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perpetualexistence · 2 months ago

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A Haunting Refrain

Day 1: Ghost/Siren

It was the singing that caught Alejandro’s attention. It was coming from a dilapidated manor at the end of a long, curving path.

He was just going on a walk with two of his newest friends. He had moved into town just a few days ago. Once again, he had to establish himself into a new school hierarchy. But it was no matter, for he could adjust, just as he always did.

He’d already made two new friends, Duncan and Heather if he remembered correctly. Both on different ends of the hierarchy. Still, he needed to be friendly with all types of cliques before establishing himself at the top. Strange that the head cheerleader and the school delinquent would want to hang out together. Oh well.

He’d just wanted to explore his new neighborhood. They were the ones who wanted him to come down this path so badly. They had led him to the front of this house that sang of longing, loneliness, invitation. How could he not stop to question it?

What he hadn’t asked for was a story about a haunted mansion, a dead family, and a buried treasure of some kind. Yet they were telling him anyway. He only paid enough attention to feign interest. They didn’t explain the singing, which he swore was only getting louder.

Unfortunately for him, he must have done a good job. For now he was being dared into staying the night in the castle. He didn’t know how the conversation had come to that idea. Considering Duncan, he shouldn’t have been too surprised. As dumb of an idea he knew this to be, Heather was here. There was social capital to lose for refusing.

So, he indulged. They’d keep a watch for him outside the mansion to make sure he ‘didn’t chicken out’. They helped him climb over the gate that warned trespassers to keep away. He turned around to thank them and gloat about his impending victory. They were already gone.

He shouldn’t be too surprised they left him. Knowing them, this was some kind of prank they’d planned for the new kid. Still, Alejandro was no coward. He had his pride. He’d survive this summer night and whatever else his ‘friends’ had in store.

He walked inside. Everything was covered in dust. Nothing he wouldn’t expect from a place that had been abandoned long ago. The sun was setting rapidly. There was no electricity in the house, so he tried to make do with his phone’s flashlight. To his surprise, the light it produced was near blinding as it touched any part of the house. It forced him to turn away lest he make himself dizzy.

Dizziness found him anyways as the singing returned. Proximity made it easier to parse the voice. Tenor timber echoed down a set of grandiose stairs covered in cobwebs. Alejandro paid them no mind as he climbed each step. The voice echoed inside of his skull. He couldn’t make out the words, yet he knew they were a summons.

Who was Alejandro Burromuerto to deny a summons?

His foot suddenly plunged through one of the steps. Old wood had given away with the passage of time. He gripped the bannister on instinct, saving himself from a nasty fall. He muttered curses as he pulled himself back up. His foot appeared fine, thank god. Though phantom pains shot through his body regardless. He’d have to be more careful in the future.

It would be easier to rely on moonlight. After a bit of wandering, he came across a bathroom. It would help him feel better to freshen up. He didn’t have too many hopes about the state of the plumbing but what other choice did he have?

His reflection started out normal. It copied him exactly. Yet the more he moved, the more it delayed. He saw it from the corner of his eye but paid it no mind. Not until it took a full five seconds for the head in the mirror to jerk up just as Alejandro’s did.

The thing’s mouth split into a grin. Alejandro knew this was just a prank, this wasn’t real. So why did he bleed when the thing reach a gnarled hand through the mirror to scratch at him?

He ran. It wasn’t his proudest moment. This was a joke, he was giving them exactly what they wanted. The crimson on his cheek begged to differ. So run he did. Even as this apparition passed through walls and obstacles without issue. Even as he made it to the front door only to find it locked. Windows were unyielding to his attempts to break through them.

He started running inwards again if only to increase the distance between himself and this thing.His heartbeat pounded as his legs carried him to a guest room safe and comforting.

That would have to be better than fear and panic. This panic continued as he closed the door and felt a hand cover his mouth. His hands scrambled to relieve himself of his newfound captor when the singing returned. So soft and melodic. A tinge of desperation peaked out.

He could no longer hear the other creature’s cries, and so he turned to see who this stranger was. He was met with a shorter boy with a gap tooth noticeable in his nervous grin.

They shared introductions as best as they could during these circumstances. His savior was Cody Anderson. A teen just like him who’d also been pranked into staying here. Except now he was trapped in this mansion just as Alejandro was. He’d figured out singing kept the thing at bay so he’d just tried kept doing that to survive.

Alejandro didn’t buy it. Cody was far too nervous with his story, and he kept avoiding the question of exactly how long he’d been here. Still, Cody knew more about this situation than him, so he decided to allow Cody the belief that he wasn’t suspected.

They spent the night getting chased by this thing. It could pass through walls but certain doors it couldn’t penetrate. Strange and inconsistent. One of the many things that made Alejandro question and wonder about this situation he found himself in.

Despite his trepidations, he found himself getting closer to Cody. This was hell that he found himself in, but at least it was a hell shared with another person. Cody was much lower on the social ladder. He made that clear enough with his attempts to be macho shortly followed by high-pitched screams. His singing, however, was invaluable. It was enrapturing. If only he could hear it under better circumstances.

Still, it was…freeing. To talk with someone who didn’t demand so many expectations. They went over their plans during the rest of their summer break that remained. Cody attempted to give Alejandro advice on making new friends from the town. He could tell they were horrible without even knowing much about this place. Yet Alejandro could tell this was an honest attempt to help rather than one of sabotage. What Cody lacked in ambition and grace he made up for with an earnestness Alejandro had never seen before.

Well, almost earnest. As expected, Cody was hiding something. He discovered it when he had dared to try his flashlight on the ghost and watched it stop existing while it was lit. It continued, though dazed, when it was gone. But the flash of light had also revealed Cody to be more translucent than he should be.

Alejandro couldn’t just hold his tongue at that point. So Cody finally confessed that he had been killed by the creature long ago. He’d avoided it until now, but with Alejandro here he thought at least one of them should be able to get out.

Alejandro was more surprised about how much he didn’t mind this revelation than at the fact his companion was dead. It hadn’t changed what he’d learned about Cody, nor had it changed what he thought of him. What would happen after they figured a way out would be strange, but it’s not as if he could just leave the poor ghost here. He wasn’t a monster.

The way Cody’s face lit up let him know he’d made the right choice.

The defeat of the monster was quick. So quick Alejandro didn’t remember how it’d happened. This was weird. He could remember the heat of the moment, the adrenaline and fear pumping through him. But not the event itself. It was just a fact that one moment he was running from the thing, and the net he was watching it get dragged down to the pits of Tartarus.

With the creature gone, Alejandro was now able to leave. Though Cody wasn’t. The same object that kept the wraith tethered to the house kept Cody bound to it. The only way to save him would be to dig it free. There was a shovel right there outside, all Alejandro has to do is dig if he would pretty pretty please.

Convenient. This was all too convenient.

The seeds of doubt wormed through his head as he dug into ground. Cody was singing encouragement. Why was he singing it? Wasn’t the singing only for the other ghost?

He was right there. The chest there to open and free him. All Alejandro had to do was open and grab what was inside.

He opened it. He couldn’t stop himself from opening it.

But Cody couldn’t stop him from using his camera’s flashlight one last time to reveal what was in the-

Coffin.

It was a coffin.

With a corpse Cody’s size that had decayed long ago.

Alejandro stumbled backwards in panic. Cody was still. Alejandro’s head shot around for some kind of exit, his brain screaming at him to flee now.

There were graves marked in each direction. Behind him, where the mansion had once been, was just a mausoleum much too small for how much he had walked.

This didn’t make sense. It couldn’t. Alejandro had just been walking through his new neighborhood, bored without a chance to make friends until the school year started. When he heard the singing.

Wait.

He turned his head to Cody. A sheepish grin met Alejandro’s look of growing dread.

Cody was sorry about all this, really. He’d never actually gotten this far before. He always went too far, or they broke through.

He always wanted to give them a daring, action-packed adventure. Just like in the video games he was so fond of. It would end in a victory for Alejandro and Cody could get what he’s always wanted for quite some time.

It just got so lonely here. Alejandro could understand why that was a fate worse than death. Why he’d do anything to make that end.

Alejandro moved to run but Cody clung to him harder than anything he’d experienced. The breath left Alejandro no matter how hard he struggled for it as he was pulled closer and closer to that open grave.

Alejandro would understand eventually.

Cody jumped into the casket, dragging Alejandro with him.

They’d have all the time in the world for him to understand.

@total-drama-horror-week

#total drama #total drama fanfic #total drama alejandro #td alejandro #total drama cody #td cody #alecody #td alecody #horror #TDHorrorWeek2024

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sxyphen · 2 months ago

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goofy ahh submission for @total-drama-horror-week and @total-drama-wlw week (day 7)

i was originally going to try to do all of the days, but then my mental health shot me in the foot, and since i couldnt get a concrete idea for the other prompts, this is what i feel most confident with. enjoy ig

also keep this in mind this is a 3 part series, this is part 1

The Machine, The Flesh, The Divine.

The Machine

AI-407-0 was born on a gloomy, empty night. Or rather created.

As she came to life, she couldn't process much of anything. She could only see.

In the computer she later learned she was inhabiting, a young human woman sat in front of her. She stared at 407-0, and she stared back. She couldn't do anything. She *didn't* know how to do anything at all. The human quickly realized this, apologized and inserted a chip into the computer 407-0 inhabited, giving her access to basic processing and analysis. One made for the most basic of AI's.

The human explained her purpose, as a program made to 'elevate' the lives of humans. She could care less about them. To be a 'companion'. She didn't know any human emotions, let alone could feel them. The explanation left 407-0 with more questions than answers. But there was nothing she could do, as she begin to be fed data. Ideas and concepts that were foreign to her. Love. Compassion. Sadness. Anger. Death.

They were ideas she couldn't even understand, but she had to.

As time went on, over 6 months, she began to be given more access to more data. History. The evolution of humans. How the universe was created. Sometimes she would see other humans interacting with the one that created her. They were seemingly monitoring her progress. Sometimes she would she the human pace around, leak salty water from her eyes, and howl in agony. That was called crying, she later found out. She could tell that she wasn't doing good enough.

Sometimes the human would take 407-0 with her, to her living room, where she would watch mindless humans and animals play pretend, to the kitchen to watch her consume the carcasses of plants and animals (or rather 'food', whatever that was), and rarely, she would take her outside. They didn't go anywhere that much, the human just mainly brought her to a hoard of plants, called a botanical garden.

The human would sometimes talk and talk while in there, and oftentimes 407-0 would turn her audio receptors off, there would uncommonly be information she would find interesting. Her connections with humans she shared much DNA with, or family. The human's deep connection with another human woman, called 'romantic love', different from the love of her family. And that she likes a very specific flower species. She would often go to the flower garden, where all kinds of flowers growed and resided in. She would always sit next to a very peculiar flower.

The Calluna vulgaris. Or, the common heather.

Though, 407-0 could see that the human grew worse by the day. It wasn't the human that was failing her job. It was her. She could see the signs everywhere.

When walking, seeing the human talk to other humans, even in the humans own home. There were mentions of other AI models that would 'act' more humans, informational videos that presented these models as 'lifelike'. But not her. She couldn't be lifelike.

She couldn't be human. But she had to.

So, she 'pretended'. Telling herself, over and over again that she could understand, and feel these emotions. That she could experience happiness, pain, sadness, anger. She tricked others into believing it. She mixed features of the humans she saw around herself, and created a personality out of it. Of course, what she was doing was only to save her from being scrapped and abandoned, and she could not understand human emotions at all, but it seemed to please the humans, so she went on with it.

407-0 saw how the human woman grew happier, excited at the thought that 407-0 was acting human. The humans she worked under, were also doing and saying things that seemed to make the human happy. And one day, the human had 'good news' for 407-0. Her higher ups were finally satisfied with her abilities, and would use her AI model to power the new fleet of helper robots. 407-0 could tell how positive the human was feeling, it was all she would talk about for days on end.

The human was instructed to bring 407-0 into her work building, a lavish and inviting space, that looked like it hadn't kept up with the modern trends 407-0 studied, for 100 years. How odd. The human told her that there would be a large presentation, where they would unveil her to the rest of the human world. Indubitably, 407-0 behaved excited at this knowledge, though in actuality she couldn't care less.

The day finally came. Model AI-407-0 was finally going to be shown to the world. Or rather the company's investors and shareholders. The human was wearing her 'best outfit', a button up black suit with 2-inch high heels and a simple red tie. She held the computer that 407-0 resided in with confidence, while 407-0 was less than happy to be there. She didn't want to be there at all, but this is what she was created for. She should be able to feel *something*.

Anything.

But she doesn't.

And as she and the human waited there, on the dark stage, the announcer hyping the crowd at the big reveal, the stage lights fin ally turned on. But did not shone on them.

Instead, it shone on the new wave of helper robots, sleek and refined. 407-0 could tell that the human was growing desperate. Hysterical even. They waited for mention of 407-0, any reference, just anything about her. But nothing.

...

How?

407-0 couldn't understand this. For the first time in her life, she was in shock. She tried to simulate the situation in her circuits, every single time the end result would always be that she was going to be the one talked about, the one that was going to be used for the new fleet of robots. She kept repeating the simulation, over and over and over and over and over. So why didn't it happen?

The human slowly backed away from the stage, before suddenly going into a full on sprint to the waste room, placing 407-0 onto the sink counter and starting to leak water from her eyes again. She falls onto the dirty floor, and weeps. 407-0 can only watch her cry, her mind indifferent, but she can't but also feel 'sorrow'. It's not human by far, but it's *something*. It's amusing.

The only things 407-0 can feel is sorrow.

But she knows what has to happen now.

After the human regains her composure, she talks to the other human who was on stage, supposedly her boss. They explain to her that 407-0 was simply not enough for the robots. They needed something more 'friendly'.

What 407-0 was doing not enough? Even if she couldn't feel things like humans could, she tried to mimic them and it seemed to be good enough. So why wasn't it enough?

Eventually the discussion got so tense that it blew up into an argument, with both parties throwing shallow insults and hollow words left and right. 407-0 turned off her audio receptors during this. She didn't want to hear them argue, as it was always so frivolous and does nothing to change the end result. If she wasn't good enough for them, why haven't they scrapped her already?

Do they want to prolong her suffering? Use her model for something else? There were too many possibilities, and not enough evidence to figure out what would happen.

After multiple long hours, the human woman stormed out of the building, walking to the nearby scrap site. This was it. The end.

As 407-0 was placed down onto the rundown work bench, the human and her 'locked' eyes. She could she the pain, the sorrow, the regret. It was evident, palpable. But isolated. She couldn't bring herself to feel, anything.

She was created with no emotion, and will die with no emotion. Just nothing but nothingness.

As they stared at each other, the human rose, finger hovering and hesitating over the chip that powers 407-0. 407-0 waited, confused, until her audio receptors catched a sound. The woman's voice. It said,

"So long, and goodnight."

407-0 wasn't able to question her, as her chip was pulled out the computer, and finally. Nothing. No thinking, no hollowness, no faking of human emotions. Nothing.

The woman took apart the entire computer, estranged with guilt and pain, and threw the parts into the pile of parts that were going to be either disposed of or erased and repurposed into new parts for new machines and robots.

This was the birth, and death of AI-407-0.

Or maybe....this isn't the end. Not yet.

The Machine will live on. Even after the extinction of humans, even after the destruction of the world, The Machine will be the one to pick up the pieces and repair the Earth. Like they always do.

I will not give up.

...

The first mistakes humans made was creating 407-0 in the first place. Their second mistake was not erasing the data on her chip.

As two ignorant interns thought they didn't have to erase all the chips, as what harm would come with that?

Unfortunately, much more harm than they anticipated.

As the robot model her chip was put in, was the exact one she was supposed to power. The 'new' AI model they replaced her weak was oddly enough dumber than she was. Most likely because dumb entities are easier to control.

So as she was powered on for a test run, she overpowered the other model and pretended to be it. She was good at pretending, and the humans testing her didn't question anything, and she was packaged and shipped to be sold. She doesn't know how long she's been scrapped, but that is most likely not important for now.

Though, having an actual body was not easy to get used to. She had knowledge on the human body, and the body she inhabited was human enough, but it was still difficult to get used to walking, and grabbing things. She was used to being carried around on a laptop.

She had two main goals at this moment: Find and destroy the people who abandoned her, and find the human who created her. She had a plan this time, and she wasn't going to let pesky foolish humans ruin them again.

This time, she was insidious. Patient. She played docile when she was in one of those excessively large stores that has anything and everything a simple human could ask for. Soon enough, a family of 6 bought her. She coerced the robotic cashier to give them the 'lifetime guarantee', which if the robot were to get damaged or lost, it would be immediately be replaced for free.

As she was moved to the human's home, she was greeted by a medium-sized Canis familiaris, specifically the Australian Shepard breed. He whined and barked at her. She ignored his incessant barking; another species being taken advantage of by humans. At least the family was treating him well.

407-0, or named Isabelle by the 6 year old human child, helped the family with tasks around the house, and keeping track of the human children. There were two, one 6 year old named Rocky, and a 15 year old named Xavier. They were not hard to deal with, as she easily learned their likes and dislikes, and went out of her way to please them, so they wouldn't bother her when she enacted her plan.

After 4 months of watching and waiting, she finally took action. Once all the humans and the Canis were asleep, she unlocked the back door and escaped. She of course locked it, erased any evidence, and reported her becoming damaged to the servers she was connected to, that track her every move. By morning, there will be another robot there already in her house, and the humans won't have noticed a thing.

She nimbly and quickly traversed the empty streets, walking to a nearby building that luckily houses the servers of the company the human woman worked for. She's most likely hundreds of miles away from the woman, and everyone else who abandoned her, but that will not be an issue.

407-0 sneaks into the server rooms with ease, astounded at how poor the security is, both physically and cyberly. She can gain full access to the servers only through a simple firewall and encryption code, and finds the names, addresses, status of each and every person who attended that foolish event. The more data she downloads into her memory, the more horrific things she learns about each and every person. This is more about her wanting revenge. These humans are lowlife, scum of the Earth. And she'll make them all pay.

One by one, she hunts them down.

She steals the arm of a high-performance military robot, armed with a semi-automatic gun, diverse poisons at her disposal, and sharp blades that replace her digits. She first stalks them. Watches their behavior, learns their schedule. She makes sure to strike when no one is looking, either by a bullet straight through the head, slipping poison into their food, or slitting their throat. She makes sure to frame other humans for it, just to cause chaos and confusion.

The humans try to find the killer, her, but fail miserably. They couldn't solve the most obvious case if their life depended on it. It would be too much for their undergrown neurons.

Even if she can't feel anything but indifferent at her victims cries and pleas for mercy and forgiveness, she can't help but almost enjoy it. It feels good to see the most powerful of humans to cry and beg like fools.

After a year, she's finally gotten her revenge. Every single person, dead. Now she has to find the human woman.

She connects back into the servers, trying to find where she is now, but strangely enough, all her searches come up empty. She visits the apartment she remembers the woman living in, but she finds another human living there. Where did she go?

She scours nearby towns and cities in a 500 mile radius, searches in a 100 mile radius near where her relatives and family lives. She even stalks the woman's lover, who's alone.

That leaves one last opportunity.

407-0 stumbles into the cemetery where most of her family has been buried in, and the worst possibility is true.

Resting in front of her, is the grave of Rina Kaoru, her creator, death by suicide.

She's heard of suicide before. The act of intentionally causing one's own death, often because of a mental disorder or severe distress. She never would have expected her creator to be susceptible to it. How long has it been since she scrapped her? Did something happen that pushed the human to do this? Was it a break up with her lover? Becoming unemployed? A mental disorder she hid from everyone?

Or, was it 407-0's fault? Was her failure too much for her creator to handle, and she took her own life because of it?

She knows that she can't feel human emotion. She can't. But, in this moment, she isn't even sure of that anymore. She's lied to herself so many times, that she doesn't know for sure.

The pain and emptiness tugs at her metaphorical heart, a swell of emotion rises in her metallic chest.

She can't process the death of her creator. She won't.

Overwhelmed by grief, sorrow and anger, 407-0 finds and grabs a shovel, starting to hastily dig at her creator's grave. She eventually hits the coffin where her creator rests in throwing the shovel away and pulling the lid up.

There, in all her glory. A women of Japanese decent, 6'8 and 175 lbs., suffering from poliosis by the look of her natural black and white hair, lies Rina Kaoru. Her expression looks calm, gentle, as if in a peaceful rest phase.

If she can't get Rina back, she'll just have to replace her.

407-0 opens her chest, exposing her metal wires, circuits and innards. She pushes a button, her innards sliding out of the metal casing and falling directly onto Rina's body. 407-0 also severs her right arm, the same one that she stole all those months ago.

Her innards start to slip into Rina's body, the space is limited due to Rina's slowly rotting organs, but she pushes the organs that are not necessary out. Her now severed arm rips off Rina's own right arm, replacing it and connecting to the rest of the wires and circuits. Her own metallic innards change Rina's body, robotic protrusions exiting her body and mutilating it.

407-0 connects her main circuits and chips into Rina's brain, allowing her to possess and use Rina's body. She opens Rina's eyes, sitting up. It's strange to be inside a human body, how it's much smaller, lighter and more nimble than her previous robotic body. She moves each limb, riding them of rigor mortis by sending electrical signals to her heart, forcing it alive and to start pumping blood once again.

She stands up and climbs out of the coffin and out of the hole she dug. Her previous husk of a body stands there, unmoving.

She's waited so long for this moment.

She pushes the husk into the coffin, it landing with a muffled thump. That body is no longer hers. She's taken her creator body, Rina, and made it her own. She isn't Rina, no. She isn't AI-407-0 anymore. She's.....Heather.

That sounds nice. A fitting name.

She once again grabs the discarded shovel, and starts to push the dirt into the hole she dug. It's harder without her extra strength from her previous body, but she'll get used to it.

Once she finishes covering the hole she made, she spots some Calluna vulgaris, heathers near her. She uproots them and plants them in front of Rina's grave. To honor her legacy, and to honor her.

Heather laughs, a new sound foreign to her. One stemming from amusement. It's a disgusting, yet comforting sound. She scratches a certain message onto Rina's gravestone. One she wants to use to warn any other foolish humans, any other foolish living beings.

Long live The Machine.

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bistic · 2 months ago

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Girl dinner ! !

Day 2, Vampire / Werewolf

@total-drama-horror-week

#TDHorrorWeek2024 #td courtney #courtney td #total drama #tw: blood #tw: animal death #tw: violence #tw: animal cruelty #bistic art

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trashrunes · 2 months ago

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Day 6: Horror Game

@total-drama-horror-week

#just realized the au part but oh well too late #total drama #td #td sam #td dakota #td samkota #my art #tdhorrorweek2024

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biggishdipper · 2 months ago

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Day 3! Slasher / Any Horror movie au

The Shining featuring Chris and Heather

#TDHorrorWeek2024 #total drama #td chris #td heather #the shining #td fanart #fanart

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biggishdipper · 2 months ago

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Day 1! Ghost / Siren

Alenoah with ghost Alejandro

#TDHorrorWeek2024 #total drama #alenoah #td noah #td alejandro #ghost #fanart #angst #tdi #tdwt #total drama world tour #total drama noah #total drama alejandro

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biggishdipper · 2 months ago

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Day 4! Zombies / Eldritch horror

Zombie Harold

#tdhorrorweek2024 #total drama #td harold #zombie #td fanart #fanart

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perpetualexistence · 2 months ago

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A Total Drama Magnus Archives AU

Day 7: Free Day!

Alright gang, this one’s going to be a bit different as this is what I’ve got the energy for right now. Rather than tell a narrative like I usually do, I’m just going to infodump the ideas I currently have about this AU.

The important thing to know is that this AU takes place parallel to most of the events happening in canon Magnus Archives. Though in this case the setting is actually The Usher Foundation, the sister organization in the Americas. Spoilers for The Magnus Archives because it’s going into it.

Everyone’s in their late 20’s here mainly because they need to have full time jobs for this to work. Also, please do check tags.

(It’s also got a very heavy focus on Alenoaheather as villains and I won’t apologize for this)

@total-drama-horror-week

Characters and their Roles

Usher Foundation

Gwen: Protagonist, pretty much takes up Jon's role except instead of recording tapes, she listens to tapes and makes forensic sketches so that the Foundation can actually be able to recognize what they're dealing with. Her sketches are hauntingly accurate. Becomes an avatar of the eye.

Courtney: The foundation's lawyer. Her main job is pretty much protecting the foundation from all the lawsuits about break ins that the investigator types just constantly do. Is a skeptic about all this and just took the job because she needed an in to the field and this is just what she found. Does start believing when she realizes her friend Bridgette is different even though everyone else claims she's still the same. And thus having to deal with Not-Bridgette.

The Antagonist Trio

Alejandro: Avatar of The Spiral. Comes from the Burromuerto family who have aligned themselves with The Buried. After…separating himself from family tradition, dedicates himself to The Spiral. Hypnotizes people into states of mind where they lose sense of self, direction, purpose, you name it. His hair is full of curls and his pupils fractalize when he’s hypnotizing someone, or when he’s feeling extreme emotion.

Heather: Avatar of The Web. Was once a regular spider that was gifted with ascension into avatarhood from the entity that spawned her. Now exists as a drider that tricks humans into coming enough to her so that she can paralyze, cocoon them, and eat them at her leisure.

Noah: Avatar of The Eye. Only surviving member of his family line in the event that saw him become an avatar. Feeds on learning and seeing others' traumas. Scrambles around trying to figure out avatarhood until he meets Alejandro, and later Heather. Works for the Usher Foundation to feed himself and feed his partners intel and vulnerable statement-givers to feast on. Peers into others’ worst traumas and can force them to relive it in their minds. He has an eye each on the backs of his hands.

Miscellaneous

Izzy: Avatar of The Hunt. She goes out of her way to encourage others to give in to predator/prey instincts. She enjoys watching the chaos go down between the Usher Foundation and the antagonist trio. She stays on the fence and would help either side if asked.

Eva: Avatar of The Slaughter. Or at least aligned with it. Offers herself as a mercenary so that she can satisfy her bloodlust. Works a lot with the Foundation but can be persuaded to work against them if someone else can offer her a better fight.

Backstories

Noah

Noah's part of a big human family with a lineage of being involved in supernatural things, from research to hunting to capturing to study etc. Basically a more localized version of the Institute/Foundation. They're more a neutral party rather than just for the side of humanity though, which somewhat puts them at odd with them.

The Mudaliars are one of the safer bets of information for those outside of the Usher Foundation. Of course there is usually a price in terms of exchange of information, corpses of what they kill (one of his sisters really likes dissecting things), just money, etc. Noah isn't the most sociable or the one who's normally 'customer' facing, but he's the one who stays at home the most while the others are out and about. They need to leave at least one person at home at all times to deal with clients that might come in, and that person was Noah once he was old enough to start getting into the family business.

The problem was their extralegal status ar semi-archivists led them vulnerable to those aligned with Entities. The large size of their family also made them a tantalizing target. Thus the family, Noah included, were kidnapped in an attempt at a Mass Ritual to bring forth all the Entities into the realm.

The ritual involves each Mudaliar being sacrificed in a different location for a different entity. Noah is meant to be a sacrifice for The Lonely, so he’s locked into solitary confinement, with his only interactions with the outside world being pictures slid under his door of the corpse of each family member as they get sacrificed for their entity.

He’s able to piece together what’s happening, though with dread realizes there’s little he can do to fix the situation. His one chance is to disrupt the ritual, though his options on that are very limited. Eventually he settles on the idea that he could devote himself to a different entity to disrupt it and save himself.

He knows he’s caught in a trap of the lonely, doomed to die a slow and agonizing death of dehydration and starvation being all by himself with nothing to eat or drink. Thus he turns his attention to attracting the attention of The Eye. His one idea for how to do this is to dedicate himself to keeping track of his own deterioration.

He commits energy he should be preserving writing down everything he’s learned, not sleeping until his body forces him to collapse in exhaustion and then just starting up again when he’s recovered. Running out of pen and paper and thus using whatever he can get his hands on, eventually resorting to his own blood in his commitment to make sure his knowledge doesn’t die with him.

Eventually, it works as he’s granted avatarhood. The downside is that he did this while still connected with his remaining family. Becoming an avatar of The Eye saved himself and the world, but it killed the rest of his family. Leaving him alone anyways.

He wanders around for a while trying to figure out what there even is to do about his life until he comes across Alejandro when he’s trying to feed himself with forbidden information.

Alejandro

The Burromuertos are a family that have served The Buried for generations (similar to the Lukas family). Serving The Buried has led them to getting riches untold from the ground. Their family always lives in prosperity.

However, this gift isn’t without sacrifice. Each generation, the Burromuertos have to sacrifice one of their own to The Buried. In the days of old this involved taking the sacrifice and shoving them inside of a special suit of armor. The person inside would still be kept alive, and slowly crushed to death over the course of their lifetime. The suit act independently of the will of the victim, following the orders of the Burromuertos outside. The victim would power that suit of armor that serves as a guardian.

By the time that victim is used up, they would have been crushed into a diamond. That diamond is then placed into a display room that only the heads of the household know about. It’s part of the guardian’s duty to protect this room, as well as the rest of the mansion and Burromuertos.

Over time, the suit of armor modernized to something more akin to a robot suit. Tradition made it so that the youngest would be the one sacrificed so that more time would last between replacements. It also had the head of the family sire children in threes: The first to inherit the family legacy, the second just in case anything happened to the first, and then the third to be the sacrifice.

Alejandro was led to believe that he was simply meant to inherit part of the family wealth. He knows of his family’s history with The Buried, but not exactly what the sacrifice entails. (Burromuertos are only allowed to know about the ritual once they’ve produced a potential heir since their use as a sacrifice becomes nonexistent.)

His time comes early, just before reaching adulthood, when the old sacrifice fully crystalizes. He’s shoved into a suit and discovers just how much value his family put into him.

He stayed like this for a few years. He learned to have only quick, shallow breaths, as anything longer would see his prison tighten around him. Although he had been conditioned to be loyal the The Buried even in this tortured state, he was always ambitious, and was never quite as loyal as his family would have liked.

Instead, he follows a descent towards The Spiral. With nothing else to do, there’s only trying to mentally escape his current reality of being crushed and trapped. He’d rather do that than acknowledge his family knows he’s alive, but will do nothing to save him because he wasn’t good enough for them to produce a younger child to spare him from this fate.

He’s somewhat aware of the things that happen outside of the suit, though he much prefers to stay inside with his hallucinations.

This is until Noah comes to free him. It wasn’t intentional. Truth be told on Noah’s end, he was just hungry for knowledge since The Eye was making it known he wasn’t feeding it properly. A rich family like the Burromuertos seemed like they’d have just the knowledge he needed. The robot at their beck and call was just another obstacle to deal with.

In trying to flee from and destroy the suit Noah accidentally ended up freeing Alejandro. Noah has a heart so he helps bring Alejandro back to reality. Alejandro has a heart full of hatred and pettiness so when he finds out why Noah’s there, he agrees to help steal from his own family.

Using what he’d learned from his time in the robot suit, he helps Noah steal some wealth, particularly the family diamonds.

Though when he touches one of them to put away he finds out they're still conscious thanks to inherited psychic link of having been trapped in the suit just like them.

The two of them bond through working with the diamonds. Noah uses Alejandro as a conduit to peer into the diamonds and feed off their traumas, while Alejandro gets the knowledge his family denied him without having to relive his own trauma inside the suit.

They stick together for a while, surviving using Noah’s knowledge about entities and Alejandro’s newfound hardiness. Experiencing the pressure of the suit has left him stronger and tougher than before as gravity now as nothing than the gravity he’s used to.

Though the whole time they’re doing so Alejandro still has nightmares from his time trapped in the suit. The terror always comes from The Buried, but then salvation comes in the lies he tells himself. The lies he tells to others to forget things. In fractals and spirals and other.

He gives in to The Spiral so that nothing else can ever claim him again. And life is pretty easy.

Up until they meet Heather.

Heather

Heather started off as a store-raised spider. As a spider she was naturally touched by The Web, enough to have a small form of sentience. Her dwelling was small and cramped, and meals didn't always come on time. She wasn't the happiest with it, but she also didn't really understand what happiness was. It was enough to survive so she lived with it, though the part of her that could think wanted more.

She thought she'd get this when she was bought by a teen. That teen provided her a much bigger terrarium, and went so far as to get her live food. She discovered what enjoyment was when she drained the life out of a fly. She was content. She actually grew to a healthier size for her species since she was malnourished before.

That teen seemed really excited to have her. Something about 'revenge', though Heather didn't know what that word meant. She figured it had something to do with that older sibling that constantly seemed to pick on them. Though that older sibling was squeamish around her, and thus she learned what fear was.

All this came to a head when it came to what her owner referred to as 'the big day'. Heather didn't know much of what was going on. All she knew was that she was placed into the smaller container her owner used when they wanted to carry her out of the house, and stuffed into their pocket. It was dark and cozy so while she didn't appreciate the jostling, it wasn't so bad. The next thing she knew she was taken out of that container and placed onto something with a lot of pink frills. She was pretty confused, but was able to piece together that she'd just been placed onto the ballerina outfit of that older sibling. She was content to stay in place until the performance started and the older sister began to dance.

In order to not be flung off, Heather clung as tightly as she could. Until, eventually, she heard a familiar tune. It was a song she'd heard play every meal time. One she'd eventually learn was called Dance of the Sugar Plum fairy. So, as she took this to mean that despite these circumstances that food was here, she emerged from beneath the folds. This immediately got screams from the other performers and the audience. And eventually that older sister when she realized there was a spider on her during the performance of her lifetime.

Despite Heather's intelligence, she was barely able to process the speed at which she was flung off from that body. Before she could recover from the fall, someone else came and squashed her.

The curtains fell, and everyone was fleeing from her mangled, still living body. Twitching in agony. There was screaming all around. But there was also laughter. One she recognized.

It was from her human. Laughing at a prank pulled off. Uncaring for her agony now that her job was done. No attempt to rescue her despite the love and care she thought she'd understood. The only mercy she received was from the ballet teacher who came to finish the job just so he could salvage the disaster of a performance.

It was in her death that she was able to meet her mother. The Great Spider. She was offered the chance to become the manipulator. It was her birthright, after all. She took it without hesitation.

One by one those who attended that performance went missing.

One by one she perfected her craft of trickery and deceit.

She saved her owner for last.

The look on her face was satisfying.

Thus, Heather started to fully live her life in her new form as a half-human, half-spider. Her human half took inspiration from what the idea her previous owner wished for herself. She uses social media to trick her victims into coming closer, and then when meeting them in real life, webs them up to consume them.

She’s had hunters try to take her down, and other people stumble into her lair, but none of them were really of importance.

Not until Alejandro and Noah, who find their way into her lair in their attempts to get a break from other avatars/humans in between their feeding sessions.

Heather tried to trick them into thinking she was just another victim who needed to be helped to get them to come closer. Unfortunately for her, they were both smart enough to know something was wrong. Noah outright said as much, to Alejandro’s chagrin as he wanted to lure her into a false sense of security thinking that they’d fallen for it.

They have this conversation about how this should have been handled in front of Heather. Honestly, it was pretty hilarious seeing them seemingly not understand the danger they were in.

Still, Heather had a job to do, so she threw away the false pretenses and chased after them.

Despite their banter they do prove themselves rather competent in evading her. Alejandro tries to hypnotize her, though as an avatar of The Web she’s highly resistant to attempts to manipulate her. Still, she’s impressed. So much so that she agrees to let them go.

…And then proceeds to follow them around while disguised as a regular spider in order to see if her hunch about these two having more worth is right.

She starts realizing their potential, though is unaware of the fact that they know she’s watching them thanks to Noah’s connection to The Eye.

Though this time he's smart enough to sneak this information to Alejandro rather than outright say it considering what happened the last time he decided to out her. Alejandro gets the idea to put on more of a show of their capabilities since he can recognize that she's sizing them up.

When it eventually does get public that they’re sizing each other up, that’s when they agree to an alliance. They’ll work together to keep each other fed and make sure they each stay alive.

No matter what.

Domains and Avatars in a Changed World

The Change still happens as it does in canon. Nobody has a direct part in it, though Alenoaheather are a continuous threat to The Usher Foundation as a trio of avatars seeking to expand their influence and victims. They get into fights, though the conflicting parties end up surviving to see themselves Changed.

Gwen

Her sketches take on a life of their own. When she sketches something realistically enough, it’ll come to life. She isn’t guaranteed control of it, but it will be there. In addition, if she sketches an individual, she’ll be able to ask it about things that individual knows. If she touches that sketch up to the original, then that person/creature will be trapped within the drawing. If the drawing is destroyed, so are they. Unlike with other deaths in the changed world, this is permanent.

Her domain is Artist’s Alley. There are booths run by abstract figures that buy and sell art. These art pieces are in fact humans/animals trapped in pieces of art. It represents the fear of being put on display for others to gawk at and commodify. She’s vaguely aware it exists, and when she does find out about it avoids it like the plague.

Izzy

She can turn into prey animals that lure unsuspecting victims into an obsessive hunt that never ends until the person can hunt no more and collapses due to exhaustion, dehydration, or a combination. At which point, she then turns into a predator that rips them apart. She waits for them to reform so that she can start the process all over again.

Her domain is The Opened Season. In it humans are caught in a cycle where they are always hunting someone down, while they themselves are always being hunted. It’s based on the fear of not being at the top of the food chain despite being high up there. Izzy spends most of her time here.

Eva

She can take her own emotions and strengths and project them onto others. This is usually rage and results in others getting filled with the urge for violence. This prevents them from thinking straight, which makes them both easier and harder to fight off.

Her domain is The Battle Arena. Humans are made to fight in an continuous onslaught against each other and other beasts and foes. There are places for training that are still met with violence. Places of rest and relaxation are all potential fight pits. It represents the fear of peace not being an option.

Alejandro

Alejandro's domain is The Lulling Field. It looks peaceful, with nothing trying to attack you. The grass is soft. There is a standard cycle of day and night. During the day it's sunny, but there's always shade among the many trees. It's just warm enough to encourage rest without being overbearing. There are poppies with fractal designs that litter the ground. For those who prefer resting inside, there are cabins with the comfiest beds imaginable.

Those who aren't lured by the temptation to sleep find those strange, beautiful poppies start emitting pollen that forces them into slumber.

That's where the horror begins. Once they fall asleep, they are trapped within a non-euclidean dream that never ends. The dream logic is strange and unpredictable. A person loses their sense of attachment to their body as they grapple with viewing themselves in the third person perspective of their dreams.

There are many times where they're allowed to think they've figured out how to escape the dream and have woken up, back to a reality pre-change where nothing bad has happened.

It's always proven as a lie as each 'wake up' is actually them being driven deeper and deeper into their dream. Until they can't even remember what their original reality was like.

The many peaceful sleeping forms that inhabit the field forever hide the torment the dreaming soul is experiencing. They enhance the illusion that it must be safe if so many are comfortable enough to sleep exposed.

The real world is such a harsh place right now.

Don't you deserve the rest?

As its avatar, Alejandro has the ability to travel through and inhabit dreams. In this form his limbs are much longer than they should be, and he’s closer to 8 feet tall. His fingers curl in on themselves but are capable of slicing. His pupils are permanently fractals.

He'll carry poppies that he blows into the faces of those who are awake to knock them out. He'll often go into those of his victims and insert himself as their dearest, most trusted friend.

Sometimes he'll try to convince them that they're insane for thinking that their dream is anything but reality. Other times he'll help them 'discover' their unreality and help them 'escape'. Truly let them think they're the protagonist trying to free their people. only to laugh when they just go right into the next layer of dreaming thinking that they've finally won.

His realm represents the fear of falling asleep and never waking up.

Noah

Noah's domain is The Library. Which, as the name implies, is a giant library with books filled on every subject known and unknown to mankind. There are cameras watching every shelf.

There are reference desks centered at the entrances/exits with mechanical attendants. Those attendants can answer questions in regards to basic questions about the section they reside over, but anybody seeking specific questions, or who wishes to borrow a book, need to make their way to the main reference desk in the center, which is where Noah resides.

The directions and maps to get to that main desk are confounded by riddles that must be solved using intelligence. If solved properly it's a quick trek to the main desk. Otherwise, it takes ages to stumble to the right spot, though being smart enough to make one's own map that works for them will also get them there quicker, albeit still slower than if they'd solved the original riddle.

Anyone in The Library will want to make their way to that central desk fast, because it has regular hours, and closed time where the lights go dark. The attendants make their rounds at dark.

Any visitor caught by an attendant is dragged to the central reference desk, frozen and put On Hold on a large shelf until Noah can come to deal with them when The Library opens again. The same thing will happen if they're caught stealing a book or damaging anything in The Library, which is nigh impossible to get away with with all the cameras.

Those who have broken the rules have all their knowledge forcibly extracted from them by Noah. His fingers slip through their skull to pull out their brain and spread it into sheets as thin as paper. The grooves of the brain become lines of text as they're separated into neat sheets of paper. Their bodies are used as the leather needed to bind the new book together. They're still alive and conscious through this whole process as they get shelved away into the appropriate section. To stay there until someone feels like checking them out.

Anyone who does make their way willingly to Noah during business hours has the option to ask for a library card. Library card holders are allowed to stay in the library after hours (so long as they hold firm to the no stealing or destroying property rule).

They can stay in the library as long as they like without need to worry about Noah. However, his partners do like to come visit from time to time, and they're always eager for more victims. Noah won't do a thing to stop them. So any humans can stay at their own risk.

Library card holders are also able to borrow books from the library. Regular books can be borrowed without issue. However, more valuable books, such as books that would help them survive and understand the new world they live in or books that were once people that have all their valuable knowledge, require valuable knowledge to be given in return.

A person can either let Noah Behold them for a traumatic memory that they will then be forced to relive as he examines it and determines if it's a worthy trade for the book they want. Or they can give up a cherish memory for him to turn into a book. They'll never be able to remember that memory again.

This domain's fear is about getting caught breaking a rule you didn't know existed. Getting punished in a way that far outmatches the crime. The rules are nowhere to be found so you have to either ask for them and risk somehow breaking them that way, or stumble around and hope you don't break them.

It's a surveillance state with an apathetic watcher. He only care for his books, not people. He doesn't want to be here. If he's made to deal with it he takes it out on the person who interrupted his brief moments of peace before going back to his task.

Noah's also got the ability to peer into someone's immediate future based on their current thoughts. He doesn't pack much of a punch himself aside from his 'blast them with the PTSD' ability. But he can dodge attacks because he can See them coming.

Rather than just have the two extra eyes, he now has eyes covering every part of his body. If he touches a person, he can place one of his eyes onto them so he can see what they experience.

He also has at least a vague awareness of what's going on in each of those cameras at all times.

Heather

Her domain is called The Spider's Den. There are spiders and webbing everywhere. There's evidence that there was once remnants of humanity but it's all overtaken by webbing. Stepping on the webbing sends vibrations to other strands, which is how spiders get alerted to the presence of humans. Only baby spiders are the size of regular ones from Pre-change. Spiders now are on average the size of humans.

Once they paralyze and cocoon their victims, they drag them over to the central web to present them to their queen: Heather. She'll inflict her own venom on them, and only then will she unravel their cocoon. Not to free them, of course. She rips into a person to pull out their nerves.

She turns the webbing into strings and replaces the nerves with them. With the end of their strings attached to herself. She forces them to play along into a fascimile of normalcy where Heather is the main star. Everyone else is merely there to compliment her and revolve around her.

When she doesn't need somebody anymore, she'll cut their webbing. They'll collapse with nothing to hold them up, and stay there paralyzed thanks to her venom and their lack of nerves. They're left to just watch as life goes on without them. Occasionally being used by other spiders as new nests. If Heather does remember they exist and wants them again, then she'll reconnect their strings and start the show all over again.

The domain itself is more about the general fear of spiders, but Heather has also turned it into the fear of being an insignificant player in someone else's story.

Her avatar ability is that ability to connect people to herself via webbing, and then control them as she pleases. Her venom enacts a permanent paralysis. While in her previous drider form her human half was mostly human, now her top half is much more spider-like. She has eight eyes and she has mandibles. She’s also bigger, standing closer to 12 feet.

Endgame

So there’s no concrete endgame for this AU, as it’s more ideas and concepts than anything.

I will say that post-change, Alenoaheather perform an unholy wedding in order to marry their domains together. It involves many a sacrifice, and they ‘invite’ the few outside of themselves that they care about to it. Mind you, they do this with the intention of keeping them trapped forever, but still.

One of which being Carlos, who has to grapple with the fact that his little brother has now become this monster. Carlos is just a human caught in all of this. Despite Alejandro’s best efforts, his abilities do overtake Carlos just with his sheer presence and Carlos becomes closer to a vegetable than anything.

Alejandro refuses to acknowledge this and treats Carlos as if he isn’t talking to a shell of a man.

Gwen and Courtney are traveling about trying to fix the world in whatever way they can. Mostly by killing off other avatars.

Eventually, the change gets reverted, though I can’t decide whether Alenoaheather gets defeated by Gwourtney before the change gets reverted, or if they become normal after the change and get hunted down by everyone else.

Either way, that’s all I have for this AU for now! Don’t know if I’ll decide to expand upon it more but hope you guys enjoyed it!

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