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Date Posted: 17:03:51 11/28/25 Fri
Author: Curious
Author Host/IP: 49.196.42.190
Subject: Smoking Fetish Character Relationships: Leader-Follower Pairs - An Essay

Smoking Fetish Character Relationships: Leader-Follower Pairs - An Essay

Introduction

This essay covers a character interaction rather than a character type. At it's simplest the interaction is that one character, the leader starts an activity and introduces another character, the follower, to that activity. The two characters are most often presented as friends, or possibly parent & child. These interactions can form the backbone of a plot, or simply be a background element in an existing story.

The essay will present four examples taken from both smoking fetish and non-smoking fetish works, those from commercially published works will be de-identified and the characters discussed will be identified only by their first initial. Plot summaries for commercially published works beyond the relationship description will be in the footnotes. The examples from smoking fetish fiction will mostly come from works I have reviewed.

Part One - Examples from Non-smoking fetish works.

The first example comes from a piece of 'message fiction' written in the late 1980s and designed to scare the reader into not trying alcohol. It's built around the interaction between a leader-follower pair and a character who is described as a 'social worker'(1).

The leader in this pair is 'V', by implication she's the heavier drinker of the pair, certainly she has a higher tolerance for alcohol than the follower 'S'. This is revealed in one of the journal entries that make up the story.(2) It describes how the pair went to a party on the weekend and V, realizing that S is approaching her limit takes the drink off S and finishes it off herself.(3)(4) Other journal entries imply that V moderates her drinking at these events to ensure S has a good/safe time.(3) This friendship and what happens to it is the main plot of the novel.(3)

The second example in this section comes from an investigative/action novel with romantic undertones. One thread of the storyline sees some of the investigators interact with a pair of underage drinkers, 'A' characterised as a girl who can "...seriously drink ..." is the leader, 'E' the follower is a 'one drink and done' kind of girl. They are an important background element in the story and things the pair reveal help resolve the investigation successfully, but as background elements the full nature of their relationship is not explored in any depth.(5)(6)

Part Two - Examples from Smoking Fetish works.

The most recent leader-follower pair I know of in smoking fetish fiction is Kaitlyn and Kilee in Hagnmrk's 'Gretchen Series'. The pair are smokers who started at an age before ten. Kaitlyn was the one who started first and in their first appearance as smokers in 'Gretchen Takes On The School Board' it's made very clear that Kaitlyn started first and persuaded Kilee to start shortly afterwards. There afterwards Kilee acts essentially as Kaitlyn's shadow until the story 'Gretchen's Red Jaguar and Velvet Dreams'. In the opening of that story Kilee realizes just what her role in the friendship is and when circumstances give her the chance to initiate a course of action without Kaitlyn having 'prepared the way' she takes it putting her relationship with Kaitlyn under considerable strain.(7)

The second example in this section comes from the Loring Era author identified as Anonymous24. Their second story 'Cigarettes Get The Man', is told from the perspective of Lisa, the follower in a pairing made up of herself and a girl named Jenny. While the story uses a simple 'girls seduce guy with sexy smoking' plotline, the backstory is far more interesting. It's clear that for whatever reason Jenny chose to save Lisa from what Lisa refers to as 'unpopularity' but by implication is bullying resulting in her having a considerable debt of gratitude towards Jenny.(9) This is something that is not really exploited in the story as published.

Part Three - Analysis

One of the great strengths of this type of character relationship is that it provides a ready made backstory framework, this can be simple, or as can be seen in 'Cigarette's Get The Man' elaborate. It's also a suitable relationship for any contrasting pair of smokers of roughly the same age.

These relationships also lend themselves to dramatic storylines based on threats to the relationship, be they external, as in the first example in Part One, or internal as in 'Gretchen's Red Jaguar and Velvet Dreams'. They are also useful for both a foreground relationship, as in the examples mentioned previously, or for simple background relationships such as that between Jim and Sarah in SStoryman's 'Cross-Cultural Experience'(10)

These relationships can also evolve into 'Mentor-Protege' relationships, which is what appears to be happening in 'Cigarettes Get The Man'.

Part Four - Conclusion

In conclusion this relationship can be seen as a flexible and powerful literary tool that authors should definitely keep in their arsenal.

Notes:

1. This is how the character is described on various websites where the book, which I've not been able to locate an easily available copy of, is mentioned. From memory I don't think the character is specifically a substance abuse councilor.
2. At stories start, V & S's activities have come to the attention of their school and a 'social worker' is assigned to sort them out. He has them write journal's/essays which he then comments on, the reader is never given direct access to what S has written, only the 'social workers' commentary on them where he mentions her in his comments on V's journal entries.
3. These facts taken together make one aspect of the relationship very clear, V feels responsibility towards S and is willing to act on that perceived responsibility. It's the failure of the 'social worker' to understand this that drives the stories endgame. Choosing to focus on S, the follower of the pair, the 'social worker' succeeds in getting her to stop drinking while simultaneously ending the friendship with V. This sets in motion a chain of events that end with V dying in a drunken mishap.
4. Something similar can be seen in a scene in Richard Ralls smoking fetish novel 'Nevermore' where Tiffany introduces Patricia Blevins and her friend Lucy Pickett to alcohol. While Patricia spits the drink out, Lucy swallows and Tiffany seeing the effect that one drink has had on Lucy cuts her off, while also limiting her own drinking to make the point clear. A review of 'Nevermore' can be found in Vol. 29 of the Consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Review.
5. Both characters are subjected to danger in the plot, E is kidnapped along with one of the investigators and A finds herself lured to a party under false pretenses and escapes from it with difficulty after being given a spiked drink.
6. There is the implication at their second appearance in the story that A encourages E to drink more than she might have done normally under the circumstances.
7. Both stories mentioned in this paragraph can be found in 'The Gretchen Chronicles' part of the Noble Leaf Library, a review of 'Gretchen's Red Jaguar and Velvet Dreams' can be found in Vol. 31 of the Consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Review.
8. The story can be found in Vol. 35 of the Noble Leaf Library, it's review is in Vol. 4 of the Consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Review.
9. RuEmerald explores this plot idea in the interactive fiction story 'Pedagogy' which can be found in the Noble Leaf Library. A review can be found in Vol. 11 of the Consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Review.
10. This story can be found in Vol. 3 of the 'Sstoryman Anthology' and in Vol. 16 of the Noble Leaf Library. At present it is unreviewed.

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