Important News About Zee Hypnotist

[AZ-Stalker]

Hello everyone. It is with a heavy heart that I am here to inform you all about some unfortunate news.

Our friend and well known C&C community member Zee (AKA Zee Hypnotist / Rabbit), has sadly and unexpectedly passed away.

 

 

I have been Zee's best friend for many years, but have only recently been informed of this myself through those closer to him, such as relevant family.

However, this news is not very new I'm afraid. Due to communication difficulties as a result of Zee heading off to build his nearly off-grid dream life closer to nature and farmland, it is only reaching us now, more than a year after the fact. Zee had retired from the C&C community and wanted to live life onwards without any ties to his previous projects and environments (at least for now), in order to fully focus on new long-term adventures that made him feel happy and fulfilled in life, which was respected. Thus, this tragic news has had a hard time reaching back to us. But here it is.

 

For those of you who don't know, or would appreciate a reminder, Zee was a veteran C&C community member with two decades of service in voluntarily supporting all things Command & Conquer, most notably through his work in communities such as CNCNZ and W3D Hub. He participated in official EA C&C summits, worked on a huge amount of creative projects, and was an active modder, mapper and overall game developer. But what he is most well known for is definitely the popular C&C Legos stop motion animation series, hosted on CNCNZ and his (now inactive) personal YouTube channel.

 

Zee was a very creative person, and did his best to bring a lot of inspiration, joy and laughter to anyone interested in his work. Even during some very tough times he rarely spoke about online. Although he had his fair share of struggles in life, and did not always handle things the best way, he had a very caring heart and loved seeing people enjoy the things he had created or worked on. He wasn't a perfect person by any means, but he didn't try to be, instead opting to stay true to himself as much as he could, with all aspects of his personality, both good and bad, percieved or otherwise.

If asked to say something at this point in time, I think he would have told everyone here, as he had told me some time ago, that it is important to be grateful and cherish the friendships and opportunities life gives you, as you may never run into them again. He was very appreciative of all the support he had gotten from the C&C community over the years, and was always happy to give back to the community through his creativity. His entire style of doing so revolved around comedy and making people laugh, sometimes in crude and even stupid ways. He did a lot of experimenting, testing, and pushing the boundaries of what he already knew how to accomplish, which is something I personally loved to take in and feel motivated by as well, especially when feeling stuck or too set in my own ways, and I hope many of you got some of that energy from his work too.

Zee was full of ideas, and did his best to learn new things and act on them to realization, regardless of if the results of his efforts turned out as perfectly as imagined, as they rarely did. And this was a big part of his charm and why people loved his work, because he was never afraid to make mistakes or show things that were not as good as he would have liked. He worked with what he had and learned by doing. And in the process taught and inspired others by example. Freely sharing the ups and downs of the process. And for that, Zee, I thank you.

 

Lastly, I think Zee would have wanted everyone here to fondly remember all of the good, and if possible, to forget the bad with time. Followed by some improvised humor to leave us with a weird but cheeky smile in the end, naturally. I hope that helps you all with processing everything.

 

Thanks for everything Zee, sincerely. You already know this, but I'll miss you a lot. I'll remember what you taught me. Thanks for being my friend.

 

...

 

Now, for those of you wondering, I have taken on the role of being the custodian of many of Zee's old files and projects, for safe keeping in remembrance, as well as other purposes. He always trusted me with a lot of access, and we worked on many things together. Which means that I'll make sure his work (such as the C&C Legos series) stays up online if things ever go down in the future. Not sure how exactly just yet, but if anything should happen, please contact me and I'll see what I can do from my archives. I'm making sure to treat his stuff with respect and in a way he would very likely approve of.

That said, I unfortunately do not have some videos and project files that were either still in development on his end, or were temporarily archived until a future return or continuation opportunity came about. These missing assets include random stuff like test versions of games, maps or mods, as well as episodes of Blue Team Go and Bert & Nick, which some of you might have watched alongside the C&C Legos series. And other notable things he was working on or had left in an unfinished state.

If anyone has any of Zee's work backed up or saved for personal use or viewing, please contact me if you would like to help me fill in the missing pieces. It would mean a lot to me, and would help honor his memory. I am considering releasing some things in the future, and respectfully repurposing others, but I need to take inventory and track various missing assets down first, if at all possible. As well as let a bit of time pass to process everything mentally and emotionally (as the news hit me pretty hard), with all that has happened, but it's an idea. I will think it over. Any help would be greatly appreciated if anyone has anything to send over. So thank you.

 

...

 

Finally, if anyone would like to say a few words about Zee or your time with him or his creative content, say thank you or goodbye, or anything else you might want to respectfully express and share with us, please feel free to do so in this thread. Realization of loss is never easy, so if anyone needs to, lean on your friends or the community to support you. It's okay to feel things. You are not alone in feeling this way.

 

I will probably update this thread in the future with links and any other relevant announcements, if applicable.

Thank you for your time, and please take good care of yourselves in light of this heavy news if it affects you.

 

[Killing_You]

We've lost members of the community before, but this... this hits hard for me. Zee was a great friend of mine during his time in the community. We spent so many late nights playing Minecraft, Project Reality, and so much more, or even just shooting the breeze on TinyChat. So much of who I am in this community was shaped by my friendship with him. He even helped give me the first step on my voice acting journey with those last few episodes of C&C Legos. So much of who he was and what we did together I will always hold close to my heart.

Farewell, my friend. May you rest in peace.

[Egozi44]

Literally just made a user today (despite "stalking" the site for a very long time) to say thank/goodbye to Zee,

Zee voiced two of my mod's units few years back,
And at some point after that he disappeared form nearly everywhere after giving the CNCNZ site keys to Wolf, moving to a new apartment (iirc) and going to live close to nature while cutting all of his former ties with C&C stuff and most of his friends.

We didn't chatted much but when we did we were always on good terms and seem to have the same kind of humor, he also took the VA roles I gave him very seriously and disappeared only after finishing them, 

I knew him a lot before asking for his help with voice acting obviously, mostly from his lego vids as well as from seeing him around in various C&C forums,
To this day I wish he still was the admin of CNCNZ since as far as I knew him, he was a fair admin who also had the drive to try some creative things in the stuff he's charge of, a far cry from what we got nowadays which just show how special he was at what he was doing.

It wasn't for long but it was fun as long as it last, may you rest in peace rabbuddy

 

I also wanted to add that I should have the voices he sents me back then somewhere, even the ones I ended up not using in case you will want them,
I even made a vid that show how his sounds like as he voiced the Condor in my mod back then and still got the vid on YT in case you will want it too

 

[Killing_You]

30 minutes ago, Egozi44 said:

Literally just made a user today (despite "stalking" the site for a very long time) to say thank/goodbye to Zee,

Zee voiced two of my mod's units few years back,
And at some point after that he disappeared form nearly everywhere after giving the CNCNZ site keys to Wolf, moving to a new apartment (iirc) and going to live close to nature while cutting all of his former ties with C&C stuff and most of his friends.

We didn't chatted much but when we did we were always on good terms and seem to have the same kind of humor, he also took the VA roles I gave him very seriously and disappeared only after finishing them, 

I knew him a lot before asking for his help with voice acting obviously, mostly from his lego vids as well as from seeing him around in various C&C forums,
To this day I wish he still was the admin of CNCNZ since as far as I knew him, he was a fair admin who also had the drive to try some creative things in the stuff he's charge of, a far cry from what we got nowadays which just show how special he was at what he was doing.

It wasn't for long but it was fun as long as it last, may you rest in peace rabbuddy

 

I also wanted to add that I should have the voices he sents me back then somewhere, even the ones I ended up not using in case you will want them,
I even made a vid that show how his sounds like as he voiced the Condor in my mod back then and still got the vid on YT in case you will want it too

 

Thank you so much for sharing this. It's nice to be able to hear something "new" from him.

[AZ-Stalker]

4 hours ago, Egozi44 said:

Literally just made a user today (despite "stalking" the site for a very long time) to say thank/goodbye to Zee,

Thanks for reaching out to us! It's heartwarming to see people show up around the community to pay their respects to Zee and share what an impact he had on everyone.

If anyone else reading this is a silent lurker and is thinking about if they should open an account or to just post something, I'd encourage you to do so. This is exactly how I first became friends with Zee - followed along for a long time, and then approached him to say thanks in gratitude when a phase of his life was announced as ending or transforming. Which lead to a one of a kind friendship and many cool things for the community that followed. Best tip I can give is to tell people how much you care.

4 hours ago, Egozi44 said:

I also wanted to add that I should have the voices he sents me back then somewhere, even the ones I ended up not using in case you will want them,

I would be very grateful to have anything like that of his old work in my archives. If you are willing to send over the assets, feel free to shoot me a message either here or on Discord. And thank you for letting us know about more of his work!

[AZ-Stalker]

Also, in case anyone is still unaware - Zee made extra C&C Lego episodes later on after finishing the main series. They were hosted on his own channel, rather than CNCNZ's, and are of a much higher production quality. Just a note for those of you looking to enjoy his latest work.

Here's a quick link to the playlist:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5dWLdj4whNWZwY5GlASXe0EAXJ_NoPhN&feature=shared

 

[Egozi44]

On 2/17/2024 at 7:00 AM, Killing_You said:

Thank you so much for sharing this. It's nice to be able to hear something "new" from him.

You welcome

 

On 2/17/2024 at 10:42 AM, AZ-Stalker said:

Thanks for reaching out to us! It's heartwarming to see people show up around the community to pay their respects to Zee and share what an impact he had on everyone.

I would be very grateful to have anything like that of his old work in my archives. If you are willing to send over the assets, feel free to shoot me a message either here or on Discord. And thank you for letting us know about more of his work!

 

Sorry for the delay, will send you that over soon enough o7.

 

[hunterX]

What was the cause of death?

[Killing_You]

7 minutes ago, hunterX said:

What was the cause of death?

Those closest to him decided not to disclose that information.

[hunterX]

My guess is drug overdose or clot shot side effects. Then again, you say he moved into the wilderness? Could be wild animal attack, like a bear mauling or something.

[AZ-Stalker]

3 hours ago, hunterX said:

My guess is (...)

In case anyone reading this thread would appreciate a little note or a bit of well meaning advice on communication etiquette and social ques, if you are perhaps unaware or new to these situations etc., it is generally not appropriate nor very respectful to openly talk about possible causes of death when the announcement itself does not already contain and has implied that those close to the deceased are not providing more information of that nature.

This is a thread to commemorate Zee and his contributions, and of course to update people about a very real person from the community who had friends here, some of which might be having a difficult or emotional time processing the news and their loss (important).

With respect to Zee's friends and family (also important), as well as the entire topic at hand, I recommend keeping any such additional speculation to onself.

Thank you for your understanding.
No furthur comment is needed.

I look forward to reading more posts that share memories, gratitude and goodbyes.

[Jerad2142]

Very sad news, sorry to hear we've lost another very creative person in the community. I hope you guys have luck finding more of his works, I know one of my biggest fears would be the loss of what I've worked on over the years. 

[AZ-Stalker]

9 minutes ago, Jerad2142 said:

I hope you guys have luck finding more of his works,

Doing what I can, but yeah, some stuff has no doubt been lost in the process. Hopefully we find some of it again or people with backups for private use come forward eventually, if any.

[Sonic CNCNZ]

Hi all, Sonic the CNCNZ.com founder here.

So I'm very late to this topic. Been away from the community for many years now. But extremely saddened by this news of Zee's passing. Gone way to young. 

[AZ-Stalker]

16 minutes ago, Sonic CNCNZ said:

Hi all, Sonic the CNCNZ.com founder here.

Hey, thanks for stopping by Sonic. Hope you are doing well. Please give yourself some time to process the news properly and all, as it's not an easy thing to hear about of course.

Regardless of any past disagreements or people coming and going from the community, it's always nice to see how we all care in our own ways when something like this happens.

I guess the only thing we can do is appreciate and learn from all of the good Zee did, and continue on.