The Minecraft Series is a catch-all description for the Yogscast content based around Minecraft. It started as a Let's Play of the sandbox game Minecraft with Lewis and Simon on the flagship BlueXephos channel. However, after a few unusual events and weird encounters with a mysterious character named Israphel it grew into an ambitious Machinima.The bulk of the Minecraft series is composed of a semi-improvised comedy drama, where Lewis and Simon play the parts of a Xephos, a heroic 'Spaceman', and Honeydew, a mighty dwarf, respectively. The series is set in the fictional land of Minecraftia, where Xephos and Honeydew encounter a range of colorful characters, and, by virtue of their talent and skill (or a succession of lucky flukes), become worshiped as mighty heroes by the citizens of the land.Season 1 of this was something of a Let's Play about survival multiplayer in Minecraft. Later, after collecting materials at an outpost of obsidian, Xephos and Honeydew build a portal to another realm, releasing an evil and hostile figure, Israphel, which they subsequently pursue. The Filler Season 2 was a survival map of Minecraft on a desert island, later becoming linked to the Israphel saga after an airship approaches. By Season 3, so far the longest and dubbed Shadow of Israphel, they destroy this portal and others like it, engaging in a full-scale war against Israphel and his Cult.Other videos in the series include custom map play throughs, Mod spotlights that Hannah of the Yogscast occasionally participates in, and Minecraft update coverage. There is also an ongoing series based on the a custom Minecraft mod pack using the Feed the Beast launcher called YogCraft (transitioned from Tekkit), described as "a little bit like Tekkit, a little bit like Feast the Beast, but it's YogCraft", featuring Lalna and Sjin and a whole lot of other members across several channels as well as Voltz, focusing on the team of Lewis/Duncan (and later Simon) and Sips/Sjin (and later Ridgedog) and a Survival Minecraft series with Sips and Sjin.
Alas, Poor Villain: Arguably the first Evil_Honeydew clone, given how it didn't really choose to be evil, still liked Lewis and was quite funny. It had to be put down, but damn if it wasn't tragic.
Always Chaotic Evil: The hostile mobs, supposedly, and, according to Simon, cows.
Ascended Extra: Professor Grizwald only appeared in writing in an adventure map, but his memorable voice acting done by Simon made him into a One Episode Wonder that made him become a part of the Shadow of Israphel backstory (spelled "Grizwold") in the Legend of Verigan special.
Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: They have often chased an enemy, found several more enemies (or just one they didn't expect) and quickly backed off. Doesn't usually help.
Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: One of the reasons why it takes a while for anything to get done is that Lewis and Simon, to their own admission, keep getting distracted by interesting things that have no baring in the story.
Bad Ass: Simon is constantly zigzagging in and out of this, quickly dealing with zombies and skeletons one episode and being afraid of a single Creeper the next. Lewis does this as well, though to a lesser extent.
Berserk Button: Simon doesn't appreciate enemies attacking him in the middle of speaking.
Don't attack Lewis in front of his dog. You will be mauled.
Do not make any sort of threat to Daisy's safety! Old/Knight_Peculier WILL kill you! King_Finbar learned this the hard way.
Big Eater: In-game, Simon and Lewis constantly ingest an ungodly amount of pork, bread, fish, cake, soup, and cookies. This is mostly due to them constantly being hurt as a result of their own clumsiness.
Big "NO!": Simon goes to town with a particularly large one when they discover the yogscave has been destroyed at the start of Shadow of Israphel.
Simon also just does this whenever something bad happens, like him or Lewis dying, Old_Peculier passing out, or Lewis killing Daisy the cow.
You're miles away from that creeper-infested planetoid, Simon. Miles away.
I just went for a piss...I didn't burn anything....I DIDN'T BURN HIM!!!
Bow and Sword in Accord: Simon and Lewis go with this - Simon more often using the Bow, and Lewis more often using the Sword, but they do take turns. How much it helps them out is up for debate.
Simon. He seems to always be the first one enemies go after. He also doesn't see Creepers when they sneak up on him (and Lewis only remembers to warn him some of the time), usually causing him to be stealth-bombed.
Lewis as well, though mainly due to Simon hitting him for seemingly no reason.
Sjin in the Tekkit videos.
The Chew Toy: Lewis is sometimes subjected to this, with Simon hitting him for no real reason at all, to cheer him up, when he is pissed, because he wants to dye him black, to knock him over a bottomless pit, or because he's "pressing" him.
TotalBiscuit's grave is in one of the Shadow of Israphel videos.
TotalBiscuit, Notch, and deadmau5 seem to cameo occasionally in side events such as Granny_Bacon's funeral and a livestream event, but they're actually all bots. TotalBiscuit in particular is annoyed by this, as he had sworn to never appear in a Minecraft video.
Canine Companion: Wolves, whenever they have one. They usually die after a few minutes. Simon gets a damn army of these (around a dozen) when showing off the Biospheres mod.
Fumblemore had one in the "Legend of Verigan" livesteam before it burned to death.
Simon's "Follow me!" and "Cooooome 'eeeeeeere!" ("Come here!")
Simon's girlish "Awwww!" along with Lewis' somewhat less girlish one.
They call each other "Friend" or "Pal" an awful lot.
Lampshaded somewhat when they first arrive at the Mistral City graveyard and find their pre-planned graves. The prepared epitaph on Xephos's (Lewis's) grave is, rather touchingly, "Goodbye, Friends!"
Any official merchandise is sent with a thank-you card containing the message "Thanks for the support, Friend!"
Simon doing a crude rendition of the Yogscast opening theme song with his voice during awkward silences.
Humming the chest opening music from The Legend of Zelda whenever they find some rare treasure. The "found a secret" from the same series and a simple angelic choir sound also pops up in a similar fashion.
The charming but odd way Simon says "Hellloooooo!"
"Balls to it" and variations.
Asking/saying that someone's "Ballsed it up" whenever someone severely screws something up.
"Hooraaaaaay!" whenever they escape a deadly situation or find something good. Simon tends to say this more, with Lewis sometimes following up with his less-excited one.
Simon says "WHOOP" when trying to be cautious or coming very close to danger.
The Diggy Diggy Hole song, as well as all of its variations.
Simon's "What game is this?" or "It's like a whooooole new game!" whenever there's and update to the game or they test a mod, no matter HOW minor the change. Seriously, he almost uttered this after taking off a jack-o-lantern and being able to see clearly again.
Simon inexplicably has one while playing as Verigan in the Legend of Verigan Charity Livestream.
Lewis' main weapon in the Aether mod.
Epic Fail: When Simon, Lewis, and Skylord_Lysander try to sneak into Skylord_Jasper's house, the use a waterfall to quietly make their way down. Skylord Lysander doesn't make it in, and instead gets washed off of the roof.
When Simon and Lewis play a game of YogGolf, Simon tries to make a simple shot through a gap in a wall... and misses six times... from a couple of inches away.
Every time they try to build themselves a bridge or stairs to walk across a gap or get out of a hole. After playing Minecraft so much, you'd think they would have some clue about how to do it properly, but as seen in their attempt to rescue Um_Bongo in Shadow of Israphel Part 29, Lewis always manages to block someone else's way with a misplaced block and doesn't even try to break it, while Simon just forgets to put something to stay on under himself BEFORE walking towards empty space and falls from the Skyhold.
Um_Bongo: "Don't take me with you down there."
They make CHAINS of these in the "The Return" adventure map. Simon accidentally launches an empty minecart ahead on the tracks, then goes with his own. Because of some kind of glitch, he catches fire along the way and dies while riding the cart. Lewis follows the tracks as well, catches fire too but stays alive because he has food, but then he bumps into the first, empty minecart and just lets himself get carried backwards all the way to the start of the tracks, catching fire a second time along the way because of the glitch. Later, Simon manages to get cart-jacked halfway through another minecart ride... By a random pigman. How that happened, he never managed to explain.
They also manage this on some of the custom map playthroughs, having twice blown up a map so badly they couldn't finish it.
Surprisingly, Creeper_Boss does this in his first appearance. While Simon and Lewis had to actually fight Zombie_Boss, Creeper_Boss just blows himself up before the heroes can attack, and only deals slight damage. He's more careful in future episodes, though.
Flanderization: Simon used to be slightly dull and use TNT a bit to blow up doors. Now he's Too Dumb to Live and uses TNT to build bridges over jumping puzzles.
Lewis does a hilarious one in part 4 of "The Tree Of Life:
Simon: So yeah, just two men, swimming together under a starry night sky. Nothing wei- Lewis: Well, technically, you're a dwarf. Simon: Right, right. A man and a dwarf, swimming under the night sky. Nothing weird about this at all. Lewis: Right. Simon: ...Lewis, I'm not wearing any pants. (Beat) Lewis:What.
Lysander gives us one after Simon dismounts from a plane indoors and teleports through a ceiling in episode 27 of Shadow of Israphel.
Father Braeburn has a blink and you miss it one when Lewis falls off the sky platforms, dies, and then comes back and gets his stuff a few minutes later from where he fell.
This is practically a Catch Phrase of Simon's, especially during Lewis' mod showcases.
Genre Savvy: Lewis is generally like this when he isn't off being an Idiot Hero with Simon.
Lewis asked Simon to hold the holy record when Mistral City burned down because he realized he himself dies more often.
In Shadow of Israphel, Old_Peculier sometimes lends a hand with the duo's adventures, but typically leaves after a while. Likewise, PirateTinman helped the duo out for a bit... before being ditched because the Yogscast couldn't figure out a puzzle to get all three party members across. Skylord_Lysander occasionally delves in this, too.
Some Shadow of Israphel NPCs participate in non-Shadow of Israphel videos. For example, Fumblemore was participating in the first livestream event, and Old_Peculier helped the Yogscast explain the 1.2 Beta update. Fumblemore also tagged along in the Yogscast's adventure in the "Super Hostile Canopy Carnage" maps, along with Swampy_Bogbeard.
Hell-Bent for Leather: When the duo isn't dressed in stronger armor already given to them for a big battle, Simon normally takes weaker armor when he and Lewis have to share. This usually means leather. This is because Lewis ostensibly needs the more durable armor for the hits he will inevitably take, as he is the aggressive melee fighter, while Simon, who is an Archer, doesn't get hit quite as much, unless an enemy gets the drop on him from behind. Or a creeper is anywhere near him. Which is always.
The leather cap keeps getting re-purposed into different items. From Shadow of Israphel Parts 3 to 11 it's Granny_Bacon's head. In Part 12, it appears to be Mr Banjo's monkey head. In Part 26 it's a ball gag. From Parts 27 to 30 it becomes a pair of goggles that Simon loves because of Rule Of Cool.
Honor Before Reason: In their earlier videos. When presented with a "jumping across lava" challenge, they decide that they won't tunnel around the lava or just make a pathway across because it isn't in the spirit of the challenge. Their later videos...well, given all the "/give Xephos 46 1" that goes on whenever they can't solve a challenge, this can safely be called total aversion.
Kleptomaniac Hero: Taken to almost an art form; the only thing stopping Simon and Lewis from mining out entire buildings for loot in Minecraft is a combination of a watchful NPC and their own incompetence.
This is just ridiculous with them. Lewis has recently started a habit of stealing arrows from dispenser traps whenever they come across one. Possibly justified, since the arrows would hurt them if the dispensers were activated, which is nearly unavoidable. Plus they need arrows because they use their bows a lot. And technically there ain't no rule ''against'' stealing arrows from the dispensers.
They spend almost an entire episode trying to steal from Skylord_Jasper.
Seems to be Simon's preferred method of combat, other than being the bowman of the pair. Bonus fit, seeing as how a good half of the vanilla creatures they fight in Minecraft are supernatural (Zombies and Skeletons).
Lewis temporarily adopted this way of fighting as well with a bucket of lava and kiting.
Jock_Fireblast likes this as well.
Old_Peculier destroyed a chicken this way, as well as most of the surrounding forest, in the 1.2 update video.
Israphel destroyed Santa's grotto this way in the "Santa of Chrismaphel" charity special.
The Lancer: Played with a little bit, but Simon is arguably this, while Lewis is the one who comes up with most of their ideas and communicates with most of the NPCs. The Yogscast Wiki also claims that Lewis is the de facto leader of the duo.
Large Ham: A PRIME EXAMPLE OF THIS TROPE WOULD BE THE BRILLIANT PROFESSOR GRIIZZZWAAAAAALLLD!!! HE YELLS EVERYTHING HE SAAAAAYYYYS!!!
Somehow made even more hammy in the Calmere Nightmare adventure map:
Simon: Am I hamming it up just a little bit too much?
Skylord_Lysander, when not being the Straight Man, does this every now and then, yelling "For Victory!" every time he jumps into a dangerous situation. In Shadow of Israphel Part 30, Lewis started slipping Lysander's speech patterns into Grizwaldesque ones, which Simon noticed.
Let's Play: What the Minecraft videos were before the addition of NPCs and a story arc.
The custom map playthroughs are straight examples of this.
Shadow of Israphel is still basically this, in so far as they're playing a game and recording their commentary in reaction to it (they've said in interviews they aren't told the story, so their commentary is mostly unscripted). The game just isn't being played as intended.
Only Sane Man: Lewis is sometimes subjected to this whenever Simon starts making impulsive decisions.
Skylord_Lysander is definitely this when ever he's part of the party. He scolds Xephos and Honeydew for the things they break, he constantly has to remind them to stay on track, and in every video he appears in the heroes do something that completely baffles him. Lysander is quite possibly the most sensible character in the cast.
Out-of-Character Moment: At one point during the Legend of Verigan charity livestream, Lewis (who is playing Karpath) yells at a young Templar_Adaephon, after the young templar snaps at Professor Grizwald for needing to rest so often, which shocks everyone. Justified in that Templar_Adaephon is Karpath's apprentice. Lewis generally just acts generally braver than normal during the livestream.
Karpath/Xephos/Lewis: Cull your toungue young Templar! We need the old man well and rested!
Lewis gets another one in the Mine Little Pony mod, near the beginning, as he starts acting surprisingly bossy to the others. Simon even calls him out on it.
Lewis: Fumblemore, where's this house? My ponies aren't doing very well. Where's my rubber tree orchard? Where's my house, guys? What's going on?
Proud Warrior Race Guy: Dwarves, if it will be taking any material from World of Warcraft. Played staight with Simon's character, Honeydew, who is quite proud of his heritage.
Much of the early story of Shadow of Israphel was made when nether portals were broken in SMP, so they had to come up with excuses for why the heroes couldn't enter them until the game was fixed.
The Yogscast became bored with their first Tekkit server and decided to start a new one, giving rise to Duncan and Sjin's world-destroying war, and then to Rythian's story of getting revenge on them for it.
In the Yogscast Teaches Athene Minecraft video, the Yogscast theme is interrupted to play another track.
The opening music suddenly stops in the Weeping Angels mod spotlight, when Lewis spots an Angel.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Simon is red, eager to cause damage and wreak havoc and clearly the most spirited about this experiment. Lewis is blue, thinking things through sometimes too carefully, and hardly unnerved. During Planetoids in Minecraft, while Simon was loudly crying over mobs spawning, at night, left alone, and having died earlier, Lewis ignored him and commented on how the clouds were "causing some trouble for him."
Lampshaded with in their Tekkit game where Lewis has a sapphire pick-axe and Simon has a ruby one.
Running Gag: They always run into a Creeper (an enemy that explodes) every few episodes or so and they almost always explode.
Explosions in general, considering their tried-and-tested way of solving puzzles in Minecraft. "/give Honeydew 46 1" (the server command to give Simon a block of TNT) has become a fan in-joke in its own right.
Simon: Fuck it, let's do this the Yogscast way.
Lewis and Simon completely flipping their shits over the sight of a monster.
Simon's several love interests. First Daisy_Duke, then Granny_Bacon, then Isabel_Peculier. Possibly justified considering that the first two were kidnapped (and in Granny's case, killed) shortly.
Lewis says something which is Accidental Innuendo, and Simon says "I'm sorry?" invoked
Lewis: I need to go get some wood. Simon: I'm sorry?
Simon punching Lewis down holes and ladders in adventure maps.
Their hatred of jumping puzzles, especially ones with lava.
Simon and Lewis have also come to hate lever and button puzzles as well.
There's been various mentions of a character named "Bob", usually to break or mock a serious mood.
Simon's breaking of the laws of physics perplexing Skylord_Lysander seems to be becoming one of these.
Going "Blehhh" whenever they drop items via the Q key.
In their Shadow of Israphel series, after escaping Grimjaw's little dungeon thing with Tinman, Simon and Lewis got separated from Tinman by being distracted by a giant dragon sculpture. They ended up hiding in a tomb of some kind because of a thunderstorm and giant enemy Zerg Rush instead of heading back to Barbecue Bay like Tinman did. They soon lampshaded this when they left, with one of them saying they probably "weren't supposed to be there yet."
Apparently, the papers to climb the Skylords' tower are blank because they're psychic. Lewis and Simon also assume that the Skylords are related to the Time Lords.
"It's turtles all the way down" from Episode 30 is a reference to the first chapter of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.
The last episode of the first season ends in a manner similar to an episode of LOST, with the logo slowly rotating and the exact same sound playing as in the show.
"That's a very nice X you have there..." is a (very frequent) reference to the popular Minecraft meme, which ironically became even more popular with their series.
Simon has taken to humming the The Flintstones theme song whenever Lewis mentions bedrock.
The highlight would have to be when Simon and Lewis "meet" and go for a handshake...which doesn't look like one at all due to the greenscreening having Lewis closer to the camera than Simon and their hands not being synchronized at all.
DaveChaos trolled Simon and Lewis in the Yoglympics map when he put a button labelled to go up into the Dodgit event that actually threw Simon and Lewis down into a pit. He then proceeded to try and blow up the winner's podium with Lewis and Simon on it after his "special message" on the wall from the map makers (BOOM!), but just missed them.
In "Sunshine of Israpony", Lewis and Simon claimed that the niccolite ore (which looks like diamond from a distance) was trolling them.
Vitriolic Best Buds: Simon and Lewis snark at each other, snap at each other (especially when stressed), hit each other and on one memorable occasion Lewis outright kills Simon's character so he can become the Grim Reaper. Similar stuff goes on in all their other videos. But hugging is also attempted, and the odd moment of comedic sappiness making it blatantly obvious they're good friends.
Any of the pre-made dungeons and towns in the Israphel saga. Simon and Lewis typically have no idea what they're getting themselves into every episode, so they often awe at the scenery and detail put into the settings. And besides: it's Minecraft. It's bound to happen.
The Coral and Water Shader and the Amazing Water mods do a good job of this too; the latter is mostly just a couple of minutes of Lewis and Simon going "wow".
Israphel saga
Action Survivor: Old_Peculier, who is a retired knight, has a smattering of prowess with the sword (enough to keep him from becoming The Load), but is not as good as Simon or Lewis, and needs to rest often and drink a ton of water because of his age. This is then subverted twice, but in two different ways. First, he becomes The Load because of The Taint. Then, he takes a level in badass and becomes Knight_Peculier.
Adventure Towns: First was Terrorvale, a small, out-of-the-way town with only three NPCs and a couple quests built on top of a vast cave system. Then came Mistral City, an immense city of airships, floating castles, shops, NPCs and even a mine dungeon, now burnt to a crisp then entirely covered by trees thanks to Swampy. Then there was the Carnivale de Banjo, a carnival owned by an eccentric man. Then came Barbecue Bay, a port under siege from pirates built right on top of a nether portal. Then was the Skyhold, home to the Skylords and new location of the Carnivale. Then was Stoneholm, subterranean home to the dwarves.
Allohistorical Allusion: In the Legend of Verigan flashback, Simon and Lewis have fun debating the strange green exploding monsters, how they tend to creep up on people, and how they seem to be made out of those (creeper) vines that grow on trees, and end up dubbing them "viners".
The Aloner: PirateTinman, who has been trapped in Grimmjaw's teasure hold for decades because two people are required to solve the first puzzle. Ends up being ditched again by the Yogscast duo because they couldn't figure out the proper way to solve the final puzzle, but somehow manages to get out of the puzzle anyway, Hand Wave'd in a parody animation in the beginning of one of the next episodes.
Amusement Park: Carnivale del Banjo. Lampshaded; Simon and Lewis refer to the local NPCs as "carny folk" and suspect them of cheating them out of money.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: While in Madame Nubescu's scrying chamber, you can see one of the signs labeling the contents of the chests around the room says "Tomes of Nightmare, Prophecy and Tasty Cooking".
Ascended Extra: Professor Grizwald only appeared in writing in an adventure map, but his memorable voice acting done by Simon made him into a One Episode Wonder that made him become a part of the Shadow of Israphel backstory (spelled "Grizwold") in the Legend of Verigan special.
His grandson (Prof_Webley), who they encountered in Episode 40, has joined the duo on their adventure. Sadly, he seems to be The Load more than anything else.
Ass Shove: How PirateTinman plays the security tape.
Simon: Oh God, he's going to bend over and slip the disk between his butt cheeks. PirateTinman: *Bends over* Simon:Oh my God, he is as well!
Awesome McCoolname: In Shadow of Israphel Part 24, Lewis refers to his diamond sword as his "Diamond Sword of Awesome" after he gets accidentally killed by Simon and loses it.
Bad Future: Appears in a map-fragment induced vision in Shadow of Israphel Part 25.
Big Bad: Israphel, or at least the closest by far.
Big Damn Heroes: PirateTinman, who saved Isabel from Israphel in a flashback.
Bigger on the Inside: The "plane crafting table" in Shadow of Israphel episode 27.
Simon goes to town with a particularly large one when they discover the Yogcave has been destroyed at the start of Shadow of Israphel.
Simon also just does this whenever something bad happens, like him or Lewis dying, Old_Peculier passing out, or Lewis killing Daisy the cow.
Played tragically straight by Simon in Episode 38 when Knight_Peculier falls into the lava and dies.
Bizarrchitecture: Fumblemore's house, which he always rebuilds differently when he destroys part of it with a particularly destructive spell.
Black and White Morality: Good guys are good, bad guys are bad, and it's just a question of who is on which side in the end. Especially since the good guys are also Idiot Heroes.
There's just as much implication that it wasn't rape. Which just makes it funnier.
Black Spot: The pirates describe the fragment of Karpath's map as this.
Book Ends: A bit before discovering the town full of NPCs, Lewis and Simon build a portal to the Nether (which doesn't work). At the end of the season, they are at the same portal, preparing to venture into it. However, they end up not trying to enter until the start of season three, with season two being more of a breather season. And the portal still doesn't work.
Season three starts with the Celaeno on fire, and Simon and Lewis trying to reclaim their Survival Island items from the wreckage. Much later (though not at the end of the series, but at the end of an important part), they find Mistral City also on fire, and are trying to reclaim items from the wreckage. This time, specifically the Holy Record from the church.
In Survival Island (a custom map that eventually starts having slight relevance to the main plot), they are in a slight hurry at the start to get coal for torches. Near the end, they again go looking for coal, this time to fuel the airship that will take them home.
Brain Bleach: Both Lewis and Skylord_Lysander reach for the Super Whitening Extra Strength variety when they hear certain... noises coming from the Greasy Spoon Shoppe during Simon's fling with Granny_Bacon.
Cerebus Syndrome: From the 100% light-hearted beginning as a tutorial teaching others how to play Minecraft, to a highly popular dramedy series with an epic soundtrack, both the plot and the characters mature and become grimly serious. Meanwhile, Simon and Lewis do not (for the most part). Played for some laughs with Mood Whiplash, as the presence of the two heroes stops some well-written scenes that could've been pulled from a horror movie from being downright nightmarish. Such as episode 38's horrific aftermath of some guy who ripped his own bones out that is glanced over by Simon hitting Lewis with an arm and laughing at the slapping sound it makes.
Chaos Architecture: Lysander describes Fumblemore's floating tower as having this.
Characterization Marches On: Skylord_Jasper started out as extremely loud and extremely angry all the time. He even threatens to murder Lysander for stealing his towels. The only hint that he might have homosexual tendencies is his preference for pink in his home and Lysander calling him a "fag" while distracting him. When he reappears in Shadow of Israphel Part 26 he is no longer aggressive toward the heroes, he is flamboyantly gay, and he's calling Lysander "lover", making him outstandingly uncomfortable.
The sand that always seems to appear in odd places during the Shadow of Israphel series.
The "Cave of Terror," seen in the first episode, turned out to be not a cave at all, just the underside of a cliff. They decide to use this place to set up a portal to the Nether, which doesn't work. Turns out it may have resurrected Israphel from the dead, allowing him to let evil spread through the world once again.
The pumpkins' Heads Up Display, originally just something silly and lighthearted becomes important when the pumpkins (now TVs) held a cryptic clue to find the third map fragment in their HUDs.
Chivalrous Pervert: Simon has shown shades of this, with his many love interests, who he seems to have only found attractive because of their looks. For further proof, watch the introduction to Shadow of Israphel episodes 21-23.
Clip Show: The latter half of Shadow of Israphel Episode 35, being told by Knight_Peculier.
Co-Dragons: Jock_Fireblast, Reverend_John, Creeper_Boss and Zombie_Boss to Israphel
Comically Missing the Point: In part 10 of Survival Island, Lewis discovers the Temple of the Lost Curator...while Simon is distracted by all the iron and coal that's in front of it.
When Lewis, Simon, and Old_Peculier come across the Hellgate the former two made much earlier on:
A hilarious (Acted out) one is given by Simon in "The Jackal and the Cave", when they come across a gruesome cave painting depicting The Jackal mauling a small group of people.
The airships don't seem to have any crew other than a Skylord captaining it, plus passengers.
Lewis: Well I assume it's more than one person on there. It's quite a big thing. Maybe it's one guy though.
Cuttingthe Knot: Simon and Lewis come to a door with a puzzle lock mechanism. Lewis tries to figure out the puzzle when Sim grabs some TNT and blows up the door.
Dead Person Conversation: Simon and Lewis have a very revealing one with Verigan in a vision in Shadow of Israphel Part 25, showing them that Israphel will take over the word if they fail.
Destructive Savior: Where they go, explosions, fire, and stolen items tend to follow.
Disk One Final Boss: Episodes 15 and 16 of Shadow of Israphel are all about this, consisting of Simon and Lewis rescuing a wounded Old_Peculier from a deserted guard tower, and then ending up in an epic battle against Israphel and his hordes of minions,and repairing the wall while the enemy is regrouping. All the while, the three are constantly bombarded by a Zerg Rush of spiders, and forced to deal with The Sand everywhere.
Disproportionate Retribution: Simon traps Strongman_Bruno in a tree as revenge for him cheating him out of a victory in a contest of strength.
Distressed Damsel: Twice; first Daisy_Duke, who is currently somewhere in the Nether, then Granny_Bacon, who didn't last very long. Both of which were Simon's (very temporary) love interests, funny enough.
Distressed Dude: Knight_Peculier in Shadow of Israphel episode 15
Doomed Hometown: The Yogcave, which was blown to smithereens by Israphel. Stoneholm is this for Honeydew and Spacker LeChuck, as the people were enslaved by their resurrected king, and most of the populace was turned into zombies.
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Knight_Peculier's death is out of nowhere and painfully anticlimactic. It takes Lewis several seconds to even realize what happened.
Um_Bongo's death is also very sudden, but unlike the above example it didn't appear to be scripted, but instead the result of a poorly aimed jump.
Dug Too Deep: Simon says this word for word when exploring the Deepcore Tunnels in part 33.
Emo Teen: Simon's description of Young!Fumblemore.
Evil Overlord: What Israphel will apparently become if the duo fails, resulting in the Bad Future seen in their vision.
Evil Versus Evil: the pirate ship battle between Grimmjaw_Slugface and Jock_Fireblast.
Exact Time to Failure: As of the ending of Episode 34, an ancient Sand God wakes up and the world ends in 3 days, 7 hours.
Fail O'Suckyname: Lewis notes his player-invulnerabilty makes him like a superhero. Simon then grants him the names of Uselessnoobman and Terribleatcomputergames Fella.
Far Side Island: Survival Island pretty much starts off this way.
Fetch Quest: To make a cure for Old_Peculier, Fumblemore requested a bucket of water (of life), dirt, feathers, creeper powder, and two golden apples. The two golden apples themselves had to obtained by getting diamonds for Granny_Bacon and a record for Father_Braeburn, and stealing them from another NPC. The result? A bucket of muddy water with two golden apples and some feathers in it.
Another fetch quest appears in Stoneholm. Moira_Magmabloom requires gold, lava, and beer to forge the key to the next area. The result? She gives the duo a lever. Knight_Peculier Lampshades it this time, asking why the duo didn't just make one themselves.
For Old_Peculier, as he was tainted by Israphel in Shadow of Israphel.
Later, for Skylord_Baaku in Skyhold. Subverted when Nubescu and/or the Yogscast had the ingredients available. Double subverted when it only delayed his curse.
Frothy Mugs of Water: Inverted. The beer in Stoneholm is buckets of milk with a texture pack applied. Bonus points for the new texture having froth on top.
Funny Background Event: In part 17 of Shadow of Israphel, a zombie is seen lurking about in the background before setting itself on fire and dying.
In part 16, the tapestry on the wall in Verigans hold shows George Washington crossing the Delaware.
Simon: Put the goggles on! Lewis: Do I get magical powers when I put the goggles on? Simon: No, but they make you look cool as heck.
Subverted in part 31. Lewis puts them on to protect himself from a plague in Stoneholm (Simon doesn't need them, dwarves are apparently immune to plague) but has to remove them because one of their mods makes you heavier when you have armour on. Fortunately the plague was a lie.
Grave Humor: The graveyard in Mistral City contains a good selection of this.
Island Help Message: To get attention from a nearby airship, in Survival Island part 8, Simon writes out help in lowercase with torches, and makes it stand out with an exclamation point.
I Was Quite a Looker: Granny_Bacon, as seen in a flashback, as well as the Legend of Verigan Charity Livestream.
Jack of All Stats: Knight_Peculier. He isn't as good with communication or a sword as Lewis, as skilled of a miner or bowman as Simon, or as smart as Skylord_Lysander, but is competent at all of these.
Killed Off for Real: While Simon and Lewis frequently come Back from the Dead, as if they were playing regular Minecraft, any "NPCs" who die, outside of the "Legend of Verigan" special at least, remain dead. This applies both to scripted events such as Granny_Bacon's death and apparently accidental deaths, such as Um_Bongo falling to his doom. This rule inexplicably does not apply to Zombie_Boss or Creeper_Boss, who are killed in virtually every encounter, though it's possible Israphel either resurrects them or simply creates new ones.
As of episode 38, it would appear Knight_Peculier is dead.
Late Arrival Spoiler: The death of Knight_Peculier via minecart from Shadow of Israphel episode 38 can be seen on the BlueXephos channel background.
Lethal Joke Character: Young!Fumblemore in the Legend of Verigan Charity livestream. His combat skills are subpar, he constantly destroys his fellow adventurers by mistake with his spells, and can't gather resources without making a mess. However, he is incredibly good at blowing up spawners, and can deal with dense clusters of enemies with a blast of TNT.
Jock_Fireblast explodes into bones and porkchops (supposedly flesh) when he dies.
As do Zombie_Boss and Creeper_Boss during the events listed above under Disk One Final Boss.
Skylord_Baaku does this quite suddenly, with a suffusion of redstone dust in place of blood, making poor Simon sick.
The site of Templar_Enoch's death. The walls and floor are covered with blood, and his rotting limbs are lying around. Yes, it's freaky.
MacGuffin: In Shadow of Israphel, the items needed to prove that the heroes' have conquered the trials of Skyhold: Fire, Snow, Leaves, and probably Netherack. They are even called MacGuffins by Simon in Episode 30. He turns out to be right, as Skylord_Lysander admits that they weren't really needed at all just as Simon is wondering why they couldn't have just used a flint and steel to break through the wooden seal.
Machinima: Becomes this when a mysterious player attacks them one (in-game) night.
Major Injury Underreaction: When the Yogscast boys came in for a "How to play Minecraft" video with Jesse Cox on OMFGcata, Lewis falls in lava. His reaction is quite calm.
Lewis: Oop, I've just fallen in some lava and I died. Simon: Here is where he died. R.I.P. Lewis. Never forget. * Simon then walks off.*
Mauve Shirt: Gareth the creeper and his brother Henry, and their uncle, Mr Astley.
Old_Peculier is old, and a bit quirky. When he becomes Knight_Peculier, this becomes slightly averted - he's a knight, but no longer peculiar.
A bit less obvious is the fact that he first appears as the owner of a small tavern in a small town, and "old peculiar" is an obscure slang term for beer from a small, local brewery, generally in a small town.
Jock_Fireblast turns out to be as much of a raging pyromaniac as Simon, as he was the one who burned down Mistral City, and much later, Barbecue Bay.
The Creepers in general. They usually creep up on Lewis or - much more often - Simon, exploding before they can react or be warned.
Metaphorgotten: Simon in episode 2 of the Survival Island map.
Simon: "You're throwing caution to the wind. You know how it goes with wind. Sometimes it can just change direction and you're left with egg on your... face. I think I mixed metaphors a bit."
Mighty Glacier: Zombie_Boss, due to the fact that he always crouches while walking in order to make him seem more "zombie-like".
Minor Injury Overreaction: In one episode, while Simon, Lewis, and PirateTinman are trying to dig their way into another part of Grimmjaw's treasure vault, PirateTinman accidentally punches Simon. Simon then starts whining incessently dispite having only having taken one heart of damage. Lewis then replies with the hilarious line "Man up, bitch!"
Mission Impossible Cable Drop: The duo does this when trying to steal Skylord_Jasper's music diskWITH A FREAKING WATERFALL!!
The Mole: In Shadow of Israphel, this is revealed to be Skylord_Lysander. It later turns this he was framed, and Jock_Fireblast is the real culprit.
In Episode 29 we learn Skylord_Vitali was this to the Skylords.
In general, the dramatic/story elements of the "official" Shadow of Israphel series is offset by the humor and ineptitude of Simon and Lewis, often cracking jokes and pointing out absurdities as soon as a scene is over. As the series matures with darker themes and the plot of saving the world becomes more grim, the mood whiplash deepens greatly from its completely light-hearted origins.
The outright horrific depiction of Enoch's final resting place is severely undermined when both Simon and Lewis pick up his limbs and hit each other with them. With sound effects.
Name McAdjective: Simon notes that the crowd Swampy Bogbeard hangs out with would be the likes of "Clucky McFeathers" and "Wooly McBaaface".
Never Learned To Read: Honeydew and Xephos. Enforced, because all of the notes and map fragments are done through pieces of paper (which are blank), they both have to get NPCs to tell them what the paper is/says. Lewis comments they must not be able to read in Season 3.
Never My Fault: When Simon deliberately sets the Yogcave on fire:
Lewis: Was that my flint and tinder? Simon: Yeah... so technically, it's your fault.
New Age Retro Hippie: Swampy, Fumblemore's brother, who lives in a floating chunk of earth and forces you to climb up using saplings and bone meal. Whether or not this is just Simon and Lewis's speculation of what he sounds like, and not who the character actually is, is up to debate.
Templar Enoch's expedition to investigate the metal remains ends up having a hand in releasing Israphel.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If Israphel never messed around with Xephos and Honeydew, he never would've lured them to Old_Peculier when he was about to kill himself with poison. The rest is history.
Nostalgia Level: The ruins of the Yogcave after the trip to Survival Island.
Off the Rails: Shadow of Israphel has been described by the Yogscast as being like a Dungeons & Dragons adventure, with Simon and Lewis's friends creating an elaborate story for them to play without them knowing the entire story. Thus, (relatively minor) deviations to the main story ensue that the "gamemasters" have to account for and ad-lib. Occasionally leads to Hilarious Outtakes.
Simon creating a plane inside the aircraft carrier instead of creating it on the carrier is an example in episode 27. Skylord_Lysander is obviously surprised and didn't plan on having to rebuild the plane.
Lysander: Please try not to break the laws of physics any more than you have already...
As pointed out by many commenters on YouTube, there was a way to get PirateTinman across the lava bridge puzzle instead of just abandoning him...
Though no NPCs were present to advance the story, the time Simon and Lewis attempt to find shelter at the Temple of Lehparsi after a sudden downpour is definitely this.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: According to the PAX 2011 Yogscast Teleconference, the fight with Jock Fireblast had to be reshot because of one of these, as while Simon completely destroyed him, Lewis, the cameraman, wasn't there to film anything.
Percussive Maintenance: Simon fixes an apparent error in young Granny_Bacon's NPC coding this way, even referencing Fonzie from Happy Days in the process.
Posthumous Character: Templar_Enoch, the explorer that worked with Griswold in the desert excavation; Simon, Lewis, and Peculier find an Apocalyptic Log written by him at the excavation in question.
Jock_Fireblast is evil and stole the map fragment. He was the one responsible for burning down Mistral City.
Old_Peculier's father is actually a knight who needs to destroy Israphel and the portals, but trapped himself in the Nether to also trap Israphel - that is, until Simon and Lewis summoned him (Israphel) again
And he's actually Karpath Antioch, son of Verigan Antioch The First. Peculiar's real name is Verigan The Second and he is the next Templar King (whatever that means)
Skylord_Vitali is a Vampire, is working for Israphel and killed all the other Skylords.
King_Finbar is possessed by Israphel and all the Dwarves have been turned into Zombies
The Wall has been sabotaged and The Sands are pouring out.
Israphel is working for a group of giant robots called Sentinels, who the Sand was just a prison for, the Sand was only evil because Israphel took control of it, and the Sentinels will activate and destroy the world in 3 days and 7 hours.
Rick Roll: Mr. Astley sings "Never gonna give you up", with intermittent hissing, when the heroes find him imprisoned in Stoneholm
Ring Out Boss: In their first encounter with Zombie_Boss, Lewis kills him by knocking him into a ring of lava around Israphel's castle, which is just as dangerous for them.
The Rival: Strongman_Bruno and Simon absolutely can't stand each other, and their personalities clash a lot. This is worsened by Bruno cheating Simon out of his victory in a strength contest, and Simon trapping Strongman_Bruno in a tree.
Tempting Fate: During the Battle of the Breach, Lewis remarks that the enemies probably can't make it through the then-recently repaired wall. Creeper_Boss blasts a new hole in the wall shortly after he says this.
When going through one of the trials in Skyhold, Lewis says that the trial was simple and that he was surprised at how, despite the presence of cobwebs, there wasn't a spider in sight. Less than a minute later, the two of them are attacked by a swarm of spiders.
Simon's idea of "putting the heating on" inside the Yogcave is to use a flint and tinder to set the wooden floor on fire, nearly destroying the entire cave.
Lewis flooding the Yogcave after tunneling through one of the tower walls. Hell, both Simon and Lewis have a lot of these moments.
Trash the Set: The Yogscast have done this a few times over the course of the Shadow of Israphel series: so far they destroyed the Yogcave, Mistral City, and BBQ Bay. They do, however, either fix or destroy for others to fix some of the older "sets" in the series that they store in either a public museum server or an RPG server for fans to visit.
The Usual Adversaries: Silverfish. Simon in particular is terrified of them, calling them worse than Endermen, and both Simon and Lewis get mobbed by Silverfish multiplying repeatedly.
Vague Age: Lampshaded. Old Peculier, who is, well, pretty old, has an uncle, who was around during a time Granny Bacon was young, who seems a little older than Peculier himself, but his father was around during that time too, and a sister who is rather young-looking in the present day and he... Well... Don't think about it too hard. To clarify: Granny Bacon and Templar_Adaephon are both over one hundred years old.
The Virus: Called "the taint", later during Shadow of Israphel.
Webcomic Time: At least from the NPCs' point of view, the series is implied to occur over a much shorter timescale than aired.
In Shadow of Israphel Part 25 (aired June 2011), Spacker_LeChuck mentions part of Swampy's forest being an inn "but weeks ago", even though Mistral City burned down and was evacuated in Part 10 in February.
In Part 34 (November 2011), the gang have three days until the Jade Sentinel is fully operational. As of July 2012, this is essentially still ongoing.
Wham Line: In part 23 of the first season, we have this line.
Old_Peculier: That poor man, his son Israphel was out hunting when the creepers got him.
And Call Him George: In one video, Simon shows off his world (which has the YoGbox compilation mod pack installed) and meets a pink dolphin. He tries to ride it, but it keeps throwing him off. The eventually end up on shore, and Simon coddles the dolphin, which he accidentally beats to death.
A giant Simon does this to tiny Lewis in the Gulliver mod spotlight, after nearly killing him with one punch.
As Lewis runs away to hide in a small hole. Simon: Come here I want to play with you, (Then in a booming voice) I will hug you and squeeze you and call you Lewis.
The Skyrim mod, to an extent. While the shouts are not terrible, they ultimately aren't as powerful as they were in the original game and it would be quicker in some cases to just slay your enemies with a sword or an arrow to the knee.
The explosives mod, given that excessive use will probably render your overworld barren.
The All Terrain vehicle that used to come as part of the Technic Pack covers a lot of ground, but it will cause you to jump fairly high as soon as you bump into a block that is higher than you. This can lead to a lot of Amusing Injuries, and if you fall in the water you're pretty much dead unless you bail.
The Cinema Mod will cause you to crash your computer or lag like hell, despite its epic appearance.
To an extent, the cars mod. While it does serve well as a mode of transportation and the integration of some Garry's mod style graphics and mechanics is pretty awesome, it will cause you to glitch a bit owing to the way it is programmed, and you're pretty much screwed if you fall down a hole, though admittedly when shown falling into the sea Simon didn't drown even when all of the bubbles had popped.
An in-universe example with Yoglabs itself. During Part 2 of the Galacticraft mod, Lewis says that Yoglabs wallpaper is retextured gold blocks, meaning the entire facility is made of solid gold. While they more than likely spawned in the gold using creative mode, it would have been a pain to build it in Survival, considering how expensive gold blocks are and how many of them are used.
The Ugocraft mod can be used to make gates, drawbridges, and even more. Quite useful for castles and forts.
The planes and helicopters mod, when mastered. However, having multiple helicopters allying with you (you have to fire on them once) can cause this trope to be zig zagged. There is a lot of firepower, which is good if you need to clear a large area, and it is now multiplayer compatible. However, if you aren't careful your already fragile helicopter will break a lot faster when it bumps into the other ones. The standard firepower of the helicopter is not that strong either, though it is good for setting wood settlements on fire and still works well as a method of transportation.
Smart Movement Mod, which changes the animations while also making it easier to travel certain terrains.
The Mind Control mod. This essentially gives you the ability to force hostile mobs away, turn them on other mobs, and eventually blow up near the undesirable parts of Minecraft.
The Remote Control Mod, which essentially allows you to use remote control planes and cars. This essentially gives you a Recon vehicle that you can use to scout an area you want to explore.
The Horses mod, which allows you to ride in style and traverse terrain at great speed. They're also very handy for battle, though you may want to practice first.
Better Than Wolves, integrating ropes, grapples, better industrial facilities and even windmills. Great for revolutionising your town. It does, however, involve a fair degree of Kick the Dog- wolves are not treated well in this mod.
Technic pack/Tekkit. Lewis even stated at the begining that he was looking at "Industrial mods that make the game amazing"
The SDK guns mod.
The Dragon Mod gives you a Badass dragon companion and is also a good method of transport. It's very good for hunting too. Just keep it away from your livestock.
The Ferullos guns mod also counts, as it gives you a gun with reasonable effectiveness, plus a wide array of other powerful weapons and good armour, though diamond armour is still better.
Bad Boss: Surprisingly, Lewis. It is revealed that the government was trying to reclaim Yoglabs because Lewis blew their entire budget on BMWs.
This is how Lewis felt about the Backpack Mod, especially in comparison to the previous Awesome, but Impractical Skyrim Mod.
Depending on what you build, the Ugocraft mod.
The Clear Water mod makes it a hell of a lot easier to see.
The trampolines and automated door mods, though of course the former does have potential to be this trope, Awesome Yet Practical or Awesome, but Impractical depending on what you build.
Brick Joke: Odds are if something explodes, Lewis will go back to showcase a later mod in the resulting hole. For example:
The nuclear explosion he caused in the Uranium mod spotlight wound up becoming his quarry for the Fossils mod (resulting in weird glitches, such as giving him a permanent awkward position that is hilarious both for the viewer and for Simon). He also decided to test out the explosives+ mod in a recreated Mistral city after blowing it up in a helicopter.
During the technic pack mod spotlights, Lewis left after trying out a nuclear reactor that he felt has a dodgy construction. In the very next video, he goes back to look at his house to find out the reactor had overloaded, obliterating his house and most of the cliffside it sat on.
Dragon Rider: The dragons mod, of course. You have to tame the dragon first, however, otherwise you can be thrown off without warning and take serious damage.
The Enderdragon mount in the yoglabs video lets you raise an Enderdragon from the otherwise useless Dragon egg, giving you a mount to fly with and a very powerful and durable guardian.
Explosive Breeder: The rabbits, which causes a massive problem for Simon when he shows off his Single Player map with Mo' Creatures, and finds two, which he keeps as pets in his house. He then leaves for a few minutes, finds another one, and brings it home, only to find a dozen baby rabits when he returns, ranging from newborn to about 75% grown up. He puts the third adult rabbit in the house while staring in shock at the swarm of adorable critters. This accelerates the rate of birth. When Simon decides to force his way to the door to get them out, he discovers that he can't get through all the rabbits. Then, a few of the oldest children reach full-grown age, and they start breeding too... This got to the point that he just deleted the file, because his world had been infested and that rabbits were pretty much swarming the landscape.
Mathematician's Answer: During their showcase of the Fairy Mod, this is Hannah's response when the boys ask her if the pink flowers are the red or yellow ones.
Why Won't You Die?: Quoted word for word by Simon as Lewis is fighting the Made of Iron Valkyrie Queen in the Aether mod.
Adventure Maps
The Ace: The reason they take Fumblemore to their adventure maps. He can use magic to fly and explode obstacles, very useful in the Canopy Carnage arc.It was practically made for him.
Aborted Arc: Some of the adventure maps they play never get finished for various reasons. A most recent example would be Paladin's Quest 2.
Awesome, but Impractical: Simon building a bridge of TNT blocks thanks to a previous explosion causing lava to flow in in the Curse of Sunny Springs map. However, he built it right next to the lava where all those blocks can be sparked and explode.
Big Word Shout: Simon shouting "WHYYYYYY!" after completely messing up a shot in YogGolf.
Boldly Coming: While exploring the Enterprise-A from the Star Trek movies, Simon, in character as James T. Kirk, wishes to teach an alien spider "the ways of kissing".
Busman's Holiday: According to Lewis, the Temple of Kikatchu and Curse of Sunny Springs maps are holidays where he and Simon end up saving the world anyway.
Canine Companion: Lucasaide the puppy in the Paldin's quest two map. Extremely smart for a standard wolf, hunting out and finding levers the guys miss. He's actually controlled by another player with a mob skin over it.
Lampshaded by Lewis in The Curse of Sunny Springs, after skipping past two sacrifices and not knowing the other two map co-ordinates to progress.
Frequently using TNT to bypass puzzles sometimes wrecks the map to the point they HAVE to skip sections of it. It's usually Simon's fault.
Ironically, one of the biggest cases of this trope wasn't their fault; in the Pharoah's Curse map, a creeper blew up and activated an anti-cheating countermeasureWiping outtheentire map in a fifteen second chain reaction
Face Heel Turn: Simon and Lewis both undergo this at the end of their playthrough of the custom map "The Journey", burning down the village. Lewis is especially affected, killing Simon with the Scythe of Death.
Fake Difficulty: When a map calls for the player to switch to peaceful mid-adventure, Simon and Lewis tend to not do it because switching difficulty on multiplayer is a pain to do, thus they'll wind up fighting monsters in inopportune places, getting ambushed by creepers while riding minecarts, and in some situations, having damage done the the map that makes it Unwinnable by Mistake.
Filler: The adventure maps to the main Israphel arc. The Survival Island videos were this before they were retconned into the story arc.
Full Frontal Assault: Simon wound up doing this during the Calmere Nightmare Two map, due to the My Little Pony texture pack not uninstalling correctly.
Genre Savvy: The mapmaker of The Swarm custom map is a fan of the Yogscast. At the beginning of the third part is a complex jumping puzzle to get to the top of a tower... right next to a ladder labeled "a ladder just for lazy dwarfs".
Lewis: Right. You ready to kill some spiders, pal? There's quite a few...
Simon: I was born ready to kill some spiders, pal.
Mr. Exposition: Professor Grizwald usually fulfills this role in adventure maps, due to Simon lapsing into the voice whenever reading the notes they are given.
Lewis lampshades this in "The Journey", with Simon attempting to do a female Creepy Child voice:
Simon: Dear diary: *Lapses into Grizwald voice* Lewis: Does everyone in this town have the same voice? Simon: (Still Professor Grizwald) Yes! Yes we do!
Later, in the "Mountains of Kikatchu" map, Simon voices Professor Burben, apparently Grizwald's brother, and Dr. Whitewall, who has a different voice but the same speech patterns. Simon chalks it down to a Kikatchu accent.
Oh Crap: Happens in Monarch of Madness, when Simon and Lewis are at the end of a three-dimensional wool maze and a sign there tells them to set some of the wool on fire and then run. After igniting it, they just stand there for a few seconds and stare at the fire before remembering that they are supposed to leave, at which point they promptly panic and flee. By this stage, pretty much the whole maze is burning down...
Schmuck Bait: Happens at the end of "Rise of the Rebellion Part 2."
Lewis reads a sign: Never press a red button. (beat) (Lewis presses red button.) (beat) (Room explodes.)'' Simon:Oh! Lewis:Crap.
Simultaneous Arcs: Well, not exactly arcs, but each team competing in the Survival Games uploads its own POV of the event. A number of occurrences makes more sense when all the videos are watched back-to-back.
Tempting Fate: Twice within the space of five minutes in the "Professor Grizwald and the Redstone Keys" map. In the volcano trial, Lewis says that its his turn to die next and a Creeper appears. Then, Simon says that there "probably aren't any Creepers up ahead", before being interrupted by a Creeper ambush.
Too Dumb to Live: In the very first part of "The Curse of Sunny Springs", Simon's wolf Ollie ran directly into a fire for no reason and died.
Too Soon: In the "Archer Hero" map, while riding the minecart to the finish, Lewis mentions how the last time he rode a track like that was when Knight_Peculier died in Shadow of Israphel. Simon called him out on mentioning it so off-handedly, then says that it made him depressed.
Unusual Euphemism: The Jackal and the Cave, with Lewis correcting Simon's creative interpretation of the wall paintings:
Lewis: No, Simon, that's not—no, no, no no no no no. Simon: So... so there aren't hot dogs ahead, is that what you're saying? Lewis: Quite the opposite, I fear. We will be having our hot dogs ejected from our bodies.
You Make Me Sic: Simon enjoys pronouncing the misspellings in adventure map notes.
Vanilla Minecraft update videos
Brick Joke: In their review of the Minecraft Beta release, Old Peculier commented on how the sheep can change colors and become naked after being hit with "It's beautiful!" ... "It's naked!" In the first Minecraftlive stream, during Survival Underground, Fumblemore gets a sheep to spawn before it hits lava and burns the wool away. "It's magic!" ... "It's naked!"
Let Him Choose: How Simon and Lewis decide over the dog during their 1.4 show-off.
Tropes pertaining to the Tekkit, later changed to YogCraft on the same server, series on the main Yogscast channel, featuring Simon, Lewis & Duncan. The series follows the progress of the three working as Honeydew Inc for the most part to create and run a Jaffa Cake factory. The series also prominently features SipsCo, Sips and Sjin, firstly as a rival company but later they join with the other three in order to help out.
Accidental Pun: Sips remarks in episode 38 how he's planning for a big Christmas party next year, and says it's going to be a real shindig. Simon looks over at Sjin and proceeds to lampshade the obvious misinterpretation.
Another regarding Sjin's name; episode 89 starts with everyone starting off as normal and then moving on to see Sips and Sjin in the other room only to find only Sips. He explains why Sjin wasn't there by saying he banged his shin.
The Ace: Duncan at first; he is the first to achieve flight and knows most Tekkit stuff. However, this becomes less noticeable when Lewis begins to match him in capabilities.
Awesome, but Impractical: Lewis's infamous wall of machinery, which Duncan and Simon both want to tear down and keep trying to explain has a more efficient way of being done. It only stays up because Lewis (and Simon to an extent) thinks it looks cool and "works fine".
Lewis: We're doing the wall! The wall...is awesome! Don't mess with the wall!
Eventually, even Lewis decides it'd be best to retire the wall and put it somewhere else as decoration.
Duncan's Egg Coaster:
Lewis: Why don't we just teleport the eggs up here in the first place?
Duncan: That's boring.
Bad Boss: Simon in Episodes 13 and 14. Sips for the entire series.
Big Damn Heroes: Not a big deal was made about it, but in part 28, Lewis is fighting off skeletons that are in the factory's basement and is down to one health. Before one last skeleton can shoot him, Sjin pops out of nowherenote well, actually a nearby cave he had been in, but you get the idea and kills it.
Blatant Lies: Several, usually from Sips. Examples are his lies to Simon about what he's doing on Pig Island note he claims to be surveying the dirt, when he's actually turning the pig statue into dirt and replicating it and telling Lewis and Duncan that he has several Sips Co. factories, all of which are a hundred times better than Honeydew Inc. note As evidenced by his own Tekkit series, he and Sjin have built all of one factory as of episode 80, which wasn't exactly as ambitious as Honeydew Inc.
Break the Haughty: When we first see Sjin, he's serving as Sips Co.'s resident Obstructive Bureaucrat, a role he seems to revel in. Later, after being fired from both Sips Co. and Honeydew Inc., he becomes far more humble in his dealings with Simon and co., even voluntarily helping them out in later episodes.
Simon goes though this in Episode 28 when he briefly loses control of the company to Sjin. Once the status quo is restored, however, he forgets it immediately.
Sips is also subjected to this when the true CEO of Sips Co - a giant head normally operated by Sjin, but this time operated by Simon - orders him to work at Honeydew Inc. Though possibly subverted in that the work he's told to do is the kind of thing he's always wanted to do and hates being a CEO.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: In episode 95, Louis stops and wonders how they were going to explain, from a canonical perspective, why they were abandoning the Jaffa factory despite the fact that building it was the main plot of their series.
Call Back: Duncan still hates Sjin for what happened in their Tekkit playthrough during his playthrough with Lewis and Simon. As one YouTuber notes, you can HEAR the anger in Duncan's voice. This causes issues when Simon tricks Sips co. into working for them, as their effectiveness at building starts to make Duncan jealous, and his sentences start to get a lot more scathing.
In Episode 72, Lewis asks if they have any sugar cane left over "from that disastrous event when Simon poked us", referring to Episode 13, when Simon abused Lewis so badly he quit Honeydew Inc.
Epic Fail: Simon's "teacup" and "beer mug" statues. Sips replaces them with better ones.
Et Tu, Brute?: Simon aims this at Sjin in episode 31.
Everybody Laughs Ending: Tekkit 76, starting with Sips and quickly spreading to everyone else, including Simon who is the butt of the joke (or at least his artistic talents are).
Evil Laugh: Simon pulls off an epic one in episode 13.
Forbidden Friendship: Subverted with Sjin and Lewis. They outright called their friendship this and worried how the others would react when they find out, but Simon and Duncan didn't care and Sips was only upset because Sjin was neglecting his job at Sips Co.
Heel Face Turn: Sjin, after becoming friends with Lewis, Simon, and Duncan.
Hypocritical Humour: Sips berates Lewis for suggesting the use of a condenser and fires him for installing a diamond pipe in the SipsCo. quarry (see Ludd Was Right), but he and Sjin regularly use both in their own Tekkit series. Said quarry actually being a decoy might have something to do with it.
I Have Many Names: Simon's company starts off as Honeydew Inc., but then later changes rapidly to Honeydew Corp, Honeydew Enterprises, Honeydew Industries...it reaches the point where Simon forgets what the company is called. Every sign with the company name has a different title.
In episode 18, Simon has another streak of power madness and knocks Duncan into the quarry hole, while he's gloating, a zombie sneaks up and knocks him in, leaving him at the mercy of several creepers.
Ludd Was Right: Sips appears to believe this. While he does use a quarry, anything more advanced (such as a proper filtration system) is quickly rejected.
This is what eventually got Lewis fired.
Man Behind the Man: Sjin's act as the giant stone head, the "true" CEO of Sips. Co, who was making Simon go pig crazy and has apparently been using Sips as well.
MacGuffin: The last remaining share in Honeydew Inc. becomes this in Episodes 27 & 28, being fought over by Simon, Lewis and Sjin.
Mythology Gag: Pig Island was a joking name used way back in Lewis and Simon's Let's Play of Survival Minecraft for a floating island with a couple of pigs on it. Now it's an artificial island on the sea (with many pigs) that Simon spent a lot of time around.
Not so Above It All: Lewis is usually the Only Sane Man, but has his moments of this as well. Particular examples are his wall of machinery (see Awesome, but Impractical above), condensing a bunch of eggs to spawn chickens in the middle of the factory, and random mentions of world domination. Though the latter may have been a joke.
Though the rivalry is more in spirit than anything considering that they aren't even in the same industry, as Lewis points out a couple times.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In episode 13, after Simon goes powermad and starts beating Lewis with a stick, he decides he's had enough and quits Honeydew Inc. to go join Sips Co. Episode 14 has the same thing happen to Sjin after he was fired by Sips Co. and tried to join Honeydew Inc., he was even less tolerant of it than Lewis was.
Side Quest: Simon treated Pig Island as one, especially while Sips and Sjin took an interest in building a pig statue.
In Episode 66, Sjin tries to turn Simon's hot tub into a time machine.
The Starscream: Implied with Lewis; he states in episode 21 that he aspires to eventually own Honeydew Inc., though he may mean he wants to take it over when Simon gives it up rather than outright steal it from him.
Too Dumb to Live: Once again, Simon. In Episode 54 he's gaping at how tall their factory is, before falling into one of Lewis' quarries & suffering a major Humiliation Conga. In Episode 55, he attempts to recreate the incident and ends up almost falling into the quarry a second time.
In one episode, Sjin forgets his flying ring, and promptly jumps down the flying chute, falling to his death and almost losing all his stuff.
In the earlier episodes, most people tended to walk too close to the edge of a quarry, which often resulted in them falling to their deaths. It's got better since as they now have flying rings.
Wham Episode: In episode 13, Lewis quits Honeydew Inc. and goes to work at Sips Co.
Episode 48: Simon finds a giant Sjin head under his bed, which has been tricking him into doing stuff on Pig Island.
Episode 52: Duncan and Lewis find the head, reveal it to be controlled by Sjin...and then find out that, apparently, Sjin (or the head, at least) is the true CEO of Sips Co.
Wham Line: Lewis in episode 13 : "I quit. I'm going to see if there's some work... over at Sips Co."
The Dirt Factory
The second Tekkit/YogCraft series featuring Sips and Sjin following the series based on "Stacy Island". In this series, the two slowly try to build and run a Sips Co dirt factory and other nearby facilities, in between a lot of meandering talking.
Butt Monkey: Nilesy. He gets chased off of Sips Co. land in his first appearance in the series, and fails his interview and is crushed to death in his second.
Crazy-Prepared: At some point, the two build a secret base in the event that their compound be raided and destroyed; unfortunately, they show its location in the video, which does sort of give it away.
Elaborate Underground Base: The duo build one at some point with the basic necessities such as a farm, a basic mine and power, as well as the slightly more advanced stuff such as charging their quantum armour.
This series is mostly a tutorial/Let's play of Tekkit, later the modified Feed the Beast launcher, YogCraft, showcasing the mod with occasional deviations into the plotlines present in the other series.
Appeal to Force: Duncan wants to stop the Cold War in the server, so what does he do? Installs three nukes under Rythian's castle and calls it a day.
Gadgeteer Genius: Duncan is something of an anomaly amongst the Yogscast, in that he actually knows what he's doing.
Mad Scientist: Surprisingly averted, for the most part - Duncan may be absent-minded, but he is one of the saner members of Honeydew Inc. and aside from the occasional For Science! moment, never displays any signs of instability.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Putting a nuke under Rythian's base just after he'd lost his only companions and didn't care about the base anymore anyway, Duncan? Notyour wisest move.
Wham Episode: Episode 64: Duncan installs three nukes under BlackRock castle This is especially whammy if you've only watched Duncan's series, because there's no mention of the server Cold War until that episode.
The Blackrock Chronicle
Formerly "The Tekkit Chronicle". Arguably the most plot led of series, it follows Rythian, Zoey and Teep the mute dinosaur.
Ascended Fanon: Rythian's status as a possible Enderman/human hybrid seems to be becoming this. It was popular Fanon for a long while amongst the various Tumblr groups; but recently Zoey has begun to insert subtle hints into the canon itself. Notable examples include the text on Rythian's monitor in Episode 28, and Rythian's glowing purple eyes in the Season 2 teaser poster.
The Fanon of Zoey being possible Blaze/human hybrid has been teased too, with Zoey carrying a blaze rod in her inventory in Season 2 and seemingly setting Warehouse 13 ablaze when she gets angry.
Rythian now has a Void Ring, which allows him to teleport like an Enderman.
And now he has Athame, a dagger which does bonus damage to Enderman... and he comments that just holding it stings.
Beware the Nice Ones: Duncan in Rythian's series. In the fourth episode of the second season, he traps Rythian in a force field and plans to nuke his castle, all while mocking him.
Card-Carrying Villain: Duncan in episode #3 of Rebirth. You can tell he's trying so hard to be evil, it ends up crossing over into Adorkable territory.
Cerebus Syndrome: Near the end of the first season, the mostly silly series has a turn to still-silly-but-with-a-lot-of-drama once Teep is kidnapped and Operation Dino Day begins.
Chekhov's Gunman: Rythian starts up his own series to get revenge on Sjin and Duncan after they accidentally destroy his Mage tower during their Tekkit War.
Cycle of Revenge: Basically what Rythian was causing. His quest against Duncan and Sjin for destroying the old world resulted in them individually freaking out about his "warmongering" enough to commit some rather What the Hell, Hero?-esque acts, ranging from Sjin kidnapping Teep, to Duncan placing three nuclear bombs under Blackrock. Of course this only strengthens Rythian's resolve. [[Spoiler: fortunately all three seem to have lightened up since the start of season three, with Rythian realising that a continuing feud would only lead to more trouble than they're prepared to risk.]]
The Cuckoolander Was Right: Zoeya repeatedly talked to mushrooms in season 1. Season 2 reveals that the mushrooms were sentient the whole time. Hell, they can even play instruments, and can apparently hollow out a volcano and turn it into a prison.
Drowning My Sorrows: Rythian in episode 5, season 2. He seems to be much less depressed afterwards, though that's probably due more to the chat he had with Ravs the bartender than five mugs(!) of Scotch he downed.
Evil Laugh: Duncan mocking Rythian trapped in the forcefield... well it's more of an evil giggle.
Hope Spot: There's a very brief one in episode 4 of Rythian's second season. Rythian has managed to outwit Duncan and escape the force field trap - as the sun rises, no less. Meanwhile, Zoey has finally decided to return to Blackrock Castle and protect Rythian by disarming Duncan's nuke; and for just a moment, it seems like everything is going to work out. But then it turns out that the castle has already been almost completely obliterated, and the destruction wasn't caused by the nuke. There's now a dragonloose in the overworld.
Incredibly Lame Fun: Ravs and Teep invent a game that just involves flicking a switch back and forth at high speed. (They try it once with a door, but for some reason that doesn't seem to catch on.)
Interface Spoiler: Subverted. We don't see Zoeya's inventory until after The Reveal, where it turns out she's carrying various types of technology.
Interrupted Declaration of Love: In episode 5 of the second season of Rythian's series, Rythian tries to tell Zoey how he feels. Right before he can though, the computer he's using to talk to her loses connection and explodes.
This scenario is mirrored for the finale of season 2. This time it's far more tragic, because the interrupting explosion happens to be the nuke Zoey was trying to defuse.
The Magic Versus Technology War: Rythian focuses greatly on magic and is disgusted by the technology Honeydew Inc and Sips Co produces; both sides seem to have their in-game pros and cons.
Mood Whiplash: Not only is the second season of Rythian's Tekkit series this compared to the others, it even has this within itself as after the first ep Zoey seems to have given up all pretenses of trying to maintain seriousness and has gone back to being her ditzy self, all while Rythian monotonely comments about how he's all alone and everyone's out to get him.
Morality Chain: Zoey appears to be one to Rythian. When she leaves him, Rythian's change from an upbeat, optimistic Straight Man to a depressed sociopath obsessed with revenge is sharp enough to cut steel.
Nietzsche Wannabe: Rythian starts expressing nihilistic ideas and is emotionless in his second season. He believes the everyone's out to get him, and even stops caring about Blackrock.
Only Sane Man: In a hilarious personality 180 from earlier in the season, Rythian finds he has become this by episode 16 of season 2, as he witnesses the growing chaos of Zoey, Ravs, Nilesy, and Teep wreaking havoc on Ravs' bar.
"Why does this always happen to me?"
The Reveal: In episode 28 of Rythian's series, it's revealed that Zoey's been using science behind Rythian's back.
Revenge: Rythian has been arming himself with all sorts of magical weaponry to get revenge against Sjin and Duncan (primarily Sjin) for what happened during the last Tekkit playthrough.
Running Gag: In Rythian's series, we have Gilbert the snowman constantly melting and Zoeya talking to mushrooms.
Science Versus Magic: This has apparently been a rivalry on the server, but it's more apparent with Rythian due to his being the server's resident mage.
Becomes even more pronounced in episode 28 of Rythian's series, where Zoey reveals that she has been using science to try and find Teep, something Rythian disapproves of so strongly that he even threatens to stop teaching her magic.
Mutually Assured Destruction: Duncan, at least, believes this is the best way to prevent the Cold War on the server from becoming a hot one: he installs three nukes under Blackrock Hold in order to deter Rythian from attacking. Unfortunately for him, by the time he gets around to installing the nukes Rythian has become so Ax Crazy that he doesn't care if his base gets destroyed whilst he's seeking revenge - all the deterrent does is make him hate Duncan even more.
Ship Tease: Counting every example between Rythian and Zoey would require more appendages than a mutated octopus. Other examples include:
Zoey's search bar in Rebirth #4 reads "lalna's kinda cute eh".
Stuff Blowing Up: Blackrock Castle in Season 2 episode 4 of Rythian's series, apparently due to a dragon attack.
Also the finale of Season 2
Threat Backfire: Duncan thinks that the threat of three nukes under Rythian's base will deter Rythian from carrying out his vendetta against Sjin and Duncan. Unfortunately for Duncan, Rythian doesn't care about BlackRock Castle, so all Duncan accomplishes is making Rythian loathe him even more.
Wham Episode: Episodes 28-29: Zoey's been doing science,and leaves Rythian to create her own facility with Teep.
Wham Line: Zoey in Rythian's series, episode 29 : "I'm not going to be going back to Rythian's castle."
Rythian's unsent message to Zoey in episode 5 of season 2: "I love you"
Windmill Crusader: Rythian is absolutely obsessed with the evilness of technology, and blames it (along with Sjin and Duncan) for the destruction of the Old World, stating that technology causes suffering. Yet, ignores the fact that magic can be equally as dangerous, and was in large part equally responsible for the destruction of the old world arguing with Zoey when she tries to point it out a few times.
You Can't Thwart Stage One: Rythian comes up with several plans to deal with the nuke under the Blackrock fortress. These range from surrounding it in blast proof materials to using force fields of their own. Zoey keeps talking him out of it, though; always insisting that it would be best if he just let her disarm it. This is especially jarring since the season 2 finale reveals that Zoey has no idea how to disarm the nuke.
Tropes across all series
Tropes which span the series or are present in some of the shorter series such as Nilesy's & Hannah's, Martyn & Toby's and the Rail Bros series.
Affably Evil: Sjin, though he is open to a good deal of Alternate Character Interpretation. As Rythian often notes, he can be funny, polite, and charismatic - even while engaging in thermonuclear war, sending potential poolboy candidates to their deaths in "interview chambers", and attempting to manipulate both Sips Co. and Honeydew Inc. from behind the scenes.
Butt Monkey: Nilesy. In his and Hannah's series, he ends up getting frequently killed. Lamphaded by the monitor with his info on it in Zoey's lab, which claims that his weakness is Minecraft.
Depending on the Writer: Each series has an independent tone and story, so people who appear in multiple series sometimes behave strikingly different between them.
Sips is a nice guy who loves technology in his and Sjin's series, but is a violent sociopath who hates most technology in the main channel series.
In Sips and Sjin's series, Rythian was a friend of theirs and a Sips Co. employee who happened to like magic. Then in his series he suddenly hates everyone who uses technology, and wants to kill Sjin for his part in destroying the old world (although he explains this by saying he was just 'using' Sipsco to get materials to build some things he needed).
Funny Background Event: During Sjin and Duncan's Tekkit War, Rythian, Zoeya, and Maide are freaking out over them destroying everything.
Hero of Another Story: There are multiple Yogscast members playing on the server, leading their own sagas; the Honeydew Inc faction and Sips Co faction are the ones with the most interaction.
Open Secret: Some of them admit in-series that they found out another person's secret plans by watching their youtube videos, mainly as a poke at the video comments telling them to do so.
Voltz
Apocalypse How: The bomb that Sips and Sjin set off ended up effecting just Sips and Sjin's base and the mountain behind it (as well as killing themselves and ridgedog several times), but could have wiped out the entire map on the server.
Boring, but Practical: Ridgedog builds an elaborate defense system of missiles, poison spikes, automatic turrets, and a railgun. Simon kills him with a bucket of lava.
Cheaters Never Prosper: While Sips and Sjin get by OK at first by spawning stuff in, they cheat with a red-matter bomb which almost wipes out the server, and in the process of repairing it they lose nearly all their items and die.
Ridge's base was filled with a lot more stuff than he had any reasonable excuse to have without having spawned stuff in, after busting open his bunker the main cast begin to loot what they can, and then he winds up losing it all when his failsafe blows his base to hell.
Cliff Hanger : the ending of Voltz 23 has Ridgedog sending a missile towards the trio's bunker. The automatic defense seemingly isn't working, and the screen cuts to black as Duncan looks up at the missile falling down on him. They didn't even roll with the usual closing theme, instead just having extra ominous music play through the whole moment and then fade to silence
Deus ex Machina: Ridgedog and Duncan go into creative mode to spawn rejuvenation missiles in to revert the landscape; rather justified as nobody wanted a second version of Tekkit War and they'd only been using it for a few weeks at that point.
Elaborate Underground Base: Ridge's base turns out to me much more than a grove of trees. Pretty much par for the course in Minecraft.
Epic Fail: Near the end of episode 24, Lewis, Simon, and Duncan try to fire a nuclear missile at Ridge's base. They completely miss the base, and wind up blowing up the nearby ocean.
Ignored Aesop: Sips and Sjin steadfastly fail to learn anything from the red matter incident.
Laser-Guided Karma: After almost dooming the server through the use of their red-matter bomb, Sips and Sjin end up suffocating to death after a restoring missile fills their base with stone while they are still inside.
Also, the fact that the only part of their base that got caught in the original Red Matter and Antimatter explosions was "Deliveries". Which was actually their supply of spawned in cheat items.
Never My Fault: Sips humorously claims that Sjin was the one who set the bomb off and that he had nothing to do with it.
No OSHA Compliance: Ridge manages to build a working fusion reactor with about a third of the materials usually needed. Just don't stand underneath or next to it while it's running.
Ridgedog: It works okay, if you ignore the fire. And the radiation.
Stuff Blowing Up: Frequently. They all seem to be of the opinion that this is the main point of the mod.
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