#so long as bdubs doesn’t kill him first

[mxmarsbars]

also doodled the girly and got carried away it looks kinda weird but it’s fine

#pearlescentmoon #pearlescentmoon fanart #double life #double life smp #double life fanart #impulsesv #impulsesv fanart #technically #he’s a dog murderer #and she will get her revenge #so long as bdubs doesn’t kill him first #(bdubs killed him first)

[krashlite]

Opinions on secret Soulmates? (Saw you made the millie animatic so im curious) /light hearted

(Bass boosted sigh)

Short answer, I love this duo and they’re one of my favorite toxic yaois in this fandom however comma during DL they’re definitely unethical and I’ve already gone through all the the intricacies of how DL went badly

Long answer

I think they’re fascinating because they both tend to idolize the other while both using the other as an excuse to avoid their problems and dooming the both of them in the process. When they’re around each other they’re usually only Positive and any Negativity is very jarring (especially from Grian’s perspective, who sees B as a safe person). Introducing negativity there is like being tagged when you’re on base- it shouldn’t be allowed they don’t know what to do with it

Except it’s somewhat unbalanced

BigB keeps finding himself in situations where he’s the failsafe for Grian’s poor decisions. In 3L the Blue Sword Boys were all but planning a rescue mission for Grian midway through the war. In DL obviously Grian ran away to BigB when Scar was his soulmate, then again in LimL Grian ran to him when the other two Bad Boys died

In all three of these seasons, you can argue having this connection got BigB killed! In 3L BigB was still reaching out to Grian as Scar and Bdubs cornered him (then he turned on Grian but shhh), in DL Grian killed Ren, BigB’s soulmate, and in LimL Grian got the Nosey Neighbors into SEVERAL scenarios that cost them time

Again, they idolize each other but BigB has the understanding that Grian brings danger into his life. Yet he still ultimately views Him as a positive thing. In fact, I’d even argue that the added danger is what BigB idolizes him FOR

And that’s because BigB is scared of getting into dangerous scenarios. He usually bases alone, he develops an alter ego to run from the consequences of killing Cleo, he has to psyche himself up for Any type of physical attack on someone and when he does strike he’s screaming “AAAAAAA” the whole time!

Grian doesn’t need to do that, it comes naturally to him

Then on Grian’s side of things- he’s a coward too! Except he’s constantly masking it with his thrill seeking, trying to be the scariest thing in the room not just to feel strong but so that everyone else Leaves Him Alone. In fact, Grian ALSO tends to base alone! Or at least he tries to, until some group comes along and tosses him over their shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He makes secret alliances to save his own skin (yes, alliances plural, there were Several), and is usually the first to run when trouble comes his way

And all that running is Tiring.. it’s so, so tiring

So him idolizing BigB is him idolizing that “safety” he sees BigB having. Grian has never had a direct interaction with one of BigB’s risks, nor does he have any reason to see BigB as a threat in the same way other people are “threats.” He runs off to BigB over and over again because he sees BigB as someone that can save him, maybe even the Only person that can save him

Except again, what ends up happening is Grian gets BigB killed

Also couldn’t find a way to fit it in here but iirc BigB is the first person Grian actually built a grave for and I’m so normal about that

#move ASIDE desertduo I have a new toxic yaoi #trafficshipping #I guess #that’s a solid I guess #I don’t even know where I stand on shipping in this fandom anymore #but I like them narratively and that’s what matters to me #bigbst4tz2 #grian #trafficblr

[mishapen-dear]

Listen. Everyone is tired. The highs, the lows, the blorbos, the bloodshed— these polls have have been a lot.

But god, everyone. God. It’s been incredible. and it’s almost over, but not quite yet.

we have a little ways yet to go- scar, joe hills’ final hurdle. The boss battle at the end of the game. Joe stans, I can’t claim your previous battles as my own; i voted cleo all the way through. But i voted for joe, too. I stood with you then, wherever i could, and i’ll stand with you again now. stay strong. Edit your old propaganda. paste scar’s face over the faces of opponents past. reblog your shitposts and your writing and your fanart. you’re almost there. you’ve reached the end, and now you just have to cross the finish line

and to YOU, ethogirls and bdubs babes and cleo simps and mumbois and doc fanatics and quackblr, beloved quackblr. To the fandoms whose names i cant guess at and the stans whose naming would make this post Way too long- to you, i beg for your help. look at joe hills from nashville tennessee, the first cc to join us in the trenches. look at his fandom, who love him so much theyve pushed him to the finales. he doesn’t have a big fandom, yall, but through blood and sweat and tears, they’ve brought him here. but they need help.

Scar is terrifying. Scar is sexyman to the core. He killed jschlatt and ethoslab and probably bathed in their sexyman blood. he’s the big boss at the end of the game, and everyone is tired. Lend us your strength. Reblog the art. transform your previous propaganda to support the cause. Commit voter fraud.

This is the final battle. Help us win the war.

Vote Joe Hills

#mcytblr sexyman polls #joe hills #vote joe hills #everyone has come SO FAR #JUST A BIT LEFT TO GO #SCAR IS IN THE LEAD RIGHT NOW #DONT LET HIM STAY THERE #mishapen words

[thetomorrowshow]

cold, empty, lonely

have a short little fic about death and disconnection :)

cw: canonical character death, description of dead body

~

He finds her body on the side of the hill, crumpled upon itself, red hair dulled against the cold, yellow grass.

Bdubs doesn't touch her, at first. He just watches, waits for some kind of movement.

In the weak light of the moon, the chill wind that blows almost makes it look like her chest is slowly rising and falling. Her hair flicks up a bit, blown like the grass around, and her clothes shift a little, and if Bdubs squints his eyes almost shut and stares at one spot long enough, he could swear that she was just sleeping.

They aren't actually breathing, though. And when he opens his eyes wide, lashes not blurring his vision, he can see again the red that shines against her grey shirt.

They had brought him her armor. It was cheap stuff, iron, held together by whatever leftover straps she'd been able to scrounge up after her good set of armor had been claimed as loot by the Red Army. They hadn't wanted the new set, and had brought it, bloodstained, as proof of their conquest.

Bdubs had pleaded with them for what felt like hours for the location of her body.

He needn't have. He could have looked out a back window and seen it, if he hadn't been so distracted with everything going on.

Their body lies just above the little river that feeds into the Crastle's moat. The river has begun to freeze at the edges, little broken-off sheets of ice forming from the rocky shore, frost touching the red-spattered stones and pebbles. And their body is just beyond that, where the stones and grey dirt turn to dying grass and bare shrubs as the slope climbs upward into a squat hill, alone in the darkness of the night.

He stands there, at a distance, watching their body for probably ten minutes.

Her body looks so lonely.

Cold. Empty.

Lonely.

Bdubs sighs (his breath puffs out in a mist before him—winter really is coming, isn't it?) before crossing the distance between them, crouching down beside the body.

Their flower crown—the one that Bdubs had collected the flowers for—has come apart, a crushed halo of daisies, partially obscured by their hair, a petal weaved in here and there.

Her hair is long, tangled, spilling out around her head like the rays from the sun, curling around her throat and caught under her body.

With a gentle touch, Bdubs brushes their hair away from their grey lips, where some strands have stuck.

Her cheeks are almost colorless, the few stubborn freckles faded. Their lashes are long, soft, forehead unwrinkled and face expressionless.

There's no twist of her mouth, no scrunch of their eyes, no desperation in their brows to denounce pain. There's nothing else, either, though—no peaceful relaxation, no joyful grin, no angry glower.

She's simply blank. It's as if she never lived, never felt.

Her face is cold. Empty. Lonely.

There's still sticky blood on her shirt, her chest slick with it, the ground stained. A lucky stab, straight to the heart. A cleaving of lifeless flesh, right through their chest, somehow missing the bone frame that once held the body together.

Bdubs pulls her shirt a little bit, rearranging it to cover the ugly, open wound. He's not quite sure why he does it. He'll just bury her, anyways.

But he does. He touches the shirt, stiff and sticky with blood, and tugs it over the wound. He pulls more of her hair away, where it's become plastered to her body with blood. He arranges her body so that it isn't half curled on its side, but fully on its back.

They look almost as they always did. Just missing everything that made her alive.

She wasn't supposed to die first. It was always supposed to be him, everyone knew it. Not her.

They probably worked so well together because of how reasonable she was. Bdubs doesn't like being reasonable, likes to kill first and ask questions later—or, if he feels like it, let them sell him a coffin first and ask questions later. She preferred to observe, keep track of enemies and allies, sneak around quietly behind the scenes and make chaos of her own kind.

Which is why Bdubs should have died first. He's so publicly provocative of the Reds, so eager to spill blood.

If anything, she was fairly peaceful. Not genuinely, but she always chose to take a step back from conflict and find a way to profit from it.

It was their Red blood that got to them, Bdubs thinks idly. They hadn't been Red for long enough to let the bloodlust acclimate, and had just gone on the hunt rather than let it simmer.

And now they're dead.

He needs to bury the body. Preferably now, when it's night yet and the battles haven't resumed.

He doesn't wait any longer.

He gets to work, picking up the shovel that he'd brought with him and stabbing it into the earth. Again. Again. Again.

The rough wood of the handle pokes into his palms, but he doesn't stop. The pain reminds him that he needs to keep going.

Every so often he pauses, wipes the sweat off his forehead, looks over at the body.

Then he keeps shoveling.

The world has lightened by the time he finishes, bathing the hill in grey. Bdubs shakes some clumps of dirt off his shovel, whacking it against the ground a couple of times.

Without further ado, he hops out of the shabby hole he's dug and tosses the shovel to the side. He gets on his knees, back creaking, and looks down at his hands.

He should wash them before he touches her, probably. Dirt is packed into every crease of his palm, his nails torn and muddy, grit between his fingers. A couple of splinters sticking out of his skin here and there.

Not that there's any point to washing them. Dirt goes to dirt and whatnot.

So, gently, Bdubs gathers up the body in his arms. He slowly turns, scooting a little on his knees, until he's facing the shallow grave.

Bdubs sets the body down, carefully, supporting the neck so their head doesn't loll. He moves their arms over their body, one limp hand placed over the other.

They wouldn't have liked this. They didn't like being touched.

He doesn't touch her any more, then.

Bdubs grasps the first handful of dirt, holds his closed fist over the grave. A couple of grains of dirt spill out, running down her shirt.

He holds it there, for longer than he should. Long enough that his arm grows weary. Long enough that somewhere, a bird starts chirping its wake-up call.

He needs to let go.

Probably, the worst part of all this is that he's doing it alone, he thinks absently. It's always been the two of them.

And there are others who could be here. Other friends. Other allies. Enemies, even. He shouldn't be alone in this. He shouldn't have to bury her alone.

It still looks like her.

He drops the dirt. It lands on her face, on her grey lips, on her bloodless cheeks.

Then he picks his shovel back up and gets to work, heaving load after load of dirt back into the grave.

And when Bdubs returns in the windy morning, the impromptu occupants that he'd left in the Crastle the previous night are all gone. It's just him, in a small castle that used to belong to two.

And Bdubs is cold.

Empty.

Lonely.

#3rd life smp #mcyt #bdubs #bdoubleo100 #zombiecleo #mcyt fanfic #idk short little bdubs cleo fic #mas writes #i have another 3rd life fic in the works #i am still on hiatus btw #oasis is posting this lol but i did indeed write this #oasis say something here: #ooh I get a chance to speak #hi guyyys :DDD #okay back to mas now 🥰 #ummm ok 3rd life fic next trust au fic and more esh au are in the schedule! #oh you can interpret this as /p or /r if you want idc #lmk what you think! #love you guys

[dmwrites]

When the hermitcraft revolution came, and of course it came, anyone would be a fool to not see it coming, Ren gathered the knights of his square table. He looked dead serious for once, not flirty or pompous.

“My friends, I’m afraid the soup group’s revolution has come to pass. I did not see this coming, but now that the time has come, I must ask you for one final stand with your king.” Ren sighed, taking the head of Impulse that he still, still, carried around with him like a purse, and set it on the table. “Impulse himself came to my private area last evening, and told me that they were going to dethrone me tomorrow.”

“That’s so nice of him.” Joe murmured.

“It really is.” Ren agreed with a heavy sigh. “So, my knights, please fight with me one final time. For the crown.”

“Of course, my king! We will fight for you!” Bdubs said boisterously, taking out his sword. Everyone else chimed in half-heartedly, but regardless it seemed to cheer Ren up.

“We shall split up and fight from within the castle, then! Good luck to you all!” And he left, with Bdubs in his wake.

The knights all looked at each other.

“So, are we like actually going to fight against the soup group and their compatriots, or…” Joe asked the knights at large.

“I mean, I’d almost feel bad if we all left Ren alone to defend the crown…” Scar mused, plucking at his bow string with a finger.

“Well, he wouldn’t be alone alone, Bdubs would be with him.” Iskall said. They all snorted in unison at that.

“How about this. We fight, like, halfheartedly. Put up a good enough playact fight to make it clear to the rebels that we’re with them, but not enough so Ren doesn’t sulk too much when this is all over.” Cleo suggested.

The rest of the knights mumbled and shrugged in general agreement, and went about their own ways, to various locations in the crastle. Joe walked with Cleo for a while.

“Are you nervous about this at all, Cleo? I mean, even though we will end up losing, and losing amongst good friends, it’s still a battle. There’s always that odd energy that comes with such things.” Joe had their sword out, swinging it around as they walked.

“Not really. I mean, the last battle I had was in…” Cleo paused, thinking. “Oh, well I suppose it was Double Life, wasn’t it.”

“Against Pearl, who killed you.” Joe, oh so helpfully, supplied. “What a coincidence. What if you two run into each other again?”

“Well, hopefully it doesn’t come to that.” Cleo said, effectively ending the conversation.

She split up with Joe at a hallway intersection. Joe headed towards the front hall, and Cleo made her way more towards the mountain side of the crastle. She was up far enough that she would hear battle before she herself had to deal with it, and indeed, she could hear the echoes of the front door being splintered. She stalked down her designated hallway with her sword out, hoping that she wouldn’t have to fight at all if she stayed out of sight. And if she did have to fight, god, she hoped it wasn’t Pearl.

That, of course, is when someone broke through the window next to her and came tumbling onto the floor. And of course it was Pearl. It was hard to mistake her, with that long brown hair flowing, no it was tied back, and the blood-red cloak, no, she was wearing all black. Pearl looked almost as surprised as Cleo felt, and raised her sword.

“Hello, Cleo.”

“Pearl.” Cleo wished she had something clever to say, some quip or deadpan joke. But she found herself frozen, sword going cold in her hand. She remembered the dogs, the hoarse laughter that had followed behind Cleo, the axe in her fucking back. And the painful reminder that this, of course this, was the first time they’d spoken since then.

Cleo cleared her throat, her mind screaming to snap out of it.

“We don’t have to fight, Cleo.” Pearl smiled at her, as if they were simply passing each other in the shopping district.

“Get out.” Cleo switched to a smaller throwing knife, and threw it, hard. Pearl ducked, and it whizzed past her head.

“I will kill you again, Cleo.” Instantly, Pearl’s voice changed, and she charged at Cleo with her sword drawn. Cleo just got her shield up in time, and if she’d had a working heart it would be pounding. She was scared. Why was she scared? This was different, this wasn’t double life where lives were countable and always ended in blood. This was Hermitcraft, where lives and deaths don't matter.

Then why, oh god why, did Cleo freeze, a gasp of terror escaping from somewhere deep, deep down without her permission?

Cleo looked into Pearl’s eyes, and they weren’t red, weren’t underlined with dark circles. It wasn’t Double Life, it wasn’t, but Cleo wasn’t quite sure if Pearl’s eyes were lit with mischief or murder.

Pearl swiped, and the sword cut into Cleo’s arm. It didn’t hurt, nothing ever did. Cleo swung back at her, twice, forcing Pearl back against a wall. But then Pearl leapt forward and tackled Cleo to the ground, both of their shields clattering down the hall. They struggled for a moment, but Pearl pinned Cleo’s wrists down with her knees, and grabbed the throwing knife sticking out of the wall and put it to Cleo’s throat.

“Cleo! Golly goo, I didn’t know you actually cared about this kingdom!” Pearl said, a smile once again returning to her face, despite the blade she was holding. “That was quite the fight!”

“You traitor, you think you can just kill me! I’ll kill you!” Cleo struggled, but Pearl stayed balanced, backing off only with the blade slightly. “You’re alone! You’ve got no one! You don’t scare me!” Cleo bared her teeth, but the look on Pearl’s face made her stop dead.

“This isn’t about the crastle or Ren, is it?” Pearl whispered, eyes wide. “I know you’ve been avoiding me since we got back here. I don’t know what you’re feeling, but for goodness sake, Cleo, you can’t use anger as a shield to hide behind.”

Cleo went limp at her words, mouth trembling, looking up into those blue, not red, eyes. There was a knife at her throat and she was helpless, again, to the cunning ways of Pearlescentmoon.

“I’m scared.” Cleo choked out. “Just kill me, get it over with.”

Pearl sat back at once, eyes wide. They both were still, silent. Pearl looked down at her, breathing heavily enough for both of them.

“You’ve nothing to be scared of, Cleo.” Pearl said quietly. “It’s just me. I’m not going to kill you.”

Cleo shook her head. “Oh Pearl. You know as well as I do that the life series stains our souls. It’s never going to be just you, and I’m never going to just be me. You terrify me, Pearl, because you hunted me down with dogs and hewed an axe into my back. And you laughed.”

Pearl looked down at Cleo in silence, and after a long moment, she stood up, putting the throwing knife into her pocket. Cleo lay there as she walked away, towards the battle for the castle. Cleo, frankly, had forgotten all about it.

#October 7 2022 #fic #hc9 #dlsmp mention #zombiecleo #pearlescentmoon #long post #note: author is a lesbian that should explain the woman and the knives lmao

[birrdies]

deadweight

⚠️ limited life session 2 spoilers

It used to be easy— letting time slip by with a pickaxe in hand, hidden in the cave’s lowlight until his redstone-stained fingers ached and his thoughts weren’t so loud. Mind-numbing simplicity: hoist, dig, repeat. Such peace is hard to come by in these sorts of games; Etho’s been in plenty of them to know that fact well enough. But the caves are always a good place to breathe, to let the torchlight wash his thoughts away and keep his idle hands occupied. 

That is, until this game. The ruthless kind. A clock ticks away on Etho’s wrist, wrapped around the skin like a shackle far heavier than his soulbond had been. This is a death sentence, a promise of what waits for him at the end of the line. No matter what he does. Every second counts. 

There’s no space left for mindless hours wasting away in caves, hoarding supplies he might not survive long enough to even need. There’s no room for excess, for just-in-case. Instead, there’s the frantic scraping together of whatever he needs that minute, that day. Because nothing else is promised. 

Seconds might not matter much now. But when his timer inevitably fades to red— when he watches the final minutes slip away from him like sand in the choke of an hourglass— they’ll matter then, won't they? When it comes to a choice: kill or die (both equally promised, only leaving him to wonder when). Etho knows the choice he will make. 

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s killed to stay alive. 

So Etho saves seconds where he can. When he mines, he works efficiently. Systematically. He can nearly forget the seconds ticking away on his wrist when he counts the pieces of coal, measures the raw iron in his hands, and retraces cobble paths. The shortest routes for the most precious resources. Low risk, high reward. He knows the game; he can play it well. 

By the time his bags are full and his pickaxe is nearly worn through, he hears it.  A voice beneath his feet, buried deep in the stone. Quiet enough that Etho thinks he might have imagined it. He knows he should turn away from it. Gathering whatever else he can and returning to the surface to work on his farms takes priority— he’s got a team counting on him, after all— but he can’t. Not just yet. Not when he recognizes the voice. Etho glances at the skin of his inner wrist. The green numbers glare back at him. A silent taunt. 

20:44:05

It seems like a long time, doesn’t it? But long enough to indulge himself? Etho’s never been particularly skilled in the way of discipline. He rolls his sleeve down to cover the timer. As if he can ignore the ticking. 

The stone gives away under his pickaxe. He digs straight down (a risky choice but the fastest one), and finds himself within closer earshot. The mutterings continue, frantic and familiar in a way that infects Etho’s heart like homesickness. It smells of campfire and tastes like melted snow on his tongue. It feels like the end of the world, a valley cutting him in two like a false promise. Worn pickaxe clutched between weary hands, Etho digs further down. 

“Talking to yourself, Bdubs?” he teases, hoping his voice carries through the several feet of stone. 

A few more blocks down. “Wha— Hello?!”

Etho chuckles, despite himself. He forgets how easy, despite everything, small joys like this are to find in these games. All he needed was to know where to look for them. It shouldn’t have surprised him that he could find them hidden in Bdubs’ chaos. 

His descent feels more desperate now. Almost like it’s been four years instead of four hours. Like Etho’s a wilted flower crookedly twisting its stem and leaves to find the barest glimpse of sunlight. He needs to close the gap, to hear Bdubs clearly without any obstructions.

“Are you having a chill moment just now? All alone?” Etho taunts. It’s a practiced dance, one it seems neither of them has forgotten the steps to. An old game. I’m not the boogeyman, I’m just convincing people I am. Etho tugs suspicion right, Bdubs feigns and attacks left. 

Time hasn’t dulled the fun of this. Not nearly.

Only a single layer of stone separates them now. A playful spark lights Etho’s fingertips as he breaks through the final sheet of stone. He long thought it dead and buried, lost somewhere in the ashes of their snow castle. But Bdubs has a knack for not staying dead and an even larger penchant for resurrecting ghosts of pasts that Etho’d rather forget. 

“Yes, yes I am,” Bdubs calls back. Etho doesn’t have to see him to know he’s smiling. Etho can hear it clear as day; maybe he’s just as glad to hear Etho’s voice.

A mess of pebbles and dust trickles from the ceiling as Etho breaks through the last of the stone. This vantage provides a fantastic view of the top of Bdubs’ head as he whips it back and forth, searching for the source of Etho’s voice in the small hole he somehow dug himself into. Etho grins behind the mask and leans into the gap. 

“I need an easy boogeyman kill,” Etho says, hooking the edge of his pickaxe over the lip of the stone. “Come up here real quick!”

Bdubs flinches as the dust rains over his head, across his shoulders. He cranes his neck back, and for a fantastic second their eyes meet. A wicked grin spreads across Bdubs’ face, his perpetually bruised eye squinting. “You need an easy boogey kill?” He parrots back at him.

“It doesn’t get any easier than you,” Etho says. They both know it’s a lie. After all, Etho hadn’t been able to do it once. Every man Etho had killed under the guiding hand of the curse had been for Bdubs. Bartering for another life, another chance. More time. 

A reluctant sentinel, Etho’s not sure if he could hurt Bdubs even if he wanted to. The clock ticks away around his wrist.

“Oh really?” Bdubs swipes his hair back, shaking out the rubble and dust. From a sheath at his hip, he pulls free a weapon of his own, a freshly-crafted diamond sword. And Bdubs, its wielder, eager to break it in. “And now I’ve armed myself!”

Another step of their dance. Etho pushes, Bdubs pushes back harder. Promises of exile only to draw a line down the middle. Weapons drawn with crossed fingers hidden behind unyielding backs. It’s easy— too easy— to step back into the beat of it. Like they never even stopped.

“You find anything yet?”

“Oh yes. Diamonds!” Bdubs brandishes his blade in an arc of pride. The torchlight shimmers in the fresh glint of the blade, the sharp edge impossibly bright. 

“Y’know, I cleared out this whole ravine by myself,” Etho says. “I’m a hero.”

It’s a test. Another harsh push waiting for the equal and opposite pull on the other end of a soulmate link with no connection. He waits for Bdubs to gloat, to one-up him, to erupt in an outburst that would waste away the seconds. Because if he has to lose time, he thinks he’d like to lose it like this: at Bdubs’ mercy.  It’s something familiar. Like coming home to a place they thought they said goodbye to permanently. 

But Bdubs doesn’t give it to him. Part of Etho expected this too; maybe he didn’t deserve it. Instead, Bdubs offers only a tense silence as he replaces his sword with a pickaxe and starts digging himself free. He carves out a staircase; Etho steps back and lets him. 

A step below, Bdubs pauses. His pickaxe hangs lazily at his side, but his grip is anything but casual, his knuckles white around the worn wood. Etho stands over him, waiting and measuring his disappointment and trying to divide it into parts that are easier to swallow. 

Etho knows he’s made a mistake when Bdubs’ silence stretches far too long, when his face turns up and anger bleeds into his eyes, and the beating of the seconds slipping past returns, worse than the hammering of Etho’s heart. 

It’s impossible to ignore everything. A new game doesn’t heal old wounds. It only scars them over. And neither of them is strong enough to admit they’re still aching. 

“I heard what you guys said about me,” Bdubs finally says, and the admission is quiet. Too quiet, for a man like Bdubs. Even in the short space between them, Etho looking down on him from the top of a narrow cobblestone staircase, Bdubs sounds miles away.

It’s like standing on either side of that valley: Etho on top of the hill, Bdubs with his ankles in the water. Too much to say and too little time to say it.

“Oh, no.” His heart sinks. “... Did you?” Bdubs nods once. “I heard.”

“I… I feel bad,” Etho admits, fingers tapping an uncertain beat on his pickaxe. These are precious seconds and Etho’s wasting them this way: grasping at straws, so desperately afraid to say goodbye to something he already lost. There’s no sand left to slip through his fingers. Yet here he is, grappling.

Bdubs scoffs, using his pickaxe as leverage to climb the stairs. “Everybody— Everybody on the server is talking about it. Bdubs is the dead weight.” 

He closes the gap one step at a time, slow but uncalculated. As if he’s staggering forward with no real place to go, only to seek out the first available target. 

Etho turns away, digging the tip of his pick into a vein of coal to his left. Anything to turn his gaze from Bdubs, to numb the guilt starting to burn in his belly. Collect resources, divert attention. Bury it. It can’t hurt him that way. “Maybe so—” “Wow! Wow! I see how it is!” Bdubs exclaims, hurt dripping from his voice. It’s funny how Etho much prefers the venom that used to soak his words. Even when it was directed at him. Anything is better than this. 

He steps away, abandoning the coal in a heap. His back strikes the stone wall behind him.  There are far more dangerous things behind him than Bdubs. Creepers, skeletons, anything ready to sink its teeth into Etho’s unsuspecting back and cut his time even shorter. Bdubs can’t hurt him— he won’t. Not when their timers are green. 

Etho tries not to think that’s the only reason keeping Bdubs’ sword from finding a home in his chest. 

But that’s how they’ve always been, isn’t it? Push and pull. Just as Bdubs’ played his role, baring his teeth and ready to snap, so had Etho. Measuring his seconds as if they were precious currency. Measuring Bdubs’ worth in how much time he occupies, what he can provide, and his level of risk. Every move and every relationship a calculated move. Not just in this game either. 

He wouldn’t give Bdubs a life— couldn’t. Not without stipulations. Kill another red name, he asked of him. Too large a price, one they both had paid for, and one Etho still hasn’t quite managed to pay off in full. He wants it to be about Bdubs. About this dance they’ve crafted, the distance they keep putting between themselves only for their own incapability of staying away to bring them back at each other’s feet again. Like sinners rushing to confessional booths. 

He wishes it could be different. He wishes they could be different people, in a different place— that this is just a cave and two people occupying it without the ghosts of what-ifs clinging to their backs.

But they aren’t. 

Even with Etho’s back to the empty cave behind them, Bdubs’ anger draining and his usual bravado filling him up in its place, Etho knows the outcome will be the same in the end. Because it isn’t about Bdubs. It’s about survival. Etho’s not so deluded to think he’ll have a change of heart in this game. Not when their time is so sparse. Precious. 

And at the end of the day, Etho will always choose survival.

Bdubs is the first to leave the ravine. Etho, cloaked in its silent darkness, pulls up his sleeve again and glimpses at the time he has left.

20:40:32

Was Bdubs worth four minutes?

#birdie writes #aka me being insane about a four minute ethdubs interaction #im still there - stuck at the snowcastle #etho #bdoubleo100 #bdubs #ethdubs #limited life #limited life smp #limited life spoilers #last life smp #last life #life series fic #limited life fic #ethubs fic #hermitshipping #tagging just in case??? it's not intended to be one way or another #24lsmp #the clockers #team TIES

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

ok i did this last season and did! poorly! but that’s ok let’s see if i can predict the placings for everybody this season, since it looks like next session might be the last. in the event we get session 9, i’ll be changing the list to reflect that. (bolded are the correct ones, i’ll be reblogging this when all is said and done with the ones i got right bolded, if any)

17. Lizzie

16. Jimmy

15. Mumbo

14. Tango

i’m sorry king i just think something is going to happen again and you’re already not doing great on the heart front

13. Skizz

if i’m right this will not only be the best skizz has ever done but also the first time he’s outlived any of his allies. so can i please be right.

12. Scar

i KNOW scar is still yellow but he’s only got like a row of hearts left AND half the server wants to kill him AND he has no friends. frankly it’ll be a miracle if he makes it to 12th. i’m honestly banking on skizz getting killed in a fight with him.

11. Martyn

i hope martyn gets another kill in before he goes (though if he does that might give him a better shot than i think he has) but it’s really his complete lack of allies that’s going to screw him, i think. like, yes, half the server is red like him now, but how many of them are going to be his friend after he’s spent like four sessions harassing and trying to kill them? not many!

10. Joel

bdubs and joel are truly interchangeable on this list, i REALLY can’t decide which of them will go first. they’re both red, they’re both bloodthirsty, they’ve both got the same allies, and they’ve both got a TON of hearts left. ultimately i think joel will go first because he’s always going to be more reckless in his attempts for revenge but it’s really a toss up.

9. Bdubs

i hope bdubs kills etho before he dies i think it would be great. that’s not related but i think the joel blurb explains my thoughts.

8. Grian

grian wants to win So Bad and it is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. he WILL die doing something stupid and i WILL get to mark off a square on my bingo card.

7. Bigb

i’ll be so honest i WANT bigb to be higher, and i think he and gem COULD swap spots. the real problem is how hesitant bigb usually is to kill people. he’s definitely gotten less hesitant as the seasons have gone on, but he is definitely not on gem’s level yet, and that’s what you need to play this game. i really hope i’m wrong about this placement though.

6. Gem

when gem went yellow so early i really thought she was screwing herself but session 7 proved to me that while she might not win this season, by god she’s going to take everyone down with her. and i think that’s beautiful.

5. Scott

this is the one i really really hope i’m wrong about. please i can’t keep seeing scott smajor in the top five. joel please destroy him.

4. Pearl

pearl doesn’t want to win again, we know this, but she is simply VERY GOOD AT THIS GAME! ultimately i think once the rest of the mounders (particularly bdubs) are gone she’s gonna go off the rails even more than she already has and i think that’s beautiful.

and just like last time, i’m doing a cop out answer for top three, which i think will be Impulse, Cleo, and Etho. i think Cleo or Etho is more likely of the three to win, particularly if this is our top three (just like liml, Impulse is stuck with two other people who everyone knows, including himself, will kill Impulse long before they kill each other) but i, as always, have a terrible blind hope for Impulse. please god.

#secret life spoilers #space rambles #IF IM TERRIBLY WRONG NO ONE LOOK AT ME #BUT I WANTED TO GET MY HUBRIS OUT OF THE WAY BEFORE SESSION 8 GETS FILMED

[peregrine5]

A fic I wrote based off of @happy-hermit’s How to Be Home Fic!

————

Impulse woke up.

Where… where was he? Bdubs had been trying— Bdubs had killed him. He should be dead. He had been on his red life, how was he still alive?

Impulse glanced around. He was in some kind of… courtyard? And he had no armor. No weapons. He was out in the open, completely exposed, anyone could—

He had to get out of here. Had to find shelter, a sword, armor. He had to find out where he was.

How was he alive?

Impulse ran towards the entranceway at the other end of the courtyard and glanced around the corner, keeping as much of himself as he could out of sight of whatever was on the other side. His eyes widened as he took in the giant builds in front of him. How could anyone have time to build things like that? He glanced around, scanning for anything— there. Something was moving. And it was coming towards him.

Impulse felt his heart rate quicken.

He ran back across the courtyard towards the giant factory on the other side. Who knew how many lives he had left? He ducked through the doorway into a large room. Nothing useful in there. Impulse kept running through the building until he found what looked like a storage area, with walls full of chests. Perfect.

Footsteps.

He frantically searched through the chests, looking for something, anything he could defend himself with. He couldn’t be surprised— couldn’t be killed again. But there was nothing. Who keeps a chest full of nothing but building blocks?? His heart beat faster. There had to be something— footsteps, almost behind him. He grabbed a torch and held it in front of himself. He wouldn’t die easily, not again.

Impulse turned around.

———

They were back! Mumbo said he’d take care of Scar and Grian, so Pearl was running to Impulse’s base. If he wasn’t there, she’d keep searching until she found him. She had so many questions, but most of all she was just happy to have her friend back. As she neared the entrance to Impulse’s factory, Pearl caught a glimpse of something moving through the doorway. That had to be him. She ran through the doorway and looked around. There! She followed the sound of footsteps, anticipation growing. Where had they all gone? Why were they back now? Why hadn’t they told anyone? She’d find out eventually, but first she needed to get to Impulse. As Pearl neared the entrance to Impulse’s storage system, she heard chests opening. Someone was in there, at least. She rounded the corner. “Impulse, you’re—“

Pearl froze.

Impulse stood in front of her, a torch in his hands. But this wasn’t… something was different. There was a look in his eyes Pearl had never seen before. He looked… desperate. And terrified, more scared than she had seen him, than she had seen anyone, in a long time. And his stance was tense, as if the slightest movement would cause him to attack. Pearl took a deep breath.

“Impulse, mate…”

“Who are you.”

His voice was cold, wary. He looked at her as if he’d never seen her before in his life, as if he didn’t recognize her at all. His grip tightened on the torch in his hands.

“It’s me. It’s Pearl.”

Impulse’s eyes stared into hers, as if searching for something.

“I don’t… I don’t know you. What do you want from me?”

Pearl took a sharp breath. This isn’t what she’d expected at all. Something had happened to Impulse while he was gone, something bad. But she had to try to get him to remember her. Surely the Impulse she knew was in there somewhere, right?

She reached her hand forward.

“Why don’t you—”

Impulse stepped back and raised his torch, waving it around frantically.

“Get away from me! I’ve done nothing to you! Just- just stay back!!” His breath had sped up.

Pearl stepped back and raised her hands in surrender. “Impulse, I don’t want to hurt you. I’m your friend. Don’t you remember me?”

“You being my friend doesn’t mean anything.” His eyes narrowed.

Where had Impulse been that he came back like this? “I’m not going to hurt you. This is Hermitcraft. You’re safe here.”

“I…”

Impulse stared at her in confusion.

“Pearl?”

Pearl’s face broke into a sad smile.

“Yeah.”

Realization dawned on Impulse’s face. He lowered the torch, just slightly.

“I’m back. On… Hermitcraft.”

“You’re back home, mate.”

“Home.”

Pearl stared at Impulse. His eyes looked so… sad. She felt a fierce protective instinct rise in her. Whoever, whatever had done this… she wasn’t going to let it happen again. And she was going to help Impulse be his old self again. However long it took.

“Do you want to go sit down? I have some food if you’re hungry.”

Impulse stared at her warily.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Pearl turned around and started walking slowly towards the exit of the factory. Her base had plenty of food and whatever else Impulse would need.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as he slowly caught up to her.

“Where are we going?”

Pearl glanced at him. “I was thinking my base. Is that okay?”

He stared at her again.

“Um. Sure.”

“Okay.”

They walked in silence. As they stepped out of the courtyard onto the paths of Boatem, Pearl saw Impulse tense up. He still had his torch clutched in his hands.

“Impulse.”

He started, glancing quickly at her and holding his torch more tightly. Pearl still couldn’t get over how scared he looked.

“It’s okay. You’re safe.”

He nodded slowly.

“Right.”

Pearl noticed he didn’t relax at all. He didn’t relax until they were at Pearl’s base, and even then only slightly. They walked inside and Pearl led them to her dining area. “Is it okay if you wait here while I get some food?”

“Sure.”

“Anything you prefer?”

“Um. Not really?” He laughed nervously.

“Alright, I’ll be right back.”

Pearl walked to her work area and started heating up some soup. There was nothing a good soup couldn’t fix, right? Well, maybe there was. But she could hope. She poured some soup into two bowls and carried them back to the table.

“Soup for you!” She said, as lightheartedly as she could.

“Oh. Wow. That smells amazing. Thank you.” Impulse looked like he was trying to eat the soup with his eyes as she set it in front of him.

“No problem, mate. Dig in!”

Pearl paused as she watched Impulse eat. He ate like he was running out of time, as if any moment his food would be taken away. Pearl furrowed her brow. What had happened to him?

Impulse finished his food far before Pearl did. She looked up from her soup.

“Want some more?” She smiled.

“Oh. No, no, I’m okay.” He said sheepishly.

“You sure? I’ve got plenty.”

“No… thank you, though. For sharing”

“Don’t worry about it. Like I said, there’s plenty.”

He nodded, then stared down at the table. It seemed like he almost didn’t believe her. They sat in silence. As Pearl finished her food, Impulse started to yawn.

“You tired?” She asked as she got up and put the bowls in her inventory.

Impulse blinked at her. “Just a little… I can stay up, though! It’s fine.” He corrected quickly.

“It’s alright, I’m tired too. You want to sleep down here? I can stay down here too. I don’t mind.”

“It’s fine, I don’t need to sleep, I can stay up if you need anything—-“

“Impulse,” she cut him off, “you should sleep. It’s been a long day.”

He sighed.

“Okay.”

“Great!” Pearl clapped, and Impulse winced. Right. Loud noises probably weren’t the best idea. “Um,” she said more quietly, “I’ve got some extra blankets and mattresses and things upstairs. You can help me bring some down.”

Impulse nodded and followed her upstairs.

After a while they had set up a messy sleeping arrangement in the entrance hallway. Pearl stretched and yawned before collapsing onto a mattress.

“Well, I’m exhausted. Night, Impulse!”

She pulled a blanket over her shoulder and turned around, her breaths steadying as she fell asleep.

Impulse glanced around before carefully sitting down on a mattress.

“Night.” He said softly.

———

Impulse was in Dogwarts again.

“YOU!” A voice shouted at him from behind.

Impulse spun around. He was still weapon and armor-less.

“Who’s there?”

“Impulse!” Ren stepped out from behind a building, an ugly red scar around his grey neck. His battered crown somehow looked even more bloody than the last time Impulse had seen it. Impulse’s breathing grew shallow.

“Ren! I— um—“

“Get out,” Ren growled, “Get away from here, before you bring any more death to us.”

Impulse took a step back as Ren advanced towards him.

“Ren, I…”

“I know what you are. Traitor scum.” Ren bared his teeth in a snarl. He was very close now.

Impulse turned and ran, but caught his foot on something. He barely had time to cover his face before he hit the ground—

And then he was somewhere else.

He flipped onto his back, panting. No. No.

The Crastle.

The air was hazy and red, and Impulse could barely see the second story of the fortress next to him. He scrambled to his feet, trying to slow his breathing. He had to calm down, had to maintain his composure in case anyone came…

Impulse’s heart stopped in his chest.

A figure had stepped out of the haze.

Impulse watched as the torchlight glinted off a clock at the figure’s hip.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He knew what came next.

And yet.

He still felt, somewhere deep inside, a happiness. This was his friend! He was always happy to see a friend…

Except.

Except he knew what was going to happen now.

“Impulse, they gave me a clock.”

Impulse’s breathing grew even shallower, if that was even possible.

“Bdubs— wait! Please, you don’t have—“

But Bdubs had already drawn his crossbow.

“Bdubs—“ Impulse tried desperately, but the crossbow bolt was already fired. He gasped as it struck him in the shoulder, a flash of pain shooting through him. Impulse fell to one knee. He could stop this. He had to try.

“Bdubs, he’s just going to betray you!” Impulse grimaced in pain as Bdubs drew his sword. “Do you really trust them?”

Bdubs just stared at him coldly as he advanced, sword prepared in his hand.

“Bdubs, c’mon man! We’re— I thought we were friends—“ Impulse gasped as he felt something cut through his chest, straight out his back. He couldn’t. He couldn’t breathe.

Bdubs knelt in front of him, holding Impulse’s face so he could look into his eyes. Impulse stared at him desperately through his fading vision.

“Bdubs…” he gasped.

“You are not my friend,” Bdubs stated quietly, “you are no one’s friend. Nobody trusts you. And why should they? What more would you expect from playing every side?”

Tears welled in Impulse’s eyes.

“I didn’t…”

“You didn’t what? Because to me it looks like you betrayed everyone who tried to trust you. No one likes a spy, man.” Bdubs began pulling on the sword, and Impulse’s vision whited out in pain. He couldn’t breathe.

“And you know what?” Impulse could barely hear him. Bdubs yanked the sword back and Impulse fell to the ground. He couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t feel bad about this at all.”

———

Pearl woke up to screaming. It was pitch black in the room. She fumbled for the lantern in her inventory, finally pulling it out and scrambling over to where Impulse had been sleeping. He was curled up on the ground, arms over his head, his chest rising and falling much too rapidly to be healthy.

“Impulse! Impulse, mate, look at me!” Pearl begged desperately. She didn’t know how to deal with this. She didn’t even know what had happened. A nightmare, obviously, but of what? She still had no idea where Impulse had been all those weeks.

Impulse just curled farther into himself.

What could she do? What could she do?

Pearl grabbed a blanket. Worth a shot. She wrapped it around him as tightly as she could.

“Impulse. I’m here, okay? I’m right here. You need to breathe.”

Impulse’s breathing slowed, almost imperceptibly.

“Please… don’t…”

“Don’t what? I can— I can go, if you need.”

“I didn’t want…”

“Impulse, just breathe, okay?” Pearl tried to keep herself calm. He was talking. That was a good sign, right?

Impulse whimpered. “I’m sorry. Please…”

“Mate, what are you sorry for? You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not mad at you.”

She put her hand on his shoulder.

Impulse suddenly sat himself up, staring at her with wide eyes.

“I’m a traitor,” he gasped, “you don’t… you’re not…” His breathing sped up again and he clutched his shirt, hand twisting the fabric into a painful knot.

“What are you talking about?” Pearl asked. She had no idea what was going on, and asked herself, once again, what could have possibly happened to him that made him like this. Sweet, calm Impulse, and he woke up screaming in the middle of the night, unable to breathe.

“Get away from me.” Impulse said desperately. He tried to get away, but couldn’t untangle himself from the blanket. “I’m not… I…” he fell against the mattress, trying in vain to catch his breath.

Pearl didn’t know what else to do.

She wrapped him in a tight hug, the kind they would exchange before all this happened. Maybe this could bring him back. Maybe.

“I’m not going anywhere. You’re my friend.”

Pearl felt Impulse’s heart beating frantically in his chest.

“You can’t… you can’t trust me. I don’t have a side.”

“I don’t care about sides, mate. All I care about is that you’re my friend, and you need help. So I’m going to help you.”

“You won’t stay,” he breathed, “no one wants to stay. I don’t have friends anymore.”

Pearl held him tighter. “Listen to me. Impulse, whatever happened to you is over. You are here, on Hermitcraft, and you have friends. Most of which are very concerned about you right now. So you need to breathe, okay? You have to breathe.”

Pearl felt him tense up, then, after a moment, nod. His breathing slowed.

“I…” his voice cracked, “Pearl…” Impulse buried his face in her shoulder and finally returned her hug. He shook as he began to sob. Pearl held him. She didn’t know if she could ever let go again.

#impulsesv #pearlescentmoon #third life smp #hermitcraft fanfic #my posts

[oh-snapperss]

Ship Fic Masterpost

Hi!! Below are all the fics I've written that contain shipping, along with links to any fanart made for them. (if i'm missing art i am so sorry, i'm trying to keep it updated so feel free to tell me if your art is missing KSDJHFSKHJFD)

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

And it's not tonight where I'm set alight (it's not tonight you hold me tight) - Life Series

this is a cowritten fic between myself and @hitheeprithee!)

Pairing: Ren/Etho

Words: 51,048

Status: Complete!

Summary: Five times Ren wants to love his loyal knight, Etho, and be less than a king, and the one time he gets to.

or, Ren is the king, Etho his second in command. It's part of Etho's duty to remove the king's armor after battle--but sometimes, it's the other way around.

Fanart:

So Close to that Happy Ending by @/zeroideaman

Heavy in Your Arms by @/coppercrafter

Knight Etho Design by @/stitchthesewords

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

Can You See Me (or Should I Keep Waiting?) - Hermitcraft/Life Series

Pairing: Etho/Bdubs

Words: 11,091

Status: Complete!

Summary: Stranded in space, Etho records logs daily to pass the time, and transmits them out to space without a recipient in mind. Unbeknownst to him, the logs are intercepted by the ship Bdubs is on.

or,

a study in grief and what the universe can be to an individual.

please read the tags on this fic before reading!

Fanart:

Bdubs receives the first log by @/echoing-blues

Memories of happier times by @/echoing-blues

Impracticality by @/echoing-blues

715 by @/nuggiesshipbroombroom

Suffocate Animatic by @/bdoub-leo

And it was your heart on the line by @/setacin

alone at the edge of the universe by @/setacin

a cross-stitch by @/stitchthesewords

I will tell the player a story (but not the truth) by @/bdoub-leo

I'll be Back by @/varteeny1234

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

ripped at every edge, but you're a masterpiece - Life Series, Hermitcraft

Pairing: Etho/Bdubs

Words: 21, 109

Status: Complete!

Summary: “Etho....?”

He doesn't even know who said it.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

(Somewhere in another game, Tango tells Bdubs: He's a survivor, man, that's what he does.)

Etho swings.

--

Etho kills Skizzleman for time, and is struck by lightning. Upon returning to Hermitcraft, the damage follows.

or, an exploration of shame, grief, anxiety, and the idea of selflessness, along with healing.

Fanart:

I forgave you, a long time ago by @/offixmax

He's a survivor, man by @/makesnodamnsense-compelsmethough

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

Watercolour Blues - Last Life/Hermitcraft

Pairing: Etho/Bdubs

Words: 5743

Status: Complete!

Summary: “Oh, you’re such a fragile flower,” Etho mocks, but Bdubs doesn’t miss the way his eyes scrunch up or the underlying fondness in his tone.

“Shut up!” He’s quick to defend himself anyway. Years of avoiding any serious talk between the two have resulted in constant banter and rare genuinity, so Bdubs is typically quick to defend himself on any insinuations of vulnerability.

And yet… there’s still the occasional drop of persona and walls. Late nights, early mornings, and when they truly needed each other–those were the moments Bdubs treasured. So why was it so hard to let himself be that way with Etho any other time?

Fanart:

The Vase by @/setacin

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

in the hues of sunset - Empires SMP/Hermitcraft

Pairing: Jimmy/Tango

Words: 2307

Status: Complete!

Summary: The rancher reunion, and snippets of their dynamic told through flower giving.

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

I love you, I made you tea and Promise I held, Just out of Reach - Hermitcraft/Life Series

Pairing: Etho/Bdubs

Words: 1,093 and 3788

Status: Complete

Summary: Stargazing, a quiet night on Hermitcraft

Summary for the second hot tea fic: Something's changed between them. But it's just one day. 24 hours. Surely, Bdubs can handle that?

Note: a huge shoutout to @/tunastime for cowriting the second fic in this series with me and for bringing my hot tea fic into the same universe as theirs<3

Fanart:

Art by @/Shepscapades

Cross-stitch by @/stitchthesewords

the tea is bitter by @/team-clockers (second fic art)

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

Sweater Weather - Hermitcraft

Pairing: Etho/Bdubs

Words: 1238

Status: Complete

Summary: ice skating fluff!!

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

fruity/delight fic request! - Hermitcraft

Pairing: Etho/Bdubs

Words: 634

Status: Complete

Summary: Etho lets Bdubs take his mask off

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

higher than my rain clouds (high up) - Hermitcraft/Life Series

Pairing: Etho/Bdubs

Words: 3013

Status: Complete

Summary: an exploration of learning to forgive yourself and learning to let others love you

Fanart:

it's the end of the world by @/briseise

nightmare by @/pebbltree

there's monsters in my dreams by bdoub-leo

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

let the years be kind - Hermitcraft

Pairing: Ren/Etho/Bdubs

Words: 2636

Status: Complete

Summary: They’ve got twelve hours left on the server, and Ren can feel the server settling into itself, becoming its final version of itself–turning into a picture rather than home. The stairs sigh when Ren ascends them to the kitchen, the wood full of the happy memories he’d built here just over a year ago with Etho and Bdubs.

or; the monolith boys say goodnight to season nine.

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

Laika - Hermitcraft

Pairing: Ren/Etho/Bdubs

Words: 7082

Status: Ongoing

Summary: The streets of the lower levels of Heremita are never dark. But they sure are damp, and glum, and everything the head council of Heremita loves to pretend isn’t real. The planet is layers upon layers of city, and they say the lower levels have never seen the sun. The council, of course, refutes this claim with the argument that the lower levels are uninhabited save for the rodents and wild dogs, and that the sun can penetrate even the deepest points of Heremita. “Sine sole vivere est omnino numquam vivere!” They laugh, then move on with the next order of business. They’ve got far more pressing matters than the nothing that lives down there these days. They’re wrong, of course. There’s plenty living down there on the streets.

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

tangled webs/intertwined lies - Hermitcraft

note: this is a cowrite by @/mochiwrites and myself with a twist! we were not able to see what the other was writing until the end of the fic. we did not communicate during writing. it was very silly.

Pairing: Grian/Scar, Etho/Bdubs, god knows what they all four had going on in this one we sure don't

Words: 5316

Status: Complete

Summary: The moment Scar and Bdubs have stood from the table and gone out the door, Grian turns to Etho, a primal fear in his eyes.

“Dude!” He hisses, leaning towards Etho. He props his elbows on the table–to any other person in the restaurant, one might have thought they were having a pleasant, intimate conversation as most couples were wont to do on late night dates to the romantic restaurant.

But no. Instead of conversing softly about a bottle of wine, they were conversing about-

“What do you want me to do here, Grian?” For his part, Etho seems far too casual for the part he’s playing.

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

look at the moon ask - Hermitcraft

Pairing: Etho/Bdubs

Words: 800 ish

this is just a little drabble for an ask game! set during season eight and in my son of stars au i share with pebbl.

you’re still here? oh god. welcome to the worst part of my blog. the tall girl au. i’m so sorry. (note: shipping and cursed)

tall girl au 

tall girl au art by pebbl

#masterpost #hermitshipping #<-tagging that to filter for anyone uncomfy with ships! #my fics

[life-smp-simulated]

Life SMP Simulated - Season 1 Finale

ITS FINALE TIME PEEPS

Let’s recap our final four…

IMPULSE! One of the major characters of the lategame, with his incredible arc about the rise and fall of team MIST. But is he the protagonist? Or just another obstacle for someone else to take down?

JOEL! He had to deal with his two allies being an absolute trainwreck, and while they very much stole the spotlight, sometimes hiding in the shadows will nab you the win. Will he break onto the stage at the last moment?

SCAR! As I said before, his gameplay is incredibly opportunistic, and it served him well, with alliances with two other members going into this finale. But opportunity doesn’t always knock at the right time, and the alliances he has could be superficial. Is Scar’s gameplay effective enough for him to take the crown?

SKIZZ! Our second member of team MIST here AND our second members with two other allies in this final four! He may have survived the MIST drama because of his close bond with Impulse, but with four people left, can he still fall back on those relationships to survive?

Now, Joel is clearly on the outs in the group of four- Impulse and Scar are allied, Scar and Impulse are allied, Skizz and Scar are allied, and while not all of them have completely worked together over the course of the game, at the very least they’ll probably work together to take down Joel.

…Who is absolutely not giving up! Joel takes out Skizz in the 3v1 (or maybe Skizz made the mistake of charging in himself first), but in any case, that’s one down, two to go for Joel.

Skizz’s death also piles up on the angst for Impulse- see last session for more angstpulse stuff :>

Impulse + angst = revenge murder it seems, first it Tango was that faced his wrath, then Martyn, now Joel!

Anyways Joel was pretty doomed here to begin with but he put up good fight!

This also means we end up with the SCARPULSE final two! Both have placed second which means either way we’ll have a hype winner and someone will be robbed again

Time for the final reveal…. DRUMROLL PLEASE

The angst train doesn’t end for Impulse, as Scar betrays him on the spot to take home the gold!

Honestly with how opportunistically Scar’s played this game this was a long way coming: we saw him ally Impulse around mid game only to turn around and start allying other people when Impulse went red (Impulse had no idea, though, since he was still wandering n angst after being abandoned by team MIST after dropping to 1). I also love that he’d be able to perfectly pull off the ‘pretends to be clumsy loveable sidekick but actually is charismatic manipulator’ sooo successfully here!

Speaking of which, Impulse’s main arc this season was his revenge story after being abandoned by team MIST… only to be backstabbed once again right at the very end!!! Man must by traumatized after all this omg the angst is so real

And that’s a wrap! Joel tries to mount a comeback but fails, Impulse needs a cup of something warm and therapy, and Scar W

The season statistics are below- you haven’t gone through the rest of it please do take a look at the blog and don’t spoilers yourself right now!! This is your final warning!! Aaaaaa spoilers ahead!!

FINAL PLACEMENTS 1st: Scar 2nd: Impulse 3rd: Joel 4th: Skizz 5th: Martyn 6th: Ren 7th: Pearl 8th: Etho 9th: Tango 10th: Bdubs 11th: Grian 12th: Cleo 13th: Jimmy 14th: Scott 15th: BigB

KILL COUNT Pearl: 9 Impulse: 6 Cleo: 5 Jimmy: 3 Joel: 3 Scar: 3 Martyn: 2 BigB: 2 Bdubs: 2 Ren: 2 Tango: 1 Etho: 1

#trafficblr #life series #life smp #traffic series #traffic smp #last life #limited life #life series simulator #life smp simulator #3rd life #goodtimeswithscar #gtws #gtwscar #impulsesv #skizzleman #joel smallishbeans #smallishbeans

[frozenjokes]

Hermitdragons AU Masterpost

(Aka brief hermitcraft but mostly third life/wings of fire AU)

Welcome to my wings of fire AU! This story takes place in the wof universe using history from the first ten books, but very little prior knowledge is needed to read! Everything you need to know will be included in this post.

Wings of Fire Important Context

Dragon tribes are separated into several different species: Nightwings, Skywings, Rainwings, Mudwings, Icewings, and Seawings. I highly recommend looking up the species descriptions, but it isn't super necessary, most are intuitive.

Most necessary is that Nightwings, when born under a full moon, can be given one of two powers; mind reading or future sight. Mind readers have special teardrop scales by their eyes.

There’s also animus magic, an extremely rare power any dragon tribe can possess. All you need to know about animus magic is that it has literally no limits, but it is rumored that using it too much can make you lose your soul. That last part probably won't be too relavent though.

Main Ways To Interact

The main story is being written down on AO3! You can read it here, but if you don’t want to dive into a novel length fic, the main story will be summarized below.

Also making an experimental comic. I’m not taking it far, it’s just practice! Find the first page here.

I also make a lot of art! take a scroll through the hermitdragons au tag!

Starting now, information below contains major spoilers for the official fic.

Characters and Designs

most character designs are very subject to change, the only consistent designs as of right now are Grian, Scar, and Martyn

Grian (Nightwing disguised as a Skywing) - Animus dragon born to a group of Nightwings who used his magic to make themselves gods called the Nightwatchers. Using this power, all other Nightwings and animus dragons were murdered. Grian is extremely sheltered, and after finally being able to attend school, he ends up telling Scar some Nightwatcher secrets. As punishment, he and many classmates are put into a death game. Can read minds.

Scar (Rainwing) - A member of Grian’s school dorm. Thanks to the information given by Grian, he ends up setting off a chain of events that leads to Martyn’s capture. These memories are erased before the death game. Partnered with Grian in the death game, trying to convince him to turn against the Nightwatchers.

Martyn (Seawing with distant Nightwing heritage) - Raised in a deep sea Listener cult and prophesized to be able to defeat the Nightwatchers. Due to [SPOILERS] he is immune to Nightwing powers and resists the affects of animus magic. Only found out because of Scar’s unprotected mind figuring out what he was doing. Put in the death game in an attempt to figure out how he was able to hide for so long. Blind. Can read minds. Did not attend school.

Ren (Mudwing/Icewing hybrid) - A member of Grian’s school dorm. Partnered with Martyn in the death game. After finding out that Martyn believes the death game is a form of capital punishment for him specifically, Ren is determined to make sure Martyn wins, in a hope they won’t permanently kill him.

Scott (Seawing/Rainwing hybrid) - Martyn’s friend from before the death game. Born in a separate Listener cult than Martyn, where he learned strategies to protect his mind from mind readers. Quite talented at it! Partnered with Jimmy in the death game.

Pearl (Icewing) - A member of Grian’s school dorm. I literally forgot she wasn’t in third life so uh. She’s here now. Hanging in the crastle!

BigB (Seawing) - A member of Grian’s school dorm.

Skizz (Skywing) - doesn’t play a big role

Tango (Sandwing) - guys I have no idea what he did in third life but he’s not relevant here jbJdhdjd

Cleo (???) - doesn’t play a big role

Bdubs (Rainwing) - doesn’t play a big role

Joel (Sandwing) - doesn’t play a big role

Jimmy (normal ass human) - the Nightwatchers put him in the death game as a joke. Granted the ability to speak with dragons and nothing else. Will get squished like a bug forever.

Etho (Icewing) - doesn’t play a big role

Impulse (Mudwing) - doesn’t play a big role

Story Recap

There are two planned fics, one covering the events of Third Life and prior, and one continuing with Last Life, Double Life, and Limited Life. Future seasons will not be included, as there is already a planned ending.

Book 1 - Ruler of Everything - work in progress

Prologue Chapters - Grian’s hatching and early life before putting his magic into a book for the Nightwatchers to use. He is being manipulated from an early age into the Nightwatcher philosophy.

Chapters 1-6 - After centuries of immortality, Grian longs to experience life as a normal dragon. He has never had anyone his age to play with or talk so, so he asks permission to attend Jade Mountain academy for a semester. His request is accepted. Here he meets Scar, Pearl, Ren, and BigB, his dorm-mates, and has a grand ol time. Just kidding! He’s a disaster with a criminal staring problem! Scar and Pearl in particular help him to acclimate to life with other dragons, and after his entire winglet comes to the conclusion he was raised in a Skywing cult, (which Grian vehemently denies) they give it their all to teach him about normal life.

One problem. Grian can NOT take a hint. After borderline harassing Scar over the Nightwatchers and how cool they are, Scar snaps and Pearl intervenes, pulling Grian aside to yell at him for being an insensitive asshole. The Nightwatchers don’t like that! Grian’s mother attacks and threatens Pearl and takes him out of school for a couple weeks to make sure he stays properly indoctrinated. After he is allowed to return, the entire dorm agrees never to speak about Nightwatchers again.

Well, until the end of the school year that is. After the rest of the dorm leaves, Scar tries to convince Grian to join him in the rainforest and run away from his cult. Fearing what the Nightwatchers would do if he dared try that, but not wanting Scar to believe he’s genuinely a bad dragon, he tells Scar about the Nightwatcher’s animus magic, and what they might do to the Rainwings if they tried to protect him from them. Scar lets him go, a new determination that the Nightwatchers need to be stopped.

Chapters 7-11 - Twenty year pass. Grian grows apathetic towards his years at the academy, and keeps himself busy by watching all the new death games the Nightwatchers are trying out. That is, until he gets put into one. Every dragon involved belonged to the academy except two (Scott and Martyn), and only one dragon knows he’s here against his will. Enter Martyn, a Seawing that Grian quickly learns can read minds. He and Grian briefly fight before Martyn runs away, but they fight again after Grian lets Scar die by snake bite. Because Martyn can read minds, he knows this was done on purpose, but the other dragons separate them before Grian also dies. Martyn tells everyone Grian is a Nightwatcher and everyone thinks he’s crazy <\3 Grian does feel bad though, and tries to make it up to Scar by committing his first life to him. Scar accepts.

Typical third life events. Pizza! Reputation points. Desert tower. Enchanter shenanigans. Uh oh! Scar has fallen into a ravine and died. “Can we still be friends?” In this au, red lives had a magic induced bloodlust that worsens over time, and Scar is really struggling with this at first. Grian says it’s okay :D you’ll like it eventually! Scar is not amused. Ends with Grian convincing Scar to build a trap, and the two of them steal Martyn and Ren’s enchanting table.

Chapters 12-15 - That night, Martyn finds Grian sleeping in the desert, pins and silences him, and demands answers on how to escape the death game. Grian doesn’t have those answers. Martyn realizes that Grian isn’t actually valued by the Nightwatchers, and is basically useless to him. Martyn begins to mock him for this, and Grian escapes his pin, starting a fight that wakes Scar up. Just as Martyn is about kill Grian, Scar distracts him long enough for Grian to breathe fire, weakening Martyn enough for Scar to finish the job.

Grian admits everything to Scar. That he’s a Nightwatcher, was an animus, what he knows of Martyn’s role in everything, and the mind reading. Both dragons believe that Martyn won’t come back to life, but he isn’t immune to animus magic, he only resists it. The healing process is extremely slow and painful. After some time to process, Scar believes that Grian could be a valuable resource for a Nightwatcher rebellion, and is willing to stick with him. Grian is unsure. Once Martyn is revived, Scar walks him back to Dogwarts.

Next morning, Grian and Scar set up the trap, aiming for Ren, not Martyn. They meet, and ally themselves with Scott and Jimmy. The trap ends up killing Jimmy, Skizz, and Ren, and due to some Nightwatcher quirks, the suffering of this whole endeavor drives Grian a little bit nutty. He has a whole laughing thing and everyone is uncomfortable/kind of having the life drained out of them. Martyn stops Grian’s from accidentally hurting anyone else by stopping his breathing, and he and Scar go back. Neither of them are very happy.

Intermission - Martyn POV for the beheading scene. Ren is Not Happy and very afraid he won’t be able to protect them without being red. He gifts Martyn a ceremonial spear to kill him with. Martyn does not want to do this, and confesses he doesn’t think he will be coming back to life after the death game. Ren promises to do everything in his power to make Martyn the winner, but first, he needs to be red. Martyn gives in.

Chapters 17-19 - Scott and Jimmy keep visiting the desert to try and meet with Scar, but only Grian is home the entire day, and they are avoiding him like the plague. After confronting them, Scott forces Grian to leave them alone using the strategies he learned from his upbringing for dealing with mindreaders. Grian asks Scar later why they hate him. Scar says oh yeah they know you’re a Nightwatcher now and think you’re super evil after the laughing thing. Grian is not happy, and lies to Scar so he can meet Scott and Jimmy alone.

Grian surprises/scares shitless Scott and Jimmy the next day. He tries to give them gifts, but forgets where he put them, and Scott tries again to get Grian to leave them alone using his anti mind reader skills. This backfires, as Grian loses himself in Scott’s mind and accidentally lashes out in an attempt to get him to stop. Jimmy, who is red, attacks Grian in retaliation, and after doing considerable damage, is stopped by Grian. The three of them have an actual talk and Scott puts together that the Nightwatchers used Scar to find Martyn, and are trying to use Grian to figure out Martyn’s secrets. Grian commits himself to side against the Nightwatchers, angry with how they have manipulated him and how the lives of his friends and others mean nothing to them.

Then, Scar returns with a Dogwarts shield, running away from Ren, Martyn, and Skizz. Something is very clearly wrong with him. Scar, Scott, and Jimmy make it through the cactus wall (made of explosives in this au) but Grian gets a little trampled, leaving him outside with Ren, Martyn, and Skizz. Scar tells them not to come further, or he will have Grian blow up the cacti wall, killing the four. Everyone is concerned about the fact Scar is commanding Grian to blow himself up. Ren backs down. Scott argues with Scar after, angry with how he was using Grian, but quickly realizes Scar is on the verge of attacking his own allies and pivots to talking him down for that Red Life Rage. Scar has a big breakdown about the whole thing after. Grian comforts him. That is, until the Dogwarts folks start shooting for Pizza. Grian does his best to get to her, but he is too late. Pizza is dead.

will be updated

Book 2 - Mechanical Hands (working title) - not started

#hermitcraft #grian #third life #double life #last life #limited life #gtws #hermitdragons au #goodtimeswithscar #inthelittlewood #renthedog #rendog #jimmy solidarity #solidaritygaming #scott smajor #smajor #pearlecentmoon

[justathingfromthebrainvoid]

The feral thoughts have encroached upon the brain cells I need for normal life, so I’m dumping them here in attempt to save at least some of them. Okay so first off: Limited Life, so novel in a way. Sure the life series have always been Hardcore/Hardcore-adjacent and no one lives forever, but having that set time from the beginning that only ticks down, always there, always present, is fascinating and I can’t wait to see what it does to people’s heads. It is the literal reminder that no one is getting out of this alive and These Deaths Are Inevitable. That hard line is going to turn into a wall people are going end up running into like birds and windows, because the fighting is practically useless. Even if one person manages to kill everyone else and gain all that time, it will still run out. Everyone is running on this treadmill and slowly falling further behind. There is no survival here, but they're still going to try. Fighting and kicking and screaming for every last second they can get. And we're going to see that different type of end now, where instead of falling victim to another player or the world, their time simply runs out. And there's a high chance that they're going to have to watch it run out. Next: the teams. ooooo, they grouped up in such interesting ways (and locations). Grian, Joel, and Jimmy setting up on a mansion in what could be a good defensive position, but also the danger below (and the call backs the 100 hours Hardcore, pls tell me someone else thought of that). Two of them have already died to... stupid enough reasons, because they keep egging each other on. There are no braincell's in this group, just chaos and the loyalty they have towards each other isn't anything special yet. Their bonds are of "sure might as well" and humor. It's the "I can make him worse" but none of them are smart enough to realize it. Then there's T.I.E.S, which have fairly stable relationships throughout the group, but they can't keep any kind of cow (and sometimes themselves) alive through pure bad luck. They should be smart and capable with the kinds of players they are, but when you put them all together they somehow lose all of that and run around like headless chickens. Then there's Scott and Martyn which ... could work, but only if they fully comit to being loyal, otherwise I see this half playing out as the couple subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) trying to murder each other. They will get along, but only when it's in their best interests to do so, and will totally have multiple side deals along the way. Please become truly loyal to each other tho, because I think it would make for a very interesting dynamic. The ... CLockers is really going to be "we make each other worse" with a medium chance of betrayal, mostly from Bdubs as it gets closer to the end times, but Cleo already seems to have chosen her loyalty and that could definitely push them into being a fairly strong (if not completely stable) group. Scar goes with the Storyline, which seems to be pairing him with Bdubs this time around, so it will be interesting to see if the "Mom" joke sticks around long enough to become part of that or not, and if Cleo doesn't kill them herself. Then Pearl and BigB are just going to be suspicion central, both with everyone else and each other. Pearl usually won't go after her allies, but there's always that chance (which her allies always seem somewhat aware of, loyal in part out of wariness) and BigB... he's just secretive, not necessarily by choice, but by nature so it can be confusing if his words are true or not, even with his actions. They're still mostly protected by reputation tho, and are both so dumb. Third, the area. There's a mansion. Which means totems. At least a couple people are going to go after them in spite of the risks, just because they do exist, and especially in the early days, What's an hour now to a chance at life later? But then there's the delayed consequence. What's a chance at life later to something you have now? Is your time better spent doing something else? I think, or at least I hope, there's going to be a lot more thinking about future scenarios. They should be careful, but with the illusion of the time they have and things like keep inventory on, that's going to get muddled. Until the colors start switching. And people continue to be close together. (I understand the content, but I look back at the winners, and for the most part they were in area's harder to get to most of the time.) Then there's the lunacy of both the Neighbors and Clockers setting up right where people first respawn ... with all of their gear... and treating it like a show... how fortunate for those first few yellows and reds that are killed. and yellows can/are encouraged to kill this time around. which brings the amount of people able to kill up more. This world is made to see you dead. In a way the others built towards, but this one... it's very final. You will die. You can't outrun the clock. And Finally, fourth, the "curses" and who i think would make for an interesting winner. "Curse 1"- Boogeyman: going strong, attached to Scott first (slight sarcasm via the man himself commenting on it being revenge for his refusal to kill in last life, which i will be taking as fact) before moving the Bdubs who showed no hesitation, and then Martyn. "Curse 2"- Jimmy the Death Omen: pls return, yes it will make people think there is actually possibly a script, but it's so funny. And while Jimmy never dies first, his perma-death always involves the person who did in some capacity, so I shall be keeping my eye out for Skizz and Timmy interactions. "Curse 3"- Enchanter: there is defiantly one in play, but there is a chance they're made this season, which might free Scar from it. "Curse 4"- Grian's Friends: .... again I just want to see if this one plays out again, cause if so I will laugh. "Curse 5"- Scar's pets/mixed in with dog army this season: dog army may have gotten broken thanks to Pearl last season, but it could have been a one time thing. We shall see if someone dies from killing one of Scar and Bdub's dogs. "Curse 6"- Scar's 1st life: broken this season due to fall damage! interested to see if grian is the first to kill scar tho. "Curse 7"- Joel's Madness: most likely will happen, just a matter of when. "Curse 8"- Lone Tango death: up in the air. "Curse 9"- Widow Scott: possibly broken due to double life, possibly not, unsure if Martyn counts as the partner yet. "Curses 10, 11, and 12"- Bdubs, Cleo Betrayed, and Cleo's Death: grouped together, because they are grouped together. Could work out in a very interesting way. And "the Victor's Wish/Curse": Grian dies betrayed and the Boogeyman is created with lives uncertain, but able to be traded. Scott dies and the players are bound to another, shared lives, shared health, for better or worse. Pearl dies... and the Boogeyman returns with a countdown people can't escape only extend by taking others out. Hopeful winners: Cleo or Bdubs. Both have things with time going on a the moment and have a decent group. Both would fit with my odd brain narrative. Runners up: Scar, BigB, maybe Martyn. Though these could change and aren't that important, I will be rooting for Cleo as much as possible.

#limited life #trafficblr #there's other stuff i'm missing but it's almost midnight and i have work in the morning #feralness doesn't always outweigh exsaustion #and this got most of the thoughts out #now we wait for next week to do this all over again

[cattimeswithjellie]

Double Life Scar Impulse Bdubs WIP 👀👀👀 I am super intrigued, pls elaborate??

Let's see...

This one is actually probably my most developed unpublished WIP, it's more than 2000 words long already and is nearly a whole vignette, or at least a first chapter. Basically the story is that Bdubs and Impulse have just fallen to red after the pool party, and Impulse finds Scar dismally poking through the burnt remains of the cake fort. Even on red, good-guy Impulse finds it hard to kick a player when he's down, so they get to talking about Scar's significant relationship woes instead. Eventually the story is supposed to go into the Homewreckers attempting to help Scar break his soulbond with the golden apple they've got hidden away, and how the rest of the game unfolds from there.

Here's just a taste:

As the smoking husk of the Keep came in sight, it was clear that Impulse was not the only one with plans for this morning. Scar was standing in what had probably once been his living room, poking halfheartedly through a couple of burnt chests between bouts of coughing. Despite the supposed health of his green name he looked miserable, like he’d slept in a hole and rolled down a hill to wake up. Even the Jellie kitten on his shoulder looked rumpled and half-groomed.

The red in his blood sang at Impulse to draw his bow, to sneak and stalk and kill this apparently vulnerable prey. The rational part of Impulse remembered that Scar was a crack shot with a bow himself and that he had no idea if Grian was nearby. The part of him that could still feel soft things like compassion had him dipping a couple of rags into the pandas’ water trough and handing one to Scar as he walked up. “Here,” he offered, “put it over your mouth to keep out the smoke.”

Scar jumped with a startled little yelp, sending a stack of wheat flying in all directions as his arms flew up defensively. “Holy! Who? What? Oh, Impulse, you scared me!” He pressed his hands over his heart dramatically, then gave Impulse and the rag a nervous look. “Um, you’re not here to kill me, are you?”

“I’m taking the morning off,” Impulse told him. “Thought I’d come over here and see if there was anything left after the fire.” He tied his own rag over his mouth, appreciating the respite from the tainted air.

“Not much!” Scar admitted with false cheer, taking the proffered rag and clumsily repeating Impulse’s actions. “We really got got, that’s for sure. I probably shouldn’t even be here, but Grian took off this morning and what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him! Unless I fall off a cliff, but how likely is that, right?”

“For you?” Impulse teased.

#hermitcraft #answered asks #fanfic #goodtimeswithscar #impulsesv #bdoubleo100

[eyelessfog]

hello hi i care about llau falsestress !! <- has yet to read lifeline ever

tell me more about them

THATS OKAY I JUST. i would like to clarify that this is alllll in my head. okay. magpie almost certainly did not mean for me to feel these feelings about them, but to me theyre in love

so false and stress are both astronauts. stress steers the ship and false is the captain. theyre best friends and i appreciate that soooo so sosososo much

and then they pick up tango, whos just dealt with parasites, and then parasites dock on their ship, and then two of thw crew get taken, and then they get sent back in time to the 1300s and theyre left almost entirely alone. sure, there are two other people there, but they never leave thw goddamn tower, and it feels like false and stress are entirely by themselves

and in my head this is when theyre like. theyre in love but theyre not dating? theyre roommates and their relationship is just what it is. theyre never girlfriends theyre just in love and exist with each other. deal with things as they come.

and then wels shows up. this guy is so badly third wheeling ans he doesnt wven knowwww hes just like huh. okay. this is a normal thing thats happening <- guy who lived exclusively with men, and then lived by himself for the past Many years

theyre just. very domestic kind of? everything is weird and screwed up and they live in 1300s england and they dont know what theyre doing!!!! but theyre together and theyre just. living. and in love. theyre so important to each other you dont get it

and then everything goes wrong all at once

stress leaves, which is fine, stress leaves all the time - she can take care of herself. better than false can, in some ways. but then wels’ clone shows up and they kill him and he falls to the bottom of the tower and bdubs and etho are gone - and false allows herself a moment to realize that she never knew that bdubs and etho were gone which means that she has no clue how long its been since they disappears

and then she follows after stress but stress is gone and her neighbours are dead and infected and she lets their bodies fall to rest because theyre ALREADY dead and this is a mimicry of them that’s puppetting their bodies and they said that they touched stress and they deserve nothing less than to be burned

shes so protective of stress and im normal about that prommy

god no yeah im skipping straight to the chapel its. i want some people to be able to read it for the first time so

okay so in the chapel scene, false finds stress finally and it all feels so tension filled because you know something is wrong and sometimes you know WHAT is wrong [i certainly did] and its terrifying and false is asking stress to come home because how could they not go home together?

and stress wraps her arms around false’s neck and hugs her and she apologies and false doesn’t get why but then stress pushes her down and theres a grub in her mouth and stress has opened her eyes and her eyes are red and false realizes that stress has already died and shes being puppetted by an alien. and wels comes to get stress off of her and stress wrangles herself out of her grip and false has had a gun under her skirt for forever, and finally she pulls it out to use it and

stress is already dead

it doesnr make shooting her through the skull feel any better

and to me its. what if someone stole your lover and put her face on and said “i love you” in the only way either of you have ever said i love you, and it tried to kill you too and it made you stare into her eyes as you killed her killer and. and. and you press your boot down on the grubs that killed your lover and you send wels away to go get you fire so you can burn them to hell and when he’s gone you cry. because your lover is gone and you didnt kill her, but it feels like you did, and she’s gone

and you don’t really get over it either. you get cloned, and your clone gets grubbed and your clone keeps saying that YOU killed her with your own two hands and a gun, but you didnt. you killed the being that was pretending to be her, and youre trying to kill the being that is pretending to be YOU but she keeps saying you didnt love her enough because if you loved her you would have let her live, and you keep saying she was already dead, but your other is infected too. and maybe she’s right

but this has long since become your life mission - to get rid of the grubs - and you can’t drop it now. you can’t doubt yourself now.

and you kill her, and you killed stress, and you swear to yourself that all you ever did was lay the dead to rest. surely. surely.

and then t=♾ and there’s stress again and she isnt grubbed and you missed her and you love her and youve loved her and-

but she says that she was alive even when she was grubbed and her eyes arent red so you cant force yourself to believe that her mind isnt clear, and then your double says that you wouldn’t have killed her if you loved her but you KNOW that you killed her BECAUSE you loved her but everything is breaking apart and maybe you killed the one you love and then

and then stress is back, and ren is there and both of them are people you failed but theyre both something like alive and you think that maybe you were the monster the whole time

explaining this is just. they were in love and stress died, whether when she was infected or when false killed her and grieving over her has made false who she is and WAUGH

#[asks] #sorry this took so long i needed to pause to be a person for a while

[fryingpan1234567]

so, in your post about your HC superhero AU, you mentioned that the villains were mostly helsmits, and you already gave us a few (evil x, helsknight, and the unnamed bdubs sibling that I’m not sure if they’re an original hels or Pungence), so what drove those guys to villainy in the first place?

So! Yeah it’s Pungence, and ofc we’ve got EX and Hels himself.

But there are lots of other Helsmits, most of the names of which are not mine obviously, but I’ve got some stuff on them.

As I mentioned, EX and Pungence ran away from the AHM when they were kids, leaving their brothers behind to be trained to be supers. Hels was knighted by the same ghosts as Wels, so he’s kind of stuck because he swore to protect. He’s got a loophole, though: his partner and the people he considers his family are all villains. Therefore, he is protecting what he has to. Wels is pissed about that but can respect it.

Just a quick list of Helsmits:

Indulge

Zedeath

Limbo

Kamalis

Wendigo

Medic

BadTimesWithScar (BadTimes)

Bear

Mani

EmeraldialSun

AriesEva

TrueSymmetry

Strain

Skall

Phoenix

yC

Some of those are mine, most of them are just ones the fandom have come to conclusions on. If you guess them all right I’ll give you a cookie lol

Basically, they’re all related to the Hermits in some way- maybe they’re siblings, cousins, some rando who happened to be born at the same time, ex best friends, etc. They got sick of being in the Hermits’ shadow, and decided to do something about it.

Most have powers. Some are failed trainees. Some are self-taught. Some are just angsty and decided a life of villainy was what they needed to do. There are even one or two trained by professional villains.

I should mention that the Hermits and Helsmits are not the only hero/ villain teams out there. You thought the Hermits were bitter about being forced into hiding? How do you think the Dream SMP, the actual psychopaths who killed the president’s daughter, feel? The split about down the middle, but that’s a story for another time.

Fortunately, there aren’t very many all-out wars with full teams. Mostly it’s just a couple wreaking havoc, and the appropriate Hermits are sent out to deal with it.

There are a couple very specific backstories though, and I’ll tell you about them:

~ For as long as he could remember, Hels and his twin brother were actually very well off. They had that cool thing where they could read each other’s minds, and they didn’t even fight that often, despite sharing a bedroom and… pretty much everything else.

But. The biggest issue? Wels was a huge suck-up. To their parents, the teachers, the coaches. Hels was more of a ‘put a finger up towards the world’ kind of guy, because he knew it wasn’t kind, and he was happy to return the favor.

When he and his brother were given power as vast as they were, Hels’ mind went straight to what he could do to the assholes that called him slurs, made fun of Wels for every reason possible, their parents, who made both boys feel like they were failures no matter what they did.

Unfortunately, to become a knight, there’s an itty bitty problematic oath you have to take. You can’t harm anyone who doesn’t attack first, and you must hit back within reason.

“Within reason” meant a different thing to Hels than it did his brother and the knights. He’s not stupid. And he doesn’t let go of things easily.

His solution? Leave and find a way to make that oath his own.

Yeah, maybe seducing the leader of the only villain organization he knew (it was very small at the time) was a ploy to get out of being a hero. He didn’t feel like saving the assholes that had caused him so much pain. But then he really fell in love, and he made some genuine friends, and after that?

No one could stand in his way.

~ Pungence liked having powers. It put him above kids who made fun of him and his brother, not that they knew that, but it was nice to have a secret like that.

He had photokinesis, just like Bdubs, only his was more… dark. Bdubs produced light. Pungence sucked it out of things.

Still, they got along. When people were racist assholes at school, the brothers just let loose a string of random Spanish until they got scared and left them alone. That was pretty funny, no matter how many times it happened.

And then one day, there was an offhand comment about how America made the best superheroes. Anyone who wasn’t white or an American citizen could never live up to the heroes they had.

Especially Bdubs and Pungence.

That was the last straw. The boys had decided enough was enough, and showed all those kids right then and there just how heroish they could be.

Which… didn’t go over as well as they’d hoped.

Their family was shunned by the rest of their small town, and they were forced to leave. They ended up in New York, but it wasn’t long before the AHM tracked them down. A massive sum of compensation, more than either brother could comprehend, was offered to their parents in exchange for the two of them. There wasn’t much hesitation when the decision was made to hand them over.

Bdubs resolved to show everyone who had doubted them, their parents, everyone back home, even himself, that he could be great. The greatest, even. He’d be the brightest hero the world had ever seen.

But Pungence couldn’t forgive all of that. Frankly, he was surprised Bdubs could. Normally they were on the same page as far as things like revenge went, but not this time.

He wasn’t going to prove them wrong. He was going to prove them as right as he could, and he knew he’d go down in history… just not on the same side of it as his brother.

~

Martyn Littlewood used to be Ren’s best friend- more than that, for a time, but that went out the window when he discovered Ren was a werewolf.

At first, he was mostly horrified. He felt bad for that, mostly because the only reason he found out was that Ren came to him for help after being injured by hunters, thinking Martyn would help him. He was wrong, of course, but he didn’t know that at the time.

Once Martyn got over the fear and Ren was far away out of his life, he decided maybe powers like that wouldn’t be so bad. He happened to come across an offer to become a hero, and he didn’t pass it up.

They didn’t quite give him the powers he was expecting. But honestly, a wendigo wasn’t all that bad. Pretty sick, actually.

He realized the issue when his thirst for blood became too strong to control. It took the entire police department together to contain him, and he was handed over to the AHM, only to be recruited by EX and Hels.

Revenge on Ren and the people who locked him up, plus free usage of his powers? Not a bad deal.

~ Typically, heroes were respected more than villains. You know what villains have over heroes?

Fear factor.

People are terrified of beings with power and aren’t afraid to use it. Heroes could be pushed around, and villains could not.

The Void twins knew this. It’s why they came to the Earth dimension in the first place- power. Their powers don’t work in their own dimension, so Earth was a good place to make a name for themselves.

X wanted to go down in history, just like Bdubs.

So did EX. They wanted to be the most powerful interdimensional overlord in the history of time-space.

X was able to keep them at bay for a few years, but when they met a new boy with just as much ambition as them? It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Pungence said goodbye to Bdubs when he left. EX said nothing to their brother, because they knew X had the power to catch up to them. So as soon as they were ready, EX got them to Britain and they didn’t come back until they were ready to take on New York with a brand new team of very powerful people ready to kick ass.

~~~ ta-daaa, how do we feel anon? does that make sense? I wanna start writing more actual stuff and not just concepts lol send in more y’all

#Hermitcraft #helscraft #helsmits #hero au #helsknight #pungence #inthelittlewood #evil xisuma #hex #mcyt

[all54321]

Underneath the Moon (Grian POV)

Scar POV

Thinking about the AU of the snippet I sent before and wanted to go back and clean that up. This AU came from me thinking about an AU where Scar remembers 3rd Life, and I started thinking more logically about it. Like, what reason does Scar have for remembering? That lead to me thinking that he’s the second to last remaining person. And that brought me to having the final two remaining remember, aka this AU.

—————

Grian watches Scar cheerily talk to Impulse from his hidden perch on his roof. They’re talking like Scar didn’t instruct BDubs to kill Impulse. Like everything that happened didn’t happen.

He tightens his grip on one of the chimney’s, is he the only one cursed with this knowledge? Is he all alone in his suffering? He’s not sure if that’s a blessing or curse.

Grian stares longingly as Scar, swallowing nervously, before he turns around and takes flight, wanting to get far away from there. Why? Why did he have to beat Scar to death when he wanted nothing more then kiss him? He blushes heavily as he lands in a remote forest, well, he wanted to do a lot more then kiss him. Grian wants to do everything that they couldn’t do in that game.

But now none of that will ever happen again, Scar doesn’t remember, and even if he does, he’ll probably hate him. Grian wraps his wings around himself, why does everything hurt so much?

~

Grian circles around Boatem, high in the sky. He unfortunately has to return to his starter base and he really doesn’t want to see anyone. He can’t bring himself to face them, not after everything he did. They’re better off without him. He stifles a wince as that thought cuts deep.

He looks around the clearing, no one was around, probably all asleep or lost in projects. Despite this, he dives down to land directly in front of his house. He hurries to the door, but as he grabs the door handle someone calls out to him.

“Grian!” Scar cheerily says.

Grian flinches and takes a step back, turning to face Scar. Why is he here? Where was he even hiding? “Uh, hi Scar!” He responds, smiling an extremely fake smile, he hopes Scar doesn’t notice. His wings twitch, ready to take him out of here. Grian can return later, he just needs to leave.

Scar approaches him, a look in his eyes that Grian can’t decipher. “I haven’t seen you around lately, what have you been up to?”

“Uh, just working on some stuff,” he answers, not prepared for an excuse. He takes another step back, ready to run when he can. Grian can’t meet Scar’s eyes, not after what he’s done. Doing so lets him notice that Scar is holding on hand behind his back, hiding something. Normally he would prod and pester Scar until he gives in and reveals it, but he’s not himself. Not anymore. Not after what he’s done.

“Like your mega base?” Scar asks, clearly wanting more details.

“Y-yeah!” Grian agrees, having no other excuse available. “Just planning stuff and gathering materials.” It’s not entirely a lie, he has been doing that, but barely out of fear of getting noticed. Grian takes another small step back, hoping Scar doesn’t notice. He can’t meet his eyes, can’t see if he notices.

“Well, I have a gift for you, I’m glad I just caught you now.”

Grian meets his eyes, caught off guard, quickly looking away seeing his deep, forest green eyes. They were once red. They were once dead. Why did Scar wait for him for void knows how long just to give him something. He hasn’t seen him in days, what is Scar planning? “A gift?” he asks hesitantly.

“Yup,” he says, finally revealing what was behind his back.

Grian’s breath hitches as he sees the bouquet of lilacs and poppies clutched in Scar’s hand. A memory resurfaces against his will.

Scar hurries up to Grian, gray skin and red eyes, flowers clutched tightly in his hands. He holds them out to Grian before he can say a word, “can we still be partners?” His voice is pleading, desperate almost.

Grian takes them, surprised by how that was Scar’s first thought, “I- yeah, I can’t just leave you, and technically I still owe you my first life.” Scar gives him a weak smile, looking grateful. Grian pulls him into a quick kiss. He gestures to the chest beside him, “I got your stuff.”

Grian shoves the memory away, he needs to leave, he needs to go now. Scar remembers, he remembers everything Grian did. He can’t handle Scar’s rejection of him, not right now. He spreads his wings out more, he can’t stay here.

Scar quickly closes the distance between them, grabbing his wrist, causing him to freeze, “wait!”

Grian stiffens, staring wide eyed at Scar. He can’t handle this, all of the emotions he’s blocked away, trying to keep himself stable. Everything crumbles away as he stares into Scars determined eyes, with a, dare he hope, loving look.

Tears that he’s been holding back finally come loose and he collapses into Scar’s arms. He buries his face into Scar’s chest, holding him tightly, as he sobs. “I’m sorry Scar… I’m so sorry.”

Scar returns the embrace just as tightly, “it’s okay,” he murmurs, “I don’t blame you, not for anything.”

Grian sobs increase, he doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve Scar.

#my writing #the drabble saga #last two standing #Scar’s POV was actually written first! #But Grian’s had the line I shared so I’m posting it first #I want to edit the end a bit #but I don’t know how #so it’s basically how it was originally #with minor tweaks #I changed the scene in 3rd Life because they’re dating then #so leaving the line at friend felt wrong #the logs