CMed TheUniverseofCMed: Blog

Hello everyone, this may come out as a rant but I figure I go ahead and started on what needs to be said and clarified on my intentions as a writer. I have received some emails and messages on both sides of the spectrum that needs to be addressed when it comes to my stories.

I want to make things clear that being a writer is not an easy task. It gets into the social media where it is easily picked apart piece by piece. Things can get easily manipulated and distorted by others with various opinions. I can give praise to all the writers here that we all have our different genres that we cover from those that have been here the shortest or the longest of time spans.

Among one of the disturbing messages that I received about me is one that says that I promote rape or encourage it, with the message outright even accusing me as a rapist due to the content of my stories (or few stories that even have it). I believe I know what the culprit is and what has happened to have led that person to make that accusation, but it is only speculation. On the other side of the spectrum, I have received messages in which they want me to write stories where characters are being raped with complex descriptions of how it should be done. Both sides have indicated to me warning signs of what is happening with either the fanbase in general or possible newcomers, that force me to write this post.

I want to make things perfectly clear. I find the concept of rape to be disgusting in real life. The accusations are also taken way out of proportion so much that it I often believe that tags are actually to be the true blame on this. A perfect example of this is the story of Gabatrix: The Violet Wave. In the story and only for the smallest of sections, a male officer (the main character) that has been taken prisoner gets assaulted by a female alien that is much stronger than him. The alien wants revenge for being shot by him during a battle. She tries to attack him and he is knocked out during the ensuing fight. It is later indicated to him that he was sexually assaulted by this woman while he was unconscious. Later on, the same alien tries to attack him, but he wins the fight and the alien woman leaves him alone.

Because of this tiny scene out of a large story, I do believe that this is the culprit that led to the messages. I am very sure that many newcomers that browse the stories here on Storiesonline come to look at the descriptions and tags and make up their mind of the writer at the very spot. They don't bother to read the story because they already imagine the worst that can ever be brought from the writer.

The same argument can be made on Gabatrix: The Violet Wave. This story has implied rape……so the misconstrued viewer must conclude the writer must enjoy rape right? The moral crusaders will dawn their flags and wave it at me and say that I am a horrible person. They feel that I should be sent to the psychiatric ward or be burned at the stake on the spot for even mentioning it with others wanting me to remove it. Meanwhile, I write stories of a war where no rules apply. They don't have an issue with me writing the next story where an alien monster can devour people, possess them, or be outright violent and gorey, but the moment that I write a story where rape is even mentioned then I must be a danger to society and dangerous to every human being on the face of the planet.

I find the idea to be utterly repulsive of what rape is and I do not enjoy writing it. I love and try to find balance in life where political extremism (at least where I live) is on the rise on all sides. COVID-19 has not helped at all and helps create this form of madness that we are all struggling to fight. It doesn't take much for a person to point a finger at somebody, label them as a person because of something, and walk away not knowing what they have done that can hurt or defame the person as a result. Trolling also has many forms both wicked and with utter disgust. I have to take the messages that I receive with considerable question at times.

Because of this, I have to put my foot down on all sides. I do have a couple more stories in the far future where a character may end up getting sexually assaulted to help drive the main plot forward. However, when it arrives to that scene, it will fade to black and I won't describe it, but only the lingering impact that it had on the characters (somewhat like The Violet Wave did). Basically, it is me having to censor my own future stories. Do not come to me or try to commission me to write a rape scene for you. For the moral crusaders however, please understand that there is nothing gained by harassing me further. If I receive any further messages that I am a horrible writer for having rape in my stories or a scene that even leads to it, I will consider it as trolling or harassment in which I will send it to the webmasters to deal with.

Among one of the other things that I also have found disturbing is how my story of Ayida Weddo is paraded on something that I found on the most repulsive of websites…..sites that I can't even mention on this posting at all. Once again, I fear the worst in that people read the tags, don't even bother with what was intended of the story, and think I am terrible person for even having it in the first place. Meanwhile, they don't even know what it is about.

I want to clarify that Ayida Weddo and the Tales of Heroes is one that does have a story based in an actual environment. It takes place during the Liberian Civil War where people not only killed each other, but ate each other. This happened over twenty years ago and the people still suffer to this day from the brutality of such a conflict. The goal of my story was to bring awareness of such an event besides having the main story of the characters. History is a strong suite of mine and I enjoy writing it. While magic, fantasy, and even eroticism can exist in Tales of Heroes, there is a clear division between the travesty and horrors that Liberia went through and the love, romance, and sex between the main characters in one book alone. I believe that the tags that I have were gravely misaligned and the story is due for a massive overhaul/revision since my writing skills continue to improve along with Grammarly to even assist along the way. I believe it is in the best interests to go ahead and take it down for a few months. From there, I will do all the things that need to be fixed to it. I even have plans to turn Ayida-Weddo and the Tales of Heroes into a fundraising project to help provide relief to African nations. I don't know about you, but I think it is one that will be very interesting and worthwhile, right? :)

With all that said, I do appreciate the positive comments that I do receive. A positive or even a constructive comment to me is worth more than anything in these trying times. Take care and thank you for enjoying my stories.

While I continue to write Opet and the Tales of Heroes, the book cover for Gabatrix: The Silver Rain has now been completed. The artwork was done by Jaizub who did a fantastic job with it. If you haven't read the Gabatrix series, I recommend checking out my other stories. Currently, I have four Gabatrix stories written and want to continue writing more.

Anyways, I wanted to give thanks to my Patron supporters and possible future supporters for allowing me to commission the artists in making it happen.

I am also expanding outward into Deviantart where I can post other artwork including my own concept work besides Furaffinity where I originally had them.

https://www.patreon.com/TheUniverseofCMed

https://www.deviantart.com/cmed2500

Happy Late Halloween to everyone. I have completed the story Gabatrix: The Silver Rain. Due to storiesonline.net, they decided to upload the entire story up even though I said one chapter every three days. Ugh.....

Anyways, Gabatrix: The Silver Rain is the fourth story of the Gabatrix series. I recommend getting a chance to read the other Gabatrix stories before hopping into it. The Silver Rain leans into the horror genre so be ready for some spooks here and there. Please read the disclaimers before jumping into the story.

As any case, my Patreon is always available if you wish to support the cause.

https://www.patreon.com/TheUniverseofCMed

Hello everyone, I wanted to give an update on my progress. I went and remastered Ryujin and the Tales of Heroes using Grammarly and past writing experiences to eliminate errors and typos. The story is better than ever now. Ryujin is the sequel to Ariadne and the Tales of Heroes. If you haven't read it, then I recommend checking it out. :)

Ayida Weddo still needs a full revision/remaster but that will be until next year. I want to write again. Gabatrix: The Silver Rain for upcoming Halloween and Opet and the Tales of Heroes are planned for this year.

I have had to disable the voting for Taweret and the Tales of Heroes as well due to lower scores. It is ironic for the story that actually helps lead into Gabtrix that Taweret is the least viewed upon on this site. I have had others accuse it of being a drug feast or femdom by the use of drugs which is way off, especially for the main characters. The Yuki in my stories produces a powerful chemical during their heat cycle. It is basically like a powerful aphrodisiac that causes a person to lock onto them. No way do I have it where the men are enslaved to the female Yuki as a result. If anything, the female Yuki have an issue where if they don't have sex during their heat cycle, it can actually end up killing them. In other words, characters love and treat each other with respect in that book.

I am still in debate with the voting. Right now, I am not pleased with the voting system on Storiesonline as mentioned in my last blog. Understand I am not upset towards the general audience but the few that degrade it. I use the voting system to get a brief gage on what people think but that in itself doesn't do much. To me, constructive feedback is ten times better. My stories fit into certain areas/niches and if one person doesn't like it, then they either leave or vote down and walk away for the next person to see it. In certain degrees, the voting system can determine the next person from reading the story entirely just based on its score. A few trolls can destroy that process of a writer's work. A bad score might as well be telling others to not bother reading your stories. That is not fair and I don't tolerate it especially when others are struggling to become better and better writers themselves.

It would be like this, the day of the elections show up. You have done a lot of research towards your candidates spending a month deciphering who would be the best candidate as a leader. You cast your ballot and walk away but the next person has done no research. He or she then looks at the candidates' faces and then cast a ballot based on how they look. This would completely undermine the election system as a whole and destroy your work and research on the best candidate for leadership. I believe that there are constructive voters but a few bad people can ruin it very quickly.

I went ahead and removed the "Rape" tag from Gabtrix: The Violet Wave since I feel it isn't enough of a scene in Chapter 5 to make it a rape scene. The "Implied Rape" in the description will remain though. That being said, please read the disclaimers before reading my stories. It gives a more detailed description of what is going to come up in my story. I still believe that some people are not doing that and then vote the story based strictly on the tags. Only one story in all the stories truly has a rape scene (more like a non-consensual) and that is Ryujin.

I don't have to beat this over and over again. My presumptions are that people don't like rape (who doesn't?) in my stories. I don't encourage it and don't try to bring a thrill to it. I use the term "Implied Rape" so that the audience understands that a character was raped but the scene is not entirely depicted in the story. A character might have been assaulted but that is to drive the story and not to actually promote it. However, it is under my belief that people see the tag and downvote my stories without even reading it. If that is the case, then I will keep the voting disabled forever for the sake of abuse by the voters.

With all that said though, I have received a lot of support from individuals. I wanted to give thanks to those people for constructive feedback in my last blog post. In reality, I receive a lot of good feedback (far more than bad) and I don't let the few get to me. In fact, I have actually received a lot of support from others and actually had a fan donate money to make the book cover for the upcoming Opet and the Tales of Heroes. Pretty cool, eh? :)

As always, I have the link for my Patreon. If you wish to support me then you can. A little bit goes a long ways and makes the universe get bigger and bigger. Happy reading to all.

https://www.patreon.com/TheUniverseofCMed

Among one of the things I have begun to notice upon waking up each morning to continue writing and editing my stories, is the process in which work can be damaged and destroyed by the actions of other people.

This process is probably known by many and that is zero-bombing or troll voting. It is something that I have been reading up on the blogs of other writers and the challenges that other writers, movie makers, and animators face every day. The idea is that the first people to vote are usually the ones that simply vote down, regardless of the amount work that the person put forth into their project. This can cause other people to become discouraged (in certain degrees) in looking at the works because there is such a low score on the project/works itself.

It is my belief that everyone should be praised for their work. This site alone consists of numerous story writers that devote their hard work and time to writing stories. It is something that does not happen overnight. I alone, at the moment that you are reading this, have spent two years writing. I can go back and see the differences of my own writing from day one to two years later. I still make mistakes, but you get better at spotting them. I can look at others that are just getting started in the process and understand the pain and struggle that they are going through in making a story.

Within a moment's notice, a few people can disrupt that entire process. The art is sickening at best. I can acclaim cases where I just upload a story onto a website. The entire book requires at least ten hours of reading and immediately within the first hour, there is a negative downvote. Did the reader perform a miracle and managed to stop time in reading my story to give it a constructive and thought out vote? No. They simply voted down without even reading it. This idea is simply known as zero bombing and it can cause more damage in the long run than the voting system is supposed to do.

I can also provide other examples. Among three of my stories, I have noticed a consistently negative vote aspect on stories where there is a "Rape" tag on it. I have to bring it into question. "Did the people come in and vote down after reading the story or were these people that read the tag and hit the downvote icon without reading the story?" In reality, the stories that I write are not even designed to bring any thrill to the idea of rape. Rape is horrific and it is never my intention to encourage it. I barely even have it in my stories. Even Gabatrix: The Violet Wave, the concept is an officer is assaulted by another. Before the deed is done, he is knocked out, causing the scene to skip almost completely. He manages to fight back the next time he is attacked and it helps drive the character's ambitions and thinking for the story. In Tales of Heroes, especially with Ryujin, I have to deal with historical concepts. Nero supposedly did horrible things to children. While I imply that he did it, I don't write the scene of events. Ryujin is perhaps the only book that truly has a non-consensual scene (separate from Nero) in it, but this is measured differently by everyone. Regardless, I have to place a tag/disclaimer to let the audience know of this.

I don't know if my readers, actually read the disclaimers that I put out for my stories, but I am getting the impression that some are not. They simply vote before reading. It is an attempt at sabotage.

In my library alone, I have been faced with this similar situation as well and while I have received a well amount of constructive feedback (positive feedback that addresses simple errors that need to be fixed and positive/general feedback in general), there are messages that I also receive that bring a lack of validity in the emailer. Be aware that I record these messages. Errors I go and fix, and those that attack me personally will be reported for harassment to the webmaster or other staff of Storiesonline. Be professional, please.

It is in my best interest to go ahead and disable the voting on a couple of my stories that have the concept of the "Rape" tag. Stories like Ryujin which, at the moment that you are reading this, I am currently remastering to fix the errors, I have disabled voting until the remaster is uploaded. Stories like Gabatrix: The Violet Wave will be disabled at least until the story is completely uploaded and the reader can have a better chance to read all of the story, and Ayida Weddo that also has "Implied Rape" will be disabled. Doing this is my only course of action.