Exo

Maybe if you didn’t skip laundry for thirteen days straight you would have something to wear, HMMM?

Much like Jam’s closer relatives, Lucky has this partial exoskeleton so she DOES have feminine curves, they're just obstructed belieeeeve meeee. Hers is far more extensive than the others, and it changed in complexity and number of parts as she evolved.

(Warning: Geekspeak ahead)

Where to start! Well, let’s see….it’s entirely made up of chitin and can be molted off if damaged. If (and when, she has zero sense of self-preservation) parts get smashed off, they can be regrown by successive moltings of the area (which she hates going through, insect moltings are different than birds or reptiles and we’re just gonna leave it at that). This includes her horns and tail, though when those get snapped off, it’s accompanied by a spray of venom don’ttouchit.

Like actual centipede poison, Lucky’s venom is painful to touch, and even more painful if it enters a wound. It causes swelling, headaches, palpitations, nausea, anxiety and some other nice things.

Where was I? Oh yeah. In her tail, instead of the typical vertebrate blood, hemolymph (green insect blood) circulates. Around the base of her tail is where her system switches to a typical human’s. This does mean that her tail has a circulatory system of its own, with a (for lack of a better word) tubular “heart” located horizontally through the left side.

Her muscles in her tail and lower back are directly attached to the interior of the exoskeleton with the insect version of tendons, apodemes, with human tendons becoming more prevalent around the middle of her back. Apodemes can store more elastic energy but they're stiffer. This allows her to swing her tail with a lot of power, but it's not so flexible in side-to-side motions.

Those rib-like things, the pair in the middle of her back and the set by her neck, also produce venom, but they’re highly impractical for any sort of combat. However, those terrible occasions when Lucky flies into her wild violent episodes, they sort of rear back. This is hard to explain without a visual aid, but while the spines usually wrap around the contours of her ribs and neck in a resting position, they snap open if she’s feeling aggressive. If her pupils are slits and those spines are out to the side, it’s a sign that there’s less Lucky present and more raging Scolipede. 

Lucky’s venom is produced either above her kidneys, for the forciples (read: centipede spiky things) on her tail, and the back of her head, for her horns. They’re connected to the tip of her horns/tail by a simple tube, like a centipede. If she’s about to use a Poison-type move, don’t hit her on the head, because then she’ll spray everywhere and that’s gross.

Near the base of her horns are postanntennal organs. They allow her to sense vibrations and maybe some other things, except no one knows what they’re for in real life so I can make up whatever I want hahaha.

Despite all this insectoid armor, she’s surprisingly flexible. The pieces lay along major muscle groups, so she can bend, and like her totem, can easily curl into a ‘lil ball. If she’s sad, her first instinct is to go into a tiny fetal position and hey I’m getting off topic.

Now, how does she feel about all this arthropod anatomy?...I won’t say anything much here on that, except that she doesn’t like being hugged. Well, Lucky doesn’t like being touched in general, but seeing people recoil after laying a hand on your back can do something to your psyche. This doesn’t stop her from wearing shirts with the neckline cut low-ish in the back, or tank tops.

Summary

Lucky’s tail bleeds green blood.

Horns and tail can be snapped off.

They also molt.

She especially hates being touched on her back.

I’ve been fascinated by the possibility of how these combination of Pokemon and humans we design live their lives practically. Like, where do they buy clothes if everyone has a wildly different body shape? If someone has a shell, how would they get a spinal tap? Are there tribes of, say, Zangoose people and Seviper people who constantly fight with each other? Any thoughts?


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_{what I listened to: Lucky Lyrics}