Early Bird Sneak Peek: “P.T.A.”!

Hi all! It’s time for another Early Bird Sneak Peek, where I share a glimpse at the story my lucky Early Bird patrons will be enjoying next Saturday thanks to their pledges at my Patreon page! Of course, if you’re not an Early Bird patron, you’ll still get a story next week–“Yes, I’m Ready”, teased previously as an Early Bird story, has already been submitted to the EMCSA. But the Early Bird patrons will be getting “P.T.A.”! (MC MD MA)

Being an Army wife means jumping into the social life of each new city as quickly as possible, but Melissa may have been in a little bit too much of a hurry when she decided to attend a local P.T.A. meeting. Because this particular outfit turns out not to be the Parent/Teacher Association after all. Here’s a taste.

“So,” Vickie continued, looking straight at Melissa like she was the only woman in the room, “is this your first time attending a P.T.A. meeting?” Vickie smiled her way around every word, like she’d taken something a little too strong for her back pain (she had to have back pain, right? The dress might be flattering them, but those boobs had to make it hard to stand up straight) or her foot pain (Heels? Who wore stiletto heels to a PTA meeting?) and the whole world was glowing pink for her.

Melissa refused to rise to the patronizing bait. “I’ve been to PTA meetings in three states in five years,” she said calmly. “I know there are always local differences, but I’m sure I can catch up pretty quick.”

“Well, we are all about learning!” Vickie said, her voice sickeningly pert. “We’ll have you back to being a perfectly trained automaton in no time. Anyway, girls, let’s get to the first item on the agenda–Hollie wanted to show us all a really wonderful trick for suppressing your gag reflex when deep throating. She puts her left thumb inside her fist, under her fingers, and squeezes it like so…”

Hope you enjoy it!

Is It Hypnosis? – Part Three

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When last we left our series of posts on the plausibility of my stories (setting aside those that are obviously, transcendentally impossible due to magic, mind control rays, or the like) we’d worked our way just up past “Glory Days”, which leaves us a lot of ground still to cover. Let’s begin, shall we?

The Stranger: This one is…okay, I can’t say for certain that it’s plausible, because I’ve never been involved with the specific set of circumstances involved and really don’t want to be. But I will say that yes, it is very possible for someone doing therapeutic hypnosis without the background and training to deal with unexpected reactions could wind up doing a lot of harm. I can also say that the human brain has a lot of coping mechanisms that we don’t understand all that well, and it could well be that having a suppressed memory brought back while in an altered state could wind up resulting in all the memories of that altered state being suppressed as well. And absolutely yes, if your conscious mind and your unconscious mind disagree about something, your brain could decide that the easiest way to resolve the problem is just to push it all into amnesia when you’re not in trance.

So with that in mind, yes, I’m going to say that this is probably realistic hypnosis and a good reminder that unless you’re a professional, stick to hypnosis for fun so you don’t have to spend five years working with a loved one to undo the thing you did to them while trying to help them. (The technique he used to finally break that barrier is probably plausible as well, by the way, although the intent of the story is that it was a final step taken after doing a lot of groundwork to make the transition fairly seamless once she made the connection.)

Sometimes a Fantasy: A much more cheerful and happy “yes, this is totally plausible”. Amnesia and sensory hallucinations are entirely achievable–they’re not for beginner subjects, and you shouldn’t walk into your first hypnokink con thinking that you can just stare at a spiral for five minutes and you’ll be seeing or hearing things that aren’t there, but everything Sam commands Sue and Annalisa to do in this story is something that people I know have been able to do with hypnosis. Especially after five years of practice. This one is both plausible and entirely consensual, which is a nice combination for folks who may be looking for inspiration for their personal kinks.

Obsession: I include this one because the underlying concept for the mind control (which is never explained in the story) is intended to be something other than magic or spooky dark forces–the idea is that the sculpture Miranda made has some ever-so-slight geometrical imperfection, something like an angle that looks ever so subtly wrong or an optical illusion that the conscious mind doesn’t notice but that keeps bringing you back to figure out what’s bugging your subconscious about the thing you’re seeing. And while Erica’s conscious mind is occupied with the sculpture, she’s not able to really think critically about what Miranda is telling her, so she accepts it automatically and unthinkingly.

But obviously, this is bullshit on a whole lot of levels, starting with the idea that it’s really possible to make a sculpture with this kind of subconscious-only optical illusion and moving on to the notion that you can flawlessly implant very life-altering suggestions into someone’s head just because their conscious mind is occupied and finally stamping the embers of plausibility out by pointing out that this technique apparently got someone to change their sexual orientation, quit their job, and become a live-in sex slave…in only about six days. I’m voting “no” here. About the only believable part is that calling in sick for four days in a row at a service job is enough to get you fired.

Dress You Up: This one is so plausible I was genuinely worried at the time that it wouldn’t make the cut for inclusion due to lack of mind control. It’s really not a “hypnosis” story so much as it is a “seduction” story, although I qualify that by saying that if someone uses their words as a focus to place you into a state where you’re relaxed, comfortable, and thinking only about how turned on you are and how much you need to do something about it right now, then you’re kind of dealing with a trance state even if neither party is specifically thinking of it as such.

So with that in mind, do I think that a gorgeous, glamorous lesbian fashion designer could sweep a young teenager off her feet, seduce her with a session of “dress up” that turned sexual, and get her to quit the school she hates to become a millionaire model? Yeah, I’m putting that as very plausible.

Borderline: This one…well. This was, I’ll admit, my attempt to distill an entire style of “‘pathic” mind control story down into just over 1500 words, so anyone who liked that kind of thing could just go here and read it and I wouldn’t have to do it again. But with the caveat that ethically it’s a train wreck, that you should never enter into any kind of a D/s relationship with the end goal of convincing someone (through hypnosis or otherwise) to push past their hard limits, that it’s wrong and abusive to convince them to abandon existing relationships and make themselves emotionally dependent on you, and that really the whole “unprotected oral sex with strangers” thing isn’t a good idea either…could it be done?

Possibly. Eventually. I’m ultimately of the opinion that there aren’t many limits to the amount of power we’re willing to cede to another human being given a sufficient amount of time and a sufficiently large reward, and this story is just vague enough on how long the main character has been under their controller’s control and just how strong those hypnotic pleasure triggers are that I think that yes, you probably could bring someone along to a point where they wanted to stop dealing with life and become a totally mindless slave. I think that it’s still not the likely outcome–honestly, they’re far more likely to flip you the double bird the first time you ask them to do something that’s a hard limit and go find someone else who will hypnotize them without all the bullshit. But it’s at least possible, even if I would never try it and would tell everyone else not to try it either. Because JEEZ, people.

And as I’m sticking with the “five stories a pop” model, that’s it for this installment. Next week is liner notes for June, but I’ll come back to this at some point, I’m sure of it.

Early Bird Sneak Peek: “Head Games”! (MC MF FD)

Hi all! It’s time for another Early Bird Sneak Peek, where I share a glimpse at the story my lucky Early Bird patrons will be enjoying next Saturday thanks to their pledges at my Patreon page! Of course, if you’re not an Early Bird patron, you’ll still get a story next week–“Remember the Time”, teased previously as an Early Bird story, has already been submitted to the EMCSA. But the Early Bird patrons will be getting “Head Games”! (MC MF FD)

Ian’s got what may or may not be a date with Madison…she asked him to come over for a night of boardgaming, but he’s a little uncertain about whether that counts as a date. Fortunately, Madison’s got a game in mind that will remove all doubts. Or, indeed, thoughts of any kind. Here’s a taste:

She set the box on the table, and Ian took a look at it. After just a glance, he no longer felt guilty about not having heard of this one–judging by the production values, ‘Brian Shaw Games’ was barely a step up from making stuff in their basement. The logo on the side of the plain cardboard box was just a little skull with lightning bolts shooting out from it, with a slogan that said, ‘Scrambling words and brains since 2014.’ The top of the box had the same skull-and-lightning-bolt picture, only larger, and the words ‘Brain Teaser’ in large letters written in one of the ‘zanier’ fonts.

Ian looked at her, a dubious expression on his face. “You sure this one’s…um, I mean…?” He tried to find a delicate way to finish that sentence, conscious of the idea that Brian Shaw might be a friend or a family member that Madison helped with the game. “Um, it just looks a little rough, is all.”

“Oh, it’s more fun than it looks. Here.” Madison opened up the box to reveal a folded board, a scattered handful of small poker chips in a variety of colors, and a stack of white notecards bound together with a rubber band. “It’s really simple, The board has a bunch of words on it, and the cards have a list of words from the board. I read off the list to you, and you find the words on the list and put chips on each word. Then we switch, and I try to beat your time. I mean, it’s a little unfair, because I’ve played before and you haven’t, but as long as you don’t mind losing your first round or two…”

Hope you enjoy it!

Toxic Domininity

(This post has been brought to you by the efforts of my 57 wonderful and kind Patrons! Visit my Patreon page to learn how to become one of them.)

Okay, I admit it. A full thirty percent of why I made this post is because I love the phrase “toxic domininity”. But the other seventy percent is pretty important, so I’m going to get into it as a serious thing. Let’s talk about what it’s like to deal with toxic expectations of a Dominant, both as a Dom/me and as a sub. Starting with what the heck I actually mean.

The idea is roughly the same as “toxic masculinity”; the idea that society, culture, what have you promotes a certain expectation of ideal behavior for anyone who steps into a particular role, and that some of these expectations are either impossible to fulfill, not actually desirable, or both. In the case of masculinity, it’s things like “Guys never cry,” or “Guys always want sex,” or “Guys never back down from a fight.” Stuff that makes no sense, but you can really wreck yourself trying to do it because you’re ‘supposed to’.

In the case of D/s, it’s mostly about the idea that a Dominant is a genuine authority figure in the life of their submissive and that they need, in order to ‘properly’ dominate their sub, to value their authority and control more highly than any other aspect of the relationship. A “true” Dom/me can never let an infraction of the rules go unpunished, because their sub needs to understand that the Dom/me is in charge. A “true” Dom/me can never relinquish authority, even when not actively in scene, because they need to command the respect of their submissive. A “true” Dom/me doesn’t need to check in with their sub, because over-communication kills the excitement of being totally controlled and their sub really wants to just be told what to do. You get the idea.

I think that most Dom/mes don’t feel this way, to be honest. A very few might, usually people who’ve absorbed all their ideas of the D/s scene from portrayals in mainstream culture and/or “extreme” porn, and those tend to be the ones who wind up making idiots of themselves and/or abusing novice submissives. (Obviously, the former is a better outcome than the latter, but neither of them are good.) But that’s not the worst thing about those toxic expectations; the worst thing is that they are, ultimately expectations. They’re things that even the best Dom/me in the world feels like they should be doing, and it causes you to constantly second-guess yourself.

So you apologize for being sad and not emotionally up for play one night. So you feel guilty for giving your sub a tender massage instead of a solid beating. So you worry that if you say that it’s okay that they didn’t do chores one night because they were too tired, that they’ll be secretly disappointed in you. So you wonder that if you check in after a session, they’re going to decide that you’re boring and over-cautious and go look for a “true” Dom/me who can meet your needs. That’s toxic domininity right there, the idea that you’re not doing it right even when you’re making yourself and your partner happy, because it’s not like the books or the movies or the YouPorn clips.

The first step to a better D/s relationship is realizing that all that stuff genuinely is toxic bullshit. It’s not just you, it’s not just that you’re not really cut out for dominance, it really is that the most important aspect of your relationship with your sub is making each other happy, and if you’re doing that right, fuck everything else. You can be a Dom/me who never punishes your sub. You can be a Dom/me who never pushes a single limit and doesn’t even try. You can be a Dom/me who giggles and has popcorn fights with your submissive and even cleans it up afterwards because it’s at their apartment and you’re not a jerk. There is no “true” dominance. There’s only the things you do with the person you care about.

And maybe that person does want to be spanked until they can’t sit down for a week. Maybe they do want to have a twenty-page list of specific and exacting rules that detail their wardrobe, orgasm conditions, and the times and dates they are allowed to speak. Those are none of them bad things. But you should never do them with your partner just because you think it’s what you’re supposed to be doing. Because it won’t make them happy, and ultimately you need to care about your submissive if you want to keep them. Because a good Dom/me, a truly good one and not a truly “true” one, never takes control. They only accept the control that is given.

Early Bird Sneak Peeks: “Even the Stars Fall 4 U” and “Girls With Guns”!

Hi all! It’s time for another Early Bird Sneak Peek, where I share a glimpse at the story my lucky Early Bird patrons will be enjoying next Saturday thanks to their pledges at my Patreon page! Of course, if you’re not an Early Bird patron, you’ll still get a story next week–“Divide and Conquer”, teased previously as an Early Bird story, has already been submitted to the EMCSA. But the Early Bird patrons will be getting “Even the Stars Fall 4 U” (MC MF FD) and “Girls With Guns”! (MC MF FD)

As mentioned, I’m going to be doing more double updates for my Early Bird Patrons, and this seemed like a good week because there’s a Girls(tm) story coming up, and I know those are ones that people don’t want to wait for. But first, let’s talk about the first Early Bird story this week, a sequel to “I’m a Slave 4 U”. Service Unit 4 U is once again on a mission for her unseen masters, pretending to be an innocent groupie with plans to seduce a famous musician. But everything starts going wrong quickly…

Brianna is relieved by his words, even though she recognizes that her deception is over and her chances of living out her private daydream have probably come to an end. But that’s because Brianna is meant to be innocent. She’s a fantasy persona, designed to fill out a famous musician’s perfect ideal of a starstruck groupie who turns out to be astonishingly good in bed. She doesn’t even know how sexy she is, let alone what to do when led deeper and deeper into the bowels of the concert arena by a man who’s making very sure that she’s always in front of him and that his gun hand is always free. She’s a helpless, foolish girl.

I’m not. When the bodyguard draws his gun, I hear the tiny whisper of noise and react on an instinctive level faster than the most well-trained soldier. Safety protocols that even Haley doesn’t know about unfold in my mind, unlocking decades of martial arts programming that my Masters have instilled into me within minutes just in case a situation like this comes along. I swivel in his grip and punch him as hard as I can.

That’s not very hard, admittedly. Haley is small enough to pass for a girl ten years younger than her. But when all that force is directed with pinpoint precision directly at the base of a man’s throat, it’s hard enough. He goes down with a spluttering cough, and I hit him in both ears simultaneously to make sure he stays down. I kick the gun he dropped, sending it skittering away into the shadows, and then I bounce his head off the floor once or twice. I’m careful to avoid permanent damage–slaves never kill unless instructed–but I make absolutely sure that he won’t be interrupting me anytime soon.

The second story, “Girls With Guns”, centers on someone who isn’t planning on getting a Girl(tm) of his own any time soon. Ethan is convinced that he’s fighting a one-man propaganda war against the shadowy and nebulous corporate overlords behind the Girls, and he plans on warning the world of their dangers. As is sometimes the case with people, though, he’s both very right and very wrong:

Ethan sidled over to a small table near the front, where the owners of the dingy little porn shop had a small collection of free newspapers and magazines. Ethan set his briefcase on the table and wiped his sweaty hands on his overcoat. Then he entered the combination and popped the lock to reveal his devastating payload.

‘Girls With Guns’. Fifty-six copies, the absolute most he could squeeze into the briefcase at a time. Each one made from eight sheets of 8 1/2 x 11″ paper, photocopied and folded over and stapled, with a slightly thicker stock for the cover. It probably didn’t look threatening to the sheeple, but to Ethan, it was a memetic weapon designed to bring down an empire.
The cover depicted a Girl–Ethan mentally edited out the little trademark symbol with a roll of his eyes–standing on top of a prone, struggling man. She had one inhuman plastic foot pressed against his throat, and her hands held a massive Desert Eagle that she had pointed square at his throbbing erection. His face had the plummy, reddish-purple quality of someone struggling to draw breath; Ethan was glad that he’d decided to spring for color on the covers, it really brought the work to life. A blurb on the front said, ‘They’re Choking the Soul Out of Us!’

Ethan took five copies out of the briefcase and quickly relatched it again before anyone noticed. He flipped through one briefly, smiling with pride at his own art–every page had a drawing of a Girl, drawn with careful detail from the images Ethan found online. But these were the Girls as Ethan knew them, not the simpering images of pliable sex toys that populated all the fan forums that infested the Internet like ants at a picnic. These were the real Girls, soldiers of the corporate kakistocracy with their weapons of violence against the human spirit turned from metaphor to chilling reality.

Hope you enjoy them!

Business Business Business! (Is This Working?)

(This post has been brought to you by the efforts of my 57 unstintingly supportive Patrons! Visit my Patreon page to learn how to become one of them.)

I figured I would use this week’s blog post as an opportunity to share some of my plans for the next several months, because a) it’s kind of important and I wanted to get it out there, and b) I don’t have any other really good ideas right now and this gives me something to talk about. (Honesty is the best policy, right?)

First things first–good news, everybody! (Cue small explosion.) As of today, those fifty-seven Patrons mentioned above are giving a total of $100, which means we have officially hit a new milestone–as long as donations stay at this level or higher, you’re getting a caption every single day! If that’s not an incentive to keep pledging, I don’t know what is. (Because that’s literally an incentive to keep pledging. It’s the definition of the term.)

So now we can look to the future. And the future is…ebooks. I’ve been hesitant to get into doing ebooks on Smashwords, Amazon, et cetera not because I don’t like the idea, but because I’ve got to educate myself on it and learn how to format things and get covers done and that’s a pretty significant time commitment when I’m already writing and editing and releasing a story every week. But at this point, I’ve got a pretty significant backlog of work, and by the end of August I feel like it’s going to be enough that I can take a few weeks and teach myself how to be an ebook editor and not have it impact your lovely weekly dose of erotica. Which I’m sure you’ll agree is good.

The next step is figuring out how to get it out in a way that makes everybody happy. I have, as I see it, three sets of audiences that I have to keep entertained and satisfied. The first are the general public, folks who are going to be out there buying erotica and may or may not have heard of me, but who are willing to drop a buck or two on a short story to keep them entertained if it’s something new and interesting-sounding. The second are my fans, the folks who are really into my work and are already contributing via Patreon. And the third are casual readers, folks who like my work but not enough to pay money for it. I’d like to give something to everyone. So here’s what I’m thinking.

I’m thinking that over the next few months, I’m going to expand my Early Bird Rewards program from its current lead, which is five weeks ahead of the public release to Literotica and the EMCSA, to a full six months (twenty-four weeks ahead of the public release). So being one of my Early Birds gets you access to twenty-four exclusive stories for the cost of $8 a month. As I get better and more sophisticated at formatting, that will also include the ebooks.

I plan to release my ebooks from the six months of backlog beyond that (yes, I’m close to a year out in terms of my stories, what of it?) So folks who buy my ebooks will be buying stuff that won’t be released for free for a full year, and won’t be released to my Early Birds for six months. That way, Early Birds can buy the stories that they really can’t wait even a week for, but they’ll still be getting a lot for their money by contributing. And that $1000 milestone will become “day-and-date” release to Early Bird Patrons along with the release to Amazon/Smashwords/whoever.

And then the releases to Simon and Literotica will continue at the same pace, because I think that if you haven’t bought a story after a year, you probably weren’t going to pay money for it anyway and I might as well get some free advertising out of it.

This is my plan, as it currently stands–new releases as ebooks, six months later to Early Birds, six months after that for free to anyone who wants to read it, with a milestone available to get those ebooks into the hands of my Early Birds even quicker if there’s enough demand for it. I’d really like to hear what people have to say about this, though. If you want your opinion heard, please provide your point of view in the comments!

Early Bird Sneak Peek: “Just Dumb” (MC MF MD)!

Hi all! It’s time for another Early Bird Sneak Peek, where I share a glimpse at the story my lucky Early Bird patrons will be enjoying next Saturday thanks to their pledges at my Patreon page! Of course, if you’re not an Early Bird patron, you’ll still get a story next week–“Zombie Blood Nightmare”, teased previously as an Early Bird story, has already been submitted to the EMCSA. But the Early Bird patrons will be getting “Just Dumb”! (MC MD MF)

Eden is at her first hypnosis convention, and she’s trying out hypnosis with Lee to see what interests her. She’s not exactly into going completely blank, but she likes the idea of spending a little while as a giggly bimbo who has trouble thinking straight. Luckily, Lee knows just how to give her what she needs. Here’s a taste:

Lee’s eyes widened into understanding, and his face broke into a huge bearded grin. “Ohhh,” he said. “You want to be a bimbo!”

Eden’s jaw dropped. She sat there for a moment, stunned into silence not so much by the words as her own reaction to them. Actually, it was more like ‘reactions’, plural; her immediate response was a burst of anger at even an indirect or invited insult to her intelligence. Eden had a PhD in astrophysics and was working toward a second doctorate in particle physics. She knew from long, bitter experience that women with big breasts and blonde hair had to work twice as hard to prove their credentials. It could get so exhausting sometimes.

But at the same time, Eden felt a weird, transgressive thrill to the idea, a surge of arousal that went straight down her spine and grounded itself with a flash of arousal right between her thighs. It felt strangely appealing to take a break from that constant exhaustion, that continual defiance of expectations. It felt weirdly hot to give herself a respite from always having to ask if she was sounding dumb, acting dumb, slipping up, giving people an excuse to write her off. The idea of having permission to be forgetful and horny and flawed had a powerful appeal all of a sudden.

None of that came out in words, of course, but Eden felt like it was written all over her face as she asked hesitantly, “Can you…do that?”

Hope you enjoy it!

Liner Notes for May 2017

(This post has been brought to you by the efforts of my 56 unstintingly supportive Patrons! Visit my Patreon page to learn how to become one of them.)

We’re now officially past Memorial Day, so let’s take a look at the stories of the last month, shall we? As always, I’ll try to provide a little insight into my creative process that’s hopefully interesting to those who are interested, while not being too annoying to everyone else.

Quiver and Quake: This one started out as a hypnotic induction I used to help Goddess sleep one evening when She was having difficulties settling. (Sometimes I hypnotize in my role as a submissive. Don’t discount the importance of hypnosis as service.) She’s got a long-term interest in vulcanology and seismology, so I had Her picture Her thoughts being recorded on a seismometer, and then watching them settle into a steadier and shallower set of waves until they flattened into a line. She woke up the next morning thrilled with how well it worked, so when I saw the song title, “Quiver and Quake”, I knew that I would be able to make good use of it when I next needed an induction.

Soft Kitty Warm Kitty: This was a commission, part of the project to get Goddess and I to Charmed this year (so you can kind of imagine how far out my backlog is starting to extend). The brief was “romantic lesbian petplay”, so I knew that the hypnosis had to be consensual. I also knew that I wanted the petplay to be positively portrayed as a kink precisely because I don’t do many stories about it. I don’t want to write a story that inadvertently kinkshames someone’s favorite fetish.

Because of that, I wanted it to be about someone finally getting to realize their petplay fantasies, and I wanted it to feel like the beginning of a long and happy lesbian petplay relationship, so I kind of gravitated to the idea of two young women on their own for the first time. I think it kind of hit that sweet spot of “romantic but very sexy”, and I’m happy with it. (Oh yes, and the title came from doign a search of songlyrics.com, seeing the title, and thinking, “Oh, that’s so wrong. You know you have to…”)

Act Appalled: This one, as I recall, started with seeing the title and picturing a character acting very horrified and shocked and mortified and, well, appalled at the idea of someone who tried to use hypnosis to dominate another person, while secretly having an intense fetish for exactly that. The structure of the story followed pretty naturally–if you’re going to have someone sharing a shocking anecdote of their narrow escape from the clutches of an Evil Hypnotist (and yes, it is worth noting that Sue is an unreliable narrator, and may just be telling Allie what she wants to pretend happened that night and not what actually did) then you’re going to obviously intersperse it with the story of what did happen. And once you’re doing that, it only takes a little bit of pronoun caution to surprise people with the twist that the flashback is actually a flash-forward. Much easier than when “LOST” did it.

XOXOX: (Long one ahead.) This one started with me thinking about superheroes, because I’m an enormous nerd. In general, most of my superheroes draw the spark of inspiration from an existing character, although I really do try to reverse-engineer them into something original by stripping away the inspiration down to its archetypal elements and then trying to fill them in with something entirely new around that core. (Which is a fancy way of saying, “WildRose was inspired by the Huntress, but she really wound up more like ‘Guy Gardner’ as a lesbian vigilante’.”)

And so I was thinking about how DC has this wonderful dynamic of Batman and Superman as the ‘World’s Finest’, with Batgirl and Supergirl as a feminine version of them, and then Huntress and Power Girl as an Earth-Two version of Batgirl and Supergirl with very different approaches to crime-fighting from their Earth-One counterparts. And I was bouncing around an idea for an Adventure Girl/WildRose team-up, and that made me think, “Gosh, it’d be fun to do a character who’s the Power Girl to Adventure Girl’s Supergirl. Or for that matter a Batgirl to WildRose’s Huntress.” And I decided these two characters needed to be made, and quickly.

Eris was simple enough–Doctor Phobos is basically Batman meets Doctor Midnight, so it follows that he would have a Fear-Family of his very own. I wrote her as sort of Batgirl by way of Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, hyper-competent and organized but still with that inner core of very mild insecurity that kicks up her obsessive need to be ready for anything to new heights. She wants a 4.0 GPA in superheroing, basically.

Azure wound up a little bit more involved. I knew that I wanted her to be a superhero who was absolutely a pure physical dynamo, someone who would have no problems walking up to the biggest, baddest villain in the universe and absolutely throwing down with them. But I also knew she had to be vulnerable to toxins, because I was already settling on bringing back Sangria as the villain and I knew she would be vulnerable to control. I also wanted her to be someone who had no real interest in or patience for the dynamics of the superhero world–she was someone who had to be pried out of the bar or out of someone’s bed to go save the day. Even her superhero name was just going to be a name, something that could sound like a code-name but was really just who she was.

So I decided she was going to have the classic “tactile telekinesis” power, and she was going to be from a parallel universe where that was common. I gave her a fairly bleak backstory because I wanted her to have a reason for constantly being drunk and not being good at superheroics, rather than it just being something she doesn’t try hard at or care about. To me, she’s not an alcoholic per se; she’s self-medicating with alcohol to cope with massive survivor’s guilt that’s emotionally crippling her, which is very different in my mind. And yes, it did make her vulnerable to Sangria’s control, because she doesn’t want to think. She wants to be numb to her pain, and brainwashing offers that. It’s a very dangerous thing for someone so powerful.

With Sangria in place, I knew that meant setting it in Belgium, because I’d mentioned in my last story “Lips of an Angel” that she was last sighted there. I also knew that I wanted to end it with Eris very abruptly saving the day, so I gave her the rather glib and ill-explained “immune to all toxins” power (which I’m already thinking about expanding upon in a future story, because if you’re immune to all drugs and toxins, what do you do if you need antibiotics or anesthetics or whatever? I’ve got an answer, and I think it makes her very valuable to the right set of villains, so you’ll see that come up again.) And obviously Sangria loves controlling strong, powerful women and needs the advantage of surprise, so she set a trap for them, which is where the letter and the “XOXOX” came in. (I was actually kind of spoiled for choice; there are songs titled “XOX”, “XOXO”, “XOXOX”, and “XOXOXO”.) And once I knew who all the characters were, what they wanted, and how they would try to achieve it, the story really fell into place quite naturally. And was very popular, which is always a good thing.

And that’s May in the books! See you next week with a new post and next month with some more Liner Notes!

Early Bird Sneak Peek: “King Pleasure Time”!

Hi all! It’s time for another Early Bird Sneak Peek, where I share a glimpse at the story my lucky Early Bird patrons will be enjoying next Saturday thanks to their pledges at my Patreon page! Of course, if you’re not an Early Bird patron, you’ll still get a story next week–“Worst Case Scenario”, teased previously as an Early Bird story, has already been submitted to the EMCSA. But the Early Bird patrons will be getting “King Pleasure Time”! (MC MA)

There’s a new sex toy on the market, and the most unusual thing about it is the advertising campaign–King Pleasure is getting ads on the radio, on television, and even on billboards. One woman thinks that’s unusual, but even she’s having difficulty resisting the urge to give herself a little “King Pleasure time”…here’s a taste.

Caitlin choked back a gasp of surprise and stared down at the radio, her brown eyes widening in shock. On her morning commute, it would have been merely inappropriate; the Chucklenutz Morning Crew frequently used the kind of crude humor that made her change the station as soon as the morning traffic report was over. But this was Hannah Gates, the afternoon DJ. She stuck to weather, traffic, a few headlines, and a little trivia every now and again about the songs she played. She didn’t do fake ads.

But she had to be doing one now. “That’s King Pleasure, the official vibrator of Station KTRK, the station that never stops! Only King Pleasure Vibrators give you the deep pleasure you deserve whenever you need it. At work, at home, or on the go–anytime is King Pleasure Time!” Caitlin’s eyes widened in astonishment as an unmistakable buzzing sound filled her car, followed by a breathy moan that Caitlin had never heard out of Hannah Gates before. She wasn’t really–on the air–she couldn’t be–

A sudden flare of red light out of the corner of her eye forced Caitlin’s attention back onto the road, and she slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid hitting the car in front of her. Oblivious to her near-collision, the DJ on the radio moaned louder and louder until her voice melted into a hoarse, breathy whimper that trailed off into silence. Then the buzzing grew louder again. Then it stopped. “King Pleasure,” Hannah sighed, sounding decidedly post-coital. “Find one at a store near you.”

Hope you enjoy it!