Remember? Icarus can't fly...

Self-referential. And... well.

Loses his wings.

Fuck it all. I had a dream, months and months back--over summer, maybe, even; I have to find it (does anyone remember this? I had a dream about angels and wings and their heirarchy and shit, and weird shit.)

Well, I'm going back to that a little now.

formerly amber!verse has become, rather permanently, Angel!verse.

They're not ANGELS, is the thing. Actually, they're far more similar in FUNCTION to Tolkien Elves, but... I need a distinguishing mark for Demons--which aren't demons, and won't be called such at all--to hate them for. Said marks being wings and magic. "Demons" (must find a name for their race) are basically a second off-branch of the same species, this Tolkien-Elf-like-being in the kind of immortality and power, only they have sort of magic cancellation, though it only works when consciously used and it's not nearly as strong magic (thus their hatred of magic and why despite that weapon the "angels" always came out on top in fights) and they're rather feline (hey, cats have every reason to want to shred birds, no?)

...Yes, I am apparently, in this, tackling things I dislike in Amber (the whole family-killing thing, just taking out Sue and Stuishness), SARA DOUGLASS if you can believe that (Seriously, the woman is batshit, but I'm apparently trying to do that right now too), and apparently Narnia as I end up with one king-in-name and four joint rulers-in-actuality.

I'm a strange person.

*Frowns* See, thing is, magic is... odd. "demons" don't get magic, they get its antithesis, and possibly a hint of illusion magic. Humans can occasionally do a little (the occasional witchwoman), and any "angel" gets it because it supports their wings. Only the royal family, though, has enough magic to actually fly at all. It's the mark of royal blood (as is, quite possibly, black wings. There's a complex hierarchy of wings, and I think that royals with the highest potential of personality tend to get black wings. Certainly three kings in a row and a bastard son, and a second son and daughter of importance all have them. It's whether or not the oldest girl does... I think she might, just to give a sweet girl black wings for no reason. *Grins* Would make dressing harder, though. Mrrh.)

Anyway... there's also a really complex system of distinguishing the branches of the feline "demon" lines, and distinct markers of them, and they hate each other completely. I THINK the felines do get some kind of illusion magic, but very little. And they can cancel out effects to an extent. Natural enemies.

And, of course, most importantly: there are some good angel-types, one SADISTIC EVIL angel type, some evil scheming demon types, some actually really decent demon types who are just... brainwashed by the power hungry, but get REALLY COOL later, and the hero is a halfbreed of both. And there are non-royal halfbreeds WAAAAY far out in the fringe provinces, but... yeah.

There are also human halfbreeds with all of them, which is where the blood starts getting mixed up. I'm not sure where someone crosses from mostly-angel-and-showing-it to mostly-human-and-not-showing-angel-ness.  It's possible that all true magic in humans comes from angel blood and all illusion magic comes from demon blood, and I think demon blood shows FAR more easily than angel blood in humans.

Note that all demon and angel usages in this need to have quotation marks around them, as THEY ARE NOT ACTUALLY THAT. Angels' wings are to them as daemons are to Northern Lights people, or SGs were to Sennorans, and you DO NOT CUT OFF ANGELS' WINGS. Not even DEMONS (again, with quotations) do that. Seriously, just no. It's beyond sadism. So evil overlord guy may do it once, but... he dies painfully, at the hands of... a guy. Yeah. Let's leave it at that. Demons actually have the advantage of not having that huge weakness. But... yeah.

All demons and angels are simply placeholders. I wouldn't even call demons "demons," but the wings make the others "angels" and that make the demons "demons," so... yeah. But they're not really. They're different breeds of human.  With... iiiiiiiissues.