I had a dream about the next gimmick of the life series. it didn't have a name, Grian's voice became jumbled when he would say it, but if I had to name it I'd call it Ladder Life or some joke about the climb of life.

it started in a super flat world, no structures, and in the center was this giant structure that went up so high you couldn't see the top.

it was made of layers, very huge squares, the bottom being the largest.

the gimmick was all of the resources you would need would be on different layers, and you had to find a way up. you could tower up a side, break through the next layer, etc.

but, every so often these layers would get smaller, and smaller, until the tippy top at build height which was only a few blocks wide. some of these layers, as you got higher, may also have obstacles right like ice or falling blocks.

the life system still worked the same.

however, depending on the stage of your life, you'd be allowed to do different things

greens could climb up and down between levels as much as they wanted, though at a certain point up there was a barrier that, if a green tried to cross it'd knock them back, possibly far enough for them to fall all the way down

yellows have pretty much unlimited movement up and down, with no limits except for like the top 10 layers or so.

reds would respawn at the green-yellow barrier and reds can ONLY climb up, or fall down an edge and clutch in some way, then they can go back up. they can also access those top layers.

tango had built a player launcher to skip layers up, and some people tried to cheat the system. others would just climb up the ladders and try to play it safe. some tried to own whole layers and charge people to pass.

the final battle was between two reds, Joel and Martyn on the tippy top layer. Martyn knocks Joel off and thinks he's won, but the death message never comes. Instead Joel got the Caves and Cliffs achievement, and he water clutched at the bottom.

Martyn has a choice, to follow or wait. Martyn decided to fall a few layers, and a few more. He has no idea where Joel is or what layer he's on, so he peers over edges looking, ready to take another leap down when suddenly he's smacked off, and with little preparation he falls, and a death message is in chat.

Joel whoops and hollars and starts celebrating, not noticing the layers below him quickly disappearing, until the ground is swept below his feet and he falls.

OHHH YOURE SO RIGHT

oh I just realized every single winner is an Evo player or their soulmate. Oh Man.

Grian & Scar, Pearl & Scott, Martyn (& Cleo). It's all. It's all Evo players and their soulmates. the Watchers wanted to punish the players with these games but the players already know how to bend the rules. they're not new to this and their soulbonds are winning because of that experience

you're right about Jesse's pig dying! I've been playing the games lately on a kick of nostalgia so I do not blame you in the slightest for not remembering much, neither did I until recently

In episode 6, we're introduced to this mansion in the woods (woodland mansion inspired definitely) where a horde of zombies is trapping the group + youtubers inside for the night. The whole thing is a murder mystery that you spend searching for "The White Pumpkin", and Lizzie is one of the main suspects here. Depending on your choices, she either survives til the end and DanTDM dies, or she goes in his place. A huge part of her character is that she was racing Dan to find an enchanted flint and steel that would lead to other worlds—to return to Empires or the Life Series, perhaps? Especially interesting to consider since she was absent for two seasons and returned in SL with a fixation on, you guessed it, pumpkins.

Episode 8 brings us to a very Life Series esque game. A trio of Old Builders are holding dozens of people in death games purely for their own entertainment, and those who don't survive respawn and go down to work in the mines. Veeeery fascinating concept in comparison to our canary in the coal mine, Mr Jimmy Solidarity.

Then the seasons switch, and we get episode 10/season 2 episode 2. For background, a villain called the Admin has built a giant ice tower full of challenges to split the group and determine the worthy. As you begin the challenges, you get the achievement "Winter Is Coming." Somewhat related, the Admin is a red coded character, having red hair and clothes. I think it's a little interesting how right before all the troubles begin, we have a red character give us that phrase via achievement.

Annnd finally, BigB is in season two episode three! We learn here that the Admin imprisons those who don't cooperate with him, and as some other reblogs have mentioned, BigB seems to have beat the Admin in some sort of game, thus ending him in prison. In the game, BigB is called Anthony (the CC's name) and wears a purple suit rather than his usual blue one. This is because he works as a guard, an "associate" in the prison—basically, he got rewarded for good behavior by becoming a guard. Still, he seems to have a panic attack when he thinks he's caught for sneaking cookies. He's more than happy to help Jesse, even if he's very hush hush about it and doesn't go farther than necessary. What's really interesting to me is why he's here, in a meta sense. The YouTuber episode has long passed, and he wasn't in that. Even then, those were huge minecraft youtubers, like CaptainSparklez, Lizzie, Stampy, Stacy Plays, and DanTDM. BigB doesn't play a huge role in this episode, either—he's hardly a named character, and he isn't shown as soon as the plot progresses past his level. His screentime is less than 5 minutes, and he easily could have been any random VA. I highly doubt any lore was intended by this, but it's super interesting considering how much Lizzie and Dan wanted to travel to other dimensions, likely long after BigB was imprisoned. Plus, I wonder what exactly he did to annoy the Admin so much?

Sorry for so many rambles ahjfjd, I have a lot of thoughts about the block men. Thank you for asking!!!

minecraft story mode is killing me. The fact that BigB and Lizzie are characters. The "Winter Is Coming" achievement. The entirety of episode eight. am I just adhd or is this the life series

mutuals are so funny. I don't know your name, just your url, and I will always refer to you as the shortened version of that. forever

okay i wanna do one of these. PLEASE interact: fraternal twins, people who were blonde as children, geminis, scorpios, roleplayers (ttrpg or larp version), roleplayers (tumblr blog or discord or omegle edition), gif makers who are terrified of the death of tumblr bc they will have nowhere to post, people with septum rings, non supernatural fans who nonetheless have opinions on the characters by osmosis, ace attorney investigations enjoyers, people with old laptops, people who do not own airpods, flautists, people with ocd who are very messy, collectors of weird objects, drinkers of iced coffee only, and winter haters

thank the alter who did the homework. tell the alter who cooked how much you liked the food. tell the alters who shower and clean your room and work out and drive home how much you appreciate them keeping things together, and tell them more when they mess up, because it's all about being there for each other.

Us: yea so we believe that plurality is caused by trauma due to many scientific sources saying so

Pro endos: oh so you think every endo is faking??? and you're requiring them to spill their trauma to you???

Us: no- we think that some endos are faking but a majority are just misinformed and/or misidentifying their symptoms. and we don't require nor want people spilling their trauma to us, we just block or move on if we see an endo/pro endo

Pro endos: you're being ABLEIST!

Us:....are you listening to a word we're saying

AND ONLY ONES TO NEVER GET BOOGIE. EVER. EVEN IN BOOGIE APOCALYPSE !!!

Can we talk about how Grian and Cleo were the only victors to willingly kill themselves at the end. Can we talk about how Grian and Cleo won by defeating their best friend, their closest ally, in a battle at the very end. Can we talk about how Grian and Cleo both went out laughing. CAN WE TALK ABOUT-

YES YOU GET ME

Lizzie dying in episode 6 could mean a lot about her absence for DL and LimL—only for her to return in SL with her base being an orange pumpkin. She could also be grieving Dan and not ready to return to the death games after the whole White Pumpkin thing.

BigB is from Evo, he's friends with Grian (the admin of the life series), and in Martyn lore all the players are trapped in the death games for upsetting the Watchers. Hello??? Can you imagine the Sunshine Institute falling apart and before BigB can escape, the Watchers stick him in 3rd Life because they decided his time isn't done yet? Imagine if the reason he left Evo in the first place was some sort of bet with Romeo, leading to him leaving Evo, sure, but ending up at bedrock?

I have so many thoughts and I WILL ramble about them. Maybe one of these days I'll finally put pen to paper and write the fic myself XD

minecraft story mode is killing me. The fact that BigB and Lizzie are characters. The "Winter Is Coming" achievement. The entirety of episode eight. am I just adhd or is this the life series

shaking tumblr up and down because I have so many thoughts about mcsm and the life series. none are coherent and I will continue shaking for eternity

hello I am the liaison between the life series and mcsm fandoms what can I elaborate (infodump) for you friend :D

minecraft story mode is killing me. The fact that BigB and Lizzie are characters. The "Winter Is Coming" achievement. The entirety of episode eight. am I just adhd or is this the life series

Why are all the Grian/Bigb fics on AO3 just Scar angst over the cheating :(

It wasn't even really angsty in canon, in fact Scar's canon view of the situation is much more interesting than the fanon angst version imo. He basically thought of it as Grian doing something frivolous and petty to get at him. Scar believed that at the end of the day it wouldn't matter because him and Grian have and always will be linked after Third Life. Which made Bigb inconsequential in Scar's eyes. He couldn't see any posssiblity that Grian may truly like Bigb. In Scar's eyes BigB was just something that was temporarily distracting Grian before he would eventually came back to Scar. Sure he still decided to make Grian feel guilty now and then, had to be petty back, but his mindset wasn't the angsty sad pining the fandom loves.

Basically Double Life Desert Duo was unhealthy but in a much more complex and mutually toxic way than the fandom likes to present in fanon. Also Biggri is just a rarepair I really enjoy and I want to read something that isn't focused on cheating or Scarian. *Sigh* I guess I'll just have to write it for myself at some point.

ok but rewatching Secret Life. can we talk about how Scott keeps advising Gem to betray Pearl as soon as possible? even IN the final battle when Gem gets shot, all Scott says is "that was Pearl; remember that." what was going thru his mind....did he hate seeing Pearl happy and secretly want to ruin that, or does he still think Pearl betrayed him and he wants to spare Gem that pain... adkdhsudkdnehdkdk

minecraft story mode is killing me. The fact that BigB and Lizzie are characters. The "Winter Is Coming" achievement. The entirety of episode eight. am I just adhd or is this the life series

it feels fucking insane thank you tumblr user moltengoldveins I have been going crazy over this since april 1st

i hope cleo wins next season just so that divorce quartet and desert duo can live out their toxic epic relationships in the winner afterlife together. they would all annoy each other so bad. i believe