I guess it always happens. When I have an idea for a story or two, I start looking at the site, and realizing what needs to be fixed. Back when I was maintaining the journal, I more or less kept the site updated. Now, it gets so far behind, and then when I start working on it, I use up all of my time doing web admin instead of writing.
The forum, as you know if you've been following the site even slightly, died a death ten years back. It started getting spammed, and I started not paying attention. Yesterday I looked into recovering it. There was some worthwhile threads there. But the spam has made it impossible to recover, or even to find the threads that matter. And the forum software's time has come and gone, so the chance of getting an upgrade that would help with the spam is non-existent.
So I thought about getting a new forum system.
And then I thought about not doing that, because surely there are plenty of other, better places now. Well, there's reddit, but I won't venture anywhere near that place. Not in my author persona, certainly. And there are all the other erotica sites...
Except that there aren't. There are a couple of large, pretty good sites (like [literotica.com] and they even have forums), but they're large scale and don't have the same personal focus our old forums did. And pretty much all of the other sites are gone, or serving spam. Most of the traffic to Fantasies of Seduction is generated by PersianKitty.com, but if you check the fiction links there almost none of them work. They're repurposed or for sale or direct to a spam site.
It's somewhat depressing, especially now, when so many of us have more time to read and less opportunity to pursue excitement. I'd like to try to rebuild connections with other erotica sites, but I hardly know where to start. (Except for [literotica.com], I guess.)
So after thinking about not wasting time on a new forum system, I waffled back into the "do it" camp. The new forums are at f.fantasiesofseduction.org, and I'd be thrilled if you'd sign up and post a message.
As little traffic as the site gets now, that may be no one, ever, but I know that some of my old friends still visit. Their emails are usually lost in spam, but they're picking up the stories and reading them.
On the topic of email, I have a new one. Spam is insane, so I'm not going to post it directly, but if I tell you that it is helen at fantasiesofseduction dot org, you'll figure it out. If you add the word "author" in the subject line, I'll be even more likely to find it in the spam that accumulates around any public email address.
So - this is probably the last and biggest update for this month. Please visit the forums. Please post. Give me feedback. Post a new story. Post a RL experience. Please send me links to other sites that I can work with to get some activity around erotic fiction.
Above all, be safe in these dangerous times.
And the cupboard is now bare! Please enjoy Bonds of Friendship, the last story I have had in work. There'll be more, and there's a long- term story project I'm working on, which I'll probably post in chapters, but that is the last complete story I had in work.
As I mentioned, there's a trigger warning. If you are willing to work through the early subject matter, I hope that the story is rewarding.