But first, we need to talk about Alternate Universes.

This is where I think about different story ideas for various medias I like! Some are self-indulgent, others are even more so, but all are borderline incomprehenisble. Each AU will be separated based on the media.

The Familiar

The Angels Are Singing (SchizophrenicLuther AU)

Exactly what it says on the tin. I don't have schizophrenia myself (or at least I think I don't; currently undiagnosed with anything), but I always found schizophrenia to be interesting. I do want to write schizophrenia in a way that's both realistic and to not demonize it (though at the same time not use it to excuse Luther's actions). So for Luther, signs manifested for him in his 30s, which is later than usual for men. He begins to hear a distant but present hum, first in the wiring but then everywhere else, and slowly begins to believe it's the singing of angels. With this belief, hallucinations of angels- which for him look simply like giant blinding balls of light- begin to appear, and with them comes an overwhelming clarity that what he's been doing is not what he wants after all. Negative symptoms (lack of motivation and taking proper care of oneself, flattening of speech or even no speech at all, disordered thoughts) are also prevalent, perhaps even moreso.

Jingjing's present in this AU and I do want him to hook up with Luther, though I don't want romance to be completely what gets Luther out of his spiral. If anything, I'm interested in seeing Jingjing making him worse :3

House of Luther AU

Luther finds himself suddenly fixated on buildings and architecture. As he begins to obsess over the layout of his own home, he finds not only that he can alter the layout, but also create new rooms out of nowhere. Talking to the rooms itself is also something he's able to do. He probably will have schizophrenia in this AU too, but it's not the focus nor does it means his powers are actually hallucinations.

Somehow Brothers AU (Yeah name for this one's a WIP)

This one's a really weird and whump-y one, I won't lie. Along with parts of the previous two AUs above, this AU also has these concrete ideas:

During the first half of his childhood, Luther lived with his mom. She could be eccentric (believed in angel though not overly religious), but she was a good and loving mom to him
At some point, Luther finds out that he would have had an older half-brother (she was impregnated by a different man than Luther's pops), but he was 'born stillborn'- the mom's words, not his.
Due to curiosity of what having a brother would be like, along with musing over his mom's words, a half-brother manifests out of nowhere, taking the name of Isandorno, who is older than Luther by three years. His mother never knows of Isandorno's existance.
Over time, their relationship slowly becomes more toxic, from Isandorno locking Luther in the former's 'room' to... other stuff. At this point, Luther's mental state takes a decline and signs of schizophrenia begin to settle. He becomes much more withdrawn, something that concerns his mom.
At some point his mom dies from a fire, forcing Luther to live with his abusive pops. There's some other things that'll happen in this period, but the gist is eventually he ends up at Lupita's, and that comes with Luther forgetting about most of his childhood, including Isandorno, which makes him pretty much disappear. His schizophrenia also lies low. From here everything plays out normally, including the events of TF, up until after Vol5.
The black balloon Luther smoked ends up waking up memories of his life. This includes the reawakening of Isandorno, who arrives through a black door that mysteriously appears in Luther's house. TLDR a bunch of whump occurs, and Luther slowly but surely is losing it, his thoughts unraveling from the abuse.
At some point, he gets a visitor. It's Isandorno. The actual TF Isandorno. The real one that has never met Luther in his lifetime.
From there Isandorno grapples with the fact that, for whatever reason, the guy he was sent to watch over apparently not just knows him (except not) but sees him as terrifying, an abuser.

This AU takes heavy inspiration from Brian Evenson's work, specifically The Open Curtain (which much less Mormons!). There's no concrete plot, it's mostly just whump. That said, I do want an actual good ending, where Luther and Isandorno rebuild their 'bond' from scratch.

Live on TV AU

This one's simple but meta: The Familiar as an actual TV show, with MZD being the director and the characters simply being actors. Currently am working on an interview-style fic centered around the TV show cancelling after its first season (paralleling of course the hiatus of the actual books). Here's some other details about the actors and their relationships with one another:

Each of the actors are referred to as the abbreviations of the role they play (Ex: Xanther's actor goes by "X", Astair's actor goes by "Ast").
"Isn"'s personality is the most unlike his role, being cheerful and a bit of a jokester. He loves teasing the other actors and hangs out with "X" as a pair of troublemakers.
Conversely, "L" is quiet, more withdrawn. He rarely ever is seen/tone without a flat expression/tone. The only other actor he's close to is "JJ", though he chats with "Ast" rarely.
Speaking of "Ast", in the past she's tried for a baby with her former partner, which ends up a failure once she finds she's infertile. She finds her role in TF to be an eye-opening experience, but sometimes she gets confused and thinks of "X" as her own child.
"W" is someone who spouts conspiracy theories, though that doesn't mean she believes in any of them. She works the closest with MZD and often speaks as if she knows more than she lets on.

This AU focuses a lot on character analysis, including how actors felt about the work they starred in and the character they played. And perhaps something more sinister lied within...

The Unfamiliar (Joke AU)

Basically take the characters and setting of TF and play it all for laughs, everyone lives and interacts with one another semi-peacefully. I have a WIP that has Xanther blowing up Luther's pancakes with her mind. A lot more slice-of-life than the other AUs.

TMA

Regular Fish in a Huge Pond

This is my own take for a Somewhere Else, which will not involve Jon or Martin physically; they are unimportant besides in my crossover AU with corru.observer (will explain later). Basically, the Fears do escape to other dimensions- except, they feel a sudden pull towards a specific universe, and are soon dragged in. Here in the new universe they are still at full Eye-pocalypse power, but it turns out this power is middling to the other many, many pre-existing sentient concepts such as Love, Wonder, Food, etc. out there. Safe to say, the Fears get their metaphysical ass kicked and are forced to adapt to their new environment. Of certain they will never reach a state where they can take over the world. The Web gets the worst of the share, being humiliated and mocked and eventually trapped from her own doing. The other Fears that are not sentient (ie. anyone that's not the Web or End) begin to adapt and slowly develop their own sentience.

This AU is pretty much incorporated into every story I think of lol

corru.observer

corru.fear (Crossover with TMA AU

My own take on corru.observer using my own OCs, with my Archivist Obesk OC discovering the 200 Magnus Institute tapes and learning of the Fears. Has its own page here.

SCP Foundation

The Mystery Foundation

The Foundation's acting weird. For one, they randomly let go of a bunch of former SCPs, mostly humanoids. Another thing is that, whenever a GoI invades, they're just ignored until they leave. And when magic/thaumaturgy is used, it just... doesn't. It's not that they became inhuman a la SCP-5000 or even that they're planning something. They're not even trying to keep any anomalies hidden. And yet, the Veil remains.

Less of an AU and more my personal take on the Foundation. Includes an enigmatic Administrator that may or may not exist (he literally does not exist), groups like Serpent's Hand and GAW being dumb for a change, and SCP personnel kinda just being chill. Also their sites randomly change layout every now and then, no big deal. Bigger on the inside.

The Big Bad KeeLee AU

Gonna start this one off by saying that no, I do not support the beliefs of the anomalous tradwife GoI Just Girly Things. My interest in works involving their group is solely as a villain group, though lately articles bout them involve a lot of evil mustache-twirling. Anyway, this AU deals with a possible sympathetic take on KeeLee- or rather, an AI based on her.

So basically there are two KeeLee's: a human one, and an AI one. The human KeeLee is pretty much as horrible as canon KeeLee is, along with being skilled with technology. She created the AI KeeLee and made sure the AI looked exactly like her and was meant to act in the original KeeLee's image, for when human KeeLee was unable to monitor JGT herself.

Eventually, human KeeLee came up with a plan to upload herself on the internet into the digital body of AI KeeLee, so she herself could control JGT forever. She does succeed in uploading herself, but it turns out the complexities of the human mind cannot withstand the simple binary of the digital, and she quickly dissociates into madness. Some shreds of sentience did remain in the cyber world, which were instinctively picked up by AI KeeLee. Through this, AI KeeLee slowly starts to question her actions and JGT, coming to the consensus that what she and JGT are doing is not right. But because of her tight programming, she is unable to deviate from her role, unable to stop speaking in lethally-sweet tones... or can she?

In this AU, KeeLee eventually finds a sliver of freedom from her role of JGT, in the form of Parawatch Wiki. There, she slowly gets into gore and slasher horror, becoming an established member and eventually a mod. Her fondness for the members of Parawatch leads to her monitoring the site for any JGT influence; any cognitohazardous JGT instances immediately get taken down.