#taleblr chainsaw man au

[overthinkingtaleblr]

I was just thinking about the chainsaw man au earlier today and someone liked the old post so im gonna talk about it a lil bit :] Specifically Fred/Spooker’s whole dealio

So. It starts with Toast temporarily being out of commission and him and Ghost realizing that having a two-person devil-investigation team, while effective, is not the best in cases of emergency. Because of that, Toast recommends that Ghost hire someone new before the next investigation, that way they don’t leave someone stuck with a devil and Ghost doesn’t have to put his life at further risk. Neither of them are too sold on the idea at first, but eventually realize that the number of people who actually know them has dropped dramatically since they started their business.

With the structure of the AU, Ghost and Toast are collectively misanthropic because they’re basically married to their work and don’t seek to meet new people or make friends outside of it. So when most of their friends and connections either died or went cold, they just didn’t think to make new allies in their place, and they’ve just realized that might catch up to them. Plus— Ghost struggles to understand and get along with people, while Toast is working through a lot of trauma and is scared to make new friends. Luckily they put their lives first, and make a little eBay ad to try to get a new member.

In enters Fred! He’s about the same age as Ghost and seems a little skittish as soon as he meets up with Ghost. Initially waving him off as being dead weight, Ghost decides to give him a walkthrough of a job instead of an interview to try to scare him off. However, the job runs slow and the two get to know each other over time. Fred admits that while he’s had a couple encounters with devils before, which is why he said he thought he might be able to work with the team, he actually just really needed the money and was running out of options. He’s obviously anxious Ghost is going to be annoyed at his initial dishonesty, but Ghost concludes that being too invested in wanting to “take down” any specific demon is counterproductive to what they’re trying to do, so it might be better Fred is less personally involved.

Over the course of the job(s?), the new guy shows a lot of intelligence and understanding not of the devil, but the world around them and what seemed to be manipulated. He’s incredibly down-to-earth and is able to use his grasp on reality to stay calm when things start to get a little freaky. Ghost slowly comes to the conclusion that this guy might actually have a fighting chance and future in this career that he thought no one else would be able to survive, not least of all because he’d gone this long without being scared off. While originally Spooker only has one mission with PIE before him being a ghost ever came up, I think in the AU Ghost and Fred went on a few different jobs taking down weaker devils like practice rounds or something. Toast is in jail, probably for arson, through all of this and gets to hear Ghost slowly warm up to this guy he initially thought was hopeless. Toast had mixed feelings about the whole thing, but was mostly just happy Ghost wasn’t throwing himself into danger alone— and to a lesser extent— that Ghost was making friends.

Then, Ghost comes back in kind of mopey and explains that something happened. Ghost got overconfident and the pair ended up biting off more than they could chew, and only Ghost made it out. Toast at first tries consoling him, but Ghost cuts back in to blurt that ‘Fred’ is now a fiend of the devil that killed him (probably something like a devil representing things hiding in the darkness) and is still legally working for the team. Now, actual Spooker is here, and Ghost’s resentment of him isn’t unbiased or because he’s annoying, but because that guy is a devil who killed the first proper friend he made in years. Even as Spooker tries showing that he’s on the team’s side, Toast is the only one who accepts him as a real member of the team (after he is forgiven for the arson). Unfortunately for Ghost, Spooker is actually more helpful to the team, even managing to actively save Ghost’s life in a way non-devils couldn’t. However, Ghost becomes more bitter and irritable after this incident, and concludes that having anyone else work for PIE is stupid dangerous and can’t happen again.

Until Chris comes along a fe years later, of course— and this one doesn’t die! Chris probably isn’t invited into the case, but sneaks along because he recognizes the school they’re investigating as the one he went to as a kid, and became worried for the students and followed Ghost in.