#1. forgor. somehow. even tho i had a ref at one point here

[moonfurthetemmie]

I was tossing @shroudedinsilver's Fell!SwapDream hi silver around and started wondering what a fell swapdream would be like if it followed the entirely arbitrary rules me and wheeze had made up for fell AUs.

Specifically, the true villain(s) of the original becomes the only genuinely nice one(s). or at least, they try to be nice.

Just to be clear, this isn't supposed to be a 'better' or 'more correct' Fell!SD. I'm playing with the barbies and looking at it at a different angle. i love rahab and venom and it'd be obnoxiously pretentious to think i, who only knows Swapdream lore from second-hand sources, could do a "better" Fell!SD that Silver, who actually interacted with the source material. Also have you met rahab and venom

But. I have some half-baked story and some slightly more baked idiots

I don't have a proper name for the AU yet. and I can't call it Fell!Swapdream because that's obviously already taken. i guess i could call it Swapfell dreamtale. but that sounds weird to me. and lets be real, Dreamswap and Swapdream get confused enough; we don't need to also have a Fellswapdream and Swapfelldream

But anyway. here's my new morons. Frenzy (left) and Enmity (right)

An incredibly long time ago, there was a magic tree. You all know how this part of the tale goes.

Frenzy eventually ate the apples. Working on the exact 'why' still

Here, the Magic apples are like normal food, in that they give you lots of energy. But they give it instantly, and they have way more energy than a normal apple. The enormous burst of energy pushes him into a very destructive mania, and it lasts for months. The influx of so much potent magic isn’t helping, either.

He eventually gets it out of his system, and comes to his senses. He’s horrified by what he's done.

Enmity doesn’t really care about the balance, after everything he’s been put through just for his job. But he likes being alive, so he tries to maintain it so the multiverse doesn’t get wrecked and take him with it.

So he'd been following Frenzy around, trying to deal with him with very little idea of how. He mostly got his ass whooped; more out of carelessness than malice on Frenzy's part. That said, it was intentional, once because Enmity wouldn't get out of the way. He's got a lovely scar to show for it now.

He’d been afraid he may have to kill Frenzy to do it. Frenzy, his own brother, who’d been the only person who loved him for their whole lives until the incident.

He was still trying to come to terms with this fact when he found Frenzy, alone, crying incoherently. When Frenzy notices that he's there, he turns around and for the first time in ages, Enmity senses guilt from him. But he looks so relieved to see Enmity. He tells Enmity he has no idea what had gotten into him, why he'd done any of that, and- oh, god. that scar. He did that, didn't he? how could he...?

To say that Enmity is relieved is an understatement. He tosses out any ideas of killing his brother and just does his best to comfort him and tell him it'll be okay. Which isn't very easy when just standing too close makes Enmity's body and soul start burning.

They talk for a bit. Enmity changes the subject from what Frenzy did to some interesting things that he saw during his travels, to distract him and cheer him up. Once Frenzy's calmed down, though, he tells Enmity that he needs to fix this mess he's made. But...how? He's hurt so many people, but the balance is tipped too far to his side--the positive side--and trying to fix the other mess is just going to make people happy...

Enmity has a wonderful idea. And by wonderful i mean he's gonna have lots and lots of fun with it.

They are now traveling their MV, terrorizing the populace. There's much less death and destruction that during Frenzy's initial manic episode, but everyone's misery is slowly, slowly balancing the scales. very slowly. It'll be a long time before it's fully fixed, unless they can create (or maybe even invite) a huge source of negative magic. And Frenzy...as effective as Enmity's plan is, he doesn't want to hurt people more.

but he wants to start a fight with enmity even less.

his brother is all he has. He's already hurt him once. He can't do it again. He can't lose him.

anyway they're having a great time and definitely aren't toxic and codependent. at least they're still close...?

Dream: Frenzy

His real name in-universe is still 'Dream'. 'Frenzy' is the nickname he gets if he has to interact with any other variant of himself.

He still gets that some sort of mania if he’s somewhere very positive, and especially if he has lots of energy, but it’s nowhere near as strong as the first time. He still has some of his wits about him.

He nearly killed his brother in his first manic episode, and will occasionally still seriously hurt—usually out of carelessness, rather than doing it intentionally—during the lesser, infrequent ones he gets now. But he can’t stand the idea of Enmity abandoning him, and when the mania fades he bends over backwards to try to make it up to Enmity.

He will say and promise anything to Enmity to keep him from leaving. He can’t imagine Enmity seriously has forgiven him for what he’s done to him. Unfortunately this also means that, on the exceedingly rare occasions that Enmity seems to be making a friend, he’ll do everything in his power to quietly get rid of them. What if they convince Enmity that he needs to get away from Frenzy…?

He and Enmity can’t touch without it severely hurting Enmity. His aura is honestly too much but he can tone it down some so it’s bearable. He misses being able to hug his brother

Easily spooked, even though he can sense people's emotions and therefore should notice someone approaching before he can even see them. Hard to get him to fight, though; unless it's his brother asking

His left (viewer's right) eye is mostly blind, but he gets along ok for the most part. His depth perception's a little off, though, and...well. windows are a bit of a problem.

His memory is kinda fucked, too. At first he and Enmity thought it was just that he couldn't remember everything that happened when he was in a manic state, but no. his memory is just horrible now

Design notes:

his hair is a little singed. just a tad. it used to be longer, many years ago...

Many scars also; burns and punctures and cuts.

hehe fancy coat

the wings are hawk wings!

His crown should still act like a halo, but heroforge only gives me one kind of halo

Ideally, his wings would be so bright as to be blinding in the second picture. but they're as bright as they can be, and i'd adjusted the first too many times already

His chain weapons can be blunt or bladed. Both have their own strengths. He has to really concentrate to switch without de-summoning them first, so he rarely switches when in a fight. He can't use both at once. They're both present here for illustrative purposes.

His left (viewer's right) eye changes when he's using his magic, or when he's in a manic state. usually both happen at once but not always.

Nightmare: Enmity

His real name in-universe is still 'Nightmare'. 'Enmity' is the nickname he gets if he has to interact with any other variant of himself.

Much as he likes being alive, he hates people. And his idea of fixing the balance is terrorizing the populace. He loves it, and has no idea why Frenzy hesitates.

He always forgives Frenzy for hurting him. Always. It doesn’t matter the circumstances. He wants his brother to be happy enough to stay with him. He's just as terrified of losing his brother as Frenzy is, so he wants to make sure Frenzy knows that Enmity still loves him.

While Frenzy clearly hates it, Enmity has discovered that triggering minor manic episodes is an excellent way to “adjust” the balance. A positive place is no longer positive! Everyone’s upset! Mission accomplished. He makes sure to always tell Frenzy that he’s proud of him afterwards, too.

He hates that he has to leave Frenzy semi-often for his own safety, so Frenzy’s aura doesn’t kill him. He also misses hugs but he doesn’t know just how desperate Frenzy is for physical affection

Hard to unsettle, easy to goad into fighting you.

His vision in his right (viewer's left) eye isn’t completely gone, but it’s not…normal. He’s still not sure what he’s seeing through it, but at least it’s not giving him a headache. As much.

(What he sees are people’s auras; a mix of soul traits and emotions. While monsters don’t have strong or notable traits that differ from each other under normal circumstances, they can still be particularly determined, brave, kind, etc. it’s not terribly useful to him right now, but it’s a result of Frenzy’s magic getting stuck in his eye)

Design notes:

I wanted to imitate one of the reaper poses in FFXIV (the second one shown here, with the spinning scythe) but it's kinda hard to pull off the spinning without actual motion, and I'm not good at implying motion most of the time without like. motion lines

white hair

One big scar on his face, and it’s from Frenzy. This is why his vision's fucky

He still has a scythe, and that seems to scare people the most so he uses it the most. He still has a sword, but it's been so long since he's used it that he usually forgets about it nowadays

Needs to have freedom of movement, so he wears lightweight clothes.

Much like with Frenzy and the original SwaN and SwaD, his eyes change when he's using his magic. His right (viewer's left) is uh...still fucked up. pretty though

that's a ponytail. his hair's not just slicked back

Other notes:

i want them to be able to shift into animals but i want to be silly and do something other than a bird and a snake. that said i have no idea what I'd do

i forgor SwaN's fighting a bunch of corrupted magic in his system. i feel like sticking close to Frenzy is helping Enmity somewhat, but it's probably. not the best option.

enmity's fucked up eye hurts all the time. some days it hurts worse than others, and just how much it hurts is directly caused by how long he's been hanging out around his brother. At best, it causes a dull migraine. At worst, it burns like hell and he can't focus on anything else. The only thing he can do is sit/lay down and rest, away from Frenzy and his aura.

honestly enmity should be having a lot more problems from hanging around frenzy so much but it'll be figured out eventually

probably

If for some reason they end up somewhere and Frenzy is entirely without his magic. one of them is getting carried around. because frenzy's not letting go of enmity. enmity's totally fine with this

neither of them like the other making new friends. they're afraid that said new friends are going to convince the other they're better off without each other; Frenzy's afraid Enmity will be convinced that he should never have trusted Frenzy again after hurting him, and Enmity's afraid Frenzy will be convinced that he shouldn't stick with Enmity if he's pushing Frenzy to do something he doesn't like to do.

they do not realize the other is just as bad as they are about it

they're very protective of each other. but frenzy panics a lot more and if something happens to enmity there's going to be a lot of corpses and ash