sparkssystem

[sparkssystem]

Answering these for just me, Damian posting. 1. What's your fictional identity (hearttype, kintype, etc)? Fictive of Damian the Dark, a Sonic OC from a roleplay our old host was part of.

2. If you have multiple, do you have one you're closer to than the others, or is more important to your identity overall? N/A

3. How many fictional identities do you have? 1

4. What's your favourite part about being fictionfolk? That I can read my source material. Helps with memories and keeping the timeline of when things happened.

5. What's a positivie interaction that's happened as a result of your fictional identity? I don't really have one that I can think of, but I guess meeting the alternate versions of people I knew that have also ended up in this system is kind of cool.

6. Have you told any people in your offline life about your fictional identity and gotten a positive reaction? No, but also yes? Met our partner system online, we've met up irl a few times, they know who I am. Guess that counts in a way? They're very accepting, I mean, they're the one that made this ask game lol.

7. Have you told any people in your online life about your fictional identity and gotten a positive reaction? All of our friends know.

8. Is there anyone you've met as a result of your interactions in the community who's very important to you now? Our partner system.

9. What's your favourite thing about the fictionfolk community? Honestly I think it's really silly sometimes when you acknowledge people's identities. Sonic and Bakugo are talking about cooking recipes. Pikachu and Kratos are discussing their college majors. Goku and Gojo are playing scrabble and are getting mad that their made-up words aren't in the dictionary.

10. Tell us about a time you've experienced species/identity euphoria as a result of one of your fictional identities. So we have me as a character up on artfight, and someone read that I have "plant manipulation powers" and drew me with a rose. The picture is so sick, I'm using it as a Discord icon now. But like, roses are my thing, that's my plant of choice, and we didn't mention that in my profile, nor did we really mention much to be honest, we filled it out in like a minute. I just love that someone was able to capture my vibe with the rose and the pose and the feel of the image.

11. Do you experience any shifts (mental, phantom, dream, etc) of your fictional identity? Share a bit about those and how they feel! Well I'm me 24/7, so mental shifts aren't really a thing. Don't really get phantoms either. But we've had a few dreams about me, so there's that.

12. Do you have any canonmates (if applicable)? Plenty. Through people soulbonding people and those people soulbonding others, my system also has my 3 spouses, our 10 kids, some of our kids' friends, my 4 siblings, my dad, my dad's girlfriend, and way too many of my dad's friends. In total there's 47 people from my canon specifically in this system.

13. Do you have any sourcemates (if applicable)? Yeah, there's quite a few people from my source but not my canon in this system as well.

14. Do you wish to seek out canonmates/sourcemates? Why/why not? Not really a thing I can do in other systems, due to the nature of my source being a private roleplay. I've already soulbonded everybody I wanted back though.

15. Do you have a favourite piece of fanart/fanfic/etc that ties into your identity? Share it (with credit)! N/A

16. Do you have any art/fic/etc specifically made for you as a fictionfolk of your specific identity (made by yourself or someone else)? Share it! I've drawn myself a few times. My favourite is this one we got on artfight. Credit to https://www.deviantart.com/lamp-p0st

17. Does your fictional identity differ from source in any way/is it canon divergent? Explain a bit about that! So that gets a little bit weird. Source is ongoing. When I got into this system, there were no differences between my life and what this character went through, but since I got here, the story has taken my character and done some really messed up things to him. It's like I'm watching my own hands try to give me trauma I don't have. So I'm completely separated from the roleplay character now due to that, that's not me anymore, I'm just another version of him whose story has a clear divergence point.

18. Are there aspects of your fictional identity that you previously questioned, decided weren't a part of your identity, but you still look fondly upon? (Past 'types, etc). Nah.

19. Do you have any spiritual identities? Explain a bit about that! I'm a soulbond, so yeah.

20. Do you have any psychological identies? Explain a bit about that! Nope.

21. How old were you when you discovered/chose your first fictional identity? Soulbond, so not applicable.

22. Did you ever take a break from the community, but came back later? What made you come back? No, I've been trapped here. Help me /j

23. Have you ever considered fictionlinking? If you already have, what made you decide to do it? I haven't.

24. If you decided to 'link a fictional character, who would it be and why? Uhhhh.....hmm. Probably Dabi from My Hero Acadamia. His whole arc about being born for someone else's goals, being abandoned, rising up from the ashes to make a name for himself, it's all very relatable.

25. If you decided to 'link a fictional species, what would it be and why? Really not sure about this one, but I'm already part ghost, but my ghosts are a bit different than ghosts here, some depictions of ghosts in media are really cool, so one of those maybe?

26. Have you ever questioned being fictionhearted? If you already are, what started your questioning into that connection? I haven't.

27. Do you have any fictional hearthomes? What are your favourite things about them? I actually hate that I have hearthome feelings about this. There was a dimension of pitch black darkness that I was trapped in for almost 20 years. I hated being there, I hate everything about it. But I get such a feeling of homesickness when I think about it. I practically grew up there, I spent a good chunk of my childhood and all of my teen years there. I have a complicated relationship to it. No favourite things.

28. Have you ever questioned being a fictionbased archetrope? If you already are, what's your archetropal identity? Haven't questioned anything, but I might have a villain archetropal identity? Not sure.

29. Have you ever questioned being fictionkin? If you already are, what started your discovery of that connection? Haven't questioned, no.

30. Have you ever had a fictotype turn out to be a fictionflicker or vice versa? What was that like? Nope.

31. Do you have any fictionflickers? What are they, and how do they make you feel? Nope.

32. If you're a system, do you have any collective fictional identities? Fictional, no.

33. If you're a system, how many fictional identities do you have across all of your headmates? ...I am not counting. There's over 500 people in here. Just...going to estimate around 300 different fictional identities?

34. Do you have any soulbonds from a fictional source? Share a bit about that! Besides the roleplay, we have soulbonds from Sonic the Hedgehog, The Owl House, Steven Universe, My Hero Acadamia, Hazbin Hotel, Jujutsu Kaisen, The Magnus Archives, My Little Pony, Pokemon, Madoka Magica, SCP, Splatoon, Undertale, and Welcome to Night Vale.

35. Do you have any memories/noemata around your fictional identity? Share some if you'd like! I do have memories, I remember most of my life. The roleplay being a thing we have complete history of helps a lot.

36. If you do have memories/noemata, what's your favourite? Making me choose one moment of my entire life? Fine. When I was a young kid and I invited my friend into my secret room full of video games. We had a lot of fun playing games, then we kissed for the first time. That was special. Ended up marrying him when we got older.

37. Does your identity intersect with your gender in any way? Share a bit about that! Uuuuuggggghhhhh. I didn't used to be bigender, but then I had to possess a girl's body and then my brain didn't want to let go of that. Dying and ending up here didn't even fix it! Stupid ghost powers.

38. Does your identity intersect with your sexuality in any way? Share a bit about that! Nah.

39. Is there anything you'd have loved to hear back when you were first questioning your identity? N/A

40. Is there anything you'd like to share toward fictionfolk who may just be starting to look into the community? We don't bite, unless you bite first. We will protect you from the stupid people that say you can't be whatever you think you are.

41. Free space! Share anything about your identity/ies that you'd like to!

Nah, I've wrote enough already.

Fictionfolk Experiences Ask Game

Yeah, you. Fictionkin, fictive, fictionhearted, fictionlinker, fictionflicker--whatever else you may be in the tags. I wanna get some potentially positivity and experience sharing going because there's some Stuff that isn't great in the tags right now but ALSO I think fictionfolk as a whole (and not just identify-as fictionfolk but yes those too) deserve a nice little platform to share their experiences. So, use this ask game. Or just reblog and answer the questions. Or post the answers yourself. Be free.

1. What's your fictional identity (hearttype, kintype, etc)?

2. If you have multiple, do you have one you're closer to than the others, or is more important to your identity overall?

3. How many fictional identities do you have?

4. What's your favourite part about being fictionfolk?

5. What's a positivie interaction that's happened as a result of your fictional identity?

6. Have you told any people in your offline life about your fictional identity and gotten a positive reaction?

7. Have you told any people in your online life about your fictional identity and gotten a positive reaction?

8. Is there anyone you've met as a result of your interactions in the community who's very important to you now?

9. What's your favourite thing about the fictionfolk community?

10. Tell us about a time you've experienced species/identity euphoria as a result of one of your fictional identities.

11. Do you experience any shifts (mental, phantom, dream, etc) of your fictional identity? Share a bit about those and how they feel!

12. Do you have any canonmates (if applicable)?

13. Do you have any sourcemates (if applicable)?

14. Do you wish to seek out canonmates/sourcemates? Why/why not?

15. Do you have a favourite piece of fanart/fanfic/etc that ties into your identity? Share it (with credit)!

16. Do you have any art/fic/etc specifically made for you as a fictionfolk of your specific identity (made by yourself or someone else)? Share it!

17. Does your fictional identity differ from source in any way/is it canon divergent? Explain a bit about that!

18. Are there aspects of your fictional identity that you previously questioned, decided weren't a part of your identity, but you still look fondly upon? (Past 'types, etc).

19. Do you have any spiritual identities? Explain a bit about that!

20. Do you have any psychological identies? Explain a bit about that!

21. How old were you when you discovered/chose your first fictional identity?

22. Did you ever take a break from the community, but came back later? What made you come back?

23. Have you ever considered fictionlinking? If you already have, what made you decide to do it?

24. If you decided to 'link a fictional character, who would it be and why?

25. If you decided to 'link a fictional species, what would it be and why?

26. Have you ever questioned being fictionhearted? If you already are, what started your questioning into that connection?

27. Do you have any fictional hearthomes? What are your favourite things about them?

28. Have you ever questioned being a fictionbased archetrope? If you already are, what's your archetropal identity?

29. Have you ever questioned being fictionkin? If you already are, what started your discovery of that connection?

30. Have you ever had a fictotype turn out to be a fictionflicker or vice versa? What was that like?

31. Do you have any fictionflickers? What are they, and how do they make you feel?

32. If you're a system, do you have any collective fictional identities?

33. If you're a system, how many fictional identities do you have across all of your headmates?

34. Do you have any soulbonds from a fictional source? Share a bit about that!

35. Do you have any memories/noemata around your fictional identity? Share some if you'd like!

36. If you do have memories/noemata, what's your favourite?

37. Does your identity intersect with your gender in any way? Share a bit about that!

38. Does your identity intersect with your sexuality in any way? Share a bit about that!

39. Is there anything you'd have loved to hear back when you were first questioning your identity?

40. Is there anything you'd like to share toward fictionfolk who may just be starting to look into the community?

41. Free space! Share anything about your identity/ies that you'd like to!

[sparkssystem]

You essentially walked into a gay bar, said a homophobic thing, and are getting mad at the gay people for being offended. Stay out of our tags if you can't handle the heat.

I am comparing you to transphobes because I felt that was the easiest comparison to get through your thick skull that hating on an identity because you were wrong about yours is A BAD THING TO DO. I'm not implying you're transhobic, I'm saying you're spewing the same rhetoric as transphobes do at us, so if you're not transphobic you should realize how this sounds. Also, fictionkin and transgender are both an identity thing, so they are somewhat related so this metaphor does work, and also tons of fictionkin are transgender because of their kintypes, soooo, try again.

Never said you were shouting, just said you were saying horrible things, there's a difference.

At this point I want to believe you're a troll misreading everything on purpose, or that tumblr's piss-on-the-poor curse is really going strong here. If you're not a troll, please take a second to read people's posts for crying out loud, there's so many bad takes you're taking from literally everyone you're arguing with.

Don't worry about me though! I'm having fun. I was originally trying to actually help get through to you, like everyone else in the notes was, but I think our patience is collectively running a little thin, so we can have some fun with this.

im tired of people pretending that fiction is reality.

fictionkin hurts one's identity because the person stops being themself to be someone else they believe they were in a past life, alternate universe, or another world. you stop being yourself to be Noob from Forsaken. thats not okay.

its also strange how we are treating fictional worlds as if they are real.

i cant even write anymore nowadays. if i create a character, is he real now? what if he is a terrible person? am i responsible for his actions? what if he has trauma? will someone who is fictionkin suffer just because i created a character out of joy and boredom?

i prefer to think that fictionkin is just not a real thing. it is unhealthy, im tired of people pretending that it isnt.

[sparkssystem]

Do you also believe all trans people don't exist because a small amount of detransitioners say that they were never trans and therefore don't believe it is a real thing? Because that's exactly how you sound. You thought you were something, you weren't, so we must all be wrong too?

I promise people are not going to come up to you saying "but I am your character irl" unless there is some sort of extraordinary circumstance leading them to do so, like the person is your friend, or you are publicly hating your own work and someone wants to show you how impactful it was to them. But even if they do tell you, you're not going to be blamed for anything that happened in source. I joke that if one of my source creators wasn't homophobic, I would have had an easier life, but I don't ACTUALLY think it's his fault! Because he didn't actually write my life, he just wrote a thing that's "close enough" to my life that I can point at a character and call it me.

You're making up guys to be mad at while also saying that your experiences match the entire fictionkin community. Which is a little rude and egotistical, to say the least. Being fictionkin isn't unhealthy, what's unhealthy is going up to a bunch of people and saying "um, actually, I was wrong about myself and therefore I think you are all hurting yourselves, just stop being who you are." Get off your high horse and sit down, you don't know us.

im tired of people pretending that fiction is reality.

fictionkin hurts one's identity because the person stops being themself to be someone else they believe they were in a past life, alternate universe, or another world. you stop being yourself to be Noob from Forsaken. thats not okay.

its also strange how we are treating fictional worlds as if they are real.

i cant even write anymore nowadays. if i create a character, is he real now? what if he is a terrible person? am i responsible for his actions? what if he has trauma? will someone who is fictionkin suffer just because i created a character out of joy and boredom?

i prefer to think that fictionkin is just not a real thing. it is unhealthy, im tired of people pretending that it isnt.

[sparkssystem]

Every time I see someone gatekeeping names like "number names are for this-world programming survivors only!!" or "you can't have a japanese name unless you're bodily japanese!" we have an urge to soulbond people with the names being gatekept. Like, brb, soulbonding Five from The Umbrella Academy and Katsuki Bakugo from My Hero Academia. Just to make you mad. You can't stop me~

[sparkssystem]

She!! Thank you!

Daven: Could we get a picture of my wife, Vanessa, please? She is very pretty and is only slightly infected by something called The Void. Feel free to make the wing bits longer and more tentacle-y, they're very shapeshifty.

Hey, get art'd! Hope you like it :>

[THIS IS A REQUEST, DO NOT USE UNLESS YOU ARE THE INTENDED RECIPIENT]

Program: Firealpaca Approx. Time: 1h Original Date: 02.05.25 Commission/Trade/Collab status in bio/pinned! Art Of: Vanessa (Sparks System) [Headmate] (System Member Artist: Chime)

[sparkssystem]

Abandoned

The first time I opened my eyes, I was alone and starving. I saw other pokemon hunting and getting food and I ate what they left behind. When I was confident enough in what I'd learned from watching, I started hunting myself. I remember the first time I saw another shinx. Before that, my life seemed normal, like this must've been how everyone started out. But when I saw those shinx, about my size, all playing together as what seemed to be their parent brought them food, I realized I was different. Their fur was blue, mine was yellow.

I tried to find a yellow shinx, or a yellow luxray, where I must have come from, but I never found anyone that looked like me. Unfortunately for me, my search brought me up a mountain where a staraptor was looking for their next meal. I ran as fast as I could, I got swiped at a bunch, I tumbled down the cliff. I should have died, but I happened to land in front of a human, who scared the staraptor off and took me back to his village with him.

After I was healed enough, he brought out his other pokemon. It was scary at first, but they were able to explain what was going on, and answer my lifelong question. The reason I couldn't find my family of yellow shinx is because they didn't exist. I was abandoned because I was different. The humans understand why I was yellow, but my family must've thought I was sick. I'd be cared for here. So I stayed. There were some weird things about my human compared to the other humans there, but I was weird too, we got along really well. He and the other pokemon he had were like a family. 

Eventually I had evolution explained to me, and I was asked if I was excited to evolve. I didn't want to. I was thrown out by my pack because of how I looked, they probably assumed I was too weak to survive. But I did survive and found a new family that liked how I looked. I didn't want to evolve out of spite for being abandoned, but also appreciation that everyone I knew now said I could do anything. I was going to do everything as the weak shinx that was left to die, because I could.

Fast forward a year, and I helped my new family save the world, complete the journal of information on every pokemon, and even defeat the god of all pokemon, Arceus! I had it all, everything I could have ever dreamed of! I was strong, I was a hero, I had the best family and the most amazing human.

And then suddenly…I lost everything. My human disappeared. A few days after our battle with Arceus, he just vanished. He seemed off after the battle, none of us knew why, and then he was gone. We waited. Some pokemon went out to look for him, they came back after a while. We waited. A few decided they would be off with other humans, that they could still be of use. The others followed on their own time. I waited. Some humans came into the house I was now alone in and gave me food. I waited. He never came back. I waited.

Now, I'm here. Next life. Where I'm a fictional character from a fictional game. Now I'm here and I know why he disappeared. He was weird compared to other humans because he wasn't from that era and Arceus sent him home. Maybe he tried to tell me and I didn't understand. Did he really have to go? Why couldn't he have stayed? Why did I have to be abandoned again? Why would Arceus do that to me? I waited.

[sparkssystem]

👽Does your system have any tics?

👾-Do any alters in your system have typing quirks?

🌙-Are there any nonverbal alters in your system?

Go off, creechers.

👽Does your system have any tics?

I don't think so. Off the top of my head I can't think of any. Oh, unless us shaking out leg or foot constantly is a tic, I don't know if that's what that is.

👾-Do any alters in your system have typing quirks?

So most of us fall into 1 of 2 typing categories: all lowercase with little to no punctuation, or proper capitalization and proper punctuation. Only 3 people (minus emoji-speakers and blank space posters) fall outside of the norm, Core, SOULFIRE, and Cyn. Those 3 all type with something that makes their text look like code or boxed (they use a code block on discord), but they all have different ways of typing in the block. Core is part of the proper punctuation club, SOULFIRE types in all caps and usually only says 1-3 word sentences, and Cyn (our newest headmate as of writing this actually) types with proper punctuation but a single random letter every few words is capitalized and every number is typed out in all caps.

🌙-Are there any nonverbal alters in your system?

Yep! We got a couple semi-verbal people, but in the completely nonverbal side we've got Demon, Metal, Circuit, and Bind. Clover might also count, they used to talk a little but I'm not sure they've said a word in years.

[sparkssystem]

Space themed System ask game based on common fakeclaim "criteria" because these things are valid and cool actually

🛰-Do you have a large headcount?

👾-Do any alters in your system have typing quirks?

🚀-Does your system have any Non-human alters?

☄️-Is your system neurodivergent?

🔭-Does your system use neo Pronouns?

🌠-Do any of the alters in your system have dyed hair?

🌙-Are there any nonverbal alters in your system?

🪐-Does your system have Angry or "dangerous" persecutors?

💫-Do your littles use 'little-speech?'

🌌-Does your system have little to no amnesia between switches?

🌟-Does your system have fairly clear communication?

🌘-Do you have a large or complex headspace?

🛸-Do any alters in your system have exo-memories?

👽Does your system have any tics?

���️-is your system bad at masking?

✨️-Do any alters in your system have an accent?

🌎-Do any alters in your system speak in a different language?

☁️-Does your system use things like pluralkit and simply plural?

⭐️-are you out about being a system?

[sparkssystem]

There are two types of writers:

1. 'It's fiction, it doesn't need to make sense!'

2. 'I didn't account for the rotation of the planet and how that affects the constalations while my characters stargazed at different times of year, I have failed as a writer, and this entire thing is trash'

[sparkssystem]

The Anatomy of: A Skarmory

So, we've decided we're going to start a little "series" of posts about our alterhuman identities. Specifically aimed to be about the anatomy/life cycle/biology of species that don't exist on this Earth but do exist in our system (such as Pokemon, other fictional species, mythical beings or anything else). Earthly beings may also make their own entries to explain their experiences--there isn't going to be a strict "who can" vs "who can't" rule--the point is to talk about our experiences and our species more. 

Anyhow, onto the actual post!

Skarmory, the Armor Bird Pokemon--that's me! A bird made of metal, with wings as sharp as blades. But how does all of that work, exactly? Well... let's get into it!

Word count: 4,081 Warnings: Discussion of species dysphoria, discussion of animal (pokemon) harm, discussion of hunting pokemon. Archive: On our website!

Basic Anatomy:

Information about a skarmory's body! Some of these are words I've made or assigned to describe specific parts, as there's either no canon alternative or no this-world alternative.

Beak: The structure on a skarmory's face, similar to a bird beak but made of metal. It has a few teeth on the bottom jaw, while there are none on the top jaw.

Crest: The pointed blade/sail atop a skarmory's head.

Wings: The parts of a skarmory that allow it to fly--consists of roughly 4 metallic bladelike feathers (or wingblades).

Wingblades: Referring to an individual feather of a skarmory's wings, it usually has 4 per wing. These are sharp as knives. Each wingblade can be moved individually!

Armor: The hardened, metallic feathers/skin that cover a skarmory's body.

Plates: The individual metallic sheets of armor that cover a skarmory's body.

Legplates/neckplates/etc: Referring to a specific grouping of plates on a part of a skarmory.

Talons: A skarmory's feet. On each foot, it has 2 toes facing forward, and one facing backward--each tipped with a sharp claw.

Tailblade/Rudder: The tail of a skarmory, generally important for changing direction during flight. It is made out of metal, much like wingblades.

QNA:

Now, we move onto some general questions and answers about skarmory as a species.

1. What does a skarmory eat?

Like a lot of pokemon, skarmory are omnivorous. They'll eat berries, fruits, seeds, and a variety of prey. Due to our fast flying capabilities, we'd often swoop down at high speeds and snatch other smaller pokemon up from the ground.

Skarmory are also known to eat stones from certain locations, and we had gathering points where the stones and cliffs were rich in minerals that promoted healthy growth of our armor. We'd meet there, and drill at the rocks with our beaks until they were bite-sized. This possibly also helped with the digestive process, but I'm not familiar with our inner biology.

2. How does a skarmory become metallic?

As stated in some of the pokedex entries, skarmory chicks are raised in harsh conditions. Oftentimes, we'd nest in thorny bushes, brambles, sharp and rocky cliff-faces or anything similar. This would provide protection from outside predator pokemon, but also serve as our first line of training and building of our body's defenses.

Our skin and feathers have a property that makes them heal stronger after becoming damaged. Each time we'd get scratched, our body would heal it stronger than before. This meant that over time, feathers became scales attached to our skin, which became plates of armor that cover our bodies. This is supplemented by parents bringing their chicks small scraps of metal or mineral-rich stones to eat.

3. How does it move if it's made of metal?

There's gaps between our plates that enable us to move around still--much like the neck and leg plates you can see on the official artwork above! Though, skarmory from where I come from tend to have more that are visible, mainly around joints. They just look like little creases!

It really is like a suit of armor, just attached to your body. It's surprisingly moveable! Moving around normally as a chick while your feathers are hardening forms creases in the development of the armor, so when it's fully formed, it's unlikely that you'll have any restricted movement. The plates form around your movement, so if you move at all as a chick, the plates get molded to the shape of your body and how far your joints allow you to move.

So... theoretically, if a skarmory never ever moved, then its plates wouldn't be shaped to its body and it would be stuck, but I've never heard of that happening.

4. If a skarmory is made of metal, doesn't it rust?

Well... Yes, actually! Partially, at least. You won't see a skarmory rust all the way through, as we're not wholly made of metal. But our armor can and will rust if it's exposed to too much water and not able to dry properly. We tend to avoid the rain and hide wherever we can from it--usually in caves, tree hollows or somewhere similar. Particularly rainy seasons can spell disaster for us as a species, and oftentimes we do end up forced to share caves while we wait for our territories to stop being so watery.

Due to our armor often shedding its plates, rust usually isn't a permanent problem and can be shed off most of the time. Usually, it might make us itchy or sore due to crumbling bits getting stuck between plates, but that's the worst of it. However, rust can make it very hard for a skarmory to move properly if it's particularly bad, or gets in the joints between plates. This isn't too common due to how much we avoid water, but it can cause major issues if we do end up having our movement restricted. Particularly bad rust that's gotten into the plate joints can even begin to rust the new armor that grows underneath, if you're not careful. Most of us tend to avoid moisture both from water and humid air wherever possible due to the risks associated with it.

To attempt to negate this, sometimes we sunbathe after it's rained. This is usually fine to do, though on particularly hot days, it's incredibly easy to overheat. Sunbathing is best done close to a shady, dry spot you can hide in afterwards. Another method to remove as much water as possible is to fly/glide at top-speed or sit in very windy areas, basically like using a blow-dryer.

5. Does a skarmory overheat easily?

It depends on the situation, but overheating is definitely a possibility. Skarmory armor might defend us from slashing claws and biting teeth, but it's incredibly susceptible to heat--be it from fire types or from the sun itself. Our armor is generally lighter coloured, but skarmory with darker armour have a harder time staying cool.

On most days, overheating from the sun is avoidable! In the warmer months however, a skarmory may need to slip away into a cave or inbetween some foliage to escape the heat. We become more active around dawn and dusk during the middle of spring toward the end of summer in order to escape the hottest hours of the day, and focus most of our hunting at those times.

Due to the rusting problem, we don't tend to use water to cool down unless absolutely necessary. You'd have to be extremely overheated by staying in the sun too long, or under attack from fire-type moves to even consider water, though.

6. Does a skarmory have feeling in its armor?

No, a skarmory doesn't have feeling in its armor plates. However, we can feel when a plate is pressed down on! The plates are attached to our skin, so pressing on them pushes our skin too, and that's what we feel. To a skarmory, touching it feels like if you were to touch the top of your fingernail--you can't feel the surface, but you can feel the nail pressing on your actual skin below.

Our sense of touch on our body is likely duller than most other pokemon. The plates on our talons (aside from our claws) are thinner than in most places on our body, though--and those are our main means of touching and investigating things aside from our beak. The armour is still tough, but the plating is thin enough that we're able to sense things a lot better with them. Therefore, we can be more careful with what we're doing, such as holding a delicate berry, or knowing that prey we're holding is wriggling to try and escape.

We don't have feeling in most of our wingblades, most of our tailblade, or the tip of our crest, however. These parts are mostly hollow metal and are far enough away from the rest of our body that they need to be touched with a lot of pressure or from specific angles to be felt.

7. What if a skarmory's armor gets damaged or dented in a fight?

Short answer? A skarmory just.. sheds! Every so often, new armor will grow through and push the outer layer off, like someone losing a tooth as they grow. Plates will just fall off, and underneath there's new armor ready to go. This includes our wingblades! Normally, we shed one wingblade from each wing symmetrically to enable us to still fly--like a this-world bird shedding their feathers! This helps us to keep in the sky while growing our new wingblades.

Sometimes, they take a little while to fully grow back in, so we may be grounded for a week or two in some cases--but these are usually caused by injury, in which a skarmory has lost all of its wingblades at once or has lost multiple from one wing, rendering it off-balance and unable to fly. This is usually from severe damage of some sort and not a regular biological process.

8. How does a skarmory fly so fast?

Like birds of this world, our bones are hollow! Also, as stated in the pokedex entries, our wingblades are also mostly hollow too! We're able to tuck our legs in to create a more streamlined shape, and our facial structure mostly does a lot of that work for us.

Though, to reach top speeds, we normally dive. We'll exert a bit of our energy flying upward, and then soar around using the wind to our advantage. Minimal flapping, and plenty of time to survey the area without tiring out. Then, the skarmory will spot something it wants (prey, another food source, something invading its territory), and it'll dive almost head-first toward the ground, but curve to move more parallel to the ground as it gets closer. Almost like the shape of a really tall slide! Those swoops are where we reach real, true speed.

Doing this, we can maintain that speed gliding parallel to the ground for quite a distance if we dive from high enough. We just hold our wings straight out and glide like a paper plane. If a skarmory needs to glide for longer without breaking the momentum, a slight tilt of the wing-blades will change its direction to going slightly upward, and then tilting the blades again to head back downward gives a little bit of a boost. This is best done when the ground is in a downward slope, so you have room to dive a little more to keep up the speed.

9. What's a skarmory's social life like?

Skarmory tend to be pretty territorial, unless at mineral gathering spots which are usually areas of peace as everyone's too busy chipping away at rocks to eat or bring to their chicks.

Skarmory generally fight over territory. They keep to themselves, with the addition of a mate (or sometimes multiple mates) and their chicks, who leave to find their own territory once old enough. A skarmory will usually defend its territory viciously against other skarmory and other pokemon--especially other flying pokemon.

Territorial disputes aside though, skarmory have a few social gestures that are noteworthy in this section!

We have a greeting gesture that's usually an indication of friendliness--beak clacking. A skarmory will open its beak and snap it closed again in rapid succession to create a metallic clanking sound. It sounds similar to a large bell mixed with hitting a metal rod with a hammer, a constant ringing trill.

We also do a slightly different beak clack in anger or as a threat. The difference between a friendly greeting and a warning clack is how fast and hard we're snapping our beaks shut. Warning clacks are loud, strong, and generally much slower than a greeting one due to putting more force behind each snap. Greetings are closer to a softer trill or metallic rumble.

Skarmory also have another threat gesture–we fan out and slide our wingblades across each other to make a metallic scraping noise.

We preen each other (and ourselves) as this-world birds do, another friendly gesture. We pay particular attention to wings, sharpening each other's wingblades by clamping our beak down on them and sliding along it.

10. Is a skarmory at a higher risk of lightning strikes?

If a skarmory were to be flying through a storm, possibly, yes! However, when it’s raining, skarmory will try their best to stay hidden from the water. Which has the added effect of being largely protected from lightning strikes too, especially when they choose to hide in caves! Most other flying pokemon also seem to prefer to not fly through thunderstorms due to the risks associated with them.

As for attacks by electric-type moves–yeah, we’re pretty easily damaged by those. That and fire types are the main threats we face out of any of the other types. Water damage can also be an issue, but it’s rarely an issue in-fight, it’s simply a problem if there’s rusting after the fight.

11. What does a skarmory feel like?

A skarmory’s plating is smooth, and feels just like touching polished metal. It’s usually cold to the touch too, unless it’s been sitting in the sun. The wingblades and tailblade feel the same even though they’re more lightweight–its entire body feels metallic! A skarmory is also much lighter than it appears–due to our hollow bones and lightweight armor, we can look very heavy while being relatively light.

12. What is the crest used for? 

The crest is occasionally used in fighting other pokemon, though the wingblades are normally used for that much more often. The crest can be used as a horn, and is useful when using iron head and similar moves. It might also help with steering while flying, though I don’t have anything definitive to say on that matter.

13. What is the tailblade used for? 

The tailblade is used for steering! It’s similar to a rudder you’d find on an aircraft or a boat. A skarmory will use it to change its flight path, in combination with the angle of its wings. A tailblade isn’t really ever used for fighting. It also sheds less often than other parts, possibly due to its important role in properly controlled flight. A skarmory without a tailblade will be a clumsy flier at best, though they’re luckily not usually grounded because of it.

14. Can the wingblades be used for things other than flying?

Yes! Wingblades are used often in fighting. They’re sturdy, sharp, and kept in pristine condition by preening done either by the skarmory itself or its mate. A skarmory will swoop down and hit an opponent with the tips of its wingblades as it flies past, slicing them.

For humans of the pokemon world, they’ve been known to take feathers dropped by skarmory to fashion swords and daggers! There’s been some instances of poachers in the past, though they’re much less common in the era I’m from due to humans being easily able to create their own blades.

15. What habitats do skarmory prefer?

Skarmory are pretty adaptable, but they prefer areas with little humidity and low heat. They can live in mountains, forests, cave systems, fields, and more! Skarmory are particularly susceptible to damage from both water and overheating, so you won’t find many living near an ocean, in a swamp, or in a desert. Though, these locations don’t always spell disaster to simply cross, so you may see one flying around in areas you normally wouldn’t expect to see one as it passes through.

It’s unlikely that a skarmory provided with adequate shelter will be seen out in the rain or in the heat, in which case they usually can be found hiding in or amongst trees, or in caves.

16. Are there any subspecies of skarmory?

Kind of! Skarmory can all look a little different from each other, and our armor can definitely be different colours–our colour variation is actually pretty broad. We can also have slightly different shapes to our plating, or extra features such as more than the standard 4 wingblades per wing.

I stayed in mostly the same areas, so I only know my local skarmory and how they look. The physical variations mainly are in the colour or wingblade number–though maybe skarmory from different climates can have different shapes?

Some Colour Examples:

Notes:

Pied colour forms can have as little as a single part being a different colour. You could have a shiny with one red wingblade, or a standard with just one neckplate being lighter. I also believe there could be light/dark or dark/shiny pieds as opposed to just light/standard, dark/standard and shiny/standard, though I haven’t seen any.

I’ve never seen a full shiny, though I did see a skarmory with a single green wingblade, which I can now categorise as a pied shiny with very minimal shiny colouration.

I saw a blue skarmory once, I’m unsure if it’s another variation of a dark colouration or not, all I know is he was very territorial. He’s in his own little category for now.

In This World:

And here, I'll talk about my current, this-body experiences as a skarmory fictive. This ranges from shifting experiences, to self expression, to in-system experiences, and anything else I want to cover.

In-Body, Euphoria

While fronting, I get pretty dysphoric, so I try to express myself when I can, which does bring a lot of joy!

I've become a fan of jewellery--particularly necklaces, as having something on my neck feels right. The bulkier and heavier the better! I absolutely need to buy some more, maybe some thick bangles for my legs!

I also tend to wear greyish colours to match my own armor colour. Grey hoodies/jackets are the best, because having them unzipped feels almost like having wings attached to my sides. To match my colours even more, I like wearing a red shirt under a grey hoodie to kind of mimic my read wingblades in the best way I can.

I've been known to attempt to clack my beak at people, which unfortunately doesn't go very well for someone with human teeth. However, clicking my tongue is similar enough that it gets the point across, so I love doing that too!

In-Body, Dysphoria

I've talked about this before in another post, but I'll do it here again.

I get very, very dysphoric about my body shape. I have two wings and two legs, and having arms at all feels.. So, so wrong. My arms have hands and fingers, which are close to talons, but they're where my wings belong. My legs aren't bent at the right spots. My skin is soft and getting an injury doesn't make it tougher. So many things are different about this body, and so many things upset me about it.

Phantom Shift Map

I've made a map detailing where my skarmory parts are placed on my human body, and how frequently these parts are felt. Keep in mind, these percentages are for when I'm in control of the body/fronting.

Notes:

My phantom shifts often feel like a presence--that's the best way I can put it. You know how people can tell where their arm or leg is in space, even with their eyes closed? How you can close your eyes and hold up 3 fingers and know which you've put up, even if they're not touching each other? It's like that, but I can sense specific outlines of my body parts. Sometimes they feel more "real" and tangible than others, but most of the time, it's a presence.

My neckplates, talons, and leg/thighplates are often the most "real" feeling phantom shifts.

I almost constantly have wingblades while in the front. They often tend to "clip" through objects--right now they're through the wall as I sit here and type this. I'm able to individually move each wingblade as I would have been able to before.

My tailblade also has the same issue as wingblades, always clipping into things.

Interestingly, I get a beak more often than I get a crest. I can take a guess and say this is because the crest had very little feeling in it in general, which also lines up with my wingblades feeling more like a sense than a tangible feeling.

In-Headspace

Inside the headspace, not much has changed about my body. We have a decently realistic headspace, so all of my regular parts and physics tied to them work the same. However, I no longer need to worry about rust and I haven't shed since I got here. Other people in-system still have their hair grow with time, so either I simply don't need to shed anymore, or it hasn't happened yet.

I don't feel any territorial needs anymore, and I mostly exist around other pokemon inside. Particularly a talonflame named Thrash, and a noivern named Echo. Flying type solidarity!

I'm also very glad that there's no fighting for survival with other pokemon in-headspace either. I don't need to worry about getting hit with a fire-type attack or getting downed by rock-throw mid flight--that's always a plus!

Differences from Source Media

I’ve noticed a few differences in my anatomy vs that of souce skarmory. The differences are pretty small, but some are also fairly strange to me. The main difference I’m weirded out by, is the beak shape of canon skarmory. Skarmory where I’m from have a toothlike structure on their beak, and their bottom jaw lines up pretty well with their top jaw–very much unlike canon.

I’ve included another diagram demonstrating the differences below.

Notes:

Wingblades are generally longer than in my drawn image, but they can vary in length anyway. They do, however, often end up being quite thick and covering most of the body-length.

A skarmory in my canon can have more than the regular 3 neckplates.

A skarmory in my canon can have, as far as I’ve seen, up to 6 wingblades per wing.

In Conclusion:

That just about sums up everything I can think of! Going through all this and writing it all down has actually been immensely helpful to me, and helped me remember loads of things I didn’t think about along the way. I’ll definitely look back at this later on, when maybe I have more information, or maybe when my memory starts failing as it always does, and get a refresher when I need it. Hell, if I find out enough new information, I might add some updates to this.

Being a kinda niche pokemon species, I wanted some representation for my experiences. The pokedex entries from the games offer a bit of info–most of which I covered here–but what I remember about our world and our lives goes so far beyond just little lines of flavour text. I’ve never seen another skarmory alterhuman out there, and my experiences might not even line up with those of another skarmory, but I at least wanted a reference for myself. If it helps others, great. If it doesn’t, that’s also fine. I just wanted this to be out there.

Maybe it could be a starting point for some. Maybe it’d spur on memories in someone else? Maybe it’d help someone discover that they are a skarmory, or have another alterhuman connection to it? Maybe it���s just cool to learn about! Either way, I wanted to document my experiences, so here we are.

[sparkssystem]

'Cause people tend to not get the memo: People acting strangely in public is not a danger to you. Pacing, talking to themselves or something you can't see, laughing to themselves, stimming, twitching, ticcing, making "weird" noises--it doesn't fucking matter. They're not your personal freak show, they're not broken, they're not a murderer and they're definitely not going to be fucking helped by you calling the authorities or anyone else on em. These actions alone are not indicative of danger to you, as a random person on the street. Shut the fuck up and move on, leave disabled people alone.

[sparkssystem]

Us deciding we needed to call an ambulance meant we got past our actual anxiety in order to get to that point. We have social anxiety and medical trauma. Us saying "the last time I was in an ambulance, I was abused, and I know I will have to deal with the insurance from being in a country I'm not from, but I need an ambulance right now" meant that we were suffering for long enough at that point to tell ourselves it was all going to be ok and we should go to the hospital.

Now, the dispatcher I don't think even knew I was a foreigner at that point. She also REPEATEDLY kept asking to talk to me, that she needed my permission for my boyfriend to talk for me. No matter how much "they can barely speak or think properly" was said. We got the phone held up to our ear, managed to give some information, gave our boyfriend permission to speak for us because we were too busy having our face in a bag with the room spinning to have a conversation, and she got MAD at us for only saying like 2 sentences. Please explain to me how a regular person having an emergency is supposed to be able to talk on the phone normally? How does that work?

Not that it mattered anyway, cuz like Shrapnel said, "social anxiety" was understood as "I got a little injury and am having an anxiety attack about it". Speaking of the injury, it was a broken foot that we had been walking on for 3 days without assistance (due to the anxiety) and that was the breaking point of us probably permanently damaging it. We will most likely never be able to walk normally again and we now own a cane. In the end I guess the hospital wasn't super mega needed cuz we managed on our own but as far as we knew at that point it could have been an infection or a bone shard went somewhere it shouldn't have, and that wasn't anxiety, that was us trying to be smart about it and realize we needed help. But the help we asked for was denied and that hurt because we had to push through our trauma and anxiety to ask just to be told our trauma and anxiety was the problem and not the physical fact we were almost passing out from pain from a shattered bone in a completely black toe.

I wasn't even in front for this but I'm still so mad at the medical system. We called an ambulance for someone having a lot of issues (breathing difficulty, feeling like fainting, throwing up repeatedly, in excruciating pain, struggling to speak) because of pain from a physical injury and we got told by the dispatcher that this "isn't an emergency, I'm not sending an ambulance" and kept getting cut off while trying to explain. All because we made the mistake of answering honestly that they have anxiety when asked about the mental health condition history of the person.

Why the fuck does someone having anxiety mean that you're just going to discredit everything else? Why is this honestly a common thing for people to do? At least, when we went through school, if you had anxiety and went to the sick bay/nurses office for any other reason they assumed you were "just a bit anxious" and didn't actually take the time to listen to you. They sent us back to class with chronic migraines that have hospitalised us before because of how fucking little they care about mental health. We've had shit like that happen to us in hospitals too, they just treat you like you're being dramatic and you're a bother.

Who fucking CARES if someone has anxiety? Who cares if their physical symptoms might "just be an anxiety attack"? Who cares if you think they "don't really need help"? Even if someone is "just" having an anxiety attack, you're not fucking helping with the real physical and mental strain on that person by brushing them off for "just" an emotional issue. You're fucking cruel. And it's so fucking horrendous that the fucking medical system so often does this too--the people who you'd think would at least vaguely get it.

There's a special kind of pain when you grow up hearing "always call this number in an emergency to get help!" and "help is out there, go to this doctors office" and "help is just a phone call away" and you get hit with the reality that sometimes, even if what could help you is so fucking simple, you can't get it. Because the very system designed to help you is also designed to just take your fucking money, make you conform, and can just decide tell you to fuck off even in a crisis.

Don't discredit anyone's pain because of a fucking diagnosis they have. It doesn't matter what diagnosis, if someone is in pain, LISTEN.

[sparkssystem]

We're disconcerted by the assertion that stances on endogenics is a purely online thing.

Like yeah, for the most part, people in the offline world either don't care or aren't interested.

But we endogenics LIVE in the external world. A lot of us are openly plural in the external world. We are - our friends, family, coworkers, all know we're plural - because being (relatively quietly but unashamedly) overt is what's best for our day to day mental health.

And anti-endogenic stances hurt us in the external world. They literally nearly got us Crew forcibly institutionalized. Our ex tried for over half a year, with the court system involved and everything. We've lost so many friends from back then who refused to listen and understand.

We want to go through the foster to adopt program in the future, and we're prepared to have to defend our plurality in order to be approved for the program. If endogenic plurality was widely accepted that wouldn't be necessary.

This affects our rights. Our healthcare. Our very freedom.

Maybe if you're a covert system that's anti-endo, maybe it's easy to assume that this is an online only thing.

But it's really not.

[sparkssystem]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[sparkssystem]

Dude, the story has killed 6 of my favorite characters in the last few writing sessions. The story needs to let me write it, because the twist villain that I DID NOT SEE COMING is going on a murder spree. Please, please let me control how the story goes, you can't just keep killing people. What the hell are you doing? Where is this going? What is even happening?

"you're the writer, you control how the story goes" no not really. i wrote the first sentence and then my characters said "WE WILL TAKE IT FROM HERE" and promptly swerved into an electrical fence.

[sparkssystem]

I don't have anyone to tag though, so whoever wants to add on can.

Everyone post a random picture from your gallery,this is a tag game yes

@fymo-blogs @the-real-gmail @totally-china @dhampirdreamerz @france-unofficial

[sparkssystem]

Wait, you were actually born in the 1900's? Thats so cool

i am going to eat my own entire skin