The Seven Year Retrospective #9 - On the Road to Victory (Patreon)

Happy Friday, folks! This has been my first work on my summer vacation from work (one of the rare perks of being a teacher) so I've had some more writing time this week which has been great. We're not here to talk about new writing though, we're here to talk about the stories I've put out over the last seven years of my TF fiction writing career, and this entry comes in at number eight on the Retrospective Top Twenty!

Out of all of the stories in the Top Twenty so far I'd probably say that this one is probably the most underappreciated gem of my work. Is that egotistical to say? Yes, it quite possibly is, but oh well, every writer is allowed to be proud of their work. "On the Road to Victory" was actually the longest transformation story I'd written at the time of its release in November 2019 at four-thousand and six-hundred words (that's since been surpassed by the recent "Sensitivity Training" which is a mammoth twelve-thousand words and would definitely have been on this list had it been written before I compiled the top twenty!) and features my personal favourite WWE wrestler (himself a hidden gem) Buddy Murphy.

I floated around the concept of writing a body swap story involving Murphy as early as April last year, when I put up this poll to let patrons decide who the lucky culprit was going to be. Four of the five options actually got a fair amount of traction but it was the "scrawny wrestling fan obsessed with Buddy's beautiful fiancée" choice that eventually won with nine votes. My own vote actually went towards the first option ("an overweight backstage employee who Buddy makes a habit of tormenting on a regular basis") although I liked all five of the choices so I would have been happy no matter which of them won. 

Like many of my body swap stories, I included an element of language change to isolate the character whose body had been stolen and create a barrier to prevent him from seeking help to restore himself. You can't make the switch back too easy, that takes all the fun out of it! The massive difference in size and strength between these characters aded a nice role reversal element too and seeing the confident and powerful Murphy reduced to a crying wreck was an image that got me going too so of course I had to include it!

Did Buddy deserve it? Probably not, but as much as I proclaim to be a sweet-hearted soul, I do also like my body swaps to have a streak of wickedness! It's certainly not the only one of its ilk that you'll see on this list and there are more higher up as well.

See you next time for #7!