#i like this ask a lot actually fksjks ^^

[muckmagister]

did you ever fall in love with the majesty of colors

every freaking day brother 🤝

[planet4546b]

this is an extremely bizarre question i just thought of but. thoughts on the s/n cast being in a lighthearted (??) au a la hs/college/coffee shop au but still forced to meet (group project members, reluctant coworkers, etc.). i have no idea if this makes sense fksjks

ohohoho this is very fun. time to normalify my favorite weirdos!!!!

lighthearted au of choice is 'everyone works in the same shitty mall' because its the one i can make make sense in my head the best. dont ask why jdhslkag

sam is the long suffering assistant manager for a best buy. eric is the actual manager and the rest of the spire network folks are the other employees here. darcy has stolen at least 2 entire xboxes. indrani, grace, and sam walk to the food court together every day to have lunch together and shittalk everyone else.

sam has a ham radio hobby and uses her store discount to buy parts (i havent been to a best buy in forever idk if they have those. bear with me here). she is a radio nerd in every universe and i love her <3

mel works in the new escape room (cy also works here) and is weirdly serious about it?? emily works in a trader joes. jackie is in the weird little board game store you know the kind.

jackie steals pokemon cards from behind the counter for mel. mvp

i could literally just have said they know each other from working in the same store but instead im about to build the weirdest relationship map ever because #ilovecomplexity. ok here we go

mel, em, and sam have lived in this town and known each other since they were kids. mel and sam were closer in high school, but then mel left town to go to college for a few years (before dropping out), and sam and em started hanging out a lot more. jackie just recently moved to town to go to the state school nearby (fun fact: in a previous version of this story it took place in suburban illinois, and emily went to university of illinois urbana-champaign so lets say its there for funsies). emily is also taking classes there so she and jackie ended up in a class together (em is a math major and jackie is the worlds most pathetic physics major so they probably took like calc 3 together or something) and thats how jackie got dragged into the group!!!

sam has the worst little awful apartment youve ever seen (its literally the r/malelivingspaces i dont deserve a bedframe post) and jackie is somehow always hanging out there (jackie lives with 3 roommates and is always in a fight with one of them). sam frankly does not mind. the two of them get a long a LOT better without an impending apocalypse. physics student jackie + radio enthusiast sam spend a lot of time discussing like, the electromagnetic spectrum and also jackie is making sam watch breaking bad and sometimes they play minecraft.

emily: im gonna ask sam to have dinner at the california pizza kitchen with me

mel: what the fuck. thats a terrible idea. why would you take her to the fucking california pizza kitchen in the mall we literally work at. what??

emily: ...... should i do the cheesecake factory??

jackie is the ultimate 'lie to your boss. leave work for no reason. just walk out. fuck it ✌️' guy and is constantly trying to get the other three to spend work hours just sort of fucking around and hanging out with them. like theyll tell their manager theyre taking a bathroom break and then walk down to the escape room and talk to mel for 30 minutes. mel, who takes her work in this universe as seriously as in canon, absolutely HATES this and is like no im not skipping work with you. stop it. but caves eventually and spends a lot of time just sort of wandering through the weird field behind the mall with jackie and getting high. its great

chaos and absolute tragedy when the sbarros in the food court is replaced by a fancy health food place and its the only topic of discusion for months. no survivors

emily and mel are on a much better path towards actually mending their relationships in this world. i think they both still live at home, and having their other siblings leo and addie around (as well as their mom and grandma) makes them WAYYYY less likely to want to tear out each others throats. sam loves going to dinner at em and mels because it reminds her a lot of her own family (and because shes known them so long shes been going over there forever. helped addie with her math homework when addie was in hs kinda vibe. its nice)

also while sam is still estranged from her family in this version, the paternal relationship between her and eric is also much more clear, which is also nice. sam PEOPLE LOVE YOU.

luna this is bad. im actually kind of very invested in this au now. im kind of going to keep thinking about it all week. uh oh. anyways this is very scattered but thank you for the very fun question MUAH