#before Double Life

[all54321]

The Spell of Silence

Grian joins Hermitcraft still as a Watcher. He still split from the ones who turned him, but he still acts as one even solo. Scar discovers and it doesn’t go well for him.

This is the first AU that isn’t really Scarian. I tried, of course, but the way I made this AU and the direction I was taking it… it just didn’t seem like a possible option anymore, not for this AU at least. I made a different/generally darker AU where they do get together, but that’s a whole other thing. Scar does kinda have a crush on Grian still, so… there’s that? His love quickly turns into hatred though.

Grian is pretty evil in this au, but in a more passive sense. He just doesn’t care about so many things that he should care about. The life games though, he goes fully unhinged with them. Like, have you heard his laugh in 3rd life?

—————

Grian rubs a hand over his face, this was not how he saw today going. He paces a few feet away from where Scar lays on the ground, unconscious. He’s not worried, he’s… he just doesn’t want to deal with this at the moment. Grian especially doesn’t want to deal with this if the spell doesn’t work. He casts a glance at Scar again, he also doesn’t know what he’ll do if his spell has… side effects. It shouldn’t, but it’s not like he’s tried to do something like this before.

A quiet groan pulls Grian from his thoughts. He leans over Scar, “Scar? You okay?”

He slowly opens his eyes, eyebrows furrowing in confusion, “Grian… what…?

“How are you feeling?” Grian prompts again, wanting to make sure he’s fine. He may have little regard for what happens to others, but he doesn’t want to permanently hurt any of the hermits. It could also blow his cover if Scar doesn’t recover from this.

Scar stares up at him in confusion still, as if trying to piece the last few moments of his prior consciousness together. After a few seconds he seems like he does because he bolts upwards and backs away from Grian. “You- you were…” he trails off, clearly unable to form the words. Scar still tries, as shown from the increasingly more horrified look on his face.

Grian sighs in relief, “good, it worked.” Considering how little time he had to prepare the best spell, this worked pretty well.

Scar refocuses on him, “w-what?”

“You’re not going to say a word about what you just saw,” Grian says, all traces of warmth gone. “Literally, you are unable to say anything.”

Scar doesn’t say anything, clearing trying to test if that’s true. His horror returns full force the longer the silence goes on. Grian’s rather impressed by this, he didn’t anticipate the spell working this well. After a while Scar swallows, his voice full of nerves and resignation, “why…?”

“Why what?” Grian asks, curious, before immediately realizing, “ah, right, the spell. You can’t clarify.”

“That.”

“The spell?” Scar nods, so Grian continues, “so you can’t tell anyone what you know now. The only other option is to forcibly remove the memories from your mind, but that has a chance to completely shatter your mind, and I’d rather not do that.”

And Scar’s back to looking horrified.

“Now,” Grian adds, “I’d recommend pretending like none of this happened so no one asks questions. I will take my chances with the memory altering spell if you leave me no choice.”

Much to Grian’s surprise, the horror fades from his eyes. Less to Grian’s surprise, it turns into anger. “You… what are you!?”

“I don’t think that’s relevant,” Grian replies easily. Anything Scar learns can’t be shared, that doesn’t mean he needs to tell Scar anything.

“And why not?”

“It’s not important for you to know.”

“It’s not like I can say anything anyway, what’s the point?” Scar angrily snaps.

Grian scoffs, “I don’t need to tell you anything. You barged in here first, I don’t owe you an explanation.”

Scar just glares daggers at him for a few seconds before respond, “why are you doing all of this?”

A grin spreads across Grian’s face, “why? Because it’s fun, of course.”

“Fun? You consider that fun?”

“Chaos is always fun, I thought you guys knew that.”

“You literally-“ Scar falls silent.

“What better way to cause chaos then those games?” Grian says gleefully, knowing what Scar was going to say. “All of you crumbling into fear and paranoia, fighting each other to come out on top, killing without mercy, betrayal. So, so many fun things that don’t happen here on Hermitcraft.” Scar takes a step back at Grian’s passionate response, nerves not even hidden. “I create those games because I can’t do any of that stuff here.” Grian pauses as he realizes he’s doing exactly what he said he wouldn’t. He shrugs the thought away as an idea comes to mind, “you know,” he begins, voice dropping low and edging on a purr. “Wouldn’t it be fun if in the next game I let you keep your memories too?”

“Next?” Scar whispers, taking another step back.

“Of course, why would I stop making those games, I have so many more ideas.” Grian approaches Scar, enjoying his fear, “two is far too low of a number.”

“Get away from me,” he mutters, any heat behind the words lost to the fear that’s taken over again.

“You’re free to leave whenever, I’m not stopping you,” Grian replies, only pausing when he’s right in front of Scar. “I don’t really care what you do as long as you don’t elude to what’s happened here today.”

“And- and if I do?”

“I’ll take my chances with that memory altering spell. So it’s really in your best interest if you keep silent,” Grian says, grinning widely.

Several expressions flit across Scar’s face before panic and fear take hold again. He takes a couple more steps away and, after Grian doesn’t follow, turns tail and flies away on his elytra, spamming rockets to get away faster.

Grian watches the slowly disappearing sparks in silence. This is a little annoying, he’s not too fond of Scar holding this knowledge, even if he can’t use it. It doesn’t help that he’s somewhat fond of the terraformer, because it makes him want to try less risks with keeping this under wraps. Well, he’ll just have to keep an eye (or several) on Scar to make sure everything is fine.

[nezhanetwork]

based on falseknees' comic :)

[mxmarsbars]

third time’s a charm!

[mossylane]

fern. | 👩🏾‍🦲👩🏽‍🦲👩🏼‍🦲👩🏻‍🦲

someone asked me if i was ever gonna release this and i originally had no plans to, but oh well big things are happening in life for me at the moment. so, well i finally threw this thing together in case it's my last cc for a while, or ever...

☼ you know the drill, but in case you don't: it's a default skin, will override current skin, only use one default. okay thx for coming to my tedtalk !!! ☼ any and all eye presets + all weights friendly, infant to elders, unisex

📁 | download - [alt]

credits: ea, miiko, sims3melancholic, obscurus, faaeish, johnnyzest, me (heehee), aubadi, nesurii, and margaret hamilton of course 👑

❗ update log: ❗

8.10.24 - fixed an issue where sims' cheeks would appear semi-pixelated 9.5.24 - finally added a skinblend/overlay version ❗ (only keep the addons for packs you have, the OCCULT_X package files if you have vampires and the FACEMOLES package file if you have growing together) ❗

[daily-dose-of-danno]

Danny warping/distorting himself requested by @ectospacecadet :)

Season 1, Episode 1 - Mystery Meat

Season 1, Episode 4 - Attack of the Killer Garage Sale

Season 1, Episode 10 - Shades of Gray

Season 1, episode 16 - Lucky In Love

Season 1, Episode 18 - Life Lessons

Season 2, Episode 3 - Pirate Radio

Season 2, Episode 8 - The Fright Before Christmas

Season 2, Episode 12 - Beauty Marked

Season 2, Episode 16 - Double Cross my Heart

[ohmanareyoucereal69]

[rainyinautumn]

Did someone say COMPLETE DATA ANALYSIS OF ALL THE DEATHS IN THE LIFE SERIES? No? Well. I did it. Here are some neat graphs for you guys to look at so that you don’t have to deal with the gigantic spreadsheet I did!

Let’s start off with the big bad question: what gets people killed in this game, anyway?

Note that a CAUSE OF DEATH is not the same as a KILL. Cause of death is what pops up in the chat when someone dies (ex. PearlescentMoon was slain by Smallishbeans, BdoubleO100 fell from a high place). The cause of death does not always account for player responsibility (ex. TNT traps). Generally, a player is only considered to be someone’s cause of death if the death occurs through direct PvP combat. HOWEVER, responsibility for an indirect kill such as a trap still goes toward a player’s total kill count—for example, Joel has 14 kills overall, 10 of which are direct enough for him to be considered the actual cause of death. After all, axes don’t kill people without being swung by someone.

A few other whacky things about kill counts:

Self-inflicted deaths do not count toward a player’s kill count (ex. Grian doesn’t get a kill for jumping off Monopoly Mountain at the end of 3rd Life, Scott doesn’t get a kill for blowing himself up at the end of Double Life).

When it comes to Double Life, soulmates are considered to share their three lives. No distinction is made between Soulmate A's life and Soulmate B's life, and each death only counts as one kill (ex. Joel gets one kill for killing Scott with fireworks, even though that also killed Pearl (however, Pearl’s cause of death is still Joel, as her life is considered the same as Scott’s)).

Using the /kill command does not count toward your kill count. Grian.

With that cleared up, let’s look at kill counts.

By the skin of his teeth, Grian leads the pack in total kills. The top three you see on that graph are the only players who have a KDR (kill-to-death ratio) of more than 1—for you folks who are unfamiliar with those, a KDR of more than 1 means you kill other people more often than you die. Less than 1 means you die more often than you kill other people. Here are the highest and lowest KDRs in the series:

“What’s this?” I hear you say. “Jimmy Wet-Paper-Bag-of-a-Man Solidarity DOESN’T have the lowest KDR in the series?”

No. No, he does not, and it’s actually really funny you should ask.

Because of Last Life’s mechanic of life transferring, even players that have been in all three installments of the Life Series don’t have the same death count. Eight players died more than three times in Last Life. Another eight died exactly three times. And one player only died twice.

By virtue of starting on yellow and never receiving any extra lives in Last Life, Jimmy holds the record for fewest deaths in an installment of the Life Series with just two deaths in Last Life. He is the only player to ever die less than three times in a game. This means that although he has just one kill, he has fewer total deaths than BigB (who has died a very standard nine times), the only other player with one kill, so his KDR is higher. Congrats, Jimmy, you’re not last in everything. But you are still the only player without a PvP kill.

Speaking of PvP, it’s time to look at how people do that! Here’s a graph of the top five weapons that tend to land PvP kills the most in the series:

And now here’s weapon preferences by game:

[Double Life not depicted due to lack of PvP deaths—only 4 occurred, using a diamond axe, a diamond sword, fireworks, and an iron axe respectively.]

Despite 19 more deaths occurring in Last Life than 3rd Life, the two actually have the exact same amount of PvP kills (28). It’s interesting to note the strong preference for bows in 3rd Life, which was a much more warlike game and had several fairly formal battles where people fought from a distance. Last Life required an overall sneakier strategy, resulting in a higher use of traps. In combat, non-ranged weapons like swords and axes were generally preferred due to fights often starting in close proximity and without warning, courtesy of the Boogeyman curse. Comparatively, Double Life saw remarkably few PvP kills, likely due to each person being twice as accident-prone by virtue of being linked to another player—in fact, with a total of 12, accidents accounted for three times as many deaths as PvP in Double Life and overall for more than half (57%) of the deaths in the game.

As for individual player stats sheets, here’s an example of one of those:

If you want to see one of those for ALL 17 PLAYERS, you can go to this slideshow! More details about the stats can be found in the presentation notes of each slide. And, if you have a really specific question and want to get into the nitty gritty, feel free to send me an ask! Hope you guys enjoyed the data!

[isjasz]

[Day 26]

Time set after bigbs death probably

Props to anyone that knows where the quote is from >:) (i had this idea in my notes for over a year LMAO)

[myrathefarmer]

Wildflowers and Weeds 💐

Redraw of my old Life Series Cleo designs over on Twitter!

[ethosiab]

isnt it crazy how up until limited life almost everything etho cared about got set on fire and burnt over and over again. wild.

you get the wip too because. i hate this.s

[samtamdan]

[dredgesnails]

i very badly want a double life 2: electric boogaloo but crucially no one is allowed to be paired up with their soulmate from the first one (except ranchers) and also lizzie and gem and mumbo and skizz are there too. anyway here are some pairings i think would be funny or interesting or would please me personally:

mumbo + scar: complete the mumscarian circuit

mumbo + lizzie: statistically the worst players right after jimmy. lizzie died before him once and she can do it again (and take mumbo with her)

grian + jimmy: nightmare scenario for the both of them

pearl + gem: an unfair matchup as they would win no problem but i love them together and i think we deserve them together after the events of secret life

scar + tango: wildly unpredictable. scar takes damage constantly but (almost) always escapes by the skin of his teeth. tango on the other hand has blown himself up before

pair them up best + worst in order (pearl + jimmy, gem + mumbo, scott + lizzie etc) and see if they manage to balance each other out. this takes out some of the randomness but there are still some fun duos i think would come out of it (etho + bdubs, skizz + martyn, impulse + bigb) and i also think pearl could keep jimmy alive long enough to not die first

and for lore reasons:

grian + bigb: lets see how the secret soulmates can handle being real soulmates

scott + jimmy: ok i know the last time they were together jimmy doomed them both with his curse but this time it’ll be different scott’s lucky now

cleo + etho: the progression of divorced with kids > roomies > soulmates tickles me

ren + martyn: i miss renchanting

+ bonus because i have been thinking about who i would want joining the life series a lot. this is who i want to join

doc + anyone really but mostly grian: okay seriously i imagined doc in the life series once and now ive been consumed by the desire to see it. especially with his health linked to grian. think about it. would be fun with ren also for entirely opposite reasons

[nunafilms]

I told you she is a poison user.

✩ The Double ─ Episode 35 (墨雨云间)

[mxmarsbars]

happy pride month (again)

[thealexchen]

thoughts on LIS: Double Exposure?

This is probably gonna be my hottest take in awhile, but: I deeply dislike the idea of an official LiS1 direct sequel game existing. Excluding all my thoughts on the gameplay, story, Max's character, etc. I don't think a game like Double Exposure is necessary.

This isn't a new take either; back in 2020 I made a Reddit post saying I was glad we never got a continuation of Max and Chloe's story, because in order to have a plot, you have to have conflict. And to have conflict means your characters are forced to change or struggle in some way, and I simply wasn't interested in seeing that again. I never even read the comics. As long as Max and Chloe's future existed only in the fanbase's collective imagination and not in an officially licensed game, Pricefield could be as happy as I wanted and I wouldn't have to witness DN or D9's version of canon.

A lot of fans, including myself, are also confused and upset as to where Chloe could be in Double Exposure. Even if Chloe winds up having a surprise role, it would likely be too logistically difficult to write Chloe into one version of the story and not the other. Either way, DE is strongly pointing to Chloe no longer being the deuteragonist. If D9 was going to make a direct sequel with Max and Chloe, I could at least be intrigued by how they might write their dynamic and how they'd use Max's power in new and interesting ways. But instead there's... none of that. Chloe's nowhere to be seen and Max can't time travel anymore.

On a narrative level, Max and Chloe are the heart of the original Life is Strange. They represent the game's central relationship, and their very first interaction (Max saving Chloe's life) kicks off the entire story. Throughout the story, their dynamic advances the plot and mutually motivates their character arcs. You can't have LiS1 without either Max or Chloe; the story simply wouldn't exist without them. Now in DE, they don't even seem to be in each other's lives anymore. It's true, this series is meant to reflect universal feelings and experiences, which could include breakups, but the romantic catharsis of Pricefield as canon soulmates who defied time and space itself to stay together forever is something you can only get from the beauty of fiction. To jab DE's story with a dose of reality and go, "Eh, they grew apart. Shit happens," totally undermines everything the Bae ending stood for.

On a technical level, Max's rewind was an objectively brilliant game mechanic. LiS1 arrived onto the scene after Telltale had paved the way for the resurgence of choice-based, episodic games, but LiS1 totally reinvented the wheel by giving the player the option to go back and weigh each option before continuing, essentially save-scumming in-game. But the right choice was never that easy to determine, and Rewind brilliantly complemented Max's character arc of overcoming her indecision and learning to live with her choices. Not to mention, you could also use Rewind to solve puzzles, instead of the endless fetch quests the later games had. No other LiS game since then has given the player that kind of agency and interactivity. LiS2 had telekinesis, but the player couldn't use it, only Daniel. D9 tried with Backtalk and Empathy, but Max's Rewind was truly the narrative and gameplay jackpot that they haven't been able to recreate since.

So if you take away one half of the central relationship that made the first game so memorable, and the supernatural power/game mechanic that made it so fun to play... why even bring Max back at all? It just feels like D9 threw away their golden opportunity to build upon the major selling points of the first game and are only relying on name recognition of the Life is Strange "brand" and Max Caulfield.

What upsets me most of all about a direct sequel existing is that it proves that Life is Strange, as a series, now stands more for profits than originality. Life is Strange will always be an IP meant to make money for Square, I know that, but back when LiS1 was just a brand new episodic game, it stood out for how different it dared to be. In a landscape saturated with shooters, sexualized female characters, and casual misogyny, LiS1 instead featured a teenage girl in a contemporary setting that took her seriously and made her the hero of her story. Before it was a franchise, LiS wasn't concerned with the bottom dollar; it was a piece of art that just wanted to tell a thoughtful, unique story.

Whether you love it or hate it, Life is Strange 2 was an insanely risky follow-up to Life is Strange that refused to rely on the convenience of a direct sequel because Dontnod stuck to their artistic vision. Meanwhile, all of Deck Nine's games have leaned on the first game's following to generate interest (BtS being a direct prequel, TC bringing back Steph, and Wavelengths expanding on Steph's connection to Chloe, Rachel, and Arcadia Bay). In other words, all of the subsequent LiS games by D9 have played it very, very safe. It's worked like a damn charm because there are still elements I love about each game, but the basic principle is nostalgia-baiting fans. It's just that now, Double Exposure isn't hiding that nostalgia bait at all anymore and prioritizing profits over telling a unique story. It's sad to see that LiS has strayed so far from its risky, daring, original, and unique artistic beginnings.

Before I end, I'll say that I can't be too cynical about it all, nor do I want to be. Because I can't deny how much joy this whole series has brought me, too. LiS was what got me into narrative adventure games and pushed the boundaries of what a video game could be. If nothing else, I am truly thrilled that Hannah Telle got the chance to play Max again. D9's always been great at maintaining relationships with their actors, and the casts of their games always have consistently great chemistry. Getting recognized by Erika Mori on my own blog is still unbelievable and speaks to the amazing community that LiS has built. As you can see, I'm still posting and reblogging stuff about Double Exposure. And while I don't see myself buying or playing this game for myself, I know it'll keep all of us talking for awhile, and I still live for a good discussion.

Thank you for asking! And thank you for reading.

[uncanny-tranny]

Important tip for trans men/transmascs/whoever needs the reminder: Even if you pass as a man to cis people, you still need to have either some form of self-protection on you (e.g., mace, knives (if you can use them effectively), ect.) or know some form of self-defense. Please take it from me, you don't know what will happen out there at any given time.

You might assume that if you pass as a cis man to cis people, you will be safe from any harm. While I wish that were true, it simply isn't the world most of us live in. Please do whatever you can to protect yourself out there.