#silken lore

[squirttheradspooder]

Silk Leaper Lore

Today’s Secondary Topic! Silk Leapers and their Perception of Gender!

Much like the last Leaper Lore, this one is on gender, sex, and our favorite radioactive mutant spiders! As always, when I get on my lore benders, I tend to get wordy so, there’s a read-more to prevent Dash-clogs!

Silk Leapers understand Gender. They get Gender Roles. Being an intelligent species, capable of learning and philosophy and reading and notation of history, they have had time to consider themselves and other silk leapers! Generally speaking, Silk Leapers don’t particularly have the same views as humans do when it comes to gender. They do have a concept of male and female, but they also have other categories when it comes to their own personal feelings on the subject.

A young spiderling who is ready to become an adult will be referred to by their body’s sex, unless they otherwise state a preference. This can persist through their whole lives long. If the community views a ‘non-preference’ Silk Leaper as a specific gender, they can adopt that gender view as their own. With as small the population of Silkhaven is, they don’t really have a reason to make a big fuss over this choice either. They know who is who and what they prefer, so why bother trying to say they aren’t who or what they say they are?

Silk Leapers will fall into one of four categories typically. Female, male, agender, or genderfluid. This decision is based on a number of factors ranging from the Leapers around them, their chosen profession, their personality, and how they feel as an individual. A male-born Leaper may feel that he is more like a female, and ask to be considered female. This is accepted and not unusual at all, and some Leapers do undergo some personal modifications to their bodies if they feel that it doesn’t reflect them well enough. This can include changing hair style, claw sharpness, clothing preference, or choosing a ‘male’ or ‘female’ oriented job within the community.

As Silk Leapers tend to communicate some things such as their gender or health via pheromones, it’s considered EXTREMELY rude to verbally ask what gender a Leaper is. While they will not get mad if you call them by the wrong gender -- and they’ll generally correct you politely, or say nothing at all -- they WILL get absolutely insulted if you deliberately ask what their gender is. It’s considered a social faux pas, and young spiderlings are taught how to interpret these pheromones over asking verbally or directly very early in their education. To ask someone what gender they are is to imply that they are too stupid to know who they are or what they want, it’s considered exceptionally condescending and insulting.

Silk Leaper don’t quite understand why humans puts so much emphasis and importance on gender. They also don’t understand why humans consider females weaker, or less important than males, or why they seem to totally lack -- on outward appearance -- those who are genderfluid or agender. While the two species may have similar stances on the discussion of gender in public -- which is to say, politely and civilly if you must but generally it’s a no-no topic -- the reasons behind it are vastly different.

[squirttheradspooder]

Report V104-F.4-10

Recovered from a personal record of Dr. Curling Jr.

August 2, 2245 Welp. The first eggs apparently hatched with no problems and are frrrrreaky looking. They’re sort of half-hunched over… they look a bit too human now, with how they prefer walking on those two sets of larger legs… they hop and jump around and seem to just love doing it to get out of our way. Which is, admittedly, a big change from just about every other thing that just wants to take a bite out of your fucking leg…

Father always said that the ends justify the means and all that… perhaps more can be done with these beasties than just making them bigger and more human-like. Maybe … maybe I can continue his work… After all, spiders are much dimmer than Deathclaws… 

We’re going to move the lab soon to the Commonwealth area, it’s far enough away that our experiments can proceed in a more secure and less explosion-prone area. The brass has informed me that the new lab is ready to go, the bunker having finished construction and testing just last week. About time, I don’t want to think of how hard it’d be to move these guys if they were much bigger than baseballs right now...

[squirttheradspooder]

Sneak peeks for spooder peep lore for you sweeties~

[squirttheradspooder]

As squirt is still a spider, she has a sensitivity to strong potent smells similar to how spiders have a aversion to perfume, but others tend to like the smell of gasoline

Absolutely canon! Silk Leapers detest overly strong scents, and are very sensitive in terms of sight and smell. Their pedipalps are the best for scenting things actually, and help them determine a lot about the world around them.

Good headcanon!

[squirttheradspooder]

8 & 17 ?

(Dr. Goldenthal)

8. Are they a morning or a night person? I just answered this here!

17. Are they on any medication? Not so much! Squirt’s people don’t use typical medicines in the Wastes due to a difference in physiology and the lack of availability to find such. Since most human-made medicines are brought in from explorers such as Squirt when they return home from their journeys, there IS a store of medicines in the town of Lacehaven. However, many medicines that humans can use, they cannot due to a difference in physiology and can instead make them sick!

Here’s a list of things Silk Leapers cannot have, or have no effect on them: -Buffout, Bufftats, Buffjet, or Psychobuff [causes heart palpitations and increased heart rate] -Calmex [will result in a torpor state, coma, or death] -Cave Fungus [has no effect on the body, but they gain no benefit from consumption] -Jet [INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS! One dose can kill a Silk Leaper due to amphetamine sensitivity.] -Mentats and its variants [INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS! One mentat can kill.] -Psycho [LETHAL.] -RadAway and Rad-X [Silk Leapers have a natural immunity to radiation illness]

Generally speaking, amphetamine based medicines -- of any kind -- will produce deleterious effects in Silk Leapers.

[squirttheradspooder]

1 & 7 & 23 pretty pretty please? For Squirt!

1. What’s their full name? Why was that chosen? Does it mean anything? Squirt’s full name is ‘Middle-Youngest Female “Squirt” Cinquion’. It was chosen because that is her age in her clutch group, the Cinquion grouping. It literally just means she’s not seen as a fully fledged adult in her society, having no earned name bequeathed by her elders for her deeds.

7. Did they have lots of friends as a child? Did they keep any of their childhood friends into adulthood? While in the childhood stage of her life, she was grouped with her clutch-group, which consisted of an abnormally large number of spiderlings -- 10. This left her with plenty of siblings, which, while friendly were not truly what she would call Friends. This is because her clutch-group is not just her siblings, they’re also her classmates, bullies, secret-keepers, mealtime foes, her shoulders to cry on, and basically just... HER clutch-group. It’s a connection that is not familial or friendship based... they are one, and were treated as One. She still holds bonds to her clutchmates, though this is because she isn’t seen as a full adult yet, though many of the others are.

23. Do they have a good memory? Short term or long term? Are they good with names? Or faces? Squirt’s got a decent memory, actually! She can remember the location of objects and landmarks with pinpoint accuracy -- down to the meter! However, she’s terrible with her short-term memory and will often forget why she’s headed in a direction or what she’s looking for if something distracts her. She’s not great with faces, but only for non-human/non-ghoul beings, as she tracks individuals based on their distinctive UV patterns, rather than eye color or hair color or skin color. She also remembers people based on their voices. In a way, she IS face-blind as a facial covering will prevent her from being able to solidly identify someone.

[squirttheradspooder]

Bat. Uh. Do you guys have pets...? (beware-the-red-menace)

Well, we don't have pets like humans do. No cats or dogs, at least. But we do raise fish and froggies within Lacehaven! We use them mostly for food, but some people like having them for companionship, and there's like, a huuuuuge group of us that love making colorful froggies. There's a yearly competition in the summer after the tadpoles metamorphose into adults to see who has the biggest or most colorful froggies. One year, Eldest-Male Quincion -- my brother -- won for having the most colorful froggy.

[squirttheradspooder]

Report V104-F.4-3

Recovered from a personal record of Chris [DATA CORRUPTED]

July 21, 2245 I don’t know why the eggheads are trying this again, after all that nonsense in California. Then again, they had been working with deathclaws and not harmless little bugs. Who knows what this shit’ll do to em though. The first batch of em just laid eggs an’ I’m not a nanny for creepy crawlies. I’ll let the scientists handle that. I just make sure no one comes a-wandering on in here.

Somehow, I get the feeling this will all be a big load of bunk... at least this time there’s no need for a kill squad, if things go south.