My Very Own Gender Swap: A Branching Choices Gender Transformation Romance Ebook is a 2017 work of romance-fantasy-erotica by author Alyson Belle, in the form of an electronic gamebook. The story follows the adventure of a lonely young man called Chris Scalatore whose best friend, Kayla, surprises him with a magical amulet that will switch his gender and turn him into the beautiful female version of himself, called Natalie. The reader has the opportunity to decide what Natalie will look like, how she will spend her time, the places she will visit, and which man or woman she will approach as a potential romantic partner.
The story deviates from the tradition of Choose Your Own Adventure by being told in first-person narration. All three laws of gender bending are followed to a T.
The story is available on Amazon Kindle here
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My Very Own Gender Swap provides examples of:
- Always Someone Better: Chris is overshadowed by his beautiful Cool Big Sis Dana who has married a millionaire and travels the world. However, he (or Natalie) has the potential to achieve just as much happiness during the course of the story.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Downplayed with Jack. He is a millionaire and shows some very unsavoury colours in several of the endings. In particular, declining to answer Paul's text and staying the night with him will eventually result in him callously casting you off while you're overseas, leaving you stranded and landing you in prison for identity fraud, where you'll die in the arms of your prison lover within several years.
- The Atoner: Paul, to an extent. Realizing that it's basically because of him that the two of you have swapped genders, and that only one can swap back, he gives (or tries to give) you first pick as to who it will be.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The millionaire Jack, who in one ending will prove to be a Crazy Jealous Guy, and in another, will callously cast you off while overseas.
- Conveniently Common Kink: Natalie may come to very much enjoy Delilah's proclivity toward dominatrix/slave play or Hank's fetish for furry animal costumes.
- Dominatrix: Delilah. She has a very domineering manner and a sex dungeon in which she will do all sorts of amazing things to you if you consent.
- Ethical Slut: Alice's whole philosophy is that her lovers are ephemeral just like the flowers she paints and she doesn't want to become attached to anyone. Depending on your decisions, however, she may have a change of heart via a Green-Eyed Epiphany and end up dating Natalie monogamously.
- First Law of Gender Bending: Played straight. Eleven of the sixteen endings involve you remaining a woman permanently, while Paul remains a man forever in only four endings (while in a further one, with your help, he eventually finds another way to return to being Kayla.) In one scenario, you consult a sisterhood for help changing you back into a man, but they refuse as it would offend their goddess who considers your female self to be a perfect creation.
- Gender Bender: Both Chris and his best friend Kayla undergo one as a result of the magic amulet. The final conflict in the story is the fact that only one of you can switch back.
- Has a Type: Paul, the male version of Kayla, is specifically attracted to redheads. He will only take up your suggestion to make love in his bedroom if you have chosen to have red hair; if blonde, he'll say you look too much like your sister, and if brunette, he'll say you look too much like his female incarnation.
- Have We Met?: Should Natalie turn down one of her four initial choices of lover, the fifth one will be the barista Hank, who knew her in her male form as Chris. He has this reaction when she approaches him and knows his name, and she tells him (truthfully) of their former acquaintance, to which he confusedly assents.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Depending on your final decision, Natalie and the restored Kayla may end up as this. Chris and Paul do not, however; in the one ending in which they remain on good terms as men, they become more than friends.
- Hunk: Paul, the male version of Kayla, is described as being very handsome and ripped.
- Jerkass: If Natalie elects to turn back into Chris, his reaction to Paul's distress at being male forever may be kind or cruel, depending on how his lover of the evening has influenced him.
- Love Goddess: In one ending, Natalie joins a sisterhood to become a devotee of one.
- Man, I Feel Like a Woman: Natalie does this upon her transformation, and goes to the bedroom to take it further. Kayla/Paul states that he has already done so.
- Multiple Endings: As per the Gamebooks genre. There are sixteen different possible endings, and each describes how the subsequent years of Chris/Natalie's life unfold as a result of his/her decisions. The odds are in your favour in this story: over half of the endings are a variety of happy-ever-afters, a couple are downers, and the rest are somewhere in-between.
- Nice Guy: The rock musician Sean. He initially puts on an aloof rocker persona, but he quickly softens when he's around you. In one ending he'll be your life partner; in another, having been with him will influence you to be kind and supportive towards Paul.
- Not Good with Rejection:
- Played straight with Jack, who will begin stalking you in one scenario in which you have broken it off with him due to his possessiveness.
- Downplayed with Delilah. If you leave her to answer Paul's urgent text, she will permanently write you off and tell you to go away if you visit again. She will only become your long-term partner if you accept her initial invitation to the sex dungeon; refusing this will cause her to keep you at arm's length and decline to give you any further chances to see it.
- One-Steve Limit: In one of the endings in which Natalie reverts to being Chris, he meets a woman called Erin who becomes his partner. In another, bleaker ending, his best friend and flatmate Hank (with whom he spent the night as Natalie) starts dating an Erin, causing him to become jealous, which ultimately ruins the friendship. It is possible that both Erins are the same person.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Chris and Kayla, initially. The amulet soon changes this dynamic, however.
- Relationship Upgrade: Three of the endings involve Chris/Natalie getting together with his/her best friend Kayla/Paul, either as an opposite-sex couple, a female couple, or a male couple.
- Romantic False Lead: Any of your five potential dates may prove to be one; however, four of the five also have the potential to become your true life partner, depending on the choices you make.
- Safe, Sane, and Consensual: Played with in the scenario in which Natalie goes home with Delilah, who invites her to her sex dungeon. She says that, if Natalie consents, she will bind her and do all kinds of amazing and kinky things to her, and that she will have to trust her to take care of her for the entire night, with no safe word.
- Second Law of Gender-Bending: In many of the scenarios, you will come to enjoy being Natalie more than Chris. Largely averted with Paul, who is anxious to return to being Kayla (except in in one ending when, just as he has the opportunity to return to being a woman, he decides that he's grown accustomed to being a man and that he wants to spend his life with you.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: In one ending, Natalie manages after years to track down the original source of the amulet to a sisterhood in Thailand who have the power to switch people's genders and bodies. They refuse to revert Natalie to manhood as it would be an affront to the Love Goddess they serve, as it is her magic that has formed Natalie into what she considers a perfect, beautiful specimen of femininity. However, Natalie does end up joining their ranks.
- Third Law of Gender-Bending: Very much played straight, as Chris becomes a very feminine drop-dead gorgeous woman, while Kayla becomes a strong, handsome hunk of a man.
