MILD SPOILERS FOR NEON VOID.
CW BODY HORROR (?), BLOOD, VOILENCE. Please read the tags of the fic before reading.
Fanart for Neon Void cause I love this fic by sugarpastels!
I'm a sucker for this kind of character and I can't wait for more! I'd also really really love a follow up where Leo is dealing with the aftermath and reintegrating but I'll just have to wait and see ^^
The design changes a little bit and because this was done on and off over a few weeks, and the quality changes too. I really struggle with how I want the lineart and rendering to look so they're all different in styles. Not actually happy with most of these but I'm trying to make myself post more art. I like the sketches more but feel like I should post finished art cause I'm a perfectionist.
The Neon Void design is partially based off the art by @ / kaysdenofchaos at the end of chapter 2, as well as my own simplified interpretation and the mask shape is loosely inspired by The Black Rabbit of Inlé from the 1978 version of Watership Down (traumatic film tbh).
Link to fic:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/46753177/chapters/117752863
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hi dess! probably the wrong person to ask but it's just to immensely confuddling... is there a solid lore explanation for how sectonia turned into a bee? i wanted to write a body horror thing for her but i wanted it to be lore accurate and it's just all so convoluted !
Wrong person or not, it is impeccable timing! Both because of Triple Deluxe's 10th Anniversary (in Japan time) and the fact that I've been intensely studying those scenes for my own anniversary piece!
Which is, err, running late.
Here is what we can garner about Sectonia's transformation abilities based on the available information + insights the game gives us.
[Pause Screen Lore]
VS Sectonia Vine
"Sectonia's family(1) have parasitized, taken possession of, and controlled countless lifeforms."
1) This word is often translated as "clan" as in a large gathering of members who are not necessarily family but belong to a specific unified group. IE, this could mean anything from "she and her direct family members have this ability" to "all spiders within a certain classification have this ability" to "all spiders have this ability".
I sometimes HC that possession is something all female spiders possess, because I like to imagine her people being a Queendom and that'd be a good reason for it, and also because of The Dark Crystal's "Wings? I don't have wings." "Of course not. You're a boy." (Which just feels so Taranza + Sectonia coded to me)
(I say "sometimes" because I'm also very fond of trans-girl Sectonia HC.)
VS Queen Sectonia (2)
"Sectonia, beautiful and menacing in form. She has [placed herself] inside the world tree..."
VS Sectonia Soul (2)
"I have parasitized and changed bodies so many times, I can no longer recall...which of them was my original self..."
(This pause screen lore is written from Sectonia's POV.)
So, yes, Joronia/Sectonia is a parasite.
She attaches to something and makes it part of her body/swaps bodies with it. If we look at the difference between her queen-form and her flowered-form, we understand a few things about this process: she takes her current body, as well as the body of another living organism and fuse them together. IE: 1 + 1 = 1
She retains some visual aspects of her previous body after a "switch" (she still has the bee head, collar, and wings, for example) and gains the greater (?) amount of traits from the new body.
This would mean that after her first swap, she probably still looked a little like "Joronia." (Something like a messed up version of those matching toys where you have to align the head, torso, and legs.)
What this also means is that in order to look like "Queen Sectonia" who is so completely different from what Taranza and Joronia look like, she would have had to swap bodies a lot. (Not to mention, she is BIG. It is possible her last body-swap wasn't even to a bee/wasp but something large she absorbed to gain the qualities of its size! Or maybe she stole something large for the size and then stole something with a super thin waist to get that hourglass figure XD)
Planet Robobot's Clone Sectonia lore tells us that "countless species" were found in the Dream Stalk's DNA "stretching over 1,000 years" so this does indeed seem to confirm she did this a frightening amount of times over a long period of time.
It's safe to say you will probably find no one creature in the Kirby-verse that looks similar to Queen Sectonia, as her body was custom crafted with parts from countless critters.
We also get a few visual insights into how parasitization looks...
...Upon her initial defeat, she begins giving off a massive amount of glitter/sparkles/insect scales.
This visual is interesting as, if she was already reaching for a new body after her defeat, it is possible this is the first part of the process. Shedding her initial body. If not, this could either be a sign of her current body failing/dying or her parasitic control over it weakening.
She raises up, does some hand movements, lets out a wave of magic and begins to glow brightly. When we check back in on her, she has expelled her wings (she has them back in flower form but they DO appear slightly different. More petal-like and droopy. See above.) and wriggling tentacles appear from behind her...
You can debate that these are the Dream Stalk's vines wrapping around her, but they don't seem to behave the same way. (They don't have leaves either, which the vines do.) Thus, I think these are "appendages" that specifically appear as part of Sectonia/Joronia's transformation process. If you think about the way insects emerge from their cocoons, I can imagine these as tendrils as coming out from a "split/crack" that slowly forms in her back...
There's a LOT of light and time and struggle involved in the process but this could be just because the Dream Stalk was such a large and powerful target, being rooted into Popstar itself. If she's done this hundreds or thousands of times before, it is possible there is a shorter version of this for things she already overpowers.
...Though, the grimdark part of my brain imagines things like Taranza using his magic to hold one of her struggling targets down while she enwraps it with her horrible parasite tendrils. If Dess hasn't said this before, I'm less interested in soft, sad boy Taranza and much more interested in "1/2 of a gleeful villain couple" Taranza, who is so captivated by his beloved, he happily joins her in all sorts of horrendous things - leading military invasions in her name, assassinations, putting down rebellions, capturing new victims for her, all things he IS implied to do in game through Dedede - only turning a blind eye to it because he believes in and is infatuated with her and thus, this must be the right thing to do. Right...?
-
In summary, what we can glean is all pretty bad. Sectonia doesn't even "swap" bodies because the bodies she absorb all get used up and can be said to be "dead" from the moment she inhabits them. Though you can even argue this, as, once she is defeated, the Dream Stalk seems to regain its individuality after her absorption. If you're re~ally into horror, you could take this to mean that some aspect of her victims consciousness is carried on from body to body...!!!!
Also, swapping from body to body appears to be more of a melding process anyway, which could also be pretty darn horrible, depending upon how much control you think she has over which traits she inherits from her victims. If it's entirely her choice, it's simply a matter of how many bodies until she's found the traits she believes "perfects" her ultimate vision of herself - plus how many times she changes her mind. If it's NOT then she's probably gone through an insane amount of swaps/victims, discontented at the results and insisting on trying again and again until it turns out "right."
And there you have it! Joronia's transformation into Sectonia is both deeply pitiful and deeply, deeply frightening!
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