#Kepekapean

[fenmere]

Sketching Näofregbi, a Kepakepean (ancestor of the people of the Sunspot), and gem's body language:

We're also trying to develop a very simplified cartoon version of gem, but before we can do that we need to understand the range of gems movements and shapes of gems anatomy.

We might end up making a blender model in the process. A VRChat avatar of gem would be super cool.

[theinmara]

The Deliverator

This would be very acceptable transition goals for us. It might give us the most compatible shared euphoria across the system.

The only thing missing is the lure on the forehead. It's a bit small and fragile for a modification, but we might attempt it some day.

But also, look at the quality of this HeroForge figurine! Hailing Scales!

[ohthatphage]

I have started the second chapter of my first novel. I don't imagine I'll write many other novels, as this system has a lot of writers in it who should get to write.

But I'm very proud of these words. Here is an excerpt:

---

Being party to two nervous systems gave me enough faculties to do some interesting and fun things.

I have since learned that this would not have been as easy on a new planet with people who are not familiar with me. I had grown up with the Kepekapeans, so I had forgotten how much I’d struggled at first.

As it was then, however, I was able to vibrate the air arbitrarily to form my greeting. And then, following that, I pulled together a confluence of breeze, light from the sun, tree branches and leaves and the shadows they cast, and enough neurons from my two new friends to create the illusion of a shadowy figure standing in the path between them and the city they wanted to return to.

It was half coincidental shadow play and half hallucination.

The reaction I got from either of them was not what I was intending to receive, but it was informative and interesting anyway. If I’d had all of my memories, I would have predicted it before I’d acted. But I wasn’t exactly surprised.

Very little ever surprises me.

Eyes wide, backs arched, they both backed up a step and froze, mouths gaping. Little Näofregbi was in front of towering Binwen, if seen from where my shadow vision lay. And they were framed by the gently swaying leaves and fronds of the foliage around them, with glints of direct sunlight filtering through the indigo trees behind their heads.

I extrapolated that image from the physics around me, but otherwise I was actually seeing things through their eyes.

I decided to nudge them back toward verbal thinking, and continued my greeting. 

“I am Mau,” I said, and had my visage twist to demonstrate the lack of a tail, denoting that the pronoun ‘yem’ belonged to me. I could give myself any tail I wanted. I wanted that pronoun, and the connotations it carried.

Also, turning sideways to show your tail was an extreme formality in their culture at the time, treated as deferential and very friendly. During mating season, it would be evocative, of course, but it was not mating season.

I waited.

[fenmere]

You hear Crime-Cat's phone ring in the other room.

Oh, no.

"Hello, this is Crime-Cat! You've got the crime - I'm the cat to move it! Who am I speaking to?" they say, and of course you hear their voice echo in the phone that you've got pressed to your ear.

You sigh.

"So," you say into the phone, smirking over your shoulder. "You know that girl I was telling you about that I thought we maybe could add to our polycule?"

You can hear Crime-Cat smirking back, "Oh, yes! Tell me more about her!"

You're both doing this now. You can both hear each other clearly from the other room. You know that you can walk into the other room and have a normal conversation. But the phone call has become a Thing, and you're both chuckling behind your teeth about it.

"Well, I found an interesting property regarding her phone number," you tell your spouse.

"Go on."

"It turns out that it somehow forwarded to your number, but there weren't the requisite number of rings for that. It just rang your phone immediately. It's very strange."

"Oh, wait, oh," Crime-Cat says, still holding back a snicker that threatens to break your own iron grip on your own laughter. But then they sober up real quick, and ask, "Did she have any gold sequins on her outfit, anywhere? What were her earrings like?"

"Yes, and she had little ancient 20th century telephone receiver charms for earrings," you report, now a little curious.

"That's Cold Call! Holy shit, you hit on Cold Call, you sly space salamander! Ha!" And now they are laughing. But it's not infectious. You're too confused to laugh.

"What does that mean?" you ask guilelessly. Nevermind that you didn't actually hit on her, she seemed to hit on you and gave you a number regardless. You had been hopeful, but you just want to know what's going on.

"Oh. OK. You haven't heard of her. She has this one power. It's not much, so she's sort of an underground hero, or villain, depending on your perspective and how you uses those words," they say.

"Like us, only you have one power and I have many," you say.

"No, not like us. I mean. OK, listen. Her power makes it so that whatever phone number she gives you - she could give you her own or a pizza place's number or just make one up on the spot - whatever number it is, it will connect you to the number you needed to call the most. As long as you dial that number with the intention of reaching her, you'll get whoever it is that you actually need the most," they explain. And you can hear another smirk growing in their face as they talk. "And, my dearest Deliverator, my candy Kepekapean, my naughty newt! I am right here!"

"Well, it seems that she's waiting for someone that actually needs her," you conclude.

"It does seem that way, doesn't it," Crime-Cat agrees.

"Very well. There's just one thing, then," you say.

"What's that?"

"What exactly do I need you for?"

You hear Crime-Cat stomp toward the doorway before they stalk into the room with a look of mock indignation on their face, a barely disguised smirk under it, and then they throw their phone at you.

--- For more stories of Crime-Cat and the Deliverator, click on the tag or see the table of contents.

You met a girl at a bar who gave you a number. Turns out, she has a superpower; Any number she gives out to others turns into the number they needed to call the most. You call it, and it forwards you to the most powerful supervillain in the world.

[fenmere]

Kepekapean food artisans.

Their body language is somewhere between that of cats, dogs, and lizards, and may not be conveying what you think.

The one tilting their head up is saying, "Yes."

The one holding the bowl, panting, eyes wide, is asking, eagerly, something like, "May I have more?"

[fenmere]

Näofregbi and Binwen of our WIP Gesetele's Arrow.

They hatched in adjoining brooding ponds around the same time, and became friends before either of them could talk, before their adolescent metamorphosis. Both of them are Kepekapeans (Ktletaccete from their home planet, Kepekape).

During metamorphosis, Kepekapeans take on dramatically different physiological traits in reaction to childhood stimuli from their parents, peers, environment, pathogens, favorite foods, and personal interests. This frequently makes it look like they're from different species, but they're not.

Näofregbi is a loner, a natural recluse, which is common enough that most Kepekapean cultures accept them as they are. Gem lives on gems own tiny plot of land with a wild garden of trees and hedges surrounding a pond and a workshed. Gems Art is pottery.

Binwen hasn't found nem's Art yet, and so dabbles in everything.

Binwen is not a loner, and like most other Kepekapeans prefers to be in the company of at least two or more people. However, nems six arms set nem enough apart from everyone else that nem frequently feels alienated. Fortunately, nem is best friends with Näofregbi, who seems reasonably happy to have Binwen around.

Unfortunately, pairs and couples are what are truly met with suspicion amongst most Kepekapeans. If you don't have a third party to keep you in check, you could be up to something. And this is really what has always set the two apart from the rest of their community.

They're both in their thirties, by Kepekapean years, which makes them around sixty or so Earth years old.

Their story takes place millions of Sunspot years before the Sunspot Chronicles, which also means they predate humanity and possibly most life on Earth, even accounting for astronomical distances. Relativity does some weird shit and makes it hard to calculate.

Their culture is very advanced, though. Their government is building the first Exodus Ship, using construction nanites to harvest and shape mass from various asteroids and comets in their stellar system to build a vessel that is approximately 2,600 kilometers long and capable of carrying billions of people.

They will not be on the ship when it leaves, but their adventures will shape the fate of the Sunspot anyway.

[ohthatphage]

The Sexual Development and Habits of Kepekapeans

I'm going through my notes for my own book, which I am working on slowly, and found this lovely tidbit about ancient Ktletaccete, known as Kepekapeans, from before they left their planet: ---

Kepekapeans are hermaphroditic by human standards, but vary quite a bit in what that means.

Some will tend to specialize their body in creating either ovum or spermatozoa, but this can and does often change at nearly any time. About a third of the population will be able to produce both simultaneously and can even fertilize their own eggs. Most people fluctuate subconsciously based on the needs of the local populace. While a tiny percentage will be stuck producing one kind of gamete for their entire adult life.

Most Kepekapean cultures don’t put much weight on this. Those that do are considered backward and dangerous by the rest of the world.

Sometimes a person can experience reproductive dysphoria, but changing sex expression is so easily done with hormones that treatment for it is readily available.

Actual mating is done in the spring, and people participate as they feel moved to. The urge and ability to reproduce is influenced heavily by pheromones not only produced by the adult populace but by adolescents and children. These pheromone signals are complex and not entirely dedicated toward inducing attraction. Many of them, especially those produced by children and adolescents, serve to inform the biology of the surrounding adults as to whether or not more fertilized eggs are needed (according to ancient evolutionary pressures).

Physical attraction is very rarely what draws people to mate with each other, since physicality varies so much between Kepekapeans. Instead, performances of skills outside of a person’s Art tend to be seen as exceedingly cute and alluring. In what way varies from person to person, and season to season. Some people find it more endearing if someone’s attempt to do something they are not familiar with is especially clumsy. While others find it alluring when they show a glimmer of grace, skill, and adaptability. And many people consider it the height of romance to travel with friends to other communities during mating season in order to hook up with people from other regions.

Mating seasons in various communities tend to resemble anything from craft fares to talent shows, full of all sorts of bizarre and silly performances and productions, including trash collecting contests and improv games.

[fenmere]

For you, it's been a pretty short time since you landed on Earth, hoping to make your name here as a super hero. A lot has happened, because a lot can happen in the course of a few decades, but the same can be said for seconds or even microseconds if you're considering the right scale and set of events.

Never-the-less, you get a sense of what this kind of passage of time means to humans when you look at Crime-Cat and see how gray their hair has gotten. And how much their face has changed.

With your help, they were able to acquire functional prosthetic testicles, so they've been enjoying the effects of testosterone on their body and have a spectacular beard now.

And they still sport that signature side shave, letting their hair grow out on the side of their head just enough that the little gray bristles glint like fine crafting glitter in the light of your lair's sunlamps.

Experientially, disregarding calculations for relativity and the distance you've traveled, you and your spouse are roughly the same age. It's just that your body is prepared to live a whole lot longer than theirs.

The remaining members of T.A.L.O.N., a.k.a. the Resistance, are with you. And they've visibly aged as well. Humans are so short lived and fragile, and you're considering using your knowledge as a Kepekapean university graduate to help them prolong their lives.

You wouldn't have considered it before, but recent war and its toll on the planet has you revisiting the idea. You'd definitely like a few more decades with your partner and adopted children, but you also feel that the life on this planet deserves a second chance despite it all. And that those two motives dovetail is only fortunate.

Crashslide and Dale are lounging in each other's arms on their favorite nearly dead sofa.

Hellafacts is tinkering with some computer equipment, trying to get it working again. Just to have an extra processor for managing the lair security.

And Gary is pacing, reporting in from his scouting duties.

"So, get this," Gary says.

"Yeah?" Crime-Cat prompts from their seat, nestled into your left armpit.

"The C.I.A. are still in operation, apparently," Gary reports. "No other branch of the U.S. government exists, but they do. And they're still up to their old shenanigans. Ran into one of them today."

"Oh, come on," Dale groans.

"No, I'm serious," Gary says. "She tried to recruit me!"

"OK, I'll bite. What'd you do?" Dale asks.

Gary stops pacing and stares down at Dale, Crashslide and Dale looking blandly back up at him, and says, "I let her elaborate, of course! I thought it was a great opportunity for intel."

"Yeah?"

"She described their operations abroad. Nothing local, of course. No information I could use around here. But they do have a global network, still, according to her," Gary says. "I don't know, though. As far as I can tell, they've just been reduced to resorting to piracy, and I let her know I'm not comfortable with that."

"Huh."

"Played hard to get, right? So, she started talking about their greater plans, their supposed vision. Bunch of old patriots, supposedly," Gary starts pacing again, talking over his shoulder at Dale, and both you and Crime-Cat turn your heads to follow him. "They're working to rebuild the United States of America, she said. She wanted my help to unify the Eastern sea board, apparently."

"Holy shit," Crime-Cat chuckles. "It's like they need something slightly more legitimate than themselves in order to be the CIA."

"I can't tell if you're the one who's lost a sense of consensual reality, or this agent you're talking about," Dale mutters at Gary.

Crashslide elbows Dale and frowns at him. Dale looks perplexed at his husband, and Crashslide shakes his head.

Gary gives a big, exhausted sigh, and says, "Well, you can interview her yourself."

"What?" Dale snaps.

"I let her follow me," Gary admits.

"What?" you find yourself growling simultaneously with Crime-Cat.

"Well," Gary turns to you. "We're getting low on hands around here. I thought we could use a new recruit, you know. Turn the tables on her." He waves his hands like he's imitating a stage magician and says, "You know, use some of your Kepekapean deprogramming techniques, like you did on the rest of us."

"I did no such thing," you say.

Crime-Cat smirks and looks up at you.

"Everyone who has been part of T.A.L.O.N. has simply been eminently susceptible to seeing the wisdom of my points of view," you explain.

"Right," Gary says.

"You're experiencing survivor bias," you tell him.

"Whatever," he replies. "You are going to end up talking to her, though, right?"

"And feed her some of the Deliverator's pizza," Crime-Cat says.

"Oh, yes," you say, getting up to head to the kitchen. "She must have my pizza."

Post-apocalyptic faction of criminals who are trying to restore the government, because the concept of "criminal" only makes sense in the context of a central organised society that produces laws to break. Currently they're merely "ruffians" at best, which isn't the career they want to be in.

[fenmere]

We've been thinking about the biology of our fictional Ktletaccete (the people in our books that represent us, but who are not actually us). We've had some wishes we wanted fulfilled, and then we've also wanted to have a few profound differences from humans to make them seem more alien than they might otherwise appear. And some of these things have just sort of cropped up in the plots of our stories.

We don't super care if all of these make sense to modern human biologists. But now that we're developing a list, we do want to logically extrapolate other features out as a result of them:

They don't use mitochondria, no Kepekapean life does - there's some other mechanism for that.

Ancient Ktletaccete hatched from eggs into tadpoles and started learning language while still in the brood pond but didn't typically pick their own names and pronouns until after their adolescent metamorphosis had really gotten under way.

Sunspot Ktletaccete have that metamorphosis while still in the egg, but it often continues through early childhood.

Adolescent metamorphosis involves taking on massive diverse traits to adapt individually to environmental and personal/psychological needs, to the point that each person looks like a different species.

They evolved from six legged ancestors, though most people only have four now. This has impacted their skeletal and internal organ structure to be weirdly different from humans even if they superficially might look a lot like a terran animal.

They have two rib cages.

They speak using something like a syrinx, like a raven or parrot does. (The cuttlecrabs also do this.)

Ashwin is reluctant to call what they have "lungs" even though they do basically the same thing. There's some sort of cellular and structural difference there that probably is related to the lack of mitochondria, but we really don't know enough about biology to define it yet.

They evolved to eat animal meat, but the Sunspot Ktletaccete are functionally vegan by choice, and have bred a wide variety of other kingdoms of life to fill their dietary needs. This, of course, involves all sorts of wonderful cooking to make it digestible. (It's not necessarily more ethical, since they've started encountering communicative and civilized life that are not animals - but it is part of keeping the ecosystem of the Sunspot stable.)

They live to nearly 500 Earth years old.

[fenmere]

Who we are

We've written about this before, and we'll write about it again. We have slightly different words for it tonight, so we want to put them out there.

This is related to this post about the difference between the words Kepekapean and Ktletaccete.

OK.

We are Ktletaccete and Beshakete, and Jenifer and Eh. Ktletaccete means "descendants of Jenifer and Eh", but sometimes we'll get lazy and use the word to describe our two eldest members, too.

This is probably going to get lengthy.

Beshakete

Getting the Beshakete out of the way, because they're description is short. They are called Outsiders in English, and are basically spiritual walk-ins. There are thirteen of them that we know about. They are all elemental in nature, as far as we know. And not elemental as in like wind, earth, fire, and water. Nor as in the periodic table. But elemental as in Entropy, Interconnectedness, the Concept of Forward, Dirt (specifically), Container, Sphereness, etc.

Some of them have developed pretty complex personalities and life histories while in our system, while others have opted to remain as pure to their original selves as possible.

They are fractal in nature. The instance of any one of them, as they occur in our system, is not the whole, but it describes the whole, and contains infinite multitudes all the way down.

The Ktletaccete and Jenifer and Eh

We have three genders, which are our ways of relating to our body and the outer world through the sections of the brain that we each live in: dragons, girls, and id monsters. We're not going to talk much about those, but Jenifer is the eldest girl, Eh is the eldest dragon, and Phage (who is Beshakete) is the eldest id monster. Not all id monsters are Beshakete, and not all Beshakete are id monsters, but there's a large overlap.

But, anyway, we Ktletaccete and our parents seem to be this:

Dragons.

Real, live, shapeshifting dragons.

You might opt to call us spiritual dragons. We prefer the term "memetic entity" or even "storybook" or "mythical", though our myth is our own and comes from nowhere else but what we've experienced since our vessel was born.

We are not like other dragons, but no dragons are.

Dragons are an extremely diverse category of archetypal monster, and the original dragons were really just a collection of individual creatures, beasts, monsters, spirits, and gods created specifically for their unique roles in their unique stories of origin.

But, thanks to the evolution of language and memetics, all dragons are related now, too.

And things that existed long before the word dragon was invented are now dragons, including extant living species of animal and plant.

We dragons are, more or less, the children of humans. At least from a certain philosophical perspective (many spiritualities and cultures would say otherwise, and that's OK - we're talking about our own, here).

So, we Ktletaccete are a breed of dragon who are descended from humans, unique to ourselves. And when we say that we are not human, what we mean is that we've evolved to be incompatible with humans reproductively and socially and are basically a new species. But we are technically human in the same way that humans are lobe finned fish.

The ancestry is important and undeniable, and a thing that makes us terrestrial (despite how our fiction paints a picture of it being otherwise - we can daydream). But the distinction and difference is more important, practically speaking. So, we will insist, regularly, that we are not human.

How we Ktletaccete develop and function - our life cycle

Jenifer and Eh are both essentially walk-ins who entered our system before anybody else formed and took ownership of our vessel and brain, much like how many religions describe the way all souls work. This is according to their memories, and they basically have developed like any other sentient children (though Jenifer has spent most of her life dissociated and hidden in our subconscious, watching everything quietly like the nonverbal autistic she is).

So, we're not describing their conception or development.

When a Ktletaccete is conceived in our system, they start with the formation of a self schema.

All schemas of identity become self schemas in our brain. ALL of them.

If we learn about a person, enough that we understand them as a person, even if they're fictional or an anthropomorphized thing, that schema of identity is enough to become a self schema and gain consciousness. Almost immediately.

This can be as simple as a face, an expression, an emotion, and a motive. Names are not required. But, names can imply all of those things sometimes, so a name can spark a whole person if we focus on it the right way.

This means that we create so many introjects.

But, we can also create a new headmate by imagining an alternate version of one of us, like, "what would I be like if I had a different special interest or a different name?" And, every time we make a TTRPG character, we make a headmate if someone who already exists doesn't come forward to make the character a faceclaim.

Now, every new headmate gets associated with a member who becomes their parent. Their parent will help them form and grow, lending them memories and memetics, portions of identity either from themselves or from things they admire.

Most new headmates are either children of Akailea (the mother of all introjects) or Gnargrim (our brood guardian), but our older members will still occasionally have children, too. Sometimes, like in the case of Little Eh and Elle, it will be a classic split, usually caused by their parent (Eh in these two cases) trying to be someone they're not. Rarely having anything to do with trauma, but more likely ambition or curiosity.

However it happens that relationships form, our parents always give our children the identity of being Ktletaccete.

This happened even in the case of Phage giving birth to Ni'a, even though Phage is not Ktletaccete. Ni'a identifies as half Ktletaccete, really.

From our conceptions, we develop immediately into beings that would be autistic by human standards (our vessel is autistic after all), and with a special interest or Art. For the vast majority of us that Art is studying and imitating a subject, such as Venom or our toilet as an anthropomorphized semi-animate object. For the rest of us, it's often a skill or an area of study, or a neurological talent.

Morde's Art, for instance, is networking between all of our system members via our brain's neurology.

And then, after that, as we experience life, whether that's repeating the same dream over and over with minor variations in our inworld or fronting and doing stuff in the outworld, we grow into full fledged people.

Now, our inworld shapes are something interesting.

Most of us have humanoid forms, because we are factive introjects of humans. But we are not human, and being shapeshifters we can easily take other shapes.

Those of us who are directly related from Jenifer and Eh, however, do not have default human forms. We tend toward either the draconic or some other Terrestrial animal (though usually still with draconic traits).

Our wolves, for instance, have fully draconic forms that they can take, as well as fully lupine and humanoid forms.

Our biggest clue that we we have non-human forms is the dysphoria, dissociation, and phantom climbs we experience when we front. Which are strongest if we haven't fronted in a long time.

It's pretty clear from that that when we are inworld and disconnected from the front, we take our most comfortable non-human form and get used to it.

But, when our vessel is sleeping and we front in a dream, we unfortunately get such strong signals from our vessel that we usually take human form in the dream. Also, our nightly dreams are usually processing memories from our outworld experiences, so there's the association of being humanoid from those memories as well.

In this way we teach each other how to pretend to be human and try to pass as human when we're fronting.

Most of us, including most of our introjects, seem to dream of the day when we don't have to do that anymore.

Anyway, none of us die. Our vessel will, someday, and that will do something to us, but until then we're immortal and impervious to harm in the same way as a cartoon character. You can squish one of us flat, tear us apart, swallow and fully digest us, and we'll pop right back up an instant later.

Since we've learned that, we've moved all of our weirdest kink scenes entirely inworld. And we've become much, much less fearful of our horror movie style nightmares.

Nightmares about social situations involving our outworld parents still trigger us for days afterward, unfortunately.

[fenmere]

Kepekapean v.s. Ktletaccete (what are these things?)

We've described this before, but it feels good to rewrite it to try to see if we can make it more clear, or update what we've said in the past.

There are two realities here: factual, and our fictional canon.

Factual

The factual definitions of these words are really simple:

Kepekape is our body, our vessel, and a Kepekapean is someone who lives in our vessel.

Ktlettacete means "child of Eh and Jenifer" and describes those of us who are descended from our two eldest.

We have some members who are Kepekapeans but not Ktletaccete: Jenifer, Eh, Phage, and the Outsiders (12 in number). There might a few others who are relatively new, but we haven't met them yet.

And that's it. That's all the words mean in relationship to our system.

Though, us Ktletaccete, and our two parents, have some traits of identity that we've worked into our fictional canon to inspire it. We're shapeshifting autistic dragons, who tend to take a form that reflects our individual special interests. There's more to it than that, but that's for a different kind of post (an upcoming reblog of this one, perhaps?).

Fictional Canon

This goes for the Sunspot Chronicles, and their related series of books.

In this reality, Kepekape is the original home planet of the Ktletaccete. So, in this sense, Kepekapean is used to refer to denizens of that planet, and Ktletaccete is used to refer to both them and their descendants.

But, that's how the words are used by the time of the Sunspot. Prior to that, it was different. There've been so many cultures and civilizations that the uses of these word have been through multiple iterations of change.

Originally, Ktletaccete referred specifically to the children of Eh, the Great One who made the world out of their own body. And they were closer to gods than to any species of life. There were precisely 900,000 of them, and they spoke a language called Fenekere, that is still in use today as the command languages of the Exodus Ships, such as the Sunspot.

And the mortal people of Kepekape called themselves Kepakepo, or Kepekapeans. (Kapekapean is the English translation of Kepakepo). And the thing is, etymologically, Kepakepo refers to all things produced by the planet. But, by the time the first Exodus Ship was built, the language had changed more than enough that there were other words used to refer to life in general.

It's like humans calling themselves Earthlings, really. Because bugs, bears, octopi, whales, birds, trees, fungus, bacteria, and everything other organism of life on this planet are also Earthlings.

But, anyway, the people who were about to become space-faring, who called themselves Kepekapeans, were metamorphic descendants of the six limbed clades of vertibrates.

They hatched from eggs and raised in brood ponds as tadpoles by Brood Guardians, and when they hit metamorphosis (their version of puberty) they would take an adult form that was adapted to their own personal emotional, social, environmental, and behavioral needs.

Most of them had started dropping the third pair of limbs, being four limbed people. And each person would take a shape and form that could be classified by tail type, and given a pronoun accordingly, but that was otherwise extremely unique. Some had feathers, others scales, others hair, and others none of these things but a thick protective mucus membrane. Many had a mix of these traits. Some retained their gills, while others didn't. Configurations of horns varied. Some developed wings and could fly. Others kept fins or developed flippers, and stayed in the water. Most walked on land.

And if a human were to look at any one of them, that human would think they are seeing an amphibian dragon.

Meanwhile, their Ktletaccete deities lived in their collective psyches, and their information network, sometimes manifesting as an incarnation in one body or another in order to shape the direction of civilization and cultivate live.

The Ktletaccete were divided into two camps: those who wished to explore the rest of the universe, and those who wished to focus on the health and safety of life on Kepekape. Sometimes they fought, and there were wars, and the Kepekapeans weren't entirely aware of why.

But eventually, right about when the first Exodus Ship was nearing completion, the Ktletaccete came to an agreement with each other, and with a group of Beshakete (Outsiders) who'd taken refuge on the planet, and with the Kepekapeans, and they formed the Great Alliance.

Which they called the ʔinmara ( @theinmara ).

Some forgotten number of Exodus Ships later, the Sunspot would start to recover some of this history thanks to the memories of Mau (or Phage, @ohthatphage), and start writing books about it. But, when they relearned who they were, they started applying the words a little differently, because they didn't have all the information at first.

From this historic perspective, the denizens of the Sunspot can be called Sunspotians, or ʔetekeyerrinwufni. Though, they've taken to calling themselves Ktletaccete, and have no clue that their former deities still exist and walk amongst them (this may never be revealed in the books).

The reason that the Evolutionary Engines of the Sunspot are so successful at producing such a wide diversity of the populace (who are grown from incubators, and undergo metamorphosis before hatching from their eggs) is that it's based on the original genetics and epigenetics of their Kepekapean ancestors, who were already evolved to be highly adaptable in that way.

Eventually, the Sunspot made contact with Earth through use of the Tunnel Apparatus and a probe placed on the planet 22 million years ago by an ancestor ship that was passing by, and this is why you are reading about it now.

[fenmere]

Crime-Cat and the Deliverator: Unprompted

previously, on tumblr:

Chapter 1 - Pranked: Our hero is confronted for the last time by their new nemisis, Crime-Cat, who is under the impression that the cute enby pizza driver is a hero named The Deliverator.

Chapter 2 - Moonlighting: Our hero contemplates the complex history that brought them to this moment, how they got to the point where Crime-Cat is about to show them their new secret lair, as a date, and the nation's heroes are in for a big surprise.

and now, the thrilling conclusion:

Chapter 3 - Unprompted

Well, this isn't what you'd planned, but it is obviously the moment.

Crime-Cat isn't exactly cornered, but there's just going to be no better timing than this.

"Have I ever told any of you what it took to get to this planet?" your voice booms out and echos about in the shoreline industrial complex, causing everyone to look around in confusion even though you're right there, standing behind your spouse. At least the marriage went right.

Crime-Cat, being right in front of you, felt where that rumbling was coming from, and looks back, startled. Then their face is overcome with horror as they stumble back.

Damn.

You were right in the process of unfolding your second set of arms and standing up straighter. Your tail is still uncurling, and your head frills have shed the appearance of hair and are reflexively flapping themselves violently to get the blood flow back. It feels good, but seeing Crime-Cat look like that was not a sight you wanted to see.

The "heroes" figure it out seconds later.

Despite the aural confusion of your booming declaration seeming to come from everywhere, it is kind of hard for a human, even a superhuman, to ignore a Kepekapean standing upright in their midst.

You look down at them all.

Crime-Cat has been such a disaster since you first met on the fateful night, pizza box still piping hot in your hands. You were good at that job. So good at it that they were dead convinced for a full year that you were a superhero, and that your delivery uniform was your costume. But you ended up dating when you finally convinced them that wasn't true. And they just became even more inept, you've often wondered how they rose to power as a villain on this world. Except their telekinesis is really that good.

But something about human infatuation or something psychological like that had rendered them so astoundingly awkward that it became clear to everyone that you were the brains behind the Power Chair almost the moment you started sitting at their side on the arm of it.

You'd come up with a new identity, with Crime-Cat's help, a sex worker. And you'd made it a point of acting like you'd never been part of this scene of crime. Which you hadn't!

Previously, during the day you'd been working as a hero with your former teammates, the darlings of the United States, the Justice Eagles, and doing delivery for Moonlight Pizza at night.

Sleep is for humans. Good tips are for Kepekapeans.

Anyway. You thought your act was top notch. Nobody had known your true origins or your different identities up until this very moment. But they still all saw through that sex worker turned villain's personfriend/spouse right at the beginning. All because Crime-Cat was so silly in love.

And so, for the following year, you'd become public enemy number one.

Which was OK, because you'd also come to conclusions about who the real villains were.

These people who are now still wearing their patriotic uniforms. Right here in this abandoned industrial site. These people readying their powers to face you, despite the words they'd just uttered.

Everything about tonight is just going all wrong.

You'd been working with the Justice Eagles long enough that you thought you'd known them. Volunteers all, they were patriotic to the bone, to the last one of them. Taking up the cause of Uncle Sam just to prove to the world that it was worth doing, drinking up all the lies about their supposed democracy and the powers of the free market.

Especially after fighting off their military backed efforts to squash you for a whole year, you never expected them to come to you tonight, paying lip service to Crime-Cat's official leadership, to ask if they could join your cause.

So, you thought, OK. Let's all stop lying. Let's come out. Let's all be honest, and negotiate this fully.

And here, your beloved spouse is now scrambling back in horror and disgust.

"Wait!" you shout, holding out your dominant left claw, palm bean facing the Eagles, or whatever they want to call themselves now. "I may look scary, but you could all crush me now if you banded together. I don't want that. You don't want that."

Manhammer steps forward, "Explain yourself!"

Crime-Cat is making all sorts of comical faces, pursing their lips and blowing out a long breath while goggling at the ground around them with wide eyes. They start flapping their hands in that way that's really actually very cute, but presages telekinetic chaos.

"You've come here to fight for real justice, yes?" you boom. "To turn the tables on those who have exploited you and the rest of humanity, correct?"

There are uncertain nods all around, except for Crime-Cat, who looks up at you in grim determination.

Oh, you're going to have to make this quick, or they are going to wallop you out of abject terror, and possibly rage.

"I have endured millions of light years worth of travel to do the same," you declare. You're realizing that maybe half of downtown is capable of hearing your words. You'd forgotten what it was like to take your true form. You've had to compartmentalize yourself, your memories, your personalities, in order to play the various roles you've played on Earth. But now that you have access to all of yourself, looking down at Crime-Cat, you're also realizing that, yes, you really are in love with that tremendous, dangerous dork. If only you weren't fated to drive them away with your inhumanity and towering, nearly ethereal presence. You focus on what's ultimately more important, "You knew me as Atrial, Heart of Justice. Then as Filigree, Crime-Cat's new sex worker personfriend, who became their spouse and took on the mental of the Deliverator. But I have always been the same person. The same person who came here to save humanity, and help usher you into your rightful place in the galactic community. And I see no reason to fight any of you now! You have awakened to reality."

"I sure the fuck have!" Crime-Cat exclaims, looking you up and down.

Here it comes. The cost.

They charge you. Which is not their usual MO, being a telekinetic. But they're just that enraged by your betrayal. So, you stand there in resignation.

You've made your play, and if you're destined to join forces with the true heroes of this world, they'll have to work it out amongst themselves. Maybe Crime-Cat can still lead them, now that they're over their infatuation and newly-wed bliss over you. But if you're going to be a part of it, the others are going to have to prove their allegiance and understanding by coming to your aid and restraining your spouse. If you raise a claw in defense, you'll just be as bad as the government they claim to be betraying now, as far as you're concerned.

You feel Crime-Cat's hands clasp around your secondary right claw, as they make it to where you're standing. You look down in sadness, prepared to take whatever it is they're about to inflict upon you.

Right into those upturned eyes, watering with trepidation and bravery, a human coming into full contact with the greatest horror they have ever seen from across the stars.

They're kneeling.

"Let's go back to the lair right now," they whisper. "We can sign the contract with the Eagles later. There are things we need - we need to -" their voice comes to an abrupt stop as they lose all words.

They grin hopefully.

Hm.

Maybe you're not as good at reading human expression as you thought.

"We can let you two get a room," Miss Friday says. "We don't have much time, but that looks important."

[fenmere]

(Chapter 12 of Crime-Cat and the Deliverator)

Names

"You can't change your name to Gale!" Dale shouts.

"I already have!" Gale cries back, throwing her arms in the air. "It’s literally my name!"

"It’s confusing!" Dale declares. "It confuses everyone else!"

"It uses a whole different phoneme!"

"One! One phoneme! One phoneme is different. The other one is the same! And it sounds too similar! People are gonna think you're me!"

"Oh! Are you embarrassed to be mistaken for a trans woman?" Gale demands.

"No," Dale retorts. "I just don't like confusion."

"Well, I can’t change my name again, because I am literally Gale. It's who and what I am."

"Well, I'm not changing mine."

"No one is asking you to!"

Dale looks expectantly at you.

You widen one eye in imitation of a human's raised eyebrow. If you were wearing your protective coloration, you could do it properly. But you'd promised yourself long ago that there would be no hiding what you were while in the Crime Lab. And honestly, you're proud of Gale for choosing the same vow.

It's good to finally see her as herself. Not that she was hiding her truth purposefully. But you could see that a deep secret had been there for a long time, eating away at her. And now that she finally figured it out, the relief to her whole being was clearly visible.

"I don’t think in names, Dale," you say. "I'll never confuse the two of you. You are both very different from each other."

Dale frowns, "What do you mean?"

You've tried to explain this to Crime-Cat before, why, even though you can memorize a name reliably when you need to, you find them ephemeral and confusing. But you also don't need them. You're not sure Dale will understand the full explanation. But it is worth seeing if he can.

"I can perceive through context who someone is talking about regardless of whether they use their name or not," you say. "Or even the right one. For instance, even if you mistakenly called Gale 'Gary', I would know you are still talking about her."

Gale cringes. You immediately know you've made a mistake, but you're not clear as to what it is.

"That’s a bad example, Sweetie," Crime-Cat tells you. "That’s her dead name, and people will expect you to associate it with her. But you also shouldn't use it."

"Oh," you say. "I am sorry, Gale. I won't do that again."

"It’s OK," she says. "We're all learning."

"What do you mean 'through context', though?" Dale asks, eyes narrowing.

"I want to explain that to you," you say.

"OK," he folds his arms and waits.

"Communication involves more than sound vibrations and/or visual signals," you point out. "There are a myriad of changes that occur in the environment and in the individuals involved that can be measured and analyzed with other senses. And when I am communicating with you, I am relying more on those senses than on vision and hearing, even though I can 'see' and hear you just fine. Except that my eyes aren't eyes like yours, and 'sight' is a misnomer for what I do."

"Huh," Dale frowns. "It sounds like you're saying you have telepathy."

You drop your frills in a clear Kepekapean 'no', and then remember to shake your head, "I do not."

"Really. OK," he says. Then he looks up at you, "What is the difference between what you do and telepathy."

"If I were telepathic," you explain, "I could perceive your thoughts. I cannot. I can only perceive what you choose to communicate with me."

"But I choose to communicate with words and gestures," Dale says. "Not with... 'context'."

This might be why, despite your unique perceptions, and your ability to read some context that humans cannot, you still frequently have miscommunications with them.

Of course, differing expressions and idioms do not help. But, if they don't think in terms of the waves and patterns of cause and effect that you do, then maybe they are completely unaware of what they are thinking themselves.

That would explain why it is easier for you to communicate with a whole group of them than with one individual. Unless that individual is a mutant, like Crime-Cat, who knows what they're thinking.

Groups of humans provide more context, and the group becomes an entity that is far more readable and more predictable than any one human.

You look at Crime-Cat. And then you look back at Dale.

It might not be effective to be explaining these differences as you are just figuring them out yourself.

You've spent only a few decades amongst humans. There's still so much left to learn.

"How did you learn English, anyway?" Dale asks. "It’s not like anyone on Earth knows Kepekapean. How'd you translate? And if you say 'through context' that's basically telepathy to me."

"It’s not telepathy, Dale," Crime-Cat interjects. "They really can't read your thoughts."

It occurs to you that you might be splitting hairs, and that, to humans what you do might as well be telepathy, even though to Kepekapean's the concept means something even more intimate and impossible.

If you'd realized this at the beginning of the conversation, or years ago, it might have saved some time. But you know that Dale is weird about telepathy, and you wanted to reassure him.

This is tricky.

"Huh. Whatever," Dale grunts, and moves to the kitchen to get a pop tart.

"When you speak about Gale," you tell Dale, "your entire being fluctuates in a way that only happens when you speak about Gale. This kind of thing did help me to learn your world's languages, but I still had to learn what those fluctuations meant. They are different for many different humans. And they are very different for humans than for Kepekapeans. They are still a language."

Dale looks at you while he demonstrably opens his pop tarts' packaging, "then how did you learn that?"

You know that he's trying to get you to admit to some sort of alien secret. There is no secret. You have always been forthright with everyone you shed your defenses for. Dale, not being a hero, politician, or corporate executive, is one of those people.

"Skill," you say.

Dales scowls, takes a bite of cold pop tarts, then relaxes his face and looks up, chewing, "Anyway. Whatever. Maybe having rhyming names will be cool. Maybe I can get used to it. Maybe we could be a team again, hey, Gale?"

"That’s what I've been trying to say!" Gale exclaims, apparently happy now that Dale seems to be getting it.

"Never had a sister before," Dale says. They aren’t related by parents, but the two had been as close as family before.

"I will end you," Gale warns, a mocking tone in her voice.

You're still perplexed by Dale's sudden shifts in demeanor. He has them frequently, even though you can see clearly that he's not plural. There's just something about him that you cannot see that occasionally decides to adapt to a situation by acting differently. In people like Crime-Cat, Hellafacts, Crashslide, and Gale, you can see the processes at work, even if you can't read them like you can their linguistic signals.

In people like Dale, however, it's sudden and mysterious.

To you, this is the difference between what you do and telepathy. If you had telepathy, you'd be able to see and understand all of Dale's thoughts.

Anyway, for now, it looks like peace is returning to the Crime Lab.

Gale will probably be asking you for assistance with altering her body, as you had provided it for Crime-Cat. Which you'll be honored to do. Learning about the human endocrine system is a delightful subject, and it's fascinating to see how malleable their bodies are despite how they are made from typical matter.

You are lost in thought about this when Dale raises his voice from the kitchen, pointedly addressing you, "Hey. What's your name, anyway?"

"I'm the Deliverator," you say.

"Yeah, but do you Kepekapeans have names, like Gale or Dale?" he asks. "In all these years, you've never said."

You think about this. To you, the Deliverator is every bit as much a name as Gale is. It's a word that doesn't quite communicate your identity, but people use it for you anyway. But Dale deserves a better explanation. You try to make it as verbal as you can.

"Kepekapeans don't use names like humans do. We each have a word that refers to us and only us. No one else has that word," you say. "They cannot. The word is derived from our very beings, and everything that makes us who we are and different from the rest of the universe. But," you hold up a finger to warn him against drawing premature conclusions, "when I say 'word' here, I do not mean a vocalization accompanied by changes in expression, or a graphical symbol representing that vocalization. I mean the entire context of communicating who and what a person is, the common fluctuations in an entity that happens when they refer to someone else."

Gale's eyes are big and watery, and she asks, "What happens when one of you transitions? How do you change your name? Or does it just happen whether you want it to or not?"

You smile at her, both in your Kepekapean manner and in an approximation of her human smile, "We don’t have gender or sex like you do, but what we are does change over time, and it does change our names. And sometimes we think we are one thing, and learn, sometimes long after other people have noticed, that we are something else. Especially if we are not among our own kind, who can more accurately perceive us."

"Oh," she says.

Dale is nodding, pretending that he figured all of this out already.

"I used to be a student. Then, when I came here, I thought I was going to be Atriel, the Heart of Justice, and that I would lead your world to a state of better harmony and perhaps help humanity discover their Arts. But that is not who I am. Crime-Cat has called me the Deliverator, and that is my human name. My name amongst humans. And I have been doing my best to fulfill that role. But that is also not what I am."

"What are you?" Dale asks.

"I make pizza," you say.

"YOU SURE FUCKING DO!" Crime-Cat agrees in that way that sounds like they’re arguing with you.

"I do!" you reply insistently.

It has become a game now. You'll spend the next few minutes vehemently agreeing with each other. And then you'll make pizza to prove it.

[ohthatphage]

When you build a world where you would like life to exist for any reasonable length of time, you will find hard limitations that will make your task difficult.

One such limitation is that it cannot be too small.

Below a certain size, there will not be enough diversity and the ecosystem will be too fragile as a result. Mass extinction events will occur too frequently for that life to maintain more complexity than bacteria.

If you start with bacteria on such a small world, it will rarely develop anything more.

If you start with multicellular life, depending on the size of the world and how you define time cycles, you may get a few decades to a few centuries of apparent stability before it collapses.

A generational starship with a habitat cylinder that is 400 kilometers long and 220 kilometers in diameter, for instance, is typically much too small. It won’t get you very far. Especially if you allow your ecosystem to manage itself.

Cultivating that life actively will give you more time. But, eventually, fibrillation in the complexity of its system will overtake your ability to compensate.

But, if you’re very, very good, and you’ve got extremely precise tools, such as construction nanites, you can extend that lifetime to something you can work with. Possibly hundreds of millennia, if you are profoundly good at it.

I am, mind you, framing this from the perspective of a people who live a couple centuries at most and who wish to explore the cosmos. Not my own.

When you are something like me, you see that there is no appreciable difference between a single bacterium and the biosphere of a verdant, complex planet full of multicellular life, no matter how big. Both are organisms that are destined to die and then, if lucky enough, feed more life. And the lifespan of each organism may run from seconds to eons, and it will be too finite all the same.

In that finite time, life is both beautiful and horrid.

If you want to keep appreciating it for what it is, it will have to be reproduced. Either by its own functions, or by yours.

When the Kepekapeans, the Ktletaccete who lived on Kepekape, were building their first Exodus Ship, it was because they wanted to continue appreciating life beyond all the ends they could see.

show me your favourite recent excerpts! :3c

[fenmere]

name: Näofregbi pronoun: gem (pronounced with a hard "g") favorite food: fresh fish caught in gems pond with gems bare hands occupation/Art: making pottery (wants to change it, though) preoccupation: daydreaming about little tiny people living everywhere, under leaves, under tables, in cabinets, everywhere

Näofregbi is absolute best friends since early childhood with Binwen, in a world where partnerships are viewed with suspicion. Most people are much more comfortable in and around groups of three or more, and feel a third is important to keep a partnership from becoming "nefarious". But there are some who are sympathetic to this lifestyle choice.

Outside of this friendship, Näofregbi is much more of a loner, and prefers solitude to any sort of prolonged company. Gem will entertain a guest for company on occasion, if one will come over, but not on purpose. This itself is not at all seen as weird by gems regional Kepekapean society.

Gems other favorite thing to do is brew tea and drink it, and when idling, gem might spend all day doing that.

Binwen (nem) pronoun: nem favorite food: banfi (a kind of fruit) occupation/Art: none yet, still searching preoccupation: spending time with Näofregbi

Binwen is a much more neurotypical Kepekapean than nems best friend, loves being around others, and lives with a group of other people. However, nem is as dedicated to nems partnership with Näofregbi is, if not a bit more so.

Both Binwen and Näofregbi are young adults and within the range of Kepekapean adolescence where they don't need to declare an Art yet. While Näofregbi did so early and now regrets it, Binwen is still searching and in a couple of years will be pushed to declare one. Nem isn't terribly concerned about this yet, assuming that one will present itself in time, but for the sake of helping Näofregbi find a new Art plays along at looking for one for nemself as well.

These two are the lead characters of our book Gesetele's Arrow, which is still being written by our headmate @ashwin-the-artless. Technically they aren't "OCs", they're just our own fictional characters (OC originally being a term for inserts into fanfics, right?). But also, they're headmates. Which also kind of makes them "sonas". Still, their fictionalized selves in the story are quite a bit different from the real people in our head, who just act for them on the page. We don't have a lot more details about them yet, because we haven't finished exploring who they are in the story.

today i want to work on making new ocs instead of new sonas.... show me your ocs. tell me abt them. whats their favorite food. whats a weird lil quirk they have.

tell me about them. for research purposes.

[fenmere]

Sponsors

(Chapter 10 of Crime-Cat and the Deliverator) You're so busy thinking about how persistent corporations have been post World War III, looking over the shoulder of this "hero", marveling at how Twitch is still a thing in this wasteland of a planet while the U.S. Government is not, that you barely register that your spouse, Crime-Cat has said, "Oh, Honey, no."

You look over.

They're assisting a fellow villain. Someone new to T.A.L.O.N. You recall that his name is Unwolf.

A strange name, but it does sound like it would have been intimidating to the last generation before the war.

It had taken some time for Seattle to rebuild after being nearly demolished in a super powered global slugfest. And now, this asshole with a phone had destroyed four entire blocks of new buildings while trying to find and stamp you out, specifically.

You feel a little responsible for the damage. You should never have returned to this continent.

But, right now, the more important thing to you is gathering intel on this "hero", and his possible connections, while in disguise as a civilian behind his back.

But Crime-Cat's words are louder than your thoughts, "No. Unwolf. Listen, friend. You do not want to be a hero. Ever."

The hero, whose name you still haven't been able to commit to memory, notices and pauses in his speech to look their direction.

Unwolf drops an enormous piece of wall onto a rare stretch of uncluttered street, and faces Crime-Cat, "No. You look." He gestures at the hero next to you, "That jerk gets to fly in, destroy a bunch of people's lives, brag about it, and leave. And we get to clean up his mess. We may have just had an apocalypse and humanity might very well still die out, but nothing's changed. The bootlickers get both the glory and the money. I am absolutely in the wrong line of work."

Crime-Cat casually looks over at the hero, who tenses.

The hero had come for you, not them. And you'd done a pretty good job of faking your death at his hands, so he's been pretty distracted with his kill, standing with one foot on your very natural looking and bloody decoy. Nevermind that Kepekapeans don't have blood. Nevermind that it's actually tomato paste he's standing in.

But Crime-Cat is a very obvious and globally notorious villain, just like you, and everyone knows they are your spouse.

That eye contact between the two of them makes for a very brittle moment, and you can see that Unwolf is struggling with suddenly feeling invisible and insignificant standing next to your spouse. And it's pissing him off even more.

Depending on what this hero does, Unwolf might get to see Crime-Cat's telekinesis in action, though. And that alone might get him to stand down. The hero won't survive it.

Well, his reputation won't, anyway, and in today's climate, that's the same thing as losing his life.

But Crashslide slips in from out of nowhere, putting an arm around the hero's shoulders, and says, "Hey, buddy."

The hero frowns at Crashslide and tries feebly to pull away.

"I didn't catch your name, kiddo," Crashslide says loudly enough for the hero's fans to hear over the phone's microphone.

This isn't good for the hero's reputation, either, but he bristles and says, "Powerpoint."

It is absolutely everything you can do not to put your forehead in both of your hands. Oh, right, that name.

Cashslide smirks and says, "OK, Powerpoint." Then he puts on a Very Serious expression, complete with lightly furrowed brow, and says, "As your self appointed attorney, I must inform you of your best interests in this situation. Which is that you should pretend that Crime-Cat over there isn't actually over there, no matter how loud and obnoxious they are. Turn back to your little fandom stream and continue telling them how you were the one to defeat the Great Deliverator, and just what that battle was like, while the rest of us clean up your mess. OK?"

"I don't.." Powerpoint starts to say.

"Be sure to get a really good shot of the stack of pizzas you're standing in, too, while you're at it," your first adopted son says. "Maybe attach a screenshot of your altered credit score, too. My good, evil sib Hellafacts has been working on that all fight, by the way. Gotta give them credit where it's due. Let people know we're your real sponsors, right?"

"What-"

"But, whatever you do, do not pick a fight with my other favorite parent, OK? They'll just flip you, and you do not want that." Crashslide gives Powerpoint a quick brotherly squeeze and a wink, and then bounds off to help Dale dig someone out of the rubble.

Powerpoint finally looks around to realize that he's not surrounded by lessor heroes who'd come in to clean up his mess, but the entirety of T.A.L.O.N., the team of villains who'd taken down the Hut and ended the War.

"See," Crime-Cat continues explaining to Unwolf, without breaking eye contact with Powerpoint, "Being a villain has never paid. Which is why we have to make our own wealth through hard work and building community." Then they point at the hero, "But if you're like that guy, then the only way to make a living is to sell out to Microsoft. Or worse, the likes of Adobe. Trust me. That's a fate worse than death."

You nod ever so subtly at Crime-Cat, who gets your signal and, with the power of their mind, twists the hero's phone so that its camera is pointed at you.

"Hey, Powerpoint!" you say. "I'm your biggest fan!" And then, to demonstrate, you drop your protective coloration and grow to your full Kepekapean height, unfolding your secondary arms and your wings, lure, antlers, and frills popping out from under the rapidly receding illusion of hair. Your eyes go through Cherenkov blue to turn ultraviolet as they quadruple in size.

Powerpoint gapes up at you.

"Did we get the cut you need?" you ask him, grinning to show your glowing teeth for the camera.

Crashslide had decided to go in for the kill, so the next step is to make a show of offering the poor hero a way out.

Unwolf growls and kicks a bit of rubble.

This is, after all, going to increase the number of heroes the stockholders will send after you. Just like clockwork.

“I should’ve been a hero instead of following my family’s legacy” a villain sighed to himself while rescuing civillians trapped under the rubbles of destroyed buildings caused by the reckless and arrogant hero who’s still telling the fakest story to his Twitch fans while striking poses