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archandshri · 3 months

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9th feb '24 - [arch] characters, interactions and emotion - making a mini webcomic

Gahhhh Shri this has been an absolutely crazy couple of weeks!!!! Hope you are doing well :)) First of all, WOW! You have a lot of goals, and I’m sure you’ll get them done! I’ve worked a lot on my graphic design during the process of making Winter Wellbeing. If you wanna see a blog post dedicated just to that, I can do so! It would be cool to compare notes on the approaches we take for graphic layouts. If you wanna share your knowledge of camera skills when you build that up that would be awesome 😭😭

It’s been a tough few weeks, art wise. I have been reflecting on my process, motivations to create, the ego and all the baggage that’s lumped into the creative process for me. It turns out there’s a lot. I took some space from my illustration practise (literally for a weekend!) and began to realise how dysfunctional it is. I’ve been writing a lot about that so there may be a larger piece of writing coming about that at some point (no promises!!)

But for now, let's talk about little successes!

I’ve been playing with some characters for a while but I’d hit a bit of a block with the plot. I realised the expectation of having a finished project of high quality soon is unrealistic, and an unhealthy expectation to put on myself. I rarely give myself time to play with concepts for a long time and let the characters, plot and interactions evolve naturally. Maybe this in part came from sticking to the short university module turnaround. I noticed that that short turnaround was causing a lot of block, so I have decided to bench it as a comic for now and focus on using it as a playground - falling in love with the characters, creating stories and drawing them for fun. Maybe years down the line I’ll make them into a comic - we shall see!

I *tried* to do hourly comics day this year and it didn’t quite work for me. I think I made 3 comics? And then got distracted with a bigger project that ended up taking a week or so to complete. Let’s have a look at it, shall we?

[you can find the full version here]

First of all, it’s based on an unfinished fanfiction I started a couple of months ago, which was mostly bad, but there was one nice scene that I liked and wanted to expand on. I started by having a look at the script I wrote and thumbnailing on the iPad. I’m away from home at the mo and usually would prefer to do most of my artwork traditionally, but because I don’t have access to a scanner, the whole process was digital this time. A lot of the pages got scrapped because the dialogue wasn’t necessary, and I’m not drawing pages that aren’t necessary.

some more development screenshots

I thought a lot about posing during the process, acting the scenes out in my mind and sometimes physically, really understanding the emotions of the characters, why they’re saying what they’re saying, their tone and how to convey that though their body language and expression (i find grian really annoying normally [affectionate] but I want this grian to step on me).

Pearl was hard with this because she’s quite erratic and unpredictable in this series, so I wanted her to switch from raw explodey anger to playful jabs at Grian. I’m hoping this comes across as somewhat insane, rather than tonally off and inconsistent. I did super enjoy drawing her and her explosive nature though, especially in comparison to Grian’s coldness.

I played with levels and monotone colour too - I’m not working with multiple colours much at the moment so I’m able to focus on things like values composition, characters and backgrounds. My skills limit the kind of stories I can tell currently, so I’m working to improve those foundations. Maybe when I’m back in the riso studio I can play with colours a little more.

Colours - despite the simple pallete it gets a bit nerdy here.I stuck to specific flat percentages for most of it - Pearl’s hair and Grians jumper are 60%, Grian’s hair and Pearl’s cloak are 20%. Then I added a 14% layer for shadows, using a ahrd blend eraser tool for highlights, making the images quite dark. I fill a layer with texture from Forystr’s riso brush for procreate, and turn it into a 40% opacity colour dodge layer. This gives it some much needed texture and makes the lighting feel low and nighttimecore. It also pushes the values to look really nice - I tend to be too scared to push them by myself.

I tried a few different colour layers to get a *vibe* but settled on a low percentage riso blue in a colour layer. All layers besides the riso blue are in a riso black, colour picked from a riso colour pallete. I learnt these tools - using percentages to get good values - from working with risograph. I really recommend having a look at these techniques and doing some monotone work. It's really improved by character designs, page layouts and compositions.

That's all from me today, though I have had MANY other thoughts over the past two weeks about creating, but perhaps we'll dive into them another time. If you (or anyone else) has any questions, hit me up with a reblog or an ask and I will get right to it. Lovely to hear from you! Hope your art is going great too :)) Arch :)

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sparxwrites · 2 years

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scar having "This is your land, where you are the author of your own story" in his theme park announcement is standing out so strongly to me. you've infected me with meta brainrot

YEAH the noise i made when he was like "look at my announcement" and started fucking talking about stories was. not human. mr goodtimes thank you for feeding a poor humble fic writer's lust for narrative worship. it's appreciated.

(but Yes pls join me in the scar-and-stories meta brainrot pit. it's dark down here, but it's pretty comfy. i have marshmallows. and my leg in this bear trap that means i can never leave, but don't worry about that. ignore it. focus on the marshmallows.)

real talk, the fun thing about the scar-and-stories theme i keep banging away at is that like...

one, c!scar is canonically a conman / confidence trickster / high pressure salesman / charming asshole who always gets what he wants, which means he does legitimately constantly use weaponised stories, and it's only a tiny nudge sideways to make that an occult / spiritual / world-build-y thing.

two, i personally have a lot of fun weird semi-religious opinions about stories, and this is a very cathartic way of working out what exactly those feelings are, and also propaganda.

but three, cc!scar - perhaps best out of everyone on the server, other than maybe bdubs, and maybe joe but i think tbh joe is just Being Weird rather than doing this on purpose - understands how storytelling works.

we see this constantly. like, yes, mcc has improved his combat skills, but it's very very obvious that he plays up being an imcompetent klutz. other than when the narrative allows him to do otherwise. which is why, now, at the moment, he's suddenly very good with a bow - yes, because he's gotten good with it bc mcc, but mostly because it's funny and serves the story that ren has initiated. and, out of all the hermits, he's perhaps the most responsive to changing what or who he is in response to the demands of the story, without it ever feeling ooc or like it's some dramatic change. just... scar is good with a bow now because it's funny in the context of the current story for him to be good, and he'll stop being good with with (or at least stop doing pvp) when it stops being funny. and at no point will this feel incoherent, or jarring, because he is very good with this.

(and, here, i start blurring the c! vs cc! lines, because when we're talking about acting skills or style, there's an inherent ambiguity there. is c!scar or cc!scar a good actor and storyteller? yes.)

crucially, though, this shape-shifting, story-shaping skill scar has - where he adapts seamlessly to and merges into the story being told, even if he's not the one that started telling it - means that he can ensnare other people in stories too. we all know it from third life, with the whole "give me your armour and i'll give you friendship points" where he dangles a yes and opportunity in front of the other ccs that is too fun for them to pass up and so manages to snag decent armour (despite grian behind him the whole time yelling that they shouldn't listen and it's a bad deal). but he's doing it with ren and bdubs this season, too, just... never saying no, but trapping them within the conceits of the story they themselves are telling to get what he wants (i.e. not having to give up his shop). and it's very well done. he's very good at this! very, very good. and it's done deliberately enough he clearly knows what he's doing, he knows he's playing people-

and then we tangle back into c!scar as a conman, and a confidence trickster, and a charming asshole who always gets what he wants. and how some of that, part of that, a large part of that, is because cc!scar (and, by extension, c!scar) is very good with stories.

#xelidonia #ask #sparx chats #hermits crafting #life smp tag #meta #this was not supposed to be meta #but here we are i guess!!!!!!

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1watermelontea · 3 months

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pinned post: will be prone to edits!

hi, you can call me melon—they/he/it (all fine)

i’m a hermitshipper & i write fanfics. i exclusively ship the characters, not the people. you can find my ao3 attached below:

more-in depth descriptions of my currently published fics under the break:

Chasing The Horizon Line

co-authored with @nine-of-diamonds! a seablings fic with a dash of scarian. gem moves to aurecove, a seaside town, to be the new lighthouse keeper. turns out she may have bitten off more than she can chew with this place—between spreading rumours and missing persons, gem and grian become unlikely friends. merfolk and land dwellers are not meant to interact, evidently. hurt/comfort with themes of feeling lost and wanting to find where you belong. gem & grian -centric povs (swaps multiple times each chapter)

Crosscurrents

co-authored with @nine-of-diamonds! oneshot side story and mostly prequel to chasing the horizon line that explores 4 times that aurecove citizens met mers, and 1 time that a mer met a land person. has main characters you don’t normally see—like joe and stress—and duos you scarcely see, too. humour, through and through, and we thoroughly bullied bdubs throughout the entire run of it. five different povs in total.

There Must Be A Catch

co-authored with @nine-of-diamonds! oneshot attached to the cthl series following skizz’s pov. throughly crack. i cannot describe it in words.

WIP (Not Yet Published)

co-authored with @nine-of-diamonds! the second mainline instalment of the cthl series.

A Week in the Life of “Detective” Scar

co-authored with @nine-of-diamonds! a scarian oneshot wherein grian is pearl’s assigned watcher, and scar is very interested in knowing what’s going on with these new faces! however, the fact that scar can see grian at all is incredibly weird, and now scar’s losing sleep trying to figure out why only he can see this cute guy. lots of convex in this one, too. deeply unserious but very fun. scar-centric pov with some sprinklings of jellie’s pov.

Reverie, Revelry

solidaritek. assassin au. tango’s employer would benefit greatly from the sole heir to the solidarity family fortune being removed from the equation, so this assassination is high profile, to say the least. the only issue for tango is that, well, he fell in love with him. now to figure out how to deal with that, on a time limit. fluff with a decent lot of implied sexual content. tango-centric pov. shorter fic compared to my others.

Here’s To The World Where You Do

scarian. a fantasy au wherein scar, grian, scott, and jimmy are caught as members of a resistance against the current monarch, ren. however, with assistance from some undercover rebels (or by other means), they manage to escape. action! betrayal! false identities! there is a lot of violence in this one. angst with a happy ending and lots of lighthearted moments between the horrors. scar & grian -centric povs (swaps each chapter)

MORE IN THE WORKS 🎊🎉

#tags for navigation ->#melon speaks #melon writes #melon answers #cthl

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made-nondescript · 2 years

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MCC 21 Viewership statistics! Detailed graphs + analysis below the cut :D

Graphs are labelled in BST and the axes in 24-hour UTC. (19:00 -> 8:00PM.) Enjoy!

Total Viewership Over Time

Peak viewership was 424,196 viewers at 8:53PM on the cusp of Grid Runners and Rocket Spleef Rush, the third and fourth games of the event. That sharp drop during Dodgebolt is the result of Dream going offline and the boost at the end is his raid to Sapnap. Viewer retention was about 92.67% (424.2K -> 396.1K). That is basing retention off of the moment before the sharp drop in Dodgebolt. If you base it on the peak after Dream's raid goes through, it's closer to 86.35% (424.2K -> 366.3K). Either way, pretty good! Dodgebolt drop off was somewhere around 35.8K (378.9K -> 343.1K) or about 10% of viewers. (This is a very rough estimate given how weird and jumpy the numbers recorded in DB are.)

Team Viewership Over Time

SO consistent this time around, hardly any bumps or dips anywhere. The weird dip and peak on Green's line prior to the start of Survival Games is Dream raiding himself from his alt. I recorded both channel's viewership for completeness! The dip and bump during Survival Games is from Tommy. Unclear to me why, though. He bungees 17.6K viewers in about four minutes. Might be Twitch's API having a fit.

Individual Viewership Over Time

Again! Not much going on. Grian's line is fun as always - smoother as a result of streaming on YouTube instead of Twitch, which has a more responsive (albeit difficult) API. Phil (orange line towards the bottom, in the mess of lines) gets a boost during Rocket Spleef.

Viewership By Game

Same disclaimer as last time, the beginning and end times of games are very loose. I double checked the SG time and it appears correct so I guess this MCC just took a bit longer for people to trickle in, but to be fair a few minutes can make a huge difference. This is the second time SOT has had a positive increase in viewers, impressive especially as a second-half game. Unlike the last time I did this, the second and third games have a positive value rather than negative. Otherwise, reasonably consistent with last time.

Median % Viewership

Look at that 1/3 domination by Pink! The fun thing about having a bunch of very popular/big streamers on the same team is we get to see how much their audiences overlap, and from the looks of it not a ton for both Pink and Green. Not a surprise. I think last time (either in the post, or comments) it was speculated that MCC20's lower viewership was because no member of the Dream Team was playing (and Grian was missing as well). I think this very unscientifically contributes to that theory. If the Dteam's audiences watched MCC no matter what and watched someone else last event we would see a decrease in the viewership of people they'd watched instead. It's up to debate who would have served as a replacement for those viewers but I don't see any suspicious declines. Feel free to fight me on this, though.

Median % By Group

This might be the first time any subgroup has netted 10% of viewership away from DSMP. This is probably because Grian and Scar were a highly anticipated duo for this event and combined got about 9% of total viewership.

Individual Peak Viewership

Dark sections represent median viewership, and the light section is the difference between median and peak. The curve is a little less exponential this time! The top ten fought eachother harder.

Including this as a follow up to last time, mostly. I am dubious of the worth of this metric lol but I think it's interesting and fun. The column on the far right shows what percent the peak was of the median of a given streamer. So, Snifferish's peak viewership was 718% of her median, telling us that they either gained or lost a lot of viewers at some point (in this case it was because of the Dodgebolt boost).

There is not a single repeat person on the line up here. Not one. Dream having the smallest % difference between his median and peak makes sense to me seeing how his fans are (the majority of the event was streaming on Dream, not dreamwastaken though it's an honor he claims either way). Very interesting that both times the bottom five has included someone with top ten viewership.

Notably, Ranboo is not in the bottom 5 anymore when last time he was 3rd (107%). Might be a fault of circumstance - Ranboo was streaming well before the event start, meaning he was acting as a "pre-show" for a portion of those watching. You can see on the individual viewership graph how he peaks around the event start and then goes back down to where he was before, presumably because those who were watching him as "pre-show" left to go watch their intended streamer. They were replaced by Ranboo viewers, but not in enough numbers to maintain that peak number. This event he was 11th, with 117%. YouTube streamers are potentially at a loss here too. YouTube's API is much more sensitive which will affect the depth of dips and height of peaks, giving us a more accurate read of what was going on but also making it difficult to directly compare with Twitch streamers.

Individual Median Viewership

Median viewership! Grian resumes his normal spot and Scar stays top ten.

Raw data and an additonal survey can be found on u/chel-blue on Reddit

#minecraft championship #mcc #mcc 21 #minecraft championships #mcyt #ranboo #tommyinnit #dream #sapnap #georgenotfound #wilbur soot #nondescript post

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memryse · 3 years

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many thoughts about Scar in Last Life

We all know Scar is one of the standouts of Last Life; he’s always been one of the key players ever since 3rd Life, driving conflicts and shaping the course of the server. His chaotic nature lends itself perfectly to 3rd/Last Life, and he seems to have only refined it in the hiatus between seasons.

In 3rd Life, Scar was more of a subjective villain. From his own perspective and Grian’s perspective, he wasn’t scary at all! The two of them were just having fun and causing problems – sure, they threatened people, but their dumb antics together made them just feel like two friends messing around; their POV was lighthearted until the final session, really. From other perspectives, however (particularly Dogwarts’ POVs), that was not how the two of them came across. They felt malicious, scary in how casually they approached such a bloodthirsty game. They’d laugh as they took lives, showing no care for anybody but themselves – they’d betray their allies in a heartbeat without an ounce of remorse, and the rest of the players knew it. Scar wasn’t someone to fear from his own POV.

Since Last Life began, however, Scar has become very openly malicious. Even watching his own POV, it’s hard to see him as anything but a villain – his own comment section is full of people commenting on how scary he suddenly seems. I want to expand on some of these villainous moments, because holy fuck, Scar.

In session 1, Scar is certainly a prominent figure, but we mostly get to see his classic silly Scar antics. Sure, he plans on “selling souls”, but it feels like the equivalent of his reputation points in S1. We still don’t get the sense of him going full villain arc yet. He allies with Joel and commits a crime, and we all expect another lighthearted Scar scam which definitely does not go to plan.

And that is what happened… sort of. He’s immediately caught by Scott and Pearl, etc etc etc. The two of them cheerfully agree a scheme to try and kill Jimmy, but that casual discussion of murder is as bad as they get.

Session 2, Scar is chosen as one of the two boogeymen, alongside Joel.

Things go decidedly not to plan immediately. The two of them had agreed last session to try and kill Jimmy, and were supposed to be trusting enough to tell each other if they’re the boogeyman – and yet what does Scar do? Immediately try and push Joel into lava. He’d betray Joel without a second thought – already a contrast to 3rdLife, where upon turning red Scar threw flowers at Grian and asked if they could still be friends. He doesn’t succeed, of course, and Scar and Joel realise they’re both boogeymen, before parting ways.

Scar heads to the nether, where he immediately decides to deceive Etho and Bdubs into thinking he’s weak and has no food, so that he can get close to them nonthreateningly or something. I’ll talk about this more later, but here we get to see what a good liar Scar actually is. People want to assume that he’s all bark and no bite, that he’s a schemer who poses no real threat – when Scar plays into this, he can be reallyconvincing.

The next big moment I want to talk about is, of course, Joel’s trap. The first thing to comment on here is that Scar cries “Joel, are you trying to kill your best buddy?!”, and I can’t work out whether this is Scar acting to diffuse suspicion, or genuine surprise that he’d pull the trap when Scar was right there, but either way it definitely has the former effect. None of the Southlanders suspect Scar in the slightest. Until Scar murders Mumbo in a matter of seconds.

What’s really horrifying about this is that Scar had been begging Mumbo to ally with him just last session. And yet here… not only does he go for Mumbo without hesitation, his reaction afterwards is downright chilling. He just laughs, and tells the others “Welcome to Magical Mountain!” – it’s really quite like a movie villain in how little he seems to care. He doesn’t actually say a word about killing Mumbo; again, despite having desperately wanted to ally with him. To Scar, this was nothing more than an opportunity. Or maybe it’s all a show to him. Maybe it’s both. Scar doesn’t actually care about winning this game – to him, it’s more fun to put on as good a show as possible, and drag as many people down with him as possible (which is definitely a “cc!Scar being a good entertainer” thing, but it translates very well into being a LL!Scar character trait too).

He then hands Joel some supplies, and with the exact same level of nonchalance, tells him to go burn Scott and Pearl’s house down. I’m… getting the sense he enjoyed burning down Etho’s castle in 3rdLife.

Not much of note happens during his subsequent conversation with the Southlanders beyond him failing an initiation spectacularly – after this, he heads back to Joel. They chat from opposite ends of a broken bridge, which is quite a poetic scene honestly, representing the gap between their lives, the destruction of their alliance, etc. I’m just here to talk about Scar’s villainous moments, though, so let me point out one specific line from this conversation.

“I did avenge you, to be fair - Mumbo, I burned him to death, which was enjoyable. I heard him cry, so it was- yeah, that was a thing.”

Just… what the fuck, Scar? What? I know he tried to push the “red lives are psychopathic and feel nothing except a small sense of happiness when people die” in 3rd Life, but this was definitely a lie or at least an exaggeration, because 3l!Scar definitely had a much wider range of emotions than that. Either way, here he doesn’t even have the excuse of being a red life; this is just active malice, pure and simple. Bdubs had a similar level of pride in his boogeyman kill, but I never got the sense that he enjoyed it like Scar did.

Scar goes off to visit Scott and Pearl, and figure out whether they have the enchanting table or not. Note the emphasis on simply figuring it out, not actually getting the enchanting table. Here’s where I want to talk about Scar being a great liar: he fully convinces them into thinking that he was willing to trade lives for the enchanting table, and then he convinces them that he’s so desperate to get the table that he’ll lie about Joel burning their house down. The thing is, Scar had no intention of ever getting the table at that moment – he wasn’t going to trade lives for it to begin with. He’d try his luck at threatening them, but nothing more. He got exactly what he wanted out of that situation: proof. Meanwhile, Scott and Pearl were left believing they’d outwitted him, that they’d called his bluff and bullied him into leaving. They never saw his true intentions, never saw him as an actual threat. Scar is much smarter than people believe, which only makes him all the more threatening.

And finally, he goes on to prove this intelligence even further. He figures out that Scott and Pearl planned to trade for the enchanting table simply by seeing Scott ask Lizzie if she’s home in chat. He then goes to visit Lizzie, and she tells him she declined their offer. What’s notable about this scene is how much less belligerent Scar is than usual: he readily accepts what Lizzie says for once in his life and leaves without being too annoying about it. He later talks about lulling the others into a false sense of security, letting them think he’s not after the enchanting table anymore; that makes me think his visit to Lizzie was purely to confirm that the offer was even made, and he’s now certain that she accepted it. It’s not hard to work out, especially if he noticed her life count.

So, all in all, if you’re not scared of Scar in Last Life, you most definitely should be.

Did I forget to mention he’s currently tied for the highest life count on the server?

#last life smp #goodtimeswithscar #smallishbeans #mumbo jumbo #ldshadowlady #scott smajor #pearlescentmoon #bdoubleo100 #ethoslab #(all tagged are discussed in the post)#mae analyses

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marshmurmurs · 3 years

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hey. hey psst. grian & purpled friends au is a banger. you um, you got any more? mayhaps?

Ok so you're gonna have to bear with me for aa few moments since this au is made by someone who hasn't watched Evo in a hot second and someone who I believe hasn't yet finished watching it, so we are mostly working off of fanon and my terrible memory for Watcher stuff

With that said, you've heard of Watcher!Grian, now get ready for Watcher!Purpled too :D

So you’re probably wondering how in the world we got here. It started with Peggy mentioning that Purpled got a clean view of both Tommy’s duel with Dream and Phil taking out Wil. That’s enough for me to start the Watcher propaganda babey!!!

“They watch but cannot be seen”

I'm pretty sure I yoinked this quote from a sign that showed up in some Watcher thing at some point. Purpled sure does watch. I also believe he has done some messing around with replay mod to see inside the prison or something? So yeah, Watcher boy be looking. And the “cannot be seen” part? He’s constantly falling into the background, almost forgotten, and maybe it's in his very nature.

Grian and Purp were both Watchers, though their time as Watchers only briefly overlapped. Purpled was already a Watcher during Evo times, having been picked up by the Watchers while traveling the void in his spaceship. They had promised him he would become something greater than himself, he would be part of something important, he would have a legacy. Purpled went along with them, at first, it wasn’t like he really had anything better to be doing. Besides, the magic and wings he got out of the deal were pretty cool.

It was when the Watchers started looking to recruit Grian that Purpled started to question why he was there. That legacy they promised him, he wasn't sure if they ever delivered on that. If anything, it was the Watchers that were benefiting off of him. The Evolutionists were the only people who were confident in their existence, and even then, they only knew of the group as a whole. They had no idea how many of them there were or of any of the individuals within. He doesn’t think that was ever what he wanted out of joining the Watchers... He wasn’t actually sure what he had wanted out of them.

Purpled noticed the Watchers focusing their attention on Grian, he saw how they worked to break down his will to rebel. Sure, he had joined them, but it wasn't like he had been told all their rules upfront. Naturally the guy who had continuously tested the limits of their patience when they had been some unknown power wouldn’t stop that just because he was one of them now. Grian would push the limits of what he was allowed to do, finding loopholes, dancing around the rules, and even outright breaking them at times. The two interacted a few times and Purpled liked the guy well enough. He liked him enough to break the rules himself and not report Grian when he caught him breaking some rules, he even pointed out a few spots in the rules where the phrasing could be exploited. Still, he recognized the opportunity Grian’s presence provided him. Purpled was no longer the newest Watcher, no longer constantly under their gaze. He could just leave, and if he was smart about it, he could get away and have plenty of time before anyone noticed.

So he did. With a final o7 to Grian, Purpled left. Their final encounter within the Watchers domain went something like this:

Purpled: Hey do you want some advice?

Grian: Sure

Purpled: *walks away never to be seen again within the Watcher’s domain*

It was only later that Grian realized what the advice was, long after he began sneaking out, began testing the limits of what he could do. It was long after he figured out that an eye couldn't really look within itself and he could use the very powers the Watchers had given him to hide himself from them, long after he'd made his own domain, long after he'd slipped away to a land he created specifically to stay out of their sight and reach that he realized what the advice was. Purpled had left. His advice was to leave. Grian had—albeit unknowingly—followed that advice.

Purpled had taken a much different method to getting away. Instead of making himself untraceable, he hid in plain sight. He went to Hypixel and made a name for himself playing Bedwars. With each game he won, with each game he clutched, he amassed supporters. Players, believers and doubters alike, began to bet on the outcome of his matches. Purpled had made himself seen. He knew the Watchers knew he was there, but that was the point. They couldn’t reach him, not without breaking their own rules, at least. Unlike the two Players turned Watchers, the original Watchers cared deeply for and were bound by their rules. Even if they had tried anything, Purpled managed to create his own legacy, making for himself what they never could. Beyond that, he'd found friends, he'd built a community, surrounded himself with people who would look for him and make themselves a problem for the Watchers if they tried to make him go back. They were forced to sit by and do nothing as he continuously broke their most important rule.

Purpled didn't need the Watchers, he never did.

Grian didn't really know how he felt about the Watchers. He didn't think he hated them, not really. The Watchers had given him a taste of true freedom then immediately began to restrain him. They'd given him wings and the power to create worlds in mere seconds, something which would not only take a regular Admin a much longer time, it would require a significant amount of preparation. He was given the world at his fingertips but was limited by the long list of rules the Watchers enforced. He doesn't regret joining them—he wouldn't give up his wings for the world—but they just weren't enough. The more they tried to make him fit their mold of a perfect little Watcher, the more sure of that he became.

It was almost funny, the Watchers had become stricter in order to prevent another Purpled situation. They were trying to ensure Grian wouldn’t leave them too, but in doing so, they had given him reason to. He was a bit curious though, he wondered what Purpled was up to now. Grian hadn’t gotten news about him since he’d left the Watchers.

So Grian went to Hypixel, he wanted to see if he could track down Purpled. He knew the other was there, judging by the leaderboards, but he couldn’t seem to catch him around the hub. He managed to track down gamblers betting on Purpled's victories. Grian followed that lead, tailing the person who was updating them on the results of Purpled's matches. Somehow that person continued to find intel without Grian catching where Purpled was. It made no sense, and if he was being honest with himself, it had long since reached the point of being frustrating. Eventually, after an infuriating amount of dead ends Grian decided he may as well play a few games before calling it a day and heading home. He tried a few solo matches of bedwars and while PvP wasn't really his thing, he had to admit throwing fireballs at people was pretty fun.

Grian finding Purpled wasn't even intentional on his part. At that point he wasn’t even actively looking or playing the game properly. He’d simply started building houses after politely asking people to leave him alone with varying levels of success. After a few games, he received a friend request from the person who had won the last match with a message inviting him to join them for some doubles. Grian accepted after a moment of thought, they seemed polite enough. They had left him for last when it would’ve been way easier and much more convenient to just continue their clockwise sweep.

It didn’t take Grian long to realize that his new companion was nicked, though to be fair, he was too. It’s not that he particularly cared when someone was nicked, but his curiosity was getting the better of him. There was something about this person, the way they held themself, the general energy around them, something that just felt so familiar. Try as he might, though, Grian couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

It was when he noticed the absolute confidence and ease in which his companion threw themself into the void that Grian finally gave in to his curiosity. Players usually avoid the void, and even if they did jump into it for strategic purposes, he's never seen anyone

recover as fast as his companion did. While they ran off to go stab someone who was getting too close to their area for comfort, Grian tried to look past their disguise. He was met with resistance, surprisingly. Usually looking past a Player being nicked was no issue. He pushed harder, it was more than just curiosity at this point, he needed to know who this was, why they were able to resist him. Somehow the results were worse this time. Grian realized with increasing bewilderment that he could no longer even see his companion. His teammate was just gone, there one moment and gone the next.

Grian blinked away the purple in his eyes, focusing on his surroundings. There were no new bridges leading away, his teammate was still in the game, and they hadn't died. Where could they have gone? He continued to scan the island when he was suddenly hit with the overwhelming sense of being watched. There, standing beside him was his teammate, eyes glowing the same purple Grian's had moments before.

"Something wrong, Grian?"

It all clicked for him then. His nicked companion was the guy he had been looking for the entire time, he’d only just now decided to reveal himself. Of course Grian’s Watcher abilities hadn’t helped, Purpled had way more power here than he did. He was just a guest in the other’s domain, he never had a chance of finding him if he hadn’t wanted to be found.

“Y’know, you could have been a lot clearer.”

“Rule 7. Besides, you figured it out, didn’t you?”

Once they reunited, the two realized they still got along well. They agreed to keep in contact, and they did. Grian would sometimes hop onto Hypixel to join Purpled for a few games—always nicked, they didn’t want the Watchers to realize they were in contact— and other times he'd drag him off to a creative world to challenge him to a game of build swap or various flying courses he’d created. The two often swapped tips and tricks for things they were good at. Grian would give Purpled lessons on building, block palettes, and flying (he argued the other only ever really using his wings while voiding didn’t count). In exchange, Purple would try to give him advice on various things he’d picked up from playing bedwars: block clutches, speedbridging, and general PvP.

When Purpled was invited onto the DreamSMP, he was fairly excited. He loved what he had going on with Hypixel and his friends there, but part of him had always wanted this. Ever since he was with the Watchers, overlooking everything on Evo and worlds before that, part of him had wished to be on the other side of things. This desire only grew stronger as he heard the tales of what Grian got up to on Hermitcraft.

The Dream SMP was nothing like he expected it to be. It turned out to be a hardcore world, only 3 “lives” allowed per player. There were also seemingly infinite respawns, though, which made no sense. He wasn’t sure which was more annoying: the unclear respawn rules or the fact that he was never told about them before he agreed to join.

Besides that, there was also some entity with a great amount of power, even more than the admin himself. Purpled had noticed their presence fairly quickly upon joining and he was immediately on edge. He had no information on the being, their power, their motives, nothing. And that felt dangerous. Purpled had unintentionally ended up falling back into old habits from working with the Watchers as he tried to establish himself in this world. He claimed land for his own, carving out his own domain within that of the unknown god while trying to avoid catching their attention. Eventually, once he was comfortable enough within the world, he began trying to reach out, trying to get involved in the things that were happening. He heard there was a war brewing, and if he learned anything from Grian, things were about to get really fun.

They didn’t.

His attempts to involve himself mostly failed, so he went back to doing what he had before. He claimed more and more land and continued watching over events from the sidelines. Things got serious, conflicts got personal, and unless he was directly pulled in by someone he considered a friend, Purpled just watched.

Anyway my excuse for whatever is going on with their designs is that Watchers can control how they are perceived. This is my city and I want them to have cool wings. Also Peggy was supposed to be my impulse control but the memo got lost in the mail and she never got it, so she enabled me instead. Now we have both funky dragon/parrot vibes on Grian and vague alien/phantom/vex vibes on Purpled

#ask #mcyt #grian #purpled bedwars #dreamsmp #hermitcraft #marsh tries #says marsh #writing is pain #gonna go play mc now to cope #au hours #ill come up with an actual name for this au at some point #but that is not now

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hermitcraftheadcanons · 3 years

Text

Hermitopia AU Conclusion

The last ask has been answered, the masterposts are complete, and (although art, writing, and Discord discussion are still accepted and encouraged) it is finally time to officially wrap up the Hermitopia AU! Because this was such a massive event - and no small thing to moderate - there will be a pause in blog activity for a day or so before the inbox will open for regular headcanons again. I apologize in advance for the wait!

In the mean time, I would just like to say: I am so, so thankful to everyone who participated in the AU. Your ideas and your creativity have made this blog a better place, whether you sent in one headcanon or dozens, and I am constantly in awe of the energy and enthusiasm of this community. Thank you, all of you, for making this universe we’ve created as vast and as interesting as it turned out to be.

Below are a collection of my own ideas, for those of you who like a satisfying (but still not entirely closed-ended) ending. These events take place as many days, months, or years into the future as you need them to make your own ideas work, and none of them are set in stone. You can take all of them, some of them, or none of them as truth if you want to...but either way, it has been an honour to build on a project like this one alongside you all.

And with that...the Hermitopia AU concludes! Finished, or barely begun, like so many good projects are. Have a great day everyone, and happy headcanoning!

- Mod Shade

"People of Hermitopia."

The man on the screen shifts, running a nervous hand across his bald head and squaring his shoulders. The broadcast quality is unstable, but it's more than enough for every citizen in the city to recognize who's speaking.

"This is your Concorp Branch Director, Cub. As I'm sure you are aware, I am the head of Project VEX in this city. You all know the VEX initiative as groundbreaking, life-saving, a shining success and a step towards a new era for humanity...and some of you may even see me as a hero for creating it.”

He closes his eyes, a brief look of pained remorse crossing his face. For a moment, he looks utterly defeated, almost small in the face of his impromptu audience of thousands...but finally, he fixes the camera with a steady gaze once more and begins the great unravelling.

“Maybe it was all those things, in the beginning. Maybe *I* was, once. But today, after far too long, I have some confessions to make...."

- For years, Cub had been desperately scrambling to hold the tatters of his life’s work together. Project VEX had started so well, and he had poured so much of himself into it, that when the failed experiments and rebellions became more and more frequent he was unable to accept a change of course. He covered up the project’s failings to maintain funding and public image, but mostly to maintain his own image to himself - that he was still the hero he’d set out to be and create at the project’s start. However, his denial was wearing on him heavily, and eventually he had a breakdown and decided to go public rather than keep drowning the city in lies.

- This breakdown was prompted by xB, who after his own moral breakthrough, confronted Cub and urged him to stop withholding knowledge and truth. xB also informed Cub of his own unknown truth - that the unintended power of his presence was the thing that was keeping the experiments successful when Cub was around. This was the final straw in breaking through Cub’s denial

- Along with Cub’s broadcasted speech, files were released to the media containing proof against most if not all of Concorp’s falsehoods. Many names were cleared of crimes that had been pinned on them, including Beef, Impulse, Doc, Cleo, and the majority of the other Unrestrained and Unaffiliated former VEX trainees that the company had tried to cast away

- Understandably, it took a very long time for the chaos to die down and all that information to be processed by society and the justice system. It may be years before the community can see some of their heroes in the proper light again, but at least they are now free to begin rebuilding their reputation without being labeled as villains and traitors.

- Those who actually did commit villainous acts are given a fair trial, with consideration for their motives and the new Concorp information as extra evidence

- The VEX program is withdrawn by Cub’s superiors and put under a strict review. It is reborn after a massive restructuring, with a new director, new limitations on what experiments can and cannot be attempted, and a greatly extended screening and training program to reduce the chances of graduates becoming villains. The new project will produce far fewer heroes with much subtler powers at first...but if that is the cost for the safety and stability of the city, then most people would agree that it is a small price to pay.

- Cub is not permitted to work on the new Project VEX in a management role, ever again. It’s a harsh blow for him, to have to watch his dream from the sidelines...but he knows he gave up the right to guide it when he abused the control that it gave him. At least his superiors allowed him something to do while he awaits trial: he is present (although guarded) at every new VEX trainee’s first experiment, lending his power to increase their chances of success.

- Mayor Scar resigned willingly. Nobody had enough evidence to accuse him of anything, and he didn’t plan on giving them a reason to look by trying to stay in office. Instead he chose to make his exit from both Concorp and government matters complete, at last. Or so he thinks. Who knows? Maybe he’ll learn what most of the people he’s helped to manipulate have already found out: that connections and old grudges don’t easily lose their grip.

- Scar is replaced by TFC, voted in by almost unanimous community support and funded by donations from all the people he’s saved over the years

- The greater Convex company offers a choice to the survivors of the old program: Come to work under their new, more honorable system, or take a generously large settlement and be free to build new lives

- Team ZIT declines the job offer, pooling their payment and using it to buy a shiny new base together for their independent hero venture. There are still a handful of real villains to fight, after all, and there are bound to be more once people start successfully copying Concorp technology. Now that Impulse is back at their side, they wouldn’t give up their roles saving the community for anything - but they’re done with being used by some guy behind a desk. From now on, justice and bravery will be their only guides!

- ...justice, bravery, and TFC, that is. He isn’t their boss by any means, but the more experienced hero does drop by often between his mayoral duties to make sure the youngsters stay out of trouble and in one piece.

- The nHo, according to all official records, took their settlements and split up, leaving Hermitopia far behind. However, Team ZIT suspects that the vigilante life hasn’t left them so easily. They’d be the last ones to report the odd sighting of a whipping vine or a distant masked figure, though - unregulated as they are, the nHo’s shady methods for a good cause prove useful from time to time. (And their base has really good tea. Okay, maybe it’s a little bit more than “the occasional sighting”...)

- Ren settles back into his meadow cabin, but after that massive release of info and a long, LONG period of processing, he now has Iskall, Stress, and Cleo as regular visitors. Every morning he wakes up and forgets for a moment that it’s real, that they’re really alive and with him again...but they are, and he is happier than he ever thought he would be again.

- Jevin and Mumbo visit the cabin occasionally. It took a while for Mumbo to get his memory back, but he now remembers all of his friendship with Iskall and Grian, and they come together for fun and shenanigans regularly with the rest of the cabin crew.

- Grian still spends his time looking for his clones, but honestly, he doesn’t mind. The adventure always did hold more meaning than the conclusion for him, and now, he has friends to help out!

- False disappears into thin air to wait out the fallout of Concorp’s information release. She snags herself a quiet job and a small apartment on the outskirts of town, fully intending to return to her mercenary work just as soon as the dust has settled...next week, maybe. Or the week after that. Or maybe, once the garden has been fully planted. She’s really enjoying having time for stuff like that now...but she’ll get back to work, really, she will! Soon.

- Joe and Cleo tearfully reunite through xB, and Joe becomes another frequent visitor to the cabin. Cleo also visits Joe’s base in the time exclusion zone, but she really prefers the cabin. Time skips are disorienting, and they make her want to sneeze.

- Keralis and Void come to an agreement. Xisuma isn’t entirely clear on what that agreement is - something to do with an allowance of cookies from Biffa’s bakery in exchange for not killing anyone - but he’s more than happy to be less sore and tired all the time.

Hermitopia is making progress. Real progress, this time - not just the breaking of humanity’s limitations, but breaking them with true heroic care, with the good of everyone in mind. There are some hurts that will never fully heal, mistakes that can be learned from but not undone, and yet...now there is a path, a way forward. It won’t be easy, but a kind and gentle future waits for them, welcome and well deserved. They will figure it out, together.

And together, they will step forward, into the new world that each of them has helped to create.

#hermitopia au #announcement #sort of #I know this is long; and not all of it is my best work; but I hope you'll find some of it worthy of canon #or at least inspiring to your own personal version of events #both hermitopia masterposts will be added to the masterpost of AUs in the normal pinned post #you'll still be able to access them #most importantly; I hope this event was fun for all of you #that's all there is to it; really. that's the point. :)#again; thank you

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theres-an-impulstor-among-us · 3 years

Note

Can we plz get some flower husbands propaganda-

top tip: it’s not propaganda if they're just the best :)

…

One fine day, Scott and Jimmy are sitting against a tree atop their hill, Jimmy leaning against Scott with his head on his shoulder. Scott’s arm is around Jimmy’s shoulders.

“What do you think happens when we die?” asks Jimmy out of the blue.

“Hmm?” Scott blinks. The heat has made him drowsy. “What’s that?”

“I’m just wondering where we’ll go when we lose our last life. Will we disappear from existence entirely? Or will the universe pop us back on our previous servers?”

“I guess we’ll just go back to our other servers. Hermitcraft, Origins, whatever.”

“That means you and I will go back to being separated,” Jimmy murmurs. “We might not ever see each other again.”

“Ah, come on.” Scott pulls Jimmy a little closer to him. “With how much fun Grian’s having, you really think he’ll never set something like this up again? And besides, now that inter-server travel is starting to be a real thing, I’m sure we’ll be able to meet up again after we go home.”

“Yeah, but it won’t be the same as having our houses right opposite each other,” Jimmy points out. “And we won’t get to see our flower fields again. And we-.”

“Hey, whoa,” interrupts Scott. “Your voice is doing the thing again.”

“What thing?”

“The thing it does when you get upset. I can hear it. Jimmy, stop fretting and just live in the moment with me.”

Jimmy cranes his neck to look up at Scott. “You’re not worried at all about death?”

Scott glances down at him. “I’m sure I can be worried about anything and everything if I give it enough thought. That’s why I’m determined not to; it’s too nice a day to waste it worrying about the future.”

“I wish I could turn off my anxieties like that,” Jimmy sighs.

“Just think about sitting here in the nice hot sun with me. Take your mind off it.”

Jimmy falls silent for a while, snuggling a little closer to Scott, who closes his eyes.

Just as he’s about to drift off to sleep, Jimmy speaks up again: “Do you think we’re gonna have to fight Dogwarts?”

“Maybe, yeah. Why?”

“Well… it’s not really our fight. It was Grian and Scar who aggravated them and caused the war. Why should we have to risk our lives for that?”

Scott chuckles. “Because we’re allies, Jimmy. Not much point in making allies if we’re not there for them when they need us.”

“Yeah, I guess…” Jimmy lets out a breath. “But I don’t like the idea of watching you die for the sake of someone else’s fight.”

“Don’t worry, I’m far too smart to let myself get dragged into a conflict I have no chance of winning. And I’m definitely not gonna let you get taken down either. We’ll help but we won’t die for them.”

“Good,” murmurs Jimmy. “Because I really want to spend as much time with you here as possible.”

“Then shh and let us enjoy it.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t help thinking about what it’ll be like when we’re no longer living together.”

“Jimmy, if I put you on an MCC team with me, will you stop worrying?” Scott says teasingly.

After a moment, Jimmy laughs quietly. “It’d be a start, yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll consider it.”

Jimmy laughs again, harder this time. “Consider it,” he repeats, mostly to himself. “Thanks.”

“Love ya, Jimmy.”

Smiling, Jimmy rests his head back on Scott’s shoulder and closes his eyes. “Love you too.”

Scott continues holding Jimmy gently, letting himself daydream. After a while, he feels the steady rise and fall of Jimmy’s chest and he realises his best friend has fallen asleep.

Smiling fondly, he rests his head on top of Jimmy’s.

Within a minute, he too has fallen asleep under the hot sun.

#3rdlifesmp #3rd life smp #solidaritygaming #smajor1995 #vaunna’s requests

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thehermitcraftqueen · 3 years

Text

Angst, Tango x Vampire!Etho - Vampiric Glitches

There's been a glitch in the server. Not even Xisuma knows what it is, until a night attack reveals a vampire in their midst. Tango takes the job of confronting said vampire, even if the vampire turns out to be his love.

------------------------

I'm sorry not sorry for this one. It's mostly angst and kind of creepy, but there's some fluff at the end. Another Hermitcraft AU and mostly self indulgent, but I had a lot of fun writing it.

Obviously a warning for vampire stuff, it doesn't get too crazy but it's there.

For those of you ready for more fluff, I've got some cute requests coming, so just hold tight ;)

“We have an issue.”

Xisuma’s gaze swept over the assembled Hermits. Tango shifted uncomfortably in his spot, wondering what was going on. The admin had randomly told them to gather at the Town Hall a little while ago. He gave no context, and his voice was as calm as ever, but Xisuma didn’t normally call meetings with no warning, and every Hermit could sense something was up.

“There’s been a glitch,” Xisuma went on. “But this time, I can’t tell what it is to fix it. It’s either minor or hiding somehow. Although I hope it’s the former, I’m thinking it’s more the latter...either way, you all need to keep an eye out for anything strange. It could be anything, including potentially harmful things, so we have to be careful until we know what it is.”

Uneasy murmurs passed through the crowd of Hermits. Tango glanced at Impulse and Etho next to him. Impulse had a mixture of curiosity and concern in his gaze, and Etho seemed a bit uneasy but calm at the same time.

"I know no one has any real idea, but what do you guys think it is?" Tango asked them.

"It could be anything if Xisuma doesn't even know..." Impulse murmured. "I have no idea."

"Hopefully it's not anything too bad, but we'll see I guess," Etho said.

"Yeah," Tango sighed.

After more fruitless discussion about what it could be, the Hermits returned to their bases. By then the sun was beginning to sink, and Tango was more than ready to curl up in bed. He put the last few blocks away from finishing a build, then slipped into the sheets, sighing as he let himself relax. Still, no one had found the glitch Xisuma had talked about, but nothing had been affected either. Everyone was beginning to think it was just a minor issue.

Beeping from Tango's communicator woke him up not long after he'd fallen asleep. Letting out a yawn, shortly followed by a growl of annoyance when the communicator wouldn't shut up, he snatched it off the table and began reading the chat to see what was going on.

Impulse: WE HAVE A PROBLEM Ren: What's up my dude? Grian: Why are we being woken up before it's even midnight, come on guys Impulse: I THINK I FOUND THE GLITCH Impulse: OR SOMETHING

That piqued Tango's curiosity, all sleepiness fading. If Impulse was as scared as he seemed, it didn't sound like the glitch was something minor either.

Tango: What is it?!? Impulse: ETHO TRIED TO BITE ME

Tango had to do a double-take, and still the sentence made zero sense.

Tango: What?! Ren: Dude what? Impulse: He jumped out of nowhere and started attacking me, then while we were fighting he tried to bite me with like vampire fangs or something?? Mumbo: :0 Impulse: OH COD HE'S STILL HERE HELP Xisuma: Meet at Impulse's base everyone.

His heart beginning to pound, Tango shot out of bed. He spread his wings and jumped into the sky, beginning to fly to Impulse's base. He was worried about both of his friends--Impulse, who seemed to be in trouble; and Etho, who for some reason was attacking Impulse. His communicator fell silent halfway there, increasing Tango's worry, and he couldn't get to Impulse's base soon enough.

Most of the Hermits had gathered in the base or were heading to it when Tango arrived. Xisuma was questioning Impulse, who looked a bit shaken, while the others looked on and listened intently. Tango landed and made his way over, straining to hear Impulse and Xisuma as he neared.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Xisuma was saying.

“I was just sleeping, like normal, when suddenly I woke up feeling unusually cold and uneasy for seemingly no reason. I didn’t see anything right away, so I started to go back to sleep. Then something shot out of the shadows and hit me with a sword, and I realized it was Etho. We started fighting, and he pulled down his mask during it. He had fangs and started trying to bite me. I got a pretty good hit on him and he disappeared long enough for me to chat with you guys. And then obviously we were fighting again when you guys started showing up,” Impulse replied.

“Bdubs and I were working on something in Aqua Town and we got here first. We started to help Impulse fight but then Etho vanished into the shadows,” Scar said.

“I guess he didn’t like being outnumbered,” Bdubs added.

Etho was a vampire? What? Tango was struggling to process the information. He couldn't imagine Etho with fangs and a taste for blood. Besides, he'd been fine earlier. Hoping Xisuma would have answers, Tango turned his gaze to the admin, who was currently silent, looking thoughtful.

“Well...assuming Etho being a vampire is the glitch...that makes it a lot harder to fix,” Xisuma said after a moment.

“It can be done, though, right?” Tango asked.

“I’m not sure,” Xisuma admitted. “I can code the server, but I can’t code a player. Etho has to fix himself, in a sense. We might be able to help him along, but ultimately he has to fix himself. And if he can’t...” Xisuma trailed off, and Tango’s heart twisted as he realized what the admin was going to say. “If he can’t, we’ll have to kill him. We can't have a vampire to worry about all the time."

In all honesty, Tango knew Xisuma was right. But the thought hurt a lot more than he wanted to admit. He’d never told anyone, and somehow no one had found out, but Tango had a pretty significant crush on Etho. He was a lot more than a friend by this point, and Tango didn’t know if he could deal with losing him.

“We need to talk to him, then,” Scar said. “Maybe we could talk some sense into him.”

“He’s not going to come out if it’s a big group, though,” Impulse pointed out.

“Maybe someone needs to go alone to somewhere Etho would be able to easily find them, while the rest of us stay here on stand by if they need help,” Bdubs said.

“I’ll go.” Tango didn’t even realize what he was saying at first. His heart spoke before his mind, needing to know that Etho was okay. But he didn’t correct himself once it was out. It could be fun, right? Exciting? Maybe?

"I don't like the idea of someone going alone in such a dangerous situation, but I guess we don't have a choice," Xisuma sighed. He glanced at Tango, the seriousness in his eyes making the demon hybrid shiver. "Are you sure you're okay with doing this, Tango?"

"Yeah. If I can build decked out and survive the ravagers, I can deal with Etho," Tango assured, with much more confidence than he felt.

"Oh, I don't doubt you'll survive him," Xisuma replied. "What I'm worried about is what will happen if you can't convince him. If he doesn't change, whoever goes will have to kill him, and I'm honestly not sure you can do that, Tango."

Tango swallowed hard. That wasn't something he'd considered at all, nor did he think it was something he could do. But...something told him he would be even worse off if he wasn't the one to go. This was something he had to do. He could only hope that death would be an unnecessary measure.

"I can," Tango replied, just barely managing to keep his voice firm.

Xisuma gave him a long stare, then sighed. "Okay, fine. Just please, be careful."

"I will," Tango promised. "Should I go now?"

"I guess so, while there's still plenty of night left," Xisuma agreed. "If you need help, we'll be a message away. Check Etho's base first."

Tango gave one last nod to Xisuma before taking off again. As he flew, he was painfully aware of his sword resting in its sheath against his side. He desperately hoped he wouldn't have to use it against Etho. On second thought, maybe he wasn't the right person for this job. But he wasn't going to turn back now.

The base that was normally so friendly and cheerful-looking now gave Tango chills as he landed. Structures of varying looks and heights cast eerie shadows throughout Etho's base, and the fact that it was dead silent didn't help at all. Tango struggled to stay calm as he slowly made his way through the base, his gaze flicking nervously from shadow to shadow as he watched and waited for Etho.

"So they sent you to kill me, huh?"

The whisper about gave Tango a heart attack. He spun around, frantically searching for the source of the sound, but he didn't see anything.

"Funny. I was wondering what your blood tasted like~"

Tango's heart was pounding as he continued to spin in circles, unable to find Etho. "E-Etho, stop, please..." he said, hating how his voice trembled slightly. It scared him, how much Etho had changed. "This isn't you."

"No. It's better." Etho's voice was a slight snarl, putting Tango even more on edge.

"At least come out!" Tango said desperately. He was terrified, drenched in sweat. This was by far the most exciting night he'd had in a long time, but he hated it with every rapid breath he took.

Something dropped down behind Tango. He whipped around, his heart skipping a beat as he met Etho's mismatched eyes, practically glowing with the menace they held. The temperature seemed to drop significantly, while Tango's heart rate spiked. He gulped, trembling with either cold or fear, he didn't know.

"Etho..." Tango whispered, not knowing what else to say. The now-vampire's stare didn't waver, but Tango noticed his hand slipping to his sword. "Please, Etho. Listen to me. Come back to me. I don't want to have to fight you," he begged.

Etho drew his sword. "Too bad," he said coldly as he raised the blade.

Instinctively, Tango pulled his sword out to block it. The weapons clashed, the sound breaking the quiet. Etho pulled his back to attack again, but Tango blocked. The cycle continued, neither of them giving nor taking hits. Soon, Tango's moves began to slow as he grew tired. He couldn't take this much longer.

"Etho, just stop. You're stronger than this. You can fight it," Tango said, praying Etho would listen.

"Why should I? I'm fine like this. No one can convince me otherwise," Etho hissed.

"I will!" Tango growled. "I'm not losing you, Etho!"

Fueled by his new determination, Tango began to overpower Etho. After a few more blocks and attempted hits, Tango tried a disarming move. Etho's sword flew out of his hand, leaving him defenseless.

"Now you have to listen to me," Tango said.

"I won't," Etho growled. He spread his arms, leaving his chest and ultimately his heart vulnerable. "Just finish the job, Tango. You can't change me back, and I know Xisuma gave you one other option if I didn't listen. Now do it."

"I..." Tango glanced at his sword, then at Etho. Tears pricked at his eyes and a sob escaped his throat. "I can't. I can't kill you, Etho. It would destroy me."

"Guess you're mine then." In a flash, Etho had pulled his mask down and lunged. Pain stabbed through Tango's neck as Etho's fangs sank in, and he let out a choked cry. He pulled away from Etho and pressed a hand against the wound. Etho stared at him, licking his bloody lips and fangs. Tango's stomach twisted at the sight, and his mind drifted to his communicator. Should he call for help? He was definitely in need of it. But if the others saw this, Tango had a feeling Etho wouldn't last long. Something told him there was still hope for Etho, he just had to keep trying.

"What's on your mind?"

Etho's voice, twisted into a demonic whisper, jolted Tango back to reality. He had an idea. Love confessions worked for this sort of thing in the movies, right? It was by no means sensible, but Tango was getting very desperate.

"You," Tango admitted. "I like you, Etho. A lot. And it hurts me to see you like this. I want to help you, but you need to cooperate with me."

"That's sweet. But I already told you, there's nothing to be helped. This is fine," Etho said.

"Is it?" Tango asked softly. "Are you truly okay with what you've become?"

"I-" To Tango's surprise, Etho faltered. "No. I'm not. But it's too strong for me..."

Tango's heart clenched, but he continued with new confidence. "Etho, I may not know how strong whatever this thing is, but I know for a fact you're stronger. You can beat it. I know you can."

Etho dropped to his knees, his fingers curling into fists. He whimpered softly, trembling. "It's...too strong..."

Tango sat in front of Etho and hesitantly placed a hand on his cheek, causing him to look up. "You can do it, Etho. Don't let it win."

Etho's eyes flickered and he closed them, releasing a low hiss. Tango watched anxiously as Etho battled unseen demons, mentally cheering him on. He slipped a hand into one of Etho's, and Etho's grip tightened as if it were for dear life.

Seconds turned to minutes as Etho continued to fight the glitch, urged on by Tango's words of encouragement now and then. Tango lost track of time, completely focused on Etho. It was painful watching Etho suffer, but all he could do was offer support.

Finally, Etho began to relax. His fangs began to disappear, and when his eyes fluttered open Tango noticed the normal sparkle was returning to them.

"I think...I did it..." Etho gasped.

"I think you did too!" Tango grinned. "I knew you could!"

Etho cast Tango a tired smile. "Thank you. I couldn't have done it without you, Tango."

Holding back tears, Tango wrapped his arms around Etho and pulled him close for a hug. Etho snuggled into Tango's arms in response. "I love you, Etho," Tango whispered.

"I love you too, Tango," Etho replied.

Both gazed into each other's eyes for a long moment. Then, both leaned in to meet the other's lips, letting their worries fade away as they kissed passionately.

-------

"It's been over an hour." Impulse turned to Xisuma, biting his lip anxiously. "You'd think if everything was fine they'd be back by now. I think we should look for them."

"I'm not sure. These things can sometimes take a while. I don't want to disturb the process," Xisuma responded.

"I'll be careful, I promise," Impulse said.

Xisuma sighed. "Okay. But try not to be seen, and don't engage unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Understood." With that, Impulse was off.

He flew over to Etho's base and landed on one of the upper areas. It was oddly quiet, and Impulse began to get worried until he looked down. Tango and Etho were curled up together, both sleeping soundly. Impulse smiled, reassured, and happy to see them both sleeping well.

As he made his way back to Xisuma, though, Impulse made a mental note to tease them about it later, like the amazing friend he was.

#hermitcraft au #hermitshipping #tangotek #ethoslab #xisumavoid #impulsesv #goodtimeswithscar #bdubs #rendog #tango x etho #etho x tango #vampires #vampire!etho #glitches #angst #angst with a happy ending

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blocksandbloops · 3 years

Text

May I interest you in some fem!hermit!Tommy fluff for you in this trying time?

This is set in an alternative version of @redorich 's hermit!Tommy AU. Diverging from the Dream SMP's raid on Hermitcraft. All you need to know is that family trees are convoluted, Tommy's name is Clementine. She's trans, we love her, she has wings and has adopted Grian as her weird almost twin brother.

After the whole "Dreamon" and "invasion" mess the Dream SMP folk didn't expect to hear much from the hermits besides the ones who attended MCC. They thought that the two servers would just continue to exist, independent of one another. Just drifting through the void mere inches apart but never really touching.

Oh how wrong they were.

The hermits were friendly but they had absolutely underestimated just how friendly.

Apparently, the moment Clementine so much as breathed a word about how much she missed her biological family, Scar -ever the kind and helpful mayor that he was- decided to throw a beach party!

Since Clemmy's extended family was pretty large and they didn't want anyone to feel left out, it was an open invitation to everyone on the Dream SMP as long as they behaved.

That point was driven home when a few people, like Antfrost and his unhealed, dog bitten asscheek, mentioned how upsetting the Hermits was definitely not a good idea.

(Deep down they knew that the reason they were really doing this was because the hermits were worried about them. The Dream SMP was just a bunch of traumatized children according to them. They weren't wrong in that assumption but no one wanted to admit that.)

So, when the day of the beach party finally dawned, they all put on their least threatening outfits and packed up their supplies, (where Tubbo got the surf board nobody wanted to question) and entered the portal just like they had done a few months prior.

A few things were different though, the sun was bright and beaming in the sky, soft puffy white clouds rolled by, only promising gentle shade instead of the dreary air of yesteryear.

The shopping district had been rebuilt from it's smoky ruins and they finally all had time to appreciate the lovingly built shops and roads. It looked so beautiful and vibrant, you could practically feel the fact that summer was in full swing.

The smell of nectar and sea salt drifted through the air, sweetening even the sourest of moods. This is what peace was to the hermits. This was their everyday. They were so lucky and they didn't even realize it.

Some people were taking notes of all the different building styles with bright eyes, hoping to replicate some of it when they got home, others were suddenly hit with a feeling of bitter inadequacy of it compared to their homes. Is this what a world without war could look like?

But, no matter the gloomy musings of the few, they were all here to let go for a day! To celebrate the good times and to kick back for seemingly the first time in forever.

Their welcome party this time simply consisted of one person.

It was a strange sight, seeing the Hermits' admin Xisuma without a mask on, wearing a god awful hawaiian shirt that Keralis had thrown at him with glee the moment he mentioned that he didn't have something to wear, and again, were those, gods forbid crocks?

"'Ello everyone! Wow this is quite the turn up. Scar wished he could be here to greet you all personally, but he's still too busy helping the others preparing for the barbecue, so you're stuck with me for the time being.

Now, if you'll kindly follow me, we set everything up pretty close to here, so we'll be there in a minute."

The walk over to the beach was short, but just as scenic as the rest of the server.

Warm, golden sand, gently lapping waves and lush plant life. The sound of the hermits' laughter and soft music filled the air as the smell of the previously mentioned barbecue proved a welcome distraction from whatever the hell was happening on the far right side of the beach (the ZIT trio built a karaoke machine. It was Zedaph's idea. It was also a horrible idea but they didn't seem to realize that yet.)

As they began to debate a plan of attack, no wait. ... fun? enjoyment? eh whatever.

A tall man jogged up to the group. Some people recognized him as Mumbo Jumbo, that one british guy with the mustache. Others, however, as that semi-scary redstone wizard who managed to create extremely powerful potion launchers during the invasion.

He was dressed just as down to earth as the others, holding a tall glass of lemonade in his hand and wearing a (quite goofy) sunhat he borrowed from Ren.

He was explaining something to X in hushed tones (something or other about a minor fire at the barbecue table?) When he looked past the gathering of guests and out towards the path that they had come from, and screeched.

"GRIAN PLEASE I'M HOLDING LEMONADE DON'T!" X reached over and grabbed the glass from his hands just in time for a cackling, feathered ball of something to crash into Mumbo, knocking him into the water with an audible "oof".

There was wild thrashing as the two tried to orient themselves, Grian somehow climbing onto Mumbo's back.

"CLEMMY! COME HELP ME DROWN MUMBO!" Grian waved towards a cluster of trees to their left, underneath which a small gathering of hermits was enjoying a bit of a reprieve from the sun.

"NOT YOU TOO!" came the mustachioed man's scream of distress.

Clementine, the whole terrifying six feet and three inches of a woman that she was, took off running to the water at full tilt towards the struggling brits.

Mumbo, having already formed a strategy in his head, did a perfect T-pose and feel backwards into the water, bringing down a screaming Grian with him. Clementine did a graceful swan dive into the water (how she executed that shall be left for viewer interpretation) and happily joined the fray, even the distressed calls of Stress behind her because "Gods damn it Clemmy! I spent an hour on your hair! And now it's ruined!" couldn't persuade her to give up on her mission to cause as much friendly chaos as possible.

She climbed out of the water a few minutes later, her hair a mess and a bright smile on her face.

"Techie! Wilby! Tubbo! Thank you guys so much for coming! I'm really glad that you could make it." She hugged them each close, enjoying the comfort of having them all together again.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." Techno relaxed his posture, trying not to fidget too much. He was getting better with crowds but it was still a lot.

"You may think he's joking but he literally dragged Quackity all the way to the portal because he was too busy doing his eyeliner and would've made us late." Wilbur snickered when she leaned in to hug him, earnings him one of her patented ear-splitting laughs.

"I got a recording of it!" Tubbo proudly announced, pulling out his video camera

while still holding an arm around her.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT! LET ME HAVE SOME DIGNITY MAN!" The aforementioned Mr. Fattest Ass in the cabinet screamed indignantly as soon as he got within hearing range.

"Quackity you never had any dignity. It's too late for that." Techno flicked the duck shapeshifter on the head, earning him even more annoyed rambling which he just chose to ignore.

"Well, I'm glad that that's settled, now, I have some people I'd like for you to meet."

She directed them towards the group sitting in the shade, which consisted of False, (a now soaking wet) Grian, Stess, Mumbo (who also looked like a disgruntled cat that was just given a bath), Iskall and Ren.

Meanwhile Doc and Cleo had a little cornered off area they'd nicknamed the "cool kids club" (it was because around this time the sun got strong enough to actually burn her and Doc just felt slightly iffy about the water, since he was, ya know, half robot.)

Clemmy threw herself down on a blanket in front of a grumbling Stress who set about actually making her hair look presentable.

Niki sat down next to them and began discussing the merits of different styles to put Clemmy's hair into.

Ranboo sheepishly sat down next to Cleo's lawn chair folding all of his gangly limbs under himself.

Wilbur happily plopped himself down next to Ren on a blanket and began to hum along to the other's guitar.

Techno lay dow his cape, deciding that a nap was the best course of action in that moment.

Fundy hesitated for a second before going down to the shore to relax and just put his feet in the water for now.

Philza, the awkward dad that he was, chose to sit down close enough to the girls that he'd be able to hear what they were talking about without intruding.

Tubbo placed his stuff down by Clemmy's feet and ran out to the shore with his surf board in hand.

Going through so many conflicts in such a short amount of time really tires a person out, especially ones as young as the ones from the SMP so getting this afternoon of rest truly helped ease some of the stress given to them by recent events.

(Beach episode pog?)

Of course, this little get together wasn't without it's faults. About two hours in Doc accidentally trampled False's sand castle, who in retaliation teamed up with Cleo to dump water on him while he was relaxing.

This little conflict evolved into a battle to see who could build the biggest and grandest sand castle between "Team Himbo" and "Team Women" (one of those was coined by Clemmy). Puffy and Stress set up a good system of transporting sand from point A to point B, allowing them to move faster. False got placed on detailing duty while Niki brought refreshments for the rest of the team. Alyssa was mostly helping out wherever she could, as Cleo worked her armour stand magic to make their castle feel even more alive.

Clemmy just shouted encouragements and bullied the opposing team.

(The member list of Team Himbo has been redacted to avoid any drama about who might qualify as a himbo in the given circumstances)

Somehow the guys managed to convince Techno to join them, which immediately stacked odds in their favor to which Eret and Iskall, being the non-binary legends they are, decided to side with Team Women, now renamed to "Team Prettier Than You".

Their building contest laated for another hour before X decided to try to stop them (it wasn't because of the time. It was because TFC and Grian started shouting things about structural integrity and adding stone parts to the walls and the contestants actually listened when he decided that it was getting out of hand.)

Then it was time to actually enjoy the barbecue. Techno surprised everyone with how delicious his baked potatoes ended up. Beef also got to flex his skills a little with, as you guessed it, beef.

Tubbo and Tango sadly had to eat further away then everyone because the moment they got within ten feet of the fire something mysteriously combusted.

After that, the ZIT trio busted out the karaoke machine and the night went from good to great.

The old Team Star was dared to sing a rendition of Hermit Gang and everyone younger than 25 felt physical distress during some parts.

The sleepy bois (+Tubbo) sang a cover of "Your new boyfriend" (Techno got surprisingly into it) and then Wilbur swiped Ren's guitar to sing some Taylor Swift songs (accompanied by Tubbo on a synth he seemingly pulled out of nowhere) in that one weird accent he can do which had most people wheezing on the floor from laughter after the first song.

Niki threw down a german cover of Say So by Doja Cat. Grian, Phil and Tommy were unconsciously doing the parrot dancing thing. It was great.

Quackity sang something in spanish and Karl and Sapnap made over exaggerated swooning noises.

Skeppy and Bad did a duet. It was as adorable as it sounds.

Some other people also came on stage, belting out songs in such horridly broken voices that I'll spare you the details. Let's just say, nails scratching chalkboards would sound better.

And that was most of the festivities over with.

The last thing on the agenda? A meteor shower. How did they set it up? Clemmy's weird star child thing. The aforementioned girl was huddled close together with her family as they watched the comets streak across the clear sky (all electronics and artificial lights were shut off for the night) and Melohi played from a jukebox in the corner.

Fundy was laying his head in Dream's lap, the other boy was softly threading his fingers through his almost fiance's orange hair while leaning heavily on George and trying not to let sleep claim him as it had the fox (no one knew how this happened, all they were aware of is that the three had disappeared sometime during the sand castle contest only to reemerge having finally talked things through and come to an agreement that they all seemed happy with).

Ranboo, Niki, Puffy and Eret were collapsed in a happy pile just vibing.

The sleepy bois, who were for once actually sleepy, all wore matching flower crowns braided together by Stress's experienced fingers (and Wilbur's rather clumsy ones). Phil and her had managed to come to an agreement of unofficial joint custody after he witnessed Techno embarrassedly lean down to let her place a crown of golden flowers upon his head and saw his internal beam of pride when she called him "handsome".

The boys never really had a mother he mused, maybe she could teach them kindness where he couldn't.

Another surprise addition to the family was the owner of the third pair of wings in the cuddle pile. Phil didn't expect to end up with any more children at this point in his life, but Grain and Clemmy were practically attached at the hip and it felt wrong to even think about separating them.

He only hoped that those two wouldn't cause too much chaos especially when teamed up with Tubbo.

In the end, everyone drifted off to sleep, one by one they closed their eyes on their most perfect day. Praying for whatever might be out there, that they'll have many more moments just like this.

Well,

almost everyone.

Callahan chuckled as he walked back up to his spot with Alyssa farther away from the others. shutting off his camera after cycling through the pictures he took of everyone looking goofy while sleeping (His favorite is the one where Clemmy was very visibly munching on Techno's hair). He may not use those as blackmail but he sure ass hell was going to tease them about it later. He fell asleep there on that hill, drifting off to comforting rest like the others.

After that? Life moved on.

It was chaotic sure, and not perfect.

But it was theirs. They grew up slowly, learning to be kind to one another, how to grow with one another.

Life wasn't always perfect but hey, they had each other. And in the end? That's all that mattered.

#mcyt #dream smp #long post #i am not tagging them all #hermitcraft #lesbianinnit #sleepyblr #sleepyboys inc #hermit!tommy au #fluff #dream smp fanfiction #hermitcraft fanfiction #fanfiction #sleepyboys centric #other people are mentioned tho #trans!tommyinnit #mtf!Tommyinnit

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votederpycausemufins · 3 years

Text

Alright, another chapter for my fic with Jrum. Just so you know, we’ve got a hels hermit and uh... his personality is Horny(TM). nothing to get it out of a teen rating, but there is some non consensual touching at one point so i’m giving a warning.

Rustic House Club

Jrum was set down on a counter before NPG left again, saving there was something to grab. The younger bot waited there for a little bit before getting bored and jumping down from the counter to explore the place. Jrum was pretty sure this was NPG’s base. It seemed to be a giant rustic house or mansion or something. The wood and stone were unfamiliar, but that being said, the world outside was also strange, covered with mint green grass and dirt that was a grayish blue. The sky looked mostly normal, though it was littered with multicolored clouds.

Back inside, in the center of the room was a giant campfire surrounded by some reddish brown stone. There was also an enchanting table setup with bookshelves around it, but some of the shelves were made with a dull colored wood, and some were made with the stone like what made up the walls.

A sound just behind Jrum made him jump and whirl around, only to see what looked like a very fluffy bunny hopping around. It was a nice powder blue color, and whenever it jumped, what looked like a small puff of smoke was left behind before fading.

“H-Hi. You’re n-not a bad bunny, a-are you?” Jrum nervously asked the hopping creature. “B-Because my dad d-doesn’t like bad b-bunnies.” The bunny responded by hopping and landing on top of Jrum’s head and flopping down there to rest. “H-Hey! That tickles!”

Jrum carefully grabbed the animal to put it back on the ground. He smiled as he felt that it was indeed extremely fluff as well as feeling rather soft. Once the bunny was back on the ground, it went hopping about the room again, letting Jrum explore the house more. There were a number of shulker boxes strewn about which seemed to be filled with items, but for the most part the items weren’t ones that Jrum recognized. Like what was a moa? Or an ambrosium shard?

Jrum shook his head as he stopped looking in the boxes before turning his head to some armor stands nearby. One had an elytra resting on it, while the other didn’t have an elytra or chestplate. Other than that, the first stand had some sort of purple armor while the other was a pinkish color.

The last thing Jrum really noticed was a ladder going up to the next floor, but he didn’t get the chance to go upstairs before NPG returned, carrying what sort of resembled his charger. “I’m back!”

Jrum scrambled his way back to the counter and sat on it, hoping NPG hadn’t seen he wasn’t there. “Sorry for the wait. This thing is just hard to carry and Sense wouldn’t come here to build it because he thinks it’s crazy to live in a dangerous place like the aether.”

The bunny from before hopped over and onto NPG’s head. “Oh! Hi Rusty! Did you meet our guest? He’s my brother.”

“Your bunny’s name is Rusty?”

“Yup!” NPG set the charger down near where Jrum was sitting. “Hmm, I’m sure you’ll want somewhere to sleep, so I’ll have to make you a bed later. Because trying to get that thing up a ladder would be no fun.”

Jrum looked at the pinkish armor that NPG was wearing. “What’s that?”

“Hmm?” NPG looked where Jrum was pointing. “Oh! This is some aetherite armor. It’s like netherite, but for here!”

Jrum nodded, then just sat quietly, swinging his legs. NPG was also quiet, just sort of smiling and swinging his arms about before there was a buzz. The older robot reached for his pocket and pulled out what looked like a communicator, though it was a different style, and read a message on it.

“Oh good! Prof says we can meet with him!”

Jrum tilted his head. “Who’s that?”

“That’s right! I haven’t explained things yet!” NPG exclaimed before putting his comm away again. “Okay, so we’re in Helscraft! It’s like where you’re from, but opposite. Our overworld is more like the nether, but not entirely. More like… hmm… if instead of dirt, mycelium and nylium were normal, and then instead of normal trees we get those giant mushroom things that still can be used for wood. The aether is like an opposite nether in that it’s cold here and there’s no bedrock at either edge of the world. And then finally the end in our world is probably the closest to being normal, but there’s no ender dragon. Instead there’s this thing called the warden and it’s really dangerous.”

“Oh… but who’s Proff?”

“Oh right! So here instead of hermits there are helsmits! And just about everyone in Hermitcraft has a sort of… not really opposite, but at the very least alternative version of themselves down here! Prof is one of them. He’s our version of Doc.”

“Who was the person that looked like daddy?” Jrum asked. He knew NPG had said something, but he hadn’t fully been paying attention.

“Oh! That was Perfect Sense. Most people just call him Sense.”

“Who else is there?”

NPG’s eyes lit up, happy to explain for his brother. “Okay, so there’s Xannes who’s our admin. Most people don’t use his name though, which is rude. Instead they say stuff like Evil Xisuma, Evil X or just EX. There’s True Symmetry who’s the current emperor, or I guess empress, of the server. Her running mate was Waltzware, who everyone calls Whiskey. Fun story about that, I can tell you it another time. Uh, he’s in a rivalry with DelayVS and Phedaz. There’s BadtimeswithScar, or just Badtimes. He has a place on the overworld with a big magic crystal in it which is where I go to hang out with you. It’s a little hard to get to sometimes with Peanut guarding the place. Helsknight has been around the longest and-”

“Um, so are you the opposite of my dad?” Jrum asked, cutting his brother off.

“Nope! Not really! That’s Grifter. See, I showed up sort of near the end of season three and he appeared when we moved to season four. I’m pretty sure he was a Listener or something, but anyway he didn’t like me since he thought I was taking his place. When Prof made Base Iridium, it was so he could lock up Grifter because he was like... the worst person. And so he’s been stuck there ever since and I get to stay because they all like me better!”

Jrum nodded. “Okay, and then do Grum and I have copies here?”

NPG stopped smiling at the question. “Well… no. Glodhet made Sense run for emperor, but Since Glodhet was LaxSprite’s running mate, Sense didn’t have anyone as his running mate. I tried, but he said no. Because of that, we never built any versions of you.”

Jrum looked down at the floor sadly. Sure NPG was a great friend, but he and his brother were really the only kids on the server, so it was pretty lonely a lot of the time.

“Um, well, do you want to go and see Prof?”

Jrum nodded and NPG picked him up before going to the portal he had outside. Jrum shivered when they walked outside, the air extremely cold. That definitely was opposite to the nether. It also didn’t help that it seemed to be night out, which made it even colder. “Isn’t the neth- uh, aether faster?”

“Yeah, but with its day and night cycles, it’s really dangerous at night and you don’t really have any gear I don’t think. Besides, Prof isn’t that far away from the other side of my portal.”

“O-Okay.”

Grian and Mumbo spawned in Helscraft right next to each other. They spawned on a small island that was half made of mycelium, half on fire. Grian was a little worried about the fact that Xisuma didn’t seem to be with them, but that was probably fine? Maybe he had been there before and when spawning in, he appeared there instead.

There seemed to be some sort of water around the island, but it didn’t quite look right as it was a bright red color. Grian carefully plucked a wing and dipped it into the water. It didn’t get burnt or damaged or anything, so that was a good sign.

Mumbo looked in a chest on the island and found it filled with boats. The wood seemed to be slightly pink, like a slightly more colorful jungle boat. He placed it into the water and got in, Grian climbing in behind him. “Well, while everything looks different in color, that island seems to be like the spawn island back home, and that out there looks like the shopping district.”

Grian looked into the distance. “Yeah, though it doesn’t look quite as populated as the one on Hermitcraft. I-Is that a giant blackstone castle?”

Mumbo squinted his eyes, looking back towards the larger island. It was a little hard to tell because it was against a black sky with few stars in sight, but Mumbo could make out what seemed to be the outline of a castle. “I’m guessing they have the same sort of starting seed, but they build whatever they want and it doesn’t match what we do.”

Grian agreed, and then Mumbo paddled them to the island. When they reached the shore, Mumbo got out first and then held a hand out to help Grian.

“Since I can fly, I’ll look at this place from above. You check on foot. Does that sound good?” Grian asked, getting a nod from Mumbo. “Great, let’s go.”

True groaned as the sunlight was blocked for a moment. Even with her sunglasses on and her eyes closed, she could tell when the light didn’t reach her closed eyes for a moment. Her best guess was someone decided to try and annoy her again by building something to fly in just the right place to annoy her, something that had happened more than once before. She moved her glasses to her forehead and set down the glass of wine she had been sipping from before walking to the edge of her sunbathing balcony and looking below to see who exactly was messing with her.

She groaned when she was Sense walking in the paths below. Of course it would be the resident evil genius causing trouble. And then as the light was blocked again, she turned her gaze skyward to see what exactly he had made this time. True expected some sort of redstone machine to be moving around up there, Sense trying to control it from below and put it in the right place. What she didn’t expect was for the thing in the air to be a person, specifically one with wings, not elytra, on their back.

Immediately True was rushing back into the castle. This was not happening. “WHISKEY!” She shouted at the top of her lungs. “STOP WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU’RE DOING AND CALL PROF! SENSE FINALLY FUCKING DID IT!” She heard some sort of response but didn’t really pay attention as she grabbed the armor and weapons she left inside. As soon as it was all re-equipped, she went back onto the balcony and scoured the skies.

It was easy to spot the avian in the sky, having gotten closer if anything. True drew her bow and aimed at the moving target, trying to follow his path. Then when she was sure her aim was right, she fired the arrow, watching it sail in the air.

Mumbo had been looking in every building he had come across, which had been harder than it sounded since the land of the island was damaged beyond belief. Rubble was everywhere and creeper holes littered the terrain. He kept looking up at Grian, hoping he would find something so that he wouldn’t need to bother with the buildings.

The redstoner was just climbing out of another building through the mostly blocked up door when he looked up in the sky. Grian was still flying, but he watched as one moment an arrow hit the avian and the next he was covered in fire and falling to the ground. Immediately Mumbo started running in Grian’s direction.

A few minutes before, Grian had finished looking at yet another section of the island from overhead and turned around to view the next one. He was so focused on the ground below, he wasn’t paying attention to the airspace around him until suddenly an arrow struck his wing. Fire from the arrow spread to his wings and the rest of his body, making it feel even worse.

Grian tried to flap his wings and move towards the water. He wasn’t sure what that stuff was, but he hoped it would put him out. The problem was that the arrow had hit his wing in just the right place that even twitching it slightly felt like agony. And since he only had use of one of his wings, the avian started plummeting to the ground. He at the very least managed to twist his body so that way his wings were below him so that the feathers helped soften his fall.

“Don’t worry. I got you Gri.” Grian heard Mumbo say and a moment later he could hear a bucket of water get spilled out, dousing the fire that was covering his body.

“Th-Thanks. Ow that hurt.” Grian thanked Mumbo and stood up to brush himself off. “I didn’t even notice that- mmph!” Grian was cut off as suddenly Mumbo’s lips met his in a kiss. His eyes widened in shock, especially as Mumbo tried to deepen the kiss. At that point Grian pushed him away. “Wh-What?!”

“Sorry. Just been a while. And with that just happened…” Mumbo gave a half smile. Grian sort of knew where he was coming from, but this hardly seemed like something to warrant a kiss like that. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks for the water. Won’t be able to fly for a bit though. I got shot right in the wing and even potions are going to have trouble with that.”

“Well I can help you with that later. That arrow came from the castle, so we should be careful about any more from there.”

Grian nodded, but then paused. If anyone was going to be shooting at him, it might be because they didn’t want him getting to Jrum. And if that were the case, then Jrum was in the castle. “Well then we should be going to the castle, right?”

Mumbo smiled. “Of course. Lead the way.” Mumbo gestured towards the castle and Grian rushed off, not hearing the words that were added on at the end. “My dear.”

Mumbo followed along behind Grian, heading towards the castle. He didn’t bother picking up the water that had been placed down. Who would care about that? In fact, he even threw the bucket behind him, not watching where it landed.

The bucket sailed through the air before finally landing with a thunk. Mumbo rubbed his head, glad that the item had been empty. “Who would throw an empty bucket?” He asked no one in particular before finally getting to the top of the hill. Sitting there was a water source, likely from the bucket. This should have been where Grian landed, but the avian was nowhere in sight. “I didn’t realize he had a bucket of water on him.” He then realized it was red instead. “Wait, this is water from here… Who placed this?”

Mumbo continued to look at the surrounding terrain and noticed the water had made the surrounding mycelium a bit muddy. There seemed to be two sets of footprints, and in one print, a feather had been stepped on. Said feather was a bright red, which could only belong to one person. Mumbo’s eyes followed the prints, watching as they went towards the castle. If Grian was anywhere, he would be there, so he started walking in that direction.

Grian raised an eyebrow as Mumbo held his hand, but he supposed it made sense with what just happened and them going into a dangerous area. They carefully walked through the halls of the castle, checking every room. So far there was no sign of Jrum, but there weren’t even signs of anyone. But then they were turning down one hallway and ran into someone who looked like Tango, except his skin was a lavender color, his hair even darker than Mumbo’s and his eyes glowing purple rather than red.

“It was easier to find you two than I thought.” The not Tango spoke, pulling out an axe of some sort of pink colored metal. He ran towards Grian and Mumbo, ready to attack, but then Mumbo pulled out a piece of TNT. Immediately not Tango stopped in his tracks, and then Mumbo was pulling Grian another direction, placing the TNT down and causing not Tango to scream.

“How’d you know that would work?” Grian asked as they ran.

“Didn’t, just had a slight hunch.” Mumbo replied. “Let’s go up those stairs.” And Grian looked over where Mumbo pointed, the two of them then turning to go that way.

Behind them, the not Tango tried to find another path. He didn’t get far though before running into Mumbo. In an instant the axe was out in front of him, ready to attack. “Gah! Don’t take a step closer or-” Not Tango looked around, surprised to not see Grian. “Where’d the bird go?”

“You saw him? Which way did he go?”

“You two already got separated? That’s so unlike you.” Not Tango answered. Mumbo looked away from the helsmit, who took the opportunity to attack. The redstoner noticed just in time and was able to dodge the attack, running to dive behind the block of TNT nearby. It obviously wasn’t the safest place, but it was still cover. One that happened to repel the not Tango, who freaked out at the block.

When Grian reached the top of the stairs with Mumbo, the redstoner pulled the two of them into a nearby room. It was thankfully empty, and Grian watched as Mumbo locked the door behind them. “Well, they know we’re here now. It would probably be good to deal with your wing, hmm?”

Grian nodded. “Yeah, it would be good to do that so I’m not hindered at all. We’ll probably need all the help we can get with this.”

Mumbo came over to Grian as he was busy climbing onto the table in the room so that Mumbo had a better platform to treat him on. Just as he was settling down, ready to shift his wings back into existence, Mumbo grabbed him from behind, the redstoner’s mouth suddenly on his neck. Grian gasped, not sure how to react, and before he could do anything, Mumbo was off him again, leaving a purplish-red mark on Grian’s neck.

Grian turned to face Mumbo, only to be kissed again. Grian wanted to complain, but Mumbo’s hand found the sweet spot on his back, right between his shoulder blades, and Grian couldn’t help but melt into the redstoner’s arms.

Mumbo panted as he reached the top of the stairs, having been chased by someone that almost looked like Zedaph. He had been cornered and nearly killed, but then the not Tango showed up and the two of them started fighting each other instead. Mumbo used the opening to run, getting up to the next floor. At the top of the steps, he thought about just standing there a bit longer to catch his breath, but then he heard what sounded like Grian behind a nearby door.

It sounded like he might have been hurt, so the redstoner rushed to the door and tried to open it, only to find it locked. Another noise from inside worried Mumbo, and he immediately had a pickaxe in his hand and broke down the metal door. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it wasn’t this. In front of him was himself and Grian. The avian was sitting on a table as he kissed him, hands working on pulling the red sweater off. “What in the world?!”

Grian opened his eyes when Mumbo spoke, looking to see what the problem was. They then widened to the point they were practically bulging out of his skull as he saw Mumbo in the doorway as Mumbo was also currently kissing him.

Grian pushed Mumbo, the one kissing him, away so he could say something. “Mumbo?!”

The Mumbo who had been kissing Grian turned around to see the second version of him in the doorway before looking back at Grian. “Wait. You’re not Grifter.”

“Uh, no. I’m Grian? W-Which one of you is Mumbo?”

“I am!” Mumbo spoke up, attempting to go to Grian’s side, but his hels counterpart stopped him.

“And I’m Sense. Are you sure you’re Grian though? Because your body is just the same as I remember Grifter having~. The same soft lips and strong muscles. And I’m sure you have the same-”

Grian felt Sense’s hand start to move down his back as he spoke, so the avian shoved him away. “Nope! We are not doing this! Absolutely not!”

Sense pouted and gave a huff. “Fine, then what are you doing here?”

“We’re here looking for our son.” Mumbo replied. “I’m guessing since you didn’t realize this was Grian, you haven’t seen him.”

“What would that have to do with it?” Sense replied. “Though didn’t realize he was your son too. Anyway, of course I’ve seen him.” When Grian opened his mouth, Sense stopped him by continuing. “Oh, but I won’t be telling you anything just like that. I need something out of it.”

“Oh ew no!” Grian replied, moving behind Mumbo.

“Oh please, I wouldn’t want that. Okay maybe if you were offering… but no, if you can get here from your little Hermitcraft world, you might be able to get to the last season of Helscraft.”

“And why would you want that?” Mumbo asked.

“Grifter got left behind, and none of us can go back there ourselves. I mean, there are a few here who can, but no one who’s willing to actually free Grifter.”

“I’m afraid we can’t either. Xisuma’s the one who brought Grian and I here. And I doubt he would want to send us anywhere else.”

Sense scoffed in irritation. “Fine, then I have one other option, but you’ll need to help me out Grian.”

Grian winced, clinging tighter to Mumbo. “Wh-What do you want?”

“I’m really a fan at how True is running this place. I would have loved to be emperor, but without Grifter, I didn’t have a chance. However, if you’re with me, I can make a bluff for the throne.”

Grian hesitated, weighing his options. Finally, he sighed. “Okay. Fine.”

“Grian, you don’t have to say yes.”

“If it’ll help us find him, I’m going to do it.” Grian stopped hiding behind Mumbo. “I’m in. Just as long as any contact from you stays above the waist!”

Sense frowned at that. “Really? Because-”

“Touch anything below that, and you won’t have hands to try again with.”

“Alright, alright. I won’t!” Sense replied, actually smiling slightly. “In fact and attitude like that should help sell it. Now let’s go find True. I’d stay in here if I were you Mumbo. Wouldn’t want you ruining things and not be able to get that information.”

Mumbo wanted to argue, but Sense was already out of the room dragging Grian behind, leaving the hermit to find a place to sit and wait.

“There you go. Th-Those wings should work fine for you.” A pig hybrid spoke, putting down a clipboard.

NPG helped Jrum down from the examination table he had been sitting on. “Thanks Prof! Let’s go test them out Jrum!”

“O-Oh, by the way, you two should be careful out there.” Prof stopped the brothers before they could leave. “I g-got a message from True. A-Apparently she saw Grifter. I would th-think she mistook you for him again… e-except you’ve obviously here.”

“Oh! Then I suppose we will need to be very careful as we attempt to fly.” NPG replied, starting to leave again, but this time Jrum stopped him.

“Um, NPG? How long have I been here exactly?”

“Hmmm… Maybe half a day? Not too long.”

“But I was out for a while trying to get to that place in the nether… So I’ve been gone longer than that. Maybe that’s not the Grifter person, but maybe that’s my dad looking for me?”

“Oh! That’s probably it! Even more of a reason to try flying! So we can go over to the castle and see if that’s him!”

“Well i-if you’re going to do that, stay safe.” Prof smiled and waved goodbye to the two robots before going back to his other work. “Hmm… l-looks like Xannes is trying some new scheme. G-Guess I’ll have to go over there now to stop him.”

Xisuma woke up with a literal jolt as something shocked his arm. He tried to move to see what it was, only to find himself unable to move anything, being tied down to a chair. “Mind telling me why you brought Grifter here?” A deep voice spoke, one X was very familiar with.

“Evil X? Where am I?” Xisuma tried to turn his head around even a little to see where his brother was.

“You happen to be in my base. I coded in something so that you would be brought here if you ever came to Helscraft. I never expected it would actually be used. But right now I’m very grateful for it.” Now Evil X walked into Xisuma’s line of sight. He was surprised to see that his brother wasn’t wearing a helmet, then noticing that he himself wasn’t wearing one either. “Where’s my helmet?”

“Oh you don’t need that. I know it helps you access all your fun little admin powers like mine gives me my hacks. The air here is breathable so you don’t need to worry about that and we can have a nice little chat. Now. Why did you bring Grifter here?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Evil X smacked Xisuma with a shovel. “Wrong answer, try again.”

“No, I’m serious. I don’t know what you mean. I came here with two of my Hermits, that’s all!”

“You? Bringing hermits with you? Why?”

“Someone from here kidnapped one of their sons.”

Evil X cursed. “You brought Grian and Mumbo. That’s not going to end well. NPG’s got the kid so I have a clue of where he might be. The question is how fast we can find them.”

“Who’s NPG? And you still haven’t explained about ‘Grifter’.”

“NPG is the closest thing we have to Grian here. Technically, that title would go to Grifter, but none of us can deal with him. We locked him up and left him behind in our old world. Look me in the eyes brother.” Evil X stared at Xisuma, waiting until the hermit was looking back. “I want to destroy your server. I want it to burn to the ground. I wouldn’t mind if all your hermits died and couldn’t… well okay, maybe just had trouble respawning. We grief and steal and have actual wars here. But I would never, not in a million years, ever want you to deal with Grifter. That’s how bad he is. And right now, it seems like the others here think Grian is.”

Xisuma immediately tried to stand up, only finding himself struggling in his bindings. “Then we need to stop that.”

“No, we don’t need to do anything. This is my server, I’m dealing with it.” Evil X started to walk away, but Xisuma heard him stop walking for a moment. “Plus, I wouldn’t mind having you own me in the long run.”

#hermitcraft #jrumbot #npg #npc grian #helscraft #grian #avian!Grian #mumbo jumbo #Hels hermits #helsmits #hels!Mumbo #hels!False #hels!Tango #hels!Doc #evil xisuma #xisumavoid #My writing

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writing-the-end · 3 years

Text

LoL Chapter 30- Shadow Fox

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

Doc, Zed, and Scar have made their way to the city of Foresta, deep in the forests where animals are going missing and the nightmares grow worse daily. Meeting with a local shepherd, they find allies in the most unusual ways.

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“Oh, yeah, watch it with the Zhenniao, their spit burns like mad.” Zedaph crows as he

pets the soft white feathers of a Caladrius, the two having a conversation about their favorite seeds.

“Uh… is this thing supposed to have three legs?” Scar leaps back, narrowly avoiding the corvid. He laughs though, and preens the beast’s wing.

“Yep! Yatagarasu are born with two legs, but the third one grows when they learn to fly!” Zed sets the Caladrius back. As much as he loved the insightful debate he held with the bird, it’s not the kind of help they need. Besides, it would bring as much attention as an alicanto. “What about it, you three legged birdy? Want to join our team? Phoebe can teach you all the best ways to get letters to us- and the best places to peck at the hermits to get them to wake up.”

“I swear to god I don’t want to have to build another eye.” Doc sets the acid spitting bird down, and waits for Zedaph to respond. But the blond hermit was always having a thousand different conversations at once. On their way here, he had a whole horde of forest creatures following him.

The city of Foresta was open, patches of grass and trees older than the kingdom sprouting between houses and wide streets. Between the throngs of people, creatures of all shapes and sizes wandered down the dirt paths. Satori swing from the horns of a chimaera, leaping over the massive bodies that create the baku. Birds of all shapes, sizes, and different heads fly through the high canopy, fluttering to stop on the stone tower of the postal office. It’s here where the hermits are searching for another carrier bird. Poor Phoebe can’t do all the work herself, especially with so many hermits off hunting down reports.

And that was the other reason they were in the city of Flora and Fauna. Sent here to discover the whereabouts of missing familiars and family beasts. Carrier birds, farm beasts, even a family’s own cerberus have gone missing in the past few months. While Doc had his suspicions of their fate, Scar and Zedaph wanted to confirm his beliefs.

“Alright, so that’s two more feathery friends added to the family.” The Zhenniao jumps from Zed’s shoulder, pulling on a tassel of Scar’s outfit.

“I’m sure Grian will make fast friends with them, he already has Phoebe wrapped around his finger.” Scar chuckles, holding the bird close. “But what about the missing familiars? Did you get any information on who we could speak to?”

“Actually, yes. A very talkative pegasus told me that a few streets down is where a whole herd of shleep went berserk a few days back.”

Doc doesn’t waste another second. Marching down the street, eyes set on the direction Zedaph pointed. His gaze so intimidating, even a brigade of baccas part to stay out of his way. With one bird holding onto Zed’s hair, and another clasping Scar’s elongated ear, the other two give chase, Zed yelling turns to the marching beast that is Doc. He only halts in his tracks when he hears Zed yell “Stop! We’re here!”

Screeching to a halt, Doc is left standing in an open field, sunlight blazing on the bright grass. Dotted with white patches of flowers, the pasture is empty. Unlike the busy city, even the parks in Foresta, this moorland was empty.

Mostly empty. A young boy, laying beside a three headed sheepdog, is weaving dandelions into a flower crown. One for each head of his friend, and one for his own. Doc trains his mismatched eyes on the boy, and makes his presence known.

Unfortunately for Doc, his presence is impending at best, downright terrifying at worst. The boy opens his eyes, and squeaks like a mouse at the sight of the hermit. He curls up, hands raised. “Please, just take my money I don’t got anything else!”

“I’m not here to rob you.” Doc growls, rolling his eyes. Years of being a hardened criminal never really fades off his face. “Are you the shepherd?”

“I’m sorry the shleep have been acting up lately! I don’t know how to make the nightmares stop, they’re still alarmed from the attack the other night.” The cerberus nuzzles one head beneath the boy’s arms, while the other two growl at the intruders.

Until Zed steps up, a smile and a soft cooing voice turning one head from foe to friend. All it takes is one scratch of the ear, and he’s got the sheepdog wrapped around his finger. “That’s actually why we’re here. We came to help.”

The boy lifts his head, looking at the unusual troupe. Two innocent, smiling faces surround the hardlined scowl of the hybrid hermit. Scar nudges Doc in the stomach, and the puppeteer sits to his knees. Looking much less impending when he’s not towering over the shepherd. “We heard that some unusual things have been happening in Foresta. Familiars going missing, pets getting lost left and right. Do you know anything of what’s causing that?”

“What’s your name, kiddo?” Scar chuckles, plopping down next to the shepherd and beginning to weave his own flower crown.

“I-Isaac.” He twists a blade of grass in between his fingers. “I...yeah, yeah I’ve seen a lot of it happen. When you’re a shleep herder, you see all manner of things happen in the night. But no one believes the boy who cries chupacabra. Or bakunawa, or ‘oh gods the neighbor’s cactus cat is suddenly an ash monster’!”

“We’ll believe you. We came here just to hear those stories.” Scar chuckles. He looks over, and sees Doc’s expression start to soften, and the puppeteer reaches out to help Isaac finish the knot of his flower crown. Doc hates to admit it, but they all know he’s very good with kids. When he’s not being a hardass. “What have you seen?”

“I...I’ve seen these critters, sneaking through the streets at night. All kinds of critters, actually, but...different from the normal. They look like they’re falling apart, like a cherry tree’s bark.” He runs his hands over his arms, attempting to find flakes of his own skin as proof. “They scare the shleep every night, and disappear into the city. And then I see more, and more. They drag other critters out of their homes and barns, and turn them into more flake monsters.”

“Husks.” Doc whispers, his suspicions confirmed. Dark magic has even made it into the depths of the Evernight forest. But Isaac is hardly listening. Like any child, he has more story to tell.

“The other night, those flake critters went after my herd. A chupacabra. But...I thought they never went after shleep! Shleep aren’t tasty- I don’t think so, at least. They’re all cosmic wool and gristle.”

“Husks aren’t exactly looking for a tasty meal.” Zed whispers, “They’re looking for magic, and shleep are full of them.” He would know, he was once a shleep farmer when he was young. It’s how he honed his magic.

“They come every night, stealing more critters. Soon, all that will be left is shleep causing nightmares and those husky things.” Isaac shakes his head. “Foresta won’t be much fun without all the critters here.”

“Don’t worry about it, kiddo. Us hermits are here to stop it.” Scar announces, grinning and tossing his short brown locks of hair over his shoulder. Trying to look as heroic as he sounds.

The shepherd giggles. “Hermits? But you aren’t alone, you can’t be a hermit!”

“Ask Hypno why we’re named that.” Doc laughs as well, even though he knows the story full well, it’s still funny every time someone points it out. “Don’t worry, kid. By the time we’re done here, you’ll all be having sweet dreams again.”

“You’re the coolest bad guy ever.” Isaac whispers, and places the flower crown on Doc’s tangled mess of hair.

-----------------------------------------------

He refuses to take it off. Even as the sun falls and the city goes quiet, only nocturnal creatures lurking among the streets, he keeps his flower crown secure on his head. All three hermits watch the ruminants bleat and make their way around the town, cosmic wool spinning with stars and galaxies, entire worlds for their fur promising night rest. Wisps of the shleep’s fleece dance into the damp, warm air of Foresta. But it’s dancing in the air that the soft mist turns to harsh dust, slipping through open windows and under closed doors. Delivering nightmares to the people.

In the distance, Scar frowns at the sound of someone crying. Waking up from the bad dream. It’s not the poor shleep’s fault, they can’t control their own magic. They’re just sleep sheep, it’s the husks that have them all bothered. If the hermits can stop the husks, the shleep can be happy again and the entire city can finally get a good night’s rest.

Doc waves to Isaac, walking out with the last shleep from the pasture. Zedaph opens his eyes, blinking away the embers of magic. Oddly enough he feels the desire to chew grass now. The shleep are scared. Scared of the creatures that lurk in the dark, bodies lacking souls or even life. Just corpses- husks- forced to move by dark magic. One ram told Zed they were never afraid of the creatures of the night, their fellow nocturnal beasts, until that chupacabra turned on them.

Doc and Zed share a quiet conversation about the information they’ve gathered, and Scar lays back in the grass. Watching leaves shadow the sky above him, stars twinkling in the same way they glimmered on the shleep’s coat. The distant titter of dyads among the trees, the soft hoots from various birds in the post office sound like music to Scar’s ears, and he closes his eyes to bask in the quiet night. Hunting dark magic isn’t that bad, if it leads to quiet, serene moments as well as exciting action. He feels himself dozing off, figuring that Doc or Zed will keep an eye out for some creepy dark beast.

He’s alone. Sitting up in a dark alleyway, the sound of yelling echoing from his parents’ silk shop. Something warm pools on his cheek, burning along his very namesake, mixing with saltwater. Scar raises a hand to try and staunch the blood, and discovers his hand is covered in mud, adorned with gemstone rings of gold.

“You’re not a farm boy, Forest.” The words spit out in his father’s voice, but the lips that speak them are none other than the Magistrate’s. “Stop playing in dirt, this magic of yours is a disgrace as it is. You’re going to ruin the family image. And you’re clothes.”

“But I like my magic.” Scar whispers, turning his hand over. The mud changes color, dripping through his fingers into pools of blood.

“You should have let your magic wither away, or better yet- give it to me.” Dolios grabs Scar’s wrist, dragging him into darkness.

Dragging him from his nightmare. But while Dolios was a dream, something tugging on his wrist was very real. Scar leaps to his feet, retreating from the creature that is pulling his bag from his clutches. “Hey, no that’s my stuff! My snacks!”

Scar stumbles to his feet, kicking Doc on the way up. “What the hell Scar?”

He doesn’t look back, chasing after the black furred monster. As dark as a husk, with white glowing eyes and all. He can’t see the creature’s form, just the illumination of white light from it’s eyes, Scar’s purple bag swinging from it’s mouth. He needs to catch up, get his stuff back. Rather than scooting around a fallen tree, he makes the ground rise from beneath him, flinging him over with a much less graceful landing. “Get back here you little cretin!”

Behind Scar, Doc and Zedaph stumble through the forest. Tripping over roots and twisting their ankles in holes, they lose sight of the terraformer as moonlight is engulfed by the trees of the Evernight forest. The only light is the soft glow of bioluminescent mushrooms, moss, and leaves. At the interface between Foresta and the Evernight, the glow was indistinguishable. But Zed knows the deeper they go, the brighter the bioluminescence should get.

But it never brightens. He continues to get caught in roots, eyes never finding enough light to see where he’s going. A stone halts Zed’s forward momentum, and he tumbles to the ground. “How can Scar keep up such a pace?”

“Because he’s Scar, how does he do half the things he does?” Doc sighs, collapsing to his ass and looking around. The darkness of the forest is endless, leaves stitched together to be a roof that blocks out all light from the sky. He toes a mushroom, watching the fungi glow weakly. Shouldn’t it be brighter this far in?

“Oh, Doc, look!” Zed slaps Doc on the shoulder, harder than he realizes, pointing in the direction opposite of where Scar went running.

“What, I can’t see shit.” Doc growls.

“Perytons!” Zed crawls forward, light appearing under one arm. “They can help us, we just have to make friends with them! They’re very skittish cre-”

In one swift motion, Doc casts his magic. In one blink, he’s watching Zedaph crawl through the mossy floor, the next he’s grazing on a nearby tree branch. The Peryton gave almost no resistance, and now Doc can control the beast. See through it’s night-adjusted eyes. Lo and behold, Zedaph looks stupid no matter what eyes are watching him. Zedaph sits up, pouting. “Well that’s no fun.”

Doc can’t answer him, not while he’s in control of the Peryton. Stepping his hooved feet over Zedaph and fluttering iridescent green wings, he takes care of his own body standing still as a stone. One eye remains glassy, as if looking through a lens, but the red oculus of his other eye has disappeared completely. He can see the glow in the metal of his arm emanating from the deer creature, as he picks up his body with his rack of antlers and places it on his feathery back.

By the time Doc has cared for his vulnerable physical form, Zedaph has cast his own spell. Such similar results, but completely different magic. Zedaph shepherded the mind of the creature into helping him- Doc just took full control. Either way, the two are able to follow the direction that Scar disappeared. Deeper into the forest, away from the city.

Zedaph notices that the bioluminescent of the Evernight Forest is missing, no matter how deep they go. The darkness remains, clinging to the branches and bark like a tapestry slung across the forest. He’s not even sure where Scar could be at this point- this wilderness expands on for thousands of hectares.

Until he hears the spluttering mix of a laugh and a whimper, the noise so uniquely Scar that both Doc and Zed turn in the direction it arose from. Even through the eyes of the Peryton, it becomes almost impossible to see around them, darkness consuming everything around them.

Because that’s what it is. Returning to his own body, Doc stumbles to his feet and rushes to light up a torch. A few paces ahead of him, Sca has trapped himself in a bramble bush, a tiny shadow fox dangling his bag just barely out of his reach. “Come on little guy, I’m sorry I mistook you for a husk. You’re cute, I promise! It’s just with your eyes and coat, you looked like a darkness monster.”

“Need some help, or have you learned from Zed?” Doc snickers, pulling Scar from his thorny trap by the collar. The shadow fox chirps, ears turning to the side in joyful mischief. It approaches the hermits, dropping Scar’s bag at his feet. Glowing eyes, bright as sunshine, cast the shadow that creates the fox’s body. Zedaph can’t help but reach down to pet the shadow creature either way.

“She guided us here. To...this.” Scar whispers, feeling the tension on his body already. The weight in his lungs, watching the light from the fox’s eyes and Doc’s torch be consumed by the black cluster of crystal.

“This is what’s making the husks in Foresta. Just like in Gildara, it’s draining the forest.” All of the light, Limal’s creation with the goddess of death, vanishing as Dolios’s thirst for power drains the forest of life. Doc shakes his head. “We can’t let it continue. Scar, why don’t you…”

Scar is gone again. Disappeared from between Zed and Doc, though not as far gone as before. Just a short distance away. Being attacked by another creature. This one, however, isn’t aiming for Scar’s bag like the thieving fox.

It’s aiming for his throat, naked tail and matted fur thrashing and foam snarling from scraggly teeth. But unlike the shadow fox, the monster’s body is flaking and breaking apart with each movement, tufts of fur turning to smoke and ash. Zedaph sighs, more tired than before. “Great, now we got a ROUS to deal with as well as a creepy crystal.”

“Massive rat first, please!” Scar cries, snapping his boots up and digging the spurs into the massive beast’s stomach. He rolls away, gnarled roots and dirt barricading him and the ROUS.

Doc and Zed look at each other, then the ROUS before them, the darkness-crazed animal clawing through the barrier. It has a taste of Scar’s flesh, and he tastes sweet. Alive. Neither of their magic can work. There’s no soul to shepherd. Dark magic is already controlling the ROUS. They have to resort to another method.

A much more combative, cutthroat method. One that Doc knows well. Grabbing the bone handle of his knife, dark metal and nicked, toothed edges of kaber blade pulling free of old leather. “Scar, can you try to pin it down?”

“I'll add it to the list.” A startled squeak harmonizes with the viscous growl. The muzzle of the ROUS reels back, spittle glistening and falling from ivory white blades, and snaps. Scar rolls out of the way and slams his hands down on the ground once he’s been freed. The dirt erodes into sand and water, a pit of quicksand opening it’s maw beneath their feet. Scar scrabbles backwards, the mud water attempting to pull him in as well, gasping for air. With another wave of his hand, the ground resolidifies. The naked hands and feet of the enormous rodent are trapped in solid ground.

Doc wastes no time. Freeing the body of the ROUS from the claws of darkness, his blade cuts through the empty body like he’s cutting fabric. The darkened for withers away into dust, and Zedaph kicks it away from the pile for good measure.

The three boys sit on the silent, blighted forest floor. Ignoring the angry crystal, or the darkness consuming around them. Scar is panting like he ran a mile, Zedaph petting the soft shade ears of the fox that led them there, and Doc twirling his own knife. They just need a moment, a second to recollect themselves. Doc looks at his blade, forged in False’s fires. No matter what, no matter how strong a mage can be, sometimes they have to resort to the same tools as every other person. “Alright, enough sitting down. Let's put this crystal to ruin and let Isaac and his shleep finally get some peace.”

#hermitcraft #light of lairyon #lol #hermitcraft fanfic #hermitcraft au #wizard au #wizard hermits #wizard zedaph #wizard zed #wizard scar #wizard doc #docm77 #gtwscar #zedaph

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willowstream-hp · 4 years

Text

An Analysis on the Character of Mumbo in Featherweight

By WillowstreamHP

I would like to start off this analysis with explaining what Featherweight is, and why I feel compelled to write this in the first place. Featherweight is a story by DoctorSiren telling the story of how Grian gets wings, and has to learn to cope with them. Now that is a VERY bad and brief summary, but it is COMPLETELY spoiler free. If you have not read this fanfic I highly recommend you go check it out, as it is the No.2 highest rated fic on Ao3. With that being said, have you not read it, this analysis will be LADEN with spoilers, going all the way to the most recently posted chapter. This is your last warning before I start getting into the intricate details of this piece of writing.

With that out of the way, I’d like to specify my motivations very briefly. Mumbo in Featherweight has always been given a bad lighting for how he reacts to situations, and his obsession with robots. This, in turn, has led people to believe that he is a bit insane. While I am inclined to agree, the purpose of this analytical piece will be to explain how this change in his behavior makes sense in the context of the story. In addition to that, I will also be explaining why he has the flaws he has, and how they make him a much more realistic character. The biggest reason as to why I am writing this is because so many people are bashing him in the comments for being unreasonable and downright stupid in the later chapters. Again, I am not refuting this point, merely explaining how it makes sense, and how it is a crucial part to his character. Essentially, stop bashing someone for having human emotions.

I’m being kind, so here’s one last warning before the big spoilers start.

Part One: The Setup

The setup to Mumbo’s character arc is done quite nicely. It’s established that Grian and Mumbo are very close, and from the beginning when Grian is hiding the wings from him Mumbo is nothing but respectful. The two share a deep bond, and it is important to both of them equally. When Grian finally decides to trust Mumbo with the information on his transformation, despite Mumbo having already known prior to this moment, he doesn’t really mention he already knew. He could tell Grian was uncomfortable with sharing, and so he didn’t bother to really press him for an answer. This is a sign of a deep, trusting bond. Mumbo understood that it was Grian’s situation, and that he needed space. He was also able to understand that Grian trusted him enough to share any important or possibly life-threatening problems with him. Yes, I know, he’s turning into a bird, that’s kind of serious. But he wasn’t going to be turning fully into a bird anytime in the next two days, and he was clearly stressed about the situation as it was. That’s a whole other analysis to write (probably not this one is already hard enough).

Part Two: The Shift

This is when things started to get dicey. Mumbo had made a few robot kids, okay. Nice. He’s allowed to do that. He wanted to have a familial bond with someone in a way that wasn’t just being friendly. It’s understandable to want to be a parent, and have a child that looks up to you and loves you just as much as you love them. Mumbo built the robots out of excitement, but also out of loneliness. Grian had been hiding from Mumbo on and off due to his own anxieties. While we tend to see a lot of this from Grian’s perspective in the early chapters, and keep out of Mumbo’s real deep inner thoughts.. we aren’t really kept from that much. When he’s building the robots, he isn’t stressing BECAUSE he’s building the robots. Building the robots was his way of shutting everything out and focusing on one task to try and ignore the situation. This is CLEAR EVIDENCE that something was wrong from the start. Go back and read it if you have to, he tends to be very clearly focused on the robots even if something bad is going on. It was his own, though flawed, coping mechanism to help him not to think about what was happening.

Part Three: Poultry Man

This was,, this was when it all went downhill. Grian and Mumbo had finally decided to trust each other, they were being a lot friendlier. So Mumbo, trying to be a good friend, decided to help him gain more confidence. He’d still been ignoring a lot of his own thoughts and problems with the whole situation, which is something that is very important to his character. Keep in mind, he wasn’t really all that expressive to Grian about his thoughts, other than he was worried about him. He never went into detail on why he was building the robots, or why he was worried about Grian. The last one might be obvious, you’d say, but is it really? He’s worried about Grian for Grian, but he’s also worried about Grian for a lot of other reasons. He’s worried for himself, he’s worried about what will happen to HIM if something happens to Grian. And so what does he do? He builds new friends, new kids to hang out with. He builds backups, in case something happens to Grian, so that he can have someone to rely on. Mumbo gets depicted as shyer as the story progresses, and this lines up with how his friendship with Grian slowly deteriorates till the fight. This leads to the important fact that his friendship with Grian is probably one of the only solid foundations he has on Hermitcraft. Sure, he knows the other hermits, but he’s definitely closest to Grian by a lot, with Iskall second. So when Grian started to ignore Mumbo.. you guessed it. More robots. The robots, which had originally been a way to keep thoughts out of his head, were now a way to keep himself sane. Which ended up backfiring. Another key factor is that he became hyperfixed on making the robots as real as possible. An easy explanation to that would be that, for example, Grumbot wanted to be more human so that he could receive better hugs. But I believe that Mumbo was doing it to convince himself that they WERE real. He had just been betrayed by his best friend, so he turned to the next closest thing: something he could PROGRAM to be loyal. Sure he gave them free will and emotions, but they were built to keep him company and support him. He made them for the sole purpose of not being alone.

Part Four: The Theme and Character Breakdown

The previous sections were a lot shorter than I expected them to be, but I’m preparing for this section to be pretty long. The point I’m trying to make is this: Mumbo is absolutely justified in having his coping mechanisms the way they are. I’ve seen a lot of people in the comments bashing Mumbo for building the robots, and calling him an insane idiot. But you have to consider what he’s gone through. He’d been overworking himself, he wasn’t sleeping, he has anxiety, his best friend betrayed him, and then later on his best friend had an outright fight with him and practically ended their friendship. Most people would probably cry for 2 weeks on end if this happened to them, but that would be because that’s their established coping mechanism. Mumbo had established another coping mechanism, and that was pushing the thoughts out of his mind through hard labor and thought. Building robots takes a lot of attention to detail and focus, which would make it extremely easy to push other thoughts out. The first robots he built, Jrum and Grum, were partly for the purpose of the mayoral campaign, but part of it was that Mumbo needed another way to anchor himself to Hermitcraft. Throughout the story he has rarely been depicted outside of his base, or with another hermit save for Grian. This indicates that he probably kept to himself a lot, and Grian was sort of a bridge between him and the hermits. His nature being shy aids to this point as well. Therefore, when he thought that this bridge might be crumbling, he decided to set up some new ones. Of course, in typical fanfiction fashion, they ended up having a huge fight and hurting each other through their words. Mumbo had already built quite a few robots at this point, you might say. Yes, he had, and guess what. They were mostly due to him trying to keep anxious thoughts out, and needing someone to stick with him when he was lonely. When did he start building his family? After Grian, who he probably considered like a brother, ditched him. There is a direct correlation between the events in the story and who he decided to build. It started off simple, with a simple, fun task. Grum was built for the mayoral race, and Jrum to go with him. The others, however, each come afterwards for different reasons. Amelia and Circuit were meant to help him and look out for him, and he built these when Grian was hiding from him. He built Sahara after they had gotten on better terms, a sign of hope that their relationship might not be ruined. Finally, he began building his family when Grian fought with him and flew off. Each robot lines up with a specific point in the timeline where something happened between him and Grian. Hence, each robot is actually a symbol of whatever trauma or emotion he was experiencing. For Grumbot and Jrum it was joy and happiness, for Amelia and Circuit it was worry, for Sahara it was hope, and for his family it was his loneliness and need for love.

Part 5: The Conclusion

Now as I stated earlier, I have seen quite a few people bashing Mumbo for how he acts in the story. The purpose of this entire writing was to explain how his character has been evolving throughout the story, and how the events around him have directly influenced him and his actions. The points that people have been calling him out for in this story are all points that have been CAUSED. Sure they’re flaws, and probably not a good way to cope with the situations, but they’re legitimate reactions. If you were to face a fight with your best friend, you’d find yourself in a bad place mentally and emotionally. Let me state it again: every action that Mumbo has done, every emotion he has felt, and every way he has dealt with it was perfectly rational based on his state of mind. He was not in a good place mentally, emotionally, and even physically. Being sleep deprived, lonely and anxious tends to lead people to make bad decisions. The people who are bashing Mumbo for what he does are blatantly ignoring the causes of those actions, and how all the reactions to the situations are completely believable.

I would like to wrap this up by pointing out that most of this is up for speculation. The points about his mental health and anxiety in the AU are pretty easy to read for yourself, but the more thematic elements are totally up to you to believe. I personally have done the best I can to take apart his character and demonstrate just how humanely written he truly is. You have every right to believe that Mumbo is an idiot for doing what he does, as that is your opinion and you are entitled to it. I just encourage you to consider what I have here and gain another perspective on this. I would be happy to receive criticism or additions to my analysis and even the few theories I snuck in there. And to restate, I do not own this AU, the concept of this AU, and especially not the concept of Hermitcraft. I’m just a fan who thought that some people needed a bit of an explanation on Mumbo’s character. I hope that all of you enjoy reading this, as it did take me a bit to finish up.

#mumbo #featherweight #hermitcraft fanfic #analysis #i just thought some people needed to read this #siren approved lol

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pixelfun20 · 4 years

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Flower Fields: Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Notes: Again, all credit to @give-grian-rights (hope you don’t mind the tag!) for the concept! Thank you so much! Also almost forgot to post this on Tumblr rip.

No fighting wars, no ringing chimes

We're just feeling fine

Tubbo started out by building his starter base.

It was a concept he’d learned about while living with Xisuma, and it was quite a good one, too. After all, megabases worthy of Hermitcraft’s admittedly lofty standards often took months to build, and he’d need somewhere to live in the meantime. In Season 6, he’d neglected that fact, and had suffered his fair share of mob deaths before he put up four walls and a ceiling to protect himself, back when he’d left to live on his own. And that was with a small, quickly-thrown together base, not the project he was currently planning.

Still, even setting up the basics of his starter base took a few nearly sleepless days. Finally, the framework for the build, a treehouse spanning more than a few trees at the edge of the forest, was up, and Tubbo was finally able to place a bed down in safety and sleep for a solid fourteen hours straight.

Xisuma dropped by, quite literally, a day or so later.

Tubbo had been sitting in his quickly-expanding living room, sorting through the loot he’d gotten from yesterday’s day-long mining session when he swooped down through the half-finished roof. While he was still wearing his bee-themed armor, now there were two glider-like wings, shimmering purple, strapped to his back.

“Heya, X,” Tubbo greeted the admin with a wave, closing one of his chests. “You got elytra already?”

“Tango and I defeated the Ender Dragon yesterday,” Xisuma replied, touching down softly. Tubbo made an ‘ah’ sound, recalling the achievement he’d seen out of the corner of his eye the other day. Right; he’d forgotten about that. Trust X to be as efficient as possible and defeat one of the toughest monsters in the world just for the ease of travel.

“I’ll have to go endbusting soon, then,” he said, more to himself than X. Before the elder man could protest (ah, he was getting good at noticing when he was going to), he added: “Stress and xB have already asked me to go with them, so don’t worry , alright?”

“Good,” Xisuma sighed. “It’s never a good idea to go out on your own, especially since this’ll be your first time seriously exploring the End.”

Tubbo rolled his eyes good naturedly. To be fair, he hadn’t gone out to the End before it had been conquered before. He’d had a fair few trips last Season, mostly with X, but it was generally for the XP farm once it’d been set up. He’d never left the main island before. Now that he had considerably more freedom at the beginning of the Season, he was excited to go exploring.

“Anything bring you over?” He asked, changing the subject.

Xisuma nodded. “Yeah. A bunch of the others are getting together for some sort of wrestling tournament this weekend.”

“And I’ve been invited?!” He grinned, clapping his hands together.

“As the referee.”

“Ah,” he pouted. “Darn.”

“Don’t worry,” Xisuma chuckled, setting down a shulker box. “It can be a lot funner to watch sometimes; I’m just going to be part of the audience, too. I think Doc wanted you because he thinks he can bribe you.”

“He can not !”

Xisuma raised an eyebrow. “Area 77.”

“Oh, that’s not fair. I am completely unbiased!”

“And that was why you became their lawyer and not for all the cool experiments they had. I don’t think Cleo has forgiven you for defeating her in court.”

“No one can defeat Big Law,” Tubbo sniffed, faux-offended, and Xisuma laughed. “Well, I’ll show him!” He declared, crossing his arms. “I’ll just have to make sure he loses, then!” Xisuma blinked, and he laughed. “Kidding! Kidding!” Mostly .

“So you’re going?”

“Sure! It’s nice to see the Hermits all in one place, anyways. What’s in the shulker?”

Xisuma tilted his head teasingly. “What do you think? Someone had to get the supplies for our honey farm.”

Tubbo gaped. “You’re ready to build farms already?! Man, and I thought I was ahead of the game with just having my base halfway done.”

The armored man shrugged, looking about the partially completed build. “Well, you’ve certainly put more effort into this than me. Truly, your building skills are already improving. I love how you’re styling the roof with peaks like you are; it looks like it took a while.”

“My last house had a roof like that, too,” Tubbo reminded him, glancing up as well. It had become a tradition, of sorts, to build curved, peaked roofs onto his builds. Last season it had been one of the few things he’d built slowly to make look as good as possible. In all honesty, it was his own way of honoring the person who’d made it possible for him to come here, to have a life worth living once again. Rushing through the technique just felt disrespectful.

“Yes, but you’ve definitely gotten better.” Xisuma bent down over the shulker box, checking its contents. “Do you have any good ideas for where to make the bee farm? I’ll admit, I’ve been a bit too busy to scout out a good area.”

“Really? Then where’d you get these guys?”

“Tree farming in the desert.”

Tubbo snorted into his hand, and he could practically feel Xisuma’s embarrassment. “Well, you did say you hadn’t scouted out a good spot.”

“Indeed I did.”

“I can take a look around here and see what I can find. Meadows are supposed to be excellent places for farming bees, right?”

“Indeed it is,” Xisuma agreed. “Do you have plans for your megabase, yet?”

Tubbo nodded, grinning. “And trust me, it’s going to be awesome .”

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

Two days later, a chicken appeared in his base. Tubbo found it laying an egg in what was starting to become the base’s storage area, with one of his shirts nearly ripped to shreds in what appeared to be a makeshift nest.

There was a nametag wrapped around its leg. After some chicken wrangling and a few feathers to the face, he got a good look at it and realized there wasn’t a name written there, but a set of coordinates.

A set of coordinates rather far away, but who was he to turn down such an intriguing mystery?

With the chicken now renamed Wilbur and placed in a pen (he’d needed a chicken farm anyways), Tubbo set out that morning with a few supplies to find the spot he was looking for. After crossing a fair bit of forest and ocean, by the next day he’d found himself cutting his way through the underbrush of an overgrown jungle and wondering why in the world Stress had wanted to wait a week before going to get their elytra.

He pushed a few low-hanging vines out of the way, checking his communicator for the upteenth time. He was getting closer, now. This better be worth going out a few hundred chunks in the middle of nowhere—hey, wait a minute!

There was smoke in the distance. He could just make it out through the leaves, and now that he concentrated, he could smell it, too. Tubbo rushed forwards, pushing through the brush to see several man-made wooden pillars sticking out. As he pressed forwards, he made out a semi-stone floor, several chests, and a small fire in the middle, explaining the smoke.

“What is this?” He asked himself, looking around the place. The coordinates were right, and yet no one was here. Just this outpost in the middle of the jungle.

Tubbo walked around. There were some papers pinned to the wall, and a few dispensers lying around. Idly he pressed the buttons on them, already starting to form a plan to enact revenge on whoever made him travel over a day to get this place.

He pressed the button on the dispenser in the middle of the build and nearly got an arrow to the face.

Tubbo yelped, his reflexes, honed from a half year of training, the only thing saving him from a sudden death. A bell rang behind him, but it took him a few more moments to calm his racing heart.

“Not funny! You nearly took my head off!” He shouted to the jungle. Still, he didn’t leave, instead turning to the bell the arrow had his, examining it. Huh.

There were some cookies in one of the chests, probably left behind by whoever had actually built the place. He nibbled on it, only half hungry, as he tried to examine the place better.

“HERMIT CHALLENGES!”

Tubbo shrieked , dropping the remains of his cookie as the voice rang through the forest air. He looked around, trying to find the source, but found that he couldn’t.

“INITIATION!”

A diamond-clad figure dropped out of the vines above, landing with a firm thud on one of the ground dispensers. He nearly lost his balance before righting himself with a huff.

“Mumbo!” Tubbo exclaimed, a little annoyed but mostly impressed.

“INITIATION!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. “HERMIT CHALLENGES! YOU ARE BEING INDUCTED.”

“How long have you been up there?! It took me over a day to get here.”

“No matter, Mr. Tubbo! Congratulations! You’re in!”

“...Thanks?”

“Of course, my friend! You have been inducted into Hermit Challenges! Of course, you could have eaten the entire cookie—” he glanced down at the crumbs at Tubbo’s feet. “But besides that you have acted perfectly.”

“Wait, what is Hermit Challenges?” Tubbo asked, blinking. What? This version of Mumbo was almost nothing like the Mumbo he’d seen at Spawn a mere week and a half ago. Who used chickens to deliver messages? Or perch in a tree for supposed hours on end?

Okay, he had to admit, that last one was pretty funny.

“Oh, it’s a game I’ve made up,” Mumbo continued. “Iskall and I have already had a go at it, and I figured I’d invite you next.”

“...Alright, then. How do I play?”

“It’s simple! Write down three challenges and put them in the dispenser. Then we’ll pick one at random from each other.”

Mumbo reached into one of the chests on the ground, taking out a sheath of paper and passing three to him with a pen. Tubbo looked at him, and Mumbo grinned.

“Go on! I’m sure you’ll have something fun in that head of yours.”

Ah, he was right. Tubbo gave in with a smile, leaning back and thinking briefly about what he wanted to challenge Mumbo. A few ideas came to mind, and he quickly scribbled them down, pushing them into one of the two dispensers on the side of the small build, Mumbo doing the same.

“Alright, then!” Mumbo announced with a smile. “You go first.”

Tubbo stepped towards Mumbo’s dispenser and clicked the button, causing a slip of paper to slide out. He unrolled it, then read it out loud.

“‘Steal everyone’s front doors for the rest of the season.’ What? The whole season?!”

Mumbo laughed. “Oh, that one! Man, you got the hardest one from me!”

“Well, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what you’ll get from me.”

“We’ll see,” Mumbo said with a chuckle. He moved across the platform, and pressed the button the dispenser Tubbo had put his challenges in. The dispenser whirred, and then another slip of paper popped out. Mambo picked it up and read off of it, face contorting as he did so. “...‘Act like you don’t believe in the moon for the next two weeks, and claim the sky is a hologram put up by the SCA (Secret Chickens Agency) to keep us from seeing the real overlords- the sky chickens.’ What?”

Tubbo snickered at that, covering his mouth with one hand. Oh, he was proud of that one.

“No, seriously, this is awfully specific.”

“What? It’s funny!”

��Funny for you!” But Mumbo was smiling, and Tubbo grinned back at him.

“I’m going to be having a fun few weeks,” he giggled.

“So am I,” Mumbo agreed with a raised eyebrow, tucking the slip of paper away. He clapped Tubbo’s shoulder. “I suppose I’ll have to make up a good story to go with this prompt.”

“And I have some doors to steal!” Tubbo laughed.

“Whoever gets the first complaint in chat wins?”

“You’re on!”

#tubbo #tubbolive #hermitcraft #mcyt #xisumavoid #mumbo jumbo #hermit challenges #fluff #Hermit!Tubbo AU #watcher!tubbo #it took me like a month but hey I updated

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justletmeplayminecraft · 4 years

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this is a mini-sequel to my last space outlaws fic, set the next night. it mostly serves as dialogue practice for mumbo & wels, so don’t expect a super compelling plot. i have however realised i’m struggling with mumbo’s voice because it’s pretty similar to mine. experiment success.

usual psa: this fic is based in @martuzzio's space outlaws universe & may not be completely canon. we out here to have fun & i hope you have fun reading!

featuring: two tired boys have a Talk. an additional dollop of comfort to the last fic.

warnings: nightmare mention, self-sacrificial mentality, broken bones, discussion of the events of the previous fic. this fic won’t really make sense if u haven’t read it so please check the warnings on the link!

Mumbo rubs his eyes as he walks down the corridors of the ship. His feet echo the path without him needing to look. There's too much to think about besides where he's going. The thoughts in his head are like static. He couldn't sleep in his room with Grian and Iskall so peaceful beside him. He's not sure if he'll be able to sleep at all.

Upon reaching the nearest kitchenette, he pours himself a glass of water. It's cool as he sips, forcing himself to relax. Walking through to the common area, he's surprised to find a lamp already on. Someone's curled up at the edge of the sofa, settled against the cushions.

"Hello?" Mumbo calls, unsure if they want company. It might be better sitting out here with someone instead of just his thoughts. The head leans back slightly, shadowed by the lamp.

"Hey, Mumbo." Wels's voice greets him, the edges of his smile just visible. "Can't sleep either?" Wels swings his legs around so Mumbo can sit down. He places his glass on a side table, tucking his robes close to him.

"However could you guess?" Mumbo replies. He sounds more tired than he'd like to. He at least tries to arrange his hair so it looks presentable. "Wanted a change of scenery."

"And you didn't end up in your lab?" Wels asks.

"I don't-" He tries to return the teasing tone but falters. He's honestly not sure how he feels about returning to tinkering. After everything that's happened, knowing his skills were almost used by someone else he just- he needs to get over himself. The others will understand. Well, they will if he ever gets the courage to tell them. "Not this late, I'm not," he finally manages.

"Guess that's fair." Wels nods in understanding. "I'd be training my energy off but-" He gestures to his arm. Mumbo frowns for him.

"Had any updates on it?"

"Stress said she'd cast it tomorrow." It's snug and secure against his chest, carefully out of harm's way. "I mean, I'm going to hate it, don't get me wrong, but at least I can worry less once it's in the cast." Mumbo can't even tease him for it. He'd feel exactly the same. Wels has always been pretty physical in the crew. Hopefully he didn't have any missions coming up.

"It's a good chance to practice with your non-dominant hand?" He offers, which gets a gentle laugh from Wels.

"I have a suspicion Stress might lock me out of the training rooms."

"Can she actually do that?" Mumbo asks, curious. She's threatened Iskall with it before, yes, but he never found out if she did. Iskall valued his life enough to not push her further.

"I'm hoping I don't find out. D'ya think I can go stir crazy on a ship this big?"

"Ask Cub or someone, I'm sure he'll make it an experiment."

"I think I may annoy him too much." Wels sounds proud of it. "I'm not easy to observe."

Mumbo can't resist replying, "I can see you just fine." It gets a disappointed groan from Wels and a kick at Mumbo's leg. Mumbo finds himself smiling at how gentle it is after watching him fight.

"Who let you out anyway?" Wels questions, his eyes glinting in the low light. "Weren't Iskall and Grian staying with you?"

"I snuck out," Mumbo replies. Wels snorts. "Weren't Jevin and Beef with you?"

"I snuck out," Wels repeats Mumbo's words with a smirk. Then he pauses, eyes narrowing. "Actually, I think Jevin let me sneak out. There's no way he didn't notice." Mumbo nods. Jevin could feel a pin drop. Iskall is too observant not to hear Mumbo moving. They likely guessed they needed space. "I spoke to Biffa, though. That was nice."

"Is he doing alright?" Mumbo asks.

"As ever." There's a distant happiness in Wels's eyes at the thought. Mumbo knows the two used to go on missions with Jevin. Perhaps they shared experiences like this after. "I didn't tell him what happened," he admits, the smile disappearing. "I think he could tell something was up, though."

"You didn't tell us what happened," Mumbo points out. "Don't think I didn't notice that in the debrief." Wels steered away from the topic quickly and nobody questioned it, because Mumbo's situation was (as far as they knew) more dangerous.

"Do you want me to?" Wels sounds disbelieving that Mumbo would even ask. But Mumbo isn't going to back down so easily.

"I would. He wasn't going to do anything to you, right?" Wels shakes his head quickly.

"No, no." Wels is firm in dispelling Mumbo's fear. "He mostly told me what he planned to do with you," he explains, leaning back against the cushions. Mumbo finds himself unsure how to respond to that. Wels- what did he think all that time? The others have tiptoed around the topic since they got back. The ones who know, anyway. Mumbo can't think about it for too long without feeling like he can't breathe.

"The collar?" Mumbo asks, knowing he doesn't need to expand.

"Yep. All the details about what it does. What he'd do." Wels sighs. He looks into his lap, head falling to the side. "I felt so useless. I couldn't do anything. I was supposed to protect you and I couldn't even do that."

"It wasn't your fault," Mumbo tells him. He refuses to let Wels place any blame on himself. "The others wouldn't have got us in time without you."

"They nearly didn't." Wels takes a deep breath. "And you were nearly turned into some mindless work machine." Mumbo swallows at the reminder. A spike of pain alerts him to how hard he's digging his nails into his hand. He rubs his thumb over the spot to numb it. "Sorry, that was-"

Mumbo shakes his head with a tired sigh, "No. I can't just avoid thinking about it forever."

"I can't think of anything else." They fall into a silence, neither having the words to reply to their admissions. Wels pushes his foot against the armrest, dragging himself over until he can lie against Mumbo's shoulder. His blue eyes are as piercing as they are exhausted. Mumbo holds himself still.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks. He can't place where Wels is in his head. They seem to be at opposite ends of the same problem. Wels sighs, heavy against Mumbo's side.

"Do you want to?" Mumbo considers it. Iskall's great, but he's still treating Mumbo like heated glass ready to explode. Whilst Grian is in the dark about everything. He doesn't want to explain it to anyone else. If Xisuma thinks people need to know, he can tell them. Not Mumbo. But Wels was there. He gets it.

"I had a nightmare," Mumbo eventually says. His voice barely carries in the near-silent room. "Where I couldn't do anything or ask for help... Nothing. It was horrible. And I keep thinking if I ignore what happened it'll be okay but- I almost had my free will taken from me. How do I react to that?" Wels watches him, sat up to see better.

"I mean, it's not like you're gonna be quizzed on it." Wels's voice is gentle, but it's a reminder Mumbo needs. "You react to it just... However you react to it. You can be angry or upset or vengeful or whatever. Nobody's gonna judge you over this, Mumbo. And if they do you can point them my way."

"I wish I didn't have to," Mumbo admits.

"So do I," Wels agrees. "But we're all here for you. No matter what you feel."

"I know they wouldn't stop looking if something happened." Even if he was nearly impossible to trace, even if he couldn't help himself. "It just scares me how easily things could've changed." Wels hums.

"Maybe focus on that first part," he suggests. "We look after each other. That's what we do." Mumbo nods. He can manage that. When his thoughts spiral (because it is a when, rather than an if), he knows they've got his back. That's been proven over and over again. The worst can happen and it'll still be true.

"Okay." Mumbo smiles as Wels tries to stifle a yawn. He returns to his spot on Mumbo's shoulder. "Your turn."

"Haven't I already talked?" Wels complains, peering at him. Mumbo gives him a look. He's not very intimidating, but Wels breaks eye contact first. He sighs. "I've always felt the need to protect people," he starts, "to an unhealthy extent. You've probably heard X get on me about it before."

"Once or twice." Mumbo remembers well when Xisuma coolly forbid Wels from going on missions until he stopped needlessly risking his life. It's hard to forget. He avoided Xisuma for about a week afterwards.

Wels scoffs, "Yeah. Right. I have an issue, sue me. See, I even admitted it." Mumbo laughs gently until Wels continues. "It really is what I said before, though. I just felt useless. I came to protect you and I couldn't even do that. If I just paid more attention, moved faster, whatever. I feel like I should've been able to do something."

"But you know it's not your fault?" Mumbo checks.

It takes Wels a moment, but he replies, "Yeah. I did what I could. Sometimes that won't be enough and I have to accept that." Mumbo smiles, leaning his own head onto Wels. It's not the comfiest but some contact won't hurt either of them. His eyelids are feeling heavier, too.

"Imagine how bad it could've been without you there. I only stayed so calm because of you."

"You need to give yourself more credit." Wels pokes Mumbo's leg. "You did great."

"So did you," Mumbo replies. "We both did the best we could. How about we agree on that?"

"You strike a hard bargain." Wels holds his uninjured arm out. "Sure." It's a bit awkward shaking hands with the two of them so close. But it makes them both smile, and that's the point. The silence is more peaceful this time. Until Wels asks, "Could you give me that pitch?"

"The pitch?"

"The one you were going to give. Or explain one of your inventions." Wels shifts against his side, burrowing into the cushions more. "Full disclosure, I think I'll fall asleep easier if someone's talking. So..." Mumbo laughs. Both of them separate to get more comfortable, keeping contact points between them.

"Want me to explain the jetpack?" Mumbo suggests.

Wels smiles, "That'll go completely over my head. It's perfect." Mumbo smiles, taking in the sight of him. Legs crossed, arm bound, a robe thrown over his undersuit (Mumbo doesn't envy Stress having to get that off tomorrow.) His hair is falling out from behind his ears. Mumbo's going to miss that if he cuts it again.

In total, it takes around fifteen minutes of Mumbo explaining before Wels's breathing falls into a perfect rhythm. He doesn't wake when Mumbo shifts into a sleeping position, only falls closer against him.

With the hum of the ship and Wels's gentle breaths, it takes Mumbo five minutes to fall asleep from there.

When Xisuma finds them, having his suspicions about the light left on, he smiles. He tucks a blanket around the pair, and resolves to make sure the others avoid this room for the morning.

#space outlaws au #space outlaws #my writing #mumbo #wels #tag ramble time #that line about wels being forbidden from missions was meant to be a one off #how bad would he have to be for x to do that?#how badly did he almost/did get injured when he didn't need to?#also xisuma's pointed but calm anger? terrifying #for a one off i just wanna ramble about it now #anyway #hope you enjoyed #and have a wonderful rest of ur day

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