#slight evo smp

[taurtise]

Fic Notes

Just typing them out since there's a lot and it's easier just to type it, and better for anyone who has a hard time just reading/needs a screen reader

Super long so, enjoy <3 If you wanna do stuff with any of this you can, just leave credit or a note to me if you take heavy/direct inspo and stuff from it

Early game/kinda set-up stuff: Scar talks to Grian being like "hey man. You seem stressed and territorial, you good? Oh. Oh you have a refugee, okay cool. Can I give him cookies?"

Taurtis and Pearl are besties bc I say so. Pearl's favorite past time with him is picking his brain for stuff that he's seen but she hasn't before, and they bond over liking weird alien stuff. She shows him her collection and 1.18 update investigation room.

-

Scar "you can't keep him in your house forever, G."

Gri "And why not!"

Scar "He's a person! How would you feel if you were holed up in someone's house and not allowed to leave?"

Gri "Shut up." (Cause, yknow, Sam locked him in the basement for three days that one time)

(Taurtis wouldn't actually be unallowed to leave, Grian would just be wary and anxious and paranoid about it)

-

Late night bed talks. One being where Taurtis asks "Grian, am I funny?" and G goes "Yeah, you're really funny. What, did you make a lame dad joke today?" And Taurtis pauses a bit before rolling onto his side, facing away and responding "Oh yeah, it was a super lame joke." And Grian kinda catches on that, hey this is weird behavior for Taurtis, and decides to confront him about it, hence these lines:

T "What, am I just comedic relief to you? Is that still all I am?"

G "You've always been more than just a joke, don't say that."

-

Mid-game: Scar's "Hey man you're a bit off" turns to "dude you're extremely bad right now. You need to relax. It's okay. Chill pill, my dude." And Grian is a stubborn bitch that keeps pushing his help away, so Scar tries to get Taurtis to help him with Grian.

Winter hits and Grian spends most of his days sleeping due to instincts, or something, idk it's an excuse to make him sleep and have Taurtis be crazy amounts of domestic with him. Taurtis "accidentally" makes too much breakfast to finish on his own so he wakes up Grian to share it with him. (He called Scar to see if he'd want it, not wanting to wake Grian, but Scar told him it'd be good for the pesky bird to have a meal before sleeping more)

Grian starts seeing shit due to his stress and the fact that the watchers have been following Taurtis this whole time without him realizing up to a certain point. Inspired by me seeing the foggy moon and going "huh that looks like a watcher eye." Thank you, Grian introject moment, pogchamp.

Xisuma starts asking people during casual chats if they've noticed anything different about the server. When he asks Grian, G lies and says he hasn't when he knows the watchers have found a way to get to Hermitcraft too, not wanting to expose himself and risk being looked into deeper from before joining HC. They know him and Pearl were in a server before, but not that it was a server full of watchers and eventual destruction. This causes Grian to get more stressed, develop worse insomnia, and try and figure out a way to send Taurtis home faster. He tries to ignore the inner misery and prioritize the safety of everyone else, but internally struggles with reassuring himself that Taurtis will even be safe after leaving.

Grian starts using his watcher powers when alone to influence the others to do things, just to show the other watchers that he's doing his job and they don't have to stay. They aren't convinced until him and two other watchers have a direct confrontation, in watcher forms rather than their human-esque forms, maybe spend a whole chapter showing their conversation before Xisuma locates where they are due to the heightened levels of their presence, confronting Grian now about what he was thinking and why all of this is happening.

Grian finds out that the other watchers lurking over the server managed to gain enough control to start forming an evo portal, finding it half finished and deciding to use his own control to make "clues". The clues are fake and only there to steer Taurtis away from the portal, but the other watchers change what Grian's clues say to lead him towards it no matter what. Taurtis sees the portal behind an evo symbol and gets mad at Grian, thinking he's tying to send him back to evo to be alone like he was before. (I didn't watch evo, just wanted to find a way to make it appear like Grian abandoned him from Taurtis's perspective.) Grian tries explaining himself, but Taurtis is done listening.

Taurtis starts showing more obvious signs that his sense of confusion from the down under has caused occasional confusion to places he's in, even if he's been there long term. Just a lil, lil somethin, y'know?

Grian's psychotic (literally) and Taurtis is autistic. Not mid game but just had to put that out there.

-

Long game/end game: (omg just like avenger's end game- shut up. No. Stop.)

There's a sort of banquet to celebrate the ending of season nine as they progress into season ten.

Taurtis has to face the truth that he's never wanted to leave in the first place. He had to accept that fact mid game, but here he has to say it outright to Grian who's absorbed himself into figuring out every nook and cranny and function of that portal, so much that the skulk and purple has grown more on him.

The purple area spreads more on his right arm since that's the one he stick into the rift after activating the portal again. Something that's noticed overtime as he continues experimenting on and interacting with the rift and the area it was at in general.

-----Additional Notes/How Watcher presence affects players-----

A large amount of Watcher presence will cause listeners and the watched to feel paranoid, sick or uneasy. The more watching them, the worse the effects are. This is how Grian connects the rift's sudden behavior change to the watchers, Mumbo pointing out how he's felt the past few days one night while researching and experimenting on the portal with him.

And then this all was going to lead up to an additional fic to the series where they'd have to do a life series to satisfy the Watchers's need for violence, but the watchers found a way to strike a deal with Sam to make things more interesting, and Grian and Sam end up being soulbound for it with Grian barely winning by killing Sam in the end after everyone else has died out.

Similar to Double Life, but would have more stakes and need for staying close to soulmates as well as different effects and changes to players with the loss of lives and distance between soulmates.

[rowoan-yhs]

hello tumblr

part of an old grian au, he travels through the multiverse as a watcher bla bla im not gonna elaborate anymore have fun

[bubblebeebuzz]

if i had a penny for every time grian made a shrine to someone he wanted to join a server... i'd have two pennies. which isn't a lot, but weird that it happened twice, right?

[veeiiiii-0-ween]

This is like cover art for BoC

Concept art

VvvV

Bringer of Change (2nd) is a mostly pixelated game but with elements of breath of the wild in it.

If you have any ideas for this then tell me! Or make your own content!

Its an Au for a reason! You can add on just tell me id love to see it!

[deityoftherain]

Alright, enjoyers of putting the same (more or less) players through different versions of death games with slight alterations! I have a question-

Comment or reblog if you want to say more! Also, I need an explanation on the lore because I’m only keeping up on it with vibes and vibes only (the animatics/fanart/cosplays/etc are great though love everything about it)

[la-bruja]

yes hello im watching evo now to find out more about the watchers from last life martyn inthelittlewoods anyway how does this make yall feel from a story telling pov random thoughts under the readmore

im obsessed with the body language being shown here (this is like-- a semi-transcript)

taurtis catches grian talking to himself and lightly mocks/teases him. "talking to yourself again?" (grian was bare-handed and then switches to carrying an diamond axe [grian wtf that feels so threatening] ) grian sounds a bit mm strained when he states "the audience, im talking to the audience."

"oh yea the audience, yea right" [he sounds so condescending here taurtis what]

they move closer to one another. (grians swaps from his axe to his pickaxe) they're not looking directly at each other. taurtis is slightly to the left of grian, just out of crosshair. [this is the start of taurtis shimmy-ing around to keep out of grian's crosshair why does he keep doing this taurtis why are trying so hard to stay away]

"does the audience talk back to you grian?" [taurtis says grian with a slight inflection on the -ian and its?? why is he being vaugely condescending about it.]

quietly, [you could barely hear him if your audio was low.] grian mumbles "sometimes..."

taurtis moves closer but still not in the crosshair, "sometimes?" then like, not mockingly but like almost condescending ig, "yea okay." which overlaps with grians stutter, "usual-usually"

grian looks down slightly, "-yea in text form" [this is obviously about us commenting on his videos but 'in-character' its fascinating! does this mean he sees words floating in his vision?]

grian looks back up and taurtis asks, "does the-" he moves left slightly, "does the audience tell you to do bad-" he looks towards the right now and backs away " things and-" (grians looks away here briefly, before looking back at taurtis again.) taurtis does a little spin "-blow up-" and moves toward grian again "-peoples properties and stuff?" [this is like, the most taurtis has moved in one moment homie u good?]

grian looks up slightly, "actually they do," (taurtis awkwardly laughs) "quite a lot" taurtis laughs again and as he backs away says "do they?" in a slightly incredulous tone of voice. grian awkwardly laughs with him and affims, "they do, they-"

taurtis says something here i cant discern

"youre blaming " taurtis moves closer to grian, not in his face but deffo near bumping into grian's shoulder. " the voices in your head?"

[okay so with player physics you can like-almost phase into another player before you bump into them and the game registers this as a solid collision and physics the opposing character away from you. im not sure if this is what taurtis did to grian or if grian simply moved away.]

grian backs away and finally moves to where he's looking taurtis in the eyes (aka the crosshair is finally directly on taurtis). "No lo- no, no legitimately" taurtis backs away and angles himself away, he's almost but not quite out of the crosshair. [he's trying so hard to be out of grian's crosshair without being terribly obvious about it] grian steps closer and his crosshair is still on him, "people who watch evo are like" they're both laughing and taurtis finally moves out grian's crosshair. grian then mock-yells, pretending to be the audience "burn the squid! burn the squid! burn the squid!" "oh my gosh" taurtis murmurs as he looks off then looks back at grian. (this is overlapping with with grian) "burn netty's house!" taurtis awkwardly laughs. (overlapping again) "destroy the property police station!" taurtis backs away again and angles his body away and out of grian's crosshairs. "tnt spawn!" he moves forward into grians crosshairs "destroy the world!"

"they're blood-thirsty dude." he turns 180 and moves out of grians crosshair. "oh my gosh" he looks off to the side. [hes like, astonished at this]

grian moves to keep taurtis in his crosshair

"theyre just-" taurtis snaps to look at grian directly "they're just valued members of the grian empire" [grian wtf why does this sound so ominous]

"of course, of course" taurtis does a little nod and he looks off to the side and upward. [taurtis feels, like wary?? but accepting of this.]

so uh???? bestie help i analyzed an evo clip for no reason

[lunarblazes]

[GRABS YOU] ELABORATE ON THE RED WATCHER CONCEPT NOW. I AM ACTIVELY CHARGING UP A LIGHTNING SPELL AT YOU. THIS IS A DEMAND AND A THREAT

i. i forgot to answer this until i was ALMOST ASLEEP but BETTER LATE THAN NEVER I GUESS??

this is probably going to get long SO. here is a lovely read more!

so uh! for those of you who don’t know, at the end of evolution smp (at least for grian, a lot of the members continued without him), grian was chosen to become part of a group known as the watchers. his text at the end, where he becomes a watcher, is in bright, vivid red, probably because that’s his signature color.

surprisingly, despite the name, the watchers themselves don’t really appear much in this… interpretation? headcanon? au? concept? what does matter is that they are universal beings of peace and balance, and they need their balances. they’re pretty omnipresent, yet distant. the consequences of their choices are really the biggest thing to deal with here. the root of the red watcher concept is basically just tying grian’s end text color to the idea of red lives, something something a watcher of violence, something something balance keeper, something something oops now i have an entire concept and brainrot on my hands!

now i’m gonna copy-paste the explanation i wrote out on discord and sprinkle in some elaboration as needed! here we go, mario:

“the red watcher is a title, passed down between mortals and given by the watchers. each red watcher is given the full scale of watcher abilities, appearance, and an extended lifespan. in exchange, the red watchers must maintain balance for the watchers, essentially acting as a hand for the watchers to control. a pawn, of sorts.

naturally, the watchers select grian to be the next crimson-seeing at the end of third life, hence why i drew that one piece of him and scar kneeling in the lake, where he’s almost blinking back the yellow eyes that are following him. the gifts continually fuck with him throughout the course of that series (some of you might know that he was completely human before the series started), changing his appearance and basically everything about him. this interference from the watchers, grian’s rejection of said gifts, appearance, and interference, and the mutilation of the world work together to create the perfect storm of last life. the curse is spreading among the players because grian refuses to accept anything he’s been given, so restlessly, the mantle skips among the participants, never quite settling completely because the one who’s meant to take the role just *will not.*

but i mean. he’s the first victim of his own curse. the red watcher is also called the angel of violence.”

and here is a description of what exactly his defiance does to him (plus a general description of his design and its progression, including how he lost an ear!):

“okay so what changes first are the wings, obviously, uhh those grow in pretty soon after he first joins the world. the most fucked up things about 3L!grian are is slight talons, his wings, and his right ear. his right ear was blasted off in the battle of the red desert, and the wing-like replacement that grew back isn’t an ear so much as a reminder about how fucked up things are getting lmao. so this man is very hoh; him and scar invent a sort of shorthand signing system for battles where grian can’t hear him, but since he can still sort of hear with his other ear usually they talk to each other in casual situations. the talons are a formation that happens on his red life (one change per life hahaaa, wings on green, ear just before yellow, and talons on red). they’re not bird talons cos he’s a dragonfly, they’re harder and more spike-like, with better articulation than dragonfly spikes, but they’re still sort of coated in an exoskeleton because that’s sick as hell. in last life, he wakes up the same, but once they’re assigned their lives shit starts going south again, probably because he’s immediately yellow and because the watchers are impatient after being evaded for so long. his talons get longer and more armored, and as you can see his feet are now funky lil bug spikes because i think that looks neat! sorta took an inspiration from hollow knight for this design, though that’s more based on beetles. his eyes are prismatic like a dragonfly’s and it gives him a massive headache sometimes. i didn’t draw this part but! scar tore out a chunk of his wings during the finale of third life, so they shouldn’t be that complete. those wounds stayed, though eventually they might heal over, maybe. maybe.”

concepts from this also bleed into my hcs for other members! for instance, the inhuman progression isn’t necessarily limited to grian, though it works a bit differently for him. nearly everyone on the server experiences the same progression at different rates as a side effect of being on a server run by such a physically volatile being. grian’s will be near constant changes, but for the rest of the crew, it’s usually limited to life loss and change occurring then. some players— notably scott and martyn— are not human to begin with but have their inhuman features deepened over time (martyn is a moon spirit with dragon features and scott is a wind spirit with nymph-like tendencies). i have a progression planned for nearly every member because i’m a huge dork, so. if anyone’s curious! this post is the most in-depth one, though, because i am a fucking fool. this universe isn’t really connected to hc/empires or other servers, it’s self-contained! not sure if evo is even canon yet, though it probably is.

so yes! if you see me mention the red watcher concept, that’s what it is. it’s been a few times; i should make a tag for it, honestly. i get massive brainrot over this shit and i KNOW it’s overdone but MAN.

[limelocked]

The Watchers, a guide and analysis

This was supposed to be a two sentience joke about Evo still living on without Grian despite what I read in ATUS but it turned into a 3 page comp of everything I know about the Watchers and their general vibe, read at your own risk.

Appearance

There’s two Watchers and there has been two statues made in EVO, assuming the statues are made in their image we can assume that one of them has short, dark or ashen hair (clay) while the other has light or golden long hair (sandstone). In their statues the ashen haired one has small sandstone wings while the golden haired one has very large wings of clay.

The clay haired one and the golden haired one also differ in body shape. The ashen one is slender with a body shaped almost like an hourglass while the golden haired one has a more triangular body that could be interpreted as it wearing a flowing dress, this is backed up by its triangular sideangle as well, it having a traditional dress train behind it.

Both statues shown (Grians punishment/temptation (shown in his episode 22) and the Watcher clue (shown on most POVs but #21 by SalemsLady)) have had stone used for their skin and body and only one (clay haired one) has been given eyes which were made from cobblestone.

The materials used have though probably been limited by the early block palette of Minecraft.

- WeTheWatchers - the account name of the author of later written books given to the players by the Watchers also gives some insight to what the Watchers could look like.

The skin the account uses is of a monochrome hooded figure with the faces of the Alex and Steve default skins fused together half and half (Alex left Steve right). The robe is dark gray and goes all the way down to the avatars feet and has a brown belt that provides the only color in the design. On the back of the robe is a light gray Watcher portal insignia.

In the end Dialogue of the post dragon fight the two Watchers talk in color. Watcher One in Green, Watcher Two in Blue and we see that Watcher Three, Grian, talk in red. The significance of the colors are unknown if there is any as the colors closely resemble the ones of the two entities in the Minecraft End Poem.

Acting

The two Watchers have pretty similar if not identical personalities in their signs and in the end Dialogue. As entities the two Watchers enjoy puzzles and often treat the players like pets, not toys or subjects to rule over but as pets that have their affection. In the Dialogue they reminisce about the server with an air of parentage but their actions previously seems to indicate that they don’t see the players as children or students.

Their voice has the energy of two beings that use the players as entertainment for themselves, that they have power over to punish, reward and tempt as they please and rarely (though sometimes) to guide into better moral standings (Martyns false mayorship punishment). There is no room in their voice for the players to ascend to their level.

Most of all the Watchers are, from my current perspective, petty. Their rewards to the players are affected by their standing with the Watchers and how much the Watchers like them. The punishments for slights are huge and overblown.

They will also tempt the players and punish accordingly if they give in to the greed and, curiously, if asked to fulfil a wish they will grant it with a temptation/warning. (see: Property Police obtaining zombie spawn eggs)

They will also recognise chosen names like Morty Gadge and Pete Bills while giving some nicknames themselves such as Grian being called both “The Exploding One” and “The Empire” in clues or in the Dialogue.

Architecture

The Watchers have a few interesting patterns that come back such as Block Palette and Build Style.

 -

Block Palette: From the beginning the block palette was relatively limited showing a preference to sand/sandstone, obsidian, bedrock and gray blocks like clay and stone.

This palette has a heavy light/dark contrast with yellow/blue undertones as they seem to avoid using the pure white snow blocks and black wool.

-

Build Style: There’s, I think, three categories that most Watcher builds fall into.  Caves, Grecoroman and Towers.

- Caves: A LOT of the Watchers builds fall into the cave/underground category as many of the later clues and portals were found underground. For these builds Sandstone seems to be the prefered material. - Grecoroman: Grecoroman is the style of architecture that melds the build style of ancient Greece and Rome. It usually involves domes, pillars and tall archways. Early in the SMP this was the prefered build style of the Watchers. - Towers: This is a loose category that includes the obelisk and clue pillars AS WELL as the netherrack “torches” in the post dragon fight spawn. Towers are rarely used other than as landmarks for new clues or as midway points between clues.

Abilities

Their full abilities are unknown but the following is what is known.

- They have the ability to create anything within the world they watch over, buildings, meteors, etc, and have full control over every block (see: liberal use of bedrock).

- They have mastered time travel/version travel to where they can create portals to the future/newer versions.

- As seen in the statue of the golden haired Watcher they also have some sort of perhaps magic staffs (statue depicted holding two staffs where glass is floating up from them like magic). The magic might be the same that lets them create buildings/blocks as it was in connection to Grians chests being “locked” by obsidian courtesy of the Watchers punishment.

- The Watchers also know several ciphers such as Morse code and the Galactic alphabet.

Grian

Grians part in this is relatively small so I’ll try to keep it short.

Grian is stolen from the rest of the server once he enters the end portal after winning the Ender Dragon fight and is addressed as an equal (Watcher One referring to him as “friend” like with Watcher Two) Watcher One also takes a tone that could be likened to them talking to a child with him (“Grian, I think it is time for you to come with us now.”).

In the Dialogue Grian seems sad but resigned to his fate as something that has to be done, like a martyr. He wishes the rest of the community good luck and reminds them that he will be in their hearts and spirits and that he will enjoy watching them.

Iconography

Wings; both statues, assuming they were made in the creators image, have wings and so we can assume they are winged beings.

Eyes; despite the lack of eyes on the golden haired Watchers statue there was a clear eye symbol over the portal leading to 1.7.10. This could though only be their version of the ears of the Listeners (an assumed opposite of the Watchers we know extremely little about).

Speculation

Warning; This is wholesale speculation with only little basis in the above analyses and I don’t even agree with some of the things I’m about to suggest.

WeTheWatchers skin: The skin presents 4 theories for me.

 1 - The fused Alex and Steve face is a mask to look like the player, to show duality, to hide their face and/or something else.

 2 - The skin is a fusion between the two Watchers, the Watchers being Alex and Steve. This ties in with the blue and green text correlating to their eye/shirt color like Grians red text does with his sweater.

 3 - The skin has little or no correlation with the true appearance of the Watchers.

 4 - The skin is one to one with the appearance of a Watcher and the statues aren’t made in the Watchers image.

Towers:

 With the focus on towers and the effects of the Downside Up, a version/time left behind by the Watchers that has a purple sky following the netherportal texture and animation as well as having enderman particles in the air, there might be some connection to the end. There could also be a connection correlating with the End dimension return portal stealing Grian as well.