#c:/sgos/talking

[goldstargloww]

canary curse things. thinking about canary curse things

i'm hesitant to say the canary curse has been broken—what, no, of course it has been, jimmy died second instead of first, and the canary curse is all about dying first— okay hear me out i swear i make sense

my thought is that patterns can change. patterns aren't always static ones. just because something new happened this time around doesn't mean the pattern's been broken, it may have just changed its rules a bit.

joel had a pattern of having no true allies up until double or limited life, where it instead became a pattern of being isolated, for example

now, before we get into the canary curse specifically, let's talk about some other patterns

scott and martyn tend to drag themselves as well as their allies up the leaderboard. they both tend to outlive their allies. grian tends to kill his allies. ...i feel like i should put more here but that's all i can think of right now

now, the way i see it, is scott, martyn, and jimmy in particular all have some sort of weight to them. positive meaning they drag themselves and their allies up the leaderboard, negative meaning the opposite. scott and martyn have a positive weight, whereas jimmy has a negative one.

what i think's happened here is that martyn and jimmy's weights have tugged on each other, and as a result, martyn turned yellow and red first instead of much later on, and jimmy died second instead of first.

jimmy's pull is strong, i think, and so he tends to die first every time. just because he tends to die first every time doesn't make that a rule, though - it just makes it a pattern, one that's been broken. the pattern that hasn't been broken, though, is jimmy being one of the earliest to die, and jimmy dragging his allies down the leaderboard with him.

jimmy died first in 3rd life, and dragged scott down to 10th, and scott finally turned yellow right before jimmy died. jimmy died first in last life, and dragged mumbo down with him, and they were a similar color pretty much the whole time. jimmy died first in double life, and dragged tango down with him. jimmy died first in limited life, and joel died quickly after. jimmy died second in secret life, and dragged martyn's color down with him.

martyn, though, doesn't die yet, because of his positive weight. he's often tugged further up the leaderboard, and so while jimmy may drag his color down and martyn ends up first yellow and red, martyn still manages to stay afloat.

martyn is stubborn is the thing, lmao. he stays alive out of spite and just because he wants to, and so he does, and he makes sure he does. now that the stakes are higher and one wrong move could mean losing everything, he's being a lot more careful than he was earlier on.

and let me just reiterate for a second - he's stubborn. once he's got an idea, he's locked onto that idea until he gets it done or literally can't anymore. martyn will drive himself up the wall before he gives up on something and even then he'll need convincing or more likely a distraction. he didn't give up on ren in third life til he died and couldn't do anything anymore. he didn't give up on trying to kill scott in last life til he died and couldn't do anything anymore. he didn't give up on getting a diamond chestplate in secret life until he got it despite how much it cost him in the end. outside the life series, even, i'm rewatching rats right now- martyn will try to climb a wall over and over and over until he gets it or something gets in the way. he'll be texturing a model and complain to chat about how painful it is and still decide to spend the next hour and a half getting the damn thing done even though he should've logged off for bedtime 2 hours ago. (yes martyn i am calling you out, enjoy)

and so martyn doesn't die! he's yellow first, he's red first, and all other red names die, but martyn doesn't. because yeah, maybe he's impulsive, but he's in this for himself and himself alone and there's no way in hell he's dealing with a wither and a warden that's just killed three people. (he did try and steal the kill though. martyn do you remember what happened last time you tried to steal the kill, you fell into the void and died)

jimmy isn't as stubborn. jimmy's a lot more forgiving, a lot more lenient, and as much as he's being more aggressive this season, he's reckless about it and impulsive and his reputation isn't helping him here.

jimmy lets things happen to him. as upset as he might act about it, he never actually does anything about it, and it gets him killed. he's afraid to break the rules, he's afraid to make people uncomfortable or upset or hurt, he starts genuinely tearing up at the thought of pulling a bait and switch on skizz, and that's the kind of thing martyn does on a daily basis lmao

jimmy is forgiving and passive, martyn and scott don't forget so easily and aren't afraid to make people upset, grian's somewhere in between.

[goldstargloww]

yes. yes i think about this so much

martyn even touches on it with his lore, or at least in his post last life lore talk stream

(timestamp in link)

cause think about it. when the boogeyman counts down, and it's revealed, you're the boogeyman. sure, fine, whatever.

what's the worst that happens if you become the boogeyman? you don't do the job, you go down to red life next week.. you're not dead, you're just on red life. that's all there is to it.

if no- like, if everybody did that, if everybody got boogeyman once, went down to red, and that was it... you could live harmoniously

and that's kind of what i'm getting at here, is the fact that everybody felt as though they had to comply with this boogeyman rule.

but you didn't have to. i mean, scott's a testament to that. [laughs] you know what i mean?

if every single player had just existed in this space, got the boogeyman maybe one time or another and decided to ignore it... like, they could've all lived happily.

and that's the really fucking gut wrenching thing about it, is that every character canonically could live, and thrive, and just exist, and just have a great time...

but they all felt as though they had to get a kill, they had to do this that and the other, whether it was through a sense of pride, whether it was through a sense of bloodlust, whether it was just, like.. yknow what i mean?

[laughs] that's the point i'm tryna drive home with this little, this little section just here, about the 3 2 1, and things like that.

and how the new players, mumbo pearl and lizzie, didn't know exactly what to expect. but the third lifers did. it was presented as a death game this time around, explicitly so, but if you're new... well, how bad could it really get?

bad. it could get really, really bad, is the answer to that. and with each game that passes, the clearer that becomes.

pearl knows this by now, pearl knows it well. lizzie's understanding it, but she's still paranoid. mumbo's... still learning.

ever think about the fact that 3rd life wasnt meant to be a death game, initially. it was a hardcore series. there was the threat of eventual antagonists but no one took it seriously. and then All of That happened and now they go into each new season knowing how much blood is going to spill just not when and whose.

I think thats why last life felt so fundamentally different from all the other seasons. they started 3rd life expecting a fun hardcore smp with some fun red life mechanics. they started last life expecting to die.

[goldstargloww]

something about ren subbing in for tango and his and martyn's first and most prominent interaction being that of martyn dropping an anvil on his head

[goldstargloww]

thinking about c!martyn and selfishness

(every name from now on is character unless specified otherwise)

from his perspective, it makes sense. i mean, none of them are real, right? they either aren't real, or they are and they're out to get him. and we don't know if that's true or not, either

and if they're not real, why should he care about morality? just to get an advantage, really. the only reasons he has to be nice to people is if doing so would benefit him. because they don't care, they aren't real. they're just coded to seem as if they do, as if they are. and maybe sometimes it works and it feels painfully real, but they aren't, in the end—they're all just code. it's all a façade, it's all fake, it's not real.

and yet—

graecie: yknow.. maybe.. it's because it matches the energy that you give to it. d'you ever think about that?

graecie: do you ever think about how a little bit of kindness can go a long way, in these seas.

martyn: we've tried that, it doesn't get us anywhere.

gracie: have you? have you tried that? have you tried that, really? have both of you tried that?

martyn: from day dot! first thing that happened when i got here was i got swindled by scar!

martyn: then there was all this factioning business, we saw aimsey literally perish, and everyone was just "ohhh i think we'll listen to the robed figures and we'll just leave"! nobody's tried anything to save one another here, it's just all been selfish, me me me me me, gold gold gold, glory glory glory, HONOUR HONOUR HONOUR!

kuervo: maybe you shouldn't've joined the kestrels if you cared about something that wasn't glory, and money, and selfishness.

—he doesn't like it when others are selfish. because they're supposed to behave like everyone is real. they should be nicer people, they should be better, they don't have an excuse like martyn's.

sausage: wait, what do you think it meant that we have to give up something?

martyn: oh, i don't even know

graecie: i don't know...

martyn: i don't love anything, so good luck finding what i like

(acho, graecie, and sausage laugh,, nervously? sympathetically?)

acho: that's not very good!

martyn: well, it's not good, it's just- i'm doing it for my own protection

acho: that's not something to be proud of!

martyn: i wasn- i wasn't bragging about it, i was just stating a fact!

acho: ah, okay yeah, fair enough, fair enough... ^^"

and he's tired of trusting people without reason, of getting taken advantage of, of being nice just to end up worse off in the end.

and he doesn't get attached to anything or anyone, because there's a very real chance he'll lose it, especially in his circumstances. and feeling any sort of attachment is dangerous.

(apo places lava on graecie and then removes it)

apo: oh, i'm-

graecie: ...

apo: water, water, water-

martyn: why should i?

apo: water, water, water, water, WATER!

martyn: there's plenty of water all around this island!

kuervo: i don't have water. are you gonna be okay?

graecie: yeah. i'll be fine

apo: i'm so...

apo: i'm so sorry.

graecie: are you?

martyn: you can stay with them, apo, if you're gonna be like that.

(martyn goes to and gets on his boat and sails away)

martyn: i don't have to deal with this.

martyn: i've got the stone. i've got a lead. i know cruppy's trigger word now, so if it ever decides to come near me again... can easily get rid of it.

martyn: idiots. all of em.

and he's happily petty and stubborn about things. he happily takes advantage of others' discomfort to get them to do what he wants or at least lower their confidence in doing anything else.

martyn knows how to trigger cruppy, even, and has no problems with utilizing cruppy's triggers (and what is very possibly trauma) to get what he wants.

and as much as cruppy may have done some shit, as much as cruppy is a perfectly reasonable thing to worry about—cruppy doesn't act out of pure unprompted malice, and definitely doesn't deserve to be tortured and triggered over and over again.

and i don't doubt that martyn knows this. he's able to identify trauma responses—both others', and his own:

martyn:

she's dead?

...wait, hold on. what?

when did marnie die?

how did marnie die?

.. was i there when that happened?

.. i don't think i was there when marnie died..

...

oh my god, you're right, yeah- oh, my god, i can't believe i forgot about that

yeah, she was in the hole, wasn't she? she was in the hole and she was a statue in the hole

ohhh, you're right

god, i completely repressed that

that was clearly too much for me, jeez...

—he's able to effectively utilize that knowledge to get what he wants. i think martyn is aware that what he is or at least was doing is wrong.

i just think he doesn't care that it's wrong. because if nobody else is real, if nobody else is actually experiencing any of this, then it isn't wrong, right?

martyn knows he's manipulative, he knows how to gaslight and knows he's good at it, and he's not afraid to utilize that.

martyn is his own top priority. he'll do what he has to to get what he needs. it isn't actually harming anyone, from his perspective. it just looks like it is. they aren't real, it doesn't actually cause harm.

(it's what martyn tells himself, at the very least. it's not like he can concretely tell, it's not like he can confirm. but he'd rather believe they aren't real than are, because if they are... well, he's a bit too deep into this mess to worry about that now, isn't he?)

[goldstargloww]

really shows their playstyles, huh?

jimmy's scared to hurt people and to make anyone upset and to cause destruction. jimmy doesn't want to. maybe he tried a bit more this time around, tried to seem more of a threat, but ultimately, when multiple actual lives and builds even were at risk, he fell back on his habits and his incticts and himself and dropped the front and tried to stop things.

grian's not so scared. he's a bit apprehensive, don't get me wrong, but he needs a reason before he does anything wrong, he needs a way to justify himself. and what better excuse is there than a hard task?

Thinking about how Jimmy, the RED was trying to stop Grian, the GREEN from summoning the Wither

[goldstargloww]

i really need to talk about my watcher/listener alignment headcanon system don't i? well here we go

so, within eyesandears, we all know grian's a watcher, yeah? and canonically, none of the other players in the life series are watchers or listeners—grian's a special case here.

but there's also pretty popular headcanons, where people like martyn and jimmy are listeners, pearl and bigb are watchers, stuff like that. different people headcanon different things for different characters—those're just the most common ones i've seen

now, i like this idea,, kinda. i like my headcanons to be compatible with canon (and here i'm treating eyesandears as canon). it throws me off when the headcanons contradict canon, so i don't like my headcanons to do that

so, i've come up with a system that's a compromise between those headcanons and canon, which is that players can be watcher/listener aligned, and there's subcategories within those as well :>

first thing i want to note is that just because grian is a watcher doesn't mean he has to be watcher aligned or that he can't be listener aligned. the divide between watchers and listeners is more of a behavior/identity thing afaik, and grian isn't all that watchery socially.

so, i think that, generally speaking, players can be watcher/listener aligned, and then within those, compliant/noncompliant. compliant watcher aligned, noncompliant watcher aligned, compliant listener aligned, noncompliant listener aligned.

watcher aligned

i don't have as much notes on watcher aligned players as i do listener aligned ones and i don't really know why lol, i guess they're just a bit simpler than listener aligned players?

compliant

compliant watcher aligned players tend to play the games most closely to intended. they give the watchers what they want, however unknowingly, and they enjoy it. they enjoy the chaos, they enjoy the destruction, and it's not surprising if they're the catalyst.

noncompliant

noncompliant watcher aligned players more or less play by the rules, but they'll bend them a bit for fun. they'll make illegal kills for the chaos and entertainment, and often go further than they intend to, but they do so anyway because the fun outweighs the guilt.

listener aligned

i like to think that the compliant versus noncompliant categories resemble the listeners' journey as a separate entity from the watchers.

the listeners used to be watchers themselves, and later split off of them, working against them. compliant listener aligned players are most like the listeners at the start of that journey, and noncompliant listener aligned players are more like the listeners today.

compliant

compliant listener aligned players tend to function almost like a tool for the watchers—they listen, they do as they're told, they obey, they comply. they have a hard time disobeying the rules, disobeying the watchers, even if they want to, and this also tends to be out of fear of consequence.

martyn would be a compliant listener aligned player, for example—he's told by the watchers to kill, to betray, to set up things with the intention of destruction. and he follows through, or tries to, because he's scared (at least definitely scared in last life) of the consequences if he doesn't. even when he wasn't consciously aware of the watchers in any capacity interacting with him in limited life, he still did as they wanted.

these players tend to be more of a threat to the server, as they tend to be fairly destructive. so as a result, they're also threatened more themselves as other players know they're a threat and do what they can to protect themselves, so compliant listener aligned players often end up being targeted or considered dangerous.

noncompliant

noncompliant listener aligned players function more like the listeners themselves do in relation to the watchers, i'd say. they only loosely play within the rules, but play along enough to stay alive and enough so that they aren't harshly punished (some comply with them more than others tho)

some play the games out of spite, some play for fun. either way, they don't give the watchers what they want without tainting it in some way is my thought

these players tend to not kill without sufficient reason, and many don't kill much at all. when they kill, it's usually out of necessity, survival, or it's justified—they don't kill for the thrill, they don't kill for the fun of it. they aren't as affected by bloodlust as others either

they have a tendency to not take the games seriously, instead focusing on fun and enjoyment, creating things they enjoy and the like - scott and jimmy, for example, in third life, built cute houses in a flower valley, whereas everyone else built and lived in castles and fortresses lol. scott in particular's priorities always include his base looking nice

the watchers tend to dislike these players, especially the more defiant they are. scott, for example, the watchers hate scott and have since last life

if anyone has anything to add or say please do so i'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this stuff :D

[goldstargloww]

love how martyn won last season, and then had one literal hell of a time this one. the watchers really went all in on that fall from limited life's ending on a high oh c!martyn, you do so much falling in so many ways

this is literally the worst martyn's ever done (cc!martyn im sorry lmao) and i'm thinking about it so hard

he started off so close yet so far. then was told to do one thing right and got so close just to fail in the end. then was separated from and shunned by nearly everyone before he gave it one last shot and couldn't do anything about his death. then he tried again, and so much history seemed to repeat itself, and then at the end he breaks a cycle and takes the win for himself, even if it wasn't entirely him making the decision.

and then he fell so fucking far. went down and down and down and fell into the void not a second after stepping foot into the end. and jimmy followed. and then jimmy died, and everyone martyn cared about died, and he slowly started to as well.

he wanted to get revenge. he tried. it just didn't work out. nothing he tried worked out. there were blips of success, maybe something finally working, but everyone who was close wasn't close enough. wasn't close enough to the trap. wasn't close enough to death. wasn't close enough with martyn.

so maybe by the end, martyn's sort of given up. and there's this pressure on him, like he's running out of time, eerily reminiscent of last season. everyone and everything is going too slow for his liking and there's something making martyn feel like he's gonna die if he doesn't.. well, die already. however that logic works. (yes this is how i'm making cc!martyn's stress and stuff from the recording situation canon)

so maybe by the end, martyn's getting a bit desperate. maybe if he just dies before this feeling kills him first he can get it all over with. this season's been its own kind of hell anyway.

so maybe by the end, martyn's distracted, and out of it, and falls off a few too many cliffs to chalk up to pure coincidence. and hypervigilant, and jumpy, and stressed, and the thunder and associated memories really only makes it worse. and maybe a bit too reckless for his own good, hoping everyone will turn against him and kill him, climbing up a ladder without armor with an explosive in hand to his inevitable demise.

and maybe, in the end, it gets him killed. but, really, what else is new? martyn always seems to cause his own death. like he's his own worst enemy. he was too loyal, too obedient, too selfish, too bloodthirsty, and now, too reckless.

and now, back he goes, to falling.

[goldstargloww]

hi i just had a thought

joel started the round mound cult right. and mumbo and martyn joined

now mumbo's dead. and joel and martyn are the only ones who really seem to care (as of session 6 at least) about mumbo (and jimmy and lizzie) having died and that whole situation

they've most definitely forgotten about the cult by now but. but,,, only mumbo's fellow cult members are really mourning him huh

(that's certainly a perfectly normal sentence in every context /s)

[goldstargloww]

i like it

i think dropping your inventory on death can be really punishing, especially if you want to try to avoid grinding

it made the most sense in third life not only from a content creator perspective (as in they were expecting it to be collaborative at first and set up accordingly) but also from a‚‚ gameplay? mindset? perspective

people were grinding and getting higher levels of enchants and all that. villager trading isn't allowed anymore iirc, but it was in third life, so it made more sense in third life because people were already grinding. losing everything might sting but it likely wouldn't be that much added onto your workload

whereas, in other seasons, people started grinding less—secret life literally gave out resources when you completed task

having keepInventory on helps remove some of the grinding. you only typically die and proceed to respawn twice anyway so it's not like it's common

on the other hand, look at how often people died in limited life. can you imagine how crushing it could feel to lose everything or at least get it scattered everywhere each and every time you died?

there's the argument it takes some incentive out of killing, but since the change has been made‚ there's been rewards for killing that aren't looting the corpse—in limited life you gained time‚ in secret life you gained hearts. i think it balances out nicely

tldr: i like keepinventory. it removes a lot of the grind from the series, which is really important for overall enjoyment. can you imagine how crushing it could feel losing everything upon death, especially in limited life? maybe it takes some incentive out of killing, but that's always been balanced with rewarding kills instead

hi im curious. please vote

[goldstargloww]

just- okay. i've only had time to watch martyn's 3rd secret life session so far and i wanna just talk about the stuff i've noticed

scott having to get three people to say "love you" back after jimmy not doing so in limited life. and then jimmy and martyn, scott's two canonical partners failing to do so this time around

property police and task force,, martyn + jimmy have a tendency for this kinda thing hmmm

martyn showing up in his pirates skin by accident is very funny to me (for context he was doing a pirates lore stream and had to rush off to record secret life)

i noticed that martyn immediately preferred a sword over and axe and although it's a common sentiment my brain still is like hey thats the red winter trauma right

martyn is somehow now a cat and a dog. this makes him a kittydog.

[goldstargloww]

where has martyn been disloyal in his short term alliances, what are you referring to here?

(this ask is referring to tags i put on in a reblog recently:)

i think it's funny that i got this ask and then immediately was like "oh no i don't have any examples UH"

but!!! i thought about it a bit and i have examples now

first of all, ever since third life ended, martyn's been distrusting of others. he's more secretive, while making sure to be open and honest about other things to compensate

martyn's made a lot of promises to people that he hasn't carried through on. while he and jimmy had a long term alliance in the southlands in last life, that promise martyn made to run away with him after jimmy tried to steal his life was short term, and he broke it immediately. as soon as martyn got what he wanted out of the interaction, he took it and left

martyn's very willing to do things for the benefit of him first and foremost, and his allies next. jimmy might've been an ally, but he just caused a huge breach in trust, and martyn had more allies with a better track record back home

later on, in the final four, in last life, he offered ren a short term allyship, just to immediately try to use the opportunity to explode him

in double life, he stuck with pearl for that single session before suddenly deciding at the end to turn on her. he shifted the blame onto her for no good reason, despite how it just as easily could've been said to be his fault

okay i can't think of any more examples right now because he just constantly does it he is just like this

[goldstargloww]

hmm, thinking about gem specifically being the one to open the end portal

evolutionists having,,, bad connotations with the end

everyone else having been in the death games before

gem being new and getting the task to open it, and not questioning it

i don't know if gem knows you normally don't have access to the end in these games, that this is new. hm

[goldstargloww]

okay, so yes, this idea, i very much enjoy this idea, but- i might be about to derail this a bit

now take the eyesandears stuff back into the picture.

this, the stuff i'm reblogging here, this is close to what everyone is experiencing. what everyone's going through, what everyone thinks is going on.

they're all in a loop of death games. they have no idea why. they have to participate. sometimes they're left out of the loop. some don't get a break. sometimes people act off for a week. some people hurt, some people kill, some people betray, lie, gaslight, manipulate, and you aren't any different.

you don't know why you're here. you don't know why this is all happening. you don't know who did this. you don't know if anyone did. but it's all just a game, and you all treat it as such, until it isn't anymore and you all die and then all of a sudden it's a game again.

say you're martyn, though - there's voices in your head sometimes. they promise you the world and you do what they ask. you do as they say against your better judgement and it gets you nothing in the end. the one time they drop the veil and reveal the slightest bit about the reality of your situation, you don't remember it, not in the slightest. all you know is that you were promised the world and it never amounted to anything, and you haven't heard those voices since. maybe limited life felt a bit strange at times, but everything feels a bit strange.

say you're grian, though - you know what's going on. or, you know all you can. there's still things you don't know, nothing's in your control—you just hope you can make it more bearable for everything else. maybe it hurts in the process, but you'd rather be here than watch from afar. and void knows they hate you for it—they've even managed to paralyze you for a week, but they made a mistake in making you one of them, and so their efforts are essentially futile.

say you're pearl, though - your memories of a week feel a bit strange, and you were acting a bit off that week. you don't have any clue as to what that was. you don't know why joel called you lizzie that week.

say you're cleo, though - your memories of a week feel a bit strange. your behavior changed that week quite a bit, too. and didn't martyn mess with you? you went along with it for some reason, and were worried he was being genuine. ...what?

say you're tango, though - you're shoved to the side of your head for a week. someone familiar was in the driver's seat instead. by the time next week comes around, you just think you had a weird week. that person you were talking to was probably just torchy.

say you're lizzie, though - you find yourself in a familiar game in a familiar body that isn't your own with memories that aren't yours either. you try to blend in for the week, not knowing what else to do. someone else is in the same boat as you, you recognize both their vessel and who they really are, despite the vaguest and foggiest of memories being all you have of them to go off of. you live out the week, and by the end of it, you remember none of it.

say you're gem, though - you find yourself in an unfamiliar game in a somewhat familiar body that isn't your own with memories that aren't yours either. you barely know anything, but you try your best to blend in for the week, not knowing what else to do. there's someone else who you can tell is in a similar boat, and you very vaguely recognize them. you live out the week, and by the end of it, you remember none of it.

say you're ren, though - you were in these death games, then you just weren't, for a bit. then all of a sudden, you were again, in a familiar yet completely new environment. the first time you see martyn is when he drops an anvil on your head. you almost wonder what's changed until you remember the person whose body you're inhabiting is currently in passenger's seat of their own head, and that you're in the driver's seat, and this isn't your vessel. you live out the week, and people ask questions, but they're ones you know how to navigate. by the end of it, you remember none of it.

nobody has anywhere near enough pieces to put the whole picture together. grian's probably the closest, but even he doesn't know the vast majority of it - he has no idea what else may be in the picture, he has no idea to what extent the watchers are interacting, he barely knows what the secret keeper is and how it really works.

to almost everyone, the games are just as they seem on the surface. only a few have broken beneath in the slightest—none of it was by choice, none of it puts anything into context. after all, if they all really were just playthings for some higher entity, some toys two godlike siblings fight over... well, that wouldn't happen, right? they aren't that important. that's just absurd, who would even think to guess that?

Life series lore is insane, but especially if you take most of the ‘understood’ Watcher and Listener lore out.

Because here’s the thing, I love ‘the watchers are just the audience’ and ‘Grian used to be a watcher’ and ‘they Pushed Jimmy!’ As much as anyone else. But there is something so much more terrifying about them never being there.

You are trapped in a loop of death, where dying is treated like a Game, where the world Ending is treated like a game. And there is no one to blame.

You’re neighbor turns on you, angry and vicious, and there was no possession. There were no voices in their head.

You wake up in a ring of people that are your closest friends, your greatest enemies, the only real beings you have ever met, and you are going to kill them all or be killed by them before the year is up. There is no one that put you there. There is no one to fight.

You are here of your own volition. You have known nothing else. It’s always been this way. The universe itself is keeping you here.

(There is no reward to winning. There is no escape when this is all there is. It is just all of you and you’re own bloody hands clutching each others)

[goldstargloww]

martyn's habit of not sleeping for the first session of each season in the life series is really funny to me because it means i get to imagine a sleep deprived c!martyn doing all the things he does

(assuming like. players only need to sleep once every three days or something. because someone going nine days without sleep is pretty concerning and is also two days short of world record. so.)

like, third life, ah yes i am going to not sleep for nine days as a marketing strategy, this is a great idea (proceeds to bring phantoms to harass everyone ever and totally not trip and fall multiple times)

the idea of martyn's experience with the aha jokes being fueled by something like six days of sleep deprivation is also really funny to me

double life going to the nether with pearl, who's essentially half nocturnal, and neither of them sleep the whole time for the fun of it

i like to imagine martyn still didn't sleep until he'd made up and teamed up with scott in limited life session 2, and then scott's just like martyn. sleep. and martyn's like finenefjlshgskdfghdfjgkd

ahhh the first session of secret life. yeah i can see martyn going without sleep for the entirety of that. he did also say he just wanted to go to bed after he completed his task so i guess i have that going for this headcanon lol

[goldstargloww]

c!martyn definitely has some sorta dissociation and derealization problems btw. just feel like i need to say that somewhere

for the life series - his end of secret life session 6. last life. just- last life, especially with the shadow and stuff. also, the emotional resets between seasons, that's gotta create some sort of disconnect with identifying with your own memories, right? especially when it's inconsistent like it is.

for datastream - simply the fact that his reality isn't real, how do you not get feelings of unreality when that's literally what you're living, as contradictory as it sounds

just, in general - trauma, c!martyn has a lot of trauma lmao. and the trying to emotionally distance himself and failing over and over and yet telling himself he isn't attached despite feeling things that he shouldn't if that were true. separating his personal reality from the reality he's living in, and in the case of datastream, both of which are entirely separate from the reality he's native to

[goldstargloww]

quick note before i start ranting: last night i started thinking. and then i started ranting in discord. and it got off track. and then i woke up this morning and had a similar thought. so this is just a stream of thoughts from me, really, lmao also, absolutely all of this is from memory, there's a good chance i got some stuff wrong (and i also include a lot of headcanons based off estimates and stuff i don't think would be a stretch), so yeah lmao this is kinda like a thought experiment or something

thinking,, thinking about c!martyn and his birthday

3rd life started 2 weeks after his birthday, last and double life weren't close, rats missed it, pirates has a good chance of missing it, and that's in the future anyway

only limited life included it

martyn… spends the rest of his time in a void, regardless of which route you take, datastream or eyesandears (as we don't know how they connect yet, they're mostly separate? kinda? idk its complicated)

so… what's better: having your birthday in the midst of a death game, in a world that isn't real but feels painfully so, or alone in a void?

in a dark void where you're unconscious most of the time, and when you're not, you're being taunted? or in a green void where you can't so much as sleep like you had to back in the world you were torn from, the world that you only have one actual connection with, your only glimpse of reality being of that who trapped you in this mess and doesn't care enough to get you out already?

martyn's first birthday in the datastream likely would've been limited life, if that's how that would work (again, datastream~eyesandears, complicated)

he's still got another good 7 months until his next one

will he be out of the datastream by then? will doc have finally figured it out?

…why hasn't he yet?

…that's a question for another day. (sure, maybe he's said that dozens of times before, but… now's not the time, is all)

(…besides, it seems like he cares. but…- no, question for another day. whatever a day even is. he only really knows because doc makes him journal for every one that passes, not because it really holds any meaning right now.)

would he rather spend his birthday lonely and paranoid, lonely and paranoid, or lonely and paranoid?

either

in constant fear of death, being able to see just how much time you have left until then, knowing it could skip ahead by an hour or even two at a moment's notice.

people who were supposed to be your friends (and perhaps were in another life) trying to kill you on your birthday, throwing explosives down from the clouds onto your party on the one day you maybe thought you'd be allowed to enjoy yourself.

(and yeah, maybe you were planning on blowing up everyone else, too, but when you're red, can you really be blamed for wanting to spill some blood?)

(…everyone else feels like that, don't they? you're not the only one. you're stupid for thinking you'd be an exception to their bloodlust just because it's your birthday.)

or

in a void where your only waking moments aren't good ones. where you're taunted and berated and ridiculed for your mistakes, where you start to believe what you're told, that you failed your one job despite being given so many chances.

the void in which you last see Them before your only anything between these games abandon you for years?- months on end, only to reappear a game later in hopes of ruining your life. and you're pretty damn scared They succeeded. (you've felt, just, bad, for so long, that you're not sure things can get worse, yet they manage to every time. you're not sure when things got this bad, but it's Their fault, you know it is.)

…you're unconscious most of the time in this void, anyway. you're not sure why it feels like such an eternity every time.

or

in a lime green void, stretching on virtually endlessly (heh, virtually… ah, this is what you've resorted to for entertainment, isn't it?), with access to all you could ever dream of?

sure, maybe not the impossible—that's, well, impossible—and maybe not things that haven't been created yet, maybe some things are locked behind paywalls you can't bypass, or, or need for accounts–

oh, did you mention you can't leave any trace of your existence either? there's quite a few restrictions, actually—no accounts, no anonymous comments, no privacy, no friends, no family, no food, no drink, no sleep, no- no bodily functions, no.. no concrete sense of self, no… fellow(? are you even human anymore?) human interaction…

well, besides doc, but he's… busy. too busy to help you get out of here, too busy to…

to care where you land after pushing you through a portal to an unknown world with little to no warning,

to get… worried, when you stay months in the same game world, because these- these missions are meant to be a, a quick in and out, maybe a week, usually less, not… three whole months, and…

fuck did that hurt, leaving them all, but… the sooner you complete these missions for doc—what even are these missions, anyway? why-—the faster you'll be out of the datastream and.. back to reality. back to.. home… you think.

(why do these missions have such big gaps between them?

why– how is doc presumably fighting CHEST all by himself (well, not all by himself, you are the datastream defender, after all, even if that is just a made up title to make yourself feel better, even if you're barely an asset as opposed to a liability to doc)?

what does global ramifications entail?

why hasn't doc figured out how to get you out of here yet?

why does he not spend any time with you, he's your only real human contact, and even then, it's flakey!?

why does he make you journal every day? to keep you sane? you mean, it's hardly working, but why?

if doc cares, it'd be more than just whatever this is. or–…

…you've had this conversation before. you're just out of touch with social interaction. players and npcs are nothing like real people. you're just… wrong. and doc's right, because doc knows what's going on, and you don't, save for some tiny morsels of information. right. …nevermind.)

this is where i stopped ranting for the night, and i pick it back up on a similar topic this morning ^^

i wonder if, in the datastream lore, rats and pirates are made by the same people or not

if doc would have access to that information, if he would purposefully start avoiding powcreations, or purposefully seek out their game worlds

is martyn spending months in a game world, having fun instead of doing his job, a good thing in any way, in doc's eyes? or is it solely a distraction or vulnerability?

martyn goes to all these game worlds for a reason, he needs to find loot shards so doc can deal with them, but how does doc feel about martyn staying months instead of days? of martyn having fun? growing attached? forming emotional bonds with people who aren't real?

(doc tells martyn they aren't real. martyn has no reason not to believe him on that. (in fact, martyn tells himself they aren't real, because if they were, he's not sure he'd handle that well.) even though players can be awakened, they're still ultimately under an actual human's control—doc's told martyn this. martyn is... a special case. (and if they aren't quick enough, his situation could lose its uniqueness to the enemy. which, if it wasn't clear, isn't a good thing.))

it's ultimately not healthy, martyn knows, but he's been in the datastream a little over a year at this point. the only human interaction he has is doc, who barely seems to have time for him, and CHEST agents (he thinks? they may just be AI), which are actively trying to kill him, whatever that would mean for him. he doesn't like the thought.

so, maybe he's a bit lonely—okay, maybe very lonely—so can you really blame him for wanting to indulge? i mean… even if it isn't really reality, what's stopping it from acting as one? he'll… he'll always have to leave eventually, but… he may as well enjoy himself while he has the chance, right?

so what's to stop him from making friends with oli the trash rat, or oli the pirate? (they're almost eerily similar, all things considered, but martyn guesses that's what happens when you get lazy devs. everything else seems to have so much care put into it, though... why would they put in such little effort to player characters when so much goes into everything else?)

what's to stop him flirting with half the players on the faction isles and being responsible for the nickname "kisstrels"?

what's to stop him having a genuinely good time?

leaving rats was hard. it was the first time he felt he truly belonged somewhere in how long? longer than the datastream, for sure.

he was really starting to struggle at that point with the crushing loneliness and feelings of unreality, if he's honest. rats... rats was nice. rats was probably some of the most fun he's had.

and leaving pirates has every chance to be even harder.

with these new scars appearing (which he would assume to be a design thing if it weren't for the fact that they stayed with him in the datastream itself), and these new feelings occurring without reason or rhyme, he's starting to feel uneasy about being stuck in the datastream again. (he's never not felt uneasy about it. he just… manages to push it to the back of his mind(? does he still have one of those?), sometimes.)

he's spent a lot of his time thinking—a lot about the rats, admittedly—why does scott feel so much more familiar now than he did even after he left rats? so many of the rats always felt familiar, especially jimmy and oli, but why does he miss scott all of a sudden?

weird feelings like that had been beginning to pop up the past few months, along with scars he has no explanation for—i mean, seriously, why does he have at least three scars shaped like a four-pointed star? what would even cause that? he's fairly sure there's more, as well!—and it's been making him uneasy. most of all, it's been making him lonely.

pirates came at a good time, he thinks.

maybe his introduction wasn't the best, what, with doc shoving him through a portal just for him to fall from the sky into the ocean, then immediately getting scammed by scar—

why does scar feel so familiar? why does that seem so in character for him? he hasn't been in another game world which used his assets, has he?

—just to go to this weird corrupted purple island and lose two people along the way—

why does doc always put him in the center of the story? it can get so stressful at times! i mean, rats was stressful enough even before the other rats did stuff like blow up the boiler!

—but... i mean, he made a song for pirates. that's something he'd only previously done for rats (and wow, was that process painful, can you imagine how hard it is to make music while being a rat and staying secretive about your mission? speaking of secrets, he got pretty lucky with the whole pirate thing, for once he can be truthful about some part of why he's here, even if he has to stay vague), and even then, that wasn't really a serious song. this one's a full on song, water made sheet music and everything!

so, evidently, it's not that bad. it's quite the opposite, actually. martyn thinks he's going to have a pretty good time here, as a pirate.

(he's not sure why the pirate aesthetic, and the oceanic/aquatic aesthetic as a whole, actually, feels so familiar. like he's done this sort of thing recently...?

and... scott. scott feels related to that, for some reason. and scott's a heron, martyn fucking hates the herons (he'd never admit it, maybe except to the rats in his boots, but they're actually not that bad. it's more like a sibling rivalry, than anything).

…does this have something to do with martyn randomly missing rat scott the past few months? …does he miss rat scott, or does he miss scott? …these aren't real people, martyn, get it together, it's fine. you're fine. nothing to worry about.)