#raichett original

[raichett]

Utterly enthralled with the inexorable and absolute inevitability of death in Limited Life. The way that even if you did everything “right” to extend your own time, eventually you will run out of people to kill, and the timer is still ticking down.

All this violence is inherently pointless: no one is getting out of there alive. They never would in any of the Traffic Life series - but this time it’s front and centre, no “last survivor walks away from the bloodshed” possibility, no arguing that their fate isn’t sealed from the very first second all the way to the last.

But it’s just human nature to grasp and struggle for every last second, for every last breath, for every last fleeting moment of time. Survival is the oldest instinct; but there’ll be no surviving this.

Damn this is gonna be a good series.

[definitelynotshouting]

(About hunger au) Thinking about the gift fic Divergency you got from Raichett and rotating how it meshes with the current story

Thinking about how Grian could be doing this at least a little due to the guilt he has from being born the way he was

He didn't have a choice but to kill and cause pain when he was born and now he's using his control over his life to cause pain to himself and die. Oughhh

Raichett's fic is so near and dear to my heart, i'll never get over how incredible it was to receive that. Frankly, its canon to me-- that is exactly how it went for poor Grian. And the circumstances around his birth as a Watcher were so objectively tragic... i think the guilt honest to gods just eats him up inside. In his head he's sorta mentally separated them into the Good (past) Grian and then Himself (aka the Bad Grian), and now he just feels this constant weight about killing that original version of him. I think what he's doing now definitely has that desperate bid to atone in it, and not just for hurting his friends, but for killing Player!Grian as well.

Its genuinely heartbreaking tbh, like i know im the one doing this to him but i feel for him so badly about this in particular, because its such a horrible thing to be convinced you're a monster for something you had literally no control over at birth

[rotten-vivs]

10, 11, 20

Get to know your fic writer! (ask game)

answers are below the cut

10. Cltr+f "blinks" on your WIP & copy paste the first sentence/paragraph that comes up

well this is a bit embarrassing, i don't have any wips right now. i'm someone who only writes when i feel motivated to do so, and right now i have a few big ideas (full AUs unlike the oneshots i'm used to) in my brain that i need some time to work on. the most i can give you right now to make it up to you is the tentative titles of two of them: Blacksheep AU and Take Me Away AU

11. Link your three favorite fics right now

Apple Cinnamon Pies by @raichett: the best world building for third life outside of the games i've ever seen. so many ideas are explored and introduced, but they feel so natural to the main storyline. it is not only my favorite life series fic, but my favorite fic i have ever read

From the Archives Series by @sixteenth-days: i genuinely mean this, i liked this au more than the original magnus archives. it was so fun and charming yet suspenseful at the same time. genuinely such a good story with a lot of heart behind it

@logicallyanxious9z' ethubs star wars au series: this one is pretty new and still ongoing, but i fell in love with it instantly. i am a sucker for romeo and juliet type of stories were the lovers are from opposite sides, and i think this one really captures that exciting and wonderful but terrifying feeling of slowly falling for someone who you shouldn't (brings back memories of being closeted teen lesbian in love with my gf). also i genuinely can hear the characters' voices saying the dialogue, especially bdubs

20. Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

i noticed i do a lot of repetition as a literary tool. in It's Home? Home i use "He remembered..." at the beginning of multiple paragraphs in a row. in Orpheus refuses to turn around i have "You trust Bdubs. Bdubs trusts Etho. You trust Etho." in A winner but no survivors i have a paragraph in which every sentence starts with "That guy..."

but honestly, let me know if anyone else has noticed a pattern of sorts in my fics. i am interested to know if anyone notices something else that i haven't thought about

[bluiex]

OK ok ok kinda unrelated but since your my scarian brainrot outlet i have come to throw it at you because AGDHUSB im insane over it. So have you read 'Apple Cinnamon Pies' by Raichett on ao3?? Because its amazing and that universe is going to be plaguing my brain for eternity. If u haven’t read it this is your order to 🔫 3rd Life centred, incarnation & original who remembers them with longing and soul bounds and <3<3 (it sso late when writing this so forgive me for the incoherennce of this)

Hi hello :3c welcome to the brainrot paradise

No I haven't read that o: since I'm still in bed, what's another hr in bed reading??? Hehehe OMW TO AO3 TO READ THIS. LET'S GO

[raichett]

In case anyone questions me, I bought the funky cactus-shaped ice-cube mould because I thought it looked cool, not because two fictional men beat each other to death in a cactus ring in a MCYT series, okay?

[raichett]

So, I’ve been thinking a fair bit recently about how the Hermitcraft servers, in-universe, actually function on a social and micro-cultural level. 

A list of real life facts:

1. They have unlimited respawns on Hermitcraft. Death is generally either funny or an inconvenience, and pranks resulting in death are very much allowed, even fairly common. Scar, for example, in his Hotguy persona, literally goes around and shoots people with his bow for fun (and it’s considered a little rude to not die if you’ve been Hotguy’d). 

2. Hermits are invite-only and it’s a rather exclusive server; if a (rare) guest is whitelisted, it is only temporary. Many new Hermits are suggested and supported by an already existing Hermit, and there is a phase where a potential new Hermit is researched before any invite is sent. Once you’ve received an invite, there’s no taking it back, and there’s no probationary period. Hermits (and potential Hermits) are not obliged to either accept nor to stay, however! Many former Hermits have left amiably, and some have even come back after missing a season or two, like Keralis.

3. When it comes to server-wide decisions, everyone has to agree or else it won’t happen. It’s quite literally all-or-nothing on Hermitcraft. And everyone has a say and everyone’s voice is weighed the same, no matter how long or short they’ve been there. 

4. Many Hermits are pioneers or big names in their field (Doc and Tango in redstone, Grian and Scar in building, etc.), or else have been around in MCYT circles for a long time (e.g. Etho and Xisuma). This is not true for every Hermit, but there is distinctly an element of this in the line-up as a whole. It is also very common for Hermits to ask for help/opinions from other Hermits whose specialities are different from their own.

5. Mega-builds and mega-projects are the norm on Hermitcraft. It’s generally expected for a Hermit to take months and months on creating a starter base, then a mega base, at least one shop, usually a mini-game or two for server-wide events, etcetera etcetera. Not every Hermit does this, or does this every season, but most do.

6. Hermitcraft has very, very few rules: griefing is allowed, stealing is allowed, etc. No, really! You can do just about anything on Hermitcraft - so long as you’re prepared to deal with the consequences, and to make reparations if you actually hurt someone’s feelings.

7. It does, however, work on what are called “gentleman’s rules”: that is, if you make a mess, you clean it up, basically. If you prank someone, expect a retaliatory prank, which you have to take in good humour. If you destroy (by accident or design) someone’s items or builds, you’re expected to replace/reimburse/help set it to rights. The entire Hermitcraft economy (the shopping district) works on an honesty box design. Good sportsmanship is the name of the game on Hermitcraft. In the words of Grian himself: “We prank hard, but we clean up harder.”

8. As touched on before, no one on Hermitcraft actually has authority over anyone else. Some people have admin access (Xisuma, Tango, Joe Hills, etc.) but everyone’s voice weighs the same, even if some people have stepped up to take the lead when it comes to the engineering minutiae of maintaining a very popular server.

9. Every Hermit in the current line-up (Season 9 at the time of writing this) is an adult. I can only think of one person who was not an adult when they joined Hermitcraft and that is Mumbo Jumbo, who was 16 or 17 at the time, I think. Most of these people have life experiences and careers before MCYT. Some of them have only recently ceased to be part-time youtubers/streamers and change to full time as they quit jobs to pursue it (e.g. Cleo, Impulse, etc.). 

So, what does all this mean in-universe? Well... 

- Death is temporary, and very little weight is assigned to it, save that if you kill someone for a prank, expect to be pranked fatally in return. There is very little angst to be mined here.

- The Hermits’ expectations of other Hermits generally boil down to “good sportsmanship”, “willing to lend a hand/their expertise if they’re open to doing so” and “willingly accepts consequences for their own actions”. If you don’t follow these expectations at least most of the time, you’re not really acting in a way that is considered acceptable to the rest of the server, and you’re not fitting into the community on Hermitcraft.

- No Hermit takes on any particular authority figure role, neither in the sense of a boss or manager who looks after things on a professional level, nor in the sense of someone taking on a parental role for anyone else. Friendships are certainly encouraged, and Hermits have varying social relationships with each other, but there really is no “mum friend” or “dad friend” around, excepting the occasional joke, there really just isn’t. And there aren’t any Hermits who seem to want to take on this role.

- The closest I can describe the micro-culture of Hermitcraft in real world terms is “university/college dorm full of mature students (mature students = people not fresh out of secondary school/high school)”. They are all busy with their own massive projects, and then on a social level are out to have a good, slightly chaotic, time. They’ve generally got a good sense of identity, or are blossoming into the kind of creator/person they want to be, because they’re in an environment that encourages growth and ambition while (contrary now to the university/college metaphor) not punishing failure. 

- Hermitcraft is a place of “healing” only in the sense that it is a place where people have a fresh start to dedicate themselves to massive projects and become a part of an exclusive but generally helpful and kind community. The only expectations are that you take responsibility for yourself and your own actions, and if you dish out something you’d better be prepared for it to be volleyed back to you; all of these are fair, in my personal opinion. Some people absolutely thrive on such an opportunity! Some others do not.

- Hermitcraft is exclusive, and not everyone who visits the server gets to stay there. To be offered an invite to become a Hermit requires you to be a good fit for the server and its community, and for everyone to agree on that. If even one Hermit doesn’t want someone there, they won’t be invited. That being said, the Hermits are mature individuals, and if you’re not a friend, then you can at least be a colleague. But if you can’t even be that... well. Hermits don’t offer invitations quickly, due to the fact that there is no probationary period; you’re either in or you’re not.

- LARPing is fairly common, wars are games, and everyone there is just out to have fun at the end of the day. If you don’t want to be involved in whatever “storyline” is currently being acted out on the server, you’ve got to manually say so and tap out. You can just say “sorry, busy with my mega-build, have fun at the war” and be left in peace. And these play-pretend games are not necessarily server-wide, either. Not everyone wants to be involved, and those who don’t aren’t pressured to be. But they do very much happen, and pretty frequently. 

And... yeah, that’s about it. Hermitcraft is a world where a bunch of people are basically running wild and free, able to create huge projects and have fun with their friends (in that distinct adults-who-don’t-have-to-go-to-work-and-are-free-to-be-who-they-wish-to-be kind of way), and while the in-universe reality of any storyline can be up for debate in fandom (e.g. in Season 5, was the jungle actually possessing people or were they just LARPing that?), at the end of the day, most of what happens is in good fun and good sportsmanship. And that is what it means to be a Hermit.

[raichett]

that fucking desert is basically the third member of the scarian polycule at this point

[raichett]

Mumbo Jumbo is exactly the type of person who would accidently order way too many fedoras online when he just wanted one (1) and decide that the only logical course of action to mend this mistake is to found a gang and become a mob boss so that he can get rid of the fedoras by offloading them onto gang members he recruits as part of their standard issue uniform, there is definitely no other way to react to this accident.

[raichett]

Limited Life SMP is a Family Friendly Series (TM)

[raichett]

In case anyone's wondering how it's been going lately:

(Fic the 69th is going to be Scarian smut, btw. Because I'll never get an opportunity like it again.)

[raichett]

The refusal of Scar to give up Grian's location to the hunters who kill any non-human being hasn't stopped them from finding his cave anyway. Too bad Grian doesn't tend to go down easy, especially not when he's been reunited with the lover they tortured.

Content warnings: implied/referenced torture, discrimination, Grian killing a bunch of people we don't care about with an avalanche. This is primarily hurt/comfort all the way down, honestly. Raichett-typical worldbuilding.

Written as a gift for @definitelynotshouting. Hope you enjoy it, Tem!

[raichett]

absolutely terrible horrible atrocious idea: third life animatic but anime tiddy physics apply to a certain shirtless desert warlord. everyone else is animated completely normally but Scar alone looks and moves like a shounen protagonist's secretly pining love interest

[raichett]

Okay, so - I was going through an old chat log I had with @definitelynotshouting wherein worldbuilding for my fic Apple Cinnamon Pies was brought up and I finally realised that maybe it should be made publicly available lol.

This is copy/pasted verbatim (only things I said), and basically all you need to know is that TJ was asking about the minutiae of how healing magic works in ACP-verse and joking about how sickness in-universe would work with special mention to Grian being 1000 years older than Scar and how that would affect their views of how to go about treating sickness. And then I made it angsty.

( + other worldbuilding extras too!!)

---

Well, first of all, in my head stuff like healing potions and regen potions (+ golden apples, etc) are technically perfectly fine to drink/eat. The only thing that changes with dilution is the speed at which it heals and that’s important for a person’s long-term health (and also a hospital can stretch out supplies further). How do I explain this?

So, if your body experiences a sudden injury or change (← key word is change), like you have a tooth pulled at the dentist or something, your body is pretty much like “ayo, what the fuck was THAT??” and you get shivery/weak/can potentially go into shock. Same with taking an injury and then healing it instantaneously. Your body gets a whack of “oh no sudden change”, and if you experience the injury and the healing very close together then you get double-whammied.

If you’re used to it, like Grian and other traditionalists are, then you can just keep on going, and you get better at pushing through with experience, but by now the everyday populace is not used to it, and they go to a hospital instead. The hospital takes the time to set a broken bone and then you sip diluted regen as it knits nicely back together. The whole procedure doesn’t take more than thirty-fourty minutes, but it puts far less stress on the body and consequentially your mental health.

Regarding healing vs regen: healing is an instant health increase, while regen is already over time, making healing more dangerous inherently but often more useful to traditionalists, while hospitals keep regen around with healing only in A&E for dire circumstances (undiluted potions are also kept around but again for severe circumstances).

I’ve seen takes of “you have to set the bone right or else it’ll heal wrong” and such around, and I don’t even dislike them as I think they’re cool, but I also like to go with “it’s magic and if your bone ain’t in the right position at the start it will be by the end” which is… a bit horrifying, actually, especially when you then apply that same logic to stuff like shrapnel wounds etc.

Potions are not generally kept or brewed in the home anymore, mainly due to the fact that the ingredients are expensive (proper trade with the piglins has long since been established and made into an actual supply business etc.) and the knowledge is what combination of things you need has just kinda faded out of common knowledge. IRL example: most everyone used to make their own butter and soap and now we buy them at supermarkets, that kinda thing.

All that being said, modern traditionalists are aware of all these facts and if they can they try to use diluted potions/take their time/etc, though that situationally isn’t always possible. So Scar’s worry is pretty much related to Grian’s pain tolerance and the way that pushing on through displays a somewhat janky relationship with how much Grian takes care of his body and thinks of himself. Yeah, this turned into angst, lol.

Side note: potions are kinda terrible for sickness. Sometimes they can help treat the symptoms – example: terrible cough is stressing the lungs and causing chest pain, potion can help heal the lung cells that are being abraded – but actually fighting off a virus? Nah, mate. So to Grian, sickness is very, VERY bad, and he doesn’t really have access to modern health knowledge or medicine. Like, hygiene is a thing he knows just fine. Clean water, clean food, etc. But being sick in certain ways without modern medicine can be a death sentence, especially if you’re going through it alone.

So it’s less “Scar gets a bad cold and Grian shoves regen at him and walks away” and more “Scar gets a bad cold and Grian acts like the world is ending and Scar’s half in the grave already”. Scar is actually very concerned, and Grian may or may not have some unresolved sickness trauma. I mean, one thousand years is a long time to go without getting very badly sick at some point. Alone. And cursed to wait undying. Just sayin’.

Just a real good balance of hurt/comfort and angst/humour once Grian becomes more familiar with modern medicine. Guy’s gonna stock up like a prepper once he learns where the local chemist is and what currency they accept (not diamonds, emeralds, but they do accept gold due to the fact that they can then use it for trade with their piglin business partners).

---

Other worldbuilding things unrelated to potions:

- Grian’s experience with music is the discs that drop from when skeletons shoot each other or the ones in dungeon chests. When you’ve only got less than twenty tracks to choose from, being asked which one is your favourite is easy. (It’s Far, although he has a significant soft spot for Otherside. Yes, he likes Chirp, no it’s not his favourite just ‘cause he’s an avian.) Scar doesn’t really quite know how to react to this reveal, and Grian is distrustful of songs that have singing in them, so Scar just puts on his “absolute most favourite track, Gri!” and it’s. Howling by Lupus Nocte. (Scar’s super fast build mode music).

- The piglins of the Nether know about Grian the Cursed because 1. piglins have long memories, and 2. they’ve been his only consistent source of social interaction for about a thousand years. Grian speaks piglin like a native, even if he does have some more archaic turns of phrase and vocab that he’s never bothered to update

- Related, Nether portals are modernised into being built as part of transport hubs (on both sides) so even if it’s not illegal to place a bunch of obsidian down and light it, it’s just way less convenient (and also runs the risk of spawning in a bad place, i.e. over lava or in some poor piglin’s home. If a piglin takes umbrage with you ‘cause you trashed their home then that’s on you, mate).

- Tricks like MLG water bucket clutching and boosting via punching, any and all speedrun tricks etc. tend to be the realm of traditionalists in everyday use. But there are sports (similar to MCC and any other minigame that the Minecraft community has ever come up with) and tournaments etc. Scar used to be quite the swimmer, you know! Grian finds this hilarious as his Scar likely couldn’t swim or swim very well due to, you know, living in a desert.

- I think it’s understood at this point, but this is a permadeath world, with respawning just not really being a thing. Totems of Undying do exist, but getting them off one of the Evokers in the woodland mansions is pretty, er… well. There’s currently a “you leave us alone, we’ll leave you alone” understanding ongoing, and it’s a bit tense all ‘round, but even Pillagers can’t afford to be at war all the time.

- Grian does have a small farm – it’s mostly crops, and he keeps some chickens and rabbits. He just… can’t, with larger animals. They don’t spawn in the cursed lands, and wander in from outside, but he’s spent the last thousand years living in the exact same area and yet not really settling down, so why bother? Also larger animals are more work. It’s totally not related to Pizza, he swears. (And that’s even true: it’s just one factor of a few. But he does miss her. And Scar. So much.)

- You know that feeling when you’ve got something planned in the afternoon and so the whole day is just this waiting game and you can’t do anything? You feel restless, anticipatory, you tell yourself you can do something to fill them time but nothing’s ever quite right ‘cause you’re still waiting? That’s been Grian’s reality for the last thousand years, in addition to everything else weighing on his mind. Not Fun.

- Okay but Grian is actually really BAMF due to having lived A Long Time and being very experienced and having knowledge that has fallen out of commonality. So even though he is a fish out of water in the modern world, he is very good at not making a scene about it. He just goes very quiet when something freaks him out – and it takes Scar a while to realise that, but he does eventually.

[raichett]

Under the sea, Mumbo (normal mer) and Grian (not-so-normal mer), finally take the next step in their relationship. Feat. definitely not too much worldbuilding #trust and Raichett finally writing Grumbo the way they've been meaning to for ages.

Content warnings: minor injuries, referenced/implied depression, anxiety and abandonment issues, but this is pretty much hurt/comfort fluff from top to bottom. Also: Grian may or may not be an eldritch being of some kind.

Also also: Mumbo is heavily implied to be autistic, which is important to the author, because the author themselves is autistic. Congrats on getting caught in the projector beam, Mumbo Jumbo!

[raichett]

everyone, gird thy loins: there is a Cosmic Ashes update tomorrow

[raichett]

I reckon that Limited Life is probably going to be around 5-6 sessions long at most. 

Think about it: they start with 24 hours. We know that their recording sessions are 3 hours ~ long, so if they stuck to that very strictly then they get 8 sessions max. But giving them leeway for recording sessions to run over by 15-30 mins, etc, more practically the max amount they could run for is 7 full sessions.

Obviously, it’s not going to be 8 or 7 sessions long because of people dying and losing time. I could see it being 6 if some people were very good at killing other people and gaining time, while simultaneously very good at not dying themselves, but realistically I think Limited Life is most likely going to be around 5 sessions.

Who knows, I could be wrong! But considering the return of the Boogeyman mechanic (🎉), the timer mechanic with its losing and gaining of time via death and killing, and the way that Yellow lives can kill Green lives (while Red lives can kill anyone as usual) - all of these combine into creating a very high-energy structure in which a lot can happen very quickly.

I’m calling it now: we’re going to see at least one person hit Yellow in session two, and the stakes are just going to continuously get higher and higher as things devolve into lethal chaos.

I can’t wait 😈