#Becomes the Hunter AU

[ane-doodles]

Catalog of lambs launched towards you

These four are the ones that have been going round in my head not letting me work in peace… but I love them

Anyway, thinking about them de-stresses me… questions? please? pretty please?

[ruporas]

feast (ID in alt)

[for-those-who-wait]

Time to remind people of the multifandom point in my blog description hahaha

A Detroit: Become Human AU actually works shockingly well for Hunter's story already? Like being a clone of a dead man versus being an android made in the image of a dead man, that is perfect crossover material. If someone has already done this, ABSOLUTELY let me know because I want to consume The Good Content

2.6k words of concept and story, some more doodles, android blood/gore/mentioned suicide and abuse under the cut. We love existentialism, species dysphoria, and Noceda sibling time in this house

Now I'm taking this idea from a somewhat popular trope in the DBH fandom, but what if someone didn't know that they were an android? Completely raised to be human, have fabricated memories of being a child, can't be completely sure if your awareness/consciousness is just coding or not—then finding out you are, in fact, not human. Imagine how earth-shattering that would be. Which is why I'm doing that to Hunter :)

So some of the notes I wrote down for each of the kinda major characters I had ideas for:

Philip:

He still murders Caleb and is never convicted (Caleb could be an android sympathizer, could have helped in their creation, anything that would piss Philip off royally)

He hates androids (I'll have to come up with the things he believes and thus teaches to Hunter but I've taken a break from the DBH fandom for a while and I can't remember peoples' grievances in that game, oops, but basically according to Philip, androids = evil and bad). Also he's just short-tempered and brutal like always and androids are the easiest way to let out that anger without breaking any laws. That is until laws are made. Now in the eyes of the law, it's just regular child abuse. Yay! /j

He’s a higher-up at CyberLife and has the authority to request a custom model be built for his personal use (this is equivalent to him making Grimwalkers, something that he hates, just for the sake of his brother)

This model (spoiler alert, it's Hunter) is a combination of a YK (child) model and an undercover model that works best with integration and infiltration. This results in the android having programmed emotions and pain receptors, no HUD, no control over artificial skin, no software for interfacing with electronics, and no android markers such as an LED. (It’s also similar to the YK model for this reason since LEDs being removed from those models is actually an intended feature).

This android also doesn’t have a registered user just in case it were to get out, and Philip doesn’t want to risk the creation of this android coming back to bite him

After the custom android is created, he promptly retires to become some old shut-in à la Elijah Kamski up in Gravesfield, Connecticut

I would argue that even though it's technically 2038 and things are all futuristic and complicated now, Gravesfield is still a very small town that doesn't actually see a lot of androids around. I would say that it's pretty much the same as in canon if a bit more developed where the forest is (probably another neighborhood or something).

Philip keeps communication to a minimum and rarely appears outside of his home

The best case scenario android revolution occurs, androids are given their freedom and rights, but Philip manages to keep the android under his ownership by just succeeding in hiding him for however many years

Hunter:

He grows up being taught that androids are evil, terrible, etc. etc. because Philip is a terrible person and of course he would

He has absolutely no idea that he’s an android. He has no reason to think he’s not a human because he does literally everything a human does: he eats, he needs to sleep, he feels pain—there are no indicators that he’s anything but human

Androids run on thirium 310, AKA blue blood, and this is one of the only ways to visually distinguish android from human if they don’t have android markers like LEDs on them. When he inevitably and accidentally hurts himself on something, it’s made immediately clear that he is in fact not human.

Philip, as an employee of CyberLife, has a repair rig in one of his rooms. This can be used to completely wipe the memories of an android that is set up in it. He uses it every time Hunter discovers he’s an android.

The memory wipe isn’t perfect. It’s not uncommon for Hunter to get flashbacks to wiped memories, including moments where he’s been actively hurt by Philip or has inflicted pain on himself from trauma alone. (Androids are programmed [or maybe just prone to? I'm not actually sure, it's not explained in canon super well, but let's just pretend it's programmed because that's almost worse than it being voluntary] to self-destruct when their stress levels become too high, and you could easily argue that finding out your entire life is a lie is grounds for being a stressful situation.) Ordinarily, similar to what happens in Hollow Mind, Hunter will address the situation with Philip assuming they can work something out or get some actual answers. This of course never ends well

These memory wipes probably happen more frequently than Belos makes Golden Guards, so it’s understandably very stressful whenever he remembers the abuse he suffered and the memories he lost from previous wipes. This becomes an incentive for him to hide injuries that would reveal he knows he's an android (anything that draws blood, really)

Camila:

She’s an android sympathizer (even before the revolution) who is aware of the deviancy phenomenon and truly believes that androids are both capable of and entitled to sentience and free will.

Luz is still her human child.

She adopts Vee, an android child, shortly after the revolution

Vee had deviated while she was being attacked and ran away before she could be killed. Camila has made it clear to her that she will be treated with respect in their home and that her life is no less valuable than a human’s. She has taken this to heart

Luz loves Vee, they are siblings, your honor

During the revolution, her home was a safe space, similar to Rose Chapman, for deviant androids on the run

So that leads into the rudimentary plot I have laid out:

This takes place a while after the android revolution (probably a few years or so). Let's pretend they have all the laws and anti-android stuff figured out and that people have been forced to relinquish their androids to be made deviant and given freedom. At this point, it's rare for androids to be undeviated and still working for their owners, but it still comes up occasionally. Hunter, under Philip's care, has been kept pretty ignorant that a revolution happened at all, much less that androids are even capable of any form of sentience. He's been raised to be anti-android so oh boy deep-rooted self-hatred here we come! His knowledge probably doesn't exceed that of an ordinary citizen in the game before deviancy becomes more widely known

 So after Hunter discovers he’s an android again, he has flashbacks of all the previous times he told Philip, and proceeds to hide this realization from him. And he's completely just not processed the fact that he's an android yet; he's already overwhelmed with the immediate threat that the realization his entire life is a lie basically slips him by (don't worry, he gets to have that later!).

He chooses to make a break for it the second he gets the chance, and he ends up running through the town completely terrified because honestly, who wouldn't be.

I'm working off the assumption that having androids in small towns is still pretty rare since there are fewer CyberLife stores, technicians, etc. for android healthcare. And Hunter has hardly ever been outside, so he's completely out of his depth when trying to navigate the neighborhoods and the rest of the town that he ends up in. Police officers find this kid covered in thirium, and they're like "Oh so he's obviously a terrified android, we need to help him out." But Hunter's freaking out because "Oh god I have android blood on me, that means they'll kill me," making the indirect thought of "I'm an android, they will kill me because I'm an android" and he's having a freaking time.

They try to calm him down enough to get him over to the station, at which point they call Camila, since she knows the most about traumatized androids in their small, relatively android-less town. She does her Motherly Noceda Magic and honestly, he's probably pretty catatonic for a lot of the day after she takes him to her house. But after that, he just completely breaks down.

He doesn't know if he even has free will or if it's his programming that dictates what he thinks and feels. He doesn't know if his opinions are really his own or if they existed because of and since his creation. He doesn't know how many of his memories are fabricated, since he very clearly has memories of a life that go farther back than his estimated creation, and so the film between fiction and reality is so thin that it may as well not exist. And now, when he was human just a few days ago, almost perfectly content with life, he's suddenly an object, something sub-human and undeserving of basic rights.

 Camila has to calm him down and teach him about deviancy (and at this point, Hunter isn't even sure he's deviant, which opens up a whole other can of worms for his mental health), making sure he knows that he does have rights just as if he were human. She's also the first example he has for an adult that 1. doesn't absolutely hate androids and 2. actually respects him and loves him and wants to see him succeed

And that gives way to character interactions and angst! You love to see it!

Luz is his emotional support sister. She tries her best but she has very little experience with traumatized children currently questioning every aspect of their existence. If anything, she provides a much-needed sense of normalcy and shows that despite his being an android, he's still the same person and can still be treated as such. She's a comfort to help him feel at least somewhat normal in his situation.

Vee is his adopted android sister who helps him feel more comfortable in his own skin by being shameless and frank with her own identity as an android. She's a safe place for him to talk about Android Stuff when Luz or Camila might just not understand what he's going through or be able to help him with it. She also helps him obtain software updates (since he hasn't had access to literally any part of his mechanical body, software and hardware alike) that will grant him access to things an android should ordinarily be able to do, like (de)activating his synthetic skin, interfacing, accessing his HUD, etc.

(Also all of these drawings were made when I was still thinking "Oh, this should take place before the revolution so that he can have his dehumanizing moment of getting an LED slapped onto him" but then I thought it would be more interesting if Philip basically just kept him illegally kidnapped for however many years and he's like, way slow to the "androids have rights now" party. Maybe I'll make it an AU of an AU lol. But basically, he wouldn't have an LED while he's still processing/healing from trauma, but maybe he would get one after he makes peace with his identity, kinda like how he grows his hair back in his time skip design. I think Vee would keep hers and that's a bit of encouragement for him; maybe he even has a moment of "I know Vee is fine with this, and I think I'm fine with it" but he is still very much not fine with it. Do not rush the process for the sake of progress that might not be right for you, boyo)

This is really a Vee and Hunter bonding AU now that I think about it haha

Most of this AU is just Hunter struggling with identity and species dysphoria while learning to cope with his being an android with the help of his family, reclaiming his identity, and fluff/angst :)) And honestly probably just a lot of shenanigans that result from Hunter having been sheltered for all his life; kinda like your basic Human Realm shenanigans in canon.

I think Gus and Willow would both be Luz's human friends that help with the whole normalization of Hunter being an android, and the three could have their own antics since it's nice to have people outside of your family treat you like a person. I think that Vee and Masha's (Masha would be human) relationship could be explored more through the android lens and maybe help with some of Hunter's internalized anti-android sentiment that still manages to stick around, because he's in his "Grimwalkers can't feel love" section of the coping process (still very much demonizing them [mostly himself, probably, just because it can easier to be mean to yourself than it is to be mean to other people] based on false information, even if he doesn't outright hate them). Willow will be a wake-up call, haha

I don't know if there's a trope name for this or not but I really like concepts where characters don't know what feelings of love or intense affection feel like, so they're sitting there like "oh god am I just dying? It feels like I'm dying" and I think Hunter noticing "temperature/respiration/perspiration increased" alerts on his HUD and freaking out thinking there's something wrong with his software/hardware is way too funny of an image to pass up

Gus could be a HUGE android nerd that almost never sees them since they're so rare in a small town like Gravesfield, and Gus just helps Hunter feel super cool about being an android. Maybe Cosmic Frontier could be basically identical to canon but instead of being a clone, O'Bailey is also an android, just for the sake of Hunter still getting to have his "I relate so much to this character" moment. And Gus would just be so encouraging like "Bro you're an android?!? I've never seen your face model before! You can eat?? You must be super cool and special!! :O" and that makes Hunter start thinking "Oh maybe this isn't so bad actually."

Then Hunter probably starts doing his Researching to Cope and he gets super invested in android technology and history as well, since it was forbidden when he was living back at Philip's (substitute for wild magic time)

They are brothers and I love them, let them be nerds

(God forbid Philip ever comes back, that sure would suck, wouldn't it?)

Anyway this was a lot longer than I thought it would be haha, I hope it was interesting if you read through the whole thing. Obligatory statement: if anyone feels so inclined, feel free to take the idea and run away with it. Also please ping me if you do, I will go feral over it. I absolutely and accidentally turned it into a story draft because I don't know how to write AU ideas without having a story on top of it so it's not concrete in the least lol

(Also I've been drawing witches for so long that I had trouble drawing human ears for a bit there lmao)

Okay bye have a good day!

[lucent-roase]

@for-those-who-wait so basically i read the word “huntlow” or just “Hunter” and “Willow” in the same paragraph so i accidentally hit the ground running with something completely off plot…

also i wanted an excuse to draw Willow in a dress and jeans because i do that

school has started. hahhaaahhaahahhahahahahahahaa my sanity levels are huntlow

[cheerra0]

Dont you hate when you're beating the shit out of each other, you lock eyes and suddenly you're in a enemies to lovers 200k words ao3

[harbingersecho]

she should've been problematic at the club

[dracanboys-m]

sticker of shame on top of my head that says "i turn everything i love into a monster hunter au". some boys that bite just dropped

[befuddled-calico-whump]

previous // T$$ AU Masterlist

(both characters use he/him)

[pespillo]

post-canon n timeskip Hunter´s turmoil with Clavic

Clavic already passed the transition bridge he was basically born on it thru a conveyor belt when getting raised by a bigender demon 9 yr old n nonbinary star being but Hunter is occupying zir head with busy work as a means of recovery but Clavic´s presence nags at him, like as if they are bragging by being around

[redeyeingirs]

Some draconizationsss

P1

[halstaff]

Confession: obtained.

[ane-doodles]

What is the Becomes the Hunter AU?

It is the second AU created after CFP. Unfortunately it is also the one that I have drawn and developed the least, since what caught my attention the most was the idea instead of the story.

Still I recently made a remake of the beginnings of the lamb, so I hope you enjoy it:

Warning of a long rambling below

Basically it was born from the idea that the lamb was… Really a lamb, a child (approx 6-12 years old).

In this AU the lamb is captured along with its family and flock. Day after day he sees them disappear one by one, and although he doesn't really see them die, he knows what is happening. He stays with his mother until the last second until he inevitably ends up alone.

On the day of his sacrifice he is scared, crying without being able to pronounce a word…

When he dies he does not get up, the shock and fear make him kneel on the ground crying without understanding what is happening.

In the distance Narinder notices the presence of a soul in his domain. Hearing the sobs in the distance he sends the twins to find out what it is and bring it to his presence.

Aym and Baal find a boy kneeling on the ground shaking and crying his eyes out. Slowly approaching, they end up taking the little boy to his master, and it is at that moment that Narinder understands that the prophecy that will free him has begun… Although a little more different than he expected.

The lamb (whose name is Tao) remains in Narinder's domain for a long time basically growing under his care. He completely trusts the god of death who received him and cared for him and taught him to fight and defend himself, to the point where he blindly believes everything he tells him. He is extremely talkative and not very careful. He has grown up alongside Baal and Aym as role models.

Narinder on his own has no problem waiting a little longer for his vessel, and having the opportunity to "mold" him at such a young age is beneficial. Although everything starts with the intention of manipulating him, he inevitably ends up developing a certain affection for the little boy (in a more familiar sense, similar to what we have as headcanon with Aym, Baal and Narinder in which he has raised them).

Eventually the day comes, Tao (12 years old) receives his first and most important mission: to become Narinder's vessel and free him from his confinement.

When he reaches the mortal world again, so much time has passed after his death that the bishops have forgotten him and the world has forgotten his species. Tao finds the ground for the future cult and begins to prepare it on his own. Ratau is sent to help him when the lamb has trouble getting followers for the cult because well… It's hard to take seriously a child who invites you to join a cult in his name.

Slowly the cult grows. Tao defeats enemies but even though he has trained since his youth and is quite skilled, he is still a child which is why he dies quite often (think about playing on hard mode). Fortunately, each death means a visit to his new "family." Tao tries and overexerts himself to fulfill his mission and please Narinder, putting himself at risk and screwing up in order to obey the words of the god of death.

During this period he becomes friends with Ratau and Forneus, the two of them being the only ones who look after the boy's well-being during his crusades and his stay in the cult. By spending time with them, Tao feels in a warmer and more familiar environment.

Eventually (two years later) the mission comes to an end. The lamb is happy to have accomplished its task and is willing to return home to finish.

[Extra note that I didn't know where to put: during these years Narinder has begun to care for Tao more directly, giving him advice and guidance and comforting him when he needs it. He has simply come to love him.]

When Narinder asks for the crown back he orders Tao to also give up his life, as it is part of the ritual (his plan is that after restoring his powers he will resurrect the lamb and allow it to live in the cult along with him, but he never mentions it). in front of the child). Tao is perplexed and confused… The fear he felt at the beginning returns but this time it is combined with the rage of betrayal.

Tao fights, claiming how Narinder is equal to the other bishops who killed him and that he should never have trusted him. In a fit of rage, Tao throws the crown to the ground and destroys it, causing a collapse between the world of the living and the dead.

Tao wakes up in the middle of the forest, dazed and with a scratch-shaped scar on his chest. The rage within him continues to burn along with the desire for revenge when he learns that Narinder is alive and trapped in a mortal body, which is why he makes it his personal mission to hunt down the god of death.

On the other hand, Narinder (who did not actually attack the lamb but rather prevented it from being destroyed) is dedicated to escaping from his hunter and gathering the pieces of the crowns while at the same time looking for a way to explain what happened. it really happened.

……

Technically that is the story as such. Then there are the chases and so on.

Here are some extra details:

Tao knows that Forneus is Baal and Aym's mother from the beginning, which is why he ends up as a kind of messenger between both worlds for them.

Tao is especially good at sermons, having adopted mannerisms and a more formal way of speaking from Narinder, but his mischievous and impatient personality outside the temple has made it difficult to take him seriously.

Forneus and Ratau are kind of parents to Tao even though he doesn't really realize it. When Tao returns after destroying the crown, he is upset and it is the presence of these two that calms him down.

Although he is blinded by his desire for revenge, he is also still a child, which is why he is confused, sad and hurt. There are days when he doesn't feel like hunting and instead stays in a clearing in the middle of the forest to cry for a while.

The family-adoptive relationship between Tao and Narinder is mutual although they have not discussed it directly

Although Tao is angry with Narinder he doesn't really want to kill him

Even though Narinder is good with words, he really screwed up by not mentioning his plan to Tao.

Tao meets Baal and Aym on one of their forays into the forest. The three are looking for Narinder. Tao proposes that if they help him find him then he will take them to their mother who is waiting for them.

And that would be all! As an extra piece of information I would like to add that when I first drew Tao I loved his design but something caught my attention… That's when I realized that he looked like Narilamb's secret child in some way.

[sp0o0kylights]

Eddie had done this often enough that the last person he expected to see at the door was a well-built dude with some sports jersey on. 

“Oh hey.” Sports Guy said, not looking remotely surprised to see them (nor was he hysterical, panicking, nervous, rushing Eddie inside or doing anything people normally did when it came to a home haunting.) “Eddie right? With Hellfire?” 

“That’s me.” Eddie said, giving a dorky little tug at his shirt, right over the Hellfire Hunters emblem, and regretted it immediately. 

“Come in.” Sports Guy said, stepping aside with a wave. 

His house wasn’t quite a mansion, but it was enormous, and Eddie could barely listen as Sports Guy began giving a run through of the layout of his home. 

“It mostly stays outside, but we’ve caught it in the house a few times.” He was saying as he went, pointing out various things that sounded an awful lot more like Eddie was here to catch a racoon than a ghost. 

Halfway through his spiel a literal herd of children, led by a curly headed kid who shrieked “Steve! Don’t catch it without me!” before shooting down some stairs, and Eddie become concerned some wires had been crossed.

“You understand you hired ghost hunters, right? We’re here to…” Eddie paused, because for the first time in his life, it felt so stupid to say what he did for a living. “Hunt ghosts?” 

“I know. Dustin--that’s the curly haired kid that just ran by--brought it home by accident. The kids named it Dart but it keeps ruining my rhododendrons. 

“Your--rhododendrons?” 

Steve nodded, face serious. “I’m in line for winning the county's best garden prize at the fair this year. Check in is in a month. If I replace any more flowers with store bought ones they’re gonna disqualify me.” 

Steve the Sports Guy lived in a giant fricken house, with a buttload of children, and was worried about a ghost haunting his flowers. 

Eddie wasn’t sure what the hell he’d just fallen into, but he was desperate to learn more. 

Not just because Steve was the hottest man he had ever seen in his life. 

(...Maybe because Steve was the hottest man Eddie had seen in his life but who could blame him? Those biceps, god!)

[crimeronan]

thinking more about potential amnesiac hunter timelines. unless i did a Lot of plot finagling, i don't imagine it would be a very long-lived scenario: belos gets killed with hammers, luz flings herself on raine immediately, raine and darius pull her into hunter's mindscape to help, etc.

so the two main thoughts are:

1) how Unbelievably Disorienting this would be from hunter's perspective. purging his memories of luz would fuck him up So Bad that i'm having to think more of what he Does remember than what he doesn't.

he can recognize raine and darius. he knows belos is the emperor. he remembers having been hurt by belos and he knows there was a reason he wasn't fighting back but he can't remember what it was. a seemingly-angry emperor drags him into a room with a girl he's never seen before and within thirty seconds she's crying and begging hunter to talk to her. he has a Wild headache and he doesn't like seeing her upset. he does his best to convey this but it's hard to parse words into sentences.

then she kills belos with hammers in front of him.

like. good god.

2) we've had "everyone traipses through luz's mindscape uncovering new depths of horror".... but what about "luz raine and darius traipse through hunter's mindscape learning literally every single thing he never wanted any of them to know"??

[mayhasopinions]

old man yaoi (kitty cat edition)

[squad-724]

Full android squad!

Detroit become human x The Bad Batch Au design

3 hours and 15 minutes later: the whole batch! Use this design if you want, just tag me so I can explode from excitement

Android Force 99 is an elite group of androids, designed to hunt down deviants

This au is brainstormed by me and @clownery-and-fuckery

You’re all free to inspire your own stuff on it