cinnamon--bagel

[cinnamon--bagel]

So, to expand on the Acclimatization AU.

Acclimatization is the process where an organism's body changes when its been moved to a new environment. Humans produce more red blood cells to increase oxygen flow when they climb up mountains, plants and animals can acclimate to new temperature ranges as biomes warm up, and humans dropped into a magically sealed underground kingdom of monsters start developing reality-breaking magical powers!

(.... wait are we sure that last one counts?)

So this AU focuses on the Fallen Humans and the various... side effects that come with being introduced to magic after living on a Surface with almost no magic. Of course, this ends up domino-ing into a timeline where the Fallen Humans live much longer (like our Brave Soul, who's gonna end up living Underground twenty-five years like a champ) and end up changing some things by the time Clover and Frisk fall into the Underground.

The Acclimatization AU will mainly cover the 31 year period when the Seven Human Souls fell into the Underground. It'll focus primarily on life in the Underground, but I'll be including some ideas I have about the Surface too. Expect epic fist fights, political intrigue, several counts of identity fraud, and, of course, lots of goat-parent adoption shenanigans.

(And yes, the Brave Soul and Undyne will be rivals. The majority of fist fights will be between these two. Do not put them in a room together unless you're ready to pay for the collateral damage.)

[cinnamon--bagel]

Do you ever reread a shitty Undertale fanfic you wrote almost a decade ago and accidentally domino into creating a whole new AU. Yeah me too.

Calling this one the Acclimatization AU. It was inspired by two main questions:

1) What if the fallen humans found a way to survive in the Underground?

2) What if Frisk wasn't the only one to develop magical abilities when they fell underground?

EDIT: Hey look, some elaboration.

[cinnamon--bagel]

Ao3 version that lets you open the 'director's cut' where I, the author, explain every detail in excruciating detail to you and what it is in reference to.

[cinnamon--bagel]

You know what. This is gonna be my compilation of times I bring out a whiteboard to figure out what's going on on Four Riders.

Anyway here's a horribly organized timeline of events so far.

So playing a five-player game of Old Maid by yourself is like totally normal writer behavior right?

(Chapter 2 of Four Riders is currently being edited, it should be up in a little bit!)

Edit: ITS UP (☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞

[cinnamon--bagel]

Happy pride month here's a sneak peak for the next chapter of Four Riders.

Dingo slips into the ship’s lab while the rest of the world is asleep. He doesn’t bother turning on the light, he’s visited Yonny enough to get around blindfolded. He keeps his steps quiet, unsure if his disruption could disturb the room’s sole occupant. He unlocks one of the rolling chairs and moves it closer to the cot so he can sit and watch more easily.

Sparrow is completely still, their pale skin partially illuminated by a light near the charging cords plugged into their chest. Dingo shivers, the isolation sinking in and leaving little stings of guilt in his chest. What’s on the cot is not alive, he has to keep reminding himself of that. But being here and seeing the lifeless body with cords and wires embedded in its chest sets off every nerve, making his skin crawl as he faces an unfamiliar uncanniness.

Watching Sparrow sleep is like looking at a corpse with the unnatural smoothness of an undressed doll. 

“Damn it,” he whispers, “even if you aren’t alive, I still feel like a creep.” He plants his head in his hands, a futile escape from the reality of his situation. 

Despite that, he can’t find the strength to uproot himself as he tries to reconcile this empty shell with the lifelike, albeit odd, coworker he’s gotten to know over the past few days.   

 “Ah, have you come to admire them as well?” Dingo straightens, his chair spinning to face Russ just as the scientist turns on the overhead lights. Dingo flinches, nearly blinded like a criminal caught by a searchlight. Russ, blind to the atmosphere as always, makes his way over to Sparrow’s side and tilts their head to one side. He brushes aside their hair and presses down on a spot just behind their ear, revealing a small compartment. He reaches in and presses until a small ‘click’ echoes through the lab. When he pulls his hand away, there’s a small chip grasped between his fingers.

“I’ve been working on some compatibility upgrades for our friend here,” he explains as he plugs the chip into the lab’s computer. “Kee hee, it really is exciting, working with such an advanced AI! Now, if I’m correct, they’ll be able to take in sensory information - sight, sound, and the like - as well as the data obtained from our Survey Drone! They’ll be completely hands free after this, no need for a communication tablet at all!” Russ announces giddily.

“And they’re cool with you just… doing that while they’re asleep?” Dingo’s eyes drift back to the open compartment near Sparrow’s face and his stomach churns.

“Of course, of course! It’s not like I’m changing their operating system, I wouldn’t dare touch that. It’s more like I’m… hmm.” Russ spins to face Dingo, his brows furrowed. “They were able to connect to the SPERO Drone ship, back when it was functional. From what they described, they could transfer data between the drone and their android bodies and even command the drone ship from afar! But since the drone ship was destroyed, I’m trying to patch them into our system instead.”

Dingo blinks. “Like replacing an amputated limb?”

“Precisely!” Russ applauds, already refocused on the computer. “And you’ll have the perfect opportunity to test it when you return to the Sun-Speckled Terrace today!” 

“Right,” Dingo muses. He had nearly forgotten that there were still caves they hadn’t explored in that area, all thoughts of the area washed away by the mysterious crash two days ago. They spent the day after the crash investigating the Blossoming Arcadia, and while they had rescued a castaway in the Drafty Gallery, there was still a lot of ground to cover. 

He stands, sliding the chair toward Russ. “Whatever, just… don’t take too long with those upgrades. The sun’ll be up soon and…” he lets himself glance back at Sparrow’s too-still body one last time, “... we still have to find Bernard and Yonny.”

“Of course! I’ll have this done in no time!” Russ plops into the chair, barely pausing his furious typing. Dingo sighs and turns away, finally mustering the strength to leave the lab and prepare for today’s expedition.

[cinnamon--bagel]

So a few weeks ago I posted this scene for a potential Super Mario Bros fanfic exploring the idea of the brothers getting isekai'd. I have since completely written it so... Here's a complete first chapter!

Just when Pauline thought she had run out of reasons to be mad at her family, her uncle had to die and leave a whole new collection of problems in his will.

“Whoa, ain’t that a little harsh? Show a little respect for the dead, Lina.”

She sighed, squishing her phone against her shoulder so she could shuffle through old tax documents with both hands. “Spike, if you saw this place, you’d be spitting on his name with me.” A heated huff left her mouth as she tossed the papers back on the desk and plopped back into the chair. “Mom and Dad have been begging the court to declare Uncle Elvin dead for years, and then? When it finally happened?”

She leaned back, switching the phone to her other ear while swinging her other arm out dramatically. “They’re all, ‘We’re so sorry, sweetie, but Micheal Rumble’s throwing a party to celebrate winning the Formula 1 Championships and we simply cannot miss it. Could you be a dear and attend Elvin’s will reading for us? And while you’re at it, can you clean up his old house so no one dies of Legionnaires disease at the estate sale next week?’ Sure! Let me just drop my social life and all my schoolwork so I can take care of that!” Pauline leaned back, out of breath, until the chair below her screamed in protest.

“Damn, okay,” Spike marveled, “How long have you been holding that one in?”

“Three days!” She shouted, sitting straight up. “And I’m not even halfway done!”

Something popped loudly in another room. Pauline froze, every instinct screaming at her to get out before the house collapsed.

“Lina? You still there?”

She blinked. Silence sung from every corner of the building. Pauline let out a quiet, shaking breath. “Sorry, I hope I’m not too much right now. This whole thing has been driving me insane, I swear.”

“S’fine. Just, y’know, give me a heads up if this does send you into a mental breakdown so me and Destiny can get out of the blast zone.”

Pauline laughed for what felt like the first time in years. “Sure, I’ll shoot you a text before I start letting monkeys out of the zoo like a Batman villain.” A sigh fell from her mouth as she scooped up the scattered papers on the desk and started feeding them into Uncle Elvin’s poor, overworked, incredibly old paper shredder. “But for real, you’d hate this place. It’s- actually, hang on, I’ll just show you.” She whipped her phone away from her ear, snapping a picture of the room in front of her. Giggling, she sent the picture Spike’s way.

“I don’t like that laughter.” There was a quick buzz from his side of the call. For a moment, everything was quiet.

“Pauline. What the fuck am I looking at?”

Pauline howled, nearly falling out of the chair and into a set of the everpresent pipes around Uncle Elvin’s house.

Pipes. Somehow, in three days, they had become the bane of Pauline’s existence. Before stepping foot into Uncle Elvin’s house, she had been ambivalent toward them. She could appreciate their presence and use in society, especially given how three of her closest friends worked closely with them. She realized now that she appreciated pipes far more when they were invisible behind walls or floors.

Uncle Elvin apparently had not held the same sentiment. In every room of his house, there were pipes. And these pipes were not tasteful steampunk decor, no. These were massive systems of pipes that jutted out of walls and floors, wound together in a web of metal and vanishing to who knew where. In the past three days, she had hit her head on them at least a few dozen times, tripped on a disassembled pipe three times, and once found herself playing the world’s worst game of “untie the knot” when she had fallen into a particularly net-like collection of metal monstrosities.

Worse yet, she was pretty sure she could hear something running through them.

Tracking even one set of pipes to the source had been a nearly day-long endeavor, but even that had provided no answers. All she had found was a room in the basement filled with machines half-rusted from years of abandonment and the largest open pipe she had ever seen jutting out of the wall. She shivered, thinking back on how she had flashed her phone’s light into it, and how the tiny speck of light had been devoured by the coagulated darkness beyond the metal maw. She made sure to keep the basement door locked after that.

“Christ, that’s… that’s not safe at all.” Spike’s voice was uncharacteristically subdued after her explanation. “Lina, you need to call someone to disassemble that mess yesterday.”

“I know, I’ve been meaning to call Mario and Luigi. It’s just-” she lowered her voice to a whisper. “-is it reasonable to ask if they can do it within the week? I don’t want them to ask them to do something impossible and make them feel like they have to do it just because we’re friends, you know?”

“Oh please,” she could practically hear Spike rolling his eyes, “if you hand Mario an impossible task, he’ll laugh and take it as a challenge. And Luigi’s not much better.” He chuckled good naturedly, but it quickly faded into something more forced. “And er, you didn’t hear this from me, but Scapelli and his boys have been real’ busy lately.”

“Scapelli?” Pauline’s hand flew to her mouth. “Shoot, if that’s the case, I’ll call them right now. Thanks for filling me in, Spike.”

“No problem. And hey, if your parents start looking for renovators for that old house, pass my name along, will ya?”

Pauline sent him off with a smile in her voice. “You know I will.” She cut the call, swallowing as she dialed another familiar number and hit “call.”

“This is the Mariani Brothers Plumbing Service, how can we help you today?”

“It’s Pauline. I’ve got kind of a big job, do you two have anything lined up for the next few days?”

------------------------------------------------------

Mario was the first to step inside. His eyes immediately flew to the pipes, following each path carefully as if he was reading a map. He nodded, humming, and the familiar look on his face reminded Pauline how little he’d changed throughout the years.

“Don’t tell me you’ve solved my problems without even saying hello?” Pauline teased.

He rolled his eyes, setting both hands on his hips. “Who was it who asked for a fast job? I’m just getting a head start!”

Pauline smiled. “It’s been too long.”

“C’mon, it’s only been a few weeks.”

“Like I said, too long.”

The two laughed. Pauline opened her arms, inviting him into a short hug.

The door behind Mario shut and a quiet sigh that carried years of exhaustion followed. “It’s like high school all over again.” At the door stood poor Luigi, who seemed to visibly age an extra year as he relieved every embarrassing incident from their youths.

Mario shifted so he one arm around Pauline, extending the other out toward his brother. “There’s plenty of room for you, bro.” Pauline laughed heartily as Luigi gagged dramatically. She separated from her ex and stood up, towering over both of her old friends.

(That had always been the joke in their friend group. “Pauline, who never looks down on anyone because of their lifestyle or background, is cursed to look down on everyone because of their height.” Even Spike, a bruiser who was more than a foot taller than Mario, had to look up to meet her eyes. And that was before she put on heels!)

“I guess you can see why I called you two,” she said as she led them into the house, ducking under pipes and pipes and pipes as they moved from room to room. “My Uncle Elvin-”

“The missing guy?” Mario cut in.

“That’s the one. He put in all these pipes for something. No idea what, since I haven’t found any notes on it.”

“To be honest,” Luigi piped up, “this place is creepy enough without some old man’s written descent into madness.” He paused, blinking, “Er, no offense to your uncle, of course.”

The trio stopped at a locked door. “Oh, if you think this is creepy, just wait until we see the basement.” Smirking, Pauline dug the key out of her pocket and unlocked it. She couldn’t help but gulp as she swung the door open and flipped the lightswitch inside with impressive speed.

There was nothing in the stairwell. Why would there be?

It didn’t help quell her nerves as she led the brothers deeper belowground.

She focused on Mario’s steady steps and ignored Luigi’s audible shuddering as they passed by stacks of boxes, each one likely full of things her uncle had accumulated during his travels around the world. Pauline tried to not think about the eternity of unpacking it would take to sort through it all as they reached her uncle’s makeshift lab.

Luigi whistled. “Are you sure your uncle didn’t get nabbed by the mob?”

“Bro, they wouldn’t have just all his stuff here if he was making drugs for them- hey, there’s a fridge!” Mario darted over the fridge, pulling the door open to reveal its pristine insides. “What the heck, this thing isn’t even cold,” he complained while waving his hand around inside. Luigi and Pauline shared a glance, both snickering at her friend’s shenanigans.

Mario stood, huffing while he slammed the fridge shut. “What kind of missing man leaves an empty fridge…” He looked up and paused. A series of pipes hung from the ceiling like stalactites, connecting to the top of the fridge. “You’re joking.” He turned, pointing, “This is a…. prank,” his eyes widened as he took a second look at the room. He took a slow step forward, eyes darting back and forth as he realized just how many pipes connected to machines in this room.

“Hey, Pauline?” Luigi called shakily. “What… What is this?” Pauline and Mario turned toward Luigi as he started into the mouth of the horrible pipe embedded in the wall. From where he stood, it looked like he could step into it without crouching. Something about the sight of Luigi framed by the circular green rim reminded her of pitcher plants - how their mouths were just the right size for insects to climb in, drawn in by the scent of sweet nectar, and once the pray climbed in they would be unable to escape, completely trapped as they were digested inside the plant’s body.

“I don’t know,” she admitted quietly. “I tried to figure out how deep it is but… you know those LED flashlights? The really bright ones? Even with that, I couldn’t see the end.”

Luigi crept forward and laid one hand on the side of the pipe. Immediately, he jumped back as if he’d been burnt. He shivered as he stared into the darkness, gripping his other hand tight. Mario rushed to his brother’s side, spinning him so neither faced the pipe.

“We’ll have to make sure the machines are powered off first, then see if they’re receiving or delivering something with those pipes,” he said steadily, his eyes never leaving Luigi’s face, “and then we should be able to take them apart, right Luigi?”

Luigi’s face regained some of its color. He mouthed Mario’s words back, nodding slowly. “R-right. We’ll… we’ll need the ladder. I’ll go get it.” Luigi flew out of the room, muttering what seemed to be tools they’d need for the job. It unnerved Pauline, seeing him that nervous. Luigi had sharp instincts. If he was that thrown by the lab, then…

She shook her head. All she could do was clean up the place like her parents asked, and then she’d never have to come back here again. “You should bill my parents’ twice, no, three times your normal rate for making us deal with this crap.”

Mario let out a shaky laugh, “Yeah, I think I will.” He side-eyed the green pipe. “I haven’t seen Luigi that spooked since…” he looked away. “I’d better help Luigi with the ladder.”

“I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” she assured calmly, patting his shoulder. “And, you know, I think there’s a CD player somewhere in this house. A little music may help with the, well, everything.” She swept her arms to both sides, gesturing to the room’s entirety.

A small smile lit up her old friend’s face. “Yeah, that’d be nice. Thanks Pauline.”

Hours flew by as the three worked. She finished the kitchen, piling practically new cooking utensils into “usable” and “trash” piles as Last Day on Earth echoed up from the basement. If she focused long enough, she could hear the brothers singing along with every song. It took her back to easier times like when she, Destiny, and the brothers would sing their voices raw as Spike drove them to who-knows-where for summer vacation; when she and Mario sat together during lunch at school, listening to new U2 albums on her walkman; or late-night study sessions at Destiny’s house where they blasted Milli Vanilli just to stay awake. It wasn’t all her scene, rock belonged to Spike and Mario while she preferred jazz, but that was part of friendship wasn’t it? You gave a little of yourself away and accepted pieces of others.

Times had changed. Life became more difficult. Things got rough between Spike and Mario. But she could still remember the words to every song back then. It wasn’t exactly like it used to be, but she still had her friends. Things changed, and they would keep changing, but that was okay. Everything would be okay.

“PLEASE, SOMEONE! HELP ME!”

Pauline jolted, left with no time to register the unfamiliar voice, when the ground began to shake. The floor below her creaked and she could hear whirring and beeping in the basement below.

There was another scream, this one familiar.

Then, a horrible CRASH.

The world around her shifted. She shifted with it until there was nothing below her but open air.

A POP was the last thing she heard before she opened her eyes and realized that everything she knew had vanished.

An infinite, swirling sea of lights and colors laid before her as her body flew like a shooting star. In the distance she could see another comet - two comets, Mario and Luigi - hurtling through the clouds as they held onto each other for dear life. She reached a hand out, but they were lightyears away.

Could they even see her?

She watched as they fell into a stream of air together and were thrown farther away. Cold tears fell into the void as they flew farther and farther away.

She didn’t want to watch them completely disappear.

And so, Pauline shut her eyes and let herself slip away.

[cinnamon--bagel]

Currently overcoming the colossal tasks of figuring out how to start a Super Mario Bros fanfic and how to write the rest of a Super Mario Bros fanfic. Decided to skip straight to the second task. Why not. Here's a scene, bon appetit.

------

“Excuse me, did you two say you were plumbers?” a soft voice said behind them. Both brothers turned as one to see a young woman peeking over the seat between their booths. “I might have some work for you.”

Mario perked up like a rekindled flame, “Really?” 

The woman slipped out of her booth and into theirs on Luigi’s side. She slid her phone - one of those new, fancy phones with a touchscreen instead of buttons - onto the middle of the table. Luigi squinted, trying to make sense of the picture it displayed.

“I’m, er, gonna be honest,” he said carefully, “I have no idea what I’m looking at here.” He looked to his brother, who nodded in agreement.

It seemed to be a picture of a room filled with pipes. They twisted around each other like vines, some vanishing behind masses of metal dangling in midair. There were windows in the background, so it couldn’t have been a basement like he was expecting. Of course, that opened the question of what kind of maniac was building something like this in their living room, but Luigi didn’t dare voice that thought aloud.

“My uncle went missing a few years ago,” the woman started. The brothers’ eyes widened in surprise, but the woman continued on casually, “We were finally able to declare him dead a few weeks ago, so we’ve been cleaning out his old properties. Apparently he fancied himself some kind of scientist, because he built all-” she gestured to the picture, unhidden disbelief on her face, “- all this in one of his houses.”

“He built that all by himself?” Mario asked, his voice strained with shock. “That looks like it should be a crime.”

“It’s even worse in person,” the woman said. “We need someone to disassemble… that, but no one we’ve called has taken us seriously so far.”

The twins’ eyes met from across the table. 

Luigi raised his eyebrows, looking between the picture and his brother rapidly. ‘You really wanna take on that mess?’ 

Mario let out a silent breath and shrugged. ‘Rent’s due in two weeks. We need the money.’

Luigi sighed in surrender, but took a little bit of pride that Mario looked just as unhappy about it as he was. “Alright,” Mario said, pulling out the Mario Bros. business phone - a battered brick with a keyboard that had seen better days. “Let’s talk rates.”

[cinnamon--bagel]

Me: Alright, we’ve posted the first chapter of the new Pokémon fic AND we’ve got the Pikmin fanfic we haven’t updated in a while-

My brain: Don’t wanna

Me: Oh, is it writers block time again?

My brain: Write Super Mario Bros fanfic

Me: …. You know we don’t have the time to juggle three projects.

My brain: Write new fanfic.

Me, finishing page five of the SMB fanfic outline: Fuck.

[cinnamon--bagel]

Don't ask me how, don't ask me why, but I am suddenly struck with the insatiable need to write a fanfic where Mario and Luigi adopt a random semi-feral human kid they found in the woods or something.

[cinnamon--bagel]

Y’all remember Graveyard Train? What if I told you... there was a sequel.

[Direct Sequel to Graveyard Train] Rei, The Conductor, was born in a world of darkness. They were unfitting pieces forced together and thrown into a world that wasn't theirs. They think they have the right to be at least a little bitter toward their Creator.

Maybe that's why they like Volo so much.

[cinnamon--bagel]

His ass is NOT helping me write.

[cinnamon--bagel]

What’s up buckaroos guess who’s back

[cinnamon--bagel]

Me, describing a short story I'm writing for a contest: So it takes place in 2147, and we have no idea what could happen between then and now. So I'm thinking at some point an event happened where there was some kind of massive radiation that screwed up a lot of people's DNA and changed it to the point where they're similar to humans, but different enough that they're not. Somehow.

Doll: So, like, The Flash (2014)

Me: Oh yeah! I'm gonna drive my car into a ditch.

[cinnamon--bagel]

I've been reading a lot of dp x dc fanfics where Jason Todd gets ghost adopted because of his connection to the Lazarus Pits but I haven't seen a lot of fics that have put emphasis on what brought him back to life in the first place.

Cause like. Iirc from my DC wikibinging his resurrection was a side effect of Superboy Prime literally punching spacetime.

So. We've got a teenage-hero who's just been resurrected by a massive distortion in spacetime, who's just dug himself out of his grave, and is doomed to eventually give in to anger and rebel against his father.

And you know who else that kinda reminds me of? Giratina, the god of distortion, the renegade pokemon, a being who is known to appear in ancient graveyards.

Imagine if, on that night when Jason first returns to life, he is found by something dark and powerful, drawn to him by the tears of distortion that brought him to life. That being, bathed in shadow, looks down at this human child with curiosity.

And says "Mine now."

[cinnamon--bagel]

Chapter 5 of Graveyard Train is up!

Chapters: 5/10

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Major Character Death

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Ghosts, tagged mcd to be safe but no deaths are shown, Mystery, Inspired by Subway Midnight, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reunions, ...eventually

Summary:

One year ago, Ingo entered the Single Train at midnight for a late-night inspection. He never made it home. Tonight, Emmet waits in an empty subway station for a train arriving at exactly twelve-o'clock.

[cinnamon--bagel]

I'm gonna be busy for the rest of the week so here's Chapter 4!

Summary:

Two months after Olimar crash landed on PNF-404, the surrounding planets received a distress signal and a set of data logs that inspired dozens of people to follow in his footsteps. Louie knows that no matter what everyone thinks, it's not Olimar who sent the transmission. Pom has no idea who Olimar is, but she's not letting any castaway die without a fight. Dingo doesn't know if Olimar is alive or dead. He's more concerned with keeping himself and his new civilian teammate alive.

[cinnamon--bagel]

I'm loving Four Riders so far! I can't wait to see where it goes! On a scale of 1-to-wraith, how inhuman is Sparrow?

Thanks so much for reading! Next chapter will have some Sparrow POV. Hopefully this will assure you they are totally normal. See, I have even included an image to support this claim.

Totally normal :)