#i just know Nancy has a crow. Dustin a racoon. Steve a borzoi. Robin a small porcupine. Eddie a opossum. Joyce some kind of mustelid?

[the-lark-ascending69]

Now I'm thinking about a His Dark Materials x Stranger Things AU and the similarities are just enough for it to make a lot of sense but both stories have so much material (pun intended) in them that I don't even know where to start, other than with the fact that the scientists and Brenner and everyone is the Magisterium, Will is taken by the Gobblers/the General Oblation Board, El is probably from Will's World (Will Parry's world, not to be confused with Will Byers - there are just too many Wills here), and she doesn't have a visible dæmon. Barb is a bit too old to be taken by the Gobblers - she probably got caught finding information she shouldn't know and they got rid of her. I feel like the Byers would be gyptians, too, living in a gyptian boat. Henry Creel was probably the one to first open a gate between world by ripping himself apart from his own dæmon, and that's part of how he kills people - severing from their dæmons, killing them, opening a gate. The parallels are just too strong!

But I wouldn't set it in Europe like the original books... I would set it in North America, in their canon location.

The Globetrotter's Map shows that the United States does not exist in this world - instead you get New Denmark, Texas, and Beringia (Alaska), bordering Hispania Nova to the south and New France to the north. That would make them New Danish, right? And maybe the only General Oblation Board facility is in Svalbard and they need to go all the way across New France and Greenland to get there, or maybe this time around there's a facility in Beringia, or simply in the New French far north. Somewhere far away, hopefully where you can see the northern lights. I like that idea, to keep it more North America inspired.

After whatever experiments they perform on Will, he can separate from his dæmon like a witch, but it also kind of feels like his dæmon can cross worlds without need for a portal, and this happens unexpectedly and without them being able to control it. El, of course, is considered an aberration since she does not have a dæmon, but the party pretty quickly figures that she does - it's just "inside of her".

Jonathan is maybe a photographer who got his hands on some special equipment to photograph dust - something he shouldn't be allowed to own. Steve is on his way to joining the Magisterium's law enforcement arm, though he quickly realizes how horrible the Magisterium really is. Jason is the one who stays there and continues to rise through the ranks. Eddie is the town heretic who just wants to enjoy his fantasy books - banned by the Magisterium for promoting subversive ideas about God, or just not having God be present, or whatever. He has a small secret fantasy reading club where he and the boys like to enjoy forbidden literature about dragons and knights and play board games based on them. The town does not like it. El can communicate directly with Dust. She's like a human alethiometer. Robin is New Denmark's most dangerous polyglot who just accidentally intercepted some weird messages on the radio in multiple different languages about missing children in Beringia. Hopper used to work for the Magisterium as a law enforcer until his daughter mysteriously disappeared and they refused to give him an answer. Max is just there to punch God in the face.

It's almost 6 am and I haven't had any sleep so idk if this makes sense... but it makes sense in my little heart