#pickled-cactus

- she's from kind of a cyberpunk dystopia where extreme human genetic alteration is possible (in embryos only ofc) but very very expensive because of not only the procedures needed to make an altered zygote but the resources required to incubate it for a full gestation period and because only some will end up viable the lab will have to create and incubate a carefully calculated number of embryos often with slight differences to ensure at least one will fully develop (this will be relevant i swear)

- so the technology is basically only available to the ultra rich

- nina was intended to have superficial birdlike features (think feathers instead of hair, high visual acuity, some minor skeletal alterations) but the lab done fucked up and she's much more bird than intended. im not an expert on emerging gene editing technology maybe the targeting sequences they used were a little off due to a glitch but you can see how she turned out

- the person who commissioned her didn't accept her and culling a fully developed altered human is well. murder. so she ended up in a care facility for rejected lab kids like herself

- she took way longer than a typical human child to start actually communicating when she talked but she was able to mimic words and phrases very very early. kind of creeped a lot of her caretakers out to greet her and hear their own slightly distorted voice repeat the greeting back from the mouth of a like two month old

- she eventually settled into her own voice but you could potentially identify the person who taught her some phrases if you knew them already. she's still a great mimic since she basically has a syrinx in there

- she struggles with verbal and written communication in general, a little better with body language at least for interpreting intentions/tone but different people can have very different body language ofc

- she also tends to be hyperactive (partly due to extremely high metabolism) and sort of impulsive

- incredible vision and spatial reasoning (those big bird eyes)

- technically with how large she is (about 4'3" if she could stand up straight without falling over and 70-80 lbs?) she shouldn't be able to fly but i ignore that

- remember how i said the duplicate embryos would be relevant well she has a secret not-quite twin another survivor from the same batch. idk how they got separated (remember i came up with the bones of this when i was like 10) but her twin had a messier life

- nina herself ended up as some kind of specialized government operative (cue booing) no she gets out of it in the end i swear

- the twin is a major figure in the conflict around rights for altered humans

- at some point the two of them meet and eventually join forces idk like i said there isn't a real story to this

- she has 2 fingers and the thumb free to move on each hand but they aren't very dextrous so she mainly uses her feet for fine motor tasks

- she also has difficulty emoting in a way that most humans can interpret due to the beak

- i have also made nina as a dnd character (her human parents gave her up to a monastery as an infant having frankly no idea what to do with her which she left as a teenager and became a highwayman as her appearance leads most potential benefactors to believe she's cursed) she has +5 dex and -1 con

and here's a little portrait for anyone who read this far. my beautiful daughter who i love so much <3