The Sun And His Arrows

Thank you! I’ll put a time skip at the beginning of chapter one and I’m going to revisit the last part.

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Yeah if its from her point of view than, she would think that he’s back for his arrow bracelet :joy:

Really great demo by the way , I enjoyed it :yellow_heart:

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I like the idea of the love triangle, and I feel like the golden arrows thing is such a neat idea for a fictional mythos! I also like that you can play the protagonist as boldly as they are. You have a good sense of prose which I think will shine bright once you polish it a bit more.

With that said, if I’m being honest, I’m still immensely uncomfortable with the idea that we met our fully-grown, adult love interest while we are a six-year-old. I hesitate to say it’s “grooming” because I don’t like bringing in real life issues like this when it’s unintentional within the text and you are actively trying to avoid that sort of connotation (plus it is just a one-off meeting so it’s not even really that), but as it currently stands, it reminds me a lot of the problems with Renesmee Cullen and Jacob Black; Henry and Clare from the Time Traveler’s Wife; and the creepiness of the real-life “jail bait wait.” I’m incredibly relieved by the time skip, although I will also suggest editing your summary to make this clear that you are not playing a child bride.

I would say there are a few good options to better distance the connotations from the story:

1. Instead of having Delos go to find his bride, you could send off one of his own servants or something like that. The protagonist can grow up wondering about the man the servant mentioned, until he magically arrives at our wedding. This would help develop a sense of mystery and remove the weirdness of meeting your wife when she’s six.
2. When we meet Delos, don’t describe him the way you’d describe a love interest. Describe him the way a six-year-old would see him, or better, how we as adults might try to describe someone we’ve only seen once, as small children. You did this really well with the height, but I would change the next section. For example:

Standing in front of you is the tallest man you’ve ever seen.

Well all the men you’ve ever seen are tall because you’re only six and nearly everyone is taller than a six year old. But this man is taller than even your father who is the tallest man you know.

Everything about him is bright and yellow, like you’re looking directly at the sun. Standing in his presence you feel warm, as if you were a cat basking in the sun.

Even as he kneels down with a confused smile, he still towers over you. He studies you with vivid green eyes. You don’t know how he got here, you know you were alone. But for some reason you are not afraid of him even though by all accounts a strange man who might be dangerous should terrify you, he seems to exude comfort.

I bolded the changes I made, but by doing it this way you develop a stronger differential with the narration of your adult self, describe Delos while still allowing yourself to go into better and more clear detail when we are old enough to view him as a love interest, and makes him seem more dreamlike to the main character until we see him again.

3. Don’t let the main character know what the arrow is. Instead of meeting Delos, we could have the arrow arrive, maybe even turn itself into the bracelet since it’s magical, and Delos not interact with us until we’re an adult.

I do want to make it clear though, I think you have a really great idea and I’m excited to see more of it. I would echo other comments about making the time skip more clear and removing the comment about the God coming to find his bride. You already have a good sense of style in your writing and you’re setting up a really interesting world and story :heart:

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Uhm… idk, I actually like that we met Delos before. It feels more “destined”, you know? Besides it gives the option to have MC keep thinking about Delos for all those years till the wedding. We would be erasing all that, idk. In fact, I would guess that Delos has been looking over her in some capacity? Like protecting her from afar etc.

Idk it’d be sad to erase that part of the story. Like, what would be the point, we could have Delos shooting the arrow and it landing when MC is 20. But that would remove a very interesting part of the plot. The only difference between Delos saying hi to MC years ago and only the arrow arriving is that MC met him and has an important memory of him. It’s kinda worse the other way around with Delos only sending the arrow not bothering to appear in person even lol

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I also kinda like that they’ve met when the MC was so young. At first when it was revealed that the MC is only six years old I was like “uh-oh”, but the encounter wasn’t very uncomfortable & it was very short, just a strange memory from MC’s childhood.

I know the WIP literally only just started but since MC is used as a negotiating token and feels very trapped, I imagine my MC looking back at the memory & dreaming of the mysterious stranger rescuing her from her cage as a form of escapism. I can’t stop my brain from making up narratives, I’m sorry lol.

Either way, I really enjoyed the WIP and the story looks very promising. Getting serious Hades & Persephone vibes and I’m a sucker for that, so I’m definitely gonna keep an eye on this. :eyes:

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Firstly I absolutely can’t stress enough how important and helpful this comment is. I wish I could pin it or something. Thank you so much for taking the time to write this out and I love that you felt ok which touching such an uncomfortable topic. I definitely don’t want this story to give off those predator vibes.

Standing as it is, I’m rather uncomfortable with the Mc meeting Delos so young myself but had problems coming up with ideas to circumvent the issue, I guess that’s what happens when you see the story in one way in your own head. Your ideas are absolutely stellar and I appreciate the fresh input.

With that being said I think I like the first and second suggestions the most and will be rewriting the first part. I might blend the two by having Delo’s servants describing him as you suggested to the Mc. Come to think of it, it doesn’t make much sense for the sun god to be chasing arrows instead of…yknow…doing sun god stuff. I think introducing more characters would be fun as well saving the meeting of the main love interests for maximum angst potential.

I feel like however I write it, it will still have the the same outcome. The arrow found MC as a child and Delos still is going to wait for her to grow up. That’s unavoidable when dealing with an immortal being and a mortal one. The only thing I can think of circumventing this issue is aging up the MC

Delos is kinda based off of Apollo so that’s where the arrow thing comes from. Would I say it’s so integral to the plot that it cannot be changed? Not really. But I would still like to keep it I think.

That being said I still feel the need to ask your permission before I use your suggestions. I don’t know why but it still feels like plagiarism :sob: (taking college lit has fried my brain in that regard.)

But again thank you, I’ll be updating the demo soon!

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Thank you, I appreciate your thoughts on the issue and I’m glad you don’t see it that way. I certainly don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable but also don’t want to take away from the story I’m any major capacity.

To be fair to them, @RedRoses gave a myriad of wonderful solutions like describing Delos in a more childlike manner which I think kills two birds with one stone by still keeping the interaction but making it very, very, pg. regardless of how I proceed I’m certainly putting that in there.

Very much yes lol. This story will have several Greek mythos intertwined into it.

Please head cannon all you want I absolutely adore this type of interaction!

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The MC finding the arrow as a child isn’t the problem, and in theory Delos waiting isn’t either–it’s just those pesky real life implications :face_exhaling: Thank you so much for being open to my suggestions :two_hearts: I think your idea of the servants coming down sounds really good at side-stepping those implications as much as possible! And as I tried saying (though I think I might have been a bit too disorganized when I tried saying it earlier–sorry, my bad lol) it comes across better to reduce the level of romantic/love-interest oriented language when the MC is a child.

The Apollo inspiration is really good! I can definitely see that :heart: :sun_with_face:

And don’t worry about permission, you’re all good! It was just a suggested edit to try and get my point across :two_hearts:

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You do whatever you like best, dear author :two_hearts:

Though I still think that Delos not bothering to go and meet his bride in person and sending a servant paints him in a rather bad light imo, as if he couldn’t really care less about the bride. It’s not like he even knew it’d be a kid till he met her. But that’s a me problem, not anyone else’s, I guess :woman_shrugging:t3:

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Just here to say I’m extremely excited to see where this WIP goes. Love the concept and the writing so far, thanks for taking that leap and sharing your work with us!

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I agree with that. You could have a servant arrive in-between the meeting and the governesses arrival. Like they are chasing him and come just a little to late (if that is fitting for the characters of course)

Over all I am very intrigued<3 I am looking forward to updates. I am very interested in how the two ROs are going to interact with the MC. As of now they have kind of the same starting point.

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Love your story so far. Keep it up.
Also, since I even like the story of Jacob and Renesmee (yes, I’m so twisted), I’m totally comfortable with the whole six-year-old thing.

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Firstly, I need to thank everyone for the continued input and conversation which has allowed me to make some quick improvements since I plan to get another update out by tomorrow. I appreciate it.

I’ve decided the MC will be 16 when the story starts. Still not stellar by modern standards but better than six. The whole idea of making her that young in the first place was to introduce this idea of fate and destiny. I think it would have worked better if they never met at first but seeing that they will, this is the route I’ll have to take.

I’ll also revamp the descriptions for Delos when you first meet him and save them for when he kidnaps saves you on your wedding day. (Interpretations vary.)

I like this solution the most because it takes just a bit of tweaking and I’ll still be able to update on schedule but If this still doesn’t meet expectations I’ll rewrite it although that will take longer and I have loads to share, it will be worth it.

Thanks again :heart::heart::heart:

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I’ve decided the MC will be 16 when the story starts. Still not stellar by modern standards but better than six. The whole idea of making her that young in the first place was to introduce this idea of fate and destiny

Too bad. I do like that idea of fate. But, I guess the change is reasonable :laughing:

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The story is really intriguing! Can’t wait for more :slight_smile:

I think the MC’s inner thoughts (sorryb for the lack of better word) needs a bit more polishing to improve consistency.

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Is there a narrative reason why we can’t pick our gender?

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I was kinda on board with the idea of the servant meeting us instead of the Sun God :sweat_smile:.
It would have felt less predatory if the character meeting the MC was not actually interested in her; less of a “grooming” aspect as someone pointed out earlier. This would make the Delos’ entrance even more theatrical as it would be the first time we meet him! Besides it would make sense for a God to not come to us at first, I guess he has better stuff to do.

I understand where you come from with the MC being “betrothed” to Delos first and due to that it has to happen when the MC is a child since she was also officialy engaged to the prince later on.

In the end you are the one to make the call and aging up the MC for the first encounter is also valid.

(I was just a big fan of meeting our godly fiance on the day of our wedding to another man.)

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Thank you I’ll definitely look into that but could you expand a bit on some examples?

No but since this is my first choice script game I want to keep the variables reasonable. Hopefully when I get some practice I can tell more diverse stories!

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I agree, meeting Delos for the first time on your wedding day would certainly be more dramatic. I’m still going age up the MC regardless.

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Oi there @MissBehavior despite it falling under spoiler category :joy_cat::smiling_imp::smirk_cat: can please tell me if there are any other ROs, especially if there will be any female ROs?!? I would still follow and read this but it’d be boring with only two/only male ROs, at least for me.

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