#others i can imagine would be like. trying to force their daemon to change form

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

another story i’d like to see in the dark materials universe (aside from the person with the octopus daemon whos already stolen my heart) is a teenager with a same-sex daemon

[chevvy-yates]

[NC_RES]_27022048-NCA steyr_v_portraits_030_CS.file ///core:_vijay_steyr.file\\\

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⚠️ READ: Please do not repost/reupload any of my art here or to any other platform, or I will be forced to do anything to get it annihilated. Rogue cyberspace jacket by @pinkyjulien. The Witch pose pack by @busyvampire.

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For a long long while I've wanted to shoot pics of how I see Vijay as a netrunner in cyberspace or how I imagine a Cyberpunk 2077 cyberspace interface in his style could look.

More under the cut. Beware you may read how my head breaks into pieces as I try hard to understand Cyberpunk's netrunning world lore. I copy pasted some texts from lore books about netrunning because I lack in explainging by myself — so if you're interested, there you go:

First I thought about making the background black, like how it's in the game when you stand in front of the blackwall or talk to Alt. But somehow that isn't it for me.

I've read a while ago netrunners can program their cyberdecks I-G interfaces with a so called 'CREATOR' program that makes netspace like the netrunner wants or has to imagine it.

"There are two other programs on a cyberdeck. One is the Operating System: a program that listens to the instructions the Netrunner thinks to it and obeys his commends. The other is the CREATOR virtual reality system, which is really a complex drawing program that tells the I-G that “when you get this signal from the Net, show the guy this image instead of the one he normally would see.” Our small and stupid computer also has a capacious memory; it can store and run various programs (as directed by its owner), and it also has a huge library of images that both CREATOR and the I-G interface draw upon to interpret what the Netrunner sees while in Netspace. […] By activating the Creator drawing program hardwired into his cyberdeck, the runner is basically modifying the deck‘s basic I-G interface program. First, a background is selected from a huge database of backgrounds, then modified by using simple controls to adjust color, shading and texture. Then the 3-D objects are selected from another database of objects scanned from real life, then stored in a compressed, high-resolution form. The objects can be decompressed and “assembled” into virtual reality on four different levels of resolution. When a runner saves a program, he is saving all the instructions for redrawing the virtual reality he’s created. Anyone entering the Virtual (either where it is stored on the runner’s cyberdeck or in another system) automatically activates the picture and causes the cyberdeck or computer to reconstruct it."

— Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net – The Cyberpunk Sourcebook for the Global Computer Net

I'm honest, I'm having a hard time to understand the netrunning world as decribed in the lorebooks. Somehow it always ends same for me like when I watch documentations about the universe expansion, dark matter and supermassive black holes for too long: my head hurts, I have too many questions and I think I'm the dumbest being on the planet. lol

But this gave me basically the idea to make it look like it looks now in the pics, so I imagined maybe Vijay programs it so that it looks like how he wants it. But if he enters other parts of cyberspace he may not have an influence on it as it changes into a different interface if I understood it right.

Anyways, I took a behind the scenes shot this time if you are interested how my 'set' looked. It was very experimental. Who needs a photostudio? x)

By the Way:

The glowing balls visibly in his hands or next to him stand for an anti-system program named 'Cascade II' Vijay uses. Lorebook says this:

"Cascade is not a daemon, bearing more in common with Virazz and Viral 15. lt can only be used against a system CPU. When used, it overwrites system code, causing the CPU to switch programs at random. Every turn there's a 2 in 10 chance that whatever program the runner has encountered will change to something else at random-files might switch to ICE, ICE to system controllers, etc. Anything is possible! lf used against a cyberdeck, the deck chooses a new program at random to run each turn. Cascade can only be stopped by preventing it from reaching the CPU, or by dumping the system code and reloading it ICON: A floating ball of energy."

— Rache Bartmoss' Brainware Blowout – The Hardware and Software Compendium for Cyberpunk

Most of the netrunning stuff will stay a mysterium forever for me and I get why netrunning in the game is made that simple as it is. You simply cannot transfer this massive cyberspace stuff into a videogame. I imagine that e.g. Night City would have to be entirely rebuilt as cyberspace with changing interface virtual realities – everything needs an icon, has code gates, data walls, all kinds of watch dog programs and so on. There's like terrabites of programs runners use. From what I undestood is the quickhacks used in the game do invade other runner's and machine's MicroNets and we basically see it only happen in the real world because we do not see a runners cyberspace window. They are described like this:

"While The Net is a global community exploring everything fit for man and beast, a microNet is a pinched-off part of cyberspace all to itself with very small scope and very defined purpose. MicroNets are in things like: your own cyberwear, your smartgun, that AV-4 you were chased by last night or the hot little red Audi convertible of that girl you’ve been trying to find an excuse to get to know."

— Rache Bartmoss' Brainware Blowout – The Hardware and Software Compendium for Cyberpunk

MicroNets can be accessed through connection from outside (like these kind of data points or when you got real world access to it so you can simply jack in as we know in the game) or 'microNetrun' via a runner's c-deck. And I think ingame quickhacks such as "Synapse Burnout" as we gamers know them are in reality more Anti-Personnel programs called "Brainwipe" "Zombie" or "Lich". Last two are the evolution of Brainwipe what is describet like this:

Brainwipe is the simplest of a series of black programs, all of which are designed to attack the Netrunner instead of his programs. All black programs can be carried by an intruding Netrunner and used to attack other 'runners encountered in the Net. Brainwipe tracks the victim down, fries his forebrain with a jolt of current, and reduces him to a drooling vegetable <1D6 each turn to INTI. The screaming Netrunner feels his mind melt away, until his INT is reduced to O and he dies. Lost I NT cannot be regained.

This surely is a program Jaysen will definitely make use of. Vijay could but doesn't since he doesn't want to kill people anymore (he used it in his early runner days with a drugged mind as well).

Okay, okay I need to stop or it gets worse.

[dailycharacteroption]

Grim Apostle (Spiritualist Archetype)

(art by StuHarrington on DeviantArt)

Ah, the spiritualist class, those shepherds of the dead, but very specifically not undead excepting in one case, because of reasons.

The spiritualist is very similar to the summoner, which is why the two were merged in 2E, but there are some stories that can only be told with the combination of ghostly being and the one they are bound to.

Truly, both the spiritualist and their phantom can come from all walks of life, leading to some odd couples and some interesting concepts… but one walk of life really doesn’t normally lend itself to cultivating such a bond: the nihilistic worshippers of daemons.

After all, daemons are distinguished from other fiends by their desire to devour souls, to snuff out those candles from the cosmos and leave it that much darker. A free-floating soul attached to a binder is surely too tempting a target for them.

Luckily, The Midwives of Death adventure, the final part of the Tyrant’s Grasp AP and the final First Edition product created, had a few final character options in it to round things off, including this option for such dark casters.

Rather than draw upon a wayward soul, these spiritualist bond themselves with a spiritual echo similar to those tapped into by mediums, but manifested in ectoplasmic form like a spiritualist. However, it is the nature of these vestiges that give one pause: for they are echoes of the Four Horsemen, the demigod rulers of daemonkind!

This hungry shadow that the mystic bonds with is not forced to reflect only one Horseman, but can shift each day to reflect a new one, giving them variable power sets depending on the day, again hearkening back to the similarities to mediums.

Needless to say, these mystics are every bit as monstrous as their dark patrons, and I can just imagine them feeding souls to their grim phantom as a sacrifice to their daemonic masters, believing, perhaps rightfully that those souls end up on the plates of the Horsemen themselves. They best take care though, for these phantoms prove just as cruel and hungry as the daemons they resemble, taking a bit of their “master” with them when banished.

Regardless, the result is a ghostly master/servant duo with a nasty set of powers and a sinister relationship.

As a reflection of the Four Horsemen, the phantoms of a grim apostle draw upon foci based on those entities, which they can change each day. However, their hunger and malevolence claws even at their own masters, and when the spirit is sent hurtling away from the material world by violence, they dig metaphysical claws into their master, risking taking them with them.

Which isn’t to say that they are entirely a liability. The spiritualist’s soul belongs to them, after all, and they will brook no other claimants, warding their host against death magic and magic that would displace or ensnare their soul, at least while cohabitating their body.

The four foci that these mystics and their phantoms have available are as follows. Firstly, there is Death, when they draw upon Charon. Such phantoms appear as shapeless, cowl-laden figures. They seem to embody death in general rather than Charon’s inevitability, but they gain some fancy abilities regardless. The apostle, for one, marks foes for death with their attacks, making the phantom’s attacks more potent against them. The phantom also develops an aura which impedes mundane and magical healing as well. Furthermore, they also instinctively learn techniques to quickly follow foes that try to escape their grasp. Finally, they learn a killing word to slay foes.

Second up is Famine, the purview of Trelmarixian, which gives the phantom a jackal-like visage. Their attacks are particularly dexterous, and take the form of ravenous bites. Their aura weakens foes with the pangs of starvation, they can unleash a horrific magical howl of anguish that weakens nearby foes, and they can even briefly swallow foes whole.

Apollyon’s domain is Pestilence, and the phantoms gain a ram skull cranium in this form. Their strikes weaken foes as if suffering illness, they surround themselves with phantasmal biting flies that devour foes, they can deliver disease with a touch, and finally, their strikes can make a foe suddenly very contagious, spreading their suffering to others.

Finally, we have War, the position held by Szuriel, and these phantoms resemble his form as an eyeless angel with black wings. These phantoms are strong, rather than agile, and their strikes aim for the most painful and damage-causing areas of the body. Their aura whips allies and foes alike into a frenzy of aggression, and their strikes heal themselves. Finally, Their fury becomes so great that any effect that would slow down or cause them to hesitate in their assault no longer have any effect.

With four powerful combat-focused foci to choose from, this archetype can be pretty good for tailoring your power set to the day, but you can also narrow your focus to one or two if you so choose. It really depends upon you. Just keep in mind the drawback that you can be dealt heavy damage with no way to resist it if your phantom goes down. With that in mind, perhaps building with some survivability in mind would be good.

Now, aside from villain campaigns, this archetype sits squarely in the “mostly for NPCs” category, but the fact they can vary up the powers and fighting strategy of their phantom per encounter means that this archetype works best for a recurring villain rather than a one-off foe. This can be a fun way to surprise the heroes that have prepared for the villain’s previous strategy.

Another interesting note: this archetype draws upon the current holders of the positions of the Horsemen. If you plan a game set in a different setting or time period, might those Horsemen be different? Could be worth homebrewing.

The party has been invited to the manor of a local noble for a gala, but when they arrive, they find the place curiously quiet. Once inside, they find the place overrun with monsters evoking rot and disease, including a whole colony of verduous oozes. It seems a cult of the Rotten One crashed the party before they arrived, led by their half-mad leader and their phantasmal advisor which looks suspiciously similar to depictions of the dark demigod.

After losing a beloved companion, the formerly ascetic astomoi Viius found that he could not return to his former life, taking on a more and more nihilistic worldview, until one day he was contacted by a shape in the dark, offering him the power to help end the world that lacked any such meaning.

The embodiment of War has an iron grip on the nation of Merkas, his devotees whipping the country up into a frenzy of jingoism and fascism, turning their blades upon neighbors for any reason at all, be it greed for resources, preemptive violence against imagined threats, and of course, bigotry against those unlike themselves. High in their rankings are speakers of War, who call upon translucent visions of their master, interpreting his will.

[em0tionl0rd]

Dear friends,

For anyone who has been a long-time follower or hasn't heard from me in a long time, years even, or has ever wondered/worried about me, this is for you:

The past few years have folded over like an accordion for me. A lot of horrible/terrible things have happened. And my memory is no longer what it used to be. My mind seems to naturally cope with trauma and any negative interactions by locking them away deep within it's confines. Despite this, I always try to stay positive, because I know nobody likes to hear about bad things because it only makes them feel bad. Worse, they feel bad for me, and I don't need need people's sympathy. I just need time to heal, and that's what I have been doing; Taking my time. Previous post on the matter.

It was just One thing after Another, for Years, and my mind's trauma response was to simply cope and continue to endure helplessly instead of push myself away from the situation I was in. You can really see this with my lack of activity on here through my Archive. (not including my art side-blog since I tend to just mass dump whatever art and doodles I've accumulated over there). I was active on Twitter for a bit during Tumblrs downturn, but then Twitter changed. I nuked my art account over there. It's empty. All the posts I made to nobody about my characters and headworld, gone. All because I didn't want my art and ideas stolen and used for Al training.

My main Twitter remains active. I just use it to reblog art now and casually tweet about stuff. Initially I used Twitter to follow content creators, but as my timeline got cluttered, I made alts to follow specific topics. I started using my main to follow news and current issues, and my art account to follow artists and content creators, which I still do, but I retweet to my main only. Then all my art likes stay on my art account and don't comingle with political issues.

I was going to work, and while I would work, I just kept thinking, non-stop. Thinking about all the bad things. Failing to distract myself with my own characters and my story universe. Unintentionally over-sharing with coworkers because at some point in my life I learned how to cope with my anxiety by talking, and talking, and talking.. Unintentionally forming bonds with people I should have never associated with because I felt so desperate for real human interaction other than what I imagined in my head. Something other than my daemons, my conscience, my delusions. The swirling thoughts, the nightmares, the dreams that haunted me just as much as my reality.

Every week, for years, I was experiencing these nightmares. Something would manifest in my room. I could sense it was there. I couldn't escape it. Even if I went to bed and tried my best not to think about it, it would get me. It enjoyed tormenting me.

I started to stay up later and later, fearing laying bed and being prone to this unseen entity. Hoping that depriving myself of sleep would help me fall asleep faster and whisk me away to the sanctity of dreams, but even then, I wasn't safe. If I ever overslept, or didn't do enough to make myself tired before bed, it would find me. If it was merely psychosis, I couldn't tell, because it felt so real.

Eventually, after everything I went through with my ex, things changed for the better, when it came to sleep at least. There was no longer a shadowy presence standing there, grinning at me feet from my bed, or watching me at my desk, waiting for me to go to bed. Instead, there were actual hallucinations. Sleep depravation had taken it's toll on me. My ex had kept me awake many, many nights during my workweek, and forced me to drink with him, or made noise that kept me awake because he would stay up all night.

I distinctly remember watching these long brown withered fingers reaching out of the utility closet in the bedroom while we were both sleeping, and shaking the door violently as if it were trying to get out/in. My eyes were open just enough while I was asleep for this to fully wake me up and scare me. I remember turning over to my ex whimpering and he didn't even care..

Then when he was finally gone (for good), I continued to hallucinate. I had gotten into such a habit of staying up, on top of my uncomfortable sleeping situation due to work related physical pain (among other things), that I started seeing full-body characters dancing in my doorframe. This was completely new to me because before, it was less of a visual hallucination and more like THERE IS A GHOST RIGHT THERE, and now it was more like my eyes were legit not working properly. I just remember staring at my door and seeing all the Digimon characters, full color and everything, dancing and moving around like my eyes were projecting a perfect recreation of them.

I noticed in the past that if I binged a certain amount of content, my eyes would start generating new versions of what I was looking at whenever I closed my eyes. Like my brain could take all this information and create something completely unique and original, which amazed me. For example, whenever I would browse Deviantart and look at character designs or dragons or something, I would close my eyes and every time I closed my eyes I would see a completely new and unique fleshed out design in full color. The downside was that they were usually too detailed for me to do justice in drawing.

I also just see ever-changing generic psychedelic patterns and colorful concentric waves at the edges of my vision. The only time I ever see these properly with my eyes fully open is if I'm staring at the ceiling or the grass or if I press my arm against my eyes. Then there was the one time I was flying out of LA and had taken a 1g thc tab while sleep deprived and noticed a little blob of rainbows in the plane window after take-off. (my ex pushed alcohol and weed on me really hard despite me not wanting anything to do with it bc i don't need it)

So anyway, I had binge watched Digimon Adventure and was now seeing all of the characters in my bedroom door. That was a new one for me. Before I would just stare at the cottage cheese patterned ceiling and try to make out characters in the bumps. I did this my whole life as I had the same ceiling as a kid at my childhood home.

I went back and watched Digimon because I never really got to watch it as a kid and had vague memories of it being overly-dramatic (I was like maybe 4-5) and My Gosh that show goes hard for a kids show. Completely unrelated to my rambling but I wish more kids shows were comfortable tackling such hard-hitting issues, my gosh. Modern media is too soft and probably sets a bad example of reality. (my dad let me watch gory horror movies, rated r flicks, and explicit 90s anime as a kid so who am i to talk)

Before my ex and around the time the nightmares started, I started having surreal auditory hallucinations while half awake. I remember waking up to a small black geometric object floating above my face with blue lines running across it's surface. I was in the thralls of sleep paralysis and felt like it was just floating there above my face watching me. Another time, while my niece was over, I remember hearing something at the top of my stairs, clawing at the carpet and growling at me. For context, I was living in my mom's attic. It was relatively small, with low ceiling, and carpeted.

This thing that was growling at me and snarling genuinely worried me because my niece started developing very strange behavioral issues around this time, but I won't get into that here. I don't think people want to hear my supernatural/paranormal psychology ramblings. I'm just happy that after talking to my mom about it my niece is getting some much needed help. I was so worried that I remember breaking down and crying over it at work.

I felt like something was attached to my niece, and that thing was sort of a manifestation of that that only I could hear while I was half awake. Before it climbed the stairs and started growling, I distictly remember hearing it mimicking my nieces laughter (she was just a baby). And the way it dug it's claws into the carpet and growled, this guttural snarl, I couldn't tell what it was. It felt inhuman.

Around this time, because I was so isolated, and generally miserable, all the research I had been doing into various paranormal and metaphysical phenomena had taken a detrimental toll on my mental health. As you can clearly tell from all of this rambling about things unseen. I started believing that lizard people were real and lived on Saturn. Yes, because I read it on someone's blog. And because of that, I started to be attacked in my sleep by what I can only describe as something reptilian in nature. It somehow had the ability to appear before me and put me into sleep paralysis, pick me up, and send me to the shadow realm (or at least that's what it felt like) where it would claw and bite and do unspeakable things to me while I was unable to move or fight back or even scream.

These experiences carried over after my mom kicked me out. They followed me to my apartment, and they stuck with me for a majority of the time I was with my ex. Part of me really hoped that living with a real living breathing human being would help me out of my psychosis, but that was kind of hard given that he was an actual sociopath and psycho himself. I had no grounding in reality other than work. Work started feeling like an escape. And talking with coworkers even more-so.

For context, my mom did nothing to help. Both of my parents have mental health issues, and I don't want to talk about it. I'm saving that for my biography. My mom kicked me out because the internship program she forced me into in 2018-2019 didn't get me employed right away, so I ended up living with a social worker for a short while who was also a pet foster. It was a bit chaotic with all the animals but I was able to get a job and my own place and get away from my mom which was good. Also my mom was drinking when she decided to come upstairs and lecture me (again) for 2+ hours about how useless I was.

As you can tell, there was already plenty of fuel on the fire for my mental health issues to spiral out of control. I started to neglect my art, my characters, my story, my wellbeing. Yet I somehow managed to keep it together, for the most part. Enough to be employable and push myself to socialize more at work and be personable and friendly. It helps to be overly self-conscious of how I come off to people due to being bullied throughout HS for being "weird"..

I felt like I peaked in 2014-2015 while I was still in Highschool and spent most of my time outside of school hanging out with friends in Minecraft servers. I was having so much fun despite my circumstances, but then the balance shifted in a really bad direction. At one point I was even living with my grandma in an even worse situation back in 2017 just because I was that desperate to get away from my mom.

While in my internship program I realized how freeing it was to be out in the city during the day while taking the bus to work. I was far away from home back in that small farm town and got to spend time at the mall every day which was cool. I got to see the city in fall and winter and it translated well into living on my own bc I had already familiarized myself with the bus routes enough to continue using them when I got another job. I also used them when I was with my ex to get out. Other than that I biked to work. More on that later.

And during my downtime in this program I spent so much time drawing. It was like being back in class in Highschool and sitting at my desk and doodling while the teacher was talking. (it was literally the same) Other than that, I spent most of my time on my laptop doing whatever I could to distract myself from my current situation out of habit. I'd draw digitally, but I struggled to motivate myself to do anything useful with it.

For a long time I relied on Youtube and social media as an escape and a distraction from my problems. Frequently venting to friends online. Paragraph after paragraph. Driving them crazy. Even driving people away. I just didn't know what to do because I felt so helpless. I even became active in the local metaphysical community. I took classes and became a certified psychic (not kidding). I met and attended classes with a paranormal psychologist. And I hung out with a wizard. (RIP)

Needless to say, I think metaphysics and spirituality are bunk at this point. I only see value in maybe paranormal psychology, because at the end of the day, it is literally all in our heads, even if our heads are literally a window into another world sometimes (even if said other world is just dreams and imagination). Taking a huge step back from my interest in the paranormal genuinely helped me heal and become better about handling myself, where I was no longer letting illusory entities harass me in my sleep.

I remember sitting in bed that fateful night and just saying in my head to myself, "This is all in my head and I am the one in control". Then I never got attacked again. Something I didn't mention throughout this whole spiel was that I had an imaginary friend and I frequently imagined myself doing the dirty with said imaginary friend (who is also a character of mine). The "attacks" were simply an escalation of all the kinky shit in my head and all the bullshit alien conspiracies I had been immersing myself in. I had let myself get to a point where I genuinely believed that something else was controlling me outside of myself. Very not mentally healthy if you ask me.

Near the end I remember having to make sure my bedroom door and closet doors were closed, and to cover my eyes and ears with something just to prevent them from playing tricks on me while I slept.

Anyways, lucid dreams, daydreams, OBEs, and sleep paralysis had become normalized to me at a young age. I frequently dreamed about flying and imagining characters in my head. It genuinely became an escape and coping mechanism for me, especially with the creation of an imaginary friend as a teenager because I struggled to make real meaningful friends. Changing schools several times didn't help that of course. I still experience these things and still enjoy them but don't take them as seriously anymore, but they're still fun, even addicting at times. I feel like the human mind is an endlessly deep pool that continues to amaze me at times.

As for my ex boyfriend, god.. It was like dating Murdoc irl, but somehow worse, and sadder. I wanted that Stockholm Syndrome abusive boyfriend relationship sooo badly. Like I felt I needed to be punished for being such an outcast. He Almost killed me. Aside from the few bicycle accidents on the way to work, I think what he did will leave me limping and struggling to walk for the rest of my life.

Also fuck the creep I met at my last job. Holy shit, now that guy was Literally insane. I genuinely hope his kid will be okay. (why the fuck does he have a child holy shit)

Lastly, I am doing better. At least I think I am. It's hard to tell. I'm just happy to be drawing again and enjoying it. After all the BS I went through over the past few years, I actually got pretty rusty so a lot of what I'm drawing might get dumped on my art blog, but in the meantime, I'm just happy I'm posting art and people are enjoying it as much as I do. I haven't felt this stable about my art in a long time. Getting out of that apartment and away from the city and all of those negative memories weighing me down was a huge step in the right direction.

If you read all of this for whatever reason, good for you. Have a gold star. Lemme know if you would read my biography. I have plenty more fucked up stories where these came from, and this is just incoherent rambling that skips most of the awful details.

[firstginger]

I had *no* idea there was such a big daemon community out there (TDF) until I started browsing your blog!! I absolutely adore your daemon quiz, I use it whenever I get into new fictional content to get a better handle on the characters. I’ve been trying to figure out my own daemon for years, but it’s so difficult to settle (lol) on just one. The suggestion from TDF that they don’t *have* to actually stay in one form kinda blew my mind lol. Do you still do analyses for potential daemon forms if people send in a description of themselves? I know you’re busy and don’t want to overwhelm you by putting another in your inbox. (On that note, I’m so excited to see the revamped quiz!) Thanks for all the work you’ve put into this stuff, it’s so interesting to me.

hey, yes i do!! :D this is actually a great opportunity to write a post about what kind of descriptions help me the best, i hope it's okay for me to post this publicly! knowing your personality types (mbti, enneagram, etc) are great, but i also find a lot of people mistype -- not their fault at all, especially for mbti the online quizzes are extremely biased and mostly just a great place to start. on a side note i'm happy to answer any mbti questions, but for form finding it's best if you send your mbti/enneagram along but also give me some idea of these categories:

1. openness. are you more imaginative or practical? do you prefer change or routine? do you value discovery or stability? are you judgmental or accepting? there are some animal forms that crave constant change and feel restless when they're forced into stability, some that crave routine and feel stressed when they're forced to change, and then ones in between that are willing to adapt if necessary or are okay with change so long as they have support.

2. conscientiousness. or you more hardworking or casual? would you describe yourself as an ambitious person or a laidback one? is your way of thinking organized or scattered? there are some animal forms that are very driven and need success, some that are easy-going and don't like the pressure to achieve, and then ones in between that work hard rest hard, only focus when it's about their personal passions, or work hard just to maintain their hierarchy or help others.

3. extroversion. are you more introverted or extroverted? when around strangers, are you enthusiastic, tolerant, or withdrawn? are you assertive or submissive? how easily do you emotionally express yourself? there are some animal forms that are outgoing and love attention, some that are private and can't stand social situations, and then ones in between that can socialize in short bursts or only come to life around their friends.

4. agreeableness. are you cooperative or do you prefer to work alone? do you trust others easily or are you guarded? do you tend to be more understanding or critical? there are some animal forms that are competitive and thrive on every man for himself, some that are bleeding hearts that will put others before them, and then ones in between that work best in a team or will ask for help only if absolutely necessary.

5. neuroticism. are you even-tempered or anxious? do you experience mood swings? are you more sensitive or do you have a thick skin? are you high energy or low energy? there are some animal forms that are very thick-skinned and self-assured, some that are sensitive and anxious and walk on eggshells, and then ones in between that are confident when they have friends or get anxious when outside their comfort zone.

obviously you don't need to answer all of these questions, but just a sense of each is extremely helpful for me trying to type! :) feel free to use as many asks as you want, and it'd be great if you could sign them or use an emoji so it's obvious which ones all belong to you.

as far as forms, a lot of people have their daemon's form change to represent their mood, mental state, or environment (such as an aquatic daemon when you're at the beach). i personally like one solid analytical form for mine (golden lion tamarin!) and then a pullman/symbolic form (skye terrier is what i've been using but domestic turkey actually fits really well too LOL). some people even have multiple daemons! it's all about having fun, learning more about yourself, and loving whatever form(s) you decide on ❤️

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

Tried to send this earlier but I think tumblr are it so I'm resending. A warhammer 40k loyalist au cause I have been thinking about this for a while.

Sleepy bois

Phil is an inquisitor of the order xenos and the rest of the sleepy bois+tubbo form the core of his warband

Techno is a very jaded Flesh Tearers Deathwatch veteran that's been seconded to phil for so long that at this point nobody knows where he would go if the assignment ends. Really the only thing that would have to change for him is the whole "blood for the blood god" thing because if any imperial heard that they would virus bomb the planet so quickly.

Wilbur is/was Phil's interrogator/inquisitor in training. He mainly dealt with social situations and being kind of the face of the group. If you want him to be dead then I would have Phil be an undocumented psyker who is using his power unknowingly to manifest Wilbur as a warp ghost. How I think Will died is he was somehow exposed to warp corruption forcing Phil to kill him.

Tubbo is a prodigy of a techpriest who mainly specializes in maintaining and repairing highly destructive weapons. He was recruited by Phil because his forgeworld exiled him for trying to innovate(being left in a cardboard box)

Tommy is literally just some guy. Like your average imperial soldier who while being the best from his planet(as any guardsman is) really isn't that special. Wil and tubbo just want him around and he does have a penitent for sniffing out their targets on accident so phil aqueised.

Dream team

Like Phil dream is an inquisitor but unlike Phil who's puritan and a member of the ordo xenos. Dream is a radical member of the ordo malleus(demon hunters) and him and Phil are almost at each other's throat . He makes very liberal use of what some would deem "unethical" treatment.

Sapnap is dream's combat expert. Who while is not nearly as intimidating or as much innate skill as Techno is still down right terrifying but mainly for his loose morality around abhumans and mutants.

Nobody knows what george is in dream's warband but dream assures everyone it is very important (he's actually just a cook but do you know how hard it is to find a good chef who's willing to leave their planet?)

The Egg is what's classified as a "Xenos Horribalis Threat" which can completely hijack the mind of any flesh and blood creature. Bad is simultaneously a daemon host and the patient 0 of a powerful xenos weapon. Which make him wanted by both Phil and Dream but nobody ever suspects him of being evil besides Techno because I mean c'mon it's bad.

Eret is the planetary governor of the planet this is on and he just wants these fucking insane inquisitors to leave but he can't order them because they can legally execute who ever they want.

Everyone else is either a minor member of a warband(Ranboo,Fundy, Callahan, etc) or a citizen of the world(Sam, Puffy, connor, again etc)

I also imagine ranboo being some kind of abhuman(essentially some kind of human subspecies) but I also like the idea of his parents being normal humans and all his weirdness is just cause he's a weak psyker that somehow caught the attention of warp predators.

Sorry if this all reads like nonsense I am willing to explain any terminology if you want.

I don’t really know what WarHammer 40k loyalist is but it sounds interesting. I like everything that you made the characters to be and I’m interested in what the plot is and the terminology.

[farmhandler]

Spoken, Not Said CH3

Rating: T (for now)

Pairing: Theseus/Asterius/Zagreus

Warnings: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Banter, Bickering, Theseus being Theseus, Slight spoilers, Touch-starved Zagreus        

CH: 3/?

WC: 5K~

Read on AO3

Asterius is not in Asphodel.

They search the realm far and wide, but he is nowhere to be found. It’s clear—has been clear since the coliseum.

Asterius is not in Asphodel, which means he is in Tartarus.

The realization steals what little breath Theseus has left. Zagreus is quiet as they gather themselves at the center of one of the larger islands.

“I need only a moment to catch my breath,” he tells Zagreus. His body aches, but he can only imagine how Asterius must be suffering through torment after torment.

He seats himself on the coolest rock he can find (it is not particularly cool), too exhausted from the heat to muster enough energy to voice his frustrations at Zagreus. And Zagreus himself isn’t faring much better; a soft sheen of sweat coats his skin, pale and glistening.

“Tartarus isn’t so bad if you avoid the torture chambers,” Zagreus tells him, a pale attempt at humor. Theseus shoots him the dirtiest look he can manage.

“You would be all too familiar with them,” he bites.

“It’s the closest realm to the House. It wouldn’t be my first pick for a neighbor, but you’d have to take that up with my father.”

“Your father,” Theseus repeats evenly. “You still make that claim.”

“Do you really not believe me, after all this time?”

“You are nothing like him! He is the Lord residing over all of us, and you are a small, ungod-like god in comparison.”

“So you finally admit that I’m a god.” Zagreus moves to the other side of Theseus and kicks at a loose stone. He keeps shooting glances in a specific direction; Theseus can only assume that is where Tartarus lay. “You even said my name. I’m impressed you bothered to remember.”

“Asterius has mentioned it often enough,” Theseus says.

“He mentions me?” Zagreus asks, with such honest and sincere pleasure in his voice that Theseus finds himself suddenly seething.

“Only to remind me how easily it is to bring you down!” Theseus stands, then picks up his shield and spear. “Are you quite done wasting our time with your imagined friendship? We—”

“Asterius and I get along quite well, actually.”

“We,” Theseus continues, louder, “have another realm to explore. No thanks to your guidance!”

Zagreus doesn’t say anything for a time. When Theseus looks over, Zagreus is staring at him intently.

Theseus looks away. “Gaze upon me if you must. But when you are quite done, I’m certain Asterius would appreciate a quicker pace.”

“You know, I’m still trying to figure out what problem you have with me. Other than the obvious fact that we fight each other to the death every day, I try to remain at least civil during our interactions. You’re a king, aren’t you? Aren’t kings supposed to be, I don’t know, kind?”

“I am kind to those who deserve it!” Theseus defends. “I have been tasked with stopping you as many times as it takes. Would you expect me to be kind to a blackguard defying the rules of these undying realms?”

“You know it’s not that simple.” Zagreus walks up to him, stopping a few feet away, and Theseus lifts his chin. “Aren’t you going to ask me why? I know you’ve been dying to.”

“I do not care what drives you to do what you do, fiend,” Theseus lies. “I know my duty.”

“I am not a fiend,” Zagreus says hotly. “Nor am I a monster, and I’m not a daemon! I’m none of those things, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop calling me by those names. I said I wouldn’t put up this attitude of yours and I mean it, Theseus.”

“What, have your feelings been hurt by my remarks? Ha!”

Zagreus’ supple lips form a soft frown. “Frankly, yes. Don’t you want the truth?”

I’m better than you. I’m more worthy than you.

“Don’t bother. It changes nothing,” he says vehemently.

“I—”

I’m going to get out of here, and when I do, I’ll have a good laugh with the gods about how pathetic you are.

“Asterius suffers whilst we wait!” Theseus exclaims. “We don’t have time to entertain another falsehood of yours!”

“I just want to see my mother,” Zagreus says then, so softly at first that Theseus isn’t sure he hears him correctly. His own intrusive thoughts come to a grinding halt.

“What was that?”

Zagreus looks down, then when he drags his eyes back up to Theseus, they shine with emotion.

“I just have a few minutes with her, every time. It takes me long enough to reach the place where she is, and then I—“ He turns his head away, speaking towards the lava on his right. “I demanded father let me see her. He refused, and so I have no choice. He forces us to fight. I have to kill my own father so I can see my mother, who didn’t even know I existed until a short while ago.”

“Your…mother?”

“Persephone.” Zagreus takes a breath, then meets Theseus’ eyes. “She’s wonderful. Kind and patient, but authoritative. Her garden is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve seen many gardens.”

Persephone. The Queen.

No, no, no. That isn’t right. That isn’t true. His own duty is noble; it is true.

“You are lying,” Theseus says waveringly.

“I’ve no reason to lie,” Zagreus says. “I don’t care if you believe me. It’s the truth. Though it would make things a little easier if you did.”

“If that is the truth, then why do we fight?” Theseus bursts. “The Queen, your mother, why does Lord Hades keep you away?”

“I think he’s protecting her somehow.” Zagreus combs his fingers through his hair and heaves a world-weary sigh. “In any case, we should get moving. You’re right; Asterius would appreciate a little haste.”

“I—Yes.” Theseus blinks rapidly, then adjust his grip on his weaponry and lifts his chin. “It is as I said. We must find Asterius, quickly. To Tartarus, then?”

“Yes, I suppose. As I said, it’s the realm closest to my father, so I am a bit wary. You know, it’s not too late for you to turn around and go back to Elysium. I’m sure I can find him on my own now.”

“As I would expect, an obvious attempt to undermine my friendship with Asterius. Nay, fie—you,” he finishes, stumbling somewhat. It is not that he cares what Zagreus thinks of his choice in words, but the pathetic expression on his face is impossible to ignore. Perhaps a modicum of kindness is due, but only just! “I will journey with you to your realm and save my friend! Perhaps you should return to provide a distraction for your Lord father.”

Zagreus snorts. “If I spoke with him for more than ten seconds, well, now that would be suspicious of me. No, we’ll go together, but—” he hesitates a moment "—I think it would be best if we split up when we get to Tartarus. The wretches there will be child’s play for the both of us, so you should be fine on your own. I need—if you need anything, call out to me and I’ll find you.”

Without waiting for him to reply, he starts walking. Theseus hesitates, still attempting to comprehend all that he’s learned in such a short while, but then eventually he follows Zagreus towards their next destination.

Though not before adding, “I should be saying that to you! Should you need my aid, speak my name and I will surely come to your rescue. Your untimely death wouldn’t help Asterius in this instance.”

“Right,” Zagreus says humorlessly. Theseus takes no notice of it. He continues to turn what Zagreus has revealed to him in his mind. It is well-known that the gods are vindictive and vengeful on those that deserve it, but Zagreus is… He is…

Don’t I deserve it? Don’t you hate me, King?

He presses his lips together and forges on ahead.

Tartarus is quite unlike anything Theseus had imagined it would be.

Perhaps it is the air which is cloying and clings to his throat like mud. Theseus catches himself swallowing and coughing mere minutes after entering the realm, whilst Zagreus appears unaffected.

“You live in this place?” he asks. Zagreus lifts his shoulders in a shrug and jogs a few paces ahead so he can trigger a trap in the ground that Theseus had hardly noticed. Since entering, there have been several of these. Crude mechanisms with spikes and metal. The shield-bearers in Elysium are far more appropriate for would-be attackers.

“It’s—”

Zagreus’ next words are cut off by a gut-wrenching scream from somewhere nearby. Theseus is immediately on guard, but Zagreus barely gives the direction of the noise more than a quick glance.

“You get used to it,” is what he finishes with, though to his credit he does appear discomforted by the noise. “I’m not sure how Meg and her sisters do the whole ‘torture poor unfortunate shades for eternity’ bit. The Furies,” he clarifies, at Theseus’ look of confusion. When Theseus continues to stare, he scratches his arm. “I suppose they’d be unfamiliar to you. I am acquainted with most of the people in this realm. Those that do the torture, I should say. Not the most pleasant job, but we don’t really discuss that at the House.”

Theseus cannot even begin to imagine what his home must look like. “Such a place of depravity it must be! You have been raised and nurtured in the depths of the Underworld; it is no wonder Lord Hades insists on preventing your escape to the surface.”

It is the only reasonable explanation.

It’s not the answer Zagreus is looking for. "You don’t understand.” He shakes his head. “You’ll never understand. We faced each other dozens of times, and not once did you ask yourself why. Darkness, you won’t even try. Theseus—”

He is interrupted by another horrific scream, followed by several others. Theseus does not flinch from the sound, but it is close. He can stand much worse, unsettling though it may be.

Shooting him a final look of contempt, Zagreus leads them wordlessly through more doorways and passages, on the lookout for any sign of Asterius. They are meant to divide their attention, but Theseus does not mind getting his bearings first, so he sticks to Zagreus’ side as they appear to circle the center of the place. When he inquires as to why they have not ventured in, Zagreus explains that there are renovations going on.

Theseus is unconvinced of the truth of what he says, but unless it involves Asterius, he is not concerned.

“Oh, Asterius,” Theseus mourns, quietly to himself. They have dispatched a fresh set of Tartaran shades and peered into chamber after chamber, but there is no sign of him. He listens for the sound of his voice or any indication he may be near, but there is nothing.

“What torture you must be under!” he cries, unable to contain himself. “It burns my very soul to think of you within these terrifying halls.”

“We haven’t heard him yet, so that’s good. He’s not being currently tortured in our vicinity,” Zagreus says. In the center of the room there is another Boon––this one Theseus does not recognize from before. Zagreus makes the sound in the back of his throat that Theseus can’t properly name.

“Haven’t had this one in a while.” Zagreus walks up to it, but then hesitates with his hand hovering over the Boon’s surface. “You know of lady Aphrodite, I’m sure,” he says to Theseus. “Goddess of love and desire, et cetera.”

“You insult me. Of course I am aware of our Lady! If there is a goddess worthy of praise, it is she. May we thank her for all the love in our lives. For that my love for Asterius never wanes!”

“You really are something else,” Zagreus says to him. His meaning is indeterminable, but Theseus isn’t concerned. He is more curious to see what gift Zagreus will be bestowed in this instance.

However, Zagreus doesn’t accept it immediately. He shifts uneasily from foot to foot, and opens his mouth again, only to shut it firmly. Puzzled, Theseus watches him squirm, assuming his hesitation is due to his upbringing. Certainly, love must be an unfamiliar feeling to such a wretched being. For a moment, he feels pity for Zagreus.

“Gods,” Zagreus says, as the Boon disappears. He shivers inexplicably. “None of the other Boons are like this. She told me—well, she informed me she was giving her Boon a bit of a boost. As long as we don’t run into anyone I know, we should be fine.”

“Explain yourself,” Theseus demands, not because he is curious, but only to be prepared for the worst.

Zagreus turns to him, and Theseus’ heart threatens to stop beating in his chest.

As with all of the Boons, nothing is different about his appearance, physically. His hair is the same, as are his lips, pursed in a subtle pout, and his eyes—

Theseus does not gasp, but it is a close thing.

Oh, gods, his eyes. How did he not realize what depths lie in his emerald gaze? It is a shining verdant green, and even the ruby red glow of his other iris is suddenly striking and remarkable.

“We should keep moving. I’m wondering if I can find Sisyphus around here; he might have an idea where Asterius would be.” He doesn’t seem to notice Theseus’ sudden silence, distracted by more screams and howls from tortured victims. “Did you know Sisyphus tied up Thanatos—that’s death himself—and that’s the reason he’s stuck pushing that boulder for eternity? Than is as unforgiving as ever. Still doesn’t forgive me for leaving. Not yet anyway.”

His lips. His beautiful, luscious, sinful lips. It seems as though they are always moving, always attempting to torment him.

“Theseus?”

The sound of his own name rings like a siren song. The sensation budding in his chest blooms.

His feet begin moving on their own, approaching Zagreus until he is close enough to touch.

“What are you doing?”

Zagreus backs away from him hastily, and nearly triggers the trap a second time. “Is this about the Boon? You don’t have to worry about that. It’s more potent, but it only affects people with whom I—” He clears his throat and straightens, schooling his expression. “You won’t have to worry about it. There has to be something there on both ends. If there’s nothing there, then there’s nothing…”

He trails off, distracted by the sight of Theseus lifting his hand. While he has been speaking, Theseus had been inching closer, the thundering of his heart urging him to bring himself as close as possible.

Zagreus flinches when Theseus’ hand comes close to his face, expecting him to strike, no doubt. But Theseus doesn’t strike him. He lays his palm over the side of Zagreus’ face, cupping his cheek in hand.

His skin so soft, just as he had imagined. Pale, yes, but pleasing to the touch.

Zagreus’ eyes are wide with shock, his breath hitched and shallow.

“Theseus,” he says, but Theseus is too overwhelmed with his sudden and intense emotions to answer. Theseus’ thumb swipes over the length of his cheekbone and Zagreus goes still. For a moment, Theseus vaguely wonders what he will do; how he will react.

And then he melts into his touch, and an unknown sound escapes Theseus’ throat.

Such handsome beauty. He is worthy of sculpture. Seeking a similar reaction to the touch of his right hand, he takes his left and lays it on Zagreus’ other cheek, now caressing him as he would on occasion with Asterius.

He takes a moment to revel in the warmth his touch brings, and that is when Zagreus speaks again.

“Theseus,” he breathes. Theseus remains where he is, so Zagreus licks his lips and says louder. “Theseus, I—Theseus. King. Theseus. Sir.”

At the unfamiliar title, seemingly all at once the truth of what he is doing slams into him. Horrified and ashamed, Theseus pushes him back.

“What are you doing!” he calls loudly, enunciating each word clearly and with precision.

“What am I—you came on to me!” Zagreus gapes at him, a flush high on his cheeks. “You—you touched me.”

“I wasn’t in control of myself! Your dark magic and hellborn nature have overtaken your feeble body. You may try to draw me in, but I will not fall prey!”

He can still recall the exact feeling of Zagreus’ breath ghosting hot over his wrist. The gentle way that he had called his name. Theseus.

“It was the Boon!” Zagreus exclaims, aggravated. Even in anger, he shines. “I told you less than five minutes ago how Aphrodite’s Boon affects the people around me. I just didn’t think…”

He looks at Theseus. His words sink in slowly.

“You’re attracted to me,” Zagreus says, at the same time that Theseus cries, “Fiend!!”

“The Boon doesn’t affect just anyone. She is the goddess of desire, so it stands to reason that she has the power to heighten any feelings of love, infatuation, or desire—”

“You lie! Vicious, Horrible lies! I would never love you!”

“Ouch,” Zagreus says with a small laugh. “You’re not the first to say that. Regardless, point being you feel something, or you wouldn’t have…” He trails off again, rubbing his cheek with his palm like he can still feel the ghost of Theseus’ hand. A feeling unlike any other wells up inside Theseus, threatening to overflow.

I must touch him again.

“Nobody’s touched me like that in forever,” Zagreus adds softly.

The chalice that’s holding all of Theseus’ feelings begins to spill over. He lets out an inhuman cry and storms off in the opposite direction to put some space between them. It is his proximity to Zagreus that must be the cause; if he can remove himself, he will be well again and of sound mind.

“Rid yourself of that Boon! Return it!”

“I can’t just return it! If I find another it can be replaced, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a god that won’t be upset if you try to return Boon they’ve graciously bestowed on you.” There is a long pause. “It would help if maybe you’d stop lying to yourself about how you feel for every little thing.”

Within the time he has spent staring at the opposite wall, the overwhelming feelings have dissipated some. Then, when he glances back at Zagreus, they begin to return.

“The only lies are your own,” he says heatedly. “I understand the need to find a lover to satisfy your own needs, but I suggest you find another!”

He hears Zagreus let out an exaggerated sigh. “I can’t believe I ever looked up to you. So much for the legendary King of Athens. So you’re attracted me, so what? I think you’re quite nice to look at, but I’m not having an existential crisis over it.”

“Blackguard, you—”

Theseus spins around to release his fury onto Zagreus, but movement behind him stops him short.

A giant, hulking wretch rises up from behind Zagreus and raises its arms. Theseus opens his mouth to warn him, but the words catching his throat. Thankfully, Zagreus sees the change in his face and raises his sword just as the lout swings downward. It’s attack sends Zagreus skidding backwards, but he holds strong and then defeats it with a few swings of his sword.

Relieved, Theseus takes hold of his shield and spear with the intention of making some sort of threat, when another voice sounds from the far end of the room.

“Zagreus?”

It’s the voice of a woman. Deep and smooth like nectar. Zagreus goes completely still when he hears it.

“…Hey, Meg.”

“Zagreus,” she repeats, just now noticing Theseus standing some feet away. Her eyes widen, then narrow, lips curling into a snarl. She growls, “What have you done?”

“It’s not what it looks like, I promise,” Zagreus tells her. “Well, it is, a bit, but not for the reasons you’d think.”

Theseus notices that she is wielding a fierce looking whip. She flicks it in their direction, and then pulls it taut.

“This is a new low, Zagreus. Dragging others into the mess you’ve made isn’t like you.”

“It’s for a good reason, I swear. We’re trying to find his friend Asterius. My father—”

“I’ve heard enough,” she rasps. She pulls the whip even tighter, lowering herself into a battle stance. “Don’t you dare try to explain yourself to me. I’m going to make this easy for all of us and send you both back to where you belong.”

“Not without Asterius!” Theseus cries, having had enough of remaining silent. A tormentor she may be, but he is the Champion of Elysium; he has faced worse. He has faced Zagreus at his most powerful and given him a good fight. Surely, he can take this one woman.

Her whip flies in his direction, faster than he can blink. He raises his shield, just barely defending himself against the attack. He hears Zagreus start running back towards Theseus—likely to create some space between him and this Meg—and he notes was some concern how the room that they are in is relatively small compared to others.

“Blood and darkness, this is what I was hoping to avoid,” Zagreus says in a hushed tone once he’s in range. “And now we’re in this tiny room with her and her very long whip.”

“I’ll take her on,” Theseus says, with fervor. He looks to Zagreus, and a protective fury overcomes him. “Stay behind my shield and you will be safe!”

“Your shield wouldn’t keep either of us safe. Not for long anyway. She’s—”

Whatever he is going to say is interrupted by the woman herself flying towards them at breakneck speed. Zagreus barely misses being struck by her whip, dashing out of her way and into the opposite direction.

Meg turns to Theseus. Her lips curl.

“From what I heard you hate Zagreus. Now you’re helping him?”

He doesn’t get a chance to answer. Her whip sails his way, and he’s forced to shield himself.

“I am here for Asterius and only Asterius! I insist–nay, I demand you tell me where he is!” He pauses, throwing his spear in her direction. “Tell me where you have put him!”

“I don’t even know who that is,” she says, and after that, talking becomes a moot point.

The woman—Meg—is incredibly quick on her feet. She is a vision of grace and beauty, and her movements are ferocious and unforgiving. Theseus’ shield absorbs the force of her whip countless times, but if she is quick, she is able to get behind him and strike him. At those times, thankfully, Zagreus is there to assist him—though he provides more of a distraction than anything.

“Again you attempt to slice me with your demonic sword!” Theseus snaps, when that exact event nearly occurs.

“Theseus, I can’t hit her if you’re in my way.”

“I have barely moved from the spot!”

“I’ve noticed that. Aren't you supposed to throw your spear?"

“Stop flirting,” Meg growls, and in mere moments she is upon them, wielding her whip with terrifying strength and aiming it at Zagreus. “I’ll go ahead and make this easy for both of you.”

Theseus dives in front of Zagreus, just-in-time for his shield to absorb the impact. He hears Meg scoff, and the sound of her footsteps begins to fade as she presumably backs away.

“That’s not good,” Zagreus tells him, crouching behind the shield. Much too close for comfort if Theseus were to be asked. His heart pounds loud enough to nearly drown out Zagreus’ next words. “She’s going to call on the forces in Tartarus. At this point, we’d be lucky if my father isn't already on his way to decimate the both of us. Darkness, I hope she doesn’t summon any brimstones.”

Theseus wants to touch him. He wants to—blast, that Boon.

His hand reaches back of its own volition and lands on Zagreus’ shoulder. He squeezes the muscle.

“We will defeat her and find Asterius. And if I am to die—”

Zagreus stops him with a hand over his. The contact is like pure electricity.

“You’ll live, King. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Wretches! To me!” They hear Meg call out. Almost immediately they begin to appear in numbers, summoned by her authority.

“This is going to get ugly,” Zagreus says. He eyes the brimstones with distaste. “You’ll need that shield.”

“As I am all too aware.” Theseus nods. “Once more you will receive my support. You may thank me later!”

Zagreus chuckles, and then he dashes into the first group of enemies while Theseus turns his attention to the brimstones aiming at Zagreus. Their enemies are hardly as strong as the weakest shades in Elysium, but with the Fury constantly at their backs, progress is slow.

Zagreus, meanwhile, is without shield, and so he moves with breathtaking speed. He is never still, swinging his sword to slaughter their enemy shades, alternating between fighting the shades coming in droves and fighting Meg.

Watching the two of them dance in battle, Theseus has an idea as to who will win. In any other battle, he is certain Zagreus would prevail, but with each dash and every quickstep taken to avoid the force of her whip, he can see his strength begin to flag. Zagreus has been fighting at Theseus’ side for much longer, and even he feels exhaustion weighing him down.

He attempts to assist, but Theseus’ own weaponry is easily deflected by her whip. Would that they had the time, and he was fresh from his chambers, not surrounded by brimstone’s and gigantic louts attempting to crush and pin them in a small space, their battle would be a different story.

Theseus grinds his teeth together.

Think, he tells himself. Were you with Asterius, what strategy would you employ?

Almost immediately the low tones of his voice echo in his head. It is far too easy to imagine his friend speaking to him, and he feels a pang at the thought of him.

What does she have that works in her favor?

That blasted whip. Zagreus’ exposed shoulder is decorated with scratches, and his tunic is torn in places.

Disable it. Find the means to take away her advantage if brute force is not an option.

After wiping the sweat from his brow, Theseus scans the length of the room while he takes out more wretches that appear. It reminds him of their fight in Asphodel, when he used his shield to propel him over the lava. If Asterius was with him, he could toss him in her direction and pin her.

You are fond of your shield, King, his imagined friend tells him. She will know this.

He thinks about the way she attacks them; how despite his restricted movement, making him an easier target, her aim is for Zagreus.

She is out for blood, he realizes. That is, it is more than just that Zagreus is in her way; it’s personal.

Theseus maneuvers into the center of the room, backing up against the pillar and trying to make himself as unnoticeable as possible. He cannot remove himself from her awareness, but if he can just find an opening…

Zagreus notices his position and hesitates for a split-second, falsely assuming he has been cornered. In that second, Meg sees his hesitation and lets out a low laugh.

“Go home, Zagreus.”

But before she can fully attack, Theseus bursts from around the pillar and heaves his upturned shield in at her like a disc. She startles, but dodges easily, as he expected.

He did not intend for the hit to land.

Theseus slams into her with his shoulder. She grunts, fingers digging into his skin as she fights against him. He has moments until she overpowers him; he is exhausted, and she is an incredibly powerful foe nonetheless. Still, moments are all he needs.

With one arm still free and holding onto his spear, he stabs at her whip and catches it under the pointed tip. Then he proceeds to wind it quickly around his spear. Once he has a good grip on it, he flings it away from her direction against the opposite wall.

“What are you doing," she hisses, grasping even more wildly. “You’ll be punished for this. Hades will find out. You know this.”

Theseus does not deign to reply. After all, there is nothing to say.

“Tell me where Asterius is, Meg,” Zagreus says, holding the tip of his sword at her throat. She relaxes in Theseus’ hold, and when he releases her, she slides to the ground in defeat, though the fire in her eyes never abates. "Now, if you would, please."

“I can’t do that Zagreus, because I don’t know who that is.”

“We’re looking for the Minotaur. Bull of Minos. Surely you’ve heard of him.”

Her eyes widen, and then she laughs, long and low and dangerous.

“I don’t know where you heard that the Minotaur would be here, but he’s not. You’re wasting your time.”

“Then where is he!?” Theseus bursts, sounding too close to a whine for his liking. “If Asterius is not here, then I demand you tell me where he is.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” she says, barely sparing him a glance. She lifts her chin at Zagreus. “This is probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, Zagreus. I hope you're happy. Now: Either you kill me, or I’ll kill you.”

Zagreus raises his sword. “I’m sorry, Meg.”

[secret-engima]

So the Demons Verse is inhabited by fantastical races, yes? Not, I assume, JUST humans and daemons? What other races are there, and does each kingdom have it’s own main race? ie. demons for the Night Kingdom, humans for Lucis, such and such. (Maybe merpeople for Altissia, can we please have merfolk in Altissia??) And how do these other kingdoms react to the new Accursed?

Yes actually! Lucis is actually the most mixed kingdom for Historical Reasons my brain is too tired to make up on the spot rn. The original population was primarily Human, but that was back in like- Somnus’s time. By now everyone in Lucis is so used to seeing Elves, Dwarves, Fairies, hybrids, and the occasional Mer that no one bats an eye. That said, the other kingdoms are more heavily biased toward one fantasy race or other, even if the other races are scattered throughout.

Yes, Accordo is a kingdom of Mer. Altissia, the capital, is their only above-water city, meant to facilitate trade and communications. The canals are their primary roads but there are all sorts of waterpark style lanes and pools and things on the level of the stone streets so people can chat and be eye level.

Tenebrae is a kingdom of Fairies, deceptively delicate looking beings who are about the height of a human (not teeny thank you) and with razor sharp teeth. The Oracle is a Fairy Queen btw.

Niflheim is an Elven run kingdom, because I said so and because having humans be the evil empire dudes is boring. Of course, because of all the territory they’ve conquered, there are a LOT of other members from different races in there (barring merfolk, because the Niflheim continent is traditionally Desert and that was before they managed to tick off the Glacian and get cursed to nigh-on eternal winter).

Then of course, because fantasy world, there are other kingdoms that weren’t there in canon. Galahd is it’s own kingdom for one (inhabited by humans who hoard the magic art of skin-changing to themselves) that is a long-standing ally with Lucis, if an aloof one. There’s also a teeny kingdom up around the Rock of Ravatogh primarily inhabited by dwarves. Supposedly because they’re too stubborn to leave despite the semi-active volcano right outside their capital but mostly it’s because nobody ELSE wants to come near the semi-active volcano and they like their privacy and the lack of invasion risk this gives them.

Up in Niflheim, mostly by the shores or way up in the mountains, there are still human-run kingdoms btw. Niflheim leaves those scattered kingdoms alone (for now) because frankly all of those humans stubborn enough to live in first a desert and then a SNOW covered desert (and/or near the choppy waters of the ocean) is a bit too stubborn to be worth crushing (yet). Nobody is entirely expecting the uneasy non-aggression treaty to last up there, since the new and young (by elf standards) Emperor Aldercapt is not the relatively reasonable type his father was.

Also there’s a kingdom of humans who claim to be Solheim survivors by the way. Not sure where, probably way up past Vesperpool where you can’t get to in FFXV.

Nobody likes to talk about them.

They’re arrogant and nuts and only leave everyone else alone because the Night King’s kingdom would be right on their doorstep if they caused any trouble.

Speaking of, Insomnia’s kingdom isn’t just the city, it’s the entire island on which the city is founded and also a little bit of the mainland besides.

Anyway, on your other question: FICLET TIME. 

Word of the new Accursed spreads ... slowly. Most don’t believe it, only notice something is up because the daemon attacks have stopped (daemons can travel through shadows all around the world barring warded areas like cities and Havens, they just don’t LIKE to, apparently it makes them feel slimy and tired, but the original Accursed made them do it so the attacks were worldwide things). At first they think like Mors did, that something is Up and everyone privately bids a sigh of relief that Lucis is the next door neighbor to the Accursed and not them (Barring Galahd, who is the oceanic next door neighbor, they all begin battening down the proverbial hatches).

Only the Oracle suspects something drastic and unseen has changed, because she ... she FELT something. Unexpectedly in the night, as if the entire world had cried out in surprised relief. She had woken up with a start and all of Tenebrae had woken up with her to gawk as their magically grown, softly glowing trees and flowers all lit up until it was as bright as day and then just as quickly faded back to their normal soft glow. But she has no idea WHAT happened, just that it was after that the daemon attacks stopped.

And then stay stopped.

For a year. And then a year and several months. No sound, no sight, no word, no whispers of black magic trying to build in the dark places to form the cursed Night Clouds that let daemons roam free in the day (note: daemons in this world will not die if subjected to sunlight, but OH BOY will they get sunburn and will get sick from it. Moon, starlight, and greatly diffused sunlight is okay, but cloudless/mostly cloudless days? Not even the Accursed could force them out of their homes then).

And then, just when everyone’s nerves are at their tightest-.

Lucis is overthrown.

Oh, OFFICIALLY it is fine, King Mors still reigns, there weren’t even any casualties, but all the spies and witness reports and shaky letters to family in other kingdoms say the same thing. The Accursed marched on Insomnia with a horde of daemons that were incalculable, Night Clouds rolling out all the way to the capital of Lucis, covering the city sky as if the wards meant to prevent that exact event meant NOTHING. Then, just as quickly, the horde turned and left and the clouds retreated.

They took the Crown Prince of Lucis with them.

Ohhhhh boy the gossip and panic. The disbelief and fear, because what has happened, what has changed to give the Accursed that much power? Surely something MUST have changed or else he would have done that and more long ago. Even the Empire quails from the implications, ceasing its tentative pokes at it’s sister continent for fear of stirring Insomnia.

But four more years go by and the attacks never resume. Hunters and travelers report daemons spotted at night, wandering by doing who knows what, but they ... are non-violent. They do not attack travelers or try to chase down caravans, they just go about their night as if they had never had a bloodthirsty thought in their lives (until someone attacks, and then suddenly the bloodlust is back and the offender is torn to shreds). People learn fast to just leave the daemons alone and be left alone in turn, but it Freaks People Out.

Finally, FINALLY, the tension cannot be born, and Queen Sylva herself leaves to investigate, her husband in place as regent and her daughter safe and sound, a new Oracle in case ... she ... well. Hopefully that won’t happen.

She flies alone, hidden from view with magic, and lands respectfully at the border of the Night Kingdom. Her magic flares, not enough to be anything like an assault, but enough to be noticed. A greeting of sorts. No Oracle has done this since ... centuries at least, more perhaps, but legends speak of this ritual, of a date and time and way for the Oracle to meet with the Accursed and be let free afterward (for amusement, not honor, but everyone knows the Accursed likes “playing by the rules” just to prove that the rules cannot stop him from winning). She hopes the legends are right.

An hour later, her escort arrives. She holds her head high as the daemons lead her into the dark.

The city is not anything like she imagined. It is dark, yes, but not nighttime black. This is the dull light of dusk and twilight, sunlight filtering through the clouds just enough to support the curling greenery reclaiming the ruins of the ancient city, not enough to burn the skin of the inhabitants. Foreign magic weaves through the air and ground, but it does not reek like the black arts Sylva has encountered in the wake of the unseen Accursed. This feels different. Old and wild and ... calm. Dangerous, incredibly so, but passive. A predator watching her pass by, too relaxed to bother tearing her apart.

More than the magic, the city is ... ALIVE. Daemons flit to and fro, not screaming and bloodthirsty like she has always seen, but calm. They chatter and warble in a tongue she doesn’t know, haggling in marketplaces and gossiping as she and her escort pass by. A few small ones that could only be called children scamper by, pausing to blink at her in awe and Sylva feels just as surprised. She didn’t know ... she didn’t know daemons even HAD children. No one did. Most assumed the Accursed just ... created them when he needed more using his black magic.

Then she sees the human and the world stops. She jerks to a halt without thinking and her escort stop with her, growling angrily at her pause but she does not care. Her wings flick out from her back in an expression of shock before settling.

The human looks just as surprised. He gapes at her, clean and well dressed and healthy, if pale from such low light. Then, to her increasing shock, he bows and falls in step with the escort, bossily pushing a daemon out of step to take its place with a low, inhuman chatter noise that sounds like a coarse imitation of the daemon’s tongue. He tentatively smiles at her after taking his spot in the escort and she cannot think of how to react. Especially when she spots MORE humans lurking in the streets alongside the daemons, talking and haggling and pausing to stare at her.

What are ... what are humans doing here? The Accursed hated all the races, but the fairies and the humans were easily the ones he hated most. How had they survived?

She does not get a chance to ask, because by now they are approaching what must be the Accursed’s home, a towering building untouched by the ruin of the others. She is led inside and straight to a throne room that fits all her expectations (dark, ominous, with furs and trophy racks lining the walls, lit with will o’wisps) save for the inhabitants. Especially its king.

The Accursed is nothing like she expected. He is human. Physically he looks only about ... oh perhaps his late twenties or thirties, only a little older than her little Luna, who is only just now learning the rites and spells of Oracle magic. His hair is black and neatly kept, his clothes are fine, if a bit worn, and his skin is pale, but not unhealthily so. More strangely, she sees none of the signs of black magic she knew she should have been. His skin is not bloodless white, there are no patches of thick black stones from where the evil magic has managed to break free of his body and crystalize and a hundred other symptoms that are all ... not there. She thinks it’s an illusion until he straightens up on his throne and meets her eyes. They are blue, blue and clear as a summer sky. There is no hint of acidic yellow, no smoky swirls of black-grey where whites should be, no slitted pupils. His eyes ... are normal.

No black mage, no matter how skilled or old or cursed, could cast an illusion on their eyes. That was the price for using that magic. That was an unbreakable rule of magic itself. Magic had its colors, and those colors effected the eyes of the wielder and those effects could NOT be hidden (especially not while using spells, but even just passively. It was why Lucis Caelums always had blue eyes, and Oracles always had white-blue).

She stops, barely notices the daemon guards calmly filing out, as if she was not even a threat to be watched anymore, and tries to understand what she is seeing.

There is movement at the Night King’s side and she is startled to see Prince Regis, King Mors’ missing son, the one captured and dragged away as the price for Lucis’s continued existence. He is not a tormented, enslaved wreck she would have expected, he is dressed well, his face is unmarred by pain, his eyes, too, are clear of any curse or enthrallment as he bends down to whisper something in the Night King’s ear, almost like an ... advisor of some kind?

She reaches out with her magic, just a tiny tendril, out of sheer disbelief, looking for the spell that must be placed on the human prince no matter what her eyes are telling her. Before the magic can reach the prince, the Accursed’s gaze sharpens and his own magic snaps out. But instead of the biting pain of black magic meeting white and both burning the other in a flare of agony, her magic is given the equivalent of a light, scolding rap on the knuckles. A teacher warning a child to mind their manners and Not Touch and her wings flick as she tastes the unmistakable ozone-rainy texture of crystal magic on her tongue. Old and deep and far more powerful than she’s ever known it, not since the original rites and spells for it were lost, more powerful than any in written history even, but unmistakable.

The man on the throne is a Lucis Caelum.

“You have journeyed far,” says the Night King, the impossibility, on his throne as his magic settles down again, his lips twitching in a gentle sort of amusement she cannot comprehend, “to grace us with your presence, Queen Oracle. You come alone, as well. Are you not afraid?”

“Have I need to be?” She asks cautiously in return, “Has the hospitality of the Night King on this honored day and night, upheld since the times of the Fall, been rescinded?”

It is not her Oracle senses, or even her Queen sensibilities that spot the flicker of surprise and lost confusion on the man’s face, but those of a mother who is used to seeing her children pretend to be wiser and more mature than they are to impress her, only to stumble when they encounter something unknown. Another whisper from Prince Regis and the expression clears and his eyes light with understanding that is so innocent and fascinated that she cannot stop or shake the new, terrifying and fascinating, realization from her bones.

“It has not,” says the Night King smoothly, “yet I must ask, for what reason do you come?”

“I come,” she says slowly, “to greet the newly crowned Night King, and, if it pleases His Majesty, to receive answers to some questions.”

There is a frozen silence where the humans lurking in the shadows all gape at her. Then-.

Laughter. Soft and short and weary, but honest and not unkind, “I was wondering,” says the man (boy, for although age clings to his bones like a heavy cloak, she does not think he is a man by Immortal standards, not yet, or at least he shouldn’t but is, just like all children forced to grow up too fast) as he stands up and begins limping (limping and what blow could permanently injure an Immortal? Those who survive even burning to ash on the wind? She can think of only one answer, and the surety of her realization grows) down the stairs to meet her on even ground, “if anyone on the outside would figure it out.”

He stops before her, amusement mixed with only a thread of wariness in his eyes, a human too old to be natural, an Immortal too young to be ruling, “What gave me away?”

She stares into his eyes and feels the ancient power of her bloodline, the intuition that marked them as seers, stir. For a moment she tastes memory and pain, a curse willingly taken to spare the lives of others, a price willingly paid as blood weeps free of should-be mortal wounds. For a moment memory not her own whispers poisonously in her ears “The throne sits only one.” and in her blood another voice responds, “Off my chair, Jester, the King sits there.” She pushes it away, those are not her memories to keep or her burdens to bear. Those belong to the young Night King standing before her, looking at her without fear, but instead nostalgic fondness, as if he looks at her and sees the ghost of another at her shoulder (one of her ancestors perhaps, and the thought gives her pause).

“Your eyes,” she settles on finally, “the original Accursed had yellow eyes.” She has never seen him to know of course, but all practitioners of the Black Arts got them before the poisonous magic killed its own wielder, and the Accursed would have been no different despite his stubborn survival in the face of the death curse Black Magic gave all its wielders.

There is a flicker of surprise, then sadness, “Yes,” he agrees with a knowing that comes from experience, “they were.” He blinks as if to banish a memory, then dips his chin in greeting and gestures a hand toward one of the side doors of the Throne Room, “It is far too early for dinner,” he says politely, “but I am certain Ignis would be able to make something light to help you relax from your journey. Will you talk with me over tea?”

Feeling off balance and aware he could tell despite her calm facade, she dips her chin and flicks her wings in a return greeting, one monarch to another, “I would be honored.”

[penny-anna]

@abluescarfonwaston​ as I said I got like 4 stars for this meme and no specific requests, so I’m just going to talk at length about the fic I have the most to say about, which is sandstorms and hazy dawns

hooray!!

She comes to him in the night, breath hot against his ear, and says, “can we keep them?”

This opening scene takes place between the 2nd and 3rd scenes of the story... this is probably needlessly confusing as the rest of the story is in chronological order but, this is where I wanted to start & I can do what I want.

“No,” he says.

He feels her weight shift as she lies down beside him. “Why not?”

“You know why.”

She noses at his neck, at the side of his head, nuzzling him. He feels the beginnings of a purr down in her chest, feels it in her and inside himself. “I like them.”

He touches her head, burying his fingers in her coarse fur the way he hasn’t for years. It’s been a long time, since they were as close as this. When they are together she sleeps an arm’s length from him. For days at a time they’re apart. He knows her only as a flash of white on the edge of his vision, a scent in the air. She wanders for miles, for weeks, following her own path, and he sees her not at all.

so let’s talk about the break up!!

Geralt & Dag used to have a more ‘normal’ person + separated daemon relationship (like most witchers), in which they would only split up for long periods out of practical necessity. they broke up for several years following events in blaviken. here is my extremely rough rendering of how that went

geralt: why you let this happen. you’re supposed to be my conscience :(

dag: umm how is this my fault? you asshole?

geralt: fuck off

dag: fine i will!! *fucks off*

geralt: wait no i didnt mean it :(

i have no intention of ever writing this scene as i don’t think i could do it justice. in my head he also throws a rock at her tho. bcos he’s an angry boy & an asshole.

however!! the strain in their relationship would not have started there. when i was writing this fic i was imagining that the fact of being separated would in itself put a strain on any person/daemon relationship, which i felt was implied by the HDM books. & then since writing it I read The Secret Commonwealth which more or less confirms that separating does just cause people’s relationships with their daemons to break down sometimes.

I think I said this in another post but, I imagine that the newly acquired ability to have separate experiences would make them more and more able to seriously disagree on things. and physically separating for long periods (even if only for practical reasons) would force them to get better at functioning alone which could in turn make them more and more emotionally distant from each other.

He scratches at the join of her neck and jaw, and that purr grows, long and deep and contented. She lays her head down beside his, and he holds her. He’s aware of her tail flicking, restless. She’ll be awake a while yet and so will she. They always sleep and wake at the same times, no matter how many miles separate them.

Geralt loves her, his lion, his dæmon. He loves her with every fibre of his being. He loves her strength, her grace. He loves that she can take any shape she pleases, be a bird or a fish or a snake when the moment calls for it. He loves the distance she can walk from him. He would not have her any other way. He cannot imagine her any other way.

i was always going to have witchers w separating daemons for this fic. however i got talked into the idea of witchers w mutable daemons by someone in a witcher discord I’m in... whoever you are I have forgotten your tumblr so can’t credit you for your idea properly sorry!!

i was originally reluctant bcos it seemed to me that mutable daemons implied innocence & youthfulness, which is kind of at odds with how witchers seem to be perceived. however following the above discord conversation i realised it can also imply 1) that witchers don’t really have ‘fixed’ personalities, which ties in with their supposedly not having feelings; 2) ‘innocence’ but in a negative way, in the sense of immaturity & not having a properly developed mind and sense of morality. 

obviously none of the above is actually true and witcher daemons are just shapeshifting adult daemons but, that is how people perceive it.

additionally, given how superpowered witchers are it seemed to fit that they would have found a way around all the weaknesses that having a daemon bring.

He knows that she loves him too. He understand why sometimes she despises him. He has cursed her, with his words and his thoughts, and she hates him for it. She has left him alone, and he hates her for it.

They say witchers feel nothing and they are not wrong. It doesn’t pain him when they are apart. He hasn’t felt that pain since he was a child. He barely remembers what it feels like.

She stops purring. Her breath puffs against his skin. “Stop thinking so hard,” she says. “Go to sleep.” Her tail has stopped twitching. “Go to sleep.”

*

“I think you and I might have got off on the wrong foot – as they say.”

this scene is supposed to take place offscreen shortly following the gutpunch haha

“White hair – no visible dæmon – two very – very scary looking swords – I know who you are.”

I don’t like when daemon fics recap entire scenes w the addition of daemons but I wanted to get this 1 change in so. here it is in a brief flashback. i elected to take out ‘big old loner’ bcos 1) listing 3 things is neater 2) I felt that not having a visible daemon would be a more notable characteristic for jaskier to point out.

not having a visible daemon is not necessarily a ‘tell’ that someone is a witcher or part of another demographic that can separate as people’s daemons are just out of sight sometimes.

It had surprised him, the ease with which that word visible had tripped off the bard’s tongue; that unhesitating acknowledgement that just because he couldn’t see something did not mean it didn’t exist.

He says, “hm.”

“Aren’t you going to ask my name?”

“No,” he says.”

“You can call me Jaskier,” says the bard. With a jerk of his shoulder he indicates the songbird-dæmon perched atop his lute. “This is Tansy.” The dæmon peeps a greeting. Receiving no response the bard goes on, “she’s a nightingale which I think is very sexy of her. You know,” he adds. “Because I’m a singer. And she’s a – a songbird.”

i realised while i was writing this that jaskier never actually introduces himself on screen. which seems like an oversight on the part of the writers tbh. means we can do what we want tho.

as i said in the a/n on the fic itself, I got the idea of giving Jaskier a nightingale daemon from two halves of a whole. usually I try and avoid just straight up copying other people’s form ideas but i just. fell in love with nightingale.

other forms I’ve seen for jaskier seem to tend VERY strongly towards birds which I find interesting! i’ve think I’ve seen maybe 1 daemon fic where he doesn’t have a bird daemon.

moving on to the name! this is tansy:

I do intend to get into this in potential future installments of the series, but Tansy is not her birth name (none of the main daemons in this AU use their birth names, completely independently of each other). she started going by Tansy relatively young and when he later changed his to match.

I think Jaskier settled relatively young - maybe 2 years before the time this fic is set - and being the overdramatic little punk he is hasn’t quite got over the ‘have i mentioned how cool my daemon’s settled form is today’ phase yet.

& finally before moving on, p much the first thing we learn about Jaskier & Tansy is that he is very happy and at ease with her and the form that she takes. this is important.

He grunts an acknowledgement – if only to get the bard to stop explaining.

“You’re not the best conversationalist, are you?”

A sudden tension, inside his chest. She’s close. He looks up and there she is, slipping into view on the clifftop.

“It’s just usually when you have a conversation you take it in turns to speak,” says the bard. “Rather than one person doing all the – oh.”

Dag makes her way down the ragged cliff, leaping from perch to perch in languid motions till her white paws touch the earth and she’s beside him. Stooping Geralt runs his hand over her head in greeting. Her eyes narrow.

this is another thing I have mentioned Elsewhere but i did fall in love w geralt’s daemon’s name in two halves of a whole (linked above) and went looking for something which had a similar feel to it. sorry.

i’m aware that Dag is technically a man’s name but given the kind of, inherent gender-bending nature of opposite sex daemons it seemed appropriate.

i confess i was also thinking of the dag in fury road.

seen a lot more variety in daemon forms for Geralt than jaskier! most common choices seem to be 1) wolf and 2) roach is his daemon. I’m really not into ‘existing animal companion as daemon’ bcos I’m firmly in the camp of ‘daemons as a manifestation of a person’s inner voice’ rather than ‘daemons as Companions’ so I can’t get behind daemon!roach (I actually find it actively offputting gfdlkjfskdh)

wolf is a p good fit imo but I find it a bit on the nose and I wanted to do something different. so. he is a giant kitty cat. & as someone (I forget who sorry) correctly identified she is leucistic rather than albino.

white mountain lions do exist but best as i can tell there’s like 1 photo on the entire internet. bummer.

He’s aware of the restlessly silent presence of the bard behind them shifting his weight, his dæmon fluttering about his head, aware perhaps that he’s intruding on something intimate.

Geralt straightens, and the bard takes that as his cue to begin again. He clears his throat and says, “what can I call her?”

It’s been a long time, since anyone has asked for her name so brazenly; in fact he isn’t sure anyone ever has. Geralt shoots the bard a look.

“Well, you must call her something,” he says, unintimidated.

“I do,” says Geralt. “You don’t.”

The nightingale-dæmon, now resting upon her bard’s shoulder, is eying Dag curiously, but she’s cautious enough not to approach.

one thing I’ve noticed when re-reading HDM is that characters very rarely refer to other people’s daemons by names, even when they know them. generally i’ve loosely kept to this in my own daemon AUs bcos 1) i find that when fics us each daemon’s name every time i get a bit lost as to whose daemon is whose and 2) I like the idea that using someone else’s daemon name is a very hm. intimate thing. hence geralt is reluctant to call tansy by her name, even though he knows it.

“Right,” says the bard. “Well, then.”

*

Come morning, Dag is gone, but not gone far. Out of sight, but not so far away he can’t feel her. She’ll come back when it pleases her.

He readies Roach for the path ahead, half-listening to the lilt of conversation that carries from the bushes; Jaskier’s voice, and the pretty voice of his dæmon.

The bard stumbles out into view, tousled and bleary from a night on the ground. “G’morning.” He ambles over to join Geralt.

i genuinely wanted to specify here that jaskier was having a piss in the bushes but i couldn’t find a way to get it in that didn’t seem kind of tasteless. that is what is happening here tho.

“What will it take to get rid of you?” says Geralt.

“My, someone woke up on the wrong side of the – ground,” says Jaskier. “More than yesterday. Where are we off to next?” He puts his hand on Roach’s saddle. Geralt swats it away.

“I’m going north,” he says. “You go wherever you want.”

“Maybe I want to go with you,” says Jaskier. In a flutter of wings his dæmon comes to rest on the pommel of Roach’s saddle, and he can’t shoo her away. He wouldn’t dare put his hands near her.

They say of witchers that they have no souls. They say their dæmons are something else, something monstrous. They say they have no respect for the great taboo. When they see him mothers’ dæmons snatch their children away.

“You don’t,” says Geralt.

“You sound awfully sure,” says Jaskier.

You don’t know what you’re asking for, Geralt wants to say. He doesn’t know how to say it in a way the bard would understand. He glowers at the nightingale-dæmon until she takes the hint and flies back to Jaskier’s shoulder.

He feels Dag before he hears her, the padding of her feet on the ground as she emerges from the bushes, the soft sound of her breathing.

Jaskier nudges him. “You don’t fool me,” he says. “You’re a big pussycat really. Don’t think I didn’t hear her purring all last night.”

did u know that mountain lions are the largest cat than can purr! here is a video of one purring. it’s very cute but also a little scary.

“You’re imagining things,” says Geralt.

“I absolutely am not,” says Jaskier. “She was practically shaking the ground.”

At that Dag actually laughs, a short and bubbling laugh of real amusement. Geralt shoots her a look. Jaskier is looking at her too, looking at her curiously, startled by this, the first human sound he’s heard her make.

Looking away from them Dag stretches out on the ground, lounging as if she has nowhere to be. Jaskier tears his eyes away from her and says, “is she always a lion? It’s just –” His dæmon pecks him hard on the neck. “Ow – it’s just I heard witchers’ dæmons don’t settle.”

He fastens the straps on Roach’s saddle bag, and his hands still. “They aren’t unsettled,” he says. “They’re mutable.”

“I don’t follow,” says Jaskier.

“They settle,” he says. “But they keep the ability to change, after settling.”

“Ah, I see,” says Jaskier, nodding. “But is she –” His dæmon fastens her beak around his ear lobe and tugs. “Ow – ow – alright – there’s no need to be like that,” he mutters to her.

“I’m leaving,” Geralt says. “As I said. Go where you please.”

The bard and his dæmon follow him north.

*

Chimney smoke rises down in the valley. He doesn’t know the name of the town.

Dag is waiting for him, draped in the branches of a tree. She’s been scouting ahead, or perhaps she’s restless, or perhaps both.

She yawns, showing off her teeth. “Did you lose them?”

“You know I didn’t,” says Geralt. He can hear Jaskier’s voice behind them in the woods, and so can she.

Her tail swishes. “Why not?” she says, and he knows at once what she means.

bouncing off what I was saying above re ‘manifestation of a person’s inner voice’. I like taking opportunities to show that a person & their daemon are 2 halves of the same mind.

“You know why,” he says.

“Tell me.”

And she says it in that particular tone, a tone with steel in it, and he has to answer. “He’s soft,” he says. “He’s young. What he’s asking for will break him. He doesn’t understand.”

“Hm,” she says.

“It’s best he realises sooner,” he says.

“You don’t know how soft he is,” she says. “You don’t know him at all.”

“You’ve seen her,” he says. “That’s what he is.”

Tansy is delicate – pretty – fragile. She weighs almost nothing. She comes close by him as few dæmons will and every time he tenses for fear that he might touch her, without meaning to – hurt her – break her.

u know that post about the person whose boyfriend was afraid of holding babies in case he didn’t know his own strength and accidentally hurt them? thats geralt.

Dag’s tail is moving in the air, no longer swishing, flicking in sharp, angry jerks. “We both know that’s not how it works.”

He knows what she’s thinking. It hangs between them, unspoken. Another little bird dæmon they had once known, a pretty, charming robin-dæmon who had melted away like smoke before his eyes.

I’ve only seen 1 daemon fic featuring renfri (and I don’t think it was strictly a conventional daemon au) and it gave her a shrike daemon, which i do think is fitting. however as w wolf for geralt I find it a bit on the nose.

additionally, giving renfri a daemon has the potential to kind of, shift things wrt the ambiguity of her character, so you have a choice to make wrt whether you want to shift it more towards ‘she’s outwardly scary’ or ‘she’s outwardly innocent’ and I went for ‘outwardly innocent’, in part so I could do this specific parallel but also bcos I just preferred that vibe.

i went for european robin bcos it’s a very nice match for renfri’s aesthetic, and 1) I’m a slut for aesthetics and 2) helps to make sure readers will know who this is about.

He might say don’t. Don’t make me think of it. But he doesn’t. This thing has been unspoken between them for so many years. He doesn’t know what will happen if he breaks the silence.

They’ve been on the road for five – almost six weeks. He’s growing used to the chatter and the birdsong. Jaskier hasn’t complained – hasn’t complained much – hasn’t complained as much as he’d expected, not even when his feet bled in his fancy shoes. He’s generous enough to share the coin he gets from playing. Geralt’s had worse travelling companions.

Jaskier blunders out of the trees. “There you are,” he says. “Trying to shake us?”

“Yes,” says Geralt.

Jaskier snorts, as if that’s a joke. He looks out over the valley, the distant strings of smoke hazy in the twilight. “Do you think they have an inn?”

“I don’t care,” says Geralt.

“I want to sleep in a real bed,” says Jaskier. “And I want a bath.”

“I’m not stopping you,” says Geralt.

“It’s going to be freezing tonight,” says Jaskier.

“I’m used to it,” says Geralt.

Jaskier nudges him. “C’mon,” he says. “You could use a bath yourself. I don’t like to say so, but you are a very – unusual smelling person.”

“You’ve said so several times,” says Geralt.

“Have I?” says Jaskier innocently.

“Yes,” says his dæmon.

“So I have,” he says.

“Go and find an inn if you want,” says Geralt. “I’m not stopping you.”

“Stop being ridiculous,” says Jaskier.

“I’m being ridiculous?” says Geralt.

“Yes,” says Jaskier. “Alright, how about this. I’ll buy you a drink.”

“I can buy my own drinks,” says Geralt.

“But I’m offering,” says Jaskier. “A kind and magnanimous offer, out of the goodness of my heart. And also I think it’s going to rain and I want to get in doors, so stop being ridiculous.”

“Hm,” says Geralt.

They go to the inn. It’s begun to rain by the time they reach the town. Tansy hides herself away within Jaskier’s cloak. Dag doesn’t follow them down the valley, preferring to find a dry spot in the woods, preferring to avoid prying eyes.

The inn is crowded with people sheltering from the rain; two more strangers with hidden dæmons don’t get a second look. The rafters are lined with bird-dæmons, safely away from the crowd. Sitting alone in his corner he watches their movements, the beating of their wings. There was a time Dag might have changed her shape and joined them. A space like this is never comfortable for a large dæmon.

reading back over this story I think it’s hm easy to think of Dag as the Emotionally Mature one of them but she’s the one whose making a choice to like... hide from Regular People and has been doing it habitually for a long time, either by changing her form or just leaving him alone. 

Geralt & his daemon do this for a number of reasons I think, in part for practical reasons, but also because he doesn’t want people go be able to get a fix on what kind of person that he is, and on some level wants people to see him and be immediately repulsed by his not having a daemon... this is a self-destructive behaviour that Dag is an active participant in. stop it Dag you’re supposed to be the smart one.

There’s a bard playing, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. He doesn’t sing as nicely as Jaskier. He’s made a poor choice of song, too, a quiet ballad, one of many about the beauty of the touch.

“Her hand upon my dæmon, the first in my life – it was like roses in the summer and I knew then she’d be my wife –”

1) i hate writing rhyming poetry and i am very bad at it. got away with it this time i hope bcos this is supposed to be kind of trite.

2) this is is what we call Planting. lol.

Jaskier pushes his way through the press back to their table. “As promised,” he says, sliding Geralt a mug of ale. Geralt grunts a thank you.

Jaskier sits, and regards him. Tansy flutters down to perch on the rim of his mug, dipping in her beak. Absently Jaskier strokes her downy back and Geralt tracks the tiny, intimate motion with his eyes. “Is this it, then?” says Jaskier.

one thing I was trying to convey throughout this fic is that spending time with Jaskier & Tansy is the first time Geralt has been around someone who has a Normal relationship with their daemon (as opposed to the ‘it’s complicated’ that geralt & dag have) for a long time and he’s very aware of the contrast. 

“Is this what?” says Geralt.

“Is this how it goes?” says Jaskier. “It’s just that I can’t help but notice there hasn’t been a lot of witchering.”

“That’s not a word,” says Geralt, and takes a draft of ale.

“What?” says Jaskier. “Witchering?” Geralt grunts. “Maybe I’ll put it in a song and get people saying it.”

“Don’t you dare,” says Geralt, and Jaskier laughs a little.

“Really, though,” he says. “Is this it?”

“How many monsters do you think there are in the world?” says Geralt.

“How should I know?” says Jaskier. Still perched on his mug Tansy whistles along with the ballad. A moment later Jaskier’s fingers begin to tap along. “What d’you do when you can’t get any work?”

“I make do,” says Geralt.

“Hmm,” says Jaskier. Sensing he isn’t going to get any meaningful answers – or perhaps just bored – his gaze wanders to the bard. For a few moments he listens quietly. “Have you ever done it?”

“What?” says Geralt.

“You know.” Jaskier ducks his head in the direction of the bard.

“Been a bard?” says Geralt.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” says Jaskier, mock-stern.

“No,” says Geralt. “Not like that.”

He’s had another’s hands on his dæmon, more than once. He and Dag have sworn to themselves: never again.

“Hm,” says Jaskier. “No. Me neither.” Again he strokes Tansy, perhaps imagining it.

Tansy is still whistling along with the bard, giving the final notes of the ballad a few extra flourishes, and Geralt catches himself thinking that she and Jaskier would sing it better.

*

“I’ll be having the bath first – if you don’t mind,” says Jaskier.

“Hm,” says Geralt.

“Though don’t think I’m going to let you get away without bathing,” says Jaskier. “I know what you’re like, and, and your aroma is really starting to bother me.”

“Hm!” pipes up Tansy in agreement.

“Find someone else to annoy, then,” says Geralt. He sits on the edge of the bed, still in his armour. Jaskier is meandering about the washstand, unfastening his doublet, restless as ever.

He tosses his doublet onto the bed, and looks Geralt up and down. “You’re not planning on sleeping in that, are you?”

“Maybe,” says Geralt.

“What, do you think the inn’s going to get attacked in the night by – werewolves, or something?” says Jaskier.

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” says Geralt.

“I can never tell when you’re joking,” says Jaskier, and unlacing his undershirt as he goes he wanders behind the screen.

“I don’t joke,” says Geralt.

“See?” Jaskier’s undershirt drapes over the top of the screen. Tansy, perched beside it, tugs at it with her beak, neatening it up. “There you go again.”

one of the biggest (& most underrated imo) challenges when writing a daemon au is characterising daemons... they’ve got to be like, recognisably the same person as the character, but at the same time ideally their own entity with their own personality. i found Dag came quite naturally, probably bcos Geralt is a character who definitely hides a lot of aspects of his personality, but Tansy was harder.

i imagined Tansy being very quiet with people who aren’t Jaskier & also very much the ‘put your clothes away don’t leave them all over the floor’ type of daemon.

Alone – or what passes for alone – Geralt begins to divest himself of his armour.

Jaskier’s trousers appear atop the screen. A moment later there’s a gentle splashing of water. A sigh.

geralt is definitely not thinking about the fact that jaskier is undressing. nope. he is not thinking about the fact that jaskier is naked in the same room as him. this is of no interest to him at all. He Does Not Care.

“This soap smells like pig fat,” he remarks.

“That’s because it’s made of pig fat,” says Geralt.

“Well. Yes,” says Jaskier.

Tansy is looking at him curiously from atop the screen. Caught staring, she opens her wings and drops out of sight to join Jaskier.

“Does Dag not come indoors?” says Jaskier.

“Now and then,” Geralt answers, before he has fully processed what Jaskier said. His hands still on his armour. “When did she tell you her name?”

this is something I do intend to cover in a future fic but I also don’t intend for it to be especially dramatic

“A few weeks ago,” says Jaskier. “I didn’t think much of it. Why? Do you mind?”

“Yes,” says Geralt.

Behind the screen water splashes. “Why on earth would you mind?” says Jaskier. Geralt doesn’t answer. “Well – I suppose that’s another one for the list of things I’ll never understand about you – like your sense of humour, and why you spend hours talking to your horse when you’ve a perfectly good dæmon.”

an extra dimension of geralt talking to his horse in this au is that he is used to having his daemon there.

Rising, Geralt begins setting his armour on the chair. “She isn’t always there,” he says.

“Well, yes, but it’s not as if she goes very far,” says Jaskier.

“Sometimes she does,” says Geralt.

In a sudden fluttering of wings, Tansy reappears atop the screen.

“How far does she go?” says Jaskier.

“As far as she pleases,” says Geralt.

A gentle sloshing of water. Tansy turns on her perch, peering down at her bard, something wordless passing between them. “Does it,” says Jaskier. “I mean, do you – I don’t know how to ask.”

“Spit it out,” says Geralt.

“Can you still feel her?”

“Yes.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“No.”

so this scene is (obvs) a kind of a call back to That One Bath Scene in canon. this is the first time they’ve been hm ‘domestic’ together and it’s a little awkward, especially for geralt, who is not used to it. all of which is in contrast with how comfortable they are around each other later.

& this is the most frank (probably) conversation they have over the course of the entire fic and it happens when they are physically screened from each other. and also jaskier is literally naked while geralt is opening up to him. this is all very notable for obvious reasons I hope.

“I see,” says Jaskier, though Geralt doubts he does. It’s difficult for humans to get their heads around the way he and Dag experience the world. Most aren’t interested in trying.

geralt here actively ignoring the fact that jaskier is making an effort to understand

He hears the water moving, and the padding of Jaskier’s bare feet on the floorboards. His clothes are whisked back down from the screen and half a minute later he emerges, his hair towel-damp. “All yours,” he says.

Geralt sits in the still-warm water, and soaks, and listens as Jaskier putters about on the other side of the screen, getting ready to sleep, listens to the steady back and forth of his conversation with Tansy. He hums, and she whistles along.

uh so if you’re an introvert I imagine you’ve probably had the experience of being Alone and Unobserved for the first time in an uncomfortably long time... i have this experience every day when i leave work fjgksfkgjfg

tansy & jaskier talk p much non-stop when they’re (semi)alone

When at last, the water cold, he ventures out from behind the screen, Jaskier is on the bed, scribbling something down in his little book.

“You can have the bed,” says Geralt. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Jaskier shifts over towards the wall. “We’ll both fit. I don’t mind if you don’t.” He glances up from his writing. “Though just to warn you, I’m reliably informed that I kick.”

“He does,” says Tansy from the headboard.

The room smells like candle smoke, and pig fat. The scent of the outdoors still clings to them to their clothes, to Jaskier’s hair. He sleeps facing the wall, the warmth of his body pressed to Geralt’s side. Tansy sleeps with her head tucked beneath her wing. Geralt lies awake, listening to Jaskier’s breathing.

geralt is not affected by this situation at all. he is not even a little bit uncomfortably attracted. nope. nuh-uh.

they don’t ever share a bed in the show but i gather it’s a normal thing to do in the books so for the purposes of this fic, this is a thing that it later becomes normal for them to do.

He mumbles now and then in his sleep. And true to his word, he does kick.

*

Morning comes grey, but dry. They eat breakfast in the tavern. Jaskier chatters, about the weather, the food, the song he was writing in the evening. Geralt tunes him out, and lets his eyes roam over the other patrons. His gaze falls on a pair of old men smoking long pipes. They’re looking at him, at the absence beside him, the empty space he occupies. Caught staring they look away.

Jaskier pokes his arm. “Are you listening to me?” he says.

“Hm?” says Geralt.

“I said you’re even more sullen than usual this morning,” says Jaskier. “What’s got into you? Trouble sleeping?”

Geralt turns his attention to his porridge. “You kick.”

“I’m aware,” says Jaskier. “I did warn you. Well, I dare say –”

A woman is approaching their table, purposefully, stoically. Geralt recognises her attitude. Jaskier is savvy enough to guess.

“You’re the witcher?” she says, as if it’s a question. Her dæmon, a large, horned beetle, clings silently to her sleeve.

always hard w daemon AUs to strike a balance between making it clear to the audience that everyone in this world has a daemon & including superfluous information about daemons who aren’t relevant to the story. originally didn’t include this woman’s but then decided I didn’t have enough background daemons.

this is something i actually paid a lot of attention to while reading the secret commonwealth bcos i wanted to see how pullman handles it.

additionally I think insect daemons are under-represented in daemon au fic so I have been trying to get in as many as I can.

“Well, he’s a witcher,” says Jaskier. Geralt nudges him to be quiet.

She says, “my sister has a job for you.”

*

The wind is picking up. The day is getting thin. Ahead, on the hilltop, the dark outline of a hay barn, stark and flat against the grey sky.

He dismounts, and ties Roach to a tree.

“Is Dag not joining us?” says Jaskier.

“She comes and goes as she pleases,” says Geralt.

“What, did you two have an argument or something?” says Jaskier. Geralt grunts. “Did you? About what?”

“You,” says Geralt truthfully, and Jaskier laughs as if he’s made a joke.

Dag is in the air somewhere above them. Irritated with him as she may be, she hasn’t gone far, this time. She’s watching the valley, her keen hawk’s eyes searching for any untoward movement.

He starts to climb the hill. Jaskier makes to follow. Turning Geralt holds up a hand, halting him in his tracks. “Stay with Roach.”

Jaskier adjusts the strap of his lute. “I can handle it.”

“This won’t be pleasant,” says Geralt.

“Honestly,” says Jaskier. “How do you expect me to write about all this if you never let me see anything?”

“I don’t,” says Geralt.

“Anyone would think you didn’t want me to immortalise your deeds in song,” says Jaskier.

“I don’t,” says Geralt.

“It’s stifling to my creativity, not to mention rude,” says Jaskier. “And wholly unjustified. I have a strong stomach.”

Wavering, Geralt glances at Tansy, on Jaskier’s shoulder. She hms in agreement. He drops his hand. “If you’re sure.”

In the doorway of the hay barn Jaskier turns his face away and retches. “Oh gods,” he moans. “Oh heavens. Fuck me –”

“Go and wait with Roach if you want,” says Geralt.

One hand braced against the door frame, the other over his mouth, Jaskier looks at him. He takes his head from his mouth. He shakes his head. Tansy flutters in the doorway, from the shadow to the light, and resolves. She flies into the barn, up, up to the rafters, and there looks down upon the bodies.

This is where they have brought their dead, this most remote outpost of their village, with the spiders and the rats and the dust. They brought the bodies here, a dozen or more of them, and piled them up, meaning to burn them, meaning to burn this lonely place to the ground.

They’re unmarked. The air is thick with the smell of death. The most recent lies near the door, her eyes open, staring up at the roof. She’s young. Her hair is fair. She’s dressed in an apron, as if she’d just stepped out of her kitchen – to the water pump, perhaps – when she was attacked.

One death such as this, two, they’d bury. This many, in as many days, they know what haunts them, and they fear it like nothing else.

“What killed them?” says Tansy from the rafters.

“Hm,” says Geralt. He crouches to look at the dead girl, to be sure there are no marks on her, as the village healer had said. Taking off his gloves, he touches her face, tilting her head towards the light.

why does geralt take off his gloves. bcos later i had a scene where he’s washing his hands and then it was pointed out to me that he normally wears clothes and so wouldn’t need to. shush.

It isn’t his place to interfere with how these people treat their dead; but this isn’t right. There’s nothing to fear here. They are only dead. The danger, the thing that killed them, has passed. There’s nothing to be gained in consigning their dead to this bleak, anonymous fate.

A scuffling, above. Tansy moving on the rafter.

“Geralt?” says Jaskier. “What killed them?”

“Shh.”

Geralt glances up, at Tansy. She’s perched quivering on the rafter. “What is it?” he says.

“Something moved.”

tansy being a very hm fastidious sort of person translates to being quite perceptive

“I didn’t see anything,” says Jaskier.

“You weren’t looking,” says Tansy.

Geralt rises. He reaches for his sword.

The barn reeks of death. In the semi-darkness he had taken it for one of the bodies piled around it. It’s rising now to its feet, its movements stilted, unnatural. You might take it for a lumbering thing, a slow thing you could outrun. You’d be wrong.

Tansy takes flight, flashing in and out of the light from the doorway, and as she does so it begins to move, crawling forward over the piled bodies with the speed of a darting insect, snatching, grasping at the air above it. Jaskier cries out. “Run!” Geralt barks, raising his sword.

this whole scene was hard for a number of reasons... firstly i don’t know a lot about witcher monsters and spent a while trying to find one that fit the kind of scene I wanted before saying ‘fuck it’ and inventing my own

and secondly I don’t know about anyone else but uhh whenever i want a story to include an action scene in my head it’s just like ‘and then a fight happens!!’

+ w this one as well as planning out the fight i had the extra issue of, how it manages to get hold of Tansy which I. hope i explained satisfactorily. 

The sight of silver gives the dæmophage pause. It halts, its eyes wide and staring, its shoulders heaving. It’s a fluid creature and it no longer needs its human disguise. Its limbs stretch, its spine bends at an unnatural angle, its slit nostrils flaring. It has no mouth. It has no need of one. Frost spreads from its fingers, coating its hands and arms, the bodies beneath it, the packed dirt floor.

He’s aware of laboured breathing behind him. He’s aware, suddenly, that Jaskier has not run. He risks a glance over his shoulder and sees him pressed to the far side of the door frame, gripping the wood with one white-knuckled hand. His other hand is held, clenched, to his chest. The colour has drained from his face.

“Run,” Geralt says. “Run!” Still Jaskier doesn’t move, and stepping back, not taking his eyes off the dæmophage, Geralt reaches blindly behind himself, finds Jaskier and shoves him backwards.

He resists, and in that resistance Geralt feels what has happened, feels it before Jaskier lets out a pained sound, before he says, choked, “Tansy.” For it’s not the resistance of one who doesn’t want to go; it’s the resistance of one tethered, of a tied-up dog trying to run from a fire.

The dæmophage is crawling forward again, one-handed. It’s holding something in its other hand, in a hand thick with ice. He can’t see what it is. He knows what it is. “Geralt –” Jaskier wheezes, and whatever he means to say next he can’t find the breath.

There are many vile ways to die, in the world. Few worse than your dæmon becoming meal to a creature like this, the life crushed from it, your soul slowly, torturously drained away.

He takes off the dæmophage’s arm first, the arm that holds Tansy, and its whole body jerks spraying dark blood across the walls, across the bodies. As its severed arm hits the ground its fingers fall open and he sees her, a fistful of icy brown feathers, but there’s no time to dwell on her, no time to dwell on if he was fast enough, if there is anything left to save. The dæmophage lashes out at him with its other hand, with its sharpening claws; he dodges, swings, and its arm falls to the ground, cut at the elbow.

It takes two strikes to cleave off its head. Its body remains half-upright, swaying, blood bubbling from its neck. He stands over it, sword raised, breathing hard. They’re fluid creatures. Half-shadow. You can never be sure.

It falls. It is still. He lowers his sword.

Behind him Jaskier falls heavily to the ground. Geralt turns to find him on his knees, shuddering all over, gasping, but still conscious, his eyes alert. He slumps forward, catching himself on his hands, and empties his stomach onto the dirt.

“Tansy,” he croaks. “Oh gods, Tansy –” He sees her, still in the dead creature’s hand, melted frost dripping from her feathers. He tries to rise. His legs won’t hold him.

She had been in its grip less than a minute. It must have felt like an age. Geralt is surprised he didn’t faint. Perhaps he’s made of sterner stuff than he looks.

so I don’t imagine this being as much a matter of Inner Strength as much as (as established early) Jaskier & Tansy having a very close and intimate bond, which in turn is a reflection of Jaskier being at ease with himself and the kind of person he is. 

in short this isn’t a matter of jaskier being like, exceptionally brave so much as being like ‘hey! don’t you dare! fuck you!’

Stepping closer Geralt takes his arm and heaves. “I told you to wait with Roach,” he says. But the look Jaskier gives him, of mute, numb disbelief at his coldness, silences any further reproach.

He hauls Jaskier to his feet, but Jaskier tugs his arm from his grip. He wipes his face on his sleeve and staggers forward, falling to his knees once again beside her, reaching for her with shaking hands.

When he picks her up he lets out a gasp of relief – or terror – it’s hard to say which. She doesn’t respond to his touch. She lies limp in his hands.

Jaskier looks up at him, and voice unsteady he says, “she’s cold.”

*

He sets the barn alight. By the time he’s done it’s growing dark, and the wind has died away. He leaves it to burn on its hilltop, to be sure the creature is dead. He’ll tell the villagers to come back when it’s burned to the ground, to take the bones of their dead and bury them properly. They’ll do it, if not for the right reasons.

The barn is a red-orange blaze in the distance. Down in the valley there’s a chill in the air. He can see Jaskier’s breath, though it’s not cold enough for that. He hasn’t stopped shaking. Geralt builds a fire, so he can warm himself, and sets about fastening the dæmophage’s head to Roach’s saddle.

“Geralt, she’s still cold,” says Jaskier. He’s kneeling too close to the fire, Tansy clutched to his chest, hidden in his cupped hands. He’s stripped off his filthy doublet, dark with the creature’s blood. “Geralt. Geralt. She won’t wake up.”

 i don’t know if it actually makes sense for jaskier to have got blood on him but listen i will take any excuse to have him take his doublet off bcos i’m just into it.

“She’ll wake up,” says Geralt.

“Are you sure?” says Jaskier.

“Hm,” says Geralt. He isn’t sure. You can never be sure. But if it had drained enough of the life from her that she was beyond waking, Jaskier’s mind would have broken. She’d be fading away. She was in shock. That was all. She’d wake.

If he’d been fast enough to kill it, but not fast enough to save her – he’d seen it before. He’d seen men and women, their minds broken into icy fragments, spending their last days terrified, in pain, alone. Unable to understand what had happened to them. Sometimes it was more merciful to let the dæmophage finish its meal, and kill them outright.

Not this time. He’d been fast enough.

“She – she won’t wake up, Geralt, she –” Jaskier breaks off in a ragged gasp. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Give her some time,” says Geralt. He fetches a blanket, and tosses it to Jaskier.

Jaskier doesn’t take it. “I can’t wake her up,” he says. “Geralt, what do I do?”

“Stop panicking,” says Geralt.

It’s no good. Jaskier understands what he’s saying, but he can’t keep his thoughts straight long enough to act on it. His mind is clouded. Where his connection to Tansy should be there’s nothing but confusion.

this was a fun opportunity to get a little bit into how the connection between a person and their daemon works :3

“I don’t know what to do,” he says. “I can’t think – Geralt, I can’t –”

His name falls again and again from Jaskier’s lips and it carries a silent plea. Help me. Do something.

He doesn’t know what to do. Or rather he knows what he ought to do, to offer comfort and warmth until this passes, but he doesn’t know how.

If he had seen it sooner. If he hadn’t let Jaskier talk him into taking him into danger. If he’d been quicker, smarter, harsher.

Tansy will get better. Jaskier will walk away from this.

double meaning in ‘walk away from this’ as in ‘survive this’ but also ‘will walk away FROM GERALT because of this’

Tension, behind him. He feels her long before he sees her, long before she ghosts into the firelight on owl-wings. She lands and with a soft rushing of air she’s herself again. Jaskier falls silent, startled at seeing her change, though he knew she cold.

“Jaskier,” she says. “Do you trust me?”

Half-watching, Geralt sees him nod.

“Put her down,” she says.

Jaskier hesitates. “But –”

“I know what I’m doing,” says Dag. “Put her down. Let me see.” Again he refuses, a wordless stammer of protest. “Jaskier. You’re panicking. Breathe deep. Put her down.”

Jaskier lays Tansy down. His hands are still shaking, but his breathing has slowed. That’s something. “What’s happening to her?” he says. “It hurts –”

He’d known it must. But Jaskier hadn’t said so, to him.

Dag noses at Tansy’s tiny, limp body. She licks her, once. “She’s just cold,” she says. “She’s just fainted. She’ll be fine.”

The back of one hand pressed to his mouth, Jaskier sobs.

“Shh,” says Dag. “Jaskier. Be calm.” Then she ducks her head forward, and touches him.

She touches her head to his face, nuzzling him, and at that contact a tremor goes through Geralt like a static shock. It’s only for a moment. Jaskier jerks away from her, as one would if a dæmon came too close by mistake.

this scene was inspired a bit by the part in The Subtle Knife where Pantalaimon physically comforts Will bcos he doesn’t have a daemon to comfort him. Obviously Jaskier does have a daemon, but he’s experiencing her being unconscious while he’s awake for the first time, making him essentially bereft of her.

He turns to look at Geralt, standing by Roach, no longer pretending he isn’t watching this. Their eyes meet. Geralt says nothing. Does nothing.

Jaskier turns back to Dag. Her eyes are lidded. Gingerly, Jaskier raises a hand to touch her. Geralt should cry out stop. He should go over there and drag them apart. He doesn’t.

Jaskier runs his hand over her head, the touch barely-there, just enough pressure to be felt through her fur. Geralt feels that touch like a gentle nudge somewhere within his ribs. It doesn’t feel bad.

He can feel, somehow feel birdsong in that touch. He can feel silk, and music, and laughter. It feels like the smell of perfume and candle smoke. Polished wood beneath his fingers. He’d had another’s hand on Dag before. It did not feel like this.

and THIS description of what touching (or being touched by) a person’s daemon would be like was inspired by how it’s depicted in Disciples of Apollo which is an a+++ daemon AU you should read if you like daemon stuff regardless of whether you’re a fan of M*A*S*H or not... please read it it’s so good.

He wonders what Jaskier feels, touching her.

i do intend to cover this. eventually. if i ever get around to writing more of this series.

Jaskier runs his hand over Dag’s head a second time. She purrs, low and deep in her chest. On the ground, Tansy gasps for breath.

my intention here is that Jaskier’s distress is part of what’s keeping Tansy from waking up, but then as long as she’s unconscious he can’t calm down, so by acting as a kind of stand-in daemon for him Dag is helping him Chill The Fuck Out sufficiently for Tansy to pull herself together.

“Tansy.” Jaskier’s hand falls from Dag’s head, and he reaches for her. “Oh gods, Tansy –” He cradles her in his hands. Her whole body is trembling.

“Jaskier,” she says, and at the sound of her voice all of his breath leaves him, his shoulders shaking, limp, weak with relief. He kisses her, holds her close by his face. Neither of them speak.

Geralt looks away. He meets Dag’s eyes, and she holds his gaze. He understands why she did it. He wouldn’t take it back. He’d do it again, and again. He still doesn’t like it. Dag turns away from him. She lies down beside the fire.

He tucks the blanket around Jaskier’s shoulders, and Jaskier murmurs thanks. He sits. He cleans his sword. The air smells like smoke. They shouldn’t linger here, in the dark. Jaskier’s breath is still fogging the air.

“We should go back to the village,” he says.

“Okay,” says Jaskier. Unsteady on his feet, he levers himself upright with one hand, the other cradling Tansy to his chest. “Okay.”

In the village lights are still burning in the windows. Geralt unties the dæmophage’s mouthless head.

“Should we,” says Jaskier, “talk about this?”

“Hm?” says Geralt.

“You know what I mean,” says Jaskier. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” says Geralt, and taking the creature’s head he marches away.

“I’ve heard of mixed signals,” calls Jaskier in his wake. “But this is ridiculous!”

am not actually 100% happy with this part, i wanted to get this line in but i couldn’t get it to mesh w the tone of the scene

*

The village is too small for an inn, but as well as coin the monster’s head earns them a bed for the night in the alderman’s house, and an invitation to dinner.

The monster’s head, and perhaps Jaskier; Jaskier, whose boyish smile and pretty dæmon had charmed the alderman and his wife at once, Jaskier, who had come back from the hunt pale, and shivering in a way they must recognise.

geralt thinks Tansy is very pretty. that’s just how his tastes run and he genuinely has no idea that most people don’t think nightingales are like, notably pretty.

There’s only one bed in the room they’re given but the alderman’s daughter makes up a cot. He tells Jaskier to take the bed. Jaskier doesn’t argue. Jaskier says nothing at all.

Since his outburst when they reached the village he’s spoken only to say yes and please and thank you. He lies upon the bed, staring at the ceiling, one hand stroking a slow, contemplative circle on his own stomach. Tansy sits on the pillow beside his head, plucking at his hair, grooming at him like a mother cat with a kitten.

Geralt washes the dæmophage’s blood from his hands. It has dried into the creases in his palms, under his fingernails.

“Will you come to dinner?” he says.

“Not very hungry,” says Jaskier.

Stretched out upon the cot, Dag raises her head. “You should eat,” she says.

Geralt sees her indoors so rarely. It takes him off-guard, sometimes, how large she is compared to human things. The alderman and his family must have been startled, to see him go on a hunt without a dæmon and return with one, but they had said nothing about it.

i did not mention that dag is in this scene before she speaks to emphasise that her presence indoors is unusual and unexpected. i am very smart.

She lies alert, tail flicking, watching over Jaskier.

His hands don’t feel clean. He washes them again. “You’re quiet,” he says.

“Hmm?” says Jaskier.

“Are you alright?” says Geralt.

“Since when do you care?” says Jaskier. “I thought you wanted me to shut up.”

“What will it take for you to give me some peace?” he had said, more than once.

“Hell or high water, probably,” Jaskier had answered, sunnily smiling.

If he hadn’t been fast enough. If the creature had taken something that could not be brought back – the light in his eyes. Warmth. A smile he’d never see again. Not like this. He didn’t want it like this.

once again double meaning re geralt thinking that jaskier is going to leave him because of this

He leans heavily upon the washstand. He breathes out. He’d been fast enough. Jaskier was shaken. That was all. He’d be fine.

“I’m just,” says Jaskier. “Thinking.”

“What are you thinking about?” says Geralt.

“What’s it to you?” says Jaskier. A moment’s quiet, and he says, “why don’t elves have dæmons?”

this is my no 1 issue w this fic (which i am otherwise happy with), I really wanted to get this conversation in but wasn’t quite sure where to put it. originally i was going to include it much earlier, and have it be in response to meeting the elves, but i couldn’t get it to work with the pacing and i needed something for them to discuss here so. here it is. i’m not 100% sure it works. i think i understand why jaskier is bringing this up now but i’m not sure how to describe it properly.

The question jars him. It’s like something a child would ask. Why it’s on Jaskier’s mind now, of all times, he can’t imagine. “You know why.”

“I want to hear what you have to say about it,” says Jaskier.

“It’s the way the world is,” says Geralt. “Humans have dæmons. Elves don’t. Others don’t.”

“You’re not human and you have a dæmon,” says Jaskier.

“You know why,” says Geralt again. He can feel Dag’s stare on him, accusing, but he can’t help his frustration. He has the sense that Jaskier is goading him – or trying to catch him out in a lie. He doesn’t know what Jaskier wants from him.

“Do you think it’s lonely?” says Jaskier.

“Being an elf?” says Geralt.

“Mm,” Jaskier agrees.

tbqh it’s just occurred to me now as im re-reading it that part of this is jaskier obliquely asking geralt about his own feelings about having a daemon.

Geralt begins to dry his hands. “You can’t miss what you never had.”

“I don’t know,” says Jaskier. “I miss all sorts of things I’ve never had.”

Geralt waits for him to expand on that thought. But he’s lapsed back into silence. “Elves find dæmons distasteful,” he says. “It bothers them. Like seeing someone with their insides spilling out. They think half-elves born without dæmons are stronger for it.”

At that, mystifyingly, Jaskier laughs a little. “Hear that, Tansy?” he says. “Maybe I would have been stronger if I didn’t have you, like a half-elf. What do you think?”

gjlkghjklghdfj i had so much trouble w this line bcos my beta fully believed that this was jaskier professing that he was half elf so i had to re-write it and somehow at least one reviewer has still thought that was the implication... he’s 100% not half elf in this AU sorry. if i ever get around to writing the sequel it will be evident that he’s not half elf (or like if he is he has no idea) 

Tansy clicks her beak. “I think you’d miss me terribly,” she says. “Even if you’d never had me.”

His hands are dry. He stops running the cloth over them, and sets it aside. “Dag’s right,” he says. “You should eat.”

“If you insist,” says Jaskier. “Where are we going next?”

Geralt turns to look at him. He’s gazing up at Tansy, running a finger over her neck. “After dinner?” he says.

“Tomorrow,” says Jaskier. Geralt says nothing, but his silence must speak for itself, for Jaskier looks at him and says, “don’t think you’re getting rid of me that easily.”

“Why?” says Geralt.

“I’m a glutton for punishment, I suppose,” Jaskier says. “Anyway. I’m working on a song and it isn’t finished.”

“Hm?” says Geralt.

Jaskier’s gaze drifts back to Tansy. “Still needs an ending,” he says.

i wasn’t sure how to end this story and this last line is very cheeky eheheh. i can do what i want.

thank you again for requesting!! i hope u enjoy this commentary. it has been a fun diversion. i’m very pleased w this fic and i love talking about daemon AUs. <3

[caitlinsnicket]

Perhaps a family

Summary: You and Lee go to north with the gipcians, and the night falls. Finally getting some time to rest, you two lay down together in a tent and discuss your future.

Characters: Lee Scoresby, Y/N, Lyra Belaqua.

Warnings: Maybe some curse words, one sexual joke and the usual bad writing.

Pairing: Lee Scoresby x Y/N.

A/N: This doesn’t has even 1.000 words, and I’m sorry for this, but it’s very late and I’m sleepy. I just wanted to write for him. Feel free to like, reblog, or comment. Also, requests are open!

Also, in His Dark Materials imagines, D/N means Daemons Name.

It was colder than I remembered. Lee finally finished building the tent, and he seemed tired. Both of us set our belongings inside and organized the improvised beds. I had talked to Lyra and (against Lee’s protests) she agreed to share the space. Even if he didn’t want to admit it, he did feel affection for the little girl, and I could see it.

After some time, we finally laid down to rest. Even if Lee had spent most of the road on top of his balloon, he still had to help with some things and he felt tired. In the improvised bed, he rested his head in his arms and I laid beside him, doing the same. He sighed, and I could feel Hester nipping at D/N’s head.

“I bet you didn’t expect this trip to be this exhausting”.

“I had no idea. I almost regret going to save Iorek in the first place” He replied with a sigh. I got closer to him, laying my head in his chest, one of his arms circling my waist, caressing the thick lawyerings of winter clothing.

“Do you think it’s gonna be worth it?” I ask, looking at his face.

“Yeah, I mean, they’re going to pay us good money for this trip, plus we could find something in the way”.

“I didn’t mean that” But he knew. He was tense with something, and he didn’t want to talk about it. He was acting in a more caring way, and he seemed to care more about things. About someone “Do you think we’ll be alright in the end? That she’s going to be alright?”.

He sighed once again and tightened his grip in my waist. He wasn’t the most opened person when it came to feelings, actually, the only way I knew how he felt sometimes was through Hester- but sometimes he would open up to me, and this was one of these times.

“I just can’t believe she’s going through all this alone. She’s so young. Just a kid. When I was her age the only thing I cared about was to play with Hester and not upset my mom. Now, she’s in the middle of a war, alone. I don’t like it”.

I smile at him and get up, laying on my elbow to support myself. Looking directly at his face, I studied his concerned forms. He seemed to understand what I was thinking.

“I know what you’re thinking. Yes, she has parents. But she’s still alone, here, in danger”.

“I didn’t mean that. You heard what she said, her father is a liar asshole and her mother is a sycho bitch. She’s better off alone, or with somebody else” He smiles devilishly at me, his brow arching.

“You can be a sycho bitch sometimes,” He says, already protecting his face with his arm.

“Shut up,” I say, punching his stomach. Then, it hits me: he was comparing me to Lyra’s mother. If I knew Lee Scoresby right (and I did), I was aware of what he was thinking “Are you thinking what I think you are thinking?” I ask, frowning my eyebrows.

“What kind of question is that?” He asked, going back to his first position, avoiding my gaze.

I giggle, and I decide to straddle him. He still doesn’t look at me in the eyes, so I trap his wrists above his head, forcing him to look into my eyes. He finally looks defeated and stares at me concerned. I finally realized what he wanted to do.

“You want to take her in. You want to adopt Lyra!” I exclaim, surprised. He blushes, Hester trying to hide under the covers.

“Not exactly adopt. but I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of taking care of her, traveling with her to places, watching you two play with each other’s hair in our house. Nothing really extreme, but hey. A man can dream right?” He explains, averting my eyes from time to time.

“But you never said you wanted kids” I reply, frowning slightly, caressing his cheeks softly. His hands rested in my hips now.

“I didn’t know either. But now I think it changed” He smiles nervously, and I return it with another smile, a reassuring one “So... are you okay with the idea?”.

I think for a moment. I never really thought a lot about kids and babies and stuff, but Lyra was a good kid. And starting a family with Lee seemed like a very pleasant idea. I nod smiling softly at him, and a stunned expression appears in his face. He looks hypnotized, and I can feel Hester and D/N hugging each other.

“I love you,” He says, with a serious expression.

“I love you too,” I say, imitating him.

“Now, are you going to kiss me or I’ll have o do it?” He asks, gripping my hips a little more strongly.

I giggle and get closer, touching my lips to his in a loving kiss. But, what started off as calm and slow, became passionate and desperate. And we would’ve gone further if Lyra hadn’t broken into the tent. She didn’t seem to notice what we were doing, talking about something related to Iorek, so we quickly got off of each other. He answered her question, and I smiled. We looked happy, almost like an actual family. Perhaps, that’s what we were becoming. A family.

[in-tua-deep]

 Masterlist of AUs

okay i’m never putting anything under a read more ever again bc i deleted this whole ass thing and now i’m redoing it so forget me worrying about it being long af it’s what it is my friends

me, scrolling back through my blog: where tf are all my aus smh

(this is why i need them all in one place)

so without further ago, here we go (the title brings you to the tag on my blog, the numbers bring you the posts for that au): 

short stay au - Five jumps forward into the apocalypse and gets stuck, but not for forty-five years. No, in fact, Five is only stuck for one year before he figures out how to get home. Which means the Hargreeves get a lap full of traumatized teenage boy with no idea who the Commission agents trying to kill them are (one)

dolores is the universe au - Dolores isn’t just a mannequin, she’s actually the concept of the universe. The only reason Five can hear her is because overuse of his powers has given him enough exposure to the rift between world that she can reach him. But how to explain this to the siblings who think he’s just traumatized? (one, two, three)

immortal au - The first time Five died, he didn’t know it. The second time was harder to explain. The third and the fourth... well. In the apocalypse, Five figures out that he can’t die, which would be fine except every time he dies he resets himself to thirteen. Puberty? Again? Everyone is more than a little concerned about Five’s lack of concern over his welfare, but hey he’ll start caring again when he’s got further to fall okay? (one)

imaginary friend au - When Five was little, he had an imaginary friend named Dolores. He had that imaginary friend for far longer than he should have, to the point where Reginald intervened. And so they all remember this when Five pops back up toting around a mannequin and calling her Dolores, the only difference is Five has stopped giving a single fuck what old Reggie had to say and he isn’t giving up his friend again so easily (one)

instant arrival au - When Five jumps forward, he doesn’t jump into the apocalypse. Instead, he jumps straight into his father’s funeral. He sort of treats it as a weird vacation until he finds out Ben is dead and tries to return, and finds out he can’t. Now his siblings have to deal with a thirteen-year-old brother who saves the day by just being himself (one, two, three)

barking mad au - Vanya’s apocalypse was more targeted and only killed the humans. Five jumps into the apocalypse and instead of being alone, he’s adopted by the feral packs and colonies that have cropped up. He learns to bark and purr and growl and hiss to communicate, finding friends and family where humanity is gone. Of course, this makes returning to said humanity more than a little bit tricky. It’s not his fault his siblings are dense and don’t understand body language, ugh. (one, two, three)

pushed au - Instead of forbidding time travel, Reginald encourages it. He pushes Five to try it, and so when Five vanishes it’s Reginald’s fault. Written off as no great loss, the siblings realize how disposable they are. Who of them will be the next Five? Trust broken, they don’t stick around to find out and run away. When Five returns, it’s to a very different family who has learned how to depend on one another and protect each other. Together, they figure out how to stop the apocalypse (one)

memory mishap au - The siblings take Five’s hands and jump back in time, and it works! They’re thirteen again! Except for the fact that Five had managed to forget everything that happened since the day he decided to jump forward in time the first time. It’s the others turn to protect him as they run away. Five tries to get his memories back, but is that really what’s best? (one, two)

ghost five au - Five doesn’t leave. He stays, and when that one fateful day happens where one of them is slated to die, Five decides to bite the bullet and take Ben’s place. Even knowing Klaus’s powers, he wasn’t really expecting to wake up as a ghost. He somehow unites the family through the power of being irritating and getting Klaus involved. (one) 

broken five au - Reginald puts his foot down once and for all about time travel, by threatening Vanya’s life if Five puts another toe out of line. Five, fully believing his father capable of getting rid of the ‘useless’ child, shuts down. When his siblings find out what broke Five, they all decide to run away for their own safety as much as Vanya’s. They end up adopted by a woman happily living in the woods in her cabin who wasn’t expecting to adopt seven children but here she is and she certainly isn’t returning them to Reginald so. Seven kids it is. (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven)

run nanny run au - Look the nannies aren’t blind. They know Reginald doesn’t care about the kids and is looking at them like they’re weapons and not people, so it really shouldn’t be as surprising as it is that they decide to just take the kids and run one day. They are going to give these seven toddlers normal childhoods if it kills them, even if they have to dodge Reginald and the law as they do so. And no one forces Vanya to eat oatmeal like damn (one)

travel forward au - Instead of taking them back, Five miscalculates. It shouldn’t be unexpected, seeing as Five has never taken passengers before. But he manages to slingshot them directly into the future - into the apocalypse. The family gets a first hand look at how Five lived for forty years and gain a better understanding of their brother as he frantically works to get them all out again before they starve to death. (one, two)

daemon au - a crossover with the His Dark Materials universe by Philip Pullman, the Umbrella Academy live in a world where their souls walk beside them in the form of animals made of a material called dust. Of course, with these guys it can never be that simple. Ben’s daemon didn’t vanish upon his death and hangs out with Klaus, Luther and Diego’s daemons are always fighting, Allison’s is lazy and disagrees with her constantly, there’s something off about Vanya’s, and Five’s hasn’t settled yet. It’s certainly a bit of a mad house. (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, art)

plush companion au - Dolores wasn’t the only friend Five made in the apocalypse. A terrified and grieving child, he built himself a city out of statues and mannequins and stuffed animals. He built himself an entire world in his own imagination to keep himself from crumbling to insanity. Of course, his siblings have a few question after their brother turns back up and suddenly there’s toys turning up in the manor? (one)

atla au - a crossover with Avatar: The Last Airbender, aka all the kids are benders. In a universe where the Xth avatar is foretold to bring about the end of the world, Reginald manages to get his hands on seven children born whose mother’s hadn’t been pregnant when the day began. Apparently he’s training them to defeat this eventual evil avatar, but little do they know that said avatar is among them and tricked into believing she’s a nonbender (one, two)

suppression au - Reginald doesn’t just use his power suppression drugs on Vanya, he uses them as punishment on the others. They learn that their powers can be taken away on a whim and as punishment, and they’re forced to adapt. Five teaches Vanya the skills he learns to cope without powers, because without them they’re on the same level of competency. Vanya realizes just because she’s ordinary she isn’t useless. A more confident and competent Vanya results, and it changes the future for the better (one)

pianist five au - Vanya isn’t the only child who picks up an instrument. Five learns how to play the decorative piano in the mansion so that he can accompany Vanya’s practice. It becomes more than a hobby. In the end, when words can’t get through to the White Violin, it’s perhaps only music that can soothe the savage beast. (one)

artist klaus au - Klaus was a good artist as a child before Reginald deemed art as being ‘childish’ and forbid it. He forgets until he does some art therapy in rehab, and reignites his passion. He steals notebooks and art supplies and does drawings and caricatures for a quick buck on the streets. When the apocalypse is stopped, he also introduces art therapy to his siblings. It’s just soft tbh (one, two)

out of time au - Five doesn’t jump to eight days before the apocalypse, he jumps to the day of. He has to figure things out and figure them FAST. As such, he’s much more open to delegation and includes Vanya in this because lord knows he’s aware she’s more sensible than half his siblings. And if Vanya and Leonard argue when she wants to look after her brother that she only just got back well, if the apocalypse was prevented by this rift then it’s probably for the best (one) 

how i met your mother au - The Hargreeves jump back in time, but way back to before they were even born. They find their birth mothers, and get to learn exactly who they were, and it’s a little alarming to find out that they’re all people. The kids built them up in their heads as the monsters who gave them up, but they’re just people with hopes and dreams and fears, capable of mistakes and who had to make a choice on the worst day of their lives. (one)

responsible luther au - Five only spends a year in the apocalypse before jumping back and is relieved to find he has four years to stop the apocalypse. Except, Reginald decides that Five isn’t getting out of his hands again and restrains him. The last child left in the house, Luther, has a choice to make. And he makes it. He chooses Five, and absconds with him from the house. Luther tries to help a deeply traumatized Five recover, while also dealing with his reunited family and Reginald teaming up with the Commission to kidnap Five back. To be honest he should have only expected a mess when all the Hargreeves come together (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve)

in the trenches au - Just because Vanya is ‘powerless’ doesn’t mean useless. After all, Klaus doesn’t exactly have a combat based power. So Vanya was included, she was part of the Umbrella Academy, she went on the missions and killed and got hurt and risked her life alongside everyone else. Which means that she isn’t dismissed, she isn’t excluded. She’s as much a part of this as they all are, and that changes everything (one)

post apocalypse au - Just things I think the Hagreeves should get up to in a world where they have to deal with the fact that the world isn’t going to end and they actually have to inhabit it. They decide to try and live instead of whatever they’ve been doing for twenty-nine years, figuring out what they like and don’t like as they go where they were never really allowed to before (one)

late addition au - on one fateful day, forty-three women gave birth despite not beginning the day pregnant. Forty-three women produced forty-four children, and that one extra wasn’t exactly supposed to be there. Indeed, unhappy with the apocalypse plans, the Universe slipped her own child next to another as an almost sleeper agent of sorts. Five grew up with his mother’s voice in his ear, the knowledge that he wasn’t like the others, and a mission to take out the true cause of the apocalypse: the Commission. (one, two)

double trouble au - They stop the apocalypse, but that’s not the end of it because a few days after it all ends Five shows up. Except Five is already there. This is a younger Five who time traveled, except there’s no apocalypse to meet him now. Baby Five manages to convince his elder counterpart to see how long it takes the rest of the siblings to cotton onto the fact that there are two of them, and it’s downright alarming how long it actually takes (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight)

pride and prejudice au - The Hargreeves have returned to Netherfield to figure out the estate after their father’s death. Airheaded Klaus falls head over heels for local soldier Dave Katz, much to the chagrin of over-protective and pig-headed brother Diego. Fortunately, Dave has the fearsome and wonderful Eudora Patch at his side as his best friend. And his little sister, Dolores, is best friends with Five Hargreeves? And for reasons unknown, the Handler is back and sniffing around. (one, two, three, four, five, six)

poster child au - Klaus is a little bit more accurate with that fire extinguisher and Five drops through into the courtyard with a bloody nose and the beginning of a frankly impressive black eye. It’s looking like the poster child for child abuse that Five goes to griddy’s, and Agnes isn’t leaving this abused child alone out front, right? So she witnesses everything and ends up taking Five under her wing and rolling with the whole ‘stop the apocalypse’ train. Along the way she adopts six more children adults, falls in love with an assassin, and saves the world (one)

mechanical boy au - Five and Grace have always been close, in their own way. Away from prying eyes, with careful sentences and unsaid words. Allies in survival against a man who doesn’t care if they live or die. An exploration of a Five who takes more of an interest in his mother, and more in subterfuge. (one, two, three)

ben saves the day au - Instead of Ben dying, it was Klaus. Without his two favorite brothers, Ben drifts away from the family. He leaves when he hits 18 and doesn’t look back. He builds himself a life, gets a job, learns to live. And then of course he’s tossed back into drama central when Reggie kicks the bucket. On the bright side, Ben got one of his favorite brothers back. On the other hand, it appears that Ben got the entire family’s brain cells in the divorce. (one, two, three)

robot five au - Five is just like any of the other Hargreeves, except of course for the fact that he shares more in common with their mother than the other squishier members of the family. It’s a difficult existence, trying to be yourself when even just having free will is too much to ask. But a little trip to the apocalypse and back and Five is done with all this human bullshit and would like very much for people to stop trying to kill his family, thank you. If the others can accept Grace as their mother then on god they will accept Five as their brother. (one, two)

the commission boy au - The Boy was the only success in a series of failures regarding experiments with Number Five’s DNA, or at least the samples left behind after his rather explosive exit. Growing up trained to be the perfect assassin, the Boy eventually discovers the Commission’s dirty laundry. Mainly, the existence of Five. Assuming that Five is another successful experiment and his ‘brother’, the Boy betrays the Commission and embarks on a journey to discover who his family are, and more importantly, who he is. (one, two, three, four, five, six)

hogwarts au - When Five is ten, a woman comes to the house and talks about magic. Reginald tosses her out, but Five follows her and tells her with wide innocent eyes that their father bought them and is planning to expose their ‘powers’ to the world. The magical community can’t have that, and all seven children are bundled up and placed at Hogwarts. They still have their powers, which don’t seem to be linked to their magic in any way, but they’re not about to tell any of the adults that. (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven)

changeling au - When 43 children were born around the world, they became a curiosity that got the attention of a powerful member of the fae, The Handler. Changelings are traditional, so she sent off a minion to swap one of the children with her own - except something goes wrong. The switch isn’t made. One woman assumes she had twins, and gives both of them to Reginald Hargreeves. Five grows up with rules. Lies burn like coal on his tongue, he is bound to his word, and he knows the true power of names. The Handler isn’t willing to let sleeping dogs lie. (one, two, three)

timeboy au - When Five is young, he finds a blue box in an alley that feels like home. He finds a friend, the TARDIS finds family. She finds him again, over and over through the years. Five grows up with the TARDIS’s voice humming in his head, blue glowing on his hands. He asks her to teach him to time travel, and she does. But when he jumps - time screams. It’s wrong. It’s time for a team up between Five and Team TARDIS to fix the timeline, prevent the apocalypse, and learn some important life lessons along the way. (one, two, ao3)

supernatural au - In another world, 43 children appeared out of thin air. In this world, Reginald is a collector. Of what, you might ask? Well just look in his library. Reginald Hargreeves is one of the world’s foremost expects on supernatural and mythical creatures. Why, just look at his children. (one)

pokemon au - Blessed by legendaries, the Umbrella Academy aren’t entirely human. They look human enough, but humans can’t learn pokemon moves. Humans don’t have a type. Reginald wriggles through a loophole, and gets custody of seven legendary children, though of course there are only six on a traditional team. Sorry Vanya. (one)

gym leader au - the Hargreeves are certainly a power family since they were trained from infancy to be the best trainers they can be. Of course, being gym leaders means they’re in the middle of all the weird and wacky shit that happens. Don’t mention the celebi incident that resulted in the dragon gym leader looking like a teenager, for the love of god. (one)

unviable au - Time travel doesn’t work. It needs a conduit. Taking all of time into something as fallible as a human heart... Five gets to the apocalypse, and he doesn’t immediately realize that he can’t touch things any more. He can’t interact with the world. He figures he got stuck in a pocket dimension of some sort, and eventually manages to travel back in time - except the only people who can see him are Klaus and Ben. They tell him that he’s dead, a ghost, but that’s not going to stop him from saving his family and, maybe, the world. (one, two, three)

prophet five au - Five’s time powers are a little different than canon. When he dreams, he sees the future. A possible future. He spends most of his childhood tweaking and prodding at the world to make sure his family is safe, terrified of being discovered. And then he starts dreaming of the apocalypse, of a life he hasn’t lived, and he decides to change the world. But he needs a little help. That’s where Vanya comes in. (one)

delayed au - when forty-three children were born, one mother looked Reginald Hargreeves in the eyes and said, no thank you. She would raise her child herself, thanks. Except her son turns five-years-old, and he’s not safe. He teleports, and he gets lost, and - she turns to the academy in desperation. Five knows about the outside world. Knows that he was loved. Reginald is full of shit, and Five tries his best to save the world. (one)

tog/tua crossover - Five dies in the apocalypse and starts dreaming of other people. Andy has been confused about the immortal child she’s dreamed about on and off for eons. Nile joins the team and with the power of google search, they set off to find the mystery child immortal. Five, on the other hand, would just like to stop the apocalypse and maybe take down the commission thank-you-very-much. (one, two, three)

rebel vanya au - Vanya’s meds suppressed her powers, but her emotions were fine. Vanya grew up loud, grew up sneaking out and acting out because the only attention she could wrench from Reginald was negative attention. With anger in her heart, a friendship with her favorite two brothers based on bashing their father, and girlfriend Helen Cho that was maybe an enemies to lovers orchestra au. When Five pops back up, Vanya isn’t going to let anything get in the way or her and her girlfriend’s concert, so obviously they have to stop the apocalypse. Right? (one)

the red book au - Five finds several things in the apocalypse. He finds an eye, he finds Vanya’s book, and he finds Reginald’s notebook. Five finds out about his sister’s powers when he’s just a teenager, and grows up knowing about them. This... changes some things, when he hops back in time to save everyone. (one, two)

five meets susan au - Susan Pevensie is an old woman now, but that’s okay, because Five is old as well where it matters. They’ve both lived through loss and love and heartache, both know what it’s like to be too old to be so young and too young to be so old. They both know what it’s like to be lost in a world so different from the one they knew before. They both know what it’s like to be left alone. But that’s okay, because Five needed someone who understands him and Susan is the closest thing he’s got. (one, two, three)

oneshots - Just little oneshots, usually within the scope of vague canon or post-stopping the apocalypse times where I write about just family bonding and conversation I would like to see happen in canon. Usually about the siblings bonding and occur on a whim. (one)

[pierrotdameron]

Dafne Keen does not much look like Lyra Belacqua, at least not as Philip Pullman describes her in His Dark Materials. In Northern Lights, the first book of the trilogy, she is “like a half-wild cat”, with dirty fingernails, green eyes and grubby blond-ish hair. Keen, who is half British, half Spanish and lives in Madrid, is darker and is already the master of an intense glare, as anyone who saw her alongside Hugh Jackman in the Wolverine swansong Logan will know. When we meet, in a London hotel, she has the self-possessed cool of a total pro, even at 14. But there are plenty of Lyra-esque flourishes that make it obvious why she got the part.

She was almost 12 when she finished filming Logan. She had heard about the BBC/HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials, then in its early stages, and sent in an audition tape. But she didn’t hear back. “I thought, never mind, I’ll just carry on with my life,” she says. “Which is when I got stung by the jellyfish.”

The production team had finally replied, asking her to make another tape. Keen was on holiday in Puerto Rico. “I thought, right, I’m going to have a chilled-out swim and then I’m going to get ready. I suddenly felt this thing on my face and then it started stinging and then it expanded all over my face. I ran to my mum and I went, ‘Mum! Is it really red?’ My mum went, ‘No it’s fine.’ And then she went, ‘Oh no, it’s not fine.’” Her face was red and swollen but she had to do the tape. “So my audition is with a jelly-face,” she smiles.

The next step was to meet Ruth Wilson, who plays Mrs Coulter, one of the best evil characters in children’s literature. “I was sitting in the waiting room with 20 other girls,” Keen remembers. “I was thinking, oh god, they’re all blond. I don’t physically look like this character, and these girls all do. I went in, shook hands with Ruth, and five minutes later, she looked at me and said, ‘You know, you have the same eyebrows as me.’” Fans of the books will know that this is a big thumbs up. Days later, she began rehearsals, with Wilson and puppets. In Pullman’s books, people have daemons, an animal manifestation of their “inner self”, which lives alongside them. Because the daemons on screen are CGI, the actors shot their scenes with puppets to make their interactions as authentic as possible.

When Philip Pullman writes, he isn’t trying to bring down the church, he’s bringing down the system

Naturally, Keen is practised at describing what her own daemon would be, were this world to have daemons in it. “Mine is quite easy to figure out, because it’s what everyone called me on set. Everyone calls me Monkey.” In the books, daemons change form until their human reaches adulthood, when they settle as one fixed animal. Keen particularly liked hers as a pine marten.

We meet the morning after the world premiere of His Dark Materials, which was the first time Keen had watched it. “Everybody had seen it apart from me! I’m really busy filming season two, so I had no time to watch it. I had Philip Pullman right next to me, and I was like, oh god! But I think he liked it.” Did he offer his approval? “His wife came up to me and was really lovely and was saying I was the perfect Lyra. I was really happy to hear that.”

Keen had not read the trilogy before she auditioned. “Now I’m a massive, massive fan. As soon as I read the books, I knew this was a good message to the world, and it’s important that we have stories about young girls, because there aren’t many,” she says. At the premiere, Jack Thorne, who wrote the screenplay, likened Lyra to Greta Thunberg. Though she does not know it, the future of the world rests on Lyra’s shoulders, and she has to fight tooth and nail to defeat the forces that wish to suppress free will and independent thought. Keen approves of the Thunberg comparison. “I am genuinely in awe of that girl.”

There have been various adaptations of His Dark Materials over the years: a Radio 4 series, a play at the National Theatre and the 2007 Hollywood attempt, The Golden Compass, with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. It was supposed to be a trilogy, but only the first was made – and Pullman’s theme of an abusive authoritarian religious body was watered down almost beyond recognition. The television series seems more comfortable with its source material, and its Magisterium, the governing body of the Church, is portrayed as a fascist regime.

In 2007, the Catholic League called for a boycott of The Golden Compass, despite the religious references being excised, and the Vatican also denounced the film and Pullman’s writing. Keen had seen it – was she aware that this new version might be controversial, given the backlash the movie attracted? “I thought that was sad, but I understand why they had to do it,” she reasons, diplomatically, of the decision to soften the book’s themes. “But I think people are reading too much into it. When Philip writes about the Magisterium, he’s not bringing down the church, he’s bringing down the system.”

Keen was born and raised in Spain and is bilingual. Her mother María is Spanish, and as well as being her acting coach is also an actor, as is Keen’s father Will. He has a part in His Dark Materials, as Father MacPhail, part of the Magisterium faithful. “He is terrifying,” says Keen. “He always plays bad people. I don’t know why because he’s so nice. I genuinely think it’s because he’s bald and has green eyes.” She practically grew up in a theatre rehearsal room, because of her parents, but she thought she would be a biologist, like David Attenborough. “Then I found out you have to study biology, and to do that you have to study maths, and I went, mmm no, I’m not doing that. I hate maths so much, you can’t even imagine.”

A friend of her mother’s was making a short film, and needed a child for it, so Keen gave acting a go. She loved it. She did a series in Spain, The Refugees, alongside her father. (“He was playing my evil father, yes. Always got to give it the psychopathic twist.”) She picked up an agent, who put her forward for Logan, and she got down to an audition with Jackman. “In the waiting room, once again, there was this perfect LA beautiful blond girl. I was just, like, a small, scrappy Latin girl. I always think it’s not going to work out for me, and then it went really great.” She auditioned with Jackman, then asked if she could try again, only this time she said she’d like to improvise the scene. She was 11. “My heart was beating big time,” she says. “I thought, I’m just going to dive in and ask them, and they loved it, so I was lucky.”

Jackman remembers the audition well. “[Director] Jim Mangold looked at a lot of actresses for Laura. When he told me about Daf, I was hopeful, but when we tested together, I was blown away,” he says over email. “She was every inch Laura. When Jim asked her if there was anything more she wanted to show us, she said, ‘Can I improvise?’ That’s the actor that got the part and who you see on screen.”

“Hugh is the nicest human being,” she grins. “I used to call him the human jukebox because he was always singing. Lin does the same thing.” Lin is Lin-Manuel Miranda, who plays Lee Scoresby in His Dark Materials. He got Keen tickets to see his smash-hit musical, Hamilton. “Two VIP Lin-Manuel Miranda guest tickets. I felt like such a diva.” On set, she would find herself singing the songs from it, but was too shy to sing when he was there. When Miranda had finished shooting, they all went for a meal to see him off. The bartender recognised him, and put My Shot on the stereo. “Me and Lewin [Lloyd, who plays Roger] were like, we’re not throwing away our shot, we’re singing this song.” They all joined in. “I’ve got videos of me and Lin singing it.”

Right now, Keen is preparing to go back to Wales to film season two, which loosely adapts The Subtle Knife, the second book in the trilogy. The third season, which will take on the astonishingly ambitious The Amber Spyglass, may take a little longer to pull together. Still, she is happy to live as Lyra for a while yet. She has taken plenty of her away from the experience already. “She taught me to speak up. Be bold, be brave, be yourself. Don’t follow rules, because rules can be useful, but they can be very stupid and pointless,” she says – sounding very much like her Lyra herself.

[belmontsfate]

MoF - Awakening: Ch 3

Having a proper battle cross proved useful, as Simon quickly discovered. It allowed him to climb higher, reaching places he hadn't had access to before, as well as swing across entire rooms without ever touching the floor. It was a nice addition to have.

Despite this, he felt miserable.

He wouldn't admit it out loud, but he missed his vampire friend. It was nice having someone to watch his back. Someone to stand alongside him, fighting as his equal. Although, he supposed that he couldn't quite consider Alucard as his complete equal. Alucard was a vampire with abilities that far surpassed his own.

Still, it was nice to at least have someone to actually talk to rather than just talking to himself or the Lost Soul that had reappeared shortly after Alucard's departure.

Simon continued on with his request regardless, fighting all manner of strange beasts along the way. He fought magical floating books that conjured monster's in the castle's library, and found himself face to face with the creatures responsible for his mother's death; the lycans. Needless to say, he enjoyed taking his anger out on them.

Somehow he ended up in some sort of workshop. Inside there were all sorts of different metal contraptions, most of which resembled that of children's toys, only on a much larger scale. The faces had been painted to make them look disturbing, as if they would come alive at any moment and swallow someone whole.

Simon kept an eye on the freakish toys as he passed, not trusting them, or much of anything else in this castle for that matter.

As he got further in, he found yet another strange contraption. In the center was a tall round pillar and attached to it were many long poles featuring the heads of different monsters at each end. Approaching it, he eyed it with curiosity, wondering what it was for.

Unfortunately, he was soon to find out, for soon enough the floor began to move underneath his feet and with it the poles.

He found himself trapped in an obstacle course, electric beams blocking his escape, forcing him to run, jump and duck just to avoid being hit by the poles that moved up and down at random.

It was physically brutal, even for someone like Simon who had trained his whole life, building up as much strength and endurance as he could. By the time it started to slow down, Simon desperately needed to catch his breath.

That was when he noticed something moving below him.

Crouching down to peer down through the grated floor, he saw strange mechanisms, which he assumed were operating the obstacle course. It was dark down there, so he wasn't entirely sure, but he swore he saw a figure moving the mechanisms around.

He didn't have time to see any more, as the hellish obstacle course started to move again, this time in the opposite direction.

With a groan, Simon got up and resumed dodging the poles.

Eventually he grew weary and tired from the exertion, and ended up getting hit a couple times, knocking him flat on his back. He didn't bother to get up, knowing that he would just get knocked down again, and instead watched as the poles spun around above his head, making him feel dizzy in the process.

Finally it came to a screeching halt. Simon waited a few minutes to see if it would start up again. The electric beams soon fell, signalling that it was indeed over. It was safe for him to get up.

"Thank God!" Simon exclaimed, a sense of relief washing over him. "Whoever created that thing had to be out of his mind."

"It was the toymaker; one of Dracula's servants," came a voice that he had quickly become familiar with.

A few moments later, a swarm of bats came flying through the grating, gathering at the base of the contraption as they began to take the form of the white-haired vampire.

"He created this as a trap, along with many others, for those who dared to intrude upon his master's castle," Alucard explained.

"It was you," Simon realized. "You were the one working the mechanisms. You helped me."

Alucard merely nodded.

"Why? Does it involve my father?" Simon tried yet again to get the vampire to open up. "And don't lie to me. It's clear that you knew him."

Alucard didn't reply, but rather stared at him with an intensity that gave him goosebumps. The vampire could definitely be intimidating when he wanted to.

"Let's just say that I vowed to make sure no one else would suffer as he did…" came his cryptic reply.

This wasn't enough for Simon. The vampire had just admitted that he possessed knowledge of how his father had died, yet he was unwilling to share anything more. It was infuriating. It wasn't as if he was some child who couldn't handle the truth. He expected it to be a gruesome tale, but he felt that he needed to hear exactly what happened in order to find closure.

"I don't suppose you have changed your mind about facing the Prince of Darkness?"

"Not a chance," Simon insisted. "I told you, I must avenge my parents."

Something changed within Alucard in that moment. His previously intense expression softened and his shoulders seemed to drop slightly.

"How did your mother die?"

The question caught Simon off guard. Why would he want to know how his mother had died? Why should he answer this question when the vampire didn't answer any of his own.

Regardless, he felt as though he had no choice. He wasn't sure if this was Alucard's doing, using his powers to force the information out of him, or if it was the haunted look about the vampire's face.

With a sigh, Simon began to retell his story. "My father came to this castle many years ago when I was but a child. He came to destroy the evil that lives here. He never returned."

There was a brief pause as he reflected on what he could still remember of that fateful day.

"He must have greatly angered the Dark Lord, for soon after, Dracula attacked the Brotherhood Stronghold with his legions. None survived. My mother was killed trying to keep me safe."

Alucard closed his eyes, as if on the verge of tears. "I am so sorry…"

Simon raised a brow. Sorry? Why was he so sorry? It wasn't as if he was the one to blame. No, that was Dracula.

"For what are you sorry?" he asked. "Who are you?"

The vampire just shook his head and retook the form of a swarm of bats.

"Wait!"

Simon called after him to stay, but it was no use.

He couldn't figure Alucard out. We're all vampires this vague? One moment he was helping him, claiming that he too wanted to destroy Dracula and then the next he was trying to persuade him against doing so.

Turning, Simon found the Lost Soul floating behind him, as if he only appeared when Alucard was gone. He didn't understand that either.

"Who is he?" Simon asked the specter-like creature, pulling the mirror shard from around his neck. "Show me! With this! Now!"

The Lost Soul made no attempt to move, nor did the mirror glow as it had before when he was shown his father's battle cross.

This frustrated him even further.

"You stupid creature!"

Simon raised his fist to punch the creature, but the Lost Soul caught his arm before he could deliver the blow.

Then he too left.

"Why won't anyone answer me?!"

...

Alucard had to get away. He couldn't let Simon see him in such a state of sorrow. As any father, he hated the thought of having his own son see him cry. It was worse in his case, as not only was he a vampire whose eyes could only produce tears of blood, but it also raised too many questions … questions that he could not bear to answer.

And so Alucard fled from the toymaker's obstacle course and up into one of the old man's many workshops, taking a moment to make sure it was deserted before transforming back.

Only then did he allow himself to let it all out.

It was all his fault. He knew it to be true. Simon had come to the castle because of him, or rather because of the mirror he had so ignorantly gifted him before he left. If only he had known then what he knew now, both in regards to the mirror as well as the truth behind his father's past.

The more he considered it, the more he realized that it was not in fact his fault, at least not entirely, but rather it was the fault of the Brotherhood.

He knew now that the Brotherhood of Light had betrayed him, leading him down a path that would lead to ruin for him and his true family. It was because of them that his father had become the monster that he was, and it was because of them that he had died at the hand of his father, only to be turned as an act of desperation to save him.

And yet he found that he didn't hate them, at least not as his father did. Despite everything, he could not forget about the love he had felt towards the company of men that had served as the only family he had ever known for many years.

While he did understand his father's rage towards them, he could not bring himself to think them entirely evil. He realized that there were probably many men who, much like him, grew up in their care, following them blindly as any obedient child would, never knowing that they were being deceived. If anything, he felt sorry for them.

Just then, he sensed another presence.

Pulling out his combat cross, he assumed battle stance. "Show yourself!"

Gears began to turn on the strange device before him, yet another invention of the toy maker. Soon enough a creature began to emerge, rising from the device's center.

The creature was monstrous looking in every aspect imaginable. With a head that resembled that of a lion with green fur, multi colored wings sticking out of his back, legs of bleached bones and a tail to match, it was hard to figure out exactly what he was supposed to be.

"Look at what you have become," the creature chuckled as he crawled off the device and towards him "Do you even remember me?"

It took Alucard a few moments, but eventually he did recall.

His eyes widened, for he hardly recognized him. "You're the Daemon Lord I destroyed when I first came to the castle!"

"That's right," said the Daemon Lord. "And now, thanks to the toymaker, I can return the favor!"

And just like that, the battle was on.

The Daemon Lord was stronger than he remembered, with powers that he never had before. One such example was the fact that he could now shoot lasers out of his tail.

However, the Daemon Lord wasn't the only one who had become more powerful. Although he wasn't as proud about it as his opponent seemed to be, he too had been remade, in his case, into that of an immortal vampire.

"I've been looking forward to the moment when I would crush you into dust," the Daemon Lord taunted. "And once I'm done with you, I'll do the same to that foolish son of yours."

Alucard growled.

The brotherhood's crimes against him did not evoke his anger, but hearing the threat made against his son filled him with a rage that threatened to consume him.

"You leave Simon alone!"

The Daemon Lord only chuckled as he climbed back onto the device, taking the controls.

Alucard soon discovered that the device, much like his tail, shot out laser beams, only two of them, one from each side of the machine. It was quite a long process, trying to destroy the laser emitters all the while dodging all the lasers, but he found a way to dodge them easily enough with help from his combat cross and the conveyor belt attached to the ceiling.

"Let's be done with this then!" roared the Daemon Lord as he flew from his station and scooped up the vampire in his skeletal claw.

Returning to one of the electric charging stations, the Daemon Lord got a good laugh as he electrocuted his prey.

It was hard for Alucard not to scream out in pain as a jolt of electricity pierced through his body, shaking him intensely, but he bore through it and managed to free himself with a bit of effort. There was one flaw with having bones for hands, and that was that they were slippery.

In the end, he managed to knock him back into the hole he had come from. Unfortunately, the Daemon Lord managed to grab hold of his leg, hauling the vampire down with him.

They fell for a long time without any end in sight. Alucard did briefly wonder where it led to, but had little desire to find out for himself.

Severing the leg that had a hold of him, he lunged at the Daemon Lord, sinking his fangs into what little remained of his actual flesh, consuming every last drop of blood in his mutated body, and with it, the creature's powers.

When he was certain that the Daemon Lord was drained and powerless, he let go, discovering that he had sprouted a pair of demonic bloodstained wings, allowing him to fly up out of the never-ending pit and back out. No sooner had he landed safely on the floor above, then the device exploded, crumbling in on itself and blocking the pit's entrance.

He felt no pity nor mercy at the demise of the creature, but rather he saw it as one less monster to worry about … One less creature to protect his son from …

With that in mind, he flew out of the workshop to go find Simon again. Something told him that he was going to need more help.

[atlas-the-worldbuilder]

So! It’s that time of year again, magik is in the air, and monsters are prowling the streets. Time I say we share a good old-fashioned halloween folk story!

Before I begin, let me first clarify a few things. Firstly, this is an old story; the fable has roots in Ireland, and has been around at least several hundred years. As such, several different versions of the story have cropped up, so if you’ve heard a different version of the story, do not fret. For this telling, I’ve selected the iteration of the story which I personally feel is most faithful to the characters and the natural flow of the story itself. Secondly, this is a story with deep cultural and religious ties. Being an Irish folktale, of course, there’s going to be a heavy mix of Christian/Catholic themes alongside more abstract pagan beliefs. I myself say you’re more than welcome to believe whatever you wish, but for those of you who get offended easily by mentions of religion, you may wish to forgoe reading this tale.

That being said, let’s begin this story about a terrifying being who stalks the night every year! Though you probably know him already, in one form or another~...

THE TALE OF STINGY JACK

So! Our story begins a long, long time ago, in a small Irish town - more specifically, the pub of the old Irish town. Sitting in the pub, drinking to his heart’s content, was a man known to the local residents as “Stingy Jack”. Stingy Jack was known around town for many reasons; as the nickname suggests, he was rather cheap and selfish, and was very much known for his avarice and... generally being an all-around jerk to people. However, he was also known for being a rather shrewd and tricky individual; he could always find cash around when he needed it, or ‘convince’ some poor stranger to part with some change.

Another thing Jack was known for was being the town drunkard, and presently he was living up to that reputation. On this particular day, though, Jack had run into a bit of a problem. He had just finished his mug, and was going through his pockets to pay for another, only to find he did not have enough! He cursed to himself, and idlely grumbled, “Damn... I’d sell my soul for one more beer.”

So just imagine Jack’s surprise, when who should happen to hear this plea... but the Devil himself!

The Devil pops into the pub, and takes a seat next to the rather surprised Jack. “So I hear you’ll sell your soul for one more drink, eh?”, the Devil asked, smiling with that devilish grin of his. “I think I can help with that! If you agree to give me your soul, I’ll give you enough change for a final drink at the bar. What do ya say, Jack?” Now Jack, as we covered, was many things - a cheater, greedy, and selfish among them. But one thing he was most definitely not was a fool; he recognized at once that making a deal with the Devil would end up with his desires being twisted or convoluted. But rather than doing what most people would do and decline, Jack decided to try his luck at out-swindling the swindler. “I got a better idea,” Jack replied with a sly grin. “If you turn yourself into a coin, I’ll spend you for my last drink for the night. Then you can change back to normal, and cheat the bartender out of his payment! What do ya say?”

The Devil chuckled aloud. “I like the way you think!”, he confided, and with that, he promptly turned into a gold coin to be spent. However, Jack instead took the devil coin, placed it inside his pocket, and held it against a crucifix he had in his pocket! Unable to shield himself from the sacred icon, the Devil began to shriek and shout. “Please! Stop! It burns!”, the coin shrieked in agony. “I’ll do anything you want, just take it away and set me free!” “Ok then,” Jack replied with a victorious smirk, “I’ll let you go if you promise that I won’t go to Hell when I die!” “Sure, fine!”, the devil cried in pain. “Just let me go!” Jack smiled, and tossed the coin away. The Devil disappeared, and Jack had got his wish.

For the rest of his mortal life, Stingy Jack indulged himself in the most deplorable of activities. He murdered, he stole, he drank, he performed just about every sin and crime in the book. After all, with no worries about where he would end up, he had nothing to fear anymore!

When Stingy Jack’s death finally came to pass, there were more than a few among the townsfolk who were grateful to be rid of his debauchery. Jack’s soul left his body with an air of smug joy, and followed the path to heaven, ready to indulge himself in his afterlife. However, as he approached, the gates remained locked. Confused, he approached the gatekeepers and asked why he couldn’t go to heaven.

“Your soul is too wicked,” the gatekeepers said. “We cannot accept you here.” “I can’t go to Hell, though,” Jack countered confusedly. “Doesn’t that mean I go to Heaven?” Again, the gatekeepers refused him entry due to his wicked soul.

Jack tried again and again to argue his point, but each time was steadfastly refused. Stunned and confused, Jack reluctantly turned away from heaven and began to follow the path. Without a place to rest, his soul wandered the dark, mysterious realm between Heaven and Hell... the Other Side.  For months he wandered, trying to process the gatekeeper’s refusal while avoiding the unearthly shapes and ominous sounds hiding all around him. Finally, though, it dawned on him... the afterlife wasn’t all or nothing, as he had believed.  Heaven was only a place where the goodhearted could reside; because he had lived his life with selfish and greedy intent, he could never truly gain the enlightenment and peace that realm offered. 

Somewhat defeated, Stingy Jack trudged back along the path, down to the only place he had left... the very place he had declined access to...

When he finally arrived at the gates to hell, a familiar face greeted him, his smile full of savage and cathartic schadenfreude.  “Well, well, well! Look who comes crawling back to me!”, the Devil gloated with a cackle. Jack knelt down. “Please,” he begged, “I understand now, and I’m sorry.  I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I just... I need a place to rest. I can’t stay out here, so please let me take back my wish?”

The Devil frowned in thought; while he wasn’t particularly eager to have someone like Jack in his domain - especially after the horrible backstab he’d received -, it seemed somewhat unfair to let the swindler go empty-handed...

With a vile smirk, the Devil grabbed a burning hot coal from the ground at his feet. “Here, this should help light your way!”, he called out as he tossed it over the gate. “Careful, its hot!”

As Jack caught the burning coal, a couple things happened. Firstly, his hand was severely burned, as the coal seared his skin, and he screamed. Secondly, the hellish energies and magik from the coal began to mutate and warp his body. His body twisted and stretched, as Jack was transformed into a freakish entity, daemonic energy radiating from his once mortal body.

With the Devil’s laughter ringing in his ears, Stingy Jack slunk back into the darkness, clutching the coal. Rejected by heaven and hell, he spent what felt like an eternity wandering the dark, twisting, foreboding lands of the Other Side. All the while, he held the searing hellfire coal in his hands - too painful to squeeze it tight, but too afraid of losing it forever to let go. After all, it was his only source of light and warmth, in the darkness. And it likely would’ve remained that way, but then Jack gained a small reprieve.

Whether it be through sheer determination or from some bizarre supernatural strength granted by his transformation, Stingy Jack managed to hold onto that burning coal until a very special day came. That day, of course, was All Hallow’s Eve - Halloween.   A day when the mortal world and the Other one start to grow closer together, and the monsters and strange beings from the Other Side start to slip into our world to explore while they can.  Jack, too, managed to cross over, and made it back to his hometown under cover of night.

But he didn’t come to relive the old days, or to apologize to the townsfolk he had wronged; Jack only had a short amount of time before he would be forced to return to the darkness.  He only had one goal: finding something to carry the coal in, so he wouldn't be pained any longer.

So he stumbled through the night, still clutching the eternally-burning coal in his hand.  After several hours of lurking through the woods, he found his way into a farm, where he found a collection of freshly-harvested gourds. He picked a small one, carved a hole in the front and top, hollowed it out, and tied it up with some rope to carry it. Then, he dropped the coal in, and carried it like a lantern, managing to complete all this before slipping back into the darkness.

And this is how he got his name, “Jack of the Lantern”.

The ending of this story differs from telling to telling.  Some like to think that old Stingy Jack has taken this new opportunity to redeem himself, and has taken up the role of a gatekeeper himself, keeping the monsters from the Other side from causing trouble and guiding them back at the end of every Halloween. Others like to think that Jack has only became even more vile and cruel after his transformation, and now lives for the pure enjoyment of the suffering of others, be it mortal or monster.  Unable to sway from his sinful and sadistic past, and now with the powers of a daemon, he has truly become the most monstrous of monsters.

And then there’s those - myself included - who like to take a more benign middle stance: having made peace with his past mistakes, Jack is nowadays just an incurable prankster, living to cause a good scare once in a while, making him not much different than the monsters he walks amongst.

Whatever you believe, the end result is the same.  Jack has earned a reputation among the monsters of the Other Side as a being whom is best not to provoke.  And this reputation is the reason we carve Jack-O-Lanterns every Halloween: to scare away monsters by tricking them into thinking that Stingy Jack’s lurking around. When a monster sees the carved pumpkin, glowing with the light of a flame, they take notice and give it space.

So keep yourselves safe this Halloween, friends.  And if you happen to see a Jack-O-Lantern on its own in the woods... ...run. 

[tarotdeckshuffle]

Can i request the chocobros + Ravus and Nyx reacting to a s/o with powers like the Scarlet Witch or power over thunder and lightning that kicks ass during battle and protects them??

Friends…I haven’t seen Endgame, yet…But I’m a huge X-Men fan so I based some of this on Storm.

IT’S BEEN EDITED AND IS A LITTLE BIT BETTER! 

Taglist: @idiotflowerex, @laststory1013, @sayaoqueen, @jophinabean

If you like what you read, please consider supporting me on Patreon or buying me a Ko-fi!

Noctis

Wants to protect you in battle.

And show off by warping everywhere.

But he didn’t plan this fight out.

He’s getting overwhelmed with nowhere to warp to.

MTs surround him.

As he feared what this mistake would cost in pain,

The heavens themselves cracked open.

And a huge “BOOM” shook the ground.

Electricity jumped between the metal soldiers.

Silence, then they all collapsed.

As the smoke cleared, it became obvious.

Lightning struck the MTs surrounding Noct.

He turned to see if you were all right.

Rather, he found your eyes aglow and your hands raised before you.

Pointing towards those struck down.

Noctis is absolutely stunned for a moment.

He stares at you,

Fear edges on his features.

“What.was.that?”

He doesn’t manage many words as he strides towards you.

You’re terrified of how he’ll react.

So many have struck out in fear or anger.

Or he could consider you like a god, which is even worse, in your eyes.

But he stops before you, taking your hands in his.

“That was amazing!”

He is as excited as a child seeing a magic trick for the first time.

He runs a finger over your palms, testing them.

“I…I didn’t know you could do that! How?!”

He’s truly excited and in awe of your powers.

Noctis would understand the weight this gift is upon your shoulders,better than anyone else.

He’d be there for you,

Helping you master your abilities,

And helping you if you made a mistake.

He understands the responsibility you have,

But will also shows you a few tricks you can do with powers.

He has a respect for you and your powers, knowing them to be one in the same.

Side by side, you can take on the world together.

Prompto

You’re in the heat of battle,

Prompto wants to show off by using the bazooka.

But he gets hit in the back as he fires,

Causing the missile to go way off course.

It hits an airship!

Actually taking out one of the engines!

But the victory is short lived as the great machine starts to make a crash landing.

It’s heading straight for you!

Chaos ensues,

Prompto runs for you, trying to protect you,

But you’ve got this.

A red mist swirls around you as you change the trajectory of the ship.

Keeping it in the air long enough for it to pass overhead.

Prompto’s eyes lock onto the airship as it passes and settles on you.

You’re still aglow.

He’s speechless.

You fear he’s terrified of you now.

“THAT WAS SO COOL!!”

He’s enamored with what you can do.

Super supportive!

Wants to make sure your powers don’t hurt you in any way.

Can you lift him?

That would be so cool.

He’d find a way to work with you during fights.

You’d find a way to fight together with your S/O and your powers.

He’s so proud of you.

He’d show you off, if you wanted him to.

Imagine a scene where Prompto if facing off with a badie.

He’s face to face with them.

They brag about their abilities.

“Yeah? Well watch this!”

And he’d just step aside to let you do your thing.

He’s always loved comics, now he’s dating a real life superhero!

Ignis

You’re backed against a cliff,

Fighting advancing daemons on a moonless night.

You’ve been separated from the rest of the guys.

“I fear the odds are against us, love.”

Ignis grits his teeth, standing by your side.

The scene really is grim.

You won’t let it end this way.

“Iggy, stay low and close your eyes when I tell you to, ok?”

“What?!”

He’s confused, but you know he’ll comply.

You raise your hands, summoning the power of the sky.

Storm clouds form.

The wind picks up around you.

“NOW!”

Ignis is confused, but ducks low and covers his head.

Light and sound fracture the earth.

Blinding light forces Ignis to close his eyes.

Daemons still stand.

So again you let the sky smite them.

They all burn to ash.

You release your elemental control.

The air still buzzes with electricity.

Ignis gets to his feet, scanning the area.

Great black marks indicate where daemons once stood.

He stands, staring at the craters.

He’s…oddly silent.

Oh, gods, what is he thinking.

But you saved his life! He should be thankful,

But what if he’s afraid of you?

“That was…unexpected.”

Is all he says, still not facing you.

“Iggy?”

Finally, he turns to face you.

He places a hand on your cheek, staring into your eyes.

“Are you alright?”

You smile up at him, nodding.

“I’m certainly grateful for what you did. But next time…warn me.”

He smiles, joking at you.

“You’re not…scared?”

You seem to question him as much as yourself.

“No.”

Your eyebrows raise towards him.

“There are many with outstanding magical capabilities: Noctis, Lady Lunafreya, the Glaives. You are one such as them. I just…didn’t know.”

“Comparing me to the prince and the Oracle seems a bit extreme,” you say through laughter.

“I think not.” Ignis leans in to kiss you.

You’re amazed at how quickly Ignis seems to adjust to the news.

But the two of you agree to keep it your little secret.

The other men may not adjust to it so well.

He is truly proud of you.

But he wants to know the extent of your capabilities and the costs they inflict on you.

But you do enjoy surprising him with a shock, every now and then.

Doesn’t make a great ordeal out of knowing you have powers and still treats you the same, but he is proud of you and your capabilities.

Gladio

You’re deep in an abandoned mine.

Separated from everyone else due to a cave in.

The whole structure is unstable, but you can’t escape.

Daemons are advancing on you,

Forcing you deeper into the tunnels.

Gladio has your hand as you run.

You’re far beyond lost, now just running whichever way has the fewest screams.

Rounding a corner, the whole structure begins to shake.

Daemon eyes advance in the dark.

Dust starts to fall from the ceiling.

“CAVE IN!” Gladio yells.

He wheels around to grab you, sheltering you in his arms.

You kneel, your Gladdy covering you with his body, as rocks start to fall from the ceiling.

Larger rocks follow…

He’s prepared to die for you.

But that won’t happen today.

The sounds of falling rocks echo through the tunnels.

Daemons scream as they get buried.

Gladio shuts his eyes and holds you tight, expecting the inevitable.

The earth shudders.

Then silence.

Gladio opens his eyes, shocked that he is still alive.

But he gazes into a red, swirling mist.

Your hands are stretched out, creating an origin point for the mist.

All of the rocks float above you, suspended in red.

“Wha…” Is all Gladio can manage, taking in the scene.

With great effort, you push all of the rocks away from you and your love.

Today, you will protect him.

You’re still in his arms as he looks down at you.

His eyes are wide with awe.

“How did you do that?”

“It’s a…it’s a thing I can do…” You manage.

“That’s quite a…thing,” he responds.

You both sit still a moment,

Before bursting out in laughter.

He gets up before helping you to your feet.

There’s now a great hole in the ceiling above you.

You make your way towards it.

Gladio is questioning you the whole way.

“Have you always been able to do that? Why didn’t you tell me? Is it a family thing? Is it a magic thing?”

You sigh at the onslaught.

He notices and stops.

“That’s pretty dope, though. Think you can make me float?”

You give him a mischievous smile before raising your hands, again.

He starts to float.

Booming cheers follow.

You’re both just laughing.

Gladio is in awe of your powers, but respects you even more because you don’t rely on them.

He knows what you’re capable of, now.

“You know, you should tell the guys about this.” He smirks at you.

“Oh, in time. I’d rather show them.”

Ravus

Ravus has seen the power of the gods, but your strength is something new to him.

Altissa is falling and Luna is in trouble.

The two of you need to get to her.

You fight your way through the city, moving quickly due to both of your skills.

Reaching Luna just before Ardyn does.

Ravus pushes you aside, determined that this will be his battle.

He must protect those he cherishes.

But the battle takes a turn for the worst. 

Ravus was not expecting such power from Ardyn.

Luna is preoccupied, trying to keep the other airships at bay.

It’s up to you.

The salty air around you takes on a blood red mist.

Ardyn moves towards Ravus, ready to daemonify him,

But as he moves to strike, he freezes.

Furious back eyes lock on you,

Red mist swirls around him, locking his body in place.

You throw him from the stairs and into the sea.

It’s not the most heroic move, but it’ll buy you time. 

Supporting a badly injured Ravus, you make your way to an airship.

There you are joined by Luna, Gladio, Prompto, and lastly Ignis carrying Noctis.

You find privacy to tend to Ravus’s wounds. Luna joins to help.

You set him down and tend to the worst of the marks, first. 

As you finish the most painful wounds, he clears his throat, staring you down.

“I am not one to question divine gifts, but that…” He trails off. 

“That was nothing like any divine I have ever known.” Luna adds.

Great, now they’re tag teaming you.

They share that determined gaze.

“It’s…it’s something I’ve always been able to do…It’s a…special type of magic.”

You answer, not meeting their gaze.

Silence fills the room.

These are two of the most important people in your life, what will they think?

Will they find this unholy? Some power that’s very existence challenges the gods?

Will Ravus see you as the same as Ardyn? The man who almost ended his life? 

Your heart hammers in your chest.

“Well, I for one am grateful,” Luna announces, smiling at you warmly.

She gets up to leave.

You stare at her, shocked at her ready acceptance.

“You’re not…mad?”

In her smile you can feel the warmth of the sun.

“No, you saved my life, [Y/N]. I’m grateful. Our gifts are something to be cherished and used to protect those we love. You did just that.” 

She leaves you alone with a brooding Ravus.

He is still silent, not sharing in his sister’s acceptance.

He won’t look at you.

Your heart hammers in your chest.

This is it, it has to be.

He hates me.

He fears me.

Please, just…look at me, you silently plead.

“I’ll leave you, then. Get some rest,” Is all you can manage.

Your throat feels like it’s closing, tears form in your eyes.

You turn to leave.

You feel a hand shoot out to take yours.

You turn to see Ravus holding onto your hand, but still not looking at you.

Finally, he speaks.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

His head slowly moves so that his eyes meet yours.

“I..didn’t know how you’d react,” you admit.

In his eyes is a deep sadness.

“Did you think me one to shun you for such gifts?”

You mouth moves, but no words come out.

In truth…you did. You had doubted his acceptance and love for you. 

You turn your head to avoid his gaze.

He pulls your hand, making you fall into him.

“Here I have wanted nothing more than to protect you, when I was what you feared.”

“Ravus…”

“[Y/N], you saved my life and that of my sister because you are far more incredible than even I knew you could be.”

Tears start to fall down your cheeks.

“I thought you’d hate me, think me some unholy creature…” 

Your words answer his fears. 

“I don’t hate you, I merely worry. I have seen, all too often, that with great gifts, the gods expect much in return.”

Ravus lifts your head, meeting your lips with his, wiping away your tears with gentle fingers.

“Then…will you stay by my side to answer their call?” The kiss has left you with new confidence.

“Always.”

Between the two of you, there shall be no more secrets.

Nyx

You’re on the battlefield, side by side with Nyx.

But the Empire just launched more gigantic daemons.

The two of you have nowhere to run, backed against a rock face,

As a nightmare the size of a city block bares down on you.

Nyx is ready to warp strike it,

When you hold out an arm in front of him to stop him.

Your eyes are aglow.

Nyx is taken aback, but listening to the glowing person.

You hold your arms to the sky and bring them down in front of you.

Lightning strikes the great beast and thunder rolls across the battlefield.

The daemon doesn’t go down.

Again and again you strike it.

Unleashing the fury of a tempest on it.

Eventually, it lets out a great cry from a smoldering mouth as it collapses to the ground.

You’re breathing heavily as you release the elements from your grasp.

“Shit…” You hear Nyx remark from behind you.

You turn around and smile at him.

“I…didn’t know anyone could summon a storm…damn.”

“Well…now you know.”

“So…what else can you do?” Nyx smirks at you.

This man has seen so much wild stuff, this doesn’t even phase him.

[loretranscripts]

Lore Episode 32: Tampered (Transcript) - 18th April, 2016

tw: none

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

I grew up watching a television show called MacGyver. If you’ve never had that chance to watch this icon of the 80s, do yourself a favour and give it a try. Sure, the clothes are outdated and the hair… oh my gosh, the hair. But aside from all the bits that didn’t age well, MacMullet and his trusty pocket knife managed to capture my imagination forever. Part of it was the adventure, part of it was the character of the man himself – I mean, the guy was essentially a spy who hated guns, played hockey and lived on a houseboat. But hovering above all those elements was the true core of the show. This man could make anything if his life depended on it. As humans, we have this innate drive inside ourselves to make things. This is how we managed to create things like the wheel, or stone tools and weapons. Our tendency towards technology pulled our ancient ancestors out of the Stone Age and into a more civilised world. Maybe for some of us, MacGyver represented what we wanted to achieve: complete mastery of our own world. But life is rarely that simple, and however hard we try to get our minds and hands around this world we want to rule, some things just slip through the cracks. Accidents happen. Ideas and concepts still allude our limited minds. We’re human, after all, not gods. So, when things go wrong, when our plans fall apart or our expectations fail to be met, we have this sense of pride that often refuses to admit defeat. So, we blame others, and when that doesn’t work, we look elsewhere for answers, and no realm holds more explanation for the unexplainable than folklore. 400 years ago, when women refused to follow the rules of society, they were labelled a witch. When Irish children failed to thrive it was because, of course, because they were a changeling. We’re good at excuses. So, when our ancestors found something broken or out of place, there was a very simple explanation – someone, or something, had tampered with it. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

The idea of meddlesome creatures isn’t new to us. All around the world, we can find centuries-old folklore that speaks of creatures with a habit of getting in the way and making life difficult for humans. It’s an idea that seems to transcend borders and background, language and time. Some would say that it’s far too coincidental for all these stories of mischief-causing creatures to emerge in places separated by thousands of miles and vast oceans. The púca of Ireland and the ebu gogo of Indonesia are great examples of this – legends that seem to have no reason for their eerie similarities. Both legends speak of small, humanoid creatures that steal food and children, both recommend not making them angry, and both describe their creatures as intrusive pranksters. To many, the evidence is just too indisputable to ignore. Others would say it’s not coincidence at all, merely a product of human nature. We want to believe there’s something out there causing the problems we experience every day. So, of course, nearly every culture in the world has invented a scapegoat. This scapegoat would have to be small to avoid discovery, and they need respect because we’re afraid of what they can do. To a cultural anthropologist, it’s nothing more than logical evolution. Many European folktales include this universal archetype in the form of nature spirits, and much of it can be traced back to the idea of the daemon.

It’s an old word and concept, coming to us from the Greeks. In essence, a daemon is an otherworldly spirit that causes trouble. The root word, daomai, literally means to cut or divide. In many ways, it’s an ancient version of an excuse. If your horse was spooked while you were out for a ride, you’d probably blame it on a daemon. Ancient Minoans believed in them, and in the day of the Greek poet Homer, people would blame their illnesses on them. The daemon, in many ways, was fate. If it happened to you, there was a reason, and it was probably one of these little things that caused it. But over time, the daemon took on more and more names. Arab folklore has the djinn, Romans spoke of a personal companion known as the genius, in Japan, they tell tales of the kami, and Germanic cultures mention fylgja. The stories and names might be unique to each culture, but the core of them all is the same. There’s something interfering with humanity, and we don’t like it.

For the majority of the English-speaking world, the most common creature of this type in folklore, hands down, is the goblin. It’s not an ancient word, most likely originating from the middle ages, but it’s the one that’s front and centre in most of our minds, and from the start it’s been a creature associated with bad behaviour. A legend from the 10th century tells of how the first Catholic bishop of Évreux in France faced a daemon known to the locals there as Gobelinus. Why that name, though, is hard to trace. The best theory goes something like this: there’s a Greek myth about a creature named kobalos, who loved to trick and frighten people. That story influenced other cultures across Europe prior to Christianity’s spread, creating the notion of the kobold in ancient Germany. That word was most likely to root of the word goblin. Kobold, gobold, gobolin – you can practically hear it evolve. The root word of kobold is kobe, which literally means “beneath the earth”, or “cavity in a rock”. We get the English word “cove” from the same root, and so naturally kobolds and their English counterparts, the goblins, are said to live in caves underground, and if that reminds you of dwarves from fantasy literature, you’re closer than you think. The physical appearance of goblins in folklore vary greatly, but the common description is that they are dwarf-like creatures. They cause trouble, are known to steal, and they have tendency to break things and make life difficult. Because of this, people in Europe would put carvings of goblins in their homes to ward off the real thing. In fact, here’s something really crazy. Medieval door-knockers were often carved to resemble the faces of daemons or goblins, and it’s most likely purely coincidental, but in Welsh folklore, goblins are called coblyn, or more commonly, knockers. My point is this: for thousands of years, people have suspected that all of their misfortune could be blamed on small, meddlesome creatures. They feared them, told stories about them, and tried their best to protect their homes from them. But for all that time, they seemed like nothing more than story. In the early 20th century, though, people started to report actual sightings, and not just anyone. These sightings were documented by trained, respected military heroes. Pilots.

When the Wright brothers took their first controlled flight in December of 1903, it seemed like a revelation. It’s hard to imagine it today, but there was a time when flight wasn’t assumed as a method of travel. So, when Wilbur spent three full seconds in the air that day, he and his brother, Orville, did something else: they changed the way we think about our world. And however long it took humans to create and perfect the art of controllable, mechanical flight, once the cat was out of the bag, it bolted into the future without ever looking back. Within just nine years, someone had managed to mount a machine gun onto one of these primitive aeroplanes. Because of that, when the First World War broke out just two years later, military combat had a new element. Of course, guns weren’t the only weapon a plane could utilise, though. The very first aeroplane brought down in combat was an Austrian plane, which was literally rammed by a Russian pilot. Both pilots died after the wreckage plummeted to the ground below. It wasn’t the most efficient method of air combat, but it was a start. Clearly, we’ve spent the many decades since getting very, very good at it. Unfortunately, though, there have been more reasons for combat disasters than machine gun bullets and suicidal pilots, and one of the most unique and mysterious of those causes first appeared in British newspapers. In an article from the early 1900s, it was said that, and I quote, “the newly constituted royal air force in 1918 appears to have detected the existence of a hoard of mysterious and malicious sprites, whose sole purpose in life was to bring about as many as possible of the inexplicable mishaps which, in those days as now, trouble an airman’s life.” The description didn’t feature a name, but that was soon to follow. Some experts think that we can find roots of it in the old English word gremian, which means “to vex” or “to annoy”. It fits the behaviour of the creatures to the letter, and because of that they have been known from the beginning as gremlins.

Now, before we move forward, it might be helpful to take care of your memories of the 1984 classic film by the same name. I grew up in the 80s, and Gremlins was a fantastic bit of eye candy for my young, horror-loving mind, but the truth of the legend has little resemblance to the version that you and I witnessed on the big screen. The gremlins of folklore, at least the stories that came out of the early 20th century that is, describe the ancient stereotypical daemon, but with a twist. Yes, they were said to be small, ranging anywhere from six inches to three feet in height, and yes, they could appear and disappear at will, causing mischief and trouble wherever they went. But in addition, these modern versions of the legendary goblin seem to possess a supernatural grasp of human technology. In 1923, a British pilot was flying over open water when his engine stalled. He miraculously survived the crash into the sea and was rescued shortly after that. When he was safely aboard the rescue vessel, the pilot was quick to explain what had happened. Tiny creatures, he claimed, had appeared on the plane. Whether they appeared out of nowhere or smuggled themselves aboard prior to take-off, the pilot wasn’t sure. However they got there, he said that they proceeded to tamper with the plane’s engine and flight controls, and without power or control, he was left to drop helplessly into the sea.

These reports were infrequent in the 1920s, but as the world moved into the Second World War and the number of planes in the sky began to grow exponentially, more and more stories seemed to follow – small, troublesome creatures who had an almost supernatural ability to hold on to moving aircraft, and while they were there, to do damage and to cause accidents. In some cases, they were even cited inside planes, among the crew and cargo. Stories, as we’ve seen so many times before, have a tendency to spread like disease. Oftentimes, that’s because of fear, but sometimes it’s because of truth, and the trouble is in figuring out where to draw that line, and that line kept moving as the sightings were reported outside the British ranks. Pilots on the German side also reported seeing creatures during flights, as did some in India, Malta and the Middle East. Some might chalk these stories up to hallucinations, or a bit of pre-flight drinking. There are certainly a lot of stories of World War Two pilots climbing into the cockpit after a night of romancing the bottle – and who can blame them? In many cases, these pilots were going to their death, with a 20% chance of never coming back from a mission alive. But there are far too many reports to blame it all on drunkenness or delirium. Something unusual was happening to planes all throughout the Second World War, and with folklore as a lens, some of the reports are downright eerie. In 2014, a 92-year-old World War Two veteran from Jonesborough, Arkansas came forward to tell a story he had kept to himself for seven decades. He’d been a B-17 pilot during the war, one of the legendary flying fortresses that helped allied air forces carry out successful missions over Nazi territory, and it was on one of those missions that this man experienced something that, until recently, he had kept to himself. The pilot, who chose to identify himself with the initials L.W., spoke of how he was a 22-year-old flight commander on the B-17, when something very unusual happened on a combat mission in 1944. He described how, as he brought the aircraft to a higher altitude, the plane began to make strange noises. That wasn’t completely unusual, as the B-17 is an absolutely enormous plane and sometimes turbulence can rattle the structure, but he checked his instrument panel out of habit. According to his story, the instruments seemed broken and confused.

Looking for an answer to the mystery, he glanced out the right-side window, and then froze. There, outside the glass of the cockpit window, was the face of a small creature. The pilot described it as about three feet tall with red eyes and sharp teeth. The ears, he said, were almost owl-like, and its skin was grey and hairless. He looked back toward the front and noticed a second creature, this one moving along the nose of the aircraft. He said it was dancing and hammering away at the metal body of the plane. He immediately assumed he was hallucinating. I can picture him rubbing his eyes and blinking repeatedly like some old Loony Toons film. But according to him, he was as sharp and alert as ever. Whatever it was that he witnessed outside the body of the plane, he said that he managed to shake them off with a bit of “fancy flying”, and that’s his term, not mine. But while the creatures themselves might have vanished, the memory of them would haunt him for the rest of his life. He told only one person afterwards, a gunner on another B-17, but rather than laugh at him his friend acknowledged that he, too, had seen similar creatures on a flight just the day before.

Years prior, in the summer of 1939, an earlier encounter was reported, this time in the Pacific. According to the account, a transport plane took off from the airbase in San Diego in the middle of the afternoon and headed toward Hawaii. Onboard were 13 marines, some of whom were crew of the plane and others were passengers – it was a transport, after all. About halfway through the flight, whilst still over the vast expanse of the blue Pacific, the transport issued a distress signal. After that, the signal stopped, as did all other forms of communication. It was as if the plane had simply gone silent and then vanished, which made it all the more surprising when it reappeared later, outside the San Diego airfield and prepared for landing. But the landing didn’t seem right. The plane came in too fast, it bounced on the runway in rough, haphazard ways, and then finally came to a dramatic emergency stop. Crew on the runway immediately understood why, too – the exterior of the aircraft was extensively damaged, some said it looked like bombs had ripped apart the metal skin of the transport. It was a miracle, they said, that the thing even landed at all. When no one exited the plane to greet them, they opened it up themselves and stepped inside, only to be met with a scene of horror and chaos.

Inside, they discovered the bodies of 12 of the 13 passengers and crew. Each seemed to have died from the same types of wounds, large, vicious cuts and injuries that almost seemed to have originated from a wild animal. Added to that, the interior of the transport smelled horribly of sulphur and the acrid odour of blood. To complicate matters, empty shell casings were found scattered about the interior of the cockpit. The pistols responsible, belonging to the pilot and co-pilot, were found on the floor near their feet, completely spent. 12 men were found, but there was a thirteenth. The co-pilot had managed to stay conscious despite his extensive injuries, just long enough to land the transport at the base. He was alive but unresponsive when they found him, and quickly removed him for emergency medical care. Sadly, the man died a short while later. He never had the chance to report what happened.

Stories of the gremlins have stuck around in the decades since, but they live mostly in the past. Today they are mentioned more like a personified Murphy’s Law, muttered as a humorous superstition by modern pilots. I get the feeling that the persistence of the folklore is due more to its place as a cultural habit than anything else. We can ponder why, I suppose. Why would sightings stop after World War II? Some think it’s because of advancements in aeroplane technology: stronger structures, faster flight speeds, and higher altitudes. The assumption is that, sure, gremlins could hold on to our planes, but maybe we’ve gotten so fast that even that’s become impossible for them. The other answer could just be that the world has left those childhood tales of little creatures behind. We’ve moved beyond belief now. We’ve outgrown it. We know a lot more than we used to, after all, and to our thoroughly modern minds these stories of gremlins sound like just so much fantasy. Whatever reason you subscribe to, it’s important to remember that many people have believed with all their being that gremlins are real, factual creatures, people we would respect and believe.

In 1927, a pilot was over the Atlantic in a plane that, by today’s standards, would be considered primitive. He was alone, and he had been in the air for a very long time but was startled to discover that there were creatures in the cockpit with him. He described them as small, vaporous beings with a strange, otherworldly appearance. The pilot claimed that these creatures spoke to him and kept him alert in a moment when he was overly tired and passed the edge of exhaustion. They helped with the navigation for his journey and even adjusted some of his equipment. This was a rare account of gremlins who were benevolent rather than meddlesome or hostile. Even still, this pilot was so worried about what the public might think of his experience that he kept the details to himself for over 25 years. In 1953, this pilot included the experience in a memoir of his flight. It was a historic journey, after all, and recording it properly required honesty and transparency. The book, you see, was called The Spirit of St. Louis, and the man was more than just a pilot. He was a military officer, an explore, an inventor, and on top of all of that he was also a national hero because of his successful flight from New York to Paris – the first man to do so, in fact. This man, of course, was Charles Lindbergh.

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