My favourite hybrid headcanon for Tubbo is moonbloom but it’s very important to me that he was NOT born that way. He started manifesting as a ram hybrid around Schlatt which was so damaging to his self image, looking in the mirror and seeing more and more of that monster every day. The scars made a difference, but they’re not exactly a confidence booster. Lmanberg falls and Tubbo throws himself into Snowchester, building up a fortress, protecting himself with nukes. (But not himself, not really. He has Michael and Ranboo now, and they’re worth protecting more than any crater ever was. More important than him, for sure.)
But then love finds him in the little moments. Ranboo making pancakes. Michael playing in the snow. Brilliant red berries curling over the hills. A sprig of clover in his hair. A staticky grumble as Ranboo wakes in the morning. A family portrait on the wall. Michael dozing off on his lap. A daisy caught behind his ear. Laughter filling the dark and gloomy strip mines. Sliding into a warm bed, short legs tangling with ridiculously boney ones. Petals drifting downwards, more and more forming in his hair. A ring, a mansion, and a head full of tulips.
No longer the sharp horns that matched Schlatt’s, but they softened. Curved. His hair became tangled with greenery and flowers and roots, attached to his head just as much as his hair. He’s heard of moonblooms—of course he has, who hadn’t shared stories around the campfire about the mythical mob? Wherever they were, it was far from the crater-ridden landscape of the smp. He was the only one for millions of blocks, that was for sure.
Well, that would be the case, if moonblooms were real.
Phil is the first to realise, after a subtle conversation with Ranboo about his newly acquired son, he casually revealed they got Tubbo’s hybrid type wrong.
“A what?”
“A-A moonbloom. You know, like the mooshroom but with flowers? He’s got the cow horns and the flowers in his hair—not his back, but his hair at least.”
“Ranboo, moonblooms didn’t even make it to experimental.”
“What?”
“They’re just a myth. Same as the glare. What the fuck is going on with Tubbo?”
Most of the people on the server don’t bat an eye at Tubbo’s sudden change. On a server with gods, demons, ghosts, revivals and at least one alien, someone changing hybrid types is the least of their concerns. In fact, the worst reactions are from the newcomers. Hbomb, Eryn, Aimsey. All of the people who grew up outside the world, who aren’t yet entangled in everything FREAK OUT around Tubbo. Because changing hybrid types ISNT possible, and he was CLEARLY a ram hybrid before. Tubbo doesn’t care. He doesn’t have the time to care, to worry about whether it was corruption or radiation or magic or a parasitic infection. Not when Ranboo nuzzled into his hair, or when bees cozied up to him just like when he was a kid. Not when Michael drew his hair as a rainbow.
