thenearshore | 38 - Power Palette Swap

Entry tags:

38 - Power Palette Swap

Who: Everyone!
What: Power Palette Swap Event!
When: April 15th - April 18th 2017 (March 1st - March 8th 2019)
Where: Throughout the Far Shore and Near Shore
Summary: A couple of intrepid magical investigators unknowingly trigger some mishaps among the New Gods and Shinki.

For two weeks, the Ama investigators have been combing the compound where Cultists were dealt a heavy blow by the New Gods and Shinki. Among them, two in particular had been looking to move the Crystal that the cultists had in their basement, the stand that it sat on, and the dolls nearby. Combined with Waver's analysis, Judar succeeds in using his magic to transport the Crystal out of the basement.

As they manage that, a ripple effect washes over the New Gods and Shinki. There is a slight sense of Vertigo for some, a stronger wave for others, and then things start to change...

As It Happens: April 15

Everyone was minding their own business. Perhaps they were on the Near Shore helping complete a prayer, or they were in the Far Shore attending to various godly duties. Regardless of where everyone was, it's around noon when some things start to change. A mild sense of vertigo happens to those who start to experience physical body changes, while a stronger wave seems to wash over the God or Shinki's skin if their powers are changing, or perhaps even a sudden stop-in-your-tracks deadening of feeling if being depowered entirely.

April 16

Later in the afternoon, through no extra effort of the Crystal-movers, a loud noise like a subwoofer kicking into effect issues from within the Crystal, knocking anyone away who was near it by several feet. The one-shot noise reverberates in the ears of all New Gods and Shinki, triggering another change for some. At the Crystal, the black color that appeared when the former Goddess entered the Crystal fills more of it.

April 17

Closer to 7pm, once more, the noise issues forth from the Crystal, louder and knocking people back several yards this time. The Crystal fills with black and grey. Some might swear they can see a face of the white-grey against all of the black, resembling an Inkblot / Rorschach test style picture.

Aftermath: April 18

Around 10am, the black coils from within the Crystal settle down into more of whispy smoke, much harder to see in it. There's a slight tug in the direction of the Crystal regardless of where New Gods and Shinki stand, and with that pull, the change effects go away and all are returned to as they were.

In Summary:

Swap powers with another character!
Gain or lose powers!
Swap physical appearances with another character!
Use or abuse the changes while you can!
Investigate who and what is responsible!
Have fun~

Questions? Leave us a question on the OOC Plotting Post and we'll do our best to answer ASAP.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i - Day 1, Hakkai's temple

Joscelin had been in the process of drying off after a shower when the change hits. A high pitched scream comes from his room, followed very shortly by Joscelin in a bathrobe, clutching at the several feet of brown curls that seem to have suddenly sprouted from his scalp. At first glance, it seems like that's the only thing that's changed. Joss's features are a little finer than before, perhaps, eyelashes a little longer, and the stammering, panicked voice may be a slightly higher timbre, but winding up with hip-length hair seems like a light blow compared with what other changes the denizens of the Far Shore are dealing with today.

But Joscelin knows better. Because something else has changed too.

"...I-I'm a...a...girl."

ii - Day 1, Around the Far Shore

Joscelin wants to hide. It's too embarrassing, being seen like this. He's a girl. A stupid little girl with masses of brown curls that are already hopelessly tangled even though he's only had them two or three hours at this point. He wants to hack them off. Maybe Ginia will know what to do. She's a girl, isn't she? Surely she can talk him through this disturbing series of events and help him find a cure for ~~girly cooties~~ his sudden femininity.

He puts on a raincoat despite the sunny weather, piling the hair under the hood to hide it, and sets off for Ebisu's temple.

Too bad he's waylaid in the journey.

iii - Day 2, Around the Far Shore

The cure finds him even without Ginia's help. Too bad there are other consequences.

Startled, he clutches his ears at the noise, and as he does so the second change kicks in. Pro: the hair is gone. Pro: He's definitely a boy again. Pro? He's more than a foot taller.

Con: his feet are screaming in shoes several sizes too small and he can feel seams burst all over his too-tight clothes. Because Joscelin Fitzthomas, who died when he was ten, spent the next 670 years terrorizing the world as a very small vampire, and then was reincarnated as a dead spirit whose sole purpose is to serve a god, has inexplicably grown up.

Once he's scrambled to doff his shoes and most of the clothing, he realizes that his age isn't the only thing that's changed this time. He feels utterly muted. The world is too quiet, and someone seems to have turned down the colors. Stranger still? The hunger. It's gone. His constant companion has left and he's confused by its absence.

He sits down by the road to puzzle through these developments, splitting what's left of his trousers. Anyone traveling through the Central District can find him there, a scrawny (and mostly naked) young man in his mid-twenties with wavy brown hair, freckles, and a healthy bloom in his cheeks for the first time since he died in 1349.

iv - Choose Your Own Adventure!

[Want to do something else? Hit me up via PM or on Plurk and we can chat.]

Edited 2019-03-03 05:48 (UTC)

Yamanbagiri have been out and about, mostly taking time to go on a rare walk. Walking just for the sake of walking, not on an errand. Honestly, he feels like he have to do something simple, instead of throwing himself into work. To avoid keeping himself from getting overworked again.

Anyway. that's how Yamanbagiri come across a mostly naked guy sitting by the side of the road. He pauses and blinks. And again. Before he slowly walks over towards him.

"Er... hey?"

He speaks up, hoping to get the other guy's attention.

"Are you... alright?"

Why is he naked?

Joscelin looks up in surprise. “I, ah...” Is he all right? He hasn’t quite gotten around to figuring that out yet. He desperately needs new clothes, given that what he’d been wearing is now in tatters, but...

The sun is shining and he isn’t afraid of it. It’s just there, in the sky. He knows, suddenly, that he won’t be burned by it.

“I appear to have grown up,” he replies finally. “Rather suddenly.”

"Suddenly?"

Yamanbagiri seems rather confused, giving him a raised brow. Suddenly grown up? That's rather odd, and he live here for quite awhile by this point.

"Did you know why?"

The more he look at him, the more he's aware that this man need to cover up. His hand fiddle with his cloak, as an idea pop into his mind. Maybe he can lend him his cloak...?

Edited 2019-03-06 05:15 (UTC)

"As of about three minutes ago," Joscelin guesses. He gestures vaguely to his pale chest and the rags of his trousers. "Child size clothing no loner fits, and my voice has dropped at least an octave and a half." He rescues his phone and turns on the front facing camera. That's...his face, isn't it? This is all just too weird.

"Did you hear that booming sound just now and feel quite dizzy? Along with the bizarre sensation from yesterday? Something very odd is happening."

He isn't going to mention the fact that he had spent the previous 24 hours as a little girl.

"Three minutes ago?"

Yes, that's pretty sudden alright. Yamanbagiri looks him over, as he listens to this guy's words. From how he say it, it definitely sounds like he... grew up suddenly. From child to adult.

With a frown, he cross his arms and nod.

"Yeah, I heard it. But I haven't felt anything strange in me, yesterday or today." Which seems odd, all things considered. "But I agree that something strange is happening."

It feels like something is almost always happening. But before that, another thing is still bothering him. Yamanbagiri uncross his arms and bring a hand up to where his cloak are tied together. For a moment, he feel self-conscious about what he's going to do, before his concern ultimately win over it.

With one swift movement, he take off his cloak and hold it out to the basically naked guy. His face looks a little embarrassed, shy, awkward... before he glance away for a moment. Without his cloak, his hood, covering him, his handsome appearance is a lot more obvious.

"... Here. You can borrow this until you get some clothes."

Joscelin looks up at the man from his spot on the floor. "Ah...thank you." Hearing his voice like this is deeply unsettling. He feels so strange, so...muted. His arms and legs are longer and he feels less connected with them. He can't hear or see nearly as well as before. Even his mouth feels different; a probing tongue reveals uncharacteristically small and blunt canines. His fangs are gone.

He wraps the cloak around himself and endeavors to stand. The change in equilibrium is dizzying.

"I was on my way back to my god's temple," he offers, "if you are willing to join me. I'll try to find something that fits there and then I can return your cloak. It shouldn't be too difficult; everyone else in the temple is an adult, or near to it. I'm the only child there." He blinks. "I was the only child there. This is bizarre."

Yamanbagiri glance away for a moment. Mostly out of shyness than to give him some privacy. Although, he already see this man's body anyway. He looks back to see him wearing his cloak.

Which only heightens his anxious feeling. But he nods.

"... Yeah, I'll join you." If only to get his cloak back. He blinks and tilt his head a bit. "It would be weird, I guess. Just suddenly... growing bigger."

Yeah. He looks over Joscelin for a moment.

"Are you ready to go, um..."

Oh, he doesn't know his name.

He won't find Ginia at Ebisu's temple. He probably won't even make it to Ebisu's temple, given all of his shinki running around asking everyone if they've seen him. No one knows where Ginia is specifically, but after a bit of phone tag, Joss is directed toward the south end of Central District.

"Look for the fish," he's directed. It might not make sense, but if he watches the sky, he'll spot a school of sea green fish swirling around, gathering to write out "Looking for Ebisu, information appreciated. -Ginia" in the air.

Below the spot, Ginia is siting on white marble wall.

Look for the fish. If not for the insanity that is their daily lives as shinki in the Far Shore, Joscelin would've thought Ginia had finally cracked. But she hasn't. As it turns out, it's quite difficult to miss the fish, or their message. It's...an interesting SOS, to be sure.

He ambles over to her, still covered by his rain coat. "I need your help," he says without preamble, clutching the hood closer to his face. "Something's happened." A few long brown curls have escaped the hood without his notice, an indicator of the physical changes he's undergone. His voice is a little higher than usual, though that might be due to panic.

It's an interesting SOS and hopefully it leads to some information one way or another. Ginia looks calm as she sits on the wall, face turned a little skyward, but also aware of the ground in front of her. She looks down at the child approaching her, disappointed to see it's not Ebisu.

The voice is strangely familiar, though the face isn't quite.

...No. Wait. Those freckles and fangs are unmistakable.

"Joscelin?"

Joscelin removes his hood and the curls come tumbling out. Not much has obviously changed besides the hair; boys and girls are not so very different at his age. Still, his features are a little finer than before, eyelashes longer.

“Help me,” he demands. “Something happened while I was in the shower and now I’m a bloody girl.”

And the day becomes stranger yet. Ginia blinks at Joscelin, surprise mixing with disbelief and amusement. Precious, truly. In the sky, the fish slowly blink out of existence as her focus wavers.

What do you want me to do? Ginia asks herself, still taking his long, curly hair. It definitely needs a brushing. She glances at the sky, considering her options as she releases the illusion to spare some energy.

"There's a lot of strangeness going around." She jumps down from the wall. "Come here, I'll fix your hair."

“I want the hair gone, not fixed,” he grumbles, but he does as he’s told. “It’s heavy.” He wants other things gone as well. And he wants one very prominent thing back.

“What were the fish for? Is that a new spell?”

Sorry, Joceline, trusting her to give a decent haircut is a mistake. She could certainly chop off those long locks, but it'd be a ragged look at best. Ginia begins finger combing out his hair, slowly working out the worst tangles and pausing only to sign.

"Ebisu is missing. He's a god associated with fishing and sea green is his signature color. I thought if he saw the fish, he might come this way or send someone else to pass on a message."

Having his hair combed feels...nice. Joscelin closes his eyes like a cat having its ears scratched. “He’s missing? Did he fall somewhere?” Ebisu is notoriously clumsy, isn’t he?

“But he’ll turn up, surely. He has so many shinki.”

Of course he understands her devotion to her god, but isn’t his predicament just as important?

Crumbled apart and fell through a portal based on the texts of her coworkers, but that's not anything to share with anyone else. Sorry, Joss. She continues to comb through his hair. Trust in him, trust in her temple.

"I'm sure someone will find him, but he's my god. So I worry, especially with things so strange today. Did you feel dizzy earlier too?"

It’s not an isolated occurrence, then? “I did.” He says it slowly, thinking about it. “Very dizzy, in fact. And then suddenly I had all this blasted hair, and...”

Other things he hadn’t had before.

“It’s not...it can’t be...you don’t think this is permanent, do you? I don’t want to be a girl.”

Ginia wants to say no, but she doesn't want to make a false promise either. The strangeness is unique, but it's not the first time something has effected so many on a large scale either. It doesn't seem coordinated in any way. Why give her powers? Why turn Joscelin into a girl?

Why make a god of fortune disappear? Okay, that last one is a bit easier to answer.

"I don't know. I don't think so. It seems too random, whatever the cause is."

“It had better not be permanent.” He shakes his head in emphasis, forgetting that Ginia’s fingers are still carding through the tangled curls somewhere behind his ears. It pulls something dreadful. “Ow.”

This isn’t his day, is it?

“Those fish, were they tied to whatever this is as well? They didn’t look like any spell I thought possible for a shinki.” Not that he’s one to talk; he’s always been miserably bad at even the simplest of magic.

“I would think you got rather the better deal, if so. At least you didn’t find yourself suddenly having changed sex like a...like a...bloody clownfish.”

Easy there. Ginia holds her fingers still to reduce the tug. She loosens another set of tangles, also beginning to part his hair into long sections for braiding later.

"It is." A colorful fish pops into existence in front of Joscelin's face. Ginia focuses on it as she moves it around, letting it swim to and fro around his head. There's nothing solid about it; if he tries to touch it, his fingers will fall through. It's like her illusions in vessel form, but it feels so much more effortless. Is it because she's not sweating the specific details or is it because these illusions are that much stronger?

She pats his head. Illusion powers would be more fun for a kid to have, but all things considered, Joscelin's change isn't too bad.

"I'd make a hot guy." With that signed, she begins braiding his hair.

“Interesting.” He reaches for the fish and it swims—flies?—through the solid flesh of his hand like nothing at all. He can’t even feel any magic. An illusion? “Looks dead useful. I’m rather jealous.”

Joscelin can’t help snort. “You’re already tall enough as a woman. I can’t even imagine what sort of giant you’d be as a ‘hot guy.’”

She continues to braid his hair, and he has to admit that it’s incredibly relaxing. No wonder girls seem to enjoy it so much.

“I imagine I make a rather hideous little girl,” he blurts out suddenly. “Scrawny and freckle-faced as I am.”

Her hands stop working at his outburst. Where did that come from? Ginia wonders as she turns him around so they're face to face. The braid unravels slightly as she releases it, but she can fix it again quickly enough.

"You are a very cute boy and you are a very cute girl." Her signs are definitive. She's not trying to spare his feelings, it's the truth of how she feels. "If anyone's told you otherwise, they're wrong."

Joss blinks, surprised by her vehemence. “No one’s said a word,” he admits, “but I am in possession of a mirror.” And a phone with which to take selfies. Suddenly uncomfortable, he feels a little color coming to his cheeks (only possible because Hakkai took him out recently) and tries to change the subject.

“What are you doing with my hair, anyway?”

Ginia doesn't press the topic. If this proves to be a longer change they can talk about it again. She picks up the partial braid and waggles one of the sectioned ends in front of his face.

"I'm braiding it. It'll keep it out of the way and looks nice. It's better than me trying to give you a haircut."

38 - Power Palette Swap

ota, will match style

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whoops pretend he didn't say something twice in the previous post ;A;

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