Chris Elman
<infobox>
<title source="name"><default>Chris Elman</default></title>
<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>
<label>Status</label><format><label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox> Chris Elman<ref name="II3.6">Glare 3.6</ref>, known at Parahumans Online as Strange_Mammal (and two dozens of similar nicknames), is a post-Scion trigger and a debutant hero.
Personality
Strange_Mammal described himself as an introvert. Capricorn noted that they rarely spoke up in the chat.<ref>Cap: I do hope you’ll step out of those shadows more, c.
Cap: it’s been interesting talking to you online and seeing how talkative you are here.
Cap: I like what you contribute when you speak up
Curious_Cephalopod: that’s me being an introvert.
Cap: that’s fixable
Curious_Cephalopod: I think you badly underestimate my introversion, T - Glow-worm P.6</ref> He knew how to use the advanced features of the PHO search function.<ref name="P.4e1">of5: Wanted k actually.
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: yuss! \♥/
of5: you know this site. I want search terms to find some people. Articles, anything else.
Would need to cover a lot of bases. Normal site search limits # of terms.
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: uh. that hard. you want packaged search string
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: i can try
Questionable_Mammal: you’re looking for others in your set?
of5: yes
Questionable_Mammal: I can make attempt. gimme time. you might want to fine tune after. - Glow-worm P.4</ref><ref name="P.4e2"/>
His personality is occluded by his power as his changing of forms also effects his personality.
Names
Strange_Mammal has 32 individual PHO accounts that Chris rotates through.<ref name="P.6e3">A_real: According to our systems you have 32 individual accounts that you’re rotating through.
Curious_Cephalopod: this is true
A_real: Is it really needed to have one individual account for each day of the month and one for what I assume are holidays?
Curious_Cephalopod: not what I was doing…
Curious_Cephalopod: …but would be amusing with some reshuffling…
Curious_Cephalopod: …assuming it was allowed… - Excerpt from Glow-worm P.6</ref> Known examples include:
- Strange_Mammal<ref name="P.3">Glow-worm P.3</ref>
- Questionable_Mammal<ref name="P.4 e2"/>
- Questionable_Cephalopod<ref name="P.6"/>
- Curious_Cephalopod<ref name="P.6">Glow-worm P.6</ref>
- Weird_Cephalopod<ref name="P.7">Glow-worm P.7</ref>
- Weird_Insect<ref name="P.8">Glow-worm P.8</ref>
Strange_Mammal has a program set up to duplicate their preferences between different accounts.
Their motivation for doing this is unclear. They claimed that it was helping them "find out things" regarding an individual or individuals they believed was surveilling them.<ref name="P.6e2">A_real: But why do it?
Curious_Cephalopod: security. I’m being surveilled…
Curious_Cephalopod: …doing this lets me find out things
A_real: Surveilled?
Curious_Cephalopod: yes
A_real: On PHO?
Curious_Cephalopod: if they were stalking me elsewere and not here where it’s stalker central then they would be bad at what they do…
Curious_Cephalopod: *elsewhere…
Curious_Cephalopod: …and they aren’t
A_real: If you’re trying to obfuscate, I have to question why you use a chain of names that connect to one another.
Curious_Cephalopod: I’m not trying to hide. I’m trying to find out things. - Excerpt from Glow-worm P.6</ref> They also indicated that their different usernames correspond to physical transformations they undergo.<ref name="P.6e1">Curious_Cephalopod: …there. It should be in my user images.
A_real: Verification_For_Sydney.i
A_real: I see it. I see. I’m assuming that in a matter of days, if you’re an avian of some sort…
Curious_Cephalopod: Insect. Yes, I could supply a different verification image…
Curious_Cephalopod: …so can we chalk this up to a peculiarity of mine? Powers weirdness?
[...]
Curious_Cephalopod: …and this isn’t that serious. Consider me a curious sort of multi-limbed invertebrate who would be happy to be left alone… - Excerpt from Glow-worm P.6</ref> Chris later claimed that the entire thing was a ruse designed to draw out Heart_Shaped_Pupil's snooping tendencies.<ref name="P.6e4">Heart_Shaped_Pupil: When you were talking to Ms. Sydney earlier
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: You hinted at having a reason for the changing nicks.
Heart_Shaped_Pupil: What was it?
Curious_Cephalopod: Honestly?…
Curious_Cephalopod: …I wanted to see if you’d get curious enough to reveal yourself.- Excerpt from Glow-worm P.6</ref>
Relationships
Strange_Mammal believes that they are being surveilled. They stated that their stalker was good at what they did.<ref name="P.6e2"/> Heart_Shaped_Pupil was seemingly the one surveilling them.<ref name="P.6"/>
Appearance & Powers
On at least one occasion, he provided a verification image for their account "Curious_Cephalopod" that appeared to be a literal cephalopod. They indicated that their transformations followed a known schedule, and that they would be an insect in a few days.<ref name="P.6e1"/> They also indicated that it might be possible to adjust their schedule so that their usernames corresponded to the days of the month.<ref name="P.6e3"/>
However, at the meet-up he looks like a very average, brown-haired kid with braces.<ref>Behind Weld, someone else was ducking into the room. He looked like he was of a height with Kenzie, but given how boys developed slower, he might’ve been a touch older. He had a mess of tousled brown hair that would have been over his eyes if he wasn’t wearing large headphones as a kind of hairband. He had a very flat expression as he walked around the perimeter of the room. His t-shirt was black with a logo I didn’t recognize, his cargo shorts had stuff packed into the pockets, but he mostly looked like a very average kid. Only his old fashioned braces really stood out to me- the kind that made it hard for him to put his lips together.
[...]
Chris, too. By process of elimination, he’d be the boy roughly Kenzie’s age. - Excerpt from Flare 2.5</ref>
He has multitudinous forms tied to his emotional state with strengths and weaknesses tied to these forms.<ref name="II3.2 e1">“I transform,” Chris said. “Changer
[...]
I have a few different forms. They’re inspired by my moods and mental states.”
“You give them names based on what mood or state they’re from,” Kenzie said. “Like Creeping Anxiety and Wistful Distraction.”
[...]
“These forms reflect the feelings?” I asked.
“Very much so,” Sveta said.
“It sounds like he has more than a few forms,” I said.
“Eight or more, as far as I’ve counted,” Kenzie said. “He said a few, but I think he loses track. There’s wiggle room in each form, too. It depends on a lot of factors. Diet, time since he last used a form, if he pushes for something in the middle.
[...]
The forms tend to come with pretty heavy weakness. Anxiety is quick but fragile. That sort of thing.” - Excerpt from Glare 3.2</ref>
With each change he goes through a permanent change occurs with his body, an addition in one area that causes a subtraction in another.<ref name="II3.2 e1">“It’s one. He doesn’t change all the way back.”
“What?” I asked.
Tristan explained, “He changes to one, he gets a little taller, a little stronger, a little more sluggish. He changes to another, gets better eyes, ears…”
“Thus the headphones,” Kenzie said.
“…and less responsive in hand-eye coordination to go with it. He tries to balance, but lately it’s been getting worse.” - Excerpt from Glare 3.2</ref> These changes can be euphoric in how they effect his mood, He likens it to a narcotic.<ref name="II3.3 e4">“Your mood seems better,” I said to him.
The smile dropped away. He looked at me and shrugged. “It’s different. I feel more human, mentally and emotionally.”
The change hadn’t seemed to make any difference in how he looked, either. Were the changes subtle?
“I’m not sure I grasped it all,” I told him. “Once you change, it’s…?”
I trailed off.
“It’s like a hit of a drug,” he said. “Focus, surprise, sadness, appreciation, disgust, fear, anger, and then this one.”
“Joy?”
“I call this particular flavor of it Wan Indulgence,” he said. He bit down on the chocolate bar, then closed his eyes, clearly enjoying it. He talked with his mouth full, “Can be enjoyment. I’ll feel it more normally for a few days now that I’ve changed.” - Excerpt from Glare 3.3</ref>If he doesn't use his other emotions and tries to stay in one form it negatively impacts his psychology and train of thought.<ref name="II3.2 e3">“What happens if he doesn’t change?”
“The body stays the same,” Sveta said. “He doesn’t change physically.”
“Which is good.”
“But he doesn’t change mentally either. He says he can’t tap those emotions he’s not using, he can’t think as clearly, his thoughts go in circles.”
“Lose-lose,” I said.
“Something like that,” Ashley said. - Excerpt from Glare 3.2</ref>
In a form he calls 'Wan Indulgence' he can vastly increase his size. He also gained the ability to swallow large objects<ref name="II3.3 e1">The two of them went to plant it, with Chris picking up a fallen tree on the way.
[...]
Chris had his head turned, and he was using one hand to cram the last few feet of the dead tree into his mouth.
[...]
Chris had one hand full with the tree, mouth distended with a fat tongue sticking out, apparently to keep the tree from rubbing against his lower row of teeth; his hand served to protect the other teeth.
I was put in mind of the man I’d seen during the broken trigger, who’d had a tree come out the other direction.
Chris laughed, deep and booming, tree digested. He lowered his chin, mouth closed, hands and arms up to protect his face and guard Kenzie. - Excerpt from Glare 3.3</ref> and compress the materials.<ref name="II3.3 e2">Chris, legs embedded in spiky rock, was using both hands to haul what looked like a long, thin rod out of his throat. He’d swallowed the length of the dead tree like a sword-swallower swallowed a blade, and now he was drawing it back out, changed.
Narrower, thinner, smoother, and slick with fluids.
Chris, it seemed, wasn’t just the kind of changer who could adapt his form. He was the kind of changer who gained new sorts of powers while in an alternate form.
He hauled the last of the tree free of his mouth. Fifteen feet long, thicker at the end he had just removed than at the end he held, now that he was turning it around to get it in a position he could wield it. Too long to be a proper club, not quite a rod either. - Excerpt from Glare 3.3</ref> This currently looks to be limited to Organic material but he can continue using the material for effects.<ref name="II3.3 e3.1">He reared back, and he blew. He’d broken down and processed more of the dead tree than what he’d used to condense it into a giant club-staff. He exhaled a cloud of wet sawdust.
- Excerpt from Glare 3.3</ref><ref name="II3.3 e3.2">He swallowed hard, giving me a suspicion about what he was about to do. He spat out a ball of wood pulp and phlegm, and I flew to one side, letting it sail past me.
He began to pick himself up, working his way up the hill, stabbing down to pierce the ground with his half-stick and plant it there like an ice-climber might use a piton. The slope was just a little steeper at the base of the hill, and the water had become rock again, smooth and with the spikes all pointed downward, not good grips.
He swallowed hard, giving me a suspicion about what he was about to do. He spat out a ball of wood pulp and phlegm, and I flew to one side, letting it sail past me.
I was put in mind of Crawler – the changer power, the spitting, the joyful monster. Crawler had laughed too.
Crawler had critically injured me with his acid spit, and that had let Amy get her hands on me the second time.
It was a dark, unpleasant thought. - Excerpt from Glare 3.3</ref>
History
Background
Triggered after Gold Morning.
By his own admission he was once involved in accidental manslaughter.<ref>Interlude 4c II</ref>
Glow-worm
Strange_Mammal joined a team of parahumans.
They successfully enticed Heart_Shaped_Pupil into revealing that they had been reading Strange_Mammal's chatlogs.<ref name="P.6e4"/> This revelation did not cause Strange_Mammal to leave the group.<ref name="P.7">Glow-worm P.7</ref>
Fanart Gallery
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'Mad Anxiety' - by DerTodesbote on Deviantart
_Anxiety_by_DerTodesbote.jpg){kind=link}
References
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