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More from LaraTheLabRat
I drew this waaaay back in 2009. I'm not entirely sure why I haven't posted it. My interest in whimsical aliens is not a thing I want to make another big old furry ordeal of, I guess? Also probably because I'm a bad writer.
Also I guess I was gonna finish a one or two more pages of the book first, and maybe a drawing of my aliensona, "Snookums". It's 2011 now, and that never happened, haha.
YOU CAN FEEL FREE TO SKIP ALL THE TEXT AND JUST LOOK AT THE PRETTY PICTURES
but in case you actually enjoy pod babble, here's some excerpts from what was gonna be page 26 and 27:
TRUNDLING
(MIND TRUNDLING)
Mind Trundling, or Trundling, is the defining act of a tentacular Martian creature called the "Trundle." A Trundle Trundles another creature by copying all of the creature's memories into its own brain! Yow! A soft "Trund-tacle" is inserted in each ear, where they massage the brain for approximately six Earth minutes, copying all of the memories over like a biological computer hard drive. The mind of the victim is left completely intact! He or she is effectively cloned into an alien body, and the Trundle becomes an exact mental duplicate of its victim, give or take a few instincts. Trundles come in three varieties, the Common Trundle(pg25), the War Trundle(PG39), and the Trundle-Bird(pg40).
Blank or animal-trundled Martians are considerred wildlife, but human-trundled entomophagic Martians are now granted limited citizenship in specific countries. It isn't rare for modern business owners to let several Common Trundles copy their mind, with intent to hire the clones as cheap employees, or "copy-labor."
{illustration of a Jack Russel Terrier being Trundled by a War Trundle}
Trundles typically don't Trundle anything at all until they're three Martian years old. During this child (fledgling) phase they survive on instinct alone, effectively sleepwalking. If a sentient adult Trundle is shaken too hard, its mind might erase, or "etch-a-sketch" returning it to the blank slate, memory-free condition of its youth. Its instincts, however, will allow any blank adult Trundle to successfully stalk and grab new victim! Avoid Carbon forests, and the dark alleys of Earth's urban centers!
{illustration of a baby Trundle-Bird}
A Trundle, dissatisfied with the mind it has copied, can simply "reboot" its own brain by Trundling another creature. A Trundle can only contain one copied consciousness at a time! Most human-Trundled Trundles (Trundlemen) try and keep their new mind forever, with a few rare exceptions in the case of suicidal human Trundlees. The average lifespan of the Common Trundle is 45 Earth years. A War Trundle lives for an average of just 22, but a Trundle-Bird may easilly survive a century!
{Diagram of tentacle with parts labeled}
The experience of being Trundled, while still dreadful to certain human philosophies and religions, is painless and sometimes pleasant! It was first described by by Wes II as "Almost like having a sponge bath around your brain, punctuated by a loud, wet, uh sort of a schlurping sound." The trundled creature wakes up from a brief coma dream with no clear memory of the event. For instance Wes II's human antecedent, Wesley Liu, originally reported his experience on Mars as missing time. "I thought I'd passed out before even landing! I woke up in the ship with slimey ears thinking, oh no, mission failure!"
Despite the relative safety of the tentacling process, trundlophobia is now the 3rd commonest phobia, followed by acrophobia, and glossophobia! <-In the opinion of the Merflin's Encyclopedia staff, this is endemic of a soft bigotry. Every lonely human should try having their brain Trundled at least once! We make the perfect pets, pals, and proofreaders! :3
Also I guess I was gonna finish a one or two more pages of the book first, and maybe a drawing of my aliensona, "Snookums". It's 2011 now, and that never happened, haha.
YOU CAN FEEL FREE TO SKIP ALL THE TEXT AND JUST LOOK AT THE PRETTY PICTURES
but in case you actually enjoy pod babble, here's some excerpts from what was gonna be page 26 and 27:
TRUNDLING
(MIND TRUNDLING)
Mind Trundling, or Trundling, is the defining act of a tentacular Martian creature called the "Trundle." A Trundle Trundles another creature by copying all of the creature's memories into its own brain! Yow! A soft "Trund-tacle" is inserted in each ear, where they massage the brain for approximately six Earth minutes, copying all of the memories over like a biological computer hard drive. The mind of the victim is left completely intact! He or she is effectively cloned into an alien body, and the Trundle becomes an exact mental duplicate of its victim, give or take a few instincts. Trundles come in three varieties, the Common Trundle(pg25), the War Trundle(PG39), and the Trundle-Bird(pg40).
Blank or animal-trundled Martians are considerred wildlife, but human-trundled entomophagic Martians are now granted limited citizenship in specific countries. It isn't rare for modern business owners to let several Common Trundles copy their mind, with intent to hire the clones as cheap employees, or "copy-labor."
{illustration of a Jack Russel Terrier being Trundled by a War Trundle}
Trundles typically don't Trundle anything at all until they're three Martian years old. During this child (fledgling) phase they survive on instinct alone, effectively sleepwalking. If a sentient adult Trundle is shaken too hard, its mind might erase, or "etch-a-sketch" returning it to the blank slate, memory-free condition of its youth. Its instincts, however, will allow any blank adult Trundle to successfully stalk and grab new victim! Avoid Carbon forests, and the dark alleys of Earth's urban centers!
{illustration of a baby Trundle-Bird}
A Trundle, dissatisfied with the mind it has copied, can simply "reboot" its own brain by Trundling another creature. A Trundle can only contain one copied consciousness at a time! Most human-Trundled Trundles (Trundlemen) try and keep their new mind forever, with a few rare exceptions in the case of suicidal human Trundlees. The average lifespan of the Common Trundle is 45 Earth years. A War Trundle lives for an average of just 22, but a Trundle-Bird may easilly survive a century!
{Diagram of tentacle with parts labeled}
The experience of being Trundled, while still dreadful to certain human philosophies and religions, is painless and sometimes pleasant! It was first described by by Wes II as "Almost like having a sponge bath around your brain, punctuated by a loud, wet, uh sort of a schlurping sound." The trundled creature wakes up from a brief coma dream with no clear memory of the event. For instance Wes II's human antecedent, Wesley Liu, originally reported his experience on Mars as missing time. "I thought I'd passed out before even landing! I woke up in the ship with slimey ears thinking, oh no, mission failure!"
Despite the relative safety of the tentacling process, trundlophobia is now the 3rd commonest phobia, followed by acrophobia, and glossophobia! <-In the opinion of the Merflin's Encyclopedia staff, this is endemic of a soft bigotry. Every lonely human should try having their brain Trundled at least once! We make the perfect pets, pals, and proofreaders! :3
Category Designs / Fantasy
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1150 x 1280px
File Size 458 kB
Oh thanks!
And yeah, I like serifs, especially the round huggable ones. The font is all variations of Cooper Black, but you probably knew that.
I was trying to go for the scrapbook style of the "Fun" sort of high school text book, where the book is actively trying to interest the reader in subject matter they might only be reading because they have to. Big bright pictures mortared together with goofy, eye-leading paragraph shapes, no fixed structure or font size. If you keep all the info in small, stand alone chunks, the kind a student would look at and think "Sure, whatever, I could stand to read one more text blob" by the end they've read it all in one sitting, like eating potato chips. Also I ripped off a goofy tic from some old animal almanacs I had, where they'd always capitalize the name of any critter that had its own page somewhere in the book and leave the others (like earth ants) lower case.
And yeah, I like serifs, especially the round huggable ones. The font is all variations of Cooper Black, but you probably knew that.
I was trying to go for the scrapbook style of the "Fun" sort of high school text book, where the book is actively trying to interest the reader in subject matter they might only be reading because they have to. Big bright pictures mortared together with goofy, eye-leading paragraph shapes, no fixed structure or font size. If you keep all the info in small, stand alone chunks, the kind a student would look at and think "Sure, whatever, I could stand to read one more text blob" by the end they've read it all in one sitting, like eating potato chips. Also I ripped off a goofy tic from some old animal almanacs I had, where they'd always capitalize the name of any critter that had its own page somewhere in the book and leave the others (like earth ants) lower case.
>serifs, especially the round huggable ones
What a delightful turn of phrase. :>
TY for the information on your thinking always interesting to know that sort of thing. Layout of fun textbooks is interesting food for thought, since I'm often handling those sort of textbooks but I hadn't really considered why they'd be laid as they are.
I didn't actually recognize the typeface! I thought it might be souvenir or something like that. I think my knowledge of that sort of thing is a bit patchy, mostly I've studied hand lettering, in particular the marvellous American handwriting descended from Spencerian; the best of American cursive: http://tinyurl.com/5r53j4y and the ornamental writing (which I suppose has rounded curvy huggable shades): http://tinyurl.com/5scx829
The same techniques used to write those can even be used to make weird birds: http://tinyurl.com/63m59vk
What a delightful turn of phrase. :>
TY for the information on your thinking always interesting to know that sort of thing. Layout of fun textbooks is interesting food for thought, since I'm often handling those sort of textbooks but I hadn't really considered why they'd be laid as they are.
I didn't actually recognize the typeface! I thought it might be souvenir or something like that. I think my knowledge of that sort of thing is a bit patchy, mostly I've studied hand lettering, in particular the marvellous American handwriting descended from Spencerian; the best of American cursive: http://tinyurl.com/5r53j4y and the ornamental writing (which I suppose has rounded curvy huggable shades): http://tinyurl.com/5scx829
The same techniques used to write those can even be used to make weird birds: http://tinyurl.com/63m59vk
Man, everything is beautiful when weird birds are made of it (case in point, http://www.burrowburrow.com/robots.html ). Decorative handwriting is awesome to begin with, though. I was gonna go on a fav spree in your gallery but it turns out that I already have, haha.
Cooper Black is actually my #1 all time favorite font. Office casual, respectable, old fashioned, but sorta subtly cutesy and friendly. It's the official font of those children's alphabet building blocks, and there's a couple of legendary typewriters from the 70s that apparantly used it. This is sort of a creepy non sequitur, but you know the Jones-town cult? They did all their promo material in Cooper Black in a calculated effort to make themselves seem endearing instead of creepish. If it worked for Jones-town it can work for alien brain slurpers, right?
Cooper Black is actually my #1 all time favorite font. Office casual, respectable, old fashioned, but sorta subtly cutesy and friendly. It's the official font of those children's alphabet building blocks, and there's a couple of legendary typewriters from the 70s that apparantly used it. This is sort of a creepy non sequitur, but you know the Jones-town cult? They did all their promo material in Cooper Black in a calculated effort to make themselves seem endearing instead of creepish. If it worked for Jones-town it can work for alien brain slurpers, right?
Nah, there's nothing creepy about that. I can't remember reading where, but I read somewhere that all lettering has an emotional impact/association/et al and it must be true, otherwise there'd be only one typeface. Tall thin sans-serifs and some grotesque look cold and technical to me, if this was set it those it'd seem different, but as it is, the cooper black to me seems bouncy and energetic, like a dog that turns and chases it's tail eager to be off on a walk. The trund-tacle precipitated brain-massaging seems like the cutest little thing.
The Lesser Goat Meal survives on carbon-fungal scrapings, which it harvests from the surface of mountains in its specialized scoop-shaped buck teeth. It seldom grows much larger than a basketball. They are a herd animal, and a staple in the diet of most carnivorous Martians. The sights of a War Trundle will send them scrambling to their shelter caves, regardless of the civility of its trundled brain.
Just garden variety gender dimorphism! TRANSGENDER TRUNDLES, it's a pretty common problem, and also a popular tongue-twister. It's kinda easily solved through strategic mind transfers, bu uh, sometimes people don't bother?
PS my Trundlesona is the BRIGHT COLORFULLY PLUMED one in my pod icon, so oh gosh.
PS my Trundlesona is the BRIGHT COLORFULLY PLUMED one in my pod icon, so oh gosh.
In 2032, Dr. Harold Sung, along with his team at Aberystwyth University, began what is now considered to be the most comprehensive study on Trundling and its mechanical process. In a controversial move, Dr. Sung allowed himself to be Trundled by twelve Trundles of varying description. The first Trundle was chosen as a control due to the Trundle's uncanny resemblance to Dr. Sung, down to his uncommon cowlick (for Harold I's account of this experience, see Appendix C of Understanding Trundles, by Harold IV). A second Trundle, also a male, was allowed to trundle Dr. Sung as its brain activity and galvanic skin responses were measured. Although high amounts of delta activity were observed during the 6.2 minute Trundling, the process was bookended, so to speak, with sudden spikes or "pulses" of curiously alternating alpha and theta wave activity. Having put Harolds I and II through a rigorous intelligence and memory test, Dr. Sung found little to no copying errors. In order to test for generation loss, Harold II was further Trundled by a male Trundle of approximately the same age. Harold III performed well on intelligence and memory tests, but behavioral symptoms such as compulsive eye stalking manifested themselves rather quickly. When questioned about this, Harold III became argumentative and confused. The three Harolds were observed in captivity for a year, during which Harold III was noted to have put in several requests to have the female Trundle test pushed forward to Phase IV instead of her scheduled Phase VI.
It was, however, the Northern Speckled Common Trundle that proved crucial to our current understanding of the Trundling process that Trundles use to Trundle. During third trundling of Dr. Sung directly and the fourth indirectly, a magnitude 5.5 earthquake struck the Welsh coast and knocked out the power to the Exobiology wing at Aberystwyth. The sudden darkness, combined with the starling shake, roused the Trundle mid-Trundle. Harold IV's post-Trundle report included a jumble of increasingly evocative imagery, in which he likened it to "an especially vivid acid trip", to which he furthermore added, "I mean... It was the 10s. I was in college. I'm just saying." Harold IV's insights were crucial to understanding the EEG graph, and because of his intimate and intuitive knowledge of the Trundling process, he was moved to project lead, much to Dr. Sung's dismay.
Harold IV moved the female test up to Phase V, due to the redundancy of staging a "Trundlus Interruptus" to observe the effect on the Trundle's psychology. This first female test was done in order to test the viability of offspring. Dr. Sung was retained as the "Trundlee" in order to maintain the baseline of the experiment, and Harold V, also sometimes referred to as Harriet I, became Dr. Sung's fifth Trundle experiment. Harold V demonstrated an immediate and self-described instinctual sexual interest in all four Harold-type Trundles. As Harold IV notes, male and female Trundles in established mating couples in the wild frequently both Trundle a single creature in order to create a "perfect couple". Harold V selected Harold I as her first mating experiment. The ensuing spewbrood were tagged and returned to the wild.
Harold VI was slated to be a further experiment in generation loss, but after Trundling a reluctant Harold III, the specimen was quickly deemed "batshit crazy" and "probably not sentient". After a euthanizing shake, Harold VI instead became the result of the Trundling Harold V. Harold VI, upon reflecting on his year of being a female Trundle, having sex with himself, giving birth, and then being imperfectly copied into the body of a male again, described the experience as "a little bit weird", and that he "wasn't really sure what was going on anymore," and furthermore added "I'm kind of confused right now, talk to me later" at which point he returned to his observation pod. Harold VI provided the genetic material for Harold V's second spewbrood.
Harolds VII through X were male and female varieties of the War Trundle and Trundle-Bird, but they, aided by Harold VI, escaped under the cover of the Trundling of Harold XI, who was to be repeatedly erased and re-Trundled in order to assess memory retention. By this point, Dr. Sung, along with Harold I, had become an outspoken critic of the series of experiments, claiming it to be "a can of worms I really wish I hadn't opened." After three Martian years, Harold V's first spewbrood was ready to Trundle. It was this final experiment, the successful Trundling of Dr. Sung by the eldest offpsring of Harold V and Harold I, that brought the experiment series to a close. For the full story on the inquiry by the Academic Ethics Committee, we recommend Twelve Harolds, by Dr. Harold Sung (Harold Prime), probably the most definitive volume on the subject.
Harold XII, otherwise known as Harriet II, got married to Dewey Gruffud, a native of Blaenpwyf (formerly of Cwmystwyth). She is currently still in therapy.
It was, however, the Northern Speckled Common Trundle that proved crucial to our current understanding of the Trundling process that Trundles use to Trundle. During third trundling of Dr. Sung directly and the fourth indirectly, a magnitude 5.5 earthquake struck the Welsh coast and knocked out the power to the Exobiology wing at Aberystwyth. The sudden darkness, combined with the starling shake, roused the Trundle mid-Trundle. Harold IV's post-Trundle report included a jumble of increasingly evocative imagery, in which he likened it to "an especially vivid acid trip", to which he furthermore added, "I mean... It was the 10s. I was in college. I'm just saying." Harold IV's insights were crucial to understanding the EEG graph, and because of his intimate and intuitive knowledge of the Trundling process, he was moved to project lead, much to Dr. Sung's dismay.
Harold IV moved the female test up to Phase V, due to the redundancy of staging a "Trundlus Interruptus" to observe the effect on the Trundle's psychology. This first female test was done in order to test the viability of offspring. Dr. Sung was retained as the "Trundlee" in order to maintain the baseline of the experiment, and Harold V, also sometimes referred to as Harriet I, became Dr. Sung's fifth Trundle experiment. Harold V demonstrated an immediate and self-described instinctual sexual interest in all four Harold-type Trundles. As Harold IV notes, male and female Trundles in established mating couples in the wild frequently both Trundle a single creature in order to create a "perfect couple". Harold V selected Harold I as her first mating experiment. The ensuing spewbrood were tagged and returned to the wild.
Harold VI was slated to be a further experiment in generation loss, but after Trundling a reluctant Harold III, the specimen was quickly deemed "batshit crazy" and "probably not sentient". After a euthanizing shake, Harold VI instead became the result of the Trundling Harold V. Harold VI, upon reflecting on his year of being a female Trundle, having sex with himself, giving birth, and then being imperfectly copied into the body of a male again, described the experience as "a little bit weird", and that he "wasn't really sure what was going on anymore," and furthermore added "I'm kind of confused right now, talk to me later" at which point he returned to his observation pod. Harold VI provided the genetic material for Harold V's second spewbrood.
Harolds VII through X were male and female varieties of the War Trundle and Trundle-Bird, but they, aided by Harold VI, escaped under the cover of the Trundling of Harold XI, who was to be repeatedly erased and re-Trundled in order to assess memory retention. By this point, Dr. Sung, along with Harold I, had become an outspoken critic of the series of experiments, claiming it to be "a can of worms I really wish I hadn't opened." After three Martian years, Harold V's first spewbrood was ready to Trundle. It was this final experiment, the successful Trundling of Dr. Sung by the eldest offpsring of Harold V and Harold I, that brought the experiment series to a close. For the full story on the inquiry by the Academic Ethics Committee, we recommend Twelve Harolds, by Dr. Harold Sung (Harold Prime), probably the most definitive volume on the subject.
Harold XII, otherwise known as Harriet II, got married to Dewey Gruffud, a native of Blaenpwyf (formerly of Cwmystwyth). She is currently still in therapy.
I do! But it might not be very soon, sorry, haha.
There's a couple other creatures I've already invented which I'm probably gonna have to at least draw at least once before I die.
Trundle-Birds,
War Trundles,
Oxide Ants,
Rubik's Thought Ball,
Little Green Men,
& Reticulated Snoutmongers.
There's a couple other creatures I've already invented which I'm probably gonna have to at least draw at least once before I die.
Trundle-Birds,
War Trundles,
Oxide Ants,
Rubik's Thought Ball,
Little Green Men,
& Reticulated Snoutmongers.
All of which sound badass and I look forward to hearing more about later. :P The Rubik's Thought Ball is especially intriguing, I gotta say. lol Probably because I love puzzles like that, but I've never been able to solve one of those damn cubes, and thinking of something requiring more thought than a Rubik's cube peaks my curiosity.
Being labeled "Untrundleable" became one of the biggest insults of the decade. If a trundle rejected your mind midway through a trundle session, this could often ruin a person's reputation, sometimes leaving them with a status of "local pariah".
Consequently, trundles of popular figureheads became celebrities within themselves, often desired as pets by fans. The ever popular "Paris Hilton trundles" were much sought after on Ebay.
Consequently, trundles of popular figureheads became celebrities within themselves, often desired as pets by fans. The ever popular "Paris Hilton trundles" were much sought after on Ebay.
Oh wow, I absolutely love this... so I'm curious, though. If you erase a trundle by shaking it, then the trundle trundles someone else (or even the same person a second time) does an individual die? Is an individual created when the trundle first trundles a person? Or is the creature still its own "core" being, with different memories and personalities dropped down on a constant consciousness? Would love to see more stuff like this! :3
Woo, thanks! I'm glad you dig it, you seem pretty selective with your favs.
But yeah, to answer your questions, I don't believe in souls, so yeah, the loss of a unique consciousness is probably basically the same thing as death. Death lite? These critters were actually inspired a bit by the old paradox of the teleporter (If a teleporter dissapears you from one area and re-appears you in another, did it kill and clone you at the same time, or just move you around? If it's just movement, though, why would it suddenly turn into cloning or murder if the teleporter malfunctioned and failed to do its job in one of the two locations?).
Also yeah, I don't think trundles always feel very good about it afterward. I imagine waking up from a trundling is either a tremendous relief when you wake up as a slimey-eared version of yourself, or it's sort of the awkward dawning terror of opening three eyes and seeing a featherry alien snout, knowing somewhere in the back of the mind that technically the human brain in your head wasn't there until just now.
But yeah, to answer your questions, I don't believe in souls, so yeah, the loss of a unique consciousness is probably basically the same thing as death. Death lite? These critters were actually inspired a bit by the old paradox of the teleporter (If a teleporter dissapears you from one area and re-appears you in another, did it kill and clone you at the same time, or just move you around? If it's just movement, though, why would it suddenly turn into cloning or murder if the teleporter malfunctioned and failed to do its job in one of the two locations?).
Also yeah, I don't think trundles always feel very good about it afterward. I imagine waking up from a trundling is either a tremendous relief when you wake up as a slimey-eared version of yourself, or it's sort of the awkward dawning terror of opening three eyes and seeing a featherry alien snout, knowing somewhere in the back of the mind that technically the human brain in your head wasn't there until just now.
Oh, and after I posted this, someone saw it and reccomended a FANTASTIC book called "Kiln People" by David Brin, which deals with kinda similar philosophical themes. Aaand similar body swap themes. It's a pretty complex book though, and he's a better writer than me, so I can't really explain it here in under six paragraphs without spoiling something. If you like trundles you would love Kiln People.
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