#actual childhood friends au

[irishyuri]

these were such fun warmups lmao COWBOY AU (briefly) BACK ONLINE ‼️‼️

[starry-bi-sky]

No.

No, no, no, no, NO!

He's shaking. His heart is burning in his chest, pounding like a jackhammer against his ribs, and there's a trembling, aching rage building beneath his tongue and pressing against his teeth.

In his hands, his fingers tense and wrists locked, the article reads in big, black font: JOKER LOCKED IN ARKHAM ASYLUM AGAIN!

Danny shouldn't feel so angry about this, this is a good thing. Gotham doesn't have to deal with him for another few months at the least. He should feel relieved, a little more at peace.

He is not.

He cannot swallow the fury thudding behind his eyes, the burning white heat searing a deeper hole in his chest. A searing green filling static in his ears in the way only the rage of the restless dead can have.

How is he going to kill him now?

Arkham may be the only asylum in America made entirely of tissue paper, but it's still an asylum. There are cameras, guards, other patients resting inside. Danny can think of a million different ways to sneak in and kill Joker, but someone will hear his screaming.

It'd have to be rushed.

He doesn't want it to be rushed.

It's a cruel thought. Cruel and cold and merciless, but Danny doesn't feel an ounce of shame, not an ounce of guilt, for it. He wants to be alone with the Joker when he kills him, that's all he wants. In Arkham, you are never alone.

He forces his anger to bubble back down into his chest, stuffing it between his heartstrings and his ribs like a blanket you're trying to bunch up into a corner. It sizzles and burbles. The static begins to fade out into a high-pitched ringing; it sounds like distant screaming.

Danny is still trembling, but he can think a little clearer now.

He can wait.

He can wait. He can wait. He can wait. He canwait. Hecanwait. Hecanwait.

He can wait.

He's waited five years for this. He can wait one more week. One more month. One more year. However long it takes for the Joker to break back out, Danny can wait.

And when the Joker does, inevitably, break out.

Danny uncrinkles his fingers around the edges of the newspaper, loosens his limbs just enough so he can pay for it.

He'll be waiting.

The dead, after all, have all the time in the world.

[littlecrittereli]

Guardianship au,,,,,save me guardianship au,,,,,,,

If you don’t mind the questions, how’d the Tortuga gang react to Chris tagging along? I assume they understood Chris would be joining them early on into Martin being accepted, but I imagine the situation was more like. Martin snagging a new job on the Tortuga >> realizing he can’t take this job and leave his brother alone >> Chris says don’t worry just take me with you >> Martin nervously asking heyyyyyyyy is it cool if my little brother comes with?

Obviously everyone had to be cool with it eventually, but do you know what Aviva, Koki, and Jimmy had going through their heads when a mildly emo, 14yo Chris rolled in with a deeply anxiety-ridden Martin?

This is kinda the awkward phase of the team's relationship where they know Martin is struggling, but he's not willing to let them help just yet.

The second Chris finds out about the Tortuga it becomes his life-mission to convince Martin to let him go on the trip (it will not be difficult at all to convince him)

Martin is just hesitant because he wants to make sure he's not being selfish in his decision to join the team. Of course Chris wants to go too, but Martin is trying to think of his best interest.

Of course, he eventually realizes that the team genuinely cares about them and he's willing to let them help out with Chris, and then the found-family can commence!!!

[blue-mood-blue]

I’ve grown to appreciate the aus where Shen Yuan enters the story as “Shen Yuan” - same name, probably similar face, generally able to interact with PIDW as himself and change the story through his added presence. I like the sense of “if only you’d been here, things might have been better the first time around” of it all.

And I was thinking, it’s a funny coincidence in that scenario that someone named Shen Yuan gets put into… another Shen Yuan. What are the chances? What a weird twist of fate that Airplane would pick out the name that his most dedicated critic could slip into seamlessly.

What about a version where it’s not coincidence at all?

Airplane goes to school with a kid named Shen Yuan. He’s prickly and hard to approach and a little intense, but Airplane is persistent. In fairness, Airplane is relentless - and maybe it’s a good thing that they end up being friends, because they’re a little too much for anyone else to handle. They balance each other out. They’re the “weird kids” in class and they’re okay with that, because even when they don’t have any words for it, they know they’re not like their classmates, not really. That’s okay; they don’t want to be.

Recesses and breaks are consumed with the elaborate stories that Airplane wants to tell, and all the holes Shen Yuan pokes into them. It’s not mean-spirited, though, even though Shen Yuan isn’t the kind to temper his words. It’s passionate. He cares about those stories the way Airplane cares about them, and it can’t be mistaken for anything else when they lean together conspiratorially across the lunchroom table. They’ve both got notebooks filled with details and characters and monsters. Shen Yuan’s practically got a whole bestiary sketched out in wobbly childhood attempts at art, entries fervently scrawled beside them. Airplane prattles out plots nonstop, always with the promise of shining eyes and being asked “what happens next?”

They come up with a whole world together. Airplane’s going to write about it someday. Shen Yuan is going to read every word.

Shen Yuan misses school. Shen Yuan starts missing school a lot.

Airplane goes to the hospital room instead. He doesn’t think to worry, because Shen Yuan is okay - that’s what he says. He looks okay, and he’s a kid, and it doesn’t feel real that anything bad should happen to a kid. He doesn’t think to worry. He doesn’t think to say goodbye.

It’s one of the older Shen brothers who catches him on the way up to the room one day, in the hallway just outside - snaps at him to go the fuck home, and when Airplane hesitates, pushes him into the elevator and tells him not to come back. “Tells” is a generous way to describe the way the words come out - a growl, a hiss, the sound an animal would make when a hand got too close to a wound.

(It’s not fair to name a villain after him, even if the name never really comes up in the story. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He’d lost a brother minutes before, and he was getting his brother’s friend out of the way so he didn’t have to… see. It isn’t fair, but then, none of it is fair.)

Death feels very real after that.

The notebooks get shoved into a closet, and it’s not until Airplane’s moving out and one falls on him from a high shelf that he thinks about it again. He’s written things, lots of things, but nothing as ambitious as this - nothing as important. It could be good, he considers. He’d promised. Shen Yuan wanted to read it.

The problem was that no one else does, not for a long time, not until Airplane has whittled himself and his art into a corner and into such an unfamiliar shape that he has to wonder how it’s still his own face he sees in the mirror. He has to eat. He has to pay rent. Shen Yuan would yell at him, but Shen Yuan isn’t there to yell at him, and who cares. Who cares if it could have been better? The people who actually are here love it, and it’s paying his bills, and sometimes stories don’t go the way they’re supposed to and the world is fucking unfair. It doesn’t matter.

(It does. But he shoves that thought away along with styrofoam cups and soda bottles to the bottom of a garbage bag.)

Authors are not gods and their power is limited, but Airplane exercises just a sliver of what he’s been granted and gifts an inconsequential sort of immortality. He thinks about making him a rogue cultivator, maybe the kind that goes around documenting beasts and compiling his findings. He thinks about making him someone too powerful for death to touch, or too important to threaten, but when Airplane looks at the world he crafted and everything that’s become of it, it feels like the kindest thing he can do for Shen Yuan is a childhood where he’s loved, and a death that’s peaceful. What does it say about that world, that he’d kill off his best friend too early again instead of making him live there?

(The best writing he ever does is the only, shining moment of humanity that his scum villain ever displays: a lament about death that comes too early, about a brother gone too soon. The commenters praise him. The commenters flatter over how real the emotions feel. The commenters don’t get any response from Airplane on that chapter.)

Death is incredibly real when it comes for him too early, too, still hovering over his keyboard with the story technically finished and incredibly incomplete. Airplane could tell himself that’s because the written version can never be the version in the writer’s head, always shifting and with every possibility still on the table, but he knows better than that. The System knows better than that, with its condescending message about “improving” his writing and “closing plot holes” and “achieving his original vision”...

…and he’s a child again. He’s a child in his own story, he’s Shang Qinghua now without the benefit yet of a peak or cultivation or anything, and maybe he’s a little bitter, and a little scared, and…

And Shen Yuan - with longer hair, with robes, with a couple of older kids watching him from across the street, but undeniably the prickly little boy who used to sit down imperiously across from him and tell him everything that was wrong with the chuck of writing that had been handed to him last period, but with that smile that said he was only invested because he knew it could be better and they were going to make it better - marches up to him with a fire in his eyes and a frown that warns of a coming tirade.

“You told it wrong,” is the first thing he says.

Shang Qinghua wants to ask how him how he’s here, how this is possible, or maybe laugh because, yeah - yeah, Shen Yuan has no goddamn idea how wrong he got absolutely everything.

(Shang Qinghua wants to say “I missed you” and “why did you leave so soon” but he’s here now. He’s right here.)

“I know,” he says instead. “I’m sorry. It all kind of… spiraled out of control.”

Shen Yuan frowns, but then it dissipates the way it always does, and his eyes shine with ideas the way they always used to. “That’s okay,” he relents, grabbing for his hand. “We’ll fix it. We’ll make it what it was supposed to be.”

[feelo-fick]

miscellaneous au doodles + a VERY self indulgent song lyric comic :D

+ extra evil comic below the cut :

"chil!" "don't look at me like that..."

[joeyalohadream]

Been playing with a canon divergence au in my spare time where Gale and John meet when they’re children in Manitowoc. Gale is five and John is eight.

John names Gale ‘Buck’ and Gale follows this older boy around like a shadow because his home life is garbage and John is so cool. John loves it. He teaches him everything, fusses endlessly over Buck’s ratty clothes and his bruises and how small he is. They’re inseparable.

They’re best friends for a couple of years (maybe 3-4), but one day, Gale’s dad gets in trouble with some bad people (gambling, etc) and he packs up his son and his wife in the middle of the night and takes off for Wyoming.

John is devastated and with the time period, has no way of ever finding this sweet little boy again. But they think about each other all the time.

And then, a decade and half later, Gale walks into his assigned room at flight school and John sees him and its butterflies and happiness and disbelief and “you remind me of my old friend Buck from Manitowoc”.

[bythepen98]

Doodles || Tomarry || Childhood friends/Growing Up Together au

(Ignore the not-so-time-period-accurate outfits)

Think of this as a timetravel au where Harry accidentally gets sent back to the past in Wool's orphanage at a young enough age where he barely notices the changes caused by the time displacement and thus grows up nonethewiser to his destiny as the Chosen One. Even when, objectively, his life at the orphanage could be considered worse considering the growing lack of food, his environment's state of decay and overall unrest happening outside the orphanage's walls, something about his situation felt right(?).

He'd always felt disconnected and out of place based on the few memories he still had from living with the Dursleys but now, it felt like he was home in a way. Like something finally clicked in his brain, his soul.

His instant connection to Tom helped cement that fact. It wasn't easy at first because the pull they felt when they first met was so strong that it scared Harry shtless and Tom, already half-full of resentment by this point, was horrified feeling anything to anyone that wasn't disgust. In the end, it didn't take long for them to meet halfway since they were still children and curiosity at the connection lured them in like candy; Harry wanted a special friend of his own and Tom convinced himself that Harry was worth his time because there was no way anyone ordinary could elicit such a soul deep response from him.

Tom has a mean streak and is more bloodthirsty than his charming facade would show but is honest about it with Harry. Although he doesn't have much to his name, Tom is serious about his self-imposed role as Harry's provider, giving him gifts (from the money he steals) during his birthdays and keeping him as warm and well fed as possible (by bullying the other kids into surrendering their share).

Sometimes, Tom....worries.....that his methods would eventually drive Harry - who has such an inherent goodness in him, so often kind to people who don't deserve it - away but what he fails to understand is that Harry's love and loyalty to the first friend he's ever made trumps any kindness he has for others. He'll never like needless violence and won't react if he was being targeted but all bets are off if he even a catches a whiff of plots against Tom. If he has to help hide a body or two in the future so that they won't be separated by something as inconvenient as jail or the law, then that's nobody's business but his own.

P.S. This Harry will probably go to Hufflepuff instead of Slytherin like in other fics. It just feels right. Probably should've drawn him wearing a yellow tie but only just got the idea as I'm typing this. Tom would rather eat slugs than go to the Hufflepuff common room but he's more than willing to entertain Harry at the Slytherin common room at every available chance. They have their own seat there and everything.

P.P.S. They also co adopt a tiny(??) baby snake when they realize they can both speak parseltongue and bring him along to hogwarts. Imagine being parents at the big old age of 10 to a possibly magical snake that may or may not grow past nagini-level size.

P.P.P.S. Future power couple in the making. Didn't think that far ahead whether I wanted Tom to go the political route or Dark Lord Voldemort style minus the horcruxes. Don't ask for me the details, just know that with Harry's help, Tom finds a way to prolong their lives without the consequences that come with using horcruxes. They may or may not discover that Harry is in fact a horcrux of Tom already but will never get the answer as to how it happened. Harry worries but Tom just chocks it up as the universe's way of paying him back for his shtty pre-Harry childhood. Ironically the type to believe in soulmates and destiny while Harry is a bit more skeptical on that front.

Alternatively, they could also decide not to do anything too significant -politically- at all and instead retire to the country side while doing research on as many branches of magic as they can. A bit laughable because of Tom's world altering ambitions and Harry's indulgent, enabling behavior but at the same time, anything's possible.

[velveteen-vampire]

misc au doodles

[anonomi]

freeing these things from my files. part of my HC/AU where CSpy was Spy's mentor when he first became a spy... he's actually the RED Spy but since I followed CSpy's comic design I made him blue to match. I feel like young spy is a menace so he probably turned RED to be rebellious

[csilla-nocturne]

AU where the immediate members of the Xian Le royal family have a tradition of keeping a personal assassin amongst their closest servants. Xie Lian's is Hong-er(Only about a year younger than XL here.)

[bonefall]

I originally voted for StormCherry for Moonpaw, but I think I love the idea of Honeyfur for them instead - being named after her aunt is such a cute idea. Which led me to the next potential idea - Moonpaw as a FlipBay kitten (or PlumThrift), with any canonical siblings being for the other. Perhaps, just maybe, they end up with their kits at the same time - first time parents trying to figure out how to do everything, who end up relying on each other for advice for better or worse. If you do this, I'm not sure what kind of relationship they would have, but I imagine it would be fun to play with the dynamic of Moon and the other kit(s). Or like a sort of story of their parents struggles to be well... parents, told through the kit's perspectives of themselves/each other? I don't know if any of that made sense haha

It's a lovely idea, but I think I will try to avoid giving PlumThrift kittens unless it fits Moonpaw specifically the best. If I do end up doing it and Moonpaw comes with living siblings, I might go with the thought and give the extras to FlipBay though!

It would be useful genetically, for "futureproofing" the litter. PlumThrift can't have successful grandkids without tripping Rule 2, so if the writers grab a Moon sibling to have kits in the future I'd already be covered.

In a nutshell: PlumThrift Moonpaw, with siblings given to FlipBay.

That said, I'd love to explore the dynamic of "new parents helping each other out" with StormCherry and FlipBay instead, possibly with ShellFern in there if they have their litter around the same time. Then they'd be more like friends than family.

Plus, Stormcloud and Cherryfall are senior warriors while FlipBay and ShellFern are quite young in comparison. Something about that seems cute. Cherryfall would probably be stubbornly insisting she's got it all figured out and trying to pull rank, while Bayshine and Fernstripe conspire ways to get Stormcloud in the nursery more since he's obviously a better fit as a Mi.

Shellfur barges in whenever his love, Fernstripe, seems like she has a problem. Stormcloud takes any excuse to come and take care of everyone in there, probably becoming an assistant to Daisy for a while. Flipclaw has a surprising wave of maturity wash over him, finding out he's really good at weaving wicker bases for mossballs. Lots of little things like this.

I'll see what litters canon tosses at us in the next few books. I'm hoping Changing Skies opens up with a FernShell set to play with, or if we're REALLY lucky some kind of pregnancy announcement in the last book of ASC. Who knows. We might get a NightSun litter, which I'd IMMEDIATELY zap into SunFinch kittens.

If the nursery has less than 3 queens I'll deploy Leafshade and Honeyfur as StormCherry kits, who can grow up as Moonpaw's childhood friends.

(Provided Moonpaw doesn't become a StormCherry kitten herself, of course)

[starry-bi-sky]

Thinking about Rath and how other ghosts react to him. Unlike Dan, who's ruthless and cruel, tormenting the other ghosts for no other reason than he could, Rath just wants his family back; and he HATES that you aren't his family. Do other ghosts realize that Rath is in a Banshee Grief Spiral? Do they care with how powerful he ends up being? How does CFAU!Danny deal with Rath? Because unlike Dan, Rath wouldn't travel back in time to bring about his own future. If anything, he'd go back to PROTECT his loved ones.

Also I loved your tags going into how Danny doesn't blame Bruce for his friends death, and why he's going to kill the Joker personally. It was a great read.

its hard not to tell that Rath is going through a Banshee Grief Spiral asdfjh. Any ghost who sees him can take one look and go: oh yeah, that kid is going THROUGH it. And then they beeline the other way because Banshees can be vicious when they're Going Through The Horrors, because their perception of reality and the world around them gets warped by their grief. And the thing with the CFAU brand of Banshees is that they do eventually learn how to get themselves out of their own Spirals. It's something they learn how to do over time and (somewhat) naturally, as well as make bonds with other ghosts who can also help them get out of those Spirals if the banshee themself cannot for some reason or another.

Basically they build up their own support system and learn how to regulate their grief so it's not consuming them. Rath had that support system... in Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and his parents (albeit they didn't know he was a banshee). And finding Jason again helped soothe some of that grief -- not all of it, mind you, but it made it a little more manageable.

...And then it all got ripped away from him in the span of a week. 😬 yikes. Rath was going through a Spiral while he was with Vlad, and was desperately (and somewhat failing) to manage it all on his own. Vlad could've become a part of his new support system,... but didn't. He wasn't helping Danny with his grief. And the whole "ripping out his ghost half thing" only made it worse, and was a tipping point for poor Rath.

Another thing about CFAU Banshees is that human-born banshees tend to already be pretty... rare all on their own. Most Banshees are formed in the Zone, by the Zone, from the Zone. They're pre-programmed to learn how to handle that all-consuming grief and sorrow because it's something they're born with. Like someone born with chronic pain. Human-born banshees have to adjust, and it can be pretty... maddening all on its own. Which is where the support system can help a lot.

Where was I going with this beyond just info-dumping about CFAU Banshees? Ah, right. Absolutely the other ghosts care about Rath being in a grief spiral considering how powerful he is. But there's very little they can actually do about it, other than be relieved that he's left the Zone (he left when he couldn't find his family), and was out terrorizing the living realm instead. It's difficult to get close to Rath even if you're a ghost, and he's not going to listen to anything they say regardless.

They'd be very terrified of Danny until they realize that he's not Rath -- and they'd be able to tell pretty quickly after the initial terror passes. Phantom looks like,,, well; Phantom. Rath looks like a cross from Danny's childhood in Gotham (oversized, ragged clothes hanging off a small, malnourished child) and Sadako Yamamura from The Ring (uneasy, shambling presence, face mostly covered by his hair.) Rath's Future is an Apocalypse much like how The Quiet Place is an Apocalypse. Very quiet.

And I haven't quite figured out how CFAU!Danny deals with Rath, although you are right in that Rath would try and prevent his future and protect his loved ones. ...If he was lucid.

The version of Rath that Danny meets has very little grasp on reality due to years of unchecked grief. I'm not even sure myself if Rath would be able to recognize Sam and Tucker and his family. Any living versions he may come across are either hallucinations or, even worse, imposters. And he'll attempt to attack either for their deception.

And even if he could recognize his family as alive and as him being in the past, he's still so mentally unstable that Rath would lash out at anyone if he perceived a threat against his family, or if he believed they were putting themselves in danger. He'd be very possessive and controlling, preventing them from going anywhere that wasn't under his careful watch. Anyone trying to get them away from him, he'd attack without mercy.

Ultimately, Danny would need to quickly stun Rath long enough to trap him in the thermos, before he can do any more damage. Only then can Rath's healing actually begin.

Also ty! I'm glad you liked my tags about Danny's feelings about Bruce and his motives behind killing the Joker. I thought it'd be a fun compare-contrast between Jason and Danny, as well as a good signifier for how much has changed between them both in the last five years.

[nottspocket]

Mermaid AUs are so lovely to see. Are they childhood friends in yours, too?

Maybe, i imagine Katsuki has kept gifts Izuku might have brought to him. Seashells, or nice looking rocks, probably with a few fossils inside them?

Ohoho I’m so glad you see my vision (prev here)

Ramblings in the tags

[veinsfullofstars]

Follow your dreams, little guy.

(ID: Kirby series fanart comic of young Meta showing off a drawing he made of Galacta Knight, explaining how scary and mysterious he is, before confidently declaring his intent to one day find and fight him. Below that, a sketch comic of Meta standing stoically before his friends - Dedede, Para Dee, and Bow Dee - after giving this speech. Dedede and Para exchange a look of skepticism, while Bow clenches her fists, her eyes sparkling in determined admiration. Transcript under the cut. END ID.)

Started on 10/17/23, finished on 10/19/23, updated 03/11/24, updated for color correction 11/02/24. NOTE: This was originally posted on my deleted account on 10/19/23. | Childhood Friends AU Masterpost

---

Transcript:

Panel 1

Meta: *holding up drawing* This… is Galacta Knight. A hero from long, long, long ago and - supposedly - the Greatest Warrior in the Galaxy.

Panel 2

Meta: *pointing at drawing* Legends say… this his power was so great, to terrible… he nearly destroyed and entire civilization all by himself. Even grownups are too scared to talk about him.

Panel 3

Meta: *fist clenched, face determined* I’m gonna totally kick his butt one day.

Bonus sketch Panel 1

*Meta stands with stoic confidence before his friends, the backs of their heads just visible at the bottom of the frame (from left to right: Bow, Dedede, Para - the latter two bearing single drops of sweat to indicate their skepticism)

Bonus sketch Panel 2

*reverse shot of Meta’s friends sitting side by side (left to right: Para, Dedede, Bow), Dedede leans conspiratorially towards Para, who looks uncertain, while Bow stands with stars in her eyes, clearly inspired by MK’s words*

Dedede: *arms crossed, brow raised* Yeesh. And they say all my plans are half-baked.

[mizaruwu]

I just though of something, if necromancer Hyrule ever brings the others back will the be like how legend is mentally or would they actually be themselves and talk Hyrule out of his lonely desperation? And do the Zelda(s) in his timeline know he’s doing this? Have they ever tried talking him out of it? And does Legend feel pain from his decaying body or does he not have the function to feel pain anymore?

And for your childhood friends au does Link/young Legend meet young Hilda? And what was her reaction? And does young Hilda ever meet young Zelda/Fable, and how did Ravio even get picked up by the royal family in Lorule??(or will that spoil any ravio lore you have for this au?)

(Sorry if someone’s has asked any of these and sorry if these bother you ;-; )

(Sorry there’s a lot of questions I’ve just had this stuff on my mind for a long time and can’t keep them in anymore ;-; )

If Hyrule wakes up the others they'd be in a similar state legend is in (and worse off probably) because the Rulie cant do a complete revival since it requires his life in exchange. Like he needs to die to perfectly revive someone– a life for a life (and it has to be his)

The Zeldas dont know about his shenanigains. All they know is that he was depressed for a year (each visit he appeared worse and worse) they tried to make him stay put in the castle for his own good but monsters attacks increase the longer he's there. The princesses cant refute Hyrule's reason for needing to go (for the safety of the people)

Since their hero started doing 'archeology' he's been happier! Seems like reading about his brothers and visiting sites they might've been laid to rest in is giving him closure. Good for him!

Ol' Legend can still feel pain but cant feel pain of his body decaying, it just happens. Like how you dont feel your nails and hair grow.

Legend in the childhood friends au dosent meet Hilda till albw happens. The whole thing happens in a short bursts during alttp so Fable hasnt met Hilda either (cuz she's hiding in the sanctuary/kidnapped)

Ravio was selling magical items he fixed (at absurd prices) a high ranking person from the royal court noticed his wares and how good they are. A (begrudging) talk with the master artificer later and Ravio is accepted as (forced to be) an apprentice

and no worries! Your questions arent a bother at all ^^)/

[autisticrosewilson]

Childhood friend au Jayrose where Rose hates having her hair touched because her mom used to do her hair vs Jason who misses having someone's hair to braid because he used to do it for Cathy when she got too sick. And the first time after her mom's death that Rose lets someone fix her hair is Jason helping her braid it before Lillians funeral.