#hiding the answer under the readmore probably wont do much since the ask itself just says the topic but hey whatever

[cryptocism]

Oh my god this new chapter,.. gnawingbthe bars of the enclosure etc etc. what gave you the ideas for the kids being conjoined twins?

not sure how much i should be screening for spoiler-y asks n answers if anybody is still on the earlier chapters but! i wanted to answer this one so spoilers ahead for anybody who hasn't read chapter 17

i came up with it pretty early on! long enough ago that the details are fuzzy but iirc when i was making all the clone backstories, i was really invested in the idea that one of them wouldn't have powers. partially for character dynamics, also because i think having a range of abilities forces interesting workarounds (i.e. Jude and Nathaniel using Jude's speed paths to supplement Nathaniel's lack of powers)

then i was going back and forth on how to explain why Nathaniel didn't have powers, if an explanation was even necessary, etc. which coincided with me thinking a lot about the different applications of technoplasm and just how insane of a material it is to exist

then Impulse issue #56 where CRAYDL downloads, copies, and replicates Tim and Kon's genetic matrices using technoplasm came to mind and it felt a lot more feasible that technoplasm could literally be programmed for a human form

i thought abt CRAYDL just building Nathaniel from scratch, but there wasnt a motivation i could think of that was strong enough for CRAYDL to do that. (like maybe they didn't want Jude to be lonely or something, which fell a little flat bc obviously they werent concerned about Thad being on his own) also i wanted Nathaniel to still have some bio-connection to Jude and the other clones. so: technoplasm integration felt like a cool direction, and meant Nathaniel needed some essential part of him be technoplasm-made. any kind of amelia condition didn't really work because there are plenty of folks without limbs that are doing just fine and dont require medical intervention, (and i really didnt think CRAYDL would try an operation so risky if there wasnt a fatal threat) so it had to be something else and conjoined twins felt like a good direction to go. there's plenty of conjoined twins who are also doing just fine and dont require intervention, but this would be a case where separation was necessary for survival.

although i wrote Jude and Nathaniel as both parapagus and craniopagus twins (the grammar there may not be right but basically: joined both at the pelvis/abdomen and the head) which i dont believe (?) is a type that's ever actually occurred. keeping with sci-fi's grand tradition i fudged the science for the sake of the story u know how it is

but yeah of course after that the possibilities of a bio-computer technoplasm-integrated character got me Extremely Excited. tons of functionally-immortal self-programming computer-hacking fun. plus i had an excuse to give Jude heterochromia and a cool birthmark :P