So to avoid the classist implications, would it be possible to have a character be and stay middle or upper class while still descending into being a slob? Or to have an educated white-collar man become a slob without losing his job or intelligence?

He sure could, but if you’re honestly going to try and write inoffensive porn, it’s not going to be very exciting. Write what you want to write, but at the very least be aware of what you are writing. My redneck stories rely on stereotypes and classist tropes–I’m up front about that. To some people, they would most certainly be insulting. But porn is, in many ways, designed to insult. Just be aware of who you’re insulting, and do it for good reasons.

(br) here, i made a tumblr account to not look so anonymous. I really haven´t understood what you mean by all that. If i could relate to the redneck stereotype, i would write about it (our equivalent is too different), but if i am not white, it would be racist of my part ? I really don´t know, around here it woundn´t be.

Look, I’ll try to explain what I mean, with a couple of caveats. First, everything I’m going to say here only applies the the discussion of race within the context of the United States. The concepts of “white” and “racial privilege” within the context of other regions/continents/countries is something I’m not really capable of speaking on, so that sets the realm of discourse for the moment. Second, considering that I don’t know your own ethnicity or your location, I can’t really know what it means when you say that “around here it wouldn’t be [racist],” so I can’t really offer any commentary on the cultural divide, and even if I did know, chances are I wouldn’t be able to comment on it. So, with those two points out of the way, let me clarify why I found 1) your story idea surrounding the Latino to be racist in the context of American society, 2) why the redneck example isn’t analogous at all to the Latino example, and 3) why racism has no bearing on your own personal ethnicity.

1) Alright, here’s the initial problem I had with your idea. You take a “mighty Latino manager” and turn him into an “immigrant day laborer” with no education or ability to comprehend the English language or American society. Let’s start out with some of the systemic assumptions common Americans make when they encounter a Latino. Often, they are assumed to be undocumented immigrants from Mexico who snuck past the border in order to steal American jobs. It is assumed that they do not speak English, that they are interested in marrying Americans in order to gain citizenship, or will likely plant an “anchor baby” in order to avoid deportation. It is assumed that they are fundamentally immoral people, willing to lie cheat and steal in order to access American society, by taking social security numbers, refusing to pay taxes, lying to police officers, stealing private property, etc. This is, in the minds of many white Americans, simply who Latinos are.

So, in your story, through the American lens, what you are doing is taking a Latino man, who in spite of the systemic biases and barriers set up against him because of his race, has managed to climb into an area of society which is generally “reserved” for privileged white men, and forcefully shoving him out of that position, and turning him into the stereotypical “place” which the american racial system has reserved for him–a lowly, uneducated Latino immigrant, working a shit job no real American would want to work. You have taken a person who could have been a fully fleshed out character and turned him into a walking stereotype.

You say that “[i]f he had to be transformed to be like that its because its not normal for latinos to be an uneducated laborer and its a erroneous assumption.” You actually have it exactly backwards. In the American system of race, it is normal for the Latino to be the uneducated laborer, and abnormal for the Latino to be the manager. The act of transforming him from the latter to the former is an act of “putting him in his place,” the fundamental act which the Amercian racial system attempts to do–restrict access to avenues of power, and limit people of marginalized populations to a small selection of jobs which are “suited” for them. That is why it is racist–if you still don’t understand, then you really need to read a bit more about American Racism.

2) Your first counter argument to my claim that your story idea was racist was that the redneck TF was a) analogous to the Latino TF in form and structure, and b) not racist, and so therefore the Latino TF isn’t racist either, due to their analogous format. In fact, the two TF’s aren’t analogous at all–and that is why your counter argument fails.

Rednecks are not a racial category, although viewing them outside of the American system, it might at first glance appear to be a racial category, on the grounds that rednecks are usually depicted as being white. However, rednecks are actually a socioeconomic class, not a racial one. Being a redneck has less to do with what race you are, and more to do with your cultural upbringing and access to wealth.

That said, the stereotypical redneck is a racist white guy, right? So if all rednecks are portrayed as white, even if the class is socioeconomic, there has to be some racial component as well, it would seem. However, this is missing the point of the analogy. Within the American system, to be white at all means having access to a wide range of opportunities and privileges which are not available to people of color. Rednecks and non-rednecks alike have access to these privileges which no Latino would be able to access. Thus, turning the Latino manager into an illegal immigrant is an act of kicking someone out of the areas of the society reserved for white people–while the act of turning a lawyer into a redneck farmhand does nothing to erase his racial privilege. However, it certainly does remove much of his economic privilege–so the argument could definitely be made that the redneck TF is classist–but it certainly is not racist.

The two classes then aren’t at all analogous. Rednecks are an economic class of depressed, and generally “ignorant” white folk who are generally regarded as a bit of a joke while still having access to the privileges of being white in America, while illegal immigrants are completely excluded and demonized by that same system. The two changes are not at all analogous–the Latino TF is racist; the redneck TF is classist.

3) Your own race has nothing to do with your capacity to be a racist. The fact that you aren’t white doesn’t prevent you from adopting and agreeing with the American system and it’s racial categories. A black man can have the exact same thoughts about illegal immigrants as a white man, and both of them would be racists. To say otherwise, would be to say that all white people would have to be racists, by virtue of the fact that some white people are racists.

Racism also isn’t automatically triggered simply because two individuals are of different ethnicity. Studies have been done which have found African-American children to be fundamentally biased against their own skin color–by the age of five or six, they have already been trained by the American racial system to view white people as inherently beautiful, and common black features as ugly. These children are, in a basic sense, internalizing the white racial view that black people are to be valued less than white people. It’s totally fucked up. So you, a non-white person writing a story about rednecks? No, that would not be racist. At most it would be classist. However, a Latino writing about a Latino manager being forcefully turned into an immigrant day laborer? Unless he intends it to be satire, it’s still racist.

Hope that clarifies some things for you.

new story up on my tumblr if you are interested ;) Regards Ade(peircedskin) x

Of course I’m interested! Everyone else better be interested too, or they’re fucking idiots.

Love your Santa story. I found the second part unpleasant, because I think of Santa as inviolate. At the same time, the idea of making Santa a cum slave, while horrid, is SUPER hot. Have you ever been both repulsed and atracted to a story?

Ha, nothing is inviolate to me. As for repulsed/attracted, I’d say “Into the Night of God” is the only thing I’ve written which comes close to that sensation for me.

Would a non-slob to slob transformation story really need to have intelligence loss? And, on a somewhat related note, what sort of occupation or hobbies could a slob character have?

It wouldn’t–smart people can be slobs just as much as dumb people. However, the entire “slob” TF is for most readers (not all of them) about a certain…loss of discipline and caring. A loss of intellect slots in as a great trigger for that broader fetish, because losing one’s intellect is seen as a sign of becoming a baser kind of person. However, it is hardly necessary to include it, and a desire for a slob TF can be articulated without relying on that loss of discipline.

As for occupations and hobbies, it would depend a lot of what kind of slob you’re creating. A smart slob could be a programmer–overweight and obese, living in a basement, snacking of junk all day and growing huge while he writes code. Hobbies for this character might be video games, or other activities that can be enjoyed alone, or with others at a distance. A less intelligent slob can be employed in any blue collar position, though usually the dirtier the job the better. Construction workers, garbagemen, and janitors work for city settings, while mechanics, farmers, and truck drivers are all possibilities for more rural locales. These characters would probably enjoy anything that lets them get dirty on purpose–sports, mudding and off roading, and camping or hiking if they are a fitter slob (just as intelligence loss isn’t required for slob TF’s, neither is weight gain). Alternatively, you can have the character be unemployed, living on disability or welfare, or living with a family member or friend as a mooch. Just a few ideas–it really can go in a lot of different directions depending on your story’s setting, MacGuffin, and the sort of slob you want to create.

The Lizardman Plot (Part 2)

by Wesley Bracken

Commissioned by: Guderian

WARNING: This one is strange too. Scalies, F to M TF, raunch, incest, other stuff….

***

The machine kept each person separate from the people on either side of them on the conveyor belt, but that did nothing to soften the screams that surrounded Krista on all sides as she was swallowed deeper into the machine. Already mechanical arms had ripped away all of her clothing, sprayed her down with any number of chemicals and solutions–including one which had stripped all of the hair from her head and her body, flushing it away down a drain–leaving her naked and smooth in her small, moving room, besieged at each point by a massive number of probes and metal claws that examined every inch of her body, from the measurements of her face, to the size of her breasts, digging into her vagina and ass as she screamed along with the rest, humiliated and terrified, but she soon discovered that this was just the beginning.

When it seemed like there was nothing else that the the machine could do to her, the small room came to a stop, and what had been grey walls to both sides were suddenly made of what looked like, in the dim light of the machine, to be some sort of strange goo, and then the goo started closing in from both sides. There was nowhere for her to go, and in seconds the two membranes of goo had collided with her between them, sealed inside the rubber like film. She tired to breathe, and she felt the goo actually plunge into her open mouth, down into her lungs and her throat, as it also pressed its way up into her pussy and even into her ass, probing deep and violating her again. She was pinned in place, sealed inside a vacuum, and even though there was no way she could breathe, somehow, when she kept moving down the conveyor, she didn’t black out. The membrane, it seemed, was providing everything she needed to stay alive–but she certainly couldn’t scream. No wonder the back end of the machine had been so silent, she realized.

No longer needing the room or the belt to move her, the machine opened up into a large cavity, the gunk imprisoning her suspended from a set of hooks above her, and all around her were gators working in and amongst all of the other people trapped in the same way as her, screaming silently, their eyes moving in the transparent goo, but nothing else able to move an inch. One gator, however, wasn’t working–he was watching–and when he saw her he hit a large red button, bringing her line to a halt. He came over, uncoupled her from the hooks and carried her off, attaching her to an unmoving line next to a control panel, and he started working on some sort of program, and around his wrist, Krista could see the bracelet which Matt had seen in the first room–this was the same lizard he had been obsessed with. Her stomach sank–she’d been hoping that Matt had remained free, hoping that he could expose the whole thing, but not only had he most likely been captured, he must have betrayed her as well. What in the world would these beasts do to spies, when she had no idea what they were even doing to people?

The gator finished working on the program, and then he resumed waiting, watching the line Krista was on, and after half an hour or so, another person slid down the line and came to a halt next to Krista–Matt, also encased in goo and stripped of all of his hair. The gator walked up to Matt, grinning, and started running his claws along Matt’s full belly and his cock, their eyes locked together. The gator hissed in a way reminiscent of a laugh, and then released Krista’s rack to continue deeper into the machine.

It came to a stop in a dimly lit room, where a metal claw took a tube and shoved it deep into her pussy, where it adhered to the goo inside, and began pumping something warm inside her. She shivered at the sensation, feeling a near spontaneous orgasm rip through her, but it felt like the liquid was being drawn deep into her body, and changing her in some way she couldn’t even describe. Two more tubes were attached to her breasts, pumping at her chest as the tube in her pussy stopped filling her up, and began sucking as well. Both of tubes on her breast and inside of her were now painful, and she tried to shout and scream into the goo, feeling her body being reworked and contorted against her will. The tube slowly withdrew from her pussy, when it did, she saw that something was being drawn out with it–inside the tube…was a scrotum, and when it emerged, she saw that her vagina was gone, replaced by two full, low hanging balls beneath her clit, and then the tubes detatched from her chest, and she saw that her breasts had been replaced by muscle. She now had two pecs than any man would be proud to own, and she tried to look down at her now masculine body, but couldn’t–she could only feel the strange sensation of her new balls hanging from her groin yet suspended in the goo, the flatness of her chest, and then the rack started moving again down a short track, before arriving at another room.

This time, at least, there weren’t any tubes. However, it was pitch black when she entered, and when the rack came to a stop, lights clicked on all over the room, brilliant yellow, heating her up in moments, and she felt the goo encasing her come alive. It squirmed against her skin under the heat of the light, burrowing down into her pores, the goo in her throat, lungs and ass driving in deeper as well. She couldn’t even begin to describe what it felt like inside of her, the goo rearranging organs, bone and muscle, but her skin felt like it was growing dryer and cracking apart. The surface of her body was splitting apart into dark green scales, and she went rigid as the goo within her latched onto her spinal cord, and it started growing, pushing out her tailbone, the small of her back bulging out as a tail pushed its way out of her, growing several feet long in a matter of seconds, the goo stretching to accommodate and support it as muscle filled in to support the new weight.

Her hands and face felt like the goo was massaging itself into every nook and cranny, growing her teeth out into sharp fangs, reshaping the bones of her skull, flattening her nose and extending her mouth into a short, rounded snout. It even managed to worm it’s way around her eyes, her sight shifting as her pupils and iris changed, the light now even harsher to her more sensitive vision, her ears disappearing entirely, crushed to the side of her head and covered in scales. After what felt like ages, the lights finally shut off, Krista trying to grapple with the new sensations of her body in the darkness, the rack above her grinding to life and rolling down the track to the next room where she came to a halt.

She could see far better in the low light now, the claw taking the tube and shoving it down her throat, Krista no longer sure how to work her jaw, and again, the tube started pumping something into her, heat spreading from her stomach out to the rest of her body, her muscles convulsing painfully beyond her control, each contraction destroying and rebuilding muscle tissue faster than could have ever been possible. Her bones ached as well, and she felt her new skeletal structure start to bulge and expand, the goo lengthening as she grew two feet taller, topping out at over eight feet tall, her muscle bulging out past bodybuilder and growing even larger, almost comical in size, her new pecs bulging out from her chest in two shelves, her biceps and arms so thick she couldn’t drop them to her sides, thighs and calves thicker than any man she’d ever seen.

The claw wasn’t finished however, and attached one last tube to her clit, and she felt it start sucking and pumping, pleasure wracking it’s way through her in orgasmic waves as it grew larger and thicker in the tube, and before long, she had a huge, thick cock over a foot long, semi erect over her churning balls, and she realized that she wasn’t even a woman anymore. She wasn’t even human anymore. She was some abomination, some terrible beast. This was even worse than the first part–before, at least she had suffered her humiliation as herself. Now, her very identity had been ripped away from her. She couldn’t even recognize this body as hers. Is this what had happened to everyone the lizards had captured? Is this what they were doing? Slowly replacing the human race with their own kind?

The tubes retracted at last, and her rack proceeded along the track, and she hoped this would be the end of it, but in her heart, she knew that there would be one more stop. After all, her mind hadn’t changed at all. She finally arrived at what she assumed would be the final stop, and there was a bright golden screen, similar to the glowing eyes the gator with Travis’ bracelet had possessed–or, she realized, the gator who most likely had been Travis a few weeks before. Unable to look away, she felt the rhythmic patterns drill down into her mind and her soul, breaking her down. She fought back, but what, in the end, was the point? She had already lost everything of herself–why shouldn’t she lose her mind to? It would be a relief, really. She didn’t want to be a lizard, she didn’t want to be a man, but being trapped between would be even worse. Letting go of her fear, she let herself fall into the golden shine, and felt herself dissolve away into the gold.

***

Matt struggled against the cocoon binding him, trying to break away as the gator ran its talons up and down his naked body. He could feel everything through the thin layer of goo, and as he fought, he mostly resisted the pull of his brother’s golden eyes, but he couldn’t avoid them for very long. They sucked him back in, and his body froze in place again, but rather than the compulsion from before, the voice was more clear in his mind, the anger and the rage that his brother felt towards him.

Matt tried to push back, he tried to apologize. He’d been afraid when he’d found Travis, his little brother, in bed with one of his best friends–one of his best…male friends. How could Matt have known that his parents would throw Travis out of the house? It wasn’t his fault–none of it. He’d tried to stop them, he tried to help him, but then he’d disappeared and he’d been looking for him ever since. What could he have done?

The gator threw those arguments aside. It was over–the past. Nothing could be done about it, about the deep, writhing pit of anger he’d felt, that he still felt after this whole year, even after he’d been kidnapped from the street and twisted into a lizardman, he still held onto it. It was a betrayal deeper than Matt could have even begun to imagine, because Travis had loved him–capital “L” love–and that rejection had crushed him in ways he hadn’t even been equipped to deal with. Still, he had Matt now, and he ran a claw up the length of Matt’s cock, making his brother shiver, knowing that soon enough everything would be perfect. Still, he wanted to see him do it, he forced the pleasure into Matt, amplified it as he stroked his imprisoned cock, and after a moment, Matt shook in the cocoon and the gator watched him pump a load of cum into the vacuum, and then he finally looked away. He started the program and watched Matt’s rack roll deeper into the machine, and then, almost as an afterthought, unhooked the bracelet he’d worn everyday to remind him of the betrayal which had led him here and let it fall to the grimy metal floor of the machine. He wouldn’t need it after this was finished, and he hurried off down a corridor towards the end of the machine.

As he went, he passed hundreds of other people in the midst of standard transformations, however, as a Golden, Travis had a certain amount of freedom to experiment. He was still, technically, subordinate to the raptors, but concerning the fact that none of them could resist his eyes if he felt like it, none of them were really willing to contest him either. As a gator, he actually knew the workings of the machine better than the raptors, so even if he wasn’t in charge, the entire system would crumble without him and the other golden gators like him. The machine was massive, but he was still able to reach the exit before both Matt and Krista. Here, the cocoons were deposited, at this point the goo brittle and hard, the newly born lizards ripping their way out into their new lives, being directed to their training sessions in the hot tunnels beneath the surface of the earth. He only had to wait for a few minutes, before Krista–or rather, the massive raptor who Krista had become–slid out of the machine and hit the floor, the huge beast inside already starting to rip it’s way out with it’s long claws.

Travis stood back a few paces and admired his handiwork. The behemoth of a cock was especially stunning–it was a shame she hadn’t become a Golden like him, she would have made a spectacular general. Still, when it came to time to wipe clean the surface world she would destroy and slaughter a great many apes, he was certain. Beneath the goo, Krista flexed her muscles in both of her arms, and the goo shattered apart, scattering in every direction, and she started ripping the rest away and stood up, not quite steady, her thick tail forcing her to lean forward as she looked at her clawed hands, and then felt her rigid, scaled cock, somehow certain that something else should be there instead…but what? Her brain felt like mush–it just couldn’t seem to process much of anything, and when the gator walked up and started stroking her cock, she let out a hiss and shot a huge load of cum from her balls almost instantly.

They shared a gaze for a few moments, the gator telling her what to do, and what to expect, and a few minutes later, a second cocoon of goo slid out of the machine, and Travis hurried over to his brother. He wanted to be the first to see him, to see what he had done to him. Matt wasn’t much taller than he had been–and was quite short by gator standards, but he was much fatter, nearly a blob, and eager to see, Travis started ripping away the goo, freeing him, but as soon as Matt’s face was free, he could smell something he needed, something he wanted, and he slid out his long tongue and ran it along Travis’ thick inner thigh and up to his ass crack, shivering, the taste of the musky crack nearly making his small, two inch cock explode with cum. However, before Travis could indulge, he was thrown to one side as Krista stormed over, and rammed her huge cock into Matt’s long snout, snorting and bucking roughly, pumping cum down Matt’s throat, the gator swallowing it all down, and Krista just kept fucking. It was her purpose–or at least that’s what Travis had told her. To fuck, and fuck roughly, to use and abuse Matt to her heart’s content.

Travis freed the rest of Matt’s body, and Krista rolled the huge gator over onto his huge belly and started fucking his ass, the massive cock sliding in easily, and Travis simply stared into his brother’s eyes for a few minutes, making sure he fully understood his new role. He was a cumdump, the lowest of the low, meant to serve and please every other lizard in any way they demanded. He was too stupid to work on the machine, he was too weak to fight or even mine beneath the earth, and so he would be a slave, a urinal, a tongue to clean their sweaty bodies and reeking assholes, and he would love it, he would relish it. It’s all he’d ever wanted to do–it’s all he’d ever wanted to be.

It took Krista over ten loads to feel sated, and even then, her cock was still rock hard. She probably would have kept fucking if another raptor hadn’t gotten her attention, and directed her to follow him to a combat lesson. Travis enjoyed his brother for a few more minutes, and then compelled him to get up and follow Travis deeper into the mines. There were many gators down there, mining metal and coal and oil for the machine who would love a cumdump to abuse in the depths, and then, Travis would always know just where to find his brother, when he wanted to use him.

(br) Sorry about that. I should know better than discuss racism with a north american. In our society its not such touchy issue. Changing subject, you wrote a story in CYOC about a slob becoming an illiterate thug, in that story the loss of education didn´t seems like a punishment and the subject even became dominant and agressive. What were the erotic factor to you in tha story ? Did you enjoy the end result ?

Yeah, you know us North Americans.

*rolls eyes*

That CYOC TF would still fall into the punishment category, actually. The entire point of that story line is that Jake does things to the narrator which one can’t consent to, regardless of whether the narrator ends up liking the change or not. The determinate lies in the motive, not in the result. I’m a Kantian, not a Utilitarian.

It was April outside, but for Saint Nicholas, the days and nights had all blended together into one long jack off session, one long night, his arm aching, magazine pages stuck together with his cum, calling for another bottle of whisky from his elves, Marty and Timmy never batting an eye at his state, Santa too busy engrossed in his very naughty porn to even think about preparing for Christmas at this time of year. He was months behind–if the elves didn’t start up the toy production soon, they would never be ready in time, but then again, Marty had taken it upon himself to start getting the workshop up and running. Dildos, collars, harnesses, poppers, pipes, cigars, slings–everything for the naughty men of the world. Marty was tired of making toys–Marty wanted to fuck–and with his magic whisky, it seemed like Christmas was his for the taking.

That is, until he’d forgotten to deliver his whisky to Nicholas for a day, and a very hung over fat man, his body crusted with cum, stumbled out of his study, wondering what had come over him. No one was in the house, but the workshop lights were on–he threw on his coat and crossed the compound, entering the workshop, where he found his elves, leathered and rubbered up, crafting all of the sex toys any man could want, and he nearly screamed. He looked up and saw Marty on the upper level overseeing the workers, and glared at him, the elf’s face growing pale as he fled deeper into the factory.

“Marty? Marty!” Santa called, hurrying up the stairs and chasing after him, “What in the hell have you done!” He chased him down a hallway and into a dark room, where something slammed into the back of his head, and Santa crumpled to the floor, out like a light.

When he woke up half an hour later, the elves had been busy. He was in a small room in the bowels of the workshop, handcuffed, his hands pulled up high, and his usual red suit was gone–replaced by a red rubber singlet and a white leather harness, his cock exposed and rigid, connected to two tubes–one shoved up his ass, and the second down his throat.

“Guess I’m just going to have to keep you around here from now on, eh Santa?” Marty said, dressed in leather chaps and harness, Timmy next to him, collared and leashed with a gimp mask over his face.

Santa tried to speak, but couldn’t get anything out, especially after the thick, creamy substance started emptying from the tanks next to him into his guts and bowels. Some of it was the same whisky Marty had been feeding him for months now, but the cream was something else…it was…cum. He could read it on the side of the tanks, and he shuddered.

“Don’t worry Santa, we’ll have you addicted to all of our cum in a few days–then I’m sure you won’t be objecting to my new Christmas plans. In fact, by December, I’m sure you’ll be as excited as I am about all the toys you’ll be delivering to naughty boys around the world.”

Marty laughed and left the room, Santa struggling against the cuffs, the whisky already working against his mind. He had to do something–he had to try and save Christmas from Marty, that crazy, demented…sexy elf was going to ruin everything. Fuck, when Santa got his hands on him he’d…he’d fucking suck that cock of his, drain his elf balls of every drop of cum he could find…yeah…Marty had better watch his back–and that was his last thought before he fell back into his haze, gut bloated with cum, already excited for next Christmas to come around.

I know race is a touchy subject, but it’s always annoyed me how non-white people in erotic works are either completely excluded or forced into stereotypical roles. I’ve had first-hand experience, because I’m a Latino who used to roleplay but gave up because everyone wanted me to play as either a kidnapper/rapist/gangster or a servant/housekeeper even though my character was neither. Sorry for the rant.

No, that’s a totally fair rant, and that really sucks. Trust me, I’m really aware of just how white all of my captions are, and I apologize for that. I really need to work on finding a more varied collection of pics.

Could you say weight gain stories, including fan fiction, tend to be cliched in plot, setting, characterization, premise, etc.? And if so, what should be done?

Sure, I could, and would, say that. I would also say that the vast majority of genres are stuck in their own ruts as well. As for what should be done, seeing more pieces written from alternative perspectives would be nice, but that doesn’t really apply to weight gain stories, more to wider genres (Fantasy, Sci-Fi, etc.) As for this genre in particular, there are a few ways to make a piece which feels original.

1) You can utilize an interesting for of MacGuffin which hasn’t been used before. This is definitely the hardest one to use, because pretty much everything has been done before.

2) You can be very clever and original with your triggers, so that your description of the TF feels refreshing and new. This, again, is a lot harder than it would seem, especially for a subgenre like weight gain. How many different ways can you really describe someone growing heavier?

3) Lastly, and this is the one everyone forgets, you can remember that part of what we’re doing here is telling stories. The weight gain itself doesn’t have to be the centerfold–if you can make it serve a broader narrative, that more than anything will make a story feel original.