Very specific blog this week, even though I had other things I wanted to talk about. Instead, obviously, I'm going to rant about the fuck that reported EoR on Royal Road.
So this week, the chapters that begin Tovar and Felris's romance subplot posted. You've read all that already, I presume, but a refresher: it begins with Felris having a crush, then Tovar telling Gustar to step back when he sees him laying hands on her; Felris blowing up her arranged marriage, Tovar thinking out loud about how to fix it, and in doing so Felris deciding she wants to marry Tovar; penning a letter to Rikton to see if that's doable, and leaving our boy a bit befuddled about it at the end of Chapter 29.
Apparently, this was... predatory grooming, by one reader's opinion. There were a few other readers and commenters who said it gave them the ick, and, well, it gives Tovar the ick too, as did the fact that she was in an arranged marriage since 11yo to Gustar. In Chapter 30, Tovar goes on to have his discussion with the admin about whether it's acceptable for him, aged 12 but with memories of a previous life, to even consider a marriage with Felris when she's 14, though it wouldn't happen until they were graduated from the academy and adults. He doesn't come to a firm conclusion, either.
Now, knowing the end of Chapter 29 could give some folks the ick, I linked them in the author note to Chapter 30 on Patreon, where I exposed the admin conversation as the chapter preview. I don't think that many people clicked through, though, choosing instead to immediately take the comments and start flaming each other about their opinions, while simultaneously disregarding that the reason it came up in the story was so that Tovar could think about that, and consider what romance would look like him in this and future lives as a serial reincarnator.
Well, even thinking about it was enough for one reader (presumably the one who ranted about predatory grooming) to report EoR to the mod team on RR, wherein I was sent a support ticket with the following:
Your fiction Engine of Reincarnation [A Serial Rebirth Isekai Fantasy LitRPG] had a scene where the character, an adult mentally, is proposed to by a child, and he accepts. We do not allow this as it is a light for of the glorification of such relationships. Either make the main character a child mentally (provided there will be no sexual content whatsoever until both characters are 18 or older in both body and mind), have the main character reject the girl, or remove this scene.
This misrepresents the scene (where she only asks Tovar if he would be willing to entertain the notion, so that they could pursue an arrangement) as no proposal can actually take place without her father's permission, which she seeks out. We also know from Patreon that Rikton says no, in Chapter 33, which kicks off the rest of the story of the first life.
I responded as such, with the relevant passages from the story, and even sent the mod the first draft through to Chapter 48 to ideally ensure that the entire thing passed muster. I genuinely could be breaking some TOS that I don't know about, but based on the list of what's actually prohibited in the Knowledge Base, it mostly comes down to sexually explicit content, not discussions of or arrangements about marriage. The idea that a young noble can't discuss marriage seems patently absurd to me, but unfortunately, days later, I'm still waiting to hear back from them.
Most people assure me it will come back in my favor and the report will be removed and I won't have to make changes. But if the motion stays, I suppose I would be forced to, or... what, they ban me, if I refuse? Maybe?
I honestly don't know if I would make the change or not, since I don't believe I'm in the wrong here. I'm obstinate enough that maybe I'd just pull the story and say fuck you to Royal Road and move on to writing straight-to-KU.
What's extra crazy is that a publisher reached out to me to discuss an offer on EoR the next day! I'm still waiting for the report to clear before I open those discussions though, since I'm unsure how my actions might affect a nascent offer.
If I wanted to be more moderate, I would just censor that chapter a bit and mention that the original version is on Patreon, and leave new readers a bit befuddled about what the problem is, since there shouldn't be one. But I'm, hopefully, getting ahead of myself, and this will all resolve nicely... eventually.
With that out of my system, I'll also mention this, though I need to talk about it publicly eventually: having missed Coin Capture this week because, initially, I was sick, I've since decided I'll be better off putting that on true hiatus so I can focus on EoR. I was, as a result, pulling ahead on EoR chapters... before this report thing derailed me. Even still, I already have Monday and Wednesday's chapters for this coming week done, and Friday's is halfway done. That's the final chapter of Tovar's life, finally! Once I get that finished tomorrow, I'll roll right into the next life.
I'm hoping to get an additional 15 chapters ahead of the Party Member tier, at which point I'm planning on making those available for the Hero tier. That's you! A lot of authors have advised me that I should make my $5 tier cost $10 instead, but I'd rather just provide more content at $10. If people want to upgrade, great, and new members can choose either way. But I don't want to strip the low-cost option entirely yet either.
Might take me roughly five weeks to write five bonus weeks of content, but I'm hoping I get a huge bump of internal motivation making the switch to the new life and absolutely pump out the early chapters. Only time will tell. Also, the response from the mod team will be a factor, since it will either be a mental load off or a significantly larger source of aggravation. At the moment I'm mostly over it, since nothing has come up about it for days aside from the occasional 0.5 rating, and I've returned to my usual writing speed.
So that's been my week. Also I started playing Valheim and wow, love that. Fortunately, for some reason I can only really enjoy it in small chunks while solo (as opposed to playing with some friends, which I did on Monday) so it isn't dominating my life. Don't worry, EoR is safe with regards to that. It's also safe with regards to Royal Road, since I'd still write it directly to my Patreon with over 700 paid members here, even if I did pull it from Royal Road in the absolute worst case, not that it's likely to happen.
EoR's Rising Stars run is also now ending. It lost RS1 two days back, then hit RS3, and today it quickly moved through RS4 to RS6 and may drop further still. That's just age-based decay, since it's been on the list for three weeks, which is standard. I'll pick up some new readers on my way off the list entirely, but then things will slow down. Although, this week, EoR is also featured on Popular This Week, which may keep growth going for longer. If not for this dumb report, things would be incredible, and I'm trying to focus on those upsides rather than the one major downside, but that's just how my brain tends to work. I'm mostly just determined to not let it dramatically affect my writing, like the 6-9 month hiatus it caused me between Worldseed book 2 and 3, but that was two years ago and I'm much more used to writing and how people respond to that, nowadays.
It helps to have so many amazing people here rooting me on. Thank you so much. I appreciate you!