All Comments on 'A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 28: Stress'

I love your stories! Great fantasy and erotic, but I have one issue with them: "anachronisms". They are not really anachronisms, because it is fantasy, but there are things typical for our time which do not fit at all for me in this world. One example from this episode: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is a phrase introduced by medical scientists in the 1970s/80s. You have in more episodes modern, scientific psychological reasoning. There were other "anachronistic" things which I do not remember now. When I read such things I get the feeling that the setting of the story is just a backdrop.

Thank you for your comment, and I understand your concern! Even though it is a fantasy setting, a lot of the common tech and knowledge is medieval (pushing into renaissance in some cases.) At the moment, society as a whole is focused on survival and basic tech and magic, not the inner workings of the mind.

For the specific case of the mention of PTSD, I am aware that this is a very recent term, historically speaking. But from Caleldir’s perspective, he is living in a post-apocalyptic world. He came from an advanced society that studied everything from machinery to psychology. His set of psychological knowledge would be more similar to our own than to someone from a medieval/renaissance fantasy world. Anyway, his society and their advances will be revealed more fully once they get out of Clachleom and into the edges of his country.

That said, I try to keep the anachronisms to a minimum when it comes to the rest of the characters (except maybe Althaia; her knowledge is also alien to the world for different reasons). I apologize if I’ve slipped with those on occasion.

It seam our understanding of the time of the monastery is different. Maybe I forgot some of the description. Maybe there is more in your mind than what you have yet written. Or maybe our association with the words used is just different. In my mind the monks time it is advanced, yes, but still some kind of fantasy setting, because Cal is not alien to the current setting. (Btw. is this the D&D world? Or by which RPG system was it inspired?) If I would be sent to this world I would have a lot of problems. I could use "PTSD", but I would have assumed in this case a response like "What???". That would need a lengthy explanation by myself which would be really misplaced in a fantasy story.

And btw. the eposide(s) with the nymphs was/were really good!

It is true that the nature of Caleldir's society has only been hinted at and not explained fully. Most of what has been revealed is that they were advanced enough to threaten the gods, which the current society couldn't even fathom with their magic and tech. As I said, more of the old society will be revealed and hopefully things will make a bit more sense!

It is stated the Caleldir has had months to acclimate before Ashyr met him, so it isn’t too strange that he’s beginning to fit into the new world.

It is worth noting that he says “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” rather than PTSD. The former is much more self-explanatory than the latter, especially in context. Even considering that, the drow weren’t in a state of mind to question yet another strange thing Caleldir has said.

That’s how I see it, anyway. I know there’s going to be some disconnect between what the readers understand and what the writers know. It is not for me, the writer, to determine what has been accurately conveyed, but for you and the rest of the readers to determine.

The setting is D&D/Pathfinder inspired. The magic and class systems are similar and most of the races follow the Pathfinder setup. The gods started out being D&D copies, but have since been altered so much that name-changes were necessary. Everything else is our own creation as far as I can remember.

Great chapter! I love Bard. I don’t know much if anything about the fantasy foundations you speak about, which is fine. I just read a story and enjoy it without holding it to any standard, except editing. The use of modern terms is great for me. It makes the world more real to me. Thanks!, you’re doing a great job:)

Ed

Great story!

On to my pet peeve - people that read a fantasy story and then complain that it doesn't match our reality. WTF?? What part of fantasy don't you understand?

To quote LatinLearner's first post, "there are things typical for our time which do not fit at all for me in this world"...