#and that’s the catalyst for separating the kids perhaps legally

[snuggles-and-struggles]

I’ve had this random kingdings college au stuck in my head for weeks now so I might as well loose it to the wind 🤲

Gaster is one of those child prodigy types. First started college at the age of 15, and is now a teacher himself at 24 (in some vein of science, experimental physics or something). Works at a highly prestigious school, his work is his life.

Asgore, on the other hand, mostly got accepted to the school because he comes from an old money type of family. Not to say he’s stupid, but he’s not very passionate about what he’s there for, which would essentially be politics, law, etc. and why it took so long for him to commit and apply (he’s 29). Really, he’d be happy to run a small flower shop and keep to himself, but family pressures and all that jazz.

I haven’t settled on how they meet, perhaps Gaster is actually already acquainted with the Dreemurr family, since they’re a well known, influential monster family, or perhaps it’s a meet-cute situation and they routinely bump into each other in odd ways. Either way, they become an odd couple of friends, neither particularly social amongst their piers for various reasons.

It’s not long before Gaster learns about Toriel, Asgore’s childhood friend…and love of his life, not that she knows, and Gaster ignores the odd feeling it gives him listening to Asgore talk about her. After graduating high school, Toriel pursued her dream of traveling and teaching all over the world, so Asgore never confessed, not wanting her to feel like he was asking her to stay with him as part of a life he wasn’t even happy in.

The closer they get, the more Gaster begins to identify that funny feeling he gets around Asgore, but does everything in his power to staunch it, convinced Asgore is still holding on to hope that he and Toriel might one day be able to be together.

Meanwhile, Gaster is one of the first real friends Asgore feels like he’s made in a long time. Despite getting along decently with most, something about Gaster puts Asgore at ease, and makes him feel like he can relax and be himself in a way few others can.

Things are fine for while, but one day, out of nowhere, a family friend to Gaster’s estranged family gets into touch with him. The flame elemental explains there was an accident that left two of his relative’s kids without parents, and no one else can or will take them in. Gaster’s the last person on the list, so if he won’t adopt them either, they’ll be separated and placed into the foster care system.

After talking about it at length with Asgore, Gaster goes on temporary work leave and decides to adopt the two children, brothers, ages 5 and 9.

After getting legal stuff sorted, they arrive by train with their chaperone, the family friend, Grillby. They talk about everything before Grillby has to board his train back, leaving Gaster alone for the first time with his…kids. His kids.

Oh geez.

Aaaand from that point on, Gaster of course takes them home, probably already got a room set up for them (with Asgore’s help), and he tries to. Figure out how to be a parent. Asgore is a natural, of course, and is incredibly happy to lend a hand whenever Gaster needs it, and of course the kids are Sans and Papyrus, and the story would mostly just be about fluff and becoming and family, and the kids mostly unintentionally being the catalyst for Asgore and Gaster to get their shit together and confess. And it’d be cute =o)

I’d also like to give Toriel and Grillby relevant roles, and Gerson and Rudy, too, but the latter two would probably come into the story gradually, after the boys are adopted, through…some means idk. Idk!!! Ahdjjfjak

#there would of course also be ANGST because I can’t not but I think overall the point is to be. cute and nice =o) #also monsters were never underground!!! forgot to actually clarify oops #kingdings #kd college au

[nastyatticman]

do you have your own idea of Billy's backstory? I know a lot of people like to change it up bcuz of the more. unsavory implications of it, but also most people just have different interpretations so im curious to know yours!

Yes I do! Kind of... I plan to write up some miscellaneous headcanons and tidbits.

I don’t have like a solid canon story for him but a pretty vague idea with some details. I just don’t want to post it all at once bc I’d feel like it’s set in stone and I can’t change it or something? Idk. So I’d rather post stuff in parts & add more later

The thing about changing it is that like, on one hand I don’t want to totally make Billy or any other characters too OOC by making them too nice or writing away their flaws. But on the other when I’m writing fluff or smut to just relax I don’t want the baggage of like, “it was a nice day to go on a date with your boyfriend Billy Lenz, who burns down orphanages for fun” yknow? Like I want a balance of both.

For now tho my idea about his backstory is subject to some changes depending on if I put him in the 70s or not lol but some stuff is constant.

(TW: Domestic Abuse)

Billy grows up in a lower middle class family where his dad was at work most of the time so he stays home with his mom, who’s not equipped to handle all the work at home and taking care of a kid who may have some kind of mental illness or intellectual disability or something.

His sister Agnes is born and even if his mother says she loves them equally, little Billy can tell something doesn’t add up.

His mother isn’t as bad as the remake but she’s still abusive. Not necessarily because she hates Billy but it’s more of a cycle of abuse situation where she’s probably passing on what she grew up with. His dad is neglectful at best

His parents’ marriage deteriorates over time and the kids get caught up in it somehow. The favoritism is blatant & the parents get at each other by using their kids in their arguments

I still think Billy was abusive in some way to his younger sister but I wouldn’t keep certain aspects of the abuse that are implied. He sounded pretty young in one of the calls where he acts out a fight between him & his parents so my interpretation is that sometimes it was him being a careless kid instead of actively trying to hurt her. And even when he did it would be more like rude sibling shit, like pulling her hair.

I’m imagining Agnes gets bigger and stronger and scratches the shit out of him lol he kinda deserves it. Fighting does not work in Billy’s favor since his mom always believes Agnes over him and even when his dad is home he’s too tired to really care

For some reason or another the kids are separated and Agnes gets to live far away from Billy who’s ... somewhere

Like idk maybe he ends up in foster care or at some kind of boarding school and as soon as he turns 18 he’s OUT

#noises from the attic #nasty attic originals #billy lenz #abuse tw #I would like to write more but I rly need to work on smth rn #thank you so much for the ask! sometimes I take a while to answer stuff but I really would like asks/messages more often 🥰 #EDIT bc I keep wanting to add to this ... I think billy does do or attempt something worse than just ‘rude sibling shit’ #and that’s the catalyst for separating the kids perhaps legally

[ritaofwar]

ABOUT RITA 

full name: margaret qiuyue zhang nicknames: rita (primary name) age: thirty-six pronouns: she/her zodiac: pisces sun, capicorn moon, pisces rising mbti: intj-a, the architect  alignment: true neutral

+ Imaginative: Think outside the box is a saying that Rita struggles to understand. Why impress upon people that there is a box in the first place? Thought, in and of itself, is boundless, reaching further than the outer limits of the universe. For Rita there has never been a box. Independence in thought allows the imagination to roam through the peaks and valleys of possibility and rationale, to toy with ideas and theories. It’s this quality that enables Rita to swiftly and cleverly untangle problems, and rearrange modes of operation. If patterns can be detected, information can be found, and with a mind that works like hers it’s a thrilling challenge to imagine solutions. And when she isn’t solving problems this imagination of hers runs wild, lending the woman an entire galaxy of her own. 

+ Tenacious: Rita has heard the stories of her family’s lives in China. Of the Japanese invasion, the Moaist regime, the famine, and her familys’ journey from the world they knew and loved to one that offered opportunity and security with a sacrificial price. Her ancestors’ strength moves through her, catapults her into action, and Rita knows that she has to fight for what she wants. Society has constantly tried to convince her that she’s less than, that her potential is not enough, and it’s only added fuel to her fire. People can count on her to get things done, to see it through and done right because for her there is no other choice. 

+ Decisive: Bossy. Utilitarian. Arrogant. Rita has heard it all, but in reality the woman, since girlhood, has simply been unafraid to take initiative and make decisions. Lacking hesitation, she finds herself ahead because of  her resolution and unwavering assuredness. For her it’s not a question of whether or not she makes the “right” decision, because once it is made, it no longer matters. Instead, Rita focuses on turning every decision into the right one. This aspect doesn’t always make friends, or present as the most attractive trait, but Rita appreciates, and takes pride, in this part of herself. 

- Manipulative: In pursuit of her own desires there are very few lines that Rita is wary to cross, and those she uses are often thought of as little more than pawns. What she lacks in innate charisma, she has learned to make up for through observation and perception. Perhaps she can’t simply charm you into doing what she wants, but the woman can certainly convince you that what you want is synonymous to what she wants by deftly pulling on the strings of logic and desire, reality and fantasy, until the lines blur and she can reap the benefits. But as handy a tool it is, Rita herself can often be left questioning what is real and what is not.  

- Detached: As a girl Rita’s mother lamented that she didn’t understand her own child, an enigma, a puzzle, she would mutter in Mandarin. And others shared the sentiment. She was hard to keep up with, hard to pin down, and ultimately hard to connect to. When one feels as though people are constantly struggling to understand them, tolerating rather than grasping them, distance grows. What is often misinterpreted as haughtiness, is really a fear of being misunderstood, and showing her authentic self. Rita’s emotional well runs deep, and she’s terrified to drown. It’s a lonely way to live.

- Paranoid: Rita once thought that power and persuasion would bring security. People value her, money has made her more than comfortable, and intel keeps her prepared and in control. But now, in a world as cruel as the one she finds herself in, Rita fears it’s only a matter of time before the gaping maws come snapping at her. Her sense of reality melts away, and in its place delusions of betrayal and deception close in. Suspicion and anxiety follow suit and suddenly her coveted  power is the enemy. Then, as quickly as it came on, it recedes, lurking in the shadows until it seizes her once again.

BIOGRAPHY 

Margaret Zhang was born in a humble, upstairs flat in Camden, London. Her mother’s screams could be heard from the street, but Rita was as silent as a lamb when she entered the world. She would hear the retelling many times by her grandmother-- eyes like saucers, unblinking and astute, as though she had been waiting for this moment, knew it was coming, and couldn’t bear to delay her first glimpse at the world. Their flat sat above the family’s business, a portrait studio, and though they didn’t have much to their name the Zhang’s were overjoyed at the arrival of their small, plump daughter. 

Largely silent until the age of two, Rita’s father often had to ease her mother’s mind as the woman worried over their daughter’s development. The quiet, sharp-eyed baby grew into a reticent, and pensive girl.  Even at a young age it seemed that the child was lost in thought, floating somewhere just beyond reality, wondering about the whistling tea kettle, about the cars beyond the window, the flick of the cat’s tail, and the weather report on the television all at once. Her thoughts were scattered about, picking apart different details and examining them like their own separate mysteries. And when her mother would say her name, you could practically see the threads of thought gathering back together, tethering the girl once more. Rita lived inside her head. Her thoughts, curiosities, and dreams weaved an intricate web as if to ensnare anything that passed through her mind. She wanted everything-- yearned for extravagance, craved knowledge, thirsted for intrigue, ached for significance. But how to attain it?

Growing up, one of Rita’s favorite past times was helping her father in the studio, fetching batteries, a different lens, extra stools, ... whatever was necessary to gain those moments where she got to observe people. She’d watch them gently handle the new baby that was proving to be more work than either parent had signed on for, or watch as siblings bickered over the center, ruining multiple shots so that their mother delivered swift swats to the back of their ginger heads. Newly weds, ancient faces, best friends... People of all colors, speaking in foreign languages, happy, tired, frustrated... Their worlds were hers for those few moments, and in their worlds possibilities multiplied beyond her ability to comprehend, and it was in these worlds that she felt most at home. Their faces smoothed with practiced composure when her father dipped his head to look through the viewfinder, but oftentimes they were so focused on what was to come, that they were most open in the seconds before. It was there, in that small room with low ceilings and the subtle smell of wet wood that Rita learned to read people, to guess their desires, their hardships, their fears. She would come to spend everyday after school there beside her father, inserting herself  into the lives of others to escape for just a few moments. 

In reality growing up as a British Asian came with challenges and hardships. Her mother held her head high when store clerks belittled her with slow speech or offensive imitations. Her father did well to catch the eyes of those who dared to stare or sneer on the Tube. Her grandmother, who never quite caught onto the English language, was spared the exact slurs that were muttered as they passed a group of teenage boys on the street, but the sentiment transcended speech. Kids were cruel and even Rita felt the flames of shame lick at her cheeks when Sarah McCormick loudly remarked upon the foreign smell of Rita’s Shuizu, or when Jeffery Louse announced that his father thought people like her didn’t belong in England. Humiliation, rage, injustice, and hurt are wonderful catalysts, C-4 placed at the base of a dam; it honed her vision, sharpening what had once been a soft, dreamlike quality to her desires. Rita would have a life that put everything at her fingertips, allowed her to say what mattered and what didn’t, things would not happen to her, she would make them happen.  

Her parents needn’t push her to excel, she wanted it for herself, needed it for herself, so the girl plunged herself into tuning her mental acuity. And when she didn’t have the means to make do on her own, the young woman dove into her treasure trove of manipulative skills. She read their body language, mimicked their energy, and picked apart their words to gain what she could from them. She used her imagination, knowing that if she reached far enough, jumped high enough, and let go of  how things should be done, that there was a world of endless possibilities and delights. It was this willingness to stray beyond the beaten path that blazed her through secondary school and propelled her to London School of Economics and Political Science. But when she arrived at university, Rita was hopelessly lost. She had spent so much time dreaming of different lives that she floundered when it came time to decide which direction to take. Having already chosen and thrown away the ideas of business and politics, Rita had recently turned to law when, by happenstance, she found War.

A colleague heard that a position had recently opened up in the accounting department for the company Bellum Nova. Rita had heard of it, of course, a name that garnered attention from news outlets, caught hers as well, and though Rita was learned in mathematics, she knew next to nothing about weapons manufacturing. Still, she applied, naive to the fact that the “open position” was in fact the role of a scapegoat in case reports were dragged into the blinding light of an interrogation room. Still, they used her for the legal proceedings of the company, and although the work was mundane and rather monotonous, Rita felt that Bellum Nova was the sort of place where things happen. 

And they did. It was a routine file submission, a cross examination of current assets, and the invoices presented to accounts receivable, the busy work they often handed down to her. But this time she noticed a discrepancy. Thousands of pounds missing from a single client. She double checked, triple checked, then, heart pounding in her chest, filed the invoice away like any other. No one had asked her to ignore it, in fact she never even mentioned it to her boss, but she was suspicious of what it meant. In the weeks to come more and more evidence of revenues being underreported trickled down between the numbers. She did the same equations over and over to be sure, finding again and again that the figures didn’t lie. It was simple to cover up, and with decisive fingers, she changed the dates on back up reports to align with requirement contract overages. She worked quickly, and without instruction, acutely aware that this wasn’t a simple case of oversight. One evening her boss stopped her on the way out. Bellum Nova, or rather War, was  in need of a capable accountant, and the illegal transactions in her possession were, more than anything else, a test of confidence and initiative, and, unlike the poor chap before her, Rita had passed. 

An angel, they called it. Funny name for a role that was a far cry from any celestial being. She remained a scapegoat, a fall man if anything should go awry, but now she had purpose. Changing her major to economics, Rita suddenly saw a dazzling future amidst the figures before her. She had come to understand long ago that there wasn’t a straight, honest line to what she wanted, and if it meant fudging numbers and forging invoices, she would do it. In fact, there was little she wouldn’t do. The thrill of it all engulfed her, and like Persephone she found herself trapped in an underworld she desperately adored. University taught her how to legally orchestrate finances for a global company, and War taught her the workings of a world of crime. She held her position at Bellum Nova throughout university, eventually gaining her initiation and a place among the Powers just months after she had graduated. 

In the years to follow Rita continued to learn about the weaponries industry, and what it required while continuing on for a certification in jurisprudence. Rita learned the law in order to avoid it, and where she had once prodded the line of right and wrong the woman now strode across the barriers, watching as her influence grew, her knowledge bounded, and her pockets grew heavier. She was as willing to carry out a delivery, as extort a politician, as to place her signature on a forged invoice. It was this dedication, along with her tenacity to retain what she learned, and her aptitude for problem solving  that put Rita in place for the role of Dominion. It was nearly a decade after joining that she ascended to the position. Some claim she only received the title because of Remus, that nepotism was as alive and well in War as any institution (legal or otherwise), but Rita knows how many hours she poured over textbooks new and old, how much blood she tasted in her mouth, how often she had berated herself over the details of her decisions. It might have been Rita alone that knew how much she really deserved it, but that was enough for her, and no one dared say otherwise to her face. 

#about #over a decade of roleplaying and i cannot do graphics for the life of me #this will eventually move to a page of its own