I'd honestly Like to see the scenes where Luna, Celestia, Rarity/Valente, and Possibly Twilight visit Chrysalis Hive, and any raunchy events that take place on said adventures. also you can remove the mature/Sex status and bump the story down to Teen, there is no particularly explicit content, merely mentions as far as I've seen.

I'm pretty sure I said this before in the comments, but I can't be arsed to check and it bears repeating. I'm usually not into stories that go dark, but read this anyway because something about the title and concept grabbed me (what can I say, I really dig many forms of mind control ). In the end, I'm very happy I gave it a shot. You did a lovely job of guiding us through Rarity's hardships and the plight of the Diamond Dogs. I was convinced from the beginning that things would end in a happy ending, but you certainly did a great job of making me worry at times, and I commend you for that.

That said, there were a couple of times where I felt that there was a bit too much exposition. But those times were few and far between, and the story continued to hold my interest and excite me the whole way through. You've done an excellent job of worldbuilding, and if you hadn't admitted that Luna's final explanation of what the bridles did was a more recent decision, I would have been certain that the entire explanation was planned from the get go.

Thank you so much for this story. Much like Rarity and Twilight, my heart was broken during it and then mended again, but left different from the experience.

Oh, holy moly that was a good story batman.

Dude, three words "that was awesome"

9.7/10

The plot was good, the delivery was excellent, even though I found this story late, while you were working on the last 6 chapters, I just kept reading and catching up and waited for this finally chapter. In the end I haven't felt this much emotion from a story since fallout Equestria's ending.

Your creativity of this story was good and you even gave a reason to why celestia and Luna don't do anything, because of the bridles. When I read that I was taken back to how detailed you gave the reasoning. With Sombra, the fear and the back story of them.

The only thing I saw wrong was a few misspelled words here and there, but it wasn't that bad.

So, finally I just want to say good job sir, thank you and may you have a good and wonderful day.

(Now to add this story to favorites)

well that was a roller coaster ride. totally worth it though

7723979 This was my very first story here and my very first full story, period. So, I decided it was best to err on the side of caution with the tags as I wasn't terribly confident of where the boundaries from one level to the next were.

7724287 Glad you enjoyed the ride

7724066 Thank you for the kind words. I have to admit, there were more than a few times I had to stop writing to wipe tears from my eyes. The anti-alicorn bridles were entirely due to an early comment by a reader asking, "Why don't Luna or Celestia just go in and nuke the dogs?" I realized I had to come up with a reasonable explanation why they didn't. The anti-alicorn bridles were the result.

7724063 I had always known what I wanted the bridle to do, but where I had struggled was coming up with a way to describe it cogently. I help out on an alpaca farm on the weekends and while carrying out some hay the concept of the paper with the colours on it popped into my head, literally fully formed. I'm glad you enjoyed the story and hopefully my future works will be of interest to you.

By the way, if you like mind control stories, check out Damaged's work. He writes several in that genre.

7724304 Smart choice, and you've done well with the story itself. Keep up the Good work, and I wont tel you what to do, but I still stand by my earlier statement, In my eyes your story would be rated teen based on the content contained therein.

My princess Queen Chrysalis is no more
You killed her?
Well not exactly
well out with it you two
It's a little weird we had a threesome sort of...Gosh I just don't know
You Rarity and the Queen?
She never had a chance. It's a little embarrassing
Spikey Valente and I didn't go past a brief warm up when a bright flash interrupted all the fun
The queen kept screaming don't stop don't stop the next thing she looked like a pile of skittles.
then what did you do?
We didn't stop

7723979

"Mature" doesn't mean "sexually explicit." It just includes it. Mind-breaking, slavery, and other horrible things can make a story Mature, depending on the portrayal.

This story is borderline between Teen and Mature, and the rule of thumb is that if you think you might need to ask a mod whether you should rate it Teen or Mature, rate it Mature (and/or ask a mod).

7724333
Ohh yes, I enjoyed Twilight's Relaxation quite a bit and have been meaning to read the sequel

7724540 Hmm... YEa better advice.

You earned the shout out and I know from experience how important recognition can be since we are always our own harshest critics. Now you have the experience writing and know you have the skill, the sky is the limit. There will be ups and downs writing but remembering the moments your stories really moved someone makes it worth it. For me, my favorite is changing how someone views the characters, and I won't be able to see Rarity ever again and not be thinking about Valiente at the same time.

Oh and how about bridle path 5: Twilight decides that having left a part of herself in Side Slip, it is only fair that he gets to leave a part of himself inside her.

Giggity giggity.

7725988 That would surely make for an interesting relationship story.

Thanks for the praises, I am not sure if i deserve it. Well, this was a great ride and the twists and turns that it had was great and I like the way you wrote the psychological games that they played on Rarity to get her submit. I was really wishing Side Slip to get hitch with Twilight, as partner/lover/mate/pet to her, but I will settle with with this end which was already very interesting with Chrissy getting it on with with Twilly. Can't wait to see what you will come up with next.

7727210 just fyi, I might be picking your brain in the near future as my next major project is going to involve a major MLP character as a horse, on Earth. Our Earth.

screams at getting a shoutout!!

aaah you're so welcome!! I'm so glad! This final chapter is awesome too, I love the potential scenes between celestia/luna and chrysalis, those could make for great short stories too! I am super looking forward to the sequal with nightmare rarity. Thank you very much for writing all this!

7727507 You deserved it. Plus, you and Kaidan both brought in a lot of new readers to my story. He with his blog, you with your fan art.

7727243 Great, I can't wait to help you out with this next story.

7732673 I see you just started. I hope you like how the rest of the story goes.

7741129 I've never played any of the Fallout games before Fallout 4, so I will have to take your word for it. The entire dual personality thing actually came from reading The Dresden Files. In that series the protagonist has had a conversation with his inner id a couple of times. I thought it was a good idea, went with it and well, Valiente, Rarity and I had a few conversations about where things went from there.

Wait .. pod of Twilght but that seasons 6 finale. unless you're implying that not everything. Jangling left was like "hmm no more feeding that no fun " like seriously I'm lost here ?!

7858059 Raarg goes through a lot of changes in the story. I hope you enjoy the tale.

If Sombra plays a major role in this story, than shouldn't he get a tag?

Bug mom a best

Over all, a great story, quite enjoyable, in fact this is the only chapter I have a quibble with. I'm really impressed with how you've weaved things, no changes to the characters or the world, just an expansion of what we know, the stuff that you can't see because its a kid's show, nice work. The problem is in Luna's explanation of the threat, why doesn't she just offer the most obvious explanation, and one that Yowl-E should remember, Rarity destroying Sombra with far more magic than any unicorn should be capable of.

Seriously, that was scary in a way. Ifn I didn't know that Rarity is one of the good ones, I'd be terrified by what she did. She exceeded Alicorn levels of power, that should be impossible for a unicorn, and yet... I think there's something to investigate here, a whole new concept of what magic is, of how it works... Twilight could do it, but I think this one is for her student, no? One of the most brilliant minds in magic (and sadly under used in this story), perhaps the next Starswirl.

But, outside of that, another great work as one would expect from you.

7913431 Thank you, I hope you enjoy the rest of the story.

Before I read it, what is the Dark tag for?
And how bad does it get ?

7930495 There is an attempted rape and some deaths as well. The deaths are part of a battle. As I said in the edit on my preface, this was my very first story on Fimfiction so I decided it was best to tag the story with anything that came close so as not to incur the wrath of the moderators.

I'm just going to quote (with a few additions) what I wrote about it on my blog:

I have so many complex feelings about this story. It bears the sex tag and deals with enslavement, but it is not clop. If it were clop, it would be hitting all the right buttons for me with the sole exception of (technically) not having a dominatrix for Rarity. It’s not clop, but oh, the clop stories that could be spun from it (and one short bit of clop already was), especially the Epilogues! But all that aside, if you can handle the dark themes, what you have is the tale of an incredible mare who goes through a horrible process which very nearly destroys her sense of self, but she survives, rises above it, and well, I don’t want to spoil the ending, but there is a happy ending, just not one without consequences. In short, I do recommend it to anyone who won’t be triggered by bondage, mind control, enslavement, and a very close brush with rape. If none of that squicks you and you love Rarity too, then I urge you to go read it!

8033466

Your double post confuses me.

That aside, shame is a foreign emotion to me and I will point you to the other Bridle Path spinoff by Damaged.

8033802
Huh...I didn't realize I had done that. I've fixed it now, but I think there was a glitch where my browser didn't update when I posted, so I thought my original message hadn't been posted. Oops.

As for the other spinoff, I'm aware of Where Paths Lead but haven't read it yet, so for the moment I can't personally endorse it. I can however honestly say I enjoyed Bridle Path: Equal Play. and I do intend to find out if the story Damaged wrote is as good!

Wondering why there is a sex tag if there is no sex.

Well done, mate. VERY well done. It's not often that a fanfic manages to get a truly emotional reaction out of me. Your work here is in rare company with the likes of 'The Code's Apprentice', 'The Empty Room', or 'Through the Well of Pirene'. If you've read any of those, you know that's high praise.
You've gone into some dark territory here, and that takes some guts. More, in honest fact, than most writers can muster up. We've all got those dark little impulses, the Hyde waiting in the shadows for Jekyll to mess up, and it's quite uncomfortable to face that directly. Reading material like what you present here, the audience is forced into the role of someone who has no options but to not only face one of her demons, but to ally herself with it. I'll be blunt, I shouldn't have read this late at night. Could've sworn I heard myself chuckling over my shoulder.
This story gets rough on Rarity, manages to make the invincible protagonist Twilight fail, and offers one of the best characterizations of the Princesses I've seen in ages. Your OCs among the Diamond Dogs' ranks are well-fleshed-out and used to excellent effect, and true tension is kept up throughout the story... though you do telegraph your twists a bit. I saw the alicorn trap that was Rarity's escape attempt coming a mile away. That said, this is one of a handful of stories I've ever read that got something quite basic right: the world we see at the end is fundamentally different from the one at the start... and things have been irreversibly lost along the way. Nostalgia is a thing for a reason, y'know?
Much like myself, you seem to have a leaning toward old-fashioned and overly-formal language which can be a bit out of character in dialogue. It's an easy habit to fall into, particularly given the setting here, but it bears mentioning. Aside from that and a handful of spelling errors scattered throughout, though, your writing form is excellent and I'd like to offer my highest compliments for your creative world-building. Details are offered up organically and build on each other as the story progresses, so the reader is never left wondering where anything came from by the end.
Sorry for the text wall, but I had a good time reading this and felt it deserved a proper review. TL,DR: great work, a ton of fun to experience, and kudos on taking some chances that I don't get to see very often. Thanks for a good read, and keep doing what you're doing!
- Headwind

8051485
This was the very first story I wrote overall and on on FimFiction. I was being careful with the tags.

8051748
Thanks Headwind. I have to admit, my word choices are often a little dated due to my age (50) and the time I spent doing medieval heraldry, both as a field and book herald. A lot of this story grew from reader comments and questions they asked in the early going that I realized I wanted to answer. I owe them and Damaged a lot for making the story as good as it is.

8052041 Wouldn't have guessed heraldry, but it certainly makes sense. Fits Luna to a 'T' at the least, aye?

8052024
Understandable. Better to overtag than to undertag.

8052100
Yea, verily

As steel sharpens steel, so one pony sharpens another.’ To be able to defeat Twilight Sparkle at her best keeps me alive, and I will not stand by while her edge is dulled.”

Best phrase I've ever read.
Can I use that?!

Well, you successfully have made me a fan.
Few people have what you're going to get, so know it means a lot.
A fav, a like, and a follow.
Don't have me frown at my choice in the future.

8261196
It's a paraphrase of Proverbs 27:17 It happens to be one of my favorites, so you can completely use it because it isn't a phrase I personally coined.

8266291

Damn this story was good.
I expected some light bdsm that I wa gonna skim and discard. This was SO not what I walked into expecting and I seriously am inspired to take hints of this as headcanon for my stories.

👏 bravo 👏

8266346
If you want to take some of the canon and run with it, feel free. I started out wanting to write what you were expecting, some light BDSM, and then Raarg and Rarity both started talking to me, so to speak, and things spun out. There are a couple of other stories set in the BP universe and even as recently as last night Belle and I did a little flash-fictioning of a grimdark alternative ending that ran off of a cut scene from the ending of the story. ( Gdoc if you want to read it. )

Well, tbh, Belle more than me. Belle is hella good at writing horror without the gore. Basically, things went into a Bridlepocalypse with every other species having bridles and hunting ponies with them.

8266543
Sounds like fun!
I kinda wanna write something to that effect(affect?), but I can't wrap my mind around bridals yet

You have earned my Favorite on this story, good job

8360005
Thank you. This story started my journey into writing and holds a very fond place in my heart.

I had this story sitting in my Read later for nearly a year I think. I'm glad that I finally got around to reading it, in fact, I read it all in one sitting. Thoroughly enjoyed it, thanks for writing it. I might work my way through some of your other stories now.

8627349
Thanks for taking the time to comment on an old story. Since Bridle Path, I've tried to write a variety of stories, but have gotten trapped in some long term ones. Anyway, enjoy, and Merry Christmas.