Transfem dysphoria is like transforming into a Werewolf. You’re bulkier than you want, covered in a fuck ton of hair all over your body, your voice is deeper than you want to hear yourself as, people expect you to care less about kindness in that form, and people might ostracize you if they find out your secret other half but real homies will attempt to help remove that side of you that you dislike.
autism is living by vampire rules. light sensitivity. eating the wrong food makes you want to die. need to be explicitly invited places. weird sleep schedule. eating the same thing every time. specific rituals and routines. burst into flames at the sight of a crucifix. etc.
Day 15: Nemesis
Day 16: Hatchling
Day 17: Proteus
Day 18: Thief
Day 19: Sinewy
Day 20: Tail
Day 21: Deceptive
Day 1: Ridley
Day 2: Fiery
Day 3: Winged
Day 4: Pirate
Day 5: Mecha
Day 6: Fang
Day 7: Cunning
Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696
Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-8433
LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255
Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386
Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743
Eating Disorders Hotline: 1-847-831-3438
Rape and Sexual Assault: 1-800-656-4673
Grief Support: 1-650-321-5272
Runaway: 1-800-843-5200, 1-800-843-5678, 1-800-621-4000
Exhale: After Abortion Hotline/Pro-Voice: 1-866-4394253
If you ever want to talk: My tumblr ask is always open.
So in the Phendrana Drifts area of Metroid Prime, you explore various areas in the snowy region of the map. There are various sealed courtyards, underground Space Pirate facilities, Chozo temples structures, and ice caves. You also see various creatures, such as various adaptations of other creatures to this cold environment. The most prominently featured of these creatures is the juvenile and adult Sheegoth, a massive predator that dwarfs even Samus. Naturally, these creatures would require copious amounts of food. However, the areas we find them in are sealed enclosures, offering no way in or out besides doors which are too small for even the juveniles to fit through, and which often require specialized beam types to open. So how do these titanic creatures survive in Phendrana Drifts.
While I imagine they are adapted to going long times without food, I imagine these creatures stalk the frozen wasteland above the crevices of Phendrana, delving in to feast on the various micro ecosystems formed in those contained environments. Sometimes, these crevices prove too difficult to escape from, so they enter a hibernation state to conserve energy, waiting for any signs of prey. This explains the accumulations of snowfall that they shake off when Samus approaches.
Additionally, I believe the juveniles tend to stay together until they reach a certain level of maturation. They never seem to appear without another close by. They even seem to use pack hunting tactics to overwhelm prey. Though, this raises a serious question. If the juveniles, big as they are, need to travel in groups and form ice shells over their backs, what else is in Phendrana Drifts?
Imagine, if you will, a nice looking creature. Perhaps one might even call it cute.
Now give it a set of large fangs for locking onto hapless prey. Quite a change of pace. Make it impervious to glancing strikes and give it the speed to dodge anything substantial. Give it the ability to soar through the air to anyone foolish enough to get near. Give it the ability to end a life in as many seconds as you have fingers on your hand. Quite a nasty creature, now.
You are now picturing a Metroid, yes?
Wrong
What you are picturing is The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Alright this is so great. Honestly, I’m not sure why I had never considered that possibility that Raven Beak already had samples of Metroid biological material and they were simply destroyed during the outbreak. That makes perfect sense. It certainly plugs the hole of “why did the Mawkin return to ZDR without any Metroid samples?” This certainly fits that and makes it much more understandable. Plus it helps the X seems far more intelligent but seeking out and destroying mere genetic material, not even a reproduced Metroid, because they knew the danger it could pose if the Metroids were reproduced. Plus the idea that they had been keeping track of their numbers and the Metroids were inexplicably reproducing makes the Chozo seem more intelligent and adds a layer of Dread to the situation. Having things go wrong is all the more terrifying when you did make failsafes, but those failsafes didn’t stop the problem.
Overall, good stuff here.
I like to think the Thoha Chozo had a very Jurassic Park moment when dealing with the Metroids' rebellion on SR388. Think of it this way; You need a bioweapon that can destroy the X, so you take DNA from a wide variety of other organisms on SR388, and splice them into a perfect chimera. You'll need a lot of these, so you program this creature to undergo mitosis when exposed to beta-rays. That way, your machines only need to create one 'Metroid' from scratch, and then it can be used to spawn the rest.
But here's the thing; After the Metroids devour the X, they start to transform and mutate. Turns out, using the DNA of other creatures has caused additional traits, originally deactivated in the creation process, to emerge thanks to the unique conditions of SR388. This results in them mutating into the Alpha, Gamma, Zeta, and finally Omega stages.
This isn't hopeless though, far from it; Unlike the X, the Metroids aren't natural creatures and can't reproduce on their own. They need beta-rays, and/or the device that spawned the original Metroid. Since SR388 doesn't have any natural source of beta-rays, all you have to do is turn off the devices that emit them, and the original Metroid creator, and there! The Metroid population will always be the same.
From there you just need to destroy them one by one, and luckily the Mawkin have showed up to help; Normally your relationship with them is suspicious to the point of programming Metroids to be hostile towards Mawkin, for fear they would exploit the 'Ultimate Warrior' as a weapon. But instead, the Mawkin seem to have some genuine heart and are helping you handle the threat, and you need all the help you can get.
You accept them and conveniently don't bring up the anti-Mawkin programming, because as far as they can tell this aggression is indistinguishable from how metamorphosis has made the Metroids hostile towards you, their creators. Progress is slow yet tangible, and you keep track of how many Metroids the Mawkin have killed, and compare that number to the Metroids you created and cloned. You reach that number, and can now rest easy.
...Then you hear a report of a Metroid attack, and something definitely isn't right. How is there another Metroid, you killed all of them, you kept track of their numbers and everything! Is there something wrong with the original tally? It's not as if the Mawkin could've been mistaken on whether they killed a Metroid or not... But just in case, you engineer devices that absorb Metroid DNA whenever they die, just to have physical evidence; Otherwise, Metroids disintegrate completely upon death, so there's no physical 'proof' to reassure yourselves with.
The Mawkin keep finding more and more Metroids and now you're baffled. You check the original Metroid creation machine and it hasn't been used since the first and only time; But you take it apart, in case... Someone's been making Metroids behind your back, somehow? But the numbers keep continuing. You take apart all your beta-ray emitters, but there are still more Metroids. Is Raven Beak creating Metroids behind your back? But why let his soldiers die to them?
You scan SR388 for any beta radiation, and then you find a big one deep underground. You send Mawkin soldiers to investigate it, and only one makes it back alive. You thought the Omega was the final stage in the Metroid lifecycle; But somehow, another one emerged. Of the many species whose DNA was used to create the Metroids, one of them relied upon a lone queen to produce offspring. Another was capable of emitting its own beta-rays.
You know how some real-life animals, if there isn't a member of the opposite sex, will adapt by having a few transform into that sex so reproduction can occur? Something similar happened with the Metroids. Without a source of beta-rays, one of their own mutated into a Queen capable of emitting beta-rays within her own body, which she uses to produce eggs that hatch into newborn Metroids. And this Metroid Queen has been filling in the ranks that the Mawkin have attempted to deplete. And now the original number of Metroids that the Thoha cloned has been exceeded.
At this point, the Metroids are too numerous and powerful to defeat. But they haven't ventured to the surface of SR388, being isolated to its caverns; So you opt to seal away the Metroids by filling passageways with poisonous water. In case anyone is foolish enough to try releasing all of them at once, you program these Chozo Seal mechanisms to require a certain amount of Metroid DNA to divert the poison; This way, the Metroid population needs to be lowered to access more. And this acts as a way to gauge if those who come back to destroy the Metroids for good are competent enough to get the job done, and don't just end up releasing all of the creatures onto SR388 in their failed attempt.
That last bit is important, because you and the Mawkin plan to retreat back to ZDR, and gather more weapons, troops, and resources to return to SR388 and properly destroy the Metroids this time; Because now they know about the Queen. Theoretically, the Chozo could just destroy the planet... But they want to minimize destruction, so confronting the Metroids head-on will spare the rest of the ecosystem, as was the intention.
Alas, seeing the continued power and adaptability of the Metroids on display has intrigued Raven Beak; He finds their potential impressive, and has changed his mind. It's been deduced that the source DNA of the Metroids reacted to the environmental stimuli of SR388, the world that evolved and nurtured those organisms. But without the cradle of SR388, the source DNA will not thrive, and will not activate the other suppressed traits; Larval Metroids can't access the rest of their life cycle in any other environment.
ZDR has powerful biomechanical supercomputers called Central Units, which have telepathic abilities that enable them to control machines; Given larval Metroids were designed to respond to Chozo commands, and the use of Chozo DNA in the organic aspect of the Central Units, these AI can be used to control larval Metroids. As long as Metroids of more developed stages aren't present to rally them -the authority of Alphas and beyond will naturally override any Central Unit's- the larval forms will remain obedient.
And while the larval Metroid is just the tip of an iceberg the Thoha had never intended, what they did intend was already incredibly dangerous and powerful in and of itself, being designed to combat the deadly X and the many forms they could assimilate. So Raven Beak wouldn't need his Metroid army to metamorphose beyond their larval stage; The first form was sufficiently powerful, especially with beta-rays to clone their numbers into the thousands, far beyond the original population of SR388.
Raven Beak slaughters all but one of the Thoha, leaving you, Quiet Robe, alive. He brings you back with him and the rest of the Mawkin to ZDR, as well as the Metroid DNA samples his soldiers acquired; A return trip to SR388 is no longer necessary, and Raven Beak is fine with that planet being overrun by Metroids resistant to his control, but otherwise unable to access other worlds. But amidst the chaos, a lone X emerged from hiding while the Metroids were busy fighting the Mawkin, and infected one of the latter. This parasite stowed away, returning to ZDR with the rest of the Chozo.
And without any Metroids on ZDR, it felt safe to reveal itself in Elun and begin infecting the rest of the tribe, resulting in a years-long war and quarantine effort between the Mawkin and X. The Mawkin attempted to clone Metroids using the DNA samples they had, but the X were intelligent and could absorb their victims' memories; They predicted this move, and were able to move quickly enough to destroy all Metroid DNA on ZDR before any of their predators could be cloned. Without any methods to destroy the X short of blowing up the planet itself, all but one of the Mawkin would end up infected -karma- before Raven Beak finally isolated the parasites within Elun, somehow.
There's no DNA samples to create Metroids from, not anymore. And you can't build another Metroid from scratch, not without the DNA of the original SR388 creatures that went into it... But you can definitely build beta-ray emitters. And there are still plenty of Metroid larvae back on SR388 to clone directly, instead of the more roundabout process; So Raven Beak flies the Itorash back to SR388... And finds a bunch of rubble where the planet used to be.
Eventually he puts together that the human warrior he helped Old Bird and Gray Voice hybridize blew up the whole damn planet, finishing what her fellow Thoha started. His plans to conquer the galaxy with Metroids is screwed, they're all extinct with any DNA samples eradicated. That is, until Raven Beak finds out that his "daughter" Samus has Metroid DNA, thanks to the Galactic Federation, and the very X that spawned the Metroids' existence (and yet also delayed Raven Beak's plans by infecting his entire tribe).
And now, after all that effort in creating and then trying to destroy the Metroids, you have to bring them back using the person who helped you destroy them. Or, maybe not... Over your dead body! Which turns out to be literal when an X absorbs your corpse and then helps Samus awaken her Metroid DNA by siccing the remaining EMMIs back on her. How did you even get to this point again???
What happens if you climb sideways?
my job in the pirate base is to climb up and down the walls
Hanging an led screen with this on it as I dip into the hotel room with my girlfriend.
As an unabashed lesbian and Samus x Gandrayda shipper, I knew I had to make this. Thanks to @Hoshizoralone for allowing me to use these adorable art pieces.