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criticalrolo · 2 years ago

Note

I would love to hear more about TUA Daemon AU, if you are willing to share. :)

Absolutely!! Here's what I'm thinking as a general overview for the kid's daemon forms

Luther: Great Dane

Great Danes are outgoing and happiest when they're with people. They're very loyal, close-bonding dogs and don't do great with solitude. They are obedient and dutiful, and the "dog" desire to please people definitely seems to fall in line with his desire to please Reginald and have everyone Be A Part Of The Team. The "gentle giant" stereotype seems to fit Luther, especially in the later seasons once he gets out from underneath Reginald's influence. I do think that his Great Dane form would reflect his desire to please his dad, but I also think it would make sense if she had a unique coat pattern that's not officially recognized, showing that Luther does have a unique personality and sense of self independent of what Reginald wants, even if it takes a while for that part to show. Maybe a black one with white spotting on the chest?

Diego: Peregrine Falcon

Peregrine Falcons are really adaptable birds, found on every continent except Antarctica, which tracks for Diego's thrill seeking side. However, they've also got strong homing instincts, with nesting sites that have lasted for hundreds of generations. Diego values being able to do his own thing, but is also incredibly loyal to his designated "people." Peregrines are defensive birds, capable of driving off larger raptors like golden eagles to protect their nests, which reflects Diego's competitive nature for sure. They're also obviously known for their record breaking speed and accuracy, and I think Diego would take a lot of pride in his daemon having "powers" similar to his own out in the wild :)

Allison: White-Lipped Island Pit Viper

The thing that drew me to pit vipers for Allison was their thermal imaging senses: they are able to sense the body heat coming off small animals using the "pits" in their nose and use a thermal map over their vision. Essentially, they can literally take the temperature of a room and act accordingly. Allison is an expert at knowing when and how to strike at different people to accomplish her goals, and her intuitive senses when something is "off" with someone, like with Leonard in season 1 and Harlan in season 3, are very accurate. Pit vipers are venomous snakes, but unlike other venomous snakes that will strike and then back away, pit vipers will latch onto their prey and not let go, which Allison reflects in her tenacious and driven temperament. Snakes in general also have a reputation for being ambitious and cunning in many cultures, as well as being alluring. I chose the island pit viper specifically for its unique blue coloring. It's genuinely beautiful, and I think it reflects a lot of Allison's intelligence and social skills.

Klaus: North American River Otter

River Otters are non-territorial and have lots of different kinds of social groups, and are very socially flexible compared to other animals. Their territories overlap considerably without issue, and there's rarely much in-fighting in their groups. Klaus is not nearly as ruthlessly competitive as his siblings, and his go-to coping strategy has always fallen more along the lines of checking out and trying (key word: trying) to have a good time. Otters are known for being playful and vocal, and Klaus is definitely a very expressive person. They are also close bonding animals, and stay loyal to their groups for life. Otters also have a tendency to take over other animal's dens instead of building their own. They tend to be 'procrastinators' and I can see someone with an "otter" temperament being the kind of person to avoid stress whenever possible. However, it should definitely be noted that North American River Otters in particular are apex predators, and have been observed killing alligators in the wild. When backed into a corner, Klaus can be just as ruthless as the rest of his siblings, despite his more laid back general nature.

Ben: Tree Pangolin

Pangolins are solitary creatures for the most part, mainly living on their own although occasionally. some mated pairs have been observed staying together. They are most well known for their defensive measures: when confronted by a predator, they will curl into an armored ball to protect their vulnerable underbellies. Ben is a guarded person in both timelines: he reacts to feeling vulnerable by either retreating into himself or lashing out to keep people away. Pangolins will hiss and lash at predators with their sharp scaled tails to chase them off. They are also relatively specialized creatures, with a diet limited to only a few species of ants and termites. They will hunt for hours at a time, and are able to close their nostrils and ears to protect them from insect bites while they are eating. This tracks with Ben's very specialized powers (not a lot of Varied Applications of Violent Stomach Tentacles other than tearing people apart) and how he can get very dedicated to a single goal at a time, shutting out anything that tries to deter him.

Viktor: Death's Head Hawkmoth

Moths are nocturnal creatures, with well developed patterns and behavior for camouflage. They don't stand out against flashier insects like butterflies at first glance. Death's Head moths especially are known for being solitary creatures, and they are much more likely to avoid conflict with predators than to confront them actively. Viktor retreats into himself when he feels threatened, and found himself stuck as a wallflower for most of his life, even after he left the Umbrella Academy. Death's Head moths are specialist hunters: they are the only moth species to selectivity raid and feed on the honey of only the Western honey bee. Viktor is a specialist and intensely focused as well, devoting himself one Big Task or Calling at a time. Symbolically speaking, moths are strongly associated with night and the moon (ha) and settlings as the Death's Head moth is sort of a reference to Viktor's hidden power and capability for wrath and destruction when he gets pushed over the edge. While moths can be delicate and sensitive, their full transformation from caterpillar to beautiful winged creature represents Viktor coming into his own over the course of the show.

Five: Unsettled

Five, throughout the show, exists as a very literal visual metaphor for the long term effects of childhood trauma: he is, literally, a man child. It's a deliberate inversion of the idea that many traumatized adults feel like children who never got to grow up trapped in the bodies of adults. In the show, Five may have physically aged while stuck in the apocalypse, but it's made pretty clear that his mental state sort of gets stuck at age 13. He has one goal starting from then and lasting his entire life: go back to his childhood and Fix Things for his family. As he says in season 1, he has "a lot of growing up to do" once he thinks he's prevented the apocalypse. That's why, in this AU, I think his daemon just... never settles, no matter how old he physically gets. I also think that once he time travels into the apocalypse, his daemon stops speaking to him. Five locks away pretty much all thoughts except survive, survive, survive, and I think that's a very deliberate choice on his part. He can't acknowledge the reality of his situation or else he'd never be anywhere close to functional enough to achieve his goals. So, he pretty ruthlessly cuts out anything that isn't directly related to "save his family." If he acknowledged how badly the apocalypse was truly ruining his life, he'd never be able to get back home.

So, he stays unsettled.

#tua daemon au #the umbrella academy #five hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #luther hargreeves #i am really happy with this ngl. good work here #anyway im gonna figure out names for them all tonight wish me luck lol

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littlerit · 10 months ago

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I apologise for the asks in my inbox I’ve still not answered. This just happened to be in my activity box when I’d just finished writing so I have the luxury (or lack of excuses…) of being sat at a desk with my keyboard to hand….

Ta for the tag Clem <3

I have 33 works on AO3

Total AO3 wordcount is around 250k I think….. *checks* 278,324 words!

My top 5 fics by kudos…. Yo, I heard him everyday (Encanto oneshot), my very first fic Quake (Umbrella Academy, complete multichapter), my long fic baby The Time Traveller’s Life (Umbrella Academy, 170k WIP), my other will-hopefully-grow-up-into-a-longish-fic Obedience Suite (in A minor) (Umbrella Academy, 30+k) and finally Five’s first displacement (Umbrella Academy oneshot - prologue to TTL)

I do respond to comments! I love getting comments, and I love responding to them. You’ve shared your reaction with me, I want to share my reaction to your reaction! (or at the very least say thank you and let you know I read your comment!) I’ve fallen into the habit now of generally responding to comments on a previous chapter when I upload the next one.

What fic has the angstiest ending…. hmmm…. Farewell and The Hunt both ends in character death, and by default Five in the Apocalypse Sob Stories are all angsty AF

Ooh the happiest ending. Of Ghoulies and Spoons is just fluff, and The Tails of the Umbrella Aquarium has an angsty start and a happy ending

Do I write crossovers? I certainly write AUs / Fusions, those are my jam. For the Umbrella Academy I’ve done Daemon AU, Howls Moving Castle (would this class as a retelling perhaps, putting TUA characters into the HMC world and adapting it to fit?), and Ella Enchanted AU, and of course a Time Traveller’s WIfe AU. Have I writtena strict crossover where characters from two universes meet and interact? No.

I got a book mark on TTL with a trollish note (‘Zzzzzzzzz’) - they had gone through a bunch of fics and given them rude comments. But thats the worst of it.

I do not write smut.

Not that I know of. I hope not.

Somebody once asked if they could translate my fic, but then never responded or let me know if they actually did or not, so I don’t think so.

I have co-written a fic, Klaus’ moving castle with the wonderful @destinyandcoins

My fave ship…. I do read a lot of Zukka. Also ineffable husbands.

A WIP I want to finish but never will….well never say never. I hope to finish all my WIPS I’ve got up as WIPs. But I did post the start of a Everyday AU and labelled it clearly as free for adoption / inspiration as I just don’t see me having the time to ever really get going with that one. But who knows, it could happen.

My writing strengths… Complex timelines and time-travelling shenanigans. My devious mind and organisation skills combine nicely for that. I also can turn my hand to a mean drabble when the inspiration strikes.

Writing weaknesses…I can go pages and pages without including dialogue. I need to remember people do really be saying things to themselves/each other.

Thoughts on dialogue in other languages on AO3… it very much depends on the context for me. The odd word or phrase used sparingly for effect can really aid in and elevate characterisation or world setting for me. But it can be a fine line between an effect and a gimmick. When long dialogue is written out and then translated for me as the reader I personally wish it was just left in english and clarified in the speech tag that it was said in Spanish/Elvish/Whatever-ish.

The Umbrella Academy was my first fandom, and I’m still there now!

I have written a short oneshot for Avatar Last Airbender, but there is a longfic idea bouncing around my brain (another AU….lol) that would be nice to get out one day. I’d also kind of like to write for Temeraire, but I’m really not sure I could nail that old english voice. I am far too modern I think!

The Time Traveller’s Life is my baby. I’ve put so much work into that one. But I have other favourites too for other reasons. But forced to pick, it’s TTL.

@rockinlibrarian @destinyandcoins @booksasfurniture *mild panic as sleepy bedtime brain tries to remember who writes* @in-a-slanted-outhouse @candiliam328 @aye-of-newt …… if you fancy it, crack on, and if you don’t please ignore :)

Author Interview

(This was originally a tag meme that Mod Ragna was tagged in ages ago, so feel free to tag others if you answer it!)

How many works do you have on AO3?

What's your total AO3 word count?

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

What fic has the angstiest ending?

What fic has the happiest ending?

Do you write crossovers?

Have you received hate on AO3?

Do you write smut?

Have you had a fic get stolen?

Have you had a fic get translated?

Have you co-written a fic?

What's your fave ship?

What's a WIP you want to finish but never will?

What are your writing strengths?

What are your writing weaknesses?

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages on AO3?

What's the first fandom you wrote for?

What fandom/ship have you not written but want to?

What's your fave fic you've written?

#tag game

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e-vasong · 4 years ago

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Daemon au?????? :O

IT’S TIME. Literally, the plot of the AU is: “they have daemons and I write about it.” But here are their daemons and their names (don’t expect everything to be a perfect match.... sometimes you just gotta go off Vibe, y’know?

This AU was brainstormed in conjunction with @starsilvereld, who knows Surprisingly Much about animals and has an amazing skill for nailing down the perfect daemon for a given character.

So:

Luther - Amalthea, a Golden Retriever

Amalthea means “to soften, to soothe.” She is also a nymph from Greek mythology. Amalthea is the name of one of the moons surrounding Jupiter, with the third closest orbit.

According to Wikipedia, its inclination and eccentricity are unusual for a satellite and “can be explained by the influence of the innermost Galilean satellite, Io.”

I’m telling you this for a couple reasons, but one of those reasons is that it’s just a neat space fact.

Dog daemons are associated with loyalty, and golden retrievers are a breed known for being “outgoing, trustworthy, and eager-to-please family dogs, and relatively easy to train”, mirroring Luther’s love for his family, his general propensity for innocence and naivete, and the trust he has in his father.

Image Source

Diego - Guinevere, a North American river otter

“Old French form of the Welsh name Gwenhwyfar, which is composed of the elements gwen meaning ‘fair, white’ and hwyfar meaning ‘smooth’”

The Name Symbolism is Barely There but I just liked the vibe a lot so I’m going with it.

River otters can be “solitary and fairly territorial,” but they often “socialize in groups and are known for their playful behavior.”

And listen, I know Diego is prickly as hell. But he does that dumb little dance behind closed doors and I think we all know this guy would be goofy as hell if it weren’t for their horrible upbringing.

They are also very agile both in water and on land, which works well for Diego in my opinion because his style of combat seems to rely quite a bit on agility.

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Allison - Alexander, a clouded leopard

Alexander means "to ward off, keep off, turn away, defend, protect”

Clouded leopards are medium-sized wildcat!

Not much is actually known about the behavior of clouded leopards, though they are extremely solitary like many other wild cats.

These mirror the fact that Allison attempts to adopt an entirely new persona/life after the Umbrella Academy, even if she can’t totally escape her past.

Clouded leopards are very arboreal and have the longest teeth relative to body size of any cat.

Basically, they are beautiful and deadly, and the news media loses their mind over the famous Allison Hargreeves and her exotic, gorgeous daemon, with little regard for how dangerous she actually is.

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Klaus - Cassandra, a raccoon

Cassandra means “helper of man,” but in this context, I’m referencing the prophet from Greek mythology, who was cursed so that her warnings and prophecies were always disbelieved.

Despite frequently being considered pests, they are noted for being extremely intelligent (works for Klaus - people can be quick to dismiss him, but he’s insightful, clever, and even manipulative at times) with fairly long-term memories and the capability to understand abstract principles and solve puzzles.

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Five - Dolores, a beauty rat snake

Specifically, the Vietnamese Blue Beauty rat snake.

Dolores was picked for obvious reasons, but I still have feelings about the name Dolores being picked for Five’s mannequin in the show, considering it means sadness, pain, and mourning.

To summarize: AHHHH

Snakes are generally associated with intelligence, are cold-blooded, and tend to be calm and nonaggressive until provoked or endangered.

Beauty rat snakes are known for being fast-paced, easily stressed, and very territorial.

They are also known for being active at random times throughout the day/night - basically they have no consistent schedule. Which works for Five, who seems to go go go 24/7.

I just feel so strongly about this pairing in my heart

Also these snakes are gorgeous and Five is a vain, prideful little shit.

(Can’t find the source for this to save my life; it’s like the third pic that comes up when you do a google search for this type of snake but literally every link leads back to Pinterest, BUT, I think it might be from this Facebook page due to the style of photo and the fact that it has another very similar photo in a slightly different pose?)

Ben - Melpomene, a spectacled caiman

Melpomene is the Greek Muse of Tragedy

Picked her name entirely because y’know what? Everything about what happened to Ben was sad. I’m sad.

Spectacled caimans are among the smaller crocodilians, though they can still grow to be up to eight feet long. Though capable of being agile, they prefer to chill in one place. The females are good moms (y’know, for crocodiles), caring for their young (and the young of other mothers) for 12-18 months.

So basically: dangerous, but with a bad rep and a scary appearance despite being relatively calm and even actively nurturing?

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Vanya - Calliope, Great Tit

Yes, Klaus does tease her about the type of bird. And he teases her even more once she realizes she’s wlw.

Klaus: Great tit? I thought your daemon was supposed to represent you, not what you LIKE.

Vanya: I should have stayed a villain

Calliope, like Melpomene, is a Greek muse. The muse of epic poetry, one of her emblems is the lyre, and Hesiod and Ovid call her the “Chief of All Muses.” A couple different sources also mention her playing a role in tribunals and the passing of judgement.

The Great Tit is a fairly unassuming, but beautiful, songbird. They are relatively intelligent. And while they are usually insectivores, at least one population of Great Tit is known for hunting and dismembering local bat populations in order to eat their organs.

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#tua #the umbrella academy #tua daemon au #long post #reginald has a type of monkey known as a Mandrill named Io #I GAVE YOU THE SPACE FACT FOR A REASOn #the handler has an indian mongoose named Nero

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littlerit · 2 years ago

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Dolores as Five’s Daemon

[ID a white on black canvas style drawing, featuring a shoulder up drawing of Five Hargreeves, who is facing away from the viewer and looking back at them over his left shoulder with a frown. to his right shoulder is a side on portrait of a european badger (Dolores) looking up and away from Five.]

hey @tuaaugust I'm not too late right? its only 10 months after the event…..

anyway, I've headcanoned Dolores as Fives daemon, and specifically as a european badger so hard, and apparently it still wont leave me alone.

I was hoping to have a little drabble to post with this today but the creative juices were dry.

#number five #five hargreeves #number five fanart #the umbrella academy #daemon au #tua #tua art #my art #procreate #5 hours apparently #feels like longer #maybe because i started it weeks and weeks ago

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tuaaugust · 3 years ago

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TUA AUgust Day 23 - Daemon

#TUA AUgust 2021 #tua #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #klaus hargreeves #daemon #au #au august #graphic

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in-tua-deep · 4 years ago

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Daemon AU? Yes PLEASE!

I will give u the pre-canon material exploring Five and his daemon’s relationship ;3c

---

Pancha prefers small forms. Five never knows for certain why, and when he asks her she just tilts her head and shrugs at him because she doesn’t know what to say, either.

She likes being a hummingbird, flitting around Five’s head and hovering in front of his face before nesting in his hair. She likes being a mouse, scurrying up Five’s arm and tucking herself into the pocket on the front of his blazer. She likes being a rabbit, feet thumping against the floor as she zoomed around the room at top speed.

Five never knows, or maybe just never vocalizes why the representation of his soul prefers to be small.

But when Reginald Hargreeves gives him scathing performance reviews, his cane clicking against the floor in time with the soft clicking of Aryia’s claws as they look down their noses, as Five stands with his back straight and proud while -

While Pancha curls up tight in his pocket, a mouse biting the end of her own tail so that she would not whimper aloud. They know then, even if they never voice it aloud. The reason that Pancha prefers to stay small.

---

The thing that people learn early is to watch daemons. Not directly, that would be rude, but to keep them in the corner of your eye and observe. Daemons are the representation of a person’s soul after all, and souls can’t lie.

If someone is nervous, their daemon will shuffle anxiously. If someone is angry, their daemon will puff up in fury. When someone is scared, their daemon will cringe and cower. It’s easy to spot a liar in a world where the heart lays outside of the body.

Five’s very good at lying with his own body. He stands up straight and proud. He bares his teeth in furious smiles, licking blood from his lips and refusing to back down. He speaks loudly, with purpose, with challenge in his voice and in his words. Five is hard-headed. Five is disobedient. Five is an unruly little monster.

Pancha shifts into a hummingbird, because everyone knows hummingbirds flit around to keep aloft. It doesn’t look like nervous energy when it’s for a purpose. Pancha shifts into an australian tiger beetle, because they don’t have lips to draw back in wordless snarls. Pancha shifts into a gerbil and hides in Five’s pockets, because what you don’t see cannot betray you.

They call her adaptable, laugh when their siblings’ daemons begin to settle. They tolerate the speculation about who is going to settle next and what they will become.

They both dread the day Pancha will settle, even if they don’t say anything to one another. They don’t address the fact that she changes from one form to another, cycling through dozens within the space of a day even though their siblings stick to perhaps three. They don’t talk about the buzz under their skin that drives Pancha racing around their room at top speed until they crash on the bed panting together with something clawing desperately inside their soul.

They don’t talk about a lot of things, but they don’t need to. They’re two halves of the same whole.

---

Luther snaps at Five for cheating, for running ahead on a mission. They’re twelve, and Andromeda looks down on Pancha with something cold in her eyes and says, “Of course they can’t obey. They’re still unsettled.”

She says it like an insult, lip drawing back to show off too sharp teeth, says it like it’s something for Five to be ashamed of. Says it like what she’s really saying is that Five is a child. Like they aren’t all twelve-years-old and just settling into their own skins.

She says it like it’s Five’s fault that Pancha can flit through forms like she can’t shed them fast enough. Even as Andromeda speaks, Pancha is a bat, is a wren, is landing on Five’s shoulder as a sugar glider, is curling around his neck as a ferret.

She says it like it’s his fault that he’s twelve-years-old and his daemon is unsettled. Like half the twelve-year-olds running around aren’t doing so with daemons just as unsettled as his.

(Five read once, in a book, that trauma can make daemons settle earlier. There are so many cases of children as young as nine, seven, six with daemons tiny and scared and permanent.

The same book mentioned that abused children’s daemons often fell into one of two categories: large predators, to protect themselves and bare their teeth and intimidate any who try and hurt them. And the small ones, who are tiny and scared and do their best to be beneath notice.

Luther and Diego’s daemons are large, with teeth that can tear flesh and muscles beneath their skin.

Pancha likes to take small forms. Five doesn’t think about it too much.)

Five curls his lip and snarls back at Andromeda in a way that he never does when they’re in front of cameras, because etiquette says that people don’t talk to other people’s daemons, “If you weren’t so slow then maybe I wouldn’t have had to go in alone.”

Pancha shifts from a ferret to a squirrel to a kangaroo rat. The others are used to her rapid changes, but they also mean that they can’t pin down Five’s mood based on his daemon’s body language. She’s shifting too rapidly for that, clawing down his jacket as a hispid cotton mouse and settling into his arms as a pika, as a pygmy rabbit, as a stoat.

“Maybe I should hear a rumor about everyone calming down.” Allison threatens, her hands on her hips and tapping her foot impatiently. Amraphel is wrapped around her shoulders like a scarf, lazily flicking his tongue out.

(Allison has been of ill temper and short of patience ever since Raph settled a month ago. The whole house had heard her shouting about it, and none had dared to address it when they came down to dinner with Raph draped over the back of the chair instead of his customary place in Allison’s lap.

Raph and Allison haven’t sat properly together since he settled, and no one talks about it.)

But Allison’s words settle Andromeda and Luther, both of them backing up in a way they wouldn’t for any other sibling.

Pancha is a bush baby now, climbing up to Five’s shoulder and tugging lightly on the hair behind his ear.

Five holds his hands behind his back and twists his fingers together to the point of pain.

“No need for that.” Pancha says, voice clear and level and almost haughty. “They’re only jealous they can’t be as adaptable as us.”

Luther snarls and lunges forward, only to be blocked by a bristling Andromeda. “They’re not worth it.” She growls, low and deep in her chest with flashes of white teeth. Luther and his daemon try so hard to be respectable, to be cool and aloof like their father and his daemon. It’s almost sad, really.

Pancha is a manipur bush rat, scurrying to Five’s other shoulder. Five untwists his hands from behind his back and reaches up to grab her when she shifts into a black jackrabbit.

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” Five says, with all his twelve-year-old wit, “Your face isn’t worth it.”

The black eye he sports for three weeks is, in fact, worth it.

---

Pancha is the last one left unsettled. It shouldn’t bother them, they don’t even really want Pancha to settle, but it does in some terrible inexplicable way.

Pancha flits between forms, and none of them feel right.

“We’re obviously going to be something that can jump properly.” Five muses, tapping a pencil against a little black notebook as he thinks. “You said the kangaroo mouse didn’t feel right?”

“Nothing will feel right until the moment we settle.” Pancha points out, flicking the tail of her current ginger-tabby-cat form back and forth, “Val was definitely a wolf a few times before she settled.”

“Yeah, well, I’m like 90% sure Val settled out of pure competitive spirit.” Five dismisses rolling his eyes.

Valencia had settled two hours before Andromeda had, and has lorded it over the other daemon ever since. Diego still preens about how he was the first of the siblings to settle before even Luther.

(Five kind of wants to tell them both that Tamaya settled a week before Valencia and Andromeda both. No one noticed because Ben hadn’t brought it up, and Tamaya had always favored hiding to confrontation. Instead, Tamaya ‘officially’ settled around three days after their siblings.)

“I’m probably not going to be a big animal.” Pancha says, her claws pricking into his skin through his pajama top as she leans against his shoulder to peer at his list. “You can cross kangaroo off.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t be sure?” Five says, eyebrow raised.

Pancha just stares at him blankly. He stares back. Pancha shifts into a Florida king snake.

“Not having eyelids is cheating.” Five scowls, crossing his arms.

Pancha easily swaps into a possum, shaking out her fur. “It wasn’t cheating, it was adapting.” She tosses his words back in his face, “Besides. You thought I could be a kangaroo.”

Five grudgingly crosses an entry out. “Well why are you a possum now?”

Pancha shrugs as well as she can as a possum. “Dunno. It’s a marsupial or whatever, isn’t it? Besides, I’m sort of digging the fingerless gloves aesthetic.” She offers a foot out for Five to inspect.

“You look like you just climbed out of a trash can.” Five informs her.

“No, that was last night.” Pancha shoots back, shifting into a pine marten to crawl into Five’s lap and bat at his notebook. He just holds the notebook a little bit higher, making her huff in irritation.

“Dad really needs to feed us more.”

Pancha nuzzles against Five’s stomach as comfortingly as she can, even though she can feel the slight pang of hunger gnawing at her belly as well as he can. Their power takes so much out of them sometimes, it’s difficult to justify taking more to a man who sees them as an experiment instead of a person.

“I could turn into a tiger and eat Aryia.” Pancha offers, shifting into an otter and making another grab for the notebook that Five easily avoids.

“You don’t like taking big forms.” Five dismisses easily, as though it’s nothing. As though it isn’t something they don’t discuss between them.

Pancha is silent for a few minutes, and even Five stops scribbling away as he waits for her response.

Finally she says, very carefully, “Just because I don’t like to, doesn’t mean I can’t.”

They both are silent after that, Five lowering his arms to curl around Pancha’s latest form in something just a little bit too loose to call a hug.

“It’s safer.” Pancha whispers, breaking the silence between them, “I don’t know why, but it’s safer this way. Smaller daemons - they aren’t looked at as closely. When a tiger daemon bristles, people pay attention. When a mouse daemon bristles, no one even notices.”

“Is my soul really mouse shaped?” Five huffs a laugh, but they both know that he wouldn’t be disappointed in her being a mouse so much as he would her being trapped a mouse.

Pancha nudges at his chin with her broad muscular head, “Hey, don’t knock mice. They’re survivors. Practically anywhere you go, you’ll find mice. Inside, outside, they know how to get around.”

Five hums, dropping his notebook on the bed and bringing his hands up to run them through Pancha’s fur.

“Maybe we should be something with a beak.” Pancha whispers, knowing that Five will hear her no matter how softly she speaks. “No one bothers to look at bird daemon expressions, either.”

“Maybe you’ll be a swan, able to break someone’s arm and look pretty while doing it.”

Pancha snorts, “Yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you. Vicious representation of our soul, that.”

Instead of saying anything more, Pancha shifts from an otter into a meerkat. She curls into a tight little ball in Five’s lap.

“Not this one either, then?” Five says with a smile.

“Shut up.” Is Pancha’s intelligent response. “Next time you ask, I’m going to bite you.”

---

The moment they figure out what they can, theoretically, do, the buzzing under their skins gets louder than ever.

“Ask dad again, please.” Pancha begs, shifting from a budgie to a canary to a superb fairy wren as she flits about close to the ceiling of their room.

“You ask Aryia!” Five shoots back, bouncing lightly on the top of his bed even though it’s sort of childish. If anyone comes in though, he’ll just say he was trying to catch Pancha and they’d probably believe it.

Pancha turns into a magpie and immediately tries to divebomb Five in irritation, who stands there unimpressed and she’s forced to veer back towards the ceiling or crash into him. “You know she’s a mythic bitch!”

“And you think dad isn’t?” Five asks incredulously, bouncing a little more frantically.

“You don’t get lectures on how you’re -” Pancha flies to the floor and shifts into an impressive rendition of a marble fox identical to their father’s daemon, “Still unsettled Pancha, honestly, I expected better of you. Why can’t you be like the others, you’re so unruly and disheveled and I have no idea why dear old Reggie didn’t do away with you long ago -”

Five is cackling, his bouncing having come to a stop so he could slap a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter at Pancha’s, frankly, spot on impression of their father’s daemon.

Pancha grins, shifting from a fox into a jack russell terrier and jumping on the bed with Five. “Spot on, wasn’t I?”

“Absolutely impeccable.” Five manages, sticking his nose haughtily in the air, “Why, I almost thought our dearest Aryia was in the room with us!”

Pancha nips at his heels, making him flop down onto the bed with her automatically. The shift in weight and position makes them both bounce a few times before they settle down. They’re still buzzing with energy though, even sitting still.

“I bet time travel would fix us.” Pancha says finally, voice strangely serious in the face of their previous jostling and cheer.

“We aren’t broken.” Five says equally seriously, watching as Pancha shifts into a grey collared chipmunk, then a harvest mouse, and then an antelope jackrabbit. She uses that form’s legs to launch herself from the bed to the desk across the room and back again.

“There’s something wrong with us, Five.” Pancha corrects him fiercely, clawing up his arm as a pallid bat to his shoulder. “The others weren’t like this. We’re thirteen, now. Statistically, we should have settled by now. Or - or slowed down at least.”

Now she’s a margay, precariously balanced on his shoulder with her tail whipping into his face. Five brings up a hand to gently grasp at the twitching appendage, “The average is twelve to fourteen, technically.” He corrects her gently, “We practically just turned thirteen, we have time.”

Pancha hisses, hopping down off his shoulders in the form of a mongoose. “If we just - we have to try, Five. Can’t you feel it?”

Five bops her gently over the head, half scolding. “Of course I can, I’m you aren’t I?”

The buzz under their skin gets stronger by the day, and Pancha hasn’t been able to hold a form for longer than five or ten minutes in almost a year. It takes more effort not to jump than it does to actually jump, these days. Pancha shifts into a brush rabbit and levels him with an unimpressed look.

Five heaves a sigh, foot bouncing against the floorboards as though Pancha has transferred her nervous energy to him. “You know what dad’s gonna say, anyway.” He brings a hand to his chest and put on a nasally fancy tone, “Maybe we can revisit this topic when you’ve matured a bit, Number Five.”

Pancha gnashes her teeth together as a beaver. “You know what that’s code for.”

Five’s look is just as bitter as his daemon’s tone. He does know. Everyone knows. It’s a whole thing - people have weird ideas about what it means to settle. That it means, in some weird way, that it’s a transition into adulthood and responsibility.

How many hospital dramas and detective shows make it a point to draw attention to a child actor’s shifting daemon? How many true crime shows have grieving parents wailing about how the daughter or son wasn’t even settled yet, as though it might have been less of a tragedy if the kid’s daemon had been permanently stuck as a woodchuck. How many courtroom dramas have dismissed eyewitness testimony on the basis of the kid isn’t even settled yet.

Five and Pancha thinks it’s stupid, the emphasis put on settling. Thinks it’s dumb that he’s somehow considered less mature than a nine-year-old with a settled hedgehog daemon, even though he’s thirteen. But his age doesn’t matter. Just his daemon’s settled status.

“What if time travel fixes us.” Pancha proposes again, fluttering over to the desk in the form of a cardinal. “What if it helps. What if it’s what we need to - ”

Settle, she doesn’t say. Because to settle is to know yourself, and they don’t even know they extent of their powers.

Five shakes his hands out, blue sparks flying down his wrists as he does so. Anything to try and get the buzz out from under his skin.

“I’ll ask dad again tomorrow.” Five says finally, “And if he says no - ”

“Then we do it anyway.” Pancha is a coyote, lips pulled back in a wordless snarl before blue lightning runs down her form and she’s suddenly pressed against Five’s side.

“Then we do it anyway.” Five confirms, grim.

---

Time travel does not fix them.

Time travel breaks them.

They stand in the rubble of the end of the world, howling for their family with something that tastes like desperation on their lips, and no one answers. Dust swirls across the ground, glittering and gruesome as the smoke chokes the air from their lungs.

They claw through ruin until they find what they’re looking for, until Five shoves a piece of debris off of a face that belongs to a wrist with a black umbrella inked upon it, dark and final.

He finds Luther. He finds Allison, finds Diego, finds Klaus. He does not find their daemons.

Pancha is a falcon, is a racoon, is a wolf howling desperately into the crackling air, hoping, praying for an answer. But the only thing they hear are the quiet roar and crackles of the fires and their own footfalls.

It’s eerily quiet, at the end of the world. There’s no movie soundtrack, or screams, or howling winds. It’s just the pops of distant fires and the sound of rock across rock as their feet dislodge pieces of the wreckage.

“We can fix this.” Five says feverishly, “We have to go back.”

“It’s not working.” Pancha grits her teeth, pushing and pushing and pushing against the wall of their powers. It’s about as useful as trying to break down a brick wall with her shoulder.

“We’ll make it work.” Five vows, “We’ll go back. We’ll save them all.”

Pancha nods, equally grim and equally serious.

“What we need,” Pancha says slowly, sounding out each word. She has Five’s full attention on her, “Is an equation.”

Math isn’t something they technically need anymore. It’s a crutch from their younger days, something that soothes them and calms them and helps them focus. They can jump without it, their brain doing most equations automatically.

But when they’d first been figuring out their limits on distance, when they’d first figured out the differences between jumping in water and jumping in air - they’d used math. When they were figuring out time travel was possible, they’d looked at the math.

“Okay.” Five says, breathy and small and scared, “Okay.”

---

They don’t figure out until a week in that the buzzing under their skin is - not gone, but lesser somehow.

In their defense, they have a lot bigger things to worry about.

Five is scooping cold spaghetti-o’s directly into his mouth with a spoon he’d buffed against his shirt when he finally looks at Pancha and realizes that she’s been a barbary macaque for… hours now. She has a box of children’s sidewalk chalk by her side and is concentrating fiercely on writing while Five takes a break.

“Pancha - ” Five starts, and then finds himself at a loss for words when she looks up at him.

“Hmm?” She asks absently, little monkey face still scrunched up in concentration. Five can’t help but wonder when the last time Pancha stayed in one form long enough for him to pick up proper expressions from her face.

“...Never mind.” Five says, and watches Pancha turn back to her work.

They have more important things to worry about now anyway.

---

“This is a bad idea.” Pancha informs him, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth as she pants in the scorching heat. She’s a dingo today, has started experimenting with bigger and bigger forms.

(Five is seventeen-years-old. She still hasn’t settled.)

“We’re literally starving to death, Pan.” Five says dryly gripping bright packaging between thumb and forefinger like he would prefer not to be touching it himself, thanks. “Look, I definitely remember something about these things never going off.”

“That doesn’t sound right.” Pancha frowns, “But then again, I don’t know enough about twinkies to dispute it.”

They both look at the innocent little treat that Five has managed to unearth from inside of what looks like it used to be a child’s backpack. They don’t think about the child the backpack might have belonged to.

“Don’t those things have like, cream in them or something?” Pancha asks doubtfully, leaning forward to sniff the treat suspiciously, “Pretty sure anything with dairy in it went off like, years ago.”

“They’re like, 90% preservatives probably.” Five says, bringing it closer to his face so he can sniff it as well. “What do you think?”

“I think this is a terrible idea.” Pancha shrugs, which looks strange with a Dingo’s shoulders, “But then again, we are starving to death. Not sure we can afford to be picky.”

“We also can’t really afford to be sick.” Five points out sensibly.

They both take another pause to consider the twinkie.

“We’re so going to regret this.” Pancha sighs, laying down and putting her head on her paws. “But hey, if we die, we die.”

“We’re not going to die.” Five scolds her, peeling open the twinkie finally and giving it a distrustful look, “We totally aren’t going to regret this. Power of positive thinking, right?”

They absolutely regret it.

They don’t die, though.

---

The bright side of Pancha being unsettled is that she’s actually very useful in the apocalypse. She can take on the form of an elephant, acting as a one-daemon construction crew to clear out debris when they need a place to stay. She can run through the rubble as a mouse, squeezing through cracks in search of anything useful.

She takes the form of a chameleon, snagging insects from the air and offering them to Five when his skin starts looks paper thin and his ribs stick out prominently.

Pancha lays in the body of a tiger, curled around her human to protect him from the cold nip of the night air. The weather is turning, and soon enough there will probably be snow on the ground.

“We’re twenty-one this year.” Pancha says quietly.

Five hums, fingers twisted into her fur. “Five more years and then we’ll have officially been here longer than we were there.”

“Doesn’t matter how long it takes us.” Pancha says, squeezing her paws around his shoulders in warning, “We’re going to get back to them.”

Neither of them are sure they really believe it anymore, but oh how they want to.

They let the silence sit for a while between them before Five speaks up with a snort, “Not this one then?”

The question is almost an old joke at this point. Thirteen was a late bloomer. Sixteen was maybe-we-should-get-you-checked-out territory. Twenty-one was practically unheard of.

Pancha gives him a punishing lick with her sandpaper tongue over his forehead, making Five squawk with outrage. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, idiot.”

“You know, calling me an idiot is really only calling yourself an idiot.” Five bites back, but they both know he’s not really offended. If he was, he wouldn’t still be cuddled into Pancha’s fur. Even their arguments are performative these days.

“I can call you scruffy without offending myself, I suppose.” Pancha says dryly, “What is wrong with your face.”

“If you can find a good razor kit in the apocalypse then be my guest.” Five says grumpily, but he ruins it by nuzzling his face into Pancha’s chest fur making her huff with laughter.

Pancha squishes him closer, mindful of her big paws and powerful muscles. But even in this form - her hip bones are too prominent and her ribs can easily be felt through her fur. They’ll go out scavenging again tomorrow, but for tonight they can just… lay here. Bask in one another’s company.

“Stop thinking so much.” Five draws his head back a little to sleepily scold his daemon, “You’re going to keep us both up.”

“Shut up then.” Pancha shoots back.

“Night, Pancha.” Five’s words are muffled against her fur, but she hears him loud and clear.

“Night, Five.” Pancha says softly.

---

Pancha hops tentatively through the first snow of the season, her white fur blending in well. “Five,” She says, not sure how she’s planning on following up.

“I know.” Five says quietly, reaching down to pick her up. She rubs her face under his chin comfortingly, feeling the scratch of his beard across her fur. “Happy birthday to us, I guess.”

“Twenty-six.” Pancha whispers.

“It was - it was 2019, right?” Five asks suddenly, “When the apocalypse happened?”

“April 1st, 2019.” Pancha confirms solemnly.

Five hums. “They’d have been, what, thirty?”

“It was still April.” Pancha corrects, shaking her head gently, “Our birthday is in October. They’d have still been twenty-nine.”

Five is very quiet for a long time, and Pancha keeps her own silence as they trudge through the wasteland. They’ve been doing a little better food-wise recently. They’ve discovered that while Five doesn’t get much out of Pancha eating, they get something out of it. She’s taken to wearing herbivorous forms and munching on grass and other plantlife where she can. The coming winter may make that trickier, though.

“If we go back before we hit thirty, we’d be about the same age.” Five says finally.

Pancha hums in agreement.

“But - ” Five hesitates, “We have to go back to, to before Ben dies, right?”

“They were what, sixteen?” Pancha taps at Five’s chest in a request to be put down, which he readily complies with. “Maybe we could get them out. Be the responsible adult.”

Five snorts, “Adopt our siblings?”

Pancha grins, “Hey, don’t tell me you wouldn’t enjoy the hell out of bossing Luther and Andromeda around.”

“We’ll see who’s the kid then.” Five chuckles before they both fall silent.

After all, Luther’s entire thing about Five being a brat was because - well. Pancha silently shifts into a husky with thick fur, coming over to nudge at Five’s leg as they walk side by side.

“We never really talked about what we’d do about - about me once we get back.” Pancha says carefully, warily.

They don’t need to change like they used to. Don’t shift between forms with the blink of an eye. They’re more solid now, Pancha tends to take a form for hours or entire days now unless she finds another form more useful to their current situation.

But they aren’t settled.

Five offers her a strained smile, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“Maybe if we get back, it’ll fix us.” Pancha offers, but her voice is soft and a little bit wistful. She doesn’t believe what she’s saying any more than Five does. They already travelled down that road before, and look where it got them.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Five repeats firmly, before his face softens a little bit, “Happy birthday, Pancha.”

“Happy birthday, Five.”

---

“Do you remember how old we are now?” Five whispers, his hair and his beard have gotten streaked with grey. Pancha’s not exactly a spring chicken herself anymore, allowing Five to card his fingers through the feathers in her wing and straighten them out.

“Too old.” Pancha complains, “What’s the point in keeping track anyway? It’s not like we know what day it is.”

“We should probably keep track in general.” Five sounds amused, “Gotta remember how far to go back after all.”

“Fuck it.” Pancha declares, nipping at Five’s fingers when he’s a tad rough with a tender spot, “Just overshoot. Either we’ll pop out when the family are babies, and we can just steal everyone, or we don’t and bam we’re right on track.”

“You’re suddenly finding a motherly bone in your body, somewhere?” Five removes his hands from her wings to brush them off on his pants. Pancha gives them an experimental flap or two. “I, for one, could not be paid enough to deal with a baby Diego. Can you imagine?”

“He’d have fantastic aim when he’d throw his toys at you.” Pancha snickers.

“Can you imagine baby Allison?” Five demands, and they look at each other for a heartbeat before they both break down into laughter.

“Oh my god,” Pancha gasps, burying her face into her own wing, “Can you imagine what she’d rumor? Everyday would be Disney world day and she would be the prettiest princess of all.”

“Ruling the world with an iron fist and a sparkly tiara.” Five manages to get out, his own face buried in his hands as he wheezes.

“Klaus would be right next to her, tiara and all.”

“Fuck you’re right.” Five laughs, a deep belly laugh they neither of them hear very much these days, “There would be so much glitter.”

That statement makes Pancha dissolve into giggles again where she was just getting control of herself.

“If we ever get back, I’m going to buy both of them the sparkliest tiaras available. No, wait. Gonna buy the whole family a bunch of those little kid birthday tiaras, and never explain why.” Five declares, grinning, “They’d be so confused.”

“When.” Pancha corrects, and the mood suddenly turns serious. “When we get back.”

Five doesn’t apologize, doesn’t sputter or claim it was just an error of speech. He just inclines his head a little bit and says, “Right. When we get back.”

---

They’re old and broken and creaky and tired when their endless days of bouncing math off of each other and testing at the boundary of the blue that stays frustratingly solid to them changes.

Five’s hair is entirely grey now, and his beard is long and scraggly where he hasn’t taken a knife to it in a while.

Pancha is a european hare and she’s the one that first senses danger.

The thing about living in the apocalypse, is that it’s quiet. There’s no hum of electric lights. There’s no brawls between stray cats or dogs. There’s no squirrels or rats or mice scurrying around.

So when Pancha’s sensitive ears pick up the sound of footsteps she feels such an intense sense of - of something that it makes Five drop his chalk and swing around to look at her with alarm.

She’s glad her form today is swift, because she’s across their little ‘camp’ in seconds and in his arms, clawing her way up to his shoulder to press her mouth to his ear, “There’s something out there.” She whispers, somehow terrified and she doesn’t know why.

To his credit, Five doesn’t even hesitate despite the impossibility of her words. He scoops her under one arm and turns and picks up the gun (they don’t talk about why they have a gun) with the other. He turns around and points it at -

A woman. They both freeze like deer in headlights.

“Hello!” The woman calls, picking her way down the debris in high heeled shoes.

“Five.” Pancha swallows, making her human look at her, “Five, where’s her daemon.”

Five’s head whips back around, and they both stare. It’s entirely possible that the woman’s daemon is just small, just out of sight and out of mind. It’s even possible that she’s a witch, and her daemon is off gallivanting about.

But Pancha can feel a scream trapped behind her teeth, feel her ears go back as she fights the urge to run run run away from this terrifying woman who tastes of empty empty empty. Something is wrong.

She can see the way Five’s fingers tremble as the sense of wrong wrong wrong reverberates through their bond.

“Who the hell are you!” Five snarls out, and Pancha takes the opportunity to squirm and wriggle so that she’s balanced precariously on Five’s shoulder, freeing up his other hand to steady the gun.

“I’m here to help.” The woman says brightly, still picking her way towards them.

“Five.” Pancha whimpers, and as she feels her paws tremble she watches his hands go still and steady.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t just put a bullet through your head right now.” Five raises the gun further, but the woman doesn’t even hesitate.

“Because,” The woman says, smiling a carefree smile as she adjusts her hat and pulls her sunglasses from her face. “Then you wouldn’t hear the offer I’m about to make you.”

Five and Pancha are more tense than they’ve ever been before in their lives, and considering some of their childhood missions - that’s saying a lot.

“Which would be rather tragic given your…” The woman looks around and even though she doesn’t look disgusted the implication is there anyway which makes them both bristle, “...Current circumstances. I work for an organization called the Commission. We are tasked with the preservation of the time continuum through manipulation and removals.

“Why are you telling us this.” Five manages to grit out, never letting his gun drop.

The woman just looks at him like he’s a child and she’s disappointed he asked such an obvious question.

“I’ve come to offer you a job, Number Five.” She says simply.

They don’t miss the way she only offered the job to him, not to Pancha.

There’s a lot after that. The woman explains that she wants to hire him - them - to, to eliminate threats to time caused by humanity’s free will. She tells him that her organization has had their eye on him. That he has potential. That Five can retire with a pension plan for the low low price of his soul.

Well, he’s paraphrasing.

She at least allows him a moment of privacy to discuss things with his daemon, telling him that she will be back in an hour to pick him up and that he should take the time to gather what possessions he wishes to take with him. She seems awfully confident he will take her deal.

“She doesn’t have a daemon.” Pancha shudders against him, “She’s so empty inside. She scares me, Five.”

“I know.” Five says, smoothing his hands over her fur comfortingly, “But - Pan, the chance to get out. If they know how to properly time travel - ”

“Then we can finally get out of here.” Pancha says softly, longingly. “It’s been so long, Five.”

“I know.” He whispers.

“She wants us to kill for her.” Pancha tells him, “Removing the problems - she just wants us to become an assassin. She wants us to be a weapon.”

“Would we kill to get our siblings back?” Five asks, but it’s a rhetorical question. They both know that they’d probably let the world burn all over again if only it meant saving the people most important to them.

“We’d have food.” Pancha offers finally, “If it’s a job, we’ll have money. No more scavenging. We could focus more time on, on - you know.”

Five nods solemnly, “So, do we take the job?”

A shudder ripples through Pancha’s body, “What about me, Five?”

“What about you?” Five asks, brow furrowing.

“I’m not normal.” Pancha states tightly, watching Five’s face light up in comprehension. It’s been a long time since they discussed Pancha’s ability to shift. After so many years, it almost seems normal. “She’s already seen me as a hare. So do I just - pretend to be a hare?”

Five bites his lip, “Just until we figure out how to get back.”

They both know that’s not a real answer. They both have no idea what they’re going to do when they show up, old and decrepit and still unsettled.

“She can’t know.” Five says, because at least that much is certain. “She doesn’t have a daemon. She can’t know.”

Pancha sighs, but they both already know what their choice is going to be. “Okay. Okay let’s become assassins.”

---

They’re in a hotel room, and Pancha shifts a few times just to prove she can. She likes being a hare, but sometimes it just gets itchy. Wrong. Sometimes she needs wings, or fangs, or something.

She feels like she needs fangs a lot around the Handler. Or like she needs to be something small, like a mouse and curl up in Five’s pockets again to hide away. Usually she just hides behind Five and lets him deal with the woman, which is perhaps unfair of her but Five hasn’t protested yet.

(Actually, Pancha doesn’t speak to anybody. Not after the doctor and his capuchin daemon looked entirely scandalized when she addressed him instead of his daemon. Apparently missing out on socialization for an estimated forty-five years led to… some not so great manners.)

Five methodically cleans his gun as Pancha shifts from a lion to a gazelle to a pallas cat and back into a hare to jump onto the bed with him.

“Today?” She asks him.

He looks up at her and frowns, his hands pausing.

“Something feels different. More right.”

Five tilts his head a little bit in though and then nods. He’s been quiet, since they got back. When they’re alone together at least. The opposite of Pancha. Sometimes she wonders if they’re just switching off, the way they do when it comes to shows of emotion sometimes.

Pancha crawls into his lap, nudging at his hands until they put the gun aside and bury themselves in her fur.

“We’re going to save the world, Five.” She says, projecting as much confidence as she can into her voice, as much confidence as she can into him. “We’re going to save them all.”

Five’s hands tremble in her fur, and they both politely pretend that they don’t.

“You aren’t going to do this alone, because you have me. We’re a team.” She cranes her head back so she can offer him a smile, “Team Adaptable, right?”

“Right.” Five rasps out, touching the silver patches in her fur.

And then they get up, and move out. They’re on a mission now.

#daemon au #yeAH #long post #far tua long #i started writing it and then got super busy oops #but this probably would have been the first chapter #just establishing five and pancha as the main characters #and their whole relationship #and what it means that pancha is unsettled and why she hides it #there's a level of shame involved in a world that treats settled as matured #i'm 100% sure there are parties thrown when a kids daemon settles #like it's a BIG deal in this au #and they don't want to settle because they're so adaptable #but they also desperately want to fit in rip #the handler does not have a daemon and pancha is terrified of her #dolores is not super necessary in this au bc they have each other #i only have like six and a half more google doc pages written tbh #and they're not great bc writing the coming back was awkward #me: i struggle with juggling a lot of characters in a scene #daemon au: oh? double the amount of characters you said?#Anonymous

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sarcasticbeanie · 4 years ago

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Five and Dolores(s): A moment of respite during the apocolypse Inspired by the amazing @e-vasong’s daemon AU!! Five’s Daemon is a vietnamese blue beauty rat snake, and it is just??? perfect. *chef kiss*

#tua #the umbrella academy #Number Five #Dolores #Daemon au #e-vasong #i love this au so much #now i just gotta start on the srts au thingy...#it's all so #perfect #i love these kids. i said it a hundred times and ill say it a hundred more.#beanie art

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hydrangeathief · 4 years ago

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would like to tentatively announce that i have been writing again

#sometimes u gotta be the tua daemon au u need to see in this world #a post from me

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intheseautumnhands · 2 years ago

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Writing plans below the jump to babble it out a bit.

Cause I would love to be writing. But I feel like crap tonight. So I am gonna veg out to The Mole and boot up more Sunless Skies for a bit and then maybe start work for the week at some point*.

(*I am sort of tempted to take the week off because I have two doctors appointments upcoming and ugh. But I might have to go in for a 5-hour iron treatment in 2-3 weeks and I would like to have room to take that week off if I’m really jittery leading up to it. So I should really get work done this week after all.)

But, writing stuff upcoming:

- I signed up for No True Pair with three different lists of characters: 8 Blades characters, 8 Hargreeves, 8 OCs. Made a list with what the prompts got me. Out of the 84 possibilities that landed me, there are 32 that landed that I really want to write. (12 Blades, 14 TUA, 6 OCs). Gonna start rewatching TUA S3 this week while I work. Would like to start some of the 7 whose prompts land before the 13th before September starts, I think.

- Rainbowfic: I am 16/25 drabbles into a saturation for the event ending September 5th.. Determined to finish it in time. Would also like to do some Lilith Faire ficlets. First day expires the 25th, last day expires the 31st.

- October-fest prompt lists are gonna be going up soon. May investigate doing some of those this year, I think.

- On the non-fest-y writing side: I’d like to write the fake-dating AU of the Z/B episode. I have the urge to write the Blades daemon fic, despite not having an actual plot to that or anything, just ideas for daemons and Volisport daemon lore. I want to go back to some of the fics I have underway as well, but brain is melty for them lately for some reason.

#by grace and grit

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criticalrolo · 2 years ago

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im working out the notes for a TUA daemon au and finishing up the write up, just wanted to say that im a fucking genius for giving Viktor a death's head hawkmoth for so many reasons

#sexiest choice i made for sure #i did a good job with these typings lol #also trying to decide if in this AU if everyone has a daemon or if it's just the kids with powers that have them #tua daemon au

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e-vasong · 4 years ago

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hi!! I just wanted to ask about the daemon AU--do you have a headcanon abt when their daemons would settle? or did they just settle after puberty? Did 5's daemon settle before or after the apocolypse?

AH!! this is such a good question. I’m gonna put a cut after this first bit, though, because I took a simple question and accidentally...wrote a 2k thing that kinda straddles the line between answering your question and being a freeform fic? whoops.

Okay. So I think all the kids probably settle a little later than normal for most people. It’s been a while since I read the books, but I recall that most daemons, though not all, settle towards the start of puberty. I headcanon that trauma is one of the things that can push that process back, and all the Hargreeves kids have that in abundance. Not to mention that I don’t think isolating your kids from a normal childhood and forcing them into a vigilante lifestyle is exactly helpful for their development.

Luther settles first, a day after their thirteenth birthday. It happens without much fanfare, while they’re resting at home after a mission. There’s not much a golden retriever can do on a mission that another animal can’t do just as well or better, and Reginald really emphasizes the utility of their daemons above all else. But sometimes Luther likes to let Amalthea turn into big, soft things when their dad isn’t looking. He likes them, even if Diego mocks him relentlessly for it. And that afternoon Amalthea plops down on his chest and turns into a golden retriever, licking at his chin to comfort him after the verbal excoriation their father had given them after the mission had gone wrong at every possible turn. It’s a miracle none of them were hurt. That scares Luther more than anything else. How close he’d come to failing and getting someone killed. And they don’t even realize that she’s settled until like an hour later when they’re headed downstairs and Amalthea tries to shift back into a form that their father will find dignified and just...can’t.

Klaus settles next much to everyone’s surprise. It happens a few months after Luther. Their father has them locked in the crypt again, and it’s particularly bad tonight. Klaus can see them everywhere, tearing at his clothes, clawing at his skin, and he can barely breathe. They go after Cassandra just as eagerly as they do him, but she’s harder to catch. Suddenly she’s a falcon, an ermine, a rat scuttling through a new hole in the wall that their father must have missed. And then she’s outside. Twelve, thirteen feet away maybe, and it pulls at the connection between them, almost to the point of being painful. Hurts enough to gear Klaus out of his catatonic haze and get him to push through the throng of ghosts just to get a couple feet closer to her. And then Cassandra is a cicada, fluttering up to the lock. And then she’s a raccoon, clawing futilely at it with those deft, clever fingers, but unable to work it open without anything to jimmy the lock open with. Yet she’s also trapped by their bond, unable to venture and look for something to use. And so she tries to shift back to rat, to get back inside, and just. Doesn’t. Can’t. So Klaus stills his breathing long enough to stumble over to the door of the crypt, pressing his back flat against it and trying to still his breathing. Cassandra curls up in a small ball in front of the door. And they stay like that all night, until their father comes to let them out in the morning.

Allison, Diego, and Vanya all settle pretty close together, towards the end of their thirteenth year and the start of their fourteenth.

Allison settles on a mission. She’s so busy rumoring a bad guy into killing his friends that she doesn’t notice the one behind her until Diego drops to the ground with a muffled cry of pain. She makes a noise, a hoarse-sounding scream of shock and surprise. But she’s well-trained enough to wrestle her gut reaction under control quickly. She whips around, a rumor already on her lips, but before she can say anything Alexander is there. A flash of muted gold and black, not hulking but still larger than she expects. He jumps, first onto a table. The spring inside a loaded gun. Fifty pounds of coiled muscle and snarling rage. Then he leaps again, surprisingly agile. There’s a flash of canine, long and sharp. The man dies with a gurgle, and when Alexander pads over to Diego’s injured body, licking at their brother’s face with concern, Allison sees that those white teeth are bloody and red.

Diego settles during one of their sneak-outs. They’re walking along the pier, eating fish tacos they bought from a vendor nearby. Ben is reading as they walk, flipping pages idly. He’s not paying attention to where they’re going, though Luther keeps trying to get him to put the book down. But then Diego had told Luther to lay the fuck off, and that had turned into a whole thing, and Ben’s still reading his book. If Five were here, there wouldn’t be any concern about it. He’d had that sort of quiet, watchful way about him, where you knew that even if he wasn’t actively stopping you from doing something, he was still keeping an eye out to make sure it didn’t kill you. If Five were here, he’d have made them take Vanya. If Five were here...

But he isn’t. He’s probably off somewhere, living happily away from their father and from them. Asshole. It’s an uncharitable thought, and Guinevere would bite him for it if he said it out loud, but Diego is so caught up in his anger that he doesn’t see Ben walk into the pole until its too late.

Ben swears, hands flying to his face automatically. Klaus bursts into hysterical laughter. Allison’s gasps, putting a hand to her mouth. Ben’s book tumbles out of his hands and into the water, and Guinevere--also laughing--follows it, turning small and furry as she does. She doesn’t catch it before it gets soaked, but she gets the book in her teeth and paddles over to a small ladder that drops down off the dock. Ben turns to thank her, but Diego is too distracted to catch what he says. Diego just settled, he’s pretty sure. He can feel it in his bones. He’d kind of been hoping for something that would prove once and for all that he’s better than Luther, but frankly their father isn’t going to be any more pleased with otter than golden retriever. That’s kind of a bummer. But when he kneels down to let Guinevere scramble up his arm and around his neck, he can’t really bring himself to care. She’s Gwen, and he’s Diego, and if their father has anything to say about it? Well then. He can go fuck himself.

Vanya settles that winter. She’s playing her violin in the living room. Ben is sitting nearby. They aren’t hanging out, not exactly. None of her siblings really hang out with her, not since Five, but Ben maybe comes the closest. Calliope usually takes the form of a cat, winding around Vanya’s ankles as she plays. She used to turn into a capuchin sometimes, to flip the pages of Vanya’s music, but Io has more or less soured Vanya on monkey daemons these days. But still. Things are nice, and today they are in a particularly good mood. Ben’s company is comforting; it’s nice not to be alone; and Vanya hasn’t missed a single note. So today, Calliope flutters up onto her shoulder and sings along with her. And she never changes back. And when Vanya shyly shows her to their family later, Reginald sniffs, disdainful, having barely spared them a flicker of a glance. Just a songbird, he says dismissively. And that is that.

(And later, years and years later, Leonard peers into the veil of Vanya’s hair.

“Is that your daemon?” he asks affably. He looks unbothered by the way Vanya cringes. His orb weaver is crawling up the sleeve of his shirt, looking almost like a toy or a strange decorative pin.

“Yeah,” Vanya says. Cal is a bundle of fluffed-up feathers nestled in the crook of Vanya’s neck. She huddles in closer at the sight of Leonard’s attention.

“What is she?” Leonard asks, then holds his hands up apologetically. “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Just a songbird.”

“Just a songbird?” Leonard echoes. He leans in closer. “Hey, she’s a...great tit, right? I’ve read about those.”

“Oh?” Vanya asks, bracing herself for whatever is going to come next. Leonard is a nice guy; she’s sure he means well. It doesn’t mean that what he says next isn’t going to hurt.

“Yeah,” Leonard smiles at her. “You’re right. They are songbirds. But they’re more than that.”

Vanya pauses, lifts a hand to her hair uncertainly. She hadn’t expected that. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m surprised your family didn’t ever say anything to you, I have to admit. They are songbirds, Vanya. But they’re hunters too,” Harold says. There’s wonder in his eyes, and when Vanya looks up to meet his gaze, he just smiles.)

Ben, like Luther, settles without much fuss. Once a week, since they turned ten, they’ve had a designated time to try out new forms for their daemon. Their father brings out books on zoology. Gives them specimen after specimen to try. Ben isn’t quite sure that this is how it’s supposed to work. All accepted science suggests that settling is half a physical affair and half a mental one. It’s not just about finding the right shape, it's about state of mind as well. Amalthea is a golden retriever, but if she had tried that form when Luther was eight, Ben doubts that she would have settled. But their father doesn’t much seem to care, nor does he seem to understand. Then again, Io and their father have a dynamic that Ben doesn’t quite get either. They seem less like human and daemon and more like warden and prison guard. But maybe that’s just Ben projecting.

Melpomene takes to their father’s training with more courage than Ben does. His stomach hurts; he wishes that he could go back to bed. This is worse now. All the others have settled, and Ben’s been doing this part of their training alone for almost a year. But Mel is braver than Ben is, and she takes the lead. So they go down the list, while their father watches with those piercing eyes. Io is perched on the desk, lips drawing back from his teeth whenever Ben so much as twitches a muscle in the wrong direction.

Mel turns into a large octopus. A cassowary. A vulture, a great Philippine Eagle, a Sumatran rhino, a spectacled caiman.

And then she stops. Tries to shift again.

“I’m stuck,” Mel declares, sounding just as surprised as Ben feels. Their father’s back straightens, and it’s the nearest thing he’s ever given Ben to pride. He peers over his spectacles. Nods.

“This is acceptable,” their father says, like there’s any other option. It’s not like Ben can do anything about it, but he holds his tongue and stares at the floor again. A predator. A scary one, not like Guinevere or Amalthea. Even Alexander is cuddly. Crocodilians, though, people hate. This isn’t how Ben wanted his settling to go. He hadn’t wanted their father to be right.

Ben’s stomach twists. He feels something nudge against the inner lining of his gut, like it’s trying to escape, and ignores it.

“Dismissed, Number Six,” their father says, and when Ben turns to go his eyes feel wet.

And Five...Ugh. I’m debating how much of this I want to share, because I actually have this scene written elsewhere? But Five settles last. Five settles last by no small margin, not just chronologically, but by age as well. Five settles late even among other late bloomers. He settles when he’s eighteen. Approximately. It’s hard to keep track of days in the Apocalypse; Five is good with numbers and has a great memory, but it’s been five years by this point and the days are starting to blur, even for him. The lateness of his settling comes from a combination of trauma, a lack of socialization, and the fact that he is desperately trying to avoid it. He and Dolores keep a list of forms that they know are safe, forms that she’s taken again and again and hasn’t settled in yet.

Because in the Apocalypse, an unsettled daemon is an incredible asset. She can be a hawk, fluttering up to a roof to scout for places to salvage. A wolf, sniffing out supplies. An elephant, moving rubble and bricks so they can turn what remains of the library’s atrium into a makeshift shelter. And a bear, warm and hardy. That form’s kept Five from freezing to death for the past several winters. But the thing about nature is that it always finds a way. They can only fight it for so long. And one night Five wakes up, and Dolores is a snake, and she can’t shift out. She’s cold, too. The night temperatures are too much for her now.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, she says to Five, almost frantic with it.

It’s fine, he tells her as she curls up under his jacket, soaking up the warmth radiating from his chest. You’re beautiful. It sounds like a lie. It kind of feels like one too, even though he means it.

This should be a wonderful thing. It would have been, under almost any other circumstances.

They do make it, of course. We know that. Five is clever and he is determined and he has no choice but to survive. He will accept no other outcome, and he’s right in that. They suffer, but they live. They win and they get back to their family.

In the moment, though, they are just a seventeen-year-old boy and his daemon, entirely alone in a world that doesn’t care whether they live or die, and it mainly feels like a death sentence.

(BUT THEN ALSO THEY ALL REUNITE WHEN FIVE TIME TRAVELS BACK AND BEN COMES BACK TO LIFE SOMEHOW AND LEARNS SELF LOVE AND THEY ALL RECOVER FROM THEIR TRAUMA TOGETHER YEE HAW)

#tua #the umbrella academy #my writing #daemon au #this is actually sadder than my normal fare i promise it all works out but by virtue of being a settling fic this involves their childhoods #which were. awful.#sorry for any crappy writing its literally 2am for me i just got fixated on this

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