I love mind control stories about obsessive workouts, jock/bodybuilder transformations, muscle slut/himbo/himbro stuff, all that jazz. I know a lot of people think they’re overdone on here, and I can see why, but they’re the class of stories that best relate to my real life.
I’m always disappointed when the muscle growth is “magical”, done through nanites, or otherwise absurdly fast, and/or requiring no work to be put in (that mentality is my biggest complaint with Jackstock’s otherwise good muscle growth mp3s, too). They’re becoming a higher and higher percentage of those kinds of transformation stories, or so it seems to me.
What would you think about adding an “effortless gains” tag for that kind of story? Or possibly the inverse, denoting physical realism in the gains aspect, since my sense is that they’re becoming the minority of muscle growth stories.
Does anyone else prefer one or the other type of story enough to benefit from a tag like this?
I like both. I think instant magical/sci fi muscle growth is an incredibly hot fantasy, and I think guys getting led/convinced/mind controlled into the gym is incredibly hot too. I could see the value in a tag to differentiate the two. “Effortless growth” or “instant growth” might be good tags. There’s an existing “workout” tag that could be used to call out muscle growth stories involving longer term growth in the gym, or maybe a new “weightlifting” tag?
The “workout” tag is linked to/synonymous with the “gymnast” and “athlete” tags, which complicates its use for this. Just looking at the first page of search results, it’s also been used in stories featuring miracle smoothies, and flat out magic whammies. So it’s too late to differentiate it.
Not all of those kinds of magical growth stories are “instant”, so “instant growth” probably won’t get used some times when it “should” be.
Effortless growth works, if you object to the word gains for some reason. To me, growth could mean too many different things, but I imagine on here it will be clear enough.
Can anyone think of a good name for a tag that denotes gym/workout/weightlifting stories without unrealistic growth elements?
It’s not necessarily bad writing (though I guess it is by definition, if it’s not “done right”); obviously a lot of guys get off on immediate gratification style wish fulfillment stories.
But, yeah, I’m similar about the mental influence method used - the more realistic, the hotter by far. Personally I’m okay with methods that are just barely plausible if you don’t think too hard, like subliminals, and of course I’m fine with effects being much stronger than they could realistically be - that’s pretty much every story on here.
Magic stuff is a totally different kind of story for me, and often enjoyable, but plausibility is super hot. Magic muscle growth, for whatever reason, is just a disappointment.
Magic stories can be excellent. Sometimes it can feel cheap though.
I love fantasy, don’t get me wrong. However, in good fantasy stories magic is dangerous. It has rules and often has drawbacks and harsh backlash against people who misuse it. Well-written magic is never peurile wish-fullfilment. That is the realm of children’s stories, not serious fantasy fiction.
Same thing with wishes. Wish granting entities in good stories will be cagey, usually vindictive fuckers who will twist or subvert the intentions of the wisher. A fairy godmother who just waves a wand and makes everything skippy comes across as childish because it is childish.
How do you guys feel about “muscle building” to distinguish stories with realistic growth from working out over time, with “muscle growth” left as the tag for magical/nanotech/instant muscle growth?
I guess, in order to implement it, we could just start adding the tag to stories, even if they’re also tagged “muscle growth”. We just need to make sure Martin doesn’t link the word to the “muscle growth” tags.