Five dimensionally displaced children: a witch-in-training, a Wisconsin runaway, and three close friends, all stuck in a world not their own and searching for a way back.
Three unusual online “shows,” altogether revealing to Earth the shocking existence of otherworldly adventures with actual magic, talking frogs, and infinite trains.
One cosmic storyteller, both watching its newest audience melt down from such earthshaking revelations, and recording the currently unfolding stories of its unwitting protagonists.
In other words, welcome one and all to an absolutely buck wild crossover between Amphibia, Infinity Train, and The Owl House (plus a little Gravity Falls for bonus flavor)!
Part canon divergence, part fusion worldbuilding project, and 100% the unholy love child of The Truman Show and a react fic, the We’ll Be Right Back AU runs on the fun little idea that during Luz, Anne, and Tulip’s isekai adventures, their shenanigans got being transmitted back home for all of Earth to react and adapt to - and with all chaotic ripple effects on canon and society alike that implies!
After all, this AU isn’t only about the isekai protagonist trio returning to a world vastly different from the one they last remembered (especially with the whole startup religion about them and whatnot for example) and how that affects canon going forwards. Rather, it is also about exploring the various perspectives and worldbuilding shifts caused by these mysterious transmissions, and I would like to extend an open invitation for anyone interested in exploring these depths as well!
To put a fraction of this whole AU into perspective, just consider how WE the IRL fandoms know that these series are just cartoons with fictional characters and fantastical made-up scenarios that don’t exist in real life. WE are comfortably safe to hold the assumption that everything will work out by the end by virtue of plot armor and narrative conventions dictating so.
But for Earth here in the We’ll Be Right Back AU, they don’t have ANY of that to fall back on.
Actual goddamn magic, the confirmation of the multiverse, multiple sapient alien species, the probable answer to so, so many missing persons cases with the train, and etc. Just one of these fictional concepts being made true and known to the entire world would be enough to throw humanity into mass chaos, and yet Earth has to contend with ALL of them becoming undeniable facts about the reality they have to live with.
Oh, and fun fact: because these transmissions are edited recordings of true events as well as how in-show timelines don’t necessarily line up with IRL airing schedules, the people of Earth get to see actual children be in real near-death situations - and in effectively real time at that!
Now consider just how existentially unnerving it would be to watch the struggles of said kids be reduced into literal entertainment -their tribulations repackaged as ‘television shows’ with ‘overarching plots- for Earth to “enjoy.” Almost as if they were characters unknowingly acting out a play dictated by the mysterious entity/upload account known only as “the Transmitter,” and with no certainty as to whether the kids’ ‘stories’ will actually have a happy ending…
Needless to say, lots of peoples’ sleep schedules get completely screwed after discovering the transmissions for many different reasons both right and wrong lol.
After all, after seeing such an apparent example in Amphibia, Infinity Train, and The Owl House, who wouldn’t be agonizing over asking whether they themselves were also but a plaything dancing to the unknown whims of a higher being with no clear autonomy?
And on the flipside, who wouldn’t look at the society-flipping revelations or narrative framing of the transmissions and come to the conclusion that the Transmitter obviously is a god/like being informing humanity of Anne, Luz, and Tulip’s in progress divine destinies, and that it’s clearly instructing the formation of a religion of them and the trio?
Sure makes one wonder which interpretation is correct, let alone if either of them are correct in the first place, doesn’t it…
Overall, these are but a mere fraction of the sheer amount of possible stories that could be told within the We’ll Be Right Back AU, some of which you can even read over in the original forum thread where me and a couple of other folks put this whole AU together in the first place.
For example, we’ve got a dive into how the lives of some of Anne’s classmates were affected because of the international attention on the Amphibia trio spilling over, what it was like for Tulip to catch up with a familiar face after getting off of the train, a quick look at some of the fun ways pop culture has adjusted after the transmissions, and even how the Transmitter’s presence could completely alter the context of a certain encounter with Emperor Belos.
And if anyone’s interested in taking the plunge and contributing, there no need to worry about contributing fully fledged snippets or necessarily adhering to one particular “canon.” With the sheer scope and the many possible directions the base idea of this AU can take, as well as how the real world and real people are often messy and imperfect, feel free to contribute however you want! From fic drabbles about your own plotline for the AU to literally the laziest and unfunny memes you’re able to whip together in five minutes (no joke, the shittier the better), there will always be a niche anything you come up with can fill out!
Altogether, this is an open invitation to a sandbox I hope you all will enjoy playing in, and feel free to ask me any questions you have and or for prompts on how to start!
Lowkey it’s so funny how differently all the passengers think of One-One because:
Lake and Jesse realistically are not his biggest fans because A) he wasn’t gonna let Lake off the train and B) he was gonna let Sieve kill Lake
Grace, Simon, and the rest of the Apex have their misguided cult beliefs where they think he’s a faker and Amelia was the true conductor all along. So they also. Don’t like him.
Ryan and Min-gi don’t really interact with him much, but they’re also probably inclined to skew negative because he was still One and an even more flawed conductor than he is as One-One. Also he took all their stuff before Amelia gave it back.
And then Amelia overthrew One completely and left him stranded in that snowy train car for decades. She beefed with him so hard she completely overthrew him. So she DEFINITELY doesn’t like him.
And the show makes it clear that One was far from perfect as a conductor. And while he’s certainly better the second time around, he’s still got a lot of flaws as seen with how he handled Jesse and Lake’s situation.
So it makes it even funnier that Tulip is like: one-one? You mean my best buddy? My close friend?? I love One-One :D !!!!! One-One <3
rewatching amphibia because what else is one supposed to do in this GODAWFUL HEAT WAVE, got to anne-sterminator and remembered this thing i guess i never posted here. the lore drop she had to dump on her parents after that episode must’ve been INSANE
I realized I had some fanart hidden in my computer that I totally forgot to post! Anyway here's a comm for @/CartoonBudArtz on twitter that I made some time ago!
