Might Be A Weird Compliment But I Think Part Of Why Cleo And Scott Are Such An Effective Team In The

Might be a weird compliment but I think part of why Cleo and Scott are such an effective team in the life series is because they're both really really good at bluffing.

Cleo is very outright with the fact that she doesn't consider herself very strong at pvp, even compared to other members of the server. But people are still very consistently scared of them. Why? Well, I think a lot of it is that Cleo acts like someone who is really good at pvp. They're often very threatening, very overtly aggressive, as a preventative measure, just to make sure they're never seen as an easy target. Cleo tells everyone that she can and will ruin them at the first slight against her, and frankly, people aren't interested in testing that. Even if Cleo doesn't actually consider themself to be the strongest fighter, it matters more how they're perceived by other people. Fire- which Cleo is very famous for using as an easy punishment for any wrongdoing against her- is also a very good threat display. Usually minecraft fire is, honestly, not that hard to deal with, and the damage is usually superficial (unless you're joel and just kinda stand in the fire until you die), but the thing about fire is that it's big and dramatic. Surround yourself in flames twice your size and make sure you don't flinch when they point their weapons at you and people will be scared of you without you having to fight, because you look like more effort than you're worth.

Scott isn't overtly threatening in the same way most of the time, but he achieves a very similar effect with his ability to keep consistently calm and collected. I've watched multiple scenes where people come to kill Scott just to literally panic and backtrack as soon as he acknowledges with calm amusement or irritation instead of seeming threatened (i also think this is how mumbo got him in wild life- scott is literally so used to startling people with a mostly calm acknowledgment of their murder attempts that he genuinely didn't expect mumbo to actually still activate his trap, even when scott was standing on it). I've watched multiple scenes where Scott is objectively outmatched or even outnumbered in a fight just for the others involved to falter or outright retreat because Scott wasn't acting like someone in any danger, because even if he's on four hunger and one heart, he often still talks like he isn't scared. If you he just smile or roll your eyes and don't flinch back from them, people will eventually get really confused, wary, or tired, and will, again, decide you are more effort than you're worth.

It's honestly a testament to their intelligence, social and situational awareness, and emotional control, that both Cleo and Scott are so good at bluffing (albeit with slightly different forms of it). I don't know how to wrap up this post, they're just really good at this competition, thanks for coming to my ted talk.