[Report This]Date: January 24 2025 6:17 AM Title: Family Dinner
Really great chapter!
I liked seeing Agatha’s much healthier relationships and the effect that has on Julia. Agatha definitely needed to talk some sense into Julia, and Ashley needed the support. It reminds me of Kat and Mouse. It does seem extremely naive of Julia, bordering on gaslighting, to act surprised that Ashley was afraid to tell her she wanted to stay in college.
The psychopath reveal was nice. Killing animals is a pretty severe expression of the disorder. We’ve seen Julia be pretty mean to Ashley, but that’s a whole other level. Julia just doesn’t come across that scary. Maybe it’s all the pink. It might be a nice contrast if you can put her in a situation where she can be really violent towards someone else, so we can see what she is capable of doing to Ashley but chooses not to.
We now have a pretty good idea of Julia’s motivations, but it’s still not clear what Ashley wants, or if she herself even knows. I was surprised that you seem to be going in the direction of Ashley enjoying some of the humiliation aspects. I should have seen it coming when she got aroused from eating sperm last chapter, but I thought it might be an effect of the sperm itself. But it was really intense that she chose to keep the collar on. I know she said it was to avoid total nudity, but I suspect the real reason is that she finds what it symbolizes thrilling.
I think Ashley and Julia are finally ready to have an adult conversation about what they want their relationship to be. Ashley now understands that she still has some rights in the relationship, and Julia has… let the pressure release? I hope they can set some boundaries while exploring this D/s dynamic in a healthier way. The psychopath thing needs to be addressed - Ashley needs to feel safe in the relationship. And I think she deserves more of an apology for being forced to sleep on a rag, eat dog food, etc. But there’s hope. Can’t wait for more!
Author's Response:
They'll need to have a discussion indeed. It'll probably happen in chapter 5, considering the flow of the story. It'll force Ashley to confront what she wants out of it, knowing that what she would truly crave (ie, not being a registered individual) is completely impossible to achieve for her, just out of her hands. She's also stuck, as someone who discovered her sexual attraction to other people far later than Julia, in a strange phase where she doesn't really know what she likes, what she wants out of any relationship, how she can feel and how she may want to feel in such a dynamic. It's particularly difficult for her considering her situation, where equality has basically be stripped out of her. She's in need of some serious soul-searching to achieve a more balanced understanding of herself, her relation to Julia and her new place in the world.
I chose to have Julia be a really severe case to better highlight the fact that she truly is in love with Ashley and tries to show it in a more conventional way - and fail miserably. She is striving to be better, and you'll see in chapter 4 that revealing herself in chapter 3 may have done more harm than good in that way, at least on a short term level. But chapter 4 may have given something very much needed for Ashley to thrive : space for herself.
God, chapter 5 is coming sooner or later... and it won't be the last... It was supposed to be a one-shot XD