I looked down at my hands... No... NOT my hands. MY hands were those of a 40-year old male who had never done much in the way of heavy labor beyond helping his dad tinker with cars. THESE hands...
These were the hands of a girl.
I'm very proud to say that I did not scream or completely freak out. I'd already done that before I'd learned to change back from my Nova form. It just hadn't been audible. (At least I didn't think it had been. But then, my house is on the end of the townhouse row and pretty well insulated from the next one down. And no cops had come by. Yet.)
There's a story cliche that the first thing a man transgendered by magic does is that he grabs either for the crotch to confirm something is MISSING or grabs for the chest to confirm that something has been ADDED. I did neither (well, not right THEN, I didn't). I had all the confirmation of my state that I needed just looking at my hands and feeling the difference in the way I stood. Other signals were different as well.
I think I already suspected something like this might be the case. After all, although I had a pretty even split of male-female characters in the game, my two Khelds had so far both been females. I had REALLY hoped though... I'm not quite sure what I'd hoped. I think I had a vague idea that somehow Kheldians were real somehow and that it had fused with the real life me. Basically I'd hoped changing back would change me back into the 40-year old male me. The implications of the alternative were... staggering to put it mildly. And I hadn't wanted to face them unless I had to.
Well now I had to. Yay me.
"Oh bugger... I..."
Not my voice either. A contralto, I think. That shocked me more than the rest, really. Or maybe it was one shock too many?
It was about 4 steps to the bathroom right outside in the hall to the mirror. I almost didn't make it without falling. Balance was different. I steadied myself with my hands on the walls and went in. I took a couple of long deep breaths to get ready, and looked up into the mirror.
The stranger who looked back at me was a bit of a surprise, even considering everything else. She... I... didn't look quite how I expected her... me... to look.
But first... oh yes, that was a girl looking back at me. No brown hair with slightly salt and pepper gray coming in at the temples. No glasses. NOT the face of William Jordan AKA Logan Darklighter.
White hair with slight blueish tint - check.
Startlingly BLUE eyes - check.
The face - was not really the one from the game. But then, I stopped to consider, how could it be the same, really? That was a cartoon. This is reality. Or a pretty reasonable facsimile.
Lora Doubet was a character I had created over a decade ago for a role-playing game. An old style pen and paper table-top game called Champions. She had been a cyborg. I'd played THAT version of Lora to level 50 in the game on another server. Lora'Lai I had actually not pinned down with certainty as to origin. I hadn't even written one for her. But I had been leaning more and more towards assuming that Lora Doubet had fused with a Kheldian to make Lora'Lai. I'd even used the same basic face for both characters.
All of which is by way of explaining why after looking at myself intently, it occurred to me that I looked as if my face was extrapolated from my inner mind's eye as to what Lora would and should look like except of course translated into a realistic face rather than anime or the art style from the game.
I was... well... very very pretty. I'd have to come to terms with that, I suspected. And with how people reacted to me.
I was also glowing. Had been glowing since I changed over. I'd somehow changed into what in the game would have been "Costume Slot #3". Which is just the basic female model with VERY white skin and with a glow effect added. Then layer the shields on top of that for a very ethereal look. Yes, I looked naked in that form to a lot of people, though for the sake of texture consistency, I had actually used a white mask and full body suit colored white as well. But yes, the concept in game was that she was just "clothed" in her energy fields that way.
Concept or not, I wasn't wearing anything but that glow. And the floor was still cold. I needed to shut off that glow and I needed something to wear. I still had my sense for energy states and which one I was in. My inner voice - my Kheldian side, let me know that I could form clothes any time I wanted, and had a few outfits memorized, but that my base form was easiest to change into first before trying any of that.
This wasn't conveyed in anything like Lai just talking to me. It was more like a memory leaping forth, a sort of "Oh yeah! That's right!" kind of sensation.
I thought about it for a moment and then dismissed changing to the original white and blue costume. I just shut off the glow. My skin went to a normal, though still somewhat pale color. I noticed that my senses also shifted almost entirely back to human at that moment, too. No extra sensorium to distract me now.
I walked carefully back into my room and picked up a shirt (MUCH too big for me now!) and slipped into it. The bottom fell almost to my knees, forming a kind of t-shirt dress almost. Then I fell back on the bed, arm over my eyes.
I had to allow myself to get a grip. I had to think about this logically. I had to...
I had to roll over, grab a pillow and cry my eyes out for the next however ungodly long it was.
Why? You think being turned into a "hot chick with superpowers" is all an upside? HA! Here are the downsides -
I could not be identified as me. I was stuck as a girl who had not even a family resemblance to who I had been. (And no, I already knew, with the certainty of my Kheldian side, that I couldn't just shapeshift into William Jordan either.)
My I.D. was no good anymore. I couldn't go to work anymore. Not as the old me. Where was I going to get money? My family? "Hi there! I'm your son! No really I am, just had a little accident with meta-physics." Oh yeah, THAT would go over REAL well. I hadn't just lost myself and any chance of legally providing for myself, I had effectively just lost my family, too.
What about orientation? Was I a lesbian? Or just a guy stuck in a girl's body? There are actual physical differences between male and female brains. More connective tissue between the two sides for females for one thing. Would it change ME so much as to change who and what I would be attracted to?
And oh god... chemistry. What about periods? I was NOT looking forward to that. I've had female friends and girlfriends tell me IN DETAIL what goes on. I'm not surprised women sometimes get stereotyped as crazy during that time of the month. The wonder is that they are as sane as they are still! My respect for their pain tolerance and "ick" factor is immense. Maybe being a Kheldian would mitigate that, but how was I to know that yet?
I felt utterly, completely alone and lost at that moment. Right then I wanted to hermit up and not go outside. Ever.
After awhile I felt... okay. Not better, really. But... I guess it's true what they say. A good cry is good for you sometimes. Get it all out of the system so you can THINK.
So... what just happened? I've been turned into a character I was playing in City of Heroes...
THEN it FINALLY hit me... Maybe what happened to me happened to others? How many?
How would I find out?
I leaped off the bed and vaulted into the chair in front of the computer... Or I would have, if I hadn't completely lost track of my new body's change in balance centers again. I actually made a completely graceless faceplant into the floor and scattered more kibble about... Owie...
Dragging myself into my easy chair in front of the screen, I noticed that the game was down. I had been kicked from the server. Now WHY did that not surprise me? I tried to log back in. The servers all showed as down. Oh dear.
The implications were startling. I checked the website and it was down, and the message forums with them.
I think I could guess why. City of Heroes as a game was effectively OVER until somebody figured out what had happened and why.
Checking into some City of Heroes LiveJournal sites was... Interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word. I saw the number of posts in the first thread and backed out without even reading it.
All of a sudden I was scared of dealing with what would amount to a primal scream over the net. A scream of both of joy and of horror.
I needed to talk with someone I KNEW better, as a friend, who had gone through the same thing. It had been a busy night and though I hadn't been adventuring with any of my online supergroup in any sort of team at the moment of the change, I had been keeping track of the usual online conversations in the Legendary channel. It HAD to have happened to them as well. And maybe it would be easier to deal with as a group of people who already knew each other, more or less.
I checked the Drunkard's Walk forums. Naturally, many of them were already on-line. It was chaos, of course. But I felt better for knowing that we were all in this together.
It was my suggestion that as many of us who could should meet up somewhere.
(OOC: Which is as good a segue as I can think of for getting us all to interact. And also figure out what our limitations for travel powers are. I figure that we're faster in flight or superspeed than the game would ever actually allow. Or can teleport farther. Enough for us all to meet at Bob's place? ^_^)
-Logan
-----------------
"This kind of thing tends invariably to devolve into the kind of "No, Nakajima, THIS is true power!!" argument that only really works if you're yelling it from the cockpit of a giant robot . . ."
-----------------
These were the hands of a girl.
I'm very proud to say that I did not scream or completely freak out. I'd already done that before I'd learned to change back from my Nova form. It just hadn't been audible. (At least I didn't think it had been. But then, my house is on the end of the townhouse row and pretty well insulated from the next one down. And no cops had come by. Yet.)
There's a story cliche that the first thing a man transgendered by magic does is that he grabs either for the crotch to confirm something is MISSING or grabs for the chest to confirm that something has been ADDED. I did neither (well, not right THEN, I didn't). I had all the confirmation of my state that I needed just looking at my hands and feeling the difference in the way I stood. Other signals were different as well.
I think I already suspected something like this might be the case. After all, although I had a pretty even split of male-female characters in the game, my two Khelds had so far both been females. I had REALLY hoped though... I'm not quite sure what I'd hoped. I think I had a vague idea that somehow Kheldians were real somehow and that it had fused with the real life me. Basically I'd hoped changing back would change me back into the 40-year old male me. The implications of the alternative were... staggering to put it mildly. And I hadn't wanted to face them unless I had to.
Well now I had to. Yay me.
"Oh bugger... I..."
Not my voice either. A contralto, I think. That shocked me more than the rest, really. Or maybe it was one shock too many?
It was about 4 steps to the bathroom right outside in the hall to the mirror. I almost didn't make it without falling. Balance was different. I steadied myself with my hands on the walls and went in. I took a couple of long deep breaths to get ready, and looked up into the mirror.
The stranger who looked back at me was a bit of a surprise, even considering everything else. She... I... didn't look quite how I expected her... me... to look.
But first... oh yes, that was a girl looking back at me. No brown hair with slightly salt and pepper gray coming in at the temples. No glasses. NOT the face of William Jordan AKA Logan Darklighter.
White hair with slight blueish tint - check.
Startlingly BLUE eyes - check.
The face - was not really the one from the game. But then, I stopped to consider, how could it be the same, really? That was a cartoon. This is reality. Or a pretty reasonable facsimile.
Lora Doubet was a character I had created over a decade ago for a role-playing game. An old style pen and paper table-top game called Champions. She had been a cyborg. I'd played THAT version of Lora to level 50 in the game on another server. Lora'Lai I had actually not pinned down with certainty as to origin. I hadn't even written one for her. But I had been leaning more and more towards assuming that Lora Doubet had fused with a Kheldian to make Lora'Lai. I'd even used the same basic face for both characters.
All of which is by way of explaining why after looking at myself intently, it occurred to me that I looked as if my face was extrapolated from my inner mind's eye as to what Lora would and should look like except of course translated into a realistic face rather than anime or the art style from the game.
I was... well... very very pretty. I'd have to come to terms with that, I suspected. And with how people reacted to me.
I was also glowing. Had been glowing since I changed over. I'd somehow changed into what in the game would have been "Costume Slot #3". Which is just the basic female model with VERY white skin and with a glow effect added. Then layer the shields on top of that for a very ethereal look. Yes, I looked naked in that form to a lot of people, though for the sake of texture consistency, I had actually used a white mask and full body suit colored white as well. But yes, the concept in game was that she was just "clothed" in her energy fields that way.
Concept or not, I wasn't wearing anything but that glow. And the floor was still cold. I needed to shut off that glow and I needed something to wear. I still had my sense for energy states and which one I was in. My inner voice - my Kheldian side, let me know that I could form clothes any time I wanted, and had a few outfits memorized, but that my base form was easiest to change into first before trying any of that.
This wasn't conveyed in anything like Lai just talking to me. It was more like a memory leaping forth, a sort of "Oh yeah! That's right!" kind of sensation.
I thought about it for a moment and then dismissed changing to the original white and blue costume. I just shut off the glow. My skin went to a normal, though still somewhat pale color. I noticed that my senses also shifted almost entirely back to human at that moment, too. No extra sensorium to distract me now.
I walked carefully back into my room and picked up a shirt (MUCH too big for me now!) and slipped into it. The bottom fell almost to my knees, forming a kind of t-shirt dress almost. Then I fell back on the bed, arm over my eyes.
I had to allow myself to get a grip. I had to think about this logically. I had to...
I had to roll over, grab a pillow and cry my eyes out for the next however ungodly long it was.
Why? You think being turned into a "hot chick with superpowers" is all an upside? HA! Here are the downsides -
I could not be identified as me. I was stuck as a girl who had not even a family resemblance to who I had been. (And no, I already knew, with the certainty of my Kheldian side, that I couldn't just shapeshift into William Jordan either.)
My I.D. was no good anymore. I couldn't go to work anymore. Not as the old me. Where was I going to get money? My family? "Hi there! I'm your son! No really I am, just had a little accident with meta-physics." Oh yeah, THAT would go over REAL well. I hadn't just lost myself and any chance of legally providing for myself, I had effectively just lost my family, too.
What about orientation? Was I a lesbian? Or just a guy stuck in a girl's body? There are actual physical differences between male and female brains. More connective tissue between the two sides for females for one thing. Would it change ME so much as to change who and what I would be attracted to?
And oh god... chemistry. What about periods? I was NOT looking forward to that. I've had female friends and girlfriends tell me IN DETAIL what goes on. I'm not surprised women sometimes get stereotyped as crazy during that time of the month. The wonder is that they are as sane as they are still! My respect for their pain tolerance and "ick" factor is immense. Maybe being a Kheldian would mitigate that, but how was I to know that yet?
I felt utterly, completely alone and lost at that moment. Right then I wanted to hermit up and not go outside. Ever.
After awhile I felt... okay. Not better, really. But... I guess it's true what they say. A good cry is good for you sometimes. Get it all out of the system so you can THINK.
So... what just happened? I've been turned into a character I was playing in City of Heroes...
THEN it FINALLY hit me... Maybe what happened to me happened to others? How many?
How would I find out?
I leaped off the bed and vaulted into the chair in front of the computer... Or I would have, if I hadn't completely lost track of my new body's change in balance centers again. I actually made a completely graceless faceplant into the floor and scattered more kibble about... Owie...
Dragging myself into my easy chair in front of the screen, I noticed that the game was down. I had been kicked from the server. Now WHY did that not surprise me? I tried to log back in. The servers all showed as down. Oh dear.
The implications were startling. I checked the website and it was down, and the message forums with them.
I think I could guess why. City of Heroes as a game was effectively OVER until somebody figured out what had happened and why.
Checking into some City of Heroes LiveJournal sites was... Interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word. I saw the number of posts in the first thread and backed out without even reading it.
All of a sudden I was scared of dealing with what would amount to a primal scream over the net. A scream of both of joy and of horror.
I needed to talk with someone I KNEW better, as a friend, who had gone through the same thing. It had been a busy night and though I hadn't been adventuring with any of my online supergroup in any sort of team at the moment of the change, I had been keeping track of the usual online conversations in the Legendary channel. It HAD to have happened to them as well. And maybe it would be easier to deal with as a group of people who already knew each other, more or less.
I checked the Drunkard's Walk forums. Naturally, many of them were already on-line. It was chaos, of course. But I felt better for knowing that we were all in this together.
It was my suggestion that as many of us who could should meet up somewhere.
(OOC: Which is as good a segue as I can think of for getting us all to interact. And also figure out what our limitations for travel powers are. I figure that we're faster in flight or superspeed than the game would ever actually allow. Or can teleport farther. Enough for us all to meet at Bob's place? ^_^)
-Logan
-----------------
"This kind of thing tends invariably to devolve into the kind of "No, Nakajima, THIS is true power!!" argument that only really works if you're yelling it from the cockpit of a giant robot . . ."
-----------------