#anyway. ANYWAY. martyn doesn't understand why he's here. but why WOULDN'T he be here?

[theminecraftbee]

There are several things Martyn realizes, all at once, when he opens his eyes:

He is dreaming.

It's one of those in-between dreams, the ones that aren't quite dreams.

He is sitting at a green felted table. It is sitting on a stage. The lighting is dim, and no one is watching, but out of the corner of his eye he can see the stagehands dressed in black, waiting.

He is not the only one sitting at the table. There is a Watcher, draped in purple. There is a Listener, draped in yellow. There is someone he recognizes in a red sweater. There is someone he thinks he should recognize, but can't quite, shuffling a deck of cards.

"Right. What's all this, then," he mutters.

We are playing blackjack, the Listener says.

We are deciding the rules, the Watcher says.

"It's not like we have anything better to do. Honestly, I'm glad you're here. Do you know how boring these guys are?" Grian says, and Martyn decides to quietly file Grian away as a dream-Grian, as opposed to real-life-Grian, so he doesn't go insane and/or stab him when he wakes up. He waits for the almost-familiar dealer to say something. He does not. After another few moments of awkward nonsense dream-silence, Martyn sighs and leans forward on the table.

"Sure, this might as well be happening," Martyn says. "Deal me in. How's the betting work, again?"

"You put your bet on the table. If you beat the dealer, you get to add it to the game," Grian explains. "If you don't beat the dealer, it takes it."

"Yeah, but like, that's abstract, isn't it? What does that mean, exactly, me losing what I bet if I don't beat the dealer," Martyn says.

Grian shrugs. "Don't ask me. To be honest, I'm hardly the storyteller you are."

"Me? Why are you acting like I have any control over these things when you're--"

Are you ready to play?

Martyn shuts up, looks at the Listener, and sighs. "Yeah, sure, I'm ready to play. Why not."

The dealer looks to its left. Grian sighs. "Why are you making me bet first. Again. We should rotate where we're sitting--fine, fine, I know it's an advantage because I'm the worst at this. Uh. Hm. No trading or giving away lives again. Not even as time or something. It makes the dynamics all weird, and I think we could use a nice straightforward death game next time."

(Martyn wants to roll his eyes. Nice and straightforward. Sure.)

The Watcher goes next. I would like there to be deep and wonderful bonds between the players. I would like those bonds to seem unbreakable.

"Coming from you, that's ominous," Martyn says.

Can I not just miss the alliances of the early days? the Watcher says.

"Never left the desert," Grian says, rolls his eyes, and looks at Martyn in commiseration. Martyn just stares back. So sue him, he's a bit more worried about this whole concept than an eye roll and a pithy phrase. Things Watchers want are rarely good.

When the bonds are enforced, they're less interesting, complains the Listener.

Martyn looks over sharply. Hey, wait, he thought--

I didn't say they had to be enforced by rule. I said they had to be deep. Encouraged, as opposed to discouraged.

Just saying. You'll never recapture Third Life.

Martyn swallows. His throat is dry. Weren't the Listeners supposed to be the good guys, here?

Besides, what I want is for each death to be meaningful again. They've felt too meaningless, lately, the Listener continues.

Martyn thinks the dealer raises an eyebrow, but it strikes him he's not exactly sure. Grian snorts. "Meaningful deaths. That's rich for you to say. I mean, I guess they're meaningful sometimes? I don't know, Martyn's the one who understands dramatic sacrifices, I just like killing things."

"Why do you keep on looking at me when you say those things," Martyn says.

"Look, you wouldn't be here if you weren't helping write," Grian says.

"What?" Martyn says.

We're here to play our cards for the story, the Watcher says. Aren't you also one of the authors?

"Me? What? No, I'm--what are you talking about," Martyn says.

Oh, well. I also hope your meaningful deaths make it in, the Watcher says the Listener.

Thanks, even if I disagree on the bonds, the Listener says.

"They hardly ever talk about real, concrete rules they want," complains Grian. "It's easier to understand the consequence if they bring up actual rules. Like boogeyman or no boogeyman."

"We're all just betting on cards!" Martyn says, throwing his hands up. "You're giving me a headache!"

It's your bet.

"Fine!" Martyn says. "Fine! You know what? Screw all of you. I hope this is the last one. I hope we never have to go back to that stupid death game. I hope it's miserable to watch or to listen to or to play and everyone just gives up. How's that for a bet?"

You're no fun.

Is that what you really want?

"Suit yourself," Grian says. "Honestly, if I still had that to bet, I guess I probably would."

"What do you mean, if you still had that to bet?"

"Well, I mean, that's not how blackjack works, is it? I don't just get back my in when I play it."

The dealer nods, and then silently, with a long bony hand, deals the cards.

Grian is dealt the four of diamonds. The Watcher is dealt the nine of spades. The Listener is dealt the five of clubs. Martyn is dealt a jack of spades. The dealer deals itself a seven of hearts. The dealer deals Grian a six of clubs--

"Hey, isn't that supposed to be face-down?" Martyn asks.

"Not here," Grian explains. "They're all face up so we can't touch the cards. So we don't have to. So we can't cheat."

"Who said anything about cheating?" Martyn says.

"Please," Grian says.

The dealer makes a hand motion. Martyn, grumpily, falls silent. He supposes they're playing by casino rules, then. He hasn't been in a casino since--he wouldn't know. Hard to remember anything that isn't this, isn't it? Isn't killing and dying and things out of his control and things very much in his control and, apparently, bizarre dream sequences designed to make him want to strangle Grian.

Anyway. Grian is dealt a six of clubs, giving him ten. The Watcher is given an eight of spades, giving it seventeen. The Listener is dealt a king of hearts, giving it fifteen. Martyn is given a six of clubs, giving him sixteen. The dealer deals its own second card face-down. Martyn stops to try to speak, and then shuts his mouth. Right. Dealer's advantage.

He stares at the numbers.

Grian sighs. "Well, I've got to double down, don't I? Fine. I want the whole 'red lives can kill' thing to be enforced somehow. I don't care how. There's my double down."

The dealer nods.

"Why would you want that," Martyn says blankly.

If we all win, that will be interesting with the bonds, the Watcher says mildly.

Grian shrugs. "I mean, we've enforced red names not befriending green names, but not the murder thing before. Figure we should switch up the game, right?"

"Why?" Martyn says again.

Well, it wouldn't do for it to be boring.

"No, not that. Just... isn't it easier to handle when the rules are laid out properly?"

Martyn throws his hands up, but stops arguing. The dealer gives Grian a face-down card. The dealer moves to the next party at the table.

The Watcher looks over at the dealer and makes a cutting-off motion. I stand.

The dealer moves on. Hit me, the Listener says, and is dealt the queen of diamonds. The Listener gestures to Martyn. It seems I bust. Pity. I suppose there will be no guarantee of meaning, then. Not what I'd prefer.

The dealer looks at Martyn. Martyn looks at the other hands. Martyn pauses.

"Wait, this is like, casino blackjack, yeah? I'm only playing against you, not the whole table?"

"Why would you be playing against us?" Grian says. "Writing's a collaborative process."

Martyn looks entreatingly at the Listener, but the Listener is a little too caught up in the bad hand it has been dealt. Martyn looks entreatingly at the Watcher, but the Watcher just looks somehow confused.

"I was under the impression that, I don't know, you all were adversarial."

Why? All we want is the same thing as you: the story to be told a certain way.

Martyn's not sure if he's furious or just numb.

"Fine. Got a sixteen, don't I? Hit me."

Two of spades.

He's furious. He wants to win against the dealer. He wants to win against everyone. He wants his idea to make it through. He has an eighteen, though. There are only two numbers in the deck that will not bust him, and he's no fool. Hitting on sixteen is a risk enough; if he wants his stupid bet of everything finally ending to make it through, he's got to hold here.

"I hold," he says through gritted teeth.

The dealer silently deals itself another card. A three of hearts. Distantly, Martyn's ears rush. He could have taken that. He could have taken the hit. He could have won. He could have had blackjack, and he doesn't know what the extra payout for blackjack even means in a game like this one, but he could have had it, and he held back, he didn't take the risk, he didn't--

The dealer flips up its cards. Seven, eight, three. Eighteen.

Martyn's heart pounds. A stand-off.

Grian flips up his own card and groans. It's a five of diamonds. "There goes that bet," he mutters.

The dealer makes a sweeping motion around the table. The Watcher smiles, a terrible, terrible thing. Martyn, all at once, realizes that he can't ask again. He can't say 'this is guaranteed to be the last one' again. He backs out of his chair. To the sides, he sees the stagehands change the lighting. A spotlight, on him and the dealer--

"That isn't fair," he says. "It's a tie. I should get my bet back, right? It's a tie!"

THAT IS WHERE WE DIFFER FROM THE HOUSES IN VEGAS, the dealer says, and Martyn's heart stops.

(The voice is familiar. Familiar, but he cannot place it.)

YOU SEE, IN THIS GAME, THERE IS ALWAYS ONE THING THAT HAS AN ADVANTAGE. ONE THING THE STORY IS ALWAYS PLAYING AGAINST. ONE THING, THAT INEVITABLY, AFTER LONG ENOUGH PLAYING, WILL WIN.

There, the dealer looks Martyn in the eyes, and Martyn, all at once, knows exactly what the dealer must be.

AND THAT IS ME.

Martyn stares Death in the eyes.

Then, in a cold sweat, Martyn wakes up.

He does not sleep again for a long time.

[hollowwish]

The concept of only winners remembering the life series is absolutely heartbreaking with Scott and Pearl. They both won, but the other can't remember their partners win. Scott goes back to empires after his win. Pearl doesn't remember their alliance, here she's not his friend and trusted ally, just the farmer queen. He can't even tell her that he placed the last axolotl down safely, or that he avenged her death. He feels a part of him die when Pearl withers away. When Double Life starts he can't believe he's soulmates with her. The universe has stuck them together once again. But it hurts, it hurts that she didn't look for her soulmate, didnt look for him. He knows she doesn't remember but it still hurts. And then he leaves her, leaves her out of anger. Anger that she can't remember what they had with Cleo in last life. It's him and Cleo, against the world, but without Pearl this time. Just Gatekeep and Gaslight without Girlboss. His anger starts to be directed at Pearl herself (rather than he memory loss) when she starts hurting them on purpose. Scott's annoyed with her almost every time she shows up at him and Cleo's base. The alliance they had against the reds was begrudging on Scotts side. He can't quite fathom how they went from friends to acting like bitter jealous exes. He blows himself up, genuinely thinking Pearl deserves the win, after all she did for him last season. He doesn't want to remember a world where he hates Pearl anyways. This gets worse if you combine this concept with soulmates sharing emotions. Pearl can tell his anger is different, she can feel it, but she doesn't know why. She can't understand what else he could be mad about other than her "leaving him first." And then she wins. Something clicks in her head, that oh Scott must've won before. We must've been friends before. Oh god what have i done. Pearl is back to being a god on Empires after Double life. She sees Scott but can't talk to him. She can't say she's sorry for ruining their soul bond, for running off to the nether with Martyn the episode one, for the powered snow, for killing Cleo, for everything. He wouldn't even understand what she's sorry for. On Hermitcraft she has to see the people she killed. Bdubs is right there, alive and okay, and all she can think of is how she murdered him and Impulse in cold blood. How they killed her beloved Tilly, and how Cleo fell out of that tree trying to escape her. She understands what Scott felt, his anger towards her during Double Life, what he's been feeling, and what he'll keep feeling. She only hopes and prays that no one else has to go through this.... (Grian is. Grian is right there, has been right there in the same server suffering.)

[jellieland]

Scott offers to let Martyn kill him again.

Or. Well. "Offers".

It's like a game.

The way it works is that he has to press a button, and it will choose one of the options that have already been written, and then he just has to play the hand he's dealt. Has to kill in the way he's told.

Has to. That's how Scott phrases it.

Martyn can play games, though. He's used to games. Maybe it'll even be fun! It's the best kind of game, too - a fresh spin on an old classic, just different enough that people might be tricked into thinking they're watching something new.

But Scott hesitates, even as he introduces the idea. "Maybe later on, though." He says, after Martyn tells him how much time he has left. "I thought you were lower."

Martyn's not about to argue - it would seem wrong for a lot of reasons. Either way, before he can respond, one of the Bad Boys dies for the third time in as many minutes.

"Maybe I should play this game with one of them, actually." Scott jokes, smirking. "Maybe they need it more."

A few seconds later, yet another one of them dies.

It's Jimmy, this time.

---

"Do you wanna kill me, Scar?" Scott asks, and less than ten seconds later, he's dead. It's not even down to enthusiasm on Scar's part - Scott is the one urging him to get it done quickly, before the Boogeyman might be a problem.

It catches Martyn off guard.

It's not really his place to say anything, though.

It's not as if he even reacted quickly enough to do anything about it, despite all his practice recently trying to be Scott's right hand- or, um- that is- his bodyguard.

But Scar is an ally. He doesn't begrudge Scar the time, not when it was as close to freely given as is possible, here.

While he's still trying to process what just happened, Scott walks over and rejoins the conversation as though nothing has changed at all.

---

"That was my thing with Jimmy." Says Scott, stretching out the ache that comes with dying from a fall. "He said he was on half an hour so I let him get a kill."

"Oh." Says Martyn.

Scott deflects a bit, afterwards - now he has no ties, and he felt guilty about how many times he's killed Jimmy - but... ok. After the whole birthday party incident last week, that one... that one does sting a little.

That doesn't make it any of his business, though.

The canary dies in the end, anyway.

---

After that, they have the same amount of time. They both agree it wouldn't make any sense to do it now.

Not now that they're equal.

---

This thing is, Scott wasn't there after Martyn killed him, before.

Of course he wasn't. Why would he be?

But- he wasn't there. He didn't see how red the water was, because none of it stuck, afterwards.

When Martyn got out of the water, his hands were clean.

The current carried it all away, as though nothing ever happened.

There were no bloody stains and splatters on the floor and the weapon and the clothes they wore.

But- Well.

It's not that he's glad he doesn't have to kill Scott. He would, if he was asked. He wouldn't mind. Why would he mind? Hey, he's the one who'd be getting time for it.

(...Maybe he's a little glad.)

And it's not that he's bitter that Scott gave out his time so freely to other people. They needed it more than he did. Why would it bother him? That's just how it worked out.

(...)

(Maybe he's a little bitter.)

It's just- if he had. If he had done it, there's a part of him that would have done it with a sort of fierce pride he doesn't fully understand, and there's a part of him that would have died along with Scott, and he doesn't know which of those parts is stronger and he thinks maybe, actually, they're the same. He thinks that maybe there's no way to pick them apart into two separate things if he still wants to be left with someone who's recognisable as him, afterwards.

That's all.

---

He comes back to the base later, alone.

Someone's blown up the small bridge that connected his hourglass with the main island that Scott built.

Most likely it was Joel, before he died.

It's getting to the point, now, where people stop bothering to repair things, because there's no point.

They never stay fixed in the end, and there's just not enough time.

[hollowwish]

I posted 2,642 times in 2022

That's 2,642 more posts than 2021!

124 posts created (5%)

2,518 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@bucket-of-amethyst

@theminecraftbee

@scribbling-dragon

@0xeyedaisy

I tagged 1,326 of my posts in 2022

Only 50% of my posts had no tags

#ren reblog - 951 posts

#ren posting - 110 posts

#grian - 100 posts

#hermitcraft - 88 posts

#gtws - 73 posts

#mcyt - 71 posts

#jimmy solidarity - 61 posts

#empires smp - 53 posts

#cubfan135 - 45 posts

#empiresblr - 42 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#shoutout to the one family in the sims i started playing as and made the wife cheat with geoffrey landgraab and the husband i was gonna kill

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

LMAO WHO FUCKING PUT THIS ON THE EMPIRES WIKI

133 notes - Posted November 4, 2022

#4

In todays episode of Empires, Pixlriffs steals someone's fucking house

159 notes - Posted October 12, 2022

#3

meme potential

232 notes - Posted August 25, 2022

#2

The concept of only winners remembering the life series is absolutely heartbreaking with Scott and Pearl. They both won, but the other can't remember their partners win. Scott goes back to empires after his win. Pearl doesn't remember their alliance, here she's not his friend and trusted ally, just the farmer queen. He can't even tell her that he placed the last axolotl down safely, or that he avenged her death. He feels a part of him die when Pearl withers away. When Double Life starts he can't believe he's soulmates with her. The universe has stuck them together once again. But it hurts, it hurts that she didn't look for her soulmate, didnt look for him. He knows she doesn't remember but it still hurts. And then he leaves her, leaves her out of anger. Anger that she can't remember what they had with Cleo in last life. It's him and Cleo, against the world, but without Pearl this time. Just Gatekeep and Gaslight without Girlboss. His anger starts to be directed at Pearl herself (rather than he memory loss) when she starts hurting them on purpose. Scott's annoyed with her almost every time she shows up at him and Cleo's base. The alliance they had against the reds was begrudging on Scotts side. He can't quite fathom how they went from friends to acting like bitter jealous exes. He blows himself up, genuinely thinking Pearl deserves the win, after all she did for him last season. He doesn't want to remember a world where he hates Pearl anyways. This gets worse if you combine this concept with soulmates sharing emotions. Pearl can tell his anger is different, she can feel it, but she doesn't know why. She can't understand what else he could be mad about other than her "leaving him first." And then she wins. Something clicks in her head, that oh Scott must've won before. We must've been friends before. Oh god what have i done. Pearl is back to being a god on Empires after Double life. She sees Scott but can't talk to him. She can't say she's sorry for ruining their soul bond, for running off to the nether with Martyn the episode one, for the powered snow, for killing Cleo, for everything. He wouldn't even understand what she's sorry for. On Hermitcraft she has to see the people she killed. Bdubs is right there, alive and okay, and all she can think of is how she murdered him and Impulse in cold blood. How they killed her beloved Tilly, and how Cleo fell out of that tree trying to escape her. She understands what Scott felt, his anger towards her during Double Life, what he's been feeling, and what he'll keep feeling. She only hopes and prays that no one else has to go through this.... (Grian is. Grian is right there, has been right there in the same server suffering.)

289 notes - Posted September 4, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I think we're sleeping on e!s2 Scott and Jimmy a little bit A Sheriff and a man whos never respected authority in his life?? Sign me up, this is peak relationship dynamic

350 notes - Posted September 3, 2022

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