Reddit Place 2023: A New JetPunk Adventure
Last updated: Sunday July 30th, 2023
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Introduction
On 19 July, to everyone's surprise - no one was expecting it before several years, and the two previous editions were launched on 1st April - Reddit Place, also known as r/place, made its comeback.
Once again this year, the JetPunk community was proudly represented on the canvas thanks to the involvement of some of its members, and I'd like to take the liberty of once again recounting our adventures during these five days of intense coordination.
N.B.: For greater clarity, I have chosen to write this blog so that the start time of the r/place marks the beginning of the first day of the event. Also, this is a very simplified story of our adventures on the canvas. For more details about very specific elements, even if they aren't mentioned in this blog, feel free to ask in comment.
Day 1
The first day was... Er... How to say it? Calm. Very calm. Really very calm. In fact, as the event had been announced a few days before its official start, I took advantage of these few days to sound out the motivation of the English-speaking JetPunk Discord server. And it wasn't very positive.
Almost all of the members involved last year were unwilling to repeat the experience out of boredom, laziness or boycott of Reddit CEO Spez's policy, particularly with regard to the API. The few volunteers were disappointed, but had to come to terms with the fact that Jeppy would not be given another chance to take his place on the canvas in 2023...
Day 2
Although the first day was very disappointing on the JetPunk side, all the server members initially interested in the event still attended, some supporting another community close to their hearts. The fact that the French-speaking server followed the r/place meant that by the very start of the second day, there was a real desire to represent JetPunk.
After SilverDog had drawn up a design, small enough to fit in with the resources of the French-speaking server, Ravisseur found a place on the canvas that wasn't very active and had no real design, or at least that's what we thought at the time. After a few minutes without any real resistance of the previous occupants of the spot, the first Jeppy of this edition was born.
However, after more than four hours of existence for this very convincing first attempt, to which an ambitious "JP" was added in order to more clearly evoke our favourite website, the community from which we had stolen the spot earlier this day, a very powerful one as it is in fact that of the famous Touhou videogame saga, took charge of reclaiming its place. Plus, this counter-attack took place just as European night was starting, a period marked by an obvious drop in activity on the French-speaking server, with only one Quebecois taking part in the event (Fizwizbiz).
Nevertheless, I'd like to point out that while Touhou didn't take long to devour our poor little Jeppy, the JP held out much longer, lasting many hours, thanks in particular to the unexpected support of a member of the English-speaking server: overtired. He spent most of the night defending what was left of the day's conquests, so that when we woke up in the morning, we found this almost intact vestige of our previous day's efforts. Unfortunately, it was quickly recaptured the same morning... But this performance had to be pointed out.
Before moving on to the next part, I need to mention one last event which may seem insignificant but which will be important for the next days. As we were finishing our design, a member of the community to our right, that of Hatsune Miku, contacted us, first on Reddit via henrigolo and then directly on our Discord server. This person called Tempest, the first ambassador in a long series, simply asked us to move one pixel to the left so as not to encroach on their own design, which we did not to upset this powerful community. He also explained that they were allied with our other neighbours, Touhou, whom they would choose at our expense if the opportunity arose.
Day 3
The third day begins in much the same way as the second. We quickly decided to build a new Jeppy - green this time - at the exact same place as the day before. We were joined by other members of the French-speaking server - Kzujik, Capspao and many others - as well as another member from the English-speaking server: the Pole Ant. Construction progressed quickly, and soon we had a fish that was at least as satisfying as the one from the day before. We decided not to draw a JP this time to make it easier to organise our defences in case of a Touhou counter-attack.
The situation soon stabilised, and we decided on a strategy that would determine the rest of our adventure on the canvas. A small column of dark blue pixels remained on our territory, but on its border with that of Hatsune Miku. It wasn't important for us, but we contacted Tempest again to ask if we could take possession of it without disturbing them. This was an opportunity for us to establish real communication between our communities and finally create an alliance. That same evening we were invited to join the Hatsune Miku server, then the Touhou server, and finally create a three-way alliance.
Our Jeppy wasn't attacked, or at least significantly, but it was still in the way. So it was decided that our dear little fish would be added to the official overlay of these two big communities. Their designers made us a proposal: Miku could pet Jeppy with her right hand. Even if we lost a significant number of pixels with this operation, we accepted it because it was a way for us to be almost guaranteed to appear on the canvas until the end of the event.
It was on this note of safety, having in theory no longer to fear the terrible European night, that this third busy day came to an end for us.
Day 4
Shortly before the start of the fourth day, we were getting a little bored. Our little Jeppy didn't need to be defended any more or almost, but we wanted to continue our adventure on this Reddit Place. It was then that Ion, who had already helped us a lot during the first few days although he was defending France on the canvas at the time, noticed that the map of Europe on the canvas had a very empty Atlantic Ocean, with only a few fishes. We spotted one opposite the French coast, and Ion asked the community behind the map if we could modify it to make a Jeppy.
It turned out that the fish was actually from the Stardew Valley community, but we were given tacit permission - or at least a "non-prohibition" - to draw a new Jeppy wherever we wanted in that vast blue zone. So we started working again.
As our second Jeppy was nearing completion, I noticed that the overlay of a character not built yet was completely covering it. We decided to attack it first. It wasn't very complicated: the community behind the design wasn't very large. However, afterwards, we decided to contact them so as not to make enemies in the area we'd just invested with our pixels. After discussions with an ambassador, we decided to move our Jeppy to an empty space a little higher up in the ocean, to the left of Iceland, making us gaining an ally.
We spent the rest of the day working on embellishing and enlarging our territory. We added a beautiful 3D-like JetPunk on top of this second Jeppy, then a long French flag around the edge, echoing the nationality most represented among JetPunkian pixel placers this year.
Day 5
It has to be said that this edition of Reddit Place has been a long one. Probably too long. Plus, fewer users were present this year, so there were fewer attacks or vast pixel movements. Fatigue and boredom were gradually spreading everywhere on the canvas, even among the French-speaking JetPunk community. The fifth and final day was nonetheless prolific.
We gradually conquered all the territory around us and used it to incorporate new drawings. Firstly a trail in the colours of Francophonie behind our dear little Jeppy, then a globe to represent the interest of our community in geography - centred of course on France - and even a baby Jeppy.
Then we added flags symbolising the involvement of non-French-speaking JetPunkers in this r/place: a Polish one for Ant, an English one for overtired and a Quebecois one for Fiz. We also drew a Francophone heart for the power and cohesion of our beautiful community.
Apart from a few overruns from the community just above our territory, the one of FC Nantes, a French football club, we were almost not attacked. In the end, one of the only motivations of the last remaining active members was to obtain a larger area than the one held by the main server last year. And we perfectly achieved it, controlling at the end an area 1.5 to 2 times larger. A real success for this intense but highly enjoyable adventure!
As expected and even hoped at the end, after more than five days, the colours were replaced by white, black and grey, then finally by nothing but white, making the participants gradually removing from the canvas all the drawings, including our beautiful little Jeppies. But hopefully, our exploits are present forever on the Atlas of this edition's Reddit Place.
Conclusion
What conclusion can we give to these few days of JetPunkian collaboration? Well, firstly that JetPunk, despite having much less members than many other internationally recognised communities, has a strong craze that we can achieve great things together. L'union fait la force!
Secondly, and this makes me proud, this year the Francophone section has demonstrated everything that makes it a community in its own right. Despite a lack of interest from the main server, the French-speakers were able to carry out the project they wanted to carry out on their own, first out of spite and then out of pride. And although the English-speaking section wasn't that interested in their exploits on the canvas, they were able to stand up to their big sister. It's a fine conclusion, which promises great things for the future!
And now a selection of the most supporting messages we received from the English section:
Of course it was ironic. Many members of the English server sent very kind messages, including Diana, Tal, Mia or even Stewart. And as mentioned earlier, two of them truly helped us: Ant and overtired. Thank you, dear supporters!
Obviously, I also would like to thank a lot all the JetPunkers who took part in the event. It would be impossible for me to mention them all so to not forget anyone, I opt for collective but sincere thanks. It was a very cool adventure, wasn't it?
That's the end of this short but hopefully interesting story. I'm glad to have had the honour of telling you about our community's adventures on the canvas again this year, and I hope they'll be at least as good next time.
Thanks for reading, and have a nice end of summer holidays!
P.S.: Jeppy is green, not yellow.
I completely agree: three days would have been enough, four max. But yeah, it let us time to do amazing things on the canvas.
Nwas blog tho
Neo is right: everyone can place a pixel on the one you placed before. That's what defense consists in.
Not sure if it would be doable before a very long time, but massive events could probably be interested to organize, yeah.
And let's hope that this problem will be solved soon, to not have to work that hard each year, and without the tensions we had this year.