So, how are you on "Master"?

[Daphne]

Dying of curiosity!

[grommile]

It's pretty much never bad, and sometimes it's the only thing that works right.

Sometimes, of course, something else can be a hotter fit.

[Dr. White]

Actually I like a simple 'Sir'.


(or maybe 'Boss'?)

[bigwad73]

Actually I like a simple 'Sir'.


(or maybe 'Boss'?)

Concur with this concept to some extent--some sort of an acknowledgment of inferiority by the sub, either more formal if there's a rigid kind of MC, or less formal otherwise.

[lifmcs]

I went with the middle option because it doesn’t do much for me without some greater meaning behind it. There needs to be a flavor to the usage beyond a simple term of address that I can taste. Examples of that include: showing profound respect whether earned or induced, as an affect of a happy, mayhaps ditzy slave, it being used with affection, or in situations of abject supplication, etc.

[GodWilling]

.

[madboy7931]

Because it does nothing for me, I find its use mostly just annoying, so I said it leaves me cold (although surely that's the same thing). My particular bugbear is people who've had no apparent programming to use that term suddenly coming out with it. I know it's a fetish thing for some readers, but more often than not its use grinds against the context (yes, I just swallowed this highly experimental scientific sample in a dystopian near-future and now apparently I'm a genie). Plus it implies we're in yet another male dominant story...

I agree on the last part whole hardheartedly, in that there are very few issues where the female is in charge. Notable exceptions are The Help (hoping for more from this) and my fave Waiting Room, although now Laurel is a slave to Dr Michaels, where before she was the person in charge, so I hope that changes back again in a future issue.

I do understand that the majority of readers would most likely want to read about a male dominate subject, but I'd like to see a female hypno dominate over a male every now and again. But that might just be me :-)

[elenchos]

Because it does nothing for me, I find its use mostly just annoying, so I said it leaves me cold (although surely that's the same thing). My particular bugbear is people who've had no apparent programming to use that term suddenly coming out with it. I know it's a fetish thing for some readers, but more often than not its use grinds against the context (yes, I just swallowed this highly experimental scientific sample in a dystopian near-future and now apparently I'm a genie). Plus it implies we're in yet another male dominant story...

I really, really like it.

However, I must agree that it’s highly irritating when there’s no reason for it to be used, just as GodWilling says. It’s amazing how much of a turn-off it can be for someone who just got MCed, one way or another, to suddenly bust out with “Yes, Master” before they’re told to use the term... it just doesn’t make sense.

On the gender issue - if it’s a woman doing the MC, it should properly be Mistress, shouldn’t it?

[Dr. White]

if it’s a woman doing the MC, it should properly be Mistress, shouldn’t it?

Missy. 

[ozymandias]

Depends on the MC. If the controller is going for total mastery, "yes master" is just right. If the controller is going for dominance, "sir" or "master" is fine. If the controller is known to the subject before control starts, depending on the type of control, the controller's name, or "sir", or "master".

Briefly: if it makes sense given the story.

[Haight]

I'm a real big fan of "master," but more precisely I'm a much bigger fan of the attitude. "Sir" or "lord" in the right contexts/settings can be just as hot, but the central power dynamic of a relationship like that is exciting. "Master" without the attitude is eh, just a word. Would actually be interesting to have a story that doesn't use any of the words I mentioned but keeps the attitude.

"Master" as a perfunctory affectation of speech without the attitude is kind of... perhaps workable in some MC stories, but I think I enjoy stories where one party is enthusiastically, non-mindlessly submissive quite a bit.

I agree with GodWilling that it's weird when it comes out of nowhere; I really like to see it being something specifically programmed in (but then I really enjoy programming scenes followed by characters playing that out in a non-mindless fashion, potentially with awareness of having been changed).

For the record, I'm hoping the word, *and* the attitude, make a return to the members of the harem in SJI at some point ;-)

[meltons]

I personally like it when "master" is said as a default. For example, if a lady has been recently MC'd, saying "master" is not an issue. However the immediate blank stare is a little overdoing it I think. My favorite scenes are when the women are acting as natural as possible, yet still saying "master" as part of their core programming.

Another example is a story I read where the lady was accidentally MC'd, and she was trying not to say "master" when talking to him. But it kept coming out anyway.

I guess it all depends on context and execution. The blank stares aren't really necessary IMO.

[laguna85]

if it’s a woman doing the MC, it should properly be Mistress, shouldn’t it?

Missy. 

ma'am

[John]

I like when she resist at first but in the end submits and calls him master on her own, even better when she decides it on her own

[BorisL]

What gets up my nose is that we often see a mind-controlled minion (of either sex) who is given the single command: "You are now my slave" and suddenly they have this  whole set of DS manners imprinted on them (talking of themselves in the third person, seeing their body  as the possesion of their master, etc etc) without any  further  need for programming as if the whole ethos was already there and by  implication was there in every Tom, Dick and Harriet who might be picked up  off the street.

Whereas even assuming it  works it really should be: "Oh, I'm your slave! Right, fine! Do I call you 'Master' now or what? Is kneeling right or what?"

There are imagined technologies and magics that could imprint a whole set of manners. But  that's not  what we normally see, is it?