#notably i am not the one talking about how in love i am with martyn. thats ren beans

[ilexdiapason]

I love you. You are so cool and so yellow and so passionate about the block people. You talk about Ren and Martyn the way I wish a cute girl would of me. This is not a love confession, I'm just very high. I respect you so much and I'm forever happy I made someone like you as a friend.

thank u nova i hope u find urself a cute girl to be treebark with

[echotunes]

Hello hi please give me your thoughts on last life Martyn lore. DUDE I thought he was like, one of the only "good" people on the server, because in the last episode he acted genuinely concerned with Scott about the possibility of a wither on the server, but then BAM! Secret Alliance to ✨the moon✨ (and conveniently Ren)??? Literally none of the Southlanders have a *clue*, I don't even think anyone brought up/noticed how he was missing a life after he came home?? Ohoho I love this man

HELLO ANON. DO YOU WANT TO GET MARRIED (/j but thank you for enabling me)

I'm not sure about the "good" people thing because morality on Last Life is dubious anyway but I do get what you mean, he did seem to have people's best interests at heart mostly. (and also just didn't want Grian to have a Wither because that's bad news for everyone really)

I do have to mention that the Southlanders did notice his life was gone, it was just cut out of some of the POVs. It's in Martyn's and Impulse's, when they're about to do the life trading circle thing

Impulse: Wait, when did Martyn die? Martyn: No, I didn't die, I got cornered. Impulse: Huh? Martyn: Yeah, I got cornered by the fairy fort lot. They basically tried to accuse me of burning down the place and then, yeah. It was basically, they were either gonna kill me or I just give them a life anyway, so I thought rather than causing too much drama and getting into a fight, I just had to give it out. Mumbo: I feel like it would take a lot for me to give my life, actually. Martyn: It was a 3v1 situation. And then they had Cleo lurking around as well, and as you can see, Cleo is now back up to yellow.

So he's obviously just making things up here, but he mentions in his POV that he thought it'd be good not to lie about the fact that the fairy people involved, just cover up the actual reason why he gave them the life. They're then interrupted by Lizzie getting Spooky Scary Skeletons in chat as Scott gives her a Wither skull, and continue their life trading circle, so it ends up not being discussed further.

Anyways! Yes! Martyn lore! There is SO much that I constantly think about. There's his "lore voice"/entity thing that carried over from 3rd Life and his teaser video on Twitter that shows up sometimes and I just. have so many thoughts about it. very long post up ahead

There's the Twitter video, which I was actually just having another look at, and I noticed that--

Long have we waited.. A hunger grows.. Surpass them all.. Take friends for foes.. Live not for others.. Invest in one.. For if they fall Ere will be done!

--abbreviates to LAST LIFE! he gave us the name of the series before it had even started what the hell

Then there's him seeing Ren in session 2:

Sacrifice those that landed Lessons acknowledged Can claim flags among ashes..

not sure about these three lines :( messing around with an anagram solver gave me LAST ACT but i highly doubt that that was intentional. not sure what these are about. they might just be literal but i'm still having a hard time interpreting them. There does seem to be a general theme of the entity wanting Martyn to win Last Life at all costs, "lessons acknowledged" might be about him learning his lession from 3rd Life where he got too attached to Ren and was no longer willing to betray him to win. not sure though

Help another Never doubt

this abbreviates to HAND

When in need Traverse each route

and this to WINTER

so! interesting! huh. (i am so incredibly normal about renchanting duo /lie)

Next, there's him talking to Team BEST in session 4:

Tell a lie.. Sow the seed Undermine Know and free It must be done!

This abbreviates to TSUKI (月 / "moon" in Japanese) and also doubles as the voice telling him to sow doubt among the others, because this is followed by him writing a note to make Tango distrustful of Impulse

At the end of session 4, Ren and Martyn talk with the Lore Filter on screen and do some vaguely cryptic roleplaying. Notable quotes are "The dog, the shadow, the roots. We make this place burn." and "They will feel it all under the eye of the moon." The dog is obviously Ren, the shadow might be Lizzie, and I suppose the roots might be Martyn? because inthelittlewood? tree? plant? roots? I don't know this one is a bit of a stretch and I'm not entirely sure what he's talking about here but it sure is a thing that he says. And then the other quote is another moon thing!

Next session, Jimmy steals Martyn's life during the Southlands' trading circle thing, and the entity shows up while Martyn is chasing Jimmy:

FORGET THE RULES THE OPPORTUNITY RETRIEVE IT NOW THE REST WILL AGREE END THIS BETRAYAL DO NOT LET HIM ESCAPE!!!

don't see any code in here, and I think this one was pretty literal anyway - get his life back by any means necessary, or kill Jimmy so he can't have it. That seems in line with how the entity has acted so far - win Last Life at all costs.

One interesting thing is also the fact that his lore filter shows up for no reason when Scar puts him in a hole underground while telling the Southlanders about his soul shop and it seems so unnecessarily cryptic?? why is the Lore Screen on you are sitting in a dirt hole sir

He also has some fun robes for the Shadow Alliance that he's now secretly a part of! would you look at that! what's that on the back?

IT'S THE MOON KANJI 月 AGAIN!

and then the last, and perhaps most interesting, instance of the lore voice is at the very end of Martyn's episode 5:

Why do you linger so? You wish to join the Shadow? [white jack-o-lantern face and fire appear on screen] Boo! (evil laughter) A DEMONSTRATION IS IN ORDER LIGHTS EXTINGUISH BEGIN THE SLAUGHTER OUR WILL BE DONE!

genuinely what the fuck does this mean. ok, breaking it down.

"why do you linger so? you wish to join the shadow?" the entity wants to know why he's hesitating to join the fairy people. this doesn't make sense, though! he already has joined them! what are you on about! unless this about fully leaving the Southlands in order to join the fairy people? but that'd just be a bad move tactically since he's currently acting as a double agent for them to spy on the Southlands so I really have no idea

the jack-o-lantern face, the fire, and the "boo!" are probably just to scare him. jack-o-lanterns and "boo" fit together. fire is scary. there's already some weird shit going on with fire this season (invisible fire, green fire, Mumbo glitching to still be on fire post-lava death, all that fun stuff). the evil laughter is just concerning

and then the text is in all caps and i have NO CLUE what it's about. "a demonstration is in order - lights extinguish - begin the slaughter" WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN THERE!

and then there's "our willl be done!" which just lines up. so far we've had "ere will be done" (which makes no sense grammatically but was probably in part because there needed to be an E at the end for the LAST LIFE abbreviation), "it must be done", "our will be done"

And there's 3rd Life, too! We had a couple instances of the lore voice in that as well, and in 3rd Life, they seemed more active (and spoke in plural, notably).

"It is not yet your time Green one.." when his life flashed before his eyes when the house on Monopoly Mountain exploded

(a lot of differently pitched voices overlaid) "It's time. Get him, zombies! Here he goes!" during the Battle of the Red Desert when some husks pushed him into lava

"Reluctant to fall Eager to rise Answer our call When next you rest your eyes.." after he died to the skeleton chasing the banner

"After every winter There comes a spring The banners burn The songbirds sing Vanquish them all Then ally with none This is our call Our will, be done" after he died to Impulse during the battle at Skizz Point and went red

"We are not pleased... Change is in order Our will be DONE!" after his death in the Battle of Dogwarts

So, what do we take from this? Well, the 3rd Life voice(s) spoke in less code, and seemed to want him to go red so he could do their bidding, which in turn seemed to be winning 3rd Life.

We don't know who this entity(/entities?) is and we don't know why they want Martyn to win this series so badly.

Notably, they want this at all costs in both seasons - in 3rd Life, they wanted him to end Red Winter ("after every winter there comes a spring", "the songbirds sing") and betray his allies ("the banners burn", "vanquish them all then ally with none") to win, and in Last Life, they want him to win ("surpass them all"), not focus on allies ("take friends for foes", "live not for others"), and generally win and have as many lives possible at all costs ("FORGET THE RULES").

...And then he gives a life to Ren in Last Life. That doesn't line up at all, does it? Of course, he might just want to get the fairy people to trust him, but it also does genuinely feel like he's trying to be loyal to them. He's betraying the Southlands for them and gave them one of his lives - which the lore entity is bound to dislike! As I just said, they didn't like his alliance with Ren in 3rd Life, urged him to either get that life back from Jimmy or ignore the rules and kill him, and generally want Martyn to win at all costs. So I hardly think they'd approve of him giving one of his precious lives away - especially not to Ren of all people.

And then at the end of the episode, he's evidently being threatened and/or shown horrible things - as a punishment for giving away the life, maybe? He's defied the entity in both 3rd Life (by not betraying Dogwarts) and Last Life (by giving one of his lives to Ren), and both times involved Ren. So I'm very interested to see where that's going to lead.

I'm not entirely sure about all this - you've very much just enabled me to ramble about Martyn lore and make theories as I go along - but I really do think that I might be onto something here. cc!Martyn did say we would find out who the entity is this season. We'll figure stuff out eventually. But it's all absolutely fascinating to me and if anyone else wants to talk to me about this stuff, please please do because I absolutely love taking this apart

[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.