(Author's Note: Kara Tomlinson, aka Foxfire, was a character I made for Marvel Advanced in "Evil" Ken Roberts' Marvel game over a decade ago.
She was random-rolled, but had a really awesome collection of abilities, including shapeshifting. In CoX, this was referenced in her bio when I first started
playing the game as a way of making quick alt-characters that all looked like her but had different apparent powers.)
The funny thing about transformations? Even if you think you've got it made, there are always complications.
Take what happened to me for instance.
It was Sunday night. I was working on a new incarnation of an old character. I'd made Kara once before over on Protector server, but I'd never done
anything with her. So I made another on Virtue after getting my fire blaster to near 50. Seemed like a good server. Nice people, decent conversation, and more
Romans than you could shake a very large stick at. Seemed like a good deal. So I built her up as much as the game would allow, and filled the rest into her
bio. Pretty straightforward stuff.
Around midnight-ish, I got really tired. I mean bone-deep tired. I'd been feeling like that for several days now, and I always seemed to go through deep
mood swings in major lightning storms (there was one out the window that night, as I recall), so I didn't think much of it. I logged, staggered over to my
CPAP machine, filled the little humidifier with water, and strapped the business end of the air pressure machine over my face. Then it was lights out.
The funny thing about self-image is how much it shapes who you are, and how you perceive yourself. Normally we don't consider that enough. But when you
throw in an "X" factor, such as the ability to modify yourself based on that image, it gets interesting. Take the next morning for example:
I woke up feeling pretty much like I do most mornings. I staggered into the bathroom and started the shower. Pretty routine stuff. One roommate had already
left for work several hours ago, another was still asleep. I stepped into the shower and reached for the shampoo. While taking care of that, I recalled a post
I'd read involving some kind of lemon fic whose origin I couldn't recall. It had been a particularly tasteful lesbian story, and I ran that around in
my mind briefly while washing my hair. I reached back and worked the shampoo in.
Waitaminnit... My hair wasn't that long...
Sure enough, I could feel hair past the nape of my neck. Now while I might be excused for not getting my hair cut as regularly as I perhaps ought to, I don't have hair that long. I kept reaching down behind my back, trying to
make sense of the sensations. If my hands were to be believed, I had hair down to the small of my back. And a short tug and the brief feeling of pain that
accompanied that proved that yes, it really was my hair. Confused, and dreading the possiblity, I looked down.
Now, I'm not what people would call the model of physical fitness. In fact, it could be charitably said that I really wasn't expecting to see my feet
anyway. But the obstruction started a lot further up than it was supposed to, and I blinked a few times while I tried
to make sense of what my eyes were telling me. I looked up at the far wall, ignoring the warm water cascading down my back, remembering not more than ten
minutes ago. I'd walked into the bathroom: Check. I'd taken care of business, and it had not been as a girl:
Check. Confused, I stepped out of the shower and made my way over to the fog-shrouded mirror, picking up a towel.
I was still concentrating on my previous experience of waking up and getting stuff ready as a guy when I wiped the mirror clean, and saw my own, original face
looking back at me. A quick glance down revealed my usual state of overweightedness and the lack of really long hair behind my head. Really confused now, I
shut down the shower, dried myself off, and went back to the air pressure machine. Ten minutes of checking it later pronounced it fit for use, and I refilled
the humidifier and put the mask back on.
"That's it," I muttered to myself as I drew the curtains closed as much as I could. "Wake me when this makes sense." I rolled over and
went back to sleep, hoping that it would turn out to be a really blurry dream in the morning.
I was not that lucky.
But that was for later in the afternoon...
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
She was random-rolled, but had a really awesome collection of abilities, including shapeshifting. In CoX, this was referenced in her bio when I first started
playing the game as a way of making quick alt-characters that all looked like her but had different apparent powers.)
The funny thing about transformations? Even if you think you've got it made, there are always complications.
Take what happened to me for instance.
It was Sunday night. I was working on a new incarnation of an old character. I'd made Kara once before over on Protector server, but I'd never done
anything with her. So I made another on Virtue after getting my fire blaster to near 50. Seemed like a good server. Nice people, decent conversation, and more
Romans than you could shake a very large stick at. Seemed like a good deal. So I built her up as much as the game would allow, and filled the rest into her
bio. Pretty straightforward stuff.
Around midnight-ish, I got really tired. I mean bone-deep tired. I'd been feeling like that for several days now, and I always seemed to go through deep
mood swings in major lightning storms (there was one out the window that night, as I recall), so I didn't think much of it. I logged, staggered over to my
CPAP machine, filled the little humidifier with water, and strapped the business end of the air pressure machine over my face. Then it was lights out.
The funny thing about self-image is how much it shapes who you are, and how you perceive yourself. Normally we don't consider that enough. But when you
throw in an "X" factor, such as the ability to modify yourself based on that image, it gets interesting. Take the next morning for example:
I woke up feeling pretty much like I do most mornings. I staggered into the bathroom and started the shower. Pretty routine stuff. One roommate had already
left for work several hours ago, another was still asleep. I stepped into the shower and reached for the shampoo. While taking care of that, I recalled a post
I'd read involving some kind of lemon fic whose origin I couldn't recall. It had been a particularly tasteful lesbian story, and I ran that around in
my mind briefly while washing my hair. I reached back and worked the shampoo in.
Waitaminnit... My hair wasn't that long...
Sure enough, I could feel hair past the nape of my neck. Now while I might be excused for not getting my hair cut as regularly as I perhaps ought to, I don't have hair that long. I kept reaching down behind my back, trying to
make sense of the sensations. If my hands were to be believed, I had hair down to the small of my back. And a short tug and the brief feeling of pain that
accompanied that proved that yes, it really was my hair. Confused, and dreading the possiblity, I looked down.
Now, I'm not what people would call the model of physical fitness. In fact, it could be charitably said that I really wasn't expecting to see my feet
anyway. But the obstruction started a lot further up than it was supposed to, and I blinked a few times while I tried
to make sense of what my eyes were telling me. I looked up at the far wall, ignoring the warm water cascading down my back, remembering not more than ten
minutes ago. I'd walked into the bathroom: Check. I'd taken care of business, and it had not been as a girl:
Check. Confused, I stepped out of the shower and made my way over to the fog-shrouded mirror, picking up a towel.
I was still concentrating on my previous experience of waking up and getting stuff ready as a guy when I wiped the mirror clean, and saw my own, original face
looking back at me. A quick glance down revealed my usual state of overweightedness and the lack of really long hair behind my head. Really confused now, I
shut down the shower, dried myself off, and went back to the air pressure machine. Ten minutes of checking it later pronounced it fit for use, and I refilled
the humidifier and put the mask back on.
"That's it," I muttered to myself as I drew the curtains closed as much as I could. "Wake me when this makes sense." I rolled over and
went back to sleep, hoping that it would turn out to be a really blurry dream in the morning.
I was not that lucky.
But that was for later in the afternoon...
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.