Magic, magic everywhere

The plan is to use this to infodump certain Hatchetfield related headcanons and the Black, White and Grey AU (shared with @monstrousaffections1, who goes as Monstrous/ Marr) that is on AO3 in two ongoing fics (and hopefully more in the future).

It also is a good place to drop any questions y'all may have about this AU, anon or not. The ask box is open after all.

To put a short summary, The Black, White and Grey is an AU that kinda leans a little more into possibilities of how the Black and White functions and how it MAY eventually affect Hatchetfield, so it will involve obvious non-canon aspects specifically for our AU. Such as more adults having a form of Touch of Gift, some little exploration of things like the Hive mechanics, what Pokey stands to gain from this, so on and so forth. It will also have OCs, of human and non-human, which time will have to be made to explain each one of them. (I sure hope I remember this)

Things to note:

Updates are irregular. Adults have adult stuff and catching up irl to do.

Please read the tags of every fic we get to publish. If I have not clarified, assume any fic from us is dead dove material. Stuff I was raised on and exposed very early on in my childhood, and is as good as the norm from where we come from, and our generation.

Tags for easier search (for my own reminders as well, look down in the tags):

#persephone of apotheosis - Arc 1, where it's set in an alternate version of events when Apotheosis was underway, and instead of running it's course, it was eventually unsuccessful

#director's cut: school dayz - Prequel to Arc 1, where it explores why (probably how as well) the events of PoA are commencing the way it is, in typical horny teen fashion

A quote I shall leave here for all who do stumble on this blog:

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.

~Friedrich W. Nietzsche

Right, this here is one of pur personal playlists to muse over when writing our fic. Whoever stumbles on this, and is interested in reading whatever's there for our fic, well, give it a listen.

(For context, although we are using actual Lovecraftian Lore, we are also using Creative Liberty for the sake of the story. After all, one can dream)

So, those who have read chapter 12 of School Dayz are probably wondering, who is Shub-Niggurath? If you also are familiar with the Lovecraftian Mythos, you might already know. But yes, it is time to divulge some of this universe's secrets. Primarily, of the Eldritch world.

The Lords in Black's family is not a tree, not a wreath, but a very confusing, incomprehensible tangled creeping vine. So to keep our readers, and ourselves, sane. We are only focusing on the most direct and certain part of the lineage, that directly links to Wiggly, Webby and their brothers.

First and foremost we have, Shub-Niggurath, The Mother Goddess. The Black Goat of the Woods With A Thousand Young. Also known as The Lord of The Woods. A benevolent Goddess.

She is their Great-Great-Grandmother.

Their Grandparents are, Nug and Yeb, the children of Shub-Niggurath. They are twins born male and female and yes.... they are the Lords In Blacks' great-grandparents. Like I said, it's not a tree, not a wreath. They are known as the Twin Blasphemies, but otherwise there is not a lot known about them. Siiigh, how annoying it is to be forgotten because your relatives have far more grander achievements.

Their son, Cthulhu on the other hand, is VERY Famous. Famous even within humanity's limiting circles of knowledge.

The grandparents of the Lords in Black, Cthulhu and Idh-yaa. Cthulhu was a High Priest of the Great Old Ones, though later he became The King of The Black.

Together with his beloved Queen, the androgynous Idh-yaa, they had four children: three sons, Ghatanothoa, Ythogtha, Zoth-Ommog And a daughter, Cthylla.

Ted’s family … it consists of 3 generations basically. For the current School Dayz familial lineup, we won’t include Pete, since he ain’t born yet XD (at best an unknown foetus) 

So as of Easter Day, 2001: 

1st Generation:

They are the grandparents Ted would know of, especially Nana. The grandpa passed away early so Ted hardly knew him. 

(Nana) Aldona Spankoffski (surname lost to time)

 -superstitious; she swears by it that the folk tales she's heard are real 

-has taken to favouring Ted over any other grandchild despite hating Andrzej for "giving her so much trouble"

Unknown Mr. Spankoffski 

-was a strict guy. The aftereffects translates as much onto the youngest of his children. 

-good with his hands… for cobbling shoes 

-was in the same village as Aldona so that’s how they knew each other 

2nd Generation:

Ted’s parents and his immediate uncles and aunts, portrayed in birth order of the Spankoffski (and their corresponding spouse)

Izaak Spankoffski

Plump man with mustache

Eldest child, so he’s Ted’s uncle 

Generally doing very well, 

Susan Spankoffski (nee Johnson)

Pretty much an average housewife with the monies

Izaak’s wife, therefore Ted’s aunt-in-law

Edyte Matts (nee Spankoffski)

Stoic woman who tends to dress more formally

Middle child, so Ted’s aunt 

Practically the breadwinner of her family

Stays in Clivesdale, near the Nantucket Bridge

Joseph Matts

Blonde haired man with a most cheery disposition 

Edyte’s husband, so Ted’s uncle-in-law

A teacher back at Clivesdale, where he originated from

Andrzej Spankoffski

Brown haired man with brown eyes, who Ted practically resembles

Youngest child, Ted’s father

Shoe seller with a penchant for thrifting for cars (he saves like crazy and splurges like crazy)

Velma Spankoffski (nee Thurman)

Brown haired woman with brown eyes, who Ted learns much of the attitude from

Ted’s mother 

Homemaker who takes and doesn’t take shit from her husband (the bed’s still warm anyways they are certainly doing something)

3rd Generation:

Ted and his cousins (in order of age, including months difference). The children get more localised names since the Spankoffski 2nd Gen moved to America from somewhere in Poland.

Victor Spankoffski

~a few months older than Ted

~your average high flyer. Well, not average, he's just great with words and thus is in the debate club

~bespectacled, bow tie, suspenders... you might guess where Pete got his fashion sense from

~Ted's cousin. They like to fight each other a lot.

Theodore (Ted) Spankoffski

~The Man, the Myth, the Time Bastard we all know ~Calls himself a punk ~School Dayz is his story

James Spankoffski

~Older twin

~Elementary student ~One of Ted's many younger cousins

Lucas Spankoffski

~Younger twin

~Elementary student

~One of Ted's many younger cousins

Chloe Matts

~About 4 years old? Basically in preschool ~Another of Ted's younger cousins

Eliza Spankoffski

~just a baby ~New younger cousin that joined the family in 2001

(after quite a hiatus oops, Thunder had finals and currently can breathe somewhat)

This AU can be summarised as such: it’s just the authors’ sandbox world about more active magicks happening in Hatchetfield, of course with romance, fluff, angst, dead doving, lumped together if it’s not clear yet. Our takes on the LiB (+Webby) would be based off personal headcanons and AU lore about them. Wiggly of course retains his cephalopod inspirations, Tinky as goat and Nibbly as hog related. But you may notice differences in Pokey and Blinky’s portrayals since, at the time of the AU creation, these two were more vague in discernible “animal” aspect compared to the other three.

Currently the fic in progress is more focused on Paul, Ted and Bill (somewhat). But somewhere down the line, we may write some stories about our take on the Willabella and Wiggly relations, as well as Wiggly-side shenanigans as a ruler of the Black. We are not sure how we will write all that, but just know that we may be writing it for a really long while.

If you’re curious about what else this AU has in store, just drop by the askbox. At the moment, we are a little bit lost about what else to share at this point in time, since it would mostly be spoilers for the AU (at least I think so). So we won’t mind entertaining questions you guys may have to just answer along the way.

Until then, signing off.

That is actually a really good question because.... it's not a simple answer. Pre-warning, this is going to be a long answer. To be honest, this whole thing started from a rp with me and my co-writer, a Tinkoffski rp to be exact. It then spiralled into this after a lot of AU worldbuilding. One quote stands out, “Nought may endure but mutability”. In layman terms this means “the only thing we can rely on is that things will not stay the same.” Because we both are busy people, we decided that if we were writing a story, it’s something we’d sincerely want to tell and dedicate our time to. A story of change is our answer. It’s long, it’s pretty ambitious, but we both are taking it slowly.

We really just wanted to explore the powers of the LiB in particular. All that mention of Touch of Gift, Gifteds, the existence of ppl like Miss Holloway or Wilbur Cross, made us really think about how certain powers worked. As well as the established fact that there’s infinite timelines in Hatchetfield, so we just thought, why not think about how it all leads to one timeline breaking out of its shackles of fate?

So our two stories are just the beginning. School Dayz in particular was simply the result of listening to a lot of songs in that time period, and really digging into that “backstreet boy” inspiration Tinky’s teen outfit was said to resemble XD

We actually are inspired by a variety, that we nearly don’t know where to start describing. But songs are our main driver in the writing of our fics.

Just for ease, one for PoA is Lana Del Rey’s Dark Paradise. The one for School Dayz is The Neighbourhood’s Sweater Weather. Very hard to pick one song that inspired the fics, it’s a whole collection of mixed genres at best. Different songs for different moods.