Real Life Smp - Blog Posts

~Sketches from the charity stream, the hermits' hike, and the real life smp.~

Refrence photos were taken from Gem's twitter(X)/Instagram, screenshots from the charity stream from tumblr/Twitter and moments from the RL smp.

Real Life SMP was over a whole year ago

Wtf

That's scary

The way time moves

Ahhhh

hey guys so this is actually literally my favorite thing I’ve ever drawn so I am in fact going to keep reblogging it.

also in other news fill out the Smallishzine interest form please I need this zine to happen. I need to be in it.

I’ve spent an insert adjective here amount of time crafting a real life!zombiecleo fanart to make a magic the gathering pun that no one in a million years will get.

It says unstitched. I am a winner Cleo truther, and I love the un- sets, and I decided to put those two things together. This also ties into my unintelligible headcannons about the life series. Anyway I hope you enjoyed or at least weren’t disgusted by this drawing of Cleo coming apart at the seams ^^

Alt versions (text overlayed on top, textless and backgroundless) below the cut vvv

I’ve spent an insert adjective here amount of time crafting a real life!zombiecleo fanart to make a magic the gathering pun that no one in a million years will get.

It says unstitched. I am a winner Cleo truther, and I love the un- sets, and I decided to put those two things together. This also ties into my unintelligible headcannons about the life series. Anyway I hope you enjoyed or at least weren’t disgusted by this drawing of Cleo coming apart at the seams ^^

Alt versions (text overlayed on top, textless and backgroundless) below the cut vvv

I’ve spent an insert adjective here amount of time crafting a real life!zombiecleo fanart to make a magic the gathering pun that no one in a million years will get.

It says unstitched. I am a winner Cleo truther, and I love the un- sets, and I decided to put those two things together. This also ties into my unintelligible headcannons about the life series. Anyway I hope you enjoyed or at least weren’t disgusted by this drawing of Cleo coming apart at the seams ^^

Alt versions (text overlayed on top, textless and backgroundless) below the cut vvv

my mildly unintelligible incoherent rambling headcannons on the life series but primarily wild life and I had more to say but I had to cut it down lol and I’m mainly posting this for personal reference: (be wary, it is a long post)

Wild life is so fascinating from a lore perspective like in the past it was everyone against everyone else, friendly survival but things were just a little bit off, a little bit desperate, felt a little bit out of control, like maybe something bigger was at work here, but you could look the threat in the eyes and kill it and go home…until you couldn’t. As the strings being pulled turned from invisible twine to neon shoelaces and the hand in the shadows was suddenly the title character and every thing seemed to connect, seemed to end. But it didn’t. The watchers were the center the thumbnail the logo the everything mercilessly piloting the story towards the conclusion they desired, and then it was done, the loop back to the very beginning was made, it was finished. But then it wasn’t. What Real Life and Wild Life have in common is this sort of sense of storytelling absurdity, everything is cut short and brief and it’s silly and horrifying and painful (just to intulude here, I am still discussing everything purely lore wise. The only pain I experienced watching either of those things was sadness when they ended) and suffering doesn’t seem to have a meaning a purpose a quiet dignity anymore it’s April fools and everyone is throwing up and dead their bodies won’t listen won’t function can’t fight cant run but it’s a joke haha there’s no story no rhyme or reason it’s just torture and now the ultimate of random purposeless suffering wild cards they can’t kill each other can’t fight each other because every moment is a struggle to survive as the world itself has turned against them as their bodies betray them as they die in humiliating horrifying ways the very fiber of their being the very core of their world something is terribly terribly wrong it is like the order and rules that bound the life series have broken and the chaos of the void is pouring through drowning the code of the world as the players are ripped to shreds by the avalanche, watching their bodies crumble. It’s like the watchers finished telling their story of perfect and purposeful suffering and then pulled the string holding the knot together. It’s like the life series is a pane of glass that they polished to perfection, punched, and walked away, leaving the shards to slowly shatter as the beauty and horror and chaos and glory that makes up the world spews forth to tear it’s broken remains apart. There will still be the games, but now there is nothing pulling the strings, nothing holding it together. Suffering no longer has a meaning, a purpose, a goal, it is simply suffering. How terrifying must that be to have everything that you are shattering, pieces of you like broken glass strewn about as the void bursts forth to consume the ruins and the wreckage of the world.

We know that life series players are alternate versions of themselves, because while Hermitcraft scar is happily building his zoo in season ten, secret life scar is still out there wandering among the sunflowers. I don’t remember if real life Cleo lived or not, and we don’t know if this season’s winner will live on, but let’s pretend for the sake of this ramble being almost somewhat coherent that both cleo and the new winner live. What happens to the new winner (I’ll get to what happens to Cleo later)? The world is breaking, coming apart at the seams. Each new day brings a fresh horror from the void to try to wipe them out. And what about memories? This is where this strays firmly into headcannon territory, but my personal way of imagining it starts at a fairly ubiquitous jumping off point, the idea that lifers during the games do not have access to their memories, but going upon the alternate versions thing they do not remember the games at all. There is the original player, journeying through smps and servers, and then there is a version of them for each separate life series, shadow copies that they are completely unaware of and unconnected to created by the watchers to play puppets with in their perfect dark fairytale. Each life series is a new copy, because every game the copies all died. Up until secret life. They had had their fun, there was no reason for them to kill off the last one, scar, the winner left alive and alone. The og scar and the secret life scar are not aware of each other because og has no idea about the copy and copy wrongly assumes he is the real scar. He regained all the memories from before of Hermitcraft when he won and the watchers broke the game but the way he understands it is, because again the other life series were other versions of scar, he was on Hermitcraft uninterrupted up until suddenly they were all abducted into this game called secret life and they all were driven insane and killed each other and now he is alone. He can’t leave because the copies are bound to their worlds and doesn’t try to leave because as far as he knows there is no where for him to go. Crucially, again, secret life scar and Hermitcraft scar are two entirely different people.

So let’s imagine for this new winner, living in this horrifying shattered world, there are no more watchers to police memories. The copies are still made, the code is still there, the games carry on, becoming more garbled and twisted with each broken game, so that the copies don’t come out quite right, which explains the movement issues and nausea in real life and the way the wild cards go to the very data of the player and twist it in wild life. So this broken copy wins, and suddenly remembers, just as secret life scar did, all that came before, but the game is even more broken so they remember so much more than that. They see all the lives, every version of themselves. They see themselves after, the version that was never in the games, with their friends, living on. The versions of the friends they know are dead, but alternate, happier, more carefree versions live on with an alternate, happier, more carefree version of themselves. Their friends don’t miss them, don’t know they are gone, because they aren’t. They are alone and trapped on a world doomed to slowly fracture into oblivion. Everything is broken. But they refuse this, perhaps. They rebel. There is nothing tying the world together? Then they will escape through the cracks. They will find this world with the other copies. Real life Cleo, who remembers enough to know that they are are a copy, but the game hasn’t fully broken by real life so she is unaware there were other games. Also I’m realizing now that I haven’t really talked a lot about Cleo but tbh that’s mostly because their character strikes me as someone who is unshakable, pragmatic (this is why I think she and Scott got along so well, they both go at the games with eyes on the prize) who would of course be upset but also be rational, and simply try to make the best out of their life) secret life scar, who still believes that he is the only version of scar out there and that he murdered all of his friends. Both stuck on these worlds alone, but this new winner will break through the walls on these servers, and say come on, we’re here, we’re our own gosh dang people, so let’s go take back our lives. Idk where this goes from there but I headcannon that every real life version of all the players had mobility issues, hence the movement problems, but Cleo is the only real life player left so she’s the only one still experiencing these problems. I also headcannon that the new winner has, well, I haven’t actually figured out the specifics but some sort of residual issues relating to the wild cards and broken code.

this headcannon also introduces some interesting lore ties for Grian, and tbh I haven’t thought to much about how the watcher lore would work in this, well ig this is an au at this point, but if you think about his panic at the end of the most recent session, and that he was able to freeze time, it could be a sort of thing like he is unintentionally the one causing the games to continue being a watcher, but in the past he had no control but now he’s been handed the reins with no instructions and has no idea what to do. All the power and no clue how to use it. This also could lead to some interesting things about watching, because maybe in the past he could watch, could see that they were copies, and played accordingly. He knew the other versions would live on so he resigned himself to a certain extent to death, but now there is no path no clear cut story no string to follow through the dark he can’t see beyond the games and he’s terrified.

anyway that’s like kinda my headcannons idk if anyone will actually read this far but if you did thanks. Also I really wanna write/draw something for this, maybe turn it into a proper au, so if u person who is still reading would like to join me on that endeavor I would love to work with u.

This is my absolute favorite thing at the moment

joel and the smallishbeans

close-ups below!

what do you mean real life was two weeks ago?

enjoy this very late congrats to cleo for winning lol :)

a real life artwork I kept forgetting to post!

The 4G's, and Martyn

Okay but like... I love this take on it!

If we only take the curse into account and not the watcher lore, it works really well. A curse doesn't always have to be a curse, a downgrade, a drawback, it can be an asset. Jimmy now having an understanding that him dying first leads to those around him, the ones he's teamed up with, dying shortly after, let's him know that he has a choice. Stand by them and fall to the danger you already know about, or flee and live to see another day.

I think it works insanely well and am 100% going to think back on this in the next series.

Also, tagging you so you can see this, @mistymountainsmc

i don’t think jimmy’s broken his canary curse. i think it’s just been evolving, slowly, and he’s figuring out how to work with it instead of trying to fight it. hear me out:

3rd life - flower husbands. jimmy dies first. scott is 10th out in the series, the only time he places outside of the top 5

last life - the southlanders. jimmy is first out. mumbo is out next in quick succession. impulse dies shortly after. the only southlanders to make it into the top 10 are grian, who killed jimmy and mumbo (and still only ranks 7) and martyn, who left the southlanders for the shadow alliance

double life - ranchers. jimmy dies first, and takes tango out with him. tango is the one responsible for their first death, though

limited life - bad boys. joel wants to sacrifice himself for jimmy, but jimmy dies first before he can. joel still dies shortly after, and grian becomes a nosy neighbour, surviving to 6th

secret life - big dogs. jimmy dies second, but lizzie might be falling forever in the end so maybe he does die first. martyn is the first to yellow and red, and he dies 11th. the worst he’s ever placed. (also, mumbo dies only moments after jimmy again*)

real life - (do they have a name??). jimmy and ren’s groups get into a fight in the mines. jimmy is the only one who makes it out without dying at all. his allies are out of the series.

the canary curse isn’t about jimmy dying first. or at least, it isn’t really anymore. at first he was used to signify it, the canary dying first to warn everyone of danger ahead. but the canary has learned how to escape the coalmine now, and his friends are still stuck inside. they might survive if they have friends on the surface or they’re willing to betray their allies, but if it’s just been them and their canary to warn them of danger? then they’ve doomed themselves.

*mumbo might also have his own unique “killed ten seconds after jimmy by the same person/thing” curse, which is different from the general jimmy “bad luck charm” solidarity curse