u/Dear-Macaron-471

I’m making a city that’s run by demon crime families themed around the seven deadly sins.

The backstory I got so far is that long ago during the prohibition era, a cult successfully opens a gateway connected to Hell that covers the entire city. The 7 Princes of Hell sent their finest generals and thousands of demons to begin their takeover of earth. The 7 Generals and their first wave of soldiers managed to get reach the location where the portal had opened. But, before they could fully cross over into the mortal realm, the cultists lair was raided by the police, interrupting the ritual and caused an error in the gateway. The generals and their soldiers soon found themselves in a twisted hellish version of the city. The failed ritual had cut off the other demons in Hell and left those who were inside the gateway bound into a pocket dimension that they couldn’t leave. The demons had been completely cut off from Hell and the Cultists that started it all and knew the ritual were killed in the raid and all their knowledge was burned and no way to contact the princes. The 7 Generals realized that there was no way for them to get back to Hell. They knew that if they tried to takeover now the pocket dimension and the city would be annihilated by heaven’s forces.

So, the generals decided that they would have to find their own ways to survive and rule over this city in secret. They still had access to the humans city and can crossover between the two worlds as much as they pleased. So the demons started to disguise themselves as humans and started to slowly but surely to take over the cities criminal underworld. They got rid of the cities major crime families and took their places in secret. The 7 Generals soon became the seven crime families and ruled over the city with the angels in heaven none the wiser. The generals however didn’t all see eye to eye on how to run the city so they split up into 3 Syndicates. These Syndicates have the unions of Pride + Greed, Gluttony + Lust, and Wrath + Envy. Sloth has decided to remain a neutral party in this major conflict as they have decided to play the role of information brokers. The Syndicates have been fighting each other for years over whose sins have more control over the residents of the city.

The families have many demons and humans in their service. A large majority of the humans working for them have no idea they’re dealing with actual devils. However there are a select few who are completely loyal to the family who are gifted with the knowledge of their secrets. These people are known as warlocks and are granted special demonic powers themed after their new masters. The human on their side along with a few demons in disguise handle business in the normal version of the city, while the demons and warlocks do business on their demonic side. The demons can’t exit the city limits without being warped back inside and the warlocks lose their powers if the leave as well so the send the regular humans to handle any business out of town.

Right now i’m looking for ideas on what type of crimes they commit and what rackets do they run in the city. If you have any other questions about the city and how its world works or are confused about something please ask in the comments. I could use the writing practice.

In the past I’ve messed around with stuff like character ai back when ai started to get popular. I used to help come up with names for some places and characters. I eventually stopped using it and still haven’t in years. Since then I have created several worlds for my OCs with the occasional asked questions on Reddit.

But recently I’ve started to bounce my ideas off of google gemini for a new world I’m making. Now I know what you’re probably thinking “Why don’t you talk to another writer or a friend for help.” Well it’s because some of the stuff in this world is pretty “NSFW” and I don’t feel comfortable sharing it with others like that. I don’t have any friends in any NSFW or writing spaces, or just any friends in general to be honest.

And of course I know all about AI Discourse and how using it would make me a ”Degenerate Talentless Hack” in the eyes of everyone. But to be honest I think the AI has really helped me focus on world building. I already struggle to focus on other tasks. I’ve been the one giving a lot of my ideas and having Gemini ask me questions to get my creative juices flowing in my brain. I’ve even started using concepts from projects I’ve come up with years ago. I have asked Gemini to give me a few suggestions, but I didn’t like a lot of what it gave me and that helps me realize what I really want in my world.

The main thing that has me conflicted in all this is what a lot of people think about people who use ai. I don’t want to be branded a loser and someone who deserves to be killed for the rest of my life. I tend to value the opinions of others and what they might think of me too much and really can’t handle the thought of being hated. But on the other hand I don’t want to abandon the world I created just because someone online says it’s wrong and immoral for me to use as a writing tool. It’s even making me start to resent the artist I like for hating it so much and it’s making me start to hate myself.

And before any asks I do have a problem with completely ai generated images, videos, and writing. I think the images look too weird and shiny, the videos make me feel uncomfortable and give me uncanny valley vibes, and the writing is too bland and repetitive. but I also think could be ok to use as image reference for certain drawings your struggling to draw, can be used to help edit certain parts, and how I’ve been using it to help bounce ideas off of when I can’t share them with someone else.

Does anyone else feel like it’s ok or not to use AI to help in this way?

Lately I’ve been using Gemini to help me write down and come up with new ideas for the world I’m building. I lot of people of have said that using AI to help you write something will stifle your creativity and cause your brain to “Atrophy”. But the thing is the AI has been sharing with me have almost perfectly lined up with the ideas that I imagined at first. It’s been making me wonder if I ever had the capability to be creative in the first place.

I will say that in the past I have created several other worlds for my OCs WITHOUT the help of AI, but these worlds and characters I’ve made are majorly inspired by stuff I’ve seen in cartoons, ttrpg books, and video games I enjoy. I’ve always been easily distracted by other things and struggle to focus on projects and was hoping “talking” with the AI would help me improve my ideas.

The Subject of this new world I’m working on is way more NSFW than my other world and this one is meant for more “private” enjoyment. I have no friends that I can ask for ideas on this cause I struggle to make and keep in touch with them and I really don’t think this is the kind of stuff I could show to my family. Geminis the only thing I’ve felt ok talking to about this.

So the way I’ve been talking to Gemini is that I share some info about a character or location and ask Gemini a question about them. I then decide if the answer fits my vision for the world or I tell the AI to modify its answer. I’ve been worrying if this has been affecting my writing skills or not and it’s making me feel like a fraud.

I’ve have had this suggestion I saw on someone else’s post that instead of asking the AI questions I let it ask me questions. Will that make me a better writer and more creative or should I scrap my world completely?