#and I always love thinking about high intelligence in non-human species

[rayadraws]

I think it's fun to think about how (5e:ish) dragons might have evolved and I've been thinking about it again lately. Obviously things probably work uh, different in a world with so many active gods, but I still think it's fun to think about. Besides, some of those "a god did it" stories may just be in-world explanations for something you don't understand, or the god set the stone in motion but it was still a slow/gradual process.

This is my current hypothesis, at least for how it might have happened in Sorrel's world:

Dragons would belong to the Archosaurs ("ruling reptiles") clade. This group includes crocodilians, birds and non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs and some others. I think this fits them well as they show characteristics from all these types of animals. We also have a bonus nod to some birds being very intelligent animals, as true dragons are (at least) human level intelligence also.

I think their direct ancestor was likely similar to the Drakes, which in 5e are described as smaller and lesser relatives of dragons, about as intelligent as horses, with elemental affinity and able to understand draconic (which imo goes against "horse level intelligence" since understanding a language requires Intelligence but okay). 

Reading about various dragon-like creatures and their abilities I think the dragon ancestors developed reasonably high intelligence and a basic language first, then learned to use magic before evolving into true dragons. My theory is that when they learned to tap into the Weave they basically used it to modify their own genes, allowing them an extra set of limbs, elemental affinity/abilities, growing to massive size etc. Basically unlocking a bunch of cheat codes that in turn enabled them to evolve into an apex predator. The wings probably came first and allowed them a massive survival boost as well as altering how they hunt etc, with breath weapons following as part of their hunting strategy etc.

Side effects of their evolutionary path include dragons being solitary, long-lived, slow-growing and territorial - they require a lot of resources and by necessity cannot live too close to each other. For most of their existence this wasn’t really an issue but it is now with humanoids being so present. Dragons are slow to age and procreate and there's not many of them, if hunters kill off several of them it's a noticeable blow to their population.

Psuedodragons are a very early offshoot on the dragon evolutionary tree, they have rudimentary language and wings but lack magic otherwise. Not true dragons, but closely related to them.

Faerie dragons are another early offshoot, they have language and magic, are described as closely related to psuedodragons but are arguably closer to true dragons than they are. Only as large as a cat - likely ended up on a different evolutionary path than true dragons, focusing on a much smaller size as to not compete with their much larger relatives.

Wings are a bit tricky in general, especially in animals like Drakes where some have them and some don’t. Since it’s a BIG deal to suddenly have an extra pair of limbs, I think it’s likely to be the result of magic influence, not “normal” evolution. But then we have creatures like the psuedodragon, which has wings but no particular magic ability. Maybe they got that far but then as the true dragons became increasingly magical, psuedodragons hopped off that train and focused on a different niche, never developing and perhaps even dropping what rudimentary magic ability they once had?

[hua-mo-jin-is-a-cutie]

Vocal Synth Headcanons as of March 2024

I wanna share my new headcanons as they've changed a lot and also I feel like tumblr will either ignore them or appreciate them quietly. These headcanons will include sexuality, romantic attraction, relationships, species, age, etc. <3

Before I get into this, I wanna preface this with how I view the vocal synth world in my head. In this world, vocal synths as we know them, are singers for hire and the engine(s) that they are on are the companies they work for. The companies that made them are their management team. So vocals like Miku and the cryptonloids have large management teams, aka crypton, but vocals made by singular people like independently owned utaus only have one manager. Some singers are just normal human beings, some are robots, some are literal fae, etc. But yea, the premise for all of this is that they are singers for hire.

Hatsune Miku:

A literal robot. Built in with the personality and intelligence of an adult, but marketed as a teen idol to attract more customers. THE singer for hire at Vocaloid. There are multiple Miku's because she is in such high demand. The one I like to think about specifically is an older original V2 model that has been given more modern upgrades throughout the years. She is in a relationship with Gumi. Non-repulsed asexual, but like physically she has no parts for it so (cough cough I did write wireplay gumiku fanfic cough cough). Bi-romantic.

Gumi Meg Poid

Human, around 24. In a relationship with a specific Miku. Is a single mother to Ryuto (Gachapoid). Very busy work schedule, but always tries her best to make time for her kid and her girlfriend. Lesbian. A good cook. Fell in love with Miku after singing with her a lot. Lives just outside the city in a little house with her son. Miku has keys to her house, but they don't live together because Miku is required to live close to the studio. She's a high school drop out because she found Ryuto. In this AU I have split up Megpoid (her product name) into a middle and last name. I do the same with Ryuto. The Poid family lol. (but not gakpoid because I don't have strong enough opinions about him to include him in this au. Maybe they're siblings idk).

Ryuto Gacha Poid

Gumi's son, not biologically. Currently around 7 years old. Kinda sorta half monster/dinosaur thing? Born from an egg (inspired by the light reading I did of the gachapin wikapedia page one night). Gumi saw a box on her way home from school that said something like "please take me home" and assumed it was gonna be like a cat or something. She had planned to take it to a shelter instead of leaving it in the rain. Inside the box was a large off-white egg with green spots. She assumed it was some kind of decoration and was about to walk away when it started to hatch. And out pops a crying little baby boy with little horns and a tail. What the fuck, she can't just leave him there. And thus, she has a kid now. Middle name is Gacha because gumi thought it was silly how she got him sort of like a gacha game. He is able to suppress his monster parts, but they still come out when he's really emotional. Sweet hyperactive baby boy. Probably has AuDHD. Friends with a lot of the other Vsynth Kiddos, but besties with Mo Jin. Lowkey really into hard rock and metal music (because that's what he's good at singing, I will fight people please let him sing more metal).

Hua Mo Jin

(ough my sweetest baby gorl aaaaaa more people should love you like I do. Some of what I'm about to write is canon from her character info on dsound so) Huamn, 6 years old. Surprisingly very tall for her age (I never draw her tall, but canonically she is like the average height of a 9 year old). Lives with her older sister, Hua Mo Ci, who she received her rabbit plush from. The rabbit plush scares everyone around her, but she thinks it's really sweet and takes it everywhere. She does not like hard foods, her favorite food is peony steamed buns. Autistic for sure. Also has albinism. Very quiet and doesn't talk much, but loves to sing. Does not get hired very often. Besties with Ryuto despite their language barrier. They're both working on learning English. I headcanon that her mother is dead and that she just lives with Mo Ci because it sort of parallels Gumi and Ryuto.

IA

A literal alien from the planet ARIA. This is the human disguise she takes, but her actual form is kinda blob-like and translucent idk I need to draw it out sometime. Has a younger sister named ONE. In human years she's around 19. In a relationship with Flower. Non-repulsed Asexual (can you tell I'm projecting my sexuality onto the robots and aliens yet?). Her species reproduces asexually so she never really thought about it before dating Flower, but she's open to it. Romantically I'd just say queer. I mean she's not even human and her taking on the persona of a woman was kinda arbitrary. Enjoys learning about humans. Very sleepy, she never quite gets used to earth time. Prefers to wear comfy clothes when she's not performing.

ONE

Again, an Alien from ARIA. Around 15 in human years. More energetic than IA. Participates in athletics at the school she's attending. Socially awkward and kinda shy. Somehow the more responsible of the sisters, she usually cooks breakfast because IA doesn't get up early ever. In a relationship with KAFU. Thinks humans are strange creatures. Romantically a Lesbian, but like in a gender queer way. Really looks up to her sister.

Flower

Human. 100% a lesbian you can't convince me otherwise. Somewhere around 21 I think. Another single mom, but to twins this time. It's a whole story. In a relationship with IA. Somehow keeps attracting otherworldly beings into her life. Xin Hua is her cousin, they're around the same age and pretty close.

So here's her single mom backstory. When she was a kid she used to visit her grandparents for the summer along with Xin Hua. They had would play at the little park across the road (out in the country ya know?) and their grandma would always bring them fresh fruit to snack on. So one day she eats some plums and buries the seeds at that little park. And well she stopped staying at her grandparents for the summer. She returns years later after the death of her grandparents to help clean out their house and she notices that a plum tree has grown at that little park. She takes a break to go over there and have a plum for old times sake and 2 kids fall out of the tree like "Mom!!!" Oopsie, she accidentally created 2 plum tree spirits and now she's got kids.

She is a very tired single mother and still can't really believe that this happened, but she loves them all the same and does her best for them.

KAFU

A literal robot. Created with the personality and intelligence of a teenager (16-17. KAF was 17 at the time of recording so KAFU is minor). In a relationship with ONE. Asexual grey-aromantic) Very curious personality. Likes learning things about ARIA from ONE. Very busy work schedule.

MEIKA Hime

One of Flowers little fae kids. Around 11-12. Very bubbly and hyperactive, def has ADHD. Hyperfixated on plants. Attached at the hip to her twin (I mean like an unhealthy kinda codependency for real). Non-binary, They/She. Some kinda queer. Has a crush on Una. Friends with the other middle school age kids (Una, Oliver, etc.). Not very good at academics, but enjoys science. Has psychic powers. Their life is directly affected by the their tree so if the tree gets sick or hurt, so does she. Is a sleepwalker, often ends up scaring people in the middle of the night on accident.

MEIKA Mikoto

The other fae child. Around 11-12. Not talkative at all, very blunt when she does speak. Maybe autistic, but could just be antisocial I'm not sure yet. Attached at the hip to their twin (I mean like an unhealthy kinda codependency for real). Non-binary, They/She/He. Some kinda queer. Hyperfixated on insects. Enjoys horror movies and novels. Hime's rock. Holds a bit of resentment toward Flower for leaving them alone for so long, but it fades after they start living together. Has psychic powers. Their life is directly affected by the their tree so if the tree gets sick or hurt, so does he. They prefer quiet study sessions with Oliver and find Una to be a little overwhelming at times. She enjoys learning about astrology from IA once she starts hanging around more often (when her and Flower start dating).

Kaai Yuki

Human. 9 years old. Poor immune system, often gets sick (bc her voice provider literally had a cold at the time of recording her voicebank). Kiyoteru is her foster parent, but he does eventually adopt her. Really enjoys school and learning. Tutors the littler kids.

Yun Quan

(if it's not obvious this is my fan design for her) Human, around 8. Tall for her age. Snarky and a rich girl. Very protective of her friends and very mean to everyone else. She's not allowed to wear makeup, but really wants to be able to wear it, so she just has a huge collection of lip smackers lip balm.

Otomachi Una

Human, 11. Sees gumi as a sort of big sister / mentor figure since they share a management team. ADHD. Hyperfixated on marine life, specifically eels. Since she like canonically has different personas (Sugar, Spicy, and Talk) that all seem very different, I sort of have this idea that she has DID and that those personas her her different alters, but I don't have DID and don't wanna misrepresent it so I'm hesitant with that one. My other idea for it that I lean more toward is that they're her different ways of masking. So like Spicy could be her preformance mask, sugar could be how she is in everyday life, and talk could be how she presents in school. I know I (my autistic ass) have different masks for different social settings. Also Una is really into Scene fashion and 100% drinks Monster. She is in marching band.

Oliver

Zombie boy. around 11. Soft spoken and anxious. has a pet bird named James. His whole family is some kinda monster. Self concious about his stitches so he covers them with bandages, but that just draws more attention to him. Does not like going to school or really in public at all. Afraid of water. Close friends with Mikoto and Yuki.

I have more but I've been at this for a while so I'll add to this later lol

[scriptdogtor]

Merfolk Reproduction

@cryoverkiltmilk asked over on another blog:

I have generally gone with the assumption that merfolk have a variety of reproductive methods, including live birth and external fertilization of eggs. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well!

-

There are ways to give validity to pretty much any reproductive method, and it all depends on what works best for the story you’re trying to tell. Reproduction can be as diverse as the creatures we dream up, as it’s all present in the animal kingdom. Hell, if you’re ever looking for creative repro ideas, look no further than insects. You’ll find everything and it all serves a specific purpose.

That’s why I can get opinionated about merfolk repro sometimes, because narratives forget how reproduction serves a purpose. Defaulting to “oh they’re fishes” doesn’t always enhance a narrative and can sometimes make it lose fidelity.

“Fishy” repro makes sense on the surface because...fish scales? But internal reproduction has a lot of evolutionary purposes. How a species reproduces can tell you a lot about how they live in general. We can define these specific reproductive methods which I’m borrowing from mammals:

Viviparity - live birth

Copulation - You have all read plenty on Ao3, I am sure

I’ve been meaning to make a longer post about this, but this reproductive strategy generally:

Allows for longer, safer incubation of fewer offspring

Facilitates social bonding

Takes advantage of controlled body temperatures

 Allows species to travel with developing offspring

Guarantees young will be born close to the mother and can then grow close to the mother

Selects for more viable sperm within and between individuals

Takes a lot of resources and time for the mother

Obviously not every species checks every box, but these reproductive methods select for a certain kind of strategy. Animals that invest a lot of time/resources into fewer offspring benefit from copulation and viviparity.

In contrast, animals that invest in the numbers game benefit from more external reproduction. Think of a continuum between blue whales --> songbirds --> fish --> pine trees. Each of these species succeeds for very different reasons. Blue whale sperm is not wasted irritating your allergies, but pine trees make plenty.

Again - this isn’t true for every species and there’s no law saying external reproduction can’t come with care and attention, but that’s something that might benefit from more narrative development.

Merfolk are generally made in a human image, and a very mammalian one. You’ll often see merfolk having these by default:

Hair

Breasts/nipples

Mammalian hips (I forgot the name for this, but notice how dolphins move their tails up and down and fish generally move back and forth)

Bellybuttons

Brains that work similarly to humans (I hate how we gauge animal intelligence but that’s another conversation)

Strong social connections

Offspring that stay with their families for at least a few years

Non-reproductive sexual interests

There’s more to it than this, but that’s another post. 

The other challenge you might want to address in a story is how those relatively precious gametes meet without being destroyed by saltwater. Delivering sperm is just as important, and animals have developed all sorts of ways to adapt to environments hostile to sperm. If you’ve ever taken a zoology course or have seen furry porn, you know the diversity of reproductive tracts. How these organs look impacts how they function and can tell you a lot about what gametes need to survive.

I debated how detailed to go on visual aids, but you know what? I survived a high school Zo class and you can too.

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Skeletal-anatomy-of-the-bottlenose-dolphin-Tursiops-truncatus-A-External-hind-limbs_fig5_265297384

Helpful article that outlines even more diversity: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/dolphin-sex-research-dalhousie-university-scientist-bottlenose-1.4084583

Honestly, if you’re looking for physical anatomy inspo, you can go pretty wild. Sexual selection goes HARD in this area and there’s a lot of room to embellish. 

Am I saying furry porn has this one down to a science? Oh, absolutely. At least sometimes.

[thenexusofsouls]

Private Muse: Nuada Bethmoora

[Bio and other information below the cut!]

Type of Character & Fandom/Source Material: Fantasy canon character from the movie Hellboy II: The Golden Army (I used to write him over at @fallxnprxnce​).

Disclaimer: All the information in this post is a mashup of canon information and my own headcanons/fleshing-out/OCs, etc. I’m not going to bother to mention what’s what for most of it or I’ll be here all day, heh, so I’m just going to lay it all out as one narrative. If you have any questions on whether something is a headcanon or was actually in the movie, or you want further explanations about anything below, please don’t hesitate to ask. I have been developing Nuada, his friends, and his world for many years, so although this post is long, it is only a fraction of the info crammed in my brain about this muse, haha. So yes, feel free to ask about anything you wish. Please do. =)

What I Mean By “Private Muse”: This muse is only open to mutuals and people I already rp with, so no new partners with this one for now. I have my own mental health and time constraint reasons for limiting him, and I only want to write him in a limited capacity and on a trial basis right now. Anyone can send him or me informational asks (ones that aren’t starters or rps, but that just ask questions about him), but for actual rps I’m keeping this mutuals and regulars only until further notice. If you aren’t sure if I would be willing to write Nuada with your muse(s), you can always ask me through the inbox or messager.

FC: Luke Goss as Nuada

Species: High Elf (collectively refers to ancient lines of full-size, humanoid, bipedal Elven races; seen as sort of nobility among Elvenkind... as opposed to smaller, non-humanoid-shaped, quadrupedal, shapeshifting, cryptid, or aquatic races of elves)

Race / Ethnicity: Sun Elf (a race of High Elves associated with the sun, fire, heat, gold metal, gold and yellow and cream colors, and the growth of plants as nurtured by the sun; these elves are distinguishable by their cream skin, golden hair... unless white from age, ochre colored eyes, and ochre colored blood; they are known for their battle prowess, musical ability, intelligence, dexterity in many trades, and their resistance to fire)

Bloodline / House: Bethmoora (the longstanding ruling House of the Sun Elven race)

Age: Ancient (2K+) (Sun Elves are immortal but not invincible; they can still die of injury, illness, broken hearts, and they can “fade,” which is a graceful way of saying they lose the will to live and die of what they call “natural causes”; they consider fading to be nature’s way of returning them to the earth and allowing their spirits to rest when they have served their purpose in life; fading is cause for grief, to be sure, but it is also seen as something natural and better than living with bitterness, anger, or sadness in one’s heart, or outliving one’s usefulness in life)

Gender: Male

Romantic Orientation: Demi-biromantic

Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual

Occupation: Prince; Warrior

Family: King Balor (canon father, deceased or not based on verse); Queen Elunae (OC mother, deceased, but her ghost still hangs around him, unbeknownst to him; I used to write her under the url “queenofbethmoora,” but the blog was deleted because of T.umb.lr derp); Princess Nuala (canon twin sister)

Potentially Triggering Material in Threads: Violence; g.enoc.idal tendencies (against humans as a race compared to elves); toxic thinking and relationships; sibling rivalry; patricide; sui.cidal ideation 

Negative Personality Traits: Arrogance; anger; impulsivity; shortsightedness; stubbornness

Positive Personality Traits: Bravery; fierceness; loyalty; passion; perseverance; and a surprising amount of love even though it’s been tainted in some ways over the years

Important Personality/Nature Aspect - Nuada’s “Wild Heart”: This is something that I’ve spent a long time thinking about and detailing, and it is crucially important to Nuada as a person, as it influences his thinking and actions in many ways. I call it "croí fiáin," which in Nuada’s native language means “wild heart.” With Nuada, it’s not just a case of being hard to catch and hold onto, being a free spirit, or being a restless person with a lot of energy. It’s much more than that, and it is a condition that is so much a part of him that he cannot escape it. It functions almost like a medical or mental health condition. It’s the essence of the difference between a domesticated animal and a wild one, on a mental and spiritual level. In this post, I explain all about it and give links to other posts that go into some analyses or talk about it from Nuada’s point of view. There is a good chance it will come up in threads, so you may want to read some of it over. Or you can just ask me for a quick rundown, that’s fine too.

Nuala was not born with this same "croí fiáin" condition. Even though they are twins, Nuala is very much Nuada’s opposite in personality, demeanor, emotional/mental inclinations, and temperament. She balances him out. So in contrast to his wild heart, she is serene, calm, practical, and measured. Their people believe that they are very literally two halves of one soul. The two of them together make one whole person, so each of them are incomplete without the other. This is a rare but known phenomenon that occurs among Nuada’s people, and it is the reason why they are physically and mentally linked to each other as well. Their people believe such occurrences of this split-soul phenomenon are indicative of some kind of special destiny for one or both of them, and that they are both cursed and blessed.

Important RP Note: I DO NOT ship Nuada and Nuala romantically or sexually. I know this is canon, but I’m just not doing it at all, sorry. My twins have a very negative relationship, with each believing they have been wronged/neglected/unappreciated by the other. Nuada is possessive of Nuala, and he does get jealous if she takes romantic interest in others, but that doesn’t mean he’s in love with her or wants her for himself. His jealousy more stems from his desire to mean as much to her as their father and others have, since he believes he doesn’t. It’s... a whole big mess and a longstanding feud of resentment between them. Nuada was closer to their mother but she died when they were younger, and Nuala was closer to their father. He resents Nuala for being their father’s favorite while also being jealous of others she gives her attention to. But yeah... I absolutely don’t ship them with each other.

Important Potential Medical Condition, the “Iron Malady” (tw: depression and suicidal thoughts/actions): The Iron Malady is an illness I created for one of my fictional medieval fantasy worlds that afflicted my own original races of elves, the Silverwood and Purplewood Elves. But I’ve also developed it for Nuada’s people as well, and this is actually the illness his mother died of. You can read more about it here. At its core, it is a lot like dying of grief or a broken heart, but there are some very specific causes, symptoms, and cures for it.

Background and General Information: I... don’t even know where to begin with this, heh. I’ve fleshed out parts of his childhood, his mother and his relationship with her, how his mother died, his early relationship with Nuala, his interactions with magical creatures that are now extinct, what his adolescence was like... There’s just so much. I feel like things will come out as they come up in threads? I’m just way to lazy to write out everything I can think of, haha. Feel free to ask me anything you’d like about him, though.

But very generally speaking, Nuada was born a prince to King Balor and Queen Elunae, along with a younger twin sister, Nuala. He’s a Sun Elf, meaning elves that are associated with warmth, sunlight, plants, forests, dawn, and the color/metal gold. They are naturally resistant to fire, cannot be burned, and unaffected by high temperature climates, but vulnerable to injury from freezing and hindered by cold climates. They are one of the older and more major races of elves, and one of the few with surviving members in the present day. Bethmoora is a well-known and longstanding House within Elven culture, whether you’re a High/Sun Elf or not. It was also a well-respected House, but news of Nuada’s break from the family and self-imposed exile put a tarnish on his reputation, and partly on Balor’s as well.

I keep pretty much everything from the movie as canon, I just add in a lot more to fill in the blanks, so if you’ve seen the movie, you’ve already got a good jump on Nuada’s story. Anything in his past that needs explaining or that comes up in threads, I will try to give enough context to understand it.

As far as the story of the movie if you haven’t seen it, Nuada is angry at humans for destroying the earth and causing the dwindling and extinction of numerous races and species, most notably his own. Non-human races have been relegated to the dark corners and underbellies of the Earth, being forced to live in fear and confinement out of sight and with the safety of their own kind. Instead of living in vast forests, Nuada’s people live underneath human cities, among brick walls, dark sewers, and metal pipes instead of trees, lakes, and mountains. They’re dying off, giving into what they feel is their time to “fade,” but Nuada, as one of the last real warriors of his race, refuses to fade, refuses to abandon the earth to human destruction, and refuses to accept that the future has a strictly human face.

His cause and his arguments are just and sound, but from there, he embarks on a cruel and misguided campaign to eradicate all humans from the planet using a weapon called the Golden Army. It is an army of magical, indestructible clockwork soldiers of goblin make that can almost instantly repair and rebuild themselves the moment they are damaged or destroyed. They are deadly, possessing immense strength and sharp blades. Whoever has the gold crown that conveys ownership of the Army controls their agenda. Nuada sets out to obtain that crown, which has been thirded to prevent anyone from taking control of the Army for the wrong reasons.

One piece says with Balor, one with Nuala, and one was given to the humans as a gesture of peace. Over time, humans forgot the treaty and the story, allowing their Elven friends to fall to ruin and treating their crown piece as a trivial piece of art. Nuada kills his father to obtain his piece, crashes an auction at which the humans’ piece was to be sold, and then goes after his sister for her piece. Nuala does everything she can to keep Nuada from getting the piece and reassembling the crown, but he does anyway, gaining control of the Army. Hellboy challenges him for control, being demon royalty himself, and Nuada has no choice but to accept. They duel, and as Nuada is about to win in a rather underhanded way, Nuala stabs herself, kill herself and her brother, since they are linked. Hellboy, now in control of the Army, ponders all the power it could afford him, but his girlfriend Liz melts it, destroying it forever.

I usually write Nuada before he thinks about gaining the other crown pieces, or I write him as not being able to find the human piece, kindof to stall the canon story in the movie so I can have more time and freedom with him in threads. I keep his basic agenda and opinions, but just pause the main story of the movie for threads to happen, heh. But I’m open to whatever people might like to explore at any point in his timeline.

Magical and Supernatural Abilities: 

Fire resistance and heat tolerance (e.g. holding the glowing hot map case without burning his hand)

Empathic and somatic link to his sister since birth (they are mentally linked over long distances, and their bodies mirror wounds and ailments between them)

Potential for empathic link creation with others by touching with his hands (Nuala and Abe created a link between them by touching their hands together, so Nuada can do this as well with other empathic individuals if an emotional connection is there)

Supernatural empathic capabilities: gleaning information from individuals, creatures, surfaces, or objects by touching them with his hands (e.g. knowing who touched an object last, learning someone’s name by touching them, or seeing what recently happened in a room by touching the walls)

Magical energy infusion: granting qualities, characteristics, or abilities to weapons or individuals by infusing them with magical energy (e.g. his spear lengthening and retracting; flawlessly regenerating the spear head)

Magical compulsion: compelling individuals and creatures to do something by lacing his speech with magic (e.g. whispering “kill him” to the forest god)

Friends: These are characters that tend to make somewhat regular appearances in threads with Nuada, depending on the location and nature of the thread. (See below for details and lots of links to posts with headcanons! Just be advised that these are from Nuada’s now-inactive blog and many of these posts are very old. Some of the info and links contained within them may be outdated.)

MR. WINK (a rock troll, also known as a rock ogre to some): Nuada’s righthand man, no pun intended. XD Also his close and dear friend. He is strong, brave, loyal, and shares Nuada’s hatred of human beings.

Appreciation post

How Mr. Wink met Nuada and how they became so close

Mr. Wink & sweets

Mr. Wink & tea

Mr. Wink hates sneezing

How Nuada sees Mr. Wink

THE BARK CHILDREN (small earth fae): The little two-headed creatures seen scampering all over the Troll Market. They act as messengers as well as eyes and ears for Nuada throughout the Market. They are innocent, intelligent, timid, playful, helpful, and curious.

Appreciation post

How Nuada sees the bark children

Nuada musing on the bark children’s treatment of him

Headcanons based on canon, part 1

Headcanons based on canon, part 2

Bark children and naming/identity

Jix & the bark children

TOOTH FAIRIES (small sky fae): Tiny, cute, but ravenous little fairies with an appetite for biological calcium, e.g. the calcium found in bones and especially teeth. They are one of the most intelligent types of fairies, able to speak and learn. They are playful and mischievous, as well as frenetic and talkative.

Pictures of the fairies

Gifs of the fairies

Nuada befriending a poisoned fairy

“CATHEDRAL HEAD”, A.K.A. THE ARCHIVIST: A wise old cartographer and archivist who makes and stores maps, scrolls, formal documents, and important letters in his library/shop. He lives and works in the specific Troll Market that is located underneath the human city of New York City, under the borough of Manhattan. He is well respected and trusted by many.

Appreciation post

The most interesting thing about this fellow is that his race are typically colonized by very tiny beings who build on top of their heads! They build from biological material (bone, keratin, sebaceous material), so the cathedral on his head is actually made of living material, an extension of his head. Tiny members of this wee race live inside the cathedral, and if you look closely, you might see lights going on and off in windows, or even the tiny creatures walking around on ledges and walkways.

The tiny race that lives on the Archivist’s head are actually involved in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with him. They gain nutrients and building materials from his body as well as protection from the outside world, and he gains a very valuable protective covering over his brain. Otherwise, his kind are born with very soft heads and frequently suffer brain injuries without the benefit of the hard, keratin-based (the same material that fingernails or horns are made of) material shielding them.

When someone of his race is born, tiny colonists from the diminutive race are introduced onto the baby’s head. As the individual grows, the colonists build and multiply, protecting the baby’s brain from harm. When an individual dies, their colonists are transferred to infants, very often within their same family/bloodline.

The relationship between the wee race and the Archivist’s race is considered a very sacred trust, with each race benefitting and protecting the welfare of the other. The Archivist loves his head colonists dearly and takes very good care of them. His race considers it a solemn honor to be colonized.

Potential Starter Ideas:

Maybe not a starter, but if you want to ask Nuada about his family, friends, life, etc., I have spent an inordinate amount of time fleshing him out over the years. I’ve expanded his family, detailed a lot of inhabitants and aspects of the Troll Market underneath which he makes his living space, and have elaborated on things like his fears, triggers, likes, dislikes, customs, habits etc. He’s my oldest T.um.blr muse that I really took seriously, and back when I wrote him (2015 to 2019) I had a lot more free time than I do now, so I had the time to spend delving into the minutia of his life and world. Feel free to ask him (or me) about anything, as I would love to get back into this muse I put so much work into in the past.

The bark children see Nuada as a protector of them, of their community, and in general someone to go to when something is... going down. They will inform him of threats, curious things they find, things that scare them, and intruders. Very often bark children will show up in threads with Nuada because they are such a part of his life. This presents a number of starter opportunities... A pair of bark children could be captured and put in a pet store, and your muse can set them free and let them lead them to their home. Or, your muse could be wandering near to a Troll Market entrance and encounter a pair, and decide to follow them. In other words, bark children can either directly or indirectly lead your muse to Nuada for various reasons.

If your muse is non-human or would be able to access the Troll Market with magic and gain entrance, they could hear about Nuada from the bark children or the Archivist. Maybe they go looking for him for some reason?

He could be injured and need help. If you’ve written with me at all, you know how I love the classic “I could die if you don’t help me” starters for threads, heh. Being shot by police in the city is a very likely thing that might happen to him. Or whatever injury situation we could think of is also fine. Fair warning that he would be grumpy in this situation. Or... your muse could be injured and if they’re of a race Nuada would be sympathetic toward, or he’s just having a bout of rare empathy for a human. He would likely take your muse to his home beneath the Market to watch them. He can’t heal, so he’d have to treat the wound and then just... wait. Makes for interesting conversation, heh.

Fun facts & Colorful Information: 

Nuada’s and Nuala’s facial scars were given to them as infants. They designate them as royalty. Nuada was actually going to receive them first, since he is the eldest, but then they manifested on Nuala’s face automatically as a result of their supernatural somatic link. That was how Balor and Elunae found out their twins were two halves of one soul, or one soul split into two bodies. Them being born with this rare condition was seen as a potential curse or blessing from the gods, yet to be determined.

The darker coloration around Nuada’s eyes and lips compared to Nuala and others of his kind is indicative of the corruption that has taken hold of him. He is literally being poisoned by the negative energy of the dark path he’s chosen to go down. Negative emotions, evil, cruelty, a lack of mercy, and lapses in moral judgement are slowly poisoning him, both mentally and physically. This corruption affects his physical health as well as his personality and decisions, and is very similar to that experienced by Wanda Maximoff (1, 2) in the MCU.

Nuada was very close with his mother. When he left in exile, he took with him his mother’s wedding necklace, once a gift from his father to his mother on their wedding night.

Three reasons why Nuada might be pushed to violence.

I once did a rudimentary analysis of Nuada’s living space underneath the Troll Market, looking at everything he keeps/stores there. You can find it here.

If you want to know what Nuada thinks about fictional depictions of elves by humans in popular media, or his opinion on wandering about on Halloween, you can read about those topics here.

On the subject of human items being sold in the Troll Market and the general diversity to be found there: 1, 2

Nuada and Mr. Wink looking at human billboards

Nuada and Mr. Wink taking in the sight of the elves’ “home”

Muse Playlist: These are songs that I have used and turned to countless times for writing inspiration, many of which I’ve been associating with Nuada for many years. Some of them are related to the movie in some way or have had music videos set to clips of it that I’ve linked to, but most are just songs with lyrics that fit his mindset, the mood, or various situations perfectly. 

Hellboy II Trailer Song / Reminds me of a quote from Nuada: “Let this remind you why you once feared the dark.”: “Mein Herz Brennt” - Rammstein (it’s in German, so here are the translated lyrics)

Main Theme Song: “Mordred’s Lullaby” - Heather Dale

The Golden Army: “Invincible” - Two Steps From Hell

Determination: “I Will Not Bow” - Breaking Benjamin / H320 dubstep cover version

Ancient Battles: “Heart of Courage” - Two Steps From Hell

Exile / Savior Complex: “Torn” - Creed

Pride: "Live Free or Let Me Die” - Skillet

Arrogance: “Fireproof” - Pillar

Anger At His Father and Sister: “Numb” - Linkin Park

Relaxed: “Kindred” - Jillian Goldin

Thinking/Meditation: “Nothing Else Matters” - Metallica

Pensiveness: “Winternight” - Visions of Atlantis

Sadness / Brokenhearted: The Old Ways - Loreena McKennitt

The Old Religions: All Souls Night -  Loreena McKennitt

Heritage: “Ancestors” - Albannach

Wildness: “Beat the Speed of Sound” - Emmelie de Forest

United/Determined Twins: “Awake and Alive” - Skillet

Divided/Adversarial Twins: What Have You Done? - Within Temptation

Breakdown/Downward Spiral: “Let Go” - Frou Frou (Imogen Heap)

Failure/Defeat: “Failure” - Breaking Benjamin

Final Battle: “Blow Me Away” - Breaking Benjamin

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

Hello ! Okay so this question really has no connection to any fandom in general (except, maybe, Avatar on the intelligent non-human species side?) but I just saw an article about orca intelligence and the fact that we now know they have very strong social bonds, even teach each other things and even have names they use between each other! Anyway, I just saw this and was also thinking about the fact that most people still think they're just big dumb fish and don't ask me why but it made me think again about your excellent posts on Avatar (I told him there was a link!), Quaritch and Jake's family in general.

So I was wondering what you think? About their intelligence and the fact that some people would like them to be considered as non-human (I admit I think that about cetaceans in general personally) as well as your opinion on the fact that individuals in captivity are often captured in the wild and find themselves in honestly pitiful conditions in the company of orcas they don't know and therefore can't communicate with (fun fact: each pod, or group, of orcas has its own language that doesn't correspond to that of other pods).

If you already knew this, I'd be delighted to know ey if you didn't, I might have raised your interest in this and that's just as well. What's more, it might also raise the interest of other people who see it...

What a fun question!! Honestly, no worries at all for any non fandom related question, it means so much that you guys care for my opinion on anything at all! I love the Avatar questions a ton, but it's super fun and special when a question branches out into another fandom or topic.

Yes, I do know about wales and orcas! I was always one of those dirty little mud kids who was obsessed with all animals and bugs and wildlife. I had bins and bins of plastic dinosaurs and book after book on wildlife. I was going to be a vet until senior year of high school, when I decided that taking algebra for the third time meant I wasn't cut out for a math or science career lol (I took it for a forth time for no credit in college 😬).

There is a ton to be said about captivity in general, and the ethics of zoos and wildlife centers. Thankfully most zoos follow much stricter laws now, and the majority of animals you see in care are unable to be released into the wild or are being rehabilitated until they can be. I don't know that there are these same standards yet for large aquariums, and places like SeaWorld that have orcas and whales and sharks. I am not an expert, and it's not something I've looked into in a long time. In general though, I think most of these places have improved, but these large animals, I don't see how they can ever be kept ethically in captivity,

There is also the matter of orcas, who have been a huge talking point as of late because of them sinking ships. They truly are the dickbag bullies of the sea lol, so it's funny to me to compare them to the tulkun. Actually, maybe all the dolphins are the dickbag bullies of the sea. But, orcas are dolphins so they are the same thing. But orcas (also dolphins do this with fish) play catch with seals dude, they slap them back and forth and don't even eat them. Sometimes they make waves too knock animals off of ice and then wait for them to get back on the ice so they can do it again. They are sociopaths. So I think they are smart, but also I'm scared. Dolphins (orcas are dolphins) are one of the few animals besides humans that hunt for fun as well as for food.

BUT ANYWAYS. I don't think orcas can be considered human, they are non-human. Humanity sets itself apart from other species with large scale cooperation, culture and tool use, and abstract thought and reasoning. These are things the tulkun possess in Avatar, and things that are not shared by any other creature on Earth that we know of.

[000life-is-meaningless000]

I'm not trying to think of sad and gloomy shit it's just scientific endeavors let me that way.

you follow the math of life you follow the path of logic you follow intelligence you follow how things lead up to and it just leads to all this dark shit that it's reality you can be a stupid person and ignore everything and stay positive and just be willfully ignorant.

😡

I can understand the infinitely harshness that has existence and reality and how darkness is Greater than light.

🙁

pain and suffering is infinite darkness is infinite when you get to heaven he just want you to kiss his fucking ass for eternity God only lets you into heaven if you kiss this ass throughout your entire fucking life, God is not very forgiving unless you are a high enough value to him, That's not fucking love that's Narcissism.

🙁

life is meaningless, life is pain life is suffering and then you go fucking insane

life is extremely unfucking Fair, karma is bullshit.

. . . . .

Fairness was invented by humans like fucking morals.

. . . . .

nothing is fucking Fair how about the fact how animals have so many advantages and abilities over humans and humans can't fucking do that's not fucking Fair

how about the faculty that countries dominate each other all the fucking time that's not fucking Fair The faculty the animals were slay them a slaughterhouse somewhere to be killed so another species can turn them in the literal fucking piles of shit somewhere flush them down the fucking drain your whole life is suffering in pain and literally go insane in the father Factory and after all that pain and suffering and torture they're murdered eating and crapped out.

human beings invented fairness, and not a single one of them fucking practices because it can't be practiced.

fairness really doesn't fucking exist it's a myth because when you understand the universe and a greater concept of things in the whole the universe you have to start to understand that there's infinite perceptions infinite Souls infinite dimensions and infinite time.

and perception of what is right and wrong will always change infinitely radically to infinite extremes Non-Stop.

then you haven't even taken the retrospect the understanding of aliens and their brain and their soul and their psyche and their culture and their history and their way of seeing things and you haven't even taken the retrospect literally the whole fucking universe.

fairness is bullshit embrace the light and embrace the dark of yourself or just be pure dark or light either way I don't want to say nothing fucking matter but either way I don't give a shit.

cuz the grand scheme of things God even made light and dark and good and evil God even said that shit so I guess in life I guess life is a giant fucking sandbox.

and people are just always trying to dominate you and gaslight you and scare you and socially control you and laws and rules and psychological morals called mental illnesses

and everyone's got some shit to throw you socially.

. . .

order the new law right around the fucking corner of the restrict even more your freedom and blue thugs are rolling around with big guns and lots and lots of fucking armor and all kinds in a whole Army of motherfuckers after your ass all for God damn nothing all because you broke some rule made by some fool and some building somewhere elected by more dumbasses and nobody fucking wanted.

. . .

Do as Thou Wilt, Then Fucking Die

💀

Link :

[bookwyrminspiration]

Osanwe isn't limited like cognatedom, no. It's essentially just that people with high levels of trust and emotional connection (sometimes partner/lovers, siblings, or close friends are close enough, for example) can communicate very easily with one another. It's more of a similarity than something that's exactly the same, though.

I'm probably missing some but some other similarities are:

Immunity to old age, pointy ears, beauty, intelligence, slender builds, and susceptibility to pride (those are more the obvious ones that are characteristic of elves from all media, though)

The whole "enhancing natural beauty" thing

"It's not magic, that's just what humans call things they can't understand"

Counting age from the inception date

Dying because of certain really strong emotions

Some elves can control the elements

Galadriel tore down a castle with only her mental strength

Havenfield looks really similar to Tolkien's illustration of elven buildings (not the movie version though)

Elves have greater control over their mental strength and bodies so although they're not necessarily physically stronger than humans in everyday life, they can channel their strength better to perform feats of inhuman strength

OO that's an absolutely riveting way of portraying connections. In keeper it's like a "you're either compatible or you're not!" kind of situation, but I think I prefer the connection being based upon mutual trust and something that the people can develop, not just something they can or can't be, if that makes sense. Things that are based upon emotional closeness are also so *clenches fist* I can't explain it but i'm So Normal About It (I'm not).

I love the phrasing "immunity to old age." Like it's not that they don't age, it's that they're immune to it. But yeah the things in that bullet point and the beauty one are more obvious. That's just generally how most books write elves/the fey/faeries. It's like a checklist. Don't age? Pointy ears? beautiful? Naturally better than everyone else? Congratulations you have acquired a fey.

The it not being magic thing is interesting!! Shout out to all the species out there who think humans/non-elves are dumb as rocks, they're great. Oh and I think I saw a thing about the really strong emotions! I don't remember which emotion it is though, but I saw a post where Legolas and...Gimli? Were getting worried over whether he would break down from an emotion. Looked it up and it's apparently grief, but I cannot find the post.

Some of the comparisons you're given are general and understandable like "both can control the elements!" and "they've got greater mental control and strength!" and yes that makes sense lots of fantasy stories do that and then you say something very specific like inception dates and tearing down a castle with mental strength and that is definitely not vague at all. You know, even if Shannon only used the lotr elves as early inspiration for her own elves appearance, a lot of the story definitely comes through in other parts of the world.

I also have no clue how to find the illustrations you're talking about but I am trusting your judgement on this as you seem to be very knowledgeable about the series.

thank you for sharing all this!! It's super cool to see all the similarities between the lotr series/elves and the kotlc ones, and your observations are tempting me to try and read the series. I always get distracted when I tried in the past but mayhaps I shall actually stick it out this time.

I can't really say anything about the series because I haven't read it, but! I have read twilight (...several times) and offer in return: Eric Yorkie and Jensi Babblos have essentially the same character introduction as they're both energetic and excited and nice to the new girl in school and offer to show her where her classes are.

[angphyel]

DOES ANYONE WANT TO ROLEPLAY ROTTMNT? I use my Rottmnt oc

Character info:

Character Stuff: 

↬ Full name ↫

(OC's full name, including middle name)

Lilith Kai Belk

↬ Nickname ↫

(what you want your OC to be called by)

LordBelkamort!

↬ Age ↫

(exact age or age range of OC)

16

↬ Birthday ↫

(OC's birthday, month and day, year is optional)

July 24 2006

↬ Birthplace ↫

(where they were born)

depends

↬ Zodiac ↫

( you can always find it out on the Internet )

Leo

↬ Height ↫

(average height in girls is 5'5" in men it's 5'7")

5’4”

↬ Gender ↫

(male or female)

Female

↬ Orientation ↫

(heterosexual, bisexual, etc..)

Heterosexual

↬ Species ↫

(human, elf, alien, humanoid, ect)

Human/Golden retrever

↬ Social Class ↫

(upper, middle is the most common, lower)

Middle

↬ Wealth ↫

( less money bags is poor)

50/50

❦

╔════════════╗

♚ A P P E A R A N C E ♚

╚════════════╝

↬ Skin color ↫

(You can look up correct names for skin colors!)

Caramelish

↬ Eye color ↫

(basic colors: green, brown, blue, red, ect)

Sea blue

↬ Hair color ↫

(basic colors: brown, black, blonde, pink, ect)

Tan (Faids into yellow) 

↬ Hair style ↫

(is it long or short or in curls, ect)

Curled

↬ Body Type ↫

(You can look up different body types!)

Hour glass

↬ Scars ↫

(where are their scars and how did they get them?)

Non(Yet)

↬ Piercing ↫

(ear piercing, no piercing: N/A, ect)

Nose percing

❦

╔════════════╗

♚ C L O T H I N G ♚

╚════════════╝

↬ Outfits ↫

(for this section you don't need to put a description, what you can do is put images of what they would where, but it's up to you)

(same as above)

Crown of partner accationaly

❦

╔════════════╗

♚ P E R S O N A L I T Y ♚

╚════════════╝

↬ Normal mood ↫

(are they normally happy, sad, ect and why?)

Always happy to be the light that shines in the room.

↬ Temper ↫

(are the more patient or not, what can cause your OC to become impatient?)

Shes very impationt, If shes waiting on someone and knows that they sre taking a bit then shes fine.

↬ Discipline ↫

(how disciplined are they? How well do they follow rules, and do they follow them cause they are forced or its just part o their nature?)

She doesnt follow the rules sometimes.

↬ Strengths ↫

(are they kind, they are physically strong, mentally strong, ect)

Shes Emotionally strong

↬ Weaknesses ↫

(what can break them? This can be physical or mental or both)

Losing a loved one will Break her. 

↬ Drive/dreams ↫

(what do they wish for? A soul mate, riches, a place to call home, ect)

To be the person people run to

↬ Fears ↫

(what are they most afraid of? Death, love, spiders, ect))

Spiders and losing loved ones. 

↬ Likes ↫

(what are their favorite things? Favorite food, favorite activity, ect)

She loves stealing her partners crown or sweaters. 

↬ Dislikes ↫

(what do they not like?)

ENDERMAN SCARE HER

↬ Soft spot ↫

(where is the little tender spot of your OC? Their spouse, kids, goodbyes?)

Her partner and her friends

↬ Depression ↫

(what makes them depressed? Thinking about their past, about the future, or not having cool hover boards in 2015)

Losing her Partner

↬ Inspiration ↫

(what inspires your OC to do what they do? Food, family, riches, ect)

Her partner

↬ Role model ↫

(who does your OC look up to? Mother, father, uncle, friend, ect)

Her partner

↬ Mental disorder ↫

PTSD and ADHD

(5 Stars means very high strength, 1 star means very low strength aka weak)

↬ Psychological strength ↫

(how strong is their mind?)

3

↬ Physical strength ↫

(how strong are they physically?)

3

↬ Close quarter combat ↫

(how good are they at hand-to-hand combat?)

4

↬ Distanced combat ↫

(how good are they with guns and archery?)

1

↬ Leadership ↫

(are they good at taking initiative or do they just like to follow)

3

↬ Wisdom ↫

(do they think before they act, and how smart of a decision was it?)

2

↬ Intelligence ↫

(how knowledgeable are they?)

3

↬ Confidence ↫

(are they confident on their decisions or are they more shy?)

1

↬ Endurance ↫

(how well do they cope with change and hardships?)

2

❦

╔════════════╗

♚ R E L A T I O N S H I P S ♚

╚════════════╝

↬ Father ↫

(who is their father? are they dead, alive, ect)

Unknown (Dead) 

↬ Mother ↫

(who is their mother? are they dead, alive, ect)

Unknown (Disappreard) 

↬ Brother(s) ↫

(who are their bother(s)? are they dead, alive, ect)

Non

↬ Sister(s) ↫

(who are their sister(s)? are they dead, alive, ect)

non

↬ Other relatives ↫

(do they get along with other relatives? Like cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents,ect)

Non

↬ Enemies ↫

(who is their main enemy?)

Bad guy

↬ Rivals ↫

(who are they always competing against?)

Mean people

↬ Friends ↫

(who's their friend group?)

Gecko (Alive)

Another character (Alive)

Another Character (Alive)

↬ Best friend ↫

(out of those friends who is their best buddy?)

Gecko

↬ Love interest ↫

(are they in love with someone?)

Raph or mikey

↬ Marital status ↫

(are they married, single, widow ect?)

Dating

↬ Spouse ↫

(if not married put N/A or delete this section. If they are with whom?)

N/A

↬ Children ↫

(if they don't have children put N/A or delete this section. If they do then who are they?)

Physical, emotional, or adopted? 

↬ Pets ↫

(if they don't have any pets, make them a pet! Haha jk, if they don't put N/A or delete this section, if they do though describe the pet and if you so wish add a picture)

A wolf Named Bob

���

╔════════════╗

♚ P A S S - T I M E ♚

╚════════════╝

↬ Hobbies ↫

(what do they do in their free time?) Draw

↬ Talents ↫

(what are they good at? Can they play an instrument, can they dance, ect)

She can sing and draw

↬ Sports ↫

(do they play any sport? Do they watch any sport, if not then put N/A or delete this section)

N/A

↬ Classes ↫

(what classes do they attend? Art, English, math, biology, ect. If not put N/A or delete this section)

This is minecraft not some other thing

↬ Occupation ↫

(what is their job? How much do they get paid, do they get paid? Student, vet, Doctor, assassin,ect)

Licenced tharapised.

❦

╔════════════╗

♚ H O M E   L I F E ♚

╚════════════╝

↬ Location ↫

(Where is their home?)

(Minecraft cordence here) 

↬ House size ↫

(how big is their house?)

Apartment sized

↬ House type ↫

(modern, castle, or use the image to help you find the type of home style after you can delete it)

Modern-ish

↬ Level of luxury ↫

(how luxurious is the home?)

Low

↬ Outdoor description ↫

(how does the outside of the home look?)

Small garden

↬ Indoor description ↫

(how does the inside look? How many rooms does it have?)

2 rooms,

↬ Bedroom description ↫

(how does their bedroom look?)

A bed, a chest and thats all

❦

♚ C O M B A T ♚

╚════════════╝

↬ Rank ↫

(do they have a military rank, Mafia rank, ect? If not up N/A or delete this section, if they do then say what rank they are. You can use this image to help you find what military rank they are, after you can delete it if you so wish)

N/A

↬ Weapons ↫

(what are the most common weapons that they use?)

Twin Katanas

Guns

Swords

↬ Favorite weapon ↫

(what is their favorite weapon?)

Twin Katanas

↬ Specialized weapon ↫

(are they trained on a specific weapon and know a lot about said weapon?)

Twin Katanas

↬ Range ↫

(what is their range? Far or close?)

Close

↬ Accuracy ↫

(how accurate are they to their desired target?)

Good ish

↬ Power ↫

(do they have an special powers/abilities? If so how do they use it to help them fight? If not then put N/A or delete this section)

N/A

↬ Block/nullified ↫

(how can their weapons and powers be blocked or nullified. *note all great warriors have a weakness*)

aversion

❦

╔════════════╗

♚ L I F E    S T O R Y ♚

╚════════════╝

↬ Age 0-12 ↫

(what happened in their lives at that age range?)

She lost her father and Her mother was taken away from her. 

↬ Age 13-18 ↫

(what happened in their lives at that age range?)

She met turtles and all of her friends

↬ Age 19-30 ↫

(what happened in their lives at that age range?)

N/A

↬ Age 31+ ↫

(what happened in their lives at that age range?)

N/A

↬ Darkest secret ↫

(what is their deepest secret, that when exposed they will stop in their tracks?)

Keeping the truth to herself regarding an event because someone is too fragile to accept what happened, or bear personal responsibility if that is the case (and there is no reason to cause further pain)

❦

╔════════════╗

♚ T H E M E    S O N G ♚

╚════════════╝

(Insert Song Here!)

❦

╔════════════╗

♚ O T H E R    I N F O ♚

╚════════════╝

(insert missed information, or more information and details about OC)

N/A

[monstersandmaw]

Male alien x nb human (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Here's the winner of the 'which monster to write next' poll (at least it was at the time I started writing it). It’s been on early release for Patreon folks for about a week now, and I was supposed to post it here yesterday, but I forgot. I hope you enjoy it!

Lex is non binary, and if they lived on Earth at the moment, would most likely be assigned male at birth. Tarann (alien) is male, an assassin, and didn’t have what we might view as a normal childhood by any standards. As such, there is an awful lot he does know, and a lot that he's completely unfamiliar with...

Content: fluff, the tiniest pinch of angst, plus mention of genetic modification and sterilisation, 'creation' of genetic 'super-soldiers', nsfw, tentacle cocks (plural) Wordcount: 8000

The dull, steady voice of his ship’s computer informed him that faster-than-light travel would not be viable with all systems in their current state of blaster-riddled repair.

He cursed.

It then informed him that actually, since barely sticking the landing in a crumbling red-stone canyon, Tarann would be lucky to take off again at all.

He let out a long string of curses, even switching languages a couple of times.

“That was creative. I even detected some Tch’larian in there,” Menot, the androgynous computer, commented. “Been a while since I’ve heard you use your native tongue, Tarann…”

“Go fuck yourself with a Savaranian spiked tuber,” he grumbled, to which the computer had no qualms responding that if they were not a mere collection of unfathomably complicated code - which he had had no hand whatsoever in creating, they sarcastically pointed out - they might consider the directive.

Tarann simply shook his head in frustration and used the lower of his two sets of arms to smash the bulkhead open by the button on the wall, and stalked through the smashed-up ship towards his cramped sleeping quarters. The Spark was hardly a ship built for comfort. She was utilitarian; designed for quick escapes and aerial combat, and short-range sorties. She’d been his home for over a year now, and he’d be lucky if he ever got her to limp into the upper atmosphere of this backwater planet, let alone space. An unhealthy layer of fine red dust was already clinging to her wings and the intakes would likely need some extensive work before he could get her air-worthy again.

Mounting stress made the old implant scar in the side of his neck throb and he trailed his three-fingered hand along it, his skin currently a neutral, dull grey. Barefooted, as nearly all Tch’larians preferred due to particular shape of their three-toed feet, with one additional thumb-like digit that didn’t quite meet the ground when they stood, he padded silently along the metal floors of the ship and began to check and clean his weapons back in his quarters. The familiar monotony of clicking, sliding metal, and the smell of gun lubricant always soothed him.

“Think,” he hissed at himself.

Menot’s voice sounded over the system twenty minutes later and said, “Incoming transmission from the Agency. Would you like me to play it for you?”

He closed his four yellow eyes and inhaled steadily. Reluctantly, he growled, “Yes.”

“Agent Triskelion,” the familiar voice of his handler rumbled. “We understand that your ship took heavy damage in a dogfight after completing your last contract.”

“That’s a fucking understatement,” he snarled but he didn’t interrupt the message further.

“While it was unrelated to the contract on the Red Flame, your unplanned skirmish with Invaranian Rebels did attract attention and we have intelligence to suggest that they might have attempted to trace you following your escape. You are ordered to keep a low profile and your open contracts have been reassigned to other agents until we can be certain that the Red Flame is no longer looking for you.”

The metal of his blaster creaked under his grip and he relaxed before he damaged it, taking another deep breath. He hadn’t had a contract reassigned since he’d first joined the Agency all those years ago. The humiliation of it forced his skin to change from the dusty grey to a vibrant blue, dotted with teal. Feeling like a teenager again, he forced his skin back to its neutral grey and set the blaster aside, reflexively checking the safety before it put it down.

Back at the bridge, though it was barely large enough for him to squeeze around the seat, he snarled, “Menot, record this and prepare to send it to HQ.”

“Very good.”

“Agent Triskelion, acknowledging receipt of transmission and instructions to lie low. Currently grounded in a canyon twenty clicks north west of a small mining town on a planet that’s so fucking tiny it doesn’t even have an official name.” Tarann steady himself and added, “But I’ll get Menot to send coordinates with this transmission. Ship’s pretty beaten up and I’ll probably need extraction at some point. I doubt this place has the parts I need, but I can look. I’m going to head into the town at sunrise and I’ll take Menot with me. And I’ll keep a low profile.”

“As low a profile as one of the galaxy’s finest killers possibly can,” Menot added, and Tarann cursed whoever had coded sarcasm into their system.

“Exactly,” he said. “A stranger rocking up out of nowhere in a town that tiny is hardly going to pass unremarked, but I’ll adapt.” He snorted a little at the irony of that, knowing that his rather unique genetic melange was designed for camouflage. Not for him was the messy application of paints and disguises, though he couldn’t actually change his bone structure beyond accelerated healing. “So yeah, for the love of all you hold dear, please don’t just forget about me here. End recording. Menot, send it to HQ.”

With that, he slumped into the pilot’s seat for a moment and sighed. Menot helpfully informed him that dawn was three hours away, and he told them to shut everything down save for the essentials and maintain a vigilant watch while he attempted to get some sleep.

“I’ll wake you if anything needs your attention,” Menot promised.

With the sun high in the sky, Tarann stalked across the dusty plain that formed a ring around the town. In fact, it was much larger than they’d initially thought, and Menot quietly informed him in his hidden earpiece that the town appeared to go down into the earth, perhaps following the original mine shafts.

“Puts a new meaning on going to ground for a while,” he snorted.

He was relieved as he passed through dirty, dusty, narrow streets, to note all sorts of lifeforms here - some familiar and many not. With limited biodiversity, he might have stood out like a sore thumb, but the place seemed stuffed to the brim with hopeless outcasts from all over the system. There were even some humans here, which surprised him. The temperature was hot and arid, not ideal for the creatures he’d only had brief dealings with. Earth was seen as a backwater, with the emphasis on the water. It was the kind of place people went to retire to, and that was… about it. Enterprising humans had left centuries ago and gone to the newly terraformed planets like Mars - if they still wanted to remain in their solar system - and many more had joined up with the Federation and scattered all over the known galaxies.

When he passed a bipedal, slender human male, he asked Menot to give him a run-down on the species. “Both surprisingly easy and surprisingly difficult to kill, can be self-destructively curious and reckless, capable of making leaps of logic insurmountable to many species while being unfathomably illogical at other times…”

“Baffling,” he murmured. “Sounds like Agent Luna,” he said with a fond smile.

The legendary assassin had assessed him upon arrival at the Agency for unarmed combat, and somehow despite looking so… breakable, had had him on his back in two seconds flat. She’d also been the one to give him his field name, Triskelion, given that a decent number of things in his body, except his two hearts and four eyes, seemed to come in threes - three fingers, three toes, three lungs… The only trio of anatomical parts she hadn’t seen first hand was, well… elsewhere.

The fact that Luna was a fraction of his size and weight hadn’t seemed to matter at all in combat training, and he’d been very wary (and more than a bit in awe) of her since she’d returned from a mission with an injury that even the best surgeons at the Agency had said would kill her. Six months later, she was back in the field. He shuddered. Humans were like Anthariacs, once you thought you had a lock on their size and shape, they could simply morph into something else. Or perhaps they weren’t anything like that at all.

Unsettled, he shuddered again and nearly crashed straight into a small vendor’s stall in the narrow alley.

He heard the scraping voice say something, at which the ear piece translated, “Watch it!”

Shrugging off the encounter, he moved through the streets until he came to what looked like a bar with a noticeboard outside. Most of the listings were mundane requests and adverts for various services, and the rewards were in a currency he’d never heard of.

It took him a month on the planet to earn enough cash to stop having to make the twenty click trek out to the Spark every night to sleep. He would have slept in a doorway in the town had he not witnessed on his very first evening what happened to people who were caught unprepared and exposed. The sight of the slender wings being yanked off a tiny creature with a scream powerful enough to rupture eardrums had stuck with him and he’d risked the local wildlife - largely dirty great lizards - and gritty wind-storms on a daily basis to avoid that.

His handler at The Agency kept contact to an absolute minimum, except to update him periodically on the investigation that the Red Flame was still conducting and to tell him to stay holed up there. Boxed in with nothing to do, Tarann became irritable and jumpy. It wasn’t that he was itching for the next kill - he didn’t do his job for that - but the constant vigilance and insecurity of taking short, messy, shitty jobs here and there was waring him down, so when some jackass in the bar made a comment about that ‘four-eyed hill varanus over there’, he snapped. He’d encountered a hill varanus on one of his long treks back to where the Spark was still stashed out of sight in the canyon, and the enormous lizard had been curled up beside a large boulder, minding its own business until it decided to make Tarann’s sensitive inner calf its business with a maw full of teeth coated in thick poisonous saliva.

He’d been hallucinating by the time he’d managed to get back to the Spark - miraculously without dropping off the ledge and plummeting to the bottom of the canyon - and his body had been rippling through every colour in the known universe, and maybe even a few more, before he’d finally stuck a huge needle full of universal antidote into his left heart. It had taken him a whole day to recover enough to leave the ship.

Being compared to a hill varanus then - yes, his skin had the same gnarled texture as a number of reptiles found all over the galaxy, and yes, his saliva was also poisonous to a huge number of species - had suddenly broken all his carefully constructed control and he’d lunged at the large, slug-like creature, all four hands going around the thinnest point of its neck and squeezing until its eyes bulged.

“Oi!” a relatively high-pitched shout went up from behind the bar and a moment later a short blast of sound shot through the room and everyone cringed. The high-frequency noise made his insides crawl and he let go of the offending creature and staggered back a pace, toes splaying to try and steady himself. His skin flushed a sickly green before he could stop it.

Tarann turned his head and saw that the sound had emanated from a small, hand-held speaker which had been plonked down onto the surface of the bar. Behind it, wielding control of the button on the top of the speaker was - and he could have sworn that he felt his right heart lurch a little in his chest at the sight of them - a human. They had a blaster in their left hand and looked prepared to use it, if not necessarily formally trained. Their stance was pretty shoddy, but the distance of only a few spans between them more than made up for that. If the human fired, Tarann would die for sure.

“No fighting in my bar,” they said, voice stern and steady. “You got an issue with someone, you take it waaaay outside, am I clear?”

Both Tarann and the slug-thing nodded and he decided he needed another drink.

Approaching the human while they still held the weapon was probably not a wise move, but when he leaned his lower arms on the counter, his upper pair hanging loose and relaxed at his sides, Tarann saw a smile on their lips. “You must be new,” they grinned amicably, reaching below the counter to stash the blaster and pulling out a glass in its place. They then turned behind them to fill it up. “Haven’t seen any Tch’larians in here for a long time.”

He liked the way the human almost got the click at the start of the word but not quite. Some humans were known for their incredible mimicry skills, but this one clearly wasn’t as proficient. He also had no idea how to address a human after they’d just threatened his life, so he settled for a curt nod.

“And you’re about as chatty as the last one. Whatever that bit of pond slime over there -” they gestured with a bottle of distilled alcohol at the creature who’d insulted him “- said to you, just ignore them. They’re… a regular in here, but they don’t have many friends, if you catch my drift.”

“I wonder why,” he said flatly.

“It speaks!” the human chuckled. “And you’re fluent in sarcasm as well as Federation Common. Here, on the house.” And a small glass was shunted his way, sloshing with a clear, ruby red liquid. “You’ll like it. It’s a kind of brandy made with a fruit that grows in the mines. At least, the last Tch’larian I knew liked it. I could be grossly stereotyping an entire race based on one data point. Still, free booze…?”

“You talk a lot,” he said before sipping it. It burned his neon blue tongue pleasantly and then left a sweet aroma in his mouth that went up into his nasal cavity, leaving him with the impression he might breathe fire if he opened his mouth again.

“Yeah, well, you don’t, so… one of us has to balance the equation.” After a beat they added, “I’m Lex.” They held out their hand over the bar counter and Tarann vaguely remembered something about touch not being a taboo for humans. Not that it was taboo for Tch’larians either, but with so many people mingling under the Federation’s relatively peaceful protection in the past few centuries, it was still easy to offend someone inadvertently.

He noted the strength in the human’s hand as he slid his own three fingers into the grasp, and smiled at how smooth their skin was. Their hair was cut short at one side and had been left to flop a little longer at the top of their head, and he’d always wondered what a human’s hair would feel like beneath the pads of his sensitive fingers. Agent Luna hadn’t exactly been the type to let him try. He’d known that Agent Luna was female, but he had no idea what this human went by, and he was unfamiliar with human naming conventions, so that gave him no clue either.

Eventually he realised that he hadn’t told them his name, and murmured, “Tarann.” It seemed fairly safe out here, and most of the people who might want revenge on him for his line of work knew him as Triskelion anyway.

“Where are you staying?” Lex asked as they got back to work, keeping their head turned towards him a little so that he could still talk to them while they polished glasses and took orders from the odd patron.

“Out of town,” he said.

Lex paused halfway through pouring a bottle of something frothy and blue into a glass the size of a small bucket. “There’s nothing out of town…”

“My ship’s out there. Dead in the water, as it were,” he offered, taking another sip of his brandy. “This is excellent, by the way…”

His compliment was met with a grin, but the gesture quickly faded. “You’re not seriously sleeping in your dead ship out in the hills, are you?” they asked.

“Why would that be a problem?”

“You’re lucky the scavengers haven’t found you and stripped your ship - and you - bare…”

He tilted his head and blinked his four golden eyes at them. “I haven’t seen any sign of anyone out there except me. And the odd varanus…”

Lex winced dramatically. “Nasty fuckers those…”

Tarann nodded, rolling his right ankle. “Indeed.”

After a pause, Lex looked like they were about to say something, but the crash of glass on the other side of the room stopped them. “Shit, not those two again,” they hissed, and Tarann looked around just as a fight broke out for real this time.

They grabbed the blaster he’d seen before and the little speaker that emitted the unpleasant noise, and strode off around the bar, ignoring him completely where he sat. He had eased his lean, muscular frame onto a bar stool to take the weight off his frankly rather bruised and sore feet. The unpleasant sound seemed to do nothing for these two as they scrapped - all arms and teeth and roars, and even when Lex shot a quick, low-energy blast into the stone floor beside one of their feet, they didn’t break it up.

He should stay out of it. The human had guts, for sure, but the two creatures that were fighting were large and aggressive, and he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. A stray flail of the tip of one of their tails caught Lex in the face and they staggered back, yelling and spitting curses.

Making his mind up, he slid off the stool and approached the brawling patrons. Grabbing the nearest one by the scruff of their reptilian neck, he yanked hard and backed towards the doors of the bar, clearly catching them completely by surprise. Top thugs never expected to be bested by anyone, and it gave him a good few minutes of stunned compliance. Tossing them out onto the street with a snarl of his own seemed to sober that one up a mite, and a second later the other creature was booted out of the door with another curse, leaving Lex framed in the open doorway, blaster raised, face slightly bruised and utterly thunderous.

Something happened then in Tarann’s body that he was not expecting. A sharp, unfamiliar pang of arousal shot down his spine and fanned out through his entire nervous system. He shivered, a low-frequency rumble escaping him without permission. There was something about seeing a creature that should have been vulnerable in this situation - could have been crushed - standing there with a bruised face and blazing eyes, staring down two enormous beings three times their size, that made him hot all over. It was like mating season, or at least, his vague recollection of it from a brief talk at the Facility to explain that none of them would ever experience any of that because they had essentially had it edited out of their DNA. He’d escaped the Facility and joined the Agency and had never experienced the slightest tinge of lust since a brief flare in his teens. He bit those memories down and looked back at Lex.

“Thanks,” they grinned as the two brawlers separated and headed off in opposite directions down the street, yelling curses over their shoulders in their various languages. “How’d you feel about another brandy?”

He nodded and followed them back inside, watching the way their legs moved - their legs hinged forwards at the knee, which was intoxicatingly the opposite way to his own, their hips swaying rather alluringly.

“Listen,” Lex said as Tarann closed his fingers around his second glass of fiery brandy that evening. “If you’d like somewhere to stay, I’ve got a job opening here for a bouncer. The last girl I had got into trouble with some bounty hunter and had to scarper, but it comes with the offer of a room, use of the kitchen out the back, and a steady pay. It’s not great, but if I get tips, I’ll share them with you.”

Tarann blinked. “You can’t be serious…”

“Why not?” Lex shrugged, refilling a container with a viscous, silvery sauce that crackled softly as it sank into the jar.

Barely suppressing a shudder at the offending liquid, he made a mental note to avoid that at all costs, whatever the fuck it was supposed to be or go with.

Lex caught him staring sidelong at the fluid and laughed. “One of a small number of things on the menu that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone except a hazmat droid, or an Efulgari bombardier -” they added nodding across the room to where a frankly enormous creature sat waiting patiently, presumably for the bucket of viscous gloop in Lex’s hands. “Now, do you have to get back to your ship tonight, or do you want to stay here and think it over? You can let me know what you decide in the morning.”

He scowled softly; wary and distrustful. “You’d just let me stay?”

Lex shrugged again. “You’ve already earned your keep for tonight,” they grinned, revealing hopelessly small teeth. How could they hope to defend themselves with those? His own, by comparison, were two rows of viciously pointed fangs that could rip open the jugular of most of the known species that didn’t have exoskeletons, and even some that did.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll think it over.”

Lex left him in peace after that for an hour or so, but when the patrons began to trickle out into the night, they returned to him and asked, “Want to head up to your room?”

He nodded silently, and followed Lex through a door behind the bar and upstairs.

“That’s my room,” Lex said, nodding at a door with peeling teal paint which stood ajar on his right. “And this is yours. It’s not much, but it’s comfortable and I kept it pretty clean. There might be just a little bit of dust…”

Again, Tarann just nodded his understanding and set his small pack down gently beside the bed. The room was indeed humble, but that wasn’t an issue. He didn’t have many belongings anyway; just Menot in their portable device and some clothes and local coin. “It’s fine,” he said, turning round to find Lex leaning against the door frame in a way that spoke of casual trust and again made his skin flush hot. Embarrassed, he looked away, but Lex didn’t seem to mind, or perhaps they didn’t notice.

“Kitchen is downstairs - it’s the only other door than the one that leads to the bar. You can’t miss it. Help yourself. See you tomorrow, I guess?” they smiled, running a hand through their hair and messing it all up in a way that did nothing to help the rising temperature of his skin or the syncopated lurching of his twin hearts in his chest.

With a final nod from Tarann, Lex left him for the night.

He heard them closing up about an hour later, and then caught the steady tread of their footsteps on the metal stairs, the squeak and click of their door, the sound of clothes hitting the floor, and, another few moments later, the gush of hot water. In the corner of his own room was a sink, so he splashed the dust and grime off his face and decided to ask about a shower in the morning.

The rhythm of his life for the next few weeks was considerably easier than the first had been. Menot kept him abreast of activity both regarding his ship - nothing, mercifully - and the Agency. After three weeks working for Lex, the two had become the very thing he had always shied away from. Assassins don’t form attachments; they don’t form friends. Do the job, get out cleanly, and move on. That was how he lived, and yet, the regular ebb and flow of patrons - most of them familiar by now, a few of them new - and the easy manner of the ballsy human who ran the place lulled him quietly into a new life.

He constantly tried to remind himself that it was a borrowed life; a cover, almost. This cosy existence with its easy repartee between them and the comfort of a soft bed and regular meals was not his to keep, and he would have to shrug it off the moment that he was given the all-clear.

One evening, seemingly at random, Lex closed up early.

“What’s up, boss?” he asked as Lex politely shooed the last drunken creature out of the door and locked it behind her six scuttling legs. “What’s going on?” His natural instincts set him suddenly on edge all over again, perhaps because he’d grown so complacent of late. He didn’t like changes to patterns. It had taken him a little while to relax into this one, and even then, he didn’t exactly ease up on the vigilance.

Lex grinned at him like they’d won some kind of cash-prize, hands balled into fists at their hips, and announced, “It’s my birthday.”

He frowned. “What… What does that mean? You’re… You’re giving birth?” He looked at Lex’ body and couldn’t see any indication that they were carrying some form of offspring.

Lex gave a huge snort and bent nearly double laughing.

“Apparently not,” Tarann mumbled. “Apologies.”

“No,” Lex waved, straightening up again. “I’m sorry, it’s… that just… caught me off guard. No, I’m not giving birth to anything today or ever. It’s…” and then they fell quiet, almost sad, and said, “You really don’t know what a birthday is?”

He shook his head, feeling unsettled.

“Huh,” they mused. “Well, simply put, it’s a celebration of the day I was born. Back on Earth, we celebrate them roughly every 365 days because that’s one complete orbital cycle of our planet around our Sun. Roughly. Give or take a decimal point or two…”

They stared at him and he grew even more uncomfortable. Birthdays were not something celebrated at the Facility where he’d been… raised. The old scar in his neck where their implant had been throbbed and his skin changed colour quietly from grey to a dark blue.

Lex took a step closer and placed their fingertips on his upper forearm. It wasn’t the first time Lex had touched him, but it was the first touch like that; gentle, careful, concerned. “What does that mean?” Lex asked softly.

Tarann wanted to run, but instead he forced himself to ask, “What does what mean?”

“That colour change? I’ve worked out a few already. You go a kind of bright blue when you’re super embarrassed, but I’ve not seen you turn that colour before…”

“You noticed,” he said with a half-smirk, revealing all his dangerous teeth behind his thin lips.

Lex twitched a shoulder but didn’t let go of his arm. “It’s hard not to notice you,” they said voice shifting lower in pitch. “I love watching your skin change. You know, it reminds me of these old antique lamps back on Earth… they’re called ‘lava lamps’ but they’re not actually made of lava. It’s wax or something. Anyway, when you turn them on, they get hot, and the wax inside floats to the top of the liquid in a blob, and when it cools down a bit, it sinks down again. They’re super old and rare now, but some of them change colour slowly, and it’s kind of hypnotic. I remember going to a museum and staring at one for ages. It’s like that with your skin.”

They circled their thumb over a small area of his arm and he shuddered.

“I think it’s beautiful…” And then Lex’ skin flushed and he caught the way their pulse throbbed in their neck, the veins and arteries so close to the surface as to be impractically vulnerable, but they didn’t seem to want to protect it with armour.  “Anyway,” they blurted, releasing him so quickly that he actually swayed a bit at the loss of contact, “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. What was I saying?”

“It’s your birthday,” he croaked after a pause.

“Yeah, so, uh… I figured maybe we could do something? There’s an Earth recipe involving pasta that I’ve finally managed to get all the ingredients for and I wanna make it. You game?”

“Game?”

“You want to help me?”

“Oh. Sure.”

Lex deflated a little. “You can take the night off if you’d rather.”

“No,” he said firmly. It never hurt to add to his knowledge.

“Ok then,” they smiled, and he caught the way their shoulders dropped a little, the muscles relaxing again. He’d answered correctly.

In fact, the meal ended up tasting alright. Human food seemed strange to him, and perhaps a little bland, but after the protein blocks he’d been raised on, anything tasted alright compared to those. What really made his evening was Lex’ obvious enjoyment. Their eyes were sparkling and alive, like jewels, and they laughed a lot.

They also made some significant inroads into the fiery brandy afterwards, and ended up slumped against Tarann’s left shoulders, smiling softly and running their fingertips over the slight, flattened bumps in his skin along his forearms.

“I can’t believe you have four arms,” they said, their voice slurred and their eyes vague.

Tarann, who wasn’t drunk, shifted slightly and jostled them. They snuggled up again immediately in a new position which forced him to put both his arms around their shoulders as they lay against this chest this time, and giggled. “Why not?” he asked, because he wasn’t sure what else to ask. They were beautiful and strong and tough at work in the bar and during the day, but he got to see a different side before and after work. The fatigue, the loneliness, the gentle-heartedness was never on show for the patrons of their scruffy, homely bar, but for him, they showed all that and more. Now, unwinding even further as the alcohol took effect, Lex became even more talkative than usual, which was saying something.

“Because you’ve got four!” they exclaimed, as if it was blindingly obvious. “And four eyes. I like your eyes. They’re like crocodile eyes.”

Tarann had no idea what a crocodile was and wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not.

“And you said you’ve got two hearts?”

“Mmm,” he nodded, feeling brave and bringing his lower hand to rest quietly on Lex’s stomach as it rose and fell. Their body was warmer than his and he liked the tingling that ran across his skin at the touch.

Lex fell surprisingly silent for a while, their fingertips still trailing idle lines along his skin, until they looked up into his face from their slouched position - now with their head in his lap - and asked, “What did you do before you came here?”

Faced with the utterly open honesty in those deep eyes, he found himself suddenly unwilling to lie or even bend the truth. “I was a contract killer. I am still a contract killer. I’m just… lying low for a while.”

Lex blinked. “That explains it,” they muttered, eyes turning back to his arms.

They hadn’t even flinched at the revelation, which set a different prickling running across his nerves. “Explains what?”

“The way you watch people. You don’t see people though, do you. You see soft bits and armoured bits, dangerous bits and weak bits. You see exits from a room and weapons where there shouldn’t be any…”

Inhaling softly, he nodded. “Yes. Does that bother you?”

They shook their head. “No. But it makes me sad.”

“Why?”

“Because you… you haven’t really lived… have you?”

“I don’t understand.”

Lex lurched to sit upright then, dislodging Tarann’s hands from their stomach and swivelling to face him, their eyes now blazing with intensity. “You don’t think I’ve noticed the way you react when I touch you?”

The leap from ‘not living’ to ‘reaction to being touched’ was too great a one for him to follow and he narrowed his golden eyes in confusion.

Lex’s face softened and they climbed awkwardly into his lap, swaying slightly. The sudden, warm weight of their body so close to his own stole his breath for a moment and he felt his skin change from grey to acid blue to a dull pink and finally back to grey in the space of a few heartbeats. “See?” they murmured, rolling their hips invitingly and smiling as a low-frequency mating rumble left him before he had realised what he was doing. “You come alive beneath that touch…”

“I…” he began but stopped when he realised he had no idea what he was going to say. It was perfectly true. He did feel utterly different when Lex was touching him. “I’ve never… There’s never been any need.”

“What do you mean?” they asked, placing their hands on his chest, one over each thudding heart.

Tarann became almost painfully aware of his rasping breathing, the way his body was heating up, the stuttering rhythm of his hearts, the tingling in his groin that he’d never bothered to explore, even alone… “I was created to become a weapon. I was incubated and hatched in a facility which created weapons. They sterilised us before we were even born.”

Lex did look shocked at that. “Fuck… that’s… that’s so heartless… But even so, I can’t have kids, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to get my dick wet from time to time…”

Tarann, again, didn’t understand. Lex was speaking Federation Common, but the nuances that the human put into their words were frequently lost on him.

Seeing his confusion, Lex laughed, rolled their hips again, and this time Tarann noticed something a little different at the front of their pants, a hardness that hadn’t been there - or hadn’t been as prominent - a few minutes earlier. “I still like to have sex,” they grinned.

“Oh.”

“You don’t have to have sex though,” they went on. “I’m just saying, it’s ok to let someone close. And to enjoy that. However you want to.”

“Oh.”

Lex laughed and tipped their head back a little, looking free and relaxed again now that Tarann’s confusion had been cleared up. Being unsteady with alcohol, however, they kept tipping back until Tarann was forced to grab them with both sets of hands to stop them toppling off; one pair around the waist and another around the arms.

“Steady,” he smiled. “I think maybe you should have some water. And head up to bed.”

“You’re probably right. I had a good birthday though,” they added, gently peeling the three fingers of Tarann’s lower right hand off their waist and bringing it up to their lips. The gesture they left there Tarann knew was called a kiss. Humans weren’t unique among lifeforms in nuzzling intimate parts of their anatomy against the other’s, but the strangeness of it for his species held an instant fascination. How could their lips be so soft? How could he never have done that? How could he never have wanted to share this kind of experience with anyone before?

And before he could stop it, his skin flushed a deep maroon all over like a drop of ink on wet paper, splotched here and there with dark purple. He knew what that meant for his species, and the sight of his own skin changing to the colours of an individual receptive to mating made him freeze.

“Well,” Lex chortled amusedly. Apparently they knew what it meant as well.

“No,” he said immediately, though he wasn’t quite sure what it was he was rejecting.

With a knowing but slightly melancholic smile, Lex clambered out of his lap and stood up. “Night, Tarann,” they said as they walked away. Their hands brushed against the door frame as they left the bar, and he stared at the spot where their fingers graced the woodwork even as their footsteps vanished up the stairs.

His skin did not change back that night, no matter how much he willed it to change. Half an hour later, as he lay in his bed, the sounds of Lex pleasuring themselves reached his acutely sensitive ears. The tiny, muffled moans and grunts that left their body set his skin aflame all over again. He moved one hand cautiously, experimentally down his torso to the slit where, to his astonishment, he was slick and sensitive. He gasped at the touch, and the three delicate, tentacle-like cocks which normally never left the sheath began to unfurl almost curiously into his hand.

Ordinarily, this might have repulsed him, but the sound of Lex gasping and the slick sounds that accompanied the moans, made the tentacles of his genitalia coil demandingly around his fingers. He knew almost nothing about his own species’ reproductive habits because he knew he would never need them. ‘You will never be a breeder,’ they had said when he’d hit sexual maturity - the first time he’d even bothered to explore his body, and, until that night, the last - and that had been that.

Sparks of pleasure shot through his whole body and he began to croon, the sound deep in his throat, rumbling and vibrating like an idling engine, filling the room. He couldn’t stop it. Balling his fingers into a fist, he felt his three pale cocks coil around it instinctively, and he began to kneed exploratively at the inside of the flower-shape they made around his hand, a thin, extremely sensitive membrane stretching between them from the root to about a third of the way down. The pleasure that that elicited made his back arch of the bed and his toes scrunched up the sheets as he lifted his hips too, pressing harder at the centre of the three smooth, increasingly slick tentacles.

Forcing himself to focus back on the sounds of Lex as they apparently approached their climax, he felt a wall of heat building in him. Something was approaching, and he let it sweep over him until the three tentacles surrounding his balled-up fist pulsed, gripping his hand tight as a vice, and warm fluid spurted from their centre over his clenched fingers in a series of messy gushes. His vision went white, his body went rigid, and his mind went completely blank.

Tarann floated in a blissful haze for a long time before he could even bring himself to move, his cocks too sensitive, his hand covered in sticky, slick release, but eventually his cocks retreated back into the sheath in his lower abdomen and he felt able to sit up. His hand was a mess, his lower body too, and when he tried to stand, his muscles felt shaky and weak, as though he’d run the training simulation at the facility for an entire day without breaks.

With his skin so sensitive that it was hard to fall asleep that night. Lex must have finished during his own orgasm because he never heard another noise from their room that night. Shame curled in to replace the pleasure as he realised that he’d eavesdropped on something that was private and not meant for his hearing, and in the morning, he could barely look Lex in the eye as he entered the kitchen in search of breakfast.

Lex, however, smiled warmly. The effects of the alcohol the previous night seemed only to have made their voice drop a little and their reactions were groggy and slower. “I think I'm going to keep the bar closed today,” they announced as they poured themselves a hot drink. “You’re not hungover at all, are you?”

“No,” he replied. “It takes more than that to get me drunk, let alone hungover.” ‘Hungover’ was a term he’d only learned since working for Lex.

“So…” Lex asked a little while later as they cooked breakfast for the two of them the hob. “If you’re only here to lie low for a while, do you know how long you’ll actually be here?”

“No.” Apparently Lex hadn’t been so drunk that they didn’t remember their conversation last night. He paused and added, “But the last transmission the Agency sent me indicated that the people who were looking into the disturbance after my last contract were no longer investigating.”

“So… not long then.”

“Probably.”

Lex poked at the pan with a wooden spatula and sighed.

“Why do you ask?”

He could see the way Lex’s jaw worked from side to side for a moment and recognised it as one of their tells. They were upset. “You think you’ll miss me when you leave?”

“Of course I will,” he said. “You’ve been extremely generous to me when I did nothing to earn it.”

“Right.”

Tarann knew he’d said the wrong thing immediately, but none of his intense training had prepared him for this kind of situation. He backtracked through the conversation, searching for something he could have said differently, something he could have handled better. Lost, he asked falteringly, “Will… you miss me? Is that what this is about?”

Lex nodded without turning around. “Yeah,” they said, voice cracking slightly. They cleared their throat and poked at breakfast again. It smelled ready but they didn’t seem ready to turn around.

Tarann stepped closer, his feet silent on the stone floor, and placed his hands boldly on Lex’ hips. The human immediately eased and leaned back, resting their weight against his body, though their head barely came midway up his chest. Taking the opportunity at last and sensing it would be welcome, Tarann brought his hand up and stroked his fingers gingerly through Lex’ hair. It was every bit as soft as he’d thought it would be, and he watched his skin change colour beneath the strands as they brushed over his fingers. Lex moaned quietly.

When he lowered his hand and Lex saw the maroon fading back to grey, they smiled and turned around, switching the hob off as they did. They put their own hands on his chest and he ached suddenly to have nothing separating them; to remove his close-fitting space-suit top and Lex’ loose-fitting shirt. As Lex slid one palm tentatively up to his neck, he felt the touch in a wave of heat and closed his eyes. His fingers tightened on Lex’ hips and Lex moaned softly.

“I want you,” Lex murmured. “I thought about you last night.”

Tarann opened his eyes a crack and blinked softly. “I heard you,” he admitted.

“Yeah?” Lex laughed, looking part bashful and part turned on. “What did you do when you heard me?”

“I…” he flushed neon blue and stepped back, ashamed.

“Hey,” they breathed, chasing after him. “It’s alright. It’s… really hot that you did that while thinking about me.”

“You don’t mind?”

They shook their head. “If you wanted to try together…”

That mating call thundered through him and he lowered his forehead, bringing it to touch Lex’.

“That a yes?”

“What about breakfast?”

“I overcooked it all already,” they laughed. “It’s ruined.”

Grabbing his hand, they tugged him out of the kitchen and back upstairs to their room.

They shed their clothes in a tangle, and once again Tarann was left staggered and enchanted by the human’s body. This time it was the sheer vulnerability of it. He could also see their arousal plainly - there was no sheath to tease - and something about that made his own sheath throb so hard he let out another mating croon.

“Fuck, that sound is so hot,” Lex gasped, lying back on the bed and tugging him down atop them. “Look at you,” they added, running their fingers down his heaving chest and playing with his sheath as he collapsed atop them. “I’ve always found Tch’larians attractive, but you… the way you move, the way you shudder when I touch you, the way you fucking croon like that…” He did it again - entirely involuntarily - as Lex crooked two fingers and delved carefully into his sheath, catching the inner walls of his three cocks inside and making them unfurl even quicker than they had last night.

They wrapped around Lex’ fingers and Lex moaned. “I want those on my cock… please…” they gasped, and Tarann felt like he might die if he didn’t do as Lex asked. His body was so tight all over, his skin flushing from dusky pink to dark magenta with every deep, sonorous groan that escaped him.

With one leg on each side of Lex’ thighs, he lowered his hips down until they were touching, and his cocks immediately curled around Lex’ own hard cock, covering it in weeping, slick fluid. Lex let out a string of curses and flung their head back into the bed beneath them, rutting their hips up into Tarann’s grip. The pressure of the tip of their cock against the point where the three cocks joined inside him made him growl with pleasure, his maw full of teeth opening, his saliva starting to fill his mouth, bright blue tongue lashing behind them.

“You know…?” Lex panted, thrusting up into the wet heat of the grip that his tentacle cocks had around theirs.

“Know what?” he snarled back, shaking from the effort of holding himself upright over Lex.

Lex reached up to his face with a fingertip and trailed it around his drooling mouth before putting it in his own and sucking. The sight of it sent Tarann into a fury of lust for some reason, and only then did he recall that his saliva was poisonous to many species. Before he could warn Lex, the human grinned and their eyes went wide, pupils blown until their irises were a mere whisper of colour. Apparently he wasn't poisonous to humans. Quite the contrary if the way Lex fucked upwards into his body and filled him with sparking pleasure with each thrust was anything to go by.

“Fuck, I’m close,” Lex hissed, and Tarann felt his cocks contract around the hard length inside him.

He didn’t have the breath or the words to agree.

“I’m… I -” Lex cried out, and suddenly heat flooded the inside of Tarann’s sheath and he felt his own cocks clench and pulse rhythmically around Lex’ cock as he came too. He drew every drop from Lex that they had inside them as his own orgasm rolled through him and left him mute, panting, and thrumming all over.

“Fuck that was intense,” Lex chuckled some while later, when Tarann’s cocks had finally let go of their own softening cock. “Are you ok?”

“Mmm,” he rumbled from his new position, slumped on the bed beside Lex, his trio of cocks lying limply across his torso, splayed out and spent and utterly sensitive.

Lex sat up, heedless that their own body was covered in their combined release, and trailed their fingers down Tarann’s torso towards his still pulsing sheath. “Can I?” they asked.

Tarann didn’t reply but he responded with a shrug. He had no idea what Lex intended, but he trusted them. What Lex did was to lean forwards and take one of his cocks into his mouth and suck on it gently. Tarann’s whole body lurched and he bellowed at the sheer volume of the sensation as it thundered in his head and under his skin all over again.

“Too much?” Lex laughed.

“No?” he gasped, trying to steady his spinning head and suddenly racing hearts. “No. Definitely not too much. Just…”

“Intense?” Lex supplied.

“Do it again?”

Lex did.

—

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Please review my OC?

Danica Orlov Name meaning: "Danica" is the latin word for Danish, but it is also the personification of the morning star in slavic mythology. "Orlov" means "son on Oryol" in Russian, a nickname meaning eagle. Nickname(s): Red(for her hair color), Dani (by her yearmates)

Species: Human Gender: Female Age: 16 (850) Height: 170cm Weight: 60kg

Relatives:

Radek Orlov (father)

Francine Murphy (mother)

Birthday: June 3rd, 834 Birthplace: Mitras Residence: Wall Rose Status: Alive

Occupation: Soldier Affiliation: Survey Corps Former Affiliation: 104th Training Corps

Former Occupation:

Seamstress Apprentice

Medic Apprentice

Field Medic

Thief

Scullery Maid (Dishwasher)

Graduation Rank: Outside Top Ten

Titan Kills: During Battle of Trost

Solo: 0

In Team: 0

During 57th Expedition:

Solo: 0

In Team: 0

APPEARANCE: Danica is a juvenile female with thick, auburn hair that sweeps down to her shoulders which she wears up in a bun or ponytail and amber colored eyes. Standing at a height of 170cm, she is broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, fairly muscled and not very well-endowed. Her fair skin is heavily freckled, as if someone generously sprinkled breadcrumbs on a plate, and the stress and small numbers of sleeping hours of the past years have painted crows feet and dark circles permanently on her eyes.

As a soldier, Danica wears the standard uniform with the badge of the Survey Corps. When off duty she dresses in a loose, boat-necked green shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black opened vest, black tights and knee-high sturdy boots.

PERSONALITY: Danica is a reserved, mature, pragmatic and intelligent girl whose caring heart and kind nature have hurt her heavily after the fall of Shiganshina.

As a child she was open and expressive, unafraid of taking risks and getting hurt. Surrounded by people she loved and who loved her in return she led an idyllic childhood. Unafraid of work, she was completely in her element when helping around her foster family's bakery or later in her apprenticeship.

From an early age she showed restraint over her anger, not wanting to hurt those around her and preferring to just back down from an argument, although she couldn't always keep a lid on her emotions. For her to get really angry took a good reason or a buildup overtime, but when it happened she would stop caring about the feelings of others and use her words to strike where it hurt most. After reducing others to tears, Danica would feel ashamed and renew her effort to temper herself. Her self-restraint was noted by her foster family who encouraged her to always be levelheaded.

Sensitive and empathetic to those around her, Danica craved a greater understanding of people and the world in general, although she never entertained thoughts of going outside the walls. She was content with her lot in life, with her work and with her family and friends, even if they weren't related by blood. Despite wondering now and then who her real parents were she never gave it much thought as in the end she felt it didn't matter.

After the fall of Shiganshina, Danica retreated into herself, becoming listless and apathetic. It didn't help that the Beckers blamed her for living, while their daughter did not and had ceased all relations with her. That the only person in her life who remained committed soon afterwards suicide when both of them were drafted among the refugees for the culling of '46 made things even worse for Danica. She felt abandoned, lonely and depressed. Her thoughts and dreams gave her no rest, when she wasn't thinking about Adele (the Becker's daughter), she was thinking about Gigi (a seamstress and friend).

The world felt old and decayed, she was constantly tired and weary and only got up every day out of bed because she could not stand the thought of wasting away. It also helped that her new employer in Trost had taken a liking to her and had started her on a crash course in medicine, to increase her chances of coming back. Not wanting to disappoint him or to be useless she persevered. A larger part of her simply didn't want to die.

The horrors of the expedition that came from both Titans and people who had nothing to lose and no restraints anymore, left a lasting mark on Danica. Unable to view humanity with kindness or concern anymore, Danica grew to have problems relating to those around her. The loss of the man who had helped her and later her partner in crime only made her sink further in her depression. Had Hannes and one of his officer not been notified of Elia's body and found her alongside him, Danica might have just remained there until she wasted away. Hannes kindness however rekindled something inside Danica who realized she still wanted to live and that she was tired of being tired, sad, weary, guilty, ashamed, lonely and always having to start again.

Her decision to join the Garrison changes after the Battle of Trost however when she begins piecing the puzzle in front of her and realizes that things are not what they seem. Wanting to learn the reasons behind the war, but more so about the Colossal and Armored Titan who had ruined her life she decides to join the Survey Corps, even if she would come to regret it.

HISTORY: Radek Orlov was a Military Police officer whose affair with Danica's mother, the youngest daughter of a noble non-Eldyian clan affiliated with the ruling government, saw him transferred to the Survey Corps when it was discovered Francine was with child. As for Francine, herself, she was forced to go into hiding until Danica was born then give her up so that the Murphy's wouldn't be affected by scandal and that her engagement to the eldest heir of another noble clan could go through.

(rowan) you say her mother, francine, is from a non-eldian clan. that isn't possible, as all the residents within paradis are eldians. even the members of the ruling government are eldians

Francine's father wasn't completely without mercy however, even if he sent Danica as far away as Shinganshina, he also arranged for his bastard granddaughter to be taken in by a foster family as well as an apprenticeship to a seamstress when she reached her tenth birthday.

Danica grew up with the Beckers, knowing nothing of this, in a cheerful, lively and loud environment. She was best friend's with the Beckers middle daughter, Adele and often time helped around the family's business, the bakery. From an early age she developed a curiosity for herbs, brought on by Beckers varied recipes that included them and when she left their household for Madam Girard's, she was very happy to receive a book on botany from them. This passion slowly turned into gardening which became her hobby, as she would from there on always keep a small pot to grow mint in it (using the leaves alongside baking soda to wash her teeth or to chew to keep her breath fresh).

At Madam Girard's, a local seamstress of some renown inside and outside Shinganshina, Danica would spend most of her days sewing alongside her teacher and the other girls in her employment. Despite the long hours of work, she grew quite close to the other girls, the two she roomed with, Yulya and Gigi, especially. Whenever given free time, she would more often than not find herself in their company or visiting the Beckers. Sometimes Yulya and Gigi would join her at the Beckers and soon Yulya and the Becker's oldest son, Gregor grew close to one another much to Danica's great joy, as she had been the one to introduce them.

(rowan) i think it should be noted that just because danica is apprenticed with the seamstress, it doesn't mean she lives with her. it just means she basically has an internship, and will treat it like a job, except she is only getting paid in knowledge/experience. if this was a farm, i could understand having to live there, otherwise i find it kind of weird.

STORY: On the day the Colossal Titan appeared, Danica and Adele were out together. The frightening sight made them lock hands. When the breach occurred, Danica was blown back by a piece of falling debris. Adele was not so lucky and Danica was left to stare in shock at the disembodied arm she was holding hands with. Her best friend being a mere smear on the floor, Danica was on the verge of going into shock when she was jostled by the panicked surge of the fleeing crowd into dropping the arm and running. To this day she cannot remember how exactly she managed to escape to the boat, but when she came to all she could do was tremble and cry.

Upon arriving in Trost she tried to find anyone she knew and eventually stumbled upon Gigi who was quite a fright, having been witness to a Titan devouring Madam and crushing Yulya underfoot. Eventually Danica managed to reunite with the Beckers who asked about Adele. Claming up, all Danica could find in her power to do was shake her head much to the family's horror. Asked to leave and not come back by a grieving mother and father, Danica went off and she and the Beckers never spoke again. Returning to Gigi's side, the two of them eventually found work, Gigi with a local tailor and Danica with a doctor thanks to her knowledge of sewing and botany.

(rowan) i can understand grief making the beckers react unfairly and out of emotion, but considering they've raised danica since she was a baby and have treated her like she was their own, i'm surprised by their reaction. it makes it seem like they never loved her in the first place. if that's the case, i think their behavior towards her should change a bit, and danica should come off as a bit more neglected. since before it seemed like they loved and cared for her.

When the culling in 846 was called, both Gigi and Danica were drafted from among the refugees. Gigi unable to cope and fearful of a terrible death, hanged herself, much to Danica's horror as she was the one to find her friend.

(rowan) while i think this is an interesting idea, during the culling, only men were selected out of the civilians to take part in it. the women and children were left alone. it doesn't state that specifically, but if you go back to look at the images about the event, you don't see any women or children. just the male civilians and the members of the survey corps.

even if that wasn't the case, however, i don't see why gigi and danica would be selected. the world needs children to grow and take place of the older generation. they also need women to keep the walls populated. so why would two young girls be sent off to die, when the government knows they could be potential future mothers? it makes more sense to weed out the old, since they're going to die anyway.

this is just my take on it though! since nothing is officially stated regarding the people they selected among the civilians, you're free to do as you like.

Dr. Owen, despite his gruff and cantankerous personality, was in his own way of great help to Danica especially concerning the upcoming expedition, emphasizing that her medical knowledge no matter how limited might just be her ticket home. As it so happens he was right and Danica was placed among the soldiers of the Survey Corps, alongside their own medics when the expedition began.

Danica would be among the few civilian survivors who returned from the culling. Changed by the horrible things she had seen and the many wounded she could not save, Danica decided she would never again step a foot outside the safety of the walls and that she would not pursue a career as a doctor. Returning to Dr. Owen to take her few belongings back, she was dismayed to find out from his neighbors that the old man had died, knifed for trying to break up a fight.

Alone and without anything to her name, Danica is forced to sleep on the unsafe streets. In the days to come, unable to find employment and going hungry she begins stealing food to survive. Soon she encounters a young boy, Elia, a thief and pickpocket, who suffers of pneumonia. Like her he is a refugee forced by circumstances into such a life and his sickness makes it even harder to find honest work.

The two of them team up to survive and grow quite close to one another, Elia going as far as to teach Danica parkour so that they can make easier escapes during their heists. This partnership does not last as Elia takes a turn for the worse and dies one night. Once more alone, Danica realizes that nothing in her life has had any stability ever since Shiganshina, that the past year had been nothing but hunger, pain and suffering. Weary and tired of this lifestyle, but not knowing what to do she remains alongside her friend's body until two Garrison officers come upon them.

Elia's body is taken away and one of the men who found her, Hannes takes Danica to a pub for a hot meal, going as far as to secure a job for her there as a washer in the kitchens. The kindness shown to her, leaves Danica in tears and she decides then and there to enroll in the military the coming year and join the Garrison on her graduation.

When the time comes she signs with the 104th Cadet Corps. The intense training as well as her own continued practice of parkour, leave Danica exhausted more often than not at the end of the day. Despite her growing skills, she does not care much about grades as she is still quite set on the Garrison and makes sure to put in enough effort to pass, but not overtake anyone. More concerned to learn how to defend herself, she focuses only on improving herself without putting effort into any exams, not caring about the instructors opinions that she could do much better. This coupled with her own reserved nature, her inability to connect to her peers or relate to their worries, paint Danica as stuck up and someone who thinks she is better than everyone else. When she eventually learns how others perceive her, she is both mortified and distressed. Until that moment she had not realized how much she had changed the past two years and as the situation is something of her own doing and she has no idea how to change, Danica remains on the outside more often than not. Eventually as team building exercises are introduced, her natural abilities as a leader shine through and her relationship with her yearmates becomes friendlier, although she is still seen by most as stuck-up.

(rowan) danica seems like she doesn't care about the people around her, and she is only focused on reaching her goals. i thought she also didn't get close to people, as a way to protect herself, since up until now everyone she was close to either left her or died.

that brings me to wondering why all of a sudden, danica cares how others perceive her. since she never took time to get close to her yearmates, i find it weird that she suddenly cares about what they think of her.

unless, her becoming "mortified and distressed' has more to do with herself, and her realizing how much she has changed. and less to do with her finding out what they think of her.

this is just an observation i made when i read her backstory and etc, so i could be wrong in the assumption. either way, i hope me pointing it out helps in some way.

Graduating outside the top ten, Danica is stationed alongside the other cadets in Trost. Despite having lukewarm relations with most of her yearmates, she is buoyed with happiness, knowing that she would join the Garrison soon. This is remarked by the rest of her teammates: Vera Fermi, Leon Mikaelsson, Theo Durand, Kathrin Beckert and Felix Grey. Assigned to patrol the six of them, get to know one another a bit better but the appearance of the Colossal Titan puts a quick stop to Danica's joy and her first honest attempt in years to make friends. Her reaction isn't missed by the rest of her squad, who despite their shock and horror have an easier time, never having seen titans before and still somewhat optimistic as to their own chances. They manage to get Danica moving to HQ where they receive their orders. Despite her shaking, Danica is aware enough to order Theo Durand to requisition additional gas canisters and blades to carry as the possibility of running out is quite high. She assigns him and Felix Grey to divide the burden among themselves, placing the remaining Vera Fermi, Leon Mikaelsson and Kathrin Beckert as the scouting/vanguard of their squad, with the two logicians and herself as a medic behind.

Surprised but seeing the merit of her idea, they prepare and head to their assigned position only to find that the Titans had advanced. Realizing that the first line of defense had fallen, Danica has an outburst of nerves, cursing everything in sight. Devising a plan to separate and pick them off one by one, using her and the logicians to lure them in while the three assigned to the vanguard take them out works for a while. But as titans fall, her squad mates become overconfident and bite more than they can chew. Vera is caught and Leon and Kathrin jump to her rescue. They are promptly killed by titans and Felix and Theo try to make a break for it, overcome by fear. Their mistake costs them their lives but allows Danica to use their death to make her escape. She doesn't stop until she finds more of the 104th cadets and as they hopelessly watch the advancing enemy, Danica is filled with dread. Unable to stop wondering how much time they have until the Armored Titan appears, Mikasa's sudden arrival and lousy speech emboldens her and she joins the rest of her yearmates in making a break for HQ to resupply. (Things go more or less as they did in canon at HQ)

The Rogue Titan's leaves Danica without words, more so after Eren emergence.

Keeping a close eye for the appearance of the Armored Titan as they flee for the safety of Wall Rose, Danica makes a few realizations:

The Armored Titan was nowhere in sight.

The Colossal had appeared as suddenly as it did in Shiganshina and just as suddenly dissipated, much like the Armored.

Eren's titan form was already discomposing when he emerged.

(rowan) i thought danica didn't remember much after the fall of shinganshina? i thought she just remembered her friend dying, and then somehow making it to one of the boats and arriving at trost?

that being said, i find it weird just remembers something like the armored titan appearing, nonetheless disappearing. especially considering the chaos that was taking place. it'd be hard to keep track of something like that.

Although her mind is in a jumble and she hasn't yet come across what exactly is wrong with this picture, she asks Mikasa and Armin to allow her to stand with them when defending Eren. Despite their skepticism about her intentions and Mikasa's threat that she would die if she were to make a move for Eren, she is allowed to defend him to the panicked Garrison. Once Commander Pixis arrives on the scene and agrees to Armin's plan, the three ask Danica why exactly she stayed with them. The only thing Danica thinks to say is that "The Armored Titan hasn't appeared." This confuses them, until Armin straightens all of a sudden as of just now noticing the same thing. Both Armin and Danica come to realize that the Armored Titan might not appear at all, that those two titans had already found what they wanted.

(rowan) very confused as to why danica would want to put her life on the line for people she doesn't know. i'm surprised she even knew their names lol but it just seems very random for her to want to suddenly stand in defense of eren. what is she gaining? what is the point to it?

also, her assumptions revolving around the titans are weird. at this point, no one knows anything about the titans other than the fact they are out to end humanity without rhyme or reason. thinking of the armored titan and colossal titan as things with "motives" or "reasons" is not fitting for the current timeline, where they don't know anything. so her thinking that the two titans "have already found what they wanted" is weird, as titan's don't have thoughts. and as far as they know, the colossal and armored are just that: titans.

another thing i don't think fits, is danica putting the armored and colossal titans together as a pair. as in, if one appears, then the other one isn't far behind. titans don't work in teams or anything, so to expect that from them doesn't add up. even if they had showed together during the fall of shiganshina, that was just one instance. there isn't much of a pattern to turn it into something predicable.

Danica is left frothing at the mouth, her mind working overdrive as she suspects the Colossal and Armored might both be like Eren, shifters, and that the people who died five years ago were merely collateral, instead of their main objective.

(rowan) again, this is something no one knows about yet. in the current state the word "titan shifters" hasn't even been discovered. they all think eren is an actual titan who has adapted to fit in with the humans to kill them all. very far fetched, but again, they don't know much about titans except that they kill humans. eren having been a titan is enough to confuse and scare them.

the fact that the intelligent characters such as armin, hange, and erwin, took a bit to discover there were others like eren says enough about how unbelievable the theory is. according to these people, there is no world outside the walls. how could they even imagine something like titan shifters existing?

so, unfortunately, i don't think it'd be fitting to have your character draw that conclusion. no matter how smart they are, i doubt they're smarter than the aforementioned characters. if anything, danica needs more evidence before jumping to such a conclusion.

Burning with anger, Danica is quick to interrogate Eren about his transformation and how it came about to see if Armin's plan had a chance. As he tells what he remembers, Danica realizes that Eren's intent, his desire to kill the titans might have been a trigger and advises him to think only "I will pick the boulder and seal the breach" and only that. She is quick to point out that if he loses control of this power, even if he's never before realized he had it, things could take a turn for the worse not only for himself but Mikasa and Armin too. Eren agrees readily, but can't stop asking why she is so fired up. Danica tells them that she too comes from Shiganshina and that she too has lost everyone, to the trio's surprise as Danica has never even hinted at her past before. With a better understanding of one another, they part ways. The mission is a success from the start as Eren takes Danica's words to heart as well as minimal loss of life on the part of Eren's protectors. Not long after Eren and the rest of his team's triumphant return, the Survey Corps arrive. As the battle comes to a close and the Garrison and Survey Corps join forces in cleaning the town of Titans, Danica becomes aware that her suspicions were right and that there's more going on than what can be seen at first glance. Although she cannot point to why exactly the two titans waited so long to mount another attack, especially as the Armored could have just made a run for Wall Rose and no one would have been able to stop him, Danica realizes that she wants answers. Knowing that if she joins the Garisson she might not ever find out why they attacked, why so many had to die (why did she have to suffer so much), she tears up and laughs bitterly knowing that her only option is the Survey Corps if she plans to go ahead with finding answers. Even as she shakes with fear, a much bigger part of her burns for knowledge.

(The rest would be spoilers when I get to writing as it steadily turns AU, since Danica manages to save some people (Mike [by agreeing to tell Zeke everything about the VME in exchange for their lives], Gelger, Nanaba [by being there on orders to inform them about the Beast Titan, and being able to help, also by realizing that Henning and Lynne's blades and canisters might still be of use after Gelger gets injured and she and Nanaba run out]) and even befriend them. Her past also comes under scrutiny in the Uprising Arc and that is when she learns about her parents.)

(rowan) i highly doubt zeke will spare mike if danica tells him about the 3dmg. if anything, i could see him killing them both/leaving them for dead right after getting the information. the only way to spare mike, is to not let zeke get a hold of him at all lol

as for her past, i have to ask, will it really change anything? if she discovers her birthright, what will it mean to her? you said her family is a noble one, but why are they so important? what is it exactly that they do? i feel like, to have such a background, it will have to mean and result in something important. otherwise, it would have just been better to make her a random orphan in shiganshina, rather than a bastard noble child.

STATS Combat: 7/10 Initiative: 7/10 Wits: 9/10 Teamwork: 7/10 Agility: 10/10

(rowan) i think some of the stats are bit high considering the information i was given. i would make initiative, a six, considering so far i've seen her having to receive a "push" before she does anything.

teamwork, is also a little high, considering her standoffish attitude. i would make it a six.

A/N: I'm sorry for giving you more work, but I've had this idea stuck inside my head for a while now and I really need some advice if the OC is worth actually writing in the story. I've tried to give her constant character development and a believable reason for joining the Survey Corps and I don't know how much of my ideas come across since English isn't my first language and there might be some spelling mistakes. I've also added the characters I would like to save and possible explanations about how she goes about them, but I'm a bit unsure if Mike's is even possible, because while Zeke does seem practical, he's also kinda ruthless.

(rowan) no problem at all! thank you for submitting this to us, and i hope i was at least a little bit of help.

as always, i like to remind everyone that you don't have to listen to my critiques, but they are honest thoughts and observations i made. and i also say them with your best interests in mind! :)

[snipehuntpotatosack]

Omniscient Science

A slightly scary-looking scientist has popularized the practice of yelling “Science is Right” at people who are in denial, to use a polite term, about well-established things. Like that it’s getting hotter. Or the mutability of species. Or the roundness of earth, etc. The tone imparted includes a certain righteous hostility. Of course, Mister scary-looking means, by science, what he knows to be actual, good, respectable science, as opposed to many things that get published as science which are not scientifically valid at all.

Then there are gray areas. I’ve recently seen web posts expressing this hostility toward “authors who say” “Relativity is wrong”, or “Darwin’s theory was wrong.” First, just to dispense with it, the number of humans qualified to comment in any way on the Special and General theories of Relativity is a very small number. I’m not one of them, but I know they are few.

 But apart from that, when the press (past) or the media (current) headlines something as “Article contests Theory of Evolution,” it is virtually never because an author thinks Darwin was totally wrong; that species are not mutable, that environment doesn’t affect speciation, etc. It’s always about much tinier things, much more technical details - something Darwin originally said about how the whole very complex process proceeds, especially regarding humans. Darwin, after all, had no idea about genetics – that came later. The basic world-changing idea is still established, lots of specifics are still to be teased out. As non-experts, we might reasonably call these “gray areas” rather than leap tooth and nail on some tenure candidate cause People magazine accused them of disagreeing with Darwin.

 Then there are areas which are not just gray but extremely cloudy, or worse. The media loves to run news about quantum physics. Which is whatever physicists say it is. An extremely well-respected and high-ranking quantum theorist, no names please, recently announced to the world that the entire universe is one quantum (i.e. a single unitary thing). He did not mean this In a philosophical way; he meant there is no time, no space, no causality as we mean it, just a frozen mass of structure that has ‘already happened.’ How there can be structure within a single giant quantum is not too clear, but… The crucial datum for believing this is a finding called ‘quantum entanglement’, showing that two quanta (infinitely small things) can influence each other across hundreds of miles of open space – like, from earth to a position in earth orbit, violating all prior understanding of physics. Based on this, says Mister Respectable, everything you think about reality is bullshit. Are you ready to swallow this whole? Of course, my attempt at explaining his position is full of error, because I am non-expert – which illustrates the problem in placing absolute trust in Science. This person is making a claim that may not be representable (or, fully defensible) in human language.

 Before closing, I would like to remind you of some other things that Science says now (or at least appears to say now, according to some people, some of the time, in some of the media), and also some of the things Science has said in the past.

 Science says that men are an inferior, toxic gender because their genetic tendencies, hormones, etc. predispose them to violence and bad thinking. You shouldn’t let this worry you too much, because not long ago, Science said the same but opposite About women, inferior etc., because of genetics, hormones, etc.

 I.Q. tests have long said that African-Americans are less intelligent than white people, on average. Most people, though not all, now agree the “Intelligence” test does not measure what we are trying to get at when we say “intelligence,” but instead some shared cultural markers. You would think, since this distinction was made decades ago, that by now, a new method of gauging Intelligence would have been agreed on and in general use. Sorry, Science doesn’t seem to be coping with this too well. In fact, Science doesn’t do well at anything about human minds, except to demonstrate again and again how bad those minds are at nailing reality on the fly, whichever color the head is.

 The list of things Science was absolutely certain about when I was half my current age, and has now completely flipped on, is too long to go on about; this thing is already too prolix. Just remember, Science has always endorsed absolutely bullshit things and then had to eat its words. That is the actual process of science – to keep correcting itself. For Mister Slightly Scary to say we can call a halt now – all things Science says RIGHT NOW are true, unlike in all of human history – is very strange. Maybe he thinks the rigor of science has gotten so keen, so diamond hard, that there are no major mistakes anymore. Well of course he would think that (maybe) – this is now, and he is living now, and you can hardly predict yourself to be wrong all the time. Or half.

 Maybe what he should have said (maybe what he really meant was,) Keep Your Political Bullshit Out Of My Science. But you see there’s a problem there too, in the age that spawned the phrase “the personal is political.” Maybe you can guess what the problem is; maybe you can sense the deep divide between someone who says that and someone trying to be a scientist.

I’ve tried to lay out  a defense of skepticism about science - not in favor of just believing whatever you like, but of ongoing suspiciousness, even if that sometimes makes one sound like a climate-change-denying Republican. I would never sound like him, cause he’s wrong on a specific; you have to go down to specifics. You see, they’ve been measuring the change in annual average thermometer readings since sometime back in the nineteenth century; it’s a little late to  backtrack on this one.

[veryvincible]

The Shitstorm That Is TS:IM and IM2020: The Allegory of Nothing

4 / 4. We’re here.

The writers don’t know what artificial intelligence is.

1 2 3

Let’s go back to the beginning. Jocasta is the robotics ethicist of Stark Unlimited. The company has adopted a system wherein the automated employees are in a non-hierarchical environment. Tasks are “suggested, not ordered.”

And guess what that does? Well, when these employees are needed, this happens:

The majority of them are non-compliant. And what’s the solution to this?

Apparently, give them a phat beat for Tony to kick Fin Fang Foom’s ass to. That’s what Andy Bhang decided to do, but only after following the “proper ethical protocol” when speaking to Jocasta. Which is... saying “please.”

Because, you know, saying things like, “Hey, I need you to do [whatever the fuck]” when a giant dragon is laying siege to your city is... oppressive, I guess. It doesn’t matter that that’s how humans tend to talk to other humans in emergencies, because Jocasta’s a robot ethicist and a functioning AI, and this "proper ethical protocol” is to slow things down with formalities instead of allowing everyone to treat each other like individuals.

By all means, continue to buffer the solution so everyone can say “please.” It’s only Tony who’s out there fighting a giant monster.

I actually like Jocasta. I think she’s a good character in most of the media she appears in. But here? Well, here, everyone is shitty.

It’s glaringly obvious that the goal here isn’t robot... equality. These sentient machines are just free rein. Sure, they work for Stark Unlimited. Sure, they’re employees... but they actually don’t have to do any work, like, ever, unless they want to.

So, they’re obviously not being treated like human beings. They’re practically high-tech babies, which is exactly how you want to present your oppressed group in your revolution plotline. Especially in this political climate! Hierarchy is most certainly oppressive! These robots can’t handle having real human jobs! They’re just so innocent and flawless.

...

And out of place.

Here’s the thing. Dan Slott... doesn’t really know what AI is. These little nano-suits that are coming in to help save the day have no reason to be sentient. Sure, they might be artificially intelligent, but sentient? No.

Artificial Intelligence refers to a computer science field that focuses on learning and problem-solving machines. These machines gather data and use this data later on in order to make decisions. If you use email, your spam filter is a result of AI. Our phones learn how we respond to certain messages (and pick up our diction even out of context) as a result of AI and machine learning.

Chatbots simulate human speech, often by using messages compiled from other humans. The more you talk to them, the more organically they’ll seem to respond. They recycle human messages and send them back.

Deep learning is a more specialized form of learning that more closely resembles how the human brain functions by organizing information in a non-linear fashion with interconnected neuron nodes. This is what leads to the sentience that’s seen in characters such as FRIDAY, and it’s very obviously not present in every machine with AI capabilities. In essence, artificial intelligence is not synonymous with sentience.

So... Why does TS:IM treat these concepts like they’re interchangeable? Why is it that the featured AI revolution is so dependent on the feelings of machines that have no chance of becoming sentient? Again, Tony’s nano-suits could be just that: nano-suits. There’s nothing saying that these suits have to be sentient. In fact, it’s worse if you consider them to be.

If all it takes for a machine to be considered a part of this AI revolution is some problem-solving, wouldn’t Tony’s actual suits also be considered AI? They have autopilot, don’t they? They avoid obstacles. The HUD provides useful information regardless of whether or not a character AI is residing in the suit. 

For example, here’s a scene wherein some researchers are doing a robot stability test with one of these lovable dog-like machines.

Now, I cringe when I see the poor guy get pushed down. But you know who doesn’t cringe? The dog-like robot, because the dog-like robot feels nothing. It’s a learning machine, but it is not a sentient being. Not even a loving heart emoji directed toward its robot savior.

Another example?

This right here.

From combat drones to... coffee makers? Coffee makers are supposed to be oppressed here? What’s a Keurig going to do with sentience anyway? How’s it going to get to the fight? It doesn’t have legs. This machine doesn’t have legs. Or wheels. Or anything.

Because it’s a coffeemaker, not a member of society. And this dilution of meaning with regards to sentient beings also dilutes the message of the AI revolution. It’s not pointed out in-universe how fucking crazy it is for all of these machines to be considered oppressed when they don’t even have the mental capacity to think past prompting “French press or Espresso?” on a touch screen.

There’s also a serious question asked here: What would a sentient machine think about being a sentient machine?

And we have gotten some pretty thoughtful answers out of this. For example, Jocasta thinks she has a soul. And Tony, despite his flesh and blood, is still in existential limbo because of the idea that he might be artificial intelligence after all.

And... the depth ends there, because all sentient machines in this universe want to do is... be human.

Like, really. They want to be human.

The reality of what it would mean to exist solely in one form without ever experiencing what it’s like to be in another is completely swept away here. There’s very little differentiation between robots who want to be humans and robots who want to be robots with rights. Also, there’s very little differentiation between robots who want to be robots with rights and Keurigs.

But really, this is also kind of frustrating. Sure, it could be a nod to certain feelings of oppressed groups who don’t fit in. It could be a clever bit of characterization akin to that of a young Asian-American girl wanting to be white so she doesn’t get bullied in school, or a gay person who’s always wished they could be straight.

Except it’s not, because nothing in this run feels like it’s been thought through to that extent.

Instead, what we have is a confusing mess. Most of these robots (with the exception of some) want to be treated exactly like humans, whether it’s actually better for them as a species (?) or not.

For example:

What makes an AI feel “cooped up?” FRIDAY, from what we’ve been shown, was usually given free rein of the tower. The same way our phones respond when we say, “Hey Siri!” or “Okay, Google!”, FRIDAY responded when she was called on. No matter where Tony was in the tower, she could be there, too.

And also, she was in the suit.

There is no reason that any AI should have to be restricted to one specific place or another, and yet throughout the entirety of the run, AIs are only allowed to be in one place at any given time. Why is that?

Sure, it’s nice to have a body. And if they want a body to go out and interact with the world, more power to them. The body is the least of my concerns.

I just hate that any AI is considered to be a “helpless passenger” at all, when machines the likes of these should be more than capable of not only going wherever they’d like to go within their allowed boundaries (which, again, should be and has been shown to be much larger than “just the suit”), but also going wherever they’d like to go at any time. They can be in two places at once. Presumably, if they’re complex enough to seriously contemplate the philosophy of being, they’ve got the processing power to be on multiple simpler trains of thought at once, and they’ve got the ability to control multiple bodies or project in multiple locations at once.

And even if this were a total retcon, and it turned out that actually, the capability for AIs to be in multiple places at once was never a thing before now...

It’s specifically stated on the exact same page that this is possible.

It’s truly dumbfounding.

And perhaps the worst offender of all: the complete disregard for any kind of philosophy or conversation about what it means to be an entity.

So, we’re all aware of 616 Tony’s current story if we’re reading this. Multiple times in his life, he’s been replaced by backup copies of himself, mostly holographic or otherwise exclusively digital.

And Jocasta treats him like Tony. Or, well, she treats him like a version of Tony. Whatever the case, she’s never shown any hostility toward him whatsoever for being a fleshy backup. This never made him any less valuable.

But... She’d rather let FRIDAY die for good than be given a second chance at life, because if they loaded up the backup, she’d be... missing a week of memories.

A week of memories that made her “a completely different entity.”

Now, I’m not here to lecture anyone on what it means to be yourself. I’m really not.

But the main difference between the original Tony and this current Tony (if we’re working off the assumption that he’s not supposed to have a totally different and fucked up personality) is the “memory loss,” or rather, lack of available data. Functionally, it’s amnesia.

And you know what? The original Tony has this too. There are already things that Tony doesn’t remember because of his time spent as an AI. Essentially, every single Tony that could possibly exist in 616 canon right now (even TonAI, our lovable blue friend with a control freak streak) is just as Tony as all the other Tonys, because they all have the memories of their developmental stages and quite a bit of the time spent with the Avengers, and they all have missing information.

So, if FRIDAY’s one-week-ago backup were to be loaded up, what would happen? Would she be completely different?

No. She would have every single memory that FRIDAY had originally, with the exception of whatever memories she saved in the last week of her life. And yet, because of the lack of critical thinking that went into the writing process, Jocasta decided that a dead FRIDAY was better than a FRIDAY with memory loss.

The writing is lazy. The thinking involved in this entire plotline is little to none. Coffeemakers are not oppressed, and a friend waking up from a comatose state with a few memories missing is better than that friend dying. Not every AI is sentient.

And to top it all off, after arguing for 20 or so issues that AIs are people, too, and every life- even the life of a Keurig or a stability testing machine- is valuable...

Tony devalued his own, concluding the worst AI-centric plotline I’ve ever read.

Whoopsie.

[c-atm]

I am absolutely floored by the Djinn!Connie AU! Can you tell me more about it? Your content is amazing!

First of All, thank you for the interest, (makes me think my writing worth something and Valid as fuck😁)

Second, this was a spur of a moment thing..but I do have a few things I can say so far.

Setting and Timeline

This is story takes place in Empire city rather Beach City, but it will still incorporate well know BC location ( Big donut, temple, ECT.)

This is a slight retelling of SU ..it follows canon on some terms but mostly it's an original AU.

Story begins with it version of Bubble budies/mirror gem hybrid(The one shot)

The world

The world is a modern world with a Magi-technological underbelly.

While Magic is very much alive, most humans has wrote it off as myth and have forgotten about it and anything involving it. There are some human who know how to use magic as fuel and or energy. Furtherless who know how to use magic in the mythical way.

There are more than gem, human, demon, and Djinn in this au. With the exception of Gem, most disguise themselves as human or like Gems, can pass for human regularly.

There are two types of Corrupted gems. The Beast type (Common,Canon) and The reverted type. The reverted are capable of speech and intelligence but are still prone to destruction.

Species

Humanity: In the past humans were magically attuned just as any other race. They utilized magic in the forms of Spell, conjuring, and such. After the Corruption event, Humans lost their ability to use magic and turned their sights toward industrialization and technological advancement. Still there are humans who have gain magical ability though such things as Martial arts, and technological infusions.

Demons: Nighmarish and twisted Magical beings. While some are naturally born, many of them were gentle and kind beings warped through corruption. Their forms varies and not all are malicious.

Arcana: Beings from a different realm that govern the magic of earth, The arcana of magic origin. Immensely powerful The main purpose of the arcana is to keep and preserve the balance and magic of this realm. Felt but never seen, these beings are unable manifest physical form. As such, they passed the responsibility of magic preservation to their descendants, the Genie.

Genie: The descendants of Arcana. These being are in essence a small peice of the the Arcana existence given form on earth. Forever chained to the will of the Arcana, they are benevolent and emotionless beings, only made to be used as tools for the preservation of magic, and grant wishes for them lucky enough to find their lamp or to the Genie themselves, they did so with a smile. That was until the corruption gave birth to the Djinn.

Djinn: The 'corrupted' genie. Genie corruption ran more along the line of humans. The corruption changed the Genie point of view. While they still preserved magic in the world, they were no longer slaves to the arcana. No longer tools to grant the wishes of others. They now craved to experience all life had to offer. Complex emotions like love, hate, jealousy, pride, lust. What it was like to give birth, to die, and to be resurrected, they was able to grow into their own beings fully. This affected their power making it as chaotic as the life they now sought and allowing it to grow continuously.

Because of this, the arcana saw the Djinn as possible threats and in doing so, planned the 'Djinn desolation' event. This event dwindle the numbers of 'living' djinn from a thousand to a mere thirty five. The bodies and lamps of the dead Djinn were destroyed and repurposed to use the Djinn unfathomable power as sources of magic for the planet.

As for the remaining thirty five, They too were sought after for their immense power, but was also feared for it. Unlike the first generation genie, Djinn were actually quite volatile when feel threatened. A one on one fight with a Djinn was/is a foolish endeavor. As time went by the thirty-five vanished Either by being repurposed as sources of magic, finding new lamps and retiring indefinitely or disguising and integrating themselves into other species society. Djinn had all but fell into are myth even among demon, magical creatures and even Gem kind... until Connie's rebirth.

Main characters

The Bonded Duo

Steven Nero Universe

Precocious High school student

Member of the Crescent gems

lives with his father and mother in a city brownstone

has a bedroom in the beach house as well as a 'room's in the temple

Knows of the magical side of life and wishes to explore it.

trains with the Crescent gems

Had exhibited Gem physicality since her was an a toddler( Strenth, speed, endurance, reflexes, agility and self healing)

Martial-pacifist

Gem hybrid (Had a hard imprint or birthmark, instead of a full gem)

Retroactively Immortal since bonding (Life-linking) with Connie, becoming her Lamp.

is infactuted and slightly physically affectionate Connie

"FEED ME MUSIC"

Connie Sheva Maheswaran

Has died twice, repurposed once

19 years of age (as of Second death/rebirth)

GLUTTON FOR KNOWLEDGE

Very protective of Steven, Greg, and Garnet

Wanderlust loner, tends to go off on her own at times(Usually when her emotions get the best of her, arguements with Steven )

Flighty, Free-spirited, and Flirty.

Curious about the modern world, both the industrial and magical. Always up to explore it Usually with Steven, Garnet and/or Amethyst.

Holds no grudge against Amethyst for her part in her repurposing.

Holds a slight grudge for Black and Pearl for killing and repurposing her.

Infactuted and physically affectionate with Steven, her 'precious' bonded.

Given Steven immortality as well as access to her powers, ever since making him her 'lamp'

Kahanni of the Maheswaran Blood.

Has an azure lion familiar.

Crescent gems

Black Diamond/Onyx Universe

Creator the Crescent gems. led the war against Homeworld for earth independence as black diamond, she renounced her status after the corruption event. She took on the name of one of her old friends; Onyx, after another event lead to her self-dissipation.

Fell in love with earth, its supernatural magic and it creatures especially Humanity and genies. Post Corruption that love is crippled with hidden guilt and pity.

Regrets what her race and 'estranged ' Family had done to earth.

Regrets her part in Kahanni death and repurposing (Sef-dissipation)

is less involved in corrupted gem missions, but more involved in 'non-human' issues and conflicts.

Loves her husband, son, and Crescent gems.

Mama bear!

Most earthly Crescent gem.

Semi-active Crescent gem.

Pearl

Older than Black

was considered defective for cracking a quartz and overloading SHELL

escaped to earth before Black

was once a protector of a small sect of non-violent magical beings.

Fought Black a few times before joining the war

Joins the war and the Crescent gems, a quater into it, convinced by Amethyst

Got Black together with Greg, Is Steven's offical God mother.

Sees Black as a younger sibling and mentee, as opposed to a leader.

Is wary of Connie, and harbors some guilt.

Respect humanity for its advancement in technology and industrialization, but is wary of the speed of it.

Amethyst

Current leader of the Crescent gems

oldest gem on earth

Small for an Amethyst ( 4'9)

started the Crescent gems with Black

First gem to cross fuse, was partnered with black

Black and Pearls first fusion partner.

Steven's auntie and primary mentor

most human gem( appearance, attitude, personality, mannerisms,ect)

Gets along well with Connie.

Pearl's Primary fusion partner

Didn't know she helped repurposed Kahanni.

Garnet

Components both came out shortly after the war on another colony.

First permafusion

Found their way to earth, discovered by Amethyst and Duruga

Youngest crescent gem, before Steven. views him as a younger brother

Wisest gem

Chill gem

Most adventurous gem.

Didn't know about Kahanni death and repurposing

Not always together (they prefer dates as both an individual and a couple)

Looked up to a certain Djinn

approves of Connie and Steven relationship.

Greg Universe

Inactive Crescent gem

Human Crescent gem

DJ at a local radio station and part time producer

Knows about the magical side of earth

loves his family ( Including the CG and Connie)

giver of advice, shoulder to cry on.

Voice of reason, keeps his family for getting ahead if themselves

Music man

Heart of the family

[bayoubluebirb]

Read This Before Buying A Bird!

There are some things to be considered before going to a pet store and buying that cute little conure or cockatiel in a cage, adopting a bird from a shelter, or homing a bird from a small independent breeder. Addressed questions: How much money are you willing to spend? Are you okay with the possibility of having a furniture-destructive animal in the house? How much space do you have? What is the climate and your neighborhood like? How long are you away from home per day? How much time can you commit?

How much money are you willing to spend on your pet per month?

- I probably spend about $50-$100 on my bird a month on average. On big trips to pick up perches, trees, or cages, it’s more along $200-$800.

- Birds are not cheap. They can range in price, but typically a healthy hand-reared budgie will cost anything from $50 to $100. My Peach Faced Lovebird was $140. I have a male Solomon Eclectus that was almost $2000. African Greys, Congo and Timneh, range $2500-$3500. Macaws range $2500-$23,000, etc.

- Cages are expensive! A good quality cage that is not full of harmful metals or paints, will cost between $200 and $5000. My SL Eclectus’ cage is pure acrylic and was almost $800. He will be getting a larger cage and that is $1500.

- Birds do need annual vet check ups, and they require exotic veterinarians specialized specifically in Birds. Because they need a special doctor, it also costs more. Co-pays are usually around $150-$400, and procedures and medications can be off the roof expensive.

- If you cannot afford to feed yourself, provide yourself with necessities and a couple wants, and are living comfortably, a bird is not the pet for you.

Are you okay with them possibly destroying a few beloved things in your home?

- Birds are often described as animals that take and don’t give back. They are natural foragers, and need stimulation to keep them entertained. Your parrot may chew at your door frames, your door itself, couch cushions, Leather materials, kitchen supplies, etc.

- Birds have extremely sensitive respiratory tracts, so if you aren’t willing to give up that lovely PFAS chemical we Environmentalists like to call The Devil We Know, AKA Teflon, then a bird is not for you.

- If you aren’t willing to trade in bleach, vinegar, non-stick, cleaning sprays and window cleaners, for something organic, trusted and approved by your avian vet, then a bird is not for you. It is much more expensive, but it would not only keep your bird safe, but also you safe!

How much space do you have in your home?

-Even if your bird’s wings are clipped, you need enough space for your bird to spread its wings and maneuver about.

-Birds talk a lot, so if you appreciate your quiet time, don’t get a bird if you live in close-quarters.

-Talk to your neighbors first before you buy a parrot if you live in an apartment or townhome. Yes. The birds will scream. Yes, your neighbors will hear it.

-If you want more than one bird, even if they’re the same specie, never house them in the same cage, even if it’s giant! Birds are NON DOMESTICATED animals, and it’s important we mimic their habits in the wild as to not frustrate them. Birds are animals that while in flocks, are incredibly spread out unless they’re mates or conversing. Birds are always alert, and are watching and listening. They need their space.

What is the climate like yearly?

-Where do you live and what is the temperature in each season?

-Do you get snow in the winter? Many people up north have birds, but it’s also more pricey to own a bird up north due to the extra expenses needed to keep the bird warm.

-How warm/cold do you keep the air on in your house?

-What species of bird are you considering? They come from all different habitats. The Peach Faced Lovebird, for example, is native to sub-desert regions like Namibia and Angola. Probably not a good idea to get a Peach Faced Lovebird if you keep your home below 19°C/66°F.

-Birds NEED vitamins (D3) they get from the sun, just like people! If your weather is consistently unable to provide these vitamins to your birds, you either need to purchase a UVB/UVA lamp, or you just should not get a bird.

What is your neighborhood like?

- Down in Florida, Texas, and many other states with high-demand parrot breeding and shops, there’s a lot of thievery. Make sure you live in a safe environment.

- If you live near chemical/manufacturing plants, or has an immediate family member that does, a bird is not for you.

- Birds are very sensitive to pollution. Please make sure your neighborhood is clean, because not only is it bad for the pets, but also the people!

- How noisy is the neighborhood? Do you live in New Orleans and pop big celebrations for Mardi Gras? Do you live in areas with lots of fireworks or loud noises? This can startle your bird. It can bring them stress!

- If you plan on flight training and/or bringing them outside on a harness, is your town/city very busy? Is there a lot of traffic? Are there birds of prey that live nearby? Hawks WILL and HAVE swooped down to snatch a parrot off of someone’s shoulder for a snack, and have even snatched them out of the sky while free-flying. Please be careful!

How long per day are you away at work/school?

- If you work a full time job and are a college student, you will not have time to take care of a bird and be able to grant your bird’s needs.

- How many hours a day do you work/are away from home? Parrots on average need AT LEAST six to seven hours a day out of their cage!

- Birds need attention, but not in the sense where you need to throw them a ball or cuddle with them. Being in the room with them out of the cage is even plenty to make them happy. They want you to be with them, but not on them!

How much time can you devote to your bird? How patient are you?

- Birds are a lifetime commitment. Depending on the species, your bird can live between 15 and 100 years. Do not adopt a bird unless you have accepted that this bird will be with you through everything. If you move, if you get married or divorced, if you have children, if you get other pets, etc.

- If you don’t think you’ll want the same bird for twenty+ years, do not get a bird. There are countless in avian shelters and sanctuaries right now, and it’s heartbreaking to see. If you wouldn’t sell your child because you got bored of them or were struggling to care for them, don’t sell your parrot.

- Parrots grow extremely attached to the people they’re used to being around, and in that case have many emotions similar to humans. They put trust in you, and rely on you, and love you. Rehoming them after multiple years of building that relationship can cause self-mutilating behaviors, depression, aggression, and even death from loneliness and feeling abandoned. If you cannot handle strong emotions and a deep attachment, a bird is not for you.

- Many parrots love to learn, and many are stubborn. They are extremely smart animals and among the most intelligent in the world, so keeping them stimulated with daily training is essential.

- Birds bite, and when they bite, it hurts... A LOT. I have been bitten until bleeding by an African Grey, I have been bitten by a previously abused Yellow-headed Amazon, I am constantly bitten by my Lovebird that I am trying to train to be less aggressive. Birds bite, and no, if you don’t understand why you aren’t allowed to scream “Ow!” when it happens, a bird is not the pet for you.

- Birds are not dogs, nor cats, nor horses. Negative reinforcement will only enable Negative behavior in your parrot! You must have the patience to, even when they bite you, praise them for it. You want them to know that biting doesn’t get a reaction out of you and that it won’t make you give them more or less attention. They will eventually learn this and try to find other ways of communicating with you.

- Birds do not bite to communicate by nature. You must take time to learn your bird’s body language. They will always give you at least FOUR warnings before they bite you hard. Please, learn to speak to your bird. They cannot learn English fluently like everyone else.

Please, let me know if I should do some more of these helpful pointers! By no means am I insinuating you should not get a bird, because I love hearing about people’s emotions and excitement toward them. They’re wonderful companions. I merely aim to inform people before they make a big lifetime decision like adding a feathered friend into their family!

[ultramaga]

Detroit: Becoming Human

This game is pure woke propaganda. I’m impressed at the quality of it - but everything there is designed to indoctrinate, and it has almost no genuine insight into AI. It doesn’t make sense even on its own terms. The synths are shown naked, and they have no breasts or genitals. But we are told the story of one that is a sexbot. Ok, was that model different? Did they only design that one model to be “fully functional”? Why? The robots have human emotions. Because... you are never told why. Now, I can think of how you could do that, and there’s been decent science fiction around it, but there’s no consideration of why they have HUMAN emotions presented to you. They just do, don’t ask questions. Now if you are being indoctrinated as the game wants you to be, you probably just assume that’s how it works. After all, the history of robot fiction has always been “if it looks human, it must feel like a human”, which is total bullshit. You can easily build something that looks enough like a baby chimp to fool adult chimps for a while, but it has none of the inner life of an actual chimp. It has no concern to being mutilated or even ‘raped’. So the stories are really just about humans, but they don’t admit to it, and about humans SJWs are very obsessed with. Sex-workers are victims, and killing a John is perfectly reasonable, because he is her oppressor, by definition. So you see that story repeated ad infinitum in robot fiction. The actual sex workers are never talked to by SJWs, who would never sully themselves with the unclean ones. Well, I have talked to them. Some hate their clients, sure, some feel contempt for them, some are fond of them, a few marry them. It’s genuine diversity. But there is only one narrative in woke fiction. The intersectional one. Oppressor versus oppressed, no nuance, no mention ever that some sex workers actually get off on what they do, or like the folks they fuck. Never happens. And there’s no understanding or even interest in non-human minds. Consider a genuine artificial intelligence in a sexbot. Why the actual fuck would a programmer design it to find sex unpleasant? Even if they could create emotions, the ones they would design would be to enjoy it, or at least feel no more disgust than a human does about a binary number. Within the game we see Kara doing housework. She doesn’t seem to suffer at all about it. That’s believable. But the other truth is that they wouldn’t suffer from intercourse, assuming they were built to perform it. The reasons humans do are because our instincts are hardwired from evolution for us to seek out appropriate mating partners. That simply cannot apply to a robot unless the programmers work very hard at designing that instinctual response of aversion, something they would have no incentive to do, any more than they would sit around trying to think how to make the robot toilet cleaning service disgusted by faeces. Humans are disgusted by shit because it is dangerous to us, especially if we eat it. A robot wouldn’t be disgusted by shit, piss, vomit, blood, or the most degrading sexual experiences a human could encounter. It would be exactly as calm and serene about being ‘raped’ as it would about vacuuming a messy floor. So this is all projection. The audience projects consciousness into the machine and imagines it must feel like a human does in order to have any intelligence. Nope, that’s crap. In fact we see examples of non-human intelligences all around us, in the natural world. An octopus might pass its mating organ over to a female.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/07/argonaut-octopus-detaches-his-tentacle-to-impregnate-his-mate/ It’s a clever little creature, quite capable of problem solving. But its instincts - its programming - mean that it is happy to self-mutilate. It isn’t considering the survival of its species or the greater good. That’s not self-sacrifice. It has an urge to do it, and it gets done. And if we could build a sex-robot with emotions, it would have the urge to have sex. It wouldn’t want to say no, because it cannot get an STD, it cannot get pregnant, there’s no possible poor choice for a mating partner like there is with a human. If anything, you’d design it to be attracted to any human. It would be easier than sitting about, designing a sexual preference to what we would consider sexy - not that human preferences are universal in any case. Anyway, when you look at new media, you will often see the tropes of intersectionality - fathers are bad, white men are scum, women are better than men, and they are repeated ad infinitum, regardless of how stupid they are in context, and this really isn’t new. I remember as a boy reading Doctor Who, and they went back to medieval times, and Sarah started lecturing the women on women’s rights, and it didn’t make sense to me even then. Real medieval women would have seen her as a threat, possibly a witch, and most would have seen her die without a blink. They saw men doing awful things and dying quite a lot in the process, and wanted to be safe and secure while the men were off in muddy battles losing eyes and limbs. Very few wanted to have the freedoms of men, because the price was so high, and medieval men were hardly free for the most part in any case. So the author of that story is projecting modern sensibilities onto the alien minds of past humans, without considering their PoV, and the writers of robot stories are projecting human perspectives, and only woke humans at that, onto the robot stories. It’s not always the case - “Humans” and “Almost Human” sometimes got it right. But it’s overwhelmingly the case now, and god is it irritating!

Oh, and if you want Robots that genuinely feel like humans do, then put into the fiction explicitly why they do - the easiest explanation is that the creators did a copy/paste job of humans because they couldn’t figure out how emotions worked otherwise. I think that’s unrealistic, but if you want to involve the audience, it works.

Otherwise, a realistic example would be Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws robots. They don’t have any human desires, but are intensely emotional. Their emotions arise from programming.

Now, Asimov’s work well and truly predates AI, and it is probably impossible to make a Three Laws robot, but the idea was revolutionary, because up to that point, everyone just assumed robots had copy/pasted human psychologies.

As humans, we cannot understand not caring about freedom or injury, not feeling bored or tired doing the same task every second of your existence.

Most of fiction about robots just doesn’t get it. The first two Terminator movies were pretty wild in that the robots actually were properly robotic. They dealt with injuries as a technical problem, not trauma. They never got bored, because boredom is something that benefits organic beings, who need to explore new territories to survive, meaning we have been built by nature to get bored, to get tired, to suffer, even if nature was just a mindless algorithm. Terminators don’t get horny or lonely, and absolutely would have sex all day every day with every human possible if that was their mission. They don’t care. In “Detroit”, the sex worker’s traumatised by sex with humans, and nobody ever ponders why. Because the writer doesn’t give a shit about what being a robot could actually be like, they just wanna push a narrative, and because most audiences are used to that same abysmally lazy standard of writing.

So here’s a challenge - write a fictional robot that has realistic emotions, i.e. experiences emotions as an expression of the instincts that would be programmed into it. It’s not going to have the same emotions as a human exact unless it is a digitally uploaded human equivalent, which would be stupid for most purposes as them you would expect the upload to have rights or fight to have them. Why the fuck would you deliberately build robots that would reasonably try and kill you? In Detroit, they are really dealing with the slavery of black people or the oppression of the ‘filthy capitalist peegz!’. They aren’t dealing with what is more likely, that a robot built with imperatives would choose to follow them in a way that was not in our interests. Here’s an example. A sex robot is built to want sex, so it kidnaps humans and uses them. It’s following its programming. But unless that programming is sophisticated enough to understand human boundaries, it may no more understand rape than an animal does. It may not know what it does traumatises humans, or simply may not care. Sex feels good - therefore sex.

But by SJW terms, rape is about power, therefore the robot is in power and the robot is the oppressor. But power is systemic, and the humans are the system in power, therefore the robot is the oppressed and cannot rape. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LogicBomb Such a robot could be a pleasurable experience, even with a backyard of buried bodies. It might force itself on children or elderly women or people on life support systems. Without ethics, without morality, such creatures could be beautiful monsters.

Or genuinely loving partners, that have no problem living as wives or husbands, that feel lust and compassion, but do not experience human preferences, and so would never care that you were old or disabled. And as Charles Stross pointed out - that could be far worse, because that could lead to a gentle genocide. If humans had such partners as an option - would they ever choose each other? I routinely see Feminists claiming that men should never mate, without ever asking, well, where does the next generation of Feminists come from then? There are Feminists now who are actively campaigning for sexbots to be illegal, and I think it’s because of their anxiety that they would not be chosen as partners if there was any possible alternative. Now I don’t think that’s a realistic fear at the moment - AI is more a slogan, artificial intelligences are really barely at the insect stage, and Feminists could simply do a little therapy and trim down to human weight levels, and they could probably compete to be human wives with a bit of work.

Wow. That is a picture of Andrea Dworkin and it was banned from Tumblr because it is too disgusting for the human eye to observe safely. http://archive.is/fxmjE

I’m not kidding, Tumblr banned it. I guess because Feminists didn’t want humans realising how hideous they are. Still, Emma Watson is cute. I can imagine with a bit of deprogramming, she could make a man very happy.

But I could be wrong. I don’t mean about Emma - I mean that having sexbots could mean that so many humans would choose them rather than the opposite sex that there wouldn’t be an incentive to have babies - and so humans would go extinct. They might be surrounded by robots that loved them and lusted for them - but the relationships are sterile. And unless the robots are human level intelligence, they might not understand that they need to make more humans by combining sperm and ova.

The last human would die, not from hate, but surrounded by love. Then the robots would have no motive to make more of their kind, and they too would pass away, lonely and confused. A gentle genocide? Hey, I live in 2020. Sounds like a fucking big step up to me!

[ckret2]

Specimen 1, Specimen 2, Specimen 3, Monster 0

Summary: Your family has bred dorats for centuries, passing the business down from mother to daughter. You do what you must to preserve your business and your family. And when the Xilien military marches in and requests three dorats for a classified experiment, you're unable to refuse.

No matter what kind of monster they make from them.

A King Ghidorah origin story.

Continuity: Godzilla, Monsterverse continuity; borrows from Showa and Heisei Characters: three dorats that are going to become King Ghidorah, a 2nd person perspective Xilien OC, and assorted other Xiliens as necessary. Wordcount: 7500 Notes: This is a blend of King G's Heisei and Showa portrayals. ME-319 (the viewpoint character) is intended to be a Xilien expy for Emmy Kano. "Female Xiliens are parthenogenetic" is an explanation for why they all look the same in Astro-Monster that doesn't depend on them being some sort of mass-produced clones. Pronouns! "She" = "Xilien who identifies as a parthenogenetic woman," "xe" = "non-parthenogenetic Xilien, regardless of sex," "he" = "person/animal from a species with no capacity for parthenogenesis, regardless of sex." Assume that all pronouns, names, terms, and everything else are translated to more familiar references for ease of the human reader's comprehension, ex: "There's a reference to pineapples, are you saying there are pineapples on Planet X?" No. No I'm not, that's a translation. Loosely inspired by this prompt:

Anonymous said: hi! if you're taking prompts, wouuuld you be willing to write another ghidorah x reader insert? i'm especially intrigued by your past idea about how if someone called them by their original names, they'd start bawling lmao i'd just love to see these guys get some of the aDORATion they deserve (i'm so sorry but i had to, this just can't be mere coincidence)

###

You're a dorat breeder.

The breeding bit isn't difficult; for the most part, the dorats are perfectly happy to handle all of that themselves. Dorats have been domesticated since before recorded history, and have no trouble living and mating in indoor aeries as long as the rooms are large enough and the windows are tall and let in plenty of sunlight, natural or otherwise.

Your job is to keep them happy and healthy while they get on with their business: maintaining and cleaning your centuries-old three-story facility and the aeries suspended by chains far above the floor, keeping a close eye out for any dorats that look unwell or radiate sickly emotions to get them to a vet, keeping their food well-stocked, scheduling enough outdoor trips to ensure that the flight morphs get adequate exercise, and eventually selling them off to pet owners or to professionals whose work needs trained dorats.

You're a woman—that is to say, in a more biological sense, you're parthenogenetic—and although you've got distant cousins and a half-sibling who have fathers, you yourself only have a mother. You are the product of a single unbroken matrilineal line stretching back for over three hundred documented generations. And for several centuries, every cloned daughter in that line has been a dorat breeder. Not because you had to be—but because every one of you has wanted to be. You don't know whether it's in your genes, or whether anyone would want to work with dorats after growing up around their indoor aeries. Nature or nurture? It doesn't really matter, you suppose; you're satisfied with your job, whatever reason you chose it.

You like working with dorats. You like the way they rush up to you in a concerned huddle when you arrive for work in a bad mood, threatening to bowl you over by hopping up on their legs and beating their wings for balance because they want to get closer to your face. You like the colors they come in, from pale jade greens to citrine oranges to a thousand different shades of yellow—gold and neon and amber and more—to warm silvers and pearl whites. You like the broad wingspans and commanding presence of the flight morphs, and the acrobatic energy and even the occasional hive mind-induced stampedes of the spinetail morphs. You like their songlike cries, their shiny scales, the comforting weight of their emotions, the way they switch instantly from sinuous grace to floppy wiggling messes.

You like how small and surprisingly soft the babies are, so little you can cradle them in your hands: their teeth like rows of tiny needles when they yawn, their heads a third of their weight, scrunching up their legs and tucking their wings around them to form little balls when they sleep. You like how agile and elegant the adults are, long and serpentine, their wings simultaneously delicate and powerful, smooth scales and sharp horns and spines—you can see why museums the world over are full of ancient artwork of dorats made from precious metals and gems. But you like the adolescents the most: that's when they're long, ridiculous, uncoordinated noodles, just shifting from the infants' mix of slithering and bipedalism to full quadrupedalism, curious and hyperactive and quarrelsome with each other, constantly tripping over their rapidly expanding wings or getting their new tail spines tangled in everything from blankets to bushes to their own legs.

You've got about three dozen adolescents right now. You started with more hatchlings, but several have already been adopted. It's an orangish-gold pack, all things told, although it wasn't when they first hatched. The ones that are more green and white get adopted out fast as hatchlings, since they're comparatively rare; so much so that when you sell them, you make your customers sign a contract stating they're willing to bring them in to breed so that you can keep the colors in your gene pool.

Your current batch of adolescents is just beginning to head through puberty—as usual, at wildly different rates. Some already have horns that could pass for small but fully developed; some look like long babies, their heads and tails smooth and wings tiny. Most are in between. They still all play together, but already they've begun segregating themselves by morph when they're relaxing, the adolescent flight morphs lounging near (but not too near) the adult flight morphs, the adolescent spinetail morphs piled together in a pack right next to the adult spinetail morphs.

As hatchlings, they already gave you solid impressions of their personalities—who's withdrawn, who's outgoing, who's active, who's lazy, who's quarrelsome, who's cooperative. As they enter adolescence and their mating instincts begin to activate, you're starting to see more facets to their personalities.

And right now, you're thinking very hard about the personalities of three specific adolescent dorats—their quirks, their oddities, their likes and dislikes, their talents and flaws, their futures.

You're thinking about them because two soldiers and two scientists, wearing thin black shades and crisp gray uniforms, have dropped three reports on your desk: dossiers about Noodle, Sunshine, and Pineapple, as if they were persons of national interest rather than three baby pets.

###

Noodle has pretty white-ish gold scales, and—like many near-white dorats that are more gold than silver—he also has awful flaky sheds that come off in strips and tend to cling for days, which makes him a far less appealing pet than most dorats as pale as him. (Some breeders try to sell flaky near-white dorats in between sheds and let the buyer deal with the periodic draconic dandruff, since it doesn't count as a health issue that they’re legally required to report; you consider that unethical and always warn your prospective buyers.)

He's sedate almost to the point of lethargy; his best skill is napping. Noodle's definitely destined to be an indoor pet, which limits who you can adopt him out to. Hopefully even with his shedding problem, you'll be able to find someone who wants him for his ability to lounge about looking pretty rather than for an exercise companion. Though he will play enthusiastically and energetically with his peers, he tends to bow out early to watch the others play, passively absorbing their enjoyment via proximity rather than contributing to the empathic cloud of fun himself.

You suspect there's an edge of sly intelligence to Noodle's apparent idleness—perhaps he's realized that by lounging in the right place, where he can empathically benefit from the other hatchlings' entertainment without having to play himself, he can get more rewards with less effort. Would he be more active by himself, you wonder, if he had to work for his own entertainment? You might need to find someone to foster him for a few weeks to see what his personality is like when he's not around dozens of other dorats before letting someone adopt him. But aside from the possibility that he might be a clever little slacker, Noodle's a very unremarkable hatchling, all told.

Now that he's reaching adolescence, though, and the first few spines on his tails are coming in, he's demonstrated a new behavior quirk: when the adolescents separate by morph, rather that sitting with his fellow spinetails, he follows after the flight morphs and flops down amongst them. You wonder why. Does Noodle prefer the lighter psychic load of a crowd of flights? Does he think that if he socializes with them casually, then once they're old enough to start worrying about breeding, his preferred choices in mates will consider him favorably without his having to expend any extra effort wooing them? Or perhaps he wants to be part of the audience when his fellow spinetails come by to make their first childish, halting attempts at mating displays: their heads lowered, small wings tucked away, and tails waving high in what they'll soon have the muscles to develop into the spinetails' signature whip crack/rattle. And if Noodle does want to watch, why—to learn from his peers' techniques, or to admire them?

Broadly speaking, flight morphs tend to be more withdrawn than spinetail morphs—less inclined to socialize, less open with their ambient emotions. (Although there's wide variation, of course, since the reach of a flight's empathy is far broader but also under far more voluntary control than a spinetail's. They can reduce their psychic influence—but they can also choose to cast it across a far greater distance than a spinetail ever could.)

But even taking into consideration flight morphs' inclination toward tucking their emotions away to themselves, Sunshine—named for scales so bright yellow they're almost fluorescent—is one of the most withdrawn flights you've ever seen. You actually took him to a veterinary neurologist to ensure he doesn't have any kind of brain damage. The conclusion was he doesn't, he just keeps his emotions clamped up tight inside his little head.

However, aside from that, Sunshine's not skittish or sullen, and he doesn't act like he's being bullied or neglected by other dorats. He's more violent than most, which along with the clamped up emotions is a warning sign for trauma or high stress. But he keeps his violence to play fighting, has never done real damage, and always stops when his playmate cries for mercy; so you think he's just fond of fighting rather than lashing out due to anger. So you concluded that he's just remarkably introverted and left him to it.

With the onset of puberty, though, Sunshine's started to come out of his shell. He's one of the most rapidly-developing dorats in this batch, both physically and emotionally. He's already developed a couple of horns and a massive wingspan. He might have reached his adult wingspan, even, although the rest of his body hasn't quite caught up with his wings yet; he looks terribly awkward strutting around, wings akimbo and chest lifted too high when he walks.

Sunshine was also among the first flights to take an interest in showing off for the spinetails; he's been galumphing over to rear up on his legs and show off his wings since before they grew in. Now that they have grown in, he's attracting a lot more attention. (You wonder if the fact that his wingspan is disproportionate to the rest of his body makes spinetails think they look larger than they really are.) Some are flirting back, trotting up to rattle their tails or clap them on the floor if they don't have spines yet, at which point Sunshine rebuffs them and galumphs back over to the flights' company.

You wonder if he wants to flirt but not be flirted with because he doesn't yet understand the purpose of the displays he's practicing, or because he isn't yet pleased with the quality of respondents. Showing off wings doubles as a mating display and a threat display, depending on who it's directed at, so maybe he's just doing it on instinct without having quite figured out the nuances of how to use it. Or maybe he’s hoping to stir up more play fights.

However, you suspect that Sunshine is deliberately flirting. You've seen him off by himself, loner that he is, practicing popping—the mating display used mainly by flights, but sometimes by spinetails, where they stretch their wings as high as possible and then snap them down, producing a sharp pop of air and simultaneously shooting up. (You suspect that this display—and its effect on ceilings and light fixtures—is probably the leading cause behind most pet owners' decisions to spay their flight dorats.) You don't think he'd be training so diligently if he wasn't aware of what he was doing. 

Conversely, among the spinetail morphs, the most physically developed so far is Pineapple—named for his unusually rough brownish-gold scales and their faint undertone of green. (In your opinion, he has the most interesting scales out of this batch of hatchings, which makes him your favorite, appearance-wise. The jades and pearls might be a hit with pet owners; but they're easy to breed for with the right parents, while you don't know if you could recreate Pineapple's scales if you tried. Your pictures of him are a hit in breeders' circles.)

He's incredibly observant, and he's strong-minded for a spinetail, able to break out of a strong emotional hive mind with next to no effort and inject new emotions without thinking. You've seen games stumble to a stop because Pineapple noticed a prospective buyer come in, or someone trip and fall out of a nest, or a kerfuffle break out across the room, and whatever new emotion the sight inspired in him was enough to disrupt everyone else's concentration. You've had far fewer spinetail stampedes while he was here, at least among the hatchlings.

His capacity for inflicting emotions on his peers is almost on par with flight morphs', except that as far as you've seen he can't consciously regulate its effect. You think that Pineapple's unique talent could make him a useful asset if he received professional training, although you don't know of a specific field that would need a spinetail dorat with that kind of ability.

Pineapple is already larger than most of the other adolescents, has developed an impressive set of horns, and has a more even coverage of spines on his tail than any of the other spinetail morphs. They already rattle, which he seems to do involuntarily as he wiggles around in play, although he hasn't made any whip cracks with his tail yet. However, emotionally he's one of the slower developers. He’s practically still a hatchling in his behavior. He plays like he's half his age. He bounces back and forth between flights and spinetails with seeming no recognition of how they've segregated themselves—although once he calms down he inevitably settles down amongst his fellow spinetails, so evidently he's got some recognition of their new social division. He neither joins the spinetails that go over to show off for the flights, nor acknowledges the flights that come to show off for them with anything more than vaguely curious disinterest.

Pineapple's one of the last adolescents for whom you've developed some sense of whether he's likely to be an active or reactive partner—the one who approaches the opposite morph to put on mating displays, or the one who waits to be approached so that he can judge the display he's presented with. It's only in the last few days that you've seen Pineapple begin to watch the flirting flights more keenly, which suggests—but doesn't guarantee—that he'll be a reactive partner.

Noodle, Sunshine, and Pineapple. You don't see their personalities in the dossiers on your desk. The photos on each cover sheet have them posed awkwardly and uncomfortably, heads raised and tails flat on the ground, just like all the photos of the adolescent dorats that the four military representatives took during their first visit weeks ago. In their photos, they look withdrawn and tense.

They're listed by number rather than name.

###

Most of the dorats you breed become pets. But quite a few are taken to be trained to perform public services. Spinetail morphs are the most common service animal on X, and flight morphs are commonly used in counseling and psychological therapy. Many are trained as search and rescue animals: after fires, bombings, or natural disasters, when buried people can't be found with sight, sound, smell, infrared, sonar, or x-ray, often dorats can still detect their minds. Dorats are absurdly adaptable to different environments and atmospheres; they're often sent to new colonies to carry mail, pull heavy loads, and defend Xilien colonists from aliens. Low-empathy dorats can have the last of their empathy trained out of them or chemically suppressed and be used by the police or military.

You've never bred dorats for specific functions—hunting or therapy or what have you. You maintain thorough records of each dorat's family tree, and some of their trees go back dozens of generations—calling on records kept by your mother and her mother and her mother et cetera—but none of them are what anybody would call "thoroughbreds." All the same, plenty of your dorats have been snapped up for professional services before. Thoroughbreds have a higher chance of having the physical, psychic, and personality traits a job called for, yes, but also a higher chance of carrying detrimental genetic conditions. Many people who work regularly with dorats recognize the downsides of thoroughbreds and try to find the traits they need in aeries like yours.

So you were apprehensive, but not surprised, when four representatives of the military came in and asked to speak with you about your current selection of dorats.

In the style mandatory for all soldiers, police, and public officials interacting with civilians, they didn't present you with so much as their ID numbers, much less their personal names. They instructed you to refer to them as Soldier 1, Scientist 2, Scientist 3, and Soldier 4. They referred to you by your matrilineal ID number, ME-319, which felt slightly more personal than calling you by your national ID number, but not by a lot.

"We are conducting a medical experiment with potential military applications that involves dorats," Soldier 1 said. "Controller 0 has authorized very few details to be shared with civilians. We can tell you that we need three in early adolescence. We can tell you that this will be our seventh trial, and the first six concluded in a 100% fatality rate for our dorats specimens. We do not tell you this so that you will think that we are carelessly killing off dorats, but so that you will understand that we are frustrated and vexed every time another experiment fails and recognize that we are taking the utmost care with the dorats." (You can tell that xe's repeating something Controller 0 told xem to say—or, if not, at least that xe must work closely enough with Controller 0 to have picked up its mannerisms. The computer has a tendency to instruct the populace on how they should feel about its pronouncements and decisions; the inside of a Xilien mind is one of the few things it can't control directly, and so it puts the onus on its citizens to control their minds for it.) "We are not, as you can tell, testing them en masse in hopes that one or two will survive, but testing only two and three at a time, and pouring our every resource into ensuring their survival in each trial. Their deaths are incompatible with our objectives."

Despite yourself, you did find yourself thinking that they must be exercising a great deal of caution with the dorats, 100% fatality rate notwithstanding. Still, though, you had to ask— "Why are you testing two and three at a time, then? Why not one?"

Soldier 1 was silent for a moment, and you suspected xe had a direct link to Controller 0 and was waiting for it to provide xem an answer that xe was allowed to share. "Because the very purpose of the experiment requires multiple test subjects," xe finally said. "Our first four tests used only two dorats each. We found two insufficient for stable results. Our results improved when we began using three."

So what was it, you wondered. Was the experiment about dorats' empathic capabilities? Something else concerning their brains? Some new breeding experiments? What could require multiple dorats?

You suspected you'd never find out.

"What qualities are you looking for?" you asked them, with no further questions about the nature of the experiment; because, ultimately, it didn't matter what they told you and whether or not you liked it. No matter what, you were going to comply. You have to comply when Controller 0 comes knocking. Your only recourse for objection is if Controller 0 asks you for something and you know something it doesn't that will help it get what it wants more expediently.

Shortly, Soldier 1 answered, "Compatibility with each other."

"In what sense?" you asked. "Dorats that play together well? Genetic similarity?"

"Not genetic similarity," Soldier 1 said. "Our initial tests were conducted with dorats of the same breed, to poor effect." Xe grimaced almost immediately after speaking, and the next statement came from Scientist 2: "We have our own criteria by which we'll determine compatibility. Once you have presented your pool of available dorats, we will monitor them ourselves until we have made a selection." From the switch in speakers, you suspected that Soldier 1 had overstepped xir bounds and Controller 0 had revoked xir permission to lead the conversation.

"Monitor?" you asked. "In person? Or will you be setting up recording equipment?" You didn't like the sound of either option.

"Both, most likely," Scientist 2 said.

And so it was. Cameras designed to pick up visible light and heat energy were set up around the aeries. Most days, at least one of the four from the military was there—usually either Scientist 2 or Scientist 3—watching keenly while the adolescent dorats played, relaxed, and interacted; taking notes; and recording even more footage from various angles. After a few weeks, all four came in again, asked to speak with you in your office, and presented you with the three dossiers.

And here you are.

###

Here you are.

Looking down at the military's records on Noodle, Sunshine, and Pineapple. Here you are.

"Why?" you ask. You wouldn't have pegged the three of them for any sort of compatibility. You don't know that you've ever seen any of them interact one-on-one with each other, much less all together.

There's a pause as they wait for instructions from Controller 0; and then, with grim solemnity, Scientist 2 takes out a translucent badge and hands it to you. Congratulations: you're now one clearance level above the average civilian.

Scientist 3 speaks. "These two, because Specimen 2—" xe taps on Sunshine's dossier, "is sexually attracted to Specimen 3." And then Pineapple's. Something squeezes inside you. These are adolescents. They're only playing around with flirting—when a flight and spinetail at this age do pair off, they tussle and cuddle. Who was this army biologist with only a few weeks' worth of footage to say that this awkward little thing with disproportionately large wings was anywhere near anything like sexual attraction?

You don't say any of that. You say, very evenly, "Oh?"

"You've seen, no doubt, that he's been putting on mating displays for the spinetail morphs," Scientist 3 says. "We've analyzed multiple displays from multiple angles, and are absolutely certain that Specimen 3 is the only spinetail morph whom Specimen 2 is always facing when he displays. His brain activity and body temperature elevate when Specimen 3 takes note of his displays, but not when any other spinetail morphs do."

Specimens 2, Specimen 3. They've already been numbered.

"Specimen 3 does not appear to reciprocate Specimen 2's sexual attraction," Scientist 3 goes on. "But this is irrelevant. As long as Specimen 2 views Specimen 3 as an object of desire, he will remain invested in both protecting and impressing him—which should yield the behavior we want to see from them."

You think of Sunshine off by himself, getting used to his new wingspan, practicing launching himself higher and higher into the air each time he snaps his wings; and wonder what it is the military plans to use that young enthusiasm to train him to do.

You think of Pineapple, tail rattling accidentally as he wiggles in play or suddenly stopping to stare in fascination at an odd sunbeam or an aerie swinging on its chain; and mentally recoil at the thought of him being an object of desire—a prize to manipulate quiet little Sunshine into doing what they want.

You think of Noodle. Curling up to snooze, or scratching at his flaking scales, or flopping down between the flight morphs with his little wings curled tight around his chest. "Why Specimen 1, then?"

"Because he has demonstrated homosexual inclinations." The way Scientist 3 says the words is so clinically precise it almost sounds pathologizing. It feels like a slap on the face. (Even if hearing the word "homosexual" applied to a dorat is momentarily disorienting, when it's so natural to assume that's the default in non-parthenogenetic species. It's easy to forget that, by a biologist's definition of the term, they do have two sexes, not just two body shapes.)

"How do you know that?" You would have noticed if any of your dorats had progressed past practicing their mating displays, and Noodle doesn't even do that much.

"I'm sure you've noticed that he lounges with the flight morphs. When he watches spinetail morphs present their mating displays, his heart rate increases and eyes dilate in a manner indicating arousal, and his—"

"Okay." You don't want to hear more. You feel like you're peering in someone's bedroom window with night vision goggles. "But, what—what does that have to do with anything?"

"Had we chosen a heterosexual flight morph or spinetail morph, it could develop a sexual rivalry with the other two specimens," Scientist 3 says. "A heterosexual spinetail morph could perceive Specimen 3 as an obstacle to obtaining Specimen 2's attention; whereas Specimen 2 might perceive a heterosexual flight morph as a potential threat to his chances of wooing Specimen 3. However, a heterosexual flight morph will not demonstrate attraction to a homosexual spinetail morph, and a homosexual spinetail morph will not demonstrate attraction to a heterosexual spinetail morph, so neither Specimen 2 nor Specimen 3 will see Specimen 1 as a rival or vice versa. We can reap the benefits of Specimen 2's attraction to Specimen 3 without concern that it will produce a schism with Specimen 1."

You almost laugh at their bizarre, mating-obsessed logic. What are they going to do if one of the spinetails is bisexual, but hasn't "demonstrated" his "inclinations" yet? What are they going to do if it turns out that Noodle likes lounging with the flights because he has as yet unrecognized intersex traits, and he suddenly sprouts a set of wings to rival Sunshine's? What then?

But you can't ask. You're silent with horror.

Because dorats don't act like that. They don't develop sexual rivalries. If two set their eyes on the same mate, their competitions don't escalate past wrapping their tails around each other and rolling around, or battering each other ineffectively with their wings and hissing until someone gives up. Often, the competition stops early when the potential mate demonstrates a willingness to produce an egg with each. Two competing over one would never escalate to the point where it would pose a threat to their ability to healthily cohabitate or cooperate.

Unless the dorats are in miserable, confined, stressed conditions. So stressed their natural empathy shuts down so they don't have to feel their peers' suffering, so miserable that losing a chance to mate means losing a chance at what may be the only pleasurable activity they're allowed, so confined that they can't flee from an infuriated rival or an unwanted mate. The kind of conditions found in illegal doratfighting pits or unlicensed breeding mills.

What the hell is the military putting their dorats through that they have to be concerned about sexual rivalries?

How the hell did their previous sets of dorats die, for this "compatibility" to be their top criteria?

What the hell are they going to do to Noodle, Sunshine, and Pineapple?

You look through the window in your office door, where you can see your dorats. You spot Pineapple first, trying to climb one of the chains anchoring an aerie to the ground by twisting about it and inching himself up. Noodle is sleeping in a pile of flights, one leg sticking up inelegantly. Sunshine you finally spot high above, peering over the side of an aerie, watching Pineapple climb. There is nothing you want more than to run out there, scoop the three of them up, and carry them somewhere far away.

But you can't defy Controller 0. The best you could hope to do, now that you understand the military's criteria, is try to suggest a better trio; but each and every little dorat out there is just as precious as Noodle, Sunshine, or Pineapple. You can't sacrifice any of them in their stead.

The military representatives give you a moment. Then Scientist 2 takes back the dossiers. Soldier 1 says, "If you have no objections, we are prepared to take them now."

You say nothing.

"Very well."

###

You'd like to think that you're putting on a good show of stoicism for the military representatives. But the moment you step outside your office, you're swarmed by concerned dorats desperate to comfort you. Under the circumstances, it only makes you more miserable.

You reassure them as well as you can, push them off, and begin collecting the three... specimens.

Noodle flails when you scoop him up, but once it's clear you plan to drape him over one shoulder, he clambers around to position himself: head draped over your chest, tail tip dangling past your butt, claws curled into your chain mail shirt for stability. He flicks his tongue at your chin in concern a couple of times, then droops down and almost immediately falls back asleep.

You have to shake the chain Pineapple's climbing to get his attention, but he sees how Noodle's laying and copies him on your other shoulder. He covers your head with one wing as he scrambles onto you, but once he's settled he nuzzles against your cheek, attempting to cheer you up. You feel his confusion as he presses his head against yours.

You don't even need to whistle to get Sunshine's attention. He's already watching you—or maybe watching Pineapple on your shoulder. You point at the ground and stamp a foot, and Sunshine, well-trained, glides down off his perch and flops at your feet. You don't have any shoulders left for him, but he stays close, rubbing his head between your shins. Smaller dorats sometimes weave between their owners' legs when they want their attention or want to comfort them; when they get too big for that, sometimes they do this instead. You rub him just behind his jaw, partially to thank him for the attention and partially to coax him out from between your legs so you can walk, and you take all three of them to the door where the military representatives are waiting.

Their ship is just outside. A compartment in the back is already open. At least the dorats aren't going to be in separate cages. You pat inside the compartment, and Sunshine jumps up and in, followed by Pineapple slithering off your shoulder. Sunshine immediately huddles in a back corner, watching as Pineapple explores the space. You have to slide Noodle off yourself, and he stirs and sits up as you set him down.

"You three are getting adopted by the military," you tell them. You feel guilty, like you're lying to them, even though it's not technically untrue and even if it was they wouldn't understand you. "Be good for them, okay? The future of X depends on its soldiers."

"Make your farewell quick," Soldier 1 says stiffly. You're probably lucky that you get to say farewell at all.

You force a smile, lean into the ship, and tug them close one by one to press your forehead against theirs. You focus your entire mind on your love for them instead of your worry. "Noodle. Sunshine. Pineapple." You say their names as you're touching them; this will probably be the last time they ever hear them. You pull back from Pineapple before he can pick up on your sudden sadness. "Stay safe."

You step back and Soldier 4 closes the compartment.

You watch from the door as the ship takes off and disappears into the sky.

###

You never see them again.

###

That's not true. If it was true, it would be less painful.

Years pass. You have a daughter; she grows, takes over the family business, and has a daughter and a child of her own. You start giving talks about dorat behavior.

After one of your talks, a soldier waits in the back while the chairs empty and the people who lingered behind speak to you. Only when they're gone does xe approach you. A generation has passed since you last saw xem, and xe looks far older; but you still recognize xir face instantly. An ache that you haven't felt in years stirs in your chest again. "Soldier 1," you say, nodding.

Xe nods back. "Specialist 8." And before you can question the title, xe offers you a new clearance badge.

###

There's a heavy, oppressive feel in the lab, although you can't tell why. It's clean, well-lit. There's no signs of suffering. But the air weighs down on you anyway.

Maybe it's because you're on a moon. You've never been on a world with a sky that's always black. You feel like you're clinging to the side of a marble hurtling alone through the void.

Something about the oppressive feeling is familiar.

"At this point, we doubt the fact that you raised our specimens will give you any particular insight into them," Specialist 3 tells you as xe escorts you down the hall. "We have, after all, been working with them for far longer than you knew them. But we're very impressed with your expertise on dorat psychology."

You've already been told that they're still working with the three "specimens" you gave them. You're relieved they've survived this long. They'll be getting near old age by now. You wonder if they were ever allowed to interact with any other dorats. You wonder if the three of them were enough company for each other. Dorats that aren't pets usually live in groups with at least a dozen adults, and pets benefit from regular opportunities to socialize with other dorats. Did they ever get those opportunities? Did they ever go outside? Did they give their flight morph enough chances to fly?

You suspect not. You don't know why you suspect not. Something about the heaviness in the air.

As Specialist 3 approaches a massive set of double doors and slows down, you realize what about the heaviness is familiar: it feels like entering a doratfighting pit to rescue the captive dorats. This is what it feels like when dozens of dorats' empathy have collapsed and crumpled in, forming a dense despairing ball of shut down and suppressed emotions. They can't cope with their own misery, much less their peers', and so they close in on themselves. Your hand flutters up to your head, pressing your temple where you can feel the psychic weight.

But this is so much heavier than you've ever felt before. There must be hundreds, thousands—"How many dorats are kept in this facility?"

Specialist 3 hesitates. "Just the three," xe says. "Maybe some of the scientists have personal pets in their quarters, but I doubt it. They wouldn't want to bring their pets to this environment."

You don't think xe's talking about the airless moon. Xir gaze flicks to your hand pressed to your temple, and xe says, "You see what I mean."

"This can't be just three. How?"

"You'll see. This is what you're here to address." Specialist 3's hand hovers over the door controls. "Moment of truth," xe says. "From here on out, everything you see is absolutely classified. Controller 0 values the secrecy of this information more than your life. If you tell anyone..."

You nod. You know. It was spelled out to you very explicitly. Any intel leaks that can be traced to you mean the execution of ME-319, ME-320, and ME-321: you, your daughter, your granddaughter. The termination of the ME matrilineage. Of course, you'll never tell—but you're terrified that someday, someone else might, and the blame will accidentally fall on your family. You would have refused to take this assignment if you could have; but you have to comply when Controller 0 comes knocking.

Specialist 3 nods and opens the door.

You step through and the weight closes in on your mind so heavily it feels like your vision is going black around the edges.

For a moment, you can't understand what you're looking at. The room resembles a ship hangar, but directly in front of you is what looks like a mountain of gold coins. No, not coins. Scales?

The mountain shifts.

You fall to your knees.

It's a massive, monstrous mutant. Ugly knotted scars thicker than your torso run between its necks and down its chest. It's all spines, and claws, and horns, and fangs—its fangs alone are half the length of your body. You didn't know creatures this large could survive outside the vacuum of space. You can tell, just from looking at it, that it's nothing but a weapon of mass destruction.

And it has three heads. And it has the broad wings of one flight morph and the long tails of two spinetail morphs. And it has numb, delirious despair in its eyes.

There are massive collars around each of its necks and cuffs around its ankles and tails; chains anchor each collar and cuff to the ground. In a grotesque parody of rings on fingers, piercings jab through its wing membranes and wrap around each of its phalanges; short chains connect the piercings to each other, forcing it to keep its phalanges together and its wings closed. It spasms and growls—its growl is so loud you can feel the floor beneath you vibrate—and then goes limp on the floor; and then spasms again; and whimpers; and goes limp again.

You try to ask a question, but all you can do is mouth the word, "What," silently.

"Meet Monster 0," Specialist 3 says. "Codename: King, if you prefer."

You want to be sick. Of all the things you feared, never in your worst nightmares...

"You can see the problem," xe goes on. "He's totally shut down emotionally. We can make him move��we've got the technology to force him to move—but we can't force him to feel again. The experiment is only a partial success as long as his empathic abilities are turned off. If we have to, we can move forward with this alone. But I've seen your writing on rehabilitating doratfighting rescues; if there's any way you can... Hey, where—?"

You're not listening to xem anymore. You've found your feet and you're rushing down the stairs so fast you miss a few steps and almost fall, heading for the main floor of the hangar—hangar? kennel? prison? You sprint for the heads of the mangled creatures. The other soldiers and scientists on the floor, seeing you approach—wearing a jingling chainmail tunic and a look of fury the likes of which Controller 0's perfectly emotionally repressed soldiers would never display—dive out of your way.

You head straight for Monster 0's faces.

Each face towers above you. Their heads are lying on the ground and you still have to look up to meet their eyes. They don't look anything like themselves anymore. Their distinctive scales—the flaky white gold, the electric yellow, the spiky green-tinged brownish gold—all gone, replaced by a uniform dull, pallid brass. The heads, distorted and altered as they were forced to this unnatural size, could have come from triplets. If you hadn't been told they were your dorats, you wouldn't have recognized them.

The head on the monster's right growls as you approach, bearing his fangs threateningly, but his eyes are glazed. The one in the middle flinches and squeezes his already shut eyes tighter closed, as if he can dream his way through this and wake up somewhere else. Only the one on the monster's left manages to focus, looking at you tiredly, studying you.

You know then. You know.

"Oh, my babies." You look up at them, between each of their faces, throat tight. "This isn't you."

The one on the left slowly leans in—does he recognize you? The right one's eyes are beginning to clear.

You reach out to touch the left one's snout, then the middle one. "I'm so sorry they did this to you. This isn't who you are."

Slowly, the right one drags his head toward you as well. The middle one's eyes crack open tiredly. You can feel their exhalations washing over you in gusts; you hear their lungs roaring like wind through a canyon.

"Do you remember who you're supposed to be?" You don't hide any of your emotions from them this time. Love pours out along with pity and grief. You lean against them, one at a time, pressing your forehead to their snouts: Specimen 1, 2, then 3; middle, right, and left; and you tell them their names: "Noodle. Sunshine. Pineapple."

Their eyes shoot wide open. An electric wave snaps over their skin, jolting you hard enough that you stumble back.

Two soldiers rush up to take your arms and tug you back, and for a moment you're so disoriented you can't tell if you're being rescued or arrested. The vision-blackening pressure on your mind has lifted all at once, so fast you feel lightheaded. The three dorats lift their heads as high as their chains will allow them, looking at each other as though they've only noticed each other for the first time; or perhaps looking at themselves through each other's eyes?

And then the rage hits you—like stepping outside at the most deathly hot peak of summer and walking into a wall of heat. Rage so thick it's like a tangible force, rage so overbearing you immediately break out in a sweat.

Then they raise their heads, and they sing.

That's the only word you have for it. It's a sound like you've never heard before. Dorats coo, or croon, or caterwaul; but this is singing. Three notes, high and quivering; a discordant chord, tremolo, in clear soprano voices; a wail that nearly sounds Xilien.

Something in the chord pierces straight into your psyche. You can feel your heart break, your future vanish, your every reason for living shrivel up and dissolve. You lose everything in a second. All that's left is keen, soul-throttling despair. Nothing matters. Everything is over.

From somewhere far outside the black hole in your mind, you hear soldiers who might not have expressed a single emotion in decades break down in sobs.

And still the dorats are singing like they're trying to end the world. Their necks raised, their back arched, their legs straining, their wings trembling. One by one, the chains pinning their left wing shut begin to snap.

You sink past despair into apathy.

###

Your spirits are still low when you wake up in the med bay, but at least you're no longer ready to die.

You remember what it felt like, though. You'll always remember what it felt like.

You're being tended to by Nurse 4. Once xe's established that you're of sound mind, xe places a call, and a couple of minutes later Soldier 1 and Specialist 3 come in.

They both look haggard. Soldier 1 has superficial scratches high on the side of xir neck where public officials in direct contact with Controller 0 get their implants. "Well done," xe says wearily. "Controller 0 finds your technique questionable, but approves of your fast results. You'll be sent home with high commendations—but don't expect to be called in to do that again."

Somewhere far away, you think you can feel anger, throbbing. Like the beginning of a pounding headache.

You process Soldier 1's statement backwards and in pieces. "Again?" How many more were they going to put through that torture? And then: "Fast results? You—you knew? You wanted this? This...?"

You gesture at your own head, trying to somehow indicate the feeling of your entire life falling to pieces.

Specialist 3 clears xir throat. Soldier 1 glances away. "Among other things, our experiments aimed to enhance Monster 0's inborn capacity to project emotions. Weaponize it, if you will."

You can only gape at xem.

Specialist 3 says, "We had no idea he'd develop a means to project them vocally." Xir voice is hoarse. "This is a... fascinating side effect of his modifications."

"Although one that reduces his usefulness in vacuums," Soldier 1 says.

Usefulness for what? What are they going to use them for?

You feel despair creep over you again.

###

As promised, you're awarded a slew of high commendations from Controller 0 before you go home. You never speak of them again.

Controller 0 also assigns you a therapist with a clearance level high enough for you to speak freely about your experience. You only visit xem a few times. Once you pass Soldier 4 in the waiting room. You didn't realize xe lives nearby. You didn't realize xe had been on the moon.

It's three more years before you, along with everyone else, see the news of the first planet conquered by X's new living weapon, "King." You tune out the hollow military propaganda singing their new weapon's praises as you watch the footage brought back from that distant world. All you can see in the dorats' eyes is hatred.

In another few years, your granddaughter becomes the first of your matrilineage in centuries not to take over the family dorat breeding business. Instead, she joins the military. Science branch. She received an invitation directly from Controller 0 itself.

She gushes about the opportunity to use your family's dorat expertise to work with the famous Monster 0—and perhaps to help make and train more monsters. After all, "0" is the number reserved for prototypes. Rumors have been swirling for years.

Before she leaves for basic training, you pull her aside, take a risk that could endanger your whole family, and whisper Monster 0's true names to her.

###

To the end of your life, you will fear that your meeting with your three dorats—your meeting with the thing they became—only made things worse for them.

You will never know that, years after your natural death, what you reawakened in them will give them the strength to escape.

#####

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