Best of BrickNerd: Weekend Highlight — Article originally published July 21, 2021.

Like most things I do, the end of this article didn’t really resemble what I started with. I’ve been recently dabbling in a shared world-building group: World In Darkness (WiD)—it’s a near-future military theme started by Everette. I thought this would be a great place to do a quick write-up and give them some publicity and such, but as we got talking about a possible article, the standard Q&A format quickly went by the wayside and a different story started emerging.

But to tell this story, I have to go back to my “LEGO Birth.” Most people that know my builds know me for Sci-Fi stuff, a lot of spaceships, robots, stuffing animals into mech suits, and such… But I started as a “military kid.” I liked my BrickArms third-party stuff and built tanks and APCs (armored personnel carriers). You can get a sense of where I started from my first build, ten years ago:

Simon - circa 2011, with obligatory 3rd party visors.

(Note the prerequisite Amazing Armory (AMA) visor which was all the rage 10 years ago.)

I’ll admit… it’s not great, even by decade-old standards it’s pretty confused. But you can see some of my style emerging even back then. Thankfully I had lots of people help me along the way to be the semi-competent builder I am today.

It’s a really special moment in any new builder’s life when they start exploring the online community, be it Flickr, MOCpages (remember that?), BrickArms forums (that too!), or more commonly now Instagram… and with that exploration, you start having heroes. We all have them, people you look up to with awe and wonder, and we want to be them when we grow up!

But what’s special about the LEGO community is how easy it is to actually engage and talk to your heroes. My heroes, the likes of Nannan and Tyler, Keith Goldman, Pete Reid—I’ve had the pleasure of meeting them all and in some cases, they were actually quite instrumental in me getting to where I am today. They provided feedback, comments, criticisms, and most importantly they made a place for me at the so-called LEGO table.

And I mean that literally. At my first LEGO convention, Nannan offered me a seat for this thing called a “Parts Draft.” It only cost $10. Which was mind-blowing! $10 to spend an hour with two of my heroes… and I get LEGO at the end!? Sign me up!

But it wasn’t really until today that it was pointed out that they were like my “LEGO Dads.” And like any good Dad, they are their child’s hero.

Building a Better Tomorrow

In the course of my LEGO life, I drifted away from military—though I always appreciated what the builders made, and I occasionally dabble in future military. There’s just something about building historical military events that personally rubs me the wrong way… but made-up fictional or future-based things? That’s neat.

This is why LEGO builder Everette’s new World in Darkness intrigued me so. While I never really participated in the old future military groups, I very much watched them with interest, so with this new possible revival, it was a great time to dive back into my first love. The World in Darkness has a Discord server, and while I don’t have an official role (anymore…) I do have access to the Story Leaders chat where I asked Everette a few things:

Simon: Can you tell us about World in Darkness and how it all started?

Everette: Early 2021, someone mentioned to me that I should make a Discord server. Having been in the RebelLUG server forever and seeing how good the interaction was, I went ahead and made it. This is what really took the group off and got us to where we are now.

The whole idea of World in Darkness is a shared world-building effort. I've been fleshing out this alternate timeline for three years now and it's become really deep and expansive. We aren't the first to do this, The Purge and World in Conflict (WiC) both had a similar concept with the Purge being more narrative and WiC being more of a game.

We've taken the best of both worlds, obviously, I like the narrative of the Purge a bit more because it's what I did, but we are open to changing stuff up. For instance, our last contest let the community determine the result of a war based on who had the best builds. We really want to let the young generations’ minds run wild with creativity. It isn't Star Wars, it isn't World War 2—its a unique world that they have to think about to build for. Every conflict we depict is fictional, so it's up to them to imagine it which is what the Purge and WiC did for us.

For those that weren’t aware, both the Purge and World in Darkness were closed groups of some of the most talented future military builders from almost a decade ago. They made up figure standards and different factions to build in. Back then, it was pretty influential with me—note the cool custom 3rd-party visor from my first build. The bar of entry was high to get in, which resulted in not every young builder being able to actually get a seat at the table… like Everette.

Simon: What did Purge and WiC mean to you when you were younger?

Everette: When I was in middle school and elementary school, the Purge and WiC were massive and huge storytelling groups. I can't explain how much I wanted to be a part of them and build for them. The factions of the Purge really unleashed my creativity, and they felt just so real to me. By the time I was a mature enough builder to really build quality stuff, they had largely died.

But since then, they've just always been a huge inspiration. I love near-future, I love that style and that look. The Amazing Armory visors and the Rock Raider helmets on tactical dudes in a well-done scene is just sooooo 2012 and sooooo Purge. I'm always trying to bring that energy for my builds.

Kids Love Figs

NATO standard and heavy infantry - TTROOPER

There definitely was a revival with Everette leading the charge, telling us the story, creating the world, and forming different factions for builders to explore. Unlike other LEGO RPGs (like Guilds of Historica—a castle RPG that has very loose guidelines and representative colours), a future military-based world needs military that shares common uniforms. Because really, minifigs are a big part of the military scene from the cool guns to those visors I might have mentioned that haven’t been in production for a decade.

Gatekeeping was a problem in some of the other groups that was specifically addressed by the WiD story leaders. Yes, there were units that used the extremely rare visors, but there were many other units that could be made with readily available LEGO and BrickArms parts along with other third-parties specialties still in production. This was on purpose because WiD was set up as a group for anyone to join and anyone to partake.

Cleaning House - Luke - with 2021 Natsy Brick visors

Simon: So I have to ask… tell me about the visors and factions.

Everette: The visors man, there's a lot to be said about them! Back in 2011, Amazing Amory was making these bulky Sci-fi visors that were absurdly unique. They were a staple for any faction in the Purge and WiC. But when AMA stopped producing them, there really wasn't any way to get this incredibly unique piece. Our group came along and we have a faction or two that use them and of course, everyone wants one.

This has started a visor craze where within a month or two, some third-party companies/customizers all went in and started making visors in the same style—and it's really cool to see. I have a few of the new ones and they're fantastic! We really love to see it.

As for the factions, they're storytelling pieces for builders who can recreate their armies with the standards and use them for scenes and be part of this shared collective world everyone contributes to.

Back From the Dead

Anusi Faction Standards - with Natsy Brick visors

With the new builds coming out of the World in Darkness group and with the frequent usage of the classic Amazing Armory visors within the builds, something special happened. Several people in the LEGO community picked up the 10-year gap where the visors weren’t produced.

The young kids who maybe couldn’t join the groups before were now at the point where they have the means and the skill to create their own versions of the iconic Armory Amazing visor. Tanner and Natsy Brick both stepped up and started filling out the void by creating their own take and essentially resurrected the once dead visor. This allowed builders in the World in Darkness group and others to have access to that long-sought, rare visor.

While the coveted visor coming back was a surprise, what was a far more shocking and incredible miracle that can be associated with WiD was that classic builders that essentially left the community suddenly returned and took a seat.

Stijn (Dutch_Lego) and Luke (Bley Junkie) have both recently started building again. They saw the World in Darkness action which brought back that decades old vibe and inspired them to pick up the brick again.

If you’ve noticed (and you will soon see way more!), I’ve been tinkering with the black Emoji drones which are directly inspired by the work that Luke has been building. Luke, while younger, was actually pretty established when I started building, and I actually never really got to interact with him as much despite crossing paths virtually many times and secretly looked up to him as well. It’s the collab that I always dreamed of.

But over the past month with me working on World in Darkness builds and his revival, I’ve spoken to Luke almost daily. He’s been instrumental in giving me hard truths and told me things I didn’t want to hear (honest and productive critsism that can be hard to find in the LEGO community)—but my builds are better for it.

Heart of Darkness

Operation Cetshwayo: Into The Furnace - Bove Builds

This brings us to the heart of World in Darkness. While on the outside it might seem that it is just another LEGO military group, there’s a bit of heart at play. Much like the Moonbase, MILS, and Train standards, WiD actually provides a framework and world for builders to partake in. And while usually the former list of standards targets AFOLs, World in Darkness is a pretty TFOL (Teen Fan of LEGO) centric group run by now-AFOLs who were those TFOLs less than 10 years ago.

Simon: Why do groups like WiD, WiC and Purge 'work'... and create that feeling of family?

Everette: It really is the environment. The group of people coming together and creating a project together is just a cool thing to do. The thing with those previous groups, though, is that they were exclusive—they had their group of admins and that was really it. But we realized we could change that. With Discord, it lets us be all-inclusive and create an environment and atmosphere that allows for more people to join and participate.

The main mission at the end of the day is really to grow as a builder. In my opinion, it's also to really foster that creativity with world-building. We really encourage good criticism here—there's no nitpicking, and we like big ideas and a vision.

“At the risk of pissing you off…” - Notes from Luke

The feedback and criticism is actually one thing that sets WiD apart from a lot of different places. Providing and accepting good criticism is frankly hard. We live in an age where being told something is bad isn’t nice to hear. And sometimes we need to have a Luke in our life that says, “At the risk of pissing you off…”

And while it might come off as a bit brash in the Discord chat, the truth is that it’s actually valid criticism and, more importantly, constructive feedback on WHAT to do to improve your building that is refreshing and really does help the end product.

LEGO Generations

That’s why World in Darkness was brought back. And I experienced a stark realization when I asked the group of story leaders about doing an article about the group. Here is an excerpt from that chat, used with permission:

Stijn: Maybe you can also talk about Flickr legends such as Michael, Tob, yourself and all the other OG members coming back because of this community.

Simon: I think you and Luke are the biggest Nexus Event (Loki spoilers, sorry, but this is what I actually said) and the comeback of the century because of World in Darkness.

Stijn: But you are were the OG Flickr dad. Man, when you commented on my posts I felt so incredibly happy. Really Simon, I was a 14-year-old kid. And you were one of the guys I really looked up to! Besides that, you were always helpful and provided constructive criticism in a great way.

And at 11:25 am, I realized I was a LEGO Dad.

I always saw my heroes as just that—heroes. I looked up to them, but I never thought of them as a nurturer in all things LEGO in the paternal sense of the word. But I’ve come to realize that the LEGO community is so close-knit and our “LEGO family” is really more because of that.

There used to be a saying that the old generation should always create a better world for the next generation, and I see this in the LEGO community. Having witnessed my generation growing up (with my contemporaries now being LEGO Masters winners or even becoming LEGO designers), the interactions and the nurturing we did nearly ten years ago are paying off. Those K/TFOLs are now AFOLs and are repeating the cycle. They are learning from what we did and making it their own, and even more poignant, they are making the next generation of builders even better.

I started off by saying I wanted to grow up to be like some of my heroes… like my “LEGO Dads.” But that’s really the wrong idea. It’s really all about how our own “LEGO Kids” grow up and what we can do to help them. What Everette, Stijn and the rest of the World in Darkness crew are doing makes me one proud LEGO Dad!

So I leave you all with this thought: What we do, what seats we give at the table, what we say is so important to the next generation of builders. So let’s make sure we leave it a better place than we left it.

Do you have any cool LEGO visors? Who are your LEGO parents? Let us know in the comment section below.

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