Magic Ring for the Porn King

[PhoenixLord]

While watching porn recently, I had an idea for a story or series.

Before he goes off to college, a high school graduate goes on a road trip, either with his parents or friends, and while he's away, he buys a 'magic ring' from an occult shop. The ring's description calls for a sacrifice to work, and the clerk mentions he can sacrifice his hair to make it work. One night, he performs the ritual and sees the result; His porn comes to life in the form of the people around him. His friends start fucking just like in the porn videos, and later his neighbors, strangers, and eventually his family when he goes home for a visit. In time, he becomes the recipient of some very arousing incest porn, and it causes the hair on his body to evaporate entirely, and the ring loses its power, but the magic's affects stay present in his life. Does he try to reverse the magic or give the ring to someone else, or does he stay in the pornographic version of reality as the Porn King?

Thoughts?

 

[Rob_Royale]

It sounds kind of complicated. If you're interested in people around him going crazy with lust, perhaps just a pheromone aphrodisiac body spray or cologne?

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I have a story idea, pretty far off in my plans, where porn becomes real. The magic ring idea, like Rob_Royale says, is very complicated.

My own idea goes back to when I first started writing on Literotica, years ago, and I still haven't quite been able to make it work.

 

[Rob_Royale]

My own idea goes back to when I first started writing on Literotica, years ago, and I still haven't quite been able to make it work.

Don't worry about explaining it. Let the title say it all.
The Hardicks of Pornville has been very successful and it's just an outrageous and tropey porn film brought to life.
I'm not the first to create Porntown, Pornville, Pornberg or Porn City, so just go crazy.
With a title like that, no explanations are necessary. Readers understand what they are getting.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Don't worry about explaining it. Let the title say it all.
The Hardicks of Pornville has been very successful and it's just an outrageous and tropey porn film brought to life.
I'm not the first to create Porntown, Pornville, Pornberg or Porn City, so just go crazy.
With a title like that, no explanations are necessary. Readers understand what they are getting.

I'm glad it worked for you, but that wasn't quite the story I wanted to tell.

My tendency is to deconstruct.

 

[usable001]

My tendency is to deconstruct.

You could start by removing the taboo around sex. To borrow a page from Guardians of the Galaxy, you could have "How I first had sex with your mother" as a topic for storytime with the family.

 

[usable001]

It sounds kind of complicated.

Then trim it down and simplify.

Before he goes off to college, a high school graduate goes on a road trip, either with his parents or friends, and while he's away, he buys a 'magic ...

...compass

... from an occult shop. The ring's description calls for ...

him to turn the display on the compass to what he wants (sex, wealth, etc) and follow the arrow. He tries it out at the hotel, and the compass leads him out into the desert in a big circle back to where he started. The two people he is sharing a hotel room with are having sex. So is, from the sounds of it, everyone else in the hotel. Disgruntled, he sleeps in his car, alone.
Every time he tries the compass, he sees the same...

... result; His porn comes to life in the form of the people around him. His friends start fucking just like in the porn videos, and later his neighbors, strangers, and eventually his family when he goes home for a visit.

However, each time he tries the compass, the people already affected become more exhibitionistic and want more and more sex: just not with him.
Finally, walking through a town which has practically shut down because of the sex drives of its population, he comes across an older step-sibling who is also home from college.

Afterward, he has to decide whether to use the compass to ramp up sex drives even more, in the hope that someone else will want him. Leave things the way they are, or use the compass and walk away from the arrow in the hope that it will make things more normal.

 

[PhoenixLord]

Then trim it down and simplify.

...compass

him to turn the display on the compass to what he wants (sex, wealth, etc) and follow the arrow. He tries it out at the hotel, and the compass leads him out into the desert in a big circle back to where he started. The two people he is sharing a hotel room with are having sex. So is, from the sounds of it, everyone else in the hotel. Disgruntled, he sleeps in his car, alone.
Every time he tries the compass, he sees the same...

However, each time he tries the compass, the people already affected become more exhibitionistic and want more and more sex: just not with him.
Finally, walking through a town which has practically shut down because of the sex drives of its population, he comes across an older step-sibling who is also home from college.

Afterward, he has to decide whether to use the compass to ramp up sex drives even more, in the hope that someone else will want him. Leave things the way they are, or use the compass and walk away from the arrow in the hope that it will make things more normal.

That actually sounds better.

 

[ChuckWolf]

I would ditch the hair-loss plot element; doesn't seem to serve a purpose other than "exacting a price".

Maybe the comeuppance is that, while wearing the ring, he can't control the effects?

Perhaps he MC takes off the ring and somebody else puts it on.

Now the MC has to somehow reclaim the ring, while dealing with the obstacle of being compelled to engage in porn acts when he gets too close to the ring's new owner?

Also, do the effects of the ring ever wear off or are its victims locked into porn mode forever?

 

[PhoenixLord]

I would ditch the hair-loss plot element; doesn't seem to serve a purpose other than "exacting a price".

Maybe the comeuppance is that, while wearing the ring, he can't control the effects?

Perhaps he MC takes off the ring and somebody else puts it on.

Now the MC has to somehow reclaim the ring, while dealing with the obstacle of being compelled to engage in porn acts when he gets too close to the ring's new owner?

Also, do the effects of the ring ever wear off or are its victims locked into porn mode forever?

I got the hair thing from a video short I saw recently of a D&D plot point where a player resurrects a guy and the necromancer is annoyed that the sacrificed body part is a piece of the guy's hair instead of a toe or finger.

Also, the porn mode would be semi-permanent while in proximity, and they'd have a residual memory of the act but no dominant memory of being coerced or compelled, kind of like if their actions were written into a script but then deleted from their minds when they left the ring's radius.

 

[ChuckWolf]

I got the hair thing from a video short I saw recently of a D&D plot point where a player resurrects a guy and the necromancer is annoyed that the sacrificed body part is a piece of the guy's hair instead of a toe or finger.

IMO, I don't think you need that for the story.

 

[usable001]

That actually sounds better.

Thank you. The two main changes were to give the protagonist more agency (following a compass is more of an active choice than wearing a ring) and to make the cost more meaningful (everyone gets laid but him until his sister shows up).

The next step is to step away from the inspiration and focus on the parts of the story that interest YOU most.

For example, if I were to write this, I'd probably get a bit deeper into the worldbuilding. So I'd have him try the wealth setting first and have him walk to a world where he has $40 in his wallet instead of $20; his bank balance is double what it was, but everyone else has twice as much spending money too (his roommates have a better car, the hotel is in a nicer neighborhood, but gas prices haven't doubled to compensate). Then, when he switches to the sex setting, he realizes zero doubled is still zero. I would also, when he talks to his sister, point out that he hasn't actually put in any serious effort to hook up with anyone: he's just been walking around with the compass, feeling sorry for himself, and blaming the world for his problems. In other words, point out that his problems are his active fault too, not just a side effect of the compass.

The downside of all that is that my version of the story would probably have fewer sexy times (and be more of a downer) than if someone else wrote it.

What parts about this story idea appeal to YOU? Write that story.

I got the hair thing from a video short I saw recently of a D&D plot point where a player resurrects a guy and the necromancer is annoyed that the sacrificed body part is a piece of the guy's hair instead of a toe or finger.

IMO, I don't think you need that for the story.

You could very well include a sacrifice that isn't really a sacrifice in a story, but it should at least be interesting. In your example, it is the annoyed necromancer which makes that interesting. I agree with ChuckWolf: keeping the hair sacrifice without making that sacrifice interesting detracts from your story.

In general, being inspired by something and then writing something which isn't an obvious knock-off can be a very good thing. Many people who write knock-offs have a bad habit of including surface-level details and leaving out what makes it interesting. Beware of Chicken by Casual Farmer is a great book; piles of other progressive fantasy books with "farming" in the title are not. Artemis Fowl was an interesting book; the movie stank. The latest Masters of the Universe movie... the list goes on and on.