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Silly little door thing with silly little colours and shapes

Being a spiral avatar fictive is great. It comes with so many perks. The main one being that when you're asked why you're Being Like That, you can simply say "spiral" and not elaborate. The next best perk is why do I have psychosis worse than the rest of us.

#plural #plurality #pluralgang #plural system #pluralpunk #syspunk #cdd system #endo safe #fictive #fictinfolk #tma fictive #tma fictionfolk #tma fictionkin #tma alterhuman #op

Walking through the shopping centre and watching as my reflection in the freezer aisle doors shifts and moves just a little bit wrong. Is it a product of the glass itself, or is my mind filling in details as to what is no longer there? Hard to tell. But it does not matter. I am not human, and the glass reflects back at me, a little more true than most. The reflection knows what I am.

Big Fish Phantom Shifts

Phantom shifts are often kind of "in the way" for a lot of people. Wings clipping through or bumping into walls. Antlers or horns bonking things. Tails being annoying to deal with when faced with the back of a chair... You get it. I have... a definite problem with this in a very similar way, but it's different than any of the guys in my system with phantom shifts. Namely because I'm a very fucking long fish, made for open water.

My tail at its shortest? Easily 3x the height of my body, if not more. It replaces my legs when I get a phantom shift and I definitely rely on using my cane more in those moments because my legs feel a lot less "real" than they should, and I always feel at more risk of tripping or taking a step wrong. I can still feel my human legs, sure, but they kind of become an afterthought and less present in my mind. Kind of dissociated, less a part of me and more a part of... Something else.

I don't directly feel every inch of my phantom tail though either--more like... There's a sense of there should be a sensation there. I don't feel much aside from where it should connect and curve away from my human body--everything else is a lot less physical. The sense of "this should have feeling" means I don't get hurt or any real direct sensation from it interacting or not fitting in physical objects properly, but it's still a sense of mental discomfort. A sense of "I shouldn't be able to fit here", or a sense of "this should be kinda painful". If I'm in a space where I can't make a logical conclusion to where my tail could possibly fit in a comfortable way, it's like a nagging at the back of my brain telling me to move. Even though I can't physically feel where my tail is or that it would be uncomfortable, my brain knows I shouldn't be able to be in whatever position it is that I'm currently in, and urges me to get to somewhere more comfortable ASAP.

Even though it doesn't cause much physical distress, the tail being so long makes it incredibly annoying when dealing with shifts in the body and performing daily tasks. Walking around outside? Oops, that car just ran over my tail, that should probably hurt. That guy is standing in it, okay sure. It doesn't fit into the car I'm in and my brain can't figure out what to do with that information.

I try to do things in my house? The thing hardly fits in my room, let alone on my bed. Turning around corners can be annoying because my brain will scream about how I'm turning in a way that would hurt my tail. Sitting on a couch is the same issue as the bed. Oops, the dog just walked up and fell asleep where my tail should be, that's bound to have some sort of discomfort.

It's overall not the biggest issue, it's manageable, but it's a weird psychological thing that bugs me sometimes. I'm glad I don't have physical sensation in it because that would be impossible to manage, but having the mental push of "this isn't right, your tail can't fit here" still is... An Experience to have. Most other people in my system can feel a large portion of their phantom limbs, but it honestly makes sense as to why I can't feel mine in the same way--I just literally wouldn't fit in human society. In both of my forms (vast/hunt leviathan and Sebastian Solace), my body is made for open water, not houses, stores or cars.

The Phoenix's Fortune--My Feeding Method as a Web/Desolation Avatar

I have a casino in-system, in the headspace. It's based on the one I had in my life before. I'm noncanon, but sourced from The Magnus Archives. TL;DR for those who are unfamiliar with the source itself, there's eldritch entities tied to certain fears, that influence and bind parts of themselves to people (who are called avatars). I'm an avatar of The Desolation (fears of fire, destruction of potential, loss) and The Web (fears of arachnophobia, manipulation/being controlled, addiction). Avatars feed themselves and their attached entities off of that fear they generate.

So, I was a weird case, being tied to two entities at once. I had to find my own ways to feed, if I wanted to be productive and feed both at once--which seemed to be the best course of action. And what kills two birds with one stone so-to-speak? Life-destroying addiction, of course! So, after deciding I didn't fit in with the other avatars of my home in the UK, I moved to somewhere in the USA and made myself a casino. I named it The Phoenix's Fortune--kind of a normal casino-y name and whatnot. But, the point of the name itself was that I was technically the phoenix gaining from everyone elses downfall. Bit of a nod to the phoenix rising from its own ashes thing--I just gain from everyone elses instead. That play on words being unknown to most people who frequented the casino fed The Web, subtly.

I don't remember where in the US it was, in all honesty. In life it also had a bar area and all that, but other than that it kind of… Looked like a casino if it were run by a volcano-phoenix worshipping cult. Mostly actual fire as lighting--oil lanterns lining the walls, big, ornate metal fire pits on the ground. I loved the phoenix imagery, so there was plenty of that around. Things like carvings on the walls, statues, and other miscellanious decor. I loved my lanterns--but I also loved fire pits. Huge, metal or concrete bowls that stand on the ground with fire in them. Mine were metal, of course. Concrete wouldn't heat up and burn if you were to accidentally touch it, and that's no fun. Any "accidents" fuelled The Desolation, at least a little.

Being tied to The Desolation, it of course was uncomfortably hot to be in the building at all. All the fire pits certianly helped with that. But of course, addiction doesn't care about that sort of thing... Uncomfortability is mild compared to eldrith-entity fuelled drive to gamble. People came and stayed despite the heat and thick smell of smoke. The slot machines and other things I had in there for people to waste their money away on were also warm to the touch. When you'd first start gambling, it was mainly a sense of discomfort. The deeper people fell into the trap of addiction, though, the hotter the equipment got, until their hands weren't necessarily recogniseable as hands, or some even fused into the objects themselves from the melting heat--trapping them there physically. That definitely fuelled my own fire.

The Web needed more than just wordplay, though. So, I decided to prolong the addiction, wrap people up in more threads of fate, and open the opportunity for more burning later down the line. I had plenty of people come to me, having spent their life savings on those damn machines, begging me to help them--people in desperate situations try desparate things. So, I gave out loans--money meant nothing to me in the end, and I had plenty. Of course, some would just spend it right away and that was a nice chance to melt some people for taking advantage of my "generosity".

Others would try to actually pick their life back up! But rarely did the money make its way back to me. So, a bit of waiting, watching them pick up the pieces, unknowing of anything I'm pulling behind the scenes. And eventually, there would be more burning. Either they made mistakes on their own with a little bit of twisting behind the scenes, or I got fed up and there had to be a bit of a "freak accident", which usually involved anything they had gained getting melted--houses, families, other material belongings, whatever. I loved the more drawn-out ones, where people went quite a while without falling into it, and they even felt safe, not knowing I was still pulling strings.

It's mostly the same imagery innerworld, I wanted close to a replica because really, I did live in that place and it was also literally my lifeforce. It honestly was almost like an extension of me in a way. It wasn't literally me, like The Distortion's door being itself, it was just like... If I were to carry a bag with me and felt lost or naked without it, the building would have an equivalent feeling to that. Something that isn't me, but needs to be with me. Like a comfort item integral to my identity.

Of course, I can't burn people in-system--there's rules against that. But having that reminder and that security of before helps all the same.

When a guy in your system discovers a kintype from fictional media and figures out that he was displaying traits of being that character before he knew that character even existed, but then you think collectively more about it and realise your entire system is showing pretty similar traits to this fictional guy.