#difm

(note that people do wear collars outside of this, im talking about in the context of collaring ceremony specifically. you can also enter this kind of relationship without using collars. I saw discourse about "velcro collars" that "cheapen the meaning" of true collars while researching this lmao).

collaring ceremonies are real. Typically it's something that happens when committing to a full-time D/s or M/s relationship with someone. from everything i have seen, once the collar goes on at a collaring ceremony, it stays on and you stay submissive for your dom (until the time you decide to dissolve the relationship, but usually youre Pretty Sure Of It at that point). It is a massive commitment, just like being married is, and something you discuss and plan with the same level of seriousness.

the collar itself may be subtle, or it may change if you have like, a day collar to wear out, a normal collar you wear at home/at kink events, and play collars or whatever, but i've also seen people who straight up have a steel collar their dom put on them two years ago and has never come off.

(side note, the materials and look dont matter so much as what you use it for. as i say in the fic, collars typically belong to the dom. play collars are collars used for sex that dont have power outside of that, which is what catra and adora have up until catra gives her the necklace - and kind of still all they have at the end of the fic)

collaring ceremonies can be private like what i had in the fic (i believe this is the most common practice), or they can have friends and "family" in attendance, or even be held in a public dungeon or something. i read a transcript of a public one while researching. they are a lot like weddings (in the ceremony at least) and are treated with the same weight. the dom is usually fully dressed and the sub may wear anything ranging from formal wear to just the collar.

for the fic, i adapted it, because i whole heartedly believe thats what you should do with bdsm and sex in general: do what works for you and your partner. in this case, they decided to have what amounts to a private collaring ceremony where they exchanged vows and their hopes for the relationship before catra finally put the day collar on adora, but adora isn't collared in practice, it's just a kinky engagement necklace (which i know the people who complain about velcro collars would hate, but again, i think what works for people's private relationships is their business. there's also people outside of the scene wearing o-ring chokers as a fashion statement, let people live).

i learned about collaring ceremonies while doing my initial research for beg for me and immediately knew it was was what i wanted to do for their wedding/proposal in a later installment in the series, both because it was something new and different i was never going to write/research otherwise, and because this whole fic kicked off with adora being stressed out by a wedding and not great with their planning. seeking out an alternative for their own marriage made sense in this au and it rarely does since i headcannon them both as big criers at weddings, so i thought it would be fun to explore. i also wanted to, once again, explore how catradora’s trauma intersects with their experience of bdsm when it came to the collaring.