#AU: Vision SMP

[silverskye13]

Etho looks down quietly at his basket, making sure everything he needs is inside. He knows it is best to only make one trip down to the water. The water is treacherous. He is strong enough to withstand it, but of course, everyone who ever drowned thinks they're strong enough until their lungs are bursting. So. He double checks. He makes sure.

He has a week's worth of laundry. Some dishes he needs sand from the river to scour. A bucket, so he won't have to make this trip for another few days. There are a few pieces of leather armor in need of a quick rinse before they're polished. Also, he's thirsty. He tries not to drink his rain water. He needs it to last.

Finally, Etho belts on his sword, hefts the basket over one shoulder, and the empty bucket with his free hand. He looks to the short path that leads down to the dock. The water is blue as the diamond sky above, edged in gold from the slowly gathering sunset. Birds are singing. Breeze whispers through the willow branches and cattails. Across the river, a small herd of deer is moving through the rushes. One breaks apart from the others to drink. Etho sighs out a long breath, steels himself, and walks down the trail.

The water is cursed. Very few people still come to the river for chores. Most only dare to run down for a few buckets of water when the well is running dry.

_____

When Tango saw him gathering his things earlier, he'd shaken his head and made a warding gesture with his hand. Protection. For himself. For Etho. Or just to ward away the idea of evil.

"Scream, I guess," Tango had told him. "I doubt we'll make it in time, but yanno, we'll know what happened."

Etho had only offered a tense smile behind his mask. Everyone would know what happened, scream or not.

"I'll be fine," Etho said. "I've been fine before."

He said it a lot more confidently than he felt, and Tango wasn't reassured. Tango had a good nose for things like that. He sniffed the air, and made the chagrined expression of someone who could smell a coming thunderstorm.

"Yeah. Sure." Tango sniffed again, and then tapped the side of his nose with a knowing finger. "On second thought, maybe save your breath."

_____

Etho walks out onto the dock, his footsteps silent as he can make them. He took his boots off by the dock's edge. They're heavy when they're wet. He sets the basket down gently on the aged wood. He fills the bucket first. In the neat and tidy plan of his habits, he thinks the bucket is the one he least wants to be left last with. It's heavy and cumbersome, and requires leaning over the water's edge. So he fills it, trying to disturb the water as little as possible, and pads back to his boots to set it down gently beside them. Then he's back to his basket, and getting to the louder work, what he know will attract attention.

He grabs a shirt and dunks it into the water, wringing it out a few times before scrubbing it against the dock's edge. Someone nailed a washboard here, probably to make it easier for everyone else who needed to scrub up -- one less cumbersome thing to drag to the riverside. Beside it, Etho can see long scratches in the wood, vanishing off the side. He has large hands, so they don't line up to him, but the unmistakable look of nails scratching, clinging, is recognizable even still. He wonders idly who made them. Probably someone playing, before the water was cursed. Or an animal that swam across the bank and needed help scurrying out.

He is tempted to think it's something more sinister, but he knows better.

The water turns from diamond blue to sunflower yellow, then to blazing orange with rusted and bleeding edges. The herd of deer on the other side of the water wanders off, sated. A fox calls in the wood somewhere, an uncanny, very human scream. The bird calls twitter into silence, replaced by chirping frogsong. Etho wrings out the last of his clothes and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. He checks how far the sun has dipped in the sky, and decides he has an our yet before dark settles in.

With his clothes washed, he sets them back in the basket, neatly folded. They'll wrinkle probably, but when he puts them out on the line, the wind will straighten them out. His knees are sore from kneeling, his back from leaning. His armor will be easier to clean if he can settle in, brace it on his crossed legs.

Etho looks around the water, at the deceptive stillness. It's a slow, lazy river, hardly pushing the water fast enough to put ripples on it. There is one place near the opposite bank where a long shadow stretches from a stone, broken by the reflection of red sunset. It's the kind of image he would expect to see on a lake on a windless day. He's heard before that quiet rivers make for deadly waters, that there is a current in holes in the riverbed that will devour someone.

But Etho isn't in the water. He's on the dock, and the dock is safe. Nothing will drag him off it. Nothing in the water is strong enough. It doesn't have to be. There is some comfort in that, in knowing he can't be devoured against his will. It is why he still comes to the river. It is why he dares. Etho sits back and crosses his legs, bracing his leathers against his knees. He scoops a palm full of water onto them and scrubs, trying to get blood out of the small cracks where it will settle and rot. His chainmail is back at the fort up the hill, where its heaviness can't encumber him. It cleans itself reasonably well, all the links clattering together, just so long as he doesn't roll in any mud.

There is shuffling on the dock behind him, the creaking of old wood. Etho tilts his head, breathes in deeply through his nose. His pulse doesn't quicken. After a momentary pause, he resumes his work.

"Hey BDubs," he says conversationally. "Trying to sneak up on me?"

"Wh-- no. Of course not." There is mischief in BDub's answer, a grin in his voice. "The great Etho? Never. You probably heard me coming from a mile away."

"Maybe not a mile," Etho chuckles humbly. "You going to join me?"

"Well, I don't know," BDubs laughs, leaning over Etho's shoulder. "Is it safe?"

"I don't know why it wouldn't be."

"Water's cursed," BDubs reminds him. "There could be boogiemen about."

"You trying to tell me something BDubs?" Etho asks slyly, peering up at his friend.

"What? No of course not," BDubs laughs. He sits beside Etho, plunging his bare feet into the water beside the dock. "Even if I was, you know me Etho. You? Kill you? You'd kill me first."

"I don't know about that," Etho hums, splashing another palm full of water on a buckle clasp and scrubbing at a rusted stain with his thumb. "You made pretty efficient work of Grian."

"Grian had it coming," BDubs shrugs. "Got too caught up listening to the music."

Etho chuckles. "The music was very good."

BDubs kicks his feet in the water, humming the tune momentarily under his breath. It's a haunting sound, not really meant to be sung. Not by anything human. Etho shudders in spite of himself.

"Man, don't do that."

"Sorry! Haha! Sorry. Couldn't help it," BDubs grins a gap-tooth smile in Etho's direction, his eyes bright and gilded by the setting sun. "It's probably one of the coolest kills I've ever gotten."

"I'll make sure Tango knows you said that."

"Oh, Tango's fine." Bdubs waves a hand dismissively. "He's just upset 'cause I scared him."

"You did more than just scare him."

Dark room. Dark water. Tango screaming and running, scrabbling at the walls with his nails. If they ever went back to that little cave, Etho wondered if there would be marks on the walls like the docks, played, desperate fingers, digging.

"Well he's alive, isn't he?"

"I guess he is."

"Then he should get over it!"

Etho shakes his head, laughing. BDubs' voice is over-loud on the quiet lake, but its a good sound. Full of intensity and joy, and revelry. It made the silence between his words stark and empty, and Etho was always loathe to fill it.

Bdubs suddenly wraps an arm around Etho's shoulders, pulling him into a conspiratorial embrace. "Hey, I've been meaning to talk to you, by the way."

Etho suddenly has goosebumps on his neck, his spine, his arms. BDubs' arm is cold against his shoulders. He smells of bracken and standing water, and his eyes are bright as sunset. Etho takes a long, slow breath in and holds it for a moment.

"Uh... Yeah, BDubs?"

"I've got a plan, you know, for the others," Bdubs continues, his voice dropping to something near a whisper. There is something on the edge of his tone like the ringing of bells. Excitement. Thrill. Hunger. "But I'll need some help. I mean, I'm good at redstone, you know 'ol BDubs knows his stuff. But I need an expert. Someone good at traps."

"You know you've always got me Bdubs," Etho laughs, and it is hard to keep the nervousness from his voice. He's not sure he succeeds. "I'm happy to help. Just uh--" He shrugs his shoulders, and BDubs' arm falls away. "You know. Keep your distance."

"You're not scared of me, are you Etho?" Bdubs laughs, and it's loud and boisterous, and perfect. It echoes off the water like glass. Bells and ringing. He gives Etho a prideful, knowing look. "No, you're not scared of little 'ol BDubs. I know what you're scared of."

BDubs suddenly turns and slips into the water. Not all the way. His hands are still clinging to the wood, his elbows resting on the dock like it was a pool side. But the splash hits Etho's side and makes him shudder so hard, he drops the armor he'd been polishing. In a flash he's on his feet, backing away two, three steps. His movements feel too slow and heavy, and there's an instant of panic in him.

"Woah man!" Etho snaps, startled. He reaches for something, anything-- "I said keep your--!"

But BDubs is laughing, kicking his feet, stirring up the mud at the bottom of the river. "Oh come on Etho. It's water."

Etho takes three long breaths, filling his lungs to bursting before pushing the air out again heavy through his nose.

"You're fine you big baby," BDubs grins, resting his head on his crossed arms. His legs stop kicking, stop stirring up the mud, and Etho can see the water is shallow enough that he's standing on the bottom. He'd thought-- he'd thought-- "You'd think I tried to drown you, jeez."

He thought it was deeper.

Etho held his breath for a moment, counted slowly. He wanted to reach his hand to his neck, to check his pulse. To see how fast his heart was beating. He moved his hand to, and at a mocking glance from his friend, decides instead to stoop to pick up his dropped armor. He walks carefully to his basket and places it inside.

"Why'd you come down here, anyway?" BDubs asks. "If you're so scared, I mean."

"You know me, BDubs. I always come back," Etho answers, almost a reflex. A rehearsed answer. "Who else would I go to?"

"Tango and Skizz?"

"They won't keep me safe like you will." Etho points out. He shudders again, the cold from BDub's touch had seeped into him more than he thought it had. He's acclimating though, like jumping into a pool. It's a cold that seeps out of him, warms as it settles. "It's me and you to the end, right buddy?"

"Of course Etho. I'd never betray you."

Etho looks through his things one last time, then frowns. He turns the basket with his foot. He glances at BDubs, who still watches him from the water's edge. Then he takes a chance and crouches down beside his basket, rifling through with both hands.

"Lose something?" BDubs asks, standing on his tiptoes to get a better look.

Etho looks around, checking first the dock, and then the water beyond. In the deeper water over the side, he sees the flash of a buckle in the dying rays of the sun.

"Oh, huh," BDubs hums disinterestedly. "Guess you'll have to get that."

"BDubs," Etho scowls.

"Fine! Fine. I get it. You don't wanna get wet." BDubs puts up his hands, as though surrendering. "The water really isn't all that bad." He offers Etho a quick little salute. "Be right back."

He takes an exaggerated breath and splashes beneath the dock, stirring up mud and river plants. He breaks the water's surface shortly after, holding up the fallen armor piece triumphantly. "Ta-da! Hold your applause. I know I'm great."

Etho, in spite of himself, chuckles. He shivers again -- the evening is getting cold -- and reaches a hand out. BDubs places the buckle in his hand, then reaches his other hand up to clasp Etho's gently. It's awkward and off-balance, Etho leaning precariously over the side of the dock, and BDubs on his tip-toes, holding him in place. It isn't a hard grasp. At any moment, Etho can take his hand away. He has always been stronger than BDubs.

"Hey, Etho, I really have missed you, man," BDubs says, smiling fondly, his voice soft. It isn't a whisper. It simply isn't loud and brash like he normally is. Heartfelt. The kind of tone that beckons, that wants to be listened to. "I mean-- I've missed us doing things together. It reminds me of the good 'ol days, you know? NHO and Mindcrack. We make a good team."

"We do," Etho agrees. He takes a long, slow breath. He shivers.

He frowns.

Etho pulls his hand out of BDubs, and BDubs offers no resistance. Etho looks down at his hand, at the wrinkled, waterlogged skin. He rubs his thumb across his forefingers, feeling the odd texture, grounding himself on it. Etho takes a deep breath in, lets it out again slowly.

"How long have I been in the water, BDubs?" Etho whispers.

Etho is still holding the belt buckle in one hand, still looking down at the wrinkled fingers of his other. BDubs is still in front of him, only his head and shoulders above the water. Etho looks back over his shoulder. The dock is startlingly far away, the basket sitting on the very edge. Beyond it, his boots and water bucket are sitting in the grass beside rushes and willow branches.

"Does it matter?" BDubs asks, smiling gently.

Etho takes a long, deep breath through his nose.

"Oh, don't be scared," BDubs says, moving silently closer. He reaches out his hands and grasps Etho's arms, a gentle touch, reassuring. A friend trying to assuage fear. His eyes are blazing red and orange with the setting sun, but the sky is black and salted with stars. "I didn't drag you down here, Etho. You came to me, remember?"

"BDubs--"

"You know I'd never betray you," BDubs continues, taking a slow step backwards. He pulls Etho with him, and Etho, by habit and familiarity, takes a step forward. The allure of BDubs' voice tilts his vision. He's on the dock, holding the buckle that fell in the water, and BDubs is clasping his hands, and the sun is setting. The water is up to his chest, and the world is dark star-filled, and BDubs is taking another step backwards, and Etho is following. "I could have betrayed you day one, and I didn't. I'm just asking for your help, Etho. You and me together, right?"

"BDubs--"

"It's the deep water, isn't it?" BDubs croons, like he's speaking to a child. "The deep water scares you? It's okay. You're fine."

Etho is fine. His breathing is slow, his heartbeat even. He wants to be scared. He should be scared. But BDubs is his friend.

BDubs reaches up to Etho's neck, not to strangle or to threaten, but to gently cup his hands around him. He pulls gently on Etho, not to drag Etho down, but to raise himself up, so they're nearly eye to eye. Etho feels water around his shoulders, and shivers.

"It's okay," BDubs says. "I would never hurt you, I promise. We don't have to go any deeper." His voice even and calm, inexorable. Etho's pulse doesn't quicken when he says, "You know how many people drown in shallow water? It's easy. I'll be with you the whole time."

The water is around Etho's neck, and BDubs is above him just slightly. One hand raises slowly to the back of Etho's head, fingers gently tangling in his hair. It is the caress of someone who cares for him deeply, someone who wants him to stay. The feeling is wholly dissonant from the words being spoken. Water? Drowning? How could someone who loves him so much drown him?

"You want to stay with me, right?" BDubs asks. "You and me together, we'd be unstoppable, Etho. The best duo the Life Series has ever seen."

BDub's hand on Etho's neck moves just slightly, the thumb pulling around to rest on his adam's apple. The hand in his hair clenches just a little. A warning. "You're not thinking about betraying me, are you?"

Etho shivers again. He wants to be afraid.

"You know, Grian said some things before he drowned," BDubs's hand on his neck tightened just a little. Etho could feel his pulse against BDub's thumb, finally, finally beginning to quicken. "He said you were a survivor. He said you'd leave me -- heh -- high and dry. You wouldn't do that, would you, Etho?"

Etho's pulse quickened more. There was a cold numbness in his limbs that he hadn't even noticed gathering, and his sluggishly awakening panic pushed it from him.

"BDubs," Etho said, his voice small and hoarse in his throat, "let me go."

"Etho..." BDubs said warningly.

"Let me go!" Etho shouted, planting his hands on BDub's chest and shoving backwards away. What he felt, in that brief second, was neither skin nor flesh, nor the softness of fabric. He felt tangled river weeds, and fish scales, slimy and cold against his skin. The cursed thing that looked like BDubs but wasn't, released Etho spitefully. His claws tore from Etho's neck, scraped along the back of his head to come free with pale strands of his hair. Suddenly there were arms around him, and Etho screamed and thrashed as he was dragged.

"I've got you dude! I've got you!"

It was Skizz, his voice a thunderous bellow in Etho's ear, his arms feverishly hot against him where they clamped like vices around his waist. Skizz dragged Etho from the water like he weighed nothing. Etho got his feet underneath himself and clung to Skizz, staggering out of the water as quick as he could. He heard feet pounding on the dock, and glanced over to watch Tango sprint across the wood. He stooped, grabbed up Etho's basket, and sprinted back with it, the reaching, clawed hand of the thing that looked like BDubs snapping for his ankles and missing.

"I got him!" Skizz shouted to Tango, scrambling onto the grass, refusing to let Etho go until they were well up the path. "Did you see how close he was?!"

"Yeah I saw!" Tango snapped, choking on his own fear, gulping in air and coughing it back out again. "It tried to drag me in!"

"Oh my god, are you okay dude?" Skizz demanded, and, when Tango nodded, he turned back to Etho. "Are you okay? I didn't see you go under. Can you breathe?"

Etho, who had collapsed into the grass the moment Skizz released him, lay there gasping like a hooked fish. He shivered, pale and cold from how long he spent in the water-- how long had he been in the water. He could still feel the thing's burning claws in streaks across his neck, and a tickling of blood at the back of his head.

"Etho?"

"I'm okay," Etho gasped, "I'm sorry I just-- I needed-- I wanted--"

"I know what you wanted!" Tango snapped angrily, the anger of someone who had risked his life. The anger of someone who thought a friend of his was dead, or dying. "But it's not him, Etho."

"It sounds like him," Etho whispered. He threw an arm over his eyes and shivered again. "It sounds like him, though."

"I know it does buddy, I know," Skizz said, his voice full of sympathy and pity. He waited with mountainous patience as Etho pulled himself together, and then helped Etho stand.

Together, they walked back to the fort.

Behind them, something cursed and hungry in the dark water, sang, and its voice was sweet and familiar.

[phosphorus-noodles]

sovereign prince of the mesa

[lord-of-cactus]

"A vision from the Tsaritsa herself? And to Solidarity nonetheless...how unexpected"

From my to-be-named Life Series x Genshin AU

Alt version :)

[its-muffin-tyme]

Please put other ideas for characters as deities in the notes! I will use those to make other polls in this vein

[modernsuperhero]

hello I would love to hear about your life series OUAT AU please tell me all the things 👀

Okay you don't know how excited I am to share this.

So quick recap for those who don't know, the premise of Once Upon A Time is that pretty much every fairy tale (and Disney movie character) is magically yoinked via a dark curse from the fairy tale world into ours, (specifically a town called Storybrooke in Maine) with their memories erased. They're trapped in basically a timeloop, frozen at the same ages as when they were transported. The curse also gives them fake memories of their lives that are intentionally curated to make each of them as miserable as possible! A few staples of the plot are that none of the fairy tales went down exactly as we know them - they'll be technically the same, but the details way more complicated and often more mature than a children's bedtime story would allow. Several fairy tale characters are secretly also other fairy tale characters, and a bunch of them are related in confusing ways.

Now, onto the Life Series OUAT AU! (Featuring some non-Life guys too!)

Now, admittedly I don't have everything figured out for every character - the AU isn't quite finished, so there's a couple holes. But I have a lot of it! I've also used this AU as an excuse to use my favorite obscure fairy tales~

Everything starts, of course, with Snow White.

And her sister. (Did you know there's a second, unrelated fairy tale to Snow White, called Snow White and Rose Red?)

Snow White is... Pearl! And her sister, Gem, is named Rose Red - Snow White for her pale skin and Rose Red for her bright hair. In this AU, Snow White and Rose Red are princesses whose father remarries an evil queen. Quite classically, she's jealous of Snow White, and tries to have her killed. Both Snow White AND Rose Red flee to a cabin in the woods. In the winter, a terrifying massive talking bear appears and asks to shelter in the warmth of their home. Rose Red [Gem] has a moment of quick thinking, not wanting to risk this being some threat to her sister, and introduces herself as Snow White, and Pearl as Rose Red. Confused yet? Rose Red Snow White [Gem] allows him to stay for the winter, and both sisters quickly befriend him. He warns them both about an evil dwarf(?) before leaving after winter thaws. Over the course of the next several months the evil dwarf appears to cause problems for the sisters, eventually concluding with the bear returning to kill the dwarf and transforming into a prince! The Bear Prince reveals the dwarf had cursed him, and now that he's free he proposes to Rose Red Snow White [Gem] and offers to take her and Snow White Rose Red [Pearl] back to his kingdom with him where he can protect them.

The End.

Right?

Obviously not all goes to plan.

This is the first instance where the details of the AU are fuzzy. Somehow, the Bear Prince dies. Probably because of "Snow White" being wanted, and Gem being targeted. Because of this, "Snow White" Rose Red [Gem] turns on "Rose Red" Snow White [Pearl], blaming her for her fiance's death. Pearl has to flee once again for her life. This time, she finds a home inhabited by seven dwarves, the youngest of which is a young girl dwarf (because of course girl dwarves exist in this world, and OUAT was a coward for not including them) named Tilly.

"Rose Red" Snow White [Pearl] gradually becomes comfortable in her home. Her sister has yet to reveal their identity swap - partly because "Snow White" is the name of who married the Bear Prince, and thus inherited his throne when he passed, and partly to keep anyone other than Gem from killing "Rose Red". "Rose Red" Snow White [Pearl] even starts wearing a big red cloak everywhere.

In the meantime, "Snow White" Rose Red [Gem] has become queen of the Bear Prince's land, and found herself a strange and powerful mentor - a man toting a magic wand and a strange dagger, calling himself Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin is... Scott! Rumple [Scott] starts teaching Gem dark magic, eventually leading her to kill some strange demon man called Xornoth with Rumple [Scott]'s dagger... only of course for her to pull the dagger from his chest and see the name carved on the side change from 'Xornoth' to 'Rose Red'.

Rumpelstiltskin [Scott] is ALSO not pleased at this development, having believed Gem was Snow White. He reveals that Xornoth was a being called a 'Dark One', the ultimate embodiment and well of darkness and dark magic. By killing Xornoth, Gem has herself become the next Dark One. As her body starts to become absorbed by the darkness, Rumpelstiltskin abandons the Evil Queen to her fate.

Once Gem has been absorbed by the darkness, she vows revenge against the one she blames for her greatest tragedy, who led her to follow Scott's advice in the first place - Pearl. She transforms her friends, including Tilly, into wolves. Pearl - sorry, Little Red Riding Hood "Rose Red" Snow White [Pearl] (confused NOW?) - goes on the run once more with her wolves in search of answers for how to fix her sister, searching specifically for a man her grandmother told her of. Her grandmother, who married the old king despite being only a poor miller's daughter, by supposedly spinning straw into gold - who secretly told little Pearl the story of the man who helped her do so... a man by the name of Rumpelstiltskin.

Rumpelstiltskin, aka Scott, has his own motivations. Years and years ago, in fact, he wasn't evil at all...

...but I might make that its own post! Partly because I don't want this one to get too crazy long LOL. But I do have plans for the Dark Curse, featuring some characters as Jack and the Beanstalk, Donkey Skin, and Pinocchio!

For now, know that in the town of Storybrooke, neither Gem nor Pearl - as are their new names, in our world without magic - are aware of their sordid pasts, only of their complicated, yet mundane, relationship as sisters.

[x-i-l-verify]

An art commission from the very lovely and talented @pppuri illustrating two of the main characters from my Dream SMP vampire AU, which features copious amounts of worldbuilding, found family feels, slavery, hurt/comfort, dark SBI, and BBH Dormouse and Dream the Emerald being the most dynamic of unlikely duos.

[bleue-flora]

that au of cdream trying to make ctommy die to save him and make him and everyone love him souns really interesting :D. And im so sorry, i know it's supposed to be serious but when i image cdream doing that and reviving ctommy i imagine that scene of the incredibles with ctommy just saying to him "you didnt save me, you ruined my death >:("

[context — “huh there’s another AU idea: Dream tries to drive Tommy to suicide in Exile so he can resurrect him and become loved by Tommy and the server again… (I’m sure that wouldn’t backfire or anything…)”]

[fandomandangstlover]

@xakumi'S GORETOBER

DAY27: INFECTION

hands y'all an au vav!box. sculk creature, or a warden in the making? guess :)

[amaraudermind]

the empires brain and the fantastic four brain are making an unholy au of epic proportions

seablings as the storm siblings

king of mezalea as mr. fantastic

the copper king as the thing

count fwhip as doctor doom

[kay-then-i-guess]

Horizontal Ranboo is love, Horizontal Ranboo is life.

-Leafy🌿

[notnewtothescene]

Part 2 of that one au

[zeichannnnn]

sneak peak on what I'm working on :P

[rosenbergamot]

has anyone done a life series timeloop au. just any of the life series. im cooking up a secret life one but i also want to read some….. is there anybody out there cooking as well….. im shaking the bars of my enclosure!!!

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

ok i know the original joke i made about the empires blaseball au was that the hermits are just hlockey players but i just had a fucking Vision. remember that time the election ran three times and we had three different universe, in which jaylen always died, but different people replaced her and other things happened differently. remember how derrick kreuger, the replacement for jaylen, was from one of the other elections we didn’t get the results of but we got him anyways. i know none of you know what i’m talking about but stick with me i just had a fucking epiphany.

maybe it’s not quite the same, maybe our best player who’s killed by the opening of the forbidden book is different in all three of these universe, because it’s not the timelines splitting into three here, it’s three different universes briefly running into each other as they all do the same thing at the same time. and when that change happens, whatever player was supposed to replace xornoth in the empires!blaseball universe is instead sent elsewhere, to the hermitcraft!blaseball universe, to replace their best player, and we get false on the other end of this. she wakes up in a brand new universe with a fucked up brain and she’s playing a death game now, and she thinks she had a sister and maybe friends at some point, but now she’s here. time to play ball.

[visionaryscribe]

So I started a new au.

Where there is not one Grian, but two. I have a lot of ideas bouncing around in this au stew. Ask me to ramble or write about any of them, I dare you.

[nomsfaultau]

Philza got him this time. That in itself was a relief, despite the vise grip locked on his wrist verging on painful. Still the only thing hurting was his long dead heart. Could’ve been worse, like his legs getting broken. Again. At the very worst, Philza would be annoyed. That didn’t mean much though, same as it ever was. The cycle of trapped-freedom-hunted-caught grew almost mundane. Only thing that changed was his waning hope, even if his determination was steadfast.

But when he was escorted to his room, Tubbo was waiting there, bright eyed and unaware anything is wrong. Harder to escape with a weak, slow human. But Tommy grit his fangs. He’d do it. If anything his determination had grown. 

But harder, too, when he realized he was confined to his room and didn’t have access to the manor anymore. Harder, when the days wore on and the vampires never visited and Tommy finally, finally realized their true plan as the blood thirst built inside him. Harder to escape with the newly reborn fledgling of an already weak sire. With Tommy’s one reason to fight folded neatly into their coven, why should he resist any longer? He’d have everything he wanted right here. He could hear Philza’s smirking logic, and hated the fact he might just be right. But the fact they thought they could force him to attack Tubbo -the fact part of him wanted to, some disgusting possessive instinct promising he could keep his Tubbo forever- only further fueled his determination to not turn Tubbo.

Or…harder to escape when Tubbo was dead. What need would he have to escape, once his world was gone? And as days passed and his self control eroded, the later became all the more likely because if Tommy started to drink now, he might not stop until Tubbo was completely drained. 

It was okay at first. He’d missed Tubbo so so much. They talked until their voices were hoarse, first Tommy explaining everything happening, then all his escape attempts, then anything and everything because he finally had his best friend back. He felt better than he had in weeks just because someone else was there to confirm that everything happening was messed up, and cheer him on for his clever and daring escape attempts instead of chiding or attacking him. Brilliant, Tubbo called him. It helped, since for so long he only felt weak and stupid and pathetic and Tubbo was incapable of seeing him like that.

But then he started needing the conversation for a different reason, as he began to sharply remember how long it’d been since he last fed. And to be fair Tubbo needed it too, he wasn’t getting fed either. Still. The scent of his exhales was starting to make Tommy’s mouth water. Tommy hadn’t even been aware he could smell carbon dioxide. 

And suddenly he had to question his own motives. Because he’d been close, real close to Tubbo the last few days, the pair lacking any personal space. And sure he’d missed his best friend, but was that clingy…or carnivorous? Tommy untangled himself slowly. He felt cold almost immediately with no body heat of his own. He picked the furthest corner of the room. Tubbo followed immediately, because of course he did. 

“Don’t.” Tubbo hummed a questioning note, head canted. Tommy bit his tongue, then winced as a fang punctured through. Old blood filled his mouth. He really, really didn’t want to spell it out. “I’m getting hungry, big man,” Tommy explained quietly, roughly. 

“Oh. Well- we don’t have food, but at least we have blood,” Tubbo offered casually. 

“I’m not- great. About stopping.” He’d probably end up killing Tubbo. Or worse. 

Tubbo frowned in thought, as if he could logic a solution out of something impossible. “What if I bleed into a cup, to control the amount?”

The thought made him dizzy with thirst. Tommy squeezed his eyes shut against the vision. “That- that wouldn’t work. Don’t. Cause then you’d have an open wound, and I wouldn’t be able to- no.”

Tubbo didn’t like that answer, because of course he didn’t want to watch his friend suffer. But Tommy didn’t want to murder his friend even more, and won that contest of wills. “Fine. How can I help, then?”

“I guess…try not to get hurt. No stunts. Or paper cuts. Or bruises. Just- sit still and try to stop looking delicious.”

Tubbo threw up his hands in exacerbation. “I can’t! I’m a certified snack!”

They could laugh then, in the light of day. And it was so bad when Tubbo was awake and laughing. But Tommy didn’t really sleep as much as a human did anymore. The hunger was sharper at night, acutely aware this was when he was meant to be hunting. The hours dragged a long, long time without anything to distract him from the bloodthirst, save watching the slow rise and fall of Tubbo’s breathing. It was a rhythm burned into his new nocturnal predator instincts. Each inhale replenished sweet oxygen into fresh blood in a way a breathless vampire could only steal. Tommy was running out of blood fast, starting to suffocate on it. Breath pooled around the still Tubbo, building up to overwhelm his senses in honeysweet nectar. 

And Tubbo just seemed to glow in the night. The soft citrus radiation of thermal energy radiating off him in resplendent infrared curls. Like a drop of sunlight in the depths of midnight, mesmerizing for how long it’d been since Tommy saw the sun for the last time. 

He had uncurled without awareness, catching himself already half crawling closer. Embarrassed, Tommy rose. Silently, of course. He wouldn’t want to interrupt his slumber. Steps so light they scarcely registered noise to his advanced hearing, avoiding the patches of the floor where moonlight crept across. Tommy paused at the foot of the bed, lingering. 

Tubbo. His best friend in the whole world. The sound of his heart beat was so comforting after the uneasy silence of his own chest. He missed Tubbo’s hugs so much, so warm and right unlike the cold prison of his coven. It hurt to hold a distance. Unnatural for the two to be separate. The scent of Tubbo’s breath was intoxicating. Like spring incarnate, luring him closer, closer. That was his friend. His mate. He’d always help Tommy any way he could. 

The bed creaked softly as Tommy’s knee sunk into it. When Tubbo shifted in slumber, Tommy froze, carefully watching. Minutes dragged on without response, heart so steady and familiar, divine waves of carbon dioxide washing over. As if it were an invitation, Tommy advanced crawling across the bed in lurches, carefully stunted to Tubbo’s every shift. The slightest indication, and he tensed, coiled to pounce.

It was a careful balance, intuitive even to a fledgling. The moment prey’s sympathetic nervous system activated, oxygen would flood its body. Slow respiration was alluring, but it was hyperventilation that really drove vampires into a frenzy, since it maximized time before they needed to feed again. But take too long, and that precious oxygenated blood would be wasted in its intended purpose of fueling the flight or fight response. 

The prey was far too deep into slumber. Carefully, slowly, the fledgling came to loom over. Though ravenous enough to feed regardless of its slumber, the evolutionary pressure weighed down in sharp instinct. An involuntary feeding hiss poured from his throat as his fangs bared, the prey stirring as atavistic alarm bells began to ring in the back of its mind. The fledgling seized its wrists, pinning down so it wouldn’t struggle and waste precious oxygen. At the first hitching gasp as it jolted awake, his pupils thinned to slits. 

“Tommy..?” 

It was agonizing to wait. And then he heard it, the first melodic notes of a heart slamming into over drive, fear filling the air.

“TOMMY!”

The fledgeling snarled, forcing the prey still. So easy to overpower the bucking of a human. Slow, it was meant to be slow, the fear rolled off it in waves building up fresher, sweeter blood. But impatient as he was, the fledgeling seized his prey’s jaw, slamming the head to the side to expose its neck. Its chest heaved as hyperventilation kicked in. Good enough, he decided, though Sire would chide him for not giving more time for the fear to set in, but he was so, so ravenous. Jaw open wide, wider-

“TOMMY ONE OF THEM’S ATTACKING! HELP!”

The fledgling knew no other name for himself but hunger. But his best friend calling for help woke an even deeper instinct inside him, far older than the new parasitic ones hijacking his biology.

How harrowing, to stare into the terror of his best friend’s eyes and know he put it there. 

Tommy scrambled away, pitching off the bed to fall into a heap of limbs. Something in him snarled, he needed to feed, needed to, need-

Bristling fangs snapped shut on his own wrist. Tommy closed his eyes, drinking deeply. It felt like suffocating, if he were honest. Maybe he wanted it to. But it felt enough like feeding to satisfy his bloodthirst for now, even if he knew it’d be back with a vengeance. 

“TOMMY! TOMMY HELP I DONT KNOW WHERE HE WENT. I CAN’T- HELP ME!” Tubbo screamed. 

His human vision had lost of the monster in the dark, fear spiking in tumultuous waves. But immediately he caught the glow of Tommy’s eyes once they opened. 

And suddenly he was staring down the sharpened end of the stake in the hands of his best friend.

“Heyyyy big man,” Tommy rasped. Tubbo immediately slumped with relief in a way that made Tommy feel so much worse. 

“I can’t see nothing, where’d he go? Is it safe?” Apparently, the only thing worse than your best friend realizing you’d tried to kill him, was your best friend not realizing you’d tried to kill him. 

“He’s-“ Tommy’s voice cracked. “He’s right here, Tubs. No one else. There’s never been anyone else.” 

The stake in Tubbo’s hands hesitated, and lowered. It should’ve never stopped pointing at Tommy’s dead heart. 

I had a dream about vampire dark sbi, where Tommy was turned into a fledgling against his will and was desperate to escape. His coven had other ideas however, and so Tommy was constantly getting hunted down by Philza, Techno, and the Jawless One.

oh. Were you you expecting Wilbur? No that dude is problematic, and my dream presented the ideal solution: replacing him with a monster made of long mangled limbs and a ripped off jaw that dangles on a thread of viscera. So I’m just sayin, here’s how 4/4 can still work-