https://www.tumblr.com/lydiaalin/803639310900396032?source=share
Please please elaborate on Stanibal and and changeling Mabel. They sound so cool
SHIT i started typing out a response to this and i LOST IT. ACK.
okay we're doing this all in one go now- hi anon! thank you for asking ive been dying to talk about these two but wasn't sure how to start >:)
step into my lairrrrr learn about my shapeshifter aus oooo....
ill break these into parts, because these are two separate aus! :))
Changeling Mabel
(warnings for transphobia and shitty parents)
in changeling! mabel au, dipper wasn't born a twin, or even a boy for that matter
growing up, dipper wasn't well liked. he lived in a forested part of california, in a small town with people of even smaller minds. it didn't help at all, then, when he started telling people to call him mason, the boy
his parents, for one, aren't happy either. his mother liked the idea of having a darling little momma's girl - the perfect daughter. not that dipper was ever the perfect daughter even when he was a girl, but this is just the nail in the coffin, so to speak
so when a girl emerges from the trees, dipper's age and looking so similar to him she could be his twin - well, its interesting
she walks up to their porch. she brushes the leaves from her hair, and smiles a smile that seems too perfect, too exacting down to every detail, like it was practiced, mimicked by a creature that didn't truly understand the gesture
she knocks on the door. the family answers, and when she tells them she is their daughter mabel, mason's twin sister, they listen. when she asks if she can come inside, they let her
they give her dipper's old clothes and dipper's old girl things. they say she's their new daughter, and isn't she perfect?
dipper feels like he's going insane. this is obviously some sort of fae monster, wearing a human face to trick everyone into letting down their guard so she can eat their brains or something!
but nobody seems to believe him- nobody seems to care that when mabel smiles its a little too wide, that when she moves its a little too stiff, that she seems to only blink when she remembers to, that her skin is too smooth and unblemished, her hair is too fine and smooth, that no matter her expression, her eyes are always wide and doll-like
no, everybody seems happy to have mabel here - happy to have their new perfect daughter and really, dipper thinks bitterly, what do they need him for anymore, if he's so easily replaced?
worse yet, mabel seems to have a keen interest in him especially. in a crowded room, its him her eyes move to first - when dipper speaks, she's the first to listen. she follows him around, even when he sneaks off into the woods to be alone, she's always trying to talk to him...
needless to say, dipper's paranoid as hell. everyone wants him to accept her as his new twin sister, but dipper's beginning to think they just want to shut up and accept that he's been replaced, by a face-stealing monster that probably wants to eat everyone, or turn them into mindless bodies in an eternal dance, or whatever fae do, and-
and its her, in the end, that gets him to break. in the middle of the forest, no one else around, he tells her. he tells her he thinks she's a monster, that she's out to replace him and he knows it and, and why is it so easy, why is everyone just letting her-
"It's because," Mabel tells him, in a voice so sickeningly gentle, "they don't see you. They only see what they want to see. It's not fair to you, but that's how they are, and they aren't going to change."
oh. oh.
"What do you want from me," Dipper asks her, miserable and ready to give up, so tired of this, so tired of all of it.
But she only smiles at him, and it's such a sweet smile. It feels like the first real smile he's ever seen from her. "I want to be your sister," she tells him. "I've seen you in these woods. I've watched you for a long time. They don't like you? Well, I do. I've come here for you, to be your sister. That's all I want."
And Dipper's been so scared for so long, but this time? This time, he knows she's telling the truth.
His sister is here, and she's come to lead him home.
Stannibal/ 'Stanford's Monster'
(warnings for horror themes, bullying, violence, and cannibalism)
AAA IM INSANE ABOUT THIS AU. insane i tell you. absolutely nuts about it.
soon. soon i will post the mini comic intro to the au, and then you will all become very familiar with the true depths of my madness, but to answer your question anon-
my stannibal au, or 'stanford's monster' as i've decided is its official title, follows a similar formula to changeling mabel au... at least in the beginning, lol.
stanford pines is an only child, until one night, when he's exploring the caves of glass shard beach, he finds something. a creature that can wear his own face back at him
maybe a normal person would have run at this point. called the cops, or left that creature in the boarded up cave to rot and wither away. stanford, however, is not a normal person
he runs at first, sure. but then he comes back, and comes back, and comes back...
the creature can transform into anything - living or not, real or not. its animalistic, but its easily appeased by the snacks stanford brings out to it
at first it only echoes back stanford's own voice and words at him, but slowly, steadily, stanford manages to teach it to speak. he even teaches it how to swim, helps it practice its various shifts. he grows comfortable with it, even begins to see it as his one and only friend amidst his cold parents and cruel classmates. the creature, in turn, stops looking at him like a piece of meat it needs to be convinced not to eat
they form a strong bond, strong enough that it feels genuinely hard to leave at times, feeling its eyes cling to him as he goes home for bed each night. he thinks it misses him too, when he's gone
the creature rarely ventures far from the beach, and almost never outside of the cave without stanford there beside it. stanford forgets it ever looked at him with hunger - it never even seems to consider it, nowadays, too busy sticking to his side like a barnacle
then one day stanford goes to it after a rough day at school. he's black and blue, his glasses lenses are cracked. its been a while since it was this bad, and maybe he should have gone home, but he couldn't stand the thought of not getting to see his favorite creature (person?) that day
when it sees him, it asks him what happened, of course. he tells it that it happened at school - that sometimes the other kids pick on him for being small (stanford doesn't want to tell it yet that the six fingers it proudly copies on its own hands are a freakish abnormality - seeing hands like that on someone else, it makes him feel less alone, and he's not ready to lose that yet)
he's not sure whether or not to expect empathy or not (his creature can be strange in its manners and mindset sometimes, he never quite knows what to expect), but the way the creature reacts does surprise him
because it offers to come with him. its alright if stanford is small, it says, because it will protect him
stanford should have said no - but he doesn't. no, instead he thinks about it. thinks about getting to have this creature, his friend, at his side all day. even if it can't protect him, stanford knows he'd feel better just having it around
besides - what's the worst that could happen?
so stanford says yes. they'll go to school together - they'll everyone that the creature is stanford's twin brother, that's he's just been... ill, for the past couple of years, and thats why they've never met him. stanford would give the creature a new name entirely, but its gotten attached to 'being stanford' as it puts it, so they compromise and call it- call him stanley.
his twin brother stanley. stanford had always wanted a brother.
the school administration, obviously, isn't pleased about this. nobody knows who the hell this kid is, only that stanford is insistent that its his twin brother stanley, whom he's always had but they never knew
but the pines family has been living in glass shard beach since filbrick himself was three years old, and everybody knows damn well they only have one son. hell, they call the pines parents themselves, and they confirm their suspicions- they've never had no second son, certainly not a secret twin
but what are they supposed to do? despite staff concerns, the kid hasn't actually done anything. he's just... creepy. he follows stanford around, and lately people have reported seeing him rooting around in the trash bins after lunch, but, well- what is there to do?
what, are they going to call the cops? what do they even say? besides, this is glass shard beach, none of these people want to talk to the fucking cops. the kid is creepy, but he's just a kid (right?)
stanford and stanley get older. the age 17 marks the official point in their lives where they can say they've none each other for the majority of their lives, having met when stanford was 8.
stanford loves stanley and stanley loves stanford. this much is indisputable.
but even after all these years, to anyone except the hopelessly optimistic stanford, its clear stanley's only playing at being human. an act which he performs with no deeper understanding of the role, simply reading off the lines stanford has taught him in a futile attempt to guide his brother closer to humanity
stanley loves stanford, but he's getting hungry. the bigger he gets, the bigger his appetite. stanford does his best, but those tiny school lunches and breakfast portions aren't cutting it anymore, and they've already gotten themselves banned from just about any location you can shoplift food from, and filbrick says stanley's not his damn son, he doesn't need an extra mouth to feed, and all stanley has is stanford but stanford doesn't get it stanford says he can only eat animals and plants but stanley's been doing that and it's not working anymore, it's just not cutting it anymore and he's so hungry and he knows what stanford says, but he's got instincts, and they're telling there's a great source of food around him, and its everywhere, and it would be so easy
he's so, so hungry. and a whole person- that'd fill him up for a while. for a good long time, in fact. and he's so much stronger than an average person now - he can lift stanford with ease, could bend solid steel with his bare hands if he put his back into it enough
stanford says he's not supposed to eat people, well- are they really people if they hurt stanford?
that sounds more like the work of monsters to stanley. and surely stanford can't be mad if stanley kills monsters?
surely stanford won't be too upset about that, right?
(ha)
