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@mashpotatoequeen
Hello!
Hi! I’m MashpotatoeQueen on AO3. You probably best know me for randomly hijacking people’s headcanons for The Mysterious Benedict Society and writing fics for them. I decided to make this side blog as a way of becoming more affiliated with the community. I hope you all will take care of me!
Sorry. Why can Milligan tell the Ten Men apart by scent alone from the next corridor over. Do they each have an assigned cologne or is he just insane
I always get something new each time I read the mysterious benedict society especially as I grow up and find myself in different season learning new lessons. I recently reread it and this is what I took away from it this time. There is a difference between the illusion of control and actual control. There is a difference between the illusion of community and actual community. There is a difference between the illusion of happiness and actual happiness. Just like the hidden messages, social media is attempting to create a feeling of control, community, and happiness, but it is all FAKE. it is a complete illusion and one that will eventually just make us feel more out of control, alone, and depressed than we first were. Just like Mr. Curtain creating the very problem he offers a solution to, social media and society/culture in general hooks us into a vicious cycle of fear and insecurity and uses that to keep us coming back for more and more. Because, just like the Whisperer, we might feel good and feel like our fears and insecurities are solved in the moment, but they ALWAYS come back. Because like Mr. Curtain says and Reynie later learns: the only way to truly overcome them is to FACE them with total and complete honesty. It is realizing the real community you have fighting alongside you and choosing to pursue genuine connection with them despite the fear of being lonely. It is realizing that there is no such thing as complete control and embracing the small things you can control. It is recognizing that true happiness can never come from something that only intends to deceive you out of your sadness. How does Reynie and the gang defeat the Whisperer and its irresistible pull? By recognizing the REAL thing that they have: each other. Human connection is what it is all about. It's hard, it's messy, it's scary, but wouldn't you rather live a life that is true and not built on a lie? Choose truth. Choose community. I am always astoundished (ifykyk) by how ahead of its time this book is. So much relevance as we continue to be an increasingly digital age. May we always hold onto our unusually powerful love of truth :)
Kate is strength and agility, Reynie is puzzle-solving, Sticky is intelligence, Constance is resistance, what do you think Rhonda and Number Two specialized in?
As a child, I spent a long time pondering this because the whole issue was that Mr. Benedict needed a full team of children that cover different areas of abilities (presumably the four areas that children specialize in). The issue with Rhonda and Number Two wasn't that they weren't qualified, it was that they were only part of a team, implying they specialize in some of the same areas as the children, they just didn't have their fellow teammates. I also think that who Rhonda and Number Two might differ from the show vs. the books.
In the show, I don't know if it's explicitly said that they once took Mr. Benedict's tests. If you think they did, then the skills we see in the show including martial arts, sneaking around, and building things suggests Number Two mostly resembles Kate (plus it's implied she ran away from her home which is very Kate. For Rhonda, I'd say Reynie since while she also does a fair amount of sneaking around and disguising herself, she also is very empathetic (like when she calms down everyone on the blimp) and seems very good at leadership type activities.
In the books, I don't think those match ups necessarily make sense. Maybe you could argue that Rhonda also resembles Reynie given that we know she partook in a chess competition, but it's honestly been years since I read the books. As for Number Two, I could see a number of cases being made for who she resembles so feel free to discuss in the tags.
@nobodysdaydreams these are very good thoughts.... Hmmmm
Low/no empathy Reynie AU. is this anything
ooooj this is so interesting . I am. Pondering.
Yeah, okay..... I'll write it....
Here's the important thing, first; empathy is a feeling, not an action. The impact of choices is where the heart of it lies, but you do not need to be empathetic to be kind.
The Mysterious Benedict Society is about being brave. It is about being good, mostly, and all the ways such a simple thing can fall apart in your hands. It is about love, mostly, and the way that it is can be a mercy. The way it is a gift.
Reynie Muldoon in this world is not empathetic. He does not pity the other orphan boys and he does not frown over Milligan's sad, empty face. One by one, Kate and Sticky tell their stories, and Reynie has no tears in his eyes or pain in his heart. He simply listens, and tries to understand.
This is not wishing Reynie an easy path, but in any world there is no easy path to take. It is just a different flavour of hardship, a similar trail three steps to the left. It is Reynie sitting through enforced movie nights at the orphanage dry-eyed as Mufasa falls to his doom, and multiple minders over the years sighing, "Well, think about how he feels, Reynard. "
At nine, Reynie works his way through an ever growing list of psychological books and social cue self-help stories with a growing desperation, because each and everyone of them says the same thing; there is something wrong.
There is something wrong with you.
(He tells Miss Perumal, at some point, after a careful measure of calculation. Everything in the world is painting this as a flaw, and teachers are the ones who are supposed to fix things. It is only logical. It is only right. But Miss Perumal only looks at him over the rim of curved ceramics, considering. She says, slowly, "We can practice, if you like, but I'm not sure this is something that needs to be fixed." A pause. "I'll look into it.")
(In any universe, Miss Perumal just wants Reynie Muldoon to be happy.)
This Reynie has to work harder to comfort Sticky and starts with less patience for Constance. Kate takes longer to warm to him, keeping a spy glass with its hidden lens on. This Reynie does not hold as many things safe behind his teeth, forgetting to be afraid of bringing down the mood. He asks questions more easily, even when some might prefer them unvoiced, because Reynie Muldoon in any universe is clever, and he is always putting together puzzle pieces based on facts, and logic, and the way the world works. It's just in this one he asks as the thoughts come to him, probing. So much of this world is built on constructs of politeness, on little white lies and planned empty spaces where words could hurt, or embarrass, or shame in tiny inconsequential ways. What's the point of all that? Reynie Muldoon is trying to understand. He is trying, period.
(It is an uncomfortable thing, to be the odd one out in a room full of people meant to be outsiders. It is not an easy thing to be working on different frameworks. It is not an easy thing, to be.)
This is not wishing Reynie an easy path. This is Reynie,who finds the answer to Mr. Benedict's riddle far quicker in this universe, and tells the others it's cheating with little fanfare. (He doesn't all the way understand the others' shocked reactions.) This is Reynie, who listens to Mr. Curtain proclaim them as one and the same and feels his stomach twist and twist and twist.
(There is something wrong with you, says a voice in his brain, growing loud and louder still.)
This is Reynie, two days without sleep in the bunk bed of the dormitory. There is doubt in his inside of his ribcage, weighing him down, not because he is afraid he is not brave enough to carry the weight but because he is afraid he is not good.
(In any world, Reynie gets the answer to the chess question right. In any world, Benedict reminds Reynie that the white knight retreated because of doubt inside its stone chest, and Reynie goes back to bed to write another mental letter.)
No. No. This is not wishing Reynie an easy path. But you do not need to be empathetic to be kind. It is not a prerequisite. Actions, not emotions. This is the heart of it.
This is a Reynie who still snaps his pencil in half for Rhonda, because you do not need empathy to believe that things should be fair. This is a Reynie who encourages Sticky, even if Sticky must first figure out how to ask for it. This is a Reynie who never begrudges Constance's bouts of intentional rudeness, because she never begrudges his own unintentional discourtesy. Kate calls him "comfortingly blunt," and Nicholas Benedict just smiles, eyes twinkling
I am thinking of the end of Book 3, where Constance nudges Mr. Benedict's head into order and the narcolepsy leaves him. I am thinking about how this is a series about choices, and what you make of them.
Do you think she offers? Do you think she says, "I can fix it. I can do it, if you want."
Do you think Reynie, who is older and wiser and quietly coming into his own, says, "I'm not sure it's something that needs to be fixed."
Empathy is an emotion. It is not action. It is not kindness, or fairness, or a sense of wrong and right. It is not leadership, or cleverness, or friendship. It is not love.
Reynie is made of so many things beyond his empathy, or his lack of it.
This is a Reynie who saves the world, still, still, still. Because he can do it. Because it is right. This is a Reynie who makes his first friends, and puts together puzzle pieces, and steps up to the role of leader, shoulders curved under the weight. A Reynie Muldoon who curls up in Miss Perumal's arms when it's all over. A Reynie Muldoon who is a little different, but much the same; kind, determined, and good.
A Reynie Muldoon who is loved all the way through, who loves all the way back, and feels so, so lucky.
Because in any universe, love can be a mercy.
It is always a gift.
Please, I am begging y'all to think about Baby Entomologist Sticky
Insects have such variety, such cool names, such fascinating features!! And they are the most diverse creatures on the planet! There are at least a million types, if not more. Specifically beetles have a LOT of different species.
And if Sticky was even slightly inclined to biology, even if it was more academic than seeing real, live things, he would almost certainly have loved bugs
What kid doesn't go through a phase of learning about creepy crawlies? I certainly did, and then I never grew out of it. Especially with kid Sticky having such a soft heart, I feel like he'd feel bad for the "ugly/gross" bugs like cockroaches and crickets and millipedes and things
Just. The idea of him having the time of his life reciting facts and scientific names and genuses. Sharing his love of some of the most misunderstood things on Earth. Maybe even using the perceived "grossness" of his fun facts to get people to leave him alone; reciting the most off-putting thing he could think of so that people stopped asking him questions.
He'd have a complete ball learning as much as he could, and of course being a whiz when it came to competitions and things where they think they'll stump everyone with a fact about a rare species of ant or something and he gets it immediately
Taking solace in these living things that don't ask anything of him, don't want anything from him, and yet are a comforting presence. He may not have had a pet, but you can find bugs anywhere
Okay, so, I'm rambling now, but listen.
All that
And then
The Waiting Room
#ok listen i understand and love the angst#it is beautiful it kills me#however please enjoy the sweet crack-adjacent image#of this being one (1) time sticky is like. not scared#hes like. oh! wait! im prepared for this. i love bugs :) bugs arent scary bugs are friends ive told people this before!!#like the bugs are a comfort in the cold and the mud#like mr curtain is all hhaha yes i love tormenting children lets go see how that scared little shaking Anxiety Boy is d--#opens door to sticky sitting cross legged in the middle#red-rimmed eyes but smiling wetly at the centipede in his cupped hands#telling it bug facts#snakes and dogs! that isnt whats supposed to happen!#great googly moogly! etc!
@bi-demon-ium This is the AU I want to live in. Curtain is defeated by the power of weird little children and their loved ones who don't react in a neurotypical way to things sjdhdhdhd
Please. Please, please, could y'all provide me with some Milligan content?
Milligan Headcanons:
Milligan spent three years wandering before finding Mr. Benedict. It was during this time that he started wearing disguises and feeling paranoid- as much as he could feel anything- about being noticed by old enemies he could no longer recognise. There are only so many times you can get attacked by seemingly random passerbys before you notice a pattern.
No one would ever realise this, but at one point an old acquaintance who had known about Kate had walked right past his disguised self. If he hadn't been purposeful hiding his face, it was possible they could have been reunited much sooner.
Those three years were definitely the hardest, because The Apathy was alive and real. Theoretically, he was perfectly capable of getting a job, finding income, and rebuilding a life. But it all felt pointless, it didn't matter, he was Missing Something, and no job ever lasted more than a few weeks. He spent a lot of time camping out on rooftops instead.
At the beginning, he had kept a notebook full of potential names that could be connected to "Milligan". He worked through newspaper and rang every possibly relevent number in phonebooks.
Remembering Kate was the happiest moment of his life, and one of the hardest. That was his baby! .... That was his baby. He had left her behind.
The first few months after they reunited are so hard, because Kate treats him less like a dad and more of a coworker. He gets why. He understands that this is tentative and new, for her, that he's practically a stranger, but... It's still so hard to see Your Kid and realise you have missed out on more then half their life.
Half the reason Milligan agreed to hire Moocho is because it was clear Kate needed to feel like someone was in Her Corner, a d that Milligan didn't have that type of trust yet. (The other half is because of his pies.)
They get there, eventually . The first time post memory return Kate calls him dad has him choking back tears because he Knows if he makes a big deal of it Kate will Make Fun of Him Forever and also might be scared off from doing it again.
For a while, Kate can call Milligan "Dad" and basically get him to do whatever she wants. She uses this power mostly for good .
Kate is a terrible clothes thief. He doesn't mind. It reminds him of when she was two and used to wear his shirts as nightgowns.
When he got his memories back, he realised that his likes and dislikes had changed, particularly in regards to flavour. Some foods that he deeply disliked in his memories were suddenly palatable. He doesn't know if it's just because it's been ten years since food has tasted like anything, and so everything tastes better then it used to, or if lots just been ten years and his pallette has developed, or if The Whisperer had done some sort of damage to his brain, changing it. It bothers him more than he'd like to admit, that he doesn't know.
Speaking of food, after getting his memories back, a part of his journey in recovering definitely involved rebuilding a healthy relationship with food, because for so long it was just Sustenance that the body had to have so it can Continue The Mission. The first time he got a good look at himself in the mirror post memory return, there was a lot of odd body dysphoria. That wasn't him, was it? That wasn't what he looked like. The man in the mirror was so disconnected from what he expected to see, except it was him and-
Milligan cried the first time he ate something and realised it didn't taste like cardboard for the first time in a decade. The he laughed because he was crying and that hadn't happened in a decade either. Then he was laughing and crying, and Mr. Benedict was falling asleep into his soup, and Rhonda was fetching the tissues while Number Two saved Mr. Benedict from drowning admits the leaks and potatoes. Sticky, next to him, had frantically patted his arm in a terrible form of reassurance that had only made him laugh harder, and Kate had simply passed him a bread roll with a grin. (Reynie, unnoticed, had quietly convinced Constance not to intrude on the moment with a poem.) It had been a very emotional dinner.
The first time he gains back enough weight to wear an old pair of pants found in storage without tightening the belt two extra notches is a relief. It feels like healing. The first time he realises that he's grown out of the clothes purchased by his twenty-something year self feels like moving on.
no but like sometimes I just think about the significance behind Milligan’s name..... my guy literally named himself after his happiest memory without even consciously realizing it..... he named himself after his promise to Kate, and even kept the name after getting his memories back??? Like.... imagine being loved so much that the only tangible link someone has to their entire identity involves a promise they made to you???? Anyways in conclusion Trenton Lee Stewart writing Milligan’s character like:
I don't know if Milligan Wetherall being a good liar is more tragic if it's because he's been through so much and lost some of the innocence and hope the kids have because he's seen how bad the world and the people in it can be or because he didn't know who he was so anything he said could have plausibly been true and since he pretended to be so many people did he try on every disguise and look in the mirror with even the barest glimmer of hope that he'd recognize the man looking back
Hi Sophie!!
I just knew I had to pull from my birthday fic!! It was so lovely reading it again <3
Carefully, he reached out and clasped her hand, feeling its warmth encased in his much larger palm. "Hello, Kate. I– I do not have a name, but the guards call me the Mill-Again Man, as I am told it is the first thing I said upon arriving here."
Kate mulled this over, considering. "I'm not going to call you that, that's not a name. How about 'Milligan', then?"
He nodded, a quiet smile growing on his lips. "That will do perfectly."
Okay, so, I was fairly proud of this bit, not very much so, but a little. Y'know, it's kind of clever. And having Kate be the one to solidify it into a name is kind of fun.
AnD THEN YOU HAD TO COME IN SWINGING ON DISCORD WITH
"the mental image of Milligan pleading for the mill, again, again, out LOUD….. like get this man home to his baby T.T"
So now I am insane :)
Because somehow even I, as the author, didn't consider the implications. Milligan, freshly amnesiac and scared out of his mind, half delirious half inconsolably broken in a way there has never been before, just asking, begging, babbling about "the mill, again" over and over, so much so that his last, broken promise to his child becomes his whole identity not just in a self-inventive way but so much so that everyone around him identifies him that way. Just. Ough.
"his last, broken promise to his child becomes his whole identity not just in a self-inventive way but so much so that everyone around him identifies him that way." <- HOW DARE!?!?!
asking about the daemon au again, do you know what Reynie’s eventually settles as? if not may I humbly suggest some species of owl, they combine his traits of wisdom, bookishness, leadership, and would allow her to O.O at everyone
I will be genuine I have solid ideas for everyone EXCEPT for Reynie, who I flip flop between different ideas for. An owl is DEFINITELY one of them and I really do like the idea of Evangeline just O.O her way through life.
They are existing in an aftermath, and Sticky has somehow allowed his life to compress into just this, just this crooked house full of nooks and crannies, just Milligan’s booming laughter and Kate’s grins and Constance’s morning grogginess.
bellis perennis!!! I think this is actually one of my favourite fics I've written for TMBS. It just scratches a lot of the things I love in writing and reading fanfiction.
This line you've chosen is one of my favourites in the story, because it was one of the first things I wrote for it. I wanted to create a fic about that time we didn't get to see, when the kids were back in Benedict's House after saving the world but the future was still blurry.
I love exploring aftermaths, and what they can look like. Life is full of them regardless, but in the first book it is an aftermath of something bigger and grander than what is easily comprehensible. What does the aftermath of what could have been the end of the world look like? It's very interesting to me, especially with child characters who have less experience in going through them, and far less control.
This particular line is the penultimate refrain of the aftermath motif, disregarding the summary. It starts with this introductory line, because it's the crux of Sticky's perspective of the moment. Relief, and the oddness, and the uncertainty of it all.
It is an odd sort of thing, Sticky thinks, to exist in this aftermath. To come back to Mr. Benedict’s odd towering house and its walls of books, to be safely cocooned in the almost familiar when their lives had been, for weeks, one terror after another.
Sticky is such a great character because he responds to things in moments. Everything can be overwhelming for him, but his overwhelming is limited to what's happening right then and now; a quiz, a lie, a danger to be overcome. Reynie, in contrast, is a big picture thinker and he's very aware of next steps, of future problems. So the line you picked is the segue-way into Sticky's realisation of how Reynie is perceiving the whole situation, calling back to his perspective and contrasting it to what Reynie's just told him.
They are existing in an aftermath, and Sticky has somehow allowed his life to compress into just this, just this crooked house full of nooks and crannies, just Milligan’s booming laughter and Kate’s grins and Constance’s morning grogginess. Just Rhonda, teaching him how to braid hair and Number Two setting out snacks and inevitably eating them, Mr. Benedict weaving his way through everybody’s lives like the center of their orbiting planets.
Just this, Reynie at his side and daisies cropping up at their feet. These moments. These tiny shared intricacies, shuttered away from the rest of the world.
But life has a way of creeping in. Sticky has not thought about his future in awhile- too busy running from the past- but now the thoughts lay heavy.
Then, of course, we have the resolution of the motif, because every aftermath of something is also a beginning of something new, and of course we all know a kinder ending is on its way:
This is an aftermath. Sticky has spent weeks sweating through thin sheets, swallowing terror and trying to find a part of himself that is something like brave. He has walked halls and hills and tunnels. He has taken some of the worst of this world and lived through it.
This is a beginning. They are standing in a garden and there are daisies at their feet, pulled by the wind but not uprooted, not snapped. Sticky thinks that he and Reynie can be that strong. He thinks that they can bend and not break, whatever life may bring them.
In the line you picked, I really like the alliteration I used with "allowed his life to compress into just this, just this crooked house full of nooks and crannies", and I like the figurative language I use to describe Mr. Benedict. Ive noticed I use a lot of space metaphors when talking about the Benedict family, and this might be the fic that kicked that off... :)
Anyway, @sophieswundergarten, thank you so much for this prompt. I had a lot of fun and I am full of love and joy <3
hello it is I, tumblr user ravenspiritlin and ao3 user evanescentcuriosity. I had to look through my fic screenshots for a bit but I found a long line from one of your fics that I saved:
"The sun is no longer a spotlight but a microscope, zooming in on all her faults and flaws, highlighting all the things in her life that she cannot depend on, all the empty spaces that should have been filled with kindness and love, and instead are filled with anger and hate and some twisted sort of fear."
I don't remember which fic it was from but I think it was about Kate? yeah. I can see why I screenshotted this line, it is very beautiful, much like the rest of your writing :DDD
(also I've been a bit out of tmbs for a while as my obsession has transferred to other stories but I have actually met a random person irl who has also read your tmbs fics and loved them! she hasn't left any comments so I just wanted to tell you that-)
Ooooh this is so sweet!! Thank you!
This is a quote from capture the sun, my first Kate-centric fic that I wrote for @pumpkinthistle way back when. The fandom was so tiny back then!
Kate is such a lovely character. She's so bright, and clever, and strong. But she's also independent to a fault and has the motto "grin and bear it" carved into her bones. I thought it would be interesting to explore what sort of childhood sparks you to run away to the circus at eight years old, that would breed that sort of fierce, protective can do attitude that so defines her. Hence, this fic was born!
I really love sun imagery for Kate- and sun imagery in general- so it was one of the motifs I used throughout the story. (Hence, the title.) Kate has a very sunny personality, big and larger than life and cheerful. But also, the sun is a giant ball of gas and fire, and it's always chasing the horizon. Exploring how she connects with the sun, seeking it, playing with it, rising up to it, is one of the ways I connected the sort of disconnected sequences in the story. Sun = Light = Spotlight was an easy connection in my head, especially considering her circus background.
The specific line you picked out is supposed to work in contrast to a line that existed earlier in the fic, back when she was still with Milligan and she did not yet know how much life can ache:
"She feels like a giant. She feels like the sun is a spotlight, shining down directly on her, the world but some clay to be molded by her own clumsy fingers."
The circumstances change, and she's caught in a house that does not treat her kindly, and her whole world has gone off axis, so it changes to:
"The sun is no longer a spotlight but a microscope, zooming in on all her faults and flaws, highlighting all the things in her life that she cannot depend on, all the empty spaces that should have been filled with kindness and love, and instead are filled with anger and hate and some twisted sort of fear."
And then, later on in the fic, there is a tiny callback to the spotlight line when she's at the circus and watching the acrobats. She wants a kinder sort of light than what the orphanage provides, and suddenly before her she gets a glimpse of it. I wanted it to be clear that this was her motivation for running away.
"They go. They watch the show. Kate sits on the edge of her seat as the tremulous feats of danger and daring take her breath away. The spotlights are flaring, painting the air brilliant reds and blues and golds. The performers look like they are flying. They look like they’re catching the sun."
Anyway, I have a real fondness for this fic and for Kate, and I like how this line has parallels built into the story. If I were to write it again, I'd probably add more periods, but that's just how my style has changed over time. :)
Regardless, @ravenspiritlin, this was such a fun ask and I hope you didn't mind my rambling too much!!! Also, the idea of ANYONE talking about my fics in the wild is absolutely wild. What an honour!!!!! Thank you <3
a more accurate or detailed mr benedict, as a design experiment! I think his face looks great in this. The only thing I would change is giving him back his deep set eyes and defined upper eyelids!
[ID in alt text: A drawing of Mr. Benedict in a slightly different style than normal. On the side is a set of notes that says “ lumpy nose, impish, green eyes, frazzled hair, big thick glasses (good for falling over), fat (to me).” there are also two images taken from the book one is his portrait, and one is him from the cover of the puzzle book. the drawing is much more watercolor looking than normal of this artist‘s art, his nose is a bit of a more realistic shape having a bulbus lump at the end and visible nose bridge. His eyes are much more inwardly slant and foxy or impish. he has thick square frames and a 5 o’clock shadow.]
Send me a line from one of my fics that stood out to you in some way, and I’ll rank how I felt about it!
Kate is strength and agility, Reynie is puzzle-solving, Sticky is intelligence, Constance is resistance, what do you think Rhonda and Number Two specialized in?
Ooooh this is very interesting.
For Rhonda... we know canonically that she always knows when she is entering a sort of maze and that she's talented at chess. She also tells us that she figured out the puzzle in the second test. We see her successfully disguising herself and we see her leading a group of belligerent government officials when Mr. Benedict is kidnapped. She is sharp, witty, and clever.
Based off of this, I feel like she's a strategist, and incredibly self aware of herself and how she fits into any given situation. I'd like to think that she's very talented at going into a room and getting what she needs out of people. Her strength lies in creating situations that suit her needs best. She's probably closest to Reynie in the sense that she uses her emotional intelligence to succeed in her goals. I have a feeling that, when she was younger, she used to feel like she was always the smartest person in the room- that she HAD to be the smartest person in the room- and she could use that to her benefit. Failure, like with Kate, was really hard for her. Meeting Mr. Benedict helped her to find healthy coping mechanisms for failure and realise how good it feels to use her intelligence to uplift others. I also like to headcanon that she's really into chemistry and the sciences!
For Number Two... we all know about her chronic lack of sleep and how she rescued herself by literally working day and night to break her bounds in the cave. In my mind, Number's Two's sheer dogged persistence is her main specialty. If there is something to be done, she will work on it and work on it and work on it until it is finished. She is good at organizing and compiling lots of tiny details into bigger pictures. If there is a new subject or skill that needs to be mastered in order to find answers, Number Two will spend a week becoming a master and then put her newfound knowledge to good use. In my head, when she was a kid this sort of stemmed from being left alone a lot and feeling like she had to be very independent. Mr. Benedict helped to alleviate that, and make her feel a part of the team rather than someone who has to handle it all by herself.
I also headcanon that Number Two is really a jack of all trades when it comes to skills; do you need someone who can play an oboe? Number Two can do it. Do you need someone who can do woodcuttings? Number Two actually spent three months in Siberia with a master tradesman preparing just for this moment. She has a handle on every fiber craft known to man and creates exacting duplicates of famous paintings in her spare time.
This was very fun. Thank you @fandom-queen-13 !!!! <3 <3 <3
hey there! I love your MBS daemon au, do you have any extra characterization/worldbuilding/general thoughts about it that didn’t make it into your fics?
ohohohohoooohoooooooohehhebhjnbhjk
*evil laughter*
daemon au my beloved!!!
Some Fun Facts:
McCracken's daemon is a mountain lion named Pandora
Crawlings has a coconut crab daemon
Jillson and Jackson have wild boar and peccary daemons respectively
Some Thoughts on Culture
Daemons typically settle in your early teen years.
Daemons choose their own name. It's usually the first thing they say.
At least in the geographic area of Stonetown, daemons typically communicate with daemons and humans with humans. With families and close friends, this social expectation is more relaxed. Part of the reason people can get put so offput by Constance on meeting her is because of how brazen her daemon is.
There's a huge branch of pseudo-science that is based on contextualizing people's personalities based on what type of daemon they have, sort of like Astrology and Zodiac signs.
Similarly, people have a lot of Opinions about what it means to have a daemon that's the same gender as you. (It's akin to being left handed. It's not impossibly rare, but it's certainly less common.)
Even if two people have the same animal, all daemons are unique. It's sort of like a fingerprint.
Touching daemons of strangers is a HUGE no-no. For this reason, sidewalks in the daemon au are actually quite a bit larger to give people and their partners room to walk.
Some Thoughts on The Story
The Whisperer weakens the connection between humans and their daemons. When someone is brainswept, their daemons disappear entirely. They come back when people's memories return.
Curtain, Benedict, and Constance settle abnormally young. Reynie, in comparison, settles abnormally late.
Curtain usually doesn't keep his daemon out in the open. Castor has a compartment in his wheelchair to house him.
One of the ways S.Q. endeared himself to Curtain is by touching his daemon and not being repulsed by it.
Kate's daemon eventually settles as a wild cat (Katie-Cat!) of some sort and she has a lot of Angst about her daemon being similar to McCracken.
Sticky ends up having the largest Daemon of the group. He's secretly a little pleased about this.
Evangeline (Reynie's Daemon) constantly Stares At You and it freaks people out a little when they don't know Reynie very well.
After they get used to each other, the Mysterious Benedict Society are constantly cuddling with each other's daemons, to the point that sometimes outsider's aren't sure whose daemon is whose.
One of the way Constance got away with telling people she's older than she looks is that her daemon doesn't shuffle between different forms as much on the random. In the library, she was always very careful to keep Dante as a teacup pig when out in the open.
Some Behind The Scenes
The idea of Mr. Benedict and Mr. Curtain having parallel snake daemons named Castor and Pollux- one who's scales are a warning and one who's scales are a clever mimic- is actually one of the things that sparked this au!
For a while, Sticky's daemon was going to be a Clydesdale horse. I always knew I wanted his daemon to be some sort of large animal.
I deliberated for a Long Time about Kate's daemon being Madge, before ultimately deciding against it. (Madge and Ori do tricks together as falcons before Ori settles.)
Constance and Kate originally had opposite daemon interaction ideas; Constance's daemon never talked and Kate's daemon chatted to everyone directly.
Reynie's daemon is impossible to decide upon. Every day I struggle.
I'm hoping to post a fic about Constance at some point, and there's a couple of other things I want to explore in this au, too.
Thank you so much for this ask!!!!!!! I might have covered something already in the fics, and if so.... oops. But seriously, I have so much fun talking about the silly aus in my head and I love talking with people about them. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 THANK YOU!!!
