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#Catch-All AUs
stitchthesewords · 1 year
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Hey so like. what if I posted two disconnected scenes from a 'Cleo is a sentient and otherwise fine zombie in the middle of a zombie apocalypse w a commune full of their polycule" au that me and @sleepygraycat started talking about. what then.
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“Show yourself!”
“It’s me, Etho,” False called up, blocking the bright spotlight from her eyes, She held up the bag of goodies in her other hand; medical supplies, a box of twinkies that by some miracle hadn’t spoiled [did they spoil?], ammunition. Ammunition was getting hard to come by, but there was also a group nearby learning to make bullets. She pulled the bag back close to her as the gate cracked open enough for her to slip in.
It was quiet in the commune. Late at night, only Etho and Jevin up on watch. And False, understandably. She’d been away for a few days, having to trudge just outside their usual reach. Things were starting to get picked clean. A sheep in a far pasture baa’d. She flinched with Etho dropped down in front of her, tilting his head slightly.
“You’ve got some uh, bleeding. There,” he said, gesturing to her arm. False looked down at it and scoffed.
“You’ll never guess – broken glass on a door. Got caught on it as I was leaving.”
“Right. And it wasn’t, say, people wielding machetes that still live in the city?”
False frowned at him and smacked the bag into his chest. He gave her a knowing smile but used it as an opportunity to swipe a twinkie.
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“Sometimes I wonder if any of this is real,” Cleo said, fixing one of the fingerless gloves they’d swiped from Joe earlier. The bright green of it, even dirty, made the green of their skin stand out so much more. False huffed.
“What do you mean?” she asked, adjusting so that her head rested in the crook of Cleo’s shoulder. The sun was dull today, not that it particularly mattered. It didn’t seem to really affect Cleo, or any zombies unfortunately.
“If a commune full of people who I love, and who love me, and who love each other is just some sort of zombie fever dream and I’ve actually eaten off your face.” The hand dropped down into the grass beside them and for half a moment, False was worried it had detached. She stretched her head and relief filled her at not needing to sew it back on.
“Well, I don’t know, I feel pretty real myself.” She leaned her head closer to Cleo, though her vision was elsewhere. Bdubs was building a new coop for the chickens. They had chickens.
“Sometimes I’m worried something in me is going to break. Is that…not something you worry about?”
“…I think whatever was in me that was going to break broke a long time ago.”
Taglist below
@atherix @braxiatel @greatbridge @ellalily @lesbianwilby @em-mermaid @loombarrow @sparksnevadas @aceofthefandoms
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 4 months
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Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 3: Enveloping Feelings.
(Part 1, Part 2, Part 4 (soon))
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#lan wangji#Yungmeng Jiang training arc AU#I wanted to try out a different paneling style for this one - sorry I'm a day late! (there will still be a post tomorrow to keep on track)#The original 3 panel comic idea was fine but the point of this new schedule was to take time to push myself a bit more.#I was taking a look back through some comic artists I felt inspired by#and I really loved how Lynda Barry fills her gutters with patterns and doodles!#Obviously I'm not going as absolutely wild with it as she does but it was a great exercise!#I truly think the gutters are the most important and most overlooked part of any comic. There's lots going on in that space.#It's the same with timeskips. The implied movement between moments that we don't see changes depending on how wide that gap is#You're here for the funny tags so here's some that ties this time talk together:#I think LWJ was thinking about that second note from day 2 but it took him 7 days of hazing to commit it to paper.#I think he sends it a day later and immediately regrets it. Chasing down the messenger and everything.#You know if something actually happened to his brother he would never ever forgive himself for putting the bad vibes out there.#Third time skip was the hardest because there was so many possible flavours of jokes here. Day 8/9 was a personal favourite.#day 14 was also funny (week by week). I think the debate on 'how long does lwj take to catch feelings' is more or less:#'how long does it take for him to arrive at a particular stage of grief and yearning (and awareness of it all)#This is a symphony. There is an act by act structure. Every day he is fighting to keep his old sensibilities. He is losing so badly.#(I'll be returning to the main comic soon but there is more of this AU to come!)
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zipsunz · 1 year
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it's always raining in faraway town ☔️
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fluffyartbl0g · 1 year
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ANONYMOUS SUBMITTED
I love, love, LOVE your speedrun comic, expecially the parts with Ace losing his mind and ASL reuniting. I am VERY curious as to how, exactly, this gremlin crew of half-feral children managed to negotiate an alliance with Whitebeard. My bet is Luffy just went “rearranges reality until it’s more to his liking and everybody is left wobbling dazedly”. Also, the Whitebeard Pirates thinking “this explains SO MUCH about Ace”.
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hahah you got the “everybody is left wobbling dazedly” part right XD. here’s my answer to ur curious musings!!!
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An alliance implies equal footing, and to have equal footing with the greatest pirate alive is not something to scoff at. So good job Whitebeard for scoring an ETERNAL friendship with the pirate king 👍!!!!
Time travel/Speedrun AU masterlist
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lumineary-arts · 16 days
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(Slides 5 bucks across the table) Swap AU prom outfits please? (I’ll make it 10 if needed)
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Y'all wanted some dapper buds, you got some dapper buds! 10 bucks, up front!!
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milkcioccolato · 3 months
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FIRST MEETING!
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The first time they actually meet, finally!
I had wanted to draw this for so long, but other things always seemed more important at that moment, so I just kept postponing it🙈
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picklepie888 · 2 years
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Society has progressed past the need for more Dracmina adaptations. We need a Dracula adaptation where Mina's unbridled hatred and rage towards the Count is so apparent that she's hellbent on getting revenge. We need a movie where she takes her rightful place as Dracula's arch nemesis instead of Van Helsing, who canonically was nowhere near as hurt by him personally as Mina has. This was the monster who traumatised her husband and murdered her best friend. He hurt the people she loved most, and she's going to make sure he hurts for the rest of his immortal existence.
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somegrumpynerd · 13 days
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Some doodles for the Gay cat panic au from @krossheadquarters's anon that I finally remembered to finish
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obsessedwithstarwars · 8 months
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Danny: sticking snacks in the wall
Jazz: “Nuh-uh. You are not putting that in the wall.”
Danny: What?
Jazz: Your snack. Eat it now or seal it up and decontaminate it.
Danny: I want to save it for later. It’ll be a midnight snack.
Jazz: That’s fine. Just not in the wall, and it needs to be decontaminated first.
Danny: Why?
Jazz: Out of sight out of mind. Do you remember what happened the last time you put one of those in the wall?
Danny: What? Pssh. N-no. No I don’t remember anything. Nothing happened a-and I got to eat yummy snacks.
Jazz: Oh really? You don’t remember? Let me refresh it for you. Your snack became sentient, tore a hole through the drywall, and started attacking us. At 2am. We lost our security deposit.
Danny: The landlord couldn’t prove anything! They didn’t even show up on the security cameras!
Jazz: pointed look
Danny: sigh Fine. I’m hungry now anyway.
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blorbocedes · 1 month
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BROCEDES! ROOMMATE AU + UNEXPECTED VIRGIN!
‘Take a shot if your body count is more than 5!’
Most of the crowd drinks, even those with obviously shifty eyes and guilty demeanours. Lewis drinks.
He was coursemates with Adrian the previous semester and had to hear his bitching and moaning about the bitches he gets – the lack thereof, spots him drinking too. Nico’s standing at the end of the couch, expensive loafers careful to step around the sticky spilled beer.
He nurses his red solo cup, untouched. Lewis frowns.
‘Take a shot if your body count is double digits!’
Fewer people drink this time. The crowd goes ‘ooh’ at the ones who do. Technically, Lewis’ is 7 – 8 if you count the blowjob and her getting her period at the last second, opting out. But college athletes have a reputation to maintain, so Lewis finishes off his cup.
This time, Nico is watching him. Smiles when their eyes meet and does a mock salute, lips still not grazing his drink.
What the fuck? What could it be? It bothers Lewis that Nico’s not being honest. He's seen Nico half-lidded hanging off some guy’s arm at a party or cuddled into some girl to know better. Although, since Nico has access to all the population instead of 50%, it would make sense if his count is twice as high.
A pretty girl in a low cut top and blonde highlights taps Lewis on the arm to dance with her, and all thoughts of his roommate and how many people he fucks are forgotten.
A few hours later, the party has died down. Cold pizza and the music is less in-your-face, more indie. A small group gather on the floor playing the laziest truth or dare with a half empty bottle of Bacardi. The guy beside Nico is in an obnoxious leather jacket and tight pants, and his hand rests on Nico’s thigh.
It falls on Lewis.
“So… Lew-iss,” Natalie? maybe asks, voice slurring a little. “Do you remember when you first met Nico?”
Nico raises an interested eyebrow. Of course he remembers. However, Lewis is aware they asked the question because people think him and Nico are secretly hooking up because they live together, and since Nico’s seen with everyone. His teammate Felipe and his girlfriend are within earshot.
“Nah, man. I don't remember shit like that. I remember when I like, lost my virginity.” Lewis offers as bait.
Nico frowns, it's cute on him. Brows wrinkled up.
Naomi(!) bites. “Tell us about how you lost your virginity.”
“That's two questions.” Lewis leans back, flashing his most charming gap-toothed smile. Everyone's too drunk to keep track of whose turn it is.
Nico disappears off with Mr. Skinny Jeans.
It's a little while later when Lewis has smoked a spliff to clear his head, rejecting the blonde highlights girl’s offer back to her dorms which is on the other side of campus, when Nico returns, hair mussed and shirt buttoned more than it was when he left.
“Home?” He asks. Lewis follows.
Nico’s a pretty chill roommate. He grew up with a silver spoon and an only child, so he has no concept of sharing. Instead, when he orders Thai, he makes sure to order for two so that Lewis doesn't try to eat any of his dumplings. Lewis gets to have the flat to himself a lot since Nico disappears for the night, returns at early hours of the night with glitter on his cheek or bite marks on his neck and a cheeky smile before collapsing on the couch. Lewis can't complain, it makes bringing girls over easier. And when Nico is studying, he keeps to himself. Lewis will know, because there will be an extra coffee for him. In turn, Lewis gets rids of the bugs in the flat – the first time Nico seeing a cockroach asking if they should call pest control or sue their landlord for unhygienic living conditions.
“Why didn't you drink? At the body count question?” Lewis asks, breaking the amiable silence of their walk home, and the lack of filter signalling he was drunker than he thought.
Nico hums thoughtfully. “Cause that would be a lie?”
Lewis tries to make sense of that, doing math in his head. “No…? It wasn't about the exact number, just if it's more than.”
“Yeah,” Nico smiles, unlocking the door and stepping side. “That would be a lie.”
Lewis rolls his eyes. Nico and his riddles and his games. “It would only be a lie if you're a virgin. Which you're not.” He snorts at the thought.
Nico’s eyes flash dangerously. “Yeah?” Nico turns around, effectively trapping Lewis between the door. “You think about who gets in my pants a lot, Hamilton?”
Lewis feels a flush rise in his neck. Thank god for melanin, if he were Nico he'd have two giant red spots on his cheek right now.
“I don't care who you sleep with. Or don't sleep with.” Lewis tries to go for gruff, chill, but it doesn't quite land. He gets out of Nico’s cornering, going to the couch. “It's just weird you’d lie considering Jenson–”
“Oh if Jenson said it, it must be true.” Nico’s sarcasm is shrill and annoyed, betraying how drunk he is.
It does make Lewis pause. Jenson has a habit of embellishing stories of his conquests. The fated twins threesome never happened, he had separately hooked up with twins. Lewis remembers Jenson bragging in the locker room how he rocked Britney’s world and Lewis had worn his his shin guards with a little more force than necessary.
“Rock my world?” Nico rolls his eyes, leaning against the wall. “Hardly. We made out for forty minutes until he came in his pants.”
TMI because now Lewis is inundated of images of Nico, mouth swollen and bodies entangled while fully clothed.
“So you're actually a virgin? What about all those people?” Lewis is still trying to wrap his head around it. Nico is the most sexual person he knows. He eats yoghurt off the spoon distractingly, and has no shame walking around the apartment naked. Very sexual liberation chic, and Lewis had to draw up boxers boundaries.
Nico wrinkles his nose. “So you get with the easiest lay on campus and you're the only person he won't fuck. Do you want to admit something's weird and wrong with you, or do you just go about inferring you had sex? It's not like I'm going to correct them.” He must see something on Lewis’ face because he interjects, defensively offensive, “Don't ask why it's better to have a reputation. I know your tells. You drank twice.”
Lewis chooses his words carefully, gentle like he's not trying to spook a wild cat. “I'm not judging. I'm just surprised. Nobody figured it out?”
Nico softens at the tone. He sinks on the couch beside Lewis. “Honestly, you're the first person to notice.”
Lewis finds that sad. “Hey, we don't need to talk about this if it's a sensitive topic. I'm sorry I –”
“Jeez, Lewis. I don't have trauma, I'm just frigid. A pricktease. Nothing bad ever happens to a Rosberg.” Nico works on the complicated laces of his boots. He hates being pitied.
Lewis leans over. “It's really not all that cracked up to be. The first time, at least. Cause you're bad at it and you don't know how to pace yourself. Lots of people wait until they're ready. My first time, it was this girl I was seeing after GCSEs. We couldn't find a place so we got in my dad’s old Subaru. Lasted like 30 seconds. Wiped the whole place down but I was convinced he would know somehow. Come Sunday, I went and told him. He hadn’t the slightest clue. So that was an awkward drive to church.”
Nico gawks him, crumpling into himself laughing. Lewis regrets being a vulnerable and oversharer of a drunk. Nico’s gelled hair has come undone from hours of partying and falls over his eyes. Lewis is never going to open up to anyone ever again.
“On God's day, Lewis?! And you think I should save myself until marriage? Find myself a nice, righteous wife?”
“Someone you trust. Someone you're into.” The room spins a little. Nico Rosberg is a virgin.
“Someone who’d remember when we first met?” Nico challenges. "That's not very nice, is it? I can't believe you forgot--"
“You were checking out an encyclopaedia on space at the library. I wanted the Senna autobiography. We were 12.”
Nico’s eyes go wide. Lewis holds his gaze.
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stitchthesewords · 1 year
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Happy Holidays! I uh. I wrote 10,000 words of Mumscarian [Or, Mumscarian Set Up in one case] fanfics for my friends and for you, my lovely readers. Without much further ado, here they are!
The Stars Float In Your Coffee - Written for @mochiwrites. A Fantasy AU based on Season 8 of Hermitcraft featuring Mumscarian + Boatem Found Family. Some Hurt/Comfort, some soup making, all good stuff. 2,833 words.
A Place In Between - Written for @braxiatel. Based on an idea they sent me and Atherix one day where Mumbo ended up in a Fae Custody Battle between the Vex and the Mother Spore. Featuring Mumbo, Scar, and Grian in a way that can be read as platonic or future romance. Lots of banter, lots of fluff. 2,302 words.
Home for the Holidays - Written for @sparksnevadas. Mumbo is finally back on the server after the crossover ends and, well, he's found Scar and Grian are in need of a little TLC. Very domestic, much sharing of a bed, my de facto Christmas fic. 2,682 words.
Healing Touch, Creaking Ship - Written for @atherix. Based on Atherix's Flying Pirate Ship au where Scar is an elven captain and Mumbo and Grian are on his crew. They just finished fighting the navy and are left to deal with their injuries and spend time togeter. Much Hurt, Much Comfort. 2,455 words.
Taglist Below - DM or Send and Ask to be added
@greatbridge @ellalily @lesbianwilby @em-mermaid @loombarrow
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toasterdrake · 9 months
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you’ve heard of knight ruby now get ready for gladiator pyrrha
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clevercatchphrase · 6 days
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Page 303
(Links coming in afternoon reblog!)
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naffeclipse · 5 months
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I've been musing over a few thoughts inspired by this ask about a mafia-ish style of Apex Polarity without it being too close to Pearl Eye, and after watching a few videos of Orcas hunting their prey (which included dolphins), landed on a sort of Mafia inspired Apex Polarity AU
Also not to add another Y/N to Orclipse's growing collection but this Y/N is a white-beaked dolphin. Look! They're so beautiful!
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Sirens are cunning, brutal, and take everything with teeth and claws. The strongest kill and maim at a whim. As a siren who's not particularly strong, though incredibly agile, with a tail streamlined and dark gray with white patches, fins curved and mostly black, you're somewhere at the bottom. You're doing your best to survive and avoid trouble. You pick your battles and you pick your escapes, and most importantly, you stay alive.
But then you do something really stupid: you venture where you shouldn't have.
You don't usually swim so far up north but you're hungry, and the thought of a few tasty squids distracts you from the silent waters and vast, blue emptiness. You realize a bit too late that you're not the only one hunting.
You catch the first orca siren in the distance as a dark figure, and then another. Two who immediately cut through the water, charging straight for you like shadows. Though you turn tail and bolt, you quickly spot them in the corner of your vision. They easily keep pace, their size and strength overwhelming as they flank you on both sides, wide grins flashing their deadly teeth. You can hardly look at the mismatched color of their eyes as you dodge and weave, diving down only to be cut off by one with midnight blue colors at the tip of his flukes, and shooting off to the left just to almost be snatched by the black-bone claws of a siren with bright yellow fins framing his head.
They're toying with you. You know that for a fact in how they just barely keep back, corraling you onwards, draining your already spent energy, and picking at your panicking pulse. You have no choice but to avoid the edges of their jaws and the tips of their talons, and swim in the direction they want.
You near a field of ice floes floating on the water, and though you cut into the jagged structures dipping into the sea, the orca sirens never lose you. A desperate need for air pushes you onward. One small drop of hope still burns in your chest. Despite the aching of your muscles, you steal a gulp of oxygen and dip back down once more, charging away—
Only to run smack into a third orca siren.
This one grabs you, his burning red and orange colors filling your vision. The other two orcas join to help their kin keep you in place long enough for you to truly regret ever venturing here. Between the three of what you can only assume are brothers, hands hooked over you shoulders, claws clutching your wrists, and palms pressing into your hips, you're a fish caught in a net.
You brace for a voilent end. It never arrives. Instead of digging into your sweet meat, the sirens offer you a deal. The tips of sharp fingertips trace your jawline and the soft inside of your arms and down your slick tail while they explain.
You keep watch for human ships and report back when they're getting close, and in exchange, you get the best food you can imagine, the entire Arctic Ocean to swim, and anything else you'd like. The best benefit? You're under their protection. Of course, they expect utter loyalty from you. You are no one else's. Failure to devote yourself to this work and the brothers would mean a grisly fate, but hey, you're nothing if not eager to not be torn apart. So you agree.
You have a few questions about this whole arrangement, struggling to understand why they, powerful orca sirens, bother with a smaller fish like you when they could rip you limb from limb and be done. What's with the human ships? Why task you to this? Are you just fodder so they can keep their fins nice and unscabbed? They reassure you that they'll explain in due time (the sunny one booping your nose, much to your chagrin), but for now, all you know to know is that the human ships are a problem, and you are their solution for it. You've never really encountered humans before, but they've never really encountered sirens, or so you thought.
The burning red one lets you go, but you don't slip away too far before he tugs on your flukes and tells you to follow him. It's not a request. The darker blue one leaves for a moment, jetting away as the other two guide you to a nice resting place on an icy shore. They introduce themselves, and then their brother reappears with a squid in hand, half dead, and an insistence that you eat—they could tell during the chase that you didn't have all your energy.
And that's how you unwittingly join a very powerful pod of orca brothers who may or may not be teasing and taunting you simultaneously.
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nevertheless-moving · 4 months
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unable to stop dwelling on the discworld trouser leg of time where, in the penultimate fight scene in Nightwatch, Carcer manages to kill teenage Sam Vimes.
Which means that the future that Duke Vimes came from can no longer exist, which means he can’t go home. Meanwhile you’ve got a bunch of history monks with stored up temporal energy, a prepared space outside of time, and the need to do some desperate damage control before the Auditors get involved. Death shows up, reality is unweaving, Sam is reading Carcer his discworld miranda rights because what else is he supposed to do.
and finally, with little other option, the monks de-age Sam so he fits the time period and send him back out into the fray.
(they didn't call it deageing of course. His memory is hazy, splintered during that terrible in between moment, They....took the time out of him? Sanded away the edges of his self for a terrible, workable fit? It...wasn't a good feeling.)
Just—damn. Sam Vimes having to live his whole crapsack life over again, but this time as his disillusioned-reillusioned, unwillingly-character-developed, noir-epic, Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes self. 
Younger (Older? He's never felt so Old, His steps so Childlike, reality twisting in his gut like one of Dibbler's pies) Sam Vimes walking around in a haze after the revolution. Desperate to go home, knowing he can’t. Wanting to drink. Knowing he can’t.
The whole precinct feels pity, he really took Keel’s death hard, hardly speaks except to do his job. Eventually he has to grit his teeth and start being present, because what else is there to do?
Resists the urge to drink until Colon takes the whole watch out to celebrate because -he’s going to be a father!
Come on Sammy, one drink won’t kill you— and after the first drink he’s cracking jokes and after the second hes smiling and after the third hes honestly the life of the party and sometime after that he’s crying about how he was going to be a father and my wife would be ashamed if she saw me drinking like this and— 
Oh shit, Did anyone else know he had a wife?? A PREGNANT wife??? What—aren’t you like 12—no you're 17 now aren't you but when did—
You guys n’ver met ’er—oh gods none if you ev’n know ‘er, is jus’ me...
What—when did you lose—
I lost her the same damn day I los’ ev’rythin else, whadya think...bleeding Carcer...the fuckin revolution...
So! That! Sam only vaguely remembers the night, but rumors travel faster than light on the disc, so by the next day the whole damn city knows about poor Sam brung low by the loss of his poor, tragic, pregnant wife, so young to be a widower, and the Seamstresses nod because they already knew, don’t ask them how, somethings you just have to know in that trade.
And his mother—I don’t know, sue me, I’m a time travel fiend but there’s something deeply intriguing about a man meeting his dead parent, who is somewhat younger than him, and stepping into the old relationship like a badly fitting thing that's supposed to fit well. She would know, right? How would she deal with her son’s impossible grief? Maybe she wouldn’t know—he spent most of the time out of the house, running with different street gangs, maybe he avoids her until she dies and lives with the guilt twice over. God, we don’t even know her name. There’s just so much narrative and emotional potential that I don’t even know where to start.
When he’s on duty, which is most time - it’s agonizing because at first he remembers cases, saves lives that would have been lost. But the more time passes, the hazier his memory because in the original timeline he was becoming an alcoholic. Fuck! A kid dies and he could have saved her if he hadn’t been such a drunk, if he had just remembered where the asshole lived, but it’s all a haze, and he wants to drown out his guilt, but that’s what caused this in the first place.
Good young Sammy, who spends his rare off-time in dusty libraries (and yes, the irony that he’s apparently Carrot now is not lost on him) reading gods-only-know.
It’s not like he can ask the wizards for help, cutthroat and vicious as they are now in the not-so-distant-past.
Good young Sam, who...talks to the Broken Drum’s pet Bouncer like he’s a real person and not a dumb rock? That’s a bit weird, but he’s a bit of a funny guy.
Good old Sam, who believed the testimony of the dwarf who said the humans were trying to rob him and let the dwarf go??
the PROBLEMS this man would cause, good grief. Can you imagine a moderately progressive middle aged man with some degree of begrudging diversity and equity training that he did, for all his sins, pay attention to, suddenly going back to like, 1990, going back just 30 years, and going...oh damn this is kind of fucked up, no man you can’t say that, holy shit.
Except Sam’s lived through even more rapidly shifting social moroes! There’s no seamstress guild, there’s no women allowed inside the university, there’s no black ribboner’s society. People hunted trolls for their teeth! But Sam can’t just unlearn everything, and he can’t shut up, and he has no real luck and anyway he would absolutely get himself (temporarily) fired.
FUCK. Sam has no idea what to do with that. None. Zero clue. Wanders around in a haze until that dwarf he saved from police brutality finds him and insists on repaying the debt. No, he insists, do you have any idea what debt means to a dwarf?
“Sort-of?” he replies hesitantly, and that honest admission of incomplete knowledge shows a hell of a lot more respect and understanding than any self proclaimed dwarf-expert ever did.
Gets a job as a surface man, hauling rocks into the city. It’s backbreaking work, but, in true Discworld fashion, it’s also one hell of a workout (again the irony of being Carrot is not lost him. he freezes for a minute while hauling a rock cart, when he remembers he's technically Lost Nobility too, in a strict sense, but someone curses at him in the street and he's comfortingly grounded)
And here is where this au slides into a SPECTACULAR romantic comedy, BEAR WITH ME. Because in his time on the Watch he’s already done noir, action adventure, war story, detective who dunnit, psychological horror, but guards guards only allowed him to be a romance protagonist in an extremely limited context.
Give me righteous, twenty-something-looking, can’t-say-he-doesn’t-have-style, young Sam Vimes, not an alcoholic,  being fed three square meals a day by his dwarven forced found family, hauling rocks. He is startled to find him bumping his head on a low hanging bar that he doesn’t think used to be there, eventually realizing that he’s an inch or two taller than he remembers. Huh. Guess all that bearhuggers really did stunt his growth.
Still doesn’t get what some of the looks from women he’s getting are about, sure, he’s dirty but so is everyone else. Fine, he took his shirt off, but it’s hot out, there’s far wrinklier than him hauling heavy loads, get a life. 
Happens to glance in the Ankh one day when it’s particularly slow and shiny and is startled to realize that he might be turning heads for a different reason. Oh. Right, not that he was ever a heartbreaker, but he did alright for himself... when he was a younger and his face hadn’t been broken so many times. Which...it isn't now.
Is mildly disturbed by the revelation.
Especially once things blow over at the precinct and what with high mortality rates, he ends up with getting hired again. The boys are delighted to have him back, nevermind that he’s an odd one, noone is ever quite in your corner like Vimsey, absence makes the heart fonder, no one else works that hard, and he’s not even competition for promotion. All around great guy, we should set him up with somebody and just, no.
It just keeps getting worse! He’s literate! He’s a feminist! He believes abuse victims! He’s got a tragic backstory! He’s unreasonably good in a fistfight! He’s kind to animals! Word gets around that there’s a good man on the watch and he’s just waiting for a good woman to come snap him up. The widower excuse doesn’t hold people off completely, and for some it’s its own sort-of appeal. 
Things REALLY become stressful after he rescues that carriage full of noblewoman.
What’s he supposed to do? Let them get robbed? Or worse? Chasing down and beating up 10 goons is as easy as beating up one, when they’re that stupid, getting separated like that, drunk and distracted, and he knows these streets better than anyone, really it’s nothing. And oh lord he’s Modest too.
I mean, they were genuinely greatful, as genuine as people like that are capable of being, the skill having grown rusty. And then there is something...magnetic about the man. An air of command.
So, soon enough you get Lady Marigold of Marigrave calling on Treckle Road for that gallant young officer who rescued them, she really needs to thank him. And Viscountess Elanor Thitzferal specifically requesting that he guard her at her next soiree. And Baroness Julieta van Shoeholten insisting that he come to her home while her husband’s away, for... manly protection.
Aaaah just zero sympathy from the guys. None. 'It’s become a competition, they’re just trying to see who can get me into bed first, it’s like I’m a piece of meat, you can’t send me sir, the Marquess greeted me in a nightee last time you made me go to—' and 'small gods Vimes are you even listening to yourself, shut the hell up'.
Simultaneous to this, (again this is several years into the timeline) swamp dragon accessories come into style. Which means abandoned swamp dragons scrounging on the street. Vimes takes one back to his apartment, blows his paycheck on dragon medicine, and eventually, heart in his chest, brings it to the Ramkin estate. The sunshine orphanage doesn’t even exist yet and he’s just standing outside the gates like an idiot, what is he thinking. Turns around, but her carriage is pulling up and—
well. they meet. it's cute. he's never felt so young. he's never felt so old, too old for her, too poor—
and certainly her thoughts linger too long on the awkward, kindly, handsome young commoner, but is it any wonder she doesn't quite connect it to the stern, dangerous, sexy young guard the ladies seem to be in some quiet, cuthroat competition over?
i have this gorgeous, absurd scene in my head in which Vimes is strong armed into standing guard at some high society soiree and one of the pushiest ladies insists he dance with here, or, if he prefers, if he's not confident about his skills, he can dance with her in-private at her home and he’s like [grinding teeth, looking for a way out, seeinf one] “I would be honored to dance with you.”
Steps right into some ultra-complex dance with multiple partner swaps (she never thought he'd pick this one, devilishly intimidating to one not strictly trained, and you barely spend anytime with your first partner).
But he does alright. Better than alright, for a common man, sometimes misstepping but his hands and feet always end up where they need to be. Raises several eyebrows part way into the song because he's throuwing in some slightly scandalous, no innovative, extra lifts and twirls that wouldn't become fashionable for another decade or two. Who even is that guy? Some out of towner? No, no he's in a guards uniform...how very strange.
Gets to Sybll and she's used to embarrassment during these dances, she tries to get out of them when she can... but can't always. Men awkwardly skipping the lifts, or worse, trying and failing. But him — oh it's him, the one who helped little Erold, and looked at her like—like—well like she was someone beautiful. And he's doing it again, and he's strong and there's a quiet moment where she's in the air, they lock eyes, and the rest of the room melts away.
And then the partners change again, the moment ended.
Just...living throught it all again. To the left, a dance he almost knows the steps to, throwing others off balance with erratic moves , honest mistakes, and delibrate stepping on toes. Improvising. Ruining. Improving. Getting far, far too much attention.
Hes almost excited when the first assassains start coming after him. It's like a hobby.
Everyone tells him he should get a hobby.
Interactions with young vetinari...I don't have the energy to write it all down, the slow circling in on each other, both burning with the need to fix the city, save it, their city.
needless to say he ends up fired again, life under real threat after offending some high lord.
Conveniently enough he has an employment opportunity- bodyguard to fucking Vetinari on his 'grand sneer.' The bastard knows vimes isn't what he seems, though sam is pretty sure that he doesnt know the exacts.
Vetinari hypothesis:(the ghost of keel? Keels son, with some hereditary curse? Or a larger spirit of justice possessing a string of unrelated souls? He knows things he shouldn't- mind reader? Fortune teller? Havelock once arranged for a wizard to bump into him on the street, the magical fool gave an odd double look and then muttered something about destiny looping in on itself giving him a headache. Destiny? Lost noble? And hes far too familiar with sybyl, one of the few bearable noblewomen in this city. And his thoughts on guilds, when havelock can trip him into speaking... Most of all, if hes reading him at all correctly (for all the mystery hes not that hard to read, unless thats a very clever cover) then it seems that behind those dark haunted eyes is Respect. Loyalty. For vetinari. What an interesting man. A puzzling asset. An intriguing threat. )
Did I mention the timeline is changing, healing slowly around the place where it was torn? Healing enough around scars to perhaps get some flexibility back, with some painful stretches and...massaging of said scar tissue?
And hes heading to unresting uberwald, a place where a werewolf pack still hunts humans and, truely unrelated but perhaps equally exhausting, an eldritch spirit of vengeance just might be looking to stretch its legs in a hapless vessel?
Opening drabble Vimes Vetinari Meta (Unwell) Scene from the Uberwald Grand Sneer
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cupophrogs · 8 months
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First Mission
@clownsuu @thelone-copper
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