#ethos still just a creature to me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ceratedfish24 · 13 days ago

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Knowing that most wildcards if not all were made in a week between the sessions, it feels like a much bigger task than sorting through viewer suggestions and making them up from scratch, tho I can't know for sure.

Yeah, the difficulty of the tasks varied a lot, but it kinda didn't bother me too much, because then they could be done with the task and do their own thing. I did love Pearl's task of getting hearts from people, but I'm a Shadowmoon shipper and the moment it created has been ingrained in my heart.

From Etho's episode I mainly remember the part where he washes himself away, so that he doesn't actually move, but moves. I'm a Doctor Who fan and I loved the reference, but yeah, quite limiting, especially with how they have to travel some time between bases and you can't know if someone is spying on you from afar.

Hm, you could say keeping it a secret is like if everyone was a boogeyman or well, playing a game of mafia. I do remember that a few times others were able to guess the task, but if they wanted to help the person, they played a game of crocodile, not being able to say anything outright, just imply.

To me a lot of tasks felt opposingly team uniting. With how Bdubs task started the whole Mounder thing. And then Joel's task (the cult one) brought Mounders even closer in a way, pft. And sometimes guessing the task incorrectly spawned an event, like almost the entire server hanging out at Pearl's mound base. Also Pearl helping Bdubs and Mumbo with their tasks (dragon, cursed tower). So yeah, I love Matchbox and Mailbox.

Out of context, but i remember people (CCs as their characters and the fans) were saying that Mounders aren't loyal and will fall apart or something. And in the end, Mumbo started to act as a red and tried to kill his teammates a few times, but they still accepted him. You can tell I love Mounders, tho all the other teams were great. The dog boys had such a fun dynamic, them often going to talk to BigB or Scar and having silly interactions together. To me the Bamboozlers flow so well from Secret Life: the winner, the unlucky and the loser /affectionate, they're definitely my favorite team that happened in Wild Life. Pearl and Mumbo would have fitted in with them too, all a little bit pathetic.

I agree with the love island team point? They are such a fun team up and there could have been more. Definitely the fact that BigB started as a loner because of his task and leaned into the backrooms creature vibe made it seem like he had to play two different characters at a time? Perhaps, that is not what you're talking about, but people were suspicious that BigB won't stay loyal and is more by himself, but they trusted each other. I don't fully remember the moment, but I think Skizz made someone think that he believes that BigB is a traitor, but then turned on them instead. Or this is memories connecting wrong bits. I don't joke about having troubles rewatching stuff, even when I love it.

Oh, yeah. Mine is all subjective and personal heaven, which I know is flawed, but I see the good and the bad bits and enjoy it as a whole, like you are with Wild Life. I am not a Third Life lover 😔 It's good, but if I'm ranking it, it will go to the bottom (all cause Pearl wasn't in it /hj)

Yes! It all felt like wacky cartoon episodes, which to me is a high praise, as I love Adventure Time and other episodic shows with an overarching plot. Again with my hyperfixation, Pearl died a lot, she literally had the first death on the server (i am replying as I am reading or else I'll forget my thoughts, but you mentioned it and we kinda divided on it? I agree, but also I can excuse it. It's brutal and unfair, but it did help others avoid the same fate. This is also a point in the: I think they should have given themselves more time to test the wildcards, because it feels like a thing you could fix, if found). But it was all because of a part of a mechanic of a wildcard that has not been found out before, which she immediately shares with her teammates. The opportunity to play around and find a way to work the wildcard in your favor or at least to not die from it is amazing. It just felt dissapointing, when people were trying out ways to have an advantage over snails in a way and got punshed for persisting and being curious (the inconsistency of when the snail jumps in your face. I know it's like 3 blocks but some were closer or farther, and with Pearl's second death potentially being caused by Aussie ping). I understand that if there was a way to battle snails completely, everyone would have gotten rid of them in the first hour and there is no more wildcard. But the whole point of an immortal snail is that you get some advantage (money in the original case) and you can figure out things to feel at least somewhat safer.

I would have said that making each snail have their own thing to slow them down/make them stop for a moment and have some cool down for that effect is too much, but they made a whole superpower wildcard so.. It's different but something lesser, like being able to feed them a certain somewhat rare item to slow them could be cool? Idk if the range could allows it, but if you can click on snail with an item (like feeding a dog a steak) and not get it jump on your face immediately. There is a possibility of no one even figuring that out especially if the items are too rare, but at least there would have been something? For Bdubs to feed his snail a clock and make it slower or stop for a certain amount of time with a cooldown (you would have a moment to breath, but you might also forget about it, so it's still a risk). I just feel like they are smart enough to flesh it out more, and I never fully understood why they put such a harsh time limit on themselves. They were most likely concepting wildcards for longer, but when you actually get the moving snail and test it out, you might have to fix some issues and if it's too close to deadline, you'll just have to give up on a good idea.

I know that if you are creating a big time sinking project, you have to organize and pay every person who is involved in the creation, so extending the time frame or the complexity, would have upped the cost significantly. I read some comment about how they could have made a whole series out of each of the wildcard, and I am on the side that having a new thing each week is a cool concept. The only part I do agree is the superhero wildcard. I just think a superhero life series (or maybe a sibling series) could be genuinely fun. Am a sucker for AUs.

Snails were very cute and funny, but they were undeniably too much. They had to stop the session earlier and all the CCs were exhausted by the end of it. You can see how the death count skyrockets because of snail, and the balancing by giving players 6 lives worked out i guess, but them ending early means if it wasn't stopped, there could have been even more deaths or even a first person to get out of the series in session 3(4?).

And final deaths are supposed to be at least somewhat tragic or emotional (in a funny or sad way). Skizz's and Mumbo's final deaths were cool, but Gem, Impulse, BibB, Scar died in a less fair(?) way. And Grian knows how important it can be to get out of a series in a satisfying end, Jimmy and Lizzie dying was sad, but epic and he helped to achieve that.

Okay, that's a fair point. I was afraid of getting into life series, because it felt like there were so many people and all had their own unique storyline. To me, I just accepted that I will get information about their videos secondhand, and if it intrigues me, I would go and watch the episode myself. I am happy that it was enjoyable for you and easier to engage with.

Big groups feel clanky to me in a way that everybody is trying to help the team, but when you have to listen to so many people at once, it becomes either a corporate meeting or a hangout at the loud bar. I do understand the appeal of a bigger group interacting, but I always feel like a lot more people get talked over and if there is no enemy, there is no conflict and there is no one to fight? A lot of times people were trying to mention who they were enemies with and it consisted of "hmh, we are kinda okay with them, and them too, and them". To which, Secret life didn't have that much outright betrayal or enemies, it was kinda more sitcom-ey. There were a lot of rivals, not enemies. In wild life it feels like there are almost no evemies and no rivals. Even bringing up the Impossible Minecraft, it's a smaller series, but there is a collaborative process, so big groups are encouraged, because there is no competition (the winners and placements don't actually mean much in the same way as MCC or similar stuff does obviously. It's all more about people creating a narrative and a story).

I do think Scar is a pretty good player, just unlucky at times. He did win by his own strength in Secret Life and got to the end in Third Life (while being the first one to go down to red and so early), he and Grian also being the 4th(?) soulmates to die and it was Grian who died, I'm pretty sure. You might not be implying that, I just dislike when people kinda dismiss his achievements.

I also enjoyed the Gs. The only thing I have a beef is that Tango was hanging around them at the start and I was so hoping for him to join them, tho the Tuff guys is also cool. I do find it funny how Gem and Pearl exchanged teammates from last time.

This all is a toll on anyone and when you have to organize and also be involved in the project, where your friends's income partially depends on you and you have to try to cater to them and to the viewers all at once. And well, when you see your friend so exhausted and trying so much to make you enjoy the series, I think it would feel brutal to complain about anything. They're friends and I don't know how they interact behind the scenes, but I would never want to upset my friend over something like that. Of course, if someone didn't vocalize their concerns, it's partially on them for doing so, but it's understandable. There is a part of me that wants Grian to delve more into different series, and with Impossible Minecraft, it seems like something he had in mind? Fans like to find parallels and will always compare previous seasons, so anything new will be met with a bigger criticism. Impossible Minecraft didn't capture everyone's attention, but I still feel it got good reviews and players seem to enjoy it. There is a difference that even through you can analyze CCs as characters, it is definitely much less roleplay and more survival. Not everyone found it appealing, but people also weren't compelled to compare it to life series, because it is distinctly different and we got both traffic and it. If Grian makes more of completely different series with no overarching expectations or limitations, it could be cool. Some people might be angry that they have to wait for a new life series season longer because of it, but it's not like we were ever really promised it and even if we were, he can decide to not go forth with it, if he wants to, it is his project. Idk if all my blank suggestions or ideas are out of place, but I very much love all the CCs and wouldn't want for any of them to get burned out and not participate in the life series or other projects.

I completely understand and agree with your whole last paragraph. Mine is similar, just replace Wild Life with Secret life. And I still enjoyed a lot of Wild Life, and I do have my own criticism of the Secret Life. I do understand people voicing and sharing their complaints, and not all should be like, thought out essay. Sometimes you watch a movie and find it meh, but can't put it into words. People not wanting to give Wild Life or any season a chance for whatever personal reason is understandable. Grian and others are still content creators and have to take into account a criticism of a casual viewer, which most of their viewers consist of I would think. But that's kinda why still discussing those things in the fandom is important. How would Grian know what we want to see, if he can only see the passerby viewer say "meh, not the same" and nothing else. Being afraid to hurt the CC can lead to it either way, when fans lose the interest and stop watching at all. It's not that Wild Life was horrible, it's that a lot of fans felt unheard. I assume that when you are making content for a long time, it can become stale and samey and you might lose confidence of if your content is actually good or not. They became CCs, because they wanted to share something that people would love, so hearing back is useful. When you start to see anycritisism as hate, it makes fans not want to share their thoughts and CCa are left one on one with angry/indifferent redditors (idk how bad reddit is, never used it besides googling weird things).

Idk where Grian saw that fans didn't want for him and Scar to team up, most fans love their dynamic. I do know some were complaining about the sameness of the teams, like the 3Gs. But some simply called 3G toxic, which is not completely untrue and doesn't mean they disliked the team? They have a very complicated history and that's the fun part of them trying to rebuild this. It's unrealistic for them to just forget everything and forgive. You can say that you forgive, but that doesn't automatically rewrite how you feel about it. There was a great episode in Amphibia that ended with the main character Anne forgiving a side character Hop Pop, but in the next episode Anne and Hop Pop are being weird and it escalates into a fight. There were still things unsaid and Anne just bottled everything up to try to move away from the situation, they needed more talk and more time to truly understand and forgive. I know that I reference a scripted cartoon show and Life Series is not a scripted play, but it is a roleplay for a lot of CCs, and dnd shows how improvisation can create great narrativess. It wouldn't be a death series without all the drama and all the betrayals and complicated relationships.

I hope this ask won't get killed by Tumblr, idk what's the word limit and how it works in general. I also reread it just once, sorry for any inconsistencies. Thank you for your time!

Hey! Sorry that it took so long for me to respond, but this was a really long ask that I had to break down paragraph by paragraph, which isn’t a bother! It just means that it takes me a little longer to respond to.

The problem that I had with the tasks was when tasks were too hard or had players do something consistently throughout the episode that didn’t really make their episode much more interesting. For example, I loved the concept of Etho’s weeping angel task. I’m also a Doctor Who fan! It’s just, yeah. It was difficult for him to enforce when in an open space. If the tasks were consistently like that, then I wouldn’t care as much, but it felt unfair for some people to be able to progress with more freedom than others. It wasn’t that big of an issue, of course. It’s just a little pet peeve.

As a com sci major, oh my gosh I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to program all of those wild card in such a short amount of time, especially the ones that were only decided upon in response to episodes (I believe the quiz bot was originally a scrapped wild card but was then brought back to the workshop last minute in response to players’ performances, but I may be misremembering).

I totally recognize that players still found ways to help each other, I just wish out of preference that there was a way for them to have been a little freer with their firm factions. I know that such a rule would be difficult to make concrete decisions on, but I know that Impulse felt disappointed that he didn’t get much of a chance to get to know Scott as a teammate. I don’t think that it was a bad decision. After all, it is called Secret Life. I just wish I could’ve seen certain teams loosen up a little more around each other. You raise a good point about the Mounders, though! They were a really great team. It’s just a shame that other teams weren’t able to communicate with each other as subtly yet effectively as the Mounders. Honestly, I’m not sure why people insist that a team will fall apart before that team shows signs of falling apart. Each season is a fresh start. While there may be history, each person still chooses whether or not to let that go.

God, someone PLEASE make BigB the leader of a big team. I need to observe his behavior in such a role. It's for science.

Third Life isn't at the top of my list either! There's definitely parts of it that I loved, but there were also parts that I was personally frustrated with. It’s not anyone’s fault at all. It’s just a matter of preference. It also totally gets a pardon due to it being the first ever season, but that doesn’t necessarily win it more points in my heart.

Pearl’s first death, I totally excuse it too. I didn’t mean to come off as if I disagree with the decision to keep it in. It’s a game mechanic and all. It just felt like such an unlucky “first to find out” situation, but that's part of the game. As for the snails, Grian didn’t intend for this to be an easy wild card. He expected more player deaths than normal, though he did say that there were still more than he expected. However, he also said that he had a moment where he considered using the Quizbot to gift back lives and decided not to. He wanted players to really feel the cost of each life. It’s a decision that he’s very firm about, and I respect that. I will say that the players who died significantly more than other players had a lot of deaths that were simply careless. There were of course many deaths that were the cost of an experiment or were just so terribly unfortunate (double Bdubs death), but I think a lot of deaths were from not keeping an eye on their snail (Scar gets a pass because his snail was literally turned invisible by other players). Here’s the thing. The problem that many players experimenting with the snails had was that they were experimenting with their own snail. Jimmy is a great example of someone who did NOT experiment with his own snail very much, despite his crazy number of deaths. Most of Jimmy’s snail experiments were done on other people’s snails, and he learned a lot from testing on them. In other words, there were ways to test on the snails that were much less risky, especially if you have a friend helping you.

The feeding the snails to slow them down is a really cool idea! I just don’t know if it would be worth the risk of getting close to your snail nor do I think that the players would have figured out that they could feed their snails, especially if the required items are player specific. I think that it would be a really really cool concept for a longer series or just snails, but it doesn’t work well for only one episode. Grian could’ve told people, of course, but Grian was already telling people quite a bit about the snails and he evidently would have trouble remembering what each snail eats (he couldn’t remember assigned superpowers even though not even everyone had an assigned superpower. I don’t blame him, though. I can’t remember people’s names ten minutes after meeting them, and I can’t throw stones in glass houses).

I would TOTALLY be down for a whole season of superpowers. I thought the superpowers were so so so cool. I do find it weird that someone commented that they could make a whole season out of each wild card when so many people said that the wild cards were boring. I don’t think that would go well in terms of viewership.

I understand finding the snails to be too much, but every creator we know of said that the snails were fun, even if they were stressful. After the snail episode, Grian very urgently checked in with everyone more so than usual, and, according to Impulse, Grian, Martyn, and Skizz, everyone found the snail episode to be a lot of fun. I don’t think that the snails were too much, because everyone had fun and got a great episode out of it. Additionally, due to how long the season surprisingly ended up being, I worry that trying to make the wild cards safer might have resulted in a longer season than the cast was hoping. They typically try to keep the seasons to 8-9 episodes, and Wild Life hit that quota despite the number of people saying that it would definitely be the shortest season ever (which is a little strange considering Double Life was only 6 episodes long, and I doubt that Wild Life ever even looked like it would only be 5 episodes long what with so many people having all of their 6 lives for so long). All in all, I don’t think that the players minded a shorter session when they all got an exciting normal length episode.

I absolutely understand being disappointed in some of the final deaths, but that’s not really a concept that’s new to Wild Life. I mean, while Grian’s final death in Limited Life was thematically cool, it would’ve been pretty anti-climactic without Jimmy’s death. It’s something that happens, and I’ve made my peace with that, especially with how exciting everyone’s life was to me. Of course, I understand that all of that is a matter of personal preference.

I’m glad that you understand my perspective on having an easier time staying caught up. I’ve been watching Minecraft YouTubers for a long time, and I was a big fan of particular big groups. I’m pretty used to hearing them talk over each other and didn’t really think about how that was absolutely a matter of personal history of enjoying hearing 6-10 people in the same call all of the time. I’m sorry to hear that it was more frustrating for you, and I totally understand feeling like there was less content in Wild Life and that the content that was available felt socially clunkier. I hope the next seasons are more your taste!! I got my fair share of what I wanted :)

I understand what you mean about feeling like there were no enemies, but I interpreted that as feeling as though there was no specific enemy (other than everyone vs the family) because most teams had wronged people pretty equally. There was definitely enemies and rivalries, they were just more player specific than team specific, which I understand is unusual for the Life Series. Impulse vs Gem was a pretty big rivalry, as was, of course, Grian vs the Bamboozlers, particularly vs Scar. Mumbo vs Scott was a weirdly spawned in rivalry. I don’t know why Mumbo latched onto that so hard, but I respect him for committing to the bit like that. Another rivalry, which was mostly a result of miscommunication, was Scar vs the Tuff Guys. See, and this is the most insane looney toons incident in the series, Bdubs pretended to do something “tuff” to the Bamboozlers so that Tango and Etho would think he was tuff. Then, Etho actually did something “tuff” to the Bamboozlers, which Scar got payback for by burning down Tango’s base. Tango then got revenge by attacking ALL of the Bamboozlers’ parrots. In other words, I don’t really think that there were fewer enemies and rivalries. I think that the relationships between individual players were just insanely more convoluted. The only team vs team enemies who I can really think of were the Spanners vs the Gs. Grian really wanted to eliminate the try hards who were stronger in numbers (though, as Scott has said, larger groups don’t often do better in the Life Series). The whole thing was like watching a drama series. I really loved it, but I totally understand how it’s a lot more confusing compared to past seasons, where enemies are more straightforward and agreed upon within teams. The problem was that players were having a lot of personal beef with each other but then projecting that onto the other player’s whole team, who hadn’t been told about this beef and is then confused when told that something is wrong. The Gs and the Family were a little better at communicating between each other, but that didn’t mean that they always entirely agreed on how to deal with the issue. As for the storyline and collaboration points, I totally understand wanting that. I think I gave Wild Life a lot more grace, because every episode was like a first episode, where everyone is still helping each other navigate the new gimmick. That’s a part that I, personally, really enjoy about first episodes. This is much less a rebuttal against your point and more of a “this is how I understood it in the moment and a matter of my personal enjoyment, and I absolutely understand if it wasn’t for you”.

Oh I definitely agree that Scar’s a great player! I think he doesn’t really pick up on new situations as quickly, but, once he has it, he’s mastered it. He’s also just a generally skilled player. That man is INSANE in combat. Who taught him how to fight like that. It’s so strange when people say that Scar isn’t a “real” winner. Winners may statistically be more likely to rise from smaller teams, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easiest to get to the finale all by yourself, especially when you have as many enemies as Scar did that season.

I also love the Gs and the Tuff Guys, but GOD I understand what you mean. I’ve been dying for Tango to team up with new people, particularly Scott, for AGES. I want more Snowbugs content. Please, Mr. Smajor, PLEASE team up with different Hermits. I love every single one of Scott’s teams and dynamics, but I’m so eager to see him interact with people we don’t often get to see him hang out with.

I understand what you mean about not wanting to hurt your friends feelings, but Grian specifically requested criticism from each player after every session. There are of course so many ways to go about this situation, and no one way is necessarily the “correct” way to deal with it every time, but, if my friend was asking for criticism, I would want to help them feel as though they have improved their project as much as they are ready to. I’m not saying that I would complain or criticize or be harsh, but expressing an honest opinion about your own experience is so so so critical during game development. This is particularly critical in the Hermitcraft community when Hermits ask other Hermits for criticism. Grian in particular likes honest constructive criticism when he asks for it.

I absolutely agree about wanting to see a variety of series. While I understand that it doesn’t always do as well as their main content, I find it really exciting to see my favorite creators in new situations with different goals and expectations.

When I get upset about people sharing their complaints about Wild Life, I absolutely do not mean people who have real complaints about how the game operates or how it played out. Everyone is entitled to their preferences. What I mean is people who blatantly commented on Grian’s videos stuff like “Grian, these wild cards are boring” and “how is this an episode” or tweeted at him about how they hate Wild Life but didn’t have anything constructive to say about it. There were a lot of comments like this on Jimmy’s Instagram too, and that just sucks. If you have something like that to say about someone’s project that they’re so passionate about, there are more appropriate places to do so. Do I expect Twitter and YouTube comment sections to be free of hate? Absolutely not. However, people need to recognize that Grian doesn’t go on Twitter and YouTube looking for those types of criticisms. The kind of hate that pops up on Twitter and YouTube is so common that a lot of seasoned creators tend to be rather unbothered by hate on those platforms to the point where they skip over genuine criticism. Reddit would’ve probably been a more appropriate and effective platform for constructive criticism when trying to communicate your opinion with people like Grian, who don’t use Tumblr and have been on Twitter and YouTube for too long to take those kinds of comments into consideration.

The Grian and Scar thing was almost entirely Twitter and YouTube. While there are definitely people on Twitter and YouTube who LOVE Scarian, they’re also the platforms that are most concentrated with Scarian haters. It’s really tumblr with a denser population of Scarian fans, but Grian doesn’t get his feedback from tumblr, especially when tumblr and hermittwt are a lot more shy than haters tend to be.

Here's the thing about the Gs. A lot of people were insisting that the Gs were going to break up because “Cleo and Scott always betray Pearl”. This is not true. Scott’s history with Pearl is more complicated, but Scott had a good reason to not want to team with Pearl again. He couldn’t communicate this very well in character, but Scott literally could not be her teammate again, not after he just won Last Life with just Pearl as his teammate for a majority of the season. In other words, Scott didn’t really feel significant negativity towards Pearl until she started acting crazy, which Scott isn’t entirely at fault for. He wasn’t neutral in the matter, but it would be unfair to blame it entirely on him when Martyn immediately abandoning Pearl despite being in the same situation as her, Scar and Ren pushing the “5AM Pearl” character, and, of course, the fact that it was 5AM for her are all fairly equal contributions to the way Pearl decided to present herself. Additionally, Pearl chose to forgive Scott immediately after he blew himself up, which isn’t to say that frustration and resentment can’t ever resurface, especially if the event was particularly traumatic, but Pearl and Scott both gave themselves a whole lot of time to reconcile with what happened and come to forgive each other. It’s also not something that either of them ever bring up, spitefully or not. They’ve never held Double Life against each other even as enemies, and it’s not something they hold against each other when they have disagreements as allies. As for Cleo, Cleo has never betrayed Pearl. Has Cleo been enemies with Pearl, sure! But never when Pearl was ever entitled to Cleo’s loyalty by any means. The Gs was the first time where Cleo and Pearl were on the same team for the whole season, and it's not like Cleo betrayed Pearl during Last Life either. I genuinely believe that there’s an excess of attention on Cleo and Pearl hurting each other because they’re both women in a male-dominated space, because they haven’t been crueler to one another than would be expected of people on different teams. It’s kind of like saying that Scar and Lizzie are a bad team because Lizzie hated Scar in Secret Life, when what we were seeing in Wild Life didn’t show significant evidence of that grudge.

Were the Gs toxic? That’s up to interpretation, but I don’t think it deserved the amount of backlash some people gave it without criticizing other teams. I once made a post about Mumbo “manipulating” Skizz and Grian in the same way that Smajor haters claim that Scott is “manipulative”. I DO NOT believe in what I said about Mumbo. The point of the post was explicitly to show what the narrative looks like on someone who gets way less hate for behaving the same way or “worse”, and I do state that at the end of the post. The Tuff Guys, too, were SO messy. They could rarely agree on anything and almost always resorted to insults, but that wasn’t the result of people who hate each other. That’s the result of people who love each other so so so much and trust each other to know when they do and don’t mean things and to feel safe bringing it up if a line was crossed. I mean, no matter how much Tango and Bdubs insulted and rolled their eyes at Etho or were mockingly offended by his comments, the only time they acted properly upset with him was when they found out that they might not be his priority team (and they didn’t even know about the team he was actually loyal to in the end!). In that same sense, Scott, Pearl, and Cleo are best friends who love each other so much. Their friendship is apparently strong enough to withstand tough breaks in that relationship. It’s one thing to say that you like a team and interpret their dynamic as antagonistic, but it’s another to actually get mad at the actual Scott and Cleo for “teaming up with Pearl to manipulate her”, which was such a common kind of post that I was seeing throughout the first several weeks of Wild Life.

Your ask did not get killed by tumblr! I’m starting to think there may not be a character limit on these things. I copy asks and write out responses in Google docs cause it’s more convenient to access when I have time, and this ask was 5 pages long in 12 point font 1.15 spacing. Whatever kills asks, it’s not word count. Thank you for the ask! I love long asks :D And thank you for your patience! My housing situation has been... weird. I'm not in danger of losing my place or anything; it's just been over-complicated and slow to progress.

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silverskye13 · 10 months ago

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I need to ask, though:

*How* long has he been in the water?

The earliest "he is surely in the water now" mention I can see is Etho stepping backwards after the splash - he's stepping through the water that's why it's hard. The Bdubs hug feels like "not yet" cause Etho shouldn't be up to his shoulders then - but it might be the starting to lead in point, 'm unsure? And the singing moment might indicate the start of charming?

Honestly, I love everything about this. I love everything about every your text, the way you manipulate details and atmosphere. When I'm trying to remember my first read, it's. A lot of suspence. I know something will come, it might be Bdubs - it surely is Bdubs, and I expect him to catch Etho unaware. The murder talk, the danger that I anticipate - it's not there yet, but I'm waiting for it, and the tune, the hug, the splash, the buckle - all of them feel like fakeouts to keep the pressure. And the bells are ringing, the hints are all there, but they're so carefully weaved into everything else they might be just words.

And then the question sounds, and the horror hits.

With frantic scrolling up, re-reading, getting even more terrified, and begging for Etho to do something.

It's high mastery, imo.

Oh man, thank you so much for the kind words :D I'm glad you liked the fic, and that the suspense/horror came together so well! I don't write straight horror too terribly often? And I was trying to really stretch some muscles with this one, to see what I could do.

For when exactly Etho gets in the water: I didn't really define that for myself. I wanted him in the water to happen in the space between cues in the story. But I can talk about the things that happen around that.

When Etho sees the stone on the still water, he is getting his first glimpse of the creature. Something is watching him from across the unnatural stillness of the river. When he thinks to himself, "I'm on the dock and I'm safe," the siren song has started and he's been charmed. Up until this point, he's shown some amount of caution [walking quietly on the dock, making sure he isn't wearing anything heavy besides his sword, prioritizing what activities he does first] but when he suddenly and overtly drops caution for "I'm safe on the dock", he's being lied to by something else. And, after emphasizing that nothing can drag him into the water against his will, he reaches over the side of the dock and touches the water willingly.

The rest of the story after that is, to me, the siren justifying sounds and sensations that would break the spell. Etho hears himself shuffling on the dock -- that's just BDubs walking up behind him, nothing to worry about. Etho feels a sense of danger and unease -- well, BDubs is talking about killing Grian. Etho hears the creature moving towards him in the water -- BDubs has his legs over the side of the dock and is kicking around. BDub's eyes are the wrong color -- well, the sunset is reflecting off them, making them red.

Somewhere in these cues, Etho starts shivering, because the water is cold, and he's standing in it.

I also tried to weave in a little bit, the idea that Etho knows he's being charmed? Mostly to do with the end, when he finally gives us the reason why he came to the water in the first place: he wants to see and hear his friend again, and the monster's illusion is the only way he can. But he knows enough to be cautious. He doesn't want BDubs to touch him -- it could be the monster, keep your distance. He feels fear at the idea of deep water, something that nearly scares him out of the illusion, but when he's given the chance to break it [checking his heartbeat to see if it's unnaturally calm], it's knowing he'll stop seeing BDubs that makes him decide not to check.

Etho's flaw in this is he thinks he has more control than he does. He hasn't "come to the water" until he's stepped in. But the truth of the matter is, as soon as he decided he wanted to see BDubs again, he was already willing to be deceived, and someone can't be dragged in against their will.

"How long have I been in the water, BDubs?" [When did I fall for the charm?]

"Does it matter?" [The minute you missed hearing my voice.]

There are other little things I had fun with: the start and end of the illusion both have to do with armor, something that should protect him, but is useless when it isn't worn. Every time Etho makes the mistake of feeling safe, he can see the creature [in the river at the start, when it's trying actively to drown him at the end]. The fact that, when BDubs jumps in the water, Etho shouts "Keep your distance!" and Tango mentioned they would be listening for his scream, to come rescue him. The fact that BDubs straight up says "You're not scared of me, the monster, you're scared of the deep water. But people drown in shallow water all the time."

I dunno! Fun little things that up the stakes a little. This was a really fun one to work on :D

#answering asks #reflingthefox #i had a lot of fun noodling away on that ficlet #i really wanna write more horror its one of my favorite genres #it frustrates me because i often find myself wanting to read horror i cant find #a la: i wanna write what i want to read #but im always insecure about trying #horror is so difficult to me ive seen people fail to do it well so often #it makes me worried i will fail to do it well also #but! this one turned out good! so maybe ill give it another shot in the future :3

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nerdpearls · 1 month ago

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hey!! so i've been cooking up an au with my dearest friend and my twin, and i think it's time i do a bit of an info dump if anyone cares

in short, this is a life series + object show au!! we've decided it's going to be a double life au

info dump below!!

there's actually three of us working on this au, but unfortunately, i'm the only one who possesses a tumblr acc. for future reference, we are:

silly vanilly: the object show nerd of the group!! she'll be writing from the object's perspective.

clodu [me!]: the life series freak! i'll be writing from the perspective of the life series members

malt: the in-between! she knows a bit about both, and therefore will be writing from both povs

now for the actual info dump. while we don't quite have a plot figured out, we do have all the pairings + plus some intro writing!! malt and i have also done some doodling for the fun of it

[note that for this au, four people/objects are linked. for example, scar, grian, x and four are all linked together [well, there is one exception]]

official pairings:

scar & grian + x & 4

bigb & ren + ! & 8

etho & joel + 0 & 9

pearl & scott + 1 & 5

tango & jimmy + 6 & 7

martyn & cleo + 10 & 15

bdubs & impulse + 14 & 24

mumbo & gem + 2 & 3

skizz & lizzie + clock & 24 (yeah again)

some chaos, we know. i'll pause right here for a doodle break and then i'll give you a small excerpt from each of us

doodles by me :]

art by malt!

okay okay!! now for a bit of writing. starting with silly vanilly!

X’s eyes flutter open, his vision slightly blurry from who knows what. He proceeds to sit up, relieved to see his friends. However, it wasn't just four and two, it was everyone. That never happens, especially on some random day. He looked around a bit, half startled to see everything twice his size. Nobody else seemed to notice though, they were too busy arguing with each other, blaming on whose fault it was that they ended up here. Of course, everyone was looking at one, she had been traumatizing Two, so why not all of them? X decided he didn't exactly want to join in on another argument, and he didn't really care, so he decided to wander off away from the crowd. Mindlessly strolling across the new terrain, he stops at a shadow. Thinking it's some shade from a tree, he looks up, only to find a very large ‘thing’ towering over him.

-- oo, fun. malt excerpt next!

“No, It’s ok Four. The Human thing is nice!” X stretched his arm over to the human. “Pat. Pat.” He said as he patted the human’s head. Grian looked at them both dumbfounded. So, the blue one’s name was Four, and the yellow one’s name was X. The strange part was that even though the beings seemed to be from another universe entirely, he could understand them. X was extremely cute, and Four seemed like pure chaos. Grian instantly found a liking to them.

-- meeting the freaks! last excerpt time, by yours truly

“It’s okay Four!! I think it’s nice!!” This time, Grian couldn’t stifle his laughter. For some reason, X’s voice cracked him up. He could practically hear the innocence in it’s voice, and it reminded him of Scar. Speaking of Scar, he was still unconscious, lying in the circle of their friends. The only other person awake was Scott, who was regarding a creature that resembled the number five with a bemused expression.

-- wowzers.. that's it for the time being!! i'll probably post about this au every month or so, and once our first chapter is completed we will probably be putting this up on au. hope you enjoy!!

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anim-ttrpgs · 1 year ago

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Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, and Themes of Disability, Mental Illness, and Criminality.

Back Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy on kickstarter before May 10th if you want to help a disabled person with limited ability to work pay his bills.

Verisimilitude, What Would a Person Do?

To understand Eureka’s themes regarding disability, mental illness, and criminality, you first have to understand its verisimilitude.

“Verisimilitude” is defined as “the appearance of being true or real,” and it is a big part of the core design ethos behind Eureka. It is a very realistic game.

We aren’t necessarily of the opinion that “realism” is a better design choice than stylization overall for RPGs, but it is a better design choice for Eureka, because we want the PCs to be very normal, believable people who make believable, organic decisions in extraordinary situations. No matter what anyone says, the mechanics of a TTRPG strongly influence what kind of stories are told with it, and what characters do in those stories. So if we want characters to make realistic decisions, the world they inhabit and interact with must be constructed of realistic rules.

Even though there is a small chance that they may be a supernatural creature, PCs in Eureka are still not fearless action heroes, chosen ones, or anything of the sort. They’re normal people with jobs, friends, and families who get mixed up in mysterious and/or dangerous situations, often against their will. They are fragile, vulnerable, imperfect, and they, largely, know it.

“Composure” is a mechanic that helps you know it too. I’ve given a deeper explanation of the Composure mechanic in the post linked here, but I’ll give a very very very condensed version in this post. Composure can sort of be thought of as “emotional/fatigue HP,” (and no, it is NOT “sanity”) it acts as a guideline for how well your character is handling the situation, and when it gets low enough, it starts to have serious mechanical effects as well, because a character’s stat modifier can never be higher than their current Composure level. Fear, hunger, and fatigue all lower Composure, and eating, sleeping, and bonding with one’s fellow investigators can all restore it, at least for normal people. More on that further down. All you really need to know for now is that when Composure gets below zero it starts eating into HP, so characters can even pass out or die from loss of Composure, and also one single bullet is enough to permanently cripple a character, and the rate of Composure loss during combat reflects how serious that is for the characters.

Grievous Wounds

It isn’t too uncommon for RPGs to have some sort of “flaw” system, whereby in character creation you can give your PC “flaws” or some kind of penalty, and usually get that balanced out by being able to add extra bonuses elsewhere, and these “flaws” may take the form of disabilities.

Critical Role’s Candela Obscura, the whole document of which is one of the most egregious examples of liberalism and toxic positivity I’ve ever seen in the TTRPG space, takes this beyond just character creation, and makes it so that if a PC receives a “scar” in combat that reduces their physical stats, their mental stats automatically go up by an equivalent amount, and proudly asserts that to make any mechanic which functions otherwise is ableist. I think you can probably tell what I think of that from this sentence alone and I don’t need to elaborate. Getting bogged down in all the failures, mechanical and moral, of Candela Obscura would make this post three times as long.

I actually do think that as long as you aren’t moralizing and patting yourself on the back this hard about it, “flaw” systems in character creation are a pretty good idea in most cases, it allows for more varied options during character creation, while preserving game balance between the PCs.

But in real life, people aren’t balanced. The events that left me injured and disabled didn’t make me smarter or better at anything—if anything, they probably made me stupider, considering the severity of the concussion! Some things happened to me, and now I’m worse. There’s no upside, I just have to keep going by trying harder with a less efficient body, and rely more on others in situations where I am no longer capable of perfect self-sufficiency.

Denying that a disabled person is, by definition, less capable of doing important tasks than the average person is to deny that they need help, and to deny that they need help is to enable a refusal to help.

This is the perspective from which Eureka’s Grievous Wounds mechanic was written.

When a character is reduced to 1 HP, which by design can result from a single hit from most weapons, they may become incapacitated, or they may take a Grievous Wound, which is a permanent injury with no stat benefits. Think twice before getting into a shootout.

Grievous Wounds don’t have to result from combat, they can also be given to a character during character creation, but not as a trade-off for an extra bonus.

“But then doesn’t my character just have worse stats than the rest of the party?” Yes, didn’t you read the above section? There is no benefit, except for the opportunity to play a disabled character in an TTRPG, and this character will probably have to be more reliant on the rest of the party to get by in various situations. Is that a bad thing?

Monsters

Just like mundane people in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, monsters are playable, because they are regular people. I’ve gone over this in other posts and also you can just read about it in Chapter 8 of the Eureka rulebook, but the setting of Eureka doesn’t have a conspiracy or “masquerade” hiding or separating supernatural people from normal society. They exist within normal society, and a lot of them eat people.

Most RPGs consider monsters to just be evil, they do evil for evil’s sake. RPGs that seek to subvert this expectation often instead make monsters misunderstood and wrongfully persecuted, but harmless. Eureka takes a wholly different approach.

There are five playable types of monsters in the rulebook right now, and it’ll be seven if we hit all the stretch goals, but for simplicity’s sake this post will just focus on the vampire. Despite them applying in different ways, the same overall themes apply to nearly every monster, so if you get the themes for the vampire, you’ll get the gist of what Eureka is doing with monsters in general.

I mentioned Composure above, and how it can normally be restored by eating food and sleeping. Well, vampires can not restore their Composure this way. They don’t sleep, and normal people food might be tasty as long as it isn’t too heavily seasoned for them, but it doesn’t do anything for them nutritionally. Their main way to restore Composure is fresh living human blood, straight from the source. To do what mundane PCs do normally by just eating and sleeping, vampires have to take from another, whether they’re happy with this arrangement or not. They do not, of course, literally have to, and a player is not forced to make their vampire PC drink blood, just like you don’t literally have to eat food, but they do and you do if you want to live in any degree of comfort or happiness, or else they’d eventually just sit at 0 Composure and not be able to effectively do anything.

There’s a reason that this is a numerical mechanic and not simply a rule that says something like “this character is a vampire and therefore they must drink blood once every session,” and that is to emphasize and demonstrate that the circumstances a person faces drive their behavior. In America, there is a tendency to think of criminality and harmfulness as resulting from something of an intrinsic evil, but in my experience and observation, people do not just wake up at like age 16 and decide “I think I’ll go down the criminal life path.” Through their life circumstances they have been barred from the opportunities that would have given them other options. People need food, food costs money, money requires work, work requires getting hired, but getting hired requires a nearby job opening, an education, an impressive resume, nice clean clothes, a charismatic attitude, consistent transportation, and so on. For people without, criminality is something they are funneled into, which becomes harder to avoid the longer they go without consistent access to their basic needs. The choice will be between taking money from others by force or trickery, or running completely out of money.

As the Composure counter ticks down, a vampire, or other playable monster, is going to encounter much the same dilemma. There is little to no “legal” or “harmless” way for them to get their needs met, even if they do have some money. Society just isn’t set up for that. And no your kink is not the solution to this, trying to suggest every vampire get into sex work is like one step removed from telling every girl she should just get an OnlyFans the minute she turns 18, or that women should just marry a man and be a housewife that gets taken care of if they want their needs met.

Playable monsters in Eureka are dangerous, harmful people. They were set up to be.

“Oh well then the vampire should just eat bad people!” You mean those same bad people i just described above? See this post for answers to all the other arguments people are going to make to try and absolve vampires of causing harm.

Society not being set up for that brings me to next reading/theme: Monstrousness as disability, and monsters as takers.

Mundane human characters restore 2 points of Composure per day just by eating food and sleeping, but vampires do not, they can’t. To restore their Composure they have to take from others a valuable resource that everyone needs to live and the extraction of which is excruciatingly painful and debilitating (blood). No one knows what happens to blood after a vampire drinks it, it’s just gone. Vampires are open wounds through which blood pours out of the universe.

This is a special need, something they have to take but cannot give back. Their special needs make them literally a drain on society and the world.

Even in so-called “progressive” spaces, there is a tendency to consider takers, people who take much more than they give back, such as disabled people, as something that needs to be pruned, with the mask over this being the aforementioned total denial of the fact that disabled people take more than they can give.

In this way, vampires and other playable monsters are, inarguably, “takers,” but in positioning them as protagonists right beside mundane protagonists, Eureka puts you in their shoes, and forces you to at least reckon with the circumstances that make them this way, as well as acknowledge their inner lives. You have to acknowledge two things: That they are dangerous, harmful people who take more than they can give, and that they are people. Because they are people, Eureka asserts that they have inherent value, a right to exist, and a right to do what they need to do to exist.

One final point is that of monstrousness as mental illness. Mental illness is a disability, one pretty comparable to physical disability in a lot of ways, so all of the above about disability can apply to this metaphor as well, but there are a few unique comparisons to make here.

It’s not the most efficient, but there are a couple of loopholes deliberately left in the rules that allow vampires to restore Composure without drinking blood. Eureka! moments can restore Composure, and Comfort checks from fellow investigators can restore Composure.

When I was writing the rules for how monsters regain Composure in accordance to these themes, I came to a dilemma where I wasn’t sure if it was thematically appropriate for them to be able to regain Composure in these ways, but ultimately I decided that yes, they can. It works with themes of mental illness, which is mental disability.

People with mental illnesses may have the potential to be harmful and dangerous, but study after study, including my own observation, has shown that mentally ill people with robust support structures and agency allowed to them to handle tasks are much less likely to enact harm, be that physical violence, relational violence, or violence against the self. So that’s why I kept that rule in for playable monsters. Being able to accomplish goals, and having friends who are there for them, makes the harmful person less likely to cause unnecessary harm.

I couldn’t really figure out where to fit this paragraph in so I’m sticking it here right before the conclusion: Vampires are especially great for this because they’re immortal, and because they always come back when “killed.” They can’t be exterminated, they aren’t going away, there will always be problem people in society, no matter how utopian or “progressive.” They’re a never-ending curse, who will always be a problem. The question is how you will handle them, not how you will get rid of them.

In conclusion,

Eureka is as much a study of the characters themselves as it is the mystery being solved by the characters. It is a harsh, but compassionate game, that argues through its own gameplay that yes, people do have needs which drive their behavior, many people do have special needs that are beyond their ability to reciprocate, and failure to meet the needs of even a small number of people in a society has high potential to harm the entire society, not just those individuals whose needs are unmet.

And Candela Obscura sucks.

Back Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy on kickstarter before May 10th if you want to help a disabled person with limited ability to work pay his bills.

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If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

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oshawottarchive · 3 months ago

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[Pt 1] [Pt 2] [Pt 3] [Pt 4] [Pt 5] [Pt 6] [Pt 7]

More because I am bored again

————

Jimmy: *standing at the top of the stairs* What are you all doing at the bottom of the staircase?

Impulse: I accidentally fell down

Tango: Skizz PUSHED ME down the stairs because I refused to pay HIS part of our rent!

Martyn: Scar bet me fifty bucks that I couldn’t reach the bottom of the stairs faster than Impulse did falling down them, so I slid down the banister

Pearl: I don’t know how I got here. One moment, I was sleeping in my bed, three floors up, and then suddenly I was waking up here, just in time to get crushed by Martyn

————

Grian: Hey guys, today Jimmy pushed me so I’m starting a kickstarter to put him down

Grian: The benefits of killing him is that I would get pushed way less

————

Tango: *pulls a glass of water from out of nowhere*

Scar: Where did you get that?

Tango: My pocket

Scar: How do you keep a glass of water in your pocket?

Tango: Skills

————

Pearl: The four Gs

Pearl: Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss, and Gem

————

Etho: Life is like Bdubs. It’s short

————

Gem: Do you see yourself as a glass half-full person or a glass half-empty person?

Grian: Half-full, definitely

Grian: Half-full and constantly rising

Grian: Soon the water will escape its container and consume us all

————

Etho: Today at 7 AM, Impulse poured a monster energy drink in his coffee, said “I’m going to die”, and drank the whole thing

Skizz: I watched Impulse brew his coffee with monster instead of water. Three cups in two hours. I think he ascended into the astral realm

Tango: The survivability of the human race never fails to amaze me

————

Tango: Who would you swipe right for, Imp or Skizz?

Etho: I would delete the app

————

Tango: We can bake these cookies at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or 4,000 degrees for 1 minute

Etho: No, that’s not how you make cookies

Skizz: Floor it!!

Tango: How about 4,000,000 degrees for 1 second??

Etho: You’re gonna burn the house down!

Tango: I’M GONNA HARNESS THE POWER OF THE FUCKING SUN TO MAKE COOKIES!!!

Impulse: Do it!

Etho: NO—

————

Impulse: Small creatures are much more vicious because they have a smaller body to bottle up all their emotions

Bdubs: Ridiculous. Give me some examples

Tango: Wasps?

Skizz: Terriers?

Etho: Bdubs

————

Etho: You were stabbed. Do you remember anything?

Impulse: Only the ambulance ride to the hospital

Etho: That wasn’t an ambulance, I drove you

Impulse: But I heard a siren. . .

Tango: That was Skizz

Skizz: Sorry, I got nervous

————

Scar: I wouldn’t put it in those words, exactly

Grian: Why not?

Scar: Cause I don’t know what they mean

————

Scar: Dude, I will never forgive Craigslist for banning me after I wrote a post seeking a sworn nemesis. Whoever reported it is obviously my nemesis but I was so pissed

————

Skizz: Can we go to a haunted house?

Impulse: What’s wrong with the one we live in?

Skizz: Wh-what?

Scar: *through an intercom* Goodnight, Skizz

————

Tango: Are you busy?

Impulse: Yes

Tango: Okay cool. Hey listen to this—

————

Skizz: Man I’m so glad we didn’t forget the marshmallows

Impulse: Yeah, imagine if we got lost in the forest without s’mores ingredients

Grian: I still say that if everything goes south we should eat Skizz

Tango: *being used as a campfire* Screw you guys

————

Impulse: Everyone has a toxic trait. Except Skizz, he’s cool like that

Skizz: WRONG. My toxic trait is how badly I want to domesticate a raccoon

————

Skizz: Hey, G-Man! Where’s Top, Dipple-Dop, and Scarface?

Grian: They’re playing hide and seek

Skizz: Where?

Grian: I don’t think you get how this game works

————

Skizz: If you put “violently” in front of anything to describe your action, it becomes funnier

Skizz: Violently practices

Grian: Violently studies

Tango: Violently sleeps

Impulse: Violently shoots pictures

Zedaph: Violently boxes

Scar: Violently murders people

Tango: Violently worries about the previous statement

————

Grian: Why are you two always out during rainstorms?

Skizz: It’s very peaceful and refreshing. I love the smell of rain

Tango: Scar bet me that I couldn’t get struck by lightning, but he’s WRONG

————

Scar: Truth or dare?

Zedaph: Dare

Scar: I dare you to kiss the hottest person in the room

Tango: *catches fire*

Tango: I’m ready, Zed

————

#crimson talks #hermitcraft incorrect quotes #life series incorrect quotes #Hermitblr #trafficblr #hermitshipping

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frozenjokes · 1 year ago

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Etho Really Should Explain Literally Anything To Mumbo, But It’s A Long Story And He Can’t Be Bothered

Mermaids weren’t very loud creatures, not at all. They could be when they wanted; the purpose of song was to be heard after all, but song was a deliberate action, to hunt, to heal, to love.

A mermaid in distress was not loud, per se. Not like humans; yelling, whining, flailing about, no, nothing purposeful, but they did stand out with too-frequent click, click, clicks of a soul that was very lost, that didn’t feel grounded in their environment.

And it wasn’t always obvious, not in the deep. Everyone was clicking all of the time in the deep, the soft rhythm of home. To navigate, to gauge how another was feeling, to keep from running into rocks or homes or gardens or each other- well, they still ran into each other quite a bit, but the point stands.

In places with less mermaids however, it was very obvious when someone was struggling, and this close to the surface, Mumbo could hear telltale mermaid clicks from a mile away. Nine times out of ten, if a mermaid was near the surface Mumbo would be surprised if they weren’t lost, so he kicked away from the gentle current he was riding and made toward the noise.

The clicking heightened as Mumbo neared, then slowed, recognition of another presence. Mumbo was close enough to sense the rapid movement of fins with his own clicks; up and down, up and down, but with unadjusted eyes from spending so long in the deep, he still couldn’t quite see them. Regardless, it was clear that this mermaid was apprehensive about his approach, so he slowed his pace, hoping the stranger would understand he was friendly.

‘Do you need help?’ Mumbo whistled once in earshot, keeping a healthy distance. There was something unnerving about this mermaid that kept him on edge, kept his fins twitching. He just couldn’t- see them. Now, again, he couldn’t see much of anything, but he could understand shapes, especially ones as big as him. And Mumbo knew where the stranger should be; they weren’t exactly moving much and clicking was an accurate measurement of space, but there was no dark blob where he expected one to be. Mumbo squinted, but it was no use.

‘Need to go to the surface. Urgent. Got swept away by the storm,’ the mermaid answered after an uncomfortable pause, and that was odd too. Why were they speaking so stilted? And why did they wait so long to answer? But then Mumbo processed the words, and excitement swallowed his apprehension. The surface? Did this mermaid like to visit the surface as well?

‘That’s where I’m going! I’ll take you.’ Mumbo couldn’t help the soft trill that rose behind his words, diving a little closer as curiosity got the better of him. The stranger’s fins flared briefly, surprise, and Mumbo gave a few amused clicks in return.

‘Really?’ they said, the lilt of the word higher than it should’ve been; a quite endearing expression of excitement, or maybe surprise? Entirely odd- mermaids didn’t usually express themselves in that way. Mumbo wondered where this one was from. ‘Can you take me-’ the mermaid stopped suddenly, frustration twitching through their fins before they flicked their tail, a silent ‘nevermind.’

‘I know a safe place,’ Mumbo tried, hoping that would sate them. Did this mermaid travel the surface or something? Did they name different places they’d explored? Oh, Mumbo longed to know more. ‘Call me Mumbo?’

‘Anywhere there’s land is fine. Call me Ghost’

Ghost! Goodness! ‘Do they call you that because you’re invisible?’ The words were out of his mouth before Mumbo could help himself, but Ghost didn’t seem to mind, an amused chirp bubbling forward.

‘You’ve been deep for a while?’

Mumbo drew into himself in a gentle show of embarrassment. ‘Yes. I like to visit the surface often, but couldn’t for some time. Bad injury. This is my first time back since then.’

Ghost closed the rest of the distance between them, and Mumbo started to see a shape through the water, though not concretely. ‘I’m light colored, different. I won’t stand out where there’s so much sun, not like you do.’ And there was that higher lilt again, almost distorting Ghost’s words to the point of changing their meaning. Why were they doing that? Mumbo could tell their amusement from their body language; was this like- double amused? Maybe it wasn’t amusement at all- Mumbo probably shouldn’t be applying human habits to mermaids, but that was just it. It sounded so human. Had Ghost spent a lot of time around them?

Mumbo didn’t get the chance to ask. Ghost stilled for a moment, a distinctly unnatural, tense movement, before a horrible wheezing sound left their throat, gills flaring so wide Mumbo could sense the spasming through his own distressed clicks, clicking which grew in rapid, panicked frequency. What- What was happening? Ghost made a horrible choking sound, bubbles trailing through their teeth, and Mumbo pressed a frightened hand to their chest, desperate to figure out what was wrong with their gills.

Ghost’s tail whipped against Mumbo’s own in a bruising slam, propelling the other out of reach, but Mumbo couldn’t help but follow closely, unable to understand and longing to help- but how could he? It- it sounded like Ghost was drowning.

And then it stopped. As suddenly as they’d stopped breathing, Ghost started again like nothing was wrong. Like they were just fine.

‘Sorry about that,’ Ghost clicked, fins frighteningly calm for what must have been a terrifying experience. Mumbo’s own fins were flat against his back, wary and afraid, but Ghost didn’t seem the least bit bothered, if anything, just looking a little annoyed. ‘It’s urgent I get to the surface.’

They didn’t elaborate further, and Mumbo couldn’t do much else but stare, a cross between utterly perplexed and extraordinarily frightened. He wanted to ask further, but maybe this was a personal issue-? It would be rude to probe about this mermaid’s health, surely. Maybe it had something to do with their light scales? What if light scaled mermaids needed sunlight to survive? Whatever the case, Mumbo took ‘urgent’ seriously this time, kicking off on a swift pace toward the surface, and was relieved to hear Ghost following close behind.

To Mumbo’s great distress, Ghost had another ‘drowning attack’ around thirty minutes later before they reached the outlet into the river, but they didn’t seem too bothered, so Mumbo tried (and failed) not to worry as well, simply hoping that once they made it to the lake cove, everything would be fine. Honestly, it was a little unnerving how relaxed Ghost was acting for a mer who sounded like they were dying a minute ago (and potentially on a regular basis?), but maybe Mumbo was misreading them. After all, they did have a couple odd mannerisms, and with the sun so bright this close to open air, Mumbo was just as blind as he was in the deep.

He’d forgotten how much the sun hurt when he was away for so long; a real shame, since he had really been looking forward to seeing Ghost. In all fairness, Mumbo hadn’t actually seen many mermaids at all, but for the most part their scales were dark and inky, with traces of color along their fins from a time when mermaids lived in places the light could reach. The idea of a pale colored mermaid was fascinating, and Mumbo was quite keen on seeing them with adjusted eyes.

As the two of them swam down the channel, Mumbo’s thoughts drifted to his humans, a gentle ache in his chest as he wondered if he would ever see them again. He was gone for so long, what if they didn’t think he was coming back? Did they still think about him? Oh, he hoped they were doing well. Grian hadn’t been in a good state.. Mumbo only hoped he’d made the right choice by leaving.

He stopped short as he remembered Ghost; even though Mumbo would be shocked to see his humans at the cove, he should probably give them a heads up regardless.

‘A warning,’ he whistled, and continued when Ghost flicked their fins as an indication they heard, ‘Humans visit my place sometimes. It has been a long time since I’ve been up, and they come to see me, so I doubt they’ll be around, but I thought you should know. They are friendly, in any case. Nothing to worry about.’

Ghost clicked to themself, an indication of quiet thought, though Mumbo was relieved that they didn’t seem too alarmed. ‘Should be out of there before that becomes a problem,’ they mused, ‘But you should be careful. Humans are greedy things. Take advantage of nice mers like you.’

‘No, no, not these. They want to learn about me. I want to learn about them. They’re sweet, they took care of me when my tail was broken. Well. They tried. I’ve brought them back a few things from the deep to show them if they ever return.’

Ghost hummed to themself in quiet thought before whistling, ‘Sentimental,’ and Mumbo wasn’t quite sure if they were referring to him or the humans. Probably true either way.

‘They’re nothing to worry about.’

‘Either way, I’ll be gone.’ Ghost gave a dismissive flick of their fins, and Mumbo pushed away disappointment. He figured if Ghost explored the surface, they’d surely met or at least seen a handful of humans, but they didn’t seem to care at all. Maybe humans were just another animal to Ghost, nothing to write home about. Mumbo couldn’t imagine being so disinterested. Humans made tools- they were engineers! Mumbo couldn’t think of a species more fascinating if he tried.

Regardless, he took them through the inlet that led to the lake, hoping if it was sun that Ghost needed, they would get plenty of it here. It wasn’t easy to keep track of Ghost’s breathing, not when Mumbo couldn’t see, but he did his best to listen, even if Ghost didn’t seem to want any assistance. Mumbo couldn’t help himself. How could anyone? At the very least, if Ghost did start drowning(?) again, they were in shallow enough water that they could surface for air.

Relief swamped Mumbo when they finally broke through to the lake, especially when behind him, it seemed like Ghost was beginning to breathe a bit more shallowly. Mumbo had planned on scouting ahead for his humans, just in case, but Ghost didn’t give him the chance, tearing ahead toward the beach in what Mumbo hoped was excitement.

It was a beautiful day, the water warm in Mumbo’s pleasant little alcove, and just being here after so long lifted his mood, a soft, sighing trill leaving his throat as his tail brushed the sandy shallows. Ghost had already fixed themself at the shore, head almost completely out of the water as they sprawled, fins waving contentedly. Maybe it really was sunlight they needed; Mumbo would be hard pressed to remember a mermaid in his past that looked more relaxed. And they seemed to be breathing well too, perfect.

‘This is a good place, very good,’ Ghost said, though there was something breathy about the whistle, like it wasn’t quite coming out right, ‘I can see where your humans come in and out. That will make things easier for me.’

‘The brush is still pretty flattened, isn’t it,’ Mumbo spoke with a wistful glance toward the path emerging from the woods, though it was far more overgrown than before. Mumbo’s stomach churned as he stared, anxiety hiking up in his chest. It really did look like it had been a while since anyone came through. He blinked, fins flicking as he processed the rest of what Ghost had said. ‘How do you mean?’

Ghost gave a non-committal flick of their tail, the end splashing lazily as it landed back in the water, ‘Don’t worry about it. Long story. Impatient, stupid friend.’ Ghost’s fins twitched irritably at the last sentiment, and kept twitching long after, their mood seeming to sour.

Mumbo would have loved to hear; he had plenty of time after all, but Ghost didn’t look like they wanted to share, so he left well enough alone, leaving them in the shallows to check on his roots and vines. Oh, everything had grown so much! Instantly he was preoccupied, meticulously combing through every plant, pulling up the longest, sturdiest strands, and placing them lengthwise on the shore. Mumbo didn’t know what he was going to do with this yet, but he was sure he could make some really sturdy rope- oh, he was so excited! Ghost seemed to be amused by his antics, keeping a curious eye on Mumbo’s activity. They didn’t ask any questions, a shame since Mumbo would have loved to chat, but oh well, not all mermaids were talkative. He appreciated the company regardless.

Mumbo worked in silence for a good while, humming to himself as he got into a groove. Through squinted eyes, he found a few wildflowers near the shore, and wondered if his humans would like them or if Ghost valued pretty things like he did. Mumbo pulled himself up the short ledge to get a better look, embarking on a grand distraction that took him some ways from the water’s edge in search of different flowers. Mumbo loved color, and he loved finding new colors. Things could get so dull in the water, even outside of the deep, but everything on the surface was so vibrant!

The first few times he had ventured out of the deep, he’d spent hours and hours just looking at himself, the reds and pinks shimmering through his fins so bright and beautiful, especially above the water. In low light, his fins were as black as the rest of his scales, so seeing the sun hit them for the first time was a delightful surprise. If only he didn’t have to wait so long to see the world properly. Truly, the best thing about spending all those weeks on the surface, even injured, was taking in the environment, the color, the everything. There was truly nothing like it in the deep.

Speaking of not being able to see, after accidentally crushing a few flowers, Mumbo forced himself to retreat back to the water. Blind mermaids didn’t get nice things, not after killing a bunch of them.

But after the rippling sound of Mumbo’s re-entrance into the lake subsided, ragged, strained breathing replaced the noise, filling the quiet with Ghost’s sick struggling. Mumbo was at their side in an instant, his fear-raised fins contrasting Ghost’s own, flat against their body and quivering gently. Mumbo’s eyes had adjusted enough to see their pale form, truly devoid of almost all color apart from splotches of salmon pink that painted their fins and skin. Mumbo squinted, alarm lighting his veins when he couldn’t find Ghost’s gills.

‘Space, please. I’m fine,’ they said, extraordinarily unconvincingly, ‘Impatient, stupid friend on their way. Very stupid. Very impatient. Will be here soon. You might want to leave until they’re gone.’ Their whistles and clicks were quiet and weak, similar to the brief moment from before, but much worse, like Ghost was struggling to speak at all.

‘You’re dying. I’m not leaving.’

‘I’m not dying.’

‘You’re dying!’

‘This is normal.’

‘It most certainly is not!’

Ghost hissed pointedly, fins slapping the water with how hard Ghost was flicking them. Incredibly rude, honestly, but given the circumstances, Mumbo was willing to forget it. He just wished this mer wasn’t so damn stubborn.

‘Stupid friend is poor company. Go away.’ Ghost bared their teeth briefly, and Mumbo’s tail tip lashed, splashing in the shallow water. He backed up, giving the requested space, but did not leave. Ghost huffed, but did not try to send him away again.

Mumbo shifted his attention to helping instead, on singing some sort of comfort (a gesture which seemed to annoy Ghost; Mumbo really couldn’t win with this mer, could he), and doing whatever he could that wouldn’t end with him being hissed at. Which is to say, not much. Given his focus, he didn’t notice the distant disturbance from the woods, not until it grew in volume, aggressive and clumsy and steadily getting closer. There was something uncoordinated about the noise as well, snagging and stumbling that set Mumbo’s fins on end, like the thing it belonged to was unfamiliar with the forest, or simply didn’t care. Well- thing. It was quite obviously a human. Nothing else was so loud, so careless.

Mumbo shrank back when the human burst through the clearing, but it didn’t even notice the two mermaids, instead hunching over its knees with heaving breaths, so ragged they almost sounded like growls. Mumbo was entirely tense from fingers to tail tip, fins on end and quivering, while Ghost looked little more than bored, or maybe just pained; it was difficult to tell with fins so lax. This couldn’t be the friend they were talking about, could it? Ghost hadn’t said a word when Mumbo talked of his own human friends; if anything, Ghost had sounded entirely disinterested. Maybe they were too sick to care about a threat in the clearing? Whatever the case, Mumbo would take care of it.

“Got your bloody clothes, Etho, christ, you didn’t make it easy to find you. Couldn’t have gone anywhere else huh?” The human tossed the bag off its back and into the sand, “This is a nice location though, for the future,” it mumbled, “Close to the river. Lots of options.”

It didn’t even look up as it shed some of its clothes, stumbling toward the water with a distinctly unsettling gait, legs shaking violently- was it sick? Either way, Mumbo didn’t want it anywhere near him. Mumbo spat a long, rattling hiss, satisfied as the human fell back into the sand, eyes wide enough for Mumbo to see in his half-blind state. It was a similar size as Grian, smaller without most of its clothes, with long, almost matted looking hair. Beside him, Ghost made an odd noise, almost reminiscent of a human laugh. Clearly they were getting sicker by the moment, no, no, Mumbo wouldn’t let this human anywhere near them, not when they couldn’t defend themself.

“Etho!” the human squeaked, shuffling back on uncoordinated limbs, “Who is this? Tell ‘im off! Tell ‘im off!” Something like slits across its neck and chest flared, reminiscent of gills. Odd jewelry, maybe? Did human paint move across their bodies? Well, regardless, Mumbo did not appreciate being yelled at, so he snaked closer to the water’s edge, rearing up with another defensive hiss.

‘Sorry, no speak- ah- human?’ Ghost whistled, rolling over somewhat pathetically, and the human screeched, kicking up sand in Mumbo’s direction, which, honestly, not a great choice.

“Not funny! Not funny!”

“Maybe not,” Ghost spoke in human, and Mumbo nearly jumped out of his skin, reeling on them with wide eyes, “But I do wish someone would bite you.” They paused, turning back to Mumbo, ‘Don’t bite it, please.’

‘IT?!’ The human whistled, outraged, but it didn’t whistle like a human, instead sounding just like a mermaid, clicks and all, though similarly to Ghost, it expressed its emotions in speech, which- maybe that made sense, given it had no fins to emote with. Still, the surprise was enough to send Mumbo jumping back a few paces, whirling from Ghost to the human and back again in wild confusion.

Ghost rolled their eyes, a frighteningly human mannerism, before giving a small wave of their tail, ‘Probably should’ve given you a better warning. Didn’t know how to explain, and they started the switch sooner than I thought. Too soon, clearly, they’re a damn mess. Should’ve been in the water ages ago. By the time you left the woods, it was a bit late, and obviously, I’m not well.’ Where the human’s whistle was strong and clear, Ghost’s seemed breathy and strained, like it was getting harder and harder to force the noise from their throat. And- wait a minute, their eyes weren’t right either. Something changed. Ghost spoke again before Mumbo could continue that thought, ‘Let them into the water, please. It will help both of us.’

“Stop talking so fast,” the human snapped irritably, “I can’t understand you.”

“I’m not talking to you,” Ghost bit back in human once more, but they didn’t look nearly as unhappy as they were before, fins only twitching absently. “Come on. Get in the water, they’ll let you now.”

The human looked skeptical, but even seated in the sand it was still shaking, and while Mumbo didn’t particularly want it anywhere close, Ghost had sounded decisive..? Mumbo carefully pulled away, keeping toward Ghost and hoping the human would respect his space. It seemed to understand, getting to its feet on legs that barely held its weight, then stumbling to the water line and falling in. Ghost made that odd half-laugh sound again, and seemed to relax a little, releasing a long breath.

The human rolled over in the water, looking similarly relieved. “Did you tell your new friend anything, or are they completely in the dark?”

Ghost shrugged, noncommittal, “Not really. Never going to see them again, so I didn’t see a point.”

“That’s mean,” the human snickered, its mood seeming to switch entirely. “So what, you’re going gonna blow their mind and leave them to think about it for the rest of their life, completely clueless? Do you think years from now they’ll doubt it even happened? Think they dreamed it? No one will believe them.” The human suddenly cackled, a bit of a crazed noise that made Mumbo shrink away. It looked directly at him and sneered, “No one will believe you,” then stopped short, turning back to Ghost, “Etho! Tell them no one will believe them. Do it for me.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Do it!”

“No.”

“Do it!”

“No.”

“Do it!”

Ghost didn't answer, rolling over to face away from both Mumbo and the human, something like mild amusement waving through their fins which- wait, since when had their fins gotten so small? But his thoughts didn’t linger there for long, most of his brain still straining to remember the human words he had learned. He was sure the two of them were talking about him, they must be, but they also must be using a different pronoun- when Ghost learned human, did they make a separate pronoun in the human language for mermaids? Why? While he had about a thousand questions, it seemed difficult for Ghost to speak at this point, so for now he wanted to focus on language, or at least on trying to understand anything the two of them were saying.

‘What do you call me? My humans call me-‘ Mumbo paused, steeling himself. It had been a while since he’d spoken like this. “He.”

Ghost was silent for a moment, giving Mumbo a curious look over their shoulder before laying their head back in the sand, still weak. ‘We call you,’ Ghost stopped, switching to human, “They. Them. He-“ ‘-implies a concept that does not exist for us. You will not understand. Has to do with human reproduction. Kind of. It is unnecessarily complicated. Do yourself a favor and don’t worry about it.’

‘I like human things. You can call me-‘ “-He.”

For some reason, the human found this incredibly funny, cackling to itself from the other side of the beach, but Ghost didn’t seem to care, only waving their tail (was it shorter?) in a lazy gesture. “You heard him.”

“I like this mermaid. You think I could lure him back home? Oh, I’d love to have two. Keep him as a little guard dog, have him eat anyone that steps foot on my island. Oh- or- Well, I don’t think I could split my soul again, but it would be nice to have options. Maybe he’d complain less. Or maybe he wouldn’t swim all the way out to sea on days we’re meant to switch back, yeah?”

Ghost bristled, looking angry for the first time since the human arrived, and Mumbo’s fins rose in turn. “No. You’re stuck with me. And that was your fault anyway, you seem to forget that when you blackout drunk, I also blackout. I didn’t know where the hell I was when I woke up. He brought me here. Please, I’d hate to subject anyone else to dealing with you like I have to.” Mumbo struggled to read their tone, unable to parse the bitterness in the beginning from the last sentiment that almost sounded like a joke, too exaggerated. It was difficult to tell if Ghost was genuinely angry or not.

But the human ignored them, turning instead to address Mumbo, ‘Do you come here often?’

Faster than Mumbo could process the question, Ghost snatched at Mumbo’s arm, and while Mumbo yanked away with a hiss, Ghost was not deterred, grabbing again despite their weakness and not flinching when Mumbo snapped forward in a warning feint. Instead, they pushed Mumbo’s hand to their chest at a spot where the skin was split by a massive scar. Surprise stopped Mumbo in his tracks- he hadn’t seen any scars across Ghost’s body, the colors too difficult to differentiate in his state of poor eyesight, but now that he knew it was there, he could just make out the difference. The scar extended above and below where his hand sat on their chest, all the way past Ghost’s eye and down to the midsection of their tail. It wasn’t thin either, jutting particularly badly across their stomach- how had Ghost even survived an injury that severe?

Ghost looked directly at him when they spoke, unwavering, ‘It did that. Dangerous human. Stay away.’

“I did not!” the human shrieked, then seemed to realize a bit too late it had spoken in the wrong language, ‘I healed it! I saved them!-‘ “-Come on, Etho! What’re you doing that for!? And here I thought you liked to have a little fun sometimes. You’re not still mad, surely not, you like the life you’ve carved out for yourself on land. Is a little inconvenience still worse than being dead to you?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“Is it not? Would you really put a price tag on your life, Etho? From where I’m standing, our deal was perfectly fair.”

Ghost grunted. “I didn’t get a choice.”

“You agreed! You shook my hand!”

“Why are you dredging this back up,” Ghost frowned, something like a growl leaving their throat, “I don’t care how many times you repeat yourself, you will never get me to say that choosing between my life and your ‘deal’ was fair. I’m past it. It’s time for you to let it go.”

The human quieted, something conflicted crossing its face before it looked away, grabbing fistfuls of sand in the water. For the first time since it arrived at the beach, it spoke without an edge. “But I want you to. I want you to be okay with it.”

Ghost was silent for a long moment, but there was nothing bitter behind their next words; honestly, there wasn’t any emotion at all. “I know.”

Mumbo didn’t know what to do. In all honesty, the human was looking very biteable right now, but Ghost had asked him not to, and maybe whatever they were arguing about was a ‘them’ issue anyway. If Ghost wanted to, they could probably bite the human themself, no need for Mumbo’s input.

But he didn’t get to think about it much longer, not before both the human and Ghost fell back almost limply, shallow, harsh breaths leaving Ghost’s lips, while the human groaned.

And then something split, Ghost’s tail, cracking apart with an awful squelching pull, their scales melting and dissolving like bone against magma. Mumbo reared back, blind fear lifting most of his body from the water before flying in the other direction. He choked on segmented hiss, and the human cackled, any hints of softness to its voice dead, replaced by vindictive edges. Had it done that to Ghost- did Ghost know? What- Was Ghost even a mermaid at all? Was this some sort of trick?

Terror sent Mumbo rocketing into deeper water, distressed by how little space he had to retreat. The lake wasn’t small, but it wasn’t endless either, not like the ocean; Mumbo couldn’t just swim away forever. He needed to hide. There was a nook a tad deeper into the lake where Mumbo typically stored his things, so he pushed himself down, holing up until he was too far to hear anything from the cove at all. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong with both of them. Mumbo struggled to catch his breath, unable to shake the image from his mind. He had never wanted two beings so gone from his place at the beach- Mumbo had always imagined sharing it with others, making a real home out of his little cove, but suddenly, nothing was more terrifying than a stranger. Betrayal burned through his blood just as hot as terror. If that human was so dangerous, why did Ghost call it a friend in the first place? Why did they bring it to his safe space- actually, how did the human find them at all?

Mumbo wasn’t sure how long he spent tucked away at the bottom of the lake. He was too big to completely fit in the rocky nook, but the mud at the bottom of the lake blended well with his scales, so he sat mostly obscured and stared up at the surface, head and parts of his tail poking out among the mud. Just.. waiting for something to happen. For Ghost, whatever they were, to leave, and for their human friend(?) to take its things and go as well, and to never see them again. Not in his cove, no. Not where he was supposed to be safe.

There was no movement for so long, Mumbo wondered if he’d missed Ghost leaving. If he had failed to spot them, though, it seemed unlikely with the improvements in his eyesight since he and Ghost had first met.

More likely, Ghost had never left the cove. Mumbo couldn’t see how they wouldn’t be dead, not with splitting tails and melting scales. They were so sick, the human too- Had they both died? It turned Mumbo’s stomach to think there were two corpses on his beach, rotting in the sun. What would he do with them? He certainly wouldn’t want his humans to find them. (But maybe that was the best case scenario. They couldn’t threaten his space if they were dead.)

And then there was movement, a large disturbance in the water followed by an even larger mermaid, the dark shape that was distinctly not Ghost.

They moved slowly, languid through the water, scanning the area with narrowed eyes, clicking soft and curious as they moved. Mumbo forced himself to be completely still, completely quiet. They were looking for him, he was sure of it, dark eyes raking malevolently across the lake floor. He didn’t know what it was about this mermaid that was so wrong, that made him so afraid, so sure they meant him harm, but Mumbo wasn’t about to question his gut feeling, not when he was so petrified.

To his great relief, the mermaid did not linger for very long, kicking off in the direction of the river after only a few more minutes of lazy drifting.

But even after Not-Ghost was long gone, Mumbo did not surface. He did not want to know what was on his shores. He did not want to see any more creatures of the sun.

…

Scar stood, hunched over his desk with his mouth agape, unable to shut it, but equally unable to say any words at all. That was Etho. His friend Etho. On his trail cameras. Walking away after growing legs.

“What the fuck.” Grian said, slotted below him in Scar’s desk chair, eyes equally wide. Yeah. That about summed it up.

#hermitcraft #hermitfic #mumbo jumbo #ethoslab #joel smallishbeans #smallishbeans #grian #gtws #goodtimeswithscar #hermitcraft fic #mumbomaid au

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jettboat · 6 months ago

Text

CHAPTER 3 - NEW INFORMATION AND COOKIES

"Dude! That's so cool! Are you like invincible right now?!" Bdubs stood up from his chair in excitement, making Etho jump.

"Yeeess... Until someone hits me and finds my heart-" Etho stopped before looking back up at his friend. "You're not going to hit me to find my heart, are you?"

"What?! No!" Bdubs sat back down and crossed his arms. "I don't want to hurt you!"

Etho's shoulders seemed to relax, which made Bdubs's heart sink.

Did Etho think he was gonna hurt him? Why would he ever do that! Did someone he trusted hurt him?

Before Bdubs could follow that train of thought, a knock on the door rang out through the house.

Etho and Bdubs froze, Etho pulled back up his mask. Bdubs immediately looked down at his cocoa to let Etho stand up.

He heard Etho walk towards the door and creak it open. Then he heard a sigh of relief before a familiar voice made it's way to Bdubs's ears.

"Etho! I heard what happened!" BigB said before dropping his voice to a rather loud whisper. "Is he causing you trouble?"

Bdubs heard Etho close the door. "No BigB, he's fine. Better than I thought, actually. Oh- You can look up now, Bdubs." Etho said.

Bdubs looked up and nearly jumped out of his skin.

BigB was part wood! He was a creaking like Etho??

"Don't be scared! I can only hold my human form for so long and I can't transform right now!" BigB explained hastily while wildly waving his arms, nearly whacking Etho in the face.

"Human form?" Bdubs asked.

"Yeah! I can only keep up my human form for an hour. Etho, here, can hold his all day." BigB explained.

"Until I need to go to sleep." Etho chuckled, taking off his mask.

"Yeah, until he needs to sleep. You still need to tell me how you managed that, dude!" BigB responded.

"Not right now, do you want a hot cocoa?" Etho asked pointing his thumb towards the kitchen.

"Sure. I wanna get some info outta Bdubs." BigB explained.

"I'm still here, you know!" Bdubs yelled before looking back down at his cocoa so the others could move.

The two creakings moved around the house, BigB to the couch (Bdubs only knew that because Etho started telling BigB to not get splinters and leaves all over his recliner chair again) and Etho to the kitchen.

Bdubs heard Etho pour a mug of hot cocoa and give it to BigB before making his way back to his spot across from Bdubs.

"So, what type of creature are you?" BigB asked.

Bdubs took a long sip of his cocoa. "I'm just a human." He mumbled.

"What's wrong with being a human?" Etho asked.

Bdubs looked at the two creakings for a moment. "You guys aren't gonna be like 'arg he's a human! I'm gonna kick him outta my woods!' or something like that?"

The two creakings now looking very confused.

"What?? No?? Why would we do that?" BigB asked.

"My old village didn't have a lot of humans in it, I got bullied a lot, got into a few fights... So, you guys... Aren't angry?" Bdubs asked.

"No! Of course we aren't!" Etho said. "We thought you'd be angry at us!"

"Well. This is one confusing night." Bdubs laughed, making the other laugh as well.

The laughter was interrupted by Bdubs's growling stomach.

"I'll find some food." Etho said before Bdubs turned to look at BigB.

"Any other questions?" Bdubs asked as he heard Etho rummaging through a chest in the kitchen.

"Yep!" The creaking responded. "Why'd you come into the garden anyways?"

"Oh! Grian and Martyn wanted me to find out what Etho was in exchange for a life." He explained.

"Those two are trouble together. Wasn't it Grian first, then Martyn joined in the shenanigans later?" BigB asked.

"Yeah! It was weird, Grian was giving me the details of the deal and Martyn was just standing there listening." A chill ran down Bdubs's spine. "I don't like what they're planning."

"Me neither." Etho had sat back down at the table.

The creaking tossed one cookie to BigB and handed one to Bdubs.

BigB gasped happily before immediately munching on it.

Etho nibbled on his, Bdubs usually saw him eat by raising his mask a bit so he could eat and no one could see his eye, and that was when he rarely ate around others.

As Etho ate his cookie, his two eyes stared down at his snack as if inspecting it, but his third eye scanned the room of any dangers. It landed on Bdubs for a split second before quickly looking away. Bdubs guessed Etho was still getting used to his friend knowing his secret.

Bdubs dunked half his cookie into his cocoa as BigB made a muffled gasp as an idea struck him.

"I heard about this new biome! A kingdom of sweets! We should totally go tomorrow! It might have answers on the two mischief makers!" BigB exclaimed.

"How will sweets help us get Grian and Martyn off our tails?" Etho chuckled.

"Grian's a sugar plum fairy. Duh!" BigB raised his arms in the air, sprinkling crumbs all over Etho's couch and rug. "It will definitely have answers to what their up to."

"I like the sound of that!" Bdubs said.

The two looked towards Etho with goofy smiles on their faces.

Etho sighed. "I'm out numbered, aren't I?"

"Yep!" The two yelled in unison.

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

"Martyn? Where are you going?" Ren asked as he watched Martyn fold and tie a rope around his dress so it wouldn't drag on the ground.

"Going on a quick trip with Grian, will be back soon!" Martyn explained before looking up and smiling at his snail-dog friend.

"Can I come?" Ren asked, his tail wagging a bit.

Martyn bit his lower lip, he looked torn.

"I'm sorry, you can't. You need to watch the base, I'll be gone for a few days at most." There was a crack in Martyn's voice when he spoke. Plus, I... It might be dangerous. I don't want you getting hurt. Not when you're on yellow."

Ren was quiet for a moment before walking up to Martyn and giving him a tight hug.

"Then be careful. Please." The snail-dog said softly.

"I will... I will..." Martyn mumbled as he hugged Ren just as tightly.

Ren wasn't sure why Martyn needed to go with Grian, but he knew his friend would be okay.

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

Martyn broke down into tears when he left Renwood.

He was tired. Tired in general and tired of being forced to follow Grian around... Or what was left of Grian...

The watchers were awful beings. Martyn knew that well. And if he wanted to see Ren after this night, he'd need to keep following Grian.

And so, he walked off towards the Sub 1 Club's base to find the watcher.

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

I'm so glad you guys are loving this au as much as I do!

So sorry for the long wait! I've been super busy! Have this really long, lore filled, chapter as a reward for your patience!

Also, I haven't announced this but I changed Bdubs to a human! He gets ✨lore✨!

After the main plot is finished, if you guys want, I can make one shots and qnas in between the mer au!

Thanks for reading this really long chapter! Have a great day! And a cookie from Etho! 🍪

#deep in the pale garden #wild life #wild life au #bdubbleo100 #ethoslab #bigbst4tz2 #grian #inthelittlewood #rendog #I looked at big bs wild life videos to see how long he can remain human LOL #hes got hour long videos so hour long transformation #getting to the good part!

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