#not gonna tag the nicea folks since this is pretty much just AU stuff

[void-botanist]

@vacantgodling in the Bakery Bitches AU (which hinges solely on the premise that Isabel, Rodney, and Hatt were somehow raised as siblings/if Fay and Lou got divorced the kids stayed with Lou) contact ERS has probably been banned. Possibly multiple times. Isabel and Hatt are like chill and normal petty siblings until it's contact ERS time and then they are possessed by what Fay can only describe as "the allure of the goddamn emergency room". Have they had to go to the emergency room? No. Have they beat each other into a pulp over a handful of cards? Repeatedly. Does Rodney play with them anymore? Absolutely not lmao but you know he lost several baby teeth to these shenanigans.

I think in Undermonster AU (where the whole premise is that there is a monster that lives under their childhood basement stairs, with Hatt as an optional sibling) they would fall prey to the classic childhood horror plot where they attempt to play contact ERS with the monster and end up with otherworldly injuries and a locked basement door.

In an AU I'm calling Scholarshipping Up to Salles (where the premise is that Isabel and Rodney got private school scholarships and Isabel becomes BFFs with Fabian instead of Spinder) I think Fabian has scars from Isabel taking this way too seriously (though he's probably managed to give her one right back), and he's so envious of Darnell, who doesn't get tackled nearly so hard. Literally he's sitting in the corner with a nosebleed thinking that she would be nicer to him if he were bi (and he's not entirely wrong).

In actual canon Isabel would still love contact ERS but who would play it with her (well except Tatya, which would probably make her not want to play)?

I was gonna leave it there but then I realized there are three other siblings who would play with less intensity but absolute tenacity: the Labissarns. And Vikedr, too. I kinda want to have Sheri witness them playing it because he definitely thinks that Gannet is not the kind of guy who would wrestle for cards - and play just as dirty as Eely, for that matter - but he totally is.

Sheri taglist: @kk7-rbs