niche kin appreciation 3: share 5 fun facts about your kin

hell yeah i love fun facts! here are five enderman things that are not canon in the game but are in my memories:

1. enderpearls are what make endermen able to teleport! in reality, they are not pearls, but a very specialized organ inside the body that uses nutrients only found in chorus fruit to gather teleportation magic. the more chorus fruit an enderman eats, the more powerful its enderpearl will be.
2. did you know that endermen are able to teleport between dimensions? thats why we can be found in all three of them! we have to wait until our enderpearl is strong enough though, so if an enderling doesnt eat enough chorus fruit, its enderpearl will atrophy causing long-term health issues and making it unable to teleport properly.
3. even though we are nomadic, its not that common for us to want to leave our dimensions of origin, instead we prefer to wander the biomes of our home. there are endermen who choose the erratic lifestyle though, and they are called Wanderers. most of the enderfolk found in the Overworld are actually Wanderers.
4. enderfolk from different dimensions have COMPLETELY different cultures. the End people (also called Enderians) are the most “organized” society, as the majority of endermen are born and raised in this dimension. they are structured in familial units, called hauntings, formed by the adults (usually 3-5) and a couple of enderlings and tweens. there is more sense of community there than in other dimensions, unlike in my place of origin, the Nether. Warped Forest enderfolk like myself are less structured, and raise our young communally until theyre strong enough to be on their own. once their enderpearl is fully developed, some enderlings choose to travel to the End, either to settle in or simply to visit, while others opt to stay in the Nether. a few of them will become Wanderers, and are never seen again.
5. the reason why you shouldnt look an enderman in the eyes is because it is painful for us. we are a slightly telepathic species (we cant full-on read others thoughts, but we can perceive their “vibe”, more or less). when an enderman looks at other endermans eyes, it forms a connection between them. this is very vulnerable for both parts, so its only done between haunting members and considered incredibly taboo outside of them. when a human makes eye contact with an enderman, it forces the connection to form, which causes a lot of pain and anger due to the violated taboo.