#ironically the darkness of these two aus isn't because i'm depressed (though that's probably part of it)

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

it's been a while since i've talked about any of my aus, huh

let's do that real quick! first a very simple au where the main point is the stans twins being physical manifestations of the concept of life and death, and then a much more in-depth au involving mystery trio kind of (don't get attached)

warnings for death (of course) and emotional suffering for the first au

warnings for cosmic horror, violence/blood/near death experience, both physical and emotional suffering, and in general Significantly Bad Times™ for the second one

au the first!

the first au is exactly what it sounds like. i've thought about this one for a while but never mentioned it because i don't want people going 'well obviously the reason ford is death and stan is life is because ford is evil incarnate and stan is perfect and can do no wrong' because that's not why i gave them their specific roles

i just felt it fit their personalities better? also cause stan's (somewhat unhealthy) 'family is everything' mindset fits a personification of life better and ford's 'if it sucks, hit the bricks' mindset fits a personification of death better

(also ford gets to hang out with extinct species and stan has to mourn when he realizes he hasn't interacted with any in a long time, so who gets the better deal really)

really though, this ford is essentially always in a state of mourning for. obvious reasons. stan spends most of his time watching various organisms live, and ford spends most of his time sitting with them when they die. and the two don't interact very often because of how busy they always are (i did give ford an emotional support ghost thylacine though, so he's not always alone)

the mystery twins, through means i do not wish to think about nor go into, end up in a state of limbo. the stan twins take them in, alternating between who spends time with who so everyone gets a fair amount of bonding time

it does help ford a bit, but it also puts him on edge because the last thing he wants is for them to have to watch things die. instead, he introduces them to various (more friendly) ghost creatures and teaches them about decomposers

stan's time with them is somewhat easier, what with his job essentially being to make sure things are still ticking, which includes a lot of looking at baby organisms for long periods of time. he does make sure not to show the twins any species that are. uh. low on members, so to speak

the stan twins got into a lot of fights when they were younger. stan's not exactly a fan of mass extinctions and ford couldn't seem to get him to understand that he does not, in fact, kill them, he just shows up when they die, and yes, stanley, there is a difference

they had. a pretty long time to work it out. that's all there really is for this au (at least for now)

au the second!

in this au, ford focuses on astronomical anomalies. one such anomaly he notices is an increasingly unnerving lack of stars. some that were there before seem to have just. disappeared. he figures, 'well, a lot of stars that were documented in the past just don't exist anymore, and we stop seeing their light after a while. even if these examples are unusually recent all things considered, it's not enough to be worrisome yet'

so he starts keeping track of asterisms. he gets his hands on some star charts, makes a few maps of specific ones himself, and starts observing. every time something changes, he marks it off on the corresponding chart. after a little while, he decides that something is definitely wrong here (he's starting to space out more and more often, for longer periods of time) and he calls up fiddleford for help

fiddleford gets to work on building some machines so they can more easily observe this anomaly and, more importantly, properly record its happenings. he finally gets to computer his majigs. and things go well for a while, except for stanford's newfound problems, but it starts to have an effect on fiddleford after a while. he sees something in the void that ford doesn't. and he's starting to trust it more than he trusts his friend

fiddleford keeps this to himself, of course. ford doesn't seem to really notice. what ford does notice is that the gemini constellation has started to go

somewhat reluctantly (though with his hallucinations and absence seizures and bleeding from the eyes and fiddleford's unusual coldness, it's getting hard to care) he calls up his ma, finds out where stan's currently staying, and sends him a postcard. because, sure, maybe stan can't help, but at this point he's starting to feel like his brother should know and also he's getting a little desperate

stan pretty quickly notices that there's something off about the handwriting and language and the stains of the postcard and gets on his way because something has obviously gone wrong here

he expects to have to talk to ford down from doing something, or maybe have to help him get out of dodge because people want to hurt him or something. he does not expect to walk into the house and see his brother bleeding on the floor because his assistant tried to murder him (is this why ford sent for his help? what in the hell is going on?)

stan is confused, to say the least. he pretty easily overpowers fiddleford (how weak was ford? what happened?) and manages to get his brother to a hospital

needless to say, he's a bit surprised when ford wants to return there upon recovery. he's even more surprised when he's shown the anomaly and hey where the fuck are castor and pollux. where are a lot of the stars around gemini actually?

ford gives him a basic rundown and explains that he thinks something about the anomaly caused fiddleford's murder attempt, though he's not sure why it only affected him. stan asks why he hasn't heard about this considering that this is kind of a big deal. ford doesn't know

they're about to hear a lot about it