#hermitcraft was canon and now the life series is to

[convexicalcrow]

Things that are rolling around in my head rn as an insufferable pagan with a fascination for religious worldbuilding:

Santa Perla, la Madre de Girasoles

Saint Bdubs of the Sun

Saint Skizz the Martyr

Saint Jimmy, Angel of Death

[faerygardens]

Updated the Minecraft Cinematic Universe map

[antimony-medusa]

MCYT on Ao3 — January '24

The state of MCYT on Ao3, just for fun. Yes I do this every month, I like numbers. This time the period we're covering will include many holiday exchanges, so I'm excited to see if that's represented!

The Cube SMP (8 works)

Slamacow Minecraft Animations (Web Series) (10 works)

iDots SMP (23 works)

30 Day SMP | Free Trial SMP (27 works)

Legacy SMP (28 works)

Cogchamp SMP (29 works)

Content SMP (30 works)

Epic SMP (32 works)

Art of Survival SMP (36 works)

Dominion SMP (38 works)

Shady Oaks SMP (49 works)

X Life SMP (51 works)

100 Hours Hardcore SMP (54 works)

IvoryCello's Prison Escapes (Web Series) (56 works)

Bear SMP (60 works)

SadSMP (66 works)

My Inner Demons - Aphmau (Web Series) (67 works)

Mer SMP (82 works)

Area Unknown SMP (89 works)

Kaboodle SMP (91 works)

Tortillaland SMP (115 works)

House Builder Gang SMP | HBG SMP (135 works)

New Life SMP (169 works)

Slimecicle Cinematic Universe (Web Series) (174 works)

WitchCraft SMP (182 works)

Pirates SMP (213 works)

Rats SMP (234 works)

SMPLive (295 works)

SMPEarth (304 works)

Mianite (Web Series) (379 works)

Outsiders SMP (393 works)

Afterlife SMP (395 works)

MindCrack RPF (504 works)

MyStreet - Aphmau (Web Series) (543 works)

Evolution SMP (693 works)

Minecraft: Story Mode (Video Game) (824 works)

Karmaland SMP (842 works)

Fable SMP (1,012 works)

Lifesteal SMP (1,546 works)

Origins SMP (1575 works)

The Yogscast (3,215 works)

Empires SMP (6,408 works)

QSMP | Quackity SMP (7,375 works)

3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series (10,336 works)

Hermitcraft SMP (20,093 works)

Dream SMP (85,051 works)

Minecraft (Video Game) (110,119 works)

Video Blogging RPF (279,422 works)

Some notes:

No new tags that I saw this month, though as always I could have missed something! As you can see, we already have quite the assortment of canonized tags.

Fics are still primarily in english, but we have three exceptions with significant spanish fics. Karmaland (740 of 842 are in spanish, from 731 last month), Tortillaland (110 of 115 are in spanish, the same as last month), and QSMP (752 of 7,375 are in spanish, from 668 last month.)

QSMP also shows 39 fics in French, up from 30 last month, and 405 in Brasilian Portugese, up from 375 last month. While I did not check every language this month, I checked on the languages I knew had a fic in QSMP and we see 1 fic in ASL (probably a misclick as it appears to be in english), 1 fic in Bahasa Malaysia, 1 fic in German, 1 fic in Esperanto, 1 fic in Filipino, 5 works in European Portugese, 5 fics in Русский (Russian), 1 fic in Suomi (Finnish), 1 fic in Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), and 3 fics in 中文-普通话 國語 (Mandarin Chinese, I believe), all the same as last month. New is two fics in Polski (Polish), one fic in Svenska (Swedish), and one fic in Dansk (Danish).

In the small and micro fandoms (under 200 fics), some of the most active small fandoms have grown out of this category so we only saw small amounts of growth. The standout fandoms all saw an increase of 6 works, and that was a tie between Content SMP, New Life SMP, and Witchcraft SMP. Note that Content SMP was coming up from only 24 works, so 6 new works is an increase of 25% of the fandom, truly impressive.

In the midsize fandoms (200-1000), Fable SMP has broken that 1000-fic mark and can no longer qualify for our standout fandom! Instead, our most active fandom was Evolution SMP, with 33 new works, followed by Mystreet with 20 fics and Minecraft: Story Mode with 24 fics. Mystreet and Story Mode are both new fandoms so it's unclear whether that's people retagging old work or true new fics.

For the post-canon big fandoms: Empires went up by 178 works, singificantly more than last month's 117, but not beating the previous month's 240, and Dream SMP's increase of 918 beat the previous month's 767, but is still only the second time I've seen this fandom fall under a thousand works plus a month. Hermitcraft is between seasons right now, but still experienced that holiday exchange boost, as its increase of 784 beat both last month's 574 and the previous month's 651. For active fandoms, traffic series posted a staggering 831 fics, which is its highest ever number, beating April 2023's 671 fics. QSMP saw 865 fics, which is part of a three month decline (894 last month, 913 the month before), but still posting numbers that are only exceeded by DSMP.

Overall, the number of fics posted under Video Blogging-RPF (the umbrella fandom that contains all MCYT) is 4,223 fics, a significant increase from last month's 3,489, and the previous month's 4,035, but still exceeded by October's record 4,702. Notably, it's higher than the summer numbers and almost exactly the same as the number we saw last January, 4,235 new works.

Detailed breakdown under the cut

The Cube SMP (8 works, 8 last month, 0-fic increase)

Slamacow Minecraft Animations (Web Series) (10 works, 10 last month, 0-fic increase)

iDots SMP (23 works, 22 last month, 1-fic increase)

30 Day SMP | Free Trial SMP (27 works, 27 last month, 0-fic increase)

Legacy SMP (28 works, 28 last month, 0-fic increase)

Cogchamp SMP (29 works, 29 last month, 0-fic increase)

Content SMP (30 works, 24 last month, 6-fic increase)

Epic SMP (32 works, 32 last month, 0-fic increase)

Art of Survival SMP (36 works, 36 last month, 0-fic increase)

Dominion SMP (38 works, 33 last month, 5-fic increase)

Shady Oaks SMP (49 works, 47 last month, 2-fic increase)

X Life SMP (51 works, 50 last month, 1-fic increase)

100 Hours Hardcore SMP (54 works, 54 last month, 0-fic increase)

IvoryCello's Prison Escapes (Web Series) (56 works, 54 last month, 2-fic increase)

Bear SMP (60 works, 59 last month, 1-fic increase)

SadSMP (66 works, 66 last month, 0-fic increase)

My Inner Demons - Aphmau (Web Series) (67 works, 64 last month, 3-fic increase)

Mer SMP (82 works, 80 last month, 2-fic increase)

Area Unknown SMP (89 works, 87 last month, 2-fic increase)

Kaboodle SMP (91 works, 87 last month, 4-fic increase)

Tortillaland SMP (115 works, 115 last month, 0-fic increase)

House Builder Gang SMP | HBG SMP (135 works, 134 last month, 1-fic increase)

New Life SMP (169 works, 163 last month, 6-fic increase)

Slimecicle Cinematic Universe (Web Series) (174 works, 169 last month, 5-fic increase)

WitchCraft SMP (182 works, 176 last month, 6-fic increase)

Pirates SMP (213 works, 195 last month, 18-fic increase)

Rats SMP (234 works, 229 last month, 5-fic increase)

SMPLive (295 works, 286 last month, 9-fic increase)

SMPEarth (304 works, 289 last month, 15-fic increase)

Mianite (Web Series) (379 works, 373 last month, 6-fic increase)

Outsiders SMP (393 works, 374 last month, 19-fic increase)

Afterlife SMP (395 works, 390 last month, 5-fic increase)

MindCrack RPF (504 works, 503 last month, 1-fic increase)

MyStreet - Aphmau (Web Series) (543 works, 523 last month, 20-fic increase)

Evolution SMP (693 works, 660 last month, 33-fic increase)

Minecraft: Story Mode (Video Game) (824 works, 800 last month, 24-fic increase)

Karmaland SMP (842 works, 824 last month, 18-fic increase)

Fable SMP (1,012 works, 945 last month, 67-fic increase)

Lifesteal SMP (1,546 works, 1,461 last month, 85-fic increase)

Origins SMP (1,575 works, 1,541 last month, 34-fic increase)

The Yogscast (3,215 works, 3,213 last month, 2-fic increase)

Empires SMP (6,408 works, 6,230 last month, 178-fic increase)

QSMP | Quackity SMP (7,375 works, 6,510 last month, 865-fic increase)

3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series (10,336 works, 9,505 last month, 831-fic increase)

Hermitcraft SMP (20,093 works, 19,309 last month, 784-fic increase)

Dream SMP (85,051 works, 918-fic increase)

Minecraft (Video Game) (110,119 works, 438-fic increase)

Video Blogging RPF (279,422 works, 4223-fic increase)

[most-creature-vibe-tournament]

Semifinal 1

Propaganda:

Taylor Hebert (Worm (webserial by Wildbow))

Human girl who has superpowers that let her control bugs. She shunts all emotions off into her swarm of bugs, leaving her totally blank and stoic. She outsources sensory-input to her bugs, so she never looks or reacts to anything. In a fight, she reacts to opponents there is no possible way she could see, because she sensed them with her bugs. Overall has virtually no facial tells and moves in a way that makes her seem like she isn't a person. very creature <3 she is just a bug girl

shes such a FREAK. shes completely human (tho with an eldritch alien creature extradimensionally attached to her mind) but God does she not act like it sometimes. she has the superpower to control bugs and uses it to become the worlds most terrifying hero slash villain slash warlord slash apocalyptic threat. she has her bugs crawling all over her all the time. she uses a swarm of flies to scout out areas and then leaves flies in everybodys hair so she can keep track of where they are. she practiced having her bugs make noises until she figured out how to combine their noises into human speech so now she can talk through her swarm. she makes decoys of herself out of large pillars of bugs. once she was concussed and in the hospital and subconsciously calling her bugs to her so she was just covered in insects while the doctor tried to help her. then there was ANOTHER time she was hospitalized and got bored so she made a bunch of bugs so a little dance on her chest. whenever she's in costume and talking she has her bugs make noises to distort her voice and make her sound more scary and she doesnt even realize shes doing it anymore. she surrounds herself in a swarm to disorient her enemies. she doesn't even notice when her hair covers her eyes or anything like that because shes scouting out the area using her bugs so she doesnt have to see. she once used a tide of bugs to clean herself off and dust off her dress after having sex.

#she views herself as more of a swarm of bugs with a girl-shaped computer to control them than a girl herself#her body is just an extension of her bugs which is large and inconvenient but ultimately part of the weapon

#taylor “dissociates into bugs” hebert#taylor “keeps bugs in her hair” hebert#taylor “choke them with bugs” hebert#taylor “no one could ever love me” hebert#taylor “violence is always the answer” hebert

#normally i would want a worm character to win#but#bdubs is a strange little man. he's unusual.#Taylor's just got the 'tism.

she literally is a walking superorganism comprised of one human and a lot more bugs to the point where she frequently moves her head as if she can see through walls (with her bugs, she can), talks through her bugs, has been described like a corpse whose ghost is living on in her swarm, keeps functioning thru her bugs even when her human body is out for the count, et cetera. no disrespect intended but genuinely what in the world are you talking about. She cleans her pussy off with bugs after fucking. Her pussy. With bugs. And she thinks it's normal. Because the bugs are part of her. Is this thing on. I reiterate that she literally requires an emotional support cloak of bugs. She is so dissociated from being an actual person that she treats her human body like an inconvenience and her bugs like the primary operators. Is This Thing On.

#now i told myself i wouldnt comment anything on the rb... but#“She cleans her pussy off with bugs after fucking. Her pussy. With bugs.” CHAT IS THAT FUCKIN REAL??? IS THAT CANON???#cause if thats just a hc thats wild and i dont know if its better or worse if its canon#propaganda

this is indeed canon! there is a scene where, after fucking her boyfriend in an abandoned building, she stands up and cleans dust/etc off her naked ass body by having her bugs run across her and clean her, which presumably translates to "they are eating the dirt/sweat/etc off her." her boyfriend smiles affectionately at this, because he also has something wrong with him. she also does things like use bugs and spider silk to deliver her toothbrush straight to her hand in the morning while monologuing about "checking in on her hive" (her hive is the people in her villain territory.) she is a walking panopticon. her friends sometimes talk to bugs under the assumption it's taylor watching them and they're always right. at one point she confusedly asks someone if he's arachnophobic because he doesn't want her 10k black widow spiders to live in his apartment with him. she is basically like if a cockroach was a girl. I would never lie to you about Taylor Hebert, Unsung Champion of Polls About Weird Characters.

#taylor ofc#wait hey those are my tags as propaganda!! cool!#i stand by it#anyways yeah one of her main character traits when looked at by an outside perspective is just how WEIRD she is#everyone thinks she's a freak#even when you're reading her POV you sometimes have to stop and be like 'hey girl what the fuck'#one time she put bugs on her boyfriend's dick

She also turns into a bug monster at one point. Not all on her own, but she very much turns into a bug monster. Literally And Physically.

• And she uses this to survive like a cockroach, she had Just Been Ripped In Fucking Half and thrown in the ocean to die and BOOM. bug monster transformation (with a little help) climb out and keep fighting, against an opponent so vast and powerful a human couldn't even comprehend his true form (not eldritch cognitohazard, just planet-sized + multidimensional), who could kill her in an instant. She's always surviving against the odds she's so cockroach coded (affectionate!) #@ pollrunner if you're still accepting propaganda please take the 'turns into a bug monster' as propaganda#the rest can be ignored or trimmed to 'she's always surviving she's so cockroach coded' but pleamse. the Time she Became A Bug • #she's such a freak!!!#she kills like it's the only thing she was built how to do#she kills people and things like it's chess and she's a grandmaster#as soon as the violence is off she's just a fucked up offputting little one woman panopticon • One of my favourite descriptions of Taylor from someone else's POV, from Interlude 14.

“A figure stood behind Yan. Her costume was barely recognizable—She wore a short cape of tattered black cloth over her body armor, a skintight black suit beneath that, and there were folds of black cloth draped around her legs like a dress or a robe. The entire fabric seemed to ripple and move. It took Sierra a second to realize it was crawling with a carpet of insects.” “The disconcerting part was the girl’s face, or lack thereof. Her expression was masked behind a shifting mass of bugs that moved in and out of her hairline. Sierra couldn’t even tell where the bugs ended and the scalp began, as the small black bodies crawled into and onto the black curls. There was a hint of something like glass where Skitter’s eyes were, but the bugs ventured far enough over her eyelids and around the frames that nothing was visible in the way of goggles, glasses or skin.” “Skitter hadn’t made a sound as she entered. She hadn’t spoken, and her footsteps had been quiet.”

Goodtimeswithscar (Hermitcraft / life series)

Scared for life

I must say that scar, who is a vex and an elf, wins this one.

He was also a witch, but was so busy building an airplane he didn't even notice it. Probably because he is so used to shape changing, having also been a pirate, wizard, trader, superhero, and imagineer.

There were also some rumors about him being a mattress store but those have been debunked.

[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

[minecraftbookshelf]

Evo SMP/Life Series Relationship Web

This does dip a bit into Empires and Hermitcraft but I tried to not focus on that.

The types of relationship portrayed, color coded for my sanity

Parent & Sibling are pretty self explanatory

Soulmate - Double Life Soulmate. Allows for both Assigned Soulmates and Chosen Soulmates and does not indicate the exact flavor of the soulmate relationship at all.

Partner - Primarily indicates some level of romantic relationship but also allows for Canon Typical Ambiguity

Platonic Partners - Partnerships that are enough aligned as platonic that I felt comfortable assigning them here. There’s only like. Two of these.

It’s Complicated - Aka “fuck if I know” aka “???” Boils down to “there is Something Wrong with these people and I don’t know that it can be labeled with any fewer than three categories, some of which are mutually exclusive” Covers a wide range of actual relationship flavors but I ran out of colors and so couldn't get any more specific than this.

Haphazard Breakdown of Some of the Actual Relationships Below the Cut

Grian and Solidarity and Pearlescentmoon are all half-siblings (and that is the age order)

Solidarity & LDShadowlady are step-siblings

Can Flower Husbands Please Chill Out With the Relationships Please

A couple relationships got more than one line color:

Desert Duo are both Assigned Soulmates and also What The Fuck??? Because look at them.

Smajor and ZombieCleo are both Chosen Soulmates and also Platonic Partners on account of having what I'm pretty sure is the only positive relationship to survive all four Life Games without a single backstabbing or betrayal and all the murder being 100% consensual.

Smajor and InTheLittleWood get both Partners and What the Fuck??? because i stared at them for a solid five minutes trying to decide.

BigBSt4tz2 & Pearlescentmoon ended up on opposite sides of the web somehow but pls know that they have a What the Fuck??? line connecting them, I just really didn't want to draw that over the whole thing.

Similarly, Impulse and Bdubs are on different sides (Impulse as part of "Tango's Polycule") pls imagine their soulmate line as well.

"Smajor's Harem of Husbands" consists of (as of Smajor's list after MCC30) HBomb, Whisp, FireBreathMan, and Milo (NPC from Witchcraft SMP) Solidarity gets to be individually listed because he’s one of the integral parts of the web at large

I am absolutely open to conversation on any and all of these points and any others.

EDIT 5/9/23: I made a streamlined version that is also more thorough.

I started with the Evo Squad as a group for this one. Instead of the Evo Sibling Squad. All Evo SMP members are also now underlined in Orange

I removed some extraneous characters, down to one Empire Character, and Three Hermitcraft (plus the Harem Unit)

This took about six attempts so I apologize for the handwriting decline.

[konoisms]

i came from a fandom where even if you shipped the characters it was kind of odd and people didnt really like you too much since a lot of the characters were portrayed by minors in real life, and especially if you wrote nsfw youd literally get sent to hell. and now ive transitioned from dsmp -> hermitcraft/life series, its kind of crazy to me because everyone agrees mumscarian sex = canon

[raindropren]

!!!!!! Secret Life Episode 9 Spoilers !!!!!!

THIS SEASON IS SO FUCKING GOOD HELL YA

I LOVE THIS

I LOVE SECRET LIFE

IT'S SO GOOD

I'M

SIIJOHFSIHFJSNF

LETS GO, SCAR!! WOO HOO

I GENUINELY LOVE THIS SO MUCH AAA

ALSO WHY IS PEARL SO CRACKED AT THIS GAME!?!?!

So she was i think 3rd in last life, Won in double life, I think 4th or 5th in limited life, and now, 2nd in Secret life!!

What the F u c k

I love it so much

It really helps all my headcanons tbh, it makes me so happy.

Also why does pearl always survive longer then her allies/teammates(Unless they win)

and by always i mean like, 2 times? 2 and a half? if u count tilly maybe? i do... 2.5 :]

I really do wish joel or bdubs won, mostly joel because it would've been so good but I deffo think scar deserved this win.

I think it wouldve been kind of funny if in the 1v1 battle between scar and pearl.. pearl won... and it's just, awkward cause she... didn't want that. at all.

She wanted scar to win after bdubs and joel died, she wanted to sacrifice her life to scar in the end because she wanted her allies to win.

I also think shiny duo is a tragedy in the end. I really hope someone makes a fanfic about them in secret life cause they just, they, they just, <3 <3 <3

I love them alot

I'm making a theory that Gem might, win the next life seires.

Shiny duo winning their second season, please please please /hj /lh

I've already really loved the pearl fanfics from this season cause omg but I just, i just <3 <3 can't wait to see more!! aaa :D

if i get the motivation i fucking will make a fic about gem and pearl coming back into hermitcraft. They have very similar vibes in the life series(they're fucking crazy, don't mess with them, but also you'd rather be on their side then not(I haven't watched gems life series so if i'm wrong on this one, oopsie) cause they are more loyal then most) and I think it'd be fun to see them coming back and talking to eachother about the season ngl.

Murder camel my beloved, shiny duo my beloved

I also think(if I get the motivation) i'd want to make a fic with Pearl and Bdubs, in hermitcraft, afterwards.

ooo so many ideas, so many ideas so little time and motivation.

i wanna know what would happen if pearl accidentally won, despite not wanting too, if she hit scar just alittle to hard and now she was alone, as the sole 2 time winner. I think AU!pearl would have a mental fucking breakdown but i also think it'd be a fun concept aaaa

I want a fic about Pearl just after Bdubs and Joel died, just crying. like tears down her cheeks when she meets back up with scar and aaaa <3

All these would be my au obviously cause i'm way to obsessed with it but my au is set in canon, mostly. or at least alittle, i'm trying LOL

I'm proud of scar :]

like, i'm proud of all the winners but, i really do feel like scar deserved this win

I might watch his pov at some point, i can't wait for people to tear the angst from scars episodes, they already have alittle but with him winning, I can't fucking wait, omg <3

I'm just so excited now

aaaa

i'm nhjgofubkhgfubkjhdfjl eee

I really hope gem and pearl team next season instead of just being temporary allies because they are so fun omg

I really hope there's another season cause god they are so good /nf

I can't get enough of life series pearl in my au

which is why i keep mentioning her, i've basically only watched her pov cause I have a hard time watching others. I wanna watch gem, lizzies(it's ies right? i'm bad with spelling names aa), and now scars. stars above, i love this series

aaaaaaaaaaaaa

secret is probably my new favorite season, idk why, maybe it's because of shiny duo alittle, but y'know :]

There's so much i wish i wanna talk about

like how Pearl said "Always Watching" to BigB

Or just any moment with Pearl and Scott, I miss their last life dynamic alot /pos /notneg

Cleo and Pearls pupper alliance breaking and Pearl saying she really wanted to be allies with Cleo, like I need fics of that so much guys omg (Big MoonRot fan!! ee)

Anytime Gem, Impulse, and Pearl were in a trio together, like omg, It's Soup Group!!! Guys!!! it's them!!! omg!!!!!!!! guys!!

Pearl walking the Warden around like a pro, i love that so much LOL

there's deffo more, but i've typed way to much LOL i just love this so much, it's insane.

[inthelittlewood]

In-lore, how do you account for the creators' other series, such as Hermitcraft and 100 Hours? Do those happen in between death games, and at any point they could be ripped out of their normal lives and forced to murder their friends for eldritch beings' entertainment? Are they plain not canon to the eyesandears lore?

I saw a clip of Scar freaking out about a skulk sensor and reminding himself this is Hermitcraft, everyone here's nice, it's not gonna blow up and couldn't stop wondering.

If memory serves correctly, we decided on the Last Life post season stream that other SMPs are dreams the players are having between seasons of the death games

It's not a detail we've totally locked in yet, so it's still a bit loosey goosey until we decide some hard cannon

Currently I like to think of it as dream states between the games. Yes, some of the players share the same dream space like Empires / Hermitcraft but that's just an allowance made by the Watchers through their soul linking powers.

There's literal soul linking demonstrated in Double Life with the health system but their power is vast and comes with variations. I wouldn't say it's any kind of 'plane walking' ability (which I've seen a lot of people theorizing on based on Gem's lore and how she might've entered the Life series), currently I feel like it's more mental manipulation / alteration as opposed to travelling.

So for now it's a little vague until we decide something concrete or the narrative would benefit from a clearer definition being made. But I always like to be honest about these details so people know not everything is committed to ink just yet

[d0not-disturb]

Art reqst

Human grumbots

But its all the different grumbots

Oldest is ofc the first, maybe the mentally ill one (cause mumbo and grian locked him up in an island)

Buddy I already posted all the human Grumbot designs dawg

But might as well drop some lore while I’m at it

Oldest- Grumbot (OG from Season seven) “human” name: Luan Ronnie Jumbo (dreamslayer)

For his middle name I picked Ronnie because it means ruler (he pretty much parents his brothers) , and advice (literally his purpose), also Ronnie is such a good name tbh

Middle children- Grumbot Prime and Emperor Grumbot both from season 9, I made them twins since they don’t have a canon age difference unlike Grumbot and Jrumbot who were also made in the same season but have a canon age difference, grian literally saying Jrumbot was grumbots little brother. “Human” names: Parker Charles Jumbo (dreamslayer) for Grumbot Prime, and Emmett Oliver Jumbo (dreamslayer) for Emperor Grumbot

For the twins, their middle names correspond to who they are most like, so Parker is more like Grian and Emmett is more like Mumbo

Youngest- Jrumbot (also from season 7) “human” name: Archie Ryan Jumbo (dreamslayer)

Okay for the middle name he’s named after Scar because he is in fact the only jumbo kid who actually likes him, lazy ik but still

OKAY SO HOW THEY BECAME HUMAN:

No this isn’t the birds and the bees lesson because THEY WERENT MADE THAT WAY. So Xisuma started to notice how these MASSIVE robots were like conquering the hermitcraft multiverse (which apparently is canon) and killing a crap ton of people, specifically Scar, so he looked into it and turns out! They are Mumbo and Grian’s kids so he walked up to them one day and said, “take care of ya sons” so they go after them, or Xisuma forces them to, they fight and fight, and grian uses this BIG ASS spell that would turn the grumbots into their weakest form, which is human children (low key insulting to us humans ngl)

So they come back and Xisuma sees them like disheveled with like four crying little kids on them and he’s like, let’s take it one at a time mkay? So he takes the younger kids, and makes it so they won’t be ‘born’ until Grian and Mumbo Are ready for another kid because going from no kids to four kids in the span of 2 weeks is crazy

How does he do this? Well he genetically modifies them so that they revert back to just eggs that won’t hatch until exposed to heat, so he keeps them locked up in a freezer until the time is right

Ngl that sounds bad but trust me it’s not

Anyway grian and Mumbo soon realize they can’t really raise a kid none the less four on the hermitcraft server since there are no schools, hospitals, clinics, daycares, playgrounds, etc, and they panic cause they don’t wanna leave, so Xisuma adds a small sub server attached to the hermit craft server called, “the hermit suburbs” were people can live normal lives while still being hermits, and eventually more hermits and even some folks from empires and the life series go and live there and still go on the hermitcraft server.

So that’s where Grian and Mumbo raise the rest of those weird robot human hybrids

also after 2 years of Grian and Mumbo taking care of Luan, they are like, “yeah we can take another now” and then Xisuma gives them the twins and they are like “why are there two” and Xisuma is like, “I want this to be over with as soon as possible so I’m just giving you two deal with it” and so they just deal with it, but they soon realize how much more work it is, since the twins are VERY bad babies, what I mean is they cry all the time, don’t eat food they don’t like, don’t get dressed without a fight , etc, and so they wait 6 YEARS when they are almost teenagers to get the final egg, which is Archie, who is the best by far.

So that explains the age gap if you were wondering

Alright that’s all the lore y’all’s are getting DONT get attached

[redstoneglitch]

Explicit Hermitcraft fic, throughout the years

In July 2022, I set out to collect some data, hoping to figure out when explicit Hermitcraft fics really started to take off. I had heard stories of how people were against anything that didn't fit into the neat bounds of canon, which included shipping, among other things.

This made me curious though. When did it start getting posted? Where has it taken us? ...is there really a disproportionate amount of Omegaverse fics? Well, TL;DR... January 2019, over 1,400 fics being posted, and no.

However, I hope you stick around a bit longer! My analysis of the graph I made is posted below. The blank version, plus the text from the analysis, is under the cut.

This version of the graph includes everything from January 2019 – April 2023. Fics may've been counted twice, due to collecting two batches of data (one in July 2022, and another at the end of April 2023)

Funnily enough, the third fic posted to the Hermitcraft tag is explicit, and the first three are all shippy. (And yes, I checked to see if the works were backdated, which they're not! The first Hermitcraft fic was actually posted in 2015)

Since July '22, there's been a decrease in the percentage of explicit fics! Just one percent, sure, but it really shows just how popular Hermitcraft is as a whole. There were 8.9k fics back then, only 920 of those being explicit. Now there's over 15k, and 1.4k explicit fics! That's over 6,000 fics added since July '22! Not to mention all the ones that may've been deleted, which appears to be over 40 in total.

Finally, I'd like to point out the obvious: between a season start and end, there's a massive jump in explicit fics being posted. And subsequently, when the season ends, or a new series begins (like the Life Series), there's a substantial dip in fics being posted to the tag.

Now that the important stuff is out of the way, feel free to look below the cut if you'd like, for the text from the image + the blank version of the chart.

Notes:

There are roughly 1,400 explicit, and 15,000 total fics at this point (This means there’s around 13,600 non-explicit fics. Alternatively, about 9.3% of fics are explicit – a 1% decrease since July ‘22)

Due to the fact that this data was gathered both during July ‘22 and April ’23, there may be some discrepancies (At least 40 fics have been removed since July ‘22. Since fics may’ve been counted twice, this number is likely more)

The shipping war was from 2019 to 2020* (*Unknown end date)

January 2019: Half a year (about 6 months) after the start of Hermitcraft S6

June 2019: 3 Grumbo fics are posted, likely due to Grian and Mumbo’s popularity (According to archive.org, Mumbo and Grian were at 2.7M subscribers at the start of 2019… and only grew from there)

March 2020: Start of Hermitcraft S7… and then the pandemic hit, and lockdown started

April 2021: 3rd life started, and Flower Husbands helped normalize shipping

June 2021: Start of Hermitcraft S8

September 2021: Last life started

October 2021: Kinktober (69 fics… nice)

December 2021: End of Season 8 (The dip is probably due to no videos on Hermitcraft)

March 2022: Start of Hermitcraft S9

June 2022: Double life started

March 2023: Limited life started

[Image ID: a chart, spanning from January 2019, to April 2023, regarding explicit fanfiction for Hermitcraft. The main growth periods are from March 2020 to March 2021, October 2021, and from March 2022 to January 2023. /End ID]

[transmcytshowdown]

There is one gender that gets bounced around between all Minecraft severs. It typically stays on one sever for about a month before being used as one of the monthly MCC rewards, where it ends up going home with one of the winning team (usually whoever placed individually higher). Then it is passed around that server, used as a bargaining chip or just a gift, until the next cross sever event. Given that the life series is made up of more than 50% hermits, one can only assume that it was made as a plan to keep the gender on hermitcraft for longer

ok this is canon now, i just confirmed it

[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.

[antimony-medusa]

MCYT on Ao3 - February '24

The state of MCYT on Ao3, just for fun. Yes I do this every month, I like numbers.

The Cube SMP (8 works)

Slamacow Minecraft Animations (Web Series) (10 works)

iDots SMP (23 works)

30 Day SMP | Free Trial SMP (27 works)

Legacy SMP (27 works)

Cogchamp SMP (29 works)

Content SMP (30 works)

Epic SMP (34 works)

Art of Survival SMP (36 works)

Dominion SMP (40 works)

Tiredtwt (Video Blogging RPF) (42 works)

Showtime SMP (48 works)

Shady Oaks SMP (49 works)

X Life SMP (51 works)

100 Hours Hardcore SMP (55 works)

IvoryCello's Prison Escapes (Web Series) (56 works)

Bear SMP (59 works)

SadSMP (66 works)

My Inner Demons - Aphmau (Web Series) (70 works)

Mer SMP (84 works)

Area Unknown SMP (88 works)

Kaboodle SMP (94 works)

Tortillaland SMP (115 works)

House Builder Gang SMP | HBG SMP (151 works)

Slimecicle Cinematic Universe (Web Series) (174 works)

New Life SMP (177 works)

WitchCraft SMP (190 works)

Rats SMP (238 works)

Pirates SMP (233 works)

SMPLive (299 works)

SMPEarth (318 works)

Mianite (Web Series) (386 works)

Afterlife SMP (402 works)

Outsiders SMP (413 works)

MindCrack RPF (505 works)

MyStreet - Aphmau (Web Series) (567 works)

Evolution SMP (713 works)

Karmaland SMP (857 works)

Minecraft Diaries - Aphmau (Web Series) (964 works)

Fable SMP (1,072 works)

Origins SMP (1,594 works)

Lifesteal SMP (1,607 works)

The Yogscast (3,220 works)

Empires SMP (6,596 works)

QSMP | Quackity SMP (8,104 works)

3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series (10,894 works)

Hermitcraft SMP (20,809 works)

Dream SMP (84,460 works)

Minecraft (Video Game) (110,435 works)

Video Blogging RPF (282,935 works)

Some notes

A new fandom this month! Showtime SMP is new, bringing this up to 49 tags that I track.

Fics are still primarily in english, but we have three exceptions with significant spanish fics. Karmaland (750 of 857 are in spanish, from 740 last month), Tortillaland (109 of 115 are in spanish, down from 110 last month), and QSMP (827 of 8104 are in spanish, from 752 last month.)

QSMP also shows 43 fics in French, up from 39 last month, and 452 in Brasilian Portugese, up from 405 last month. While I did not check every language this month, I checked on the languages I knew had a fic in QSMP and we see 1 fic in ASL (probably a misclick as it appears to be in english), 1 fic in Bahasa Malaysia, 1 fic in Dansk (Danish), 1 fic in Deutsch (German), 1 fic in Esperanto, 1 fic in Filipino, 5 works in European Portugese, 2 fics in Polski (Polish), 7 fics in Русский (Russian) (up from 5 last month), 1 fic in Suomi (Finnish), 1 fic in Svenska (Swedish), 1 fic in Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), and 3 fics in 中文-普通话 國語 (Mandarin Chinese, I believe). While a 한국어 (Korean) speaker was recently added to the QSMP, there are currently no fics in 한글 (written Korean).

In the small and micro-sized fandoms, several of the smaller fandoms posted a decrease, including Legacy SMP, Bear SMP, and Area Unknown. HBG, on the other hand, posted a frankly impressive 16-fic increase, and both New Life and Witchcraft saw a 8-fic increase.

In the mid-sized fandoms, the showstopper was Minecraft Diaries, which went up a staggering 140 fics, which makes me suspect a sub-tag got wrangled into them. Pirates SMP and Outsiders SMP both saw 20 fic increases, and Mystreet saw an increase of 24 fics.

In the post-canon big fandoms, Empires went up by 188 works, which is an increase on both January's 178 and December's 117, but not beating November's 240. Dream SMP's increase of 591 works is the single lowest number I've seen since I've started tracking tags, being exceeded by both January's 918 and December's 767, which were the first months I'd seen the increase being lower than a thousand. 3rd Life, now that we're outside of a season, posted a respectable 558 fics, down from last month's record high of 831.

In the currently airing big fandoms, Hermitcraft saw that new-season boom, as it posted 716 fics, not as high as January's 784 (holiday exchanges), but beating both December and November's 574 and 651. QSMP posted 729 fics this month, which is part of a four-month decline (865 last month, 894 the month before, 913 the month before), but is still the fandom with the single biggest increase over a month. Incidentally, that means that Dream SMP is beat by both Hermitcraft and QSMP this month, and 3rd life is close behind it.

Overall, the number of fics posted under Video Blogging-RPF (the umbrella fandom that contains all MCYT), is 3,513 fics, down from January's 4,223, December's 3,489, and November's 4,035. Incidentally, it's very close to what we saw last year at the same time, as February '23 saw a VB RPF increase of 3,674.

Detailed breakdown under the cut.

The Cube SMP (8 works, 8 last month, 0-fic increase)

Slamacow Minecraft Animations (Web Series) (10 works, 10 last month, 0-fic increase)

iDots SMP (23 works, 23 last month, 0-fic increase)

30 Day SMP | Free Trial SMP (27 works, 27 last month, 0-fic increase)

Legacy SMP (27 works, 28 last month, 1-fic decrease)

Cogchamp SMP (29 works, 29 last month, 0-fic increase)

Content SMP (30 works, 30 last month, 0-fic increase)

Epic SMP (34 works, 32 last month, 2-fic increase)

Art of Survival SMP (36 works, 36 last month, 0-fic increase)

Dominion SMP (40 works, 38 last month, 2-fic increase)

Tiredtwt (Video Blogging RPF) (42 works, new tag this month)

Showtime SMP (48 works, new tag this month)

Shady Oaks SMP (49 works, 49 last month, 0-fic increase)

X Life SMP (51 works, 51 last month, 0-fic increase)

100 Hours Hardcore SMP (55 works, 54 last month, 1-fic increase)

IvoryCello's Prison Escapes (Web Series) (56 works, 56 last month, 0-fic incrase)

Bear SMP (59 works, 60 last month, 1-fic decrease)

SadSMP (66 works, 66 last month, 0-fic increase)

My Inner Demons - Aphmau (Web Series) (70 works, 67 last month, 3-fic increase)

Mer SMP (84 works, 82 last month, 2-fic increase)

Area Unknown SMP (88 works, 89 last month, 1-fic decrease)

Kaboodle SMP (94 works, 91 last month, 3-fic increase)

Tortillaland SMP (115 works, 115 last month, 0-fic increase)

House Builder Gang SMP | HBG SMP (151 works, 135 last month, 16-fic increase)

Slimecicle Cinematic Universe (Web Series) (174 works, 174 last month, 0-fic increase)

New Life SMP (177 works, 169 last month, 8-fic increase)

WitchCraft SMP (190 works, 182 last month, 8-fic increase)

Rats SMP (238 works, 234 last month, 4-fic increase)

Pirates SMP (233 works, 213 last month, 20-fic increase)

SMPLive (299 works, 294 last month, 5-fic increase)

SMPEarth (318 works, 304 last month, 14-fic increase)

Mianite (Web Series) (386 works, 379 last month, 7-fic increase)

Afterlife SMP (402 works, 395 last month, 7-fic increase)

Outsiders SMP (413 works, 393 last month, 20-fic increase)

MindCrack RPF (505 works, 504 last month, 1-fic increase)

MyStreet - Aphmau (Web Series) (567 works, 543 last month, 24-fic increase)

Evolution SMP (713 works, 693 last month, 20-fic increase)

Karmaland SMP (857 works, 842 last month, 15-fic increase)

Minecraft Diaries - Aphmau (Web Series) (964 works, 824 last month, 140-fic increase)

Fable SMP (1,072 works, 1,012 last month, 60-fic increase)

Origins SMP (1,594 works, 1,575 last month, 19-fic increase)

Lifesteal SMP (1,607 works, 1,546 last month, 62-fic increase)

The Yogscast (3,220 works, 3,215 last month, 5-fic increase)

Empires SMP (6,596 works, 6,408 last month, 188-fic increase)

QSMP | Quackity SMP (8,104 works, 7,375 last month, 729-fic increase)

3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series (10,894 works, 10,336 last month, 558-fic increase)

Hermitcraft SMP (20,809 works, 20,093 last month, 716-fic increase)

Dream SMP (84,460 works, 85,051 last month, 591-fic increase)

Minecraft (Video Game) (110,435 works, 110,119 last month, 316-fic increase)

Video Blogging RPF (282,935 works, 279,422 last month, 3,513-fic increase)

[most-creature-vibe-tournament]

Round 1 poll 3

Propaganda:

Jonathan Sims (The Magnus archives)

Stupid eye thing

ok ok ok so. now, where as it's 'canon' that the statement givers say 'he's all eyes' we don't actually have a proper discription. i could very well just look like some guy on the regular, but when using beholding powers or whatever he gains a few more eyes than he should. also my mans is technically a monster sorta? i have no idea how to explain it i don't even remember if it gets an explanation in canon but anyways so yeah. that's it form me

Bdubs (Hermitcraft / Life series)

Horse

I'm not even mad that Glares didn't win the mob vote because BDubs is basically just a Glare in human form.

[wickerfox]

HELLO YES ITS ME IM COPY PASTING THE THING HERE:

YOU JUST MADE THE CHILD IN ME BLOOM. THE QUESTION LIST (THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IM SEEING THIS AU BUT GOD FORBID):

× Who's Hoodie

× Is it in the same time setting as MH

× Who PLAYS AS ALEX

× Did it start the same way as a dumb school film project?

× From what I understood Scar takes the role of Tim, is bro a chainsmoker too LMFAO.

× Is Grian canonically gay too

× Would it be a wild correct guess that Amy is Lizzie and Alex is Joel since yk based from obvious plot points?

(before I start, placing this disclaimer here at the top since I have friends who don't frequent mcyt and might get confused, but when I talk abt this au I'm specifically talking abt the characters, not the content creators themselves. Anyway)

SO IM GONNA GO AHEAD AND SHARE WHOSE WHO FIRST

Jay- Grian, it made the most sense in my head, but I actually flip flopped on this so many times bc he also works so well as Tim or Alex, but at some point I went "wait it's an au, we can see how the story changes with Grian as the protag" so Grian's the protag now

Tim/Masky- Scar, I'm a transparent desert duo enjoyer and had a similar flip flop with him as I did Grian bc he'd also work as Jay but I was halfway through that drawing and had a similar thought process to the one i had abt Grian

Brian/Hoodie- Jimmy, I wanted to keep the cast focused to life series and evo members and he made the most sense to me lore wise, especially with the idea that in this au he was one of the ones with the earliest exposure to The Watcher (bc I love Canary Curse symbolism)

Alex- This one was the toughest choice bc no matter what a fav is going to loose it. Good thing this based on the Life Series! As much as I Love the idea of Joel and Lizzie as Alex and Amy, I actually went with Martyn. Again, the character is pretty involved with the Watcher Lore so it made the most sense as the character that is arguably most effected by it. (Although for a brief moment I considered Mumbo Jumbo bc,,, how fucking funny would that be)

Jessica- Jessica's gotta be Pearl right? It makes the most sense for it to be Pearl, I don't even need reasoning for this it makes sense

Amy- So who's Amy then? Scott actually! He's not Martyn's boyfriend in this, he's just a really good friend of his who was super involved in the production. Also like in mh, he's Pearl's roommate.

Sarah- Ren. Can't have a life series au featuring desert duo and not have some renchanting. Who else would be one of the leading actors in Martyn's short film?

Seth- Big B, again Evo connection made sense to me, and depending on your own personal theory on who the third person running the totheark account is, both Big B and Ren have interesting implications, even if both their rolls are p minor in this au

With the cast out of the way other questions !!!

It's set in a kind of nebulous time frame that's probably a little closer to present day, but it does still start with a student film project. When asked Why Martyn chose to use tapes he says something about wanting a more authentic feel to the film but in reality he just thought using tapes was a cool idea and doesn't want to admit that it's kind of impractical now.

In this au Scar doesn't smoke, but instead I like the headcannon that he just has boxes of candy/bubblegum cigarettes on him at all times. He'll pull one out, pause, and offer one to someone and when they say no he's just like "Okay, your loss" and watch as they get all confused when he starts unwrapping it asdfghkgkdjhfjsh

Is Grian gay in this au? Whose to say. (Real answer tho, I'm a notorious Jam shipper and while I'm not an active shipper when it comes to hermitcraft or the life series, I don't really mind it so the relationship is left kind of ambiguous)

But yes THANK YOU DO MUCH FOR GIVING ME A CHANCE TO TALK ABT THIS IVE BEEN RAMBLING TO MY FRIEND WHO DOESNT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING IVE BEEN SAYING FOR DAYS