Whistlepig Studios

Hey guys! So, some of you might have guessed by now that I am a big fan of Twenty Øne Pilots. As someone with BPD, it’s really easy to feel lost and misunderstood. Even as close as you are with some people, there’s always a layer of something that separates you from the rest of the world. It’s something that other people just can’t seem to understand, no matter how hard you try to explain. No matter how much you try to be normal. This has been a really big problem for me, especially lately. But TØP helps me get through it. So one of the things I decided to do was build the Twenty Øne Pilots world of lore in Minecraft! And for some reason, my friends on Instagram wanted to see it! So here we are! 😀

I will be the first to say that I am BY NO MEANS an expert, nor am I all that great at building. But over the course of several months, I’ve built something that I’m really proud of. I placed every single block by hand. Multiple times. Because I kept having to restart. It’s not perfectly geometrical and there’s a lot of flaws but I can’t imagine a better way to do it, personally. I love the imperfection. It makes it more real for me. The whole lore aspect of the band is very important to me because it has helped me understand and process some things that I might not have otherwise, so I did my best to get it right. The overall look of the city was designed to fit the map of Dema that I will insert below. (Unfortunately, I built Trench and the bandito camp following the natural agriculture instead of where it should be on the map. So that’s wrong. Sorry.)

Because in my mind, this is how it looks. The details were aesthetically fit to the music videos, primarily off the Trench album. (Nico and the Niners mostly.) I also used some specifics found in song lyrics. The most helpful songs, visually and lyrically, were Nico and the Niners, Levitate, Neon Gravestones, and Jumpsuit. But I used a combination of different songs and albums as well.
Also, if you’re new to the fandom, this WILL be confusing and might not make sense. Especially if you are unfamiliar with the lore and lyric topics. I strongly encourage you to listen to Morph while watching my walk-through but it’s totally up to you. 🙂

Okay! Here we go. I give you:

Escaping Dema

And here’s a video for the sky view and other unimportant details that I wanted to show off 🙂

So, piece by piece, this is what I did.
I followed the map for the sky view. This does include the nine towers, although I still can’t figure out what their use is, so they’re just decoration for right now. 🙂
The main building has the chapel-like room seen in the Nico and the Niners music video on the ground floor, and above it is a space for learning about vialism and committing to it. (I know this is dark but it just felt right, so bear with me.) It has Vialism History books on one wall, and materials for suicide notes on the others. Paper, empty books, sticks and ink (since there’s no pens), and candles to melt and seal the paper closed. Next to that there is a chest with rope, swords, poisons, etc, should you choose to commit.
The next two layers of Dema is housing. The first ring has apartments that are smaller, so they have two floors.
The second ring is the same, but bigger and only one floor. It is layered this way so that the neon gravestones are always in view, as symbols and as “goals”. It doesn’t matter if you have one floor or two. There’s always gravestones in the window. There’s only 36 living quarters, because even though Dema is a city, it has always seemed like a very personal place to me. So I didn’t want to make it huge and daunting. But every room has the same things inside. (Except mine. I keep a diary in my room.)
Past the apartments is the “glorious vista”, where you can walk around and look at the neon gravestones or visit other districts.

Beyond the glorious vista is the field of neon gravestones, which I modeled partly like the map but partly just how I saw them in my mind. Since they are “a heatless fire”, and blue is the control color, I used sea lanterns. I also put them on different varying levels so they were more visible from inside the city. Grey glass covers the field beneath the neon gravestones, distorting and discoloring every bit of the visible world below.
After that is the perimeter wall. It is hollow, so you can walk on the inside. (I like to think the banditos used it at some point but I’m not sure what its uses would be, since it’s outside of the city and they would be vulnerable crossing the field and vista.) A chunk of the wall is missing, (which I might have forgotten to show in the video oops) presumably burned. I think Trash attacked at some point but that’s just my personal theory. The missing chunk is “covered up” by a large triangular makeshift wall, so that residents don’t notice the weak point. But on the other side of it, the burned section remains.

Now let’s go back to the city. Between the apartments and the glorious vista there are four hidden doorways. One on every side of the circle. Yellow drapes prevent the bishops from noticing the exits. Above each doorway (on the inside) is a yellow gerbera daisy painting. A symbol of the banditos. When you go down the stairs, you follow the underground tunnel until you reach the end. Each one meets directly under the center block of dema. You are right under the chapel-esque building at this point.
After you get to the center, there’s a ladder down to a bunch of caves. Any one will lead you outside eventually, but if you take the one with a torch marker, it leads you to a prepared exit. Sets of ladders and stairs take you down to the ground and then you swim, following the lights. (I meant to replace those with above-water torches but I forgot. Sorry.)
Then there’s a pathway, marked with torches and more wooden stairs, which you follow until you reach the bandito camp.

Once in the bandito camp, there’s three levels of tents and fires. There’s also a yellow daisy painting marking the center of the camp. You’ve escaped…
For now.

I hope you enjoyed seeing one of my projects. Like I said, it’s far from perfect. But it is definately the biggest thing I’ve ever built and I’m really proud of it. It took months and I didn’t use any cheats. But I am so happy with the outcome. If you are a fellow minecraft lover, what’s your favorite thing you’ve ever built? Let me know in the comments. Do you like this sort of thing? And is there anything else you’d like to see me build, or see that I’ve already built? I do this for fun so I love new ideas. Let me know. 🙂
I hope you’re having a great day! Thanks for reading and watching!

♡, Shortie