RefurbishedApparatus
if ya want to write faster play Typing Of The Dead
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2023
¿What would you guys think if somebody did a Kennel Club original comic?
Kennel Club Book Club - The Megathread for all furry comic book, graphic novel and literature lunacy.
- Thread starter Roxanne Wolf
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2022
Explain yourself
RefurbishedApparatus
if ya want to write faster play Typing Of The Dead
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2023
A comic made by somebody from this community.
I imagine that it would be a parody/satirical comic considering the type of comics that are made on the farms.
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2022
The reason I write is because I can't draw
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2020
RefurbishedApparatus
if ya want to write faster play Typing Of The Dead
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2023
I'm just gonna leave these here just in case somebody wants to try something:
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2016
Some more resources:
Also DIG in /trash/ but whatever.
Also DIG in /trash/ but whatever.
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2023
Why did you post this. This isn't a story.
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2021
He posted it in case some looney wants to make a comic. I really don't think we're going to have any takers on that.
A more relevant question would be "are visual novels appropriate for this thread?", because then I'd have an excuse to sperg about Echo VN. I'd also have an excuse to delve into Morenatsu even though I REALLY don't think there's much to talk about since its just the de-facto generic gay furry vn, so generic I haven't even been able to make it to a real route since its just... so... FUCKING boring.
Plus, in light of my recent discovery that Jay Naylor's website no longer exists and instead just redirects to his patreon, I might have to tackle Better Days/Original Life for the folks that can't access the archives on exhentai and don't want to put up with the tedium of scrolling through kemonoparty.
A more relevant question would be "are visual novels appropriate for this thread?", because then I'd have an excuse to sperg about Echo VN. I'd also have an excuse to delve into Morenatsu even though I REALLY don't think there's much to talk about since its just the de-facto generic gay furry vn, so generic I haven't even been able to make it to a real route since its just... so... FUCKING boring.
Plus, in light of my recent discovery that Jay Naylor's website no longer exists and instead just redirects to his patreon, I might have to tackle Better Days/Original Life for the folks that can't access the archives on exhentai and don't want to put up with the tedium of scrolling through kemonoparty.
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2020
A visual novel is text and pictures with minimal animation and sometimes some choose your own adventure choices, so I'd say it counts. It's just slightly more interactive than a comic.
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2021
I hate to see one of my favorite threads this dead so in lieu of posting the half-finished writeup I have I'm going to toss one of my more self-evident finds in here. Did you enjoy Maus but think it was a tad bit too jewish? I present for you dear readers and true believers Rudek and the Bear, about the shenanigans of Polish border guards pre-WWII on the Poland/Belarus line.
According to the "about" page, Rudek and the Bear isn't even Peter Donahue's main project, he wishes to use it as prequel practice for his true goal of releasing a graphic novel which will be called "Zuzel and the Fox" about our boy, the red fox Rudek, being embroiled in WWII spywork. Various posts of his go into researching Poland in order to truly capture the era. I dunno about you but this is the kind of autism project I can support in full! I'd never bothered to look into the actual author of the comic but considering a quick search only brings up a deviantart and his own personal website, I'm confident in saying that he's most wholesome to me. He's apparently also a teacher? That would explain why his webcomic website is basically dedicated to breaking down his technical approaches towards comic making and art in general. I don't really have a whole lot to say since I'm basically using this as a break from a longer, even shittier writeup, and rambling to @Roxanne Wolf has made me realize I've been sitting on a lot of things that should be brought to this thread's attention, this being one of them.
Its just a highly specifically cut gem and whilst pissing and moaning about shit like Latex Blue is fine and dandy, you have to sometimes actually take in true works of art to fully be able to articulate why a piece of trash is equally stunning in its sheen. I really don't know what else to say, Rudek and the Bear is still updating as of October 22nd, and has been since 2013. Read it, true believers!
Its just a highly specifically cut gem and whilst pissing and moaning about shit like Latex Blue is fine and dandy, you have to sometimes actually take in true works of art to fully be able to articulate why a piece of trash is equally stunning in its sheen. I really don't know what else to say, Rudek and the Bear is still updating as of October 22nd, and has been since 2013. Read it, true believers!
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2018
man from the name i thought it was about wojtek
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2023
“I have a damn second belly button where my vagina is supposed to be. I have to fucking pick out lint so it won't get stuck in there. It's dysphoric and downright humiliating.”
– The author discovering that a “second bellybutton” is EXACTLY what all neovaginas are.
I was torn as to whether or not this review should go under the groomer material thread or this one, but I ultimately decided it belongs here, as I highly doubt even the middle schooler this book was dedicated to will ever read this slop (thank god). It's published by a small, janky furry-focused indie publisher who specializes in poetry and erotic horror, and I doubt they have the budget to shill this thing to parents as whoever they paid to edit it didn't even finish the fucking job.
“What Makes a Witch” is a furry trans middle grade novella by one Linnea “Literalgrill” Capps. If that name rings a bell, it's because he has been discussed in several threads, but the one that I feel should be required reading is his appearance in the SRS Horrors thread. According to this interview (really funny because I clocked the TIF host long before she said how long she's been on T LOL) he did about this book, he became trans after reading trans groomer material online at a young age, and wrote WMAW to crack eggs. More recently, our boy got the chop and spent months dilating his urethra rather than his rot pocket. He ended up regretting his surgery so much that he even considered getting phalloplasty (yes, as in he was seeking a doctor to give him an arm meat sleeve cock with minimal to no sensation in place of his real cock that he willingly chopped off to live the lie of 'being a woman') but has since reverted to re-identifying as a transwoman, though we all know he will forever be a man.
PART I | PART II | PART III | PART IV
KF DISCUSSION LINK (extremely NSFL photos included)| KF DISCUSSION LINK II
He is the father of one, though he refers to himself as the child's mother, because of course he does. Don't quote me on it, but I'm pretty sure his wife went no-contact with him after a messy divorce. He is a frequent DFE-er of his social media so a lot of his funniest antics have been, sadly, lost to time. He wrote this novella directly before getting the chop and dedicated it to his baby daughter, so, depending on your sense of humor, the book has aged like chunky milk or like fine wine.
He is also the author of this idiotic article that has been discussed on the farms. I strongly concur with the person who called his face punchable.
On to the review: The book opens up with our “hero” Greer, a rat child and poor street urchin, overhearing a discussion from the head coven witch, a bunny woman named Charlotte, as she berates a shopkeeper for selling witchy wares to a ferret who is a “fake witch in a dress”. Exhausted, he falls asleep under a tree only to be woken up by none other than the fake witch ferret who is introduced as “Mistress Addison”. Addison's personality is honestly the only real merit this book has, as “she” is surprisingly likable at first, despite the fact that “she” is a scrote in a skirt. However, because this is becomes a story of an older adult male “cracking the egg” of a vulnerable homeless child, anything likable about Addison is quickly overshadowed by how much of a degenerate groomer he turns out to be, especially when he gives Greer a talk about how only women can do magic, because of how women and their ability to give birth to new life are connected to The Earth Mother, who is the witches' apparent source of power. Addison openly abhors this. In true groomer fashion, he assumes Greer was sleeping under the tree in attempts to turn tricks and decides to take him in because he is “too young to be selling his body”:
“I have no family to go back to. I have no skills, nor do I know a trade. Please? I could use purpose. It cannot hurt to try one more time.”
Mistress Addison's tail swished through the air, her expression puzzled but curious. “Ah certainly don't wanna send ya away. You're a wee bit young ta be plyin' yer body as wares like ya were.”
Plying his body as wares? Did she mean prostitution? Everyone knew some chose to sell intimate services as a career, but most considered anyone who did so the lowest caste of society. He never understood why they were disparaged so. They needed to eat like everyone else and did what they had to so they could. He could find nothing wrong with that. Still, he had never lifted his tail for someone else's pleasure and the idea that Mistress Addison thought he had left him frustratedly flustered.
Mistress Addison's tail swished through the air, her expression puzzled but curious. “Ah certainly don't wanna send ya away. You're a wee bit young ta be plyin' yer body as wares like ya were.”
Plying his body as wares? Did she mean prostitution? Everyone knew some chose to sell intimate services as a career, but most considered anyone who did so the lowest caste of society. He never understood why they were disparaged so. They needed to eat like everyone else and did what they had to so they could. He could find nothing wrong with that. Still, he had never lifted his tail for someone else's pleasure and the idea that Mistress Addison thought he had left him frustratedly flustered.
Totally appropriate content for a children's book.
I'd also like to point out how extremely “pornsick libtard male” this take on prostitution is. Even if I read this narrative in an adult book I would be skeeved-out, but presenting this to CHILDREN in a positive light that frames prostitution as a viable “career” is not only irresponsible as fuck, but downright evil. Someone check this man's hard drive, stat!
Greer trains with Addison for a while, fails, and then has a flashback of himself trying on his mothers clothes and feeling gender euphoria (yes, it's actually described that way):
“One of [Greer's] mother's dresses left lying on the floor, falling from her arms as she took clothes to the river to wash. He had always been different, from wanting to read [ooga booga, men no read book, men only DRINK BEER and GRUNT LOUDLY to communicate during the rutting season!] to the strange feelings he had always harbored over his body. [Big yikes at telling kids a normal aspect of growing up is indicative of a gendered soul.] Something had never felt quite right and he had never been able to put a digit on it. [Whoever allowed this sentence through the editing process should be drawn and quartered.] He knew he couldn't tell his mother, who would likely tell his father...
He hadn't managed to take [the dress] off quickly. Something about the soft fabric lying gently against his fur felt so right, he couldn't bring himself to. He swayed his hips, watching the fabric wave to match his movements. He had giggled, twirling in a circle to see how it would spin before stopping in his tracks. The magic he had felt nights before was reminiscent of the euphoria he'd felt in that moment.”
He hadn't managed to take [the dress] off quickly. Something about the soft fabric lying gently against his fur felt so right, he couldn't bring himself to. He swayed his hips, watching the fabric wave to match his movements. He had giggled, twirling in a circle to see how it would spin before stopping in his tracks. The magic he had felt nights before was reminiscent of the euphoria he'd felt in that moment.”
Literally “gender euphoria” and “skirt go spinny”. Clearly Capps has never heard of a kilt. In this same page, we are introduced to the fact that Addison takes HRT in the form of home-brewed sludge he must swallow daily.
Shortly following this, Charlotte arrives to confront Addison, in which she spits some scalding objective truth at him: “You can not hide your being a man any more than you can deny the manhood between your legs.” Charlotte challenges Addison to a duel, and Addison “defeats” her by bonking Charlotte in the head, knocking her out.
It's revealed that Charlotte has such an incredible hatred for Addison because Charlotte got catfished by him, and the ruse was only up once Addison bragged to Charlotte about brewing his own HRT. This causes Greer to reflect upon how he “wasn't like other boys” because he liked the story of Cinderella, and Addison encourages him to wear pink and for the two of them to snuggle together on cold nights.
After this, they finally meet the coven head, Elizibeth/Elizabeth (the editing is sloppy as fuck and the author can not keep the name of his own character straight). Like her predecessor, she challenges Addison to a duel, and drops this banger of a quote: “a woman connects to the Earth Mother in a way no man can. She births magic into this world so that only those who can give birth themselves can control her power. The only thing you have given birth to are deceptions and delusions.”
This truth bomb enrages Greer, who decides to accept himself as a woman then and there. “Perhaps the conviction of one's womanhood came from the soul, not the body.” There it is, right from the mouth of the horse himself. Transgenderism is a religion; a cult about men having “full-on woman souls”. After self-id'ing as a witch, he immediately gains the ability to conjure lightning, something no witch has ever been able to do before, which scares the big evil terf coven leader away. The book ends with Addison discussing with Greer that Greer is welcome to try Addison's bathtub HRT.
My verdict? This book is absolutely garbage. Between clunky descriptions language (his digits...), propagandic lies, nonexistent editing, and a boring story that was an absolute slog to get through, I have nothing good to say about this book, other than that the cover art is nice. I suspect that's where all of the budget went. Overall, for a rational human being, this is an uncomfortable read, as it's like watching a tragedy unfold from the POV of the villains, who emerge victorious. It's literally an older man who likes to be called "Mistress" foisting perverse and sexist delusions upon a vulnerable child.
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2021
For the pleasure of the Kennel Club Book Club and my own indulgence I bring before you Fresh Meat by Gray Folie.
Its One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as retold by a modern 17 year old furry girl.
I really think you should read this for yourself, dear readers and true believers. If you just want to point and laugh at the emotionally malformed muppet then you should read it yourself. If you don't want to stumble along with me through babby's first psycho-analysis, skip this post and read it yourself.
I really think you should read this for yourself, dear readers and true believers. If you just want to point and laugh at the emotionally malformed muppet then you should read it yourself. If you don't want to stumble along with me through babby's first psycho-analysis, skip this post and read it yourself.
From the comic's own "About" page: "Fresh Meat is a comic about a girl with clinical depression and her first experience with a psychiatric hospital, as well as its other residents". I highly recommend giving this one an actual read before you survey this post, as for once its not a perverted off-key symphonious shitshow, but a genuinely well-performed piece of art dripping with blood directly from the heart. What makes this an especially strange occurrence is that Gray Folie is a FtM with clear identity disturbances detailed in her diary comics- an archive of which used to exist outside of her patreon/tumblr/twitter, however I cannot find the site, nevermind its right here. I also found her old gofundme for her top surgery so... There's ah, there's that I guess.
As previously expressed I'm a sucker for melodrama, and nothing beats melodrama that is clearly intimately informed by personal experience, illustrated with a skilled hand, and told with a silver tongue. Which is why Fresh Meat is such a wonderful find for me. I feel the need to offer elucidation for those that are not as keenly aware of psychiatric care as others and as such I will be pulling from my memory of various articles and a pool of associates that have dealt in the sector, from participating in security to hearsay of mild stints and stunts. At minimum a surface-level understanding of Borderline Personality Disorder would be ideal to divine even more meaning from this comic, but in lieu of linking extracts I shall defer to the more accessible I Hate You Don't Leave Me for those that wish to have a light primer or better material to glance at for clarification in case I fail to communicate properly. If nothing else, at the forefront of your mind should be the distilled demon core of Borderline Personality Disorder: Intensity and depth of emotions.
If you wish for further good (if adjacent) reads that aren't dry journal extracts, Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide by Kay Redfield Jamison is pretty encompassing, as well as A Bright Red Scream: Understanding the Language of Pain by Marilee Strong, and lastly Stuck In Time: The Tragedy of Childhood Mental Illness by Lee Gutkind. If Go Ask Alice was not a part of your Highschool curriculum, its also a novel read.
I proffer all anecdotes where they may come into play merely to reinforce the inherent verisimilitude and craftsmanship of this story. I apologize if we're retreading anybody's psych 101 courses, but c'est la vie. With the understanding that I am approaching this work under this set of specific lenses, and a prayer that you have glanced at this comic for yourself first, let us walk together into the Garden of Madness.
As previously expressed I'm a sucker for melodrama, and nothing beats melodrama that is clearly intimately informed by personal experience, illustrated with a skilled hand, and told with a silver tongue. Which is why Fresh Meat is such a wonderful find for me. I feel the need to offer elucidation for those that are not as keenly aware of psychiatric care as others and as such I will be pulling from my memory of various articles and a pool of associates that have dealt in the sector, from participating in security to hearsay of mild stints and stunts. At minimum a surface-level understanding of Borderline Personality Disorder would be ideal to divine even more meaning from this comic, but in lieu of linking extracts I shall defer to the more accessible I Hate You Don't Leave Me for those that wish to have a light primer or better material to glance at for clarification in case I fail to communicate properly. If nothing else, at the forefront of your mind should be the distilled demon core of Borderline Personality Disorder: Intensity and depth of emotions.
If you wish for further good (if adjacent) reads that aren't dry journal extracts, Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide by Kay Redfield Jamison is pretty encompassing, as well as A Bright Red Scream: Understanding the Language of Pain by Marilee Strong, and lastly Stuck In Time: The Tragedy of Childhood Mental Illness by Lee Gutkind. If Go Ask Alice was not a part of your Highschool curriculum, its also a novel read.
I proffer all anecdotes where they may come into play merely to reinforce the inherent verisimilitude and craftsmanship of this story. I apologize if we're retreading anybody's psych 101 courses, but c'est la vie. With the understanding that I am approaching this work under this set of specific lenses, and a prayer that you have glanced at this comic for yourself first, let us walk together into the Garden of Madness.
Fresh Meat isn't organized into chapters or anything, but I'll be grouping this soliloquy vaguely by "plot" progression. As with any tale told in a psych ward, we're starting at initial intake:
We open the first page in the ER with our... "delightful" protagonist, Kimberly Yu, getting her stomach pumped after an attempted OD. We're thrown right into the crux of this comic, the convergence of impudent patient and improper medical practice. The art is just gorgeous here, and continues to be absolutely wonderful through the comic's entire run. Its an MSpaint style, pixels and all, but the shading and the colors... Just, unf. Say what you want about Gray, that crazy bitch knows how to make appealing art and as you will see down the line, truly understands comic paneling.
The next page clears up Kimberly's confusion that was duly inflicted upon the staff, in that she mistook a male nurse for a doctor, and is shamed for her sexist assumptions. Thankfully this is the only instance gender politics surfaces. I suppose this is as close to the appropriate time as any to point out that Gray Folie's moniker does indeed stem from a play on the phrase "Folie a Deux" (madness for two), with her "Dupe" character being a recurring personality splinter/personification of her BPD she talks about in her diary comics.
We continue through Kimberly being moved from the ER to the formal waiting rooms for the psych ward. Kim makes repeated references to the ward being an Insane Asylum, but considering we're given the knowledge on page 4 that she was seeing a therapist before she chose to attempt her sewer slide that glided her into grippy sock jail, she's not a complete stranger to the world of psychiatry. Page 5 we see her being coaxed into a waiting room with a lock on the door:
I must gush about the characterization of that nurse and just how... Human this exchange was. Whilst Kimberly would most certainly have been more comfortable with being left in one of the open waiting rooms, from the perspective of the care team that has just walked her from the ER where she's just been saved from a potentially and most certainly intentionally lethal OD, she's clearly not a rational actor and being 17 years old is not really entitled to being left to her own devices period, let alone in a hospital setting where she is being treated in the aftermath of a suicide attempt.
You can see how the framing of the story wants you to piss on that mean ol' nurse for tricking Kimberly into a locked room- but that nurse is still accountable for Kimberly's actions, and anybody with a modicum of intelligence can deduce that leaving a patient alone in a locked room under active video surveillance (panel 5) with furniture basically designed to be as harmless as possible is a much better proposition than praying your new charge doesn't yeet themselves out of a window or fashion a shiv as you turn around looking for the paperwork you're legally required to fill out so you can help this crazy bitch out.
However, we shouldn't ignore Kimberly's purview: she just wants to get the fuck out of here and fucking die, and all of this is an uncomfortable sleep-deprived nightmare full of new horrors for her:
Within medicine there is always the juxtaposition of what medical ethics and practices deduce is correct for the patient, and the actual desires and needs of the patient. This discussion becomes biased towards the former to outside observers (or those that aren't fucking insane) when the patient's desires extend towards immediate death, however:
Ah, the good ol' "wait'em out" tactic. BPD, like most mood disorders, has its own waves and cycles. Borderline Personality Disorder has been described over the years as being "on the borderline of several other pathologies" which is very fitting considering the above sequence is a brief showcase of BPD's situational interpersonal paranoia coming out to play with how Kimberly reacts to the shiba inu nurse bringing her water in spite of protocol. Said nurse breaking protocol is also contrasted directly with the zebracrow's own break from proper practices with the physical intimidation of Kim during the reading of her patient rights. If you're curious as to where the author obtained this specific wording, Gray cites Massachusetts legislation specifically and Massachusetts is mentioned several times in case you missed it (I know I did at first because I'm fuckin' blind). I'd like to rally back to the last sequence of panels with Kim brandishing her newfound pen, unprofessionally left behind by one of the nurses. Anybody that has seen Casino knows where this could've gone. However upon glancing once more at the active camera on the ceiling, Kimberly catches herself. Just a nice lil' example of BPD's impulsivity, colored by Kimberly's clear paranoia and distrust of this entire situation.
Sometimes you just have to wait for a patient to break themselves down before they're fully receptive to treatment. I remember a story from an associate about an individual that was put on suicide watch in the county jail due to emotional outbursts. The practice there however is to strip patients naked and leave them alone in a constantly lit padded cell, and essentially attempt to let sleep-deprivation and boredom take hold. If the situation doesn't resolve, then more earnest treatment options are considered.
Rage, frustration, even despair take energy for a mind to hold onto, and outside of manic depression one cannot embroil themselves in emotional intensity 24/7. As such, we reach the conclusion of Kimberly's psychiatric intake:
Just one simple exchange informs us of so much! We'll rally back to it in a moment though...
A pessimist can look at it as the hospital network overstepping basic human boundaries in order to cover their own asses; plenty of cases exist where an individual is turned in for treatment, talks their way out of it in under 24 hours, and on the 25th hour they're painting the walls with the contents of their mental disorder. A more humane outlook would point out that plenty of cases exist where an individual is turned in for treatment, talks their way out of it in under 24 hours, and on the 25th hour they're painting the walls with the contents of their mental disorder; healthcare tends to wish to avoid that outcome for its patients.
We're given a page of Kimberly having her self-harm scars catalogued. In psych care facilities this is important- if any of you are privy to the ingenuity of prison craftworks, a motivated individual even within a controlled environment can do quite a lot of damage to themselves or others given anything from simple pens to stolen screws from ductwork. I've even had a report from an inpatient setting that denied open access to toilet paper as some looney toon had attempted to asphyxiate themselves with some. Keeping track of fresh wounds is of course an important monitoring tool, but unlike the ward portrayed here, its generally not always a part of standard procedure. States and institutions differ in their practices, et cetera.
Contrary to the popular idea that cutting is mostly for attention, more often than not those that self-mutilate use it as a form of emotional regulation and will do their best to try and hide the wounds. I'm reminded of a case study that mentioned a factory worker with anxiety and depression who would slice himself with grinders and other assorted tools at work to get through extended shifts, and hide it under his coveralls. So a Stalag 17-style shakedown is sometimes required. We'll come back to this topic in due time, dear readers and true believers.
We open the first page in the ER with our... "delightful" protagonist, Kimberly Yu, getting her stomach pumped after an attempted OD. We're thrown right into the crux of this comic, the convergence of impudent patient and improper medical practice. The art is just gorgeous here, and continues to be absolutely wonderful through the comic's entire run. Its an MSpaint style, pixels and all, but the shading and the colors... Just, unf. Say what you want about Gray, that crazy bitch knows how to make appealing art and as you will see down the line, truly understands comic paneling.
The next page clears up Kimberly's confusion that was duly inflicted upon the staff, in that she mistook a male nurse for a doctor, and is shamed for her sexist assumptions. Thankfully this is the only instance gender politics surfaces. I suppose this is as close to the appropriate time as any to point out that Gray Folie's moniker does indeed stem from a play on the phrase "Folie a Deux" (madness for two), with her "Dupe" character being a recurring personality splinter/personification of her BPD she talks about in her diary comics.
We continue through Kimberly being moved from the ER to the formal waiting rooms for the psych ward. Kim makes repeated references to the ward being an Insane Asylum, but considering we're given the knowledge on page 4 that she was seeing a therapist before she chose to attempt her sewer slide that glided her into grippy sock jail, she's not a complete stranger to the world of psychiatry. Page 5 we see her being coaxed into a waiting room with a lock on the door:
You can see how the framing of the story wants you to piss on that mean ol' nurse for tricking Kimberly into a locked room- but that nurse is still accountable for Kimberly's actions, and anybody with a modicum of intelligence can deduce that leaving a patient alone in a locked room under active video surveillance (panel 5) with furniture basically designed to be as harmless as possible is a much better proposition than praying your new charge doesn't yeet themselves out of a window or fashion a shiv as you turn around looking for the paperwork you're legally required to fill out so you can help this crazy bitch out.
However, we shouldn't ignore Kimberly's purview: she just wants to get the fuck out of here and fucking die, and all of this is an uncomfortable sleep-deprived nightmare full of new horrors for her:
Within medicine there is always the juxtaposition of what medical ethics and practices deduce is correct for the patient, and the actual desires and needs of the patient. This discussion becomes biased towards the former to outside observers (or those that aren't fucking insane) when the patient's desires extend towards immediate death, however:
Ah, the good ol' "wait'em out" tactic. BPD, like most mood disorders, has its own waves and cycles. Borderline Personality Disorder has been described over the years as being "on the borderline of several other pathologies" which is very fitting considering the above sequence is a brief showcase of BPD's situational interpersonal paranoia coming out to play with how Kimberly reacts to the shiba inu nurse bringing her water in spite of protocol. Said nurse breaking protocol is also contrasted directly with the zebracrow's own break from proper practices with the physical intimidation of Kim during the reading of her patient rights. If you're curious as to where the author obtained this specific wording, Gray cites Massachusetts legislation specifically and Massachusetts is mentioned several times in case you missed it (I know I did at first because I'm fuckin' blind). I'd like to rally back to the last sequence of panels with Kim brandishing her newfound pen, unprofessionally left behind by one of the nurses. Anybody that has seen Casino knows where this could've gone. However upon glancing once more at the active camera on the ceiling, Kimberly catches herself. Just a nice lil' example of BPD's impulsivity, colored by Kimberly's clear paranoia and distrust of this entire situation.
Sometimes you just have to wait for a patient to break themselves down before they're fully receptive to treatment. I remember a story from an associate about an individual that was put on suicide watch in the county jail due to emotional outbursts. The practice there however is to strip patients naked and leave them alone in a constantly lit padded cell, and essentially attempt to let sleep-deprivation and boredom take hold. If the situation doesn't resolve, then more earnest treatment options are considered.
Rage, frustration, even despair take energy for a mind to hold onto, and outside of manic depression one cannot embroil themselves in emotional intensity 24/7. As such, we reach the conclusion of Kimberly's psychiatric intake:
A pessimist can look at it as the hospital network overstepping basic human boundaries in order to cover their own asses; plenty of cases exist where an individual is turned in for treatment, talks their way out of it in under 24 hours, and on the 25th hour they're painting the walls with the contents of their mental disorder. A more humane outlook would point out that plenty of cases exist where an individual is turned in for treatment, talks their way out of it in under 24 hours, and on the 25th hour they're painting the walls with the contents of their mental disorder; healthcare tends to wish to avoid that outcome for its patients.
We're given a page of Kimberly having her self-harm scars catalogued. In psych care facilities this is important- if any of you are privy to the ingenuity of prison craftworks, a motivated individual even within a controlled environment can do quite a lot of damage to themselves or others given anything from simple pens to stolen screws from ductwork. I've even had a report from an inpatient setting that denied open access to toilet paper as some looney toon had attempted to asphyxiate themselves with some. Keeping track of fresh wounds is of course an important monitoring tool, but unlike the ward portrayed here, its generally not always a part of standard procedure. States and institutions differ in their practices, et cetera.
Contrary to the popular idea that cutting is mostly for attention, more often than not those that self-mutilate use it as a form of emotional regulation and will do their best to try and hide the wounds. I'm reminded of a case study that mentioned a factory worker with anxiety and depression who would slice himself with grinders and other assorted tools at work to get through extended shifts, and hide it under his coveralls. So a Stalag 17-style shakedown is sometimes required. We'll come back to this topic in due time, dear readers and true believers.
We're given our first taste of Kimberly reacting to being in the psych ward proper. I'm trying to avoid turning this into a lazy imagedump like Concession turned into, but unlike Concession where Immy drops tiny little hints of progress only to harken back to them directly dozens of pages later, Gray actively builds upon the elements she introduces in this comic. Its pretty dense for only being around 100 pages. We're given direct attention to claws way back on page 3, which is also a scene of Kim being shaken from slumber. Her more violent reaction on page 3 contrasts directly with her reaction on page 13, shown above left. Page 14 (above right) once again calls attention to claws, this time Kimberly's specifically. What could this be building up to, dear readers and true believers? Well, its building on the theme of external control and self-control, which we'll simplify down to "control" in general.
We can glean from the nurse's reaction that claws are usually trimmed upon intake. Kimberly retaining hers can charitably be taken on its face as her being "a very gentle soul", or taking the following page into account wherein the nurse gives us a look into the overcrowding and poor doctor to patient ratio on the ward, it is more likely an oversight on the part of the hospital staff. "But wait lad", I hear you say, "How does this connect to the theme of control?". Well, Kimberly is being committed because of her attempted suicide, and she has built-in razor blades. Up to this point, if she was so desperate to do so, she could've started her exit strategy at any time. This theme also came into play directly before this with Kimberly signing the release form, symbolized by her clutching the pen she found underneath the waiting room chair. I initially interpreted this how anybody at a glance would, e.g. she is poised by the doorframe, clutching the pen like a knife, the instinct towards violence from an uncooperative patient would seem correct. However if we re-examine that scene with this theme in mind, Kimberly isn't brandishing the pen as a weapon; she is clinging to the last bit of control she has in this environment, her active consent to treatment. This lone facet of control is soon ripped away from her as the intimidating nurse that read her patient's rights comes in and reveals that regardless of her signature, she's staying. As such, we don't actually have a panel showing whether or not Kimberly signed the consent forms or not, as its irrelevant to her at that point.
I should note that outside of the most extreme cases, BPD sufferers don't trend towards violence any more than the general population. BPD's emotional instability is also likened somewhat to the waves of Bipolar mania at times, as both can seem uncontrollable in onset and duration to sufferers- see folks, they share a touch more than just an acronym! To wax pedantic, Bipolar's up and down swings can last days, whilst BPD's tend to last hours. Unfortunately for BPD there is no real medication that can regulate moodswings as good as lithium can for Bipolar, so mindful self-control is the key to proper living, and why it figures so heavily into the main theme of this comic. As a continued aside, once upon a time I knew of an Eli Lilly researcher with Bipolar I that took lithium, a side-effect of which is dyskinesia (involuntary muscle tremors). Just... uncomfortable to see in action. Witnessing the difference between her behavior when she was off her proper medication vs. on it made it clear why the shakes and a mild amount of brain fog were far more preferable than putting herself and her family through the wringers of unmedicated Bipolar I.
Moving on we have Kimberly introduced to the cafeteria for breakfast, and further introduces herself to Sugar Kysley, an opossum who is coincidentally the protagonist of Gray Folie's previous comic, Drop-Out. Chronologically this takes place years before Drop-Out does, and whilst you don't need to read Drop-Out to understand Kysley here in Fresh Meat, knowing how this character turns out later in life makes her current condition all the more heartbreaking:
Oversharing right off the bat, rambling about diagnoses, seemingly operating in a reality apart from the one shared with the rest of us, yep, our girl Sugar sure is the spittin' image of a generic psych ward inpatient. Let's get to the rest of our main recurring cast:
Lou Whittaker (the polar bear) and Tabitha Maimon (tasmanian devil) serve as contrasts to Kimberly's reaction to her own disorders and the ward itself throughout the comic. Sugar does as well to a lesser extent, but her character is more active commentary on psychiatric malpractice than she is an exact point of personal contrast for Kim. The paneling on page 18 (left) draws a natural comparison to Kim's lunch tray and her wrist. Both share gouges from the years of use and abuse in their individual environments. I cannot help but be reminded of all the attention that was given to Kim's claws before this sequence though...
Sugar reminds Kim that even her body's natural mechanisms are beholden to external controls on the ward: she's only given 15 minutes to eat, lest she be placed on anorexia watch. Tabitha, like Kim, isn't eating. However, Tabitha's starvation has a personal motivation past Kim's obstinance (or the fact that most people don't like eating 10 minutes after waking up), as its revealed much later on that she's attempting to go vegan. This idea of carnivorous animals going vegan was also brought up in Drop-Out and it serves the same purpose here as it does there, or really anywhere: its a virtue signal that tips us off that this character really appreciates life in all its forms, even down to those deemed insignificant enough for casual consumption. A cute trick for subtext, but it sorta falls apart when we're dealing with creatures that physiologically cannot survive without the consumption of animal products. However, Gray doesn't put a whole lot of effort into making her comics much more than people dressed up as animals, so I won't spend much effort digging autism logic holes over this either- this ain't the Mr. Enter thread.
We skip a page with Kim's roommate telling her about required group therapy to Kim's first group session:
Oh, groups. Emotional baggage claim. An incredibly useful therapy tool for some. For our dear Kim though, it's just another hellish inconvenience foisted upon her. The repetition of group therapy and ward life is really reinforced with that last sequence of panels that make up page 24. A clinical eye would observe that she's fighting treatment since she refuses to adhere to the basic steps of introductions and mood ratings. A more holistic interpretation would point out that barely any 17 year old girl would be comfortable opening up to a room of older strangers, especially after a suicide attempt. However keeping our ever-present theme of "control" in mind, Kim is simply exercising the only tidbit of power she has left, and that's whether or not she engages with the group therapy setting. Notice how she pauses to chide Judy for calling her "Kimmy". Back to the clinical view, one could say that she doesn't wish to consciously engage with the ramifications of her own behavior, or mayhaps doesn't fully grasp the severity of her attempted suicide...
Groups exist to form common ground and invite insight into the treatment process as well as patient's patterns of behavior, and as a more obvious social outlet. Just like how public schooling exists to mold the goblins of youth into a semblance of functional human beings, so does Group Therapy exist to try and mold the mentally unstable back into the active practice of sanity. A poorly meshed group, or an unskilled therapist can undermine the effectiveness of groups though.
Skipping ahead we enter a conversation again with Judy, Kim's current cardinal (I think, I'm terrible at bird watching sue me) roommate talking about release dates with another patient. Kim lets her sole concern in this entire situation shine right through:
We enter day 2 of Kimberly Yu's Mild Psych Ward Ride:
I know she's only 17 and this is a psych ward, but selling your fellow inmate out immediately like that is how you get shivved in the yard, Kim. Especially after you act like a complete fucking bitch to her beforehand... Sugar, you precious cinnamon roll, I understand that brain stutter completely. Turning the analytical eye back on we're given some more contrast between Tabitha and Kim. According to the "about" page as well as a passive reveal during a later groups scene, both Kim and Tabby have been committed because of attempted suicide. Keep that in the back of your mind, we'll build upon this when we have a bit more to chew on. Moving along:
I swear I'm trying to avoid making this a straight image dump. But this exchange is too delicious for me to not dissect. Page 31 we're seeing Kim boiling over at Judy discussing her imminent release (remember she's Kim's current roomie). Keen-eyed readers will notice the paper Kim's reading and Gray's own transcript (listed towards the bottom of the page) notes it as a handout on Cognitive Distortions. Such things are common in therapy, especially therapy for depression and assorted personality disturbances. The idea behind trying to get patients into the habit of identifying and understanding these distortions is to of course, try to motivate conscious monitoring and understanding of their own internal dialogues, behaviors, and the emotions motivating or stemming from them. In doing so, an attempt to belay any emotional/behavioral uproars might be successful as a once harmful and recurrent line of thinking or behavior can be dismissed from taking hold outright, or more constructive coping methods can be employed to minimize a blowout.
All of this stems from Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which in turn is basically Cognitive Behavior Therapy tailored for BPD and other emotional disorders. Minimizing (dismissing empathy), Catastrophizing (over-reacting), and Personalization (ego-centric extrapersonal interpretation) are three of the distortions listed that we can see through Kim's chopped up arm, and we see that she is experiencing them all at once! Kim just cannot deal with sitting and waiting for fate (whose hand is currently caught up filing paperwork) to bring what it may.
But hark! Avagrant phonecall! Kim has a lifeline yet... But her mother doesn't appear to have time for her bullshit. This doesn't seem to be Kim's first breakdown, and the dialogue between her mother and herself gives us a brief hint that Kim's behavior has been a recurring issue. It may not have been as intense since this is Kim's first stint in grippy sock jail, but her mental health problems clearly are not acute. We're given the first direct mention of "control" here as well... Turning the clinical eye back on for a moment, Kim is completely shutting down after her hopes and dreams of getting out of the immediate situation are dashed upon the rocks.
What's there more to say? Gray's brewing a fine wine here. We're given another group therapy introduction and with it are given our first sighting of Carmilla Karnstein, one of the cornerstone characters across our cast:
Her immediate influence is seen upon our dear Kimberly. I will pause here to note BPD's tendency to make sufferers sort of "social chameleons", where they will exhibit certain behaviors or imitate individuals in their surroundings. Whilst all of human social interaction can be likened to this, the behavioral differences given specific contexts can be striking, even down to some BPD afflicted folk subconsciously switching entire accents for example. Keep that in mind, pay attention to Carmilla's stated homicidal tendencies, as well as keep an eye on poor Sugar tucked into the corner of panel 16 on page 35 (above right). We continue onward to Kim's first psych evaluation:
I've seen Kimberly's line of suicidal logic crop up too many times through the years across the cases and extracts I've read. Suicide of course is primarily motivated by a desire to escape the horrors of life, not so much to enjoy the pleasures of being dead. This can manifest more acutely in impulsive attempts like Kimberly's seems to be, or in the more chronic culmination, very well-managed plans. I recall a specific instance where a woman had slit her wrists in her bathtub after cleaning her entire apartment, packing her belongings into boxes left at the entryway, with a note apologizing for the mess in the bathroom. Kimberly's hesitation to explore the finer points of her inner travails comes from the awkward dance patients and therapists can have from time to time, e.g. "I know I'm crazy, you know I'm crazy, but I'm not sure how aware of the crazy you really are or should be". The dance gets especially feverish when it predicates whether or not an inpatient is released from holding. Her trepidation can equally be attributed to her not wishing to actually confront the subconscious or semi-conscious processes that lead to her choice of attempting suicide. Take note of Kim's extended claws on page 40, they're important later. Moving along:
Carmilla immediately ingratiates herself with our established group. I really can't articulate properly how to describe her at this point- disruptive? Clearly... "Even the things I can't explain are heading towards something". Sugar points out two things, the impropriety of diagnosing anybody under the age of 18 with a personality disorder, and the idea that BPD is a label for "problem patients". Generally, personality disorder diagnoses are not given out to those under the age of 18 as modes of maladapted behavior cannot be coherently attributed to a specific disorder at younger ages, as well as personality disturbances tend to not fully coalesce until one's early 20's. BPD also covers a wide variety of symptoms that can overlap with other disorders, and per diagnostic rules one only has to meet 5 of the 9 listed criteria for the disorder to net a diagnosis. As such, BPD's stigma within the clinical community as a sort of "catch-all" or even a "junk" diagnosis continues to this day, but this has shifted dramatically as a firmer understanding of the disorder has moved it away from these associations since the 80's. As with all medical diagnoses, psychiatric disorders can differ in individual severity- Kim's on the lighter side of things, and as we're drip-fed more details for Carmilla she's on the more severe if semi-functional side.
All of this stems from Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which in turn is basically Cognitive Behavior Therapy tailored for BPD and other emotional disorders. Minimizing (dismissing empathy), Catastrophizing (over-reacting), and Personalization (ego-centric extrapersonal interpretation) are three of the distortions listed that we can see through Kim's chopped up arm, and we see that she is experiencing them all at once! Kim just cannot deal with sitting and waiting for fate (whose hand is currently caught up filing paperwork) to bring what it may.
But hark! A
What's there more to say? Gray's brewing a fine wine here. We're given another group therapy introduction and with it are given our first sighting of Carmilla Karnstein, one of the cornerstone characters across our cast:
I've seen Kimberly's line of suicidal logic crop up too many times through the years across the cases and extracts I've read. Suicide of course is primarily motivated by a desire to escape the horrors of life, not so much to enjoy the pleasures of being dead. This can manifest more acutely in impulsive attempts like Kimberly's seems to be, or in the more chronic culmination, very well-managed plans. I recall a specific instance where a woman had slit her wrists in her bathtub after cleaning her entire apartment, packing her belongings into boxes left at the entryway, with a note apologizing for the mess in the bathroom. Kimberly's hesitation to explore the finer points of her inner travails comes from the awkward dance patients and therapists can have from time to time, e.g. "I know I'm crazy, you know I'm crazy, but I'm not sure how aware of the crazy you really are or should be". The dance gets especially feverish when it predicates whether or not an inpatient is released from holding. Her trepidation can equally be attributed to her not wishing to actually confront the subconscious or semi-conscious processes that lead to her choice of attempting suicide. Take note of Kim's extended claws on page 40, they're important later. Moving along:
We enter day 3 of Kimberly Yu's Mild Psych Ward Ride. We move through a page of Kim being awoken during a night check and a page of Kim learning she's being switched wards at the start of a group therapy, arriving at page 47:
"There are other safety concerns besides gender". Recall how Kimberly bared her claws towards Dr. Fink way during her therapy session on page 40? Well we're seeing the repercussions of that. The exasperation of that Lynx nurse can be felt seeping through the page... Wrangling retards is one thing, shepherding semi-psychotics is a whole other kettle of cats. Leaving further analysis aside until we get this spitball fully formed:
At a surface glance, we're running again into some possible autistic nitpicks with Gray's mixed metaphors when it comes to combining a realistic story of psychiatric care starring anthropomorphic amniables. However, I think this is intentional. Carmilla is clearly a vampire bat, and her desire for blood packs falls directly in line with the species real diet consisting solely of blood. If she cannot process any other foodstuffs, why isn't her special diet being accommodated by hospice staff? Falling into step with the theme of medical malpractice, its because this psych ward fucking sucks at its job when it comes down to the details. This brings up a bigger concept that evolves as we get to know Carmilla more- that she just be the way she do. She's a vampire bat, she lives to feed off the very lifeblood of others. This extends towards her being a sort of "emotional vampire", as she also feeds off the visceral reactions she rouses out of her fellow inpatients and the ward staff. Previously it was her lapping at our Lynx, and now she is sinking her teeth into our poor, precious cinnamon bun Sugar. A manipulative troublemaker all around, as she proposes to be a fixer of sorts for our dear Kim in exchange for more blood, similar to how she helps source Tabitha vegan foodstuffs (page 41) . However, this makes a non-anthropomorphic read of Carmilla a little muddied. How much of Carmilla are we supposed to read as jokes and japes, and how hard are we to read into her vampiric theme under the psychiatric treatment lens? I'll leave that to our astute readers and true believers to determine the level of delusion and kayfabe themselves- inherent to this story (like all medical care) is a gray area, and complaining that a painting is unclear because it intentionally depicts shadows serves nothing for this cliffnotes analysis.
Coming back to Kysley, we finally learn why she was huddled in the corner all the way back on page 35- she's undergoing Electroconvulsive Therapy. Yes Kim, just like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The medical gravitron Carmilla mentions is a metaphor for the bevy of treatments and drugs patients can cycle through the course of their psychiatric lives. ECT is indeed still used to this day, but only as a treatment of last resort, when nothing else that has been thrown at a patient seems to have an effect. Due to the absolutely nasty side-effects, its again reserved for the absolute last line of treatment, similar to tricyclic anti-depressants and other older pharmacology substances that have fallen to the wayside as newer, better compounds have since been formulated that have similar effects without such pronounced drawbacks. Some of these drugs specify that you can't eat grapefruit or you will have an aneurism. The depths of Earth's oceans remains some odd 95% unexplored, and its a similar case to our current understanding of human brain chemistry.
Tabitha comes to dear Sugar's aid however, and draws Carmilla off to tell her to shut the fuck up with her needling bullshit in much nicer terminology, I'm sure. Sugar does bring up again that point about Carmilla though- it is hard to truly assess her exact level of damage when she wears a mask of jokes and japes.
Skipping past a page depicting the passage of time we get to this:
Lou stands in direct contrast to Kim and Kysley here. She retains her rough edges, but still maintains overall control, just like how she maintains the television remote from Sugar. We can surmise that she has turned herself in voluntarily for treatment, vs. Kim being found and saved from her OD from folks other than her direct family, and Sugar being turned in for treatment by her own folks it seems. Sugar goes through the song and dance her treatments require, but nothing changes for her. She suffers internally regardless, and that flows into her external functioning as she is crushed under the weight of her own mental dysfunction and physiological issues stemming from the very treatment that is supposed to help her.
Coming back to Kysley, we finally learn why she was huddled in the corner all the way back on page 35- she's undergoing Electroconvulsive Therapy. Yes Kim, just like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The medical gravitron Carmilla mentions is a metaphor for the bevy of treatments and drugs patients can cycle through the course of their psychiatric lives. ECT is indeed still used to this day, but only as a treatment of last resort, when nothing else that has been thrown at a patient seems to have an effect. Due to the absolutely nasty side-effects, its again reserved for the absolute last line of treatment, similar to tricyclic anti-depressants and other older pharmacology substances that have fallen to the wayside as newer, better compounds have since been formulated that have similar effects without such pronounced drawbacks. Some of these drugs specify that you can't eat grapefruit or you will have an aneurism. The depths of Earth's oceans remains some odd 95% unexplored, and its a similar case to our current understanding of human brain chemistry.
Tabitha comes to dear Sugar's aid however, and draws Carmilla off to tell her to shut the fuck up with her needling bullshit in much nicer terminology, I'm sure. Sugar does bring up again that point about Carmilla though- it is hard to truly assess her exact level of damage when she wears a mask of jokes and japes.
Skipping past a page depicting the passage of time we get to this:
We enter day 4 of Kimberly Yu's Mild Psych Ward Ride. Our malcontent prisoners patients are lined up for a bodycheck:
Jesus fucking Christ that serval is such a piece of shit. Of course Gray names her "Karen". I misidentified the returning shiba inu from Kim's intake, she's actually supposed to be a wolf- reading Gray's transcripts at the bottom of each page (when she bothers to include them) can give you insights you might've missed, dear readers and true believers. The scene is pretty self-explanatory. Sugar is being intimidated for merely passively commenting about what a shitshow the administration of the ward is, with our dear Karen shoving the gaslight right in Kysley's face.
Tabitha's choice of diet (or rather lack thereof) has become a direct point of contention for our previously introduced Lynx nurse, and so she is also pulled off into the aether to be reprimanded. A clinician might justify this under the idea that Tabitha's self-imposed vegan diet is some form of subconscious self-harm/suicidal drive, as she slowly starves herself to death. A more holistic view would state that Tabitha's commitment to her veganism is again, a conscious choice to respect life in every fiber of her being after her suicide attempt, and the treatment of a philosophical behavior under the guise of social maladjustment is a tale as old as the concept of psychiatric care.
Kim mentions her "right to defend herself" and that brings up the absence of true freedom for her in this environment. We harken all the way back to page 9 where she first asked about her "right to defend herself". How can I properly translate this... Basically Kim is throwing shade at our dear wolf nurse for her situation. She despises her lack of freedom in this environment. On some level in her mind, she understands there is a role for her to play here if she wishes to truly enjoy freedom of her own control again. This doesn't mean Kim has to enjoy her attempt at method acting, regardless of how well the performance plays out or not.
Moving right along, we get Kim being pulled for her second psych evaluation in the midst of yet another group session:
Kim flounders throughout the entire evaluation in spite of the mask she half-heartedly maintains. She avoided a complete emotional blowout however, so it is progress. The main purpose of ongoing evaluations in any psychiatric setting is to of course directly assess functioning and interpersonal behavior, but the main purpose within wards is to evaluate outgoing harm risk. Inpatient settings are expensive, never fully covered by insurance, and not always appropriate for long-term care. However, Kim clearly needs some acute monitoring, even if she doesn't fully adhere to ward life during her stay. Ideally patients in holding are released as soon as they can be reasonably judged to not pose a danger to themselves or others. As such, Kim receives another devastating emotional blow; she has been deemed so at-risk that her claws must formally be trimmed. Like acat ferret that just can't stop ripping up the furniture. One lens can highlight how this can be seen as a punishment, out of line for a therapeutic institution. Another lens could point out that Kimberly is still a suicide risk. Harken back to page 54 from the previous day, showing Kimberly day-dreaming about a noose. To borrow a paraphrase: "Suicide is sometimes just a mantra I repeat to myself. No matter how bad things can get, I can always choose to exit, and that's comforting sometimes".
One could argue that she has shown great restraint in not self-mutilating or assaulting the staff or fellow patients, and another could point out that violence directed to anybody outside of herself is not within her character, or even most people with Borderline Personality Disorder- keep in mind that whilst they do have some odd 10%(!!!) lifelong suicide risk, they do not trend towards interpersonal violence more than the general population. This opens up a segue back to the idea that Kim is possibly being misdiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. I've mentioned the broad strokes of BPD's pathology, and saving myself an entire comparative essay between various mental disorders that can easily overlap or be interpreted alongside BPD, I'm just going to point out that the surface level facets of Kimberly's pathology is just as easily thrown under the blanket "depression" label. BPD is highly comorbid with other disorders, and is most commonly accompanied by major depression, though other common duet partners are ADHD and substance use disorders. Self-mutilation is often treated as the "hallmark" of BPD at a glance though, but it is by no means a behavior exclusive to that disease. Keep in mind that Dr. Fink's main clinical function here is to assess Kim's overall functioning in order to safely release her back into the wild.
We cut back directly to the aftermath of Kimberly's second evaluation:
I'm tending to avoid giving rundowns on Kim's emotional reasoning and reactions since Gray does a great job of letting pages speak for themselves. I'll just let our dear readers and true believers draw their own readings of Carmilla, Kim, and Sugar here.
We reach a pretty dense sequence; for the sake of clarity I will break this up to individually address scenes but much like the emotional waves of BPD, this all flows together:
We learn that our dear, polite Tabitha is much more akin to Kim than we first gathered. Note how Tabitha considers Kim's possible personal reaction to her choices within the context of the ward. Its the subtle things, and whilst its autistic to point out, that only serves to illustrate the instinctual nature of interpersonal etiquette and reinforce the underlying subconscious motives that inform the behavior Tabitha exhibits in contrast to Kim's. The very next scene is the group session Tabitha's skipping out on:
This salamander has a point but is absolute dogshit as a psychiatric nurse, let alone a group therapy lead. We'll come back to her later, as well as address Lupe in a moment. Moving along:
I just love Lupe's "Oh shit this bitch is 12 years old" face. Kim keeps reminding us that both she and Lou share Dr. Fink as their psychiatrist, yet Lou is going home whilst Kim is not. Kim's turmoil is obvious, but some of our readers and true believers might be left scratching their heads as to why these individual circumstances are the way they are. We can glean from all the other scenes with Lou and Kim that they're not too dissimilar: they're both diagnosed with BPD (page 43) and aren't afraid to get snippy with the staff or their fellow inpatients (page 28), and share years of self-mutilation scars. At a glance, their pathology is nearly identical.
However, gathering together all the scraps of what we know about Lou, we can surmise that she is there at least somewhat voluntarily- we infer this by her allusion to multiple "episodes" of hers, and her "its all about control with him", leads into the idea that her husband has something to do with Lou's current stay in the ward, if not others. Lou could've possibly committed herself at her husband's behest, and this is the lens I'm going to focus on since it connects to her character's focus on personal control. Under the legal and clinical lenses, there is a big difference between voluntary and involuntary treatment.
Voluntary treatment is always viewed more favorably in the eyes of the courts, and most legal repercussions usually seen stemming from inpatient treatment are invalidated, for the most part... You should always be more mindful of what is actually on the books in your exact circumstances than anything any internet lawyer tells you, however.
Clinically, voluntary submission to inpatient treatment shows a high level of mindfulness towards one's own condition and a high level of self-control. "Emergency maintenance" trips to shore up coping mechanisms or have extra hands on deck for a particularly nasty emotional blowout are heavily preferred when patients are incapable of weathering the storm by themselves. Of note is the fact that we cannot see any fresh wounds on Lou, same as Kim. However, page 59 reminds us that she is here for self-mutilation, a history Kim clearly shares as well. As has been the theme with Lou throughout the comic, she retains control in spite of her surroundings, situation, and ongoing afflictions.
Whilst the specific details of Lou and Kim's situations may differ wildly, we can still compare them on a diagnostic and thematic scale. Abuse can be inferred directly from Lou's comment about the scar on her face, and we can mayyybe pick up on something fucky-wucky on Kimberly's family through her phone call back on page 32. They share self-mutilation, a BPD diagnosis, and surliness with fellow patients and staff. However, in spite of all these surface similarities, Lou's granular differences mean she is going home whilst Kim stays. Legally most wards are required to hold any inpatient for at least 72 hours observation, with involuntary holdings usually lasting up to two weeks.
I'm tending to avoid too much speculation about the lives of our inpatients as Fresh Meat intentionally leaves the majority of their lives outside the ward in the shadows. We could certainly craft casefiles for each of them using external extracts and examples, and sort of cobble together the exact possible pathology of their behaviors, but that would serve little purpose for this shithouse analysis and drag us away from actually looking at this work and these characters within that context. I'm more than happy to offer our dear readers and true believers a bootleg JCS impression, but fanfiction? Get outta here.
Cutting page 71 in half we arrive at the close of this sequence as Lou makes her exit:
In spite of everything, in spite of her own traverses and travails, Tabitha still can comfort Kim through her own tears. "True" empathy is said to be hard for sufferers of BPD. Sympathy, like love however, runs deep. Keep this in mind, the tide is just now coming in, dear readers and true believers.
Tabitha's choice of diet (or rather lack thereof) has become a direct point of contention for our previously introduced Lynx nurse, and so she is also pulled off into the aether to be reprimanded. A clinician might justify this under the idea that Tabitha's self-imposed vegan diet is some form of subconscious self-harm/suicidal drive, as she slowly starves herself to death. A more holistic view would state that Tabitha's commitment to her veganism is again, a conscious choice to respect life in every fiber of her being after her suicide attempt, and the treatment of a philosophical behavior under the guise of social maladjustment is a tale as old as the concept of psychiatric care.
Kim mentions her "right to defend herself" and that brings up the absence of true freedom for her in this environment. We harken all the way back to page 9 where she first asked about her "right to defend herself". How can I properly translate this... Basically Kim is throwing shade at our dear wolf nurse for her situation. She despises her lack of freedom in this environment. On some level in her mind, she understands there is a role for her to play here if she wishes to truly enjoy freedom of her own control again. This doesn't mean Kim has to enjoy her attempt at method acting, regardless of how well the performance plays out or not.
Moving right along, we get Kim being pulled for her second psych evaluation in the midst of yet another group session:
Kim flounders throughout the entire evaluation in spite of the mask she half-heartedly maintains. She avoided a complete emotional blowout however, so it is progress. The main purpose of ongoing evaluations in any psychiatric setting is to of course directly assess functioning and interpersonal behavior, but the main purpose within wards is to evaluate outgoing harm risk. Inpatient settings are expensive, never fully covered by insurance, and not always appropriate for long-term care. However, Kim clearly needs some acute monitoring, even if she doesn't fully adhere to ward life during her stay. Ideally patients in holding are released as soon as they can be reasonably judged to not pose a danger to themselves or others. As such, Kim receives another devastating emotional blow; she has been deemed so at-risk that her claws must formally be trimmed. Like a
One could argue that she has shown great restraint in not self-mutilating or assaulting the staff or fellow patients, and another could point out that violence directed to anybody outside of herself is not within her character, or even most people with Borderline Personality Disorder- keep in mind that whilst they do have some odd 10%(!!!) lifelong suicide risk, they do not trend towards interpersonal violence more than the general population. This opens up a segue back to the idea that Kim is possibly being misdiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. I've mentioned the broad strokes of BPD's pathology, and saving myself an entire comparative essay between various mental disorders that can easily overlap or be interpreted alongside BPD, I'm just going to point out that the surface level facets of Kimberly's pathology is just as easily thrown under the blanket "depression" label. BPD is highly comorbid with other disorders, and is most commonly accompanied by major depression, though other common duet partners are ADHD and substance use disorders. Self-mutilation is often treated as the "hallmark" of BPD at a glance though, but it is by no means a behavior exclusive to that disease. Keep in mind that Dr. Fink's main clinical function here is to assess Kim's overall functioning in order to safely release her back into the wild.
We cut back directly to the aftermath of Kimberly's second evaluation:
We reach a pretty dense sequence; for the sake of clarity I will break this up to individually address scenes but much like the emotional waves of BPD, this all flows together:
We learn that our dear, polite Tabitha is much more akin to Kim than we first gathered. Note how Tabitha considers Kim's possible personal reaction to her choices within the context of the ward. Its the subtle things, and whilst its autistic to point out, that only serves to illustrate the instinctual nature of interpersonal etiquette and reinforce the underlying subconscious motives that inform the behavior Tabitha exhibits in contrast to Kim's. The very next scene is the group session Tabitha's skipping out on:
This salamander has a point but is absolute dogshit as a psychiatric nurse, let alone a group therapy lead. We'll come back to her later, as well as address Lupe in a moment. Moving along:
I just love Lupe's "Oh shit this bitch is 12 years old" face. Kim keeps reminding us that both she and Lou share Dr. Fink as their psychiatrist, yet Lou is going home whilst Kim is not. Kim's turmoil is obvious, but some of our readers and true believers might be left scratching their heads as to why these individual circumstances are the way they are. We can glean from all the other scenes with Lou and Kim that they're not too dissimilar: they're both diagnosed with BPD (page 43) and aren't afraid to get snippy with the staff or their fellow inpatients (page 28), and share years of self-mutilation scars. At a glance, their pathology is nearly identical.
However, gathering together all the scraps of what we know about Lou, we can surmise that she is there at least somewhat voluntarily- we infer this by her allusion to multiple "episodes" of hers, and her "its all about control with him", leads into the idea that her husband has something to do with Lou's current stay in the ward, if not others. Lou could've possibly committed herself at her husband's behest, and this is the lens I'm going to focus on since it connects to her character's focus on personal control. Under the legal and clinical lenses, there is a big difference between voluntary and involuntary treatment.
Voluntary treatment is always viewed more favorably in the eyes of the courts, and most legal repercussions usually seen stemming from inpatient treatment are invalidated, for the most part... You should always be more mindful of what is actually on the books in your exact circumstances than anything any internet lawyer tells you, however.
Clinically, voluntary submission to inpatient treatment shows a high level of mindfulness towards one's own condition and a high level of self-control. "Emergency maintenance" trips to shore up coping mechanisms or have extra hands on deck for a particularly nasty emotional blowout are heavily preferred when patients are incapable of weathering the storm by themselves. Of note is the fact that we cannot see any fresh wounds on Lou, same as Kim. However, page 59 reminds us that she is here for self-mutilation, a history Kim clearly shares as well. As has been the theme with Lou throughout the comic, she retains control in spite of her surroundings, situation, and ongoing afflictions.
Whilst the specific details of Lou and Kim's situations may differ wildly, we can still compare them on a diagnostic and thematic scale. Abuse can be inferred directly from Lou's comment about the scar on her face, and we can mayyybe pick up on something fucky-wucky on Kimberly's family through her phone call back on page 32. They share self-mutilation, a BPD diagnosis, and surliness with fellow patients and staff. However, in spite of all these surface similarities, Lou's granular differences mean she is going home whilst Kim stays. Legally most wards are required to hold any inpatient for at least 72 hours observation, with involuntary holdings usually lasting up to two weeks.
I'm tending to avoid too much speculation about the lives of our inpatients as Fresh Meat intentionally leaves the majority of their lives outside the ward in the shadows. We could certainly craft casefiles for each of them using external extracts and examples, and sort of cobble together the exact possible pathology of their behaviors, but that would serve little purpose for this shithouse analysis and drag us away from actually looking at this work and these characters within that context. I'm more than happy to offer our dear readers and true believers a bootleg JCS impression, but fanfiction? Get outta here.
Cutting page 71 in half we arrive at the close of this sequence as Lou makes her exit:
In spite of everything, in spite of her own traverses and travails, Tabitha still can comfort Kim through her own tears. "True" empathy is said to be hard for sufferers of BPD. Sympathy, like love however, runs deep. Keep this in mind, the tide is just now coming in, dear readers and true believers.
We enter day 5 of Kimberly Yu's mild Psych Ward Ride with another morning body check that leads into a group therapy session:
Carmilla attempts to entice Lupe into some shenanigans with her wily charms, with Lupe completely brushing her off. Note the olive branch Lupe extends to Kim; she reaches out, not prying, but merely letting her commiseration and experience speak plainly. Interaction is laid at Kim's feet, not thrust upon her; the choice to engage is left up to her.
Moving forever onward, we see Kim confronting Tabitha after her "examination":
Oh, Tabitha... Kim's having an incredibly hard time properly expressing her true care for her in this moment. Don't mistake Kim's saddened rage for a lack of affection: BPD is an odd one like that. Kim's frustration at Tabitha making her stay in the ward as harsh as possible for herself is as much of a reflection of Kim's own predicament, as it is her not being able to properly express her newfound agape towards Tabitha. The interpersonal lives of BPD sufferers are rife with such mistranslations and malformations; emotional undercurrents form riptides that tear apart those that get caught in the waves. Rejection and loss, whether real, potential, or imagined, are amongst the biggest fears for BPD folks, and for the interpersonal lives of those with BPD the reactions to avoid or poorly mediate through this facet of life is an ongoing source of much sorrow and pain. Kim underneath it all is still trying to express concern, and Tabitha, even whilst reeling from the sheer emotion that has been thrown at her, still attempts to console Kim in a roundabout way. Still seeking comfort, Kim turns towards her only other true confidant on the ward, Sugar. Wait... Girlfriend???
We skip page 78 depicting Carmilla reaping the benefits of her bloodpack hustle and the remaining gang observing that Tabitha is no longer attending lunch with them. She's most likely having her sustenance applied through a tube (recall Sugar's talk of Anorexia Watch way back on page 19).
We start this sequence at page 79, during art therapy with our returning shithouse Salamander nurse:
We're entering the final laps of this comic and our dear author Gray is laying it on thick here for a strong finish. Do I really need to explain art therapy? Do I really need to explain the patient's art? I know I've approached this writeup like we're all five years old but I'd hope I've acclimated everybody to reading this without holding hands through every panel. However I will point out that the patient's art does indeed form further contrasts across our main cast. Carmilla's chained rose, Kim's pill crying eyes, and Lupe's slashed wrists (revealed in the next page sequence) engender summations of their individual dysfunction. Carmilla has found her mode of functioning, but her natural behaviors are barely kept in check by external controls, Lupe clings to her self-mutilation as the only handle she has on her own tumultuous life, and Kim is still reeling from the effects of her surroundings and current line of treatment.
That nurse is still fucking terrible. Whichever administrator allowed this benchwarming cunt to lead groups should be shot. Her only concern is respect for her tenuous authority as a practitioner on the ward, and her pre-occupation with this belays her actual duties of helping inpatients connect more thoroughly with their treatment- see how she pushes aside any input the patients may have on their own therapy and how it relates to them individually, hampering connection to treatment.
We exit the group therapy session and enter Sugar's visitation:
Waitaminute, Frank? Frankie!!! Drop-Out crossover again boys! Going with the deep cuts as she was never directly featured in Drop-Out except in that extra comic I linked. Frankie's reassurances towards Kim go over about as well as you'd expect, but hey! Its not a complete emotional blowout. We have character growth here! Two weeks in the ward is nothing, and Kim's barely been here for about a week already. Teenagers, amirite?
We arrive at the close of this sequence (page 84):
I told you dear readers and true believers we'd circle 'round back to self-harm, and here we are. Lupe is correct in that self-mutilation does have a deeper physiological effect for those that employ it as a means of emotional regulation. The brain does indeed release endorphins and other brain chemicals in response to physical trauma, and this can have a calming effect for some. This can come in handy for tempering emotional blowouts by giving the frontal lobes something to focus on other than freaking the fuck out. This is even seen in esoteric forms within the animal kingdom, with birds plucking out their feathers until they are bald as a stress response, as well as dogs and cats licking or picking raw spots on themselves. Kim mentions that her primary motivation for self-harm is punishment, which is another common reason for the behavior. It allots her control over her strong emotions of self-hatred. Some clinicians posit that such actions may also point to underlying parasuicidal thought management.
Carmilla focuses on Kim's own control over herself and her situation. Whilst Carmilla's adjudication is that she has no free will on the ward and is being punished for just merely being what she is, I feel that Kim is more wishing to suffer in private than languish under the lens of inpatient psychiatry at this stage in her life. Lupe brings up another good point in regards to Carmilla's own behavior. "The blood is for control as well". Carmilla actively manipulates those in her surroundings in order to maintain her own form of control.
Carmilla attempts to entice Lupe into some shenanigans with her wily charms, with Lupe completely brushing her off. Note the olive branch Lupe extends to Kim; she reaches out, not prying, but merely letting her commiseration and experience speak plainly. Interaction is laid at Kim's feet, not thrust upon her; the choice to engage is left up to her.
Moving forever onward, we see Kim confronting Tabitha after her "examination":
Oh, Tabitha... Kim's having an incredibly hard time properly expressing her true care for her in this moment. Don't mistake Kim's saddened rage for a lack of affection: BPD is an odd one like that. Kim's frustration at Tabitha making her stay in the ward as harsh as possible for herself is as much of a reflection of Kim's own predicament, as it is her not being able to properly express her newfound agape towards Tabitha. The interpersonal lives of BPD sufferers are rife with such mistranslations and malformations; emotional undercurrents form riptides that tear apart those that get caught in the waves. Rejection and loss, whether real, potential, or imagined, are amongst the biggest fears for BPD folks, and for the interpersonal lives of those with BPD the reactions to avoid or poorly mediate through this facet of life is an ongoing source of much sorrow and pain. Kim underneath it all is still trying to express concern, and Tabitha, even whilst reeling from the sheer emotion that has been thrown at her, still attempts to console Kim in a roundabout way. Still seeking comfort, Kim turns towards her only other true confidant on the ward, Sugar. Wait... Girlfriend???
We skip page 78 depicting Carmilla reaping the benefits of her bloodpack hustle and the remaining gang observing that Tabitha is no longer attending lunch with them. She's most likely having her sustenance applied through a tube (recall Sugar's talk of Anorexia Watch way back on page 19).
We start this sequence at page 79, during art therapy with our returning shithouse Salamander nurse:
We're entering the final laps of this comic and our dear author Gray is laying it on thick here for a strong finish. Do I really need to explain art therapy? Do I really need to explain the patient's art? I know I've approached this writeup like we're all five years old but I'd hope I've acclimated everybody to reading this without holding hands through every panel. However I will point out that the patient's art does indeed form further contrasts across our main cast. Carmilla's chained rose, Kim's pill crying eyes, and Lupe's slashed wrists (revealed in the next page sequence) engender summations of their individual dysfunction. Carmilla has found her mode of functioning, but her natural behaviors are barely kept in check by external controls, Lupe clings to her self-mutilation as the only handle she has on her own tumultuous life, and Kim is still reeling from the effects of her surroundings and current line of treatment.
That nurse is still fucking terrible. Whichever administrator allowed this benchwarming cunt to lead groups should be shot. Her only concern is respect for her tenuous authority as a practitioner on the ward, and her pre-occupation with this belays her actual duties of helping inpatients connect more thoroughly with their treatment- see how she pushes aside any input the patients may have on their own therapy and how it relates to them individually, hampering connection to treatment.
We exit the group therapy session and enter Sugar's visitation:
Waitaminute, Frank? Frankie!!! Drop-Out crossover again boys! Going with the deep cuts as she was never directly featured in Drop-Out except in that extra comic I linked. Frankie's reassurances towards Kim go over about as well as you'd expect, but hey! Its not a complete emotional blowout. We have character growth here! Two weeks in the ward is nothing, and Kim's barely been here for about a week already. Teenagers, amirite?
We arrive at the close of this sequence (page 84):
Carmilla focuses on Kim's own control over herself and her situation. Whilst Carmilla's adjudication is that she has no free will on the ward and is being punished for just merely being what she is, I feel that Kim is more wishing to suffer in private than languish under the lens of inpatient psychiatry at this stage in her life. Lupe brings up another good point in regards to Carmilla's own behavior. "The blood is for control as well". Carmilla actively manipulates those in her surroundings in order to maintain her own form of control.
Day 6 of Kimberly Yu's mild Psych Ward Ride. I'm at the character limit, and thus, I shall draw upon our dear readers and true believers to keep these various ramblings in mind as we reach the end:
Attachments
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2019
forgive me i am not a great writer
The Nature of Predators is a story about humanity stumbling onto a galactic community that has already established itself and discovering something bizarre. With one exception beyond themselves, every spacefaring species in the galaxy is herbivorous. We're talking eyes on the side of the head, cowardly and weak (with a few notable exceptions), and absolutely terrified of anything that eats meat. What follows is a journey into humanity navigating a misguided galaxy that can't help but fear them in the midst of a centuries-long war. I was trying to find some info to post up on here about the author but I couldn't find shit beyond his real name being Daniel Pascap. In lieu of that, here's the description provided from what appears to be a paperback copy of the first 40 chapters to give you a much better rundown of what to expect.
Now this is a long-ass story (Currently at a whopping 178 chapters out of a planned 184) and I won't be able to even come close to covering the whole thing in a single post, so I'll try to break things down into manageable chunks of story. I actually quite enjoy it but I'll try to remain partial here and let you come to your own conclusions about it. Every chapter is written from the perspective of one of the characters in the story and they're subject to change quite frequently, so for clarity's sake I'll throw the name of the character in the spoiler.
Technically the glossary is like, chapter 11 but I'll toss it in at the start so you can get a bit of added context to what you're reading since the story goes in throwing around species names like you should already know them since it starts from the perspective of one such alien.
Venlil - Humanity's first contact in the galaxy, often described by their counterparts as one of the weakest and most emotional races. Their timidity can overshadow their fierce sense of morality, but their desire for friendship usually wins out in the end.
Their homeworld, Venlil Prime, requires constant defense due to its strategic location in the galaxy's outer arm. (Humanity calls this planet Gliese 832 c, and it's 16 light-years away from Earth) The Venlil Republic officially controls a swath of territory which stretches 20 light-years in any direction. This makes the Sol system technically in their domain.
As for appearance, the Venlil's flatter facial features remind some humans of stuffed animals. This, combined with their large, horizontal-pupiled eyes makes them rather "cute." One note of peculiarity is that they lack any nose, or sense of smell. Their wooly fur can be any shade of gray, with occasional tufts or stripes breaking up the singular tone. One example is the black tuft between Slanek's ears.
Their tails are bushy, stretching about 1 ft on average. They can be used as a secondary form of communication, or to help with balance and grasping. The Venlil have tiny claws, but they are not capable of real damage. Due to their lack of natural weapons or defenses, they were easy prey for their natural predators in their formative years.
With bipedalism as their designated form of locomotion, and spindly knock-kneed hindlegs, they are not well-suited to speedy escapes either. Their height places them at about the average human's shoulders.
Gojid - The Gojidi Union was a prevailing political force in the galaxy for centuries; even prior to the Arxur's arrival. Their extensive border defenses left many to consider them impervious to an external assault. Their military presence within their territory was considerable, and they never hesitated to send assistance to their neighbors.
Their homeworld lacks an official name, simply dubbed "the cradle" by its occupants. What name would a planet need but something that speaks of fondness and home? The last Federation census listed the cradle's population at 12 billion. Its primary export is fruits from its famed orchards, and it had a wide array of merchant settlements.
The defining physical trait for a Gojid is their spines. Whenever one is afraid, their spines bristle as an involuntary response. The length of their lowest spines is the best way to approximate one's age at a glance. Their long, brown fur makes them well-adapted to colder climates.
They cannot engage in the animated tail language of other species, since their tails and legs are both stubby. Their claws are slender, and of a significant length; they can slash through most softer substances, including skin.
Arxur (as told by the Federation) - The only predatory species known besides humans. They enjoy the thrill of hunting sentient prey, and their sole communications have been for the purpose of taunting Federation powers. They are solo, ambush hunters who have been known to torment the millions of sentients they keep as cattle.
The Arxur's technology was about at late-1900s levels before the Federation uplifted them. They waited long enough to mass produce starships, and to get their bearings, before launching a surprise attack on all neighboring species. The handful that fled their worlds are the only ones that survived. 62 worlds have been destroyed over the centuries.
Little is known about the Arxur's government. Some Federation sources claim they are completely anarchistic, but this is to be taken with a grain of salt. A few fringe scientists suggest that the most vicious warriors culled the masses, and this may be closer to the truth.
Their v-shaped snouts are reminiscent of a crocodile, and their fangs protrude from their mouths even when closed. While bipedal, they often lean forward as they walk, so that they can lunge on all fours in a heartbeat. Their scaly, gray skin earned them the moniker "the grays." The tough hide serves as a natural armor, as do the ridges on their spine.
Kolshian - The Kolshian Commonwealth champions knowledge and objectivity, and spearheads many Federation conventions. Their homeworld, Aafa, translates as "Garden". Its dwellings are said to be stunning feats of architecture, and the capital's botanical gardens are also famed. The School of the Flora is the largest university in the Federation; as such, the capital has a large student population.
The Kolshians are one of the few species without fur. Evolutionary biologists believe their ancestors were aquatic, judging by the tentacles that form their arms. Their eyes are brightly-colored and bulbous, reminiscent of Earth's frogs. Meanwhile, their cooler skin tones are various blues or purples; perhaps ocean camouflage?
Zurulian - A neighbor species to the Venlil, the Gojids, and by extension, humanity. These quadrupedal, green-blooded mammals contribute much of the Federation's medical funding. They take great pride in grooming their shaggy, brown pelts; they are often seen smoothing their fur with their tongues.
The Zurulians' cub-like ears may trigger humanity's cute response. They are known to be very energetic, when enthused about a subject, and are one of the most social species in the galaxy. Quieter species sometimes do not appreciate having their ear talked off by Zurulian counterparts.
Krakotl - Avian species are a rarity, simply because ground-dwelling species are most likely to evolve sentience. The Krakotl evolved on a marshy world called Nishtal, which led to the development of talons for balance. These seconded as a defensive weapon, when they landed to eat algae.
Their curved beaks are bright, tropical colors. Evolutionary biologists suggest these colors developed to frighten away predators, since bright animals are often poisonous. When irritated, their feathers puff out in a semi-circle behind them.
A Krakotl possesses one of the largest vocal ranges in the galaxy. Their squawks can range from deafening screeches, to a melodic harmony. With their arsenal of physical defenses, the Krakotl have a higher aggression than most, due to their tendency to scare off predators.
For this reason, they led the path to create many Federation weapons and strategies, during the first phases of the war. The Krakotl Alliance's military presence is always known, as are their offensive capabilities. They aren't afraid to intimidate other species into going along with their plans.
Mazic - These sand-colored mammals evolved in the hot, arid desert, but proved their adaptability to many climates. Their bulky mass leads them to weigh several hundred pounds. A considerable amount of vegetation is necessary for a healthy diet each day. Accommodating a Mazic individual onto a Federation ship can be a logistical nightmare.
A fluke genetic mutation separated the toes of their front paws, compared to the flatness of their hindlegs. This allowed them to create tools, although they generally maintain quadrupedalism. Their trunks are multi-faceted in their purpose. They are used to drink water, to convey emotion, and as a grasping tool when necessary.
Yotul - The bipedal marsupials are the newest uplifts to the Federation. Just 22 cycles ago, their planet was a fledging industrial society. The discovery of steam power led to a society that was finally interconnected, through railroads and quicker boats.
When aliens greeted the leaders of each major settlement, in front of watching crowds, there was panic. Newspapers spread the word; the dissemination of information was a slow process, regardless. Aviation, antibiotics, electricity, and astronomy were all novel discoveries.
The Yotul struggled at first, as could be expected, but began a slow adjustment period. The Federation still views them as primitives, while the Yotul feel they are treated with unfair derision. Their policy is driven by desperation to prove that they are not just a liability.
Nevok - The Nevoks pride themselves on their extensive trading network, specializing in the development of fabrics, microchips, and appliances. Their engineering knowledge is unrivaled, as is their condescending attitude toward any species they perceive as stupid. They're happy to fleece any trading partner that isn't savvy enough to play their game.
The bipedal mammals often look awkward, swaying as they walk on their thick hooves. Their forelegs have toes rather than hooves, which make their paws look mismatched as well. The long, circular ears atop their heads remind humans of rabbits. Lastly, their cream-colored fur is perfect for arctic camouflage on their homeworld.
The governing Nevok Imperium has lost its competitive edge over the past century, as the Fissans began undercutting their prices. Both have been in a vicious trading war to sign agreements with new species. The Nevok Imperium went as far as to lodge a formal complaint against the Fissan Compact in human year 2123, accusing them of stealing proprietary secrets.
Sivkit - The Sivkits are known as a reclusive species, as much due to their timidness as their location. They are one of the furthest Federation members from central worlds like Aafa. The Arxur can seem like a distant threat at times; they have to go thousands of light-years out of the way to target the Sivkits. Thus, it's sometimes difficult to spur the prairie animals to action.
The Sivkit Grand Herd is comprised of a series of smaller, nomadic tribes. It's not uncommon for them to set up shop on a habitable world, harvest its vegetation, then move to the next. They don't bear the attachment to a home that other species do. It's uncertain whether their governing planet, Tunsas, is even their homeworld.
If Sivkit settlements were more stable, they might act as a haven for Federation refugees. Instead, it's the Paltan Combine that shoulders most of the humanitarian outreach from their quadrant.
The Sivkits are medium-sized mammals with fluffy, white pelts. Their razor-thin tails have a thick plume of hair at the end. While anthropologists believe they were bipedal for a short time when they first created tools, they regressed back to quadrupedalism as technology advanced. In their spacefaring days, they have always presented themselves on four legs.
Farsul - The Farsul are best known for their historians, and creating standardized education curriculums for all prey species. They chair the Federation's Archaeological Committee, though their excavations often involves studying the ways a species' ancestors were hunted. They also maintain various museums and the Galactic Archives.
The Farsul also were one of the lead species in observing Earth back in the 20th century. The "scholarly" research done on humanity, and the dossier of our wartime atrocities, was largely their handiwork. For this reason, they are critical of Terran diplomacy.
The Farsul States are a gerontocracy, which means they are led by any elders who are considered wise or accomplished. Their government is more decentralized than most unified planets. The day-to-day affairs on the local level are controlled by an elder from that region.
The Farsul are bipeds, but with their stout paws and curved hindlegs, they struggle with traction and balance. They have a variety of fur colors; while brown in the predominant gene, anything from white to charcoal gray exists. Their floppy ears are reminiscent of a cocker spaniel's to human observers.
Takkan - The Takkans may describe themselves as a species seeking identity. Visually, their thick gray hides aren't too different from hippos on Earth. They are slightly taller and bulkier than humans. Their tri-toed paws are a memorable feature, which suggest they may have evolved from larger land mammals.
Following the start of the Arxur war, there was a rift in the populace. A consequential percent wished to flee their homeworld. The original Takkan government folded after contentious legislative hearings, and the species' fate was left in uncertainty.
The Compromise of Nishtal was brokered by the Krakotl; this pact led to the formation of the new Takkan Coalition. While the majority took up arms to defend their birthplace, several million Takkans dispersed across the galaxy. Some found citizenship with other Federation powers. Others set off into the unknown, never to be heard from again.
Because of this so-called 'Takkan Diaspora', they are a common species to encounter on other race's military ships.
Thafki - The Thafki were one of the first races hit in the Arxur raids. Their species has been hunted close to extinction. While hundreds of millions, perhaps even billions, are held in captivity, only 12,000 exist in the wild. For the most part, these are descendants of any Thakfi residing off-world at the times of the attacks.
Since their territory has been seized, the existing government is more of a loose advocacy association. The Thafki have a few communes in colonies donated by other powers, but these become easy targets for the Arxur. Federation recognition of their membership status is a formality as much as anything.
The Thafki's gray-blue coloration is broken up by cream patches under their chin. Their long, tapering tails are perfect for animated signals. Meanwhile, their webbed feet and slender bodies aid swimming; they are semiaquatic animals at heart.
Dossur - The Dossur are the most diminutive species in the Federation. Their largest individuals are comparative in size of squirrels. Their tiny, rounded ears, and pointed snout give their faces the illusion of eternal youth; or as humans would call it, "cuteness." Their fur is ginger, with either white or gray stripes along their back.
Harchen - The Harchen are a reptile species famed for their natural camouflage. The waddling prey bipeds stand at half a human’s height, and can morph their skin into differing colors. Their species is average in most fields, notable for a few media franchises (such as the award-winning show The Exterminators) and software start-ups (such as predictive search engine Thread-Weave).
The Harchen have maintained their oral traditions from prehistoric times, using folk-songs at significant moments of their lives. Their colonies tend to be wealthy, and are best likened to Earth tech hubs like Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, their homeworld, Fahl, has a large portion that is a desert biome. This may have supported the success of small, sapient reptiles.
Fissans – The Fissan Compact exploded onto the scene as a trading power in the last century. The newer species did not shy away from the trading war with the Nevoks, undercutting their prices and swiping deals at every turn. The rival Nevok Imperium has lobbied accusations of corporate espionage at the Compact, but the Fissans insist that they merely engineer the technology cheaper.
The Fissans have a single horn at the top of their heads, with a hearty mane covering their necks. Humans are quick to draw comparisons to mythical unicorns, though the Fissans do not have hooves. Their whinnying vocalizations reinforce such parallels.
Tilfish - The Tilfish Ambassadorship was brought into the Federation via uplift around 180 years ago. Their homeworld, Sillis, is unique in having a single supercontinent. The massive ocean surrounding the rest of the planet results in acute weather patterns not seen in a traditional biome; rain and storms are near constant.
The Tilfish are an insectoid species, with six legs and a rotund, segmented thorax. Their shape and gray-black coloration is similar to spiders on Earth, while their mandibles, smooth skin, and mesh-like eyes are reminiscent of ants. Their height ranges between an average human’s shoulder and chest height.
Sulean and Iftali - The Suleans and Iftalis are two distinct mammalian species from the same homeworld, who have forged a nigh inseparable alliance over the years. They were inducted into the Federation together, and since accrued respectable military power. The bi-species government have separate representatives, but don't make decisions without the other.
The Iftalis are known for their tri-humped backs, and pinkish fur that matches with the sands of their deserts. Religion features more prominently in their society than their counterparts, ranking different food groups by dietary purity. The accumulation of negative auras determines whether the soul is light enough to move to the next life.
The Suleans are black-and-white striped animals, with tapered snouts and small antlers. They evolved in a more fertile biome than the Iftali, grazing in plains and valleys. They excel at climbing in mountains, and their antlers give them a way of defending themselves from predators.
Sulean explorers documented Iftali settlements, when they pushed near the equator. The two species swapped cultural elements, and established flourishing trade between their peoples. The free flow of ideas allowed them to work in cooperation, developing technology quicker than the average sapient races.
Paltan - The Paltan Combine is distant from the center of Federation space, but that has led them to become a beacon to war refugees. Their territory is becoming overpopulated, unable to keep up with the high demands of immigration. Resentment brews among the government for the Sivkit's apathy and non-intervention.
The Paltans have amber eyes that seem to pop from their skull. Their optical features can take up half of their face. Their wiggly toes and tiny nose soften their appearance even further, along with flexible cone-shaped ears. Their fur is an off-shade of yellow, and lauded by even the Arxur as exceptionally soft.
Duerten - As mentioned with the Krakotl, avian species are a rarity. The second and final other bird race in the galaxy are the Duerten, who are known for their long, curved bills. Most have dull, gray feathers, which adapted to blend in with the often-stormy skies on their homeworld. The monsoon season on their planet can result in extreme weather pattern.
The Duerten Homogeneity actively encourage uniform thinking, and discourage individual ideas. Their collectivism is unique even among Federation species, as they only show their true personalities among close friends and in the privacy of their homes. The Duerten are key producers of support ships, while never playing a leading military role themselves.
Malti - The Malti are the sole sapient monotreme (an egg-laying mammal) in the galaxy. They are said to resemble a spikeless echidna with their compressed faces and tapered snouts, and they have evolved with a vast range of colors to blend in with the environment. They are pure quadrupeds, like Zurulians, though they are about twice as large as the medical-minded teddy bears.
The Malti specialize in colonization expeditions, with their expertise called in when expansionist powers seek settlement advice; the exterminators guild was responsible for the creation of unique, firepower-packed bombers for their task. While not traditionally a military power, they do have one of the strongest offensive fleets at hand, were it to be adapted for that purpose.
Drezjin - The Drezjin are a quirky mammalian species, notable for being the sole non-avian race that is capable of flight. They primarily reside in caves, though secondary settlements cropped up in cool locales near water sources; a few habitats are also build into cliff and rock face crevices. Due to their preferred ambience being dark or dim, their sight is weak and short-ranged. Their hearing is sharp enough to hear crisply miles away to make up for this.
The Drezjin Theocracy believes that the Federation founders were avatars of their deities due to interpretations of ancient cave paintings, and as such are strongly loyal to the Kolshians. While priests hold a crucial role in several societies, the Drezjin are one of the few spacefaring races actively governed by the clergy class. Certain sects of the Federation mock their leadership as a conduit for primitive superstition, despite its reverence toward them.
The Drezjin can sport a variety of patterns on their stretchy, near translucent skin, and are lightweight to support flight. The wing membrane is quite flexible, allowing tool usage and grip strength. They are a mere two feet tall on average, lending to smaller structures than are typical with upright species.
**Drilvar** - The Drilvar are long-limbed, lethargic mammalian bipeds, known for their laid-back and relaxed attitude. Their fur pattern is a flashy orange, with black stripes. Their driving philosophy is that decisions and deeds should only be reached through careful consideration; it is this attitude that leads to their reputation as unreliable, compounded by other races deriding them as slow to react under pressure. Their slow metabolic rate is at the heart of this issue, which is part of why their city design is unusually compact. Drilvar don't like to go far from their homes for activities, which makes attending diplomatic processes a drawn-out affair.
The Drilvar are best known for their legal services, with their attorneys becoming renowned across the Federation for their knowledge of galactic law across numbers of jurisdiction. Their law schools feature sprawling campuses with dizzying verticality due to the inclusion of branch-like structures at various heights to hang from. The Drilvar Kritocracy reflects their reliance on codified statutes and systems through rule by the planet's highest judges.
**Jaur**- The Jaur are mammals who originated on a frigid homeworld, and evolved to craft dams even before their ancestors were considered sapient by Federation standards; their teeth have a unique regenerative ability to facilitate the carving of both wood and ice. They have silky, silver fur that is mottled with white spots, and patterns of black stripes along their sides. Their tails are black and paddle-like, serving as a defensive weapon. While they do possess standard tail language, smacking their tails against the ground is viewed as aggressive body language by the Federation.
The Jaur Principality is renowned for their architectural endeavors, with even modern buildings using compacted snow due to the unchanging cold on their planet; their world is considered to be one of the furthest on the outskirts of a theoretical habitable zone. Due to their engineering resourcefulness and resistance to extreme winters, the Jaur are able to scout potential colonies that other species would not be able to use. However, hotter temperatures on alien worlds can be life-threatening to a Jaur who lacks an envirosuit.
**Letian** - Letians are a marsupial species with limited aerial capabilities, without the full ability to fly. A flap of skin connects their front and hind legs, and this membrane can keep them aloft when jumping from crag to crag. Due to their rare crepuscular (preferring to be active during twilight hours) tendencies, they typically have dark colorations. Their compact faces often have a tiny nose and large eyes, along with rodent-like ears.
Their silent gliding makes them somewhat creepy to other species, as they can silently glide down on an unsuspecting prey animal, much like a predator. Their habit of looking at people with both eyes feeds that unwanted reputation, due to their inclination to judge distances in this manner. Their alpine homeworld has the highest amount of mountain ranges of any inhabited planet in the Federation, resulting in oddly-curved buildings that hug mountainsides for stability and semi-vertical cities which fit their gliding abilities.
The Letian caste system divides people by elevation, which means the most esteemed individuals inhabit the highest buildings. Their world is not very welcoming to alien refugees due to the daunting heights, and designs which are tailored to the unique gliding capabilities. Rumors abound among prey species that all Letians have some degree of predator disease, which leads it to be frequented only by a skeleton crew of diplomats.
**Verin and Onkari** - The Verin share a unique bond with Onkari, due to the fact that their homeworlds are both moons orbiting the same planet. The Onkari birthplace is dominated by a global rainforest, which is in stark contrast to the arid savannah-like conditions of the Verin's moon. Both races developed stargazing tools much earlier than the average sophonts, and were able to see each others' worlds. The two planets pass close to each other frequently, which led both species to christen the other's moon as "paradise" in their respective religions.
The Verin are most well-known as optical specialists, crafting the vast complex telescope arrays and lenses to bolster the Federation's mission to seek out new new life. They have a beetle-like appearance, sporting an iridescent violet carapace, and similar to the Tilfish, they have six limbs, four of which are used for locomotion. They've attempted to use their antennae to replicate tail language, with some success, since joining the Federation.
The Onkari, meanwhile, specialized in communications technology, and were responsible for opening diplomatic contact with the Verin in their industrial era. Upon first contact, however, their networks were upgraded with alien technology, and this field lost traction. They are a primarily quadrupedal race, switching to a bipedal stance when necessary to handle tasks or objects. Due to their rainforest origins, the Onkari are arboreal creatures, with their bark-colored striped fur making them virtually invisible in tree canopies. Their main contribution to the galactic community is in the chemistry realm of energetics, where they are responsible for developing most of the demolition charges the Federation employs.
**Angren** - With a homeworld that’s on the habitable zone cusp of being too hot to sustain complex life, Angren society rose up against the odds. The planet’s unusually slow rotation rate means that the Angren lack a fixed circadian rhythm, instead sleeping and waking almost at random. The quadrupeds’ unusual temperament could be linked to the harsh conditions on their world.
Angren males have a reputation for rowdy, unsociable behavior, with a disproportionately high number of predator disease diagnoses. While the more level-headed females are employed in the overwhelming majority of governmental and civilian jobs, many Angren males find violent work or leave their homeworld in search of opportunity. Most either find themselves enlisting in the military or enrolling in exterminator guilds, sometimes far away from the Angren Matriarchy’s rule.
Smaller than even the Zurulians, the Angren have olive fur and orange-red eyes, and sport a prominent pair of horns. Their unique ability to throw their voice, which historians believe was used to distract and confuse their predators, has earned some lucky few a prominent place in the Federation's entertainment industry. With the ability to emulate multiple voices from a single voice box, obsolete Angren theatre was said to be a unique artform.
**Tierkel** - The Tierkel are burrowing mammals that thrive in rocky, arid climates. Despite their desert preferences, their dull-colored fur is rather thick. They require sun basking for thermoregulation, and at night will often sleep by huddling if they don’t have heated blankets available. The Tierkel have very shrill, loud voices in order to warn each other of predators, especially with their long spells of dormancy.
Similar to Gojids, their stubby tails limit them in terms of tail languages, but they invented tapping patterns with their hardened claws. Their cub-like ears and thickset bodies make them slightly larger quadrupeds than the Zurulians.
The Tierkel Rockclan aren’t as well adapted as most species, so they never dominated their homeworld, and their biosphere was considered especially dangerous by the Federation. The Tierkel are useful links for trading empires like the Nevoks and Fissans for their control over various ores and resources found in their native environment, but rarely stray from their homeworld due to being naturally drawn to heat and warmth.
**Yulpa** - The Yulpa are mammals that evolved in rainforest biomes, with prehensile tongues that can rip apart leaves from the undergrowth. They have large ears that stand upright. The single-colored pattern of their fur switches jarringly into odd-striped legs, which lead down to hooves. They are ones of the faster runners in the Federation, and also one of the more solitary creatures.
The Yulpa Ascendancy have some of the most brutal exterminator practices in the Federation, as sacred cities lead regular sacrifices of predators to the Spirit of Life. If any creature needs to be captured for study, the Yulpa are the go-to experts in the field; often, various planets and governments will use them if they wish to document or study surviving predators.
**Leshee** - The Leshees are an amphibious species who are often looked down upon as contaminated due to their need for water absorption through their skin. Most Federation species rule them unfit for military service due to their water intake needs. The Leshees also are fully aquatic in their tadpole stage, until they’re fully grown and able to move to land. The younglings are often kept in pools or containment tanks.
Similar to the Tilfish, the Leshee can lay a staggering number of eggs at once; however, limited food and sensitive temperature requisites lead very few to survive. Parents don’t interact with their young much until they reach maturity. Their appearance can be a range of colors and patterns, but almost all Leshees have bulbous, colorful eyes like the Kolshians. Their splayed toes are very flexible.
There are rumors that brightly colored Leshees, a mutated genome that’s seen in one specific region, used to be able to spit poison, though the main consensus is that that’s an exaggerated tale derived from feelings of powerlessness against predators. The Leshee Junta have some of the strictest laws in the Federation, with the leading party punishing predator disease and anti-herd mentality severely. They claim they have to be harsh to survive, since they are not well-liked on most Federation worlds.
FAQs
How do the Federation's translators work? Why do the aliens use human expressions?
The Federation's translators use a form of machine learning. They can analyze data from various mediums, though a species' broadcasts and recordings are the easiest. Citizens of various space-faring societies have translators implanted at a young age (shortly after speaking their first words).
The translators opt for semantic rather than literal translation. When a human expression, that obviously does not exist within a prey society, is uttered, it's a safe assumption that their idiom was quite different.
What happened to the Federation's predators on their homeworlds? How were they studied or observed?
Any species that predated the sentients was exterminated, for obvious reasons. Their natural predators could not be allowed to survive; anything that "looked dangerous" was wiped out as well. Smaller predators, or predators that thrive in different biomes (for example, aquatic predators) have a continued existence in their ecosystem.
Predators (even lesser predators) were never the subject of much study, as they were seen to have little complexity or value. The scientific consensus was that every predatory action served the purpose of killing.
Have humans colonized the solar system?
22nd century humans possess fledging lunar and Martian colonies, but haven’t gotten beyond that yet. There are a few research outposts past the asteroid belt, on large or notable moons. With the novel discovery of FTL, various proposals have been outlined for extrasolar colonies. There are many habitable worlds out in the cosmos, but that will take more time than a few months.
Their homeworld, Venlil Prime, requires constant defense due to its strategic location in the galaxy's outer arm. (Humanity calls this planet Gliese 832 c, and it's 16 light-years away from Earth) The Venlil Republic officially controls a swath of territory which stretches 20 light-years in any direction. This makes the Sol system technically in their domain.
As for appearance, the Venlil's flatter facial features remind some humans of stuffed animals. This, combined with their large, horizontal-pupiled eyes makes them rather "cute." One note of peculiarity is that they lack any nose, or sense of smell. Their wooly fur can be any shade of gray, with occasional tufts or stripes breaking up the singular tone. One example is the black tuft between Slanek's ears.
Their tails are bushy, stretching about 1 ft on average. They can be used as a secondary form of communication, or to help with balance and grasping. The Venlil have tiny claws, but they are not capable of real damage. Due to their lack of natural weapons or defenses, they were easy prey for their natural predators in their formative years.
With bipedalism as their designated form of locomotion, and spindly knock-kneed hindlegs, they are not well-suited to speedy escapes either. Their height places them at about the average human's shoulders.
Gojid - The Gojidi Union was a prevailing political force in the galaxy for centuries; even prior to the Arxur's arrival. Their extensive border defenses left many to consider them impervious to an external assault. Their military presence within their territory was considerable, and they never hesitated to send assistance to their neighbors.
Their homeworld lacks an official name, simply dubbed "the cradle" by its occupants. What name would a planet need but something that speaks of fondness and home? The last Federation census listed the cradle's population at 12 billion. Its primary export is fruits from its famed orchards, and it had a wide array of merchant settlements.
The defining physical trait for a Gojid is their spines. Whenever one is afraid, their spines bristle as an involuntary response. The length of their lowest spines is the best way to approximate one's age at a glance. Their long, brown fur makes them well-adapted to colder climates.
They cannot engage in the animated tail language of other species, since their tails and legs are both stubby. Their claws are slender, and of a significant length; they can slash through most softer substances, including skin.
Arxur (as told by the Federation) - The only predatory species known besides humans. They enjoy the thrill of hunting sentient prey, and their sole communications have been for the purpose of taunting Federation powers. They are solo, ambush hunters who have been known to torment the millions of sentients they keep as cattle.
The Arxur's technology was about at late-1900s levels before the Federation uplifted them. They waited long enough to mass produce starships, and to get their bearings, before launching a surprise attack on all neighboring species. The handful that fled their worlds are the only ones that survived. 62 worlds have been destroyed over the centuries.
Little is known about the Arxur's government. Some Federation sources claim they are completely anarchistic, but this is to be taken with a grain of salt. A few fringe scientists suggest that the most vicious warriors culled the masses, and this may be closer to the truth.
Their v-shaped snouts are reminiscent of a crocodile, and their fangs protrude from their mouths even when closed. While bipedal, they often lean forward as they walk, so that they can lunge on all fours in a heartbeat. Their scaly, gray skin earned them the moniker "the grays." The tough hide serves as a natural armor, as do the ridges on their spine.
Kolshian - The Kolshian Commonwealth champions knowledge and objectivity, and spearheads many Federation conventions. Their homeworld, Aafa, translates as "Garden". Its dwellings are said to be stunning feats of architecture, and the capital's botanical gardens are also famed. The School of the Flora is the largest university in the Federation; as such, the capital has a large student population.
The Kolshians are one of the few species without fur. Evolutionary biologists believe their ancestors were aquatic, judging by the tentacles that form their arms. Their eyes are brightly-colored and bulbous, reminiscent of Earth's frogs. Meanwhile, their cooler skin tones are various blues or purples; perhaps ocean camouflage?
Zurulian - A neighbor species to the Venlil, the Gojids, and by extension, humanity. These quadrupedal, green-blooded mammals contribute much of the Federation's medical funding. They take great pride in grooming their shaggy, brown pelts; they are often seen smoothing their fur with their tongues.
The Zurulians' cub-like ears may trigger humanity's cute response. They are known to be very energetic, when enthused about a subject, and are one of the most social species in the galaxy. Quieter species sometimes do not appreciate having their ear talked off by Zurulian counterparts.
Krakotl - Avian species are a rarity, simply because ground-dwelling species are most likely to evolve sentience. The Krakotl evolved on a marshy world called Nishtal, which led to the development of talons for balance. These seconded as a defensive weapon, when they landed to eat algae.
Their curved beaks are bright, tropical colors. Evolutionary biologists suggest these colors developed to frighten away predators, since bright animals are often poisonous. When irritated, their feathers puff out in a semi-circle behind them.
A Krakotl possesses one of the largest vocal ranges in the galaxy. Their squawks can range from deafening screeches, to a melodic harmony. With their arsenal of physical defenses, the Krakotl have a higher aggression than most, due to their tendency to scare off predators.
For this reason, they led the path to create many Federation weapons and strategies, during the first phases of the war. The Krakotl Alliance's military presence is always known, as are their offensive capabilities. They aren't afraid to intimidate other species into going along with their plans.
Mazic - These sand-colored mammals evolved in the hot, arid desert, but proved their adaptability to many climates. Their bulky mass leads them to weigh several hundred pounds. A considerable amount of vegetation is necessary for a healthy diet each day. Accommodating a Mazic individual onto a Federation ship can be a logistical nightmare.
A fluke genetic mutation separated the toes of their front paws, compared to the flatness of their hindlegs. This allowed them to create tools, although they generally maintain quadrupedalism. Their trunks are multi-faceted in their purpose. They are used to drink water, to convey emotion, and as a grasping tool when necessary.
Yotul - The bipedal marsupials are the newest uplifts to the Federation. Just 22 cycles ago, their planet was a fledging industrial society. The discovery of steam power led to a society that was finally interconnected, through railroads and quicker boats.
When aliens greeted the leaders of each major settlement, in front of watching crowds, there was panic. Newspapers spread the word; the dissemination of information was a slow process, regardless. Aviation, antibiotics, electricity, and astronomy were all novel discoveries.
The Yotul struggled at first, as could be expected, but began a slow adjustment period. The Federation still views them as primitives, while the Yotul feel they are treated with unfair derision. Their policy is driven by desperation to prove that they are not just a liability.
Nevok - The Nevoks pride themselves on their extensive trading network, specializing in the development of fabrics, microchips, and appliances. Their engineering knowledge is unrivaled, as is their condescending attitude toward any species they perceive as stupid. They're happy to fleece any trading partner that isn't savvy enough to play their game.
The bipedal mammals often look awkward, swaying as they walk on their thick hooves. Their forelegs have toes rather than hooves, which make their paws look mismatched as well. The long, circular ears atop their heads remind humans of rabbits. Lastly, their cream-colored fur is perfect for arctic camouflage on their homeworld.
The governing Nevok Imperium has lost its competitive edge over the past century, as the Fissans began undercutting their prices. Both have been in a vicious trading war to sign agreements with new species. The Nevok Imperium went as far as to lodge a formal complaint against the Fissan Compact in human year 2123, accusing them of stealing proprietary secrets.
Sivkit - The Sivkits are known as a reclusive species, as much due to their timidness as their location. They are one of the furthest Federation members from central worlds like Aafa. The Arxur can seem like a distant threat at times; they have to go thousands of light-years out of the way to target the Sivkits. Thus, it's sometimes difficult to spur the prairie animals to action.
The Sivkit Grand Herd is comprised of a series of smaller, nomadic tribes. It's not uncommon for them to set up shop on a habitable world, harvest its vegetation, then move to the next. They don't bear the attachment to a home that other species do. It's uncertain whether their governing planet, Tunsas, is even their homeworld.
If Sivkit settlements were more stable, they might act as a haven for Federation refugees. Instead, it's the Paltan Combine that shoulders most of the humanitarian outreach from their quadrant.
The Sivkits are medium-sized mammals with fluffy, white pelts. Their razor-thin tails have a thick plume of hair at the end. While anthropologists believe they were bipedal for a short time when they first created tools, they regressed back to quadrupedalism as technology advanced. In their spacefaring days, they have always presented themselves on four legs.
Farsul - The Farsul are best known for their historians, and creating standardized education curriculums for all prey species. They chair the Federation's Archaeological Committee, though their excavations often involves studying the ways a species' ancestors were hunted. They also maintain various museums and the Galactic Archives.
The Farsul also were one of the lead species in observing Earth back in the 20th century. The "scholarly" research done on humanity, and the dossier of our wartime atrocities, was largely their handiwork. For this reason, they are critical of Terran diplomacy.
The Farsul States are a gerontocracy, which means they are led by any elders who are considered wise or accomplished. Their government is more decentralized than most unified planets. The day-to-day affairs on the local level are controlled by an elder from that region.
The Farsul are bipeds, but with their stout paws and curved hindlegs, they struggle with traction and balance. They have a variety of fur colors; while brown in the predominant gene, anything from white to charcoal gray exists. Their floppy ears are reminiscent of a cocker spaniel's to human observers.
Takkan - The Takkans may describe themselves as a species seeking identity. Visually, their thick gray hides aren't too different from hippos on Earth. They are slightly taller and bulkier than humans. Their tri-toed paws are a memorable feature, which suggest they may have evolved from larger land mammals.
Following the start of the Arxur war, there was a rift in the populace. A consequential percent wished to flee their homeworld. The original Takkan government folded after contentious legislative hearings, and the species' fate was left in uncertainty.
The Compromise of Nishtal was brokered by the Krakotl; this pact led to the formation of the new Takkan Coalition. While the majority took up arms to defend their birthplace, several million Takkans dispersed across the galaxy. Some found citizenship with other Federation powers. Others set off into the unknown, never to be heard from again.
Because of this so-called 'Takkan Diaspora', they are a common species to encounter on other race's military ships.
Thafki - The Thafki were one of the first races hit in the Arxur raids. Their species has been hunted close to extinction. While hundreds of millions, perhaps even billions, are held in captivity, only 12,000 exist in the wild. For the most part, these are descendants of any Thakfi residing off-world at the times of the attacks.
Since their territory has been seized, the existing government is more of a loose advocacy association. The Thafki have a few communes in colonies donated by other powers, but these become easy targets for the Arxur. Federation recognition of their membership status is a formality as much as anything.
The Thafki's gray-blue coloration is broken up by cream patches under their chin. Their long, tapering tails are perfect for animated signals. Meanwhile, their webbed feet and slender bodies aid swimming; they are semiaquatic animals at heart.
Dossur - The Dossur are the most diminutive species in the Federation. Their largest individuals are comparative in size of squirrels. Their tiny, rounded ears, and pointed snout give their faces the illusion of eternal youth; or as humans would call it, "cuteness." Their fur is ginger, with either white or gray stripes along their back.
Harchen - The Harchen are a reptile species famed for their natural camouflage. The waddling prey bipeds stand at half a human’s height, and can morph their skin into differing colors. Their species is average in most fields, notable for a few media franchises (such as the award-winning show The Exterminators) and software start-ups (such as predictive search engine Thread-Weave).
The Harchen have maintained their oral traditions from prehistoric times, using folk-songs at significant moments of their lives. Their colonies tend to be wealthy, and are best likened to Earth tech hubs like Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, their homeworld, Fahl, has a large portion that is a desert biome. This may have supported the success of small, sapient reptiles.
Fissans – The Fissan Compact exploded onto the scene as a trading power in the last century. The newer species did not shy away from the trading war with the Nevoks, undercutting their prices and swiping deals at every turn. The rival Nevok Imperium has lobbied accusations of corporate espionage at the Compact, but the Fissans insist that they merely engineer the technology cheaper.
The Fissans have a single horn at the top of their heads, with a hearty mane covering their necks. Humans are quick to draw comparisons to mythical unicorns, though the Fissans do not have hooves. Their whinnying vocalizations reinforce such parallels.
Tilfish - The Tilfish Ambassadorship was brought into the Federation via uplift around 180 years ago. Their homeworld, Sillis, is unique in having a single supercontinent. The massive ocean surrounding the rest of the planet results in acute weather patterns not seen in a traditional biome; rain and storms are near constant.
The Tilfish are an insectoid species, with six legs and a rotund, segmented thorax. Their shape and gray-black coloration is similar to spiders on Earth, while their mandibles, smooth skin, and mesh-like eyes are reminiscent of ants. Their height ranges between an average human’s shoulder and chest height.
Sulean and Iftali - The Suleans and Iftalis are two distinct mammalian species from the same homeworld, who have forged a nigh inseparable alliance over the years. They were inducted into the Federation together, and since accrued respectable military power. The bi-species government have separate representatives, but don't make decisions without the other.
The Iftalis are known for their tri-humped backs, and pinkish fur that matches with the sands of their deserts. Religion features more prominently in their society than their counterparts, ranking different food groups by dietary purity. The accumulation of negative auras determines whether the soul is light enough to move to the next life.
The Suleans are black-and-white striped animals, with tapered snouts and small antlers. They evolved in a more fertile biome than the Iftali, grazing in plains and valleys. They excel at climbing in mountains, and their antlers give them a way of defending themselves from predators.
Sulean explorers documented Iftali settlements, when they pushed near the equator. The two species swapped cultural elements, and established flourishing trade between their peoples. The free flow of ideas allowed them to work in cooperation, developing technology quicker than the average sapient races.
Paltan - The Paltan Combine is distant from the center of Federation space, but that has led them to become a beacon to war refugees. Their territory is becoming overpopulated, unable to keep up with the high demands of immigration. Resentment brews among the government for the Sivkit's apathy and non-intervention.
The Paltans have amber eyes that seem to pop from their skull. Their optical features can take up half of their face. Their wiggly toes and tiny nose soften their appearance even further, along with flexible cone-shaped ears. Their fur is an off-shade of yellow, and lauded by even the Arxur as exceptionally soft.
Duerten - As mentioned with the Krakotl, avian species are a rarity. The second and final other bird race in the galaxy are the Duerten, who are known for their long, curved bills. Most have dull, gray feathers, which adapted to blend in with the often-stormy skies on their homeworld. The monsoon season on their planet can result in extreme weather pattern.
The Duerten Homogeneity actively encourage uniform thinking, and discourage individual ideas. Their collectivism is unique even among Federation species, as they only show their true personalities among close friends and in the privacy of their homes. The Duerten are key producers of support ships, while never playing a leading military role themselves.
Malti - The Malti are the sole sapient monotreme (an egg-laying mammal) in the galaxy. They are said to resemble a spikeless echidna with their compressed faces and tapered snouts, and they have evolved with a vast range of colors to blend in with the environment. They are pure quadrupeds, like Zurulians, though they are about twice as large as the medical-minded teddy bears.
The Malti specialize in colonization expeditions, with their expertise called in when expansionist powers seek settlement advice; the exterminators guild was responsible for the creation of unique, firepower-packed bombers for their task. While not traditionally a military power, they do have one of the strongest offensive fleets at hand, were it to be adapted for that purpose.
Drezjin - The Drezjin are a quirky mammalian species, notable for being the sole non-avian race that is capable of flight. They primarily reside in caves, though secondary settlements cropped up in cool locales near water sources; a few habitats are also build into cliff and rock face crevices. Due to their preferred ambience being dark or dim, their sight is weak and short-ranged. Their hearing is sharp enough to hear crisply miles away to make up for this.
The Drezjin Theocracy believes that the Federation founders were avatars of their deities due to interpretations of ancient cave paintings, and as such are strongly loyal to the Kolshians. While priests hold a crucial role in several societies, the Drezjin are one of the few spacefaring races actively governed by the clergy class. Certain sects of the Federation mock their leadership as a conduit for primitive superstition, despite its reverence toward them.
The Drezjin can sport a variety of patterns on their stretchy, near translucent skin, and are lightweight to support flight. The wing membrane is quite flexible, allowing tool usage and grip strength. They are a mere two feet tall on average, lending to smaller structures than are typical with upright species.
**Drilvar** - The Drilvar are long-limbed, lethargic mammalian bipeds, known for their laid-back and relaxed attitude. Their fur pattern is a flashy orange, with black stripes. Their driving philosophy is that decisions and deeds should only be reached through careful consideration; it is this attitude that leads to their reputation as unreliable, compounded by other races deriding them as slow to react under pressure. Their slow metabolic rate is at the heart of this issue, which is part of why their city design is unusually compact. Drilvar don't like to go far from their homes for activities, which makes attending diplomatic processes a drawn-out affair.
The Drilvar are best known for their legal services, with their attorneys becoming renowned across the Federation for their knowledge of galactic law across numbers of jurisdiction. Their law schools feature sprawling campuses with dizzying verticality due to the inclusion of branch-like structures at various heights to hang from. The Drilvar Kritocracy reflects their reliance on codified statutes and systems through rule by the planet's highest judges.
**Jaur**- The Jaur are mammals who originated on a frigid homeworld, and evolved to craft dams even before their ancestors were considered sapient by Federation standards; their teeth have a unique regenerative ability to facilitate the carving of both wood and ice. They have silky, silver fur that is mottled with white spots, and patterns of black stripes along their sides. Their tails are black and paddle-like, serving as a defensive weapon. While they do possess standard tail language, smacking their tails against the ground is viewed as aggressive body language by the Federation.
The Jaur Principality is renowned for their architectural endeavors, with even modern buildings using compacted snow due to the unchanging cold on their planet; their world is considered to be one of the furthest on the outskirts of a theoretical habitable zone. Due to their engineering resourcefulness and resistance to extreme winters, the Jaur are able to scout potential colonies that other species would not be able to use. However, hotter temperatures on alien worlds can be life-threatening to a Jaur who lacks an envirosuit.
**Letian** - Letians are a marsupial species with limited aerial capabilities, without the full ability to fly. A flap of skin connects their front and hind legs, and this membrane can keep them aloft when jumping from crag to crag. Due to their rare crepuscular (preferring to be active during twilight hours) tendencies, they typically have dark colorations. Their compact faces often have a tiny nose and large eyes, along with rodent-like ears.
Their silent gliding makes them somewhat creepy to other species, as they can silently glide down on an unsuspecting prey animal, much like a predator. Their habit of looking at people with both eyes feeds that unwanted reputation, due to their inclination to judge distances in this manner. Their alpine homeworld has the highest amount of mountain ranges of any inhabited planet in the Federation, resulting in oddly-curved buildings that hug mountainsides for stability and semi-vertical cities which fit their gliding abilities.
The Letian caste system divides people by elevation, which means the most esteemed individuals inhabit the highest buildings. Their world is not very welcoming to alien refugees due to the daunting heights, and designs which are tailored to the unique gliding capabilities. Rumors abound among prey species that all Letians have some degree of predator disease, which leads it to be frequented only by a skeleton crew of diplomats.
**Verin and Onkari** - The Verin share a unique bond with Onkari, due to the fact that their homeworlds are both moons orbiting the same planet. The Onkari birthplace is dominated by a global rainforest, which is in stark contrast to the arid savannah-like conditions of the Verin's moon. Both races developed stargazing tools much earlier than the average sophonts, and were able to see each others' worlds. The two planets pass close to each other frequently, which led both species to christen the other's moon as "paradise" in their respective religions.
The Verin are most well-known as optical specialists, crafting the vast complex telescope arrays and lenses to bolster the Federation's mission to seek out new new life. They have a beetle-like appearance, sporting an iridescent violet carapace, and similar to the Tilfish, they have six limbs, four of which are used for locomotion. They've attempted to use their antennae to replicate tail language, with some success, since joining the Federation.
The Onkari, meanwhile, specialized in communications technology, and were responsible for opening diplomatic contact with the Verin in their industrial era. Upon first contact, however, their networks were upgraded with alien technology, and this field lost traction. They are a primarily quadrupedal race, switching to a bipedal stance when necessary to handle tasks or objects. Due to their rainforest origins, the Onkari are arboreal creatures, with their bark-colored striped fur making them virtually invisible in tree canopies. Their main contribution to the galactic community is in the chemistry realm of energetics, where they are responsible for developing most of the demolition charges the Federation employs.
**Angren** - With a homeworld that’s on the habitable zone cusp of being too hot to sustain complex life, Angren society rose up against the odds. The planet’s unusually slow rotation rate means that the Angren lack a fixed circadian rhythm, instead sleeping and waking almost at random. The quadrupeds’ unusual temperament could be linked to the harsh conditions on their world.
Angren males have a reputation for rowdy, unsociable behavior, with a disproportionately high number of predator disease diagnoses. While the more level-headed females are employed in the overwhelming majority of governmental and civilian jobs, many Angren males find violent work or leave their homeworld in search of opportunity. Most either find themselves enlisting in the military or enrolling in exterminator guilds, sometimes far away from the Angren Matriarchy’s rule.
Smaller than even the Zurulians, the Angren have olive fur and orange-red eyes, and sport a prominent pair of horns. Their unique ability to throw their voice, which historians believe was used to distract and confuse their predators, has earned some lucky few a prominent place in the Federation's entertainment industry. With the ability to emulate multiple voices from a single voice box, obsolete Angren theatre was said to be a unique artform.
**Tierkel** - The Tierkel are burrowing mammals that thrive in rocky, arid climates. Despite their desert preferences, their dull-colored fur is rather thick. They require sun basking for thermoregulation, and at night will often sleep by huddling if they don’t have heated blankets available. The Tierkel have very shrill, loud voices in order to warn each other of predators, especially with their long spells of dormancy.
Similar to Gojids, their stubby tails limit them in terms of tail languages, but they invented tapping patterns with their hardened claws. Their cub-like ears and thickset bodies make them slightly larger quadrupeds than the Zurulians.
The Tierkel Rockclan aren’t as well adapted as most species, so they never dominated their homeworld, and their biosphere was considered especially dangerous by the Federation. The Tierkel are useful links for trading empires like the Nevoks and Fissans for their control over various ores and resources found in their native environment, but rarely stray from their homeworld due to being naturally drawn to heat and warmth.
**Yulpa** - The Yulpa are mammals that evolved in rainforest biomes, with prehensile tongues that can rip apart leaves from the undergrowth. They have large ears that stand upright. The single-colored pattern of their fur switches jarringly into odd-striped legs, which lead down to hooves. They are ones of the faster runners in the Federation, and also one of the more solitary creatures.
The Yulpa Ascendancy have some of the most brutal exterminator practices in the Federation, as sacred cities lead regular sacrifices of predators to the Spirit of Life. If any creature needs to be captured for study, the Yulpa are the go-to experts in the field; often, various planets and governments will use them if they wish to document or study surviving predators.
**Leshee** - The Leshees are an amphibious species who are often looked down upon as contaminated due to their need for water absorption through their skin. Most Federation species rule them unfit for military service due to their water intake needs. The Leshees also are fully aquatic in their tadpole stage, until they’re fully grown and able to move to land. The younglings are often kept in pools or containment tanks.
Similar to the Tilfish, the Leshee can lay a staggering number of eggs at once; however, limited food and sensitive temperature requisites lead very few to survive. Parents don’t interact with their young much until they reach maturity. Their appearance can be a range of colors and patterns, but almost all Leshees have bulbous, colorful eyes like the Kolshians. Their splayed toes are very flexible.
There are rumors that brightly colored Leshees, a mutated genome that’s seen in one specific region, used to be able to spit poison, though the main consensus is that that’s an exaggerated tale derived from feelings of powerlessness against predators. The Leshee Junta have some of the strictest laws in the Federation, with the leading party punishing predator disease and anti-herd mentality severely. They claim they have to be harsh to survive, since they are not well-liked on most Federation worlds.
FAQs
How do the Federation's translators work? Why do the aliens use human expressions?
The Federation's translators use a form of machine learning. They can analyze data from various mediums, though a species' broadcasts and recordings are the easiest. Citizens of various space-faring societies have translators implanted at a young age (shortly after speaking their first words).
The translators opt for semantic rather than literal translation. When a human expression, that obviously does not exist within a prey society, is uttered, it's a safe assumption that their idiom was quite different.
What happened to the Federation's predators on their homeworlds? How were they studied or observed?
Any species that predated the sentients was exterminated, for obvious reasons. Their natural predators could not be allowed to survive; anything that "looked dangerous" was wiped out as well. Smaller predators, or predators that thrive in different biomes (for example, aquatic predators) have a continued existence in their ecosystem.
Predators (even lesser predators) were never the subject of much study, as they were seen to have little complexity or value. The scientific consensus was that every predatory action served the purpose of killing.
Have humans colonized the solar system?
22nd century humans possess fledging lunar and Martian colonies, but haven’t gotten beyond that yet. There are a few research outposts past the asteroid belt, on large or notable moons. With the novel discovery of FTL, various proposals have been outlined for extrasolar colonies. There are many habitable worlds out in the cosmos, but that will take more time than a few months.
We begin with a bit of backstory as told from the perspective of the governor of the Venlil, Tarva. She goes into detail about there being two known predatory species to achieve sentience in the galaxy and starts explaining the Arxur. Now the Arxur are basically cartoonishly evil predator types. They hunt down prey species, farm and breed them for meat, record themselves shooting children into mass graves just to fuck with the herbivores, etc. I could go on but just imagine big gray lizards that eat babies. Believe it or not there's actually a reason that they're so moustache twirling evil but we'll get into that way later in the story.
So herbivores had initially assumed that only other herbivores could become spacefaring because all progress was based on cooperation and higher thinking could not exist without it. The Arxur, however, proved them wrong, achieving technological feats by waging war. It was only a matter of time before the Arxurians would become spacefaring on their own, so to try to get on their good sides the Federation of herbivores uplifted them in the hopes that kindness would spare them from their cruelty. This does not pan out at all and the arxurians pretty much immediately get to crusading the galaxy, torching worlds and enslaving millions. Because of this it's widely accepted that predators are simply incapable of compassion, as they didn't evolve to cooperate like herbivores did. The federation bands together and have fought the arxur to a standstill and it's been an eternal stalemate for centuries ever since. And for that reason it was decided that no predator would be allowed to reach the stars ever again.
Enter the humans. Around the time humanity began broadcasting radio waves and television, the herbivores of the universe would see their wars play out on their primitive TV broadcasts and decide that humanity had no place among the stars. Decades were spent drafting plans to exterminate the humans when suddenly hundreds of nuclear explosions began to rock the planet's surface, which the herbivores would only later learn were simply nuclear tests, causing them to believe humanity had fallen to their own predatory urges and were no longer a threat to the galaxy... until today.
Tarva's advisors dig through every record they have, trying to figure out where they went wrong and what they should do, because a ship just entered their orbit and its subspace trails were pointing straight to Earth. It's simply too late to evacuate the planet and they've got all their FTL relays broadcasting distress signals. Even so it'd be hours before any federation ships would arrive. Venlil Prime (the name of their home planet) would most certainly be nothing but dust and rubble by the time help arrived, and a recent Arxur incursion had rendered their planet weakened, so Governor Tarva comes to a drastic conclusion. They're going to invite the humans onto the planet and surrender, unconditionally, and pray that humans treated their slaves better than the Arxur do and hope the federation can liberate them. Swallowing her fear, Tarva sends a transmission to the human vessel and finds herself face to face with the terrifying visage of a, gasp, nigger. I'd be terrified too. All jokes aside though she finds the human in front of her to be absolutely terrifying. With a vicious snarl on its face, lips curled upward, eyes facing forward with intent, a hungry stare for sure. And what it says to her shocks her to her core.
"Hello. We come in peace, on behalf of the human race."
This was, of course, contrary to everything she thought she knew and she's caught entirely off-guard. Noah, the astronaut, explains to her how humanity has looked to the stars for so long and wondered if anyone else was out there. Her military advisor speaks up, insistent that his honeyed words are meaningless when he carries such a vicious snarl on his face, and Noah comes to realize his smile is scaring the little sheep-things shitless. He goes on to explain they were hoping to find like some, bacteria in a lake or something, not a fully fledged society of little critter folk.
She finds herself beginning to consider a kindred intelligence between herself and the humans when Noah and his co-pilot playfully shittalk each other, before her logical brain kicks in and she reminds herself that these are cold predators looking for a meal, and she was going to have to play around this situation very carefully. So she decides that they have to hide their fear and make themselves seem strong despite their weakness, in the hopes that humanity might think they're not prey and leave on their own. To end the chapter with a power play, she invites them onto the planet to see their home firsthand.
So herbivores had initially assumed that only other herbivores could become spacefaring because all progress was based on cooperation and higher thinking could not exist without it. The Arxur, however, proved them wrong, achieving technological feats by waging war. It was only a matter of time before the Arxurians would become spacefaring on their own, so to try to get on their good sides the Federation of herbivores uplifted them in the hopes that kindness would spare them from their cruelty. This does not pan out at all and the arxurians pretty much immediately get to crusading the galaxy, torching worlds and enslaving millions. Because of this it's widely accepted that predators are simply incapable of compassion, as they didn't evolve to cooperate like herbivores did. The federation bands together and have fought the arxur to a standstill and it's been an eternal stalemate for centuries ever since. And for that reason it was decided that no predator would be allowed to reach the stars ever again.
Enter the humans. Around the time humanity began broadcasting radio waves and television, the herbivores of the universe would see their wars play out on their primitive TV broadcasts and decide that humanity had no place among the stars. Decades were spent drafting plans to exterminate the humans when suddenly hundreds of nuclear explosions began to rock the planet's surface, which the herbivores would only later learn were simply nuclear tests, causing them to believe humanity had fallen to their own predatory urges and were no longer a threat to the galaxy... until today.
Tarva's advisors dig through every record they have, trying to figure out where they went wrong and what they should do, because a ship just entered their orbit and its subspace trails were pointing straight to Earth. It's simply too late to evacuate the planet and they've got all their FTL relays broadcasting distress signals. Even so it'd be hours before any federation ships would arrive. Venlil Prime (the name of their home planet) would most certainly be nothing but dust and rubble by the time help arrived, and a recent Arxur incursion had rendered their planet weakened, so Governor Tarva comes to a drastic conclusion. They're going to invite the humans onto the planet and surrender, unconditionally, and pray that humans treated their slaves better than the Arxur do and hope the federation can liberate them. Swallowing her fear, Tarva sends a transmission to the human vessel and finds herself face to face with the terrifying visage of a, gasp, nigger. I'd be terrified too. All jokes aside though she finds the human in front of her to be absolutely terrifying. With a vicious snarl on its face, lips curled upward, eyes facing forward with intent, a hungry stare for sure. And what it says to her shocks her to her core.
"Hello. We come in peace, on behalf of the human race."
This was, of course, contrary to everything she thought she knew and she's caught entirely off-guard. Noah, the astronaut, explains to her how humanity has looked to the stars for so long and wondered if anyone else was out there. Her military advisor speaks up, insistent that his honeyed words are meaningless when he carries such a vicious snarl on his face, and Noah comes to realize his smile is scaring the little sheep-things shitless. He goes on to explain they were hoping to find like some, bacteria in a lake or something, not a fully fledged society of little critter folk.
She finds herself beginning to consider a kindred intelligence between herself and the humans when Noah and his co-pilot playfully shittalk each other, before her logical brain kicks in and she reminds herself that these are cold predators looking for a meal, and she was going to have to play around this situation very carefully. So she decides that they have to hide their fear and make themselves seem strong despite their weakness, in the hopes that humanity might think they're not prey and leave on their own. To end the chapter with a power play, she invites them onto the planet to see their home firsthand.
Humanity finally touches down and being near them makes Tarva's skin crawl and it goes into detail about how every little thing about humankind sets off their instincts like a hypercharged uncanny valley. Even the humans turning their heads to look at things seems to set them off, since their forward facing eyes don't offer a good view of their surroundings. Of her advisors only two had been brave enough to show their faces and she reminds them they have to show absolutely no emotion, least of all fear. This immediately backfires because Noah smiles at her diplomatic advisor and he loses his spaghetti so hard he faceplants in the dirt, unconscious.
Tarva curses her luck at her plan collapsing immediately and considers letting him just lie there and be eaten because she's still afraid to show compassion in front of the predators, which becomes an avenue of surprise for her when Noah kneels down to check on him instead of eating him on the spot. The cognitive dissonance between their behavior and their appearance begins to turn some cogs in her head but her "logical mind" kicks in once more and she realizes that since the humans are in no rush to eat them they can simply wait them out, stall for time until the feds arrive and destroy their ship and capture the astronauts for study. This thought sends a rending pain into her stomach, the pain of guilt. She doesn't understand why but she feels absolutely horrible about thinking these things and tries to bury her conscience as she leads them into her home for a tour.
Tarva curses her luck at her plan collapsing immediately and considers letting him just lie there and be eaten because she's still afraid to show compassion in front of the predators, which becomes an avenue of surprise for her when Noah kneels down to check on him instead of eating him on the spot. The cognitive dissonance between their behavior and their appearance begins to turn some cogs in her head but her "logical mind" kicks in once more and she realizes that since the humans are in no rush to eat them they can simply wait them out, stall for time until the feds arrive and destroy their ship and capture the astronauts for study. This thought sends a rending pain into her stomach, the pain of guilt. She doesn't understand why but she feels absolutely horrible about thinking these things and tries to bury her conscience as she leads them into her home for a tour.
Now this is a little bit off-topic but the way this chapter starts strikes me as strange. This chapter is told from the perspective of Tarva, the Governor of Venlil Prime, and yet she immediately refers to her mansion as "The governor's mansion." I know it's just a minor nitpick but still, it feels like this chapter was initially meant to be told from someone else's perspective and it was changed partway through. ANYWAY.
She begins giving them a tour of her place and the pair of human astronauts take extensive notes on everything they see and hear. She begins to settle her nerves and go on autopilot tour guide mode and ends up having a little fucky wucky when she leads them to her office where the TV has been left on. Right then and there the plan really just starts to fall apart, because a news broadcast is playing government advisories warning of human invasion and mass casualties as it pans over footage of terrified families huddled inside bomb shelters awaiting the end. Noah immediately picks up on this and realizes why there's no staff or reporters around. When it dawns on him that they thought humanity was here to attack them, he realizes they still think that and tries to convince the small group of venlil politicians otherwise.
He reassures them that they just wanted to find people like themselves, but the military advisor growls that there is NO ONE in the galaxy like humanity. That's when Noah sees a "3D picture" (they don't explain what this is so I assume it's just a hologram of some kind) of Tarva at a conference with dozens of other federation leaders and asks about the other species which leads to the question of why they're treating humanity differently, and the military advisor offers up the missing info that explains everything to the humans. They're predators. Sentient predators. And that sentient predators are incredibly uncommon, only one other in the galaxy. Noah asks who the other one is. When the venlil only offer silence as an answer, he asks again, and Tarva begins to break into tears as the stress hits her all at once when she's forced to recall the Arxurians. When she tries to find words for what the arxurians are, all she can think of is her father, captured alive on the warfront and returned in chewed up pieces, the gas attacks on her daughter's school that left her braindead, the slave pens, the wastelands left behind, the sapient cattle, and she just freezes up.
Noah begins to loom down over her. She can't move, too engulfed in terror and grief, bracing herself for the end. But all that comes is a gentle hand on the shoulder. He assures her that they're not going to hurt her, they aren't like that at all, and the dam breaks, tears turning into choking sobs. For a while they just stand there, Tarva sobbing as Noah comforts her, until she finally regains her composure and apologizes for how she's been acting. She asks her military advisor to rescind the distress call, but he refuses. Not because he's being disobedient mind you. It's just too late. The federation is here, now, and they're hailing the governor. She asks the humans to stay out of sight while she prepares to spin bullshit like no politician has ever spun bullshit before, in the hopes of driving away the federation ships and saving the lives of the astronauts.
She begins giving them a tour of her place and the pair of human astronauts take extensive notes on everything they see and hear. She begins to settle her nerves and go on autopilot tour guide mode and ends up having a little fucky wucky when she leads them to her office where the TV has been left on. Right then and there the plan really just starts to fall apart, because a news broadcast is playing government advisories warning of human invasion and mass casualties as it pans over footage of terrified families huddled inside bomb shelters awaiting the end. Noah immediately picks up on this and realizes why there's no staff or reporters around. When it dawns on him that they thought humanity was here to attack them, he realizes they still think that and tries to convince the small group of venlil politicians otherwise.
He reassures them that they just wanted to find people like themselves, but the military advisor growls that there is NO ONE in the galaxy like humanity. That's when Noah sees a "3D picture" (they don't explain what this is so I assume it's just a hologram of some kind) of Tarva at a conference with dozens of other federation leaders and asks about the other species which leads to the question of why they're treating humanity differently, and the military advisor offers up the missing info that explains everything to the humans. They're predators. Sentient predators. And that sentient predators are incredibly uncommon, only one other in the galaxy. Noah asks who the other one is. When the venlil only offer silence as an answer, he asks again, and Tarva begins to break into tears as the stress hits her all at once when she's forced to recall the Arxurians. When she tries to find words for what the arxurians are, all she can think of is her father, captured alive on the warfront and returned in chewed up pieces, the gas attacks on her daughter's school that left her braindead, the slave pens, the wastelands left behind, the sapient cattle, and she just freezes up.
Noah begins to loom down over her. She can't move, too engulfed in terror and grief, bracing herself for the end. But all that comes is a gentle hand on the shoulder. He assures her that they're not going to hurt her, they aren't like that at all, and the dam breaks, tears turning into choking sobs. For a while they just stand there, Tarva sobbing as Noah comforts her, until she finally regains her composure and apologizes for how she's been acting. She asks her military advisor to rescind the distress call, but he refuses. Not because he's being disobedient mind you. It's just too late. The federation is here, now, and they're hailing the governor. She asks the humans to stay out of sight while she prepares to spin bullshit like no politician has ever spun bullshit before, in the hopes of driving away the federation ships and saving the lives of the astronauts.
Tarva opens up comms with the federation ship, who has been hailing them frantically due to their lack of response and Venlil Prime's strategic value. Tarva actually recognizes the captain of the ship, a gojid of great reknown known as Captain Sovlin, famous for having lead a valiant charge on his home world that broke an Arxurian siege and saved the planet. She was ready for the fed to send their nearest asset, but instead she got someone actually competent. She tries assuring him that they've arrived for no reason, due to an unfortunate mistake involving malfunctioning sensors after a software update. She tries telling Sovlin that they thought they saw an arxurian ship that jumped into their space, but couldn't establish any visual and ended up being fine. Of course, Sovlin isn't buying it, because the distress call has been broadcasting for hours by now, and in fact still is. He brings up as such and asks why she hasn't turned it off and all she can muster up is an "i forgor" 
Luckily he believes her, though that only makes him angrier that they're wasting his time over nothing, so he insists on doing a full scan of the system's subspace readings which would almost definitely reveal the humans. Tarva becomes more and more desperate as Sovlin becomes insistent on running a scan, until eventually she tells him that he needs to leave now, or they'll fire on his ship. When even that doesn't get him to back down she indicates to her military advisors to fire off a few missiles just at the edge of their formation and Sovlin finally backs off after declaring that he's going to recommend sanctions in his next report and that they're on their own the next time the grays (a slur for Arxurians, Sovlin really fuckin loves being racist and using slurs and I love him for it) attack.
So with Sovlin and the fed driven off for now, Tarva asks the humans if they'd like to rescind their offer of friendship and when they say no she begins to answer their question about the other predators in the galaxy. She reveals to them everything, including the fact that the Arxur had driven 20% of all known sentient species to extinction. And we get our next dose of tearjerker bait or whatever when she shows off the next cartoonishly evil act of the Arxur. She hands over a handheld tablet and plays a video for the two of them. Caged venlil children, eyes gouged out, released from a pen and forced to run away for the Arxurian's amusement with cattle prods, until the Arxurians got bored and clubbed them to death. I do think a lot of the atrocities would be better off implied because at times it feels like it's shocking for the sake of being shocking, and there's a story reason for it but to a new reader it might just come off as overly crass. The humans grow visibly angry seeing this and Tarva becomes convinced that a smile really must be an expression of friendliness because this is much worse. Noah demands the Venlil hand over all their data on the arxur, because they were going home now and coming back with a fresh dose of vengeance.
Luckily he believes her, though that only makes him angrier that they're wasting his time over nothing, so he insists on doing a full scan of the system's subspace readings which would almost definitely reveal the humans. Tarva becomes more and more desperate as Sovlin becomes insistent on running a scan, until eventually she tells him that he needs to leave now, or they'll fire on his ship. When even that doesn't get him to back down she indicates to her military advisors to fire off a few missiles just at the edge of their formation and Sovlin finally backs off after declaring that he's going to recommend sanctions in his next report and that they're on their own the next time the grays (a slur for Arxurians, Sovlin really fuckin loves being racist and using slurs and I love him for it) attack.
So with Sovlin and the fed driven off for now, Tarva asks the humans if they'd like to rescind their offer of friendship and when they say no she begins to answer their question about the other predators in the galaxy. She reveals to them everything, including the fact that the Arxur had driven 20% of all known sentient species to extinction. And we get our next dose of tearjerker bait or whatever when she shows off the next cartoonishly evil act of the Arxur. She hands over a handheld tablet and plays a video for the two of them. Caged venlil children, eyes gouged out, released from a pen and forced to run away for the Arxurian's amusement with cattle prods, until the Arxurians got bored and clubbed them to death. I do think a lot of the atrocities would be better off implied because at times it feels like it's shocking for the sake of being shocking, and there's a story reason for it but to a new reader it might just come off as overly crass. The humans grow visibly angry seeing this and Tarva becomes convinced that a smile really must be an expression of friendliness because this is much worse. Noah demands the Venlil hand over all their data on the arxur, because they were going home now and coming back with a fresh dose of vengeance.
This post is going on to be really long so I'm gonna end it off on chapter 5 for now because 5 is a nice number, and we finally get our first chapter from a new perspective.
We move back to earth, on July 13th, 2136. The UN Climate change summit is ongoing and absolutely nothing has changed. They're still arguing, finger pointing, and making empty promises while they discuss totally really doing nuclear energy for real this time guys. There was a war a while back that fucked up the major countries power grids so they're all playing nice for now while the UN takes on the role of a central world government run mostly by the US, China, and Russia. Elias's musings on climate change are cut short, however, when his aide pulls him away from the summit for something actually worth giving a damn about. The ESA, NASA, and CNSA are all gathered and waiting to discuss the matter of the UNS Odyssey making contact with the Venlil. They debrief him on the subject and he realizes the presence of like, 40 generals, so he asks if the aliens are friendly, which leads onto the subject of the Arxur. He starts telling the people present they need every diplomat assigned to forming alliances pronto when they tell him the federation isn't open to an alliance.
He's briefed on why this is exactly, because humans are predators and the only other predators are the Arxurians. His response?
Elias opens himself up to suggestions from the generals present since immediate diplomacy is off the table. They suggest that the countries of earth band together for now, amass a large fleet, and begin join training exercises. The first time China and the US have worked together in over a century. When they're ready they'll launch a ground assault on a planet being used as a farm and mounting a rescue on the captured aliens, with the hope of gaining some goodwill from the federation for it. They consider, also, just leaving it alone and staying out of galactic politics, but as the way things stand the Arxur will come for humanity eventually. Might as well strike first. Good ol' human politics. With all things considered, Elias makes a decision. They will release everything to the citizens of earth at once, and if there's public support for war, then war there shall be.
He's briefed on why this is exactly, because humans are predators and the only other predators are the Arxurians. His response?
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2021
yey its no longer a doublepost
It was so horrid I was motivated once upon a time to write a shitpost parodying it:
Furry publishers are absolute dumps of unmitigated garbage. I somehow got handed a .pdf of this thing, Tales of the Para-Imperium, by some autist named Zarpaulus. Most of it seemed to be snippets from like, some roleplay game that never quite got off the ground. I'm talking about straight copypaste from campaign notes type of shit.
It was so horrid I was motivated once upon a time to write a shitpost parodying it:
~Dick Gumshoe, Detective to the Stars~
--1--
Name's Gumshoe, Dick Gumshoe, private eye, public menace. People come to me not necessarily to get their cases solved, but to get them done. I am very effective at what I do, and what I do ain't easy. Takes a tough cookie to buy AI off the Danknet to comb through Spoogle, a real hard-boiled egg, a stale piece of bread if y'know what I mean. I ain't no spring chicken to this game, in fact, I'm a feline. Cybernetically enchanced, I have the best damn personal wifi hotspot on this entire rock, the remote outpost DS-123, or Dirty Sanchez as we locals refer to this little piece of floating debris, spherical in shape, orbiting a star out in space. A planet if you will. And on this planet, I was just another one of the countless furred schlubs eking out a living on this Divine-forsaken rock. Divine, what a bitch, she still owes me thirty space-dollary-doos (SPDs if you will), but she left town on a rail or on a pole, I'm not sure which. All she left me was a broken record player, a broken heart, and some STDs. Fuckin' bitch.
On this rock y'see, good ol' Dirty Sanchez, I was sort of a big deal. I was the only Private Eye for thirty gorillion space miles in this sector, and the only sonofabitch that would accept cash and trade. Seeing as how the last tree in the galaxy was cut down over a billion years ago though, my cash in hand had been rather short lately, and I was willing to take any job for the right price. Usually, that meant bottom of the barrel. I tell ya, I gotta find out what to do with all these goddamn barrel bottoms, these splinters are too much sometimes. Anyhow, That's when he floated in.
Holmes.exe chimed through my intravenous speakers. "Sir, there is a hologram here to see us".
"Y'mean to see me."
"If that is what you're more comfortable with."
My cursor highlighted Holmes.exe and hovered it over the recycle bin on my desktop computer. I paused."Not today," I thought to myself, "Not today". I swiveled my chair around to see my potential client. Seeing as how it wasn't a swivel chair, the noise was somewhat unsettling. Facing me was a hologram, a personality simulation of some dead asshole looking to solve his own murder. Happens all the time. But what doesn't happen all the time was the caliber of the clientele. Clean, crisp, and vaguely otherworldly, this guy was clearly something else. Most holographic personality simulations usually flicker due to the budget models being most popular. I could see just from the quality of his texture rendering that this guy's corpse had some serious dough. I might possibly be able to make rent this month!
I stared into his cold, dead, holographic eyes. Moments passed. Then minutes. The simulation began to fidget in simulated mannerisms, and broke the silence with a rather loud simulated cough. The simulated discomfort was palpable.
"You are indeed, a Dick, correct?"
"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! BUDDY WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN HUH?!". I was indeed sort of a pill at times, but we had just met. If this passive-aggression, a womanly artform, was to color our interactions, I could tell my case was off to a bad start. Nothing's worse than a hysterical broad, except a hysterical male. And seeing as how whomever had wired this holograph up had forgotten to include clothing in their projection, he was most likely a male if my recollections of anatomy had any worth. "Yes, that is indeed a penis Mr. Gumshoe", Holmes.exe confirmed, reading through my thoughtscroll recorded on the brainwave-to-text device implanted into my neck.
"Shut the FUCK up Sherlock", I said aloud.
"W-what?", the holograph replied.
"Not you, the detective".
"I thought you were a detective- am, am I in the wrong office?"
"No, no, you got it all wrong, I AM the detective".
"W-well... If you insist," he continued, simulated voice wavering with simulated skepticism. I swear, they're getting better these days.
"I-I have a case for you".
"No shit? Well, lay it out for me Sam".
"W-well, the name's actually Jiminez Desqualla De la Creme a la Creme".
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down a second there Jimbo- THE Jiminez Desqualla De la Creme a la Creme?"
"Y-yes!"
"Never heard of him".
"He is the former head of the Argus Bargus syndicate," Holmes.exe expounded, "He recently perished on live television a few hours ago according to his Galacticpedia page".
"WHAT?!? HOW THE FUCK WAS I NOT INFORMED?!?!"
"We haven't had a public television feed for quite some time, Mr. Gumshoe". Though his smarmy British mannerisms were most certainly wrong, he was in the right on this. I hadn't bothered to pay for cable in some time. It seemed ludicrous, what with all the freely available information on the galaxynet. On top of that, cable hadn't existed for about a thousand years. Holmes.exe continued with his exposition. "Jiminez was giving a speech to the DS-123 planet's parliament, he was the trade commission's viceroy, and executive mercantile czar of the Federational Confederacy. He died without even giving us a conclusive answer to how the deficit was going to be solved, a pity".
"Any leads?", I inquired, taking out a flask from my desk drawer and letting a slug from it hit the back of my throat. I don't know how a cartridge from my .777 Ocelot Milspec single-action, double-trigger revolving plasma-cooled oxygen-heated pistol had wound up in my flask, but damn, it still went down smooth with a little coaxing. I swallowed heavily.
"The Federation Confederacy has already executed a suspect- a Dr. Kevorkian, the familial doctor to the Cremes".
"Damn, that was fast, by Space Jesus I do some damn fine work. That'll be fifty-thousand SPDs".
"W-what?" said the holograph."I-I d-d-don't-"
"LISTEN HERE JIMMY, WE LIVE IN A GALACTIC CAPITALIST SPACE COLONY SOCIETY, WHERE PEOPLE GET UNDERPAID FOR AN HONEST DAY OF HARD WORK, AND IF YOU WANT TO RIP ME OFF LIKE THIS I'LL TURN THIS HOMICIDE CASE INTO A GODDAMN MURDER-SUICIDE!". I quickly unholstered my revolver and brandished it upward towards the ceiling, letting off several rounds. A groan came from above, followed by the heavy whump of something hitting the floor. I had forgotten that my office was squarely below that of the building's landlord. My tail twitched. Well, I suppose I won't have to worry about making rent this month. Holmes.exe blathered onward. "His manner of death was most suspicious. The videograph shows him emitting blood from every orifice with a pressure of at least 20 Newtons".
"Newtons? What was wrong with the oldtons? Goddamn progressive scientists, screwing with my preferred units of measurement!".
"Calm thyself, Mr. Gumshoe".
"Calm? Calm?! YOU EXPECT ME TO KEEP CALM IN A TIME LIKE THIS, FOR SPACE-CHRISSAKE THERE IS A DEAD MAN'S HOLOGRAPH FLOATING HIS 4K RENDERED BALLS ALL OVER MY OFFICE". Jiminez simulated a shudder in the spot he had chosen to float, and then simulated an uneasy sweep of his surroundings to ensure he was indeed, keeping his appendages to himself. I took the moment to actually take a closer look at him past his finely generated genitalia. He was a short, rather lean looking silver fox, and it looked like his programming was adjusting his presented features based on the ambient temperature. When he was alive, I doubt he had sprang for augments in the undercarriage by the looks of things. The first honest politician in the galaxy? Maybe this case wasn't going to be so bad after all.
--2--
Dirty Sanchez was about as backwater a planet as you could get in this sector, vaguely industrial buildings dotting the landscape as far as the eye could see. Galactic Warehouse Builders LLC had made a fortune contracting here. Fuckers built dozens of empty warehouses promptly to be abandoned and go unused, as was the style at the time. And here I was, racing through the streets in a hover-train, the cars crowded with space-hookers looking to make their nightly rounds in order to hit the late night space-bars to drown their space-sorrows with space-booze. Which seemed odd to me, as Dirty Sanchez was a planet with three suns and no discernable night-day cycle. I tell ya, they had an odd gig but who am I to judge? I'm just an honest detective trying to make a living here- and dead hookers in droves mean good business. And seeing as how the hover-train was plowing through the masses on ground level due to the AI not being updated from the time the trains had actually been on rails, it was looking like I might have some more business coming my way.
Shit, I'd forgotten why I'd taken this train. The fuck was I doing again? "We're on the case of Jiminiz Desqualla de la Creme a la Creme. Dr. Kevorkian was chosen as his murderer, but the swiftness of his execution leaves it highly doubtful that he was the ultimate culprit", elucidated Holmes.exe.
"I fucking knew all of that already, Sherlock".
"I have direct evidence that you in fact, did not".
Sonuvabitching brainwave-to-text device. I don't know why I had that fucking thing installed in the first place, or when. "Your propensity to fall asleep absolutely soused, and the habit of yours to awake in a similar state", explained Holmes.exe. A flurry of furious cursing flung from my furry lips in reply. I shoulda downloaded Hudson.exe instead, but the goddamn SpacePirateBay didn't have a reliable torrent, and I ain't no patsy for some Spacecoin miner using my brainwaves to fund their space-whores. Holmes.exe forged onward with his inane bullshit. "Financial records indicate that while he did see a medical doctor before his death, it was not Dr. Kevorkian. Judging by the type of fluid Mr. Desqualla emitted before his death, as well as the speed and pressure of said fluid emission-" Holmes.exe paused as I had taken out my flask, now filled with good old fashioned undistilled hypertonic hooch, and was imbibing it to get it into my bloodstream with about the same speed as Desqualla had rid himself of his. I took out my backup flask as well. A good day's work deserves a good, hearty drink afterall. Holmes.exe cleared his digital throat. "Quite. He appears to have been the victim of a 'Heartbreaker' bombing, most likely implanted into him during his last medical consultation. Records again, indicate he had paid for a surgery performed at the building on 1337 Business Outhe Way, a week before his death".
"Gotcha. So we find this phoney-baloney doc that done murdered our boy, plug him, and then collect. I tell ya, I love me an open and shut case". I took another swig.
"Due to the sensitive and high-ranking nature of our current client, I doubt that this will be our last stop". The train slowed to a halt, the onboard speakers stating- Outhe Way. I stepped out of the train car, an easy feat. The hover-train began to back up, as there was only one line programmed into it. I threw a couple business cards to the bloodied mass left in its wake, what possibly could've been an arm waving in gratitude and making a big show of putting it in its wallet. I walked up the street- a not so easy feat in my state of intoxicaton. Holmes.exe brought up Spoogle maps and we meandered our way to the selected building. "Y'sure this is the place?".
"I am as confident in this indeed being the location as you are drunk, Mr. Gumshoe". I walked up the stoop and kicked in the doors, only to be greeted by the screech of the receptionist. I gave her the once over. An acceptable looking river otter with terrible lip injections. I'm not sure what disgusted me more- those bananas strapped to her cock-holster or the noise she managed to slip past them. My eyes carried on from the distressed dame and her poor life choices to the interior of the building. A single hallway sprawled down from the reception desk I was now standing in front of. Doors lined the hall, but only one of them wasn't boarded up or sloppily painted onto bare space-brick. Since the otter broad with the broken face and shattered demeanor was clearly incapable of helping anybody, let alone herself, I strutted right past the brownish ball of tears to the only clear destination. Fuckin' dames. Can't live with 'em, so you just jerk off without 'em.
--3--
After a couple mishaps with the doorknob, I eventually found my way into the Doc's office. The name on the door was Dr. Germaine von Generisch, cybernetic surgeon. Ostensibly he was the deer sitting in front of me at what was desperately attempting to be a desk. Damn, I do some great work. I took another swig. Or at least I would have, if I hadn't somehow finished the rest of my backup flask, my hidden reinforcement flask, and the bottle of whiskey I kept on my person at all times. I'm not quite sure how that all happened in the some odd 10 yards from the entrance of the building to the Doc's office but it is what it is.
The office was sparesly decorated, in fact, it lacked decor at all. The only things occupying the room including myself was a mortician's table, Germain von Generisch's beat to hell leather recliner, Dr. Germain von Generisch, four neatly stacked cinderblocks with a piece of space-plywood placed on top, and the great ol' bow on top of this shithouse sunday was a piece of paper stapled to the wall with the words "Medical Degree" neatly calligraphied in crayon. Gotta say, must've been a prestigious school the Doc came from, that was some damn fine handwriting. He surely couldn't possess such a steady hand even for being of the profession of slicing chumps open for pocketchange- the rather emaciated looking deer seated before me had no arms. Wait. My eyes refocused. Ah, there they are. They were atop his head, stuck in place of his antlers. I swayed unsteadily, the vast amounts of alcohol finally hitting my bloodstream. Holmes.exe gargled something most likely ignorant and useless to the situation at hand through my intravenous speakers but I didn't give a damn and couldn't hear it worth a shit. I was just happy to finally have some peace from that smug limey cunt.
Sensing some form of eye contact, Dr. von Generisch began to talk words out of his mouth. Or maybe it was his ass. I wouldn't have been surprised given his striking choice of bodily modification. "Willkommen, mein fine feline friend! How may I improve you today?".
"Desqualla".
"Gesundheit".
"What? You know, fuck you, never you mind. Now tell me everything you know about Jimmy Creamsicle".
"Never heard of him, and I have no idea who or what you're talking about, mein herr". Damn. He was going to play hard to get. Luckily, the office was rather tiny, and my small arm of the law had a range of a thousand meters. Yes, my good ol' Pony-up brand Ocelot pistol in .777 wristbreaker. I took out my enhanced negotiation device and tossed it onto the desk. The space-plywood broke in half. Dr. von Generisch looked down, the smile he had carried through his semi-rehearsed rambling twitching at the corners. He looked back up to meet my slurred gaze, taking out a handkerchief from behind his back.
"Does this smell like chloroform to you?". He held it up to my face and I took a hearty whiff. "No". I'd had my nasal passages removed a few years ago when the toilet had stopped flushing back at my office. "What the scheisse?!". Dr. Germaine von Generisch held the rag to his face, promptly slumping forward with a vague string of fine kraut profanities slipping out of him as he joined my pistol between the cinderblocks with the remains of the space-plywood. My eyes drooping, consciousness fading, and Holmes.exe struggling to reach my eardrums, I too fell to the floor. It seemed to be an appropriately swanky place to be at the time.
I awoke L. Ron Hubbard knows when on the mortician's table. I took stock of myself. Alright, tail, ears, appendages, pistol... Somehow placed back into my holster. Still fully clothed. Alright, wait, shit, what the fuck is this on my chest? I looked down to survey the damage. Stapled to my moderately clean dress shirt was a single piece of paper, a crude rendering of what I assumed to be bosoms on the front of it. I think I'd gotten the full extent of the doc's abilities, and all for just a little mild intimidation. Electronic static burst through my eardrums. "Finally awake, Mr. Gumshoe?". Ah, Holmes.exe, you constant bane of my existence. Well, that and the space-syphilis. "How could you possibly deduce that, you digital crumpet-crunching cunt".
"Seeing as how it isn't raining, and we are in fact indoors, with no worry of you drowning- I'd suggest you look up, Mr. Gumshoe". Being too tired to give a shit anymore, I just pulled out the revolver, placed it against my temple, and pulled the fucking trigger, since there was no more point to this godawful story.
--1--
Name's Gumshoe, Dick Gumshoe, private eye, public menace. People come to me not necessarily to get their cases solved, but to get them done. I am very effective at what I do, and what I do ain't easy. Takes a tough cookie to buy AI off the Danknet to comb through Spoogle, a real hard-boiled egg, a stale piece of bread if y'know what I mean. I ain't no spring chicken to this game, in fact, I'm a feline. Cybernetically enchanced, I have the best damn personal wifi hotspot on this entire rock, the remote outpost DS-123, or Dirty Sanchez as we locals refer to this little piece of floating debris, spherical in shape, orbiting a star out in space. A planet if you will. And on this planet, I was just another one of the countless furred schlubs eking out a living on this Divine-forsaken rock. Divine, what a bitch, she still owes me thirty space-dollary-doos (SPDs if you will), but she left town on a rail or on a pole, I'm not sure which. All she left me was a broken record player, a broken heart, and some STDs. Fuckin' bitch.
On this rock y'see, good ol' Dirty Sanchez, I was sort of a big deal. I was the only Private Eye for thirty gorillion space miles in this sector, and the only sonofabitch that would accept cash and trade. Seeing as how the last tree in the galaxy was cut down over a billion years ago though, my cash in hand had been rather short lately, and I was willing to take any job for the right price. Usually, that meant bottom of the barrel. I tell ya, I gotta find out what to do with all these goddamn barrel bottoms, these splinters are too much sometimes. Anyhow, That's when he floated in.
Holmes.exe chimed through my intravenous speakers. "Sir, there is a hologram here to see us".
"Y'mean to see me."
"If that is what you're more comfortable with."
My cursor highlighted Holmes.exe and hovered it over the recycle bin on my desktop computer. I paused."Not today," I thought to myself, "Not today". I swiveled my chair around to see my potential client. Seeing as how it wasn't a swivel chair, the noise was somewhat unsettling. Facing me was a hologram, a personality simulation of some dead asshole looking to solve his own murder. Happens all the time. But what doesn't happen all the time was the caliber of the clientele. Clean, crisp, and vaguely otherworldly, this guy was clearly something else. Most holographic personality simulations usually flicker due to the budget models being most popular. I could see just from the quality of his texture rendering that this guy's corpse had some serious dough. I might possibly be able to make rent this month!
I stared into his cold, dead, holographic eyes. Moments passed. Then minutes. The simulation began to fidget in simulated mannerisms, and broke the silence with a rather loud simulated cough. The simulated discomfort was palpable.
"You are indeed, a Dick, correct?"
"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! BUDDY WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN HUH?!". I was indeed sort of a pill at times, but we had just met. If this passive-aggression, a womanly artform, was to color our interactions, I could tell my case was off to a bad start. Nothing's worse than a hysterical broad, except a hysterical male. And seeing as how whomever had wired this holograph up had forgotten to include clothing in their projection, he was most likely a male if my recollections of anatomy had any worth. "Yes, that is indeed a penis Mr. Gumshoe", Holmes.exe confirmed, reading through my thoughtscroll recorded on the brainwave-to-text device implanted into my neck.
"Shut the FUCK up Sherlock", I said aloud.
"W-what?", the holograph replied.
"Not you, the detective".
"I thought you were a detective- am, am I in the wrong office?"
"No, no, you got it all wrong, I AM the detective".
"W-well... If you insist," he continued, simulated voice wavering with simulated skepticism. I swear, they're getting better these days.
"I-I have a case for you".
"No shit? Well, lay it out for me Sam".
"W-well, the name's actually Jiminez Desqualla De la Creme a la Creme".
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down a second there Jimbo- THE Jiminez Desqualla De la Creme a la Creme?"
"Y-yes!"
"Never heard of him".
"He is the former head of the Argus Bargus syndicate," Holmes.exe expounded, "He recently perished on live television a few hours ago according to his Galacticpedia page".
"WHAT?!? HOW THE FUCK WAS I NOT INFORMED?!?!"
"We haven't had a public television feed for quite some time, Mr. Gumshoe". Though his smarmy British mannerisms were most certainly wrong, he was in the right on this. I hadn't bothered to pay for cable in some time. It seemed ludicrous, what with all the freely available information on the galaxynet. On top of that, cable hadn't existed for about a thousand years. Holmes.exe continued with his exposition. "Jiminez was giving a speech to the DS-123 planet's parliament, he was the trade commission's viceroy, and executive mercantile czar of the Federational Confederacy. He died without even giving us a conclusive answer to how the deficit was going to be solved, a pity".
"Any leads?", I inquired, taking out a flask from my desk drawer and letting a slug from it hit the back of my throat. I don't know how a cartridge from my .777 Ocelot Milspec single-action, double-trigger revolving plasma-cooled oxygen-heated pistol had wound up in my flask, but damn, it still went down smooth with a little coaxing. I swallowed heavily.
"The Federation Confederacy has already executed a suspect- a Dr. Kevorkian, the familial doctor to the Cremes".
"Damn, that was fast, by Space Jesus I do some damn fine work. That'll be fifty-thousand SPDs".
"W-what?" said the holograph."I-I d-d-don't-"
"LISTEN HERE JIMMY, WE LIVE IN A GALACTIC CAPITALIST SPACE COLONY SOCIETY, WHERE PEOPLE GET UNDERPAID FOR AN HONEST DAY OF HARD WORK, AND IF YOU WANT TO RIP ME OFF LIKE THIS I'LL TURN THIS HOMICIDE CASE INTO A GODDAMN MURDER-SUICIDE!". I quickly unholstered my revolver and brandished it upward towards the ceiling, letting off several rounds. A groan came from above, followed by the heavy whump of something hitting the floor. I had forgotten that my office was squarely below that of the building's landlord. My tail twitched. Well, I suppose I won't have to worry about making rent this month. Holmes.exe blathered onward. "His manner of death was most suspicious. The videograph shows him emitting blood from every orifice with a pressure of at least 20 Newtons".
"Newtons? What was wrong with the oldtons? Goddamn progressive scientists, screwing with my preferred units of measurement!".
"Calm thyself, Mr. Gumshoe".
"Calm? Calm?! YOU EXPECT ME TO KEEP CALM IN A TIME LIKE THIS, FOR SPACE-CHRISSAKE THERE IS A DEAD MAN'S HOLOGRAPH FLOATING HIS 4K RENDERED BALLS ALL OVER MY OFFICE". Jiminez simulated a shudder in the spot he had chosen to float, and then simulated an uneasy sweep of his surroundings to ensure he was indeed, keeping his appendages to himself. I took the moment to actually take a closer look at him past his finely generated genitalia. He was a short, rather lean looking silver fox, and it looked like his programming was adjusting his presented features based on the ambient temperature. When he was alive, I doubt he had sprang for augments in the undercarriage by the looks of things. The first honest politician in the galaxy? Maybe this case wasn't going to be so bad after all.
--2--
Dirty Sanchez was about as backwater a planet as you could get in this sector, vaguely industrial buildings dotting the landscape as far as the eye could see. Galactic Warehouse Builders LLC had made a fortune contracting here. Fuckers built dozens of empty warehouses promptly to be abandoned and go unused, as was the style at the time. And here I was, racing through the streets in a hover-train, the cars crowded with space-hookers looking to make their nightly rounds in order to hit the late night space-bars to drown their space-sorrows with space-booze. Which seemed odd to me, as Dirty Sanchez was a planet with three suns and no discernable night-day cycle. I tell ya, they had an odd gig but who am I to judge? I'm just an honest detective trying to make a living here- and dead hookers in droves mean good business. And seeing as how the hover-train was plowing through the masses on ground level due to the AI not being updated from the time the trains had actually been on rails, it was looking like I might have some more business coming my way.
Shit, I'd forgotten why I'd taken this train. The fuck was I doing again? "We're on the case of Jiminiz Desqualla de la Creme a la Creme. Dr. Kevorkian was chosen as his murderer, but the swiftness of his execution leaves it highly doubtful that he was the ultimate culprit", elucidated Holmes.exe.
"I fucking knew all of that already, Sherlock".
"I have direct evidence that you in fact, did not".
Sonuvabitching brainwave-to-text device. I don't know why I had that fucking thing installed in the first place, or when. "Your propensity to fall asleep absolutely soused, and the habit of yours to awake in a similar state", explained Holmes.exe. A flurry of furious cursing flung from my furry lips in reply. I shoulda downloaded Hudson.exe instead, but the goddamn SpacePirateBay didn't have a reliable torrent, and I ain't no patsy for some Spacecoin miner using my brainwaves to fund their space-whores. Holmes.exe forged onward with his inane bullshit. "Financial records indicate that while he did see a medical doctor before his death, it was not Dr. Kevorkian. Judging by the type of fluid Mr. Desqualla emitted before his death, as well as the speed and pressure of said fluid emission-" Holmes.exe paused as I had taken out my flask, now filled with good old fashioned undistilled hypertonic hooch, and was imbibing it to get it into my bloodstream with about the same speed as Desqualla had rid himself of his. I took out my backup flask as well. A good day's work deserves a good, hearty drink afterall. Holmes.exe cleared his digital throat. "Quite. He appears to have been the victim of a 'Heartbreaker' bombing, most likely implanted into him during his last medical consultation. Records again, indicate he had paid for a surgery performed at the building on 1337 Business Outhe Way, a week before his death".
"Gotcha. So we find this phoney-baloney doc that done murdered our boy, plug him, and then collect. I tell ya, I love me an open and shut case". I took another swig.
"Due to the sensitive and high-ranking nature of our current client, I doubt that this will be our last stop". The train slowed to a halt, the onboard speakers stating- Outhe Way. I stepped out of the train car, an easy feat. The hover-train began to back up, as there was only one line programmed into it. I threw a couple business cards to the bloodied mass left in its wake, what possibly could've been an arm waving in gratitude and making a big show of putting it in its wallet. I walked up the street- a not so easy feat in my state of intoxicaton. Holmes.exe brought up Spoogle maps and we meandered our way to the selected building. "Y'sure this is the place?".
"I am as confident in this indeed being the location as you are drunk, Mr. Gumshoe". I walked up the stoop and kicked in the doors, only to be greeted by the screech of the receptionist. I gave her the once over. An acceptable looking river otter with terrible lip injections. I'm not sure what disgusted me more- those bananas strapped to her cock-holster or the noise she managed to slip past them. My eyes carried on from the distressed dame and her poor life choices to the interior of the building. A single hallway sprawled down from the reception desk I was now standing in front of. Doors lined the hall, but only one of them wasn't boarded up or sloppily painted onto bare space-brick. Since the otter broad with the broken face and shattered demeanor was clearly incapable of helping anybody, let alone herself, I strutted right past the brownish ball of tears to the only clear destination. Fuckin' dames. Can't live with 'em, so you just jerk off without 'em.
--3--
After a couple mishaps with the doorknob, I eventually found my way into the Doc's office. The name on the door was Dr. Germaine von Generisch, cybernetic surgeon. Ostensibly he was the deer sitting in front of me at what was desperately attempting to be a desk. Damn, I do some great work. I took another swig. Or at least I would have, if I hadn't somehow finished the rest of my backup flask, my hidden reinforcement flask, and the bottle of whiskey I kept on my person at all times. I'm not quite sure how that all happened in the some odd 10 yards from the entrance of the building to the Doc's office but it is what it is.
The office was sparesly decorated, in fact, it lacked decor at all. The only things occupying the room including myself was a mortician's table, Germain von Generisch's beat to hell leather recliner, Dr. Germain von Generisch, four neatly stacked cinderblocks with a piece of space-plywood placed on top, and the great ol' bow on top of this shithouse sunday was a piece of paper stapled to the wall with the words "Medical Degree" neatly calligraphied in crayon. Gotta say, must've been a prestigious school the Doc came from, that was some damn fine handwriting. He surely couldn't possess such a steady hand even for being of the profession of slicing chumps open for pocketchange- the rather emaciated looking deer seated before me had no arms. Wait. My eyes refocused. Ah, there they are. They were atop his head, stuck in place of his antlers. I swayed unsteadily, the vast amounts of alcohol finally hitting my bloodstream. Holmes.exe gargled something most likely ignorant and useless to the situation at hand through my intravenous speakers but I didn't give a damn and couldn't hear it worth a shit. I was just happy to finally have some peace from that smug limey cunt.
Sensing some form of eye contact, Dr. von Generisch began to talk words out of his mouth. Or maybe it was his ass. I wouldn't have been surprised given his striking choice of bodily modification. "Willkommen, mein fine feline friend! How may I improve you today?".
"Desqualla".
"Gesundheit".
"What? You know, fuck you, never you mind. Now tell me everything you know about Jimmy Creamsicle".
"Never heard of him, and I have no idea who or what you're talking about, mein herr". Damn. He was going to play hard to get. Luckily, the office was rather tiny, and my small arm of the law had a range of a thousand meters. Yes, my good ol' Pony-up brand Ocelot pistol in .777 wristbreaker. I took out my enhanced negotiation device and tossed it onto the desk. The space-plywood broke in half. Dr. von Generisch looked down, the smile he had carried through his semi-rehearsed rambling twitching at the corners. He looked back up to meet my slurred gaze, taking out a handkerchief from behind his back.
"Does this smell like chloroform to you?". He held it up to my face and I took a hearty whiff. "No". I'd had my nasal passages removed a few years ago when the toilet had stopped flushing back at my office. "What the scheisse?!". Dr. Germaine von Generisch held the rag to his face, promptly slumping forward with a vague string of fine kraut profanities slipping out of him as he joined my pistol between the cinderblocks with the remains of the space-plywood. My eyes drooping, consciousness fading, and Holmes.exe struggling to reach my eardrums, I too fell to the floor. It seemed to be an appropriately swanky place to be at the time.
I awoke L. Ron Hubbard knows when on the mortician's table. I took stock of myself. Alright, tail, ears, appendages, pistol... Somehow placed back into my holster. Still fully clothed. Alright, wait, shit, what the fuck is this on my chest? I looked down to survey the damage. Stapled to my moderately clean dress shirt was a single piece of paper, a crude rendering of what I assumed to be bosoms on the front of it. I think I'd gotten the full extent of the doc's abilities, and all for just a little mild intimidation. Electronic static burst through my eardrums. "Finally awake, Mr. Gumshoe?". Ah, Holmes.exe, you constant bane of my existence. Well, that and the space-syphilis. "How could you possibly deduce that, you digital crumpet-crunching cunt".
"Seeing as how it isn't raining, and we are in fact indoors, with no worry of you drowning- I'd suggest you look up, Mr. Gumshoe". Being too tired to give a shit anymore, I just pulled out the revolver, placed it against my temple, and pulled the fucking trigger, since there was no more point to this godawful story.
I await further updates, nice job! character limit per post is 64000 btw
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2015
Nobody tell this author about donkeys or cape buffalo or anything like that. He'd have a heart attack.
BScCollateral
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 28, 2018
And how the animals with the highest human bodycount are pretty much all herbivores.
The dude doesn't seem to get it. A tiger will go, "Meh, a meal isn't worth the risk." A male moose thinks you're threatening his calves? He'll die to take you down.
Personally, my scariest encounter with a wild animal involved something that only eats fish.
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2019
Believe it or not he did think of this, but I'd be spoiling a major plot twist if I went into detail.
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2023
Not only that, but all animals are opportunistic omnivores. They will eat meat if given the opportunity. Cows have eaten adult rabbits, deer and giraffes and horses have eaten birds (deer will also eat fish) hippos have eaten monkeys and alligators (not just killing but eating whole), pandas eat deer, elephants eat whole birds, chicken will eat each other.