Mona Fletcher

Mona Fletcher, picrew: baydews' avatar maker V2

Mona Fletcher is the host for her dreamon, King, and her laurel consists of Black Dahlias and Green Birdflowers. She is a 20 year old Shapeshifter from a non specific forest located in Scotland. Mona is self described as "intersex and trans feminine", implying that as a human she actively chooses to present herself as feminine, as shown with the use of She/They pronouns and other, smaller implied actions or behaviors. She's known for joining the main server in connection to her best friend Fetch, as well as allowing him, Maxwell, and Marcus to stay with her two weeks before her coronation on March 20th, as The Fourth. Mona was the second host to be put to sleep by Crown, and the first to be woken up after a month of hibernation. She has suffered from symptoms of this sleep, such as hand tremors, trouble walking, short term memory loss, and difficulty with directions and locations, which are all symptoms of recovery from a long term coma.

She is often "masked", holding an imprinted human form as a disguise, but has been known to "unshift" completely when relaxed or feeling safe. Her "shifter form", also known as her unshifted form, is a mountain lion-sized centaur-like mammal, with an elongated face adorned with dark grey horns, two bright cyan mouths, two pairs of ears, six limbs (hindlimbs/paws, forepaws, forelimbs), and a long forked tail. The colors of her form are split down the middle in a way usually seen in gynandromorphic insects and crustaceans, with her right half being a burnt orange color with reddish brown leopard spots, and the left half being a cool blueish-gray with dull purple tabby stripes, and a cream colored underbelly.

## Personality

Mona and King share a lot of similarities in their personalities, with a few key differences. While neither particularly enjoy leaving the house, Mona is significantly more agoraphobic than King. She seems to have an uncontrollable attention to detail in her limited interactions with government offices and paperwork, given her near perfect credit score and extremely "normal" outward appearance to her neighbors and former co workers. Early on, this was considered a strange character choice, rather than an important aspect of her being a Shapeshifter and having an instinctual "hide in plain sight" response to stress and public interactions.

Her music choice reflects a struggle with her self image, as she struggles to see being a Shapeshifter as anything other than "lying about who [she is] to fit in", a view that doesn't seem to apply to others, even if they express that they've done similar things to get by. This struggle seems to come from her belief that being a Shapeshifter is "morally and ethically wrong", considering the fact that she often can't inform others of her species to be revoking their ability to decide for themselves. This complicated view of herself is self described to be hypocritical, as in many interactions she states that "it only applies to [herself]", and "[she] wouldn't even be this upset about other Shapeshifters doing the same thing".

The family often looks up to her for her generally positive demeanor, even going to her for advice or help with chores and other work. She never seems to begrudge doing work for others, and has been shown to understand topics relating to personal mental and physical health when handling people who are struggling to cope with traumatic or panicking situations [eg. Baroness's problems with Syd, Llyr's gills, Ethan's shapeshifting, Page's trouble with Maxwell, Maxwell's binder, etc.]. Before her sleep, she was known for appearing during moments such as splinting King's hand with Baroness and Duke, and helping to pack Knight's wounds after fighting with Jay. During both events, she made an appearance to give positive affirmations to Baroness and Viscount, expressing her pride in their efforts and showing gratitude for their ability to keep her "secret" safe (the secret being that she was an active host, and not being a Shapeshifter, as she didn't know anyone else knew by this point).

Mona struggles to prioritize the "correct" things, as she had been shown in the beginning to have things in her home often trademarked as "survival kits" (multiple well stocked first aid kits, 20 lb. sacks of rice and other 'bulk' food, cases of water bottles, emergency supplies) with seemingly no reason. Despite this, she kept an unlocked filing cabinet with lists of these same supplies that could be easily accessed by Baroness, who would break into her home to cause her disorder and, eventually, begin her laurels growth process. There were many instances of similar overlooked details, such as leaving the front door unlocked while Fetch was missing overnight despite knowing it would be an open invitation for Baroness or Crown to enter, creating a blog for her dreamon's use, but leaving the password as "crown", and many other smaller issues that seemed too "daring" and "dangerous" to be normal behavior for her. It is later revealed that she herself has no idea why she behaved this way aside from not being used to being around more than one person at the same time from years of living alone, and simply didn't consider the consequences of her actions.

## Relationships

In many instances, Mona has referenced and implied that she has never purposefully made friends, with multiple explicit references to staying in the same house for four straight years, and only leaving for her shifts at work. Due to this, she is never seen interacting with non family members on purpose, as every instance of speaking to others have been at the behest of her dreamon King, or being contacted by mineshaft dwellers. Mona doesn't enjoy leaving the house or being too far away for too long, as she complains about being too "out in the open".

### With other Hosts

Mona holds a positive relationship with all other hosts, most notably with Fetch, Marcus, and Maxwell due to spending two weeks living with them in her home. She describes Fetch as her "best friend" and her "priority", though since joining the family has stopped relying on him so heavily for social support. She's a guardian figure to Maxwell and his dreamon, helping him with his homework, supporting his efforts, helping him in the kitchen, and lying to his mother about being a "tutor assigned by his school" to keep her from making him go home. Mona attempts to have a more sibling-like relationship to Marcus, trying to help him and his dreamon with the families dinner, but is often supported by him instead (his and Viscount's efforts to help her with her childhood issues and her current situation involving hand tremors and short term memory loss). She was active in attempting to help Jay escape Judge's control, and currently helps King care for his kitten Mittens. Mona also holds a good relationship with Kate and her own dreamon, showing support for her after her return from Eden Labs. She doesn't interact much with other hosts, but due to her dreamon's positive relationship with them, it is implied she would get along well with Asher, Lee, and Elizabeth as well. She has no relationship or connection to the hosts of the Duchy, and has had no previous interactions with Syd.

### With Dreamons

Mona has a somewhat more complicated relationship with other dreamons, with a wider range of reactions. Due to limited, though extremely negative interactions with Duke, Duchess, and Judge (though she retains a positive opinion of "Chorus"), she doesn't actively consider them friends and behaves protectively towards family members who are treated poorly by them. She holds a positive, though strained relationship with Knight, due entirely to not telling him that she is awake and knows what happened to his host (choosing to let King handle interactions with him instead). She holds a similar relationship to Viscount and Page that she does with their hosts, often choosing to treat them as close siblings to each other and neglecting to specify who she's speaking to out of either pair. She has never personally met Duchess, Prince, Baron, Jester, or Countess, but otherwise holds a positive opinion on them (aside from Duchess). She has a very positive personal relationship with Baroness, as she convinced King to become close to her to help with her problems involving her host Syd, and has since become very close friends (trusting her with personal information and belongings, despite knowing her history of breaking and entering and overall privacy violations). Mona is known to feel very close to Crown, treating him like a beloved and trusted friend despite serious past issues, and feels very soft towards him using the nickname "my little K1ng".

### With Non-Court

Though her interactions with those outside of the Court are few and far between, she shows a good-to-neutral view of people as a general rule. She has become good friends with mineshaft dwellers such as Llyr, Ethan, Freckle, and Waffle, as well as having a generally positive (though implied one-sided) view of others like Jack and Grimm. Certain discs, such as Thirteen, Chirps, and 11, are known by her to be more "pushy and cruel", though only through their interactions with King. Mona's previous history working in Walmart shows that she was good at customer service work, if only because the idea of a "customer service persona" is fundamentally a lie optimized to prevent conflict and increase the public's perception of the company, something Shapeshifters already do without a profit incentive.

## History

### Shifter Pup Imprinting

Mona was born roughly around November 23rd, 2000, in an unknown forest somewhere in Scotland. She describes her earliest memories as being "blind and deaf", similar to a newborn puppy or kitten. While shifter pups haven't been shown or described in canon, she talks about her only functional sense being smell, and describes the scene as smelling like "it had freshly rained, and [she] was laying on a soft leaf bed in the early morning". She was found and taken in by a family that had recently had their own newborn, and after imprinting fully on them, revealed her shifter features. This resulted in her abandonment, and a subsequent life of changing homes.

### Early Life as a Human

Her early life isn't very well known, aside from talking about a previous home after a nightmare, discussed with Baroness. She described having gone through "at least 30 homes" from infancy until her teen years. She suffered a variety of problems, usually caused by families either finding out about her being a shapeshifter, or already knowing ahead of time and "preparing". Due to not being legally considered a person from her shapeshifter status, she lacks a birth certificate or any medical records, and as a result was never consistently a part of the adoption system. Mona describes that whenever "a case was opened about [her], there would be an investigation, and they would find out [she] was a Shapeshifter, and the charges would be dropped".

Specific homes so far described have been:

* One home, upon finding out she is a Shapeshifter, pulled her from school and began treating her like a house pet. This included pet food bowls, collars and leashes, and encouraging their other children to treat her like a new pet. She considered this home to be "average"
* An unknown number of homes keeping her "in a pet crate", "outside all the time", or making rules that she is "not allowed to touch carpet".
* She briefly describes another as "the worst one", talking about them knowing ahead of time that she was a Shapeshifter, and choosing to keep her in the basement.

### Leaving the Country

Mona describes her time learning to live on her own after leaving school at 16 and moving to America. She mentions to Hyssop that she spent the majority of her time in the library learning how to start her life from scratch. She talked about reading books to learn how to make a bank account, buy her own house, manage funds, build a credit score, and much more. This culminates in the fact that all of her legal paperwork that DEWEY has access to claims that every record, including the first use of the last name "Fletcher", dates back to around 4 years ago (in mid to late 2017) when all of this information was created. She has a lasting fear of going to a doctor for any problems, no matter how serious [eg. her broken hand], due to a fear of her new life being ruined by her status as a Shapeshifter becoming public knowledge. This is implied to potentially have serious consequences, as the potential to have her years of hard work building a convincing "human" persona revoked.

Following this, Mona acquired a spacious house for herself on a few acres of land. She has stated that this was "to allow Fetch to come to her house", but obviously has ulterior motives attached, such as wanting a house. Once she was settled in her own home, her only visitor until the two weeks leading up to her coronation had been Fetch, as she stayed in the same house for four straight years. She never left, except for shifts at work where she would do any shopping needed, and go straight home afterwards.

## Coronation and Hibernation

### Living with the Family

Upon King's awakening after March 20th, 2021, Mona spent a period of time unable to communicate or take control of her body again. Prior to her coronation, she had left a note on her arm under the sleeve that told King about the donttellhim blog, as well as a hint to it's password. Presumably, this is due to Mona having the (correct) idea that Crown was about to cut contact with the server, and wanting to give her dreamon the ability to continue speaking with the outside world (for "a sense of perspective"). Over time, Mona gained a slow but steady connection to her dreamon through notes left on her arms when she slept, and muscle reflex help for menial tasks or job work (eg. knowing the register login at work, knowing how to make certain recipes Mona was known for, etc.). This lead to a stronger bond between the two, giving King a sense of trust in her host to take control over the body without forcing it (Similar to Fetch and Knight, or Page and Max).

Mona took over the body a few times over the course of her first few weeks with the family, often to comfort others or to help where her medical knowledge and understanding of her own first aid kits would be of use. She would also take control in times where Baroness would express guilt or trouble with her host, Syd, offering advice and support however she could. Mona and King were both there for Baroness after her laurel bloomed (growing from a golden leaf laurel to its current iris and larkspur bloom), and attempted to comfort her as much as possible while she coped with the loss. King expressed guilt and stress over lying about her hosts status of activity to the family and server, leading to a spike in sudden outbursts of violence. It is unknown how Mona genuinely feels about these outbursts, but her overall demeanor towards her dreamon suggests a sense of sympathy.

### Put to Sleep

Over time, Mona and King's relationship seemed to become somewhat tense as King began nearly revealing over her blog that she and her host are Shapeshifters on more than one occasion. It seemed that King either didn't understand that there was an issue with being a Shapeshifter, or that she didn't understand why Mona had an issue with it (Later revealed to, in fact, be both). She and Mona began fighting across posts, taking distasteful arguments into the tags. King's attempts to calm her stress in trying to reconcile caring about Crown and the family, and knowing she was actively hiding a blog and host away from them became a major issue when she finally began handling cruel anonymous asks. Upon attempting to relieve stress, she punched back into the hardwood headboard, breaking her hand. These smaller arguments built up over time, and eventually, on April 3rd, the two began a serious fight that resulted in Mona being faced with shifting uncontrollably for the first time in many years.

Following the realization, and being faced with her true form, Mona began screaming loudly enough to catch the family's attention. This lead to Crown catching her and King in the act, and with no other option, was forced to put Mona to sleep under the assumption that she was hurting King.

Mona describes her time asleep as "an open sea, with obstacles, sandbars, and islands all around. [She] slept on a ship, sailing in one direction. [She] could take the helm and steer it, but chooses not to out of fear of straying from her navigating path." Not much has been said past this, as she isn't asked about it. A repeating theme seems to be her insistence that she "hates oceans".

### After Awakening

In order to be awoken, Mona needed to hear the voice of Fetch and be drawn out to help him. Unfortunately, when this event happened, Fetch was already being put to sleep by Crown and Baroness, giving her no reason to stay awake. After this, she was purposefully dormant except in moments where King had purposefully brought her out through similar means. Moments such as having Baroness explain in deeper detail what Mona would have remembered of Syd's Trial, and talking to Page about Max's nightmares of March 20th, brought Mona back for short moments, where she would have control just long enough to understand her surroundings and react, or speak with sign language to Max. Interestingly, this moment with Max marks the first and only time King has been forced out of control, and suffers amnesia of what happened while she had been gone.

Mona was finally fully brought back during a parlor meeting with Viscount/Marcus, Max/Page, Baroness, and Jay. Upon trying to talk about happy memories Mona would share with everyone, they found King could not hold a masked form for long as she began to copy everyone around her. This did not bode well, as King expressed that Mona wouldn't stick around "If she saw [her] shifting". Instead, Viscount/Marcus and Max came up with a backup plan, and began to fight in front of King similarly to the fight they had while living in Mona's house. It worked, as Mona did appear again properly, deciding to stay.

Unfortunately for her, others understood the importance of her facing being a Shapeshifter. When confronted, she expressed blind denial, claiming ""S-H-A-P-E-S-H-I-F-T-E-R-S" aren't a real thing", showing both a disgust towards her species, and a consistent theme following this in which she has trouble saying the words "shapeshifter" and "shifter" out loud. When repeatedly pressed, she began to panic and threaten to not come back again, leading to King taking charge, shifting into a mostly avian form, and leaving Mona stranded with those features. A brief, first separation event occurs as King attempts to hug Mona, supporting her through finally facing what she is for the first time.

Mona faced several moments of others asking about her feelings towards herself, and being called out on her hypocrisy. She seems to respond to others trying to show her support, such as various family members like Crown telling her that she's "safe and loved", and making her repeat it out loud for them, as well as showing appreciation for her shifting when they see her doing it. However, it is a slow process, and her forms are very limited.

She currently faces a variety of symptoms following awakening from her hibernation.

* Short term memory loss
* "Pins and needles" feeling in extremities
* Hand tremors/numbness (unable to write, hold heavy objects, dexterity and motor skills reduced)
* Difficulty following directions/remembering locations
* Trouble walking for long periods of time

These issues are theorized as fixable with sufficient help in these fields.

Mona has also been shown to have a problem with wearing most types of neck jewelry if they are taut around the neck, such as chokers and collars. It has been said she prefers to quietly remove King's favored collar accessory without bringing it up, and in speaking to Baroness, reveals that due to many years of being treated like she has been, it feels restricting and "a bad look". She and King suffering nightmares during their research into Shapeshifters culminated in a fear of hunting traps, which became real when the pair were ensnared while tracking down Kate through Pillager hunting grounds. Mona and King both struggled to recover from the experience, and it isn't clear how this has affected them and their research.

## Living as a Shapeshifter

    Mona and her dreamon King are Shapeshifters, meaning they are an example of a species studied under Congemorphology, or the study of Shapeshifters (not to be mistaken for Morphometrics, the study of shifting creatures and form shifting). A Shapeshifter is a species of mammal that is capable of taking in and absorbing pheromones from the air to aid in their perception of their surroundings, and use them to blend in and "mask" as other species convincingly for survival. Also known as "Shifters", they are known for having a "base", or "unshifted" form, and a "masked" or "imprint" form.

Mona and King's "unshifted" form is a 6 limbed animal roughly the size of a mountain lion. She doesn't often take this form unless she feels exceptionally comfortable, in such cases as being around family members, or showing off to Ethan. The majority of her time is spent masked, as she harbors a fear of being "caught", even in settings where this isn't a rational fear. She seems capable of shifting rapidly between her "base" and "mask" form, able to balance between the two in a "sliding scale" fashion. Viscount expressed to Mona and King that he knew she was a Shapeshifter from the moment they met in her home, including details from her childhood. This knowledge seemed to distress her, as she doesn't often discuss these more personal things.

Being a Shapeshifter has caused Mona many problems throughout her life, with humans holding a disdain for creatures they consider "less than human", like hybrids, and "imitating humans", like shifting creatures. She expresses that had she imprinted on any other animal, these issues would not have happened to her, showing that wild animals do not share the same hatred or malice that humans have, and suggests less of a "parasitic" ecological relationship, and more of a "commensalism" relationship. It's unknown if there are humans who are knowledgeable about Shapeshifters aside from the multitude of scientific studies on captured Shifters, which according to King and Mona, are all written "by humans, for humans". Many references to these books and studies suggest that all focus on either experimentation on a single, captured Shifter, or in the form of classic animal hunting and trapping guides, such as those used by homesteaders and farmers to learn their craft. Because of this, Mona and King both suffer nightmares and frequently have to take breaks from their studies. Interestingly, it is also implied that Mona's hobby in Taxidermy comes from a desire to copy forms, but inability to do so, thus making it a coping mechanism. However, knowing how many resources on Shifters rely on hunting and usage techniques, there is always the chance that she had been reading about Shifters beforehand, and was putting what she was learning to use on other animals.

List of books confirmed to exist by name:

* The Workman's Guide to Local Shifters

It is suggested that Shapeshifters gain forms through pheromonal-emotional association. That is, smells have no meaning until the Shapeshifter puts meaning into it, and therefore associates a form with that smell. Mona and King do this in many ways, such as associating hummingbird features with the smell of Lavender and Sweet Orange, a popular essential oil used with aroma diffusers, and a smell she claims is heavily associated with Baroness, who smells "floral". She seems to also associate Enderman features with Crown and Jay, rat features with Max and Page, and many others. Presumably, these characters all have unique pheromones that Mona can use to track their movements around the mansion and outside, such as she did to Asher when tracking faem into the forest outside the barrier. It has been confirmed that Shifters have two ways of smelling their surroundings; through their nose, and using a vomeronasal organ.

### Shifting used to help/communicate

Mona is shown to be willing to use what she knows of shifting to help others. She put effort into helping King discover what type of gills Llyr had been given, and develop a stretch routine that could relieve pain and build a better muscle structure, resulting in better breathing. Though she hates the ocean, she doesn't seem to have an issue with water in general, and theoretically would be able to swim and use the resulting carpet shark gills. She was also revealed to know quite a bit about what being a Shifter is like, despite her consistent denial, when asked to assist Ethan. She spent a while speaking to him about the problems he was having in controlling his form, and offered a solution. She managed to teach Ethan how to unshift to his masked form, and then further still partially into his unshifted form. Mona discussed during this the idea of "marking" other non-shifters, mentioning that Shifters have "scent glands" in their hands/forepaws, which when touched and prodded, release a lasting scent oil onto anything touched by the paws. This effect gives the one marked by the oil a smell of the Shifter they have been touched by, telling all local Shifters they come into contact with that they're "safe" to be around. The social aspect of pheromonal response may extend deeper than this, due to the level of trust required to mark someone as genuinely safe, with no doubts.

Shapeshifter blood has a similar "marking" technique, as it's much thinner, stickier, and has a "soaking" effect in which fabric stains are nearly impossible to remove, and the ground it falls upon remains marked for a long period of time. When Grimm killed a Shapeshifter in the woods and returned to the Mineshaft, ko remained "stained" for several weeks. During this time, Ethan remained in the Records Room away from the smell, while Mona and King struggled to enter the Mineshaft at all. The smell is described by Shifters as feeling as though they're being "maced", and gives them a sudden burst of adrenaline that triggers a fight or flight reflex, though non-shifters are incapable of smelling it in the same way they cannot smell the pheromones Shifters use to identify one another, and cannot tell if they have been marked in any way. This is implied to be a silent way for Shifters to communicate who, where, and what is safe or dangerous without crossing paths, as Mona and King have a strange "territorial" reaction to being around Ethan, and vice versa.

Another factor of communication in shifting is their tendency to "copy" others affectionately. Using shifting, Mona and King enjoy parroting speech, accents, tones, and tunes, and will copy features of people and animals they feel affectionate about, and will shift more aggressive and menacing features towards those they feel are threatening or dangerous. Even if they aren't directly copying features of the people they like, they will often substitute for features of *their* favorite animals or people in the hopes of garnering a similar positive social bond.

## Trivia

* Mona will usually only ever use four periods per ellipses ("...." instead of the grammatically correct "..."). This has been consistent since she joined the server. (she also uses the same for most other groupings of punctuation marks, and in any elongated word eg. "helloooo", "oh noooo!!!!", etc)

* She is intersex, and her shifter forms colors resemble a gynandromorph, she has a dreamon (making her part of a "pair"), and she is highly connected to Fetch and Knight, referred to as "The Second". This suggests a long running theme of "doubles" across many aspects of her character, and hints towards her "true, unshifted" form having many doubled features
* Her favorite number is 64, a reference to the maximum stack number in Minecraft
* She is the only court member to have not been asked about her preference in chicken nuggets
* Her and King's favorite color being cyan, her overall character being closely associated with the colors purple and pink, and her dreamons character being associated with the color yellow nearly creates a parallel to ink color CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black)
* Her blog's name "donttellhim" is referenced many times, and usually exclusively in reference to Crown and Fetch ("dont tell him i joined for him", "dont tell him about the blog", etc.)
* A common theme among dreamons is that they act like a "younger, happier version" of their host, usually in reference to life's many dark corners being obscured by a the naïve, childhood view of reality. King is one of the few dreamons who seem to not follow this rule, as no part of Mona's childhood was particularly happy or good to look back on.
	+ Instead, King holds a much more childish view on being a shifter, ignoring Mona's more outrageous fears, which makes her seem reckless to her host.

* Her favorite poem is The Orange by Wendy Cope, and she holds a strong affinity for oranges over many other types of fruit. This is likely a metaphor for Mona's desire for the company of friends and family.
* Mona and King being trapped in a snare and suffering a near death experience may be a reference to Watership Down, and a scene in which Big Wig is trapped in a snare in Cowslip's warren and is saved when the other rabbits come to his aid.
* She seems to be considering a deal with Hyssop, in which she would be giving up all of her troubling childhood memories. There is no specified price for this deal, which implies that removing these memories is both the benefit and the cost.
* Her natural hair color is unknown, but assumed to be similar to her unshifted mane color. She is shown to be able to change her hair color on her own, and it is implied that despite her fear of shapeshifting, she had still managed to face her fears for the sake of really cool purple hair.
* Her sexuality isn't known, but she and King are both quoted as saying "[they aren't] immune to pretty people"
* Mona has a preference for clothes that are more monochrome, which contrasts with her dreamons preference for brightly colored print shirts
* She has a very small tattoo of an orange, an orange sliced in half, and a single orange slice (one on top of the other, in consecutive order) on the left side of her ribs.