#tldr leif is the worlds most pathetic cordyceps

[thesnivy123]

some quick leif and zommoth headcanons. Long post

Leif's body is technically "alive" on a biological level. He's got a pulse, whatever organs are left still work, his wounds heal and he's just generally not a corpse. The original Leif is still dead as a doorknob, though. It's just the body that's not actually dead.

Adding onto this- Should Leif's cordyceps get seperated from his body, he'll be perfectly fine. It'll be jarring, it'll suck, but not only can he survive that way indefinitely, he'll still keep his mind. Exact same guy, just spaghettified. Should this happen, though, the body will shut down and Actually Die- Only temporarily, though, because once he's back in, the combination of Magical Cordyceps Bullshit and Magical Crystal Bullshit will jumpstart the very-dead corpde back to being a debatably-dead body.

Zommoth's magic isn't poison so much as it just affects how you feel in general. In a combat setting, it's mostly just Beam Of Feel Unwell (making it better for incapacitating victims so they can go in for physical attacks), but outside of combat, it's... Basically emotion magic but Worse. They can't actually control emotion, but they sure can cast an overwhelming wave of their own feelings onto someone! Useful for starting fights, trying to get your weird pathetic blue brother to be Excited About The Cool Thing You Found, and... surprisingly enough, as a painkiller.

If two cordyceps come into physical contact with eachother, they can basically communicate telepathically as long as they're touching- And, should this happen when theyre both asleep, they'll actually share dreams! This isnt particularly useful for the cordysibs unless Leif gets peeled somehow, in which case, it would be VERY useful, because...

Unlike Zommoth, Leif can't talk when seperated from his body. This is because Zommoth talks sorta like a parrot (but worse)- Since their tail and inner body is made of so many tendrils, they can move them all around to push air through their whole body to make sounds- Leif, however, isn't big enough to do this, so outside of his body he's completely mute.

The crystals in Leif aren't, like, loose rocks. They're growing in the empty space in there in a sort of rock candy sorta shape. There's actually a bit growing ON the cordyceps- If (when peeled) he rubs his tendrils together just right, he can chirp like a cricket.

Leif's eyes glow dimly, but that’s not the only reason why they're white. They're actually heavily clouded over. This... Caused a bit of a misunderstanding when he first met Vi and Kabbu. They assumed he was blind. They were very quickly proven wrong. This has happened countless times with countless people on their adventure. It's annoying. His eyesight is actually pretty good.

Zommoth's host is... Even more dead than Leif physically. The body is just a decaying husk. UNLIKE LEIF, however, they're still sort of there mentally- It's rare that they're even conscious enough to dream, but they could, hypothetically, be brought back. They'd be surprisingly tolerant of the big stupid Weird Dog sharing their body, despite everything. I'll talk about the host in a seperate post, maybe. Friend of mine came up with most of their Everything, so i'll have to ask them.

Zommoth is fully capable of hijacking other bugs- To a limited extent, though, since they'd be too big to actually use the body. If left unattended, there is a decent chance they will do this. It's never actually with the intent to take over the body, though, and, like leif, they can't actually infect anyone- They just have no sense of boundaries and actually genuinely think they're being friendly by doing this. In their (lack of) eyes, they're just popping in to say hi, sorta the equivalent of leaning over your shoulder to see what you're doing, but Worse and Bad. They don't understand why people don't like this. At the very least, this doesn't actually cause any lasting harm- It sucks and it's also fuckin terrifying to have a giant zombie parasite drop on you, take control of your body and start babbling away in your brain like an excited toddler for a few minutes before dropping you and fleeing the scene.

This happens to leif like at least once a week please help him