Feeling Patriotic

Image Description: A woman with light brown hair pulled into a ponytail wears an American flag-patterned bikini and stands on a dock near a pond. She has her hands on her chest and has an annoyed look on her face.

Caption: The state of politics today had Louis feeling pretty down on the Fourth of July. Thankfully his witchy neighbor Katy had just the spell to get him feeling more patriotic. Or dressing the part, at least.

Commentary: Happy Independence Day to my American fans!

No Tip

Image Description: A woman with long dark hair stands at an open door holding a pizza box. She is wearing a tight white tank top and lace-topped pink panties with thin white stripes. She has a tribal tattoo on her lower back, peeking out over the tops of the panties.

Caption: Wanda sighed audibly when she saw the address attached to this pizza. Jeff Andrews never tipped, but he loved to harass the female delivery drivers. She couldn't make him more generous, but with a little magic, Wanda made sure that Jeff couldn't stiff anyone again.

TG Book Review: Mall of Change by Lisa Change

I've been aware of Lisa Change for some time now, since she's one of the more prolific authors in the self-published TG fiction scene. But I love a good transformation story set in the (increasingly anachronistic) environs of a shopping mall, so I gave Mall of Change a shot.

The story follows a southern politician named Roy Anderson who might seem somewhat familiar if you pay attention to political news in the United States. He likes to go to the mall to ogle teenage girls, and as we learn in some flashbacks, sometimes do more than ogle, with deadly results. Because Roy's feelings about teenage girls are complicated; he's attracted to them, but there's a strong, deep undercurrent of loathing for women and teen girls in particular.

Which is what makes the story so interesting when he's transformed into one.

I think it's safe to say that the majority of male-to-female gender transformation fiction features protagonists who, often out of some kind of misogyny—whether it's the immature "girls are icky" or the chauvinistic "women are inferior"—are unhappy about becoming women. But in my experience, it's rarely the kind of overt misogyny we get from Roy's internal monologue. He's a thoroughly awful character.

And as a result, it's satisfying to see the changes he goes through as a kind of body horror rather than the usual titillation. It's satisfying for things to happen to him that might break stories that weren't about punishing such terrible behavior.

It's hard to call this story fun, but it is nice to see some supernatural comeuppance to a very real-world kind of creep, and to believe even for a moment in a sense of cosmic justice. It's a short, easy read, and the subject matter means it stays pretty PG-13 in terms of content. It's available on Amazon as a single book, or as part of an anthology called Trapped as a Beautiful Girl. Other works by Lisa Change are also available on Smashwords.

Itty-Bitty Titty Committee

Image Description: A naked woman with dark hair in a bob cut sits cross-legged on a rug in front of a full bookcase. She has a hardcover book open in her lap.

Caption: "Reversal spell? Oh, no, I stopped looking for a reversal spell hours ago. It's time to accept that we're stuck like this for good. No, now I'm looking for a breast enlargement spell. There's no way I'm going to live out the rest of my life with these itty-bitty B-cups."

Puzzle Box

Image Description: A young naked woman with shoulder-length, dirty blonde hair sits on a wooden cube with various shapes and patterns on each of the sides. She looks downward and to the side, with a calm, contemplative expression on her face, and her legs crossed over one face of the cube.

Caption: Hector was a master of puzzles, so naturally he jumped at the chance to examine the latest acquisition of the Antiquities Department, an alchemist’s puzzle box from the 11th century. It was in pristine condition, and Hector was shocked by the sophistication of its interlocking parts. He twisted and pressed different pieces, and was shocked again when a pattern locked into place and glowed. Almost immediately, he felt his sciatica disappear, along with the arthritic aches in his joints. A quick look into his cell phone camera showed that he looked thirty years younger, maybe more! The allure of real magic was too tempting to pass up. He tested other sequences, carefully and dispassionately noting each effect. His race changed a few times, skin darkening and lightening, features altering in various combinations. His age cycled up and down the decades, and at some point he became a very attractive young woman. He played with the cube a little longer, but while his breasts grew and shrank, along with his hair and hips, he couldn’t find the pattern to restore his male form. The longer he remained in this new body with its new desires, the more he wanted to explore himself rather than the box. And so he resolved to do a thorough exploration, just as soon as he figured out how to undo the changes that left him two feet—whoops, make that eight inches—tall. On second thought, maybe his height could wait...

Commentary: I'm back! And I've got another shrinking caption too!

Brief Hiatus

Going on a break for a couple of weeks, but don't worry...absence makes the heart grow fonder. Just ask Mr. Branson here!

Better Fit

Image Description: A woman with long, voluminous brown hair sits in an enormous red-soled black stiletto heel. She's wearing a black vinyl top that shows a lot of cleavage, and strappy leggings that lead all the way down to her own shiny black stiletto heels.

Caption: In hindsight, Alan could have worded his wish better than "I want to fit in women's shoes."

Commentary: I love shrinking! Unfortunately, my Photoshop skills are not nearly up to par for making my own shrinking captions, so I have to rely on extremely serendipitous pictures like this!