#traffic meta

[t4t4tclethian]

does anyone else ever think about traffic!pearl and towers. and how in every full season she's been in she's built some sort of tower. keeping her up high, isolated from everyone else. safe but alone. how she learned in last life with scott that Towers Are Safe and then in double life when she was alone and afraid and hurting and angry the thing she built to keep herself was a tower (and that tower quickly led to the death of the one companion she Could count on). and then in limited life she shared that tower with someone else and it wasn't nearly as tall and it was a home. and then in secret life her tower was more for fun, wasn't even her idea, but she joined in. and how the echoes of last life and double life follow her into every season no matter how long it's been? or are you like normal

[fountainpenguin]

I think the fundamental thing about Ep. 1 Martyn-Cleo [Zombiewood] dynamic IS that it's about misunderstanding... but in an interesting way.

Martyn spends Episode 1 mostly in the mines (getting armor; not unusual for Day 1), but he and Pearl do search the Overworld. They run into several people, but not their soulmates.

Once Martyn has a water bucket and finds a lava pool, he opts to go to the Nether because he wants potion resources, which would set him and his partner up well.

- In the previous season, the Southlands (Martyn's allegiance) struggled because they didn't have a brewing stand for most of the game, so they tried to steal one from Team BEST (iirc). - He says in Episode 2 (granted, after he's had a week to come up with a defense) that he wanted to bring his soulmate gifts so he wasn't showing up emptyhanded, because that's rude.

So, decent reasons to go to the Nether: he'd taken the time to get armor and now he's after an item he'll regret not having if the other teams start brewing potions later. It would only take one jerk breaking the blaze spawner to limit potion access for everyone else.

But Martyn going to the Nether is super confusing to Cleo, who gets the notification that he's gone into the Nether, but remembered potions were against the rules that season.

- Cleo is acting under the assumption that Martyn also remembered potions were forbidden, so they're flummoxed as to why he would go somewhere he has 0 chance of meeting his soulmate. Clearly, he is goofing off for no reason. - Further confusing for them, Pearl entered the Nether right behind him, implying they're allies. Cleo cannot fathom what possible reason Martyn has for what he's doing- Just that he doesn't seem to care about having a soulmate and seems to have picked Pearl as his buddy instead. - Write him off, king. You don't need him.

When the "potions are banned" reminder dropped in chat, Martyn panicked. At that time, he'd been trying to barter those resources to Bdubs and Impulse, but when he got the reminder, he hurriedly closed the deal and scored unlimited access to their cows.

- In his mind, he messed up, but recovered well and came out with a great deal; that's gotta be worth something, right?

In my mind, when Cleo figures out in later episodes that Martyn forgot potions were forbidden, she's more willing to see his side. This is why she apologizes to him in Episode 3 for judging him harshly.

- Cleo makes comments throughout the season that she's willing to take him back if he apologizes. - She recognizes his mistake and stops holding it against him, but wants him to indicate he's willing to work through things with her. She can't put her trust in him until she knows he'll work with her without resenting her. - She remains emotionally aloof, but doesn't push him away. Scar sets her and Martyn on a date and she tolerates it. She plays along with Martyn and they lightly try to mug Bdubs on their walk home. - She even invites him to stay in her base after Etho and Joel grief his and the warden drops down in Ep 3, and Martyn says he might take her up on that- after he killed her that episode. [Martyn POV 49:04]. - In the end, she even shares stuff from her Red Life base. She keeps a wall up, but stops begrudging him so harshly.

Martyn, I think, is slower to come around to Cleo's POV that the items were useless. I think his vision is "It was a risk worth taking. It didn't work out, but if that HAD been allowed, I would have set us up for success and it would've been a gamechanger."

- It didn't pay off, but he has no regrets and sees no reason to apologize. - If his early Episode 2 dialogue is to be believed, Martyn is convinced that Cleo cheated on him first. He says this to Jimmy 14 minutes (in his "When is she going to think about mending OUR bridges?!" rant). And to be fair, Cleo was already living with Scott and calling him her chosen soulmate when Martyn finally met up with her, so you can see his confusion. - Martyn does apologize when he wants to. He goes from 0 to 100 apologizing after accidentally killing Cleo by punching them off a cliff and losing their first life, because he legitimately and completely knows he messed up. - He also apologizes to Pearl for breaking up with her, which was a heat of the moment decision he made after Cleo dumped him. He just ?? refuses to apologize to Cleo, because he doesn't get it. - And b/c he's probably playing the divorce quartet bit up, but shhh...

He wasn't there to see Cleo when they were confused about why he ran off to the Nether. I think Martyn focuses on "Cleo is mad at me for getting hurt, which is stupid because I came prepared with food and armor and was trying to be careful. Yeah, of course I got a little hurt- I was fighting blaze and ghasts! She expects me to be perfect, and I'm only human. She expects me to read her mind; she's so high-maintenance."

- Martyn's also so mean to Cleo in Ep 2 and that's worth pointing out. They're both victims of misunderstanding, but they're also petty and mean. - It's very funny how much he insists to the audience that "this is all Cleo's fault currently" - either because his character is refusing responsibility or is genuinely confused - and it's wild how much he lays into Cleo by telling her she's being "childish, immature, and really selfish." They are such a mess <3 Terrible job, everyone /jk - He just so badly wants to distance himself from blame (and be in the right) that he's not focused on if this hurts them or burns his bridge...

After Cleo cuts ties early on, Martyn does try to "be a good partner" while staying outside their house. He just... shows his efforts in comedically terrible ways, like building a giant heart in front of their door or watching them through his spyglass.

- Shout-out to Martyn in the dead of night hiding in trees and watching Cleo until he's determined that "she seems safe, she seems happy, she seems healthy" before he goes to do something else. I'm not saying stalking is good, I'm just saying it's hilarious for his clingy ex persona. - Just rewatched and it's Martyn who's the first to tell the audience he's putting his heart on the line and Cleo can connect back up with him if they ever want to. I thiiink Cleo in Episode 3 seems to think she was the first to have the idea of symbolically connecting their bridges - seeing as she tells Martyn later that he needs to put in the work to meet her bridge halfway - so that's kind of funny. They're on the same page, so close yet so far; I want to shake them-

In Episode 2, he defends himself by claiming he was "providing" and "putting food on the table," and he's probably still proud of the fact that he scored unlimited cow access despite accidentally pursuing banned items.

- Up until Cleo corrects him later in Episode 2, Martyn operates under the assumption that Cleo might take him back, but Scott is whispering in her ear and warning her not to. He tells the audience that "He doesn't like it" and that he's "going to wait until they've parted ways to do anything else." Yeah... How'd that work out, buddy? - Interestingly, Martyn cites Scott as a bad partner because "He's all about building cottages and flowers while meanwhile [Martyn] is trying to get the most powerful items in the game." - Side note, but Martyn's stress levels going up when he sees Cleo's outdoor furnace is my everything. it's so funny. "Take it inside! Look, he's ruining you!" He has such strong opinions about outdoor safety... - Martyn seems to be operating under the assumption that Cleo's already turned her back on him and won't really forgive him unless he proves he's a good ally. He clings to things that will make him [and Cleo] stronger and safer, so he offers to enchant Cleo's gear while he's heading down to the Deep Dark to enchant anyway, even though they're on poor terms. - Which is so... ahughuggh to me because Cleo asks him why he'd even want her and says "What do I bring to the table? I mean, really. I bring rubbish PVP skills and pithy one-liners" and Martyn's immediate response is that he loves pithy one-liners and doesn't care if she's bad at PVP because he'll handle it. "I bring the skills, you bring the vibes." Just?? Lovely dialogue, fantastic improv; no notes. - EXTREMELY funny to me that when Cleo and Martyn part ways, he tells the audience that 1) He thinks it went well and they're actually genuinely on the same page, 2) He's convinced he misjudged her at first, 3) He believes Cleo is scheming to trick her allies into protecting her, and 4) He's going to play up his broken heart base design and pretend he and Cleo are more at odds with each other than they actually are to fool the other teams... ... meanwhile in Cleo's POV she's like "Yeah, I had to talk to him about strength and the value of having allies in a way he'd understand so he'd go away" sdfklj. She reads him so well there and Martyn is... like that.

Anyway, when Martyn and Cleo talk early on, Cleo pushes this idea that Martyn went to the Nether, got hurt, and it was annoying because she had to use her food to save his life (especially when she saw no purpose in him being there and probably thought he wasn't taking the game seriously).

But I think the core of her hurt is more along the lines of "I can't fathom any reason why he'd be in the Nether unless he straight-up doesn't care about finding his soulmate."

- Which!! what I'm trying to say is, Martyn doesn't get why this is her conclusion. His thought process seems to be "Of course I care! That's why I'm trying to get valuables so we'll have an advantage in the game!" He and Pearl defend themselves by saying they DID look for their soulmates. - Cleo and Scott focus in on "Why did you go somewhere with no people, then?" They knew potions were banned and (judging from their Ep 1 convos) don't seem to consider the possibility that such a thing was forgotten. Thus, it's upsetting their soulmates left them for no perceivable reason and paired up with each other.

Martyn I think focuses more on "My soulmate thinks I hurt myself" - In Episode 3, he claims he "hasn't been dangerous since then," and Cleo acknowledges he's been better at not taking damage. But it's not about the hurt... it's about being ditched.

- There's a certain level of being ditched that Cleo can take, which I think is why she's more accepting of him after finding out he forgot potions were banned. She's not mad he wanted good resources- she was mad that she saw him go to the Nether because to her, going somewhere with 0 people meant he had no interest in finding his soulmate. - She forgives him after she realizes he made an honest mistake and wasn't being malicious. She keeps a safe distance, but she tolerates his presence and even forms a secret alliance with him. - And I think Martyn understands and acknowledges that Cleo is frustrated... for taking damage, or for taking so long to find her (which he'd probably chalk up to bad luck since he and Pearl did wander that map looking for people). - But instead of doing the one thing she asks him to - apologize - he tries to show what a useful ally he is... while Cleo's looking for evidence that he can be emotionally self-aware, so she can put down that wall and trust him. - Also they attack each other and it's great. Martyn walks off and insists he killed her as a joke, this would hold up in a court of law despite Cleo's giggled protests, and he's now banned from pudding for two weeks... very silly.

tl;dr - I have so many thoughts about them and wanted to put my interpretation into words :p

They counterbalance and play off each other so well, and it's a shame (in a beautiful storyline kind of way) that they came crashing down. But I love it so much... The mortifying ideal of soulmates passing like ships in the night.

[greenscreen-dress]

I'm caught up with all the Wild Life POVs I wanted to watch! 😊 Yayyy just in time for session 4's videos to release tomorr— oh?

Oh it's session 5 tomorrow?

Yeahhhh...

Gourd, it's taken me two whole weeks to get through all the Snail episodes. Not being a big fan of the gimmick will do that to you, I guess.

Having now watched all groups react to & interact with them, I think activating the wildcard later in the session would've solved many of my gripes with this session. I can't tell for sure when it was activated, bc everyone's episodes are paced and edited differently + I think everyone plays on the server a bit before recording time starts... But maybe having the snails come into play midway through the session (instead of within the first 20 minutes it looks like) would've given ppl more time to build up bases, make progress they wanted to make during Session 2 but couldn't due to starving, etc... AND on the viewer's side as well, it lets the series breathe a bit, give some imo much-needed downtime between wildcards.

Idk. I could make a full post abt how I'd "fix" the snails or whatever, but it seems ppl have moved on from that...

Also from what I've seen of session 4 (from vague spoilers on the dash + watching about half of Pearl's episode last week) it's wonderfully high in betrayal and divorce and all that good stuff, so it seems Traffic is carrying on as expected :D

[blocksruinedme]

As someone who has spent my adult life around gamer rules lawyers... I don't trust this shit. The actual comment he's replying to is not technically about the red book, and for gamer rules lawyers, that difference can absolutely matter.

Might he mean the red book? Yes.

Might he be fucking with? High enough possibility that I'm not treating it as 100% canon.

We'll fricking see I guess!!!!!!

The Mystery of BigB’s Red Task has been Solved!

(Clarified by Grian himself)

[theminecraftbee]

Grian had taken her aside quietly. He'd awkwardly talked around the idea of her remembering now; apparently, he didn't know if her victory counted. She'd rubbed the back of her head and hadn't quite realized what he was talking about and said something about the games and, ah. Apparently she does remember now. Apparently the victory counts. Apparently this means he needs to say sorry.

Cleo considers not accepting the apology. Grian would get the wrong idea then. If she said: you don't need to apologize for shit, or maybe, there's nothing to apologize for, he'd take that as: you are exactly as bad as you're convinced you are. Honestly, Cleo's not sure whether that means Grian would decide he'd done nothing wrong or everything, but that's besides the point.

She'd never not remembered, is the point.

Frankly, Cleo hadn't realized people were meant to be not remembering. She's honestly a bit embarrassed not to have figured it out. Surely that can't be right. Cleo has held every single slight and every single ally and every single person she has ever connected to right in her ribcage, next to where her carved-out, unbeating, torn-up heart lies, the entire time these games have gone on. Each game, a new fact carved into the bone that makes them up.

Names ribbon around her memories. Bdubs and the Crastle and Scott and soulmates and Pearl and friend-turned-foe and Etho and survivor and Bigb and traitor and Scar and son and everything else. She wouldn't be the same at all if she didn't remember. Everything she is, it's built on top of everyone that was.

Maybe it's a zombie thing. The undead are said to be memories that can't fade as much as anything else, after all.

But she can't really explain this to Grian, of course. If nothing else, that would require explaining the place he's taken next to her heart, too, and frankly, that's way too mushy for the both of them. What ends up coming out her mouth is: "Oh. Does that really change anything?"

Grian stares at her a moment.

"You know, I guess not?" he says.

"Right then," Cleo says. "Cool. Good to know my victory means nothing then."

Grian squawks. "You can't just say it like that! That's depressing!"

Good enough.

She buries 'not-supposed-to-remember' 'not-sure-if-it-counts' 'laughing-as-scott-dies' and 'I-have-always remembered' in the same place in her ribcage, so she won't forget it, and then she does the thing that sets her apart from the common zombie:

She moves on.

[salemoleander]

Chaos vs. Patronage: How Life Series winners grapple with skill disparity

As the Life Series has gone on and matured into more noticeable patterns, some winners have pivoted to a mentorship/support role to their chosen 'champion'/ a favored player.

Scott spent Limited Life as a duo with Martyn, and then joined a high-skill group in Secret Life that ultimately saw him sacrifice himself trying to get Gem the win. Pearl spent Secret Life with her stated goal being one of her teammates winning, pivoting to support Scar at the end when they'd died. Now in Wild Life, she has outright stated her intent to support Impulse to get the win. (Scar supporting Jimmy in Wild Life may also fit this pattern; we'll get to that.)

In contrast, winners Grian and Martyn² are not sticking to that single-minded attempt to get a player to win, whatever it takes. They will express support for teammates winning, but generally do not take actions that would worsen their own chances of winning/surviving to help a teammate. They aren't playing "meta", which here means putting all their resources into one person.

These two categories of behavior ultimately reflect the Winners' approaches to answering the question of how to balance disparate skill levels in the series cast. (Second half of writing + footnotes under cut.)

Grian has spent game after game altering mechanics & playing with randomization to try to level the playing field without directly intervening against specific players.³ Martyn is invested enough in the narrative/story that making less-than-optimal decisions isn't hard for him or atypical (this is the player who beelines for the Nether every single season).

It seems like Scott and Pearl realized they're very strong players and are interested in nerfing themselves more actively... but they still don't want to throw the match. The compromise there is to put their effort & skill towards helping another player achieve victory.

A case could be argued that Scar is moreso the former group by nature (he's similar to Martyn in his penchant for making entertainingly bad decisions that render nerfing unecessary). However, after witnessing multiple seasons of Scott & Pearl acting as mentors, seeing them compete head-to-head in the game he ultimately won, mentorship now seems like a normalized route to take once you're a winner.⁴

¹ Unsure if BigB in LimL counts? They were a duo, but Scott fomenting Martyn's win seems to be what kicked off Pearl's dedication to support another player.

² Cleo is a winner but they do not fit this analysis for a variety of reasons I don't want to get into. So I won't, bc this is a tumblr post & not an academic paper. Ignore that there are footnotes and an academic-ass title

³ Grian seeing Scott win: "Oh no I've created an unbalanced game. Ok lets randomly assign players together to try to balance things... why has RNG betrayed me?!" RNG does not stop betraying him btw. I have another post in draft about this but it's kind of nuts how dedicated Grian is to Not Rigging The Game Even A Little.

⁴ Incidentally imo this is what will force Grian in the next few games to either end the series, create dual winners/some other atypical win structure, or bust his ass trying to get a second win & break that taboo. Based on his game design so far, he can put up with a bit of interference, but ultimately will not abide "we all do schoolyard tradesies on who gets to win until everyone gets one".

[raisedbythetv89]

THE PARALLELS THAT MAKE ME SOB they are mirrors of each other, spike is buffy's shadow self. Our shadow selves are all the things we're ashamed of, our deepest pain we bury away, the things society conditions us to hate & to hide, repressed desires & wants. Healing journeys always involve radical acceptance & the healing/integration of the shadow self with the light so that the two halves can exist in harmony. In greek mythology the process called shadow work where you delve into your shadow in order to heal is usually represented by journeying to the underworld.

Buffy starts s6 underground and when she claws herself out despite physically being above ground, sunnydale is now hell to her. Life is hell to her. S6 is Buffy fighting against doing shadow work with everything she's got while being trapped in her own personal hell & that is represented in how much she fights the pull she feels to spike. This time is about her shadow self so she feels the most at ease when she's with him while also fighting the truth of that reality with every fiber of her being because she's terrified. She can't go back to who she was before but she keeps trying and fighting against the new version of herself she's being forced to become.

The season ends with her again emerging from underground but this time with Dawn & acceptance about her new life path she is now on. She no longer wishes she was dead. She no longer is fighting the call to heal her shadow self. She's accepted this next phase of her life which involves no longer keeping the slayer & the girl separate when she realizes she needs to teach dawn & show her the world but also with the return of Spike in s7.

Buffy healing, protecting and defending Spike is healing HERSELF because he IS her (Buffy stabbing faith, another shadow self, for angel was representing how much pain and self harm Buffy was willing to put herself through to be with him) so as Buffy's shadow, Spike, cared for her in s6, she cares for her shadow in return in s7 and the process is incredibly painful for both of them while also being insanely transformative and healing and it ends w/ the two halves integrating (their clasped hands lighting in fire) & then Buffy is freed from Sunnydale aka the underworld

[bellshazes]

been thinking a lot about people's varied reactions to the chaos & perceived inconsistencies around the rules of limited life and because i taught games professionally for a decade and have done a lot of reading on games academically, I have a few propositions for the fandom to consider.

proposition one: Your interpretation of gameplay events is not the same as a monolithic "the narrative" to which all players are equally subject.

Narrative is not what happened, but the interpretation and meaning attached to the events that occurred. Narrative is when we "give experience a form and a meaning." (Harris-Miller)

This construction of narrative - giving meaning to experiences - can occur in the way a video is cut an edited, as well as in the audience's interpretation after the video is released.

Social play is player interaction, both in the derived from the structure and rules of the game (being "It" in tag) as well as the social roles brought from outside the game. (1)

In transformative social play, players use the game context to transform social relationships.

Most players in the life game are more concerned with narrative as it relates to transformative social play - such as, what does this event mean for me, my alliances, my enemies, and the shifting of roles along that spectrum?

Narrative within the game is dynamic and always changing in response to ongoing events and shifting relationships. Viewers' narratives about the games are more static since they exist outside the game context and are not a part of ongoing social play.

Letting go of a single unified "narrative" lets us think about the differences, tensions, and resonances between players' in-game construction of narrative, the narrative constructed by the player's video edit, and the retrospective audience construction of narrative. (*)

proposition two: Fairness is decided by the players, not the rules.

Playing a game requires trust and safety with the other players. (DeKoven) Even in tic-tac-toe you have to trust that your opponent will take reasonable amounts of time per turn before you sit down to play.

We can distinguish between ideal rules (rules as writ, such as a physical rulebook) and the real rules (the general consensus on what playing the game should look like). (2)

Real rules can include how sportsmanlike behavior is defined, and when "breaking" a rule doesn't count; a common example is forgiving a player who genuinely made a mistake on accident and did not intend to "break" the rules.

The real rules are what actually matter in developed gameplay, and they can be negotiated and constructed inside the game as new events, situations, and dynamics occur. (3)

Brushing past Scar's "illegal" kill on greens is not him getting away with breaking the rules, it's the group coming to a consensus on the real rules of the game. Cleo asking Impulse if her kill on him can count and him finally agreeing is not the breaking of (ideal) rules so much as it is defining the real rules.

proposition: Players' own individual motivations and definitions of sportsmanship or interesting play inform their contribution to the general consensus on real rules and leading them to play "imperfectly" in favor of having more fun or staying true to something.

Purely optimal play is boring to the players and viewers, and taken to an extreme allowed by the ideal rules, would violate the real rules implicitly agreed to by the players.

"Optimal" gameplay in the life series could look like hiding in a hole underground for the entire game if the end goal is to survive the longest, but that would make a boring video and would likely be considered supremely unsportsmanlike by other players and their audiences.

Playing perfectly optimally is one motive to play a game, but is basically never the sole motivator if it's one at all.

Even if everyone in the life series has a goal to "keep playing the game as long as possible," that could mean being focused on winning, or being focused on making allies or not making enemies, or it could compel you to give up your life for someone else who's running out of time because to you to play the game is to play together. (4)

Scar is a perfect example of someone who consistently chooses "non-optimal" goals such as always having the enchanter and goes to great and stupid lengths to achieve it even if it means sacrificing winning.

This "non-optimal" play provides something for other players to play off of and react to, often leading to transformative social play, significantly meaningful narrative, or interesting negotiations of real rules. (5)

synthesis: The most interesting narratives are born out of situations where players negotiate the real rules, not ones where the (ideal) rules are broken.

The life series is inherently highly experimental - even as more seasons build on the experiences of prior ones, the constant addition of new mechanics mean the game is more or less always being playtested rather than simply played.

The "rule" against carrying Third Life into Last Life failed because it is basically impossible to eliminate the out-of-game contributions to social play, especially in a social deduction game where knowledge of other players' habits and behaviors is useful metagame (6) currency that can't be un-learned.

Some of the series' most iconic narrative moments - the end of 3L or DL, he loves me, etc. are born out of the tension between ideal and real rules, where players are forced to take a stand or advocate for something opposed to the "ideal" rules such as allying with reds, sticking with your soulmate, or that there can only be one winner. (7)

I'm offering the above as a way of showing that I think these imperfections and changes between seasons are actually the coolest thing about them and have the potential for transformative fan works in addition to transformative play.

if limited life's copious tnt minecarts via skynet and highly-manual, inconsisent giving and taking of time for kills which may or may not be deserved according to strict interpretations of the rules as stated aren't to your taste, that's just how it is sometimes! It's understandable to not enjoy ideal rules that are loosely defined or interpreted or are imperfectly implemented from a mechanics perspective, but understanding that the players of the actual game did agree and consent and get to negotiate the consequences and meaning of these imperfections is not some unfortunate side-effect but in fact an important part of any gameplay.

The various types of narratives and the various motives for playing mean there can't be a single unified narrative for all players - but thinking about these things in terms of tensions and synergies opens doors for talking about the many narratives and the relationships between them. you can hold multiple seemingly-conflicting narratives as a viewer and put them in dialogue and produce new meaningful narratives in their contradictions or overlap! go forth and embrace the chaos and tension between the chains of context that produce meaning and the freedom to look at that complex web and derive fuller meanings from it!

because this post isn't long enough, more citations and examples from the series below the cut:

Some footnotes:

(1) Social roles within the game are more artificial than the ones that exist outside of it. That doesn't make them less meaningful, but when we consider the consequences of breaking a social role defined by the game compared to a real-world breaking of a promise or law, it's hard to forget the artificiality of the game. The consequences are relatively minor; the morality of betrayal, for instance, during a game can be acceptable because of that artificiality where it would be reprehensible in real life.

(2) A few different ways to think about game rules that are not mutually exclusive but complementary to each other:

Three layers of game rules: the underlying constituative rules of a game, the operational rules that directly guide player action, and the implicit rules of proper game behavior, such as etiquette.

Piaget's developmental stages from the Moral Development of Children are useful background here: the first stage is loose play without rules, second is strict adherence to ideal rules, and the final adult-leaning stage is the understanding that the real rules are what matter. You could call putting ideal rules over the real ones juvenile.

"Ideal rules refer to the "official" regulations of a game, the rules written in a player's guide to Zelda or printed on the inside cover of a game of Candyland. Real rules, on the other hand, are the codes and conventions held by a play community. Real rules are a consensus of how the game ought to be played." (Rules of Play)

(3) "It is not that the basic rules of the game undergo a radical change; rather, they are experienced within a social context that decreases their value in favor of a socially-biased ruleset over which players have more control."

(4) I'm thinking of Bdubs in Limited Life session 7 here, since he gives time and stays alive, but if you take this concept a little further and more broadly you just get players like Skizz.

(5) Metagaming, defined broadly for my purposes as the larger social context of the game and not just the pejorative, could be its own too-long post, but I think it's worth mentioning as an avenue for thinking about the complex dynamics of the life series as social play. For example, Etho consistently is thinking from a metagame perspective, from stalling by accusing Cleo of metagaming or remarking that Scar's lost the dramatic moment so he can't attack now in Last Life, or threatening to break roleplay in Limited Life when he's mad at Scar.

(6) From Rules of Play: "Sutton-Smith's model for player roles includes an actor, a counteractor, and an overall "motive" or format for play. For example, if the motive is capture, the actor's role is to take, while the role of the counteractor is to avoid being taken. [...] In Sutton-Smith's model, the roles of actor and counteractor are both equally important in constructing the experience of play." I don't think this model is sufficient on its own, but it's a worthwhile point that conflict is part of the game and is in fact desirable within certain bounds.

(7) Scott in LL is really interesting narratively because his motivation is at odds with what the game asks him to do: he is extremely true to his word and chooses to take the penalty of being knocked down to red rather than trying to kill someone and making an enemy of them and/or failing and dying anyway. He's not breaking any rules, but his choosing to experience consequences because of his own motivation and social relationships is compelling. It pays off when he wins, and it pays off again when Cleo can't bear to kill him in DL - the metagame element of past social play relationships and player knowledge of other players contributing to the current dynamics of social play.

ETA: An important point I also wanted to make but didn't have space for up top is that Jimmy being a "canary in a coal mine" as a result of always dying first is not some immutable truth about fate that actually influences his games, but if you can accept that it's not actually fated then you can start to think about and react to the way that the in-game players construct narratives in response to the actual events of him always permadying first. Joel's futile attempts to prevent this are a product of previous seasons' social play, the transformative current social dynamics, and his own player narrative (again, narrative as meaning giving form to experiences).

Also, I strongly disliked DL's premise and thought the best parts were the chosen soulmates precisely because I think predestination is best left to Calvinists and choice, especially in opposition to prescribed rules or narratives, is the most interesting thing in the world. Of course Etho and Bdubs in Last Life is what hooked me and I am also smug that the players tend to refer to the series as "last life" even if 3L came first and it's been two whole seasons since then.

(*) On meanings:

I think that meaning is necessarily the complex web of relationships between any given things, and there is no objective meaning to anything. Words and events have no meanings outside of our interpretations of and dialogue about them - this is not nihilism, but a beautiful gift of communicating with other people. A real deep dive into semiotics is beyond the scope of this post and also my own abilities, but it informs this view. I don't think you have to read academically to know it; you can find the proof in arguments about whether a pop tart is ravioli. A stupid argument, but one that is negotiating the boundaries of words' meanings by drawing on the words' relationships to other words and the things those words represent. It's the act of making meaning, not uncovering it. So too is watching the life series and arguing about or making arguments for a certain narrative angle or emphasizing a detail etc. - I just think it's a loss not to celebrate the complex web that tugs in many different directions with many different motives. It's less simple, but much richer.

[sammaggs]

3x01 Burning Down the House | Territorial

It’s summer in the Territories and that means things just above the 60th parallel have thawed—including Benton Fraser.

[minecraftbookshelf]

From an in-universe perspective, Scar and Grian got really lucky when Cleo died in her attack on Ren.

You’ll notice the way that, while claiming what was basically refugee status, they slid into the Crastle and quietly took command, uncontested by BDubs or Impulse or Tango.

Had Cleo lived I think it would have been more of an uneasy alliance than a merging of forces. It still would have been an alliance that happened, because Dogwarts had greater numbers, but it would have been tenser. And they would have been at a greater disadvantage given that (I like to think) Scott would have left them to side with Cleo. (He never particularly wanted to ally with them in the first place. It was out of necessity after Jimmy burned the red army’s banner and he’d only stayed when Cleo invited him to leave them because Jimmy was all in.)

(But also Scott was, in BDubs words, walking around in a daze, so who knows what he would have done.)

But my point is that Cleo died and that left the Crastle leaderless and that was an opening that Scar and Grian took quiet and absolute advantage of.

[vivianquill]

Half of me agrees that scar is the earth. But

Part of me still wants to push for making him the eclipse. Or at least an eclipsed earth.

Eclipses are such a unique and rare phenomena, when you think about it

The Sun and the Moon line up at just the right time. At just the right distance. It casts the world into shadow, it confuses everyone around, if you look at it too closely then they way you view the world will be fundamentally changed.

It's something something being overtaken by something greater than yourself something something its unclear whether this was good luck or bad something something his hand was forced something something it happens so fast you don't know what's been done to you.

It's something about being hidden in the shadows and not being noticed, blending into the chaos, pulling the slight of hand of belonging everywhere and nowhere at once.

It's being made into something no one would expect. Into something you just can't fight-- no matter how fast you run.

[greenscreen-dress]

I think Life series fandom could do more with the artificiality of the game world.

Can't remember what season they started doing it... LimLife, maybe? The world border has always been there, but for the past few Traffic Games it feels like there's a lot more intentionality behind the map they play in. Always plenty of blank canvas plains-like areas for easy building, a couple points of elevation to fight over and survey from, little to no "extreme" temperature biomes like jungles, deserts or any of the snowy biomes... Even natural spruce forests seem rarer in recent games— though a couple seasons had dark oak forests and SL had a decent patch of savanna iirc, so it's not totally devoid of variation.

And of course, there's the clusters of 3-4 obviously bonemealed exotic wood saplings, dotted all over the map regardless of biom, periodically replenished throughout the season.

Blatant builder enrichment right here ↓

(Images for illustration purposes. I was watching Bdubs' Ep 1 of Wild Life when this thought struck so excuse the lack of variety... I don't feel like going screenshot-hunting you all get what I mean.)

This is all to make things more streamlined on the CC's side— it's a timed series played in 3hr increments, it makes sense to give plenty of options to find an easy place to settle, collect resources, etc. And I assume the CCs have a bit of say in what biomes etc they'd prefer when a new season is being organised.

But from a lore perspective this has SO much potential! Especially given the popular "Watchers periodically yoink their 16-18 Silly Little Guys™ away from whatever they're doing, drop them into a terrarium, give it a little shake and watch them fight to the death" interpretation of the Life Series. People love to talk about how said Silly Guys are mentally/emotionally affected by this. So I think it'd be fun for fanworks to bring a little attention to the uncanny perfection of the terrarium itself.

...also I realise I'm probably a bit blinded by nostalgia for 3L. But I really feel like the maps of the early seasons were more unbalanced and "natural" somehow. Spruce and swamps and deserts and squabbling for resources, more potential for lucky spawns & creative uses of quirky terrain and I LIKED it!

Surely something could be done with the map becoming more tailored and "welcoming" to the players the more games they play, the more involved the gimmick is... Idk. Something about filing down the teeth and claws and random inconveniences of the world, season after season, to make sure the players are the ones actually tearing each other apart.

[blocksruinedme]

I'm going to quote myself from another reblog of this and if that's bad tumblr etiquette someone please send me the style guide:

As someone who has spent my adult life around gamer rules lawyers... I don't trust this shit. The actual comment he's replying to is not technically about the red book, and for gamer rules lawyers, that difference can absolutely matter.

Might he mean the red book? Yes.

Might he be fucking with? High enough possibility that I'm not treating it as 100% canon.

We'll fricking see I guess!!!!!!

Why BigB’s Task Was Red:

So after reading all of the tasks of episode one, I think I’ve figured out why BigB’s task was red.

It’s because the nature of his task is actually far more sinister than anyone else’s.

Everyone else’s task didn’t have dangerous implications that could be inflicted on a player. They were jokes, and fun social interactions. No one could get hurt by completing them.

But not BigB’s.

His task, while innocuous at first glance: dig a 3x3 hole all the way down; may seem innocent and just a silly task at first.

But it’s not.

His task can ultimately get people killed. What if he decided to build the hole in a populated area and someone falls into it? Even blocking off the top layer is still a risk to a future player getting spleefed or digging down and potentially falling to their death.

No other task had that kind of danger tied to it. Not even Gems b/c it ensured no one would take damage as a result of it.

My theory is that, in the future, all red tasks are going to be far more dangerous to the players. Eventually devolving into full on kill tasks that players need to complete. Which make sense why the task was red in the first place.

[cattimeswithjellie]

The most interesting thing about the Bogeyman curse is how it changes from game to game. We've seen it twice now, in Last Life and Limited Life, but in each game it's so different that it might as well not even be the same mechanic.

In Last Life, the Bogeyman curse is as much a roleplay device as it is a game mechanic. The behavior of players is fundamentally changed by it because the rule states that all loyalties and allegiances are broken until the curse is lifted, and the players actually listen to that. They keep their status secret, they plot against everyone on the server, they kill their own allies without remorse. The curse is seen as a real curse because if you get it, you have to do things you might not want to do and you could ruin your alliances and damage your chances of survival because of it. There is basically no upside except for players who really enjoy chaos.

In Limited Life, the Bogeyman is a whole different beast, so to speak. The rule of forsaken alliances is apparently still in place, but nobody follows it. Hardly anybody even acknowledges it, except to consider and then discard the possibility of scoring an easy kill on an ally. Becoming the Bogeyman has no impact on anyone's allegiances, and teams are very willing to assist their afflicted members in scoring the kill that cures. Not only does this remove the downside of being Bogeyman (as it would be extraordinarily difficult to not get a kill with your allies helping you out), the Bogeyman gets a substantial upside in this game. Being the Bogeyman is a coveted strategic advantage because you get one opportunity to kill an enemy for double damage while securing a double benefit for yourself. The ability to steal two hours from someone's life is massive, as is the chance to gain a full hour with one death. Skizz never truly recovered from his double bogey deaths in Session One, while Tango's back to back Bogey kills put him in a far stronger position than he'd been before. Being chosen as the Bogeyman is not really a curse at all, and you can see the energy surrounding the daily choosing change as the players realize this.

The actual mechanics of the Bogeyman bit changed too, though we're left to infer what they actually are. We know they are different in Limited Life, just not exactly how. We know that Red Names can now become Bogeyman, which was not the case before. We know that the Bogeyman can score legal kills on Red Names, which was not the case before. We have some evidence, though nothing solid, that the Bogeyman mechanic cannot end someone's series. This would be a continuation of the mechanic from Last Life, where the Bogeyman could not be washed out of the series for failing their mission and could not end anyone's series with a Bogey kill. We haven't seen anybody fail in their Bogeyman mission yet, but I'd be very surprised if a Red Bogeyman's failure to score a kill was enough to wash them out of the series. Talk about anticlimactic! And we do have evidence that a Bogeyman kill on a Red player does not wash them out of the series either. (Etho got credit for his bogey kill on Jimmy, but Jimmy's death was treated as a normal death. This was the first Bogey kill on a red name, so it's impossible to tell if a Red player killed by a Bogey only loses one hour or if that is only the case if the Red player has less than two hours left.)

All in all, I really like the Bogeyman mechanic and it's brought a lot to both the games it was in, but I kind of really wish they'd called it something different and explained the rules a little more thoroughly for Limited Life. It's got the same kind of spirit, but it's definitely not the same Bogeyman.

[s0fter-sin]

general society is such an underthought aspect of mha. obviously there’s the big things like the obsession over heroic quirks and the demonisation of villainous quirks. quirkless people are dismissed entirely but i don’t think we talk about how society in general would have to handle a world with super powers.

we know after afo’s first uprising, the government overcorrected and outlawed public quirk usage. we know people have their quirks registered and go through quirk counselling as well as a type of gym class where they practice under teacher supervision.

how in the hell is that supposed to work?

the closest equivalent i can think of is mental health services. someone would have to study for a long time to be able to pursue quirk counselling as a career. it’s also a highly personalised system: everyone has a different quirk - even similar ones have different activations, triggers, exceptions and drawbacks - so no two sessions could ever be the same. if anyone’s been through mental health services, you know how rough it is; it’s an overworked, underpaid system and if you live somewhere that only offers a few free visits, it can also be expensive.

and that’s an elective service.

almost everyone on the planet would need quirk counselling.

there’s no way they could implement such a labour intensive and individual public system and we literally see that they can’t.

we see the gym class in amajiki’s flashback and he only has a few minutes with his teacher before he’s chided for not being more impressive and utilising his quirk to the fullest and they move on to the next student. say a standard class is twenty students like it is at ua. that leaves just over two minutes for each student to learn and practice their quirks. you can’t focus on just one kid per lesson bc what will the other nineteen do? do teachers also have to have a degree in quirk counselling? is that part of becoming a phys ed teacher or is it some random joe schmo trying to wrap his head around literal super powers?

given that inko goes to garaki - a doctor - to confirm izuku’s quirklessness, it can be assumed that quirk counselling is entwined with the medical system. i don’t know if you’ve ever had to apply for a specialist before but you can be on their waiting list for a while. a quirk counsellor is essentially a specialist. are there subcategories of counsellors? do you focus on either emitter, transformation or mutation the way doctors become cardiologists, paediatricians and neurologists? or is one person expected to be equally knowledgeable about all three?

we see through toga that her counsellor identified her need for blood but they didn’t find a way to curb those instincts or even find a supplement for her. she’s left to be abused by her family for something she can’t control bc it’s literally in her dna. compare that to iida who knows he needs orange juice to power his quirk. his entire family are pro heroes so it would be easy to assume they could employ a private quirk counsellor the same way richer people can employ private doctors.

how many people have specific requirements due to their quirks? changes in their physiology that have to be treated the same way nutritional deficiencies and allergies do? even people without mutations probably have those requirements: does kirishima’s shark teeth mean he’s an obligate carnivore? does mina’s acid change her ph levels and what vitamins and minerals she needs? how would they figure that out? quirk counselling.

what about kids like touya who would need extensive counselling so he could figure out how to live with his quirk without hurting himself? kaminari essentially has seizures and they’re so normal to him and everyone around him that they’re the butt of jokes. they wouldn’t be a one and done patient; there’s always going to be people that need continued support the exact same way there’s people that need developmental and disability support. there would be so many quirks that harm their user, are they just taught to bury their quirks? as if that wouldn’t cause any physical or mental consequences?

governments can’t create a system that applies to only some people, we’re expected to believe they’ve made one that applies to all of them?

[affimarklab1]

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