[How do you get your inspiration]

So yeah, I can basically see/hear/smell/touch/taste anything and think of a story. And sometimes, when there's absolutely nothing inspiring at all, I just retreat into daydreamville and make shit up on my own. It's a good way to avoid being bored, but it doesn't fucking help when you can't actually write the stuff you come up with.

I agree with the "daydreamville" portion and not being able to write what you come up with. That happens to me all the time! D:

My inspiration shows up mostly in my own mind, but every once in a while I'll notice something or read about something and think "That might sound good in a story."

The problem usually is that my inspiration only gives me specific scenes and I can never think of ways to connect them. I'm not very good at the mundane details between scenes.

[Predictable M/M Original Plot Lines]

he can't even be identified as a man, because he possesses no "masculine" traits (such as not immediately crumbling in the face of adversity, to not burst into tears at the slightest provocation, etc). in short, he's a magically spawned null with zero personality and no redeeming qualities that don't involve limitless self-sacrifice or bizarre attachments to abusive relationships. nothing about HIM is interesting, or personable, or worth reading about. all he does is serve as a means to an end (that is, to read about the seme).

While I'd agree with you most of the time, I do have to stand up for those authors(of which they're very few who do, and even fewer who do it correctly) who give their bottom characters psychological disorders, such as Depression or Bipolar. These conditions, when long-standing, have the ability of emasculating anyone. Of course, they also, in my opinion, give the character a sense of world-weariness. Just wanted to bring that point up.

One last thing. Personally, the whole "you must penetrate me because I'm too dumb to realize what I want" offends me to the core. It's the kind of sick, twisted validation that RL rapists use for their actions. "S/He was asking for it. S/He wouldn't be dressed like that if deep down s/he didn't want it." or "Your mouth says no but your body says yes" which is made even more disgusting by the fact that some men actually do get hard while they're being raped, not because they're aroused, but because of a complex series of hormonal and chemical reactions that are triggered even more rapidly if the victim has anal sex habitually. So yeah, rant aside, the whole "you're too dumb, let me decide for you" thing makes my eye twitch.

I don't remember if I said that or not, but I apologize if I've offended. Rape and the "logic" of it DOES NOT fly in RL. I do not condone it in any way, shape, or form to actual males or females. But for some reason, I don't mind, and some times enjoy, reading about it. I would suppose that would make me a sick individual, but I just wanted to emphasize that I don't condone it in anything besides stories.

Ah, but is that not simply bad writing? I agree with you, the uke is a cumbucket and the stories are shallow and contrived, but I've wondered before if it's endemic in the genre or simply the result of bad writers.

My point is that the uke is not the only character archetype to suffer that kind of lazy deterioration (I can think of many characters from stories I've read who fit your description and aren't ukes, or even involved in smut at all), and what I wonder is whether the Yaoi genre that requires/encourages that kind of writing, or if it's just the result of a heavy infestation of inexperienced writers who think it's cool to write awful Yaoi to belong to a clique.

I think it's a bit of both, actually. I believe that most of the slash/yaoi writers are fan girls who get their inspiration from yaoi(which was made FOR women, not necessarily to accurately portray gays) and want to write their own story, but can't think of how a homosexual relationship is besides from what they've read/watched from yaoi. I was that way for a while as well, then read more realistic slash and got out of that habit.

[Predictable M/M Original Plot Lines]

Once again, Addict, you bring up a VERY good point. I'm one of those females that, because rape is taboo in a sense, I enjoy reading it (It is NEVER ok in RL though). My problem is the overly cliched whiny male uke! GOD I'm tired of those! THAT'S my problem with yaoi now-a-days. The males don't act like males, but, sadly, that's the point of yaoi. I would read more bara if the men weren't all drawn super hairy.

Yaoi = gay drawn for women vs Bara = gay drawn for men

Too bad yaoi fans who write slash don't read more American/Western depicted gay couples. Maybe then the characters wouldn't be such pushovers!

/end rant

[Week 3: 10-24-10]

Pen Name: Asexual Biped

Story link: Chocolate

Type of fic: Drabble

Rating: Adult

Fandom: Original

Pairing: N/A

Warnings: M/F, Challengefic, Complete

[Predictable M/M Original Plot Lines]

You were correct with your guess that the whole "rape=love" thing comes from Japan. A LOT of yaoi manga and anime have the bottom raped, then magically fall in love with the top, or they were in love to begin with and the rape was somehow "ok" to happen.

I still like/read/watch yaoi, but have grown tired of the cliched "if I rape you, we'll fall in love!" usage. Of course, that isn't the only cliche' in yaoi manga that I've grown tired of. I kind of just want to read about a NORMAL homosexual relationship.

["Biased" Third Person Omniscient?]

You raise a very interesting point. I personally struggle with point of view, both reading and writing it. I can only follow either a disembodied, unbiased PoV (that is, a narrator who describes things as they are, without embellishing), or get behind a character's PoV. When the author starts switching between several characters or worse, between a disembodied PoV and that of other characters, I just get confused. I want to note that I refer to when this happens within the same chapter. If a story is told with a different PoV every chapter, that's perfectly fine, I can follow. But when the writers starts whoring it up with the PoV, I get so lost I could outdo Josh Holloway. And by extension, if I can't even read this sort of thing, I can much less hope to write it.

So you'll understand that when I read what you said "I tend to write more than one third person POV in stories for different characters as I jump from each", Asexual Biped, I go "What? How? How does that work?" since it's hard to wrap my head around it. I mean, unless you're very, very unsubtle with your writing (that is, clearly letting the reader know when you're switching PoV), I'll just get lost.

Oh, I know what you mean! I hate when I see writers jump from POV to POV within a chapter! That's actually the reason why I stop reading so many potential stories on this site; the author made EVERYTHING known about the situation by jumping from every character's POV within the same chapter. It's almost like we're God because we know everything everyone is thinking about what's going on at that exact moment. I'd rather know what one person was thinking for one chapter, then switch to someone else.

I realize that I wasn't very clear when I said I jump POVs. What I mean is that I'll stay for either a chapter, or most of a chapter, in one character's biased POV, then g to someone else, either with a page break or a brand new chapter.

I think my only exception to the page break thing is when I kill off a character and just begin writing from the closest character's POV.

I hope this helped. :]

[Will Beta for Reading Material]

Ah, that makes a lot of sense! At least now I know I'm not retarded. :]

[Two Masters and a Slave--what do you think?]

None of your characters sound Sue-ish to me.

I think the only thing you should look in to is that you made Koichi sound like he's more independent-minded than most Japanese. More simply put: you Americanized him. You should probably specify if he travels a lot or does work outside of Japan a lot to make it more believable that he'll act the way you've stated. It's super rare for any Japanese native to act so independent if they've never been outside of Japan for any length of time.

Other than that, you're fine. This actually sounds pretty interesting.

[Predictable M/M Original Plot Lines]

really? I'd say the most common plotline is incredibly pathetic, thoroughly unattractve uke-ultrabottom meets either unpleasant asshole or charming prince who is way more than the uke deserves. either way, rape ensues, uke gets teen pregnant, seme convinces uke that he loves him through more rape, the uke grins and bears unpleasant sex.

I've grown used to it though. now it hardly even irks me. what still pisses me off though is, kinda like the OP was saying, the uke has some sorta bomb-attractive friend who wants to do him, but because the uke's vagina is wide open and dripping for the seme asshole his kind, attractive friend stands no chance.

I forgot about this, surprisingly enough! This is the other very prominent plot for most yaoi/slash stories. Thank you for bringing it up! :]

[Will Beta for Reading Material]

So you'd be up for Slash (m/m, f/f) and het? How do you prefer to be contacted?

I'm up for anything. I can be contacted through email. Just go to my account and I'll make it public.

I mean my forum profile. I was going to do it for my AFF account profile, but I'm retarded and can't figure out how to make the email visible there. :\

[Will Beta for Reading Material]

Hello! I'm new to being a beta, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

While I have no real experience beta-ing stories, I have corrected several technical papers and peer reviews. I'm generally good at grammar, sentence structure, and letting you know if things don't make sense (sounds like all betas strong suits ). if you're looking to perfect a certain style of writing, then I'm not the person to choose. My idea of style is how you usually write your stories.

I'm willing to beta nigh anything...as long as it's not a fandom. While I'm grateful to fanfiction for getting me to sites like this, I no longer enjoy reading it enough to last as a beta for it. Sorry fanfic authors!

EDIT: Apparently I lied about something. I'm willing to beta fandoms such as rpgs, where the main character doesn't have a set personality and the 'plot' for the game is loose enough that you don't have to follow it. If you're confused to what I mean, think of games like Fable and Oblivion. =]

Also, I'll beta stories based off of myths and legends.

From what I know about myself now, I WON'T beta stories that involve scat play or erotic asphyxiation, auto or not. I just consider scat play to be VERY unhealthy and erotic asphyxiation just freaks me out (fear of suffocating). I'm pretty sure I'm game with everything else.

EDIT: Won't do MPREG either. It's not anatomically possible, so I won't do it.

I LOVE reading (hence the title) and I tend to get in trouble for it since I decide books for entertainment are more important than study books. >>;

I'm usually quiet and self-contained, but I can turn into a metaphorical firecracker when you get to know me. While I usually have a hard time expressing myself verbally, I have a passion for words. I wish I could become a writer, but I don't have the mentality for it. So, I'll try to help you fulfill your passion instead!

[Predictable M/M Original Plot Lines]

I have to disagree with your basic plot line for most slash fiction. Well, the friend and random pursuing character parts, anyway.

The idea of Character X and Character Y meeting is pretty consistent with most, if not ALL, romance stories, even those published. So, that part is almost a moot point.

I do agree that most often you see a friend character, but it usually ends up with the friend being close to Character X, the view being misinterpreted by Character Y, drama ensues, sex happens, the misunderstanding is lifted, life is happy.

Of course, the general plots used to get two male(possibly female; I don't read much fem-slash) characters together are going to be generic since nearly all the ways for two people to get together have already been written about. It also doesn't help that most(not all) of slash writers are screaming yaoi fan girls that get their ideas from yaoi manga/anime.

I have to admit that I was one of them, so I have a sense of why this shows up a lot. Well, I actually still am, but I write better than that, now-a-days.

[Moral dilemma]

I'm going to credit my Ethics class for this idea. Here it goes:

The idea is to write a story (one-shot, short story, novel length, etc.) that uses characters to "solve" an ethical dilemma. An example of an ethical problem would be abortion or homosexuality(DO NOT choose something like this please; I don't want a war to evolve from this idea. It's also equivalent to the saying "beating a dead horse"). There are several out there, just Googling it will find you several.

You can set it up anyway you want. The only criteria is that it contains an ethical dilemma that is, in a sense, "solved" through the interaction of your characters. it doesn't have to be a perfect solution, just one that is logical and makes sense.

I wish you luck if you decide to take this offer!

["Biased" Third Person Omniscient?]

I think both the biased and un-biased TPOs have their use. I also think you've already covered most of my bases. XD

To me, the biased version is used with specific types of stories, such as horror or possibly suspense. Going with your examples, the clinical version of the sentence isn't nearly as interesting or catchy if used in a situation where you'd expect the author to use loaded adjectives and adverbs.

Biased is also good for different view points. When I write third person POV in stories, I usually write it in the mind-set of the person I'm directly narrating, if that makes ANY sense. Kind of like your description with the guy viewing his true love. A scene like that wouldn't be as entertaining without the extra wording.

Now that I think about it, I don't think I use the clinical TPO. That's probably because most of what I write is action-y or steamy and wouldn't be as good without the biased POV.

Also, I don't think of the 'biased' POV as taking sides. I tend to write more than one third person POV in stories for different characters as I jump from each. That's actually why I like third person POV; you can jump from each characters' thoughts on the situation you've created instead of relying on one perspective, like in first person POV.

I hope I got my point across. I'm slightly confused to what I was saying now. ^^;