demianna - Tumblr blog

demianna · 4 days ago

Text

My latest troll drawing reminded me of something I’ve been wanting to make a post about.

In the English language media I’ve seen trolls are generally depicted as big and stupid, though occasionally they’ll just be small and primitive.

And don’t get me wrong, we also have that here in Scandinavia as seen in the Norwegian movie Troll Hunter.

But trolls from nordic folklore are a lot more nuanced than what modern English language media would lead you to believe.

In folklore they are a sort of hidden nature people with cultures that varies between countries and towns. They can be cruel or kind. In Norway they can smell the blood of Christians and eat people, while in Denmark they don’t mind Christians but can’t stand the sound of church bells and will often move at the first sign of a church being build.

They’re also closely entangled with humans. Trolls steal human babies so they can raise them to go places trolls can’t (in Denmark at least), but leave their own babies with the humans assuming humans would find use for someone with a troll’s strength and abilities.

And that’s why in more modern troll media for adults they’re often used as a sympathetic allegory for people who feel wrong and out of place.

You got the Swedish movie Border from 2018 about a woman who couldn’t feel more wrong. People think she’s ugly and weird and she can’t even have sex because there’s something wrong with her genitalia.

But then she meets a man who looks like her and he slowly reveals that they’re both trolls and the only reason she feels weird is because she’s trying to live the life of a human. She’s a perfectly normal troll. It even turns out that troll men give birth and her “weird genitalia” is meant to impregnate, not be pregnant.

There’s also the band De Underjordiske (The Underworldly which is an old Danish word for otherworldly people that live under ground like trolls and dwarves) from Denmark who have the song Trold about Nordic people in general feeling off because we’re forest trolls who long to return to nature, but also Under Skyggernes Kniv (Under the Knife Of Shadows) about a person asking a troll that has lived their whole life under ground to not be afraid and come up into the sunlight and meet people and the video shows a person who appears to be dressing up as a woman for the first time and trying to live an authentic life.

youtube

So trolls are often very queer coded in modern Scandinavia which might sound insulting if you’re an outsider who’s only familiar with the English language version of them but makes a lot of sense in context.

Also, I have an in-depth analysis of an older Danish ballet about trolls as allegories for outcasts here LINK

15K notes · View notes

demianna · 1 month ago

Text

Scar Tissue

Chapter One

Bill Cipher vs Fiddleford McGucket & The Axolotl | 2,283 words | Axolotl’s Acolyte AU, Whump, Temporary Character Death

“Bill could tell that Specs’ relationship with the Axolotl wasn’t exactly like his own deal with Sixer. That meant he didn’t exactly know the best way to deal with it, but he figured killing the hick was his best bet. Worst case scenario, it would be a fun way to get out some stress! Sure, Ford wouldn’t be happy about his precious assistant kicking the bucket, but he did some of his best work when he was unhappy. What better way to distract himself from dumb human things like grief than doing the one thing he was actually good for?”

Warning for gore, particularly broken bones and strangulation.

Fic under the cut.

Bill has been working at this for millennia, andafter everything, things were starting to look up for him. That was, of course, until some amphibious bastard decided to show its frilly pink face in the dimension Bill was set to destroy. He was already not a fan of Specs, what with the whole ‘I think Ford should eat and sleep and do things other than work on the portal’ thing, but this took the cake. All he wanted to do was get that hillbilly dead while he had some plausible deniability, but no, the stars-forsaken Axolotl itself had to step in and save him. And if that wasn’t enough, it came along when it sent Specs back!

Now Sixer was distracted by his possessed lackey, and Bill has a brand new obstacle to overcome. As soon as they stepped through that vortex— and trust him, he was seething about that too— Bill was overcome by a prickling feeling of constant comfort. It was disgusting!

Bill could tell that Specs’ relationship with the Axolotl wasn’t exactly like his own deal with Sixer. That meant he didn’t exactly know the best way to deal with it, but he figured killing the hick was his best bet. Worst case scenario, it would be a fun way to get out some stress! Sure, Ford wouldn’t be happy about his precious assistant kicking the bucket, but he did some of his best work when he was unhappy. What better way to distract himself from dumb human things like grief than doing the one thing he was actually good for?

This was a good plan, Bill decided. As soon as Ford fell asleep at the Axolotl’s gentle insistence— Stars, it was just as bad as Specs! Except way worse because it’s a god, why should it care about these stupid mortals and their stupid mortal needs?— Bill helped himself.

Two eyes flashed open, solid yellow beyond slitted pupils. He pulls himself out of Ford’s bed, and stumbles towards Specs’ room on the second floor. Even while resting— and he can tell even the Axolotl itself is dormant in there— Ford’s skin prickles at the proximity in a way that makes Bill sick, and not even in a fun way!

Bill carefully opens the door, and finds Specs curled up in bed, covered in as many blankets as they could gather. He looks insufferably peaceful in his sleep. Bill almost wants him to wake up before he can kill them, just to see the terror in his eyes. He’s seen plenty of terror from Specs, being that he’s a coward and an idiot and also a loser, but it really never gets old!

Unfortunately, he should make this quick. If Specs’ blood ends up splattered all over the room, Sixer might start to get suspicious. Even if he’d never suspect his Beloved Muse, it’ll be best to keep things clean until he can get the body out of the cabin.

Bill sighs pensively as he looks around the room. There’s not much there— some miscellaneous puzzles and tools and bits of scrap metal, a picture of his dumb family, some books and loose pages of blueprints, that annoying little instrument, so on and so forth— and certainly nothing that’ll let Bill dispatch Specs quick and easy.

Oh well. That’s what he has hands for! All twelve digits wrapped around that fragile little throat of his. Yeah, that’ll be perfect.

Bill approaches the bed, even as his instincts scream for him to get away from the Axolotl. Resting in Specs’ body, that frilly bastard can’t hurt him. He pulls himself up onto the bed, swinging a leg over his torso, and sits down on his stomach. It knocks a bit of breath out of Specs, and as he closes his hands around his throat, it’s not air he’s gonna get back.

Specs’ skin is strangely cold for a living human. It’s almost like the Axolotl is doing Bill’s job for him!

Specs brows furrow, and his throat bobs beneath Sixer’s hand as he tries to swallow.

Bill tightens his grip, digging the tips of his fingers in beneath either of Specs’ sternocleidomastoid muscles. He shifts his weight forward into his hands, crushing his trachea beneath his palms. Specs’ whole body jerks helplessly beneath him, and his eyes open. They’re blue, wide, and desperate.

Bill cackles, grinning widely as he shifts his grip to try to dig his fingers underneath the trachea. There’s too much muscle there for him to rip it out, no matter how much he wants to, blood be damned. Speaking of blood, Specs’ stupid face is just full of it! He looks ridiculous all flushed like that.

Specs continues to thrash for only a few moments before he goes slack, unconscious.

Dang. Too easy. It woulda been nice to hear him scream and beg.

Bill huffs, and shifts into a more comfortable position. Just a few more minutes, and there’ll be no coming back. Bill himself can’t revive a dead vessel, even if he can still puppet it around as easily as ever.

Bill digs Ford’s short, ragged fingernails into Specs’ delicate skin, just for fun, just to enjoy the feeling of it starting to tear. He has to keep himself entertained somehow, and it seems like the Axolotl doesn’t care to show its frilly face!

It’s almost like it left already, Bill thinks, and just as he thinks it, Specs’ eyes flash. The dull blue of his half-lidded eyes goes pink, pupils dilating, body jerking with far more strength than an unconscious person should have, which is to say, any strength at all.

Dang it.

Bill pushes his weight back into Specs’ throat, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect. The Axolotl shoves him off, taking full advantage of Specs’ hidden farm-boy strength.

Bill tumbles to the ground, then scrambles back up onto Ford’s two legs.

“There you are!” Bill crows, ignoring the way he’s being told to run run run. Bill has no need for those kind of instincts. “Nice of you to show up, Frills! And by nice I mean not very nice at all! You shoulda let me kill that thing!”

The Axolotl frowns with Specs’ dumb face. Something shifts beneath the skin of his throat. It's undoing all of Bill’s hard work, inflating his trachea back into the shape it should be. Even the marks from his nails fade away.

He really should have expected that. It is pretty frustrating, but it will be fun to see just how far that healing goes. So much for this being over too quick!

“You do not need to do this, Bill Cipher,” the Axolotl says gently, brows furrowed with clear, human, insufferable pity.

“Oh yes I do!” Bill barks, and he lunges for the bedside table. The Axolotl just watches, seemingly puzzled, until Bill grabs the lamp and swings it at Specs head.

The Axolotl gracelessly ducks, just slow enough for Bill to clip him. The ceramic body of the lamp cracks, and Bill is swinging it down before the Axolotl can fully recover.

The lamp shatters, throwing ceramic shards across the bed. Specs jerks to the side from the force of the hit, and blood soaks his dirty blond hair in an instant. The Axolotl blinks hard, shaking Specs’ head. Blood splatters across the sheets, joining bloody shards of ceramic.

“That… hurt,” the Axolotl says.

“Yeah! I bet it did!” Bill cackles, adjusting his grip on the lamp. “Isn’t it awesome!?”

He catches Specs’ shoulder in one hand, and dives for his throat with the shattered remains of the lamp with the other. The Axolotl pulls away enough for Bill to catch his collarbone instead.

Bill shouts, half frustration, half glee, and tries again. Before he can, the Axolotl rolls to the side, escaping his grip but hitting the wall in the process. The wall just below the window.

Bill cackles, throwing the lamp away. The Axolotl sits up, looking as mildly perturbed as ever, and Bill lunges. He catches Specs’ shoulders with both hands, and slams him back against the window with all the force he can manage. It cracks, but doesn’t break.

Bill pulls him back while he’s still dazed— the Axolotl sure sucks at at keeping control of a vessel!— and tries again, and again, and again, until it shatters out into the forest below.

“Bill Cipher—“ the Axolotl starts, talking slower now, like it’s still confused.

Bill doesn’t hear the rest of it. He grabs Specs’ hips and lifts him up just enough for gravity to do the rest of the work when he pushes him across the shattered glass and right out the window.

Specs’ arms pinwheel, catching on the sharp edges of the broken window, but he’s utterly helpless to save himself before he’s falling.

It's not that far of a fall, barely far enough to break a bone, but as Bill leans out the window to watch, he sees the way Specs lands, right on his stupid head. He’s probably just imagining it, but he can almost hear his skull shatter.

“Hah! Good luck getting shards of skull out of his big dumb brain, Frills!” Bill mocks through the open window.

As his body settles on the ground beneath the window, Bill can see the unnatural angle of his head, pressed right up against his shoulder, one arm pinned beneath his back. The skin on the side of his neck is torn, and if Bill got down there, he’s sure he’d see bone.

Perfect. Maybe the Axolotl could fix up a crushed windpipe, but a shattered skull, broken arm, and severed nerve cord? Unlikely.

Once Bill stops laughing— and he laughs for a good long time, because that is a beautiful sight, really some of Bill’s best work— he lets out a long, satisfied sigh. He wipes mirthful tears from his eyes, spares the body one last glance, and turns to leave.

And then he takes a double take, because Specs moves, and it’s more than the spasms of a dying body. His arm, the one not pinned beneath his chest, reaches towards his broken neck. Clumsily, it paws at the tear in his skin, until it finds its way to the other side and pulls it back into place. Bill gawks, watching as the skin knits itself back together, and Specs rolls his neck like he’s waking up from a mildly unpleasant nap.

He mumbles something in his own voice, which shouldn’t be happening because he crushed his larynx and broke his neck and severed his spine, before he tilts his head up to glare up through the window.

“Bill!” he calls, voice ragged but there, which it shouldn’t be. “Get your equilateral ass down here so I can kill you!”

“Good luck with that, idiot!” he shouts, even though this is an unexpected situation that sucks badly. “You should be dead!”

“Damn right I should be, and hell, I kinda wish I was since this hurts like a sonuvabitch, but here I am!” Specs yells. “Now get down here!”

“No thanks!” Bill denies. “How about this; I’ll see you in the lab!”

“Fuck you!” Specs shouts, but he stands up, swaying, and starts stumbling towards the cabin’s entrance.

Bill huffs, but starts making his way down towards the basement. Sixer hasn’t done a lot of work on repairing the portal, what with Specs and the Axolotl keeping him so thoroughly distracted, but there wasn’t too much damage to begin with. With any luck, he’ll be able to turn it on just long enough to get the two biggest thorns in his side out of this dimension. Then he can find a way to deal with them more permanently when they’re not directly interfering with his literal millennia of work.

He doesn’t even make it to the elevator before Specs catches him. He moves a heck of a lot faster than a guy who’s supposed to be dead should, and he slams Sixer’s poor meatsack into the wall just beyond the stairs, pinning him with an arm that should be broken pressed against his throat.

“Hah!” Bill barks, reveling in the shock of pain. “I don’t work like your stupid little amphibian! Everything you do to me, you’re doing to Sixer! If you kill him, I’ll be fine, and he’ll be gone for good!”

Bill saying he’ll be fine is a bit of a stretch, but it’s true in the long run. He’d hate to lose such a useful pawn, but he’d make do. And besides, it’s not like Specs has it in him to kill anyone, much less his precious Sixer.

“I know that,” Specs spits, and he’s mad, madder than he’s ever seen him. He still smiles though, like he has everything under control, even if the grin is all teeth. “I don’t need to hurt him, I just need to hold him close.”

“Ew, are you seriously—“ Bill starts, and then his vision goes pink.

The prickling sensation of comfort made Bill sick, but the feeling that hits him as the Axolotl barges into his vessel, that’s worse. Bill scrambles for control, but he’s pushed free like he’s nothing more than a pesky cat being nudged out of the way by a human’s foot.

Through the eye on the carpet, he watches Specs collapse and wrap his arms around himself, jaw tight with what must be pain. Sixer’s body jerks, before slowly being eased down to his knees.

Sixer says something, but Bill can’t hear it, can’t even tell if it’s his own voice or the Axolotl’s.

Bill returns to himself in the Nightmare Realm, and screams in sheer wordless rage.

11 notes · View notes