It's getting busier at work, but still had the time to do some morphing for fun! At the weekend I did another mass group morphing festival in London which was good. There were about 18,000 morphers all taking part, and you could do any ground based morph you wanted. They had hired out a huge part of Greenwich Park and the surrounding roads were actually closed to traffic for the day, so everyone could run and gallop in front of spectators.
I was standing around on the platform waiting for my train when I spotted a few other people who looked like they were morphers, and we got chatting. You can tell as often they've got skintight morphing clothes on, and besides, not many people are crazy enough to be at the station at 6am waiting for the first train on a Sunday morning! One guy, James, had got the morphing ability about a year ago and had only really done private morphs in his spare time. Think this was his second group morph, and here he was taking part with 18,000 other animals/people! He was going to be morphing a leopard. The other guy, Patrick, had been a morpher about 10 years ago, when the first wave of morphers got the ability (like myself), but found the morphing process itself very difficult and so had not done much practice. After a while he stopped altogether and didn't renew his license. Now, he was hoping to give it another shop, and was going to morph his pet dog.
The day was good fun, but it was let down as they didn't actually have any animals available for acquiring! This was really disappointing, as big events like this are normally the best time to get a new morph. I was hoping for something unusual, such as a cheetah or snake. So you could only morph what you had already acquired! Given that we had paid £50 to enter, a new morph only costs about half of that so I am not sure where the money went really.
We still had fun over the day though and I went with the horse morph. They had different parts of the park and roads for different types of animals and events such as speed-morphing and artistic morphing for estreens. I'm not a pro, but they had groups leading morph dances which you could take part in. Or you could just do the mass morph and go out and run/gallop around the area. Horses were very popular and they had closed off quite a few miles of parkland track for us to gallop on and we were joined by deer, moose and other large herbivores. Dogs and big cats used the roads. You could morph and demorph as many times as you needed, but if it got too busy you were meant to demorph for a while after 4 hours/2 morph cycles to let other people have a chance. You could leave all your extra clothes and bag in a special area which was useful.
There were all sorts of people taking part, from the professional estreen, to the newbie just starting out. There was an amazing performance of speed morphers, where the fastest went from human to animal in under 20 seconds! Amazing! It was so smooth as well, every part of their body morphing at once, without anything taking longer than another. It was how I imagined morphing would be when I started out, but us mere mortals are a lot messier than that. We even saw back-to-back morphs - they had 5 minutes to morph as many animals as they could. The winner managed 6 animals including back to human at the end - human/goat/human/rabbit/human/tiger/human/panda/human/bear/human/hawk/human. They have become so good that it is possible for them to go from one morph to another without becoming fully human. Whilst demorphing from goat, as soon as one part of their body became human it immediately flowed into the rabbit. How they do that I don't know - especially as they have to do their inner organs as well which you can't see!
You get loads of professionals on hand to ask for advice, and there are sessions for newbies to practice away from other morphers as they try and get a hold over the animal's brains (you don't want a newbie morphing a rabbit around big cats and carnivorous creatures!). One famous morpher was leading the group dance, so I joined in with that. There were about a hundred people, mostly girls, and lots had interesting morphing suits and leotards in different colours and textures, which I assumed was meant to look good with the animals they had chosen to morph. The theme was cats - I have 2 or 3 cat morphs but only one I use regularly, which I acquired from my own pet cat. In a morph dance they teach you the moves, and tell you the order to morph your body. It all takes place to music and if it all works out the dance/morph takes as long as the music lasts. It's not fast (usually) but can be very interesting and spectacular to watch. The woman on the stage leading it was going for a jaguar, and wore a glitzy red leotard with glitter, sparkles and gold patches on it. I just had my regular morphing gear - a purple skintight tee-shirt and black tights. It was a lot of fun, the music was the new Lady Gaga single "Applause", and everyone morphing the same way at once looked great! You could see why loads of people had fashionable morphing suits as it really enhanced the look of the morph. The leader had obviously designed her suit so that the gold pattern design morphed exactly into the pattern of her jaguar's fur. The gold and red looked good when melting into the sandy coloured fur. It appeared that everyone taking part had done morph dancing before, but some people were better dancers than morphers, or vice versa! I am certainly a better morpher than dancer so could get my body to transform in the correct order, but my moves probably left something to be desired!
After the dance, I joined the mass morph as a horse and cantered around the park. It did get really crowded at one point, so I took a short break after about an hour and demorphed, then morphed back to wolf. I saw James and later Patrick out on the roads as well, which was good! I was exhausted when we'd finished, having done quite a few transformations in just several hours, but it was all very worth it. It was a shame I did not pick up any new animals, but was still a fun day.
Wednesday 11 September 2013
Tuesday 3 September 2013
Seal Morphing in London
Had a great opportunity to take part in a day of water-based animal morphs on Saturday. It was a bit unusual, as it wasn't based in the sea, but in fresh water docks in London! I've only got a dolphin morph, which doesn't tend to like fresh water, but at the event there were a few species of fresh water seal that you could acquire as part of the entrance fee.
It was a big day, with about 3000 morphers coming from all over the region, and further afield, all joining together just south of Canary Wharf. The day was perfect - bright blue skies and nice and warm, which makes it more comfortable when you're standing around in morphing gear. There were loads of estreens, plus elite speed morphers but most of us were here to try a new morph and have some fun.
When we'd registered, we'd automatically be put into groups, or "waves", about 100 per group. This was so that everyone had a chance to morph. You got a 2 hour slot in the water, although you could pay more for extra slots. A few hours before your slot, the morning waves were called to acquire the seals. The rules are very strict about keeping animals for acquiring - the standards of animal welfare are very high and everything is controlled through the animal rights groups to make sure they are not abused or taken advantage of. The seals were given a separate part of the dock to swim in, and called to small pens several times a day for people to acquire them.
My seal was a large, fat female, with huge black eyes and glossy fur. Beautiful and well suited to the water. She looked happy and well fed. When it was my turn, I reached through the bars and laid a hand on the seal's back, concentrating. There were about 5 or 6 others acquiring at the same time, and we all managed it in about 10 seconds. All the seals were female, as they get along fine in groups, and so it would be easier to control the instincts than if you had both males and females!!!
It's always weird knowing there's now another animal's DNA inside you, but even weirder is the thought of being it! Luckily I didn't have long to wait. Out wave got changed into our morphing gear (mostly swimsuits and wetsuits) and then headed out into the water. You were allowed 20 minutes to practice morphing and getting used to the animal's instincts, and then you had to demorph and all re-morph together in the main area. You then had 2 hours to plan around, including getting called back to demorph which might take some people at least 6 minutes.
We all got part way into the water to to morph, as the seals weren't too agile on land. Wetsuits were a good idea, just incase you had to demorph for some reason, far from the pontoon and have to treat water as human, getting cold. They're skintight, so work fine. The water was cold, but it didn't matter as we were soon concentrating on our mental images of the seal and starting the morphing process. I tried to control mine as best as I could, so focused on the thick blubber and fur. My skin turned grey and waxy, and layers of fat bubbled up inside of me, like I'd eaten a few hundred pizzas in the last week. Eyes turned black and bulged out - making it easy to see under water, my nose sank into my face to become little slits, and my neck totally vanished. Freaky! Inside my bones crunched and dissolved, organs shifting and re-arranging. Looking round at the group, it was a shock to see so many different stages of morph and the different order in which the morph processed happened in everyone. Some people were almost fully seal, except for human hands and feet, and others had barely started - they had fins and grey skin but that was it.
After about a minute, I was all set. <Awesome!> I thought-spoke to some random morphers - they were loving it too! We had a few minutes to warm up, so let the seal's instincts surface - hunger, mostly wanted fish, ignored the other seals that were of the same DNA but was vaguely interested in the other females. Fairly easy to control. Best thing to do with the instincts is to just let them appear, accept they'll be influencing your thoughts, movements and what you do it morph, and then put it all to one side. A worrisome instinct is like a feeling of dread that you can't shake off, there's always a feeling in the back of your mind that you're in danger. Others are a easier, but still give you a weird feeling - like when you know you're in debt but try not to think about it. The seal was more like, "not sure when I'm going to be eating next, I'm going to need to get food soon so i don't starve, now please!".
The body was odd, but very similar to my dolphin, so I was used to the large bodymass yet so streamlined and buoyant in the water. Eyesight was good under water! It's like having your own built in goggles. And she was a great swimmer! Like a rocket speeding through the water! A few of us headed into a swim, round the smaller zone reserved for people just trying out the morph. Loads of fun! We were so fast! After 20 minutes we had to de-morph and allow the next group to morph, but we got to have the fun of being in the main dock!
Had a brilliant couple of hours, zipping, darting and swishing through the water like I had an engine powering me! We played games - tag - and had races up and down the dock. It was such a laugh, and even more fun were all the kids watching from the side with huge smiles on their faces. It felt like we'd only just started when lights round the edge and horns sounded, indicating it was time to head back and demorph. Reluctantly we swam back and performed the demorph. It took a bit longer than usual - I'd spend up so much energy in the water that my human heart was pounding and my lungs were burning as I completed the change back to human. By the time I was done, I was totally out of breath, like I'd just done a 400 meter sprint!
It was a mega day, and I was a bit sad to return home, but before I left I spent some time watching the next wave have their fun in the water. Morphing in your own time might be a lot of fun, but it's nothing compared to doing it alongside 3000 other morphers!
I can't wait to do it again - bring on next year!
It was a big day, with about 3000 morphers coming from all over the region, and further afield, all joining together just south of Canary Wharf. The day was perfect - bright blue skies and nice and warm, which makes it more comfortable when you're standing around in morphing gear. There were loads of estreens, plus elite speed morphers but most of us were here to try a new morph and have some fun.
When we'd registered, we'd automatically be put into groups, or "waves", about 100 per group. This was so that everyone had a chance to morph. You got a 2 hour slot in the water, although you could pay more for extra slots. A few hours before your slot, the morning waves were called to acquire the seals. The rules are very strict about keeping animals for acquiring - the standards of animal welfare are very high and everything is controlled through the animal rights groups to make sure they are not abused or taken advantage of. The seals were given a separate part of the dock to swim in, and called to small pens several times a day for people to acquire them.
My seal was a large, fat female, with huge black eyes and glossy fur. Beautiful and well suited to the water. She looked happy and well fed. When it was my turn, I reached through the bars and laid a hand on the seal's back, concentrating. There were about 5 or 6 others acquiring at the same time, and we all managed it in about 10 seconds. All the seals were female, as they get along fine in groups, and so it would be easier to control the instincts than if you had both males and females!!!
It's always weird knowing there's now another animal's DNA inside you, but even weirder is the thought of being it! Luckily I didn't have long to wait. Out wave got changed into our morphing gear (mostly swimsuits and wetsuits) and then headed out into the water. You were allowed 20 minutes to practice morphing and getting used to the animal's instincts, and then you had to demorph and all re-morph together in the main area. You then had 2 hours to plan around, including getting called back to demorph which might take some people at least 6 minutes.
We all got part way into the water to to morph, as the seals weren't too agile on land. Wetsuits were a good idea, just incase you had to demorph for some reason, far from the pontoon and have to treat water as human, getting cold. They're skintight, so work fine. The water was cold, but it didn't matter as we were soon concentrating on our mental images of the seal and starting the morphing process. I tried to control mine as best as I could, so focused on the thick blubber and fur. My skin turned grey and waxy, and layers of fat bubbled up inside of me, like I'd eaten a few hundred pizzas in the last week. Eyes turned black and bulged out - making it easy to see under water, my nose sank into my face to become little slits, and my neck totally vanished. Freaky! Inside my bones crunched and dissolved, organs shifting and re-arranging. Looking round at the group, it was a shock to see so many different stages of morph and the different order in which the morph processed happened in everyone. Some people were almost fully seal, except for human hands and feet, and others had barely started - they had fins and grey skin but that was it.
After about a minute, I was all set. <Awesome!> I thought-spoke to some random morphers - they were loving it too! We had a few minutes to warm up, so let the seal's instincts surface - hunger, mostly wanted fish, ignored the other seals that were of the same DNA but was vaguely interested in the other females. Fairly easy to control. Best thing to do with the instincts is to just let them appear, accept they'll be influencing your thoughts, movements and what you do it morph, and then put it all to one side. A worrisome instinct is like a feeling of dread that you can't shake off, there's always a feeling in the back of your mind that you're in danger. Others are a easier, but still give you a weird feeling - like when you know you're in debt but try not to think about it. The seal was more like, "not sure when I'm going to be eating next, I'm going to need to get food soon so i don't starve, now please!".
The body was odd, but very similar to my dolphin, so I was used to the large bodymass yet so streamlined and buoyant in the water. Eyesight was good under water! It's like having your own built in goggles. And she was a great swimmer! Like a rocket speeding through the water! A few of us headed into a swim, round the smaller zone reserved for people just trying out the morph. Loads of fun! We were so fast! After 20 minutes we had to de-morph and allow the next group to morph, but we got to have the fun of being in the main dock!
Had a brilliant couple of hours, zipping, darting and swishing through the water like I had an engine powering me! We played games - tag - and had races up and down the dock. It was such a laugh, and even more fun were all the kids watching from the side with huge smiles on their faces. It felt like we'd only just started when lights round the edge and horns sounded, indicating it was time to head back and demorph. Reluctantly we swam back and performed the demorph. It took a bit longer than usual - I'd spend up so much energy in the water that my human heart was pounding and my lungs were burning as I completed the change back to human. By the time I was done, I was totally out of breath, like I'd just done a 400 meter sprint!
It was a mega day, and I was a bit sad to return home, but before I left I spent some time watching the next wave have their fun in the water. Morphing in your own time might be a lot of fun, but it's nothing compared to doing it alongside 3000 other morphers!
I can't wait to do it again - bring on next year!
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