Appearance

Physical Description

Bej is *typically* a dense orb of blood red goo the side of a softball. Highly mobile in this state, but very loosely protected, with no permanent organs of any kind or way to store the energy required to exist. Bej can only exist outside of a host or predatory fugue for a limited period of time on their own.
 
Bej's current long-term Host is a Ygreasian alien, a resident of Yger Prime. They're eel-like, humanoid beings with sharp teeth, gills and lungs, and webbed feet and hands. Bej resides "mostly" in the brainpan of the host, but also distributes along nervous and circulatory paths and can even permeate into the musculature.

Body Features

Bej's default state is just a squirmy little puddle. It doesn't look like much of anything. She *does* possess the long-term memory storage required to create body parts (eyes, temporary limbs, heat pits, etc), but this is energy inefficient and only to be used in emergencies. Typically when leaving hosts, Bej just jumps based on last known heading- it turns into a crapshoot if the target isn't immobilized or is aware of the attempt in some way.

Facial Features

no face

Identifying Characteristics

red

Physical quirks

hungry all the time. When inside a warm blooded host, speeds up metabolic processes immensely and, as a result, tends to heat up. This means that Bej is usually constantly doing whatever she can to shed the body's waste heat (sweating, panting, disrobing etc). Bej tries to avoid using hosts long-term if they have some issue dispersing excess heat.

Apparel & Accessories

as little as possible

Special abilities

Flash-growth: Bej possesses the ability to rapidly grow new flesh. This is an EXTREMELY fast form of cellular division, and as a result tends to decay within minutes of the growth unless continually reinforced. It's calorie-inefficient compared to normal cellular processes, and without Bej around to control the processes the VAST majority of hosts will see flash-grown flesh slough off on the order of seconds to minutes. Exceptions are those with their own natural shapeshifting ability or other method to control the integrity of their body. This *does* leave a host body significantly drained of stored energy reserves, although Bej occasionally supplements with her own supply.
 
Sosij:

Mentality

Education

No formal education whatsoever.
Bej has approximately 300 years of life experience with varying degrees of competency in that task. She often remembers things she's done repeatedly or that interested her greatly (eating, breaking into things to eat, doing work to eat, computer programming) and lets the rest fall by the wayside. She doesn't often fully remember host memories, although she has picked up enough to be generally informed of what is happening around her.

Employment

Bej does WORK for FOOD.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Alive
Sapient

Failures & Embarrassments

Bej has had three major formative moments in her life, two of which took the form of failures:
the first was the lost of the Possiltum and her role in its abandonment. While not *personally* responsible for the loss of life, her antics onboard the ship resulted arguably in a much worse disaster than what may have otherwise occurred. It also resulted in her acquisition of her current Host, one of the few beings that she has been completely unable to borrow the memories of. The method of that acquisition didn't sit well with Bej for reasons she has yet to fully comprehend.
 
the second was her failed merging with Metric Parsnip Pasternak during the escape from the Trash Nebula. While she intended to only do the move for expediency and mutual survival, her botched attempt resulted in an imperfect and unusually powerful move and a resultant mental breakdown. Parsnip's moral compass (i.e. the fact that she had one) bothered Bej and allowed her to re contextualize some of her actions for the worse. While this hasn't changed her completely, continued interaction with a being whom she shares a set of memories with has been... unique, to say the least.

Mental Trauma

Bej has acquired the vast majority of her personality as the result of "borrowing" the minds of sapient beings while retaining control of their bodies. Her personality is a gestalt of her own primal instincts and the strongest thoughts and feelings of the people that she's merged with.

Morality & Philosophy

Bej's main interest is survival of herself as an independent being. Her second interest is hedonism- specifically, pleasures of the mouth. Bej is a sensate who revels in new and unique flavors, being able to enjoy specialty cuisine that might kill another, less powerful being.
 
More recently, she melded minds with a few people that had these things called "morals" and is learning about that. Apparently there are principles beyond just acting pleasant to people and/or killing them.

person.sexuality

Non-existent. Bej is not interested in reproductive processes. Bej's natural process is a Bad Idea, and saddling a host with unwanted offspring is at best a waste of perfectly good calories/eatin' time and at worst a morally repugnant idea. Bej derives minimal pleasure from intercourse, although has tried it once or twice on various bodies. Bej keeps those nerve impulses turned off most of the time.

person.gender_identity

Bej mostly identifies as female if only because all three of her most "formative" hosts were female. She will default to her host's pronouns when in disguise.

Taboos

Bej will *not* under any circumstances divide. This is something that is theoretically possible in Bej's slime form, to produce a second creature that is, in theory, exactly like Bej. In practice, genetic memory drift could eventually give way to a being that acts like Hive, which would be Bad. Hive wanted to eat the galaxy. The galaxy is where basically all the food is. So Hive is bad. So don't divide, because that might mean another Hive. No, we'll keep everything all wound up inside US, and then not have to worry about drift ever.

Known Languages

all

Personality

Social