If you want to PLEASE share the 18 yr old Carl au you’ve mentioned before 🙏🏻🙏🏻
Oh sure! It was more of a half thought than anything really fleshed out but I think it's fun to play with ages and what that really means.
There's a big difference between a 27 yr old running around leading a rebellion and a 18 yr old leading one. It's less about the skills, the dungeon can supply them and Carl learns a lot on the fly. They end up leaning more heavily on Katia's engineering skills but it doesn't change that much on that side of things.
It's more that Carl really has not seen much kindness from anyone at this point in his life. And he continues to be thrown off by his friends who are willing to sacrifice anything to help him. He tries to keep it together, because he knows that there are a lot of people counting on him. But he's still 18, he's still just barely an adult trying to cling to sanity.
And then there's his relationship with Bea, that gets more and more fucked up the longer you think about it. (especially with the reveal of Asher, who in this reality is actually an affair kid. Who his dad most likely had right after Carl's mother died by suicide.) And Carl has to deal with the fact that he would have tried to help the kid in a heart beat, would have taken him in even though he's just a kid himself trying to stay afloat.
And then there's the guild. Who keeps looking at him for leadership. Because he is the leader but he's also so young. And sometimes they are hit by this realization. Because he is not a child now, but he is young and they are forcing him to lead them. (not that Carl would have it any other way, but that doesn't change the fact that he's in charge and he can't legally drink yet).
Idk man. It's not the kind of au that changes things drastically but I want Moradeci not to think about it until it hits him over the head, and there's nothing he can do but try and keep this stupid kid alive. I want Odate to share her story and Carl to see himself. To wonder if it was Katia or Donut who he would choose.
I want him to meet the cookbook authors and for them to be so angry at this injustice. And he doesn't understand that they are angry at the Crawl but they are also angry for him. I want Tipid to hug him, and call him little brother. I want Rosetta to stare at this kid and let it make her even more angry. I want Milk to call him 'young' with a level of grief that freezes you in place.
Donut and Carl are each other's people. In this way, both of them are kind of stepping into adulthood together in the dungeon. And there is a level of it that is freeing as much as it is horrifying and awful in the same measure.
