#and like how esmunds relic got passed to garroth

[lunarrosette]

This is for no one but… are relics like… the doodler…. Passing through blood but once u have a child it goes to the child and leaves you…

[gonedreaminggg]

i am craving disability representation in mcd and mystreet 😭

here i go!

my disability headcanons for MCD/MYS

- Laurance never got his vision back. Not completely, at least. The outer field of his vision is completely blurred, and sometimes it'll randomly get worse/better. In MyS, he's still mostly blind, but he was born with this. It honestly doesn't make a difference in his day to day life because he's so used to it, but he's so pissed that he can't drive.

- Dante has OCD, and he passed the trait down to Dmitri. They both have skin-picking issues as well.

- Naoki (Nekoette) has hyperactive ADHD, which she got from Nana. A lot of people think it's really funny, but when Naoki starts training as a guard, she and other people finally realize how challenging it is.

- Zoey's health starts deteriorating rapidly after giving up her immortality. She has chronic pain issues, and recurring migraines.

- Both MCD and Mystreet Katelyn are hella deaf. Like. Cannot hear for shit. In MyS she wears hearing aids sometimes, but in MCD she's like "WHA?" constantly.

- MyS Vylad is an ambulatory wheelchair user. (honestly i'm just self-inserting for this one lol) they have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, and use a cane most of the time. They're very active on social media and are a popular disability advocate. It's why they're constantly traveling.

- All of the Ro'meave brothers are hella autistic

- Travis has a lot of chronic fatigue issues because of his demon form and powers and whatnot. When Aphmau gets her relic, and Garroth gets Esmund's, they also have chronic fatigue. The relics are too much energy for a mortal body.

- Levin has hella anxiety. Zoey and Malachai taught him how to manage it over the years. When he becomes Lord, the intensity of the job honestly makes him less focused on his anxieties.

- Malachai still can't function properly as a human. After being brought back to life, he's had a lot of chronic issues, that are honestly all over the place. He also has really bad dissociation, because he was DEAD FOR 900 YEARS.

[theladyofrosewater]

So I was browsing the MCD wiki (which sidenote thank you @/lggy for maintaining the wiki you are a godsend) and I noticed that because of the sepia or whatever filter they used, Zianna and Aaron's wife Lilly look really similar so I thought "what if I made them sisters"

THINK ABOUT IT FOR A SECOND. If I make it so that Lilly and Aaron get married early that would effectively make Zianna the sister of the Lord of Falconclaw and a pretty valuable person to marry in terms of alliances so Zianna would make the decision to marry Garte and therefore O'Khasis would never move on Falconclaw and hey if Garte died early (most descendants of Esmund have a habit of dying young in my rewrite) that would effectively let Zianna rule O'Khasis as long as she had an heir that could wield Esmund's relic.

It also would make Aaron more involved in the plot because I will be honest, while I do not hate Aaron because I can separate him from Jason enough. Aaron feels like a character who would have been a one-off character or at least one who was a side character to the level of say Lucinda. I know the Divine Warriors and Irene are supposed to be the kinda main story but I will be honest with you the Ro'Meaves and their absolute chaos are way more interesting to me. Zane was the season one's villain, Garroth and Vylad were mysteries that we got to upwrap with both Ru'aun as a whole and some stuff about the Shadow Knights. In making Aaron Zianna's brother-in-law and the uncle of Garroth, Zane and Vylad to me, besides just making him more connected to the main plot, does two main things.

Aaron in current MCD canon is really only connected to two characters Aphmau and Zane. I'm changing his relationship to Aph to be more of a mentorship one because I think he sees the young daughter he and his wife wanted to have but never got too because of Zane. to me it makes the massacre at Falconclaw be that much more personal because instead of this random priest just killing your wife, child, and entire village for no real reason imagine this. You're a lord of a village and relatively recently two of your nephews have died and one of them quite gruesomely, you've got one nephew left and he requests a family visit and you accept because hey the kid has always been a bit weird but he just lost both of his brothers and he probably needs support right now so you extend an invitation for him to visit. He gets there and he somehow got to be the head of the major religion in your area and the kid's not even 19 yet and looks like he hasn't slept in days so you rush the tour and send him to your home, maybe your wife can get him to eat something, or your son might cheer him up for at least a little while. You think nothing of it and keep doing your job until you hear screaming and see so many dead. Your wife is dead, your son is dead everyone is dead and the only one alive is your nephew and when he looks at you he fucking smiles and says it "it was necessary but don't worry I'm sure you'll join them soon enough" before walking off leaving you to bury bodies for years. Making Aaron be related to the Ro'meaves in my opinion changes his story from just a fridging backstory to a classic tragedy because it becomes a betrayal bathed and forged from blood.

I think it would give him a better motivation to risk his life to get Garroth back and it would make him interact with the other characters because he wants to know what kind of man his non-evil nephew turned into. That causes him to be more and more social with everyone. Maybe he spars and trains with Katelyn, He teaches Dante and his kids how to fish because Aaron never got to teach Jacob how, but still wants to pass on that skill. Maybe he knows things about shadow knights that most people don't, and he promises to teach Laurance in case he might help him. Maybe he takes Travis hunting because Travis never got to go on hunting trips with a parent. And then he sacrifices himself. Katelyn ignores the painful feeling she gets when she looks at the spare chalk and wrappings she has for spars. The fishing poles in Dante's house get covered with dust and cobwebs, the strings rotting away and snapping. Laurance and maybe Vylad struggling with being shadow knights as the call gets stronger and wondering if Aaron would have known how to deal with it. Travis out of anger snaps his bow in half before realizing what he did and breaking down. I want Garroth to be horrified when he finally is home and realizes just who they lost to get him back. I want them to care about him and I want his sacrifice to be more than love triangle fodder

[gumbootillustrations]

day 18 - headcanon

i had too many so no drawing today. instead, i offer a list.

bogan laurance. or, more specifically, bogan meteli. like cmonnn u Cannot tell me that meteli (esp old meteli) is just a standin for small-town new zealand/australia. anyway, they all have aussie/nz accents. laurs is the most obvious bc i think its funny. @shadowqnights @abxolotl this one goes out for you guys <3

on that note, ru'aun's environment is basically new zealand's. especially the sacred forest - it has major nz bush vibes. like.

cmon u Cannot tell me that these were taken in the sacred forest of ru'aun.

anyway. travis gets kept up at night by kiwi screaming at each other (seriously. take a listen.)

also, tu'la is inspired by the roman empire. ill probs elaborate on this in the future.

necromancer cadenza! i've spoken abt this before here if u want to see a bit more :3

irene's cathedral/dimension/whatever is less cathedral and more eldritch labyrinth. specifically, i envision it to be a lot like the theatre of domination from honkai impact 3rd.

garroth gardens in his free time! it's how he grows all the flowers for his flower crowns.

meif'wa are werecats; they can 'tuck in' their ears and tails like werewolves can (but it's generally super uncomfortable, no matter the species), and have a sort of hybrid cat-human form that they can also shift into.

melissa is the first ultima - i sort of got into it in this post, but essentially after mel comes back to find falconclaw destroyed and her siblings, aaron and lilly, dead (to the best of her knowledge - aaron is still alive, however), she strikes a deal with a goat-eyed being to bring them back, but because the fine print was specifically worded to fuck her over, her soul ends up getting fused with the wolf that she sacrifices for the ritual and she gets ultima'd.

also, lilly is now aaron and mel's younger sister. she's a ghost.

juror relics! i hate hate Hate how the jurors never get fleshed out in canon, so i gave them a bit more backstory in ashes, ashes. their powers originally came from smaller, less powerful relics that xavier carved off of his own, but after they get lost, they become figureheads for a long time until about 20-25 years prior to the start of ashes, ashes. there's a bit more on this in my day 20 post, pinky promise.

the generals of the shadow lord's army are called "death knells", and although they lead their own units/squadrons/whatever, their primary purpose is to oppose the divine warriors; including the shadow lord (who opposes irene), there are only ever seven death knells at one time. an example of a death knell is gene, who is intended to oppose kul'zak.

zianna is a witch, although, for most of her life, her abilities were passed off as her having prophetic magicks; these 'magicks' are why she was married off to garte, as the ro'meave line wanted to introduce these magicks into the family. unfortunately, the heir, garroth, didn't inherit his mother's abilities, but her two other children, zane/zuwellyn and vylad, did.

nicole is a half elf from her mum's side; her mum is matilda's sister, making her and levin first cousins. this is based on matilda lowkey looking really similar to nicole. idk i just think its fun.

garte sells out o'khasis to tu'la for more power during s2, thus transferring the jury of nine into the control of the king. it's a whole mess, and in the process, he essentially scapegoats zianna by faking his death.

however, this does make zianna lord of o'khasis. we love a girlboss.

the relics have different effects on their wielders; for example, esmund's relic makes its wielders a lot more physically dense, meaning that they'll sink into softer surfaces like sand and mud. xavier's relic turns its wielders hair red.

consequently, zane has red roots. he dyes his hair black (its natural colour) to hide them.

katelyn has the moniker of "the dragon of o'khasis". the phoenix drop gang mostly assumes that it's because she's ruthless on the battlefield... until she decides that the best course of action is to breathe fire at an opponent uncle iroh-style.

katelyn is also Stupidly superstitious. like. she fully believes in the sweater curse and will Refuse to walk under a ladder even if theres no other available path.

mys!nicole gets forever potioned. this has Consequences for the home gang during the events of s5-s6.

speaking of mys!nicole, her and dante are queerplatonic coparents to dmitri. they had him when they were in uni after a brief fling. he's the street's baby.

anyway i think thats abt it. lmk if u have any questions :3

(ps two days until day 20)

[aro-laurance-zvahl]

What are your plans for the Devine Warriors?

Oh boy do I’ve got some!! They’re all a bit. Rough and extremely removed from canon (I’ll get to rewatching season two eventually I SWEAR)

I’ve definitely changed how they work from the very core, instead of being all literal reincarnation or immortal about it, I’ve taken it to more of like. Easiest comparison is Supernatural Angels. Basically it’s more about bloodlines and the makeup of a soul, not that anyone actually knows this though cause well

They always possessed their vessels young, no older than five, and passed it off to the public as reincarnation. The debate on if it was cruel or kind and necessary was what lead to them breaking apart, sealing away Shad, and leaving the mortals with little intervention

Of course they weren’t always gods. They started off as mortals themselves, simply a group of unlikely friends caught up in a devastating war. A war they eventually helped end, Irene committing an act of justice even when she knew it could lead to the extinction of her race...which it did. But their actions caused their souls to change, enhancing the power and strength they already had and preventing their souls from going out in death.

But that’s getting a bit into the story of them, but the mechanics of it are also different!

Of course there’s the whole Possession thing, which is actually why Aphmau is memoryless but skillful! Irene broke the rule, she stole a bit over twenty years of Aphmau’s life after getting lost in the feeling of Living after saving her from death as a small child. In an attempt to make up for this, she left Aphmau without the memories but keeping those necessary and important skills like athleticism and carpentry. She also may have made Aphmau grow wings (Irene’s original race was a sorta aasimar race, she nearly always forces her vessels to grow wings so they feel more like her) and couldn’t bring herself to tear them off before leaving her. I haven’t decided on that bit though, winged Aphmau mainly sounds cool idk if it’s cool in practice

And then there’s the relics! The relics are basically like conduits for Divine Power. Once someone has a Divine Relic, the corresponding warrior can basically turn on the tap for that power to start flowing, essentially granting the advantages of getitng possessed (such as divine weapons) but the user is still on control. Of course to access a relics power you don’t need the divine blessing, if you have it you can brute force it but that will lead to unpredictable and possibly uncharacteristic changes

These relics also create a pool of magicks for the wielders soul, and that pool will always be present even if the relic is forcefully taken away. The magicks also often manifests in a way that reflects the user as the divine warrior. It’s why Aphmau gains healing powers she can use out of the Irene State and I’m planning on giving Garroth barrier magicks (yes like Zoey has, I have thoughts about that too) after he obtains Esmund’s relic.

[y0urlittl3ang3l]

More headcanons I have that will definitely be in my rewrite-

Y'all have fun ig

Katelyn and Garroth are actually super close friends

When Katelyn first arrived in Phoenix drop she wasn't exactly the most intimidating person ever, in fact when Garroth went to confront her she grabbed onto his arm to stabilize herself before blowing chunks over the dock

Katelyn often uses Garroth as pillar to lean on, literally, and it used to piss him off but now he's just accepted it

Katelyn and Garroth used to bicker a lot about random things

Laurance will randomly initiate make out sessions, the weirdest place by far is on the lap of the statue of Irene

Whenever someone can beat Garroth in a fight he low key catches feelings- HE CAN'T HELP IT

When Garroth and Travis met, Garroth felt like he aged ten years from how fucking reckless Travis was

Travis would literally throw himself from tall ass trees and Garroth would be panicking while trying to catch from all the way on the ground

Katelyn, like Garroth, is super hot due to her fire magic. And it would be easy to think that she wouldn't enjoy cuddling(platonically of course)

But Katelyn does enjoy it, if not more than Laurance and Dante, Garroth's warmth is super comforting to her and it helps her relax, she always finds herself dozing off into a short nap whenever they cuddle, Garroth just smiled and reads to pass the time

Garroth misses his mother so, soo much and sometimes he just wants to run back to O'Khasis and reassure her that he's okay

Garroth hates being alone and got overly attached to Laurance and Dante so on his days off he just goes with one of them

It was so fucking hard for Garroth to tell Laurence to leave him in the Irene dimension, he wanted to do badly to have Laurance there with him but he also didn't want to stop Laurance's life in its tracks

Now and then Katelyn tries to show Garroth how much she appreciates for helping her relax by leaving him anonymous gifts

Before Garroth left O'Khasis he snooped around Zane's things one last time before coming across Esmund's relic. The relic shot into his chest and it freaked Garroth out so he ran away then and there

When Laurance is jealous of Garroth talking to other people he'll whine to him in Spanish about how Garroth is his.

Garroth got used to having people in his bed, so when Summer rolled around and nobody wanted to anymore since it got so hot, he'd get absolutely no sleep at all

Molly is the ultimate mother figure to the guards and they all love her more than anything

Garroth can get a bit..obsessive..over Laurance. But Laurance is also obsessive so it kinda works out anyway

Dante had a phase where he really liked Zoey, like romantically, but he got over it

You remember that pendant Kiki and Zane had a child with? Yeah Garroth and Laurance encountered that same pendant and they both pricked it, so not so long after they had a child:)

Laurance doesn't enjoy the smell that any citrus has, oranges? Hates it. Lemons? Hates it. Limes? Fucking hates it.

Garroth knows how to play the violin and the harp

Garroth's hands aren't soft, they're super rough and from holding his sword all the time

Garroth was a little skinny for a short period of time as Phoenix Drop was going through a famine, but he gained more weight when the new lord came to the village

Garroth tops and Laurance bottoms. But there are times where Laurance is a power bottom and Garroth just enjoys not being in control for once

Garroth's ears are pierced, and he also has an eyebrow piercing.

Laurance has a fuck ton of piercings, on his ears, his tongue, his septum, his bellybutton.

Laurance also has a whole bunch of scars, one down his eyebrow, one that goes down his lip, on his side from a sparring accident, his hand from a bird attacking him

Laurance's ears are also different since he's a shadow knight, they look like elf ears tbh

Dante is super fucking sarcastic and it drives Dale and Garroth insane

Dante just has the whole package of issues.

So does Laurance

Laurance has a habit of saying things he usually wouldn't when he's tired and once he called Garroth 'Sugar tits' in the middle of a meeting

Garroth told him to go to his room with the reddest face ever

Garroth's little disguise for when he did decide to take off his helmet was this: Dyed brown hair, orange contacts and paint that matched his face to cover his freckles

Laurance hates the cold

Laurence can be quite selfish at times

Garroth is very, very controlling and hates it when people try to tell him what to do instead

Garroth's fake name was 'Seren', he was only outed because Zane called him by his real name at Donna's wedding

Laurance was pissed that Garroth didn't tell him the truth about himself

Dante was a wreck when Laurence came back from the Irene dimension without Garroth

[enki-library]

who are the divine warriors? like genuinely i’ve forgotten them

ooh okay good question! and i have an answer.. that follows the canon plot bc idk if you wanted me to rant about what i think that really happened :]

the divine warriors were the six most powerful warriors 900 years before mcd/aphmau, consisting of irene, enki, esmund, shad, menphia and kul'zak. while they are believed to have actually been mortals, they were basically treated like divine deities/gods in the regions they came from and sometimes in more regions, especially irene— like people in irene’s region were low-key obsessed with her. they got all of their powers from their six, respective relics. 

irene liked peace and justice, deciding to be the only one to not let herself be reincarnated in order to protect her world. this meant that she saw all of her friends and people die and be reborn again and again. canonically, it’s only known that esmund was the “shield for good” while the others have yet to be touched on (but i want to! :3) shad was basically the warrior of destruction, all the bad in the world. however like every enemies to lovers arc, irene and shad somehow fall in love yet esmund comes in because he loves irene. plus shad is super argumentative so irene gets fed up with the two of them and starts to lose her feelings of compassion or love for anyone. so when she helps and saves people, she doesn’t really have that emotional connection from before.

as time passes, enki, esmund, and kul'zak start to hate shad and theorize that if they got rid of him, there wouldn’t be darkness in the world, thus helping irene feel emotions again. shad got angry when he found out and became the dark and powerful shadow lord. irene had to save her people so she fought him in a world she created: the irene dimension. no one knows how menphia joined or why but in the end, the five warriors destroyed shad and his relic, scattering them across the world, and locking his soul in the nether. but it didn’t help irene at all. in fact, it hurt her— she started feeling less and less.

eventually, the other warriors died again, leaving her all alone. irene got sick of not feeling so she sealed her memories and slept in the irene dimension. she put all of her powers in her relic, gave her bestie hyria a staff, and said, when it glows, to place it where her help was needed and she would wake up there.

hundreds of years later, the new shadow knight on the block (our buddy vylad!) enters hyria's forest. despite supposedly being heartless, he still wants to help his brother (our buddy garroth!) and their village (the infamous, you guessed it! pheonix drop). hyria gave him the staff, telling him to place it where help was needed but dude didn’t know that frickin’ irene would jump out! and so, there’s where mcd kicks off with aphmau..

COOL RIGHT?? SEE HOW MUCH LORE AND POSSIBILITIES AND PLACES THAT I COULD USE TO MAKE IT SYMBOLIC. THE READER WILL LITERALLY BECOME A LITERAL FRICKIN’ GOD AND THE QUEERᵀᴹ. OH THE QUEERᵀᴹ THINGS I COULD ADD!!!! anyways thanks for asking a question :D