The Hermitcraft Plays

20: Costumes

A huge chest monster greeted the hermits as they arrived at the stage the next day. Scar, Grian and Stress were there, finalising costume pieces, setting up places to get changed. A few hermits went to snoop in the various shulkers but were shooed away by Grian insisting the costumes would be a fun surprise when they were all put on. Stress had also provided makeup and facepaint for certain roles, and soon the great costume reveal of Hermitcraft begun. 

Each hermit was given a shulker of stuff, including Grian who showed up in a Christmas jumper with a box consisting of what seemed to just be Christmas decorations. Stress had made herself a costume-designer script, and started the hermit-costume-fashion-show. 

'Right, first on the list is Ren and Pearl. Scar excitedly handed them their boxes, and they went into their changing rooms. Not long later they emerged in similar Christmas jumpers - Both red and Ren's with a light-up reindeer that played Rudolf the red nosed reindeer when you pressed the nose. Then came the rest of the main protagonists, Bellsknight gaining some tinsel, green red and white striped Christmassy under armour and a lot of mini Christmas bells over his outfit and the Three Dumb Men dressed in resplendent robes (Tango red, Impulse yellow and Zed pink) with a lot of glitter, tinsel, and rather ostentatious crowns.

Doc and Cleo's outfits mainly remained the same, but made cooler, with Doc gaining some bright blue contacts and bright blue lightning face paint around his eyes. Then Bdubs was given pointed elf ears and shoes, and a hint of blue paint on his face and hands, and Stress a full-scale Elsa costume, with sparkly blue everything. 

'Next up... Cub and Scar.' The two exchanged excited smirks, before entering the changing areas with their shulkers... Scar replaced his normal clothes with torn black robes, quickly magicking himself a vexish appearance with wings, sharp claws and glowing blue eyes before Stress sat him down and started work on the face paint. What seemed like ages and a lot of times scolded for moving later, he was declared finished, and Stress went to work on Cub's facepaint. Even longer passed, before the two were allowed out to see each other. 

Neither walked out of the rooms. They strode like the gods they were supposed to be with huge vexish grins. Their outfits were opposite colours - Cub white and Scar's black, decorated with vex magic crystals. Blue paint spread like crystals across their faces, with glitter everywhere. 

'Wow...'

'Oh my goodness, this is- this is absolutely incredible.' Even Grian was left speechless. 'You two are- you look...'

'Cub- Cub- look at us... we're GODS!'

'Bow before us, mere mortals!' Cub built up a platform of diamond blocks, but then Grian started shooting at him, yelling 'Cute guy!' until he fell. 'Right, next person is Etho...'

'Tree!' 

The big-brained hermit snatched his shulker, disappearing into the changing room to dress into his monstrosity of a Christmas tree costume, in which only his eyes were visible. He tried to do a little spin, but ended up dangerously close to falling over and ending up unable to stand again - since his arms were fully constrained too.

'TREE!' He was miraculously able to walk, waddling over to the others. 'Tree!' 

'Treesistance...' Jevin whispered back. Joe looked inches away from slapping him.

'And... who's next...? Ah! The toys!' The collection of hermits playing toys approached, and each was given their own costume based on questions and character building asked previously. It didn't take long for Buzz-suma Lightyear, Fernandez the Robot, Mumbo the Toy Story Alien, Jevin the Stretchy Man ('IF ANYONE TAKES THAT LITERALLY-'), False the Reverse Barbie, Gem the Deer Plushy and the official IskallMAN action figure all to arrive, with few actually changing their costume and the others looking completely different. Grian pleaded for Xisuma to mention Jimmy being Woody, to a laugh and an 'I'll think about it'. 

Then it was the villagers, where False, Iskall and Gem had to change into their costumes while Hypno and Beef got into theirs, which hadn't changed massively from their normal outfits. Throughout the entire time, Grian had been progressively adding more and more pieces to his own costume, repeatedly denying Cub and Scar's pleas for him to put on Christmassy makeup until everyone else got involved and he trudged unwillingly to the stage. Not long later he returned with eye shadow and reddened cheeks he admitted didn't look too bad. Joe turned to face the transformed cast, giving an approving nod. Ren activated the nose of his Christmas jumper again with an amused laugh, as he had been doing near-constantly the entire time. 

'Right, now everyone's in costume, I'd like us all to stay in it for our full play rehearsal starting tomorrow.'

'WhAT?!' Grian burst out. 'We can barely manage 2 scenes a day!'

'Then everyone needs to be really quick with prompts and lines. Mumbo, Iskall, you two are our backstage crew.'

'If you can't remember your lines, improvise.' Grian added, with a pointed glance at Scar, who's costume was still one of the best, though lessened by him and Cub deciding against keeping the chaotic semi-murderous urges that came with their magicked cosmetics. The Christmas Vex grinned back.

'Exactly. Don't worry about incorrect lines.'

'We don't...' Tango smirked, knowing as well as everyone else he hadn't looked at his script since right near the start. 'Any line is the right line if said with enough confidence.'

'What's more important is character development.' Added Joe. 'The play still needs to be interesting, and monotone lines aren't interesting... if you don't know how, just look at how Ren, Pearl, Cub, Wels...' A sigh. 'Even Scar and the Three Dumb Men are great at characterisation.'

'What is characterisation?' Zedaph replied with a smirk

'Can we just take a moment to acknowledge how Cub's character gives me the creeps whenever he's onstage. It's just...' Grian shuddered, and Cub laughed semi-evilly. 

'Yeah... I just think about causing chaos and the Convex pranks and that seems to work.'

'Exactly... anything like that to improve your acting skills. And confidence is the other most important thing. Be prepared to act stupid. We're hermits! We're supposed to act stupid. So, keep your costumes on, and come back tomorrow morning ready to run through the whole play!'