#smallishbeans angst

lore-wise joel's addition to hermitcraft is a big thing all around, but it's particularly interesting to me to watch his interactions with non-lifers. to see the difference in the relationships formed not only under threat but always under threat from that very person, as opposed to relationships formed in a permanent peacetime. like on the one hand you have people who have seen him in 3rd life, in last life, seen what he's like all bloody and lonely and red. and then you have people who just met him recently and only saw someone they found interesting and decided to make a friend. people for whom attachment does not hold the same weight it does for joel, the same weight it does inside a life game. it's the difference of forming relationships during a time of trauma, and forming relationships when in the process of healing.

thinking about the parallels between scar and joel and their relationship with loneliness. scar, who loved and lost, time and time again ended up left alone at the end of it all, and eventually made his peace with solitude, to the point where he won and stayed alive in an empty world. joel, who never knew what it was to have someone, was surrounded by nothing but his wolves and was fine staying like that, but who grew and learnt, got burnt because of it, and only cherished the relationships he made all the more. who grew more and more acquainted with what it was to be loved over the seasons, and at the same time grew more and more afraid of being alone.

"i don't know why but it's just so nice being mean to etho"

"you came here, you gave me a banner and said i had to swear allegiance to you. scar came over to me and said he'll fix my roof" there's something so human about that. because that's all joel ever really wanted, isn't it? against all the grandeur of the life series, all the betrayals and swords swung in unison and bridges burnt, he stands out in how little he cares about any of that. he doesn't need an army at his side, he doesn't need someone to stand at his back and lay their life down for him when the time comes. no, he cares for the simpler things, the things that almost make you forget that it's a death game. he cares for his builds and his dead bush monopoly and his silly beard that is not stuck on, thank you very much - maybe precisely so that he can forget that it's a death game. all the murder and betrayal and his own excessive bloodthirst - if he doesn't apply any of it any significance, then a game is all it is and soon enough it'll all be over and then they'll do it all again. ignoring his problems until they go away is what he's good at, and this is just the bigger of them. if he ignores this, too, if he doesn't think too deep about the blood on his fingers or the ash in his lungs, then he can wake up in a new world and build himself a helter skelter and it'll all be fine.

life series joel's fear of heights + him constantly water bucketing everywhere