#watcher!ren

[spiderdramaqueen]

(click for better quality)

finished (redrawed even, i guess) a sketch with my watcher!ren au i made a few months ago. more info about au under the cut!

in this au, Ren isn't particapating in LimLife, 'cause the Watchers took him from the void and made him one of them. they've definetely noticed how much comfort he brings to Martyn (and how this makes him stray away from their will), so they decided that making Ren a Watcher would be a fun way to mess with Martyn.

Martyn probably didn't believe that it was Ren at first. maybe his mind is playing tricks on him or something? so, it took a lot of convincing, which was kinda difficult, 'cause in my vision watcher!Ren is mute. he's only supposed to watch, after all. he communicates either through projecting words in galactic language or he can literally get into the mind of the other and speak in their thoughts (Martyn hates this. it's too overwhelming to hear Ren's voice in his head like that)

though after Martyn eventually recognizes this... being as Ren, they're unstopabble. they're both such a menaces. Ren's powers are restricted by other Watchers, but he can totally encourage Martyn to do insane shit

the way I see Ren in this au, is that... he's different from who he was before. he's like. ":D" in a menacing way. he's now detached from other players, he doesn't understand them as well as he did when he was one of them, and he doesn't realize that what's fun for him can be dangerous for the others. basically, he gained immortal power so suddenly that it messed up his brain.

he's going to be fine eventually, though. in the end of LimLife Martyn will tell Grian about the situation. no, Martyn doesn't know that Grian is a watcher. but: 1) Grian is the one who's making the games; 2) he and Ren are from the same server; 3) Martyn at least knows that the watchers are 'set on Grian' (based on Martyn's conversation with the watchers in Last Life) for some reason. soo, Grian will probably help Ren to escape the Watchers' grasp and teach him how to live with his newfound powers.

[theotherash]

i like this one :)

[1-marigold-1]

@treebarkweek : Day 4 infernal / divine

something something Ren meant the stereotypical angel with you know one pair of wings and a halo and stuff, meanwhile Martyn imagined a biblically accurate one and became terrified of the thought that he reminds Ren of a watcher

that moment when your liege compares you to your worst enemy-

[floweroflaurelin]

“Luck be with ye…. Hand.”

—

Thinking about that post Martyn made about what if he and Ren made it to the end in 3rd Life together AUGH

Just. The two of them alone in the silence, everyone else fallen around them… Accepting that this is what has to be done… Rotating it so much

[valverii]

guys can someone please explain the watcher/listener lore to me like i’m 5

[solargeist]

How did you feel about the secret soulmate crumbs we got from todays session

my thoughts were: SECRET SOULMATES ??! and then i thought abt how tragically romantic it could be

(i know it was leaves, not vines, but hey, artistic liberty)

[hollowwish]

You guys do realize a lot of watcher fans complaining about the six dollars don't just need to "cancel their disney+ or hulu subscriptions." They're the people who ALREADY can't afford streaming services. It's not that they should be supporting independent creators over big corporations, it's that they literally cannot afford to do either.

[mbohjeezart]

Hermit a Day May: Day 31, Re- ...Rendog. It was supposed to be REN. Who are you. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY G-

And here's ??? full portrait without the text and background:

[ramons-elevator]

I think my favorite part of the finale was when the Gs were down to just Ren, Cleo, and Pearl and Pearl and Cleo (two winners) were trying to help Ren fight but Ren was in lore mode

(Mart)Ren being dramatic, probably prewrote a whole backstory to how he wants to die: “Ladies I am your sword, let me die for you”

Cleo and Pearl, dont really wanna win again: “Uh actually we are here to help you”

(Mart)Ren, sweating: “Please, Ive already dug my grave and ordered a tombstone”

[taiistired]

Draw a moss or watcher ren maybe?

came back wrong?

[autumnwhistles]

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

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

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

cut to wild life.

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

and yet:

"I'm going to have to kill Joel"

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

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

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

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

[spiderdramaqueen]

hi hello! I was wondering if you had a full-color doodle (or anything really) of your Watcher Ren? I want to cosplay him one day and a breakdown of his outfit would be good to have, no worries though! thank you for your time!

~ @aethermod

hello! here you go:

feel free to change some details if you want to! but i'd like to ask that if you post pictures of your cosplay somewhere, please credit me (and also tag me or send them to me!! i'd love to see it! /nf) sorry i didn't answer earlier, i needed some time to draw this thing, because the two scribbles of au i posted before were like. the only ones i had anndmxkcnsksjhjf also, i really appreciate the interest for my au. it makes me really happy to see people being invested in it. so, thanks! <3

[aniisol]

haha ok cool haha Ren became the amalgamation because he wanted to keep Martyn with him because he couldn't bear to lose him! see, Martyn Inthelittlewood? not because the Watchers are "gently torturing him!" not because Martyn is "someone Ren deeply cares, deeply loves" and it'll hurt worse if they torture him by hypothetically hurting Martyn! right? MISTER INTHELITTLEWOOD????

[hermitcraftx]

The problem with a lot of traffic life interpretations in my opinion is they don't understand character foils or don't employ them in their writing. Grian-Martyn and Scar-Ren are genuinely pretty good character foils for a series that is not really scripted or planned out like a book is. I could go on and on about how they parallel each other and the similarities between them. Even the smaller details between the four usually match up

leaving the rant in the tags so I don't have a huge block of text again ueueue

[redwinterroses]

The implications of the Watchers literally being the viewers get really meta and strange really fast if you actually follow through to some of the logical conclusions and then put them in lore-speak.

For example: the fact is that the Hermits spend a long time, sometimes years, creating a world for the entertainment of faceless beings whose names are incomprehensible strings of letters, numbers, and random words. These faceless beings leave messages that range from exclamations of delight and approval to unhinged demands, judging and consuming the hermits' work as fast as they can produce it.

And then, at the end of a season, Xisuma and co. package up the world and gift it to the Watchers to entertain them until the hermits can travel to a new realm and begin their work anew.

When you take the traits of viewers and paint them over the lore of Watchers, you create a creature (species? monster? being?) that's far more fay and uncanny than pretty much any of the usual interpretations. I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: embrace the Watcher within you. Become the unsettling eldritch being you want to see in the world.

[riacte]

being a fan of false/ren/both atm is kinda weird and surreal in these times because you have to carefully tread around in your mind to avoid thinking about upsetting things (which consist of like 50% of the total stuff in your head) and you have to rewire your longtime neural pathways but it’s necessary and doable lol