#and there has been no evo lore from grian after that

[braxiatel]

Okay but actually. With the hints of lore surrounding the secret keeper I think it’s important that we remember this:

The watchers have only ever been life series canon to Martyn’s POV.

I think it’s important because of two reasons

1) there’s a chance we are going to get some lore that doesn’t fit exactly with Martyn’s version of the watcher lore and/or the fanon that has spun from it

2) that said, with the nod towards Evo in the build of the secret keeper and the general vibe of “there is a being that holds some kind of power over the players on this server”, it could be that all of them (or at least Grian, who at the end of the day is in charge of the life series) are leaning into the watcher lore and/or the idea of the series needing lore at all.

Either way I am looking at this and thinking some fans are going to start discourse over this. Whether it be because this is “inconsistent with previously established canon” that’s actually just fanon spun from something that is only canon to one POV, or because people are in general resistant to lore in the series. They’re going to kick up a fuss and you bet they’ll do so loudly where the CCs can see them.

This is a huge step for the series and we need to acknowledge that! We didn’t have world building like this that is universally canon until Secret Life. It’s massive! Even if we get no more lore than we have now, this is still a shift in how the series as a whole has worked in the past.

With that in mind I think it’s very important that we as a fandom - and especially the side of the fandom that is on tumblr and loves to lean into the lore of mcyt - do a few things in the coming weeks:

Stay open minded with the new lore. If it does contradict Martyn’s watcher canon/Evo canon/watcher fanon we CANNOT blame Grian or the CCs behind the life series as a whole for that. Be cool, people. Remember that this is a creative project that is still unfolding. Embrace any potential changes or at least don’t hate on the creators for making them.

Let the creators know that you are enjoying this direction for the series! You know how their hermits for the most part think that the fandom hater the moon big/s8 lore just because the reddit side of the fandom did? Yeah, let’s not let that happen here, okay? Comment on the videos of all your POV creators to tell them how excited you are about this - especially Martyn and Grian! Grian because he’s in charge of the series and the direction it takes after this season will be up to him. Martyn because… like, come on. Friends. His limlife ending was Good it was narratively cohesive and fitting for his character, but he’s still getting hate over it. Let’s bring some love to the guy that brought watcher lore to the traffic series in the first place, okay?

[khoizen]

Looking back on it, Grian was pretty active in the mcyt rp space back in its high. Which makes a lot of sense.

His whole Minecraft career did start on role plays after all. He was hired primarily as a set builder for crafted movie and later on went to also participate in some videos for rps. Eventually he made wynn craft w two others from crafted movie (heavily involved in writing lore).

While his main channel never featured his rps his very first posts were mainly from ppl from crafted movie asking how he built certain stuff. Most of his rp content is from him participating on other ppls chanels tho like taurtis & Sam.

Nowadays it just feels a bit of a jump scare when new fans r like what my fave was a mc rp person like what???

But also this is Grian. He has the flair for a dramatic. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was like a closet theatre kid. While he no longer rlly does rps like b4 we can still see him lean into lore and improve stuff w his friends. W all his different characters. I do think tho the most lore heavy n involved he had been in a while would be evo smp.

Anyway this all goes to me saying that Grian is a closeted role player.

[bc-jpeg]

so uh- I didn't see if this theory already exists in the fandom, or no one really touched on it, but after a long time in both fandoms, one funny pattern is noticeable. I’m so obsessed with watchers lore so much, which is why I started to go beyond only one universe, and this gave the result. so the theory is that dreamxd is a watcher. after digging into the dsmp lore, I found several points that may indicate this. dxd’s nature may differ from the canonical nature of the watchers that we see in evo smp and in the life-seasons in martyn’s lore, but we also already have a watcher!grian, whose watcher's nature also differs in its own way from that very canon, he has his own lore, so this will also work here.

now this will be only my personal version of watcher!dxd lore, there may still be holes in it, but this is only as a possible base:

presumably dreamxd is an ex-manhunt!dream, who could not get out of the world and stuck in the spectator mode of the game, becoming a watcher. in the initial attempts to escape from such a fate and get out (I don't think dream would just accept such a fate), he was crippled either by other watchers or by himself, having lost his "eye". this explains the basic visual interpretation of the dxd, where the place where the eyes should have been is now a familiar cross pattern.

isolating himself from other watchers, dxd created a time loop from the existing world, from which he initially could not get out, closing access to the end dimension for players, preventing both the players themselves from escaping, and the possibility of capturing these players to other watchers for their own time loops. the world with the manhunt seed was restarted, defaulting almost everything to zero, which eventually became the dsmp server. all interactions between players and server events began to give dxd so much energy and power that eventually the essence of the watcher completely absorbed him, dxd himself began to provoke events, interact directly with players, and all for the sake of energy, emotions, deaths that made him only stronger. dsmp became an excellent loop-feeder for him only, in which he completely lost his original humanity, becoming a monster, creating only chaos.

one of the risky but effective dxd’s moves of was giving the revival book and the book of death to players inside the time loop, which in a peculiar way gave them access to part of dxd’s powers. he realized how unpredictable players can be in their decisions and actions, which gave a ton of events possibilities. he wouldn't have to provoke events himself, when players can do everything for him, giving the same amount of energy.

so in the final of the dsmp, after that nuclear explosion, dxd simply restarted the entire time loop, as it was shown. the players don't remember anything that happened, they don't remember each other, the whole world was defaulted to zero, where they started all over again.

it’s also interesting that the concepts of limbo and dreams/illusions exist both in the dsmp lore and in watchers lore in life-seasons. limbo is the space where players end up with the loss of all their canonical lives, and there is no return from there, only at the whim of mystical powers (dsmp — the revival book, as part of the dxd’s powers, life-seasons — the watchers, more specifically watcher!grian).

both concepts somehow intersect with each other:

> in the dsmp, they intersected in the c!george’s lore, he had partial access to limbo through his own dreams, where dxd himself was also often present. someone also had the opportunity to watch server events from limbo.

> in life-seasons, according to cc!martyn, limbo is the space where all players get to after the final death and are there between seasons in a state of sleep, in which they see their own smps/universes.

again, this is just a possible version of how exactly this theory/head-cannon can work, there are a lot of things that I could not explain yet, because there is too much information from different dsmp povs. some things I remember, some not at all, but I left a hint of their possible intersection visually in the diagram. the theory of the smps-multiverse is here simply by default, all the other main points are indicated in this diagram. all of this will be easily editable at any future time, my job is just to throw in the base for this theory :D

[solargeist]

wait wait please elaborate the storyline for if he agreed to become a watcher, PLEASE!! I actually kinda want to dive into that idea.. i hadnt heard of the theory before, why did he agree? when did he? what was it like after? did he know anything about the watchers?

ok but doesnt this also kind of fit his personality more?

oh man, I'll try my best, its been awhile since i've watched Evo, and words are not my friends !

Grian knows about the Watchers, they were a common occurrence in Evo, the portals, the pranks, the traps, and the symbols were normal in his day-to-day.

He was their favourite even, gifting him a diamond, in a chest full of coal, a diamond in the rough, in their many eyes. I'm not sure if he knew this though.

I do think at his core, he has a Watcher's personality. He pranks people, he sets traps, he leaves symbols even of his own face, he makes secret bases under other's bases so he can watch them, he likes spying. They must've taken notice of this.

Its not actual lore, but Taurtis makes fun of Grian multiple times for talking to the Audience, which, fourth wall, is us! But I like the idea of it being story, its the Watchers, already leading him down this path from the beginning, hes so promising ! Taurtis calls them the voices in his head, Grian doesn't argue, "Are the voices in your head telling you that?" "Hm..... No, the voices don't even know, its a secret!" The voices, the audience, the watchers, all the same thing. Grian says he's meant to be the hero of the story.

Anyway, Grian meets the Watchers after the server all teams up and slays the dragon, they reach the End. He is 25 years old.

The portal leads him somewhere different than everyone else, everyone else goes home. He goes beyond the credits, who knows where it spawns him, but it doesn't matter, he's being offered a deal, a chance to ascend.... I don't know the exact reason he'd agree, but I'm leaning towards a selfish reason, he's gotten bored with his limitations, he wants to be better, do better, those updates.. They're enticing and he's envious, in the beginning he was punished for being greedy, but now he's being rewarded.

After ? I guess he just lives with the Watchers, in an End city somewhere ? Learning how to craft portals by hand, update ideas, watching players, pranks, traps, symbols, fun ! its fun ! hes having fun !

He starts growing wings ! Its not really fun anymore !! That was the one thing they didn't tell him about, not directly, he agreed to be a Watcher, he clicked his heels and said I wanna be a watcher, but he didn't understand it meant really becoming one physically, yknow, it could've been a title! a role he's meant to play !

I write two paths from this point. 1) He runs away from the Watchers and ends up in Hermitcraft, still with those brilliant white wings.

2) He just sticks with it, creature mode, he grows wings, it sucks, but things can be fun again, back to it, he grows talons, it hurts, but still, he spends his time digging through servers and player lists, he grows two more eyes and feathers peek through his skin. He's 25 years old, he likes pranks, and traps, and symbols. This is more the bad end friends version LOL that I use for fanart fun.

Thats, all the storyline ? That I draw ? Its nothing crazy, just a tinyyyy bit more than canon . My version, my theory, my boy !!

But at the end of the day, regardless, I do think the Watchers genuinely love him, maybe in the way you love a puppy and give them treats when they sit and be quiet, but they're extremely fond of him.

[askdacast]

Life Series SMP/Eyes and Ears AU Thematic Discussion + Theorycrafting (pt. 1)

WARNING: Extremely long post

Kachow what’s poppin fellas, I’m back at it again talking about boomer block Youtubers and their surprisingly in-depth improv series. Now that the Life Series’ 5th season has finally concluded, I’m back on the lore train and poor Scar is left to suffer the consequences, and Martyn’s concluded yet another lore stream, I decided to compile a long master post of lore notes and theories about what we have so far.

Obviously all the ‘lore’ of the Life Series is purely unofficial; Grian has not approved any of it as being actually official/set in stone for what he intended the series to be. Most of it has been us in the crazy fandom extrapolating their really good storytelling, and also “semi-canonized” by Martyn in what he calls the Eyes and Ears AU (and this post assumes you are familiar with it). As someone who’s been a fan since the beginning way back in 3rd Life, I’ve pretty much hopped on the lore train since the beginning as well (if casually) and enjoying all the different extrapolations/analysis/angst written around the players. Rather than just theorizing lore details in a vacuum, however, I’ve always liked imagining the lore based around the reoccurring themes, symbolism and arcs we’ve seen across the series. I’d been bouncing my various thoughts and theories around these themes for a while, and finally I decided to compile my notes together.

This post is basically my imagining what the Life Series/Eyes and Ears AU story is “about,” as if it were a fleshed-out, long-running and story-driven tv show. Initially this post started as simply a gigantic “Eyes and Ears Theory,” me trying to sus out my own theories/ideas of what the Life Series’ mysteries were based on Martyn’s lore. However, considering that Martyn is ALSO writing the lore on the fly, and I have some details I would interpret differently or change, this ended up less a ‘theory’ and more ‘me writing an entire AU/interpretation of the Life Series as a whole.’ My intention is NOT to ‘correct’ Martyn’s lore, nor to claim my theory as the ‘right’ interpretation; rather, this is my personal interpretation of what the Life Series story is about, based on information shown in the original SMP and in Martyn’s AU.

One last disclaimer: I am ONLY drawing on lore details from the Life Series, Martyn’s lore streams, and Minecraft EVO, and also references to the iRL creators. I am not drawing on any story from other SMPs such as Pirates or Empires; there may be some Hermitcraft references here and there.

This is going to be very long, and a multi-parter, because I can’t summarize to save my life. And I promise I’ll come up with a proper name for my series of posts another time. If you’ve stuck around to read, I thank you.

Part 1: The Overall Plot + Understanding the Watchers

Recap of official lore details

Although Martyn hasn’t given specific details on the Watcher + Listener species (he hasn’t come up with a name yet), we know the following details for sure (from EVO, lore streams etc.)

Watchers + Listeners + The Council are all deity-like beings of the same species, and they all consume human emotions

The Council are the upper ranks/possibly leaders, whereas the Watchers + Listeners are separate factions

The Watchers are at LEAST two high-ranking members of the species (the two dots being outcast from the wider circle, as is their logo)

The Watchers were behind Minecraft EVO, where they gave all the players tasks (much like Secret Life) and eventually ending in them fighting the Ender Dragon separately

While the Watchers may not have been evil in EVO, they certainly became so AFTER, when they began to crave more negative human emotions, viewing them as “tasty” (Martyn’s words), s p i c y

They first kidnapped Grian at the end of EVO season 1, turning him into a Watcher to possibly have him join their ranks, but he’s gone rogue after realizing what their plans for the Life Series were, and plans to rescue his friends from them

The Life Series was the Watchers’ ploy to trap the players in an infinite death game where they betray and cause each other pain, all to harvest their negative emotions. Grian, in defiance to this, takes control as the ‘game master’ to make the whole thing…well, a game, so that his friends can enjoy, have fun and ease their anguish. In Martyn’s words, this is like “pouring ketchup all over the Watchers’ sundae.”

The Listeners (EVO season 2) are an opposing faction to the Watchers who disagree with their methods, although why is unknown. They’ve attempted to contact some players (e.g. Jimmy) before back in EVO in order to oppose the Watchers, but it’s not known how successful they were. They’ve also tried to swap in players in the Life Series before (e.g. subbing Lizzie and Gem for Pearl and Cleo in Lim. Life) in order to sneak them in and try to subvert the game. The Watchers kidnapping Gem for Secret Life is partially in retaliation to the Listeners. The Listeners may not be good and may have nefarious intentions also, it is as yet still unknown.

There’s potentially a third faction, the Speakers, but very little is known about them and Martyn doesn’t want to elaborate on them yet.

Okay, but what are the Watchers even after?

"Accept your fate."

From here on out is my real conjecturing/theorizing. The main question on my mind has been why are the Watchers doing what they’re doing? Obviously Martyn has confirmed that they are malicious deities who find negative human emotions tasty, but this raises further questions. Why exactly do they desire such emotions, or need them to survive (if they do, anyway)? Why do they favour negativity, when the other members of their species consume a wide range of emotions? They were confirmed to be outcast in some way from the other factions for this ploy, so what does that say about them then?

The whole species fundamentally do not understand human emotions (or perhaps do not even possess them)

This seems to me the most logical conclusion. These are powerful deities who can create miniature worlds/dimensions, life, and time to an extent (death loop). They should theoretically be self-sufficient, so I doubt that their consumption of human emotion is for survivability reasons (i.e. I don’t think Watchers will literally die if they don’t consume emotions, the same way humans die without food). What seems more likely is that human emotions bring them some benefit to their intelligence or power that they’d otherwise be quite non-functional without. (Think like the demons in The Promised Neverland, who regress to feral natures/lack of sapience if they don’t eat humans)

The Watchers’ powers and their lab-rat experimentation on the players gives a huge vibe of not being able to understand human emotions in an involved way, but only from a distance. They know methodically things like murder and betrayal cause panic and anguish, so they enforce these experiences through the game, mechanics like the Boogeyman, the Secret Tasks etc. But they don’t really know internally why these emotions come about the way humans do. Being above time, they probably don’t understand why the funny small animals have so much attachment to their transitory experiences and memories (more on this later).

world's angriest pumpkin

The Watchers are Losers, Actually

Going further, don’t you think the Watchers have a very misanthropic mindset all around? “Anguish and panic are s p i c y.” They conversely have a complete disgust for positive emotions, and can’t stand Grian making things fun for everybody. It almost feels like they have the mindset that only things like hatred and fear are exciting, bringing motivation and life to the humans, whereas things like happiness and fun are ‘useless’ because they don’t bring about the same results. Let’s also not forget their name – Watchers – and that Martyn’s confirmed them to be symbolically based off us, the audience. It’s almost like a commentary of the worst of the entertainment industry, of an audience who crave watching anything and everything to satisfy their own desires, even at the expense of the privacy and safety of the entertainer. Given the current state of the internet and social media, I don’t think I need to elaborate how awful things can get.

In other words, I believe the main motivation the Watchers are eating humans emotions is because they WANT to understand and ‘take into themselves’ such emotions. I don’t think they’re totally emotionless – Martyn does portray them with moments of glee and anger. But their understanding of emotions is superficial (self-centered, if you will) at best. As deities with no needs, being above time, they have nothing to be afraid of and nothing to feel sad or anguished over. It’s a boring, dull and empty existence. And that’s precisely why they’ve set up the Life Series game: by kidnapping a few humans and putting them through the artificially constructed wringer of panic and betrayal, they think they can create a human farm of such rich, complex and exciting emotions, all for themselves to enjoy at their own pleasure and fill the void they have.

(Listeners’ side note: If all that is the philosophy of the Watchers, it’s probably not difficult to see how/why the Listeners oppose them. The Listeners likely disagree that negative emotions are the most optimal state of humans, and unlike the Watchers do not think human suffering is just tasty popcorn one can eat at one’s pleasure. Their name – Listeners – implies they’re a more sympathetic faction, as in they listen to one’s troubles and heart rather than take delight in suffering at a superficial level. But if they are the same species, it’s very likely they have the same lack of instinctive understanding of human emotions that the Watchers do, and this could cause…problems.)

Why turn Grian?

All this is also why I believe the Watchers kidnapped Grian + turned him into a Watcher in the first place. Firstly, if they were going to concoct their plan to trap humans, they needed a collaborator from the humans in the first place. Secondly, and most importantly, this collaborator was going to be their only direct source of how human emotions work/feel like, and therefore what were the most optimal conditions needed to ensure their death game would generate the most pain and anguish. They picked Grian because he’s always the ‘leader’ of the SMP players, the person gathering and organizing everyone, so logically, he is the most ‘representative’ of the humans, and the one with the greatest ability to control them.

Of course, it’s also true that Grian was a little $#@% throughout EVO and actively rebelled against the Watchers’ tasks, so making him their collaborator might seem strange. Ignoring the meta reason that the ending was written to explain Grian’s exit from the series. But I figured in this case, they considered the benefits more than the costs. Grian’s chaotic nature is not unlike the Watchers’, considering how much he loves causing pranks and trouble to others. So, as a huge oversight, they think Grian is just like them: he loves to see people suffer, so they think. Additionally, the Watchers are desperate to understand how Grian gets his fellow humans to follow him and do what he asks with little effort. You’ll notice the Watchers have very direct, authoritative ways of trying to wrest control (e.g. the tasks, “do this or you fail”), and they get very petty and upset when people rebel against them (re: Scott’s refusal to be the Boogeyman, their motto is a very demanding “OUR WILL BE DONE.”) They see Grian’s charisma as yet another aspect of human emotions they fail to understand and thus WANT to possess for themselves.

Pictured above: The Watchers, coping and seething

Of course as we know, the Watchers believing Grian would help them is a major oversight. Becoming a god doesn’t just fundamentally change who Grian is, and he definitely doesn’t want to consign his friends to an infinite death loop of suffering. That being said, I don’t think Grianhas truly gone ‘rogue’ so much as taken as much advantage as possible of his ‘deal’ with the Watchers. We can guess the Watchers promised to him some kind of control/leadership over his friends’ circumstances as long as he worked for them, which led to them giving him the keys to the Life Series. In other words, so long as he fulfils their requirements of things being a death game that will generate ‘food’ for them, and lets them revive everyone each loop, he gets to decide how the games go.

And we know exactly what Grian’s done with this: he created the green-yellow-red lives system, he creates a fun gimmick each season, he inserts himself into the game as a player, all to bring out the best and most creative side of his friends rather than the worst. The Boogeyman probably is the only gimmick the Watchers added on their own initiative (re: Martyn’s POV in Last Life) in order to make things more spicy. Probably Grian’s conversation with the Watchers each time goes, “hey, I got an idea on how to bring out the most creative ways for everyone to cause pain in each other, [comes up with some bullcrap justification for the game’s fun mechanics].” I like to think the Watchers were going to make the death games even more vicious, cruel and competitive, but because of Grian’s wrangling he’s convinced them that a slow burn from joy to horror creates better results, and they tolerate it as long as they see him useful.

Memories and Emotions

There is also one BIG detail of the Watchers’ plan I’d like to mention: Martyn claims that the Watchers do NOT erase the players’ memories. At the end of each season, they consume everyone’s emotions so that there’s no more angst/ill will towards each other, and they start each season afresh. The players remember what’s happened in past seasons, but they don’t continue to hold the pain and negative feelings they had towards each other.

I don’t buy this, for numerous reasons.

For one, Martyn has confirmed the Watchers ARE capable of removing people’s memories. The one memory they have outright altered was the ex-EVO players’ (Martyn, Jimmy, BigB etc.) memory of what happened to Grian: they don’t remember that Grian was taken to be turned into a Watcher, and instead remember it as him either going missing or dying after the Ender Dragon fight. All this presumably to not give away the Watchers’ schemes and to ensure they still listen to Grian as if nothing ever happened.

More importantly, however, memories are vital to humanity’s emotional experience and mental health. I am not an expert by any means, but there are studies showing how people with amnesia, PTSD or other conditions affecting memories have flashbacks/emotional reactions to trauma they don’t remember consciously. The Watchers have (supposedly) done something far more simplistic yet fantastic by just eating up everybody’s emotions. All this, even though they see humans as emotion factories, constantly able to generate emotions just by existing, by their ability to draw and create meaning through emotional experiences, and by creating memories – the clearest embodiment of a mortal’s attachment to time (which if you remember, I believe the Watchers have no concept of).

You cannot just tell a human to stop feelingcompletely (under normal circumstances anyway), but especially not if they remember something very very traumatic.

Besides, there ARE clear instances when some of the players remember the events of past seasons and are STILL not over them! Impulse and Tango still being bitter/distrustful after Bdubs betrayed each of them separately, Cleo distrusting BigB for the same reason, Scott referencing Flower Husbands a lot, Pearl feeling betrayed by Cleo/Scott when they supposedly broke up the Gaslight/Gatekeep/Girlboss trio at the start of DL, Bdubs’ “I wanna be your favorite son” in Secret Life, the list goes on. Note that I’ve only listed negative/bittersweet instances; there are plenty more cases of the players remembering past seasons and alliances positively which the Watchers may have ignored. The point is, if the Watchers truly consumed everyone’s emotions to the point of a clean slate, they haven’t exactly been thorough. Nor do I think it’s very conducive for them either – don’t they want players to have enduring, unending, unresolved pain, the sweetest of all (to them)?

No, I think the Watchers HAVE been erasing/suppressing the players’ memories – they’ve just been very selective which ones. Martyn’s said that the Watchers do not care what families or connections they separate so long as they get the people they want and the plans they want. I’m going to assume the players in my theory/the Eyes and Ears AU are exactly the same as their CC counterparts. In other words: they’ve stolen Grian away from his wife. They stole Martyn away from his and his daughter. Ditto with Skizz, Impulse, Tango etc. They stole Scar away from his family. Joel and Lizzie are the only couple they didn’t separate, perhaps because they needed both for their plans, and also so they can inflict the most torture on them by ripping them away from each other, over and over again. And in order to ensure the complete submissiveness of the players to the game, the Watchers have taken away their memories of their past lives, their families, basically anyone who isn’t a fellow player in the game. The Watchers don’t erase the memories of bonds between seasons, because it’s a pain to have to teach the humans how to play all over again, but they erase any memories they find disadvantageous to keeping the game running.

They might even go one step further: while they haven’t erased the players’ memories of who each other are (so as to not cause confusion), they do try to suppress important memories. Things like how they met, the times they confided in each other after a bad day, cried on each other’s shoulder, laughed in each other’s successes, the times they hung out with each other’s families. Imagine the different alliances constantly gravitating to each other, but never being able to remember why they care about each other so much. Imagine Bdubs’ “Come on, you know you and I go way back!” when trying to justify taking Cleo’s stuff, and Cleo laughs back, even though she can’t quite remember what exactly Bdubs has done to warrant that. Imagine Joel or Lizzie trying to remember why they loved each other so much.

They fight and kill some of their friends, and protect others, because…because why again? It’s for survival value, surely, so the Watchers whisper. It’s because the strong must congregate with the strong and leave the weak to die, surely. It’s because Martyn’s always been a loner, and always will be, and should remain so. So they tell him. So they whisper, this is a deathmatch for a reason.

Grian’s Fundamental Rebellion

I think all this is the real reason Grian is rebelling against the Watchers. The most immediate reason is obvious: he wants to free his friends from this death loop. But the deeper reason as to why he’s rebelled is that the Watchers are torturing and robbing his friends of their humanity. They’re taking a tight-knit group of friends who love and would do anything for each other, and turning them against each other in a cruel and unescapable death game. On TOP of this, the Watchers have constantly messed with their heads in order to make them obedient and submissive to their schemes and the worst of their human nature, trapping them in fear, pettiness and paranoia. Of course Grian is upset. Of course he wants to save them from this fate. It’s an insult to who he knows these people to be.

This all leaves Grian in a pretty precarious position. While outwardly the Watchers want to make him a lackey as the “game master”, both he and they know he really wants to save his friends (they probably see it as their ‘cattle’ showing a bit of resistance, which once again they need to suppress). And while on one hand he’s making the games fun to ease his friends’ pain and bring the best out of them, this is just a hotfix rather than a real solution. In order to really rescue the players, Grian’s got to get them to rebel against the Watchers as well. Refuse to play by the rules, by the expectation that they must murder and kill without mercy, without any attachment to their alliances or past friendships. Make everyone like Scott refusing to be the Boogeyman, or Skizz constantly trying to be wholesome (until the bloodlust gets the better of him anyway).

Ironically in order to achieve this, Grian’s best bet is to try to jog everyone’s lost memories of each other and the things they lost, both good and bad. But ultimately, this is going to make them (in the short term) suffer more. This is where you can insert all your Desert Duo/Flower Husband/whatever alliance you like most angst. But more practically, I like to imagine when “the cameras” are not watching, when Grian knows no one will notice or catch him, he sneaks around to the different alliances, even the ones he’s not part of, to ask them how they’re doing, if they remember anything from the past etc. (in a meta sense, the players edit and cut stuff from their videos all the time; who’s to say he isn’t trying to catch a quick chat while everyone’s mining?!) It also reflects in why Grian is constantly trying to make alliances with different people instead of just gravitate to one person, he needs to check on everyone and capitalize on every single opportunity. (besides the meta reason, being that cc!Grian wants to be creative, and sticking to the same person all the time isn’t very entertaining from a content creator perspective)

One last detail about the winners: I don’t have much to say about the fragments yet, because Martyn (sneaky boi) hasn’t yet revealed the significance of the fragments nor of their healing, although he has hinted Bad Things™ will happen if a player gets too fragmented. But I do think the winners are important: with the game finished, they give Grian a very short window of time to talk to one person directly, without Watcher interference. They’re always the last to be killed/swept away/revived by the Watchers, and I can imagine there’s a brief period of time when their souls are being transferred to The Void w/e where Grian can step in and interfere. In my theory, Grian passes on some sort of clue/push to the winners, as like a subtle message about what they can do to stand up to the Watchers. I’ll detail on what I think these individual messages were in part 2. Needless to say, 3rd Life was a traumatic experience for Grian for many reasons, but the nail in the coffin was the fact that he won, and therefore there was no way for him to pass a message onto anyone.

Conclusion

Hooooooo jeepers that was long @A@; Thank you so much for your patience reading this if you made it to the end, I really appreciate it. As I said, I’ve had these lore ideas bouncing in my head for a LONG time, and with the end of Secret Life I couldn’t get out of my head the different trends/symbolism that was popping out of an improv series. It honestly speaks a lot to how genius our favorite block dudes are at improv, that they can turn their improv nonsense into a coherent narrative. I really wanted to try my hand at fleshing out such a narrative, and with Martyn constantly drip-feeding lore to the fans, I had more than enough material to not just put out guesses but construct something a full XYZ. As I mentioned, I enjoy workshopping themes and characters a LOT more than just worldbuilding or “what if this or that” details in a vacuum, hence why I’ve written all that I have, so this was a fun exercise for me all around!

Next time in part 2 I talk about Character Development™, or character specific notes and details I’ve noticed and extrapolated from what we’ve seen of each individual player, as well as what their different arcs across the seasons mean for them within the lore. Stay tuned for another wordbarf!

Bonus list of works I was inspired by for this loredump:

Log Horizon

The Promised Neverland

Danganronpa (ironic as I’m not really a fan of this franchise, but the first game has an otherwise solid premise which I found really similar to the Life Series)

The Fate franchise (when Martyn asked “what’s Fate?” on the latest lore stream, let me tell you I couldn’t stop laughing; NO MARTYN DON’T GO INTO THE WEEB RABBIT HOLE)

Various amazing animatics from the Traffic fandom: Earth, Bang!, most of Melloz Heist’s works, and of course all the amazing fanart

Way too many conversations with my friends about fantasy species

[reblog-trash-can]

GRIAN LORE TIMELINE

I don't care what anyone else says, but for me, Grian's lore timeline goes:

Yandere High School -> Tokyo Soul -> EVO -> Life Series -> CraftedMovies -> Wynncraft -> HermitCraft.

Now to my explanation: Basically, Grian was abandoned by his parents. The whole Yandere High School thing happened, which made him a bit deranged. But after the universe was destroyed in Tokyo Soul, Grian, Taurtis, and Sam were given a choice by a watcher:

Either redo high school all over again or participate in an infinite death loop. Grian and Taurtis chose the infinite death loop, figuring it was better than high school could ever be, and Sam chose to redo everything all over again.

This led to EVO. Taurtis took a bit longer because he was still thinking about his choice, but eventually, he came to EVO as well. Grian is still a bit deranged, which makes the watchers intrigued and wondering if Grian would be fitting to become a watcher and maybe he might enjoy the suffering.

But then they instantly realize something: Taurtis is an issue. He's stopping Grian from achieving something greater, from fully going into madness. So they get rid of Taurtis.

Grian then goes to The End and becomes a watcher. And he's a GOOD watcher. Everything he plans, every server he destroys, is filled with chaos and bloodshed, and it's entertaining. The watchers LOVE IT. But Grian finds it boring, so he joins in. He becomes part of it. So the Life games begin. The other watchers are against this, but Grian doesn't care. He likes the thrill; he enjoys being part of it.

But during the Life Series, he starts to genuinely enjoy the other players. He likes the jokes, the pranks, to laugh and smile with other people, and at some point, he enjoys their company more than the death game itself.

Everyone there has been in this death loop for a while, being tricked by the watchers, seeking a safe space for themselves and ending up trapped. So Grian's redemption arc begins. He helps every player break out of the death loop, erasing their memories and sending them to a safer universe where the watchers would never find them.

The watchers are FURIOUS, so Grian runs away and goes to seek out help. That's when he meets the Crafted Movies crew. They are insanely knowledgeable about Minecraft, and they were also running from the watchers after their original worlds were destroyed, so they decide to join Grian.

With that, Grian manages to defeat the original watchers, ending the bloodshed. The Crafted Movies crew then finds a server called Wynncraft, which is hunted by infinite amounts of monsters and barely anyone can survive. So Grian uses all of his power to grant the people of Wynncraft the power of magic, the power to fight back. He then leaves the Crafted Movies crew to take care of Wynncraft.

Grian visits some different worlds for a while before finally finding HermitCraft. Not being as powerful, he settles there. The end

Anyway, that's about it. This is mainly focused on the fact that Watchers in the Bible (Book of Enoch, tbf) fell in love with humanity and abandoned heaven, living amongst humans and giving them the forbidden knowledge of magic.

[inthelittlewood]

I'm confused by Grian's motivations. During the Q&A you mentioned the boogeyman being what caused him to disagree with the Watchers which, sure. But that would mean he was fine with trapping people (many of whom being his friends) in death games to harvest negative emotions in the first place which seems contradictory to past statements and brings into question why he was in Third Life at all? I'm trying to figure out if you misspoke or if that was the intended meaning

Sounds like I misspoke probably. This is why I continually answer asks and doing the post season lore streams to hash things out is a good thing, as I'm no kind of trained or practiced author. I have some big narrative beats to hit but aside from that it's as improv as the Life series is to an extent. I'd have to be giga brain to have written all of this just after 3rd Life ended lol

The way I see it currently is Grian was taken on as a Watcher from EVO and at that time, the feeding on emotions was a normal activity. An even spread of good and bad emotions were drawn from, not overly impactful to the player.

As time passed the other Watchers began feeding more on negative emotions and in vastly larger quantities which began to take a toll. Not only were they causing small fragmentation of people's souls but they were stripping away emotions in such a rapid fashion that players lost the opportunity to practice things like forgiveness, empathy and recovery. So they lost out mentally as well as soulfully (is that a word? ha)

Grian was in 3rd Life as a player after he'd decided to part from the Watchers that inducted him. They'd run a few deathmatches already (no idea how many) and it didn't sit well with him the directions things were steering.

His goal so far has been to lighten the mood of these games to 'sour' the feast for the Watchers who at this point, will only accept negative emotions and if at all possible, help liberate the players once and for all.

It's a similar goal to the Listeners, but not exact, so there's been zero communication between the two so far. I think both Grian and the Listeners see each other's meddling as beneficial to the other. They're each making small progress as opposed to a stalemate if they faced the Watchers head on.

Those cracks in the control and armour for The Watchers heightened this past season with the soul channeling of Cleo/Pearl and is why Grian's aura was disrupted and he ended up in a vacant state (during the afk episode)

Does that make sense?

I'll definitely contradict myself at times but it's why I do lore dumps publicly so people can fact check me. This is all just for fun, so keep prodding me y'all :)

[theonewhosbritishunironically]

Welcome to my post that sums up all of the insanity that I've been experiencing over the similarities of Philza's lore from both Hardcore and QSMP and the lore of Grian from various places, with EVOSMP, Hermitcraft, and Life series being the main ones. I need to no longer be going insane about this alone.

This piece mainly talks about Watchers from EVO and the Enderking from Phil's hardcore lore and QSMP, but the two characters also have links to eachother. It is not just Fishing-Obsessed British Bird Men.

So firstly, we have the obvious link, of the villains color scheme and depictions in lore.

Watchers are generally depicted as purple, thanks to the color of the Evolution SMP Logo, and the fact that they reside in the end. We know that Listeners can be purple colored thanks to Martyns final limited life episode where they are shown for the first (and so far only) time.

The Enderking is shown as purple as well, definitively canon in lore, as shown in the QSMP Stream "Break past the Void". Also, the Enderking obviously has connections to the End, just like the Watchers.

Both reside in the End initially, before ending up affecting the overworld.

Secondly, we have the link of depictions in lore for the two main characters.

Phil is canonically a bird in QSMP, and although I'm not sure if it's canon to hardcore lore, he certainly flies around a lot, and I'm pretty sure he's been called a bird by the hardcore gods. (Rose, Blaze Empress, and Ocean Himbo man.) He's also known as the angel of death.

Now, Grian is, in EVO canon, a Watcher. Now, Watchers are depicted as angels in lore and in fanart, more traditional statues on the actual server, but then became more eldritch with biblical angel looks after the fans got to them. This helped contribute to his bird hybrid headcanons from the fandom, along with living in the jungle and liking parrots.

(You can probably see the similarities here with Grian's lore being slightly more vague)

Third, we have the abilities of the Watchers vs the Enderking.

Both can canonically possess people, with the Enderking going for Phil, and succeeding with what happened in QSMP from the Stream "Greed comes with a price..." , and the Watchers controlling Martyn in his Limited Life Finale, potentially tipping the balance to him winning.

The placing of obsidian. In EVO, when Grian steals from the Watchers, they chastise him, call him greedy, and place obsidian over every single one of their chests. Alternatively, the Enderking puts Obsidian in all of Q! Phil's special places, specifically crying obsidian.

Also, as a side note, I would just like to say that in Hermitcraft 9, Grian had a large rift underneath his base that leaked magic into the surrounding area. It was bright magenta, and turned into a huge nether portal when it was activated by Grian thanks to his pressing a button. When the portal starts to close it gained both crying obsidian and normal obsidian. --- It ended up closed until the end of the season, where it reopened with a ring of crying obsidian that let him transport realms to the next season of hermitcraft.

Both of these are caused by the god-like entity judging the person as greedy.

So. Thank you for coming to my essay. Probably the first of many.

[katalyist]

This is my third time trying to explain my theory about Grian being a Watcher even before Evo so please someone stay with me.

We are all familiar with the «He was never meant to be there, he was only meant to watch» phrase (that didn't change my brain chemistry at all) right? Now, someone has always being... Odd about it, maybe the fact that is was the answer of «Why are you so sent on Grian?» that Martyn said. Everyone just kinda agree that it was refered to the life series, but what if the answer is that Grian wasn't supposed to be there even before? In Evo.

Because Evo Grian marks almost all the things of a watcher since... Day one? First, well, he was the admin so he had the power around the server, he was supposed to keep track of changing the versions (so he must have had a little bit of knowledge that the Watchers weren't that dangerous to let them participate in the changes of versions).

Second of all, he was very isolated from the rest of the members since the beginning, he was the one that lived further away from everybody else in a version where you couldn't run, there wasn't minecarts or horses or a way to get there quickly.

Third, he wanted to have access to everything. With the station to go from spawn to his base and the secret tunnels under it that were supposed to connect with everybody base (he abandoned the project pretty quickly but that isn't the point tho).

He has always been a prankster, but he hasn't never been the one that does the easy pranks, no, Grian send BigB to a journey with riddles and rhymes only to getting back to his base to activate a tnt trap. He make a treasure hunt with no treasure at the end (well technically it was but if you picked it, it would activate a trap). He trap his secret tunnels when they were compromised and told people to send comments to the other people on the smp tricking them to go see (poor Jimmy). And that isn't counting his multiple 'just tnt it' pranks. Also, he liked messing with people when they were streaming, when he could watch them.

He also didn't wanted to obey the Watchers, twisting their rules and breaking them, didn't the listeners say something about the Watchers thinking they are above everyone else? That they don't have to give explanations?

And one of the things that just scream Watcher behavior it's how he made a entire escape room for Taurtis to complete, with everything you could think, riddles, mind tests, rooms with puzzles... Just because he could and he wanted, just for his enjoyment.

If that isn't a Watcher thing at this point I don't know what it is! And it could explain in the Evo lore why he was so calm to go with the Watchers after defeating the dragon, he was even excited to have the opportunity to watch what all his friend were gonna do even if he wasn't there anymore.

So yeah, part of my theory says that he is a Watcher from the beginning, if he knew or not that's a different history. The important part is that:

He stayed. He is there.

Grian is a player (or at least pretending to be one) like the others, he participates like everyone else, the rules apply to him too. He wants the rules to apply to him he wants to be like everybody, even if that means pain, break promises, break friendships, even if it means that he is only surviving.

But his constant effort to connect, to stay present is not something that beggings in life series, as you might have noticed, it started in Evo. His nature competing with what he really wanted for the control.

Using the same examples to his Watcher behavior:

He isolate himself to almost inmediatly trying to find a way for people to visit. And when he finished most part of his base structure he abandoned it, he say something like "I want to be more close to spawn, I feel like I have no idea to what is happening there" and went there to build Evo town.

Most of the time he gave people something in return after a prank/situation that he feel unfair, when the property police blew up on accident he build a new one, and he always apologiezed.

After the Watchers punished him once he didn't break the rules and he warned Taurtis about not doing it. Even when he always found ways to twisted or steal from them.

In the game that he made Taurtis play it was a prize at the end: A cake, dumb, but a prize that seem fair and that he knew Taurtis was gonna like, and he didn't lie.

So maybe when They took him back he was excited at first, new things, to see, to learn, to explote. Maybe things he forgot completely.

But then there was the rules, watch but not participate, watch and create but never involve yourself with the players. Maybe They had the hope that teaching him again there ways was gonna make him stay, but we know Grian, he gets bored quickly.

So he escaped and now we are in the life series. I'm not gonna extend to much here, I reblog someone else talking about how Grian is making an effort to stay there instead of going back and the implications that it has about The Watchers moving everything just to make him miserable.

But why? Why they want him back? Why is he so important to them that he can't be replaced or forgotten to live like a player?

And here I add the popular theory/headcanon of Grian being the first player to become a Watcher. Because that makes him important to them, it makes him a success, something to study, to see how far he can go.

But he isn't cooperating with them, the worst of their character: Watchers always want to do things their way.

In conclusion: Grian as always been a Watcher and the Evo SMP proves it. How this impacts everything else? I don't know!

Thank you for reading, this is my third time writing this because i don't know where the drafts are (if you haven't notice I'm quite new to this Tumblr thing) and i lost two of my rants there.

[shittyness]

I’ve got a new theory!!

It’s been a minute since I wrote one so it’s probably not my best work lol

Anyway! This one’s about Martyn! I don’t think I’ve made one for him yet actually 

Spoilers under the cut

So as Martyn had confirmed under Ryan’s post, he isn’t a listener

And he isn’t a Watcher

I think he’s still a player, but one the listeners protected, and the watchers wanted to take

I think that’s why he has heard messages from the watchers in the past

They want to make him one of them, but because he’s under the listeners protection from back in Evo they can’t

So they still use him, but at the same time they try to temp him to join them by showing him all the power he can have.

Martyn has a strong will and is able to fight off the temptation,  but he still is curious on the Watchers goals, motives, and reasonings behind their actions 

I think at some point he had tried to ask Grian, or any of the other former Evo members, but the watchers had taken their memories (or in Grian’s case it might’ve been too painful to retell it)

So if Martyn is suspended in this in between of the watchers and the listeners, what does that mean? To me it means that he has these two opposing parties fighting for him to side with them the listeners wanting him to remain a player, and the watchers wanting him to join their ranks. Both parties keep trying to either make the other side look bad, like the listeners did in Evo, making promises to Martyn without any evidence that they’ll keep them, or by gifting him power for him to chance after, like I believe the watchers did in limited life (think a child of divorced parents, where both are trying to get the kid to decide to live with them full time)

Another point I’d like to make it, while I know the life series isn’t scripted, in lore I think it makes sense if the watchers choose who will win the season. 

My explanations:

3rd Life: Grian won. Grian is also a former watcher, and as Martyn’s last life lore (specifically the ‘he was only ever meant to watch’ line) proves, the watchers don’t like that he’s a player again. So the watchers chose for him to win to once again win his favor and remind him of the power they wield. But Grian saw right through their schemes, and him jumping off the cliff on monopoly mountain was kind of his way of telling them he doesn’t need their power to be happy, and in a way that he’s better then them. Obviously they didn’t like that and so they cursed him to always be a part of his closest allies demise. I think their anger was most apparent in limited life, for example, out of the 3 people who had to miss a session, Grian was the only one without a fill in. Grian was also the first one to loose his main alliance

Last life: Scott won. Before I start this one, I will admit I don’t know as much about this season, especially Scott’s character, and I don’t currently have the time to watch all his episodes. Anyway Scott and the Watchers like mutually dislike each other. (I believe Martyn said this once) and I’m pretty sure this started in last life with Scott being the boogie man. So I think the watchers had Scott win despite their hatred to try and force him back into line. I think they wanted him to fear them and wanted him to see the extent of their abilities and control. I think they wanted him to see the truth so that he would worship them. But obviously we know that didn’t work either

Double Life: Pearl won. Pearl won because she was the most interesting for the watchers to watch, and she had the most negative emotions throughout the season. Her story was one of overcoming these tragedies while also dealing with her decent into madness. She lost her soulmate because she chose to go to the nether to try and benefit them over finding Scott. Then after Scott and Cleo left Pearl and Martyn and Pearl was already heartbroken, Martyn left her as well. Then throughout the season she becomes an omen of death and destruction. As she became more and more insane, she also grew more and more upset. Eventually she did end up teaming with Scott, Cleo, and Martyn. But by then the damage was already done. Finally when she did win, she was surrounded by grief. She had lost her soulmate again, she had also just watched Scott sacrifice himself for her to win the game, and she had killed her only other surviving friend throughout the entire game. She had the most negative emotions, and the most interesting story to watch.

Limited life: Martyn won. He won for all the reasons I said before. The watchers wanted to show their power, and get him to join them. They made him win by giving him that dose of power and bloodlust to kill Impulse and Scott. They had that control over him.

Anyway, that’s the end of my rants for now! If anyone read this I hope you found it interesting and I hope it makes sense lmao

[ssseriema]

Can you explain the watchers/listeners lore? Or point me in the direction of learning more about it myself. I know its from an old SMP Grian was in but I get the feeling that that doesn't actually explain all of it

ello!! im definitely not the most knowledgable person to ask, everything i just kinda absorbed through osmosis. but basically the original watchers in evolution smp (an old smp with bigb, pearl, jimmy, martyn, grian, and others) were a stand-in for the actual audience, and theyd leave riddles and puzzles for the players, sometimes messing with them. when grian was gonna leave the series, he did it by basically becoming a watcher, aka he would no longer play in it and just be part of the audience, and after i think it became a little more dramatic? someone can correct me if im wrong, but i think the listeners were created after grian left because they needed a narrative reason to move spawn or something? and the listeners were kind of an opposing force to the watchers (they listened to the players) but not completely sure about what happened after

as for the fandom lore youve probably seen, people just kinda took the concept and ran with it, and made all these angsty and dramatic interpretations which i love dearly. theres many ways you can take a concept like that specially if you take the watchers as more of a malicious or apathetic force with power over the players

its possible youve also heard about the concept from martyn. since last life i think, martyn has also been doing lore of his own AU after the evo series, where the players were trying to escape the watchers (im not aware if this bit is canon to evo smp or not) and the watchers became capricious forces which made players participate in death games (life series) to feed off on their negative emotions. hes explained some of the lore related to this, such as the life series being a death time loop, grian stepping in as a watcher to try to save his friends, c!martyn being tormented by and doing the bidding of the watchers, etc. its all very cool and hes answered questions on his post-season lore streams of last life and limited life if youre interested in learning more

again, i dont think im the best person to ask becuz i dont understand it 100%, but i tried to do a little rundown of it :) sorry for the huge wall of text

[13-rats-in-a-trenchcoat]

Traffic/Evo Watcher headcanon, don't mind me

Ok, so we've known awhile now that the next season of the Life series is going to be released soon, so naturally I've been re-watching the previous seasons and going over POVs I hadn't seen before. While going down this rabbit hole I came across a Martyn stream I missed where he was talking about the Watchers lore and how he and Grian worked on it for Evo and then he kind of altered it from what Grian originally imagined (i.e. the Watchers being representative of us, the audience, who watch them for entertainment) to the more sinister lore we Traffic connoisseurs are familiar with today. This got me thinking. A lot. Too much even. What if we, the audience, were STILL the Watchers? I'm not talking about for the Life series or Evo series specifically, I'm thinking more broad spectrum, like across the MCYT multiverse type thing. I like a cohesive story, and I like puzzles, and when there are stories that look like they could be pieces of a bigger puzzle I enjoy smooshing them together in one giant headcanon that more or less makes sense, so here we go.

The canon lore we have (as I understand it anyway) is as follows: the Watchers first made themselves known during Evo, where they messed with the Evolutionists as they went through each Minecraft update, ultimately separating them for the final dragon fight where Grian would leave Evo and become a Watcher himself. From there the Listeners (who I know diddly squat about) got involved and helped the Evolutionists escape the Evo server, thus getting them away from Watcher influence. Or so they hoped. The Watchers somehow regained power over the Players that were involved in Evo, along with some of their friends, and put them in what is essentially a never-ending loop of death games as punishment for their defiance. Grian didn't like how the Watchers operated, so he left them to join his friend in the death games. The Watchers feed off the Players' negative emotions, but leave their memories, thus enabling them to start fresh each season without holding on to previous grudges (though considering Impulse's thing with BDubs and the clock and Tango's rage that might not be entirely effective)

This is where my headcanon comes in. The Watchers are a group of people/sentient beings of some kind who feed off of the negative emotions of others and watch their misery and struggles for entertainment. They're a mischievous bunch, some might even say troll-like (of the internet variety, not like in fairy tales), and at least two of them enjoy speaking in rhyme, i.e. they're artistic and dramatic. Sound familiar? Because to me this description sounds very much like the wider MCYT fanbase, especially the fan artists/writers. I mean come on, when have we NOT jumped at the opportunity to turn a pretty normal moment into the angstiest piece of writing/art imaginable. Case in point, Mumbo and Grian at the ghast farm in Last Life. They were giggling through that whole interaction, yet I've watched SEVERAL angsty animatics about just that one scene and I've loved every second of it.

This next bit is likely a pretty big reach, but the thought popped into my head and wouldn't go away so I would just like to get it out there. Grian doesn't really interact with his comments on an individual basis, but he definitely has addressed the more negative ones, especially the ones that go after his friends when they're on an opposing side of whatever war he's started at that moment in time. This ties in pretty well with him not liking the way the Watchers operate in my opinion, and it also ties in with him leaving the Watchers to help his friends. Not necessarily directly, but more in the sense of the vibes matching up.

We currently don't know enough about the Watchers to definitively say how plausible this headcanon of mine is, like we don't know exactly how many Watchers there are, or how many Listeners there are, or what separates a Watcher from a Listener, or really any info about the Listeners in general. I do think it's a pretty fun headcanon though, and until it is directly contradicted this is how I will view the Watchers. Thank you for reading my essay.

[nezhanetwork]

🌲 favourite member/character?

🌓 opinions on the watcher lore?

⚡️most cinematic death?

🌲 favourite member/character?

i grew attached to bdubs after his limlife movie and he's been my favourite ever since :) grian, joel and some others come really close tho!

🌓 opinions on the watcher lore?

i didn't watch evo but i still think the watchers are cool based on what the fandom (and martyn) has created !! i was kind of indifferent at first, but now secret life gives us so many new ways of interpreting the watcher lore, it's quite intriguing. can't wait to see what's coming next!

⚡ most cinematic death?

apart from desertduo, probably joel in limlife + not exactly cinematic, but jimmy in double life dying alone in silence was so unbelievably sad

[bailey-dreamfoot]

Have some watcher Grian doodles! +LORE Headcannons :D

Transcript of the text bc my handwriting is dogshit 😅

Also, take a sip of water every time I say Watcher. Boom, daily hydration done. lol

Watchers have the ability to see everything and anything. However, because of this- their eyes are very sensitive. So they wear blindfolds to both protect their vision, as well to keep them from being to overwhelmed. (This is also why Grian wears goggles in season 7 (They were a gift from Mumbo!))

When Grian first joined the Watchers, he didn't have particularly remarkable powers. He was a recruiter, much like the ones who toyed with him during his time on Evo. Eventually, he rose the ranks and gained the all-seeing powers of the higher Watchers. This is when he gained the halo, and blindfold.

Eventually, Grian became bored with being a Watcher. After coming across the Hermitcraft server, he left to join them. Since then, the other Watchers have been chasing after him, trying to get him back. He was one of their best after all.

After spending some time in Hermitcraft, Grian's powers began to fade. however, his wings remained.

This is basically the lore I have for the Watchers. I see a lot of people attribute things that happen in later seasons of Hermitcraft as well as the Life series to the Watchers, and I liked the idea, but I also thought it wouldn't make much sense for them to follow him around, and torment him if he was a lowly member- one the other Watchers only seem to tolerate. However, it made much more sense if he were higher ranking. Someone they cared about loosing, and would want back.

Now don't get me wrong, the just because he was high ranking and clearly wanted, doesn't mean he was treated very well. None of the Watchers were really treated well. When it came to enforcing their rules and customs, violence or other cruel punishment were often used. Those who broke rules being made as examples. Grian has many scars from his time on Hermitcraft, but he has just as many from being a Watcher (scars I forgot to draw). One of the most important rules was to not interferer unless given permission. At one point, Grian influenced the players of a server he was watching to start a war- for his own amusement. His superior was certainly unhappy.

All this not even mentioning the process of growing his wings. It's not like they were just magically given to him upon joining. At least not the ones on his back anyway. It was very painful. Sometimes the wings would have to be broken repeatedly in order to stimulate growth. That or it was done as punishment. The wings a Watcher has are seen as a status symbol. It's what separate them from ordinary players, as they need an elytra to grow their own. Having them broken is often seen as an insult- and Watchers who's wings are just growing are usually treated worse than those with them.

Uhhh yeah thats it basically. There's some other small things to take note of, like Grian eventually needing glasses bc using his powers caused some damage to his eyes, or the wings on his head slowly turning back into the elf-like ears he had before he became a watcher. (I'm sure at least one of the Hermits have asked him what that was about.) But for the most part thats It. :]

[firefly124]

Speaking of lore

Well, the thing I just reblogged was speaking of lore. ANYWAY, since Martyn’s apparently doing some lore Q&A tomorrow, I wanted to noodle around with what he’s recently dropped on us beforehand. We’ve basically got two things: the bit after Jimmy dies and the bit after Martyn dies. This is gonna get long.

So, after Jimmy dies, we get this:

PAUSE, UNPAUSE WE PARALYZE A VACANT STARE FOR WANDERING EYES CANARY CALL THE FIRST TO FALL FOREVER CAGED IN DIFFERENT WALLS ECHOES RING FOR BRIEF EXCHANGE DISRUPTIONS BY THE ONES ESTRANGED TREAD CAREFUL SOUND FOR IF WE MET OUR GAZE WOULD BRING UNTIMELY DEAF

Now, Jimmy had just died by accidentally un-crouching as he pushed a minecart off SkyNet. That would be the obvious “pause, unpause, we paralyze” bit. Martyn has a tendency to not be that obvious, though, going by his whole 2 hr shadow lore bit from Last Life. I’m not sure what else to make of that, other than the already-rampant fanon that the Watchers pushed him, possibly because he didn’t lose the full 2 hrs when Etho boogey-killed him and should’ve already been gone.

“Canary call, the first to fall” is also seemingly straightforward. That’s the nature of the canary curse: once Jimmy dies, everybody else starts falling like flies.

“Forever caged in different walls,” though. Is that referring to Evo, I wonder? I never did finish watching all Jimmy’s or Martyn’s Evo episodes. I should probably at least catch the last few. Were they banished by the Watchers, perhaps? Did they escape? This is a thing I should probably know.

Some of these things, of course, may not mean anything literal. They may be code. He likes to do that. Which letters to grab, though, I have no idea.

“Echoes ring for brief exchange” seems like it might be about the lives that were offered to Jimmy to keep him alive, first BDubs, then Scott, which leads to the next bit.

“Disruptions by the ones estranged.” Now, my shipper heart wants to make that about both Flower Husbands and Team Rancher because Scott gave Jimmy a life and Tango held back from killing him when he had an opportunity to do so. So there’s one possible interpretation, though I doubt that’s where Martyn would be taking it. Jimmy, Grian, Martyn, Pearl, and BigB are all estranged from Evo though. If Grian didn’t pull the extra hour off Jimmy for the boogey kill, not by oversight or because a boogey kill can’t cause permadeath but to try to break the curse to spite the Watchers, that’s another possible disruption by at least one of the estranged.

The last two lines are obviously a warning ... but what warning is it? Watcher on Listener violence?

Right, so no real answers with that. Let’s get to the really wild and confusing stuff.

Unlike the previous message, the one we get after Martyn’s death is in all lowercase letters.

"there are some who watch, we are those who listen not yet free still you flee from a weighted decision in each peace lies a piece that makes up the whole woven the fragments that make up a soul”

Then we get to see Martyn face-on (as he falls unconscious through the void) with white lines that intersect here and there forming diamonds, including on his right hand. A spirit-looking entity touches that hand and then the lines go away and we see “ FRAGMENT PROTECTED “

So if the previous message was a warning from the Watchers, this seems to be encouragement and possibly healing from the Listeners. Did he somehow, by giving the Watchers what they wanted (carnage and betrayal) retrieve a piece of his soul? But then why was it the Listeners who patched it into him? Or, by choosing the more violent option and giving in to the Watchers*, did he fragment his soul and the Listeners are patching him up? Was that even his soul getting patched up that we saw?

I don’t expect we’ll get clear answers. Half the fun of this is the ongoing mysteriousness, of course. And the speculation. I wish I was any good at codes, because I’m sure there’s stuff in there. I just don’t see it.

*It did seem like either the Watchers or something possessed him or possibly triggered some deep programming in him. The pulsating edges of his vision once it was down to the final three and the maniacal laughter at the end suggest as much.

[megabuild]

Sending a long explanation on c!Martyn I reblogged and written and added in ask after the first round poll. (May fix/add and put what I wrote here there too later.) Even if I voted and wanted c!Aimsey to go forward and didn’t want these two to compete so early. Liked what explanation was given thought to add more. Spoilers for Evo, and Martyn’s traffic life smp series. Implied vtuber lore spoilers. Apologies for c!Martyn brainrot, been a lurker for a long time and the c!Martyn and traffic smp brainrot hit. Mentions of Grian and Jimmy. (because i have both of them, mostly grian but still brainrot too.) Didn’t dive into the guilt fully, (can but long rn for me already, though asked can get into it) but the guy has it. Bad. Also with trauma and rage and knowing the consequences and decisions that reshaped him to be like how we see him in Limited Life.

Like. I love Martyn. I sorta hate the not totally great explanation given for him. Because there’s so much to explain. Of Evo Smp, Grian as both Admin and Player making the Watchers as ingame Viewers and as deific Minecraft code and system powers to move Minecraft versions. c!Martyn, another player with the rest of the server seeing and realizing the Watchers taking Grian and making him the Third. Mostly because cc!Grian made the decision to do so - to make his finale of Evo, and because of other important decision months in the making as well that just coinciding with him leaving Evo of joining Hermitcraft. Then Grian 2ish years later making and becoming admin and player of 3rd life, inviting multiple players to play and compete including Martyn. Though 3rd life and all others are improv-ed and real, Martyn slowly adding voices and shadows and lore to egg him on to possibly betray Ren, playing into it more and writing more as both improv and lore were played out. Martyn as any of the others didn’t know how every Smp would end. Yet, eventually in Last Life, sequel server to Third, cc!Martyn decided to truly say or implywho the voices are: the Watchers, in his finale dropping both how he is more of a Listener (same diefic entity to Watchers, but now opposed to them and their cause, was brought more into Evo after Grian left to update the game and flee and fight and stop from the Watcher’s influence) pawn and agent. Also these important big lines to tell or imply who they are, Martyn: “Why were you so set on Grian?” Watchers: “Hmph. He was never meant to be there, he was only ever meant to /watch./” c!Martyn being their only special guy who knows of them. Though c!Jimmy knows of them too – Watchers and Listeners, was reached out to be a Listener from Evo, though very not totally participating into the 3rd Life Smps lore. Though uh, via improv and choices dying first every time. Viewer speculation and momental coincidences of the Watchers vehemently hating Jimmy for being a Listener, a canary of warning of death and dying first every time, etc reasons. It wasn’t in Double Life much or at all, was in Limited Life, those voices, the influence. The series he won. By betrayal, and survival. By being pushed to betray, to survive, to win. But, every time, at the end, being stuck in a purgatory Limbo. Forever falling in wait for the next series to begin, and for whatever Smp or escape or protection is open and given.

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