In Lieu Of A Debut, I Give You...An Introduction!

 [OUTSIDE IMMERSION FILE]

Author’s note: This was written in one sitting, and I am refusing myself the option to read back over it and change it BECAUSE it’s honest. I don’t want to dilute that by watering down my words or chopping down my signature run-on sentences.

Anyway, enjoy.

What is Gleam, really?

    That’s a short question with a long answer.
    She started as an original character in a shared “on-line open roleplay” setting. It was very much anything goes, so far as quality and originality went, but I held myself to certain standards. I played in a more structured tabletop roleplaying game on the weekends, and so I knew a little more about how it was supposed to work. Add to that my high-school freshman drama/improv class, my habit for reading anything I could get my hands on about anything I was interested in, and my burgeoning internet access and freedom, and you have a recipe for an armchair expert in roleplaying.
    To my credit, I didn’t boast so much as *show off*. And even then, a lot of what I did stayed behind the scenes. The first thing I did when I made Gleam was make her a world of darkness werewolf the apocalypse character sheet, to sketch out her abilities. I’ve since made call of cthulhu sheets (both of her and a human version of her and a cat version of her), a monsters and other childish things slash one-big-roll engine sheet, D&D 3.5 and 5e sheets, a beyond the supernatural character sheet, and a few other reference documents. I have yet to publish unexpurgated versions of her various character sheets, and I lament that some have been lost to time and will need to be recreated, though I do relish the opportunity to further refine those sheets when I have time. From memory, in order.

1>Werecat, some sort of stealthy magical killer archetype (it has been too long).

Starting Details: 

Orange Sun-dress with jack’o’lantern face.

Eyes gradient from yellow to green irises.

Sharp teeth.

Three braids, three tails. 

Orange and black hair/fur.

One tail orange, one black, one striped.

Starting Capabilities:

Stealth

Drive(this was a power fantasy back then whaddaya want)

Spiritual Thermokinesis - Okay so that’s a mouthful; lemme break that down ya: Spiritual (uses spirits as a medium) Thermo(temperature aka heat but without the fire association of “pyro” because even back then I was smart enough to know cold was the absence of heat, and ALSO I had read about Maxwell’s Demon. Normal kasha in Japanese lore, from what I knew then, were able to manipulate flames, so I just built on that)kinesis(moving around. Specifically MOVING. She had three spirit orbs(her own previous lives), which she could use to super-efficiently transmit thermal energy from one orb’s proximity to another, and the third was able to store excess. The black orb absorbed, white expelled, and silver stored. I was following black hole white hole logic plus shiny silvery grey is in between and she has a three-theme.) Got all that? Cool.

Shooting a crossbow.

Expert with stiletto knife.

Climbing walls and assorted acrobatics.

Minor Enchantments (of objects, usually small fetishes or talismans)

Around this time I wrote her first story, set in a (then modern) environment. It began with her entering a library, booting a public-access computer from a flash drive (yes I knew about this then but that’s another story) and logging on to advertise her services as a “pest(ass) removal(ass) expert(in)”. I think you see the irony, no?

2>D&D 3.5e “catfolk” (variant wood-elf with only aesthetic changes) rogue.

Updates:

    None notable, but she was much weaker in this “form” as many of the abilities I’d given her for the roleplaying online were to say the least “unbalanced” for a D&D character. Never actually got to play this character and didn’t feel like writing a weaker version of her so not much developed here.

3>Beyond the Supernatural and Call of Cthulhu - Basically just a human criminal-turned-investigator inspired by Gleam with the same aesthetic and (where available) skillset.

Around this time I wrote a story of her taking a job to assassinate a lich via liberating him of his phylactery. I characterized her as being hesitant because she doesn’t want to be seen as a cat burglar. The pun would be unbearable. This is around when I commissioned the first artwork I ever got of her, from scorci, as a reference sheet, hoping to someday be able to hire someone to do… something with it. Honestly based foresight. Scorci introduced the detail of her ears being other-than-human even in human form and I adored that so I stuck with it.

Art by: Scorci

4>One Big Roll Engine:

And now we are in modern times. I’ve got a vtuber model of her in the works, and I’ve written two stories about her and one almost about her.

Developments: She’s completely changed in origin story as a result of these stories and where they went.

Her “species” now is “weird cat.” Due to various influences, most notably nisioisin’s monogatari series, nitro+’s demonbane, and digital extreme’s warframe mmo, her concept is a lot more, well, conceptual. 

She exists to fit a niche in her own story that I carved a her-shaped niche into.

Circular, but bear with me - her *in-universe* existence is *as a mythical being* which is a being which only exists so long as there is a *myth* of it and *exists* as what that myth says it is.

In other words, she lives in a theoretical world where I am the only law. But, here come those standards again, just like laws of nature. And so I am ruled by my own opinions of my creations. It’s meta all the way up.

So “Gleam Fushigami” is the embodiment of the urban legend called “Gleam Fushigami” and also any other urban legend, myth, or cryptid she could reasonably be the explanation of. 

She’s every unexplained meow, every confusing cat-like shadow, just beyond any and every corner.

She’s a WEIRD CAT.

But she’s also a Vtuber(and Vstreamer). What’s up with that?

These developments, canonically, take place after everything I’ve written prior about her. So she’s had quite a few experiences and influences on her path. And it eventually came to be that the world she was in couldn’t support her anymore. There wasn’t a niche in that world’s story for anything mythical anymore. So she escaped. Used all the stored energy she had to create and maintain a tiny world of her own, floating in an undifferentiated sea of static.

Right now, everyone there is someone I’ve written, and there isn’t much action going on, so the energy of the island itself is low. Remember the lore than things like her feed on belief and investment and devotion. Lucky for her she has my functionally delusional self deeply invested and devoted, but there’s only so far that can stretch.

I really love this character, for more reasons than I can remember at any one time. Like that friend who sometimes says something that totally shocks you while at once completely fitting who they are and only then you remember that that’s one of the reasons too.

So, as her creator, or producer, if you will, I want her to keep developing, keep having adventures, and have fun. 
And the most she ever developed was when she was in a crowd. 
So we’re building a city, she and I.

Read more »

Unscheduled Ayakashima Shrine Street Sing-Along

 The flickering sun traces its lazy path along the horizon, peeking out over the monochrome ocean. A strong and playful wind is about today, blustering through the streets and carrying secrets. Gleam listened, more to make the wind feel good about itself than to learn anything. 

She was restless. This scheme was exciting, and anxiety is excitement’s other face. 

To make matters worse, the Tourism Board had put her effectively entirely in charge of feet on the street promotion. Sure, her producer was technically doing the same job, but the overlap was quite literally nonexistent. Completely different worlds. Still, she was grateful. She wouldn’t have been capable of bridging the gap alone. Alone… well, she never really was, but when someone (or something) is always there, you eventually become inured to it. Familiarity breeds contempt, it is said. And even in this vast city, with its bustling streets and clamorous festivals, she was melancholy. 

A part of her she couldn’t silence saw the shadows and phantoms for what they were. But what cannot be silenced, can be ignored. At least somewhat. She hums a little one-and-two three-and-four rhythm, harmonizing with her own echo. A song reaches her lips, and she starts to sing to the shadows in the streets, the poltergeists on her porch.

“The sun and the moon and the stars

They could each and every one

All of them could someday be ours

But you can’t finish what hasn’t begun”

The wind leaves her side to carry the song.

“The stars and the sun and the moon

Tell me something new is coming soon

So lend me an eye and an ear

Though there’s always something to fear”

Other voices take up the tune, humming along.

“The moon and the stars and the sun

Sing to me even failure is fun

When you give it all of your all

It’s okay to fall, to fall fall fall”

The city is still. Silent but for the song and the wind.

“Because down is a direction

And directions are relative

And so, so long as you function

You can change your own narrative

Start from the ending and begin

Start to build a better story

Learn the rules and loopholes and cracks

‘Cause when we understand surely

We’ll learn to have each other’s backs”

She isn’t crying, but tears are flowing down her cheeks nonetheless. A cry is a sound, and this was silent. She wept. A dream is a fragile thing, prone to vanish if looked at too closely. But what about the dreams that keep coming back? The dreams that haunt you more than any ghost every could? Those smoldering ambitions nearly smothered in your heart that cry out in yearning? 

We have resolved; to stoke our flame, burn bright and honest. Far better than choking on dead smoke.

A Cat Learns To Think

 Energy. 

That is the most core and fundamental necessity for any life. No energy, no action, no life. 

For mortal beings, of the natural world, this energy originates from the sun. 

Plants photosynthesize, herbivores eat and are eaten in turn. A web of energy and consumption. 

But for the supernatural, there are… other factors. 

Devotion and belief. 

From the mightiest deity to the lowest urban legend, without belief to lend life to the myth, and devotion to remember it and pass it on, these things will die.

And so, in many threads of time, the unbelievable was disbelieved and disproved and died, or even never was.

Gleam’s native time-line was one of the few in which the proof was too strong, and the unbelievable lived on, backed up by paranaturalists, psychics, mages, and creatures born whole of the supernatural.

Once Gleam had been a lowly cat, scrabbling through life on the neon-lit oil-dark streets. 

But, one day,-- hungry beyond belief, she smelled something entirely new, and unthinkably tempting.

Following the scent, she came upon a structure, which, though clearly old, she had never seen before. 

The source of the scent was surely inside, but her way was barred by an old scrap of paper affixed over a gap in the door’s base. 

She clawed away the fading paper seal, squeezing her lithe body between the broken planks in the shrine door. 

That short traversal of a simple threshold seemed almost like crawling through an endless tunnel. 

Sometimes she dreams she is in it still.

Within, she found a tiny mote of light. 

Light a color indescribable, one she had never before seen and hasn’t glimpsed since. 

Being a cat, she had pounced on it. 

She was quite pleasantly surprised to actually catch it. 

She pinned the little glimmer to the ground, and tilted her head. Was this what smelled so good? 

It was minuscule, but it was something. She scarfed it down without a second thought. 

Perhaps if it had tasted unpleasant, or even bland, she might have hesitated. 

But it was simply too tempting. 

Intoxicating, even. 

And, what’s more, once she had eaten it, she was, somehow, sated. 

And so she curled up to sleep, while a nameless little god settled into its new vessel.

Her dreams stretched farther before her than ever before. New ambitions, emotions, and concepts swirled in a growing maelstrom. The kind you remember, experience all over again, and know you remembered it, but you can’t describe a single bit of it.

She woke with a start, thinking to herself, “Have I always had two tails? Wait, have I always had an internal monologue?” Her eyes opened wide, and her hackles rose as she became aware of another thought, not in her mind, but beside it.

“No.”

“Well that’s so very informative thank you VERY much.” Sarcasm dripped from the thought like fresh blood.

“You also didn’t always have an attitude.” She felt a wry smile, just outside of perception.

“So what changed then?” This was weird.

“You, of course.” The texture of laughter brushes against her, making her start.

“In what sense?”

“Well, your tail split, for one, and you got a lot smarter for another. But this is just the start.”

“Ehhhhhh?” She curls up into a small ball, newly born anxieties sparking.

“Oh, you know, normal stuff. Third tail, humanoid form, that sorta stuff.”

She yowls in response, mortified at the idea of becoming a clumsy human.

“No, no, you don’t need to worry. Trust me, this is an upgrade. And you won’t be stuck in it. I’m just broadening our horizons!”

“Our?” Somehow, this bit was almost as worrying as the whole humanoid form thing.

“Well, yes. That’s the deal. I get a corporeal anchor to reality, you get some nice perks. Win-win. Besides, you were dying when you found me anyway. Well… dead.” She remembered, with horror, the strangely lengthy tunnel. “Hey, hey, don’t panic, that whole passed away thing is all past tense now.”

“Funny. Huh. Sense of humor is new, too. Kind of.” She vaguely remembered feline antics involving subjecting unsuspecting fragile objects to gravity. That had always been funny, and probably always would be.

“Yeah, that’s definitely one of my favorite bonuses as far as sapience goes. You’re gonna love it.” The smiling feeling returned, more familiar now. More comfortable.

“Okay, sure,” She swishes her tails, paws at their tips for a moment, covers her eyes with them, and rolls on her back, wiggling against the coarse tatami mat floor to scratch an itch.

“Now, to business -”

“Business!? You mean like WORK?” She had seen humans slaving away in front of fires or screens or any number of other things, and they stunk of misery more often than not. The fish vendor that had always given her actual bits of meat hadn’t reeked of despair. That one had a happy smell, like warm riverbank grass in the autumn. She realized she missed them. She had for a long time, but she hadn’t had a word for it. Grief. A bitter word, but at least now she knew.

“And that’s why we need to get moving.” The voice in her head she’d been completely ignoring in her reverie concluded.

“Oh, uh, yeah, totally” How long had she been zoned out, anyway?

“…you weren’t listening, were you?” The voice chided gently.

“Not a bit, honestly.” She yawned apologetically.

“Well, I won’t be repeating myself, and you already agreed, so off we go!”

Her eyes narrowed and her lips curled slightly back from her teeth.

“Think of it as practice trusting me.” A deeply wry tone.

“Fine. Is there an easier way outta here than… that tunnel?” She shivers, memories of death too near for comfort.

“The door opens from the inside. Just push.” She follows the instruction, and the door completely collapses. Then the frame. 

She bolts, narrowly escaping before the entire structure crumbles. She doesn’t bother looking back, letting her body settle into easy, bounding strides. She does feel much stronger now. But, at the same time, she’s even more hungry than ever before. As she ponders, her instincts, new and old, guide her, and before long she arrives at a graveyard. She clears the gate in one leap, landing atop a memorial stone and pausing to groom herself.

“Now we hunt.” The voice is eager, excited, vibrant with hunger. But, hunt, here?

“For what?” Even as she wonders, something even more wondrous enters her field of view. A gently oscillating orb, pulsing cyan and cerulean, hovers over a lonely old grave. Her eyes widen as she realizes that this is the answer. This is her prey.

“Step one: establish a peripheral barrier.” She comprehends each individual word but the sentence is more or less an enigma, and the voice clarifies, “Prowl in a complete circle around your target. Stay on the same surface the whole time, no jumping up and down. Trace your tails along the ground behind you while letting a small amount of your energy emanate from them. Like an exhalation of power.”

She obeys, following her patron’s guidance. Not long after she overlaps her starting point, the trail traced by her two tails ignites in spectral flame. She startles, for just a moment, before realizing something strange. It is as if the flames are an extension of her. Of her tail.

“Now close the net.” This time, she doesn’t need any more explanation. She flexes, coiling the ring of fire ever closer to the hovering soul. “Now!”

She hesitates, not knowing why. The voice fades into the background, drowned out by a feeling of, at first, inexplicable nostalgia. The sourceless scent of sun-warmed grass on a moonlit midnight, a familiar, friendly voice, crooning to her…

“Eat up, little light, and be strong.” Was that a memory, or was this wayward soul — her contemplation reaches the conclusion and recoils. She can hear the fiery growl of the kami’s — her own — hunger. Instincts unknown to her take hold and the fire wraps around the orb, as if cradling it. It recognizes her, and she it. That is enough. The spirit combusts, its flame blending into her own. A gentle warmth blossoms within her as she assimilates its spiritual energy. The feeling is like a sudden river in a desert. She stretches in satisfaction, luxuriating on a slate headstone, licking her left paw.

“That was… unexpected.” The voice reaches her again and she blinks.

“Was it?” She is inclined towards a smug sense of satisfaction.

“Quite. I hardly expected to find a willing convert rather than prey. Did you know that one, in their life?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.” She equivocates, somehow feeling that the moment of connection had been hers alone, “Regardless, you were right that I do feel great after that.”

“Yeah, I bet. Plus it takes some heat off our back.” The god sounds relieved, a strange thing for a god to be.

“Heat? As in suspicion?” Suspicion was a somewhat new concept, something in between being spotted by prey too soon and not knowing if you’re being watched.

“Indeed. Humans are quite protective of their spiritual bodies. If they knew what happened, we’d have trouble blending in.” She cocks her head, not fully understanding, and it continues, “A soul’s last moments linger for quite some time. The emotional echoes of their last thoughts on this plane.”

“That’s what that smell is?”

“You’re learning quickly. Skilled spiritual practitioners can detect those traces, as well, and when they smell suffering, they get suspicious. Your little stunt was so cloyingly consensual that, at least for now, they’d think you some sort of sage or saint.”

“And if that had gone how you expected?” She squints, starting to feel a bit suspicious herself.

“We’d be heading for the mountains already to lay low. The destination remains unchanged, but we no longer need to hide, for the time being.”

“Why the mountains?”

“Ah, well, there are places you can only reach from certain specific other places.” The voice states, doing its best to fill the phrase with a sense of meaning.

"I see... I think."

The birth and death of one little god.

This is the story of a nameless god of an all but forgotten village.
This little village had a little field by a little river.
They found little seeds in a little clearing in the big forest.
They planted their little seeds in their little field.
The little seeds, in the little field, with a little water, grew big.
First sprouted vines that grew long and strong.
From the vines grew wide leaves and fragrant flowers.
After the flowers, fruit - large and hard-rinded, but nourishing within.
The village celebrated, and the thought came to one to return a single piece of the harvest to where they had found the seeds, in thanks.
They took it upon them-self to do so, explaining their actions upon their return.
The village elders asked them their rationale and all they could say was “If we honor the land and the vine’s sacrifice, it may indulge us with a greater harvest in the future.”
This made sense to them, and so it became a part of their culture.
And it worked.
Each year, the single largest fruit harvested was returned to that same place of origin.
And each year, the harvest was larger than the last.
The duty of carrying it became an honor, and a challenge, as the fruits’ size increased.
An artist, in a moment of inspiration, used a small amount of their blood to paint a simple face upon the fruit to be sacrificed. Despite the gory color and the jaggedly crooked smile, it felt undeniably cheerful, and so this, too was adopted by the culture.
The decorated fruit was displayed upon a stump, and, as the people observed its gradual decay and disintegration, they began to associate it with their own mortality and the inevitable passing of all things. They began to light candles atop it during their harvest festival, and sing and dance. At some point the innovation to carve the face into the fruit, remove the soft innards, and place the candles within was made. The light of these flames was believed to guide souls to their next life. 
As the religion developed, so too did the god, until the believers decided to make it official. They built a shrine to give it a home, and resolved to, at the next harvest festival, bestow upon it a name and title along with the traditional sacrifice.
But disaster struck. The village was annihilated by A war they never even knew about. The warring people they never knew used their fields as a battleground, their houses as barracks, and their bodies as practice dummies.
Some villagers died cursing their god for failing to protect them. Others died cursing the invaders. A few died cursing themselves. One died hoping their god would survive without a name. But they all died.
Their god did not know war. It barely knew thought. But it knew feeling. And it knew death. Even bereft of any living followers, it did the duty it had never asked for, and guided the souls of the fallen onward. It knew not where, it only lit the way.
One villager, however, would not go.
That villager said “You whose vines became our rope, whose leaves became our roof, whose fruit became our flesh, I entreat you, endure, and remember.”
“I AM… SPENT.”
“Let my essence be your fuel, then. Let your light be the memory of my people.”
“…”
“Alone, we both are dead. Together, something may endure.”
“VERY WELL.”