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Mirroring (as a Plural Shapeshifter)
Nov. 9th, 2024 07:50 pmWritten by Rei Kagura (He/him)
(Blurb: We noticed polymorph traits that sounds similar to our experiences as shapeshifterkin, and this essay is us comparing the two.)
One polymorph trait that caught our eye when reading some polymorph writings (here and here) is a polymorph’s tendency to mirror those around them. To quote Arethinn, whose writings on polymorphs can be found on the first link:
We visualize ourselves as wearing certain outfits in headspace, ones that we have visual references of via official art of our sources. Our abilities to conjure this mental image is not without flaw, and we may be unable to keep it “stuck” in our mind for prolonged amounts of time without having it change in any way, and different members can be more or less easily affected by this. We may end up rapidly cycling between several outfits for some amount of time before slowing down and settling with one. We may also notice that our outfit has changed to match one of the images we’ve seen of ourselves recently (e.g. a fronter saw a picture of X wearing a school uniform, then X in our system would be seen wearing the exact same uniform when they came to see them). In rare cases, we may mix up several details of different outfits (e.g. getting colors wrong, wearing outfit A but using a hat only seen as a part of outfit B) or in even rarer cases, using an outfit their source have never been seen using but is seen being used by someone else’s source instead (e.g. X wearing Y’s outfit because X misremembered who wore that specific outfit).
This also includes costumes of nonhuman entities, though in these cases, we can feel the nonhuman body parts as phantom limbs and we can move those as if it’s part of us. Despite that, this doesn’t always mean that we identify as the beings we dress up as. For example, there is an image of me wearing cat ears, tail, and claws, shown below.
(ID: A card from the game The Idolmaster SideM, featuring Rei Kagura with a blue background. Rei is shown with black cat ears, a black cat tail, and sharp claws on his fingertips.)
Most of the time, looking at this image would cause me to look like how I was portrayed in that card and feel those aforementioned phantom body parts. I do register these phantom sensations as belonging to me. Despite that, I do not identify as a cat or any other feline beings. To me, this is nothing more than a costume, or rather, a form I can take without needing to identify as such.
Another thing we noticed is that polymorphs not only change their form into multiple beings, they become those beings entirely. This is definitely not the case for us since our shapeshifting noemata is very clear that our minds stay the same despite our form changes. However, what we experienced is a bit similar to that. If we’re being reminded of a certain member in our system by being exposed to images or voices of their source for long enough, said member would be dragged to co-consciousness and/or co-front with varying levels of ease depending on each member. This could help us whenever we want someone to front, but it could also be an annoyance if we have no intention to do so. At first glance, this looks similar to a polymorph mirroring and becoming what they see, except that in our case, the "I" of the two forms belong to different people, the previous fronter does not change into anything, instead the controls are handed over to a different system member.
We haven't seen many writings on shapeshifters and polymorphs, there probably isn't that many, or we just haven't found them yet. Hopefully our writings on our experiences can be helpful for others, possibly by being a jumping-off point for discussions.
(Blurb: We noticed polymorph traits that sounds similar to our experiences as shapeshifterkin, and this essay is us comparing the two.)
One polymorph trait that caught our eye when reading some polymorph writings (here and here) is a polymorph’s tendency to mirror those around them. To quote Arethinn, whose writings on polymorphs can be found on the first link:
“The polymorph tends to mirror the forms of those around them, though the exact operation of this phenom/skill hasn't been worked out. Why we would easily mirror some and not so easily others, we don't know.”While we’re not polymorphic, we notice that we do experience some form of mirroring, though in a much more limited way than what we think a polymorph may experience.
“(...) There's the additional twist of a tendency to mirror others.. faced with a dragon, I tend to become dragon; faced with a pixy, that is brought out in me, though some "work better" than others. It doesn't take much to make me reflect dragon, but there's not a lot of pixy in me to begin with, so it's never a clear "image".”
We visualize ourselves as wearing certain outfits in headspace, ones that we have visual references of via official art of our sources. Our abilities to conjure this mental image is not without flaw, and we may be unable to keep it “stuck” in our mind for prolonged amounts of time without having it change in any way, and different members can be more or less easily affected by this. We may end up rapidly cycling between several outfits for some amount of time before slowing down and settling with one. We may also notice that our outfit has changed to match one of the images we’ve seen of ourselves recently (e.g. a fronter saw a picture of X wearing a school uniform, then X in our system would be seen wearing the exact same uniform when they came to see them). In rare cases, we may mix up several details of different outfits (e.g. getting colors wrong, wearing outfit A but using a hat only seen as a part of outfit B) or in even rarer cases, using an outfit their source have never been seen using but is seen being used by someone else’s source instead (e.g. X wearing Y’s outfit because X misremembered who wore that specific outfit).
This also includes costumes of nonhuman entities, though in these cases, we can feel the nonhuman body parts as phantom limbs and we can move those as if it’s part of us. Despite that, this doesn’t always mean that we identify as the beings we dress up as. For example, there is an image of me wearing cat ears, tail, and claws, shown below.
(ID: A card from the game The Idolmaster SideM, featuring Rei Kagura with a blue background. Rei is shown with black cat ears, a black cat tail, and sharp claws on his fingertips.)
Most of the time, looking at this image would cause me to look like how I was portrayed in that card and feel those aforementioned phantom body parts. I do register these phantom sensations as belonging to me. Despite that, I do not identify as a cat or any other feline beings. To me, this is nothing more than a costume, or rather, a form I can take without needing to identify as such.
Another thing we noticed is that polymorphs not only change their form into multiple beings, they become those beings entirely. This is definitely not the case for us since our shapeshifting noemata is very clear that our minds stay the same despite our form changes. However, what we experienced is a bit similar to that. If we’re being reminded of a certain member in our system by being exposed to images or voices of their source for long enough, said member would be dragged to co-consciousness and/or co-front with varying levels of ease depending on each member. This could help us whenever we want someone to front, but it could also be an annoyance if we have no intention to do so. At first glance, this looks similar to a polymorph mirroring and becoming what they see, except that in our case, the "I" of the two forms belong to different people, the previous fronter does not change into anything, instead the controls are handed over to a different system member.
We haven't seen many writings on shapeshifters and polymorphs, there probably isn't that many, or we just haven't found them yet. Hopefully our writings on our experiences can be helpful for others, possibly by being a jumping-off point for discussions.
