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Spells R Us is a Shared Universe Web Original created by Bill Hart in the 1990s. It has accumulated a fairly decent fan base, and many stories have been authored for it (though not all of them by Bill Hart).

The series revolves around The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday called Spells R Us. The shop is run by a Robe and Hat Wizard known only as "The Old Man". The typical story starts with The Old Man selling some sort of magical product to a disbelieving customer; as the story progresses, the item will be used by somebody (either deliberately or inadvertently), and the intended target will undergo a transformation of some sort — typically a Gender Bender, but Animorphism, age progression, age regression, and other sorts of transformations have also occurred. Most stories focus on the ramifications of using the magic item; many end with the transformee stuck that way for the rest of their life.

Take from that what you will.

The series begins with "A Strangeness at The Frat House". The story follows two college students, Chris and Terry, who need to find girls for the frat party or they will be kicked out of the fraternity. Desperate, the boys go to Spells R Us. The Old Man gives them the spell, and "forgets" to tell the boys that for one night, they (and the other frat house students) will become girls in body and mind. Naturally, they botch the spell; now, anyone in the house after 7 a.m. will turn into the opposite sex. While "Crissy" and "Terri" retain their male memories, anyone else acts, thinks, and looks as if they were always female until 2 a.m. (when the spell wears off).

The story was written by Bill Hart, and establishes the universe in which many of his subsequent stories take place. Many fans have now written their own stories involving the shop and the Old Man, though they tend to focus less on the events with Terry and Chris, and more on the other vic- er, customers of the Old Man (while ignoring Bill Hart's saga). This unofficial canon led to many sub-universes; the most popular of these is Bikini Beach, which revolves around a magic women only, gender-bending water park somewhere in the U.S. operated by an old gypsy witch (known commonly as "Grandmother") who is a good friend of The Wizard.

Stories can be found all over the web. Most of them (if not all) can be found at Fictionmania and BigCloset TopShelf.A small collection can be found at this Angelfire page and this archive of TF stories.


This franchise contains examples of:

  • Affably Evil: The Old Man, in several stories. He'll seem polite, and even friendly, but will still think nothing of screwing the customers over for his own amusement.
  • All Guys Want Sorority Women: Invoked frequently, especially in the initial story.
  • All Guys Want Cheerleaders: When the stories are in a high school setting, this trope comes into play (rather than All Guys Want Sorority Women).
  • All Men Are Perverts: Comes into play many, many times (including with the Old Man himself) in some of the earlier stories.
    • In the early Bikini Beach stories, Grandmother does indeed see (almost) all men this way; in fact, it's the in-universe reason why she created Bikini Beach: she wanted a place where women could be safe from the advances (and leering eyes) of lecherous men; hence, any man who enters the park is transformed into a woman for the duration of his pass. Her views have softened over time, however, thanks to Anya's influence (and meeting more genuinely good, decent men).
  • An Aesop: If there is one, it's that a quick fix to your problems will end up biting you in the backside later. Also, always read and follow the instructions.
  • And I Must Scream: Some of the Wizard's more morally dubious customers have found themselves in truly unpleasant situations. A few have even been turned into sentient objects.
  • The Apprentice:
    • Many early stories attempted to give the Old Man an apprentice/assistant without much success, until "Possibilities" introduced Danni.
    • Anya is this to Grandmother, as well as her granddaughter (hence the nickname "Grandmother").
  • Attractive Bent-Gender:
    • Most of the gender-bent customers of Spells R Us end up looking like supermodels or porn stars.
    • Averted in "Strangeness At The Sorority House." Until the end, at least.
    • Varies wildly in the Bikini Beach stories: while we have yet to see a male customer turn into a genuinely unattractive woman, most men just become female versions of themselves (with the results ranging from "average girl-next-door" to absolutely stunning).
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: The unfortunate souls in the Spells R' Us stories usually end up getting exactly what they wished for. However, the results are never what they expected or wanted.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Never, ever try to steal from the Old Man.
    • Grandmother doesn't take kindly to people who try to sneak into her park without paying. Like most of her views, she later softens on this, beginning in "Bikini Beach: Midnight Swim": after Vicky (a former customer of the Wizard who was permanently genderswapped via a female disguise) and group of boys sneak into the park for a midnight swim, destroying some of the water pumps in the process, they simply have to work in the park until they pay off the damages.
    • A later follow-up story, "Bikini Beach: Pardons and Decisions", does away with this completely: one of the transformed boys — an otherwise hardworking, effective employee, who is still secretly outraged and embittered by their transformations — is pushed over the edge by one particular lifetime membership sale (which is her own personal Berserk Button) and becomes overtly disgruntled, motivating Grandmother to end the group's work requirement early and forgive their outstanding debt.
    • Grandmother also strongly dislikes people who abuse, mistreat, or exploit her customers. This later extends to male customers as well (with several female guests being punished for attempting to transform men for malicious or unjust reasons).
    • A geek hit on a sorority girl. Clearly, we must use dark magic to kick his ass! Of course, this decision leads to Arnold being combined with a girl named Angie, creating a double-Superpowered Evil Side — with Sanity Slippage to boot. This may have been a bad idea.
  • Body Horror: Some of the transformations brought on by the Wizard's wares are less-than-pleasant. For example: in "Bikini Beach and the Bomb Plot", two villains-for-hire go to Bikini Beach to acquire a gender-bent disguise so that they can hide explosives in a fake pregnancy belly. The still-male member of the duo is so smitten with his gender-flipped partner that they have sex right there in the changing room... causing him to get stuck inside of her and sucked up into her body, where he regresses into a fetus within her womb (over the course of a very painful hour), leaving his former partner pregnant.
  • Breakout Character:
    • Danni, the Wizard's snarky apprentice.
    • Anya from Bikini Beach. She has her own three-part story in "The Temptation of Anya".
  • Breast Expansion: The comic "Spells R Us: Dream Girl" (NSFW) has an overweight girl visiting the shop looking for something to help her land a date with the school quarterback. The Old Man gives her a potion that will turn her into the young man's perfect woman. Unfortunately, the boy's perfect woman is not one she wants to be.
  • Buxom Beauty Standard: Based on the number of gender-bent men who wind up with huge busts, this seems to be the Wizard's preference.
  • Characterization Marches On: Grandmother is noticeably harsher and more vindictive in the early Bikini Beach stories. According to the Universe's creator, ElrodW (and later confirmed in a story), her behavior was due to lingering hurt from being treated terribly by men in the past. Anya was eventually brought in to help "soften" her character and act as a Morality Chain, calling her out on her overly-harsh punishments (and even fixing a few).
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Dee Dee to Terry. The reasons why are a long story (the short version of which is a Love Potion gone wrong). Luckily, by the end of "A Strangeness Returns," her memories of Terry are erased.
  • Crossover: In addition to crossing over multiple times with Bikini Beach, the Wizard plays cards with the Trickster Goddess Miss Chiff and Molly the Fairy Godmother (both created by fellow TG story author Morpheus) in "The Wager". The story also features an unnamed transformation goddess (referred to as the "Butterfly Goddess") who appears in Morpheus's story "Finders Keepers".
  • Depending on the Writer:
    • The Old Man's behavior and personality in each story. Sometimes, he's a nice guy who will sell you something to help you with your problems, or help you with any problems that resulted from selling you an item (only if you ask, though). In other cases, he's a Jerkass who transforms people for the hell of it (and then alters their memories so he doesn't get in trouble).
    • What the gender-bent customers end up as pretty much depends on the author's personal preferences.
    • The Old Man's age. In some stories, he is young enough to have a teenage niece; in others, he's over a century old. Others still have him as old as time itself.
  • Different for Girls: Invoked with many male-to-female transformees.
  • Dirty Old Man: Given his predilection for stereotypical Valley Girls and Buxom Beauty Standard, the Wizard is definitely one. (Grandmother even identifies him as such in the first Bikini Beach story.)
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Male customers of Bikini Beach are sometimes punished rather harshly by Grandmother for minor infractions, particularly in the early stories. In one story, a pair of one-time gate crashers are permanently changed into sex-crazed bimbos.
    • In the story "Peeping Tom", the titular peeping tom — Alan, a shy, nerdy guy who was spying on Bikini Beach's customers and photographing them — is punished by being transformed into Allison: a bimbo porn star with an insatiable sex drive, who makes every man who sees her mad with lust. She's also fully aware of her predicament, and utterly disgusted and horrified by her urges and behavior, but unable to stop or control herself.
      • The follow-up story, "Customer Service", marks an end (for the most part) to these kinds of changes: Anya, upon discovering how much Allison is suffering, removes the bimbo and sex drive aspects of the transformation. Grandmother also sees the error of her ways, apologizes to Allison, and (as the sex change cannot be undone) allows Anya to change her into an ordinary, average-looking college student.
  • Distaff Counterpart: The Witch to the Wizard, Anqualicara in the early stories.
  • Double Standard: While evil, treacherous, and abusive men are always punished at Bikini Beach, the same rarely seems to apply to women. While this does change in the later stories, the number of men to women being punished by Grandmother (and Anya) is still far greater.
    • In the very first story, two innocent male customers are invited out for a night on the town by two women (who are aware of their transformed status). Said women use a magic potion (purchased from Spells 'R Us) to arrange for the transformed men to be brutally gang raped, for no reason other than they hate men. The punishment for their actions is...having their memberships revoked. (Grandmother does state that this is "the beginning" of their punishment; if there's more to said punishment, however, the reader never gets to see it.)
    • In "Understanding a Girlfriend" (the second Bikini Beach story written), a man catches his girlfriend cheating on him with another woman; despite her tearful insistence that she truly loves him and is sorry, he decides to go to the park to have an affair himself out of revenge. The Old Woman reads his intentions, and punishes him by extending his three-day pass an extra twelve hours; she then berates him for contemplating cheating on his girlfriend, for being insensitive to his girlfriend's "needs", and most of all for being afraid that she might leave him for a woman. Needless to say, some readers did not take kindly to this.
  • Exact Words:
    • If the customer (or the Wizard) is a Jerkass, the Wizard will give the customer what he or she asks for in the most literal sense possible.
    • If the object sold to the customer has instructions, the customer had better follow them to the letter — or else.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Some customers suffer this.
  • First Law of Gender Bending:
    • The transformations are almost always male to female, and usually one-way. In most cases, the Wizard could change the costumer back; he just can't be bothered (or finds their predicament too amusing) to do so. In others, the shop itself will have vanished when the customer tries to seek help.
    • In the Bikini Beach stories, the length of the customer's transformation depends on the duration of their pass, which can vary from one day to a lifetime. Roughly half of the stories involve a one-way transformation (either because the transformee is being punished, they did so for the sake of someone else as an act of kindness, or they simply find that life is better in their transformed state). The latter is especially common amongst men who are elderly, sick, or otherwise disabled.
  • Gender Bender: The central plot point of most of the stories (in both Spells 'R Us and the spin-off verses). However in the SRU Universe's heyday, SRU also committed furry transformations.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A few stories have the Wizard as this, with a customer seemingly falling into his trap, only for said trap to end up saving a loved one's life (or preventing another disaster from occurring). Other times, he will sell the customer an item that actually solves their problems or improves their life.
  • Jumping the Gender Barrier: A common plot device involves a man becoming a girl and hooking up with his former best friend (who may be either a straight man, or a lesbian — or bisexual — female friend).
  • Karmic Transformation:
    • Happens quite frequently, particularly to the male customers in the Bikini Beach stories. Lecherous men will be turned into sexy women (and find themselves subjected to the Male Gaze and sexual harassment once they leave the park), men who prefer giant breasts will wind up with a pair of their own, etc. It's stated that Grandmother can see into the minds of her customers, and will make sure that men receive a female form (and personality) in keeping with their character by customizing or "tweaking" the transformation. She can also make the transformation permanent, if need be.
    • In the Bikini Beach story "The Skinheads", a trio of racist male skinheads are permanently transformed into non-white women (and subsequently become much better, and law-abiding, citizens).
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Sometimes the change will also involve the victim(s) (or victim's associates') memories of their former life being erased or altered, or the changes becoming retroactive (i.e. as if they were always that way).
  • Laser-Guided Karma: If you're a jerk, then chances are you will lose your Y chromosome by the end of the story, and become less of a jerk. Grandmother can sense what's in the minds of her male customers, and will (usually) give them exactly what they deserve.
  • The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: An unhappy customer who tries to find the store again will often find that it has vanished completely. Though not always.
  • 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 Danni-Chris- Terri.
  • Luke, I Might Be Your Father: It's suggested throughout the Bikini Beach stories that the SRU Wizard is Anya's grandfather, and confirmed in The Temptation of Anya.
  • No Name Given:
    • The Wizard (though some early stories name him Anselm).
    • The Bikini Beach Old Woman, who is only ever referred to as "The Old Woman" or "Grandmother" (even by her non-related employees).
  • The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Certain "effects" of each story's product will often lead to this trope. Which often results in the First, Second, and Third Laws of Genderbending.
  • Robe and Wizard Hat: The Old Man sports the traditional version. Sometimes it's only the robe; other times, the hat is included. The robe is nothing impressive: it's rather worn-out, and is frequently mistaken for a bathrobe (such that he's often referred to as "The Old Man In the Bathrobe", both in-universe and by fans of the franchise).
  • Shapeshifting: Of both the voluntary and involuntary varieties. And of course, some stories have both.
  • Shared Universe: With the Bikini Beach stories by ElrodW.
  • Second Law of Gender-Bending: On those occasions where a customer doesn't have their memories rewritten, they'll often end up enjoying their new gender more than their old one.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The story "Jessica", which features the protagonist (after watching the movie) turning into... well, Jessica Rabbit.
    • The "Nerd" series (from Bikini Beach) was inspired by Revenge of the Nerds.
  • Spoofs "R" Us: The name of the titular magic spell shop.
  • Strictly Formula: Most Spells R Us stories follow the same premise: an unsuspecting person (usually male) is shopping at their local mall and finds the store; after mistaking the Wizard for a "crazy old man in a bathrobe", they buy an item (which the Wizard claims will solve their "problem"). The item transforms the customer and/or the people around them; the transformation isn't what the customer expected, and ends up permanently altering their life in some way. The story typically ends with the Wizard watching the denouement through his crystal ball, chuckling to himself while commenting on the outcome.
  • Third Law of Gender-Bending:
    • Upon changing gender, most people end up taking on that gender's societally expected mannerisms, usually because The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body. In the case of Spells R' Us, this usually results in guys becoming stereotypical valley girls.
    • Justified in the Bikini Beach stories: the park's magic gives the transformees "training wheels" (i.e. built-in knowledge of how to move, act and generally live as women).
  • 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 Spells R'Us Gender Benders.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Many of the later stories depict costumers that have heard about the shop who think they know better — but end up screwing things up anyway.

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