Outfreak The Doe

Little background from canon:

Dante was a relatively normal and sweet kid, with very supportive and loving parents, but his family was basically an object of discrimination? And some turned his friend against him, then even burned down his house ... That's when he started seeking power more, one of his worst revenges was burning down a school, nobody was harmed luckily.

(That is from his monster lore, not sure if it applies to human one too but for the purpose of this story I am going to assume that it does)

From Rurik's we know that he lived only with his abusive alcoholic father. He ran away as a young teen and then got into street gangs as well as commited minor crimes. That landed him in a military-profiled school, then army. His buddy, father-figure, died there leaving him additionally traumatized... Some time later he was kicked out.

AU idea:

In it Dante and Rurik met when they were both 11 years old. It was right after Dante's incident with the bullies and right before Rurik ran away from home at 12.

They met at school when a teacher told Dante to tutor Rurik (yes, at 11, because he was really smart and skilled). The agreement was - Dante helps Rurik, who is a kid who usually doesn't go to school much and has problems with learning, and in exchange Dante's disruptions will be excused (as well as it will distract Dante from wanting to start trouble).

Of course that was a "horrible" solution, because right away Dante used this to make Rurik his partner in crime, and Rurik gladly followed. But, thanks to this, Rurik wasn't seeking any place to cause trouble with other people (or gangs). Dante was glad to have a friend so he started bringing him over to Scifell's place, and they started noticing how neglected Rurik seems...

So they silently urged Dante to maybe bring him over more often. They were a good support system to Dante even when he had problems, so they would want to lend Ruirk a hand too.

Rurik's dad was not happy. He felt like they were mocking him, so he lashed out at Rurik. It was one of the worst fights Rurik had with him, at just 12 years old. So, that's when Rurik ran away. Straight to Scifell's home.

Dante was never the type to know how to comfort, but Rurik had never cried much in front of him before, despite being just a boy... So he hugged him and Fell found them cuddling, trying to stop the bleeding. He called the police (Sci wasn't at home so he had to run back from work). Rurik was terrified, he had no idea where they will take him or what will happen to his things or his father. That's when he almost ran off again, onto the road, but luckily it was Sci's car that was coming, so he stopped it and fell out to catch Rurik.

It was a messy situation and they were trying to find Rurik's relatives at first-there was barely anyone, or at least anyone recorded.

He ended up in an orphanage.

Rurik was there for a while. He hated it with all his heart and he held that anger all in, never talking to anyone there, then exploding. Dante's visits were the best thing at that time, his only comfort

Having noticed this, at 14 Scifell revealed to Dante that they have been making efforts to take him under their care.

And Dante lashed out on them for it, to their confusion, because they thought he will be exctatic since Rurik was his best friend.

Because he fell in love with Rurik, who told him he really liked him. He had never been in love before...

They agreed that if Dante tells him that he loves him too, they will adjust. So Dante ran to the orphanage and was about to-

-but Rurik wasn't there. He ran off, again.

Dante was devastated. He didn't know what will happen so he started to look for him instead of coming home.

Scifell had a dumb thought that they ran off on purpose together, but Dante came back home just when the Police started to look for him and Rurik.

Rurik was found 2 days later, and explained that he ran off from the orphanage because he couldn't handle being there anymore.

So, Durik officially started dating and Scifell agreed they will keep on supporting Rurik with whatever he chooses to do, both financially and emotionally :^

Rurik went to a culinary school like he wanted to since Scifell had the money (yay, no army. but in this AU his scar is from his father instead), and became a cook in the future!

+Bonus Due lore!

Some time later (when Dante and Rurik were 16) Scifell fostered a girl their age named Due

Dante wasn't jealous at first but then noticed how she seems to be getting a lot of attention and that she had a mindset that was different than his own... So, many shenanigans ensued, especially when Rurik started siding with him against her o_o it was like a mine field (a little cruel on Durik's side since she went though a lot and just wanted a nice home).

Due started looking for friends online and wouldn't you know, they bonded with a boy nicknamed Palette over... Dante bullying Due and Palette's sister bullying Palette 😭

When she met him finally it turned out he was Rurik's long lost half brother on his mother's side...but it didn't matter in Rurik's adoption opportunities because Palette (or Paul) was an adopted kid too so they both had no biological families anymore.

So, Palette started travelling to meet with them once or twice a year, then more and more often c:

•fun fact I think is worth mentioning - Ink doesn't like that Palette interferes with AUs and scolds him for it sometimes 👀 [link to full post])

"Aunque con Ink a veces tiene discusiones ya que Palette, al seguir su noble corazón, interviene en los AU aun sabiendo que no debería. Cuando Ink se da cuenta, le da sus regañadas 🤭"

Explanation and my 3 cents:

It is because Ink generally does not see stories as something you should "change", and deep down sees other characters only as parts of stories; he himself only protects the scripts, as it is mentioned in his FaQ:

"Regarding fights, Ink!Sans finds purpose in trying to limit the damage done by other out!code characters who wish to disrupt the original scripts of AUs. That includes people who wish to undo the consequences of genocide timelines. Ink!Sans prioritizes the respect of timelines’ scenarios over emotional conflicts.

Ink!Sans does not create AUs nor characters. He simply likes to think that he guards them from what he considers to be anomalies to the original scripts and intentions of the creators."

I find it really interesting how Palette rebels against his dad's ideas. It adds flavor to his group and character 🤌(and makes it a lil different from Star Sanses)

For starters I knew what direction I wanted to develop Lotus (and his parents™) in but I lost that ability for Goth :p

Shockers, I used to be a Goth fan and I think there was even a bit of art left still on my profile. I kinda got bored of him. And then I found out and realized many weird things about the character, creator and some parts of the fandom and ummm the associations have been made which I cannot erase even if I would try to make a new character based off of him (and frankly it was uncomfortable for me). I also stopped shipping Poth so automatically a large chunk of the content made with him was not something I was interested in seeing in anymore

I guess it didn't stick to Lotus as much as to Goth because I don't see the two characters as the same person (or having the same lore), their fandom spaces are slightly different nowadays and I got too much into making a character based on him...

just like Rurik and Palette and Dante and Due are separate characters to me, which got reinforced more when they got their own names and completely separate lores especially as humans. That's also why I never call Lotus "Fell Goth" anymore either

So having Lotus around doesn't necessarily mean Goth will follow if I don't have an idea for that, and I dislike the "Lotus is just Goth but more emo/Goth's twin" stuff instead of creating his own lore. And I also have tons of headcanons for him which have nothing to do with Goth etc.

And yeah I do admit I was biased and had struggles with letting go of him like I did with Goth after trying to develop him ;;;

As much as I wanted Lotus Sotiriou to just be my oc he will unfortunately always be "the character that got based on Lotus Undertale" especially since I did keep some of the aspects (like yk... being a demigod and having one eye and acting like a sassy brat). Which is a shame because I could've just made my own oc from the start and not associate them with Lotus but it's too late now

Then I found some moots that were making some characters based on Lotus too and I decided it would be pointless to pretend I didn't like the Lotusdom/Lotusverse (???) so I guess it's more that I like the variants made based on "Fell Goth/Lotus" rather than the character itself (which wasn't well developed anyway imo)

On the sidenote the Lotus stuff is important to me in Rurik's lore so I would have to replace him with another similar character anyway...