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| HOW Block | |
| Name | HOW Block |
| Description | A POW Block from Mario that instead says HOW. |
| Location | (437,1567) |
| Atlas ID | twxz57 |
| Creator | Mario Jams |
A HOW block emote used in the Super Mario 64 ROM hacking community, and specifically the Mario Jams sub-community. The emote was originally made by ROM hacker MrComit, and is based on the POW block sprite in the SMB1 style in Super Mario Maker. Additionally, neighboring the HOW Block is art commemorating hacker Arthurtilly and his partner, who assisted in defense of the art while others were asleep.
r/place 2022
Creation
The HOW Block was originally first finished at coordinates (1128,155), about 34 hours into r/place. Alliances were created and held with neighboring artworks from the My Chemical Romance and Bloons Tower Defense communities. Soon after creation, it became apparent that grief from random "good samaritans" trying to "fix" the POW block would be very common, which held true throughout its existence on the canvas.
Conflict
About 53 hours into r/place, the original HOW Block art was attacked by a rogue Turkish flag. Reportedly, this flag was not created by the greater Turkish community on r/place, but instead was created by the community of a TikTok user that wanted to create controversy. Soon after this attack, the final canvas expansion occurred, and the HOW Block moved to its new position in the lower half of the canvas, briefly working to ally with the Rain World community's green lizard art at (299,1456) before needing to move to its final position at (427,1567).
Final Result
After the move, the HOW Block retained this position until the end of r/place 2022. The claimed area was expanded to include the "MARIO JAMS!" text, a larger area for the commemoration, and an attempt was made to create the logo of SimpleFlips (a rainbow Mario star) above the HOW Block. This would have overwritten a sign created by a group known as "Fellas". The Fellas managed to infiltrate the Mario Jams Discord server, and due to a critical lapse in cybersecurity on Mario Jams's part from publicly listing their alt accounts and the password used for them in the server, they deactivated the accounts and re-took their area. Somehow, an alliance was reached after this battle, and the Fellas helped to defend the HOW Block until the end of r/place.