Chapter Text
As of 8/7/2023 (The American way, August 7)
It’s Alright, It’s Okay, You’re Not a Monster (You Just Made a Mistake)
Original Chapter 1 End Note (Now End of Fic Note)
No one knows what Doc was doing/what really happened to him during the two weeks he was missing. Doc doesn't remember.
Chapter 1, Comments
[Keralis is] very protective of his friends. Xisuma’s griping that “there’s paperwork” is a conversation they’ve had just… so many times.
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[Keralis and Xisuma] have known each other for longer than your great-grandparents have been alive. They have teasing each other down to a science lol.
Also, X takes paperwork very seriously, because a lapse in paperwork could result in his sanctuary license being revoked, which he worries about a lot (as mentioned further in the third work of the criminally hybrid AU, “And I’ll Be There To Catch You”).
Chapter 2 End Note
Sheep and dog body temperatures are higher than humans, which is why Etho mentioned Zed and Ren.
Chapter 2, Comments
You’ll notice that Xisuma waits for a nod before touching Keralis, whereas with other Hermits, he’ll reach slowly for them, but touch them if they don’t show signs of not wanting him to. He only explicitly asks or waits if it seems like they’re not in a place to notice him reaching. This is “have known each other forever” things, it’s implied consent.
With Keralis however, X has learned the hard way that, if Keralis is experiencing a lot of emotion (especially anger or fear), that he kinda loses control a little bit. And if you touch him while he’s in that state, you will respawn. But first you’ll find out what it’s like to have your code torn into such tiny pieces that you won’t even be able to recognize the letters or numbers. (Keralis was horrified and very apologetic, Xisuma laughed his butt off after he got his bearings again. Who knew that patting your friend on the shoulder after he got a high score in a mini game would end up like that?)
So, X waits for a nod now, and everyone else instinctively avoids touching him when he’s at “rip apart your atoms” level of emotion. Feels kinda like how the old TVs felt, where they raise the hair on your arms and… feel high-pitched? That might be an autism only thing, sorry if it is. Anyway, X is just basically immune to whatever is going on with the eldritch creatures he’s gathered together, which means he doesn’t have those instincts, and has been the only one to actually discover what happens when you touch an emotional Keralis.
Also, Keralis’ visual effects are stolen from Lixian’s editing for Markiplier. “As long as it works, that’s what matters.” I would add “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
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The chat log said “Xisuma spontaneously combusted” and Ren, when asking about how “did you not feel the static? Or get the goosebumps?!” Was informed that Xisuma always has goosebumps because he’s always cold (Overworld’s hot compared to the Deep End, his suit regulates but he’d rather be absolutely chilled rather than the slightest bit hot, so it’s calibrated for when he’s building or otherwise exerting himself and he’s just kinda used to goosebumps, he can turn it up if he wants), and Keralis went “what static?!”
And that was how they learned that Keralis didn’t actually know about the static-y, high-pitched feeling he puts off. He also didn’t realize that he went all “tear everything apart” mode, because everyone’s just heeded the signs and not worried about it, and it was never for long enough that it got strange that he didn’t get hugs. If he’s initiating, he subconsciously “pulls back” so he doesn’t hurt people.
[Please note, this interaction was later retconned when I actually started writing this scene, because it didn’t fit; however, parts of this are still applicable, they’re just not explicitly stated in the fanfic. It may be un-retconned by the time the fanfic is published, probably later this week. It’s still up in the air. -8/7/2023 (Still American, August 7)]
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[The torturers of Doc] are gone gone. Wiped off the map in an instant and no one can figure it out gone. Although for those who hurt Doc, it was a very, very long instant lol
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I will say that there are (in this universe) a lot of sanctuary servers, and, although they’re all safe, Hermitcraft is the most secure. It’s meant for those who have the “worst” records, those who the world has given up on, essentially. It’s a place of second chances for those the world has deemed irredeemable.
Other sanctuary servers exist, but none are as equipped as Hermitcraft. X does a lot of paperwork and attends a lot of workshops and trainings to keep it that way. He even has the qualifications to have up to 1 child refugee for every 3 unrelated adult refugees on the server (which is the maximum). He keeps this up to date despite the fact that Hermitcraft hasn’t needed it since Mumbo was a teen.
He fights for his Hermits. Only Keralis and X know about the sheer number of legal and physical battles X has gotten in to keep his Hermits safe. He always wins. According to him, he has no other option.
Etho’s 5+1 Phantom Pain
[Note and shameless self-promo: This is my least interacted-with fanfic (including Magic, which personally is one of the worst fics I’ve ever written because it really doesn’t make sense. It’s not in the Criminally Hybrid AU, dw if you missed it) and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. Go read it! I promise it’s as good as the rest of this series!]
End Note
Skulk is the English term for a group of foxes. I Googled it. A leash is three foxes, and an earth is a mother (vixen) with her kits/cubs/pups/whelps/babies. All five of those terms are used to describe baby foxes, and they're all right. Also, foxes smile when stressed/scared.
I know too much about North American animals, so a fic with a bunch of instinct in it was inevitable. Where I'm from, there's more cattle than people, so making Beef a bull hybrid wasn't even a conscious decision. Almost changed him to a bison hybrid though.
Go to any height comparison website, and make Beef 7'4, Doc 7'0, Etho 5'6, and Bdubs 5'4. If you want to throw X in there at 8'0, go ahead. Now you understand why a lot of the movement is the way it is. When Beef sits on the ground, his head legit comes up to Etho's armpit, and that's just one example. It was really fun to figure out a lot of the movement for this fic, because two of the characters are inhumanly tall, and the other two are pretty freaking short.
Also, it's only referenced here, but I'll give you the worldbuilding for Mindcrack in this AU. Mindcrack was a sanctuary server, but there was an accident that resulted in a member's permadeath (Pause), and it got the server shut down. The NHO fled to Hermitcraft together, and other members did their best to find sanctuary elsewhere (with Xisuma and Keralis's help, but only X and Keralis know about that). That's why Pause's funeral and Doc's application for asylum were referenced in It's Alright, It's Okay, You're Not a Monster (You Just Made a Mistake), and why Etho stumbles over Pause's name and Mindcrack's name in this fic, before just finally telling Beef "well, you know."
Comments
[Don’t crucify me for this one lol]
…I am going to confess something I probably shouldn’t, which is that I have never seen a single Pause video and have really only seen Beef a couple times in other Hermit’s videos.
My writing is because I enjoy the fanon versions of HC so much, that I’m creating fanfics for the fanon, rather than the canon. So take anything you’ve ever learned in a video from any of the CCs, and throw it out the window, because I’m going based on my understanding of a lot of situations that I learned through the fanfics. If that makes sense?
So Pause being dead in this AU is because I saw a couple fics of people having him be dead, and checked his YouTube (because yikes), and realized that he was alive, but he hadn’t posted in at least a year, and most of his videos were well over 3 years old. And I went “well, I guess if you stop playing Minecraft, your character could be seen as permadead?” And didn’t touch that detail.
And I’ll Be There to Catch You
[Formerly This is Why We Sleep]
Chapter 1, End Note [I actually fixed this one from being an end of fic note to being an end of chapter note when I posted the second chapter lol]
Also, voidwalker lore: They're shape-shifters, but mostly just into how they see themselves mentally. X can be whatever he wants if he concentrates hard enough, but Doom Guy is his default when his concentration slips, and when he regresses, he physically gets smaller. Also, baby voidwalkers are nebulae (sing. nebula). Overworld Players can breathe in the End and Overworld, meaning that there cannot be that much of a difference in air. Voidwalkers belong to the End and the Deep Void (below bedrock), which means that X can breathe in both of those places just fine, but can't breathe super great in the Overworld (he can, but it does not feel nice), and can't breathe at all in the Nether (ash particulates are hard for anyone to breathe, to be fair). Therefore... y'know.
Also! Because I forgot! Förskola is Swedish for preschool, because I really needed a word to mean “all of the people Keralis has a magic eye on constantly” and decided it was good enough.
Chapter 1, Comments
[Responding to a comment about the word I picked for all the people Keralis has a magical eye on]
I was trying to find a word that meant charge/ward (as in a small human you are tasked to watch), but there weren’t good translations, and I found preschool on one page and rolled with it.
Also, to be fair, Keralis is thousands of years old.
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[This goes on a tangent at first, I promise the whole thing is relevant]
I honestly think of writing as weaving, taking all the ends of a story and weaving them together cohesively. You have your main body first, and then you weave in the ends, and everything builds off of what you already have down, just like a blanket.
Bigger stories are like stuffed animals or other multiple piece projects, needing multiple separate pieces that you then have to cobble together in a way that makes sense, and you have to understand your narrative inside and out, just like how you have to understand exactly how all your pieces fit together in 3D space when creating a stuffed animal. Otherwise, you’ll end up with plot holes or inconsistencies. (Leave it to the crocheter to make textile metaphors).
It’s a balancing act. I’ve spent well over a decade learning, crashing and burning in my first writings, getting back up and trying again. That’s how you get good, you practice. It’s a lot less innate skill than most people think.
I thought about this as I was writing (weaving) this story, especially with X re-writing code. I chose the words there carefully, because this version of X would feel similar about his code and the code of the server.
Everything in his world is made of code, and he can directly influence the world with a string of numbers and letters on a screen, so it has to be a very similar balancing act, which is why he’s so reluctant to leave it to any of his (multiple) secondary admins. (We’ll see more of this in the next chapter or two). [We already did]
Also, X is the closest in physical age to Keralis. He’s closer to the age of the rest of the Hermits (Joe is an outlier and should not be counted, he’s not much younger than X) than Keralis, but that’s really not saying much.
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Really only Keralis knows what he is, and it doesn’t translate into any sort of language I can type. “Eldritch abomination” and “oh fuck shit RUN” are our words for it. There are other beings like him out there (he’s had kids before, his youngest is centuries older than X, who has also been around a long time), but they’re pretty damn rare. Their lifespans are potentially indefinite, they don’t run into each other often enough to create a whole bunch more of them (one baby is a full time job for both parents. Imagine if your toddler could teleport and tear apart the very framework of the universe), and they’re decently good at blending in.
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[Keralis’ kind] take roughly a hundred years to mature. The parents find or create an uninhabited world tens of millions of blocks out from the nearest world, and it’ll end up destroyed several times in years 10-50. To be fair, they also have the same powers, and there’s a reason Keralis calls the “keep an eye on you” thing a preschool. It’s basically Baby Monitor Protocol.
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It’s relative. Keralis has been alive for millennia. A hundred years is not long in the face of millennia.
It is funny tho, because Keralis and X met when X was 35. Voidwalkers age a little bit differently, they hit the human 25 fully mature mark when they’re about 50, but they go off on their own (human age 18ish) when they’re 30-35. So Keralis meets this fairly young dude, but he’s not thinking that much of it, and then he learns his new friend is thirty-five. He has no reference for how anyone else ages, so he makes the rational leap and goes “this CHILD is ALL BY HIMSELF” and sticks a baby monitor to him. He figures it out eventually, but X got used to having his own personal attack Keralis, and they stick together after that point.
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Oh, additionally, Keralis species and voidwalkers histroically have had a symbiotic relationship. So X’s twin (Evil X, or his real name Zatiuga Xisuma Void, yes their first and middle names are switched, it’s a voidwalker custom with twins) senses the baby monitor and goes “ah yes. One of those things.” And doesn’t question it.
Keralis takes the opportunity to slap one on Zatiuga, as well, (he and his kids could split themselves, maybe voidwalkers can too? Why are there two of him with completely different consciousness signatures?!) who still does not know.
Additionally, the first time X regresses (abusive former caretaker, his twin literally being labeled “the evil version of this kid,” the fact that I’ve mentioned him meeting his twin and not his parents? This man is TRAUMATIZED and you can guess who), Keralis just goes “ah, I see, you are finally your correct age. I will take care of you, don’t worry” and then panics when he gets big again. “HOW HAVE I MESSED UP THE CHILD?!” (They talk and Keralis learns many things about how quickly others age).
Shortly after that, X’s control over his magic shielding slips, and he PANICS. Voidwalkers can’t hold their shielding forever, they’re a pack species, and him being all alone is not conducive to that. He’s vulnerable and scared, please, just don’t hurt him…
Keralis catches him, extends his shielding the same way he’s done millions of times for his kids, and just holds him, like it’s the most casual thing in the world, and X learns that vulnerability does not always mean pain.
Chapter 2, Comments
X just kinda… finds himself mysteriously busy whenever Gem wants to do a POWERED fight, as she put it. He knows he could really hurt her, and roughly 95% of his powers are passive. Those that aren’t require immense amounts of concentration and generally cause him to pass out for a long time. Technically, she has had a powered fight with him, except she wasn’t using hers, and he wasn’t using the big ones, but all his magical shielding was in place. (Also, he’s a little scared of getting his ass handed to him. The reason he’s good in a fight is the training he’s done. All his innate abilities are really designed to be used as prevention; they can’t kill you if they can’t find you.)
[Also I am awful at fight scenes]
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To be fair to [Xisuma], Joe and TFC, being Herobrines (which is a species), also put off a similar kinda static, and he’s touched them before. (He doesn’t know that any other being would have been torn apart fairly similarly to how he was with Keralis. Being a voidwalker means he’s immune to Herobrines).
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Everyone on Hermitcraft is something, hybrid being the most tame of them, and the spectrum goes all the way to “literal gods” (Grian, Joe, TFC). Keralis is his own category.
Funnily enough, Wels is just Some Guy. He’s a warrior, universe reknowned, on the same level as Philza or Techno (well, he was a long time ago, most people nowadays don’t remember), and everyone assumes he’s also Not Quite Human, but in reality his helmet is enchanted with anti-aging stuff. He got it in a war. He’s fully human. His crime was murder, because he’s just one man, no matter how good he is, and he was on the losing side. He retired to Hermitcraft when he was rescued from prison.
Chapter 3, Comments
Please do not scream at the baby X, he is very small and very sensitive /lh. (Also Keralis might evaporate you, who knows).
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(Future plans: next full length fic, Etho medical trauma based on the song the 30th. Between then and now: Keralis eviserates X for the first time on accident). [This is still the current plan]
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[In response to being asked who was X’s former abusive caretaker]
Xisuma’s twin brother is known as the evil version of him. The man regresses down to a very young child. He panics (or it’s implied he used to) when his magical shielding is dropped, something he should not have to hold all the time, because voidwalkers are pack creatures like humans. He should, for all intents and purposes, be more than willing to let others catch him, and the fact that he doesn’t implies that whoever was supposed to never did.
(His parents. It’s his parents).