to not even out the design of something so unequivocally done in every other example of columns and pillars…. fascinating implications…

every other example guys. every other building with columns like this has an even number of them.

doing so sets the line of symmetry at an invisible point between two pillars, an even number on each side. but an odd total number of pillars makes the central pillar itself the line of symmetry. this does a couple things.

one, it upends the sense of community and equality. which i know sounds crazy, but really, a group of columns are all put there to hold up a structure. there’s no focus on one because they are all are working as supports.

symbolically, at least when first used in ancient greece, pillars represented people. and it makes sense for courthouses, especially, to want to show an even, fair, equal number of people on each side. no focus on any one, no inherent bias right off the bat just looking at it.

with an odd number of pillars, though, one will always be placed front and center.

and THEN. and then you walk in the courtroom itself (also odd-numbered blocks) and you are immediately opposite the judge, bdubs, located exactly centrally. and true, courtrooms are often set up like this anyway. but bdubs ups the ante and reaffirms that no, focus is on him by staging it all as a daytime court show, boom mic just over his head, cameras pointed in, spotlights on him.

literally by design, it was not built for justice. it’s built for show, for entertainment. and just look at the credits to know exactly what sort of message you’re supposed to be getting from this show.

the biblical story he used, with king solomon. it’s about king solomon. isn’t really about the trial itself, or the babies, or the women. it’s about showing (off) how wise and just he is. that’s the point. hm. interesting.

now, getting to the second point that etho also picked up on: it feels like a prison.

it’s not just the color palette. when your eyes naturally draw to the center point, you aren’t seeing an open space. instead of feeling like an arch or gateway or otherwise some kind of opening, the pillar there makes it feel closed off. the overall effect is that of prison bars. not pillars lining the entrance to a place of order or a temple. bars of a cage, a cell.

imagine the lincoln memorial were set up with 11 or 13 pillars. he’d look so much more trapped in there.

having a central pillar blocks the entrance. it’s not welcoming. you have to go around it; it’s immediately inconveniencing you. and when you go to leave, it’s there blocking you again.

this courthouse was not designed and built to be fair, nor accomodating, nor equitable, on any terms. even if unintentional, i wouldn’t call it so much coincidental as i would… subconscious.

after all, y’know. form follows function.

sigh, I miss qbad.

How charming!

i feel like being sappy rn because i really miss the qsmp but i keep thinking about this

nobody understands how much richarlyson's words here killed me ;--; I started wheeze crying when he said this. her words with stick with me forever

It's always "Badboyhalo go touch grass" "When do you sleep" "When was the last time you saw a human in person" but Bad had so much love for that server. He spent so much time on the qsmp because there was just so much love and joy. He had so much dedication

He was always there when someone wanted company. He was there if someone wanted help building, wanted to do dungeons, wanted to expore, wanted to do lucky ducks or just chat. He spent SO much time with the eggs, learning from them and making memories with them, feeding them their cookies and making sure their armour was maxed out. He was all of the egg's favourite tío. He cared for Dapper and Pomme so much. He gave them the world. Everyone would tease badboyhalo every chance they got, but they knew they could always confide in him. Whenever a new member arrived, he would do his best to welcome them, show them around, and give them gear and food. One of my favourite things ever was when 양띵 first joined and told everyone to call her YD because it was easier for foreigners to pronounce. Once she got closer to bbh she told him she actually preferred being called 양띵. The next day bad spent over an hour practicing the pronunciation of 양띵 over and over until he got it perfectly. He refused to go greet her until he had it absolutely perfect. When he finally felt confident enough to go say hi, 양띵 was so shocked and you could hear the genuine happiness in her voice :D it was really really sweet.

Bad was there for pretty much every event. He wore special skins for cultural events and learned as much as he could. Every day when the server had its backup and would close for a bit, bad would do his spanish lesson. He tried his best with the eggs that mostly speak spanish and would repeat what the sign tts said to practice. He listened so attentively when richas taught him about brasil. He messed with the admins a lot but he loved and appreciated them and was always patient with them.

Badboyhalo was a huge part of the qsmp and it would not be the same without him.

happy birthday!! 🎉

yayy thank you!!