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[Dear My Living Dead] Full English Translation - AidaIro
Here we are! Our first release as a scanlation group of AidaIro’s brilliant debut one-shot, Dear My Living Dead. It’s kind of a predecessor of the main Toilet Bound Hanako-kun series, so it’s interesting to see the thematic links between the two works. Everyone in our team has been working very hard on it - I’m incredibly proud to see how far we’ve come! We hope you all enjoy reading DMLD and look forward to our future scanlations~ Wormokke signing off! ^^
✨🍨The Hermit Delights Cookbook Zine - Mod applications open!!🍨✨
Hey everyone! ✨
We’re officially opening mod applications for The Hermit Delights Cookbook Zine
We’re looking for:
Graphic mods:The graphics mod would be in charge of designing and formatting all the graphics required for the project. Past experience with designing may be helpful for this role.
Formatting mods: The formatting mod is in charge of formatting the digital zine. This mod will format the text, illustrations, and graphics to ensure they all fit together according to the head mods' designs.
Writing mods: The writing mod is in charge of organizing all of the written works in the zine. This can include descriptions and recipes. This mod will also check for spelling, grammar, and formatting to ensure clarity and consistency.
Social media mods:The social media mod is in charge of promoting the zine on Twitter and Tumblr. This mod will create eye catching graphics and creative descriptions for the zine that follow the graphic mod and head mods' design criteria.
Chef mods: The chef mod is in charge of checking the recipes for the zine! Their work includes looking out for possible food allergies and substitutes for ingredients, being a foodie consultant for the cookbook, and past experience with working or organising chef groups and recipes may be helpful for this role.
🗓️ Mod applications will be open until November 9th!
Last but not least, thank you all so much for your enthusiasm and support!
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i cant seriously be the only person whos super disappointed and frustrated with the direction that the life series has taken right. the love i felt for the series was because of the organic relationships and alliances between the players, not because of the gimmick. in secret and wild life the gimmick has become so overpowering (although sl less so) that the players have little room to actually play; the players are punished for engaging in the game (social, and the mechanics of minecraft) and forced to spend the entire time navigating around the gimmick.
this has been a problem in secret life (the players' plans for the session being completely thwarted by secret tasks) but has been completely blown out of proportion in wild life, where a sessions were filled with deaths caused by the gimmick- players taken out of the series through no fault of their own.
i feel like the frustration on the players part comes through very strongly in their episodes. in the snail episode, it didnt even seem like most players were having any fun; players eliminated by the snails were understandably disappointed and frustrated as well. the finale was imo completely lackluster, with most conflict culminating right after the wild cards were turned off. the players do want to engage in the social game (pearl and gem were doing their absolute best to work out their beef in the finale) but they just Cant due to the way that the gimmick has been designed to work. grian of course will not learn from this
It is valid to not like a season. It is valid to express your opinions about why you personally didn't like it. But saying "Grian of course will not learn from this" ? Do you hate it that much to not recognise the love and care Grian puts in every life series? To ignore that, in fact, he was learning every week about the gimmicks? The things that need fixing what should be discarded and what shouldn't. In the last episode he explicitly mentions how multiple gimmicks were modified to be easier to manage around for the players, the small and big gimmick was changed to stop you from shrinking after you were (I believe) a block tall, which I assume was taking into account that Pearl died shifting over an edge, the hunger gimmick wasn't at all in the finale because that one would have been most distracting, the snails were also slow down for the final episode.
I personally believed there was a lot more socialization in this season than in others because of the communication the wild cards gave. People testing, playing around. The whole server telling each other what food they should eat and shouldn't in the second episode, testing how to kill snails in episode three, going around looking for people that may know the answer to a trivia bot question even if they weren't in the same alliances, everyone showing off their powers to the others... They did socialize more than usual and connected with other players.
This series means a lot for all of them, and I think that if they have had a problem of how the gimmicks were affecting their gameplay they would have said something to Grian. It isn't like they couldn't when the snail session was shorter because this said problems. They talk behind the scenes, they know what will be the twist in a season, if they weren't ok with that they would have said something or not participate at all in the season.
i cant seriously be the only person whos super disappointed and frustrated with the direction that the life series has taken right. the love i felt for the series was because of the organic relationships and alliances between the players, not because of the gimmick. in secret and wild life the gimmick has become so overpowering (although sl less so) that the players have little room to actually play; the players are punished for engaging in the game (social, and the mechanics of minecraft) and forced to spend the entire time navigating around the gimmick.
this has been a problem in secret life (the players' plans for the session being completely thwarted by secret tasks) but has been completely blown out of proportion in wild life, where a sessions were filled with deaths caused by the gimmick- players taken out of the series through no fault of their own.
i feel like the frustration on the players part comes through very strongly in their episodes. in the snail episode, it didnt even seem like most players were having any fun; players eliminated by the snails were understandably disappointed and frustrated as well. the finale was imo completely lackluster, with most conflict culminating right after the wild cards were turned off. the players do want to engage in the social game (pearl and gem were doing their absolute best to work out their beef in the finale) but they just Cant due to the way that the gimmick has been designed to work. grian of course will not learn from this
It's totally fine if you don't like the gimmicks, people have preferences and some people like the older seasons more, which is great. I agree that some of them weren't fully thought out, and it was frustrating for some of the players to get out earlier than I would have liked. I would have loved to see a final showdown between Pearl and Gem.
But I personally feel like the gimmick helped players interact MORE. The point of this series was that it was random, it totally pulled the rug out from beneath these longtime professional players and had them trying to figure out what fundamental gameplay mechanic changed. It felt like a fantasy/survival horror to me at some points. My favorite example of this was the food episode. Players from other groups were communicating and banding together for survival, sharing and withholding info based on alliances. Big B would have never joined the G's without that wildcard. In fact, Big B was GREAT that episode. He spread misinformation about rotten flesh to people who weren't his allies, which I thought was fun.
The snail episode was my favorite, actually. Players worked around it a lot. For most alliances someone would be on 'snail duty' as a lookout and the others would keep working on what needed to get done. Players were trapping other people's snails, either underwater or by turning them invisible. It was totally chaotic, and yea maybe there should have been more mechanics to slow them down, but I felt like everyone was having fun with the chaos of it all. It's like a rage game. The point is to get frustrated.
The superpowers were also super fun, if a little imbalanced at times. The wildcard let players who had been eliminated way earlier still participate in the finale a lot through the zombie power. Ren even incorporated what happened in that wildcard into his own lore with Martren happening.
Also we have to remember that this isn't a role-play server. Some people like to incorporate lore and such into their gameplay, like Martyn, Cleo, Pearl, etc. but others don't. At the end of the day it's supposed to be a death game where they have fun and kill each other.
Also I hate to be that guy but that last statement about Grian was super rude? What do you mean he won't learn from this? If his friends had a problem with how the series was going or other suggestions, they'll tell him, and he'll make changes. If they don't, we'll keep having gimmicks, because no one has a problem.
Alternative title: Wild life ended so it's time for my anual Grian analysis rant
Starting from the start, Grian is a very logical person when acting in a life series, his survival instincts make him rather kinda conservative with which methods he chooses to kill people, tnt minecarts, traps, etc., that is basically his way to operate around the chaos and since limited life it has been taken away more and more from him, mostly for how his alliances have different methods from him. He is also not the type to look for conflict himself but help his allies to kill in their own personal conflicts.
Touching briefly Third Life, because we all have thought a lot about third life, he seems very comfortable with combat and traps there, probably because of how experimental all was and how it could be treat like a war with two clear sides, something he has done before in hermitcraft (Prank War, the mother spore thing...) just that this one was more deadly. Everyone knows its "you may slay me and take the enchanter" and the big consequences it brought in Grian's trust to his allies, because Scar killed him first, something he was prepared for, but didn't expect.
And the reason why the first thing Grian does getting to Last Life is put a line between him and Scar that they are not bonded anymore, that he doesn't owe anything to him and they aren't allies anymore, which is funny because the Southlands aren't big allies with eachother either, most of the time they are doing their own thing and they don't doubt in kicking Grian when he gets to red, what forces him to ally with Joel, the person that killed him in the first place, and have a contract with Scar, and that is a very curious part because Grian does follow said contract, once he is back to the Southlands he makes them know he is 'bonded' to Scar to do things he needs, he even gets his things back to him when he dies and doesn't attack him in the final battle.
By almost the end of Last Life he's reminded by Jimmy, Mumbo and Martyn that people he trusts will eventually betray him, but contrary to the desert, he didn't think twice before attacking back, probably because if he would have he may have not killed Mumbo. I think the important part here is that he fights back, he doesn't accept an apology, he fights and kills both Jimmy and Mumbo in cold blood, and the only reason he doesn't do the same for Martyn is because he was faster and Impulse arrived and brought him back to his senses that they should focus in other teams, like team BEAST being the biggest team.
Double Life is a little more... messy. Because Grian feels like he is back at square one, back to being bond to work with Scar while feeling as Scar will not put any in his side and that he will betray him at any moment, so he goes and makes a 'just in case' alliance with BigB before Scar has the opportunity to hurt him first. Notable thing? He gets so bloodlusted and angry this season he accidentally kills BigB by making a stalactite fall on Ren and he doesn't realise until minutes later.
Personally I think of Limited Life as the breaking point between tradition (a simple system of lives, simple traps, simple boogeyman even) where he could do most of the job trough traps to have to start to do more pvp combined already with his trust issues that third life and last life leave him are not a good combination. It is when he starts adapting his old habits to the new inpredictable worlds
The Bad Boys were the perfect alliance for Grian for how much balance they brought to eachother, Joel and Jimmy made Grian take more risks and he made sure they didn't die a lot with his surviving instincts. When Jimmy dies every balance they had is thrown trough the window, Joel gives up to his bloodlust and Grian goes back to his coping mechanism to not look for direct conflict. Then Joel dies and it's a breaking point for Grian from there, you can see he is clearly lost without his teammates and even when it has been proven skynet isn't the way to go, he keeps going back to it.
He is actually very protective over skynet, calling it his domain, saying how no one would dare to come here, calling people out about 'trying to beat me at my own game' and killing Tango while saying "Joel, this is for you", he is at one fall from ending it all and quoting him "I feel safe up here. I feel strangely at ease". Skynet was their place, the place where now is just him.
Going back to his alliances, after both of his bad boys died he allies with the nosy neighbours because they haven't wrong him, it doesnt matter they had a conflict with Jimmy, he goes to them because they are the only team he can truly trust in this situation where The Clockers betrayed him and went for Joel, TIES blew up bread bridge and Scott killing Joel. His alliance after being the last one of his team isn't based in what is the stronger team, but what is the team that hasn't lost his trust.
And you can see he trusts Pearl a lot to let her judge him directly for abandoning Joel, to let her decide what she wants to do when BigB tells them he is seconds from dying and he trusts her enough to go against Cleo and Scott after killing Scar and go "Pear do something about this! Pearl do something!" And he cares to certain degree, not enough to be with them most of the episode but enough to try to calm Pearl down when he allies with Etho so they don't kill the other and focus on the mean gills, even when that doesn't work.
His aligment with Etho is at the opposite side of his alliance with the nosy neighbours, because it is not based in trust, it is based in a contract that they did at the very start of the season and one they still find value and true on it. From Grian's point of view it doesn't matter if he trusts Etho, they are bonded by a contract, by a diamond sword Grian gave to him in episode one. Mind you, they were trying to kill each other, Etho even killed him early in that episode but then he said "Do you wanna enact the sword?" and Grian didn't even thought it could be a trap and immediatly accepted because if there is something he values even more than trust it is a contract.
At the end he managed quiet well to get togheter everyone to go against Martyn and Scott but then he fell of skynet and died so... To the next season!
The first three episodes of Secret Life are very... odd, because he keeps making a constant effort to not ally to people in episode one and two even when he had the chance to keep himself around Mumbo or Scar. Then by episode three his survival instincts kick in to make him panic for his lack of alliances with people and how he may be a easy target later in the season, he desesperatly looks around and then by episode four finds a team with Cleo and Etho.
He wasn't very close to them, and neither were they with him but that was probably what Grian needed, someone that still was looking and keep a firm alliance with Joel trough most of the entire series, and trying to recreate what he had with skynet. He was trying to feel safe and as if everything is under control but nothing is under his control and it is proven first when he has to make a Wither and Warden fight with Etho, which is actually what makes him get closer and closer to his team because this is people he can trust and that are capable on their own.
He doesn't lose his teammates before the finally in Secret Life, which makes him keep his calm, long game oriented self to take down the most strong alliance in the server: The cherry blossom team. And it's a very strong contrast with Limited Life where he was just getting the kills he could, taking risks, no fancy traps, just old pvp while trying to stay alive... Here he tries to take his time and fails miserably. He passes half of the final waiting in a trap he prepared for Gem, he then decides he needs to protect his teammates and because he has terrible coping mechanism wants them to go to the "Skynet 2.0", which we know how it ended.
And then they have to escape and he is in this survival and bloodlust mode he also had in Last Life, he managed to put a trap on the cherry bloossom portal in seconds, because he knew that would be their last chance to get them down, that would be the only moment they wouldn't be chase and had the surprise factor and oh if he delivers in that pvp battle once he has make some damage.
So, we know how Grian acts when he has things mostly under control but he gets betray by the closest people he has (Third Life and Last Life) when he doesn't have them under control and has to find something to put himself at ease and cope with the current situation (Double Life and Limited Life) and when his final goal is to get someone when he knows everything has been already lost(Secret Life). So, what happened exactly in Wild Life?
Well, his team was not... the best in questions of balance and he knew it from the start that he team up with them. He passed most of his time with Mumbo and Skizz after the first episode trying to keep them alive and get them some kills and failling miserably.
And he tries ALL the ways he knows to save them except the simpliest one: give them his life, probably because he knew that would be a lost cause. My favourite thing is how he tries to go back to his Limited Life was to get them kills, he builds a tower, he makes tnt minecarts and tries to get them to learn how it works to get some kills. I don't think it is talk a lot how he tried to save them in the only trap sucessful method he knew, the one he used to do with his bad boys two seasons ago and saved him from death many many times. But this wasn't limited life, was it? And both of them died in that towerd that he later named "the spider nest" (not beating the widow curse there, Grian). People know he is lossing his mind after Mumbo died, people saw him from the distance, no one even heard him but all of them were sure he screamed and was mourning Mumbo and when Skizz death came around he couldn't have the luxury of doing the same because everyone knew, because Martyn was looking, he had to play it cool just like he did in Limited Life.
He is rightfully terrified of being alone, because it is happening again, he will be a single spanner, just like he was a single bad boy. Story is repeating itself and he does everything in his power to stop it. He goes to Joel and Gem asking for an alliance because they are the only ones he isn't in bad terms from an stand point and passes the next episodes wandering between them, working with Scar and working alone.
And we have to talk about whatever was happening between him and Scar this season, maybe I do a separate post about it, idk, because they passed from hating eachother, Scar killing Grian and Grian swearing on his life of being the cause of his dead to... be friends? and the most stable and long alliance Grian had? They have story, no one will deny that, not even themselves. Grian has very strong opinions about how and when is he allowed to kill people, he doesn't mind most of the time if other people bend the rules a little, but not with himself, so when he accidentally, in a little act of vengance, makes the trivia snail kill Scar, he feels really bad for it and he doesn't want that in his conscious.
When he decides what to do about it, he plans it like a contract, not a proper alliance, he tells the idea to Scar as if it's a deal, "I give you a maze and then we are even" because he doesn't want story repeating itself, he doesn't want to be bond to life to him as he was in Third Life and Double Life, but Scar, that has been alone in Secret Life and what he yearns most are friends, doesn't let him get away with it easily "And we're best friends, right?" And Grian can't take it anymore, he knows he will lose Skizz and Mumbo at some point, he knows he doesn't have anyone at his side, and most importantly he exactly knows what to expect from Scar, and so he answers "Just like third life" and they agree to be best friends, just like third life.
Altough the other two bamboozlers doesn't receive the same extended alliance treatment that it brings, Grian is still determined that he will kill Jimmy when he has the chance to do so.
Actually Grian is a lot more vengeful this season than in any other, he tries all episode seven to kill Tango for killing Skizz instead of focusing on the G's that is the strongest team at that moment and once Mumbo betrays him he kills him what? seven? ten times? he even brings them back for the zombies to cause destruction and chaos except for Mumbo, that he kills with the "End of the session for you". And he waited until the finale to kill Jimmy, he played the long game and trapped the bambunker to kill him and taking Lizzie out at the same time, he could have used his time in a more productive way than that trying to kill a more stable team, but no, that was his opportunity for revenge and he took it.
He confesses how he was tempted to trap Scar in cobwebs and how "the only fail about the trap [in the bunker] was that i was gonna kill Scar" which makes me think that if Scar hadn't died and the three of them went to the bunker, he would have done it either way even if he regreted it later, he sounds rather full with joy at the idea of 'Scar died before so I don't have to confront the consequences of my actions for killing his teammates', that was a contract, he had a contract with Scar and his death claimed the end of it for Jimmy and Lizzie to be fair game.
He is playing to win the season, that is something I don't think he has done in a long time, he wanted to win and he was doing everything he could to assure his victory, even if it meant leaving Joel alone to deal with the G's + Ren trying to kill him and Gem. He was surviving. He doesn't want to die and the "IM NOT GOING OUT. NOT LIKE THIS. NOT IN THAT TOWER. NOT LIKE MUMBO. NOT LIKE SKIZZ" proves how much he fears story repating itself, because he already died in bread bridge where his bad boys died, he doesn't want to go like that ever again.
And for that his trust in people by this point in the life series means almost nothing and he knows it, what means are acts and when it comes to the final five he makes sure his acts count, even when he wants to win he focuses first in warning Joel about the rest coming out and in stopping them from getting to him, he kills Pearl and does damage to Ren before Joel kills Cleo and finishes Ren. He doesn't run because just like in Secret Life there is no where else to run, this is it.
And when it comes to just the two of them he is so caught up in the moment to think how is he gonna win against Joel and then he falls. The end until the next season.
Honestly I'm really really excited of how the next life series will be and how would he act. I hope he keeps playing to win because it is so exciting and I hope he keeps bringing chaos and murder to everyone and that his widow curse continues because it needs to be study how he always loses all his allies before dying. Thank you for reading to the end btw pretty cool of you.
a single, overarching Scarian romance arc across the whole Hermitcraft and Life series as well as a primer for anyone curious about the early seasons.
We start with NEIGHBOR MEET CUTE in early Season 6:
Season 6 begins in a peaceful pirate bay. SCAR, an established hermit just beginning his third season, is happily making pirate caves. Into this tranquil scene comes GRIAN.
Grian, fresh-faced and new to Hermitcraft, picks a sea-themed base location right next to Scar’s pirate caves. He gets himself set up and starts his base. Even someone like Grian can get newcomer nerves, and he spends the first few weeks desperately trying to act like a normal person instead of the horrible gremlin he really is.
(Some hermits are taken in by this. Doc and Xisuma give him pity diamonds, something that—after getting to know Grian—they noticeably never do again.)
The only person exempt from Grian’s just-a-little-birthday-boy act is Mumbo, whom Grian already knows, clearly has a puppy-crush on, and pursues relentlessly.
Grian and Scar don’t interact much at first. Grian sees Scar for the first time while passing by his base. Scar instantly falls in one of his own caves and dies.
Grian panics.
Grian: I DIDN’T DO IT!
Scar, intrigued by his new neighbor, makes some overtures of interest:
1. Scar leaves a fully enchanted trident at Grian’s base as a welcome present. This is a generous gift for the cute neighbor you have a crush on and frankly the most normal thing either of them do in the entire years-long relationship.
Grian goes ‘huh!’ at the trident, never finds out who sent it, and immediately forgets the whole thing.
2. Scar entertains Grian’s traveling-salesman pitch and buys his overpriced armor boxes.
Multiple jokes about the size of Scar’s wallet. Grian clearly pleased by the transaction.
3. Scar makes Grian a complementary in-joke build (Spongebob’s house by Squidward’s house).
This delights Grian immeasurably for five minutes until he turns back to his prank war with Mumbo.
(Poor Mumbo. Clearly immensely fond of Grian but not sure he wants to be in a relationship with a lit stick of dynamite. This is very understandable.)
By this point Scar obviously kind of clocks that Grian is insane about Mumbo. This isn’t much of a leap. The entire SERVER is aware that Grian is horribly in love with Mumbo.
Ah. That’s okay. Scar backs off a bit. He recognizes when he’s not really in with a chance.
Maybe this thing he has with Grian is just going to be a friendship, and that’s okay! Having a crush is fun even if you’re not going to do anything about it. Scar is going to build some shops about it and be normal.
Both of them are going to be very normal.
FLIRTING (First Stages) – mid-Season 6
Both of them immediately forget to be normal.
Grian has started a detective agency and has no mysteries to solve. Scar instantly invents a cookie-based mystery supervillain called the Jangler and leaves Grian a series of tantalizing cookie-based puzzles for enrichment in his enclosure.
Grian has invented a game where you kill people with rockets. Scar volunteers to get murdered. Both of them are delighted.
Scar and Cub’s business empire is incidentally crushing Grian’s startup venture. There is no reason for this to be so flirtatiously charged.
At this point all the hermits move to a new village because of the Minecraft update. Grian starts a who-can-build-the-tallest-house war with Mumbo and Iskall. Scar notices and starts doing the same from the other side of the village.
It quickly gets so wild that Mumbo taps out (Mumbo does not do well with intensity, would rather just not, thankyouverymuch), and it's only Grian, Iskall and Scar.
Scar builds a wild giant plant eating his rocketship, and then a castle in the sky, and an enormous version of himself firing a canon at Grian's house. This is the first time you can really see Grian trying to hold in shrieks when he flies back in to see what Scar has done while he's gone.
Grian’s interest has been caught. He’s gone from barely seeing Scar to checking on him regularly. What’s our good friend Scar up to? What’s Scar done? What is Scar going to do next?
FLIRTING (How To Catch Your Crush’s Interest By Building A Secret Government Facility) – late Season 6
What Scar does next is put on a snazzy military uniform, team up with Doc to steal the time machine Grian invented last week, then, in the most effort someone has EVER gone to to get Grian's attention, spend weeks on end building a fully-functional 'Area 77' military base and containment facility to stop him getting it back.
Turns out this works beyond Scar’s wildest dreams.
Grian INSTANTLY obsessed with breaking into Scar’s base and retrieving his time machine.
Grian persuades Ren into forming a hippie camp with him next to the base and spends weeks entirely fixated on Scar. Meanwhile Scar, who is starting to really understand how to get and keep Grian's attention, builds more and fancier infrastructure to keep Grian out. This is also where Grian really starts looking at Scar's art—the insane cliffs Scar has build around his new hangers—and awkwardly not quite managing words, because it would be very embarrassing to just outright say the word beautiful, and Grian’s a very normal and non-embarrassing person.
In the climax of the season, Grian-the-hippie breaks into General Scar’s base.
Nobody can say that Scar making himself a top brass general and Grian making himself an anti-establishment flower power hippie does not end up with plausibly-deniable not-making-out Grian-provoking-Scar-into-holding-him-against-a-wall.
but.
BUT.
This is Hermitcraft. It’s temporary. Scar and Grian both know it was a bit. A bit they both got super into, sure! But a bit. Not weird at all.
(“Sure, mate, not weird at all,” Mumbo says, after all of this is over. “Then why are you making it SOUND weird Mumbo you’re the WORST”)*
(“Sooo....” Cub says, and Scar says, “I know. I know!”)*
*not canon but you can't tell me it didn't happen off screen
FLIRTING (But What About…) – early Season 7
Okay, so that was weird, but Grian is definitely still in love with Mumbo. The Mumbo pursuit is going great and Mumbo definitely doesn’t look nervous whenever Grian turns up with a new idea. Grian is going to get Mumbo to fall in love with him and they will marry in the spring and have a dozen beautiful children redstone contraptions.
Grian attempts to make it more official with Mumbo. Surely they have been flirting long enough, they are ready for the next stage! This is in no way a reaction to Scar becoming a weird wizard in a way very unsettling to Grian and building the kind of wild organic tangled forest build that Grian is fascinated by but can't even begin to comprehend.
Everything is very under control in Grian's life. He's now official boyfriends with Mumbo. They live together and have a messaging system and everything.
Mumbo announces he’s moving out.
It’s-not-you-it’s-me
You’re… you’re moving out? Grian says, in the smallest possible voice.
We’ll still have the messaging system, Mumbo says, unconvincingly.
FINE, Grian says, I’m moving out TOO.
Mumbo moves out.
Grian deals with this in the healthiest possible way. He invents a mayorship and attempts to give it to Mumbo.
Grian is Mumbo’s self-appointed campaign manager so Mumbo has to be round him ALL THE TIME, it’s for the CAMPAIGN, Mumbo.
Mumbo, a man who doesn’t deal well with pressure or responsibility, is maybe not the ideal choice for mayor, something that has escaped Grian entirely.
Mumbo builds a robot and attempts to palm off all responsibility for decision-making onto it. Grian immediately calls it their son.
Grian puts his moustache all over the server.
NO other hermits support them for mayor (except Scar, from a lost bet, who Grian has continued to have intensely weird flirtations with while all this is happening)
Things reach a fever pitch. Election day arrives. Mumbo doesn’t want this actually but try telling Grian that. The entire MumboGrian edifice that Grian has obsessively and wildly build has reached an unsustainable pitch and finally comes tumbling down around them.
Mumbo votes Scar for mayor.
Grian votes Scar for mayor.
Mumbo disappears for several weeks to do some nice soothing redstone and calm down.
FLIRTING (Civil War) – late Season 7
Everything has calmed down now. Scar is mayor. Mumbo is...somewhere. Grian is going to work on his base normally.
Grian has a new project. He wants to build in the new nether biomes. He builds a huge and echoing and obsessively inverse version of his huge and echoing and obsessively symmetrical mansion base. It's very impressive. It's totally hollow. There's... no one else here.
Grian decides that okay, he is going to bring PEOPLE here.
He invites Mumbo, because he hasn't seen him in weeks. He invites Bdubs, because Grian above all loves genius. And he invites Scar. Because of course. Everything major Grian does now, Scar is an of course.
Bdubs shows up! Generously builds Grian's entire mansion interior. Mumbo shows up. Builds a tiny upside down disco shack.
Scar does not show up.
Scar is being mayor! Scar is a very busy and important man! Scar has spent the last few weeks obsessively replacing every single goddamn mycelium block in the shopping district with beautifully tailored grass and making trees whose flowers are diamonds. He's also got his own megabase going on. For once Scar has so much to do it's even enough for Scar's ambitions, which have never been small.
He does not come when Grian calls.
Grian is Not Happy.
This is the point where Grian starts a steadily more unhinged campaign of leaving Scar invitations. He makes little tailor's dummies of himself and delivers them to Scar's house. He sets up a tea party of three grians in a secret space under Scar's mayoral throne. He hangs himself in effigy on the tip of Scar's megadrill build. Normal behavior.
And then when Scar still doesn't notice, he puts a tiny bit of mycelium back on one of the streets of the shopping district.
This starts… THE MYCELIUM WARS
Scar attempts to contain the growing mycelium patch with warning tape.
Grian spreads more mushroom spores.
Scar brings in his allies to help contain the growing mushroom patches.
Grian digs out an underground rebel HQ, recruits several rebels, and declares himself Motherspore.
Mayor Scar stares into a camera and uses his most velvety baritone to proclaim he will hunt down Grian and the mycelium resistance and bring them to justice.
Grian sets loose mushroom-spreading sheep.
Mayor Scar obsessively searches for his base.
Grian and Impulse build several decoy bases and trap them.
Mayor Scar employs Mumbo to strip-mine every block of the shopping district with redstone tunnel-borers.
Eventually Deputy Mayor Bdubs, having his own thing with rebel Etho, tricks all of the resistance into ender-pearling into jail.
Scar gets to threaten to pour lava on an imprisoned Grian for ten minutes straight and they’re both enjoying this so much.
Grian: Scar! SCAR! Scar Scar Scar no Scar no Scar no listen Scar
Scar: Yes?
Grian: …Let’s take this somewhere else.
They ‘take this’ to Scar’s beautifully-appointed mayoral office. Grian sits on the arm of his chair (I don’t know what to tell you, this is on-screen canon).
Grian: So I know how to end the war.
Grian: We have to play minigames and make personal bets.
Grian: And Scar, Scar, if you lose…
Scar: Yes?
Grian: … you have to help build my base.
Entire room: [stunned silence]
Etho: Is this what it was about the whole time, Grian?
So! That happened. And the thing is, they could both mentally pass off the area 77 general/hippie stuff as Just A Fun Bit That Got Very Intense.
They can't do this with the mayor/motherspore stuff. They are basically making out on Scar’s chair. The resistance have noticed. The mayoral staff have noticed. EVERYONE has noticed.
Scar is into it. Scar is going along with it. Scar knows he’d had a crush for a long time, and he isn't scared of swimming with a huge wave, never mind where it's going to break. Scar has always embraced the rush. With Grian, you never know what’s going to happen next.
Grian has always loved being around Scar because there’s so much going on that you don’t have to think. Grian doesn’t have to think until everything’s calmed down. It's not until now that he stops and realizes… could this be… something.
(Maybe it already is.)
And then, by whatever eldritch mechanic you personally favor:
3rd life begins.
HEAD-OVER-HEELS – Third Life
In the tiny claustrophobic stripped-bare world of Third Life, Grian makes a choice. Grian thinks, for once very, very clearly: what if it wasn't a bit? What if it was real. What if Grian took every explosive piece of who he was and handed it over to someone he's—okay, he'll admit it—someone he's been obsessed with for a long time. What if that heady sparkle he's been seeing in the corner of his vision is true. What happens if you grab it with both hands?
Scar—surprised, bemused, amazed but wrong-footed—almost doesn't know what to DO with this.
Scar is so used to Grian layering all his obsession behind a thick layer of irony and drama and second-guessing and schemes. ‘Sure we can make out but only if I'm trailing mushroom spores and you're wearing that sash.’ ‘I'm only here because Mumbo's not around.’ ‘It’s not a thing.’ ‘It's not real.’
But it is real.
And, for once, Scar hears a tiny alarm go off in his brain. Scar knows Grian better than anyone else does, by now, and even he doesn't know where this ends. Grian is a force of nature and Scar has never been his unfiltered target. But Grian's throwing himself into this, throwing himself at Scar. And Scar always says 'yes.' 'Yes, and.' 'Yes, let's'. Scar never wants less of Grian. Scar has always taken what he can get.
But with that warning bell, Scar does try to keep that slight layer of dramatic distance, even in this new world where you can die and not come back, even if they don't know if they'll get out of this alive. Scar doesn't fully buy into Grian's second-in-command-devotion, he forces a space for Grian to still be the Grian he knows, some kind of safety vent (‘here's a bee on a lead’). And it could be a lot of reasons, but part of it is…Grian's head-over-heels, for once, and Scar has the unfamiliar feeling of needing to be the one to look where they're going.
Because where they're going is: the last two, all their friends dead, not knowing if there's any way to survive but knowing their friends haven't come back, and at that point Scar takes off the very last of his brakes and the very last of his reservations and says:
For everything you've done for me you can kill me.
(I want this. I want it to be you.)
This breaks Grian absolutely and completely.
And not broken in the fun way! Grian is too far in. Grian let go of Mumbo, who was safe because Mumbo never let it get too far, and he took a risk on Scar, and now Grian is discovering that he didn’t even know what risk meant. Grian is in emotional pain he never suspected existed. Grian has let himself put all his gambling chips on someone who wasn't SAFE and he has lost.
Grian has LOST SCAR and he has LOST HIMSELF and he has FOUND OUT HE CAN BE HURT and he is never going to be the fucking same again.
Scar is in the pond with Grian’s sword at his unresisting neck. And Scar is going to die, and Scar (damn him damn him) has turned it into: he's going to die for Grian. Now Grian is hurting, he's complicit, it turns out grief is an inevitable part of love and beauty, this is all it's taken for Grian's worldview to fall apart in pieces he can't pick up, and Grian has no defenses against pain so there's obviously no way to cope except to beat Scar to death in a cactus ring and jump off a cliff.
AFTERMATH – Season 8
They wake up in Hermitcraft.
They wake up in Hermitcraft! Scar is delighted to find out they just reincarnate, after all that!
Sure, they've all got some lingering trauma but Scar has never let that stop him from doing anything. Scar thought that whole thing went well! He just about dares to think...romantic...? Maybe...?
Grian is Normal to him.
Grian is so fucking normal. it's like. s6 normal.
Scar is. kind of. confused.
Grian is NOT acting like someone he had a romantic death match with.
(Grian is falling apart, but if there's one thing Grian has proved in his building it’s that he’s SO. fucking. good. at facades.)
(Don't go round the back.)
Neither of them are ready for the death game to repeat.
DIVORCE (Traumatic) – Last Life, Season 8
Second death game. Grian deals with his trauma super well by isolating Scar, stealing all his friends, tricking a life out of him, dropping his horse in lava, forcing him into an extortion death loop, then abandoning him and—just as a bonus—murdering Mumbo as well.
This time it’s Scar who comes back falling apart.
A theory that seems plausible: Scar’s old friend Cub picks him up, puts him back together, gets him on his feet. What we do know is that Cub moves in next to Boatem, where Scar is still living with Grian, and incidentally builds an enormous dripstone megabiome that is coincidentally very hostile and might murder you upon landing if you're someone who flies a lot, or happens to be a bird.
There’s a hole with an endless dark void between Scar and Grian’s Boatem bases. They built it together. It’s around this time they both keep repeatedly falling in it.
DIVORCE (But When It Was Good It Was So Good) – Season 8, Double Life
Then the moon gets big. Gets close. Gravity breaks down and that should be the end, should be a way out of this terrible spiral they're in, surely they're better without each other—
Grian turns up at Scar's base and says: Scar. Build us an escape pod.
—and Scar does.
They go out together. Both of them can feel the pull back into each other’s orbit but they’ll die if they acknowledge it. At the end of it all, the void, the protective suits, the unbearable gravity of falling into space together, of holding each other until another uncertain end. They're nowhere but they're in it together.
Is this a good time for another death game? Of course. How much worse can it get.
Double Life, and this time Scar keeps his distance. My soulmate is this allay! My soulmate is my cat! I don’t need a soulmate. Oh—it’s Grian? This whole time? Hahaha. How funny.
Grian: Soo… do you want to base together?
Scar: Do we have to?
Grian: It…might be nice…?
Scar is wary.
He has been burned.
But the pull is still there. The pull is always there. You can’t forget Grian, but you can blunt the edge of him on your skin. Scar is here to take care of these cat-pandas. Grian can do what he likes.
Cheated of Scar’s full attention, Grian tries to tempt BigB into a pale imitation of the Scarian folie à deux (BigB is a genuinely nice man who does not deserve this).
The rest of the server turn red, one by one. Grian and Scar are the last greens. BigB is audibly nervous when Grian proposes a red-green alliance, even though BigB is the red, he has the power. But Grian can’t escape the rest of the server, and the red hunt begins.
Grian and Scar, hunted—trapped at the top of flaming towers, jumping from heights, chased down like foxes at bay, crammed into boltholes with their hands over each other’s mouths, Grian shrieks and laughs and falls back on Scar and Scar catches him and they’re both as alive and elated as they’ve ever been. Scar dies once to Ren and BigB’s zombies and Grian murders both BigB and Ren in revenge (BigB was right to be nervous). Grian has another unhinged murder plan underway when he dies for the last time.
This whole time, Grian was hit in the face by remembering that when it's good, it's so good.
Scar isn’t surprised. Scar has known that forever.
Back in Hermitcraft, its not magically fixed. They’re not innocent any more. But every time Grian looks at Scar he remembers: when it’s good, it’s so good.
And Scar never forgot.
DIVORCE (We’re In Love And We’re Not Done Yet) – Season 9, Limited Life
By now we're into Season 9. They’re still alive. They always live, they always start again, and the other one is just there. Being, infuriatingly and magnetically, them.
Grian is thoroughly annoyed by Scar’s new allegiance to King Ren, but he keeps coming back to Scarland anyway. Scar, I made you an obstacle course. Scar, stand here and get squashed by this anvil. Scar if you don’t do something I’m going to start a resistance.
Grian pretends King Ren doesn’t exist and he has more important things to do, and pretends this so hard that he incidentally invents a mad science robot pulls them all through into the Empires dimension.
Scar, assuming Grian is doing his own thing, shacks up with Jimmy.
It takes Grian three weeks to notice and be shriekingly outraged.
Scar we’re doing a project. Scar you can’t spend all your time with Jimmy! Join my cult. Get in my shrinking machine. I made you an enchanted netherite bow. I need your allegiance. (Another real quote).
Scar teases Grian for weeks then instantly abandons Jimmy when the choice comes down to him or Grian.
Fourth death game—they’re used to this, now. Nothing too intense. Nothing too weird. Grian can’t help murdering Scar.
At this point, Scar is starting to read it as: I love you.
And that’s how we get to the current Scarian dynamic we know and love of you're the worst and I'm the worst and we've divorced a few time but we still like each other so fucking much.
It's been years. They've killed each other every possible way. These two characters are in love and they're not done yet.
a desert duo jukebox series fic (masterpost): Paradise lost, a poem by John Milton - The Used (spotify link)
Scar was perfectly content to play whatever game Grian thought they were playing. He had no qualms with playing scorned lover or husband or friend or salesman or debtor. Really! He had absolutely no issue whatsoever. The problem was that Grian didn’t really seem to know what it was that he wanted from Scar. They were stuck together, so Scar would play whatever role Grian could come up with as best he could. He did that last time, and it worked pretty dang well. He’d made it to the very end! Sure, there was all that nasty business with war and dying, but he’d done so good at playing skeevy salesman and pretending he was the big bad red. Grian had even had fun playing his part, too! He was starting to get ever so slightly annoyed that Grian wouldn’t just cast them already.
“What are you doing,” Grian said, standing in the construction site of his build, looking over at Scar in the sanctuary. Scar knew that tone. It meant Grian was not looking for the truth.
“Taking care of the Jellie Pandas, of course!” He laughed, and Grian huffed, and this part was easy. This part was familiar. Grian could pretend to be moody and exasperated, and Scar could rile him up.
It wasn’t exactly what Scar wanted, but at least someone was talking to him. He had an ally, ‘til death do they part. They’d all agreed that soulmates meant allies, except Scott and Cleo and Martyn and Pearl, he thinks, and well, also, Grian was cheating on him with BigB, and that’s fine, but he’d really thought this time would be new and exciting, and here Grian was, standing in the moonlight, looking at Scar like a starved animal.
He wishes they could play house, instead.
“Scar, it’s past midnight,” Grian says, and that tone means Grian is expecting something. Scar hasn’t figured out what, yet, but he can take an educated guess.
“But my girls will be lonely if I sleep in the bed tonight.” He pouted, just to sell it.
“Scar,” Grian said, and that tone was tired. He couldn’t tell if Grian was in the mood to be pushed, but Scar wasn’t in the mood, so he stood up from the podzol, and trudged towards the makeshift mangrove tree farm where Grian had set up his bed. “Don’t you have your own bed?” Grian asked, and Scar couldn’t be bothered to figure out what that meant. He laid down on Grian’s bed, and looked at Grian expectantly. Grian stared for a moment, then came to bed under the roots and the leaves and the stars.
ok but the ‘because i’m ME!’ clip like it’s meant to be a joke but it’s kind of also something really revealing about grians character. bc grian is desperate never to be alone (he is ALWAYS in an alliance in the life series and whenever that alliance falls apart he always joins another one, he’s always making backup connections or making sure he has people to fall back on) but he’s also deeply self serving? like i don’t even know if it’s intentional but he loves escalation and he loves chaos and impulsiveness (hence the ‘always pressing buttons) thing & seems to pay very little mind for how that affects other people? like he’s very careless for the consequences of other people from his impulsive interactions and yet he really really needs people…
im way too tired to answer this properly rn so consider this a rain check until i next think about grian but you. you fucking get it. its about the need for other people yet the total lack of awareness for others yet also the self awareness to see that yet not enough to act upon it
But also the way he also thinks most of the time he is the one that is right and does the correct decisions: he passed almost all 3rd life trying to tell scar what would be better for them -same in double life-, he puts himself on and on in a 'leadership' position in last life in the southlands but also in the brief red alliance, in limited life he is constantly telling Jimmy how he should be over with his 'subplot' and trying to be the voice of reason of his boys
He knows he doesn't listen to others and should do it but he thinks his plans are better so he prefers telling them his plans instead and follow them (even if they backfire terrible like all his plans in double life or how in secret life going to the tower made them an easy target)
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