Sublime Showdown (Round 1: Faerie)

Username: Agenshiny
Name: Glitter
Gender: None
Race: Psilocybe protervi
Colour: #ED7777
Description: A diffuse cloud of glittering pink spores, barely holding itself together by some unseen force. Little sparkles flitter and coruscate across and in it like a champagne glass floating in the ocean at sunrise. It is a stunning sight for one so deadly. It doesn’t speak, not until it’s in your head, and by then it’s too late. It’s awfully friendly, and naïve, and has a voice like a bubbly laugh; it still doesn’t quite understand what it’s been doing to people since day one.

Items/Abilities: There exists on planet Earth an organism known as the lichen. Of course, things are never as simple as they seem; the humble lichen, seen growing on rocks and in cracks between bricks, is not a single organism at all. A lichen is in fact a symbiotic peace treaty between the Kingdom of Fungi and the Coalition of Photosynthesizing Protists - itself a complicated political entity; needless to say some extremely populous families of a rather high class maintain order in the scheme of things.

But that actually hasn't anything to do with the Glitter at all. No scientific organism worth their ATP would have anything to do with the Glitter if they could help it, and for very good reason: The Glitter is not a symbiote. It is a parasite.

Which again, isn't strictly true, either. We told you nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

The Glitter in its full state with its host is a similar symbiote, but it is normally found in a raw state in the wild: a glittering cloud of spores, a mycological biohazard blown about on the wind. Much in the same way the mycobiont draws light-spun energy from its photobiont partner, the Glitter, with its roots in hallucinogenic fungi, consumes minds.

This isn't always fatal, it insists. Not a parasitic relationship at all. It quite resents the idea.

In fact, colonization by the Glitter has unique neurological benefits for the host, the primary one being the slow but complete eradication of hesitance, inhibition, and eventually, sanity. Such complicating and ludicrous things, it surmises, is much better replaced with the golden fuel of ambition, confidence and optimism, which is quite the vim to get things done.

Unfortunately the hosts never seem to last very long.

Biography: I woke up this morning, and I could do anything. I knew I could do anything.

I stood up to my boss this morning. He wasn’t expecting me to call him out on his bullying but I did, I called him out all right, the old boy nearly had a heart attack from the way I lay into him. Got a promotion. I think I got promoted. Either that or fired. Either way I’m better off without his fat face. I’d like to punch it in. Twice. Maybe three times, until that fleshy nose of his bleeds all over his expensive suit. That’s a good idea. I think I’ll waltz right back in there and knock him off his leather chair.

Did it. This is a pretty sturdy cell. Bars are thick but rattley. I think I’ll rattle them. Ha. That’ll show them. I’m hungry now though. Jailer’s at the door. “You poor sod,” he says, “They say there’s no hope.” He walks away. He didn’t even bring any food.

If I put together enough money i could be president. i could be president of the world. i could rob a bank or make a scheme to get the money. this is a good idea. gonna do it. gonna get out of here. bars don’t come loose no matter how much i shake them. the jailer came by and broke my fingers. no one cares. i think my fingers are okay. i can move them.

i am still hungry. i wonder how my arm tastes.

[EXHIBIT 0001a - “scrap of paper, patient zero, JOTT outbreak id:jma_0001a”]