#myths and monsters au

[madcat-world]

Nuckelavee - Vulpes-Ibculta

[prismolovesfanfiction]

"wow they have the voice of an angel" my sailor in christ you are being ensnared by a siren

[sleepingboar]

" ... There, in the white sand with the imprint of wild currents, the remains of a defeated sea monster were black. His long body was huge! The bones were hard as stone, and there were scars from merciless shark teeth. At some point, the darkness that enveloped the abandoned old rival was driven away by a flickering light. A school of bioluminescent squid migrated over the broken ridge. Countless deep-sea life played mesmerizingly with waves of blue fire and this spectacle did not stop for a very long time … "

Only Gods can visit such places

[paintedkinzy-88]

Donnie's habit of placing tracking devices on his family certinally helps him figure out something is off.

Hmmm wonder if Donnie would consider asking Loe to go for a late night swim at some point around the time Leo usually does his falling/fake flying stunts... it could be interesting.

Gotta love his questionably immoral overprotectiveness. It DOES have its benefits with their lifestyle!

And he absolutely will at some point. If not for Leo, then for himself. As nice as it is to see the city from above, the cold, windy air up there tends to dry up his scales. He needs a good swim one of these days that isn’t just in their pool.

And now Leo can take him to nicer waters too. Which he absolutely will. Look out for serpent sightings in the Bahamas—

[ananke-xiii]

I've written somewhere that Team Free Will is actually Team Dean's Will but it wasn't, like, a criticism or something like that, it was what I personally got once the show was over (and I still have very legit concerns about Dean's choice during the last episode).

I don't think Chuck won in the end because he, as a character, wouldn't have wanted for Dean to die. As far as polysemy goes, Chuck does represent many things but, to be really honest, I don't really think he represents John Winchester on a cosmic level. Like, yeah, OF COURSE, we can definitely put them together in the "Shitty Fathers" box but when Chuck tells Dean that he's not like his father I think he's not that wrong after all. Chuck is much worse and not because he's a John Winchester on a gigantic scale, it's not about quantity. He's worse because he just is.

Leaving aside the many problematic aspects of their relationship, Mary and John can be totally seen as Amara and Chuck (the show does go there and I think it's interesting for many reasons) but it's also true that the one who lied in the couple was Mary, not John. Even if we know why she had to lie and it can be understandable, it's also true that both Sam and Mary are willing to omit a Very Important Thing about themselves that, eventually, gets their partners killed. But, unlike Chuck who's to blame for his omissions, lies and manipulations, both Sam and Mary are two characters that, even more than Amara, are ALWAYS stripped of any choice. So it's almost like no matter what they do, they can only fight for their free will but never fully live it (SPN final thesis: you can never get what you want).

So yeah, if we consider John as a person and, more specifically, as a partner (therefore not in his paternal role), Chuck's not like him at all. Chuck's in control of his narrative, John couldn't even choose his own car at the dealership (btw, in my fantasy John has a love/hate relationship with the whole album "Boys for Pele" by Tori Amos that he keeps hidden like Bobby's passion for Tori Spelling). John is very much mainly narrated by other characters, in this respect he's just like Mary, to be honest. We don't 100% know who he is because he's a character described by absence. So much so that Sam and Dean didn't even know he had a fucking SECRET family!!!

Chuck is portrayed to be less enigmatic. We know he lies because we are shown that multiple times even before "Moriah". He's a character without much depth and that bothers him So. Much. He's a God who wants to be like Keith Richards. LOL!

However, even if Chuck, to me, objectively doesn't win (I also have my own "Billie won theory"), he neverthless does represent the Dictorial Power of Shitty Fathers that some might call The Patriarchy (not me. I would NEVER!). In this way, yes, he sort of wins because, as I've said, the natural order wins in the end and, in SPN, the natural order is Absent, Shitty Fathers. The sugarcoated version of the bygone days, the bittersweet nostalgia for a golden past that inevitably leads to death.

And who, the show tells us, represents all of the above? The absence of John Winchester via the presence of his journal. A man who's become so powerful he's been morphed into a myth. Maybe he is the real tulpa of this story, after all.

What does this have to do with Team Dean's Will? I find that saying that what Dean did in the end is a "choice" is very troublesome. To me personally. But the show does imply that, not strongly enough because it leaves some room for doubt but it ultimately does that. So okay, I'll bite and will consider it to be a Real Choice out of Dean's Free Will. Fine. What about Sam, though?

S15 starts with Sam and Rowena and ends with Sam and Dean. Rowena and Dean both commit suicide that's not 100% framed as suicide. Among other things, it is framed as a sacrifice. And Sam's there with them and he doesn't want that. He says so. He tells Rowena to "screw the books" and he tells Dean that he doesn't want what Dean is asking for.

Rowena's act is framed as being done out of her own agency because she believes in prophecy and magic. To which I say bullshit, not to Rowena but to the show because this is a cop-out. Since S13 Rowena couldn't do what she wanted to do because it wasn't possible. Fine. But how come that prophecy seems to be working only for her? How come the "rules are rules" mindset only applies to her? Why do other characters' books change and hers alone doesn't? How come her sacrifice is both destined and out of her own free will? It means that it can happen then! That destiny and free will can coincide! This change in thinking about the question is so packed with possibilities that they could've done another 15 seasons about it. Unfortunately, destiny and free will seem to meet in Definite Death which meh. Story over.

And Sam? He's still there. Participating and not participating. Against his will.

With Dean things are a bit different because we do know that Chuck is obsessed with him. Once Chuck is out of the picture, we could imply, Dean's finally "free" to choose what he wants. Which is such a naive thought because if it were only the absence and/or presence of things/persons to determine our lives we, perhaps, wouldn't need therapy.

But, as I've said, I'll be good and keep my promise: let's say Dean chooses out of his own free will. It should be cool for us, right? This is what Dean wants. The Big Big Bad is not dead but he's not the man behind the curtains anymore so hurrah! Free/Dean's Will wins. We should feel like we must respect that. And yet, it doesn't feel right.

And Sam? He's still there. Participating and not participating. Against his will.

It doesn't feel very "Free Willy" if the people just let the orca free. It's not very Free Will for Sam if the show tells us that it's Dean literally getting out of the picture that will "free" Sam. Brrrrrrr.

So what does this tell me? That the "destiny vs free will" discourse seems to be working only when there's a villain on the horizon, a commanding power that wants to tell you what to do, someone actually stronger than you whose actions can alter your life's story.

If you take that power out, what's left? Only people with their choices. And your absent, dead father's journal radiating The Real Power (the idea of power inside your mind that controls you). Is free will still in the room with us? Cause it starts to look like somebody's supposedly "free" will might be somebody's else constraint. As far as Sam is concerned, it seems to say: it doesn't matter whether there's a God, Death or that prophecy is real or not. What matters is that you can only stand there, participating and not participating. You don't want that? Too bad, 'cause that's what you got.

Maybe the finale really took the worst from my "Billie won theory" and the worst from the "Chuck won theory", i.e. an idea of natural order that upholds patriarchy. Or, since I can and will go there, that the natural order is the patriarchy.

So what about Free Will, is it an illusion? If it applies to only a few it certainly doesn't seem like something worth fighting for. And the natural order is indeed restored in the end. I don't think the show gives a real answer to that, by the end of S15 there are so many things that simultaneously mean 100 other things that everybody can take what they want from the show.

If you ask me, I think it was a moot question, to be honest. It made sense in S4-5 but once SPN goes full meta in S15 it becomes very superficial. Of course I know they're fictional characters and literally don't have free will, the premises were interesting because I wanted to see how these characters would react to stuff happening in the story. Once the story is revelead to be a bluff, though, what am I left with? Characters spiralling into crisis after crisis. This could be interesting in a novel but in a 15-seasons-long series you have to give me something ELSE as well, the "all die more or less happily" last-minute finale (knowing Heaven is a scam, by the way) is just... not having to deal with the consequences of the narrative choices that were made.

Or, perhaps, Supernatural is a show where one of its themes is "destiny vs free will" that ultimately tells you that there's no destiny but there's also no free will, there's only John's journal aka the Power of the Dominant Narrative. Which is the power of the people who write that narrative for us to believe in it. Perhaps, not even the people making the show were free to do what they would've liked to do. They were also there, like Sam, participating and not participating. Finding ways to cope.

[mrblank-0]

Myth!Verse Nightmare (Redesign)

Art made by @apaidh, inspired by Le design

Info of Myth!Verse Nightmare

In this verse, Nightmare doesn't have a soul, he is still made of negativity but is not an embodiment of negativity but likes to call himself that

This Nightmare feeds on the souls of humans, literally as after he has torture them enough, he will rip out their soul and consume it, the soul itself is not destroyed but is kept alive inside nightmare surrounded by negativity meaning its constantly in agony and suffereing

Nightmare prefers human souls as they taste better

Nightmare becomes more powerful as he consumes more souls

This Nightmare is still immune to magic and physical attacks, things like spears or arrows will simply melt in his body

Nightmare cannot "teleport" instead he travels through the shadows between worlds

[somepsychopomp]

Monster!Odysseus AU

Well then! I'm now writing an AU where Odysseus is Scylla. (Literally making him the monster, literally making him the "same" as Scylla, etc etc etc.) This was supposed to be 1 scene but now i have a whole fic outlined 😭 So yeah, here's the rough draft of the first portion.

Basically, Odysseus failed to reunite with his family and in his grief, he transformed into a monster. He's now doing Scylla's thing and eating men alive but also he's super sad still.

Word count: Approx. 2k

Warning for blood and all that stuff.

The wooden ship groaned softly in the current, the sound of waving lapping against the hull everpresent. They were five days behind schedule due to a litany of bad luck: poor winds, violent storms, cloudy nights obscuring their view of the stars. They lost a good number of men to their misfortune. 

And the food was running ever lower. The farther they travelled, the less fish their nets turned up. 

Half of the two-hundred man crew laid below deck, sleeping in their hammocks after a full day of rowing. The other half took up their oars in an attempt to propel themselves home before hunger had its way with them.

The ship’s captain steered the vessel, studying the way ahead. For three days and three nights, he hadn’t slept in an effort to guide his men home. Ithaca should only be a day or two away, and at last, they had a mild wind to their backs. 

They needed to return home not only because their families were waiting for them, but because the King of Ithaca was not a patient man. He’d no doubt lash every man ten times, one for each day and night delayed. He’d do worse if he were in a foul mood by the time they arrived. 

The captain was no war general or soldier. He was merely a seaman who was paid to bring a ship to Sparta with goods to trade, and to come back with the king’s gold. All he wanted was to finish his job so he could close his eyes and rest. 

The route he had in mind was tricky and dangerous, however. He knew that up ahead, only a few hours away now, was a vast series of rocky islands jutting from the sea. They formed a kind of labyrinth, one large enough for a ship to pass through if they were careful. The captain didn’t fear some rough terrain, though. The most terrifying aspect was that, at an inevitable point in their passage, the rocks on either side of their ship would rise up and tower far above their heads. The narrow strait made of jagged stone could easily rip their ship to shreds if they weren’t careful. 

There were plenty of tales of wayward ships losing themselves on the rocks. Sailors said there were all sorts of hazards there, anything from shallow spots to run aground, to sirens waiting for them. It was risky to take the shortcut, but sailing around the oceanic canyon would add at least two more days to their voyage. 

The captain felt his stomach growl and steeled his nerves, issuing a silent prayer to the gods for safe passage. 

Ahead of him, the men rowing the oars were murmuring stories to each other to stave off the boredom and exhaustion. 

One man asked, “You know what they say about Ithaca’s previous king, right?”

This again. 

It was no doubt the most famous story to come out of rocky, weather-worn Ithaca in centuries.

“He killed himself, didn’t he?” a second man asked. 

“Wrong! They say that Odysseus of Ithaca still lives.”

“How can that be?” a third voice asked, still carrying the lighthearted tone of a boy, “He threw himself from the top of the palace into the sea over fifty years ago.”

The captain rolled his eyes. Everyone knew the story. No doubt the men will now embellish it to give the poor lad a scare. 

Over half a century ago, the great and terrible Trojan War raged for ten long years. When it ended, every man that remained sailed home without issue. All but poor, unlucky, wayward Odysseus. Despite the supposed sharpness of his mind, he wandered the sea and its islands, encountering all manner of people and beasts, for ten more miserable years. He went from a proud king to a haggard old man. And due to his foolishness, he lost everything. 

Every last soldier under his command, his ships, his mind. But he didn’t die, no. When Odysseus returned home at last, empty-handed and alone, it was to find Ithaca turned over to a new king. Odysseus walked into his former home to find his wife married to a much younger man.

All the world had assumed Odysseus was dead, leaving him in the past. And his young son, who might not even have existed, had long since been slain by the new king to keep him from attaining any political power. 

In his grief and madness, it was said that Odysseus leapt from the palace wall to meet his watery death below. 

Although, the captain had heard other versions of the tale. He heard men say that the new king drove Odysseus over the edge by spearpoint. Others proclaim that his former wife took one look at him that was so full of pity or disgust, that Odysseus killed himself in shame. The captain wasn’t so sure of that last variant, since the previous queen did die quite soon after she remarried. And that was its own river of rumors: poor Penelope died of a broken heart, poor Penelope was already in failing health when she married, poor Penelope happened to be a victim of her new king when a younger, prettier piece of meat walked by. The captain didn’t much care for those sorts of stories. 

Whatever way Penelope died, some dared to believe that Odysseus never made it home at all and that he was still out there, somewhere, wandering in circles. 

It was all in the past, as far as the captain was concerned. That young usurper, still their current king, was a white-haired elder himself by now. And the name Odysseus was nothing more than a ghost story that sailors used to scare each other with. 

The older men at the oars all chuckled, snapping him out of his thoughts. One of them said, “Aye, it’s all true! My grandfather swears it. When I was a young lad, he told me he was there on the day that Odysseus returned home. My grandfather worked in the palace, you see. And he watched with his own eyes as that old fool threw himself from the highest wall. But!” 

He paused, no doubt to savor the attention drawn to him, “But my grandfather swore on his own life that as Odysseus fell… he changed. What leapt from the wall was a man. What hit the water was a beast, no, a monster more horrible than anything else in the sea. It swam away, never to be seen again.”

There was a pregnant pause. For a moment, all that sounded was the occasional ruffle in the sails and the slap of oars against the water. 

“Really?” the young lad asked. 

A gruff laugh. “Of course not! My grandfather used to fill my head with all sorts of those crazy stories. Gave ya a good run around, though. Didn’t I?”

The men all fell into laughter, even the lad. The captain let them have it, knowing that any distraction from the fatigue and hunger was a good one. Within minutes, the first rocky spire rose from the sea. It was slate gray in the dull moonlight, an omen for what was to come. 

Soon, there were as many rocks jutting from the ocean as there were stars in the sky.

“Steady!” the captain called out as he guided the ship. By then, the rest of the crew had woken from their slumber to man the oars and adjust the sails. It was a constant fight to keep the ship from crashing into any of the stone pillars, running aground on any of the tiny patches of flat rock that claimed to be islands, or losing their oars as the ship was constantly being bumped and jostled from choppy waters. 

They were nearly to the strait. 

Overhead, the moonlight began to die out. The captain risked a glance above, only to see dark clouds forming over the strait. The rest of the sky was only sparsely populated with clouds, but for whatever reason, it looked like a terrible storm was brewing over their only exit out of this nightmare. 

The captain grit his teeth and commanded his men to light enough torches to see by. 

They soon entered what felt like a vast, endless cavern. The only source of light was the orange glow of their fires. It cast elongated, warped shadows across the stone walls to their side of the vessel, constantly tricking the captain into thinking the walls were closing in on them. 

When he thought he saw the smallest shaft of moonlight, he called out, “Nearly there!” 

A few voices cheered in response. No doubt the entire crew was out of breath and terrified by now. 

Just as they dared to hope, the whole vessel came to a grinding halt. The captain was nearly thrown off his feet, but managed to stay upright. The ship had come to such a sudden stop that he didn’t think they’d hit a shallow spot. Rather, it felt like they were caught on something. 

“Captain!” a voice toward the bow of the ship called, “Captain! Come look, it’s a man!” 

More and more men were gathering at the bow. What was going on?

The captain pushed his way to the front of the ship and gazed down at the water. 

He didn’t believe his eyes. Just barely illuminated by the glow of their torches, a man waded in the water. He kept his head bowed, allowing his gray-streaked hair to fall over his face and obscure most of his features. His skin was bare, he was treading water without a chiton or cloak. 

Something felt terribly off here. But their ship was stuck and there was a man in their way. 

“Hail!” the captain called, “Are you in need of saving?”

The man did not respond. A shiver passed through the captain’s body. The more he looked, the more he was sure that this strange man wasn’t wading. Though they could only see his head and part of his upper body, his shoulders didn’t move. His chest didn’t move. He looked completely still. 

Perhaps he was standing. Perhaps they did hit the ground and the water in this portion of the strait was so shallow that a man could stand in it. 

The captain said, “Stranger! What is your name?”

How long had this poor man been here?

At last, the man looked up. 

The captain nearly staggered back, suddenly sick with fear. 

The man before them bore wide, unblinking eyes that wept with silent tears. But his eyes were not full of sorrow. They were full of hunger. 

Something burst from the water behind them, snarling like a wolf but ten times as loud. A man screamed but by the time the captain turned around, he could only catch a glimpse of a black blur retreating into the water. A torch rolled across the deck before someone else snatched it up. 

The captain shouted, “Take up arms!” 

The men drew their spears, but they soon learned it was all futile. 

A sound like snapping jaws drew their attention back to the stranger in the water. He didn’t make a sound as he began to rise. He revealed his full torso and looked like a normal man. Muscled, tanned skin, scarred. He looked like a seasoned sailor, a warrior. But he just. Kept. Rising. 

Instead of two legs, a massive trunk followed. It was almost impossible for the captain’s eyes to make sense of. The best he could describe it, it was like seeing a creature that was half man and half serpent. The beast’s lower half was covered in scales the color of tarnished bronze and speckled with black. 

The trunk widened and widened as the man rose above their heads. 

At last, the captain saw what had snatched up one of his men. He wished he had the courage to weep. But all he could do was stand in terrified silence. 

Six long necks sprouted from what could be considered the monster’s waist, each covered in those same tarnished scales. Each neck terminated in a snarling wolf’s head, one of them still gnawing on the remains of their crewmate, but the heads were wrong. 

They bore the long muzzles, amber eyes, and triangular ears of a wolf, but their skulls were wrapped in leathery, black scales. The eyes glowed with more light than their torches and bore slitted pupils. 

As the wolf heads snarled and growled, the captain caught a glimpse of the teeth within their maws. Three rows of needle-like teeth layered upon each other like a shark. 

The scent of rot and death filled the air. Some men started to gag, others cried out to the gods to save them. 

The captain did not remember what happened next, only that the smell of blood overtook his senses. 

The crew tried to row and tried to fight back, but it was futile. The beast had them in its clutches as its heads moved faster than the eye. One by one, each head stole a man and left behind his trembling, screaming companions. There was nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide. The captain was sure they were all going to perish. 

All while the face of the man looming above them never changed. He watched them die, he ate them, all while weeping his silent tears. 

But as soon as he had arrived, he was gone. 

The monster sank below the surf and their ship was moving freely again. They rowed for their lives until they were breaching the other side of the strait. The moonlight cast its silver glow upon the endless bloodstains soaking into the wood. 

They lost six men, but none who survived dared to stop rowing for the fear that they were being followed. The captain risked a glance back only one time. 

In the exit to the strait, the upper half of a man watched them flee before vanishing under the water.

[legendaryblueoranges]

Chasing Myths

Ranboo, Sneegsnag, Charlie, and Crumb are myth/cryptid hunters and go around the world searching for and trying to get evidence of these creatures' existences.

Each photo they take comes with a story behind it… after all… they aren’t the only ones hunting. This is the third and final poster for the vote, the poll will be posted next week--- but what series is chosen will be based on both notes and votes- so if you don't vote in the poll, then note your favorite series poster/concept art! Unfortunately Chasing Myths is in 3rd place (It may be continued at a later point in time) but as of now.. The "Hermit Games" is the winner!

[hideyseek]

i think weilan xfiles au is going to turn into a story about the immigrant experience. why do i think this? I DON'T FUCKING KNOW. but i feel like i keep being led around to it with the premise's emphasis of shen wei's alien-ness, the way case one is already set in stone as being about a creature from dixing that fled to haixing and -- lives the rest of its life / meets its end there. there's something too about this being an au of a show set in the united states with the backdrop of the view of government that the united states has, that makes me go: hmmmm i think i need to read up on the chinese immigrant experience in the united states in like, the 1880s. i dont know why i feel this urge! i can't quite connect these dots! but every time i think about the final case in this fic i kind of go: i think it has to do with the place that dixingren land when they come to haixing in this version of the world and im pretty sure i want to listen to that instinct

[azurefaire]

A simple question (and simple edit, don't judge) crossed my mind earlier, what if Monster High's CA Cupid was a hybrid emotional vampire and elemental? What if she had never received any love in her family, and was the anti villain of Why Do Ghouls Fall in Love? What if she fed off of creating pain and heartbreak in Monster High, just like valentine- because she believed it was the best way to feed herself as an emotional vampire?

In this universe, Charli was a hybrid monster of both an emotional vampire and a bone elemental. She was orphaned and grew up in the foster care system... Unfortunately for her, many of her host families were abusing her throughout all of her monster unlife. Through a shattered mirror, she sees a version of herself she doesn't even know... but is instantly jealous of. When she's around 1400 she's transferred to a new family and new school but Charli feels it's too late, she is unlovable and always tired, she can't make friends and be a normal ghoul, that just isn't her fate... She is shrouded by mist and shadowy forces that intriguing Twyla Boogeyman can't even investigate without getting a splitting headache. When others walk around her, she can send pain so they leave her alone... pain even Hoodude would shriek at. A mysterious figure who connects with Wydowna Spider for a love of the macabre and darkness of being a monster. She tried to befriend others, like Jane, Bonita, Venus, Rochelle and Batsy... but it just didn't work out...

In her 3rd era of Monster High, Cupid- who's only friend is Wydowna, is forced to do research on her hybrid powers on her own. She realizes the best way to be satisfied is by feeding off the love of others... so she decided to do this by giving purposely bad advice to feed of the energy of others. She does this and for the first time in millennia, is filled with unlife and gets hungrier and hungrier for more energy. Many in Monster High don't know it's her...

[comfymoth]

Silly question!! But like, judging off of your werewolf characters you base them off of wolves native to the place they are from(Roier being Mexican wolf, for example. But I could be wrong about this, my memory is shit) what would happen if someone was turned into a werewolf in a place where there aren't any native wolves? (Like, south Africa for example. Would they then be an African wild dog or???))

that’s a really good question!! for the most part, i try to go off what the most prominent werewolf-equivalent myth is in a given area— like how brazil has their lobisomem! but, if an area has neither wolves nor a popular folklore equivalent— like south africa seems to— yeah, i’d probably steer towards a wild dog inspired design! (side note: i just love the werehyenas from north africa, would love to design one one day)

it’s kind of interesting, though, because some places don’t have native wolves but do still have popular werewolf stories. like argentina! that was my excuse for making spreen look more like a wolf than a maned wolf, although if i could go back and re-design him i might make his legs longer as a little nod to that, haha. but au spreen is also kind of weird because he’s biologically related to misa, so? make of their ethnicities what you will. that’s the other reason he’s more classically wolfy.

but all this does raise another interesting question…. if roier bit cellbit, would cellbit turn into a wolf like him? or a lobisomem? maybe a mix of both? questions, questions….

[rabbithub]

Its the small differences between species that can be bewildering... in this case, harpies having prominant chests...

Have this cute sketch before I finish getting ready for work, with a pinch of DiaDop.

[skelekins]

Many surface monsters are regarded as faeries after the monsters below ground were forgotten and their connections lost. However they still dust on death, and their blood will dry to those same granules.

While some humans have found ways to prevent parts from dusting, the most common faerie-related commodity in the black markets is 'faerie dust'. Surface monsters tend to bleed in different colors, with their dust carrying traces of magic even in death.

[eldritch-edward]

Does anyone else think about the fact that 03 homunculi are the undead?

And that philosopher's stones are human lives?

I ask 'cause I think about it a lot.

[nothingofvaluewaslost]

STORY: She Who Watches

A different take on the myth of Medusa. A happy ending? Short.

If you enjoyed it, feel free to visit my Patreon.

She Who Watches, by Christina Nordlander

That was in the past, and now I live an ordinary life. I make breakfast for Perseus and our children, I teach Gorgophone the letters, I spin, I work the garden and clear the vineyard and clean the house. In the evenings, my family and I eat in the light of the fireplace, and tell tales or play at knucklebones. I can go down to the village if I shade my eyes under my veil. Perseus says that I have overcome it, that I may look at him and the children now, perhaps even look them in the eye. I never do. The only beings I allow myself to look upon are the vermin I kill.

That was in the past, but I still dream that my scalp begins to itch, or wake of it. If I scratch there, my fingernails will cut my ripe skin open and show the small smooth-skinned snake-heads, in rows, still closed. I will taste blood, that flavour that seems to hold the seeds of all flavours, when my gums split around my tusks. My eagle talons will scrape on the rock with a sound older than iron. My back will swell from a horrific dropsy and split in a liberation of feathers. I am not afraid any more; I am the source of fear. A grove of serpents waves from my brow.

I rise from the lush human habitations and steer towards the desert. Out there, there is nothing other than chemistry on the bedrock, and my gaze can no longer find anything to kill.

Each time I wake, but each time the itch is a little worse, the image of the desert a little more brilliant.

I fight and let myself slip back into the faded human world, but I will have to fight it for the rest of my life.

Fighting was enough for a space.

I started to see snakes everywhere. The snakes that should have grown on me now covered other innocent surfaces. Their backs slid below the shiny barley we shovelled into the grain cellar, their heads waved over the opening of our well. There was still something wrong with my eyes, with what they did to reality.

I was still blindfolded when Perseus went to bed with me. (I no longer remember whether he or I had asked for it.) Once, I had liked that better than if I could have had my eyes unprotected. Now I felt something like the seasickness on the ship that had carried the two of us back to Argos. I counted the moments until it would be over. All I could think of was snakes, of his limbs turning into twisted folds of bodies just beyond my fingertips. I imagined all the little hooked creatures that boiled and swarmed in his seed.

Our lovemaking passed, the nights passed, and when it lightened I had work in which to bury myself. That was no longer enough. I had started looking at our children – Perses, whom we had named for him; Gorgophone, whom he had named for the story men told of him – and seen the heads of snakes rear up and wave above their brows. They were such as you see in the desert, brown and golden, glinting under the sun’s glare.

That made me realise that it was time.

I turned from our doorstep and saw the trees shrink to rustling burnt shrubs around my path.

THE END

[puppetmaster13u]

Oh my god I love this so much- Excuse me while I go bother my viking stepdad because I am here for All Of This.

Gosh even Bruce making all sorts of gadgets fits- the only reason the other Gods caught Loki was because he literally invented the fishing net because he was bored and they couldn't catch him when he shapeshifted into a salmon. He was only able to be caught when they finally figured out his creation from the markings of where he burnt it.

I just- I love this Au so much and want to add to it but it's like 3am right now-