Hello All,
As the banner reads, I will be decommissioning this blog at the end of 2024. I had a lot of fun writing for it back when it was active, but the more I have thought about it as I have gotten older the more uncomfortable I have become with it existing.
I wrote all of these stories when I was a teenager, and when viewed through that lens, they're fine, if badly written. A lot of the characters are that age, because I was that age, and a lot of the images chosen for the captions reflect that as well. That's all fine if they're written by a teenager and read by teenagers, and they were fine then because I mainly wrote them for myself.
I've also in the past few years faced a bit of a personal reckoning with TG captions and how I feel about them. Nearing the end of my tenure on this blog, when Google started to be more serious about marking content as explicit, I wondered if what I made was explicit or not. I was never interested in full nude or pornographic captions, but there was certainly an element of eroticism to what I was writing and the line seemed a bit blurry. At the time, I didn't give it a ton of thought, because I was a dumb teenager.
But the more I think about it, the harder it gets to enjoy certain captions, including and especially ones I wrote. I have become significantly more conscious of image sourcing, and pay much more attention to image context than I did in the past, which was zero. Was this a consciously taken picture? Did the woman consent to be photographed in this way? How old is she? How would she feel if she knew her image was used for these stories? I know none of this really matters once something is on the internet, but personally, I don't feel comfortable creating or consuming something now without asking myself these questions and getting answers I'm comfortable with.
I am now most definitely not a teenager, and rereading a lot of these makes me uncomfortable. A lot of the characters are around the age I was back then, and reading those stories and seeing the girls associated with them makes it hard for me to enjoy them the way I did when I was that age.
And that's fine, that's a normal thing that happens. Tastes should naturally change over time, and honestly I'd be more concerned if I was able to enjoy the same things teenage me did. This blog just happens to be a time capsule of a what a teenage me was interested in, and adult me doesn't like it. I think that happens to everyone, or at least it should.
I still write stories from time to time, with much more consciously sourced images, over on opentgc.com under @ashertg. I usually source from TheChive, under the assumption that their image vetting is at least somewhat acceptable, or from professional shows and movies and what not where I know more information about the subjects. I can't speak for everything on opentgc, but at least what I've contributed I can stand and be comfortable with.
I'm leaving this up until the 1st to give anyone still around time to read this explanation. I've already removed some of the posts I was most uncomfortable with, but I'll let the rest have one last month in the sun.
Thanks for being a fan of what I wrote so long ago, I hope you have a great rest of your year.
Asher
I'm glad you're ok. I understand where you are coming from writing wise, but that doesn't change the impact. You could also rewrite them now in a style you would now. That's just a good way to grow as a writer. Thank you for not just closing the blog, that gives everyone time to save and appreciate your work. You shouldn't be unable to enjoy your prior work that's a little sad. It's about the story not the style. Also I've wondered if the open tg user was you. That's great to know. I'd love to see similar stories, or these same ones more elaborate. I loved that your favorite theme was the RE. By the first, you mean January right? Give me December to back up my favorites.b
ReplyDeleteYes, first as in 01/01/2025, or shortly thereafter. So a month from yesterday.
DeleteI think disliking past things you made is actually a sign of growth as a writer, it means my standards have risen and I expect more from myself now. The ones I've written on Opentgc play with the same ideas the ones here did, so definitely still playing around with these ideas and probably will be for the rest of my life. Closing this blog is more just to purge all of the stuff I made before I really paid attention to the things I talked about in the post, and to remove some stuff I just find uncomfortable now with adult eyes. Thankfully, that's easily avoided in future work, so there will definitely be more over on Opentgc from me in the future, if less often than it was here. Thank you for the kind words and liking my stuff, even if I don't!
I get where you're coming from but hopefully it's in the writing itself and not so much the creativity of the plot/concept. I know you visit similar themes but to elaborate I mean taking the premise of the individual caption and rewriting it from your knew mindset and improved writing style. I loved this blog for many reasons but among them was you frequency of role exchanger captions. You really put that form of transformation first, as with the mau, master pc, remote and randomizer. They're under utilized by many in the community but you made these the forefront. On openthc you don't really have those. I'd love to see the same type of transformations. You can take an older cap and use it as an outline for a new story fleshed out better and more mature. I also think society, as a whole tend to forget their youthful perception of the whole and certainly imagination. As a fiction/fantasy writer that comes first, the inspiration, that initial spark and the numerous variant directions possible. So many get stubborn and rigid. Remember your early work is paramount to that, as well as a metric, an tool to track your development. I really will miss the excitement I got from knowing I was often getting a RE, trait swapping etc. as opposed to finding it on other sites, great sites, but thinking "finally a RE story!" I'd love to see your name pop up and know I'm getting a unique transformation and not the same typical, simple body or gender swap with a mental change similar to the new form and not something contrasting tweak, like your "walking contradiction" story. That's what I'll miss most. Thank you for all those ideas that got me thinking about all the ways it could play out. Please keep that while going forward. Don't forget the past. Thank you for surprising me, and all of us, with the unique combinations of changes to the characters.
DeleteHow do I find your other content on Opentgc
ReplyDeleteHonestly I kind of get where you're coming from. I only recently started posting my own stuff, but I've been reading TG captions/content since I was a teenager too. Like you said, it makes sense to write things from that perspective at that age. As a teen, my horny, hormonal brain never questioned the questionable or outright sexual content with characters my age because I wanted to be able to relate to them. Nowadays, while I can still more or less write from a teen perspective, as an adult it makes it much harder to justify certain creative choices, both from a reading and a writing standpoint. That and it's hard not to cringe at old works, regardless of who you are or what you write XD
ReplyDelete(By the way, I've seen your work on OTGC and I really like your writing style and the fact that you emphasize consent.)
Congratulations on maturity :-) there's so many things we could talk about from entertainment to there's some really raunchy stuff on open TG, fiction-mania you name it, and stories are one thing images are something else, and I guess what you ran into is something that's always been with me being able to tell the difference between reality and fiction and letting the best parts of ourselves, in the real world Governor actions and attitudes
ReplyDeleteFor myself of course I've read your stuff the whole time, not every one of them but you were one that was accessible, and you thought about what you were doing and it was fun it was entertaining that's why we do this stuff, having a daughter or knowing women and thinking about objectification, you really thinking about people now which is fabulous, we could make weak arguments that using AI to generate images will remove a moral impact but ultimately it's your brain, it's your time it's your effort it's your soul when do certain activities become less than useful? I knew a guy who gave up baseball because it was an addiction for him and when cable came out it didn't work anymore he had to stop it all.
DeleteAt the same time we were all drawn to it because yeah it just is our hormones and some of the funny ones the clever ones the wacky ones are just fun, but most of the ones I'm seeing on the form of chosenare r not.... Running for p*** images produces a very different mindset the videos etc and it's something that since you're reflecting on it it gives me the opportunity to reflect on it and tell you that it doesn't help life, it's a distraction for better real or things, but real life is scary and hard, that's why this is so much fun, but there is real life and it's even better, again congratulations on recognizing and letting things go it's real maturity and you had to walk through the process and ask key questions which as you continue to think and act in a wise way will bring good things into your life I hope and pray
Do we do things that we later find hypocritical or for that matter due things I'm looking at you junk food, that are hypocritical while we're doing them, of course we do, maturity is learning to stop doing those things :-) and doing more positive things in our lives sometimes it's not running away from as much as replacing with something much more positive, you showed tremendous interest in being creative, why not move in a direction that you're delighted to share with everyone? Imagine being successful published self-published Kindle author etc it's scary because you might fail but wouldn't it be awesome to share everything you do with others and get positive feedback because you recognize people as people, versus the tendency we've been trained into by the systems to only see people as objects, and the associated psychic damage that this does to us, if it sounds like I'm a little preachy it's because I'm preaching to myself even as this on the next to last day happens, it is about the best Christmas holiday present I've ever gotten, you're reflecting on things I've been thinking about for years, and you're making a choice I don't know if you'll keep going and move to other activities, or if you just enjoy it so much you're going to keep going, but I think part of the maturity that comes from life and caring about other people, and being worth caring for by other people, what we did at 6 8 10 12 16 years old, gosh until your brain is 25 it's still developing, some addictions can be very powerful some activities can be very powerful good bad or ugly it's when we form our attachments to music and everything else. Take the good creative stuff and consider how you can channel it into things that you would be happy to share with the world? :-) I would encourage you even as I encourage myself to consider the creative I'm terrified to put my stuff out, because what if I'm rejected or worse no one cares, and yet you've created a blog that got a lot of visits because it was created, so creative so consider this as encouragement to take the creativity but directed in ways that you'd be happy to show your mother grandmother's female friends male friends you name it, and sometimes that means getting out of a small bubble of people to embrace a broader world of the view that humans are worthwhile, and embedding that in your writing :-) for myself based on what I've already written you guys won't be surprised of adopted from foster care children of a different race than myself let me tell you that's something I could write about and it would be awesome, but I'm nervous when people be judgy will people think I'm holding myself up as being great etc and yet if no one talks about it people don't consider doing it... Captioning goes back a thousands of years is what's humans do, can you take and put positive captions on things that move people in a positive direction? I'm working through this today the last 3 years with AI generated art it makes it so incredibly easy for good or bad Emma at the end of the day what I came to was if my wife walked in, or my kids or I showed it to my mother What am I going to be comfortable showing them and having identified with me? Niece's nephews the whole wide world? If you're not comfortable doing something that the whole world would know you made, that might be another yard stick? There's lots of people who are famous now for being outrageous, but that doesn't mean their behavior is right it just means their behavior is outrageous.
DeleteHopefully I haven't come across too much as a killjoy You're definitely thinking through things that maturity thoughtfulness character all those classic moral virtues required to get to a place where you're seeing yourself properly, and even more what you're doing! And this is insanely hard, much harder than writing stories, so again my hat is off to you and thank you so so much
0 this point I would upload an AI generated photo of a person doing something awesome in the daylight with friends around positive message of some sort, and maybe even some silly appropriate thing, and that's what got me started as well was just the silliness our brains love contradictions, unfortunately I can't generate such a thing without giving more information and there's no easy way to link it here :-) but again I command you for thinking about what you're doing such tremendous maturity is super impressive
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