Charlie’s New Year Reflection (In April)

Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash

Aidan: You may wonder if this article is outdated. It is. I have no excuses. Charlie was on time, and it took me forever to fully proofread it and post it. Without further ado, let’s pretend we’re waiting for a New Year’s countdown and respond to his celebratory exclamation… Three…. Two…. One….

Happy New Year!

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 (Okay, I'm done now)

We wish you a year filled with great communication, proper boundary setting, and we hope your wildest kinks are fulfilled (assuming they’re legal, of course). My Master, Aidan, started Dominant Discourse in July, and it’s been incredible to see how much our community has grown in such a short period of time. We want to thank everyone who has been a part of Dominant Discourse no matter how big or small. We have a lot of content planned for next year already, most of it available for free to our fellow kinksters. This isn’t an ad! Genuinely, we just want people to be aware that there are resources for Dominants and submissives out there, and that’s what we’re trying to build together.

While my Master can give you an educated guide into the kinky world, I don’t have the knowledge, connections, or silky smooth voice that my Dom has. Yet I do have fingers that possess the ability to type (at a whopping average of 73WPM) and plenty of experiences to reflect upon. For those on either side of the slash engaging in 24/7 dynamics, TPEs, or just want to read about a submissive’s journey, I hope you get something out of this article. So sit back, relax, and enjoy a nice cup of whatever as you read my reflection (or don’t… I’m not your Dom).

Chapter 1: A New Home

My Master and I took long-distance relationships to an extreme. Different city? Child’s play. In a different state? Difficult. For us? Let’s try a different continent. Aidan is based in Europe, and I lived in the United States at the time. Let’s not kid ourselves: long-distance relationships present a lot of challenges, especially in a TPE dynamic. What made it even worse was the huge time difference. He should’ve been asleep by the time I was coming home from work, but we adjusted our schedules as best we could to spend as much time together as possible. This often meant He was going to sleep at 5 am-6 am to accommodate my 9 am-5 pm work schedule. To say we were both struggling to find time together and live our lives would be an understatement.

For us, it wasn’t a matter of if we were going to eventually live together, but when, how, and in which country. This was a heavy topic for me, as I had two jobs I was really excited to start in 2025, my friends, family, and sports team I was involved in in my country. While Aidan had His job, His other partner, Saph, and a house He had recently bought. We both had huge ties keeping us in our current countries, so the assumption was that it would take some time to find a way to be together in person. Constant back-and-forth travel would have to be done for now.

This was towards the end of 2024. You may have noticed that I’m speaking in the past tense, so what happened?

Well, I dropped pretty much everything behind, booked a one way plane ticket, and ended up moving in with Him in the second week of February, 2025. Almost completely unplanned, very chaotic, and with the hope that somehow we must make this work.

This is supposed to be a reflection on my submission throughout the year, not a story about how I successfully moved, the legal struggles, and how stressful the entire situation was at the time. Yet, this provides extremely important context to the very first, huge command my Dominant has ever given me. One that wasn’t just an order to kneel, to be collared, to complete a task. The command was simply “I’m booking you a flight, you have two weeks.”

Even to the most dedicated submissives out there, this might sound CRAZY. A 24/7 TPE is one level of commitment, but for a Dominant to ask their submissive to move to a different continent on a whim must be shocking to read. I could defend myself in a paragraph or two, but I’ll leave you with this: Because of political and emotional stressors at the time, it was in my best interest to get out as soon as I possibly could.

I can follow this up a year later by saying following my Master’s order was the best decision I’ve made in my entire life.

So, I started packing that next night. I said my goodbyes to all my friends, got on an emotional call with my parents to make sure I saw them one more time, and walked into both of my bosses’ offices and told them the news. I was leaving the country a week from now.

I was fully prepared to lose both my new jobs, start anew, and spend my days trying to understand a language I only had a few hours of practice with. My ass must be lucky, because I managed to keep both jobs despite the sudden huge change. I knew this would change my life drastically, but I couldn’t stand another minute being away from Him. I won’t get super into the romantic sappiness (although I could talk about my Master for literal days if you get me going), but I’ll say that I was going home not just towards my Dominant, but towards the love of my life.

I think out of everything that happened this year, that was the moment I knew there was no going back on this dynamic. It was permanent. That’s what I wanted. I will be spending the rest of my life catering to my submission first; anything else is a second priority. It was, in a way, terrifying to realize. At first, I felt like I was making a huge sacrifice—that perspective quickly changed as the year went on, and I’m sure I’ll get into that. But on the surface, that is what it seemed to be. We both had to make huge sacrifices for me to hop on that plane. I left a lot of the life I built behind, and He assumed the burden of financially providing for both partners and spending weeks upon weeks getting me through the legal system as an immigrant. It was not an easy choice for either of us, but it was the right one. I remember the night we decided I was leaving, I said something along the lines of “I know this is the right choice. I know I will be much happier with You than I am here. But I am struggling to know that in order to be happy, I have to leave everything behind.”

Reflecting on this, leaving a lot behind turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. My true friends stayed, I could finally set much-needed boundaries with family, and all the items that I cared about traveled with me. It was weirdly refreshing to realize that I am much more than the objects and people that I’m surrounded by.

What helped me the most to get through this transition in my life was giving up any ounce of free will. Perhaps a weird fantasy, but I would imagine myself as a slave being chained up and forcibly sent to My Master to serve Him. By framing this big decision as a way to serve, it took the pressure and potential indecisiveness off of me. I couldn’t change my mind or regret, because I had convinced myself there was no other choice.

And in my situation, there was no other choice. Sure, I could have stayed in the United States… worked the same jobs, in the same place I always was. I don’t mean I literally don’t have the choice. But for fellow submissives in a TPE, you know how much a decision like this means to your Dominant, and I trusted mine enough to know that He felt like this was the best decision for me.

So, yes. I can attribute that this year was miles better because of our TPE and dynamic. Knowing myself, if this were something a partner was suggesting to me instead of commanding me, I wouldn’t have made the move. This decision was the integral core of our TPE.

Okay, okay, I know I went on for a while about these two weeks. I promise I won’t be going that far in depth throughout the remainder of this article, or else I might as well write a book. Let’s jump around a bit now, not necessarily in any specific order:

Up until this point, our dynamic has been largely online. We may have spent just under a year together in person out of the 8 years we had been in some sort of dynamic (on and off at first). So this was about to be a big change for more than just us as individuals. We would learn new quirks about each other that could only be discovered by living together. Like I learned that He needs a couple of hours to get out of bed in the morning when at the time I was ready to hop out and start the day (which has changed drastically, and I’m sometimes harder to get out of bed than he is. Slow mornings are important if you can manage them). He told me that He would never have expected me to be such a “dirt gremlin”, meaning I love being outside, working in the garden. I lived in an apartment before, so I never had the opportunity to show Him that side of myself. We had to explore sides of each other we had never met before. Sometimes, it added benefits, such as finally having the shrubs in our garden cut. Other times, it was disastrous, like finding tiny triggers that led to really intense moments.

One thing that was set from the get-go was that we were committed to each other and knew we needed a TPE to be fulfilled, so this was something we could lean on during the toughest times.

Let’s take a very basic problem that we were having at the very start of living together as a Master and slave, and that was attention. You can read more about it in this article, where I talk about how deleting TikTok helped my submission. It’s actually one of the first articles ever posted on this blog! Attention issues were a big problem in our dynamic, but not just because of social media. I hyperfocus on almost everything, so interrupting that flow was very tough for me and, at times, straight up irritating. Often, I would be on my phone too much and struggle to listen to what He was saying and engage in the conversation. It also seeped from my work. If I was heavily engaged in a task I was doing for my job, I would show irritation if He interrupted me. This had to change quickly because I didn’t like talking to my Master in a harsh tone or giving a dull response to a conversation. That’s not just bad-mannered slavehood; that’s something I wanted to fix as His partner. So, it took time, but we slowly made progress. I would let Him know if I missed something and ask Him to repeat instead of giving Him a half-assed answer. I would pause my brain on my work, turn around, take a breath, and then address Him properly if He wanted to talk to me.

Hell, a large part of improvement here was just asking Him for a moment; “Master, may I please finish this email, and then I will turn around?” That alone changed EVERYTHING about our daily communication. It would show Him that He was being heard, while giving myself the time to transition into the conversation. I didn’t have to guess what I missed or take myself out of my zone. Even a 15-second transition gave my brain the time it needed to catch up and figure out what my Master needed. After months of practice and adjustments, this is no longer a prevalent issue in our dynamic.

Chapter 2: Secured and Collared

I’m someone who tends to only focus on ways I have improved or struggles we overcame, but I want to mention some of our brightest moments, too. We are constantly growing and changing in our dynamic, but sometimes there are just days when everything is going so right. It’s nice to have moments where you don’t need to think “what could I have done better” and just live in them!

Something that I could never get remotely, that I constantly missed, was pure physical touch. Sorry to break it to you, reader, but I’m not going into details of our sex life. Don’t you boo at me!

I just mean the basic hug. A cuddle. A hand around my throat that meant I was owned and protected. I could dream about them all I wanted from a phone, but now I could finally feel my Master.

I think it hit me the most one night when He put my collar on, grabbed a leash, and just had me lie on His thigh for almost an hour. No speaking, no media. Just my thoughts and His lap. It was such a peaceful moment where I felt super deep in subspace and, by extension, loved and safe. Moments like this are ones we shared periodically throughout the year, and they were among my favorite memories of my submission in 2025.

There were also a bunch of little things that we started to notice about each other that felt like a “new relationship”. My Master recently complimented me on how I open doors for Him; he was impressed by how much I could carry for long periods of time. I began to understand what He craves in a submissive much more and felt more confident about offering that type of submission. He showed me new ways of Domination that let me feel vulnerable and extremely cared for, like Him running me a bath and washing my hair for me. I found ways to care for Him as well, like improving my grip strength to give Him better massages and having a nightly routine to get Him ready for bed.

Before this year, I viewed our dynamic as strict in our roles. I am a slave, He is my Master. It is my purpose to serve Him. I mean, duh, that’s true, but I never realized how much that ebbs and flows, and what serving Him could look like. Some days, it is the stereotypical service that most people imagine. Carrying the backpack for Him, doing chores, other… more personal things. I think this year is the year I finally realized that letting Him care for me was just as much of an act of service through which I could worship Him. We do a lot of objectification, so to Aidan, His caring for me is making sure His property is well maintained, like tending a garden or polishing a trophy. Allowing myself to let go and be spoiled a bit was a huge change for me.

2025 was also the year where we got to experiment and try a lot of new ways to partake in our dynamic. New types of collars, trying out impact play, and well, Dominant Discourse! I have written for my Master plenty of times, sharing my thoughts and telling Him my fantasies. But Dominant Discourse has become a consistent way I can serve Him: making posts, coming up with ideas, organizing behind the scenes, and, of course, writing articles. I’ve never had the opportunity to reflect on my submission in a form like this. I’m not alone, as Aidan is constantly writing reflections and passing on knowledge He has gained as a Dominant and researcher over the years. Maybe it sounds silly, but I learn a lot more about our dynamic through these articles. It’s kind of a gift, actually. You don’t often get a Dominant who tells you exactly what they want in a dynamic and gives you the chance to read exactly how they felt in a situation.

Finally, we had great strides in our communication, specifically in tone and phrasing. This is a biggie for my Dominant, as a respectful tone of voice and proper articulation are the ways He feels most empowered. By being there in person, where I could read his cues and not be filtered by a screen, I could practice my tone much better. I also had a great example to learn from, His other partner, Saph. She has mastered proper phrasing and a beautiful tone that lulls me to sleep (literally, it’s part of the reason I struggle to get up now). By seeing an example of what my Master was looking for, I was able to incorporate it into my own speech protocol. Both Saph and Aidan noticed a huge difference, and now all of us communicate much more effectively.

Chapter 3: Growing Pains

Expectedly, not everything goes great. There were times that were so difficult I thought my heart was going to shatter in two. There were nights that my Master would hold my collar as He slept because He felt like He couldn’t reach out to me. Others, where I was so upset that I would walk around like a zombie, barely able to even remember to eat. We had been in worse situations before and gotten through them, but this year was different. It hurt so much more than before. Why? Because I cared more. I let myself be the most vulnerable I’ve ever been with a person. I put all my weaknesses, faults, and failures on a plate and let Him examine each one. So things went wrong, when I messed up, or when a sensitive chord was struck, it felt miserable. In a weird way, that meant this was working. If I was that hurt by Him at times, that means my walls finally were down. I could feel hurt without a relationship ending.

And we did hurt each other. A lot. And it sucked. Hard. But every time we hurt each other, we learn how to heal a bit from it, too. We figured out how to prevent the same pains again and how to trust each other to admit we were hurt. Aidan finally started trusting me to hold a bit of space for Him emotionally, and I started trusting Him to see parts of myself I was too scared to show anyone. It took a lot of work. In moments like this, we leaned heavily on the dynamic to guide us. Maybe this doesn’t make sense to a vanilla relationship, but going into every conversation, emotional outburst, or decision with the dynamic in mind helped us work through our feelings and thoughts.

There was one night where things got really rough (you might notice a trend of us having long nights as we talk through things and figure out what the hell is going on. We don’t yell or even “fight” really, but you can tell when something is off because we will be up talking at 5 am). I remember sitting there on the bed, crying with my head in my hands, not understanding how the situation we were in happened again. When I’m upset, I have a hard time understanding why I’m upset, and I’ll try to explain and give a faulty reason that may not be the truth. I’m not intentionally lying, or lying at all, but when I don’t know what’s wrong, I blurt out a potential reason and often end up being wrong. This was one of those situations, and I just kept changing the reason over and over, and we could barely make progress. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and He couldn’t get through my endless ramblings. Finally, He asked for my direct thoughts, not holding back, and that’s when it finally clicked.

We have done exercises, and I have obeyed commands to give Him my thoughts, but never in such an intense emotional moment. When I revealed to Him not just what I was thinking, but how I was thinking, that’s when the pieces finally lined up. I won’t go into details here as I do want some privacy around the situation, but understanding the way I was thinking helped us catch on to behavioral patterns that put a lot of our heated conversations into perspective, thereby allowing us to prepare ourselves or even avoid a lot of high-stress situations altogether.

So here’s a piece of advice if you made it this far: if you are with a Dominant or submissive and know you want to stick with them for the rest of your life, you need to be honest with them and yourself about how you feel in a moment. Detach from the situation, don’t worry about how you might make a person feel, and be truthful in your thoughts. It might reveal a consistent pattern or issue that you both weren’t aware of. Obviously, prep your rolemate in advance. This exercise completely changed the course of our TPE for the better.

Chapter 4: Owning My Body

Part of our dynamic heavily revolves around body control. I mean the full extent of it, too. This year was a large step in that direction of our TPE, especially now that we were in person and He could push me much further. One of the very first things Aidan did when I moved in was dye my hair blond. Aside from a mistake of blue that I tried for three days in high school before I cut it all off (not judging blue-haired folk, it just wasn’t for me at all), I never had any hair color other than my natural one. So to have my Dominant not only choose my hair color but also dye it Himself was a huge level of trust for me. But I did. And then… my hair turned orange.

Kidding, kidding, well kind of. It did have a very orange hue, but after a couple rounds of blue shampoo, it was totally fine. My Master even cut my hair, which was more nerve-wracking to me than the dye. What can I say, He did a pretty good job of it too.

We’re pretty extreme in our level of body control. He picks out my clothes, decides on my hair color and style, picks out my glasses, and we’ve been planning to get a tattoo to subtly brand myself as His.

This is something we’re both comfortable with and have been working towards for years.

But I’ll be real with you, random reader that I have no personal connections to. We had a huge hill to climb with one particular area of body control. Body transformation and weight.

Just to make it clear, I’m not talking about any sort of gender play here. If that’s your thing, fantastic. Just not ours. I always wanted a dynamic where I was pushed to be fit and feel disciplined, as I did when I was an athlete. Weight and body dysmorphia are areas that I heavily struggled with throughout adolescence, and I trusted my Master to get me there.

I didn’t check in with myself about what was realistic, and when life got in the way, and I stopped seeing progress, I started to get obsessive. When we did check in about it, and I lost some progress, I broke down. I never did anything that my Master didn’t approve of, but the urge to take control of something that I was so sensitive about back from Him when it wasn’t going the way I wanted it to plagued my mind. This was a rough spot for us because I felt like I couldn’t trust Him to guide me there, and He realized I never let go of control enough for this process to truly be His.

So, we had to talk this one through. For days. We realized there were a lot more variables than what was surface-level when it came to this aspect of our dynamic. He never felt He could push me further because I never proved to Him that my body was His to maintain. I never gave up full control because I felt like I wasn’t seeing results. Add in some heavy trauma I wasn’t aware of in this section, sprinkled in with a whole plethora of other issues… We were at a standstill.

Do you remember when I mentioned that, in tough situations, we could always rely on our TPE to figure it out? Well, that was the answer, again. I had to find it in me to fully let go of control this time. I couldn’t see a lack of progress based on what I wanted; I had to prioritize what my Master wanted for me. I have to trust that He wants what is best for me. In a way, I guess you could say I gave it a second chance, but I see it more as finally giving in to a real try. If He sees this as some sort of “test,” He has to ace for me to continue giving in to Him, of course, he won’t enjoy it. Once I give in fully and without expectations, then we can make progress, and most importantly, He can enjoy the process.

This one is still one we’re working through as this conversation happened less than a month ago. Maybe there will be a 2026 update, and I can reflect on how this ended up going for us…

Hello from late April Aidan. We’ve made great progress here! Charlie is slowly getting more comfortable in his body, is slowly seeing some changes in his body in terms of strength and endurance, which are things he’s been wanting to work on for a while now. 10/10 overall, and only getting better. As he said, leaning into the dynamic truly seems to be the best answer.

Submissives, when you tell your Dom you’re going to let go of control, you need to fully give in. Otherwise, you’re not giving the Dominant what they need out of the exchange; you’re using them as your own motivator. Also, to my fellow submissives, if things don’t go the way you thought they would, talk to your Dominant and give them a second chance. As much as we look up to them as gods, they’re human too.

As for the Dominants here, make sure you and your submissive are both on the same page. If they believe they’re giving in and letting go of control in one way and it ends up looking slightly different, you might unintentionally lose a bit of trust. Explain your intentions as candidly as you can until you’ve gained enough trust in the dynamic for the submissive to believe you have the best of intentions. That feeling should go both ways as well.

Chapter Uh??? Closing Thoughts

Uh. Well. That was long. To be honest, I’m holding myself back from writing more, too. But an article has to end at some point. Dynamics are constantly changing and growing. You’ll screw up, you’ll disengage, but you’ll also have the most trusting, most vulnerable moments of your life.

To the submissives: This was a very good opportunity for me to reflect on how I felt, how I’ve grown, and where things currently stand in my dynamic. I highly suggest doing something similar and sending it to your Dominant. Insight into how you’re feeling about the dynamic is always helpful for everyone. Allow yourself to take a moment to be proud of what you’ve accomplished and how you served. You deserve all the praise you are given, and before you can make further strides, appreciate where you’ve come from.

To the Dominants: The same applies to you. You have grown in ways I’m sure you’re not aware of, and your submissive may not be as well. I also recommend reflecting in a similar way as I. You put in just as much work in adjusting and figuring out the roles as we submissives do. Give yourself a moment to appreciate the work you put in and accept praise from your submissive for doing it.

To both sides and everything in between: Taking a moment to briefly pause and catch your breath can be very rewarding to your dynamics. Have a drink and talk about your favorite moments, snuggle in bed and figure out what’s next… I don’t know what you do, juggle balls while introspecting about that one “big mistake” you made, for all I care. No matter what you do, I hope you take a moment and recognize where you started this year and where you are now that it’s ended. If you’re here, I see this as a sign you want to grow, be better in your role, and I’m sure you’re doing a great job.

Finally, for those who may not have found the other side yet, I hope this gives you a nice read and perspective. It’s good to consider where you might end up discovering about yourself, or reflect on what your past was like. Even if you haven’t found your match(es), you should be proud of the progress you’re making on your own.

To put a final close on how I feel about my dynamic currently, I wish I could describe how life-altering being a part of this TPE is. Trust me when I say that without it, I would be a much worse person than I currently am. Has anyone seen the Good Place? Think of me as a horrible combination of Season 1 Chidi and Tahani. That’s who I’d be without my Master.

I have never been so confident in my submission, and by extension myself (those two are pretty much the same thing at this point anyway, though). My Master has allowed me to trust someone more than anyone, including myself. It’s a very comforting feeling to know that someone you serve will always have your best interests in mind and can guide you towards happiness. I always say my Master is my world, and I truly think I’d be lost without Him. I mean, I plan to put a ring on His finger eventually, what do you expect?

Going into 2026, we have things we’ll need to keep working on. We have protocols to adjust and retire, decisions to make, and a lot of shit coming our way that we have no idea about. One thing I know is that with each year I spend with my Master, I get a little closer to the slave I should be for Him, and that’s the definition of happiness for me.