This is something me, Pixel is writing. I know we normally don’t say who’s writing these but I feel like it’s helpful this time since I’m the most effected by it next to Lilith.
I got to experience my first year at Othercon and the communal howl, but more importantly we attended a panel on phantom limbs, and it prompted me to type up something.
Doubly so since last night I experienced a very odd shift, specifically ending up nonverbal and my legs/paws were shifted into fox paws, fur and all so I could barely walk unless toe walking.
The entire system experiences phantoms to some degree or another. Thanks to a few hypnosis sessions I tend to experience phantoms the most vivid, with my very big Kitsune tails and my ears being the most commonly present, sometimes also claws and fur, even digitigrade limbs.
In terms of the others in the system, Lilith usually feels her tail behind her dragging on the floor, which causes some issues for her balance as she expects the counterbalancing weight of her tail to stop her falling forwards, resulting in stumbling a lot.
Chloe doesn’t have much issue unless her tail clips, she has huge ears that clip a lot when laid down though, it’s cute watching her tail wag really fast when she’s happy, even if it gets little bits of moss everywhere, totally worth the cleanup.
Bella doesn’t front unless it’s with someone else, but when he has fronted it’s seemed like his phantom ribbons have been felt on the body alongside other features, sometimes they even come out when he’s just near front instead of co-fronting, no matter what the case is it’s pretty adorable seeing him learn how to use them.
Andromeda has the most intense full body phantom out of all of us, it feels every one of its seams and zipper on the body, like it’s been compacted down from the usual 13’ frame to a much shorter vessel sized frame, it tries its best not to move too much when it doesn’t have to as it tends to pretty easily bust seams that way. We’ve gotten good at stitching them back together but it feels much better when someone outside the system does it to the body.
Another interesting thing of note is whenever we’re in vr; we get very intense phantom touch when we’re properly relaxed and in the right headspace for it, being able to feel touches on our phantom limbs when our avatars sync up with our body, especially for our tails. Though it is somewhat of a double edged sword since in that state weapons can really hurt, usually a sharp burst of pain followed by numbness in the area for a while…
In a similar vein, we often find ourselves “projecting” other headmates on to plushies as we cuddle them in the headspace and physically, our giant Blåhaj is ideal for this.
One final idea before we set this to post, having sex in the headspace. Yes I know we’re mostly asexual and some of us are aromantic, but from time to time we have urges like anyone else, and this goes similarly (and much more commonly) for eating one another, we can vividly feel the interaction against our body. For example if Lilith was fronting and she ate/fucked me, she could feel the squirming inside of her belly, or the stimulation in her groin on the vessel. It seems picky with who’s sensations get put on to the vessel but it’s mostly whoever is in front at the time.
Anyway yeah that’s all I’ve got on my mind right now, Othercon was an amazing experience and I got to meet a few new friends there and saw some amazing art and panels from fellow alterhumans in the community. - Pixel