#idk i think they should let it be horrifying again that barn wants these poor women to inhabit the spirit of his dead gf.

[widowshill]

"for most of my life, i've wanted a place where i've belonged. a place where I could feel at home again. feel loved again. and i've found that place, here at collinwood." this is actually what it's all about babey

[vagrantblvrd]

maybe some more superhero content where matt is the tech guy but his super power is actually really great for super villains (he can force apathy on people or something). he is never cleared for field duty because hes really good at computers and look at all the donuts he eats, no way hes going in the field. shit happens and he is and he just wipes the floor with the villan of the week. and everyones like "fluke!" and he keeps doing it. "like its hard" and everyone is :(((( because its matt

Oooh, yes, but also, also. Whilst wandering the wilds of Superpower Wiki I came across Fear Manifestation?

Matt who can see both his and other people’s fears and bring them to life.

Just.

Imagine a wee little Matt Bragg discovering that’s his power?

This sweet little kid, all adorable and the whatnot and idk, maybe he saw a scary movie he was way too damn young to watch.

Or maybe a family member’s watching a horror flick thinking Matt’s asleep. Maybe he’s at a friend’s for a sleepover and one of their family members is watching the horror movie, whatever it is, Matt gets up in the middle of the night for a drink of water and sees this horrible, slavering thing on the screen and he has nightmares about it for ages, right?

Knows it’s not real, tells himself over and over again the way his parents did when they realized what was going on with him. Reminds himself it’s just a movie monster and can’t hurt him. Rubber and plastic and fake fur and fake blood and an actor in a suit, you know?

Same as some of his favorite characters in other movies and shows and nothing to worry about.

Except for that time it was?

Matt at a relative’s house for the weekend/summer and strange place – let’s make a farm with lots of trees and other things to cast strange, spooky shadows at night. Skeletal branches scraping against the glass of the spare room he’s sleeping in and owls and other night birds and animals going about their business and strange and unsettling to a city kid like him.

Has a nightmare about the monster, running, and running and running in the dark woods like in the movie. Stupid kid legs too short, slow, and it’s gaining on him and the last thing he sees before he snaps awake is the monster leaping on him, jaws opened wide and blood on its fangs from its last kill and where are his parents????

Poor, wee little Matt Bragg freaking right the fuck out and stumbling out of bed, steps slowing, faltering when he remembers where he is.

At his grandparent’s farm, miles and miles away from home and the closest city.

Dark spooky woods just beyond the farmyard on one side, cornfields on another. Big old barn behind a vegetable patch, and chickens and so on. Long winding dirt driveway leading to a small road and a couple of miles from the next farm over.

The farmhouse is unfamiliar to him, but he thinks he remembers the way to his grandparent’s bedroom. Knows they won’t be mad at him for waking him even at this late an hour, and even if they were he wouldn’t mind because it’s mean they’re safe, he’s safe.

Only.

The hallway doesn’t look, feel, right when he steps outside his room?

Ceiling too tall  and he’s small still, a kid, but it’s not right.

The wallpaper’s different, not the pastel blue with pink roses his grandmother told him his grandfather picked because she loves roses. The light fixtures are different too? Not the polished brass and frosted glass but something colder, harder.

And -

There’s no window overlooking the vegetable patch at the end of the hallway, nothing he recognizes from his grandparent’s farmhouse.

“Oh,” he says, small little voice in a big, dark hallway, “oh, no.”

He does recognize it, because it’s from that movie he knows he wasn’t old enough to see any part of.

The one with the creaky floorboards under his feet and that light further down that flickers like a dying heartbeat.

Glowing red eyes that take form between one and the next.

Red and mean and this low snarl that rolls into a growl.

Click of the monster’s claws on smooth hardwood as it moves toward him, that slow, slow stalk of a predator that’s seen prey and poor, wee little Mat Bragg is frozen to the spot because this can’t be real.

But it is.

Or at least real enough that when the monster snarls again and launches itself down the hall at him he screams bloody murder and runs.

All the way back to the spare room he’s staying in where he slams the door shut and hides in the closet.

Hears it collide with the door, snapping and snarling and clawing at the wood while he curls down into corner of the closet and squeezes his eyes shut hoping it will give up, go away, that it’ll stop.

Claps his hands over his hears and recites the rules to the last game he learned to himself, card game his grandparents taught him before dinner.

He can hear yelling, so he presses his hands to his ears harder, but he can still hear the yelling. And then a gunshot, big, booming thing he recognizes, knows.

And his fear for his grandparents, his grandfather and that shotgun of his, has Matt uncurling, getting to  his feet.

Worried about them, and he’s reaching for the doorknob to the closet door when the door to the bedroom slams open. Draws a yelp out of Matt and has him ck backpedaling as footsteps come his way and the closet door is ripped open -

“Matt?”

It’s his grandfather, looking as scared as Matt’s ever seen him, shotgun in his hands and staring at Matt like he can’t believe he’s okay.

And then, okay, and then.

Matt’s grandfather coaxes him out of the closet, promises him it’s safe and Matt believes him because his grandfather’s one of the strongest, toughest people he knows next to his grandmother and mom, and  when he steps into the bedroom -

“…”

Because the room is untouched, sure, but the door?

Almost broken in two, clawed in two, huge gaping wounds in the wood where the monster tried to claw its way in.

The hallway beyond is the same Matt remembers from before, pastel blue and pink with touches of yellow and green, and the same light fixtures.

Seems the way he remembers it, normal farmhouse in rural South Carolina, and just.

Yes.

So, that’s how Matt discovers his powers and it’s not something he ever forgets, you know?

Gets worse as he gets older, realizes he can do that but with other people’s fears?

Like.

Slightly older Matt Bragg at school and bullies and this menacing figure with ham-sized fists and a rough voice and angry words and Matt’s bullies look so small next to them?

Things like that, and it’s.

He collects them, too.

Each new one slotting itself into his head, making a new home for themselves and sometimes he wakes up screaming because he’s dreaming someone else’s nightmare, fear.

(If he’s lucky, it stays a dream. Sometimes, though, sometimes they crawl out of his head into the real world and things, people, get hurt.)

Matt’s grandparents talk to his mom, his dad, the take him to specialists who teach him how to control it, because it’s that or lose his damn mind.

So he learns to control it.

Slips up from time to time, because he’s still a kid and feelings are hard, but eventually he learns to adapt.

Gets weird looks from people for being as easy-going as he is, weirdly apathetic sometimes?

But it is what it is.

He ends up working with small superhero teams here and there, a knack for computers and tech and people like him are always in demand, you know?

Superhero teams would be lost with out their techies and support staff and Matt gains a reputation as one of the better ones out there.

Catches the eye of a team in one of them big cities people are always talking about?

“Matt, what the fuck?”

Because Jeremy and old friends from way back. One of the minor league teams Matt worked for and this asshole with the impenetrable skin and bullheaded stubbornness to match. Jeremy’s new team needs another techie seeing as how they’re getting to be a little too much for one poor bastard to look after?

So Matt packs up his belongs and moves to the big city – “You’re impossible,” - and gets a tour from Gavin who’s far too relieved to meet him.

“Oh, thank God, you have no idea what it’s like,” like he really believes that.

(Matt’s known Jeremy for years, if what the asshole’s been telling Matt about his new team is even a little bit true, if they’re all like him in the worst possible ways then yeah, Matt fucking well knows.)

Anyway.

Matt starts working for this new team, big league players as these things go. Fight top-tier supervillains and a whole slew of lesser ones jockeying for position among the worst of the worst.

Have a whole city under their protection and a shiny space station all their own that should be fully repaired by the end of the year.

(Platform for an orbital death-ray in a past life, and Ryan and Trevor are quick to reassure everyone the death-ray is no more. Really, guys. :D?)

Anyway, anyway.

New team and all these new fears taking up residence in Matt’s head, you know?

Hi, hello, and I’ll just be living here now, right next to that monster that still gives you nightmares even now, don’t mind me.

Aside from all that, fears and nightmares living inside his head and all, Matt’s pretty easygoing? Affable.

Learns to put up with Gavin’s shit and loves giving it right back to him, the two of them kindred spirits in the way they sometimes want to throttle their fucking teammates?

Like.

Maybe don’t automatically resort to Heroic Sacrifice when there’s still time to come up with alternatives? Don’t be that asshole, okay? It’s a goddamned downer, and that’s before the funeral.

Should be a little worried (horrified?) at the fact that Gavin has secretly had the entire team and support staff microchipped, but when someone gets abducted or goes MIA it cuts down on the Drama and techie-side dramatically.

(Legal? Probably not, but everyone turns a blind eye to it seeing as how useful it is, and really, if Gavin went supervillain on them? The fact he could pinpoint their exact location whenever he wanted would be the least of their worries, so. Yes.)

Anyway, anyway.

Matt settles into the team incredibly quickly, realizes he likes it there?

Like.

Before all this he was just working a job, no real attachment or sentiment to go along with it. Dealt with some real assholes, all ego and no substance and all that over the years. Good people who stayed silent when they should have used their voices to do good and all that, just about everything you could think of, he’s seen it, dealt with it.

But these assholes?

He’s personally invested in them.

To the point he makes an effort to address their fears, see what he can do because some of them -

It’s not fixing them, not whatever horrifically simplified way of talking about it you’d think, just.

Stuff.

Things.

Something?

Something.

Little pushes here, a pointed question there. Outside perspective, non-judgment and that space their fears have made for themselves in his head...shift.

Go from something truly awful, something that could break a person who never deserved it into something smaller, more manageable.

And then, okay, and then???

All those lesser villains and supervillains, well sometimes one of them has real potential, you know? The makings of greatness, and everyone knows being great doesn’t always equate to being good.

Comes in and picks members of the team off one by one, clever and patient about it. So much so no one realizes it’s a concerted effort until it’s almost too late?

Incidents and accidents and seeming bad luck that takes out their heavy hitters at the start, has them calling on reserve members, has Gavin in the field which is a rare fucking occurrence, and not something the others like to see?

But, again, heavy hitters down for the count or missing altogether and their ranks thinned down to near nothing.

Gavin’s a little like Matt – not the same category regarding their powers, God no, just.

Gets underestimated far too often.

Doesn’t look intimidating like some of the others, isn’t some musclebound brute of a figure or anything, but he’s smart.

Clever.

Enough to know there were things Matt wasn’t saying, those long nights in the base nerve center worrying about the others where they’d talk about powers and such.

Little hypotheticals Matt would propose to counter Gavin’s and just.

Something to what he didn’t say, and anyway, anyway.

There’s a call, trouble in the city their team is sworn to protect and they’re the only two in the base who aren’t badly injured, off on what they all know is another wild goose chase searching for the asshole behind all this hurt.

Just the two of them and Gavin takes out a coin he carries around for some reason.

Ryan knows, though, doesn’t he. Gets this little half-smile when he sees Gavin rolling it across his knuckles and a story Matt’s only heard bits and pieces of from the others.

Trevor’s laugh and a glance up, up, up at wherever that shiny space station is in orbit at the time.

Michael’s heavy sigh and put upon scowl, thumbnail rubbing at at scar on his eyebrow in unconscious habit.

Lindsay fucking losing her shit, wheezing something about fucking idiots and...catsuits?

(Either literal catsuits, which, uh, no thanks? Or the kind that Gavin has hanging up in his closet, puts on when the team goes all-out in training and drag Gavin out even though he’s better suited for shadows and stealth rather than head-on tactics.)

And on and on, and one day, one day Matt will get the whole story out of these assholes.

Gavin takes out that coin of his and gives Matt this little grin, smirk.

Just the two of them in the base’s nerve center, lights down low and dread weighing heavy over all of them.

(Sometimes good doesn’t triumph over evil, sometimes the bad guys win. It’s happened in other cities before, will again because that’s how these things go, isn’t it.)

Gavin flips his coin, hand coming down to cover it before Matt can make out if it’s heads or tails and laughs as he heads to his quarters to suit up.

It’s a thing of theirs, that coin flip.

Loser grabs the coffee, or delivers bad news to an overworked and understandably cranky team. Goes and does the thing no one else wants to, can.

Something shifts in Matt’s head, big and mean and angry. Slavering jaws and glowing red eyes and claws that can tear through steel. (Matt’s seen it.)

“Back in a jiff!” Gavin says, suited up and ready to head into the city (their city) with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and he’s a goddamned liar because he doesn’t come back, does he?

No he does not, the asshole.

Leaves behind in the dark, all these fears and nightmares in his head.

That monster from his nightmares as a kid? First one he remembers and with him all this time later, less a nightmare and something like a constant...constant.

Something help ground himself when he loses control and can’t tell nightmare from reality and the other way around.

Movie monster made real, and something he’s lived with for a long damn time, learned to make his peace with and all that.

Besides.

He has all these new fears now, doesn’t he? Less fantastical in some ways but no less horrifying to contemplate, because.

This, his team? (Family?) They play a big part of his newest ones.

Still.

No time to think about that, not with some asshole broadcasting some stupid diabolical scheme to the entire city. Cruel and smug and gloating, and Matt’s missing teammates strung up behind him awaiting death by public execution or whatever it is he’s babbling about.

And Matt, okay, Matt.

Doesn’t have a suit or mask to call his own, never really needed one, you know?

Techie like him?

Yeah, no.

No suit, no armor.

Just Matt and a head full of fears and nightmares, and people don’t give him a second glance between good old Matt making his way to the asshole’s lair and the whole city in peril deal.

The ones who do? Hired goons and personal henchmen in matching uniforms? Well, wouldn’t you know what interesting fear they all have?

There are a few you’d expect, dying old and alone and heartbreaking in that respect, but others?

They’re things that step out of the shadows, slither in some cases, with big teeth and claws and the screaming just gets them more excited.

Matt doesn’t kill them, those hired goons and personal henchmen, God no, but they won’t be getting up anytime soon.

(Fear will do that to people, sometimes.)

Works his way up, up, up to a building rooftop and why, Matt wonders, why do they all have to be so goddamned theatrical about this shit?

Anyway, though.

There’s Matt in his hoodie and jeans and worn sneakers he swears he’ll replace soon, really.

There’s Matt, and then there are more hired goons, personal henchmen, and his team, all strung up. The asshole behind this bullshit.

And then, you know, and then.

That nightmare monster that’s been with Matt all these years?

Stalks out of the shadows with its glowing red eyes and sharp fangs and sharp claws.

Stands at Matt’s shoulder, rumbling growl and -

There’s screaming, because there always is, you know?

Big fucking thing like that appearing out of nowhere?

Yeah.

Matt looks up at it, and he knows, he knows, mercy, but in all honesty he’s not really feeling it after all the bullshit this asshole’s put his family through, and yet?

“Try not to kill them,” Matt tells his nightmare monster, and turns his attention to the asshole in the dumb suit.

Smiles when he hears it snarl, rush of displaced air as it races towards the line of stunned hired goons and personal henchmen and then he’s got other things to worry about.

It’s not graceful, not dignified what happens next because Matt doesn’t have the training, skills, the rest of his team does, you know?

At best he’s picked up enough to defend himself if some dick tried to mug him when he’s out and about, but he’s no hand-to-hand specialist. No martial arts master. Nothing fancy like that.

Gets knocked around a little, which, ha, part of his genius plan because fist to cheek and bingo.

“Oh,” Matt says, smiles up at the asshole through bloody teeth. “That’s a nasty fear you have, huh?”

Something about an aching, yawning void, and anger? Voices that claw at the mind, unravel sanity and the poor, stupid bastard who thought he was clever enough to outwit whatever dwells at its heart.

A deal struck out of arrogance and something close to ignorance, and a debt long owed and it shouldn’t exist in their dimension, you know? Impossible, because there are rules, and yet -

It’s the poor stupid bastard’s worst nightmare come to life, and Matt’s powers and there they are.

A furious scream, and clumsy rush like the asshole thinks he can put a stop to his fate if he just kills Matt, but he doesn’t.

Trips, a spot of bad luck or something else, and Matt sidesteps and there’s that aching, yawning void and all that anger.

Swallows him right up before it vanishes, space where it is rippling and warping and Matt has to look away because it isn’t right, how the world works and then it’s gone and it’s just.

Matt and his asshole team scattered about and groaning and unconscious hired goons and personal henchmen and -

“Hey,” Matt says, woozy, exhausted. “Good job.”

Matt’s nightmare monster snorts, tosses its head and fades away.

He feels it settling in the back of his mind as he passes out, familiar weight in the back of his head.

AND THEN.

Everyone collectively loses their shit because what the actual fuck, Matt Bragg?

Matt being like, “So, uh, hey, there’s a thing I forgot to mention?”

And the whole story about his powers comes out and, uh.

The thing where Matt saves the day again and again with his nightmare monster buddy/using some baddie’s fears against them and the others are like “We had that, Matt Bragg” which is a blatant lie as they were about to be lasered in half or whatever, idk.

Yes???

This totally got away from me and I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, but yes???

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[devintrinidad]

You are correct and yes it was the parasite ep, I’m pretty sure anyway.

My idea for 1146 is if he was in his human form and then some monster eats him. The monster is laughing until he notices 3803. He’s about to gloat and eat her. But her expression goes from horrifying shock to this long unreadable stare that frankly confuses the monster. All of a sudden the monster explodes. 1146 has shifted into dragon form and ripped the (now much smaller) monster into pieces from the inside.

1146: ah well that was easy. I should use that tactic more often.

3803: uhm…. Yeah. Great work Mr dragon (oh gosh it’s very surreal to be on the other side of this situation). 

For all she knows, the rare times 1146 does shift to human form. He does it because he notices a monster about to eat her. Steps in her place. Then lets the monster die in a very karma fashion. 

In those mythologies the belly of the beast/god scenario is sure a popular one. That’s why I couldn’t help but want to include it. And again 3803, and sometimes 1146, would be unfortunate enough to have it happen to them. 3803 more. 1146 just shrugs when it happens and shifts his way out. Poor 3803 either has to wait for 1146 or his other dragon friends to save her or attempt to crawl her way out - I mean that does happen in mythologies so why not here.

Oh right. The monster would just chomp on her. She’s a puny fragile human with the fire of the sun in her. Not a demi human God or some epic Hero of legend (how does she survive this au even with 1146 around? Maybe he’s working overtime o). Xp

Well she can have her epic hero escape from not danger. >_> 1146 doesn’t notice her all the time when ‘saving her’ and some times she’s got to get him to notice so he’ll cough her out. Could take hours sometimes. When he does figure out he’s very nonchalant and easygoing about it. Even during the first time it happens (which he did on purpose because it was a bad blizzard, she had no shelter and he had to go fight some monsters. He doesn’t realize until the next day she had fainted through the whole experience and couldn’t even remember he did it and was quite alarmed when he informed her) and she freaks out. It takes him awhile to figure out humans are uncomfortable chilling in a dragon’s belly. Maybe because he’s been eaten frequently before, even by friends. Maybe because in legends dragons do typically swallow things and regurgitate easily and that’s how they carry things around? X/

Idk. I’m not an expert over mythological biology and how and why these characters can not only breathe or see and not get digested. It’s all very strange yet common occurrence and even used as a way to seek shelter in a creatures belly it house them for transportation in areas they couldn’t travel well on their own in (truly character plot armor at it’s finest. See. Even the ancient writers did it… Ancient mythological stories get weirder the more you think about them). 0_0 

I’m just going to use the easy explanation and say the gods created them that way so there. XP

Oof, imagine that’s how 3803 meets his friends. She’s drowning and about to get eaten by a water monster. 4989 swims to save her by gulping her down. Then after he takes down the monster and destroys the ice above the was incasing the whole lake. He’s like - 

4989: Hi! Your 1146’s friend! Wow I heard how you helped him out and it’s nice to both eat and meet you! =D 

3803: Hi (is used to this now) nice to meet and be eaten by you (I guess). Thanks for saving me. Uhm, is this being eaten thing normal thing with dragons? >_>;; 

4989: For us or you? Because yes! =)

Mythologies have Titans the size of mountains. I imagine being eaten is a common occurrence for them too (at least in hunan form) since they have to kill those too. Xp

Man this is the strangest hc I have made so something else.

3803 loves to sleep in 1146’s fur coat. She has to sleep on the barn with animals and while it’s okay enough. She definitely prefers the warm safety of his dragon fur. It’s pretty think so she can bury herself in pretty comfortably and even can get a little bit some times. She only does it when she knows he’s nearby and he tells her there will be no monsters tonight. The first time she did it was when she got beaten to hard by her master and for some reason that was a night she couldn’t bear to be alone. She needed a friend. Not wanting to bother any of her delivery friends (they vaguely know what’s going on and 3803 doesn’t want to bother them or make them worry more about her). she slipped out of the barn and made her way to the dark woods, not caring about wolves or bears or any other dangerous animal or thing or even getting lost. She calls out to 1146 and he shows up, obviously having woken up from a deep sleep. She just starts sniffling and in a broken voice asks if she can stay with him. He lets her and to his slight surprise, she quickly cuddles into his side and dissapear into his fur. He politely ignores her attempts to quit whimpering or the way she’s tightly holding on to him. Twisting her body and pulling his fur until he knows it’s going to be a bear to untangle her later. He ignores it and chooses to fall asleep only after he can tell she’s fallen into a deep slumber.

Next morning at the crack of dawn. He’s right. It is a bear to get her out. At first he can’t even place where exactly she is on his body until she can somehow reach a hand out. But that’s as much as she can do. She really buried herself deeply in his thick coat and her attempts to get herself out only cause her to get even more tightly stuck. He can even feel his fur pull whenever she tries to move, until she just can’t move any more. 1146 eventually surrenders and bites the chunk fur she’s in and wet the fur down in his mouth until she can pull it off of herself and be free. She’s very sorry there’s now can of a bald spot in his beautiful coat (she really loves his fur and it both embarrasses and highly pleases him when she goes on about how beautiful it is) and his mouth is full of fur. She can relate having hair stick in her mouth is a uncomfortable feeling so she collects all the fur he couldn’t spit out as best she can. 

She thanks/apologizes again and promises to never bother him like this again

 He suddenly shifts into human form to hug her. He holds her hand and tells her whatever this is (pointing to her bruises and drying tears) he wants to know and help with it. But if she can’t tell him yet. Then he wants her to come to him whenever she both needs or wants to. 

However there are a few more bald spots in the future. But he doesn’t mind. He likes it when he can make her feel better. He knows what sleepless nights alone are like. Unbeknownst to her, 1146 has a lot of them himself. Her unconditional trust in him and seeking him out for comfort, along with her small form snuggled up to him, ends up soothing him just as much. 

~~~

This was a really cool au! I’m not sure how to articulate my feelings right now, but I feel like this would be a great story! I mean, you have everything outlined here and all of the characterizations are on point. I especially love how you create the mythology of this story and make it just as wacky and fun (with a few gruesome details here and there, hahaha!) as the original canon. 

I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. You’ve got a gift here and I think the fandom would be blessed if you start writing full fledged stories! Seriously, you’ve got talent and I don’t think I can do your writing any justice via asks. You should totally make a fanfic of everything here. Heck, you can post drabbles or ficlets if you wish. And you don’t have to finish them--just give the audience a taste of your creativity and skill! 

:D