#oracool

Including headcanons and ships of:

-Fabian cannot drive (Hangman is sentient so it drives for him most of the time. Fabian can’t exactly get his license either with being half blind)

-Fabian does just send the Bad Kids money every so often for fun

-Fabian x Mazey with shared QPR Riz

-Fabian x Adaine with shared QPR Riz

-QPR Bad Kids

Masterpost:

The broad strokes that I came up with are still relatively the same---exploring how the Bad Kids (and Ayda) would've turned out if they'd never met each other as teens and if they'd grown up in a mundane world, all of them wind up in "The Good Place" but three of them are supposedly there by mistake, and they gotta work together if they have any chance of improving. However, I've decided that I could do better with some of the characters, and I never actually expanded on the world, so... yeah!

The Bad Kids (plus Ayda and Aelwyn)

Fig: I'm keeping her mostly the same from the original concept---a failed musician turned drug dealer in her late twenties who lies to survive---but I decided that it'd fit the story better if I gave her a little more of that Eleanor Shellstrop selfishness, mainly so she has an easier flaw to overcome than "compulsive liar," which... would actually serve to protect her in the Good Place, at least at first. I've decided that a lot of her more selfish behaviors stem from the trauma of losing Gordie (Gorthalax) only a few years after she went to live with him and feeling as if she'd burned too many bridges with her mom. And, well, if Fig didn't have the safety net of her friends, I feel like she'd go down a pretty self-destructive path.

Ayda: Making her Chidi was already perfect, so I didn't really need to change any of that. She's still very much an overthinker who's strictly bound to her ethical code, she still teaches Fig ethics and learns how to be more flexible and decisive from that experience, and the two of them still form a beautiful bond that results in them becoming soulmates. Really, the one thing I added to her is the expansion on her relationship with her dad in this AU---Arthur is an eccentric old-money academic with a million degrees who researches whatever he's interested in at the moment, and while he and Ayda did have a fairly decent relationship before they died, she's always wished he would take his career more seriously, and he's always worried about her not being able to connect.

Gorgug: After some thought, I decided to switch his and Kristen's roles around from the original conceit, making it so he's the second "mistake" in the Good Place instead of her (for reasons I'll expand on in her section). He's now in the Jason role as the sweet guy who generally meant well, but due to a combination of having a rough start in life, poor impulse control, and some anger issues, he never really got further in life beyond helping out at his family's mechanics shop and doing some DJing on the side. Gorgug has supportive parents, and he did have a couple of friends in his DJ circles, but nobody outside of his immediate family ever took him seriously, and he'd kind of just accepted that he'd always be living a lackluster life before he died. And yes, he does get to dispense some Jason-type wisdom. He's a bit more quiet and shy than Jason is, though.

Kristen: Since this is meant to be a "what if the Bad Kids met as adults" fic, I realized that Kristen likely never would've had that crisis of faith that eventually led to her chaos arc if she'd never met her friends and, well, God. So, she's now a professional therapist who, despite the fact that she's had a lot of internal doubts about her faith and has been slowly taking steps towards actually coming out of the closet, has never cut her family off and has become a chronic people pleaser. Of course, since this is still Kristen we're talking about, she did go on a few guilt-fueled benders when she was alive, which... definitely didn't help with her point totals. She and Gorgug initially get paired together as platonic soulmates, and they do actually end up clicking immediately. Let's just say that it's a lot easier for Kristen to keep everyone's secrets. Patient-doctor confidentiality is a win.

Fabian: He's not all that different from his original conceit---he's still a version of Tahani who's much more self-aware and is seriously masking it---but I added in a couple of extra factors to make things a touch more interesting. First, I decided that he does have a younger half-sister, though she's not really the source of his constant need to prove himself (that would be the overwhelming legacy of his rock legend father, who died in a death-defying stunt when he was twelve). And second... he and Fig are long-lost stepsiblings. This is something that neither of them are aware of when they arrive in the Good Place, but eventually, the fact that Gilear wound up marrying Hallariel after Fig stopped talking to him comes out. Sometimes the aftermath is sweet, sometimes it's awkward, and sometimes it's tense, but the two of them eventually work their way to becoming the power duo they were always meant to be.

Riz: Again, pretty much unchanged from the original concept---a shady P.I. who worked for rich assholes, never trusted anybody, and was living off of paranoia and caffeine. Of course, I did realize that Riz, being Riz, would likely figure out the truth of what was going on way before Fig... so, I decided that the reason he doesn't is because his fear of getting found out and the potential conspiracy surrounding three people getting into the Good Place by mistake initially blinds him to the reality of the situation. Not to say Riz never figures it out in all 802 reboots---in fact, he figures it out almost as often as Fig does, it's just a matter of getting everyone to listen to him.

Adaine: She's still a Janet---or, well, an Oracle in this story---but I realized that it would be a) boring, and b) out of character for her to be completely cheery, helpful, and obedient for a good chunk of the story. So, I decided that Adaine is a defective Oracle, who, while initially seeming like the perfect chipper assistant, malfunctions when overwhelmed and goes into a state similar to a human panic attack. She also, in a lovely little nod to Sundry Sidney, has some agency in her that she buries deep down due to not wanting to get marbleized, but over the course of the reboots, she gains more feelings and emotional intelligence, gets more and more outspoken, and eventually settles into the snarky-but-caring Adaine we all know and love. I think there might be a relationship between her and Fabian eventually (because I'm getting a little too unreasonably attached to them), but it's not as central to her story as the Jason-and-Janet relationship is.

Aelwyn: She's still the perfect Micheal, she doesn't need to be changed. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

(Other characters underneath the cut)

a compilation of fabian and adaine in the webtoon interacting / literally just standing next to each other because i was robbed of rich elvens trauma bonding over their shitty families.