#goodtimeswithscar analysis

[allay-uxini]

YOU PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THIS

One is the champion of the stars and the other the champion of the moon

One dances at the top of the world and the other used to reside there

One who had to accept a sacrifice and the other who refused it

One surrounded by friends and companions, revered and respected by all and the other alone, forgotten and underestimated

One who's feared by all during secret life and the other who was feared during 3rd life yet deep down they're both kind souls who just want to have fun and be free

Scar was once like Gem, bold and adventurous, didn't care for the rules placed upon him, viewing the world as nothing but a silly game, always taking everything for granted..... That is, until he couldn't anymore

Until he had to learn what it's like to be alone, unable to escape the rules of the game forcing him to fall into solitude

Perhaps he sees his past self in Gem, bold, naive, not a single care in the world

Perhaps that's why he can spot Gem's trap, because he too was once unafraid of taking risks and overconfident, willing to take his chances even if they don't work out

Perhaps that's why he had to kill her, to finally kill a version of himself long gone, a version who would choose to create a sand monopoly rather than mine for resources that would actually help him, a version who isn't afraid to step on the toes of the members of the server with the strongest enchantments, a version who was willing to start an entire war for the sake of a llama, a version who took his only companion for granted

save me sl!gem and sl!scar as character foils save me

[nerdyenby]

Sorry, your boyfriend got reincarnated. Yeah, he doesn’t remember that time you murdered him with your bare hands. He doesn’t know how much you love him. He doesn’t know that you’ve killed for him. He doesn’t know that you’ve killed him. He doesn’t know it’ll happen again. As he takes your hand and your heart, and you laugh from atop an animal the two of you ride together, he doesn’t know you’ve been here before. He doesn’t know it’ll happen again.

[rose-tries-to-write]

Thinking about how, when Scar turns red in Third Life, his first actions are collecting flowers to beg to stay with Grian.

That, when faced with being a red life—the first and only red life—his first actions aren’t bloodthirst and anger but desperation to keep the relationship he’s made.

That, in a game where alliances are kept through deeds, debts, and doubt—he offered flowers. He didn’t sell the idea of staying teammates, he didn’t even try. He offered the flowers and begged to stay by Grians side, but was fully prepared to walk away without another word. Was prepared to forget his scamming nature, to lay down flowers and nothing more.

Also, in the image of the flowers being a bouquet, imagine him being gone for hours after his death.

Grian is waiting and Scar is holed up in the forest somewhere meticulously crafting this arrangement despite having no idea what he’s doing. He could only find two flowers, and the mess he puts together isn’t anything anyone would ever sell, but he made it from scratch. He put in the effort, spent hours on it until he deemed it perfect and only then did he bring it to Grian.

It’s ugly, and there is no twine holding it together nor a sheet, but the flowers aren’t wilted. All of them are the most vibrant, healthy flowers he could find and not one is missing a petal due to his hands.

His hands—used to scam, maim, and betray—made gentle for the effort of making something worthy of someone like Grian.

[astrowarr]

i feel like there's this really common misconception that since 3rd life, scar has repeatedly been some helpless victim to grian as he yearns for him but is disregarded at every turn. but honestly, watching and analyzing both their povs especially from LL and DL, this is really untrue

you know, last life DOES have the whole "grian stealing scar's life" thing, but after scar takes yellow snow it's marked as water under the bridge for him. for GRIAN though...

there's this whole conversation early in the series where scar, unprompted, Immediately starts denouncing sand, talking about how annoying and disgusting it is. if i were grian, i would absolutely take that as him denouncing their past together, and everything they stood for in the desert. there's so much vitriol in his voice that it's actually jarring. there's more, too, like scar going back on the soul crystal deal.

throughout the rest of the season, the two of them keep gravitating around each other. it's especially grian though, where you blink and suddenly he's at scar's side. there's this strange scene from scar's pov where they're at the top of magical mountain, and the southerners are on their way out after enchanting as red joel comes in. as joel talks to scar, grian lurks threateningly and protectively in the doorway, sword and crossbow in hand and trained on joel. he wasn't told to. his team has left him as he stands there dutifully. he watches from the background and helps in the subtle ways he feels comfortable, because he's so hurt by scar's casual cruelty and disdain toward 3rd life.

even if you don't think grian particularly cared about scar in last life though, something to consider is that grian is a character highly motivated by guilt. it overwhelms him. it is his tragic flaw in so many scenarios. a character this prone to guilt hearing scar's hatred for what represented the two of them would absolutely take that as "he hates me for what i did to him; he can't forgive me for killing him."

now double life is a BEAST to tackle because there's so much. but the most important stuff happens in episode one, because— and genuinely no one acknowledges this— scar spends the entire thing declaring his hatred for soulmates. all he does is proclaim his unwillingness to participate in it all, to the point where he's not planning to find his soulmate at all, and says, and I quote, "i don't care about my soulmate."

he doesn't just do this when he's by himself, but he says it directly to grian. several times. he even says, after grian's reveal, "do we need to base together?" and ignores grian's heartfelt, sentimental plea of "We don't have to but… i-it might be nice. If I can… look out for you…” to instead run away and take damage on purpose.

he continues throughout the season to be much more devoted to the jellies than anything else. scar is the one who invents soulmate torture! and he thinks this up before grian is even considering the secret soulmate thing, and when he starts doing it, it's when grian is entirely innocent of any wrongdoing. he starts it when grian says the jellies can't stay inside the base, but conveniently in his first episode, he cut out the part where grian outright says "no" to letting them stay. scar brings them anyway, and then villainizes grian for holding firm on the boundary he already blatantly set earlier... he even tells pearl she's lucky she doesn't have to deal with having a soulmate?

idk there's so much to their relationship especially in double life that i didn't cover here that shows that, as much as grian verbally played the role of "unwilling partner" in double life, from the jump he was devoted and loving. you can never go by what grian says, you can only go by his actions!! and his actions said over and over that he loved scar and wanted to be with him even if he was afraid, but scar (albeit unknowingly) denounced their bond at every turn. and his mind didn't change on soulmates, even after he found out his was grian.

this is something i can talk about for a million years and i have so much textual evidence but yeah ANYWAY scarian is mutually so toxic and weird and in love and im obsessed with them

[ladidatt]

This session was something for sure! I was constantly bobbing between ecstasy and depression. (I was left in depression as mumbo died😢). What with the almost pointed questions (why did the bot have to do scar like that) and the mace alliance (is it even an alliance?) it all seemed a bit specific to desert duo. Can all that really be a coincidence? Here's my headcannon.

The watchers made this series to mainly feed off the emotions of the players. Out of all the emotions they have had, grief was their favorite one (they generally preferred negative emotions). So, they put them in a game that one could not really win.

The first season was Grian's win. To the watchers this was almost perfect (the only thing they were unhappy about was that Grian had won). After killing Scar he was a sea of grief, and the watchers could feast.

The second season, they considered a failure. This time Scott won. They would have preferred almost anyone else. Even after winning the death game he did not have much negative emotions. In fact, he had a sense of victory. The watchers out of anger and shame killed him on the spot.

Double life was much more successful in their eyes. Pearl had given them a constant stream of negative emotions. Upon her death she left behind a huge amount of rage and not enough greif. She even left behind relif. This was far from perfect.

In limited life Martyn gave them a huge mocktail of negative emotions, but his cons overweighed his pros. He was aligned with the listeners. He asked much too many questions. Upon his win they sped up the clock and waited him to die. He left behind grief but it wasnt nearly enough.

Scar constantly radiated greif and lonliness in this season. They decided to keep him and feed off him until the next games. But they still longed for the huge amount of grief that had cured their hunger for weeks during the first game.

I think real life was not something the watchers had control over. It was a regular minigame conducted by the players which they subconsciously built to resemble the watchers games.

In wild life, I feel the watchers are chasing that perfect formula they had in third life. Renchanting is back, and they are trying to bring desert duo back through the bots and stuff. They had tried the same in double life but that had failed. They hope for better results this season so they can once again make them kill each other.

[yourlazykitkat]

Hey thanks for checking in, I’m just going crazy on how Scott always resorts to killing himself as a way to level the playing field, give one final advantage to his teammates (double life final with pearl, limited life finale, losing yellow and red life to gem). How his sacrifice is never truly honoured or reciprocated, sometimes becoming an emotional burden for the person he does it for.

VS

Pearl who internalises Scott’s final act of love from double life, coming into this series with the mindset that she will die for her allies. Her fear of being the only one alive and surrounded with the blood of her allies she worked so hard to support. Being denied this chance to be a martyr and then being forced in that final fight to the death once again. Understanding like every other winner, the victory in these death games is not worth it to the point that they would do anything to avoid it. Something scar will realise soon.

VS

Gem, the newest player- one with so much promise. Her eagerness to kill, we all remember that from every player in third life. And the risk-taking, the greed and desperation. Throughout the season, Scott has gifted her hearts and his lives (reluctantly with yellow) with not as much in return (in terms of hearts). Tell me, why did gem have to kill both Scott and impulse? Why not kill one and then let them kill the other? Distribute the hearts properly? It’s because of the instinctual greed of a red life- one that she couldn’t understand the scope of until Scott had only 2 and half hearts. When all he could do was give, and she could only take. Her outrage at the 2v1- god as an audience member who knew that one side agreed to sacrifice because of the odds and the other side didn’t, it felt like a battle deciding which was the better way to love. Gem loses here and moves onto the dead without the consolation that Scott’s sacrifice changed anything.

VS

Scar, who denies Pearl’s offer of sacrifice. Refusing any less than a true fight to the death just like with Grian in the cactus ring. Not having friends this entire season and understanding that he was not the one pearl wanted to give up her life for. As soon as gem dies, he wastes no time attacking pearl despite their alliance because he understands the rules of the game better than anyone- there can only be one winner, the secret keeper demands it. Him, breaking the rules in episode 1, then suffering the consequences for four sessions straight, becoming more isolated and dangerous and eager to please the secret-keeper. Grian, from the dead, telling him that he won as he stands alone. The complete opposite of third life where he wouldn’t have made it to the end without his partner. All he can do now is press succeed.

[safeturnip]

thinking about how when Grian says "BigB treated me right" Scar's immediate counter to that is to say how he built the Jellie panda sanctuary. because he says it like it's something Grian should care about, when Grian never once thought the pandas were important, and it's just. desert duo at certain points in time manage to have the most fundamental misunderstanding of each other's thought processes. and it's not all the time, because sometimes they'll be on the exact same wavelength, and it's absolutely incredible to see, but a solid chunk of time, their trains of thought are running in complete opposite directions of each other. it's like they have different ideas of what's important, and automatically expect the other person to think that way too.

like Grian-wise, he's always thought the life series itself is the most important, especially during 3rd life where he keeps reminding Scar that he's red, that he needs to kill people, that killing people is his end and final goal. he sets up elaborate traps and plans all for Scar's sake, so that Scar can kill people, but it never was for Scar's sake, was it? he's never bothered to ask if this is what Scar wants, just assumes that Scar has the same priorities as him, is willing to go through the same methods as him to achieve those priorities. Grian's main goal has always been to survive, to win, to play the game correctly, and when Scar wasn't giving him that in double life, he went to go find a partner who would.

and on Scar's end, he goes and focuses on his sand monopoly, his llama, his bee, his Jellies. he plays the long social game, promises allyship to everyone he encounters, and although murder is always there in the back of his mind, it's never in the forefront, it's not the first action that he selects. in double life, he ignores the soulmates mechanic and chases after an allay, calls it his soulmate while Grian is literally right there, when Grian has been spending his entire episode looking for his soulmate and keeping the two of them alive. and even after Grian drags Scar off to the side and drops a stalactite on his head, Scar is still so focused on the Jellie pandas, wants to build something for them no matter how many times Grian shoots his ideas down.

and it's so crazy to me how Scar brings up the pandas in wild life like he thinks it's a winning counter argument! what is he going on about!! the two of them just completely misinterpreting each other is such a fun concept to me.

(idk this is just me taking a two-line exchange and running with it in a completely different direction than it was intended. desert duo make me insane they make me so so ill)

[fei-rest]

Short Analyses of Every Life Series Finale: How Each Finale Is Connected to Respective Season Themes/Gimmicks

Analysed through the lense of Watcher lore/Martyn’s EaE AU (Real Life not included because it’s an April Fools special but Cleo’s win still counts)

Very general analysis, I just noticed some kind of connections/coincidences and wanted to write them down.

3rd Life 🏜️

The first season. Intended to hopefully be a fun, collaborative game, but turned into an epic drama filled with both tragedy and comedy (as the Watchers meant it to be, a death game). Grian’s final duel with Scar sets the tone for the entire series and the seasons to come, being that while this series is comedic in elements, but it’s ultimately a tragedy from all perspectives.

Last Life ⚔️

A season centred around deception and the breaking of alliances from paranoia and betrayal. Scott rejects the Boogeyman curse and the honourable PvP duel at the end is a great antithesis to this season’s entire tone and theme, suggesting that hope and honour can still be held onto even with all this uncertainty and betrayal. (Crudely speaking: Last Life finale is a big fuck you to the Watchers)

Double Life 💔

A season centred around relationships and bonds. Pearl is isolated and rejected by not just her soul bound, but the entire server. At the end, forgiveness is achieved with sacrifice, an action that could be considered the ultimate act of love within a death game, reinforcing the theme of bonds, love and honour in the face of suffering.

Limited Life ⏳

A season centred around the desperation for time. The clock is constantly ticking. When every player will die anyway, it’s just a matter of who dies last. Martyn’s final betrayal emphasises the ambition to win and desperation for time in this season. He tells us that honour actually means little in the Life Series and it is still every player for themselves, thus breaking the “return to honour” pattern established previously.

Secret Life 📜

A season centred around secrets and keeping secrets can have dire consequences. Scar was made a villain by the secrets and subsequently isolated from the server. In the end, he embraces this villain persona and claims victory with no secret to keep, as the final task was “Win Secret Life”. One that is truly alone has no secrets to keep from others, as who is there left to care about their secrets?

Wild Life 🎲

A season centred around unpredictability, with many patterns established in the previous seasons broken. In a season where player agency centred around the wildcard gimmick, the final fight gave the final players back that choice to take charge of their journey and fight for victory. Joel, the wildest player of the cast, seizes his victory with confidence. Having held in his typical wild and chaotic self for the entire season, he embraces whatever fun that the death games have at the end. His win tells us that the players are starting to truly have fun with the situation they are in and are now playing for themselves, and no longer for the prying eyes of the Watchers, no longer obeying patterns inflicted onto them.

[fountainpenguin]

Etho and Scar's interactions in LimLife are golden to me... that painful inhale Etho does before whispering "I'm about to go out of roleplay" when Scar flipped his ender porter and Etho wanted to strangle him... The way that Etho attempts to improv by pulling the "Has your mom told you you're adopted?" card and Scar just says "Oh I know that's not true because we've got something in common: failed traps <3" and a longsuffering and exhausted Etho just sighs and leaves... Love that for them.

+ The dichotomy of Cleo ''You are definitely Etho's child'' @ Scar vs ''Please please don't be my kid'' Etho SDLKFJSDKFL

[katkat030]

505 by Arctic Monkeys is a Scarian song and I’m prepared to die on this hill

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

convex and how I headcanon vex hybrids <3

cw: past abuse, cannibalism mention (yayyy)

there's something about the hierarchical and controlling nature of the evoker / vex relationship that is really speaking to me right now. mostly because I like my blorbos (scar and cub) to have a weird thing going on but also just because I like it when metaphor. something about only existing to be summoned as a weapon. something about not having a choice in what you do. something about...

ok wait I have thoughts I must ramble under the cut

I'm headcanoning vex (hybrids) as very easily controlled. if someone with enough grandeur and power (or perceived power) comes along they can get swept up in that person's instruction and lose themselves. I think vex hybrids have little vex voices bouncing around in their minds, and leaning into subservience pleases them just as much as violence, trickery, and cannibalism do.

I like to refer to them as 'the vex', a sort of abstract concept that is basically just the same as saying 'instinct', except they can definitely hear those little guys. example: 'this action pleases the vex'.

obviously this can be exploited and abused. vex hybrids love taking orders and being subservient but it is obviously unhealthy to do as a person with autonomy. those who know how to exploit the vex instincts can do some real damage.

so a way of resisting / lessening the risk is for the vex hybrid to make themselves their own master. scar uses this approach masterfully. he likes to take control. to speak with big wide gestures and hold so much energy and charisma that he himself couldn't listen to anyone else. he tells himself he is the one giving the instructions. he holds the power and no one can take that from him. he is always a leader, a conman, a mayor, a theme park designer, a zookeeper. someone who holds a certain amount of power. and that makes the vex happy enough on its own. there's very little risk of getting hurt.

cub sort of goes the opposite direction. I see him as more well-adjusted anyway, more able to stay in control of himself. but when he falls, he falls hard. he goes a bit crazy and manic with vex instincts. but to keep it at bay he acts unfazed and nonchalant about everything. holds power in the art of not giving a damn. no one can control him because he simply does not care.

he just has a much better grasp of the little vex voices in his head.

anyway, the potential for tragic backstories and metaphors <3

so, I headcanon scar as a born / summoned vex. vex hybrids aren't natural, they have to be summoned by an evoker hybrid. some evokers are fine. nice, even, to their vexes. but they have ultimate power and control over them, and vexes are usually summoned to be used as a weapon, or bodyguard. there is a power dynamic at play and it is inescapable.

scar's evoker, I think, was not very kind. it could be seen as an abusive relationship, in a way. and I think that could be taken in either the abusive parent or the abusive partner direction, depending on how you want to look at it. I think scar was summoned and came in fully grown - as in, he didn't quite have a childhood and he didn't have the same learning curve a child does. the reason for an evoker summoning ritual necessitates that the vex hybrid has some base knowledge of the world and is capable of acting independently. you can't exactly summon a bodyguard who doesn't know how to fight.

still, it can symbolise several types of relationship, depending on if the evoker takes a more guiding (parental) role, or a more intimate (partner) role. the latter has definitely got more potential to basically always be bad, for obvious reasons.

anyway sorry scar for the trauma. this is why he's so vigilant now. but he will also have moments where he reverts back to a mindset where he wants to just find an evoker (or anyone) to guide him, so he can stop being in control. it sounds nice, to his vex. good.

if he fell into a bad place for whatever reason, and stumbled upon someone willing to take advantage of that, he would so easily go back to old patterns. yeah <3

I see cub as a turned vex. someone who was once human but decided to become a vex. and I think he did it because of scar. they're freaks like that. I think this means that cub doesn't have the same tragic backstory as scar, but he still understands where things can go wrong.

also I think they sort of can communicate telepathically. not with words, but more with feelings. just one Look can show everything. they're so vex ^-^

(END NOTE: because I cant stop making things about stupid Grian and his stupid ocd. imagine the absolute horror the poor bastard goes through when scar says 'oh yeah Im really easy to manipulate I basically obey any order given to me by anyone with too much authority ^-^'. Grians dumb ass starts running through every interaction they've ever had like ohhhh no </3 did I do that ?!?!?!) (he didn't)

[autumnwhistles]

Lyric Breakdown in my Last Life (mainly Martyn-centric) song, "Corners of the World"

'Abridged' version here, and longer analysis (ft. a lot of Martyn character analysis... and also the full lyrics I'm actually talking about) under the cut.

"I'll lie, double cross to best them all" is yet again a reference to a line from Martyn's Last Life teaser poem ("Surpass them all/Take friends for foes"), which was from the perspective of the Watchers (and was previously referenced by them in the first song, Middle of Nowhere). Martyn using this phrasing hints that the Watchers already hold some influence over him, hence the outline of the lyrics flashing purple in the video!

"Walls, corners, edges" is taken from Martyn's speech after Ren's beheading (as is the title of this song, for the same reason):

"You took me in when I was a lowly traveler, going across the land, searching the four corners of this world. I learned there was nothing in this world for me – nothing but walls, corners, edges. And you know what, you showed me life. As much as I’ve taken it from you, you gave it back to me in buckets’ fulls."

The point here is that, after the events of 3rd Life, Martyn's reverted back to that previous worldview. That life he was shown clearly meant something to him, but ultimately, its price was far too high. So now, he's deliberately separating himself from a mindset that would allow him to care too much about others and feel that same pain: the world is walls and edges; the people in it are figures to use for his own benefit, not to care about; the world does not hold those buckets' fulls of life. As we see with his reactions to the Southlands' fall, he doesn't really end up being successful in this (and it's a major topic of exploration throughout the musical) – but it doesn't mean he doesn't want or try to be.

Of course, the wordplay this verse ("You'll be cornered in the corners, and on edge in many more/And walls you'll build and walls you'll raise(/raze), and walls will fall in war") is to establish Martyn's strengths in that area. Getting the voice right is an important part of musical characterisation too!

"Keep it a void you're fighting for" is either dramatic irony or foreshadowing depending on how much you know of his lore. Martyn's only referring to not fighting for anyone else's sake here, but between the seasons the players do spend their time falling through the void (while unconscious) – regardless of whether they win or lose. By fighting to win, you are just fighting for that same void... which of course, Martyn doesn't know (because surely winning means something). If he knew nothing changes after you win, the incentive to win would be much weaker, and I'd argue we do see that in c!Martyn post-Limited Life. But despite his cynicism and distrust, he's still naïve to this particular cruelty of the world... :) i mean lore-wise if you win a fragment of your soul does get protected but 1) no bearing on last life and so on this musical whatsoever, and 2) how is c!martyn supposed to know that even after his win

"Careful with the name you pick/Don't want it to get flamed" is (as the editing hopefully makes clear) a pun – 'you don't want your name to be made fun of', and 'your tree fort is flammable'. This is again meant to establish Martyn's quick wit as well as progressing the song/storyline, and as well as showing us him messing with people, which he very much likes to do! (I am also aware Cleo was the one who informed Lizzie, but I had to streamline various things for the sake of the medium – this is both a Martyn character establishment song and an intro to the world and various figures in it, so it's easier if Martyn is the one who introduces that to those figures (and for us to get more information about Martyn based on how he interacts with them). And Lizzie's reaction to that information was something I wanted to keep in)

Of course Skizz and Etho were in the Red Army too, Martyn's just being cheeky/faking indignation here (if there'd been space, I'd have given Skizz a line of protest, but from a musical standpoint I preferred the instant transition into Scar's section). But guys.... BEST/Dogwarts parallels... guys.....

"(...)I'll lead, not play a pawn"/"(...)little pawn" (sung simultaneously, the first by Martyn and the second by the Watchers) is a callback to the first song, Middle of Nowhere, in which there's a section of randomised lives being given out. The first line there is "Four for the traitor, four for the pawn", and this confirms/establishes 'the pawn' as referring to Martyn (referencing what he's treated as by the Watchers). Note that here Martyn's desire 'to lead' refers to being in control of his actions and not deferring to anyone, not specifically to leading an alliance. Of course, Martyn's part is full of dramatic irony on his behalf :)

Those are the 'flashier' lines and word choices I especially wanted to highlight. Now, for the version with way more character analysis!

As mentioned, Corners of the World is Martyn's – our main character's – introductory song. Regardless of whether it counts as an 'I Want' song or not (it's a bit nebulous, because yes, he does express things he wants – to win, to be in contol of his own actions and not at others' whims. But for me, the more important part of the song is what he doesn't want to do, what things he's distancing himself from that he's presumably done before, and the questions and implications that arise from that. And the core of that is explored slightly later on), it's going to be our first impression of him as a character. The traits and worldview established here will be viewed as important, and will form the basis of his arc throughout the musical.

Because of that, the two verses focus on establishing that inital worldview (as well as establishing what he's aiming for):

MARTYN (Verse 1) Right, here I go again — new world, another start. New chance to see who’ll reach the end, and who will fall apart Well, won’t be me – this time I’ll be the very last to fall No care for cost, I’ll lie, double cross to best them all

So we know he wants to survive and win the game (especially after not doing so last time), we know he's willing to play dirty to achieve that and definitely should not be trusted. We know he's under no impression that this is anything other than a death game (or death match, to quote his Limited Life self) – he doesn't hide from the knowledge that people will fall apart, that only one person will be left standing. Importantly, this means he's playing the game exactly as intended, with no intentions of defying it or even deviating slightly* from what the first song has expressed to be the goal (to 'best'/'surpass' everyone else). Even as he expresses the wish to play for himself, he's already committed himself to following others' unseen rules.

Walls, corners, edges, I’ve been this way before. You’ll be cornered in the corners, and on edge in many more; And walls you’ll build and walls you’ll raise(/raze) and walls will fall in war, Kinship destroyed, so keep it a void you’re fighting for.

And here we get an exploration of Martyn's mindset in more detail. I've touched on this already, but a major point of exploration throughout the musical is Martyn's relashionship to emotional attachment – he's coming right off the bat of Ren's death in 3rd Life, which "broke" him and made him play more selfishly since (both statements taken from the LimLife lore stream), and he is someone who tends keep his distance and who'll prioritise himself over allies whenever things get dicey. But the "life" that closeness gave him back in 3rd Life was still clearly important to that version of him, and he does inadvertently (and unwillingly) start chasing that again this season – ending up growing close to the Southlanders (bar Grian) despite his efforts, enough to hallucinate them and be manipulated by the Voice's(/Watchers') false promise to bring them back to life if he follows its commads (in a moment where he expresses resistance to following its commands, and where the Voice is clearly distressing him). LL Episode 8 intro my beloved...

Still, that's to come. At the start of Last Life, he's firmly in a reactionary mindset to the events of 3rd Life, separating himself from that life and that version of him. 3rd Life was a failure on his part (in addition to the emotional damage, but he's trying to separate himself from that side of things and to focus purely on the win), and he's absolutely not wasting this new chance at victory.

So corner to corner, I’ll keep wandering on, Border to border, through woods, through caves, through spawn, Sure, laugh with some, don’t keep it glum, so long as lines are drawn Forego the rest, and don’t invest, just keep on wandering- WATCHERS Wandering, wandering MARTYN -on.

It's Watcher manipulation time, encouraging unhealthy mindsets that help them further their own aims! The more untied he is, the easier he'll be for them to play (less loyalties to others –> the more likely he is to rely on the Voice, and the less resistance there is to doing certain things that might involve those connections). Yes, emotional connections would mean more emotional pain (and so more negative emotions for them to feed on) in the future, but Martyn's very resistant to that idea right now, so it wouldn't do much to push it. They do encourage emotional connections later, though (heavily pushing him towards Ren for example, and note that that's only once it would mean Martyn betraying his own alliance (which would mean more emotional pain for someone, regardless of its impacts on Martyn himself. Or it would've been if that was revealed)).

There's another important part here, though. After all the 'allies won't help you' etc in the first two verses, I wanted to make clear that Martyn's not against being around people, far from it – he's almost constantly around people, just not generally around the same ones for an extended period of time – it's just the emotional investment he's trying to avoid. He is a very social player, he does enjoy joking and/or messing around with others and does it constantly, that's also an important aspect to him (he's a very "you talk a lot but never say anything" type of person**). So "sure, laugh with some, don't keep it glum" is a very important line!

LIZZIE Welcome, oh welcome to my tree fort, yet unnamed. MARTYN Be careful with that name you pick — don’t want it to get… flamed. LIZZIE …Ah. They won’t demean A fellow green? …Your lives? MARTYN That’s mine to know Is that a tower over there? See you, I’ve got to go!

And immediately, here's an example of Martyn actually messing with someone (as a new player, Lizzie is fun to tease)! His "don't want it to get flamed" triples as that, as a wordplay demonstration, and as another recognition that they are living in a world where people will inevitably turn on each other. If something's flammable, it will be burned.

Lizzie's characterisation here is meant to show her as someone who wants to do her best and is establishing herself, but is unsure/nervous about how the game will unfold due to having had no past experience (, the '...your lives?' comment is prompted by the momentary urge to want to know how close Martyn is to turning Red and potentially burning down her tree fort) There is the element of naïvité coming from not having lived through a previous series, too – not thinking about how badly having a flammable base may end, 'they won't demean a fellow green' again here, etc.

Because this verse is a dialogue, I focused a lot more on trying to keep the character's voices true to themselves as well. With Lizzie, the "Welcome, oh [welcome]" is moreso there to suit the 'fairy queen' persona she was going for, but the "tree fort... yet unnamed" would be something she'd say for humour's sake, in her particular style which I cannot for the life of me describe; her 'ah' would be quite deadpan in that way too (again, not sure which words to use to describe it). With Martyn we have the aforementioned wordplay, but also his method of slipping out of situations that go in directions he wants to avoid... which is to pretend to get distracted by something else, promptly change the subject to that thing, and run off (a clear example of this is in Wild Life when Scott is questioning him about his powers, and he conveniently gets 'distracted' by a zombified Skizz dying in the distance instead (~17:30 in his vid). Maybe not the smoothest of getaways... but a habit nonetheless).

TEAM BEST BEST will be the best, and we’ll show em what we got With our matching shields, and our towering snow fort MARTYN Hold on a sec, where’s your respect? BDUBS Respect? MARTYN Yeah, that’s my bit! Same shields? Snow? A world ago? With Ren and- fine, have it

Again, this verse is largely leaning into character voices and interactions. BEST do initally set out to be the heroes of the server (eg by recovering the enchanting table and returning it to the server), and do have some very loud/enthiusiastic figures within their ranks (Bdubs and Skizz), so the tone of their lyrics is meant to reflect this (though the instrumentation, which we'll talk about in a different post, does a lot of this work as well). Of course you also have Etho who's the complete opposite of course (and Tango somewhere in the middle), but it's the louder voices that are going to be heard in the interactions so it's their side of things I'm portraying. And, as mentioned before, we also have Martyn completely going into mock-offense mode.

SCAR/BEST/LIZZIE/MARTYN No matter if you're in your sixes or twos/Let's find some ore to- I'll sell you an offer you/-mine cannot refuse/It'll be the fairy fort! Crystals for fleeing,/I'm fine just to chat Crystals for flame,/Not falling for that! Survival's the ALL Name of the game!

Pretty self-explanatory here, with Martyn not buying into Scar's deals and other alliances going about their lives. BEST heading down to mine is set-up for the next song (aptly named "Down In The Mines"), in which Bdubs reveals he was cursed with the Boogeyman curse while down there, narrating his experiences in the form of a ghost story.

SCAR/BEST/LIZZIE/MARTYN Corner to corner, I'll just keep on wandering, wandering on/Yes, join the fairy fort, I'd love to have you here!/BEST will be the best, with our diamonds and our gold We can build a secret passageway so we'll always be near!/Put us to the test, and you'll see that we won't fold/A crystal or spell, oh, Joel, you'd help me sell?/Through woods, through caves- -But still for my sake I probably should find a team: it would do me some-/We'll aid each other when we need, together we will succeed, oh-/Put us to the test and you'll see that we'll do-/Goody! Magical Mountain we'll be! ALL (including Cleo, BigB and Joel, who are now onstage with their respective alliances) Good – It's this I've understood!*

Here we see the different players' attitudes to playing the game, and what they've "understood" about how to play it, as well as more alliances forming. Nothing much to say about Scar and Martyn here (aside from Martyn expressing the fact that he does want to be part of an alliance for numbers' sake, which we'll build more on in Song 4 (A(ha)lliances) when the Southlands are formed; and also continuing the thread that he sees others as figures he can use to benefit himself. Maybe there were things to say about Martyn here!), but a lot of Team BEST's part is foreshadowing ("put us to the text and you'll see that we won't fold"... they will fold. They will) in addition to contuining the 'server heroes' thread from earlier. Meanwhile, Lizzie's part continues to show her as a player who hasn't experienced the way the server devolves into bloodshed, still having a pretty idealistic view about the co-operation between herself, BigB and Cleo without thinking about the ways they'll inevitably have to turn on each other if they get later in the game.

The part about the tunnel connecting the Fairy Fort to Cleo and BigB's base is taken directly from the first session (originally proposed as an escape tunnel, in the same conversation that Cleo pointed out that the fort was flammable).

UPPER WATCHERS/LOWER WATCHERS Oh, wander, wander on/Wonder, wonder On/When they'll all start to turn tails Wonder, wonder/Wander, wander When trust will yield to betrayals/On

I've mentioned it before, but the Watchers feed on negative emotions, which is why they run the Life series. This is one of the few times we see emotions from them, as they're very excited to see what chaos and carnage this new game they've formed will bring (which I took care to portray in my voice)!

WATCHERS/MARTYN Till the rest are gone.../Right, here I go again – I'll fight with my axe drawn* Oh, wander, little pawn/But, unlike then... I'll lead, not play a pawn.

I've talked about this in the 'abridged' version, so I won't repeat that. The other thing here is the axe being an obligatory Dogwarts reference (or, more accurately, an obligatory rhyme (with 'pawn') which gave way to a Dogwarts reference I took).

[End]

(You can hear the instrumental continue for a while – ideally, Martyn would talk for a bit with Scott, Pearl and Jimmy, but though I can act through singing I can't act through speech and I'm not subjecting viewers to that xD)

If you've read this, thank you so much! You can definitely chart me going more and more unhinged as this progressed...

--

*eg by also wanting to find friendships, to be helpful while you can, etc, in addition to winning. There's no secondary aim there, aside from protecting himself from emotional harm.

**(to quote Martha from Doctor Who)

[nerdyenby]

People who sang back to Grian (SL4 spoilers)

🟩 Scar- yes, no hesitation, no questions asked

🟩 Cleo- yes, instinctively matched his tone and then asked how long he had to sing for

🟥 Mumbo- no, he was just along for the ride

🟩 Bdubs- yes, after running into Grian and Mumbo and having caught onto what’s happening

🟥 Etho- no, he’s just clueless, good for him

🟥 Joel- no, he’s a tryhard and a loser /aff

[allay-uxini]

I feel like we should talk about this clip more.

Transcript

(From chat) “is there any lore between Scar and Grian always being put together.” They’re not put together they just find one another. Like I said the way that I’m similar in Pirates (smp) as I am in Rats (smp) as I am in the life series and how Scott is the same in each season every season he’s defiant of the wider rule set. It’s just that people are kinda hard coded in the way that Joel finds Lizzie and stuff like that, it all just kinda goes.

[astrowarr]

YES :D THE PEOPLE WANT YOUR HALF FINISHED WIP PLEASE SHARE IT!!!

(or at least I want it. no pressure!)

aye aye captain. i'm a man of the people. here is the wip.. i have up to grian's session 4 analyzed.. right now it's just a bunch of bullet points but

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

theres no indication that Secret Life C!Scar is disabled, that said, if we go with the headcanon that winners help create the next season, i do think its interesting to point out that Real Life is a season where all of the players had to relearn the basic facts of how to control their bodies and still ended up substantially less coordinated and confident with their movements than they had been prior