Questions About Stories & Manga

Do the serials ever end?

Yes! Check out the completed section in the Library.

Yes! Check out the completed section in the Library.

Posted 5 years ago

Will the serials ever be published individually?

Yes and no! First, the no. The serials as they are on the site are only available via Membership.  Some,…

Yes and no! First, the no. The serials as they are on the site are only available via Membership.  Some, like The Fell, could never be sold individually because they violate Amazon’s TOS, for example.

Now the yes.  Some of the serials have been significantly changed and elongated to be made into individual books, such as Cursed Series, The Artifact: The Bodyguard Series, The Merman Series, etc. However, Raythe offers her individual books to Members first, FREE WITH THE MEMBERSHIP FOR A LIMITED TIME, before they go for individual sale on Amazon.  

The manga are the only exception. Those have to be purchased individually because of the cost to produce them, but Members do get to see them uploaded page by page on the site.

Posted 5 years ago

Why are there manga for individual sale that aren't yet on the site?

The site posts a few pages of manga a week.  Eventually, all the pages will be posted on the Membership…

The site posts a few pages of manga a week.  Eventually, all the pages will be posted on the Membership site.  However, due to the cost to produce the manga, in order to get ebooks of them for your own library, we do ask that you pay for them separately. We have all of them in our Shop for sale.

Posted 5 years ago

Are all the stories on the Membership site M/M (gay)?

Yes!  Raythe Reign’s niche is M/M urban paranormal, high fantasy, or supernatural romance, and that is what you can expect…

Yes!  Raythe Reign’s niche is M/M urban paranormal, high fantasy, or supernatural romance, and that is what you can expect in the regular update spots.  

Posted 5 years ago

What kind of stories does Raythe Reign publish?

Everyone who is part of the Raythe Reign team is a reader, and we fully admit that we publish what…

Everyone who is part of the Raythe Reign team is a reader, and we fully admit that we publish what we love to read — sexy, escapist M/M fiction set in imaginary worlds with magical powers.  We bring our own flights of the imagination to life for ourselves as well as our readers.

Though Raythe Reign stories explore many different paranormal, supernatural, and fantasy settings, you can always count on getting these things in a Raythe Reign serial story:

True love and happy endings for the male leads.

Real life is hard enough! We’re romantics here at Raythe Reign, and our stories always end up with the heroes together… often for eternity.

A twisting, winding good-vs-evil plot.

Some M/M stories have the heroes struggle against each other as their relationship develops.  This is not our thing. Instead, our two leads strengthen each other and stand together against evil.  They are partners in adventure and love, and whatever happens, they never doubt each other.

Dark, disturbing parts.

Fantasy always has an element of darkness. We delve deep into our villains’ (and sometimes our heroes’) dark sides, and our evil-doers do despicable deeds.  Raythe doesn’t shy away from disturbing content, which is the true reason our stuff is not for kids. Sometimes, it’s the stuff of nightmares (but don’t worry, our heroes always win.)

Supernatural creatures, magical powers, monsters, and paranormal abilities.

Come on, who doesn’t want to be a badass mage, vampire, crime lord, or supernatural sharp-shooter?  Not only do we get to live our fantasies of true love, but we get to step into the skin of characters who have magical, psionic, or supernatural powers.

Explicit sexual scenes.

As adults, we want to be entertained on every level, and that includes sex! We love sex, and we delight in entertaining you with our loving (and sometimes kinky / magical / shape-shiftery) sexual scenes. But we don’t include adult scenes just to “spice up” our stories — the sex comes as a natural development in the characters’ romantic relationships.

Posted 5 years ago

Do the stories JUST have just sex in them?

No!  In commercial genres, there STILL seems to be this hard dividing line between stories with sex or no sex.…

No!  In commercial genres, there STILL seems to be this hard dividing line between stories with sex or no sex. Fiction is either “dirty” or “clean,” especially when the romantic leads are both male.

If a story is “dirty,” it sometimes abandon things such as plot, setting, and characters to cram as much explicit sex as possible. If it’s “clean,” scenes often fade to black when the characters start to get physical.

Neither of these approaches fits our philosophy. As readers, all members of the Raythe Reign team want to be entertained on every level of imagination.  That definitely includes sex!

We don’t think that anything that happens in our own imaginations is “dirty,” however kinky it gets.  And so, we are not ashamed to include the sexual side of M/M relationships in stories.

Raythe Reign stories are not porn or erotica.

Those genres are usually meant to include as much sex as possible. We have a fairly low sex-to-story ratio.  Anyone looking to get straight to the action for “one-handed reading” may not have the patience for our 50+ chapter epics.

But when we do have sex scenes, they’re explicit, detailed, in character, and hopefully meaningful to the story. You get the same level of explicitness as erotica with our sensual scenes… just not as many of them.

Mature or adult fanfiction often gets this right. The M/M (slash) fanfiction scene is going strong for many reasons, but we think a major reason for its popularity is because writers don’t abandon everything just for the sake of sex. The best fanfiction we’ve read has a good blend of plot, character, story, and sex.

This is what we aim to do — and the reason our stories can get so long.  But from our readers’ feedback, we’re getting a lot of it right (and we just keep getting better.)

Posted 5 years ago

Do you have any free content?

Yes!  Sign up for the Ever Dark mailing list.

Yes!  Sign up for the Ever Dark mailing list.

Posted 5 years ago

How many chapters are posted per week/per month?

Chapters are posted 3 times a week with a total of at least twelve a month, sometimes more if the…

Chapters are posted 3 times a week with a total of at least twelve a month, sometimes more if the month is longer.  

However, something new is posted every day whether it is a manga page, a blog post, an audio recording or something else fun for you to see or do.

Posted 5 years ago

Do you need proofreaders or quality checkers for serial chapters? Or are the serial chapters ever edited?

No. We used to use them, but it really held up the flow of membership content. It didn’t feel right…

No. We used to use them, but it really held up the flow of membership content. It didn’t feel right to both Raythe and the Members to not publish chapters the second they were done. The Members voted to release immediately, errors and all.

Plus, because of our demanding update schedule, we would have to be guaranteed a quick turnaround time otherwise the entire calendar would be delayed. That’s not a chance we’re willing to take – our history of consistent, timely updates is part of the contract between us and the readers.

However, we do send stand-alone books such as the Merman Series to proofreaders, chosen from our Members.

Posted 5 years ago

How will I know if I’ll like all the stories in the serial lineup?

The best thing you can do is read the story previews.  Almost every story has a 5-chapter preview, which is…

The best thing you can do is read the story previews.  Almost every story has a 5-chapter preview, which is anywhere from 10,000  – 20,000 words. With more than 20 stories both currently running and in the archives, that will give you a good idea of what we do.

Most people subscribe because they get hooked on one story they just have to have, one that really hits the spot for their entertainment craving.  But once they’re caught up, they discover the other Raythe Reign stories, especially from the completed archive, and get addicted to our other M/M action-romance stories.

We’re very consistent in what we put out.  This is because it’s what we like! You can always count on these points for any serial on our lineup:

  • Powerful, beautiful heroes who find love and get their happy ending (in more ways than one…)
  • The bad guys get their asses handed to them
  • Supernatural, paranormal, and urban fantasy settings complete with many immortal characters
  • Explicit sex
  • Tons of cliffhangers

Occasionally, we put out Membership deals.  If you’ve bought anything from our shop or signed up for our lists, you’ll get a notice when we run one of these special deals.

Posted 5 years ago

Is this a porn or erotica site?

No.  While we do have some explicit scenes in our stories, this is not our focus.  We are urban fantasy…

No.  While we do have some explicit scenes in our stories, this is not our focus.  We are urban fantasy / supernatural / paranormal romance.

Most of the stories have as much “adult content” as an average Harlequin novel.  The vampire / shifter stories can get a little kinkier, like the Anita Blake series. And we do have some forbidden content like father x son incest and brothercest. Those serials are clearly labeled so if that's not your thing, you can avoid it.

Posted 5 years ago

Why don’t you post a chapter every day?

Because the quality of the writing and storytelling would take a serious hit.  Raythe needs the space to plan ahead……

Because the quality of the writing and storytelling would take a serious hit.  Raythe needs the space to plan ahead… and she is not only the writer, but the boss!  She uses the off-days for responding to comments, having meetings, and working on related projects such as short stories for manga volumes and any books we’re releasing as stand-alone books.

Posted 5 years ago

Raythe Reign Culture and Comment Moderation

The first thing you need to know is that we stand for freedom of content.  Raythe’s stories are intended for…

The first thing you need to know is that we stand for freedom of content.  Raythe’s stories are intended for adults, like any M-rated video game or NC-17 movie.  We have both sexy stuff and disturbing content - the stories can and do get dark. Adults understand the difference between fantasy - or fantasies - and reality.  They know that what Raythe writes is the impossible realm of imagination.

Raythe has a very open comment policy when it comes to critiquing the stories themselves.  We would like you to be kind and reasonable, because that’s just good manners and less embarrassing for future-you.  But really, no matter how passionate your critique gets, as long as it stays about Raythe’s work, your comment remains.

But here’s what gets moderated.  

Personal attacks on Raythe or anyone else.  We don’t allow bashing of anyone.  We understand that the stories may frustrate you or make you uncomfortable, but lashing out against the person is unreasonable, unfair, and unbecoming to future-you.

You can critique the stories or service all you want.  We’re not like Yelp restaurants that delete bad reviews.  But when you cross the line into saying things like Raythe sucks or the staff is retarded, or other Members who don’t agree with you should die in a fire, that gets deleted.  You are free to re-post your comment in a way that critiques the work that we do.

Thought-policing or shaming others for their opinions, especially kink shaming.  

Kinks are divisive.  The same kink that some people think is sexy may make you deeply uncomfortable or even disgust you.  One especially polarizing kink is incest, which is only in a small number of the stories, but it is there.

Some people think incest is sexy.  Some people think incest is immoral and predatory, and shouldn’t exist, even in stories.  Whatever you may think about incest, fiction is the one place where it is safe to have incest fantasies because they can never happen.  The immortal elf-mages should have given that away.  It’s the same for BDSM, bloodplay, breath play, unicorns, werewolves, etc.

So if you make a post that people who love bloodplay are disgusting and immoral, it will get deleted, because it shames the people who find it awesome and amazing.  They will no longer feel safe to post about it. You can post, however, that bloodplay just isn’t your thing and is a real turn-off to you.  

Remember, some people think that M/M is also a gross, fringe kink that shouldn’t be produced.  The thought-policing of fantasy fiction is exactly what led Raythe to create her own site… and even if incest or werewolf non-con isn’t your thing, it’s someone else’s thing.  Beliefs are personal, and the moment you start attempting to shame others for not believing the same, your comment will be deleted.

Factually incorrect statements about stories

Sometimes, people read too quickly in their eagerness and miss things in the story.  They can get very frustrated and make claims based on incorrect or missing information.  Those claims are not only invalid, but they are confusing to people who are reading the same story, so they will be deleted.

Racist, sexist, anti-LGBT language, etc.

Enough said.

We moderate comments, first of all, to protect our community of Members.  We want everyone to feel safe and free to post their thoughts, opinions, praise, and critiques, but not to be personally attacked or shamed for them.  We also do it to protect the commenter. I don’t know about you, but I wish some of my past comments got deleted, because the past-me has said some embarrassing stuff on the internet!

In all cases, if a comment gets removed, Raythe or another staff member will email the person explaining the reason, and usually give them an opportunity for discussion.

So that is our comment culture and moderation policy.  Like any moderation policy, it has shades of gray, and we exercise our discretion according to our above policies.  If you have any questions, you can contact us directly, but do not post in the comments. Some discussions are best not for public viewing.  

View this video for more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YunAvOt-WY4

 

Posted 5 years ago