ecto

Essentially, it's a universe where instead of dying, humans survived the near-extinction event that caused the end of the world in the main universe. Similar to how the last scientists of the main universe dedicated themselves to preserving humanity, whatever climate disaster happened caused humanity to actually improve itself for once and work towards the greater good, causing a bit of a new Renaissance. There still is major repercussions already at this point, such as major water rising and a majorly shrunken population. So a lot of people have moved into other countries to avoid the rising waters. There's a lot of Asians in America, which is how Frye and Shiver's families ended up there. Large communities stuck together to try and keep the culture strong.

However, during space exploration, presumably on Mars, they accidentally got the attention of an alien race (whether they were always there or were just also colonizing it...), the Octarians. Taking a little rover as a massive slight against them, they declared war and the "Great Turf War" is basically an alien invasion story. This war happened about 50 years before the current timeline, and only ended by nuking the hell out of them. They still exist in underground bunkers in the nuclear wasteland where they were herded into and nuked (the central area of America). This is a total no-go area now, for various reasons, though border towns exist and is where a lot of the modern drama happened. The Renaissance happening for such a short period of time and being ruined by another major death incident pretty much ruined everyones morale, even through the generations, leading to the more bleak "who gives a fuck about anything" street attitude most of the characters have now.

• Border Towns: Areas that are a cross between those towns that people refuse to move out of after a disaster, and horrible drug infested trailer parks. The worst types of places to live, as there would be major nuclear health risks, plus aliens running around ends up in interesting situations...
• Cities: Tend to be crazy crime ridden, though there's a lot of focus on trying to get kids to have better prospects. A lot of teens are in youth gangs that do plenty of petty crime. Being frequently in and out of juvie is not rare.
• Rural areas: A lot more liveable than the other areas, but generally aren't serviced by the government that well. Essentially, you have a much better community, but hope you enjoy living like its the 1930s.

In appearance, they're somewhere between Octolings and humans. They're somewhat shapeshifters, though individuals are better or worse at looking like humans. The main issue is their eye masks, and well, obviously the tentacles. They can be kinda "split" to look more like hair, but it does look a bit... off, usually. Like a lot of creatures that live underground, they're not strictly male or female. They tend to disguise as what they think they'd pass as best as humans. For example, Ominira looks like a girl because she thinks girls are treated better, and Marina wants Pearl's attention lol. They tend to get obsessive over one person and that's how relationships form. This can cause problems. Human/Alien halfies do exist and are a weird topic. The hybrids don't have the eye masks, but have the tentacles. And have human sexes. How they're treated by their parents varies wildly.

• Kaori (Agent 3): A teen girl from a neglectful druggie family. Has been in and out of kiddie gangs and juvie since she was quite young. Had just gotten out of her latest stint and was off to do some more Not So Legal activities when she accidentally came across Octarian territory. Cuttlefish brought her in after this, and gets her to do tasks for him. She bitches about it at first, but he ends up being the first older figure she really likes and respects.
• John: One of Kaori's only actual friends. They've gotten in trouble together a few times. His family is pretty much as normal and caring as a low income family in Crime City could be, and tried their best to make sure he turns out normal too, but he got caught up in the angsty and violent youth culture. Made fun of Kaori for her softening up at first, but ends up joining her.
• Susume (Agent 4): A younger teen from the countryside. Is also somewhat poor, but out in the rural areas, this tends to mean 3 generations of a family living together in a small farm house, rather than being crazy people living in a drug den. She has a shockingly innocent and genki personality. Was probably in the city for school or part-time job, when she stumbled into Kaori's work.
• Curtis: A younger teen boy, who's family is from the city but moved out to the countryside to try and give him a better life. While the countryside is less chaotic, there's probably way less services and so people have to be way more self reliant... Which he doesn't like, and he always complains about wanting to return. Ends up hanging around Susume since she's now going back and forth to the city frequently.
• Ominira (Agent 8): An alien girl kidnapped at a young age by the government to be experimented on. Acts extremely meek and doesn't know much about the culture of Her People(TM). Tried escaping after hearing others have escaped before, nearly fails, but gets found by Cuttlefish by coincidence. Kaori ends up helping her out, which is a massive mistake, because Ominira becomes obsessed with her.
• Mahari:An alien boy who knew Ominira from the labs. Escaped before her and by himself. Ends up tracking her down later. He also has no connection to "his culture", but hates humans too much to care and want to try and blend in with them.
• Veronika (Agent n3): From one of the border towns, which are basically like a crossover between a hillbilly trailer park and a homeless town. Her family is similar to Kaori's, but more aggressive. She spends a lot of time in areas she shouldn't be in, which is how she ends up getting dragged in to agent work. Is also one step away from being a chain smoker.
• Hiro: Young teen, who moved to Veronika's border town at a very young age with his single mother. Moving to a border town is very unusual and would generally only happen in cases where someone is escaping another nearby border town for some reason or another, so everyone already figures something strange is up. His mother is extremely distant but tries to care, and he is probably the best behaving kid in the entire region. Ends up being Veronika's manslave due to being a pushover for her.
• Pearl: A dyke from a rich family, hopefully has at least one sibling to keep the family line going... Large families are probably heavily encouraged, so it's likely. Being rich in this sort of setting, she'd have a decently sheltered upbringing, which inspired her to learn more about normal youth culture and get into death metal. That part of her life is relatively the same to canon, such as meeting Marina and being inspired by her music, forming a duo with her, and so on.
• Marina: An Octarian who got interested in music through... hacking radiowaves? Who knows. They don't have music in their culture, so while most Octarians completely dismiss it, some are heavily affected by it and seek it out, Marina being in the latter category. She dedicated herself to learning it, and took a particular interest in Pearl, so sought her out (in a form she knew she'd like). She has a bit of a yandere obsession with Pearl, and gets found out eventually. Don't worry, she chills out once she learns to be more normal.
• Shiver: She's probably a halfie... But is also from a long-standing honorable Japanese family... Funny enough, her mask in canon is based on Kitsune masks which are shapeshifting tricksters... Well, something happened, and Shiver's family thought they were having a normal child, so it was all announced and everything, and then... Well, they couldn't get rid of It without it being obvious. So, she was raised normally (though totally out of the public eye until a bit older), and pretty much acts the exact same as she does in canon. She probably has wildly different relationships with various members of her family (mother, not-father, and two older brothers). She has a more chaotic personality than the rest of the family as well. Her brothers adore her still, her parents... don't, but still protect her and do their best to raise her right. As usual, she loves festivals, and met Frye through them.