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The short gang

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Happy Haibara Day! 💖

08.18.25

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I know it's many months early, but does anyone know if there's a good blog to follow for a DCMK secret santa this year? I found both @/dcmksecretsanta and @/dcmk-exchange, but the first stopped in 2022 and the latter missed last year.

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My first fic for the DCMK fandom, and also my longest fic by far. 

Summary: Ran goes to university, and figures out how to forgive.

It’s first and foremost a shippy ShinRan piece, but also tries to address some of the injustices Ran’s character has been dealt, and will probably be dealt in the future, by canon. I just…found I had a lot of Feelings about it once I started writing, and twelve thousand words later, here we are.

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Father-daughter time at the beach 🏖️🍔

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hm

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I wanted to doodle a sunset!

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idk.

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Detco + text posts, 18/?

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I have this joke with my sister, a whole AU, if you will, where Ran realizes that every time Shinichi appears for a very brief time, he'll always clutch at his chest, looking very much in pain, before disappearing again. She assumes that he's got some disease, consults google and then Araide-sensei about it, gets some theory ("Maybe it's a heart disease, Ran-san") and then resolves to becoming a doctor to cure Shinichi.

She doesn't tell Conan-kun her theory about Shinichi's heart problem because Conan-kun idolizes Shinichi a lot and he would be sad if he finds out that his idol might be terminally ill. She doesn't confront Shinichi because he's clearly trying to not make her sad and she doesn't want him to worry about her. She does tell Sonoko and then Kazuha during their girl talk. She also tells them that she plans to become a doctor. When Shinichi gets cured, he'd still need a doctor to check his health, right? And if he isn't cured yet by the time she's become a doctor, she'll just cure him herself! (They don't talk about the possibility of Shinichi dying in the next years but the idea hung heavily in the air.)

Sonoko is sympathetic and promises her a scholarship from the Suzuki corporation. Kazuha remembers Heiji's weird words about Kudo; "if they (Shinichi and Ran) can't meet then she's better off not knowing that he was here." She promises Ran to badger Heiji about Kudo because he clearly knows something.

Since Ran is determined to help Shinichi ASAP, but she's also just 17, she starts an informal apprenticeship with Araide-sensei, probably working as his clerk or something but he is teaching her what he can. This new schedule, coupled with Sonoko shipping Ran with Araide-sensei before, made Shinichi's jealous streak flare up. (lol) He complains to Hattori about it and Hattori complains to him about Kazuha's new found determination to stalk him.

(this AU would change Ran's behavior a little)

As an aspiring doctor, Ran got used to the viscera and gore. If she's the first to discover a murder, the first instinct is no longer to scream but to check if the victim can be saved. Sometimes she's the one who knows something about the death (like, "this coloration can be caused by this kind of poison" or something) giving Shinichi the hint.

She's noticably sadder whenever Shinichi calls but hides that sadness (she savors it like it's their last) she does ask when Shinichi will come home but doesn't plead that he come home sooner, just tells him to take care. (It made Shinichi sad, "maybe she doesn't love me like that anymore." But also kinda happy for her, "if she doesn't love me like that anymore my absence would hurt less")

She's more hurt but also resigned when Shinichi appears briefly and hastily leaves. It hurt knowing (thinking and believing really, lol) that Shinichi is sick but she isn't a doctor YET and Shinichi needs real medical attention. She asks him if he got home safe a few hours after his disappearance.

There could be a lot of drama potential here, like Ran finding out Shinichi's secret because he started getting mini heart attacks during one of his appearances and fainted then Ran tried her best to doctor him. But this is a joke. So.

Kaito is shocked (he doesn't know the Conan is Shinichi secret yet) and the next time he got to talk with Tantei-kun, he asks about Tantei-san's health. Conan is confused. Where in the world did Kaito Kid hear this rumor that he is deathly sick? Why from Mouri-san, of course! She seemed very sad about it.

Ran noticed a pattern: Shinichi is okay for about a day and then his symptoms would appear. Today, Shinichi is very, VERY healthy. Plus, Conan-kun is acting very fidgety around him. This isn't Shinichi, it's Kaito Kid.

When they were alone, she confronted him. During her explanation on how she found out, she lets it slip that Shinichi is sick and wouldn't have been able to stay for 1 whole day.

Everything starts falling into place:

Ran's sudden desire to become a doctor. Her sadness during their phone calls. Her resigned expression when he leaves. She thought he was dying. He needed to resolve this (after frustratedly ranting to Haibara. Haibara points out that he does look like he's having a major heart failure during the shrinking process.)

He tries to tell Ran over the phone (Shinichi is just sparing her feelings). Tried to tell her as Conan ("Of course, Conan-kun, your Shinichi-niichan isn't dying" she said in a tone that's obviously lying. Worse, now even Kogoro thinks he's dying!) He tried to tell Ran as Shinichi (no good. Got pulled into a case, spent the day solving murder, by the time he ready to explain he started having his "major heart failures" and had to run away.)

And then we spend all the 500+ other episodes of detective Conan with this

One more perk for aspiring doctor Ran is drama. There will be times when she gets to the scene and she can still save someone but he ultimately fails. It weighs on her, maybe she could have saved them if she was better. Maybe she wasn't cut for this and she's better at throwing herself in front of danger to prevent someone from getting hurt than addressing the pain. Maybe can't save Shinichi and she's over her head with this delusion that she can cure whatever illness he has. Something something. But I also just think it would be cool if with Shinichi, the grim reaper, the death attractor, there's an angel capable of saving lives.

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old ficlet - death god

Five hundred and seventy-five corpses, not to mention shrinking down to a pipsqueak. You didn’t just anger the God of Fate and Fortune and expect to get away with it. Invisible, the god looked down at the boy who was cursed to sow death wherever he walked. He had left this visit too long. Likely the child had already gone mad.

Eh? What was this? No tearing of hair or rending of clothes? No weeping loved ones, begging for his return to sanity? No howling into the merciless void?

The boy was kicking a ball down the sidewalk, talking to four other pipsqueaks. He looked happy, healthy, and…normal. Barring the whole shrinking thing, of course.

Not even a little depression?

The god looked into the past. Yes, that was the boy. One, two…yes, all five hundred and seventy-five. Bright Amaterasu, the deaths seemed to excite him. Definitely not normal.

With a hiss of frustration the God of Fate and Fortune whipped out of the mortal dimension. Never had his retribution gone so amiss!

A construction worker suspended above the twenty-second floor jerked his head around at the hiss right beside his ear, dropping the spanner he was holding.

Five hundred and seventy-six.

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i don't think i've ever seen anything related to them before, so

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The beginning of this AU:

Shinichi’s in a tuxedo he’s grown comfortable in, clutching a glass of wine, listening to an electronics tycoon tell a story. He tunes it out. He’s only here because an acquaintance offered to introduce him to his new business contact. Maybe someone he’ll have to work with. An expert in classics, an expert on his case.

Someone slaps him on the back. “Kudo! Where’s your date? Ditched her already?”

Shinichi forces a smile. “Came alone this time.”

“Cut to the chase, huh?”

In the last ten years, Shinichi has had exactly two relationships, despite constantly being on eligible bachelor lists. One was Sera Masumi, and that had subsided into a comfortable friendship after quickly declaring mutual incompatibility. The other — strangely, Kaitou KID in his civilian identity, who had gone back to his childhood sweetheart after a brief, intense fling. Shinichi doesn’t consider it much of a loss on his part. He’d given a speech at the wedding. The rest — a string of faceless men and women.

There’s a woman in the back, through layers of crowd. Red dress, chestnut hair, slender, graceful. Talking to someone. Shinichi’s heart clutches with an old ache. He follows her out of the corner of his eye as the conversation flows on.

“You know, I can introduce you, if you want,” says the tycoon. “Rare to see someone catch your eye.”

Shinichi coughs. “No need. She reminds me of someone, that’s all.”

His attempts to reach Ran, more frequent in the beginning, have gone unanswered, but bits and pieces of news have filtered down from Hattori, and for some reason, Haibara. The last he’d heard was that she was in Taiwan, restoring old paintings. Previously she was in Kyoto, and before that, at university. He knows nothing else about her life.

It hurts most because he doesn’t know why. She said she needed space after the Conan thing. And she had never answered his emails, never come back.

He loses track of the woman in red as he excuses himself and heads toward the drinks table. He’s stopped frequently along the way, but he finally finds his acquaintance, Mitaka, by bowls of punch and rows of champagne flutes.

“Ah, Kudo,” says the man. “I promised to introduce you to someone.”

“An expert on classical Chinese art, you said.”

“Exactly. Let’s go find her.”

Mitaka leads the way through the crowd, and Shinichi spots the woman in red again, from the back. She really is very beautiful, and, as the tycoon pointed out, his type. Shinichi changes his mind about that introduction. He does like women, whatever the tabloids may say.

He nudges Mitaka and nods at her. “Do you know who she is?”

“Ah,” says Mitaka, “you’ll find out.”

Shinichi follows him curiously as he walks right up to the woman in red and lays his hand on her arm in a way Shinichi does not like at all. “Kudo-kun, may I introduce —”

She turns around, and Shinichi’s world constricts.

She’s older, but still recognizably his childhood sweetheart, his childhood crush, his first love. There’s the hint of laugh lines around her mouth and eyes, and she looks stunningly grown-up in makeup and jewelry and her glittering dress. What caused those lines? Who made her laugh like that?

He doesn’t hear the rest of what Mitaka’s saying.

“Ran?”

“Shinichi?” she asks, eyes wide and shocked. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know each other!” Mitaka says.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” Shinichi asks. It’s a stupid question. She doesn’t talk to him, and he hasn’t even seen her since they were eighteen. It’s a far cry from when they were living out of each other’s pockets back in high school.

*

Whatever Ran was expecting, she hadn’t expected Kudo Shinichi to be at this party. His lips part when he recognizes her. Mitaka is still jabbering on, most knowledgeable expert on classical art we have… great detective of the East! and she’s staring at the man she’d left behind when she was eighteen.

That had been the deal she’d struck. Join us, and he lives. Karasuma, coming to her as her boyfriend was bleeding out on the floor of a prison cell. In the days after, the Black Organization had seemingly been taken down, the cure for the apotoxin had been found, and she had misdirected Kudo Shinichi in the smallest of ways.

The Black Organization, a ghost before, is now only the bones of that ghost. Where they were a host of killers, now it’s only Karasuma, Vermouth, and Spirit — Ran.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Ran says. She would have avoided this party if she had. She’s only here because she needs to keep up appearances as an art curator, and Mitaka had promised a client in need of consulting… oh.

She watches his throat bob when he swallows. How many times has she drawn a knife across that very line?

Did - um... did anyone ever ask about the Dark!Ran AU?

Oh boy. I have posted about this in my workbench, but it’s worth consolidating the ideas:

In which, in the Org’s dying throes, Karasuma tricks Ran into lying to Shinichi so he thinks the Org is completely destroyed, but in reality Karasuma and Vermouth escape. She’s torn up by guilt, and Karasuma and Vermouth continue to blackmail her, until she begins to do dirty work for them. She’s really trapped. On the outside she cuts ties with almost everyone.

The work gets dirtier and dirtier.

Shinichi tries to figure out what’s going on, but Karasuma outsmarts him; he concludes that Ran is doing this of her own volition, traumatized by the Conan stuff and the Black Org takedown. Meanwhile, Ran becomes pretty much an assassin. Her leash is short.

Ideas:

Not really sure how to swing it without going OOC, she seems more the type to fight back with every ounce of strength.

But as a teenager in a shitty home situation, she’s already vulnerable to emotional abuse and manipulation. Textbook abuse starts with isolation and devaluing of self-worth, IIRC, and leads to total control. The Conan thing makes her even more vulnerable — she doesn’t know what to believe anymore. The isolation part is practically ready-made. So from that angle I think it’s plausible, but also very dark, and IDK if I wanna do that to Ran lol.

She helps the Org because she believes that Shinichi will die otherwise: doom the bad guys or save Shinichi, and she chooses to save Shinichi. But maybe he didn't need to be saved. Maybe she knew all along that Conan was safe, and when she finds out Conan was Shinichi...

Maybe everyone knows she's to blame for the heads of the Org escaping, maybe Shinichi blames her, and that's what makes her cut ties.

Anyway, she's tied inextricably to the remnants of the Org now. They don't have her killing people right off the bat, but it's sort of a gradual slide into villany for Ran.

This was originally setup to a shippy ShinRan, but now I think it'd be more interesting to focus on the dark Ran part, with maybe rebuilding all her friendships and other relationships. In any case the chances of me actually writing this are quantumly low.

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old ficlet - Eri and Heiji

“Well, uh, he’s really beaten up about this, ya know? Says he doesn’t know who he is anymore.”

The lawyer sniffed, earrings glinting like evil gemstones. “As the mother of the girl he’s presuming to date, that isn’t my concern. My only concern is his behavior toward Ran.”

Heiji seized his opportunity. “But sensei, Neesan cares. Ya know she’s gonna try to help him an’ all that.” When the lawyer didn’t answer, he added, “If he’s upset, she’s gonna be upset too.”

Eri Kisaki, the scary lawyer, sighed. “Ran’s heart is too soft.”

Neesan also had a chip on her shoulder and one hell of a roundhouse, but Heiji nodded eagerly anyway. Whatever helped his buddy.

“I can put in a word with the therapist, but.” She paused, and Heiji felt a chill in his bones. “In return, I have need of a detective’s services.”

Heiji blinked. “But, ah, can’t you—”

“I can’t hire Kudou Shinichi for the reasons you’ve so succinctly outlined. And I would prefer not to go to my husband with this. I’m sure you understand.”

Heiji’s eyes shot from her face to her alligator-skin purse to the minute smudge in her eyebrow liner, and then he grinned. “‘Cause you’re tryin’ to show him up, aren’t ya?”

Kisaki-sensei’s hand tightened briefly on the strap of her purse before she gifted Heiji with a slight, predatory smile. “As expected of the High School Detective of the West.” She extended her hand. “Do we have a deal?”

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when Kid wants him there (bc yay beloved meitantei!) but also doesn't want him there (bc damn he'll get caught before he even gets to put on a show.)

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🙄