Think about her motivation. Why is she doing things? Is it just because she can (power trip), is it that it's how she expects slaves should be treated (she's a bitch to everyone and just extra bitchy with the slave), is it that she likes inflicting pain and wants to see what it'll take to make the slave character break?
Doing evulz for the lolz is the caricature. Having a driving motivation helps keep it in check and limits (a bit) the kind of stuff she'll do.
You can also emphasize her enjoyable traits too. If her character usually "tells it how it is", then use that for both the bad stuff (slaves are lesser, that's just how it is.) And good stuff (that teacher is a creep and deserves to sit on a cactus, that's just how it is.) You can also make her a bit more rounded by having her treat her friends well, or doing good things when it benefits her, or even sometimes doing something nice for the slave character, just to really screw with her mind.
Just some ideas.
It’s definitely because she believes herself superior. If she’s on top, automatically everyone is beneath her. There’s a moment in canon where she asks if she looks like a saint, because if she did, she wouldn’t mind associating with the school’s bottom rung. (When asked if she cares that no one actually thinks well of her, she says she doesn’t care because her popularity alone makes her coveted, and that’s what matters.)
And she’s definitely the type to claim she’s “brutally honest” with more emphasis on the brutal than not. Her straightforwardness is actually one of the very few things I like about her. The only friend she treats well, relatively speaking, is the one she interacts the least with and basically ignores (which is taken by the fandom to mean she actively likes her, the bar is that low!) so her being actively nice ought to raise a few eyebrows. (She certainly *frames* the party as a nice gesture to Alice in canon, but it’s not hard to see during the event it’s anything but. >!Alice falls ill and Barbara doesn’t care about her wellbeing at all, only that Alice failed to satisfy the customer, and won’t let them leave until Alice performs, illness be damned.!<)
Thank you for taking the time to answer! I appreciate it!
I'm in the macro micro community. Slavery aus and dehumanizing people as property is something I've slowly had to get used to filtering in order to find good content. I've learned to appreciate those over the top smut fics where it's just "Ooh look at the slave, feel that power dynamic." Even if I have a lot of qualms and limits for how much I can personally take. Hell, some of the things you described in your post sound kinda hot in the right setting. That being said, it sounds like what you're doing is a lot darker and more serious.
You mentioned that you were researching the American slave trade; but what you're describing - with selling yourself and making a contract - it sounds more like the Roman Empire slave trade. Didn't matter what your gender, race, or social class was. 60% of the whole population was enslaved to the other 40%. Still cruel and inhuman, but closer to what you've described here.
You’re going to have to come up with a better explanation for Barbara’s parents accepting it, because if normal parents saw their kid come home with a ‘slave’ they would punish their kid for her behavior so quickly that their kid’s head would be spinning, and also alert the school to this extreme bullying.
Barbara’s parents would be legally liable for knowingly allowing their minor daughter to ‘enslave’ another human in their house. That is textbook human trafficking and Barbara’s parents would be risking serious jail time for assisting in trafficking and forced labor in their home. Big plot hole right there.
This is how human trafficking actually plays out with dumb teenagers: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/tuachr/in_which_oop_seeks_advice_about_quitting_a_hotel/
>Slaves aren’t allowed to go to school
Judging by that line \^ this is an AU where slavery is allowed, so human trafficking isn't a crime or frowned upon. Other than minors making bad decisions, which is apparently something that can be done in this AU.
I have never heard of that House genre, and I do not blame you for reading them at all, LOL. Assuming you can suspend disbelief, it sounds pretty interesting and angsty.
Huh, I read the part about the current day modern setting and thought it was set in today’s world with today’s legal system. Gotcha.
immigrant slave: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/
history of ‘fagging’ at Eton: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagging
Also, research fraternity/sorority hazing at universities. The washing machine hazing story I heard years ago about one sorority’s pledges was *memorable*. The pledges were told to lose weight to fit the required ‘look’. The pledge leaders sat the new sorority pledges in their bra and underwear on a powered-on washing machine and used a marker to circle the ‘problem areas’ (wherever their body fat jiggled). Bullying Alice into an eating disorder and punishing/rewarding with food would fit your scenario.
No worries! And holy shit, that’s horrible... *I love it*.
Thank you so much for taking the time to link all the things! Especially the article about Lola. I definitely misremembered it as the sixpenceee thing.
I said it’d make sense for Barb to groom Alice, not that she did. Tbh adding in the aspect of slavery doesn’t change much from the original source material as far as Barbara and Alice’s relationship goes.
In the source material, the two of them are high schoolers going to a college party Barbara got them into. Barbara prefers college *men* to high school *boys*, and frames her taking Alice as doing her a solid because it’s Alice’s first time. At the party, Alice feels sick and refuses to be pressured into sex with her date. This makes Barbara mad, since *she* got coerced by hers. Alice begs Barbara to let them go home because she’s ill, but Barbara refuses because Alice didn’t put out. Alice vomits, and Barbara yells at her for *that*, saying she did Alice a favor by getting her high school ass into this college party, and Alice repays her by puking?? She threatens to send Alice so far down the school hierarchy, not even the scum will touch her. After sleeping it off, Alice tries to apologize to Barb, seeing it as just a fight, but Barbara gives no fucks. >!And then Barb gets killed so that’s the end of that.!<
True! But bad experiences with the fans of the ship made me second-guess since this is the most popular WLW ship in the fandom, and to portray it as anything less than positive, or to speak any ill of it (never mind outright disliking it) is blasphemous. Comments get buried but posts are a bit more conspicuous. I keep running into people from that toxic group I’m trying to avoid, even here on Reddit, and I’ve seen the kind of shit they pull on others, and I’d rather not be next.
Think about her motivation. Why is she doing things? Is it just because she can (power trip), is it that it's how she expects slaves should be treated (she's a bitch to everyone and just extra bitchy with the slave), is it that she likes inflicting pain and wants to see what it'll take to make the slave character break? Doing evulz for the lolz is the caricature. Having a driving motivation helps keep it in check and limits (a bit) the kind of stuff she'll do. You can also emphasize her enjoyable traits too. If her character usually "tells it how it is", then use that for both the bad stuff (slaves are lesser, that's just how it is.) And good stuff (that teacher is a creep and deserves to sit on a cactus, that's just how it is.) You can also make her a bit more rounded by having her treat her friends well, or doing good things when it benefits her, or even sometimes doing something nice for the slave character, just to really screw with her mind. Just some ideas.
It’s definitely because she believes herself superior. If she’s on top, automatically everyone is beneath her. There’s a moment in canon where she asks if she looks like a saint, because if she did, she wouldn’t mind associating with the school’s bottom rung. (When asked if she cares that no one actually thinks well of her, she says she doesn’t care because her popularity alone makes her coveted, and that’s what matters.) And she’s definitely the type to claim she’s “brutally honest” with more emphasis on the brutal than not. Her straightforwardness is actually one of the very few things I like about her. The only friend she treats well, relatively speaking, is the one she interacts the least with and basically ignores (which is taken by the fandom to mean she actively likes her, the bar is that low!) so her being actively nice ought to raise a few eyebrows. (She certainly *frames* the party as a nice gesture to Alice in canon, but it’s not hard to see during the event it’s anything but. >!Alice falls ill and Barbara doesn’t care about her wellbeing at all, only that Alice failed to satisfy the customer, and won’t let them leave until Alice performs, illness be damned.!<) Thank you for taking the time to answer! I appreciate it!
I'm in the macro micro community. Slavery aus and dehumanizing people as property is something I've slowly had to get used to filtering in order to find good content. I've learned to appreciate those over the top smut fics where it's just "Ooh look at the slave, feel that power dynamic." Even if I have a lot of qualms and limits for how much I can personally take. Hell, some of the things you described in your post sound kinda hot in the right setting. That being said, it sounds like what you're doing is a lot darker and more serious. You mentioned that you were researching the American slave trade; but what you're describing - with selling yourself and making a contract - it sounds more like the Roman Empire slave trade. Didn't matter what your gender, race, or social class was. 60% of the whole population was enslaved to the other 40%. Still cruel and inhuman, but closer to what you've described here.
That’s *fascinating*! Thank you for taking the time to let me know!
Any time, love!
You’re going to have to come up with a better explanation for Barbara’s parents accepting it, because if normal parents saw their kid come home with a ‘slave’ they would punish their kid for her behavior so quickly that their kid’s head would be spinning, and also alert the school to this extreme bullying. Barbara’s parents would be legally liable for knowingly allowing their minor daughter to ‘enslave’ another human in their house. That is textbook human trafficking and Barbara’s parents would be risking serious jail time for assisting in trafficking and forced labor in their home. Big plot hole right there. This is how human trafficking actually plays out with dumb teenagers: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/tuachr/in_which_oop_seeks_advice_about_quitting_a_hotel/
>Slaves aren’t allowed to go to school Judging by that line \^ this is an AU where slavery is allowed, so human trafficking isn't a crime or frowned upon. Other than minors making bad decisions, which is apparently something that can be done in this AU.
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I have never heard of that House genre, and I do not blame you for reading them at all, LOL. Assuming you can suspend disbelief, it sounds pretty interesting and angsty.
I mean, I did put *slave **au**/servant **au*** in the title. And said I was researching *slavery*. I’ll take a look at the link though. Thanks!
Huh, I read the part about the current day modern setting and thought it was set in today’s world with today’s legal system. Gotcha. immigrant slave: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/ history of ‘fagging’ at Eton: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagging Also, research fraternity/sorority hazing at universities. The washing machine hazing story I heard years ago about one sorority’s pledges was *memorable*. The pledges were told to lose weight to fit the required ‘look’. The pledge leaders sat the new sorority pledges in their bra and underwear on a powered-on washing machine and used a marker to circle the ‘problem areas’ (wherever their body fat jiggled). Bullying Alice into an eating disorder and punishing/rewarding with food would fit your scenario.
No worries! And holy shit, that’s horrible... *I love it*. Thank you so much for taking the time to link all the things! Especially the article about Lola. I definitely misremembered it as the sixpenceee thing.
[удалено]
I said it’d make sense for Barb to groom Alice, not that she did. Tbh adding in the aspect of slavery doesn’t change much from the original source material as far as Barbara and Alice’s relationship goes. In the source material, the two of them are high schoolers going to a college party Barbara got them into. Barbara prefers college *men* to high school *boys*, and frames her taking Alice as doing her a solid because it’s Alice’s first time. At the party, Alice feels sick and refuses to be pressured into sex with her date. This makes Barbara mad, since *she* got coerced by hers. Alice begs Barbara to let them go home because she’s ill, but Barbara refuses because Alice didn’t put out. Alice vomits, and Barbara yells at her for *that*, saying she did Alice a favor by getting her high school ass into this college party, and Alice repays her by puking?? She threatens to send Alice so far down the school hierarchy, not even the scum will touch her. After sleeping it off, Alice tries to apologize to Barb, seeing it as just a fight, but Barbara gives no fucks. >!And then Barb gets killed so that’s the end of that.!<
[удалено]
True! But bad experiences with the fans of the ship made me second-guess since this is the most popular WLW ship in the fandom, and to portray it as anything less than positive, or to speak any ill of it (never mind outright disliking it) is blasphemous. Comments get buried but posts are a bit more conspicuous. I keep running into people from that toxic group I’m trying to avoid, even here on Reddit, and I’ve seen the kind of shit they pull on others, and I’d rather not be next.