You look around at the costumes for a minute, wondering what your crazy sounding uncle is talking about. "Go on, try something, you'll be impressed, I'm sure of it," he says.
You resist the impulse to roll your eyes at him, but do as he suggests. There's a wall with a bunch of rubber and silicone masks hanging on it, and there is a rather impressive dragon head there amongst them. It probably isn't "enchanted" or whatever, but it's well made, and might be good for Halloween in a few months. You pick it up, put it on, and are surprised by how well it fits.
"Good, good, now look in the mirror."
You shuffle over to the mirror nearby, look in it, and are surprised by how life like the skin and features of the dragon's face look. Then, you notice something--the eyes of the mask, they're moving. They're moving like they're your actual eyes. You open the mouth, and its mouth opens too. Inside the mouth, you see the sharp teeth, the throat going down, but its not your throat. With your hands, you explore it, wondering what kind of optical illusion it could possibly be, but flinch away when you feel how sharp the teeth are, how warm the mouth is. It's like it's alive.
"Impressive, isn't it? Very lifelike. That one has something else special too. I want you to think about fire, and then exhale, alright?"
You look over at him, suspicious, but do as he says. You picture a campfire in your mind, then blow out, and watch as the dragon mask's mouth opens and fire comes pouring out of it, hitting the mirror in front of you. You tear the mask off, more than a little terrified, looking for any sign of damage as your uncle laughs. "It's not real fire, nephew, it's just a glamour. I wouldn't want anyone getting burned at a costume party!"
"How...how did you do that?" you ask.
"I told you, I'm a wizard. I thought you were smarter than that."
You gingerly put the dragon mask back on the wall, the scales now returned to rubber, but you're slowly starting to believe him. For the next half an hour or so, you try on a few other pieces of his, and eventually are convinced. He's a wizard alright, he's a little crazy, but these costumes are, quite simply, astounding.
He eventually takes you into the backroom where he keeps his workshop and study. There are piles of grimoires and scrolls all over the place, odd beakers full of strangely colored liquids, and more than a few containers full of rather disturbing reagents. He shows you around, before reaching his sewing table, where an odd set of clothing is lying there. It's something like a mechanic's coverall or boilersuit, but the fabric is unlike anything you've seen before. When the light catches it, it shines like rubber, but when your Uncle picks it up, it seems as light as the finest silk. "This is my newest invention. Not so much a costume, I suppose, but something I like to call, social camouflage. It's still in the prototype phase though."
"What does it do?" you ask.
"It's very special. When you put it on--it can go over your clothes, or you can wear it by itself--and its in its current state, it renders you invisible to the people around you. Not truly invisible, they'll notice you in life or death situations, for example, but they won't pay you any mind, no matter where you go. Much more impressive, though, is what happens when you utter a particular incantation. Say, 'I want to fit in,' and the suit will transform you into someone who fits into the group and location around you. Wear it, say, to the gym around a munch of muscular guys, and say the phrase, and you could become a bodybuilder or some such too! When you want to stop, all you have to say is, "I want to be ignored," and the suit will turn to white again. Or at least, that's what I'd like it to do. It still has some kinks to work out. It works quite well, actually, but perhaps a little too well. I'm rather frustrated by it, actually, and will probably just start again from scratch," he said, bundled up the suit and chucked it into a forgotten corner of his workshop.
Before you could ask more about it, your uncle's watch started beeping, "Oh goodness! I suppose we should get you some dinner. I promised my brother I'd keep you on a good schedule, which is something I'm not particularly used to. Come on, let's go eat upstairs."
He pulls you away from the workbench, but all evening, you can't stop thinking about the odd suit, wondering what it could do, or what it might be like to wear it. That night, while your uncle slept, you crept down into his shop, into the workshop, found the suit where he'd thrown it, and took it with you up to your room. Tomorrow, you'd go ahead and give it a try, and see how well it worked for yourself.
Of course, you hadn't bothered to ask your uncle what kind of kinks and flaws the suit had. Here are a few of the issues he'd been struggling with:
1. The suit's transformations can be rather unpredictable. It's true, in the gym, you might become a bodybuilder--or perhaps a chubby fellow trying to get into shape, or even the gym's janitor. The suit doesn't always respond well to the assumptions made by the wearer.
2. The suit seems rather prone to creating social connections by establishing sexual and romantic connections with those around the wearer when the phrase is uttered. Again, the nature of these relationships is difficult to predict.
3. While the social camouflage is active, the wearer often becomes highly suggestible to those around him. Likely, this is to help the wearer fit in, but mere suggestions can quickly become compulsions, or even alter the nature of their persona entirely.
4. The social camouflage does result in reality shifting to accommodate the wearer and their new persona. However, the longer the wearer stays in that persona, and the more that reality has to change to accommodate them, the more will and focus the wearer will need to change back.
5. When the incantation is uttered, the suit becomes the initial outfit the wearer finds themselves in. If at any point, the wearer takes off a piece of that outfit, the trigger phrase will require more will and focus to work.
6. The suit provides the wearer with enough memories in their persona to fit in, but the longer they remain in the persona, the more those memories will push out their old ones. In time, the person might forget that they had a different life altogether, but how long that might take depends on many factors.
These are just the flaws your uncle noticed on his few test runs of the social camouflage suit--there might be more that he hadn't had time to notice as well. You, of course, are oblivious to all of this, as you pull the suit on the next day in your room, and slip out of your uncle's shop completely unnoticed. On the sidewalk, various passersby bump into you, look at you a bit confused, and then continue on without a word. When you shout in a few people's faces, they just ignore you, or look around like they noticed a fly. It actually works! Now, though, you need to decide where you'd like to go, and where who you'd like to fit in with for the day.