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Kurahieiritr

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Posts posted by Kurahieiritr

  1. Welcome to all newcomers. Hope you all enjoy your stay and get to share loads of writing with the rest of us. At least when those of us with hectic lives can actually get an evening to read and romp through the archives. :sweat drop: It’s been forever since I last got to read or write anything. But, Ill get around to visiting one of these evenings and do some serious catch up. :)

  2. 5 hours ago, Guest Guest said:

    I think there is a number of people waiting for rest of the story, they just might not have wanted to bother you with a lot of “when's it going to be updated" messages.

    Oh wow. I thought people were not interested in this series any longer due to a lack of feedback.  Sorry about that. I honestly assumed the silence from everyone meant they left, so I shelved it due to thinking people went on to other stories and shows. 

  3. On 3/29/2018 at 12:39 AM, Mal said:

    KassX, my current chapters tend to range  around 10k, and I average 1-2 scenes per. Having said that though, I think it also greatly depends on how many characters you’re working with and the circumstances that are going on. A lot of times my main character, Alex will feature in both scenes. But sometimes he’s only in one. There was also a point in the story where he was gone for like 5-6 chapters and none of the sex scenes featured him. To me, the plot should ALWAYS dictate the smut. But, having said that, I AM writing smut so I always try to include at least one scene in every chapter. I also think that its more important for the smut to make sense and further the plot than to just be something gratuitous and tacted on because you needed smut.  

    I don’t know if that helped, lol I just wanted to chime in!

    Exactly my thought. Plot should dictate when and where smut is added so that an emotional investment carries to the reader. Then again, writing smut also depends on the audience that a writer wants to attract.  I know many readers only want plot what plot gratuitous sex. I’m not one of them. When I get the chance to read fan fiction, or any kind of non work related stuff, I want something to help me escape the stress, and PWP sex won’t do. Some people feel the opposite, so that’s why audience does matter when it comes to how much sex is added to a story. Others feel the exact opposite of myself and want no emotional involvement, just pornographic fap material for their fantasies. Both styles are fine, but it does make a difference in the kind of readers that will congregate to a story.

    In my reading experience,  a smut scene happening out of the blue without fitting an emotion or plot is jarring. Tosses me right out of the story because I like deeper and meaningful tales. The main reason is that I feel no investment in the characters hopping into bed with each other because it seems to have zero reason to be happening. Not even if I adore the show or books that the story is based loosely off of because of a fan driven love for a pairing that I can actually relate to being reasonable or even preferable. Again, I am a reader that needs the context of emotion to make the smut feel realistic. A lot of folks are unlike myself. Some folks want zero emotional investment in what they are reading.

    If I cannot feel connected to the characters, then I really cannot read the smut without yawning. I need immersion in one specific character’s head and heart to enjoy smut personally. If I cannot be on their shoulder and seeing their emotional responses, it feels like I’m reading yet another Psychology study on the latest findings for SE Table work in helping to alleviate anxiety attacks. Instead of titillation, the smut feels like dry and uninteresting case studies for me.

    However, I adore reading plots which evolve character relationships into the deep emotional connection that makes the sex feel meaningful. When you consider how mechanical sex can start to feel if there is no real context/reason for it happening, having the emotional and mental cues added can take an otherwise dull feeling scene and make it sparkle. It conveys emotions and that is what sucks me in as a reader. Doesn’t matter if it is angry make up sex, or seduction engineered to bring the object of one’s fantasies to their knees, so long as there is the sense of genuine emotions, I’m going to be sucked into the scene and adore it.

    A lot of plot what plot type gratuitous work feels too shallow to me when I do get a bit of time to do any reading. Since so much fan fiction is about character emotions and evolution foremost, (see tags like angst, hurt/comfort/romance/unresolved sexual tension) it only makes sense to match the  sex to the evolution of the characters emotional attachment to me.

    So the amount of sex added should fit the readers that you enjoy writing for the most. If you like raunchy PWP, then by all means write a lot of it. If you want readers to be invested in the sexuality of your characters, create a plot and let it dictate where the best emotional driven sex fests happen.

  4. On 10/27/2017 at 8:05 AM, JayDee said:

    I can’t believe how old it is now. Another five years and AFF’ll have users who weren’t born when it was created.

    I know. Makes me realize that I’m getting too freaking old. The thought of half the stuff I loved as a kid being complete unknowns to younger people these days happens to be a constant heartbreak for me too. Times are changing I suppose, and brilliance in art has shifted with the turning tides. But, it was still a lot of fun to read as Dr. Who got drug into the mix and so forth. A very fun type of comic strip that I hope will remain with all of us for a long time to come.

  5. Just now, Desiderius Price said:

    I kinda prefer my characters to be undressed… but that’s me.  And, if it takes multiple paragraphs, that’s fine :) 

    I did write one scene, though, where it was a couple doing a reverse strip tease, getting dressed from nakedness, but that was more about how they didn’t really want to get dressed.

    You have an interesting context offered which means it would be far more entertaining than the by rote nit picked nuances of how many ruffles or darts are in the skirt someone is putting on that I was talking about from my own side of the debate. Not saying that a section on clothing can’t be entertaining to read if it is showcased through actions, and the obvious desire to not get dressed as you are describing here. Still, my experience is that if the actions, and motivations are not there, and the clothing is so focused upon and detailed that I for one want to puke long before the descriptions end, it is time to find a new story to read. Too much detail is as mind numbing as too little detail in many cases. Blank space and over defined alike tend to force the reader into a numb state of destroyed mental image production. When that happens, the reading can become as unpleasant and tedious as looking through a government written how to manual for doing your tax returns for crying out loud.

  6. 1 hour ago, Desiderius Price said:

    Afraid those 2-5 pages can’t be helped when you go reading the fashion catalog.  :o

    Tell me about it. I can always tell when someone is fashion enslaved by their writing out that much overkill about clothes, shoes, makeup and hair. Puts me to sleep because I don’t read fashion mags, and I prefer my characters to be dressed in under 3 paragraphs and on the move to tackle whatever little crisis is plaguing them myself. ROFL.

  7. 9 hours ago, Anesor said:

    over described clothing” That has become my go-to litmus test for Sue-dom. There may be other markers, but I think it is the quickest marker. Clothing and hair can set many shades of character, but excess appearance wordage, down to sparkly marks and which store they bought their clothing in tells me to not waste my time. It’s because their clothing and hair have nothing to do with their character arc or important plot.

    Agreed. I’ve seen too many of those 2 full page descriptions of every tiny detail of clothing and even the makeup process in depth and over baked on steroids. I cannot get through that kind of boring to save my life and always go back and find something else to read when I get one of those stories in front of me. It’s one thing to have 2 sentences of the active dressing stage because you know it’s a blue skirt and white top thanks to the arms motions and the like, but a detailed makeup tutorial and extremely detailed clothing is a snooze waiting to happen. At AO3 you will find people who insert fashion links to the outfits in the middle of the sentences  which is yet another marker of Sue/Stu at times. They try to hide their Sue/Stu by avoiding the blatant markers in hopes of getting more readers, so you have to rely on the obscenely perfected other issues at times.

    9 hours ago, Anesor said:

    I haven’t seen any Sue griping in years, though I know I walk the line in some stories. Of course some professional canon characters are Sues/Stus as well. Anakin/Vader becomes his own anti-Stu. I think the reason its fading a little is that major characters at least start as Sues, or the Sue-haters run away screaming before they finish the preview on Amazon. I want to be beaten with a rubber hose if mine ever got at bad as some Sues I’ve seen. Shame and fear are great motivators to watch out for as a writer. 

    I’d say in original fiction, the Sue and Stu line is ignored because there is no actual preconceived measuring stick to hold up to the writer’s work which is the biggest reason for the Sue and Stu downside. I’d have to agree that the Anakin to Vader story line can be seen as a Gary Stu to end all Stu’s since he is the paragon of virtues and light that becomes one of the darkest and hateful anti-heroes of all time. His children have to save him from his own rage and the like. Still, his place as an original character means that only those who write fanfiction will ever feel the bite of nasty comments for not staying true to Vader/Anakin instead of the man who dreamed up that particular archetype enhanced characterization.

    I’ve seen a few harsh comments about an OC on various sites, but the worst of the hatred seems to have died down a bit in the last 2 years for several reasons. It seems to be getting better, and is more about how poor a job the characterization is of late. Again, it comes down to the telling the readers that the character is awesome without giving any active proof and that implies that a generation of readers have begun to shift their focus from the direct hate and into trying to get writers to show things instead of give us massive paragraphs of no reason to believe it brand of how great their OC is overall I think. A stronger focus on show me the character acting out their greatness has become more of the variety of critical commentary these days. So it is being worded as a need for genuine exposition instead of cop outs, or we see the offending story being ignored and getting no reviews and comments as a whole it seems.

  8. 38 minutes ago, CloverReef said:

    The one thing I could not stand back when I was in fan fiction a million years ago, was when writers would write stories making fun of ‘bad’ writers in their fandom, which was often the beginners. That is a way worse offense than intentionally or accidentally making a mary sue/gary stu character. I can’t imagine how many of those beginner writers were so humiliated and bullied they never picked up the pen again. 

    I recall those days and it was a horrible trend I’m glad to see gone. Well, mostly gone as a rule. A few hateful jerks will try it, but most readers refuse to read those stories so it is in death throws state far as I can tell. Fortunately a lot of the readers and even fellow writers stood up to such trolls, and I think that did a great service for everyone. I still think there is no substitute for research and learning the subject material to the best of one’s ability so you can write a strong story, but I also think that new writers need to be granted more leeway to learn characterization at times also.

  9. 4 minutes ago, BronxWench said:

    I think M/F writers run the biggest chance of having characters labeled as Sues. It’s far too easy to fall into the tropes.

    Exactly, Bronx. M/F really is the biggest ball of hatred spewing class that I’ve noticed over the years. In terms of original fiction, there isn’t a guidebook that the fans have evolved to use against fellow writers, so they nitpick the fanfiction realm and spout some pretty petty and crazy hatreds at times for a variety of reasons. Especially if you pair an original with a canon character who is everyone’s favorite character for a series it seems.

  10. 50 minutes ago, CloverReef said:

    @Kurahieiritr You really know your stuff, don’t you? Your analysis of the various fandoms and the differences on their general treatment of sue/stu is fascinating. I’m really curious about that double standard. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, but I’ve been out of fan fiction so long… Well I don’t know why it seems to be a fan fiction flame thing. Mary sue is not a strictly fan fiction concept, but I haven’t noticed the term floating around in the original fiction world as much as I did in the fan fiction world. Though I am specifically m/m, which very well may be evidence of your whole point. When most of the mains are male, the issue doesn’t seem to come up. 

    I wonder if F/F or M/F writers have more problems with readers screaming mary sue?

    @CloverReef Thanks for your kind words. Guess it is the presence I’ve had since the early 90’s in the fanfiction realm as a reader/beta/writer hobbyist during diverse time frames that is educating my familiarity with the flaming subject matter of the Sue and Stu issue as a whole. In terms of the socially normalized double standards, I’ve seen a correlation of F/F and M/F based writers having more trouble if a character is an OC, than for M/M (which is what I most often write if there is any kind of pairing allowed at all) so that is why I added it as a relevant point of reference.

    So I can see why you would be less plagued by such a problem as a whole because of writing M/M predominate story lines. Various fandoms have different tolerances overall to the OC characters, and it often has to do with fans feeling entitled to ship warring when it comes to Canon characters also.  If you haunt M/F stories where the female is an OC and the male a canon is where the bulk of Sue bashing takes place. Especially with the hottie of the canon show being the love interest’s boyfriend. It’s that combination when you’ll start to notice more vocal written complaints about Mary Sue as a whole. At least that has been my eye ball experience of the fandoms involved that I tend to write about, or work with as a whole system. With shows like Slayers, the biggest arguments are about OOC behaviors of canons has been my personal experience of that particular series, as the bulk of the OC characters seem to be the bad guys, which is also a common thread for Fairy Tail and the more open to OC type characters for the fandoms as a whole. So nobody even considers putting canons from Slayers with non canon characters as a rule and that prevents Sue/Stu issues most of the time. So diverse fandoms have these unspoken yet very obvious rule books to what can and cannot be written happens to be an underpinning for the Sue and Stu variety arguments some fandoms have, while others don’t. Observation teaches you the rule book so to speak.

    The only fandom I’ve dared to write a M/F pairing for to date has been Fairy Tail. AT FFnet, I get some rather dreadful flames for putting the character of Lucy with anyone other than Natsu as an example of how Shipping wars of canon characters play such a determination for x Reader Story lines, and including OC characters in canon half shipping at least relieves and eases some of the vitriol you’d otherwise experience as a writer in that fandom at least.  So it is more of a character specific complaint that a canon set forth interest is treated as a crack ship when anime and manga chapters specify otherwise as much as any other factor that encourages an OC character to be added to the Fairy Tail canon character romance smorgasbord in order to avoid the insane shippers who hate everything but their OTP for Fairy Tail at least. So my experience is that Fairy Tail is prone to canon specific pairing ship wars more so than Mary or Gary issues of making one of the partners an OC.  Even Initial D has ship wars over which Takehashi brother should get Takumi in the M/M shipping ideals. An attempt to evade shipping wars can make an OC love interest very attractive to some writers for that reason. When fangirls get rabid enough, OC is the only remaining option if you wish to have romance in the story line for some fandoms. In others, there is zero tolerance though. So you have to take the underlying laws of each fandom’s tolerances into account to write in the anime/manga sphere at least.

  11. 1 hour ago, CloverReef said:

    And definitely, some writers stick to that kinda character as their weapon of choice. That’s totally legit. I used to think it was an indication of bad writing to have a mary sue character. Though I didn’t necessarily think a perfect character was mary sue, but rather a character that makes the characters around them act in nonsensical ways (like everyone in the story gushing that Suzie is such a sweetheart, even though all her appearances, she seems pretty mean and inappropriate). But the perfect character that everyone wants to be with, which often is defined as the mary sue character, can absolutely be done with tact and skill.

    Great point about some folks enjoying the ability to write over perfected original characters. I find I’m tolerant of an overly perfected character that the canon characters gush over only so long as the situation proves they are worthy of the gushing gets shown to me. It’s the telling me that a character is something spectacular without adding any convincing activities that makes me irritable with the Sue/Stu variety characters. Such a feeling is a common enough argument against them as there is nothing to really make such perfected characters feel believable which is the whole reason for the bashing when you really consider the root issue that causes the discontented feelings in readers. I’ve seen a few writers who make very compelling Sue and Stu characters, but the compelling element truly is in having a strong grasp of characterization and showing the attributes in action that makes such characters a good and entertaining read.

    It is still a case of irritation for many fans whenever the perfect seeming, yet rather boring written out OC overtakes the canon characters abilities and makes the canon characters look incompetent in some fashion. Outshining the canon characters in fan fiction is when the most complaints of Mary Sue characterization happens as far as I can tell. Whenever an OC earns their place through activities, so is okay to outshine the other canon characters, a lot fewer grumbles are heard from the fan base in many cases. It also seems to depend on what specific show or genre/series you are looking at writing from what I’ve noticed as a writer of numerous animes/mangas. Some fandoms are very accepting of a Mary or Gary, while others are exceptionally intolerant as was commented upon about an LOTR site within this thread. Initial D is not very accepting because of the unbelievable American take over of the fandom class 14 year old writers making their fantasies of being great drivers without ever having driven disease. Zero real research also adds to the likelihood of hatred for an OC overall. Like was described here, the over described clothing and similar aspects drive readers into mental corners, and that also plays a huge role in the Mary Sue bashing. Gary never gets half so much block paragraph descriptions as a rule. He’s allowed to move around more while being described unlike Sue which is trapped within a rigid series of overblown details most of the time.

    Anime/mangas like Fairy Tail tends to have a fandom that will applaud the crazy OC perfected character with fair ease and adoration so long as the character’s magic is within bounds, and they have a perceived flaw somewhere in their make up. Stuff like Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin fandoms are another free for all where Mary and Gary can thrive because the fandom tends to make everything into AU type stories and ignores canon-verse. So I think a lot of the real Mary and Gary variety complaints have shifted due to the fandom based readership in many cases. I see some fandoms being very intolerant like Initial D, while others are more open to the OC who’s a bit too perfect or over the top enough to place a canon in the shaddow so to speak.

    Additionally, there seems to be a phenomena that is very much anti-female original character oriented so there’s a hint of a double standard society has created at work in the deeper levels of psychological kickback experienced most of the time.  It is rare to see the same level of vitriol spewed toward Gary Stu characters as a whole even when they eclipse a canon character too far that I’ve noticed over my years of being a fan fiction writer.

    Flames due to Mary/Gary characterization may also be a powerful factor in the uptick in Canon Character x Reader stories as a whole because it removes the ability to complain and hate an OC that someone has written into a fan fiction also. Due to pressure to not get flamed and screamed at, the  “x Reader” craze has gained a solid toe hold and is not likely to vanish any time soon. So in a strange twist of fate, we have the emergence of a secondary way to engage readers while making it impossible to spew OC hatred with the sudden surge of x Reader story lines. I know Devianart is in overload with x Reader tales of late, and you have to wade through a lot of stories to find canon x canon or even canon x OC type stories over the last year.

  12. 22 minutes ago, Guest Shotaboy149 said:

    Hey I read the series

    Thank you for letting me know. I’m glad you have, and I hope you enjoyed it. Will be revising to remove the Japanese words from it at some point since those got so many people mad at me. No idea when I’ll get to that again however. But I have not abandoned these stories.  I simply have had too much on my plate to keep a roof over my head to have any energy for writing much of anything for a while now.

  13. I will complete the Initial d stories some day now that I know it is getting read. Have the hard drive slaves to get the series off of the bad computer hard drives. So once I get that equipment unpacked, I can at least find the stories on the old drives. Going to take a while though. We moved in March. So I have no idea which box has the salvaged hard drives right now. Glad you let me know that you like the stories and are getting after me to finish them though. When I stopped, it was because the oldest members of my extended family died out that year. Kind of an overwhelming mess since I became the family matriarch.  Then I got talked into writing for Fairy Tail with a friend of mine. Hahaha. My bad that I forgot to complete these stories.

  14. 13 hours ago, Guest Chickipu said:

    So sad that this has been abandoned.  I have enjoyed the series and would love to see it resurrected. 

    I had no idea that anyone was even reading the stories to be honest. When we had 10 elders die over a few short months, I put it on the back burner. Truth is that without any idea people were still reading it, I completely forgot about it in the aftermath of sorting out wills, possessions, and helping get homes cleaned up and sold. When you have a full generation of old people dying, and five generations to deal with in most cases, writing takes the back burner when nobody reminds you of projects. Otherwise it is a very bad case of extreme exhaustion as often as not. I will finish it some day, no idea when though.

  15. The Kinsey and Kline sexual orientation tests are online. The best way to figure that out is to take the test and see how you rate on it being my main thought. There are short form and long forms of the sexual orientation tests beyond the most famous one that was administered in WWii as a means to learn more about human sexuality.

    http://vistriai.com/kinseyscaletest/

    http://mysexualorientation.com/

    Here is the Klien grid scaling information. http://sid.southampton.gov.uk/kb5/southampton/directory/advice.page?id=RsuF5ehfWvQ&familychannel=10-4

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