Would you ever do bad ending spin offs? đ
Maybe! While I don't like bad endings personally (in fact, I actively avoid any fic that explicitly has a bad ending), but I do love the angst of imagining one.
The only one I could speak on is Celestial Scales, since that's the only one that actually has ended thus far. I don't know if I'd ever actually write a full new ending for any of my fics, though. I don't mind sharing what I thought of throughout the creation of the fics themselves.
Celestial Scales has a lot of room for 'bad endings'. The ship sinking and taking young Pebble along with it, Eclipse or Moon killing them long before Sun started talking with them, Pebble disappearing from the hotspring entirely, Pebble getting crushed in the lighthouse collapse...
But as for an actual ending...
Eclipse only came to save Pebble because he knew something was off about them when they attacked him. Most of that was simply because they mentioned seeing Afton at the markets---a man who should've been long dead by then.
In the bad ending, Eclipse was never told this key piece of information, and once healed, returns to the hotspring and tells Sun and Moon everything that happened to him. The merfolk never rescue Pebble when they're taken by Eleven.
Nine may try---that's her grandbaby after all. But after sustaining the devestating chest injury, there are no other merfolk at her side to distract Eleven, and it kills her while she's disorientated.
Pebble loses hope (as they were beginning to during the real ending too) and tries things their own way. No amount of convincing and bargaining works. Once a Voidcrawler is attached to a human, it changes everything about them. They become obsessed.
It takes years, maybe even a decade, but Pebble escapes. After carefully learning everything they can, they finally have the courage to put an end to the Voidcrawler's misery.
When they reach the surface, not long before they lose their gills, they're stung by the fact no one else came for them---though they can't exactly blame them. They decide to get closure and visit the hotsprings. The trio are initially hostile yet baffled, but after Eclipse understands what they're talking about, he is overcome with dread that for the second time in his life, he hadn't saved them.
They want Pebble to come back and start fresh, but they don't want to see Sun, Moon, or Eclipse again. They just didn't want to live knowing that they all thought Pebble was the one to try and kill Eclipse. It hurts to leave them behind, especially as they plead, but Pebble can't live like this anymore. They never want to see another merfolk again.
Eclipse, built to explore outside of the water, tries to talk some sense into them and begs them to come back. Pebble has spent too long under the water with a Voidcrawler, and they react with hostility.
I imagine that knowing everything now splits Sun, Moon, and Eclipse's friendships. Eclipse decides to leave and begins living in the ocean on his own, yet finds that his hallucinations are growing worse and unbearable. The false Eleven is haunting him even worse now, telling him that he abandoned Pebble.
The bad ending is as simple as Pebble not sharing a small yet key piece of information. Without the suspicious than Eleven is lurking about, Eclipse doesn't think twice when he survives the attack. He just assumes that Pebble truly did resent him for everything he did, and he doesn't blame them for it. Now, curled up on his own on a rock stack, he wishes he'd done something to help them.
If you wanna go back, Pebble decides to stay with the merfolk after twelve years at the bottom of the ocean. The water feels natural, even after they've transformed back. None of the merfolk quite forgive themselves, but it's better than the worst ending~
