r/comicbooks • u/IWantToBolieve • 1d ago
Excerpt Creative writing [The Amazing Venom #1, 2026]
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u/reverendmalerik 1d ago
I did creative writing at university.
I was outnumbered by women on my course 20 to 1. This meant I was in a seminar with 9 women as the only man.
Every week we would read out each other's work in its entirety and discuss for 5 minutes before the author was allowed to talk.
One week we wrote play scenes. As the only man, I was asked to read all the male parts in each story. This was fine until I got to Emma's story.
Hardcore slash fiction starring Angel and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Not only were there only male parts, the male parts were sticking their male parts in other male parts.
In front of my female teacher and nine girls, including my now wife, I had to roleplay as two gay vampires fucking the hell out of each other.
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u/PerfectZeong 1d ago
The best twist would be if your wife was the writer.
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u/reverendmalerik 1d ago
Haha no thank god that girl was really disgusting. It takes a lot for me to say that about someone, but she really was. She didn't even write good erotica.
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u/PerfectZeong 1d ago
In my head Canon you won her heart with your portrayal of Spike.
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u/reverendmalerik 1d ago
The whole room was in fits of laughter, myself included (the only was to survive the embarrassment was to REALLY lean into it, I absolutely went for it) so it certainly didn't hurt my chances.
Wasn't the deciding factor though.
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u/AlexxorX 1d ago
You probably don't (want to) remember but do you recall any lines from it even vaguely? Would love to know how really vulgar it got.
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u/reverendmalerik 1d ago
We're talking something I read once, over 20 years ago, whilst trying not to cry from laughing too much. Sorry, but no.
All I can remember is that Angel and Spike were the only characters (no Buffy) and that the professor was like "How exactly were you thinking you would get away with this kind of stuff in an actual theatre?!"
That said, my wife is something of a hoarder when it comes to her university notes etc, there's a chance she might have a copy somewhere...
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u/MoonMistCigs 1d ago
I worked with someone years ago who referred to herself as a writer. We found her blog and it was nothing but Fanfic of Frodo and Sam fucking.
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u/reverendmalerik 1d ago
I mean, was it good hobbit sex fic?
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u/MoonMistCigs 1d ago
It was terrible and she was gross.
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u/Easy-Tigger 1d ago
Was it Spike before or after he got his soul back?
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u/reverendmalerik 1d ago
After, I think? I only vaguely remember it.
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u/MrSparky69 1d ago
Sounds like this could've actually been an Angel fic after Spike gets corporal and gets a body again in LA to be technical. Otherwise it can only be a Buffy season 7 fic since he died and became a ghost at the end and only had a soul this season.
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u/HalloweenBlues 1d ago
Haha was it your performance that won your wife over?
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u/reverendmalerik 1d ago
No, but everyone in the room was in giggle fits because I really went for it (the only way to not die of embarrassment) so it probably didn't hurt!
She asked me to be pen pals over the summer holidays and I won her over with my awesome letter writing skills.
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u/ILoseAtScrabble 1d ago
Outnumbered '20 to 1', but there were only 9 women in the class....?
This is creative writing, not creative math!
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u/reverendmalerik 1d ago
There were like 80 people on the course. We didn't all have lessons at the same time, that would be kind of pointless.
There was actually supposed to be another guy in the class, but he didn't turn up that day and I was equal parts mad and glad he didn't.
The ratio thing was told to me by the university tour guide. He asked me what course I was interested in. When I said English and Creative writing he said the university as a whole had a 2 to 1 ratio of girls to guys. In the English department it was 10 to 1. But the Creative Writing department? It was 20 to 1.
I thought he was just trying to get me to join, but then I went to the introductory lecture. There were like 100 people in the lecture. I looked around, and there was just one other guy. He was looking around too and when he saw me we grinned at each other.
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u/PartridgeInDisguise 1d ago
Seminars aren’t the same thing as a class. They’re a separate meeting of students from the class divided into a smaller group so they can do readings and discuss them.
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u/LapsedVerneGagKnee 1d ago
Better than AI prompted work.
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u/TheRealGrifter 1d ago
Is it, though?
In terms of pure quality of execution, putting aside the ethics of the thing, the best AI writers are already better than the worst human writers.
That's just objectively true - or as objective as one can get in matters of opinion.
And again, I'm not making a comment about the ethics of AI when I say that.
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u/RossZ428 Dignitary of r/ComicPlot 1d ago
Asserting that something you allege is objectively true does not make it so, especially when the quality of one's writing is subjective after grammar. It does not matter if an AI's writing is better. It is soulless. A bullshit machine stole it, reconstituted it, and churned it out. It is the literary equivalent of Kraft singles.
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u/TheRealGrifter 1d ago
I don't think you read my comment very carefully.
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u/RossZ428 Dignitary of r/ComicPlot 1d ago
That's okay. I did.
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u/TheRealGrifter 1d ago
Clearly you didn't, because you railed about everything except my point, which began with "In terms of pure quality of execution." You even said, writing is subjective after grammar - okay, so we agree, then.
I'm with you about the ethics of AI. I didn't feel it necessary to include that in the point I was making, so I'll clarify now.
It is soulless. A bullshit machine stole it, reconstituted it, and churned it out. It is the literary equivalent of Kraft singles.
I agree.
But that doesn't negate the statement that the best AI writing is technically better than the worst human writing.
And that should terrify you if you're a writer, or just someone who appreciates human art. Because you know what the best-selling cheese in this country is? Kraft fucking singles.
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u/RossZ428 Dignitary of r/ComicPlot 1d ago
I disagree with that point! Tell an AI to write a novel and it's blatantly clear that an AI wrote it
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u/TheRealGrifter 1d ago
That's true! But it's also not the complete picture. AI is bad at long-form writing. Awful. But a piece of flash fiction? A chapter? A page? A paragraph? Current models can write serviceable short fiction. Not great, mind you - and I'm still saying this under the umbrella of "but it's soulless," so don't take me to mean this stuff should be winning awards or that we shouldn't be fighting it.
We need a way to tell human-written from AI-written work, because the day is coming, sooner than anyone thinks, when we won't be able to tell the difference. All this stuff about em-dashes and "it's not X, it's Y," all the supposed "tells" - forget it. Soon enough, there won't be any tells, and our vibe-checks, our "but it just feels like AI," won't be enough.
It'll be Kraft singles all the way down.
We need a way to verify human writing so we can elevate it.
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u/RossZ428 Dignitary of r/ComicPlot 1d ago
I agree with this point. Not just in writing, but in all aspects of AI generated work. Writing and art is the most prevalent because people want to claim they made it when they didn't. That is not your original point, which is that it's objectively better right now.
You're losing karma over this because while playing devil's advocate you appear to be glazing AI. To your original point, it is still possible to tell that AI writing is AI writing. It's more difficult, yes, but not impossible, and I don't think we should set aside the ethics of the thing when we're discussing this.
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u/TheRealGrifter 1d ago
Enh. I don't track my karma. It is what it is. Next week I'll say something silly and get 100 upvotes for no good reason lol.
I wasn't trying so much for devil's advocate, though there's a touch of that in what I've been saying, yes. I'm definitely not glazing AI, and maybe if I was a better writer, that would have been clearer. And yeah... I probably should have commented on the ethics of the thing rather than let my original statement stand on its own. It would have provided better context.
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u/JoshSidekick 1d ago
She's going to love my story about teaming up with a sentient vending machine.
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u/PrimalZed Jamie Madrox 1d ago
Is there something wrong with anime fanfiction with the names changed?
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u/HealthyMuffin7 1d ago
There is if you're taking a class in uni about creative writting. Like, get inspired, it's all good, but there is expectations from fanfics that are not the same as there is in a classroom.
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u/trailingby7 We're all puppets, Laurie. 1d ago
Compared to all of the self-insert character falling in love with a horse stories I read getting a writing degree, I'd be fine with some anime fanfiction hiding in there
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u/JohnnyElRed Hulk 1d ago
Hey, some of us put a lot of effort into those horse sto-I mean, yeah. What a bunch of weirdos.
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u/CelestianSnackresant 1d ago
Not per se, but it's definitely starting out with severe disadvantages.
Anime is mostly ultra tropey, incredibly repetitive, deep as a puddle, and retrograde in its portrayals of gender.
Fan fic is usually derivative, simple, badly paced, and written for an audience of one.
Obviously there are plenty of exceptions to both of those, but by default it's sorta the opposite of shooting for the moon.
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u/Guitar-Hobbit 1d ago
This is pretty reductive of an entire medium of storytelling but I will unfortunately concede that, when I was taking creative writing classes in College, this was unfortunately true of the majority of Anime and the fan fiction inspired by it that I read in class lol
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u/AlexxorX 1d ago
I think it doesn't help that some peoples entry anime are things like highschool of the dead, highschool dxd, fairy tail etc. No shit-talking here I just mean in terms of how tropey and especially fanservicey tropey a good chunk of peoples first anime will generally be.
My first two were death note and soul eater, so my experience was almost 0 fanservice 1st anime then straight into blair the witch with her massive boobs and ass hanging out in the bath and characters shooting blood out of their nose within probably minutes of ep 1?
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u/PrimalZed Jamie Madrox 1d ago
Wild to be on a comic book subreddit denigrating another medium as tropey, repetitive, shallow, and sexist.
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u/CelestianSnackresant 1d ago edited 1d ago
Edit: I feel bad about this. I am an extremely sincere and genuine hater in this context, but that doesn't mean there's a reason to actually share that negativity.
Original post.
Yeah, comics have all those problems, and I do my best to avoid the worst offenders.
But you're smoking something amazing if you think all four problems aren't 10x worse in anime and manga. I mean, holy shit, the women all have to talk like they just inhaled helium and they're all drawn with baby faces. There are whole subgenres for different types of sexism. Your average anime episode wastes 30% of its runtime on previews and recaps and another 30% showing the same 2-3 frames of animation over and over to really emphasize how surprising and amazing it is. Most character beats are so rote the script is essentially a copy/paste of the appropriate TV Tropes page.
And again, there are exceptions! Lots of exceptions, if you look at the whole megagenre. But it's such a vast ocean of slop that the gems are vanishingly rare. Those criticisms apply very cleanly to even popular, well-regarded stuff like Dungeon Meishi or Jujutsu Kaisen, and to anime-ified western stuff like MAWS.
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u/NicWester 1d ago
Not in principle, but in practice if you're taking a college level creative writing class and writing fanfic, even with changed names, you're missing the point of the class.
There's also the meta irony that writing comics, even official and real ones like Amazing Venom, is basically a form of fanfiction if you think about it,
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u/MrPresident2020 1d ago
Amazing Venom's first issue reminded me of Weapon H where the premise made me go "this is the dumbest thing ever" and then reading it made me go "ok this is fun and good."