#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.

[aficionadoenthusiast]

jason's 13 years at the super disciplined camp and several years as a leader of said camp mean it is very unlikely that he is any shade of feral, except for maybe a few minor idiosyncracies that all camp jupiter kids have because they all spent time at the wolf house, but since they all have these traits, they might be considered cultural rather than feral. however, annabeth chase, who was famously left alone until she was seven and was raised by an ancient greek horse man that used to live alone on a mountain, a barely sober god of mental illness, several other mythical beings based on animals, and approximately 37 different traumatized, exhausted, and desperate teenagers at an unregulated summer camp where she learned how to be scary by studying greek monsters, would definitely be somewhere near feral.

[quicksilversnails]

Took some notes from the Wild Life retrospective episode of the Imp & Skizz podcast featuring Grian because I thought the behind the scenes info was really interesting!

(3:15) The wild cards were all kept totally secret from the players (apart from Grian), with the exception of the superpowers and finale (as they required the players to set keybinds)

(3:45) The players were given files containing the required mods each week, which were named things like "creeper rain" to throw them off

(4:12) Wild cards were a combination of data packs and mods

(4:38) Grian told them not to read the folder name to avoid spoilers (which is kind of impossible), so everyone fully believed there would be creeper rain lol. Grian was saying it in jest but everyone took it seriously and were apologetic about having seen it, to which Grian told them not to worry

(6:58) Grian originally contacted a data pack dev called Brace for help with programming the wild cards. Some, like the shrinking/growing could be achieved with minecraft attributes, but the snails were too janky and unusable. Grian still liked the idea though, so he reached out to mod developers Henkelmax and Breadloaf, who designed the pathfinding/behaviour from scratch

(8:49) They had a debugging mode used to test the pathfinding of the snails, shown in the podcast and in Grian's credits

(10:09) Grian wants most of the credit to go to the development team and artists, as he was mostly in charge of ideas & organization!

(10:39) Grian's only regret with the snails was that they were too fast in session 3, leading to unexpectedly many deaths. They were apparently not so difficult to get away from during testing, but perhaps the testers were more used to them than the players were

(11:44) Grian: "We did develop to the lowest common denominator" ie. prioritizing how players would struggle over how worrying about if players would do too well

(12:56) Oli's voice for the snails was iconic. It cost Impulse a life because he intentionally stayed closer to it to hear the voice lol

(13:42) Danny was in charge of the snail models and animations

(14:11) During testing, the snails just sounded like Oli, which made it feel weird. They pitched up his voice so that it'd be less immediately recognizable

(15:18) The snails' jumping attack was meant to be clearly telegraphed: they would stop, wiggle, make a "ooeee" sound before jumping. Many players had their friendly creatures volume turned very low/off (as cows and other mobs are loud), which made this attack much less obvious for them

(16:57) The growing/shrinking had the least testing done for it, as it was the simplest conceptually and to program. This meant that the falling off of blocks due to the shrinking hitboxes wasn't anticipated

(17:55) Before the 1st session, Grian told them that he didn't think anyone would die to the wild card. Pearl's death made Grian pretty nervous, as he didn't want everyone dying too early in the season

(19:29) 6 lives were given, knowing that many of the death to the wild cards were unexpected/unfair. The intent was for ~3 lives to be allocated for wild cards, and ~3 for PvP.

(21:13) The developers were all fans of the Life Series!

(22:43) The shrinking/growing was intentionally pretty simple to ease players/viewers into the concept and build up toward more dramatic wild cards like the snails

(25:38) In the hunger episode, Grian didn't know which foods would be good

(25:58) Grian thinks that "it's unfair that Grian already knows everything" is valid criticism, but that it's important for him to be involved with the ideas. Having someone else do that is like having someone else record his videos: Life Series is his brainchild

(26:35) Well before the season began, while they were still developing the concept, Grian asked the other players for wild card ideas that would meet a few criteria. All of them ended up being unused for one reason or another. Impulse thinks his ideas were very "inside the box" because he was viewing things through what was possible in vanilla Minecraft. His idea was to have a scavenger hunt where the players would search to find a relic. The first person to find it would get a buff. Skizz's idea was for every player to turn into a random passive mob for every given interval of time. They would have to find every other player of the same mob type as them or else the whole group loses a life.

(29:44) The food qualities were weighted by the rarity of the item, so very common blocks like dirt and cobblestone would never give anything good. The other items were randomly selected

(30:23) Regular blocks/items cannot be made edible normally, so they had to circumvent that and custom code a fix for items not stacking correctly

(32:41) While a lot of players do want to win, the main priority is creating entertainment, which prioritizes playing recklessly

(33:20) The food wild card wasn't included in the finale because it would've felt like "too much". There was a higher risk of technical issues since it changed the data values of items, and Grian didn't want someone's last death to be because they ate their sword. In his mind, it was a good and fun wild card, but didn't need to be repeated in the finale. Impulse points out that they all would have collected more rare items by that point, removing the incentive to search for blocks to eat

(33:46) The wild cards in the finale were nerfed from their original sessions. The shrinking/growing had a smaller height range, the snails moved slower, etc.

(36:21) The personalized snail skins were a late addition by Danny, who made 18 skins very quickly

(36:49) Grian did not anticipate the snails becoming as popular with fans as they were. After the session released, they had the idea to release the snail merchandise, which directly funded the rest of the season

(39:20) Grian spent what "felt like every day" testing with the developers. They'd record the sessions on Tuesdays, meet up with the dev team, talk about what need to be done, testing, bugs, etc, edit and upload on Saturday, and would get a few days grace before starting again

(40:01) After the snail session, Grian was worried that the season would be very short due to all the deaths. They were considering toning down the later wild cards but ultimately didn't change them too much

(40:36) The time wild card was carefully balanced. If it had gone even a little faster, many players likely would have died because they wouldn't have time to react to threats like baby zombies or creepers.

(40:57) While sessions normally run for a variable amount of time, session 4 was hardcoded at 2 hours. Grian ended the session ~10 minutes early, just after they hit max speed, because he felt like things were getting dicey

(42:46) When the wild card first activates, it looks a lot like the server had frozen or crashed. Grian told the players before the session started that it would look like the game was broken, but that it isn't broken. Skizz tabbed out anyway and missed the beginning 😔

(43:30) Having the rain start just as the wild card began was a good visual indicator of time slowing down. This was a suggestion from the dev team (probably Brace)

(44:41) Impulse and Grian "cheesed" the end of the session by going branch mining. Grian wanted players to take advantage of the wild cards (eg. mining quickly, helping to kill someone), and not have them just be an annoyance.

(45:30) Keeping the client and server-side time stay in sync was challenging. The sky's motion was changed to be smoother on client-side. The players were also not as fast as the server (around 2x faster), the server was going faster than that, and the time of day was even faster

(46:56) The sounds were pitched up/down based on the speed to add to the effect

(27:46) In testing, if the players were made 7x faster, it would be basically unplayable, which was why it was capped at 2x speed. This made mobs very dangerous, as they were now faster than players and could catch up to you and kill you easily

(49:01) On several occasions, they had to extend the fuse duration of creepers to make them more fair. In the time session, their speed was only increased by ~10%

(49:39) Usually, Grian was the one to test the wild cards and notice when things like creeper speed would be an issue, since he was the one with experience making videos

(50:50) A challenge with balancing wild cards is accounting for the playstyles of so many players: reckless players like Scar and Skizz, "kind and gentle" players like Bigb who would stay off to the sides, and "the sweat squad" (Scott, Impulse) who play very cautiously

(52:48) Trivia Bot was the only wild card that was not planned in advance. Grian was struggling to come up with a wild card for that episode, and wanted to have a wild card available that could give people lives in case many people died to early wild cards without it feeling cheap.

(53:33) Trivia seemed a little boring on its face, so presentation was essential

(54:34) This one made Grian the most stressed due to all the moving parts involved in making it (coding and pathfinding mostly by Henkelmax, visuals by Hoffen, audio/music, questions)

(55:08) Trivia Bot's design was based on Grumbot and Mettaton from Undertale. Hoffen drew concept art shown in the video

(58:32) They show Trivia Bot's custom animation for becoming a snail and it's really cool

(59:12) The music was the most stressful part of the project. Grian spent 2-3 days looking through Epidemic Sounds for a Trivia Bot theme song and couldn't find anything good. He commissioned Zera @hopepetal for a theme song, which is played in the podcast. However, Grian realized he needed a full audio package, so he commissioned Oli late in development, who created the final soundtrack and many audio variations

(1:01:38) Grian wants to send appreciation for everyone who worked on the project, even if their work ultimately went unused

(1:02:58) Skizz was happy to give back however he could by staying on standby in the final episode as a zombie, as the players were able to "reap all the benefits" of the hard work of the development team

(1:05:21) Grian didn't know any of the trivia questions beforehand, which were done by fans of the series. The goal was for ~50% of the questions to be answered correctly, which was approximately met

(1:07:11) Players couldn't get questions about themselves because it would be too easy. This would encourage players to leave their bot, allowing other players to mess with them

(1:07:57) Grian felt a little left out from the discovery element of the wild cards, and decided to mess with Scar by hiding his bot. He wasn't expecting Scar to die from it, and could tell that he was genuinely a little upset by it. Grian felt bad about it, which led to a genuine in-game alliance between them

(1:12:32) Grian was very close to letting Trivia Bot give lives as rewards, but decided it would feel too cheap

(1:14:38) Mob swap was slightly toned down, with more camels and sniffers spawning

(1:15:07) Evokers didn't drop totems anymore. Instead, there was a minuscule chance a warden or wither would spawn, which would drop a totem if killed. Grian was a little disappointed that the warden got cheesed in the end

(1:17:45) Having the mobs start passive and turn hostile was mostly for the presentation, building anticipation, and so players could predict where mobs would spawn and react accordingly, making things feel less unfair

(1:20:32) There was no superpower made for Skizz (or Mumbo presumably)

(1:20:38) The superpowers were another late addition. There was a large design doc where Grian created all the powers, which were handed over to Henkelmax and completed over 4 days

(1:21:42) Grian avoided superpowers involving strength, that could cause someone to die easily. Most of the powers were social or movement-based, which couldn't be used for offence as easily

(1:22:25) Some powers were randomly assigned, others weren't. Impulse's was random. Cleo's, Bigb's, Lizzie's, Grian's were assigned.

(1:24:25) Grian gave himself the mimic because it could easily backfire (like in Grian's fall damage death), and because it would've been confusing for a player who wasn't aware of the other powers. They likely would've spent the episode just figuring out how everything worked and not actually using the power to its best ability

Lots of discussion about the superpowers and how they interacted in the episode itself, go watch if you're interested :)

(1:33:38) Talk on how the series "standard" rules evolved since 3rd Life. There was no keep inventory, and no restrictions on enchanting levels or potions, which created slow or unbalanced fights

(1:36:23) 3rd Life was designed to be an experimental series, which made Grian eager to improve it. For example, some people just weren't dying in 3L, leading to the boogeyman in LL, and so on

(1:37:17) The goal with the seasons isn't to one-up the previous one, but to create a different experience every time, which keeps things engaging for the creators

(1:38:31) At the end of each session, Grian would ask the group if they had fun and how they felt about the wild cards. According the Skizz, the answer was "a resounding yes"

(1:39:08) Grian had moments throughout the season where he personally felt like things didn't go well for him, and was anxious for the rest of the group's episodes. Things worked out while editing the raw footage, though. His issues were never with the wild cards themselves, but his own actions (traps not working, spending too long branch mining), but would always find funny moments in his footage

(1:43:41) Everyone in the Life Series cast genuinely likes and genuinely respects everybody else in the group. This allows them to make the show and get mad at each other, because they know it's all just in-character

(1:44:50) It'd be hard to top Wild Life in spectacle, and Grian doesn't want to start an arms race with himself. The next season could potentially be closer to 3rd Life, but Grian's not sure yet. For Grian, Wild Life was the most enjoyable

(1:45:20) Grian: "As long as people keep enjoying [the Life Series] then I'd love to keep doing it"

(1:49:35) With the finale, Grian knew how the wild cards played out the previous sessions and was able to adjust them

(1:49:56) Grian's goal was to create safe chaos where everyone knew what was happening and wouldn't die to them, which didn't go entirely to plan. The snails were 60% of their original speed and people still died

(1:51:03) Grian made a precise timeline of when each wild card would start/stop, it wasn't randomized.

(1:54:16) All the superpowers were randomized, with Bdubs' power being removed from circulation because it didn't have much use in a finale setting

(1:56:10) It was important for Grian that in the final moments, the wild cards were removed, so there were no interruptions. The timing worked out well because there were a few people left and it ended within ~10 minutes (this implies that the change wasn't based on # of players alive, as people had speculated based on Gem's death)

(1:58:48) The players all randomly switched to zombie skins throughout the session to mess with people on NameMC. Well-played :)

[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.

[eraserisms]

This is a small PSA.

If you are a non-roleplay blog and want to follow me, that's definitely okay, and you're free to like my posts. However, unless a post says "okay to reblog" please do not reblog it.

I didn't have this in my guidelines before (it is now), and I don't expect any of you to be mind readers.

[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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[therefinedtroll]

Honestly, this borders almost upsetting.

[salemoleander]

I just realized. If we're very fortunate with timers/gains and losses, it's possible to end with 2 people with mirrored timers- two 'winners' who will be killed by the universe at the exact same time. Holding hands and waiting patiently for the end of the world.

In a world where lives are finite, you win by dedicating yours to someone else.

In a world where kindness is punished, the most merciful wins.

In a world where your life is dependent on a predetermined love, the winner is the loneliest.

In a world where time is finite and precious, do you win by letting the clocks run out?

[jeremy-empie-web-design-llc]

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