Electronics Technician, geek, happily married, and an aspiring author. Come check out my serial, “No Need For A Core?”
Normally I err on the side of ‘art’ being separated from actual pictures/recordings of abuse. It falls under the “I don’t like what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it” idea.
Photorealistic images of CP? I think that crosses the line, and needs to be treated as if it was actual CP as it essentially enables real CP to proliferate.
I wish I knew what to tell you. I am on Chrome with uBlock Origin, and I don’t see YouTube ads. I’m logged into both Chrome and Google/YouTube
I think it’s a good thing for me that I don’t start from the flesh-out story end. I start out with 1+ characters and a scenario. Everything builds from there as I write. I don’t know where it’s going, so I don’t feel as much pressure to get there.
That, and I am writing a Serial over on Royal Road, and have a handful of Patreons. This applies just enough ‘expectations’ pressure to help push me forward when I would otherwise slack more. :)
Doing Okay. I’ve gotten through my hyperfocus on leveling a new-to-me class in Final Fantasy XIV, so I am able to pull my brain back to writing more. I want to get two more chapters up on my Patreon before my next public chapter is released on Thursday.
The views are cumulative across all chapters, so 1k readers x 100 chapters would be 100k views, before getting into things like my editor-in-wife and I revisiting pages as we slowly clean up my early chapters.
But overall, I do feel very good about my story, and most of my other story ideas take place in the same world (if mostly on different continents), so each time I work on any of these ideas, I am fleshing out the world as a whole.
From the same character’s speech (as opposed to switching talkers)? Well, supposedly that’s against the rules, but it generally feels better to insert a bit of minor movement anyway :)
Well, for the story itself, it might just be easiest to quote my blurb:
An ancient, dreadfully powerful dungeon core that had once been sealed away to slowly fade into oblivion is revived by a chance encounter, though in a much-reduced state.
A temple monk on her way home for a vacation is distracted into exploring a newly born dungeon due to the cuteness of its rabbit monsters, leading to an entirely unexpected chain of events.
A kitsune whose death caused a goddess to pity her fate and revive her as a reincarnated dungeon.
These three quickly form bonds of necessity and convenience, but then have to navigate a complex relationship and build their own rules to live by.
And for my particular world-building, Living Dungeons have avatars, which is very important to the core story.
I’m writing over on Royal Road (And cross-posting to Ream right now, I may add scribblehub), so each chapter is being published on the website. This is not a direct income maker, the website is free, but Patreon for early chapters is getting me a small monthly amount and there is the possibility of getting a deal with something like Amazon Unlimited (I would prefer to avoid that specific publisher, but we will see what the future holds).
Anyway, I got drawn to RR thanks to a Reddit serial that linked there, and that was my introduction to the Living Dungeon concept. And after a few months of reading various stories on Royal Road, I felt the itch to write my own. :) I had at one point been intending for it to also be a trope-subverting ‘harem’ story where everyone had good cause to be involved in the relationship and were well-fleshed-out people, but the core relationship stabilized at a triad, and I dropped the harem idea. I would have had to force it in, it no longer fit.
Bonus though: That meant I got to drop the age of one of the future characters, which felt better for her general concept, and that in turn generated the opportunity to touch on another aspect of the world that I hadn’t had reason to describe yet. And I get to have another woman get involved in a romance with interesting dynamics, though I am not quite there yet.
And I might as well link it:
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/57517/no-need-for-a-core
I also have several more ideas waiting in the wings, but I am trying to get my backlog a bit more robust before I divert some of my attention to building those up.
Outside of combat, I have very little that needs to be described in that much detail. I do have one specific mechanism in my Living Dungeon story that I felt needed that level of detail, and the description went through a few edits to fine-tune it to communicate the idea accurately but keep the writing clean enough to not be jarring to the reader. I am fortunate enough to be able to get some feedback to help me in that process. I felt that this mechanism needed to be accurate because it is relevant at several points in the story.
The less relevant it is to story beats, the less I am worried about specific details. I have a second mechanism involving large colored, glowing crystals in a ceiling. I described the basic layout and the colors, because they were relevant to events in that room, I did not describe the shape of the crystals, because it doesn’t matter.
In combat, how much detail I go into depends on the fight. Less important/low-stakes fights get more of an overview. A duel or spar with setup and some emotional charge? I am getting down to blow-by-blow, especially if I want to show the progression of a character’s skill or power, and when getting that detailed I often need to specify which hand a person is using to do what, so that I can line up the action properly.
A right-handed person has a shield in her left hand, and therefore deflects a creature’s charge to her left, and is thus spinning left to slash her axe across the back of its leg. I could have described it as her spinning counter-clockwise, which would be more technically accurate but would pull the reader out of the story more to think about. ‘spinning left’ suffices.
So, I would mostly just try to be sure that it needs to be described in detail.
Nuclear Radiation almost killing people is probably the most problematic, there will be all sorts of long-term damage.
The sci-fi disease at least has the exact properties you want it to have, and the Alien Creature option simply gives you physical damage which comes in your choice of severity. I’d lean toward that over all, but it really depends on what fits the story best.
And might I recommend Royal Road as one of your publishing platforms? Pure fantasy tends to do better than Sci-fi, but at least it is a point of traction. I know a lot of people post across multiple platforms.
I have three MCs in my current work. One of them has two bits of art, one of which is the cover art I am using on Royal Road.
https://www.royalroadcdn.com/public/covers-large/57517-no-need-for-a-core.jpg
My other art is on Night Cafe:
All of these are AI art, including the cover art (which was done and edited by someone else for me).
I consider these placeholders until such a time as I get properly commissioned art, but that costs money that I do not have.
facepalm
Well, we have a horror movie intro right in the article.
Mi first realized that the experiment had been successful when he saw the silkworm’s eyes turning red under the microscope.
Allow me to introduce my wife’s ice cream recipe. Obviously, your base is going to be different, but I’ll post the whole recipe here to make sure I don’t miss anything.
Strawberry Ice Cream with Lemon and Mint Note: This is more than one batch worth of ice cream (approximately 1 ½ batch for the size ice cream maker I have at home). Fill your ice cream maker to the level recommended by your machine’s instructions. Don’t worry about your mix sitting in the fridge while waiting for your bowl to re-freeze, it just allows the flavors to meld more. Don’t worry about the berries getting too soft. It is ice cream, they will be slightly more firm than everything else, no matter how long it sits. Since my household likes lemon and mint, the below listed amounts are minimum, we tend to use more. Once your ice cream is ready, it finishes beautifully with a bit of huckleberry balsamic vinegar poured over the top when served.
Ingredients: Approximately 32 ounces by volume of fresh strawberries, washed and stems removed
3 tablespoons of lemon juice, more if lower quality(or to taste)
1 cup sugar, divided (into 0.25 cup and 0.75 cup)
1.5 cup heavy cream
0.5 cup whole milk
2 tablespoon fresh mint, minced (or to taste)
Pinch salt
3 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
approximately 1 lemon’s worth of zest, finely grated (or to taste)
Directions:
- In mixing bowl, blend approximately half the strawberries with a stick blender. Chop remaining strawberries (to slightly larger than chocolate chip, so that it does not clog the ice cream machine) and add to same mixing bowl. Add 0.25 cup sugar and lemon juice. Stir together. Set aside in fridge for at least an hour to macerate.
- In a small saucepan, warm the dairy, 0.75 cup sugar, salt and mint. Warm the milk mixture, whisking to incorporate flavors.
- Whisk egg yolks together with vanilla extract; then temper: when the milk mixture is warm, slowly spoon into the egg yolks, whisking to keep from cooking eggs. Repeat several times until eggs and milk mixture are approximately the same temperature, then whisk yolks into the mixture. On medium to medium-low heat, thicken mixture until it coats the back of a spoon. Let cool.
- Combine milk mixture with strawberry mixture and lemon zest and mix well. Chill in fridge until cold enough for your ice cream maker (at least an hour).
- Pour into ice cream maker and follow manufacturer instructions.
- Serve immediately for soft serve, or place in Freezer for firmer texture.
(extremely loosely based off of “Strawberry Ice Cream Like Ben and Jerry’s”, and “Homemade Ice Cream: Perfect Custard Base”)
If it wasn’t usually running something and was idling, it would be more so. But generally speaking, I have something occupying it.
Bingo, you’ve described my experience exactly. My computer is almost never off.
Being an ally doesn’t need to be about showing it aggressively. I’m also cishet, and consider myself an ally, but I generally don’t have any flags or such, because I don’t do flags for anything. However, when I was streaming a lot, I specifically labeled my channel as being a safe space, I police my discord (or would, but there’s been no need so far, so just a watchful presence. :) ), and in the serial I am writing, societies are very friendly to non-cishet individuals and partnerships. The only time gender in a couple has been an issue was in a conversation regarding a potential heir, and that was resolved simply by having the title pass through a sibling instead. There were some magic options available as well, but neither partner wanted to deal with the other issues there.
Heh, I feel a little qualified to provide some thoughts here. I have ADHD, and technically just barely kind of qualify as ‘pro’ (three whole Patreon patrons!), but I do have over 200k words published with almost 900 followers, so there is that. And this is what has worked for me, it won’t work for everyone.
Figure out if you are a planner or panster. If the task of creating an outline means that you will probably never get around to writing, then you are best off being a panster.
If you are a panster, you probably want character-driven stories. Sure, you can have conflict and antagonists, but your characters are going to be acting and doing interesting things based on their personalities and desires. Plot happens to help drive character development, so don’t try and make the plot anything too complicated, it’s just a tool of your real story.
Write the story you want to tell. Create a few characters that you like in a setting/scenario that you find interesting. These should be people you want to get to know, and a situation at least moderately interesting to see how they cope with. High-stakes drama is not required (and may not be desirable).
Let yourself daydream about the story when doing the things that make your mind wander anyway, such as washing dishes or other chores. And if you daydream to go to sleep, do it then too. Keeps ideas churning about future developments.
Figure out how much (or how little) extra stimulation you need. This may vary. I often but not always enjoy having a music selection playing (Heavy on the Final Fantasy OSTs), and I have a civ game running that I can take breaks with for a turn of play and then back to writing (it’s not hard to set up a modded game where it takes an hour to process a turn once you have enough cities)
Have more than one story to tell in the same world. This way every bit of world-building you do for any story helps all of them, and you can switch to writing a different story when your brain fizzes out on the primary story.
I’ll add more thoughts later as they come to me.
The issue here is that it enables those who would make the actual CP to hide their work easier in the flood of generated content.
Animesque art is one thing, photorealistic is another. Neither actually harms an underaged person by existing, but photorealistic enables actual abusers to hide themselves easily. So IMO, photorealistic ‘art’ of this sort needs to be criminalized so that it can not be used as a mask for actual CP.