@boi98229 thanks man! I'm glad you're liking it.

like to try and do something different, keeps wishes becoming stale. Proper glad ya appreciated it dude. cheers :gaz the genie @amul

I do my best. ;) @Efren

glad to be of service mate :gaz the genie @Cutlerfan

@BlindSeer0 - I love puns. I do a little standup, and sometimes when the groans get to bad I just say "I've written six more pages of puns for this joke... skip em?"

@Derek Williams "They told me to punch up this joke, so I pun-ned it up instead. "

@BlindSeer0 Grooooooaan.

Hey, thanks @Viridian! It's like consent obtained through a power imbalance isn't actually consent! I truly wish Dalton was based on a particular person.

@BlindSeer0 Those are great points. I also found Dalton to be kinder before he got the cuffs, but I can also understand why he'd be upset--his friends were treating him like a helpless moron and had been for years. And I think Derek Williams did a good job showing WHY he couldn't start communicating clearly: how was he supposed to explain that he had suddenly gained intelligence and reality warper powers without explaining the magic and sounding nuts? He was caught between a rock and a stupid place, as it were...in writing this comment, I realize there's a good deal of ***Flowers for Algernon*** in here (person becomes newly intelligent and realizes how the world treated him before--with condescending compassion at best or outright cruelty at worst). I love when stories spark discussions! :)

Thanks @BlindSeer0, as always I love your take on things. I'm going to lay out a little of my thinking here. My intent is to add to the discussion, not shut it down. Though I'm a big believer in authorial intent, I also acknowledge that stories hit us all differently. In my notes, the cuffs do three things – they make other people take his orders without question, they increase his intelligence, and they make him more dominant. Dalton becoming more of an asshole is a mix of his dominance asserting itself and his newfound intelligence. Without the 'take his orders' bit, I suspect Dalton would end up burning all his bridges and alienating himself from the frat. Frankly, I love the original Dalton, but if I kept the story to just that it would be a story without conflict. Dalton is basically a 'manic pixie dream bro', you can't help but love him because he does everything right. He cares about people feeling safe to extremes – Dalton knows most people know how to use a deadbolt, but *just in case*, he wants to make sure Josh doesn't feel trapped. The 'pre cuff' scenes were an absolute pleasure to write, but they're all before Dalton crosses the threshold. The conflict in this story is about how Dalton chooses to use the cuffs. Though he could have decided to use them differently, I think Dalton reacts the way most people would if they were suddenly given the power to control and the intelligence to use it. Power corrupts, and Dalton has just acquired three forms of power without warning. A lot of the changes Dalton makes to peoples lives are unintentional, at least before he understands the nature of the cuffs. There are a few plot threads that spin off before he tests out the limits with Lance and Frankie, and because he's just such a purehearted guy, they're largely good changes. Jamie doesn't drink anymore, Newt learns how to care for people, Michael and Ryan fall in love and learn to care for eachother, Jack becomes incredibly proud of his ass. There's one change I don't consider positive – Josh turns into a straight guy who likes to get fucked by jocks, but that's completely unintentional on Dalton's part and was actually guided by Josh's own fantasy. Once Dalton understands that what he has is *power*, that's where it goes off the rails. Next thing you know he's remaking the frat in his own image. But even then, he makes sure that everyone loves who they're becoming, that nobody gets teased for it, and that everyone is their own unique brand of gay based on their experience of what that means. Was it moral for Dalton to use their own stereotypes to form them? I don't know, personally I doubt it. I think he let the power go to his head, and I think he's pushing back on pain he's experienced from when people stereotyped him in the past. For the record, I think Dalton's bros were always trying to help. Dalton needed reminders when to take his protein powder and what his assignment was during the party and that he had time to eat first. But context matters – Dalton's context has changed, and nobody else knows that, so their help becomes condescension through no fault of their own. When Dalton resents it, is he resenting the help or is he resenting that he needed the help in the first place? I honestly don't know, sometimes I just write down what the characters tell me to write down. In the original draft, Dalton actually succeeds at exerting power over the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper falls under his control too, and Dalton ends up running a porn empire and treating men like disposable playthings. I cut a scene where Dalton takes three men up to a hotel room, draws three cards from a deck ('Himbo', 'Jock', and 'Bro'), and permanently alters the men into those archetypes so he can play with them for a couple hours. Then he cuts them loose, trapped in their new persona. I hated that version of Dalton, so I deleted a chunk of text and went back to the shopkeeper, finally putting an upper bound on what Dalton could control. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so I made sure Dalton never got absolute power. Like so many in power, Dalton is bad at communicating. When he didn't have as much power, he needed to be better at it. As his power increased, it's something he shed, seeing it as useless. From where we're standing, that's obviously wrong, but Dalton is so caught up he doesn't realize that. There's been a lot of discussion on the forum around the appeal of 'dumbing down' type stories. I previously wrote 'A Metaphor for Kyle' to explore the various things that being dumber symbolizes to a lot of people. 'Smart as a Whip' is about exploring what intelligence means to me – and what the power that intelligence brings means to me. Intelligence can be wonderful, and we see a lot of wonderful actions from Dalton. It can also be harmful, dehumanizing, and problematic. Dalton is just a man, and despite his good base, he falls prey to his intelligence. When I write about dumbing down, it's not because I have some fantasy of making men into compliant playthings or idiots who need help wiping the droop from their lips. Dalton had a good life as a dumb guy – supportive friends, lots of agency, and a real enjoyment of himself. Being dumb does not equal being helpless. Instead, for me, it's about removing the burdens of intelligence. Removing the power you have over others because you're smarter than them, removing the anxiety you feel because you can see the bigger picture, removing the stories you make up in your head because you're convinced you know the truth. But I've written that story a hundred times, and I still see people thinking that dumbing down is about making some kind of happy idiot to abuse. So this time I wrote it from a different angle, and I hope it might cast a different light on these types of stories. Look at me. Monologuing.

Heh, I haven't read Flowers for Algernon since I was a teenager. I'm honoured by the comparison.

@Derek Williams Thanks for the very in-depth response. While i don't believe the author has the final say on a text, i love hearing what they were thinking as they wrote a story, and it definitely adds to it here. While its still not my cup of tea, i really like the concept of exploring dumbing down by looking at the reverse. I also missed the effects on Newt and Jamie, so that softens things a bit and does show some of his good nature. Personally i like stories where the characters actually have a chance to learn from their mistakes and be better people, but as written its a pretty good aesop/ fable on ego and abuse of power. plus everyone else seems to really like it, and i think that's great. Definitely a success. Unrelated to the story, but related to your response. I've never been a fan of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" for a lot of reasons, including that i don't think its true. I'd like to propose Robert Caro's version (from his biography on Lyndon B. Johnson): "What i believe is always true about power is that it reveals. When you have enough power to do what you always wanted to do, then you see what the guy always wanted to do." (Now i should put my money where my mouth is and actually write a story about that instead of taking up space in your comments...)

@BlindSeer0 - No worries, it seems like I was just waiting for someone to sorta ask about the subtext ;) The effects on Newt and Jamie are super subtle in the text. I have the benefit of drawing on my notes for potential spinoff stories. I had a few friends in school who leaned on booze a little too much, if I had Dalton's power there would be a lot fewer empty bottles out there. I do agree that the story could have been enhanced if Dalton learned more from his experience. As it stands, he's sort of left with the downsides of intelligence, but without coming to a place where he's learned to balance them with the benefits. His balance is artificial, enforced by the shopkeeper. Most of my stories are morality plays of some kind when you get down to it. That's what happens when you feed a kid Star Trek episodes and bible stories for twenty years and then let him loose on the world. I like subtext. It's never just about the fucking. (I also like fucking.) That's a fun quote. I also don't believe the aphorism without question, but that's why it's an aphorism and not a fact. Take up as much space as you want in my comments, you're thoughtful and interesting. That said, yeah, if you've got something to say, I think a story is a great way to say it. God knows I could have just written a forum post, but instead I decided on 13,590 words of subtext.

Thanks @Blakenikolas! I've actually got little side stories for each of the guys he changed plotted out, but I don't know how many of them I'll write. Those are probably gonna end up over on the Patreon, though there's always a chance I'll crosspost one here.