The Great Equestrian Art Exhibition(ist) Commentary · 9:49pm Sep 29th, 2015
This entry contains spoilers for The Great Equestrian Art Exhibition(ist) and contains sexually suggestive material. Be warned...
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Favors, favors, favors.
Deciding to write this clop was a mere whim and the general plot hammered out over the course of like... an hour? Ish? All because I wanted to make my pal Reader Review a little present. I’ve met some pretty cool people over fimfic. I don’t explicitly speak to that many in my off hours when not responding to comments and PMs, but I like the few that I do. It just came nagging at my mind that I wanted to do a little more to show my appreciation. RR and his fascination for his waifu was the easiest one for me to complete, and thus received first pick. I started and finished it over the course of about two weeks.
From the very start the one goal I wanted with this particular piece was to keep it short. I’ve created two clop-centered works so far. Three if you count Liquid Courage but I’m hesitant to do that. Five thousand words was too long. I planned it short, and I wanted it short.
I knew that i had to start with Coco Pommel but where exactly to take her? In just about every fanon out there, Coco is submissive and sometimes subservient to Rarity, so that was something. Adding more characters would pad the running time and that also was something I didn’t want. In the end I settled for Coco wanting to live out her desire to create as shown in Rarity Takes Manehatten. It was a simple enough desire to understand and it gave me a decent starting point. It was then that I combined the two ideas and finally settled on what I wanted. Coco wants to go to an art exhibition, but only Rarity was allowed to go. If Rarity flexed her muscles she might be able to have Coco tag along, but it would come at a little price, and thus the reasoning behind the clop to begin with.
I had a solid plot to work off of then, but in turn I needed to define a good enough relationship between Coco and Rarity in order to make what was going on somewhat believable. It went through a couple iterations before I finally settled on what happened here. The first draft had me sticking with ponies and that would have matched just fine with my MO. I wanted to branch out just a little bit and so that too changed into anthro characters. Why was primarily because of Rarity’s evolution throughout the scripting process.
Originally I had Rarity give Coco the vibrator on a whim to amuse herself. While fine, I wanted a little more depth to their relationship.The big question of why kept getting tossed back and forth again and again and in the end I just started borrowing research from another fanfic I am working on at the moment. There’s something on the backburner, a fic called I Should Stop Watching..., that involves several BDSM themes I’ve been researching. Having this story purely BDSM wasn’t something I wanted, but it did help support Coco and Rarity’s relationship in a both canon and fanon way.
In some of the more stereotypical BDSM relationships and activities you see in pop culture, you’d likely see the terms dominate and submissive thrown around a lot. Dom and sub for short, or top and bottom as they are more commonly called. I personally don’t see either character traditionally fitting those roles at least in how I view and write them, except for their interaction with each other. Coco’s been a doormat while Rarity’s been headstrong and driven. Coco also has great admiration for Rarity, which I increased a little in my story for the sake of drama. Rarity is aware of her influence over Coco and vice versa and it is a careful balancing act to make sure things stay safe and in check. Coco submits to Rarity, becoming the bottom, and Rarity takes advantage of the situation, becoming the willing top.
But there was a catch, and one I deliberately put in there. Once I knew I was going to be incorporating BDSM themes in this fic, I knew right away what else I wanted to do: subvert them. I didn’t want this to be a simple top and bottom sexual fantasy given life. I wanted a problem with Coco and Rarity’s relationship even if neither side knew it. I asked my friend Softy for advice (I still owe you a fic too):
[9/11/2015 9:56:34 PM] Journeyman: What are your views on submissive devotion? I've got a Marshmallow Coco story in mind and I'm pondering Coco psychologically. Right now I've got it in my head that she's devoted to Rarity to such an extent that she'd do just about anything for her. Not in a loving sense, but in a sense that Coco views Rarity as being unable to be morally wrong. For example, suppose Rarity was in a serious relationship and Rarity expressed interest in Coco, sexual, romantic, or otherwise. Coco wouldn't question the moral implications of it just because it's Rarity suggesting it.
It's possible to be ripe for abuse, but that's not what I'm interested in; it's entirely from Coco's perspective and is therefore very biased. I just want to leave that fearful, lingering question of "What if?" in the back of reader's minds when a girl finds satisfaction in a perfectly healthy relationship. It just so happens she will not question Rarity no matter what.
[9/11/2015 10:01:28 PM] Softy8088: Hm
[9/11/2015 10:02:02 PM] Softy8088: Oddly I think what you're describing is my exact problem with Twilestia fics.
[9/11/2015 10:02:38 PM] Softy8088: Like, I don't see that kind of relationship as healthy.
Sexual relationships are a healthy, normal thing, even ones as unconventional as a little leather or latex in the bedroom. What interested me was in the mind. Coco adores Rarity and obeys her unquestioningly. This is cute and adorable, but this can also cause a very bad problem and can be abused so very easily. Coco’s a people(pony) pleaser here. She wants to make others happy, a subtle reference to her showing Rarity her own gift of generosity in Rarity Takes Manehatten.
The one trick I used and a sign of my evolution as a writer is that it is entirely from Coco’s perspective. Well it’s third-person limited you might say so of course that would be the case. Yes, but not entirely. You are a reader. You can look at things in hindsight and see the pros and cons. Coco isn’t given that ability. Events, actions, and ponies also go through her own internal filter. She doesn’t question Rarity giving her the vibrator because she believes the mare wouldn’t hurt her in the slightest. Even her own terminology reflects her fanatical adoration: she calls Rarity things like ‘goddess’ and ‘mistress’ without realizing it. To her these things are normal. She doesn’t have hindsight here, especially when it comes to Rarity.
That is also why we don’t get the big question “Why?” here. That is because this is not Rarity’s story, it’s Coco’s. Everything is happening from Coco’s perspective and can only be interpreted by her. That again returns back to the same issue and Coco’s character flaw: she cannot see Rarity being at fault. The issue for Coco becomes not if she's comfortable with what's going on, but that because it's Rarity, it is therefore okay. Communication is the key.
"... that's part of the art of being a bottom: communicating clearly to your top, while still letting them feel like they're guiding things."
There's that lingering thread of an uncomfortable relationship. I expected some people to miss it as my research isn’t covered in the basic understanding of the BDSM community. It's different, but it's a healthy sexual relationship. Even when confronted by Rarity at the end of the chapter, she doesn't resist her in the slightest. She trusts Rarity to be kind enough to her. But still, I wanted that uncomfortable undercurrent. Rarity truly enjoys deepening the relationship she has with Coco and that’s how I wrote her, even if it’s not explicitly stated. But what if things went wrong? Even if Rarity does have good intentions, which I will outright state she does, she can still make mistakes. That psychopathy that Rarity will never willingly hurt Coco is the biggest danger of the situation: Rarity is still fallible and all it takes is one accident. Her own devotion to Rarity clouds her judgement.
I loved the idea of Rarity playfully upping and downing the vibrator in order to make Coco squeak and squirm. This also helped support the short run time; there’s only so much sexual tension one can procure when there’s only a vibrator and an unseen controller throughout the story. I couldn’t make it that sexy for very long. I originally planned to have Coco just going about her day which is why I had her start at the bank. She’d go shopping, carry out her business, etcetera until Rarity manipulating the vibrator would make her pop. Her trust or Rarity here is reflected of a bottom’s trust in their top. Coco was in a sexual situation and couldn’t do anything to stop it without going back on her word and removing the vibrator.
However I will admit I did make one very big mistake. I made a note for myself the day before publishing this story to add more during Coco's recollection that Rarity was expressing romantic interest in her despite her being a doormat because it was, back to that same point, Rarity, and she shouldn't have interest in her. I went into my last round of editing before publishing, but completely spaced putting that in. I meant to do so to give the relationship a little more validity rather than making it sound like Rarity immediately jumped her bones. Already there was the hint that Rarity saw her in a sexual light and even Spike approved of Rarity chasing Coco’s tail, but that missing paragraph or two wouldn’t have hurt things.
Still I am glad how things turned out. I didn’t want their relationship to be overtly abusive. Hell, reading the other Marshmallow Coco stories on the site pretty much all show Coco being submissive to Rarity’s beckoning call. I will cede no one’s taken their relationship in quite the same direction and extreme as I, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I wrote the ending first because despite the lust building in Coco during the vibrator’s run, it was nothing compared to what Rarity was feeling being on the sidelines and watching her squirm. Coco couldn’t touch herself throughout the story for fear of embarrassment, and Rarity wanted to immediately take Coco to bed after inducing such a reaction out of her. Although not as explicit as sex the kiss spoke volumes about how Rarity thought of Coco. She wanted to take her right then and there but didn’t because, although Coco might have been willing, sex between the two required a few more permissions than exhibitionism in a changing room stall. Violent, raw, and passionate, it was a clear definition of “I want you.” that was meant to solidify Rarity’s interest in Coco. She knows Coco would be putty in her hands, but that’s not what the kiss was there for. By that time the theme of misplaced adoration was over and the question of where their budding relationship would go was to take center stage.
Human flaws. I wanted human flaws and I liked how it turned out. Coco’s hero worship, and Rarity wanting something she might not be able to have. They can be together, but they need to take a few steps first
Well, that’s just about all there is for this one. I did leave myself enough room for a possible follow up with Rarity’s promise of seeing Coco later that night and a possible inclusion of Spike. I might delve into my pool of BDSM knowledge and go from there, or something else might strike my fancy. I have no plans for a sequel at this time, so we’ll see how it turns out.
Cheers.
You wouldn't believe how long it took to find a PG anthro pic of Coco worth posting.
i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/023/203/51d.gif
A very interesting behind the scenes look. Glad to know a lot of thought went into this bad boy.
Plus seeing so many other Coco fans enjoy your story reaffirmed my faith in humanity.
huh, surprisingly in depth, I think il take another look at the story.