I want to preface my reply with some points:
I do not intend to rewrite this specific story for several reasons:
- Mainly, since I got permission from the owners of the original story this is based on, I would have to do that again. But the Dominions Chain Project is more or less dead at this point, so it doesn’t really make sense to do so.
- Some themes in this story I would like to use again, but this piece in itself is not that dear to me that I need to see it taken to another level
- How this story came to be is part why it is lacking in certain areas, and I would not like to change that, so a re-write would have the same problem or be another story. I’ll elaborate below
- Using this specific setting has some downsides to it, see also below.
The intention of asking for further feedback was not only to find out what I could do better, but also to know what you as readers would like to see in a story like this, not necessarily this specific one.
RapeU wrote: Thu Jan 22, 2026 12:45 am So, that's what I suggest you do. Take a look at your story, decide what parts you want to keep, and do a full rewrite with elements that you as the author want to write about. Stories that are personal for the author in some way are stories that tend to stand out. Don't just write your characters, be your characters. Jump inside their head. React how they would react. And in some instances, let your character decide where the plot goes instead of forcing a character to follow a plot.
I do already know some things that I would do differently now. For example thinking about what would a character do in a certain situation, based on who I’ve written them to be. Go more in depth on their character. Have them react to the world they live in, rather than contriving the world around them.
For example: I needed a crane to be used as a makeshift rack for Adena. I did put the fort at the base of a cliff with watchtower on top to justify the need for a crane. That decision bugged me even back then. Why would the fort be located below, and not on top? Maybe the terrain would not allow for it, but it seemed clumsy, and was purely done for the sake of the rack fetish.
Today the good guys could also have a rack ready, because they are not as good as seems to be.
Or use the pulley/winch of a deep well in the fort. Added stress because it would also be cold and dark down the shaft…
Coming back: The intent of the question was not only: “What elements could I improve and how?” but also “What elements would readers like to see in the first place?” Maybe something I didn’t even consider.
I'll answer this with an explanation of what I did regarding my Kidnapping Chronicles stories. #KCU For some of them, a total rewrite of the story was needed to match my growth as an author.
I'm actually considering rewriting the entire #KCU all over again because I'm still not completely satisfied with my work. But that would be a monster of a task, and I have other stories I want to work on more.
This is the reason I want to re-write “Freya’s new slaves”: That one is part of a larger set of fan-fiction for WH40k I have in my mind. I improved since I did those four chapters, and I would like to raise them to a higher level, even though no other stories from that set are currently out.
With “The Breaking” it is an old one-off. Better let it stand as a milestone and do better on new projects.
Claire wrote: Thu Jan 22, 2026 8:08 pmOk, let's get into this.
But a disclaimer at the beginning: I'm not saying my suggestions are objective improvements. I see two fundamental ways you can write a story here:
1) You write a sexual fantasy that you find hot and storytelling is secondary to you, or might even take away from the fantasy. You write a scenario like you might enact a scene as a roleplay with a patner like: "Burglar breaks into my house and has his way with me". Who you are and who the burglar is doesn't matter. The roles are archetypes at best, there is no larger story to tell. If that is what you want to write, then I think that
@Shocker,
@Vile8r and
@LaLia are probably the three authors who do this best on our forum, albeit usually not in fantasy or SciFi. So I would look at the short stories they write, the stories they won their contests with. But I'm probably the wrong person to help with that approach because I usually don't write like that.
2) You write a story that has sex/rape in it. The story and the characters arcs are meant to enhance the emotional investment of the reader during the sex/rape scenes. And the sex/rape scenes drive forward the story and character development. This is how I usually try to write. If you want to know what I consider my most successful attempt at that in short story form, give
It's okay, I feel a little lonely, too. a read. ~3500 words short, takes barely 10 minutes to read, but I think it is a great character study that feels like it has depths and emotional weight despite its brevity. Read the suggestions I will make as me trying to turn the scenario of your story into a short story like that.
Maybe a having the cake and eat it too kind of situation here.
I would guess I fall mostly into the first category since the base idea for a story is often the sexual fantasy. Less interested in a complex psychological evaluation or the inner thoughts of the victim, more in bringing my mental image of big-breasted muscular futa-warrior ass-raping a slave in bondage to live for the readers mind.
But I would like to have that happen in a framework that can hold its own weight. Not breaking immersion for the sake of sexual imagery or to reach a plot point by contrived means.
In my view, the biggest weakness of the story is that it never leaves any doubt that Luzella will achieve this. There is 0 tension there at any point. You tell the story in retrospect, Luzella is perfectly fine, there is no indication that the memory of what happened upsets her. On the contrary, Luzella starts to remember what happened as she begins to masturbate, implying she looks back on what happened fondly. So as a reader I'm primed to think that whatever happened was a major success for Luzella and therefore there is no ambiguity there about whether she achieved her goal.
That is a good point. I didn’t think of it like that, but it is the same as the original title where Adena’s name was a secret in the plot, but already revealed in the title.
I dislike that frame story very much, but the reason for that is the way the story came to be.
The fanart of Luzella was done first. The story came later. Just having a short about her masturbating seem a little thin when I wrote it, so I used the frame.
Should have either:
- Build that scene into the main story (somehow)
- Write a different story that fits the image
- Accept that the image was not a good base for a story and let it stand on its own
Younger me probably was also motivated by getting a boost from the bigger artist.
So my first suggestion is: Keep the central narrative conflict around the breaking of Adena, but give me a genuine reason to believe that Luzella might fail doing that. As a story, not as a sexual fantasy, The Breaking lacks narrative tension. The way I would inject that tension into the story would be to focus more on the characters and their relationship.
No counter from me here. Spot on.
I would make it so that Luzella and Adena know each other and that they have history. They fought each other multiple times, maybe Adena even tortured Luzella in the past. But the most importat addition I would make to their past is this one:
Luzella tried to break Adena in the past once already and failed.
Sell me on the idea that Adena can endure a lot. Tell me how she was in the past tortured for 3 days straight and how Luzella was actually about to just kill in her frustration when Adena was saved by reinforcements arriving and rescuing her. And more than anything, it pisses Luzella off that not only did Adena escape, but she's back to duty commanding her troops as if the 3 days of rape didn't affect her at all. Adena resisting so much is a scar on Luzella's pride. It gives Luzella a bit more character and implants the idea in the reader's mind that Adena might be able to resist this.
All really great ideas that fire up my imagination. I would sure like to bring some of that to life in a newer story. Also some great cues in the plot outline you wrote down.
The story ends with Luzella frantically masturbating to the memory of getting revenge raped by Adena.
Chefs kiss
On a different note,
@Lucius and I talked a bit about your story yesterday. And we wondered why Luzella even did this. Given that she's a fantasy creature, we weren't sure whether her sadism and cruelty are unique character traits or somehow associated with her species. For those not familiar with the world you're setting this story in, it would be nice to clarify this.
The problem with her is: She is not my character. I tried to mimic her, but I wasn’t very good at that, and did never go into the depths of her: Main objective was the sexual fantasy.
And since it was made as fan-fiction I assumed readers would also be Dominions Chain fans and therefore familiar.
The short of it is:
The Kazdruk are a demonic species that invade and conquer other worlds via portals. They are ruled by a powerful matriarch, and each of her offspring command such an invasion. Yuldasha is the sorceress that invades the world where this setting is located. It does not have a unique name I think and is more or less a fantasy world as people know: With Human and Elven Kingdoms.
They first arrive in the Goldulin Empire (modelled by its creator after the roman empire) which is the first to fall. At the beginning of the story the former empire and parts of the surrounding world are under their control, the free people fighting a long battle but defeat seems unavoidable in the long run.
The Kazdruk can be male, female or intersex, have demonic traits like tails, horns, cloven feet, but not everytime, skin tones often in the red and violet hues. Their society is one of violence. Murdering a subordinate for minor infractions: Common. They are very sexual, and rape, torture and slavery is normal to them.
One guest author wrote a story about a young Kazdruk soldier volunteering for a forward operating scout troop despite the danger in the desperate hope to catch a human or elf to rape and finally loose his virginity.
The same problem I had with writing Luzella was also experienced by the original Authors. Their three main storylines did read very differently, and when a character appeared in several of them it became very apparent.
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I think that would be one possible attempt to put the story on another level for me. And you don't have to do exactly this. The important point for me would be that there are character dynamics here and unforeseen or at least unclear outcomes. There is tension that needs to be resolved, there is a back and forth in the interaction. And I think that you can absolutely write this in a compelling way in 3,000 to 5,000 words. It's difficult but possible. But you could of course also go longer than that.
I have some ideas to achieve that.
I started writing another DC story years ago. Another guest author wrote about a group of marauders out to get prisoners. Brutal men without remorse. The reader would assume they are Kazdruk, but it is revealed that they are humans, and their chieftain got himself two enemy sorceresses as sex slaves.
I liked that idea of turning the tables like that. I wrote a rough outline. The original idea will never be done, but maybe I can re-work it to fit the Warhammer franchise or a fantasy setting of my own.
And I work on a picture atm, where the backstory I imagined lines up pretty well with some of your suggestions. So I see that as a sign to go forward with that.
Downside however: More futa content, which is not as popular in literature as it is in art it seems.
Shocker wrote: Thu Jan 22, 2026 9:28 pm
Let’s look at the things that worked well “the victorious army and its victims”. It’s such a popular trope, because it reflects human nature so perfectly. There is no functional difference if it’s the victorious roman legion, the invading Wehrmacht or the red army on its way to Berlin. In their path they left the broken bodies and spirits of combatants and non-combatants. And your story excels in depicting that.
Thank you
- in the plethora of violence, is there a way of having an escalation. This might be either by getting increasingly focused on smaller groups, until it becomes personal. Or by having the cruelty increase. Your decision to have Adena giving up one of her own, is that kind of increase, but it’s a bit lost in her suffering before and after.
Yes, I think that part was too short. Also it would have been a great opportunity to look into her mind and explore the suffering for a moment.
- Did every cruel act tell us something new about a character? If not it was largely, just repetition and might reinforce that the bad guy is bad, but we already knew that. This is where padding a story can easily backfire, as readers can get bored. I know the idea of a reader being bored by a rape or torture scene sounds weird, but let me say it in the words of Forrest Gump “I went to the White House, again, and met there the president of the United States, again”.
I get what you mean, but I would argue that sometimes the repetition can in itself tell something about the character.
I don’t use torture very much in my own stories, but I use humiliation and for both the same rule applies, start small and let the action grow. There isn’t much fun in starting chopping a victim’s head off to then slowly tickle them.
Humiliation has its appeal. But I think my tendency to certain tortures come from this: I once said to Claire that I am a very visual reader, meaning I play a movie in my head. Adena spread eagled between the posts, getting the whip is easier to visualise than humiliation.
