I fully acknowledge this is a large request, and likely has been suggested before by others, but I didn’t see a post for it so I wanted to add it myself.
In the recent past, there appear to have been a significant uptick in stories that are more centrally about Transformation, rather than MC/Hypnosis. There’s always been some intersection between the two, but I think this consortium of websites would benefit greatly from having a dedicated site for Transformation, and there would be several benefits to doing so.
First, it would create a new branch in this network of kinky story websites and find a home for many stories that have generically fallen into Spiral or Kinky. While there are filters and search functions, nothing beats the frictionless experience of pulling up the website, knowing the latest entries will likely include something that intrigues your particular interest. While there’s a lot of overlap between MC and Transformation, it’s often the case I’m looking for the former, not the latter. If the goal is expanding this website, this is a natural extension of work we’re already doing.
Second, it would more easily open up a genre that writers may not have considered for this site. While it covers a broad range of genres, Spiral is primarily for mental changes. Authors who either have a story idea that doesn’t include mental changes, or feel the need to include them to fit this site, may be discouraged from submitting stories. Not only would it open up to new writers, but it would also remove an implicit restriction from those already writing for this site.
Third, I think Martin has written in the past about how the other sites have struggled to gain traction. In retrospect, I think trying to push a generic erotica website in the form of Gay Cupid Stories didn’t really capture an audience that Spiral was looking for. It was too small a site for too large an audience. Transformation, however, has a lot of overlap with our existing audience, while also being niche enough to attract an audience that may be underserved. There are websites that do write to this genre (I’m thinking of metabods.com, but I’m certain there are others), it’s still a particular kink that attracts a particular reader.
Fourth, reclassifying transformation stories currently on Spiral and elsewhere would concentrate the stories on Spiral to be more MC-focused, which is good for those readers who only specifically seek those stories. In doing so, though, it would have a secondary benefit of making the cross-posting more appropriate. My problem with cross-posting to Cupid is that any story could be considered for that website, because the premise is so open ended, but I’ve always felt that the stories there should be devoid of the MC and bondage elements of Spiral and Collar (just my opinion, feel free to disagree). Transformation, however, would make a lot more sense in creating the Venn Diagram of stories that are exclusive to one as well as fit multiple. The original dream to have an interconnected suite of sites that serve their own genre but connect to others would be far more effective with a site like this.
There are downsides to taking on a task like this. The first and most obvious is the time, cost, and energy involved with implementing this. I fully acknowledge this would be a huge project for Martin with no guarantee of returns on that investment, but I think there could be value to it. Part of this would include reclassifying thousands of stories, either as exclusively transformational or cross-posted with transformation, and that could involve reaching out to authors who may not be interested in moving their work to a new site.
Also, we have “sister-sites” in a manner of speaking that include sites like metabod.com that already serve this need. Creating a site of our own may cause unintended conflict with members of a community we’d rather collaborate with. I even wonder if it would be possible to merge with them or integrate them into this network’s UI, but that sounds like an incredible undertaking not worth the effort.
In any event, that is my proposal for a potential “Gay Morph Stories” (title pending) website. I’m interested what others think and if it would be valuable or not.
