Size Modifier

[OffTLeash]

first story iv read that actually ended lol

 

[XLTexan]

Good job!

 

[Gonad]

first story iv read that actually ended lol

All of the stories that I've written for this site have endings. I am very pleased by that and it was uncomfortable to not be able to say that during the writing of Size Modifier. This is why I usually post complete stories all at once instead of doing it in installments like this one.

Now that this one is finished, I can finally start thinking about what I will write next. Up to this one, I had written in a realistic setting, but this fantastic stuff has been fun. Maybe next time I will write something with superheroes.

 

[OffTLeash]

oo thtd be hot

 

[Kafm]

Same for me. First finished story I've seen. But damn, our barbarian friend lost his dick after all that work.

 

[Elro]

I'm sorry to say the ending is positively dick-shriveling... And very very predictable, unfortunately.

It's just as predictable as a stroke piece, anticlimactic... And completely unarousing, of course, unlike the beginning. Oh, it's better written than a simple stroke piece, I'll give you that, but it's hardly litterature (IMO, and I work for a publisher). I don't expect to find litterature on this website, although this is clearly above the average quality here...

Still, although I liked or at least bore through the first two thirds of the story, I hated the last part, obviously... So much so that it ruined the whole thing for me.

I had hoped the barbarian would have ended up with what he started with... Which would have been only fair. But maybe "fair" isn't the point. I had hoped there would be big dicks and sex in the end, which would have been expected on this website. But maybe that wasn't the point either... I had expected to be excited and aroused, and that hasn't been the case. I only read on hoping all that, and have been disappointed. I wish you hadn't finished that story.

I'm not sure what your purpose was, here : If you intended to write a great erotic story, you failed... If you tried to write a heroic-fantasy story, then what's all the sex stuff doing here alongside the terrible tragedy of a guy losing his cock ?

Still, this is only my opinion, a grain of salt that is mine to give... Even I have to aknowledge that you started this out rather well, and that many people seem to like how it went on and ended... I have read, after all, some terrible stories about guys losing their cocks before (most of them starting out like yours, to make it more frustrating I guess), and I know SOME sick sods must fantasize about that...

So, more power to you, I guess.

I know writers sometimes write about what haunts them, but I hope your dick isn't THAT small.

 

[Elro]

OH, I just realized... Aren't you the author of "Chemistry Nightmare" ?

So it's usual for you to ruin the dicks of your characters... It's apparently not a one time thing, it's a recurring fantasy of yours.

I shouldn't have read on, then, for I should have known that this perfectly good incipit was headed to unequivoquially and abysmally unexciting HORROR.

To each his own... Still, and I say this with all due respect, you must have huge issues if you do this for pleasure.

 

[Elro]

One more thing : I find it quite hypocritical that you say you didn't have a choice as to where the story was going. You're the author, for pete's sake !

You could have done anything... Making Ella more compassionate and making her free Lod, knowing he didn't deserve this, Creating another character altogether, making the barbarian find something that would protect his virility when the high priestess died (maybe through good cleric magic... And why the hell wouldn't the good clerics be interested in restoring lost bosy parts to people who have been wronged, by the way ? A penis is just as worthy as an arm...)... Maybe one of the barbarian's companions (like the elf, who actually had an interest in keeping the evil cleric alive, for teh sake of his own dick) could have jumped in and saved the day at the last minute (or not), plundering through the evil temple's riches in the process AND winning back his girlfriend...

You put yourself into this mess from the start, and it's just wrong of you to come out gingerly and say "Oh, i'm sorry it's not what you expected, but i had no choice". The barbarian paid every possible price, it's simply unfair that he didn't get what he deserved... Worse, he got punished for nothing.

Try writing for other people, normal people, sometime.

So, I'm begging you...

When you post a story, next time, just put on a warning on the FIRST page saying "WARNING, this story will end badly, with the hero's dick being completely mutilated of cut off !"

It'll protect people like me (and MANY others) from the horrible frustration. Unless of course you get off on torturing people's minds.

 

[Elro]

Your prose was so promising in other stories... I had forgotten our exchanges, and apparently you have forgotten every advice you were given (not just by me). It was really improving. Now you're back to square one : writing about psycho weirdos and cock mutilation (and you also added necrophiliac rape, for good measure!). It just passes for something all right because of the fantasy setting.

It's such a shame !

 

[Elro]

I feel driven once again to admonish you, but most of all, to teach you something. It may be arrogant, but frankly, I don't care : Someone HAS to tell you, you missed the point of writing entirely, with that story.

It may be that writing all this is just an exercise of style for you, or that you enjoy what you percieve as "twisted elegance", toying and frustrating the reader in such a way, not by a cliffhanger, but with such a dreadful ending...

You may enjoy challenging how the reader views sex and eroticism, and contradict conventions.

As i'm sure i've told you before, it's all well and good, and you might get away with it if it's just one novel in a very diverse book replete with other more fulfilling stories, but this forum is DEFINITELY NOT the place to do it, in my opinion.

You may want the reader to feel cheated, sick and violated in the end... (And NO, that thing you do is NOT "challenging the reader", by the way, it's just challenging his stomach) But that's entirely NOT what writing is all about.

You see, your first installment didn't end well. It had no true ending. It didn't fit. But there were possibilities : It was a good start for a quest, the quest of a hero to retrieve his lost virility. Thus, many people urged you to continue the story, in hope that it would have a proper ending... Not necessarily all that happy, but at least something fair or open. Instead, you just frustrated more and more.

There is an implicit contract between reader and writer. The reader agrees to read on, and in exchange, the writer agrees to surprise him, enlighten him, sometimes shock him... but above all, entertain him, and provide an ending that satisfies (Yes, EVEN in a tragedy), and answers the situation first stated.

Why is that, you might say ? Why do you have to conform to that constraining rule ? Well, first of all, it's not that constraining : you describe a situation, a dilemma, at the beginning of the story, it's only fitting that you solve it successfully in the end. It's not about wish-fulfillment, there's a big difference, I'm sure you've noticed, just read real books. Every single published author does it, at least every author that has published more than one book.

But why ?

Because, as an author, you'll want to be read.

A good ending compels the reader to try and read what you've written before, and what you'll be writing after that. That's the other big reason, besides finishing up the story, why there is an ending after all.

Your story, as a whole, promised a lot... But failed to deliver. And, it's safe to say it, fails to compel anyone to read your other stories, past or future. Your story is like a "Whodunit" novel whose hero ends up dead without anyone knowing who the murderer is !

I find your ending, and thus the whole story, disturbing, and it's not the first time either. I only read this story because I had hope for you yet, and I had forgotten about what you other stories were about. It's not about society. This story is not evil or immoral, just badly written and frustrating.

I wish I could un-read it.

If that was your goal, then you succeeded... But it's pointless literary immolation. You're inviting flames.

I don't know what your game is, but I find it sick and twisted.

 

[Elro]

Now that I got that out of the way, I wish to say that I do not challenge your right to post such horrid things...

You have every right to do so, this is a free forum in a free country.

But just because you can doesn't mean you should... And you should expect responses such as mine.

 

[Kafm]

Jeeze, that's an unnecessarily long compliment. But, one thing:

One more thing : I find it quite hypocritical that you say you didn't have a choice as to where the story was going. You're the author, for pete's sake !

You're completely incorrect here, and are clearly not the author. And if you are an author, I can already tell that you are a bad one. An author has an idea for a plot, but does not control what he or she writes down. What happens commonly is just as surprising to the author as it is to a normal reader, it just comes out. The ability to write without control of the outcome is a good one though, as it's truly what the characters would do, rather than what you or a fan wants. This makes them more in character and the story more believable and they tend to make much better reads.

 

[Elro]

That's quite untrue. Only unprofessional authors and laymen would think that. You just dont (or very rarely, on the whole) sit down at your table and start a story without any idea of how it'll end. Most of the time, unless you're writing a very short "spur of the moment" story and you're not a professional, you KNOW where you're going, you KNOW what you want to write.

I've met authors and dealt with them professionally... I've seen several authors be able to rewrite passages and change endings. Even if there's an amount of "uncontrolled" prose and reactions, most have a step by step plan and a whole view of their novel before they've finished it... Do you think a professional writer doesn't "plan" his novels ? Think again.

And it doesn't stop them from reaching endings that's satisfactory, without editing ! It's quite the contrary : They make it logical for the characters to go that way, rather that the other way around.

Not that it's easy, but it's what real authors do.

 

[Bane69]

Elro,

I can understad where your comments are comming from. Yes most authors have an outline of where their books are going. Some stick to it religiously, some change it midstride, some don't follow any just where their interactions between characters take them. Each author has his style some authors use different styles depending on what they are writing.

But I can tell you that although I might have winced a the concept of what happened to the barbarian, it is totally within the characters as they were introduced and written about in the story. In my opinion the ending was excatly fitting to what it was built up to.

It seems to me that your major problem is that he didn't have the hero end up a hero, but a heal. Well not all stories or situations end up with a "fairy tale" ending, sometiems bad people get bad things done to them, and our hero was (hmmm maybe I should stop calling him hero and just say MC for main character) anything but a good person. The MC was a self centered bastard who screwed over his freinds and not just the one who wronged him, if you have ever played dungeons and dragons (one of the stories tag-lines) his alignment would have been Chaotic Evil, or maybe Neutral Evil.

As far as part of your problem being with the penis mutilation, and humiliation. Yeah they might not be your cup of tea, and nor are the mine. But to say everyone here doesn't want to read about it. That is just a bit to much. You are entitled to say that you don't like it, but please don't speak for the rest of us. I for one enjoyed all the story even though visualising some of it grossed me out. For example there are alot of gay themed stories on these boards, and if someone came on here and said Hey Nobody wants yoru hero who started straight turn gay don't post stories like that it is sick. I bet that poster would get flammed big time. So bud in my opinion I think you should re-write some of your chapters (posts) and edit it to include this is how I feel and not speak for "the whole"

 

[Elro]

I know who I'm speaking for, and I'm sure many peopel agree with me. I've said many times that it is only my opinion and how I feel about that story. I believe that is quite clear, I don't need to include disclaimers everywhere : common sense doesn't need to be spelled out. As someone who works for a publisher, ia also have included advice as to what successful authors do when they write. As a reader, I have every right to express myself in that way here, that is why a forum is for.

Also, you can't speak for the author here, since you're not him. I'd like to hear HIS side of the story and what he thinks the purpose was in writing this story the way he did...

I never said it wasn't logical for the situation to go there, I just said it could have been quite logical for it to go somewhere else : the author isn't a prisoner, here...

I never said NO ONE wanted to read that, I also believe it's quite clear from my first post.

I never wanted a fairy tale ending, but there has to be some middle ground between a Happy End and this castrative shit.

Finally, I'm all for Gonad publishing and posting whatever he wants, as long as there's some sort of warning about that sort of thing (as I've clearly stated).

As you could have seen if you had read my prose correctly, Bane69, I agree with you and you agree with me. What's you'r problem here ?

Oh... And about D&D, who cares about what alignment the barbarian is ? Maybe he's, what, Chaotic Neutral or something, maybe this just isn't how it works... All I saw was that he got robbed of his natural dick, and then he pursued everyone who participated in his demise and laughed at it, to get his dick back, and to get revenge. Note that he didn't kill except when attacked, or when he faced evil characters. He also only raped girls who participated of his misfortunes... Truly, he's a violent person, but hey, he's a barbarian. It also gives the author an excuse for making him so very stupid. Have we even read the same story ?

 

[Gonad]

Elro, you are the greatest. I really love it when people are affected by what I've written enough to write a big chuck of words of their own. This is the sort of response that is one of the sweetest rewards for writing.

I'm sorry to say the ending is positively dick-shriveling... And very very predictable, unfortunately.

One more thing : I find it quite hypocritical that you say you didn't have a choice as to where the story was going.

These two comments are connected. I completely agree that the ending was predictable, and that's why I was forced to write it. I thought back upon the plot as it had turned out and realized that I had been foreshadowing this ending all the way back from where the barbarian first met the priestess.

One of the biggest reasons it had to end this way was as simple as Chekhov's Gun. I introduced the priestess's little trick to secure loyalty from the men in her life, and from then on she was doomed by Chekhov's Gun. It had to be important eventually.

If I hadn't been writing this in installments, I might have changed a lot of things. I could have gone back and edited out the foreshadowing. Since that's not an option for installment writing, Chekhov's Gun is a very serious problem for anyone who writes this way.

I had hoped the barbarian would have ended up with what he started with... Which would have been only fair. But maybe "fair" isn't the point.

Yeah, I think we probably differ in taste. I find fair to be boring. I might have looked for a different ending, but whatever else I might have chose, I hope it could not be described as "fair".

I had hoped there would be big dicks and sex in the end, which would have been expected on this website.

I had big dicks and sex in several places. I love big dicks and sex. But sex is a weak way to advance a plot. It can establish relationships and create motivations, but it never seems to conclude anything. I doubt that I would ever end a story with sex; it just wouldn't feel like a proper ending. It'd be leaving the story hanging, or else it would just be tacked on after the story was already finished, like a bonus feature.

I'm not sure what your purpose was, here : If you intended to write a great erotic story, you failed... If you tried to write a heroic-fantasy story, then what's all the sex stuff doing here alongside the terrible tragedy of a guy losing his cock ?

I find that sex, action and drama are three things which complement each other beautifully. Drama hits you in the gut; it makes you care about characters and it sticks with you the longest. Action is gleeful and gives you a rush. Sex gets you in the groin in that extra special way that nothing else can.

I like to mix in all three to the stories I write, whenever I can do it naturally. Sex without drama would be like watching animatronic sex, just robots carrying out the motions because you don't care about the characters at all. So I pour some downers into the mix; it's not arousing, but is so important for the effectiveness of the sex.

Also, I like stories with downer endings. I think they stick with the reader for longer. The only time a downer ending is a bad thing is when the protagonist is an underdog. Everyone cheers for an underdog and when the underdog doesn't win, it just leave you feeling empty. The barbarian certainly was never an underdog. He dominates everyone around him.

I know writers sometimes write about what haunts them, but I hope your dick isn't THAT small.

I don't understand the reasoning that lead you to suggest my dick might be small. It certainly isn't small. In fact, it is well above average.

And why the hell wouldn't the good clerics be interested in restoring lost body parts to people who have been wronged, by the way ? A penis is just as worthy as an arm...

I have noticed that religions tend to frown upon sex. If your religion considers sex to be evil, then they have to wonder what you plan on using the restored penis for, if not sex. They might say, "There is no good work that you cannot do equally well with a penis as without one." It could be that the barbarian ran into that sort of problem.

Maybe one of the barbarian's companions (like the elf, who actually had an interest in keeping the evil cleric alive, for the sake of his own dick) could have jumped in and saved the day at the last minute (or not), plundering through the evil temple's riches in the process AND winning back his girlfriend...

The barbarian isn't well liked by his companions, including Elrad. And I don't think that the priestess tells everyone she had sex with about her tricky bit of magic. It might discourage people from having sex with her. Is there was anyone who she would not tell, I think Elrad was one of them.

When you post a story, next time, just put on a warning on the FIRST page saying "WARNING, this story will end badly, with the hero's dick being completely mutilated of cut off !"

As I was writing this story I would often wish that I could go back and add warnings to the beginning. If you look at my other stories, I am usually very good about putting in warnings. In this case, I didn't think there was any need for a warning with the first installment and by the time I got to writing the stuff that I would have warned people about, it was too late.

I feel driven once again to admonish you, but most of all, to teach you something. It may be arrogant, but frankly, I don't care : Someone HAS to tell you, you missed the point of writing entirely, with that story.

That is not even slightly arrogant! To call that arrogant, I would have to consider myself arrogant for posting my own writing. We share our thoughts because some people might appreciate them, not out of some arrogant assumption that it has objective value and everyone will appreciate it. Whether I learn from your advice or not, anyone who reads this thread may learn from it. You are making a positive contribution and I very much appreciate it.

You may want the reader to feel cheated, sick and violated in the end...

If it helps provoke such thoughtful discussion as this, then I'm quite pleased to have the reader feel that way. Of course, I don't really want that reader to feel that way, unless it is a unfortunate means to a positive end. I certainly don't write with that as a goal.

You see, your first installment didn't end well. It had no true ending. It didn't fit.

It was a downer ending. Perhaps that is what you mean. Or perhaps you mean that it was poor storytelling. In that case, I did it because it was a surprise, a great downer twist like you get on Outer Limits. I love downer endings.

There is an implicit contract between reader and writer. The reader agrees to read on, and in exchange, the writer agrees to surprise him, enlighten him, sometimes shock him... but above all, entertain him, and provide an ending that satisfies (Yes, EVEN in a tragedy), and answers the situation first stated.

As you predicted, I don't agree that such an implicit contract exists. Writing has no contract; it is a pay-as-you-go service. The reader needs to be entertained right now, either because something exciting is happening, or because the reader is enjoying the anticipation of something that has been foreshadowed. If the reader stops getting something out of the story, then the reader leaves. If there were a contract, the reader would always have to read to the end, and as a reader I would not like that at all.

Your story, as a whole, promised a lot... But failed to deliver. And, it's safe to say it, fails to compel anyone to read your other stories, past or future. Your story is like a "Whodunit" novel whose hero ends up dead without anyone knowing who the murderer is !

I like to think that you might read my next story, if only just to find out what sort of trainwreck it ends with. This one certainly seems to have gotten you excited, even if it is for the wrong reasons.

I wish I could un-read it.

Naturally, there is the possibility that you won't read my next story.

If that was your goal, then you succeeded... But it's pointless literary immolation. You're inviting flames.

I do like getting a big response from my stories. Flames are good too; they are a learning tool. I don't think that makes me a troll; I am an author and my stories are thought provoking. Flames are thoughts.

Do you think a professional writer doesn't "plan" his novels ? Think again.

I'm sure that most professional writers plan their stories. They would always start with an idea that looks like it will make a good story from start to finish. But that plan has got to be fluid for most writers; what looks good on the surface may not work once more details have been filled in. When you start writing dialog you discover the chemistry between your characters and understand their relationships on a level which you could never have realized from the outline.

This means that you often need to create a new plan that fits with your greater understanding of the story. You find that the characters are forcing you in a direction which you did not expect because you did not understand your own characters when you started planning. No one could expect such a deep understanding when making a mere rough outline.

 

[Gonad]

Maybe he's, what, Chaotic Neutral or something, maybe this just isn't how it works... All I saw was that he got robbed of his natural dick, and then he pursued everyone who participated in his demise and laughed at it, to get his dick back, and to get revenge. Note that he didn't kill except when attacked, or when he faced evil characters. He also only raped girls who participated of his misfortunes...

Actually, I was aiming for chaotic good. I know, maybe good doesn't exactly fit in the normal use of the word, but in a world of adventure and violence he was probably still borderline good. He killed the evil and the apparently evil and the worst he ever did to good people was shrink their dicks. Maybe there are laws against shrinking dicks, but he's chaotic so he doesn't care. Some people have big dicks and some people have small dicks, neither one is more evil than the other, and because he is chaotic he is perfectly happy to play around with who has what.

Also, because he is chaotic, he's perfectly happy to fight evil in whatever way is available, including rape. Ella is also chaotic good and she has a similar style of fighting evil.

 

[Elro]

I knew what the author had to say was much more interesting than what in a response like that of Bane 69 !

I won't be reading your next stories... It's not that I don't like "downer endings" (I never asked for a particularly happy ending), it's just that I'm consistently being put off by your stories, in a way that doesn't compel me to read more... For all sorts of reasons. "It's not my cup of tea" is a euphemism...

I find the matter vile, and the form... Well, it's above the usual stroke piece, but there's a long way to go to keep me interested, and even longer to pass off the brute horror and turpitudes you plan on telling. Still, I believe you'll get there if you keep at it... I just won't be reading you. Sorry, just my opinion.

I do maintain, however, that your "downer ending" doesn't fit. It's perhaps too foreshadowed... too mechanical. No twist. Not enough ineluctability to be a greek tragedy (I don't see why the same characters couldn't have acted any number of other ways, in spite of what you said... Maybe that's why i find it not that well written), and too much foreshadowing to be just like an episode of twilight zone. There's irony in all the wrong places in the end, and it's too gruesome to be passable, in my opinion.

Whatever your thoughts about the implicit contract between reader and writer, I'm just telling you this is how we decide if a book is "sellable", in the publishing business, if readers will like it or not. All novels that "work" answer the question they "ask" at the beginning of the story, or resolve (albeit unhappily, gruesomely or tragically for some) the first situation. I feel your story somehow doesn't, or not quite enough.

Then again, you may not want to be published : This is just a forum.

 

[Gonad]

I do maintain, however, that your "downer ending" doesn't fit. It's perhaps too foreshadowed... too mechanical. No twist.

I certainly deserve that sort of comment since I've been explaining how heavily foreshadowed the ending was. The fact that it is so heavily foreshadowed is exactly what locked me into this ending by the time it came for me to write the last installment.

It was clear that Ella and the priestess were plotting something, and since they continued to help the barbarian even while plotting, the options for their plot were quite limited. Ella's trick with Lod suggested a role for Ella in the plot and the priestess made it pretty clear what she wanted from the barbarian. I admit that most people probably saw all of that coming. And they also probably realized that the priestess's fate was sealed from very early.

Those things were probably predictable by some people, the ones who put some effort into guessing what would happen, but I think some effort was surely required and many of the readers still found those things to be unexpected because they weren't trying to predict the twists. On the other hand, how the priestess met her fate was not really foreshadowed at all. There was no reason for any reader to really expect that it would happen that way instead of any of the other ways it could happen, so surely that was at least a little surprising.

Unfortunately, surprising the reader is a very difficult thing. As a writer it is impossible to surprise yourself, so you can't use your own feelings about a story to judge whether the reader will be surprised. The writer can't imagine what it is like to not know how the story will end.

I don't think surprise is important to the downer ending. A downer ending is quite effective even if you see it coming. Surprise twists are fun, but that is an entirely separate issue. The point of a downer ending is to make the reader brood about the story for a while after reading it, pretty much exactly the way you have done.

I see you are offended by the way characters lose their dicks in this story. I admit that it is my lack of cleverness that causes so much of that in this story and other stories that I have written. I want to create dramatic tension in a story about a large penis and this is simply the easiest and most obvious way to do it. Any other drama of equal power that I can think of would have the penis as merely peripheral at best.

If you know of any other way to do it, please share.

Of course, guys boasting and competing about penis size is also dramatic and I really enjoy that, but it doesn't have the same power. I do the boasting and the size contests, but you can't just leave the drama at a constant level; you need to pump it up at least one notch to have a dramatic conclusion.

At the moment I am trying to figure out my next story, so these issues are plaguing me.

 

[Elro]

Well, the penis as a peripheral plot device is fine...

And I assure you a story where some people "incidentally" have a big cock can be quite powerful. Or even a story where it intervenes, but not all the time. Just look at the Bond novels by Ian Fleming... While a tad clichéd, it works, and although romancing and sex is an important part of the plot, James doesn't spend all of his time making love, and the story isn't solely centered on this.

Secondly, you don't have to utterly destroy your character to humiliate him... Many stories revolve around making the character feel inferior, making him a prisoner, etc. without shriveling his dick up. The barbarian could, for example, get back his old dick, without any chance of losing it again (hrough another method, or by cheating the evil priestess)... But somehow, he would be prevented from ever using it again (through a flaw inherent to that method, not being able to gain an erection, perhaps because he's killed or raped the wrong person in the past), thus leading to an even more ironic (and less disgusting, more elegant) "downer ending"... At least in my opinion : a case of "you get what you wanted, but it's not what you needed", and not a case of "you almost got your wish, and now you're completely destroyed, mwa ha ha !"

Also, in a way, one doesn't peer much into the thoughts of your protagonists, in your stories : One could almost think that the barbarian just accomodates his lack of penis in the end. he certainly doesn't complain much. He just gives up, which is also very out of character. Barbarians, like Conan, the archetypal one, are heroes and positive characters by definition, albeit utterly bloody... They just don't give up adventuring... in terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, Cohen the barbarian is the most successful barbarian hero, he's 90, but he wields a sword better than anyone alive or dead. And he goes on adventuring, defying the gods themselves. He seemingly dies, only to rob the Valkyries of their horses, to go ever onwards to more adventures. This barbarian forced into being some sort of monk is yet another genre breach.

Finally... Well, the priestess dying was very very predictable, as for the way she died. The elf lady was the only one left able to do it, and she did have an interest in it. I kept wanting a surprising twist to happen... A good one would have been the barbarian's victory, but it could have been anything, really.

In the end, the barbarian is just a witness to his own demise, not even an instrument. Uncharacteristic for such an active character. That's also why the story has been disappointing to me : It feels gratuitous, too easy, not to mention needlessly cruel...

My reaction was : "Oh, he's heading for destruction. heading... heading... last chance to be redeemed... oh, the author missed it... destroyed. Well, that was a load of unnecessary cruelty bullshit !"

If you must have a downer ending, have it... but this one was too much, or was not written well enough to pass my standards : One has to feel that the barbarian really puts himself in this position.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, Life may be senseless Chaos, but imagination is governed by implacable logic. Most readers don't find it satisfying if it doesn't "fit" somehow, even if it spirals downwards.

The way it's being told, he's the hero, you see... He doesn't do enough wrong, or it's not shown enough that he has done wrong. Because he starts out a victim of wrongdoing, the reader feels sympathy towards him. Therefor most people will feel cheated if he doesn't get what he deserves in the end.

This is not to say you can't kill or mutilate him... Just find a good reason to. If there's no good reason for something as drastic as penis-shrivelling, well, you'd better learn to write better than that, and explain to the reader why you did it.

A good example of that is the perfectly unnecessary death of one character in the Deryni cycle by Katherine Kurtz (also fantasy setting)... One of the "good guys", married and with kids, and perhaps the most scrupulous of them all, just slips and falls head first on a marble step as they're running from danger. He dies, just like that, and it's completely unnecessary for the plot. It's absolutely terrible, the reader boods and broods... And a few scenes later, the widow is being (somewhat unsuccessfully) conforted, by the fact that... well, it just happens. And life goes on, and they still need her for the cause, so indeed she goes on, because that's what her late husband would have wanted. And that ends up giving much more depth to the whole novel.

This guy's dick shriveling in your story, it doesn't bring anything. It's just inviting the reader to witness infantile cruelty at tearing apart the wings of a bird, and slowly at that, because it's predictable and methodical. Since this is a story and a fantasy setting, the reader keeps expecting the bird to escape and magically fly off, because it's a characteristic of the genre you chose to use... But it doesn't.

And all one feels like is leaving you alone to your sick experiments. I wasn't brooding at the story, I was brooding at you.