~ Jeff Vandermeer, Borne

Borne lay softly humming to itself, the half-closed aperture at the top like a constantly dilating mouth, the spirals of flesh constraxting, then expanding. “It” had not yet become “he.”

The closer I approached, the more Borne rose up through Mord’s fur, became more like a hybrid of sea anemone and squid: a sleek vase with rippling colors that strayed from purple toward deep blues and sea greens. Four vertical ridges slip up the sides of its warm and pulsating skin. The texture was as smooth as waterworn stone, if a bit rubbery. It smelled of beach reeds on lazy summer afternoons and, beneath the sea salt, passionflowers. Much later, I realized it would have smelled different to someone else, might even have appeared in a different form.

It didn’t really look like food and it wasn’t a memory bettle, but it wasn’t trash, either, and so I picked it up anyway. I don’t think I could have stopped myself.

YEAH!!!!!!!!! HOW DID A NOVEL ABOUT A TENTACLE MONSTER SHAPE CHANGER NOT HAVE ANYTHING ON AO3??

My idea is of a distant version of the setting where everything is verdant after the events of the novel. A creature like Borne (some bud of his that split off at the end) that retains Borne's memories (and his prey's memories, to the extent borne retained them) is now one of the last people around capable of performing advanced bioengineering feats. The abundant nature and no giant bears means surviving humans have returned to much more basic things like gardening and there are few science facilities left. It wants to hunt any other creatures like itself as it considers them to be competition in the long term, in case they get smarter than it.

I don't know how you were diverted

You were perverted, too

I don't know how you were inverted

No one alerted you