#yeah lets make that a tag too why not

[queercodedvillains]

If you can I’d love to hear the outline/tldr of your Claire’s AU because the posts under that tag are always so funny to me

So the claires au tag started because I wanted to collect all my modern au inspo posts in one place. Since it all gravitates around my beloved little terrorist Deidara, and I think he'd do great at a dead end low effort retail job with a bonus perk of bullying giving piercings to tweens and a sick employee discount, the claire's au was born. In hindsight, I wish I had called it the mallrats au, but since the fics came after the tag, we're stuck with the consequences of my choices smh.

It's expanded significantly, to the point that its sooo hard to summarize, but I'm gonna try my best here!!

My general goal is to transcribe everything we know from canon as closely/creatively as I can to a modern/90s setting. Tbh this started because I just was not emotionally prepared to handle canon!akatsuki levels of fucked up war criminals and I just wanted to put them in low stakes shenanigans that keeps the core of their characters without all the murder and angst and action (I hate writing action. Horror is fun and dandy, but spin kicks and explosions and puppets are beyond me for now).

So in the claires au/mallrats cinematic universe, the Akatsuki are just a gang of queers doing your run of the mill criminal activity. Drug dealing, car stealing, chop shopping, gun running, book cooking, you name it. They all ended up kicked out of society for one reason or another, banded together, and became mundane villains of polite society.

For example, Sasori is always depicted as tinkering with his puppets. So I decided that tendency to methodically pull someone apart and back together, that special calculating mindset that it takes to look at a body and come up with twelve different secret weapons to hide in their limbs, would make the perfect fodder for a chop shop mechanic. Stolen cars instead of stolen corpses. He seems like he got the obsessing-over-cars brand of autism and I love him for it. He's weird and reclusive and pretentious and insufferable and genius.

Deidara likes explosives, duh, but guns are so boring imo so I wanted to dig deeper into his love of temporary beauty, and how that meshes perfectly with drugs. They're ephemeral, transient experiences that fade quickly but leave a lasting impact on a person, changing their life, etc. He's also. Super fucking pretentious about it. Don't let him corner you at a party. Sasori might be the chemist but Deidara is the real brains behind the operation, and also the very willing test subject. I see him as a club kid, always on one in the middle of the crowd, and entirely responsible for the Akatsuki's branding. He designed the clouds and the patented pressed pills (we got blue teslas, they got white owls, etc) and also is solely responsible for word of mouth advertising. He's always got a can of spray paint and/or a black business card with nothing but a phone number and a red cloud. He's always bright and loud and shiny and looking for attention in seedy places, always in the middle of the mosh pit or the dance floor or some sketchy back alley or the skate park (skating is kinda like riding a giant flying bird, right?) Either way, everyone wants whatever the fuck he's on.

Together they're a power couple. Absolutely nasty, insufferable to talk to, impossible to be around unless you're just as pretentious as them about their very specific interests AND willing to listen to them bicker endlessly about their arts. Naturally, they only have two friends. Kakuzu and Hidan.

I want to dig into their backstories and relationships later, narratively, but the barest bones of it is that Hidan is Deidara's childhood friend and professional pain in the ass. Class clowns in detention together, bullying the local nerds, weirdo queer kids with serious mental issues from broken homes, a scrappy sort of friendship born out of desperation for someone Like Them etc. I mean Hidan's got a nasty sadomasochistic streak, a propensity for self harm, and an obsession with the occult so don't get me started on him as your local satanic bad influence. Their whole thing could be its own post tbh.

Kakuzu and Sasori are like crotchety old men on the porch. They like to sit in some booth at the club talking shit and looking menacing while Deidara and Hidan are busy 'advertising'. I also see Kakuzu as a bit of a mentor to Sasori, being a bit older and wiser and seeing Sasori get dragged into the Akatsuki after dropping out of med school and being disowned by his grandmother (a whole other post as well) and spiraling into shitty coping mechanisms (alcohol, mostly). Kakuzu smacked some sense into him and got him sobered up because he loves that sad pathetic wet cat of a man they got money to make!!

If and when Sasori and Deidara split up to work, I see them pairing up with Kakuzu and Hidan, respectively. Every artsy twink needs their burly body guard, yknow?

I'm maintaining their age differences to some degree, although pinched closer. At the time Mallrats is set, Deidara is 25, Hidan is 26, Sasori is 32, Kakuzu is 40. Itachi and Kisame are also mid 20s, Konan and Pain and Zetsu and Tobi are in their 30s.

Deidara centric timeline wise (and trying to stick to canon as closely as realistically possible) he gets kicked out of his house for being fruity at 14, ends up couch surfing with Hidan (having 'sleep overs', or sneaking into his room when Hidan's mom said no but didn't care enough think to look under his bed/the closet/that pile of laundry) and when he can't pull that off, staying in the mall til after closing and posting up in there all night. After a while, someone in the Akatsuki notices him kicking rocks in a parking lot and realizes they need some scrappy kid to run a backpack from one end of town to the other without getting noticed. One thing leads to another and he ends up catching Konan's attention. She (30s, forgery and embezzling specialist, dyke and mother of the house) shuffles some papers, gets him his own apartment on the condition that he works for her and the money goes from their business associates to him to her to his landlord.

I have a soft spot for Konan doing this for anyone she can. Queer kids in the 80s and 90s didn't exactly have resources, and she did what she could with what she had, handing them a way to earn their own money and a safe place to live, even if its seedy and illegal. Beats the streets! Most of them were runners for a few years and aged out, she signed their SRO apartments off to them at 18 and they moved on with their lives. There's a whole host of people who only know her as Lady Angel (winknod to canon again) because she did what she could to save em. Deidara just happened to be too good at his job and got pulled higher and higher, until he landed in Sasori's shop.

That's about caught up to what I've gotten so far in Mallrats and The Waiting Room (with so much more to go. My muse is wildly overactive for the amount of time and attention span I got). I got head canons on like all the main characters from Konoha/Suna, all the Akatsuki, and the Sanin. Where they work, how they interact, how their relationships translate to mallrat/clubrat shenanigans, etc.

Every detail Sasori and Deidara falling in love? DUH. But also........... A complete dossier on everyone's kinks? Hidan and Deidara's gay awakening? Sasori's history with Orochimaru? The absolute fuckery that is any of their home life before the Akatsuki? Brazilian Kakuzu? Jashinism in a neopagan satanic context? Kakuzu and Hidan's perfectly vicious relationship? Konan as Lady Angel? Itachi darling son of the police chief working for the mob to spite his homophobic dad? Kisame... well, idk about Kisame, but if you care enough to develop it with me I could be convinced to!! The list goes ON.

I could go into heavier detail about so much more but this is already so long T^T. If you read this far thank u ilysm and I would be so delighted to get into more if you're interested!! The ask box is always open and I am foaming at the mouth over them at the drop of a hat <3

[thejasontoddarchives]

Batman #650 (2006)

Batman and Red Hood (2011-) #20

Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016-) #25

“Bruce works out so he can carry Jason around like a baby” he is dragging him by the broken edge of the boy’s helmet, knuckles digging into his eyes. He is definitely strong enough to carry him but that’s not the point. He thinks Jason deserves this.

Task Force Z #6 (2022)

Catwoman (2018-) #57

Bruce and his habit of flattening his son onto the ground and standing on top of him like a lion does to its prey, while saying degrading things.

Batman (2016-) #138

And would you look at that. He finally lowered himself to face Jason. After rendering him completely powerless.

[knockknockitsnickels]

Thoughts about Prison3r bc she's making me go insane

Spoilers under the cut (also minor spoilers - chapter name & brief discussion of other routes - in the tags, so don't read those lol)

I have a feeling the Cage is going to get overshadowed by Sp3ctre & Happily Ever After, but I was really surprised by the direction they took her in, and I think she makes Pris all the more tragic as a character.

IMO, the Prisoner route kind of functions as a giant trust fall. You've established in the previous chapter that you're skeptical of this whole setup (hence voice of the skeptic, lmao) and willing to help the Princess, and this route puts that to the test. Can you focus on what's important without getting caught up in questioning irrelevant details (the empty shackle)? Can you trust the Princess enough to give her your weapon? And on the other side of that, can she trust you to understand her plan?

Part of what makes the Prisoner compelling to me is the unspoken trust she has in the player (part of why I've never understood the take that she doesn't actually care about you? Maybe we've got some Autism2Autism telepathy going on though). Her lines in the Shifting Mound fight (if you free her) talks about how "shared skepticism blossomed into trust", and the Drowned Grey further implies that she put a lot of trust and hope in the player which they ended up betraying.

I was expecting Prison3r to play with that betrayal of trust - she showed we could trust her, but her trust in us was misplaced. It doesn't really matter if you leaving the head was an honest mistake or not, we still let her down. I was expecting a scenario where we'd be stuck apologizing to a Princess who couldn't bring herself to trust us again, no matter how sincere we were being. I was expecting her to be angry. I didn't expect her to just... give up.

If the Drowned Grey is meant to represent the Prisoner (metaphorically) letting go of the tight control she has of her emotions, (literally) drowning you in her (metaphorical) grief and rage, then the Cage is the opposite, locking her emotions even deeper away. Shifty describes her as (paraphrasing here, emphasis mine) "someone who wishes she could be just a set of eyes and ears." The Cage isn't angry with you for leaving her behind. Why should she be? It was her mistake, after all. She shouldn't have been so stupid to think she could break the cycle and actually be freed.

The route also plays with the contrast between the Princess and the Player (via the voices) in fun ways. While the Cage is already resigned to repeating the cycle, skeptic (and paranoid, if you get him) are panicking for the whole route, trying desperately to find a way out of it while unintentionally forcing you to into the same patterns as before (by forcing us to take the knife. Thanks guys, very cool).

It honestly feels like the perfect response to the common fan complaint of "Why is the Prisoner mad at you for leaving her head behind? It was an accident!". Well, here you go. She's not mad at you. It would honestly feel better if she was.

[megamindsupremacy]

love the idea that stan, pre-realisation, would just put any “my brother-“ thoughts that popped up into the ‘shermie’ category into his head

my brother… the genius … always won the spelling bee… we were so close… i learnt to fight because i was uh. protecting my…. (much??) older brother? damn was he a wimp or something

stan, calling shermie up post everything: do you happen to remember like. a flying dinosaur from our childhood or is this another ‘wrong brother’ situation

shermie, who was very much not there: what.

aksdjfhsd yeah!! also I imagine there being a ton of angst potential because Stan remembers ("remembers" my ass, he doesn't remember shit) himself and Shermie as being fairly close as kids, because everything involving "my brother" is conflated with Shermie, until the Mystery Incident got him kicked out. But Shermie wasn't super close with either of his brothers because of the age difference, and also because I hc him as not being home very often and getting the hell outta dodge as soon as he was old enough. So poor Stan has an imagined closer brotherly dynamic with Shermie, who isn't maintaining this dynamic into adulthood because to him Stan is his younger brother who dropped off the face of the earth (sad) at age 17, popped up a few times in newspapers to get arrested and/or scam people, and then dropped off the face of the earth again at 27.

[gojooooo]

man i love open endings. the fact that thanks to yuuji there might indeed be the next time sukuna talks about in case some idiot decides to eat a finger again. and we need fics where yuuji is that idiot

[presiding]

high chaos/low chaos/join the chaos in my dishonored 2 rewrite

[satorisoup]

people will think im ordinary until they say one (1) thing about tmnt and all of a sudden im explaining the entire lore starting from the 1990’s movie & why donatello is the best turtle i fear… T^T

tag limit fights me… i must yap… please listen… SOB </3

[dootznbootz]

I think some folks MAY have gotten the wrong idea about how I feel about Circe with some of my posts. So, to clear the air...

Homies, I love that fucked up sorceress.

I love how we're never given a reason why she turns people into animals. That's so funny and so awful. And another potion-making magic gal?!?! I love that she's just basically vibing on an island doing whatever she wants. I even love the fact that she scares Odysseus shitless! She's morally gray and that's why she's FUN.

I just sincerely hate when people try to girlboss her or have her be a victim of SA when she never was Looking at you, Miller. Especially when she was actually the one who coerced Odysseus in exchange for his men being transformed back into humans. And even then, while he was clearly afraid of her, (it's in the language of the Odyssey) she likely meant him no harm after a certain point. He just didn't know that.

Why does she need a reason to do awful things? Why can't she just be a goddess who does whatever she wants? That's the reason why I love her!!! She's fucked up!!! :D

I hate what the Telegony did to her as well! >:( You're telling me, this sorceress goddess, who makes potions (!!!) wouldn't have magic contraceptives??? Would WANT CHILDREN?!?! WITH THE PATHETIC WIFEMAN?! No. Fuck no. Eugammon of Cyrene, I have beef with you 🤬

Anyways!!! Understand all the "#anti circe" I have is simply Anti "Girlboss Circe" or the book. I genuinely think she's neat af as her morally gray, fucked up sorceress self and just get frustrated with...everything :'D

[avianii]

turns out all you need to kill artblock is a 70 page assignment from your history teacher you really don't wanna do :D

so here's more volleyball au (bottom right is not Mav fyi likeness is hard lol)

[ccbatman]

actually so evil how much of hal's internal world gets obliterated with the rewriting of his relationships with jessica and martin.

[cleradinel]

maybe bylers can be forgiven for the overall sentiment (far from being everyone’s though) of indifference or dislike towards steve/eddie/steddie when everyone and their mother started pretending eddie spent the whole season gay pinning in gay despair when will byers is right there and steddie was the talk of the town when the byler storyline has been happening for 4 whole seasons and steve was put at the very top of the gay ally pedestal when jon has been the most supportive brother since the beggining. maybe, just maybe it was okay for will byers lovers & byler lovers to be a little pissed. everyone and their mother is a dramatic way of me saying, maybe the actual mlm love story in the show being overshadowed by a wildly spread headcanon rubbed us the wrong way and maybe it’s okay to feel like that, even just a tiny bit, or a whole lot.

[skitskatdacat63]

Fernando Alonso × Unconventional Drinking Implements

[across-stars]

(he's autistic to me)

[sparky-is-spiders]

tell me about the Jon Isolation AU!

This ask carried me through microeconomics homework, econometrics lab, microeconomics class, econometrics class, AND worries about Big Future Assignments! So thank you very much <3

This is a fun one cause I actually have the first draft of the first part written!! It's basically a version of one of my favorite personal Jon plotlines where he moves into the Archives and has no social support system. Desperately in need of a rewrite to sand away the rough edges tho lmao.

Alright I won't lie: this AU was born when I was thinking about creating an Archivist, and why it wouldn't work if you just stuck someone in a room, made them read a bunch of statements, and then dropped 14 marks on them (because that would be much easier, faster, and more efficient than what happened in the podcast, but that's not what Elias did). And then I (world's most normal Jon enjoyer) thought about Elias doing that to Jon. And then, I (and I cannot stress this enough: world's MOST NORMAL Jon enjoyer) started thinking about. The most reasonable. Effective. Low-effort. Jon kidnapping plot. And then I wrote about 5k words. And then I left those to languish in the WIP folder, just like Elias leaving Jon to languish in the basement Archives.

In hindsight, it's also a spiritual precursor to my vampire JE fics. Like. Same basic setup.

Huh.

(Believe it or not I'm actually even more of a freak about Jon NOW.)

Just to be clear, warning for:

Unhealthy relationships (I mean it's JE lmao)

Dubcon captivity?? I guess?? Like Jon agrees but Elias manipulates the scenario and Jon is. Not super happy about the situation.

Anyway the plotline is: Gertrude is missing (how mysterious and worrying!) and Elias needs himself a "temporary" Archivist to take care of the Archives until either she returns or until it becomes clear that he needs an official replacement. Jon is a very hardworking institute employee with a dedication to research and a knack for organization (autism requires everything be Sorted). Elias (who only wants to help Jon realize his full potential and has no ulterior motives whatsoever) decides that to promote him to the position. For career development reasons!

Jon:

Wants to prove that they are an asset to the institute and that they are up for the task.

Is hoping they can maybe be promoted to Head Archivist? Like Elias implied might happen if they did a good job?

Maybe. Possibly. Potentially. Fancies Elias a tiny bit.

Would appreciate the opportunity to do his own research on the statements there without their supervisor asking why they're so invested in statements involving Lietners and spiders.

Hypothetically wants Elias to praise them and validate them and respect them and profess his undying love for them make them employee of the month.

So. Obviously. They agree.

The thing is, it's only temporary, and Elias doesn't want to disrupt the other departments too much, you see, and surely Jon can handle a little tidying all by themselves? And obviously Jon can't say no to that! Haven't they always sort of wanted to not have to deal with annoying coworkers constantly chattering and bothering them and demanding their attention? Haven't they always wanted to work by themselves and be responsible for their own tasks? And Elias makes it sound like such an inconvenience to hire additional hands. Besides, Gerturde managed just fine without. Surely they can do this by themselves. Surely it will be fine.

It goes from there. The Archives are, obviously, a much bigger disaster than Elias had let on. But Elias expects Jon to handle it and handle it they shall. They just need to work harder. Come in early. Stay late. Miss lunch, sometimes. Work while they eat. It will be fine. What would Elias think if they asked for help? If they essentially admitted that they couldn't live up to his expectations? And other people would disrupt their ability to work. Might ask questions about any areas of interest they try to focus on.

They come in earlier and earlier. They stay later and later. Elias stops by occasionally to congratulate them on what a good job they're doing. To commend them on their dedication. So they have to keep it up. Can't slack off. They had friends before, sort of. Tim and Sasha were nice to talk to occasionally. But now Jon doesn't work near them, can't talk to them as much. Doesn't have time to get drinks with them after work, doesn't have the energy to answer their increasingly sporadic texts. Jon doesn't speak to much of anyone these days. It's fine though. It's fine it's fine it's fine.

There's something about the quiet stillness of the Archives. The echoing silence of the rest of the institute in those few moments Jon spends there in those long, lonely halls (not lifeless, per se, but lonely). There's some deep ache inside of them. It feels almost hollow, but it feels like home, too.

Elias is there, sometimes. To tell Jon how proud he is, how well they're doing. He likes to show up in the moments when Jon's thinking about leaving, maybe to eat in the cafeteria, maybe to stop by Sasha's desk... but that's probably paranoia. How would he know?

Every night, it feels so difficult to leave. Every night, Jon worries that Gertrude will come back and take the job from them, that Elias will find a replacement, that they'll lose their Archives. It's ridiculous, they know it, but it doesn't change the impulse to stay as long as possible. To prove to Elias that this is where they belong. It is an itch deep in their soul.

They think someone might be going through their desk. Something is watching them. It doesn't feel safe, leaving the Archives unattended over night.

(The Archives need an Archivist. The vacuum needs to be filled, and there is a perfect candidate right here, visiting them every day. Of course Jon is feeling the pull.)

And then it's been months, and Gertrude just hasn't been found, and Jon's done such a very good job, and it would be much easier if Jon would just... continue what they were doing? And if they think the work might be too much they can always ask for assistants, of course.

The itching in their soul soothes when they sign the contract. They try not to think about it.

Aaaaand that's about it as far as detailed plot goes. I do have some ideas for later on that are less well defined?

On the angstier side of things:

Things get easier when Jon is made Archivist officially. He feels more comfortable leaving at night, but he still spends a lot of time there. So many secrets, so little time.

He's paranoid. He knows something is up, that he might be in danger, that he's being watched... he can't involve anyone else. Not if he can't trust them, not if they might be in danger too.

Some of it is also the wearing effect of isolation. It's very easy to see other people as a threat or disturbance or unknown variable if you spend so much time alone.

He's looking into Gertrude's disappearance too. What did she know? What happened to her? Is he in danger too?

He can't trust Elias. He knows it. And it's so stupid that he's still maybe in love with him, just a bit.

Months pass. Relationships have surely withered and atrophied from Jon's absence. He still spends some time at his flat, but it's the Archives that feel like home.

And then, one night, the shadows in his flat come alive. Reaching ink-slick hands out to grasp him and pull him in.

It follows him. Shadows reaching with a dozen hungry hands as he races for the institute. Out of walls, street posts, parked cars. One catches on his side, and the flesh tears like paper.

It was midnight when he left. It was almost daybreak when he arrived at the Archives. He knows he's safe as soon as he crosses the threshold.

From there, I'm not sure what happens next. Tempted to say Elias was there waiting for him (I think the formatting maybe implies more continuity than there is there, how much Jon knows by the time he has to leave his flat behind is... debatable). Maybe Elias comes in to visit him and pretends to be shocked and worried about all the very unexpected blood. Maybe Jon has to phone him, begging for help because he can't go to the hospital (he knows it'll come back, the next time he's left alone in the dark), and really, who else does he have that will believe him?

Elias stays with him, tends to his injuries, spends his nights in the Archives with Jon. It's Jon who begs to stay in the Archives. Who needs the safety. The surety. Maybe Elias suggests that he stay there forever. Maybe he doesn't have to.

On the much goofier side of things: I do have an idea of them (once Jon is healed) going to Ikea to pick out some furniture. I'm thinking maybe Jon would know about the Eye, just for some fun bickering over picking out furniture or assembling a dresser or whatever. Idk, I just really like the idea of JE making the Archives into a cozy little home for Jon, somewhere he can comfortably live forever <3.

Jon has a lot of complicated feelings about the Archives and living in them and being the Archivist. Maybe he even tries to leave and go back to living a normal life. Maybe the reaching shadows break that idea for him forever. Either way, one way or another, he will learn that there is no point and there is no freedom in trying.

Despite this AU's beginnings, I don't know if Elias is working towards some big ritual. Maybe he just wants a perfect Archivist to keep in his basement forever.

And. I mean. Can you really blame him??

Not sure if JE ever become like. Official Romantic Partners. But Jon is Elias' Archivist and Elias is Jon's Watcher and that's kind of the same thing, really.

(Maybe they can have some sort of binding ritual ceremony at some point. As a Treat.)

Okay that's. God this has been a bit of a ramble, huh? Anyway I hoped you enjoyed hearing about this AU. I did get excited to take another crack at it while writing this! At the same time, however, I recently saw a post about Love that annoyed me a bit and which has made me think about the Subway Monster AU (and how those two concepts are connected is a WHOLE other story lmao) so we'll see which I end up doing (the answer might be neither for a while. I have. Big Graduation Responsibility due Oct. 1st). But yeah anyway thank you again for the ask! It was fun rambling, and actually really nice to sit down and Think about my AU lol.

[yellowhollyhock]

return to the underground is so funny because everything Donny says or does Raph and Leo are like 'that's him our baby brother, precious little genius, watch watch he's gonna do something cool, we are so proud. do you need anything Don Don'

And Mikey's like 'this is the worst plan you've ever had. I hate you.'

He really was not happy about going back underground XD

[minwilder]

show tempe gang crossover with the morris islanders would actually have been the best episode of bones ever. btw