Read 14k and tell me what I did wrong?

[CalebZhass]

Yeah, I didn't intend to leave any confusion as to whether Salt was a bad guy. Consider:

I never had doubts about him being a bad guy. You did portray him quite well actually, and I really hated his guts for the obnoxious asshole he was.
I was merely wondering if you have seen Lily as a predator as well for what she did, or if in your mind, she is a clear cut victim. See my previous reply on why I did not feel that to be the case personally.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I see where you are going, but I also believe you are missing the obvious there. grawlixes are universally accepted stand-ins for profanity. If he would have used them, I would immediately have known he is swearing about something and would not have thought about it even just for a second.
Alas he is using actual Chinese words and sentences and I disagree with you on the context making them obvious. Especially in the first case, where she looks into the minibar and curses.

Further context: just before the passage I quoted there, he's tried to persuade her to drink alcohol, she's made excuses ("I don't know... I'm pretty tired"), and he's continued trying to talk her into it. Then they get to the hotel room, he looks in the fridge, sees something that makes him go "Ho-ho!", and immediately heads off with the ice bucket. She looks in the fridge herself, sees the minibar, and swears.

So... it's something that he wants, something she doesn't want, something that might be found in a minibar, and probably something that's associated with an ice bucket. Alcohol seems like the obvious answer there.

(I'm also going on storytelling conventions there: if the author is telling the story from one character's perspective, usually they'll tell us what's relevant to that character's state of mind. If she was worried about the possibility of M&Ms in the fridge, we'd have had a hint about that.)

From there, if I had to guess at the meaning of "混蛋", I'd probably have guessed she was swearing about the situation, something like "fuck" or "goddammit". From computer translation, looks like she was swearing specifically at him - I get "bastard", I gather you got "asshole". So I didn't quite get the full nuance there, but it's close enough to keep up with the story and keep moving.

More importantly though, there is a personality/mindset element at play, which also will affect a fixed (to me unknown) percentage of readers. All I know is that I am one of those people. For me, if something is written down with a seemingly legible sequence of symbols, it might carry meaning and I must know what that meaning is. Another point where sequences of gibberish written in a language the reader can read on its own, or with universal symbols solves a problem. It clarifies that I am looking at gibberish I am not supposed to read, but infer the meaning of.

I am just wired that way.

Huh. Okay, that's interesting! I certainly like to know meaning, but in cases like those examples I'm generally okay with having enough context to figure out the gist of it. But different people read differently.

One situation that has come up for me occasionally is when I'm reading a story aloud to somebody else. Not Lit stories, but I do sometimes read books to others, and I've read a couple which included occasional Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese characters. For those, though, I always read solo first before I read it to others, so I have a chance to check unfamiliar words and make a note of pronunciation/meaning.

I'm sorry, but I'm in the camp (however big or small) which firmly believes that two wrongs don't cancel each other out. She uses his lust against him, betrays and blackmails him. Someone being an obnoxious, sexist jerk doing things, which clearly constitute workplace harassment does not automatically make him a rapist or a predator.

A boss using his position to pressure a subordinate into sex? That's predatory behaviour.

Simply making hints at how having sex with me might improve your career prospects would be grounds to get me fired, but would not make me a criminal.

I'm not a lawyer, let alone a US workplace lawyer, but I'd have thought that Salt's behaviour in this story would constitute illegal sexual harassment if proven - see e.g. this commentary. Indeed, a big part of why people get fired for this sort of conduct is that an employer who allows it to happen can also end up in violation of the law.

Heck, the way the scene reads on page 3 is more like her seducing him than him coercing her into doing something.

Is it possible to seduce somebody who's already trying to fuck you?

Instead what eventually happens is not what he originally planned, but him submitting to someone who notices his foot fetish and takes advantage of it for their own benefit. Even if that benefit is just to avoid having real intercourse with the guy.

That's a very big "even if".

She could easily just have recorded their conversation and used the threat of taking that recording to HR to make him stop then and there. Especially if - regardless of her promise to not show if if he stops - she would still go to HR afterwards and get him fired for what he tried to do. At that point, her threats of blackmail could have been excused as a simple and justified acts of self preservation.

You're assuming that she can rely on HR to take action against him and protect her from retaliation. This is not an assumption I'd want to stake my career on.

HR works for the employer, not the employee. Often the distinction doesn't matter, when both interests point in the same direction - I don't want to fall off a platform and die, my employer doesn't want to get sued or fined by letting me fall off a platform and die, so they put up safety barriers, and that's good for both of us. But when those interests conflict, HR is not necessarily your friend. Especially when it's a new and junior employee against a senior figure in the company.

When a guy like Salt chases one of his own staff like he does in that story, HR often turns out to be part of the problem. Either they're just dysfunctional, or the guy has some kind of influence over them and knows they're not going to make waves for him. (I knew one mid-sized business where the CEO installed his own daughter as head of HR. He got away with a lot of shady stuff.)

That's not always the explanation, mind. Sometimes HR are fine, and it's just one guy who's good at hiding what he does. Lily's probably not in a position to know which, given that she's a new employee who's not in the whisper networks.

Even if HR were to take it seriously and fire the guy, that kind of situation can work out very badly for the complainant. She can easily get a reputation as a trouble-maker and find herself on the wrong end of victimisation by people who are smart enough not to get themselves recorded breaking the law.

[re. "she does not want any favours out of him from this incident. She just wants him to stop harassing her."]

Another point I must disagree with you on. Yes, she says the words, but in the next line she already uses her newfound power to exert influence over him, when she corrects him not using her proper name.

Expecting to be called by one's name isn't asking for favours. That's something any employee has a right to expect, and it's not remotely comparable with what he's tried to pressure her into.

Also the fact that she later in the story gets off on the memory of how powerful she felt, coupled with her inherent "do whatever it takes" mentality makes it very likely in my mind that she will eventually change her mind and use her leverage over him, when needed or when another opportunity presents itself.

That seems like a big leap to me. Further, if we're going to judge her by what we think she might possibly do in the future, I don't see why we can't judge Salt by the rape that both you and I think he was likely capable of.

(Having read the story that follows this one, I know Lily does develop an interest in dominating men, but it's not Salt who she chooses to pursue that with.)

Also the shame and regret usually associated with being raped appear to be nonexistent when she happily shares the details of her encounter with her friend.

I know there's a stereotype of how people who've survived "real rape" are supposed to talk about it afterwards, but reality is much more complicated. People respond in lots of different ways. Some try to minimise it because that's how they get by. Some laugh about it because it's that or cry. (Which Lily also does, along with adding "find a therapist" to her to-do list.)

If you've ever been in a dangerous situation and managed to get out of it... often the "getting out of it" part is kind of exhilarating. Doesn't mean the "dangerous situation" part was welcome.

 

[alohadave]

Is it possible to seduce somebody who's already trying to fuck you?

If you go into a store looking to buy, say a vacuum cleaner, does the sales person not try to sell you what you are already looking for?

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Okay, so allow me to weigh in on Joy's decision to use Chinese characters in the story.

As I read through the story, I hit the Chinese characters and stopped. Here was a foreign language with no translation. What did that mean for me? Obviously, it meant that the author either didn't want the average reader to understand the meaning, or didn't care.

I trusted that everything I needed to know was available through context clues, and so I didn't bother looking it up. And as far as I know, I was right.

---

Who has seen Saving Private Ryan? Do you remember the part where the Germans emerged from the bunker with their hands raised in surrender, shouting... only to be shot by the Americans?

Did you know they were shouting "Do not shoot I am Czech I did not shoot anyone, I am Czech!" They were supposed to be Czechoslovakian conscripts, and yet they were shot down by the Americans regardless. That scene has no subtitles.

I think this is an effective moment, because I know American viewers who laughed at the death of men that they thought were Nazis. But they found out later that those men were, in fact, not Nazis, but rather innocent conscripts.

To me, the decision to use Chinese symbols in this story is similar (although not as dramatic). It is reminding us that the main character has her own unique heritage which we might not fully understand.

Demanding that everything be translated seems like saying, "Hey, author! I don't wanna see your unintelligible language, and I don't trust that you've given me everything I need to enjoy the story you've written!"

It's up to the author or director to decide what words get translated, and what words don't.

---

As @ElectricBlue mentioned, when I wrote Eldritch Pact, I used exaggerated diacritics which makes the text impossible difficult to read. I went out of my way to ensure that the most difficult to read text was a bit redundant, and unnecessary for the reader to understand in order to follow the story. It had mixed reactions, but I wouldn't change anything about it.

 

[CalebZhass]

But different people read differently.

Yup. See, I know I am a broken, sick fuck. So all my comments are made with the possibility in mind that maybe it's just my twisted brain not working like that of others. I do believe I have a good enough moral compass, but I also realize that my world view is inherently biased by my own cultural upbringing, so I try to not force it onto others on the internet.

Interestingly, I enjoyed this story despite me not being into foot fetish at all (find it disgusting tbh.). The reason I loved it was basically that murky and gray (and probably woefully incorrect - as suggested by some comments of the author) interpretation of mine. I like stories that make me ask these questions about the characters motivations and the morality of their actions. Stories that explore or demonstrate the moral ambiguity of our world. While the author might not have intended this to be one, I think it can be read as one.

Now an even more interesting question for me is this: as an author, should it bother us, if someone totally misinterprets a story? I guess if the story has a moral to teach, then maybe, but otherwise? Would it not be a good thing if we could write in a style that leaves things open for interpretation?
Let's not dwell on how sexual harassment and assault are touchy subjects which we are culturally not quite okay to look at in any other way but the right one. Even then, there are other areas where it is more socially acceptable to think differently.
I for one would like to think this would be desirable and I would definitely love to be able to write stories that everyone can relate to in their own personal way.

Anyway, given how subjective much of this is, I would not bore you with any more of my rambling, especially since on the broad strokes I agree with you, it is mostly just the minor details we are in disagreement over. At least that's how I see it.

I mean this pretty much stands true for all the other things we were debating here, so I will not answer to all your points in detail if you don't mind, even though I greatly appreciate the effort you put into your replies.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Now an even more interesting question for me is this: as an author, should it bother us, if someone totally misinterprets a story?

I'm not saying it shouldn't bother us, but I'd say that it's completely unavoidable, so we'd better get used to it.

In my Rescuing the Fallen series, I present an awful world full of horribly misogynistic men, and I am certain that at least some of my readers revel in that misogyny, although that is not my intention.

 

[Omenainen]

If we had stuff that wasn't obvious from context, provided without translation, I'd understand 100%. But I don't get why this kind of thing trips people up. Is there something different about how we read stories, that some folk are fine with figuring out the meaning from context and others aren't?

It’s this unfortunate genetic mutation some North Americans have where their retinas start to melt while encountering written language that isn’t their own. It can sometimes manifest when forced to read subtitles on a movie, even if those subtitles were in their native language.

Poor buggers. We should all send thoughts and prayers their way.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Thoughts and prayers in this difficult time of having to confront the existence of other cultures.

Stay strong.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

It comes down to familiar symbols. It would have come across better phonetically/in pinyin. In your example, Westerners have pretty much grown up with those symbols, so they're not as jarring as Chinese characters. Does that mean people would have had an issue with not understanding what was said, not for all, but others not so much.

A Chinese character (or any alphabet that isn't recognizable) brings you to a dead stop, but being able to pronounce what you don't understand is relatable.

Okay, pinyin is a good suggestion. Not one I'm going to accept, but the only one so far that I've given serious thought.

In the end, I'm going to stick to characters for Chinese text, because there are a lot of people who can read it. The rest of the story is for you, including all the context clues and (in some cases) the translations. For those few snippets, though, I'm going to prioritize the people who know the language.

And if you know pinyin, then you know it's not a replacement for people who can read characters. It's Mandarin-specific, and not everyone is young enough to have gotten it in school, and even with tone markers it conflates words that have distinct characters. Ten stone lions, right?

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Ten stone lions, right?

I UNDERSTOOD THAT REFERENCE!!! (I'm excited because I just learned about that earlier this week lol)

 

[joy_of_cooking]

It's gone! And the replacement is coming out tomorrow. Here's hoping it breaks four this time.

 

[MrHereWriting]

Okay, pinyin is a good suggestion. Not one I'm going to accept, but the only one so far that I've given serious thought.

In the end, I'm going to stick to characters for Chinese text, because there are a lot of people who can read it. The rest of the story is for you, including all the context clues and (in some cases) the translations. For those few snippets, though, I'm going to prioritize the people who know the language.

And if you know pinyin, then you know it's not a replacement for people who can read characters. It's Mandarin-specific, and not everyone is young enough to have gotten it in school, and even with tone markers it conflates words that have distinct characters. Ten stone lions, right?

I wasn't suggesting it for you. I was commenting on another person's post and discussing the comfort of familiarity. I would have quoted your OP if I thought it was important to your story.

In one of my stories, What Happens Tomorrow, I had a Japanese character speak Japanese, but I used the English alphabet instead of Japanese characters. I gave no translation. No one has said a thing, not when it was on here, not since it's been for sale.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

It was a good story, though I didn't find it erotic. The first half is all too plausible. Then there's the switch to foot fetish stuff, which could have been expanded to balance the first half better (and be what many readers wanted!)

It wasn't totally clear how much she was becoming a domme just to deter Salt, vs actually ending up enjoying herself and power over him - bigging up the eroticism of the 'reluctant domme' getting into it would please a bunch of readers, I'm sure. The ending was a little confusing - having mixed emotions is fine but it could have been spelt out a bit more, along with why she didn't take up the hotel staff on an alternative like staying with them (devil you know?). I was mildly surprised she immediately thought of therapy to deal with the stressful weekend - sure he's a predatory arsehole, who would try it on, but she didn't get forced into anything in the end - but that could just be a cultural difference.

I'd prefer to be able to sound out unknown words (in Chinese or any other language), but as long as the meaning is clear from context, which yours were, I don't mind foreign words - just as well, as I often put them in myself, but they're always in the Roman alphabet thanks to the languages I know. Even a few slangy Manglish terms from a Malaysian Chinese lass are written in the Roman alphabet, but that's because I don't know any Chinese characters. None off of a menu, anyhow.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I was mildly surprised she immediately thought of therapy to deal with the stressful weekend - sure he's a predatory arsehole, who would try it on, but she didn't get forced into anything in the end -

I read it a little differently. I would have said that he did force her (socially, not physically) into a sexual encounter she didn't want. She then managed to partially - and only partially - salvage that situation by redirecting that encounter into something that was less repellent to her than what he'd originally intended. Like having somebody cut your brakes, but then managing to steer the car into a ditch rather than an oncoming truck.

If she'd had a magic button that would let her avoid the situation entirely and just get him out of her life forever, I think she'd have pressed that button in preference to going through with the shoe scene.

She did get something positive out of it in the end, learning things about her own domme tendencies. But sometimes those "it wasn't ALL bad" situations are the hardest to process.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I read it a little differently. I would have said that he did force her (socially, not physically) into a sexual encounter she didn't want. She then managed to partially - and only partially - salvage that situation by redirecting that encounter into something that was less repellent to her than what he'd originally intended. Like having somebody cut your brakes, but then managing to steer the car into a ditch rather than an oncoming truck.

If she'd had a magic button that would let her avoid the situation entirely and just get him out of her life forever, I think she'd have pressed that button in preference to going through with the shoe scene.

She did get something positive out of it in the end, learning things about her own domme tendencies. But sometimes those "it wasn't ALL bad" situations are the hardest to process.

I agree. Her actions were, for a lack of better terms, self defense, and I don't view it as substantially different from using a weapon on a would-be attacker.

This reminds me of that line from one of the Dirty Harry films:

The Mayor: Callahan... I don't want any more trouble like you had last year in the Fillmore district. You understand? That's my policy.
Harry Callahan: Yeah, well, when an adult male is chasing a female with intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard - that's my policy.
The Mayor: Intent? How'd you establish that?
Harry Callahan: When a naked man is chasing a woman through a dark alley with a butcher knife and a hard on, I figure he isn't out collecting for the Red Cross.

Salt wasn't that bad obviously, but the Lily was convinced by his previous actions that he was capable of sexual assault. And if I were in her shoes, I would agree

 

[MediocreAuthor]

https://literotica.com/s/snowed-in-with-a-predator-1

The new link. And already off to a MUCH better start.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Wow, the power of categories, eh? I have learned a lesson today.