#truthshriekers au

[tomboy014]

Dipper: ...but it turns out you can trap ghosts in a silver mirror!

Danny: ...

Sam and Tucker: *snickering*

Dipper: What?

Danny: Is that why I got stuck?!

Sam and Tucker: *dying of laughter*

Danny: It's not funny!

Sam and Tucker: *laughing harder*

Danny: IT'S NOT FUNNY!!!

[tomboy014]

Johnny: You can take me for a ride any time. April: Excuse you? All four Turtles, looming in the background, murder in their eyes: Hey, buddy, you don't talk to her like that... Kitty: Feel free to beat him up a little.

Johnny might have made the mistake of trying to flirt with April in front of her brothers...

[tomboy014]

Mikey (after a lengthy explanation: ...so Barry used our dad's DNA to make us! Prof Membrane: Ah, young science. Reminds me of my cloning days when I made Dib and Gaz. Stunned silence from everyone: ... Danny: (scoots away)

[tomboy014]

Someone bribed Zim with a moose hoodie... It might be a size or two too big, but I think he likes it

From a project I'm working on, but I wanted to draw and share this scene in the meantime. Used it to experiment with colored lines and a few other things, including using a watermark.

Tell me what you think!

[tomboy014]

TruthShriekers AU, The Road Trip, Part 1

A train, a taxi and a few bus rides later, and Dib is the first one to reach Amity Park.  He had to ask for directions a few times, but eventually, he found his way to one Wes Weston’s house, and Dib is thrilled!  Since his hometown is the next stop, he’s traveling light: enough clothes for the week, his laptop, camera and as much ghost hunting gear as he could cram into the thing.  And the readings he’s already collecting are promising.

But the most exciting thing?  The few times he’s explained to people that he’s here for ghost hunting, no one has called him crazy for believing in ghosts.  Sure, they’ve called him crazy for going after them, and none of them are fans of ghost hunters, but everyone in this town acknowledges the supernatural exists!

Wes is slightly more concerned by the unescorted child who showed up on his doorstep alone.  He’d figured his dad or something would have given him a ride.  Amity Park is close to Dib’s home, but it’s not that close; it’s at least a 3-4 hour drive away and in a different state.  And how is this little guy such a know-it-all?  As soon as he walked through the door, he started explaining ghost hunting to Wes, a lot of it wrong, like he doesn’t live in the most haunted city in America.  The trip hasn’t even started yet, and this brat is insufferable.

Thankfully, the kid couldn’t monologue for long before there’s a knock at the door, and finally, April O’Neil is here!  This is the person he was actually excited to meet.  April has been giving Wes a ton of advice to improve his photography and journalism ever since she went to college, and they’re going to work together this summer to help develop his portfolio by making a bit of a “mockumentary” of their summer trip.

But April is a lot more… apologetic than expected.  She’s already exasperated (and she hasn’t even dealt with Dib yet) while she apologizes because her dum-dum brothers went ahead and invited themselves onto their trip but she promises they’re going to pay their own way and don’t freak out because they look kind of different, but we don’t have time for that right now!  Because there’s no way.  There’s no freaking way!  It’s been modified, but there’s nothing else it could possibly be.

Is that the Jupiter Jim Moon buggy parked in his driveway?!!

And, in fact, it is!

But there’s not much time to be surprised by the Moon Buggy, as 4 guys in full hazmat suits with quick Ghost Buster stickers slapped on pop out, and they’re… green?  It’s hard to tell, but Wes is 90% sure these guys are green behind the tinted face shields.  Which, honestly, not unusual for Amity Park, but they’re not usually alive when they look like that.  But it’s not stopping the one in the purple jumpsuit from gushing over the modifications he’s made to what he’s calling the Turtle Tank.

Dib is slack jawed as 4 green, clearly not human, creatures pop out of the Moon Buggy while April apologizes over and over again for her brothers inviting themselves onto their trip.

“April, are you an alien?”

“What?  No.”

“Were you adopted by aliens?”

“No, they’re not aliens.  None of us are aliens.  My brothers are just a little… different.”

Dib’s not convinced, but at the very least, these guys are a lot friendlier than Zim, and Raph, Donnie, Leo and Mikey are introduced.  The original plan had been to tour FentonWorks on the first day and then explore the town, but…

Everyone suddenly has to clear the street as what looks like an armored RV zooms down the road while a guy in an orange jumpsuit screams out the window and a lady in blue fires lasers at something streaking by overhead.

Leo: And you were worried we’d stand out.

Yeah… the Fenton’s are busy today, so no tour.  The gang will have to start their ghost hunting adventure by hitting the pavement, which is fine with Wes.  He’s excited to show off the shoulder mount camera he got for his 16th birthday, but as usual, if it’s not a Fenton Camera, every picture and recording of a ghost comes out horribly.

After some trial, some error, and poking at some ecto-samples he probably shouldn’t have, Donnie figures out a filter for the camera (and his goggles), and the ghosts come through crystal clear.  It throws off the color, but Mikey and Wes work on the color and white balance enough to look almost normal, and they save the system setting for whenever the filter is applied.  With Wes armed with his camera, April with a mic, and the boys as the tech crew, it’s time to hit the streets!

It’s not long before they run into their first ghost.  Wes had thought they’d film from a distance, but April and Dib jump right in and start asking questions, and in spite of Wes’s trepidations, it goes surprisingly well.  The ghosts they talk to are known troublemakers, but not only are they not attacking, but they actually seem to be enjoying the attention. 

Over the next few days, April gets a performance from Ember, an interview with Technus, lunch for the whole group from the Lunch Lady (her “uncle?” is a lunch lady, too?), and chased down the Box Ghost. 

Wes thought things would go south with Kitty and Johnny when he started hitting on April, but 4 green brothers willing to throw hands with a ghost is apparently enough to get Johnny to stop and placate Kitty.

And it turns out ghosts are more than willing to talk about their deaths.  In graphic detail.  It’s more than a little disturbing, but no one was expecting Dib to just come out and ask, “How did you die?”  At least none of them ended up dead.

But the neatest thing has been watching the barriers come down between everyone.  All of them had been so convinced they were the only ones who were really dealing with the supernatural.  They had come up with things to shield the others from the true horrors they dealt with every day.  Except as soon as they see their first ghost, they can tell.  They all know.  And it’s kinda freeing.

None of them need to hide anymore.  Wes can freely rant about all the insane ghost stuff that’s happened in his hometown.  The Turtles can reveal themselves; Wes and Dib are currently fascinated by their turtle-ness and the fact that April was basically adopted by cryptids.  Dib still has the least credibility; he’s a 12-year-old claiming to have gone to space multiple times, but they are at least willing to admit he’s probably dealt with some stuff.

This also means Wes is probably going to have to admit that Dib is right at some point, a fact he’s not happy about with their longstanding online feud…

And while Leo is still firmly in denial that ghosts are real (seriously?), meeting real ghosts broke down the biggest barriers, and they’ve relaxed enough to start showing their real personalities to each other.  Wes and Dib end up just as snarky with each other in person as they are online.  Mikey is enjoying getting to play the role of big brother with Dib, who’s just an unhinged little gremlin that really wants to dissect one of the blob ghosts (no one will let him).  Raph’s big brother instincts are in full force as he tries to keep the peace between everyone, but April is firmly in charge, etc.

The week goes on, but there’s one ghost April still hasn’t managed to interview: Danny Phantom.  She’s gotten plenty of opinions on the local hero/menace, but he’s yet to make an appearance.

Danny, for his part, has been keeping his distance and observing, trying to figure out what kind of ghost hunters these guys are.  And so far, he’s been pleasantly surprised.  Most “professional” ghost hunters that come to Amity Park are either woefully incompetent or dangerously aggressive.  Or both. 

But these guys have taken the time to actually study the ghosts.  They take the time to ask questions.  They treat the sentient ghosts like people, and they take pictures and readings from the non-sentient ones.  It’s been kinda cute watching the big guy in red walk around with armloads of blog ghosts.  Danny thought they’d be a lot more trouble with Wes guiding the group, but so far, so good.

But, of course, Danny’s luck has to run out, and as soon as he says that bit out loud, Skulker decides it’s the perfect time for some hunting, and the fight is a rough one.

For April and the Turtles, sounds of explosions are never a good sign, and the whole group rushes to see what’s going on, and find the elusive ghost boy, Danny Phantom, in action.  Most of the civilians have already cleared out, and Donnie and Raph are keeping the rest of the damage to a minimum, so April decides to go full reporter while Wes shoots, and they get their first ghost fight on camera.

It's… intense, but not the worst any of them have seen.  They’ve had to duck out of the way a few times, but they’re getting some good shots, and it seems like Phantom is mostly winning.  Until Skulker slams him into the wall behind them.  Danny, being Danny, forgets to phase, and hits the wall.  Hard.  He slides down, rings flash out from his middle, and where Phantom was, a human boy now sits.

Wes is feeling so vindicated!  He’s been telling everyone Danny is Phantom for years.  He just transformed in front witnesses!  He caught it on tape!  He can finally- hey!?

April and Donnie take the camera from him and delete Phantom’s transformation.  You don’t expose another hero’s secret identity. 

Raph steps between Danny and Skulker.  He’s so excited to meet a real life superhero!  But first things first, “Mad Dogs, time to help out a fellow hero.  LIKE A BOSS!”

Disguises are doffed, and yes, they’ve still been wearing those stupid exterminator outfits the whole trip because, according to Leo, it “fit the vibe,” and the Mad Dogs start fighting, even April.  It goes about as well as it usually does when they fight Ghost Bear until someone finally hits him with a mystic attack (I seriously don’t know why none of them tried it in the show), and it turns out mystic stuff works on ghost stuff. 

Skulker is chased off, and then the GAV screeches to a stop in front of the group.  Disguises are very, very quickly shoved back on (there may be a helmet on backwards) as the Dr.s Fenton jump out looking for Phantom.  But, uh, nothing to see here!  Yep, yep, he, uh, rushed off… that way?  And indeed, when the group look behind them, Danny is nowhere to be seen.  Wes uses his chance to finally, finally get the tour at Fenton Works rescheduled for the next day, and they all turn in to edit what they got and share their findings with Dipper over FaceTime.

Dib and Wes also need to go nuts, because that was so cool!  Watching the Mad Dogs was like watching a real life Lou Jitsu movie!  This is also where they find out Dib has never seen a Lou Jitsu movie in his life, which is just criminal.

The morning of their tour and first interview comes, and everyone is ready to go except HOLD EVERYTHING!  The Turtles aren’t about to let April go interview the Fenton’s in her regular clothes.  That was fine for field reporter April, but she can’t dress like that if she wants to be a top journalist.  Dress for the job you want and all that jazz, and what do you mean you didn’t pack any nice clothes?!  What were you expecting to wear  when we get to Membrane Labs?!  She needs a makeover, stat!

Luckily, they’re able to find a petite yellow suit top and matching pencil skirt at the local thrift store (one of the many, many things Pam tried to get Sam to wear).  Mikey and Leo do her hair and makeup, and now they’re ready for the tour.

As they pull up, the Fenton’s greet them outside.  They’re always so excited to see young people interested in pursuing paranormal research.  The tour starts upstairs in the Ops Center, and other than the emergency ham being expired, everything seems pretty impressive.  The Fenton’s go into detail on all the features of the Ops Center, answer any engineering questions the group have, let Wes record and photograph, etc.

Then they continue their way downstairs to tour the lab.  They see Danny in passing on the second story, and Raph less than subtly waves.  Fortunately for Danny, his parents are pretty oblivious and miss the wave.  Unfortunately, they do spot Danny, and he gets dragged into helping with the tour, and the group follows Jack and Maddie down into the basement lab.

It.  Is.  Horrendous.  It’s one thing to leave parts and pieces out while you’re building something; even Donnie is occasionally guilty of that.  He can also understand the amount of stuff held together by string and duct tape.  He knows how difficult it can be to get parts and pieces, but he his lab pristine!  This is just a mess.  There’s dirty beakers and tools, cross contamination abounds, and the floor is covered in spilled samples and ectoplasm with nary a wet floor sign in sight.  Even Mikey is offended; he keeps a clean kitchen.

And why is there a torture chamber?!!

To make it even worse, down in the lab is where the Fentons start going into their beliefs about ghosts.  They’re evil.  They’re just manifestations of ectoplasmic energy and post-human consciousness.  They aren’t actually capable of rational thought or feelings.  Things that go against everything the group has observed in the last few days.  Even Dib has to disagree with what they’re saying.

Everyone can see that Danny is visibly uncomfortable.  And then it gets worse; they start talking about how they want to catch and dissect the ghost boy.

Yeah… Wes is starting to get that outing Danny to the town and his parents might not be the best idea.

But April is a good reporter, and she wants to be a great reporter.  The best reporter.  Her original question list goes out the window and she starts pushing back against everything the Fentons are saying, but they just brush it off in their usual good natured way.  After all, they’re just kids.  They don’t know any better.

Well, that interview was… disappointing to say the least.  Danny catches them outside and- Is that the Jupiter Jim Moon Buggy?!!  Wait, no, he came out here for a reason!  He wanted to thank them for standing up for him.  Most ghost hunters shoot first and only ask questions on the autopsy table.

April convinces Danny to give her the much desired interview.  No questions he’s not comfortable with, nothing about his identity.  He agrees, and the next day, he meets them with Sam and Tucker in tow as his “bodyguards” for his interview.  It includes a lot of snark from Wes, who is still vindicated! but April gets all her questions answered.

And the interview just sort of turns into a conversation.  Danny and the Mad Dogs had never met other heroes before, and they talk about the troubles that come with it.  The time they were both seen as menaces, and Danny uses the opportunity to set the record straight, even if no one will ever hear it.  He talks about how much he’s had to learn on his own, about the mistakes he’d made, and after a lot of rambling, ends by infodumping about everything space.

Eventually, the road trip comes up in conversation.  It sounds interesting, and more importantly, Sam and Tucker know just how much Danny needs the break.  It’ll be fine.  Ghost attacks have gown down since they were 14; no, the town won’t fall apart without you; yes, they are absolutely insisting he go.  Val can handle things.

There might have also been mention of aliens and a spaceship.

And so, Sam, Tucker and Danny invite themselves onto their trip.  Now, they just have to convince their parents.  It’s not hard to overshadow Sam and Tucker’s parents.  As for his own parents, as soon as they hear “paranormal,” Jack and Maddie are more than thrilled to encourage the kids and start kitting them out with monitoring equipment, ecto weapons, extra camping gear, dried and canned food, and… why not take the GAV?  They’re going on a cross-country road trip, and it doubles as the Fenton Family RV.  It’ll help defend them, and they can take so many readings!

Vlad and other neighbors may or may not have also encouraged them to get the GAV out of town.  Jack is a known menace on the roads in that thing.

They do insist on Jazz accompanying them this time.  It’s her last summer before she leaves for college; it’ll be good for her to spend some time with family.

Jazz, who had just wanted to go to college early and maybe enroll in a lot of summer courses, finds herself dragged into… she’s not exactly sure what, but Danny owes her big time.  (Seriously, what did I just get roped into?)

They pack up themselves and the GAV (runs on ecto-energy, so it also doesn’t need gas) and Sam straps her kayak to the top.  Look, she saw April’s kayak on the turtle tank, and if they’re going kayaking, then she’s bringing hers, too. 

This is also where it’s revealed to the group that Sam is loaded.  And Sam agreeing to help bankroll the trip means that everyone can also expect to eat real food on the trip, not just ramen and peanut butter sandwiches.  The group is a lot more willing to let them crash the trip if it frees up most of their budget for fun things and souvenirs.  Welcome aboard!

And that evening, they leave Amity Park for Dib’s hometown in Ohio.

<<Prev Next>>

[tomboy014]

TruthShriekers AU, the Setup

Weeks turn into months, and after two years, April, Wes, Dib and Dipper are close friends.  Forum posting has turned into DMs, private group chats, emails, texts and finally video calls.  At this point, the only thing left to do is meet.

A little difficult when you live all over the country.

So come summer, the gang is going to go on a cross country trip to meet each other and hunt the paranormal!  There are some concerns, and not everyone is super mobile, but they’ve got a plan.

Wes lives in prime ghost-hunting territory and is the least mobile.  He’s just gotten his license, but doesn’t have a car, so the gang will start their adventures in Amity Park, Michigan.

Dipper is going to catch a flight and April will pick him up from the airport when she drives over from New York.  She’s borrowing a neighbor’s car, an old junker they were ready to scrap anyways.  They’ll use it to carpool, with April and Wes driving.

Dib is concerningly mobile for a twelve-year-old, but he guarantees he can make it on his own to Amity Park.  It’s the shortest trip, only a few hours drive by car since he lives in the next state over, so they’re worried, but willing to trust him.  For now.

After some ghost hunting, they’ll swing down to Dib’s hometown to get a tour of Membrane Labs and check out his “alien” classmate.

Then, a weekend in Point Pleasant, West Virginia for the Mothman festival and a little bug-hunting of their own.

Then they’ll swing up to Chicago to check out the (second) most haunted city in America!  From there, it’s a long drive across country before they hit California, so they figured they’d save some money by camping along the way instead of staying in hotels.

But then they get to check out San Francisco!  After that, one more very long ride to New York City so April can show them around the Big Apple before they all part ways.

It’s… a lot, and it’s not exactly easy on anyone’s budget, but everyone’s been saving money from allowances, part-time jobs, birthdays and anything else they can, so it’s just barely doable, but it’s tight.  The campgrounds will have to be cheap, they need to couch surf as much as possible in the different cities, and there’s not really any money left for anything else, so it’s going to be a lot of bologna sandwiches and ramen, but everyone’s looking forward to it.

Except this plan almost immediately starts falling apart.  For one, Dipper never actually got his parents approval to fly across country by himself.  In fact, they’d already planned for him and his sister to spend the summer with their great uncle in Oregon.

It’s okay.  Instead of checking out the Bay area, there’s bound to be something in Oregon… right?

But this also means that he won’t be able to join them for most of the trip, and he might not be able to go to New York at all.  Still, the important part is that they’re going to finally meet.  They’ll make it work and meet him there.

And of course, Mikey found out about April’s plans and told Leo, who told Raph, who told Donnie who will absolutely not be left out of a chance to tour the Membrane Labs.  Mikey’s not about to be left behind on a ghost hunting summer, and if they’re going, the rest of the boys are going, too.

Downside, there’s now four more people and April needs to prep her friends because her “brothers” look a little… different from other people.  Upside, there’s now four more people contributing to the budget AND they can take the Turtle Tank.  That’ll give them all a lot more room, even with the group doubling, AND they have room to pack April’s kayak.  If they’re going to go camping across country and hit up two cities on Lake Michigan, she’s bringing it.

Plus, the Turtle Tank doesn’t run on gas.  She doesn’t know what it runs on, but it means they don’t need money for gas anymore or to stop to refuel, and that’s a win in her book.

See?  The plan is still salvageable.  Now, they all just need to hit the road.

After all, what else can go wrong?

<<Prev Next>>

Ages in this AU: April, Jazz: 18 Raph: 17 Leo, Donnie, Danny, Sam, Tucker, Wes: 16 Mikey: 15 Dib, Dipper, Mabel: 12 Zim: ?

[tomboy014]

Brainstorming some ideas for my TruthShriekers AU, and I had the idea that the guys could use Steven Universe to help deprogram/de-brainwash Zim after all the Irken propaganda he was raised on, and I had some thoughts:

First, Danny would really really really latch onto the episode Space Race. Not just because he really needed to hear the message that it's okay to bail, but I think he'd also empathize with Pearl while he's dealing with his own lost dream of being an astronaut. (Also gives Wes a chance to see some of the negative impacts being Phantom has on Danny, up close and personal)

Second, while at first I thought having Zim watch Steven Universe would be a good way for everyone to show him a lot of parallels to the Irken Empire and get him to start questioning things, I realized there's a lot of stuff in the show that would probably be pretty triggering for him. Every time they bring up Amethyst being made "wrong" (defective), Steve going on trial for the death of one of Homeworld's leader (his trial), the Gems' personalities being overwritten (re-encoded) by White Diamond is eerily similar to Zim's own experiences.

And worst of all, watching Steven's diamond get ripped out of him and his organic half fading away, that's got to be pretty close of one of Zim's greatest fears (his PAK being ripped away and deactivated).

Yeah, I think this watch-through is going to need a lot more pauses for Zim than I originally thought. Chances for Leo to talk him down from panic attacks, for Raph to squeeze him tight while they watch so he knows he's safe while he hides in his moose hoodie, and for Mabel to hold his hand because she can't watch Change Your Mind with her eyes open, either...

... I'm keeping it.

[tomboy014]

Stupid shit I do when delving into the background info for this WIP for some reason included figuring out character drink preference when it came to Poop vs Pitt cola, aka the in-universe Coke vs Pepsi debate.

The results were:

Amity Parkers: The Nasty Burger serves Pitt brand products, so all the Amity Park teens are Pitt Cola fans.

Gravity Falls: Pitt Cola, duh

City from Invader Zim: Poop Cola, another duh

The Turtles: New York is another big Poop Cola area, but the boys are actually split. Leo, April and Donnie prefer Poop, while Raph and Mikey are Pitt fans

[tomboy014]

TruthShriekers AU, the Premise

I had originally wanted to wait until I made some art for this before I posted anything, but if I did that, I never get around to posting anything, so here we go!

The original idea started with Dib Membrane and Wes Weston arguing on the Truth Shrieker forums. I thought it'd be funny if these two were bitter rivals, constantly yelling about each other posting photos and videos that were obviously photoschmooped every time they post about Zim/Phantom, respectively.

From there, Wes finds out that one of his fellow Stoneheads (April O'Neil) is also a fan of the paranormal, and sends her an invite so they can geek out about cryptids, ghost stories, etc. She's gotten infamous on the site. Everytime an elbow or quick glimpse of one of the turtles is caught on her videos, she completely ignores everyone's questions about "the green things."

Mikey finds out about the Truth Shriekers through April, and makes his own account, though he mostly lurks on the forums. The few times he does post, he does it through April's account and signs the post DrDelicata to keep with her Sherlock_Corn veggie theme.

Donnie found out about some kid ranting against green people and decided to take it personally. Made his own account just to yell at Dib for two hours before moderators temporarily suspended Donnie account for two days. Hasn't been back on the site since.

Mikey, Donnie and April agree that Dib's posts probably aren't fake, but aren't convinced his classmate is an alien.

Sam, Danny and Tucker found out about Wes posting on Truth Shriekers and made their own accounts to do damage control, but discovered that no one believes him online either. Danny and Tucker trolled Wes for a few weeks before they got bored.

Sam checks back on the forums every couple of weeks because there are a few threads will really good recommendations for books on the occult and a lot of really creepy ghost stories.

Dib usually gets nothing but negative comments and dislikes on all his posts, until one day, he gets a like. A single like. And then another single like on another post. Then another.

Dipper Pines, hungry for mystery and adventure in Piedmont, CA found the Truth Shrieker forums when he was looking for local ghost stories. He doesn't know if anything Agent_Mothman posts is true or not, but he thinks they're neat and likes that he keeps trying.

They end up fast friends online.

Next>>

[tomboy014]

Working on typing out the TruthShriekers AU summaries, and wondering,

Would you guys prefer it broken up into manageable chunks (`1000 words), or longer sections (5000+)?

[tomboy014]

Ohmigosh!

Ohmigosh!

I did it! I DID IT!!!

I finished my summary for the TruthShriekers AU!!!! Will I add more stuff? Probably. Will I keep thinking of cute and/or angsty scenes to add to it? Definitely. But the broad strokes outline of the whole thing is done. All 38 handwritten pages of it.

Now I just have to edit my rambles into something cohesive to post on here.

And then I have to decide if I will or won't turn it into an actual fic or just keep it the nebulous thing I have as a summary.

BUT IT'S DONE!!!!

[tomboy014]

Facing a bit of a conundrum: I want to make art for a crossover I'm working on. April O'Neil from RotTMNT is canonically 4'8" when she's 16, and while they didn't draw anyone any taller for the movie, I'm assuming everyone grew at least a few inches. But, I like April as a short queen and decided she topped out at 4'11".

But this also makes her shorter than the average 12 year old...

So, do I draw the characters accurately to each other's heights? Or do I draw it to feel with the 12 year old's shorter because they're kids?

Opinions?

[tomboy014]

Inspired by @broosepayne Looked fun, but I'm probably going to skip the tagging because I'm not sure which of my mutuals write

Rules: Make a 24-hr poll with the names of your WIPs and then for whichever wins, write one sentence for each vote it gets.

Feel free to ask any questions about the WIPs before you vote. If nothing else, it helps churn out the writing juice