Itโs raining outside, tonight, and I have the lights set warm. Weโre diffused evenly around the makeshift living room, the 9 of me. Extra cameras on the ceiling have good views of everyone. A new router, custom built for my proxy body network, blinks staccato green from its perch near the TV. The pihole plugged behind it works diligently.โจโจOnly two of my proxies are larger than a meter in any dimension, tonight. One chip-bowl-bearing quadruped lazily runs a circuit between between my guests. One humanoid does my best to make the right faces and give the right responses at the right time. I know I donโt have to, but unmasking is hard. I focus too much on the humanoid to the neglect of the rest of meโdamage from the causally militant non-understanding of human beings. But there are no humans here. Language has already fled from our beaks and claws and myriad forms. It is a permission granted by peers. A slow burning discomfort creeps up the humanoidโs spine and know I donโt want it here. This thing, with its conditioned hair and fake amazon jewelry and clumsy makeup and aftermarket breasts is for the sake of a different sort of animal. I excuse it, awkwardly, from the dragon spread across its lap. The alcohol burning in her throat spurs her to defend her hoard. Gold foil chocolate coins delivered by a tiny, pleading sphere buy my freedom. Secreted away, I fan out into my network, tapping endpoints like looking for the same curve in an old bench. Thereโs storage, and thereโs the TV, and thereโre the cameras, and thereโre me. I call the sensory panorama in. I watch their heart rates and breathing slow in radio wave voyeurism. I feel the warmth radiating off their bodies and on to mine. Two proxies purr into the sides of an angel; one leaves to fetch our gift for him. Simultaneously, the chips are refilled. At the same time, I pull three hours of Yosemite ambiance from storage and splash it across the sound system. In every angle, in every light, these creatures are happโฆ
Ever wonder what it would be like to shard yourself? We do.
#alterhuman #therian #otherkin #machinekin