Reader messages

anonymous asked:

“knack” anon again. What about sound mimicry and/or throwing your voice?

Luminous Arc asked:

Is Remote Sound Emission a possible knack given your universe? Like being able to generate a sound at a given nearby location away from yourself, basically an auditory mental projection? 

Both of these abilities are perfectly possible! They would be two separate possible knacks though, one borrower couldn’t have both.

Throwing your voice would be a great ability, especially if it was refined enough to make it sound like you were well away from your current location, or even directly in someone’s ear to make them jump.

Some borrowers, like Dean, can manage this without any specific knack, but as a knack it would certainly be much stronger and more useful. Dean only really uses it to mess with his own tols and startle sprites. For life and death situations, he generally goes with other tricks that are more reliable. 

Sound mimicry is a great ability to have, giving a borrower the ability to ‘borrow’ someone else’s voice. They could use this to call to a human in their mother/father’s voice, getting them out of the kitchen or living room, and possibly saving the borrower from discovery.

These style knacks may appear in the future! We have spitballed ideas like this for guest characters, along with many other possible knacks.

Anonymous message

anonymous asked:

Would the ability to phase through solid objects work as a knack? It would certainly make getting into the walls easier.

It would for sure!

You’ve stumbled on a knack that a future character in the series will have (though they are not yet in any posted stories). However, it’s not as strong as they’d like.

An ability like phasing is one of the stronger abilities that a borrower could have, and it has severe limitations. The borrower can’t just phase through a solid wall without consequences. Especially starting out, they’re not going to be able to handle more than a thin sheet of paper. 

Training the knack might help them be able to handle a little more, but there’s always a limit. Paper is the easiest, fabric is a little harder (and it depends on how many layers of fabric there are), wood is possible, but they’re starting to reach limits of what they can handle especially with hardwoods. Placing metal around an object is a good way to keep this kind of borrower out, as they can’t just pass through it.

So, it’s a knack that exists, but the borrower would be walking a fine line with their ability and how far they can stretch it to get in and out of places.

Official knacks in the Brothers Apart multiverse

Though there are many different stories, no matter what, a knack will always remain the same for a particular cursed human!

That said, here is the full compilation of canon borrower knacks that we have for the characters within the stories. Any that say unannounced has a knack, but we haven’t revealed it at this time! Any that say unknown, we’re still working on!

This list is subject to change as the stories evolve, and more characters/knacks may be added at any time.


Main Characters

Sam Winchester–

  • Enhanced Awareness: This can either enhance an already understood sense to supernatural levels, or give the borrower a ‘sixth sense,’ much like how Sam can feel if he’s being watched. His ability does not work on other borrowers, the angelic Grace around their souls keeping the perception from working on them. 

Dean Winchester–

  • Enhanced Tracking: Trackers, like Dean, are able to use their ability to track down their target with undeniable accuracy. There are limits, as Dean can only track down objects he needs. He is unable to apply this to people, and if he can’t conjure up that sense of need, nothing will happen. This is not limited by distance, though if he’s far from an object, he only gets a sense of what direction it’s in. 

John Winchester–

  • Perception Filter: The ability to be unnoticed and/or ignored in presence and actions. John’s ability is unique, so far as he’s discovered. He is unable to apply this ability to himself, but has found that if he concentrates, he is able to hide his family from notice, even if a human opens up the walls and looks right at them. This allows him to leave without worrying that they will be found, though of course, stuff doesn’t always go to plan.

Mary Winchester–

  • Terrakinesis: The ability to control the earth. While John’s ability tends towards more protective with his family, Mary is ready to go on the attack. She can’t affect entire buildings like the angels, but she can rock the ground just enough to knock a human off balance, buying time for her to escape. This works when there’s concrete, rock, stone, ect underneath the ground. She is unable to affect wood paneling at all and is cautious if she needs to go over a wood floor. With this ability, she was able to slowly carve out a safe home for her family underneath the ground. Adding in John’s ability to keep the family undetected, it seemed a good place to raise their two boys. Mary keeps several pebbles on her that she can flick at an attacker in case she needs a quick escape. Dean certainly got his accuracy from his mother.

Bobby Singer–

  • Psychometry: Bobby’s knack allows him to learn from books and artifacts at a glance or a touch. He’s unable to read people, but if he gets an item of theirs, he can know what it was used for, how it will be put to use in the close future. This includes seeing that a knife will be used for a murder, before the murder happens.

Jacob Andris–

  • Supernatural Strength: Some, like Jacob, grow stronger than even other borrowers. This comes from their innate ability to turn their knack on their own bodies by instinct. While Sam and Dean receive the standard borrower strength boost while cursed, allowing them to lift around 12x their body weight, Jacob is able to lift, at only 18, a colossal 42x his natural body weight. If he was human-sized, he could bench a car without breaking a sweat.

Oscar–

  • Pyrokinesis: The ability to manipulate fire in limited forms. Oscar would not easily discover this knack, as a fire in the motel room walls might cause the entire place to go up in a blaze.

Walt Watch–

  • Telekinesis: The ability to manipulate objects outside of their direct reach. This can often cause a borrower to be mistaken for a ghost, moving objects in a house without touching them for a distraction. Walt Watch has taken the ability further, freezing two humans in place and later directing his power at himself to force his razor blade through Celeste’s neck despite her angelic invulnerability. This came close to burning out his knack. 

Mallory Watch–

  • unknown

John Watson–

  • unannounced

Sherlock Holmes–

  • Time Distortion: The ability to slow down or stop time. A very strong knack that requires training to sustain for longer than a few seconds. In Sherlock’s case, he is able to slow down time around him, enabling him to escape with a speed that can’t be matched, and make observations that no one else would ever notice. When he stretches his ability, he can include others in this. He can’t stop time like an angel; it will always move forward

Stan Baker–

  • unannounced 

Moira Wainscot–

  • unannounced

Side Characters 

Chase Lisong–

  • Emotional manipulation: The ability to influence the emotions around him, with no need for physical contact. A way for Chase to keep the peace among whichever group he’s in, or, if he can manage to get close enough, make a human tired or inattentive enough to escape notice.

Bobby Loran–

  • Power borrowing: Bobby is able to borrower the knack of other borrowers for a limited amount of time. One at a time, and since he’s not used to them he wouldn’t have as much finesse with them. He’d be quicker to burn them out than the actual “owner” of the knack.

Minnie Lisong–

  • Life detection: Very useful for finding out if a human is in a room, or seeing if there is a possibly dangerous rat or spider hiding in the walls.

Kara Bolt–

  • unannounced  

Christian Bolt–

  • unknown 

Mikael Foyer–

  • unknown 

Mark Bend–

  • Supernatural Strength: Unlike Jacob, Mark’s ability only applies to his legs. His legs are supernaturally enhanced, able to leap high into the air compared to a regular borrower.

Sean–

  • Invisibility: Though the borrower does not make themselves actually invisible in most cases, the invisibility knack allows them to camouflage and blend in to their surroundings. In Sean’s case, he can cause a cloud of distortion that hides himself and any of his friends that stand close enough. 

 Bardolph–

  • unknown 

Xander–

  • unknown

Garen–

  • unknown

Harmony–

  • unannounced

Adriana of the Woods–

  • unannounced

Stan Baker’s brothers–

  • unannounced for all

Reader message

myimaginedairybeard  asked:

Is Barry’s (Bardolph) knack Regeneration? In Out of the frying pan there are a lot of mentions that it’s a miracle he’s even alive and managed to survive everything, so I figured it’d likely be his knack. I tried to think of what Stan’s knack might be but the only thing that came to mind was animal empathy since his love for animals has been mentioned a few times :3 Also, was Sam’s knack in Brothers Found burned out:( ?

Aw, if only!

Poor little Barry does not have any advanced healing, and he’s going to go through a lot more before we see him next. There’s been a lot of dumb luck for him, and Garen’s convinced he won’t last long, while Xander is determined to get him through it.

Those three might eventually get knacks, but they were designed before I had any knacks for non-main characters in mind, so they’re currently ‘unknown’.

I still wonder if Captives will end up being story 20 like I thought… there’s been some restructuring of the story since then. Oh well, we’ll find out once the other stories are completed!


Stan’s knack is not animal empathy (he would… love that). He’s one of the characters with a hidden, unrevealed knack. Unless someone is lucky enough to guess what his special is!


At the end of Jacob in Wonderland, Sam’s knack hadn’t returned to him, and he has yet to find out if it’s burned out permanently or can recover.

Anonymous message

anonymous  asked:

So not sure if someone ask this ,but is it possible a Little (or Borrower) would have the ability to create illusion?
Sort of like Zoroark from Pokemon ( if ur familiar of the franchise or that Pokemon)

You’re the first one to bring it up!

A borrower definitely could, but their ability would be more a mental manipulation on the person they’re making see that illusion. Actual creation of an illusion like that would be a strain on the borrower, though some of the stronger ones could pull it off with a lot of practice. Even then, it’ll end up being easy to see through if a person knows where to look, or if they put their hand through it.

Anonymous message

anonymous  asked:

Can the knack of phasing through inanimate/non living matter (with the limitations of it being only working for the “personal sphere of identity”, under a certain thickness and only while holding your breath) possible by your storyverse rules?

It would be very limited, but very possible!

They wouldn’t be able to pass through thick surfaces, or a surface with stronger bonds (wood is easier than steel, for instance). Paper would be the easiest, and accidentally phasing through a trap a human set for them might be how they first discover this.

I was rereading brothers apart and I have to ask – where the heck is Sam’s knak?? I mean, I couldn’t find it anywhere, and he has one in all the other aus, so did I miss something? Or is there a reason for this? Course I’m really confused over here…

Nope, you didn’t miss anything!

The first stories for Brothers Apart was written quite a bit before the other stories were ever conceived of. In the beginning, the story shadowed the Supernatural storyline a lot closer, before the story really took off in its own direction.

Sam used to have the same ability from the TV show, where he got prophetic dreams. I ended up switching tracks around the time that Taken was being written, and decided to give my borrowers their own special abilities instead of paralleling the special children from season 2. 

If I remember right, you will see bits and pieces of Sam’s knack start to appear in Taken, and then it shows up fully in Adventures at Bobby’s. We started writing A Lich of Sense right after Taken, and after that all the rest of the AUs took off and Sam’s knack became official, with Dean’s shortly following.

A lot of the ideas for the knacks owe a huge thanks to my cowriters! They wouldn’t be anywhere near as developed without them, and @neonthebright is the one that came up with Dean’s knack!

These days we love brainstorming on who would have what knack if they grew up a borrower!

@neonthewrite:

Since we are discussing knacks, I decided to put some thought into what my own would be. I agree with everyone saying it’s difficult! @.@

I decided to start from something that comes up a lot for me, and that is Anxiety. I overthink just about everything that happens to me, and I stress over situations that didn’t/won’t even happen (my cowriters can attest to this stressing nonsense). So I think my knack would be some kind of Prescience … the ability to see several possible futures just a few seconds forward, and the clarity to know which one is most likely to happen and act accordingly. How I wish I could actually do that!


What would your knack be? Let us know!

@borrowedtimeandspace:

I had a tough time coming up with what my knack would be if I were a BAU borrower, and I still don’t really have the specifics down for the idea I did eventually think of. I’ve always been a pretty fast learner, I pick up hobbies and skills with my hands pretty easily most of the time, so maybe my borrower knack would be something to do with that: picking up on information really quickly and retaining it well.

Like, I could peek into a room and do a quick sweep with my eyes, then pop back into hiding and still be able to know where everything is in the section of the room I could see. Or if I had a tol buddy to help me, they could flip really quickly through a book in my line of sight and I’d know every single page by the end of it (though that kind of information dump would probably give me a headache and nosebleed).


What would your knack be? Let us know!

Determining your own knack is hard! I would want mine to probably be based off of my favorite super power: telepathy. I don’t know entirely how, but I would likely be sensitive to the thoughts of others around me.

It’s a very useful ability to have if you’re worried the human might have heard you. You’ll be able to ‘hear’ if they’re considering seeking you out or if they just wrote the sound off as just the house settling.

Also, if you get bored and are strong enough, you can always get into someone’s head and make them think they’re hearing voices. Get them to leave out a snack or two for you if you need some food for the week. 


What would your knack be? Let us know!