Spells 'R' Us

Spells 'R' Us is a Shared Universe Web Original franchise created by Bill Hart in the 1990s. Spells R Us has a pretty decent fan base and many stories have been created, not just from Bill Hart.

The series revolves around a Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday called "Spells 'R' Us". The shop is run by the nameless Robe and Hat Wizard known only as "The Old Man". Each story usually starts with The Old Man selling some sort of magical product to a disbelieving customer. As the story progresses, the customer will have either a Gender Bender, Animorphism, age progression, age regression, or some other sort of transformation. The customer is usually left this way for the rest of his/her life.

Take from that what you will.

The series began when two college students, Chris and Terry, needed to get girls for the frat party, or the will be kicked out of the fraternity. Desperate, the boys go to a mysterious shop called Spells R Us. The Old Man gives them the spell and "forgets" to tell the boys that for one night, they (and the other frathouse students) will become girls in body and mind.

So, of course, they mess up the spell.

Now anyone in the house after 7 will turn into the opposite sex. While "Crissy" and "Terri" retain their guy memories, anyone else will act, think, and look like a girl until 2 a.m. (when the spell wears off). This plot was written by Bill Hart, and takes up the storyline of Bill Hart's stories.

However,many fans now write their own stories. Theses stories focus less on the events with Terry and Chris and more with the other vic-*cough*- uh, customers of The Old Man's shop. All of those stories have built some sort of cannon while ignoring Bill Harts saga, this unnofficial cannon sprang many sub-universes, among them Bikini Beach, about a magical Women-only genderrbending water park in California owned by an old gipsy witch (known only as "The Witch" or "The Old Woman"), who is a good friend of the Old Man.

Stories can be found all over the web. Most of them (if not all) can be found at fictionmania.

A small collection can be found at this angelfire page and this archive of TF stories. All three contain Bill Hart's first story: "A Strangeness at The Frat House."

Tropes used in Spells 'R' Us include:

All Guys Want Sorority Women: Invoked often.
All Guys Want Cheerleaders
And I Must Scream
Anya, I Might be your GrandFather
The Apprentice: Many early stories attempted to give the Old Man an apprentice/assistant without much success, until "Possibilities" introduced Dannie. Anya is this to the Witch.
Attractive Bent Gender: No one in these stories ends up looking like anything less than either a supermodel or worse'
- Averted in "Strangeness At The Sorority House." Until the end at least.
Breakout Character: Dannie, the snarky Wizard's apprentice.
Breast Expansion
Clingy Jealous Girl: Dee Dee to Terry. The reasons why is a LONG story, but the short version is Love Potion.
- Luckily, by the end of "A Strangeness Returns," her memories of Terry are erased.
Depending on the Writer: Whatever The Old Man acts like in each story. Sometimes he's a nice guy who will help with your problem after selling you the damn thing (only if you ask though). Sometimes he's a Jerkass who changes people for the hell of it and just changes their memories so he doesn't get in trouble.
- And what the girls are like.
- The Old Man's age, in some stories he is young enough to have a teenaged nephew, in some others he over a century old and some others have him as old as time itself.
Different for Girls
Disproportionate Retribution: Never, never try to steal from the Old Man.
Distaff Counterpart: The Witch to the Wizard, Anqualicara in the early stories.
Exact Words : If the customer or the old man is a jerkass at the time he will give you what you want in the most literasll sense possible.
Fate Worse Than Death
First Law of Gender Bending
Foreshadowing: Whenever the Old Man warns a customer
Gender Bender
Ironic Hell
Jumping the Gender Barrier: A common plot involves a man becoming a girl and hooking up with his former best friend who may be either a straight man or a lesbian girlfriend.
Laser-Guided Amnesia : Sometimes the change will also involve the vicims or victims associates memories of their former life being erased, or the changes becoming retroactive as though they were always that way.
Laser-Guided Karma: If your a jerk, at least a jerk then chance are you will lose your Y chromosome by the end of the story.
The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday : A victim will sometimes find find the store again and sometimes not
Love Triangle: After Terry is forced to be Terri for 9 months (hint, hint), and Chris has to be her boyfriend during that time, the triangle becomes Dannie-Chris- Terri.
No Name Given: The Wizard, The Bikini Beach Witch.
- some early stories name him Anselm.
The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Certain "effects" of each story's product will start up this trope. Which will lead to the First, Second, and Third Law of Gender Bending.
Robe and Wizard Hat- The Old Man. Although, it's only the robe. And it's described as "a bath robe."
Shapeshifting
Shared Universe: With the Bikini Beach stories by ElrodW
Second Law of Gender Bending
Shout-Out: The story 'Jessica' which features the protagonist after watching the movie turning into...well Jessica Rabbit.
Sorcerer's Apprentice Plot
Strictly Formula
Third Law of Gender Bending
Two-Person Love Triangle: And a weird one at that! In the very first story (after the "curse" is placed over the house) Dennis falls for Chris' girl form "Crissy" and thinks Terry is trying to steal her away. Then later, Dennis is under the spell and "Denise" falls for Terry and thinks Crissy is trying to steal her away. No one is into Dennis or Denise. Of course, things get worse when Terry takes a Love Potion in front of Crissy.
Valley Girl: A common result of the many Gender Benders.
Wrong Genre Savvy: Many of the later stories depict costumers that have heard about the shop who think they know better, but they screw things up anyway.