Character Info
Aug. 21st, 2023 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inside_jobThe Mask
Natasha Stanton is an Outreach and Public Relations officer for the Sharing, a ‘community non-profit’ organization which is part social club, part youth organization and part secular charitable foundation all rolled into one. It only happens to sound like a cult, they promise. After dropping out of anthropology grad school and struggling with depression, Natasha joined the Sharing in hopes of finding new friends and a community where she could rebuild her future. She found all of that – and an unexpected job opportunity besides.
Now her work takes her on all kinds of new adventures, helping to plan fundraising events across the US, liaising with the museums, art galleries and scientists sponsored by the Sharing, even travelling around the world to help purchase new educational equipment and exhibits. She’s even been lucky enough to meet a few famous names along the way! And all to help the Sharing spread their message of community, friendship and public service! Natasha has a newfound sense of purpose and confidence, and as far as she’s concerned, the future couldn’t look brighter!
Now her work takes her on all kinds of new adventures, helping to plan fundraising events across the US, liaising with the museums, art galleries and scientists sponsored by the Sharing, even travelling around the world to help purchase new educational equipment and exhibits. She’s even been lucky enough to meet a few famous names along the way! And all to help the Sharing spread their message of community, friendship and public service! Natasha has a newfound sense of purpose and confidence, and as far as she’s concerned, the future couldn’t look brighter!
The Invader
Telrim 4219 is a Yeerk, a slug-like alien with the ability to crawl inside another species’ ear canal, wrap around their brain, and take over their body entirely. She has access to all of her host’s thoughts, memories and physical abilities, with the downside that once every three days she needs to leave her safe host body to swim in a pool saturated with nourishing Kandrona rays or else starve to death painfully. The Yeerks have been secretly infiltrating human society for decades with the Sharing and its secretive inner circle of 'full members' as a primary source of new recruits.
Telrim herself is something of a veteran soldier, having been a young Yeerk snatched up at random from her home pool when the founders of her Empire first stole an Andalite ship and fled into space. It’s been a rough ride, and surviving her own people has turned out to be even harder than surviving the enemy. Telrim found a safe niche in ‘Special Acquisitions’, as a specialized scout capturing creatures of interest or trading with neutral aliens like the Skrit Na for ‘found’ technology and biological samples. The job let her serve the Empire, satisfy her curiosity, and generally stay far, far away from internal politics. No great risk of promotion, no real danger of being backstabbed, and a comfortable track record of reliability and competence.
Reassigned to Earth and handed an all-new human host, she finds herself doing much the same kind of work - helping her people lay their hands on useful and influential human hosts, equipment, or even trophy items for their officers. Operating undercover is a new challenge - to say nothing of the resistance saboteurs, the political infighting, the inexperienced colleagues, and the superiors who range from incompetent to obviously insane. It’s not exactly the Empire she signed up for. On the plus side, Telrim’s learning that what her new human body lacks in muscles and bladed limbs, it makes up for with surprising opportunities.
Telrim herself is something of a veteran soldier, having been a young Yeerk snatched up at random from her home pool when the founders of her Empire first stole an Andalite ship and fled into space. It’s been a rough ride, and surviving her own people has turned out to be even harder than surviving the enemy. Telrim found a safe niche in ‘Special Acquisitions’, as a specialized scout capturing creatures of interest or trading with neutral aliens like the Skrit Na for ‘found’ technology and biological samples. The job let her serve the Empire, satisfy her curiosity, and generally stay far, far away from internal politics. No great risk of promotion, no real danger of being backstabbed, and a comfortable track record of reliability and competence.
Reassigned to Earth and handed an all-new human host, she finds herself doing much the same kind of work - helping her people lay their hands on useful and influential human hosts, equipment, or even trophy items for their officers. Operating undercover is a new challenge - to say nothing of the resistance saboteurs, the political infighting, the inexperienced colleagues, and the superiors who range from incompetent to obviously insane. It’s not exactly the Empire she signed up for. On the plus side, Telrim’s learning that what her new human body lacks in muscles and bladed limbs, it makes up for with surprising opportunities.
The Host
Natasha was a ‘voluntary’ host in the loosest definition – the Controllers running the Sharing don’t like to explain the full details when they offer to make you a ‘full member’. After (kind of) coming to terms with being a prisoner in her own body and also that her world was about to be inevitably conquered by aliens, Natasha managed to strike up, if not a bargain, but a slowly building accord with her Yeerk. Telrim’s pragmatism and no-nonsense determination might be exactly what Natasha needs to survive her shitty situation - and in turn, her curiosity and insights have started to make Telrim wonder just where the Empire’s path of blanket conquest and enslavement is taking her people. She won’t be joining the Peace Movement any time soon, but if humanity has more to offer than a fresh batch of host bodies… there isn’t much time left to find out.
