Frequently Moaned Questions
Why do some of the characters have tails?
This is because they are part Neptunian in heritage (which is part of the story they come from). Hence the title of this site. All people half Nep or above will have some form of a tail. People who are one-fourth Nep in heritage may also have a tail. I think they are quite beautiful; sometimes I wish I had one! Heh! :)
Why do some characters have such strange hair colors?
Many of the characters have strange hair colors because they come from anime-style role-playing games or fanfics, meaning that they are influenced by Japanese animation. A great deal of Japanimation characters have odd hair colors.
Hey Laurel, why are there so many pictures of female characters? Where is the beefcake?!
This is because artists need models, and it is easier to find female models in magazines and such. I will try to find some more male models for future pics.
What does Adult 17+ mean?
It's a rating I put on my sexfics that indicates they are for adults 17 years of age and older to read, and are probably not appropriate for those who are younger. I'm not going to use the MPAA's rating system because that makes them cranky.
A special note from the authors: If you venture into the stories on this site, you may find them to be violent and/or sexually graphic, some of them seeming to be excessively so (I'm mostly referring to the Muni/Clarissa story here). This is because we write what the characters and the story tell us to, what we feel is best for the story at the time. Sometimes this requires unpleasant, brutal events in the story that may be distasteful to read. If this is not your cup of tea, you may want to move on to other stories. If you do choose to read them, the authors just want to make sure that you keep in mind that the events in these stories do not represent any activities that we ourselves particularly participate in or advocate.
It really amazes me, but there seems to be this double standard in America that says that if you write stories about sex, you must be a slut; if you write stories about women being sexually brutalized, you must think that sort of thing is good. This could not be farther from the truth. In fact, we are NOT going on personal experience either. These are fictional stories. They represent things that can happen, and maybe have happened to someone somewhere, but certainly not to us or anyone we know personally. When someone writes a very violent story about the mob, I never hear people remark that they must be a sick person who likes to shoot people. Yet, you write sexual material, and suddenly you're a pervert. Suddenly, you must enjoy everything you are writing about. Not always true! These are just stories to us. Please keep that in mind as you read. Thank you.
So Laurel, what do you think about people who write sexual material?
In general, nothing in particular. I judge a writer's talent on how good they write, not on what they write about. I really don't understand why some people instantly think what you write is trash if it is about sex. It's just another story element; why should it be taboo? Of course if you're writing for children, I understand why you should stay away from the topic. But I'm a grown woman, and I usually write for adults. This argument that "a child MIGHT read the material, so it just shouldn't be there" is ridiculous. Yeah, a child MIGHT drink bleach; does that mean bleach should be outlawed? A child MIGHT stick his finger in an outlet, so let's make electricity illegal? No! Of course not. There are safeguards that can be put in place to protect kids from things that MIGHT hurt them--parents simply need to USE them.
I believe there are a few problems at work here, with the whole "anti-hentai" movement on the internet. 1). Sexual repression. Some people are just too embarrassed and uptight about their own sexual needs. That's why we have unplanned pregnancies and the spread of VD. If adults had the courage to talk about it more, there'd be less irresponsibility and mental anguish. Sexually uptight people get all frustrated when someone brings up this topic they can't handle, so they just want it to go away. 2). Most hentai fics on the internet suck. Very few people have the talent to write a good sex fic, so people assume all fics of this type must be crap. Not true. 3). Jumping on the bandwagon! "Everyone else seems to hate it, so I will too so I can fit in!" These are the people who secretly rent hentai videos and watch them without anyone knowing, then rag on how gross and horrible hentai is on newsgroups and message boards. Personally, I'd rather be my own person with my own mind. 4). Most "anti-hentai" people are too young to appreciate sex anyway. Hey, that's great, that you're waiting until you're ready. But why do you have to shove your opinion down others throats in such an insulting manner? All I can say is, maybe you'll understand when you're older.
The thing is, hentai isn't all monster rape--quite a few titles in the genre feature nothing but couples--and even with the monsters, there are good reasons why they are used. One being that demons are pretty prevalent in Japanese myth and religion, so naturally they are going to figure into their stories more, and two being that it's still, as far as I know, illegal in Japan to show a penis in an illustration or live action program. To get around this, animators used phallic-like protrusions (such as "tentacles"), which would only make sense on a demon, to perform all the action so they could still market sexual material without heavy editing. Often if you see what is plainly a penis in a hentai tape, it was originally pixelized/covered up in some way in the video as it was released in Japan, and the company that released it in America removed the pixelization.
Another problem is the people of Japan just seem to have a firmer grasp on what is fantasy and what is reality than we of America do. For some people, what they see on tv is what they should emulate, which is stupid. It's a fictional story; it's not a blueprint for how you should live your life. Frankly, if you're making life decisions because that's what the kids on "The OC" did, you need psychological help.
If you like it so much, why don't you move to Japan?
Because I love it right here where I live. Why can't I just hope that someday, we learn something from their culture and stop thinking that we already have all the answers? There's no crime in wanting your culture to grow and evolve. You don't have to keep your mouth shut to love your country; aren't those the principles America was built on? Free speech?
Anyway, sorry for all the soap boxing. I got frustrated and off I went. :)
Back to Neptunian Cheesecake