#except Joel isn't a hybrid

[fountainpenguin]

"Always hear the same kind of story; break your nose and they'll just say 'Sorry...'" (x)

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Pixels Imperfect series ~ Double Life - Boat Boys

“Canadian Idiot” - 23k words

❤️ Read on AO3

💛 Paper Boats [Etho & Joel series]

💚 More Pixels Imperfect fics

I've been drawing preview images for some of my 'fics that didn't have them yet. Here's a pretty post for a personal favorite!

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Summary: Etho is a fox hybrid who aggros on people who cause him damage. During Double Life, Joel and Etho are soulbound. And Joel causes Etho a lot of damage. The mob-strengthening full moon doesn’t help.

AKA - That one 'fic where Etho bites Joel a bunch of times and Joel stomachs it like the good little soulmate he is.

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

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Canadian Idiot

"Where is Etho? Why hasn't he come home? I'm SO worried…"

🖤  💛  ❤️

Act 1. Scene 2. Introductions are behind them; the Hero's Journey has begun. They balance on the precipice hand in hand, except they're nowhere near hand in hand because Joel has done nothing wrong and Etho's about to bring him crashing down. With a label like Act 1, Scene 2 melting in your brain, you're practically encouraged to overstep; make mistakes. Isn't that a proper story outline? You start by introducing goals. Then faults. 'Tell me one thing your protagonist does wrong…'

It's Etho, not Joel, who does something wrong. Wrong and immoral and without consent, and he's shaking - he's shaking - as he slips his hand above the milk-white bed sheets. He slightly cranes his neck, lifting just a little from his pillow. He's already squirmed closer to Joel more than he'd admit to anyone outside the Boat. Joel's cradled against him, stomachs and knees and hips flush and ticklish and warm. Joel's hand rests atop the blankets. Atop Etho's chest, pretty much.

And Etho's itchy, pain swelling deep inside. His breath's all clogged in the back of his throat. A problem that Joel doesn't have, because Joel's some kind of insect hybrid and he breathes through the spiracles down his torso… which Etho can feel both on the outside of his legs (because Joel is shirtless under the blankets) and threaded through his own body (because they share every flickery touch, even in the way they breathe).

I wonder if Joel ever gets sick of feeling "my" breath in the back of his mouth. That's gotta be a weird feeling when he doesn't have lungs…

In Act 1, Scene 2, Etho initiates the Rising Action. He lays his own hand on the far side of Joel's. His eyes are glowing - the candles and furnaces are glowing too - and it's warm and rosy and golden brown down in the depths of The Relation. Etho's shaking as he nudges Joel's fingers higher up the blankets, from their random flop (is it random?) across Joel's chest and up to Etho's neck. Conflicting pixels bristle when they come into contact. They tense up, even while Joel stays sleepy and mild-mannered. Etho stares down at those gleaming pixels and watches them re-situate themselves, building up their little barrier so they stay firmly Joel's and his own pixels remain firmly Etho's.

There's unwavering trust in the way Joel lets himself sleep, curled against Etho's side. The pixels in their legs blended together long ago, making mermaids out of them. They don't even itch. They're perfectly melted inside each other, heels and toes overlapping as easily as the edges of their hitboxes do.

Etho can feel the easy flutter of mingled bits and pieces shifting between them, pixels bumping and evaluating their neighbors and occasionally switching back and forth. He's got bits that used to belong to Joel in his ankles, probably. The colors have probably already changed over. You wouldn't even be able to tell. It's nothing. It's normal. Everybody does this. They're sharing a bed. They're sharing hearts and health and pain; exchanging pixels during hitbox overlap isn't nearly as weird.

It's not like I'm anxious and 65 anymore. I've got a couple thousand years in me. I've shared my bed before. This isn't weird.

It's not like this in the singleplayer, though, where he sleeps alone.

And it's not like this on Hermitcraft. Where he sleeps alone.

And it wasn't like this in his wool castle on 3rd Life. Where he slept alone.

And it wasn't like this in Last Life. Bdubs slept on the far side of their shared room, his narcoleptic phantom soul knocking him out cold hours before Etho crept to bed. And slept alone.

Etho squirms, which blurs his foot with Joel's and sends a static ripple up his leg. He stops so it won't seize up in the pit behind his knee. His pixels need a minute to orient again, sluggish in their sleep just like the softly breathing Joel. The air is stuffy inside The Relation's lower room. Etho already pulled his mask off before bed; it lies (rumpled and unfolded) on the crafting table to his left. Though dry, the air is cool against his exposed skin. His tongue traces across the curve of each and every pointed tooth inside his mouth.

I have to.

The closest he'll come to voicing it. He tries to fold his hands away. He grips his own wrist, grinding it in the wrinkles of blankets tucked against his stomach. Candles flicker in the edges of his vision. He stares across the captains' quarters, rotating his hand back and forth, forcing it to press his stomach. To calm some kind of hunger that doesn't stem from there.

He does not personify the aggro instincts creeping up his spine. They don't envelop him in words. Offering words to the thought would mean caving in, admitting its strength and hold against him. Etho stares without blinking at the far wall and twists his wrist in that space between stomach and guts. Tight. Unyielding. Firm.

It's never been this bad on-server before…

It's twisted. It writhes in him, like a snake dropped down his pants, spiraled around his leg, and looped to slither up his spine and wrap around his throat. It's a full-body shiver that leaves him opening and closing his hands, palming his knees through the bed sheets. He has really pointy knees. Etho presses, rubbing his hands up and down and all around in circles, but it doesn't help.

He needs to. This. He needs- he just does. He can curl his legs and writhe and grimace all he wants to, but he can't hold it in forever… like Bdubs can't help but lunge when Etho's pushing at the boundary of long nights with no sleep.

Can't.

He sinks down in the pillows, exhaling, and tugs the white covers of the bed up to his chest again. It shifts Joel's arm. Etho can feel it through the blankets. He can feel the touch of soft, carefully crafted wool on the back of that hand as clearly as his own. Joel's expertise with wool leaves absolutely no question that he thrives on the Empires server, weaving banners on a loom. There's no itchiness to the blankets. They're so soft, they may as well be silk or cream.

This ship feels like a cake, lit by the candles on the wooden shelves. As the wind gusts against the outside of their base, it creaks the boards and Etho shivers, shifting one leg a little tighter between both of Joel's. Pillager grunts carry down the hill. He can hear their distant pacing. The constant loading of crossbow bolts. The way they mutter, bending heads.

Do pillagers ever snuggle with their friends late at night? Maybe not. They're just mobs; maybe they aren't programmed with a sleep schedule. He's never charged inside an outpost to find them startled and fumbling out of bed.

[Cnt'd on AO3 - Link at top]

[playername-player-of-games]

hey who's Atmos (totally not Korky)

atmos is half an oc and half a self insert! in short: he's one of King Joel of Mezalea's terracotta clones that was given sentience during the rapture/end of the world, and is now a Player who has to deal with the consequences of being alive! he has no idea how to deal with this and also has a lot of trauma!! yippee !!

in long:

Name: Atmos Cupid Phere

Age: a little messy tbh? however old joel was during esmp s1, but also as old as a terracotta clone and also as old as me so he doesn't exactly. have an age i guess idk. maybe 20 something.

Gender: terracotta (masc nonbinary? idk) - he/it/they

Species: Human/Moth hybrid, specifically a Golden Sun Moth!

Appearance: before he gains sentience: he looks like joel. After he gains sentience though, he looks more like himself! rounder features, unkempt brown hair with one golden streak through it (like joel's green stripe except it's gold) - he's got lots and lots of freckles all over, his eyes are brown with bits of gold. He wears amber-colored goggles, mostly on his head but sometimes over his eyes. clothes are a generic black sleeveless turtleneck with a brown bomber jacket overtop. tan-ish cargo pants with a lot of pockets. brown boots.

He's a golden sun moth- his wings fit through slits in his jacket. His antenna are long, thin, and black. He's like 5'4 (162.5 ish cm tall)

Personality: a mix of extremely petty and the most anxious man you've ever met in your life. constantly looking for ways to stay on someone's "good side" and is genuinely shocked when people dislike him. fairly sarcastic but you can never tell if it's on purpose or if he's having an Autism Moment (tm). He does like. "idle animations" or just certain things he loops back on. could be stimming, could be a tic, could be ocd, could be a mix of all 3 or something else entirely.

but he's also been an npc his entire life up until now - when he's triggered he returns to his natural state of "help and be helpful" and loses his words except for maybe a handful of phrases that all sound like typical NPC dialogue - ("how can i help?" "shipment's all packed!" "will that be everything?" "thank you for choosing [Joel's Mezalean Terracotta!]")

Backstory: He was one of Joel's terracotta clones- specifically one of the ones that worked for Joel's Mezalean Terracotta, first as a miner and then as a delivery guy. He was a clone up until the rapture, when he just sorta. blinks. and then he's here, in a world that's falling apart, and after a moment of indescribable panic, he instinctively opens a menu and leaves the world, and because he isn't whitelisted he can never, ever go back.

He doesn't remember being alive before this. Literally his first memories are of a world falling apart, and he has no idea how to handle that.

He's a player now. Everything he does has meaning and actually affects the world.

(both of these things are super jarring and have, unfortunately, given him massive amounts of trauma)

If he was in 4th life:

this is the first world he's been in since empires. (unfortunately it's another world that is very much going to fall apart.)

he's happy to make allies and friends and is actually friendly with a good chunk of the server, but he's sort of keeping everyone at an arm's length. (he doesn't know what to do with other players. he's never been one. he isn't used to being treated like he's human and it's really weird)

he set up shop in a place that's easy to access. "Atmos Phere's Mail Room and Pawn Shop", he calls it. Come with letters or gifts and he'll deliver your mail by next session at the latest.

Ever the terracotta clone, he trades mostly stacks of mined out blocks- things like stone, cobble, the decorative stones, deepslate- you can trade a stack for a stack, a piece of iron for half a stack, etc. He has some helpful items, like spare tools and armor, and some not so helpful items, like glow squid ink and buckets of tropical fish

he was terracotta on empires, but he isn't anymore. he's human now, and a different moth species from king joel (joel is a luna moth. this is a personal headcanon sjdfkl - idk why he'd be a moth without that headcanon. moths are cool idk)

Everything he needs is in his base. He doesn't need to leave, but he does. And he regrets it every time.

Despite the petal-soft wings on his back, he doesn't actually know how to fly, so they aren't clipped, or bound. he doesn't learn how to fly in this world. he doesn't know if he ever will.

His entire character arc is about learning how to be human. Learning to love, learning to trust. And it's ripped out from under him when the world falls apart all over again.

he also has an oc playlist on spotify that i am currently trying to put in some kind of coherent story order but a few of the songs are pure vibes and idk where to put them lol

that's my boy !! he would have been very fun in 4th life and i am currently rotating concepts very fast in my head <3

also ! if you haven't seen empires/have no idea what i'm talking about when it comes to empires, this previous infodump about atmos goes a little more into detail about that part :3

[alsmp-headcanons]

Silly AU idea

Everyone's memories getting wiped except for what's before afterlife. Callum, Lizzie, and fWhip are confused why they aren't a Giant, Raccoon, and Illusioner respectively. Jimmy is kind of unfazed because his first memory is waking up as a thornling with no idea what's going on so this isn't exactly new. Same words, different font situation.

Oli doesn't know why he's not in the end. Similar thing with Shubble and the void. Katherine was traveling before settling in Afterlife and is mostly confused as to how she got there. Not sure how Sausage would react. Gem kind of goes about her business and doesn't know anything's wrong.

Scott initially would exercise extreme caution since he doesn't know these people and one of them is a bird hybrid. Once he figures out that they're harmless (at least to him), he'll be more social.

Joey and Shubble would immediately click again.

Joel is tired because he was unaffected since he's already cursed to remember his past lives which overrode whatever caused the memory thing.

Plot twist is this was all caused by a brewing accident in the Church of St. Pearl and Joel is thankful that Scott has so many cows.

👀👀👀 this is really cool!!!

[ashedflower]

Sleep Deprived Prompts.

Part 8: Empires SMP but with Tommyinnit in it, except different.

Brain rot.

CW!: Um.... Attempted Kidnapping, Accidental Kidnapping, underage mercenaries, using a kid as payment for your house, the word blood? I guess????

*Kicks the door open* if theres a Tommy, there's a Wilbur, Techno and Philza.

So yeah…. Here's a Wilbur and Techno in my Empires SMP AAU. AAU Because I'm this world, Tommy wasn't kidnapped by stupid fuckers. Instead the kidnappers were caught, because by someone I'll reveal later.

So here's the prompt, Lizzie and Joel wanted kids, the whole birds and bees shtick, gave birth to…. Two eggs. So yeah….. anyways, the eggs hatched and out came two baby boys.

One with Lizzie's pink hair, and one with Joel's brown hair. Both of them had Joel's brown eyes.

Wilbur, was born very similar looking to his mother. Blue and pink scales in some parts of his body and fins, except his skin wasn't blue colored. Sorta like Lizzie before Deal with Destiny. An axolotl hybrid.

Techno, however, was born human, instead of an axolotl hybrid. Or at least, he looked like a human. Except his skin had a tiny pink tint in it that you could easily inore as a trick of a light. Also, he can breath underwater.

Wilbur was set to be the next ruler of the Ocean Empire, meanwhile his Twin brother Techno was set to be the next ruler of Mazelea. Or would be, if he actually showed interested in it, instead of spending time in the training grounds.

Joel tried to get him interested, but he didn't really wanna Force his youngest son into something he didn't want.

Now, here's some little headcanons:

Lizzie would take the twins swimming every chance she got. As babies and toddlers, she would take them underwater and watched gleefully as they giggled as they floated around the water. Kicking their small little feet.

Tommy can also breath underwater due to his Cod blood he inherited from Jimmy. However, his wings that he inherited from Scott tended to get very heavy when wet, so he unfortunately couldn't swim much as he grew up. When he had no/small wings though, Jimmy would take him swimming with Lizzie and the twins.

Philza was once just a traveler looking for a new server to stay in temporarily until his next Hardcore World loads up. Now, after accidentally saving the three little Princes from getting kidnapped (Baby Tommy, and Toddler Techno and Wilbur) when all he wanted to do was see what those suspicious looking men in Rivendell armor were doing miles away from the castle and the war (He was a little (very) shock to suddenly have three children clinging to him crying), he's now somehow, Rivendell's only Prince's personal knight…. To be honest with you, he had little recollection of what happened after the accidental rescue. He was very sleep deprived.

Grian is Jimmy's Advisor/right hand man/stand in for meetings whenever Jimmy isn't there because he wanted to spend time with his family. He doesn't get paid enough. At least Rivendell's Emperor's advisor was nice and had to go through pretty much the same thing. His name's Mumbo right?

Gem has a little student with black and white hair and heterochromia that lived in the Lost Empire around the same ege as Prince Tommy. Joey said he has their adopted son. However, the kid looked eerily familiar. And not because he looked like Joey. His mana also felt familiar….

The Overgrown has given Katherine a prodigy to one day take over being the guardian of the Overgrown. He has little goat horns, floppy ears, forest green eyes, dark brown hair, and small fairy wings in his back. Lady Blossom is happy.

Pearl had taken in an apprentice. Well, two of them. One of them had white hair and green eyes. The other had sandy blond hair and green eyes. They said they were brothers, and while one of them was very clearly from the Ocean Empire and the other was from Glided Helianthia, she didn't question it. Their names are Foolish and Dream.

Fwip has adopted a kid. His name's Sam and he's a creeper hybrid. It was because he lost a bet, and to be honest with you, he isn't complaining. The kid is pretty good with red stone, and is good friends with the castle medic's apprentice Ponk.

Now, Pix didn't expect to have one of his customers pay him with a kid out of everything for a house…. He names him Jack and he's good at scamming people. Normally he wouldn't condone it, but the kid was good at what he does.

Wilbur and Techno has a childhood friend, Nikki. She is a pink axolotl hybrid and has a very annoying, according to Will, younger sister named Sally…. Who wants to tell him?

Puffy is a pirate who accidentally kidnapped Pearl's apprentices after the two played hide and seek with the other kids in the Ocean Empire's market and hid in a barrel. They travelled the sea for a week before they reached the Empire again to a very worried Pearl. At least Puffy now had pseudo sons that she could visit from time to time

Shelby decided to visit her former home. She found a single Gnome with blue and brown eyes struggling to survive by himself. He was about 15 years old. 3 years older than Dream. She names him George and brings him to the undergrowth where he was crowned Prince.

Sausage now has a kid in his care that he accidentally made using a demons blood. The kid fire powers… oh, and said demon came back and wanted to bring the kid to live with him and his husband (Bad didn't exactly expect that the blood he donatd would bore him a child, but he always wanted one), but Sausage is a responsible King and instead suggested to have the kid live with the demon for a week, and have the kid stay with Sausage for the next week. The demon agreed. Skeppy, Bad, and Sausage now Co-parent Sapnap.

-Sausage's Assassin's guild also became a mercenary hot spot/hangout. Two particular brothers were a regular to the place. Both of them were blond, but one had powdered blue eyes and the other had amathys eyes.

More incoming.