EveKnight75

I know, I know... typical question, boring topic. Still, I want to know. Which TV shows do you like to watch? Which fandoms do you frequent? Which ones do you write fics about? So far, I've written for the Brady Bunch. I also read Buffy/Angel, Lizzie McGuire (but I don't watch it because I hate Duff), Xena, Friends, and That 70's Show, off the top of my head. I also frequent other fandoms at random as a passing fancy. This includes 8 Simple Rules, 7th Heaven, Smallville, Sabrina, X-Files, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (again off the top of my head). Right now, I'm interested in Life with Derek. My sister likes the show and I can see why. It's a less demented, more realistic, and plain funnier version of the Brady Bunch, in some ways. What I mean is that both shows run on the same concept of adjusting to life in a combined family and dealing with the stereotypical lifestyle of the other gender. I think the creep-factor parallel lies in the sexual chemistry/tension between teen stepsibs Casey and Derek. I thought it was my sick mind, but apparently a lot of people who watch the show have noticed it, including my 12-year-old sister and her friends. Stepcest being one of my fanfic fetishes, I thought "why not?", ambled over to the unmentionable site, clicked the link, and confirmed that I am not alone in that specific observation. Nearly every fic is Dasey (Derek/Casey). Enough about me. What about you? And remember, it doesn't have to be just adult material. I mean all fics in general, as long as it could count as a TV show if the category were here on AFF.

Anime. I just don't get it. I don't mean the animation style(s). Most of them are pretty good. I mean every other aspect, like the plot, characterization, voice-acting, progression, etc. I find most animes mind-numbingly boring because they tend to be repetitive and just don't make any sense to me. The saddest part is that they can't use the pathetic "children have short attention spans" excuse. Many animes are not geared towards young children, but rather teens and adults. Anime.

I got my first cellphone at 18, I always take it out, but I rarely use it. Not all of us young 'uns are cell-obsessed. Even then, I usually end up getting important calls. That is, if someone suffering a hypoglycemia attack during a charity fast and me being the only one on campus who's diabetic and knows how to deal with hypoglycemia that the organizer knows of and has the cellphone number for counts as an emergency. (I hate run-on sentences.) I agree with everyone else about using cellphone etiquette. That's why I picked Depends. My high school would confiscate a student's cellphone if the student chose to answer it in class. The teachers understood that sometimes someone forgets to turn it off. If the phone rings, at least the student had the good grace to look sheepish, switch to vibrate, and get back to the calls after class. Honestly, that's what the students should do. Don't turn it off because then you can't receive any calls. However, put it on vibrate, miss the calls in class, then call back during lunch or right after school. If it's a family member, then call once class lets out, because it's likely an emergency and the call will only take 5 minutes, which is how long it takes to go from one class to the next. The problem is, that most high school students aren't responsible enough. My last year of high school, everyone received a contract at the beginning of the year on cellphone use and etiquette (a detailed one). Those who signed were held to it, but some kept answering the phone in class anyway. They had their phones confiscated immediately and their parents/guardians were called over. The phone was returned to the parents rather than the student. If the student was an independent, the student would receive the cellphone, but receive a harsher probation than the dependent students. I think it was an excellent idea and a good exercise in learning about contracts and cellphone etiquette (which is very important in today's world). I just hope it works out in the end.

Actually, that clears things up a lot. Thanks. The truth is, there are times when I get fed up with the stereeotypes. The worst part is when people randomly come up and start asking me about my experiences with gangsters, or some idiot blames all the crime in the U.S. on N.Y.C alone. We New Yorkers are unique folk, but we lead normal lives. Any poem that can reflect both of those aspects is a good one.

I am a New Yorker peering at this in confusion. Just how does this relate to New York City? I mean, I guess I can see how it relates to the untrue stereotypes, but not how it relates to New York as it truly is.

What I'm wondering is when the men's rights movement is going to occur. Let's stick to North American society for now. In general, women have gained equal rights. It doesn't matter whether they're housewives or career women, whether they're aggressive or nurturing, they're all generally accepted by society. But the same can't be said for men. If a man is meticulous about his appearance, nurturing, and enjoys hanging out with kids, he's likely to be considered gay or put under scrutiny. Why? It's more serious than that. They can be disadvantaged in certain legal areas. In most cases, the mother gets prime custody of the children after a divorce no matter how qualified the father is. Men usually lose cases where they claim to be abused by their wives, or have admitted to being raped by a woman (and yes, it is possible). It doesn't sit right with me. We've established a society where a woman can be any way she wants to be and it's considered acceptable. When the same applies to a man within the same society, then and only then can we have an equal society. What we really need to do is destroy the concept of gender roles altogether and just accept people as they are without assumption, whether it's a stay-at-home single dad or a career-driven woman who's impatient with children.

I feel for you. Truly I do. I've experienced the same problem. Just now, I've managed to get it back on track, but I'm on vacation on the other side of the ocean AND my sister has appendicitis. That means I don't get much time at my laptop even though I know what to write (finally!). I'm letting my sister watch DVDs on it while she's hospitalized. She's 12, staying in the hospital by herself, hooked up to an IV, and trying to communicate with the doctors in a language she's uncomfortable speaking. I'm trying to give her some small measure of comfort. Now to help you. First of all, write out the general progressive storyline and save it. This will clear your mind for a bit. Now, re-read what you've posted so far. Something should come. If not, start re-typing the last chapter from the middle. It establishes a flow. If that doesn't work, leave it alone for a while, and don't force yourself to come back to it. For me, the main problem was that I had everyrhing planned out in my head, but the specifics were still unclear. No matter what, the specific details and words wouldn't come even though I had a general idea of what was going to happen next. Once I wrote out the general progressive storyline, it wasn't stuck there anymore. When I re-read the chapters on the site, I detached myself from the writer. Then when I started re-typing the latest posted part, the flow came. The last time, it didn't. I decided to come back months later and try it again. This time, it worked. The trick was, I didn't read the general progreesive storyline that I had typed up before. I was playing round-robin with myself. Sometimes, planning everything out in advance can be a hindrance. You know what's going to happen next, and you force yourself to make that specific thing happen, because it's at the forefront of your mind. Don't do that. Organization is good, but not to the point that it's rigid. Creativity is about flexibility. Don't abandon what you've planned out, but you have to forget it while you're writing. Let the words come as they will. Maybe the end result will be what you had planned. Maybe not. Maybe it'll be better.

Back to the original question: Oddly enough, I have had sexual dreams where I was a man. I would either be doing another man or a woman. I actually woke up from most of those dreams aroused, so I think I must have felt some physical sensation throughout the dream. I've also had non-sexual dreams where I was a man. Sometimes I retain my own personality. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes it's certain factors but not others. As for physical appearance, I've only turned into the male version of myself once. Usually, I look similar to one of my cousins or not like me at all. The closest I've ever come in real life is playing a male role in a school play. I have PCOS and decided to not treat my facial hair for a few months. I was really self-conscious when going out in public, but now I'm a lot more self-confident and the physical aspects of PCOS don't bother me as much anymore. It was a valuable experience. I also have premonitive dreams. If something is going to go wrong with a future trip, I usually dream about it before it happens. If something bad is going to happen to someone close to me, it'll come in a dream. It's freaky, but I've never had any of these dreams go wrong. I think that it's a combination of being intuitive and naturally obervant. ---------------- My latest weird dream: I'm sleeping over at my uncle's mansion, and only one of my cousins is there that night. I'm a tourist over 18 with ID, so a hotel sells me alcohol. We drink but we remain sober. Later, we're tired and we go to sleep on his bed, because we both have a cuddling problem. The cuddling turns into play-wrestling, and eventually we have really hot sex. All right, then. This uncle is actually my dad's cousin, who was adopted by my paternal grandfather, so he and my dad were practically brothers. This means said cousin is technically my first cousin by law but my second cousin by blood. He's hot, he thinks I'm hot. Tourists and foreigners-in-residence can drink in this country as long as they're 18, but for natives it's illegal. He and I are the same age, and we have slept in the same bed, cuddled, and play-wrestled. HOWEVER, there is nothing sexual going on between us. We rarely get to see each other in person because we live on opposite sides of the planet, but we're good friends who are comfortable discussing pretty much anything. Now the question is, should I tell him about this dream? It's repeating itself, so I can't dismiss it that easily.

Thanks for pointing that out. It's kinda ironic that I forgot to add that to the list because I frequent that site myself.

Becky, Becky, Becky. Don't you realize that yelling at these women that their brains are deformed won't help your case any? You sound like one of those women who yell at models for being skinny or at busty women for having big boobs. You sound like you're just jealous. Sounding like a jealous, ranting lunatic instead of arguing a point rationally just makes you sound like an idiot and adversely encourages women to go through with the procedure. Granted, it is fucked up and there must be something unusual going on in their minds, but really, Becky darling, you simply must state your point more eloquently...

Umm... you're welcome? My long posts tend to frighten rather than inspire, so I guess I'm glad that it actually helped you. Good morning, dear. (And I say morning because your username indicates someone nocturnal).

I'm actually aware of the political situation in Mexico. God knows I have enough Mexican friends ranting about the corruption there and about how they hate having to deal with it when they go back home. No, I meant that Mexico has a sane rep in that the average folk are known for being relatively sane. Pakistan's rep is divided that way too - the people are OK but the gov't is a huge prob.

Does anyone believe that Dubya has another brain cell that would come up with the idea of trying to create a third presidential term, and yet another to actually pull it off? If the answer to the second part of that question is no, then I'm not that worried. I wasn't able to vote last time (my age), but I will next time. And I'll do it from safe and boring Canada while drudging on with my post-secondary studies, which is considerably more affordable than the States. And I won't vote for Jeb Bush, if the rumors about him running for the position are true. Now I shall go off to scare people. I got my Canadian citizenship yesterday, so now I can prance around in the streets with my American passport in one hand and my Canadian citizenship certificate in the other, and show the world that I'm officially twice as crazy as the rest of North America (Mexico has a sane reputation).

For me, it depends on the other elements of the scene. I have to consider the time, the setting, and the situation. I have to consider the characters involved. What about their personalities and sexual experience in general as well as with the other person/people/thing (you never know!)? What about the nature and degree of the sexual act, and the underlying circumstances? Different scenes call for different vocabulary. Avoidance is a good technique, and one of my favorites, but it's not always the most effective. On the other hand, there are times that I use vocabulary that I would normally wince at. If it's the best fit for the situation or what the character would say/think, then that's what I'll use. I'm going to save DarkVampWriter's list to my hard-drive and password-protect it. I can add it to the research notes I have on male masturbation scenes.

LONG POST AHEAD! You know those anthologies that are by kids, for kids? I've been published in those, so I'm guessing that I'm not a completely crappy writer. I've also managed to win a few large-scale creative-writing competitions, so that's gotta count for something. However, I'm not going to kid myself. I've got a long way to go when it comes to developing my creative writing skills as an adult. Whatever I've done so far is all well and good for a teen, but soon I won't be a teen in the loosest sense of the term. I think that fanfiction is an excellent way to develop those skills. If you take it seriously, you'll be able to go a long way when it comes to your own abilities concerning settings, plots, character development, etc. In fact, I think the main complexity lies in developing the material your own way while remaining respectful to the original material and its author. Fanfiction also gives you an extremely mild taste of what it's like to share your work with an unknown audience. Emphasis on mild. The problem is often in the reviews. A lot of people hand out gushing praise left and right, but it's honestly not a good indicator of how well you're doing. Same applies to flamers. Concrit is the only thing that's somewhat dependable, but it's also rare. The people in publishing houses who check the transcripts are professionals, They're very harsh. They are individuals that have personal tastes when it comes to literature, but in order to do their job properly, they have to shut off that part of them and look at everything objectively. Part of being "objective" is nit-picking every newbie equally. My advice would be to grow metallic armor. You could be someone who has been a story-teller his/her entire life, have an impeccable grasp of your language, and believe yourself to posess a rhino hide, but don't be surprised if a thousand different publishers shoot you down. They're good at making authors cry. I'm sure that you've put a lot of serious thought into pursuing this line of work as your main profession. Please tell me that you have. Because if you haven't, shame on you. If you're 99% sure about this, then go ahead. Work hard on one specific piece. In order to have a chance, you need something unique and of high quality. Once that goes through and sells successfully, you can submit some of your older pieces. That first publication would be the initial launch. If it works out, you can relax about what you write afterwards. It doesn't mean you can ever slack off, but there can be room for stress relief. I suggest cultivating one specific storyline and working on it for a long time. Triple-check it yourself for technical errors, as well as any plot holes and rough spots. If there's something that just doesn't flow, try to fix it without straying too far from the original vision. Once you've cleaned it up as much as you can, have someone you trust look over it. Make sure it's someone who you know will be an honest critic, as well as someone who won't ever try to steal your work (and I mean this in the least egotistical way possible). If the story is aimed towards a specific demographic, get someone from that group to check it as well. I once wrote a story aimed at 5-year-olds, so I got my sister to check it for me, because she was in a program at her school where she helped teach the kindergarteners how to read. The program involved story-time sessions, so she got permission to read the draft to a small group after simplifying the language. After getting their input, I added better pictures and a mini-glossary. That story went on to win a creative writing contest aimed at material for kids aged 4-6. I just used the above incident to illustrate what I mean. I was writing for a specific age demographic that I wasn't too familiar with any longer, so I got someone who was familiar with that demographic to look over it, and more importantly, received feedback from the demographic itself. I feel that the storytime session made a huge difference in the quality. So yeah. I'm not a professional by any means, but that's the best advice I can give. My great-uncle is actually a published playwright and has won critical acclaim for his work. A lot of this advice is from him to me to you. I may not know much about the business, but I'm pretty sure he does. If you want to find honest critics online while remaining anonymous, my favorite is the "In Progress" section at GAFF. The site is undergoing renovations and is down half the time, but it's still a good place to go because the members are literary critics by their very nature, and some of them are professional authors or have gone through the process many times and know what to expect..

My female cousins and I would like to invite Dominic Shade to join our family. She most certainly fits the requirements. Seriously though, most of the women in our family are short, busty, and extremely intelligent. Some are petite, some are a bit on the broad side. Comments include: - Never in all my medical career have I encountered a theory so ridiculous. - Last I checked, our species were full of quirks. Why's this one so special? - Men. No matter what, they're obsessed with breasts. - We're evolutionally unique. So is the platypus. This guy'd be better off with the platypus. - Lemme get this straight: it's an anomaly to be intelligent and busty at the same time? Something's very wrong with all of us. - Did he not factor in the Indian subcontinent or something? - Remind me again why I'm straight? - Apparently my studies on human evolution weren't in-depth enough, because I just don't follow. And there's a lot of other comments along those lines. The last one is passing it on to some of her colleagues and old buddies from university. All of them would like to thank taker for this find.

If you check the discussion board there, you'll see that I was the first person to post a comment on the article.

What the hell do you think you're playing at? A lot of us are frustrated with the site and there has been a thread to recommend other sites to post at. However, those people are regulars on the forum and remain loyal to the site. In addition, the sites they recommend are actually worth visiting because there's something there worth reading and they have established reputations. This, on the other hand, is just a plain old insult. If you want to troll, I suggest sharpening your skills and trying a forum where you can be anonymous. I actually visited the site. They have celebrity fics, but nothing in the other categories. As far as fanfiction goes, the site plain old stinks. Since this is the Great Wall of Promotion. may I suggest Literotica, ASSTR, Nifty.org, MCStories, and SuperStories? The last one focuses solely on CB heroes and villains, and it's kind of primitive, but the story selection isn't all that bad. All of the sites have fairly well-established reputations for having a huge variety of adult fiction (MCStories divides mind control into subgenres). I don't post at any of these sites, but I do frequent them, and some of our other regulars cross-post at some of them, so we may as well support some of our AFF members by posting reviews there. My patriotic rant is over now.

Hmm... the simpler pleasures in life that I don't often get to indulge in any longer: - Chocolate (I'm diabetic) - Curling up with a good book - Taking a walk when it's raining - Gourmet cooking/baking - Getting enough sleep (I'm nocturnal) - Writing a story without a paper or exam hanging over my head Maybe I can indulge just a little bit this summer, but not likely considering the way it's been plotted out so far. Driving lessons and executive club work in May, hellish vacation in June and July, school supplies and executive club work in August, then actual classes in September. At least I don't have to deal with a heavy class workload, but I have to keep my language skills sharp.

The name of this forum is Aimless Babble. A point is unnecessary. It's an interesting article at any rate, but I'm not sure I can agree with it. Most females in my family would go against the theory on both sides of the family. We tend to have larger breasts (the smallest developed pair are a 36C on a petite 4'9" frame), but we're also highly intelligent. Most of us are straight-A students with minimal studying and end up in well-paying professions. In addition, most of the females in my generation of the family are ending up with hormonal disorders. I myself have a nasty case of PCOS, 40D breasts (I'm short and the rest of me is petite), and have a genius IQ. This theory makes me feel rather alienated. I'm gonna go show this to my female cousins now. The ones in the medical field should have something interesting to say.