Just had an idea for the funniest possible isat au (fic idea? concept?? thingy???)
We all know and love Odile's drunk 'Siffrin is an assassin working for the King' theory, right? In this concept, there's a universe where she was right: Siffrin is the King's right hand fella, who's been following Mirabelle ever since she escaped the House of Dormont. At first the rogue posed a legitimate threat, popping up to attack her every so often, but as more and more people (with a healthy dose of Rock Craft) joined the party, they've been relegated to a minor annoyance. By the time that Bonnie joins the group, Siffrin's just a villain of the week. A thorn in their side, for sure, but with all the menace of a team rocket villain.
Oh, it's raining, Siffrin's trying to steal our orbs again and I left our umbrellas the inn. What a shame!
The main reasons why they don't get rid of him permanently is
a. The party aren't willing to full on murder him
b. Siffrin's only talented at escaping prisons/untying rope.
But the real meat of this auconceptficideathingy is that a week before each party enters Dormont, Assassin!Siffrin swaps places with canon!Siffrin.
To elaborate a little, the canon universe of ISAT exists alongside Assassin Siffrin's universe, and either through a poorly worded wish, the Universe's meddling or the whims of a bored deity (looking at you, Change God) each Siffrin is dropped without warning into the other's world.
It's so funny to me specifically because it's the perfect balance of the silliest of the sillies and angst. Like, the ISAT party are soooo heartbroken and betrayed (and Odile is secretly vindicated that her 'crackpot theory' was right) that their silly little rogue has heel turned and seemingly betrayed them. How did this happen? How could they miss this?? Siffrin protected them, time and time again - lost their EYE for Bonnie's sake - and it was all just an elaborate rouse to earn their trust and stab them in the back?! How could he?!?
Assassin!Frin is just blinding confused. Why are you guys saying we used to be friends? You literally hate me! Why are you so mad that I'm breaking out of my restraints? You usually love it when I break out of stuff - I even did a little twirl for you this time!! What is up with you all today? Maybe you'd prefer a bit of villainous banter this time. Surely some back and forth will help pick up the mood… WHY ARE YOU CRYING???
Meanwhile ISAT!frin is living their worst NIGHTMARE. All of their friends hate them, everyone thinks their evil, their beloved party keeps attacking them and, oh yeah! ALL OF THEIR FRIENDS HATE THEM. And the Assassin!party are all like: Help? Our resident reoccurring minor antagonist keeps shaking like a wet dog whenever we call them evil?? I think they're about to start crying?? Please advise???
i'm hoh, use ASL, and i am completely obsessed with your Deaf grace au, please never stop working on it ohhh my god.
i love the idea of rocky and grace's respective culture & language being so much similar than they are different. an outside party would view rocky's "blindness" and grace's deafness as an impairment, but they're both integral aspects of their identities and culture. grace uses expression of his entire body to convey language & identity, and rocky uses texture, vibrations, and movements to convey his own. they fit together so well!!!!!!!
i like to think they'd bond over sound haptics tbh. grace playing music from one of the accessible devices the team on earth thankfully didn't overlook, and he and rocky both get to feel the music. grace is probably hyped about eridian music because i just KNOW that they have some cool shit going on
on that note (pun intended). rocky who struggles to comprehend that humans have binocular vision because *What*---he has piezoelectric senses and maps them. he's thrilled to learn that grace does a form of the same thing since he can't hear, instead being more attune to his surroundings via cross-modal neuroplasticity. grace has his own form of feeling vibrations and spatial mapping, albeit not "hearing" with quartz.
Deaf grace is genius, thank you for telling his story :). sorry if there's spelling errors in this yap lmfao it's 3 am </3
-@petrova-line
YAY I'M SO GLAD YOU LIKE IT!! One of my fav things is that like. Yeah they're both disabled and no there is not one single communication method that works perfectly but that doesn't actually make them communicate like, "worse" or "less," just differently and maybe not as smoothly, which is honestly just kind of exactly what you would expect from two alien species trying to talk anyways. But then also that makes them kind of work together even better than they would if they weren't disabled in some ways too.
I do really love to think about what things they would bond over (like haptics and vibrations!!) and what they would just. be so (curiously) confused by, as well as them telling each other about things they don't know about themselves, like Rocky's colouration and all the noises Grace doesn't know that he makes. I just really love aliens and disabilities, there's always so so so much to explore with it, no matter the alien and no matter the disability.
