#Starter squad au

[littlegnome145]

Fuck it, we ball.

(This should be around 1/5 of the first chapter, I think.)

The first chapter should be posted sometime this week on Ao3. I have lost the brain war against the Sinnoh duo and their fail dad.

[apocalypta-secundus]

Happy Birthday Yun-Yun!

@yumichikah (FOR THE BIRTHDAY BOI!)

Read Mores are for long posts!

Akina and Ikkaku were working hard trying to get a cake made. Of course, Akina was the one to reach out for help with this endeavor. "I have no idea what he likes!!!" Well, she had some idea for the present, so at least there was that. A cake design? Hell no. Flavor of cake? Nope. "I haven't baked a cake for a birthday before, what makes you think I'm capable of this?!" Ikkaku was stirring up a mess. "Well, you didn't say no." There was a grin on Akina's face watching him getting cake batter on the counters. "Probably shouldn't be that messy about it. We're going to have to clean that up." She herself was trying to get the icing ready for after the cake was baked. "I got sparklers off someone in Squad 5!" Yachiru ran into the kitchen and jumped onto the table to see what they were up to, "What's going on!?" "Shhhh!" Akina put a finger in front of her lips, "It's Yumichika's birthday, try to keep it down!" She wasn't one to talk, she was one of the louder people in the squad now thanks to her guitar. A SURPRISE? Well now, Yachiru wanted to help with that! "This place isn't decorated for a surprise party." She looked around at the bare walls and wondered where they could get banners and streamers for this. "I can go get those!" It took her no time at all to run off, so she could go find something to decorate with.

Akina let out a sigh, who else could ruin this? She went back to trying to get the icing dyed for the cake. At least in her mind, she was trying to go for a peacock design. Was it going to work out? Who knows.

"You're missing vanilla and is that salt?" Lyn had cake batter on her finger trying to figure out what they missed, clearly it was vanilla. But was it over salted, or did someone read sugar as salt.

"Wh-" She turned around, and the fourth seat was standing right there. "No way, we couldn't have screwed this up!"

"If it's just too much salt, double the batch. Ain't that hard to unfuckup a cake." There was a shrug of her shoulders, only stepping in the kitchen because of the commotion. Letting out a sigh, she offered a bit of advice, "an' if you want this to be a surprise... don't be talkin' so loud. I can hear ya over some of the squad mates trainin'. Ya're gonna be lucky he didn' already hear ya."

Akina let out a sigh and had no idea what they really could have screwed up and just doubled the recipe. This cake was going to be bigger than she wanted it to be. Maybe they could just make a three tier cake instead of a basic one? So far, this wasn't turning out to be a very good day.

"I told you I had no experience in baking a cake." Ikkaku complained as he finished stirring the mess they had made at this point. "What the hell are we supposed to do with this now, anyway?"

Yachiru would have returned with streamers and banners for a birthday and sat on Kenny's shoulders to get things taped up onto the walls. "Over there Kenny!" She was pointing places out while trying to blow up a balloon. The common room was emptied out, so they could prepare for this surprise. If it even was one now.

Akina started explaining, "In the pans, pans in oven. Then we gotta wait and then ice them after they're cool. Stack them nice and pretty... hopefully, and then try. Keyword, try. To decorate it with the icing, I got all dyed up."

It was starting to feel like a chance in hell at this point, but she was still trying to get this finished up. When was Yumichika supposed to be back anyway? The pans full of batter were tossed in the oven, and it was going to be a long wait til they were done.

After all of the cakes were out of the oven, she started working on stacking them. Now she had no skill with piping icing, but was willing to try. The living did this, right? There were those who did this as a job and then those who did this for a hobby! This can't be too hard, right?

Ikkaku watched Akina stack up the cake, "you need me for anything else other than someone to stir the cake up?"

"I mean, you can stick around if you want and carry this thing out." Though from his tone, it didn't sound like he wanted to. "Or, go find the others and join them for the surprise part." Akina was going to be a while getting this thing decorated. Her skill was in music, not cakes. Hopefully this wasn't going to look like a kid did it.

To him that just meant to head out, so he went to the common room, helping the captain and the co-lieutenant get ready.

Akina was finishing up her work and let out a long sigh, well. It was done and it looked fine to her. It was a cake with a peacock design on it. The cake looked like an amateur made it, but it was better than what she thought it was going to come out. Now the kitchen looked like an absolute disaster went through it. She stuck the sparklers in the cake near the tail feathers she decorated on. "That'll do, I think?"

"HEY!" Yachiru ran in and grabbed the cake with her little hands, lifting it over her head. "He's coming back!" Apparently, a few squad members saw him walking back while they were training outside. She ran out of the kitchen and to the common room with the cake, popping it up on the table.

Akina jumped and ran to her room to grab the present before scrambling back out to the common room with the others. It wasn't a very big present, but she figured he'd love it anyway! Quickly, she lit the sparklers as Yumichika entered the room. And the entire Squad yelled out, "SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY YUMICHIKA!"

[cielospeaks]

im also realizing how much kasumiverse parallels my real life experiences since its broken nicely up into years

b2 (2018)- stereotypical romance but actually not bad i reread it today, as my life was probably the most stereotypical and no stakes (or very small stakes) romantic at that time

b3 (2019)- trying to be happy but actually extremely sad, trying to find normalcy in the face of feeling super down all the time, and at the same time being aware that im kinda pathetic

b4 (2020)- fucking redemption arc baby! starting to be like “im not gonna let this bad situation define me” and just powering through and becoming better for it too

b5 (2021)- loredump time! idk. complicated but like. more maturely (and verbosely) handled than before. like a mix of everything but also worldbuildey and more wordy

b6 (2022)- the sads but in a more. the transient nature of life sorta way. very melancholy and almost like “twilight years” kinda vibe. like the end of things as they were sorta feeling

[lowkeychenle]

meet: jisung's professional hype squad💪🏻🤓

masterlist -> meet: 🚫NO🚫 girl scout cookies 🙂‍↔️😔

group chat featuring: park jisung, lee jeno, zhong chenle, & cee

Description: Your friends call you "the bolter," because every time someone gets close, you run in the opposite direction. When you meet Jisung, things are working behind the scenes--thanks to those same friends.

Genre: SOCIAL MEDIA AU! :D suggestive, crack, funny haha stuff idk

This series includes explicit & suggestive content & is not suitable for audiences under 18. If you are a minor, please do not interact.

Content Warnings: suggestive content, man-hating jokes, kys jokes, etc etc will add more when I think of them

taglist: @buns-inhiding @the-swageyama-tobiyolo @theboyz-jacob @pnkified @ki-aechan @sunghoonsgfreal @mrshwang-park @yeosangsbiceps open! message me or comment to be added🥰

permanent taglist: @sunnybutcloudy @neozon3nha @waffleuvs

park jisung - always means the best but somehow ends up on the wrong side of things every time. baby of the group and constantly teased, doesn't truly know left from right

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lee jeno - world's biggest shit starter; seems like he doesn't do anything wrong, but is the catalyst for literally everything; he enables cee and chenle when they come up with their crazy scheme.

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zhong chenle - jisung's bestie for the restie; constantly tries to get jisung out of his comfort zone, but it never works; tag teams w/ his wife cee to (affectionately) bully jisung

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zhong cee - honorary dream member thanks to public opinion; after a year of marriage to chenle, the two of them scheme to find someone for jisung so he can stop third-wheeling (they pick someone emotionally unavailable for the plot, of course).

[theyodelerz]

Still trying to cope with episode 10 of Starter Squad 2 years later. An AU is my only means of doing so it seems *sobs*

[plushmon]

more starter squad au doodles (more under read more)

[fallingstarsandthemoon]

what if GemCYT had a side rebel group?

I’ve been following the GemCYT au for a while now, and I love it. The designs are amazing, and the story is great. I saw a really cool idea by @snowydragon10 that basically said, “Yo, but what if DanTDM (who is Blue Diamond in the au by general consensus I guess??) ALSO rebelled, but instead of just faking his death and leaving like Lizzy (Pink Diamond) did, he was a double agent/mole of sorts. I’ve watched this goggle-wearing goof for about 4-6 years now, so I figured I’d expand a lot on this idea. I combined both possibilities they mentioned in a post. For starters, Blue/Dan didn’t become a good guy right away. It took quite a bit of convincing. There were two main things that led him to earth in the first place. Firstly, after the Corrupting Light/Diamond Blast attack, some foresight from one of his sapphires suggested Pink was still alive. Second, he’s the diamond that mainly focuses on technology and science. Several reports showed outbreaks of corruption in gems, and most of those planets were very close to earth. Believing earth was the main harbor of the corruption, grieving for his lost sister, and holding out on blind hope, he went down to earth alone in the form of a Larimar, a Lapis’s ice equivalent. He stumbled across the rebels who offered him protection, training, and hospitality in exchange to help these poor dystopian gems thrive and fight against the Diamond authority. He eventually became a rebel because he had a lot of things to disagree with when it came to white Diamond and how things were handled.

The team on Dan’s side so far consist of him as a Larimar, Justin/Thinknoodles as his pearl, a perfect lapis cut who dubbed himself IBallisticSquid due to the use of floating water tentacles, and ThxCya aka James, a mercenary against the corrupt gems who is a half-human, half- emerald himself. (Like Steven but way less OP and less MC energy.). The difference between Dan and Lizzys squads? Lizzys is much bigger, and both sides would live in different parts of the world entirely. Like snowy dragon said, two diamonds at once would cause a power imbalance. One team would be taking care of some arcs shown in SU, the other will deal with other arcs. (EX: Lizzys group/empires n stuff would have the sword training arc, Dan’s and other ogs would have the Human Zoo arc.)

Anyways enough rambling, here’s their basic designs that are subject to change because I’m indecisive. God I hope it actually comes up for everyone else actually visible.

Gemcyt by @chrisrin

Og idea by @snowydragon10

DanTDM design inspired off of DiamondTDM by @ingapotejtoo

[official-butterfly-sisters]

🦋🏥~The Butterfly Mansion~🏥🦋

🦋💜: "Hello? Another slayer.."

🦋🩷: "They look so beat up, did you fight a lower moon or something?!"

🫐💙: "How reckless they got their uniform all messed up! Ugh I'll go prepare a bed hang in there!"

🌸💜: "....."

🩷🪻: "Oh I want to know how it went! Tell me tell me!"

🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐

🌸💜~Kanao Tsuyuri

🩷🪻~Kanao Kanzaki(Kana)

🫐💙~Aoi Kanzaki

🦋🩷~Kanae Kocho

🦋💜~Shinobu Kocho

🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐

Hi!! This used to be a Kanao only RP account but I decided to merge it with the majority of the butterfly sisters and my OC Kana, there’s a lot of AUs listed at the end so just read those first! My OOC account is @kanaokanzaki-op!! This just ended up being my main blog cuz I never planned to make one for OOC content. 😭

I’d love to rp, answer questions and have fun on this blog but before that-

A few rules, however:

-No NSFW and no hate attacks or spam! (Also if I find you rp/send those things I will block you, it pops up on my feed and I don’t want a heart attack in public please.)

-OCs are welcome!! I love shipping as long as you give me abit of extra info about how their relationship works! (Or link/tag me to something- ALSO NO SHIPPING WITH KANA- I'm very specific on her. She has only one ship and it's with Zenitsu-)

-RPS are yes, I like them , you can start one in the asks! I fully accept crack things and PLEASE ask questions, I love questions!

-Please be patient, I am a pretty busy person! However, you can DM me after 3 days of not answering your reply or question because I am very forgetful. I allow spams on the 5th day as long as there's no post explaining why I'm not responding.

-If I decide to rp with you, I’ll clarify what character I’m using with emojis. I ask you to do the same if you’re asking/rping something orelse I’ll ask you to resend or just ignore your ask. (Even crack, you can just say their names-)

Crack/Random- 🌸💜: "Insert text" Insert what they're doing

RP Starter- 🌸💜 Insert paragraph "Insert text"

OOC- [Insert text]

🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐

I have a Discord account so you can invite me into those instead if dms/tumblr aren’t your type! (I love both equally!!)

Friendship groups are something I love like the Kamaboko Squad or anything else with OCs! I’m a multishipper so if you wanna ship Kanao or Aoi with anyone different then canon ships Idm! (I also like canon ships dw.) I also fully accept someone just randomly adopting these guys- Kana would love it(CC or OC). 

I'll be posting art, headcanons and maybe some oneshots (You can request anything as long as it follows the rules!)

That’s all I really have for now, please don’t be shy to ask me anything! I’m open to a lot :D! For more information, please look at Kana's info page, Butterfly sister AUS and My Carrd!

🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐🦋🌸🪻🫐

[foralternateuniverses]

I have a little Promare au that is mainly Acechiji and Zosan (qué puede que te interese @agreekdemigod)

For starters, Germa 66 is a government-allied company dedicated to studying the burnish and creating technology to counter burnish fire and to deal with and arrest the burnish.

Judge, obv, is still just a scum, he abused his children with the aim of making them burnish, an experiment to test their creation, the only one he failed with (or so he thinks) is Sanji, who he locked up with the helmet for 6 months until Zeff (who was the cook at Vinsmoke mansion, and who is not burnish) grabbed him and took him away with the help of Reiju and the brothers, who created a fire (to cover Sanji's just awakened fire) to help them escape and make Judge believe he had died or something like that.

After all, they know that having been marked as successful experiments, they have no way out. At least the experiments he performs on them are not as inhumane as those he performs on "criminals", none of which have cost them their lives. The experiments he does on his children focus more on the weaponry and chemical things they use to fight the Burnish.

Judge brings out the information that his home was attacked by burnish and that his third son is among the dead，that it was a miracle that he and his other children survived.

And he also turns them into a specialised squad to arrest especially dangerous/powerful Burnish. If some of the details look strange or unnecessary on the Vinsmoke's uniform, they are possibly the failsafes Judge put on his children's uniforms for emergency purposes, should they decide to reveal themselves or something, i.e. to better control them (under threat, at the very least), special, and rather painful, freeze dials will active and be injected in their bodies. Also their glasses and "headphones" have cameras and recording devices so Judge can more easily keep them under his thumb.

Sanji is raised by Zeff (who lost a leg due to his fire) and his restaurant becomes super popular, duh, and then he'll be frequented by the firefighter's rescue unit.

Among which are Zoro, Franky (mechanic), Nami, Usopp (mechanic), Luffy and Jinbe.

Zoro decided to become a firefighter to save lives after Kuina died in a burnish fire.

Luffy joined because his brothers are burnish and he knows what a person has to go through to become one, and then what it means to live as a burnish, so he wants to help other burnish, especially those who are just waking up, prevent them from being captured or escaping in solitude, things like that.

Ace and Sabo are the leaders of the "terrorist" group Mad Burnish, who burn things (without causing accidents, injuries, etc.) and rescue burnish.

Ace and Ichiji kind of develop a weird rivalry, but not really, the leaders of the mad burnish clash a lot with the Vinsmoke Siblings, and because of how they are, Ace and Ichiji tend to fight each other one on one a lot.

After a bad incident™, Ichiji goes temporarily away from home, farther than he usually does (he has a lake he likes to go to clear his head when the voice of the burnish gets to be too much or he simply wants to get away from home for a couple of hours) and he ends up meeting Ace, who's ready to fight, but he doesn't have his glasses or headphones on, nor is he on duty so Ichiji is like "not right now", but Ace is not taking it, they don't fiscally fight but their argument gets a tad heated and the anger frees some of Ichiji's flames, so the freeze dials in his clothes activate on response, Ichiji drops to the floor with a painful scream and Ace is like WTF yet immediately reacts to see snf try to help Ichiji, he ends up taking Ichiji to the closest hideout they have, where, after telling Sabo what happened, he gets help for the unconscious Vinsmoke.

Now, the bad incident™ in question is Zosan related, as in, the Vinsmoke's special team also responds and attends calls of people telling on burnish trying to live normal lives, and someone, reported the sous-chef of the increasingly popular restaurant Baratie, and Reiju was sent to check it out. Sanji had been having his usual flirt-argument with Zoro (who was there with his team) when Reiju arrived, being recognised and knowing what it meant for her to be there sent him into a panic attack that exposed his being burnish, and being on duty and under threat (not only her but her other brothers) Reiju jad to take Sanji with her, and then Zeff for trying to protect him and continuing on defending him even after she gave her an out.

And that's basically all I have for now (⁠☞ﾟ⁠∀ﾟ⁠)⁠☞

[theminecraftbee]

as someone who is also interested in making a persona au but is struggling, how do you decide on the more persona specific stuff? like, how do you decide on stuff like who’s which social link, what personas they have, costumes (if they have any in your au) and stuff like that? it’d be nice to hear about someone else’s thought process;;

SO! starting with general advice that will apply even outside of persona aus: the thing is that none of the assignments will ever be perfect. the inherent nature of ANY au like this is that different people will have different character opinions; for example, i'm sure there are people vehemently think my social link assignments should be different! and that's fine; your goal isn't "perfect, immutable fit", your goal is "it fits to the story i'm trying to tell". like, in general,

with that ALSO said: you shouldn't try to shove characters perfectly into roles from other things, either. two different characters will have two different reactions to Situations, and you should take advantage of that, too! it's like... the role you give a character WILL shape them, but the character will shape that role, too.

with that out of the way: specific persona au thoughts!

first, you are going to want to decide who your team will eventually be; persona squads normally start out with around three guys and end up at seven or eight (with the eighth man often being an odd-one-out). I went “the cherry blossom hill gang” in my au, which was easy, but you may have less simple ideas there! also keep in mind that you will, at least, have protagonist/healer/physical damage/magical damage as the four “basic” in-game archetypes, with persona also typically having a “balanced” guy who does both, a status setter, an instakill guy, and a party buffs guy, spread across its guys. so if that helps you here, excellent! you will also need at least one of the main party to be a navigator.

you will also want some idea of the “themes” of your au because it’ll help you out deciding personas and social links, plus a little plot.

so, first: each persona game has a “theme” for the main party personas. 3 is all greek legendary figures that evolve to greek gods (with lucia prior to ultimate personas breaking theme, and kala-nemi and messiah breaking theme with the ultimate personas). 4 is all japanese gods that evolve to another name of those same gods (with chie breaking theme in that her ultimate persona has nothing to do with her original one). 5 is all legendary rogues/thieves that evolve to trickster gods (with necronomicon breaking theme and frankly milady is a STRETCH for the starter personas, and astarte and anat being questionable for the ultimates). as the like… MANY caveats show, you don’t have to be perfectly on-theme, but having a theme at least in mind helps a lot with picking what persona everyone gets by narrowing the pool! for my au, is went “famous lovers”, since a major “theme” of my au is “isolation versus bonds”. however, you don’t have to stick to something with thematic relevance, you just want something that helps tie everyone together a little bit.

as for weapons, what elements they attack with, what their party role is like: that’s a personality call, you know? and don’t be afraid to get a little weird with it, we aren’t atlus, we CAN break character archetype.

as for social links: that’s indeed tricky! it can help to remember you don’t ACTUALLY need to come up with 22. the world/the universe is ALWAYS only the protagonists final persona. the fool is ALWAYS a plot-driven social link that effectively represents “the protagonist’s relationship with the plot”, with p3/4 making that the team, and p5 making that igor. judgement is ALWAYS a plot-driven social link that represents the protagonist at the end of their journey; in p3/4 it’s the team at the end of the plot once they know their true purpose, and in p5 it’s sae nijima as she interrogates the protagonist. so that cuts out three arcana already to be set aside as “this is for the plot”.

next, while I know this isn’t true of p3, it makes sense from our own writing perspective where our story is NOT constrained by “gameplay dictates a social link can happen at any time” to make each member of the team a social link. fill out the rest with additional canon characters.

but how to decide which character goes in which link? helpfully, this is persona: it tends to have a little less to do with personality and more to do with storyline. you can go by “what character fits the tarot symbolism best”—doc as the tower, jimmy as the hanged man—or “what character fits the normal persona character archetype for this arcana”—skizz as chariot, mumbo as moon. you can also go for a mix! if you don’t KNOW what kind of character normally fills an archetype, the megami tensei wiki has pages for each arcana that describes the typical character archetype that goes there. you can also break type as needed—joe is hermit in my au despite “hermit” not really being his persona character archetype for very specific plot/tarot reasons, for example, and impulse is emperor, but is breaking persona type by being a healer rather than a heavy physical attacker. it’s your au, have fun with it!

also, ultimately, know that because it’s your au to have fun with, if you DON’T have fun giving everyone an arcana, just pick out the ones that are relevant to the part you’re writing and ignore the rest until they come up. this is my tactic for worldbuilding in like half the aus I write it hasn’t steered me wrong yet.

good luck! I hope this helped!

[antivanwine14]

I love a Pokemon AU so here are the teams for Xander and Laslow (plus a few others): Long and under the cut.

Xander- Xander's team leans towards 'darker' pokemon, Nohr has more dark/ghost/poison than any other type and so Xander has them too. His squad also has some of the most challenging pokemon to train, those who take a lot of time and effort but he puts in the work. He also has a friendship evolution because even though it isn't obvious at first glance, he adores his team and they love him back.

Aegislash- all heirs to the throne get a honedge as a child, Xander's Aegislash is named Siegfried and is a Nohrian variant of Aegislash,

Spectrier-Xander's mount, is an ass.

Hydreigon- He received Hydreigon as an egg and slowly raised up. It was A LOT of hard work but Xander is proud of Hydreigon.

Purrloin- not actually used in combat, is mostly just a little cat that hangs around him and gets cuddles,

Gyarados- the first pokemon he caught, people were pretty judgmental of him and his little karp but he believed in Magikarp. Eventually with a lot of hard work he became a Gyarados. He looks terrifying, knows how to act terrifying, but is actually a big baby who wants the cuddles too (and is particularly fond of Laslow because Laslow spoils him).

Crobat- Xander had a starter who fell with his retainers. He was not going to replace the starter but eventually a little Zubat started to hang around him and grew very fond of him. He eventually realized the same Zubat was following him around and became fond of her too.

Laslow- So I never realized this but a lot of the dancing pokemon fall within grass types and so Lalsow ended up with a lot of grass types (which makes him stick out as not Nohrian since grass types are uncommon in Nohr). Almost all of Laslow's pokemon are actually pretty good dancers, even the Gallade and Lopunny. Only Absol doesn't really dance.

Liligant (Hisuan)- elegant lady, Keeps the others in check from flirting too much, there are no Hisuan pokemon in Fates World so people are very baffled by her, especially Hoshidans who swear she is not a liligant.

Ludicolo- He vibing, with nothing going on in that brain, has the ability own tempo.

Gallade- As big a flirt as Laslow, just as bad as it, is actually really shy and that is part of how he met Laslow. Olivia gave him the same bad advice she gave Laslow. Laslow doesn't have a traditional starter because he decided ralts would be his started.

Lopunny (female)- Also a big flirt, actually successful at flirting but gets dragged away by Lilligant a lot. Was never shy, just a flirt.

Bellossom- She is a good nature pokemon, loves dancing and singing, is mostly vibing too .

Absol- Laslow caught him just before everything went wrong in Awakening, most of the children have an Absol. Absol is pretty chilled and quiet but enjoys watching the others dance. He is fond of Xander

Ryoma- Hoshido has more grass, fire, and fairy types and so his team is full of them. He has a more traditional relationship with his squad and keeps a little more distance between him and his pokemon. He has not friendship evolution.

Aegislash (Hoshido variant), Moltres, Kom-mo, Kingambit, Samurott (starter), plus he has a Growleth that he doesn't actually use in battle

Odin's team includes a Husian Samurott and Selena's include a Husian Decidueye both of these also cause a lot of confusion since people swear they aren't Samurott or a Decidueye.

Takumi's includes a regular Decidueye.

Leo's includes a Gengar and a Leavanny who is constantly trying to fix his clothes.

[littlegnome145]

Not the same anon, but could you maybe write something on the lone Bulbasaur au? Like, idk, them meating a random pokémon from the war and stuff? I just find the concept really neat lol

(2 of my classes were cancelled today bc of the world cup, so I was able to write a bit. Sorry it's a little rushed!) 2,765 words.

Bulbasaur kept alternating between staring at the map and looking at his surroundings frantically, the grass type's frustration was obvious, even though he was trying to hide it to the best of his abilities.

"I don't understand- I was sure we were going on the right path, but I don't recognize anything!", the map is beginning to get somewhat crumpled with how tightly the older pokémon's vines were holding it. Turtwig, who was following close behind him, was becoming increasingly worried that his guardian might accidentally rip it.

"Hey it's okay, dad. We'll find our way eventually, we always do!", the young turtle remarks with an unsure smile. He wasn't used to comforting others, much less his father, but he still wanted to help.

Bulbasaur takes a big breath, trying to regain himself as best he could. This trip- finding this place, was important to him, but he wasn't going to make that the kids' problem.

Sure he was scared of never finding the tree Squirtle had told him about, of forgetting this location that his old friend had given him directions to years ago, but he couldn't let it consume him.

The older grass type glanced at Turtwig's direction with an apologetic smile, patting the child's head with one of his vines.

"I know, sorry, I'm just a little nervous- "

Bulbasaur is interrupted by a loud voice calling him from afar. Chimchar.

"Hey, dad! I found someone that can help us!" The child said as he ran out of some bushes, heading towards his guardian. Bulbasaur turns to the kid with obvious relief, quickly stepping closer to him.

"That's great, little flame!" He remarks, trying to look for this helpful stranger, "Who-"

When Bulbasaur sees the so called friendly pokémon, he freezes. In a heartbeat one of his vines wraps itself around Chimchar and pulls him away from the stranger and behind himself protectively.

A bird.

It was a bird pokémon. A Fearow.

The flying type looks somewhat surprised with the interaction, tilting his head. "Tough crowd huh" he says, trying to lighten the mood.

Bulbasaur does not even blink, too frightened to allow the bird out of his sight. He falters slightly when he notices that he was seemingly not recognized.

The whole caterpie and bird fiasco was still a somewhat fresh wound in the Kanto region, especially to those who were around to see it. Too many innocent pokémon had been slaughtered, too many had been left scarred.

This Fearow didn't look all that young, so he had probably seen at least some of it. Looking closely at him, Bulbasaur also noticed a significant amount of scars throughout his beak and wings, a mismatched pattern of Keratin and feather making the damage somewhat obvious.

He needed to be careful.

Bulbasaur finally allows himself to blink, switching into a polite smile as soon as his eyes opened once again. He remains in front of the children however, just to be sure.

"I'm sorry, you just surprised me is all. I'm used to only seeing prevolves around here." The older grass type says with a small chuckle.

The Fearow visibly relaxes, giving the three pokémon a prideful grin, "Nah, no need to worry, little dude, I get it. You small pokémon need to be careful, after all."

As much as the grass type was annoyed at being called small by someone who was clearly younger than him, he said nothing, wanting to keep the peace.

Chimchar taps at his guardian's shoulder and points at the bird pokémon, "he said he can recognize pretty much any pokémon, tree or stone from around here. Maybe he knows how to find what we're looking for."

Bulbasaur nods, unfolding his map and showing it to the Fearow. The bird however, barely looks at it before shaking his head. "Nah, dude, I don't know anything about maps, sorry. If you tell me how the place looks like I can try to locate it, though."

The grass type takes a few moments to reply, trying to not meet the bird's gaze when he did. "It's a tree. It has an x on it's trunk, an… Old friend of mine was burried there."

Fearow falters slightly at that, somewhat unsure on what to respond. "Oh- uhh, sorry for your loss, man."

Bulbasaur doesn't reply.

"Well, there are a few that fit that description around here, I can walk you through some of them if you want. Maybe we'll be able to find it- follow me."

Xx

The four of them had been looking at random trees for hours.

No really, how many trees with a manually written "x" on their trunk could there possibly be in one forest? Why did humans like putting their names surrounding it so much? Did they really not have any better hobbies? This was starting to get ridiculous, even the Fearow was beginning to get annoyed.

"So…", the flying type starts, "could you maybe tell me a bit about this burried friend of yours? I mean, I know where a few wild pokémon from here were laid to rest, so it might help."

When Bulbasaur stays silent, the bird glances at Chimchar and Turtwig awkwardly. He wanted to help, but that was gonna be difficult if everyone stayed so ambiguous about it all.

"Well, he's a Charmander, but apparently only his head was burried, and another one of our dad's uhh, friends picked the location. A Squirtle."

Spearow showed slight amusement at that information, not managing to fully contain a chuckle. "Wait, so a Bulbasaur, a Charmander and a Squirtle? That's kinda neat, were you guys starters or something?"

Bulbasaur stays quiet, but gives a slight nod to his question, not bothering to even glance at his direction.

"Wow! Huh, who would have thought. Well I haven't seen any squirtles here since…" Fearow's expression quickly sours and he stops suddenly.

"Did you say that just his head was buried?"

The bird's previous warm voice suddenly turned low and cold, uncomfortable. His eyes were unfocused, expression unreadable.

Bulbasaur stops, his gaze follows the fearow like a hawk, trying to find the slightest indication of a threat, but nevertheless, he nods. Reluctance immediately turns into confusion when the bird finally decided to reply.

"Damn, man, I'm sorry. It was those damn worms wasn't it?"

…

What?

"Worms? You mean..?" Bulbasaur doesn't even finish his line of thought before the bird pokémon nods.

"Yeah, it was the caterpie army, right? I mean, they were known for decapitating their enemies during battle. Pretty vile stuff. Their leader even had a-" Fearow stops himself, seemingly having remembered something.

Chimchar and Turtwig stare at both of them confused. While they had heard stories from Bulbasaur about it all, some details had clearly been left unsaid, either because the older pokémon didn't remember it or simply because he didn't want to talk about it.

This seemed to be a case of the latter.

"Gods, was your Charmander friend the one the leader-"

Bulbasaur sighs, giving the Fearow an annoyed look that he hoped showed he lack of interest in continuing the subject.

"Yeah, it was him." He responds bluntly.

The bird pokémon grows quiet after that, staying in the same spot, deep in thought.

"I think I might know where it is."

Xx

It was a tree deep in the forest, out of sight of those who were not specifically looking for it.

An x was written on it's trunk just like Bulbasaur remembered, with a big patch of mismatched grass right in front of it. It wasn't all that pretty, just a random tree in a random, darker part of the forest, but it brought him some peace.

He had found it. He had at least found one of his friends again. He found Charmander.

Bulbasaur walked towards it almost mesmerized. It had been such a long time since he had been able to go there.

He was here when Whiskers had been able to sneak away the Leader's 'lost hat' and given it to Squirtle. When his two friends found an excuse to bring him outside so they could at least give Charmander a small burial.

The older grass type can't help but smile at the memory. It was a bittersweet one, but he was still so grateful to Whiskers for everything she had done. She hated the lizard, but she cared about him and Squirtle.

She was a good friend. A great one, actually. He remembers how even Squirtle had been grateful for her small act of kindness.

He recalls how they had brought him here a few times after that, lying to the Leader about 'giving him some sunlight'. How Squirtle had told him to come here in case anything happened and he had to run away, how Whiskers began to bring him there even more after Squirtle started his mission.

Bulbasaur could feel his vision become unfocused as tears welled up in his eyes. It had taken him so long, but he had found this place again. This was a start, things were finally starting to look up! He dries the moisture from his face with one of his vines, and turns to Fearow with a grateful smile.

"Thank you. Thank you for helping us."

The bird in question flashes him a grin, "No problem, dude! Do you three need help with anything else?"

Bulbasaur shakes his head. No, the bird had already done quite enough, besides if he told him about Squirtle he could-

"Actually, can you just tell us one more thing?"

Goddammit Chimchar.

Fearow simply chuckles, "Of course, little dude! What is it?"

"Chimchar we don't-"

The small fire type simply ignores his guardian.

"Have you seen any Squirtles aroud here recently? Maybe one who talks like this ?" Chimchar asks, the last part having a very poor impersonation of Bulbasaur's old friend.

The Fearow smile drops slightly.

"Uhh, you okay?", asks Turtwig, somewhat uncomfortable with the bird pokémon's change in posture.

"Yeah", Fearow replies, trying to contain his voice. "Yeah, it's just…"

" 's been quite a while since I've seen a Squirtle around here. Uhh, I think the last time I ever saw one was during the Caterpie War."

Bulbasaur stiffens.

This could be bad, he had to stop this conversation from going any further.

"The Squirtle we're looking for fought in a war! It might be him!"

Oh no.

The older grass type had no idea on how the bird pokémon's stances after the war. He could attack them.

Bulbasaur is already planning an escape with the best of him abilities, trying to remember where he had kept that one greatball in his bag, or what kind of attack would be best to stunt the flying type in case he became violent.

Because heexpected him to get violent, to realize who the Squirtle they were talking about was, to-

The Fearow starts to laugh. No sign of resentment in his frame, on his actions. It was as if the child had told him some stupid, but innocent thing, instead of what he had actually been implying.

"Hahaha, well I doubt it. I don't think anyone would be able to care for that… thing enough to search for him." The bird says. Most of his speech was quite laid back, but the last part had a bit of venom laced on it.

"And, well, i don't know about his voice, the guy was pretty silent. Only really spoke when that damn leader talked to him. Kinda made all the stuff he did even creepier, honestly"

Bulbasaur couldn't help but be curious at that last part. Squirtle barely told him anything about his battles, barely talked at all for that matter.

He had heard that it was bad , but he still wanted to know. Anything could be a clue to what happened, even an enemy, especially an enemy.

And even if it wasn't, he was sick of being shielded on everything. He wanted to know what happened, had his friend bad done.

He wanted to know who Squirtle was.

"How so?", Bulbasaur asks, trying to humor the bird into giving him as much information as he could.

The Fearow lets out a bitter chuckle, seemingly resenting whatever memories this conversation had brought to him.

"Well, that guy was a damn killing machine. He'd rip his enemies apart limb from limb and not say a thing. Downright cruel. A bloodthirsty animal, that's what he was."

Both of the younger pokémon stare at their guardian. Bulbasaur couldn't tell if it was from confusion, worry or both, he wasn't paying them much thought at the moment. He felt such a strange sense of dejá-vu with it all.

He knows that his friend had to do some… Unpleasant things during the conflict, but he wasn't expecting something like that.

It almost felt like they weren't talking about the calmer water type, but instead about-

Bulbasaur didn't finish that thought. He didn't want to. It wasn't true. It couldn't be.

He couldn't trust that Fearow.

Yeah, that's right, he couldn't trust him. He was a bird, he was one of the enemies against the caterpies, against him.

Of course he'd say something like that, something so terrible about his lost friend. He fought against them-

But he's sure that Squirtle wouldn't do those things, even in that state. His friend wasn't bad, he wasn't evil, and he definitely wasn't a killing machine.

He was a good pokémon. He gave Bulbasaur's favorite berries to him whenever he could, he stayed with him when he felt lonely, he- He wouldn't do these things. Not his friend, not Squirtle, he was sure of it.

So Bulbasaur just gave Fearow a polite smile and a chuckle, ignoring the children's looks of uncertainty.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. We're definitely not talking about the same Squirtle."

Fearow's grin comes back, "See, I told ya! So don't worry about him."

The bird notices the sun starting to come down, the sky now a beautiful mixture of yellow and orange. "Shoot, I should get going. Don't wanna worry my family. Welp, I hope you find that friend of yours eventually!"

Fearow gives them a small wave and flies off, heading to the same direction they had previously come from. When he is out of sight, the three of them can finally relax fully.

Turtwig hits Chimchar on the head with one of his paws with a smack, giving his brother an exasperated look.

"What were you thinking?! You could've gotten us killed you know?"

The fire type glares at him annoyed, but doesn't hit back, choosing instead to simply rub his new injury with one of his paws.

"Hey- I didn't know that this Squirtle guy was apparently a frigging war criminal! I mean-"

Both of them stop when they notice their dad. He seemes somewhat pale, looking at nothing.

He looked uncomfortable. Scared. It was disturbing to see him like this.

The kids glance at eachother, unsure on what to do. They might think this Squirtle guy was a complete jerk, but their dad cared about him. He cared about him alot.

Turtwig gets closer to him, trying to offer some kind of support, "Hey, uh, dad, are you okay?"

Bulbasaur snaps back into reality.

He didn't want to scare the two. He was their guardian, he couldn't be like this.

He's supposed to protect them, to shelter them, not the other way around.

The older grass type, in a flash, changes his posture. If they didn't know any better they might have thought that the whole exchange with the bird pokémon hadn't even happened.

"Yeah, don't worry. Like I said, we weren't talking about the same Squirtle."

Turtwig and Chimchar still look a little unsure. The more they hear about their dad's old friends, the more confused they get. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of what was and wasn't true. Especially when it came from Bulbasaur.

"Well, this was a pretty long day, huh? You two must be really tired. How about we try to find a good place to settle for the night. I think there's a cave close by."

Well, this was a conversation for later, that was at least something that both of them could agree on. Their guardian was clearly not in the mood to talk, so them pushing him wouldn't end all that well- it would probably just make the older grass type sad.

So, for now, they'd stay quiet, and not ask him any more questions.

"Sure, that seems like a good idea."

[you-must-choose]

Ritchie and Laura

So I vaguely implied it in the very first post, but I'm heavily leaning into the whole "Ritchie is a Discount Ash" Thing in the Papa Meowth AU by making him a Zorua whose parents are a Zoroark and Sandslash from the future, as a parallel to Ash and Delia's whole Mystery Dungeon thing. Why they time traveled is spoilers for Sinnoh. He also has a human sister named Laura who has a mysterious connection to Celebi (mysterious because I haven't figured out what it is or what it means and this buys me some time), as Maria's counterpart.

They've got their own, mostly off-screen journey that strongly parallels Ash and Maria's, including stumbling into their own World Saving Adventures at roughly the same time, though the two journeys overlap occasionally, usually at either the few Canon times Ash and Ritchie have run into each other or during Adventures that are too big to have a reasonable counterpart. This means the two of them and their problems are going to end up plot relevant, especially in Sinnoh.

Anyway, here's their teams up through Orange Islands (they don't show up in the Orange Islands for the record, that's just where Ash and Maria's team list stopped so far). And yes, they both nickname their Pokemon.

Ritchie

Sparky (Pikachu)

Happy (Butterfree) (he probably caught it as a Caterpie but I'm basing the initial stage shown in the list on whatever they first get introduced as)

Naginata (Spearow)

Rooter (Venusaur)

Zippo (Charmander>Charmeleon) (evolves during his battle with Ash's Charizard, which is an actual battle this time)

Torpedo (Tentacool>Tentacruel) (evolves off-screen, not sure when that'll be revealed)

Alec (Morgrem>Grimmsnarl) (A perfect gentleman, in contrast to most of his species. Makes liberal use of Charm and Flatter.)

Sir Daniel (Cubone>Marowak) (the one I mentioned as evolving in the same match as Ash's Cubone. When he's a Cubone his skull helmet is a bit oversized and misshapen for some reason, so it covers one of his eyes and muffles his voice to the point he's almost completely unintelligible, though it doesn't seem to hinder his battling too much and it's fixed when he evolves. based on Sir Daniel Fortesque from Medievil, Because I Can)

Cowl (Arbok)

Grit, Gravel, Grunt, Grace, and Gray (five Dugtrio who Ritchie stumbled into catching in Digglet cave as Digglets. Counterparts to the Tauros Herd)

Quackers (Farfetch'd)

Flare (Beedrill)

Yogi (Ursaring) (Yes, he lives up to the name. How else would he be able to be Sorlax's counterpart?)

Laura

Cadmus (Meowth) (No, he can't talk)

Odie (Growlithe>Arcanine) (Actually evolves in the same scene he's introduced, since Laura bought a Fire Stone from the same vendor as Maria for the same reason that Maria bought Clefable's Moon Stone, at roughly the same time, and that's how they end up meeting each other.)

Rock (Squirtle) (basically Mega Man as a turtle since I made the Squirtle Squad Leader basically Sonic. Has Mega Launcher, Protean and Trace, and somehow knows Sketch, Mimic and Copycat) (yes I rotated which starter ends on what stage. because why not)

Zingo (Electrode)

Hobbs (Hitmonchan)

Grill, Grape, Grand, Gravy and Gru (The other five Dugtrio)

Mochi (Dratini)

Majesty (Nodorina>Nidoqueen) (also evolved at the Stone Vendor at the Indigo Conference because Counterparts)

Arc (Electabuzz)

Lilac (Alolan Vulpix with cybernetic augmentations. I'll explain when I'm done with the lists)

Whirl (Lapras)

...alright, so what's going on with Lilac?

Well, I needed to give them an equivalent to Mewtwo Strikes Back since Maria got a Pokemon out of it, but by that point in the timeline there's only one Mewtwo, and something Celebi-related made the most sense since Laura's connected to it somehow and Ritchie has his whole "my parents are from the future and my egg was laid there" thing, but there's no Pokemon that has a similar relationship to Celebi as the one Mewtwo has to Mew...

...so I made one up.

Celeborg is what happens when you try to take shortcuts when making a Time Machine. Some idiot Mad Scientist in the distant future decided that instead of actually working out how to travel through time, or bothering to program a proper AI, they'd instead install a Celebi DNA sample into a robot and call it a day. The resulting Reverse Cyborg went through a massive existential meltdown blowing up the lab and stumbling backwards in time in the process, and in its unstable mindset decided to make more cyborgs so it wouldn't be alone as the only Thing like itself (and also the scientist may have been working for an Evil Team so the programming that the Celebi DNA wasn't able to sub in for possibly included world domination-type stuff). Somehow Ritchie and Laura got involved and managed to calm it down and it decided to find a place in the present to live peacefully with any of the Cyborg Pokemon who were interested in staying with it.

Celeborg is Grass/Steel Type (because I continue to insist that Celebi's time powers come from its Grass typing and not its Psychic typing. though Celeborg does still learn plenty of Psychic moves) with Levitate as its usual ability and Download as a Hidden Ability. The version in the AU has both thanks to how Abilities work there. Might draw it at some point.

[chocochipbiscuit]

WIP tag game!

I was tagged by @razrogue and while I'm happy to be tagged, I'm slightly embarrassed by the number of WIPs I have!

Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! Tag as many people as you have WIPs.

I actually have so many WIPs that I organize them by fandom, and uh. I'm just going to include the ones that have been opened since December 1. So the last month's worth of files.

Dragon Age

[idea] Cassandra/Leliana werewolf AU

Fallout

[idea] Piper/Strong - 3am Fantasy

Synth!Courier concept

[idea] Strong/Madison/Virgil ideas

Strong/Virgil starter

[idea] Danse/Hancock necro AU

[outline] Wait For It - Keene/Preston

[idea] Love and Science - Curie/Cait + Strong, Piper

[idea] Piper/Sentient Deathclaw

The Fraud Squad

[WIP] Anya/Raina hatemance

The Locked Tomb

[idea] Babs' size kink awakening - Naberius/Ortus

Original Work

[idea] Orc Massage

strange and awful majesty (P/H)

[draft] Persephone in SPAAAACE!

[idea] The Hellmouth Diner

[idea] superhero/villain romance

In my defense!!! A lot of them are 'ideas' because I think about them just enough to scribble a few lines or ideas into the document every so often, because I'm hoping that by hoarding ideas it'll be like setting up my creative mise en place for when I'm actually ready to cook! And a few of them are [idea] because I like to keep revision notes and outlines separate from the actual [WIP] if the WIP is long and I am considering revisions!

Tags are for funsies, no pressure, hope you have fun!

@wolffyluna, @anneapocalypse, @bittylildragon, @commander-diomika, @cosmotronic, @euhemeria, @deacons-wig, @meishuu, @meikuree, @quandary-peak, @h1bernate, @formlessvoidbeast, and anyone else who wants to play!

[plushmon]

buncha doodles including hlvrai and starter squad aus

[n7punk]

(Zubat/Pawniard anon) Pawniard is Giacomo's lad (Dark admin of Team Star.) and a bunch of people in his squad use it in that horde battle thingy. I figured that the Zubat would be more like the one from the anime which didn't flap its wings nearly as much. In a normal AU, Adora would absolutely have Litten as her starter because Catra would refuse to take the cat, and Catra, being a traditional rival, would then have taken the water starter. On my team thesis I gave her Oshawott->HSamurott.

i guess i dont really classify team star as evil XD oshawott just seems a little out of left field for me, if i was going to give her a water starter i'd give her popplio so she can make lots of jokes about adora being a clown like him because bullying is her "i love you" language + that pairs well with litten. but also i wouldn't be inclined to give her a water starter because. she hates water. listen. im right lol. fire has other weaknesses anyway

in my version eevee is adora's starter