owlbrain

[owlbrain]

I’m going off the grid tomorrow so - OUTFIT TIME!

Max probably stays the same, but maybe he ditches the letterman since he’s not exactly a welcomed presence on the football team. So probably jeans and a shirt.

Richie's still absolutely an anime kid, but more subtly. So probably just an Attack on Titans shirt. Maybe the reduced layers will help with those overactive sweat glands.

Ruth can keep her outfit - it’s not egregiously nerdy, and I can’t really think of something better. Her headgear is being removed though. Sorry Ruth.

Grace probably wears joggers or jeans depending on the day plus a top of some kind. Probably a tank top. And for angst purposes a flannel she stole from Steph while they were still friends. I’m not good at being nice to them.

Pete probably just wears the jumper outfit he switches to after talking to Steph in NPMD. Not the coolest outfit, but not bullyable really, so.

Steph I’m gonna give a shirt and trousers, and probably a green cardigan. The green for obvious reasons.

Not my best work, mostly due to my lack of fashion sense, but eh. They’re no longer naked.

[owlbrain]

on the topic of what grace could sacrifice the god could simply make a deal with her with the intent to watch her cause chaos. I mean she is willing to KILL over the smallest stuff so like they might take that and make her even worse

See on one hand this stays pretty in character for both Grace and the Lords in Black, while also giving me an easy solution. But I can’t really think of why they couldn’t just use Max for chaos, given he’s already revealed himself to the town and is killing people as he pleases.

… I could make her have to prove it. That would be mean of me. So I’m very tempted.

Maybe the Lords could give Grace the amount of power she would get if she were to be their conduit or whatever, but none of the protection or advice or any of that, assuming she would even get that in the end anyway. Then the two of them get plopped in the football field together. Come get your tickets to the Max vs Grace free for all, folks! Popcorn for only $5 a kernel, and the concept of a drink will cost your entire life’s savings!

I still know nothing about football. Or sports in general honestly. But I feel like refreshments are probably incredibly overpriced.

Anyway I’m still turning this in the brain microwave but I think there’s something there. At the very least I’m about 99% sure I’m stealing the idea of just skipping the sacrifice. Because that’s more convenient for me.

[owlbrain]

Can we all take a moment to appreciate that the sound tumblr makes when you send a message is a duck noise. Thank you. Carry on.

[owlbrain]

Okay we’re continuing with this because it still hasn’t left my brain. TL;DR we’re swapping the popularity levels of the main characters in NPMD while trying to keep their personalities the same mostly. And I’m gonna try and make this work with the plot.

High School Is Killing Me stays about the same to start off with. Steph is a nerd in this, but she’s also getting better grades because she’s putting in a lot of effort behind the scenes. Basically all her time is spent revising, but she won’t exactly revise biology if she has a test coming up in a different subject. A pop quiz if she’s having an off day? She’s fucked. But while she probably wouldn’t cheat without prompting, Pete might volunteer. Not because he has a crush. Nope.

The end changes. Mostly because Grace doesn’t exactly care if they’re cheating. So the two of them get away with it. Maybe they get a cute little moment after the test. And no Max to ruin it! Except Pete is in the popular crowd. So the moment is a little brief. But it exists.

Literal Monster changes a lot though. Mostly in that it doesn’t happen. Max might not be a nerd but he is pretty much the bottom of the social hierarchy. That being said, the bit with him and Grace stays kind of the same. He’s still hitting on her in largely the same way, minus the “forbidden fruit” thing. Grace reacts a little differently though. She’s not against the idea of dating, she’s against the idea of dating him. Also she’s there because she was talking to Jason or something. They dated for like 2-3 months in junior year, and they’re still on pretty good terms.

We sort of skip everything from Literal Monster to Max beating up Pete. Probably. Actually no. Pete has confidence in this AU. I’ll let him use it. He asks Steph out, and she says yes, because through the art of me stealing someone else’s very good idea he’s class president, which is a thing in the US. So her dad can approve of that. And as punishment for his hubris Pete runs into Max, who beats him up because Pete got the girl and he didn’t.

I’m not making this up as I go you are.

As we head back over to the Chasity family, we don’t get any family meal. Grace ended up joining the smoke club in freshman year due to a mix of her parents getting a divorce (lavender marriage situation - they’re on okay terms but it messed Grace up a little) and the bullying from middle school getting worse. It started with just one smoke with Lex (they’re cousins I make the rules) but then she noticed that people backed off a little. The bullying lessened when she was with the smoke club, and if there’s one thing Grace will always cling to it’s power/safety. And that’s why she panics about her crush on one of the least popular people in school.

Grace realised she likes Max and freaks out. But lucky her, she sees a way to deal with it. Pete comes into school the next day with a black eye, and while the principal might listen to him, he would have to share the whole story. And Pasqualli’s has a bit of a reputation, one that Mayor Lauter wouldn’t like his daughter being attached to. Luckily Grace provides another option.

Everything stays the same for the prank, unless I can think of a less goofy prank that also requires being in the Waylon Place. I’m keeping Max as being the one who dies, mostly because Steph is a nerd so can’t die, the trio are all just generically popular in a similar enough way that I can’t really choose one, and I don’t think anyone but Grace would immediately react with dismemberment.

Go Go Nighthawks is the same but with Grace present. Except instead of “we’re not bullied anymore” it’s “we’re not losing to Clivesdale because Max isn’t here”. Then NPMD (the song) still ends in Richie dying, but Max targets him first because he’s a popular member of the football team without actually playing football.

Then we get to Act 2, in which our first change is the police scene. They’re a little less obvious than in the original interrogation, and Grace doesn’t mention her missing WWJD bracelet because she didn’t lose it, and probably never had it in the first place. Either this is the last we see of the police, or we briefly get Grace pointing them towards Clivesdale later, which they fully believe. Both work fine.

Just For Once happens and Ruth still dies, but obviously the song changes to fit her character.

I didn’t cover this when Richie died, but Max behaves a little differently in this. He isn’t really a bully, he’s more into beating people up in a fight than he’s into flick-it tickets. Think a little like JD. Not really but a little. This also means that he goes about killing everyone a bit differently than he does in NPMD. Basically they all get torn limb from limb. And when he wants someone dead, he doesn’t give them extra time by toying with them. This becomes relevant for Steph, Pete and Grace.

If I Loved You happens just with lyrical changes. They’re teenagers who killed someone they’re allowed to be messy. Grace happens to be there for my convenience. Then Solomon Lauter shows up and he ain’t pleased.

He’s put together that Max is back and, based on who’s already dead, he knows who he’s after. Miss Tessburger can carry the book because Solomon is a coward. Max shows up, he kills Steph’s dad, they run to the school, they do the Summoning, and now for the sacrifice. Also Max is pretty much directly behind them this whole time.

The fact Max kills Solomon in Beanie’s isn’t hugely important, but it does mean that his existence is immediately public. It also gives me a reason as to why he doesn’t catch up immediately; he’s busy killing everyone in his path.

So our issue here is that, while Steph and Pete have the same “most cherished thing”s, Grace needs a new one. And this entire AU is me making things up as I go. So I don’t actually know what the new sacrifice is.

You would think in a hour or more I’ve spent typing this up I’d have had an idea or two. But no, apparently not. So I’m skipping to the ending, because I actually have a plan for the ending. The sacrifice can be another post whenever I feel like it.

We’ve already established that Grace wants power and security. An easy way to get this is to be at the top of the hierarchy. Even in the subtler things, we see her do this already. She’s running the scheme in the Waylon Place, she’s in charge whenever she’s in a “relationship”, she’s getting the police off their backs. And now Grace is stood in the football pitch with five eldritch beings behind her and a town of people who just watched their mayor be slaughtered by a ghost. A ghost Grace defeated.

Don’t they need a leader?

[owlbrain]

No no keep talking. Honestly I forgot class presidents are a thing, that works so much better than what I had (I was grasping for straws a little). Could also explain why Grace isn’t already within the group - she’s not an outcast to the outcasts, she’s just high in the social hierarchy in a way that doesn’t really slot in well with a class president, the star of the theatre department and the football mascot. Plus Steph joining the group late for obvious reasons.

… I’m gonna end up making this a whole AU aren’t I.

How do you think a NPMD swap AU would work out? In terms of the nerds being the popular ones and the popular ones being nerds, not switching characters around.

Richie and Steph are the easiest to do; Richie is the football team mascot so could be popular through that, and Steph could be an unpopular nerd if we make her study really hard after her mum’s death to get her dad’s “love”.

Max is harder since he’s hard to take off the football team. I’m not American but I assume there’s a position that’s unpopular? We can say he was briefly the quarterback but messed up badly against Clivesdale (fuck Clivesdale) and got demoted and everyone hates him now. That���s probably how American football works.

Ruth is also tricky because I’m not really sure theatre kids are that popular. I guess they could be? Sure let’s go with that. She’s always the lead in school performances, and let’s say her headgear got taken off in freshman year and suddenly omg she’s so hot. Same vibes as when the nerdy main character takes off her glasses. She could be a cheerleader maybe, she’s kinda joining in with that in Go Go Nighthawks, but probably not.

Finally the ones I’ve been putting off. Pete and Grace. Both of which are really hard to make cool without completely changing their characters.

Pete can go first because why not. He’s literally your stereotypical nerd, I don’t have much to work off of here. Being friends with Ruth and Richie already earns him some cool points, but we need more. Football player is out for obvious reasons. I’ve seen people have him in the Smoke Club but I can’t really see that happening, he’s more likely to lecture you about the health risks. However. Ted would be so down to let him have alcohol. And probably wouldn’t object to him having people over while he’s at Charlotte’s house. So I’m gonna call Pete the party guy and call it a night. May change this later.

Grace might be even harder though. She doesn’t exactly have any popular traits. Honestly she’s at her closest to being popular when she’s just snapped. Post-NPMD Grace bagged a football player and was smoking, might as well throw her in the Smoke Club.

You’d think I’m joking but I think there’s potential there actually.

Let’s say something happens to Grace. Maybe her parents get divorced. Maybe she has a sexuality crisis. Maybe the bullying actually starts to get to her. Anything that’s enough to push her off that edge she’s always doing an acrobatics routine on. She doesn’t fall quite as hard, she doesn’t go insane like in NPMD, but she starts to question her religion a little and she starts to act a little more like the popular kids. She gets into Smoke Club (I hc her and Lex as cousins anyway so let’s just say she gave Grace an in) and at this point has drifted apart from Steph, who is in full nerd mode at this point. She doesn’t realise this and we still get some Grace-thinks-she-and-Steph-are-friends shenanigans. She probably dates Jason at some point as a mixture of rebelling against God or something and her being totally straight she promises.

See? I made it work. Probably.

I’m letting anyone who isn’t the main 6 stay basically the same. Probably with the exception of Gabe though. He's on the football team and still has a one-sided crush on Grace. I hope he stubs his toe. Stacy and Brenda might also switch just so that Steph has actual friends.

[owlbrain]

Light in fiction is very often a metaphor for hope

But Hatchetfield turns this on its head a little bit. Because all the times I can think of the sun or light being mentioned it’s not just hope. It’s false hope. Hope that will be stripped away mere days, maybe hours or minutes after being given.

One lyric that gets used a lot is “the sun shines down” and whatnot (think Califor-MIA, Hatchet Town, The Best Of You, probably more I can’t think of off the top of my head) and it always refers to a light at the end of a tunnel with no exit. Ethan dies before they reach California, and Hannah and Lex don’t last much longer. The students of Hatchetfield High weren’t happy before Max died, he was tormenting all of them, and his death was only a temporary reprieve. Grace goes on a murderous rampage right after homecoming. They never actually get to have that happily ever after.

Also the entire concept of Becky being a Warrior of Light. Yes, she kills Linda. But then Hatchetfield gets nuked. That hope gets blown up within an hour, and even in Jane’s A Car she doesn’t live until the end of the story. Honestly she’s having a horrible time in every timeline.

There are probably more examples or I’m making stuff up. Either works. I did not look into this I just had an idea and started writing. Maybe there’s something there though.

[owlbrain]

How do you think a NPMD swap AU would work out? In terms of the nerds being the popular ones and the popular ones being nerds, not switching characters around.

Richie and Steph are the easiest to do; Richie is the football team mascot so could be popular through that, and Steph could be an unpopular nerd if we make her study really hard after her mum’s death to get her dad’s “love”.

Max is harder since he’s hard to take off the football team. I’m not American but I assume there’s a position that’s unpopular? We can say he was briefly the quarterback but messed up badly against Clivesdale (fuck Clivesdale) and got demoted and everyone hates him now. That’s probably how American football works.

Ruth is also tricky because I’m not really sure theatre kids are that popular. I guess they could be? Sure let’s go with that. She’s always the lead in school performances, and let’s say her headgear got taken off in freshman year and suddenly omg she’s so hot. Same vibes as when the nerdy main character takes off her glasses. She could be a cheerleader maybe, she’s kinda joining in with that in Go Go Nighthawks, but probably not.

Finally the ones I’ve been putting off. Pete and Grace. Both of which are really hard to make cool without completely changing their characters.

Pete can go first because why not. He’s literally your stereotypical nerd, I don’t have much to work off of here. Being friends with Ruth and Richie already earns him some cool points, but we need more. Football player is out for obvious reasons. I’ve seen people have him in the Smoke Club but I can’t really see that happening, he’s more likely to lecture you about the health risks. However. Ted would be so down to let him have alcohol. And probably wouldn’t object to him having people over while he’s at Charlotte’s house. So I’m gonna call Pete the party guy and call it a night. May change this later.

Grace might be even harder though. She doesn’t exactly have any popular traits. Honestly she’s at her closest to being popular when she’s just snapped. Post-NPMD Grace bagged a football player and was smoking, might as well throw her in the Smoke Club.

You’d think I’m joking but I think there’s potential there actually.

Let’s say something happens to Grace. Maybe her parents get divorced. Maybe she has a sexuality crisis. Maybe the bullying actually starts to get to her. Anything that’s enough to push her off that edge she’s always doing an acrobatics routine on. She doesn’t fall quite as hard, she doesn’t go insane like in NPMD, but she starts to question her religion a little and she starts to act a little more like the popular kids. She gets into Smoke Club (I hc her and Lex as cousins anyway so let’s just say she gave Grace an in) and at this point has drifted apart from Steph, who is in full nerd mode at this point. She doesn’t realise this and we still get some Grace-thinks-she-and-Steph-are-friends shenanigans. She probably dates Jason at some point as a mixture of rebelling against God or something and her being totally straight she promises.

See? I made it work. Probably.

I’m letting anyone who isn’t the main 6 stay basically the same. Probably with the exception of Gabe though. He's on the football team and still has a one-sided crush on Grace. I hope he stubs his toe. Stacy and Brenda might also switch just so that Steph has actual friends.

[owlbrain]

Honestly Hatchetfield becomes far funnier if you say there aren’t multiple timelines. Like. It’s all happening in the same timeline, the world just happens to end every other week. Either you can pretend no one ever dies, you can limit dying to characters that aren’t needed for later events, or you can say necromancy exists now. No matter how you do it it’s hilarious.

Bonus points if someone from outside of Hatchetfield is visiting and the world starts ending.

Non-Hatchetfield Resident: WHY IS EVERYONE SINGING? Hatchetfield Resident: Yeah, that happens. Probably the blue guy.

[owlbrain]

Grace Chasity is a dog person. We know this because she has three of them.

Honestly I ship lautskity and holyghost pretty equally depending on how murderous I feel like letting Grace be (Max is in no way a healthy choice for her but ssshhhhh let me ship the toxic murderers) and we already know Max is pathetically down bad for Grace.

But you can’t convince me Pete and Steph aren’t too.

We all saw how dramatic they were in IILY. You think that’s disappearing after they get together? Of course not. These two are probably the sappiest romantics to ever exist. They’re literally the Lovers card in the tarot deck.

Grace has three lapdogs and honestly? She has cat allergy vibes.

[owlbrain]

Santa’s elves hatch from fertilised Easter Eggs, hence the long ears and shortness. They get it from the Easter Bunny.

This of course comes with the exception of the taller, green-haired elves. They spend every other winter with their dad, the Grinch, and their stepfather, Tony the Tiger.

[owlbrain]

Ok I’m just gonna

What do you mean??? He caused the (great) Shattering??? That has to be referring to the different timelines right??? Was it purposeful or accidental??? Could it have been when he first entered the Black and White??? If it was deliberate did the Lords in Black tell him to or did he act alone???

Okay I’ll stop the triple question marks now but seriously wtf. Also it’s possible this doubles the tragedy of NPMD being a timeline that could have been a happy ending if we assume Wilbur is not only the one to separate the timelines, but is also the person who causes the unhappy endings, with timelines with ‘good’ endings being ones where he loses the fight with Miss Holloway. He’s probably dead in NPMD. It could’ve had a happy ending. Honestly that’s worse than if it were doomed from the start.

Oh and please tell me there’s another king I forgot about. Please tell me he’s not gonna betray Wiggly.

Actually tell me that if you want heretic arc Wilbur Cross has incredible potential.

Mr Warlock over there is getting lore drops like crazy please tell me I’m not the only one going insane over this.

[owlbrain]

Post-Epic Athena from the perspective of the rest of Greece must’ve been an experience. I mean. They probably knew her as even colder than we did, especially since they had no personal attachments. They basically had WOTM Athena but even less emotive.

Then suddenly she shows up and has emotions and hope for the world and why is she injured isn’t she a goddess. And they don’t know why. You think anyone’s explaining her character arc? You think anyone’s snitching on Zeus? The people of Greece are probably convinced this is a fever dream and any second they’ll wake up to Apollo killing their families.

RIP to the Greek kings. They probably would’ve had a much better time if Odysseus had gotten lost on his way to the war instead of on his way back.

[owlbrain]

So I’ve seen a lot of people deciding that Grace goes on a murderous rampage after Workin’ Boys and yeah sure not disagreeing but she is absolutely not killing Richie (or Steph or Pete but they’re not in the theatre (and probably Ruth but like. She’s a little dead)).

We don’t really know much about the timeline it happens in but what we do know is that in Workin’ Boys Grace is willing to go with Richie to see Ruth in a play about hidgens’s midlife crisis prostitutes and honestly I doubt she’d do that if she didn’t consider them her friends. This is very important. Yes, Grace is really loyal to her beliefs, but she’s also really loyal to her friends. She protects Pete and Steph from Lumber Axe, she makes the sacrifice instead of Steph to save Pete’s life, she’s actively going to see a musical she’s against the subject matter of because she wants to support her friend.

I mean technically I think she’s consistently saving Steph not Pete since she doesn’t seem to actually like Pete that much most of the time but eh. Doesn’t mean I can’t ship them.

So yeah. Even when going on a murderous rampage (because let’s be honest, she definitely does), I don’t think she’d hurt Richie. I also don’t think she’d hurt Steph and Pete at the end of NPMD but that’s a different thing. Grace would leave Richie alive. And a little traumatised. But they live in Hatchetfield so really, what else can you expect.