Hey, @Lytcom--I've had a sudden spike in home/work requirements on my time so I'm behind! I'll probably not have anything to post until the new year, since I'm doing a holiday exchange on top of it all, but I'm hopeful that I will get some time. Thanks for checking in--it helps me keep my own enthusiasm up to know that people are interested in things continuing.

@S. Q. Neemie Take all the time you need! Seconding that i am highly anticipating the next chapter whenever it may come out :)

@boi98229 I can understand that. I can definitely work on making the description stronger so there's a more accurate sense of what to expect. It can be frustrating to get exciting about a premise, only to feel as though you didn't read what you were expecting. I really appreciate the feedback, and I'll add it into my stories in the future!

@boi98229 I think one of the things that a lot of authors are still figuring out (and only recently at that) is that it's best to just lay everything out in the short description, to not be coy or try to tempt people. That way you get the people reading your story who will most enjoy it and it helps avoid the experience you just had, where it seems up your alley but really isn't. It's actually quite hard to force yourself to do that, but others have remarked that it's been helpful to them so I offer it up again. One source of confusion that might have caused an issue in this case is the overlap between category and tag. The tags I added (specifically brainwash) overlap with the categories. Every story has to have a category, one of: Alien, Brainwash, Drugged, Freeze, Hypnosis, Pheromone, Power and Magic, Reality Change, Reprogramming, Transformation. In addition to this category (which can be viewed as the central kink theme of the story) are the content tags. Content tags aren't meant to imply that the story revolves around them, merely that these aspects are present. The tags are important not just to spark the interest of people who are into that, but importantly also to let people avoid content that will be upsetting or off-putting to them. In this case, the story is of the Transformation category, and I think it is a perfectly reasonable and straightforward transformation story. It does have hypnotic and brainwashing elements, so these were tagged. However, they are not central to the story as you noted. They are accessories only, part of the narrative to get to the payoff which is the transformation into a body builder. Occasionally people here act as though hypnosis stories are the only ones that they should be finding here, and seem annoyed at stories that don't focus on this (not accusing you of this). So I do think it's worth reminding people from time to time that there are several categories of stories permitted here at Spiral and hypnosis is merely one of them.

@amul @boi98229 I changed a bit of the story description and added an author's note at the beginning regarding the tags. The two Secret Santa tags I got are "forced" and "muscle growth." The intent was for hypnosis to serve as a means to an end, in this case to help force muscle growth. It doesn't change the fact that thinking you're going to get one product and not receiving it is annoying, so I'm hoping these edits can help clarify for other prospective readers.

@TheWalkingAlive Thanks! Me too... *evil smirk*

@Dace Thanks, man!

Thanks @burntoutmilk! I enjoy your stories too!