This is a follow up to a conversation happening on CHYOA. You see, there's a comment section for each chapter. Every chapter has its own comment section which leads to some... odd... comments. The comments can be narrowed down to one of these basic types:
- Good Job
- Just as it sounds, someone complimenting the particular chapter or story up to that point.
- Question
- Someone that has a question about something that happened in that chapter
- Guess
- Someone making a guess as to what will happen in the future
- Comment
- A real comment like saying they liked a particular thing or didn't agree with a characters choices, or even hopes for what will happen.
On You're Not The Boss Of Me, I have a core group that comment along fairly regularly. I really appreciate them as they've changed it from a comment into more of a conversation. Though, to be honest, the comment section is horrible for a conversation. So, this post is to answer the underlying questions that have come up after a particular chapter.
Unless you're reading the story as I publish it on CHYOA and are reading this post as I post it, I'll need to explain it a bit. The chapter I posted was "Chapter 55 - Talk with Grace". At that point in the story Jamie has disguised himself as Paris, helped blackmail Mal, had that backfire and got blackmailed by the corporation to remain dressing up as Paris, got blackmailed by Mal who made him specifically dress up and act like a sexy bimbo secretary, and finally 'accidentally' had a series of feminizing procedures such as facial feminization surgery, breast implants, waist reduction, hip/thigh/ass enhancements, tracheal shaving, voice changing, and more. After his extensive recovery now more externally female than male, he's learned how to receive pleasure from both his dominant roomie Grace and his gal pal girlfriend Trixie. During the previous few months he'd been falling under the spell of Grace into a submissive relationship to her domme role. The 'Talk with Grace' chapter was them sitting down and talking about that very relationship which they hadn't done. The basic conclusion was Grace giving a 'safe signal' (not a safe word but a signal Paris could motion with his hand) that meant stop. BUT it wouldn't only stop that current action or their current play, it would stop their relationship as Grace is "all or nothing".
Obviously, I'm skimming over a LOT and describing whole chapters with a few words. But that more or less catches you up. There has been a vocal group that has been cheering for Paris to fall for and end up with Mal as opposed to Grace. That group, as well as some others, have pointed out on previous chapters that Grace was being almost cruel in her domination of Paris, more caring of her own pleasure than Paris' pleasure or well being. To be fair, I did write a lot of those scenes between Paris and Grace quickly. They weren't long detailed accounts of them going at it, rather they were quick snippets of Paris remembering them or talking about them to someone else. And while I'd most often indicate in the writing that Paris enjoyed the time, it did still come across as cruel. So while I had several reasons for writing out this conversation, I did want to put in Grace's feelings. That she did care for Paris in her own way.
Now, before I get to the specific comments, let me take a further step back and talk about my writing vs a lot of the writing I see on CHYOA. I write MY story. I have an idea of what the characters are, what they're going to go through, and what growth they'll each do in the story. I don't consider any of it written in stone until I've put it into a chapter and published it, but I have plans for all of these characters and try to write them with their issues in mind even when they're not obvious. In this story's example, I knew I'd have Paris spinning in circles by the end, having her life be about sexually pleasing many different people in many different ways with many different reactions from her. But I didn't have an ending, so I didn't know what she would end up 'liking' or even who she would end up with. Hell, I didn't even know WHAT she would end up AS until recently. That being said, when I started this I had Grace pegged as a dominant lesbian. She likes her women meek and submissive, big breasted and curvy, simple minded and bimboesque. When I started writing though, I didn't have it in my head that Grace would end up with Paris as her submissive. I knew they'd have sex, but I initially had it in my head that Grace would be Paris' friend and ally rather than lover and Mistress.
Okay, back to the present. So while I wanted to write this chapter out partially to help people see that Grace isn't a bad character, I also wasn't changing her into a 'nice' characters. She was still a strict dominant lesbian. Part of her being stand offish to Paris early on is that while Paris passed a quick inspection as a woman, she failed that exam as soon as she undressed. The more feminine Paris got, however, the more interested Grace became. And the more dominant Grace became, the more interested Paris became. She was learning about herself, never realizing that she was interested in a submissive love style before.
But I seemed to have struck a cord when I added Grace's "All or Nothing" safe action.
A quick aside on good healthy BDSM relationships. A lot of relationships in this realm involve force or con non-con. Consensual Non-Consensual sexual acts. Basically the 'sub' can cry and beg and say 'no' all they want but it really means yes... or at least doesn't mean stop. But to be healthy there HAS to be a way for a submissive to actually declare that they need to stop. It can be as simple as they've become overwhelmed and need a break, to as complex as it's passing through a hard limit on their part and they need to either stop outright or at least discuss it before moving further forward. In this instance you have a 'safe word'. You've probably heard it in jokes before, but it's best if it's a word that wouldn't be said in that context. Such as banana, or parachute, or entourage... something you can shout out that won't be misinterpreted as another version of 'no but actually yes'. Its a complex topic and I'm VASTLY simplifying it, but a good healthy relationship shouldn't ever have an all or nothing component to it like I wrote with Grace. A submissive that wants the relationship to continue but is being pushed past their edge is likely to allow themselves to get hurt just to keep the relationship going. In other words, they've made themselves closer to a real slave.
So, the first comment to the story was another reiteration of this person wanting Paris to end up with Mal. Understandable as the chapter was written about Paris and Grace.
The next comment thought it was a good chapter to humanize Grace and bring her back into the realm of 'good people'. They too stated they wished for Paris to end up with Mal, but thought it woudl be fun for Grace to make Paris want to stay as Paris.
The next comment hit me hard, so I'll quote it here: "Just when I thought Grace was about to be redeemed. But not allowing Paris to have a safe word is such an abuse of power." It hit hard because it not only makes me feel like I wrote badly but it came from a regular reader/commenter.
The next comment was also from a frequent commenter stating they were on the same page as the pervious comment, having initially thought they were caught up in the moment but pointing out how deliberate the character was in laying out her 'all or nothing' plan.
Next someone mentioned that everybody (meaning in the story) is being manipulative, Paris included. They pointed out that at least Grace is giving an out (the safe action). But they also pointed out that safe words/actions shouldn't be used like that.
Next up someone wrote that they liked the Grace/Paris relationship, and even pointed out that it's just fiction.
The last comment was from Vyksin, but we communicated via email before they commented, so let me go over those.
Vyksin and I have gone back and forth a few times about the story and about each other's writing in the past. I appreciate their input even if I don't use it all. We actually had a very fun exchange where Vyksin was trying to get me to use the toys in the story in a great devious humiliating way. I LOVED the ideas, but it didn't quite fit with what I had in mind for the characters. But if you later read scenes with sex toys being used on Paris that feel awfully especially fun, you probably have Vyksin to thank for giving me the idea and/or inspiration.
Anyway, Vyksin pointed out that if I was trying to 'redeem' Grace, I'd failed miserably. And they were right, IF I were trying to redeem Grace and make her into a 'good' character.
But here's the thing with Master/slave Dom/sub BDSM relationships and me... I don't particularly like them. I don't find myself on the dom/sub scale and look at it as more forced/consensual scale. Obviously a good dom/sub relationship can be and should be healthy. A forced relationship is NOT healthy. Even if it's manipulating to get to a con non-con relationship. In a healthy dom/sub relationship there isn't much conflict except maybe the sub learning more about themselves as they submit more and more, or the Dom learning to dom more and take better care of their sub.
None of my stories are about that though. Both Gamer Gurl with Sarah/Sadie and now YNTBOM with Grace/Paris are bad Dommes taking on an inexperienced sub. Sarah is probably more 'good' than Grace, but she's still inexperienced and a young woman without enough wisdom to do a good job to a newly sissified, feminized, sub. Grace is simply too far in the 'all or nothing' camp. Neither is good and healthy. BOTH are good and interesting when it comes to writing. It's internal AND external conflict. It's making the main characters squirm and should be making the reader squirm as well.
So Vyksin and I talked about that in the email and then they commented a summarized version of it. I'm going to comment too, but only to direct people here as THIS post is my comment.
Now, if you don't mind spoilers for You're Not The Boss Of Me, then continue reading. If you only wanted to peek behind the curtain to see how the sausage was made, then you'd better step out.
Basically, maybe a dozen chapters back, I decided that Paris was going to end up with Mal. I'm still not sure how happy she'll be about it, but she'll definitely be "Mal's girl" at the end of the story. Adding in Grace's dominating side and ramping it up was part of that as I want Paris to not have any choice. Yes, I could simply block her in with the blackmail but that's boring. Besides, I want Mal to be more complex than a cartoon villain. He does actually want Paris to enjoy her new life and believes she DOES want it, even if its only on her subconscious level right now.
So several ways that Paris is forced into this is her body. Losing access to her penis and only being able to receive pleasure in a feminizing manner pushes her to those that give her pleasure. Mal is one of those people as he actually 'forced' the pleasure on her. Soon, as has been part of the plan for some time, Darnell and Trixie getting Paris to give oral sex to a man will be part of it. Paris will at first be 'forced' to act like she enjoys giving head which will only lead to her 'having to' give head more and more often. Eventually she WILL find some pleasure in it. Then, that will be transferred to Mal once he finds out that Paris is giving head to others when she told him she didn't want to do that at all. When Paris is giving head to Darnell, Trixie will often be there and making Paris cum soon before or after Darnell nuts in her mouth. That pleasure response will be a learned response that will fall into Mal as well, much to Paris' horror (she gets pleasure from GIVING head even without Trixie there).
Those two ways to force Paris still didn't feel like enough. But with Grace the way she was in my head, a stubborn dominating lesbian, I found another way. Grace is more or less teaching Paris to enjoy being a submissive. Paris is learning to enjoy submitting to Grace even though she doesn't receive direct pleasure from the acts she's doing (and as I've hinted at in an Interlude, she soon won't get any physical pleasure from Grace while still enjoying getting dominated by her). That pleasure in submission will also apply to Mal.
So eventually we'll have Paris getting physical pleasure from Mal, enjoying being submissive with Mal, and eventually getting pleasure by giving sexual pleasure to Mal.
As you can see, I simply can't put that in a comment as I don't want to ruin the build up to that part of the story. BUT, Grace is basically a tool of the story at this point. She's true to character, but she's being used to get Paris from point A to point B.
Anyway, if you want to comment on the story itself its probably best to do that over at CHYOA on the individual chapters. If you want to comment on the future plans of the story or about the means behind the writing, then commenting over here would be more appropriate. Either way, I'd love to hear what you think!
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