8171093

That is a lot of 'supposed's'

*goes to fix it* shhhhhh

“Thirty-five of the eighteen hundred sixty-four people that attend our school are nonbinary,” Pinkie said casually.

Which going by the 5% goal for percent in a clocktower, and this is when it's a massive, well supported, fully functioning, ancient society, not a new club just starting up. That means you would have more or less 1 person out of just under 100 that this would not apply to. I'm not dismissing that, or that one, but, at some point it does become a bit to granular for so little.

First off, 35/1864 is about 2%, which is an incredibly conservative estimate, even for a high school. It's usually more like 10%. Also consider that there's a high overlap between non-standard gender and non-standard sexuality, given the inherently liberal atmosphere of most kinky spaces and the opportunities most people have to explore their own gender (e.g. feminization/masculinization play, crossdressing, drag, and in the world of CTS, shape-changing potions) that they might not otherwise have had. The CTS Discord is probably the most cis kinky space I've ever been in, to a weird degree. Once you start going "I wanna get fucked by tentacles" it's hard to turn around and go "but I can't be a girl!" if you feel that way. Every other kinky space I've been part of is something like 25-40% trans or otherwise non-cis.

Second off, I'm agender and I'm the author and I want to see myself acknowledged in fiction and you can pry this from my cold dead hands. If there's a collar color for specifically rape fantasies, nothing is too granular.

So long as everyone is open, accepting... not seeing the issue here.

You have no idea how good it feels, after years of marking "Other" on forms, to see yourself recognized as legitimate and worthy of being named. If CTS can do that, why shouldn't they?

that plus being naked 90% of the time makes it a LOT harder to make mistakes about that.

Gender non-conforming =/= intersex. GNC is mostly social stuff, like a guy who paints his nails or a girl who wants to be a plumber are GNC. Again, the number Pinkie gives is very low for general population estimates - a combination of the repressive environment that is high school and the general socially liberal environment that pony culture tends to model. Whether something counts as GNC usually depends on the cultural view of it; for example, women who wore pants in the 1800s would have been defying gender norms, but women wearing pants today is nothing special.

Because it was built over 1000 years ago maybe?

Originally I had it so that one human year equalled two pony years. It makes the timeline between the movies and seasons work out nicer too, but I screwed up and this never made it in the fic properly. So uh... wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.

Diamond collar.. that would be a huge no.. way to brittle.

Brittle? It's diamond. What?

8171216 The 5% I was talking about was the "5% of the population is a member of the Clock Tower Society" bit. Which for the school, ignoring that a large portion of them are underage, works out to just under 100 students, and 1 or 2 of the 35 she mentioned.

If there's a collar color for specifically rape fantasies, nothing is too granular.

Those are more about the larger, general ways of Domming. Which style you prefer. Loving, tender, caring. Harsh, controlling, taking what they wish. Or just totally "You are nothing but a toy to me!" types. it also is worth being more prominently displayed not just a "This is more popular" type deal, but because it's a really really important aspect to NOT screw around with and be sure is done right. Because it is a common fantasy, but one that not everyone has, and those that don't... even trying to do it out of any confusion would be horrifying, where as those that do, the anonymity, not having to talk it out first, having that flag that sends a clear, universal, unmistakable signal this is okay, it's a very important deal. It's there to make to illusion, the 'game' as immersive and real as possible without putting anypony at risk.

GNC is mostly social stuff, like a guy who paints his nails or a girl who wants to be a plumber are GNC.

And here is the main reason the above 'so little gender stuff in the CTS Discord..... CTS is about ponies, it takes place in Equestria where.... Gender seems to have no meaning at all. It doesn't matter, there has never been a case where gender has ever mattered. The one time it seemed like it might, the Sisterhooves Social, turns out out it didn't and they didn't care of stallions entered with their siblings. There is no "GNC" ponies, because there simply is no gender idea for them to conform to in the first place. Or what there are, such as dresses and clothing types.. no one really cares if are 'broken'. There is so little Gender Identity stuff in the CTS stuff.. because Equestria is a place where it's simply a non issue in the first place. Plus, you can just be whatever pony you want, how many makes play mares or females stallions? Or, just go for the ultimate fluidity and be a changeling.

Now yes, this is not Equestria, so them having a bit more there does work. But it's not because anything was faulty with how the CTS did anything, it's a factor of the differing society each one is dealing with.

Brittle? It's diamond. What?

Diamond is very, VERY brittle. It is HARD, yes, but 'hardness' is a measure of how easy it is to scratch, almost nothing can scratch a diamond. But Brittleness is a factor of how easily it shatters under impact, and diamonds are very, very easy to shatter. Precisely BECAUSE of the hardness, the hardness his made by the atoms being SO closely held, so linked, so rigidly placed in tight layers, that it has no room for elastic deformation when struck, has no way to absorb of dissipate the froce of the blow, and so it breaks.

8171337

Yeah, but even so it's unlikely that most of CTN's patrons will come from the high school. There's the underage thing, plus they're in the middle of town, not out in the prairie somewhere.

Disagree that there aren't gender norms in Equestria, but the point is moot; the EQG group is coming at it with a human perspective anyway.

Did not know that about diamonds. Ah, well, Twi's wrong then. She can't know everything about everything.

And those were very cute little bits too.

8171275

It took a week to get to this point? how did they hide that it was all about the kink when they are actively recruiting people, and the whole place is filled with nothing but kink gear!? r has she never been down there? [...] Exactly how the hell did they have her here for a week without noticing this stuff?

She mostly has in fact not been down there, or only been down there in "off hours" when no one's really around. Sunset's doing Magic 101 with her and that would probably mostly happen at the high school (their instruments are there, etc). Cadance is also both smarter and subtler than Sunset gives her credit for here; she definitely knows something is going on and maybe has a vague idea what but doesn't want to jump to conclusions (it's not for nothing that she makes the kink connection so quickly).

A COMPANY! Okay then... yet makes sense, no magical anti-contraceptives and magic healing to deal with STD's.... Yet.... But wow that is one huge purchase...

*points at the giant pile of rare minerals and gemstones provided by the Princesses via grant that is already worth a sizable amount in Equestria and is probably worth twenty times that in human-land*

Clockface is just 'pause' not 'stop'.

Both Twilight and I know this. I meant this exchange to carry more implication than it perhaps conveyed, but Twilight specifically chooses clockface and not staircase or towertop because that's where she is, emotionally. She's saying that she trusts Sunset and doesn't want to immediately bail if things go wrong; that she does in fact want to do this and isn't just going along with it because Sunset said so, but that she's still a little unsure about it. It's meant to let Sunset know she can stretch things a little, too. The question isn't "what is the Clocktower safeword for 'everything stops'?" it's "What are you going to say if you want me to stop?" If Twilight had said, "Towertop," Sunset would know to step a heck of a lot more carefully.

Hmmm, this does feel like its going agsint a lot of rules for the Society, that it's moving a bit to fast

That's what safewords are for. Honestly, having been in Twilight's shoes, the other option is waiting half a decade for her to get over it on her own. There is a bit of authorial fiat going on here in that I get to say, "oh yes and nothing will go wrong," but they are communicating and Sunset isn't doing this out of the blue with zero input from Twilight.

8172083

Thank you! This is one of the things I was trying to do so I'm glad it worked out.

8178982

Hoping for a sequel, not holding my breath though.

Finished reading. Kind of sad it ended. The worldbuilding was rather nice. Only one real complaint with it but that has already been stated. Nice job.

8206083

You got the right person but, uh, I still don't know what you're talking about. Not because I think I'm perfect but because I don't know which of five or six major flaws in this fic you think is the most obvious. Regardless, thanks for reading! :)

I realize other people have complained that this was too short, but I feel some elaboration is in order; this story is too compressed - they very quickly get their backing, funding and membership things sorted out to the point that there was never really any conflict. Everything just moved too fast.

Beyond that though - loved the concept, loved the characters, the scenes themselves were all great and I've been annoying several friends by quoting sections out-of-context. Nice work.

8206489

You're right, really. Were I doing this over again, I would definitely have held off on publishing to fix the pacing, but as it was I messed up and didn't do that. At some point in the future this might get a rewrite or something, but I don't want to endlessly fix it now. Thanks for reading and the concrit! :)

8265405
A "workshop" is a thing in a lot of fields where a bunch of people get together and learn to do something by practicing it themselves or seeing a demonstration. There's writing workshops, for example. In this case it means that Tavi is giving a practical demonstration of some knots and ties and then letting people practice on themselves or others so they can get some hands-on experience with very little risk.

Moar! I want more! I love how you're setting this all up, and we get to go along for that ride. Then later when CHS, and Crystal Prep students start getting involved... Oh the story practically writes itself, but I want to read it!

It's been a while since I found a story with so little to fault. I mean I guess I can't relate to Rainbow Dash all that well being a huge pervert addicted to pleasure, but I guess someone will. That's just about my only complaint though.

I do want to see the human Celestia, and Luna get involved in this, probably once the whole thing is running properly. I wonder what forces Luna might have warned Sunset about. Do I foresee a return of the Dazzlings maybe? If so then as friend or foe? Oh so much to see!

KEEP GOING STRONG!!!!!!!

8282150
It sounds like "MLA," which is a type of citation formatting.

8206489
Yep. It's been a few months now so I'm thinking of going back over this and rewriting, but I have other projects on my plate. Finished Is Better Than Perfect.

8282053
CTN actually relies on geothermal energy for a lot of its heating. If you go even just a foot underground it's a pretty constant ~70 degrees. Granted, that's still pretty cold if you're not wearing anything, and at that point all of the auxiliary systems are powered down.

8303887
Thank you for reading, and for the comment! I'm glad you liked the representation - I put it in there for myself because I'm agender. You're right that IRL it would be a pretty terrible system, but the CTS universe has a wide variety of shape-changing potions, including pretty much any kind of genitalia you can think of, and I can't imagine they'd be so heartless as to deny people the right to feel at home in their bodies simply because they're off Society grounds. (I could see some kind of "please be at least sort of out" threshold, but mostly because magic isn't A Thing in Humanland, so having at least some continuity would make it less jarring.)

They're also adapting a system from Equestria, where almost everyone is naked almost all the time, so it doesn't inherently take into account that the collars might unintentionally out someone, since, well, it's very likely that the collar is the only thing the person or pony is wearing. There's probably a lot of casual nudity in CTN, too, where it's warm enough.

Also, I can't stress the shapeshifting potions enough. There is zero barrier to getting your body to look however you want it to. (Now, this brings up an interesting moral conflict, because presumably in Equestria these are available to the general public, not just Society members, but one, it's not that kind of story, and two, in all likelihood you'd talk to a friend who knew a guy who was in this one LGBT+ club in college where there was this one chick who knew somebody else and you'd get your hands on it that way. Three, it's kind of exhausting having Trans Problems (TM) in real life, I'm not spending tens of hours and thousands of words on creating and fixing the same problems for people who aren't even real.)

8468244
CTS orientation coding as presented in the original story only codes for homosexual, heterosexual, and bi/pansexual, which means that whether you're looking for cock or cunt or both depends on several levels of abstraction, as well as self-identification. Here they're trying to cut out the middleman, so to speak. Essentially the idea is to avoid this:
i.imgur.com/fvdCj7h.png

8463119
Thank you! It's always a treat to get to see a reader's enthusiasm! (And I might have a little side clopfic coming up... Stay tuned.)

8491000
I can't tell which of those was a reply to me.

8491561
Last one. :)

8491703
Yay~!
Seriously though, I can't wait for the next chapter. I wanna know how these humans make use of the different kinds of magic, and the customs used in Clocktower. Especially if there's stuff like Futa, or Genderbending involved.
And in all the Clocktower stuff I've yet to see any include Celestia, or Luna. Maybe I just haven't been looking hard enough, but that is something I'd like to see here. Lyra, and Bonbon too. Ooooo~! And Derpy!
And I mean it bud...
KEEP GOING STRONG!!!!!!!

Sci-Twi x Sunset... And in a BDSM relationship?...

Instant fav!!!

I like Sunset being the mistress and Twilight ber faithful slave <3

Also love the FlutterDash here :3

PLEASE, tell me that you have some plans to continue this astounding story???

9021747
Cool.

This is an adorably sweet story edition to the CT AU Nicely done

I've come in late to this story and am sad to see that it won't be continued. I was really getting into the relationships developing between the girls and wanted to see it expand. As has been stated, the story was a little rushed. The first chapter could have been made into two or three chapters (I favour a slow burn). Even though it's tempting to get the story 'out there', sometimes it's better to wait a bit and reread/edit a bit before making the leap. If you ever find yourself with a propunderance of time on your hooves, maybe edit/finish it?