#rvb monster realm!au

[trannydean-moved]

RvB Monster Realm!AU

@queerchorus wanted to hear about this so here is my most recent and honestly my current favorite au, my monster realm!au. (it's really long and i forgot to add a 'keep reading' thing last night)

It starts out with Simmons. Simmons is a human in the human realm and he's not doing all right. He's got a sucky dad who passive aggressively hates him, a job that underpays and stresses him out, and he's got no friends or acquaintances so he's lonely.

After a particularly bad day at work, he decides he's had enough, and he just runs for it. He takes his in-shitty-condition car and heads down the highway. No two-week notice to his job (bc they don't deserve one), no telling his landlord he's leaving (fuck landlords anyway). He just grabs a few things and leaves.

Unfortunately for him, he's stressed out to the point he didn't realize he's running low on gas, and he ends up broken down on the side of a lonesome highway. There's no service, so he can't call a tow truck (not that he could afford to pay for one anyway). He hasn't seen many other people driving along this highway since he got on it, so catching a ride to anywhere was slim. This poor guy is hitting his breaking point.

As Simmons is about to fuck it and start walking back in the direction he came, he seems something flash by in the woods that lines one side of the highway. Usually, he's smart enough to not go after something strange in the woods, but this guy isn't running on logic right now. Simmons goes after it to investigate.

As he chases this thing, he is only catching glimpses through the woods, he's beginning to wonder if his mind had been playing tricks on him. Then, Simmons catches more than a half-second glance of it, right before it just disappears in thin air.

Of course, Simmons is like "uh, what the fuck?" but, like the idiot he is, he goes to the spot it disappeared at. I don't know what he was expecting, but he disappeared too lol.

It turns out that Simmons had found a portal to another realm. It sort of overlaps the human realm--they co-exist over each other? Next to each other? I'm not exactly sure on the logistics quite yet. But whatever it is, there are folds in between the two realms that sometimes cause portals that can transport a being from one realm to the other.

If you're not used to this traveling between realms gig, there are side-effects like migraines, bleeding noses, etc. Simmons? He passes out.

Now, that strange thing Simmons was following was Tau [one of my AI OCs], the little pet dragon of Mich [my main RvB OC] (he's fit-in-your-arms small, so he's definitely on the littler side of dragon species in this realm.) Animals can sense the portals between realms a lot better than other beings, such as humans and several types of monsters, so they often go through the portals to explore each realm. That's why you get crows in the monster realm and the occasional unicorn in the human realm. Tau goes to the human realm to pick up trinkets and supplies and such to bring back to the monster realm (*cough cough* yes, like Owlbert in TOH *cough cough*).

As usual with each excursion Tau goes on, Mich is in the area Tau had left at, waiting for him. She had dragged Grif along to come with her, since no one else at their place was available (aka, Grif had the weakest excuse as to why he couldn't come along).

Before I go on with the plot, I'm going to explain what each of the RnBs (Carolina and Wash are not included as of yet) are so there's no confusion.

Sarge is a gremlin/goblin sort of thing (I haven't figured out which would benefit the plot and humor level more). He's short and grumpy and is quite into inventing. He's the "leader" of the Red side of the clan/group/pack and is very insistent on Reds and Blues being separate, they definitely all hate each other, blah blah blah. Even though they all live in the same house. It causes quite a many disagreements--like how Sarge refuses to use the front door, since it's on the Blues' "side" of the house, so he uses windows and tunnels to leave the house. Or how the kitchen is on the Reds' "side", and he tries demanding payment any time the Blues try getting a meal they need/want. Sarge also helped design and create the house they all live in... and he designed it specifically special for everyone... and he always takes much care in expanding the house when someone new comes to live with them, whether they're Red or Blue... he's somewhat of a hypocrite.

Grif is a werewolf because yes to a big hairy man. He and his little sister were separated from their pack years ago during migration (uh I forgot if there's another word for wolves traveling from different den areas) (also, they weren't separated by accident 👀👀). They were found by Sarge, who at the time only had Mich staying with him. Sarge took them in and raised them. Now, Grif lives in a house full of morons that he says he hates. He never moved once he got older, though, and doesn't really plan on it. He excuses it as he'd rather stick with a bunch of idiots rather than wander alone until he found a new pack. Really, he cares about them and doesn't want to leave them. He'll never admit that, though.

Donut's an angel. He's got the wings (no halo, though... sorry all) and he does have a true angel form, although not many have seen it. He only shifts into that form when he's genuinely pissed off, which is thankfully not often. A while back, he was injured by a couple of demons and was discarded in the woods. He was found by the RnBs and they took him in to help him get back to health. When he was healed, Donut decided to stay, since everyone was so nice and they were now all his friends, even if they don't always share his cheerful sentiment.

Mich... well, nobody knows exactly what she is, or where she came from. Sarge says that she was dropped off as a baby at his old place's doorstep, and he had taken her in and raised her. She doesn't doubt him... though maybe she should, because he's not telling her the full story. That'll be a plot point later on, though. For now, Mich calls herself a hybrid and loves the mystery of it. Everybody just goes along with it, since that's probably what she was, in some way. They speculate that she's at least part demon, due to her leathery wings and completely chaotic attitude. Despite being probably part-demon, however, she and Donut are best friends. Almost everyone is her best friend, however, because no matter how annoying and chaotic she is, she will find any way to make someone her friend, if she wants to. Nobody complains though, because they like her, too.

Doc is a wizard. He isn't the best at what he does--quite far from that, actually--which is why he had his healing license taken and was exiled from his guild/coven/whatever. That, and he was harboring an ill-tempered poltergeist named O'Malley. Doc can perform some healing magic, some of the time, which is good because these muttonheads of the RnB household are always getting hurt. He might be an incompetent at best healer, but he's a good friend (even if he does like to recommend strange things in the ways of cooking). He had been wandering around a busy market on day when Sarge spotted him. Seeing his now-torn healer guild/coven badge on his coat, Sarge asked Doc to come back to his home to help one of his kids house residents, who was sick at the time. Nervous but hopeful, Doc went with Sarge, and Doc ended up successfully healing them. Doc was more than overjoyed to actually do something right for once. He ended up asking Sarge if he could stay with the RnBa, and Sarge obliged.

I don't know what Lopez is yet, but he was created by the combined powers of Sarge and a wizard who visits on occasion to the RnB residence (it's Florida. He and Sarge are boyfriends). Lopez can speak every language other than "common", which is what most monsters universally speak, or at least understand. Lopez understands it, all right--he just refuses to speak it. And he almost never speaks in a language any of the residents understands--it's a stubbornness thing. Lopez is tired, so tired, but he is loyal to his family companions and sticks with them, despite having the opportunity to leave them multiple times. He helps with Sarge's inventions and tries to improve them... or at least make sure they don't explode anything. (If anyone has suggestions on what Lopez can be, I'm open to hear any!)

Church is what is known as a human reflection. He used to be a human who had accidentally found his way into the monster realm like Simmons had. Church was found by Donut and Mich, who had been in the woods gathering ingredients for a potion Doc was working on. They brough Church back to the RnB residence, but Church was desperate to get back to the human realm. He had friends, and a girlfriend. He wanted to get back home. Sarge told him that there was a way to create an artificial portal that can get him right back to the spot where he had entered the first portal (a natural portal can take you anywhere, and besides, they're very difficult to find). The process to make one, however, was difficult, and finding all of the ingredients is even more so. Despite this, Church was determined to get back home. They found everything (or what they thought was everything) in four months, which astonished the group--it was normal for it to take several more months, even years, to gather everything. Sarge built the portal, and after saying goodbye, Church stepped into the portal. However, the portal didn't take him right back to where he had come from. Something was wrong with the portal, and instead of taking him back to the human realm, he was now in the in-between space of the two realms. Every portal is one-way, natural or artificial, so now he couldn't even go back to the monster realm. So he's stuck in the in-between realm. But there's one good(?) thing about being stuck there is that he can see into both realms--he can appear in reflections in either realm to see into them. Mirrors, water, polished metal, anything like that (*cough cough* yes, another thing I borrowed from TOH). The RnBs put mirrors all over the house so he can appear anywhere he wants. Church now doesn't age, but his grumpiness continues to grow at a disappointingly steady rate.

Tucker is another human who stumbled into the monster realm. He came a few years after Church. He got found by Doc this time, looking for herbs. Doc brought Tucker back to the house, but not before making Tucker carry a bunch of stuff for him lmao. Unlike Church, when Tucker heard about how hard it is to create a portal, he decided to stay in the monster realm. It seemed a lot easier to just learn to live in the monster realm then to find all this rare stuff to make a portal that might not even work. He ended up having a fling with an orc, which produced Junior. He ended up with Junior, since the kid didn't really fit in with the tough lifestyle that particular orc clan had. But that's okay because Tucker loves his son. The RnBs help out with Junior, so he's got a bunch of uncles.

Caboose is a centaur. He was found wandering alone when he was young, and Sarge adopted him took him in. He's the happiest guy in the entire realm and everyone knows it. He's friendly to everybody and often has to be stopped from breaking people's ribs with his literally bone-crushing hugs. Caboose loves giving his friends rides and running fast with them--he often scares them when he starts running fast. Soon after he was taken in by Sarge, he found a baby dragon alone in the woods. He took it in, named it Freckles after the brown flecks on its snout, and raised it as his pet. Freckles grew to the size of a large retriever (still significantly smaller, even miniscule, compared to other dragons in the realm) and is quite friendly, as long as no one is threatening Caboose. If that's the case, he's quite ready to spring on the attack. He can and is capable of tearing off limbs.

Kai is a werewolf like her older brother Dex, but when their mom was pregnant with Kai, she was bitten by a vampire, altering Kai's appearance and abilities. She's smaller than most werewolves (in both regular and shifted form), but has heightened senses and resistance to most vampire and werewolf deterrents. Her regular form makes her appear more like a furry vampire, and her shifted form is mostly hairless, but with huge ears, fangs, and claws. Her "strange" appearance is what eventually got her and Grif left behind by their pack during a migration. (Another reason why Grif doesn't want to go searching for a new "pack"--he doesn't want to encounter his old one. He also would never leave Kai). Despite the whole getting abandoned by the pack thing as a child, Kai is quite cheerful, energetic, and happy to explore the world. After getting found by Sarge, she was able to know what it's like to be in a family that won't degrade her for how she looks (hybrids aren't usually frowned upon, btw. It's just that pack was a bunch of old-fashioned dicks). She's a lot happier in the RnBs household now.

Now, back to the story. Mich and Grif are waiting for Tau to return from the human realm. Tau eventually reaches them, and instead of being ready to come home like he usually is, Tau leads them further into the woods. Puzzled, Mich follows, while Grif groans and complains, just wanting to get back home to eat the Oreos Tau had brought him (the monster realm has Oreos, but Grif doesn't think they taste all that good). Tau leads them to an unconscious Simmons, much to the two's surprise. They're standing there, wondering what to do with him (Church and Tucker hadn't been passed out when they had been found so this is new), and Simmons comes to. He sees Grif and Mich and screams. Mich is like "hey hey calm down!! We're not gonna hurt you!!" and while talking, she brandishes her large fangs and waves her hands sporting huge ass claws around. Simmons faints again gkhfkjd.

Grif's like "wow this guy's a fucking wuss" and Mich is like "we should get Doc to help him". Grif shrugs, and when he makes no sign of moving, Mich huffs in annoyance and races back to the house. While she's gone, Simmons comes to again and freaks out again, though on a slightly lesser level. Grif is quite annoyed and is like "dude calm down, I'm not going to eat you". Simmons tries to calm down and Grif just stands there, impatiently waiting for Mich to return with Doc.

Simmons calms himself down enough to stop dramatically freaking out. He asks "where am I, who are you, and what the fuck was up with the… other…. thing?" (rude, Simmons) Grif rolls his eyes and responds with "you're in the monster realm, human. I'm Grif, and she's my fr--housemate--Mich. Mich is a bit overbearing. you get used to it".

Mich returns with Doc, and Simmons' anxiety spikes a bit but doesn't start freaking out again. Doc helps him with his bloody nose, which Simmons did not notice until it was pointed out, and Simmons asks a bunch of questions about this "monster realm". he finds out about the difficulty to make a portal and is quite bummed. Especially when they tell him that Sarge is the only one around who would be willing to make a portal. He decides that he'll have to do some research to make sure the portal is done right--he doesn't want to turn into a human reflection like Church. Speaking of Church--he and Simmons are cousins and are quite surprised by the reunion. "so THAT'S what happened to you" "I don't want to talk about it".

This is mainly what I have for the plot so far. I've got a couple certain things that will come into the story eventually--such as parts of the journey to finding the components for the portal-- that'll I'll be listing here, along with different species I want to incorporate into this AU.

During the trek to finding the portal ingredients, Sarge tells the group (consisting of himself, Simmons, Tucker, and Grif) that they will have to get past a "moving mountain". Simmons asks what this means, and Sarge tells him about certain mountains that are there some of the time and gone other times. Simmons figures this means the mountain goes invisible, or it's some magic thing. When they get there, the mountain is gone. Sarge urges them to hurry before the mountain came back. Simmons is surprised that they aren't climbing up an invisible mountain, but definitely doesn't mind crossing the huge, open valley. As they're getting towards the end of the valley, the "mountain" returns, except it's not a mountain--it's a dragon, the size of a mountain. Simmons had come to believe that, since he'd only seen Freckles and Tau so far, that all dragons were on the smaller side here, and is terrified to see such a huge dragon. Tucker tells him that it won't hurt them, because it probably doesn't even notice them--it's sight and hearing are too weak to pick up on them. Sarge adds that they need to hurry, though, before the dragon flattens them when it comes to settle back down, and they barely make it across the rest of the valley before the dragon completely lays down.

As stated before, Sarge has been lying about where Mich had come from and what she is. What actually happened was that while out in a forest one day, and found a section of it that was on fire. He heard the wailing of a child. Sarge found baby Mich close to the fire, crying. He quickly rescued her and got her away from the flames. In the distance, he saw winged figures flapping away, and realized that they must have left her there, for some strange reason. He never told Mich the truth because he didn't want her to know she was abandoned, left for dead, in a field of flame. While Sarge, Grif, Simmons, and Tucker are on the hunt for the portal ingredients, Mich somehow finds out about the truth of what happened with her as an infant. She waits until they come back home to confront Sarge about it, and there's a long, drawn-out argument about it. They eventually break it up (read: Caboose drags Mich away from the situation) and fall in an prickly uneasiness around each other. Mich tries to find out who abandoned her in the fire and definitely doesn't find what she was expecting.

The Freelancers are going to have a role in here somehow. York (Mich's biological older brother) is definitely showing up, and he might've been in the plot of abandoning Mich (not willingly). Wash and Carolina are definitely making appearances too. I want to also have CT, the twins, Maine, Tex, and probably others here, as well. I just need to find ways of incorporating them (suggestions on this are welcome!)

The twins are going to be vampires (because they're so pale haha).

And now for the list of species I want to incorporate. If anyone has suggestions for additional species or possible ways of them being involved in the AU, please let me know!

chimera (chimera milk is a delicacy) (its eggs are a tradeable good on the black market)

elves (wood elves, dark elves, light elves)

orcs

dragons (different species) (scales are often harvested for potions, fashion, etc) (dragon farms are common) (there are dragon reserves as well as dragon poachers)

dryads

fairies/pixies (dark and light)

merpeople (partially and fully aquatic varities)

phoenixes (their tears, containing powerful healing powers, are highly valuable)

fauns/satyrs

griffins

harpies

brownies

kitsunes

hydra

sirens (a subspecies of merperson who has powers to draw one in via singing. can be partially or fully aquatic)

poltergeists

ghosts/spirits

witches/wizards/sorcerers

selkies

sphinx

unicorns/pegasi (the plural for pegasus in this AU)

manticore (venom within stinger is highly valuable)

salamanders (on fire ones)

centaurs

minotaurs

basilisks

werecats

[trannydean-moved]

I had an idea for my Monster Realm AU 👁👁

What if Mich is half-human and that's why she was abandoned as a baby? The band of demons one of her parents was a part of was one who weren't fond of humans? And like the parent pledged to stay away from humans and such because to be a part of a certain band of demons, you gotta pledge to their specific rules (each group has rules specific to their group only). The parent was like "yeah sure, that sounds fine, like I'm ever gonna actually meet a human anyway". But years later they meet a human in the monster realm and they fall in love and they're like "aw fuck". They do their best to keep their relationship a secret. To help keep up the ruse, the demon has a baby with another demon (York's the baby). Eventually, the demon has another baby with the human (Mich) and that's when the demon gets found out. The parents are killed, and baby Mich is taken to a field that the demons set on fire. The demon group make York be the one to carry his baby sibling to the field because that'd be sad.

Now, demons have traditions that most groups usually take part in, including this one: the tradition is that if there is a child born and their birth breaks a group's rules (the group doesn't like relationships between demons of different groups, relationships with demons of certain ages, etc), they abandon the child somewhere far from their home. If the child survives and grows into an adult, they group can refind them and bring them back into their group to stay. (If you know where I based this idea off of, no you don't)

So, what if the demon group comes back for Mich and offers to let her stay with them? She'd get to stay with her only living relative, York… BUT this group also killed her parents! So she's gonna have a decision to make (she chooses to stay in the RnB clan of course. She still visits York though so that she can get to know him.)