Tattoos and Memories: TAM

[Rocket To Pluto]

Hey there, everyone at Xepher.net! I've seen a few sites hosted by you, and I absolutely loved the system and the freedom that came with it, not to mention the designs.

My longtime friend, Becca and I, both enjoy webcomics, writing and I myself adore art. Through the four years I've known her we've created a series among ourselves with a large array of characters and miniplots, through stories, drabbles, fanart, and only recently I've begun creating a webcomic! We're both very excited about getting our stuff out there. This being said, I was wondering if it'd be alright for us to share the account, provided this application gets accepted?

Speaking of our plots; the genre mostly includes romance, humor, drama, and daily-life situations. almost like a [auto]biography, if you will. Some of the writing is old, some is new, some is silly and some are angsty and ridiculously dramatic. but hey, what's life without a little variety?

I also wish to note that there are a lot of shounen-ai, or otherwise gay themes in our writing; as in, it kind of swallows our plots and storylines. I'm perfectly fine with sticking disclaimers of any kind in any which ways, before and after and in the middle of everything. But as far as I've read in the rules, I don't think I'd be harming anyone. If you find it offensive I'm perfectly willing to pack my bags right this moment; I just don't want this fact to become a 'pleasant surprise' in later views. xDDD Considering that your site's motto is "Free Hosting for Free Thinkers", I'd hoped that this wouldn't be a conflict.

One of our biggest aspects is keeping our audience entertained, and I'm sure there's an audience for us out there. We update all the time, because we're doing what we love to do. :]

The username I hope to get, preferably, would be 'TAM' or 'TatoosandMemories', though TAM is the best because less words = easier to remember, and that's what we're trying to achieve here, right?


The site I'm currently using is freely hosted by Weebly.com, and can be found here.


The reason why I want to switch over to Xepher Hosting? I felt that, as easy and friendly as I found Weebly to be, it was much to limiting for what I want to bring to the internet. To be honest, from what I've seen, Xepher.net is absolutely, positively perfect!

Samples;

Art: My dA account - you can find a lot of my artwork here, though viewer's discretion is advised! xDDD I do a lot of digital art, but I never forget about traditional. the ones I'd most like you to see are:

• http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa265/Pyrophire/trinity2.png - Old doodle of Trinity Walters before her appearance was set
• http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa265/Pyrophire/yesplz12.png - I was quite proud of this picture at the time. Practicing on capturing emotions. sorry if it's not your cup of tea.
• http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa265/Pyrophire/lolzlovechild.jpg - example of some of my penwork. done at school.
• http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa265/Pyrophire/scannedpic003.png - more penwork.
• http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa265/Pyrophire/The_Last_Night_by_AkeYuki.png - more digital.
• http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa265/Pyrophire/page2.png - what my webcomics would look like. right to left.

Writing: You can find a lot of the writing we're hoping to 'publish' at our current site. if you want me to post specific pieces or anything like that, just let me know.

Porn/Sex/Nudity: This is another one that comes up quite frequently, and a lot of confusion seems to revolve around it. It's pretty much the same as the violence one though.

Porn/Sex/Nudity Ruling: Nudity is allowed. Sex is allowed. Porn is not allowed. Let's seperate the three. Porn is nudity and/or sex only for reasons of carnal gratification. Are you drawing or writing a scene as part of a real story or plot? Or just for purposes of arousal and pleasure? I really think this one should be pretty obvious to most people... with the possible exception of anyone who genuinely reads playboy for the articles. :-) The easiest analogy is the difference between R and NC17 rated movies. NC17=No (most of the time.) R is allowed, but like violence, I ask you to have warnings for any content above about a PG-13 rating.

This rule is the only one I'm slightly concerned about; I'll be frank, Becca and I's works contain Nudity, they contain Sex, but I don't know if you want to consider them porn or not. I never viewed them as pornographic, but nothing less than Adult Content; having said that, someone certainly might feel the opposite.

I went through many other applications, and many were asked about their HTML skills.

I can read HTML pretty decently, but I definitely cannot come up with a coding off the top of my head. I can create graphics and I know the basics, and possibly use premade coding, but I've never made a Layout from scratch. My mom has an FTP site and can show me how to make one, and use one, and I suppose I'll have to learn more about it, but I'm definitely willing.


Thanks for looking this one over, and sorry if I created a problem of any kind. Feel free to email me with any issues or private concerns. :/

~Emma Dobson.

Pyrophire@verizon.net

[griever]

I don't think your writing would be classified as porn - it seems more along the lines of erotica.  However, the lines between porn and erotica are blurred and I think it's hard to draw that distinction in written works.

With that said, I do find it a little odd that you guys have separated out the sex scenes, which probably would be NC-17 on their own.  As part of an overall story, I'm not so sure...but definitely R or NC-17.  For me, it reads like a Harlequin romance - blah blah SEX blah SEX MORE SEX OH GOD MORE SEX YES YES YES POST-COITAL CIGARETTE blah.  Okay, obviously not in that order and not to that frequency, but I hope you get my point.

[Rocket To Pluto]

Out of every drabble/story on the postlist, I'm only aware of three full out sex scenes. Which is no excuse, but I only mean that I never meant for it to be all about sex! what we're both mostly interested in getting out there, is the relationships and interactions between two people. I'm sorry if it came off any way different. D:

I have to agree that the lines between porn and erotica are very blurred, which could be an issue later on. Out of most of the posts, we do drabbles the most. I suppose they do seem a bit scattered, and maybe a bit messy. Perhaps we could organize them a little more, so it reads out as an adult romance rather than Harlequin?

This application was one of those things that, despite the content, I would have really regretted not taking a shot at it. I s'pose that's just who I am. x]

Thanks so much for your reply, griever. : D

[griever]

Well, it's not all about sex, but the fact that the sexual situations are written about graphically makes it hard to distinguish between written erotica and porn.  Granted, there's no stoop to vulgar language like a AIM chat transcript but I didn't pick up any hints of subtle seduction either. 

However, you mentioned that they are drabbles aka scenes, which changes things a little.  After all that, in my mind at least, I'd also classify them as PWPs and not really erotica or adult romance.  Porn?  Probably not.  But you're edging there.

So after thinking things out, I guess my general analysis would be that it's not porn but it's not well-written adult fiction either.  I'd suggest giving up on the drabbles, incorporating the segments for a smoother story, and making the sexual scenes work better with the overall story/characters.

[Rocket To Pluto]

Alright, no problem. Of course, this was all just for fun writing, up until we decided to make a webcomic/manga, which has a much more notable plot than most of the drabbles. Do keep in mind that there are more to the drabbles than the first two posts, which I only now realized were very PWP. And in what terrible order, huh? xD


I'm definitely going to try out creating a smoother story, or otherwise separate the stories from the drabbles that are very mixed in. :]

[griever]

I read some of the others and I didn't feel like they blended smoothly into the overall story.  Maybe it's just the "chapter" system you've got set up there?

But also, I should note, someone else here (and I was hoping ticky would run in and make one of his epic analyses) might view this all in an entirely different light.  My classification of what constitutes porn/erotica may be prudish or slutty, depending on their view.

[Rocket To Pluto]

It might be the chapter system, or the fact that we're both amateur writers at the moment. What could I do to make it smoother, or neater? I'm all ears. : D

I've anxious, but still would love to hear other opinions, and I hope I didn't scare anyone away because of the content. :/

[griever]

Hopefully, some real writers will weigh in on this. 

The only advice I can give is to separate your formats.  I've paged through several random ones (incl. ones not titled "drabble") and they seem to be the same: song title then paragraph.  While this may be suited to drabbles, it doesn't work for a story for reasons mentioned before.

[tickyhead]

But also, I should note, someone else here (and I was hoping ticky would run in and make one of his epic analyses) might view this all in an entirely different light.  My classification of what constitutes porn/erotica may be prudish or slutty, depending on their view.

Awww, you flatter me griever ...You do realize I'm female, though? Ah whatever, the internet mixes peoples' genders up a lot anyway XD

To be honest though, I didn't really post anything because you kind of posted exactly what I was going to say already. I don't consider myself a prude, and I find no problems with sex in any media, but I think you hit the problem here exactly. I'll try not to step on your toes, so I'll just add everything else I would have said.

That is to say, it is generally considered writer's "etiquette" that unless you are writing full on pornography, the sex scenes are more composed of innuendo and metaphor than actual sex. It makes them more fun to read, and lets a wider audience enjoy the story, instead of just the ones that don't giggle whenever someone says "sex." Of course most of the (extremely lax, if I may add) rules of writing get lost in the internet, but that still brings up the question of "when does sex become porn?"

Well, maybe I am a bit prudish, but my idea of when sex in writing becomes porn is when it becomes graphic sex, because of how I was taught. And boy oh boy, those parts with the little [m] next to them sure sounded graphic to me. I've seen some great stories with sex in them, where the word "sex" or anything really pertaining to sex was never mentioned. The author still got their point across, and even if we didn't see every little detail of the act, we all knew what happened and who did what.

I would say that you could try to edit out the more graphic parts, but no one else has commented on the rest of the work.

There are two words that make my blood curdle, that make every fabric of my being cringe and move two inches to the left: Song fiction.

Which isn't to say that songfics are bad, it's just that...well, they're bad. I have yet to meet a writer that didn't have a very specific set of music that they listened to for writing, I have about twelve playlists on my computer at any given time reserved for just that. But that doesn't mean you have to actually put those into the story. I mean, really. If I wrote something while watching, say, The Wolfman, I'm not going to tell people in a big bold title up top, "WATCH THIS MOVIE WHILE READING THIS OR YOU WON'T GET IT." No. If you wrote it well enough the writing itself should convey exactly what you wanted it to. Not that I'm saying this to just you two, I'm saying this to all songfic writers out there.

As an added "bonus" to songfics, if your audience doesn't listen to the exact same music that you do, then they really won't get it. Whilst skimming through every piece of writing on your site I found...maybe five songs that I knew, max. The rest of it was just radio static running through my head.

To be honest, I don't think either of you write very well at the moment. Maybe it's because I'm actually trying to major in creative writing and I'm overly critical of everyone and everything for it, but that's what I think. The sex is bordering on porn and doesn't fit well with the stories surrounding it at all, and the surrounding stories are constantly jerked around by music I don't listen to and, if I may be frank, writing that needs work.

As a side note the art is actually pretty good, and I love your work with b&w line.

As a quick critique on the technical side of things: USERNAMES CAN'T HAVE CAPITAL LETTERS. Sorry to break out the caps, but I'm very tired of telling this to people, as it can be found if you look around the site. tam=good. tatsnmems=good. TaM=bad.

Also, I would have recommended learning HTML and FTP (Though you'll need SCP for xepher) before you applied, so you could have at least had a basic knowledge of how to make a website. Too many people come in here without any prior knowledge of how to make a website work, and it really just makes things harder for them.

There you go, griever. One tickyhead supreme, ooooorder up! I gotta run.

(EDIT: Wow, I make a lot of grammar mistakes when I'm rushed. Fixing!)

[Xepher]

Hey all... finally got a chance to look around at the examples/links for this one a bit. Regardless of the quality of the writing (or lack there of), that subject has been addressed by others above. I'll just say that I think most of this falls under the "porn" category. Randomly clicking on several stories, even ones that weren't tagged M, there didn't seem to be much of a story in any most of them, just innuendo, making out, or actual sex. I think the "plot" is more from innuendo and suggestions of plot than the sex is. I do find some irony in the way you list a christian song for a scene titled "Threesomes FTW" where two guys making out, but I don't think you're going for comedy or irony on purpose.

Anyway, my point isn't to insult or belittle what you've got so far. I just want to say that it's probably too far over on the "porn" side of things to be considered here, and there isn't anything else evidenced that compensates for that. Sorry, but I wish you the best of luck with the project anyway.

[griever]

...You do realize I'm female, though?

Didn't have a clue!  But I've got a memory like a goldfish anyway.  Thanks for giving a writer's point of view - I was basing my observations off the only Harlequin I (kind of) read, The Baddest Virgin in Texas, which some previous AET left here.  Some previous, lonely AET.  Anyway, the other current AET and I read it over beers, which no doubt improved the writing quite a bit.

[Rocket To Pluto]

Thanks for the input, everyone. I just had to give it a go or I would have regretted it.

Considering we're both very young writers [probably younger than considered appropriate for this content, anyway], we're both going to work on our writing styles and quality, and hopefully bring the site up on our own. Thanks for considering and all that jazz! :]