One Magick Night

Transformation for Dummies

From the Tao Te Ching

The Empress Sword by Paulette Jaxton

The Empress Sword by Paulette Jaxton, a book aimed at young adults published a year ago this March, is a quick entertaining tale set in a magic kingdom, that while unique enough, should still be familiar to anyone even remotely familiar with fantasy fiction.

Taking place mainly in the European like kingdom of Caledon, it deals with 13 year old Prince Aster and his quest to save the kingdom from a dragon that has been burning crops, villages and warriors foolish enough to stand in his way for 10 years.

Discovering what may be the answer to killing the dragon,

Aster and his friend Paul set out on a journey to the long lost and mysterious Eastern Empire to find and bring back the one thing that can stop the dragon.

Full of interesting and imaginative details, and likable characters, heck even the dragon isn’t that bad a fellow once you get to know him, The Empress Sword is light fantasy with an underlying theme of be who you are.

Well that’s nice, but why is this being posted here?

The reason, and below here be spoilers, is that there are two transformations, one minor and one major.

The item that is the kingdom’s only hope against the dragon is a magic sword known as The Empress Sword, which originally belonged to the Empress Afanasia of the Eastern Empire , and who a thousand years before used it to not only control all of dragonkind, but rule over the four kingdoms to the West.

As yet no one has gone looking for this sword due to the Eastern Empire having disappeared behind an impassable mountain that appeared out of nowhere a thousand years previously, and the King’s head wizard Mandoline declaring that such a search would be pointless at the time without more information, magic being at best a tricky affair.

Aster, determined to find the sword, steals into the wizard study and finds just the information that he thinks he will need to complete the task.

To cut to the chase, Aster is able to find the Eastern Empire, The Empress Sword and the apparently still alive and active, but rather spooky, Empress Afanasia, it’s only then that he finds that, as with most magic objects there is a catch, the catch being that no man can use, or even touch The Empress Sword… unless that is Aster agrees to a great sacrifice.

Thinking the sacrifice means that he will be able to use sword but it will kill him Aster agrees to lift the sword to see if he is worthy, apparently finding him so the Sword, after knocking him unconscious, lets him live and keep it in his possession.

On waking up and finding the Empress gone Aster also finds what his real sacrifice is to be, the Empress Sword has turned the plucky young blond prince into a plucky young Asian girl.

Adventure, misunderstandings, growth, leaning how to deal with misogyny, mild romance, sword fights, dragon battles, betrayals, revelations, and a few surprise twists then follow.

Yes, this book is aimed at the young adult audience, however it is a good first novel, and there is no reason that older readers shouldn’t enjoy it, I know I did.

The Empress Sword can be found in paperback and E-book format for the Kindle.

Highly recommended

The Total Tanning Tabernacle Opening Soon!

メイドに対応するように

Seth Black was not one of the most obliging of tourists, while he was not quite what they use to call an “ugly American” he was at least a bit on the homely American side in his actions attitude let’s say.

For instance while he had only spent about three weeks studying Japanese, he was sure he had gotten enough to decide that when words didn't turn out like he thought he had meant them it was the person he was speaking to at fault.

This attitude got him in trouble when he heard about an out of the way, and perhaps at least vaguely illegal and certainly underground, business called “Meido ni taiō suru yō ni” or as he understood it “Make a Maid for me.”

Thinking that sounded like fun he went to place an order, thinking that having a maid to wait on him hand and foot would be fun, and that it seemed they didn't care how they went about seeing to it that the maid in question was obtained and compelled to do what he wanted did not bother him in the least.

Once he found the hidden little shop, getting the details of his order over to the two women at the order counter proved more difficult than he had hoped it would be, fortunately for him however the catalog was well illustrated and he was able to get a lot of what he wanted over by pointing.

The task of doing this however did take a long time and so Seth was grateful when one of the sales girls gave him a big drink, which he quickly drank, “say, this stuff tastes weird, what is it?” said Seth in English which nether of the women understood.

 Rather than answering, the women started showing him various outfits while repeatedly asking him “na?” which Seth understood to mean “like,” but not why he might or might not `na' it.

 Then the two went very badly out of focus, reeling dizzily the two woman seemed quite pleased with his development and rushed around the counter each grabbing Seth by an arm and leading him through a door into a back room.

As this was going on the world kept getting fuzzier by the moment, at last the pair hustled the staggering American through another door into a room thick with the smell of ozone where he was presented to a blurry man-shaped form who must have said something to the two about setting him down because they did.

As this happened Seth was trying to come up with the right Japanese phrase to convey what he was feeling, which at the moment was “what the huh!?!” his search however was cut off when the man blur clamped a large helmet on his head, followed by Seth hearing what sounded like large electric generators charging up and discharging, after that everything went black.

When Seth came to himself he found himself in a room he had never seen before perched on the arm of a chair looking at a pair of women's legs, ordinarily Seth would have liked this a lot, that the legs seemed to belong to him however was not something he was prepared for.

“What did you give me? Who was that man and what did he do? And who the hell dressed me like this!” said Seth in perfect Japanese, a feat that he had never before be able to do. That he did it in an unmistakable female voice made him cut off his questions with a snap.

As the shock of hearing his voice washed over him a woman he had not seen before stepped in front of him and began barking orders like she expected to be obeyed “Trainee Setsumi Kuro!” said the woman who like the two shop girls was dressed in a French maid's outfit, “stop lazing about! Time to get up and start your training!” While Seth had no idea who Setsumi Kuro might be, he was however sure that the woman was addressing him.” that she was also doing it in Japanese and he was for once getting what she said with no problems did not occur to him as he asked “what is going on here! And who are you?” Said Seth hopping off the chair arm prepared to be indigent but finding that instead he had to catch himself due to his center of balance having been drastically changed during the four days and nine hours he had been out and under the care of Dr. Mesuda who had, using his banned weird science, not only change Seth into a woman, but a Japanese one, while at the same time implanting the knowledge and cultural programing into her mind to make it so she could pull it off. It also didn't help that she, Seth that is, was also trying to stand while wearing a pair of four inch heels for the first time.

“Silly stupid girl!” said the woman, “no time for backing out now! You paid for the full change and experience and there is no turning back, I am Shimai Gunsō Adzumi, which in your former language would have meant Sister Sergeant Adzumi and you are not Seth Black anymore, you are Setsumi Kuro and I am going to turn you into the obedient little maid you wanted to be, I don't know why so many of you western men think this is a fun thing to do, but that is what you paid Made To Be a Maid to become, and since you are the first one to pay, not for a week or a month, but to make it permanent I don't expect to hear any question or complaining from you, and I certainly won't tolerate it. So get yourself together,” said Sgt. Adzumi pausing to give Setsumi the once over, “first lets teach you how to walk, you still move like a boy!”

It was during this tirade that Seth, or rather Setsumi realized what had happened, the revelation coming when she found that the Japanese name of the business, which he had mistakenly thought was Make a Maid, was really Made to be a Maid, and he, or rather she was the one who had been made into one.

Setsumi also found, from a little extra programing that Dr. Mesuda had thrown in when he found out at the point of no return in Seth's transformation, was that the man he had changed had no idea what was going on, that he offered a service where men, and most especially gaijin could be turned into women for a week or a month and experience life as a fantasy Japanese girl, Seth being the first person to encounter his service who had not sought it out he knew this would lead to nothing but trouble, so he had seen to it that Seth would always remain as she now was, and powerful block were placed in her subconscious, the ex-Seth could no longer speak a word of English and now had a predisposition to do anything she was told to do by someone with a commanding attitude.

That being the case instead of protesting further the new Ms. Kuro got up and followed Adzumi to begin her training and her new life.

35 Advantages of a Man Being Turned into an Asian Woman by Magic and / or Super Science

You can pretend you don't speak English when you're around stupid people.

Everyone asks your advice on computers, cameras, carry-out, Japanese cars and Kung Fu

Your hair is yours to keep.

If you are bald, people will think you did it on purpose, and you're really edgy and chic.

You don't have to pretend to like cigars.

You can now wear some very eccentric outfits, and still look good.

If you're under 6', you don't have to lie about it.

You can be as plain as all get-out, and yet still get away with being mysterious.

You look enough like Michelle Yeoh that you can be sexy, under 5'7”, smart, and yet somehow still seem tough.

You can cry without pretending there's something in your contact.

If you're a lousy athlete, you no longer have to question your worth as a human being.

If you're really not very attractive, many people will still think you are, plus you can fool them with makeup.

You will never ever again have to take a group shower, though now as a woman you may want to. Sorry

When you take off your shoes you no longer have to warn the EPA.

Even when you're older, you won't look it as much.

If you're dumb, some people will find it cute.

You can be really really intelligent and still have people think you're attractive.

You can be really really intelligent and not hide it and still have people think you are attractive.

You can participate in Cos-Play and look great, not like a psycho, loser or combination of both.

You don't have to memorize Monty Python, Caddyshack, or sports scores to fit in, but if you do, you get extra points.

You can buy something that says “one size fits all” and it almost certainly will.

Your old male clothes make you look elfin & gorgeous.

You'll never regret piercing your ears.

You can be from Podunk, Connecticut and still be considered "exotic."

Your chances of getting a job on a news channel goes up times 3.

Your choice in clothing styles and options goes up by an exponential rate

You don't have hair on your back.

If anything on your body isn't as big as it should be, you can get implants.

If you have big ears, no one has to know.

Women have better restrooms. They get the nice chairs and red carpet.

If you just talk to system support men (a large number of whom are obsessed with anime) they will think you are flirting and so always return your calls and be nice no matter how big a mistake you made with the company computer.

Cabs will now always stop for you.

Free drinks, Free dinners, Free movies, and no you really don't have to do anything in return for it.

If you forget to shave, no one has to know.

Being able to bend over and touch your toes is not a major achievement, it's normal.

Suffra-Jet City!

When Bellerose Zerena Zhen, freelance mental interior decorator (your dream scape improved or your Credits back) in the year 2355 was caught in the blast of a Tachyon Bomb set off by Chrono Anarchists and flung back to the 21st century she, knowing there was no returning to her time as the event of just going back had already created an altered time-line.

She decided to make the most of it and really go about messing with the past and making a new future to amuse herself.

As she had a top of the line Quanta Brain Omni-Storage Implant (Q-Bossy) that let her have access to all scientific knowledge from the 24th and a half century, along with history and financial facts and trends, she had all the resources she could ever need, and the technological wherewithal to do whatever she wanted to.

Around the middle of 2011 a new and strange super trickster flew onto the scene, by the start of 2012 she had what she needed to distract herself and even a few followers to help her do it.

Their motto: “The Rebellion from the Last Century, with Science from the Next, We are the Suffra-Jets, S.O.A.R. with us!” S.O.A.R. standing for Sisters Organized And Recruiting.

Her mission transforming certain man totally into woman, and some women physically and mentally as well, so that their transformation would set future history on a new and strange course.

Her reason for taking the idea of history as `her story’ and making it literal?

Well… truth be told Tachyon Bombs do have a tendency to drive those who survive them and the trip back into the past, (or rather a past) daffy as all get out, and a person with knowledge of how to build Higgs boson generators, gravimetric tuners, and any number of gem-cracks working at the quantum level can get into a lot of daffiness.

At the time only a first term, but rising in fame and accolades, state senator Henry Cable Tambit was surprised when his party called him to state headquarters; it seemed they were ready to back him as their candidate to run for Congress of the United States.

Henry was privately sure he would make it to that body, and much higher, one day; he had just not expected the call to come so soon.
“Guess my light shines brighter than I thought,” he gloated to himself as the private limo arrived to take him, without a word to anyone so the media wouldn’t find out the big surprise of his nomination to come and no doubt start trying to dig up dirt on him even sooner, to start his date with destiny.

To his surprise Henry was taken not to Party headquarters but a non-descript office where he was met by a group of women who told him they were there to prepare him for the cameras, and his new tomorrow that would be arriving soon.

With that Bellerose Zhen and her new group of followers, the ones who had really given Henry his call to fate, indeed did start readying him for a new future.

Or rather an altered future, Bellerose knew that in just a few years Tambit would indeed become first a multi-term Representative, with one term off as a commentator on FOX News, then return for another as a Senator, leading to his becoming president in 2032, which led during a his second term in 2038, to him managing, while most of the House and Senate were incapacitated by an outbreak of Smurf influenza, to the repeal of both the 19th and 21st amendments of the Constitution, taking away both the right of women to vote, all but destroying his main political opposition the former Democratic Party, now known as the Oprah Party, and returning probation as the law of the land, bringing down one major buzz kill to every other sort of party.  These disastrous actions would take more than a dozen years and many hard fought battles, both political and otherwise, to rectify.

Or would have, had not Ms. Zhen been blown back in time and so able to work her special Higgs Boson generator created nanobot magic that in double quick time saw to it that no one would be mistaking Henry Cable Tambit for Henry Cable Tambit ever again.
To be sure Henry had a feeling that something unexpected was going on, but by the time he decided to asked just what the deal with was, the deed had not only been done, but done so well that she asked the question in her new heavy French accent, a little item that Bellerose had thrown in to make sure that his party would have no use for her.

Then just a spritz of sleeping gas and the Suffra-Jets flew off leaving the new Miss Henrietta Cabriole Tambit to adjust to the rest of her changes.

Not that a “mere” change of gender, and a more alluring vocal intonation, was enough to take out a fighter like Henry Cable Tambit! Sure there was the more matter of having to come back from being thought a crazy foreign lady, but after Henrietta was booted out of the country, thanks to the much harsher immigration laws that Henry Tambit had helped pass, and returned to Toronto, this now being her place of birth thanks to a little internet tomfoolery by the Suffra-Jets, she was, after a time, able to find a new line of work as Cabriole, the spokesmodel for the largest winery in Canada. A bit of irony that only someone from a future that no longer would take place could get.

Bothwell Bruhn

Noted turn of the last century Vaudeville female impersonator Walter Bothwell Bruhn, (March 7, 1877 to December 12, 1947 ) known on the stage as Bothwell Browne in four post cards of the era.
Two of the cards come from promotions for a 1911 play by the title Miss Jack, about a collage student forced to play at being a woman, with no doubt comic results.  The production however was a flop, with critics of the time tearing it to shreds as being a sight that did not belong on  Broadway.
In 1919 he also starred in two films Yankee Doodle in Berlin and Among Those Present.

If There Weren't Such Things a Mad Scientists we'd have to Invent them!

Having diligently labored for Dr. Victor Frankenstein for years, cleaning up his messes, procuring any and all needed items, cooking his meals, reminding him of important tasks, mending and washing his lab coats, serving as a sounding board when he was in the mood for one of his endless prattles about “this new discovery” or “those fool don't understand my brilliance,” and frankly taking a lot abuse from the arrogant self-absorbed SOB. He had at last decided to give Igor his long promised physical improvements. However on waking from the operation he saw that Victor had once again gone too far. “All these years you've almost been like a wife to me Igor.” he said, “now I have made it so!” “oh great” thought Igor, “I guess I should have dug up a few dates for the nut job too!”

It was at that moment that Lord Puffinhopple realized that it might have been a mistake to give that Frankenstein fellow a second chance after he had switched to plastic surgery promising to both give up the whole “resurrection” business and to give him a more youthful appearance. 

This revelation came to him on meeting Lady Farfegnugen, a woman whom rumor had it the doctor was smitten with.

“I told you that doctor Stein was huffing his own anesthetic!” said Helen Grant to her husband Horace after the bandages had been removed revealing and final results of their tenth anniversary couples face lifts and seeing that the oddly old fashioned acting doctor, but expert in the latest cutting (no pun intended) edge plastic surgery techniques had indeed made them look ten years younger, and given them each the face of the other!

 And meanwhile from a Laboratory Across Town