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autumnwhistles · 5 months ago

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(note: this is purely from a character perspective, not a comment on CCs.)

grian and scar have now both been in opposite positions to the original 'cactus ring', and it's so interesting to compare their attitudes to sacrifice on both ends. whether or not scar threw the fight in the cactus ring, he did offer for grian to kill him before it began. grian declined this, but was clearly fighting with the intention to win during the fight itself – he's giving scar a chance, but not sacrificing.

in secret life, scar's on the other end of things. he's fighting another winner – who herself has been sacrificed for previously – and, like grian, is going into what he assumes to be a fair fight... but which is in his favour due to the others' willingness to sacrifice themselves for him. this is a common pattern for winners: in whichever order, they take the win once, and are once willing to sacrifice themselves to let another take it.

cut to wild life.

this time, it's grian in the final two once more, yet again against an – albeit more distant – ally. he's got a win under his belt already, so you might expect him to do what pearl did, what scott did, right? sacrifice their chance at glory to let another taste it for the first time.

and yet:

"I'm going to have to kill Joel"

"Can I win this? I worked so hard on this series, I'd love to win it!"

because here's an important thing about life series!grian: though he's willing to even the playing field, he's not willing to sacrifice – not when it matters. pledge your loyalty to right a wrong, yes; give lives to gain allies hours, yes; refuse others' sacrifices to fight on fair terms, yes. but in the end, no matter how much he wants to stick with friends, no matter how bad he feels about it, no matter how may "i'm so sorry"s he gives – he will put his own life first, in the end.

there's a reason he's the reason for so many of his allies' deaths, after all. and in its contrast, the wild life finale showcases this beautifully.

(and for the record, i don't see anything wrong with this from an out-of-univere perspective – it's been 5 seasons and 3.5 years since Grian's last win, and even if it hadn't been, it's the CCs place to judge fairness, not ours.)

#it would be so SO interesting to add martyn into the mix #(<– probably my most common quote but. he's the brainrot singularity ok)#i don't doubt for a SECOND life series martyn is extremely selfish #(it was so nice to have that recognised after limlife – even if it arguably did get worse over time)#(cue cc!martyn's 'ren's death permanently made martyn more selfish after 3rd life')#but the thing is – does the win even mean much to him anymore?#he was so ready to take the crown he was so ready to end it all #and yet #next series he's right back. everything starts as normal. nothing changed #does it even matter anymore? is there a point? to me it's no coincidence he's started placing lower afterwards #(before it was 6th (last member of dogwarts to fall in 3rd life despite being on the losing side of the war) 3rd 3rd 1st)#there's no way he has of knowing his fragment was repaired by a listener – he has no idea what fragments even are + is unconscious in the-#-void + has NO idea watchers and listeners are even at play!#(that's sth there's often confusion around – he's NOT a listener in his lore! he's not on a similar playing fieldl! and though the watchers #did reveal themselves at the end of last life/ that was wiped from c!martyn's memory as he went into the light (lore stream)#he's a regular confused traumatised person whose changed for the worse over the death games whom the watchers dislike after evo #who just wants things to be over with...)#anyway this to say #though if he WANTED to get to the end i'm SURE he wouldn't sacrifice himself (c!martyn at least – it's still relatively close to the win so #-not sure abt cc!martyn)#...does he actually want to?#anyway martyn ramble over #wild life smp #wild life spoilers #3rd life smp #secret life smp #grian #goodtimeswithscar gtws #trafficblr #double life smp

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straycalamities · 5 months ago

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here's my marble hornets theory: i know like tim, for instance, fully believes its his medicine that keeps the operator and its influence away. and lots of people bring it up and/or meme on it but what if that's just like just his guess but its not actually true. like what if thats like a red herring i guess what if the true way to fight off the operator's influence is the power of friendship and im being so serious

because marble hornets is very much a story that is heavy on the themes of loneliness and isolation and you see the characters only truly succeed on anything against the operator when they've teamed up and are fully on the same page

anytime you see someone being targeted by the operator they're usually alone. and thus you see them suffering from the effects and even losing themselves to it

the times you see it go against 2 or more people it doesn't usually end with one or more of them succumbing to it UNLESS they're not fulling simpatico with each other. yes it can give them a debuff regardless, but you can see like when tim and jay actually team up with each other and are becoming closer, that's when tim is able to stand up to the operator and come out relatively okay

and then you have jay waking up from whatever out-of-it state the operator put him in being relatively okay than the seven months it took from him before

i think the whole shtick of the operator is of course: paranoia and isolation. that's the way it gets what it wants. its a slow operator (ha) and works bit by bit isolating you from your loved ones and acquaintances until it can fully take you and either consume you or manipulate you to work for it to either spread its influence or claim victims for it

and that's where you see namely Jay and Alex fall. they both end up so sick and stuck in the mistrust and isolation. Alex ends up believing he's on a crusade where the ends justify the means for the greater good. jay believes he's uncovering some great mystery that actually benefits other people to know. but the unfortunate truth is they were both fully just fulfilling the operator's intent the entire time

i think for Jay this comes from the fact he's hinted multiple times that his life before marble hornets was boring, uneventful, unremarkable. i think he was used to always being the invisible guy in the room, the second or even third choice, the guy who's just there but has nothing really going for him. this was finally something bigger that he was apart of. that he was the voice of, even. he was the guy unraveling this big supernatural mystery and slowly putting all the pieces together. i don't think he had ANY idea where it was going to lead, but he couldn't pull himself away from it. he was always destined (doomed) to see it through

he was trapped because he was looking at this as his purpose in life. he calls alex a friend and mentions another off-screen friend i think? but otherwise he doesn't really talk about anyone else from his life. i don't think he had very strong bonds with anyone even his own family. (my headcanon is he's the middle child of a bunch of siblings that "outperformed" him, so he was always just there. either that or the only child of parent/s that had a lot of their own shit going on so he was mostly fending for himself for emotional connection)

you can see it even in the way jay interacts with them during marble hornets shooting. he's kinda awkward and out of place OR tries to impose his presence "i've been supervising that. because i'm the script supervisor." and of course alex seems to be the one he's closest to but also?? especially knowing how close troy and joseph were at the time, jay himself doesn't seem to be that close to alex. especially because he seems oblivious to a lot of things going on with him and the ways they interact

then you have alex who i still need to marinate on, but my take right now is he's always been a guy of big ideas and big ambitions. especially as writer and director of marble hornets himself. i think him and jay are similar in that regard in that their being, their soul, is hungry for something greater than they are. it's just alex is more about finding it and taking it vs jay who seems to need to find it accidentally or have it given to him.

alex's strength is being a leader and making decisions, even the tough ones people dont want to make. i think that's probably always been a part of him it just didn't become so...dire until the operator influence. i think alex might've even seen himself as always a little better than his peers in some way. maybe that he was better at figuring things out or coming to those conclusions that helped him make his decisions and lead the crew. and so he too saw himself or just yearned for being someone special and more than he is. cinematic parallels lol

(i also love the headcanon alex has religious trauma that leads into some sort of messiah complex tbqh)

and so that's exactly what the operator's influence fed on in the both of them. like targeted their yearning/insecurities and that's how it was able to wrap them up

and see compare this to tim, who also has his own insecurities and yearning and weak points, but i think tim's ultimate strength in this is his determination. he has a special kind of stubborn resilience to him that you can even see in just his interactions with other characters. he knows what he's about and what he does and doesn't want to happen in the moment. he can be chill and easygoing, but once you hit that limit he won't budge.

it also helps him that he's been dealing with the operator since childhood, he's kinda built up defenses (masky) and a sort of diminishing returns from the operator's impact. i largely think his initial main strength is masky, though. but masky does only as much as not letting his entire self be consumed by the operator. i think where tim finds his strength to not only resist but even slightly overcome the operator, is finding a person to really bond with. (which i think extends to masky as well. which i'll get to in a sec)

tim himself tells us as much as as he's never had a real friend until brian. and then we end up seeing through their dynamic, brian is like that classic extrovert who adopted an introvert kinda friend. (except i dont think brian is an extrovert, he's extrovert-passing, but that's beside the point. you get what i mean.)

and you could say the fact tim is clearly struggling with the operator during marble hornets filming when we know he's still close with brian goes against my point but! i also said they have to be working towards the same goal. and this is why i said that.

(i heavily headcanon that tim is the reason why brian is a psychology major. i think, while tim wasn't fully open with everything (and/or just couldn't remember) he did tell brian some of the struggles of being a very mentally ill kid in the 90s trying to get help. and i think brian was the kind of guy who'd take the shirt off his back for a friend and so of course he wants to help tim and even wants to give a better experience to others like him)

anyways that's relevant because while brian knew tim was struggling and i believe he even helped him through some of those struggles (i love the headcanon that brian knew masky even before shit hit the fan) he didn't fully understand the entirety of what was going on or even fathomed it could extend beyond just tim. which...makes sense. its not like you expect some time/space-warping monster to suddenly be real.

but i also think that alex and tim being in close proximity to each other is why things went as bad as they did. we don't know if alex struggled with the same stuff tim did before college. but it's clear that alex was marked when he was a child regardless. and tim clearly was too. and i think the two meeting each other was like kindling and a lighter to the entire thing and why it went further than just the both of them despite no hint prior that this happened to either one of them before now (as in it spreading to other ppl)

but yeah i still think, despite maybe not being as strong as later, brian's influence on tim kept him whole enough where he COULD become a major player towards the partial success of their group

i think the main thing that pokes holes in my theory is how tim was "doing better" before jay involved him again but at the same time...who can truly say. clearly tim's had breaks before since he was able to make it through school and get into a college. i doubt he'd be able to do that if he was still as bad off as he was

maybe he wasn't really doing better he was just...back to the same as ever. the baseline. which wasn't good but for tim? it was good. comparatively.

i also think it wasn't solely jay being in tim's life again that reverted it to the horrors, it was also alex. because like i said before i believe that they're like...two big beacons of operator energy/influence and when they get close its like a bomb going off of glitchy time/space warpy bullshit

it just happened that alex and jay were linked together at this point. tied up in their destiny you could say. so if you got jay, you got alex. even if they weren't directly around each other

and yeah, i think that if jay hadn't succumbed to the darkness dusting up all the things he was insecure and even afraid of to the point it turned him against tim, i think they coulda done more than just defeated alex. and i think that's exactly what the operator didnt want. that's why it behaves as it does. that's the reason for its modus operandi

further section to return back to masky. and hoody. hoody's impact ALSO to me proves my theory. because while he keeps his distance from the others, what he does is for the same end goals: stop alex and stop the operator. (or at least die trying) and we find out that even if he does it in a mocking and kinda anti-hero passive-aggressive kinda way. he IS on their side. he doesn't ever do anything against them. even when he lashes out like with the pipe or a punch, its just so he can get away. its defensive rather than aggressive

i do NOT buy into the fanon/headcanon that hoody is some nefarious secret mastermind pulling all the strings and everythings orchestrated in the exact way he envisioned it. nor that he hates tim near the end of the season. or that he hates anyone, really. other than alex. (also thank you issue 3.5 for making me feel correct and sexy because i had this theory even before i read it)

my big headcanon is, obviously the operator fucks with your brain, its his whole thing. so its scrambling everyone up constantly. and i think when alex hit brian in the head, it did damage even beyond that. i think hoody has a really warped way of thinking/processing things. like he can't just do it clearly. it cant be a-to-b anymore. so i think him being cryptic isnt even entirely a conscious choice all the time, but i also think he figured that for jay and tim to be at their strongest, they had to find all this stuff out on their own and not have it given to them as far as just tell them outright what hoody's figured out while he's been living in ppl's walls

i think hoody only went so far as to lay out the pieces and leave it to jay (and tim) to put them together. and we clearly see sometimes he misjudges jay or tim's reactions and they do things that don't seem to be the way he planned. this is harder to explain without me going all...grabbing clips and directly comparing them and this is already more time than i thought i was gonna put into this post but yea. JUST TRUST ME. hoody didnt know every move they were gonna make before they did, he was doing the equivalent of just throwing darts at a board and seeing what stuck

i also have the headcanon that it wasnt hoody that led masky. it was the other way around. masky might be a more impulsive, throw yourself bodily at the problem (literally) but masky's been here in this shit a lot longer than hoody. i think totheark was largely masky's design before hoody took over. hoody just gave it a vision (because remember he had a film minor :P)

brian kept tim/masky safe from alex (and if you buy into my headcanon, masky was already fond of him from prior episodes) so masky kinda takes hoody under his wing per se. and that's why they end up so similar in how they act and even the whole obscured face thing idk its part of being in the club

they literally react in sync. they work around each other with no signals or words. they're a package deal, a well-oiled machine, and when tim starts to get "better" then obviously masky disappears

i think the masky/hoody duo reinstates my theory because they've both been already damaged prior, but they don't get worse while they're together. they've been doing this for years id assume. and you only see hoody get visibly affected by the operator when he's become a one-man band. he's become isolated. and i think he understands that that's why. and i think that's why (amongst loneliness in general, missing his partner) he pressures tim into reverting to masky even to the point of selfish cruelty and watching tim struggle with it

because it's not ONLY selfish (but i won't say that's not a big part of it) it's also for the good of the mission overall. masky knows what to do. masky has plans. masky knows how hoody works and thinks and can just pick it up and work with him no problem

vs the whole...conundrum it'd be for hoody to try and explain everything to tim and jay directly. which i don't believe he can. i believe there's a reason he's mute and only leaves very simple sentences/messages. (not simple as in i'm ignoring they're in fkn code as in...the sentences themselves aren't that complex and are largely just a few words.) (back to my headcanon: its literally neurological)

anyways i think the reason jay and tim get as far as they do is having hoody's help, but even hoody realizes it comes down to jay and tim working together which is why he pushes that. (i think hoody continues taking tims pills at first because he believes it too, but i think they end up actually helping with his own symptoms (not the staving away operator sickness just like. his own seizures and stuff from his head injury) and so he keeps it up. either that or he's just like...taking advantage of the placebo-effect)

and it works out well...until it doesn't

jay fails because he falls to the influence unfortunately. he turns on tim. stops working with him. and tim has enough resilience to carry on and succeed in at least one way: stop alex, but i think that's why nothing more happens with or against the operator itself: he literally can't on his own

and i think the comics are gonna either straight up prove my theory right or at least give me more fuel to believe that i'm right

and if you read this whole thing bless your damn heart it was an accident it got this long. i just have a lot of thoughts. i have even more than this but it's all not super related and i wanted to at least stay MOSTLY on point lol

#marble hornets #if you're in the spook streams or not done with mh maybe hold off #it's got spoilers lol #im theorypilled #hypothesismaxxing #maybe someones made this same post before but i havent seen it so here i am #mh yapping

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