Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Difference between revisions

 

Compare [[The Mind Is a Plaything of The Body]], [[And I Must Scream]], [[First Law of Gender Bending]]. See also [[Power Incontinence]]. Contrast [[Involuntary Shapeshifting]].

 

== Anime & Manga ==

** In an arc in the manga we find out someone with the same curse as Ranma has been locked into cursed form by the water from a magical pail and is looking for the cure. Later, when Ranma pisses him/her off in a fight, he uses it on Ranma. Mousse and Ryoga go with Ranma planning to use it on themselves while in human form to effectively remove the curse, but since it works by splashing you with cold water, you'll always be in cursed form when the Mode Lock take effect.

** Ranma also briefly had a temporary cure when he got a fever so hot it made any water he came in contact with too warm to activate the curse. Conversely, when he got a freezing cold later in the same story, the moisture in the air flash-froze in contact with him, which ''also'' made it impossible to turn into a girl (since solid ice doesn't trigger the curse).

* ''[[Hime Chan no Ribon]]'' has Hime-chan stuck in the form of her rival, Hibino. After being hit by a truck and revived, [[Unexplained Recovery|she got better]].

* When Ichigo first turns into a full cat in ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'', both she and [[Mission Control]] fear that it'll be permanent. However, she figures out [[Intimate Healing|how to change back]] after [[Hilarity Ensues|a long and grueling day as a helpless kitten]].

** {{spoiler|Said [[Mission Control]], Ryou, who himself has a cat form named Alto}} is specifically ''said'' to be able to stay in cat form for no more than ten minutes - or else the transformation will become permanent.

** When the angels responsible for Melmo's empowering decide that she's abusing it, by continuosly aging and shapeshifting for personal reasons, they withold their blessing from the candies. However, at the very same moment, Melmo is currently transformed into a dog, so, without her candies, she's stuck in that form, and unable to care for her little brothers. Upon getting her Aesop, she's turned back, but this time with a limited supply of candies.

* Akko-chan, from ''[[Himitsu No Akkochan]]'' usually had to use the mirror to switch back as well, causing problems when she would temporarily misplace it.

*** Apparently, the mirror could have hit the [[Reset Button]] all the times, but {{spoiler|but since it believed Akko-chan's desire for deafness shallow and impulsive, had decided to [[An Aesop|show her how serious is an handicap]] by threatening Akko-chan with a permanent mode-lock, with the added perk to show how badly}} she was missing the point: instead of trying to feel on a temporary basis what deafness is, she should have rather stopped at how her new friend was going on even knowing that he couldn't get a magic mirror to fix him.

* Happens to Moka in ''[[Rosario to Vampire]]'' when she is unable to reattach her rosary and [[Split Personality|return to her "outer" personality]]. It takes more than a dozen chapters for this to get fixed, and it's still hinted that the two personalities are slowly becoming one.

** {{spoiler|Context is necessary to really appreciate the "begged for death" bit: It is immortal to the extent it had already outlived the ''death of a previous universe.'' There's no indication ANYTHING can give it release.}}

* In ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'', Courier [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|shapeshifted]] into a woman to make an appointment with Mr. Sinister, who was posing as an obstetrician. Realizing he was set up, Sinister injected "her" with a destabilizing agent, the only antidote for which was to take away her powers completely. [[Mandys Law of Anime Gender Bending|Unfortunately, he didn't realize Courier wasn't originally female...]]

* Parodied by the ''[[She Hulk]]'' graphic novel. Jennifer is told by Reed Richards that he has bad news: She's stuck as She-Hulk forever and can never change back into regular human Jennifer. After a [[Beat Panel]], She-Hulk inquired "So what's this bad news"? It [[Retcon|turned out]] that Reed was lying anyway since he's a dick.

* Averted in a ''Wildcats/JLA'' crossover where Maul is afraid to use his power to [[Blessed With Suck|exchange intelligence for size]] because he would become "too stupid to turn back" if he grew big enough to smash the villain's barrier. [[Superman]] solves it by giving him [[Applied Phlebotinum|an electric spark that turns him small after 30 seconds]].

 

== Literature ==

** Besides the intervention of a [[Reality Warper]] (which is how Tobias got his ability to morph back), the only other known way to escape being a nothlit is if your animal form undergoes a natural metamorphosis. Once this happens (as when Cassie was stuck as a caterpillar but became a butterfly), your biological clock is reset and you have 2 more hours to change back.

* "Yennorks" are ''[[Discworld]]'' werewolves born with permanent mode-lock. Angua had a sister Elsa who was unable to turn into a wolf and her brother Andrei passes himself off as a sheepdog because of his inability to take human form. She makes it clear to Carrot that this doesn't make them a human and a wolf, they're both still werewolves, just werewolves unable to change.

== Live Action TV ==

* In ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'', the Doctor's TARDIS possesses a "chameleon circuit" which, under ideal circumstances, disguises the machine by making it appear to be an inconspicuous object in the time and place it's parked. Due to a malfunction he's never been able to fix, however, it is permanently stuck in the shape of a 1960s British police box. He did fix it for one story, but then [[Status Quo Is God|it broke again]]. It's later stated that he doesn't even try to fix it anymore, because he likes it that way. Other Time Lords that appear in the series have TARDISes with normally functioning chameleon circuits.

** At one point the Doctor says he smashed the circuit with a hammer, so it would NEVER work again. [[Depending On the Writer|In a more recent episode]], he claims that whenever he repairs or replaces the circuit, the TARDIS herself deliberatly shorts it out. [[A Boy and His X|They both]] prefer her as a Police Box. ([[Crowning Moment of Funny|Throwing the TARDIS instruction manual into a SUPERNOVA probably didn't help matters any.]])

*** Although, now it's stated that the chameleon circuit is working properly. It analyzes a huge area of its surrounding environment, extrapolates an inconspicuous form for it's exterior, then shifts that appearance to.....a 1960s British police box. Every time. But it is, technically, functional.

** A TFT walkthrough states that in one mission, hitting Ilidan with a bunch of damaging spells will have a high chance of distrupting his AI, preventing him from transforming into his demonic form when heavily injured.

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', the black dragon boss Nefarian has calls out to specific classes with specific effects on those classes. The class call to Druids ("Druids and their silly shapeshifting. Let's see it in action!") will force all Druids to shapeshift into cat form and block them in it for a while. Feral specialised DPS druids may not be affected if they're fighting in this form anyway, but druid [[Mighty Glacier|bear tanks]], healers and spellcasters will be annoyed. Of course, at the time Nefarian was at the top of the food chain DPS-specced feral druids, and for that matter any non-healer druids, were so exceedingly rare in end-game raiding that Nefarian was probably fine discounting their existence entirely.

* Two examples from ''[[Nethack]]'':

** The amulet of unchanging will mode lock the player. This is usually a good thing, since most transformations are [[Baleful Polymorph|unwanted]].

* ''[[Slightly Damned]]'': Kieri's "bunny curse" occasionally kicks in by itself and is difficult to revert.

* ''[[College Roomies From Hell]]'': Roger's mom is stuck in furry form (and happy that way), and tells him that it will eventually happen to him too.

** Which brings us to Vlad, who was in a de facto mode lock as his attempt to turn human nearly killed him; he ended up staying in some sort of mishmash of forms with weird stuff growing from his face. {{spoiler|He's unlocked after Ellen blasts him..and the idea of being kept away from a human form has her now voluntarily staying in her new human form no matter what.}}

** Also the [[Transformation Ray|TF Gun]] has a built in mode lock related to it's original purpose: If you get pregnant while transformed, you stay female. (There's no mention of being able to turn back after giving birth...)

* ''[[Beast Wars (Animation)|Beast Wars]]'' and ''[[Beast Machines (Animation)|Beast Machines]]'', not having the secrecy restriction of other ''Transformers'' series, invented excuses for the cast having to adopt and stay in alternate forms. In ''Beast Wars'', it was that all of the robots would be debilitated by energon radiation and that organic-skinned beast modes would protect them (an excuse as good as obsolete by the second season, but by then everyone had vehicle modes that gave them the advantage of speed or flight anyway). (In at least one instance, having serious damage to the robot body prompted the internal system to force a Transformer back into Beast Mode.) ''Beast Machines'' had the Maximals stuck in beast mode until they learned how to use their new techno-organic bodies, and had to use their alternate forms to hide from the ubiquitous wardrones.

** There was also an episode where Megatron has a beam-like device that trapped characters hit with it in Beast Mode. This lost the Maximals a chance to contact Cybertron.

** ''[[The Transformers (Animation)|The Transformers]]'' cartoon, specifically the episode "The Autobot Run" had the Transfixatron, a weapon that trapped most of the Autobots in their vehicle modes (all land-based, all unarmed), making them very vulnerable to the Decepticons. Later episodes would imply that Mode Lock could also be the result of heavy damage, and the Headmasters were automatically stuck in vehicle mode anytime their partners (who transformed into their heads) weren't around.

*** Also in "Desertion of the Dinobots", a little bit of Phlebotinum called "Cybertonium", which all Cybertron-created Transformers (i.e.: not the Dinobots) need in order to function correctly, starts decaying, resulting in semi-hilarious malfunctions (Megatron in at one point waving his arms around wildly when trying to fly, Ironhide icing himself up). Jazz is shown as unable to transform from car mode (until Ironhide kicks him), and is later shown stuck part-transformed (robot upper body, still in car mode in lower body). During the episode, Perceptor actually says "Fortunately I am still stuck in microscope mode").

** Yet another ''[[Beast Wars (Animation)|Beast Wars]]'' example: Optimus Primal became mode-locked in "Gorilla Warfare" thanks to Scorponok frakking around with his cyber-bee.

*** Naturally this backfired, turning the normally peace loving Primal into a [[Fire And Forget Weapon]].

* Ben in ''[[Ben 10 (Animation)|Ben 10]]'' has this happen to him a lot, since he's basically got a [[Black Box]] [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum|from outer space]] [[Clingy MacGuffin|permanently attached to his wrist]]. Even leaving aside that when he uses it, it turns him into the alien he chooses (or the one ''it'' chooses instead) until the timer runs down, then turns him back human until it powers up again, there have been a number of Mode Lock incidents, generally involving a weaker alien such as Grey Matter or Ditto.

** As a variant, Kevin winds up submitting to Mode Lock after overuse of previously-acquired Omnitrix-fueled transformation -- what Vilgax lovingly (sarcasm) calls a "misshapen amalgamation". By the time ''Alien Force'' rolls around, he [[Unexplained Recovery|returned to human form]] in time for his escape from the Null-Void.

* An episode of ''[[The Mask (Animation)|The Mask]]: The Animated Series'' featured a gypsy fortune-teller that tricked Stanley into giving her the Mask which she then used to power another magic Mask that gives enormous powers. She then discards the Mask thinking it's now useless and Stanley puts it on... only The Mask is stuck in the form of a sterotypical Scot (complete with kilt). He then gradually obtains the rest of his forms (starting with the most useless ones, as The Mask himself lampshades).

* This is the entire purpose of the Plasmius Maximus in ''[[Danny Phantom]]''. It has been used on both Danny and Vlad, modelocking them into their human forms. Other weapons/containment devices have this as a side effect of sorts.

* Between episodes 21 and 23 of ''[[Wakfu (Animation)|Wakfu]]'', Adamaï, a young shapeshifting dragon, is stuck in Tofu form after being [[Just Eat Him|swallowed whole and then regurgitated]] by Igôle (a powerful beast reinforced by Xelor magic, which is what interfere with Adamaï's power). This is a case where the modelocked form is small and weak, Tofus being [[Ridiculously Cute Critter]] birds.

* ''[[Gargoyles (Animation)|Gargoyles]]'' - Puck is mode-locked into one shape, {{spoiler|that of Owen Burnett}}, by Oberon after rebelling against his king. Given that shapeshifting is a major part of Puck's tricks... this sucks. The punishment also included eternal banishment from their homeland Avalon. Puck wanted to spend more time living as a human in the human world, [[Be Careful What You Wish For|and Oberon gave it to him.]]