Liner Notes for April 2019

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It looks like the end of another month is upon us, and everyone knows what that means – it’s time for another Liner Notes! (Well, probably not everyone. There are probably plenty of folks who don’t even have an Internet connection, for example. But, you know. You. And some other people with similar interests. Look, it’s not important. Let’s just get on with it, okay? Okay.)

You Broke Like Glass: When I saw this title, I instantly imagined a Sinister Hypnotist confidently telling their latest victim that their resistance had already been overcome so easily once that it wasn’t going to be a problem to break their will again. But on thinking about it, I thought that it might make a more interesting story if that was the lie, and they were really trying to gaslight their victim into thinking they’d been hypnotized before so that they didn’t put up any resistance to what they believed was a reinduction. It was a little tricky to make clear in the story, since obviously the victim would believe they hadn’t been hypnotized either way, but I like to think that there are enough clues to make it clear to a discerning reader.

It’s also another one of my M/M efforts. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m trying to do those every so often for those people out there who want to see gay male hypno-content. There traditionally hasn’t been a lot of overlap between gay men and other sexualities in the hypnokink community for some reason, and I’m hoping that maybe there’s some benefit to blurring that bright line just a little.

S.O.S.: This one’s a little… complicated. I was thinking about doing another superhero story, but I didn’t really have anything in particular in mind; I just knew it had been a while since I’d done one, and I was randomly brainstorming while looking at song titles. And when I saw “S.O.S.”, I thought that maybe it was going to be an acronym that meant something different than people usually meant by that kind of thing. Which led me down the trail of word puzzles, and it occurred to me that it would be kind of neat if someone was hiding “S.O.S.” as a message in their speech by speaking in word puzzles. And why would they do that? Well, because they’d been brainwashed and this was the only way they could reveal their secrets.

That, in turn, led me back to this piece, which I’d written some time earlier on my Tumblr page. I’ve said in the past that I really don’t like letting the bad guys win in my superhero stories, both because superheroic fiction is to me a fundamentally optimistic genre about things turning out better than they do in real life and because it’s easier to brainwash the same hero twice than to come up with a whole new superhero to enslave for the second story. So this flash story nagged away at me, and when I had to have a brainwashed superhero show up speaking in a weird code that Sharpe had to decipher at the last moment, it kind of clicked together.

I don’t think it’s my sexiest superhero story, but I like the plotting and I like that Doctor Null feels like a real threat. And I like Shadowstryke, enough that she wound up showing up in the next Shadowstryke and Sharpe story as a third in what’s becoming a polyamorous triad. Which is good, because they’re going to need allies…

Dolly Dagger: This was blatantly inspired by descriptions of an old horror film from the thirties called “White Zombie”, starring Bela Lugosi. I read about it in a book on zombie cinema, and the author vividly described a confrontation between Lugosi’s Murder (that’s his character’s actual first name, Murder – clearly his parents had a pretty good idea of how he was going to turn out) and a secondary, repentant villain. Murder carves a “voodoo doll” of the other man as they’re arguing, and it saps his will and transforms him into a zombie as the scene plays out.

I liked the idea of it, but I’ve grown less and less comfortable with the idea of actually putting voodoo in my stories; I did it once, in an old story of mine called “Zombie” about arrogant white people treating someone’s religion like a superstition to their eventual downfall, but I didn’t feel like I could make it work in this context and it seemed very rude to try. So instead I made a nod to the inspirations involved, but made it a very different magic and a very different magician. Similar outcome, though. Don’t mess with mind controllers, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

Just Like Christmas: This was one of those ones that flowed pretty smoothly from concept to execution. I saw the title and immediately pictured a hypnotist having a chance encounter with someone sexy and unexpectedly hypnokinky, and naturally the obvious way for that to happen would be for them to already be doing some light public play with their existing partner when the potential third person stumbles on the two of them together. Which meant that it was going to be a threesome, which is definitely the fantasy of lots of people in all kinds of kink and even relatively vanilla sex.

It felt really obvious that it should be genuinely consensual and respectful pretty much off the bat; after all, the whole point of this was that Duchess was getting something amazing dropped right into her lap, someone who was absolutely gagging for both hypnosis and lesbian sex. With that going on, why fuck with dubcon? So I made a pointed effort to spell out the negotiation rather than just leaving it to the imagination, and I think the story is stronger for it. Everyone involved feels like a real person, and that makes me very happy – this is one of those stories that I feel has amazingly positive representation, with a butch black lesbian as the protagonist who’s also a college student and a thoughtful, loving Dominant. I hope someone out there sees this and thinks, “Oh, that could be me!” And goes out and does hot, good, kinky things to someone they love.

And that’s a good note to close on – see you next week for another blog post, and next month for another Liner Notes!

Early Bird Sneak Peek: “Before I Forget”!

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–“Just Like Christmas”, teased previously as an Early Bird story, has already been submitted to the EMCSA. But the Early Bird patrons will be getting “Before I Forget” (MC FF)!

Vicki’s got a problem. She’s just learned that her roommate Holly has dosed her with a drug that will make her blank and obedient and susceptible to suggestions, and that Holly plans to brainwash her and make her forget it ever happened. Just like all the other times. So Vicki’s doing the only thing she can – she’s writing a note to remind herself that it happened. Here’s a taste:

The point is, this stuff, the rosoxitride, it’s like roofies but on steroids. No, wait. That would knock you out and make you really strong at the same time. I guess it’s just like regular roofies, but it doesn’t knock you out all the way? You just kind of go into this, this empty place in your head where you know what’s happening but you can’t really think about it at all. So Holly comes into the room–she’s not here right now, she told me she was going to give me some time to think about what she said but she was laughing like fucking Lex Luthor when she said it and I think she just did it to be mean–after the thingamazine has kicked in each time, and she finds me, like, lolled out on the couch with nothing in my head.

And she fills it. Every time. She told me this, me, this isn’t some bullshit I’m making up while I’m on drugs. I don’t even take drugs, and you know that because you’re me and I wouldn’t lie to me because what would be the point? Holly comes in while I’m doped up on kaloxamide and she slides in behind me on the couch and she shoves her hand down my skirt. And she talks to me and she fucks me for, like, hours, just banging my pussy with her fingers until I’m all creamy and wet, and she tells me that I trust her and that I believe everything she tells me and that all I want to do with my life is make her happy.

Oh, and she tells me to forget what she told me. I mean, she told me she tells me to forget what she told me. I suppose she could be lying, but if she was, I’d remember, right? (No, really, me. I’m asking. I just wasted, like, five minutes drawing a flowchart on the back of this note. If you figure this out, write me back. Or, um, don’t, because you’re me and you’ll just know. Fuck, I’m getting woozled right now.)

Hope you enjoy it!

It’s Okay If It Doesn’t Work Out

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Every once in a while, I like to restate things that are kind of obvious. It’s not because I think they’re obvious to everyone but me, or anything like that; it’s mostly because it’s good to hear your opinions validated by an independent source. You’re smart and have good judgment, as is made clear by the fact that you’re reading my blog, and you deserve to hear that the things you think aren’t just obvious to you. Especially when, well… sometimes you can look around and see people doing something different. Even though it’s obviously a mistake to you.

So. This week’s obvious statement is a pretty simple one: Bad play is worse than no play at all. It’s one of those statements that feels very obvious when you’re having good fun sexy times with a partner who you trust and who makes you happy, but significantly less obvious when that situation changes and you’re not having regular scenes in whatever your particular kink is. When you’ve got that need itching away, waiting to be scratched, it’s not always easy to remember that bad play is worse than no play at all.

But that’s kind of when it’s most important to remember. Because there are always going to be opportunities out there for bad play. There are always going to be toxic people in the scene, despite everyone’s best efforts to minimize that, and even people who aren’t toxic are not always going to be a good fit with you. Maybe their particular kink is going to be beyond your hard limits, maybe they’re mostly into a sub-fetish you’ve tried and not enjoyed, maybe they want to get more invested in a relationship than you’re ready for or maybe they want to keep things more casual than you’re really capable of… all sorts of things can make a person a bad choice for your next play partner.

And that’s okay. It is okay if the result of a scene negotiation is a recognition that the scene you two would have together would be unsatisfying, or even actively unpleasant. It’s okay to recognize that your needs are too different for compromise – compromise is fine, it’s great, it happens in just about every kinky relationship because no two people have exactly the same fetishes and sub-fetishes and play styles and modalities and love languages and god, human beings are complicated – but if the distance is too far to bridge, it is genuinely better to realize that and not do the scene than it is to do things that make you unhappy and uncomfortable in an effort to scratch that itch.

I get it. It sucks sometimes when you want to do a thing and it’s not happening. But you don’t want to get so caught up in finding a way to make the thing happen that you ignore any danger signals your brain is sending you and jump into a scene that will give you painful and unhappy memories. Those are worse than frustration. Be patient, make friends in the community and get to know people, and sooner or later you’ll find someone who has all the right vibes. And even if you don’t, at least you won’t wind up doing something you hate.

Bad play is worse than no play at all. It’s sometimes easier in principle than in practice, but it’s always true.

Early Bird Sneak Peek: “Fade Into the Background”!

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–“Dolly Dagger”, teased previously as an Early Bird story, has already been submitted to the EMCSA. But the Early Bird patrons will be getting “Fade Into the Background” (MC)!

I’ve decided to start doing something a little different with my induction pieces – I’ve always been very proud of the creative imagery involved, but I kind of felt like they didn’t have much of a goal beyond simply “get the person into trance in a sexy way”. This is the first induction piece that attempts to do more. There are specific suggestions in this, outlined in the first paragraph so that anyone not interested can decide not to read, which are aimed at making the subject more susceptible to hypnotic suggestion and to entering a trance state. Here’s a taste:

“The goal of today’s trance is to make it easier for you to enter a hypnotic state whenever you feel safe and comfortable doing so, and to make it easier for you to accept suggestions while in that hypnotic state. There are no specific hypnotic triggers I’m asking you to accept–we’re going to train your subconscious mind to recognize situations that are invitations to experience trance, and to prompt your conscious mind to enter trance when those situations occur. This is more flexible and open-ended than a trance trigger, and may result in you entering trance states unexpectedly or absorbing suggestions more readily… although, again, only when it is safe and comfortable for you to do so.

“Although there are points in this session where you may be encouraged to pay less conscious attention to the hypnotist, there are no direct amnesia suggestions incorporated into this session, and no suggestions or triggers that are intended to be forgotten after the session is over. Even so, spontaneous amnesia does happen to some people during hypnosis, so you may find yourself experiencing difficulty recalling details of the trance experience. If you enjoy forgetting your trances, your mind is going to work to make that happen. You have permission to remember or to forget as much of this session as you want–again, within the boundaries of what is safe and comfortable for you.

“This session contains open-ended, permissive instructions to disrobe and masturbate. If you believe you will have difficulty resisting these instructions, please wait until you have some privacy to begin. If you do not feel safe or comfortable following any of the described suggestions or instructions, this would be a good place for you to stop. Otherwise, please get comfortable for me so that we can begin.

I hope you enjoy it!

Is It Hypnosis? – Part Seventeen

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It’s that time again, when I look back at some of my old stories that feature what purports to be real hypnosis (as opposed to magic, drugs, telepathy, mind control rays, or sinister feng shui that turns women into lesbians) and examine them for plausibility and application to the real world. Again, there’s nothing wrong with a hypnosis fantasy that does things that only can be done (or should be done) in fantasy; that’s what fantasies are for, after all. But it’s always interesting to know which of your fantasies you could genuinely experience if you wanted. Let’s begin, shall we?

Come Together: This isn’t just plausible and ethical; it’s more or less a pretty straightforward primer on how to achieve this kind of hypnotic conditioning in real life. Everything has pretty clearly been negotiated Sasha, Julia and Valerie, the two submissives are entering into a consensual trance, and Sasha is using their rapport as hypnotized subjects to put them into a state of mind where they can each very vividly imagine what the other is feeling. Positive association makes the mind very ready to accept the suggestion, and the ending of the story suggests that Sasha is going to reinforce it very frequently and… ahem. Vigorously. All in all, this is just pretty much three very nice people having consensual hypno-kinky times, and I think anyone who wants to try it and can find enthusiastic partners for it should go for it.

Too Late for Love: This is definitely very realistic; Irene isn’t really doing anything to Simon except for a very basic induction that takes advantage of his exhaustion and conditioned response to hypnotic cues to trance him and fuck him. (The ‘hypnotic cue’ thing is something long-time partners experience a lot; when you’re used to going into trance for someone, you don’t necessarily need a formal trigger or even an induction. All you need is a clear sign that the hypnotist wants you to go under, and your mind – which already knows perfectly well how to go into a hypnotic state – will do the rest.)

As to consent… it definitely relies pretty heavily on the assumption that both parties know each other well enough to know that Simon’s ‘no’ is genuinely just a concession to the practical realities of his physical exhaustion, and that he’s perfectly willing to let her shut down his mind and steer his semi-conscious body so long as he doesn’t have to make an effort to think any more that evening. It’s definitely something I wouldn’t try with a partner of mine, because I feel like the dynamic of a guy pushing a woman for sex is awkward and uncomfortable, but it is very much a YMMV situation and I know some people for whom it would be very consensual play. (I also acknowledge, though, that you could read it very differently if you wanted to.)

Ladybug Waltz: I hesitated to include this one, because it’s very much written in such a way to make you question the reality of the events the narrator is experiencing. But I decided that ultimately, the story points pretty strongly to the idea that the main character has been hypnotized by Chantal, that the trance includes suggestions to believe that everything that’s happening to her is a dream, and that she therefore has a lot of her conscious resistance suborned by the belief that none of this is real.

Which… no, I don’t think that’s possible. I don’t think you could get someone that deep using covert hypnosis, I don’t think you could get someone that suggestible without conscious buy-in, and I think that ultimately the person would wake if you tried to do what Possibly Chantal did. (And of course, I strongly recommend against testing any of this, because OMG so unethical and creepy!) This one sits pretty firmly in the realm of the fantastic, where it belongs.

Heart Shaped Box: This story was another one of those ones that I wasn’t 100% sure Simon would accept when I first posted it; it floats in that nebulous realm between hypnosis and seduction, where it’s very hard to say how much of Emily’s reaction is a trance state of relaxation, pleasure and focus on Krystelle’s pussy and how much is just Emily absolutely gagging for lesbian sex. Certainly I’d say that there’s enough similarities between seduction and hypnosis; both of them involve drawing the subject’s attention to one and only one thing, and both of them involve getting the subject to tune out the parts of their mind that are distracting to the desired outcome. (And arguably, both of them work so much better if the subject wants that outcome too.)

Certainly I think that Krystelle knows what she’s doing, even if she thinks of it as “seduction” and not “hypnosis”, and I think she’s aware that Emily is very receptive to what she’s offering. Emily’s objections are all grounded in “What would other people think of me if I did this?”, and while I’d say in the real world that means it’s time to have a conversation about wants and needs and expectations, in a fantasy it’s okay to just say, “Shut up and keep staring at my cunt.”

Joy to the World: As with a few of these gentle femdom stories, this one isn’t so much “plausible” as “100% a real thing that happened with a few of the details changed to ensure a proper dramatic flow”. It wasn’t a cat that needed to be picked up from the vet, and we embellished a bit what happened afterward, but the hypnosis was very real, happened more or less as described, and was entirely consensual (as were the planted triggers). I think, given my co-author, that you can guess who was involved with the other end of things. And I’m pretty sure She would say that Lynn’s point of view was presented equally accurately.

And that’s all for this installment – join me next week for another blog post!

Early Bird Sneak Peek: “Jennifer Lost the War”!

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–“S.O.S.”, teased previously as an Early Bird story, has already been submitted to the EMCSA. But the Early Bird patrons will be getting “Jennifer Lost the War” (MC FF MA)!

Officer Shelly Kittridge knew that something was wrong with Jennifer. Her old friend’s sudden change in sexual orientation, her clumsy and insistent attempts to seduce Shelly, her strange texts and odd behavior… it seemed almost like the person she knew had disappeared. Tonight, she finds out how very right she was. And how very wrong. Here’s a taste:

I wasn’t surprised to find Jennifer in my living room. I wasn’t even surprised to find her dressed in skimpy lingerie; she’d made it pretty clear in our last conversation that she wanted me to be her first time with a woman, and I didn’t think she’d stopped by to apologize for making unwarranted assumptions about my sexuality. I knew she was here to try to convince me that I was ‘really’ gay, or bisexual, or whatever she’d decided she was after thirty-two years of being happily straight, and I knew Jen well enough to know how she went after someone she had the hots for. It didn’t involve a lot of subtlety.

But… Jennifer didn’t look like she was there to seduce me. She looked like she didn’t even notice that I was there. She didn’t react to the door closing behind me at all. She just slumped down in my favorite chair like she was trying to use the seat as a mattress, her legs spread wide and her cooch sticking out off the edge and a huge fuck-off vibrator sticking out of her cooch. Her eyes were half-open, just the whites showing, and she was drooling and mumbling like a junkie on the edge of nodding off.

I stood in the doorway for what felt like a solid minute, trying to fit my head around what I was seeing. I came in expecting to see Jen sitting on the couch or something, not… not fucking herself senseless with my goddamn vibrator like I wasn’t even there, soaked in sweat and babbling incoherently. Even after the weird, insistent way she hit on me last week, even after all the crazy passive-aggressive texts she left me… this felt messed up. For the first time, I wondered if she had a drug problem or a nervous breakdown or something. I approached her carefully, my hands itching to do something stupid like pull out my gun. “Jen?” I asked her, not liking the tentative sound in my voice. “Jen, you in there? It’s me, Shelly.”

She didn’t respond. At all. Her eyelids fluttered a little, but I couldn’t tell if that was because of me or if she was just getting a lot out of the big rocket between her legs. Her fingers didn’t stop teasing her nipples through the sheer, clinging fabric of her camisole, and she kept muttering like she didn’t even notice I was there. This close, I could make out some of what she was saying–it was some sort of nonsense chant, something about, “…guh luh fkk toy fuh mss morra, mma guh luh fkk toy fuh mss morra…” I couldn’t make it out, she was slurring the words so badly, but I could tell it was the same thing every time. I leaned in a little closer, trying to make out the words….

Hope you enjoy it!

Relevant to Our Interest: “The Magicians: The Rattening”

(This post has been brought to you by the efforts of my 107 consistently brilliant Patrons! Visit my Patreon page to learn how to become one of them.)

Had something of a long and exhausting week, so I’m not going to dive into anything too heavy today. Instead, I thought I’d direct your opinion to something genuinely well done that manages to nicely straddle the line between ‘hot’ and ‘creepy’ in the mind control genre that I saw this week, Episode 11 of Season Two of ‘The Magicians’. (The episode is called “The Rattening”, but the rat part is entirely tangential and doesn’t really relate to the squicky-hot mind control thing.)

(Trigger warning for rape – not in the actual episode, but it’s impossible to discuss the episode without mentioning it.)

Early Bird Sneak Peek: “Naked in Front of the Computer”!

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–“You Broke Like Glass”, teased previously as an Early Bird story, has already been submitted to the EMCSA. But the Early Bird patrons will be getting “Naked in Front of the Computer” (MC MF MD MA)!

Niusha’s decided that maybe it’s not such a good idea to spend another night alone in her apartment, playing with herself while staring into the brainwashing spirals of The Guiding Dark’s erotic hypnosis site. She thinks that maybe she’s getting a little bit too into the constant mantras of obedience and surrender, that it might be having more of an effect on her than she realizes. She’s determined to take a night off.

Yeah. That’s going to go well. Here’s a taste:

Niusha opened up her web browser, and her breath caught in her throat for a moment as she saw the familiar spiral begin to unwind in front of her. She heard herself begin to murmur something in bewilderment, but the grunt of confused astonishment died on her lips before it ever became words. This wasn’t–she didn’t–she hadn’t even done anything, Niusha thought to herself. She hadn’t typed anything or clicked anything or, or… how did she get here? How did her computer know that she was thinking about The Guiding Dark? (Which she wasn’t, not really, but maybe just a little but that didn’t mean it was having an effect or anything.)

She stared automatically into the depths of the spiral, watching the colors twist and whirl as she tried to figure out how she wound up here. She had a vague memory last night–all her memories from last night after nine o’clock were kind of vague, which was part of the problem and one of the reasons why she really wasn’t planning on staying on the site once she figured out how she got here in the first place. But she had a very vague memory of clicking through some settings in her browser. It didn’t seem like a big deal to Niusha at the time, because she was… kind of in the moment, she thought with a blush that turned her tawny skin a warm shade of copper. But maybe she’d done something without thinking?

Hope you enjoy it!