#unity station

[murumokirby360]

🖼️ 📷Unity Station, Los Santos, San Andreas

[unitystationshenans]

Some more Omegaverse au stuff, because I am having way too much fun with it. It's called 'From Eden', because I will put a Hosier reference as many places as I please.

So, I finally posted all three parts of the Omegaverse au up on AO3. If you haven't read it, this contains spoilers.

So. Baby Cam, Corvin and Nicky’s youngest. I described him at birth as having Nicky’s hair color and blue-green eyes, which do eventually change to be the same green as Corvin’s eyes. That happens with babies. I almost had him be born blonde and have his hair also change over time, but that would have given Corvin a heart attack, so I decided against it. (Remember, there's trauma behind why he dyes his hair black.)

Personality wise, Cam at first appears to be a carbon copy of Corvin. His emotional expression is all in his eyes, and he ends up talking like he swallowed a thesaurus. Which he sort of has, because this boy takes after both parents in that he's incredibly smart and loves to read the second he learns how. However, hidden beneath a seemingly calm exterior is a deep need to go off and have his own adventures. Which he does, much to Corvin’s overprotective chagrin. He does not listen to his parents nearly as well as Robin does. He also develops a sort of fascination with Jaden, which nobody is a fan of. Least of all Jaden, who does not appreciate being followed around by Robin and Cam basically constantly. Though this does actually help his later efforts to get clean and off drugs. Jaden may not be a fan of the boys, but he doesn't want to be that horrible of an influence on them.

The real reason I can't have Cam in the canon universe, aside from the fact that Nicky can't actually get Corvin pregnant in canon, is because he and Honey’s eventual daughter would get along too well and leave the entire station in chaos. I haven't really posted about Norah anywhere, but she is intended to be part of the canon universe at some point. Norah and Cam would cause problems on purpose and be general delinquents. He'd be about four years older than her, so old enough to have a sort of older-brother fondness, but not old enough to not enable her.

Cam also really loves his older brother Robin, because he thinks Robin's cheerfriendly sunshine persona is fun, and he sort of wishes he could be like that, but not enough to not be true to himself. Also that Robin is his most frequent babysitter, so they have a close bond. Robin is almost fourteen years older than him, so Cam thinks he's Super Cool And Mature until Cam becomes an adult himself and is like 'oh, you were goofball, actually.'

Gonna add that Robin is Not parentified in this arrangement, he just likes spending time with his baby brother. Robin brings Cam along whenever he's meeting up with friends, and is super proud to show him off.

Since this is still Omegaverse, I have to also give Cam a designation. He's probably omega like Corvin, but similarly does not fit the stereotype of being a submissive housewife (Okay, Corvin is a Sub in bed most of the time, but he's a switch, okay! And if anyone tried to claim that Nicky had real actual power over him, he would beat their face in). He's a little chaos gremlin, and he thinks similarly to Corvin that society is full of bioessentialist idiots who wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they weren't treating the secondary sexes like fuckin' zodiac signs.

He steals Nicky’s fashion choices wholesale. He likes the flannel button-ups and work boots, they’re comforting and make him feel tough. He does keep his hair pretty short though, because he has sensory issues and hates having anything touch his chin or shoulders. He likes guns and knives well enough, but doesn't really specialize in their use like Nicky and Corvin did. He'd rather throw a punch.

[unitystationshenans]

I keep making au's instead of finishing the book. Why am I like this.

Modern au stuff under the cut, mostly the backstory I don't have time to go in depth about in the story itself.

In a modern au, Corvin would not have been able to run away successfully. His family lived in a semi-rural area, the cops were friends with his dad, and he got found and dragged back home. Meaning he was actually home for the death of Oliver. He didn't see it, because he was locked in the shed as punishment for whatever his latest escape attempt was. All he knows is that he heard screaming, and an hour later, paramedics and a firefighter snipped the bolt off the shed door and got him out, then he got dragged to the hospital.

Since he's the youngest sibling, the others are super protective of him, especially Kate and Jack. Corvin was mostly nonverbal as a child, but Kate understood him and often helped translate what he wanted to say, which is part of why she's his favorite sibling. Jack is more physically protective, willing to try and fight anyone to keep them all safe. Tbh Jack is probably the most broken up about Oliver. When Corvin gets the recap of what happened that night, he learns that Jack tried to get in between their father and Oliver, to try and protect him, but he just got beaten and his arm broken, before their dad went after Oliver anyway.

The sibling squad goes to live with their Uncle Russel for a while- about a year- but Russel got very sick and they got put into foster care. Russel had lung cancer that was in remission at the time he took them in, but then it came back with a vengeance and the doctors didn't catch it in time to do anything. Russell's long-term partner Adrian was unable to keep them, because he was an unrelated male. (Corvin’s childhood is set in the early 2000s, back before gay marriage was legalized in the US.)

Corvin ends up separated from his siblings because he's determined as a special case due to his autism and some behavioral issues he has, you know, because he's a traumatized nine-year-old with poor emotional regulation. Almost immediately, these get worse because his siblings' presence at least helped him get a grip on himself most of the time. He does a lot of petty crime over the next few years, and has a criminal record and a mugshot by the time he's thirteen. At thirteen, he gets sent to his new foster family! It's Stone Kaye, who immediately begins the grooming shit he does in the main canon. Corvin doesn't immediately clock it because he's just absolutely starving for positive attention and is surprisingly ignorant about what constitutes as 'sexual behavior'. Stone takes advantage of this. A lot. Corvin eventually catches on, but then Stone threatens him into silence because the Kaye family owns a very successful company and has plenty of money to pay off whoever they want. It is made clear that this is NOT the first teenager Stone has done this to, and the fates of these teens are never specified to Corvin, who has no choice but to assume the worst.

Corvin ages out of foster care, and is manipulated into marrying Stone very shortly afterwards. Corvin does it, but makes Stone sign a prenup that sets very specific rules for them both. One of them being that Stone can have whatever affairs he wants, but no one under eighteen. Corvin will have sex whenever Stone wants, but only if he's unconscious the whole time. Corvin will be allowed to work and leave the home, but only as a media manager for the Kayes' company. Lots more, but those are the big ones.

Nicky is Tony Loch’s adopted (sort of, it's complicated) son. He lived in Mexico for the first five years of his life before his bio dad brought him back to the States. Nicky has dual citizenship and is something of a polyglot. Said biodad died shortly after they moved back. It was obviously murder, but the police never really investigated it because, if I haven't made this clear enough, COPS FUCKING SUCK AND RARELY DO ANYTHING TO HELP. Anyway. Nicky also got shifted into the foster system, but doesn't remember most of his childhood until he got adopted by Tony. Tony fuckface Loch makes him back up this elaborate story about how his other parent was a surrogate that got cold feet and ran away, tragedy struck, and it took Tony sooooo long to find Nicky again. He knows he was abused pretty badly while in foster care- he has the scars to prove it- but he has long since decided not to go spelunking into those particular memories.

Nicky is an only child in this and in all universes, and he has this sort of miasma of loneliness due to it? Like, as far as he knows, his entire family is dead. His bio dad, some grandparents he vaguely remembers when he was itsy tiny, whoever his mom was. He has absolutely no memory of a mom, but he assumes he must have had one at some point. He surrounds himself with hedonistic assholes, and becomes something of one himself, though it's mostly an act/ self medicating for his cptsd, adhd, and possibly some other stuff but we're not getting into that here. He drinks, does drugs, spends Tony’s money every fucking way he can, and is all around just kind of trying to scrape together a bit of enjoyment out of a pretty fucked up life. He has a favorite prostitute. (It’s Mozzie. It's always gonna be Mozzie.)

I'm going to bring it up a bit in the work itself, but also want to emphasize that one of Nicky’s problems is that he's a visibly Latino guy surrounded by rich white assholes, and Tony doesn't understand why this matters. In fact, Tony never bothered to learn Spanish, even though it was Nicky’s first language. (Corvin genuinely tries to learn, but also he's got a tongue tie that makes it difficult lol. He can understand it well enough though, he's just bad at speaking it.)

Nicky is a soft boy in a very complicated world, and all he really wants to do is chase his passions and maybe have a family someday. One that isn't full of douchebags. He wants to enjoy life, not be constantly bogged down by lies and illness. He is trying to get Corvin to have an affair the entire time, though, but he thinks it doesn't count as wrong if Corvin is so clearly unhappy in his marriage.

[unitystationshenans]

This is stupid, and probably not interesting to anyone but me. However.

Unity Station Omegaverse Au headcanons under the cut. ("Headcanons," say I, the actual author.) Huge spoilers for book 1.

First of all, Corvin is Omega, and extremely bitter about it. He's not gender about it, he doesn't feel like he isn't *really* omega, like he realized he wasn't *really* a girl, but he's pissed off that he is because it's way fucking harder. His relationship with Stone is even more fraught in this context. In original flavor canon, Stone is staunchly childfree and almost immediately got Corvin onto birth control when he was. Uh. Old enough to have periods and such. (Stone is a fucking pedophile, we all know this, it’s why he gets brutally murdered.) In an abo au, Stone waffles back and forth about it, meaning Corvin is constantly being yanked around and forced on and off of suppressants. Thankfully he gets out of there before Stone can make up his mind in a direction Corvin doesn't want. His dysphoria is different, in that pregnancy being associated with both men and women in this universe means he doesn't hate the idea as much, but he's a teenager when he's in that relationship, so is way too fucking young to be having kids. Stone also hadn't bound him officially, because he wanted plausible deniability if someone asked why Stone has this teenager around him.

Nicky is only technically Alpha. He's not got a lot of hormones or whatever, he's not being obnoxious and aggressive. He's a more calming presence in this au. His and Corvin’s relationship is not casually sexual in this au, because if Nicky could actually knock him up, Corvin would have never agreed to it. Corvin needs commitment before he's willing to take that kind of risk with his body, and he's the one unwilling to commit until he goes through his canon character arc. Once they get together, then they can fuck about it. Nicky is more of a leader type in this au, in a Team Dad sort of way. He's still a silly softboy, obvs. In my head, I'm using a lot of cat characteristics instead of just wolf/dog ones. The scent marking present in a lot of abo reminds me of cats more than dogs, and it's the same with the way nesting is described. Nicky is like a big orange tabby.

Honey is, of course, an Alpha. The reason for the cloning tech in this au is that the Marsters line has troubles with infertility. Her personality is basically unchanged, because she's already the leader of the pack in regular canon. She's perhaps a little more aggressive about her love life, but she's definitely been taught to be careful and kind, because she could be an absolute terror if she didn't have a strong guiding hand from her mother and grandmother. Her and her book 2 love interest are an Alpha x Alpha relationship, and they have fun taking their pent up aggression on each other. (It’s fine, they're being Safe Sane Consensual about it) She's considered to be the ideal Alpha in her society. Dominant but compassionate, strong-willed, intuitive. She cares about the people under her protection deeply and with fervor. Her and Nicky get along better in this au.

Mozzie is beta, but tells nobody. He's semi famous (in this au and in normal canon) because he used to do porn. He still does on occasion, and he has his own tag on some websites. There is fierce debate as to his secondary sex, which is exactly why he keeps it hidden. He thinks it's hilarious. The side that thinks he's Omega thinks so because he's a tiny little guy, and he enjoys being the receiver more than the giver. The side that thinks Alpha thinks so because he's a forceful personality and likes to dom most men. He has a preference for Alpha women, which maybe tips the scales towards the Omega truthers.

The original Project Unity crew are mostly betas, aside from Bela and Clark, who were both Alpha. (Okay, Clark was technically not a part of Project Unity, but he was JD’s husband, so he's been grandfathered in. He trained service dogs in original canon, and probably does the same in this one too.)

Vampirism can screw with your hormones, and while Mozzie is fine, JD is maybe a little inter-dynamic. He produces a small amount of Omega hormones, but it's not enough to make him present that way, or to induce heats. It's just enough to confuse people with especially sharp senses. He's mostly beta though.

Jaden is beta, and very thankful for it. Kid does not need this bullshit making his life worse. Robin is a late bloomer and, in a hypothetical abo retelling, would probably figure out what he is towards the end of book 2, or just before book 3. I can't decide what he'd be though; he's a natural leader, very charismatic, and people like to listen to him, but he is also a sweet ball of sunshine that doesn't *want* to be in an actual leadership position. His love interest would be an Alpha though. Again, this is all book 2 and 3 stuff, because in book 1 Robin is a small child. In book 2 he's 17, and in book 3 he's 18/19. Prime 'figuring out your sexuality' time. Also prime 'accidentally falling for the worst person possible' time. Listen, falling for your childhood bully is one of the great blunders of young adulthood. Thankfully for Robin, said bully gets the fuck over himself and improves as a person. (The relationship is a little toxic at first, but it gets worked out. They're fine.)

Throwing a wrench in the works to declare that Angel, six-foot-tall, fat and muscular, famous model? Omega. On suppressants because of his heart condition. A heat could possibly kill this poor man. Jaden is super protective of him, even before they officially get together.

As for the overall societal stuff; more people are Beta than Alpha or Omega, but it's not like it's rare at all. Society is much more sex positive than our world is, or the original Unity universe. The tradeoff is that poly is a bit more disliked due to the nature of matebonds and stuff. Corvin still approves of Nicky and Mozzie having a side thing, and Bela, Elaine, and DJ still had their polycule. Insurance covers suppressants, thankfully, but if you don't have that, they can be annoyingly expensive. They're mostly safe for long-term use, but some kinds have more risks. This is the same for our normal birth control, so I figured that would be the most realistic.

Body differences; male omegas are pretty much dual-sex, and have a separate pseudo-vagina that opens during puberty. Because I like the idea more than turning the ass into a cloaca. Similarly, female Alphas have a pseudo-penis that grows when they hit puberty. (Please think spotted hyenas, though a female alpha would not give birth *through it* like the poor lady hyenas do) Dick size isn't really that different, though the societal stereotype is that Alphas have big dicks, and Omegas have small. It's just a belief some have, not actually based on reality. Porn doesn't help.

Anyway, I've put way too much thought into this.

[unitystationshenans]

Jaden talk! Trigger warning for...like, most of Jaden’s character development and arc being a whole hot mess. SA, drug use, and cults are the big warnings. Smaller warning that Jaden is a prickly little asshole (affectionate) and he tries so hard to alienate himself from everyone.

So, Jaden. Book 1 villain and book 2 tertiary protagonist. This poor dude goes through the ringer, and it is all necessary for the kind of story I want to tell with him. He's a cult and SA survivor, turns to drugs to cope with the cult stuff, and is never nice about it once in his life. He tries so hard to drive away everyone, mainly because he's scared of himself and his trauma, and terrified that someone will use it against him to break him further. Key to his arc, however, is that he isn't alone, he is not completely abandoned. No matter how hard he tries, some people still stubbornly care about him. Robin is an eternal well of cheerfriendly sunshine, and finds Jaden’s personality more funny than legitimately hurtful. Corvin has very literally been there, got the t-shirt, so he knows the horrors of trying to scrape together your identity after you've been manipulated and used your whole life. He's also not afraid of snapping right back at Jaden; the kid’s tough, he can handle it. It's why, when Corvin finds him unconscious and half dead, in the possession of a drug dealer, he's so angry when Jaden does wake back up. He's seeing some of his own mistakes, and understands trying to be soft and caring will only further push Jaden away. Jaden needs to be yelled at to get it through to him that people really do care. And the fact that Jaden tries to flirt with him for drugs almost immediately after disturbs him to the core. Corvin yells because if he doesn't, he might cry in front of this...sassy lost child. And Corvin hs a policy of only crying two times per year, thank you, he'd like to reserve that for later.

After the events of book 1, Corvin and Nicky did try to take him in and parent him a bit, but Jaden would run the opposite direction every time he saw them. He only interacts with Robin because the kid *will* chase after him. Robin was a bit scared of Jaden at first, but once he was a teen himself, he realized that Jaden was also just scared. When he realized Jaden was taking drugs, he became focused on trying to get him away from that. Unfortunately, being a child, he doesn't understand the complexity of why someone becomes addicted, and why it might not even be safe for Jaden to quit all at once. Robin does look into this a bit more as he grows, and moves on to trying to help Jaden get real medical treatment for the problems he's trying to self medicate for. He's not above breaking a few laws to help. (No one takes laws seriously anyway. This wouldn't be a dystopia if they did)

As for his whole thing with Angel...that's a spoiler.

[unitystationshenans]

Fun writey bits! How failsafe changed from concept to execution.

So. Firstly, it wasn't supposed to be a romance. Corvin was supposed to be entirely incapable of feeling romantically for anyone, not even Nicky. Nicky’s character arc was going to be about learning to accept this, and realizing that he'd been basically using Corvin as a fantasy boyfriend via their fwb arrangement. Corvin’s arc was about being more open about how he felt, and admitting to himself that he was likewise using Nicky for comfort without giving any of the emotional labor back. Their original dynamic was going to be a lot more terse and distant. Unless they were alone, where they'd be constantly touching or hugging, too caught up in exuding their respective images to be honest with themselves and each other. Nicky thought of Corvin as closed off and robotic, while Corvin was rather dismissive of Nicky’s own brand of intelligence. Outside of his work with guns, that is.

Then I accidentally got really high, and went on a journey to the center of myself, where I realized that no, Corvin and Nicky loved each other and were each other's ride or die. Nicky’s persona became much more awkward and silly, while Corvin really unfolded into a caring but emotionally unexpressive guy with a panic disorder. Their fwb thing stayed, but more to emphasize that these two are just idiots who needed a little therapy. And also because their casual relationship to sex was a rather important trait, and was present since the very beginning. The original dream that spawned the book had Robin actually running into their nest while they were undressing each other, and the awkward scramble to deal with the threat chasing him. (In the dream it was robots. This was changed to make more sense, because the original dream was heavily star wars influenced lol.)

Mozzie was literally just a sex worker employed by Honey that was only supposed to appear on page twice, with the second time being when he and Nicky hooked up. His appearance was also drastically different; he was very tall and gaunt, still very pretty, but in a much different way. He was always a vampire, and always albino. His height was changed when I narrowed down his backstory. A thing I hope to have gotten across with my mentioning their heights is that short = grew up poor, and tall = grew up well off. When his backstory as a human trafficking survivor was determined, I thought it would be fun to make him the shortest adult member of the cast. His role expanded because I accidentally fell in love with him as a writer, and I wanted the whole "one guy vs several, the others think he's going to get killed, only for him to be the last one still standing" scene.

Honey has changed the least, aside from toning down certain aspects. When I hadn’t planned on her being trans, she was actually a lot more creepy and pushy towards Corvin, and abused her position of power to sort of put him in compromising situations with her. When I realized she was trans, that aspect was almost entirely dropped. Now the flirting is just an inside joke that Corvin doesn't mind, because she doesn't mean it. She was also a little bit more of a Black Widow figure, but her identity as "What if Amber Sweet was also a spy?" Came to the forefront.

Robin has barely changed. At all. He's just a chill kid. Even his grown up version didn't go through many iterations. He just kind of popped up exactly as he needed to be: adorable, and autistic as hell. Sure, he got character development by way of "oh wait, that's actually a sign of trauma, I should expand on that," but that was always sort of the plan. He's just a sweet little sunshine boy who wants to avoid thinking about the deep pit of sadness and grief he has yet to process. The biggest change is that he was supposed to be aroace, but apparently he decided he wanted a boyfriend too.

Boys, stop changing sexuality mid-book, I can't keep swapping scenes out.

Speaking of. The confession scene between Nicky and Corvin was originally going to be a huge argument, where they got some catharsis by taking it out on each other. But once they were going to end up together, the things they were going to yell were no longer applicable.

Also, as far as race/ethnicity. Nicky was originally supposed to be Russian (hence why his name is Nicolai), but I liked the idea of him being Hispanic much more as I thought about the characters. People expect the sort of Latin-lover stereotype from him, but he's actually super nervous and 100% dedicated to his partner. It also let me tell my favorite language-based anecdote. Mozzie was going to get a canon race/ethnicity, but I decided it was more fun to wait and see what people do for headcanons, should this ever get a readerbase. I sort of see him in my head as being partly Japanese, but that's not official. Corvin’s family is white, or at least mostly white, because the dynamic in his childhood home was based heavily on my own experiences of white evangelical families here in the Ozarks. That pretty facade, but with something deeply rotten once you get past the first couple of layers. Honey was imagined as white, but feel free to have your own interpretation. Robin was always a little black child, and it remains an important facet of his character! A lot of non-white autistic kids get overlooked or misdiagnosed, and a lot get treated like adults way too young. Technically he's multi-racial, because Enora was black and Korean, and Karina is white, but he looks a lot like his great grandmother. He didn't get very much of DJ or Karina’s looks lol. Just got Karina’s brown-eye gene.

Dervish is Palestinian, though it's not mentioned in book 1. It is a minor plot point in book 2. Doll is ambiguous, please imagine whatever for them. They're mostly robot anyway. If a character's race is important, I'll bring it up in the narrative. If it’s not, I will leave it up to interpretation.

This is getting long. More posting in the morrow! Once I have slept!

[unitystationshenans]

The Plague, main antagonist for book 2, and certified Spooky Boy.

[unitystationshenans]

Corvin (last name not found), autistic techie covered in secret knives. He's in a good mood in this image (looking at Nicky, probably). Otherwise he'd look a lot grumpier. Trans, demisexual, and way more compassionate than he lets on.

Nicolai 'Nicky' Grass, weapons expert and Hopeless (?) Romantic. He was never *officially* diagnosed as ADHD, but we can all tell. He's two seconds from turning red because he just finished saying the corniest line known to man. Trans, pansexual, likes people who could kill him.

Honey Marsters, Crime Family heiress and secret huge history nerd. Imagine if Black Widow was Gina Linetti from B99, and you'll be on the right track. She's smarter than she lets on, even if she's a spoiled rich girl, and she will knife you if you say something about her Momma. Trans, pansexual, girlboss.

Mosquito 'Mozzie' Singer, Honey’s bodyguard and occasional smooch buddy. Albino vampire who's been trying to seduce Nicky for months at this point, please cut this boy a break. Wants you to ask about the scar, because he is planning on lying about it. Accidentally my favorite. Cis, pansexual, aromantic, and Unity Station's #1 ethical slut.

Robin (Grass???) And Jaden (last name not found). Robin is a sweet sweet sunshine child that Corvin and Nicky took one look at and decided to adopt. He's a partially mute little autistic boy that oops, sets off a whole cascade of plot shenanigans. He's ten and has no idea what's going on like 50% of the time. In book 2, he's seventeen and knows more than he lets on. Cis, Asexual, demiromantic, and has *the worst taste*.

Jaden is the figurehead of a plant-obsessed death cult. He's fifteen and the most cantankerous little brat the main characters have ever met. He doesn't get much better, even if he does get more sympathetic. Supposed to be ritually slaughtered when he turns eighteen, but they aren't letting that happen. Twenty-two in book 2, and more than that is a spoiler. Cis, Demiromantic, sexuality unclear because Trauma (tm), and has much better taste in romantic partners than Robin does.