Pink Orchid 2024: Story Event for Women-Centric Erotica - Official Support Thread

[StillStunned]

I never watched Snorks, so I will not comment on the attractiveness of their maidens.

The Snork Maiden on the left, Moomintroll on the right. Note that Snorks change colour depending on their mood. Moomins don't.

 

[AchtungNight]

View attachment 2312769
The Snork Maiden on the left, Moomintroll on the right. Note that Snorks change colour depending on their mood. Moomins don't.

I think we are referring to different Snork media. I thought the Snorks you were referring to were from a totally different story. Here’s a link- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snorks

Your referenced characters are not part of that show, I think.

 

[StillStunned]

No, the Snorks I'm referring to are from the incredible Moomin stories by @Omenainen's countrywoman Tove Jansson.

(I'm a grown man and I have multiple pairs of Moomin socks.)

 

[AchtungNight]

No, the Snorks I'm referring to are from the incredible Moomin stories by @Omenainen's countrywoman Tove Jansson.

(I'm a grown man and I have multiple pairs of Moomin socks.)

I see. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[vagrantx]

I am apparently too rude for that, I will now let people opt in. So if you do want me to read and comment your event story, tell me, and I will.

I would love for you to be rude to me, please and tthank you.

https://literotica.com/s/movie-night-86

 

[Lifestyle66]

In 2022 I read all the entries and left comments, and because I am apparently too rude for that, I will now let people opt in. So if you do want me to read and comment your event story, tell me, and I will.

I wrote the story "The Maneater" for this event, and I would appreciate your views on it, even if they might be rude. After all, I posted my story to Loving Wives, and I doubt any comments you make can be worse than some anonymous ones I already received.

(BTW, the story is the longest I've written at over 22K words.)

 

[Omenainen]

I would love for you to be rude to me, please and tthank you.

https://literotica.com/s/movie-night-86

Sorry, nothing to be rude over in that one. Super cutesy and lovely. Not a lot of story in it, but many 750s are like that. My last year's certainly was.

 

[vagrantx]

Sorry, nothing to be rude over in that one. Super cutesy and lovely. Not a lot of story in it, but many 750s are like that. My last year's certainly was.

Thank you for taking the time! There was story in there once, but it bit the dust. 6000 words of meandering nothing, shaved away.

 

[Omenainen]

I wrote the story "The Maneater" for this event, and I would appreciate your views on it, even if they might be rude. After all, I posted my story to Loving Wives, and I doubt any comments you make can be worse than some anonymous ones I already received.

(BTW, the story is the longest I've written at over 22K words.)

Oh man, I had hoped you wouldn’t ask

I have read it. Let me think a little what to say and I’ll get back to this tomorrow.

 

[Omenainen]

Thank you for taking the time! There was story in there once, but it bit the dust. 6000 words of meandering nothing, shaved away.

The lesbian readers love cutesy meandering nothing, the sweeter the better. For future reference.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The lesbian readers love cutesy meandering nothing, the sweeter the better. For future reference.

I really want to see you go subversive on them, as per our conversation .

 

[Omenainen]

I really want to see you go subversive on them, as per our conversation .

Well I did whack TERFs with a trans cock in my pink orchid this year. It just wasn’t on protagonists themselves this time.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Well I did whack TERFs with a trans cock in my pink orchid this year. It just wasn’t on a protagonists themselves this time.

Link? (I'm lazy - as you know).

 

[Omenainen]

Link? (I'm lazy - as you know).

Flowers

 

[vagrantx]

The lesbian readers love cutesy meandering nothing, the sweeter the better. For future reference.

I noticed that after I posted my story Nails. Got some really sweet messages after that one

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

The good news is, my story has been accepted, and will be posted tomorrow (February 3, as reckoned by the site, which is after most of the world has begun February 3). So apparently I didn't do anything to make my intelligence artificial. Or something.
The confusing news is, the story is not being posted in Mature, as I had requested. It's in Lesbian. Yes, the main character has a lesbian affair. It could be that Lesbian is seen by the site as an 'outranking' category. It will look odd, though, because I explain in the intro why I've posted it in Mature.
Oh well, it's accepted. As long as the readers aren't puzzled, or even offended, that the entirety of the story isn't about the lesbian affair.

 

[Omenainen]

I wrote the story "The Maneater" for this event, and I would appreciate your views on it, even if they might be rude. After all, I posted my story to Loving Wives, and I doubt any comments you make can be worse than some anonymous ones I already received.

(BTW, the story is the longest I've written at over 22K words.)

Okay then, here goes.

First, a disclaimer or whatever this should be called. Foreword? Warning? Public announcement, maybe. In the first year of Pink Orchid, me and LS66 had a long-ish back and forth over what constitutes female empowerment, and what is a strong woman and what's not. It's there in the thread of the first year in case someone wants to see. We didn't agree, and we most likely won't agree on what's sex positivity, either. Now, what I respect LS66 for is that he makes honest efforts, and he's here to openly discuss his views, like he did the first year. The second year he decided to sit out, and that was also a decision that I respect him for. I don't agree with his views, but I have nothing against him participating and sharing his opinions. I know I've branded this as "my event" and have been very involved, but that doesn't mean what I say is the ultimate truth. I'm only ever expressing what I think about the event themes.

Secondly, for anyone wanting to comment on his story: I'm sure he'd be delighted if you do, but please go and read the story and don't just riff off of my comments.

I'll quote the theme of the event as a reminder:

Theme of the event: sex positivity and women as the subjects of their own lives. Women in control of their own pleasure and passion. Erotic tales where women make sense and have agency. The aim is not to turn tables and write femdom, male-bashing or revenge stories, but produce sex positive stories of women existing for their own sake and living, loving and lusting on their own terms.

So. In the first Pink Orchid, we had some conversations when I beta read yours because I thought that you couldn't possibly mean to present Jan the way you do. Since then I've learned that yes, you actually do mean to present her the way you do, and you are very consistent with that over different stories of yours. Here, which is from Jan's POV, it's even more pronounced (and to me, nonsensical). There's many stories on Lit where a woman is just a life support system for a pair of tits, and this seems to be a case for Jan too. A very defiant and aggressive pair of tits, but nonetheless, a pair of tits. She seems to reduce everything to do I win or do I lose, and use sex as a weapon in this neverending battle that is her life. Sex is treated as transactional and some kind of zero sum game, where everything her husband gets is somehow a loss to her, which she then has to regain as soon as possible and going to further lengths if possible. This is not sex positivity. To me, this is sex negativity.

I especially loathe how you pissed all over therapy in this one. The premise is believable enough, but then you make the therapist be this unprofessional marionette who's effectively just a soundboard for Jan's delusional takes on herself and the world, and is finally deduced to some kind of a teen who can't control his erections - this is supposed to be a 60+yo professional, who most likely should've encountered his fair share of over-sexualized and manipulative behavior during his career. This would be okay if you used it to make some kind of a point about therapy, or unprofessional therapists, or the futility of corporate-mandated therapy sessions like these, but you don't, you seem to want the reader to take all this as face value and as a proof of Jan's über-sexiness.

Now, does Jan make sense? On some level, yes. You do portray a consistent picture of an insecure, immature person who bases their self worth on their sex appeal. Is she a subject of her own life? I don't get that impression, despite you telling the reader how successful she is professionally. If there's nobody around to observe how sexy she is, does she even exist? What would've been more interesting (for me) is if this story would have featured a therapist who isn't drawn to her and who challenges her world view. That still wouldn't have made this a story that would fit my event themes, I think.

Another disclaimer: it's perfectly okay to write bossy, bitchy, controlling women, who use sex as a weapon to control and degrade all men. Some people do think that's sexy and based on the comments, some of them have found your story. It could (maybe) even be done in a way that hits the event themes (the way I understand them), but this wasn't that story. In my opinion. Which is what you asked.

Outside the scope of pink orchid, I think the scene in the beginning was pretty nonsensical. The one where Jan and Ted are at the club, talking about their high school days. Repeating these people's backstories in every single story is getting pretty old, and that's a clumsy way to do that. In my experience, people who are in their 40s or older (these characters have adult children) and are even remotely well adjusted do not spend time dwelling on their teen days, let alone repeatedly recounting them to each other in their marriage. I was also darkly amused to notice that as opposed to how you present the characters in stories from Ted's POV, you do give Ted a name before you tell us about how sexy he is, and you don't provide numerical measurements for him the way you do her.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The good news is, my story has been accepted, and will be posted tomorrow (February 3, as reckoned by the site, which is after most of the world has begun February 3). So apparently I didn't do anything to make my intelligence artificial. Or something.
The confusing news is, the story is not being posted in Mature, as I had requested. It's in Lesbian. Yes, the main character has a lesbian affair. It could be that Lesbian is seen by the site as an 'outranking' category. It will look odd, though, because I explain in the intro why I've posted it in Mature.
Oh well, it's accepted. As long as the readers aren't puzzled, or even offended, that the entirety of the story isn't about the lesbian affair.

Laurel will occasionally publish a story in a category where she thinks it will run better. Given the number of stories she's vetted, I'd go along with her judgement, nine times out of ten.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Okay then, here goes.

First, a disclaimer or whatever this should be called. Foreword? Warning? Public announcement, maybe. In the first year of Pink Orchid, me and LS66 had a long-ish back and forth over what constitutes female empowerment, and what is a strong woman and what's not. It's there in the thread of the first year in case someone wants to see. We didn't agree, and we most likely won't agree on what's sex positivity, either.

Thanks for remembering me. One of our last exchanges was my recognizing that you will never "like" my MFC, because she's not like you. (That's why I didn't ask you to beta-read this one.)

Different life experiences make people different.

I'll quote the theme of the event as a reminder:

Theme of the event: sex positivity and women as the subjects of their own lives. Women in control of their own pleasure and passion. Erotic tales where women make sense and have agency. The aim is not to turn tables and write femdom, male-bashing or revenge stories, but produce sex positive stories of women existing for their own sake and living, loving and lusting on their own terms.

So. In the first Pink Orchid, we had some conversations when I beta read yours because I thought that you couldn't possibly mean to present Jan the way you do. Since then I've learned that yes, you actually do mean to present her the way you do, and you are very consistent with that over different stories of yours. Here, which is from Jan's POV, it's even more pronounced (and to me, nonsensical). There's many stories on Lit where a woman is just a life support system for a pair of tits, and this seems to be a case for Jan too. A very defiant and aggressive pair of tits, but nonetheless, a pair of tits.

I've learned from my series that many readers don't go back to previous stories to try understanding a character's past. So, I try to incorporate the relevant backstory in each stand-alone story (like this). And (believe it or not) I incorporated so much of her backstory in this for you, to address all critiques of "Why would she do that?". Her fencing with the psychologist was for exactly that: to bring out all of those "why's" of a real life past which shaped her. Her husband even said: "He's trying to discover the things which shaped your underlying personality, those things which can't be changed with a few counseling sessions. ..."

She seems to reduce everything to do I win or do I lose, and use sex as a weapon in this neverending battle that is her life. Sex is treated as transactional and some kind of zero sum game, where everything her husband gets is somehow a loss to her, which she then has to regain as soon as possible and going to further lengths if possible. This is not sex positivity. To me, this is sex negativity.

I especially loathe how you pissed all over therapy in this one. The premise is believable enough, but then you make the therapist be this unprofessional marionette who's effectively just a soundboard for Jan's delusional takes on herself and the world, and is finally deduced to some kind of a teen who can't control his erections - this is supposed to be a 60+yo professional, who most likely should've encountered his fair share of over-sexualized and manipulative behavior during his career. This would be okay if you used it to make some kind of a point about therapy, or unprofessional therapists, or the futility of corporate-mandated therapy sessions like these, but you don't, you seem to want the reader to take all this as face value and as a proof of Jan's über-sexiness.

But that was my whole point of describing the therapist's struggle with his own desires, so he wasn't portrayed as a one-dimensional, idealized character. In real life, even 60+yo professionals have desires.

Now, does Jan make sense? On some level, yes. You do portray a consistent picture of an insecure, immature person who bases their self worth on their sex appeal. Is she a subject of her own life? I don't get that impression, despite you telling the reader how successful she is professionally. If there's nobody around to observe how sexy she is, does she even exist?

I did show Jan without the sexy at the beginning of the story. Minus the sex-appeal, she exists as a sarcastic, insulting professional. The psychologist recognizes this with his final advice: (paraphrased) "Be yourself! Be the real YOU at work!"

What would've been more interesting (for me) is if this story would have featured a therapist who isn't drawn to her and who challenges her world view. That still wouldn't have made this a story that would fit my event themes, I think.

Another disclaimer: it's perfectly okay to write bossy, bitchy, controlling women, who use sex as a weapon to control and degrade all men. Some people do think that's sexy and based on the comments, some of them have found your story. It could (maybe) even be done in a way that hits the event themes (the way I understand them), but this wasn't that story. In my opinion. Which is what you asked.

She uses sex as a tool, not a weapon. Jan doesn't degrade men (unless they deserve it). She even says she LIKES men. She appreciates how she is more powerful than men, able to drain them and go on for more. She has learned through her life lessons that men compete with sexual insults, even against other men, and she joins in their competitions to win! She's learned that her sex allows her to BE the "King of the Hill."

Outside the scope of pink orchid, I think the scene in the beginning was pretty nonsensical. The one where Jan and Ted are at the club, talking about their high school days. Repeating these people's backstories in every single story is getting pretty old, and that's a clumsy way to do that. In my experience, people who are in their 40s or older (these characters have adult children) and are even remotely well adjusted do not spend time dwelling on their teen days, let alone repeatedly recounting them to each other in their marriage. I was also darkly amused to notice that as opposed to how you present the characters in stories from Ted's POV, you do give Ted a name before you tell us about how sexy he is, and you don't provide numerical measurements for him the way you do her.

The backstories were needed to show a real character, rather than a flat, tits-only character. The reader needs to know her struggles with the mean girls in school, her being dissed by the boys, her mother's mental problems, and the abusive band guy. And while my earlier stories did include measurements, I took such advice, and this story does not.



I decided to present Jan as the (admittedly) selfish anti-hero. But the story has her helping her co-worker, Barbara with her own attack on their sexist boss. And her final words with the psychologist were to encourage him to learn more about his own wife's secret desires and encourages him to appreciate his wife enjoying fulfilling those desires as a potential win-win for him, too.

Jan's final thoughts are "I see the world through my own shade of tinted glasses, and that real world made me who I am."

I really do appreciate your thorough review of my story.

And you are not rude! Thanks.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Mine went up this morning: Before We Talked. It's also a 750 word story. There's something darkly humorous about the female-POV story in Loving Wives having to do twice the work with fewer words and getting worse ratings than my usual stuff; on the other, the comments mostly seem complimentary, with a lot of "I'm mostly mad because this isn't a longer piece."

 

[SimonDoom]

Mine went up this morning: Before We Talked. It's also a 750 word story. There's something darkly humorous about the female-POV story in Loving Wives having to do twice the work with fewer words and getting worse ratings than my usual stuff; on the other, the comments mostly seem complimentary, with a lot of "I'm mostly mad because this isn't a longer piece."

Well, holy moly. Your story has been up for just over 12 hours and it already has over 20,000 views, 47 comments (!!) and 30 favorites. That's amazing. Its score is 3.67, but this story is a perfect example of how sometimes scores are totally meaningless as a measure of quality. It's well-written, although it's not a subject that personally interests me (that's not a criticism) and it ends on a note of ambiguity (not a flaw in my opinion, but it's deliberately not entirely satisfying).

It's an interesting interpretation of the challenge definition. I think you have to give any 750-word story some slack in this regard because of the inability to tell a full story in that limited space.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Laurel will occasionally publish a story in a category where she thinks it will run better. Given the number of stories she's vetted, I'd go along with her judgement, nine times out of ten.

In fact, Laurel just recategorised my latest submission (unless I had a brain fart and changed my mind at the last moment), from Toys and Masturbation to Erotic Couplings.

Possibly because there are no toys involved, and she could see the underlying theme was a couple, first love. It's the first chapter of what is now a three chapter longer story with at least another chapter to go. The first chapter is, if I flagged it right, an entry in this year's Pink Orchid anthology. I wonder what @Omenainen will think of that (she beta read it for me, and gave me some good suggestions, which I might have half heeded, half not).

 

[NoTalentHack]

Well, holy moly. Your story has been up for just over 12 hours and it already has over 20,000 views, 47 comments (!!) and 30 favorites. That's amazing. Its score is 3.67, but this story is a perfect example of how sometimes scores are totally meaningless as a measure of quality. It's well-written, although it's not a subject that personally interests me (that's not a criticism) and it ends on a note of ambiguity (not a flaw in my opinion, but it's deliberately not entirely satisfying).

It's an interesting interpretation of the challenge definition. I think you have to give any 750-word story some slack in this regard because of the inability to tell a full story in that limited space.

I’ll be honest: I expected it to score poorly. It’s a take on one of those tropes (Honey, We Need To Talk) where, for the trope to function, the antagonist has to be, at best, a dupe, but more often a villain. As I said to Omenainen, the wives in those stories are uniformly bitches, idiots, or both. I did the equivalent of saying, “Hey, you know, Carter Burke, the corporate guy from Aliens l, had some valid points.”

That’s part of why it’s always rung false to me, even if it can be fun in the same way that an 80s action movie with generic terrorists can be: you know it’s bullshit, but it’s fun bullshit. Those villains exist to get mowed down, not to have rich backstories and motivations. But still, sometimes it’s fun to remind people that mmmmmmaybe they shouldn’t treat stories like that as realistic, because once you start to pick at the threads, they all fall apart.

Still, I wasn’t expecting it to do worse than Kayfabe! New low score! Wooooo!

 

[Lifestyle66]

I’ll be honest: I expected it to score poorly. It’s a take on one of those tropes (Honey, We Need To Talk) where, for the trope to function, the antagonist has to be, at best, a dupe, but more often a villain. As I said to Omenainen, the wives in those stories are uniformly bitches, idiots, or both. I did the equivalent of saying, “Hey, you know, Carter Burke, the corporate guy from Aliens l, had some valid points.”

That’s part of why it’s always rung false to me, even if it can be fun in the same way that an 80s action movie with generic terrorists can be: you know it’s bullshit, but it’s fun bullshit. Those villains exist to get mowed down, not to have rich backstories and motivations. But still, sometimes it’s fun to remind people that mmmmmmaybe they shouldn’t treat stories like that as realistic, because once you start to pick at the threads, they all fall apart.

Still, I wasn’t expecting it to do worse than Kayfabe! New low score! Wooooo!

I gave Before We Talked a 5.

I think it's doing relatively well in LW because there's no cheating (yet).

In my experience, LW audience rates the BTB stories the highest (average over 4), even if the extra-marital sex ends just in divorce. Anything with consensual extra-marital sex tends to rate around 3 or slightly higher. Your story's 3.6 might mean the audience sees the husband's growling response as a potential for their favored burn.

My own 750-word Pink Orchid story ("Pavlov's Dog - 750 Words") is at 2.07 with 521 votes! I struck a nerve! It's my lowest rated story and I almost managed to keep it below 2.0.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Somehow, I don't think this guy is going to enjoy the Pink Orchid event.



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