I actually played a mute language master who was an interpreting dancer. It's a fun gimmick for like three sessions.

My favorite one-shot was a ranger that was "Stephanos Eoforwine", literally just Steve Irwin. I found a complicated combination of spells that would enable him to have what was essentially a video camera, so he was producing nature documentaries in the wilds of the Forgotten Realms. He was a ranger and had all his stats poured into animal handling. The guy had a +20 animal handling. Half of that bonus came from a homebrew magic item "the shorts of the crocodile hunter." His animal handling skills were so high, that they were downright reality-warping. During our one-shot as part of a larger campaign, the party met Stephanos. And he was out in the woods looking for some wonderfully ridiculous legendary creature known as the "tree elk." Literally a species of full-sized elk that live on the boughs of trees. I said in character that's what I was searching for, as a joke. The DM had me roll for it. And I rolled a nat 20. Combined with his bonus, he rolled a 40 on an animal handling check to look for tree elk. And by god, he found them. Whether they existed before that moment or not is anyone's guess. But from then on in the campaign we would occasionally see an elk bounding through the treetops. His animal handling skills were so high that with a high enough roll, he could conjure entire species into being!

ok but now i wanna know what the joke was

We played a character that had had their tongue cut out, so we used actual sign language and then explained it OOC.

I wouldn't. Like, half of the people I know say that about me. They're wrong, and that's okay. I just talk when I got something to say

Use of the word path in OP, dear.

I just the idea of people noticing I'm doing something different than before, anti character growth on a personal level

Understandable and relatable. You're allowed to notice a change, but please keep it to yourself. Or relay it to others behind my back, that's honestly better. If it's not harmful, then it needn't be discussed.

Are you walking the path, or just finding it?

Nah. I'm pretty sure the hardest line in the trilogy was >Whoa.

The hardest line of the matrix is when they say "so I will be able to move faster than bullets?" and the other guy responds "nah that won't be necessary"

"He's beginning to make-believe."