#euripides the flier

[yesthefandomfreakblr]

Holy fucking shit.

Currently reading The Underland Chronicles with my baby brother for the first time and had to pause midway through.

Where do they get milk/dairy/cheese from? Do they have cattle? Do they use mice?

(@yesthefandomfreakblr? 👀

[tecobonobo]

day 7: free/future!! i’m looking forward to making more bats, especially nike, athena, andromeda, and icarus!! THANK YOU FOR FIVE YEARS OF TUC!!!! @tucweek

[oneunexpected]

I love Free Day because it means I can do Whatever I Want and I get to rb it to tucweek along with the incredible art pieces and insightful analysis other people have made and mine’s just, like, TUC as vines.

Anyway. Here’s the definitive power ranking of all minor characters* in the Underland Chronicles. It's quite long, because I tried to use every character.

Icarus -this DUUUUDE. This GUYYYYY. SUCKS! -“uh-oh looks like I’m infected with the plague better fly directly into a social gathering” -would be an anti-masker probably  0/10

Reekwell and Gushgore -Fangor and Shed part two, but unfunny this time. 1/10 y’all suck give me Fangor and Shed back

Purvox -Purvox is apparently a beautiful red spider who teaches Hazard how to “speak” Spinner. That’s cool. -that’s it. Why did Suzanne even feel the need to name her? I’m grateful for the extra details but 2/10

Ajax -mean. -nobody likes him -this is probably why he gets on so well with Solovet -some sort of flier general, it seems, which is pretty cool 2/10

Hero & Kent -twins, I guess that’s fun -they’re only like eight but they still Smirk Evilly. Good for them 2/10 just because there’s 2 of them

Anchel & Daphne -some randos Keeda mentions as dead. They probably had some sort of significance to be mentioned by name but We’ll Never Know. 2/10 RIP though. I’m sure you’re worth higher than this but I don’t even know who you are

Horatio -crony #1 -has a crush on Dulcet. Didn’t we all 3.5/10. Boosted solely by association with Dulcet

Marcus -crony #2 3/10

Wevox -thought her name was Weavox until I began writing this post -sort of “Was Margaret Thatcher a Girlboss?” vibes -“As it is, Vikus, we will not drink. Web them” is a RAW line and it bounces around my head sometimes -the spiders are clearly very crafty about their political relations but she was not going to hesitate for a MOMENT to consider the ramifications of killing the monarch of Regalia and we gotta respect that -docking points for the girlboss thing, though. 4/10

Stellovet -queen of insults you gotta be honest -had an INCREDIBLE amount of impact for only having like three lines. I remember being like 11 and reading so many fics on Fan Fiction Dot Net where she was a scheming villain -funny how Luxa thinks her endgame is just becoming a princess. She doesn’t care beyond that she just wants to be royalty 4/10

Chim -baby -ok she’s 5 -doesn’t do anything but look confused and help provide a gateway for Howard to look like a good person 5/10, for years of life. What’s even your name? Chimney?

Andromeda -she’s good. She is an Absolute Beast when she crosses the Waterway with Howard and Mareth, definitely saved Mareth’s life -loves Mareth very much :) -shuns Ares at first but comes around, we still gotta knock her for this though 5/10

Clawsin & Bloodlet & Ratriff -Some folks who go to Ripred’s side, Clawsin gets blinded from the Bane, Ratriff gets his arm ripped off by the Bane, it is what it is 5/10 collectively

Reflex -man’s got jokes -very helpful with the code -shoots streamers of silk around the room when they break it -came to Regalia secretly... secretly to whom? The spinners? The gnawers? Whatever, he’s a rebel either way -I had to look up his name though, so apparently not a lot of impact. Sorry Reflex 5/10

Treflex -announced he was joining the quest, then IMMEDIATELY died. Yes king give us nothing -made a good snack? Gross. 5/10

Cevian -the scene where they find her body is beautifully written and so heartbreaking. She’s the catalyst for the entire fourth book -gives Aurora the opportunity to make her first ever big impassioned speech. It’s what Aurora deserved -still, she doesn’t get any dialogue so I can’t vote her super high 5/10

Euripides -seems nice -always described as “Vikus’ big grey bat,” never just big bat, never just grey bat -tells Luxa to teach Gregor how to ride a bat because his neck is getting bruised lol -nice of him not to embarrass Gregor though 6/10 speak up for yourself, king

Pend -takes Boots back to Regalia after the moth brings her to the crawlers’ land -Vikus recognizes him by name which is really impressive since crawlers look pretty homogenous, although we are told Vikus is better than most at picking them out. Still, Pend is probably a high rolling crawler. 6/10

The scorpions -I know I’m supposed to be doing named characters but they’re pretty cool. The passage they’re in is a really fun read. Mad respect 6/10 I’ll see y’all in Scorpio szn, baby

Razor -showed SHAME and GUILT in the first book when he got called out by Ripred -raised Pearlpelt as if he was his own. In payment, Pearlpelt knocked him off a cliff and then tried to eat him to hide the evidence 6/10

Fangor and Shed -funny dudes. -apparently constantly drunk 6/10

Gox -Gox got shit DONE, okay? Gox got shit DONE. -would eat your carcass without a moment of hesitation. It’s fine. 6/10

Hermes -this guy is great! -brings Luxa her crown -gets seriously injured while protecting Lizzie on their way to Regalia -might be dead tbh no one ever says 7/10

Keeda -okay listen. Keeda’s great. Keeda is that warrior at the Battle of Marathon who ran all the way back to Athens to report their victory and immediately die, except Keeda was reporting that the gnawers were about to invade -listen I know she was dealing with some other stuff, but Vikus asks, “how many rats?” And she says “many. Many rats” ??? No estimate? “An army?” Whatever. We give her a pass. 7/10 RIP

Pandora -FUCK -her death was possibly the MOST disturbing passage I’ve ever read. I could see it so, so vividly in my head. Man I remember the horror -she just wanted to explore 7/10 but also 2/10 for emotional trauma

Queen Athena -ICONIC one-liner in Curse of the Warmbloods, absolutely demolishes the gnawers over their treatment of the nibblers -I’m really biased towards her because Athena is my favorite goddess -probably could’ve done more for Ares, especially as seeing she’s supposed to be perceptive and a really good judge of character and whatnot 7/10

Daedalus -flinches in fear when Boots says she’s gonna sing a for him, specifically -basically pledges his life to Lizzie in the event the Code Room is attacked so that’s very nice 7/10

Heronian -she’s in a full body cast, but that will not stop her. 8/10

Susannah -can we talk about how she lost both of her siblings and she just keeps trucking along? -REALLY wish we knew more about her -clearly Very Kind. Can you please ask your daughter to be nicer -takes really good care of everyone she comes across :) 8/10

Min -creaky old cockroach dance 9/10

Frill -was cool -taught everyone the marks of secret -taught Hamnet about pacifism and stuff too -I get the feeling she was wayyyyy more important to Hazard and Hamnet and their survival than Gregor’s narrative really dives into 9/10

Mr. Cormaci -nice man. Gave Gregor quarters. 10/10

Gregor’s grandma -cool lady, you can’t deny! -tells Gregor he can’t outrun his issues -has a super cool quilt -who IS Simon??? 10/10

Scalene, Euclidian, Root, Cube, and Newton -felt obligated to include all these kiddos because they are, in fact, named, even though none of them get any dialogue or anything else for that matter, really -Scalene was a little nibbler pup that found her mom in the Arena, Euclidian and Root are two more that the mom was looking for, Newton was one that no one claimed but some other guy was like “any of us will take him” which is :’) but also, so, so sad. -Cube was the pup Luxa named that ended up in the pit in the Firelands -Scalene and Newton survived a genocide and Euclidian which is baller any way you swing it 10/10

Tick -:( :( :( -the selflessness. -I shipped her with Temp when I was 8? I can’t answer for that 10/10

York -LMAOOOO this guy’s a LEGEND -7 ft tall. -fights with a zweihander. -says fuck, canonically. -hosts hundreds of nibbler refugees -very loving uncle to Luxa, helps her learn how to rule - his exasperated affection towards Howard when he finds out Howard stayed in the Firelands even after he got sick was very cute 10/10

Honorable mentions: Perdita and Dulcet Their roles are too big in the last book to be included in this list, but these ladies both get a 10/10.

[encrucijada]

piaaa!!! what are some of ur favourite books, and why do you love them?

ari!!! okay so.

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, which is the only book in the His Dark Materials series that matters. I can and will fight people on this. It has everything I love: a bratty tween protagonist, physical manifestations of the soul in the form of animals, witches, great descriptions, the audiobook is Bomb, a cowboy hot air balloon flier, sticking it to the Church, no romance. 

Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan. My favourite of the Percy Jackson series. I love PJO as a whole, it’s funny and easy to read and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside whenever I read it. It’s just... wholesome. Also greek mythology. Why Battle of the Labyrinth? Well: Annabeth centric, the myth of Daedalus and King Minos, Nico being a sad angsty baby, “I am the Ghost King”, Percy and Annabeth’s kiss in the volcano, just the pining in general??, every single book is creative but i just LOVE this one. I love the flashbacks to Ancient Crete with the myths and UGH.

There are a bunch of things I’ve read for uni which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. For uni I tend to rate them depending on whether I thought “I actually like this” more than I did “how many pages left I have to finish this for the day after tomorrow?”. Some of those are: Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus which is an AMAZING expansion of the myth, Tratado de Historia de las Religiones by Mircea Eliade which has helped A Lot with worldbuilding for the high fantasy duology I am drafting with @theladydurin, Antigone by Sophocles has a strong female character who says fuck the government, Hippolytus by Euripides gets muddled with the misogynistic standards of Athens but as an aro/ace reading about a character who rejects Aphrodite is touching, I’ve only read Book 1: Clio of The Histories by Herodotus but it is Incredible?? why didn’t modern academics learn from him this is The Way to learn history it’s so entertaining.

Order of the Phoenix by J.K Rowling is my favourite of the Harry Potter series. Most of my favourite characters are present and we get that Marauders flashback and Sirius dies but we are gonna ignore that. The Horse and His Boy by C.S Lewis is my favourite of the Chronicles of Narnia. The books are all super cute and everything but they were clearly written Decades ago and it makes the style a little much for me, but The Horse and His Boy was the first I found myself genuinely enjoying at the moment instead of in retrospective. I also like The Magician’s Nephew.

Oh! Ramona Meisel’s (@rmeisel) prose and poetry is just Gorgeous and Enchanting. She also writes modern greek mythology which is Bomb. I haven’t gotten to read most of her paid books, I’ve only bought Absolution and the atmosphere of that book is *chef’s kiss*. Heartquakes is probably my favourite as of now. I’ve read it so many times. Anything she’s written about Orion and Artemis makes me wanna sob but in a good way.

[oneunexpected]

I have a similar theory about the bats — obviously, they couldn’t have known about Greek and Roman mythology before the humans arrived, but because a lot of Flier is impossible for humans to hear or replicate, I think they have different names only Fliers can use (or at the very least they used to have a completely different naming system).

I wonder, assuming they still have names they only use in their language, if their Greek and Roman names are rough translations. Like, maybe Aurora’s name in Flier could literally translate to Dawn. Thalia means “joyous one.” Euripides meant “one who moves quickly.” These seem like pretty good things to name your babies.

All of their names in Flier could be epithets like this. I can imagine the early humans being like, “I’m gonna need something better to call you than Beloved” and a flier who’d recently learned about Greek myths being like “oh call me Hera then.” As time passed and their bond with humans became as inextricable as it is by the time of the series, the Fliers started naming their children the other way around — maybe a mother wants to call her pup Zeus among humans, so the pup’s name in Flier is Sky Father when directly translated.

That would make more sense for a bat like Ares, whose name means “curse,” “ruin” or (ironically) “bane,” which don’t seem like things you’d usually want to name your kid. But you would want your kid to have a name that suggested strength and prowess among the humans, maybe even at the cost of calling him Bane in your own tongue.

Or maybe the fliers did come up with sounds that represent the gods and figures they’re now named after, or their names in Flier are completely unrelated to their names in English and all of this is wrong! I just prefer the thought of, like, all the bats calling Queen Athena “Queen Bright Eyes” in their own language. Otherwise they completely abandoned their old names and that’s a pretty sad thought.

A theory I thought of

The names of the gnawers are not their actual names. Ripred isn't actually called Ripred. Lapblood isn't actually called Lapblood. Those are just the closest human translations of their actual names in the gnawer language, names that could have related, but still entirely different meanings.

[runlikethemotherfuckingriver]

Ok AU fanfic time where after killing Bane Gregor had to face Ripred

Bit of backstory:

Gregor didn’t suffer the chest wound in the battle, but both Ares and Bane died. Still swamped with grief, Gregor’s currently lying down clutching Ares’ claw. Also I couldn’t think of any good political reasons for Ripred’s betrayal so I just threw in 1 statement and left it at that.

————————————————————-

Part 1

He didn’t know how long he lay there. Holding on to the last lifeline he had left, trying to pull Ares back from wherever he was. His sword had pierced the Banes stomach, but the foul stench that surrounded the three bodies seemed insignificant. Everything seemed insignificant. There was nothing left for Gregor... no reason for him to still be alive. It just didn’t make any fucking sense. The phropech was fulfilled, the bane’s blood had been spilled. What was left?

He stayed there for what felt like an eon, but couldn’t have been more than an hour. Slowly, he became aware of his name being shouted. But what were they expecting him to do? Get up? Go back to Regalia? Still full of shock and pain and grief, he began to rise. The voice came nearer, until he could hear the raspy, deep voice of one animal he didn’t want to talk to. “Gregor”, said Ripred, keeping his distance but sounding more understanding than he ever had before. “Gregor, we need to go back”.

“Back where?” He demanded, with his back still facing the Gnawer, surprising himself with the forcefulness of his tone. “Back to Regalia? Back to the overland? No, Ripred, what we need to do is go back in fucking time, so that none of this shit ever happened. So that everyone we love is sti-“ Gregor’s voice finally cracked with pain, and shock. “still alive.”

The rat said nothing, merely inched slightly closer to Gregor.

“My sisters?”, he asked, unable to muster anything more

“Both still have light, they flew back with Nike. Oh, and that crawler.”

For some reason, Gregor felt immense relief learning of Temp’s survival. He sank back to his knees, clutched Ares’ claw tighter, then finally

Let

Him

Go

He turned towards Ripred. “I’m ready.”

He started to walk towards the rat, intending to climb onto his back, but as soon as he got in reach the rat’s tail caught him and sent him crashing towards the side of the cave.

Part 2

Gregor hit the rocks with a sickening crunch, and immediately felt a couple of ribs break. His first thought was that another rat had creeped in, but Ripred stalking towards him quickly remedied that.

“What the hell, dude? What are you doing?”, Gregor yelled at the Gnawer. Not bothering to reply, Ripred lashed his tail or once again, but as Gregor launched himself out of the way, he felt the rager sensation kicking in. It probably wouldn’t save him from whatever Ripred was doing, but at least it gave him a sense of power.

Gregor just had time to crawl out of the way when the tail spun again, catching his back and pushing him into Ares’ corpse. Blood and fur filled his mouth. Ashamed at the revulsion that filled him, his panting showed him the image of his sword, still buried deep in the Bane’s heart. He grabbed it, spun around and narrowly avoided a strike from Ripreds left arm, claws poised to tear his chests. They both retreated from one another, then began circling. Ripred looked relaxed, amused almost, whilst Gregor was on high alert for an attack.

“Why?”, Gregor managed to get out through the pain in his chest.

“What did you think would happen after this war, overlander? That we’d all go back to peace, no conflict between the species?” Ripred hissed back at him.

“Pretty much, yeah” Gregor replied, and sprung forward, swinging his sword over his head towards Ripreds skull. The rat, however, anticipated this move and slunk lazily to the right, leaving Gregor to impale his sword in the dirt. He barely had time to wrench it out before Ripred came at him, teeth and claws and all. He parried strike after strike, but the Gnawer started pushing him back. Eventually something brushed against his back, and he knew he was backed up against the Bane’s body. Gregor planned to jump up over the corpse the next chance he got, but the floor was slippy with Ares’ and the white rat’s blood, and when he stepped on a piece of flesh, his feet went out from under him and he found himself on the floor, Ripred’s tail holding him in place as he opened his jaws for Gregors throat...

Part 3

Gregor knew at that point that it was finally time for him to go, for the prophecy to be finished, but his ragged breaths felt movement above him, and Twirltongue’s headless body slipped off her boulder pile and onto Ripred’s back, stunning him. Gregor used the split second of confusion to escape from underneath the tail, and took advantage of the disorientated rat to aim his sword at the Ripred’s neck joint. Once again, however, the gnawer easily sidestepped Gregor’s attack, clutched the weapon in his fangs, and snapped Sandwhich’s legendary sword in too. Without anything else to do, Gregor ran.

He could hear Ripred’s laugh behind him, the mocking tone that seemed to convey all of Gregor’s current fears. He knew the rat was faster, stronger and smarter than he was. But he wasn’t trying to outrun him. When he reached the end of the plateau, his idea was confirmed. The rock fell down into an huge abyss, and at the bottom were the bodies of countless gnawers, fliers and humans. Except, they weren’t exactly bodies... which is where Gregors plan kicked in. He knew the fall wouldn’t kill Ripred, but he hoped what lay at the bottom would. First, though, he had get the rat off the cliff. Plastering a layer of fear on his face (Which wasn’t very hard, considering the circumstances) he turned around, just to find himself face to face with Ripred’s crimson eyes. Eye, actually. It seemed someone - or something - had clawed it out during the battle. It wouldn’t affect the gnawer’s ability to see, he mainly used echolocation for that, but Gregor hoped that it was at least hurting him. Ripred’s was panting heavily, his disgusting breath being blown into Gregor’s face. They stood pile that, facing each other down, for a few seconds, until Gregor did something neither of them expected. He grabbed hold of the rats ears and pulled himself up onto Ripred’s back, kicking his remaining eye in the process. Half blinded, the gnawer couldn’t reach up to pull Gregor off, so he started to spin. As Gregor soon found out, that technique also works in attacking anyone within the circle. He was soon finding it hard to hold on, especially since the only option was to grab chunks of fur, but after spotting a jutting out rock, he knew exactly what to do. On the next circle, he shot his leg out and let it trail behind him until it hit the rock at full speed, and broke with a deafening crack.

Just before it hit, Gregor wrapped his arms around Ripred’s throat, and held on as hard as possible. The force of the leg hitting the rock did exactly what he expected; it stopped the rat in his tracks. Unfortunately, it also snapped his tibia, the bone just above his ankle. Just before he went flying off the rat’s back, Gregor caught a glimpse of shiny red bone coming out through his skin, and a torn muscle providing a clear look into the inside of his leg. He hit the ground with a thud, breaking a few more ribs. His whole body burned with agony, but this was the only chance he would get to kill Ripred. The rat was still recovering from his spin, but teetering dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. With as much strength as he could muster, Gregor launched himself forward with his right leg and slammed into the big rat’s body, pushing him off the plateau. The rat fell without a sound, but the force of him hitting the floor created a thunderous crunch. Gregor slowly pulled himself over to the edge, and looked down. As expected, Ripred was still alive. As he peered down, the rat looked up at him. Even from this distance, Gregor understood exactly what the rat was conveying. It reminded him of the first time he’d looked into Ripred’s eyes, and of the knowledge and danger lay within there. This look was similar, except for the insanity that also lived there this time. Soon, the rat got to his feet, but as he started to crawl over to a cliff in order to climb back up, Gregor noticed a swarm of blackness that rose up from a few hundred metres away. He wanted to look away, but he owed it to the rat to look upon Ripred as he finally met his death. The swarm of mites completely encased the rat, and eventually he met the same fate as Pandora. He didn’t even have time to scream. Gregor took one final look at his skeleton, one carcass among many, then began to crawl his way back towards Ares.

It took him an hour to reach the bodies of the Bane, Ares and Twirltongue. He collapsed right next to his bond, the black bat’s beautiful wings torn and ripped. Without looking at Ares’ throat, Twirltongue’s head or his own leg, Gregor clasped Ares’ claw in his hand, and finally lay down to rest...

————————————————————

Ok from here same thing kinda happens, shiners find him and take him back, Lizzie is devastated that Ripred is dead, so he never tells her about his betrayal etc. The treaty happens, but Lapblood stands in for the rats instead, and her level-headedness leads the other species to continue to delegate her after Lizzie’s idea. Gregor doesn’t tell many people about the truth, only a couple of Underlanders really know what happened (Vikus, Luxa, Howard, Aurora, Nike, Euripides, Lapblood and Temp) Everything after that is the same.

-

Phew what did you think? I quite enjoyed writing that.

(Now plz give me notes)

[tecobonobo]

i forgot to post him but for day 2 of tuc week: gregor/overlander this is euripides!! one of the first named bats in the original book (im pretty sure) although we do not get a ton of characterization about him i like to think he’s a diplomat like vikus and that they bonded later in life enjoy!! 

[oneunexpected]

Underland Naming Conventions

For all your OC needs!

FLIERS

All fliers, with the exception of two, are named after figures in Greek Mythology. One exception to this is Aurora, who is named after the Roman counterpart to the Greek goddess Eos, and the other is Euripedes, who is almost definitely named after the playwright Euripides.

Fliers tend to have fitting names, as with the case of Hermes, Icarus, Ajax, and Thalia. Others seem to have names based on their appearances, such as Aurora.

GNAWERS

Gnawers tend to have names that are compounds of two words, and most allude to violence. Some (such as Twirltongue, Lapblood, Makemince, Flyfur, Twitchtip, and Gushgore) have names comprised of a verb followed by a noun. Most (Goldshard, Ripred, Pearlpelt, Sixclaw, Clawsin, Bloodlet, Silksharp, Ratriff, and Reekwell) do not.

A few gnawers, such as Mange, Gorger, Shed, Snare, Razor, and Cleaver, have one-word names. Fangor is the only rat that appears to have a name that is completely made up.

It is also my opinion that gnawers are not named until they begin speaking (not full sentences, but baby-talk, like we see with the Bane). I believe this because Twirltongue is a bizarrely specific name, and because Lapblood mentions Sixclaw and Flyfur by name while referring to their younger siblings only as “the little ones.”

CRAWLERS

Crawler names are temporal (get it— temporal?) and one syllable long. Obviously, our sample size is small, since there are only four named crawlers, but I think it’s enough to go off of. We have Temp, which is a prefix meaning “time,” Tick, the sound a clock makes, Min, the abbreviation of minute, and Pend, as in a clock pendulum or being suspended in place.

UNDERLANDERS

Humans can be basically named whatever they want. Some people have weird names. Some have names that are in common use today. Many are named after Shakespeare’s characters.

The only trend I notice is in the women of the Underland; there is a strong tendency for names to end in -et (particularly -vet) and -a[h]. We see the former in Solovet, Miravet, Stellovet, Dulcet, and maybe in Chim, who I headcanon to be named “Chiminet,” and the latter in Luxa, Peridita, Miranda, Susannah, and Keeda. Exceptions to this are Neveeve, Hero, Judith, and Daphne.

NIBBLERS

Nibblers are named after math concepts and schools of thought with an emphasis in Geometry. Some have short names, like Cube and Root, while others have longer names. Many are named after mathematicians, like Cartesian, Newton, Heronian, and Euclidian.

SPINNERS

The male spinners named are Treflex and Reflex, and the females named are Wevox, Purvox, and Gox, so I assume males have names always ending in -ex while the females names’ always end in -ox.

HISSERS

The only hisser we encounter is Frill. It’s probably not a stretch to assume the other hissers are named similarly, but we really don’t have anything to go off as to what those similarities might be.

DIGGERS

Unknown, other than they’re hard for the other species to pronounce. Perhaps they incorporate hisses or clicks.

STINGERS

Unknown.

CUTTERS

Unknown.

FLUTTERERS

Unknown.

SHINERS

We got two. Photos Glow-Glow and Zap. I’m thinking light. I’m thinking electricity. I’m thinking pizzazz. If you’re making a shiner, just go wild.