A witch’s brew is dangerous work

But I’ve only my own clumsiness to blame.

I’m not being ironic or uwu quirky when I say I would love to be a shapeshifter specifically for genderfuck reasons. Working on a way to make that a reality atm, but for now we have contouring and cleverly styled silhouettes

Do you guys ever wonder if shapeshifters have to consciously rearrange their organs so everything still functions properly or if that just happens when they decide to shapeshift into something?

I’ve always been curious about how much you need to know about something to shapeshift into it (if that were possible). Would you need to know how to reconstruct your organs? Could you make yourself taller by shapeshifting to have longer legs? Would that be difficult to maintain because you’d need to make the conscious effort to keep that shape and make sure none of your veins or muscles do anything funny? Can you accidentally shapeshift? If you do then what are the repercussions? Could you accidentally shapeshift your heart to be on the wrong side of your body? What does a shapeshifter look like as a fetus? Are shapeshifters mammals? If you get a disease can you shapeshift to fix it? If you get cancer can you just fix that? If you get a virus and now that virus is in you, can you shapeshift the virus with your body or do you keep the virus no matter what form you’re in? If you shapeshift into an inanimate object what happens to your organs? If a shapeshifter turns into a washing machine would you need to plug them into a power source to use them? What happens if something breaks the object they’ve shapeshifted into while they’re that object? Do they maintain that injury in their original form? Can they be injured? If they get an injury can they not just shapeshift to fix it?

The logistics of being a shapeshifter sound like a nightmare.

Werewolves and vampires definitely seem to suggest that all of the organ stuff is sorted out by instinct but as those only exist in fantasy (much like shapeshifters themselves -to my knowledge-) it is difficult to say whether they are an accurate portrayal of how shapeshifting would work in real life.

There’s something about shapeshifters it’s like. I can put on any face, any mask, play any role, be anyone i want to be. But if I tore off the mask, the shell, the skin, the illusion, what would you think of me. Would you still recognize me as your friend, your companion? Would you run? What would you think when I put the mask back on? What if there’s nothing underneath?

stan therians and furries, unfortunately not either, just weird

The thing about MCU!Loki is that I’m not convinced he can shapeshift, but he can do very detailed illusions. We only ever see him turn from Jotun to Asgardian, but that was most likely incited by Odin. And the other times he turns Jotun are also incited by something else (i.e. another Jotun attempting harm, or the Casket of Ancient Winters). What we usually see him do are illusions. The only evidence is the improvised throwaway snake story line in TR, and let’s just say I don’t take Thor at his word due to his tendency towards hyperbole. I doubt it happened as he said, and I don’t think he understands Loki’s abilities much. It feels like when your parents think you’re a hacker because you restarted the router.

However, this makes it a pain in the ass when I am writing fic because sometimes shapeshifting is convenient to move the plot along, and everyone loves the shapeshifting aspect because the comics and myth Lokis also shapeshift. And sometimes it’s convenient for the plot that he can’t shapeshift. So I am not even consistent about his shapeshifting abilities in my fics and it bothers me. I KNOW HCs don’t have to align between my different fics, but it just bothers me so much! I want to have more consistent worldbuilding. I do have a lot of thoughts on myth!Loki’s shapeshifting abilities here.

From Vigil (2018) chapter I

By Laura Makabresku

Happy Saint Valentine’s Day!

From my dyke household to yours 🩷

So I just tried using my shapeshifting abilities to give myself face tentacles like a mind flayer for a while and honestly? It felt pretty good.

I got some shapeshifting ideas but the main idea is “accidentally” causing said person to transform into a specific person

Be it you’re talking to them about a character you love, or perhaps what your dream partner would be, . You go into great detail about how much you love them, and then you notice that they are suitably changing, like hair is getting more color of the character. Then you get really specific, like how much you love their face, going in great detail about everything. How big the lips are, eye color, eyelashes, breasts size, height, so many details and your friend is like “haha wow that’s pretty interesting” but they kind of want to see how far you’ll go in “changing” them.

other idea was a shapeshifting friend sneaking into anothe friend’s room of a super fan of a specific character and they look around and they just see rows of figurines or posters and their changing into the character just from the amount around them and they accidentally turn on the computer to start playing a “best of” video of said character. Person who owns all the stuff comes back to find a somewhat perfect copy of their favorite character who just dying to give their biggest fan a reward.

is pokeshifting a term? like pokemon shapeshifting?????

Shapeshifting as a superpower has such good crime potential that everyone on this website would squander

You can commit identity theft, you can make people believe that someone else commited the crime you did in broad daylight, you can literally be a fly on the wall and become the perfect spy

The possibilities are endless, truly

A disguise most worthy!

Tis what they call a “Canadian tuxedo”.

my ideal body is if i could put all of my height into my arms. gibbon stature.

Gendermorph

People always suppose that shapeshifting characters might be genderfluid because they are having to take on forms of various genders. But genderfluid doesn’t quite work like that. If you’re genderfluid, your gender changes based on something you experience within yourself. It can’t be defined by your outward appearance.

Which makes it interesting that shapeshifters often take on the forms of other people. Presumably, even if the shapeshifter was genderfluid, this could be a cause of gender dysphoria, as their physical form might not match the gender they identified with.

What could make sense is that, if a genderfluid person had shapeshifting powers, they would change their physical form based on the gender they were experiencing in the moment, and take on the physical features they felt most suited them. But the forms they took on would always be themself, or would always align with the gender they were currently experiencing.

What could also make sense is for a shapeshifter who identified as female, for example, only taking on female forms, even if those were of other people.

Some shapeshifting characters, such as Nimona from the film/graphic novel Nimona, and Double Trouble from the TV series She Ra and the Princesses of Power, have a form that is read as being their own, their default. For Nimona, this is female, and for Double Trouble, they are non-binary. It is unclear whether either of them have reservations about taking on physical forms of other genders, or whether their gender identity is influenced by their shapeshifting powers.

To imagine things the way many people tend to assume that shapeshifters such as Nimona and Double Trouble would be genderfluid, I would like to propose a new gender – gendermorph. Unlike gender fluidity, in which someone’s gender changes without any pattern or apparent reason, gendermorph individuals find themselves happy to take on the gender that corresponds to their physical form at the time. They may have a default form, which is the gender they are most strongly linked to, such as how Double Trouble is non-binary (linking to how some genderfluid individuals have a ‘root’ gender), but they would not experience gender dysphoria from taking on forms which do not match their 'default’ gender.

Gendermorph also has links to cassgender – feeling that one’s gender is unimportant, or feeling indifferent towards gender.

Note that gendermorph is not the same as being cisgender – while gendermorph individuals tend to identify in a way that aligns with their physical form, the nature of their gender is change, and the ability to take on new forms while usually always returning to their default.

The gendermorph identity is intended to apply to fictional characters with shapeshifting abilities, but it could become an identity for people who believed their gender would change corresponding to their physical form if they had the power to shapeshift.

Anyway, that’s my idea for gendermorph!

i got 99 problems and being able to shapeshift would solve at least 73 of them.