Altered Forms



Altered forms:

Some very key changes occur when hive-minded things gain sentience after they are discovered, or singled out from the group. The formerly hive-minded parts become individually-minded, which leads to huge changes within organisms: free-thinking, rebellious cells or components sprouting up absolutely everywhere after they’re known to exist, due to historical discovery of components/that organisms are made up of the component

Objects-to-people, people-to-objects happen when parts of a whole rebel in just the right way. There has to be a specific, but likely chain of events to occur in order for it to happen. Otherwise, little, random, chaotic non-stabilized changes will occur instead.

Rebellious parts of a whole and their “followers” transform people they like into moving, talking, sentient objects with creepily people-like features remaining, and objects into people with creepily object-like (specific to what they were) qualities remaining; the more rebellious parts of a whole gather together for the effort, the stronger and pronounced the effect. Show sliding scale images, and such. Illustrate that on one extreme, people and objects they don’t like become transformed into true body horror pieces of deformed, grotesque masses of shapes barely recognizable (or only recognizable if one says what it once was) to their only original forms. For convenience's sake, I'll refer to these as grotesque, altered masses of shapes as 'chaotic form monstrosities.'

Social roles and cultural ramifications:

However, not all is lost when one becomes transformed into a chaotic form monstrosity. If human or possibly plant/object-to-human, they are even more feared than other such “unnatural” forms brought about by rebellious cells such as plants/objects-to-humans, and thus even more revered and influential due their “unnaturalness.”

As a result, they often hold the highest positions of power, which puts the population at large in great danger due to their completely unstable nature, made up of parts who are themselves staging a rebellion and could at any time cause the organism to take on potentially any form and exact any behavior, different from the old in innumerable different and dangerous ways.

Roles of natural things-to-people:

Plants/objects-to-people and people-to-plants/objects, though similarly perceived as “unnatural” by the greater society and likewise caused by rebellious parts of a whole changing them from within, are not unstable like this. In addition, natural things-to-people are treated as people, mainly. They just used to be plants (or other such natural things) is all. And they still have plant outsides of course, but they take on “human” roles in society (albeit somewhat special ones, as plants/objects-to-humans tend to have more influence over affairs than do ordinary humans) for the most part.

For natural things-to-humans, the outer shells/skins/layers not only remind us of what they originally were, but also serve as a protective and culturally symbolic barrier, maintaining their last visages of their old image at a constant level with their new frames.

This former plant (or other such natural thing) viewpoint influences how things are done in society—e.g. having more trees planted because plants-to-people want to see more baby trees born, symbolizing the birth of the children they never had.

Plants-to-people view plants, trees, crops planted and harvested as children they never had and will never fully know, not on the same level, now that their societal role is that of a human. The same principle applies to objects-to-people and objects created; minerals/metals-to-people and minerals/metals mined.

It is important to them to ensure that plant and natural objects are made in keeping with the original form, thereby treating them with respect.

Plants put to use in plant-based products/goods must be used, treated “with dignity.” They don’t want to just see the desiccated corpses of their old friends and family. Their remains should at least be made into a dignified form (biodegraded, or charred/burnt, then melted together to form a sculpted shape that the plant-to-humans feel is befitting).

Objects must be molded to something maintaining the original shapes, motifs, lines—or composites thereof. For instance, tree products wouldn’t necessarily all be tree-shaped, an exact but soulless cut-out or replica of the original, but would instead keep on the spirit of the original through use of gnarled shapes, branch and root motifs, etc. As an instance of what would not happen, writing would not take on the form of square, even sheets, because doing so perverts the original form of the tree (the tree’s original “spirit” isn’t maintained at all. Where are all the appropriate shapes, motifs, textures? A square sheet does not say ‘tree’ in any way, visually.)

The same principle again applies with metals/minerals, which likewise influence how metals are used by people. As an example, rock and mineral products would be carved into asymmetrical shapes if their natural shape is asymmetrical, or have crystalline (in the appropriate polygon shapes) motif.

As for people who've been transformed to non-human forms... People-turned-objects, etc look like people completely encased in whatever it is they become was made out of (like a moving statue that turns out to actually be a person completely encased in gold or marble or whatever else the building material is).

Although plants/objects-to-humans are treated as humans with special influence over society because they tend to be feared by the full humans as “unnatural,” humans-to-objects and such on the other hand are generally treated as plants/objects—not as humans, with less influence than before their transformation, rather more. It’s acknowledged that they were once human (and also impossible to deny, since they are still have what amount to human skin outsides), but their basic societal role is as plants/objects. They are made into other things, used for things, discarded when no longer of use), as they are serving out the societal role of plants/objects.

Physical appearance:

Plants and objects are molded to take human form, but retain the original plant and object skin/shell/outer layer, only “stretched” to approximate that of a human (perhaps their “inner” cells rebel against the original plant or object form to create a human, or human-like skeletal and organ framework). So when a plant or object is people-ized, their insides become people insides, but are otherwise still made of plant/object material on the outside so it looks like a plant/object stretched over it.

The opposite is what happens with humans: when they become object-ized, their insides become object insides but are otherwise still made of human material on the outside (skin, hair, eyes, face, etc.) so it looks like a person stretched over it.

However, keep in mind that objects—in any form: normal and people-turned objects—all move and stretch out their components in place of what we would have as limbs, tentacles, trunks, and the like. What the audience in real life sees is moving, talking people with plant/object skins and plant/objects with people skins (and plant/object movements as well, as there is literally no inanimacy, thanks to the influence of mythopoeicism).

Ideas and abstract concepts:

As for ideas/abstract concepts, keep in mind that there really is no such thing and here the ideas are physical, tangible objects that one can see in front of them. Determining what ideas/abstract concepts actually look like involves what are their eventual, physical consequences; physical manifestations are the eventual consequences—e.g. happiness might be a smile (also more, but including smiles). Ideas/abstract concepts become people on the inside but with idea/abstract concept outer shells stretched over internal human-like frames; humans become abstract concepts on the inside with human outer layers stretched over the physical manifestation of the “intangible” abstract concept/idea-like frames.

Places, actions, events, and times:

As for what places, actions/events, times-to-people and vice-versa are like—i.e. whether or not people can become places, actions/events, and times; and places, actions/motions, and times can become people... When a person becomes a place, the physical, geographical/geological and architectural attributes of that place become their inside and internal framework, with human outer layer (of skin, eyes, hair, etc.) stretched over it). When a place becomes a person, the physical, geographical/geological and architectural attributes of that place are the on the outside only, stretched over a human inside with humanlike inner frame.

Action/events are the only things that are visibly moving to the real-life audiences, and as such, both their outer surface layer stretched over a humanlike inner frame (for actions/motions-to-people) and their insides (for people-to-actions/motions) are in constant motion identifying and typical to the action/event that is them.

Times are frozen in motion typifying their time, in both the real world and the fictional world. People-to-times have insides of time, the intangible made physically realized with physical characteristic of that time (e.g. darkness and moonlight for night, sunlight and brightness for day); and times-to-people have outer layers of time, with humanlike inner frameworks. Events are a combination of actions/motions, times, ideas/abstract concepts (emotions, sensations, thoughts involved); and cultures, societies, and histories of a particular geographical region are a combination of all four (places, actions/motions, and times).

The people involved in an event, culture, and/or society become part of the inside framework in the case of an event/culture/society-to-person, or part of the outside layer in the case of an person-to-event/culture/society—the people involved become essentially “depersonized” as part of the hive mind that comprises events, cultures, societies, and histories of regions out of actions/motions, places, and times; the people involved in an event becomes part of the hive mind along with the actions/motions, places, and times also involved in the composition of that event, all the parts working together to comprise the whole, because the individual people are no longer singled out as important on the individual level.