#tedw asks

AND NOW WE GET STARTED! Where do I even start... Well, I did mention Hels and his several designs so I suppose that's as good a place as any!! Might go.. Hels, Ex, NPG, WM? (Actually I'll just keep it to Hels and Evil X for now! This has taken so long and that way I'll at least get it out there LMAO)

(mid-ramble backtrack: a small bit of context I've realized I forgot! Hels does exist seperately from Wels! He has his own body, just like the other Helsmits! (Also my take on Evil X is not technically a Helsmit OR a Hermitclone, he's X's brother! But the Helsmits welcome Ex in anyway. He fits in well enough!) I think the best explanation I have right about now is that its.. a parallel server/universe of sorts? It's not quite right, but it's the best I've got.

And! (For a currently undecided reason, this is all very WIP) The Helsmits cannot travel over into Hermitcraft, which is why Hels needed the Wels clone to appear on HC the first place! Using the clone as a vessel allows Hels to jump between Hermitcraft (the vessel's "home world") and The Hels (his own home world), giving him an advantage over most of the others. Even if it comes with a cost he.. really should've seen coming.)

That feels like as good a transition as any! Why don't we continue on to:

HELSKNIGHT

(little thing! He/her Hels rubbed off on me a lot so 😔 mostly he/him with a touch of she/her Helsknight!!)

As much as I love human Wels, I'm an absolute sucker for turning him and Hels into dragons. (I had a fantasy au I made with friends on Doomcraft where I did just that!) Though I also was fighting manticore, it was fun.. and then I had a thought!

"Why don't I keep Hels more like your typical scaley, fire breathing european dragon, even give him a sharp spade on his tail, and play around with Wels' design? Give him some lion influence? I think that fits!"

So we have scaled, scrappy Hels, and furred, almost regal(?) Wels!

Only. If you're inhabiting a clone, even a clone of a sort of.. alternate you; you don't entirely look like yourself anymore. Do you?

(his horns aren't out because I like the idea that they can "recede"! Makes it easier to put on a helmet if your horns aren't in the way! (...also I had no idea how his horns looked at the time...) )

Yes. Hels CAN jump between Hermitcraft and The Hels freely now. Something next to none (we'll talk about this later) of her peers can do, but she's lost her scales. Her horns. Sure, he can always stop using the vessel, but what are the odds of him ever getting his hands on something like this again? He can't risk that. So he finds ways to cope. To feel more like himself again and less like Wels. He coats his fur in charcoal, a color far closer to his deep gunmetal scales than this pure fur. The smell reminds him of his burning hair when this body doesn't allow for that. While the soft fur is wrong compared to his sharp scales, he'll deal with it. If it gives her this advantage she'll almost certainly never get again? He'll deal with it.

(I realized after doing all of this that my Hels is incredibly trans coded, complete with (albeit non-gender related) body dysphoria. My poor baby..)

At the end of the day, Ex helps her out a LOT with this. I'll get into that more in their section!!

Speaking of which! Why don't we move on to:

EVIL XISUMA

My boy!! I try to use they/them for Ex, but it's ended up more they/them with a bit of he/him

So! Evil X is NOT a Hels variant of Xisuma! Ex and X are twins! Ex is the younger of the two, and their time in the void (banned) has certainly done a number on them, so they behave younger than they actually are. It's hard to learn/remember how to act around others when you're isolated for so long, huh?

Evil X (Who from here on will be referred to as Ex or Exiona! I can't remember where I first saw that name for Ex, but it stuck with me and I LOVE it. I wish I could give proper credit acK) and Xisuma used to be identical twins! Well, technically they still are but they certainly don't look identical.

However! I'll get into that in a moment! Let's first start earlier on!! Exiona and Xisuma are Voidwalkers! Typical headcanon/fanon stuff, right? From The End in some way or another, having a natural affinity for dealing with code and/or becoming admins, need their helmets to filter the air, so on and so forth.

Xisuma was great with code, fantastic even! He went on to become the admin of Hermitcraft eventually and takes care of his players and ensuring everyone world hops safely and everything! Xisuma is very good with code.

Exiona on the other hand, yes, he's good with code, but nowhere near as good as their brother. Where Ex REALLY excels is glitches. For better or worse, Ex is fantastic when it comes to working with glitches in the code. Using them, exploiting them, creating them. Though them simply being around has an unfortunate habit of making some bits of code unstable, especially early on. I can imagine it tearing a bit of a rift between the Voidwalker twins. Maybe they were young, shouting things they didn't mean. But who knows, I'm not really sure how their younger years went just yet!

At some point, Jeff the Minion got into Ex's head. And perhaps The Dreamer in another! (Evil's Fault my beloved.) And Exiona started going after Hermitcraft proper. Maybe originally it was an attempt to get attention from his older brother, someone he looked up to. A jealous act that went too far and kept going thanks to a certain Nightmare.

When Xisuma bans Ex, he's under the assumption that they'll be sent to the Hub! Or perhaps even a private world? X has absolutely NO idea that Exiona is being sent to The Void. If he knew, he never would've banned them. But it's too late for that now, and he has no idea.

Ex and Xisuma used to be identical. But Ex's time in the more suffocating parts of The Void took it's toll on him. Their once dark brown hair has started to grow in grey from the stress on their body, (leaving them with salt and pepper-y hair! They bleach/dye it all to be the same light color.) all the time floating in the void has left him weak, he is nowhere near as strong as he used to be, and they're quite frail, in fact.

Ex and Xisuma have a sort of exoskeleton mobility aid for their legs! The End has lower gravity than The Overworld, so it was a difficult adjustment at first. They had them made to help them slowly get used to the overworld's stronger gravity. Xisuma no longer needs his, but Ex practically relies on theirs thanks to The Void. Ex's black visor plays another role aside from being a style choice. Light. Light and color would be so overwhelming after floating in Nothing for so long. The darkened visor could not only severely limit the amount of light coming in, but it might make all the vibrant colors more manageable as well! It's possible the helmet could also help dull sound, as well. They are very easily overstimulated now, but their helmet helps a LOT.

Now! I mentioned earlier that Ex helps Hels a lot, right? This actually has to do with Ex's ability to control and create glitches! I like the idea that Ex found a way to glitch their own code to create "disguises" of sorts! Basically, they can go into the code and change their skin for lack of better terms! Doing so, however, takes a lot of time and takes a lot out of him. But, if they can do it on themselves.. why not someone else?

But you know what? It's- it's fine I'll get better eventually (I say, you know, like a liar /ref) But once I got past the organic non-organic shapes it was fun to render (Would you call that rendered?) despite my lack of understanding on lighting and whatnot pfft

I actually went to the museum a while before this! :D It feels on brand that the man who fell from the sky just disappears after going *it is time for me to return*.

I will admit that I was paranoid that he somehow got left somewhere else along the way or was in the right time but still in Sinnoh, or maybe in the right place but in the wrong time or whatever. There was no real way to know for sure that he got home, you know? Just that he left.

The implications of the dialogue were very exciting for me because of the final likely confirmation that he really did make it home!! <33