Do you remember Tserii? Could you remind my what their backstory is? And what kind of personality they have?
Do I remember Tserii? Let me put it this way, the day I forget this sassy bug child of mine--
--is a sad day indeed. (All credit to @dizsasqua for having drawn my buggy child.)
As for the rest-- buckle up, because this is probably going to get a little long.
SO--
Tserii’s backstory (and forewarning for all of my headcanons about Reach coming into play):
Hive-Reach are horrendous when it comes to those who are ‘flawed’. With the Hive everyone has to be ‘of use’, and if they’re judged to not be then they’re eliminated. This translates to the fact that any Hive-Reach who are physically or mentally “compromised” to the point of it being a detriment to the hive not living very long. (Yes, we’re talking ableist AF society here. It’s not pretty.)
One of the biggest (and viewed as most dangerous) ‘flaws’ any reachling can have in this society is to have an absent or ‘deficient’ hive-connection. (I headcanon that most of the Reach have a semi-telepathic bond that keeps them connected to the hive, so there’s an almost constant press of minds that encourages Hive-Reach to work “for the good of the hive”, to the level that they usually put it above their own individual well-being.) Now the reason why having a lacking or ‘deficient’ hive-connection is dangerous to the hive is that it allows the individual reachling to work against the hive-- which could have disastrous consequences so far as the Reach as a whole are concerned.
There are several ways Reach can end up completely or partially ‘hiveless’: the most common is through injury or illness, but there are a few that are born genetically hiveless. Going a little further here, those that have ‘flaws’ (whether those ‘flaws’ get in the way of a reachling working for the hive or no) are known as tsriik’k; those that end up hiveless are known as miihksh (and tend to be killed off quickly as soon as their hivelessness is found out); and those that are born genetically hiveless are known as tsriik’k-miihksh. And the fun thing with any of the tsriik’k-miihksh is that their genetic ‘abnormality’ always involves unusual ‘birthmarks’-- but the reason why it’s impossible to tell at a glance whether one is a tsriik’k-miihksh or not is because there are LOADS of other conditions and genetic flukes that can result in similar ‘birthmarks’.
Take a wild guess why this sassy bug child chose the name they did.
(And how much of the equivalent of a blatant middle finger it was to the Hive. It’s not their only ‘flaw’-- birthmarks after all, plus being sterile and being undifferentiated because of being sterile, which is its own long-ish explanation-- but the genetic hivelessness is pretty much the cornerstone for their life and experiences.)
In Tserii’s case, while born genetically hiveless, their hive-connection existed well enough for them to fake it convincingly and go beneath the radar for decades. Fortunately Tserii was smart from the get-go and realized really quick that being ‘flawed’ in the hive was a BAD THING and knew better than to give away anything that would imply they were ‘flawed’ in an ‘unacceptable’ way, was observant and naturally curious, and had enough sense to make themself invaluable. To the level that they ended up working on-- and creating-- scarabs. We’re talking high level, close to the top, damn near irreplaceable, and an absolute DISASTER for the Hive-Reach to lose. And because Tserii was that invaluable, they made themself almost unquestionable to the rest of the hive-- which kept them in a very precarious bubble of safety that they were always hyper-aware could disappear in an instant.
Tserii was generally able to figure out who was or wasn’t hiveless like them, but due to various incidents knew better than to out themself to those others (because others who were hiveless wouldn’t necessarily be above turning in another to protect themselves). You might think ‘Okay, Tserii keeping their head down under those conditions makes sense, so logically that should be that’, buuuuut thing is that Tserii has a HUGE sense of right and wrong. Where this was a problem for them is that it kept screaming at them to help the other ‘flawed’ and defend them but 1) that would out them as hiveless, 2) any of the ‘flawed’ who weren’t hiveless would immediately turn on them and turn them into the Hive for extermination, 3) any other hiveless would likely turn them in to keep suspicion off themselves, and 4) because of those factors any attempt to help others would likely result in Tserii losing their life. And when they couldn’t help those others, no matter how badly they wanted to, they felt LOADS of guilt over it and regularly mentally beat themself up (and yes, this contributes to a lot of their snark, sarcasm, and salt thanks to how bitter they are over it). Yeah, they tried to avoid drawing attention to themself, but because of all the nasty things Tserii saw (done to both to other species and their own) eventually it got to a point where Tserii couldn’t take it anymore.
So on the way out Tserii sabotaged a LOT of shit, stole a shuttle, went to the most species-mixed space port they could find, sold the shuttle, and deliberately ‘got lost’ so the Hive wouldn’t be able to easily find them. Tserii literally went and did EXACTLY the thing the Hive-Reach are terrified of when it comes to the hiveless, but because of the position they were in Tserii did it at a level that the hive probably hadn’t conceived of up to that point. To say the least, Tserii knew the Hive would be hunting for them and decided that, rather than just give themself time to disappear, they were going to cause as much damage and slow the Hive-Reach down as much as possible on their way out. Which also coincides with when they settled on their name. (Again, HUUUUUGE middle-finger to the Hive.)
After that, Tserii took to laying low and trying to attract at little attention to themself as possible, but because they can’t leave well enough alone they have a habit of quietly helping others and making connections while keeping what they are hidden (because they’re also highly aware that as a reachling most other people would take one look at them and shoot them in the face out of an assumption for the need for self-preservation). Tserii also runs/ran a small mechanic and ship/weapons repair and upgrade shop in a space port, which is how they support themself, and which helps with the connections they’ve built.
With the random snippets of scenes I’ve written, that’s where Jaime and Khaji Da find them. I do have the thought that after helping Jaime and Khaji Da get in touch with the Green Lantern Corp so he can get a ride back to Earth that Tserii would go with them (mainly because in an odd way they’re ‘family’ since they’re of the hive but not with the hive, and thanks to Tserii’s caution they don’t have a lot of people to keep them in that space port) but I haven’t yet written out the fic for it that’s been kicking around in my head since I came up with this buggy child. (And it occurs to me that I should probably put all of the Tserii-specific stuff that I haven’t added yet from my main blog onto [this blog] so it might be a little easier to find. Though my tags for [them and a couple others] are pretty straightforward; original-reach-character or Tsriik’k-miihksh, though the first one has more to it thanks to Riihsth’t and Jiurdakh.)
Tserii’s personality:
As should be obvious with all that^^^, Tserii is a good and kindhearted person who hates seeing others being hurt or suffering. They’re the sort of person where if they see something wrong they want to do something about it, but they’re not much of a physical fighter-- their strength lies in the fact that Tserii is a bio-technological nightmare (due to how scarabs are designed, Tserii’s knowledge of multi-species biology and how it can function is WAY beyond what most would expect from a ‘tech’) --and yet because they’re highly aware of their lack of fighting skill, they often feel like they can’t do as much as they want to help others. They also are extremely cautious about trusting others because they’ve lived so long knowing that if they’re not, then the very people they’re trying to help could end up causing their death.
They cover their guilt and shame over feeling like they can never do enough (and some amount of self-contempt by feeling they’re using the concern with their own survival as an excuse) with a wall of sarcasm, snark, and sass that tends to keep a lot of people at a distance. When someone does get close to Tserii though, they’re all in and will fight with everything they have to help those they care for stay safe. Tserii cares deeply, loves deeply, and will cause complete and utter technological chaos at the drop of a hat when they feel it’s warranted-- usually to help and protect others. Usually. If someone angers them, Tserii’s revenge is swift and can range from the relatively minor (such as having an obnoxious song start up, repeat, and follow Guy Gardner on the Watchtower any time any door opens near him for weeks on end) to severe (locking someone out of their phone, emptying their bank accounts, dumping someone’s things out an airlock if they’re in space, wiping out any legal record a person exists, etc.), and Tserii will not feel guilty over it in the slightest.
Ultimately, while they do care about doing the right thing, Tserii very much operates via their own sense of right and wrong regardless of what others think. Most of the time that would land them solidly on the good side of groups like the Justice League on Earth, but other times their ‘petty revenge’ can be seen as on the extreme side.
Also, while their name could be assumed to be an insult due to the connotations it has for their people, they take a great deal of pride in it because it is who they are. That’s why, even though their name translates as ‘Flawed with Genetic Hivelessness’, they’ve deliberately based all variations of their name-- Tsriik’k, Tsrii, Tserii, Tseri-- (to make it easier for others to pronounce) on the first part, thereby effectively shortening their name in meaning to “Flawed”.
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Thanks for giving me the chance to gush about my sassy reachling child. If you’ve got any further questions, feel free to hit me up. n.n
