#daemon aus

[runawaymarbles]

Daemon AUs where the daemon is basically an OC are fun but have we considered daemon AUs where the daemon is another canon character and keeps their personality

[elodieunderglass]

I am absolutely wild and feral over HDM (legit like, daemons fit SO well. I'm watching dunmeshi wondering where Laios' dog went) and super curious if you do plan a sequel or other fics following this AU??

(In reference to the His Dark Materials / Dungeon Meshi fusion fic)

thank you so much for this question I love this question god!!!! Thank you thank you thank you

God sorry about HDM being delayed, I’m going through hell over it at the moment. It’s meant to end a little after the dragon, then a timeskip epilogue, with special coding so that you can read it two different ways, depending on whether you want spoilers for the manga/season 2. (My idea is that you’ll click a button to reveal/hide it, and the spoiler-free epilogue will be like found poetry.)

Firstly, if you or anyone else would like to take the concepts/characters in His Delicious Materials forward for themselves, you must do this. You don’t need my permission (but I’d love a link! so I can read, scream, reblog, comment, link to it, etc. there is also the “inspired by” setting on ao3 so we can link works directly to HDM, forming a collection for anyone who reads one and wants more.) I don’t own any of it! We are all just having fun! YOU can be the sequel you want to see in the world! If your heart feels a way forward, then follow your heart!! A daemon AU is really about revealing character and I find them really inspiring, like adding a whole engine to a story idea.

If I were to write something to follow up, I do know what the sequel WOULD be! It would be a sort of Discworld novel about the slow social revolution occurring in the half-foots as a chain reaction to Bee settling as a weasel, all occurring behind Chilchuck’s oblivious and unhelpful back. Pushed into a sort of bottleneck of sparrow- and mouse-souls, and marginalised to the very edges of society, half-foots are precarious and endangered. Chilchuck is mostly eating a ham sandwich unhelpfully in the foreground, and at the end of the story looks back and sees to his bewilderment that his people have found a way forward (they don’t have a Shire or a Chosen One, but they do have a goddamn functional worker’s union and their own collective dignity.) kind of Discworld-commentary-comedy, kind of a loving argument with Tolkien, kind of Sharpe hostile-and-awkward-protagonist-POV-doesn’t-know-and-wouldn’t-believe-that-his-men-genuinely-love-him, kind of about the experience of parenting, and kind of gently warmly political BUT FUNNY so it would be ok. but feel it would be too much of a stretch of people’s patience and the original materials’s intentions to call it fanfic. Too many OCs needed to carry the weight, too little reference to the other Dungeon Meshi characters, almost too little “payoff” for what would be a full 70k word work. So maybe to let the story breathe, it would be better worked up as original fiction?

(Plus, that is actually an actual novel: if people write their own novels and manga about orc coffeeshops and dnd parties, I could just write my own too: wait but how do you know if you should?)

Anyway, that is an entirely separate kettle of weasels and my own cross to bear! If your heart cries out for a sequel the best way to manifest it in the world is to write it!

If you feel that A Weasel Heart In Defiance feels like it would scratch that itch, here is a bit that is mildly relevant to Dungeon Meshi, which is Chilchuck and Bee starting to work away from home while the girls were still small. You’ll probably see what I mean from it.

About seven of the village children, including his own three, had a snake in a wooden bucket. They didn't look up.

The reappearance of a random guy who functioned mostly as a postal service and occasionally shouted at them about bedtime - in a way that could be easily blanked out if something more interesting was happening - simply could not be expected to compete for attention with a snake in a bucket.

Chilchuck could recognise this on some level, but as his own children ignored him, he felt very hot and angry, in a way that he had never wanted to feel about children, especially his.

Bee, also rigidly pissed off, growled, "Easy, boss."

This was where Chilchuck did the only thing so far that he was proud of, in this day. He did not start shouting, even though his temper was going something like What the fuck, kids, but worse. He stopped, took a minute, and remembered he'd had this whole thing where he'd wanted his kids to love him. He rubbed his nose, said, "Remind me," and his daemon reminded him: "What do we want them to actually do?"

And he said, "The bare minimum fucking acknowledgement would be nice."

And Bee said, "Have we explained that to them? Do they know?"

So Chilchuck and Bee, hot and tired and cross and still on the job apparently, sat down on the ground with the kids and looked in the bucket. The snake, poor bastard, looked very limp and tired. Chilchuck could relate.

After a while, Chilchuck said, "Girls?"

Or more accurately, something like, "Girls! Girls. Meifleurpatti-I mean Puck-PUCK. Listen up. Mei! Fleur, I'm talking - thanks Fleur - Puck. (Ryeland, stop the baby.) PUCK. Mei, Fleur, Puck - PUCK, eyes on me - thanks, Ryeland - PUCK. EYES," which condensed in parent-speak to a single roar of "Girls!"

When he had them more or less listening, he remembered to set his voice to the more singsong cadence one used for children, instead off the deeper version of his natural voice that he used for shouting at the top of his abilities at tall people; making the choice to be patient and gentle, or at least pretend to be someone who was; and in this manner he said reasonably, "Now, your dad's been away for a very long time and missed you all very much. What do you say? What do you say when your dad comes home?"

Six children stared at him blankly, and the baby toppled gently into the bucket. He fished it out, stuck it sideways under his arm, allowed the snake to escape in the confusion, acknowledged someone's grievously injured finger, stopped Fleur from pinching, took out his pocket handkerchief and wiped Puck's nose in essentially one continuous motion.

To be completely fair, now that he'd let go of the initial anger, he could see that the kids had absolutely no idea what he'd wanted of them. Kids had practically no social instincts at the best of times. Chilchuck coming home was remarkable, sure, but beyond their influence; how were they supposed to react? What do you say to a comet? What do you say to a hailstorm? What do you say when daddy comes home?

He repeated the question, as the children had universally drawn blanks and devolved into staring vacantly.

"Good morning, Daddy!" A child chirped helpfully, setting off the rest in an automatic drone of "good morning, Daddy," in the strangely universal dreary tone of all children saying that.

"So close, Fernwise! Is it morning? What else do we think?"

Bee, fighting for order among the kit-daemons, was simultaneously washing Fleurtom's daemon, Pantoufle's, face; receiving a long rambling report of a grievance from three incoherent witnesses; and minding the baby's chick-daemon; up to her ears in parenting. She said, around a mouthful of Pan, "Speed it up, boss, you're losing them."

"Where are your spots, Daddy?" Pan asked him. He was in the form of a young ferret and scrabbled against his mother's grip on his scruff.

"My what?"

"Your freckles," Bee said grimly, and seeing he'd been temporarily disarmed - and being a valiant beast in her way - charged in to her human's defense, "Is that nice, Pan? We don't want to make people feel bad about their looks, do we?"

"Yes we do," said Fleur.

"Fleur! We've just - we haven't seen much of the sun, that's all," said Bee, taking charge, the best and most loyal soul a man could have. "They'll come back, and they're not spots."

"Mei has spots."

"Freckles."

"Grimbob has spots."

"Yes, and you shouldn't notice," Bee said. "Think of Grimbob's feelings."

"I do, I think he feels spotty."

"I'm thirsty," Puck said flatly.

"Stick to the point, kids," Chilchuck said, recovering from the fact that his usual face was apparently indistinguishable to children from Grimbob's, who had been taking puberty hard. This was surprisingly difficult to do.

Ryeland, a mildly bright spark who was older than the Chils girls, connected two dots and suddenly roared "WELCOME HOME DADDY," so six children all repeated that automatically, and Fleur added sunnily, "I missed you Daddy!"

And just as a very small piece of Chilchuck's heart was finally allowed to melt, she added, equally sunnily, "Mei didn't."

"I did a little," Meijack said vaguely.

"That's great kids, well done, we got there in the end," Chilchuck said. "Remember it for next time, okay? It makes Daddy feel better about his stupid life. Now, next time, let's remember that it's traditional to do a hug."

He realised his mistake instantly, as six children and their daemons all bore him - and the baby he'd forgotten he was holding - to the ground.

___________

[elexuscal]

Okay, so back in like, 2011, I wrote the first two chapters of a Young Justice daemon AU fic. Didn't get very far, since I didn't actually know how to Find fandoms then, and it's probably languishing of ff.net somewhere, which even back then wasn't doing so hot. Frankly, since most of the cast were teenagers, I don't even think I got to the point where most of them had settled and I got to pick their daemons.

But. But there is one pick I remain pretty proud of, even a decade later: Batman's daemon.

Because there was a lot of considerations in it. Like, for the characters with super powers, I can just give their daemons the same super powers. It's a lot more viable for Wonder Woman to go around with a horse when her horse can also fly.

But no. Batman is a character in closed quarters urban environments, and famously, does a lot of scaling buildings and gliding between them. So his daemon needs to be relatively small, able to flight and/or climbing (or be able to be tucked away so that's no longer an issue). Already a lot of the obvious options are out.

And you know what would be great for this? Genuinely? A bat.

Like; nocturnal, echolocation, able to fly, obviously the aesthetics are on point. Even says some interesting things character wise! Like if we use that interpretation of young Bruce being afraid of bats, it had fascinating implications if his soul literally settles on that. And then you have the fact that while bats are usually depicted as very intimdating in western culture, they're really social animals, and Bruce adopts strays like it's an addiction... It genuinely makes sense!

Except. Except. Batman's alter ego has the highest profile of allll the DC heroes. Clark Kent can get around having a dog daemon, even one that kinda looks like Krypto; do you know HOW many people have dog daemons? But bats stand out. Do you think a bat fits the vibes of Brucie Wayne? Do you think no one would maybe get suspicious and go HEY.

So. Okay. Iterate. Small mammal; nocturnal; gliding...

It's an open question what Batman's daemon is. Some people swear they've seen a mastiff manifest from the shadows, or a vampire bat suck out a goon's blood. More claim Batman does not even have a daemon; that truly, he is undead, a vampire himself. There are even embers of the Justice League who have served with him for years and never seen hide nor hair of his daemon.

Meanwhile, on Good Morning Gotham, Bruce Wayne waltzes onto the set, his sweet daemon in a pink bow waving at the cameras...

[Image ID: a small possum posed half-concealed behind a branch. It is white with grey markings around its very large eyes. It has large eyes and ears with a vivid pink nose.]

How many jokes do people make about the sugar daddy Bruce Wayne with his sugar glider? A lot. But don't worry. The pair take it in good stride.

[shedoesntevengohier]

Daemon AU concept:

Vincent has a cat (...hmm, maybe she's Maria?). They're separated, which is not widely known. When he's Innocent, they end up occasionally having the cat sneak off and go wander Vatican City and Rome where it would be too conspicuous if Vincent tried to do that. (Possibly he has a sling or in his room a cat cave or somewhere else Maria likes to hide like under a couch, so that combined with people seeing what they expect to see generally causes people not to realize what's happening.)

[lookforanewangle]

something I hadn't considered: how would a daemon au work for danny phantom? If there are fics out there that explore them please send them my way

[beck-a-leck]

So @durotoswrites and I had tons of fun doing Daemon Quizzes tonight for various Bokumono Characters. Here's what we got so far.

All of the Mineral Town marriage candidates

Bachelors:

• Cliff: Beetle or Sun Bear. We also took the Raptor quiz for Cliff just to see what a bird of prey daemon would be for him. He got the Vulture)

• Gray: Mustelid - badger

• Rick: Flightless bird – chicken or cassowary

• Doctor: Owl – Great Gray Owl

• Kai: Caprine – Domestic goat

• Brandon: Arachnid or Xenarthra – Tarantula or Sloth

Bachelorettes:

• Popuri: Perching Bird – Parrot

• Ann: Cavitave – Toucan

• Elli: Quiz says Insect – Ant. We decided to not torture Elli with a daemon of something she hates. So we picked Domestic Dog and the quiz said German Shephard

• Mary: Xenarthra or Domestic Cat – Pichiciego (Pink Fairy Armadillo) or Russian Blue

• Karen: Wild Cat or Caprine – Lion or Domestic Goat

• Jennifer: Bats or Fox – Flying Fox or Red Fox

Rune Factory Bachelors

Arthur: Owl or Serpent – Burrowing Owl, Screech Owl, or Hognose Snake (3 people did Arthur's quiz and we got 3 different results. Which is fascinating to see how we all differently interpreted the character)

Dylas: Marsupial or Raptor – Wombat or Vulture

Leon: Waterfowl – goose (It's a beautiful day in Selphia and you are a chaotic fox-man and a horrible goose daemon)

Vishnal: (To absolutely NO Surprise) Domestic Dog – Pug or St. Bernard

Kiel: Amphibian or Xenarthra - Glass Frog or Anteater

Doug: Viverroid or Swine – Hyena or Warthog

[sirencipher]

So so so in love with hzd daemon aus that have 'extinct' animals existing and known only through being daemons. Not only for the fact that it's a really cool and perfectly depressing idea completely matching the mood of the media, but because I'm fascinated by the idea of the Sobeck ladies daemons settling differently and further validating their independent individuality

[moved--306389]

Folks who like Daemon!AUs, how do y'all go about choosing daemons for aliens? Or characters who aren't human, or come from other worlds where the animals from Earth don't exist?

In my case, if I can't find any in the existing canon, I just make them up myself. I create it's with traits I think would match the character - ex. "He has a beaming personality, so I'll make this animal glowy" or "she looks like a daemon who can fly"

I also imagine what their daemon would be if it was a real animal, and then pretent this alien animal I just invented would have the same behavior or personality.