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#69
A pirate crew captured a shipment of seal skins. They don’t realize there’s a horde of angry selkies trying to get them back.
—
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question about sealskins: how do trans shapeshifters work? do their bodies know they're trans before they do and shift that way automatically? could they consciously shift their natural state when they realize their gender identity? or does it take gender affirming surgeries to 'reset' their natural state?
you got ahead of me-- Leo Harp is trans! the fun selkie-themed name isn't an alias, it's his chosen name.
there are two answers to this general line of thought!
in practice, most trans shapeshifters use conscious shapeshifting to transition, and do some mild "touchup" shifting once a week or so. it's roughly the same effort as remembering to take a T shot, without the need to involve a doctor.
it's remarkably easy shapeshifting and can usually be accomplished before a kid is old enough for a full copy-- most commonly gendered body parts like genitals are formed from early development tissue that is found in every viable fetus (shoutout to my old pal the mesonephric duct) that is then changed from being exposed to hormones, so you don't have to "borrow" anything from another person. you already have the genetic coding for the basis! physical sex is much less intrinsic and binary than society treats it so it's super easy for shapeshifters to mess with.
in THEORY, though, if you wanted to change your baseline form so that you didn't have to keep up the shapeshifting, you can change your "natural" state with surgery or medication. it's just a lot harder than having a bowl of spaghetti to carboload and making some changes.
Sealskins (1932) Gilbert Pratt and Morey Lightfoot
May 24th 2021
so I was wondering how are the shape shifters forced to become dead people I know the implant thing keeps it that way but how does anyone force them to actually become the dead person
it's usually coercion and forced contact with the body-- shifter kids are trained in advance of their "assignment" and know there will be dire consequences if they DON'T do it. it is very very hard to actually PHYSICALLY force a copy, full or partial, but tricking a child into thinking they'll be free once they can prove they can do full copies and then keeping them from shifting back? tragically easy.
@asmolvaporeon he is, indeed, named after harp seals!! He picked it himself!
His calling card is a “sea lion”, but with the added meaning of “you can’t recreate a person out of someone else’s parts”— a seal and a lion do not come together to create a sea lion. You’ve just made a fucked up seal.
for your shapeshifter au: If the shapeshifter "full copy" is a perfect duplicate, down to the brain chemistry, would they not inherit the health issues the person had that caused their death in the first place? I can see shapeshifter powers normally negating this, but since the powers are being suppressed, they wouldn't be able to use their natural defenses against human illness.
this is a good question! during the sort of full copy used to recreate the dead, there's a stabilization period that helps to mitigate that issue, but there are some conditions that can prevent the full copy from working, such as extensive brain damage, overdoses of certain drugs, etc.
how fast is shapeshifting? i.e. if a shapeshifter is doing a heist or something and has to duck behind a wall to avoid being seen, would they be able to change into someone who's supposed to be there in a reasonable amount of time? or is it more on the order of days/weeks
maintenance shapeshifting only takes 15 minutes or so, but if you're trying to change anything more than that it's more of an hours thing!
ooooh sealskins is so interesting! are shapeshifters a separate species from humans, or just humans with powers? also you mentioned that the surgeon is younger than he thought, do shapeshifters age normally when forced to be a copy?
shapeshifters are human, but the gene that makes someone a shapeshifter is very consistent, so shapeshifters only ever have shapeshifter kids! it doesn't really line up with real life patterns for passing down traits, but we're rolling with a bit of suspension of disbelief lmao
and yes, they do age normally "under" a full copy!
