Surplus Queer Monsters

Coming out (2026)

Your mimic boyfriend is rubbing off on you.

The way that a celestial elf maintains their agelessness requires that sort of exchange, in the simplest of terms. Absorbing new genetic material is what maintains your immortality. With a sample of the correctly arranged DNA strands, your body can repair and rejuvenate itself for the next century.

The only caveat is the uncontrollable changes in your appearance. Every time you molt, a physical, lasting trace of your previous partner is left behind. A trait that temporarily overwrites whatever existed there, until the next time.

You've had bits and pieces of everything over the years; scales, tails, claws, feathers, fur and tusks, extra eyes, every conceivable color, bioluminescence…

You have your favorites types of peoples when it comes to borrowed traits, of course, but you don't get to pick what makes you compatible with someone. And when it's a question of life or death, beggars can't be choosers.

Of all things, you still never quite expected to be compatible with a mimic that might as well have been feral. But, as you've learned time and again, organic life is full of surprises.

In the past, you maybe have even been surprised or even frightened, to walk into your boudoir and find a copy of yourself sitting in front of the mirror, fussing over its reflection.

Not anymore, though. One of the mimic's favorite games is trying to perfect a copy of your appearance.

"Getting closer."

The mimic turns to look at you, then squints for a moment. The spacing between your eyes shifts a fraction of a millimeter. Barely enough to be visible, but a large effect overall.

Then it turns back to the mirror, and after deeming the change an improvement, nods.

"Not close enough." Your own voice says back to you, in almost the exact tone as you would- sharp but not bitter.

At some point, something changed about this particular game, you realized. It got too good at replicating your image. Good enough to make you feel… something.

But it's not simply just your image itself- You care about your appearance, but you're not that vain.

It can replicate details about your body that no other living soul knows; every minute change in texture, every subtle shift in hue, every faded over scar from times long past.

And to replicate those details, it had to have noticed them.

That is the part that makes your core feel like partially-set jelly. In the entirety of your long and relatively lonely lifespan, none of the lovers you've had were taken for anything other than ensuring your continued survival. None have made you feel quite as seen- no, understood- down to a molecular level.

You close the distance, and put your hands on the familiar shoulders.

Its- your?- shoulders relax in your hands in expectation, loosing some of its replicated denseness of humanoid flesh, and instead feeling a bit like warm modeling putty threatening to melt though your fingers.

You crane your neck forward to press your lips to the crown of the mimic's head in an affectionate kiss.

The color palette of your hair and skin drains off of it completely like an ebbing wave, leaving your mirror copy a glossy light pink all over. Changing color and texture is its primary nature, but it seems to have the strongest preference for this particular one, not unlike a sentient slime.

Your fingers find some strands of replicated hair, testing the quality as an excuse to gently play with it. Feels as real as anything else, you suppose.

Your own hair is that same shade of beloved pink, too, way it'll stay for the next century.

The irony of this connection isn't lost on you.

In receipt of that gifted essence, you've also left a trace of yourself behind- a fingerprint.

Your mimic boyfriend is rubbing off on you.

The way that a celestial elf maintains their agelessness requires that sort of exchange, in the simplest of terms. Absorbing new genetic material is what maintains your immortality. With a sample of the correctly arranged DNA strands, your body can repair and rejuvenate itself for the next century.

The only caveat is the uncontrollable changes in your appearance. Every time you molt, a physical, lasting trace of your previous partner is left behind. A trait that temporarily overwrites whatever existed there, until the next time.

You've had bits and pieces of everything over the years; scales, tails, claws, feathers, fur and tusks, extra eyes, every conceivable color, bioluminescence…

You have your favorites types of peoples when it comes to borrowed traits, of course, but you don't get to pick what makes you compatible with someone. And when it's a question of life or death, beggars can't be choosers.

Of all things, you still never quite expected to be compatible with a mimic that might as well have been feral. But, as you've learned time and again, organic life is full of surprises.

In the past, you maybe have even been surprised or even frightened, to walk into your boudoir and find a copy of yourself sitting in front of the mirror, fussing over its reflection.

Not anymore, though. One of the mimic's favorite games is trying to perfect a copy of your appearance.

"Getting closer."

The mimic turns to look at you, then squints for a moment. The spacing between your eyes shifts a fraction of a millimeter. Barely enough to be visible, but a large effect overall.

Then it turns back to the mirror, and after deeming the change an improvement, nods.

"Not close enough." Your own voice says back to you, in almost the exact tone as you would- sharp but not bitter.

At some point, something changed about this particular game, you realized. It got too good at replicating your image. Good enough to make you feel… something.

But it's not simply just your image itself- You care about your appearance, but you're not that vain.

It can replicate details about your body that no other living soul knows; every minute change in texture, every subtle shift in hue, every faded over scar from times long past.

And to replicate those details, it had to have noticed them.

That is the part that makes your core feel like partially-set jelly. In the entirety of your long and relatively lonely lifespan, none of the lovers you've had were taken for anything other than ensuring your continued survival. None have made you feel quite as seen- no, understood- down to a molecular level.

You close the distance, and put your hands on the familiar shoulders.

Its- your?- shoulders relax in your hands in expectation, loosing some of its replicated denseness of humanoid flesh, and instead feeling a bit like warm modeling putty threatening to melt though your fingers.

You crane your neck forward to press your lips to the crown of the mimic's head in an affectionate kiss.

The color palette of your hair and skin drains off of it completely like an ebbing wave, leaving your mirror copy a glossy light pink all over. Changing color and texture is its primary nature, but it seems to have the strongest preference for this particular one, not unlike a sentient slime.

Your fingers find some strands of replicated hair, testing the quality as an excuse to gently play with it. Feels as real as anything else, you suppose.

Your own hair is that same shade of beloved pink, too, way it'll stay for the next century.

The irony of this connection isn't lost on you.

In receipt of that gifted essence, you've also left a trace of yourself behind- a fingerprint.

Just the previous day, he had gone on a rant about how women need to be Cautious in this Dangerous World and have a Responsibility to Keep Themselves Safe.