Chapter Text
As of 11/8/2023
Keralis Can What Now? (In My Defense…)
Comments
I’m surprised no one’s noticed yet that X never paid his stat poker diamonds for losing, tbh.
huh, yeah i didnt notice that. perhaps x was going to give keralis his diamonds after congratulating him… except he got vaporized before being able to do so
That’s exactly what he was going to do, but after the chaos and literally getting vaporized, Keralis forgot, and X isn’t gonna tell him (his number was under a thousand. How did Keralis get more than 5,000?!).
lmao, i guess xisuma gets to keep his diamonds as a consolation prize after having to go through with having his code ripped apart
Exactly!
What was the stat they were betting on though?
Shhhhhhihavenoideahhhhh…
*Whispers* Ah alright I can forget I ever asked
(But what if it was "buttons pressed" because Keralis does so much gambling)
See, this is why I need comments, that’s officially what it was. Congrats.
Sweetberries
Chapter 4 End of Chapter Note
How are we all feeling?
I wanted to create kind of an antithesis of what recovery in books usually looks like. Etho doesn’t walk himself out of the hospital. No one greets him on Hermitcraft. He doesn’t go right back to what he was doing. He can’t even go back to his own base. He has lasting injuries and problems and scars. Recovery from anything isn’t as simple as “and they all lived happily ever after.”
Additionally, while I do know a couple people with epilepsy (some of them being my cousins), I don’t actually know very much about epilepsy. I know a whole hell of a lot about having fainting issues, and I know epilepsy is more similar than some other conditions, but I don’t know much about it. And I wanted to create a kind of… Etho doesn’t know anything about it either. He’s never had a seizure before. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but now he’s living with it, and he’s scared. But he is still having those “I don’t want to be a burden” thoughts, so the NHO is doing whatever they can to make it easier. They set up routines and learn Etho-speak for “I had a seizure and idk if I wanna say that.”
Fun fact: There was a situation in the hospital where Etho mistakes Pearl for Pause (he can’t really see too well, he’s concussed, he’s coming out of one of the surgeries, he just sees elytrian wings and assumes it’s Pause), but I couldn’t fit it in, so look out for that oneshot at some point! It has lots of angst!
Also, I vaguely wanted to imply it’s DSMP teens that crash into Hermitcraft, but the line between creator and character with them is less defined (and they were minors at the time), and it makes me a little uncomfortable, so the new kids will have different names and I will make their stories into whatever I want. So… not the DSMP kids. Just vaguely inspired by other stories where the DSMP kids get into Hermitcraft.
Final thing: Dr. Freed’s name will be retconned if anyone can give me a better one, because I don’t like it. Her first name’s Eleanor and she’s an avian with dove wings (not white, kind of a gray, like a ring-necked dove). Please, suggestions!
Edit: Dr. Freed’s name has been changed to Dr. Grandin, after Dr. Temple Grandin, animal behaviorist, animal rights’ activist, and autistic icon. Thank you coffeecrowns for the suggestion!
Comments
(Please note: for the following interaction, I did get a bit unnecessarily defensive in a few of my replies. This comes across as slightly snippy. I do apologize for this; I grew up getting teased a lot, and I am… protective… of my worlds as a result. When I realized that people weren’t being mean, I toned it back.)
wtf
WTF????
Let X go full Angry Void Walker on that hospital and Grian go full angry Watcher and Scar all evil Vex and the other hermits let out their bad sides and darker instincts because what the actual fuckity fuck.... under no circumstances can hospitals just.... reverse a surgery or whatever the equivalent of changing a gamer tag might also be unless it is to save their life. And even then... I'm pretty sure you need consent. Either by the person you are saving or whoever they have making medical decisions for them. Let the Hermits destroy that hospital. Sue it to the ground. Their friends from other servers like Scott and Martyn and Big B and Joel will help!
Yeah here’s the thing: they can’t.
Legally, Xisuma wasn’t allowed to change Etho’s gender tag. Legally, Etho’s gender tag was never supposed to be changed. Legally, the hospital staff is required to remove illicit changes to code.
Additionally, Etho’s eye wasn’t implanted by an approved specialist. There was minor damage to it from the accident. It could have been repaired, and if it was Doc or any other hybrid doing the surgery, it wouldn’t have been removed, and would have been repaired immediately. However, hybrids in this AU have very few rights. (It’s called Criminally Hybrid for a reason; their only real crime was not being human). The hospital had never seen anything like Etho’s eye, and they remove anything they don’t recognize, especially on hybrids. “Could have been a bomb” is the most common answer to “why the fuck did you do that.”
The legal and medical systems in this world are awful! I cannot stress that enough! There is so much abuse of power, and hybrids are seen as less than human, barely better than livestock. Doc escaped from a legal laboratory where he was serving a life sentence for murder, Etho and Ren both escaped from literal fucking slavery as pets because they stole food to survive, and Joe was on Death Row after being framed because the actual perp was fully human and it was Joe’s word against theirs.
This universe is not kind or good. There is no higher power that can save them. They HAVE to play along with this awful system, or worse things happen. If Grian and Xisuma storm the hospital, if the Hermits let their dark sides out, then Hermitcraft as a sanctuary server could lose permissions, and be forced to shut down. And then every single Hermit is in far worse danger than Etho is in this fic.
They don’t like it. Xisuma almost killed that nurse in the waiting room. But hybrids and those less than human don’t have the luxury of anger. The world already thinks they’re dangerous, out of control. The only thing getting angry and razing that hospital to the ground would do is sour public opinion, which is finally just starting to change.
Hybrid rights are on the rise, even though it’s slow. But for right now?
They have to play along. They have to make due. It’s shitty, it sucks, but it’s how it works. All they can do right now is ensure Etho is never left alone in that room, because it’s perfectly legal for them to do whatever the fuck they want, because legally, Etho’s not human. And, worse than that, he was evaluated over a decade ago, right when he escaped being a pet, and they purposefully evaluated him as a violent patient that isn’t mentally stable enough to understand what’s happening around him, which gives them even more control.
So Beef’s not leaving that room without Etho, because he knows this, and he refuses to let anything else happen to him. And he never is without a panic button straight back to the Hermits.
It’s all they can do.
How does a sanctuary server work exactly then? How are they given legal permission to house someone like Joe who’s punishment was supposed to be death? Last chapter it was mentioned that sanctuary servers were technically supposed to be prisons and I’m just wondering how something like that even came to exist in such an unforgiving world.
How did Hermitcraft start?
Great question. Sanctuary servers exist because it wouldn’t be a good story otherwise.
I’m not actually overly fond of “no hope” stories. The existence of sanctuary servers implies that somewhere, somehow, someone who is not a hybrid still cares about them.
If you want an in-universe answer: Maybe it’s been a tradition forever, that people aren’t willing to break. Probably, nowadays people think “well at least we don’t have to deal with them, they can go to a hybrid-run server and destroy themselves without taking the rest of society with them.” Whatever the reason, sanctuary servers as an idea are older than Keralis is in this AU. No one around now knows why they exist. (It’s because they always did. It’s because those outcast by society always gather together and form safe places. There is always hope. They just managed to make the hope legal, a long time ago. Hybrid rights are on the rise, sanctuary servers were first).
There is always hope. Think of some of the worst times in history for different groups of people, and I promise you that you can still find the joy and hope and safe places.
Oh, also, Joe’s sentence was overturned. Xisuma knows how to play the legal system. He rescues whoever he can. Just having his backing at this point can tip the scales in a hybrid’s favor. He’s well known. Hence why the police secretary started typing in his name before he gave it and the nurse did a double-take at the name. Hybrids with Xisuma’s protection are some of the safest.
I hope that answered your question, but also, my guy, please, I am but a college student writing in his free time. It’s a story. Suspend the disbelief, please.
Oh no, I *am* suspending the disbelief. I love this story, I’m just really curious about the worldbuilding behind it.
Also, absolutely love that approach of “there’s always hope.” It is so so important, especially when things seem bleak, to remind yourself that there’s always light even in the darkest times.
There is kindness out there. There’s always hope.
It’s infuriating to read some of the events in this story, the way that the system treats hybrids, but then you remember the paramedic that didn’t give up on Etho, the person who called the ambulance, the guy in the cell across from Doc and Beef that tried to help. The system is shit but people can still be kind.
And quick question about the whole “hybrid rights being on the rise” thing. Are they on the rise as in, ‘we might get to see significant developments in their favor during the run of this au’, or more like ‘it’s probably gonna take a few decades to a century to get significantly better but a lot of Hermits might even live to see it’ kinda way? I know some of them are old but surely not everyone has an extended lifespan.
I’m so glad you’re picking up what I’m putting down, and I hope my panicked “oh no I have to leave for class and I don’t have an answer here yet!” response wasn’t rude.
There may be a story set a while into the future where the Hermits celebrate a new law. Maybe one that pardons Etho and Ren, or ensures that what happened to Beef never will happen to another kid. I haven’t really gotten that far.
If you’re familiar with the American Civil Rights Movement, the setup for it started in the 1890s and didn’t actually become the Civil Rights Movement until the 1950s-60s. If we’re drawing parallels to that, this story takes place in the equivalent of 1940ish. Change is coming. Public opinion is changing. But it’s gonna be a few years yet.
This story is being written in parallel to my research into the queer rights movement (which I would do for fun but I get to do for a grade! I get to read about gay history, and I get early enrollment for classes as long as I write a paper on it!), but less people know about that. If we’re drawing parallels to the American queer rights movement, this is freshly post-AIDS. Public opinion was really changing and almost there in the late 1970s, and laws were actively being changed, and then the AIDS epidemic hit, and sent us back about 50 years. I haven’t quite figured out what big event this story is directly after, but suffice it to say, this is the equivalent of 1985-ish gay liberation movement. They were going places, and then something happened.
Also, you totally get the “people can be kind.” It’s meant to be infuriating. It’s awful stuff. And the Hermits don’t have other options, they can’t be mad. But people are still kind. And there’s always hope.
Oh so something happened that set them back 👀
That could definitely be a really interesting bit of worldbuilding if you ever do come up with the hypothetical event.
Yeah I really need to figure out that event. I’m thinking Pause’s death has something to do with it… hmm…
Oh, also, because I did just remember: the man in the ambulance that refused to give up was fully human. He and his husband have an adopted fox hybrid kit. She’s 4, and is also silver, like Etho. Dad instincts kicked in. The dude went home and hugged his daughter so tight, and after she was in bed for the night, his husband held him as he straight up fucking broke.
That man ends up going back to college and eventually through law school, and he eventually becomes a judge in the highest court. He is the deciding vote on several hybrid court cases that fundamentally change the way they’re treated.
I wasn’t planning on a full meeting [with the lady with Pause’s old number], but in future works Beef will be shown calling her again. This time when good things happen.
That part of the story is HEAVILY inspired by Dad’s Old Number by Cole Swindell. It’s linked in the very beginning under the inspiration works, it’ll take you directly to a YouTube video of the song.
Also, if you really want your heart to be torn out, the line “sometimes I forget, these ten digits ain't my lifeline anymore” is from that song, and oh geez. I tried to include it or similar in the fic, but I couldn’t make it work.
I love this chapter!! I really love messy endings and imperfect recoveries. I really like the complex feelings etho has about getting to help others in his situation and being jealous that they get support he didn't. I LOVE the detail/headcanon that all of scars builds are wheelchair accessible, ever since the scarland video where he mentions half slabs doing that it has stuck in my brain. I love love love Beef in this.
I would DIE to see the scene with Pearl being mistaken for Pause, the angst is delicious. Also I love how you've written Ethos chronic pain this whole series, would you ever write about readjusting to new disabilities?
For renaming Dr. Freed, what about Dr. Grandin, for Temple Grandin, autistic icon, and animal behavior expert and activist for humane treatment. I think she's so neat.
Anyways, I just adore this story and series!! <3
Oh, the Pearl-Pause mixup is TOTALLY HAPPENING. Just, y’know, I am a burnt-out college student, so… might be a hot minute.
DR. TEMPLE GRANDIN IS AWESOME!!! I WISH WHOLE-HEARTEDLY I COULD STUDY UNDER HER, SHE’S AMAZING! (I’m pre-vet, and she’s awesome. Role model. Queen. All of the above). I do want to see if I get other suggestions, but that one’s top tier.
Etho’s chronic pain is based heavily on my own; I should hope it’s realistic. (I have most likely permanent phantom pain because my wisdom teeth were… very strange). I could write about adjusting to new disabilities (I was planning on doing a “settling in” kind of thing that shows more detail of what it was actually like for Etho to start healing and how they came up with the post-seizure routine). A lot about the disabilities I write about comes from my own experiences, and while I did have a couple things that I had to learn to deal with more recently (the fainting condition, the phantom pain), a lot of my own issues have been because I was diagnosed with the major one when I was 5, and my parents went “we’re just going to pretend that didn’t happen and raise them as a normal kid with none of the accommodations he’s going to need, or even with the information that they are disabled.” So I do kind of want to do something with that, maybe with one of the new kids, and the older Hermits (especially Xisuma, who they’re gonna be scared of because admin) having to figure out how to take care of them in a way they’ll accept.
You have given me so many IDEAS! (Also thank you for the first paragraph about all the things you liked, because I was worried about them lol. You picked up what I was putting down. You got it).
part way thru i found myself thinking 'oh man just how much did etho go thru in the past' at all the mentions of lost babies and then i got to the part with the crochet baby blankets and and the aside about xisuma noticing but not mentioning the number of them and just the implications at that of it being a not insubstantial number just really got to me
ow my heart (i also may have read the whole series in one go from about 11:30pm to 1:40am so that was a lot of hurt/comfort in one go and it was somehow oddly cathartic and i just wanna say that i enjoyed it in the way that one enjoys stories like this)
(The response to this comment goes into details about Etho’s slavery. Not necessarily explicit details, but ages that things were happening to him and details about his body starting to give up. I need to put that warning here. Skip to the end of the bold, or to “future works in the brain cooker.” This is your only warning.)
I’m glad you enjoyed!
If you want the actual lore and worldbuilding:
Etho was a “pet” but it was more of a backyard breeder situation. He wasn’t treated as human. He wasn’t even treated the way people with a conscience treat pets. He was property.
There’s laws that a hybrid can only be a pet if they’ve committed a crime. However, the demand outweighs this. There’s a sizable black market for hybrids to be sold. It’s not hard to fake the paperwork, and the police are corrupt and don’t care anyway.
Etho was arrested and sentenced when he was 12, and didn’t escape until he was 22. He killed his master to escape. Fox hybrid pregnancies last an average of 6 months. He had 9 kits out of 13 pregnancies (that made it to the end of the first trimester, there were more that didn’t). The longest any of them survived was 8 months. He didn’t get to hold a single one, and the last time he actually saw any of them, they were still just a bump. “Hell on earth” is an understatement.
Towards the end of it, his face was infected and he was so sick and malnourished and stressed that his body didn’t have the strength to ovulate. The last 18 months had no pregnancies. His master was not happy. He actually came to kill Etho, and that’s when Etho realized it was life or death. The next real memory he has is waking up in the hospital. He’d killed his master. He doesn’t remember it.
Etho is now roughly 35 in this story. The currently unnamed fox hybrid teen is 15. Lucy (the little kit born at the end of this one) is his 3rd kit. He’s not one of Etho’s kits, they know that. But Etho has basically gone “mine.” He would be the same age as one of the younger kits Etho had. And he needs a parent. (You’ll see more of the new kids in future works).
Etho doesn’t know if he can have another kit or if there was irreversible damage done to him, and he doesn’t care. It’s not happening. He’ll hold his adoptive kit and grandkit close, and that’ll be more than enough.
(He starts baby blankets on the birthdays of his lost kits. The year Lucy’s born, there’s one less baby blanket dropped off at the shelter).
Also, as someone who crochets, I have no idea how Etho gets that much done in a year. I am suspending my own disbelief here.
Future works in the brain cooker:
Etho mistakes Pearl for Pause in the hospital (oneshot)
Etho and the NHO adjust to epilepsy (5+1)
New kids introductions AKA what has Xisuma gotten himself into (1 chapter per kid)
One of the new teens adjusts to having accommodations for their disability that they didn’t know was a disability (5+1)
There’s more vague ideas, but they’ll get more fleshed out as the works continue. Also, disclaimer: I am a college student in Organic Chemistry II and lab. New works have no update schedule. Works will be finished before a first chapter is posted, and chaptered fics will have one chapter posted every day if they’re not posted all at once. It may be months between works. This does not mean this series is abandoned. It means Orgo is kicking my butt.
Once again, I’m glad you enjoyed, and I hope you continue to enjoy future works!
I am really glad you enjoyed. I will say that rereading the interaction between Beef and Cleo after writing Elytrian Wings All Look the Same gives it context that it desperately needed.
Additionally, no one really catches the fact that Doc refuses to be in the room with an injured or unconscious Etho until he has to because of the traffickers. And he was still hesitating. He’s stoic and a rock (in his mind) and if he’s near Etho, he’s gonna break. So he won’t go into the room or go further than the third floor lobby when Bdubs visits (his instincts won’t let Bdubs off server alone, not now). He is having a hard time.
Elytrian Wings All Look The Same
Opening Note
I also want to say: for anyone not familiar with the series, this one is right in the middle of the last fic, called Sweetberries. Etho’s been hurt bad and he’s in a hub hospital. He needs a lot of surgeries and he has lasting medical complications, but he turns out okay. This is before he goes back to Hermitcraft, but after the 3rd chapter of that fic.
Closing Note
A wisp is a baby phantom/elytrian. The difference between an elytrian and an avian is elytrians are phantom hybrids and avians are bird hybrids. There’s also insect hybrids with wings, but they’re named after the specific insect rather than have a general group name.
I’m sorry but also I’m not. Hospitals and especially ICUs are weird liminal spaces where you share about losing your best friend and the worst part of your life and then hysterically laugh 30 seconds later at your friend getting stuck under a sleeping Etho. It’s how it works.
All of the Hermits are connected. Pearl and Gem are part of Soup Group, which means they’re flock/herd, and Gem and Etho spar weekly, and they’re herd/skulk, which means Pearl and Etho are distant skulk/flock by association. Additionally, you could go Etho to Doc to Grian to Pearl, because in this AU, Doc and Grian are flock/thicket, and their antagonism towards each other is just how they show they care. So they’re closer than Pearl thinks they are lol.
Finally, Etho wakes up confused but feeling safe, and Pearl hugs him real tight and says she’s sorry about Pause, and then they never bring it up again. But if Pearl and Etho seem to be closer after this, no one’s gonna mention it. (Pearl starts getting invites to NHO movie nights. Girl’s nights + sleeping Xisuma turn into girl’s nights + Etho and sleeping Xisuma. Pearl starts reffing Gem and Etho sparring sessions. And there’s an entire new folder of Pearl and Etho blackmail with them curled up in one nest or another, dead to the world).
Comments
Hi I'm dead. This killed me. Absolutely brutal.
I'm losing my entire mind about the depth of lore in this??? The feral hybrid virus?? Jesus that puts a lot in perspective for this series.
Also, this reads so true for me. Just that weird liminal space where someone gets in on your tragic backstory. The tone is So Right for me.
I'm so emo about hospital era Beef and Etho. They are so good and they hurt and I could read about them for hours.
I love the dark stuff. I really like how you things that are intense and important in addition to being sad. I love when there is hope in tragedy and you get that so right for me!! Anyways, feel free to break my heart whenever you like
Thank you! I’m so glad you enjoyed!
Yeah, I wanted something that really went with what the already-established negative false stereotypes. And what screams “violent, can’t control themselves, destroys everything in their path” like rabies?
Also, this is written in 3rd person but from Pearl’s POV, and Pearl gets something wrong (on purpose, because she wasn’t there and therefore doesn’t know). It’s not just a hybrid virus. It can and will pass on to totally human Players. However, hybrids stick close to other hybrids, and humans and hybrids don’t mingle often, especially in this time period. They don’t realize it passes to humans until much later (from when Pause dies), and that’s when a lot of the research is done on it. (Serious parallels to HIV/AIDS? What? Me? Never… /j).
Pause is not the first one to die. But Mindcrack being shut down is one of the first major dissemination events of the virus. Mindcrack members ended up in all sorts of places. Before Mindcrack is shut down, FHV is something associated with risky code and unsafe maps. Mindcrack gets shut down, and all of a sudden FHV is everywhere. At least, everywhere hybrids are.
On a completely different note, hospitals are so weird. I remember when my cousins had a baby, and my cousin (the new dad) and I roamed the halls talking about ancient Sparta. It was one of the more surreal experiences of my life. Still feels a bit like a dream.
I LOVE that it's a Hiv/aids parallel. There's so much cool depth and complexity with that history and it's super interesting to talk about. THEN you add in the fact this is a much worse world to be a hybrid in than being gay is on ours... oof. Like the system of hybrid trafficking gets even wilder with this in mind. I have been thinking about it nonstop since you wrote this tbh.
Anyways, I just really adore this series
I could talk forever about queer history, don’t get me started, I will never stop.
Ah yes, the thing that happens when you’re a writer, when the audience makes parallels you forgot about. Smile and nod and furiously scribble that down. (I didn’t even think about the implications of this virus on the trafficking system! This explains why muzzles and restraints are so common! I’ve been trying to work that one out!)
I’m so glad you enjoy! I always get a little nervous before posting the really dark shit, because it is different from the hurt/comfort of the first works. I’m so glad people still enjoy.
Yeah no lol. When he’s out, you’re waiting, and it’s awful. Waiting for someone to wake up or die or just… for something to happen and free you from the hell that is hospital waiting, is awful.
But when something does change, then you have to deal with that. You’ve been waiting and hoping and you now have an image in your head of everything being fine and okay, and it’s not gonna be fine and okay. It’s not going to go back to the way it was. And all that waiting and not knowing doesn’t help you with that. You very quickly have to come to terms with your new normal.
Idk, I’ve had a lot of hospital waiting rooms and watching relative’s heart monitors. Or having to go through a day like everything’s fine while waiting to get a call about how a surgery went. It doesn’t get easier if you compare the first and the fifth and the fiftieth.
That’s why there’s a lot of details in this. Beef getting beat at cards, and awkward small talk with people you haven’t seen in a decade. Keralis and Xisuma playing cards on the floor. That weird time after the hospital closes to most visitors. Getting fast food from people because you need to eat and you can’t leave. I tried to nail the very specific feel of hospital waiting, and then tried to nail the very specific feel of everything changing so quickly that you can’t keep up.
It’s Alright, It’s Okay, You’re Not a Monster (You Just Made a Mistake)
Comments
silly little question, did you have a story in mind as to what happened for joe to end up on death row?
You ever see the 1999 movie “The Green Mile”? Or the 2019 movie “Just Mercy”?
All of my thoughts about death row, real or fanfic, goes back to those two movies.
(Joe was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit because he was very clearly not fully human [he’s not human at all, he’s a Herobrine] and it was a “my word against yours” situation. The guy that actually committed the crime was fully human. There’s a comment… somewhere? About it, so I’m not gonna say more so I don’t contradict myself, and I’m gonna make yet another mental note to update the comment lore dump).
You have no idea how much paperwork X goes through in a week, and those stupid “server protection pardons” have SO MANY PAGES, KERALIS, SERIOUSLY!