Dex 🔞

so, working on the website wasn't the only thing we did in the past 7 days. we also did a couple of doodles - and then wrote a story to go with them; to try and make the experiences of the last month fit together in a way that made sense to our very sleep deprived brain... and for a justification for how some things might be moving forwards. part 2 will be posted sometime tomorrow

"so", said the ██████
"i know you've been a lot of things", snapping the collar around the new yinglet's neck
"but we've both seen what being zhat zhinged has done for friends", setting the timer to unlock on the 31st
"and i think it'll be good for you", confirming that all overrides should be disabled

"a couple of things to remember since you're more used to transformations that go away at the end of the level", as spindly paws checked over the new body they were attached to

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"the timer is local to you - so don't try time travel. if you can, avoid it in general; it gets a lot harder to fix things if they've been made retroactive"

dex's ear twitched. "look, t... t...", taking a moment to clear their throat and think about their next phoneme carefully, "zhat last one wasn't my fault" ¹
"i know, but we also never figured out what caused it. or has yet to cause it. anyway, that's a later problem, bringing us onto point two - the personality shifts that usually come with form changes are likely to be more intense with this one, particularly as the month goe-"
████ was interrupted; paws that had been taking unsteady steps a few moments ago were now being driven by a very wild part of dex's brain, convinced that the best course of action in this exact moment would be to use their friend as the ideal surface to spring off into a cool backflip.

"oops", was the only thing the rational part of dex's brain could offer in response. (in their defence, it was a pretty cool backflip). ████ looked a little annoyed for a second before getting right back to it, "so, as demonstrated, it will be significantly harder to fight some impulses; create situations where that helps you out. try and have fun with it, part of the point here is to stop you overthinking things"

the month that followed was like a blur.
from learning the abilities of their new body in a specially crafted tutorial
to dealing with the height difference (they adapted easier than expected; it was less disruptive than other heights they've been)
to learning about the pseudo-enclaves that happen on social media ²
to fashioning the special fabric they'd ordered way too much of for a convention and were saving the rest of for a rainy day into a proper uniform
to getting a real phantom sense of their wings and to realize how much they sometimes took them for granted
to biting
to seeing if their more dextrous claws were any good at lockpicking (not particularly. and not like the collar had a keyhole anyway, although they wouldn't have tested it on that even if it did)
to letting that manic energy loose on a tablet screen in a way the dragon rarely would; the need to collect everything resulting in a perfectionist streak, countered perfectly by the yinglet brain's demand for immediacy
to more biting
to waving goodbye to friends using four limbs at once
to the rare situation of getting ████ jealous while regaling them with stories of biting, leading to ████ wandering off with vague muttering about finding their own zhat zhing for a temporary thing with a mutual acquaintance

somehow, all of that led dex here.
a final(?) battle they could not have been prepared for.
an incredibly familiar scenario, with just enough details changed to make it kind of legally distinct
and so
even as the raging Aurora Borealis ³ was moments away from consuming the tower they were at the top of
even as the bells signalled the end of the world
they couldn't help but smile
they'd done a bit more living in the past month than they had in a while

retrieving their precious, stolen kazoo from the villain's grasp, they found on touching it that it transformed to a new form, more suitable for a chaos gremlin
and as the clock begun to strike midnight
and as the collar fell to the floor, its timer expired
they played the only song they could think to play
right, a, down - right, a, down⁴

hitting confirm as fast as they could
and as the heat became too intense to bear
everything faded out.

THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER
END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE
IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END
NEVER THE END IS LOADING... END IS
THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER

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1. deep fursona lore notes: dex has (accidentally) fucked up the timeline at least once during the events of time raider. it would probably be helpful for this if we'd documented that publicly. :v

2. it turns out other yinglets like when you tag zhings as yinglet :>

3. did you expect me to go zhis whole monzh wizhout at least one steamed clams joke

4. did anyone else use to sing the buttons like they were lyrics, or just us; it's how we ended up remembering the important ones