The Wacky Wonderful Revolving Door

by Krass McWriter

What Defines You (Fangwarden)

The stars overhead mocked him with their silence, while the cold pavement he sat on slowly sucked the heat from him. He couldn’t exactly remember where this particular alley was, though in the end it probably didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered anymore.

He could remember the opening of the Bureaus, their promises of being able to choose any form at all, and be able to change back at any time. He’d been skeptical of it at first; after all, it had been hard enough to believe that talking ponies, dragons, dogs, griffons and a dozen other species or more could exist at all, let alone let you turn into one of them. But gradually, as the number of Bureaus rose and the number of Converts along with them, he’d finally caved in and bought a bottle.

And it had been glorious. It still bothered him that he could not remember what it was that he’d Converted into. Sometimes, the memory of flight would return, soaring on powerful wings with nothing to hold him down. But as he focused on it, he realized that hadn’t been the first time, nor had the time spent deep underwater, underground, or any of the dozens or even hundreds of Conversions he’d undergone.

The worst had been the looks he’d gotten from his friends and family. He couldn’t blame them though, in hindsight it had been all his fault. Even his girlfriend had left him after the fifteenth Conversion since their relationship had started. Her parting words still stung as he lowered his head to stare at the object he held.

“It’s like I don’t even know you anymore...” he muttered, the words just as painful to hear as they had been when she’d said them. “She was right, though.” He shook his head. “Christ, I don’t even know what I am anymore.” He started shaking as he looked at the bottle of potion. “I don’t even know what I was, at first.” He wondered who he was talking to, but supposed that didn’t matter either.

Maybe... maybe he could just take the bottle, and then be done. Whatever form he wound up in, let that be it, and be happy with what he had. He supposed through all of it, he could at least say he knew who he was, if not what.

“Ah, the hell with it.” He tipped back the bottle and drank, as the first hint of sunlight came over the horizon. The empty bottle slipped from his fingers as his skin turned waxy. “Least it’s... a new... day.”

Comments

[shutaro]

Potion-addiction? Grim.
Because the euphoria is hard-coded into the new, shiny (or squishy) body the high will never be blunted and you will never get out of the vicious circle.

[Dafaddah]

Spooky stuff, Fang.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Huh. A world of pervasive transmutagens in every color of the sapient rainbow... Neat. Especially given the hints of simultaneous technological singularity, a strictly human-only event. One can't help but wonder how the princesses feel about all of this. And what happened to Conversion Dreams.

So much ground left to cover. Maybe I'll have claim a patch of my own...

[Krass McWriter]

2126598

In my own canon foTWWRD verse, or the Revolvingverse as some call it,They long ago made humans immune to magic or magic was just never an issue. Electronics they solved by simply replacing what they run off of with magic. A micro processor contains gems and other stuff that can channel magic in lieu of silicon. Or something like that. As for conversion dreams, When billions of people (spread across 2 universe/realities) are converting multiple times a day... I guess my theory is that it was too demanding and so they just stopped.

Of course, TWWRD being a take on TCB, it itself is open for interpretation. No wrong awnsers people.

[Proginoskes]

2126598 Does anyone even know what Singularity means any more? I used to think I knew, but I've become confused. Under one definition (technology develops more rapidly than human culture can adapt to it), we've been under gradually-intensifying Singularity conditions since the Industrial Revolution. The stronger version of the same definition (technology develops more rapidly than humans can anticipate or imagine its consequences) has the unfortunate side-effect of making speculation impossible. Other uses of the term (so far as I know) are either Bad Ends (individuality subsumed in a cybernetic hivemind) or specific to particular fields (the first AI capable of creativity and innovation will rapidly bootstrap herself to maximum possible intelligence, for example).

I don't really see much evidence for any of those, at least not consistently: much like TCB itself, TWWRD is a loose collection of stories that don't necessarily share a single continuity.

[Katamariguy]

Can anyone explain the image to me? I see a mushroom cloud in the shape of some heads, with what seems to be potion spurting out the top...

[Krass McWriter]

2278747

Well, it symbolizes a singularity of species. Through potion, one can truly become anything.

The heads are various species.

[Average Gamer Fox]

This has some good stories, and I think this universe has a lot of potential for other works set in it