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You know how people debate about how odd it is for clothing to tear itself apart from the sheer stress of the physical growth, only to come back when the shifter changes back, or some other unpossibility along those lines?

What if, out of all the unpossibilities, one of them was to have the clothes meld together into the shifter's body, and become something else? How would YOU think the science behind that would go? I can't really explain this well, so I'll give you an "example" of what I'm talking about here:

Here's a guy in his humanly glory...


... and here he is, shifted and relaxing.


PS: Yes, I didn't have as much to say about this as my previous thread on werewolf mounts, because this subject's one of those "it's magic, i haven't written the rules for it yet" moments.

For something like this I can't help but think s-cry-ed, in which the users were ae to transform matter into weapons but it required using raw material to do so. The main character wanted to use his special glove that increased his strength, he woould break apart a nearby wall and reconstruct it over his arm.

Perhaps something like this would work for the clothes as well. If shape shifting requires a change in physical mass then perhaps the clothing provides some of the raw material for doing so?

Anyway, not sure if that's helpful.

For fantasy action stories set in D&D-like settings, maybe. But, a lot of us don't really care much for having clothing vanish and reappear in stories set in modern times, in this realm.

Custom-made clothes that employ the same magic or plot-device-physics as lycanthropy itself could be a part of the deal. (Maybe some sort of nanotech something, like the T1000's liquid metal from Terminator 2, or GORT 2.0's bug swarm from the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still comes to mind. The problem is, if you've got the technology to engineer something that could wipe out humanity or destroy whole planets, I think you'd be more ambitious with it than just engineering business casual for lycanthropic intermittently big-and-talls.)

One option that may not have been explored is to make the clothing itself part of the shifter. For example, in the game PROTOTYPE Alex Mercer's jacket, pants, even shoes, are all as much a part of him as his nose or fingers, they just happen to look like clothing. Or, you could go a similar method and have the character essentially be wearing another shapeshifter.

Usually that happens as a result of cheapness on the part of the animators, not directly as the result of a plot device. Transformations in video games usually involve clothing melding into the form because the clothes have been painted onto the model itself. It's yet another one of those plot anomalies that they always hope nobody will ever care to notice.

It just brings to mind an image of a frantic werewolf trying to find the zipper in his pants...
Or a female Werewolf shambling in agony because she shifted wearing too-tight shoes with four inch heels...
And a male werewolf wondering where his huge keyring and wallet went...

vrikasatma wrote:Douchebag STs would make you spend a Gnosis point for each item of clothing, including jewelry pieces and whatever you had in your pockets.

They changed that, actually, in the very last iteration of Apocalypse (before they dumped the whole gameworld for WTF). A whole set of clothing is one Gnosis point for dedication.

This brings to mind something I've been wondering about: In Breaking Dawn, Jacob thinks that "buttons would never be in fashion for werewolves". So I was wondering, what sorts of things would be good for shifters? Snaps, I think, would be fine, they'd be pretty easy to undo in a hurry. Drawstrings might be OK (like on some sweatpants). But the only clothes I can think of that are easy to shuck are basic t-shirts and yoga-style pants and shorts. Is there anything a little less casual?

Tunics, all the way. Kilts as well. Or you can amplify the creep factor by having them walk around in trench coats with nothing on underneath.

For some reasons I now imagine a lot of wolves looking like casual tourists or bums.

I helped a friend of mine write a story a while back, and we had an idea that we both thought worked. In the story, they wore leather clothing made from the hides of other werewolves. (Or whatever. We had a lot of different kinds of were creatures. The main character was a were-jaguar) We said that when they died, their hide would retain the shape changing quality.

If you've ever read "There Shall Be No Darkness" by James Blish, he has his werewolf's tux turn into a coat of dark fur. It's a bit silly, because then where does the fur on his face and hands come from? And if he were wearing a hawaiian shirt, would be be a multicolored werewolf?

Viergacht wrote:If you've ever read "There Shall Be No Darkness" by James Blish, he has his werewolf's tux turn into a coat of dark fur. It's a bit silly, because then where does the fur on his face and hands come from? And if he were wearing a hawaiian shirt, would be be a multicolored werewolf?

Honestly, if they did, they'll have to do their damnedest to wear something that compliments the shirt unless they're trying to pull a funny, like being pantsless half-nudists.

As a werewolf, I find it ridiculous that clothes would just disappear and then reappear when you shift. That is really complete nonsense. When you shift, clothes would expand and some may even tear, but they wouldn't magically vanish and reappear. The only reason that was ever a possibility was because someone was too afraid to show the naughty bits. However, if you are talking about a scientifically way of melding the clothes to the body, then maybe. Personally, I'd rather be naked. Why roam around with clothes on when you could do that with them off, letting the wind hit all of those sensitive spots...

Moonraiser wrote:As a werewolf, I find it ridiculous that clothes would just disappear and then reappear when you shift. That is really complete nonsense. When you shift, clothes would expand and some may even tear, but they wouldn't magically vanish and reappear.

Unless you're a magic werewolf.

However, if you are talking about a scientifically way of melding the clothes to the body, then maybe. Personally, I'd rather be naked. Why roam around with clothes on when you could do that with them off, letting the wind hit all of those sensitive spots...

Ahhh the secret fantasies of werewolf fans.

Even magic-driven stories need to work under a set of internal logistics. So even if the werewolves use "Magic" to shapeshift, that doesn't necessarily mean that using magic to meld the clothing to the body is the same thing.

Lol, I love this conversation <3 I find the concept of the clothes morphing themselves into something suitable for war, or really just for convenience, I have to agree that the need seems a little silly. I'd rather just go around bare butt than have to deal with the whole thing.

One option that may not have been explored is to make the clothing itself part of the shifter. For example, in the game PROTOTYPE Alex Mercer's jacket, pants, even shoes, are all as much a part of him as his nose or fingers, they just happen to look like clothing. Or, you could go a similar method and have the character essentially be wearing another shapeshifter.

Usually that happens as a result of cheapness on the part of the animators, not directly as the result of a plot device. Transformations in video games usually involve clothing melding into the form because the clothes have been painted onto the model itself. It's yet another one of those plot anomalies that they always hope nobody will ever care to notice.

Have to get this out of the way before I begin on the rest though. In the plot of Prototype, we don't mean for the sake of convenience, his clothes came back when he shifted. He wasn't human anymore, his body, his mind had been over run by an evolutionary-based disease. We don't mean his clothes just came back when he turned back to his human-born face. His clothes, shoes, everything, we literally a part of his body. The reason for them looking like clothes to begin with was because it was in fact a need for the evolutionary pull that started the whole thing. They didn't even look like the clothes he was wearing when he was contaminated and changed, or any he wore after wards. If you look while playing the game, when he changes his body to things like the blade arm, or the mass bulk etc., the jacket he has melds into the tool, because the jacket is as much a part of his body as his arm is, so on and so forth. Not to say the whole thing doesn't have a crap load of anomalies anyway (like how they don't notice you can fly and climb walls, just because you're disguised as a marine. "It's okay, he's from the government. They can do that") (Die hard prototype fan here, sorry ^_^;;)

But on the "There Will Be No Darkness" concept, I think if the clothes did change, this would be the most credible way of doing it. But then again, this means that if they were naked, then they would always have fur the color of their skin tone. Lol, what if you had a sun burn? "Swear to god officer, I saw him! He was huge, and hairy, almost looked like a dog, but just so damned big! Oh, and he was red as a lobster too! Wait, where are you going? You got to believe me!"

The whole concept of clothing is a tricky one, but for books, I don't really see why people insist on making it a gray area. I think people just don't like the idea of writing out the fact that the person is naked. I know as a writer(some of my stories are of lycans), while I do try to keep it real, and yes, I require my fuzzies to strip or deal with torn clothes, I've always felt awkward. Maybe some people just don't like having to deal with it, and so create that little plot hole. I can understand how it would get sticky for movies though. I mean, who wants to have to make their movie R, just because they show a guy once without a shirt on? In that situation, I think Van Helsing got it right (perhaps that's all they got right. Clouds can deflect the power of the moon, but a bloody brick wall can't? Really?). The clothes were torn, yes, but not so much that they were pulled off of him. When he changed back, his shirt was hanging around his waste in tatters, and his pants were now Urban Decay-esque short shorts.

Clothing staying with the shifter is usually only done with those who transform due to a magical stimuli. Or very advanced technology.

Creative license is wonderful, no?
As for me, I find the melding useful, but I am a logical person and I hate not making it work realistically. For some things, I just need to bend.
I had the same problem with my innocent wide eyed merboy character, couldn't have him trudging around in the nude D :
So I try to go with a magic thing where the clothes
1. Meld into the character
2. The body is "swapped" and their were two separate "bodies". Like, while one body was in use, the other was in a spiritual realm, but they are LINKED physically so that any damage done to one body still happens to the other. I don't know how good this idea is or if anyone else has had it X3

We may be dealing with an apples vs. oranges situation here. Let me propose two different words for what looks like the same thing:

Shifting: A physical change wherein there is a Physical change that makes the Werewolf. In this case, clothing doesn't meld or change; it is either removed pre-shift or becomes the classic tatters we see so many Werewolves wearing.

Transforming: Literally, a swap of bodies where the Werewolf (or other metamorph) literally exchanges everything; body and clothing become something else. The body doesn't change, it's tucked away someplace along with it's clothes and another body appears in its place. We usually see this in a magical setting, where a "ring" or some other item causes a
(for example) scrawny half-grown child to become a muscular adult; complete with a change of clothes to go with it.

This would appear to be melding when it is really replacement.

I always thought the idea of clothes "melding" with someone was a little weird, I dunno, just makes me uneasy. I'd prefer at the very least their magical disappearance and reappearance instead.

Temperance wrote: The whole concept of clothing is a tricky one, but for books, I don't really see why people insist on making it a gray area. I think people just don't like the idea of writing out the fact that the person is naked. I know as a writer(some of my stories are of lycans), while I do try to keep it real, and yes, I require my fuzzies to strip or deal with torn clothes, I've always felt awkward. Maybe some people just don't like having to deal with it, and so create that little plot hole.

Exactly, it's just one of those human foibles... nudity isn't supposed to be described and certainly not condoned, except in behind-closed-doors sexual situations. Breaking down the illusions of civilization makes a human seem a little bit closer to his fellow animals, and therefore dangerous and unpredictable to the grazing crowd. But wait, that sounds curiously like one of the very themes behind werewolfery, doesn't it?

I've always seen the "Melding" thing as a sort of Ultimate Wedgie.

Its a nice idea, which I think is often used in Japanese comics, but I just like the idea of clothripping better.