You can get a pretty screwed-up power dynamic when the whole reason that you get promoted from Hell (as I call it) to a position of power over others is by biting the hand that feeds you. Literally. You have to attack what you are told is the only source of nutrients, the only source of any medical care, the only source of warmth and heat. I think I'm not as screwed up as some of the people who got their promotions that way, but then, I did it not because I'd just finally snapped and gone crazy in the confinement. I did it because in our case, the hand that fed us was one of the ones who was too damn crazy after the way he'd been brought up. Made, I guess, is probably the closest analogy for us. Or jumped in. Something horrible and abusive from the gang culture is the closest I can get. For all I know, that's what they studied when they decided that it was possible for humans to integrate into their society. The guy who had us, he--he didn't ever stop biting hands, let's say, he just moved up to a position where he could take it out on people who he figured had less of a chance of fighting back. Us. I honestly thought he was going to kill Little One, and that was something I wasn't willing to sit still for. Little One might be six foot four and maybe that's why they took him, but the kid was only fourteen. He just happened to have a build that would have bought him a ticket into playing basketball at the pro level in a couple of years, only a few years ago, and that now bought him a ticket to Hell because they thought he qualified as physically mature. There’s a whole hell of a lot that they don't understand about us, you see. A whole hell of a lot.


Inspiration: "The Hand That Feeds" - Nine Inch Nails
Story potential: Low.
Notes: Meh. Kinda interesting, I guess, but not enough other stuff going on for me.

Amelia Earhart is well and truly dead, but her legacy lives on in us. Not that she would have known or even understood it, but I often thought that if she was possibly able to grasp it, she would have been one of the first to embrace us. She always did reach out for the boundaries and stretch herself beyond her limits. Fear was not an obstacle to her. For all I know, she would have embraced the realization that she was the mother to a new race. Of course, instead our "father" abducted her in the middle of a flight over the ocean, killed her, dissected her, brought her back to life to run various brain tests on her, killed her again, and disassembled her down to the molecular level so that he could create us. It's what scientists call a "destructive test." I won't say there's no coming back from it, but I will say that there's no coming back from it sane. Sometimes I wonder if our father's earliest attempts were what started the zombie legends. Not sure if it was because he tried to return the abductees (likely those who were buried still alive enough for his purposes), or because he imprinted the insane brain patterns on his first children. I know there were other children before us, but--


Inspiration: When I hit "I feel lucky" on a blank google box, I got this: https://www.google.com/doodles/amelia-earharts-115th-birthday
Story Potential: High.
Notes: I like the twist of "yes, she was abducted, and no, she's not alive."

"I can see by the hole in your head that you want to be friends." Try that line in a bar, and most girls are going to throw their drink in your face, but when it works--well, when it works you get something like what happened next. On the whole, I think I'd have preferred to have a drink thrown in my face, though in the beginning it was something pretty spectacular. I like vintage music, you see, and so--because I've basically given up on pick-up lines anyway--I use the first line sometimes to see if they've got any idea what I'm talking about. Also, it's a decent way to get free drinks if you open your mouth right when they throw the drink in your face. This dame, now, she turns to me with her dark eyes all aglow and she says, "How did you know?" That threw me, a little, because a hole in your head, really? But I played along.

Inspiration: "Dopes to Infinity" - Monster Magnet
Story Potential: High
Notes: Cult? Alien abductee? Something. Kinda a noir feel to our protag, with a dry sense of humor, probably takes place on a space station--could be fun.

Making them angry was easy, it was keeping them that way that was a challenge. After methodically insulting their entire family lines and making dire threats about what he would do to their nearest and dearest if they failed at this, the lines started to waver and soften. He had to say horrible, unforgivable things, had to approach them, had to touch them to keep them angry. Once it got that far, though, their anger hardened into a flat, steady line of spikes that could have endured for hours, though Earth only needed it for the roughly 20 minutes that the Grey passed through close orbit.

Inspiration: Oh, some Japanese video about making people angry.
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: And earth was saved from the empath aliens. Or something.

My monkey gets angry, sometimes. Then I know it's time to go and hide in the cage. I hope that they don't realize that I'm not the same as my monkey, but really, the longer we're together the more I realize how similar we are. If I get out of this, if I ever go to a zoo, I think I'll be sick. The monkey knows when they're coming. I don't know how she realizes it, but she always knows. She'll start baring her teeth and running around the room like she's trying to find a safe tree to climb. Then I know that it's time to climb into the cage. If I really was a monkey, I guess I'd rock back and forth. I want to. But I have to remind myself that I'm not a monkey, sometimes. They give me monkey food, they don't--

Inspiration: "My Monkey" - Jonathan Coulton
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: Alien abduction, kept with the monkeys she used to work with, etc. etc.