#desmona teaches em how to cook!

[duck-in-the-universe]

Scavengers art! I imagine this one would be pretty early after Desmona joins them, before she has the armor and all that. None of them really know what they're doing yet, they're just trying to coexist as best as they can. Glass and her do a lot of the cooking around here, but Sprocket likes to help pick the ingredients. She needs her nutrition, goddamnit!

Tags and text transcript below the cut

Sprocket: It's bone broth, from an aurack. It has calcium in it.

Desmona: Oh cool. That's nice.

Sprocket: Did you know calcium is good for your bones?

Desmona: Uh, yeah.

Sprocket: That's good.

Taglist: @glacierruler

[duck-in-the-universe]

Planet Deslotair is super cool, tell me more about Desmona if you want

-g

I'd love to!!

So Desmona grew up in a vitrel harvesting town called Sagal, where vitrel is pumped from the ground and then shipped off elsewhere so it can be properly processed. Processed vitrel is still pretty toxic, but it isn't nearly as reactive as the raw stuff. Desmona's dad worked for the harvesting company, and when she was 16 she got a job working there as well. Nothing super dangerous, she was just behind a desk helping with paperwork and whatnot, but she was on site a lot. She was actually really fascinated with how vitrel was moved and gathered, and wanted to study material sciences when she got older.

But before she got a chance to do any of that, there was an accident. A vitrel transport truck crashes, and Desmona is right on the scene. Her dad is the one to pull her out of the mess, contaminating himself in the process. He would later succumb to his wounds and die, she would not. She wakes up, and runs.

Desmona spends about a week out in the wilderness mostly by herself. She lives in the plains region, Deslotair’s finest, but it’s still hard to make do, to survive. She drinks from rivers and chews sweet grass into a pulp between her teeth. The pain under her skin settles, but the energy does not. Eventually, she finds a fallen ship, and starts to camp out there. She meets a vitrel dog, names him Tak, and sleeps a little easier. She meets two bots, fails to push them away, and sleeps through the night. The vitrel that lashes out from her skin can't hurt any of them.

Outside of the scavengers group, she's very shy and withdrawn. The armor helps contain the vitrel, but it also acts as a shield from the world. She's very aware that the mask makes her look strange and off-putting, and she leans into that as much as possible when interacting with new people. Once she does warm up to people though, she's really sweet. Has kind of a smart-ass sense of humor with Sprocket, and immediately becomes really close with Glass. They cook together, and ey teaches her sign language while Desmona tries to teach em to sew. It takes a while for the group to find their rhythm, but eventually the three of them (four with Tak) are inseparable.

[duck-in-the-universe]

"This is the land of the glass bots. We abandoned them, abandoned their lands, and instead of staying dead like they should have, they turned into walking memories."

And now, finally, Glass (ey/em), linguist, translator, and traveler of the desert.

Info:

First to join the group, joined Sprocket a while ago.

It was just the two of them for a very long time

Glass' main role on the team is as a protector (ey wields that spear well) and as a navigator

Before Sprocket, ey was a translator

Glass lived with other glass bots, and worked closely with their king

When humans needed to interact with the glass bots for any reason, Glass would act as a translator

Because Glass people speak in frequencies humans can't always hear and cannot learn to speak any other language, Glass learned sign language, which ey still uses to communicate now

Ey also became a kind of negotiator, learning how to translate what the King had to say into mannerisms and politeness that the humans would view favorably, and vice-versa

This regular involvement with humans grew Glass's fascination with human culture and languages, something not necessarily appreciated in the glass bot world

Of course it was Glass's job to understand these things, and ey was respected given eir high-ranking position, but ostracized as well

Eventually, this fascination with the outside world, resentment in eir own community, and disagreement with the King's rule drove Glass to leave and strike out on eir own

Soon after, ey met Sprocket, who offered em a job

Out of the group, those two are probably still the closest

They had a lot of time out in the desert to grow this bond, learning about each other, about each other's worlds

Glass is a very curious person, and often has many questions

Ey is very passionate about languages, and always eager to learn more, as well as teach people

Glass is an excellent teacher as well, eir patience makes em well-suited for it

Once Desmona joins the team and they have an actual human mouth to feed, ey also discovers a love of cooking!

[duck-in-the-universe]

"She's a walking fucking warning is what she is. Something you can tell your kids about so they don't go fucking with the transport vehicles, so they stay away from the facilities. I mean, she should have died, but I guess this makes a better story, huh?"

Desmona (she/her), the outcast turning to the desert to survive.

Info:

Was the third to join the group, initially it was just her, Sprocket, and Glass

Used to live in a mining town where they were drilling the liquid, magical energy substance that sits mostly under the surface of the planet

During an accident where one of the vehicles transporting this substance crashed, spilling out its contents, Desmona came in contact with a high amount of it

Instead of killing her, as it most certainly should have, it became a part of her

The energy is wild, impossible to control. It bursts out of her randomly and destructively, and she was driven out of her town as a result

Sprocket and Glass found her not long after

Glass is immune to the magical energy she can't help but wield, and Sprocket is somewhat resistant towards it

She latched onto them quickly because of that, glad to be around people she couldn't hurt

Sprocket and Glass eventually made the armor that can help contain the magic

Desmona is fairly withdrawn, especially around new people

When the group needs to travel into towns, she usually keeps to herself

She knows her mask makes her look somewhat strange and off-putting, and she's VERY happy to lean into that

She's very sweet though, despite all that

She gets along well with both Sprocket and Glass, but she's especially close to Glass

Since Glass is very curious about humans and different cultures and food and languages, Desmona is happy to teach em what she knows. She picks up on sign language pretty fast so they can talk without having to go through Sprocket.

They do a lot of cooking together

She also learns how to wield a spear from Glass

Desmona is very much a pacifist, but she knows it's important to protect herself, and it feels good to be able to do that in a way she can control

She doesn't want to hurt anyone, and hates the fact that now it feels like some kind of default state for her