#cant wait to see the responses to this one

[dweebiemars]

AU Switcheroo: Prologue

AU where MC became the head of Onychinus and Sylus became a Deepspace Hunter

a/n: this is an ongoing fic, and is a work of fiction inspired by Love and Deepspace; while I would love to stick to as much canon/lore as possible, the nature of this au means there will be deviations from the original story.

cw: for the prologue, mild language. eventually there will be mature themes including sexual content (inuendo, ANGST, fantasies, smut) sylus x fmc dynamic, language, some descriptions of violence, stalking, sylus as a not so by-the-book hunter/dirty cop

please do not republish, translate, or share without credit on any platform. this work is completely my own and no other account has permission to reuse, repurpose or redistribute without written consent from me, the author.

Pt 1: Missed Connections (1700 words)

He looks bored.

The tall deepspace hunter who looked like the first thread of a thousand dangerous thoughts stands in the corner of the bustling coffee shop, his eyes cast down to where he’s thumbing through his phone. His eyes half-lidded, his head canted to the side at a slight angle in concentration that seems more like a way to block out his surroundings rather than to focus on whatever is on the screen. On his own, he would have appeared like any other caffeine-deprived commuter waiting near the pickup counter for his order, presumably on his way to work like the hundreds of ordinary citizens who pass through this shop every day. To an untrained or uninterested eye, the only remarkable thing about this man is the way his silver-topped head towers over everyone else in the shop; he is, in legal terms, fucking ginormous. He stands a literal head taller than everyone else in the room, visible to every eye in the shop by lack of possible obstacles to hide him from view. And boy are there eyes on him.

There are shy glances made with whispers of admiration for the veritable adonis in their midst. Men, femmes, and thirsty theys all take turns with their appreciative appraisals in the milliseconds of bravery they’re able to risk looking at him-to flirt with the possibility of being caught ogling him like today’s special menu item. But the weight of a room full of hungry stares seems entirely inconsequential to the broad shoulders that remain frozen in their pose of total aloofness.

As name after name after name is called for pickup, the crowd around the man changes, yet he remains frozen to his place with his eyes lazily entranced in his apparent doom scroll. He makes no show of agitation or impatience over a prolonged wait for an order, and no outward sign that he’s waiting for someone to join him either. An untrained or uninterested eye would probably just be grateful for the near 45 minutes they have to admire such a handsome creature. But here, in this coffee shop on a sunny Tuesday morning, at least one pair of eyes sees more than the chiseled beauty of this stranger. One gaze hungrily watches every pass of the man’s thumb over his phone’s screen, and the intervals that less interested parties would count as random. To the eyes that truly see him however, it is not random.

He’s counting.

Soft lips purse in a slight smile from across the coffee shop. A genuine response to recognizing a mind that hides so well behind a wall of muscle and brutal physical presence. The woman takes a sip of her now melted iced coffee to hide her reaction, though she knows the hunter in uniform could not have seen her-not with his attention split between maintaining his bored facade and his actual task. Closing the book she’d been enjoying before he’d entered the shop an hour ago, she slides it into her bag before gracefully rising from her seat to leave. The constant ebb and flow of patrons entering the shop and those leaving with their drinks and pastries is an easy current to get pulled into; the woman falls into step with a business man in a suit and a pair of women clad in relaxed athletic wear all on their way out the door. She keeps her gaze focused ahead of her in the way most busy people tend to only see their next destination. While in motion, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a pair of dark sunglasses, settling them over her eyes before passing through the shop’s main entrance and turning left to walk down the street. 

As she approaches the corner, she comes to a stop in front of a large black motorcycle parked at a metered spot. The woman unlocks the compartment on the seat to stow her bag, then dons her matte black helmet before swinging her right leg over to seat herself. The navigation screen on the inside visor of her helmet comes to life and she uses her fingers to input her destination on the connected smartwatch on her wrist. As the display calculates her destination and reports upcoming traffic and possible alternate routes, she starts the bike’s engine and lets it roar to life. The rumble of the bike vibrates under her, matching the hunger for speed and adrenaline that warms her blood. 

In her rearview mirror, she catches a flash of silver, the tall hunter exiting the shop with a coffee in one hand and his phone still clutched in the other as though it were molecularly bonded to him. She watches him for a moment as he starts to stroll unhurriedly in her direction, eyes still focused on the screen in his hand. She revs the motorcycle’s engine once, twice, three times in rapid succession, a warning of her intent to enter traffic-and possibly for a chance at his attention. Before turning her eyes to the road, she catches a flash of movement as the man looks up, seemingly directly into her mirror, and for the first time that morning a look of interest, not boredom, lights his garnet eyes. He raises his phone, his intent to take a picture evident in the horizontal twist of his wrist. But before he could steady his hand to line up a shot, she releases the throttle and zips into traffic, her bike immediately carrying her away in a zigzag pattern through cars on their way to the highway, leaving only the echoes of her engine in her wake.

****************************************************************************************************

Sylus stands on the street, his phone still recording even though the midnight black motorbike and its rider are now long gone from view, the echoes of the engine and the scent of burnt rubber barely a whisper hanging in the air. His eyes remain fixed on the highway ramp in the distance where he is certain he will catch one final glimpse of the daylight shadow. He’d noticed the bike on his way to the coffee shop this morning-he would know a custom built illegal mod anywhere, and the quality of this particular bike had ignited a certain level of jealousy for the rider who had access to so many black market parts. Naturally, as his position of a deepspace hunter compelled him, he made a note of the license plate and VIN to file a violation ticket later-after he has the chance to tail the bike’s owner first to gather intel on their supplier. If that information happens to be left out of his report, the Hunter’s Association will never know. It has been ages since he’s found a quality supplier that isn’t on their radar, which caused his own modification hobby to sit on ice while he puts out feelers for someone clever enough to evade the authorities and knows their stuff. Unfortunately, competence, quality, and good business sense rarely manifest all together in the people he crosses paths with.

Part of him is annoyed at this owner’s apparent ignorance or blind arrogance to think they wouldn’t be noticed on the streets of Linkon with such a heavily modified machine. Machine-more like a work of art, he thinks to himself. It’s such a shame to turn it over to the Association. Perhaps the bike will meet a fiery and unrecoverable end in his report and land a cushy retirement sitting in his garage where he can tinker and take it apart to learn every intimate weld and tender curve of mechanical engineering. Just the idea of getting to see beneath the frame has his mind racing with excitement, mentally mapping out the diagrams of each part to add to his personal catalog.

As he continues standing with his eyes glued to the highway ramp, the ceaseless counting in his head ticks on. Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight. Finally, a blur of movement that could be mistaken for the shadow of a cloud by untrained eyes passes in front of a car on the ramp before disappearing on the highway. It had taken less than thirty seconds for her to make it through the four city blocks and onto the ramp. No amount of high-level mods can accomplish that without a high degree of skill and talent. Sylus smiles as he stops the recording on his phone’s camera and pulls up the video. He slides a long finger along the time bar slowly, red eyes scanning until he pauses at a frame that shows the back of the bike and the license plate. He pinches the image to zoom in. The resulting screenshot is blurry, but not beyond the point that a little cleanup in tech couldn’t fix. He squints his eyes, his lips moving silently as he reads the plate through the low quality pixels. 109OWN. 

Sylus blinks slowly as he pans up in the image. The shot of the rider is mostly unhelpful in terms of identifiable markers or clues that he hadn’t already gleaned with his own eyes. Petite, lean body clad in black jeans and a leather riding jacket with no insignias or patches. He pauses briefly as his eyes land on the seat of the bike, and the curve of ass that he would personally describe as mesmerizing. He quickly zooms out of the image, aware of his surroundings and the limits of his cell phone’s image capabilities. He will need to spend some time on his desktop tonight after hours, where he can unleash his undivided focus on gathering more information on this rider. For leads on the illegal mods, he tells himself while shoving the thread of darker, hungrier thoughts to the shadowed corner of his mind. A good hunt requires patience, intel from multiple sources, and careful planning. He licks his lips at the thought of finally having a worthy diversion of his time and energy. He feels a flare in his right eye, a hunger awakening that has slept for what feels like centuries, now salivating at the scent of prey. He can’t stop his smile full of teeth at the thought. Let the hunt begin.

[cosmicmenacee]

"I don't like it when writers do this!" A probably useless rant by Coz

Hey yall! I've been seeing some stuff simmering to the surface (ooh alliteration) in the mcyt fandom (specifically in fanfiction) and i just wanna come out and say this

are you writing an au with one of these topics:

characters who are siblings (but not in canon)

characters who are crackshipped

huge polyships/everyone's a ship

ooc behaviors (especially when its explained via backstory)

little to no canon lore

crossovers w/ characters who have never interacted

anything that isn't considered "standard"

if so, then here's some advice from someone who's also writing pretty much everything in that list:

If someone asks you why you made a writing choice with the intention of judging, say "I did it because I wanted to"

I mean, who can argue with that?

(MORE UNDER CUT!)

Now people could try and say that "Oh its not canon! But this is indirectly contributing to [insert vaguely related issue here]! Just make them OCs!" but what does that matter to anything if you just wanted to write it? To hell with the need for explanation, fanfiction authors aren't hired! Unless you're from the past and you're writing ye olde fan fiction for His Majesty King Henry in the hopes that you don't lose your head, you don't have to cater to anyone else with what you write.

If people don't like seeing two characters as siblings, or a lack of plot point xyz, then they don't have to read stuff with those criteria. There are some really popular fics and aus that I don't really like, but the way I get by is by not reading more of them and not criticizing them on tumblr.

Now, I know me saying this isn't gonna stop the masses from screaming into the void about how "this is bad! I don't like it!" (I mean, look at me; I'm about to lose my voice to the void from this post alone). I'm mostly trying to let other writers know that these people shouldn't pressure you against writing what you want to write. You have as much of a right to write what you want as they do to criticize what they dislike.

Trust me, I've written for others before. It's not fun.

At the end of the day, people are gonna not like things. We're humans, that's kinda our deal. Don't let someone's opinion on the internet get you down. Write and read whatever you want; there's always someone who will like what you do!

Addendum: I'm not hating on ppl who just say "I don't like this". That would be wildly hypocritical of me, someone who complains about things on an hourly basis. Everyone's allowed to be a hater. I just think that making judgements to a fan-creator's face, or claiming that something is problematic when it's just something you don't like reading is not classy. It's not EVIL, just not classy. (Especially that last part; not everything has to be about morals, but that's a topic for another rant ;D )

[ceasarslegion]

Canadians of tumblr look at me. Look at me. Our general election will likely be extremely soon so look at me. Right now.

Do. Not. Split. The. Vote.

Do not listen to people on tumblr from a very different riding than you and assume it also applies to yours. Our electoral system is based on local MP elections, and all the arguing about how fair or legitimate it is will not change the fact that that is what we have right now. And that is what we have to work with right now.

On our REALISTIC docket for PM we have slightly better than trudeau or we have canadian trump. Be REALISTIC about the NDP's chance of a federal victory here, we can not afford all the moral posturing and calls for voting a certain way from certain big blogs right now, because like it or not, they have never held PM and their consistent trends in the polls have been abysmal on a national level. You are going to have to accept that instead of seeing them as a way to yell at Americans for not voting Democrat while you split the vote in your own country. If you are in a place that looks like mine:

You suck it up and you vote liberal. You don't have to announce who you voted for online, you don't have to think of yourself as lesser, and voting for a party doesn't mean you are locked into that party and have to agree with everything they do until the end of time, and you don't have to vote for them in the future. If the conservatives have no chance in your riding, you have more of a choice in the matter.

But when its fucking poilievre heading the conservatives at the same time that Trump is threatening our national sovereignty and attempting to destroy our economy, we can argue about party lines and stubborn ideologies when our nations soul isn't on the line.

We saw what happened to the americans. Don't be like that. It's not worth what will happen to your rights if poilievre becomes PM because too many progressives whined and stomped their feet about Carney not being exactly like Singh. The liberals will not hear whatever ubiquitous "message" you think youre sending by either not voting or splitting the vote.

Be realistic. Do the hard thing. If you yelled at americans who sat on their ass and did nothing to stop trump because kamala wasn't perfect, you put your money where your mouth is and you vote for the realistic candidate in your riding, not the one you like the most.

Find your riding here to see your stats broken down:

[crinj-central]

Oh my god i need a moment (spoiler leaks in the tags again)

[ywpd-translations]

Ride 755: Departure 2

Pag 1

2: Ding ding

3: The boarding the flight number 621 to Fukuoka, departing at 10:30 will close soon

4: If you're boarding, please speak to the staff member closest to you

Pag 2

2: Ah, that guy is angry

Shh

3: Oi

4: He said “I'm coming”, right?

Yessir!! I called him thirty times but he only picked up once....

He just said “soon”....

5: Then why aren't you here, Manamii!!

Pag 3

1: There's the Inter High soon, the Inter High!! Buah!!

So-sorry, I even sent many messages, but his current location-

It's been more than thirty minutes since you've said that, how's that soon!?

Pag 4

1: “Arriving late is a crime”!!

“Causing troubles is a serious crime”!!

Yessir

We told him that, too!!

3: Alright, I put Manami's ticket there, let's go

Huh!? Next to the window!?

That's a little-

Enough

4: Let's go, Yuuto, Tobirama

This time we'll fight as five people in the Inter High

'lright

Yes

No, but, he's the captain!?

Can't be

5: Ah... this must be my ticket

Pag 5

1: Kyushu

3: Take me there, too!!

4: Waaaa, Manami-saan!!

I'm so glad you came!!

Thank you so much!!

Well...

You really are like an here who arrives in the moment of need!!

Pag 6

1: Oi, don't misunderstand!! We were the ones in a pinch and this guy was the culprit!!

Yessir!

Sorry!

Ah, you exposed me...

2: Don't think you can dodge the matter of your tardiness just with your mood and cute face!!

Ah I thought I could make it

3: So?

Why... why were you late?

4: Ahh, I forgot my passport, then I remembered and turned back to get it

5: Ohhh... that's a problem indeed...

Wait!! You don't need a passport to go to Kyushu, right!?

Pag 7

1: Woah!! That was a clever excuse, Manami-san (It was so cool!)

It wasn't clever, and now let's go!!

Did you doze off?

2: Mh...? Well, on the train... it was only one stop?

So he really slept too much...?!

3: Jou-kun and Yuzukoshi-kun went on ahead?

4: They went there with yesterday's flight

Huh!

5: So, when you said “passport”, earlier- what was it, really?

6: Did you really turned back to go get something?

7: Mhh, how should I put it

8: In order to fulfill the final promise....

Pag 8

1: “The final promise”?

It was

3: a necessary piece

4: You're still wearing that ridiculous hat, Manami?

Ah... it's the one Ashikiba-san wanted last year... (Yuuto)

This is for exclusive use during the Inter High

Ohh... “exclusive use”, cool (Tobirama)

Pag 9

2: Kyoto... Kyoto...

7: Small fries!!

Pag 10

1: Then, should we go?

Are you...

Pag 11

1: finally ready?!

2: Yes....!!

3: Mi!!

6: This year's victory will be ours

Our long-awaited victory

Pag 12

1: It's checkmate!!

2: They're coming!!

3: They're coming!! One by one, to this land of Kyushu!!

4: Won't it favour us!? It's our hometown – us, Kumamoto Daichi!!

[wall-eye]

How do I deal with someone micromanaging me at work. Shes only sometimes in the department, doesn't do a great job when she is, and yet she's always telling me to make sure I do this or that even when the rush is about to hit and I cant start making 15 sandwiches when people are going to destroy the hotcase in t-minus 20 minutes.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Haiiii just wanted to let you know that mini comic of Charles being kidnapped (going on vacation) with Erik makes me tweak out every time I see it because I can't send it to my friend (he cannot know I am a cherik freak) 🫶

Love ur art btw it scratches the brain tickel

OH IM SO GLAD im so glad people enjoy that comic: thank you so much, i had a lot of fun working on it ^^ !

[vero-niche]

Yeah I'm trying my best to have fun with the manga bc that man has more death flags than a pirate ship. Starting with the fact that *literally* carrying a large cross is the most heavy handed hint that he's gonna end up on it (at least metaphorically?) that i've ever seen

[microwaving-tesilid-argente]

eyes snap open guys we have a desperate lack of soulmate AUs in this fandom i fear

we have so many possibilities to work with...

hesphael soulmate AU where your first words are imprinted on your skin in the soulmate's handwriting. they first meet when theyre like 9 or younger, so they're still learning how to write and their motor skills are shit. the words on their arms are in the handwriting of their adult selves. they watch each other grow into the person that had always been promised to them by the universe.

tesilette soulmate AU where whatever you write on your skin shows up on your soulmate's as well. the first thing tesilid does in each round is to reach for a pen. every round he spends a couple of minutes or hours staring desperately at his skin for a response.

in round 17 he didn't even have to reach for a pen - she's right there in front of him. at last.

[evillillad]

two of my wallys are coming in today...now just gotta wait for the third one....

[kindlyre]

circumstanciesposting but like. lowk obsessed w the dynamic of tsumugi and season 52's writer, hito

tsumugi is exploiting rantaro's mental illness for shock value in season 53. she learned how to do it from hito, who has the same mental illness and ergo can pull this off with devastating accuracy

hito, ostensibly, is on the side of the good guys. they arent actually allied with team danganronpa at ALL. they are however a massive sadist and their own pride doesn't allow them to pull any punches with their writing of their season, which coupled with insider knowledge AND talent (ult wordsmith) AND being a killing game survivor makes them ten times worse than tsumugi ever could be

and despite being on two sides of the same coin, hito and tsumugi fucking DESPISE each other and are constantly at odds any time they're in the same room together and openly get under the other's skin. hito keeps reminding tsumugi that she was GOING to write season 52 until hito asked for a job last-minute and their ultimate status meant tsumugi got shafted. tsumugi repeatedly flirts with hito's husband in front of them and needles the pair ccccconstantly

tsumugi also does some genuinley despicable things to hito and some other people in their periphiary but it still doesnt change that tsumugi, the antagonist, is exploiting a teenager's devastating mental state for television and hito, to combat this, is doing literally the exact same goddamn thing but more effectively

[pundesal]

“if i could love you in another life, i know i’d be the happiest man” is such a weird weird thing to say???????????

[bitchapalooza]

I'm sorry for my posts today, I guess the stress from the entirety of September was piled too high and is collapsing onto my head. I'm just so tired y'all....

[todayisafridaynight]

Hey so Snap this is going to be so fucking weird, but honestly don’t care. So I was watching a clip of Drag Race Philippines and it was the make over episode and I think they were making over family members and this father was all about getting into drag. So, I just wanted to tell you never forget how much of a lovely loving kind and caring father you have, who loves you and protects you and makes you feel heard. That’s all.

i'd have to die before i forget how great my dad is thank you for the opportunity to brag about him again anon

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

2 & 3 from section 1 for peri and 7 from whichever section has a more interesting #7 for diodore -moss

oooh these are fun ones!

2. Describe their tent set-up (outside and inside) (Peri)

I think Peri's tent is constructed similarly to Gale and Astarion's (boxy, fabric walls, little covered area outside). Deep blue fabric w/ golden astronomical embroidery, mostly the sort of thing you see on star maps. Little golden tassles around the edges of the tarp (?) and the doorframe. He'd have a small, circular, dark wood side table short enough that you can use it sitting on the ground, and a dark blue pillow next to it; there would be some parchment and a bronze miniature astrolabe on the table. The inside would be just. full to the brim with the gaudiest night-sky-themed pillows you've ever seen. No bedroll, no palette, just a nest that would put those cube pits in trampoline parks to shame. There would be two bird perches for his familiar Medani: one taller one next to his tent and one shorter one under the overhang. The shorter one would have a crow-sized bow-tie hanging from it. Rugs on rugs on the outside area ofc. 3. What would their character quest be titled? Why? (Peri)

This is a hard one! His tav ending involves taking over the Waterdeep arm of the Harpers, so I think his arc would have something to do with that. He'd be pretty bitter about being dropped into another near-apocalyptic mess when dealing with the last one a few years prior was supposed to be a one-time thing. Something-something ptsd in a world that doesn't have the words for that yet, something-something 'once a hero always a hero', something-something the weight of responsibility...he's a planeswalker so I think part of it would be whether he decides to stay on Toril long-term and directly help rebuild the Waterdeep Harpers or if he continues to run travel around afterwards, so maybe The Far Traveller/The Far Walker?

Harpson/Fae-son are also potential options. "Fae-son" nods to him being a changeling without it being super obvious (like Astarion's "The Pale Elf"). It would also mimic his backstory reveals from RoT ("oh he's not 'from here' so, like, the Feywild" -> "OH he's not from here"). 7. Describe their arc. How would a player help resolve it? What choices can be made? Can your Tav be turned down a dark path, or pulled to a lighter one? (Diodore)

Buckle up because we're in for a long one here. I've thought about Dora's story arc a lot because she's the first of my tavs that I truly made for the game while having full control over her backstory, etc. (versus Corentin, who had their arc baked into the story as a durge). Dora's a paladin of Corellon (oath of ancients) and her story arc as a companion would have to do with whether or not she should accept capital-r-Redemption, the process by which a drow can be truly "freed" from Lolth and rejoin the ranks of the rest of elven society. It involves all of the Redeemed drow's memories being erased and them being reincarnated as a surface elf. The implication seems to be that without that, regardless of a drow's actions, they'd be thrown back to Lolth when they die? Or at least that their eternal fate is unknown (which is the way I prefer to think of it for. personal reasons). Under normal circumstances, Dora would be a long way from Redemption being presented to her at all (she's not even 200 yet and has only been on the surface for a couple decades), but like with the other gods' Chosen among the companions, near-apocalyptic circumstances tend to speed up those sorts of things.

Of course, you'd have the themes of faith & relationship with deity when they're all unequivocally real and are also mostly all assholes; maintaining or breaking generational cycles; facing the unknown; morality when none of your choices are "good" (and how that interacts with morality vs self preservation); power vs freedom; identity outside of the people who made you; etc. The choice would first be presented to her sometime in late Act I/early Act II, likely the first long rest after the group resurfaces from the Underdark and you've probably gotten some of her backstory already. I have no idea how Larian would have characterized Corellon, but he's considered one of the more benevolent/open-minded deities iirc, which could be interesting to see contrasted with Mystra, Vlaa'kith, and Shar. How much that open-mindedness would extend to a drow, even one who has been a faithful follower even before she escaped to the Surface (and who inherited that faith from her father), is unclear. At the beginning of the game she would be leaning towards accepting Redemption, despite her own misgivings about whether or not she would still be her in that case.

Her final decision (at the ending pier scene) would depend on the relationship she has with the PC and the other companions. Her best ending, imo, would be her not accepting Redemption but continuing to be a force for good. If she has a good relationship with the PC, she would have something to lose. I think seeing the House of Mourning would affect her too. After all, the thing Corellon is offering to her as a way to find peace is the same thing the Sharrans are using as a way to manipulate and control others.

She's viscerally aware of how she was socialized and very actively chooses "good", so pushing her towards a darker path would be incredibly difficult but not impossible. If you side with the goblins she'll leave immediately, and turn on you if she's in your party when you attack the grove. But if you decide to try and control the cult in Act II, depending on your over-all actions before then and how you've interacted with her, you could disillusion her to the point of convincing her to break her oath. That path would entail convincing her that controlling the cult is actually the best idea. I'm sure there would be other times that her oath could break that wouldn't necessarily lock her into an "evil" path, especially with how Oathbreakers are handled in the game. Knocking out Minthara instead of killing her outright and letting Auntie Ethel go in Act I instead of killing her are two things that come to mind.

If she doesn't choose Redemption she would be at the epilogue party, of course. I'm a bit undecided on what would happen if she does choose Redemption. She may not be there at all, w/ Jaheira, Halsin, Minthara, and/or Astarion mentioning running into her in her new, reincarnated state. Or she would be there, confused, and mention how the PC seems familiar in a way she can't quite place. In that case, she would ask them how they know each other and mention something about feeling a twinge of grief looking at everyone, but that she doesn't know why she feels that way. It would be up to the PC how much they tell her (if they tell her anything at all).

[eyluvu]

how does he not miss me I don't understand!!!!!!!!!