Feedback for fantasy-story wanted

[OddLittleDesires]

Hey^^
I've uploaded a few stories now, but I seem to have trouble getting people to comment, so I'm trying a more direct approach.
'Of Gods and Love' is basically my porn version of a story from classical mythology, let me know what you think, please ; )

link: https://www.literotica.com/s/of-gods-and-love

 

[AwkwardMD]

https://www.literotica.com/s/of-gods-and-love

 

[OddLittleDesires]

Thanks^^

Haha oops, nicely spotted, I fixed it : )

 

[8letters]

It was cute. I liked the banter between Deianira and Heracles. It felt too rushed however. You've got two scenes - the fight at the river and the bedroom scene - and not much else. How did Achelous capture Deianira? What is the status of the relationship between Deianira and Heracles? Context would have made those scenes better.

 

[SeanBurns1975]

Hey^^
I've uploaded a few stories now, but I seem to have trouble getting people to comment, so I'm trying a more direct approach.
'Of Gods and Love' is basically my porn version of a story from classical mythology, let me know what you think, please ; )

link: https://www.literotica.com/s/of-gods-and-love

A few awkward sentences, for example:

Small pieces of marble fell from his fingers, and Deianira turned to where on her bed his hands had been, and she saw large chunks missing, crumbled too nothing but dust.

This is how I would write it:

Crumbled marble and dust fell from between his fingers as he relaxed his grip on what was left of the marble posts.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Hello!

Ok. I'm gonna start with the soapbox, even though I usually save this for last.

Gods make shitty characters. They are, by their very nature, above humans. We cannot conceive of them. We should not be able to conceive of them. Most of the time, when we do conceive of them, we do it poorly (for more on this, see anything ever written by anyone who is even partially Greek).

Gods don’t sigh. Sighing is a mixture of disappointment (or happiness) coinciding with the biological human need to exhale. Our bodies relax, slump, and generally show a series of physical motions that we as socialized humans recognize as disappointment (or happiness). A God has no need to exhale. A God has no reason to be disappointed. Gods also see farther than we do by virtue of being Gods. A God would know a human down to their toes, and know exactly how said human would react to just about anything. Disappointment should never enter the picture with Gods.

Gods don’t walk down the hall and have conversations with each other. Human beings talk because we have no other means of relating ideas and concepts to each other. We assign sound conglomerations to things to imperfectly convey thoughts to each other, and we use air passing over our vocal chords as we breath to achieve that. Gods don’t breathe. They’re immortal. Why would they breathe? Why would they make sound at all? Gods can understand things more completely than we can, and wouldn’t need something as ill-fitting as language to communicate with each other. Gods can be more specific than we can (How? Fuck if I know. I’m not a God!) Gods don’t need to walk anywhere. They can just be there. Why would you walk when you can instantly appear where you want to be?

Gods wouldn’t have sex. Human beings have sex to procreate. It serves a biological function, and so our bodies have evolved to possess these physical traits and tabs and slots to facilitate that, and it feels good as a lure to help us do it more. Gods are immortal. They’re not having any kids, and they have no biological imperative to pass on their genes. They have no genes. They did not rise from the cream to be upstanding members of the Human Hall of Fame, they were purpose-built.

Gods are inherently unrelatable characters. Their concerns happen on a plane we cannot conceive of. If we could, we would be Gods ourselves. If we were all Gods, then being a God would be a pointless distinction. It is an inherently necessary thing for characters to be relatable and understandable by the reader because then they can do interesting things that surprise the reader in all kinds of ways. Everything a God does should be a surprise to a human because we can’t understand their motivations, and if everything they do is surprising, then none of it is surprising. It’s like “Of course there’s a twist at the end of an M. Night Shyamalan movie because of course there’s a twist.”

Gods make terrible characters. We always turn them into humans, which defeats the purpose of having them be Gods in the first place.

That's my Gods as Characters soapbox. I know there's quibbling in the Mythology community about whether Heracles was a Hero or a God, but the point is that he's so far removed from what constitutes a Human Male that the difference is moot.

You should use quotation marks for conversation. " instead of '.

Deianira rubbing her tits just makes my face go all screwy. Period pieces should have period dialogue. When they don't, it turns the story into a kind of satire. A satire makes fun of the source material. That means that this story is kind of making fun of itself since the rest of it is pretty much played straight (ie, not a joke).

Did you write this because Mystery Science Theater 3000 covered The Loves Of Hercules? If so, you have good taste.

 

[OddLittleDesires]

It was cute. I liked the banter between Deianira and Heracles. It felt too rushed however. You've got two scenes - the fight at the river and the bedroom scene - and not much else. How did Achelous capture Deianira? What is the status of the relationship between Deianira and Heracles? Context would have made those scenes better.

Thank you, yeah good point I'm sure that could have helped flesh out the characters a little^^

 

[OddLittleDesires]

A few awkward sentences, for example:

Small pieces of marble fell from his fingers, and Deianira turned to where on her bed his hands had been, and she saw large chunks missing, crumbled too nothing but dust.

This is how I would write it:

Crumbled marble and dust fell from between his fingers as he relaxed his grip on what was left of the marble posts.

Wow, yup definitely awkward, thanks^^

Yours does flow a lot better, though I suppose I wouldn't really like the repetition of marble.

Maybe I should change it a lot more:
Carefully, he relaxed his grip on the marble bedpost, revealing cracks beneath his mighty fingers.

 

[OddLittleDesires]

Hello!

Ok. I'm gonna start with the soapbox, even though I usually save this for last.

Gods make shitty characters. They are, by their very nature, above humans. We cannot conceive of them. We should not be able to conceive of them. Most of the time, when we do conceive of them, we do it poorly (for more on this, see anything ever written by anyone who is even partially Greek).

Gods don’t sigh. Sighing is a mixture of disappointment (or happiness) coinciding with the biological human need to exhale. Our bodies relax, slump, and generally show a series of physical motions that we as socialized humans recognize as disappointment (or happiness). A God has no need to exhale. A God has no reason to be disappointed. Gods also see farther than we do by virtue of being Gods. A God would know a human down to their toes, and know exactly how said human would react to just about anything. Disappointment should never enter the picture with Gods.

Gods don’t walk down the hall and have conversations with each other. Human beings talk because we have no other means of relating ideas and concepts to each other. We assign sound conglomerations to things to imperfectly convey thoughts to each other, and we use air passing over our vocal chords as we breath to achieve that. Gods don’t breathe. They’re immortal. Why would they breathe? Why would they make sound at all? Gods can understand things more completely than we can, and wouldn’t need something as ill-fitting as language to communicate with each other. Gods can be more specific than we can (How? Fuck if I know. I’m not a God!) Gods don’t need to walk anywhere. They can just be there. Why would you walk when you can instantly appear where you want to be?

Gods wouldn’t have sex. Human beings have sex to procreate. It serves a biological function, and so our bodies have evolved to possess these physical traits and tabs and slots to facilitate that, and it feels good as a lure to help us do it more. Gods are immortal. They’re not having any kids, and they have no biological imperative to pass on their genes. They have no genes. They did not rise from the cream to be upstanding members of the Human Hall of Fame, they were purpose-built.

Gods are inherently unrelatable characters. Their concerns happen on a plane we cannot conceive of. If we could, we would be Gods ourselves. If we were all Gods, then being a God would be a pointless distinction. It is an inherently necessary thing for characters to be relatable and understandable by the reader because then they can do interesting things that surprise the reader in all kinds of ways. Everything a God does should be a surprise to a human because we can’t understand their motivations, and if everything they do is surprising, then none of it is surprising. It’s like “Of course there’s a twist at the end of an M. Night Shyamalan movie because of course there’s a twist.”

Gods make terrible characters. We always turn them into humans, which defeats the purpose of having them be Gods in the first place.

That's my Gods as Characters soapbox. I know there's quibbling in the Mythology community about whether Heracles was a Hero or a God, but the point is that he's so far removed from what constitutes a Human Male that the difference is moot.

You should use quotation marks for conversation. " instead of '.

Deianira rubbing her tits just makes my face go all screwy. Period pieces should have period dialogue. When they don't, it turns the story into a kind of satire. A satire makes fun of the source material. That means that this story is kind of making fun of itself since the rest of it is pretty much played straight (ie, not a joke).

Did you write this because Mystery Science Theater 3000 covered The Loves Of Hercules? If so, you have good taste.

Thank you for the feedback : )

I have to say I'm in a completely different camp when it comes to gods as characters. If you say you don't like the idea that's fine of course, but I would definitely recommend some stories from mythology that show just how human-like gods can be.

The Greeks, in general, saw their gods as a bunch of incredibly flawed assholes. Yeah they were usually better than humans at pretty much anything (except morals), but certainly not perfect, never ever perfect. Hephaistos was lame after all.

Sighing came into it a lot, especially for Zeus who was basically a philandering dick, and at the same time lived in constant terror of his wife's wrath, and the amount of sex he had with anything from peasants to gods to nymphs to princesses to particularly comely bovines was insane.

A story that showcases this would be: "Zeus and Io"

And never underestimate how incredibly petty the Greeks made their gods. Athena is the freaking goddess of wisdom and yet was so insulted by a human, Arachne claiming her works were superior to the goddess' that Athena turned her into a spider, forever, after having proved her wrong no less.

I also don't know what you mean about Heracles. He was always a mostly human demigod until Nessus poisoned him and Heracles was skinned alive and burned on a pyre before ascending as the new god fitness (yes seriously). "Hero" had nothing to do with one's godhood, though the idea was wholly different from our modern superhero concept.

Of course there are usually dozens of version per story, but in this case, the basics are pretty consistent I think. Every mythology has its own take on their deities, and even different interpretations of the Greek ones vary so wildly that there are few general statements one can make about them.

Haha sorry, that was my own rants about gods.

Also no sorry, we didn't get mystery science theatre where I grew up and I think it was before my time anyway. Sounds fun though.

I do agree with the story being too silly to be taken very seriously. That was intentional, but you made me think that that might make it a bit useless as an erotic story...
I guess that's what you meant about the dialogue because accurate dialogue for the period, of course, would have been ancient Greek, which I don't speak^^