#chrestomanci au

[i-am-still-bb]

And just like that I have the “protagonist event” for my Chrestomanci AU.

I’ve been struggling with events that would be big enough for Chrestomanci to need to travel to Kili’s world. And there it is. :)

[breytilegt]

Gardener’s cottage kitchen ideas for a Diana Wynne-Jones AU my friends and I have been working on...

[tirednapentity]

The reason why flora d'splora is the murder victim in boarding school au is because well, who else to kickstart events that lead to Philip Wittebane being punched in the nose?

[snickerdoodlles]

📓 :3

:D!

@mortimerlatrice got me thinking about a KimChay Chrestomanci AU, so more of that.

the Chrestomanci series, sidenote, is an absolutely delightful fantasy series by Diana Wynne Jones. it's composed of mostly independent stories set in a universe of 12 parallel universes (called Series), each with their own string of worlds (except Series 11). generally speaking, every person has eight identical copies borne into other series than their own, but very occasionally all nine lives will be borne into one person. this nine-life enchanter has all the power of nine magical people in them and is therefore the only person powerful enough to fill the role of Chrestomanci to regulate magical use and prevent any abuse of it across the 12 series.

which cool, very fun story premise actually, but not what I care about here. I'm setting kp in one of the series that doesn't deal much with magic because I don't care about magic meet mafia, I care about Chay having nine lives and all the ways that could make things worse.

(cw: non-permanent but slightly graphic character death under the cut. ft a dash of actual character death, but that only applies to Tawan.)

Chay doesn't have all his lives when canon starts. he lost his first one the same day he and Porsche lost their parents when he fell out of his crib trying to investigate the noise. he lost his second to food poisoning, before Porsche started working for extra food money and they had to make every scrap stretch. he lost another when a debt collector hit him too hard and snapped his neck. (Porsche wasn't home for that day. Chay told him he wasn't either.)

Chay loses his fourth life in the warehouse. it actually wasn't intentional on anyone's part -- Tawan's hired meat weren't careful enough bringing him in, and Chay's luck has his head hit a curb or scrap metal at just the right (or wrong, as it were) angle to kill him instead of concuss him, and head injuries take so long to come back from. Tawan drags out the charade because he wants Porsche desperate, not angry, and Porsche is in too deep of denial to accept the possibility of Chay actually being dead not to fall for it.

Kim arrives before Chay comes back to life. it's...bad. Porsche is screaming for him to get Chay out. Kim first checks Chay's breathing. failing to find that, he frantically (but carefully!) hauls Chay upright. that's when Chay's head flops limply to the side and reveals the dried blood down the back of his neck, which Kim had already felt grabbing but refused to process.

Kim sees red.

Tawan knifes Big. Porsche's shouts break through the fog threatening to overwhelm Kim. then Tawan gets one very distraught, very angry, very murderous Kim materializing in front of him and going right for his eyes. it doesn't matter that Tawan's the one with a weapon, he could've had an armory and that couldn't have helped him. Kim is very, very, very good at fighting, and he's on a mission to hurt. but he's also missing his control, and kicks Tawan in the kidney so hard Tawan stumbles back into a pile of scrap and, in true irony, jostles it hard enough the end of steel beam falls on his head. as discovered earlier, metal and concrete are not kind to heads, and bullet proof vests certainly can't protect from that.

it's too quick and too kind, and Kim stares at him disbelievingly, half a mind to drag Tawan out and beat out the little life he's surely still clinging to, when Chay groans. Kim first thinks he hallucinated it, but then he sees Chay move and he's so relieved he was wrong that he shoves everything else out of his mind and just gets Chay out. then everything and one trailing shouty Porsche slams back into him the minute Chay's out of his arms and with the paramedics that Kim bolts to go hide in a dark corner in his apartment and fail to process any of it.

Chay misses all of this btws. He was dead, then he was back with a headache, and he loves Porsche but he needs Porsche to please shut the fuck up and get him some tylenol.

then apartment confrontation, where Kim says I'm sorry and shoves off even quicker because all he can remember are those moments when he'd been so sure Chay was properly dead. club scene goes down even worse when Kim yells at Chay for making stupid reckless choices that could get him killed, and Chay demands to know why Kim even cares, and Kim goes pale with anger that Chay doesn't care that he (only nearly, surely) died, and it's all very terrible and ends in them storming away from each other.

then comes Yok's bar.

Chay dies. Kim had taunted them into a direct fight inside instead of picking them off outside, and it should have been fine, would have been fine, had Chay not had a bit more awareness and looked over to see Kim pinned between two guys and rushed to help only to get shot by one of the goons on the other end of the bar. he bleeds out while Kim kills off the rest.

Chay comes back to a bar full of bodies and Kim (clutching) cradling him. Kim isn't crying. he isn't really doing much of anything other than clinging and staring off into nothing with a thoroughly haunted expression.

Chay blinks and tentatively lays his fingers against Kim's cheek. "Kim?"

Kim's eyes snap to him, but still don't quite see him. he stays looking blank for a few seconds that feel like hours before saying matter-of-factly, "I've snapped."

"Kim!" Chay protests, distressed.

"It's okay," Kim says, still matter-of-fact but smiling tenderly, "better to be mad with you than without."

it takes a while to convince Kim he's not insane and that Chay's really back. Chay's not certain he fully manages it. but his death also shook loose a lot of confessions Kim normally couldn't say out loud. ("why--" Chay starts, voice cracking, "why did you say 'I'm sorry' that day?" / "You were supposed to be safe," Kim replies hoarsely, mad smile slipping for tears.) there's more clutching and clinging, this time by Chay too. both of them manage to forget they're in a bar of dead bodies until Porsche and Kinn come crashing through the door.

"Chay!" Porsche yells when he first sees him.

"Chay," Porsche pleads brokenly when he sees Chay's blood soaked shirt.

"Not mine!" Chay says quickly, and would've been given away by how fast Kim's head snaps around in any other circumstance. "See?" he says, raising his shirt to show unblemished skin, "No injury."

this does a lot to reassure Porsche, but Chay can tell Kim still thinks he's a little bit insane. Chay decides that's fine for now, because dying takes a lot out of you and apparently everyone around you too and it's unfair to expect Kim to just bounce back from him bleeding out on him, he'll work on it after a shower and dinner.

I'm not writing this AU because I only really have these two vague scenes in my head, but Chay having multiple lives making his existence in the mafia hurt more than canon's calls to me, it really does.

oh, also: in the AU source material, one of the nine-lifers has one of his lives removed and stored into a ring for safekeeping. he later gives this ring to his to-be-wife as her wedding ring. I'm not sure yet how to work that into this AU because Chay's contact with magic and other magicals would be slim to none in this, but please picture how this would absolutely wreck Kim, because there's nothing Kim wants more than to safeguard Chay but as far as he's concerned, he's already failed Chay in that regard twice. 😈

[[ ask me about fics im not writing ]]

[uovoc]

2023 Media consumption

God tier: media that invoked blorbo-induced euphoria, mini-obsession, or just haunt me

White Cat Legend (大理寺日志, Dali Court Journal) - donghua, seasons 1 and 2. The new vice minister of the imperial court of criminal justice is, unfortunately, a cat demon. Tang Dynasty workplace comedy/political intrigue. Lovely animation, sick fight scenes, and catboys.

Scissor Seven (刺客伍六七) - donghua, seasons 2-3. Netflix summary: "Seeking to recover his memory, a scissor-wielding, hairdressing, bungling quasi-assassin stumbles into a struggle for power among feuding factions." Season 1 was just ok at best, season 2 was great, season 3 was phenomenal, season 4 was meh.

Derkholm duology by Diana Wynne Jones (reread)

God Troubles Me / Hanhua Riji (汉化日记) - donghua. Cringefail loser girl Su Moting, her cringefail smartphone god, and her cringefail cat (demon) have to save the world. But first she has to go to work. And get takeout. And watch dramas. The premise sounds SO cringe but it's well-executed and hilarious. And actually a pretty sharp but good-humored window into the delights and horrors of modern everyday life in china.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt (reread). At the peak of the California gold rush, hitmen Charlie and Eli Sisters are hired for a job that Eli is liking less and less. 1st-person perspective of a stone-cold killer, where it turns out the killer is just Some Guy. Who is kind of awkward. And pathetic. And maybe not very bright.

Gobelins graduation animated shorts: "Chroniques de l'Eau Salée" (2021), "Last Summer" (2022), and "Go Fishboy" (2022). Available to watch on YouTube. Got caught up on 2021 and 2022 and these are the ones that will haunt me.

Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi - manga (reread). Teenage martial artist is cursed to transform into a hot girl whenever he's splashed with cold water. Still some of the funniest and most deranged comedy I've ever read.

"Golden Age" - short story by Naomi Novik set in the Temeraire universe. Hilarious and delightful Feral Temeraire AU.

Just ok: media that I didn't hate, and maybe even enjoyed

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore

Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore

Glass Onion (2022) dir. Rian Johnson

Puss in Boots: the Last Wish (2022) dir. Joel Crawford

Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead

Witch's Business by Diana Wynne Jones (reread)

Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones (reread) - Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, Mixed Magics, The Pinhoe Egg

Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Sharyn November. Faves: "Beauty" by Sherwood Smith, "Little Dot" by Diana Wynne Jones, and "Remember Me" by Nancy Farmer.

All Systems Red (异星危机) by Martha Wells, Simplified tr. by 黎思敏

All Saints Street (万圣街) - donghua, seasons 1-3

Moira's Pen by Megan Whalen Turner

Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones (reread)

The Game by Diana Wynne Jones (reread)

Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones (reread)

Selected Discworlds: Thief of Time, Unseen Academicals (reread)

The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer (reread)

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer

"Louise", Gobelins 2021 graduation animated short. Pretty good, but not god tier.

The Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones (reread)

Less by Andrew Sean Greer. Most of it was a slog, but the ending was wonderfully tender.

The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones (reread)

Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke

Are You Listening? by Tillie Walden

Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan

Spinning by Tillie Walden

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (reread)

The Mermaid (美人鱼) - movie (2016)

Exhalation by Ted Chiang. Fave: Exhalation

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Motorcity - cartoon (rewatch)

Sing 2 - movie

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves - movie

White Cat Legend (大理寺日志) manhua through chapter 186

A Monster in Paris - movie (rewatch)

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - movie

Lionboy trilogy by Zizou Corder: Lionboy, The Chase, and The Truth (reread)

The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw

Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms (封神第一部：朝歌风云) - movie

Our Flag Means Death - season 2

Skellig by David Almond (reread). Even more unsettling and magical than I remembered.

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System (人渣反派自救系统) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Savvy by Ingrid Law (reread)

The Silent Boy by Lois Lowry

Golden Age and Other Stories by Naomi Novik. "Golden Age" alone was amazing. Every thing else: meh.

Wonder by RJ Palacio except that the ending sucked

蓝溪镇 (Lanxi Zhen/Blue Creek Town) - manhua (reread), through chapter 112

Translation State by Ann Leckie

Disliked and often DNF'd

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn

The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Phoenix Rising by Karen Hesse

Palimpsest by Catherine Valente

Knives Out (2019) dir. Rian Johnson

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nhi Vgo

Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots. Genuinely creative concept, enjoyable characters, and horrifying (affectionate) ending! Writing was just very, very bad.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore

Stowaway by Karen Hesse

Nirvana in Fire (狼牙榜) - ok objectively it was fine. It was just SO long that I started losing patience at multiple points.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes on (2021) dir. Dean Fleischer Camp

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

Suzume - anime movie

Fairies Albums (百妖谱) - donghua

Link Click （时光代理人）- donghua

The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn by Tri Vuong - webcomic

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo

Journey to the West: Demons Strike Back (西游伏妖篇) - movie

Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Others Writings by Jorge Luis Borges

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

Frozen 2 - movie

Logan - movie

The Three Sisters of Tenmasou - movie

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Nothing new.

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Nimona (2023) - movie

Prophet by Helen MacDonald and Sin Blache

One Piece - the live action Netflix series

Good Omens season 2

Birdwing by Rafe Martin

Blue Eye Samurai - netflix cartoon

Haven't You Heard I'm Sakamoto - anime

System Collapse by Martha Wells

The Cay by Theodore Taylor (reread)

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Bottoms (2023) - movie

Daily Life of the Immortal King (仙王的日常生活) - donghua

Witch King by Martha Wells. Actually I enjoyed the Kai/Bashasa storyline a lot. The present-day storyline I found extremely boring. Which was unfortunate because it was more than half the book.

The King's Avatar (全职高手) - donghua

The Apothecary Diaries - anime

Assorted nonfiction

The Electricity of Every Living Thing by Katherine May. Bored. DNF

Alone in the Wilderness (2004) - dir. Dick Proenneke. Documentary of Proenneke's year spent living alone in the Alaskan wilderness. Neat look at one dude building a cabin, furniture, and all his accompanying household implements by hand.

A River Lost: The Life and Death of the Columbia by Blaine Harden. The human and environmental significance of the Columbia dam system.

Gifted Earth: The Ethnobotany of the Quinault and Neighboring Tribes by Douglas Deur. Guide to key native species and their traditional uses.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders. Four classic Russian short stories with accompanying technical analysis of their narrative construction. Great look at the process of writing and analyzing stories.

Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin - animal behavioral psychology

Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin - more animal behavioral psychology

Crying in HMart by Michelle Zauner. DNF. Felt like the book could have been 1/4 of its length. Mostly nothing new.

Wood in American Life: 1776-2076 by WG Youngquist and HO Fleischer. Wood use in America. Really makes you realize just how many things are now made out of plastic but used to be wood. And how much more difficult and expensive it was to make and replace objects.

Authentic Diversity: How to change the workplace for good by Michelle Silverthorn. Concise and nicely concrete. Would be a good starting place for an executive.

Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil - how some big data algorithms reinforce preexisting inequality, and how to improve them.

The Relationship Cure by Joan Declaire and John M. Gottman. The classic originator of the "bids for attention" approach. Pretty good, most helpful was the part where it identifies the styles of responses.

Essential Retirement Planning for Solo Agers: A Retirement and Aging Roadmap for Single and Childless Adults by Sara Zeff Geber

A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs

the excellent hyperlocal nature guidebook I bought after encountering the author at the mall

Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. 2018 ed.

[deancrowleycas]

Reading a Howl's Moving Castle Destiel!AU and suddenly realizing people don't know the Chrestomanci series and that there is AU potential there

[dr-dendritic-trees]

I'm listening to Conrad's Fate (because I'm still waiting for Lady Knight), and I briefly delighted myself with the image of Chrestomanci telling off everyone in Tempests & Slaughter for being Like That (it would be nearly as good as Rosethorn chewing them out)...

... but now I kind of want to write an AU where Arram is the next Chrestomanci after Cat.

[barbossas-wench]

‼️NEW OC‼️

After watching the new Stranger Things season, I fell in love with Eddie Munson (he deserves better*sobs*) who become my new fictional boyfriend and start crushing on the actor, Joseph Quinn. I remember I read someone saying that Eddie deserves a woc gf. And I was like, "Sure! I'm going to make a Filipina oc!"

My Stranger Things oc's name was Roxanne "Roxie" Aldo

Her face claim was Kim Adis

About Roxie

Was 18 during season 4 (born July 1967)

wants to become a fantasy writer growing up but her parents encourage her for becoming a nurse than a fantasy writer

orchestra kid who have love/hate relationship with playing violin

Autistic

Special interest was Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones and can't wait for book release of Howl's Moving Castle in April 1986

Hates being pressured be best on everything, especially making good grades to make her strict parents proud.

Big Cancer person 🦀

Loves to share her writings with close friends (and Eddie)

Friends with Chrissy and always with her so much as long as if Chrissy needs Roxie

Hates being ridiculed by high school seniors thinking she's "crabby" of her being annoyed by them or being "weird" about her special interests on fantasy books

Before s4 vol 1 and meeting Eddie, Roxie was curious what Eddie was like from what others think of him

When she reached to senior year and met Eddie, she realizes that he's opposite than what people expected of him. She find him charismatic and spirited person

The two developed a relationship by sharing their different interests and don't mind of their each other's music taste.

I will share some other stuffs between Eddie and Roxie 😘

(Note: Vol. 2 never existed in my au)

[iron-sides]

Okay, but in the fanfic, basically to understand in Chronicles of Chrestomanci Book One, Charmed Life, the main character Cat has a sister named Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn was a witch who went off the rails insane. She got her witchcraft taken away by Chrestomanci. That night she used Cat’s magic to move herself to a other universe, replacing herself with a version of herself from another universe (that’s kind of our universe) named Janet.

In my AU idea, instead of Janet, Celie replaces Gwendolyn.

oh thats super interesting !! shed have to like figure out the rules of this new universe :0

[noratilney]

okay but once i get around to the writing part of the day, what should i work on:

and i’ll be your waystation in the night (wynonna earp, unstarted)

begin the masquerade (the originals, unposted)

castoffs (the originals, unposted)

constancy (narnia, unstarted)

dark glory (harry potter, au)

deepwater (asoiaf, historical)

igniting sparks (the originals, unstarted)

might tell you tonight (the vampire diaries)

proximity to power (asoiaf, historical)

traitors, kith, and kin (harry potter, marauders)

untitled chrestomanci fic

untitled saera fic

[i-am-still-bb]

Fluffuary 2023 - Day 11: fireplace OR first “i love you”

Fili/Kili, G The World Next Door: A Chrestomanci AU - Tumblr / Ao3

Ao3

--

A/N: This snippet directly follows Magical Exhaustion. 

--

Fili woke up in his own bed.

And for the first time ever he was disappointed by that fact.

He was still wearing the too long, but too narrow through the hips pajama bottoms, one sock (clearly hand-knit—Kili’s mother perhaps? sister?), a white shirt that was missing more than one button to fasten up the neck, and the cardigan with its rope and wooden fasteners. But he was alone in his large canopied bed. Fili lay there taking everything in, the subtly patterned wallpaper, the wardrobe with the door ajar from his haste yesterday—was it just yesterday morning?—the banked fire in a firebox that was nearly as tall as he was.

Empty.

Quiet.

He had fully expected to wake up in that narrow bed with protesting springs made overly warm by the blankets and by another person’s body heat. And, he was a bit loath to admit even if only to himself, he had been looking forward to that. He had been looking forward to a bit of a break from his job and some time with someone that demanded nothing from him.

The door opened silently.

“Oh! Good morning, Chrestomanci,” the girl said quickly, fumbling with the fire building implements while she curtseyed.

Fili responded politely, “Good morning.”

“Shall I come back later, Chrestomanci? I beg your pardon for the intrusion. I was told that you were already in the library.”

Fili exhaled through his nose. He had fought the bowing and scraping when he first arrived in the house when he was still a boy. It had done no good, so he just got on with things and tried not to let it bother him. But today it grated at him.

“It’s fine, Mabel. You’re already here, so you might as well do it. I’ll stay out of the way.”

“If you insist, Chrestomanci.” Mabel curtseyed again.

Fili nodded but did not move from his spot in the bed. Without thinking he flicked a finger to draw the curtains around the bed, more for Mabel’s comfort than his own. The curtains did close with a rush of metal rings on a pole, but the magic left him with a stinging zip. He bit back the gasp.

Yes.

The exhaustion.

Fili closed his eyes and fell back to sleep and instead of a fireplace he dreamed of a ticking radiator that left a small puddle near one end.

[breytilegt]

You'd think that the office of a wizard-scientist-artist would be a a total mess, but it takes an organized mind to remember when to water all of those plants.

[ao3feed-thehobbit]

Another Life Gone - Almost

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/h3VdRjW

by i_am_still_bb

Fili learns why he should not read books while walking down the street.

Words: 1350, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 3 of Whumptober 2022, Part 1 of The World Next Door: A Chrestomanci AU

Fandoms: The Hobbit - All Media Types

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Fíli (Tolkien), Tom the Troll, Bert the Troll, Bill Huggins, OMC

Additional Tags: Chrestomanci AU, Kidnapping, Whump, Whumptober 2022, Non-Graphic Violence

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/h3VdRjW

[snickerdoodlles]

I'm not writing the full Chrestomanci AU, but the temptation to write just the scene for Yok's bar......

[ao3feed-tolkien]

Another Life Gone - Almost

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/Sk2U3yQ

by i_am_still_bb

Fili learns why he should not read books while walking down the street.

Words: 1350, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 3 of Whumptober 2022, Part 1 of The World Next Door: A Chrestomanci AU

Fandoms: The Hobbit - All Media Types

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Fíli (Tolkien), Tom the Troll, Bert the Troll, Bill Huggins, OMC

Additional Tags: Chrestomanci AU, Kidnapping, Whump, Whumptober 2022, Non-Graphic Violence

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/Sk2U3yQ

[kapuzenknoten]

Excuse me, I have no idea if there is room somewhere in the dwj or merlin Fandom for this, but I have two crossovers/aus that will not leave my mind.

1. Old!Merlin and Old!Sophie together in a room. Watch the world burn. Just that. Both have completely no filter to their personalities they would rule.

2. Bit more complicated: we'll uther killed all the dragon's right (Still no idea how he managed that, he seemed to be pretty overwhelmed with just kilgarrah). So there must have been an awful amount of dragon's blood. And maybe a lot of that got smuggled out to different worlds and caused a heap of chaos and damage. So Christopher! Chrestomanci gets wind of it and because of past mistakes he is going to take this on himself. He tracks Uther down as the killer and gets a whole team to Camelot for investigation.

Including

-Chrestomanci making everyone feel small and drab by being absolutely sarcastic. ("so you have decided to wipe out all magic from this land that is made out of magic? Yes I see how that seems like a good idea.")

- Chrestomanci trying to have merlin join his collection of gifted kids.

- Cat just randomly freeing magical creatures left and right, ensuing absolute chaos