Kumoko

[Kumoko]

History (WIP)

The nameless girl now known as Kumoko was once an average high-school student, if a bit of a shut-in. With a rather bad home life, no friends to really call her own (not that she really cared to have any), and with a rather unremarkable set of skills, she lived a boring life. One that was tragically cut short in a freak accident, one almost to weird to even be real.  She'd been dozing off in class, as she usually did in school when the classroom she was sleeping in simply... disintegrated around her, killing her and all her fellow students. But that wasn't the end for Kumoko. Whether by fortune or misfortune, she found herself reborn, reincarnated, waking up again after death in an unfamiliar world, surrounded only by darkness, webs, and spider. Lots and lots of spiders. After waking up in such a nightmarish world, she only had a few seconds to get her bearings, and in those few seconds, she came to a terrifying revelation. She wasn't just surrounded by spiders, she was a spider. Her mind, her memories, her personality, her life experience, all if it had been torn from her old body and thrust into that of a spider.

As she quickly found out, this was a world ruled by survival of the fittest. Her newfound brethren tore into each other, fighting and dying en masse, every spider out only for themselves and their next meal. One small misstep, one moment of lost concentration, or simply a little bit of bad luck would all bring Kumoko to another early death. Luckily for her, she possessed a weapon to thrust her above the masses, her very own special power to beat the odds and help her survive this massacre: her human mind. And with such a massive advantage over all of her brethren, she did perhaps the smartest thing one could do in such a situation, something none of her fellow spiders thought of. She took off like a bat out of hell. Rather than chancing her life in a giant slaughter, she knew her best course of survival would be to skulk, plot, plan, and of course, avoid confrontation like the plague.

Thus she survived, honing her spidery skills, learning when to fight and when to flee (mostly when to flee). She slowly trekked through the cavern she called home, a sprawling system of twisting tunnels that she eventually found out was the Elro Great Labyrinth, a labyrinth she intended to escape.

Near the end of that quest to grow strong and claw her way out of that cave, Omni took notice of her. Another stroke of either fortune or misfortune by the whims of a god, and she once again found herself waking up in a new world....

Appearance

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Kumoko is a type of spider known in her world as a Taratect, a type of very large spider that look and act similar to Corner Funnel Weavers, though with several distinctions. They have three segments, one of which being a head, instead of the two spiders have, and rather than fangs, they have a mouth, though being spiders, they’re still unable to use this mouth to communicate. They also have much more color variation to them, ranging from greys and blacks, to Kumoko’s purple and pink coloration.

Kumoko’s body measures about 4 feet from her mouth to the end of her abdomen, and she has a total leg span of about 4.75 feet. From the ground to the top of her cephalothorax is about 2.5 feet. She weighs around 40 lbs. She also has 8 black, beady eyes, as spiders tend to have. Despite being a spider, she’s surprisingly expressive (at least in how she flails all 8 of her spidery legs around), and those adept at reading body language might be able to tell what she’s thinking just by her wild gesticulations.

Size Reference:

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Personality (WIP)

For better or worse, living as a spider in a video game-esque world has changed Kumoko. She, at one point, had been a normal high school girl. Less chatty and more of a hermit than most, but a high school girl nonetheless. She kept to herself, tried to avoid meeting people, and in general just entertained herself with her thoughts. These traits were perhaps what helped keep her from losing her mind in the Elro Great Labyrinth. With only herself to keep company, she often talked and formulated plans with herself, talking as though with another person. Of course, as useful as these traits were for not going completely batshit, they made her more... susceptible to other things.

Long times of total isolation still left Kumoko with some mental afflictions. She's entirely merciless and guiltless towards her enemies, no matter how they beg or plead for their lives. If they wanted to live, they shouldn't have attacked her, after all. Someone who kills must be prepared to die as well. But, while she's all too happy to chase down anything she thinks she can take down with wild abandon, she's not completely homicidal. Perhaps as a left-over from being human, she's still reluctant to fight humans. Of course, that immediately goes out the window if they attack her. Self-defense and all.

Despite being fairly merciless, Kumoko isn't really all that fearless. She tends to get really panicky when her life is on the line. Which, with her usual, emotive attitude, lends to a lot of wild flailing and running about. Her "fight or flight" response defaults to "flight" of course, so it's not like she's about to make any wild mistakes while in this state. Rather, she does a lot of frantic dodging. Of course, this isn't mindless. She's still a thinker, and will desperately try to come up with any plan she can to work around her enemy's abilities with just the tools she has.

When it comes to socializing, she'd rather not. She likes to complain about being lonely, but when given the opportunity, she tends to half-ass things and get a bit grouchy, but she'll typically reluctantly accept them and secretly wants them to stay around. Rarely, she'll outright tell someone to leave her alone, but that's usually only when she's annoyed by them. Though given that she tends to wear her heart on her sleeve, with how much she emotes and gesticulates, it can sometimes feel like she is asking someone to leave.

Given that she's a spider, she can't talk normally. When she's given the ability to, however that may be, she speaks slowly, with frequent pauses, as though thinking about every word before she says it. Her tone also tends to come off as curt and vaguely annoyed. This is just because she's a total, socially anxious loner.

Those who communicate with her telepathically, on the other hand, get a healthy dose of her usual train-of-thought. In her mind, she's energetic and loves to talk, going off on tangents, giving her commentary on everything she sees, and so on.

Kumoko's also a huge chuunibyou. It often doesn't seem like it at first glance, or really many subsequent glances because she's fairly reserved about herself, but she loves imagining herself in positiosn where she can be cool/epic/edgy.