#dbda AU

[arrow-jsy]

Dbda au where time works differently in hell. So edwin felt like he spent 70 years in hell but it was actually 10 (or whatever) and then hell part 2 was only a couple hours but what if it was longer in the real living world?

I love messed up time changes or loops

[pappelsiin]

it turned into au art 💫

[ro-doodles]

Did someone ask for a role swap AU?

No? Well, take one anyway.

In this AU the agency would be based in the US, maybe New York or Boston, since Crystal and Niko are both from or live in America in the show. Then instead of Port Townsend they would go to a small sea side town in England. Like I mentioned in the Charles blurb, I’m swapping Jenny and the Night Nurse for this au, but I’m not sure what to do with the rest of the characters, so I’m open to suggestions.

More of this au:

Jenny and the Night Nurse

The Cat King and Esther (+ Monty)

Miscellaneous Doodles

[guardianspirits13]

Bouncing off all of the fanfics where the Dead Boys are brought back to life again for a period of time to suggest that their thoughts on it are the opposite of what you’d anticipate based on their perception of the living while they’re ghosts. Charles sorely misses living while a ghost, despite all the awful, awful things he was subjected to. Edwin, despite 70+ years in Hell, is perfectly content as a ghost and finds the living distasteful to a degree.

But, when they get hit by an “aliving” spell, that’s not how it goes down at all.

Edwin has not been in a human body for over a century- and even then only got sixteen years of it- so he forgets how much he was missing as a ghost. Actually being able to feel things- the warmth of human touch, the breeze through his hair, the texture of worn book pages. The smell of petrichor after rain, a warm cup of sweet tea. Even just sleeping and having the ability to give his overactive mind a break. He’s forgotten how many good things there were about being alive.

Charles, as expected, is thrilled to be alive again and his first few days on solid ground are a whirlwind, but his energy is short lived. He frequently sleeps over 12 hours a night, and can’t bring himself to get out from under the covers for another hour longer. His appetite fades quickly, and he finds that foods he’s been craving for 35 years just don’t taste the same. Initially he chalks it up to his mind and body readjusting to human life (despite Edwin having none of the same issues), and continues enjoying what he can. But eventually, it becomes clear that something is very very wrong. His right arm that he shattered at age 14 (and didn’t get properly treated for days) begins to ache again. Sudden touches are no longer a gentle spectral sensation, but an unexpected pressure that he shrinks away from. His body feels heavy, and his energy drains quickly if he has any to begin with.

It turns out that over three decades of repressed physical and emotional trauma took its toll on him, and he had naïvely forgotten-or perhaps willfully omitted- the struggle that was his life when he wasn’t out kissing girls and pretending like his father didn’t exist.

Edwin feels a sense of freedom in being human again, away from all the supernatural trauma he has endured, while for Charles it is more of a burden than he ever recalled it being.

[honestlyijustfindhersocharming]

"Right. I'm Crystal Palace, and this is Niko Sasaki. We are the Perished Girl Private Investigators."

[1/4] ... Welcome to my (not quite) new swap AU! I've been working on the concepts for them for the past couple of weeks, but the general concept is that Crystal and Niko are the dead best friends, and Edwin and Charles are alive! Crystal takes Edwin's place as the core magic user of the pair, but maintains her general personality as the more confrontational between her and Niko.

[sonofhelios2005]

Dead Boy Detectives AU, Redemption. Edwin and Charles are both genuinely good people who got dealt a bad hand but still try to do good. What if their lives took different turns?

Instead of taking Edwin to hell, Sa'al instead senses Edwin's potential for magic and offers him a deal, If Edwin becomes a witch and enters the service of hell, he would be spared any torture. Edwin, a terrified 16 year old facing a terrible fate, agrees. Edwin returns to his bed and pretends not to know what happened to Simon and the other boys. As part of his deal, Edwin begins studying magic and finds he has a genuine talent for it. He also enjoys the challenge that comes with trying to master spells. After a few years, Edwin realises he's immortal as he hasn't aged since he made his deal.

Over the next few years, Edwin occasionally gets orders from hell to place a curse on certain people or to summon demons to Earth. As the years pass, the acts he commits on behalf of the demons become worse. He kills or arranges deals between demons and mortals for their souls. Over the years, Edwin becomes detached from humanity, not particularly caring about his victims. His life wasn't fair. Why would anybodies be?. Then one day in the 1950 he crosses another witch who is far older and more powerful than him, she curses him to endure the suffering of anyone he had wronged, this lead to Edwin being comatose for a year before he wakes, now fully understanding what he's done Edwin is filled with remorse.

Edwin considers what to do, and eventually, he decides to try and help others. He uses his magic to cloak himself from hell. He then travels helping people when he can and takes special interest in banishing demons back to hell. He becomes well known as a powerful but dangerous individual who can be contacted for help with supernatural issues. He operates alone until he encounters Charles Rowland in 1989.

Charles, in this reality, was born in 1950. His dad hates him and is as viciously abusive as the show. Charles attended St. Hilarion's School for Boys until 1966, he stepped in to save a Pakistani boy from his friends only to become the target of their assault. However, instead of running into an attic to hide, Charles runs and is chased into the forest. In the forest is a group of vampires who are basically the British Lost Boys or BLB. The BLB kill everyone chasing Charles and are about to kill him until the leader sensing Charles's potential, offers a choice, die or become a vampire. Charles a terrified 16 year old accepts.

From here, Charles lives as a member of the BLB hunting and killing without remorse driven by the bloodlust of a vampire and the encouragement of the others. The BLB are outcasts among vampires as, despite their reputation, most vampires simply want to live their immortal lives in peace, unlike the BLB who cause chaos for the thrills. Charles enjoys the freedom that comes with being a vampire, and the BLB are more of a family to him than his own parents ever where. Charles grows into an incredibly powerful vampire who, along with his formidable physical prowess, also has numerous common and rare vampire abilities.

In early 1989, after 23 years of being a vampire, Charles unexpectedly encounters his aged father whilst he was out hunting. Seeing his father causes Charles to have an epiphany, he had always sworn to never be like Paul Rowland, but now he realises he is far worse. Charles horrified at own his actions over the last few decades begins pulling away from the BLB who noticed. Knowing the others would kill him if they knew he was going to leave Charles manages to fake his death and informs other vampires about the BLBs location. The BLB are banished from the UK, and Charles is left to his own devices. Charles spends the next several months lost in guilt and even contemplates ending his existence until he encounters a witch called Edwin Payne who had been looking for a base of operations in London and had walked into the abandoned building Charles was inhabiting. (The DBDA office)

The two begin talking, and Edwin seeing himself in Charles encourages him to begin helping others if he truly wants to make ammends. Charles starts helping Edwin in his jobs using his strength and near invulnerability to protect Edwin as he casts his magic. Soon, they become friends, neither having had true friendship for decades. Together, they are able to make a genuine difference and help many people, and after 30 years, start to believe they have started to find true redemption. In the 2020s, they are joined by a young psychic who they found abusing her powers to lie, cheat, steal, and even murder. Unfortunately, this is also when their pasts finally catch up with them, and they once again encounter hell and the BLB.

This won't actually be a story as I have no ability to write fanfiction. it's just my mad ramblings. I changed the year Charles was born because I thought it made sense if he did evil stuff for a long time, I also wanted him and Edwin to be together for the same amount of time as the show. Also, if Charles was born in the 50s, then he could be part of a vampire biker gang.

[idliketobeatree]

it's okay to just admit that you're jealous of me, you're obsessin', just confess it 'cause it's obvious i'm your number one. (or, edwin payne's cunty hot girlypop brat summer)

[alltimefail]

Don't get me wrong I've been loving all the Alive AUs for the boys set in the Edwardian era and in modern day with the girls...

but I would REALLY REALLY REALLY LOVE it if someone would write an Alive AU set in Charles' time (1989). Please!!! I promise there is soooo much to explore there!

[zinnie-zoloft]

I’m gonna draw some AUs based on my favourite childhood movies so here’s a list of what I’m planning

Monster House AU

This is what started it all, I had a dream about it and now I can’t stop putting these characters into kids movies

Cryland Coraline AU

Crystal and Charles as Coraline and Wybie… same friendship different fonts honestly

Paranorman AU

Edwin can see ghosts, he lives with Crystal, their families are related with a long mysterious history and a concerning number of relatives no one is allowed to talk about

Niko is an exchange student staying with Charles, she decides to befriend Edwin

Tragic Mick has spent his life keeping the witches spirit asleep, but now he’s dying and must convince Edwin to take over his work

Simon is the school bully, Jenny is a goth who knows all the history of the town, and so on

Catwin Labyrinth AU

The Cat King has a lot of Jareth vibes

Cats are essentially just furry little goblins aren’t they?

We’re Back (A Dinosaurs Story) AU

This is really about the eccentric circus part, the dinosaur part doesn’t really come into play at all

Things Esther Finch and Professor Screweye have in common: kidnap children, build child torture machines, betrayed by their own crows, serve exactly what you are: cunt

There’s also the extreme child neglect from the main duos parents… yeah when you look past the funny dinosaurs this movie is dark as fuck

Corpse Bride AU

Charles as Victor, Edwin as Victoria, and Crystal as Emily

A doomed relationship between two friends, one living one dead, where one is desperately trying to force it to work despite them only being together in an attempt to avoid dealing with their tragic circumstances? I could be talking about either Charles/Crystal or Victor/Emily here

Also featuring Niko the spider and David the maggot

[arrow-jsy]

Au where edwin was a repressed gay edwardian poet and then decades later musician charles rolls up using edwins poems in rock ballads and songs

[ladykailitha]

Dead Boy Detectives AU

I saw someone sort of do this, but I wanted to take a crack at it too.

We'd have to play fast and loose with the ages on this because certain characters would be older and younger than then their Stranger Things counterparts.

Steve as Edwin and Eddie as Charles. I know, know. Eddie=Edwin... but hear me out.

Steve who has gone through almost as much Hell as El and Will and he's not even technically the main character (could be debated but for ease here, Stranger Things is mainly about Will and El, let's be honest.) So he's Edwin. Yes, Steve isn't known for his book smarts, but eh, it's all guidelines, anyway. But he could totally make a map to get out of hell.

Then you have Eddie who canonically sacrificed himself for someone else, the way Charles dies because he was protecting that Pakistani kid. Plus Eddie could have been at the school because Wayne (a caretaker there) got him a scholarship to get him away from his abusive dad. But because he was a scholarship kid, Wayne couldn't get them to care about what happened to his nephew.

Steve escapes Hell and he sees a shivering Eddie in the attic and reads to him until he dies. Eddie is for Heaven because of the kid, but Eddie makes a split second decision to stay with Steve. For several reasons, to watch over Wayne. To make sure his dad doesn't beat his mom to death. Because this kind boy who had literally escaped Hell, stayed and comforted him.

Now a lot of their personalities are reversed here, but as one of my favorite Youtubers likes to say adaptions are not copy and paste. Steve is the "brawn" with his nail bat. While Eddie is the brain with his magic. Steve would be gay and Eddie the closeted bi disaster (something I've done a couple or three times before).

Flash forward 30 years and they're Dead Boy Detectives. They meet Chrissy who is a psychic on the run from her demon boyfriend Jason (I love the twisting of Jason for this, because wooboy was he a horrible person.) and they help her out. Even when she loses her memories.

They get trapped in a coastal town because Steve pisses off local cat king Billy (because let's face it Dacre Montgomery and Lukas Gage have a lot of the same sex appeal.)

Robin as Niko. (and it's gay, not just sprites).

Hopper as Tragic Mick.

Nancy, the youth seeking witch and her crow Jonathan.

Joyce and Murray as the sprites.

Tommy as Simon, the kid in hell.

[ro-doodles]

Swap au doodles

I’m working on the next character set, but I’m a little more busy with school rn and I’m struggling a bit design wise, so for now have so au doodles.

We have 1/2) alive boys first meeting (+ some sprite effects), 3) Charles annoying Charlotte, 4) Crystal in hell, 5) dead girls first meeting

Main au post here, cat king and Esther coming soon.

[guardianspirits13]

DBD au where Charles is an art student and Edwin haunts the arts building because his bones are used for still lives and studies there, inspired by my high school art classroom which had a box with human bones on top of the supplies cabinet that nobody knew the origin of.

[beecl0wn]

My little dead boys my little dead boys aaaahhaaahhhaahhhhhhhhhhhaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Have a bonus too

[read-write-thrive]

hi everyone it’s time for another poll in relation to my gender swap/ butchfemme payneland dbda au !! this time I’m trying to figure out swapped Niko’s name, what do we think?

here’s how I came up with/consider these options:

there is the option to just keep it as Niko since that’s technically a unisex leaning masculine name in Japan but I don’t want to confuse anything so I’m not a huge fan of keeping it

Jiro is taken from @technically-human ‘s swapped boys and works with the idea of Niko meaning second daughter (as Jiro can mean second son—there was a good post explaining Niko=second daughter but I can’t find it, if anyone knows it pls share!) but I don’t want to use without permission in case that starts any drama

the rest of the names have varied meanings/gender connotations but were chosen bc of the “K” sound / kanji used in them is sometimes used in Niko (we never see her write her name so no real way to know) AND bc that kanji can be used in the translation for dandelion which I thought was fitting :) plus I liked the shorter, two syllable names for the vibes

all the names are fairly unisex, w/ Niko, Kaito, and Jiro leaning more masculine and w/ Taeko leaning more feminine (according to magicbabynames ) if that makes any difference to anyone! I think Taeko would interesting as it leans feminine and since Niko is a masculine name used for a female character it would make for a fitting swap…

also, in case anyone missed it: Crystal’s equivalent is going to be Alexander Palace in my AU as inspired by @local-limebug ‘s comments under this post of mine :) thank you again for the idea/letting me use it !!

[honestlyijustfindhersocharming]

“Ohh… Are you mental?”

"Pfft. He's perceptive."

[ 4/4 ] Swap AU Ref sheets...