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So I was watching a MInecraft youtuber tour their forever world, and remembered r/liminalspaces was a subreddit I enjoyed and I could join it here on Lemmy. I'm high, and this led to a thought

Often in the community there are those who feel nostalgic for the old versions of the game. What this means specifically seems to vary between individuals but alot of them sight pre-1.0. You can find any number of diatribes as to why they prefer the old, often mechanics like sprinting, beds, and hunger are discussed. But a somewhat common theme is the commenting on a sort of "vibe" the game is now missing with the abundance of structures and biomes. And I've realized, what they're describing is liminality.

For those who don't know, a liminal space is one which instills a sense of nostalgia and longing, often these are populated transitional spaces (think the airport, or a school hallway) rendered devoid of life and often in a somewhat abandoned state.

This perfectly describes this older period of Minecraft's developments. What few biomes there were were often scarcely visited locations for particular resources. Structures were rare and very simple, and villagers were uncommon and nearly useless. Most of a given world, even where something would usually spawn, would be wilderness. And what structure there was wasn't of much use or value. Add to this the pixelated cube-bases aesthetic reminiscent of early 3D games, and the fact that many of these same players- when these versions were new- were playing on low quality hardware for the time and had to run the game on very low render distances using a CRT monitor.

All of this, plus perhaps some filtering of childhood nostalgia, contributes to the game essentially serving as one giant liminal space. There are many things to describe modern Minecraft, but liminal is hardly one of them. And I think that might be what these folks are missing. At the same time, I don't think that's something that could really be achieved with the game's modern featureset. Even if you removed every structure, asides all the content that goes with them, the greater variety and depth of biomes mean what you're left with will more likely feel like a wilderness. It is a distinctly different vibe.

TLDR: Old Minecraft is a liminal space, and that's part of why people who grew up with those versions have latched onto preferring them

Lemmy is a smaller site than Reddit, even before taking into account federation. So I cast a wide net here. A lot of specific popular shows like Futurama have dedicated communities, but I thought it'd be fun to have a generalized one

https://lemmy.world/c/animatedseries

I constantly see angry mobs of people decrying "woke", "critical race theory", ""grooming"", and whatever other nonsense they made up this week. They march around with guns, constantly appending lib as a prefix to any word they can use to denigrate. They actively plot violence and spew hatred in the open.

You never see the inverse. There is no ConservativesofTiktok getting churches harassed into shutting down for the day or calling in threats. You don't see cringey boomer memes on the left. And whenever I openly express those feelings, try to create that sentiment; I get shut down. Noone agrees, I'm often shamed and muted. I just don't understand why that parity exists, it's extremely isolating to feel so alone in this

I know a little bit of lore, but not a whole lot (I just listen to lore channels at work lol). But the question occurred to me upon thinking about midichlorians. I recall hearing somewhere they connect to blood cells, but I know I'm losing my mind so maybe I just made that up somewhere

Some people feel the term is outdated. They say this while parading around what to me seem oxymorons, like "non binary women" or "he/him lesbians".

When a lot of these people say they aren't comfortable with their gender, I notice they often mention things like clothes, makeup, hobbies. More generally, they seem to talk about gender roles- masculine and feminine- than something to do with their bodies.

Here's the fact of the matter. Bathrooms, pronouns, legal documents; they aren't referring to any of that. They're referring to what's in your pants, or if you have boobs, or grow facial hair. Most people, myself included, don't care if you wanna wear clothes or behave in a way assigned to the opposed sex (there are folks who do of course, and most of us here know they're assholes). But unless you're changing something about that, it doesn't warrent a change in your pronouns or documents or bathrooms. As much as my own rights are under threat, I can't help but sympathize with the folks upset with that, I don't wanna share the ladies' room with what amounts to a femboy or "metrosexual" either.

Sex is bimodal, and I use the term bimodal specifically. There are edge cases, such as intersex people, or those with hormonal conditions like PCOS. I would argue transsexuals, those like myself who seek to change or sex, are among them. And hell, actual enben who seek out procedures like gender nullification too. I don't take hormones because I want to be feminine. I take them to be as close to female as I can possibly get with the medical technology available. That's how I want to be seen, and treated. I plan on surgery to change what's in my pants. If I could get a menstrual cycle out of that, I would, and probably go on to have children (because infertility is another perk of transition).

I don't have anything against the sorts of people I'm talking about- I want to be abundantly clear on that. Same with those who say, dont want bottom surgery. My frustration is more with the terminology, because there is a delineation there that I feel is erased. People decry older terms like transsexual as "outdated", but I feel it's much more apt for my experience. I am transitioning to the other sex (or as close as I can). My gender has been constant all the while