World Conference Mayhem [OPEN]

From the beginning, Natalya knew her brother too well, and that had given her little faith in the meeting she'd been invited to. Work out peace agreements, when her boss was already nervously drilling her troops, when the border patrols had increased rampantly, when everyone already knew it was simply the excuse he needed to get everything back, that one small misstep, and...? She'd only shown up because it would have been expected of her, not out of any real idea that it would help solve anything. The chaos that ensued only proved her point further.

She felt cold, sitting so far from her brother. It wasn't as far as it could be, but she was hardly sitting next to him. She'd sat herself with the Baltics. They could all feel it. They were nervous. So they'd tried to situate themselves in places that would at least suggest that they didn't approve of Russia's actions- none of them wanted to be next. Instead of being flipped like she'd normally do with it idly, Natalya's knife was practically embedded in the palm of her hand. She was- well, not nervous. She could feel it shifting around her, hear the whispers in the wind (in the shadows). It wasn't so much nervous as resigned. (What could she do?)

From her seat, unintentionally next to Lithuania (she hadn't even realized that, upon deciding to sit away from her brother, she'd wound up there without noticing where she'd gone), she'd been waiting when, well, England. And that was almost a relief, because she was fairly certain the entire room went completely and totally silent for a full three seconds after he cast some kind of magic. Natalya had no trouble believing some kind of magic happened, and though it was only visible for about a moment, a small part of her became a little starry-eyed. She had always been fascinated with this sort of thing, and one so very rarely saw England use his Gift. 

Then again, she rather doubted he'd intended to suddenly change all of their physical genders...

She looked down at himself- and wow, she was going to confuse herself at this rate, or at least, she would, if she wasn't somewhat unfortunately used to the idea of something controlling her body that did not match it whatsoever. Now it was just a little backwards. So then. She looked down at himself and frowned for a moment. He was tall. Natalya wasn't certain why, especially given that she'd always been the shortest of her siblings, but he was certainly taller- you know what? She was just going to try to stick with "he" for now and save herself the headache later.

Alright. So he was taller now, and also physically male. Subtly, he shifted her weight. He really wanted to stand up now, actually, test out his movement, make sure he could still, in an emergency, lunge across the room and defend herself and- oh. Hello Lithuania. His- her- he'd go with "her" for now and figure it out later- braid was rather flattering, all things considered. Thinking about it, Lithuania might look nice with a braid even when magic hadn't flipped everything around like this. Not that he'd tell hi- her. Or that he'd normally let a thought like that slip through his head without getting immediately stamped down, but he assumed he should give himself a little slack for sheer disorientation.

All things considered, movement might be a little difficult. The dress was overly tight on him, after all, since he was much taller than he'd been before. He glanced over everyone, briefly making eye contact where he could to silently assess the most important people in the room's state of mental well-being, an act he'd continue with for the entire meeting, or at least, for however long this lasted- who knows what would happen as a result? His eyes lingered on his sister- bro- actually, it was really hard to think of Iryna as anything but his sister, all things considered- and on each power in the room.

(He really worked not to avert his eyes from his now significantly shorter brother, given the current climate).

Then, after a moment of assessment, he didn't s much lean back as let down a little of the tense guard he'd held in his shoulders for a moment, and then, without meaning to, snorted, a slight grin flickering across his features before falling back into a normal, slight exasperated expression.

"We all look ridiculous," he said plainly. Because they did. Next to no one was fitting in their clothes right anymore, everyone looked to be in various states of shock, and it was just plain strange to see everyone looking so different from normal. His voice was deep. It almost surprised him. However, it was less deep than it could have been. He'd imagine he could sing tenor, probably, if he bothered to check. It didn't particularly matter to him. One didn't need an intimidating voice to be intimidating, and his voice was still smooth and cold, even in a new pitch.

Natalya had a strong feeling that the meeting was about to turn into an even bigger disaster. Quite possibly, though, in a good way, if that made any sense at all.

He pulled off his too-tight shoes to allow freer movement, allowing everyone who was not already slightly mentally prepared for things like this (very, very long story, involving a lot of ghosts; she hadn't been so good at blocking them out when she was young) to react to the current turn of events.

(She rather suspected they'd all been cursed: may you live in interesting times, indeed.)

Sweden had arrived at the table long before the others had gotten here. When he was first approached with holding the world conference meeting his was surprised but he supposed it would have been best for the world to meet in a neutral place. He had spent the entire morning getting the place ready for them to meet. What better place than Stockholm to reduce everyone’s stress and calm the nerves? His capital was a wonderful place to relax and he would have to remind everyone to enjoy the sights and buy lots of things in his city before they leave. Anything would have helped at this point. Their funds were low and they were almost on the verge of starving. He could continue to provide fish, but with Russia in the water he could only do it for so long. Sweden was hoping this meeting might finally turn things around for everyone…..

He’d gotten a bit more than he asked for.

His cold eyes stared down at two lumps in his suit. Those were different….His suit seemed to be ill fitting for his form suddenly and the room had begun to chatter in a disgruntled fashion. His eyes scanned over everyone in the room, they had all switched genders. Her eyes stopped on England whom was banging her wand against the table trying to get it to work. Her cousin piped in with his input on that and Sweden silently agreed. He didn’t want them all to be mermaids next. Although, if they were to be turned into mermaids she didn’t think she would look bad.

Where did England get a wand in the first place and when did he acquire this ability? She had always thought Arthur to be strange but she didn’t take him seriously when he was speaking of magic. The more he looked around the room the more he felt he was right in that aspect. If this was what Arthur could do on accident she thought they would be okay.

But back to business. Sweden stood, now shorter than she was before. Her hair had become long and reached well past her shoulders down to her waistline. She adjusted her frames on her face. They didn’t fit as well as they did before her gender changed. “Since we are moving on, I want to start by saying that you are all welcome in Stockholm to discuss anything.” She paused. Her voice was deep and void of emotion, it demanded attention in an eerie way. It was time they started to talk about what really mattered here. “I want to let you all know that our goal with this meeting is important and that the plush comfortable office chairs you are sitting in are from IKEA for the low bargain price of 67SEK each. The table is also on sale for 127SEK. All lighting fixtures in the room can be found in the designer lighting area of my home.” She finished speaking and sat down in silence, waiting for them to continue her conversation starter.

Having a World Conference Meeting in the middle of a World War was a highly questionable idea from the get go. Was it really all that surprising that Alfred soon found himself in the midst of an argument with Ivan? One couldn't really call said argument heated...Alfred and Ivan's arguments rarely fit under that heading. There was a reason why the animosity between Alfred and Ivan was referred to as the Cold War, and rarely did arguments between the two actually come to blows. In fact, Alfred and Ivan coming to blows would spell disaster for everyone involved, whether it was on a personal level or a national level. On a personal level, both nations were incredibly strong and could do a lot of damage to both the room they were in and those around them. On a national level? Well, there was a reason for the phrase 'mutually assured destruction'.

So perhaps it was a good thing that Arthur found a way to distract them from their argument, even if it was a little...unconventional, to say the least.

The first thing that Alfred noticed was that absolutely no one in the room looked the same as they had before. Absolutely nobody, and that included Ivan, who he'd been arguing with mere seconds before. His mouth gaped open. Even as a woman, Ivan stood taller than him. But wait...if everyone else in the room was the opposite of their actual gender...what did that mean for himself?

Now that he noticed, his chest did feel a little heavier, and something down there didn't feel quite right. In fact, he didn't feel something down there at all. He noticed that his clothes fit a lot looser than they did before, to the point where the sleeves of his bomber jacket covered his hands nearly to the tips of his fingers. His hair went to his shoulders. His pants were loose as well, though not to the point where they were in danger of falling.

Nope, he wasn't spared from the effects of this spell gone wrong at all. And to make matters worse... "How are you still taller than me, dammit?"

Other than a look of irritation shot toward Ivan at this realization, Alfred didn't look all that perturbed by the news. Sure, he wanted his male body back eventually, but this wasn't the first time Arthur's magic went on the fritz and it certainly wouldn't be the last time, and to his knowledge Arthur always fixed everything that he'd screwed up in the past. No, he wasn't too worried about this being permanent. So why freak out?

It should be said that Peter, having come to this meeting, had subsequently begun to avoid it because nothing good was happening and for once he hadn't been planning on sneaking in but neither his brother nor his parents wanted him alone (which was silly all on its own). Essentially, therefore, Peter was playing with his Gameboy in the background when everything went wrong, actually not wanting to be present. It was almost weird, actually. He'd wanted an excuse to get into meetings for so long, and look! His parents had allowed him to come to stop him from getting hurt. It was just that all that was happening was a particularly painful sort of argument that Peter sort of wished he didn't have to hear.

It should also be said that, for all that Peter liked the ideas of change and fluidity, Peter occasionally held a somewhat rigid mindset. This was mostly unavoidable, because Peter liked things to be at least a little bit predictable. He liked them at least a little bit logical and at least a little bit possible to explain. Did this screw with his head, what with him being a literal personification of the somewhat abstract concept of nationhood? Yes. Yes it did. But then again, Peter grew up with that, so he sort of just took it for granted. It made sense because it just did.

What did not make sense was what his brother had just done.

Peter, who was playing a video game at the time and trying very hard not to notice what the other Nations were doing, did not see his brother pull out his, uh, his brother called it a wand but it had to be something else, really, and did not see the warning signs that something extremely ridiculous was about to happen. If he'd seen them, maybe he would have, he wasn't sure, poked Uncle Nils really hard and hoped he could do something about it? But he hadn't.

What he did notice was a brief moment when he felt very, very wrong. Nearly painfully so. It wasn't a painful sensation, but it was just such a powerful one that he winced immediately. At about that same time, everyone went silent, his brother made a nervous sounding, unusually high-pitched giggle, and everyone slowly started talking with various levels of incredulity. Peter took several deep breaths, trying to dispel whatever wrongness was still in his chest before looking at himself, mentally trying to take inventory.

He felt weirdly sore, actually. Like he'd just done some growing. Which could be good? Except then he looked at himself, found himself about the same size, but also HE WAS A GIRL AND THAT WAS NOT OKAY. He quickly patted himself, started mumbling "What, no, this doesn't make sense, this kind of major change does not happen that quickly, I haven't had that major of a population change or, or, or even some sort of system thing how does this happen this isn't even possible!" (Somewhere in his slightly hysterical rambling, he might have noticed that his voice was significantly higher pitched. He didn't care.)

He looked at his confusingly female body again, looked up, and noticed that everyone else looked different too, looked at his nervous brother, and took a few more very deep, very calming breaths. This did not last long. "DADDY THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO BE TALKING ABOUT FURNITURE!" he squeaked, waving his arms around somewhat. "Someone explain what's going on, please, THIS MAKES NO SENSE!" Was he a little hysterical? Yes, yes he was, but he assumed he was at least somewhat justified in his hysteria, given the situation.

He paused. "And there better be a better explanation than magic, too, because that's ridiculous!" he added, glaring at his brother a little bit there because he was well aware that was the first answer he'd get, otherwise.

It's very, very easy to take things for granted. Little things, big things - the world is full of so much that you just expect to be one way and will always be that one way. Often the process of learning that something you take for granted isn't necessarily as permanent as you'd thought is an opportunity for growth and discovery. However, Vicente is not generally interested in growth and discovery in general. In fact, the nation very, very, very much enjoys being able to take the matter of gender for granted. Especially on a personal level - if it was just the other nations involved, this situation would probably be hilarious.

But instead of laughing, Vicente is looking at herself with a horrified expression. And not due to any difficulty in clothing - not bothering to dress up for this meeting at all and instead just showing up in jeans and a t-shirt is working out quite well. No, her problem with the situation is the part that everyone else seems to be determined to not have a problem with. Well, everyone except Peter, though until the young micronation starts yelling Vicente finds herself honestly wondering if she's alone in her believe that this situation is hugely wrong and unacceptable.

Most of Vicente's life has been the pursuit of one goal: to become a nation that the other nations respect, listen to, and overall just plain take seriously. And it's been a very difficult goal for a South American nation who is too often classed as third world to pursue - especially given that certain lack of a real work ethic that has become synonymous with the nation among those who know her best. In order to make up for that, she has spent a lot of time and effort in attempting to establish herself as an extremely strong and powerful man. And she thinks that she might finally be accomplishing that - except now instead of all that she has curves. A lot of curves. She doesn't want curves! How is she supposed to be at all macho now? People don't take people with curves seriously!

Slamming her hands on the table, she pushes herself to her feet as she fumes, "ALFRED! This is YOUR fault! If YOU hadn't STUCK your NOSE into everyone else's business AGAIN, then none of us would have to be here and your idiota SISTER wouldn't have caused this mess. LOOK AT US! Are you HAPPY with yourself?" She suddenly pauses, realizing something. Hey, is she taller as a woman? She thinks that she is... Or it just that Alfred and Ivan are shorter? ...Now she wants a tape measure to check for certain... But putting that thought aside, she makes a frustrated exclamation, throwing up her arms and turning away.

While a part of her would like to immediately leave the room in disgust to further underline her words, she's restrained by the thought that perhaps she shouldn't be too hasty. If someone figures out a quick and easy fix to this then she wants to stick around and find out about it. The fact that Arthur managed to do it in the first place is actually something she accepts without too much of a struggle - partly because it's clearly happened but also partly because, while she doesn't believe in fairies and pixie dust, she certainly believes in witchcraft, black magic, curses and the like. But of course only the most wretched of people would ever touch that sort of thing, which only proves just how horrible of a person Arthur really is.

Forcing herself to keep her head around her, Germany merely observes the situation for a bit. Though it doesn't take very long for it to be made clear what the majority of the nations present feel about the situation - while she's fully prepared to forge ahead with the meeting if she has to, too many nations are just too thrown by the situation for that to be practical. Which is kind of a relief, actually - there's a difference between being able to continue and wanting to continue, after all, and she's definitely not the latter.

Standing up and speaking as loudly and authoritatively as only she can (albeit at a higher octave than usual), she says, "Given the present situation, this meeting is hereby adjourned until further notice. An optional, informal meeting to further discuss the situation and hov it might be resolved will nov begin." Of course, she has no actual authority to make such declarations, but someone had to do it and in all the confusion she's forgotten who is supposed to be in charge. Whoever they are, though, they're not doing their job properly - if they're not going to be discussing the war, then officially declaring the meeting adjourned is the right thing to do. That way everyone has official permission to leave if they want to.

Besides, she doesn't expect anyone to argue that they should do anything different - or at least, that anyone will successfully argue anything else. There's already too many who have said or have as good as said that they don't want the meeting to continue, and on the other hand there's others who clearly want to talk about what's happened to all of them. As for her? At the moment she's silently hoping that this is as temporary as possible. Otherwise she might kill England. But it's not come to that yet - that can wait until she's given up hope of returning to normal.