Avery's Secret Collection (Chrona's Art and Random Book 2)

evan drake: the evan drake au

i've made 8 new books and filled three sketchbooks but let's talk about evan drake

So. Doing AUs for my characters is kind of a strange exercise because I strongly subscribe to a personal theory of worldbuilding and story development that dictates that character,  plot, and world are inseparable and that both have concrete effects on each other. Within my stories, most if not all details are important, depending on how competent I was when writing (see: it gets better as you go) and that everything hooks together in such a way that the fulfillment of the plot has literal and symbolic consequences on the character. Depending on how many times you've fallen asleep in English class, that probably sounds like a block of pretentious garbage, but for an example, take Anthem and Shiloh from Deja Vu. They're "mentor" characters most similar to Kyubey from Madoka Magica but besides being the literal plot on by being a foil to the protagonists and goading their every action on, Anthem is a tangible representation of the worst parts of Adam as Shiloh is the worst parts of Will. Having the twins being guided by their literal demons in their search for escapism and them coming to terms with what they are capable of and finding a better way forwards is really important to the book. You could put Anthem in another story, and yes, Anthem is still enough of a character that that *works*, but without Adam, what is Anthem, really? It goes the same way for a lot of the plots-- the entire plot of AMALGAMA hinges on Red and Kali. Red and Kali in any other universe, in any other position, are strong enough characters that their personalities carry over, but it takes a lot of creative reworking to get around how Red's inability to relinquish control of others and his personal fears are both caused by and represented by his time travel. He is a byproduct of his circumstances which are in turn a byproduct of his existence as it is crafted to serve his personal development across the plot. That is to say that I make my books so that characters are *necessary*, as are their powers. This is also usually how I decide to change things between drafts, by gauging what is and isn't clicking into this overall architecture. 

That said, because of this structure, it also means that characters would change if they were in other books. Of course, Evan is the Dark Keeper for his universe, so if you want to see Evan in another world, look no further than Gale/Sirius/Derrick/etc. (I have way more who are in books I haven't introduced to you guys since I gave up on this-- I've probably made about twenty books since and elemental theory is way more important in all of them) but it's still fun to see what would happen if I just... dropped Evan into these stories. Half the time I end up bringing the others with him but sometimes it's just the original cast, since the original cast is the point, so the end result's probably a little confused, but it's also fun, so I digress.

(Plus I got to experiment with my art style.) 

CRUX

CRUX!Evan Drake would definitely be a shapeshifter, specifically a dragon, from a triple-way session with Adam and Megan. Specifically he'd be a minor villain of a triple-way portal session where Megan was probably in a damsel role she subverted by using her powers as High Priestess to invite in religious riots from the populace and Adam was almost okay in a knight role before Megan threw the plot to shit and then he ends up only surviving by the skin of his teeth. (The three of them are partially based off the archetypal dragon/knight/princess in canon so whenever I have the opportunity I enjoy messing with those motifs in AUs.) Evan, meanwhile, fell into the otherworld and the main antagonist essentially told him he was free to utterly ravage the land, because, after all, who cares? It's another world, one without consequence, and this is pre-story Evan who's probably had no friends and generally hates people. So he turns into a dragon and blows the crap out of everything. Megan and Adam think they have to kill him until they realize the villain's main weapon is really a scared fifteen year old just like them, the prophecy they received at the beginning has some creative wording that implies that there was another person with them all along, and Megan inspires him to have a change of heart. They beat the villain, go home, and Evan gets to live with knowing he killed thousands of people willingly because he was thinking about it like a video game when Megan and Adam very clearly do not see it that way and had close ties with lots of people in the otherworld. Evan carries over remnants of his dragon form, which grows on him a little more every time he uses it--supposedly love would reverse the curse, but despite having two significant others, he's still somewhat stuck. This isn't to say he's unhappy with Megan and Adam, because he isn't, but they're just teenagers and both of them are more than a little afraid of him sometimes. Most of the time, though, they're sticking up for him or hiding his secrets from the world or preventing him from saying dumb things at the teacher or turning into his dragon form which will probably continue to gnaw away at his humanity for the rest of his life unless he figures out how to love himself. If he deserves to. If he can convince himself that he was being manipulated into doing terrible things. If that excuses it? If... well, you get the point.