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ApolloImperium

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Posts posted by ApolloImperium

  1. Having experience with the military (having been in, two brothers currently serving along with my soon to be husband), if it was brought on by the recruiter, then it was a bad recruiter.

    Yes, the military requires you to be at a reasonable weight or BMI (yes, it is an either or), but that is because it is a physical job. Yes, a recruiter may tell someone that they would need to lose weight to join, but they would recommend it with a healthy diet and exercise. The military is VERY careful with recruits. In basic training, we were watched to ensure we ate correctly and we would be stopped to ensure that we hydrated well.

    So until something comes up otherwise, this is a one off with either a bad recruiter that doesn't deserve to be in the military or the person took it too far on their own. The only reason this is news is because it involved the military. If the person had decided to diet with out ever contacting a recruiter and died as a result, we wouldn't be hearing about this. Sensational media at it's best.

  2. Hey everyone! I should apologize - We didn't put news up last month and I'm a day late this month. Here's the thing though: Nothing's going on! The site is chugging along and there is no huge news that it's important to share. That being said, as my life is getting busier (Holidays, fiancee coming home, wedding, cross country move, school, etc) and the site is settling into nice steady groove, we've made a decision to only post the news when necessary. I'm shooting for a quick update every 3-4 months, but if there's not something going on, I won't take up your time or mine!

    As things come up we will make sure to keep you up to date and we will ensure that the donations page and moderation status is kept current.

    If you have any questions, please feel free to let us know!

  3. Money, mascara/eyeliner for touch ups, chapstick/lipstick, cell phone and the tiny toothbrushes. And if it's a blind/internet date? Mace! If I plan on getting laid, then I also make sure I have condoms, cause that's not just a guys responsibility.

    In terms of what makes a date good? For me it's having fun and being able to be myself.

  4. When we remove a user for registering while underage, there is no warning email sent, so you didn't miss anything. As the site is clearly labelled that you must be 18 years old to use it, people who break our biggest and most important rule are simply removed with no warning given.

    That being said, yes. Your stories are gone permanently.

  5. Them and their damn custom crap!

    My two cents:

    1) If you are an author, you have to use them to post a story. So if you can use them to post a story that you (I assume) want other people to review, then don't use the reCAPTCHA as an excuse as to why you don't leave a review.

    2) Yes, they are annoying. Yes, they suck. Yes, I hate it too. But I don't have anywhere near the number of staff needed to sweep the archive daily instead of weekly for spam etc and remove it, so it stays. As Rogue pointed out, refresh is always an option (Cause sometimes it takes a couple to find a decent one) or just C&P the review.

    Bottom line - the one we have is the best free option out there that has an audio option for our visually impaired users and doesn't require flash/java to use. If people want to pony up the several hundred dollars needed to get the best paid option that is a comparable in terms of stopping the spambots and has those features, please, let me know and we'll see what we can find!

  6. Ahhh, okay - Almost gave me a heart attack!

    Writing has always been an exception to most pornography laws because it's not 'real' people involved at least as far as I've read. It's a written description and not actual children doing actual acts. Though to ensure lines aren't crossed and to prevent possible legal issues, that's why we do not allow fiction involving real minors only fictional characters. In fact, despite many peoples dislike of fiction involving minors - I would much rather writing be that outlet than an actual child, so we continue to allow it.

    It doesn't appear it was the writing that initially got him in trouble, but the fact that he had pictures. Doing some digging, it looks like they were dismissed on an artistic merit aspect - basically because it was fictional in nature. While you are always free to post or not post, from what I've read up on we don't really have any legal issues from that aspect.

  7. I've actually met Sascha at Dragon*Con and spoken with him at length! Great guy, really knows his stuff, runs the BDSM 101 and 201 panels at D*C. He's amusing, funny and very open - You could honestly ask him anything and I doubt he'd hesitate longer than he needed to formulate a response before answering! Great opportunity!

  8. Well, my obvious response is to quote Mark Twain, "Write what you know." I don't believe the quote refers to specific first hand knowledge, but to knowledge in general found through resources. No historical novel or even non-fiction work can be done without research. Nor can a modern day novel, or for that matter a futuristic novel. Research is key. That is why you see so many author's notes that thank the people who help them research to bring a book alive.

    So my interpretation of the quote: If you do not know enough about a particular setting, even after research, to feel comfortable writing a description that transports the reader then you shouldn't be writing it. Google has more than enough information on any given topic that an author with enough time and effort (that is if they truly care about the outcome of their product) should be able to have enough details to write a description without naming it. In fact, that was one of the first challenges posed by an old creative writing instructor - Write a 1,000 word minimum story about a location and do not reveal the location until the final paragraph, but preferably the final sentence. We were graded on if the teacher was able to figure it out or not and how long it took her.

    It is an excellent exercise and one that I have long recommended to people that struggle with description. It truly makes you stop and consider the sensory input of a location: The low murmur of people talking, the clatter of utensils on plates, scents so rich that you can taste them when you enter, etc. If you struggle writing a description, stop writing and put yourself there mentally. Scribble down what you may see, what you hear, what you feel, what you taste, what you smell as you experience them in your fantasy and then incorporate those details. Will some of it have to be imagined because you've never physically been in one? Sure - But I'm sure you've also been in enough restaurants to have enough of a general sensory input that you can fill in the blanks.

  9. Where do I begin? I was going to start out with some humor, saying the site shut down due to lack of readers reviewing stories, but figured that it was a bad joke and wouldn't go over well... Oh wait, I just said it anyway, didn't I? :rofl: No, really it wasn't that, but our authors always love their reviews, so if you are enjoying being able to read again, please make sure you also review!!!

    First off, I want to thank all of our users who commented via FB and supported us during the last 24+ hours. It was a very harrowing experience for us, as I'm sure it was for you, and having you guys behind us supporting us made the difference. The fact that you were all behind us as we worked hard to get the site back up made a very stressful day a little less stressful. I honestly can't express in mere words how extraordinarily grateful I am for everyone's patience and kind words! Once again, you've shown we truly do have the best users out there. My love goes out to you all!

    Secondly, I apologize and would like to explain what happened. This never should have happened, we recognize that and take full responsibility for it. It was our bad. The last time we renewed the domain, we renewed it for 5 years. As things happen, times change, email addresses change and log in information gets lost. As such, we did not get any renewal notices about the domain expiring and it honestly slipped from our minds until the site went down out of nowhere yesterday morning.

    I was first notified about 11:00ish and it took me a few to confirm as I was one of the users that because of how funky DNS can be didn't have any issues. Once I confirmed it, I started making calls. GoDaddy takes customer privacy VERY seriously (as they should...) and wouldn't let me even pay the bill with out being able to confirm I was who I was. It was extremely frustrating and even a supervisor couldn't/wouldn't override it. Though I have to say, I'm very proud of myself as I didn't yell or cuss them out once... while the line was live!

    Long story short, since the form I filled out to get the information updated could take up to 3 days to hear back on, DemonGoddess and I made the decision to purchase an alternate domain for the time being and she started working on the tedious process of changing the hundreds of files needed to make sure everything links correctly. Normally, we should've been back running in a few hours, but because apparently Murphy was having a bad day, things went wonky and we had to get Nexcess involved. As we were in the process of fixing those errors, we finally were able to get the domain renewed. We did wait a bit, just to confirm it was back up 100% and then we had to go back through and put everything back to how it was! Talk about time consuming!!!

    At the time that I'm writing this, we are 99% operational. If you are experiencing errors, please make sure you have cleared your cache and cookies. If that hasn't resolved your issues, please be patient. DNS may be a bit wonky the next few days and cause a handful of errors, plus there are a couple of files that are still misdirecting and causing issues accessing a few sub-domain/archives. I know it's not the best experience when things don't work, but we are working to restore the site 100% as quickly as possible.

    Just as a warning, if you are experiencing issues still, please understand that until we know the site is back up 100% we will be referring users back to this news post. Once we are sure that the site is functional, we will at that point troubleshoot as normal! I will post here and on Facebook when we know!

    Again, thank you for the support and patience!

    Apollo & DemonGoddess

    [Edit] No data was lost, this was merely a domain issue, not a server issue. We will also be extending a 3 day grace period to any users who received their first warning about an issue due to the problems we had.

  10. The glasses is a good idea cause as Kera said, it's highly unlikely that the amount of alcohol needed to blur vision would allow appropriate functioning of most men.

    You could also flip the genders and have the woman be the one with blurry vision as it's a tad easier for women to get into it while drunk than men. I know when I get drunk, unless I'm pass out drunk, I have no issue with wanting sex or my body responding correctly, but I do need to keep an eye on my guy when we are drinking if I want sex... Too much and he's useless!

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