#the watchers aren't actually dangerous in this au

[watchmewhirl]

Parents.

Masterpost

[definitelynotshouting]

Idk if this is Hunger AU canon or my own personal fanon but

one of the "calling cards" that the Watchers used in Evo was bedrock

bedrock is unbreakable by a player

perfect for trapping the player you're using as a Watcher incubator

and the texture looks rough af

when you get desperate you often try to do stuff to escape even if it's impossible, right

so what I'm saying is

probably one of the last things player!Grian did was tearing his hands to shreds trying to break bedrock out of sheer desperation

which makes all the passages in your fic where he's staring at his hands even more *gestures vaguely*

(idk why I typed this out in this format but it felt right so I'm going with it)

MAN OKAY THIS IS SUPER COOL i especially adore how youve connected it with the way i keep having Grian stare at his own hands???? which ftr is smth ive only just now realized i do all the time AKDBWKDJKSSJ this is JUST like the scarian jaw kisses thing HELPPPP 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 but thats such a cool thought!!! And utterly angsty i love it >:]

Its also made me realize i dont think ive ever actually told yall what did happen during that interim where Grian was captive as a Player before he died and became a Watcher, so buckle in i guess as i try to explain this one to yall (obligatory cws for captivity, parasitism, violated autonomy, body horror, and major character death discussion)

Yknow the world borders the life series has?? It was like that, but tiny. Maybe a couple chunks' worth of space to move around in. He spawned into a savannah biome and the Watchers specifically in charge of keeping an eye on him (pun intended) penned him in with the borders, implanted the specially-coded larva, and then retreated back just outside the server's barrier code to, well. To Watch.

So post Evo dragon fight the Watchers convinced Grian to join them without telling him what that entailed. They then proceeded to whisk him away to the server cluster's dev crystal, which is where the remnants of this Watcher colony made their semi-permanent home. There, held together basically only by the Watchers' ability to manipulate code, they had Grian make a brand new server.... and immediately trapped him in it.

He spent a year there slowly dying, eaten from the inside out by a parasite that was collecting his memories, copying over his stats and personality, with very limited space and resources to get by with. I know he built a tiny house out of acacia, but it never got any bigger than a starter base. He lived off of mostly bread and the meat from a few animals that spawned in with him; he primarily used stone tools, because those were what was most readily available. It was a very terrifying and lonely year, where all access to the outside world was cut off, and he was meticulously watched over to keep from dying while the larva inside him continued to grow and destroy him.

The Watchers were mostly hands-off in terms of interaction, but they did do regular check-ins to ensure the larva was alive and that there was no danger present to its host. Hostile mobs were carefully warded off, and Grian spent most of his time alternating between begging them to let him go (they never responded), trying to figure out ways to escape (it never worked), and tending to baseless chores just to keep from going out of his mind as his body grew weaker and weaker and more unstable around him.

I have a lot of feelings about this tbh, bc its just such a bleak scenario to think about-- trapped in a tiny cage with something killing you from the inside out, and your captors wont even talk to you about it properly. Being left otherwise to your own devices, with the terrible, lingering knowledge that, even if it was under duress, you still agreed to this. The fact that, after a certain point, after your questions and pleas are summarily ignored and brushed aside, you finally realize: you aren't meant to survive this. You are going to die.

A juvenile Watcher's first meal are the emotions during their host's last few moments. Grian was no exception; he cracked his way out of his own ribcage, and, without meaning to, amplified and feasted on Player!Grian's agony and terror as he died. With their memory codes finally disconnected, Grian had to watch himself through the eyes of a stranger as his terrified consciousness dissolved and his body fell apart into nothing more than loose strings of code.

Only then, still weak and flailing and helpless, was he was brought into the colony proper, in order to teach him how to be a Watcher. It wouldnt be for another few years before Grian gained the strength, control, and insight required to make his desperate escape. In total, i wanna say he spent somewhere between.... 4-6 years??? with the colony against his will. It would take another 4 for him to finally scrape together the courage to contact Mumbo and finally ask him for an invite into the Hermitcraft proper

One of these days i do plan to write that reunion, actually, which i'll add to the series as another prequel just like all the words that i forgot to say, which takes place roughly 6-8 months after Grian finally joins Hermitcraft. And if yall want to read an absolutely fantastic fic that deals with the moment Watcher!Grian was born and Player!Grian died, you should absolutely check out my friend @raichett 's fic Divergency, which ive pretty much canonized bc it REALLY hits the nail on the head for that situation.

Okay this got a lot longer than i meant it to sidhskdjej also those timeframes are a little squiggly bc i havent fully settled on where they fall on the general timeline. I wanna say Grian had been a Watcher for abt a decade by the time Mumbo got him onto Hermitcraft, though, so thats the loose timeline im working off of when i talk abt this :] anyway thanks for giving me an excuse to write this all out!!! while your idea about the bedrock isnt necessarily canon, i absolutely ADORE it and can totally see Grian just tearing up his hands while scrabbling against the world border.... utterly heartbreaking we fucking LOVE to see it. Thanks for sending in your ask!!! I always love seeing what you have to say about hunger au!!! :DDD

[nekodere07]

What if Hermitcraft is actually a server filled with Watchers? Only Grian doesn’t know... HC AU

Already posted in AO3 if you prefer to read it there :]

Except the Watchers in HC aren't the same as the ones Grian has encountered like ever. Compared to the ones who tormented him for years and took his family away from him, these Watchers don't interfere. They follow each Hermit separately, which is unnerving to say the least. They also just do what their name suggests: They watch. But it's gotta be some sort of trick, right? At some point, they're going to reveal their true colors and harm each and every one of them.

Because of this mindset, Grian has been observing his friends w/ the help of the same magic he despises the most. He can't help it. The itch just keeps on coming back whenever he thinks about the possible dangers lurking his friends, and there are even times he just slips and uses it without him realizing it. He watches and watches and watches, but there. Is. Still. NOTHING. If these Watchers are playing the long game, they're pretty good but they're bound to slip someday. But he can't wait someday. There's just so much he can tolerate. So, an idea pops on his head as if a light bulb has lit up. What if he makes the problem himself that will lead the Hermits to suspect the Watchers? His lips crack into a huge grin in reflex.

Time to work.

I imagine this obviously going wrong since the Watchers or "chats" as the Hermits dub them, they just keep on doing what they do best: annoying the hell out of the Hermits, so everyone more or less is aware that the chat is incapable of doing such a thing. The chat sells out Grian obviously, but not easily since he's one of the strongest Watchers. The ones that can actually interfere so they're afraid of them. The ones who are actually dubbed as Watchers and not the weak ones like the chat. The chat is afraid of the creatures with too many eyes, wings, and hands.

To say that the Hermits are angry about discovering the truth about Grian framing their chat for causing trouble (others that actually harm them) is putting it lightly. When they express their "anger" (not really since they're pretty more patient and more understanding than they let on) to the famous troublemaker, Grian thinks that the Hermits are actually mad at him, enough that they'll probably hurt him in return or worse, ban him. So, Grian does what he does best.

He runs.

(This idea was actually inspired from Styx on Discord/Shadverse on AO3, but I loved what idea I came up with so I asked Styx if they were fine with me quoting their idea)

[ilexdiapason]

"what is the pearl the bard au, ilex?" im SO glad you asked: a primer

first of all, hello jon, apologies for the deception, but i thought it was necessary to get the traffic people in through their scrunkle, so i didn't call the au by its proper name. this is eswap, the empires swap au, featuring pearlthebard. but i'm gonna tell it from her pov so it's all good

the following is a brief summary of what i refer to as "season one" of pearlthebard, and can be read in its entirety by going to @pearlthebard and reading through the linked directory, but if you don't have time for three months of tumblr rp then here's the gist of it!

Once upon a time, cruel gods named Watchers brought in just over a dozen people to play participants in a sick little game of death and betrayal. Pearl was not there. She was there when they did it for a second time, but she didn't win, so she can't remember it. The third time she prefers to forget, for the most part: it's a big awful blur of self harm and mania and dying and killing and losing everything she ever loved without ever really knowing why.

At the end of Double Life, she stands on a hill and watches the man who would not be her soulmate light himself ablaze, and when he blows up it takes her with him.

At this point, we step out of the narrative briefly, because Pearl the Bard doesn't actually begin with Pearl, not really - it begins with my friend Al going "hey i should make an au where the empires smp season 2 characters are role swapped", and hitting number thirteen Oli TheOrionSound, and going "ah shit well i guess i'll swap him with santa perla that works". Thus, Saint Oli, and Pearl the Bard. However, notably, Pearl cannot map neatly on to Oli's backstory of being isekai'd in from the end of Afterlife SMP, because she wasn't there.

At the end of Double Life, Pearl is blown up, but she does win. And a winner, by the usual metrics, earns a prize.

Saint Oli catches her when the blast flings her soul from her lifeless body, looks this incredibly wet cat up and down, and decides to give her a second chance.

She lands in the Empires SMP.

If you've seen Oli's episodes, which you probably should there were only four of them for the entirety of ESMP S2, you'll know roughly how the story goes from here, but the faces are a little different. She steals a goat horn from Princess Katherine of Dawn, she is jailed by Deputy Sausage of the Goblands, and while she awaits her judgement by the Sheriff Smallishbeans, she hears an awfully familiar voice from the floor of the cave asking what she did to get put in there.

Mayor Smajor of Animalia is a normal man. He runs his empire with a fairly loose grip, but he's proactive about developing a safe space for all animal folk to live among the pretty amethysts and not have to conform to the standards of human society. He, though, he's not an animal, no way, behind this dark mask he's completely human and not a cat. He has a life here, has lived in the Empires for years and founded a community with his own paws hands that he's very proud of.

The weird girl in the cage, the woman who brought two HUGE dogs to his lands and then somehow decided it was his fault for hissing at them that they didn't get on, and the new bard his neighbour Sausage has been gossiping to him about all seem to be disconnected, until they very suddenly aren't.

Pearl is a mystery to Scott. Despite him never having seen her before in his life, she seems convinced that he's either a regret or a danger, and she even goes so far as to stab him to death rather than tell him what the hell is her problem with him. He gets a little bit obsessed, if he's honest - finds her house to show up at it, insists that Sausage keep him updated on her, even starts to lose sleep. And when he does sleep he has strange dreams, dreams of being far taller, being tailless, being ten times better with a weapon than the Mayor of Animalia would ever need to be.

Pearl, steadfast in the conviction that the best thing she can do is get far the hell away from this weird, tiny Not-Smajor and never speak to or of him again if possible, runs to the distant shores of Sanctuary. And then squats in the Eversea. And then borrows Joey's spare room in the Evermoore. And every time, some coincidence sends Scott dangerously close to her escape path, forces them to make small talk, gives them both another nightmare of another time that Scott can't remember and Pearl wishes she could forget.

And then eventually they do catch up with one another in the streets of Chromia, and Scott refuses to back down until Pearl admits to him the truth of whether she really belongs in this world and what her connection is to his dreams and why he feels so weirdly, encompassingly guilty when he looks at her, and... well, i won't spoil that, that was a good one, i liked that one, you should go read it.

But yeah! Pearl the Bard! It's good! Soulmate drama forever :D

[bluiex]

Word vomiting sounds really funny and there is one idea I can't forget about. So be prepared for a little afternoon ramble about my Watcher Grian headcanon (as well as a little Convexian because I can't handle straight up Angst)

So in my take the Watchers go into full on cruel territory. When they kidnap Grian they permanently take his ability to speak and also blind him. He has massive scars across his eyes and neck because of this. The Watchers reason for that is they want him to completely relay on them to properly function. With the magic they force him to learn he can at least see. But Grian suffers with the knowledge it's not through his own eyes. Although he still tries to learn more in hopes of recovering his voice somehow.

In my story the Watchers actually don't bother caring about him escaping. They already accomplished what they wanted. Grian will never be able to live without their magic being a constant companion and he's forced to cause chaos if he wants to keep it stable. Meaning if the avian wants to see and at some point talk again he will have to follow the rules.

Grian tries his best to cope with that on his own but quickly notices all the differences about himself now. His eyes, once a rich dark brown, are now accompanied by a soft purple that will grow more intense if he wants clear vision. The problem? The better he wants his senses to be, the more his big scars show up. The scars on his neck are an easy fix. His signature red jumper works perfectly for hiding them. But his eyes? He quickly comes to the conclusion that if he wants his perfect bird vision he'll have to live with the marks his tormentors gave him. So he decides on only having the bare minimum of sight. This is why he wears glasses and avoids mirrors at all times.

It's difficult to get used to all that and when the offer reaches him to join the Hermits for season six, he's hesitant at best and anxious at worst. You see, Watchers aren't nice beings. Most people fear or hate them. And their magic now clings to Grian. But seeing his friend Mumbo talk so positiv about the place makes him give in and join.

I like to think it takes Grian a few months to get comfortable and truly open up to the others. Not because of the Hermits being bad, but because he's afraid of messing up and showing everyone what he is (has unwillingly become)

So here's were the Vex boys come into the picture. Vexes and Watchers have a very strained relationship that mostly ends in a lot of death should their paths cross. Scar and Cub are high ranked in their society and have the ability to sense other types of magic. So the moment they see Grian they're furious a Watcher would try and dare to challenge their territory on the server. But that basically lasts for only a couple days. It doesn't take a genius to see a broken bird afraid of taking flight. They actually started to enjoy talking to the avian.

So when they go to confront Grian about being a Watcher, they make the small mistake of showing their Vex forms (they thought that was a saver route then going in defenceless) And Grian? He's full on having a panic attack. He had no idea that Scar and Cub were Vex. He knows how dangerous they are and he's petrified that they found him out so easily. In contrast to them he's untrained in the usage of magic and basically found prey for them.

But of course nothing bad happens. The Vex boys are quick to reassure the terrified avian, apologising for scaring the poor bird. They do everything possibly to calm him down and stay by his side with much needed cuddles after he's not shaking anymore. And even if Grian is a jumbled mess, he's low-key relieved that someone knows what he is without casting him into the void.

Ufff that was a little longer than I anticipated.. But I hope my rambling was entertaining at least. I have more fluff for Convexian in this au so maybe I'll word vomit again-

IM SO IN LOVE WITH YOUR WATCHERS

I hc them being cruel and have very bad morals when it comes to getting people into their ranks- and its my fave seeing others doing the same. and THIS *chefs kiss*

convex being very understand to Gri and calming him down OUGH they'd never hurt their birdie

[rosego1dd]

more stuff on my exiled watcher!grian au that i made arbitrarily right now

i'll call it something cooler later, but anyways

grian who became a watcher for about 10 seconds before he decides that he is going to Troll Everyone, which includes:

inducing watcher-on-watcher hatecrimes (naturally, by using his powers to frame people)

feigning incompetence so he doesn't have to do anything, and then immediately doing The Thing when it's no longer needed

being a General Nuisance (hence the title pesky bird)

revealing his Watcher form to mortals he doesn't like because it drives them insane and he thinks its incredibly funny

other watchers tried pranking him back by making his wings ridiculously colorful (hence parrot wings) only for him to go "this is great!!!"

watchers eventually got very sick of his shenanigans, and decided that whatever Divine Punishment they come up with will probably backfire like everything else. so they just kind of. cast him down to hermitcraft and went 'not our problem anymore lmaoaoaoao'

(they probably plan to take him back once he calms down. that will not happen)

queue xisumavoid who is about to become very tired very quickly because this fallen god has the energy and impulse control of a two-year-old and just enough power to not immediately die from it.

grian who arguably gets worse because now people play along with his pranks!!! i mean, he can't put them in mortal danger anymore because apparently humans think it is Not That Funny but he has other things he can do!! and they aren't kicking him out for it!!

grian who isn't actually a complete little shit all the time and only put up that front to annoy the watchers because it was funny. who's actually chill most of the time (unless there's a war to be had)

i like this au very much

[redwinterroses]

...boy my brain is going wild with this because it definitely implies something more powerful than void!Zed. Could be the void itself -- that's the only thing more eldritch that I can think of -- or it could be like... I dunno. A collection of beings. Like if void!Zed was a threat to them, they banded together to bind him to human form. Another group of players, or something akin to Watcher lore-- actually no I love the idea that it was players.

O.O

What if it was the Hermits.

What if-- *gears turning wildly* what if in this AU (because this is now firmly in AU territory) the Hermits encountered this Being of the void (maybe while breaching the nether roof? since that's technically void too? or in the end?) and had to defeat it? And the way they managed to do that also bound the Void into this Zedaph creature, and X was going to /ban it him but something changed their minds last minute? Possibly just the fact that the Hermits are so kind that they decided "Well, let's give the guy a chance."

So maybe Zed doesn't remember being the dangerous Void creature. Or he does, but he doesn't remember how he joined Hermitcraft. Or he does, but he goes on that "grar I hate you all" to "well you aren't THAT bad" to "wait I think I actually like you" trip.

You know, I just read a fic called Unstopped (very good fic, highly rec) that could actually be compatible with this. In that fic, Zed has time-skipping abilities that aren't really explained (like, in-fic, they are a mystery). If Zed were a cursed void-being that would fit really well...

okay sorry for rambling I'm done. 😅

i hear everyones 'eldritch/void!zedaph in human form' aus/headcanons and raise you 'eldritch/void!zedaph that was cursed into human form and befriends tango and impulse and learns maybe being human isnt so bad after all'