#AltU: Burnerswap

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Savor the sting As she severs you, Madame Guillotine Slice, come paradise Hail her majesty, Madame Guillotine

I'm over here going FUCKING FERAL about my own AU... burnerswap Julie........my evil beloved......

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You vs the marriage they told you wouldn't interfere with them doing their jobs as enforcers

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have you been working on any new fics?? (your stories are wonderful, ive drowned myself in polyburners thanks to you 😔 its a good place to be)

Not really anything new, although I’ve been picking away at some older ones that I never finished!  Namely the plot-heavy sequel to my telepathic soul-bond superhero AU, the intimidatingly complicated sequel to Save A Horse, Ride A Dragon, and my Burnerswap AU where the villains are all our new Burners and the Burners are villains.

Unfortunately since I’m a nurse work has been kind of stressful recently and also my brain only likes to focus on one thing at a time which is currently original novel things.  So process is pretty slow, haha.  But I’m glad I could bring more people into the polyburners fold!

I do feel bad that I haven’t had the energy to post much for a while; revamping my burnerswap doc is the most recent thing I’ve gotten work done on, so here’s a little bit of scene-setting!

Deluxe is a mass of spires and platforms, shimmering in the sunshine outside Red’s window.  Red stares up at the ceiling, at the pale golden glow of sunlight on the pale polymer.  He can hear the sound of someone loudly imitating an electric guitar, and faint thumps and thuds through the wall; Duke is taking his traditional lengthy shower and using up all their precious hot water.  From the smells drifting up from downstairs, Jacob is already up and in the kitchen experimenting.  Kaia is probably upstairs on the roof, tending to her plants, and Abraham had to go back down to the undercity last night.  His absence is a hole; no sound of him talking to Jacob in the kitchen, working out irritatingly on Red’s balcony, yelling at Duke for using up the water.  There’s always something slightly off, a little bit wrong, when part of their team is missing.

Red sits up, buckles his patch on over the remnant of his left eye, and pushes himself up out of bed to see what’s for breakfast.

Jacob is stirring something in a pan when he Red arrives.  There’s a heaping basket of miscellaneous vegetables on the counter next to him, so probably Red’s in for some kind of veggie abomination this morning—but it’s a veggie abomination Red doesn’t have to make and then burn, and he doesn’t really have a sense of taste anymore, anyway.  Red drops into a chair, and Jacob piles up a plate of fried vegetables and sets it wordlessly down in front of him.

It’s quiet for a while. Red eats as much as he can manage, and Jacob knows him well enough not to frown when Red has to push the plate away half-eaten.  

“Quiet night?” he says, eventually.

“All quiet in the pit,” Red says, and goes to the cooler to fish out a nutrient shake instead.  “No calls from Abraham.  No alerts, no bots, no Dragon.”

“Mm.”  Jacob shakes his head, making an unconvinced grumbling noise.  “They’ll come.  They always do.”

Red can’t argue that. He stayed on the edge of the platform until the small hours of the morning, looking down into the dark city far below, watching every gleam of light and flicker of movement, waiting for the first flash of red glass eyes or matte metal claws.

The others drift downstairs eventually, one at a time; Duke grimaces at the vegetable mess, but Kaia piles in with every sign of enjoyment.  Red sits back and listens to Jacob and Duke bicker, Kaia’s laughing jabs at both of them indiscriminately, and lets the sunlight soften some of the harsh, nauseated fatigue.

He doesn’t realize he’s beginning to drift off, but when his comms light up red with an urgent chime, it startles him badly enough he almost drops his drink.

“Come in,” Abraham’s voice says, flat and low.  “Red.”

“Copy,” says Red, and pushes himself up, already moving. The rest of his team reorders around him, Jacob heading for the garage, Duke and Kaia immediately running for their rooms, their weapons.  Red picks up his gloves, feeling the circuitry inside thrum hotly against his palms. “Incoming?”

“How did you guess,” says Abraham dryly.  “Three Climbers.  Two on North Side, one coming up from the East.  And she’s sending up the Dragon.”

Red falters in mid-step, then growls and heads down the staircase to the garage, taking the steps two at a time. “Can you make it up?”

“I can try,” Abraham says, but Red knows that tone to his voice, rough and grim.  “I think she’s targeting the medical complex on platform 18.  Don’t get distracted.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Red says, and Abraham gives a brief bark of a laugh and then cuts the call.

--

Deluxe looks beautiful in the sunlight, if beauty is something to pay attention to; Red has seen it a thousand times, growing up from the old undercity of Detroit like an indescribably huge tree made of silver and marble.  The platforms that make up the city itself look almost fragile from a distance, hovertech and superlight polymers, gleaming with solar panels and greenery.  The massive support structure that holds the city up grows dirtier and more patchwork as it descends into the bristling thicket of ancient, blocky concrete buildings.

Whole civilizations have made their homes on the platforms along that winding trunk.  Around its base, built onto the rooftops of old skyscrapers, Red can see the distant gleam of the Casino King’s sprawling compound, gaudy with red and gold floodlights.  There are urban legends about an entire lost city, one that made its living in among the building-sized struts and cables themselves, before some unspecified calamity cut all communication with them short.

Some of the midway settlements are against Kane, some of them are only indifferent, but Red can only assume that trying to bargain her way through was too much trouble.  Kane took matters into her own hands, and had her R&D invent the Climbers.

Red has eyes on one of them now; a long, low shape, slinking across the platform.  Six-legged, with four glowing eyes each, moving with an unnerving, artificial grace—the mechanical nightmare-offspring of a wolf and some kind of insect.  The tips of their claws hum faintly, lit up—plasma-cutter edges, sharp enough to sink into the polymer like hot knives through butter.  Red is a platform above them, out of their field of vision, but he’s seen the way the things scale vertical surfaces, faster than anything that size should be able to move.

As Red watches, one of them opens its mouth, showing hundreds of needle-sharp fangs lit hellish red from the inside, and lets out an awful, scraping snarl.

“I’ve got eyes on one,” Red says, keeping his voice low.  

“Yeah, yeah, we see ‘em over here too,” Duke says, tight and sharp with bravado.  “Easy.  Let’s get it done!”

“I’ve got your back,” Kaia says.  “Let’s show these things what—”

“Hey, Red,” says a voice, and something taps Red on the shoulder.  “Tag.”

The moment of shock is enough to freeze Red in place for a single fraction of a second, and that’s a hesitation he can’t afford.  A blunt edge slams into his ribs, knocks him over off his feet; he rolls, comes up on his feet again and sends out a blind shockwave of energy—throws himself to one side as a staff sweeps past where his ankles were, and this time when he lashes out he feels the impact strike true.

The Dragon of Detroit takes the hit and lets it bowl him backwards, turns the motion into a back-handspring and comes to a skidding halt, shaking overgrown brown bangs out of his dark eyes.  He’s laughing, smiling as wide and wild as he always does; the deep scar that stretches crookedly from his cheekbone to his chin twists his smile into something just slightly crooked and bitter, but his laugh sounds irritatingly, insultingly genuine.

“Chilton,” Red snarls, and the man spins his staff behind his back and sweeps a bow, grinning.  

“I’m guessing you’re not interested in doing this the easy way, kid,” he says, and Red clenches his fists, lightning crawling up his arms.  “Yeah, I didn’t figure.  Can’t say I didn’t try.”

“The fuck I can’t,” Red snaps, and Chilton huffs out a breath and shakes his head, ever-present smile never fading.  “If you really cared about not hurting anybody you wouldn’t be working for that—”

It’s the flicker of Chilton’s eyes that gives it away, and the faintest sound of scraping metal; Red dives to one side on instinct, just in time to avoid the snap of jagged metal jaws and six sets of wickedly-clawed feet.  He comes up swinging, lands a few solid hits; the Climber shrieks as one of its legs spasms and cracks, red lightning and dented metal grinding in one of its back legs.

“Backup!” Red snaps into his comm, and then there’s only the fight.

He’s being distracted, he knows it even while it’s happening, but he can’t break his focus away long enough to care.  Chilton is gone, he has to be raiding that medical compound, and Red is stuck here, fighting some stupid robot—

“Heads up!” yells a voice, and Red glances up and then back-pedals abruptly as a huge, blocky shape comes rocketing off the next platform up and drops like a comet onto the Climber’s head.  The back half of the bot gives a meaty crunch as Jacob’s construction rig lifts back off of it, leaking nasty, thick, black fluid as it tries to drag itself forward on its two remaining legs; Red steps forward, grimacing in distaste, tears a dented plate away and buries his hand in the things neck to deliver one final, merciless jolt.  The Climber whirrs, gives a gurgling growl, and finally goes still.

“Jumpin’ Josephat,” says Jacob, from inside the clunky, ugly cube he calls a hovercar.  “You still in one piece down there?”

“Where’s Chilton?!” Red says, and then jerks and looks up at the sound of a laugh, echoing off the white walls and walkways around them.  

The Dragon is standing at the very edge of the platform, silhouetted against the sky; he makes eye contact with Red, brief and grinning, one hand on the side of a stolen transport pod. Then he throws off a brief, mocking salute, and launches himself backwards off the edge of the platform into thin air, vanishing over the edge.

“Criminy,” says Jacob weakly, because Jacob is an 80-year-old man in a 20-year-old body.  

“Fuck,” Red hisses, and slams a fist down on the ground, leaving lightning-jagged scorch marks across the white polymer.  Takes a few breaths and repeats, “…fuck,” soft and hoarse, poisonous in his mouth.

“Yeah,” says Jacob, and his boots thump softly as he slides down, his hand settles carefully on Red’s shoulder.  “C’mon. Let’s get back to the others.”

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Hey I know nobody remembers the “Burners are villains and villains are Burners and Mike and Chuck are sad morally gray husbands” AU but have you considered: I still love them anyway.

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Burnerswap!Red’s relationship with Mike was “my commanding officer is so cool!!  I want to be his favorite and impress him and it’ll be great! :D” but Mike’s relationship with Abraham was,,,,,,, a lot more dadly.  until Abraham’s mom was like “my son isn’t allowed to have friends, that’s Unsafe. >:I” and then fully implied to Abraham that it was Mike’s decision to cut him off. 

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will u be making a full and published burnerswap fic?? i just found the au the other day and its so cool (also sorry if u already answered this q—i wasn't able to find it if u did)

Possibly!  I think some part of my brain is still holding out for me to write an actual full-length fic, but knows I don’t necessarily have the inspiration or the content to write it.  So really I just have to bring myself around to writing a series of little snippets mostly featuring Mike and Chuck being old married ex-villains lol.

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ammoth said to livelivefastfree:  therE ARE SO MANY GOOD OUTFITS FUCK how are we supposed to choose.[...]  burnerswap Julie in G3 for MAXIMUM DANGER LADY  Anonymous said to livelivefastfree: evil booster Chuck looking like a classy evil scientist 

Well with burnerswap Julie and burnerswap Chuck in the mix, how was I not supposed to go hunting and find an outfit for Mike too? :D  Some stylish villain!Burners for y’all

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So what exactly is the burnerswap AU? I've been going through everything in your tag (here and splickedy) and from what I can gather it's delightfully angsty but I'm still not quite sure what's going on?

It’s basically just me going “what if the bad guys were the new Burners, and the Burners are now bad guys?” And in theory it’s about the  new baby villains being Burners and protecting the brave  new City In The Sky that is Deluxe.  They’re all assholes, it’s great.

So theoretically they’re what it’s about, but literally every time I try to write/draw content for it, I get really sidetracked by Mike and Chuck, AS USUAL.    

ANGST HUSBANDS

The only way I could figure out to make Mike a villain was to coerce him into it, so!  Kane Co. has been using a delicate system of guilt, emotional blackmail and flat-out lying to keep both of them doing the company dirty work.  And they’re never allowed to see or talk to each other and they missed each other SO MUCH

……………..and once they get reunited they’re so so touchy-feely, just, the grossest old married ex-villains, and the new Burners HATE it 

((Red used to work with/for Mike, and has a HUGE hate-crush on him.  Duke is hugely embarrassed by “cheesy, sappy bullcrap” AKA genuine emotion.  Abraham would never admit it, but he thinks of Mike as a father-figure and does not want to think about him making out with his husband.  Jacob and Kaia are the only ones who have any chill about the whole thing, because Jacob is a nice dude who’s happy for them and Kaia thinks the whole mess is hilarious.)) 

and there’s SO much emotional suffering and separation anxiety and making out, and anyway that’s the stuff I can’t stop writing/drawing 

I don't know how much that helps, but I tried haha.  The heroes–>villains and villains–>heroes thing is the main point but the muckles is what actually happened, so………so.  Yeah.  U/////////U

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I used a randomizer to jump to random pages of my motorcity dump document last night, and did some illustrations!

......................geez I write a lot of Muckles.  :Tc

EDIT: why does tumblr make mspaint art so blurry???? it’s better full-sized. TnT

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Duke needs to start rethinking his bets before he takes them, it’s super easy to make Red flip his shit and super easy to make these two awful old men make out.

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In your au where Julie is Kane's mom, is Claire still alive? If so, are she and Julie still friends, have they become lovers, or are they enemies, or even nonentities to each other?

Ah, burnerswap!  I haven’t made stuff for that AU in too long, haha.  Let me pull something out of my “drawn at 2 AM and never published” folder

Julie obviously had a child with somebody, but that was a long time ago and I don’t think he was ever a major part of her/her son’s life.  

……………oh no, does this make Claire…..Abraham’s stylish, too-sharp aunt?  DOES SHE KNOW HE’S IN THE RESISTANCE.  Does she keep his secrets in this AU like she kept Julie’s in canon?!?!?!

OH MY GOD WHAT A FUN PLOTLINE THO

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you've drawn baby muck fusion, normal muck fusion, nightmare muck fusion SO! concept: hot older muck fusion (alternatively, tired burnerswap muck fusion)

what, like, from the timeswap-boyfriends thing?  are you encouraging me to fuse THE HOT FUTURE BOYFRIENDS

………..oh no.

OH………NO…………..

OH NO?????!!!!

((Also: I drew sad tired Burnerswap!Muckles fusion but it turned out really sad)) (like most things I draw about them tbh)  ((so I’m sticking it down here))

their circumstances are a whole other type of sad when their fusion is a person who loves being himself and hasn’t been allowd to exist for a long, long time because now Chuck and Mike and their fusion are ALL sad old men and it’s terribly distressing all around

((I figured the booster scars would carry over somehow just because (at least in Chuck’s head) they’re such a huge blow against their relationship and breaking his promise not to use them is something he feels like he can’t make up for))

((for the first time in a very, very long time, they fuse and almost immediately de-stabilize and un-fuse again, to the intense distress of at least two of the three parties involved))

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whenever I try to draw cute sexy married Muckles for the Burnerswap AU it turns into angst??? It’s a problem???

#suggestive but mostly just depressing, for anybody who’s on at 1:30 AM

there’s no reason to be scared he’s going to leave, he’s obviously not going to leave, it’s stupid to be scared and it’s even stupider to cry about it

but the fear is there anyway

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BurnerSwap!AU Muckles just being dorky boyfriends! (for the requests if your still doing them.)

MY FAVORITE THING. 8)c  

Altho of course by the time we hit the Burnerswap stuff I’ve written, Mike and Chuck haven’t been Dorky Boyfriends in quite a while

they’re mostly Tired Husbands at this point.

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burnerswap: "YOU WERE LIKE A FATHER TO ME", Red making faces apart from "keymashing rage" (what's his deal anyway), Number Two!! Tennie?? I'm getting carried away. pls feel free to disregard any of these.

Red’s just an angry boy.  Here are some alt. Reds tho! >:O  I actually endeared him to myself considerably more by drawing these haha.

He’s hot-tempered and violently self-destructive but also........weirdly pure......?  He wants to protect people but his first reaction to a bomb is to throw himself on top of it, not defuse it, and his first response to conflict is VIOLENCE UNTIL THEY GIVE UP.  

He does his best.

Duke has an awkward crush on Babs.  which is not a surprise because I ALSO HAVE AN AWKWARD CRUSH ON HER.  Pretty sure everybody does.

I can get you a Tennie from four or five years before canon!

But not a more recent one.

RE: your first request It’s a good thing Mike isn’t actually invested in Kane Co’s agenda, because if he was it would be an issue that he knows she has a son.  It took him a couple months of hand-to-hand training and awkward emotional bonding with Abraham, but he did figure it out.

.......which was a security hazard, so Julie told him never to talk to Abraham again, and never told Abraham why.  Which understandably caused some tension.  TuT