#THIS STARTED FROM ME MISSING MY EX AND ALSO MUMBO

[l0ve-persevering]

Hermitcraft Drabble :D

long post ahead (i sure hope it does) 

 whooo boy this ones kinda weird but here we go:

TikTok Has arrived on Hermitcraft! As well as other trends that take Season 9 by storm, one has particularly caught on: ‘I kissed my best friend’. 

feel free to continue/continue this au, (though please tag me i wanna see) 

it was just a concept that I HAD to write out cus it was eating me alive. Enjoy :)

contains:

Mumbo/Grian (but platonic), Etho/Bdubs, Cleo & JoeHills (PLATONIC.), Ren/Doc, Keralis/Xisuma and Grian/Scar

Fluff. All fluff. 

Lil smooches but not very detailed. 

MUMBO AND GRIAN

Its the first thing Grian does when seeing Mumbo back on the server

Literally. the first.

Mumbo climbs out of the server portal sipping a lil milk tea boba with tapioca cus duh.

Scar (subtly filming) and Grian are waiting for him at Spawn when he climbs out, a sideways smile on his face

and Woah!! music starts playing!!

And Mumbo’s smile drops because music and grian are never good signs.

He still has not forgotten that mumbo for mayor song.

And as the beat drops, grian leans forward (pinching mumbos cheeks) and gives him a nice big peck on the lips.

Mumbo is in shock.

And promptly spits out his drink.

Right into Grian’s face.

Grian, to his credit, is not at all offended and rolling on the floor laughing, propped up my scar’s legs who is pretty much bent over, yelling about how he got it on camera, whilst Mumbo is apologising profusely (his moustache is quivering) which makes Grian laugh even more.

ETHUBS :DDD

Bdubs quickly catches onto Grian’s antics (who has been around the server kissing… pretty much everyone (he has been punched multiple times) and then shows Mumbo’s reaction.

So, as he starts playing the song, he’s not surprised to see the sheer unbridled terror in Etho’s eyes as he rapidly turns around, scanning for Grian.

He squints his eyes suspiciously when his eyes land on Bdubs.

Who is simply beaming.

Bdubs slowly approaches him and- devs why is Etho’s face on fire??

On the beat drop, Bdubs leans towards him, all puckered up and-

“Thats when you’re supposed to lean in, too y’know,” He squints at Etho, who’s just standing there.

“Want me to shut my eyes? I can close my eyes.”

So he stands there. Eyes screwed up, pouting. Etho takes a picture and walks away (he later sends it to Iskall (threatening him on the stakes that he would never base near him again to not send it to anyone else).

He can hear Bdubs shouting in the distance.

So later, when the sky is dark and the mask is traded in for bunny slippers, he creeps up the stairs of Bdubs’ monolith (obelisk? i cant remember) and gives him a kiss on the forehead, only letting out a groan when firm hands pulls him into bed, and when Bdubs spoke, his voice was think with sleep.

“You’d better kiss me proper this time, because if you woke me up just for that you’d best start runnin’”

Oh, and what could Etho do but oblige.

JOE AND CLEO

Cleo was sick of the music. Also sick of the remixed music that included several punching noises, grians yelps and cleo’s swear words that seemed to just play around her base whenever Joe was near.

But one day, Joe appeared around the corner with a little less pizazz than she was used to, and as he looked at her, he hit a button on his com, and a softer, sweeter cover of it started playing.

“You now? Really?” She tsked at him, though held out her arms for a slow dance. And though she rolled her eyes when he kissed her on the cheek, she allowed it, twirling him out and dipping him just like they used to in their season 8 castle.

(and if she kissed him back, then no one really needed to know, did they).

REN AND DOC

Doc bites the inside of his cheek, brow furrowed, as he stares down at the quest shard.

<Do the TikTok Trend With the King!>

This was one of Grian’s fake priority quests, no doubt.

A quest that would make fun of Ren, take diamonds from him and make him all flustered all in one go?

He hums thoughtfully, pocketing the quest (and the hefty diamond prize.) Though Grian had never explicitly said he was against the king (yet), Doc had been on enough seasons with him that he know he was up to something.

And it wasn’t like he was even a citizen, so could he really commit treason? Nope.

It was more like he was waging war.

Besides there was always… something going on with him and Ren. They’d never done anything, per say, but it had always felt like a bit of an inevitability.

He met Ren outside the crastle, who scowled at him as he arrived.

“Doc,” (his tone cold and harsh)

The creeper didn’t say anything, simply throwing Ren the shard and tilting his head.

“I didn’t write this-”

“Pretty desperate, huh?”

“Why are you even doing this quest then?”

“Maybe I need the diamonds,” Doc almost chuckles from his own defence. (Of course he doesn’t need diamonds)

Ren doesn’t seem convinced (as in he sees right through him)

Doc blushes clears his throat because he cant believe he's stooped to this level but he sets up his comm anyway, offering Ren his hand.

“Who says we can’t have that enemies to lovers arc, huh?” Ren smirks as Doc kisses his forehead.

They dance to no music for longer than Doc cares to admit.

KERALIS AND X SHESHWAMY

The music starts playing in the middle of the shopping district, as though someone (probably Brian) had rigged a network of jukeboxes under the very streets and lay in wait for their unsuspecting victim(s). Keralis grabs X’s gloved hand, dragging him behind as he sprints for a safer place to take off

“C’mon, Sheshwamy, we gotta get out of here!” He hisses.

X, with surprising strength, pulls Keralis under a bridge, and they crouch there, listening for any telltale fireworks.

Keralis eventually creeps out, and though the music is still playing, he doesn’t see any Brians flying about looking for kisses, so he goes back to let his Sheshwam know.

Who has his mask off, cheeks pink and grinning lightly at Keralis’ wide (wider) eyes and agape mouth.

“I know its not something I’d usually do,” He says nervously, (and wow Keralis forgets how gorgeous Sheshwam is without his mask (not that he isn’t gorgeous with his mask), his eyes needing to adjust to the beauty. “But-”

Keralis interrupts him by wrapping his arms around Sheshwamy and kissing him hard. X resiprocates happily, moving his arms down to hug Keralis’ hips.

When they finally broke apart, Keralis’ grin matched Bdub’s and X was flushed.

“If that was just for fun, Keralis, I will-”

“Sheshwam, look into my eyes and ask yourself that question again.”

SCAR AND GRIAN

They were at Scar’s starter base when It happens.

Grian’s over, hanging out with (pestering) Scar as he sketches out blueprints, only occasionally giving him actually useful feedback.

(Others are slightly more questionable, such as holding a contest to see who the best princess would be and rigging it so Doc would win)

(he's pretty sure Doc would win anyway)

He’s simply sitting on Scar’s desk, swinging his desk and choosing songs at random to play as Scar works, and he suddenly lands on a song that’s not been heard on the server in a few weeks for no reason.

after an intervention was called.

Scar just smiles, drumming his fingers along to the beat.

“This is where people run y’know,” Grian jokes, a blush coating his face.

Scar smiles along, still engrossed in his work, though the tip of his ears were bright red, “I’ve never ran from you before, have I?”

(This, Grian could correct plenty. Every little skirmish they’ve had had usually ended with Scar scampering off with his tail between his legs.

But. but, not in Life. Not when it got Real. Not when he felt sick, not when Scar was busy - because he’d make time for Grian. He didn’t run when Grian joined a cult last season (albeit for not very long), he didn’t run when the earth beneath them flung itself in the air. He never ran when Grian needed him.)

Did Grian need him now?

(His fingers grazed the underneath of Scar’s chin and he finally looked up.

Scar and his emerald green eyes.

He shuffles closer, tilting Scar closer and he can feel his breath on his nose and see his smile - dazzling - closer than ever, and-)

yes. Grian needs this.

So he closes the gap, and Scar’s grin only grows wider.

BOOM there you go, I know people aren’t written great but I’m busy and don’t have time to watch some hermits so am kinda rusty haha 

[arts-and-drafts]

I decided to start compiling speech patterns and such for the Hermits I watch the most, because being a fic writer is hard sometimes 😭 then I thought “why not share it here?”

so here’s my very rough analysis of my most viewed Hermits, this is just what I’ve managed to gather so please don’t call me out for what I’m missing

-

Scar

Rarely stutters in normal speech. Maybe pauses if he’s started a sentence and doesn’t know where it’s going, but he doesn’t tend to trail off unless something interrupts his train of thought

Stutters a LOT when he’s startled. Also makes ‘hoo!’ noises repeatedly before he finds his words

Lays on the charm THICK when he’s trying to convince someone over literally anything; compliments their looks, their handiwork, and then pitches his proposition in smooth segue. Not one to entertain haggling though (however he DOES do a ‘look if you’ll pay full price I’ll throw in xyz’ thing). King of upselling even the most mundane things.

His tone is cheerful most of the time, no matter what he’s saying. He’ll actually often say very disturbing things with a light voice (ex. when discussing how to retaliate ie “what should we do about him?” “we could kill him! :)”)

Builds and locations somehow are always capitalized in his voice?? Like he says them differently. I can’t really explain it (when he talks about Aqua Town or Scarland or The Big Dig)

Literally has an evil laugh when he thinks of a way to prank someone or mess with people

Hums in thought quite often, and uses “huh!” quite often when confused or finding out something new (Mostly with redstone)

His farewell is almost always “Byeeee, have a great time!” even if the conversation he left was not a pleasant one. I’m almost certain he does this in tense situations just to get under other people’s skin and really push how unbothered he is

Doesn’t tend to insult people, the farthest he’ll take it is backhanded compliments

That said he is not afraid to outright threaten (“I will murder them.”)

References media a lot, both for concepts for builds and in speech (ie his greeting “Well hello there!” is from Star Wars)

Number one exclamation is “Sweet Baby Jellie!”

(More under the cut!)

Grian

Cold opens, both in videos and conversations (rarely says “hello, how are you, etc” when encountering someone, but he does say farewells/‘thank you’s)

Likes to sneak up on people and scare them if he realizes they haven’t noticed him yet, usually does so by getting real close and then yelling (“HEY!”/“HI!”/“WHAT’S THAT?”)

Uses the name of whoever he’s talking to pretty often while speaking to them (“Well, Mumbo, you never know”/“So, Scar, as you can see here-“), same goes for often addressing his audience (“you all”/“you lot”/“you guys”)

Usually pretty focused (when he wants to be) but oftentimes takes a minute to laugh at things he notices in the natural environment (An accidental face in a build, a mob in a strange place, etc)

Takes the lead in a conversation if nobody is the clear leader, but generally only speaks when spoken to if someone else has risen to that spot

Clarifies instructions after something is explained, both to his viewers and to anyone he’s grouped up with (most often seen in the Life Series)

Uses “Pardon?!”/“Beg your pardon?!” most often when surprised or startled (he’s very British), also sometimes uses “Sorry??”

Things are way more funny to him when he’s tired

Deadpans a lot in conversation ie “why not do xyz?” “Well because we’ll horrifically die 😑“

This man is allergic to committing to the bit unless he’s the one that initiated it

Not one to sugarcoat (“how is it?” “well to be honest it’s miserable”)

Number one exclamation is “WHAT?!” (though he often uses “oh my GOODNESS” quite a bit)

Mumbo

The start of nearly every episode is almost a pitch, does the same when bringing up an idea to others (“I have this idea”/“I was thinking”/“I noticed” etc)

Often laughs a little at himself when he speaks

Also often brings up how inexperienced/unqualified he thinks he is with literally any task he’s doing

Gets very distracted with the smallest things

Uses similes a lot when trying to describe a concept (“I’m thinking a this-type thing”/“Something like a [xyz]”/“Imagine like a [thing]”)

His voice gets higher when he’s startled or panicking

A very vocal thinker, which makes sense because he’s a MC Youtuber, but he also just. Seems to think out loud regardless

Comments a lot on the feel of things (“Oh this feels menacing”/“This looks like it’d mess you up”/“This makes it feel very intimidating”), often with building

Extremely modest. However will celebrate when he does something right in redstone/building (“YES! Oh my days, that took forever”)

Once and a while will have a rare banter moment with people he’s comfortable with (ie teasing and making fun)

Related to above, he gets very giggly when he’s hanging out with people he’s familiar with (Grian and Scar most often, but also Iskall)

Number one exclamation is “What on earth?!”

Joel

Greets people most often with “How you doing [name]?”/“How are ya [name]?”

He’s very northern. He often leaves out words in his sentences bc that’s just the way his dialect is (“What you doin’?” vs “What are you doing?”)

Says his th’s like f’s (“somefing”/“nofing”/“finking”) ((Stress also does this))

His jokes/teasing are very deadpan (“I made you this extra thing, because you’re trash at this”)

Actually gives gifts of resources very often, and always leaves it with a little note and signs his name

His voice gets higher pitched when he’s defensive/being extremely cheeky but other than that his tone rarely changes

This man. Flirts so much. If any other person initiates even the slightest of flirty banter he takes that and dials it to eleven I cannot believe this is a straight married man sometimes

Joel commits to the bit 100% of the time (slightly related to above), unless of course it’s jokes about his height

Makes a point to compliment himself if he gets the chance (words most often used are “handsome” “strong” and “humble”, as well as comments about his muscles and physique)

Insults his enemies diminutively (“look at you down there, tiny idiot”/“You’re wrong and also weak”) ((seen most often in Empires SMP)

His most often used insult is “idiot”

When he’s flustered/frustrated he uses “bloody” a lot (ie “bloody heck” or “this bloody thing” (loves to toe the PG line), also uses “blooming” (“bloomin’ heck”)

Most often used exclamation is also “WHAT?!”

Bdubs

Opens videos very jovially, talks almost like a radio host

Breaks down his builds down to the block, spends a lot of time discussing his block pallet choices and giving tips while he builds

Uses the affirmation “sure enough” a lot, and often addresses himself as “Ol’ Bdubs”

Talks affectionately about other hermits often (“[name], the absolute sweetheart, left me some materials”, “[name], you angel!”)

Adding to above, “angel” or “sweet angel” seems to be his most often used affectionate terms

Switches on a dime, though, if he gets offended (which of course causes others to poke fun at him even more)

Calls mobs “stupid” a lot when they don’t do what he wants (but takes it back if he says it to one of his horses ex. “Come here, stupid—wonderful, I mean, beautiful”)

THIS MAN IS THE #1 HORSE ENJOYER. He gets a horse first thing every season and rides it everywhere, and they’re always a focal point of his theme or builds in some regard

Pauses whatever he’s doing to sleep as soon as it’s possible, and gets very antsy if he can’t do it for some reason (“One moment, time to shreep!”)

Related to above, EVERYONE messes with him if he’s trying to sleep in their presence ie breaking his bed over and over, and he gets increasingly more frustrated when it happens

Rarely is soft spoken or quiet, he projects his voice and uses a lot of emphasis in his tone

Either straight up screams (and peaks the mic 😭) if he’s startled or scared, or yells “oh my GOODNESS!!”

Number one exclamation is “HEY!”

[angeart]

the last anon about mumbo RLLY got me thinking because. The situation with hmtb Mumbo and Grian is so so so similar to my ex best friend it's a bit eerie!!! So i'm going to drop my thoughts on it because hngfg brainrot

Like we were great friends for years, right. Everything is fine with these type of friends until it's not. Your life falls apart and you struggle to keep afloat and while they're your best friend and you know they love you... they just. Dont know how to help or handle you. They haven't experienced that type of trauma. It's not their fault but yet it hurts to feel so isolated from them.

So naturally when faced with your best friend unable to help or *understand* what's happening you start to drift towards that other person you met who is more similar. Maybe they've been through the same trauma- or maybe they just are less uncomfy dealing with yours. Whatever it is, you find yourself drawn closer to them through that experience as you learn to cope.

But that old best friend? It's not their fault per-say that they just didnt understand what was happening. It doesn't make them a bad person or an awful friend. But either way you watch in real time as you leave them behind time and time again and you know it will never be the same.

Such a compelling story arc, seriously. I didn't expect to see such a parallel to my own life here but I love it!!! Mumbo just can't fully grasp the experience because he hasn't lived it, so naturally Grian would go to Scar of course because they bonded over that. Such interesting characters xoxo

first of all, thank you for sharing your experiences! i think you put it into words very well.

and... yeah. yeah, yes. that's exactly how it is sometimes, and it reflects into the fic. relationships are complicated, and sometimes things go askew, and it isn't necessarily anyone's fault if neither side quite knows how to deal with the aftermath.

mumbo doesn't know how to deal with grian's trauma. hell, grian doesn't know how to deal with his own trauma. but mumbo needs guidance; he needs explanations upon explanations, and even then the comprehension would evade him. he doesn't know what grian's going through, and he never will.

the idea of trying to make mumbo understand is exhausting, the thought of putting all that pain into words before he's ready for any of them is soul-tearing, and besides, how to explain something like this? something made so much more of feelings than words?

grian can't provide that. so mumbo fumbles, he makes mistakes, he makes things worse with all of his good intentions, until everything hurts too much.

until grian decides to go for the path of less pain.

it's so much easier to lean into scar, who understands. scar, who is also damaged. scar, who knows how it feels to be scared and hurt in the same ways.

mumbo knows grian so well. but he doesn't know what to do with this. and grian needs someone who knows how to handle him right now.

mumbo isn't that person.

is that mumbo's fault? no.

is grian at fault for reaching out for what he needs elsewhere? also no.

it happens. it's painful and regret-riddled, but it happens.

it's just tragic and bittersweet, because neither of them wants it to be this way. they feel that distance slinking in, and they despise it, but are at a loss as to how to stop it. they miss each other, but being near just doesn't seem to work anymore.

it's so impossibly hard for them both to navigate this.

[fountainpenguin]

Riddle's Traffictober - Batch 4

The final Traffictober one-shots are up on my AO3! Happy November!

Full series - Find full list and tags here

Batch 1 Post - Traffictobers 1 to 7

Batch 2 Post - Traffictobers 8 to 14

Batch 3 Post - Traffictobers 15 to 21

These are Gen and T-rated Traffic SMP fanfics (one-shots) of various lengths. Give 'em a look if you think you may enjoy:

22 - “The Children of Dust and Ashes” (Link) - [NW AU] - 16-year-old Scott is caught off guard when his bandmate Impulse gets possessed by the soul of an ancient builder who really, really liked cherry wood. Impulse hurls Scott's axe off a cliff.

Secret Life - Neighborhood Watch AU retelling of Secret Life Episode 1 for Gem & The Scotts... The trio are 16 and Skizz is 18, and they take shelter after witnessing a zombie outbreak in a nearby village.

23 - “Blurring the Lines” (Link) - Young Scar reflects on his life in the Clocker family... and works through his feelings about his mom's new "soulmate" and his dad's new "fishing buddy."

Limited Life - A Scar-centric contemporary suburban AU [No death game] based around the Clocker family, with references to events and roleplay from the other Life series.

This was my first take on Neighborhood Watch AU, but it's just a standalone now. Still cute and seems to be a fan favorite, which I'm satisfied with <3

24 - “Hey Mumbo wtf?” (Link) - Since eating Grian's soul, Mumbo's started growing gemstone wings. Local wing admirer of an ex-husband can't help but notice.

Server Hub - On the 288th anniversary of Netty's last logout, the Bad Boys cheer Martyn with a night on the town. On his way out, he crosses paths with Mumbo for the first time since they roleplayed as husbands on Last Life. Affectionately awkward reunions are had.

Also a study in making settings feel alive and populated. Pretty happy with it!

25 - “You Can Sleep While I Drive” (Link) - Drabbles about one member of each Double Life soulmate pair watching the other sleep.

Double Life - Cozy beds in the napping story, where everyone is sleeping. It's a whole lot of fluff, unless you're Impulse threatening to get your husband TP'd to the other side of the map or you're Scott who's convinced his soulmate is cheating on him.

26 - “Dear Future Captain” (Link) - Bdubs and Martyn try teaching SnifferMyFeet how to fly. This is followed by Martyn filing an incident report because he ripped out Jellie's soul and came this close to dropping her in the Void.

Server Hub - I don't really have a good reason for this one- I just enjoy phantom hybrid flock drama and it made me laugh. Chapter 1 is up now and it will be 2 or 3 in total.

27 - “Enter Mr. Littlewood” (Link) - [NW AU] The Clocker kids pester Martyn with questions... most notably, "Are you divorced?" and "If you're Mom's 'one true soulmate,' how come she had us with Etho?"

Neighborhood Watch AU - Direct sequel to "Scary Stories For Young Fox Hybrids."

28 - “Birdwatcher” (Link) - Grian has an affair that flicks his soul wings on. Scar confronts him and Grian whips out the gaslighting. A confused Scar picks up the pieces left behind.

Double Life - Grian and Scar aren't dating. They're just soulmates. Grian is quick to remind Scar about this. It's not cheating to pursue other options when you're just roommates, right? Geez...

This one's a particular favorite; I love the motion and dialogue <3

29 - “Wake Me Up When Last Life Ends” (Link) - Scott works late and misses dinner. Again. He and Jimmy have a serious talk about their relationship.

Break up with the server hub admin at your own risk (ft. Mean Gals movie night).

30 - “The Leftovers” (Link) - Martyn and Cleo spend the night at Box, which - by law and by will - is now their base. Martyn makes one last appeal urging Cleo to take him back. Cleo sets him straight.

Double Life - I write a lot about pixel people phasing through each other because they don't have love hearts / hitbox collision. Now that we're at the end of Traffictober, here's a fluffy story about Cleo purposely eating golden carrots so she can carry a sleeping Martyn down the stairs.

I've been wanting to write this one since before I started Traffictober, but kept pushing it off... It came out better than I could have hoped and it's definitely a personal favorite. "You don't even know me" Cleo, my beloved <3

31 - “Closed Door Policy” (Link) - Two naked and scared individuals seek shelter at a non-anarchy server hub. One is a soul ripped out of his own body. The other is a dragon.

Pre-Canon - A glimpse at the early days of the New Star Station portal hub. Scott helps Etho take in two injured refugees... Chapter 1 is up, will probably be 3 or 4 chapters total.

My Traffictober challenge is complete at 226k words! I think my October writing comes out to be 250k if we include the Dog's Life chapter updates too. I'm really proud of what I've done and it's great to have a win under my belt after not feeling my best for a while.

Happy with it, back to our regularly scheduled programming soon, and I hope you all enjoyed! 💚 💛 ❤️

[typenonsense]

@ ur post about a clethubs polycule with many relationships in it... can we see the chart? i love a good polycule chart that looks like a complicated molecular structure

here it is!! I kinda went overboard with it because I was Ambitious and wanted to include as many relationships/dynamics as possible. and also uhh anything for the bit

Lizzie and Mumbo aren’t in here because I couldn’t figure out how to include them and what connections to give them :((( and people like Gem, Pearl, and Scar don’t have many connections because I’m lazy and also didn’t know what to give them haha

but also if you have any suggestions or ideas to make this bigger and/or better PLEASEEEE (also if some of this is hard to read or understand, tell me and I’ll make an image ID, but I can’t promise it’ll be any less confusing shavsjshhs)

notes about some of my decisions under the cut if you want to hear them:

Ren and Tango’s siblings and roommates relationship comes from session 6 of secret life, when Ren is on Tango’s account, and I felt an impulse to connect them in some way, especially since I’m saying Ren is ‘missing’ here. the roommates connection comes from me joking that Ren was just hiding in Tango’s attic (since he’s missing), and them being siblings is from Ren being mistaken for Tango quite easily, except with a different voice. These are both more jokes though or at least more lighthearted. If I do write this au, I might not include these haha and just have Ren actually missing

yes, Cleo and Martyn are still together because I thought it’d be funny. and the drama.

Scar and Grian are fine haha. or at least they will be. I just like how their dynamic throughout the series isn’t all sunshine and roses and wanted to include that a little!!

really wanted to put something between Jimmy and Martyn but couldn’t figure out what. coworkers?? I dunno

I was originally gonna do lines as well for Tango and Skizz’s tiers but then I drew a few and decided that would make this chart truly impossible to read .. + it’s unrequited (well, they’re just kinda desperate in a way that’s Only Them) + there’s two of them

the people in tier 2 are based off of Team BEST, Team TIES, and Team BITES. Cleo’s in tier 3 because she was originally teamed with them at the start of secret life

and yeah Big B’s not apart of the polycule yet because Tango and Skizz ‘looking for a third’ is wonderful to me (and if I do go through with the Ren and Tango thing, imagine that your crush’s exboyfriend who he thinks is missing is hiding in your attic. AND Martyn is still looking for Ren here and if I also say Jimmy’s his partner as a private eye that makes it even funnier because imagine the person you’re looking for is living in YOUR HOUSE)

don’t ask me why I included roommates and band members but not ‘friends’. just assume most people are friends dhshshhs

ALSO with Scott’s exes, the relationships aren’t necessarily romantic, I just use relationships as a term to say ‘oh, they’re important to one another’, but most of the relationships on here you can assume are romantic haha

[faffodil]

Okay so I've seen the lists of 'which empire would the mc ppl be in' going around, and I thought why not do ALL OF THEM

This took not as long as I thought actually

If there's anyone missing they're probably at the bottom, but if not just ask (either for them to be added to the idk list, or give a suggestion as to where they should be too)

Alternate suggestions of where ppl should be are also helpful :D

(Also, I do keep updating this so just check you're reading the most recent version)

Servers included so far (there are some overlaps) :

Last Life

Hermitcraft

Dsmp

Bear smp

Origins

Empires (duh)

Cod Empire:

Grian - Advisor - because it'd be funny, and he'd have to deal with all the diplomatic problems Jimmy causes, and he looks like a cod.

Jimmy - Codfather

Wilbur - Regular citizen/bard? - again, looks like a cod, calls Jimmy 'Mr Gaming'

Tommy - citizen - spends about half his time here and half in the Overgrown, lives with Wilbur

Charlie - citizen -  literally a slime

Boomer - citizen - frog man

Jevin - citizen - slime man 2

Petezahhutt - for the 4/4 slime people

Crystal Cliffs:

Gem - Head Wizard

Karl - History Teacher at the Academy - because I think it'd be funny to have a time-traveler as a History teacher & it'd fit with the magic aspect

Niki - Runs a bakery with Eret - idk I think she'd make a good witch/wizard. Used to live in the Ocean Empire but moved to the crystal cliffs to attend the Academy, met Eret and started a bakery together

Eret - Bakery with Niki - see above, but has always lived in the crystal cliffs

Skeppy - citizen - bc made of diamonds?

Bad - citizen - probably helps out at the Academy but not sure yet

Moonzy - citizen - fairy + the amethyst crystals

Sniff - Builder - originally from the Undergrove

Gilded Helianthia:

Pearl - Queen

Cleo - Advisor - fighting a demon? Totally something cleo would encourage

Techno - Farmer - let the man farm his potatoes in peace PLEASE, would probably also be completely behind fighting a demon for fun

Ponk - Orchardist - lemon tree :)

Joe of the Hills variety - citizen - just a guy TM, kinda lines up with Pearl not being the most regal of the rulers, also for the Joe + cleo duo

(o!)Schlatt - for the brewery, (o! bc when I thought about origins schlatt he was about 70% easier to put in an Empire than c!schlatt)

Grimlands:

Fwhip - Ruler

Fruitlegs - bard - idk just instinct again

Zedaph - scientist - I wanted team Z I T in the same place, sue me

Impulse - citizen - has the same demon wings as fwhip honestly my only reasoning atm

Tango - Explosives expert - bc last life >:)

Mumbo - Domestic Redstone technician - would probably also be part of the Deepslate-Redstone cult or whatever was happening with that

Iskall - citizen - used to live in the crystal cliffs but left as soon as he could cause of all the diorite (suggested by @/gumy-shark)

Sam - Security Redstone technician - bc prison

Doc - Redstone again - SAM DOC COUSINS ARC let's goooo

Tubbo - Redstone apprentice - switches between learning all the types of redstone, currently most interested in the explosives

Sally - bc salmon sanctuary

Lost Empire:

Joey - Ruler

Scar - my first thought was 'yea scar would definitely get lost' and my second was 'he also wouldn't go in the crystal cliffs bc they do Actual magic there (sorry scar). Also I think Joey would support his plans to scam people from the other empires

Quackity  - owner of a casino (arcade?) - again: scamming ppl, also has wings like joey? Idk kinda an instinct one

Ant - citizen - he is literally one of the cat people

Evil X - c a p i t a l i s m   p o g

Beau - vibes again I'm not sure

Xornoth - friends with EX

Mezalea:

Joel - King

Bdubs - Builder - brain went: moss

Sapnap - citizen- bc he likes killing animals

Billzo - citizen - partly for the pranks aspect, partly because his skeleton skin reminds me of the clones somehow

Eryn - citizen - reminds me of sapnap so they can go in the same empire

xB - citizen - joel would definitely endorse horse head farms

Hypno - citizen - ^

Mythland:

Sausage - Ruler

BigB - citizen

Punz - Assassin

Purpled - Trainee Assassin

Wels - Head Knight - spends most of his time wrangling micheal

Micheal(mcchill) - Knight - often trying to run away from Wels and his duties

Jonah - also a Knight under Wels, but far better behaved

Skizz - citizen

Ocean Empire:

Lizzie -  Ocean Queen

Ren - Advisor - I just couldn't imagine ren anywhere else after last life

Puffy - Captain of a trade ship that visits Mezalea, Ocean Empire, Swamp empire, Mythlands and Pixandria - its her name, I had to

Neptune - treasure hunter who joined Puffys ship. Edit: just realised his name fits too XD

Xisuma - citizen - he's an axolotl what do you want from me

Sneeg - partly just the vibes, partly bc of his obsession with tridents and axolotls. Maybe he's the axolotl trainer

Overgrown:

Guqqie - citizen - fell from the sky into the ocean and no-one questioned it (but to be fair when your queen is a 10 foot blue axolotl, an alien isn't particularly unusual)

Katherine - Head of House Blossom

Tommy (only half the time) - Random kid who keeps annoying Katherine (not a citizen) - you can't tell me it's not funny to have them have a rivalry over the 'just killed a woman' thing. Hc that Katherine accidentally died the first time they met, but then Tommy said that and Katherine was like 'welp, guess I'm enemies with a child now'

Hannah - citizen - people keep headcanoning her as a fairy cause of the elytra, so she'd definitely fit with the flower fairy theme

Tina - citizen - what I've seen of her reminds me of Katherine

Hbomb - built a cat cafe and visits niki in the crystal cliffs to swap recipes. There have been reports of a certain cat maid terrorizing the Undergrove but no-one from the Overgrown will admit to anything

James Marriot - bookshop on the same road as the cat cafe. As a result he visits there fairly often and encourages H

Pixandria:

Stress - apothecary - bc healing + flowers

Pix - Copper King

Foolish - Builder - he is literally a totem god who lives in the desert and has lightning powers and two totem children what more do you need? Also he has a riverboat and ferries the resources to trade with Puffy cause Pixandria is actually pretty far from the sea

Cub - terraformer - bc dripstone

Ori - citizen - another god/prophet would fit right in, surely?

Rivendell:

Scott Smajor - Ruler

Etho - citizen - idk Rivendell just gives me the vibes that you could be as isolated as you want in the mountains, while still in an Empire and i feel like etho fits that

Callahan - Servant of Aeor - again, isolated, but also deer things

Phil - Builder - isolated, Arctic Empire things, avian things idk

Ranboo - citizen - Tall people things, would vaguely fit in with the elf population, snow doesn't hurt as much as water does, has pretty much only lived in snow biomes (snowchester, anarchist commune)

Jack Manifold - citizen - neighbours with scott

False - owl trainer - because I decided so (cause of the big birb she built)

Undergrove:

Shrub - Ruler

Martyn? - citizen - not sure about this one, I think I put him here cause the whole fleeing-from/targeted-by-the-watchers thing in last life fits with shrub running away from xornoth

George - citizen - bc Mushrooms

Fundy - citizen - wolves->foxes, also seems like a safe haven for Yoghurt and Ketchup

Bearbubb - citizen - bc hobbit hole style builds. Lives in a house in the hills surrounding the Undergrove

TFC - citizen by association - doesn't live in the Undergrove as such but often spends more time around there due to their respect for nature (also mushroom house season 8 :D)

Aimsey - citizen - just turned up one day and made friends with Bear

Undecided as of yet:

Connor

Dream

Keralis

Beef

Suggestions are very welcome! [All] of the people left are the ones who I don't watch so I'm completely stuck

Edit: THE LIST IS SHRINKING!! 5 TO GO

Edit 2: ..okay so maybe the list is growing again whoops. (Also I forgot jack and H so they're actually there now)

Edit 3: Nvm I sorted them all already!! And got it down to 4!

Edit 4: somehow a bunch of them goy messed up, fixed now

[mayflowers07]

Some fun facts and behind the scene notes about the ICBTOYC series because the next update is taking a bit longer then I would like, so here’s something to hold down the fort:

The title of the series comes from a lyric in the song Brother by NEEDTOBREATHE and Gavin DeGraw. It’s sort of the theme song of the series in my eyes and if you check out the song, you’ll understand why

Actually all of the fics have a song that inspired it. For most fics, the song’s lyrics ended up in the title, but some didn’t- Doc’s is Brother by Matt Corby, Iskall’s is Belong by X Ambassadors, Etho’s is False Confidence by Noah Kahn, Keralis’ is Two by Sleeping at Last, Cub’s is Guillotine by Jon Bellion, False’s is The Fixer by Brent Morgan, and Zedaph’s is Dreamland by Glass Animals

My favourite quote from the whole series so far is a tie “Apolllo you bitch, I never wanted this gift of prophecy. Take it back you coward” and “Mumbo tried to stop him and Ren just straight up barked at him, Mumbo looks so offended”

Some very early foreshadowing that may have been missed is that in Iskall’s fic, they say that Jevin doesn’t go with them to the party because he doesn’t like big public spaces. Jevin doesn’t like those spaces because- as we learn in his story- he hates his body and constantly feels different and judged

Speaking of Jevin’s fic, in it Wels says “we all have our own demons” and Hypno says “your brain has a way of distorting the world against you,” both of which are foreshadowing their own stories later on

In Cleo’s fic, False tells her “I’d give you all the time in the world if you needed it.” This is a direct quote of what Xisuma tells False in her fic, showing how what Xisuma told her and how he helped her really stuck with her and how she wanted to help Cleo in the same way

Yes, I do have the fics for Pearl and Gem planned out. It might just take a bit before we get there

Many people noted that ‘Zed’ was acting out of character in Hypno’s fic, but eagle-eyed readers may have been able to figure out that it was actually Ex before the reveal because Ex (under the disguise of Zed) tells Hypno in chat “you need help and I can’t be the one to give it to you” which is very very similar to when he told Zed in his fic “You need help from people who can give you what you need, constant support and love. I’m really not in a position to be that friend for you.”

The whole thing with Helsknight’s first episode did actually happen in this AU, it just never made it into the main series because no one used the code during it. The reason Wels didn’t use the code during it was because he was scared that no one was going to answer if he did, just like last time. This is also why Wels is so quick to trust Ex, because he thinks Ex is Xisuma’s Hels equivalent and Hels hermits are basically the darkest, most hidden away part of a person’s mind. Wels thinks X is the best person he knows, and there’s no way X could be that evil, so Ex can’t be that bad himself. Neither the assumption that Ex is a Hels Hermit, nor the assumption that Xisuma doesn’t have dark, twisted thoughts is correct.

Here are some alternative versions of stories that I almost wrote before I changed them for whatever reason: Keralis’ was going to be about him feeling like the other Hermits assume he’s stupid and getting upset by this before I fully started fleshing out the Ex storyline and decided to link it in, Scar was going to be the Vex fic instead of Cub, False’s was about her getting struck by lightning and nearly dying during MCC training and Cub having to use the code for her then feeling guilty about what happened in a two-parter (this idea later developed into Joe’s and Cleo’s), and Hypno’s went through many changes, first being about him feeling forgotten and alone because of a prank someone played on him, then being about him having a psychotic disorder and experiencing depersonalization and derealization

The reason Beef’s fic went how it did was because I knew I wanted a Canadian to get hypothermia for the irony but I had already picked Etho’s prompt so it ended up being Beef, which I think is hilarious

And in Beef’s fic, the reason he says his favourite song is Here Comes the Sun by the Beetles is because of the lyrics “Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter, Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here” and “Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting. Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear.” Think of this as gentle foreshadowing from me that everything was going to be okay by the end: the winter may have seemed cold and lonely and almost deadly for Beef but the sun was going to eventually come and a happy ending was on the horizon

3rd life is canon in this world but because it’s a permadeath AU, instead of it being a murder game, it’s essentially a giant game of lazar tag

My favourite fics in the series are Beef’s (was super fun to write) and Mumbo’s (still relatable af and a message I often have to remind myself)

[votederpycausemufins]

Just about everyone is back together. There’s only a few minor concerning things happening. I’m sure it’s fine.

@petrichormeraki and @helleborusangel

Bad had taken Grian and Jrum back to Jrum’s section of his house, helping plug the bot into his charger. Grian couldn’t find a chair immediately, so he just quickly built one, leaving Bad blinking in surprise.

“So, I don’t think I introduced myself. I’m Grian, one of Jrum’s dads.” And he held out a hand while fumbling for his comm with the other. 

Bad shook Grian’s hand hesitantly. “I’m BadBoyHalo, or just Bad. I adopted Jrum while you weren’t showing up.”

“Yeah, Tommy sent me a message about that earlier.”

“Wait so that really was Tommy we saw earlier? He’s not dead?”

Grian shook his head. “No. He’s been living with us and some friends in a different world for a bit now.”

“Oh… then… he’s not going to like hearing some bad news.”

Grian tilted his head, worried. “Why? What happened?”

“Just after those two showed up,” Bad gestured to Jrum. “A message showed up that Tubbo died and he didn’t respawn.”

Grian leaned back in his chair. “Oh, no he’s alive too. My guess is your admin lied to you so you wouldn’t question his disappearance. Philza and Techno have also been away, so anything you’ve heard about them is probably also false.”

“Wait… so if they haven’t been here, who’s dealing with Ghostbur?”

“Who’s that?”

“Phil’s son Wilbur. He died but came back as a ghost and now he goes by Ghostbur.”

Grian looked down at the ground. “Right… Wil’s dead…”

That took Bad off guard. “Did you two know each other?”

“Yeah. Yeah we did. But I hadn’t seen him in years.” Grian then distracted himself by reading his comm finally. “Well it looks like I’ve missed a lot.”

<MumboJumbo> Found EX. He’s seen both the boys. Jrum’s got a nylium problem and Grum is… 

<MumboJumbo> I think I want to throw up.

<Tubbo_> Tommy and I were sort of kidnapped by Dream, and I think he also did something to Ranboo.

<Tubbo_> but we’re out now and have Grum. I’ve also got Michael.

[Eyes] Current X-S, Y-S, Z-S

[Eyes] End X-F, Y-F, Z-F

<EvilXisuma> What do you mean Tommy is with you? He’s with me.

<EvilXisuma> give me an answer!

<Ph1LzA> I found Ranboo, but he’s got no clue what happened.

<Ph1LzA> no sign of Dream either.

<EvilXisuma> fuck

<EvilXisuma> that’s got to be Theseus with Tubbo, and he’s going after Dream to try and revive his version of him.

<Tubbo_> Hi! We’re fine now! Mumbo found us, though uh, Theseus and Dream are gone now.

<EvilXisuma> that’s… mostly okay. Has anyone heard from Grian or that pig guy.

<Grian> hey! I’m here! I found Jrum and he’s doing okay now! Though just to get things out in the open, I do not quite remember how.

<Grian> whatever was possessing him is gone now though. Still trying to deal with the angry parent who adopted him.

<Grian> How’s Tommy doing btw?

<EvilXisuma> he’s still not awake.

<Grian> any chance you can bring him here? I’ve got Jrum charging and I think we should all meet up in one place.

<EvilXisuma> Pretty sure the giant thing in this place is also a charger though.

<Grian> It did sound like the boys were split up, so that makes sense. Can you still come over here?

<EvilXisuma> Fine, but only because you blacked out before

Grian sent his coordinates and then set his comm down. Then he started crying. Jrum’s condition had been bad enough and the fact that he still seemed upset at him without the plants controlling the bot hurt Grian. And then Mumbo’s reaction to just hearing about Grum without seeing him was terrifying. What had they done to his kids?

His wings flared open when a large hand touched him and he glared up to see the blurry form of the demon that was helping him. “Don’t touch me right now.”

“Just trying to make sure you were alright.”

“I’m not. My kids are… they’ve… it just hurts. It’s only been a few days but they’ve been alone for months and I couldn’t do anything! At least when they were stuck where we first built them we could visit, but even with everything I have, I couldn’t get in.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you- Have you ever heard of the Watchers?”

There was a slight hum as Bad thought. “Yes, though I haven’t really looked into them. I just know they’re really powerful and occasionally interact with various worlds.”

“Well, I’m that. And I’ve been trained as an admin. And based on what I have learned in the past few days, my mom is literally death, so that’s fun.”

“Is that related to you being able to kill the egg?”

Grian let out a short laugh. “No. That’s uh, Mother Spore. She tried using my body as a host, I tried killing her, we have a bit of a stalemate now.”

“You’re not going to-”

“It’s fine. It helped, didn’t it?” Grian asked.

Bad nodded, it had indeed ended up helping them. “Just making sure it doesn’t cause more of the same.”

Grian nodded before looking back over to Jrum. He was currently in sleep mode as he charged which was fine, but Grian still wished the bot was awake. His eyes then fell on Jrum’s empty arms. He checked his inventory and was glad to find one of the backups on him, so he pulled out a faux diamond block and carefully put it in Jrum’s arms. The bot stirred slightly, but then hugged the toy when it was in his arms.

“Oh, you have another one of those?”

Grian nodded. “Yeah. Jrum and I were out one day and found a trader selling them. We got eight of them for an emerald and a real diamond block.”

Bad’s eyes widened. “You must really love him if you’d spend that much.”

“It’s not actually that much to me, but I would have gladly spent more if it would make him happy.”

Bad nodded and then went over to a chest and pulled out an identical toy that seemed to have been dyed red. “Here, this is the one he had before. He got upset when it turned red. The egg was able to change blue things red and red things to white.”

Grian nodded and took the toy. “I’m pretty sure I can fix this. Just not until we get back to Hermitcraft. I’m pretty spent right now and still need to get us back home.”

Then Xannes was suddenly in the room holding Tommy in his arms. “Get me somewhere to put him down.” Bad jumped up and grabbed a bed for them to set Tommy down on while Grian started checking Tommy over. He looked mostly uninjured, but he seemed to have a large scar that hadn’t been there before over his stomach area. Grian carefully tested the area and was glad to see he was at least reacting to what was going on, but not in pain from the new injury.

“How’s he doing?” Xannes asked as Grian continued to look Tommy over.

“Well, him still being unconscious is extremely worrying, but I’m not seeing any physical injuries other than this large scar.”

“He got killed and revived. I didn’t get a good look at what happened, but I would assume that scar is from what killed him.”

Grian nodded, then carefully worked on sitting Tommy up. “Any head injuries?”

“He ended up against a wall, could’ve been slammed there.”

“Good to know.” Grian moved Tommy’s hair around to see if he could spot anything that was hidden. “You said revived?”

“We have a three life system here.” Bad spoke up. “If a death is important enough, we lose a life. After we lose all three, we’re dead for good. Though there are exceptions.”

“Yeah, Tommy mentioned those. Took us a while to convince him we didn’t have that.” Grian looked over to Xannes. “How do people normally react when they’re revived?”

“Normally they’ve got ghost pains for a while and are more violent.” The helsmit explained. “But everyone has a different reaction. I’m also not sure how different this is from hels, plus the fact that it was an instant revival.”

“That’s probably it then.” Grian frowned. “Makes me almost consider trying to contact Ellen. But she might not be around anymore…”

“Who?” Xannes asked, but Grian brushed him off.

“Our best bet is to try and kill him again and let him stay dead for a few minutes before reviving him again. I… It’s not the greatest thing in the world, but it… should work. And he should be linked to this bed.”

“Wait, are you just going to kill him again?” Bad asked, making sure he was really understanding the situation. “That seems like it would make it worse!”

“I know! But it’s probably that he died and got revived quickly enough that his mind or soul or whatever you want to call it didn’t catch up.” He then sighed, noticing his hands trembling and trying to calm them down. “I mean, I still can’t be sure… but again, best bet.”

Xannes looked skeptical, but relented. “Fine, but we try this once. Even if it only sort of works, we’re not trying it again.”

Grian nodded. “Alright, so I’ll just step outside while you do that… okay?”

“What, you’re making me do it?”

“You’re the one with evil in your name.”

“My name is Xannes!”

Grian held up his communicator. “Yeah, but it’s evil on here, and you got to choose that for yourself, so don’t complain.”

Xannes grumbled, but accepted the answer as Grian stepped out of the room.

“Grian finally got back to us.” Tubbo told Mumbo since his hands were still full from carrying Grum. “He’s also got Jrum with him and I’m guessing he’s killed the egg.”

“The what?”

“Uh, a plant that was possessing people.”

“Ah, EX did mention that.” Mumbo nodded. “Anything else?”

“Well he says he doesn’t remember how he did it.”

“Ah, have to talk to him about that once we get back home to ask if it was a conscious decision or not.”

“And Michael, someone found Boo and he’s okay.” Tubbo told the ziglin, who oinked happily. He then read more and looked back to Mumbo. “Still nothing from Techno though, but Grian wants us to meet up with him at some coordinates. Xannes and Tommy seem to have already moved there.”

Mumbo nodded, pausing to heft Grum up a little to readjust his grip on them. “Which way is it from here?”

“It’s on our current path. Closer actually. That’s the location of Bad and Skeppy’s mansion. Technically the house you had us going towards would have been closer, but only because of the trident path.”

“That makes sense.” Mumbo nodded, before noticing something in the distance. “What’s that?”

Tubbo squinted to make it out at first, but then it was obvious what it was to him. “Pandora’s Vault. It’s a prison Dream commissioned. So far it hasn’t been used as far as I’m aware, but obviously a lot has happened, so I’m not sure anymore.”

Mumbo nodded. If there weren’t more pressing matters at hand, he would be curious, since Tommy had said large builds such as that weren’t common on the server if they existed at all. He was still staring at it when Grumbot suddenly stiffened up and he nearly dropped the bot in shock.

Life Counter active. Entity Check TommyInnit. Death: canon. Life counter: Infinite lives remaining. Commence Respawn.

Just as soon as it had happened, Grumbot was back to normal, though trembling again. Mumbo hugged the bot just a little tighter for a moment before looking at Tubbo. “Are you sure there’s not a faster way?”

“The only other option is still boats.”

Mumbo looked down at Grumbot. There was no way for the four of them to all sit in one boat. He couldn’t row since he needed to make sure nothing happened to Grumbot and obviously the robot wasn’t in any condition to row instead. Theoretically they could manage to get the two of them and Tubbo into the boat if Mumbo scrunched up and continued to hold Grumbot in his lap, but that would involve leaving Michael behind since the child couldn’t row a boat on his own.

“Right, okay. Still walking.”

The group continued to travel, Mumbo and Michael both getting spooked by suddenly getting mining fatigue as they got too close to the prison. There was a small river which they were able to cross easily, but a second wider river had them pause as Tubbo built them a bridge. “The mansion is essentially right on the other side of this river. We’ll just be passing the entrance to the prison first.”

“Is it that place made of quartz in the distance?”

“Yeah.” Tubbo answered, before getting a second look at it. “Looks like they got an extension built onto it though. So that’s new.”

“Might be where the others are. You said they were charging Jrum. I saw the one charger in the other house and it had to be built pretty big. That might be where it’s housed.”

Xannes came out in a few minutes to bring Grian back into the room. “I didn’t need to revive him. He respawned naturally, which isn’t a good sign. Because of that, nothing’s changed.”

“A-Are you sure? Nothing at all?”

Xannes rolled his eyes but did his best to keep Grian from spiralling. “Yeah, but that’s just from trying this. We’re still waiting on the others to show up and they should be able to come up with other ideas.”

“R-Right… I guess you’re right.” Grian nodded before going back to his chair.

Bad moved closer to Xannes and whispered to him. “I’m guessing he’s close with Tommy?”

“Obnoxiously so. I’ve heard a number of stories from Jrum about Grian and Tommy doing something together. Honestly not sure how they didn’t realize they were related in the first place.”

“What the muffin?!”

“...Did… Did you just use the word ‘muffin’ as a curse?”

“Maybe I did! Now what do you-” Bad cut himself off to go back to a whisper. “What do you mean they’re related?”

“The two of them are brothers. Not sure the current state in this dimension, but as far as I know, Grian’s a triplet and Tommy’s younger brother to the three. Same parents too.”

“Tommy’s mom is also a fridge?”

This time it was Xannes’ turn to be shocked. “Their mother is a what here?!”

Before much else could be clarified, there was a whine as Jrum woke up. “Stop yellinggggg. I’m sleepyyyy!”

“Jrum! You know that’s no way to act when guests are over.” Bad scolded, but Grian stopped him.

“Let him sleep. Charging in the middle of the day always messes with his sleep schedule.” Then Grian pulled out a certain shiny blue rock. “Besides, it just means he won’t get any diamonds.”

Immediately Jrum was fully awake and jumping off the bed to grab the diamond out of Grian’s hand. “Give give give give give!!!” Grian tried to hold the diamond up in the air, but Jrum just started climbing up him like he was a tree.

“Calm down! I’m not- mmph! Don’t step on my face! Okay fine! Take it!” Grian gave the diamond to Jrum who instantly put it into his inventory. “I’ve never seen that before.”

Now that the diamond was safely in his possession, Jrum realized exactly who was there and went back to his bed with a slight angry frown. “Well what do you expect when you just offer him up a diamond like that?” Bad asked, going over and patting Jrum’s head comfortingly.

“For him to wake up for it. I mean, he did, but the climbing and being very grabby is different.”

“Again, you offered up a diamond. To Jrum. He’s got a love for diamonds that could rival just about anyone. More than once he killed someone just because they hadn’t put their diamonds in their ender chest quite yet so he took them.”

“Jrum!” Grian scolded the bot, who just got angrier.

“Why do you care? You weren’t here.”

“Jrum, I swear we were doing everything we could to find you and Grum. Your daddy and I would never want to lose you. Some bad people just made things really hard for us. But once we could come to find you, so many people wanted to help because they know how much your daddy and I love you and how much you mean to us.”

“But why’d it take so long?! You should’ve figured it out sooner!”

“Well, you know the stories I’ve told you about my time machine, right?” Grian asked, Bad looking over to Xannes and mouthing the words as a question for clarification. “Well, it was like someone took this whole world and put it in the time machine, so that way everything seemed so much longer for you.”

“Well that’s stupid.”

“It is! But now we’re here. And I know you’re upset. You’re upset like I was at your grandpa.”

And that was what got through to Jrum. Back before any of this had happened, when Phil had first arrived and Grian had been upset at the older avian, Jrum was worried about ending up the same way with his dads. He didn’t want that to happen, but now it was starting to. He started crying and mumbling out apologies, but Grian just hugged the bot and rocked him. “It’s okay. You don’t have anything you need to say sorry for. It was scary and we weren’t there. But it’s okay now. It’s okay.”

The door opened up with a slight slam, making everyone there jump. “Oh thank goodness, you’re all here. Along with… a very tall… man?” Mumbo questioned, his previous train of thought already out the window.

“Demon actually.”

“Alright. Now what was I going to say?”

Tubbo poked his head out from behind Mumbo. “We’re back with Grum.”

“Right! Yes that was it!”

“I’ll get another bed.” Bad said, leaving the room to find one. While they waited, Grian and Mumbo met eyes and smiled sadly at each other, glad that at the very least they had their boys back.

“How’s Jrum doing?”

“Okay. Just upset that he was so angry at us.” Grian answered, rubbing the bot’s back for some comfort. “What about Grum?”

Mumbo frowned and looked down at the bot in his arms. “Not good. He’s a mess to the point I’m worried we’d have to…” He trailed off, not wanting to complete the sentence. “The admin ended up abusing the fact that he was a robot, barely treated him like a person. God… he’s in such disrepair just physically, and while Tubbo said he was speaking earlier, he hasn’t said a word since I’ve seen him.”

“Well, maybe once he wakes up, he-” Grian started to suggest, but Mumbo cut him off.”

“No, Grian, he’s been awake the whole trip here.”

Grian’s eyes widened and he shifted to calmly speak to Jrum. “Can I set you down so I can look at your brother?” Jrum shook his head and held Grian tighter. “Alright then.” Part of Grin wanted to push to get Jrum to say yes, but he also knew that that could just find a way to make things worse.

Bad finally returned with a bed and put it down between the two already existing beds. Mumbo tried to put Grumbot down, but the robot refused to let go and they ended up needing to pry it off of the redstoner. They nearly stopped trying when it was enough to get Grum talking, it simply saying ‘no’ a number of times. But still, they needed to get a good look at Grum, and being held in Mumbo’s arms wouldn’t help with that.

For the most part, Grumbot was still the same as when Tubbo had found it. The only difference was the screen flickering back and forth between the one it had been stuck with and its regular face. Also, instead of lying down on the bed normally, the moment Grumbot was on the bed, it curled up into a ball.

It hurt Grian to see his son in such a state. He didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until Mumbo was next to him taking deep breaths for him to follow with. He slowly helped Grian lie down on the bed with Jrum, obvious to the fact that the avian needed rest with everything going on around him.

Xannes pulled Tubbo out of the room at one point, and when they returned, the two of them were accompanied by Phil and Ranboo who talked in hushed tones. When Grian had finally gotten to sleep, Mumbo took Jrum into his arms to discuss things with everyone else.

Tommy pressed his hands against his closed eyes. He hated how sore he felt, but he supposed that’s what happened when you get your last life taken. Then he paused. If he lost his last life, was he alive? Tommy pulled his hands away and opened his eyes. He didn’t look see through, but his skin definitely wasn’t supposed to be ash gray.

He cursed and got out of his bed, looking around. That was his bed, but not from the SMP. The wood around him was all from Grian’s old hobbit hole, and the last place he had slept before… well before everything happened. 

Tommy started looking through chests, glad to find a spare comm in one of the chests. He turned it on and was glad to see it was one of the backups X had made him after the first time he managed to break one. He hadn’t wanted to accept it at first, but apparently a number of the hermits lost or broke their communicators a lot, so he was more willing to take one.

<TommyInnit> Alright, hey guys. Guess who is having a crisis

<TommyInnit> btw, how long has it been since I left?

<GoodtimeswithScar> What seems to be the problem?

<Xisuma> Not that long. Definitely under half an hour.

<TommyInnit> I think I’m dead.

<TommyInnit> I died in the smp and I guess I lost my last life, but I respawned here

<Iskall85> Okay, and?

<TommyInnit> Well I didn’t respawn right. I look like I came out of some of those photos Grian had of demise.

<Rendog> black and white?

<TommyInnit> Skin yes, clothes no. blood is currently blue.

<Xisuma> I’m on my way over

<StressMonster> Does it hurt?

<TommyInnit> I mean, I’m sore? But not really. It’s not raining, right?

<joehillssays> nah, you’ll be fine Tommy

<TommyInnit> Okay.

<TommyInnit> panickign more now

<TommyInnit> i cna;t fucking get outside

<ZombieCleo> Someone blocked the door?

<TommyInnit> np. Nothing theere.

Tommy had tried going outside, but ended up running into something invisible. He tested it and found it was just a sort of invisible wall in front of the door. He remembered Xannes making something similar to trap dream in, so for a moment he thought it was the helsmit's doing. So Tommy broke a hole into the wall and tried going through that. But he just ran into another invisible wall. Had it been just outside where he mined, he would just be upset, but this time it was right in the space where he mined. He tried not to panic too much, but it was hard not to.

<TommyInnit> i’m jus stuck

<TommyInnit> help

[sweetest-honeybee]

I saw your reply to the person that left the ask about you shipping in the HC fandom and, if you don't continue To Hell and Back, would you give us a summary of what was going to happen or how the story would have continued/ended?

Oh sure! I actually had a few different ideas for the events that led up to it, but eventually Hels and EX become like....the new Lords of Darkness? Not the way the Lord was, much more tolerable, nice even, but the Lord gets defeated and they’re like together and whatnot and it’s wonderful actually.

Now, can’t quite remember where exactly I left off with updates, I think it was where Xisuma was possessed and ended up dying and Hels/EX/Keralis got back to hermitcraft? So I’ll go from there

Btw this includes mentions of character death, fighting, being crushed by falling chandeliers, some angst, possession, etc.

EX and Hels visit the good ol uh....clinic that totally exists in Hermitcraft bc I needed a place and I’m bad at writing and didn’t think a bout the fact that bases exist XD I had this chapter where Joe was kinda helping them out, EX being a pessimist about it and at some point, good ol Hels confesses that he’s honestly terrified of dying. EX laughs but agrees, a sappy crying scene ensues but it’s not but moments later that the knight does say “I love you”

While this is happening, Xisuma is so fucking confused but he catches on quickly from communicator messages. After a shaken discussion with Keralis, he proposes they build the obsidian and glow stone portal that he had gone through before in this one Evil X episode bc he has a hunch it might lead to HelsCraft.

Why he thinks so, he’s not sure. Could actually be the Lord helping him out there.

So, they do. They build it.

But while THAT is happening, Wels wakes up in HelsCraft while Doc/Impulse are meeting BadTimes and Hex. He doesn’t know this until he goes and talks with NPG (NPC Grian) who was crowned the new Champion. Wels is also very confused but still determined to get home again. He asks NPG to help him home because he can generate portals or show him to one he can use but before the NPC can answer, Wels becomes possessed by the Lord again. The Lord questions NPG, asking if he actually considered disobeying him and helping Wels but NPG says no.

Just in time for Doc, Impulse, BadTimes, and Hex (Evil Mumbo) to bust through the castle doors (they’re in a HelsCraft version of Grian’s castle/mansion so the others weren’t too far away at Hex’s base). The Lord, in Wels’s body, threatens and attempts to attack BadTimes but doesn’t notice that he’s in the center of the room under (bare with me here, it can look different inside this version of the mansion) this chandelier. Hex fires a molten arrow and the chain holding it up snaps and drops onto Wels. Wels dies and the Lord is left standing in the room.

Apparently NPG changes his mind. (Wels actually said something beforehand to make him consider before he got possessed again) So, he keeps all the guards from, attacking the four by the door and opens a portal for them. They go the the Lord is furious. He threatens NPG abut alas, the NPC isnt from HelsCraft so the Lord couldn’t use him and posess him (it was something I was gonna elaborate on but never did)

The get to HC, BadTimes and Hex immediately see Keralis and Xisuma and pull out their weapons upon seeing X (they, like everyone else in Hels, knows that the Lord has been using him). He proves he’s not possessed and they request that Scar and Mumbo be at the shopping district so that the Lord doesn’t punish them while they were out of reach. So, Scar and Mumbo arrive, they’re both incredibly confused. Doc and Impulse get Wels from his home so now everyone is in the shopping district that needs to be there.

NPG arrives through the portal and asks where EX and Hels were. He goes to visit them despite their initial reactions to seeing him (They’re both simultaneously terrified and angry). NPG uses his own power to kind of recharge Hels and EX (bc EX had started to have Hels’s symptoms) and so they gain these new characteristics, these outfits or whatever, I’ve drawn them lol

He also does this for Joe and Beef bc he wants help from the Hermits (after being given their own abilities from NPG) to get rid of the Lord. So, they agree.

This is where I stopped writing actually, I haven’t continued after this for months 😅 So here’s where that was gonna go.

Xisuma and Wels get possessed again. Mumbo and Scar do as well for a minute but NPG does this weird magic thing that ptrects them from it but he can’t do it for X and Wels bc they’ve been used quite a bit.

Xisuma, possessed by the Lord, kills off Keralis. So there’s that. Don’t worry, he respawned just fine lol

Eventually, more hermits arrive, they get powers, Grian is very confused and also kinda pissed at NPG but I mean who isn’t right now. The Lord arrives and he comes wielding his powers and turns X and Wels into these HelsCraft soldiers, I actually have designs for this I want to draw. And he can summon other little demons and imp looking things to fight as well.

Blah blah blah, cue epic moment before the fight where Hels and EX hold hands (omg so cute lol) and look all determined in their new little outfits whatnot and so the fight begins.

There’s not much detail to it because I’ve had SEVERAL ideas for how this fight goes down.

I’m talkin Hex and BadTimes go back to HelsCraft, seemingly just abandoning everyone and they all get mad but they show up later with every HelsCraft hermit (all the evils) and they help out bc they hate the Lord.

OR Hels and EX defeat the lord, but when the lord dies, everything within 100 feet turns to obsidian and Hels and/or EX turns to obsidian. Cue angst.

OR Xisuma or Wels kills EX and/or Hels. Cue angst. (My fave is X killing of EX)

Btw angst is temporary. Happy endings ensue bc the magic of ✨true love✨

OR all the hermits have an epic moment of power combination and it just fucking disintegrates the Lord.

OR the simple Hels and EX defeat the Lord and all ends with snazzy new outfits/armor for every hermit, Hels/EX are fitted with fancy armor and some crowns, and they just kinda.....kiss or sumn at the end bein all happy and now they’re both Lords I guess

Just depends on my mood lol but I don’t mind if y’all like the idea of alternative endings lol but yeah that’s pretty much the story! I think I didn’t miss anything?

[windfighter]

Apparently we're fighting the hermits now? Okay then, I'll go too!

Keralis - Keralis is great at escaping and I am great at missing. We'd be in a stalemate until he realizes he can fight back. He'd call me sweetface and ask why I'm doing it and I'd die from regret (or from a creeper that sneaks up on us while we're fighting). He has a pretty but punchable face. Might fight him, but would rather just tour his base. 3/10

Rendog - Have you seen his wrestler-skin? I stand no chance, but maybe I can use the opportunity to unlock hidden background lore for my own character. 5/10 because we always need more lore

False - No one raises a sword against the queen. 0/10 but I'll enjoy watching her fight the rest of you.

Ex-eye-suma - People say he's punchable but I just want to hug him. 0/10 because even if I tried he'd just look at me and I'd put away my sword again.

cubfan135 - Mr 135 fan of the cub has it coming. I love him but holy carp does his grinding put the rest of us to shame. 8/10 I would get completely destroyed but it would be worth it.

B of the double of the O - This man is feral. He carries knives hidden under his shirt every day. Little does he know I also always carry hidden knives. Our defeat will be mutual and everyone watching will wonder what happened. 4/10 because I don't actually want to fight someone with that much feral energy.

Beef - Would fight him only because the shaders. Would proceed to get completely destroyed. 7/10

Mr Goodtimes - I would win but at what cost? At least he would laugh in confusion while it all goes down. HIs laugh would distract me and his right hand enemy bdubs would come in and slay me at the last second. Oh looks lite I didn't win after all. 0/10

Tango - This man regulary handles ravagers. No way in Hel I'm fighting that. I'd try and he'd sick his iron golem/ravager army on me. My only hope of escape is that the ravagers and iron golems get distracted by each other. 4/10 because at least it'd be an amazing sight watching that army march against me.

Iskall - We'd both be too busy laughing our asses off at the squeakies on top of pacific. Also they're a former hitman and I can't even hit a bale of hay. 0/10 would much rather just hang out with them

Impulse - Would absolutely fight. I'm going to deck him so he finally gets some sleep. Will challenge him to a pillow fight in hopes that it'd help. He would build a pillow fight minigame and proceed to completely wreck me. I will lose but at least there'll be a new minigame for everyone to try. 10/10

Grian - Not as feral as bdubs, but definately chaotic. I stand absolutely no chance and when I try to fly away I'll wreck myself against a wall. Our battle will be quick, unspectacular and forgetable. There's no reason for such a battle. 0/10

Welsnight - Something about him makes me want to fight him, no matter how awesome he is. He will defeat me twice - once in battle and once with a great disstrack. What did I do to deserve that? I'll love him for it. 6/10

Mumbo - Only one I stand a chance at defeating because even if he's secretly buff he's a disaster and a spoon and he'd be distracted enough by something for me to land the killing blow. If we fight near his redstone machinery I will lose tho, because I'd be too busy trying to see what's going on. On the plus-side he'd be too busy explaining it to actually fight me. 0/10 because there wouldn't even be a fight.

ZombieCleo - No, just no. She would kill me with her sarcasm and I would thank her (and then she'd proceed to kill me with her sword just to get my head). 2/10 because it would be fun to see my head in her armor stand scenes.

Etho - Ladders might not be as good at PvP as he once was (his own words) but I have never actually done PvP and I can barely defeat a zombie. He would stand still and I would miss him. He would teleport away and then proceed to headshot me wih a firework. 4/!0 because at least my demise will be colorful

Joe Hills - We'd start fighting then it'd turn into a poem writing marathon. He'll tell me I made a good attempt at rhyming and then teach me about the history of poetry. I didn't know I was interested in that but I can't stop listening. His dogs will tear me apart while I'm distracted. 7/10 because honestly poem writing marathon with Mr Hills sounds like a great time even if it will kill me.

Zedaph - eeeeeh... I'd try but then Tango will arrive to either help him or help me and I'm not prepared to take that chance. There is also a chance that Zedaph just straight up feeds me to Bone Apetite and I'm not sure how good my remains are for bonemeal. 1/10

Hermitcraft recap - will absolutely fight. I have no chance because they will tagteam me and I can't even hit the broad side of a barn in daylight. They might be too busy with making the next recap show and that'll allow me to take them, but that would be dirty and I would rather not. 9/10 because it'll be pretty hilarious.

[writing-the-end]

LoL Chapter 49- The Underground

Masterpost

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

Ecto belongs to @cooler-cactus-block (new computer and I still can’t fuckin at you)

Turns out the hermits aren’t the only ones who wish to get rid of Magistrate Dolios.

____________________________________

Etho drops into the canal below, water rippling without a single drop to disturb the silent cave. Heterochromatic eyes rove across the dark, dank tunnel, waving one hand for the others to follow. Scar comes next, much less gracefully as he misses the last rung and tumbles into the canal with a heavy splash. 

They were beneath the noble district of the city. Grown above the canals like most of Milliara, they built up beyond the lifeblood of Lairyon. Left it behind, to pass through in these underwater canals, until they lead to a fountain, messenger canal, or the rest of the city.

Once Xisuma’s boots are in the water, he sloshes forward without pause. He knows who he saw, he’s just not sure if he believes it. Ex never gets involved with anything. He always waits, watches from the sidelines. When X wanted to fight, it was Ex that stayed behind. When X wanted to be a guild, Ex went on his own. 

He continues on, following the distance sound of scraping and scuffling, harsh against the soft patter of water and trickle of running water. Xisuma rounds the corner, white light reflecting in the distance off the damp walls. He’s so focused on the light at the end he doesn’t notice the movement in the shadows. At least, not until it’s too late. 

A warm hand claps over Xisuma’s mouth, muffling any attempt for him to cry out. Another arm drags him into the darkness, and a wave of fear keeps Xisuma from trying to escape. A warm, low voice growls in his ear, full of menace. “You had your chance, now let the big kids play.” 

“Tris, we’re just supposed to stop the guard, not-” A second, similar voice fractures through the darkness, and Xisuma notices a lock of pink hair, bright against the stone wall. 

“I’m Nightshade!” The one holding Xisuma snaps, loosening his grip on him. “Do you want half the city to know who we are?”

Xisuma manages to wriggle free, and instead the twin faces wrestle each other into the water. Tackling and pulling hair, calling each other names that grow louder and louder. Loud enough for the other hermits to find them. 

Stress realizes who she’s looking at first. “King Sor?” 

“What am I, chopped liver?” one of the two growls, his blue scarf soaked.

“The king?” Tango splutters, snapping his fingers. A flame appears in his hand, and he raises it higher. Sure enough, wrestling in the muck and mud of the swampwater was the King of Lairyon and his twin brother. Yin and yang, dark and light. Their tan skin and rainbow hair- though the king’s much brighter- was instantly recognizable, even if the all white and black suits weren’t enough. 

Grand Advisor Tris, currently holding King Sor in a headlock, glares at the hermits. “Do you mind?” 

“We are in the middle of something.” Sor adds, looking at their audience as he grabs hold of Tris’s fingers and yanks. 

“What are you-” Xisuma starts, confusion clouding his prerogative. Why is the Twin King, monarch of Lairyon, in the canals beneath his own city, tackling his brother and arguing over codenames? Xisuma shakes his head, trying to avoid the fact that he’s standing in front of the king. “Where did he go? My brother?” 

“Where’s Doc?” BDubs adds, bouncing from foot to foot. They have to find their friend. Is he still alive? What do the kings want with a criminal? Why all this, when King Sor has more power than even Dolios? 

“Three lefts then a right, there’s a staircase carved into the wall. It’ll take you to-” Sor has gained the upper hand, sitting on top of Tris, but the advisor isn’t afraid to kick his brother into silence. 

“You are, by far, the worst spy ever.” Tris hisses, but the hermits leave the twins to their squabble in the sewer. Following Sor’s directions, they wind through the secret caves, Tango, Grian, Ren, and Iskall illuminating the darkness. Jevin can’t help but think about when they first began this journey, way back in Gildara. How they wandered dark, wet caves like this. Only to become enraptured into something so much bigger than they could ever have known. 

But rather than a corrupted crystal at the end of this dive, they find the carved steps Sor had mentioned. 

They also find the trail of blood up the rough hewn stairs. Every step up is slick with the ochre, a different size and shape from the one before. At the top of the stairs, a hatch remains closed. Xisuma presses up against the metal hatch, but finds it too heavy to lift. Looking up, he notices a symbol burnt into the metal. 

Ex still uses their shared mark. Even after their estrangement, the swirl and the star remain easily visible. Not like how Xisuma scratched it off everything he owned. “It’s blocked. Stress?” 

“Not a problem, dearie.” The ice mage squeezes her small, limber body between Xisuma and TFC, rolling up her sleeves. Without even breaking a sweat, she forces the hatch open. Light blinds them for a second time, though this much softer than before. Lamplight, enough to illuminate the wooden building, but still soft enough to cast shadow. A chest full of books has been tossed aside, the rug covering the hidden hatch flipped over. 

The hermits crawl out, like an army of ants from the seams in the wood, filling the small bookstore. Ex’s arrival surprises no one, and neither does the twenty something mages in his bookshop. The twin brother of Xisuma looks up, purple eyes meeting the hermits. A lock of pure white hair covers over one eye, and the red fabric of the cloak covers Ex from the nose down. But even with his face covered, the hermits can see the discontent in his expression. 

“He’s in the back. I’d… I’d be prepared.” Ex’s voice remains low and tempered, a bit deeper than Xisuma’s own. He turns away, running fingers across the shelves of books around him, before pulling free an encyclopedia of medicines. 

Scar doesn’t wait, bursting through the curtain into Ex’s living quarters. He follows the trail of ash and blood, until he stops dead. The other hermits crowd in behind him, desperate to see their friend. For a week, he’s been in jail. Just being able to be in the same room was a blessing.

Doc was rested on a cot, bandages covering his legs, his arms, his chest, his face. Blackened skin beneath white gauze. He lays still, eyes closed, clothes in burnt tatters. For a minute, everyone holds their breath, waiting to see Doc breathe his own. When a shallow rise of his chest, followed by whisper of an exhale, escapes from the puppeteer, relief floods the hermits. 

Doc is alive. Hanging on by a thread, but alive. Scar grabs Grian, yanking him to the front and shoving him into the room. “Fix him!” 

“Don’t need to tell me twice.” Grian may be rivals with Doc, but they’re still friends. Family. He walks across the silent room, each step a loud creak through the wooden building. The hermits follow in after, a concave audience watching, hoping for a miracle. 

Grian’s eyes begin to glow, and another set of wings appear from his back, and another. A halo rings above Grian’s blond hair, sharp shafts of light piercing the air around him. The archangel kneels beside Doc, lost in the overwhelming power of his magic. A mere pass of his hand over the unconscious criminal begins to heal him. An angelic miracle, Grian simply brushes a wing, and it eases the blackened burns across their friend. 

Doc’s breathing deepens, though he doesn’t wake. Brought back from the brink, from the precipice of death. Mumbo carefully sidles up beside Grian, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Grian, you can let go of your aura.” 

The soothing voice does the trick, as light fades and wings disappear. Grian’s exhausted but forces the glow and sleep from his eyes to see his success. Doc was alive. Doc was stable. 

Doc was safe, with his family again. 

Ex appears in the doorway, hands full of books, potions, herbs, and crystals. But when he sees his patient, no longer bleeding out and struggling to hang on for dear life. He looks at Doc, then Grian, then Xisuma. Dropping his armful of supplies, he waves his hand. “You really have one of everything, don’t you?” 

Xisuma takes a deep breath. He hasn’t spoken a word to Ex in years. What does he say, after so long? What does he tell him, or yell at him, or cry to him? But only one word manages to escape from X’s lips, through his mask. “Thanks.” 

The word surprises both twins, blinking back in surprise. Ex’s lips press into a thin line, and he turns his head away. A white ponytail of hair cascades over his shoulder. “Never say I didn’t do anything for you, brother.” 

“Xisuma, this is your brother?” Keralis questions. They were almost identical twins, in fact. From the structure of their face, the intensity in their eyes. The only difference between the two was Ex’s snow white hair. Hell, they even had them both in ponytails. 

“If he still considers me a brother.” Ex snips, picking up the mess on the floor and carefully placing the books in a stack. 

“I thought you said getting into things would only lead to trouble.” Xisuma looks down at his friend, then to Ex. 

“And by the looks of it, I was right.” 

“But you saved Doc. You used your magic in front of half the city, to save him from burning at the stake.” Xisuma shakes his head, still in disbelief. “Why?” 

Ex stops moving, going silent. His shoulder tense forward, until his head drops. “Because he means so much to you. You may not consider me a brother, but I still care about you. Whether or not this disaster could have been avoided, we’re all in on it now.” 

“We?” Cub picks up on Ex’s words, raising an eyebrow. Of course, there were the royals, but he also remembers the water magic appearing from nowhere, the cactus growing from the woodwork, the black wings in the smoke. 

Ex snorts. “What, you think you guys have been this lucky the whole time? That it was only you idiots taking on the magistrate?” 

He turns, walking out of the room. Assuming the hermits will follow. He assumed correctly. Only a few stay behind to keep watch over Doc, the others squeezing through the aged wooden shop, up the rickety stairs and into a dining room. 

They aren’t alone. Inside, three people are sitting. One with short brown hair, cropped to the side and laying on the top of the table, earthy colored clothes and scarves wrapped around her. Sitting crosslegged in the seat is a small kipling, rocking in place with curious eyes as he looks upon the large group entering into Ex’s study. Finned ears flick against black and orange locks, a slight glow appearing under the kipling’s clothes in the dark room. And in the corner, perched on the flat booth’s backrest, a blonde mane drapes around a serious face, and a pair of jet black wings rustle against the wooden walls. 

The last faces they expected to see were those of the Wanderers.

“Red? Ecto?” Zedaph tips his head to the side, surprised. The last time they saw the three of them, it was before the labyrinth challenge. When the hermits celebrated with Team Crafted, they had already left. Disappeared just as fast as they appeared. And now, they’ve reappeared. Sitting in the middle of Ex’s kitchen, sipping on tea. As comfortable there as they were in that ratty old inn. ‘How do you guys know Xisuma’s brother?”

“It was you three who rescued Doc.” Scar whispers, his voice soft and almost reverent. Water, desert, and dragon. 

“Ex approached us while you and Team Crafted were within the labyrinth. He told us about things we already had suspicion of, but no connected dots.” Avon tips her head back, looking down her nose at the hermits. “We decided the best way we could help Lairyon was to cause as much nuisance to the magistrate as possible, as well as handle certain missions.” 

“This entire time, you were helping us?” Xisuma turns, looking at his brother. They’re the exact same height, purple eyes locked in some years long argument.

Ex snorts. “What, you think you idiots did that all on your own? But it wasn’t just the wanderers that have been helping. Team Crafted has had their hand in this underground rebellion as well. Turns out, they make a lot of trouble all over the place for the arcane guard to deal with, as well as encourage people to tell their stories and speak out against the magistrate.” 

“But then that leaves…” Mumbo trails off, and he turns around at the sound of bickering behind them. Sure enough, the twin rulers are still arguing over their codenames. Mumbo bows, his hands shaking as he remembers all the rules he was taught when in presence of the king. 

King Sor presses one hand over his twin’s mouth to shut him up, and uses the other to wave off Mumbo’s bow. “Please, there’s no-” Sor’s interrupted when Tris retaliates, licking his hand. The king curses, rubbing the spit on his white outfit. “You’re disgusting, brother.” 

“Go on, finish the story. Don’t forget to tell them who’s idea it was to reach out to the mysterious white haired man with connections to Eremita.” Tris scoots in beside Red, and Ecto pours tea for the royal advisor. 

“It was Tris’s idea to contact Ex. I honestly don’t know how he found out about him, but he’s been the conductor of it all. We help fund in any way we can, and he does the research before sending the wanderers and Team Crafted to play support roles.” King Sor doesn’t look like the man the hermits are used to seeing. The king, the ruler of Lairyon. He’s thriving with people, just another person, another friend. 

“But...you’re the king. Why can’t you just depose of Dolios?” Beef questions, the confusion in his voice matched by all of the hermits. Only Ex and the wanderers act as if this was evident. 

They expected Sor to answer, being the king, but with a loud crash of a metal teacup against the wooden table, all attention is turned to Tris. “That monster, that....bastard has been using us all against Sor. Especially me.” Tris grits his teeth hard, jaw tight and set. “You’re too damn soft, Sor.” 

“Soft?! Tris, he was going to kill you!” Sor gasps, tears beginning to streak from teal eyes, across tanned cheeks. His breath hiccups and catches in his throat. “Dolios made sure he had control over everything, including me. In order to do that, he… he tortured Tris. My brother. Threatened both our families. Hurt our closest friends in the royal guard. Sometimes… I had no choice but to let it happen. The things he would have done to the kingdom were so much worse but...at what cost? Did I make the right decision, letting him do that to my own brother?” 

Sor’s knees fall out from under him, and in the aged wooden floor of a bookstore, the King of Lairyon is brought to kneel. Tears fall, all he’s been forced to endure breaking down. And the hermits, despite hardly knowing King Sor, understand and sympathize with him all the same. His family is at risk, the same way their own is. Dolios will stop at nothing to tear both families apart, all for his gain and rise to power. 

Red clambers over Tris’s lap, breaking every taboo and rite to approach the king. She runs over, and hugs the king tight and close. A warm hug, like a mother’s embrace, just enough to calm down the monarch. Such a young man, forced to make so many horrible decisions. After a moment, the king recollects himself. Through puffy, tearstained eyes, he looks to the hermits. “Lairyon needs a hero. There are no chosen ones, there is no prophecy. No knights in shining armor, no kings and our awesome power. This time, the heroes need to be made. And you, the Order of Hermits, were the brave souls to choose to be heroes.” 

“Dolios is using his darkness to gain power. After what you dealt with, we were sure you’d give up.” Tris adds, standing and placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder. Now, the scars on the royal advisor’s body are clear as day. “But you really are the heroes that will bring back the Light of Lairyon.” 

Silence falls over the room. The hermits, heroes? Just for wanting to help, to do what no one else knew to do? They were caught up in all of this, and multiple times death waited to claim them- if Dolios had his way. They weren’t heroes, just people who chose to fight back. Who chose to make the stand. 

“Dark magic isn’t new.” Ex breaks the silence, hefting a massive, ancient book onto the table. The wood rocks, dumping Avon off it and into Ecto’s lap. “There have been insurgences all throughout history, though the past thousand years have been relatively quiet. Unfortunately about that, almost all information how the dark magic was defeated has been… lost to time. To make matters worse, no reported insurgence has ever been so prolific as this time around.” 

“Alright, how does this help with anything?” Xisuma rolls his eyes. His brother always has such a flair for the dramatics, always getting way too deep into history and his books. Next to the massive tome that Ex is flipping through, Avon stops pestering Ecto. She goes still, even when the desert wizard dumps her onto the floor. A look of fear spreads from her eyes, rippling like a drop of water across a lake. 

“Well, if this happened before with the ancient ones, then it’s likely the answer may lie with the history of Lairyon itself. Perhaps if you-” Ex is interrupted when a massive black pair of wings extends, one smacking him in the face. 

“The spirit dragons are in danger.”

[spaceswordwasaimingforozai]

Whumptober Day 23 - Exhaustion/Sleep Deprivation

Ao3

Zuko’s not sure of the time, but his inner flame is enough to know the sun went down a long time ago and is moving closer to rising every minute, even though the first rays of light have yet to creep over the horizon and light his dark office yet. He sighs and lifts his hand to his face to rub across his eyes. What he does know is that he’s not even halfway through the new pile of documents that landed on his desk yesterday evening that need urgently addressing. A new trade deal is in the process of being struck and of course it requires so many approvals and changes and reviewing of old laws and seeing what needs to be repealed. He’s been working constantly since they arrived, and even though he’s had two years of being Fire Lord to get used to these kind of sudden problems he still feels overwhelmed every time another this size crops up.

Zuko shuffles the papers as he puts aside another signed and sealed document. He badly wants a cup of tea, and almost convinces himself to get one, but that urge is overpowered by the knowledge that if he does he will likely fall asleep and so he doesn’t risk it. Instead, he refreshes his ink brush and hunches back over his desk, pushing off the creeping tiredness swearing to himself that he’s dealt with worse. 

Sokka emerges from his rooms early, he has to if he has any hope of practicing with his swords before it feels too hot to do anything but walk slowly around the palace or sit in meeting rooms. He is constantly grateful that even though Zuko and the other fire benders on the council have their whole ‘rise with the sun’ thing they never impose that on the actual meeting times. The hallways are still mostly empty at this time, but he still encounters a few servants on the early round or at the end of the graveyard shift and greets them, pausing to talk with those who look awake enough.

He reaches the hallway where Zuko’s room is located and stops before he walks past the door. He had heard that the Fire Lord (‘Fire Lord, Sokka will never really get used to calling his friend that), Zuko had had a lot of work yesterday to sort around the newest trade deal so maybe he would appreciate the offer to do some sparring, let off some steam and do something other than paperwork and worrying about paperwork. Sokka’s only been in the palace as ambassador for a couple months but he’s already seen how committed Zuko is to making his nation better and repairing the damage they caused. He nods to the guards in front of Zuko’s door, not the Kyoshi warriors this time but ordinary fire nation ones. He knocks gently but loud enough to either wake Zuko if he’s not already awake or at least get his attention through the gigantic doors. 

“Hey your majesty! Rise and shine, I was thinking you might want a break from being a royal clerk for an hour and come do some sparring. Promise I’ll let you win...maybe...probably not. C’mon!” Sokka waits for a response and gets none then knocks again, louder this time. 

Still nothing. Sokka shoots a glance at the stern guards either side that he knows he’s still working to win over so he shouldn’t try to aggravate them, but Zuko’s like his best friend besides Aang (and Sokka will stand by the fact that he is more of Aang’s best friend than Zuko is, despite the Avatar always ducking out of that by saying Katara is his best friend). He pushes the door open finding it unlocked and shouts into the room. 

“Hey wake up lazy jerkbender, where’s that whole ‘inner flame, I rise with the sun’ mumbo jumbo? He says, doing a bad impression of Zuko as he does. He hears muffled snort from one of the guards and smirks that he might be doing better at the warming up than he thought. 

A quick look into the room reveals that not only is the bed empty, but it doesn’t look slept in, more so than the usual ‘quickly tidied by the palace staff once Zuko leaves for the day’ that it usually has. Sokka moves back out of the room and turns to the guard he thinks he remembers the name of. 

“Ming,” Sokka starts, getting the woman’s attention, “where’s Fire Lord Zuko?”

Ming turns her head enough to address him while trying to maintain an air of officiousness, but Sokka can see her expression is softer than he had noticed passing by. 

“I believe he’s in his office, Ambassador Sokka.”

Sokka sighs dramatically. “Then why didn’t you tell me that before I went banging on his door?”

Ming allows a small smile but it's the guard behind him that answers without turning his head. “Wanted to see what you’d do. Plus it’s not our job to stop you from banging on the door of an empty room.”

Sokka turns and laughs sarcastically. “Okay then well I’ll let you guys get back to guarding the Fire Lord’s bedsheets.” He backs away trying to keep eye contact with both of them, then turns on his heel and walks back down the corridor the way he came. He at least feels like the guards are starting to warm up to him a bit more if they’re making fun of him.

Sokka knows where Zuko’s office is, probably. He’s only been there a couple of times, but he knows at least it's not too far away from Zuko’s bedroom and it looks out on the turtleduck pond, so he’s got that to go on, as well as the vague memory of its location. 

He crows with victory when he turns a corner and spots the equally ornate doors at the end of the hall with a pair of Kyoshi warriors outside that he’s ninety-five percent sure is Zuko’s office.

He walks quickly to the end of the hallway, aiming to open the doors with a flourish and berate his friend for already being a boring old Fire Lord at the age of nineteen when a strong hand on his chest stops him and he realises one of the guards on the door is Suki. He smiles in recognition at his friend/ex girlfriend. 

“Oh hey Sooks! Didn’t recognise you-”

She rolls her eyes and cuts him off with another little nudge to his sternum. 

“It’s fine, Sokka, that wasn’t why I stopped you though.”

“Oh?” 

Suki darts her eyes back to the door and steps away a little, shooting a glance to the other warrior who nods and returns to her full focus to her job while they move a way back up the passage.

“Go easy on him today, okay Sokka? He practically hasn’t left that room for the last two days.”

Sokka frowns. “Wait what? Why? Is there something important going on I should know about?”

Suki sighs, crossing her arms as she drops back against the wall next to them. Even as she gives the appearance of casual, Sokka knows she’s still primed for any attack or anything unexpected and gives himself a moment for a little swell of pride for her skill and is again grateful that its her and her warriors in charge of looking after the best Fire Lord for a century. 

“You know the recent trade negotiations?” Sokka nods, “It’s just all the documents for that. He has a lot of things to sign off and check before the deal can be finalised.”

Sokka glances back to the closed doors, then back to Suki. “But that’s just a trade deal? It’s like the fifth in the last couple years, and not on the scale of the earlier ones. Surely he doesn’t have to be working round the sun to do everything?”

Suki smiles, but it has a sad tint. “Tell that to Zuko. He wants everything to be right, and be the very best Fire Lord. I’ve told him he’s already done that, but he won’t listen. I forgot that you haven’t seen this before, it’s what he does basically every time all the paper in Caldera basically gets dumped on his desk to sign off on, but honestly he’s been doing it more with the little stuff now a lot of the big stuff has been sorted. We tend to just wait till he falls asleep on the desk then move his sleepy ass back to his room to get a bit of rest, but we can’t talk him out of the office until then. He won’t talk much about it, but I think it's because he’s scared of messing up, missing something, I dunno. Baby Fire Lord guilt and everything.” Suki smirks at him and he laughs, but then returns his focus to everything she’s said and sighs.

“I feel like I should have expected that from him.” Suki nods but says nothing more. As they stand in silence, Sokka feels a plan forming. He glances at Suki who won’t show it, but knows she was watching him out of her peripherals a moment ago. 

“I presume part of you telling me this is basically ‘Sokka, your turn to have a go at dealing with the sleep deprived Fire Lord”? 

Suki’s smirk is almost disguised by her face paint. She shrugs. “Maybe, everyone else has had a go, and I mean, you’re here now,” she turns to face him more, pushing off the wall, “I honestly wouldn’t have come to get you if you hadn’t come by. We’re used to him being like this, but it’s also tough to watch. Maybe you will have better luck getting him to look after himself before we have to physically make him.”

Sokka smiles at her and pulls her into a brief hug. “I’ll do my best,” he says into the side of her hairpiece. 

They walk back to the doors together, Suki retaking her place beside the doors, going back into full Kyoshi warrior mode.  

Sokka changes from his previously planned approach, deciding to knock instead, as if Zuko’s been working for as long as she said he doesn’t want to startle an exhausted fire bender in a room full of paper. 

He knocks loudly and decisively, “Zuko? You in there, buddy?” 

He wonders for a moment of silence if Zuko’s already fallen asleep, but then a weary voice comes through the doors. “Come in, Sokka.”

Sokka pushes through the heavy doors and is greeted by everything he expected but kind of worse. There’s papers covering every square inch of Zuko’s large ornate desk, and in the middle of all the clutter, with the early morning sun peeking through the windows behind him, illuminating his silhouette. He would look almost ethereal in beauty was it not for the haggard expression surrounded by a few loose tendrils of hair falling from the precarious looking topknot, made worse by Zuko’s ever present scar, but it seems to be worse, redder around the edges like it’s been scratched at. 

Sokka quietly closes the doors as Zuko doesn’t look up more than a second from his current document. 

“What do you need, Sokka?” It’s said not unkindly, but with an edge that Sokka struggles to distinguish beyond just plain exhaustion.

“Don’t need anything stifu hotman, just stopping by.”

Zuko hums noncommittally. “Then would it be alright if I saw you later maybe? Not to be rude, I’m just very busy right now.”

Sokka nods as he moves to the side of the desk, gently moving one stack of papers out the way to sit down on the edge. “Yeah, Suki told me. She also said you hadn’t got some sleep for a while. What’s up with that man?”

“Like I said Sokka, I’m busy,” Zuko says, sweeping his brush across the page in front of him with some semblance of his signature. 

Sokka decides to approach things from a different angle. 

“You know I stopped by your room this morning. Went to see if you felt like a sparring session before the sun got to its usual stupid hot level.”

Zuko hums again.

“I was disappointed to not find you there. So!” Sokka says, rising from the desk with a small flourish. “I came to bother you in all your fancy firelord business. See what you were doing instead of sleeping like a normal person tends to do at night.” Sokka moves around, leaning down with his face almost level with Zuko’s to get a look at the page in front of him that Sokka has noted he hasn’t moved on from for a few minutes more than it should have taken him to read it.

“I got up early is all, needed to get a few things done,” Zuko says, trying to wave off Sokka.

This time it’s Sokka’s turn to hum at Zuko’s usually unconvincing lying. 

Sokka only leans over further, almost getting a mouthful of dark hair as he starts asking questions about the documents that he already knows until Zuko leans back to face Sokka. 

When he does, Sokka can see how tired his friend looks and he recognises again the weight on Zuko’s shoulders. “What do you want, Sokka? I told you, I need to get this done.” Zuko breaks off with a yawn that he stifles behind his hand. Sokka smiles, torn between the sadness at seeing how stressed and worn down Zuko clearly is, and how sweet he also looks, a thought which Sokka pushes back to focus on the former.

He plucks the brush out of Zuko’s unresisting fingers and lays it down in the ink tray.

The Fire Nation isn’t going to start the war up again if you take a nap, oh great  Fire Lord.” Zuko opens his mouth to protest, probably with something about how Sokka’s being overdramatic, but Sokka jumps in first. “Zuko, seriously. You need to rest. You’re no help to anyone if you can’t think clearly, and you never know what you could do as a sleep deprived ruler! Order all the citizens to do the dragon dance, release all the komodo-rhinos into the streets for them to have a party, declare a public holiday for turtleducks! Actually, that one sounds kind of good, forget that one.” He can tell Zuko’s trying to stay looking mad, but he’s not doing nearly as well to hide the small smile at Sokka’s antics as he thinks. “What I’m saying is you need to get some sleep, or a spa day, or something. You can’t keep working like this. Please Zuko, for me?” Sokka adds as Zuko looks like he’s about to argue again. Sokka leans down further, tilts his head and does his best polar bear-puppy eyes to try to persuade him. If reason won’t work, maybe guilt will, that’s what Aang usually does to Sokka. 

Zuko closes his eyes against Sokka’s efforts, but when he does he yawns again and hunches in on himself. He sighs and Sokka knows he’s done it. He has to stifle his victorious grin as Zuko looks back up at him. 

“Fine.” He says defeated, but with enough annoyance that he’s ensuring Sokka knows this was his choice, however coerced. 

Before he can change his mind, Sokka swoops down and pulls Zuko out of his chair with one arm around his back to support him. “C’mon your royal jerkbender-ness, nap time.”

Zuko grumbles something under his breath about ‘interfering water tribe’ but Sokka pretends not to hear him. He won, and now Zuko’s gonna go not work himself to death, so Sokka doesn’t care what mr grumpy firebender has to say about it. 

Zuko puts up a small amount of protest at being half lifted by Sokka, but quickly gives up when it becomes obvious that it will take more energy than he has to extract himself from his hold. 

Zuko doesn’t register much after they leave his office, he thinks he spots Sokka giving a subtle thumbs up to Suki, but can’t be bothered to think any more about it. He knows they probably conspired against him, but with the way his body is feeling heavier and heavier with every moment since he was removed from his seat at the desk he feels like maybe they had the right idea. And even he cannot ignore the small feeling of warmth in his chest from his friends’ care.

They shuffle through the doors of his room and Zuko expects to be unceremoniously dropped on his bed, but instead Sokka lowers him gently, removing the stiff outer robe and his hairpiece but doing no more than that, and pulling the covers around Zuko. He sighs as he feels the welcome softness of the bed envelop him and smiles. 

“Thank you, Sokka,” Zuko tries to speak loud enough to be heard, but he’s not sure if he manages it before he feels sleep pulling him under. The last sensation Zuko registers, not fully sure if he’s dreaming, is the feeling of a hand sweeping his hair away from his face and pausing there. 

[chromations]

Does any Hermit vary drastically between your AUs? Like, personality or physique wise?

oho!!! yes!!! doc, ren,etho, iskall, and i believe. so. i co-own the war au (from my friend Chrome) and the voidskall au (from my friend shadow) doc: in the war au, he gets a bit power hungry and violent against the hippies. very mean, lashing out, basically make doc very violent, remove most his good traits since he's so caught up in the disappearance of the nho. in hardcore jungle he is very smart, learning things very quickly and picking up on body movement and cues. he wears a thick green cloak, no lab coat, and his robotics are wrapped in vines. throughout the story i plan to make him go a bit,,, returning back to creeper. like full on feral. redstone soda: he's a tamed creeper, just like the other aus. and has an immense hate for birds and roses/poppies

 etho: redstone soda, he's an aetherkind. i havent done much in the story about it but thats spoilers if i talk bout it here. :). harcore jungle: f as t, precise, a bit cold but long hair with an undercut? m. love. idk about war au and voidskall tho. 

ren: due to me loving ren so much. he. i love he. but in hardcore jungle: ohohoh man. hes a werewolf and nobody knows. hes a feral boy. he is f as t. he is strong. i love he. this man? perfect. except for the fact he wants to murder. war au: OHOHOH MAN. He's like. hes insane at the point the story was last updated. literally.. hes werewolf. he fuckig whimpers himself to sleep oh goD the hippies need hugs in that au. all of them. theyre all going insane from being trapped. oh ofgodogdfg in redstone soda he is a dogman. common knowledge on the server, just a big ol dogy man :) he is friendly. he is huggable. he is dumb but KIND and he can COOK and ;o i love this man. and in uhh.. what else. oh yeah! 

SoTRP and Voidskall!! in voidskall he has two different rens, one from another universe sorta? idk. but there's Den, who is Void!Ren. and there's Phen!Ren, who's a phoenix man :>

 and in SoTRP, he's Phen!Ren as well, amnesia and all because he does not recall there being an icebird!mumbo in this world or kitsune iskall. personality wise? in SoTRP hed bully void into self care. he fucking saved him from dying and :) in an au of voidskall, where Den and Void die due to voidhounds, Ren accidentally kills Den when trying to protect him but actually shoots fire at him. he hides away, and while the other void hermits fight over whos the leader now, he and Avrian (void grian) talk it out. 

Avrian says he should be leader, and due to avrian being the one with the role of appointing new leaders, ren agrees and gets the signature golden tattoo. but he regrets it and hides in the void. but he goes insane, and rips off his feathers, cuts off his wing, just anything to get rid of his bird side. but its useless. he cant  do it. so his feathers start sticking together due to blood, tail feathers turining gold and into one long tail which he also dyes silver, his ear feather solidifying and turning into a horn the color of his skin, and his other wing becoming metallic and curved. 

his skin is blue, hair silvery. he bids farewell to avrian and hops into another universe. another world. because he has a new name. his name is now Den. and hes now an evil hermit in Redstone soda. 

 iskall: war au, hes on a77's side. he has adhd. hes scared of doc. hes just scared for his friends, scared for grian and ren. just scared. but he works for a77, believing his friends will get better. but they dont. Cleo and Joe help him out, they spend time devising a plan to find the hippies. until cleo gets bitten by a zombie horse, hides for a week, and when joe finds her in the snow, bleeding, and now a centaur, iskall panics and goes into the hippie commune, a mask on and ready to find em. he gets chased by a big spider aka ex. ends up close, but unable to find the hippies. 

 hardcore jungle: man. hes scared man. sure, he has the most comfort with bdubs, zloy, pixl, and ely in a treehouse. but hes scared for his friends. scared of the dark :( poor man needs break. 

 SoTRP and Voidskall: thats the name, he's voidskall. hes an ass. hes cold, turned from the void. he hates the voidhounds, wants to escape. but he cant. he has the shackles. but Ren helps the best he can, with his phoenix friend cuddling him sometimes. the heat, the warmth. hes barely felt it, being in the void. but he loves the warmth. also he needs SELF CARE GOSH DAMIG NNSJfksf 

 redstone soda; hes got an evil alternate known as Eskall. eskall despises shad (the nether being). hes been nearly mind controlled by glowshrooms. he knows what hes talkign about. but eskall ticks and fidgets by scratching himself, he cant focus. he accidentally prevents his redstone from working. iskall helps him out throughout the days of s5 loading in. also iskall is given the feathered protector, basically a legendary blade from the aether. he found the blade in the end when end busting with mumbo, but xisuma and siren actually told him what the blade was for and he was like "Ohhhh". 

also he is strong and i headcanon he works out with grian and false on weekends.

 bonus:

 cub: he is neutral in the war au, but he favors the hippies and tries to find them, working himself to sleep. in redstone soda, a part of his soul, disembodied (CubVex/CubBan), has the ability to split people into two (emotions/personality trait wise), and fuse people (eg: Doc and iskall in s5). Cub is aetherkind as well, and finds himself with the hermits in s5, waking up in scars base. because the evil hermits tried to kidnap him sorta, but badtimes was like: ok no not for us. give him to scar.

 scar: redstone soda au. he does not react well with potions. his scars? netherkind dealt those to him. hes been scratched by jellie on his hands. he scratches himself to keep himself awake as well (not healthy guys. but this is also me self projecting so). hardcore jungle au, the vex live in the crystal on his choker. he nearly died from the vex (chapter 2).

 war au, hes docs right hand man. hes just not enjoying the whole thing, but going along with it because hes too afraid to say no, and he is also under the guide that things are gonna be okay. 

 cleo: war au. shes on a77s side. she is a centaur some point through, though this is unwritten. she becomes a centaur because she is bitten by a zombie horse during research. she does not like being a horse. 

 mumbo: war au. hes more on a77s side, but also against, but also sorta not for the hippies. neutral, working against cub. he took as poultry man because he missed grian as well. he took one of cubs drones and with stress's help, he reprogrammed it for himself. also he has gone a bit insane if i say so myself also the meanie took iskalls adhd meds. dont do that folks

 also in redstone soda i will proceed to introduce grian as a shark man. because i love shar ks andi love grian :D whoa h i did not mean for this post to be so long-

[kdtheghostwriter]

SNK 115  - “OMW”

I mean...

Let’s be real. As far as Deus Ex goes, I’ve seen more preposterous this week.

If any of you are wondering why this post took so long, it isn’t for lack of time I assure you. This chapter was…a lot. And god damn, Isayama, I wasn’t expecting to dig up my Junior Year debate notes for this one blog post but here we are lads. Quick recap before we get into writers’ mumbo-jumbo.

Flashback

Deus EX

#HeelFloch

Sad Hange

RESURRECTION

We all know Isa loves his religious imagery. He isn’t quite as egregious as Zack Snyder (who is, tbh?) but it’s definitely a thing. He also loves mythology of all types. And while Norse mythology seems to be his area of expertise, it isn’t mine - which is why seeing Stupid Sexy Zeke emerge from his Titan Incubator made me think of another Stupid Sexy God from the Ancient Greek Canon.

I speak of the Goddess Aphrodite, who has dominion over love, beauty and its various trappings. Admittedly, this comparison is drawn in relation to aesthetics only. Zeke’s aloof temperament doesn’t really mirror that of the Greek goddess. Even though Aphrodite did technically help start the Trojan War but that’s neither here nor there.

Zeke’s appearance from the steam of the felled Titan is nearly identical to the foam that appeared during Aphrodite’s spontaneous conception in the Ionian Sea. For the sake of transparency, I must point out that long ago, a fanfic author by the name of Homer relayed to us that Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and Dione. This is not technically wrong but it is quite boring. And it was also pre-dated (shout-out to Hesiod). Uranus, the primordial god of the sky, got into a spat with his children as deities are wont to do. This particular dust-up ended in Uranus being castrated by his son – the Titan, Cronus – who usurped the throne. The disembodied testicles fell into the sea like a pair of primordial bath bombs and out of the resulting effervescence appeared a full-grown Aphrodite in all of her Tumblr-banned glory.

Zeke, with nothing left of him after the explosion than a head and torso, was taken into the gut of a waiting Titan. Let me clarify, here. He was not eaten, no. The mindless titan scooted itself along the river banks and inserted the dying Zeke into its stomach cavity. Then OG Ymir with her trademark PATHS Magiks,  crafts the golden boy a brand new body and sends him on his merry way.

Like I said up top: of all the examples of Deus Ex, this isn’t even the third-most severe I’ve seen. The implications of it are…a lot. And it actually makes sense if you consider what we know about Titan Biology.

Back to the beginning. Once upon a time, the Founder Ymir Fritz made a deal with the Devil of All Earth that gave her untold power after coming into contact with the “source of all living matter.” With that power, Ymir became the Progenitor of Titan Power. Upon her death 13 years later, her soul was split into nine pieces and connected via a metaphysical system known only as PATHS. These PATHS transcend space and time and bind together every subject of Ymir, even those who have been long dead.

We also know that the Titans themselves are a conundrum of theoretical physics. Their mass and energy are created from nothing. They generate massive amounts of heat, but don’t appear to need fuel. They have no digestive system and regurgitate the contents of their stomach when it becomes full. Even though they are huge creatures, their actual limbs and body parts are incredibly light. Even though Zeke has little recollection of what happened to him post-explosion, he’s likely smart enough to infer, as we can, exactly how and why he emerged from the carcass of a Titan with a brand new body.

This is all before we mention that Zeke Jaeger is a part of the Fritz family tree. The Royal Family line that descends directly from Ymir herself.

I also thought about Lazarus of Bethany while reading this section. Lazarus was a good friend of Jesus, the lad from Bethlehem. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Jesus was told that Lazarus had fallen ill, but has business and doesn’t set out until a few days later. Jesus and his crew arrive in Bethany only to discover that Lazarus has already passed away. This leads to the Gospel’s shortest verse.

Jesus wept. [John 11:35, KJV]

Perhaps the better comparison for her is to Abraham (with the whole “making a great nation” stipulation). But! I’m trying to do something pithy here, so bear with me.

The story of Lazarus might be the Good Book’s most well-known resurrection (besides that other one). The idea here is that the world’s most Holy Figure decided that this man’s time on Earth wasn’t done. Jesus was too late to heal Lazarus and felt so guilty as to weep. Lazarus was then called forth from his tomb, still wrapped in his death robes.

For the Eldian Empire, no figure is more Holy than Ymir Fritz. She’s the Founding Titan and, if this chapter is to be inferred upon, her spirit still influences the will of her subjects to the day. An entire cult has formed with the sole purpose of returning her to her former glory. I should also point out that Zeke essentially committed suicide.

Like, yeah, maybe the injuries were a bit too extreme for an old shifter to be able to regenerate from, but even if that’s the case there would have been the telltale signs of an attempt to do so, like Pieck in Liberio. There wasn’t even that. He was so tired of the fight – so done with Levi torturing him – that he was willing to abandon his years-long plan entirely and sacrifice his powers to the shadows of death. He chose to die; the Founder chose differently.

The rainstorm clearing to make way for the sun. The beautification of Zeke Jaeger. The visage of his tall, strong frame standing firm as his hated rival lays broken and mutilated at his feet. It’s all very hard to miss. Who knows where his head is at following this? I do, however, finally know why I get so many Spidey Sense tingles whenever Zeke opens his mouth.

  The name is Immanuel Kant: German scholar and one of the godfathers of modern philosophy. I first learned of Kant and his teachings as a teenager on my high school debate team as I prepared my cases for the Lincoln-Douglas competition. It was my first tournament and I placed second out of dozens of students. After I was done for the day, a girl came up to me and gave me congratulations for understanding Kant. I thanked her, but the truth was that I didn’t fully grasp Kantian philosophy until I got home that night and studied a bit more. Kantian ethics can be hard to grasp because they are often in conflict with each other. (Gee, that sounds familiar.)

Kant’s ethics are deontological in principal. This is a fancy way of saying that the main concern is the Deed That Must Be Done. It is a separation of morals from emotion. Kant rejected the Utilitarians of the day and their schools of thought regarding the inherent “goodness” of an action. Specifically, he had a big problem with Determinism, saying that things like free will were inherently unknowable; also, basing the morality of a decision around perceived outcomes was impossible, because consequences existed outside of physical existence and therefore could not be quantified. Kant set out to quantify the question of moral relativism with his most famous work: The Categorical Imperative.

This is a terribly complex system that has been repurposed and reinterpreted countless times over the past two centuries so I’ll spare you any ballywho. Basically, CI is the inverse of Consequentialism where everything but the consequences matter. Saving a person from drowning isn’t inherently a good action unless there is a logical reason for doing so. This is admittedly a very simplified summation, but even the expanded version leads to some dissonance of reason.

If we look at the Abstract of Categorical Imperative, it tells us: “Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself.” This line is very similar to the Golden Rule, which Kant famously opposed. The American scholar Peter Corning pointed this out, saying, “Kant’s objection is especially suspect because the Categorical Imperative sounds a lot like a paraphrase…of the same fundamental idea. Calling it a universal law does not materially improve on the basic concept.” To borrow an idea myself, it’s like playing the Super Mario theme in a minor key. It’ll sound more dour than usual, but it’s still the Mario theme. Joking aside, what’s important here is that the whole point of CI is to quantify the question of morality and it appears to do that in part by using the qualitative philosophy of the Golden Rule.

Another big beef came from Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. He felt that Kantian autonomy was insufficient in holding people to the standards of CI’s universal truths. In his words: “Kant was of the opinion that man is his own law – that is, he binds himself under the law which he himself gives himself. Actually, in a profounder sense, this is how lawlessness or experimentation are established.” In other words, if the only thing that matters is reasoning, you can justify almost anything to serve your immediate reasoning.

EXAMPLE

Here is where the dubious nature of the Categorical Imperative fully rears its head, as it displays BOTH the morality and immorality of Zeke’s plan.

On one hand, this plan is fucking awful. There are numerous and many arguments to be made against it; working solely in the context of Kantianism, it is irrational to presume that sterilizing the Eldian people will lead to a more peaceful world. It relies on a ludicrous number of assumptions – the least of which isn’t that Marley will one day stop being a total bell end. Besides that shit, it violates the nature of Kantian philosophy by attempting to foresee the outcome of the situation.

The other hand? It actually makes sense. CI says that only reason matters. It’s ethics through the lens of rational thought. No matter your thoughts about the Great Titan War, how it started and ended, whether or not the Eldians’ preceding subjugation was just or not, it’s a fact that the Titans have caused a great deal of suffering for many people. Only one race of people can transform into these beasts, so the idea of stripping their ability to reproduce isn’t a great leap to make. It is rational specifically in the context of this universe.

(Apologies for any details missed. I haven’t read any Kant in several years and this is a very condensed version of a concept I would encourage you to look into further. Thinking about this all now, the fact that I ever made it to out-rounds while arguing any of this is frankly absurd.)

It makes sense then, finally, why Yelena is so devoted to Zeke’s plan. Titans destroyed her home and slaughtered her people. The rational course of action is to remove this weapon from the hands of those (Marley) that would abuse them. And if those same perpetrators get screwed over during the course of this plan then…[Shrug Emoji]. She claims what she wants is justice. What she really wants, of course, is revenge. Just like her sensei, Jaeger-san, who wants revenge still. Which Jaeger, you ask? The answer is yes.

Situations have been reversed. The volunteers (and Onyankopon) are seated at the head of the table while the officers of the Garrison and Military Police that held them captive are under their thumb. Color-coded armbands are divvied out to the Eldian forces, juuuuust in case you forgot which period of history we’re sending up here. Armbands are assigned based upon when a person surrendered to the Jaegerists. Those higher ups (and Falco) that partook of the wine get their own special armband, because Everything Is Awesome!!

Then there’s this fucking guy. Before I revisited the world of epistemology, I had a much less astute take prepared about character psychology and the concept of the “Double Turn.” I may still write that as a separate post; it won’t do any good here. Reiner didn’t appear, firstly (even though it appears that he and the Warrior Unit are on Paradis), and the visage of a disembodied child using Titan Magiks to bring Zeke back from the precipice of death brings up some very real questions about how real the Curse really is. We don’t know how Ymir Fritz died originally. Given the way mythology tends to work, I’d say patricide is highly plausible.

As usual, all we can do is speculate. One thing that doesn’t need speculation is Pieck. As usual, she’s right on time. As expected, she’s exactly right.

 Stray Thoughts

- As I noted last time, Levi was sent flying into the river. Evidently, he had enough strength to make it back to shore, just not much more than that. I suspect he’s alive for now but, goddamn did he get messed up. Levi underestimated Zeke’s suicidal tendencies, just as Zeke underestimated Levi’s tenacity. For two fellas that spent months in direct contact with each other, they have almost no clue.

- Not to stir the pot here but, here’s an in-story example of Kantian Ethics in case you’re still not quite sure. On the roof in Shiganshina – if Kant had been there (lol) – he would have disputed Levi giving the serum to Armin. Not for the reason you think. Categorical Imperative is all about reason. The reason Levi chose to save Armin is because he refused to rob his loved one of their humanity and instead chose to let him rest as opposed to reviving him for the sake of continuing a senseless, endless war. As Momtaku has said before: Levi chose Erwin over Armin. This was a choice made on emotional, borderline selfish, grounds and thereby irrational, which in Kant’s eyes makes it immoral. Just a little extra nugget for you. Discuss, friends!

[shania-twain]

i’m still in love with who i wish you were (mulder/scully) part 2/?

Summary: “You were abducted, Scully,” Mulder said, sensing her confusion, “do you remember anything?” Post Requiem. AU.

PART ONE | PART THREE | PART FOUR | AO3 LINK

i’m still in love with who i wish you were (part 2/?) Fandom: The X-Files Pairing: Mulder/Scully Season: post season 7 Title: Wish You Were by Kate Voegele

“Fox.” A gentle voice spoke and he sighed, looking into the sorrowful but hopeful eyes of Maggie Scully. She had been in the room with her daughter for almost two hours now. Mulder had waited outside the room, in yet another uncomfortable hospital chair.

“Is she ok? Can I go in?”

Maggie opened her mouth to speak but Mulder was already up and rushing past her into the room. Looking back into her face, he felt the air leave his lungs. She still didn’t recognize him. God it hurt.

“Scully?”

“That’s not my name,” she quickly said, “it’s Dana. I know you call me that because of work but we don’t work together. At least, not that I remember.”

Her hands were clutching a blanket her mother had brought her, her knuckles white. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to cry. He wanted to touch her, her face, her stomach. Her stomach. She was pregnant and she was pregnant with his child. Did she know it was his?

“Dana,” Mulder started, clearing his throat and shaking off his nerves. He moved closer to her on the bed and she shrank back. “I know you don’t know me but...I’m going to find out a way to fix this. I - it’s my fault. I didn’t want you to go to Oregon with me but you were insistent, stubborn. I should’ve been more stubborn and refused to let you go. And now this happened and -” he felt himself start to get emotional and he cleared his throat again, “and I’m going to fix it.”

Scully was quiet, studying him intently. Who was this tall, handsome man and why was he looking at her in that way? What were they to each other? I thought we just worked together, she thought, he’s looking at me with so much guilt and something else I can’t decipher. It’s making me uneasy.

“I know you don’t really know what I’m talking about but... We were on a case in Oregon and we were looking for an unidentified craft that had crashed in the woods and when I turned around you were gone. You disappeared.” Mulder’s eyes flashed with the memory, feeling himself go cold. “I’ve never been so frightened in my life, Scully. And we’ve been through so much, you and I. My biggest fear used to be never finding my sister but it became losing you over the years. I know I’m putting a lot on you right now I’m just...I’m so happy you’re alive. And awake. Even if you don’t know who I am anymore.”

Scully couldn’t hear anymore. “Please,” she told him, “this is too much right now. My mom told me my dad is dead. And my sister. She told me I had cancer. And she told me I can’t have children.” He watched with his heart clenching as a tear ran down her cheek. “I can’t handle anymore right now. Please.”

“I’m sorry,” he nodded, wanting to take her hand but refraining himself from doing so. He stood awkwardly at her bed. He wanted to bring up the baby, the miracle, but kept quiet.

Scully stared at her blanket for a long time, her eyebrows furrowed in thought. She looked up at him then. “Where is Daniel?”

Mulder looked at her, startled. Then he remembered. She was in 1989. End of med school. He remembered the night she told him about her affair with Daniel. It was also when she was in med school. She hadn’t left him yet. She thought she was still with him. She thought this baby was his.

“You haven’t been together in over ten years, Scully.” He said weakly.

“It’s Dana,” she corrected, “and how can we not be together? We’re supposed to be together forever.”

Mulder’s eyebrows lifted. The old Scully - the old Scully? He thought - she had told him she thought at one point she would spend the rest of her life with this man. He almost scoffed at this Scully’s childish together forever idealistic notions. Luckily she had realized what they were doing was wrong and left before anything could get worse.

“That’s not how it played out, unfortunately,” Mulder told her dryly, “after you left him his wife became suspicious he was having an affair and ended up killing herself.”

“What?” Scully whispered, horrified, bringing her hand to her mouth.

“I didn’t mean for it to sound harsh,” he said, “but there’s no way to say that pleasantly.”

“Oh my God. I have to talk to him,” she said, scrambling for the button for her nurse.

“Scully, no,” he stopped her with his large hand on hers, “you can’t. You’re not with him anymore. You haven’t seen him in months.”

She looked at him with one eyebrow raised curiously. “Months? So I have seen him recently?”

Mulder closed his eyes, rubbing his face again. “He had a heart thing months ago and you had checked up on him. But he’s fine now and you told him to move on.”

“He still wanted to be with me?” she looked hopeful and Mulder wanted to throw up. This was his nightmare, his hell. He couldn’t argue that after everything he had put her through he probably deserved this.

“Yes,” he hesitated, “but you’re not the same person anymore. He’s not either. And his daughter is older now and she - well she hates you.” He tried pushing her away from a man who would be no good for her. A man who only wanted to control her. What, like you’re any better?

Scully listened to him but shook her head, pressing the nurse call button. “I need to talk to him.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mulder waited outside her door once again, turning his head every so often to peek through the blinds, watching the back of the man talking to Scully.

Maggie Scully walked up to him, a bag of Scully’s things on her shoulder. Her hands were wringing together nervously. Probably afraid for her daughter and afraid of what to say to her. He knew it couldn’t have been easy telling her about her father over again and her sister. Along with everything else.

He glanced back again to peek and saw the tall broad back of Daniel Waterston, hovering over Dana. Mulder sighed when he couldn’t see her, wishing he knew what they were talking about.

He was eager to talk to her about the baby. About her. About them, their work.

“He’s still in there?” Maggie asked and Mulder kept his eyes focused on the closed blinds, nodding solemnly.

“It’s been a while,” she commented, trying to get Mulder away from their private conversation.

“Forty-nine minutes,” Mulder said.

When he still wouldn’t look away, Maggie sighed and lowered herself into the chair next to him. “I understand you feel hurt and lost,” she began and he finally did turn to look at the older woman, “I feel the same way. To tell my daughter what she’s lost...it’s hell.” Maggie’s eyes were shining with tears and Mulder noticed she held them back. Just like Scully would.

Mulder sunk further into his chair guiltily. He couldn’t imagine having to tell Scully over again what she’d lost. Especially since it was mostly his fault. He couldn’t think about himself right now. He placed his hand gently on top of Maggie’s. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Mrs. Scully. I’m sorry this is happening at all. I should’ve made her stay home. It’s all my fa-”

“Let’s not place blame anywhere,” Maggie interrupted, putting her other hand on top of his. “Except on the person or people who have done this to her. I know you’ve only ever cared about my daughter.”

Mulder kept his mouth shut, as to not burden Maggie with his internal turmoil. He stared in front of him, watching the nurses flutter about from room to room as they checked on patients.

“I know you love her,” he heard Maggie say to him and turned his attention back to her in surprise. Was it that obvious? “And I know she loved you.”

Loved.

That hurt like a bitch. Mulder must have had a physical reaction to that statement because Maggie pat his hand as if to comfort him but they both knew there were really no words she could say to make this situation better.

At least she’s not dead or seriously injured?

The door next to Mulder opened and Mulder’s face twisted at the sight of Scully’s much older ex lover closing the door behind him. He could feel Maggie stiffen next to him and could immediately tell she was also not fond of the man. Mulder had never met him except for an hour ago very briefly but he already had unabashed hatred for him from Scully’s earlier words of asking about him and his general jealousy over Scully’s obvious want to see him and probably be with him again since it’s what she knows and she’ll probably want to raise the baby with him too.

At this last thought, Mulder shot up from his chair in a mild panic, needing to speak with her. “How did it go?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the older man shook his head. “No clue where she came from or what’s happened to her, barely a scratch on her, yet a large chunk of her memories just vanished? It’s…”

“She was abducted,” Mulder informed him.

“By whom?”

Mulder didn’t answer. Instead he stared at the closed door in front of him, bracing himself to face Scully and her unfamiliarity with him. “I’m going to go talk to her.”

An arm stopped him from reaching for the door. “I wouldn’t do that,” Daniel warned.

Mulder’s arms crossed, his eyes narrowing in frustration. “And why the hell not?” He realized how Scully he sounded and probably looked. That thought didn’t make him smile, or comfort him. It just made him miss her more.

“She doesn’t remember you, for one.” Daniel said, not even flinching at Mulder’s sudden defensive stance. “And if you go in there telling her all about the past she’s never known - about all this mumbo jumbo alien abduction crap, she’ll never believe you and she’ll think you’re crazy.”

Mulder’s lips formed a straight line. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh?” Waterston inquired. “You don’t think I know all about you and what you do? You run the X-Files department and you are a firm believer in the paranormal and of extraterrestrials.”

Before Mulder could respond, Maggie cleared her throat, gaining their attention . “I’d like to see my daughter, please.”

Daniel moved out of the way of the door and Mulder took the moment to calm himself and clenched his fists tightly. The last thing he needed to do was lose his temper, upset Mrs. Scully more, and get kicked out of the hospital.

The older mustached man looked at him with something akin to pity in his eyes. It made Mulder want to wring his neck. This man knew nothing about him or them and their work.

“I’m only trying to keep her calm,” Daniel told a fuming Mulder, “I think she’s got a lot on her plate right now that she’s trying to digest. You barging in, a stranger, will only confuse and frustrate her more. As a medical doctor myself and someone that cares for Dana very deeply, I insist that you keep your distance. She is fragile right now.”

Mulder took deep breaths as to not raise his voice in the hospital. “You’re not her doctor and you have no right to tell me what to do. I’ll see her if I want to and I will be cautious. I know her better than she knows herself right now. And I sure as hell care about her a lot more than you ever have.”

Daniel Waterston hesitated only for a moment and Mulder thought he was going to back off. Until - “Ah, but it was me she asked for, wasn’t it?”

Mulder could feel the heat in his cheeks from anger. “Only because you-” he poked a finger hard into the man’s chest, their faces level, “were the last person she remembers being with. But mark my words - I will go to the ends of this earth to help her and fix this.” Mulder’s glare was sharp, his jaw tense. “I’ve done it before.”

Waterston did not take the bait. His voice was still calm, cool as a cucumber. “I understand your frustration, I do. I’ve seen many patients lose their memories - sometimes they gain them back, sometimes they do not. It’s unfortunate altogether and I understand that it hurts to see the woman you love not remember you. But it’s crucial and it’s important that she is not given the pressure to remember things. It must come naturally, if it is to come at all.”

“What did you tell her?” Mulder wanted to know, was almost afraid to know.

“I apologized for her losses, she was taking it badly, poor girl. She cried to me. I held her hand.” Mulder’s fist clenched again at the man’s words. He should be the one in there, the one she cried to. Even if it was all his fault.

The last time she had cried to him was the day she told him the IVF didn’t work. He remembered the feeling of her arms wrapped around his neck, tight, almost choking but he held on to her too, his throat strained with emotions he tried to hold back. He had never really thought about being a father until Scully had asked him for his help. He felt flattered, at first, then felt it was a bad idea and agonized for hours over how to tell her. Then he had a dream of Scully with a bundle of blankets in her arms, her glowing face peering down into the tiny features of their child. She looked so...happy. He wanted that for her. He wanted that happiness for her and for him, too.

As he stood there, Scully’s tears leaking on his shoulder, he pulled her back to look into her eyes. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to see the disappointment in his face. But he grasped the back of her neck with his hand, willing her to see him.

“We will figure this out,” he breathed, “together. You and me. We’ll - I’ll try again. Try as many times as you want me to.” When she said nothing, he continued, “we’ll adopt! God, you deserve this, Scully. You deserve this more than anyone. I’m sorry I couldn’t give it to you.”

Scully’s eyes filled again and he pulled her in, his nose in her hair. He hoped she wasn’t crying because he made her upset. Really, Scully was crying at the words we. You and me. We. He was so willing to help her and be in it with her. She knew she was in love with him, just like she knew he loved her. And they both knew it was merely a matter of time before one of them got their act together and made a move. Even still, Scully found comfort in the fact that even if there were no words shared on the status or eventual evolvement of their relationship, she felt secure in it, in him. There was no one else she wanted this with, the adventures, the discoveries. She could only wish and pray that they could have a child together, for a child would bring them so much joy. She yearned so badly to be a mother, to love and care for someone and watch them grow and become their own person. Just as much, she craved to see Mulder love and be loved by his child. He had never really known such love in his own childhood and she knew firsthand just how big his heart was, how caring and kind he could be. He deserved this chance just as much as she and she was devastated she couldn’t give this to him.

Scully kissed his jaw, inhaling sharply, trying to blink her tears back. His hand was soothingly rubbing small circles on her back and she turned her head to face away from him, still lying on his shoulder. “I wanted this for us so badly,” she sniffled.

“I know,” his whisper came immediately after and she pulled back again to look at him, surprised to find his eyes watery. “Me too.”

She brushed his cheeks with her thumbs, even though his face was devoid of tears. She just wanted to be close to him, to crawl into him and let all her sadness and loss melt away.

That night, she did.

Mulder continued to glare at Daniel Waterston. He was a fairly direct kind of guy himself, but this man really had some nerve saying what he did, as if Dana didn’t have her own choices to make.

“I feel like this could be our second chance,” Daniel said, then chuckled to himself, “well, perhaps the third. I did try and convince her to be with me the last time one of us was in the hospital.”

Mulder found none of this amusing. In fact, his hands now itched to strangle this man.

“You’re not going anywhere near her,” Mulder blurted.

Waterston almost smiled and Mulder could feel his blood boiling. Who the hell did this guy think he is? “On the contrary, Dana wants me here. She’s used to me, my presence is comforting to her. It’s important to surround her with comforts of what she remembers.”

“Oh, and you’re just so concerned about her wellbeing. You can hardly wait to whisk her away and manipulate her into thinking she’s still in love with you.”

Daniel stroked his mustache and Mulder wished with everything in him that this much older man wasn’t so goddamn intimidating. “I let her go, last time,” Daniel said insightfully, “I don’t plan to again.”

Mulder felt Scully slipping away from him so quickly, he didn’t know what to grab onto to keep him afloat and give him the strength to fight for her and for them. “You didn’t let her go, she told you to let go. Because she had moved on! And she moved on with me.”

Then he thought of his unborn child and his entire body filled with a fierce protectiveness he had never known before.

“And memories or no memories, you’d have to kill me before I let you near the woman I love and our unborn child.”

If Scully weren’t in this kind of predicament, Mulder would almost find Waterston’s reaction amusing. He didn’t, he just wanted the man to leave at this point.

“She’s pregnant?” Waterston blinked. And when Mulder nodded, said, “she didn’t tell me…”

“Well,” Mulder replied, bitterly, “she’s got a lot on her plate.”

Before Mulder could even blink, Daniel was barging into Scully’s room, Mulder following close behind, ready to usher him out the door before he could say anything to her.

Scully’s hands were clasped with her mother’s, tears falling down her beautiful pale face and Mulder’s heart clenched in worry. Did they get more bad news?

“Is the baby alright?”

“You’re having a baby?”

Both men said at the same time and suddenly faced the wrath of Maggie Scully’s hard glare as the women turned toward the anxious men, but for completely different reasons. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let my daughter and I have this talk, alone,” Maggie added.

Mulder nodded apologetically but said: “please. I need to know...is the baby going to be ok?”

He saw guilt flash across Scully’s face as she glanced at him and moved her eyes over to Daniel. Waterston looked horrified at the idea of a child. As if I’d ever let this man near him or her, Mulder inwardly scoffed at the thought. He had the mental image of a little girl with red hair, freckles painting her face, a small, shy smile. Mulder shook his head, feeling himself get choked up. “Is she alright?” he asked again.

Dana’s mouth opened and she hesitated nervously, glancing again at Daniel and then into the sad eyes of her mother. “I….I don’t know,” she answered truthfully.

End of part 2

[votederpycausemufins]

I’m back, but you still not see much for a few days. there’s still some stuff for me to finish up and i need to move back home.

@petrichormeraki and @helleborusangel (come back angel. I have given thee helsmits)

The_Grifter joined the world.

<The_Grifter> alright, I’m looking for Grian, Tommy, Xannes and also Xisuma 

<The_Grifter> I also wouldn’t mind seeing Mumbo~

<FalseSymmetry> Who are you?

<TangoTek> Are you someone from Tommy’s old server?

<The_Grifter> Nope! :3

<The_Grifter> Hmm, looks like only Tommy and Xisuma are here.

<The_Grifter> Oh well, good enough!

<TommyInnit> Why are you here?

<The_Grifter> Dadza’s threatening Sense if I don’t figure out what happened to Theseus.

<NPG> So… not killing me?

<The_Grifter> :3

<NPG> WM if you see this i’m going to try finding you!

PerfectSense joined the world

<The_Grifter> :O

<The_Grifter> Guess I don’t need to do shit now

<PerfectSense> No you do. I’m cursed

<The_Grifter> >:O

<TommyInnit> Bitch, I’m the only one allowed to curse here!

<The_Grifter> Not anymore!

<The_Grifter> Wait

<PerfectSense> Prof has them

<The_Grifter> Awww I can’t wait to see how much fun they have

<ImpulseSV> Does anyone know what’s going on?

<Docm77> Nope

<StressMonster> Sorry luv

<TommyInnit> I unfortunately do. Those are hels… people. What do you call them?

<Renthedog> Helsmits

<TommyInnit> got it. Well, Grian and Mumbo versions

<Renthedog> I thought NPG was that?

<The_Grifter> fuck no he isn’t. He stole my spot!

<TommyInnit> The other helsmits locked Grifter away because they couldn’t deal with him

<Iskall85> Oh dear

.

.

.

Fundy came out of the room behind Grum. “I’m so sorry. I was just turning him back on to check him out and he just sort of… did this.” He gestured to Grumbot, who was currently just staring at Grian.

“I need to know how to make a portal to bzzt. Bzzt is still revived incorrectly and bzzt says his revival is important for Grum.” Grumbot spoke, making the others look around slightly confused.

“Do we need to find a way to remove that too?” Fundy asked. “Doesn’t sound like your kid exactly.”

“I see. I shouldn’t have been saying it that way then.” Grumbot replied, nodding in acknowledgment. “While I’m sorry for the confusion, I still need a portal to bzzt.”

“Grum, you’re having your words come out wrong again.” Mumbo said, moving closer to the bot. “We can’t quite tell where you want a portal to.”

“I see. I was unaware that was still happening. I’ll see if I can fix it later. Does a portal home work?”

“You want to go back to Hermitcraft?” Grian asked, and Grumbot nodded. “Alright, I can do that if you can answer why you’ve been using the name Eyes.”

Though it was implied before, Grian actually saying Eyes was Grumbot still surprised people. Grumbot also didn’t answer the question immediately and the screen changed to a loading circle, which just changed the surprise to worry. 

Mumbo looked to Grian, who seemed to have the most knowledge of what was going on. Grian seemed to realize what the look was, and answered. “It looks like the boys are also Watchers.”

Heads suddenly snapped in Grian’s direction and questions started being flung at him about how it was possible and what that meant. He tried to get everyone to calm down and explained he would try his best to answer later, but they didn’t stop until Grumbot spoke again. “I used it so that when helping, my presence would be seen as someone else by the admin Dream. That seems to also be the reasoning behind the names being censored.”

“Seems to be?” Grian asked, eyes narrowed. Jrum seemed fine for now, but he was still skeptical about Grumbot and their Watcher powers.

For a moment, Grumbot seemed to be buffering again. “That is the reason for it. I apologize for the error in wording there.”

Grian still seemed skeptical and grabbed Mumbo, pulling him over to a corner to talk. “You’re sure you got everything out of there?”

“Everything we could get out of there. There were a few files that wouldn’t move over. But Fundy and I also discovered that their wiring has changed on its own.”

Grian paused, thinking that over. “I want to get the boys home so we have what we need to repair them, but I’m still worried about what would happen with Grum. And because of that we would need to keep a close eye on him, but Jrum needs us more right now.”

“I’m sure the others would be glad to watch over him, especially if EX comes back with us because I’m sure Xisuma will have his hands full with everything else that’s been going on.”

“I’m not so sure that will be enough. I mean, you’ve seen how I’ve gotten when I’m using too much of my Watcher powers.”

“Well, I suppose that’s true. But at the very least, it doesn’t look like he knows how to do much yet. I mean, he is asking for you to make a way out instead of just leaving himself.”

“I guess that’s true. But what if they can’t handle it?” Grian asked, but Mumbo just gave him a deadpan look.

“Grian. We’ve dealt with you.”

“I know, I know. But this could be like me, but with the energy of a kid.”

“We’ve also dealt with Jrum.”

“But this is like-”

Mumbo put his hands on Grian’s shoulders. “We are hermits, Grian. We’ve dealt with some crazy things even before you showed up. Sure you’ve made it crazier, but you can’t count us out just like that.”

Grian sighed. “I know. I’m just worried.”

“I know, I am too. But I doubt the worst thing that could happen actually will. I’m sure the other hermits will do fine if anything happens. Grum just wants to help out Tommy. We’ll probably have to come back here anyway when that happens, so we won’t be gone too long and can see how things go.”

Grian nodded. “Okay, but just us for and EX if he wants to come.”

Mumbo nodded, and the two of them went back over to the group. “Alright Grum, we can take you to Tommy, but we’ll probably need to come back here.”

“Will we bring Tommy back with us on our return?” Grumbot asked, tilting their head slightly with the question.

“That depends on if Tommy wants to come back.” Grian answered, but Grumbot didn’t like that answer.

“I will not return here if he does not also return. I will need to stay with him.”

“And why do you need to do that?”

Grumbot started buffering again, taking much more time than before. “That cannot be safely discussed as Dream may try to impede what is needed.”

“Well he isn’t around anymore. I saw him disappear with the other version of Tommy.” Tubbo spoke up. 

“You are correct. The admin Dream is not here. But his absence does not change things.”

Grian tried to say something more, but Mumbo stopped him. “Grum’s obviously still dealing with whatever happened. He probably is just scared to trust anyone right now. Don’t hold it against him.”

“Alright, fine. Well, we’re going to leave for a bit with the boys before coming back, so you don’t need to follow.” Grian explained, but then turned to Xannes. “Unless you want to come along, because I honestly wouldn’t mind having someone like you around in case something…”

“Alright fine, but I might not stay too long. I do have things I need to deal with back in Helscraft based on what I heard from Tommy.”

“That’s perfectly fine.”

Jrumbot left the world

Grumbot_System left the world

MumboJumbo left the world

EvilXisuma left the world

Grian left the world

D̵̳̿̊͑ͅr̸̻̀̊e̷͓̹̘͝á̸͋̃m̸̡̙͇̘̫̈́̇͘ joined the world

Nightmare joined the world

TheseusMC joined the world

.

.

.

The moment they got back, Grian got a message from Tommy.

<TommyInnit> come to my place NOW

<Grian> Which one? What’s wrong? We already know about you having a respawn problem

<TommyInnit> The one I stole from you.

<The_Grifter> And I’m apparently what’s wrong!

<Grian> HOW

<MumboJumbo> Excuse me?!

<The_Grifter> :3

“Alright, I guess we definitely need to see Tommy now.” Grian grumbled. He didn’t know what they were going to be dealing with, so he teleported them nearby, though forgetting Xannes, ready to attack at a moment’s notice. Jrum half hid behind Mumbo while Grumbot didn’t do much in the way of hiding, standing slightly behind and to the side of Grian. The avian held a sword in one hand and readied magic in the other hand before breaking down the door. “Tommy! We’re here!”

Tommy poked his head out from the tunnel. “Hey.” He waved, shocking the group other than Grumbot with his appearance.

“Tommy, are you okay? You’re all… grey.”

“Well, I’m not entirely a gho-” He started to speak, but a blur of green suddenly came by and grabbed Jrum.

“Oh look at him! He’s just like Grifect!” Grifter held up Jrum into the air, who was now struggling.

“Hey!” Grian tried to take Jrum away. “Put him down! And is that my old knight tunic?!”

Grifter put Jrum down. “Okay fine. And yeah, looked too much like NPG for my liking and his clothes are sort of built in, so I raided your wardrobe and now this is mine!”

“You can’t just steal my things!” Grian crossed his arms before picking Jrum up.

“I can and I did! Besides, looks great on me. I’m never taking it off! Though if someone else wants to-”

“Oh no he’s just as bad as Sense.”

Grifter pouted. “Oh like you’re in a position to complain. Sense and I had to wait a whole season because you two couldn’t just get busy sooner.”

“Can you fucking stop?” Tommy asked. “They’re less likely to help if you piss them off.”

Mumbo looked at Tommy, then to Grifter. “Why do you need our help exactly?”

“Because Sense is kinda cursed until I help Dadza because Theseus is missing and he likes Theseus most.”

“He was in Tommy’s old world for a bit, but he left while we were there.”

Grifter groaned. “Uh, yeah, I know that part. He left and came back already but apparently he left again but this time it wasn’t on purpose and Dad’s pissed. And it really fucking sucks because I’ve already been without Sense for so long and we only got to kiss before this shitty curse got put on him.”

“Don’t you-”

“I have standards with children in the room. Don’t worry about that.” Grifter rolled his eyes. “Now, finding Theseus. What do you all know?”

“What I know is that I first must look at Bzzt.” Grumbot spoke up, getting Grifter’s attention.

“Wait wait wait wait. Are they also a Watcher like you?” Grifter asked Grian, who shrugged. “Oh I can’t wait to tell Sense! He’ll love it! Assuming our kids are the same.”

“Wait, you have kids?” Mumbo asked, confused.

Grifter rolled his eyes and groaned. “Duh, that’s what I was talking about before dumbass.”

Grumbot looked between Grifter and the others before pushing past the helsmit to get to Tommy. Tommy tried to say something but was stopped as Grumbot put their hand on his mouth to silence him before looking him over. “I see. This seems to be simple enough to fix. We are just missing a necessary item. The only problem is the item is not with u-me so we will need to find the admin Dream who should have it in his possession.”

“No, I don’t want you getting near that green bitch again.” Tommy said, grabbing Grumbot’s wrist as they tried to walk off. “He already screwed you up before and you still seem kinda off.”

If Grumbot currently had an expressive face, they would have frowned. “But he is the only one with the book in his possession. And the person he got it from is constantly referred to as being dead, so I cannot go to them.”

“Book?”

“There is supposed to be a resurrection book. Such a book is normally used within the hels dimension, but the admin Dream altered the world in such a way that the book becomes necessary in certain deaths. It is likely that is something Theseus was after when trying to get the admin Dream.”

“Oh! That’s good to know!” Grifter smiled. “That should help out with finding Theseus. Anyway, I guess we need to find this Dream person.”

“The admin Dream was taken away by Theseus and has not been seen since as they were sent to the hels dimension by Console.”

“Alright, who’s that?”

Grumbot immediately started buffering, making Grifter raise an eyebrow and look at Grian and Mumbo, who didn’t have an answer for him. Tommy had a similar reaction, though it was more concerned, and he moved closer to Grumbot, who suddenly stopped buffering. “I’m sorry. What were we talking about again?”

“Ugh, whatever. Can you find Theseus or not?” Grifter asked, crossing his arms.

“Potentially, yes. It seems that my programs are less inhibited than before and I can access my information, especially if Theseus has a political ranking.”

Grifter groaned. “Ugh, I don’t know if he does. Sense would though. I’m going to go get him!” Grifter started running into the minecart tunnel. “Seesee! You need to tell me things about bitch boy!”

The group waited for Grifter to return. Jrum complained a little about wanting to go home, which led to Grian leaving with Jrum. Mumbo wanted to stay behind, but Jrum also wanted him around and Tommy said he could watch Grumbot, so the redstoner left as well.

“So Grum, what have you been up to?” Tommy asked, regretting the question when it just caused Grumbot to start buffering. “You alright in there?”

When the robot stopped, they answered Tommy’s question. “I have been living with the admin Dream for the span of around two months. He has been getting assistance from C-me through the form of a console.”

“Yeah, I mostly knew that part. But that’s what he made you do. Is there anything you’ve been up to yourself?”

“Not by myself, no.” Grumbot quickly answered, which while Tommy didn’t like the answer, it at the very least didn’t have a negative effect on the robot.

“So, obviously I fucking died. What exactly is the problem?”

“The world you came from and ended up dying in had some issues. Your revival should have been straightforward, but there was an issue due to the admin Dream’s influence on the world.”

Tommy paused, Grumbot had been saying that a lot. “You know you can just call him Dream. We know he’s the admin.”

“But what if I were talking about-” Grumbot started, but then their screen briefly featured an egg of all things before buffering again. Tommy’s eyes widened, and he was pretty sure he knew the issue. Dream was still doing something to Grumbot, so Grian and Mumbo needed to know as soon as possible.

Tommy jumped up from where he was sitting, rushing to get to the mansion, forgetting he couldn’t leave until he crashed into the invisible barrier keeping him in. He cursed a bit before stomping back over next to Grumbot, sitting down and crossing his arms. He grumbled a bit more, but then he was suddenly aware of Grum pulling himself into Tommy’s lap and curling up there. “Hey, you doing alright?” He asked, and Grum just clung to his shirt tightly.

“No.” Grum spoke in such a broken sounding voice that it hurt Tommy just to hear. “I’m sc-scared. I d-don’t care wh-what he s-says. I w-want to stay here.”

Tommy knows he’s not the best and helping out with trauma. He can barely deal with his own sometimes. But he knows that right now he’s the only one here and Grum is currently clinging to him. “Are you talking about Dream?” He asks in a quiet voice, taking a moment to make sure Grifter hasn’t returned with Sense before blocking up the tunnel, at least for now.

Grum shakes his head. “No… it… I d-don’t know. I th-think I’m br-broken. O-or I’ve b-been broken… Th-they were j-just supposed to be in th-the box. Th-they were s-supposed to stay th-there.”

“What are you talking about?” Tommy asked, and Grum clung tighter to his shirt.

“I’m the o-older brother… I c-can’t be doing this…”

Tommy pulled Grum away from him to look at his face. He was glad to see that it was its normal mustachey self, but he didn’t dwell on that for too long. “Bitch, your dad is my older brother and he has issues all the time. If he can do it while also being an adult and having kids, you can do it as a kid. Got that?”

Grum didn’t quite look convinced, but nodded. A moment later, his programs list was being shown on his screen. “P-please don’t t-tell my dads y-yet, o-okay?”

Tommy nodded and looked at them. There were a number of programs, but they were all grouped into folders with different names. Names Tommy recognized from before. They were the names That had been in the book he found. For a moment he tried to look in his inventory for the book before realizing it was probably back in the SMP, making him curse.

He regretted cursing, because just as he did, Grum’s programs went away and he started crying again. “No, Grum, I wasn’t upset at yo- ah fuck… whatever, come here. ‘Least no one is around to see my manly image being destroyed.” Grum started hugging Tommy again, a small laugh coming out at the teen’s comment.

“Alright! We’re ba- Where’d everyone go?” Grifter said as he broke through the barrier Tommy had put up. “Oh, is it only you?”

“Grum’s here too, bitch.” Tommy replied with a bored look, gesturing to the bot in his lap.

“I see. Well Sense has information!”

Beside Grifter, Sense was there. “Yeah, he was Emperor of Helscraft unfortunately.”

“Oh yeah, he was, wasn’t he.” Tommy nodded, getting a glare from Grifter.

“You let me leave even though you knew?!”

“Grum wouldn’t let me talk, so I couldn’t answer. Sorry about that.” Tommy responded, though he didn’t seem all that sorry with the smile on his face.

“Ugh, alright, now let the kid do his thing so we can get out of here and break this curse on Sense.”

Grum started trembling a bit, and Tommy was worried the kid was going to tear his shirt with how tight he was grabbing it. “I c-can’t. I d-don’t want to.”

“I don’t care what you want. I want what I want. But if you need a little push…” Grifter was handed some TNT from Sense, whose mustache twisted in a smile. “It looks like your friend is trapped in his home, but what happens if there’s no more home to be trapped in, hmm?”

“Oi! Don’t you fucking try that bitch!”

“Then give me the information I want!”

“He doesn’t have to give it up if he doesn’t want to!”

As Tommy argued with the helsmits, Grum cried a bit, still trembling, but then he stopped and his screen changed back to the symbol of a broken portal. “I will need a diamond first.”