Still-ness, a frozen silence broken only by the thrumming of the heart. A pounding that thrums deep in the skin. Layers below surface level, no punctures to speak of. Only comparisons belonging to the wings of the tiniest insects. Humming in unison, community, thriving and surviving off each other. Ode, ode, ode over and over again. The sound fills the ears of who hears it. Who is a bread-with between each other, family. Family of blood and tears. Built of flesh and bone, and covered in the fur of their forefathers.
Bones shackled by their skin, they share the blood. It runs their rivers, keeps them alive. Pumping breath. Community built on bones of the past and the present. Community whos bones are worn and wicked, not from a darkened heart but a viscous outside. To be hardened is to change. To change is to be loved. Loved by the hate, or loved by the kind.
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I’d love to hear your thoughts on what Eldritch peredhel entail
-@@outofangband
Sorry this took so long @outofangband and thank you for asking this I am! Delighted! And am preemptively putting a read more down because I cannot shut up about they <3
alright I'm just gonna put stuff and headcanons down as they occur to me so expect low-moderate levels of coherency
shapeshifting is an obvious one (gets weaker down the generations) but because my brain is Like This I have caveats!
thanks to my whole peredhil things=gender allegory that my brain spit out without my permission I've long struggled against my inherent feeling that while they can shapeshift they don't like it
but because I'm now aware of my brain's reasoning I can say it's because of ✨fantasy dysphoria✨
that's oversimplifying, obviously, but peredhil already have so much issues with working through who and what they are and compromising between body and mind and spirit that actively choosing to change into/present as something/someone who They Are Not is. Not usually their cup of tea.
As a whole they tend to have specific forms that they prefer as being closer to themselves, and distinct enough that it doesn't feel like they're faking something they're not
(changing to look like a different person, or a edited version of themself is Very Very not fun unless either explicitly for disguise or shenanigans)
(the exception to this is that Luthien can make herself look almost perfectly human without any real issue. she doesn't do it often but especially as she ages she likes to catch glimpses of her reflection and get both excited and sappy. this is in contrast to making herself look almost perfectly like an elf which makes her feel like her skin is on fire.)
(Also I'm pretty sure all of them can flip their agab presentation while only feeling varying degrees of off, and even then it's a different feeling than the shapeshifting dysphoria. Dior and Elwing are the two who I think mind it the most)
They all have the (agonizing to write) trait of feeling very distinct relationships to their species in their body vs soul/mind vs spirit/fea and they all feel it very differently! This isn't exclusive to Luthien's line but the maia blood does make it worse.
Oh! This is a new headcanon of mine actually but!
They all have faces that are very very hard to capture in image. They are the bane of portrait artists (and, to a degree, sculptors) everywhere because the art never looks accurate to life
It's not blatantly off it's just. missing something? Or something was added? maybe it's a little too wide, or narrow, or long, or short, in one place or another
It's not unrecognizable but if you've ever seen the subject in real life you can just tell
It's especially bad with Luthien (and Daeron) and Dior (to a lesser extent) because everyone literally sees them differently, as in their features will be slightly different depending on what each person finds attractive/aesthetically appealing and beautiful
(not a lot, again, it's not unrecognizable, but there has never and will never be any accurate depiction of Luthien as she was as a person)
(as a concept, though, as the most beautiful creature to have ever existed in Arda, a little of her image exists in every portrait lovingly made of a beloved spouse, every child's drawing of their family, in biological sketches of songbirds and field mice, in a sculpture of a stranger's face. Daeron remembers his sister perfectly, but he collects these regardless)
(Arwen, Luthien come again, isn't described as such by her grandparents. Galadriel and Celeborn both knew Luthien, and while Arwen and her father both look as closely to her as genetically possible, to those who actually know them both it's nothing more than uncanny family resemblance. Luthien was to most a concept personified, Arwen is a person with concepts imposed on her.)
The list of people who have seen Luthien how she actually, physically, defaultly is, essentially consists of Melian, Daeron, Beren, and Dior
Beren doesn't see her as she is right away because he doesn't know her right away, but they learn about each other and she shows herself and he sees her and by the time she rescues him from Tol-im-Gaurhoth there are no echoes on her face
(He's always a little bit haunted that he nearly died without realizing he'd never quite seen the truth of her before)
Neither Thingol or Beren can quite see their own features on their children's faces. They clearly take after their mothers, after all!
(This leads to much affectionate eye-rolling on Melian and Luthien's part)
Hair stuff!
It's alive! kinda! it's definitely not normal hair!
It moves a lot on its own. Sometimes like a breeze is blowing where there isn't one. Sometimes more like tentacles. It depends on its mood.
They've got some very pretty traditional cosmic horror vibes swirling around on their heads. It's very sparkly and colorful but in a Forbidden Shrimp Colors that your brain is unable to comprehend way so it reads as iridescent black mostly, or holographic white, where applicable
Luthien's hair actually is a glimpse into space, Daeron's is a glance at a star
(Luthien's magic hair cloak survives, I think, into the 4th age and beyond, though if anyone/anything has found it they certainly don't know the origins of the beautifully intricate living star map. It has seen the reign of countless north stars, yet the lines always point to the same coordinates- where the ancient, sunken, ruined remains of what once was Tol-im-Gaurhoth lay)
Speed round!
Fangs and talons and horns oh my! Are they tooth and keratin and bone, or are they petrified wood and gem and stone? Yes!
They all smell a little like ozone and a lot like petrichor, flowers, and Green. If you've smelled green you know what I'm talking about. Also, unfortunately, like bird. Birds don't smell great, especially wet bird.
Weird Foresight Powers++
(Most of them don't have actual foresight, but all of them are more in-tune with the Song than is natural for an incarnate)
Their eyes glow, most notably in the dark, unless the irises turn black as they sometimes do. They are also all unnaturally bright versions of the less-spooky parent's- Dior's are gold, Elwing's are blue-green like a tropical sea (Elured and Elurin split the color between them- ultramarine and emerald), Elrond and Elros have pale star-gold, Elladan, Elrohir, and Arwen all have silver.
(Daeron and Luthien being the exception again, because I decided they have Melian's eyes before I decided this, and I don't know what color eyes Thingol has. Watsonianly: Melian's spooky genes overwrite a lot. Luthien's genotype is probably much closer to his than her magically overwritten phenotype)
Their sclerae turn black and their pupils white, on occasion, usually when using powers
They don't bleed right. It's a little too red for an elf, a little too light for a human, and it shines strange as it beads like quicksilver on the skin
They have very shiny, cool skin. Luthien looked like her's was silver plate under a stretched stocking, the rest toned it down from there but it's still noticeable.
The Song is. Attached to them. They are all very much Main Characters. Their lives have a clear story arc with symbolism and narrative parallels. They are all subconsciously aware that their lives are a fairytale, whether tragic or no, and yes this has many Implications and affects. They are not the only ones like this, but they are the only ones who, to some level, know they are in a story.
This is the fundamental separation between them and everyone else.
The difference in how they perceive themselves between heart soul and spirit is very difficult to explain and understand, but not impossible to someone who knows them and is willing to put in the work.
The life-long knowledge that they are Important to the Song and their every choice and event they experience and their mere existence serves a greater purpose in a way that most other people simply do not- that's very, very isolating.
No one else can understand how they see the world. Very very few people are willing to try, and even fewer in a way that's not frustrating. There is a reason most of them find only one person to latch on to outside of their family, and a reason they hold on through hell and high water.
(This is about being neurodivergent)
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I’m a bit nervous about sending an ask, but the curiosity has won me over, hope this isn’t too many questions
You said you headcannon Leo Valdez as dragon kin so I was wondering, do you think he has shifts often, if at all? If so, does he generally have some types of shifts more often or is it more balanced? And do the other campers and the seven know? If they do, did he tell them or did they piece it together on their own? If he told them, did he have to explain a lot or were they kind of just like “okay” and didn’t question it a lot? Like they just accepted it and didn’t want to overstep or something is what I mean
I think maybe I’m overthinking this, I really hope I’m not asking too many questions or anything
It's no worries at all! Asks/questions are always welcome!
I think his most usual shifts would be teeth/scales, but they're a lot more subtle so he either doesn't notice them as much or can ignore them. Those ones are probably semi-regular for him but again, more subtle most of the time (most of the time... every once in awhile he gets hit with a stronger maw shift and he's just sitting there gnashing his teeth at the air for like an hour cause his mouth feels weird until it goes away). Maybe also horns.
Less common ones for him but ones he'd notice more are probably wings, tail, and talons. Talons i mostly just think would be funny for him cause he has his habit of tapping his fingers as a stim. Him getting tripped up from the phantom talons while trying to stim, being confused for a minute about why his fingers aren't touching the table and he just ends up tapping out morse code into the air a couple inches above his desk instead. Wings and tail would probably just be pretty standard phantom limbs - they're just there and he's aware of them and maybe able to move them a bit. I imagine he'd eventually try to make some 'kin gear to help with those shifts specifically just so his brain stops error 404ing when his dragon limbs pass through solid objects despite his brain thinking they should be able to tangibly interact.
I don't think Leo would know what otherkin/alterhuman is when he first meets the Argo II crew, and probably wouldn't get the opportunity to learn about it for awhile. He doesn't really have the vocabulary to explain how he's feeling - just that he Is A Dragon. The rest of the crew probably also doesn't know what otherkin/alterhuman is either so they don't have an explanation for him, but, yknow, demigod life is already so goddamn weird, if Leo says he's a dragon that's not the most abnormal thing they've heard that week and they'll just take his word for it and accept it. And Jason probably understands the feeling re: being a wolf therian, even though he doesn't have the vocabulary to explain it either, so there's at least some solidarity there.
Earlier on I think Leo would just crack a lot of jokes about being a dragon, not particularly explaining how he feels about it to the others but just kind of putting the concept out there. He might try to explain it if the topic comes up but, as mentioned before, just struggle too much to try and find the words for it (the adhd/dyslexia/autism wording problems do not help there). I do like to think though that, due to their Hades/Pluto kid soul powers, Nico and Hazel would actually be able to pick up on spiritual-origin otherkin/therians/etc if they focused on it - Nico in particular, probably a lot more passively - and be able to kind of see phantom limbs/shifts sometimes (cause goodness knows how souls/spirit stuff works in the Riordanverse and I can have my self-indulgent silly alterhuman worldbuilding hcs if i want to - also at least partially inspired by some journal posts i've read of people mentioning people/animals/automatic doors picking up on their phantom limbs and being able to track the movement and stuff. if any demigod would be able to do that it's gonna be the kids with literal soul/phantom powers). I just find the concept amusing of Leo trying to explain this extremely metaphysical experience and Nico's just off to the side like "Oh yeah no, your soul is a dragon. Like, very literally. Dunno how that happened but good for you. btw why do you have ghost wings sometimes?" And Leo's grateful for someone helping him explain it but also isn't sure how he should react to statement. Eventually though one of the crew stumbles across alterhuman stuff - probably Leo or Annabeth, most likely accidentally through looking into daemonism stuff (you know they both read His Dark Materials) - and they put two and two together and finally have a means to explain it and Leo could not be more relieved (though he still doesn't know how to feel about Nico's soul comments).
I love rotating alterhuman demigods in my brain
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