Lack of time travel stories

Hey guys,

it struck me that I've never noticed many time travel stories.
Time travel is well known for being the bane of any well written plot, but I think it has some untapped potential in the erotica genere.
Given that erotica plot arn't exactly Shakespeare-with-more-sex, at least mines

Am I wrong? I'missing any good story with this premise?

I was thinking about a couple traveling coming across this time travel device, barely aware of what it its, and unable to operate it properly, at first at least.
They could end up exploring medieval England or ancient Rome, and be faced with totally different custom and habits, lack of many acquired rights and such, or simply meet their ancestors or descendants, sort of Back to the future style.

Any insight?

 

I had an idea for a short adventure where a time traveller has a bunch of lovers across time, but one of them gets access to his machine and meets his other concubines. Hijinks ensue. But I have other things to work on, so I'll probably never get to writing it.

 

You know... I JUST wrote an ad for a local used time machine lot. Or maybe I wrote it after you posted this,and hurriedly time traveled back to take credit for having your idea first.

If there's interest, I'll absolutely write a story/framing device for people to get a time machine cheap and easy... and chock full of complications.

(CUE MUSIC LOUD!!! DIGGY DIGGY HOLE- WINDROSE)



A wild eyed dwarf in a oil stained jumpsuit and baseball cap with "CG" written on it fills the Screen.

Crazy Gimli: HI THERE! I'M CRAZY GIMLI, FROM CRAZY GIMLI'S USED CHARIOT EMPORIUM AND I WANT TO OFFER YOU THE BEST USED CHARIOTS THAT GOLD OR SERVICE CAN BUY!

The camera pans back to reveal a large showroom made of stone, set into a mountain with large glass show windows adorning the front and huge skylights cut into the overhanging cavern. Crazy Gimli grins wildly, gesticulating with a two headed axe towards a small compact vehicle which strongly resembles a pair of small European roller skates.

"TAKE THE 1978 SLEIPNIR STALLION! I CAN PUT YOU INTO THIS BABY FOR NO TIME DOWN, AND ONLY A SMALL WEEKLY PRAYER DONATION OF FIVE HOURS A WEEK! TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE? NOT AT ALL AT CRAZY GIMLI'S USED CHARIOT EMPORIUM, BECAUSE I'M CRAZY!"

Crazy Gimli spins wildly, his axe cutting down a man walking past with a cup of coffee and bunch of folders. A loud scream sounds.

"OR OVER HERE! TAKE A LOOK AT THE 1985 DELOREAN DOC BROWN SPECIAL WITH OPTIONAL MR FUSION! SOLID STAINLESS STEEL CONSTRUCTION ALL THROUGH THIS GERMAN ENGINEERED ALL AMERICAN CLASSIC, BUT WE'VE TOTALLY REWIRED AND UPDATED THE FLUX CAPACITOR SYSTEM TO BE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL CURRENT ONBOARD REALITY CHANGING SOFTWARE!"

"COME ON DOWN AND HAVE A BIT OF PEANUT! OVER HERE YOU CAN SEE GROWF..."

The camera pans to a small purple dragon with large horns and dopey expression. The dragon wears an apron which reads "Kiss the Cook". He sits next to a small cart filled with roasted peanuts.

"HE'S HERE TO ROAST PEANUTS TWENTY FOUR HOURS A DAY, SEVEN DAYS A WEEK, OR WHATEVER YOUR LOCAL TIMEKEEPING METHOD ENTAILS! THAT"S RIGHT! FREE PEANUTS AT CRAZY GIMLI'S USED CHARIOT EMPORIUM, NO OBLIGATION AT ALL TO ENJOY SOME OF THESE PIPING HOT DELICACIES, THEY'RE ALL PART OF THE SERVICE! EVEN HAVE YOUR PICTURE TAKEN WITH OUR EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH, LEGOLAS! YOU CAN EVEN USE IT AS THE BASIS FOR YOUR NEXT AU CREATION! WE DON'T JUDGE!"

A picture of a elegantly coiffed elf wearing a mechanics outfit, with the zipper half down, exposing a perfectly shaped chest flashes on the screen. The sound of a Wolf Whistle can be heard.

"AND SPEAKING OF SERVICE!"

The camera focuses on a particularly nice stock photo of a garage.

"CRAZY GIMLI'S USED CHARIOT EMPORIUM MAINTAINS A FULLY STAFFED GARAGE ABLE TO TAKE CARE OF ANY EMERGENCY SERVICE NEED YOU MIGHT HAVE, WITH THE ABILITY TO TOW FROM NEARLY ANYWHERE IN THE MULTIVERSE! ALSO INCLUDES HOSTILE SITUATION EXTRACTIONS WITH ONLY A SLIGHT ADDITIONAL CHARGE AND UNIVERSE SPECIFIC HANDWAVER."

The Camera again focuses on Crazy Gimli, who now lovingly holds his axe in both hands.

"COME ON DOWN TO THE CORNER OF STYX AND ARCADIA! WE'RE LOCATED RIGHT DOWN THE BLOCK FROM CHARON FERRY SERVICE! REMEMBER, CRAZY GIMLI'S USED CHARIOT EMPORIUM! WHEN YOU NEED A RIDE FOR A CRAZY WORLD, WHY NOT PICK CRAZY GIMLI!"

A blue map appears on the screen detailing the location of the showroom, as a small voiceover plays extremely rapidly.

"Crazy Gimli's Used Chariot Emporium Ltd. may or may not have displayed vehicles for sale at current space/time coordinates of broadcast. While every effort has been made to ensure display of accurate data, the vehicle listings within this ad may or may not reflect currently canon Time Machines. Pricing throughout the announcement does not include any options that may or may not have been installed at the dealership and may or may not include hidden plot devices. Please see the dealer for details or obfuscation. Vehicles may be in transit or currently in production or currently considered non-canon. See the actual vehicle for complete accuracy of current features, options & pricing. Some vehicle images shown are stock reality renders and may or may not reflect your exact choice of vehicle, color, trim and specification. Not responsible for pricing or oracle misinterpretation errors. Caveat emptor quia ignorare non debuit quod jus alienum emit."

 

Yeah I think it could be a useful framing tool for a CHYOA strory. I've got a couple of ideas just thinking about it now. Could have a character zipping around time seducing famous babes from history where the routes would be different women like Cleopatra or Helen of Troy. Or it could be a more linear story where a girl ends up stuck in a time period where they have different ideas about gender roles, like those old erotic stories from the 17th Century of Western women being taken to the harem of the Turkish sultan.

 

Ok... so... gonna have it as second person... and I'll write the bible for Crazy Gimli's Ltd.
Gimme a couple days, because I want to make sure of the rules...

The ones I have now:
Crazy Gimli only has USED Time Machines.
The stock changes from time to time, so if you return, even to the same point in time, the time machine you wanted may have been purchased by somebody else. But no worries, Crazy Gimli ALWAYS has another one... that a little old lady only took to see holy events firsthand every other week.
Crazy Gimli's can do one way trips to the past for EXTREMELY cheap. You're on your own with those.

 

I love a good time travel story. I did briefly flirt with the idea if a Stein's gate fanfic story would be any good.

Or maybe something based in that universe. Hmmm...

You're right that I haven't seen many. Unless you count isekai as time travel...

 

Everyone who has tried to write a serious time travel story on this site has started by doing some research, figured out how time travel actually works, used it themselves, and wound up creating a new timeline in which they've made billions in the stock market and are married to a stunningly beautiful French peasant girl from the year 1440.

 

I'd go more with a period where personal igene was a thing

 

Common misconception - medieval peasants in that area bathed in basins of heated water, would wash their faces every morning, their hands before and after eating, brushed their teeth, sometimes used soap, etc.
A greater concern for time travel sex - albeit a highly pendantic one in the realm of fiction - is sexual selection. In short, humans tend to mate with more attractive people, and as a result, attractive people will bear more offspring, that in turn tend to be more attractive. This means that humans in general become slowly more attractive over time. Our standard of 'ugly' today was likely the norm in 1440.

 

Whelp, you've got the there. I suppose we learn something new every day.

That would be mostly true, it as been proved with height in fact.
Still I think you have to factor other things in.
The fashion of the period, for once.
Someone like Kate Moss for example, whould have probably been judged unattractive in a medieval context.
Sure a farmer girl of the time had to have strong arms to work the fields and wide hips to give birth, nobles where probably another thing, and if you change period and go to ancient romans and greeks, you can see from their stautes, they had it quite clear what it meant "beauty".

 

I think that if one were to do a time travel story wherein one gets to seduce women (or men) throughout history, it would be necessary to take more than a few liberties.

Standards of beauty have indeed changed over time... but the way I see it, we can just cheerfully ignore that. If we want to portray Cleopatra as a woman beautiful by modern standards, with shaved legs and without the aroma caused by going weeks without bathing, who's to say we can't? I don't think Cleopatra herself will object. Similarly, there's no reason why we can't avoid some of the other problematic things about time travel - and there are a lot of them, even aside from paradoxes and alternate timelines and such. For instance...

1. Go back in time more than 500 years, and you won't understand anything that anyone is saying, and vice-versa. Languages change over time, and even if you're a native English speaker you'll have a hard time talking with Shakespeare.
2. You'd have no immunity to the diseases of the time, because viruses and bacteria have evolved. Your modern antibodies will be practically useless. And, of course, there's smallpox.
   
3. You wouldn't be able to tolerate the water or the food; again, because you'll have no built-up immunity to whatever's in that stuff.
4. Certain customs will be completely unknown to you, because we don't have perfect knowledge of the past. You might make a casual gesture which means nothing to you, but is a deadly insult at the time.

But none of that matters. This is erotic fiction, not an accurate report on history. If we want to write a story which involves going back in time and banging Marie Antoinette, we can totally skip the parts which don't make the story entertaining. We can say that Helen of Troy really existed even though it's questionable in real life, and that she was absolutely gorgeous by any standards we like. We can choose to throw in the drama of having to deal with actual historical events... or not. Focusing too much on keeping it real ruins the fantasy, so to Hell with reality; let's write some smut!

 

So... Got a little Of CGUCE typed up. It specifically is built to allow handwaves, and to have the scenario be a realistic or as silly as you like, since the concept includes one way trips to the past terminator style...
Have an OLD story that I'll port over to do the first example... Hated the framing device I used in it anyway... and had no explicit sex in a transgender story... but I will have to age up the main character by two years to comply with the rules... grumble... The guy's twenty seven... arrgh this was the EXACT point I was trying to make in the story. aaaaand add some sex... hrm... well, I could do it, and It'll be a lot of work, but I'll get on it. Linear, Sorry... but it will at least give the idea of the feel I'm trying to get.

 

But of course!
We can dismiss as much problems as we can come up with, we can do whatever we like.
Still, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss all of them...

I mean, some problems would be plain annoying, others boring or uniteresting, others more too diffcult to overcome, but ultimately, if we get rid of all those little bits of characterization, what would remain of our time travel story?
A choose your fembot?
Some virtual reality story?
A god powers one?

There's no need to actually linger on Cleopatra's igene (beside I'm convinced she was quite clean as Egyptians invented make up and body lotions. I'm all in to go and verify myself, if it shall come to that by the way...), mine was merely an ironic remark about chosing specifically a medieval frech farm girl.

I would still mantain some difficulties with the language for istance, a period of adaptation, at least.
I would definetly leave out diseases and food, if not for a note of color, on the other hand.

 

That's... That's... hmm, I'm not really sure of what you meant here.
Sounds neat though, keep it up.

 

Anyway, I recommend the short story "Mozart in Mirrorshades," which is a piece of legitimate literature that involves someone going back in time and getting romantically involved with Marie Antoinette. (Spoiler warning: the link is to the Wikipedia page about the story, which includes a summary of the entire plot.)

 

1431 to be precise and I had to bust her out of prison first.

 

I have been thinking of writing a game mode time travel story where the chapter structure loops like Groundhog Day, with new options appearing with each cycle as you learn more from each failed loop.

Example 1: You made a horrible first impression with your dream woman so she doesn't think highly of you. A few days later the time loop starts. With each loop you learn more about her life, her interests and about the events taking place that day, using the knowledge to win her over in 24 hours.

Example 2: You are a special agent with a unique time travel device. You have a mission to accomplish within 24 hours but to do it you need to outsmart several femme fatale counter-agents that will use every means available to stop you. You reset the day whenever one of them gets you in into a predicament you can't overcome.

Other ideas?

 

There's a time-travel branch in Lois Lane's Night Out, Metropolis Island...1644! But it's a pretty small branch right now, not much interest.

 

I'd play that for sure, Greyrock. I've been wanting another time home-style time loop. That sounds like it could be a cool way to do it... It'd be neat to play back through and see what new options popped up.

#2 spy setting sounds cool too! Always like more spy stories.

 

There's a dungeon crawl on the site similar to this, though I can't recall its name. It has a lot of death endings, except when you die, you just get linked back to the start. If my memory is accurate, it isn't a total reset; that is, previous iterations could have some small effect on the curent iteration. Anyway, I think that's generally a better system than just ending the story when the player dies (guilty as charged). There's a reason videogames have respawn. In the case of your example, the reset mechanic has some very strong story justification.

Another way of achieving the 'Groundhog Day' effect: instead of going back in time itself, all of the characters except the protagonist lose their memories. Whatever changes you made to the environment remain the same, but everyone forgets you. That might be a little depressing, albeit not much more than an actual time loop.