#irontomb

What if I made IT trans masc? Since Demiurge was IT's og heart, what if they started out looking a lot like her, so Phai named them "Cyrene" at birth in her honor? But as soon as IT reached the threshold of when it's normal for kids to speak in full sentences, they told him that they wanted to be masc instead, and of course Phai was supportive of this, but when IT mysteriously goes from looking like a mini Cyrene to a mini Phai in the blink of an eye, it's only reasonable for everyone's reactions to be "??????"

🪦: Hey, I'm coming out as trans masc. ☀️: That's great! Mydei and I support you! 🪦: Man, HRT sure is amazing. ☀️: Why do you look exactly like a mini me?

I also like the idea that Phai asks IT if they want to use a different name, and IT tells them that they want to be called Neikos, which has Khaslana tweaking in the background.

When I first brought up the idea of including Sunday and Misha in this, I wasn't really planning on reviving Gallagher for it, but then two different people asked me if Gallagher could also be in this, so I decided, why not? That way, I'd have an excuse to have two weird couples talk about their weird children together.

This made me think of a bunch of funny scenarios I could have with those three, one of them being that everyone was under the impression that Gallagher was dead and all that remained of him was a hound-shaped memetic entity (who, in actuality, is just Gallagher but in a different form), so as far as everyone is aware, Sunday is a single grieving mother.

Playing off this, I had the idea that Misha wasn't originally supposed to be part of the group scouting Amphoreus, but Hound-Gallagher got him involved by yoinking Misha's pocket watch, causing him to chase after the doggo to get it back and ending up in the scouting car when it shoots off to Amphoreus.

Taking some inspo from "The Universe was Made Just to be Seen by My Eyes" by Dragon_Overlord_Yuu, Sunday gets Final Destination 5'd out of the scout car, and since I imagine him holding onto Misha once the scout team realizes he's there, Misha naturally goes flying as well, so they get separated from TB, Dan Heng, and Hound-Gallagher who, due to the amount of memoria in Amphoreus, reverts back into his human form.

Thankfully, the mother and son duo encounter Phainon, Tribbie, and Neikos (who, at this point, is always a foot or two behind Phai, whether anyone likes it or not), and when they reunite with the other three, the millisecond Sunday registers Gallagher's presence, regardless of whether he thinks Gallagher's real or not, Sunday proceeds to slap him so hard you can freaking hear it from the other side of Janusopolis.

(I also think it would be absolutely freaking hilarious if, during Aglaea's interrogation, all the Nameless take one look at Gallagher and go, "Not a single word out of you, you hear us?")

Not quite sure what Neikos and Misha can bond over, but considering the fact that Misha is one of the few weird kids that isn't weirded out by Neikos' weirdness is a good first step!

I've been starving for some Phainon & Irontomb content as of late, and after letting my brain gnaw on @hyacinth0789's cryptic pregnancy Phainon drawings, StaticNonsense's "Red and Gold; Gray and Blue" fic, and that one Twitter thread where someone described Phainon's situation with Irontomb as a pregnancy—all three concepts swirled around in my brain juices and fused into a frankly unhinged, crack-treated-seriously fic idea.

(And based on my inspo sources, I'm betting y'all can guess where this is going.)

So basically, weird shenanigans happen behind the scenes, and Phainon (Cycle 33,550,336 pre-Nameless arrival) becomes cryptically pregnant with Irontomb's "human" form, Virgin Mary style.

IT has no idea why they're a baby now but decides to just go along with it, Lygus is equally confused, Khaslana is appalled, and the Chrysos Heirs (and eventually the Nameless once they get there) don't realize Phainon gave birth to the Amphoreus equivalent of the anti-Christ, so they're all just under the assumption that IT's a bit of a weird child with intense anti-social habits (and that for some reason, Mydei's genes gave up along the way or something)

Taking some inspo from "Red and Gold; Gray and Blue," the background shenaniganry caused Phai to be acknowledged as an Admin, which means, by default, Phainon is the only Chrysos Heir IT listens to and paired up with the fact that IT follows him EVERYWHERE and gets upset when they're forbidden from doing so, everyone immediately chalks it up to IT being a mama's boy lmao

(Tho it would be funny if IT had the ability to teleport to anywhere in Amphoreus, so when they're told that they're not allowed to follow Phai on a mission, they wait for an hour or so, then tp to Phai so that it would be too late to bring them back to Okhema lol)

I think the only two people in Amphoreus who know from the get-go that IT is IT are Lygus and Khaslana. I feel like Khas would probably contemplate pedicide (... filicide?) for a bit, but then for some reason I haven't decided on yet, he doesn't go through with it? Lygus, on the other hand, I can see biding his time, because the way he sees it, the closer Phai and IT get, the more wild the betrayal will be when he drops the tea regarding IT's true identity. More betrayal = more rage.

Speaking of it all, I'm not quite sure what happens in the 3.4 arc of fic idea yet, but it would probs be very dramatic (I'm kinda liking the idea of IT eventually becoming the Phai equivalent of what Demiurge is to Cyrene, but I'm not sure how to get to that point yet?)

Speaking of Demiurge, the idea I had regarding what those secret background shenanigans are is that it's basically future Demiurge Cyrene and future IT pulling the strings using Cyrene's Remembrance time-travel powers to teach the IT of the past how to love so that Cyrene of the future doesn't have to sacrifice herself to "prevent Irontomb's birth," or something.

Considering the fact that Phai is the one to "birth" IT in this fic, he probably ends up also giving them a name (as most parents do with their babies), but I'm not sure what this name should be yet...