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I'm sure I've said this before but Grian has never betrayed anyone.

He was Scar's teammate until the Cactus Ring and that was a fair fight they both agreed to the terms of.

He killed Jimmy and Mumbo in Last Life but that was AFTER the Southlands pretty much disbanded and they attacked him first so clearly they weren't still teamed.

He stayed with Scar through all of Double Life too, and him accidentally getting himself killed isn't a 'betrayal' of his partner. You could say he betrayed Bigb but I don't think he intentionally thought through killing Bigb as you can see from how awful he feels about it.

He outlived Jimmy and Joel in Limited Life while being their teammate the entire time, he didn't betray them, he wasn't the one who killed them.

He stuck with Cleo and Etho the same way in Secret Life, he happened to outlive them, but he didn't kill or betray them.

Grian's not a traitor, he's never betrayed a long term teammate. He's also not a "team killer", the only one he intentionally killed while teamed with was Scar in the cactus ring.

Sure, Grian does have a habit of outliving everyone he loves. Sometimes he kills them because he has to, sometimes the team falls apart, sometimes they just die.

But Grian doesn't kill his teammates half as often as people suggest, and he certainly doesn't make a habit of betraying them.

they should invent a searching for jobs that doesn't open a miles-deep pit of despair and rage within me that gets deeper and wider with every scroll because it's all shit that is impossible for me to do because I am not a real human like other people

.................

Decipher this hermit encoded message :)

Easy edition

I’m sorry but…

I know Ludinus is supposed to be one of the smartest people in the world but every time he starts talking about releasing Predathos, he sounds like Nott trying to explain how setting off a homemade bomb in a tiny room with all of them inside is absolutely 100% going to work.

“Think about this. She throws it. I fire. It explodes. No structural damage, only damage to the creature. That’s how I see it going down.”

things matt has canonized for shadowgast (that i can remember):

essek and caleb have been living together since they got together (so roughly 7 years) and essek hasn't been back to the dynasty since before the mighty nein ended

caleb is cluttered and messy but essek tolerates it for him

essek bakes sweets (because i can't picture caleb being the one to do it)

essek wears caleb's clothes because they smell like him

essek and caleb have a portrait of the two of them together in their shared lab

essek has learned enough zemnian to curse in zemnian (and actively chooses to speak it)

essek and caleb have sat for couples portraits together

essek regularly sends messages to caleb when they're apart

essek has picked up some therapist habits (likely from caduceus) and has talked caleb down from a ledge during bad mental health problems

essek now wears bits of orange and caleb wears bits of purple

beau and yasha regularly come over and spend time at the shadowgast household

there's enough space in their house for guests (and jester has been by enough times to draw dicks everywhere)

they fuck in every room of the house

i remembered i can just make insane posts so in my head traffic cleo is absolutely a smoker and in the (probably inaccurate) vision in my mind this is how it would go if she invited and of the other traffic gals to smoke with her it would go like this

if cleo offered lizzie a cigarette i think it would send lizzie into like a death note internal monologue where she tries to figure out if cleo actually wants her to take one or not and untimely decides that cleo doesn't want her to take one so she takes one as a power move. and then she smokes it really badly and coughs and coughs while desperately trying to come off as cool (cleo was offering her one in the hopes that this would happen)

if cleo offered gem a cigarette gem would passive aggressively remind them of the heath risks and deny one for herself, clearly trying to position herself as morally and physically above cleo in order to gain control of the situation. and cleo would get turned on a bit by what a bitch she is

if cleo offered pearl a cigarette pearl would take it and put it in her mouth and chew on it and swallow it and then be like 'that doesn't taste very good cleo :( why do you like them' and cleo would be like 'its and acquired taste i guess' because she cant tell if pearl is purposely doing this as a bit to make her uncomfortable or possibly make her laugh of if she's just stupid but cleos not going to let her win regardless

Just watched the first episode, and I gotta say The Sandman universe doesn't disappoint. Neil Gaiman doesn't disappoint-

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No Context Reasons You Should Watch Dead Boy Detectives

Cub: We’re off to send some mail, ladies and gentlemen! This is the first time I’ve sent mail to somebody, except when I sent Etho a wooden hoe named “Your Mom”

i love horror :3

fuck ass bird in my home who let him in here

reblog to be eaten by this thing

I wonder how Keralis feels knowing he has perfect resting "caught in the collateral shockwave of a massive explosion and currently being hurled over the horizon" face.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NO?

"I mean no!" says Zedaph. "It's really very simple. I don't know what you're having so much trouble with."

YOU DIED.

"I sure did!" says Zedaph.

AND THUS, YOU MUST SERVE YOUR SENTENCE AS A REAPER.

"Hmm. Nah, not really feeling it to be honest." He shrugs. "Been there, done that, didn't even get a t-shirt if you can believe it? And besides, I don't have a hotbar. I can't believe you would try and take advantage of a man with no hotbar!"

HOW HAS THIS HAPPENED? HAVE YOU BEEN CURSED BY SOME OTHER ENCROACHING DEITY? WHAT FORCE HAS TAKEN SUCH A FUNDAMENTAL TOOL FROM YOU?

...IS THIS THOSE VAULT GODS? THEY DO SO LOVE TO MEDDLE.

"What? Oh no, no. It's just a fun sort of challenge."

...I SEE. NOW, RETURNING TO YOUR EARLIER POINT. YOU SAY YOU HAVE SERVED YOUR TIME?

"Oh, yeah! I feel like I would have a bit of an unfair advantage, and I wanted to kick things off with a challenge. Last time all I had to do was ask, you know, and they were falling over themselves to die! I guess it's just part of my natural charm."

...

There is a short silence.

Zedaph squints. "Are you alright? You look a bit unnerved! Don't worry, I'm not in the habit of putting cosmic forces out of a job, I've got much more interesting things to be getting on with. You know, I really do just want to be left to my own devices most of the time."

VERY WELL. I SUPPOSE THAT CAN BE ARRANGED.

"There we go!" He says encouragingly. "That wasn't so hard, was it? Don't worry, I won't mess with your unpaid intern Reapers, as long as they don't mess with me! Promise!"

YOUR PROMISE HAS BEEN NOTED. I WISH YOU LUCK WITH YOUR... "FUN CHALLENGE", IN WHICH YOU SEPARATE YOURSELF FROM AN INTRINSIC PART OF YOUR NATURE FOR NO REASON I CAN DISCERN.

"Aww, thanks! Good luck with your Reaping and Reaping related activities! Now, if you don't mind me, I'm going to go look for one of the other Hermits to beg for some pity iron."

FAREWELL.

Zedaph respawns, laughs, and shakes his head. "One time Reaping? What will they think of next?" he muses.

The sheer novelty of it all is almost enough to distract him from the fact that he's back at square one, without a single stick to his name.

Ah well. If he'd wanted things to be easy, he would have joined Grian's little "plaything of death" game.

"Easy" was all very well and good, but he always was more of a fan of "interesting".

"What do you think happens after we die?"

Cleo glances up from where she'd been sorting through all their weaponry for the day to come. She looks at Etho, who looks just as confused as her, and then she looks to Grian.

"Uh, you're sort of asking the wrong people," Etho says slowly.

"I didn't know you were a philosopher, Grian," agrees Cleo.

"No, I mean--listen, this is important," Grian says. "What do you think happens after we die?"

Cleo stares at Grian. He has an extremely intent expression on his face. Twisted. Almost concerned. They... don't like it, actually. The question about being a philosopher had been sarcastic, sure, but true. Grian doesn't normally dwell on questions like this.

"Alright, then," they say. "If you have to know, I don't think there's anything."

"Wait, really?" says Etho.

"I mean, yeah. There's probably--or, well, whatever there is, it's not worth worrying about. Why do you think I'm undead and not just dead? Or, well, normally undead, I guess? I'm not undead right now, whatever happened that made me all alive and stuff happened, but like... The point is that I still have things to do. Then, when I'm done doing my things, I think there's nothing, at least not until the next one of these stupid games they raise me from the dead for."

Etho blinks. "Huh. You know, I always thought that if anyone could give us an answer, it'd be you, so--nothing?"

"Yeah, that's what I said."

Grian coughs. Cleo looks at him again. He's pale. Very, very pale. Like he's seen a ghost, or is very sick. She frowns, but before she can ask, he's saying: "You really think there's nothing?"

"I didn't think you'd both be so upset by it," Cleo says.

"I'm not really upset," Etho says slowly. "I don't know. I sort of hoped there was something, but it's not worth relying on, right? There's not a second chance out there for us. Not except for the next game. I think I just hoped that maybe, some people got something... nicer?"

"Don't you think we'd remember if there was?" Cleo says.

"I mean--you're the undead one. I thought that if anyone would know--"

"You really think there's nothing," Grian says, and he sounds so horrified that Cleo and Etho stop arguing immediately.

"Grian?" Cleo says.

"You think there's nothing. Gods, you think there's nothing," Grian says. "And Timmy said--Timmy said the thing they get is to Watch."

Cleo frowns. "Jimmy? When'd he say that to you?"

"An hour ago," Grian says.

"What?" Cleo says.

"I was--no wonder you wouldn't have guessed. No wonder he was also so--you think there's nothing. Why do you think there's nothing?" Grian says, horrified and pale-faced and trembling.

"Uh, buddy, I hate to break it to you, but Jimmy's been dead for days. He couldn't have been talking to you."

"He's spectating!" Grian says, throwing his hands up.

"He's a ghost?" Etho asks.

"I mean, yeah, but that's not even what I mean. I mean--what do you think comes between the games?"

"I told you, right?" Cleo says, and Etho shrugs.

Grian sits down on the ground, hard. "Oh," he says.

"If it helps I also didn't know there were ghosts until you just told me," Cleo says hesitantly. "That's--kind of strange, isn't it? That there are ghosts? Guess it checks out, given all of our unfinished business, but you'd think I'd have known that. Would remember something proper of it, right?"

"Yeah, I really thought you would have," Grian whispers.

"Was, uh--being contacted from beyond the grave fun?" Etho asks.

"Etho," Cleo says.

"What!" Etho says.

"I have made a grave mistake," Grian says.

"...Grian?" Cleo asks, but he doesn't elaborate, and refuses to. He sits there, pale on the ground, until Etho and Cleo sit next to him and start arguing over his head about who they'd haunt as ghosts. To tell the truth, Cleo's heart isn't really in it. They probably wouldn't do much haunting, is the thing. If they were a ghost, they'd probably just try to reunite with these two again. Yeah, reuniting with family--that seems like the kind of thing Cleo would do as a ghost.

They wonder if Jimmy was trying to do that too, and that's why Grian's so upset.

They also wonder if it's something else, but for the life of them, they cannot begin to guess what.

For the first time in a long time, Grian realizes something.

The people in this world love each other. They care about each other. Grian has spent so long isolating himself, keeping a safe distance from any real alliance, making sure everyone knew they couldn't trust him in the end, because there is always an end, always chaos, and no matter what happens, the only way out is to die. Grian knew that, he still knows that, but for the first time, he can see something else too.

When he presses the button and dies, for a moment he can see everything, all the destruction, the weight of it all. He can see all of the greens and yellows, coming together to defeat the wither, fighting together, not each other, fighting for their lives and their teammates and friends.

Afterwards, they bury Mumbo and Jimmy together. This time it feels different. Grian's killed before. He's killed both Mumbo and Jimmy at his own hands. And he knows it's his fault, this time, too, but it's different because it didn't even matter. For the first time in what feels like years of this game, Grian feels fucking terrible. He's felt guilt before, but never this sort of grief, never this level of horror at what he's created. Because this isn't the usual world of every man for himself, of utter chaos and bloodshed, this is a world where everybody came together, and for the first time, Grian starts to understand why Scott still believes in love, and hope.

And the watchers hate it. They hate what they've always hated about Grian - that he's still human.

as my final thought before i go to bed and then disappear off tumblr for the whole day tomorrow in order to avoid limited life spoilers, i leave you with something about watcher grian in the traffic series.

specifically, this ask from martyn regarding watchers feeding on negative energy.

i'm not focusing on the feeding aspect so much as i am about how martyn says "[grian's] chaotic / mischievous nature actually takes the edge off for a lot of players. Helping them revel in the twists and turns, adopting a more 'the games the game' mindset actually sours the soup so to speak." this is in reference to the watchers feeding on negative energy, and implying that grian disrupts that by trying to make people have fun.

and somehow. THIS HAS JUST BEEN SITTING IN MY MIND FOR DAYS. it's the way that grian isn't, at least at this point, able to break them out of the games, but he is able to cause the watchers annoyance and disrupt their plans. it also dovetails very nicely between the rp "this is a death game loop everyone is trapped in" and the irl "this is a game the creators choose to participate in."

it's a death game but grian's there, smile on his face and pain behind his eyes, trying to coax everyone into having as much of a good time as they can instead.

we also tend to view a lot of grian's more....violent and chaotic incidents in the traffic series as a flaw or negative trait when we do more serious-readings of the series. but this concept, and martyn's wording of "helping [the players] revel in the twists and turns of the game" really imply otherwise. sure, grian kills gleefully and takes a lot of joy in causing trouble, but he is far from the only one. if everyone is encouraged to have fun making traps and scheming, giving in to some of these worse desires--and they are and they do--then they're actively going against the watcher's expected outcomes. they all die in the end, either way. if they can take some fun from dropping tnt minecarts on each other, then at least they died AND pissed off the watchers right?

idk idk it's the tiny bit of control over a hopeless situation that's getting me with this. martyn notes that grian is consistently been an annoyance to the watchers and they haven't been able to stop him, but grian is also clearly unable to stop the death games. (of course the meta reason is the CCs like making them, but from an rp standpoint he would gave ended it by now if it were an easy task.) it's like a stand-off. he can keep causing them problems. they can keep the games going. he can't break everyone out of the games, but he can ensure the games don't go the way they want them to. the players in the games don't have much control over their situation, but if they can find some fun in not taking it so seriously, then that's just a tiny bit more control that they have.

so it's just....a watcher!grian doing the best he can in a bad situation. finding a bright spot in it and trying to make others enjoy it too. and thus the traffic series is goofy and silly, filled with laughter that covers and undercurrent of despair.

grian and scar laughed while they fought in the cactus ring in 3rd life, remember?

You know being transmasc after a life of growing up as the sole "girl" in male-dominated areas gives you a weird and complicated relationship with gender identity.

Like... being told straight to your face, "you're naturally bad at this cause you're a girl", "you're naturally weaker cause you're a girl", "you can act tough but you'll always just be a girl", "stop acting like you can keep up with the men", and even the well-intentioned, "Yeah women are like that, but you don't count, you're basically one of the boys"...

It leads you to this weird space where it's like. "Fuck you, women kick ass," and then busting yourself up to prove that you, a woman, *can* keep up, and not only keep up but do it better than anyone else, and taking pride in your femininity because it's not a fucking weakness, but at the same time knowing that... You're not a woman.

You're not a woman. You're not a girl. People just see tits and curves and decide that nature made you delicate, and then all of a sudden it's your responsibility to prove that you're not fucking weak, women aren't weak, while also saying, "I'm not a woman, though."

It's... bizarre.

I'm not a girl. But so long as I'm interpreted as one, I'm still gonna be held back by the same stereotypes. But if I ever stop being interpreted as one, then all the hard fucking work I put in to excel in my field is going to go down the toilet as "just something you can do because you're a man".

And fuck that. That's stupid, too. Guys shouldn't have their effort taken for granted like that, and it stings extra hard because you remember people just naturally assuming you suck and earning respect only to lose it immediately the second you step over to the "man" side. Because you've worked your whole life for something that as a man you'd just be expected to have naturally.

You SEE that shit staring you in the face, and worst of all people still walk around you in plain view and still talk about how women can't do shit and conveniently forget that you've BEEN ONE. "Because you were a man all along" or "because you overcompensate to prove yourself", whatever they think of to justify the cognitive dissonance that keeps their narrative going.

Nobody seems to consider that I'm not really different from women OR men, because those differences don't exist.

I'm not "naturally better" than women because I don't identify as one, and I'm not "worse than" men because I wasn't assigned the title by a third party. I'm just a person. We're all just people.

I'm just tired, man.

y’all remember when the members of traffic smp were joking about doing a season of the life series irl bc that shit is so funny to me simply bc i am thinking about scar chasing other members down on his off-roading wheelchair. that thing is fast asf. scar has an advantage. imagine trying to sneak up on someone irl and you hear something moving at 15 mph behind you, and it’s scar. absolutely zooming. i’d be terrified personally

one thing I adore about Iskall85 is the things he does with language. he's still saying SAND in a mimickery of season six grian Sahara receptionist voice. he finds a sound he likes and he keeps making it. he names everything. he has the best laugh. half of the time I have no idea what he's talking about because he's renamed everything, but I don't mind because I'm having such a good time listening to iskall talk