#no AU idea is a bad AU idea

[the-blind-assassin-12]

Hi!! I have a maybe weird fruit salad for you 🍍🫐🥝

Hi Kate! Hope you’re having a good week so far! I’m sorry I didn’t get to this sooner - I didn’t get a notification when you sent it (because dumblr) and then yesterday flew by in a span of 10 minutes (aka 24 hours) BUT I’m here now and I happen to believe that no fruit salad is a weird fruit salad. So thank you for my bowl of pineapples, blueberries and kiwis.

🍍What kind of AUs do you like? Are there any AUs you hate or just generally have beef with?

So I used to be a somewhat picky reader when it came to AUs. But lately I’ll give anything a chance - even if it’s something that doesn’t sound like it’s gonna be my thing - because as long as the writing is good and the characterization is done well, any AU can make sense and make a good story.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever read a coffee shop AU, because that used to be one that I’d avoid in my picky days (why? Idk? I love coffee?) but it’s not that I have beef with it anymore I just haven’t gotten around to righting that wrong yet.

I am and always have been a sucker for anything with a magical element, though. Magical, mythological, mystical AUs will always pull me in. Give me witches and monsters and merpeople and powers and abilities and visions and all that jazz.

🫐 What’s your favorite underrated thing in your fandom? (A ship that only you seem to write for, a character there’s almost no fics about, a trope that criminally hasn’t been written yet, etc.)

I think one of the most underrated things in this fandom is when writers take a character who has basically no screen time or canon background and turn them into a fully fleshed character who lives and breathes and loves and has flaws and motivations. It’s the way creators will see a character from a music video or a wine commercial or an SNL skit and make him into a whole man with a whole life. Like the imagination and creativity needed to make something from nothing but scraps?? It’s the Chopped Champions of fanfic. It’s like “okay writers, you’ve got 3 short scenes, 2 lines of dialogue, a pair of glasses and a smirk, create a masterpiece” and then they DO? 🤯

🥝 What’s your favorite trope/AO3 tag to write?

I think the things that I tend to write the most would fall under the umbrella of fix-it fics, because usually what inspires me to write for a character is some kind of tragedy or heartbreak that I want to undo or give context to. That character isn’t dead, he’s actually alive and well. That character isn’t heartbroken and alone, he’s actually in a really healthy relationship with himself and his partner. That character doesn’t have to face his past or future alone, actually he’s got family to support him and a cat to sit on his lap.

[wanologic]

sorry danny, sam will never think you’re cool

[malacandrax]

Sex worker/Charity worker Halstarion AU [set late 70's/early 80's]

---

Why did I set the whole thing inside a car :). Also forgive me that is not a period accurate interior I did it from my head because apparently I can do that now...because I keep setting things in cars...

AU TAG

To read them in order:

[Part 1- Meeting]

[Part 2-Embellish]

[Part 3-Theory]

[Part 4- Number]

[Part 5- Bruise]

[Part 6- Scenic]

[Part 7- Nice Things]

[Part 8-Pizza]

[Part 9- Want] -That's this one!

This is loosely based on current UK resources, not 70’s-80’s, and I also don’t know how well a nuanced situation like this would be dealt with by our gov/councils. I don't have much faith in the systems but we're gonna pretend they work.

[mari-lair]

AU where Gon was raised on Greed Island instead of Whale Island.

More info on it here

[mushramoo]

willry on main willry on main

[hinamie]

round 2 of prelim designs for @philosophiums n my lovechild of an au

first year trio

[bluerosefox]

Gray and Graysons

One of the Bats has a secret. Something they never told to the others.

They were so very young but they have memories of a sibling, so small and tiny. They remember the burst of warmth they had in their heart when they held the tiny baby for just a moment.

But they weren’t allowed to keep them, their family couldn’t raise them. Money was tight, just enough for three but not for four, despite their shows always bringing in a crowd it was getting harder and harder for the world to be wowed by them in the new age and their sibling was too small and tiny and needed to be cared in a single place than for them to be on the road. Their lifestyle was not good for his tiny sibling apparently.

They had to watch as their parents gave his sibling away to people in suits, them promising to give his baby brother to a loving family when they find a ‘home’ for him. He watched his parents try to be strong only for his mother to break down once the car left down the road, his father holding her and apologizing, the rest of the circus troupe all silently coming over to give the heartbroken family condolences.

Richard ‘Dick’ Grayson had tears running down his face when he last saw his baby brother.

A brother he got to name before he had to be given away.

Daniel ‘Danny’ Grayson.

-x-x-

Dick never told the others. If anyone dug deep into his past they might find his brother’s birth records maybe, if someone got around to digitizing the paperwork for him but given the fact he was placed in the US childcare systems just a few days after his birth and the fact that Dick was still pretty young they most likely believed he didn’t remember his baby brother now. Not after so many years.

But they were wrong, Dick remembers. And he kept the secret close to his heart and memories.

And the only physical evidence he had was a single picture of him holding his brother, a smile on his tiny face towards their father who had taken the photo of them together. When he had lost his parents, lost most of the things that connected him to them, to his past in the circus that had been his whole life, had been taken from him in Gotham’s ruthless childcare system, he held on tight to the picture in secret. Hid it away from anyone trying to rip it from him, hid it from Bruce when the man took him in days later, hid it from Alfred despite how gentle the butler was towards him. He couldn’t, wouldn’t risk losing his photo at the time, he hadn’t trusted anyone and by the time he did he didn’t have the heart to reveal it.

So yes, the existence of his baby brother Danny was his most guarded and best kept secret.

So that’s why Dick, as Nightwing, nearly died from a heart attack when leaving a Justice League meeting he spotted a familiar face among one of the new engineers working in the Watchtower.

It was like seeing a young version of himself. Only, Dick could see that the young man was more than a copy of him, so much more than a clone. He held many traces of John Grayson but also had a bit more of Mary Grayson than Dick did. Small details that Dick foggely remembers taking note when he had held his baby brother.

“Hey, hurry up with that report Gray!” Shouted the head engineer from down the hall, his hand beckoning the young adult to come over.

“Coming! And boss, I told you Danny is fine!” Danny shouted back before hurriedly leaving a stunned Nightwing.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 5: Flip Slip.

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 4.5)

[swiftmitsu]

hello HI GUYS. some doodles for you all yis eheh

(close ups below <3)

[finnbin]

Bill and Ford doodles for @donniipao's puppet Bill au idea because I love it so much!!! :D

I hope you like them!!

[nmnoir]

Something I see a lot in the UTMV fandom nowadays is people talking about canon. "Canon Nightmare wouldn't act like that," "Ink is morally gray," that type of stuff.

The issue is that UTMV started out as a community project and will continue to be a community project. Fanon is incredibly important to certain pillars of the fandom. People are allowed to interpret the characters differently!

It's important to recognize the source material and respect it, but you must also respect different creator's stories. This isn't a community based around one big canon source material. It's based around countless comics, animations, characters, and fanfics that have been shared for years now.

People are not just going to abandon ideas they have loved for years because of the canon of the source AU. I LOVEE seeing canon Nightmare stuff, but I love dadmare or any other interpretation just as much!

In the UTMV fandom, canon and fanon literally have to coexist. It's no fun otherwise.

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

wintersberg is really funny to me

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Over the years Tim had lead, taught and helped countless other teens come into thier powers and said teens looked at him like he hung the stars. They admired him greatly and wanted to do something to make thier mentor/big brother figure proud.

So when they found Tims soulmate they were absolutely ecstatic.

Yeah sure, the guy was the child of evil mad scientists and apparently the heir of a creepy fake vampire supervillian but they'd seen weirder couples in the hero community. They just needed to convince him to join the heros side!

Naturally they try to kidnap Danny and he has no idea whats going on other than a bunch of kids in superhero costumes are trying to abduct him. Between his powers as Phantom, that they seem to not know about (thank the ancients that ghosts don't show up well of pictures and that he started wearing a mask) and his own parents paranoid housebuilding techniques Danny escapes them easily.

Danny figured they would leave him alone eventually, right? If not he would have to call the cops for stalking and harassment.

If that didn't work he would just set all the house lazers to stun. Worst case scenario he might have to call the Justice League emergency line and yell at them to come get thier kids.

It would also be funny if he just kicked them out as Phantom

[applestruda]

Okok hear me out, boatem knights au but mumbo has a rocket launcher

[linkedin-offficial]

splatting the toons! in depth here (kinda outdated)

[starry-bi-sky]

Out of Context Stuff for a Danyal Al Ghul au i haven't posted - Pit Beast Danyal

Damian, 13: Look, Danyal, -- I am so sorry for everything that happened between us in the League, I hope you can forgive me.

Danny, 10 (allegedly): (has been secretly plotting to murder Damian this whole time, is still gonna do it obvs, but is going to make it significantly less painful now)

Danny: I-- of course, older brother. :]

--------

Bruce: what do you have there, Damian?

Damian:

Danny: (a hulking 10ft pit beast standing beside him, growling idly with ram horns gouging out his eyes and a second set of horns jutting into the air, spines down his back, and a long, spiked tail with an animalistic, skull-like face)

Damian, who smuggled him in (they've made amends): a smoothie, father

----------

Damian: this is my little brother Danyal, i murdered him when he was five. He festered in rage for the last half-a decade, took over a League mountain base in Switzerland, murdered everyone inside and then tried to murder me when I went to investigate with Drake.

Danny: hello!

Damian: we're cool now

----------

Damian: thoughts on resurrection

Danny, (a full ghost): i will succeed in murdering you if you try it

Damian: we'll put a pin in it then

----------

Danny (still instilled with League values): why don't we just murder him??

Damian, on patrol (Danny followed him): we don't murder people, Danyal

Danyal:,,,,are you sick, Dami?? Have you been possessed? Why not!?

(There is raucous laughing through the comms)

----------

Danny, five, pre-death: Dami! :D

Danny, dead, vengeful: Older brother (:

Danny, post-forgiveness: Dami! :]

-------

For some actual context: Danny is fully dead in this au, its a result of the classic DPxDC Demon Twins "death duel" trope but instead of Danny getting revived, he stays fully dead. Danny was five, Damian was seven. His ghost lingered though, and due to the proximity of the pits his ghost steadily absorbed the ambient energy it was letting off. The pits are not corrupted ectoplasm in this au, it's just liquid ecto.

Which means Danny's corruption from an angry and hurt little ghost boy to an unrecognizable monster is from his own doing. It's a result of him stewing in his hurt and anger for years, it physically warped him. He's very powerful. Danny can travel between League Bases but chose a small, out-of-the-way base in the Swiss mountains to fester in and then just. Never Left.

His influence steeped into the very foundations of the building, allowing him to transform and warp the rooms and hallways for his own bidding, Meaning he could turn it into a seemingly unending labyrinth if he so wished to, and block the entrance.

Eventually, blinded (both metaphorically and physically) by his own rage, Danny grew powerful enough to appear physically in the living realm and attacked everyone in the base, slaughtering them all and leaving the base abandoned. He attacks anyone who dares enter -- whether that be other league members, or the unfortunate hiker who stumbled across the base. His conscious is steeped into every nook and cranny of the building, there is nowhere you can hide where he can't find. Nobody leaves without his explicit say so. Nobody ever does.

Him appearing as ten years old before Damian in the skits above is his own physical doing. First it was to prevent Damian from being suspicious of him. Damian initially thought Danny was revived with the pits, he was too busy with his own training afterwards to notice that Danny never showed up again, and when he did notice, he assumed it was because Danny was too ashamed of his loss to face him. He'd always forget to ask about him.

Then it becomes a personal choice to appear as ten. It's how old he would've been had he been alive.

danny forgiving Damian is kinda for an offshoot branch of the main au. Whereas the main au takes the form of a ps4 first person horror game where Damian and Tim are investigating the Base for Plot Reasons. There's no sign of the rumored "monster" living inside until the end, where Danny, who was found inside the Base and has been happily "helping" them look around, manages to persuade Damian into splitting off from Tim in order to "show him something."

This something turns out to be Danny revealing that he never really forgave Damian for that fight, and he reveals through a horrifying transformation, that he was the monster the whole time. Which the game subtly hints at throughout as Danny's strange behavior becomes harder to ignore.

First from his insistence to only refer to Damian as "older brother" (when before the duel he always called him Damian or Dami), to him right off the bat denying the existence of a monster when questioned. ("There's no monster here, older brother. It's just me.") To other various things, like his knowledge of the outside world not matching up to modern times or things going on with the league outside of the base, or what happened to the other league members.

This whole idea was inspired by the song "Scylla" from Epic the Musical, with Danyal being the voice of Scylla as well as Odysseus, while Damian stands as Eurylochus. The instrumentals after Scylla says "hello" is him turning into the pit beast, and Scylla's "drown in your sorrow and fears" part is danny, as the pit beast, snarling at Damian while he attacks him.

There's a Good Ending, a Bad Ending, and a True Ending. The Bad Ending results in Damian being killed by Danny, it happens when Damian decides not to question or suspect Danny and treats him kindly. The Bad Ending is a cutscene, where Danny kills Damian quick and painlessly.

Meanwhile the Good Ending is Damian killing Danny. This is a boss fight, and it happens when Damian treats Danny coldly and suspiciously the whole time. Danny as a result, decides to make Damian's death painful as he had planned to, which is why it's a boss fight because it only causes him to double down on his anger.

The True Ending is Damian escapes with Tim. It happens when you treat Danny warmly up until the last minute, where when Danny proposes to Damian that he wants to show him something, Damian goes to talk to Tim and finally, reluctantly agrees that something is off with Danny, and that he'll be careful going in. It starts off with the boss fight until a third through, where it then changes to a cutscene where Tim manages to get the door open and Damian escapes out. It's then a chase scene down a never-ending hallway as the building actively works to keep you trapped inside. But you eventually make it to the exit so long as you avoid all the projectiles and doors.

Remember when I mentioned that Danny only lets people leave when he wants them to? That's where the treating Danny kindly throughout the game comes into play. It causes him to second guess himself and, eventually, reawaken and strengthen the love and admiration he had for Damian prior to his murder. It's why in the Bad Ending he kills Damian quickly -- because by then, he loves him enough that he doesn't want him to suffer, but is still so consumed by his rage and need for vengeance that he kills him anyways. That quiet part is what allows Damian (and Tim) to find the exit, because some part of Danny still loves Damian enough that he wants him to live.

The True Ending ends with a cutscene of Damian and Tim tumbling out into the snow/grass outside of the base. Damian looks up back to the entrance to see Danny standing there. But rather than a ten year old boy, there's a little five year old Danyal Al Ghul instead. He stares at Damian emotionlessly, blood seeping from his chest, staining his clothes, and little, bloody sword in his hands and tearstains on his cheeks, before he turns away and disappears back into the building.