The Doctor Is In - Queen Submits (Reflection) (Patreon)

Hello everyone!

Here is finally another reflection for all of you! Sorry it's been a little while since my last one! Usually with reflections, I go back to an old chapter and touch it up a bit, but just like with the Mercedes reflection, I really wanted to edit this one a bit more since this is a very important chapter to me.

So here is the updated version of Makoto's chapter from The Doctor Is In! First off, I want to thank fellow Patron, Setokaiva, for helping me out in the editing of this chapter. They had also helped me with the Mercedes reflection and I was really happy with their assistance on that chapter. So since I really wanted to refine this chapter as much as possible, I wanted a second pair of eyes on it. So thank you again to Setokaiva! Your help is super appreciated!

I am very very happy with the updated look at this chapter, and I think it is a lot stronger than it was previously with a fair amount of additions and fixes! So you will all have this version of Queen Submits for the next two weeks, and then I will post it on AO3! Please enjoy one of my personal favorite chapters for the second time!

Now, onto the actual reflection!

So, I've always viewed three important moments in my writing career. First, is the Catherine chapter from Kostas Kingdom, which was the first piece of fan fiction I ever wrote, marking the beginning of well...this! haha.

Second, is my Byleth chapter on Kostas Kingdom. To me, that chapter was the first real step up from the other ones. I put so much effort into it, and while I enjoyed all the previous chapters I wrote, I consider it my first real "quality" piece of writing, and I feel like that chapter really sparked something in me, like "Wow, I didn't believe I could make a chapter this good," and it really pushed my writing forward a lot I feel. At the very least, it definitely increased my confidence.

And the third important chapter was this one. This was the first piece of writing I ever wrote that wasn't Kostas Kingdom, and it marked the transition into officially making me the writer I am today.

What's funny is that I almost never wrote this!

So like many of you, I always try to search for mind control fics out there. There's lot of great stuff, but it can be very hard to find stuff when it comes to certain franchises or characters. And for a long, long while, I tried to find a Makoto fic. As I've said before, Makoto is one of my favorite waifus, if not my favorite, hence the name, Shamoto (Shamir+Makoto), and I was constantly on the look for one. I'm not sure about nowadays, but I couldn't find a single ONE!

I would find some mind break stuff here and there but I couldn't find a single mind control fic. And then, and I will never forget this, but I eventually did find a fic! It involved Makoto secretly going to Sae's palace on her own and confronting her sister's shadow. And while it wasn't too too focused on the mind control aspect, there was at least a little which was enough to satisfy me, but then...as the fic continued, um...well....let's just say that that was the day I figured out what VORE was, and let's ALSO just say that I was NOT INTO IT! FIC RUINED!!!

That day I finally cracked, I had HAD ENOUGH! If no one was going to make a P5 mind control fic that I liked, I would have to put matters into my own hands. At the time, however, even though I was getting more of a hang of my writing for Kostas Kingdom, I still wasn't confident in making anything else like a lot of other smut writers I would read. I always thought, "Dang, THESE people can write good. I'm nowhere near that though."

So, I thought of the next best thing. I tried to commission a story. It was my first time ever commissioning something so I was pretty excited. I contacted a writer that I liked and who had experience making mind control content (which sadly isn't super common), and they were on board! I gave them a basic idea of what The Doctor Is would ultimately become though with none of the same details like Sonya or her motivation. I actually proposed it as a M/F fic at first and it was just some random guy with a Palace. 

So, again, I was very excited for them to work on it when they suddenly cancelled it. They never really gave a reason, just that they were trying to write it and that the fic just wasn't working out for whatever reason. So they gave me a refund and said they couldn't work on it. And I was pretty bummed about it.

BUT, that turned out to be the kick in the butt I finally needed! At this point, I basically had zero options. If I wanted to see this fic come into existence, I HAD to do it myself. So with much trepidation, I went for it! And I'm so glad I did, and by the end, I was very satisfied with the process of making an entire fic completely from scratch. I decided I would make more Persona 5 chapters, but after that, I just wasn't satisfied. I just had to make fics for Ryza and Fubuki, two incredibly sexy characters, and well, you all know the rest from there!

This fic is very important to me and I consider it a vital part of my writing career.

But how about the fic itself? I still think it's very very solid honestly!

I thought the idea of Makoto heading into a Palace all by herself only to fall to the Palace owner's cognition was a fun idea and I think I managed to capitalize on that idea! A fun detail I like looking back at it is how Makoto is obviously being coerced by Sonya's power into heading deeper and deeper into the Palace. Even before she encounters Sonya, I like the idea that even a smart, strong character such as herself is being affected and influenced by her. Plus, the image of Sonya watching Makoto ever since she was right outside is very enticing haha.

Speaking of which, I REALLY like Sonya. Out of all the original female characters I've made so far, she's probably the one I like writing for the most. I really like writing for Esmerelda from Fall of the Sailor Guardians because there is no black and white with her. She is pure evil and she wants to acquire the Sailor Guardians as her slaves because she finds them incredibly sexy, nothing more, and that's just a lot of fun to write for.

Sonya, on the other hand, is a bit more gray in that she genuinely believes that she is helping the women she enslaves. However, she is still the ruler of a Palace so her desires are still corrupted. So while she's helping to remove the pain and stress from these women, she, of course, is still reaping the benefits from acquiring a new slave. I mean, the very fact that she is basically serving as a loving queen/ruler to those she "saves" showcases that. She's helping people yes, but it's not FULLY altruistic.

This sort of broken logic from Sonya is something I kinda show more of and develop more as the series goes on like in the Takemi fic and the Ann fic but I'll go into that more when I get to those chapters. But already in this chapter you can kinda see through that "altruism" Sonya claims she practices when she says that she had to have Makoto after hearing more about her and seeing her outside her Palace. But yeah, it is this dynamic of Sonya that I think is a lot of fun to write for.

PLUS, something that made me very excited when creating Sonya was how it fit in very well with Persona as a franchise. I mean, what is Persona if not a series of broken characters growing past their trauma and mental scars to become more well-developed people? All of the characters, including the smaller side ones, all have tragic things that they are going through, which is something a character like Sonya would capitalize on! A villain like that in the Persona universe sounds very very dangerous and FUN! Much more than if I were to just make it a normal guy like I originally intended to get commissioned, at least for this story.

I very much like the details of Makoto entering the Palace and her being affected by Sonya as she goes through the Palace without her realizing it, and once she meets Sonya, I think Makoto's fall is very fun as well, especially from a strong, smart character like Makoto as I said before. Related to this, I've always liked the idea that a smart character's act of passion/emotion or a momentary lack of foresight ends up being their downfall, and in a series such as this, also ends up being the downfall for her friends/comrades as well! Due to Makoto's rash decision to check things out herself, her and her friends will now become Sonya's slaves!

There's not much other details and stuff that I can necessarily point to. I just think the fic as a whole is very solid, especially for my first "real" fic.

The only real faults of the chapter I can think of aren't really anything too bad. The biggest one I can think of is the intro, where it starts with the action moving fast and then it has a very extended look back into what led Makoto to head to Sonya's clinic. It lasts for a while before finally heading back to the present day. I did this because I felt like having a conventional intro where we have Makoto experience everything in present time and figuring things out wouldn't be that interesting, as I really wanted the fic to start with some forward momentum to reflect Makoto's state of mind.

It definitely reads as a little awkward I feel, especially as there's a lot of time moving around like Makoto investigating, going home and talking to the Phantom Thieves, and then finally going to Sonya's clinic the 2nd time. A little clunky, but I think I still prefer it versus the conventional way. Would have just done it better I guess.

And that pretty much summarizes my other faults with the chapter. Since it was one of my earlier fics, there were just a lot of instances of me recognizing that certain sentences or paragraphs were a little weak or I tried to do something in the fic but I didn't execute it as well as I would have nowadays. But that also managed to show me that I have indeed grown as a writer since I was able to point out and correct those mistakes with this latest edit, again, with the help of Setokaiva.

Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure that this is the fic I've made the most rounds of edits on. Every so often, I come back to this and try to make it a stronger fic. This is because, well again, I love Makoto so of course I want her dedicated chapter to be the best it can be on top of the fact that this chapter is very important to me. Plus, I like to read the fics I write so improving it helps me on top of everyone else who reads it haha. But at least for now, I think this will be the last edit for a while haha as I do feel really good about this one!

Well, I think that's it! Apologies if this one was a little long, but there was a lot of history and context with this one, and well, that's what reflections are all about isn't it?

Thank you all for reading, enjoy the latest chapter, and I will see you all again in July! Hope you all have a happy June!