#osmosians

[id: Digital art of the Ben 10 character Kevin Levin in the form of a monstrous primarily grey and blue chimera shaped somewhat like a humanoid dragon with four arms, two legs, two wings, and a forked tail. He's wearing tattered red pants and the background is a red rectangle framing his body.

The chimera form has a large amount of loboan (werewolf alien) to it with a kineceleran tail, necrofriggian wings, an opticoid eye on the right shoulder and the upper left arm being methanosian dominant with closed red flower bulbs on the shoulder. The much smaller vulpimancer lower arms pull open the ectonurite eye tract running down the chest and belly to show Kevin's guts along side unfurled conductoid/ectonurite hybrid tentacles. There is a blue knobby Pern dragon horn on the right side of his head and a bulbus Pern dragon eye on the left side of his face swirling with orange, red, blue, and white. /end id]

A commission of a chimera Kevin Levin making use of the ectonurite eye track and containing Pern dragon-kin influence for @kariachi

Imagine adult Kevin just brushing his hair back out of his face one day and feeling freaking horns

Kills me, and kills him because his hair does not have the volume his dads had to hide that trait, his hair is straight and straight down all his life.

and 'what if Osmosians just so happen to look humany cause they evolved to prey on things that looked like humans?' kinda thing

been having thoughts on the notion of Osmosians as energy vampire but as vampires/elves [not the skinny kind but the dangerous fairy kind] as have been significantly less miffed about them being so human looking. ver mych could have better desigs for very human looking fuckers tho

i still like beastly fuckers, but like thinking on the shapeshifter aspect for it

am thinking: 1. Base form that is kind of humany with the proportions of the ossy chimera forms to explain why the fuckers keep looking like that when they go 'full beast mode'

2. A 'default' for that they reflexively compress into that more closely resembles the rubber forehead human aliens they'd spend eons mimicking and eating. Just an instinct to be disguised not unlike how chameleons and stick insects keep fucking swaying when they move even if far from a tree and not feasibly blending in. Am thinking of said very human looking aliens [for any au where ossys arent Earth natives] being kinda elfy compared to human humans- pointy ears, fangs/claws, maybe colorful spots or stripes?

3. And a 'blending in' mode where fuckers actively shapeshift into a species after having absorbed dna from them if they aren't already hybridized with the 'not what we originally evolved to eat' species

am thinking of energy absorption being a basil trait for multicellular life on Osmos V. Some equivilent to a bacterium was good at powering itself from surrounding energy and/or yoinking the lifeforce out of other living things near by and some strains partnered up with the local eukaryote equivilent to provide/help aquire energy in exchange for cell maintaing building blocks/noncaloric neutrients and protection

and then some billion yrs later the ancestors of ossys being some ambush hunting predators that developed matter and dna absorption for camoflogue and reproduction. Their skin, especially on their hands/feet, secreting chemicals that partly break down what they're touching and soak up the liquefied matter to produce an armor coating of the same substance to cover their bodies and blend in better. And using a similar process to take in dna from other lifeforms to mix into their own genetics to avoid losing genetic diversity from parthenogenisis if mates are difficult to find.

And then both leading to the development of shapeshifting proper.

And then millions of years later due to climate changes are forced to become more social and intelligent as they start specializing in hunting the rapidly becoming dominant megafauna lifeform on the planet, the Osmos V equivalent of humans, till ossys very closely resembled them in their default forms and grew to match them in intelligence

and then eventually, assisted with unfortunate natural disaster that severaly impacts the population numbers of Osmos humans, ossys eventually hunt them to extinction and become the new dominant sapient on Osmos V

and then ossys developed civilizations while figuring out new shit to eat after having specialized for so long

and then encountering aliens who looked at their abilities and went 'oh you could be very useful' and many many things happened and eventually Osmosians formed an empire specifically for keeping fuckers who want to enslave them out of their solar system and hence why its rare to see them far from home

modern ossys could very much go back to their mimicking predator roots and nom other sapients, and did at times to escape from slavery, but largely understand that that's… not desirable for ya know doing trade and having allies and such

very human-like aliens still ring the 'that looks a whole lot like dinner' bells to their instincts and folks that work or live among aliens train themselves and their children to 'try not to eat the neighbors, no one needs that kind of trouble if fuckers arent starting shit with us'

Osmosians also likely have some amount of reputation in the wider galaxy as natural people eaters, which can work in favor of some kinds of employment like mercenaries but can also work against them in creating negative stereotypes that get them scrutinized more

ta-da worldbuilding

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I've got some headcanons for real live true alien Osmosians. The whole Rooters arc pissed me off so much for so many reasons and I've got some deep seeded hate for Omniverse just for that.

You do my boy Kevin and his unnamed mama so bad.

Dishonor on you

Dishonor on your Omnitrix.

Most Erinaen cultures hold that a colony should have housing set aside for visitors to the area, though what that looks like varies. For instance in some locations there are specific trees that can only be used for and are all that can be used for housing travelers. In others this housing is kept to the outskirts of the colony, which makes for some interesting urban restructuring as the colony expands and these places become open to use different purposes.

As a general Osmosian den systems will have 'guest dens' dug out specifically to house visitors to the territory. Osmos V is a rough planet, nomadic merchants are pretty common, and the species as a whole has had a rough history, so it's expected in the vast majority of Osmosian cultures that other Osmosians will be welcome in the pack dens so long as they behave with the proper decorum.

There's no cultural expectation of hospitality towards non-Osmosians, it doesn't harpoon the standing of a pack or clan, but it is generally in good form to extend it. The rules of hospitality on the guest side are more strict in those situations though.

Among Kwarrel's culture hospitality is... wibbly. Settled Herds aren't considered to have any obligation to show hospitality to traveling women, but any lone herd or collection of them will have an area marked out for Bachelor Herds to stay and they are entitled to certain standards of behavior for as long as they're on one's turf. Religious institutions and hospitals typical have housing for travelers, and are expected to put up anybody who woman needs the bed. Bachelor Herds even when gathered together will keep a respectful distance between their caravans, but if they cross paths with men traveling without a herd are expected to take him in and treat him as one of theirs for as long as he stays.

Among Lenopan hospitality rules vary wildly, but the most commonplace is that households from upriver communities are expected to show hospitality and give sanctuary to travelers from downriver. Because the fuckers downriver are more likely to be flooded out and need somewhere to go until they can get resettled.

Which gets really interesting when you remember that a well-used Lenopan act of war is to fabricate a flood to wipe through your downriver neighbors. So, since these rules, as is common in most cultures, hold that hosts and guests have standards of treatment and behavior that must be met, there have been so many cases of upriver communities flooding downriver ones, only to then end up with strong downriver influence in their cultures as a result of survivors of the assault heading upriver as refugees and ending up members of the community.

I know it's more likely due to UAF using similar facial models for the characters like Ben, Gwen and Natalie, but Paradox does look a lot like Devin, Kevin, Devlin and Aggregor. Strangely enough, Phil also looked like Kevin and Devin in his youth. I have seen the theory that Phil was Kevin's real father.

Paradox being related to Kevin may explain some things. It may explain why the celestialsapians forbid him from coming near them. Aggregor nearly absorbed one of their babies and Kevin considered doing it as well. If Paradox is an Osmosian too (if you prefer them being aliens) it would explain why they don't like him. He also acts a bit like a father to Kevin, fixing his car in his debut episode and warning him about mutating again. He seems too old to be Kevin's father but he could be his great grandfather.