#Mal's AU Rambles

[trashpandaperson]

so i had an idea for an AO3 fic. Modern superhero/villan/superpowers AU where Owen, Krow, and Apo are roommates. Owen has the power of metal manipulation, Apo can control plants, and Krow has two powers; one being the ability to control and travel through shadows and be able to hide its demon features [horns, claws, tail] which most people assume the opposite of; that it’s second power is to turn into a demon. Apo is a vigilante, Owen is a hero, and Krow is kind of a morally grey character; it helps people in need but also does small crimes like theft and arson on abandoned buildings; the hero organization classifies it as a vigilante tho. they all try (and fail) to hide their identities from each other, so it’s very comical how sus one of them can act and the other two are way too tired to notice. more later, is getting late. byeeee o/

[deadly-glamourtail]

(Spoilers, I mean it!) Wouldn't be a crossover between In Stars and Time and Hollow Knight without doing at least some bosses.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 with the team.

These eight drawings were super fun! Maybe I'll do actual ISAT art later, or Art Fight will take my entire free art time, who knows.

Bigfrin was why I kept going in the first place, and Mal Du Pays was such a lightbulb moment. Details and rambling about crossover lore below!

Remember me rambling about using Nightmare as a replacement for the color Red in the first part? Well, there it is. Hallownest or not, the lore is still clear that the Dream and Nightmare realms were separated long ago, so Siffrin's wish connecting them and putting non-Grimm related Nightmare Essence into the waking world is still, uh, pretty huge.

Between regular Grimm and NKG, it felt right to take inspiration from the latter to do The Playing One. Because they'd be a huge boss in this crossover too, the dagger would also transform into something inspired by the Coliseum Fools' weapons, for visibility. And, since Dream Essence appears as Whispering Roots in the waking world, the best equivalent I could get for Sif's hat was a Nightmare Lantern, though much simpler.

With Mal Du Pays... It took a while to work out.

The first thing that comes to mind would be using Void, but that seems to be something too intrinsic to Hallownest (we know anywhere deep enough could hold Void and worshippers, but ISAT's plot isn't going down, but up). So I thought of regular Dream spirits, didn't seem to work, until a wiki dive got me in the perfect place.

Nosk can read minds and craft perfect facsimiles of important bugs found in memories, and shapeshift arms or wings as necessary to bring down their prey - maybe it's even smarter if not Infected. It was perfect! If they are a well known species, I'd probably follow the nomenclature from HK and call it Repeating Nosk, instead, but let's go with the Sadness for clarity.

Nosk is simultaneously Mal Du Pays and the ghosts in the House. In every loop, they take notice of the group, and put in fake Siffrins in their path to try and separate them. Because this never works, either because they're careful or the whole Memory of Ghosts scene, it goes on just as unexplained, since Nosk can just shred the disguise and blend perfectly into the black walls.

Until, of course, Act 5. There's no team, and now there's a single living bug other than the King for Nosk to prey on. But, since this is Act 5, Nosk reading into Siffrin's mind and becoming aware of all the loops, all the self-hatred, an incomprehensible stretch of extremely similar time breaks it bad.

Sif never notices that the ghosts are now really messed up, with stained clothes, broken masks and barely an attempt to use the same shape. In turn, Mal Du Pays won't strike because it's now aware that it wouldn't work, so, they wait.

Not sure how the fight would happen in the waking world in this crossover, but I wanna say the King sees it coming and lets it happen because he's an asshole like that. Mal Du Pays can't defeat Siffrin in a fight, so it waits until they're too exhausted, and does its thing.

Does it have a voice? Or does Sif take one look at the shells moving around and hallucinates the rest? Could go either way.

Either way, the team would have one hell of a fight in this version.

[greenapplebling]

Continuing with the rambling over the descendants x twst AU I talked about in this post (more specifically in the tags)

Evie and Carlos have the easiest time bonding with Vil and Professor Crewel. With Crewel, everyone finds the way he talks to his students weird but it was really easy to clock him as Cruella's reincarnation. As a teacher, it's easier to go to him with the excuse of asking for advice and help without feeling out of place, so definitely more approachable

With Vil, it kinda depends if Evie is sorted in Pomefiore (which I'm going with lol), if she is then Vil as the Housewarden of Pomefiore automatically becomes more approachable to her. I feel like they'll clash a little when it comes to tastes in fashion but Evie is eager to learn everything she can from Vil, about skin & hair care, makeup, hairstyling, etc, etc... Vil will also teach her about Magical Potions and maybe they'll create the deadliest poison together (and the cure, per Evie's request)

[obsessivecelestial]

@stormbreaker-290 (and by extension @static-x3)

What if… Static never reciprocated Sirius’ adoration? What if Sirius went completely lovesick?

“So he plucked one of his eyes, just to wear the white veil.”

:3c

[kanzakurawrites]

Well, the Descendants Hunger Games Au won't leave my mind so here's more on Gil, and the year he and Mal were in the games:

WARNING: While I'm not going into major detail, this is still a bit gory.

Gil has grown up knowing that he'd likely end up in the games. Most VK's do, with only a few never making it in, generally by bribery, running away, or just being extremely lucky.

He knows that his father has bribed people to make sure that the few girls Gaston has claimed never made it onto the Isle of Doom. Not for their safety, but so they can continue to care for Gaston and his sons.

Just like he knows his father has made bribes to make sure that the twins will never have to compete against boys a lot stronger than them.

Gil can be naive, but he's not naive enough to believe his father would do the same for him.

So, he's trained for his entire life. When it's finally his turn, he breathes a sigh of relief that he's not up against Harry.

He knows the general rules of the game, the main being to come out alive. He also knows that usually the boys hunt the other boys, and the girls hunt each other. Although, the games are also used to get rid of the people you hate regardless of their gender.

It was a few days into the games, and he had already taken some others out (which he was trying not to think about), when he heard bloodcurdling screams, screams that didn't match up to the ones he had already heard. While he knew it would be smarter to go away from them, he went towards them anyways.

He found a group of boys and girls surrounding Mal, using chains to cut her wings and wrap her body.

He didn't care that it was dumb, all he knew was that Mal and Uma were once close and Mal helped slip food to his sisters, so he jumped in.

The fight was going against them, and he was getting closer to Mal when purple flames shot from the ground, taking the vk's around them.

Not knowing what they were, Gil dragged Mal out of the chains and got her out of there, her wings had gotten caught on rocks during the fight and fell into the sea.

They hid in the ruins of a castle over the next few days, while Gil did his best to care for Mal. This is when he finds out about Hades, and Mal makes him swear to never tell anyone. She can barely stand, barely breathe, let alone try to force him to do anything, but he agrees because for once in his life he saw fear in Mal's eyes.

Eventually, over the course week, a few kids make their way to the castle and one by one Gil and Mal take them out, despite Mal growing weaker and weaker. By the end, they can't wait anymore and they leave the ruins during a thunderstorm.

The remaining four people ambush them, and Gil gets stabbed. Mal is barely holding on, but Gil watches as she raises her arms and screams, flames circling them. Unlike the last time he saw the flames, where they seemed out of control and actively protecting Mal, these go straight to their targets.

Gil doesn't pay attention to the screams, he can't or he'd go insane. Instead, he catches Mal as she faints and he rushes her towards the boats.

It's another day before the goblins come. Mal is fighting to stay conscious and doing her best to walk on her own. Wounds aside, she has to relearn to walk now that she no longer has wings.

The goblins aren't surprised that they made it out. At least, they aren't surprised that Mal made it out, neither one seemed to recognize Gil.

On the boat ride back to the main island, Mal reminds Gil of his promise, and he once again swears he won't tell. Neither acknowledge how Mal leans into him, or how he's shielding her.

Once they reach the Isle, multiple VK's rush to the boat, with some curious adults following. There are screams and cries as always, but no one tries to attack them or take revenge. At least, not now.

Gil knows that he should let Jay take over, he knows that he should walk to Uma and Harry, but instead he continues to help Mal. He stays close even when Jay pulls her into his arms.

More surprising to the three, Mal pulls Gil along as Jay helps her away from the crowd.

This was the start of the two crews alliance. Because just like many of the previous "winners", Gil and Mal formed a bond on that island, and it wasn't one that was going to easily break.

[marimayscarlett]

I thought Dutch politics was a bad reality tv show, but Germany wins! Also thank you for keeping us neighbours up to date about the situation, this genuinely interesting, I didn’t know anything about German politics before. Aside from the name of your (ex?)chancellor. And Angela of course.

Hi and welcome this special shit show called German Politics 👍🏻

Thanks for letting me know I’m not driving all my non-German mutuals insane with my reblogs. But what’s happening here right now is pure chaos and it's hard to process - memes are helping a lot to stay sane, ironically. I’m not the best at explaining things, but the shitposts here on Tumblr have honestly been quite helpful in making sense of the madness.

Our current chancellor, Olaf Scholz, isn’t exactly famous for being very assertive. And yet, out of nowhere, he suddenly rises like a (disappointed and very pissed-off) phoenix from the ashes and publicly humiliates and fires our previous, completely incompetent finance minister, Christian Lindner. This guy was basically only making policies for the tiny percentage of wealthy people in the country and wasn't even discreet about it. And a whole trail of events followed suit.

Now, Germany is gearing up for new elections at the end of February, and naturally, a lot of people are more than a little anxious. The far-right parties are gaining way too much traction lately, and the thought of them getting the power they’re salivating over is honestly terrifying.

All in all: The situation is low-key giving Monty Python meets Black Mirror and I really want to get up and go home please.

But well, the memes we get out of this: Chef’s kiss. Absolute art.

[callinskiiscalling88]

Can we start a drawing trend where Princess Celestia summons Twilight to do the wackiest stuff claiming it's a Friendship lesson

"Twilight go kidnap Mal from Descendants for me"

"What? Why?"

"Friendship Twilight, Friendship. "

@ me if you do this

[arolesbianism]

Thinking abt Sif Odile duo looping au again and I wanna be able to plot everything out more coherently but act 5 eternally looms overhead and boy I do not wanna look up

[mal-zero-solo]

Goddamn I'm way to deep in this fandom. Not that it's a bad thing.

Probably have some disorganised stuff about making an AU called 'Splash Stars'

Eh, time would tell.

[doom-cookie1]

More Vampire AU thought, this time on possible backstory.

I'm thinking established Malina seek out the mysterious Lord Aleksander Morozova a la Castlevania for. . . Some reason? General knowledge seeking? Maybe they're healers or something. Like a strange illness is sweeping through their village and they need a way to stop it.

Or maybe help in fighting a war more Dracula Untold sort of vibes? Maybe mutually pining Malina where Alina is the princess of a Shu Han vassal state that borders Ravka and Mal is her personal guard. War threatens and without an army, her people stand no chance of surviving so they decide to sell their souls to the devil. Only they get there and it turns out the devil is 1. Super Hot and 2. Very Reluctant to damn these brave beautiful souls for all eternity, even if it means he'd no longer be alone.

I think I like that better, Dracula Untold vibes it is!

[tragedykery]

would it barely have effect on the fic? yes. am I thinking about how kataang’s kids would call their aunts & uncles (and especially which language they would use) in this au instead of actually writing said au? also yes

[mediocremxm]

So I just finished reading the Crow Strider au for the first time. Is it wrong to want to consider a piece of fanwork as better than the official ending of something?

I love happy endings I’m sorry.

[daughterofhecata]

ÖPNV-Planung vom Feinsten:

In die eine Richtung fährt der SEV so, dass er die Anschluss-Tram (wohlgemerkt, die einzige Tram ab der Haltestelle!) um planmäßig exakt eine Minute verpasst.

In die andere Richtung fährt er so, dass ich meinen Anschluss (den ich mit der Tram in 90% der Fälle bekomme) zwangsläufig verpassen muss.

Und das die nächsten ZWEI MONATE lang.

[tvrningout-a]

i meant for this hc to be two paragraphs, not 4 and counting

[kyri45]

PREV /NEXT / FIRST (ISAT Sky: Cotl!AU!)

Dw I always have some good old fashioned fluff after every angst scene.

Also! What if Mal du pays is just like the void version of Sif and their 'homesickness' is connected to their relationship with the void and the death-rebirth cycle? Just rambling now I know but I'm trying to connect the dots.

Next up we will finally meet the forest elder!!!

[deadly-glamourtail]

ISAT fans. Hollow Knight fans. Do you see my vision

ramblings of how would isat lore get adapted to hk's world below; spoilers for both obviously

edit: Part 2 with Odile and Bonnie here! and Part 3 with Isabeau and Mirabelle here!

edit: part 4 with (Redacted) and Mal Du Pays!

Since there's no surface in HK's lore, the best thing to get for Universe worship is probably the Dream Realm, since it's the only place with seemingly sky light. One thing connected to the other, and it just felt fitting to have Siffrin be moth tribe and Loop a mini-Radiance.

Instead of what goes down in Hallownest, there are thousands of minor moth gods from bug-Island North of Vaugarde; they don't really have the Radiance's power and thus can manifest in the waking world just fine. Also unlike Hallownest, there's no rivalrly between Dream and Nightmare; but since the former still would manifest as flames, it could still be interesting for an AU replacement of Red.

In Bug-gaurde (heh), the Change God equivalent is probably a chill higher being like Unn and the Lifeblood entity, but pale-themed so everyone's shades still stay similar to the original game and Siffrin doesn't look out of place despite wearing something slightly yellow-y. Godseeker would be SO pissed if they showed up here, no available gods would care about attuning any more than regular worship lmao

I'm rusty on HK lore though, so just shallow ideas. I'm sure someone that's more into both games together would know how to better work with them lmao