#btz!aldebaran

[sufferu]

Obviously I can’t really make any concrete plans yet. But I think I just struck gold with an idea for BTZ!Aldebaran.

[sufferu]

[BTZ 2 Related]

I must say that a large number/bunch of powerful people showing up to Al to seal his authority is also funny in the sense that from Al’s perspective, initially, it probably looks (at least vaguely) like this.

Oh it probably looks so much funnier than that.

So like, I don’t REALLY have a plan yet, but — they’d probably have to take him by surprise, right? Cause he tends to reset his checkpoint every 15 seconds or so, and he’s fully willing to kill himself, and they’d have no way of knowing if he’s gone back in time yet or not.

Anyway the current idea is that Aldebaran is minding his fucking business when Olbart (who’s supposed to be IN VOLLACHIA) shows up, turns him into a ten-year-old, and then he gets arrested by an entire fucking ARMY.

[sufferu]

I’m going to have so much fun torturing Aldebaran in Back to Zero.

With Subaru, everyone is at least trying to be nice: Subaru’s not a threat, and he’s trying his best, and they don’t even really need to worry about him abusing RBD to brute force his way through everything. But these people had to FIGHT Aldebaran. Aldebaran did a lot of shit, including but not limited to killing himself hundreds of thousands of times in a row to redo the same thirty seconds, trapping Subaru in an orb (and also eating him), managing to completely destroy both of Reinhard’s arms in a fight, possessing Volcanica, launching stars down onto the planet with a forbidden spell (of which he seems to know several), and intentionally releasing the actual Witch of Envy. There is every reason in the world for these people to get DIRTY in how they deal with HIM…

Welcome to the torture chamber, Aldebaran. Enjoy your stay!

[sufferu]

What would happen if BTZ I Subaru managed to escape the Crusch Estate and join the Priscilla Camp (maybe with a good word put in by Heinkel and Al)? From his perspective they have no reason to want him back, and none of them have the authority to force him out of another camp (especially Priscilla's lmao, she's not bending for shit)

If Subaru ended up with Priscilla in any timeline, he’d eventually end up being encouraged to abuse RBD to its fullest extent in order to fulfill his role as “a brilliant knight.” This is what is…pretty explicitly stated, frankly, by both her response to Natchuki Subawu in Arc 8 and her relationship with Aldebaran, who foils Subaru in a number of ways, including this. There’s a reason I stand by the interpretation that Priscilla is one of the villains of Re:Zero (if not technically an antagonist) as well as both an in-universe monster and an antithesis to the themes of the story. Subaru ending up as Priscilla’s servant is a very clear Bad End, even if it might take a while for him to crack.

The other camps would likely fully understand this, however, so they’d probably be working to chip away at her control over Subaru in order to save him from that fate (and perhaps Aldebaran, too: I’m actually considering adding a subplot like that to BTZ depending on how Arc 9 turns out, but I can’t do anything until I know the full story there lol). And it would be difficult, and it would take a long time, but I think they’d eventually be able to succeed. Re:Zero is about triumphing over fate, after all — and what clearer way to do that than to triumph over Priscilla Barielle?

Though honestly, I don’t think Subaru would ever even consider joining her camp, even in BTZ. Subaru does not like Priscilla: he thinks she’s unreasonable, unpredictable, and really rather off-putting — it’s one of the ways he contrasts against Aldebaran, who follows her like a dog. Not to mention that he’s still very attached to Emilia and wouldn’t want to ally himself with someone who is explicitly her rival.

[sufferu]

I know this would/might never happen but what would the scenario/morale implications be if during BTZ III that Subaru is so broken physically and mentally and nothing seems to be working and well...some in casts decides to give Olbart a call and - reset Subaru. What would the reaction that be?

Pro: Awe Cute Baru!

Cons: WTF!

Okay so, Aldebaran being de-aged is one thing, because Aldebaran is a genuine, active threat that they may ONLY be able to disarm by making use of this loophole, because nobody had a better idea. Subaru is completely different, because 1) he is not a threat, not yet and 2) unlike Aldebaran, who’s baby self is a total crybaby, Natchuki Subawu is basically everything that they’re trying to avoid. Subaru being de-aged in this situation is — even calling it a last resort might be minimizing it. This is like a “He has not shown a single sign of recovery for the past five years” type of situation.

There’d be meetings, and conversations, and arguments. It would be a big, BIG deal. They also would probably like. Ask Subaru first. If he’s still able to communicate at all, because holy SHIT would things have to go wrong in order for them to consider this as a viable option.

And afterwards, if they go through with it? They’d probably never emotionally recover. Baby!Baru’s smiling face would be right there, but they’d all know why they had to resort to making him like that. They’d all know.

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Just some BTZ II things:

Otto fully believes that he and some of his animal friends (Patrasche, Frufoo) are the only ones who have gone back in time. Nobody is correcting him. They all want to see how far he’s gonna go before he figures it out.

There’s this stretch of time before that dance ficlet where everyone sees Julius and Emilia making eyes at one another and figures out that they’re probably gonna end up together. There’s a lot of ridiculous hijinks that happen here, because both of them are incredibly dense when it comes to romance. They’re inflicting psychic damage upon everyone in their immediate vicinity, always.

The above also leads to a very widespread running joke about how Julius is more physically affectionate with Subaru than he is with his own girlfriend.

Elsa never has any fucking clue what she’s doing or why she’s here. But Meili’s going to a proper school now, so ???

The Pleiades Battalion is stationed throughout the Capital, helping the people with daily toil as they remain on standby in case their beloved Schwartz-sama needs any extra protection. Whenever Subaru sneaks out (happens a couple times) they’re normally the ones who drag him back — which they do, but almost never before taking the opportunity to play chase with him all across the Capital. They keep getting scolded for this (“STOP ENCOURAGING HIM—!”) but it never works. They’ve caused major property damage a couple of times in their excitement.

Most people don’t really feel like there’s a sudden age difference between them and the people who didn’t go back in time. Mimi and Garfiel are the exceptions. Mimi and Garfiel now see Subaru as the unequivocal baby of the bunch. A large part of Garfiel is absolutely thrilled that he is now older than Captain.

It’s not official yet, but everyone knows that Subaru is basically Wilhelm’s new grandson. Basically everyone knows that, if you are in any way responsible for hurting Subaru, the Sword Demon is going to kill you. It’s perceived a bit like those Pixie and Brutus comics. This is also becoming a running joke: the Sword Demon and his naive, ditzy, puppyish new grandson that he seems to have pulled out of a dumpster somewhere. Sooo many questions.

Cecilus keeps trying to play with Subaru. Literally nobody else wants Cecilus to play with Subaru. Somebody help.

Through some hijinks or another (we’ll see what happens lmao), baby!Aldebaran ends up under the care of the Vollachians. The Vollachians are very keen to make up for their subjecting him to the horrors of so many near-infinite death loops. Aldebaran ends up absolutely spoiled. The members of the Pleiades Battalion are by FAR the worst offenders.

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BTZ!Subaru, on the verge of sobbing: Please come back. I’m sorry I was bad. I’ll be good. See how good I’m being? Please love me, I can be lovable, please…?

BTZ!Aldebaran, who just got turned into a 10-year-old, stripped of his Authority, and shoved in a room with all of his old nightmares from Vollachia: I am going to commit SO MANY FELONIES, you PIECES of SHIT—

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So since BTZ is going to be an adoption fest you think anyone going to take in Al and raise him into a model citizen lol.

Well. There’s an entire country that owes him BIG TIME for putting him through horrors far beyond mortal comprehension for fuck knows how long. And its leader does have a bit of a history of being mistaken for the father of a de-aged castaway already.

So that’s one option.

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Question for BtzAL, why dont they just kill him instead of deaging? Like im pretty sure releasing the witch of envy basically makes you get the death penalty (not even mentioning hijacking volcanica and all of that other stuff) Also throwaway but how exactly will they react to Volcanica basically being a soulless husk, will they like try to make him function again be it with a book of the dead or smth else?

Trying to find a way to kill him WAS the original plan, but like. How would they do that, exactly. He’s got the I Won’t Die curse, and if they fuck it up even ONCE then they’ve completely lost their element of surprise.

(Plus, the Vollachians…may have decided that they had a responsibility to save his life, after all they did. And there’s no reason to kill him if he’s been rendered harmless, right?)

As for Volcanica — I think they’re just in silent agreement that Crusch was absolutely right and they should just break their pact and let that thing rest in peace lmao

[sufferu]

Okay we honestly had lots of questions concerning Subaru (and answers from you) but honestly heard nothing concerning Al? How would the camp react to his ability and the fact that he dies on purpose many times to give himself more time or something like that. Oh and dying on a much, MUCH larger scale than Subaru ever did?

Cuz bruh, if Felix had a problem with Subaru's 18 deaths, how on Earth is he gonna react to Al if your No Refunds snippet has him angrily curse Subaru "fck nyew fck nyew fkc nyew"?

Bro ain't gonna be a volcano, he's gonna turn into a nuclear reactor at that point.

Yeah it’s been a while since I’ve said this lol, but I’m not really Acknowledging that guy at the moment.

I’m sure I will eventually, but right now there’s just too much up in the air when it comes to Aldebaran. His connection to Subaru, his true identity, his motivations, there’s so much that we’re drawing a blank on right now, and while there are a lot of theories going around I don’t really want to actually write anything before we’ve got a concrete answer — ESPECIALLY because Arc 9 is probably going to give us some light here, meaning that anything I try to guess about him will likely be contradicted by the canon text within like two weeks lmao. So, just — brushing that aside. For now.

But yeah, no, Aldebaran is an out-and-out MONSTER, and would be treated as such by the cast if they were to find out about. All that. It probably WILL be a subplot in BTZ II considering that Arc 9 should be finished by the time I get to that fic, lol, but for now I’m just gonna put it on pause.

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In btz do they watch it subaru pov only or is it like watching the re zero show. If they know how al loops work, then it has to be like watching the show. Thats means they know about musbel, so are we gna have any interactions based on that

It’s not exactly the same as in Dogshow, lol, but it’s also not Omniscient Third Person. I don’t really wanna get into the Muspel stuff tbh lol

BUT: Aldebaran’s POV was shown to at least SOME of the cast. Specifically the Vollachians, who killed him fuck knows how many times and now have to take responsibility for what that did to him. …I have not yet decided if the Lugunicans also saw this or not — I want to focus on the recontextualization of old relationships and reforming them from the ground up, and Al…doesn’t really have many strong relationships with the Lugunicans as-is. Plus, they do have memories of FIGHTING him, so. I dunno how much they’re gonna learn in Arc 9 yet so I might just wait and see about that, but they might figure it out like that, maybe. Idk, I haven’t made up my mind yet

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I can’t stop laughing at the idea of Subaru thinking de-aged!Al is Al’s little brother. Subaru thinks he’s cute and makes dolls for him while Al insists he isn’t his own brother, goddamnit. People start referring to him in the same way to fuck with him and it drives him crazy.

LMAO. Aldebaran hated Subaru BEFORE, but now he’s gonna hate him a whole lot more!

[sufferu]

Poor BTZ!Al :(

Will he at least have people that care for him and want him to stop being the way he is for selfless (or at least selfish but they do care about him) reasons?

Yes, and I hope y’all find the answer to this as hysterical as I do:

The Vollachians.

A huge reason why Al is Like This is because he spent fuck knows how long getting slaughtered over and over again in the Land of Wolves, with special emphasis on Giununhive. And — look, it’s one thing to kill someone. Vollachia is used to killing people, everyone’s gonna have very little issue with that. It’s another thing entirely to trap someone in the Infinite Death Loop Of Nightmares. At a certain point even that lot has to start thinking “Geez. I think we might need to take responsibility for this.” —Especially because, unlike the Arc 9 shenanigans, a lot of what the Vollachians did to him (including the Giununhive folks, who are all RIGHT THERE) never actually got erased.

Unfortunately, these are also the ABSOLUTE LAST PEOPLE Aldebaran would EVER want to figure out his Authority. Shenanigans ensue.

Also, Cecilus has been watching Reinhard and decided that he, too, would like a new little brother. So there’s that.

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our plans for Al are so different oh my god

ill be honest don't like the cast working with Olbart. if cast were so extreme about shotabaru the guy who basically caused it and is just very horrible going scot-free leaves a bitter taste mouth. An it also kind of turns the cast into hypocrites cause Subaru using rbd is horrid but the dude who turns people into children to kill them can just chill. i guess that's a personal problem i have the narrative will punish but then guys like olbart and Elsa get to go on scot free even they are monsters themselves and we are probably not going to see archbishops get owned cause it's not that type of story. Maybe im overreacting and the cast kill when they done with him but it's just something like i said leaves me bitter but i admit it's not the most objective complaint.

In other news chapter 2 for Fool's odyssey is going nicely. Oh, and i realize recently it was rem's birthday very interesting considering whats about to happen. An its the main Divergence point from BTZ.

Glad to hear it! Ah — here’s a link to my answer to your last ask btw lol. In case you missed it.

As for Olbart — I think y’all are very much overestimating how organized this bunch are. These fuckers are flying by the seats of their pants and trying desperately to just figure SOMETHING out in the face of all the eldritch abominations they have to deal with. And yeah, they don’t want him anywhere NEAR Subaru, or their plans, or anything else, but there’s nothing keeping him from butting in anyway and completely torpedoing all of their plans with his own, homemade solution to their little problem.

And like, obviously they’re pissed at first. But then — what options were THEY gonna go with? Find a way to kill him? Seal him away indefinitely and make it someone else’s problem thousands of years from now? Olbart would LOVE to hear how they were gonna pacify Mr. I-Will-Release-Satella-And-Also-Die-Hundreds-Of-Thousands-Of-Times-In-A-Row-Before-You-Can-Even-Register-What’s-Going-On. What was YOUR plan?

And everyone’s just like:

Cause like, okay, we can talk about the ethics of this situation all we want. But like. It’s ALDEBARAN. What would YOU do?? Try to talk sense into him??? Good luck.

And just from a writing level — it’s so fucking funny. The guy who released the Witch of Envy and dropped a star on Reinhard’s head and made the concept of linear time his bitch is now an angry ten-year-old who wants to set all of them on fire and is also canonically a huge crybaby. The gags write themselves.

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Is Al aware that everyone time traveled? Because the way you described the de-aging, has me assuming no. Just normal day, and suddenly that happens. I’m sorry it’s just so funny to think he’s kept in the dark about why this happened in the first place

If I was him I’d also try committing war crimes and failing miserably

oh gosh how would Subaru react to the fact that the only other isekaied person he knew was de-aged. What if he never connects the dots “man what a strange kid, I wonder what happened to Al?”

Oh Al has no fucking clue. He didn’t go back in time and neither did Priscilla, and he doesn’t really give a shit about anyone else enough to pay attention. He was minding his damn business and then Olbart came and turned him into a ten-year-old for no fucking reason. (And then he learns that his Authority has somehow been discovered by the WORST PEOPLE POSSIBLE—)

I don’t know HOW Subaru is gonna react lmao. That’ll be fun to write

[sufferu]

priscilla wouldnt let them take Al and to be frank I feel your takes on how they would react rbd and Subaru be ooc of them

Though I pretty much agree with your take on reforgotten if and Subaru wouldn't go on revenge against juli etc see his reaction to rem torturing him because he has the scent

To be frank I find the most popular ideas about how the rest of the cast would react to RBD within this fandom to be rather OOC: I think they often underplay just how horrific RBD would likely be in the eyes of most characters in Re:Zero, especially when they often tend to stop in the middle of chapters to give monologues about suicide and sacrifice and death and immortality that are FILLED with dramatic irony in how they’d reflect on Subaru, “if only they knew.” That’s the whole reason why I decided to write my own react fic.

As for Priscilla — that’s just a good source of conflict. Two characters wanting two contradictory things is one of the most basic ways to create conflict in a story. Priscilla vs. Everyone Else could be fun. (Assuming she doesn’t just let them “borrow” Aldebaran just to suit her own amusement, which I could see her doing but am unsure if I’d commit to writing.)