Stuck on the Slow Path

Home of the "Stuck on the Slow Path" Hermitcraft AU, an alternate take on @ndn-craft's Stuck AU. Asks welcome.

[stuckontheslowpath]

Hey y'all heads up there's a lot of background information in pages, not posts—what can I say they appeal to my cryptid heart for some reason—so if you're on the app those just straight up don't exist. You may wish to hop onto a browser (desktop and mobile are both fine, just get out of the app) and check those if you're new.

[stuckontheslowpath]

Quick question: how different do Daisy, Rose, and Orchid look compared to their pre-time travel selves? I'm kinda considering drawing them!

Great question! I'm not always the best at appearance (no visual imagination + near total face blindness will do that to a person), but I'll do my best.

Assuming we're not talking about the point where they're all Steves with different floral accessories, the biggest visual clue is their hair. All three have hair that's noticeably longer than their pre-time travel selves, though not to an absurd degree.

Rose, as a character, also leans pretty heavily into my own take on Watcher lore, so after the update from beta he has wings. They're not always the same wings—sometimes they're owl wings for silent gliding, sometimes hawk wings for high speed, sometimes hummingbird wings for maneuverability—but they're always made of galaxies. Visually, the best description I can find is "mostly void, partially stars". He doesn't always have his wings (just as he can manipulate their form, he can entirely un-manifest them), but they're not uncommon.

Their looks are also based on the season 6 hippie skins, so flower crowns, sandals, and for Orchid a vest. After seeing a few pieces of hippie-arc fanart, I also lean pretty heavily into the bracelets and necklaces vibe for them. Also in the one concept I tried to put together (RIP that Orchid, I just can't get his face right) Rose had an earring?? Just a single stud. What can I say, I like asymmetrical design and guys with earrings.

Last few notes: they all have their namesake flowers somewhere on them at all times, and they're all pretty strong and look it—though Orchid is the only one I'd call buff, Rose and Daisy skew more towards lean. Angst brain says they probably also picked up a few scars, but that one's iffy because I've never quite settled on what scars and why in MC headcanon.

Also! If you decide you want to draw them please let me know, I'd love to see it!

--

Tumblr decided not to notify me of messages so I have no idea how long this has been in my inbox ^^; sorry if it's been sitting here for a while

[stuckontheslowpath]

Question time! For the pression flowers ver of the AU- what happens after they wake up? I'm curious about their next course of action

After they wake up, once they've told their past selves what will happen if they dabble in time travel for a joke that will go horribly wrong? Well, what happens next is the most terrifying thing of all:

They live.

They aren't unwritten. They don't cease to be. They aren't erased so thoroughly they never existed in the first place.

They live, and face the what-comes-after. Their past selves bring them to Xisuma, because their admin needs to know what's going on, and they tell him what he needs to know. Not everything, not by a long shot--but enough.

Their past selves bring them to the shopping district, and to Hermitville, and to visit other bases, coaxing them to come out of hiding an inch at a time and reintegrate with the community. It takes time to shake the urge to run and hide when spotted, that fear that says you cannot be seen, but eventually it fades until they can stand comfortably in company.

They build a house, all three of them: a little cabin, near their old camp but just out of sight. When they go to retrieve their belongings, they don't go alone; every single hermit accompanies them across the sea, witnessing the distance their paranoia drove them to. They pack up the history of a decade, and as they work little hints of the past come out, little stories and jokes and anecdotes that paint a lonely picture.

They move forward.

They reforge friendships, learn to coexist with their younger selves who cannot understand the intensity of their attachment to each other, start up shops and join in on games.

Rose returns to his pranking ways, and nowhere is safe from shenanigans when he and Grian team up. Daisy keeps himself immersed in flowers and fruits and all things green and growing, but for once it's for enjoyment's sake, not survival's. Orchid wanders from base to base, farm to farm, studying the redstone found there as he relearns the mechanics of it, and eventually he begins to leave his sword and axe behind when he does.

They heal, and they grow, and they live.

-

(But literally the first thing that happens is a very flustered Grian, Ren, and Impulse showing up on Xisuma's doorstep with a trio of battered time-travelers because "X help we don't know what to do".)

[stuckontheslowpath]

Don't imagine the hippies, in early 1.14, over eight years into their long, slow journey, surrounded by people they love and miss, unable to reach out to them because it's not time yet.

Don't imagine the hippies curled up together asking each other to stop them from reaching out to old friends and ruining everything.

Don't imagine them looking forward to that day where they must step back into their past selves' shoes with dread, because it means being separated, and what if they've changed too much? And then feeling guilty, because they miss their friends and want to be back with them, but they can't shake that whisper of fear.

Don't imagine them watching their past selves, unable to help the seeds of disgust at just sitting by waiting for the greatest trauma they've ever experienced to fall on these younger selves' shoulders. At just watching, knowing what's coming, and doing nothing to stop it.

Don't imagine them sitting up late into the night, one evening as The Day draws near, when someone hesitantly poses the idea that they do something about it. That they find a way to warn their past selves and keep them from experiencing this suffering.

Don't imagine them huddled together on the floor, crying, as they realize that saving their past selves means unmaking their own existence. They can unwrite the trauma, erase the pain--but they'll be deleting all of the good times, as well, and destroying this close friendship they've knitted over almost a decade alone together. If they save their past selves, they will make it so they never existed in the first place.

Don't imagine them going quiet and solemn as they realize they have to go through with it, to spare their past selves from this fate if they possibly can.

Don't imagine them showing up one day, confronting their past selves in front of anyone who happens to be nearby, fighting the urge to run and hide as they make their existence known for the first time in the year and a half their friends have been on this world.

Don't imagine them so on edge and distraught they struggle with their words, and as confused as their past selves may be, confronted with these distorted doppelgangers, they're still met with kindness and comforted until they can regain their composure.

Don't imagine their quiet resolve as they insist their past selves must never dabble in time travel. Don't imagine the hush that comes over their past selves as they begin to realize just what they're looking at, and the way they carefully don't ask after the details.

Don't imagine the blurry shock as the hippies wake up the next morning and realize they still exist. The concern that maybe their past selves haven't changed their minds as much as they professed. The realization that their memories haven't changed.

Don't imagine the relief and confusion and fear that comes when they realize that no, they haven't unwritten their own lives and condemned themselves to non-existence, and they will have to face the future as it stands now.

[stuckontheslowpath]

You might have seen me going through this blog, lol, sorry for the spam likes. It's just the fact that I am sooo in love with this au?? And the way you've written this? *chef's kiss* I love me some time-travel gone wrong. It's making my brain go brrrr.

Question? So Impulse was the one who was primarily in charge of defence and stuff right? So that means he got good at craft, maybe even good enough that he can hold his weight in any PvP tournament. What if he best one of the Hermits that good in PvP? How will people react? How will the Z and the T of team ZIT react??

Have I said how much I love this Au? Because I do, I really do. Anyways, time to stop talkin hehehe.

-Time

[sheepishly crawls out of the pit of finals week, moving, and health issues] I think it's my turn to apologize now, I Definitely did not mean to make you wait so long ^^; I'm glad you enjoy it! I can't take credit for the original premise, but I think I've put my own spin on it well enough. (Time travel gone wrong is one of my favorite scenarios, so I couldn't just let this go.)

As for your question... well, one thing turned into another and then it turned into a whole oneshot. That's responsible for most of the delay, actually, I didn't have much time to write.

It's not quite the scenario you proposed (I couldn't see Slow Path!Impulse willingly agreeing to PVP, nor anyone else trying to press the matter, so I had to play with it a bit), but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Title: Combatant

Word Count: 2920

Content Warnings: temporary character death, panic attacks, non-graphic violence

Summary: Impulse is good with an axe these days, though he doesn't like to use it. No-one expected to find out just how good, especially not like this

Combatant (A Slow Path Oneshot)

No-one can say Impulse was bad at the practical side of life, Before. Maybe his main focus was on redstone, but the ridiculous feats he got up to off-world with Skizzleman are enough to lay doubt to rest. But he’s been… different, since he started sticking with the self-declared Hippie Trio like they were glued together.

His movements are more intentional, the first thing in his hotbar is an axe, and there’s a shield in his off-hand more often than not. They can’t startle him anymore, either, even if they try. Surprise him by word or deed, sure, but no-one has seen him startled by anything in his surroundings for months.

The turning point, everyone agrees, comes when False approaches him in the shopping district to ask a question. What she wanted, no-one remembers anymore. It feels shallow and unimportant compared to what happened.

The hermits, on the whole, aren’t what you could call good at lighting up their builds. It’s just one zombie, hiding from the sun between the buildings, that catches their scent and shambles their way. False deals with it in seconds and turns back to Impulse, mouth open to speak and her sword still in hand.

She’s in the perfect position to see him completely shut down, his expression turning smooth and empty. The next moment his axe is in his hand, swinging her way with a strength and confidence she didn’t expect from easygoing Impulse.

And the thing is, False isn’t just good at combat, she’s specifically good at PVP. She’s used to fighting other players (anticipating how they think and move, so different from mobs). And her armor and weapons are top-notch.

But she’s wearing Elytra instead of a chestplate and she can’t reach her rockets. It’s while she’s trying to get them out of her inventory—because she doesn’t want to fight back, not when she doesn’t have the full picture, not when Impulse is fighting like he’s scared instead of like he’s having fun—that Impulse manages to hit her, his axe catching her side between the straps of her elytra.

Her armor absorbs most of the damage, the strike itself is dulled to feel like a blunt-force impact as all weapon attacks are, but the sheer force of the blow still sends her staggering back. She moves with it, retreating further and regaining stable footing.

Impulse follows, keeping her on the retreat.

“Impulse, what are you doing?”

He doesn’t respond, only continuing to approach. He’s not even looking at her, not really—his gaze is focused on her gleaming diamond sword.

Like that, she begins to understand.

She takes a few quick steps back to open space between them and raises her sword, and Impulse leaps back to avoid an attack that never comes. But before she can follow through and throw her sword away, other hermits arrive, drawn by the commotion.

She glances over at them for a moment, but it’s a moment too long. There’s movement in the corner of her eye, and she turns back just in time for Impulse’s axe to crash into her chest, his entire body weight behind it as his feet touch dirt a moment later.

He pivots the moment he has the traction to do so, bringing the axe around again. It’s a weak blow, too fast to build up full strength, but it’s enough.

She tries to smile at him, so maybe he’ll know she’s not upset, but doesn’t know if she succeeds.

FalseSymmetry was slain by ImpulseSV.

~

His hands are steady and his breath is even. His mind is empty of thoughts, only vague, wordless concepts remaining. All he knows is there’s a threat.

Many threats, or at least many potential threats. Too many figures moving in his peripheral vision. He doesn’t recognize any of them, not entirely, though they seem familiar somehow.

None of them are Daisy or Rose so it doesn’t matter. Not right now. Right now all he needs is to stay safe, find his friends, and protect them.

~

Tango is restocking his rocket shop when the message comes in: FalseSymmetry was slain by ImpulseSV. At first he thinks it’s an accident, even with all the odd things that have been going on with Impulse and his “fellow hippies” these days, but the sheepish apology he expects never appears.

<FalseSymmetry> Impulse, are you alright?

There are replies, ranging from curious to concerned to consoling to congratulatory, but nothing from Impulse himself. Not even a single letter.

<FalseSymmetry> Can someone check on him? We were near iTrade. I’m on my way from my base.

<TangoTek> omw

He’s moving before he even finishes typing that short reply, abandoning his restocking without hesitation, dread and alarm mingling into a ball of awfulness in his gut. Something is wrong. He keeps glancing at the chat as he walks, speeding up with each new message from someone who isn’t Impulse.

By the time Zedaph’s name pops up, half a dozen messages later, he’s jogging.

<ZedaphPlays> I’ll be there as soon as I can.

It’s not hard to find Impulse once he gets close. There’s a small crowd of hermits near iTrade—he doesn’t look long enough to tell who—and past them, Impulse stands with his back to the wall, enchanted diamond axe in hand. His head is constantly moving as he tracks the motion of everyone present, and his expression is completely empty.

False’s armor, weapons, tools, and other assorted items she’d been carrying are scattered across the ground in a messy spread near Impulse; in the echoes of memory he can almost hear Impulse laugh and call it a yard sale, but in the present his friend is still and silent. Her mask sits directly at Impulse’s feet, staring up at the sky.

Someone puts down a shulker box to collect False’s things and Impulse jumps, shield swinging up to cover him from an attack that never comes.

Tango steps forward, reaching for him, and Impulse turns so fast it’s almost dizzying just to watch; his eyes meet Tango’s, devoid of recognition, and it aches deep in his chest.

Impulse doesn’t lower his shield, shifting his grip on his axe as if he’s preparing to attack.

Tango lowers his hand, tucking both hands into his pockets, and Impulse relaxes the slightest bit, axe drifting back down to a less immediately-threatening hold. Why—

Zombies approach with grasping hands stretched towards their prey, ready to drag them back towards gaping, starving mouths. No passive or peaceful creatures reach out. Does Impulse think he’s a threat?

That thought stings, but he puts it aside. It’s not personal.

“Impulse, buddy, can you hear me?”

There’s no response, not even the tiniest shift in his expression. It’s as if Tango hasn’t spoken at all. Then he remembers that nickname he’s heard between the “hippie trio” once or twice. It can’t hurt to try.

“Orchid?”

That gets his attention, shield dropping to a relaxed hold as some of the tension bleeds from his arms and shoulders.

“You’re safe here,” he tries again, stepping closer but keeping his hands safely tucked away.

Impulse shakes his head, but doesn’t move away or ready his shield or axe again. Before Tango can ask why not, he finally speaks.

“Too open,” Impulse says, voice rough, and goes silent again.

For a moment, Tango hesitates. He doesn’t want to make the situation worse. But if it’s open space and exposure Impulse is worried about—

He grabs the first blocks he finds in his inventory—stone bricks—and inches around to Impulse’s left. His friend tracks the motion, watching Tango from the corner of his eye but keeping his face turned towards the larger cluster of hermits in the distance.

He startles again when Tango places the first block right up against his left side, but not so violently as when the shulker box had been placed. After that, he keeps still while Tango places blocks around him until there are walls covering his left and right and a ceiling above his head.

With each new bit of shelter, a little more tension—a little more fear—drains away.

He leaves the front open, not wanting to make Impulse feel trapped. He can cover that angle with his shield, anyway.

“Tango?” Impulse asks, voice trembling, and Tango has never been so glad to be recognized.

“Yeah?”

Impulse’s axe vanishes back into his inventory, and he flexes his hand a few times—the knuckles are still white from how tight he’d been holding it—before reaching out and grabbing Tango’s arm.

There’s something sharp and aching about the way he puts away his axe before his shield.

“Tango,” he says again, almost like he’s trying to fix the name in his mind. “Where’s—are Rose and Daisy safe?”

It takes a moment for those names to click, but when they do Tango smiles—a brittle thing of sorrow and broken glass. Typical Impulse, worrying about everyone else first. And of course it comes back to the “hippie trio”. Everything does, these days.

There’s a story there, one with trauma at its core, and Tango hates being forced to stand helplessly to the side watching it continue. He’s been waiting for Impulse to speak—everyone has been waiting for those three to speak—but after this they might need to press the matter a little harder.

“They should be,” he begins, and watches Impulse’s panic bloom because should is not are, speaking faster in an effort to head off another breakdown before it can begin. “But we can message them right now and check.”

And he does exactly that, stepping closer and turning so Impulse can see the readout from his communicator. Affectionate warmth takes root in his chest as Impulse lets him.

<TangoTek> Grian, Ren, everything alright over there?

<GoodTimeWithScar> I thought we were worried about Impulse, is something wrong there too?

<Grian> Can he see the screen?

Of course Grian understands without having to be told. Those three can practically read each other’s minds, they understand each other so well.

A tiny seed of jealousy sprouts at the idea that the new guy, who’s only been here for a year, knows one of Tango’s best friends maybe better than he does. He stomps it out with ruthless determination; what matters now is helping Impulse, not competing over who knows him better.

(He’ll have to face it later, before it ruins things he loves, but now is not the time.)

<TangoTek> yes

<Grian> We’re safe, Orchid. In the basement. Come find us when you can, we’ll stay put until we see you.

With that, some of Impulse’s remaining panic drains away—not all, but most. There’s real clarity in his eyes now, real recognition when he looks at Tango, real relief at the lack of danger.

Real horror when he takes a wobbly step forward and nearly trips over False’s mask.

~

False’s face smiles up at him from the ground. For a long moment, he wonders what she’s doing down there; then understanding pierces the veil of cotton fluff and static clouding his mind, and it dawns on him that isn’t her face.

It’s her mask, the token of her existence left behind after her death at the hands of another player.

Did he—

He drops his shield, ignoring Tango’s alarmed questions, and scrambles for his communicator. There, further back in the chat, lies the damning evidence in clear black and white.

FalseSymmetry was slain by ImpulseSV.

He killed her.

~

Impulse is shaking when Zedaph arrives, and he knows his friend. (Even if something big has happened, even if Impulse has changed, he’s still Impulse and Zedaph will never not know him.) That isn’t fear. That’s grief and guilt and a dozen other undeserved emotional condemnations, all pointed inward.

By the time he reaches his friends, coming to a stop to stand beside Tango, Impulse is crouched under the scant cover of a one-deep shelter, one hand clutching his communicator so tight Zedaph is genuinely concerned the screen might have cracked, the other holding False's mask as carefully as if it were made of snow. His eyes are fixed unwaveringly on the painted ones of the mask, wide and distraught.

Zedaph exchanges a quick glance with Tango—mutual confusion, a sharp frustration at not knowing how to help, if you’ve got any ideas go right ahead.

So he does. He steps forward and reaches out—slowly, giving Impulse time to move away even though his friend doesn’t seem to notice he’s there—and lays one hand gently on Impulse’s wrist.

For a moment his world narrows to dark eyes that gleam with unshed tears as Impulse looks up at him, as fragile as he’s treating False’s mask and somehow small in a way he can’t describe. Then he seems to fall back into himself, and sensation returns.

He speaks before he can think it might be a bad idea. “She’s alright, you know.”

“I killed her.”

“You did,” he agrees, and doesn’t acknowledge Impulse’s flinch. (Doesn’t ignore it, he would never want to ignore his friend’s distress, but acknowledging it here is unnecessary and possibly unhelpful.) “But she’s alright.”

And part of Zedaph wonders what happened to teach Impulse that death is something traumatic, something to be feared. Respawn is reliable, and unless something glitches no-one feels the pain. Death is a setback, an inconvenience—most people are more bothered by the chance of lost items than death itself, except as a matter of pride. (Part of him doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to contemplate the pain his friend has suffered, but he silences that part.)

He doesn’t have to wonder for long.

“She’s alone,” Impulse replies, sharp with pain and grief, and a realization that tastes like despair settles into Zedaph’s chest with an almost physical ache.

“She’s not,” he replies, the sorrow blooming in his bones turning his voice gentle. “False woke up in her base, messaged the chat, and started coming back this way. She should be here any minute.”

Impulse shakes his head, just slightly, and the absolute certainty on his face breaks Zedaph’s heart.

“Impulse,” he begins, hesitantly, wondering if he should even ask at all, “what does death mean to you?”

Impulse flinches again, as violently as the last, and his poor communicator is finally freed from its service as a stress ball, vanishing back to his inventory. Instead, he grabs Zedaph’s sleeve and tugs him closer, as if he can’t bear to be by himself.

“Death means isolation, lost, thousands of blocks from anyone who loves you, wandering blindly into the rising sun as you try to get home, watching the chat and seeing the others trying to reassure you, knowing they’re sad and scared and not being able to help, hurrying back as fast as you can and still being too slow, terrified something is going to go wrong before you make it back. Death means alone, Zed, and I—I put False through that, she doesn’t deserve that—”

“You didn’t,” he interrupts gently, and Impulse’s stare pins him in place like a rat before a serpent, only he doesn’t feel endangered. “You killed her, yes, but that is not what she experienced.”

“How—”

“False woke up in her bed in her base. You know her base, it’s very nice. Even if she’d woken up at world spawn, she would have had supplies to get to her base within the day. At her base, she has enough spare gear to tide her over until she’s able to recollect or replace everything she had here, including spare elytra and rockets, and if she didn’t someone who does would loan her some. She isn’t stranded in the middle of nowhere with nothing in her inventory and no help coming, Impulse, and she’ll be back any minute. I promise.”

A starving desperation lines Impulse’s pale face, laced with poisonous doubt. He wants to believe, that much is obvious, but it’s equally apparent that he doesn’t. Not yet.

That’s okay. It’s the truth, and it will be proven soon enough.

As if on cue, a rocket fires in the distance, signalling False’s return. Her boots hit stone only a few paces behind Zedaph, and he knows it’s her without turning because Impulse suddenly looks like he’s seen a ghost.

He still hasn’t let go of her mask.

“Impulse, are you alright?” she asks, stepping forward. “You never answered me in chat, I was starting to get worried.”

Impulse lets go of Zedaph’s arm—lets False’s mask disappear into his inventory—and staggers out from his makeshift shelter, passing between Zedaph and Tango as he stumbles towards False, as unbalanced as a newly-grounded flyer who hasn’t found their land-legs yet. He stops before reaching her, staring like he can’t believe his eyes, and reaches out slowly only to stop himself a moment before he actually touches her.

“You’re back?” he asks, hoarse voice barely audible. Then, a moment later, a statement: “you’re back.”

False glances over Impulse’s shoulder and meets Zedaph’s gaze, and she must see something on his face because her eyes turn sad. She looks back at Impulse, and when she smiles it’s a terrible, fragile thing of grace and kindness and some unnameable softness. “I’m back,” she repeats evenly, and steps in to hug him.

For a moment Impulse freezes in place, like he’s been turned to stone. Then all at once he hugs her back, shaking anew with the force of his tears even as not a whisper of sound escapes him.

False holds him and lets him cry.

“I’m back, Impulse,” she murmurs into his hair. “I’m back.”

[stuckontheslowpath]

Pressing Flowers

AU of the AU wherein the hippies can't bear to let their past selves go through all of the trauma they did. Instead of watching and waiting as their (young, carefree, unbattered) past selves throw themselves into a decade of trauma for a joke gone wrong, they walk in early and say, "you don't want to do that".

And life moves forward for Grian, Ren, and Impulse, and for Rose, Daisy, and Orchid. It's a little awkward, at first--how do you learn to live with your traumatized alternate self? With someone who is you-but-not living next door like a reflection in a funhouse mirror?

But the hermits are nothing if not kind, and they make space for these tattered wanderers who want nothing more than to come home. Maybe a new normal must be found, but it will be found. They'll make sure of it.

[stuckontheslowpath]

Someday I will art for this AU. I have ideas. Unfortunately, all of my HC!AU art brain has been redirected to Caught AU rn, despite my best efforts.

Someday.

[stuckontheslowpath]

/tell Skizzleman (Slow Path Oneshot)

For the first few months, everything is (relatively) alright. Then the loneliness sets in in earnest.

They all have people they miss. Ren misses Doc, Grian misses Mumbo, Impulse misses Zedaph and Tango. They all miss everyone.

But at the heart of it all, Impulse misses Skizzleman. One of, if not the, oldest and dearest friends he has. They've never been out of contact for this long before.

And really, even nine years in the past, he could message Skizz. They've known each other long enough. But what would it look like, if his past self is right there with Skizz when he tries to reach out? No, it's best he doesn't.

He still can't force himself to put his communicator away.

Months pass.

He starts staying up later than he should. They have beds now, they can sleep, they should sleep. Along with the ability to sleep comes the return of tiredness. Still, he finds himself sitting up hours into the night, staring at his communicator screen, watching the cursor blink like a metronome of despair.

Months pass.

They’ve been here for over a year now. They’ve moved across the ocean, taken their first steps into the Nether, rebuilt their home more than once. They’ve lost Ren and found him again. He’s started to find his feet again in this place, even if his work to protect the others is more of a need than he’d like to admit.

He doesn’t stare at his communicator every night now, but he hasn’t stopped completely. It’s almost funny, in a way that isn’t funny at all, how the less he looks at it the stronger the urge to actually send a message grows.

Months pass.

Months pass.

Months pass.

He sits at the foot of his bed (their bed, really, with all three shoved together; nightmares are much easier to calm when they can reach each other immediately) and stares down at the screen.

/tell Skizzleman Hey, man, what are you up to?|

He shouldn’t send it. Chances are good his past self is somewhere near Skizz, or at least in close contact. It’ll only cause problems.

/tell Skizzleman Hey, man, w|

Someone flops on the bed beside him and a head lands on his knee. He ruffles their hair without looking up.

“Where’s Ren?”

“Finishing up in the garden, he’ll be in soon,” Grian replies. “What are you up to?”

The smile starting to take shape on his face freezes into something brittle.

“Impulse?”

Wordlessly, he tilts his screen so Grian can read it.

/tell Skizzleman |

Grian doesn’t say a word. No words exist that could make this better. Instead, he leans more of his weight against Impulse like a living weighted blanket and reaches up to cover that trembling hand holding the communicator with one of his own.

Months pass.

He takes to writing unsent messages with all the things he wants to say.

/tell Skizzleman How are you doing?|

/tell Skizzleman Anything fun happen lately?|

/tell Skizzleman You know you’re my best friend, right?|

/tell Skizzleman … I miss you, buddy.|

Months pass.

He tries to curb the habit.

He fails.

Months pass.

Years pass.

/tell Skizzleman I’m scared I’m going to forget what your voice sounds like, Skizz.|

He puts away his communicator and gets up. There’s work to do in the basement; they’re packing up to move again.

His communicator chimes halfway down the stairs and his breath freezes in his lungs. With shaking hands he grabs it from his pocket and pulls up the screen.

<Skizzleman> Very funny, dude. I was literally just talking to you.

And there, on the line before, no blinking cursor in sight:

<ImpulseSV> I'm scared I'm going to forget what your voice sounds like, Skizz.

He hit send.

He hit send.

<ImpulseSV> I didn't mean to send that.

It dawns on him a tick after hitting send that he shouldn't have responded at all.

<ImpulseSV> I mean

He lets out a frustrated sound and shoves the communicator back in his pocket, steadfastly ignoring it no matter how many times it chimes. There is packing to do.

Later that night, he sits awake for hours, watching messages come through. Skizz is nothing if not persistent. Ren and Grian sit up with him, huddled in front of the fireplace, keeping him company as he cries.

<Skizzleman> As if you’d pass up a chance to make fun of me.

<Skizzleman> ? Hold on, what?

<Skizzleman> So wait. You didn’t send anything? But I still got messages FROM you?

<Skizzleman> They don’t show up in your logs?

<Skizzleman> Weird.

<Skizzleman> Well there’s SOMEONE messaging me from your ID. Sounds like you, too.

<Skizzleman> I’m serious, come look at these.

<Skizzleman> … buddy, are you okay?

<Skizzleman> You don’t have to hide. I won’t be mad.

<Skizzleman> Will you talk to me?

<Skizzleman> Okay, you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Will you listen, instead?

<Skizzleman> We’re in the middle of Naked and Scared right now. Stuck in a hole, so don’t worry about the time.

<Skizzleman> We have to name a ghast this season. What do you think, can we do it?

<Skizzleman> It’s only day one, there’s plenty of time for things to go wrong.

The one-sided conversation continues for dozens of messages as Skizz rambles on about the day to an unknown person on the other end of a chat with a friend. Eventually, he sends an apologetic goodnight, and the messages stop coming through.

Ten minutes later, Impulse sends a final response.

<ImpulseSV> Thank you.

Then he mutes the chat and puts his communicator away. The future-past is a temptation he doesn’t need here and now, no matter how much it hurts to cut that tie.

[stuckontheslowpath]

At first, they stay near spawn. What else would they do? There's no point to leaving, nowhere else will be more beneficial than here.

By month three, once they begin to internalize that they're going to be here for Quite Some Time, they realize it's not a question of somewhere else being more beneficial. It's a matter of not being here, at spawn, leaving massive indicators that someone was here before the start of season six.

So they pack up the essentials and they leave. They can't tear down the house yet—they still need the signs, since the book and quill hasn't been added yet, and they can't bring themselves to anyway. It's cramped and ugly and altogether horrible, but it's theirs.

It's all that's theirs anymore.

They'll come back and destroy it when they don't feel quite so fragile and lost and small, they tell themselves. (They never do.)

They can't decide which way to go at first. On a whim, Impulse says east. Ren and Grian agree because it's the first time Impulse has made a request in weeks, and they walk towards the rising sun.

And they walk. For hours, for days, for weeks. In the daytime, they walk. They don't need to break when they don't get tired, when they don't need to eat. When the sun begins to set, they dig a hole in the dirt or stone and bury themselves underground, listening to the undead shamble around the surface until morning comes.

As the sun rises, so do they, dragging themselves from their could-have-been grave day after day after day.

They reach an ocean and consider stopping. Grian pushes them to go further, something like fear in his countenance.

They swim.

They reach the shore, and they walk. For thousands of blocks, they walk.

One day, on a whim, they stop. Here, someone says. Let's build here.

And they do. They build a house, and in time they build a home.

And in time, they find something like happiness—ringing hollow and incomplete, but happiness all the same, all the sweeter for the undercurrent of bitterness it holds.

[stuckontheslowpath]

Hippies vs. Non-Food Consumables, Pt. 2

(A follow-up to this post)

Most of the things the hippies eat, even if not intended for human consumption, are at least somewhat recognizable as a last-resort food item (though paper is stretching it). Eventually, the others even start to get used to it.

Then they find the hippies eating things that aren't even close to food. Not even organic.

Grian is first, the least secretive of his newly acquired quirks. Mumbo and Iskall manage to get him away from the other hippies for a Sahara meeting, and he spends the entire time munching on bits of glowstone dust, much to his audience's discomfort.

"It makes potions more concentrated, right, so it should theoretically make me more concentrated too."

"If you were any more concentrated, you'd spontaneously combust from energy overload."

"... how are you actually eating that? Physically, I mean."

Ren is next, entertaining Doc and Scar when they come over to spy on the camp. If he takes them on a guided tour, they won't have a chance to poke around and find things the hippie trio would rather keep to themselves. A creeper sneaks up on them and between Ren and Doc it's dead before Scar manages to get himself killed. The looks on their faces when he picks up the gunpowder it dropped and puts it in his mouth are priceless.

"That is not sanitary, you have no idea where it's been—"

"Forget sanitary, gunpowder isn't even food. Why on earth would you eat that?"

"We eat plenty of other mob drops, dude, why should this be any different?"

Impulse is last, though he's had his habit the longest. Tango and Zedaph say he's been distant—they miss him. So he agrees to go and see them, alone. It's his first time away from both of his fellow time travelers for more than a few minutes, and to say he's nervous is an understatement. Tango hands him some redstone while they're working on a circuit and Impulse is so distracted he eats it without thinking. He doesn't realize what he's done until he finds both of his friends staring at him.

"Redstone isn't food, Impulse. The spider eyes were bad enough but at least those were organic."

"It's really not that bad, though. It tastes like lightning."

"I wanna try, give me some—"

When pressed, all three claim they're technically intended to be consumed because they're potion ingredients, completely ignoring that the argument makes no sense whatsoever. But it doesn't seem to be harming them, so in the end there's nothing to do about it but leave them be.

[stuckontheslowpath]

Grian and Mumbo are pretty good friends, to say the least. What do you think Mumbo would pick up on after the switch? — Flower

Grian has always tended to get caught up in his jokes and schemes, but when the "hippie trio" stop being seen apart even in matters unrelated to that storyline, Mumbo notices. It's impossible to find Grian in his base anymore--and from what he hears, the same can be said of Ren and Impulse. All three of them have, to all appearances, permanently moved into their camp. Not even into their existing RVs, either, as a new cabin has sprung up in the area. It's almost as though the three can't bear to be out of each other's sight for more than a few minutes.

The next thing he notices is that, though Grian is talking more than ever, he's saying almost nothing. An endless stream of jokes and stories and cheerful chatter, but not a single hint at what's gone wrong.

Because something is wrong.

Grian--all three of the hippies, really--walk like the weight of existence rests on their shoulders. Their eyes are almost haunted, their smiles strained. Ren and Grian startle too easily, and Impulse never startles at all. There are jokes between the three they won't explain, that they clam up if they realize they've made them in front of others. There are stories they start to tell only to fall silent so abruptly Mumbo sometimes worries they've been injured.

(And it is they. These days, there is no such thing as visiting with only one of the three. It's all or none, and even if they hadn't all been his friends already Mumbo is too worried to stay away.)

At first, Mumbo wonders if he's the only one to see that something is so clearly wrong. Then he sees the concerned looks Tango and Zedaph trade behind Impulse's back, the frequency with which Scar and Doc visit (even if they justify it as spying on their rivals), how Xisuma checks up on everyone but obviously worries over the three more than anyone else.

Everyone can see something wrong, he realizes. It's just that no-one knows what. And that's not something they can force; all they can do is wait until the trio trust someone enough to share willingly.

[stuckontheslowpath]

Something I’m always a sucker for is really effective silent communication. How good do you think the hippies are at finishing each others sentences, going to fetch things without being asked, fighting together, etc? — Flower

They do that sort of thing a lot! Around the first anniversary, they start reaching the point where they can accurately guess what any of the others needs. It's pretty common from that point on that when one of the hippies is working on a project, the other two observe and take turns retrieving supplies as they'll be needed.

Over time, they become so familiar with each other's opinions, reactions, and general thought processes that they can usually guess what any given person is focused on most of the time. It's almost nine years in total isolation, just the three of them, and after spending that much time living in each other's pockets they learn their companions inside and out.

Their nonverbal communication eventually becomes so reliable they don't actually need to speak to function smoothly as a group. Grian is on his last stack of stone brick while building? Ren started a few more stacks of cobble smelting ten minutes ago and has more blocks ready and waiting.

Ren's hoe is about to break when he's repairing the garden after zombies trample it? Impulse is waiting a few blocks away with a replacement in hand.

Impulse is out late wrangling mobs? Grian lingers by the door with food (and potions, once brewing is added back in) to help with the inevitable injuries when he returns.

Their verbal communication actually becomes less frequent, until, for a long time, they don't speak. They're almost always in sight of each other these days, too worried to be separated, and they don't notice the decline in their speech until Grian goes to make a joke and finds speaking to be a strain.

It's only slight, but still enough to be alarming, and they overcorrect, speaking so much more than they used to. Oh, they still function as a group with no trouble--they can still anticipate what each other wants or needs, follow each other's trains of thought, work around each other in a fight--but barely a moment passes without someone talking.

It settles down over time, but the habit of speaking all the time sticks with them all the way up to the "present". It's something the others notice, once the trio are interacting with people again—something is always talking, or singing, or humming, or muttering narration of what they're doing, or something. For the hippies, silence is a thing of the past.

---

Oof, so sorry for the delay! This has been sitting half-finished in my drafts for a while apparently, but full disclosure I have a chronic illness and it decided to kick me in the teeth for a while there ^^;

[stuckontheslowpath]

Wondering about the Hippies after they’ve reached the “present”. Do they do things a really old-fashioned way? Have their building styles been tweaked? Btw, don’t be surprise if you get a rush of asks from me, I tend to think a lot. — Flower

I love asks, so don't worry about sending too many! I'm always happy to answer!

And yeah! There's a lot of things they do that makes them feel like "old players". Sure, they were kind of like that anyway because they've been around for a while, but it's definitely a lot stronger after their time in the past.

A lot of the less-common blocks, those found in rare or dangerous environments? They just forget those exist half of the time, especially the newer ones. Sleep? Sometimes they forget that's a thing still, even if it's been so long, because alpha has left its mark so deep they'll never quite be rid of it. They almost die to phantoms so many times because of it. One time Grian actually does.

Ask Ren what sheep drop on death, and there's a one in three chance you'll get the right answer. Grian's builds look pretty similar, but his building process looks so different because he won't take even a small chance of falling to his death.

But the worst one? The worst one is for Impulse. Because Impulse has spent all these years focused on protecting his friends. His first priority has been combat and mob management. There just hasn't been time to relearn all the ins and outs of redstone as each update comes around.

He almost gets caught half a dozen times over the year in hiding, sneaking into various bases just to stare at the redstone. He doesn't dare fiddle with it, but it's soothing somehow to just see it working, complex and intricate in the way he almost remembers. Like dreaming of a place and seeing it in real life, filling in the missing details.

When they can finally walk around freely (when they can finally bear to be away from each other outside of their base for more than fifteen minutes), he wanders around the server just watching. Observing. Teaching himself how it works again. So many hermits have found him just sitting in their redstone, silent and unintrusive but only explaining his presence with flimsy excuses and terrible lies. Eventually they stop asking, and just accept his odd new habit. He's not hurting anything, after all.

And if sometimes he can't be found anywhere on the server for an hour or two at a time, well. He's not about to say he's vanishing into the middle of nowhere and just. Experimenting with redstone again. There are no words for the comfort of sitting in the grass, without an axe or a shield, placing redstone components one at a time and bringing his ideas to life. (Of fingers stained red with dust instead of blood.)

He just... needs time. Or maybe he's had too much time, and needs to get rid of some.

[stuckontheslowpath]

They consider the chat, as the year in hiding draws near. They can't afford to be caught out when the others are in the world.

Among the things that could give them away are achievements.

It dawns on them, slowly, that they're going to have to run a year-long achievement hunt to send all the notifications through before anyone else sets foot in the place. Sure they could probably skip the more obscure or difficult ones, but really, what are the odds that circumstances will conspire to put them in just the wrong place at just the wrong time and give them away?

Can they afford to risk it?

They can't. So achievement-hunting it is!

[stuckontheslowpath]

1.7 brings challenges, yes, but it also brings bright splashes of color. Acacia and dark oak are welcome additions to the world, and stained glass makes for many entertaining attempts to get pixel art panes just right.

But by far the best addition is the flowers. Among the many new flowers added, they find roses and daisies and blue orchids.

Within days the hillside around their house is thick with those three flowers, until you can barely walk without stepping on at least one. (They do, at least, step back and carve out paths a day or two later.)

It doesn't take long to realize that the flowers have another use, though. From then on, every time one of the hippies has to leave the immediate vicinity of the house, they bring along pockets full of flowers—of their flower, specifically—and mark their trail with out-of-place foliage like living breadcrumbs.

It's a habit they keep as they move forward—a subtle, unintrusive way of saying "I've been here; I went this way". It helps them find their way home if all goes well, and helps the others find their missing friend if something goes awry.

[stuckontheslowpath]

[sideways glance at multiple post-worthy ideas for this au]

[considers having to actually write said posts]

[words slip away like a particularly agile ferret]

[stuckontheslowpath]

So we're jumping way way way into the future for this one—all the way to 1.14, after the hippie trio have caught up with their future-past selves and stepped back into roles they don't want to admit they struggle to remember.

To set the stage: they've stayed settled in the camp (both because their big empty bases feel cold and quiet after almost nine years living in each other's pockets, and because they can't stand the idea of being separated yet), and they haven't told anyone about the time travel situation at all.

This does not mean they're good at pretending to be their former selves. They're just so used to it being only the three of them that they forget to pay attention to their behavior changes.

One of the ways that manifests is their eating habits. Where most hermits end up with one or two established, reliable food sources, our hippies do not. Because it may have been years since alpha, but even years aren't enough to erase nine months without being able to really eat, even if it's accompanied by a lack of hunger.

Eating isn't something they take for granted anymore, and after alpha's lack of actual eating (despite the mechanic by the same name) and beta's salted sawdust food, these boys live for variety. Even thoroughly unpleasant foods and "foods" are on their menu, and they never eat the same thing twice in a row. It's all about different tastes and textures for these boys—even objectively disgusting flavors are better than beta's mess.

At first they forgot most people don't go around eating anything they can put in their mouths if it isn't traditionally intended to be food. Later they decided the reactions were funny and kept it up (and if a part of them cringes back from the idea of cutting a comforting habit out of their lives for the sake of reputation, they don't say it).

Some example dialogue snippets:

"Why do you have beetroots. Why are you actually eating beetroots. Are you not at least going to make them into stew?"

"That's a poisoned potato, don't eat that—no, it's not 'boosting your immune system', it's 'giving yourself food poisoning'—"

"Hay is not food. Break it down and use the wheat to make bread. Why are you like this."

"Bake the potato first. Please, for the love of all that is good in this world, do not eat a raw potato." [Hippie proceeds to stare the speaker directly in the eye and take a bite out of a raw potato]

"Okay technically you can eat rotten flesh but Why."

[one of the hippies eating a cake] "Oh thank goodness you're actually eating something that's meant to be consumed why is it covered in blaze powder—"

"Just because sugar and paper are both made from sugar cane does not mean paper is food. Stop trying to get out of meetings by eating your memos."

"Pufferfish are not meant to be eaten, they are meant for pranks and potions."

"I know golden apples and golden carrots are both food, but golden nuggets are not, stop that before you break your teeth."

"Look at me. Look at me. I do not care if it technically restores hunger, spider eyes are not food."