Explore the world, one post at a time
Trans!Cricket coming out to Remy in a variety of ways are my favorite things to think about. My absolute favorite is, like, Cricket sleeps in his bra and sweatpants/shorts and the Green's are just okay and used to it, so what happens when friends come sleep over? Remy, sleeping in the living room and he's a quiet, light sleeper and wakes up when any of the Greens wake up. So, Cricket being the first one awake and the sound of his heavy footsteps and the bathroom door squeaking and slamming wakes Remy up and he just waits to see who comes out of the bathroom, and sees Cricket with his toothbrush in his mouth and no shirt, just a grey bra and pants, and they both pause, staring at each other and Cricket just...slowly backs into the bathroom and puts a shirt on and spits the toothpaste out and walks out to Remy and awkwardly sits down on the couch, fiddling with the rim of his shirt and waiting for Remy to say something. Remy doesn't know what to do so he just, like, gently grabs Cricket's hand and doesn't look at him before quietly saying, "You could've told me sooner." Cricket looks at him and smiles and they stay silent, holding hands in a comfortable atmosphere until someone walks in. It was Tilly. And she heard/saw the whole thing. She approves.
So new Life Series brings new biomes, new teams and new skins that brings new lore to the participants of the Life Series. With the first episode of Wild Life been aired about a week ago, two new developments regarding two contestant's skin has been made. Specifically Pearl's new transistional skin change and BigB's cross-hybrid development into a creaking-esque skin.
Starting with BigB's skin changes, ever since the 20th of October where he began reposting artworks depicting him as a creaking reminiscence of his basing location in the Creaking Forest, a new skin has been released depicting his change to a Creaker. Changes from his original Life Series skin includes desaturated and greyscaled skin, inclusion of muted greens and oranges and yellow to highlight mainly his eyes and the creaking heart lodged between his right ribcage. Similar to the Creaking, BigB also does have striking similarities to the actual biome with the oranges possibly representing resin and eyeblossom flowers arriving to the biomes in the next drop. It would be fitting because quite literally, his right arm has turned into wood, possibly because of the creaking heart that has mutated his body to acclimate to his new enviornments.
Next, Pearl's new provisional skin that seems to be a transistional period between her Hermticraft Season 8 skin and her 5am Pearl persona. An unusual break in trend as generally she would use her Scarlet Pearl skin during the last few sessions of the Life Series. Well in her twitter post that first leaked her new skin on the 23rd, she was seen with Impulse in his classic Life Series skin that seems to be the west of their base according to rough estimates for the Wild Life map. She and Impulse are also seen with torches so it's a safe estimate that they're lighting the area to prevent other mobs from spawning in the heavily darkened forests near their and BigB's base.
It could be just a temporary change because the most recent wildlife that resulted in the first demise of the server, but that would still leave her with five lives. Far from yellow or even red lives range where 5am Pearl would essentially control Pearl's mentality and sanity.
But reasoning could run deeper than that. Ever since her introduction to the Life Series back in Last Life, Pearl dawns her Hermitcraft Season 8 skin with majority of the colours being subsituted for red and her eyes also gaining red highlights to signify her red-life status. This pattern of wearing her red-life skin was kept throughout every season up to Secret Life but Double Life where certain events occurred.
Specifically the severing of her bond with her soulmate Scott, during the first few sessions resulting in the formation of the Divorce Quartet and the beginning of her torment and rampage as Scarlet Pearl. Her pain further continued from the death of her dog Tilly, and causing others to view her as crazy and demented from her irrational behaviour. Her relationship with the other members of the Divorce Quartet continued to waver until endgame where they all teamed for the benefit of their individual survival. It was until the second icarnation of Tilly was burned by Impulse where Pearl began on a true rampage by slaughtering both Impulse/Bdubs and Cleo/Martyn. Eventually being crowned victorious after Scott sacrificed himself.
This carries into Wild Life where Pearl allied with the Divorce Quartet but with the abscence of Martyn and the addition of Impulse. So perhaps her transitional skin could be Pearl's reminder of her troublesome past with her quartet. But as a transitional period, her Scarlet phases only remain as a irksome reminder about what she could became isolated again. She's now surrounded with healthier support network with a new ancestor of Tilly being around as Billy and as well others like her allies who she reconciled with and Impulse.
These support networks could halt the reappearance of early 5am Pearl through the supportive and healthy relationships surrounding her.
_____
AHH i was stressing to this out before episode 2
Links used:
/ https://namemc.com/skin/fb4a13c31f6d863e - Bigb's skin
/ https://namemc.com/minecraft-skins/profile/PearlescentMoon.1?page=1 - Pearl's skins
/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ThirdLifeSMP/comments/1gapkqi/everything_we_know_about_ep_2_so_far/ - grouped post about the episode 2 leaks
Aight ranting time, can we appreciate how revolutionary Double Life was for the Life Series fandom.
The introduction of the soulbound mechanic introduced another potential method to interact and collaborate with different members of the community. In the previous canon Life Seires, most alliances were built of the members previously collaborating or being close friends (for majority of alliances, and this is not discounting that all the participants of the Life Series weren't already friends), but with the randomized pairing of Double Life, it forced new collaborations and interactions. Resulting in the mechanic transferring into the fandom's version of their Double Life, Woven Life.
Involving dozens of participants from authors, artists and animators such as rusty_courage, cherrifire, xmaruu, kitsuneisi, mudboowl etc.
(Non RPF)
But what stirred up the fandom into an absolute frenzy was the shipping potential of Double Life. We had Box Boys (Ren and BigB), the Homewreckers (Bdubs and Impulse) which were previously a ship in Hermitcraft and the Divorce Quartet (Pearl, Martyn, Scott and Cleo) which were pretty substanial new pairs but don't scale to the sheer amount of popularity the subsequent pairing recieved/s.
We got Scarlet Pearl which is not a ship but a fan favourite persona with her pairing with Tilly.
We got Boat Boys which are Joel and Etho which was a due no one initially expected but blew up to the fascinating dynamic they had.
Then we got Desert Duo again after the escapades of Third Life which produced lore upon lore of angst and tension which further fueled the shipping train for Scarian.
And finally we got the Ranchers, Team Ranchers or Rancher Duo consisting of Tango and Jimmy. Another pair the fandom did not expect but are instantly attached to. The amount of potential and ideas from this duo grew in number from their light-hearted dynamic to the angsty moments in the subsequent sessions was intense. Lore-wise, their pairings were eventually reunited during the Hermits x Empires Crossover in Season 9.
So basically Double Life was big for the Life Series fandom.