#just think there is very little done w the sort of self deprecating aspect of wortoxs character. hes Aware of his impish behavior and-- | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snowdice · 4 years

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Gaps in His Files (Part 6) [Relabeled; Refiled Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Logan/Patton

Characters:

Main: Logan, Patton

Appear: Remy, Virgil (but only in the epilogue)

Summary:

Logan Berry has learned many things the last 10 years: a lot of math and physics, a bit of humility, and how to be a hero being just a few. Through his education, his experience teaching, and his exploits as the superhero Bluebird, he’s changed in a lot of small and large ways. He has recorded these changes in well-organized documents and files. He’s even had to create two new file designations: a red one for files about his moonlighting at Bluebird, and a light blue one dedicated to his boyfriend, Patton.

When Bluebird is targeted by a memory device and all of those 10 years of progress suddenly disappear, Patton Sanders and Logan’s extensive files are left as his only resource to get those memories back. But what is Patton supposed to do when there are clear gaps in his files? And what does he do when he is one of them?

This is set 25 years before Sometimes Labels Fail though it’s story is completely independent of it and it is not necessary to read that one first.

Notes: Superhero AU, memory loss, past child abuse, past child neglect, unhealthy ideas about ones place in relationships, emotional suppression, self-deprecating thoughts, medical procedures mentioned, very brief unhealthy views of sex

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

There are some *cough* illusions to sexy times in this one. Also Patton is um... not doing okay.

Patton said words that he’d usually scold Logan for using when, after the warning, Logan’s eyes fluttered closed and he toppled forward. Patton caught him around the waist. He sighed. “I really wish I had your powers right about now,” he groaned while eyeing the distance to the couch.

Patton was not a weak man, but Logan was not a light one. He managed to maneuver him onto the couch, though his feet dragged the entire way. Patton situated him with a pillow behind his head and then went into the kitchen to grab the quite extensive first aid kit Logan kept there.

A quick check up told Patton that there was nothing physically wrong with Logan baring a few scrapes from the fight. Which meant Patton’s usefulness was quickly dwindling.

He resisted kissing the man even just on the forehead because that would be bad and wrong when he didn’t know who Patton was to him. Instead, he contented himself with gently stroking his hair back into place and covering him with a blanket from the closet in the front hallway.

After that was done, he went to the kitchen. He braced himself against Logan’s refrigerator door and took a few deep breaths. He guessed it was an almost breakdown in Logan’s kitchen kind of day. When he was eventually able to wrestle control over himself, he calmly opened the refrigerator. There were leftovers from two nights before when Patton had tried his best to teach Logan how to cook chicken enchiladas. Logan had resisted the venture by attempting to distract him by any means necessary (mostly kissing and wandering hands). It had half worked, but they’d still ended up with something edible even if the kitchen had been a complete mess.

He could have just warmed them up, but he needed something to do that he could pretend was useful. He found some frozen cooked chicken and started thawing it in the microwave while he chopped up some vegetables from the refrigerator. He stir-fired the vegetables with some soy sauce and garlic and added the chicken to the pan at the end. With no idea how long it would take for Logan to wake, he dished out a portion for himself and placed the rest in the fridge.

Eating did nothing to fill the growing hole of numbness inside him, but at least he wasn’t hungry.

If this was his own apartment, he would have just left his bowl on the table and the pan in the sink, but it wasn’t his apartment, so he washed and dried them both and put them back where they belonged.

Then there was nothing else to do.

…

He went back to the living room. Logan seemed to be sleeping easy and showed no signs of waking up anytime soon. Patton sat down on the chair next to the couch.

He must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew, Patton’s eyes were closed, and he could feel a presence hanging over him. “What?” he asked without opening his eyes.

“We are in a sexual relationship,” Logan’s voice informed him.

Patton blinked open his eyes to look at him. He was leaning a bit too far into Patton’s space than would normally be polite, boxing him in against the back of the chair. “How…?”

“You have a key to my apartment, are comfortable enough in my kitchen to not only cook but to put everything back into place perfectly, and I have a hickey on my inner thigh.”

Patton’s face went red immediately. “Oh my god.”

“It is not a difficult deduction,” Logan continued. “I do have to compliment you. It is quite a large mark, assuming of course, that was the intention.”

Patton hid his face in his hands. “Oh my god.”

“It’s interesting. I have never had any romantic inclinations that I can remember. Is it just sexual?”

“What? No!” Patton sputtered.

He hummed, eyes scanning Patton like he was trying to figure out how he worked or perhaps more like he was trying to figure out what aspects of Patton would serve to intrigue a future version of himself enough to give him the time of day.

Patton swallowed. “Could you, um, give me a little space now, you think?”

“Why?” he asked with a frown. “I’d imagine you’d be used to such closeness considering we have had sex.”

“Yes, and at the moment, you are mentally a high school student.” Patton reached up and pushed at his forehead with two fingers. He stared at Patton for a few moments without moving and then slowly stood back up. Patton pushed himself into a less reclined position. “How’re you feeling?” he asked.

“My head still aches though not nearly as bad as it did before and, other than the small injuries I observed you have tended too, my body feels fine.”

“That’s good,” Patton said. “Let’s get you something to eat, and then I’ll check you over a bit more thoroughly to make sure there isn’t something I missed.”

Logan agreed and Patton dished him out a serving of the stir fry he’d made earlier and popped it into the microwave. Patton checked the clock: 4:30 am. He’d slept for a while. “Want coffee?” Patton asked. He nodded. Good. Patton was pretty sure he himself was going to need it. He started the coffee machine and Logan continued to watch him intently as though he’d never seen anyone make coffee before (not true as Logan had confessed to sneaking coffee behind his parent’s backs at the age of 12.)

“Could you tell me what you know about my current self?” Logan asked when Patton set the two mugs of coffee down.

“Sure, but do you want to be more specific? I know quite a bit about you.”

“You said I am 28 and I can afford an apartment. Do I have a job?”

“Sort of,” Patton replied. “You’re in your last year of your math PhD program and they pay you to teach a couple of low-level classes.”

Logan nodded. It likely wasn’t a surprise to him as even at 18 he’d been planning to attend graduate school in either math or physics.

“What am I teaching?”

“Calculus at the moment. Two discussion sections a week. You’ve taught up to discussion sections for first year graduate level classes, but you went for an easier assignment in your last semester to work on your dissertation.”

“Yes, yes, that all seems to plan,” he mumbled more to himself than to Patton while tapping his formulating-a-question pattern on the tabletop with his fingers.

“I seem to have a superhero persona. You are at least aware of said persona. Do you know how or why that alias came into existence?”

“Bluebird,” Patton provided. Logan’s nose twitched, and Patton laughed a bit. “No. You didn’t pick it, but it grew on you. You created the persona when you were 22 and just starting your graduate program. You were taking a physics course and noticed some strange behavior from your least favorite professor. It turned out he’d snapped under the pressure when one of his TAs missed a final exam the semester before and started to build a dooms day device. You were originally more of a vigilante actually, but when he almost killed a bunch of people, you quickly ended up a hero to the city. You just kinda… didn’t stop.”

Logan considered this for a moment. “That does make sense,” he admitted and then looked back at Patton. “Give me a brief overview of my foes,” he demanded and then tacked on, “please.”

Patton allowed himself to be grilled about Bluebird all through Logan’s breakfast from his enemies and allies to the public’s perception of him to details about the ‘special car.’

“You know a lot about me,” Logan said finally. “You answered all of my questions easily.”

“Any question you can come up with has likely already been deemed important enough information for you to share with me at some point.”

Logan scrutinized him with narrowed eyes. “How do I organize my files for Bluebird’s ventures.”

“Red files, hidden in your office, organized by different file types, and then by date.”

“What type of fabric is Bluebird’s costume?”

“A 60/40 bamboo/cotton blend because of ease of cleaning, breathability, and texture reasons.”

Logan paused and thought long and hard. “What’s Bluebird’s favorite color?”

Patton rolled his eyes fondly. “That’s just a question about you silly.” Logan continued to peer at him. “HEX number 3673b9.”

Logan looked surprised. His eyes scanned Patton up and down. “How many people know I’m a superhero?”

“Oh, uh, just me,” Patton said quietly. “At least that’s what you told me. Well, I think Remy may have guessed. He was in the surgery when you accidently said my name in mask, and he knows you and I pretty well now so…”

“The surgery?”

“Oh,” Patton said. “Right. I’m a doctor. I never remember to tell you that…” Logan raised an eyebrow. “That’s how I figured out who you were,” he explained. “I hadn’t told you I was a doctor and when you were going under anesthesia after being hurt helping the city, you called me by name and asked why I was a doctor. It wasn’t a hard guess from there.”

Logan nodded, his eyes sparking with understanding like they did when he finally figured out a concept he’d been struggling with for days. “A doctor,” he commented idly. “A useful companion to have.” Patton felt himself flinch, but Logan didn’t seem to notice having looked away and down at his coffee. Dismissing Patton as simply useful.

Well at least he was honest.

Patton bit back his emotions carefully. Actually, perhaps this was a good thing: the memory loss. Well, not a good thing, but maybe an opportunity. Maybe without Logan having years of knowledge about Patton and preconceived ideas about how he had to interact with him, Patton could figure out what on Earth was wrong with him.

Want to read more? Click below!

AO3 Part 7

#sanders sides #logan sanders #patton sanders #logicality #tsss #superhero au #memory loss #past child abuse #past child neglect #emotional suppression #self deprecation #gaps in his files #labeled universe #relabeled; refiled #adriana writes

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macbookpro-hard-drive · 6 years

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HI HOW DO YOU WRITE CHARACTERS

hewwo! i can answer this! im literally gonna do a quick list of both deh and bmc characters for u under this readmore! :D

im gonna start with deh because smaller cast!

evan:

isn’t so much stuttery as he tends to repeat things and uh stammer a bit here and there. stutters over his words sometimes but it’s more l-like this and uh, like… like this

evan hansen has anxiety. he is not anxiety. evan hansen fucks up and makes mistakes and probably internalizes a lot of things. very polite when in public but he can be a bit snappy (as seen w evans comment abt how zoe’s parents have never been poor i believe? it was something he said to zoe)

soft spoken, most of the time. probably not the kind of guy to vocally ask for things until he’s at a comfortable enough point that he feels like he’s not bothering you (same buddy)

i see evan as someone who gets frustrated with himself easily. not as a sense of “god i wish i were normal” but more of a “i should be able to do this, why cant i do this, i want to do this but i cant” because sometimes it’s just a matter of i literally cant do this and i dont know why? and god its so frustrating sometimes

jared:

jared kleinman is a fucking asshole and he knows it. very sarcastic and uses it to cover up his own insecurities, probably the kind of dude who laughs in your face when you tell him off when internally he’s just OH FUCK OH SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK

a lot of ppl write jared as being insecure abt his weight and tbh i don’t see that being a problem for him? i see jared as being insecure abt the fact he comes off very snarky and assholeish but he turns it around and tries to own it even though… that’s not something you want to be proud of? and he knows that

not the kind of dude who stops to assess his feelings. he powers through shit and insists he’s okay until he’s out of steam. i think it was psy who said he’s a “needs therapy boi” and tbh she’s right?

can be very passive aggressive imo it’s something he really needs to work on.

arrogant, sarcastic, and just a big fucking dick who needs to learn how to watch his mouth.

zoe:

not an pure baby angel, by any means. we’re at a disadvantage because we only see zoe when she’s sort of grieving (because grief can and will come in different ways, and while i see her as not missing connor, i do think that her pushing away her feelings is a form of her grieving imo? it’s a weird thing to explain but there’s a part of zoe that does miss (the old) connor’s presence as w the fake emails evan “gave her her brother back” (albeit a very fake version of connor) and sort of standoffish when it comes to the subject of connor

a bit of an ambivert. extremely outgoing when she’s around her friends or when it comes to music and other things she loves.

very individualistic! her style tends to have doodles on her clothes, she dyes her hair a lot, she probably would be the kind of person to make her own jewelry!

very sweet. the castng call for zoe describes her as being the kind of person who learns the names of the kids who sit alone at lunch and thats she goes out of her way to be nice to people since. connor. yeah.

thats all ive got for zoe but u can always send questions in and i can say yes or no after i ask my pals too

alana:

smart gal! valedictorian! president! i love her! tends to overshare a bit. anxiety + depression gal.

probably into gardening tbh? i can see alana having succulents in her room and maybe a dog that just chills with her.

dont be afraid to make alana mouthy. alana is someone whos extremely headstrong in her actions imo and does what she believes is right, even if others dont believe that. like… think about the fact that she literally published what was believed to be connor’s suicide note because she thought it’d get them the last bit of help they needed for the orchard. it literally fucked the murphys over - but she never considered that?

very much an extrovert. just really wants to belong, man. very optimistic on the surface but i can see her being a little less so underneath. she looks on the bright side because if she doesnt, she doesnt know who will and idk i dont think alana’s the kind of person who just... lets that risk be there.

connor:

we dont kno much abt connor in canon but uhhh…. i can see connor as being a loner, sort of aggressive by accident (tbh this dude’s probably used to people being a dick to him so he’s just sorta standoffish in response) but like… whenever i write connor i usually write him as getting better? he’s gotten the help he needs and he’s doin better

artsy depressed dude. poetry, painting, ect - whatever u want tbh. i just see connor, with help, finding himself in art or something creative (theatre and music included! u do u!)

very much a reader. this dude both has a lot of books on his bookshelf and a lot more books he hasnt fucking read because hes terrible at reading new books. (i personally hc he loves all of poe’s work)

to sorta sum connor up: bold, but not outgoing. caring, but not obvious with it (once he gets help btw). easily angered but sometimes he just doesn’t fucking know why and that frustrates him further. troubled.

honestly if u want to see one of my fave connors - check out @ask-sincerely-memes! i rly love how they portray all three of the boys, but connor is by far my favorite! (mod con and/or mod ev if u read this i love u)

OK ONTO THE BMC FUCKERS if you want to kno abt the adults for either show then feel free to ask

jeremy:

anxiety boy, but not evan hansen level of anxiety. more just… self deprecating, not super confident in himself, probably underestimates himself a lot.

jeremys hard to explain sometimes because a lot of his actions and dialogue comes naturally since i can actually relate to jeremy a lot, personality-wise? a really good fact to throw out there is i don’t think jeremy’s the kind of guy who just goes for stuff sometimes. he has to sorta be hyped up by others imo. michael motivated him to sign up for the play, rich and michael both played parts in getting him squipped (michael in the aspect of “lets check this out and see if its legit” bc i doubt jeremy would have genuinely done that on his own).

which really means jeremy isnt the kind of guy to just… confess things, unless it’s built up enough (i.e. jeremys confrontation w reader in unlonely since it was a conversation he’d been thinking about for a bit). in canon, he didnt really… confess to christine without the help of alcohol (at the halloween party) or without other people building him up (voices in my head).

im literally rereading jeremy fics rn because im trying to come up with a good way of describing him

extremely horny teenage boy. hormones suck. for anyone who writes nsfw: i dont see jeremy being incredibly kinky and sexual and dominant (god forbid) his first fucking time having sex. especially if its both him and the readers first time. sex can be clumsy. you can laugh during sex. but also sex smells. like… once you’ve smelled it, you fucking know it - its just a weird combo of sweat and bodily fluids.

that last part was just a PSA for ppl.

lightweight boy. a lot bolder when drunk. thank you.

honestly if u have any questions abt jeremy, i can try to answer them more specifically but this is as general as i can get.

michael

not an uwu anxious depressed innocent baby boy uwu. remember that michael literally withheld the mtn dew red from jeremy because he wanted an apology. remember that michael wouldnt have been squipped because michael had been completely comfortable with who he is. michael likes his place. he doesn’t want to be cool and popular - he likes who he is. michael in the bathroom was a peak moment of michael finally letting go of emotions he’d been withholding - jeremy calling him a “loser” was the final straw that broke him. thank u this has been a psa.

a goofy boy. probably snorts when he laughs and im not projecting there what are you talking about-

okay, canonically: likes video games, likes retro shit (probably the kind of nerd who LIVES for arcades and record stores and vintage clothing stores even if he doesnt mix that into his personal style), very into music. there’s a lot you can do with this!

imo he’s very caring? like. okay, yes he did withhold mtn dew red from jeremy - but michael still went through the trouble of finding and obtaining that in order to deactivate the squip. i think michael’s a fairly understanding dude, even if he has moments of anger.

just a very warm person. probably the kind of person who stops and makes sure people are okay when he notices they’re upset.

sometimes impulsive. sometimes very restless, imo. bouncy boy.

like w jeremy - you can absolutely send me questions abt michael (or anyone tbh!) and i’ll answer them the best i can! im by no means an expert but ive got pals i can bother in order to help get a solid answer :3

christine

chriiistiiiiiiiiine, the love of my life. a gal w ADD! please don’t forget that! i personally hc that she got into a theatre as a way of like… sort of getting energy out since she’s fairly restless??? track girl christine….. also good

loves herself a lot tbh! like. in the show, its canon that she has stuff to figure out but i personally think christine loves herself and her body and is proud of who she is?

very friendly, very open, very passionate abt theatre! these are basic facts lmao

very sweet! very smart! she’s like... The Girl in all the movies that everyones like “oh no i love her” bc shes just a bubbly gal

writing christine is really hard to describe sometimes. like with all the characters, i write what feels right and sounds right to me and to others.

but like... to be honest, as long as you stay a bit happy and supportive and loving with christine - you’re on the right track.

jake

god - one of my favorite boys to write sometimes because there’s a lot to do with jake’s character

he’s the ultimate cool dude in high school. probably the kind of dude who would join a frat in college. handsome, popular, flirtatious - you fucking name it man.

sorta effortlessly popular and cool. there’s problems underneath - considering his family - but it’s hard to see that he has flaws when everything just comes so easily to him.

a very caring and sweet dude tbh. his friends mean a lot to him and he’s the kind of boy who carries your books and asks where you’re going and how you’re doing

he makes mistakes. he gets aggressive and protective and just angry physically - he did try to attack jeremy, albeit drunk, based purely on the idea that jeremy was having sex w chloe - so like... that’s a good thing to acknowledge

i said hes flirtatious and he is - without realizing it. someone probably has called him out on it and he’s like “sorry what?” bc he was caught up in talking to someone and not realizing that the dillinger charm never went off. because it never goes off. rip.

rich

GOD, my FAVORITE BOY, the LOVE OF MY LIFE, i love him.

squipped: aggressive. a bully. stinky. 0/10.

post-squipcident: getting better. sorta numb at first before happy, outgoing rich resurfaces because He’s Fine! Do Not Worry! but y’know like... he definitely has a lot of problems with what he did and who he was while he had the squip

a bit sensitive imo. easily upset on certain topics, easily angered on others. really misses his mom (i hc she died and his dad took up drinking as a coping mechanism and its mainly rich and his older brother relying on each other but thats just me tbh.)

rich is tricky to write when it comes to his home life. while i see rich’s dad as being a loud drunk, others see him as being physically abusive and so forth and - okay, that’s your decision, but please make sure you’re being respectful and you post trigger warnings because some people are in abusive homes and it’s not a fun thing to read.

great sense of humor imo. flirtatious but in the more obvious “haha hey lets bone ;)” way. alternatively: flirtatious with squip, floundering a bit without it because all he knows is “haha hey wanna fuck”

would probably fight a dick for his pals. rly just loves his friends even if he doesn’t show it.

chloe

chloe is a bit hard to write without saying “shes kind of a bitch” but like... she is and she knows it and she fucking owns it.

casting call: “ confident, crass, sexy, manipulative, and downright mean at times”

so like. she’s nowhere near bein a sweet angel baby uwu

has problems. explore them. she literally was down to fuck brooke’s boyfriend since jeremy was dating brooke yknow. part of it could be alcohol but like... dont ignore that fact. like. she probs needs to talk to both brooke and jeremy.

i think of chloe as someone who can see the potential in others tbh. gets slightly annoyed when people arent achieving what they could - but i like to imagine she gets it after a while since some ppl dont have confidence and such.

yknow the kind of people that take charge when the situation calls for it? that’s chloe. she’s very much a leader. cunning, ambitious - she’s fucking ready.

brooke

more of an angel i guess? sweet, a bit insecure, and a little more caring. not very dominant in situations - tends to be more of a follower (as shown w her and chloe’s friendship)

very caring actually. she literally followed jeremy out and said “uhhh he was kind of a dick to women but i know u like eminem” upon his death in the show??? like??? she literally went to check on this boy.

imo she sorta needs to learn to be bolder. to not take shit. shes probably the kind of person who says yes to a lot of things even if they’re conflicting bc she doesn’t want to like... bother someone and make things worse

emotional, imo. fairly feminine.

its hard to keep describing sdfkjhds sorry

jenna

not popular. remember that she wanted people to be interested in her, which is why she gossips a lot

probably tends to overhear half of the gossip. other than that, i can see her easily finding shit out bc she has eyes Everywhere

bold, fairly extroverted, probably really fucking smart tbh. give her love. she deserves it.

thats both at me and everyone else. jenna rolan ily...

very much a big sister figure, post-squipcident. theres this kdrama i was watching where the main protag lives w a couple other girls and one of the oldest one of the bunch is very much a big sister figure that will call other people out on their bullshit because she knows protag isnt the kind of person to do that? thats jenna. and chloe, but mostly jenna.

probably the kind of person who wants to be helpful imo. she likes feeling useful.

#Anonymous #asks

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omgtaxtwerk · 6 years

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The Incredible True Story of How a Florida Teacher Became Head of 1 of the Biggest Brands on Earth

Lydia Winters is living the dream.

As the brand director at Mojang, she’s responsible for maintaining all aspects of the massively popular Minecraft brand – from tiny collectible figurines to international events, Winters has her hands in pretty much everything. It should come as no surprise, then, that her work has landed her on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, or that she was named one of Sweden’s most powerful women in digital in 2016, or that on Nov. 18, she’ll be cohosting the company’s annual Minecon event with none other than the brilliantly funny Will Arnett. What will come as a surprise is how she got to where she is – and what her job entails on a daily basis.

I interviewed Winters by phone in October, and the first thing she told me – from her office in Stockholm, Sweden – was that she was born in Florida. “I have an elementary education degree, and I taught fourth grade in Florida for a year before I decided that I didn’t want to teach anymore – but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do,” she said, laughing. “I was just trying to figure it out, I was 21 or 22, and I started doing a lot of photography and shooting weddings, taking portraits of babies and kids.”

It was only after Winters did a photography workshop in 2010 that she was introduced to video blogging, the medium that would eventually land her in her current role. “I was making these really weird daily videos about a lot of random things,” she told me. “In the house that I lived in, I had baby turtles – so one day I’d be singing about baby turtles, and the next day I’d be like ‘I’m sick! I don’t know what to talk about!’ and the next day I’d be talking about cameras. It was always about different things.”

But despite the initial popularity of her work, Winters knew that she was very much living day to day and didn’t have a plan. After successfully raising $10,000 for breast cancer research (and shaving her head, as she promised to do if she hit her goal), she had begun to question the path her life was on once again. “I was like, ‘OK. Now I don’t have a job. I just shaved my head. I’m making videos and things appear to have gone terribly wrong. What do I do now?‘”

A post shared by Lydia Winters (@lydiawinters) on Oct 29, 2010 at 8:57am PDT

After consulting with friends, she realized that the only way to get her life back on track was to try to do something consistent with her videos, to focus all of her energy on one single topic. Winters decided to focus on video games, but there was one problem: the only video game she’d ever played was Oregon Trail.

“My friends thought it would be hilarious if I played Minecraft from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know anything about playing games,” Winters recalled. “This was after I had done this Susan G. Komen 60-mile walk, and someone had given me a hot pink wig. So I was like, ‘OK. I’ll wear a pink wig, and I’ll call myself – I wanted to be Minecraftgirl, but that username was taken – I’ll be Minecraftchick.'”

So, with a pink wig and a second-choice username, Winters began the next stage of her post-teacher life: becoming the lovable woman behind the cult YouTube series The Misadventures of Minecraftchick.

The concept was simple; Winters learned how to play Minecraft in a series of heavily edited shortform videos, interspersed with snarky, self-deprecating commentary. But in a genius twist, Winters chose to film herself as she played, using the video of her facial reactions as an overlay over her gameplay – something that was unheard of in 2010. “Everyone who was doing a very standard, ‘this is my voice, and I am playing right now,'” she said. “I got so much flak for [showing my face]. Now, everyone does it. It’s weird if you don’t show your face when you’re playing, because it’s so much more fun to see someone’s expression and what they’re doing.”

A post shared by Lydia Winters (@lydiawinters) on Oct 28, 2010 at 3:36pm PDT

“In the first video, I couldn’t even figure out how to walk,” Winters recounted. “I just opened [the game] on my screen, and was like, ‘I am starting this game. I’m so excited!’ And then I was clicking everything, and I’m like, ‘How do I move? I’m clicking the mouse, I’m using the arrow keys, and nothing is working.’ So I’m like, ‘OK. I’m going to google this. Pause!’ and then I come back and say, ‘AH! I figured it out. It’s W-A-S-D,’ which obviously I didn’t know as I had never played games. So of course then I’m like, ‘I can walk! I’m amazing!’ and I’m walking and walking and I go into water and I’m like, ‘Wait, which key do I use to swim?’ and then, of course, I drown.”

An innovative format may have made her videos stand out, but it was the combination of a severe lack of resources around how it was exactly that one actually was supposed to play Minecraft and her charming, quirky persona that really won YouTube viewers over. Winters says her “black and white commentary” – noting that she was from Florida, and as a result obviously knew how to swim even if her avatar didn’t – was what made the videos feel less like a how-to and more like a show. And that show format quickly started gaining followers; in the first week alone, she jumped from 0 to over 2,000 subscribers – and it’s then that she decided to up the ante to making daily videos. For five months, she made the videos every single day.

“I was going through a separation at the time,” she said, “and I was like, ‘Oh, man, I really don’t know what I want to do. I’m making these videos and it’s really fun, but I’m doing a lot of odd jobs on the side – little ad listings and writing for people, or editing or posting stuff – whatever friends had jobs to do, so I can support this pretty hobbyish thing.’ But I was gaining tons of subscribers and it was really fun. Every day, my dad would text me and tell me how many new subscribers I had, which was the sweetest thing.”

youtube

But in June 2011, Winters again began to question what she was doing. The revelation came while she was living with her ex-husband in her uncle’s trailer park house – “the most Florida story I can tell,” she said – and found herself once again struggling to get by. It’s then that she came up with the idea of going to video game conference E3 and interviewing the creators of Minecraft for her YouTube channel. She wrote them a cold email that said quite simply, “Hi, I’m Lydia. I’m a serious person. Here’s My YouTube channel. I used to be a teacher. If you need any help at E3, I can do whatever. I would just love to interview you for my channel. Super short, whatever you want.”

Carl Manneh, the former CEO of Mojang, wrote back with a much bigger offer: asking her to host the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Minecraft portion of their booth. Winters questioned whether she was qualified for the role, but with nothing to lose, she dyed her hair pink to match her online persona and flew to LA.

Winters instantly hit it off with the team from Mojang, and she aced the job she had signed up to do. But things took an altogether different turn after she ran into a friend from the internet. The friend had just applied for an art position at Mojang and asked Winters to introduce her to the team – a favor that she obliged – but Manneh informed the friend that the position wasn’t in the US and would require a move to Sweden. It’s here that Winters did the unexpected.

A post shared by Lydia Winters (@lydiawinters) on Jun 7, 2011 at 10:40am PDT

“Unplanned, I turned around and I said, ‘It’s too bad I’m not an artist because I would totally move to Sweden.’ And Carl was like, ‘We want someone to work with the community. Let’s talk more about this tonight.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ And I walked away – I remember very vividly being in the LA Convention Center and trying to find some internet because I was thinking, ‘Where is Sweden? I know it’s in Europe, but is it in the middle?’ But then I googled it and was like, ‘That is SO far north. That is really far north in the world.’ But I thought it was all very funny, because obviously it was just a weird conversation and nothing else will come of it.”

Later that evening, Winters attended a mixer – and Manneh essentially told the Mojang team that they were bringing her back to Sweden when they went home. None of the staff could tell if he was serious, but for her part, Winters was over the moon. “I’m texting my mom like, ‘I’m going to move to Sweden, everyone who thought I didn’t have a plan.’ And she’s like, ‘What? No, definitely not.'”

It took until the last day of the event, however, for Winters to finally get a formal interview – and even after all that, she went home to Florida, thinking, “OK, this was all crazy, but they’re going to go back to Sweden – they’ve been swept up in this sort of very American craziness, they’re not going to follow through on this because it’s crazy and they don’t know me. We don’t know each other, and this is insane.”

Two weeks after E3 ended, Winters had been hired by Mojang full-time. Six months after accepting the job, she left Florida and started a new life in Stockholm, Sweden. And she’s never looked back.

A little over six years later, Winters still loves her job. Her American-ness and penchant toward talking (and talking loudly) made her an enormous asset to the Mojang team, composed mainly of Swedes who prefer, in her words, “next-level quiet.” The role that she took initially saw her looking after the community building related to the Minecraft brand but evolved to become a more senior role looking after all of the merchandising, events, and licensing as well.

“Each thing that has happened in the company has kind of always been like, ‘Well, I can do that,’ and you kind of raise your hand and think to yourself, ‘Actually, I don’t know if I can,'” she said, laughing. “But six years later I can spot the smallest detail in [something related to] Minecraft that is incorrect and people are like, ‘How did you do that?’ And it’s because I’ve looked at it, and I care about it, and I’ve seen it for so long. So the tiniest thing I can spot in a slide that was two slides ago, like, ‘Hold on. Can you go back a second?'”

There’s a reason that Winters has trained herself to spot these sorts of things, and it comes from the best imaginable place: for the love of what she’s doing and the people she’s doing the work for. “The amazing thing about Minecraft is that it’s way more than a game,” she said. “It’s a life-changing thing. It’s a way to spend time with people; it’s a way to communicate. It’s so big, and it’s so important that every day I’m like, ‘This is too important to screw anything up.’ I have to make sure everything is amazing, everything is perfect for this incredible brand that I get to have so much ownership over.”

A post shared by Lydia Winters (@lydiawinters) on Feb 14, 2015 at 6:00pm PST

Every day presents something new and different, and even she herself admits that no two days in a row are ever the same. I asked her to walk me through a typical day at the office, and what became immediately clear is that she really does have her hands in pretty much everything the company does. But naturally, there are some things that are set in stone.

One of those things is her morning routine. “I get up and work out with my personal trainer or at the gym, because I’m on the road to Minecon and I want to look very buff on stage,” she said, laughing. “After that, since I’m a very late person by nature, I’m always on the run from my apartment [to the office], which is on the South Island in Stockholm. My home is a 10-minute walk from work – but I can make it in seven minutes if I run. I’m usually running with a really delicious coffee that my partner has made for me, and I’m kind of spilling it and drinking it as I run into the office.”

On the day I spoke to Winters, she had kicked off her day with a three-hour meeting with one of Mojang’s merchandising partners, who pitched a whole host of new ideas for her team to consider. Winters, who said she was “maybe the eighth person hired at the company,” now has a team made up of product designers and project managers who help her with the approval process on each and every piece of merchandise. Her focus is making sure that everything that gets made has an extraspecial touch and “isn’t a label slap where the same artwork goes on everything.”

What happens when you aggravate a Wolf? Well, MinecraftChick (aka Lydia from Mojang!) found out the hard way when she first started playing the game. We’ve animated her story with LEGO stop motion, of course! All she wanted was a furry friend… #LEGOMinecraft #Minecraft #LEGO #MinecraftMoments

A post shared by LEGO Minecraft (@legominecraft) on Sep 23, 2017 at 7:30am PDT

“There’s always a reason why something is positioned the way it is,” she said. “There’s a reason why a skeleton is being chased by a wolf [on an item] and it’s because wolves like bones and that’s kind of funny, because it’s something that would really happen. A little kid is not going to say, ‘I understand this shirt was very thoughtfully picked for me,’ but they may say, ‘Yeah, that is exactly what a skeleton does.’ And then there’s the adults who buy products, and you want them to go, ‘Wow, there was extra care put into this. This is more special than I thought it would be.'”

It’s not just animals and baddies that get a critical look, either. Minecraft used to predominately focus on a guy named Steve, and Winters was instrumental in getting a second main character, a female named Alex, added into the game as well. “I was like, ‘We have all this merchandise and it’s only a guy!’ and everyone was like, ‘No, Steve is genderless.’ And I was like, ‘He has a goatee. He is definitely a guy. He can be whatever gender he wants to be, but his name is Steve. How many Steves do you know that aren’t male?'”

Alex has red hair like Jeb, the lead designer, and green eyes like Winters herself – injecting a little bit of the Mojang personality into the game they spend so many hours each day perfecting. But she’s also a focal point for many of the conversations that Winters has with her merchandising partners on a day-to-day basis, pointing out the type of relegation that can happen to a female character without a critical eye: “If you’re not really careful and vigilant, Alex is always pushed behind Steve. Or she’s loving animals, and never doing any of the fighting. They both have to be shown in many different roles, because we have so many different players – on a daily basis, I’m talking about this, and looking at it constantly.”

The conversations that Winters has on a daily basis to avoid gendered typecasting are, in her eyes, crucial to putting forth the best possible version of the game to its users. One example of this is the struggle she went through with a specific brand who didn’t understand the importance of equally weighted roles for the “male” and “female” characters.

“There was a description of Steve and a description of Alex,” Winters said. “In the description of Steve, he was an architect, a designer, or a geologist or something. For Alex, it said, ‘She likes to build, explore, and mine.’ The two were sitting next to each other, and I was like, ‘Look at the difference between these two descriptions. You are saying that because Steve is male he has a job – Steve’s not an architect, he’s just a dude that builds. But if you’re going to say he has a job, at least use the same language for both of them. Either they both have jobs or they both like to do certain things.'”

Over the years, Winters has seen countless examples of Alex being mentioned with regard to fashion and Steve in relation to great careers and always puts the kibosh on it immediately. “You know that this will never go through,” she has told numerous clients, adding, “This isn’t OK. There’s no world in which we will approve this. Rewrite it. This not gender equal.”

The statement applies not just to descriptions of the two characters, but their positioning, the weapons they use, and the real-life models that are used to show off the goods that the company signs off on. In her mind, both characters should be portrayed as badasses – not one over the other. “I’ve had pink hair, I love pink, I love purple, I love animals,” she explained. “That’s fine, but there are also girls who don’t love any of that.”

It’s clear in looking at Mojang’s myriad offerings that these “soapbox moments from Lydia” have made a tangible difference – and an unexpected extra benefit is that it has also affected the workplace culture of Mojang as well. Winters, who once saw herself as a lone wolf hopping around doing whatever needed to be done, now has five people reporting into her and a whole lot more women standing by her side when she has these conversations.

In Seattle. Photo by @vubui. Fashion by @nittygrittywomen.

A post shared by Lydia Winters (@lydiawinters) on Mar 9, 2015 at 11:08pm PDT

“I was the first woman in the office, and then there were two of us – our CFO and I – and now, I’m happy to say, we have a huge amount of women working in the office,” Winters said, noting that she spent her lunch hour after the merchandising meeting doing a one-on-one with one of her direct reports. “They’re all amazing and incredible and save me so much time and have so many amazing ideas – and I’m transitioning into a better leader and a better boss because I take it very seriously, making sure that they’re developing as much as possible, just like I’m trying to.”

But she’s not just a manager and a brand champion. She’s also a brand ambassador, so Winters spent the afternoon before we got on the phone planning out the big reveal for this year’s annual Minecon: that she’ll be joined on stage with Will Arnett.

“It’s both the most exciting thing and the most panic-inducing thing I’ve ever done, because it’s like, whoa, this is the big leagues now – I’m going to be on stage with Will. And I think he’s amazing and I have for so long that I’m like, oh my god I’m going to pass out. And it will be so bad if I just faint,” she said, noting that while she may be fangirling out now, the most exciting part of him hosting is that he’s a huge fan of Minecraft himself.

“He was super interested in cohosting Minecon because he and his kids play together. And we always care about someone having a personal connection to Minecraft. I want everyone to play, but I get that it’s not for every single person – and there’s something really special about finding someone who’s not just awesome at what they do but they also like Minecraft, too.”

It’s awesome to finally say that Will Arnett is my co-host for MINECON Earth http://ift.tt/2m4pG30

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