@Nutiper Wow! Thanks for all the kind words and the in-depth review (and you're right, I definitely have a weakness for Chronivac-style reality changing stories) -- your generous comments made my day. I was getting a little worried that Gay Spiral wasn't the best fit for this story, or that it was just too ridiculous; I was thinking of moving on to other projects. I'd love to hear any thoughts you have about better summaries/tags or future installments!

@bluesuedewho Oh personally I think GSS is a *great* fit — frankly I love your story's humor and inventiveness, and a lot of my favorite stories on this site are funny and playful in a similar way. And I hope you do keep writing more if you feel inclined to. I'm *really* enjoying what I've read so far! I have a lot of thoughts on tagging, and they might take up a lot of words. I'll do my thoughts on summaries first. I think that your playful deadpan summaries for each individual chapter work great for the individual-chapter level. But I've found that, for my own stories, the main "series" summary is where I usually want to be as *blatant* as I can. Nothing coy. I've learned to just spell it out as direct as I can. I'll summarize my story's core sexy concept in as straightforward (and sexy) a way as I can manage, spoilers be damned, because *that* will make people intrigued. And it'll entice them into reading the story fully, curious to see how my sexy concept comes into play. (And by series summary, I mean the summary at the very top of this page: https://www.gayspiralstories.com/series/show/10000706 You can edit that however you want, without needing approval from the mods, which is great and useful. Instant edits! It's nice.) For this story, I think the most "core" of the several sexy concepts is the oblivious changes being done to Charley by the hot buff aliens (with Charley's new body being a close, related second sexy concept). Oh, and I guess it's important that the aliens are just these muscular confident gym gods wearing snapbacks and crop tops, because that gives a huge, fun "bro" vibe to the story. (Very different mental image to say "I got abducted by hunky gym-bro aliens" than to say "I got abducted by Area 51 aliens" — I mean, your aliens are *hot!* So it'd be great to hint at that somehow, too.) So a potential alternative "series" summary could maybe look something like... > Charley is totally straight. So when he gets abducted by a bunch of laid-back, muscular alien hunks who insist it's natural for humans to obsess over servicing big cocks, he knows they're deluded. And yet, every time he feels that strange tingle in his head, he starts seeing things a bit different... and fantasizing about their dicks... and jerking off while imagining blowing them... Not that they're changing him, right? He's always been this way! This omits the new-body aspect entirely, but I think that's *okay* for a summary. It's fine to not give everything away, and it is also hard to explain the new-body idea in a short summary. And mostly, I'm just thinking, will the summary capture the main vibe? I want people to be able to correctly imagine the story they're about to read, based on the summary — because that will get them to click. Also, there's a bonus to having a good series summary, which is that each time you update with a new chapter, it'll post to the front page with the series summary underneath your individual chapter summary (aka, just based on how the site works). So if your series summary is *really* strong and enticing, people will see it and be intrigued. It'll get them to click on your story just based on that alone, even when there are multiple chapters already. It pays dividends, I think. (And I'll share my thoughts on tags in a separate comment.)

@bluesuedewho And now, thoughts about tags (and sorry that I am literally dumping mini-essays into your comments! I hope this is helpful, at least, and not too annoying!) Tags are weird because people use them not just to tag for searchability, but also to indicate what the story is about, almost as much as the summary. And a lot of readers will look at tags in this way, too. So, effective tagging is often: #1. concise and focused (aka, sometimes using less tags will make your story stand out more, since the tags you *do* use will feel more prominent and important) #2. aware of expectations (aka, though many tags are technically just descriptive tags, they also come with expectations of what type of story a reader will find if that tag is used) I'll go a little more into #2, since I think that part is trickier, and also not always intuitive. A quick example is the "reprogramming" tag. *Technically* this is a fine tag for what's happening in the story — Tyzon is using some advanced alien technology to slyly implant new desires and sensations into Charley without Charley noticing it's happening. Unfortunately this tag is also heavily associated with mind-wipe stories and drone/slave stories, and that literally could not be further from what your story is about. As @gaybird put it, a great aspect of the story is how Charley remains himself — just, a gayer and sluttier version of himself. So "reprogramming" might be turning away folks who would actually be excited to read about Charley's adventures, since it's a tag that often describes something very different. Another example is the "smallcock" tag. It usually indicates a story where penis shrinkage is central, and often there's humiliation too, for folks with a humiliation kink. So, someone seeing that tag on your story might get a misleading impression of what it contains, and they might avoid the story if humiliation and cock shrinkage aren't for them. But in fact, neither of those things are really present in what you wrote. It's just that the protagonist is in a new body, and one which is both shorter and less hung than his old one. But he never gets too bothered by it, and it's not such a focus of the chapters. If anything, twinkification is more the focus, really. (Relatedly: I once considered whether to tag a story I wrote with "rimmng" because it had a very brief rimming scene. I decided not to, because I realized that for rimming fans, that moment would be *way* too short to justify the tag. And, if I tagged the story with "rimming", it would exist on equal footing with all my other tags — many of which were far more important and central in describing the story. So I left "rimming" out because I didn't want to dilute the focus of my chosen tags.) Honestly, even "category" can be tricky. Meaning, some folks could possibly get a misleading idea about the story just by seeing it in the main "category" of "Alien". (This is really ironic, I know, I know...) This is because "Alien" as a main category (versus just a normal tag) often summons images of Venom-style symbiotes, or Area 51 probes, or assimilation, or invasion, or HR Giger stuff... Your aliens are so *fun* and *unique*, and also they are total bros and gym bunnies, and it is so appealing? It's also not what I'd usually expect when clicking through the "Alien" category. In a way, your story *might* fit better in the "Transformation" category, with "alien" as just one of the tags, because the focus of the story is almost more on that... Though I'm not sure about that, I'm just kinda musing aloud. I'd even wonder about adding "bro" as a tag, honestly, because readers who are into buff easygoing bros will absolutely be into your gym buddy aliens, who are essentially bros from space. But I'm kinda talking around the main point, which is: I think that a good summary is way more powerful than tags. You don't need to stress out about tags if the summary is lifting its weight. In terms of how they draw in interested readers, the tags are good at adding to the summary, and filling in details on what kind of kinks readers can expect to find inside. But if your summary is already describing how the aliens are playing with Charley's mind, then seeing "reprogramming" as a tag won't make people think of mindwipe stories. And if your summary mentions how your aliens are these fun buff sexy bros, then seeing the "Aliens" category won't make anyone picture HR Giger aliens, because they'll know what you mean. I do think there are unintentional impression that tags-without-clear-summaries can give readers, but honestly... *Everyone* tags a little differently. Everyone interprets tags differently too. Some people don't even look at tags at all when clicking on a story to read. In the end: tag in the way that feels most intuitive and correct to you. I'm sharing this overlong spiel in case it's helpful to read, but please do treat it as "information about how one single person on this site thinks about tags", *not* as hardcore advice. If reading this makes you think "wait, this has convinced me that I want to keep all my tags and categories exactly as I have them", then you should *absolutely* do that, and I'll be glad to see it! It is your story, and your tags — and no one else's!

@Nutiper Thanks for all the thoughts and suggestions! Definitely helpful -- I really appreciate the time and effort you put into explaining things. I took your advice and added a clearer series summary and lightly pruned some of the tags that either didn't apply or just barely applied.

I understand where you're coming from, but he's one of the best writers on the site and literally said at the beginning "Another short typed on my phone, so forgive the typos!" at the beginning. He doesn't need spelling/grammar help and told us upfront that there would probably be typos. @astrologus

@Offeringservice26 you're absolutely right. i was even going to remark that seeing his name come up the other day gave me much joy. Please disregard. I skipped right over the disclaimer to get into the juicy story. My apologies.