Oct 30, 2021
Pixlriffs, Pixandria, and the loneliness that comes with guilt
(clementine - Halsey // Of Monsters And Heroes And Men - James // Icarus - Emma Blackery)
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Pixlriffs, Pixandria, and the loneliness that comes with guilt
(clementine - Halsey // Of Monsters And Heroes And Men - James // Icarus - Emma Blackery)
Dizzy Hurricane, Little Hand Grenade
fWhip and Pix are making progress together. Rivendell suffers (some of) the consequences.
a study of fWhip, Pix, and universal moments of contentment.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
my piece for the @empires-fine !
there is a story to tell about the posting process for this one but that’s for another day. hope you enjoy it!
Stuck In A Loop For Eternity
Pix is lost in the desert. fWhip is lost in his head.
a study of fWhip, Pix, and the absence of identity.
Note: Welcome to my phantom assassin fWhip propaganda! Title from Ludens by Bring Me The Horizon, and CWs for nightmares/unreality. Timelines are a little messy but I like to think this takes place around the start of Moonstruck King, and before Pix comes back from exile.
.
fWhip wakes up and knows he’s dreaming. He knows because Pix is sat in front of him, smiling softly, and his face is clean of blood, purple or red. The world around them is fuzzy but fWhip knows they’re sat on the divan Pix has tucked in the corner of his house, and he shifts his foot just to hear the familiar scratch of the sandstone floor.
He’s been searching the desert for weeks and not seen a trace of copper, and the sight of dream-Pix’s face is doing something uncomfortable to his stomach.
In the dream, Pix is still, reading from a novel fWhip thinks came from his own library, and he’s reminded of the years they spent like this, summers in the Grimlands and winters in Pixandria, migrating between libraries and market stalls as the birds did. The light filtering in is a beautiful orange-pink and all fWhip wants to do is tug the book out of dream-Pix’s hands and pull him outside to watch the desert sunset.
He twists his foot again. Pix is ordinary meticulous about keeping loose sand out, but fWhip finds himself drawing patterns in the piles collecting beside the divan cushions. There’s something wrong about that, but the whole thing is vague and thoughts slip from his head like blue ice. He pushes the sand further. The solid sandstone floor falls apart further beneath his boots, and before he can react, he’s scratched it into sand and he’s falling. He falls into his tower lab and the cobbled floor is still covered with his blood, soaking wet even though he hasn’t been in here in days, too busy getting sand in his throat and his eyes. His alliance portrait of Sausage is a portrait of the Phantom, the desert of Pixandria rendered in strokes of oil around him, and the brushstrokes of the dunes are moving under a silent, intangible wind. fWhip falls again, but this time upwards, and he’s staring into the portrait’s eyes. The Phantom looks back at him. It lifts its hand as he does, but its hand is dripping with ice water and his own glove is as dry as his mouth when he recognises the desperate look on the Phantom’s face.
He only meant to cover his face for Pix’s sake, but now Pixandria expects things of him. And even though he knows he’s dreaming, he’s overwhelmed with the feeling of helplessness and he starts sobbing.
He’s crying for the Pixandrians he hasn’t been able to help. He’s crying for his own people he’s left behind.
He’s crying for Pix, who is still lost and alone in the desert and he’s crying for every minute that passes when his chances of finding him dwindle ever further. He falls to his knees and he’s back beside Pix on the divan, his tears wetting the sandstone floor. His head falls into Pix’s lap and Pix puts a hand in his hair and now he’s bawling because he misses him so fucking much and he’s so far away and no one knows if he’s even alive and the desert is too fucking big and-
He wakes up for real this time. His pillow is damp.
.
.
The sky is dark.
Lightning flashes. Thunder rumbles, seconds later than normal.
The storm is upon him but he can’t feel the rain. He sees it splash against the sand. It forms puddles instead of draining away. He looks away, afraid of what the reflection will show him.
He’s not looking, and then the puddle is in front of him. Lightning flashes. Thunder. The dragon with tears of blood blinks back at him from the water’s surface. It looks pointedly over his shoulder at the clouds. He turns to see. Lightning flashes. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Thunder rumbles. The storm isn’t six miles away. It can’t be. It’s above him. His hands are clawed. He’s crying wet, hot blood. It doesn’t hurt but there is a great ache in his chest, like a sword has knocked the breath from him. He is wearing a necklace of arrows, heads buried in his neck. Lighting flashes. Thunder rumbles, seconds too late. He jumps and is unsurprised by the wings on his back that lift him into the solid clouds. He pants against the arrows in his throat. It is the worst kind of pain and he cries out, calling for someone. There’s no answer.
It’s fWhip he’s calling, he realises. fWhip doesn’t answer. He cries harder. Louder. He thinks the blood has matted his hair but he can’t check. There’s sand burning in his throat and his lungs are raw. In front of him, the Vigil rises up, like an oasis. He gasps. Relief. Safety. But it’s obsidian, not familiar, pale sandstone, and he’s falling at its base, falling to all four of his knees. His crown, the one he thought he dropped in the desert days ago, falls from his head. The copper burns like corruption. He jerks back from it. The ache in his chest doubles. He feels like he’s on fire. His candles have all gone out. fWhip still hasn’t heard him, and he’s going to bleed out before anyone finds him. The sand is red and the world is empty. He screams louder, hoarser. The thunder drowns him out and the rain washes his life away.
He wakes up slowly. His lantern has gone out and the cave is dark, and the only sound as he brushes loose sand from his hair is his laboured breathing and the soft breeze brushing over the dunes gathered on the sandstone above his head.
The Sooner It Takes (The Sooner It Ends)
Pix and fWhip finally confront each other about unhealthy coping mechanisms
a study of Pix, fWhip, and codependency
Note: title from Extinction Event Souvenir T-shirt by Broken Chanter. Involves many of the same CWs as the previous two studies, so be wary of talk of suicidal ideation, dissociation, graphic injury and impermanent death. None happen, but they are discussed
Can be read alone but makes more sense if you read Moonstruck King and Rambling Poets first :)
“Here, sit down.”
“On the Vigil? Isn’t that some kind of blasphemy?”
“They’re your candles I’m moving, fWhip. I’m sure the Vigil can deal with it. But do keep in mind that if you blow out a single candle with those monstrosities of wings of yours I will have to kill you. Duty and all that.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m not a heathen. I can control myself for a little while.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“You know, if you keep nudging me like that then the candles will be more of a danger to my wings than I am to them. I’m not sure if these are fire-proof.”
“You really didn’t consider that? Doesn’t you forge run on lava?”
“Well I don’t exactly keep them on when I’m working. One too many levers accidentally flipped and one too many beakers knocked over. You know calcite floors do not react well to carbonic acid? I learnt that the hard way. Had to redecorate my whole workshop.”
“fWhip, we need to talk. Seriously.”
“About calcite? I appreciate your interest, but I’m not sure how well it would go with all the sandstone you have around here.”
“You’re avoiding the question. You know I mean the other night.”
“We really don’t need to talk about that.”
“You couldn’t breathe and your fingers were rubbed raw. It took three healing pots for your hands alone.”
“...Right.”
“Working yourself to death won’t help your people at all, you know?”
“Oh, and you know any better, considering you regularly disappear off the face of the earth for days at a time.”
“That may be, but I’m not the one who can’t hold a rocket properly because his hands are bandaged up from his own stupid mistakes.”
“You think I wanted to end up like this? You think I woke up one morning and thought, hey, how about this week I work myself to death and cause myself irreparable damage for fun?”
“It’s not exactly the first time you’ve tried, is it? Great fWhip, hero-count of the Grimlands, loyal until his death, ready to spill his own blood on his own soil for the betterment of his empire. You’re a martyr to the end and that’s not a compliment.
“Did you ever think I might get sick of taking care of you every time you do this? Maybe I’m fucking sick of seeing you with electrical burns halfway to your heart and blood all over your face. Maybe I’m sick of hearing ‘Don’t tell Gem’ every time I have to push you into bed like she’s some kind of angel who faints at the sight of your blood and I’m just here to do the dirty work for you so you can keep up appearances.”
“Do you ever think there’s something in that, Pix? That I’d let you see me the way I don’t give to my closest ally?”
“I shouldn’t have to! Your trust in me doesn’t make up for the fact that I have to see you at your lowest and know there’s nothing I can do to convince you to stop!”
“And what about me?! You’re kicking all of this shit back up in my face like I don’t have to hear your voice rough because you haven’t spoken in weeks, or that I don’t have to drag you back into the world when we realise you’ve been wandering the desert mindlessly for days! I’m the one who has to remind you to redress every cut you’ve inflicted on yourself because you wish you could die like the rest of us!”
“I don’t have to take this from you in my own empire. Come back when you have any sense at all.”
“If you take another step away, I swear on your stupid vigil you will never live to see another day. I will kill you where you stand, and maybe seeing your own blood on the ground will make you sober up.”
“You can’t.”
“Oh, the great immortal Pixlriffs can’t die? Have you really tested it?”
“I meant you can’t kill me. You could never live with my blood on your sword, no matter how impermanent. But the Vigil knows I’d let you try.”
“Oh and there you go again. ‘Just let me die, no one knows what it’s like to be me’ Would you just shut up? For once in your life? You’re not the only damn king here and you’re certainly not the only one with problems. Get over yourself.”
“Go on then. You’re so sick of me? Do it. That magic in your sword is just begging for me, isn’t it?”
“I will if you don’t stop complaining!”
“Do it! Kill me! I dare you!”
“... I can’t. You’re right.”
“I’m what? Say it again.”
“You were right. I can’t. You know that and you know why. I could never stand to see you die.”
“And I don’t want to see you die! This is what you’re doing to me! I’m just worried about you. Please!”
“Fuck off, Pix. If you were worried about me you wouldn’t be doing... this to yourself.”
“fWhip, wait!”
Icarus' dsmp magic au powers + traits reference post (main post here)
Purpled: Unknown traits/Instinct + Reality bending
Hannah: Dryad/Plant manipulation
Niki: Blaze hybrid/Pyromancy
Tommy: Fangs + Changing eye colour/Sound manipulation
Tubbo: Sheep hybrid/Telekinesis
Wilbur: Pointy ears/Potion manipulation + Flower manipulation
Techno: Pig hybrid/Ferrokinesis
Sam: Creeper hybrid/Empathy + Psychometry
Ponk: Magma cube hybrid/Illusion manipulation
Hbomb: Temporary mob traits/Shapeshifting
Eret: Unknown traits/Light manipulation
Puffy: Sheep hybrid/Pyrokinesis
Fundy: Fox hybrid/Dreamwalking
Quackity: Duck hybrid/Breathing underwater
Karl: No mob traits/Omniligualism + Zoolingualism
Sapnap: Nether fae/Windwalker
Foolish: Shark + Totem hybrid/Time manipulation
And now the post you've all been waiting for!! Here's the master post for my dsmp magic au; powers, headcanons, silly comments and all! (I'll also post a plain summary list tomorrow without the background and cute stuff for reference if anyone wanted that)
You can read it here under the cut, but I'll also be rb-ing with an ao3 link if you'd rather read it there
(Power inspiration comes mostly from The Young Elites/Shadow And Bone because I am a nerd and read too much) and the Kagerou Project
Right! We’re not getting into why they have magic. This is a canon where a dude fucked a fish and got a fox son out of it, okay. I do not need to explain why they suddenly have magic. Maybe she’s born with it, maybe its Maybelline. Either way an explanation is going to be foregone.
Purpled
- It is rumoured that he is some kind of end hybrid, but no one can figure out what kind and there’s no hard evidence either way
- Evidence collected so far is. Limited, frankly. Ponk is sure he saw a scratch bleed purple once, but it might have been the lighting. Ant is convinced he’s never seen Purpled touch water. Punz thinks he’s seen wings at some point, but never got to check.
- He does, however, have reduced hearing in his right ear and burn scars across the backs of his legs from too many tnt jumps, as well as a slight limp and a missing finger on his left hand. Those aren’t hybrid traits though. Bedwars does things to a man
- There is also no hard evidence that he has any powers, hybrid or otherwise, but there are stories and sometimes you’ll hear about him dodging a skeleton’s arrow shot from behind, or mining right around a lava pocket that no one knew was there, or making a jump that would be just impossible for anyone else
- (Okay I’m gonna lift the veil here a bit about his power. I was going to keep it a mystery but I love this so so much and I need everyone to hear it)
- Somehow the end is more connected to the code than the overworld or the nether. The dragon is generally considered the ‘end’ of the game, right? Purpled, being a hybrid from the end, is also connected and his powers are a very very good instinct for the game and also sometimes reality will bend just a little to suit him. They’re very subtle, and that’s why no one can pin down what he does, because they’re deliberately unnoticeable.
- Not even he knows exactly what he can do, and that’s the scary part. Who knows what he could be capable of, if even he’s never tested it’s extent?
- If I had to give c!Purpled a soundtrack it would be Violet by Those Who Dream
Hannah
- Hannah Rose. Hannahxxrose. Hannah my beloved. She’s a dryad, which means pointy ears and funky hair colours, like petal colours
- Her hair changes colour based on the season and where she is in the world. It’s most colourful in flower forests, and in all other biomes where flowers appear, it’s the colour of the flowers. In biomes without natural flower spawns (oceans, deserts, all that), her hair is natural brown
- Fun plant magic! think Poison Ivy from DC, when she controls all the plants and roots and stuff. I’ve never seen a DC movie in my life but that sounds about right
- Using physical powers is banned in certain areas of public servers because they can give unfair advantages in competitive games, right? Anyway Hannah spent a lot of time on places like that so she hadn’t much time to practice or learn how her powers worked and she’s not very experienced with them
- She has tripped up on her own vines before because of this. Purpled thinks it’s very funny until she trips him too
- She usually keeps a cane in her inventory for bad days or when she has to walk far, but if she dies and respawns without one she can usually convince one of her vines to help her back to her base or where she died to pick one up
- Sam did make her a couple of braces for her lower back and left knee, but they’re uncomfortable and can irritate her skin (like trees growing over signs/nails/other artificial things) so she doesn’t wear them often
- She did wear them at the red banquet though, for agility’s sake. Safer in the long run
- She doesn’t like visiting the nether very much because according to her, the nether flora has ‘attitude’ and won’t listen to her
- (They’re actually just very petty and prone to gossiping. The story of the time she picked a couple of mushrooms has been blown out of proportion among the plants of the nether, and now they say she uprooted an entire biome with one hand behind her back. Arguably very cool, albeit doubtful, but definitely something that would spook saplings)
Niki
- The origins mod is telling me mermaid Niki. I respectfully disagree
- That’s right Niki is a blaze hybrid here. L’mantree who?
- Her hair is golden naturally and I love it
- Not blonde. I mean gold gold, like in Rumpelstiltskin when he spun straw into gold thread
- Also she runs really hot (good to hug. nice and toasty. human space heater) and has claws that she let the kids paint when they were younger
- Pyromancy and pyrokinesis!! Pyrokinesis is born from her hybrid origin, but pyromancy is her own power separate from that.
- For those of you who don’t know, pyrokinesis is the ability to create and control fire, and pyromancy is divination by fire. Telling the future with fire, basically. Literally hot girl shit
- Despite it’s rep, her pyrokinesis isn’t very aggressive. Hers is more like a hearth fire or campfire than a forest fire. Dangerous when she gets angry but with a pretty limited range
- She likes candles and fire baths and doesn’t like the snow because her socks get wet and they’re the one thing she hasn’t been able to dry with her power yet
- There are lots of kinds of pyromancy and I think Niki has tried most. Regular reading from flames is most accurate but can be hard to get a read on, so she likes to have some time for that, usually before big events. She used to burn plants, which was quicker and easier to understand but fairly vague, until she realised it made Hannah and Wilbur uncomfortable so her regular methods are salt and smoke now
Wilbur
- Wilbur also has pointy ears! He is a little elf boy but he likes to hide his ears with his beanie because he’s self-conscious about them
- Has nature-related powers also similar to Hannah’s, but his are more gentle and involve internal properties of flowers rather than the actual physical plants
- Basically he grows flowers and herbs and things that can be used in potions and stuff, which is why he’s also very good at brewing
- They grow out of his hair and around his feet if he’s not directing them anywhere, but with some focus he can get them to grow in his palm. Good party trick
- He likes cornflowers best (coincidentally the same flowers you make blue dye from :eyes:)
- He has a pretty good handle on his power but is affected by strong emotions like love or anger. He’s generally good at preventing it from overflowing (he goes gardening a lot <3) but an angry Wilbur is dangerous
- The flowers grow differently according to how he’s feeling, changing the type of flower, how quickly they bloom, and the vibrancy of their petals
- He has a hard time identifying other people’s emotions and tone because they don’t display them like he does, and don’t experience them outwardly
- It’s obviously pretty impossible for people without the same power to display their feelings and intent exactly the way he does, but his friends do try to be more literal around him and make sure to clarify things if he asks
- This has made him a lot less nervous about the whole thing because he knows his friends will help as much as they can <3 It’s all about the found family
- He grows lots of flowers accidentally, like in his hair or in Friend’s wool, and is generally pretty chill about it but gets kind of flustered if he does it to another person
- pogtopia was full of accidental poppies and foxgloves. They were not having a good time down there
Tommy
- Tommy has fangs. You knew it was coming. He enjoys biting people for no reason
- He’s never been ashamed of his mutation and Wilbur really admires him for that, since he’s always hidden his
- Also his eyes change colour but like. Subtly. I think he deserves a funky mutation like that
- Some days you’re convinced his eyes are blue and then you’ll turn around and they’re maroon or purple
- Now! His power! My initial thoughts say sound manipulation? I think it is called audiokinesis or echokinesis? Essentially he can make his voice/other sounds very loud or very quiet and sound different/echo by shifting the acoustics of a room or whatever
- Idk I just think some of his best acting is founded in his control over the sound of his voice and I wanted to include that somehow
- With an entirely auditory power his other senses (especially visual) are impaired. He has limited colour vision (like bats) and strong astigmatism, which gives him frequent headaches :(
- Say what you will about Pogtopia but at least it was dimmer than the surface
- Exile wasn’t good for his headaches because the sun was always out and it reflected off the sea quite often, and Dream wouldn’t let him keep his emergency sunglasses
- He echolocates >:) It’s very very annoying, especially when he does it randomly when he’s bored by a conversation, but he’s good to go caving with
- He also makes little noises to comfort himself and is comforted by other people’s little noises because he can use his power like a stim toy and it reminds him that he’s not helpless or alone
Techno
- Okay Techno’s power is fun I love this part. We’re giving him ferrokinesis
- It’s because magnets and metal and danger. Also he should get a funky vibrating sword when he’s angry
- Fun fact! I have also allowed this to explain the whole human compass thing. He can literally sense the magnetic poles and lodestones, so he never gets lost
- He collects, presses and labels Wilbur’s flowers. He started doing it after SMPEarth when he and Wilbur wrote letters to each other from different servers and Wilbur would leave flowers in the envelopes, and then on the dsmp he uses it to help identify Wilbur’s emotional state when he’s nonverbal/after he’s fucking dead
- He has trouble keeping in routines and remembering to do things, so he has a big whiteboard on the wall next to his door that he had intended to use like a to-do list (and it still mostly functions like that! He uses different colours of pen to try and combat the objects-fading-into-surroundings thing and while it doesn’t always work he can usually remember to see it before he leaves the house)
- Though there are little doodles all over it, from visitors (Phil and the Syndicate mostly) and Techno himself, like a little cartoon pig yelling about feeding the dogs and a flower garden sprouting from one corner
- Technically he can shapeshift between full human/full pig but he prefers somewhere in between
- I was originally going to say piglin hybrid like a lot of hcs but then I remembered this is my AU and I get to make the rules. The bitch is a regular pig hybrid. Not even a boar he’s just a pig
- His favourite food is golden carrots but sometimes if he has too many he can get loopy on the saturation. Phil puts as many of them in his cooking as possible because he thinks it’s hilarious
Ponk
- Now. Ponk. Probably the one I watch the most of any streamer on the SMP so I have lots of Thoughts (TM)
- Magma cube hybrid! I’m not sure what it is with me and nether mobs I just love them all so much. Did a tier list and they were right up at the top with creepers and foxes
- It’s hard to see his mutation because of his mask (and also his power, which he uses to disguise it) but he’s got lil stubby horns and sometimes glows like a magma block
- He glows instead of blushing when he’s happy or angry or embarassed. In the daytime it’s barely noticeable and all good but at night he’s like a lantern
- Mob pathfinding makes them avoid lava/blocks that could cause them damage, and coincidentally Ponk’s glow simulates that of lava so mobs are generally scared of him when he is
- He gets a fucking OP power okay. Most of you probably won’t have read any Marie Lu but I’m thinking along the lines of Adelina’s power with illusions. At the height of his power he can trick all of a person’s senses to convince them of anything he wants them to
- He doesn’t like to use it against other people often as it’s pretty terrifying for everyone involved but he’s like. one of the most powerful people on the server
- Actually he can’t even remember the last time he did. It might have been to cover up his tired eyes and clear the scratch from his voice when he visited Sam after he didn’t sleep for a week (Sam noticed. He always does. Stupid empaths)
- He has a pet turtle he named Oogway and he made it a little black belt and a flower crown. Tommy thought it was a teenage mutant ninja turtle and called it Leonardo for a solid three months
Sam
- The whole vibe I’m going for for Sam in this AU is that he’s open and friendly but very susceptible to external influences. (i.e. I just fucking know the prison has some sort of sentience and it controlled him and that’s why he hurt Ponk. I refuse to accept that love is dead)
- So I thought some kind of psychic power would fit best? And now he’s an empath
- Meaning he can feel and (to some extent) affect other people’s emotions as they feel them
- Apparently one thing you can sometimes do with empathy is psychometry, which is described as “the power to perceive residual information of an object, place or person”
- He hates visiting war zones/places of tragedy. L’manburg basically. He can feel the ghosts of children and hope and pride and potential and it’s terrifying that it was all cut short so quickly and so often
- He also has trouble with the community house and Eret’s museum purely because of the volume of the history in both places
- Ah that got a bit dark. oops.
- Psychometry isn’t all bad though! The woo station and Snowchester are so full of love that Sam can’t help smiling, and places like Skeppy’s skyblock map or El Rapids are playful and warm
- And another something cute! His connection with Fran is so deep that he can feel her emotions too! He can feel that she gets the most excited when she sees him and it makes him feel better no matter what happened that day
- Ponk thinks he works too hard trying to make people happy so he’s really glad when Sam takes the time to sit down by himself with Fran. Plus it’s an excellent excuse for cuddles
- He wears a gas mask because redstone is a really small particulate and he has both bad asthma and a mild allergy to the stuff so the mask keeps him from breathing too much in
- The allergy is common to all creepers, as the active redstone signal reacts with the gunpowder in their bodies and irritates them
- Creeper hybrid, but this time with spice and all of my wild mc biology thoughts
- He doesn’t have much of a mutation other than being weirdly tall, but his freckles are like silver glitter, his skin is vaguely iridescent, and his natural hair colour is a green-grey (Again google is telling me it’s called xanadu. Very pretty colour 10/10 would recommend)
Eret
- Herobrine genetics obviously means the eyes, right? But also he’s a little bit unsettling outside of that in ways you can’t put your finger on. Does he really have the regular number of fingers or arms? Are you sure you can’t see through him? Are his feet really touching the floor? When you look at them it’s all normal but you can’t help seeing things out of the corner of your eye
- His power is light based and basically he can manipulate it around him, like reflecting things off of her, or around (for invisibility!), or lighting up an area beyond the range of a torch
- This also applies to cool stuff like lenses, diffraction, and refraction (high school physics coming back to haunt many of us) For anyone who didn’t take hs physics or isn’t there yet, diffraction ad refraction cause the splitting and bending of light through different materials and causing rainbows. It’s used a lot in fibre optics it’s very cool.
- Anyway to summarise, light manipulation allows for invisibility, heat creation, and tiny rainbows, among a range of other things
- Their betrayal of L’manburg wasn’t calculated at all. When you’ve lived as long as Eret has, a lot of things lose their significance and if she’s being honest, she didn’t realise the nation was so important. She thought they were all just messing around together, like a long and complicated game of capture the flag.
- This is one of the reason he decided to start the museum. He wanted to make sure he didn’t forget significance again and remind himself that everything ends up being important to someone
- (These aren’t power hcs for the au they’re just things I like to consider sometimes)
Hbomb
- I have seen exactly one (1) person mention the possibility of Hbomb being an immortal but I saw that and ran with it
- I love Hbomb. I want vault hunters in here. I want catmaid H. I want Theveir. I want L’cast. All of his content is SO entertaining
- Immortals on the dsmp seem to be really into their preservation of history (looking at you, Eret’s museum) and I think L’cast is Hbomb’s way of doing it. Eret preserves events and objects, H preserves the people’s memory.
- (I want to know what made them like that! What happened in the past for their need to try safeguard it? How effective were they really, if so little made it to Mizu?)
- And then also I want him to be a shapeshifter :) Local lil tricksy shapeshifter man turns into bastard cat on a regular basis to annoy people
- He especially likes hanging out with Fundy, not least of all because he gets so flustered, but also because once H got stuck with cat ears for a few years when he was still learning his power and he feels some kind of solidarity with Fundy because he got teased a lot for it
- Shapeshifting does mean he has almost no mutations but he always keeps a braided friendship bracelet on so he doesn’t get caught out in some shapeshifted form (Niki and Eret have the matching ones)
- And also for some reason he’s always got a streak of blue hair when he shifts. Makes him recognisable
- Also Theveir is his weird gay cousin who his homophobic aunt sent to live with him to ‘straighten him out’ without realising the dsmp was a homonormative society
Puffy
- She’s got her cool ass curly horns. I know in some sheep breeds both sexes can have horns but even if Puffy was a hybrid of a breed without, she would grow in the horns by sheer willpower
- Now I know for a fact that pyrokinesis is one of the most popular powers and everyone was expecting someone to have it and I’m giving it to Puffy
- ‘but what about therapuffy?? what about kid Dream and Foolish??’ I hear you cry. Actually her pyrokinesis makes her a better mediator and more level-headed than a lot of people because she had to spend so much time and effort trying to control such a destructive power
- I think it’s cool to consider how that might contribute to her distrust of the egg as well. Spending so much time in her own head and learning how her own thoughts worked made her much more aware of outside forces working on her mind
- Unlike Niki, Puffy’s pyrokinesis is a full magic power rather than just one of her hybrid traits, which means both that she has to work harder to control it and it operates on a larger scale.
- Campfires with her are pretty terrifying but a lot of fun because she likes messing with the size and colour and temperature of the flames, both for fun and also to make sure her marshmallows are perfectly toasted. You haven’t tasted good marshmallows until you’ve had one of hers
Fundy
- Fundy’s whole schtick is that he has fox ears. That is also what I’m giving him because it’s cute and also badass. Foxes are so cool damn
- I’m debating between red fox and corsac fox ears. Red fox because it looks most like his skin and corsac because they’re most suited to plains/open air biomes like most of the smp is
- Fox hybrid means a couple of less obvious non-human traits too! I think a little jump boost, maybe, and natural night vision
- Having sensitive hearing (as foxes often do) and being in proximity to a lot of explosions mean he’s become HoH, particularly in his right ear
- To start with, as his hearing deteriorated, he tried to hide it and try not to jump when someone walked up on him on that side, but eventually it got bad enough that Hbomb noticed. He didn’t ever bring it up but he was very careful to make more noise when coming up behind him, and always on the left
- The only note on his power that I had before this was #GiveFundyMagic2k21 which was. really not very much information. But a very good note nonetheless
- In any case I have since had further thoughts and I think I’ve settled on dreamwalking as Fundy’s power
- There are several reasons. First was that there’s a lot of nuance and detail and is an interesting thing to consider in relation to the universe, especially considering a lot more people have visible powers. Second was just that I thought it would be really fucking funny
- He’s mostly nocturnal also! It comes from a) his fox traits, but also b) if he sleeps at the same time as other people there’s a big risk he ends up dreamwalking and that doesn’t make for a good night’s sleep for either party
- Overall it’s easier to sleep during the day, even if that’s when most people (read: Tubbo) decide to be reckless and mess around with ravagers and run down the prime path very loudly. When asked, Fundy says it’s like hearing cat zoomies, if the cat swore colourfully and had a sword
Quackity
- Quackity. Mr Quack. Dr. HQ my beloved
- Duck wings and breathing underwater. Cool shit for a cool kid
- During the Schlatt administration he hid his wings for a really long time and they ended up scarring quite badly. He can still fly but not for extended periods of time without needing a heat pack and a few hours off of them
- When he was relearning to fly, Sapnap used his power to steady the air/slow his fall which made him feel better about the whole thing. Just the whole idea of being held by someone you’ve learnt to trust while you relearn things from your childhood that were scared out of you and realising there’s no way they’ll ever let you fall or hurt again
- The breathing underwater is a little bit useless because he so rarely goes into the water (you can pretty much get anywhere over land, and boats are always faster than swimming even if you don’t need to come up for air)
- But it is useful for hiding and/or getting out of the way, when he’s scared or just messing around
- Makes it very easy to sneak up on people. Karl has forbidden him from doing it to him but he always checks water sources as he’s going just in case Quackity’s decided to sit there and wait
Karl
- Considering the fact that Karl’s time travelling stems from an outside force and not his own power, I think that shouldn’t be his power and I should get to give him something else. There’s no point having canon if you just follow it
- Original thoughts were dogboy Karl but then I had more of them (the thoughts) and decided instead to say he can understand/speak all languages (plus animals!) Google is telling me these are called omniligualism and zoolingualism and those are lovely nice big words
- So no dogboy Karl but he can speak to dogs and that’s great
- This will obviously help when he time travels! Different languages in different periods and different regions, so good ol Karl should be able to understand them all
- (He can speak to Michael! Tubbo and Ranboo take Michael to visit Niki one time and bump into Karl in Kinoko, who starts speaking to him in piglin. It takes all of Ranboo’s strength and a whole host of promises to come back to make Michael let go)
- I wanted to bring in elements of his old skin with all the wild blocky colours, so he has coloured patches on his skin like vitiligo, in other colours (purples, greens and blues especially)
- He’s also pretty susceptible to sunburn (a common effect of vitiligo) so Sapnap makes sure to keep a bottle of sunscreen on him at all times and Quackity has a range of colourful umbrellas for really sunny days.
- Karl’s favourite one has a pattern of little sheep all over. Sapnap is convinced they’re clouds and not sheep. Quackity refuses to comment on the matter
Sapnap
- Sapnap is nether fae! fun fact: this is a thing I just made up.
- mostly I just wanted an excuse to give him pointy ears and magic
- A lot of people assume his power is something like pyrokinesis, but fire res and strength are natural nether fae traits (evolution and that, especially considering the nether is like. 70% lava)
- This is why he can still have lava baths! He likes swimming in lava lakes and runs hot in overworld, and he has pointy ears which are almost definitely pierced in at least threeplaces. Gold earrings, obviously
- He’s allergic to iron (fae traits) which is some kind of issue obviously because iron is the most common early-game armour/weapons and remains the most common material for backup gear owned by everyone on the server
- He, Quackity and Karl all have gold (or diamond, if they can get it) backup tools and a spare set of netherite armour to avoid this issue but it’s still irritating
- Windwalker sapnap windwalker sapnap. Like one of those airbenders from atla but cooler
- He was definitely in demand among the nether folk because he could get rid of the fog temporarily. Just blow it away. Increase render distance setting but it’s just some guy
- In the overworld he’s definitely more powerful (pros of having an atmosphere I guess), though maybe not as useful in regular day-to-day activities. He doesn’t quite have the ability to control the weather but clouds/fog/things like that are fair game, which came in handy in childhood hide and seek games and also when endermen are around
0000000
- When Quackity first met Hannah, he thought she was related to wilbur because of the ears. evidently he had seen very few fair folk in his life and neither of them would let him forget it, not least of all because it turned out he had also assumed Sapnap and Wilbur were cousins for years
- Tommy and Purpled (and Ponk, to an extent) are in high demand when people intend to go on caving trips, because each of their powers makes caving and mining a lot more effective and safer. Tommy’s echolocation allows him to find hidden tunnels and stay away from mobs, as well as sometimes locating ores as the stone sounds different. Purpled’s instinct allows him to find safe paths around hidden lava pockets or dead ends, so if he turns around in the middle of mining you’d best follow him. If you can convince him, Ponk will glow, and it looks so much like the glow of lava that a lot of mobs stay away for fear of getting caught in it. No need for torches!
- (Tommy and Purpled did consider making a business out of it, before everything kicked off)
- The Puffychu household is permanently a little bit on fire I think. When they’re both immune to fire and one is a blaze there’s not much consideration for fire safety or flammable objects, like humans for instance. They do try and put most of it out when they have visitors, but it’s always good to take a couple fire res pots or wear netherite when you go over
- When Tommy was little, he wanted to be like Niki because he thought she was so cool. Before he knew she was a blaze, she would pass her hands through flames to impress him and then panic when he tried to put his whole little toddler hand in the fire. He did get a little burnt, but then he thought for a whole six years that all adults were fireproof and you got the ability when you grew up
- The first person who Karl mentions the time-travel to ( I say mentions. He really only alluded to it) is Eret, because he thinks they might be someone to talk to about history and storytelling. Eret, who luckily understands what Karl is trying to say, takes him to his next meeting with Foolish and H and they all dub him an honorary immortal. Karl had no idea that anyone but Foolish was different lifespan-wise but after thinking about it he admitted it did make sense
- The only reason Connor isn’t there is because he was busy with Mario Kart. He’s a variety streamer he doesn’t have time for history discussions
- Eret and Foolish are old immortals. Hbomb is a newer immortal and he’s constantly in a state of >:D. Connor has been there since the beginning of the universe
- It’s nether fae custom to always keep gold on you for if you see a piglin. The two species have had their wars but they’re on mostly good terms now. Sapnap was really shocked when he realised people in the overworld didn’t consider gold a valuable resource and tried to give all of his friends gold
Plan For Heaven Though Hell Will Do
Scott spends a remarkable amount of time wondering how he would live if his life had been any different.
a study of Scott and his relationship with faith
Note: title from Woke Up Hurting by Frightened Rabbit. CWs for religion and unexplained injuries, if those are things that make you uncomfortable. Hopefully I didn’t hurt Scott too much!
Rivendell’s lord is not a religious man.
It’s not something he wants publicised, of course. Rivendell practically lives and breathes the old gods, and he would be ostracised faster than the rivers during snowmelt if they knew.
He goes to church like a dutiful ruler, says his prayers with the priest like everyone else, and his mind doesn’t wander from the sermon like he expects most of the court’s children’s minds do beside him. He is restless, but he does his due diligence to what is expected of him because it is all he knows.
It is difficult, though, when even the corridors he walks down every day make him feel uneasy. Every tapestry in the palace is of a scene from some great battle, past or future, stitches spelling out blood and chaos and destruction, like a child’s story.
They cycle, over and over, the same scenes with different figures and different times but always the same outcome. He’s starting to wonder if Aeor wishes its champion would fight back a little, sometimes. He wonders what happens to the champions who do.
The wall he walks past between the bedroom he’s been given and where Rivendell’s throne stands holds a tapestry that shows a figure on their knees on the peak of a mountain, head tilted back to the sky. The figure is surrounded by silvery stitches and Scott hurries past it every morning, trying not to think of the ice crystals that sneak up his knuckles or the frozen edges of the lake at the base of Rivendell’s cliff.
Aeor’s house is a palace for pious kings, and a prison for Rivendell’s lord.
It’s not that he’s an unbeliever.
He thinks that faith is beautiful. Beautiful in the way Pixandria speaks about life and beautiful in the way children find comfort in their mothers. There’s a grand, empty echo in the room beside the one he’s been given, and Scott has faith in those dusty sunbeams that sing duets with the peeling paint on great arched windows in the barren room.
And he’s certainly not denying his surroundings. He has seen the work something has done to the empire, recognises that the corruption has been driven from the feet of the great stag, sees the fertility of Rivendell’s fields despite the harsh weather of the mountains.
But the old gods that belong to Rivendell are tired, bratty and worn, bickering children who stayed up past their bedtime, fighting the same battles for eternity like they’re entitled to blood being spilt. Scott thinks he’s sick to death of it. He wants to march up to the altar of Rivendell’s church and tell the gods that they’re not welcome, not anymore, not in his ear and not anywhere near Rivendell. They can fight each other themselves, he thinks in the solitary moments, they can fight without engaging in a proxy war like the one that is tearing him apart.
Some mornings he wakes up with bruises he doesn’t recognise, watching the cold sunlight draw patterns in the ancient arched ceilings of the palace. The shadows spell out sweeter stories than the threads of the tapestries outside, and Aeor can demand nothing of him when the warmth of the duvet melts the frost that tries to form across the skin between his fingers.
He reads the stories the sun spells out for him in the swirling dust and pretends he can ignore the tolling church bells outside.
Rambling Poets Manic With Visions
Pixandria is an empire of light and life and youth. Pixlriffs is afraid he won’t ever be part of it.
a study of Pix and his relationship with loneliness in a bustling town
Note: title from Of Monsters And Heroes And Men by James. Definitely lighter than my last fic (sorry fwhip) but there is one mention of self-harming thoughts (not followed through) to be wary of if that makes you uncomfortable
There are a lot of children in Pixandria.
They run through alleyways and gardens, over shallow walls and around household wells, playing incomprehensible games with sticks and stones and cardboard crowns. They play while mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, stand in doorways and at windows, hanging washing and talking amongst themselves. There are yells as children get caught in sheets hung from doorways to dry or stumble over loose cobbles, and even louder shouts as sword fights are staged with sticks in tucked-away courtyards down secret alleyways.
The children squeal and laugh long past sunset, when lamps are lit and the air becomes a blanket of warming bread and spices, running into kitchens and giggling as they escape with full mouths and pockets back under the stars and the drooping leaves of the willow trees. Their families stand in doorways and call them back half-heartedly, laughing with one another and shaking their heads at the desperate joy of youth.
The king cannot walk among them. The children bow their heads and dodge around him like a river around an island, their big eyes curious and their whispers loud with inexperience. Their parents speak softer, voices hidden with hands and behind corners, but he still knows they talk. It’s just in their nature; an outsider is always something to be gossiped about, and who is more worthy of gossip than a king?
He is scared. He is a stranger in his own home, in the empire he built from the ground, among the citizens he has built it for. They are his people, the ones he wants to prove himself to more than anyone, and now he is scared that it has cost him his soul and his sanity.
He sees an old man, hair white like the snow of Rivendell that the king remembers, step up onto a crate in the market beside the vigil. His face is etched with age and the noise of his bangles rings like a bell, calling out to the people around him, pulling at their idle attention. Around him the market is bustling and loud with afternoon energy, but the old man speaks just loud enough to be heard to his closest listeners and the king finds himself drawing closer to hear.
The man regales the people who start to gather around him with stories of demons and dragons, of might and heroism and betrayal. There are big, dramatic tragedies and enduring love and great escapes, and every one earns breathless laughter or desperate cries from the assembled crowds.
His stories are eerily similar to the visions the king sees when he collapses, sometimes, and the king wonders what it is to be a prophet without a crown.
The wind chime hanging from his ear swings as he walks away, and he wants nothing more than to tear it out. He won’t, of course. It is unsightly for a king, a paragon of grace and strength, to bleed like a commoner. Sometimes he takes out a knife and wonders what they would think of him if he pulled it over his skin.
The king, sitting as he is now on the low wall of the vigil, turns his crown over in his hands and wishes it was anything else.
He casts an eye to the stones of his kingdom beneath his feet, and wishes they belonged to anyone but him.