#a nice ending for this part of the AU

[cubbihue]

Timmy's graduation from Pixies' Academy was a very filled very chaotic day. Peri did his very best to behave! He didn't want to make a fuss on Timmy's big day!!!

But when you get a bunch of green stuff and no soda with your food, that's when you've had enough.

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

Instability: [Next]

[featherfangart]

The Feather

Aaand next part! Look who finally showed up... <3

Part ONE | Part TWO | Part THREE | Part FOUR | Part FIVE | Part SEVEN

[pigeonstab]

Cross and Dream would be unstoppable. In a bad way. Those two are both overworking machines and Blue is so so tired of having to wrangle them into resting.

[strangersteddierthings]

Steve, Gareth and Chrissy are cousins AU (sad edition) [prologue] [part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Final Part]

Steve climbs into the back of Nancy's car with Dustin, trying his best to play off his mood as having slept poorly in the Wheeler's basement, instead of the guilt and sorrow churning inside him. He had been hoping to be able to make excuses to go home for a bit today, away from the group, so he could go to Chrissy's funeral.

Doesn't seem like that will be happening. Not unless he tells them the truth. They're going to the Creel house and Steve can't let them ago without him. Can't let them walk into potential danger if he's not there.

Because Chrissy's already dead. He can't change that. But he can try his damnedest to make sure there's no one else. So, it's more important to him to be there with the living, than at a funeral. Chrissy would agree.

Chrissy would understand.

Right?

Gareth sits through Chrissy's funeral and notes that Steve's not there. No one from the Harrington household is. He doesn't know what to feel about that. All his sorrow has been spent on Chrissy, so all he feels for Steve is anger. What the fuck is more important to Steve right now than being here? For his family. For Chrissy. For him.

He sits next to Jason even though his mom left a spot next to her available for him. He's not suddenly Jason's best friend, but he was told they plan to continue their search immediately after the funeral, and if he sat next to his mom, she wouldn't let him go.

This is how he finds himself at Reefer Ricks, long past the mandated curfew with just Jason, Andy, and Patrick. The others having slowly dropped off the search the closer to night it got.

"Hey," Gareth calls out to Jason before entering the house, "I'm going to go check if Eddie's van is hidden where he usually parks it when he comes out here."

Jason pauses on his way through the door. He looks over his shoulder and gives a nod, "yeah, smart thinking. There should be a flashlight in the back of the car."

Gareth nods back and heads back to the car. It doesn't take long to find the flashlight and soon he's walking down the road. It's not a long walk, about fifteen minutes away is a cluster of trees that Eddie parks at when he comes to get more goods from Rick. Gareth (and their other friends) spent plenty of afternoons waiting in the van for Eddie to return from his 'job', as it were. It does keep the van out of sight of any road, though.

The van is there, and Gareth doesn't like what he sees. The driver side door is open, so he approaches slowly. "Eddie? You in there, Eddie?" he gets no response. He shines the flashlight through the back door's window, smooshing his face against the glass to look in. Once he's sure it's empty of anything, he approaches the open door and examines the front.

The keys are still in the ignition. Door left open and keys still in the ignition paints a story Gareth isn't sure he wants to read. That makes worry curl inside his body. He can't think of a single thing that would make Eddie abandon the van this quickly, too... scared? Worried? to bother to even close the drive door. He climbs in to try and start it but it won't. With the door left open for over 72 hours, the battery is dead.

He pockets the keys and locks up the van. If worse comes to worst, he can return the keys to Wayne.

He's almost back to the house when he hears shouting. He starts running, following the noise, and quickly finds Jason and Patrick on the shore, pulling their shoes off. His gaze flicks out to the lake and catches the sight of what can only be Eddie trying to get the motor of a motorboat started.

Well. Shit.

He doesn't think much more beyond that. He's just acting. He steps on the heels of his shoes to get out of them as quickly as possible and dives into the water. He's only seconds behind Patrick and Jason into the water, slowing to keep pace with them at first.

Gareth grew up in the Harrington swimming pool just like Steve had. Chrissy had. He's never been so glad for that as he is now, as he quits trying to pace himself and takes off, leaving Jason and Patrick behind.

Eddie's swinging the oar around wildly, as if they would stop any of them. He falters in his swinging when his eyes land on Gareth and he breathes out his name, "Gareth?"

One final stroke and Gareth can reach out of the water and grab the side of the boat. He doesn't haul himself aboard, but does haul himself high enough to look up at Eddie. "The police say you did it. Did you?"

Hurt flashes across Eddie's face but he answers, "No."

Gareth nods once, a decision made. Before he can respond though, Jason's caught up and Eddie is turning in the boat to wave the oar uselessly at him.

Clinging to the side of the boat gives Gareth a clear view of Patrick, who has stopped swimming. Jason and Eddie shout at each other as Gareth watches Patrick being to rise out of the water. "What the fucking shit!?"

Gareth doesn't know if Jason turns to look, he's too busy staring, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

"Don't look," Eddie says and the boat jostles as Eddie moves suddenly, dropping to his knees in the boat and throwing his hands up to block Gareth's view.

"What the fuck-" Gareth cuts himself off when he hears the snapping of bones. Jason is yelling and Gareth panics, pushes back from the boat, which makes Eddie lean more to block his eyesight, causing Eddie to fall out of the boat. On instinct, Gareth dives for him, the month and month spent in Steve's pool, hearing about pool safety kicking in.

Eddie doesn't really need rescuing, but he doesn't fight Gareth during the rescue. Patrick is no longer in the air when they breach the surface, and Jason is swimming back the way they came. Eddie flops himself back into the boat, then helps Gareth in as well.

They don't speak again until they've reached the other shore, in which case they just sit in the boat, soaked through, panting at each other as the adrenaline fades.

"What the fuck was that!?" Gareth doesn't shriek. He doesn't.

Eddie suddenly looks very severe and grim when he says, "that's what killed Chrissy."

[esaari]

honk

[stranger-is-alone]

Ok hear me out. U could name the cat Dandelion.

Dandelion it is.

(Wow, after that last post you all really delivered. That’s a lot of names.)

[slasherflicks999]

……………..who was gonna tell me the BEN drowned arg was gonna make me weirdly emotional huh

[destiny-in-the-universe]

remember that angst idea? yeah- I decided to share it anyway!

So, because I made a c.AI bot for my own personal uses- I was hit with a very wild idea of my own design… it’s sort of, well, set in the past using an alternate universe. The starring main duo are the First Ninja who will be getting a name soon and Human! Nomicon (for the sake of the au, they’re brothers! whether this is ‘canon’ to my lore is up for debate) - there is also an alternative version with Rei Izumi but we’ll talk about that one separately!

Here’s honestly my thoughts for the entire AU- (buckle in and hold on to your seatbelt, y’all! This one’s going to be a doozy-)

🗡️ The First Ninja and Nomi are the sole survivors of the Norisu Clan. Ever since the demise of their siblings- they have attempted to continue tradition. The First Ninja is now the sole protector of Norrisville (even though the Sorcerer has been dealt with, he can’t find it in himself to stop-). On the other hand, Nomi is still young and becomes a scribe but he also has ninja training

🗡️ Nomi becomes more reserved than he was previously. He can’t bring himself not to focus on his own studies

🗡️ The First Ninja also begins to act differently- (he still remembers the destruction and the fire, the screams as he was forced to helplessly watch)

🗡️ Somewhere down the line, Finja and Nomi decide to begin working on the NinjaNomicon - to create a tome to store the teachings and wisdom of the Ninja; for the future holder of the mantle

🗡️ Unfortunately- someone else becomes power-hungry and Finja is sent out to deal with the problem, undergoing a mission while Nomi continues staying in Norrisville but things inevitably… go south

🗡️ Due to still cartoon-based logic- and because this is angst- the Sorcerer manages to be freed from his prison and captures the First Ninja. He holds him hostage inside the depths of an underground cave, determined to make him suffer before killing him

🗡️ One of Finja’s allies manages to report to Nomi who immediately jumps ship at rescuing his brother- no matter what happens, Nomi is not about to let his brother die at the hands of the Sorcerer

🗡️ After a lot of searching- Nomi manages to find the cave and sneaks inside, startled to see his older brother weakened and bound by enchanted chains. (He does not take this well, at all-)

🗡️ Having learned magic, Nomi is desperate to cast a counter-spell but before he can fully free his brother- the Sorcerer and Nomi are now locked in a duel. The problem is Nomi’s not mastered his abilities yet- as he is a teenager and still learning

🗡️ Nomi is slowly weakening against the Sorcerer but he’s fueled by the determination to protect his brother and in a sudden act of rage- he manages to knock the Sorcerer back and due to the power of ‘I said so’ - the Sorcerer is sealed away back in his prison but Nomi is exhausted and barely manages to stay upright

🗡️ Unfortunately, Finja is also immensely weak- bruised and battered- and they hardly have the energy to do much. I’m going to ignore what actually happened with the c.AI and say either Rei shows up to get them out of there before they inevitably pass out or Nomi uses the last bit of his strength to escape the cave with Finja

🗡️ I’m not entirely sure what happens after this but let’s just say that the recovery period happens and eventually they manage to complete the NinjaNomicon and well, I do have a bad ending version for this because I’m mean but at the same time, if things play out well, everything goes back to normal

This is still being fleshed out! Nothing is concrete for the time being! I might honestly turn this into yet another fanfiction- I have constant brainrot and far too many WIP’s this is a problem, holy shit

This is for my own angst reasons

[dreaming-moonlight]

someone please write an office au/neighbours au chainpun friends to lovers with single dad!pun (maybe he adopted, maybe it's actually his nephew but his sibling is no more so he's the guardian now) starring penguin being spoiled by both chain and pun but with chain being slightly strict and melting into a puddle when pun and guin make puppy eyes and just overall cute domestic shit cause we only get like 4 minutes of chainpun every damn episode i p l e a d you

[multishipper-baby]

Also I remembered that I hadn't yet talked about Bonnie's deal in the killing game, despite him being one of the survivors, so I might as well talk about it now.

The thing about Bonnie is that he kind of shuts off a lot from the rest of the group. While the others all form their own little cliques, he's more on the distrustful side, and tends to keep to himself so as to not make himself a possible target- he's already been a target for bullies most of his life, he'd rather not become a target for murderers now. Despite that, he does end up making two friends over the course of the killing game: Bon and Fox. Both of which are somewhat similar to how it happened in canon.

With Bon, they start hanging out pretty early on since Bonnie is a hobbyist guitar player, and he asks Bon to give him some advice. At which Bon figures out that Bonnie is actually, uh, way too advanced to be called a hobbyist. Advanced enough to threaten his status as the Ultimate Guitarist player, with just how good he is (Bonnie jokes that he got that way from playing so much Guitar Hero. Bon isn't amused). They form a rivalry from then on, frequently spending time together practicing and making up stupid challenges to one up each other. Bonnie teaches Bon how to be better at videogames in return, since he sucks at most of them. I'm keeping Bon's crush on Bonnie, but I'm not sure if it'll be requited or not...

With Fox it comes down mostly to them having a similar sense of humor, and a small degree of necessity- Bonnie knows his chances of living all the way to the end are low, so he's hoping that sticking next to the tallest and strongest guy in the class will keep him safe. Meanwhile, Fox is not really all that observant or smart, so he's banking on Bonnie keeping an eye out for any trouble or anything that might later be useful for a trial. A brains and brawn duo, you could say.

Of course, all this means that when Fox kills Bon on Chapter 4, he... Doesn't take it very well. He's already been pulling away from the group more and more as the tensions rise, and this becomes his final straw- because for the entirety of Chapter 5, Bonnie is locked in his room. He raided the kitchen the night of the trial to stock his room full of snacks, and is planning on staying there for as long as needed. Mostly, he's just lost faith in the group, and is fully expecting them to continue killing each other until the game ends because only two players remain. The only time he leaves his room is for the next class trial, since attendance is mandatory... And boy does that trial not give him much hope for the future.

[hanakihan]

in addition to Edmond Dantes and his Count version we really need heavily traumatized Dantes who legit crawled out of Fear and Hunger dungeons and not Château d’If

‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I’m you but I saw shit beyond human’s comprehension’

Like idek it would’ve been amazing to have dantes and count and then there’s legitimately traumatized and gone beyond humanity dantes who lived and survived through horrors of fear and hunger dungeons and isn’t loud or edgelord and just a really eerily quiet and barely moving just staring at people with eyes full of trauma and unimaginable horrors

[ao3fujoshevik]

oh my mind is so huge and has so many folds

[razzle-zazzle]

Hey for your between au would branch talk about gristle to his older brothers like "yeah my big little brother gristle was about to get married and blah blah blah" but forgets to mention that gristle is a Bergen so the only one who knows that branch is proudly talking about a species that ate them regularly is John dory and when Bruce Clay and Floyd go to meet branch's little brother they freak the heck out or would he not tell them anything about his life without them (also the added guilt of finding out that your little brother was literally almost killed because you abandoned him has gotta mess with them)

It's kinda a mix! John Dory got the reveal head-on due to having to go directly to Bergentown to get Branch, but Bruce only gets a few hints of it up until they make it to Hole-n-Fun. There's a lot of ways to go about it, so I don't have everything nailed down just yet, but with the way things are currently planned Branch's role as Prince of Bergentown is outright stated at the minigolf course.

Floyd and Branch only get a few moments before the climax hits, so Floyd only knows that Branch is wearing a cloak and crown—up until after Floyd's fakeout death. At that point, well, with Gristle there and Floyd alive and safe, there's no reason for Branch to not get a little petty about introducing his younger brother >:]]

[skitskatdacat63]

— Emperor Charles VI's diary entry on Count Althann's death

[text: "My only heart, my comfort, my most faithful servant, my soulmate, who loved me dearly as I did him for 19 years, [we] had a true friendship, we were one heart and one soul, and we never concealed anything from one another. He will always be in my heart, [my] beloved friend..I. have lost everything."]

[silverselfshippingchaos]

the crush on 🔒💙... so strong... he won't leave my mind..

[moonfurthetemmie]

I think I've said that magic is taboo in the mer AU more than once. I'm a little more sure that I've said that racism regarding cecelias is very common.

Since it's going to be relevant to the DU part of the mer AU, here's the shorter version of why. Part of the reason it's shorter is that I can't find everything. some of it might be on amino, and i'm not going back there to look. they have ads now. i can't deal with that. don't make me. please.

There was a Witch who caused Problems

A long ass time ago, there was a city under the sea called Atlantis (whoa so creative waow). Its last king is an important character but if I get into his lore we’ll be here for hours. I will however say that the royal line is mostly cecelias

Back then, magic was very common, though you did need to be born with the gift. Still; many people used it, and Cecelia happened to be the most prolific magic-uses, and this is believed to be because the lord of the ocean (in Godly terms; not kingly) was a cecelia. 

Those who practice magic are called ‘sea witches’, but at this point in time it’s exclusively a job title. Other Mer, mostly ones who can’t use magic, go to them for help with problems that require magic to solve. They also tend to end up with unusual but harmless new physical features, which come from excessive magic use.

Supposedly this happens because of influence from the God of the Deep Ocean. We never went into it and I don’t remember what the thought process was there, but anyway.

When you want to be a sea witch, you pray to the god of the deep to grant you a blessing of ‘extra’ magic; a power-up to be an even better witch.

The infamous Mer who caused problems, whose name is no longer remembered, prayed to the god of the deep for this blessing. But he knew that she’d do terrible things if she learned magic, and so he didn’t give it to her.

And she got mad. She decided to learn as much magic as she could on her own. She had some ‘volunteers’ to test her magic on. Usually it was harmless or helpful. But sometimes it wasn’t.

And then, one day, she found an ancient inscription in the wall of a deep cave that, when read allowed, gave her the ‘blessing’ she’d been seeking for the god of the deep. She memorized it and started experimenting with it, and discovered that it could grant the gift of magic to those who’d never been able to use magic before. And that? That caught people’s attention. 

Loads of people came to get her version of that blessing. And a fair number of them were cecelias, because even back then they were shit at hunting like the other Mer, and magic was considered the only way for them to be useful to society.

All of these Mer ended up staying with her and learning her brand of magic, which was getting darker and darker as time went on. When the god of the deep learned of this, he refused to give any of her followers his blessing, either. 

She decided that that was outrageous bullshit, and her followers tried to calm her down saying “No, it’s fine! We don’t need him! We’ve got you!”

Unfortunately that gave her the idea of becoming a god herself She’d give the blessing of magic to anyone who asked. The current God of the Deep was an asshole. 

Eventually some of her followers found a legend of some font of power, and she went looking for it on her own. And she found it. And it went right to her head. She gave all of her followers a bit of magic, and then put all of them under a spell to do everything she said without question.

And by this point a good chunk of her followers were cecelias. 

Now, the king happened to know the god of the deep. They’re not like besties but they know each other personally. And the king’s consort/advisor (same guy, two roles) was one of the god’s most devout. They also happened to be cecelias

They eventually heard that the witch was looking for the god of the deep to kill him and take his place. Right as they were going to come ask him if he wanted assistance, his personal messenger and high priest (who is not longer truly mortal) rushes into the throne room and says he really needs help. So they intend to get an army together to fight for him.

But the citizens have heard about the horrific stuff this witch and her followers have been doing to find the god of the deep. They’ve started to believe that all cecelias are cruel, power-hungry menaces. No one joins. No one save the palace guards, who know better.

This witch is defeated, but the god of the deep is heavily injured and the king’s forces have taken heavy hits. 

The spell she put on her followers is broken when she dies, and they have no idea what’s going on. 

The god of the deep must rest and recover, but it will take a very long time. His messenger takes him to a hidden cave, where they remain to the present day. The god is still sleeping, and his messenger watches over him in his weakened state.

When the king and the remains of the army, with the witch’s followers in tow to be tried for the horrific crimes they’ve committed, return to the city, the citizens have managed to convince themselves that all cecelias truly are evil. And when they see the witch’s followers with the army, they all panic.

The king’s consort, and the consort’s childhood friend, are the only ones who make it out, and make for the hidden cave that the god of the deep is hiding it. 

Everyone else is killed.

The remaining citizens of Atlantis tried to find a new monarch, but it doesn’t work well and eventually, as families leave in groups, the city is abandoned.

It remains abandoned to this day. And still (almost) everyone thinks cecelias are inherently evil