Brainstorming - The Lore of Clocktower Equestria West · 8:23pm Aug 9th, 2016
So, for those of you who have been following Clocktower Society and have been curious about the colt training site at Clocktower Equestria West, rejoice! Somebody has approached me to write a oneshot set there and I'll be quite involved in setting up the lore.
The location's pretty clear in my mind. Since we're in San Franciscolt, the site itself will be this:
With the dungeon levels underwater in something that is pretty much this:
While the location and setting's clear to me, I'm still brainstorming ideas about what CEW will actually have, specifically things that will distinguish it from Clocktower Equestria East. Questions I'm trying to answer are:
- Would any of the practices at CEW differ from CEE? For example, different collar coding?
- Whereas CEE has the Clocktower Maid Service, what sort of organizations might CEW have?
- While CEW will have its own branches of the Kindler Church and CTRL, how will it differ from their CEE counterparts?
- What kind of facilities might CEW have that might be different from CEE?
- Anything else that can make CEW truly unique?
I invite you to unleash your imagination and help me out by tossing in ideas. There is no idea too crazy, no fantasy too bold. Many thanks in advance, guys! I really appreciate it.
I'm not into malesub much, but a maid service might not need to be gendered. They can call them prench kilts, instead. Elsewise, butlers, one supposes.
Just to clarify, East is on the site of the actual Flame cave, right? So West should probably be some other site of importance, especially if it was Kindler-established and not a modern invention. Did you end up having any of the Founders be in a malesub or switch pair? This could have been their literal sunset retirement. A possibility for a more modern but still Kindler foundation could have been placing it at some far-western point to symbolize the love they had for the night, but not nightmare moon (setting happening for both in west).
For that matter, if Celly ever indulged-- remember, at least canonwise, she and Lulu were personal friends of the founders-- in femdom with a malesub at all, she may have founded it as a "point of rest" for herself, either prior to the NMM incident, or as a symbolic offering of her protection to the order in its hiding during the post NMM-years. "Here, I will indulge with you gently, and spread my wings to protect you, in honor of the sister I miss," etc.
After all, overmothering makes a perfectly good dominatrix type just as much as the Countess or the Hypnotist or the Amazon or the Bitch or whatever.
And it's from that which I'd recommend you draw your special institutions-- that node of founding. If it was an early branch off by one of the founder-pairs, pull in their personalities and cultures. If it was Celly, what aspects of her personality and/or mourning were set up? Hey, it could even be Luna's, prior to NMM, too. There's also the possibility of "none of the above" but IMO, that's just extra work; drawing upon the existing ponies would give you built-in thematism and emotions to draw upon for the foundations. Then layer time and kink over that. :)
4140909 I personally don't think Celly would indulge at all. Rule 43 could apply to her but I don't think it would fit in this story.
Maybe West could be secretly run by changelings who found a way to feed on lust rather than love.
For a mystery spinoff you could keep the general idea but make clocktower not a secret kink haven, but a brainwashing revolution organisation who try to make Equestria a democracy. Non-princess Twilight would hear a talk between AJ and RD discussing their next actions.
4140929 I'm not sure why not. Princesses have drives, too. And... I gotta say, it seems both unfair and unlikely to have the malesub types turn out to secretly be under control of Cadance's enemies or be plotting against an apparently benevolent monarchy (not to mention the brainwashing thing). I mean, I could see _a_ branch off cult, but I'd find it unlikely for them to be running a major clocktower, or be rooting for democracy. A new oligarchy of control, sure, but democracy seems a bit off there.
Going back to another one of your major questions, I'd highly recommend that at the very least signalling things like the collar codes remain the same. Switches, bi-types, people for whom sex and gender don't enter into the picture because it's just about the power exchange and kink could all be moving between towers, as well as the just curious, or people who go through different phases. Unless the towers are in outright competition to the point that they want to introduce internal confusion, and thus chances for consent to be violated, the signals should be consistent and recognizable. Same reason that while there's arguments about the color of 'go' most places are at least in the green-blue continuum and red for stop is pretty much universal with driving; for safety's sake, you want a universal experience.
My recommendation would be to be similar in terms of other differences; tallies and other marks might have a different sort of phaser/output device that fits the theme of the place, but the stuff it puts out and onto the sub should be about the same. If the organizations are as interconnected as you've stated previously, I'd estimate they'd want to go for a cohesiveness of mechanics, but a diversity of expression. Which would be an argument for pantsless butlering (not that even Fancy, the Duke of Pants, wears 'em) and/or other chippendales-type references. For thematics beyond the founding, you might look at some of the traditions of the Folsom Street Fair and similar groups in and around the major Pride activities in RL SF and beyond.
I'm kind of surprised that what you've world built only applies to CEE, I had the impression that it was far more universal rather than fragmented.
4140932 Like I already stated, the situation with the revolution would be a spinoff, therefore OOC, if not in an alternate universe. Thus the clop shalt be removed.
Every window in me has a what?