Re: Trapped in the Underdark ~ Out of Character discussion
Okay, I'll try to do my best to clarify here what's my problem. When I said that corruption and mental fuckery doesn't imply a gentle dom is not because of some etiquette or anything. It's because, generally, someone who forcibly warps your mind is probably not a good person. And usually, people like that are not inclined to be gentle. It's a fairly logical connection, to me at least. Perhaps we're simply not thinking along the same lines.
As for Lily, yes she is kinda damaged and not used to intimacy. But she can be lewd given the right push, like during the auction. And she'd open up to the right person. Problem is, Merrium is giving her very mixed and quite frankly alarming signs. Looks far younger than she should be? Check. Switches between friendly and cruel at the drop of a hat, without any early warning signs? Check. Doesn't remember what she was doing during the switch? Check. Willing to use magic to break her? Check. Lily can't really open up to her because every time she's looking at her, she doesn't know if she'll be met with a hug or with humiliation. She suspects that anything she tells Merrium is likely to be used against her now, despite her own memory loss, because the evil one doesn't seem to forget. This is not inviting, this is scary. Rather than help her get over her issues, it's making them worse.
Now, I've got some ideas Lily could try to keep the friendly personality around more, like attempting to push past her, I think justified, apprehension and attempt bonding with Merrium regardless, but that'd be done out of self-preservation, at least at first. The problem is that we're putting two characters with issues of their own, which makes bonding hard enough (but not impossible), then you dumped fuel on the fire by adding a seemingly random risk of ultra-dom emerging to fuck my shit up at a single slip-up, or maybe even on a whim. And from what I've seen so far, there's no real in between, it's an instant switch between two completely different extremes. Even without hang-ups on Lily's part, that's a situation that's giving me a serious "how the fuck do I deal with that" problem that requires careful handling I am not sure I'm capable of, given my lack of social experience.
Anyway. I've rambled a bit again, but the tl;dr version is this: Lily is afraid of the unknown (given how she got fooled before) and of the sudden switches, which are most likely related to whatever it is she doesn't know. And considering what she saw, that can't be anything good. The good Merrium she'd get along with well enough, but right now the only solution to the evil one I've managed to figure out is keeping the halfling pacified somehow (again, not sure how to do that beyond trying to be her friend and praying it works) while researching what is wrong with her and fixing that. Which is a rather lengthy process, I suspect. And that's just assuming that the halfling really is a halfling, and not a fake personality created by some bored, shapeshifting evil entity for shits and giggles. Given the implied magical abilities, not an implausible conclusion.
Honestly, I think this is the core of most, if not all of the issues. You switch between two extremes a lot. First you give us some breathing room by having a character act nicely at first, then when we play our part of not being entirely submissive sluts you skip all the way to harsh punishments. I mean, Hell. Lily didn't embrace Merrium because she was feeling conflicted and wary and she's suddenly about to be branded? I'm sorry, but that feels disproportionate. I didn't want a harsh slavemistress, still don't, but I got outvoted (arguably) and now I find myself feeling like a tap-dancer in a minefield, with harsh punishments for every misstep. Any quick solution to this would require a significant and instant rewrite of either Merrium or Lily, which would be jarring to say the least. A more natural one would take time to implement.
Another potential option would be for evil Merrium to switch tracks and play nice with Lily while nudging her towards becoming more and more lewd by convincing her to try various harmless things on her own and educating (as in actually teaching nicely) her on how sex is fun and maybe she could give "playing a slave" a try (right now evil Merrium is about as subtle as a brick to the face), slowly amping her game up. Meanwhile the good one builds a bond of trust between them, potentially gaining Lily's loyalty. Given the damage already done, it would be tricky to pull off, but once the hard part at the beginning is done I think it could be put on track. Just don't put me in a position where my only options are total submission from get go or being crushed. Assuaging Lily's worries and tempting her with a carrot would crack her shell much faster than the stick. Hell, it could even get her to do much of the cracking.
