Oooo Mcyt

So for anyone who cares:

I've decided to put this blog on indefinite hiatus. I might never return to it, or I might be back next time there's a life series drop. I don't know how I'll feel, but for now I've stepped back for a number of reasons.

1.) This is the most lighthearted reason, I suppose, which is that the hyperfixation just isn't hitting lately. It might be back. It probably will be. I still enjoy watching mcyt and this has been possibly my longest running recurrent hyperfixation ever. It's had a hold of me since I was a teenager so it will probably come back eventually. I might be back when the hyperfixation is..or I might not be, or I might be back on a different blog disconnected from my current one. I don't know yet. Of course, if that was the only reason, I wouldn't be making this post, I've dipped in and out of the fandom and this blog since 2021 as my hyperfixation wanes and waxes..

2.) Onto more serious reasons, running this blog, while extremely rewarding in a lot of ways (i so dearly appreciate all the support and praise and engagement i've gotten over the years here, having nearly two thousand followers on one of my blogs is unbelievable), the relative 'popularity' of my blog has also led to a lot of high expectations and negativity as well. People who expect a certain kind of 'content' from me and get upset when I choose to post about different things, people who are rude and borderline triggering in their disagreement with me, and people who treat me like an on-demand analysis machine who is obligated to answer all their asks with in depth analysis. I appreciate the engagement I've gotten, but sometimes I feel like people forget there's a person behind the blog, and it's taken a toll on my mental health.

3.) I am not going to name names. People who know me know what I'm referring to, anybody else it isn't your business, I'm not saying this for 'drama', but to add context. But for nearly a near, until very recently, I was in two extremely unhealthy and abusive relationships with people I met in this fandom space, one of which continues to be active in this fandom space. I am afraid to cross paths with them, I am afraid to share a community with them, almost to a paranoid extent, and because of this, even if I do come back to posting about mcyt, I'm not sure if I'll do it under this account or with my actual name.

Sorry this is a lot, and I'm sorry as well for the vagueness, and for not having a solid answer as to if I'll come back to posting on this blog or not. But a lot of people have sent me asks and alike asking if I'm okay so I wanted to give some kind of answer.

If I do end up coming back to this blog, or even a different one in the future, then thank you in advance for your understanding and patience, and I'm excited to maybe continue sharing my thoughts with this community that's given me so much back.

If I don't come back to the fandom space, thank you so much to all my followers, especially my mutuals, my friends, and my partners, for bringing me so much joy. I'm so flattered and grateful for all the praise and love I've received here, and if this is the last thing I end up saying here, I want it to be known I wouldn't change the last five years for the world.

Please don't worry about me. I'm doing okay, truly, I just need space, and I don't know when I'll be back, if I ever will. Any mutuals who want to keep in contact and don't already have me on discord, feel free to dm me, I'd be happy to give you my discord.

Theoretically, I know Grian should be an avatar of The Eye, because he's literally A Watcher, and the whole decision to ascend at the end of evo could easily be read as the moment he made the choice to become an avatar of The Eye. But also..I just think Grian's like the least watcher aligned evo player in the life series, I think he's actively un-aligned with the watchers, and..I really like Grian as an avatar of The Corruption. Grian has shown a fondness for mycelium, skulk, creepy crawlies (see: snails), all manners of creeping infecting rotting things. Jane Prentiss and Benoît Maçon come to mind, there's an especially common theme, with The Corruption, of preying on people's desire for connection by giving them a love that'll never leave them, even if they have to rot for it, and I think it's easy to slot Grian into that role, considering how poorly he handles being alone, how clingy and (self described as) "needy" he can be, and his way of showing coddling affection for the unsettling things he keeps. I did also briefly consider Grian as an avatar of The Stranger or The Spiral, which I do still think is fitting, but I'm fond of Corruption for him.

Scott, I think, is an avatar of The Web. Now, everyone knows I don't love when Scott is portrayed as manipulative in a way that makes him out to be uniquely malicious or ingenuine in his relationships, and honestly, Scott isn't generally a liar. However. The ability of The Web to think, plan, and strategize, as well as its broad self awareness, are all traits I think are extremely fitting of Scott, and I think the way Scott gets so far in his series is by weaving scenarios with preferable outcomes for himself, and while he rarely lies outright to people, Scott has this way of presenting himself that misleads people and makes them act in ways that are better for him. I mean, the main way Scott gets out of confrontations with Red Names- sometimes mobs of them- that should, by all means, kill him, is through mind games. Acting confident and unphased, like he has no reason to be afraid, laughing and pretending there's no danger to him, bluff charging when he's at low health so people think he's higher than he is. Scott relies on the idea that how much raw skill he has matters much less than how much of a threat he can convince other people he is, meanwhile his real power comes from weaving alliance webs thick enough to catch him no matter what goes wrong. Which is very Web coded, to me.

Scar is also an avatar of The Web. He's a liar, a scammer, a conman. A lot of people view him as unintelligent or unobservant, but I'd argue that, in of itself, is a part of his tactics. Scar plays up his perceived naivety on purpose to get out of doing things he doesn't want to do and to get away with committing slights against people that may otherwise be taken much more harshly. Secret Life comes to mind, where Scar played the poor beaten down dog with no allies, meanwhile he was planting seeds in every alliance and eventually just had his pick of allies on the server. That's how Scar won his season, by slipping under the radar, silently weaving webs, and then tugging on the threads he'd created so everything came falling into place. The fact that he was also trying to pull off smaller scams and bargains throughout the rest of the season (as always) give more fuel to the association between Scar and The Web, but I think it's the more subtle larger plotting Scar's always silently doing in the background (and will deny if you ask, because, why, he's just a sillyguy!) is the more damning bit of evidence for Scar as an avatar of The Web.

Martyn I have to give to The Eye. Not just because of his connection to The Watchers, either I also just think it's awfully fitting of who Martyn is. He's this kind of paranoid and hypervigilant that makes him keep an eye on people, he always wants a clear view of what people are thinking and planning. Martyn is always watching over his shoulder, always aware of what's around him, always trying to get more information because information is power. I also considered other fears for him, considered the web for his deception, and the slaughter for his brutality. But I think his connection to The Watchers, combined with the sense of hypervigilance that plagues Martyn's povs, I think The Eye is the best choice for him.

Ren, I think, has to be The Slaughter, if only because of Third Life. Ren is the one to technically bring war upon the server, he is the one who called 'red winter' down, the red king with blood blinding his vision. And the violence that followed, while technically 'organized' in the sense of being a war, was senseless in many ways. People who could have been (or previously were) allies- Scott and Jimmy who had been so good to Martyn and who had given Ren no reason to distrust them, Cleo and Bdubs who had been two of Ren's oldest friends and allies until he cut them out and put them in his book of names for very little- became targets for the slaughter, and the ways they killed were particularly brutal as well (scott being killed on yellow and then hunted down through the forest and slaughtered again while trying to recollect his stuff comes to mind). Third Life was an outlier in behavior for Ren, I think, but tit took hold of him in such an extreme way I don't think there's any going back from.

Cleo is The Desolation to me. I mean..they're the person known for Burning Everything To The Ground And Then Salting The Earth Behind Them. The Fairy Fort incident comes to mind as the most famous example, but Cleo does this a lot, targeting the things you love most and setting it alight. If you want to lean more into Cleo's zombie imagery I suppose you could also assign them the end (or would stranger be more fitting? would an undead being fit with the end? or it might play into the uncanny valley aspect of the stranger?), but I think the Desolation implications are too strong to go with anything else.

I'm combining Gem and Pearl's segments here solely because I think they're both avatars of The Hunt and some of their evidence is overlapping. I mean, for Pearl I immediately think of Double Life and her wolf army hunting and tearing apart her enemies. For Gem, the Boogeyman Curse from Secret Life comes to mind right away, leading a hunt against the green and yellow names of the server. Murder Camel, Pearl and Gem working together in Simple Life to hunt other players, and Gem getting excited when Pearl gets Boogeyman in Past Life because they get to find and kill someone together are also points of evidence for them being avatars of The Hunt, to me.

Actually, while we're on the subject of The Hunt, I think Joel can be slotted pretty easily into being an Avatar of The Hunt as well. I mean, he's pretty famous for his bloodlust. I suppose a case could be made that his bloodlust would be equally fitting of The Slaughter, but personally, I think Joel's brand of violence has a more primal aspect to it that I find more fitting of The Hunt. Joel leads a lot of the serverwide hunts against yellow/green players (usually targeting scott tbf but not always), and even when it's not his idea, he gets very carried away in the thrill of chasing and killing (side note but a death game like the life series makes a really good source of sustenance for the hunt. i know the watchers are very eye coded. but the hunt, the slaughter, and maybe the web would probably have a field day here.)

BigB is another obvious one to me. He is so associated with The Spiral for me. Especially in later seasons. I mean, he clearly loves striking confusion in people. I can see an argument for The Stranger because of his unsettling energy, or The Web for his disloyalty, but I think BigB's deception falls much more in line with The Spiral's brand of deception than The Web's. Not manipulation in the form of trapping someone in strings, but deception in the form of making people doubt reality and their perceptions of it. Plus, BigB built The Cobblerooms which was a confusing underground maze, and The Spiral is associated with mazes.

1.) Grian makes things his job/responsibility that others would not.

For example, Mumbo blows himself up and Skizz dangles on a ledge Grian warned him to get off of until someone shoots him off? That's Grian's fault. Somehow. I mean, he built the tower, I guess.

Now, in the past I've argued this point by bringing up how much Grian did to help Mumbo and Skizz, providing them with plans and resources and the literal armor off his back so they could have a higher chance of staying alive.

But I almost think it's because, not in spite of, how much he did for them, that Grian gets blamed for their deaths.

Most lifers would help their red teammates, sure, but many wouldn't make it their job, their responsibility, to make sure they stay alive. Grian did, Grian always does, pretty explicitly, make other people his own responsibility.

So when most red names die, it's bad luck, or the fault of who actually killed them, or their own fault. When Grian's red name teammates die, even if he had nothing to do with it, even if he warned them not to do what they were doing and they did it anyways..it's Grian's fault. Because Grian built the tower, didn't he?

The act of trying to hard to save them makes it seem, to many, that it's his fault when he doesn't, whereas if he hadn't tried at all, he could have wiped his hands clean of it, made it their own faults, nothing to do with him, like what usually happens when a red goes off and gets themselves killed while trying to get up on lives.

2.) Grian will accept blame to an extent others often would not.

We've all seen how your typical lifer will react to doing something 'wrong'. They'll justify their actions, argue on why they were right to do what they did, or they'll brush it off, because this is just how they are, so you should have seen it coming.

The thing that inspired this whole post, actually, was a tag someone left on another post I made comparing Martyn and Grian's track records for outliving teammates. And this person points out, "When Grian kills someone on accident he blames himself, when Martyn kills someone on accident everyone goes 'never trust a Martyn'. Its blame shifting Grians kills you is Grian's fault. If Martyn kills you is your fault", and I massively agree with that assessment.

This isn't to say Grian never weasels his way out of taking blame, but he's a lot more likely not to. Insisting he has to do something (even when told by others he doesn't) to make it up to Scar in Third Life and then swearing his life to him. "I'm such a traitor" in Double Life when he accidentally kills BigB. Blaming himself when Scar loses one of their lives because he "should have been watching him" and then blaming himself when he loses one of their lives too.

Grian, more frequently than most Lifers, will hold himself accountable, when he does something bad, and hell, even when he doesn't do anything wrong (again blaming himself for scar dying because he "wasn't watching him" pops into mind).

Somehow, being willing to apologize more often makes Grian look worse than people who do equally as much wrong but don't take it as seriously or accept blame for it.

And these are really interesting phenomenon to me. That someone will be paradoxically viewed more harshly than their peers for taking on more responsibility for other people and accepting blame for their actions more frequently than their peers.

But it makes sense. Grian acts as judge, jury, and executioner. He decides he's guilty. Of every accidental kill, of every time he went 'too far', of every time he didn't save someone he thinks he should have, of not being loyal enough, of moving on too fast. And it's easy to take someone at face value, especially when there are often grains of truth there (maybe he should have been more careful, maybe he should have done more, maybe he should have, maybe he should have, maybe..)

Especially with how self loathing he gets about it. Grian doesn't just say "I should have thought my actions through more, that was my bad" when he kills BigB without thinking. He says "I am such a traitor", he doesn't just take note of where he went wrong, he ascribes a negative value label to himself. Traitor.

And I'll always argue it's unfair. It's unfair, that Grian is so hard on himself, and that people take that and run with it instead of recognizing that noone else is held to the standards they let Grian hold himself to. But it's also self inflicted, in a lot of ways.

Like. Really look at each of their records for outliving teammates.

Third Life Grian outlived Scar and Martyn didn't outlive all of Dogwarts but he did die after Ren who was his 'main' ally.

Last Life Martyn outlived the entire Southlands meanwhile Grian decidedly did not outlive Martyn (or joel, for that matter, who i'd argue was as much a teammate to grian in that season as the southlanders were).

In Double Life Martyn outlived his soulmate (albeit only by a few seconds), meanwhile, while Grian did outlive BigB, he decidedly died first between himself and Scar.

Limited Life Martyn outlived everyone who could be construed as on his team, meanwhile Grian outlived Joel and Jim but there's grey area in that he joined another team after and didn't outlive all his new teammates.

Secret Life Martyn and Grian both outlived their respective teammates (cleo + etho in grian's case and jimmy in martyn's case).

Wild Life is the first time Martyn didn't outlive any teammates, dying before Ren. Grian once again outlived his initial team, although his backup teammate, Joel, did outlive Grian.

Past Life both Martyn and Grian outlived their teams again (cleo in martyn's case and gem + pearl in grian's case).

Like, I'd argue they're roughly equal. Hell, I'd argue Martyn outliving his teams is more of an undeniable fact than Grian outliving his.

"Well, the Widows curse is sometimes interpreted to be about Grian KILLING his teammates, not just outliving them" I've talked before about how calling Grian a 'team killer' is a stretch at best and I'd like to point out to the class that Martyn has intentionally betrayed allies in a way Grian has not (and martyn has planned to betray the allies who happened to die before he got the chance to, which grian also has not done)

Now..this doesn't mean I don't like the Widows Curse, per say, or that I think we should take the Widows Curse away from Grian and give it to Martyn, or something.

But the way I enjoy the Widows Curse is very specifically as a manifestation of Grian's own guilt and self perception. I've always thought the observation that Grian always outlives his teammates was tenuous at best, and that calling him a team killer was downright untrue, but I do think Grian believes he is responsible for the deaths of his teammates.

And that's how I like Life Series Curses. It's the same as how I always viewed the Canary Curse, not as something real, but as a cage that only existed in Jimmy's mind and that he always had the power to break out of.

The Widows Curse is not a curse from The Watchers, it is not a series of bad luck, or Grian being a 'bad teammate', it is the manifestation of the disproportionate guilt and responsibility Grian carries around when bad things inevitably happen in this death game.

And that's also why Martyn, despite outliving his teammates as much if not more and being more of a traitor than Grian ever is, doesn't have the same 'curse'.

Because this is not something that weighs on Martyn's shoulders. He doesn't dig graves like Grian does, apologize like Grian does, insult himself like Grian does, grieve like Grian does, tear himself apart for not doing more, like Grian does.

A difference in mindset, in how they regard themselves is why Grian is The Widow who blights his teams, and Martyn is just a good player who gets far in these games.

Of course, if you think Scott and Martyn are being mature about this pathetic seventeen year old kids grudge on them, you would be wrong.

Jim finally executes the perfect plan to prove he's cool and they're not and Scott and Martyn pretend not to even remember who he is they're like "Who is this sassy twelve year old?" and Jim's like "I'm seventeen!!!" and they're like "Don't look it, bud.." just absolutely petty with it.