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the alternate universe meme

how to play
1. post with your character, name and canon in the subject line.
2. feel free to mention which aus you’re willing or not willing to play in the body of the comment.
3. tag by rolling for an alternate universe setting using rng.
4. or tag by picking whatever au you’d like to play in most.
5. have fun!

alternate universes
i - all human: in an all human au, characters who are canonically vampires, werewolves or superheroes, are now humans, with corresponding changes to their backstories.

ii - apocalypse: a portmanteau of "apocalypse fic", apocafic is fiction set during or after some sort of apocalypse, or end of the world. some canons carry a built-in apocalypse against which the protagonists are fighting: in apocafic, they lose. for example, apocafic in stargate and x-files is usually set after the alien occupation; supernatural apocafic is set on a demon-controlled earth.

iii - band: an alternate universe in which the characters are members in, or form a band. often, the instruments they plan and their roles in the band are analogous to their canon identities. for example, tony stark might be cast as the fame-hungry lead singer who is also a musical genius, or river tam might be a classically trained pianist who, after a terrible experience at julliard, writes songs for mal reynold's grunge rock band, serenity.

iv - circus: circus aus are a popular trope in fanfic and sometimes fanart. using a circus as a setting means introducing the characters to each other in a close-knit community. that can help break down barriers between them and make them bond together against the outside world which may not understand them as well as the other characters do. it also brings a sense of adventure and the idea that this world may have different rules and everything is possible. a circus can also be a good place for characters to go undercover and meet the love of their lives.

v - coffee shop: the barista au (or coffeeshop au, or the closely related bakery au) is a popular fanfiction trope in livejournal fandoms. in most cases, one half of the main pairing is the barista and the other is or becomes their favorite customer; in some stories the whole cast works at a coffee shop. this trope is especially popular in fandoms where one character is very attached to coffee, either in canon or in fanon, or is frequently stressed.

vi - college/high school: college fic is a popular genre of fanfic (less often a genre of fanart) that places characters together in college or another secondary institution such as the starfleet academy in star trek fic (then called "academy fic"). this can be canon stories, for example backstory if characters have or could have met during college, or college aus, similar to high school aus. in science fiction, historical or fantasy fandoms the present day college au is a popular subgenre of the modern au that puts fantastic or historical characters in more mundane everyday settings.

vii - cop/detective: an alternate universe in which the characters are cast as cops or investigators of some kind. often, the canon villain is also cast as the villain in the story. this might be set in modern times, or in a noir-like environment, complete with gangsters and femme fatales.

viii - daemons: his dark materials is a fantasy trilogy by philip pullman. the trilogy consists of the golden compass (1995; published in the uk as northern lights), the subtle knife (1997), and the amber spyglass (2000). there are currently two companion novellas: lyra's oxford (2003) and once upon a time in the north (2008). a movie adaptation of the first book was released in theatres in late 2007. humans have their souls living outside their body in the form of an animal companion. males have female souls and females have male souls. the animals often correspond to the character’s personality.

ix - fantasy: an alternate universe populated with fantastical characters like elves, dwarves, unicorns, sorcerers, and dragons. canon characters might be cast as analogous races (e.g. clint barton or katniss everdeen as elf archers) or they might be humans in a fantastical setting. characters also might be able to secretly shape-shift into another form, like a dragon, and therefore is related closely to were/vampire/supernatural aus.

x - historical: a historical au is a fanwork which moves characters into a different historical period than their canon setting. typically this involves taking "contemporary" characters (from the late 20th century or 21st century) and putting them in an earlier historical period (such as the 19th century or before). popular settings for historical aus include: pirates, america's old west, britain's regency period, ancient rome, a vague facsimile of medieval england such as robin hood, and many others.

xi - hooker/porn/stripper: hookerfic is a type of fanfic where one or more of the characters is a sex worker. there are many different types of hookerfic, ranging from more realistic depictions to the more common pretty woman-type fantasy of a hooker with a heart of gold, rescued from life on the streets by a client. sex work of all kinds is portrayed—brothels, escorts, street prostitution, "call-girls" as well as strippers and go-go boys.

xii - magic: magic aus are alternate universe fanworks that incorporate magic in fandoms where there is no magic present in canon. (or in some cases, fanworks that make a canon with magic more magical.) they differ from elf aus in that there may be magic without any elves showing up, and are opposites of all human and mundane aus.

xiii - neighbors/roomates: an alternate universe where the canon characters live next-door to one another, or in the same apartment building or complex, or in the same apartment. often, this is also an all-human au, if the canon characters are powered in some way. the forced proximity is usually used to create romantic tension between characters.

xiv - space/sci-fi: a space au is an alternate universe where a source set on earth is transported into space; works are often referred to as "[fandom] in spaaaaaaaaace!" the trope can be a form of crackfic, but often includes surprisingly serious reinterpretations of the most earthbound of sources, particularly historical fiction written or set before space exploration. cyberpunk trappings such as robots, cyborgs and ais are often included.

xv - steampunk: steampunk was originally a term for a sub-genre of speculative fiction that imitated 19th century "scientific romances" like the work of jules verne and h.g. wells. later, the term was applied to a general aesthetic involving styles that would be "futuristic" from the perspective of the 19th century. steampunk appears in fanworks as both a genre and an aesthetic. there are some fandoms for which the canon is steampunk(-ish), e.g. the secret adventures of jules verne, but more often it is found as steampunk alternate universe.

xvi - western: the western is a genre of fiction set in the later half of the 19th century in the western part of north america, especially the united states, but also canada and mexico. sometimes also included in the genre are stories about western-type characters and plots in other settings, e.g. "space westerns" (in science fiction settings) and contemporary westerns (set in the western part of contemporary north america).

xvii - were/vamp/supernatural: a reversal of the all-human, in these fics characters who are normally human are now supernatural creatures of some kind the most common being werewolves or vampires.

xviii - choose your own: self-explanatory! choose your own option.

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That is a very broad request. And hard to get started on, with just how little Ashley seems to truly know.

He nods to signal that he has understood, but falls silent for a while after, trying to figure out how to best begin.

"While there is vitae running through our bodies, we are as immortal as a vampire; more so and less at once, because sunlight does not hurt us but injuries will hurt us much more gravely. We are stronger than normal humans and may learn the abilities of our masters, and yet..." He scratches his head. "It's difficult, holding down a relationship when your wife or husband would never be the most important person in your life, and you may well frenzy on them, you know?"

He may or may not have been told these things about ghouls with time, but it might be best for him to hear them from one.

Ashley listened with rapt interest. His attentiveness wasn't merely polite, it was fixed, like a child being told stories. Ashley had grown up with knowledge being a rare thing that others possessed and only rarely deigned to share with him. He'd been provided no tutors and no formal education, learning only when his older brother could be bothered to show him something, or from the eclectic and macabre collection of books and scrolls that made up their library. He had enough sense, barely, to know that the 'ghoul' before him was not the same sort of creature as the flesh-eating 'ghouls' of his stories who dug up fresh graves and feasted, nor the sort of spectral 'ghouls' that haunted old ruins and fed upon the souls of curious travelers.

"Why will your wife or husband never be the most important person in your life?" Ashley asked, trying to stitch together a complete view of the world with the tattered scraps of understanding that he possessed.

"Because that will always be my lady."

It's as simple as that, really. Or perhaps not. Because as much as he is aware of the effects of blood bonds - more so perhaps than most other ghouls of his age, by virtue of his standing and tasks involving quite a lot of dealing with other ghouls, and often their training - he is rather sure that there is a level of genuine affection, or at least respect, in how he regards her as well.

But to put it plain for Ashley: "You might have noticed that to drink a Kindred's blood has one effect on everyone else, be they human or animal or another Kindred. The person who has consumed that blood a few times," he's fairly sure that there is a set number, but he has no idea how often, "will be bound to them by love, no matter what their original feelings on them were."

Edited 2017-02-22 16:11 (UTC)

Questions and realizations crowded in Ashley's mind, one after the other. He was quiet for a long time, thinking it all over and deciding which questions mattered to him most.

"What if something happens to the Kindred?" he asked, though he was certain he already knew the answer, and understood, now, why his mother's fixation and obsession had led her into such madness. Why his own love for his (dead) brother was so complicated and compelling. "What if there's another Kindred?"

"If they die, the bond will be without substance - I am told that it fades."

He hasn't experienced it himself yet and hopes that that will never happen, but who knows.

"You can be bonded to multiple people. I'm told that sometimes lovers will drink each other's blood, to be able to give that kind of love to one another."

"Oh," Ashley said, much relieved by several aspects of that information, and even more curious about several more aspects. "That's good."

He stayed quiet for some time more, continuing to process over the information and how it pertained to his new life. His curiosity returned time and again to Mago himself, fastening upon him as an anchor of safety and sanity. "How long have you been a ghoul?"

"For about ten years."

And he'd known that he would become one eventually for a few years before that. Zyabqot simply wanted him to grow into a physically adult age first so he would be more useful as an emissary. Below the age, it's just harder to be taken serious.

"And I hope to remain so for a long time to come."

"I hope so, too," Ashley said, eyes flicking briefly over Mago. He liked Mago, and wanted very much to know more of him. He was glad, too, to know that Mago was not very much older than him, although Mago seemed older, because of his knowledge and competence compared to Ashley.

He saw lights up ahead, though he wasn't sure if it was a house, a village, or the whole city ahead of them. "What about the city?" he asked, wary of all the new and strange things ahead of them. "Is it safe? Is it friendly?"

That comment surprised him, and he didn't quite know what to make of it. Coming from anyone else, he would have gone through all the possible implications and tucked it away, watching future interactions warily to see if it led somewhere, but Ashley seemed so ...not innocent, no, but naive, perhaps. Easily told no, and actually taking that no without anything following later.

He tried to brush over that and only inclined his head, though, moving on to think on how to answer the other question.

"It is no one thing - thousands of people live there, humans and Kindred, locals and traders, those who were born here and those who come from far away. At first, I would recommend staying inside the household's walls and only leaving in company, so you can learn its ways safely and comfortably. It will be ...very different from what you are used to. There will be much more people, and places, and voices and rules for conducting interactions than what you knew back in that manor you used to live in."

"I understand," he said, obedient. He was pleased to know that he'd be allowed to leave the household at all, though he felt no urgency to explore. As Mago said, he had much to learn, and he was content to take his time learning things from within the safety of the household that would be his new sanctuary. "I'll be glad to get to your lady's household."

Patting his horse's neck, Ashley fell quiet again, fatigued from traveling and the stresses of the past day. His questions could wait. Letting his eyes rest, he trusted to his horse to follow the road.

They travelled in silence until they reached the city, at which point Mago took the lead. The city gates of this specific city were never truly closed at night. Elsewhere, Kindred might need to work around human custom to not stick out, but here they were a well known factor of city life.

The streets are fairly quiet, though, most of the more nightly residents not the kind to clamour in the streets and unable to drink their life away in the bars. Not that there is nobody out, but for city life, it is quiet.

They ride for a while before they reach a richer area and finally Mago gets off his horse and knocks at a gate in one of the walls. A little while later, an elderly man pushes the gate open, peers out at them and then opens it fully so they can lead their horses in.

"I was wondering when you would return."

Mago gestures for Ashley to bring himself and his horse in the small open space behind the gate, behind which stables can be seen.

"There were unforseen complications."

Ashley dismounted from the horse, leading it through the gate. He pressed close against his horse's side, watching Mago for cues about how to behave. "Hello," he said, nervous of giving offense, but wanting to ensure that his horse got the grooming Mago had promised. His horse and Mago were his only allies in this unknown place, and Mago was still an unknown. "My horse needs care. Urgently. It has been hungry and neglected, and may have sores from being ridden in this state."

The man looked at Ashley, and then the horse, and then shot a quick glance towards Mago, who simply nodded.

"Of course. I'll see to this beauty here being treated to everything that he needs to recover."

After locking the door behind them, he took the horses from Ashley and Mago and led it off into the stables. Mago, meanwhile, came over towards the vampire. "Come inside. My lady should have seen most of those under her patronage by now."

Ashley's lips flickered up briefly in a smile of hope at how the servant spoke of the horse. He stayed near the horse just long enough to ensure that the servant took the reins without spooking the high-tempered horse, and then returned his full attention to Mago.

"All right," he said, patting the bag that he had over his shoulder and drawing back his hood to show off his long red hair. He shook it out, adjusting the golden crescent he'd set into it as adornment and checking that the gems still hung from his ears. He was in desperate need of a bath and a thorough grooming, but his natural beauty was striking even through the neglect. "Do I look suitable?"

"More so than most men would, coming off the road."

He gives Ashley an encouraging smile and then ushers him inside, leading him down a hallway and through an atrium into a smaller room and then knocking on the door on the other side of it. If Ashley watches him, he will notice how the companionable ease falls away completely from him as they walk, being replaced by sober formality.

"Lady Zyabqot? The lord Ashley is here now."

A female voice answers from inside. "Bring him in, then."

Mago opens the door and lets Ashley step through the door, following after him and closing it again behind himself.

The room is small and tastefully furnished, by the hands of someone who both has significant wealth and prefers to let it show in ways as understated as possible. Everything in the room is made only of the finest materials, but nothing in it is pompous. A simple table with a thin ornament made of gold and precious stones running around its edges, three chairs around it, one of which the woman who replied is sitting on, documents strewn over the table's surface that she seems to have poured over until she was interrupted. Two chests and a shelf lined with more documents, some of them thick enough to probably contain ten rolls or more. A low table in a corner holds a few goblets.

The woman herself is dressed much in the same manner as the room: Her clothes speak of high status in how they are made and with the colours they sport, but she wears close to no jewelry and her hairstyle seems to have been chosen mostly for practical considerations. She stands when Ashley enters and gestures for one of the chairs. "Welcome to my house. It is good to see that you made it here safely. We worried a bit - you were expected yesterday." Her eyes go to Mago at that, briefly, raising a displeased eyebrow, but she's completely back with Ashley just a moment later, dismissing the ghoul from the conversation.

Ashley looked around, bewildered, as he entered the room. The taste and expense of the room appealed to him, but the practical good sense of it--and, moreso, its inhabitant--bewildered him.

He sat in the chair as though he wasn't entirely sure what chairs were, and looked around himself again in confusion. She was a scholar--but not like his brother Arkady--and a ruler--but not like his father.

"I am... grateful for your hospitality," Ashley said, stumbling over his words in his uncertainty. "And the sanctuary of your household. Please forgive our delay. I was ill-prepared for travel."

"How so? If you do not mind the question."

She walks over to the table in the corner once seated and picks up two of the goblets to hand them to Mago, who takes them and quickly and quietly vanishes back out through the doorbefore sitting back down where she was when the two men entered.

"And I mean it when I say that I am glad to have you." She flashes him a grin. "I was blessed to have worked with your sire, and would like to see you follow in his footsteps eventually. But everything in its time."

"I was..." Ashley's brow furrowed, struggling with the question, because he was not fully aware of reality in his former situation. Traveling with Mago had anchored him, but now he was in a new place of uncertainty, being quizzed on his past reality, and his mind faltered. "Hungry. Alone. My horse--Mago said it would be well cared for here. It has not been groomed. It is hungry."

He looked around again, seeming younger by the second, lost in this strange place and confronted with questions that his sanity could not grasp. "Is Arkady here?" he asked, eyes returning to Zyabqot, though his gaze was hazy and unfocused. "My brother. He went to Egypt. To study. He should have returned by now."

She studied him as he seemed to regress before her very eyes, within no time at all, expecting it to cease.

But it did not, and she finally stood and let herself be carried over by one simple stride, embracing him and gently pulling him against her chest. "My poor boy. YOu must have been alone for a long time."

Ashley was startled by the embrace. He hiccuped once in surprise, stiff at first, but then he clung to her, childlike in his need for affection. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been hugged. His brother and mother had never been physically affectionate with him, and he was accustomed to only being touched by people who felt fascination or lust for him.

After a few moments, he relaxed against her, hesitantly hooking his arms around her waist. "Zyabqot?" he said, testing the name more than anything.

She simply held him, a solid, patient presence, waiting until he adjusted to the gesture, pleased when he relaxed into her embrace and responded in kind. He certainly was not what she had expected, though she had feared that this would not be as immediately rewarding or easy as she'd originally hoped, going by some of the rumours going around. But they seemed to be getting off to a good start even so, and that was important. Other steps would have to be taken as well, but one things after the other.

"Yes, that is my name." There was warm amusement in her voice as she responded. "And you are Ashley."

Edited 2017-02-28 20:18 (UTC)

[DW is apparently not sending notifications. :| *goes around checking all active threads*]

Ashley nodded, finally relaxing his grip on her. He sat back in his chair, putting his hands in his lap and lowering his eyes, watching her timidly through his lashes. "Please, I'm tired and dirty. Mago said there would be baths, and servants. My nail is broken."

He felt dizzy and lost, somewhere between childishness and sanity. He was emotionally exhausted, and desperately wanted some familiar comforts.

"And he was right." She returns to her own seat as well when it seems like he has quieted down. "I am certain that he is seeing to the preparations being done as we speak.

While we wait for him to return and tell us that they are ready, would you tell me a bit more about yourself? We will have more time to talk later, but all that your sire told me about you was that you existed and should receive his inheritance."

"Inheritance?" Ashley repeated, frowning. He knew that, on a certain level. The villa was his; the lands; the money, or what remained of it. "No, Arkady is the heir. It should be his. Arkady was always..."

He trailed off, brow furrowed with uncertainty. "There is nothing to tell. I am beautiful. I like books. That is all there is."

Shaking his head as he struggled with what he knew and what he could not bear to know, Ashley frowned at a spot on the tiled floor. "Someone should be sent. To care for the villa. To clean it. My mother..."

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