She sighed. “Your problem, Finey, is you expect everypony to be as logical as you are. That’s why you need to go to Fuzzy; she doesn’t let that kind of thing stop her.”
Who's Fuzzy?
And no problem with things moving forward - I sincerely hope that somepony points out to Finey that *he's* the one who was raped at some point, with the knot he's twisting himself into.
Um, wow, heavier than I expected. It's interesting, but this is nearly a genre change. Definitely just earned a dark tag for the whole story. Hopefully things with Tavi turn out to have been an innocent misunderstanding on both sides...
Also, just curious, what about unicorns with dedicated doms that are interested in lifestyle submission? These rings are explicitly temporary, and that's a good default, but in an Equestria where the legal system is explicitly designed to accommodate BDSM and taken seriously enough to warrant the existence of the Rescue Service, it would be odd if there was no process in place (however formal and monitored) for the occasional true-blue submissive who would legitimately dislike having to reaffirm their chosen lifestyle every 12 hours.
6880490 I'm sort of eyeing the new Drama tag, but I don't think Dark will fit. In my understanding, that's for stories that are denser with soul-crushing no-way-out hopelessness than this one is.
in an Equestria where the legal system is explicitly designed to accommodate BDSM
That's not really how it is in my mind. We could say that the law acknowledges that BDSM exists and tries to find a middle ground between ponies' right to have their own kinds of fun in the bedroom, and other unicorns' fear of, say, waking up having been incapacitated by an intruding burglar. If the law didn't make BDSM rings with specific safety features legal, there would just be black-market ones without them in circulation instead.
Also, the Rescue Service is (despite its slightly grandiose name) a smallish private business, not a government agency.
it would be odd if there was no process in place (however formal and monitored) for the occasional true-blue submissive who would legitimately dislike having to reaffirm their chosen lifestyle every 12 hours.
So they would have to actively perform an act of submission once in a while? The horror!
I think wearing a suppressor ring is more like "hands cuffed behind your back" than like "wearing a collar" in that it's not generally something even a lifestyle sub would do 24/7. There are plenty of other ways to exercise control over them; it's not as if a unicorn with intact magic is automatically invincible. When the dom wants the sub to be suppressed, he/she will simply be ordered to activate the ring -- that doesn't need to equate to a big solemn display of free will.
I'm sort of eyeing the new Drama tag, but I don't think Dark will fit. In my understanding, that's for stories that are denser with soul-crushing no-way-out hopelessness than this one is.
Yeah, fair point, I guess it is pretty subjective. Rape (even questionably) is in my portfolio of insta-dark classifiers, but that's just me.
So they would have to actively perform an act of submission once in a while? The horror!
I think wearing a suppressor ring is more like "hands cuffed behind your back" than like "wearing a collar" in that it's not generally something even a lifestyle sub would do 24/7. There are plenty of other ways to exercise control over them; it's not as if a unicorn with intact magic is automatically invincible. When the dom wants the sub to be suppressed, he/she will simply be ordered to activate the ring -- that doesn't need to equate to a big solemn display of free will.
Well, it's more of a headspace thing. A lot of unicorns would probably consider magic part of themselves, but (with the exception of a certain somepony in this chapter) wouldn't be doomed without it, given that earth ponies get by fine. You had what looked like a lifestyle petplay scene going on last chapter, with an earth pony mare; if the same mare with the same feelings was born a unicorn, wouldn't she feel odd as a dog who gets magical powers every 12 hours? If what we're going with is "this Equestria acknowledges BDSM but doesn't care to enable it", it's consistent to ignore that for practicality, I suppose, but I would expect anypony that determined to live a non-magical role to be enabling that black market you spoke of anyway.
(Mind you, it's your story; I'm not telling you to change it or anything. Just a perspective you might not have considered. ^^ I'm a lifestyle sort of person myself, and in this setting, if there was any snowball's chance in hell I would get away with it, I probably would seek out an indefinite-term ring and just hope that nopony can visually tell it's the illegal variety.)
6886230 Hmm, apparently I misunderstood your point. It still sounds a bit odd to me -- as if the desire to "live a non-magical role" you're speaking of doesn't have a lot to do with submitting to a dom, but more with a form of self-limitation that could be equally well be practiced solo.
As for Cressie in chapter 4, I would point out that she does regularly have the physical option of walking away, never to come back. Arguably, I suppose, each time her master whistles for her and she comes to him, that would count as "reaffirming her chosen lifestyle", but I don't think she considers that to make her role less sincere and fulfilling than if she were kept restrained all the time.
Perhaps even more to the point, she seems to have chosen to live a non-speaking role (even though that choice is being challenged a few times during the chapter) -- would you, in her place, have preferred to have that choice enforced on an ongoing basis by a gag or muzzle? Perhaps you would -- but I don't think that choice would be universal, nor that it could measure the strength of one's submissive drive. [I suspect the black market would also be prepared to supply magical silencing collars in case physical devices are deemed too crude and distracting].
I wonder if the root of our difference is that you consider basic levitation magic to be a kind of superiority that your hypothetical submissive unicorn would/should eschew out of general humility rather than as a way to submit to a master's will? I'm trying to take the consequence of the fact that all unicorns seem to have it, so in unicorn society it wouldn't be something to feel high and mighty over, any more than having the power of speech, color vision, or opposable thumbs among humans. It does complicate matters a bit that the other pony races don't have it -- and there's no real parallel to that in the human case, so it's hard to reason by analogy -- but at least as far as the portrayal of Equestria in the show goes, it doesn't seem like that kind of things are on the radar for most ponies in general.
Thanks for commenting! I like talking these matters over, rather than just throwing chapters out into the vast silent.
6888754 I'm inclined to go with your world for one simple reason:
Accidents happen.
It was mentioned that the ring has slots in it to hook it onto a bridle. There's nothing stopping a pony in full tack with a permanent ring on from being stuck in the damned thing without their magic if their dom, I dunno, keeled over from a sex-induced heart attack or something. If they were further bound and unable to move their limbs to go for help, they'd be even more screwed over without something like the Rescue Service, which is both not a government agency and, even if it was, clearly not mandatory for use.
Who's Fuzzy?
And no problem with things moving forward - I sincerely hope that somepony points out to Finey that *he's* the one who was raped at some point, with the knot he's twisting himself into.
6804632 Whoops. Fizzy, of course. Fixed.
Stay tuned.
6633933
Seconded. Though I do hope Octy was just her kinky self and it wasn't full-on blackmail attempt. But if it was, she should get her due.
Um, wow, heavier than I expected. It's interesting, but this is nearly a genre change. Definitely just earned a dark tag for the whole story. Hopefully things with Tavi turn out to have been an innocent misunderstanding on both sides...
Also, just curious, what about unicorns with dedicated doms that are interested in lifestyle submission? These rings are explicitly temporary, and that's a good default, but in an Equestria where the legal system is explicitly designed to accommodate BDSM and taken seriously enough to warrant the existence of the Rescue Service, it would be odd if there was no process in place (however formal and monitored) for the occasional true-blue submissive who would legitimately dislike having to reaffirm their chosen lifestyle every 12 hours.
6880490
I'm sort of eyeing the new Drama tag, but I don't think Dark will fit. In my understanding, that's for stories that are denser with soul-crushing no-way-out hopelessness than this one is.
That's not really how it is in my mind. We could say that the law acknowledges that BDSM exists and tries to find a middle ground between ponies' right to have their own kinds of fun in the bedroom, and other unicorns' fear of, say, waking up having been incapacitated by an intruding burglar. If the law didn't make BDSM rings with specific safety features legal, there would just be black-market ones without them in circulation instead.
Also, the Rescue Service is (despite its slightly grandiose name) a smallish private business, not a government agency.
So they would have to actively perform an act of submission once in a while? The horror!
I think wearing a suppressor ring is more like "hands cuffed behind your back" than like "wearing a collar" in that it's not generally something even a lifestyle sub would do 24/7. There are plenty of other ways to exercise control over them; it's not as if a unicorn with intact magic is automatically invincible. When the dom wants the sub to be suppressed, he/she will simply be ordered to activate the ring -- that doesn't need to equate to a big solemn display of free will.
6881444
Yeah, fair point, I guess it is pretty subjective. Rape (even questionably) is in my portfolio of insta-dark classifiers, but that's just me.
Well, it's more of a headspace thing. A lot of unicorns would probably consider magic part of themselves, but (with the exception of a certain somepony in this chapter) wouldn't be doomed without it, given that earth ponies get by fine. You had what looked like a lifestyle petplay scene going on last chapter, with an earth pony mare; if the same mare with the same feelings was born a unicorn, wouldn't she feel odd as a dog who gets magical powers every 12 hours? If what we're going with is "this Equestria acknowledges BDSM but doesn't care to enable it", it's consistent to ignore that for practicality, I suppose, but I would expect anypony that determined to live a non-magical role to be enabling that black market you spoke of anyway.
(Mind you, it's your story; I'm not telling you to change it or anything. Just a perspective you might not have considered. ^^ I'm a lifestyle sort of person myself, and in this setting, if there was any snowball's chance in hell I would get away with it, I probably would seek out an indefinite-term ring and just hope that nopony can visually tell it's the illegal variety.)
6886230
Hmm, apparently I misunderstood your point. It still sounds a bit odd to me -- as if the desire to "live a non-magical role" you're speaking of doesn't have a lot to do with submitting to a dom, but more with a form of self-limitation that could be equally well be practiced solo.
As for Cressie in chapter 4, I would point out that she does regularly have the physical option of walking away, never to come back. Arguably, I suppose, each time her master whistles for her and she comes to him, that would count as "reaffirming her chosen lifestyle", but I don't think she considers that to make her role less sincere and fulfilling than if she were kept restrained all the time.
Perhaps even more to the point, she seems to have chosen to live a non-speaking role (even though that choice is being challenged a few times during the chapter) -- would you, in her place, have preferred to have that choice enforced on an ongoing basis by a gag or muzzle? Perhaps you would -- but I don't think that choice would be universal, nor that it could measure the strength of one's submissive drive. [I suspect the black market would also be prepared to supply magical silencing collars in case physical devices are deemed too crude and distracting].
I wonder if the root of our difference is that you consider basic levitation magic to be a kind of superiority that your hypothetical submissive unicorn would/should eschew out of general humility rather than as a way to submit to a master's will? I'm trying to take the consequence of the fact that all unicorns seem to have it, so in unicorn society it wouldn't be something to feel high and mighty over, any more than having the power of speech, color vision, or opposable thumbs among humans. It does complicate matters a bit that the other pony races don't have it -- and there's no real parallel to that in the human case, so it's hard to reason by analogy -- but at least as far as the portrayal of Equestria in the show goes, it doesn't seem like that kind of things are on the radar for most ponies in general.
Thanks for commenting! I like talking these matters over, rather than just throwing chapters out into the vast silent.
6888754
I'm inclined to go with your world for one simple reason:
Accidents happen.
It was mentioned that the ring has slots in it to hook it onto a bridle. There's nothing stopping a pony in full tack with a permanent ring on from being stuck in the damned thing without their magic if their dom, I dunno, keeled over from a sex-induced heart attack or something. If they were further bound and unable to move their limbs to go for help, they'd be even more screwed over without something like the Rescue Service, which is both not a government agency and, even if it was, clearly not mandatory for use.
I'm really glad for this chapter.