2d10 Psychic Damge

[ghoulmouse]

You ever read a sex scene that's so bad it causes you actual psychological problems?

I'm exaggerating a little, but on the other hand I'm not. I won't name names or titles, but I started working on editing my first webnovel/light novel/etc that has explicit content in it (I've done explicit manga before, this is my first prose project though).

And god, is it ever bad.

I was in the middle of slogging through absolutely the worst sex scene I've ever read -- not just "worst in a published book" but I think worst I've read ever in my whole life -- and I just got like...overwhelmed? By the fact that this sucked SO BAD and multiple parties paid money to publish this in two different languages and now someone was paying ME money to try to make it as readable as possible (a tall order let me fucking tell you). And I think this must have set off some kind of chain reaction in my brain because I spent the next week or so just catastrophically depressed and stewing over my own failure to accomplish...well, much of anything, really.

With a little more perspective I can say that there are actually things I'm EXTREMELY proud of (hell, I was the editor on a manga that won an Eisner for best foreign language adaptation), but there's still... I dunno.

I guess 20 years ago...30 years ago...I thought I'd have done more by now. In particular, I thought I'd have some kind of big artistic project, a book or a comic or video game or I dunno, depends on when you asked me.

Here I was polishing up the most bottom-of-the-barrel shit I'd ever seen and I couldn't stop thinking, man...even the bottom of the barrel is still IN the barrel, you know? What am I missing that the author of this nonsense has? Is it persistence? Dedication? Work ethic? Do I just not CARE as much as he did? Clearly it's not TALENT that's the problem and that honestly makes it worse. Talent is neutral; what I've got is a failure of personality, clearly.

I've been trying to channel this into something a little more productive, maybe try writing something I can throw up on Amazon/Smashwords because if this can make its creator a bit of money then goddammit I can do better, right? But I dunno. It's hard to face up to another goal I might very well fumble yet again.

Guess we'll see how things go.

Anyway, that's the story of how I had an existential breakdown over anime boobs. Thank you, good night.

Comments

[kradeelav]

feeling ya - as a real small indie erotica artist it can definitely sting when you know your work is objectively better than some of the stuff that hits the shelves.

what helped me was (unrelatedly) very briefly getting to see how the sausage was made with quote unqote best seller erotica books marketed on tiktok. it is like... using every dark pattern known to man to abuse algorithims/digital advertising/amazon's loopholes and then some. i'd feel safe betting money that what you read did the same.

seeing that kind of turned me off of ever pursuing it (even erotic manga, a different world entirely) for real money - difference of selling your soul versus meaning it.

[althea_valara]

rambling thoughts, probably more about me than you, so feel free to skip what doesn't resonate with you.

You ever read a sex scene that's so bad it causes you actual psychological problems?

There are certainly ones I regret reading/seeing, so... yes?

I read a book a few years ago - a typical teenage romance book. It was... adequate enough that I finished the book, but after, I said to myself, "I could have written something better." Whether or not that is actually true, I don't know, but I did wonder why this adequate book was published. (Turns out it was from a fairly well-known author, but I hadn't recognized her name. Oops.)

I have also experienced depression at times because, well, when I was a kid I wanted to be a novelist, and now not only do a rarely write fiction but I also rarely read fiction these days, and that's disheartening. What happened to that girl with the dreams of entertaining others with her stories? It took YEARS to shift my brain, but I eventually realized this: I am, at heart, a creative person who needs to be doing creative things, but that doesn't necessarily mean story telling. It can be journal writing, or crafting. What really matters to me is that I am touching the lives of others with what I *do* write and make, and that's been enough.

I hope you find something in your life that satisfies your existential needs!

It's hard to face up to another goal I might very well fumble yet again.

Oh boy, IT SURE IS. A large reason why I'm scared of working again is I'm afraid it will just all go to pieces. It still is very hard for me to envision a future where I'm happily working productively. But I'm going to try, partially because I have no choice right now, but also because I *can* sort of envision myself in my own place again, with my own kitty. I want that future enough to put in the work.

But... I know for me at least, my life has become very Small because I don't do much other than play video games and craft. I would like a bigger, more interesting life! And that does mean taking chances, and risking that I might fumble again. It's scary. But I think it's worth doing.

Is there something you can practice on where it's "safe" to fumble? For me, it's my crafts, because it's just yarn and if it comes out bad, I just pull it out and redo it. Maybe it could be a habit such as taking a walk daily, and giving yourself grace if you miss a day. Because you DON'T have to do things "perfectly". I think every single craft of mine has a mistake in it SOMEWHERE, and yet the final results are pleasing to many people - I've literally had people jaw drop and exclaim, "YOU MADE THAT?!" and another person bowed down to me when I said yeah, I made this amigurumi I'm holding.

I think I've rambled enough, haha. I'm cheering for you! I hope you can get past this funk!

[kalloway]

You ever read a sex scene that's so bad it causes you actual psychological problems?

I feel like this was last December and reading through all those indie fantasy romance stories I got for free. And to me, self-pubbed is still pubbed - the author thought they did well enough to put it out there for sale and theoretically are selling copies and I just...

Yeah, it causes a san loss sometimes, doesn't it? That's really all I got.

[vriddy]

I'm really really sorry about the spiralling, but before getting to that part of your post I found your descriptions of how bad the scene was so very evocative that I was laughing out aloud 😂

A friend of mine translates from English and sometimes ends up with self-published novels that were bought on the strength on the goodreads reviews, and some of the sentences literally make no sense, and she finds major consistency issues that she constantly has to decide with her editor how much to smooth or fix or ignore, and gah. Not dissing self-pub in general, I think there's just a much wider range by nature.

I hope the barrel bottom-scraping does result in some positive momentum for something else. Good luck!

[ghoulmouse]

The situation with translated LNs and such is a little different, so I presume the reason this thing is coming out in English is primarily because it was dirt cheap to license lol. But I would NOT be surprised if it snagged popularity in its original language using similar methods. The world of webnovels and light novels is insanely competitive -- in fact, that's almost certainly the reason those infamously long titles became common. There's just so much competing for reader attention that not forcing someone to click through to a summary to see what the book is about offered a slim but noticeable advantage. Shit's crazy out there.

I also think it's incredibly important to prioritize meaningful expression over money and clout, especially in the area of erotica which can be some of the most deeply personal artwork possible, but I cannot deny that the idea of churning out "Taken by the Alpha Shifter" style smut stories on Kindle Unlimited and making some money off black hat SEO bullshit has a certain allure LMAO.

[ghoulmouse]

LOL, well...the content of the scene was pretty unremarkable, it was just so far below what I'd consider even readable, much less publishable, that it sort of blew my mind.

Yeah...IDK I get what you're saying and I feel the exact same way about a lot of stuff. I also want a better future and a more interesting life but I feel like so much of that has passed me by. IDK it's terrifying.

I have had some success working on my dolls... I used to get super upset when something didn't turn out right the first time, so I kind of dropped the hobby for a while, but I somehow got invested enough in making the Saya no Uta doll that I powered through and ended up redoing her faceup once and her hair twice until I was actually somewhat satisfied. There are some things I think I could have done better, I had planned to add some other features that I never got around to, and yeah it was frustrating to have to wipe away the face or tear out the hair and start again, but...I am really glad I did it, and ultimately the stuff I messed up wasn't the end of the project, much less the end of the world.

It's really hard to apply that logic to other areas of my life, lol, but I'm trying I guess.

[ghoulmouse]

LMAO oh no, indie romance can get so dire -- though I will say this was way worse than any Kindle Unlimited hack job I've personally seen (lord knows what the true depths are, though).

The only conclusion I can draw from working on this is that otaku dudes will jerk off to literally anything.

[ghoulmouse]

Oh, that's interesting -- I have no idea what the world of translating FROM English is like, so it's kind of reassuring to hear they have the same sorts of problems (I've been in that exact position as an editor like, zillions of times). And yeah I can't knock self publishing -- hell, I'm still glad this guy got the chance to get his writing out there even if I maybe PERSONALLY think he should have reconsidered, lol.

And yeah, it is objectively an extremely funny situation regardless of the fact that it involves me being sad, so I'm glad it made you laugh :)

[kalloway]

way worse than any Kindle Unlimited hack job I've personally seen

ohlord-

otaku dudes will jerk off to literally anything

oh, yeah, probably, yeah

*digs out Brain Bleach icon*

[kradeelav]

No kidding with the long titles for webnovels... you really are teaching me some interesting facts today.

LOL I get you, sometimes just fantasizing about living off of smut feels real nice. :D

[lassarina]

I don't know if this is helpful, but it seems to me that, as a society, we have internalized this idea that everyone who's Going To Make It does so at like age 23 and if you don't have your first Hugo award (or whatever) before 40 you're doomed to die in obscurity and just. Statistically that isn't true. When we're 20 we have a lot more time to waste on a creation binge that just isn't there when we're 40 or 50 - but we have so much more life experience, and creation experience, when we hit mid-life, and later. So I guess, in the same way that "what would I have changed about myself at 22?" is a meaningless question because the things I would know to change are things I only know about because of the mistakes I made--it wasn't the right time, or the right brain space, or whatever. But that just means you go to the opportunities ahead with a different richness of experience to draw upon (and many more years of porn in fandom.)

...that said, comparing oneself to others and ones' youthful dreams is ass, hate it actually.