#pixie biology

[feyclowns]

touching on the fey — newborns and babies

reproduction/childhood, biology and social hierarchy/dynamics i think are the most changed aspects of my au. here are some notes on newborns (anti-wanda, juandissimo, and sanderson pictured)

anti-fairies are born after just 3 months, small with large wings and ears- not cubed but foop/irep has a genetic mutation. they all have pointed ears and claws. they instinctively grab, cling and latch and have poor eyesight, capable of loosely mimicking parents' speech. it is not uncommon for them to have teeth.

they rapidly become more independent over the following months, and go from teeny helpless little bundles wrapped up in their own wings to scrabbly, hungry, vocal little creatures. they're curious little buggers and inherent lovers of chaos.

common mutations are ear shapes, devil tails, horns and hooves (hooves are cherub descent). anti-wanda was born with black hair that lightened with age.

fairies are born after several years(still not sure just how long)- large with small wings and only their primary and neural cores active. i will write about the core system later. they are not round but are chubby little guys, having drained a lot of magic to develop and be able to function independently. they're big in proportion to their parents, definitely two arms needed to carry for the average small fairy. there are several subspecies and fairies are from the branch of True Fey.

they are open-eyed and more cognizant than human newborns, able to lift their heads, grab for things (poorly) and follow movement. they make noises but no words, and are capable of smiling. they will learn to scoot around rather quickly, but their magic cores develop first, so while they might be able to move around and interact/understand their parents their speech and mental growth is extremely delayed. it is not uncommon for them to have full heads of hair.

common mutations are cherubism, four wings, butterfly wings and pointed ears.

pixies are additionally born after several years (though not as long as a fairy), large, open-eyed and more cognizant than a fairy baby. while they're sleepy and non-emotive, they are very good with motor functions and enjoy repetitive behaviors.

like fairies, they only have their primary and neural cores active, but pick up learning language and physical advancement far faster than their fairy cousins- pixies take longer to pick up magic instead. they're intelligent, dexterous and quickly become independent- i want you to imagine a toddler in a suit calmly making themself a bowl of cereal, utilizing a stool.

pixies do not show much genetic diversity. most pixies reproduce extremely rarely (with the exception of One) due to biological and social limits. all pixies are born with straight black hair, rounded ears and unusually dull eyes for a magic being- a pixie and a fairy will almost always make another pixie; their genes are very dominant.

[feyclowns]

a brief look at pixie biology

goofy guys. i like these ones. sillies.

most pixies are very short and stocky, with square builds. they're the smallest of the seelie

body hair is infrequent, near non-existent

males are ever-so slightly larger than females on average, though it hardly matters

pixies function very similar to fairies, they have near identical anatomies and also get inebriated from sugar

primarily eat fantastical beasts along with magic supplements

pixies grow up a little faster due to less time needed maturing their core systems. takes them about 1300 years.

pixies take very few genes from their non-pixie parent- a hint of eye color here, a darker skin color there..

despite their funky core systems, pixies, once given the magic-using tools they need, are just as adept with magic as fairies

they all speak with the same flat tone, but tend to have difficulty masking their expressions

they have an inborn talent for numbers and repetitive behaviors- they flourish in a group where everyone has a set role that they do over and over again.

each pixie is given a set role after their rearing period has ended. some pixies show the rare ambition to climb some ranks but most are generally comfortable with where Head Pixie puts them.

all fairy-based seelie buzz their wings but pixies are especially guilty of buzzing when agitated

pixies used to be quite rare, with small mixed families, usually employed by fairy companies to deal with paperwork and other tasks- librarians, attorneys, secretaries, etc

honorable mention: the curious case of Head Pixie

so many people cannot stand this guy.

this guy is weird. the council does not like weird. he is like, biologically, the biggest outlier for the pixie species ever

side note: my HP doesn't look as old as canon due to the way my fairies age (and pixies generally live longer anyway since they consume magic rather than produce it) but he is still, in fact, very old

fey dad, pixie mom. HP's pixie status was debated hotly for a long time due to the main factor that he had a functional central core- in fact, it was too functional; HP produces too much magic for his system to handle on a regular basis.

HP handles this in two ways; lots of offspring and lots of using his magic to power things. man, building a business empire is easy.

he's larger than the average pixie as well, by 7 inches (this makes him look huge)

all of HP's kids are normal pixies (barring the handful of fairy children)

HP is old. really old. he's about to hit a million. he's older than jorgen's nana. he's showing his age but he looks pretty good. his fey lineage and magic overproduction are the primary reasons for this, but he just likes to say he lives off black coffee and pure spite. he is staying around forever, baby.

[feyclowns]

a look at magic and the core system

the core system explanation and my loose idea of what magic is. this uh. this got long. this is a longass post.

my thoughts on magic

i have this idea that mother nature, while creating her earlier lifeforms, used magic as a sort of bind-all, something modeled after the overarching powers of time and creation, etc- giving them extra powers and extending their life (like a kid making their first ocs). most of her older creatures are on planes higher up and function on magic. as she got better with her craft she began to appreciate the complexity of making all those bits and pieces stuff on earth has, and the faster ebb and flow of life AND death. humans are one of her favorite creations.

magic is inherently chaotic. it exists in multiple forms, on multiple planes. it's something that touches things in a biological way and yet obeys physical laws set before it. it can be stored and used up. it can create more of itself. it can corrupt things. when mother nature realized it was a bad idea to give near-unlimited power to beings when she was creating ones of lower ability on the planes below, she changed magic and the creatures that used it- gave them weaknesses, sometimes bordering on the ridiculous, compulsions too. things to keep them in check.

i also like to think you can't entirely 1:1 seelie to humans on even a biological cell-scale. they just fundamentally are different.

magic's function

the more pure magic is, the more powerful it is- magic comes in all colors of the rainbow, but different colors have slightly different attributes. one can never truly filter one color out of magic entirely, as it needs all its components to function.

with the True Fey nearly extinct, the only beings that can use raw magic without the assistance of a device or sigil are genies, and i'd argue they got quite the short end of the stick considering their compulsion.

fairies, fey and their subspecies primarily function on purple magic. this stuff is filtered, diluted, as "neutral" as one can get. if you create magic rather than consume it, and your species functions on filtered magic, you cannot handle it raw. like, your body can't handle the extra energy. physically.

magical backup is when a fairy has so much magic in their system they cannot filter the chaotic energy that magic produces and explode.

filtered magic is also, simply, on paper, easiest to use. as a third party, non-seelie magic user- use raw magic while unprepared and get evaporated while changing the laws of physics. use overfiltered magic without the correct sigils and nothing happens except maybe a bitter taste in your mouth.

onto the core system.

the core system

the neural core is where magic flows freely up towards- the filter strains clean, purple magic from the magic produced by the central core. conscious wishes are also made from the brain connected to the core here.

the central core is where magic is generated. the central core takes calories and nutrients from ingested food (fairies have a stomach that is right next to their core) and converts it into magic. the core membrane acts as a storage for filtered magic in both areas.

the core pools are located at the base of the wrists of a fairy, which are where excess magic flows and stays in anticipation of use. when a fairy exhausts the magic from their pools, they must wait until they begin to refill from the reserves in the core membranes.

the inner cores are the most important part of the system; if this part of a fairy is damaged they will die. this part also holds the data for the rest of the body- if worse comes to worse, the inner cores will maintain the body parts left and rebuild the core system before completing the rest of the body. this is in part why fairies are so gd resilient. no inner core, no regeneration.

magic threads are what magic travels along throughout the body. they are thick, wide tubes that extend through the torso and extremities. the central thread is also called a nervous thread. during pregnancy, the body creates a sixth thread (and sometimes seventh) to deliver magic to the developing child's core.

fairies produce raw magic in their central cores. they have two cores- a central and neural core, which are connected to each other through the nervous thread and extend to their magic pools and flow magic through the body by the four magic threads.

anti-fairies are where all that excess magic goes when fairies filter it out. anti fairies don't need to generate magic or filter it- they can handle it just fine. they have a simpler core layout- a thick core membrane to hold their magic and the excess chaotic magic swirling about in their inner core. this enables anti-fairies to grant powerful rule-free wishes. anti-fairies tend to have strange colored magic threads, generally aligning with the color of their counterparts' eyes.

pixies are quirky things. pixies have the same amount of cores as their fairy cousins but do not produce raw magic. they instead need to feed on magical creatures (or take their magic supplements, as provided by pixies INC) to keep their core systems afloat. another issue is that most pixies' core filters still work- which would be fine if they produced magic. pixies overfilter their magic, leading them to use a highly complicated wand (along with several binding contracts) to utilize the magic still delivered to their core pools. (it's also a phone. why not toss that in for free? Head Pixie was feeling really nice when he made that decision.)

pixies have a very large core filter and membrane in their neural core, with a small central core and large magic pools. their magic threads are thin.