The Prom Queen (Part 2)

View Part 1 of The Prom Queen.

Gene slipped back just as the announcement for runner-up was announced. Karen pretended to be happy when her name was announced; being runner-up was certainly nothing to scoff at. But, of course, that meant there wasn’t much doubt as to who the winner was.

“Nancy Wang!” The principal said as Gene pretended to look surprised. He smiled. Stealing Nancy’s body was worth it. All eyes were on him in the best possible way. When he got the stage and the principal put the tiara on his head, he began to cry. He loved the feeling of adoration; he loved feeling popular.

Experiencing this moment was the reason he had stolen Nancy’s body in the first place, and he had actually even intended to give it back later in the night. But it had felt so good, he was reconsidering if he ever wanted to give her body back at all. It only got better when he got to dance with the prom king, and the eyes of the entire class were on him. He loved it. He didn’t want to give this up. Ever. Nancy could be stuck his body for good; he was going to be Nancy from now on.

Super Shy

Aidan hadn’t ventured out much in the months after the Great Shift. Adjusting to being in Yumiko’s body had been hard for him, and he hadn’t want to rush returning to his old haunts in the aftermath. Part of that was simply buying new clothes to change Yumiko’s style. She owned a lot of things like tube tops and micro skirts. Most of her entire wardrobe had made him embarrassed to even be seen in public. It took time to buy a more conservative ensemble.

But even with the modest skirt and cardigan sweater, he still found himself gravitating towards the corner of the bar. He had been a regular here; he knew many of his old friends were probably here, but they likely all had new faces just like his did. He found it difficult to reach out and talk to people to find out who was who. It seemed stupid, but maybe Yumiko had dressed in the outward way she did to break through her shyness. He imagined that sort of look encouraged people to talk her even if she might be feeling too shy to talk to them.

The Orb

A while back, I made a comic, and now I've turned it into a video with some narrative changes. Here it is!

Venture Forth (Part 5)

View Part 1 of Venture Forth.
View Part 2 of Venture Forth.
View Part 3 of Venture Forth.
View Part 4 of Venture Forth.

Gideon barely thought about his next move. He grabbed the staff from Gwyn and snapped it into pieces. There was no way he was going to let the princess take Gwyn’s body.

The next thing he felt was a fist on the side of his face. It hurt, but he was at least glad she hadn’t pulled out his sword.

All the commotion caused the goblin guards to return. From their perspective, this man had just assaulted their princess. She tried commanding them to stop, but they didn’t realize it was their princess inside Gideon’s body.

Then they looked to Gideon inside the body of the princess for guidance. He didn’t know what to tell them.

It was Gwyn who finally came up with an excuse. “Your princess is needed on, uh, a diplomatic mission that’s, uh, top secret.” She explained.

Gideon nodded and then the other goblins did the same. Goblins really were stupid.

Was It Worth It?

Was it worth it?

Dave sat back and wondered about his deal with Ahn. He had met her in college. She was mousy with crooked teeth -- not exactly what anyone would call attractive. And she always appreciated Dave’s kindness and his friendship, perhaps especially considering the fact that Dave was a rather handsome man. Throughout their time at school together, he never knew of her parents’ vast wealth. And he certainly didn’t know all she went through after graduation to try to improve her appearance.

Despite all the plastic surgery and teeth straightening, Ahn still felt awkward. She still hated her outside appearance. But with her massive wealth, she still had one avenue left to try, so she called Dave.

Half her fortune -- and taking over her life. That was her offer to Dave to swap bodies through the secret experimental technology. With the job market in its present state, Dave had trouble landing a gig after college. The offer seemed too good to pass up, and so he agreed.

A few months later as he sat by the pool, he thought about his agreement with Ahn. He didn’t mind being in her body one bit. He certainly liked the money. He just wished she had asked him before all the plastic surgery and whatnot. He wouldn’t have minded being more like that mousy girl he had met in college one bit.

As Planned

The faux leather top and fuzzy pink skirt along with the slender shaved legs were more than enough to tell me that this wasn’t my body, and yet I will still in for the shock of my life when I picked up the small compact on her desk. I couldn’t get a great look at my new face, but the feminine reflection staring back at me was just so surprising. This was who I was now. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised. This was the plan, after all. I guess it just caught me off guard that it all actually worked!

Over Coffee

Meeting up some time after the Great Shift, it was clear that Andy and Jeff had both adapted to becoming women in their own ways.

Andy leaned into expressing his newfound feminine side. He explored fashion and makeup, and eventually he started a fashion blog and a YouTube page. In essence, he was now a style icon as a woman, and it felt great.

Jeff, on the other hand, leaned into a more sporty style. He cut his hair short and was quite noted in the lesbian community.

Despite their divergent paths, they still loved getting together over coffee or brunch to talk about their lives and how things were going since the Shift.

Bacon

I woke up in the morning still trying to wrap my head around what had happened last night. After bringing a woman back to my place and fooling around a little, we swapped bodies. I don’t think we even believed it in the moment, like maybe someone had slipped drugs in our drinks at the club where we met or something -- or maybe we just both expected to sleep it off.

However, in the morning, we were still swapped. I woke up to find her snoring in my body and decided to make the best use of the morning by cooking some breakfast. When she finally woke up a little while later, she looked at the bacon I was making and turned up her nose.

“I’m a vegetarian,” She explained.

“Oh,” I said as I looked down at the bacon. It was a pretty sobering fact that I knew almost nothing about the woman I swapped bodies with. I also decided not to tell her that I had already eaten several pieces of bacon already.

Collision (Part 1)

It felt so surreal. One moment he was behind the wheel of his car and the next he was on the sidewalk watching it crash. The shock of watching the whole thing from the outside was tough; the shock of realizing he wasn’t in the crash because he had swapped into the body of a female pedestrian was absolutely surreal.

He wasn’t sure what his bigger concern should be. He wasn’t technically hurt right now, though his original body might be. At the same time, being in the absolute wrong body could totally be considered something “wrong.” Then again, it’s not like there was any sort of instruction manual to get out of the someone else’s body, and he probably should try to at least help anyone hurt in the crash.

And so despite the awkwardness of being in a woman’s body, he ventured over to the crashed cars.

EstroThrive

Dichotomy

I suppose the good news was that society didn’t collapse after the Great Shift. It was pretty touch-and-go there for a while. We had a suspicion for a while that some sort of psychopath swapped bodies with the President; turns out he was just sort of crazy all along and hadn’t swapped at all. Figuring out who was who through all of it was so wild.

But now it’s three years later and things had settled down. I should be celebrating my 23rd birthday this week, but my doctor tells me I’m technically probably closer to 38 now. Oh, and not just any doctor -- my gynecologist. She tells me that if I want to have kids that I should probably do it soon.

There’s no f*cking way. I’m still getting used to the fact that I’m a woman; there’s no way I want to pop out a baby. And I also still feel 23, despite whatever my actual physical age may be. I still feel much too young. That’s sort of the way the dichotomy of the Great Shift worked -- who you were fighting against who you are. In my case, a young male fighting against a middle aged woman.

I’d still see my reflection sometimes and wonder why I wasn’t there; who was that woman looking back. Even coming home on the subway the other day it happened. I had to remind myself who I was now -- Amy. I had picked that name. I actually never found out anything about the person I swapped in to; hence why my doctor guessed an “estimate” for me. My birthday is this week; I had no clue when hers was.

Girl Power

The theory was simple enough. Most crimes were committed by men, aged 18-24, and the link to male hormones had become undeniable. Getting to the solution proved much harder, but it was only a matter of time before extreme measures were taken. Simply put: Any man between the ages of 18 and 24 would be forcedly transformed into a woman until their 26th birthday.

Arvin was one of the first convicted under the program. Even though his crimes of trespass and defacing property were relatively minor, the punishment was still transformation.

He saw the punishment as getting off easy -- in fact, it didn’t seem much of a punishment at all to him. On the day after his sentence started, he was back to the exact same behavior, regardless of what his body looked like. Of course, the subject matter of his defacement had changed somewhat...

I Am You

I knew I was dreaming. It was on an alien world with a surreal sky. The land was nothing but rocks with only a faint figure in the distance. I walked towards it. As I came closer, I realized I was walking towards her.

“Who are you?” I asked.

She turned, her hairless head reflecting the light of the moon. “Do you not know?” She asked.

I shrugged; I had no words.

“I am you. I am who you always were meant to be. I have been hidden inside you for so long.”

I knew what she was saying was true. I hadn’t told anyone I thought I was trans. I hadn’t really even wanted to admit it to myself. And even when called out on it in a dream.

“No!” I shouted, “It’s not true. It’s not...”

She smiled because she knew me better than I knew myself. Because she was me...

Again (Part 2)

View Part 1 of Again.

It had been years since the Great Shift. Elio had started going by Elle and began using she/her pronouns. Embracing life as a woman hadn’t been too bad. Though he supposed being a skinny and attractive woman helped.

But one day, an older, overweight middle aged woman approached him. She had clearly been running to try to catch up with him.

“I never thought I’d see it again,” The woman said before adding, “That’s my body.”

Elle was quite shocked. She had never expected to meet the original owner of her body. But she greeted the woman with a pleasant, “Hello.”

“Have you seen the reports? The government has a program. We can swap back to normal. We can get our bodies back.”

Elle had seen the news, but she had ignored it because it wasn’t really a possibility for her. “But that’s not my original body. I was...someone else.”

“Oh,” The woman replied, not realizing she didn’t experience a simple one-to-one swap like most people, “But we can still sign up. You can still give me my body back!”

Elle sighed, knowing this was going to be tough for this woman to hear, “I know the program. We both have to agree to it. And I really...I don’t want to. My original body died in the Shift, and I’ve gotten really used to this one. You can’t ask me to give it up. I’ve had to for so many years now; it just feels like mine.”

“But it’s not! It’s mine!”

“Actually, as long as I’m in it...it IS mine!”

The Colony

We lost contact with the colony weeks ago. The higher-ups sent our team to investigate what happened. When our ship got close to the planet, our signal started breaking up, then things went dark.

I found myself on the planet’s surface, but everything seemed wrong. I first thought my bio-readings were off; it turned out to be my body that was the problem -- it wasn’t mine! She was another member of my team. Her name was Brit; I guess that was my name now. After all, no one meeting me would think otherwise. All my systems registered her body, her face, and her life instead of my own. There wasn’t much time to dwell on the fact I had a new gender right now -- the suit would manage all bodily functions until I could find a rest pod, after all.

And I now had two mysteries to solve now. The first was how an entire thriving colony of over 10,000 people vanished in an instant. The other was how our team’s ship seemed to do the same -- and leave me in Brit’s body in the process. I had a feeling the two events were related, but there was scant evidence on the ground so far. If anything, it looked like all of the people just disappeared and most of the tech just stopped working...

Scared

On the night of The Great Shift, Pete found himself inside a dirty gas station bathroom. The woman he had no phone or purse with her, because she left both in the car with her friend. He had no way to understand what had just happened to him. He was just terrified.

It didn’t help matters when a loud burly man began banging to get in. The thick metal door with his huge deadbolt lock helped assure him that the man wouldn’t be getting in, but Pete also had nowhere to really go either. He curled up in the corner. It felt gross, but it wasn’t like there was any clean place in this restroom to sit.

He just tried to contemplate what was happening. How had he suddenly become a woman? Where was his? Who was the scary man pounding on the door? He knew he’d have to leave eventually; to figure all this out. But for now, he was much too scared.

Mouthing Off

Asher always knew that his girlfriend Heather was weird, but this was beyond weird. She had transformed him into a woman one day, and he reacted exactly as one might expect -- with screams and panic. They didn’t leave his mouth for long, as it seemed he soon had no mouth at all.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Heather told him, “But don’t scream. PLEASE don’t scream. It’s going to sound strange, but I discovered I can bend reality.”

Asher had so many questions. Was she a witch? How did she discover the power? Of course, with no mouth, he couldn’t ask any of them.

“You look like you’re going to scream again if I give you your mouth back,” Heather continued.

Asher tried shaking his head no, but Heather wasn’t convinced.

“It turns out I’m omnipotent. My parents are these fourth dimensional beings, and they never told me!” Heather continued to prattle on as Asher could only sit there and listen. He wasn’t even made about being transformed into a woman anymore -- of course if Heather was truly omnipotent, he considered she just made him comfortable with it -- but his lack of a mouth was truly worrying. If only she would take two seconds to stop talking about herself and her powers to restore it. He thought about trying to draw attention to it, but he also did not want to piss her off.

Courted

Tyler and his friends had been hogging all the courts at the local park when the women arrived. He almost thought it was amusing that these short white women wanted to play basketball. Caroline and her friends explained they knew they weren’t good, and they just liked to play; hoping a compromise could be reached. Tyler said they were there first. Caroline tried explaining there were plenty of courts if they just consolodated a little.

Neither was expecting the Great Shift.

Tyler tried to shake off the strange light that made him feel light headed, but when he realized how pale, short, scrawny, and definitively feminine his body had become, that proved very hard to do. Caroline wasn’t doing much better in Tyler’s body. As the realization of what had just happened came over everyone, they quickly realized squabbles over the court was the least of their worries right now.

Something

Andrew was still fast asleep when his phone started ringing with an unfamiliar sound. It wasn’t his ringtone; it wasn’t even his phone. And on the end was his own voice in panic talking about “swapping bodies” or something like that.

Once Andrew was awake enough to realize what was going on, finding himself in someone else’s body didn’t come as that much of a shock. After all, the phone call had explained almost all of it before he could realize it for himself. Then again, there was still something to be said about the unique experience of being a woman.

It was actually easy enough to ignore the gender difference until he went to the closet. Perhaps if her wardrobe had been a little more subdued, it would have been easier to pick something out. But looking through all of this? Well, he couldn’t imagine himself wearing any of it. But he remembered how upset his voice was over the phone. He had to pick SOMETHING so he could go and meet the woman he swapped with.

Punished (Part 2)

View Part 1 of Punished.

Despite the fact that it felt like forever, it only took moments for Chris to be transformed. Once it was over, he could move again -- or at least he could try. The changes to his body made it feel so strange. The heels on his feet made it difficult to stand; his hips swayed in odd ways. The man told Chris that he was free to go. Of course, Chris wasn’t about to leave looking like this!

Quickly deciding his new body offered his best hope, he shuffled as quickly as he could over to the doctor. He got real close, leaned in, and gently touched the man’s chest.

After a few minutes of flattery, Chris tried to get him to reveal how the ray worked. The man seemed annoyed, but Chris assured him, “Why would I want my body back already? I haven’t explored this one yet! I’m sure it’s a lot of fun. But I wouldn’t want to suddenly revert back in the middle of that fun.”

“There’s no chance,” The man began to crack a smile, “Your body’s pattern is safely stored in the ray gun. You actually have the body of the person who thought they could sneak in here before you did. Such is the cycle.”

Before the man finished explaining, he jumped on top of Chris. Chris never felt so much panic in his life. He felt weak and helpless, and completely afraid for what would happen next. He reached out for something...anything...

Mess

Kevin was glad that places started delivering again. He hadn’t adapted well since the Great Shift. Becoming a woman had been absolutely miserable for him. He’d just been depressed about the whole thing once it happened. He never even bothered to leave the apartment he found himself in. He spent days wearing the same clothes; he let the mess pile up; he tried not to shower.

He knew this wouldn’t last forever. The world was starting to finally move forward -- the food delivery, while welcome, was also evidence of this. He’d probably have to show up to work -- or at least sign on to work remotely. And he’d have to do some basic hygiene, or at least make sure he didn’t stink. He was still in no rush to do any of this. He hoped it was all a nightmare he’d wake up from, but the only nightmare was the absolute mess of living conditions he was creating for himself that would take longer to resolve the more he put off the inevitable.

Plans (Part 2)

View Part 1 of Plans.

“You screwed up,” Ms. Frish said from inside Kenji’s body.

“My job is to protect this company’s secrets and technology; both of those are secure.” Kenji assured her before adding, “But I am not your personal bodyguard.”

“Technically, you are now, because of whatever they did.”

Kenji sighed. Being in the body of a middle aged woman was not exactly how he wanted any of this to end up; however, he saw a strategic advantage to this.

“And they’ll be after you next. The team’s failure means you’re their next target. They know the tech is too secure now, but you created a lot of it. If they can get the information directly from you...they’ll try. But, of course, I’ll be the one waiting for them in your body.”

“What about me?”

“If they know of the swap? It’s a small risk, but my body is a weapon. I’ll teach you some basic moves. These bastards are going down.”

Mythical

Perseus contemplated exactly what just happened. Almost none of the legends about Medusa turned out to be true. She did have snakes for hair...THAT much was factual, but she wasn’t ugly in the slightly. On the contrary, she was quite beautiful -- well, if you could ignore the snakes. Nor did her appearance turn anyone to stone, though she was still cursed.

She even tried to warn him, but her sweet voice lured him in. He couldn’t help but look upon her. He was smitten by her beauty yet felt a pain for the unfortunate state of her hair. This was a pain that he would soon share, as Medusa’s curse did not turn men to stone -- it turned them into fellow gorgons.

After Perseus’s transformation, Medusa adopted him as a sister. He was nearly as beautiful, but also shared her curse. No shortage of men came to their island to slay them, but unlike Perseus, they were horrified by their transformation and fell on their own sword. And thus the distorted myths of Medusa persisted with tales of the bravery of Perseus eventually weaved in. They were far from the truth, but the myths were often all that remained.

"No"

Robert knew he was getting older. He was worried the board would oust him as CEO, and he needed a solution. He didn’t give the body swapping company many specification about the new body he wanted. In fact, after paying them one million dollars, his only request on the form was to be younger. He’d quickly come to regret not giving more details.

He awoke in a woman’s body. Upset, he demanded to be returned at once. As it turned out, he hadn’t read the fine print. The swap didn’t just mean he was taking on a new body, but a new life as well. He was now a poor 25 year old Asian woman who had a job working at a nail salon, hardly the type of person who had another million dollar in their account to afford another swap. He’d have to convince the woman in his body to swap back as well, and she hadn’t exact stuck around.

Getting in touch with a CEO of a Fortune 500 company was actually quite a challenge. Even as Robert knew his own schedule, address, and everything else. It took weeks to be at the exact location to find his old body and beg the woman inside to swap back with him.

She just smiled and offered a very definitive answer: “No.”

The Stereotype

Kelly had thought the results of the Great Shift could’ve been worse. She had hated the fact that she had ended up in a man’s body, but she considered being an Asian man the best of a bad situation. Her racist view made her think of Asian men as effeminate, and this caused her to assume she could simply hide her new gender.

She ordered a wig and some clothes that would fit her new body online and waited for them to arrive. It took longer than usual due to the world being in chaos after the Shift. However, after a week, they finally arrived.

She was quick to try everything on and start doing her makeup. As she looked at herself in the mirror, she found her expectations shattered. There was no way she would pass as a cute Asian woman; despite the clothes, the wig, and the makeup, she still looked like a guy playing dress up. Her shoulders were too broad, her chest too masculine, her jaw too square. She had no chance of passing in the way she had hoped.

One Year Later...

Mihn was nervous as she approached the house. It had been a year since the Great Shift, and she had to hire a private investigator to find her original body. Emails and calls were ignored, so the in-person approach was her last resort.

She wasn’t sure what she was going to say, even as she got closer and spotted a man working in the yard.

“Excuse me,” She asked, “Is the owner home?”

“That’s me.” The man said.

Mihn was about to ask if anyone else lived there until she examined the man closer. It was the faint outline of breasts that gave away that this wasn’t a man at all. With short hair and no makeup or any attempt to look feminine at all, her original body was practically unrecognizable. She assumed he had been a man before the Shift, and she didn’t know if he had a hard time adapting to being in her body or what, but she somehow felt he might not want to talk with her about it. Still, it was good to see her former self, even if she had barely recognized it.

As Mihn was lost in thought, the man in her body grew impatient. “Can I help you with anything?” He asked.

“Um...Just asking if you might be interested in solar panels for your roof!” Mihn said making up a lie on the spot.

“No, I think I’m all set.”

Hands Up

Neil was confused as he held his hand up and looked at it. Well, first and foremost, it wasn’t really “his” hand. The hand he was holding up was small and soft with painted nails.

“Are you okay, Jenna? We need to get to the guests at the reception.” He heard a voice behind him ask. He wanted to ignore it until he realized the voice was actually talking to him; he was Jenna. It made sense given the hand.

“Reception?” Neil asked.

“For our wedding. Seriously, what’s gotten into you? Come on.”

As Neil’s eyes followed his arm down to the rest of the body, the white dress was unmistakable. He was a bride who had just gotten married; it just went from weird to weirder. He wasn’t even sure what to tell this woman’s husband...or even if he should tell this woman’s husband.

Body Swap Chronicles

A long time ago I made a version of this video. I basically just used the same script but used AI video here. It's kind of weird. Also, at the end of the month, I'll be donating to the Trans Youth Equity Foundation based on the number of subscribers to my YouTube channel, so like 1400 subscribers would be $14.

Not Just Us?

“I don’t understand. It shouldn’t have -- this shouldn’t have happened. It wasn’t even ready; it wasn’t even close to ready. The power wasn’t even attached, and yet it turned on and activated.” Marvin was absolutely confounded. He was working on a body swapping device, but he wasn’t even close to the testing stages, and yet he was now somehow in Sarah’s body. He continued to apologize and explain, “It shouldn’t even work unless two people put these things on their heads. And yet...here we are...in each other’s bodies.”

It was weird for Sarah to see Marvin in her body. It was probably even weirder for her to be in his body. But she was trying not to panic, but at the same time, if his weird invention had swapped them in a way other than intended... “What if it’s not just us?” She asked.

“What do you mean?” He replied.

“Well, if we were supposed to wear those things on our head, but it swapped us even without them, couldn’t it have swapped more people? Besides us?”

Marvin hadn’t considered the possibility, but now he was very, very worried about it.

Half and Half

Nathan wasn’t about to panic just because he found himself in the wrong body. Sure, he was a woman, and he --

The thought was interrupted by a ringing in the purse he now held. He recognized the number as his own, and the voice on the other end was his. They quickly discussed where to meet up to talk about the fact that they had swapped bodies.

Nathan arrived first and sat down, the cushion of his new butt feeling particularly odd. When he saw his body approached, he waved with a smile, but the look on his former face was concerning.

“What’s wrong?” Nathan asked.

“That’s not my body,” The woman replied with his voice, “I mean, it is MOSTLY my body, but those aren’t my legs.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just look down. See how skinny my arms are? The frame of my upper body? Now look at that butt! Those legs! They’re huge! And I was wearing a cute skirt, not shorts.”

“You mean to tell me I swapped with your upper half, but I have some complete other woman’s lower half? That seems impossible!”

“As if body swapping itself is completely normal?”

(Not) Making It Work

My girlfriend and I thought we could make it work after the Great Shift. After all, we swapped with each other, and we already felt we knew each other better than any other two people. It seemed like this would only intensify that. Except while we have a pretty laid back relationship before, the Shift caused us to start setting rules for each other.

It started when she asked me not to cut my hair. He long hair was something he loved, and I knew it would pain her to see it go, so I agreed, despite the inconvenience to me each morning. I asked if she couldn’t dress in skirts or dresses, which she agreed to at first. However, after she saw how I was dressing her body for a few weeks, she reneged on that promise after she was unable to convince me not to dress “so manish” all the time.

And all these little rules and negotiations starting adding up over time until we were getting on each other’s nerves. We started arguing all the time. It kept getting worse until one day we both decided to have the talk. We couldn’t stand each other anymore, and we knew it was time to move on.

Venture Forth (Part 4)

View Part 1 of Venture Forth.
View Part 2 of Venture Forth.
View Part 3 of Venture Forth.

The goblin princess was still furious. Through her broken words, she explained her whole backstory. She was birthed to a goblin mother, and her human features made the other goblins consider her quite ugly. She was kept in a cage for much of her life untl she grew too tall to fit. She tried to live amongst humans, but they were even crueler in regards to her goblin features. She even sought out her father who had abandoned her. And she had found him -- the Mad Mage -- and he was the cruelest, meanest of them all. She hated him to her core.

At this moment, Gideon considered asking her to join their party -- a unifying motivation seeming quite obvious at this point. But her story didn’t end there.

The staff was a gift from her father. He expected her to steal a beautiful body so he could stand to look at his own daughter’s face. She had intended to take Gwyn’s body but had swapped with Gideon by mistake instead. And she still seemed dead set on that goal. Despite absolutely hating her father, she still wanted to make him happy. She still craved his love and felt the only way she could get that was if she was beautiful enough.

Gideon tried to talk her out of it, telling her that if the Mad Mage could’ve love her as she was, he never would. She doubled down, telling them both how she still planned to steal Gwyn’s body at the next moment she could.

Survival

I don’t think most people talk about how difficult the period of time right after the Great Shift was. The world was in chaos, and everyone was in the wrong bodies. Planes fell out of the sky, stores were shuttered and often closed forever, and things were rough. I went from being in a man’s body to becoming a woman, but honestly gender was the last thing on my mind in the months following the Shift.

I didn’t have any way to prove my identity, so I stuck with whatever resources the woman had in her rundown apartment. I’m not sure it would’ve even mattered at that point; we were all in rough shape.

Things like food and clean clothes ran out pretty quickly, but supermarkets and laundromats still weren’t open. I remember being quite desperate. I washed clothes in my sink with brown water coming out of the tap, realizing that the systems in place to make sure it was clean may not be around or in the right bodies anymore. Collecting bugs off her apartment’s dirty floor to heat up on the stove was an absolutely gross activity, and actually eating them was even worse. But I was hungry, and the options were few and far between! I needed to survive!

I still know people who look back on those with a weird fondness. Those people are nuts.

The Goblin Princess

This is actually an adaptation of Venture Forth, which has a new caption part dropping tomorrow. So...spoilers if you enjoy the captions, I guess?

Whatever Comes Next

Steve looked up. It was weird to see his own face. When he woke up in the wrong body, he immediately called himself -- apparently, he swapped with a woman named Ya. They discussed when and where to meet up to discuss things further. Steve arrived first and sat down before his own body showed up a few minute later.

“I’ve been doing research online,” Steve said as an introduction. “I’ve reached out to a few Redditors who clamed they swapped bodies. But I have a feeling they’re lying anyway.”

“It’s more than what I found,” Ya replied, “Which was mostly just trash stories.”

“So I guess we need to learn to live each other’s lives for a while...as best we can. What do you do for work?”

“I’m a dancer, in the ballet.”

Steve’s heart sank. He looked at his body’s overweight belly and suddenly felt very bad for Ya. She was stuck in his flabby middle aged body despite being an amazing agile dancer. Meanwhile, there was no way he was going to be able actually doing her job, which required years of training and practice, despite possessing her body. It seemed like whatever comes next was going to be very bad for her...

Once

“What the hell did you do?” Jared scowled as he looked over to Gabriel and Jennifer. “That was supposed to be my body!”

“Dude!” Gabriel exclaimed from inside Jennifer’s body, “I caught wind of your whole ‘body swapping’ invention, and then Jennifer went missing. I pieced it all together, and saw her in this chair. I was trying to get her out at first. When that wasn’t an option, I grabbed that thing off of your head and put it on my own. I figured it was better me in here than you. Who knows what sort of weird or gross things you were going to do with her body! But you can switch us back and let her go.”

“I can’t!”

“What do you mean you can’t? Just fire up the machine again.”

“It only works once per person. Jennifer’s body should have been mine, but it’s yours now! I hope your happy with it. Now I’ll have to find some other babe to switch with.”

“You can’t just take someone’s body! I’ll stop you.”

“How? You’ve already thrown yourself on your sword once here; it won’t work for you a second time.”

There Goes the Neighborhood

“I was in a strange house,” Duncan quietly shouted from inside Melanie’s body, “I barely noticed I was in the wrong body until I rushed outside and saw...myself!”

“Same! It’s like Freaky Friday here!” Melanie replied, “Except I have no idea of who you are or what I could possibly learn from swapping bodies with you!”

“Are you a racist?” Duncan asked noting his much paler skin color.

“No! Though I should probably mention the caveats of systematic racism...” And, of course, Melanie noticed their genders and added, “Are you a misogynist?”

“Of course not! I don’t think we can solve the problems of racial inequality until we also deal with problems of gender inequality, so at least I hope not!”

“Then why the hell did this happen!?”

And that’s when they both heard the screams from their neighbors. Melanie and Duncan weren’t the only ones swapped. It wasn’t some kind of punishment or lesson. It was pure randomness. The entire neighborhood had been swapped! And they’d soon learn affected the entire world.

Plans (Part 1)

Deep in the subbasement of the corporate headquarters of the company, Kenji was explaining the situation to the CEO, Ms. Frish. He was sure the competition was sending someone to steal the company’s technology, but the emails he intercepted didn’t make any sense.

That was the moment of the power surge. Kenji knew they were coming. He reached for his trusted Katana, but it wasn’t by his side. Instead, he had to reach over to Ms. Frish’s body.

That told him everything he needed to know. The emails weren’t crazy gibberish; they were the actual plan. The body swap had happened; the ninjas were coming.

Being in Ms. Frish’s body didn’t stop Kenji’s resolve one bit. He had trained himself to ignore things like pain in battle -- and that included the pain of being a middle aged woman. The ninjas didn’t stand a chance.

Fascinating

Lexi didn’t have words for what was happening to her. She could feel her body changing, even the parts that she couldn’t see. Her blonde hair was getting frizzy; her toned abs were becoming a beer belly; and there was an obvious change to her gender. But the weirdest part was seeing the changes happening in reverse to the nerdy guy she had just completely brushed off and ignored.

He still had his glasses, and he still had his dark hair -- but it was styled like hers had been. Even his clothes had morphed into the style like she had been wearing.

“I don’t...I don’t know what’s happening,” He tried to explain to Lexi with a voice that was almost sultry, “I didn’t ask for this! I don’t want this!”

“Do you think I did!? Do you think anyone would want to look...like this!?” Lexi shouted while gesturing at her new male body.

The strange blue light of the Role Exchanger passing over them paused for a moment. It hesitated as it studied the changes it had made. It thought about making the two subjects unaware of the changes to them, but studying their awareness of their respective transformation seemed to be far more fascinating...

Really, REALLY

Martin knew he had agreed to use the medallion to swap back with Chen the moment they were able to, but he had so much fun in her body that he wasn’t ready to give it up just yet.

And he thought about it. Only had hours had passed since they swapped. They still had two more hours stuck like this until they could return to their own bodies. What if he went back to Chen’s place and hid the medallion somewhere? Then when it was time to swap back, it might buy him a few more hours of enjoying this body -- maybe even a day or two!/p>

Chen would be so pissed though, and it wouldn’t really be fair to leave her stuck in his body for more than they agreed to, would it? Then again, he did really, REALLY like being in her body.

Pilates and Yoga (Part 1)

All of his frat brothers were outside playing football. The last time James had tried that, he had thrown out his back. That’s because he had been the only one of his frat brothers to end up in a body that was over 25 years old. Most of them weren’t all that bothered being in each other’s bodies due to the Great Shift, but James was in Professor Tsai’s body. And being a 50+ year old woman meant he still needed to stay in shape, so he was inside doing Pilates and yoga.

It didn’t exactly make his body feel any better; it was just so he didn’t feel worse. When he had tried to act like he was still a young guy, he got tackled pretty hard during the one game he played; he couldn’t walk for a week -- he also gained ten pounds that he couldn’t take off no matter how hard he tried after. He had to get used to not having the strength or stamina he was used to, and he also had to get used to the other guys making fun of him all the time.

Like Me

“You don’t have to do this, Walter.” Todd begged, “If you pull that lever, it will basically erase me. And I was your best friend! I AM your best friend.”

“That’s why I thought this would work.” Walter was trying to reason aloud in real time. “I thought when I transformed you that it would solve both of our problems. We got along so well together. We liked the same video games and TV shows. But I realized a girlfriend is so much more than just liking the same stuff. She also has to like me.”

“I do like you! Just not in that way!”

“But when I pull this lever, you WILL like me in that way. You’ll like making dinner for me. You’ll enjoy doing my laundry and folding my underwear. You’ll take pleasure in cleaning up after me. But you’ll still enjoy all of the things you do now. It’s a minor tweak, I promise.”

“That’s what you think having a girlfriend is about? That’s what you think of women?” Todd stopped himself from saying more. There was no doubt Walter was dead set on using this invention to change Todd’s brain. It was going to suck, that’s for sure. But he was anticipating worse. It didn’t sound like Walter was going to mess with his orientation or what he was attracted to -- at least not yet. Though Todd had a feeling he’d be back in this chair soon enough if he didn’t start showing Walter some affection -- unless he could escape! And maybe just letting these changes happen would be his best chance of beginning to plot a way out.

Ladies Night (Part 1)

After months of work, Conrad was certainly proud of his achievement. He had developed a machine that allowed him to change his form. Tonight was just a test: Turning himself into a woman for Ladies Night at the bar just to get cheaper drinks. Sure, it was a silly test for a sillier reason, but it did prove one simple fact: The test worked.

Perhaps for future tests, he could make underclassmen appear older in order to sneak into bars. He did know this was an equally frivolous application of his invention, but he wanted to get these types of meaningless tests out of the way early before he tried something that truly mattered. He imagined using it to replace failing organs or to help trans people get the bodies they’ve always wanted. He could help amputees and maybe even put cancer patients into identical cancer-free bodies. But with all that foresight still ahead of him, tonight was still all about this silly test.

He picked a form he’d personally be attracted to: Cute yet nerdy, Asian, and he was even able to make his device give him an outfit. He snapped a selfie for proof, then he was off.

Again (Part 1)

The reaction to the Great Shift was much calmer than Elio expected. For an event that swapped just about everyone’s bodies, there were no shouts or screams; it was more like a collective gasp. He supposed there were other places where people shouted or fought -- he would later hear about some on the news -- but where he was, people generally reacted like he did with curiosity.

He felt so skinny now. It was hard for him to imagine how these legs could even hold the rest of his body up without snapping in two. Then again, the rest of his body was equally waifish; there wasn’t much they had to hold up. And, of course, he was a woman now! That was truly the wildest part of all this!

And then he thought back to his original body. What had become of it? Where was it? He had been driving right before this. Then seeing the bus crashed into a car in front of him didn’t give him much hope of ever seeing his body again...

Get Used to It

A few months ago, Elliot had signed up for a reality show where two people swapped bodies for a few weeks. He saw it as an easy way to get a few extra bucks, as the whole point was continuing on with your current life and job while in someone else’s body. He never expected to be paired with an aspiring actress and model. But he supposed it made sense for them to have people with contrasting lifestyles, and hers was certainly different than his career as a truck driver.

The physical demands of his own job were much more challenging with his new body, but he managed. And he kept telling himself it was only for a few weeks with camera crews following him around and watching him struggle.

However, he never expected for the woman to now show up when it was time to swap back. What motivation could she possibly have to keep his body, especially in her line of work? The producers told him they’d supply any updates as soon as they heard anything, but it’s been a while now. He figured he was just going to have to get used to it.

Flowers

Sophie wanted to be angry about everything. The Great Shift had put her in a man’s body; the entire world was in chaos. She had been lucky enough to find her boyfriend, but she was so intensely jealous that he was now a cute Asian woman with a pixie haircut. How come he could be cute, and she was so gross!? She was about to yell at him when he pulled a bunch of dandelions out from behind his back.

“I know you like when I get you flowers, and I know you’d be mad if I picked the carefully landscaped ones,” He said nervously, “When I realized everyone swapped bodies, I figured you probably did too, and, well, I know the kinds of care and effort you go through because of how much your cared about yourself. So I hoped flowers would help make you feel better. I know they aren’t much. I love you.”

Sophie no longer wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. Her boyfriend was not just cute...he was sweet, kind, and just plain adorable. Getting over her jealousy might not be easy in this situation, but maybe she could try.

Perfect New Body

“Are you pleased with the results?” The voice over the loudspeaker said.

“It’s perfect...I’m perfect.” You said are you reached your hand to the mirrored wall to reveal a hand with beautifully manicured nails. The petite Asian woman that you now were was more beautiful than you could imagine when you signed up for this.

“What happened to my height? I was over six feet tall and over two hundred pounds. Now I’m just under five and barely one hundred.” You ask.

The overhead voice spoke again. “The extra mass of human material is very valuable. Even the flesh of your male parts were put to very good use. There’s no way you would have been able to afford this procedure without the subsidy from that DNA.”

You nod. It was all worth it for what you now saw.

Personal Demons

It was Luna’s thirteenth sold out concert in a row. Packed stadiums of adoring fans came for miles to see her, and each night he bounced up and down on stage as she sang all of her hit songs. It was a pretty good life.

She had been doing vocal warmups when she found herself unvoluntarily dropping to her knees, pulled down by a chain that appears on her neck, and she felt the warmth come up from the floor. It couldn’t be time already, could it?

Her eyes turned red and a voice inside her head said, “Collection is due.”

“It can’t be yet! Not yet!” She said back aloud.

“Three years of unbridled success, and now I need what’s mine.”

“But I can be useful. I can get others. I can bring them to you.”

“Oh, do you think I’d let your body go to waste? Hardly! I have big plans for it, but now it’s time for me to take your soul.”

Luna’s body went limp for a moment before a masculine laugh escaped her lips. “This wouldn’t have been my first choice for an assignment,” The voice escaping her lips was clearly masculine before she cleared her throat to get it back to its usual perky tone, “But I’m really not complaining. I hope Luna enjoys life in hell.”

Synthesize

“Where’s Li?” Ming asked when she walked into the lab looking for her sister.

Chester sighed. It was one of the many pieces of evidence that the university didn’t take he research he and Li were doing. Normally they’d make people wait outside the security area and use the intercom system.

“I think she’s in the bathroom. She’ll probably be right back. Just don’t touch anything while you wait.” Chester explained, wondering how Li and Ming could be sisters. Li was one of the smartest people he knew while being quiet and reserved. Ming seemed like a total ditz, and she opened her mouth on cue...

“Well, I was here to take my dorky sister to the mall. I figured I could at least try to help her once and a while.” Ming was brushing her hands along the buttons on several of the inventions. Chester didn’t really know how to reiterate what he said until it was too late.

With a slip of her hand followed by a flash of light. It was no longer about warnings.

“I told you not to touch anything!” Chester screamed now inside of Ming’s body.

“Relax. We’ll just press the button again.”

“It used up all the fuel. It’ll take months to synthesize more!”

Srangely, Ming didn’t seem too bothered by this. Instead, she was formulating a plan. She had always wanted to help Li land a boyfriend, but Li was just so dorky. But now that she was inside Chester’s body? Well, he’d be perfect for Li because he was so dorky too! While they were swapped like this, she’d ask her own sister out. She could make this all work. Sure, she hated being Chester, but now she had a plan for a greater good!

Not a Bad Wish

Life as a pop star. It was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be a dream come true. It was, in fact, exhausting. Clive put up his feet. He wasn’t sure how he was going to take more of this. There were three more shows this week and another twenty before this tour was over.

He had thought this life was glamorous, back when he found the Wish Token and made the wish. It made so much sense when he did it, but now he had come to regret it.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock, as his manager peaked through a crack in the door.

The manager asked, “Chae-Hwa?” (Chae-Hwa was Clive’s name in this new body)

Clive nodded.

“There’s someone here to see you.”

A young female fan entered, maybe 10 years old. She started talking about how inspired she was and how much she enjoyed Chae-Hwa’s music. Clive smiled. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad wish after all.

Reassignment Day

I woke up in my cube with a terrible headache and stomach pains. The feeling was familiar. It just meant that it was Reassignment Day. It was the one day a year you’d be assigned a new job, and you’d get a new body fully capable of handling said job. It was one of those things they did to ensure fairness and limit boredom with the repetitive nature of human labor. I couldn’t believe it had been a year since the last one already.

My last job had been supervising the AI cleaning robots. It was a pretty sweet gig as far as jobs went. The shifts were a mere 12 hours and mostly consisted of watching the robots to make sure they didn’t miss a spot, mopping up in the rare event that they did. The bots never once missed a spot for the entire year, so it was entirely just watching.

But looking at myself this time, it was sheer horror to discover that I know clearly had one of the worst jobs there was: A Breeder. It was one of two jobs responsible for furthering humanity, along with the Seeders. I had never seen either of them in person before, but I had heard stories. Seeder was arguably the best job you could ever get. It was a few minutes of work each day to seed the breeders, then however it took you to recover until you could seed again. Breeders just had to take as much seed as they could until they were full. I’d been told this would cause their stomachs to expand until a new human could be cut out of them.

I fit the description of everything I was told about Breeders. My nails were red, just as people had told me of Breeders -- though I did notice the color seemed to be just painted on. My chest was swollen, just as I was told Breeders’ chests are. My legs lacked hair -- removing it was something done to Breeders for some reason. And then there was the lack of having anyway to pee. There was just nothing there. I reasoned that Breeders still had to pee; I just couldn’t figure out how. I was sure it would be outlined in orientation, which I wasn’t looking forward to. Heck, I wasn’t looking forward to this entire year at all.

Doll Parts

I'm back to doing short videos on YouTube (please subscribe) after a period of a few bonuses and experiments. I'm proud of this one because it feels like a complete short film. It tells a full tail of a man swapping into the body of a doll.

Punished (Part 1)

“I’ll teach you about snooping around here,” The strange man in the lab coat said as Chris tried to get away.

But Chris couldn’t outrun the man’s gun. The thing didn’t fire bullets, and it wasn’t a taser. Instead, a strange blue beam knocked Chris to the ground and began to transform him. His body changed; it became more feminine; his hair grew out; his chest expanded; even his clothes changed.

The whole process felt like forever. It was more than enough time for him to regret exploring this spooky mansion on the edge of town. He thought no one lived there; he thought it was abandoned. Maybe this guy was a squatter. It’s not like that mattered now. It seemed like Chris was praying the price for going where he wasn’t invited. And he supposed he was lucky he wasn’t dead, but instead -- he had been transformed into a woman!

Clubbing (Part 1)

After the bright flash of light at the club, it only took a moment for Jason to realize it wasn’t just another reflection off the disco ball.

“What the hell?” He muttered quietly as he looked down at his new body encased in a colorful top and leather pants. The sensations of being a woman mixing with the alcohol and whatever else sloshing around in her brain made even the obvious exchange difficult to process. Seeing another woman in a similar sense of confusion next to him helped him make sense of it all.

“This is going to seem like a dumb question,” He asked, “But were you a guy a minute or so ago?”

“You too?” The woman replied, “My name’s Stephen.”

“Stephen? Like Stephen Garcia?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s me -- It’s Jason.”

“Holy sh--”

Stephen and Jason had come to the club together. Though they split up as they went around looking for chicks to pick up. Thanks to the Great Shift, it seems they both found one...

Does It Look Like I Have Stupid Written on My Face?

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Jake asked the preppy young woman who had come into his shop.

She nodded before sitting down in the chair as Jake went to work.

“Did ya lose a bet or something?” He asked part of the way through.

“Nope.”

“Well, there’s gotta be some sorta story here.”

“Did you ever take Swap Class in college?”

“I can’t say I went to college.”

“I was partnered with this annoyng bitch. And she wouldn’t leave me alone, telling me about how I was doing the project wrong, or I was going to ruin her life or whatever. It’s not supposed to work like that. I finally snapped at her, telling her I should be allowed to make some mistakes here or there; that screwing up from time to time was part of the assignment. That’s when the truth came out. She didn’t trust me in her body. She thought that just because I was a guy in her body that I would be doing all sorts of awful things to her body. I assured her otherwise, then she started screaming things like, ‘Does it look like I have stupid written on my face?’ I woke up with a black eye and a broken arm in the health center. The cast came off earlier this week, and tomorrow is the last day of Swap Class. I’m sure she’ll be very happy to have her body back in a few hours.”