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andrasteSo, one of my favourite types of fusion crossover in the universe is AUs where characters have daemons, as in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. (For some reason they seem popular in Sherlock fandom. I approve.) Every now and then I find myself speculating about how the souls of my favourite characters would manifest in animal form and wondering if I should write one.
Doctor Who, for example, might open quite differently if people had visible souls ...
"She lets her knowledge out a bit at a time, so as not to embarrass me: that's what I feel about her. She knows more science than I'll ever know. She's a genius! Is that what she's doing with history?" Ian asked Barbara.
"Something like that."
"So, your problem is whether to stay in business or hand over the class to her."
"No, not quite."
"What then?"
"Ian, I must talk to someone about this, but I don't want the girl to get into trouble. And I know you're going to tell me I'm imagining things."
"No, I'm not."
"It's her daemon, Ian." Astrian fluttered nervously about her head, reflecting her unease.
"It hasn't settled, has it? She's a little older than average, but nothing to worry about yet."
"It's not that, it's the forms it takes. He changes when she's nervous, and the animals - sometimes I don't recognize them."
"When I was a kid, Jerana turned into a dragon a couple of times," said Ian, ruffling his daemon's ears affectionately. She wagged her tail in response. "We grew out of it, as I'm sure Susan soon will."
"I'm not talking about dragons, or unicorns, or anything Susan could have seen in a book. I'm talking about things nobody in this world has ever dreamed of ..."
I do tend to think, though, that the Doctor's daemon would settle into Earth animals. (A different one each regeneration, of course.) He wanders the universe wearing Earth clothes, eating Earth food and mostly hanging out with human beings. The same would not necessarily apply to other Gallifreyans, or the likes of of Adric, Nyssa and Turlough. Being an alien on Earth might be a bit more conspicuous in this universe if your daemon wasn't small and easy to hide and/or you had holograms. (Unless convergent evolution in the Doctor Who universe doesn't just apply to bipedal hominids, I guess.) People would find Cybermen extra disturbing because conversion would kill the daemon but leave the person walking around in a metal shell.
I cannot help but think that both Two and Seven would have members of the Corvidae for daemons. Probably a Jackdaw and a Magpie. Noisy and attracted to shiny objects, but terrifyingly smart. One's would be something traditionally associated with wisdom but a bit mysterious and scary - a snake or an owl. My only debate about Five's is whether it would be a Cocker Spaniel or a Labrador. She would definitely spend that incarnation be something blond and enthusiastic that loves to play fetch. While physical resemblance to one's daemon is beside the point, I cannot picture Ten's as anything other than one of the Mustelidae, or one of the other creatures that resembles that family by convergence - a mongoose or a meerkat, perhaps. Something with a habit of sitting up on her hind legs to peer at people, anyway. The two I have no idea about at all are Eight and Nine.
As for companions - Jamie's would be a Border Collie. Not a purebred example of the modern version, but dogs of roughly that type have been rounding up sheep in Scotland for centuries. Peri's would be a brightly coloured bird, something we have actual canon evidence for from Vengeance on Varos. I'm guessing a hummingbird, lorikeet or something else that loves flowering plants. And I think Ace's would have to be wolf for plot reasons.
Doctor Who, for example, might open quite differently if people had visible souls ...
"She lets her knowledge out a bit at a time, so as not to embarrass me: that's what I feel about her. She knows more science than I'll ever know. She's a genius! Is that what she's doing with history?" Ian asked Barbara.
"Something like that."
"So, your problem is whether to stay in business or hand over the class to her."
"No, not quite."
"What then?"
"Ian, I must talk to someone about this, but I don't want the girl to get into trouble. And I know you're going to tell me I'm imagining things."
"No, I'm not."
"It's her daemon, Ian." Astrian fluttered nervously about her head, reflecting her unease.
"It hasn't settled, has it? She's a little older than average, but nothing to worry about yet."
"It's not that, it's the forms it takes. He changes when she's nervous, and the animals - sometimes I don't recognize them."
"When I was a kid, Jerana turned into a dragon a couple of times," said Ian, ruffling his daemon's ears affectionately. She wagged her tail in response. "We grew out of it, as I'm sure Susan soon will."
"I'm not talking about dragons, or unicorns, or anything Susan could have seen in a book. I'm talking about things nobody in this world has ever dreamed of ..."
I do tend to think, though, that the Doctor's daemon would settle into Earth animals. (A different one each regeneration, of course.) He wanders the universe wearing Earth clothes, eating Earth food and mostly hanging out with human beings. The same would not necessarily apply to other Gallifreyans, or the likes of of Adric, Nyssa and Turlough. Being an alien on Earth might be a bit more conspicuous in this universe if your daemon wasn't small and easy to hide and/or you had holograms. (Unless convergent evolution in the Doctor Who universe doesn't just apply to bipedal hominids, I guess.) People would find Cybermen extra disturbing because conversion would kill the daemon but leave the person walking around in a metal shell.
I cannot help but think that both Two and Seven would have members of the Corvidae for daemons. Probably a Jackdaw and a Magpie. Noisy and attracted to shiny objects, but terrifyingly smart. One's would be something traditionally associated with wisdom but a bit mysterious and scary - a snake or an owl. My only debate about Five's is whether it would be a Cocker Spaniel or a Labrador. She would definitely spend that incarnation be something blond and enthusiastic that loves to play fetch. While physical resemblance to one's daemon is beside the point, I cannot picture Ten's as anything other than one of the Mustelidae, or one of the other creatures that resembles that family by convergence - a mongoose or a meerkat, perhaps. Something with a habit of sitting up on her hind legs to peer at people, anyway. The two I have no idea about at all are Eight and Nine.
As for companions - Jamie's would be a Border Collie. Not a purebred example of the modern version, but dogs of roughly that type have been rounding up sheep in Scotland for centuries. Peri's would be a brightly coloured bird, something we have actual canon evidence for from Vengeance on Varos. I'm guessing a hummingbird, lorikeet or something else that loves flowering plants. And I think Ace's would have to be wolf for plot reasons.