#WHY DOES GRIAN HAVE SO MANY TAGS

[kxngkasper]

I COME BEARING GIFTS TUMBLR.. REDRAW GIFTS.. LOOK AT MY HERMITCRAFT GRIAN REDESIGN

don’t you love him..

these two are a year apart but the original was done quickly on my phone with my finger in the middle of my music class

[pixxlotl]

i swore i'd never become a hermitshipper what has my life become

(uncolored version below cut)

[smolbluegoblin]

we as a fandom often say that Grian and Scar never left the desert.

Maybe they tried to.

Maybe they did their best to move on.

Maybe it was the desert that never left them.

It's like finding sand in your car for months after a trip to the beach. The grains of sand found their way under their fingernails, in their clothes, inside the very cracks of their relationship.

Maybe after 4 other death games they still find sand on them and are reminded of Monopoly Mountain and the crushing heat of the desert.

And when they're riding a camel together toward the Mesa, there's a bit of sand in their steps, like a reminder that despite moving on, their souls still belong to that desert.

[mellioops]

Finally made a hair reference for my Jimmy, Pearl, and Grian designs

[fauxcoral]

TW! Blood and death + Spoilers for 3rd life Want some more Traffic smp/Mcyt members in Hero Forge?

Seems I found a new hyperfixation. So here's some more:

Treebark (Ren and Martyn)

Flower Husbands

Bumbo Vamponi (Vampire mumbo jumbo)

Imp and Skizz!

Desert Duo (Grian and Scar)

:D

TW! Blood and death

[farther-north]

...I completely forgot to post this oml

Happy (semi-bleated) Pride Month and Cactus Circle Day!

[chambers003]

Got a little silly with it.

Etho-themed redraws of ‘Village of the Angels’ (Doctor Who season 13 episode 4) (peak fiction by the way) (best episode of the season)

references and bonus under the cut. Doctor who season 13 spoilers (it’s been out 2 years to the day btw)

And also

[kit-screams-into-the-abyss]

for @cherrifire​‘s DTIYS! first one i’ve ever done :]

original:

[ajthepeach]

realized that i can do basically anything in toca today

grian and a cuteguy room

scar and a hotguy room

i have limited packs. i tried. also toca doesnt exactly have the best character creation options

[s9 scar. classic grian]

[hollowaluminumvessel]

desert duo on my mind yall ‼️‼️💥💥💥💥💥

[solargeist]

i keep mistaking some of ur kidxelqua art for ur grian art so i have to stop and read the captions/tags every time 😭😭 is there a fundamental difference im missing that would make it any easier

hi !!!!!!! no i understand it can be pretty confusing !! its pretty messy on my blog ahahah i'll try to explain them and their place in the AU

All the kid drawings are Xelqua ! Originally it was Grian, but as the character Xelqua developed, I changed it to him. When people send requests for kid Grian, i'm drawing Xelqua, as that is the AU.

This isn't 100% accurate as I forget to do it, but Grian and Xelqua part their hair differently, kid Xelqua does too. Xelqua's hair is always a bit longer. (Grian got a haircut when he joined the Watchers, thats why his hair parts different now in evoAU and HC, he just kept it shorter ! Xelqua used to wear his hair in a ponytail during his time with the Watchers.)

The reason why i say they're "technically the same" is bc Xelqua is just another Grian from a different timeline, he just has a different name. Xelqua only exists because this one Grian joined the Watchers, new possibilités opened new timelines, ones where he died, ones where he's a Listener instead, or ran away to different servers, or stayed. Xelqua is the only one to have reached Sainthood.

Because of this, Xelqua can hop around timelines, he usually just bugs other versions of himself, helping them, giving them tnt. He finds This Grian during s8 of HC, bugging him through the boatem void, briefly possessing him later, but hey ! water under the bridge !

Xelqua's timeline doesn't exist anymore after becoming That, but by becoming That he has essentially rewritten history in other timelines, solidifying himself as a saint of destruction, a destroyer, this is what the Watchers know him as, this is what evo Grian knew him as, even if Grian caused it--It already happened--Xelqua has always been here. (It makes Grian's head hurts when Xelqua explains this to him.)

Basically: Grian set off a chain reaction when he joined the Watchers, and that opened new universes, and in doing that, Xelqua is made.

Xelqua is powerful, but also very lonely and has a lot wrong with him, which is expected he spent many years with the Watchers. Xelqua can mimic any version of Grian he wants, but if he stays in that form for too long, he'll start to forget himself and instead think "Xelqua" is a patron, rather than himself. This is why kid Xelqua will usually praise the Saint Xelqua and be proud of his own name, he just doesn't know ! It takes a little while to remember himself and change back. This also happens in high stress, (bc of course it does, i love when a character loses control of their powers hahaha,) the memory is much worse if it happens from stress. You can't talk kid Xelqua out of this, it'll stress him out further and you'll just have a little god child throwing a temper tantrum then, never a good idea.

After s8 in HC EvoAU, Xelqua hangs around, popping up sometimes in s9, mostly in his adult watcher self. They don't get along too well at first, Xelqua has a little bit of bitterness over Grian having such a fun life, all these friends, needed, wanted..... But whatever ! Xisuma doesn't know how he keeps getting in, but Xelqua has been on good behaviour, so...... Shrug... Just let him visit sometimes....

Xelqua's version of the Watchers are gone, the unfortunate conséquences of becoming a destroyer, you kinda rip your own timeline apart. This, added with the fact that he is a cautionary tale in every other reality to Watchers, means if he tries to visit other versions of his Watcher family, they won't really know who he is, and just see something destructive and chaotic. If he wants to see Aether, he'll just... hop in a timeline and change himself into a kid and quickly forget what he's done. He's lonely, ok !!

Xelqua starts doing this kid bit on HC (late s9/early s10) too, he doesn't exactly mean to, but he does feel safe there. He eats Grian's food and takes over his couch and no one can get mad at him bc he is just a little kid--grian puts him in the corner. timeout. a few dead birds hit the roof as a result.

[theminecraftbee]

so a thing this fandom does that remains FASCINATING to me, as a function of the fact a lot of this fandom is people's first fandom or only current fandom, is just... assume a lot of things it does is a scourge that this fandom has invented or doesn't exist outside of it? or like, is uniquely bad here? and i won't deny that sometimes mcyt fandom is a bit more intense by virtue of numbers, but like...

duo names: confusing fandom-injokes to describe duos and groups tend to be an anime fandom thing specifically for many historical reasons, but they're not uncommon. hey quick--if you haven't been in KHR fandom, can you guess what 1827 is? no? i'll give you a hint: that's actually a ship name. or, ygo fans, tell me the difference between puppyshipping, prideshipping, violetshipping, and rivalshipping. my hint is that they're all kaiba ships and two of them are actually the same ship. good luck!

reducing characters to a specific trait: have you read fic in another fandom before? i would recommend you go do so and come back to me. my example here is "sasuke likes tomatoes", for the record.

common au fanon that's confusing to outsiders: my deep cut here is "when i got into certain tv fandoms i was baffled by the existence of sentinel/guide fics", which is a slightly older tv fandom thing so many of you probably don't know what i'm on about. but trust me: in certain fandoms it's ubiquitous and unless you've watched a completely different tv show you're gonna have to entirely pick it up from reading fic. oh hey, hybrid aus and watcher!grian, nice to see your relative here,

fanon being treated as canon: did you know there's this whole bnha character, naomasa, who is treated as canonically having a lie detector quirk? did you know that, best i can tell, that's not in canon anywhere, it just got echoed through fanon enough that everyone treated it as canon? 'fanon trait becomes so ubiquitous everyone assumes it has to be there' is not a new thing. also, batfamily fans, i have been lead to understand the tim and coffee thing is also this.

characters being treated badly to make a different dynamic look better: the fact we have the term 'character bashing' tells you all you need to know, here. if anything my one complaint on this front isn't even that it's happening--it's that i wish bashing and/or "not [character] friendly" was tagged a little more frequently, haha.

characters being reduced to their family dynamics: tale as old as time. "even the family dynamic thing" yes even that. just because this fandom tended to be particularly ship-adverse in the past didn't mean it didn't do basically the same behaviors as any fandom with shipping did with those dynamics, just gen. and other gen fandoms also do that. yes, down to the "and shipping reduces them to a ship, unlike my gen dynamic, which is very in-character; why can't people just be friends?" thing. some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

characters being reduced to their ships: some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

The Discourse: yeah this is an "actively running show" fandom thing, but also a hiatus fandom thing. ask a homestuck about vriskourse sometime. as much as i hate to say it, it probably made doomsday discourse look cute.

and those are just like... some things i've seen people complain about on my dash recently. idk it just hit me there are probably fans in mcyt fandoms who are assuming that some things (like hybrid aus or duo names) are the kind of things that only happen here, so i thought i'd offer some examples of other places they happen! i also have even more examples if you'd like.

to be clear: this isn't shaming anyone for complaining about any of these things. lord knows i go complain to my friends about it all the time, just the other day i was complaining in the category of 'they keep bashing my guy'. it's more of just... a gentle reminder that maybe we're big, maybe we're loud, maybe we have problems... but these problems aren't always unique.

so uh. we're all suffering together i guess...?

[greeenchrysanthemums]

@thatlesbainmushroom and @jjlovesgoodies (hope you don't mind the tags, I was not sure how else to make sure you seen this<3) both said yes to hearing about my roomies zombie au, so here it is!! Though, I must admit that it is more of a half-baked idea than a fully thought out au. I'm not sure if I will ever actually write it, so it's free game with credit.

I suppose a TW is required before you read any further. It is a zombie au, so it is pretty grim. Mentions of death, blood, injury, and other apocalypse typical things.

Etho and Cleo were college roommates before everything went to shit. Cleo was a graphic design and arts student in her fourth year, while Etho was an engineering student in his second year. They have been together since the start, and were actually in their dorm room when the chaos started. Bdubs used to be with them, but they lost track of him (and his horse) months ago. They assume he is dead.

Grian was a first year architect student from a few towns over. His group consisted of his roommates, Jimmy and Joel, along with his work friend, Scar.

None of them had ever used a gun before the apocalypse, so it is none of their preferred weapon. Cleo has a baseball bat, Grian has a knife, and Etho has a machete. Etho and Grian both carry handguns but rarely use them. Cleo knows how to use a gun but does not carry one and would have to be in mortal danger to be convinced to use it.

Cleo is immune to the bite, something they found out at the beginning because a classmate had bitten her and she never turned. Though, this immunity would not hold any narrative weight. The world has fallen apart, there wouldn't be anyone left to try to find a cure from her anyway. They are just focused on surviving and trying to keep each other safe.

However, because of her immunity, she does take risks that Etho doesn't/can't. She used to be a real softy, not much a fighter who was all bark no bite, but she would do anything to protect Etho. She has many scars, from bites and scratches, because of this reckless behavior.

It would start with Grian having just been separated from his group and he's been wandering around the remains of a big city looking for them. He eventually gets overwhelmed by a hoard and ends up cornered in an alley, where he is then saved by Etho, who kills the zombies and offers to bring him back to his camp.

Grian says no and tells him he has to keep looking for his group, but Etho is persistent. Grian caves and agrees to go with him when Etho offers to help look for his missing friends; no strings attached.

The group traverses the remains of the burning world together for several months looking for Grian's group and slowly getting to know each other. Etho and Cleo share information freely, but Grian is more reserved. He only answers simple questions about his past. They barley know anything about this group they are trying to find. Instead of opening up as the months' pass by, he actually becomes more and more reserved.

He keeps asking why they keep helping him when they have no obligation to do so, especially since he's given them next to no information or reason to trust him, and they say why not? They don't have anything better to do than lend him a helping hand.

Grian leads them more and more northwest as time goes on, telling them that he was told to head in this direction to meet back up with his group, but still, they find no trace of them.

Around 6-7 months into traveling together, the group do a supply run in a mall that they thought was safe and end up getting trapped inside with no way out after Grian brings some kind of a display/structure down on top of himself on accident and it attracts a hoard that was hidden away out of sight.

They are very low on ammo, Etho was bit while getting Grian out from under the display, Grian was injured by the accident, and they're all too exhausted and malnourished to fight. They make it into a staff area, but there's no exit that they see, so they barricade the door. It is only a matter of time before the hoard breaks through.

Sitting inside of the small room, Grian admits to them that his group was already dead and had been for a while. He tells them that he had actually been ready to die that day Etho found him. He felt bad letting Etho's kindness (which was a rarity in this dying world) go to waste, so he went along with it.

He was just along for the ride at first, leading them on a wild goose chase while waiting for a chance to leave them, but then he grew to care for them. He never thought he would find friends again in a world like this, but, somehow, he did. They gave him a purpose, a reason to keep going. They made him want to live again. They made him happy. They made him laugh; something so simple and yet so important.

He didn't want them to leave him behind once they found out the truth, so he'd kept lying to them and pretending like he was still searching so that they would have a reason to keep helping him, a reason to have him around.

He was closing himself off all that time in an attempt to hold onto the one good thing in his life. He tells them that he's sorry, that he loves them, and that he's scared.

Cleo and Etho say they don't care that he's been lying, and that he's just as important to them as they are to him. They say that whatever happens next, they'll do it together.

And then in my mind it would end somewhat ambiguously/open ended as the zombie's break through.

[thedo0zyslider]

Running Towards The North - Chapter One: Game Start - 2K Words

(hey remember that poll i did? 26 days ago? yeah here's the result <3)

Last Life, but what if the Southlands fell differently? What if two of them ran away together, and a third longed to join, but could never bring himself too?

A03 Link

(obligatory mutual tag. hello apollo. i have written your boys. @apollothetransboy)

Martyn’s seen a lot of world’s in his time. Well he thinks he has anyways, he can’t quite remember anything before this. He’s pretty sure he came from somewhere else though, and that people aren’t born by just…randomly spawning in the woods. But that’s a thought for later.

He'd spawned in with around sixteen other people it seemed, all of them gathered around an enchanting table. Martyn didn’t need to learn what the strange object was called, it was something he just knew automatically. Which was another point to his theory about having been from somewhere else. Standing in that circle, Martyn found his gaze drawn to one person in particular. A brunette man with sunglasses and dog ears, and after a few glances he even noticed a tail as well. Martyn didn’t know why he was so focused on this guy, but that was another thought for future him to deal with. There were plenty of other people to look at as well, like a guy with an “i” on his shirt and what seemed to be a zombie lady.

There was a rather short man that seemed to know what was happening, another person that Martyn’s eye ended up falling to naturally. He was an avian, with parrot wings and dirty blonde hair. His name was Grian, and the rules he explained were… interesting , to say the least. The gist of it, from what Martyn understood, is that they were all going to receive a certain amount of lives, which they could lose and trade away. Oh, and there would be something called a boogeyman. Whatever the bloody hell that meant.

Martyn starts with four lives, so he figures this whole thing won’t be that bad. For now at least, considering this a death game. Something Grian had (suspiciously) almost forgotten to mention. There’s one winner at the end of all this, and Martyn’s determined to maybe be that one person.

But for now they all just split off, everyone is going their own way into the forest. Martyn does the same, because he needs to get resources, and has nothing better to do than. Oh and food, he definitely needs that. But he’s not very keen on killing every sheep and cow in the area, and decides trying to find some seeds would be better. He just…has a feeling everyone’s going to kill all the animals, and then they'll be struggling for food. Martyn doesn’t know why he has this feeling, but it’s one of the many weird ones he’ll have throughout the day.

The little world they have is mostly forest, accompanied by a small field in the south and a few rivers running through. Martyn finds they are trapped in a box, in a way. There is more forest beyond every corner, but no one can walk past a certain point. None of them feel like they are allowed to go further, and none of them question it.

The people he met were far more interesting than the world, Martyn found. Though he ran into a lot of people, enough that he started to struggle with names, a few stood out in particular. There was a zombie called Cleo, who was friendly, but also a little intimidating if he had to be honest. A masked man called Etho was sneaking around as well, not speaking much. Martyn didn’t know why he had a mask on, but liked it, for it made the guy look kinda cool.

By far the friendliest guy Martyn ran into was a man called Skizz, and his friend that was hanging around. Said friend went by the name of Tango, and he instantly clocked the other man was from the nether. Martyn didn’t even question why he knew that, or what the bloody hell the nether was, it was one of the many things he just knew for some reason. After about two hours in this world he’d decided to just accept the weird information his brain fed him, as it ended up being more helpful than not. Also the fact that he couldn't do anything about that as well.

During his exploration, he found himself drawn naturally to one man that seemed rather ditzy. The man in question was tall, yellow canary avian, with fair skin and blonde hair, but not quite as saturated as Martyn’s own was. He went by Jimmy, and seemed to form a natural rapport with a few of the others already. The ditziness made him fairly easy to tease, which Jimmy seemed entirely unbothered by. Martyn likes this guy already, and is delighted when they run into each other later.

There’s this instinctual pull he has to some people, Martyn finds, and he can’t figure out exactly why that is. Martyn assumes it’s related to his and everyone else's weird memory gaps. But all he knows is that he wants to talk to these people, make friends with them even. He feels this pull towards Jimmy in particular. It’s a very strong one, one that feels incredibly right , so it's no surprise that they end up sticking together for a little while.

They run into Grian as well, who’s boasting about getting a life on day one. He’d started on two, and somehow managed to wrangle a life from another man named Scar. The avian won’t tell how he got it, but that is the least of Martyn’s concerns. Though he figures it was probably a bit underhanded, not that he disapproves. It is sunset when he and Jimmy run into the shorter man, and they need to get cover before the mobs start showing up.

Grian says he won’t be staying with the duo, and that he’s going to do some enchanting. Jimmy calls goodbye after him, and he and Martyn continue on with their night; making a temporary shelter from the mobs and preparing to sleep in shifts. Just in case a bloodthirsty yellow or boogey man happens upon them in the night.

Not even twenty minutes later there is a buzz in his pocket. Martyn pulls out his communicator, another item he just happened to know the name of, and sees a message indicating that Grian has died. The short, mossy man called Bdubs had gotten him, and the avian was now the first victim of the Boogeyman.

The avian should’ve just stayed with them it seemed, and then he wouldn’t be back down to two lives again. Jimmy, who’d wanted to team up with Grian initially, says maybe it’s a bad idea to do that. He had stolen his third life from Scar, who was probably more than a little cross right now. Martyn nodded in agreement, then took the first lookout shift; all so a very sleepy avian beside him could get some rest.

The next morning, after a meager breakfast of what steak Jimmy had managed to collect, they set off again, for a proper base this time that is, and maybe another friend or two gathered along the way.

They run into a tall, mustached man first that day. His name is Mumbo, and he’s set up some makeshift base of cobble, and plans to start a mine. The three of them chat for a little, and Martyn finds he quite likes this guy, even if they do have the briefest of interactions. Him and Jimmy say goodbye after a bit, and head on their merry way. They don’t really know where they’re going, just that Jimmy wants to find a good cave.

And find a good cave they do, and in that cave they find an Impulse down in the cave, who was currently clearing out a spawner. Impulse mentions he saw a geode down a different tunnel in the cave, and Jimmy’s eyes light up at that.

“C’mon Martyn!” The taller is calling to him a few minutes later, having practically sprinted down the tunnel Impulse had pointed towards.

“Stop going so fast!” He called lightheartedly, legs starting to burn a bit as he tried to keep pace with his ally. Well, he supposed they were allies for now, since they hadn’t felt a need to break off from each other yet. Jimmy just laughed, and kept moving on without him.

They reach the geode, both of them laughing as Martyn practically shoves him into the already open geode. Impulse had found the thing, but hadn’t taken barely anything from it. “Help me harvest these!” Jimmy orders, nodding towards some of the crystals.

“Bossy today, aren’t we?” Martyn teases, and then promptly does as he’s told.

“Why’re you so excited over this anyways?” He asks after a moment, arms starting to get full of crystals.

“For this!” He turns, to find that not only has Jimmy placed a bloody crafting table down, he’s also holding two spyglasses in his hands.

“A spyglass?” Martyn asks, placing all of the crystals he’d gathered onto the crafting table.

“I heard about the recipe and needed to make one, okay?” Jimmy says, handing one of the spy glasses to him. Martyn takes it, tries it out, and decides it’s not too bad of a first gift. After that they pick up the remaining materials they’d gathered, along with the crafting table, and head back to the surface; their one real mission accomplished.

A few hours later, they run into Grian, who now has Mumbo in tow. The two of them are trying to start up a base in the south of the forest, wanting to clear some of it out to make more room. After quick deliberation, that it isn’t really a deliberation at all, Martyn and Jimmy decide to join in on that. Impulse gets on board too, and soon the alliance is set in stone.

The five of them are the Southlanders, a good name, if a rather easy one to brainstorm. And on his first day with the Southlanders, Martyn finds out a good few things about the strange pulls he feels towards some people.

Grian and Jimmy, along with a woman called Pearl and another man called BigB from the start, felt familiar to him. In a good kind of way, mind you. Impulse and Mumbo didn’t feel familiar at all, but they seemed to have that feeling with Grian, and most of the other people. Minus a few of them, like Martyn himself, and the guy with dyed hair called Scott. Having spent some time around a few people now helped with figuring that out, and it’s another one of those weird memory things he decides to ponder on later, once the five of them are all set up.

After the alliance is properly made, and the lot of them start to clear out the trees like Grian and Mumbo had wanted. They have to clear out, and it’s the most taxing thing he’s done so far, but it should be worth it in the end. It’s made a million times more enjoyable when martyn brings back a little joke from earlier. It was some stupid thing that he and Jimmy had done, a few minutes after they’d first gained the spy glasses. All it was was pointing the spyglass at each other's faces and saying “aha!” when they looked through it. It’s a stupid bit really, once that has no right to be as funny as it does.

Especially when they take it further, and start making puns out of it. Like gir-aha-ffe , sto-aha-p , or even more stupid things like a stahar. They also had their fun british game Mumbo had started, but that one involved lava, which was not a good thing to place in a forest. Not one they want to live in anyways.

Anyways, the aha jokes go a little overboard. So much so that they have to stop, for they’re not getting any sort of progress done. All five of them are standing around laughing instead, trying not to say anything else remotely funny. And Martyn does stop the, for a bit anyway. And by a bit he means about twenty minutes.

Eventually, he goes to ask if anyone has food, and another “aha!” slips out of Martyn as if it was an instinct, and the five of them burst right back into laughter.

“I can’t cope with this!” Grian yells through the beginnings of tears, beginning to double over from how hard he’s laughing. The air around him is ripe with laughter, Martyn himself about to cry over his own stupid puns. Mumbo yells at his name, while Jimmy and Impulse just laugh with the rest of them.

It’s that moment he knows he likes these guys, that this is an alliance he can see himself staying with. For now anyways, as long as he can.

The next day, after a good night’s rest, one spent all huddled together in a small makeshift shelter (in a comfy pile more comfortable than it looked,) they start to build cobblestone towers, The five towers of the Southlands. Expect Mumbo, who makes a bloody bunker for some reason. Apparently, he did not get the memo, and has also given Martyn an easy way to tase him.

Martyn makes their first nether portal later that day (another thing he just knows how to do, and what it’s called off the top of his head,) mostly to just see what people’s reactions would be. To his disappointment, there is literally no reaction to it. He grumbles something to himself, and knows the other four will thank him later when they need supplies from that hell place.

He comes back from that hell dimension and finds Mumbo making some sort of weird code machine. The man’s good with redstone, apparently, and so is Impulse, Mumbo tells him when Martyn asks about it. The machine the suited man is making is redstone powered, and it;s supposed to send morse code through smoke signals.

Mumbo says it’s a little hard to make, and not going well at the moment, and that he would like to get Impulse’s input as well. Martyn is just amazed, and stands there as Mumbo rattles on, really just admiring him. It’s cool as hell to him, that someone is smart enough to do something that brilliant. He sits there for what feels like hours, as the afternoon passes by, listening to his friend ramble and ramble about all his machinery. Martyn is amazed by every second of it.

As sunset draws closer, Jimmy and Impulse set up a campfire in the middle of their little work in progress base. This is where they end up relaxing for the day, the five of them sitting around the fire’s warmth as the night grows cold. There are more laughs and ahas! exchanged, so much so they make a jar for it. More than aha! a day, and you have to donate something into a jar. There is already a donation in it by the night’s end, Mumbo’s spyglass to be exact, and Jimmy says he will happily make another one for their suited friend.

Martyn goes to bed that night in his tower, maybe a little cold and alone yes, but feeling much better about this whole thing then he had when they all started that morning.

[automaticdata]

HGCZ reactiony stuff part 2

King for a Day, Mumblr posts, and G-Team reactions under cut

Also, a warning for excessive use of XD emojis.

King for a Day:

The fact I can recognize BDubs because of a missing tooth is insane. What is this fandom XD

I somehow already forgot that Scar is an actor and so I was confused about the setting for a minute before I went "oooooh right!" Director (?) BDubs makes a weird amount of sense, considering Tall Claims Court in HCs10.

omg BDubs knows XD

I have a feeling that Ren finding out will be a problem, maybe? Though he also seems to be a fan considering the HOTGUY logo in his text bubble.

ooo organized vigilante/hero group???

of course HotGuy gives Cute Guy flowers as an apology. Of course they're poppies and lilacs. Apparently the zine is not supposed to be super shippy, but I see desert duo fans are still desert duo'ing XD.

(took a break here because a friend contacted me)

Grian has issues with the plan, but still takes the flowers, I notice. XD

Sad HotGuy D=

oh no. Cute Guy, no. Pearl, no. o__o PEARL.

Cranky BDubs

------

oh my god in-universe Tumblr. It's Mumblr. Is Mumbo behind this. How many mental breakdowns does he have trying to run a social media site. XD

Also idk if these are actual tumblrs (mumblrs) but the names are great.

holy crap it's political discourse but for a superhero AU what XD

The Perimeter? Doctor Monster? omg I love this lore. And of course even as a villain Doc is like "wtf are you doing get out of my swamp lair".

MAPLE PRINCE OMG XD XD XD

-----

(HotGuy and) Cute Guy in the G-Team:

oh ma Sherlock Grian XD

AND Ariana Grande? oh wow. How many Grian alter egos are we getting in this story? We're only like three pages in XD

and of course hippies are protesting Doc. XD "No bore" -- well I have good news for you, buddy ... XD

PERMIT OFFICER GRIAN? XD XD XD How many Grians will there be in one comic??? XD

HE PUT THEM ON HOLD????????? XD

okay now I'm getting confused are all the Grians actually different people. Is Grian arguing with himself. You okay bud?

(yeah this is probably why it's called the G-Team, I'm realizing XD)

Midnight ... alley???? holy ... HOW MANY GRIAN-RELATED REFERENCES ARE GOING TO BE IN THIS. I fully expect Poultry Man, Fisherman Grian, the Barge, Hobbit Grian, Mother Spore, and all the rest to appear now. How they'll all fit into one comic I have no idea, but somehow they will XD

Okay who is the guy with the fluff and the motorcycle helmet. Hmmm. Don't know atm. Jacket has a broken heart, and they said the red was hair ... Gem???? but why the broken heart??? why would Gem want the briefcase??

Cute Guy has a boob window what XD

ouch D=

HOT GUY IS JUST LEISURELY COMING ON THE SUBWAY WHAT

"get the documents" - but documents were left, so there was some other document that was more important than those? and --- a test tube of skulk??? oh boy. Soooo that's gonna come up later ...

---

Something I noticed from Mumblr post tags and the G-Team story is that apparently Cute Guy is kind of clumsy? Mumblr posts had his falling into a dumpster, this one had him faceplanting and missing a ton of shots. I don't think I've ever seen that before and it's interesting? I feel like usually Cute Guy is portrayed as pretty competent in the superhero/vigilante stuff, so having him fumbling with it is actually really interesting.

[definitelynotshouting]

hi ! i just read all of the hunger au tag and #($+$(()33-(# . Hm . God awful . I am a worse person because of it /j . I have a lot of thoughts !!

First off , i find the conversion of biology and software fascinating , specially in the concepts of first worlds ! Like , you mentioned how players are more often spawned rather than born , and i personally interpret their first worlds as a sort of prenatal stage . think abt it , they're still connected to the universal code , still relying on it to learn and advance , and after they shed it and are finally "born" as themselves , able to access the rest of the world .

also , lots of body horror in this au . like , code , right ? i keep imagining the universal code as sort of veins , tendrils freshly born players are still teetered with , the connections grian has to put effort into severing as fleshy tendrils twisting and clinging unto players . much wet !

speaking of which , listeners , dude . i think genuinely they r much more scarier than watchers because they're not noticeable , their effects r not threatening , they don't stick to you n eat your insides , they get into your system and /change/ you , fuse into you , how many people have been affected by it ? even worse when you take into account they connect with other infected , n worse when they work towards Goals . girl what goals could the listeners want ????? I'm terrified .

And grian finally !!!!!! For al this time I've been looking at grian as having an eating disorder , cause , well , he does . It's so interesting , he ticks almost all the boxes . The guilt , the hiding it through clothing , the fact he's thinking of food all the time , damn . I'm also eternally fixated on the image of , like , the existential horror on it . he was created by sucking himself dried of code , he broke out of his own skin . something something caterpillars completely melt themselves in their cocoon before emerging as butterflies something something .

anyhow , such fun !!! I'm definitely gonna draw a lot for this , you're a great writer fr grrrr -🔆

Im really glad you've picked up on these concepts and themes i've carefully folded into this au, because it means they're coming across really clearly!!! :D thats how i know im doing my job as a writer, so im very pleased because all of these things you've mentioned (except maybe the Greater Code as tendrils) have been baked into the au with great deliberation

Spawned Players and their first worlds are absolutely very prenatal in nature-- i described to a friend a few months ago that a spawned Player's relationship to their first server, and the universe at large, is like an "umbilical cord" that they eventually detach from as they grow older :] how fast they go through that process depends ofc on the individual Player, but that was the general idea behind that concept!!

There's definitely a TON of body horror in this au WKDNWJDJSJ thats one of the first things i remember cw-ing for when explaining this au for the first time. Actual historical record right here LMFAO:

I personally tend to see the Greater Code as this sorta like. Fabric of binary, that forms the base for what everything in this universe is made of. Within it are echoes of recycled information, code that comes together to form the impressions of old meaning-- you could almost think of them as ghosts. No longer conscious, but emulating fragments of what they once were. Also, any and all body horror imagery is the full fault of my cousin, whom i consider the ultimate Horror Guy in my life, as well as his favorite video game, Dead Space, which has. so much meat in it, gods bless<3

Listeners are absolutely more scary than Watchers imo; i was sorta thinking of cordyceps as well as the mycorrhizae when i was coming up with them!!! There's something utterly terrifying about being so subtly changed and just not knowing why. You can see and hear Watchers; their presence is palpable even if you dont know what they are. But a Listener? They're quiet. Symbiotic but deeply, utterly invasive. Definitely more frightening on an existential level than a Watcher, which i find suitable for something modeled after fungi.

As for Grian, he 100% has an eating disorder. My portrayal of that in the au is very deliberate, even though its not directly stated. So im glad you picked up on that!!! And if you do draw anything for this for the love of gods send it here or tag me in the post i will DIE i love fanart and i am guaranteed to scream about it for a million years AUGH