What IS FMG?
Part 1 of FMG Theory by MagnusMagneto
By MagnusMagneto
It’s going to be a short piece, and will say some things that most of you will say “well, duh!” but I think it stands to be reiterated, and could potentially open up some avenues for discussion.]
In simplest terms, FMG is an acronym for Female Muscle Growth. It typically pertains to stories, art, and occasionally other media in which a female grows muscles. FMG, for many, is a fetish; that is to say, the common reader thoroughly and deeply enjoys the concept of a woman becoming more powerful. For others, it may be a novelty, something interesting/funny to read, or a personal power fantasy (a woman may imagine herself AS the growing girl – similar to a male power fantasy).
That’s the easy part of this write-up.
The thing is, there are many stories that fall into the FMG reader’s circle of interest in which a woman doesn’t grow muscle at all. For instance, a story in which a woman obtains superpowers while maintaining the same or similar body type, could be very well-liked by FMG fans. Many FMG fans are also fans of Giantess or Breast Expansion stories. Another example: some FMG readers may devour a tale in which a woman simply becomes a super genius, or gains extraordinary wealth and abstract power. On the contrary, some readers ONLY want to consume media with explicit muscle growth. Muddling things even further, many websites that host FMG stories are chock full of stories with no growth at all! They’re simply tales showcasing a woman using her strength in various ways.
So what is the cause of this disconnect? What IS FMG really?
A few years ago, if you asked me that question, I would explain that those with the FMG fetish simply want to imagine women becoming greater than they are. That they are intrigued by any form of feminine improvement, and muscles are simply a primal visual indicator of physical prowess.
Today however, I have a very different answer: FMG is many different things to many different people. For me, personally, it is what I would have stated a few years ago. I think that for many of my readers, due to the nature of my stories, this holds true. Within this circle, I am somewhat (in)famous for granting height, intelligence, beauty, and sometimes even supernatural abilities to many of my female characters in addition to copious amounts of muscle.
Another writer however, may opt to keep their story extremely realistic – their female character will grow at a rate that’s actually possible in real life, plateauing at the same time that an actual woman would. Another may simply have their main character chug a potion that turns them into a 10 foot tall behemoth with 50 inch biceps. GBM/Up2NoGd1 for example takes this to levels that are dimensionally impossible; some of his girls flexing up arms that literally contain miles of muscle. Another writer, such as MarkNew, may write a novel-length story where the growth scenes are few and far between, and the real meat is the exploration of morality and different social structures. Yet another writer, such as MrGreyMan may pen a tale in which a character becomes a goddess that can devour galaxies of souls to fuel her ascension.
Some writers create saintly women who end up bettering the lives of everyone around them. Others write wicked and cruel women who literally kill innocents to display their strength. Most will fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum.
I suppose that the real point is, as I said before: FMG is many different things to many different people. There is no right or wrong way to write one of these stories. Some will complain that there is a lack of creativity, that the entire genre is too formulaic and tired. I strongly disagree. I think that there is a nearly limitless number of situations, permutations, and possibilities. Even when you write the same storyline twice you can have drastically different results. I would know, as my Mother Knows Best and Mother Knows Best Rebirth (a remake) series have mostly the same characters, same setting, same scenarios; yet, in my opinion, they play out and read very differently.
Perhaps the greatest strength to this genre and fetish is its sheer potential for diversity. Yes, in order to be a truly literal FMG story, a woman must grow at least some muscles. In order to appeal to most FMG fans, she has to be improved in some manner… yet there are so many different ways a story can be approached like this.
You can take almost any story, then alter the growing woman(women)’s morality, and rewrite it into a completely different tale. Take one of my most popular series: Big Things Come in Small Packages – if the main character, Jennifer, was a cruel, wicked girl, that story would have been extraordinarily different. If she were more selfish, and had no intentions of trying to better the world, once again it’d be quite different.
You can alter aspects other than just morality too. With the aforementioned BTCISP, if, for instance, Jennifer grew significantly taller while she was young, reaching 6+ feet of height, the entire dynamic of that story would change.
Better yet, the fanbase for that story would shift dramatically too. Different people would come to like the series, and some current fans would hate it if these different variables were altered.
SO, at risk of running too far off tangent, I’ll try to summarize my main points and include a few others:
– To be a literal FMG story, a girl must grow muscles. The genre is called “female muscle growth”.
– There is no hard definition of how much a girl must grow. She could simply hit the gym for six months and get realistic results, or she could become bigger than the planet, or anything in between (or even above/below these extremes)
– Height growth, intelligence gain, beautification, super powers, etcetera; these things are not required to be in a story, but are often included to varying degrees.
– There can be any number of growing or even shrinking persons, regardless of gender. All there technically needs to be is at least one girl who grows muscle.
– A great deal of FMG fans however will still enjoy a story in which a girl improves in other ways. For instance, a story in which a girl gains superman’s powers will still be enjoyable for many FMG readers. These stories technically aren’t FMG (unless she gains muscles in the process).
– Other fans however, will be completely content with a story in which a girl doesn’t improve whatsoever, and simply shows off her tremendous capabilities. These stories, while they are accepted on most site with female-muscle oriented stories, are not technically FMG.
Okay, that’s it for now. I may later discuss some subgenres of FMG like transfer and whatnot, though I think my next installment of this series will be something a little more meaty and interesting.
Let me know what you think about the format, keeping in mind that the next topic will be more discussion-worthy.
Feel free to tell me your thoughts on what I’ve written here. Do you agree? Disagree? Am I flat out wrong? If so, why?
Until next time,
– Magnus