silly little au concept i’ve been tossing around with buddies (@betweenthescarletmoon , @of-science-and-stars, @hooray4skeleton)
it’s 2016. you’re in high school, killing time between classes by browsing tumblr and watching markiplier
it’s 22016. you’re in squid school, killing time between ranked matches by browsing splatterr and watching makoplier
#20.12 hello
a splatoon crossover/alternate universe in which markiplier exists during the events of the games, as an octoling inktuber and entertainer by the name of makoplier (real name mako fishbach)
things are mostly the same otherwise
this mostly exists as a vehicle to:
affectionately parody and homage markiplier’s fanbase and how he’s portrayed/talked about online. this is inspired by splatoon’s background worldbuilding and supplemental materials already often riffing on contemporary internet, youth and fandom culture
lovingly make fun of how weird the splatoon universe is by putting in a guy that does have an animated, goofy, larger-than-life persona, but is just a person at the end of the day
more details under the read more
rules/key details:
the plots of the story modes remain the same and mako is not integrated into the narrative that plays out on-screen. mako may observe them and their effects, may be affected by them, but he can’t really affect them
mako’s projects retain the same nature that they do irl. iron lung is a movie, who killed/a heist with/in space with are choose your own adventures, etc.
mako isn’t coming into this with any sort of secret “double life” or special backgrounds that (many of) idols do. if he does gets wrapped up in a larger plot, it’s in that context. think the setups for galaxy quest or the unbearable weight of massive talent
the last two points doesn’t mean that mako can’t get involved in wacky adventure plots, that he can’t interact with the idols, that this au is strictly a slice of life, etc etc. splatoon is a goofy magitek universe! get weird with it! but mako should always be pulled into an extraordinary world when the weirdness of the splatoon universe rears its head
this is a lighthearted au. again, there’s room for stakes, peril, sadness, darkness and exploring serious themes, but this is still splatoon at the end of the day
details on makoplier himself, so far:
the actual timeline of markiplier and his channel roughly line up with splatoon’s own in-universe timeline, but the details are likely shuffled around (and can be fudged– there’s no strict canon here lol)
lives in the splatlands. as such, he wasn’t affected by the great turf war (similar to shiver’s own family) and was on inktube even when the events of splatoon were going on
default ink color is some kinda rose
inkbrush main. i just think markiplier hitting people with a comically large paintbrush is on brand for him
if he’s playing one of his egos, he’ll switch colors and weapons
doesn’t trust grizzco. has refused sponsorships from them. ranted onscreen about grizzco at least once (ala his honey rant)
in fact he has managed to call the shots on every single story mode plot, but no one believes him because he’s an inktuber. he’s acutely aware of this
he’s not quiiiiiiiiiite sure what lil judd’s deal is but he just knows something is up with that cat
Obviously grew up around his mother, and even if he is capable of hiding an accent, he will slip into a British accent while he's speaking fast at times
Speaking of accents, he can faithfully copy an accent after hearing it a few times. Could seriously be a professional impersonator
Has a really bad staring problem, like will look at people up and down in public and does not care disrespectful it seems
Is really keen about reading body language and facial expressions, at first for survival reasons but now it's just a habit
His eyes stare into your soul
Has a mild case of hemophobia (fear of blood)
Gets really uneasy at the smell of blood, and gets fixated on cleaning off blood immediately before it can clot and stick
Really finds a love for photography
Not only finding closure in letting himself be photographed, but also just random things- his friends, his family, the sun, his food order- he wants to capture every last little thing, no matter how insignificant
He wants to remember it all. It makes him feel rooted. It makes him feel like a person
Is scarily good at improv, will make up a story on the spot and run with it
Is the definition of committing to the bit
Some strangers that he's met in passing know him by a different name, and he won't correct them if he ever meets them again
Neil forced himself to like the colors grey and black, because those were the colors he wore the most often
He didn't think much about his favorite color until a freshman asked him once, and he realized he had no idea
After some experimentation, he realized that his favorite color is yellow and now he wears at least one yellow piece of clothing/accessory
Really likes roller skating, but not biking or skateboarding
Something about having freedom of movement and full range of motion that's unique with roller skating is comfortable for him
Neil doesn't really care about his gender. Whether he is cis or not, he does not really care either way. He is who he is.
NSFW
Repressed demisexual who had no time or space to form an emotional connection with anyone before, so obviously is very confused about the signals his body is giving him when he finally has urges.
Fantasizes often and the slightest things will bring him back to the person on his mind.
Doesn't need to use his hands or be touched in order to finish, being alone with his thoughts is more than enough
It's like he can perfectly encapsulate how his partner sounds and feels, as if they were right next to him or on top of him
Is very enthusiastic and very loud, and would be just as excited if his partner returned the favor.
Vocal about what feels good and what doesn't, but is very open to experimenting
Will ramble endlessly if you don't shut him up, talking about his partner and what he loves about them, and babble about how they make him feel
my sister said "5". I'll come back with more later
5- help
I could not for the life of me decide for a bit what to do for this one because I had so many ideas and didn’t know if I wanted it to be angsty or wholesome but in the end I made it more silly and I’m satisfied with that since there’s a lot of prompts on that list that’ll give me angst opportunities. Thanks for the request!
“Ok, next we need the cake mix. Can you get it for me Four? It’s in the cabinet.”
Giving a mock salute in response, Agent 4 turned around and began running off towards said cabinet, leaving behind Marie and the jumble of ingredients the two had set out on the counter so far.
Callie’s birthday was just around the corner, and it had been Marie’s idea to bake her cousin a cake to celebrate. of course, Four wanted to help out. The two had gone shopping the day before, and now was just the process of getting everything they picked out ready.
Opening up the cabinet doors, the golden squid scanned the shelves for the main ingredient, not seeing anything until she caught a glimpse of the box on the top shelf. Four, even for her young age, was a shorter than average squid. So situations like these were relatively common. With a heavy sigh the agent stretched her arm out to grab the box, not even close to reaching it. She tried jumping. Still no luck. An idea popped into her head, and shifting into squid form, Four tried super jumping to the top. However this resulted in the squid managing to only hit her head on the ceiling, shifting back to human form before she could fall back to the ground. She rubbed her head, silently grumbling about her bad aim. Four half considered climbing the shelves but she didn’t want to make a mess incase she knocked everything over. She was completely out of options and had to admit it.
“Marieee!”
In an instant the cuttlefish came running over. “Everything ok?” She questioned. Four pointed up at the shelf before crossing her arms and looking down. “I can’t reach..” the other simply stared up at the box, before looking down at Four. “Pfft.” “It’s not funny!” The short squid whined, glaring up at her. Marie covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head. “It kinda is.” She managed to say once her laughter was under control. “Here, stand still.” The agent lifted her arms as Marie moved to pick her up, moving her on top of her shoulders and stepped closer to the shelves. Before she reached for the cake mix, she looked around, eyes practically shining. “I’m so tall.” Grabbing the box, Marie walked them both into the kitchen, helping Four down as she placed it amongst the other ingredients, the cuttlefish ruffling her tentacles. “Ready to bake?” The squid nodded eagerly. “Heck yeah! We’re gonna make the best cake ever!”
You jolted up out of your own bed with a start, sitting up straight as your clutched your chest. Your eyes scanned your bedroom in a panic while your heart pounded profusely in your own chest.
When it was clear that there were no threat, you relaxed a bit. You were still shaken up, that was for sure.
"Are you alright?"
The sudden voice made you jump again, and you swirl your head around with your eyes wide, struggling to get your bearings as you searched for the source of the voice.
As it turns out, the meek voice, in fact, came from no one other than your roommate: Cole, who was squatted down beside your bedside. A breath of relief slipped through your mouth as you realized that it wasn't some nightmare creature trying to harm you. Yet, you were still a bit upset that Cole had stood by your bedside. After all, how long had he been standing around for?
The fleeting anxiety fizzled away as you tilted your gaze to the pale boy again. His eyes were a ghostly blue, that seemed to glow steady in the moonlight that streamed from the open window. One of you must've forgotten to draw the curtains before bed.
An awkward silence hung in the air. You didn't really know what to say. Cole and you were not particularly close, and he rarely seemed to be in the dorm at the same time as you. From what you gathered from the sparse conversations you had had with him, Cole was a psychology student.
His classes were seemingly early in the morning, since he was never there when you woke up. But, also, he was rarely there when you got back to the dorm room in the afternoon. If it wasn't for his clothes being hung up in the closet on his side of the room, you would assume he didn't exist. On the off occasion, you would bump into Cole in the hallway between classes. His footsteps were barely audible, and his greetings were cryptic. That didn't do much to convince you he was actually alive.
"...You were thrashing. Wailing. Groaning." Cole rasped out, obviously to fill the silence that you lacked the skill to initiate. You blinked, and were drawn to his eyes yet again. The opal blue were as pervasive as a rolling fog, and equally mysterious. It was oddly enthralling.
Did you have a nightmare? You honestly couldn't remember. As soon as you woke up, your body felt heavy and your skin was chilly yet sprinkled with sweat. You were now noticing how haggard your lungs felt. And, your throat ached with pain. Did you scream?
"Sorry." You shook your head, honestly feeling a tad guilty. With how thin walls were, you assumed your racket probably was bothering some neighbors. Especially, if Cole felt the need to rise from his own bed. You probably freaked everyone out.
You clutched her head with one hand, still trying to calm your breath.
"Let me help you." Cole muttered, his hands creating a wave of pressure that rippled across the mattress. He was leaning over the bed now, his body language tipping closer to you, although he hovered as to not cross the boundary into your personal space.
His request was so sudden, that your mind skipped a bit. The gesture of kindness was unexpected, yet oddly sounded more like a command than a request.
"...Ok? Sure." You relented. Cole was odd, but you didn't have a reason not to trust him. He wasn't scary by any means. Just a little creepy.
Cole hovered still, his gaze never leaving your form. His eyes were so piercing, and you weren't entirely convinced he had been blinking this whole time.
"Can I... come closer?" Cole asked, cautiously. His voice was hardly above a murmur, but you could catch the wavering tone on his voice. It felt like he was approaching a deer or a stray dog, and was trying not to scare it away.
"I want to help." He insisted.
You nodded, and in response, Cole shuffled around from the foot of the bed to your side. He wordlessly sat on the edge of the bed with his back to your body. His mop of straw-colored hair draped down his shoulders and swayed in a way that cloaked his eyes. Even still, you were certain his gaze was still locked onto you.
His arms were folded in his lap and his knees were pressed together. A few more moments passed in silence, less awkward and more expectant now. Cole parted his lips to speak.
"Have your classes been going well?" He began.
"...Yeah. They've been fine." You replied, pausing for a brief moment. You didn't know how much you were willing to share.
"The pile of work on your desk is unfinished." Cole tilted to the wooden desk next to your bed.
There was a mess of papers and a textbook wide open with scrabbles of notes and post-its plastered in a disorganized fashion. The last thing you had done before heading to bed was try to study. But, when the paragraphs in your textbook started to swirl and your head began to ache, you turned in for the night.
"Yeah... I didn't finish my homework. I was busy studying for a test tomorrow... The homework is due at the end of tomorrow, too."
"Feeling like you can't catch up?" Cole asked, tilting his head.
The question struck your chest like a bolt of lightning. You blinked so you could mentally catch your bearings. It was a simple statement, and he could've just been guessing, but the words spoke to your feelings exactly.
"Uh... yeah. Yeah, it feels like that." You chuckled, shuffling your body to get comfortable. You nestled your pillows against your back to properly align yourself.
Cole continued, fidgeting with his hands. "One time, I saw you leave your professor's office. You seemed... stunned. Shocked. Hardened."
You grasped for the memory Cole might've been discussing. You had just had a harrowing discussion with your public speaking professor recently, maybe a week ago.
You were seated in his office, in front of his desk. He completely tore into your speech, ripping apart your topic of choice. It was honestly a blur, even though you recall fiercely defending yourself, the stone of dread sank in your stomach for the rest of the day afterwards. You felt peeled raw in that moment, and your professor pouring salt onto you.
It was too late into the semester for you to change classes, and besides, this was a required course for your major. So, despite the berating and condescension, you had to drag yourself through it anyway.
"Yeah... I call him Mr. Roach. My professor. He's a dick, if that's who you're talking about." You muttered, a spiteful from on your lips.
"The one with the scar on his face and leather skin?" Cole asked, and his abrupt observation made you guffaw. It wasn't inaccurate, but the lack of grace in the description was more than amusing to you.
"Yeah. That's him." You nodded. "He's a 79 year old geezer, and he never fails to mention how much he hates young people."
"His office is close to my lecture hall. I've heard him speak, many times. Never nice, or kind. His words are like knives." Cole's voice raised a tad more. "Everyone who leaves his office, never looks at ease."
From what you could glimpse of Cole's face, and from what you could tell he was scowling. His nose wrinkles up and his mouth is firmly pinched downwards.
"He's bitter. And, I can tell he's an arsehole."
You chuckled again, his wispy voice seemed to soften the swear word on his tongue. It was very amusing, and you felt a buzz of vindication that unclenched your tensed jaw.
"He is... And, I'm glad you said that. All of my classmates keep on acting like it's not that bad, or even try to stall my efforts to contact the Dean of the school. We all suffer with this class, but apparently, bringing attention to it is just 'too much'." You scoffed at your last statement, an exasperated tone in your voice.
"You're not being over reactive. It's hard to learn in an environment that's not welcoming. It doesn't make you stupid, or incompetent. And, you don't deserve to feel that way." Cole said, shifting his body to face you more head-on.
With that, you took a deep breath. The earlier anxiety from waking up in shock had fully left your body. You sank into the mattress, and felt much more grounded than earlier. You didn't realize how much you might've needed to hear that.
"Thank you." You sighed. As you released the stress in your body, you noticed how Cole seemed to appear more pleased. He was smiling gently, a reassuring expression with maybe a bit of pride mixed in. If nothing else, you could tell he was fulfilled.
"If no one else is willing to be with you. I will. I can help you. Figuring out who to send the right message... Scheduling a meeting... Whatever needs to be done. You don't have to continue alone." Cole nodded, a firm base in his voice that cemented his severity. "This should not persist. There needs to be some consequences."
Cole's declaration stunned you, simply from how willing he was to involve himself. But, your gratitude was tremendous. You actually had help, and you finally felt like for just a moment, that you weren't drowning anymore.
You couldn't return back to sleep quite so easily, so in the meantime, you transitioned into a more casual conversation with Cole. You really didn't know much of anything about him, so you figured now was as good a time as any to start.
In exchange for learning his favorite flower, and the places he had seen growing up, you built the foundation of understanding to how this mysterious man had gotten to the same place in time as you, across from each other in the same room.
Honestly, if he was a ghost, you didn't mind being haunted all that much.
personal take/rambling on what the hell is going on in the buckshot roulette universe
i have a lot of thoughts about buckshot roulette so this is (one of) my interpretations of that universe that i keep coming back to. inspired by computers, scp foundation, hellraiser, new age, and weird fiction. putting under a read more
i didn’t really take the ARG into account. sorry not sorry for any canon noncompliance
for clarity, i’ll refer to people that enter the club and face the dealer as players
i'm tired and haven't taken my medication yet and posting this unedited i hope this makes sense
the club is an alternate dimension/metaphysical place that exists outside of the universe. it doesn’t work like being transported from being from point A to point B though. it’s better to think of it as akin to launching a program, that the player then enter an “instance” of
multiple players can enter the club at once, and yet to each player that enters, they are the only player there. it’s not invisibility or intangibility; the player is the only player there, for all intents and purposes
the club exists ‘outside’ of normal time. to players, this means that whenever they leave the club, no time has passed in the real world, regardless of how much time they spent there. narnia/“year inside, hour outside” shit
entering the club requires the player to be in a dilapidated public bathroom at a real-world social location, at thier lowest point, and making a desperate, awful wish. the exit of the bathroom then takes the player to the club. if you’re familiar with scp foundation/the wanderer’s library and how ways and knocks work, it’s akin to that.
similar to the club, the dealer is instanced and experiences life, time and death differently from players.
all instances of the dealer share the same knowledge and personality and are effectively the same character. if a player kills the dealer, the dealer is dead to them, but his other instances continue to live.
due to shared knowledge and the nature of the club, the dealer’s knowledge of the “real world”’s timeline is nonlinear. if players talk to him, he can refer to events that are past, present or future for the player as occurring at totally different points
the dealer is some sort of supernatural living computer/biomechanical entity. the part that the players see and play the game with is only a small part of him
the person on the balcony changes depending on the player, namely reflecting who they would expect as a peer off to the side at a club. for the player we see in canon, the smoker reflects a “cool guy” masculinity– relaxed, cool, collected, detached, aloof. for someone else, it may be a drunk party girl that’s suddenly your best friend now
Peppino looks up at the apartment building and the broken buzzer panel in front of him as he taps his foot against the pavement. Then, he checks his watch, though his eyes glaze over the numbers and hands. He looks around once, twice– all that’s on the street is himself, glass shards, and cigarette butts. For now, anyways. At least it’s light outside, he thinks to himself. Though in the corner of his eyes, he catches the sun beginning to dip into the Boiler City harbor. But who knows who might come out once-
“I’m coming, Pep!” Anton screams.
Peppino’s head bolts up, barely missing Anton scrambling out of sight from the window. Then, heavy footfalls ring out from the building, louder and louder as they descend, before Anton reappears in the window of the front door.
---
Anton cooks up a little surprise for Peppino.
---
a peppiblast oneshot (with guest star annie) for @superkirbylover for candy hearts 2025! silly vibes, domestic cartoon-ass shenanigans.
The first thing that greeted Petra's senses as she came to was the taste of crisp spring air. The breeze was gentle, with a cool nip as it flowed past, but not enough to make her shiver. She inhaled, savoring the air, then opened her eyes. Surrounding Petra was a forest of oak trees, with the occasional birch in between, leaves shuffling in the wind. Though forests like these were a familiar sight in many of her travels, this one was the most familiar of all—even though in the waking world, all the trees here were long gone, blown away and ripped from their roots in a torrent of rain, wind, hellfire, and rot.
---
Curious about where her friend goes when he’s fast asleep, Petra pays a visit to Jesse’s dreams.
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a psychonauts-inspired mcsm one shot for bluerosekatie for candy hearts exchange 2025! cozy and surreal, a little sad.
If undead is a creature defying the rigidity of death, then unalive is a creature loosely functioning within the bounds of life. Something that is alive, but in the wrong way. Alive in a way that is an affront to nature. Perhaps something a little too hungry for life, clawing and grasping at every sensation they are given. Something that is not full of life, but chasing and being pulled by their ravenous instinct to inhabit within it.
