About the ownership of bodied Yukkuri.

Now, the ins and outs of Yukkuri pets have been explored to the most minute detail in nigh infinite stories: mostly treated like mouses (can be pets or pests depending on their status, and can hop that barrier pretty easily). This is pretty nice, I guess; Yukkuris are not intelligent enough to grant much more, even if I guess speech would do a lot to miff many people about extermination, even when insultive.

But. What about bodied Yukkuris? Even if the line is very fluid, as with everything related to the argument, they are constantly more clever than adult Yukkuris, even when still young; the bar goes higher and higher, up to the Reisen in RBY/GSC who starts at least at the intellect of a 6-years-old and does nothing but mature intellectually.

I expect most grown up bodied Yukkuri, then, to be at least as intelligent as a kid of 10-15 years, mostly capable to care for themselves, to recognize others and to learn stuff of moderate complexity. What does this make of possible pet status? I don't think the concept of ownership - or abyuse! - would be barely as accepted as for the most common model.

I had a ton of stuff about bodied yukkuri cliffnoted for my stories on YFT. In fact I think they featured in almost every story, much to my chagrin. =|

My answer to the question is the badge system. Wild yukkuri are vermin with no penalty for their extermination, since that's the only sensible response to their explosive population. Bronze badge proves the yukkuri has an owner and can coexist with other pets, but is essentially meaningless for their treatment.

Silver badge is on par with real-world animals. You can get into serious trouble for mistreatment of animals. Obviously an abyusive owner isn't going to bother getting a badge anyway, so it has its flaws, but the point is there.

Gold badges are a step up from animals. They can roam public areas without supervision, many stores will allow them and some will even serve them (see for example bodied Kogasa from Me and Yu doing a grocery run). The badge requires a minimum standard of behaviour in exchange for a minimum standard of treatment.

Platinum badges take this even further. There's one anko with a summary somewhere around here that features platinum-badge bodied yukkuri getting jobs and earning a living alongside humans, so I'm not the only one who thinks of it that way (though I'd consider that particular scenario very rare).

So if you have a pet bodied yukkuri that isn't of the pudgy, clumsy, barely-smarter-than-a-Patchouli kind (bodied yukkuri get smarter with age in my stories) and it doesn't have a gold or platinum badge, you're going to get some funny looks.

I thought about this a while back. Actually, had I artistic ability, I'd have written a story and illustrated it. And I accept the fanon of only male humans being able to produce offspring with yumans. Yuman reproductive systems "understand" the DNA, where with a human female, it's basically just squirting cake batter or frosting into a uterus.

I call them "yuman", as they're clearly between yukkuri and human. Society in my concept legally required wild yumans be taken to a 30-day shelter, where either they were adopted or were euthanized. The standards of adoption were pretty much the same for animals, but there was a mandatory yearly welfare check. Yuman IQ ranges from mental impairment to ~90 (skilled labor/some HS), with no ability to progress due to the limits of their origin.

Yumans claimed by humans were still treated as pets, and required to have at least a bronze badge. For those with money and exceptionally intelligent yumans, the platinum badge was the highest legal status. With a platinum badge, yumans could work at places making financial transactions, drive NEVs (under 25 mph) with licensing, allowed to own real property through a trust and could vote in local elections after passing a civics course. Platinum yumans also could be legally married. And given some fanon yumans can breed with humans, there is child support and alimony. Yumans could initiate a divorce themselves. Married yumans fleeing an abyusive relationship had to go to the 30-day shelter, though. However, their spouse would be legally required to fund their stay until reconciliation or divorce.

Platinum yumans with UEV licenses were legal only in the state granted, except states that had reciprocity. Yumans could get a provisional passport that would allow international travel to countries that used the same Platinum standard, However, they couldn't travel internationally alone. Platinum yumans could travel unaccompanied domestically by public transportation. Healthcare was the responsibility of the badge applicant of record.

The children of yumans/humans were considered to have even better mental capacities, and therefore citizenship and emancipation rights. They could vote in national elections, travel unaccompanied internationally to reciprocal nations and could drive any car domestically. International driving is limited to NEVs and local preemption. They were conditionally allowed for voluntary military service in a National Guard capacity, and were equally entitled to earn rank and pension. And their births/deaths/marriages were public record. Children born from a half-yuman have these recognitions, even if they mate back with another yuman. Half-yumans have roughly the same potential for exceptional intellect as humans.

WRT crime and punishment, wild yumans were exempt from some misdemeanors. Beyond minor offenses, they were sent to the 30-day shelter to face the same consequences as unclaimed yumans. Badged yuman owners must take financial responsibility for restitution. Half-yumans generally face the same punishment as humans, with sentences being calculated on a half-yuman lifespan ~30 years. Crimes against half-yumans by humans are treated equally with human-human crime.

mad_hatter

I personally don't see humans being quite that accepting of bodied yukkuri. Maybe it's just cynicism, or maybe it's the number of people here I've seen comment about how bodied yukkuri creep them out. Or maybe my bodied yukkuri are dumber than yours.

Also, what's artistic ability got to do with writing a story? Post it in text form!

I feel as if bodied yu and human intercourse would be treated the same as bestiality. They're pets so in some context they're like animals and they look like children so that falls in line with pedophilia as well. I think it would be illegal in America at least. Of course that wouldn't stop some people.

Bodied yukkuris are indeed smart
Except Remilia types. I rarely see smart Remilia types.

@BaronMind-Thanks for the encouragement and the work you do here. I will consider it.

In my mind, yumans have overall favorable acceptance because of the humanoid form, emotions and language ability. They are also smart enough to usually keep a low profile. And they mostly hate yukkuri, as most yukkuri hate them. So, they gravitate towards people.

Most probably have pre-teen intellect and mindset, at best. As per yukkuri fanon, it is an exceptional yuman that qualifies for Platinum. Certified for financial transactions doesn't mean they're bank tellers, though. More like they can comprehend money denominations, count to 100. make change and swipe cards. Mildly-retarded people do this at fast-food places, already. The register even figures change, if you can input correctly.

Really, I see in this world where yumans fill roles that robots might've been intended for. Housekeeping, security monitoring, entry-level retail, etc. And as they prove their capabilities/worth to society, society grants them more discretion. And that includes the reality of humansex.

Creepy? Maybe. One story idea was how some yumans get normalized by working in retirement homes. The elderly fare better with pets around, and these "pets" are always willing to listen to the old folks, no matter how many times they repeat themselves. The yumans learned interaction and skills, got regular care themselves and felt part of a community.

@ThatOneGuy-Society is changing. Gay marriage is legal in ~36 states. Legal MJ in two or three. In a world with yumans, it's not a stretch to think humansex doesn't happen-nor the consequences of it. It's not a matter of society specifically sanctioning this, but the reality of it.

Yumans are in general inoffensive, so there is no outcry to exterminate them like yukkuri. The Platinum marriage idea was incentive to legitimize the offspring and higher training for yumans. In this case society wins by offering a carrot instead of a stick.

mad_hatter said:
@BaronMind-Thanks for the encouragement and the work you do here. I will consider it.

I'm always happy to meet a fellow would-be author. If you need a proofreader or just want to bounce ideas around, I'm up for it! ...though I'm still not feeling the best, so please excuse any sudden bouts of half-asleep stupidity. -_-;

(On that note, I misread your previous posts twice while writing this reply! OTL)

In my mind, yumans have overall favorable acceptance because of the humanoid form, emotions and language ability. They are also smart enough to usually keep a low profile. And they mostly hate yukkuri, as most yukkuri hate them. So, they gravitate towards people.

I'd agree that bodied yukkuri are in general more tolerable than regular yukkuri. They have to be willing to accept the loss of "easiness" for their improved form and they're rejected by all but the most nicehead of regular yukkuri, so they rarely have shithead tendencies. On the other hand, they also have the capacity to get into vastly more mischief than a regular yukkuri.

As an aside, bodied yukkuri are practically nonexistant out of captivity in my stories, so there are no special "shelters". Wild or abandoned bodied yukkuri are handled the same way as regular yukkuri, albeit more rare, valuable and useful.

Most probably have pre-teen intellect and mindset, at best. As per yukkuri fanon, it is an exceptional yuman that qualifies for Platinum. Certified for financial transactions doesn't mean they're bank tellers, though. More like they can comprehend money denominations, count to 100. make change and swipe cards. Mildly-retarded people do this at fast-food places, already. The register even figures change, if you can input correctly.

There are two broad categories of bodied yukkuri in my stories. The first is the small, chubby kind that aren't much smarter than a regular Patchouli (if that). This is the most common kind of bodied yukkuri.

Bodied yukkuri that live to sufficient age under good enough living conditions can mature into the second category. They are larger, smarter and have more human features - about the size and mentality of a ten-year-old at the most. These are typically the long-lived "beloved family pet" who helps out around the house, and maybe working in the family business.

Understanding money as you describe is a requirement of the gold and platinum badges in my stories. The gold badge test simply requires that a yukkuri be able to count money well enough to be able to pay for something (and not get short-changed), while the platinum test is more like what's taught in grade school.

Really, I see in this world where yumans fill roles that robots might've been intended for. Housekeeping, security monitoring, entry-level retail, etc. And as they prove their capabilities/worth to society, society grants them more discretion. And that includes the reality of humansex.

I see the few bodied yukkuri that do find emplyoment mostly working for or alongside their owners. The occasional individual might get independent jobs housecleaning or stacking supermarket shelves, but it would be rare enough to be considered surprising in-story.

As far as humansex goes... I've seen at least one story on YFT about some less scrupulous individuals running a bodied-yukkuri brothel. I imagine that kind of thing alone would be enough for it to be made illegal.

Of course that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. If it's a platinum pet that knows the law and makes no complaint, I can see it being quietly ignored.

Creepy? Maybe. One story idea was how some yumans get normalized by working in retirement homes. The elderly fare better with pets around, and these "pets" are always willing to listen to the old folks, no matter how many times they repeat themselves. The yumans learned interaction and skills, got regular care themselves and felt part of a community.

I... guess I could see a retirement home buying bodied yukkuri to keep the old folks company. Though given the uncanny appearance of bodied yukkuri you'd have to make sure everyone's comfortable with the idea first.

mad_hatter said:
@ThatOneGuy-Society is changing. Gay marriage is legal in ~36 states. Legal MJ in two or three. In a world with yumans, it's not a stretch to think humansex doesn't happen-nor the consequences of it. It's not a matter of society specifically sanctioning this, but the reality of it.

This wasn't directed at me, but... Gay marriage is still illegal in my country, and most of the conservatives here would certainly describe legalizing it as "society specifically sanctioning it".

The "reality", as you put it, would be in what people actually do, not the word of law.

Yumans are in general inoffensive, so there is no outcry to exterminate them like yukkuri. The Platinum marriage idea was incentive to legitimize the offspring and higher training for yumans. In this case society wins by offering a carrot instead of a stick.

Halfyukkuri are legally recognized as humans in my stories, regardless of the circumstances of their origin. Shunned and stigmatized humans with short life expectancy, numerous health problems and invariably broken families, but humans nonetheless. They're only slightly smaller than pure humans and well within the range of normal human intellect.

To be honest, the stuff I came up with about halfyukkuri leaned heavily towards horror. =/

Baron, I read today what I wrote yesterday, and I can see how you got what you did WRT marriage. Gay marriage and marijuana was only meant to show how societies shift from the unimaginable to the new norms. They were otherwise separate from the issue of legitimizing halfling children and Platinum marriage. Actually, those two issues aren't national law here, either. In my state, both are illegal and unrecognized. I really meant to convey people were screwing yumans and having kids, so what do (did) we do about it?

Really, my stories would be pretty boring, as they would run more towards "slice of life". My yumans are ~4.5' tall, and have roughly the same facial features as yukkuri. Halflings are more refined in facial appearance, and even have vestigial noses and ears. We agree on the size, but I think their health would be considered roughly like humans, just diminished in capability and longevity. And I think we're pretty much the same on mental capability.

I forgot which story but there was one about badge testing that asked a bodied Eiki if a bodied yukkuri had a child with a human and the owner wanted an abortion what should be done. Listening to the owner and providing easiness to the owner is a must but that turns out to be the wrong answer, the independent thinking to keeping the half human baby and raising it alone was the right answer.

A platinum test for a yukkuri is essentially a human license test.

mad_hatter said:
Really, my stories would be pretty boring, as they would run more towards "slice of life". My yumans are ~4.5' tall, and have roughly the same facial features as yukkuri. Halflings are more refined in facial appearance, and even have vestigial noses and ears. We agree on the size, but I think their health would be considered roughly like humans, just diminished in capability and longevity. And I think we're pretty much the same on mental capability.

I love slice of life! I don't think I'm the only one either, since people actually read Me and Yu (and puffed at me when I stopped).

I insist on my bodied yukkuri having some kind of skeleton, ears and a nose, because I find anything else to be the stuff of nightmares. Regular bodied yukkuri average around 3' and look kind of chibified, while mature bodied yukkuri are around 4' and look more humanlike (links are just the closest I could think of right now).

Halfyukkuri are only distinguishable from humans due to being made of the wrong substances (their skin is smooth and waxy, their hair is too glossy etc.) and most of them having inhuman traits (wings, blue hair etc.). They're also slightly smaller than normal, but that can be hard to notice.

As for the health problems, I treat them as chimeras rather than hybrids. They have a mix of human tissue and yukkuri filling, with nothing but yukkuri "belief" magic to ensure all their organs are actually compatible. The ones that do survive their own biology can live as long as any other bodied yukkuri.

Gitamii

That's the one I was talking about in my first post, anko1800.

How are your bodied yukkuri made? Herpe had nightmarish creation. id=47835429 Have you considered some owners would modify their yukkuri with more paste, just how intelligent would those yukkuri be and what effect they would have on the system.

That anko1800 end reminds me of a pure hentai bodied yukkuri anko. Considering the nature of their occupation and the fact they were manufactured they were regarded as municipal objects protected by vandalism laws.

Gitamii said:
How are your bodied yukkuri made? Herpe had nightmarish creation. id=47835429 Have you considered some owners would modify their yukkuri with more paste, just how intelligent would those yukkuri be and what effect they would have on the system.

That anko1800 end reminds me of a pure hentai bodied yukkuri anko. Considering the nature of their occupation and the fact they were manufactured they were regarded as municipal objects protected by vandalism laws.

Most bodied yukkuri in my stories are born that way. Normal yukkuri can also become bodied, though it's not simply a matter of growing extra limbs. The new body is formed inside the old one, which withers away and is shed, or if you want 'nightmarish' you can go with Alien-style emergence.

More paste means more mass for "brains" and "muscle", so you could make an artificial Dosu that way. It wouldn't have Dosu powers though. I remember seeing an anko about something similar: some people stitched together a large number of normal Marisas, which gave it the memories of all of them, but only one paste core, so it had only one personality. It then became a harmless, powerless Dosu that remembered how scary mister humans were and kept her clan away from the humans' easy place.

With the right methods you could "sculpt" a yukkuri however you wish, but it's still just a sack of paste. The way I see it, it'll just flop around like a regular blob. And probably die of uneasiness soon after. Modifying an already bodied yukkuri... I don't think I want to go there.

I think yumans are a spontaneous evolution that occurred at conception. I can't fully go along with the powers of belief premise, though. It seems that the most esteemed form of life for yukkuri is not humans but birds, so why wouldn't they prefer to evolve as avians? However, I did read of a yukkurisa that desperately wanted to be come a pet and was told that growing a body would guarantee it. She was found dead with a strange growth forming. So I won't dismiss it, but it's about like winning a lottery jackpot in odds.

My yumans have a pseudoskeleton. Paste layers harden in rings like trees grow, and it's not very sturdy. Halflings have calcification of the innermost limb cores from the human parent. Not as good as true bone, but much stronger than yuman pseudoskeletons.

My halflings have some organs, too. The digestive, excretive and reproductive organs are the most relatable to human organs. Their "brain" looks like a human one, but like yukkuri, it is both heart and mind. They breathe through their skin. Adding paste doesn't do anything but cause problems.

I also think they have only mammalian pregnancies and breastfeed. They knead their breasts to first soften the paste. And as a wet nurse, all the issues with filling type still matter. The bottom of their feet have the manju fold in variations, which is a type of ID. Badged yumans above Bronze have footprints taken as part of the registration. Halflings have human foot and hand creases.

My yumans aren't born with clothes (although the Akyuu guro comic with the pregnant Remilia shows a clothed baby), but are with accessories. As halflings, they are not born with accessories due to diluting the yukkuri origin. But they would prefer to wear the accessory of their type.

mad_hatter said:
I can't fully go along with the powers of belief premise, though. It seems that the most esteemed form of life for yukkuri is not humans but birds, so why wouldn't they prefer to evolve as avians?

Because birds are uneasy and scary things that want to eat them? The way I see it they just want to fly more than they want to be birds specifically.

Rather than general "power of belief", I think of bodied and dosu yukkuri more as being specific paths with a psychological "trigger". The ability to understand that a humanlike body is superior to the "easier" blob causes a change that can lead to becoming bodied.

Or something like that. Sort of like a positive version of anti-yukkuritis.

My yumans have a pseudoskeleton. Paste layers harden in rings like trees grow, and it's not very sturdy. Halflings have calcification of the innermost limb cores from the human parent. Not as good as true bone, but much stronger than yuman pseudoskeletons.

My halflings have some organs, too. The digestive, excretive and reproductive organs are the most relatable to human organs. Their "brain" looks like a human one, but like yukkuri, it is both heart and mind. They breathe through their skin. Adding paste doesn't do anything but cause problems.

My bodied yukkuri have a functional skeleton made of hardened paste. It's weak to begin with but becomes denser as they get older, so a mature bodied yukkuri is much sturdier. Halfyukkuri can have either highly hardened paste or calcified pseudo-bone.

All yukkuri in my stories have some degree of paste seperation. There's the hard paste core that holds their 'mind'. Less obvious is the 'muscle' tissue, which can be identified by a filminess rather like egg white that clings to the yukkuri's skin. It can be easily destroyed by stirring.

In bodied yukkuri the paste becomes much thicker and firmer to give them more strength. They also take in more of their air through breathing because their skin is less porous. But aside from the hard paste core and bones there are still no proper organs.

Halfyukkuri have internal anatomy that mimics a human's, including digestive, respiratory, circulatory and nervous systems. Their skin is even less porous than a bodied yukkuri, meaning they can endure water for longer, but also requiring air to be absorbed through the lungs. They can be asphyxiated if their airways are obstructed.

I also think they have only mammalian pregnancies and breastfeed. They knead their breasts to first soften the paste. And as a wet nurse, all the issues with filling type still matter. The bottom of their feet have the manju fold in variations, which is a type of ID. Badged yumans above Bronze have footprints taken as part of the registration. Halflings have human foot and hand creases.

I explain it as bodied-yu skin being tougher to hold the extra mass and complex shape, so it's no longer porous enough for reproduction. Even direct contact with reproductive filling can't cause stalks to form. Bodied yukkuri can't be born from stalks either.

Another quirk to my stories is that the bodied trait is not hereditary. The offspring of a bodied yukkuri are just as unlikely to have bodies of their own. Otherwise pet bodied yukkuri would be much more common from simple breeding programs. The "bodied factor" is just as much a mystery as the dosu factor.

Halfyukkuri are of course always bodied, and can only be concieved from a mature bodied-yu parent (or from other halfyukkuri, obviously).

My yumans aren't born with clothes (although the Akyuu guro comic with the pregnant Remilia shows a clothed baby), but are with accessories. As halflings, they are not born with accessories due to diluting the yukkuri origin. But they would prefer to wear the accessory of their type.

I consider the clothes to be a kind of accessory. They grow with the owner and can heal damage over time if the owner is healthy. Accessories seperated from the owner will wither and crumble. The 'owner' in this sense doesn't have to be the original owner; yukkuri can exchange accessories and they will continue to grow with their new owners, as happens in many stories where accessories are stolen.

The same is true for halfyukkuri. The offspring of a halfyukkuri and a human would not likely have enough yukkuri bood to be born with accessories, but might still be able to maintain 'adopted' accessories.

Most of my ideas start by working backwards from the stories I want to write, so they probably don't make a lot of sense out of context.

Understood-and you make equally valid points. For me, I don't think yukkuri are able to separate the form (bird) from the function (flight). I agree the skin is thicker and has differing qualities..maybe gelatin in yumans and collagen in halflings. As far as muscle, I imagine it as a differing density of filling in yumans, and in halflings it's formed in definable groups. Yumans could get stronger; it wouldn't always mean more paste created but rather a re-allocation of existing mass not unlike losing a beer belly by burning more calories. Halflings having groupings of muscle paste would have more human form definition and could conceivably get a "six pack" abdomen.

WRT approaching an idea by working backwards, I think I have the opposite approach. I have to rationalize how the stuff would work first. The story concept would stand on its own and likely not have anything to do with anatomy.

That said, I think we probably agree on ~ 60% of substance, even as we conceived it separately. And probably the percentage is higher in form over function agreement.

mad_hatter said:
WRT approaching an idea by working backwards, I think I have the opposite approach. I have to rationalize how the stuff would work first. The story concept would stand on its own and likely not have anything to do with anatomy.

I like to think about a story from the direction of "What if it were real?", or in this case "If you met a bodied yukkuri, what would be your first impressions?". I once met a person who had eye surgery to replace damaged lenses with artificial ones. A very small difference, but you could tell right away.

I imagined what might stick out on meeting a bodied yukkuri, and the whole "no skeleton" thing made them super creepy. Humans are very sensitive to limbs bending the wrong way. So I gave them bones in order to make them seem "normal" enough that the story could go on without the other characters wanting to be sick.

For another story, I wanted a character with a human mind but a yukkuri body. It seemed too much for a pure bodied yukkuri so I made them a halfyukkuri. I wanted the reader to feel sorry for the character, and I remembered that real-life hybrids often have health problems, so I added that in for more drama.

All of which was only a minor part of the main story, which started out as a story about a yukkuri rock band called "Drop Dead Easy" and ended with an invasion of dosuyukkuri, a nuclear explosion and a sequel about a dosu Utsuho wandering around a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It got kind of weird after that.

That said, I think we probably agree on ~ 60% of substance, even as we conceived it separately. And probably the percentage is higher in form over function agreement.

We've also managed to spectacularly derail the original topic. =)

Seriously though, it sounds like you've got some story-worthy ideas. Write something!