Line #29 Blog/TheTradingPost


1	->''"That wasn't a guy staring back from the mirror."''
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3	In the Summer of 2006, Arthur Milligan was a reporter staying at a quiet inn in a sleepy Maine resort town, doing a story on the local beerfest. To pass the time, he started a blog documenting the experience, and invited some of his fellow guests to participate. Then one night, things got interesting.
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5	In the middle of the night, all 13 guests at the inn were magically transformed. They took on the forms of the previous 13 guests, who had in turn taken the forms of the 13 guests before them. Each of the transformees -- victims of a curse dating back at least to the early 20th Century -- had to go on living their new lives, due to the fact that the curse (at least initially) prevented them from ever explaining their true identities. All they could do was settle into their new lives, and wait.
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7	Arthur and his friend Jake moved to Boston where they lived as [[GenderBender Elizabeth Lee and Ashlyn Shelley,]] two young women with very different lives, both from each other and from Art's and Jake's backgrounds. As time went by. Art devised a plan to return and reclaim his own body, but when it was finally time to put it into action, Jake had lost hope of regaining his own body, and Art was to find a similar fate. Every year, the Inn welcomes many new victims and returning hopefuls. The blog has become a haven for those who wish to share their stories.
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9	''[[http://tradingpostinn.com The Trading Post]]'' is an ongoing BlogFic written from the perspective of several of these victims as they go on to live their new lives, coming up against new careers, love lives, a possible conspiracy against them, and more often than not, new sexual equipment.
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11	----
12	!!Tropes:
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14	* AbortedArc: Many characters who don't manage to be PutOnABus become this.
15	* AttractiveBentGender: Not inherently, but many characters are noted for their looks.
16	* AuthorAppeal: Aside from the focus on gender bending antics, many characters are given quirks and interests particular to the author responsible for him/her.
17	* CharacterBlog: Well, yeah.
18	%%* DifferentForGirls
19	* EasySexChange: The Inn is used this way deliberately at least once.
20	* FirstLawOfGenderBending: Played straight and occasionally averted
21	** Straight examples:
22	*** [[spoiler:Jake was denied the chance to return to his original body and opted to remain as Ashlyn.]]
23	*** [[spoiler:Art initially had a plan in place to return to his own body, but the "New Art" backed out at the last moment and set someone else in his place... namely female reporter Penelope Lincoln, whose body he now occupies on a permanent basis.]]
24	*** [[spoiler:Cliff has apparently opted to remain as Tori.]]
25	*** [[spoiler:Greg has occupied three bodies since his transformation, all female.]]
26	** Aversions:
27	*** [[spoiler:Todd and Bryan managed to get back to their original bodies without much fuss.]]
28	* GenderBender: The main thrust of the blog. Nearly all the original main characters were men changed into women. Female-to-male characters and non-gender-crossed ones would appear later, but still less frequently.
29	%%* ManIFeelLikeAWoman
30	* PinballProtagonist: To some degree. It can be hard for the characters to do much more than react to what's being thrown at them, and adapt, at least for the first while.
31	* PronounTrouble: Often with new characters.
32	* PutOnABus: Many, many characters. The first trip took all the original cast, and then their replacements took one, and then...
33	* RedOniBlueOni: Emotional artist Jake/Ashlyn and rational writer Art/Liz[[spoiler:/Penny.]].
34	* SecondLawOfGenderBending: Often, but not universally applied: it helps that for all intents and purposes they are living a fully-set-up life with an apparently-bulletproof cover (nobody would believe them if they revealed their identities.)
35	* TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody
36	* ThirdLawOfGenderBending: More defied than not. There are concessions and changes of all sorts, but few if any main characters are shown to embrace overt stereotypes at the expense of their earlier selves. The phrase "GoingNative" is used by Art to describe Jake/Ashlyn, though.
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Context Blog / TheTradingPost