Dark
Ace never runs away, too scared to do so. Instead, he remains tethered to his twin, and on one fateful night, Aaron's abuse twists him into... something else entirely.With a smile full of sharp teeth that never leaves his face, Ace's mind is completely shattered. Reality isn't something he's familiar with anymore. He's always hungry, and he'll eat anything.Very friendly, he loves meeting new people and playing with them. Too bad he doesn't quite know the meaning of the word 'play' anymore.Aaron, kicked out for what he did to his brother, uses Ace's freakish strength and eating habits to his advantage. Why wouldn't he do so? He's created such a good attack dog.(Starvation, famine, hunger. The glint in the eyes across the fire. A concept. Something that lived in humanity's collective subconscious. Something that got stuffed into a human shape when it never should have. Better hope it never snaps.)
Mafia (formerly Mafia Prince)
A suspiciously rich family, run by a father and his eldest son. Victor trusts Adrian well enough, trusts him to run a business and be his heir.The boy's younger brother is a different story.Adam had never been the same ever since his twin attacked him when they were teenagers, trying to kill him and nearly succeeding if it weren't for Adrian's intervention.The encounter left its scars. His father and older brother decided he should have no part in the family business, and he agreed.Protected, safe, naive, Ace moves through life carelessly, trying to find love, enjoying his hobbies, having absolutely nothing to worry about. After all, Father and Adrian will take care of everything with extreme prejudice. Everything will be okay.As long as the locked doors stay shut and forgotten about.
Unity
Someone at the private boarding school actually does their fucking job and calls Victor, who rightfully goes 'hmmm my young child torturing small animals is perhaps not normal'.
Aaron's pulled from that school, and tutored privately, while being put (finally) into therapy
He's not fixed, there's nothing to fix (because that's not how personality disorders work), but he's given coping mechanisms, strategies, a lot of things to help him function in normal society, and to understand himself (understanding others is a bit out of his reach).
Fun fact this is also the only aaron whose dyslexia is recognized!
So Aaron can. Function.
The definition of 'love' is different for everyone, and very philosophical, but at least he doesn't want any harm to come to his family.
Even if it's basically completely selfish.
He still definitely has periods where his temper gets bad, where he's extremely sadistic, and cruel for the sake of cruelty, but he's aware that these are counterproductive if he targets his family, especially his twin who can't handle it as well as their father and older brother.
Aaron's in charge of the shadiest side of the business, especially interrogations and executions, which satisfies his wish to harm other people in a way that doesn't put anyone important at risk. Adrian's in charge of actually running every business under Victor, making deals and supervising (he's still in training). Adam, in turn, isn't very involved in the criminal side, although he does advise sometimes when it comes to white-collar crime.
And also he makes bombs but that's not here nor there.
Victor kind of forgot to teach Adam how to mask while he was busy with Aaron.
They can all be in the same room and be civil!
The twins aren't especially close, but they can hold a conversation and even work together as long as Adam doesn't directly defy Aaron, because that's just a bad idea. Adrian doesn't give Aaron much leeway, but that's just because he's been taught that his brother needs structure to be stable, and being too lenient will only harm him in the long run.
Aaron still goes to therapy very regularly.
Fantasy
Cursed weapons really shouldn't find their way into the hands of cruel little monsters. The Graves family, lords over some small hamlets in the forest, found this out in the worst way when one of those cursed weapons fell into their youngest's hands.Luckily, their eldest son intervened before Aaron could strike a killing blow, but it wasn't enough to stop him from drawing blood. And he paid for that crime with his life.Sort of.In his rage, after shooting him in the side with an arrow, Adrian used the same cursed dagger that had injured his favorite brother to slit Aaron's throat, leaving him dead in the moment. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, that curse would bring him back as a vengeful spirit, a revenant, possessing his own dead body.He roams the land, looking for trouble, looking for lives to ruin and end, looking for revenge, and looking for the weapon that holds him captive on this plane of existence.Ace never healed, but he tries to live his life despite the curse affecting him, linking him to the one person he's most terrified of. He's extremely sheltered and protected, his family offering immense rewards to anyone who can break the curse threatening his life.
Merfolk
Big.Blind.Hungry.Abyssal hunters rarely make their way to shallow waters, but when they do, they do so with the intention of leaving nothing but bones behind.
Other AUs that sometimes appear on the blog. Some brief information, and of course, always feel free to ask for more.
Reverse AU: Ace likes machines very much. More than he likes people. He likes control. And his moral compass is non-existent. This AU asks the question of 'what if Ace was the evil twin?'.
Happy Gears AU and Stripper AU: Never adopted by the Graves at all, both twins are separated at birth and taken by different families. Ace grows up with two loving moms, and works as a mechanic, awkward and shy and really good with machines. Aaron's kicked out as a teenager and works at a strip club for a living. He's arrogant, aggressive, and desperate for money. (In this AU, Ace is a trans man.)
Android AU: Whoever thought that breaking the law and commissioning an android copy of their son in this solarpunk AU was a good idea should have known better. Of course Aaron would try to destroy it. Why would he tolerate the replacement everyone favored? Ace is taken in by two women who adopt him as their own, keeping the fact that he's inhuman a tightly locked secret. Something like him shouldn't exist. He's too human. Ace's eyes are the only thing that give him away, and they're easily explained by cybernetic implants to correct his vision.
Nightmare AU: The family are the personifications of different fears and horrors. They're monsters beyond comprehension, and they hunt humans for entertainment and feeding. (Ace is mechanical horror. Aaron is body horror. Adrian is the fear of being watched and stalked. Victor is a more primordial fear, something hard to name, but could be called fear of the Other.)
Bunny AU: Half man, half bunny. A wererabbit permanently stuck in a halfway form. Bunny ears, bunny feet. 100% adorable. And also 4ft tall.
Mechanic AU: Joining the army doesn't seem like the right decision. Ace likes working with machines, and through a frankly cartoonish sequence of events, he ends up fixing the mob's cars. Later, he's designated as the expert on explosives, and then weapons. Known as the Mechanic, he'd just like to be left alone with his machines, but his bosses give him a pretty good life as long as he does what they want. Seems like a fair trade.
Pokémon AU: Main verse but there are Pokémon.
