#dion's mailroom au

[brain-bumbler]

hey. hey. you know that one au you did? where dion got a job in the mailroom? think about it again. think about its wonder and greatness. and gimme deets 🤲

oh that is my greatest work ever. i will forever have so much to say about it.

Dion starts out not enjoying the job or looking forward to it, just doing it since his mom won't stop talking about how proud she is of Raz and Frazie, and he needs something to do to fill the hours. Plus a paycheck is nice.

But despite his reservations, the minute Raz walks into the mailroom Dion has his feet up on the table smirking like his swivel chair is a throne. Big brother instinct to show no weakness.

Raz is torn because this is sort of his brother making an effort to ger more involved in psychic stuff. He genuinely wants Dion to do better and learn to cope with the changes in their family.

But also, he's ten. The Psychonauts is HIS thing in his head. He wants Frazie to join him because she was his secret psychic buddy that he probably trauma bonded with and he wants to heal the divide between them. I think it'd be normal for him to not be 100% stoked about it. Like oh great, maybe the mailroom is where evil villains are made and Dion's gonna decide to turn to the dark side.

At first Dion is jumpy and standoffish with people. But luckily he unlocks the pure dopamine of sorting objects for his repressed adhd-autism brain. He completely zones out during his shift and then snaps back an hour after closing time when the packages stop coming. Holy shit stacking boxes of different sizes into cubes like tetris and then sorting them based on color, he's not showing it but his brain is just enjoying it So Damn Much.

He gets so hyperfocused that he forgets to slack off and act superior and grumpy. He clears out the blacklog in 3 days and then designs a new sorting system. It needs revisions but that just means more stacking and sorting fuck yeah!

Gisu was expecting him to skip work to come see her but he's in the ZONE and its hard to break him away from it. But after awhile it is easier to leave because he needs variety in his day, which makes flipping across the Motherlobe and finding new ways to deliver mail great.

He makes up challenges for himself. Can he sneak packages to people from the vents like a spy, something he'd never admit to thinking was cool? Can he do deliveries while playing "the ground is lava" in his head?

Also he keeps writing letters to Gisu that have to be "hand delivered" so they can meet up. Hollis lets it slip since he solved their budget crisis by discovering Nick was stealing money, and Dion is insanely effective at his work. If only she could get him to wear anything business casual.

Dion's biggest bad habit is skipping meals. He doesn't like eating in the Noodle Bowl without someone he knows, it makes him nervous. So if he doesn't bring lunch he ends up skipping it, or even if he dues he just throws it away without telling anyone.

He makes the mailroom the most popular part of the Motherlobe tour by putting on an acrobatics performance that enthralls all the visitors. Maybe he slips out some pamphlets for the Aquato circus, it never hurts to advertise!

Having the alone time and investing in something not related to his family is really good for his personal mental health and boundaries.

[twotapbuz]

Some more stuff for Waterworks au

August gets adopted by one of the remaining psychic six members and lives at the motherlobe after the fight with Maligula

Augustus develops an aversion to large bodies of water

Ford’s brain still gets shattered and Lucrecia and Helmut’s brains end up in the Heptadome(I'm still not sure how though) 

After nearly getting kidnapped, Augustus changes his last name to avoid anyone finding his relation to Maligula

Truman and the Psychic 6 are the only other ones that know they’re related

Augustus doesn’t know about the astralathe and instead blames hydrokinesis for what happened to Lucrecia

At 15, Augustus leaves to restart the Aquato circus and meets Donna at the circus he joins

Their act involves a combination of pyrokinesis and acrobatics which helps him and Donna quickly rise in the ranks and they become one of the most popular acts

The duo returns to the motherlode when Donna gets pregnant with Dion. Augustus begins working in the mailroom. A year later Frazie is born. 

After a couple of years, the four leave to start their own circus.

Despite a rough start, the circus grew to be far more successful than the cannon counterpart with around 50 employees consisting of performers, roustabouts, and booth staff.

Augustus wears a recreation of his father’s ringmaster outfit.

Psychonauts 1:

Instead of the conflict being that Raz is psychic, it's because Augustus and everyone else in the family share the belief that hydrokinesis corrupts the mind and is an evil psychic ability. This is a problem because it's Raz’s specialty and he has no control over it.  

Raz doesn’t believe that hydrokinesis is evil and after getting into an argument with his dad, he runs away to Whispering Rock so he can learn how to control his hydrokinesis. (whenever Raz gets too close to water, a hand will grab him and throw him around before tossing him onto land)

This ends just as well as in canon, except he already knows/is friends with Sasha, Milla, Dogen, and Lily.

Aside from that, everything except the ending and meat circus is the same.

Zombie Augustus is replaced by Fire Augustus(pyrokinesis is Augustus’ specialty in this au). Fire Augustus wears a red ringmaster’s outfit with black pants and shoes. The only visible parts of his body are his head and hands which are made of fire.

His speech towards Raz is basically how Raz is evil and wants to hurt his family because he wants to learn Hydrokinesis. He then sets the tent on fire and to avoid being burned alive, Raz scales the tent.

When Real Augustus sees Fire Augustus, Augustus realizes that it's how the ability is used and maybe Lucy simply chose to be a bad person.

Random tidbits:

The Aquatos visit the mother lobe 2-3 times a year

Augustus regularly sends letters to Compton, Otto, and Truman. Mostly to Truman.

Raz and Lili are already dating before Psychonauts 1 in this au. Shortly afterward, she tried to run away with Raz’s circus but they were found out around a day later.

Frazie is currently working as an intern at the motherlode

Augustus doesn’t hate the Psychonauts but is paranoid about anyone making connections between his family and Maligula

Both Frazie and Raz spent a week at Whispering Rock when they were younger.

[brain-bumbler]

Terrible Psychonauts AU number 2/3849458

Since the circus is on hold and the Psychonauts owe a big one to the Aquatos (please don't sue us for our founder scrambling your family's brains like fried eggs) they decide to kill two birds and offer jobs/financial support to the family. Dion gets a job in the mail room. Now, normally Dion would never in a billion years agree to work for the Psychonauts, but his family needs the money and dangit, his folks are so proud of him. What is he gonna do, loaf around all day while his siblings work to support him? Hell. No. He can deal with it. Unlike Gristol, who was an insincere suck-up, Dion is grumpy, crude, and short-tempered. He doesn't win himself a lot of fans. But he's also organized and a perfectionist which makes him great at his job. He refuses to wear business clothes and turns the mailroom into a makeshift acrobatics gym. But when the mail tubes go down and his boss panics, he personally delivers every package that comes in, and it's somehow more efficient. Everyone warms up to him eventually. "Oh, you went to mail a letter and the clerk asked if it was addressed in a language only idiots could read, or your handwriting was really that bad? Yeah that's Dion, he once stayed two hours past his shift to make sure I got my medication delivered to me on time." Any school kid that wanders into the mailroom leaves with a psi-pop. The new interns figure out if they head down there when they're having a bad day, they'll get one too. Ford Cruller is the only person who never receives a single piece of mail on time, and when he does get it, it's hidden in such strange places he's sure that the kid must be secretly using psychic powers to get it there. Dion claims he hates seeing his siblings around work, but for some reason all their mail needs to be hand-delivered by him, and every time they come out of the mailroom their pockets are lined with dream fluffs.

[brain-bumbler]

Dion's Delivery Service AU Update Because @make-them-laugh expanded on this idea so well! Dion gets a job in the mailroom to replace Gristol at the end of PN2. Maybe they even make him head mail clerk right away, partly because the other lady won't stop talking about how much she misses Nick Johnsmith and how awesome he was. He gets the budget for the department and he's used to balancing these things from helping with circus finances, but he has to redo his math seven times. ... Dion knocks at the door to Hollis's office. "Hello?" "There's a workplace dress code," she sighs, and he rolls his eyes at her. A vein in her forehead twitches. These Aquato boys have a talent for pushing her buttons. Especially when he walks in and comes up behind her desk. Ignoring her scandalized look, he flips through something on a clipboard. "I have some concerns about the mail room budget." Hollis grits her teeth. This is what she gets for hiring a teenager, she reminds herself. "We're having a few financial challenges this season. We all need to get creative-" "Yeah, I know," he cuts her off with another eye roll, and Hollis is about to throw him out of her office on his striped acrobatic head when he continues, "but we need, like, maybe 2% of this?" "...What?" Her brain blinks out for a moment. It's not often Hollis Forsythe is caught by surprise. "I don't know how the Psychonauts do things, but there's thousands set aside for 'additional expenses.' I have no idea what it's for, but it's not being used for the mailroom." He taps the bottom totals he's calculated, math work clear and precise. Hollis looks at the paper and immediately runs through the steps for stroke self-detection. "I think... Gristol was fairly careless with his budgetary privileges." Her voice is ice cold. She's going to tell Agent Nein to get adventurous with his therapeutic exercises. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Two percent, you said?" She fires up her computer and starts to type. The Aquato boy nods and turns to leave. "Why bring it, though?" He pauses in the doorway. "What?" "You could have quietly pocketed the money. I know about your family's situation. It's unlikely anyone would have noticed." She's not looking up from her computer screen. Curiosity is thrumming through her, the same beast that kept her pouring over medical books at 3am knowing she'd never see an ounce of glory from it. Dion seems to be thinking about this too. Surely it had occurred to him. He isn't impressed by their organization. In fact, he has every reason to hold a grudge. So why not let the leak, caused partly by their own carelessness, continue to drain them dry? "My Nona just raised me better, I guess." He shrugs. She needs to be careful. If he continues like this, she might start to like the boy. "Remember what I said about the dress code," she says, and she finds herself amused by his scoff. Careful indeed. Then he backflips out of her office (completely unnecessary) and she lets the hidden smile spread across her face. Bringing her coffee to her lips, she takes a deep drink. Maybe she'll get to give some agents bonuses this year after all- and perhaps, some vital employees who go above and beyond the call of duty.