CloverReef

Plus I have commitment issues

Oooo my masochisty senses are tingling… I try not to look at tags at all now, because I’ve become pretty gunshy. When I’m in the story and I like the chars, I don’t care: throw in: shit, talking bunny rabbits in top hats, golden showers. Anything, as long as the characters have chemistry and the plot is gripping, I’m all yours. But just seeing the words on their own, all lined up in a neat little line freaks me out. Then again, so does a comma splice in the first paragraph. So does a too-romantic summary… and a billion other things that technically don’t bother me in practice, but totally scare me off in theory. I approach reading stories the same way the uterus approaches sperm. I don’t know why that analogy seems the most apt to me at the moment, it just does. I have probably murdered a lot of gems. (By murder, I mean ‘not read’. Because they’re the same things, right?)

Absolutely. I admit, I’ve been scared off by a long list of tags. I guess I think the more tags there are, the less relatable plot there will be, even though, intellectually I know that’s not the case.

I just got an image of someone going around trying to catch rogue, impish tags.

If y’all inspire the powers that be to add more story codes while I’m working on my challenge, I’m going to cry. Then Laugh, like one of those really loud nervous breakdown laughs. Then compose a long, exasperated, but very Canadian letter that starts with “sorry” and ends with “eh”. Fear my scorn!

I actually know a woman who loooves to bang when she is menstruating. She went into great detail about how she loves how the blood stains in patterns on the white sheets when they're done. I can't really relate either, but from a writer's (and lover of all things debauched) standpoint it's an absolutely fascinating perspective.

I totally read this in a uber posh academia voice. I’m a writing-tips-ophile, and now I am completely disappointed/outraged that all the podcasts I follow don’t cover this shit!

Omg a AFF perv workshop would be the awesomest thing ever. But on topic, I don’t think I’ve ever actually played with any of the fun tags before. I think the raciest thing I’ve done in my stories is 3plus. Otherwise, it’s usually the standard ‘anal, m/m, violence, etc’. Of course I’ve touched on a couple fetishes too, but they don’t currently have tags.

@KassX that's funny, that's the one i was just mulling over two seconds before I checked the forums. I've got the first scene written but still working out the kinks (pun intended) and not yet 100% committed yet lol.

I can have a sfw chapter. And for the minor ones, they can be brought in through subplots that he’s involved with! I don’t intend to go all out with sexy funtimes with all the tags. I don’t think I can do that. I wanna approach the tags in a variety of ways. Edit: Of course I wouldn’t put SFW in the tags though lol because that would be a lie.

@Melrick I completely get it. I think to most writers it's hard to think of their characters as fictional and that's a really good thing. If they're real to the writer, they'll most likely seem real to the reader. Obviously there's no shame in not wanting a woman to experience the horrors of rape. @KassX now you've gone and inspired me gol' dangit! I want to tackle all the tags in a single series with a single protagonist... Maybe make it open so people can add chapters. They probably won't but its fun to think about Lol.

@Desiderius Price Yay! I’m excited! Making me want to tackle a little xeno too now.

@Desiderius Price I seriously admire that ability to tackle things that make you uncomfortable. I misread that at first and thought you were grossed out by Xeno, and that really shocked me! That’s one of my favourite tags, and everyone should be okay with the shit I like because that’s how the universe works, right? But then I read it again and now I am wiser. @Melrick Which ones put you off the most, if you don’t mind me asking?

Honestly, I wanna hear @Desiderius Price’s answer to this. For obvious reasons For me, though… Scat I -probably- wouldn’t touch either. But I do get covered in cat shit all day at work, so I’m getting pretty desensitized to the grossness factor. So who knows. Maybe if I get super ballsy? I think the ones I definitely wouldn’t want to write are… Loli, Minor1, and SI (Because having a character similar to me makes me super uncomfortable.). I’d probably shy away from bestiality too, but not anthro, so… who knows how blurry that line could get if I set my mind to it.

Oh no, I’m fascinated by stuff like that! Sure it’s problematic to always depict the mentally ill as psychopaths and killers, but horrors and thrillers are rife with problematic shit. Someone should definitely do something about that. In the meantime I’m gonna keep watching because horror movies are awesome. All that’s just to say no, I haven’t seen Split yet, but I intend to! Don’t worry about offending me. One of my favourite movies from my childhood is a transphobic piece of trash that in theory enrages me, but in practice, a total guilty pleasure. Yay Sleepaway Camp.

Mental illness is a very personal experience. It might actually be good that you don’t come into it with a complete education on it because it can be easy to write their symptoms too textbook. I’d just suggest watching a couple documentaries maybe if you feel too lacking. Otherwise, I grew up around paranoid schizophrenic and bipolar family members and have done a ton of research on my own, so feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

lol I watch like a billion prison shows, reality and drama, and all I can think of is… punk and chomo. They usually have slang for stuff they’re not allowed to have (like drugs and stuff) but that probably wouldn’t follow them out into the free world huh? But I totally do that too. Especially when I collab with friends. Like chars that are hardened criminals who didn’t spend a day in school, much less went to the trouble to learn on their own, using big, pretentious words. Like wtf? No Chad, his hair isn’t iridescent, it’s purple and blue! LOL I love characters like that. Lovable douchebags. Yaaas! Preach! Nothing wrong with using stereotypes. They only become a problem, in my not so humble opinion, when they’re not balanced by non-stereotypical traits and feel like caricatures. Or, you know, when they’re blatantly racist too. That’s usually a bad idea lol. This is an interesting one. Did he pass from house to house (foster homes) or spend his formative years in the circus or an orphanage? I know some kids who feel they’ve been lacking role models or parents tend to pick their own. Sometimes its older kids in the neighbourhood. In poverty stricken areas, this might be gangs or cops or community volunteers who had an impact on them. For some kids, they pick a celebrity or an ideal. Like cowboys or samurai or… Lady Gaga? And model themselves, their language and behaviour after their chosen idols, like way more obsessively than typical kids. Woe is me could always manifest in a multitude of defining ways. Cutters, emo music, emotional breakdowns, crippling depression, addictions, pushing people away who are good for him. There’s a lot of ways you could go with that that I’d personally find quite interesting, because it can be so toxic and emotional and yet relatable.

Oh two subdued ones! No wonder you were in a pickle. Let me know how you decide to differentiate between them!

Okay so I don’t ‘like’ to write 1st POV, but that’s only because it limits what scenes I can do and what I can show. I felt that limitation most when I wrote Blackbird because fuuuuck so much was going on, and if he wasn’t in the scene, the readers couldn’t be privy! That being said, some stories demand 1st POV. So for quite a few years, all my main projects ended up 1st POV whether I liked it or not. So believe me, I know your pain. I had a few ways to differentiate between MCs. Though I’m not sure if you’re talking about multiple MCs in a single story or the three MCs across your three stories. I guess either way the solutions would be the same. I just get real nervous for writers who attempt to do multiple 1st povs in one story lol. The characters really had to have STRONG personalities. This is the biggest one for me. Before I started a story, I would consider the last couple MCs and figure out ways to set them apart, which for me usually involved big differences in Masculine/feminine traits. Some were campier than others. I never really go hyper masculine for a MC, but someone super effeminate will naturally have different internal dialogue. A quiet and subdued character can be a strong personality we don’t see all that often. Some chars are outgoing and playful while others are more jaded or confrontational. All these things can be reflected in the internal dialogue to set them apart. Origins. This is a little harder to utilize unless you’re really comfortable with the culture they come from. Trying to do a southern accent in dialogue if you’ve only heard it like once or twice and did a quick google search might end up feeling a little contrived unless you keep it really subtle. And it can get real annoying to keep doing a couple choice slang all through your narrative without the actual speech patterns lol. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be from the south and have an accent enough that it helps set them apart from other characters. Also consider social class. Someone raised in the trailer park in Kansas will probably talk and think differently than someone raised in a multi million dollar gated community. Their vocabulary will be different based on a lot of factors: culture, education level, hobbies, hometown. Where I come from, everyone calls ‘hoodies’ ‘bunny hugs’. I never even heard the term ‘hoodie’ until I moved away when I was 16 lol. Priorities. Grammar matters more to some people than others. Are they misanthropic? Do they act differently around strangers than they do family or lovers? Of course these are things to consider ANYWAY that most of us already know, but when you’re doing 1st POV they’re doubly useful. And it helps to take them a step farther. Stress parts of them that make them unique from your competing MCs. Hope that helps a little!

I think the one that puzzles me the most is the no incest rule I see on a lot of them. I mean no pedophilia covers the statutory rape issues that could arise so what you have left are the situations with two consenting adults. I mean it's fiction so you don't have to worry about them breeding.

I spent my whole adult life on this site. Over the… 13? years, a lot of the stuff I posted, I never bothered to post anywhere else. So when I recently started looking at other ‘mature’ fiction sites, the rules they have blew me the hell away! Wtf, no necrophilia? What about zombies? Don’t they get any sweet loving?! I think I saw a no ‘non-con’ rule out there somewhere and I was like welp, that excludes about 90% of my stuff, and I don’t even write rape porn. I mean, don’t people get bored on those sites with no morbid, dark rabbit holes to fall down?

OMG Runnnn!!!!! (I tried to find a horror emoticons, but little kids are creepy so… yeah.)