#i HOPE this makes sense i did not watch doc nor ren's s8 so it is VAGUE.

[made-nondescript]

also just read through your whole au and like i have to ask (assuming its not been said before) how does tubbo take the 'moons big' and 'their name is' with the alter of heads cause 1 hed notice the moon thing before anyone else and the hermits would shrug it off as war child paranoia but then it gets worse 2 idc if he gets that hermits dont die die whatever, ren and doc made a ALTER to the MOON with their friends dead appendages.

(Minor CW for DSMP-typical mentions of violence.)

It's not that they don't believe him, it's just that there's a misplaced faith in their own ability to notice the gradual growth of their moon. Surely, living on Hermitcraft, they'd know a bit more about the appropriate size of celestial bodies above it. So when Tubbo visits again and points at the sky, marveling at the moon's size, it's brushed off.

Tubbo understands. It's not like he's ever paid particularly close attention to Hermitcraft's moon before -- as far as he can tell there's nothing different about it from the Dream SMP's, so why would he? But that's just the thing: he knows that the Dream SMP's moon has never been so large. He'd seen it just before he left for his visit. He knows something has changed.

Then again it doesn't really matter either. So what if the moon's a bit bigger, right? Who cares. He knows Doc well enough, he wouldn't be surprised if he was behind it. Or, thinking about it, it could really be any number of Hermits.

He doesn't press. There's no reason to, he decides.

But then the moon is even bigger next time, and bigger still the following visit. He mentions it both times with increasing worry. The thought occurs to him that it's like the moon is on a collision course for the server and he even voices as much, but Iskall assures him that it's probably fine, if anything's going on at all.

He doesn't have as much time as he'd like to visit, so Tubbo tries to ignore it. He's stressed enough at home; he doesn't need to spend what is essentially his vacation hours imagining the improbable end of the world.

So he doesn't. He pointedly ignores as much of the moon weirdness as he can. Even when Boatem turns into a moon cult. Even when Tango starts building a rocket. There is comfort in knowing that the Hermits are just like this, that this is almost certainly more of a LARP than any serious concern. (Right?) Even still, he uh, he keeps closer to the Hermits not engaged in a pre-apocolypse roleplay.

When Tubbo goes to meet Doc it's for advice on tuning up his nukes. (Dream has just escaped, he's free, he could be anywhere, right now and he needs help, he needs to be in control right now). What he gets is an introduction to Doc and Ren's own apparent moon cult and its rituals.

Tubbo didn't really like Boatem's whole….thing and he doesn't feel any more positively about Doc and Ren's either. It's almost more unsettling with the elaborate robes and ominous chanting. But what really sends it across the line between weird and entirely uncomfortable is the alter.

Tubbo has seen violence, obviously. He's bloodied his hands stitching up his comrades on the battlefield and he's seen people die. More than that: he attended Schlatt's funeral, he watched Quackity eat Schlatt's heart on stage, he personally handled the man's bones and treated them with no more dignity than driftwood.

So the heads on the alter don't send him puking the way they probably should have. It's a gruesome scene to be sure but the room is clean and orderly and he can hardly even smell the iron.

What fucks him up is how unlike the Hermits this is.

Tubbo knows how weird and sometimes dark they can get - he's been briefed on past seasons enough to know that. But he can't help but notice the precision with which the head are cut, the clear premeditation that went into collecting them. And the chanting - it's clear to him now what the chanting is about now. The priority here is not on their fellow Hermits but getting the moon what they think it wants and Tubbo can't think of anything that feels more wrong to be happening on this server.

It's too much at the wrong time for him. He goes home and crumbles.