Pl anon
Sword making is a Bugjas adult rite of passage but the most important piece that lets u know specifically their region of origin is the handle.
The small compact wood dust lets you know the type of environment they are came from how wet or dry the land usually is to how healthy the particular tree they used.
One issue is arriving though. With the deforestation of many trees and local environments some cybug ninjas has been spotted with rock or cement dust handles. These swords are doing damage to the delicate hands and circuits especially the added weight. However do to the special meaning of the sword to them one can not separate it from the bug. Neither would the bug let it go despite the damage it does to itself.
This is why it’s recommended if you find a young Bugja in the thw city or a very concrete or rocky area (not their usual or preferred environment) it is the one time the government encourages you to disrupt the creatures and relocate them.
Onto the tea pets (I figured out about them from a friend that went to Japan hence why I thought Japanese at first sorry)
You can tell if a cybug is domestic or wild sometimes based on the type of tea they smell like.
If the bug smells sweet that bug is most likely owned it in the process of being domesticated. As younger people drink more sweet and variety teas from sweet to fruity etc.
Wild Cybugs that randomly smell of tea will usually smell of more herbal or green teas. As they usually only get their beloved tea baths when flying/crawling towards an elderly persons tea time and landing in their tea pet or maybe the elderly would just pour the tea straight on the bug itself.
The cybug deeply enjoys this. Hot tea baths on cold days will have many cybugs at these elderly peoples homes.
tumblr please let us put readmores in asks i love getting long asks and i never know how to format them shfjfkskkfbf
LOVE the idea that the handles are a way to tell where they're from!!!! also ur alg re: the tea pet thing lol, stuff like that spreads across the world pretty quickly lol
maybe the tea thing came about because of hot springs... a lotta animals like hot springs and i imagine cybugs would have a high temperature tolerance, so they're fine with boiling water too...
what is a tea set if not a tiny hot spring?
ouhh!! little Drift's got sword handles made from like. candy wrappers and blades fashioned out of flattened bottlecaps... he probably smells like sake for a while.
and ajsuwuuwuuuwuwuuau 🥺 ohhhh... thats very sweet to imagine!!! maybe all the alcohol gets into his systems and really knocks him around :(... it's probably not good for them to injest.
i don't think i ever got around to actually mentioning who's Ratchet's keeper in this au but i was thinking (most) of the medics would be saddled with Dia (one of the vets) lmao. maybe they went on a trip to Japan for a cybug (cy)biology conference and brought Ratchet with them...
hmmm...... i could absolutely see smuggling/trafficking being a thing. maybe there's some sort of cybug fighting rings like the equivalent of cockfighting. i mean there IS also beetle fighting irl anyway, but cockfighting has different connotations yknow? (that's a very sad idea which i love, but also. all i can think of is beyblades HDJFJDKW,,)
