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AptoApril 2022 Journal
Posted 3 years agoEDIT 2022-09-01: It's done! Well, that took about four months longer than anticipated. But I'm very happy that I completed this given everything else that was going on in my life, and how slow I am at writing. I'm pretty proud of this! The large majority of these posts are about my own sonas, so you can easily see what apto means to me.
I am planning on taking part in AptoApril! How much? I don't know. My low goal is to write at least one Tweet's worth of a story focusing on the day's topic. Some of these story kernels may blossom into something more, but whatever mess of words I have by the end of the day is what I'm submitting!
By the end of this, I hope to bring some interesting ideas to light for myself (and maybe even others!) which I can play with, and to get a little bit better about posting stories that aren't perfect.
"It's just another muscle," Morri explains, as she lifts a mass of water the size of your head out from the stream without lifting a finger.
"The energy, the effort, isn't free. I can feel that muscle tire if I work it too much.
But just like a muscle, it can be built up. A good workout can make it sore just like any other muscle in the body."
She stands up, and reaches out to almost touch the floating sphere.
"But with the proper routine of exercise, care, and nutrients, it can turn from a party trick to an incredible asset."
With a shout, the sphere rockets across the stream toward a tree, and you hear the crack of splintered wood as it makes contact.
"Ow. I may have pulled the muscle, I didn't warm up like I should have."
A short exploration on what magic is and how it feels to use. I'm focusing here on the strain it puts on the body, and the limitations it presents for the user.
Synths are not efficient.
Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be unable to learn while on limited battery power? It takes serious power to train an artificial neural network. Organic neural networks are so infuriatingly efficient that you run your whole damn operating system on them! Trust me, I've tried incorporating artificially grown brain tissue into my body a number of times. But I can never get it to last very long, and I can't rely on something which could die for inexplicable reasons. So instead I have to plug into a big array of power-hungry ASICs for hours to update my models based on a week's worth of data.
Your brain is a marvel of evolution, just like the rest of your body. Autonomous self-repair systems which don't require much more than your daily caloric intake. When something goes wrong in my body, I don't have white blood cells to go fix it. I have to deal with the loss of functionality, or worse, power off entire subsystems to prevent glitches from causing even more harm!
I'm a barely-held-together collection of machines in a beta test. You are a creature optimized over thousands of generations of strenuous evolutionary pressures.
Shoutouts to WhenWolvesCryOut, who has done a lot of Apto with his character Kat that fits here. I really like how he illustrates the problems a nanite body causes, especially one which isn't always under full control. I wanted to think of similar limitations for Space-Age Morri to encounter, since I already have her abilities well fleshed out.
What feats make the most people gape in awe?
I can tell you, it's not seeing powerful beings perform things they could never do. You can keep your four-armed beasts and gripping tails, they appeal to some people, but not everyone.
What really catches peoples eyes is seeing someone overcoming challenges despite handicaps, either intrinsic or imposed. The average circus-goer doesn't understand how difficult coordinating four limbs is, but they do understand that the human mouth is not well designed for holding a handle supporting one's whole weight.
Something a little more down-to-earth for once.
Evolutionary pressure is a weird thing.
You might think that the better animal survives, but "better" is always in the context of the environment it lives in. And that environment is playing a protracted game of rock-paper-scissors with itself.
Sometimes a reset can make you realize that scissors was the better strategy all along...
Something pretty vague here, it's getting late. Don't ask me what extinct trait "scissors" are, I haven't written it yet. Take this and run with whatever trait you want!
We discarded the booster rockets which got us off Earth. Why shouldn't we discard some of those Earth genes, now that better ones are available?
— Essays on the Promethean
I couldn't think of anything for this day, so I pulled a Harmony Level quote from Civilization: Beyond Earth. The Harmony Affinity is about transforming humanity to become a native species to the planet they now inhabit. While I'm not a fan of their unique victory condition, I do love that core idea.
So little said about what twisted energies lie within my core. The gift of the Dark-types is the ability to live on the edge of insanity without falling in. The Psychics cannot reach us there, and we can drag them in if they try. We ain't afraid of no Ghosts.
Young Eevee, this beautiful insanity awaits you, should you just step into the moonlight...
There's something here; I think it's just a few sentences away from being good.
At least, it would be if we only allow for natural selection and bones of calcium.
Who doesn't dream of flight?
On every level of society, man fights to gain the smallest edge over his fellow man. The paranoid are laughed at, but it's the paranoid who survive. Those who back up their brains, who reinforce their skeletons, who enhance their vision, who have a backup body just in case; it's these who rise to the top in the City.
Only fools aren't paranoid.
Cyberpunk inspiration is obvious.
There's a reason Artificial and Synthetic Intelligence has become so integral to the research process. Craft a specialized hash and generate a few dozen with a few parameters nudged here and there, and leave them to argue for a while. Usually you'll see them weed out the bad data and reach a consensus in a day or so, but sometimes there's a hidden but fundamental insight that the quorum brings to the surface. Around 20% of the most important discoveries of the last ten years were made by SIs, and 80% were possible due to their contributions.
Inspired in part by Dhruv/Legion from Ralts Bloodthorne's "Behold, Humanity!"/"Tales from the Terran Confederacy", as well as the general idea of SI's from the same series.
*Yawn* Hmm~, that was a good nap. I feel pretty full too. I love sunny days like this when I can just relax and photosynthesize. There's honestly nothing better.
..?
Yeah, yeah, I'll be there. Just... five more minutes.
I'm thinking Leafeon here, but wrote the story for any sapient plant/plant-adjacent.
<Insert typical "taur in a world built for anthros" description>
- I immediately loved posexe's Elastic Gummy. Sylveon is an attractive feral form to take since it can manipulate objects easily with its feelers. Add to that all the sensitive and stretchy rubber abilities, and I started fantasizing a lot about this.
- If you want a story which explores those abilities in depth, the pleasure of your body being stretched and contorted to ridiculous lengths, then definitely check out Harbingers of Change. I would call the first few episodes "questionable", what with the temporary drone TF.
A little hurried snippet from a AI Dungeon playthrough I did nearly a year ago with Morriana. Shi can transform between a mer-cougar and an anthro cougar form, but has more control with hir necklace.
A seahorse head is mounted above the mantle of the fireplace.
Another snippet from the same playthrough. Started with the AI's words, then edited to actually make sense.
That's where you come in. Desperate times call for measures like these. These are the access codes to the M-Ark-01, our flagship. Our hope is that by you inhabiting the core and optimizing its vast arsenal of weapons and compute, you could find a way out of this mess with minimal loss of life.
You've shown yourself to be quite effective when inhabiting much smaller ships, and we'd hate to waste that ability in a corvette.
Are you in?
I'm not a big macro fan, but here's where necessity could call for taking up a large presence.
I have to be careful, though; this kind of treatment can quickly go to one's head.
Saving lives is the most "heaven-sent" we see happen in our mortal plane. What if they looked the part?
For what could possibly be more true?
A revelation or a deception?
Internet? Not feasible. Even at light-speed, ping times are in hours at this distance, and that limited inter-planetary bandwidth is not for personal recreation.
Well, it's time to down-clock my processors, tune into a terrestrial radio station, and bathe in the familiar warmth of my home star as I let physics bring me safely to my destination.
This one took a bit. Relaxing with an unusual form? Not that hard, I'm especially drawn to my Making a Sale series. But I wanted to find an unusual form or ability which means you have no choice but to take it easy, and between pooltoy and space travel, space travel was the less obvious choice.
But I live for this.
Branching off of my "Heaven Sent" answer.
Up next...
Ears and voice are the obvious ones here. I have a pretty good singing voice irl and I'm confident in it, so I have a lot of experience in getting attention and compliments because of it. You know what? Maybe I'll write and record something on behalf of Demo someday...
Slimes have some interesting taste, that's for certain.
Andrew scraped at his arm, but that just gave the thing access to his other hand. Now with both limbs covered in the silvery liquid, Andrew could only watch as it flowed slowly up his arm, and around his shoulders. A burning chill struck him in the back of the neck, as it invaded his body. A moment later it reached his spinal chord, and he lost all control of his body and fell like a board face first into the puddle.
Not totally sure if these are the exact events that lead to Andi becoming a sybiotic union. But it's probably close.
And when he learned of the fate that was about to befall him, he knew he had to make an escape.
DnD-obsessed scientists "uplift" a panther to create an approximate displacer beast. The origins of future-setting Demoveo. He still has trust issues with humans.
"A day? That's a lot of time to get dressed. And I've never seen you wear clothes."
"It's a figure of speech. You are aware of why spaceflight cost more for you than your wife, right?"
"Yeah, it's weight. Weight is expensive."
"Exactly. So why carry around a terrestrial frame when I can just make one when I land?"
"...oh."
"Now you see how my ship is so small."
Morri travels light. (Double entendre intended.)
My eyes can gaze far, far deeper now.
You can feel them in your soul, can't you?
An impure chimera stalks. It claims sanity. You should not believe it.
Yes, that's my torso. I'm sorry, but furniture just gets in my way when I try to move around. It's fine though, I've heard it's very comfortable. I've had guests just fall asleep on top of me before. Don't worry about it, I've got length and limbs to spare.
Noodle plush? Noodle plush.
You are meant to feel the cool water beneath you, regulating your body temperature, its gentle motions massaging your underside.
You are meant to Float.
Excerpt from a short (3 paragraph) TF thing I wrote. Summer pooltoy moods strike hard.
You had to say it, didn't you? No qualifications, no exceptions, nothing about preserving the laws of physics or non-contradiction. Individuals incompatible with the new universe fractured into another plane of existence, separated forever from their friends and loved ones.
The chaos. The deaths from confusion. The deaths from misunderstandings. The deaths from allergies. The deaths from the square-cubed law.
You had to say it, didn't you? "I wish everyone was their sona."
Wishes have consequences. Don't invite Tier 4+ characters piloted by former mortals into your backyard, m'kay?
Out of all the TF stuff I like, TFs involving suits are my favorite. Here, as you can guess, the suit is sentient, and as it embraces and changes the host's body, it begins to take over more and more.
Sidenote: You can read the final result in any way you like, but the way I imagine it (and the way I read many images like this), the suit is not sapient (it has an animalistic intelligence) and so it cannot replace or override the higher intelligence of the host, it cannot destroy the host's memories or core beliefs. In this excerpt, since the head isn't on yet, the changed parts are totally disconnected from the host's control. Once the head is on and the mental merge is complete, the host's high-level functions assert themselves.
But instead of leaving those traits behind when he had the opportunity, he embraced them. They are a part of his story, a story he can use to help others. What was a disability became an ability.
Because if just one more person can learn to love their own body, then it was worth it.
FIN.
What is this?
I am planning on taking part in AptoApril! How much? I don't know. My low goal is to write at least one Tweet's worth of a story focusing on the day's topic. Some of these story kernels may blossom into something more, but whatever mess of words I have by the end of the day is what I'm submitting!
By the end of this, I hope to bring some interesting ideas to light for myself (and maybe even others!) which I can play with, and to get a little bit better about posting stories that aren't perfect.
01. Magic
"It's just another muscle," Morri explains, as she lifts a mass of water the size of your head out from the stream without lifting a finger.
"The energy, the effort, isn't free. I can feel that muscle tire if I work it too much.
But just like a muscle, it can be built up. A good workout can make it sore just like any other muscle in the body."
She stands up, and reaches out to almost touch the floating sphere.
"But with the proper routine of exercise, care, and nutrients, it can turn from a party trick to an incredible asset."
With a shout, the sphere rockets across the stream toward a tree, and you hear the crack of splintered wood as it makes contact.
"Ow. I may have pulled the muscle, I didn't warm up like I should have."
A short exploration on what magic is and how it feels to use. I'm focusing here on the strain it puts on the body, and the limitations it presents for the user.
02. Science
Synths are not efficient.
Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be unable to learn while on limited battery power? It takes serious power to train an artificial neural network. Organic neural networks are so infuriatingly efficient that you run your whole damn operating system on them! Trust me, I've tried incorporating artificially grown brain tissue into my body a number of times. But I can never get it to last very long, and I can't rely on something which could die for inexplicable reasons. So instead I have to plug into a big array of power-hungry ASICs for hours to update my models based on a week's worth of data.
Your brain is a marvel of evolution, just like the rest of your body. Autonomous self-repair systems which don't require much more than your daily caloric intake. When something goes wrong in my body, I don't have white blood cells to go fix it. I have to deal with the loss of functionality, or worse, power off entire subsystems to prevent glitches from causing even more harm!
I'm a barely-held-together collection of machines in a beta test. You are a creature optimized over thousands of generations of strenuous evolutionary pressures.
Shoutouts to WhenWolvesCryOut, who has done a lot of Apto with his character Kat that fits here. I really like how he illustrates the problems a nanite body causes, especially one which isn't always under full control. I wanted to think of similar limitations for Space-Age Morri to encounter, since I already have her abilities well fleshed out.
03. Circus
What feats make the most people gape in awe?
I can tell you, it's not seeing powerful beings perform things they could never do. You can keep your four-armed beasts and gripping tails, they appeal to some people, but not everyone.
What really catches peoples eyes is seeing someone overcoming challenges despite handicaps, either intrinsic or imposed. The average circus-goer doesn't understand how difficult coordinating four limbs is, but they do understand that the human mouth is not well designed for holding a handle supporting one's whole weight.
Something a little more down-to-earth for once.
04. Past
Evolutionary pressure is a weird thing.
You might think that the better animal survives, but "better" is always in the context of the environment it lives in. And that environment is playing a protracted game of rock-paper-scissors with itself.
Sometimes a reset can make you realize that scissors was the better strategy all along...
Something pretty vague here, it's getting late. Don't ask me what extinct trait "scissors" are, I haven't written it yet. Take this and run with whatever trait you want!
05. Future
Credit to the writers at Firaxis:We discarded the booster rockets which got us off Earth. Why shouldn't we discard some of those Earth genes, now that better ones are available?
— Essays on the Promethean
I couldn't think of anything for this day, so I pulled a Harmony Level quote from Civilization: Beyond Earth. The Harmony Affinity is about transforming humanity to become a native species to the planet they now inhabit. While I'm not a fan of their unique victory condition, I do love that core idea.
06. Dark
"Dark Pulse: The user releases a horrible aura imbued with dark thoughts. This may also make the target flinch."So little said about what twisted energies lie within my core. The gift of the Dark-types is the ability to live on the edge of insanity without falling in. The Psychics cannot reach us there, and we can drag them in if they try. We ain't afraid of no Ghosts.
Young Eevee, this beautiful insanity awaits you, should you just step into the moonlight...
There's something here; I think it's just a few sentences away from being good.
07. Light
Wings have always been a commitment to a species. A skeleton light enough to efficiently fly is necessarily far more fragile. Add to that the square-cubed law, and human-sized flight is outright impossible.At least, it would be if we only allow for natural selection and bones of calcium.
Who doesn't dream of flight?
08. City
The face of the City is pristine and clean, but it doesn't take much to look beyond it.On every level of society, man fights to gain the smallest edge over his fellow man. The paranoid are laughed at, but it's the paranoid who survive. Those who back up their brains, who reinforce their skeletons, who enhance their vision, who have a backup body just in case; it's these who rise to the top in the City.
Only fools aren't paranoid.
Cyberpunk inspiration is obvious.
09. Scholar
The hard part of research isn't finding the information, it's figuring out what information is actually relevant.There's a reason Artificial and Synthetic Intelligence has become so integral to the research process. Craft a specialized hash and generate a few dozen with a few parameters nudged here and there, and leave them to argue for a while. Usually you'll see them weed out the bad data and reach a consensus in a day or so, but sometimes there's a hidden but fundamental insight that the quorum brings to the surface. Around 20% of the most important discoveries of the last ten years were made by SIs, and 80% were possible due to their contributions.
Inspired in part by Dhruv/Legion from Ralts Bloodthorne's "Behold, Humanity!"/"Tales from the Terran Confederacy", as well as the general idea of SI's from the same series.
10. Slacker
...zzZZzz... Huh..? Oh, hey.*Yawn* Hmm~, that was a good nap. I feel pretty full too. I love sunny days like this when I can just relax and photosynthesize. There's honestly nothing better.
..?
Yeah, yeah, I'll be there. Just... five more minutes.
I'm thinking Leafeon here, but wrote the story for any sapient plant/plant-adjacent.
11. Frustration
<Insert typical "taur in a world built for anthros" story><Insert typical "taur in a world built for anthros" description>
12. Elation
No story segment, I have two other pieces I want to shout out here instead of a cheap copy I make:- I immediately loved posexe's Elastic Gummy. Sylveon is an attractive feral form to take since it can manipulate objects easily with its feelers. Add to that all the sensitive and stretchy rubber abilities, and I started fantasizing a lot about this.
- If you want a story which explores those abilities in depth, the pleasure of your body being stretched and contorted to ridiculous lengths, then definitely check out Harbingers of Change. I would call the first few episodes "questionable", what with the temporary drone TF.
13. Transformation
You drag yourself onto the beach. You pull your necklace out of your bag and put it on. Immediately your tail splits back into your legs, and your gills close up again. You throw the trident into the sand.A little hurried snippet from a AI Dungeon playthrough I did nearly a year ago with Morriana. Shi can transform between a mer-cougar and an anthro cougar form, but has more control with hir necklace.
14. Cottage
Nestled in a deep ocean alcove, your parents' house is modest, but comforting. The ocean vents keep the house warm and provide power to the stove. The house itself is covered in a thick layer of sand and coral, with beautiful aquamarine curtains hanging from the windows.A seahorse head is mounted above the mantle of the fireplace.
Another snippet from the same playthrough. Started with the AI's words, then edited to actually make sense.
15. Big
The separatist fleet is only a few days out! We haven't much time to prepare, and we need a unified front fast.That's where you come in. Desperate times call for measures like these. These are the access codes to the M-Ark-01, our flagship. Our hope is that by you inhabiting the core and optimizing its vast arsenal of weapons and compute, you could find a way out of this mess with minimal loss of life.
You've shown yourself to be quite effective when inhabiting much smaller ships, and we'd hate to waste that ability in a corvette.
Are you in?
I'm not a big macro fan, but here's where necessity could call for taking up a large presence.
16. Heaven Sent
There's hardly a mission I'm not mistaken for an actual angel. It's by design, though. The bright hard-light wings, the white combat frame, the halo comm ring, it all ties together the aesthetic. Even if it is sometimes more form over function, getting the targets to calm down and trust the rescue units are an important design consideration.I have to be careful, though; this kind of treatment can quickly go to one's head.
Saving lives is the most "heaven-sent" we see happen in our mortal plane. What if they looked the part?
17. Hellbent
Why do men shrink at my appearance? Do they see cloven hooves and horns and immediately think "demon"? Have you not read what your own Bible says about hind's feet in high places? They are God's gift to me, giving me study footing in this unstable world. Take my hand, and I will give you this gift as well. Cast off your shame with your clothes and live according to your nature.For what could possibly be more true?
A revelation or a deception?
18. Relaxing
Space is vast. This much is common knowledge. And while FTL drives have brought the systems of our galaxy closer together, warp is dangerous in the gravity wells of stars. It still takes days upon entering the T'nuom-Ata system before reaching Earth, and what can I do in this minimal chassis?Internet? Not feasible. Even at light-speed, ping times are in hours at this distance, and that limited inter-planetary bandwidth is not for personal recreation.
Well, it's time to down-clock my processors, tune into a terrestrial radio station, and bathe in the familiar warmth of my home star as I let physics bring me safely to my destination.
This one took a bit. Relaxing with an unusual form? Not that hard, I'm especially drawn to my Making a Sale series. But I wanted to find an unusual form or ability which means you have no choice but to take it easy, and between pooltoy and space travel, space travel was the less obvious choice.
19. Stressful
Shells continue to rain down around me. My pathing software is working overtime, and the overlay in my vision showing my planned movements writhes as microadjustments are made as shells overhead are buffeted by the air. My head snaps down automatically based on a baked intelligence recognizing a rifle barrel off to my left. The shot passes through where my head was a fraction of a second before, and I make a quick wing-assisted jump to make it harder to track me for a few seconds. Death is everywhere.But I live for this.
Branching off of my "Heaven Sent" answer.
20. Sound
The hybrid music scene has taken off recently, ever since the monstrous single Limb from Limb by The Displaced ensnared the number one spot on the charts. The Displaced have tentacles firmly wrapped around the number one slot for now, but there are new bands chomping at the bit to steal the crown.Up next...
Ears and voice are the obvious ones here. I have a pretty good singing voice irl and I'm confident in it, so I have a lot of experience in getting attention and compliments because of it. You know what? Maybe I'll write and record something on behalf of Demo someday...
21. Taste
Mmm... Nothing like diving behind restaurants for the day's spoiled meat. We don't have any digestive tract to speak of, so the more rotten the better. Oooo, there's rotten fruit too! Score!Slimes have some interesting taste, that's for certain.
22. Touch
"Ah, what the fuck‽ Get this thing off of me!"Andrew scraped at his arm, but that just gave the thing access to his other hand. Now with both limbs covered in the silvery liquid, Andrew could only watch as it flowed slowly up his arm, and around his shoulders. A burning chill struck him in the back of the neck, as it invaded his body. A moment later it reached his spinal chord, and he lost all control of his body and fell like a board face first into the puddle.
Not totally sure if these are the exact events that lead to Andi becoming a sybiotic union. But it's probably close.
23. Cultural
Fate was not kind to many an unfortunate panther cub on that forsaken station. DEMO.V3.0 was the sole survivor of a third litter of panther cubs artificially inseminated with a mutated genome for a cruel joke. Born with an extra pair of legs the rest of his form wasn't designed to work with, and an intelligence greater than the rest of his species. Purposefully infected with an alien parasite when he was just three years old. He did not understand why his human captors did what they did, but he did come to learn their language, written and spoken.And when he learned of the fate that was about to befall him, he knew he had to make an escape.
DnD-obsessed scientists "uplift" a panther to create an approximate displacer beast. The origins of future-setting Demoveo. He still has trust issues with humans.
24. Small
"Alright, I need a day to get dressed.""A day? That's a lot of time to get dressed. And I've never seen you wear clothes."
"It's a figure of speech. You are aware of why spaceflight cost more for you than your wife, right?"
"Yeah, it's weight. Weight is expensive."
"Exactly. So why carry around a terrestrial frame when I can just make one when I land?"
"...oh."
"Now you see how my ship is so small."
Morri travels light. (Double entendre intended.)
25. Strange
Oh? You don't recognize me? Hmm... Well, my condition isn't degenerative, in fact by definition it's exactly the opposite.~ This so-called "corruption" has only given new function to every part of my body. I have lost nothing but my weakness. My new legs carry me just as fast, but now can twist and bind yours. My extra hands can also grasp and write, but also rip and tear. So can my new maw, not to mention secreting new substances which will carry you off into a mouth-foaming ecstasy.My eyes can gaze far, far deeper now.
You can feel them in your soul, can't you?
An impure chimera stalks. It claims sanity. You should not believe it.
26. Welcome
Come on in! I'm glad you could make it. Have a seat anywhere.Yes, that's my torso. I'm sorry, but furniture just gets in my way when I try to move around. It's fine though, I've heard it's very comfortable. I've had guests just fall asleep on top of me before. Don't worry about it, I've got length and limbs to spare.
Noodle plush? Noodle plush.
27. Wonderful
You are meant to feel the sun beating down on your rubber back, permeating your translucent body, heating the air inside you to a wonderful warmth.You are meant to feel the cool water beneath you, regulating your body temperature, its gentle motions massaging your underside.
You are meant to Float.
Excerpt from a short (3 paragraph) TF thing I wrote. Summer pooltoy moods strike hard.
28. Wish
The world did not end in a bang. It did not end in a whisper. It ended with a wish.You had to say it, didn't you? No qualifications, no exceptions, nothing about preserving the laws of physics or non-contradiction. Individuals incompatible with the new universe fractured into another plane of existence, separated forever from their friends and loved ones.
The chaos. The deaths from confusion. The deaths from misunderstandings. The deaths from allergies. The deaths from the square-cubed law.
You had to say it, didn't you? "I wish everyone was their sona."
Wishes have consequences. Don't invite Tier 4+ characters piloted by former mortals into your backyard, m'kay?
29. Embrace
I pull the suit up one leg, then the other. My toes splay out into the paws digits, gently swelling into place. The warmth spreads into my foot, the digitigrade paw happily engulfing my formally platigrade foot, coaxing it into its new shape. The right shape. I stifle a giggle as the paw wiggles its toes playfully... wait, I didn't do that. Agh-Out of all the TF stuff I like, TFs involving suits are my favorite. Here, as you can guess, the suit is sentient, and as it embraces and changes the host's body, it begins to take over more and more.
Sidenote: You can read the final result in any way you like, but the way I imagine it (and the way I read many images like this), the suit is not sapient (it has an animalistic intelligence) and so it cannot replace or override the higher intelligence of the host, it cannot destroy the host's memories or core beliefs. In this excerpt, since the head isn't on yet, the changed parts are totally disconnected from the host's control. Once the head is on and the mental merge is complete, the host's high-level functions assert themselves.
30. Community
It took a lot of work to overcome the circumstances of his birth. A pather with two extra, awkward legs, a tentacle parasite he couldn't control, and an human intelligence without a voice to speak.But instead of leaving those traits behind when he had the opportunity, he embraced them. They are a part of his story, a story he can use to help others. What was a disability became an ability.
Because if just one more person can learn to love their own body, then it was worth it.
FIN.
Settings and Characters
Posted 4 years agoI have art of Morri now! Thanks Tomek for letting me commission you without any references! ♥
There isn't much to her at the moment, but I wanted something very basic to go in different directions. My previous journal outlined how I came to this character design, but I want her and any future characters I develop to be useful in more than just fantasy. I want to explore a typical-modern-day setting, and a futuristic space-travel setting. Additionally, I like the designs of a number of Pokémon, so I'm finding an appropriate species for each of my characters as well.
Kingdoms, medieval technology, magic, and many races of people. Player Character Energy.
- Morriana Borios Vathíar is a hermaphrodite mer-cougar, although shi can shift into an anthro cougar form as well. Shi is a water bender, and shi wields a trident which can summon small storms.
- Demoveo is a displacer beast taur (four legs, four arms, four tentacles four eyes). His species are genetic cousins to the feral displacer beasts. At some point he runs into Morri and Andi, and Andi "accidentally" turns him maleherm. After coming to terms with it, hi takes on the name Demovei.
- Fantasy Andi: is a changeling, a natural at choosing a form which will solve whatever problem they face. Their race can modify others' forms as well, but it is often fraught with difficulty (the original body usually doesn't maintain the changes for very long, and sometimes they are received poorly, causing lasting disability). Demo's body was surprisingly receptive to his changes, though.
21st-century America, but everyone is an anthro animal. I don't see many TF shenanigans happening in this setting, but who knows!
- Morri Vathiar is a female anthro cougar. She is very competitive, and finds it hard to say no. This leads her to being involved in too many things, and she can't truly excell at any one activity.
- Demoveo goes by Demo. He is a male panther taur (no tentacles or extra arms in this timeline), and met Morri during college.
- Andi is a slim, silver-haired, androgynous male otter. Despite their shyness, they have a thing for tight clothing and enjoy making people question what gender they are. They are naturally an excellent swimmer, but also have ridiculous flexibility. Andi could go pro in gymnastics, or go on tour as a contortionist, but they are too laid-back to put in that effort. Morri is trying to change that.
21st century America, but someone has discovered a way to create specialized suits which (usually temporarily) merge with and transform the wearer. This is the universe Making a Sale takes place in.
- Ana runs the local Bonding Costumes shop. She is actually human, but stays bonded with the cat suit when working, so very few know the human beneath the fur.
- Morri Vathian is a futanari cougar and Ana's assistant and protégé. Gender transformation occured to both the human wearing the suit (MtH) and the cougar suit itself (FtH). Shi is now the only other full-time employee along with Ana, having proven hirself a capable salesperson.
- Demo chose to purchase an experimental latex panther suit. Repeated wearings slowly converted him permanently into an inorganic rubber creature. With Ana's help, Demo later made modifications to the suit which granted him two extra arms and a pair of tentacles, completing his transition to a rubber displacer beast.
- Andi is well known in the Bonding community for owning dozens of suits of various species. He keeps his live private, so no one actually knows what his real job is. Just that he has enough money to fund this hobby. His suit collection is estimated to be worth at least $150,000.
FTL, alien species, galactic war.
- Morriana Vathiar was a female anthro cougar, but was converted to a synthetic in an experimental program to better explore the stars (similar to this). She has since inhabited many bodies, typically manufacturing one fitting the terrain of whatever new planet she is exploring. If she has the choice, she prefers an anthro cougar form, like she had before her conversion. Although she admits she does experiment with her body a little... or a lot.
- Demoveo is a feral, six-legged, four-eyed panther with back tentacles. Some DnD-obsessed scientists tried to create a faux displacer beast from a genetically modified panther and a tentacle parasite, and succeeded. The feral maleherm displacer beast was more intelligent than anticipated, and managed to escape the lab he was created in. He grew to know and trust Andi due to their similarities, and let Andi modify his body. Andi merged the tentacle parasite with Demo, so he could finally control his tentacles himself.
- Andi has a malleable latex/slime body after fusing with an alien symbiote. The fusion takes place over about 6 years, as the symbiote slowly transforms their body, and their consciousnesses merge. After a year, Andi is superhumanly flexible, and the two act in concert when doing some mundane actions. After 5 years, they are learning how to melt and re-form their body at will, and act as one in almost every capacity.
- Morri is an Eevee (I have moods for about half the Eeveelutions, so I'm probably going to cheat and say she can re-evolve.)
- Demo is Zoroark or an Umbreon
- Andi is either a Ditto or a Mew
As you might notice, I also took the opportunity to use these nine combinations to explore different interests of mine (taurs, hermaphroditism, synthetics, tentacles, merging, mental changes, slime, shapeshifting).
There isn't much to her at the moment, but I wanted something very basic to go in different directions. My previous journal outlined how I came to this character design, but I want her and any future characters I develop to be useful in more than just fantasy. I want to explore a typical-modern-day setting, and a futuristic space-travel setting. Additionally, I like the designs of a number of Pokémon, so I'm finding an appropriate species for each of my characters as well.
Fantasy
Kingdoms, medieval technology, magic, and many races of people. Player Character Energy.
- Morriana Borios Vathíar is a hermaphrodite mer-cougar, although shi can shift into an anthro cougar form as well. Shi is a water bender, and shi wields a trident which can summon small storms.
- Demoveo is a displacer beast taur (four legs, four arms, four tentacles four eyes). His species are genetic cousins to the feral displacer beasts. At some point he runs into Morri and Andi, and Andi "accidentally" turns him maleherm. After coming to terms with it, hi takes on the name Demovei.
- Fantasy Andi: is a changeling, a natural at choosing a form which will solve whatever problem they face. Their race can modify others' forms as well, but it is often fraught with difficulty (the original body usually doesn't maintain the changes for very long, and sometimes they are received poorly, causing lasting disability). Demo's body was surprisingly receptive to his changes, though.
Modern-Day
Modern-Day Anthro
21st-century America, but everyone is an anthro animal. I don't see many TF shenanigans happening in this setting, but who knows!
- Morri Vathiar is a female anthro cougar. She is very competitive, and finds it hard to say no. This leads her to being involved in too many things, and she can't truly excell at any one activity.
- Demoveo goes by Demo. He is a male panther taur (no tentacles or extra arms in this timeline), and met Morri during college.
- Andi is a slim, silver-haired, androgynous male otter. Despite their shyness, they have a thing for tight clothing and enjoy making people question what gender they are. They are naturally an excellent swimmer, but also have ridiculous flexibility. Andi could go pro in gymnastics, or go on tour as a contortionist, but they are too laid-back to put in that effort. Morri is trying to change that.
Bonding Costumes
21st century America, but someone has discovered a way to create specialized suits which (usually temporarily) merge with and transform the wearer. This is the universe Making a Sale takes place in.
- Ana runs the local Bonding Costumes shop. She is actually human, but stays bonded with the cat suit when working, so very few know the human beneath the fur.
- Morri Vathian is a futanari cougar and Ana's assistant and protégé. Gender transformation occured to both the human wearing the suit (MtH) and the cougar suit itself (FtH). Shi is now the only other full-time employee along with Ana, having proven hirself a capable salesperson.
- Demo chose to purchase an experimental latex panther suit. Repeated wearings slowly converted him permanently into an inorganic rubber creature. With Ana's help, Demo later made modifications to the suit which granted him two extra arms and a pair of tentacles, completing his transition to a rubber displacer beast.
- Andi is well known in the Bonding community for owning dozens of suits of various species. He keeps his live private, so no one actually knows what his real job is. Just that he has enough money to fund this hobby. His suit collection is estimated to be worth at least $150,000.
Space Age
FTL, alien species, galactic war.
- Morriana Vathiar was a female anthro cougar, but was converted to a synthetic in an experimental program to better explore the stars (similar to this). She has since inhabited many bodies, typically manufacturing one fitting the terrain of whatever new planet she is exploring. If she has the choice, she prefers an anthro cougar form, like she had before her conversion. Although she admits she does experiment with her body a little... or a lot.
- Demoveo is a feral, six-legged, four-eyed panther with back tentacles. Some DnD-obsessed scientists tried to create a faux displacer beast from a genetically modified panther and a tentacle parasite, and succeeded. The feral maleherm displacer beast was more intelligent than anticipated, and managed to escape the lab he was created in. He grew to know and trust Andi due to their similarities, and let Andi modify his body. Andi merged the tentacle parasite with Demo, so he could finally control his tentacles himself.
- Andi has a malleable latex/slime body after fusing with an alien symbiote. The fusion takes place over about 6 years, as the symbiote slowly transforms their body, and their consciousnesses merge. After a year, Andi is superhumanly flexible, and the two act in concert when doing some mundane actions. After 5 years, they are learning how to melt and re-form their body at will, and act as one in almost every capacity.
Pokémon
- Morri is an Eevee (I have moods for about half the Eeveelutions, so I'm probably going to cheat and say she can re-evolve.)
- Demo is Zoroark or an Umbreon
- Andi is either a Ditto or a Mew
As you might notice, I also took the opportunity to use these nine combinations to explore different interests of mine (taurs, hermaphroditism, synthetics, tentacles, merging, mental changes, slime, shapeshifting).
Making a 'sona, finally!
Posted 4 years agoI recently re-discovered AI Dungeon, and I decided use it as a starting point to create my 'sona. I'm pretty happy with the outcome from it. When answering the prompts, I intentionally left my name and gender blank, and added them to /remember whenever the AI decided to give me them. My adventure began:
But as AI Dungeon is want to do, some things change. A more accurate depiction of my character after an hour or two:
(The only reason AI Dungeon Morriana is a body mage is because she met up with an arctic fox friend who gave her a "crash course" in body magic.... A very explicit crash course. Let's just say that fox left her with a number of extra body parts, one of which was more permanent than the others. (Sue me, I have a thing for herms.))
This is all subject to change (and has changed quite a few times since I first posted it):
🗹 Species appearance: Her ancestors evolved to be longer and thinner than their land counterparts to better move in the ocean. They have short, hydrophobic fur which grants them exceptionally little drag when swimming. When shifted into an anthro form, a keen eye can spot the slight differences in color, fur length, and proportions compared to their land-only brethren.
🗹 Transformation (without her amulet): She can shift towards her natural mercougar form easily, and will tend to shift that way if she doesn't remain focused on her current form. With immense pain and effort she can slowly shift towards her anthro form. Unlike rumors you may have heard, contact with water does not cause or prevent her shifting, but in fact makes it slightly easier to go either direction.
🗹 Transformation (with her amulet): Her amulet allows her to change to her anthro form significantly less painful and easier, and prevents her from accidentally slipping back to her natural form.
☐ Appearance: Her colors should be easy: I prefer a a natural look, and cougars have fairly simple coloration. She is shorter than most of her kind, but still lanky compared to land cougars. She wears her amulet on a necklace under her tunic. In a possible future, an unexpected interaction between her water magic and body magic transmutes her body into slime; a goo-gar if you will. (I also have a thing for puns. :P)
🗹 Personality: She lacks ambition, and is content to just use her skills wherever they're needed. She enjoys entertaining kids with water manipulation. Her shorter build compared to other mer-cougars means she is comfortable in a fully anthro form. Most of her kind can't stand having legs for more than a couple hours.
☐ Clothing: Her white tunic should reflect her natural water affinity in some way, probably by a thick turquoise trim.
☐ Art: Soon! :D
You are , a cougar hydromancer.
You fight with a trident, are wearing Enchanted tunic and in your possession you have a Necklace of water affinity.But as AI Dungeon is want to do, some things change. A more accurate depiction of my character after an hour or two:
You are Morriana, a female mer-cougar. You are an expert water mage and a novice body mage.
You fight with a trident, and in your possession you have a necklace which allows you to transform into an anthro version of yourself.
You wear a tunic tuned to your body magic. It modifies itself to your body shape and allows you to store extra body mana.(The only reason AI Dungeon Morriana is a body mage is because she met up with an arctic fox friend who gave her a "crash course" in body magic.... A very explicit crash course. Let's just say that fox left her with a number of extra body parts, one of which was more permanent than the others. (Sue me, I have a thing for herms.))
This is all subject to change (and has changed quite a few times since I first posted it):
🗹 Species appearance: Her ancestors evolved to be longer and thinner than their land counterparts to better move in the ocean. They have short, hydrophobic fur which grants them exceptionally little drag when swimming. When shifted into an anthro form, a keen eye can spot the slight differences in color, fur length, and proportions compared to their land-only brethren.
🗹 Transformation (without her amulet): She can shift towards her natural mercougar form easily, and will tend to shift that way if she doesn't remain focused on her current form. With immense pain and effort she can slowly shift towards her anthro form. Unlike rumors you may have heard, contact with water does not cause or prevent her shifting, but in fact makes it slightly easier to go either direction.
🗹 Transformation (with her amulet): Her amulet allows her to change to her anthro form significantly less painful and easier, and prevents her from accidentally slipping back to her natural form.
☐ Appearance: Her colors should be easy: I prefer a a natural look, and cougars have fairly simple coloration. She is shorter than most of her kind, but still lanky compared to land cougars. She wears her amulet on a necklace under her tunic. In a possible future, an unexpected interaction between her water magic and body magic transmutes her body into slime; a goo-gar if you will. (I also have a thing for puns. :P)
🗹 Personality: She lacks ambition, and is content to just use her skills wherever they're needed. She enjoys entertaining kids with water manipulation. Her shorter build compared to other mer-cougars means she is comfortable in a fully anthro form. Most of her kind can't stand having legs for more than a couple hours.
☐ Clothing: Her white tunic should reflect her natural water affinity in some way, probably by a thick turquoise trim.
☐ Art: Soon! :D
