Dnb au where Techno is a nether gardener/merchant and Dream is a farmer that lives on the edge of his town and is kinda considered the village hermit
Techno looks scary to the townspeople because big ol' piglin in dark robes but he's actually really nice and friendly and just wants to talk and sell his funky nether flora. Everyone kinda thinks he's a witch (neutral), he's not. He plays into it sometimes for the bit, but he thinks he makes it clear that he's just some weirdo who likes plants from his home and wants to spread them with the overworld.
And Dream is incredibly resting bitch face and closed off to the point where everyone in the town just assumes he's mean. But he's so cottagecore that no one assumes he's like. Anything but a weird mean farmer. Secretly he has a little basement filled with crystals, herbs, mushrooms, and all the makings of a novice witch.
Not many in the town want Techno's wares when he passes through, but they point them in the direction of Dream's farm, nessaled into the crook of the woods at the edge of town.
Dream is infact very interested in Techno's wares. Techno doesn't get why he was warned that Dream is mean and rude when his eyes are sparkling so much at every mushroom and plant, and when Dream has to stifle a laugh and a smile every time he tells a joke.
He gets the weird feeling they've met before too....
I don't know why it's so fun to give c!Dream all the boyfriends but it is
Not even all at once, just like, c!George (and maybe c!Sapnap 👀) were his first loves, their relationship was innocent and happy if not a bit chaotic, then they broke up and split apart, c!Punz was someone he was scared to say he truly loved, so he was stuck in this limbo of a strange friends-with-benefits with mutual pinning that both of them didn't think was reciprocated, and than c!Techno he respected for a while but than he got stuck in a cell with him and God he's hit with so much fucking gay panic because Techno's nice, and funny and weirdly attractive?(He attributes that to being alone in a cell for 6 months) and sure he never truly allows himself to hope that him and Techno would become something more than friends but he craves safety and unconditional love so part of him does hope, and after prison break Techno kinda just kicks him out? Like can we talk about that for a second? Because Dream is surprised that Techno wants his armour back and for him to leave. Which just ooooo so much DNB angst potential
Any way tldr I really like giving c!Dream complex romantic relationships/feelings on people because it just vibes correctly
Also he is bisexual with a preference for men your honor /lh
TTC!Cryptid starts as just a fucking kid in the L'manburg revolution. They just sort of stumble into it. Even if they love it very quickly. Tommy, Tubbo, and Fundy are like cool chaotic older brothers. Eret noticably treats them like the youngest, because they are. Wilbur doesn't care much, he still encourages them to fight.
The 15 loop they're still young, they're on Dream's side this time. They're not really equal with the rest, that's fine, they still make a difference. Tommy's like a rival. They're on the same level. He's supposed to be older, why is he the same now.
The 17 loop... They're basically an adult, hell they are for most of it. Most people treat them like it. That's fine. That's good. Tommy and Tubbo are still kids to everyone.
The 19 loop. They hang around Wilbur again. He looks at them different. The way they've always looked at him. They don't mind it. It's wrong, it feels wrong. Then... Well then it actually happens. They actually happen. Isn't he supposed to be an authority figure. Tommy and Tubbo respect them, that's nice. Why why why no this is wrong they look up them this is all wrong, THEY are supposed to be the ones looking up to them
The 21 loop. They found L'manburg again. Wilbur and them happen again. It's fine. They'll do better this time. They'll stop him from spiralling this time. He doesn't want them to fight. He fucking doesn't want them to fight. He let them fight when they were 13 why won't he now? Why does their life mean so much more to him now that they kiss? The kids look up to them as an authority. When did they start thinking of them as 'the kids"? Fundy looks up to them as an authority. He called them mom once. And he only corrected himself by asking if they wanted a masculine, feminine or neutral designation. He hasn't called them mom again. But he calls them Dad. When did they get so old? And why has everyone stayed the same?
It's a disconnect that so deeply rooted at this point. They can't go back on it. It sickens them. They look at the faces of everyone and they have no idea who to see. Once they wished they could be older. They thought of it as a perk of having to rewind the server (look where that's gotten them? No where. It still always ends the same. They barely make a difference), they thought it'd be good. Now they just want to go back to those younger days. They were so much simpler.
In your Crypt AU what happened to Drista and Dream after Sam gone missing?
Especially since even Dream gone missing (if I read correctly)
*giggles evilly* well this will be a fun one.
Also major spoiler warning as well as warning for copious amounts of murder. Like so much murder only 5 people who are involved in XD's whole backstory get to live. and only one of them is an obviously major character.
Honestly I'm not sure what I what I shouldn't spoil but I guess this au isn't getting a fic anytime soon sooo tis fine :) I wanna talk about it anyway.
First of all Dream did in fact go missing! You read that right!
But I'll leave that situation for last since your asking about what happened to them in general c:
For some context Dream was almost 15 when Sam got murdered(and everyone knows that he is in fact dead, his body was very much there), Drista was not even a year old.
This drives a... conderable wedge between him and XD. Because Dream isn't stupid. And frankly, XD's isn't trying to seem all that aggrieved, just towards the cops and his acquaintances. This is also what sort of tips off Callahan(who is a whole nother can of worms ksjskshskjs).
Basically Dream kinda knows XD did it. But also doesn't want to believe it and can't prove it. He would have run away, but he had a baby sister to take care of, and he wasn't going to just.. leave Drista behind.
He thinks about it more after he turns 16. His close friend Foolish even offering that his dad would take him and Dris in in a heartbeat. And Dream already has a good relationship with Puffy anyway.
But uhhhhh XD likes Foolish, he really does, he does not in fact like him enough to allow him to steal his son. Safe to say Foolish pops up a few days later in less then alive pieces :)
Puffy moves away fast enough that XD doesn't think she'll be a problem.
Anyway. This does not strengthen Dream and XD's relationship in the slightest. It only keeps him there for two more years before he goes to college.
He hates leaving Drista alone, but so far XD hasn't been violent towards him or her, and he just.. needs to be out. He absolutely visits all the time though, just to check that Drista is ok and doing well.
and he actually gets a good support network at college! He meets George and Sapnap, and even the man he decides he wants to spend his life with, Fundy :).
They don't end up being able to get married. Because uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh well Fundy is kinda his own can of worms but the short version is that Fundy has some... Personal beef with XD let's say. And XD doesn't do well with a gun pressed to his head. Safe to say Fundy's body is never found and was probably fed to the gators.
At this point Dream is pretty sure that XD has killed, his dad, one of his best friends, and his fiance. (Oh actually also Punz, who was a close online friend that I couldn't fit in neatly) Somehow it takes him a year to try and kill him.
It doesn't go well, to say the least.
XD at least feels bad about this one of though. Like sure, Dream tried to kill him and has been making it his mission to be (in XD's perspective) an annoying little shit about everything. But that's still his baby boy. That's his kid. And he sort of did it in a rage, he didn't mean to. Dream was just so wrong about all these people. But he still regrets it so much.
Dream's the only one of his victims to get a proper burial.
He can't bear to report him dead though. Just missing. Forever missing.
Now on the Drista side of things :D
She has a pretty normal first 8 years of her life honestly beyond the absolute tension between her older brother and her dad.
Like sure sone people just. Go missing. But she doesn't have enough of a sense of object permanence to really think they're dead.
The only one she really processes that for is Sam, even though she doesn't remember him, Dream makes sure she knows about their dad. Telling her stories and going through his old coding files to teach her about his work. She's pretty good at coding for an 8 year old!
But it's on one of these visits from her brother that stuff completely changes for her. Because she doesn't like. See Dream's death. But she hears it.
The next 2 years are rough. She absolutely hates XD for his actions, and she tries to run away a lot. She always gets dragged back and XD shows disgusting slivers of humanity. He cries every time she runs away, he never starts mad. Just so so terrified.
Then he angry once she's back inside and he's held her for a while. He never hurts her though. Not physically at least, and he doesn't shout either. He still treats her like glass even when he's mad at her and even when she's scratching and biting and kicking and squirming.
No matter how many times she's brought back though, she doesn't stop trying. And one time, she just manages to do it.
Now where she is and what she's doing I'm not actually going to say, but she is most definitely alive. XD thinks she's dead though, he doesn't really see how she could have survived out there and yet he or the police couldn't find her.
She's alive and .... Well I can't really say she's well but she isn't homeless. And that's all I'll say on the matter.
Sorry if this was too long lol I just have a lot of thoughts for this au.
And uhhh just going to put the @calamari-minecraft-corner here :D (for context Cala asked me to @ them in posts about this au so that's why it's always somewhere)
Thinking about if I met c!Dream in a reverse (or not reverse au) Isekai like scenario is so funny to me because he would be so fucking confused as to why this short mother fucker just showed up and is now being clingy as fuck and trying to be his friend and casually refers to his war crimes like they are no big deal and also just simultaneously calling him out on all his bullshit and treating him like a fucking angel
Reverse isekai aus are just fun
Like imagine c!Dream seeing dreblr? Man would be so confused and yet strangely touched? And also highly doubting all of our sanities
Honestly might make a reverse isekai au now just so I can make c!Dream confused and also so damn traumatized because all of his trauma is being frothed over by people like we're all here absolutely dissecting and braining about the prison torture and everything else but to him that is obviously his reality, it would be violating probably to see so many people inspecting your life, thinking that none of it happened to you because they don't think you're real, and seeing the how he is villainized so much by other bits of the fandom as well...
I might be thinking about this too much but I feel like it would be interesting
Some concept sketches of our lovely developer :D along with a few snippets from an article about his upcoming game Adventures in Esempi
Adventures in Esempi is an ai-powered open-world rpg. One that promises to be truly limitless "I wanted to create a dnd-like experience. Where the story can be truly limitless if the DM has ideas, just for people who don't have anyone to be their DM."
The developer "XD" says in an interview.
"AI was my way of doing that. And I know people will come at me for using AI. But it does take effort to create. I have worked for years on this project to train my characters. And it's not even ready yet. I'm currently doing my 3rd wave of play testing and I'm sure one of my lovely play testers will come across a bug that is game breaking and I'll have to reset the AI's parameters all over again." Another quote from the developer reads.
"Every character I make is a tribute to someone I've lost or someone who impacted me greatly. With a few cameos for some of my play testers who without which this game would not exist. Though there is one character that's a little easter egg, should you go looking for it."
XD says when asked about his character creation process
A little bit more about the development:
Adventures in Esempi is a passion project of it's currently sole developer a person known as XD (note that while XD identifies as trans-masc and uses both he/him and they/them pronouns for the purposes of this article XD will be refered to with he/him pronouns or simply "XD"). The game has had many other developers over the years, the longest working on the project being Sam Isenberg, or Awesamdude as was his online name, and the mysterious Callahan.
Sam -who was also XD's husband at the time- worked on the first ideas and attempts at the project in the late 90s and the 2000s before being found dead in 2010 shortly after leaving the project and filing for divorce.
We know much less about Callahan. Only that he worked on the project from the year 2006 to 2014 when he went missing.
But even with these loses, and even more person ones in the time of the games development XD has kept on the project. Honoring past developers that left the project with a character ingame.
I think that's all I'll give you for now ;) but that is a pretty big lore drop
Anyway take some sketches of some of the things XD doesn't want the public to know about them
And also:
i took his gender. Fight me about it.
Anyway now is a great time to mention that I stole(I asked) the X scar design from @calamari-minecraft-corner's digital friend au XD
sleep deprived dod!Cryptid sketches because my sleep has been a fucking mess the last few weeks and I gotta put that tiredness SOMEWHERE
I love drawing fluffy hair that shit is my JAM
Also dod!cryptid would absolutely fuck up their own sleep schedule up and basically nocturnal at one point (cough cough, the arc where they're visiting Las Nevdas most nights cough cough) Everyone is very worried because they are still *attempting* to wake up at a normal time but they fail half the time because they are so tired they sleep through any alarms they might have
(dod/dreaming of death au is an au of @calamari-minecraft-corner(Squiddygirl on ao3)'s fic Penpal)
