Crosspost: edit of argon chapter 3 1/2 part 8

[scedasticity]

I'm not going to try to explain the entire background to this here... some explanation is here and the entire project to date is here.

Previously we were trapped in a seemingly endless yet curiously uninformative description of a scene involving an altar; some priests; and an idol.

The scene is STILL NOT OVER, and now... yeah, we’re back to the standard subgenre issues with women.

Two sentences in this paragraph -- I’m going to ATTEMPT both of them.

Deep breath.

At the foot of the heathen diety a slender, pale faced female, naked but
for a golden, jeweled harness enshrouding her huge outcropping breasts, supporting
long silver laces which extended to her thigh, stood before the pearl white field
with noticable shivers traveling up and down the length of her exquisitely molded
body. Her delicate lips trembled beneath soft narrow hands as she attemped to conceal herself from the piercing stare of the ambivalent idol.

...

Okay. I have a lot to say about some of the vocabulary, but first let’s zoom out for a minute. What is the key information being conveyed here? There’s a woman; she’s hot; she’s afraid. Dwelling on those together is... Like if you want to write a story featuring your kinks that’s your prerogative? God knows I’ve read whump fic that goes a good bit further. But this particular kink -- sexualization of female vulnerability -- has a lot of baggage, so just... be aware of that.

And I don’t know for sure, I suspect that the author wasn’t trying to write his kinks. I suspect he was imitating a ‘sexualization of female vulnerability’ trope which was very common in the subgenre he was inspired by. I think he just thought it was normal. But I’m not going to do the research necessary to confirm this impression.

So anyway, generally, if you are not trying to write something sexy, and you are not in a character’s point of view, don’t dwell on a character’s attractiveness. Think about whether they really have to be naked. What would you do if the sacrificial victim were an eighty-year-old man? Is there a difference? Why is there a difference? Just... know what you’re doing.

Since I did not sign up to rewrite for anybody’s kinks, we are just dropping the ‘hot’ references completely and giving the victim some clothes:

At the foot of the idol huddled a single person clad in sacrificial white. The young woman was shivering violently, hands over her face to block out the stares of the priests -- and worse.

There we go. One sacrificial victim, 90% less creepy.

Now for our regularly scheduled vocabulary complaints:

• “heathen diety”: See all my complaints about “pagan” earlier in this scene. What does this mean in this context? Also you seem to be conflating the statue and the deity it represents -- unless the statue is the god? That might actually be the case. All right, I’ll let you off for that one.
  
• “female”: We’ve talked about this. Again, just this kind of thing is why “female” as a noun has such a terrible reputation.
  
• “harness”: I have no idea what this is referring to. An article of clothing? Bondage gear? A fancy prisoner restraint?
  
• “enshrouding”: Now I have even less of an idea what the “harness” is. If there’s enough coverage to be “enshrouding”, it’s practically a shirt.
  
• “huge outcropping breasts”: I always have the feeling that the people most obsessed with really huge breasts are usually people who don’t have much experience with any kind of breasts. Like there’s nothing wrong with liking big boobs, but using them as a universal signal for really super hot is... not a good plan.
  
• “laces”: The structure of this... garment? is not getting any clearer.
  
• “pearl white field”: Don’t know what this is referring to at all.
  
• “exquisitely molded body”: What.
  
• “conceal”: I’m not sure why she feels the need to cover her mouth, but okay then.
  
• “ambivalent”: You are describing the idol as having mixed feelings. I don’t think this is what you meant to do. I’m not sure what the goal was, though.
  

Comments

[manyblinkinglights]

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