Quandary

[gary]

I'm in a bit of a quandary. In the sub-plot of Amy teaching and befriending a slave, the slave had earlier had Amy go naked and wear a old dog collar, to help the slave girl feel more comfortable around Amy. On a later visit, the collar has a custom tag. Now the slave girls name is Liz and her owner is Mr. Tod Davin. Should the tag say:
"Slave Amy"
"Property of Slave Liz"
or "Property of Master Tod Davin"?

[GreyRose]

Gary,
Depending where you are in your story arc, and I think you are still in the early portion here, you might want to go gently or softly. Amy seeing a collar with "Slave Amy" will shock her a lot, but seeing one with "Property of..." might be more than she's ready to deal with. Depending upon how many times Liz returns you could do it in some stages. The first visit its the old dog collar with a tag saying just Amy. Then on the next one the tag has been updated to Slave Amy. And then on a third visit the collar itself is upgraded to something that looks more like what Liz is wearing with the Slave Amy tag on it.

Something you said in your recap of this new starting chapter got me thinking. You might already be there, but when the men start talking about Amy being slave material and take her to the government slave department it wasn't clear on where they were starting from. If they start talking to like this while at her ranch, the trip into town is a long time for her not to recover and speak up. But if she is with Liz at HCI for something and then they start talking to her that way, its a short trip when they take her to the department. That would be a much shorter time-frame and with all the distraction HCI has going on it would slow her recovery time.

[gary]

After being captured Slave Liz was resisting the slave catcher and he injected her with a sedative, which she had a reaction to. He drives into Heartland ranch for help, and they take her inside while they wait for the ambulance. Amy gets talking to the girl and when the subject turns to horses, Liz calms down. When they go to the hospital both Liz and the catcher get Amy to accompany them to keep her calm. After the hospital Liz is transported to a town jail, which is in a town hall. It there she meets and talks to Liz's owner, then the slave catcher shows up and they start talking about Amy as a slave. And the Slavery Department is also in the Town Hall
Later Amy is visiting Liz at the ranch she lives at to teach her how to work with horses, and is convinced to strip naked by Liz, because having clothes marks Amy as a Free Woman and someone she has to be submissive to, then she gives her the dog collar. The tag is presented on the second visit. Thinking more on it each inscription has certain cogitations:
"Slave Amy" - Is the most generic, maybe something a free woman might wear in slave play
"Property of Slave Liz" - Of course a slave can't own another slave. This has lesbian overtones.
"Property of Master Tod Davin" - This could be either Liz wanting to please her master, make her more of a sister slave, or even Mr. Davin making a claim on Amy. So this has the strongest overtones of slavery.

[orflash64]

Gary, maybe not make it so black and white on the tags.
Perhaps the first tag has abbreviations. Such as -LSH Amy (for Lead Slave Handler) Amy doesn't know the meaning of it first, then is told but she thinks its a designation for someone that trains and handles slaves, but what it really means is a slave that trains other slaves. Like Trustees at a prison, they are still prisoners but preform guard duties that they have earned the trust to do those duties.
Later as Amy is more familiar with how a slaves behaves and follows that behavior like a slave, her status lowers to more of a regular slave, till is says Slave Amy or Property of...
Just saying don't make it so obvious, make Amy question herself about what it means. She isn't quite sure of it's meaning and as time goes on she questions it less, till she more or less accepts it.I

[gary]

Well this is going to now be Amy's first face to face encounter with a slave and slavery in general. So can't push the slavery too far, except in dreams or her imagination.
I like the idea, but could it be some kind of symbol? One that's not readily apparent what it means to people outside slavery? Like the symbol for BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, SadoMasochism):
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BDSM_logo.svg
Something like a pair of cuffs would be too obvious. It should also be something easy to describe and visualize.
I had once described so called "Slave Clothing" as having the image of a chain on them, exactly like this image from the Original Star Trek episode "Bread and Circuses":

But that again would be too obvious

[orflash64]

Yeah, something like that. Not completely explanatory, a symbol or intials of a designation.

[orflash64]

Maybe get Amy to change into slave clothing, like it's company policy for women working with slaves, the less and less clothing, till they just fit her with a collar and tell her it's required as only item to wear. By this time she is more accepting of procedures.

[orflash64]

At some point they require her to have a company ID, so they send her down to Human Resources and since she is wearing a collar they make her pose naked for the ID.

[gary]

I like your ideas but think your ideas would work better if Amy was working at a slave store, or slave training center. Which I don't think Amy would do since she is just interested in working with horses, and has been brought up with a negative attitude towards slavery. But could be used for another character. Right now she's just working at a the family ranch of Liz's owner as a favor, and a feeling of wanting to help.
Also discovered this West African slave symbol, which also stands for law and order:
https://www.alamy.com/adinkra-epa-symbo ... 91312.html

[gary]

And maybe I should say, Amy is only at the ranch for a few hours, every few days.

[Hooked6]

With all these excellent ideas being floated around here I am so very eager to see the final product that you decide to publish. Such an amazing pool of talent residing here at Steve Burke's place! It is a credit to you all.

Hooked6

[gary]

I have decided to go with what I have discovered is called the BDSM Triskelion symbol as the slave symbol give to Amy by slave Liz.

https://fetjeweller.com/pages/about-the-bdsm-triskelion

[orflash64]

Yeah, I like the design and Amy wouldn't know the meaning of it right away.