The AI Rejection Conversation Matters

[MillieDynamite]

Yes, they do!

Yeah, Lush has serious flaws.

When I posted the first half of Eldritch Pact, they let it through with the exaggerated diacritics... but then when I tried to post the second half, they rejected it because of the diacritics AND they removed the first half.

I've pretty much broken ties with them

 

[djrip]

What did Guys do before we could send pictures? Did they Knock on doors " good evening do you have a wife or daughter. I like to show them something"

I think trenchcoats were involved.

 

[Silver_Arrow]

Indeed.
What is also surprising is that all the current major players - Lit, SOL, and AO3, while different in their pros and cons, are almost all equally stuck in their ways. I've seen no real innovation or desire to improve from either of them.
I also don't think that starting a new erotic story website would take that much investment. It's not like the new site would get flooded with visitors right away. It takes time to build up the story database and the readership. It also seems that there is a healthy market for something like that.
Weird.

I imagine it's one of those things that seems easy up front, but ultimately requires a decent amount of effort in the long run.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yeah, Lush has serious flaws.

When I posted the first half of Eldritch Pact, they let it through with the exaggerated diacritics... but then when I tried to post the second half, they rejected it because of the diacritics AND they removed the first half.

That's a bit harsh. I mean, you wouldn't do runes, so VikingsR-Us would be out, but rejecting your whole story was just unkind.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I imagine it's one of those things that seems easy up front, but ultimately requires a decent amount of effort in the long run.

There is only one aspect of running an erotic story website that in my opinion would take a lot of work - screening the stories. Everything else is a matter of initial investment. A website with a modern design, a forum, and a database, and with moderate bandwidth doesn't even cost that much.

Literotica has existed and grown over all these years as a two-person endeavor, basically. I assume that at the start, it hadn't been hard for Laurel to keep up with the inflow of stories on her own. It's a whole different story today due to Literotica's size and popularity but again, considering Lit's earning potential, there should a be whole team of admins dealing with the stories. But yeah, better not to start this same old complaint.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I second @Silver_Arrow's thoughts on a new website.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

That's a bit harsh. I mean, you wouldn't do runes, so VikingsR-Us would be out, but rejecting your whole story was just unkind.

Lmao

All jokes aside, I was furious only because they accepted the first half.

If they'd rejected the first half, I would have had no issue... "We don't allow exaggerated diacritics" is a perfectly acceptable response.

But "Well we accidentally let in the first half, but then someone else had a problem with it, so now we're gonna remove it, in spite of the fact that the site clearly handles it just fine and the readers clearly love it" is beyond infuriating.

And don't get me started on the fact that the same people win their contests OVER AND OVER in spite of the fact that one of the constant winners is an admin.

Bleh. They can have their fun. I'm not interested

 

[Silver_Arrow]

Lmao

All jokes aside, I was furious only because they accepted the first half.

If they'd rejected the first half, I would have had no issue... "We don't allow exaggerated diacritics" is a perfectly acceptable response.

But "Well we accidentally let in the first half, but then someone else had a problem with it, so now we're gonna remove it, in spite of the fact that the site clearly handles it just fine and the readers clearly love it" is beyond infuriating.

And don't get me started on the fact that the same people win their contests OVER AND OVER in spite of the fact that one of the constant winners is an admin.

Bleh. They can have their fun. I'm not interested

That sounds really frustrating. I'm sorry. Seems like a major conflict of interest among other things. Writers are always at the whims of those who produce, copy, hold, share, or otherwise put the writing in front of readers. Unless you print and bind the books yourself.

 

[ElectricBlue]

And don't get me started on the fact that the same people win their contests OVER AND OVER in spite of the fact that one of the constant winners is an admin.

You've got to be fucking kidding! That's just... wrong.

Commiserations on Eldritch Pact too - it's a good story, and the speech could have been written in sand and washed away on the first tide, and it would still be good.

 

[GhostFence2024]

There are multiple other story sites around. Many authors here cross-post to them. Every site has its own pluses and minuses.

Which ones are as popular as this?

 

[MillieDynamite]

That'd be none.

Which ones are as popular as this?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Which ones are as popular as this?

Archive Of Our Own. It's not an exact match to Literotica's niche; it was built for fanfic (but takes non-fanfic stories too) and it's not solely for erotica, but at this stage I think the explicit stories on Ao3 would outnumber those here.

 

[MillieDynamite]

A lot of the stories on Ao3 wouldn't fly here, either. They used to have a lot of underage, but I think they cleaned all that out. But rape stories are very popular there.

Archive Of Our Own. It's not an exact match to Literotica's niche; it was built for fanfic (but takes non-fanfic stories too) and it's not solely for erotica, but at this stage I think the explicit stories on Ao3 would outnumber those here.

 

[GhostFence2024]

A lot of the stories on Ao3 wouldn't fly here, either. They used to have a lot of underage, but I think they cleaned all that out. But rape stories are very popular there.

Underage stories on a site is like peanuts in food production for the peanut allergic. One "underage" peanut is all it takes for me to GTFO. I'm close to that with rape stories too.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

A lot of the stories on Ao3 wouldn't fly here, either. They used to have a lot of underage, but I think they cleaned all that out. But rape stories are very popular there.

I just checked - AO3 has a list of tickboxes for when you post or do a detailed search, which goes:
'Author chose not to use archive warnings', 'major character death', 'graphic violence', 'No archive warnings apply', 'rape/non-con', 'underage'.

IIRC, you can't post without ticking at least one of those options.

There is a huge difference between AO3 and other sites, though, at least in the parts of AO3 I'm familiar with - the underage stories are generally from the POV of the underage character, and the characters treated sympathetically as people, no matter whether it's a consensual story with another underage character, or a story about non-consensual experiences and their effects. Many of the authors come across as being teenagers themselves, possibly processing their own experiences.

I'm yet to see a story on AO3 where the 'erotic feature' is the glee of the rapist or objectification of a rape victim - the commonest trope is 'hurt/comfort', where one character has a traumatic experience (often rape, because there's a lot of inexperienced authors grabbing easy plot devices) and another helps them get over it after, and eventually they get together. The fact that the vast majority of authors there are female probably has a lot to do with that.

(I have published a few stories with underage content on AO3 myself).

 

[MillieDynamite]

As I've stated ad nauseam, I dislike censorship. I think following the rules here at Literotica forces me to be more creative. However, I've written rape stories as means of theory. I'd love to be able to write purge the demons when they invade my sleep or occupy my mind. Can't sell those, can't post them here, damn few place I can. So, I don't have that outlet often.

Underage stories on a site is like peanuts in food production for the peanut allergic. One "underage" peanut is all it takes for me to GTFO. I'm close to that with rape stories too.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Ditto for you as well. AGH.

I just checked - AO3 has a list of tickboxes for when you post or do a detailed search, which goes:
'Author chose not to use archive warnings', 'major character death', 'graphic violence', 'No archive warnings apply', 'rape/non-con', 'underage'.

IIRC, you can't post without ticking at least one of those options.

There is a huge difference between AO3 and other sites, though, at least in the parts of AO3 I'm familiar with - the underage stories are generally from the POV of the underage character, and the characters treated sympathetically as people, no matter whether it's a consensual story with another underage character, or a story about non-consensual experiences and their effects. Many of the authors come across as being teenagers themselves, possibly processing their own experiences.

I'm yet to see a story on AO3 where the 'erotic feature' is the glee of the rapist or objectification of a rape victim - the commonest trope is 'hurt/comfort', where one character has a traumatic experience (often rape, because there's a lot of inexperienced authors grabbing easy plot devices) and another helps them get over it after, and eventually they get together. The fact that the vast majority of authors there are female probably has a lot to do with that.

(I have published a few stories with underage content on AO3 myself).

 

[Bramblethorn]

I imagine it's one of those things that seems easy up front, but ultimately requires a decent amount of effort in the long run.

FWIW, Ao3 posts changelogs for the work they do on coding the site. It's a good reminder of how much effort is involved in running the technical side of a large website:

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts?tag=1