Compliance and Acquisition: My First Erotic Mind Control Story

October 7, 2020

It does seem strange to think that this is the first. But, in fifteen years of writing captions to go with my photos and videos, I’ve never written anything that feels (to me) like a complete narrative. But, that all changed this past weekend with my first ever entry on The Erotic Mind Control Story Archive.

The first two chapters are up now and the next two have already been mailed off to Simon for inclusion in this week’s update. Please go give it a read and by all means let me know what you think! I’m very curious how people respond to my words without the customary images that normally go with them.

Casting Characters

As I was browsing the MCforum, I spotted this really interesting thread about casting actors and adult performers in stories that you’re writing or reading. Its a really timely topic for me, personally, as I did exactly that with this story.

Since it originated as a photo manip idea, Pleasure Professionals, I had always thought of certain characters as the adult performers in the pics. Other characters that got added later were also, at least in my mind, based on other adult models and performers.

I suppose it’s somewhat second nature for me to do that sort thing, given that I’m almost always working from visual media. But I found it really helped my process to have such a clear idea of the what the characters looked like and how they might sound or behave.

Its very neat to see authors and readers talking about doing the same thing.

I’ll be back with more insight next week after the next couple of chapters are posted to The Archive. Do let me know what you think if you’ve had an opportunity to give it a read!

Catching Up With Callidus Sept 30 2020

September 30, 2020

Greetings dear reader!

As usual, I know it has been a spell since I’ve written here. Partially, that’s been because I’ve been quite busy as of late. But, also, because I have a few things that have been coalescing and I wanted to hold off on speaking with you until I had some news to share. And now I do!

Decisive Sequel

First, to follow up on something I teased you with a few months ago, Tabico and I have started trading emails relating to the sequel for Decisive Results. It’s very early right now, there’s an outline for the story that we are discussing.

I’ve been gathering assets for this project for quite a while. If things go the way I hope they do, we will actually be able to tell even more of the story in video this time around. Having said that, I have been having fun recently creating an updated version of the mysterious Ms R’s Spartan OS desktop that will be making a return. It’s been fun imagining how that fictitious software would have evolved the way our real world equivalents have in the time since.

Mostly, I’ve been contemplating how to speed up the creation of those desktop animation sequences. Those were, by far, the most time consuming parts of Decisive Results. I think I have formulated some strategies that will allow me to execute those bits of this new story in a fraction of the time. Hopefully, that will translate to a much more rapid journey from written script to finished video.

Breadcrumbs

I am continuing to work on the next installment of Breadcrumbs. I wrote a complete outline for that story sometime ago but, recently, I’ve located some really fun and tantalizing images and video that might work their way in. So, right now I’m just pouring over those things and trying to think of how and where they might fit into the overall story I laid out for myself. Stay tuned on that, I’m looking forward to sharing more of that adventure!

Pleasure Professionals

Lastly, after years in development I’m very happy to announce that The project I have, until now, been referring to as Pleasure Professionals is complete… kinda.

This is going to be somewhat of a long story and I will hold off on telling it in it’s entirety for a future post. What it boils down to is this: I originally set out to write a fun story around a very fun image that I had in my stash. I worked up something like five or six drafts of that story but was just never able to go anywhere with it.

But, along the way, I collected enough pieces of ideas and characters that I just couldn’t abandon it entirely. I eventually sat down with a blank page and started from scratch, this time, with a new goal. I let go of the image that had inspired the story to begin with and set myself free to write whatever I wanted to. Without any consideration for how, or even if, the manipulated photos and videos I typically create would work into the story.

And I wrote, and wrote and wrote. And, I didn’t finish writing until about thirty minutes ago. It’s finished. And, it’s something I’ve never created before: an honest to goodness erotic mind control short story. Complete with a beginning, middle and end as well as characters, subplots and a fair amount of suspense. I guess, technically since it’s more than 36,000 words, it could be considered a novella.

The title is Compliance and Acquisition and the synopsis goes a little something like this:

A young submissive personal assistant helps her mistress navigate an insidious corporate conspiracy.

I’m very pleased with the end result. It has challenged me like nothing else in recent memory. However it is eventually received I will always be proud that it represents the absolute bleeding edge of my talent and ability at this point.

But, as I think about how it will be received it’s a sort of bittersweet feeling. For the past fifteen years, my focus has been creating erotic mind control art. And, for more than a decade now this website has been the gallery through which I’ve shared my creations. Now, I have created something that I think is much more suited to the Erotic Mind Control Story Archive than my own site.

For sometime now, I’ve had the ambition to write some thing that I felt was worth sending to Simon to be posted on The Archive. I’m definitely going to have the story posted there. As for posting it here, on my own site, I’m still giving it some thought.

There are some technical challenges that would be involved. Without getting too far into the weeds, the back end of my website is very bespoke at this point and it’s been designed around creating my more traditional short works with captioned photos and videos. Doing long-form, multi-chapter fare like this new story is going to require a bit of retooling.

I know that many of you are going to be delighted to read something like this from me. I also know that some of you are going to be disappointed that it’s not going to have my usual erotic visual creations to accompany it. Other than a possible “book cover” kind of image.

Truth be told, I’m a bit disappointed myself. I think, throughout the process, I quietly told myself that when I got to the end I’d be able to find someway to pull in images and make them work. But, now that it’s finished I see that I really have no way of doing that without those images doing a disservice to the story. The key moments, the erotic moments… I simply don’t have photos to bring those moments to life. Ultimately, anything I could craft would feel like an afterthought. Manipulations tacked on at the end to make the story conform to my typical style of work.

And, I guess it just boils down to… I don’t want to do that.

So, with those caveats out of the way, I’m very happy to announce that the first couple chapters of Compliance and Acquisition will be on their way to Simon just as soon as I can get them formatted and emailed!

Here We Go Again… Again

I also want to say that i’ve got plenty of other irons in the fire right now. Juicy, sultry and, most definitely, visual irons. 😉

Although I didn’t make any noise about this, for the past five months I’ve been living under the shadow of losing my employment (again). In fact, I was informed earlier this year that this week was going to be my last at work. Happily, I have dodged that bullet again.

And so, I am making up for lost time. I am very eager to get some new stuff posted here between now and the end of the year. Thank you for reading and for all your years of support! I’ll see you all again soon.

-Callidus

New Series: Breadcrumbs… Part 1?!

August 6, 2020

Yes, you read that right. I’m trying something a bit new this time.

Welcome back dear readers!

I have got a few balls in the air right now but this series is one I’ve been tinkering on, quietly, for a little while now and rather than make you all wait until I was finished to read the whole torrid affair… I thought I’d try my hand at an EMCSA style rollout.

So, today is part 1 of a story I’ll be adding to in the future. I’m not sure what the schedule for future parts will be just yet but I have the whole tale mapped out so it will mostly come down to how quickly I can create images to go with the words.

Speaking of trying new things, this story is my very first foray into the venerable hive-infiltration genre of EMC fiction! That seems impossible given that I love those stories as much as I do and yet I’ve only hinted at that in my own work exactly once prior.

The eagle-eyed among you might be able to recall, or track down, the previous manip I’m hinting at. If so… congratulations it now has become part of the canon of this new story and also hints at the events we’ll see in future updates.

I’ve had tremendous fun putting this together. I mean brainwashing gasmasks… what’s not to love? In any case, I’ll look forward to rolling out updates to this story as my work progresses and I’ll certainly be interested to see what you all think of it.

Thanks for reading and, as always, your questions, comments and suggestions are welcome!

Breadcrumbs

A team of highly-trained women try to regroup after their incursion into the hive goes horribly wrong.

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Quick Update – New Photo Story

July 16, 2020

Hi all!

Just checking in with the briefest of notes to let you all know I’ve just posted a new photo story to the Gallery!

A very short and sweet job this time. Fun black-and-white photo and a spicy bit of prose to go with it. A very fun (and unexpected) diversion for me this evening and I hope you as well!

See you next time!

Yes What?

A Domme deals with a first-time client who has difficulty giving up control.

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Playing Catch Up

June 3, 2020

So, this post has been something I’ve been working up to. Firstly, I want to thank everyone who commented and encouraged me to chime in with some news and, especially, those who reached out via email to check in on me or just to wish me well. That was exceptionally thoughtful of you and I deeply appreciate all of the interest.

So, for those who have asked, I’m doing well. I realize its been over six months since my last post but stuff got busy and then stuff got a tad pandemic and then… well you get the idea. The bottom line is that I just haven’t felt all that creative these past few months. So, I checked in on the site every now and then but being here was a reminder of what I wasn’t doing (creating) and it became a depressing kind of thing for me.

But, lately, I’ve been chatting with friends and stuff and ideas have started to simmer in my mind once again. In fact, just last night, I wrote an outline for a project that I’ve had in the back of my mind for years. A follow up to Decisive Results. I’ve had a video clip forever and a day that I always knew would be golden for a similar kind of story but I just never had a flash of inspiration as to what that story would be… until about a week ago.

Suddenly, the floodgates opened and I began to see where I could take things. So, last night I took all the ideas I’d been playing with and jotted down some notes. Its the earliest of early stages, but I’m excited by the prospect of revisiting those characters and that world again.

So that’s it, I just wanted to check in and let you, dear reader, know what’s been going on. I hope you and yours are safe and healthy.

All the best.

-Callidus

The Black Room 21 – Uzobono Interview

October 29, 2019

Welcome back true believers!

This is a day I’ve really been looking forward to. After 20 episodes of the The Black Room podcast, today, Madam Kistulot and I get to devote an entire episode to one of our favorite artists and her brilliant art.

Possibly the most talented 3D artist in the erotic mind control scene, Uzobono has distinguished herself not just with her mastery of Poser but also with her keen sense of visual storytelling. Her 3D comics feature a depth of narrative and sophistication of aesthetic that remains in a class of its own.

In The Black Room #21, we spend over an hour listening to this master-of-her-medium talk about her influences, her background and her incomparable work. Madam Kistulot and I are very pleased to bring you our interview with 3D artist and writer extraordinaire: Uzobono!

The Black Room – Episode 021

We spend this entire episode interviewing one of our favorite artists ever: the legendary and prolific Poser artist Uzobono! We chat about her tremendous erotic mind control comics The Division as well as her ongoing comic-collaboration with Tabico: CORE! Note that the audio version of the show has been truncated slightly. Due to some technical problems, two of Uzobono's answers are very difficult to make out so they've been cut from the audio file. The YouTube video has the full interview with all the chat transcribed. Just turn on subtitles to read along through those difficult-to-understand sections.

Listen Now

New Animation: Positive Protocol

October 3, 2019

Welcome back true believers!

I’m preparing another post to update you on Pleasure Professionals (short version: its coming along nicely), but right now I have a brand new animation to share! Today’s addition to the gallery is called Positive Protocol and I do hope you go enjoy it before you read on for my director’s commentary!

This little gem comes to us by way of bdsmlr. I loved the source image the instant I stumbled across it. The sensuous quality of the photo, the lighting and the profound suitability for twisting into one of my manipulations put this picture somewhere in the top-ten-photo-finds of my manipping career. I live to come across jewels like this one.

The manipulation was very straightforward all things considered. Just a touch of photoshop to get the seated woman facing the screen, instead of the camera. And, again, to get her cuffed to her chair rather than simply holding on. Then, it was down to creating some content to fill this enormous window that would soon become an insidious mind control screen.

When I sat down to write the story, the only idea I had going in was that the caption would start and end with the same line of dialog and that it would, somehow, be very ironic as a result. A few paragraphs in, I had the idea that this very complimentary approach The Director was taking with her subject was just another level of mind fuck. One that she’d repeat with the woman in the chamber down the hall in the closing line. It was a fun idea and it, like the image, really come together quite quickly. At least by my current standards 😉

I think, there’s an undercurrent of gaslighting and love bombing that runs through a lot of erotic mind control fiction and I was certainly zeroing in on those vibes. There’s a very creepy quality to someone showing that sort of affection and encouragement within the context of this traumatic ordeal they’re subjecting someone to. I don’t think I’ve explored that area very much in my work so it was a nice departure in that regard.

And, that’s it. I do hope you enjoyed and, as always, your comments, questions and suggestions are welcome!

See you next time.

Positive Protocol

Miss Jenson's brainwashing is coming along very nicely. The Director says so...

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Catching Up With Callidus – September 17th, 2019

September 18, 2019

Greetings all,

It’s another week of reading and writing. LOTS of writing, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

First up, there’s new stuff you should be reading if you haven’t already. connie k posted the first part of a new story with the update two weekends ago. The synopsis for The Spiral Girl goes a little something like this:

An unscrupulous hypnotist recounts his fateful meeting with a new subject, and how his plans spiral out of control.

The promise of where the first part leaves off is really tasty. I’m so eager to see where connie takes us in part two. Which, happily enough, connie has informed me will be going up to The Archive this weekend! It will be listed as a separate story called The Spiral Boy, similar to her Four Women / Five Women story.

Be on the lookout for it this Saturday evening!

If you’re a patron of Uzobono’s then you’ve already heard the news: good and bad. The bad news is that CORE 14 isn’t going to make it into our hands until late October instead of late September as Uzo had originally hoped.

The good news, is that Uzo has released a mini comic this weekend to tide us over! Its available to her patrons as well visitors to her Deviant Art page. Its not related to the CORE/Division canon but… well I won’t spoil it. Its loads of fun particularly if you’re a gamer who’s familiar with a certain big-budget sci-fi series from a few years back.

Its terrific fun and a great consolation prize for the unfortunate news that our next taste of CORE is still about six weeks away.

*sigh*

What about the writing? Well, there’s loads of it happening. LOADS.

How much is that exactly? Well, I’m not exaggerating in the least when I tell you that I’ve had a little trouble with some repetitive stress pain in my right thumb. Before you perverts go making jokes, let me explain!

As I’ve mentioned prior, my free time is in short supply right now. Between my full time gig and sideline freelance stuff I’m clocking 60+ hours a week minimum these days. So, I’ve been writing whenever and wherever I can spare the time.

Since that’s not always in front of a computer, I’ve been writing on my phone. I’ve got the mobile version of Scrivener (a fantastic research-organization-writing tool btw) which cloud-syncs to my laptop. So, I’ve been writing away on that during my stints of free time.

Which worked out great until I sat outside to enjoy the weather on a Friday night a couple weeks ago and wrote nearly four thousand words in one sitting. The next day, my right thumb felt like it was being held on with tape.

So, I repeated the process this past weekend except I used voice-dictation to do the writing and saved my recovering thumb for corrections only. The pain is gone now, thankfully, and the lesson has been learned.

And the good news is I also put another 3,500 words into Pleasure Professionals!

At this point, I’ve got a solid first draft of Act I that’s clocking in at around seven thousand words. I knew the story was going to be big, but even I’m surprised. This one is really living in my imagination now. Every time I sit down to work on it, the floodgates seems to open and I mostly just try to keep up.

I’m already laying down a few ideas for Act II and I’m hoping to make some big headway there later this week after my freelance work (hopefully) cools off a bit.

That’s it for now. I know its been a few weeks since I had anything new to show you but, believe me when I tell you big things are in the works.

See you next time!

Catching Up With Callidus – September 2, 2019

September 4, 2019

Welcome back true believers!

It’s a hectic time for me. Vanilla freelance work is keeping me very busy right now. However, while I haven’t had unlimited amounts of time to dedicate to smut, I have gotten really diligent about making the most of the odd hour I can set aside here and there.

And mostly I’ve been using that to read and write.

On the reading front, I’ve been enjoying this amazing new story, that has just wrapped up this past weekend, called Kat and Mouse. The author is SoVeryFascinated and this story is his fourth on the archive. It is a successor to an earlier story called The Glass Wall, which features the same lead characters, Kat and Marisa.

I’ll tell you here what I’ve told everyone privately to sell them on reading this tale: if you’d like to know what Alfred Hitchcock would’ve done with the erotic mind control genre, this is the story for you. The suspense, the tension and the growing sense of anxiety as this tale unfolds is spectacular.

If you follow this blog, there’s a decent chance you know me and my tastes in EMC fiction. I haven’t loved anything on The Archive like I love Kat & Mouse in a while. SoVeryFascinated has already joined connie k, GigglingGoblin and a short list of other active authors whose work is an instant must read.

If you like what I like, you’ll like this story. Please let me know if you check it out, I’d love to hear your thoughts! And, please let SoVeryFascinated know as well! I’d love to see more work from him and I’m sure some encouragement from happy readers couldn’t hurt.

Moving over to writing, I’ve circled back around to the project currently known as Pleasure Professionals. I say “currently” because it will almost certainly not bear that title in its final form.

The past two weeks have been both productive and frustrating with respect to this project. As I’ve talked about previously, I’ve started and restarted this story multiple times, and each pass has been wildly different from the others.

I’ve recently come to realize what the fundamental problem has been in this process. In my initial story concept, I’d imagined a secretly submissive business executive who hired a professional pleasure service to find her a discreet dominatrix, who then goes on to mind control the business exec.

Seems straightforward enough. But maybe that was the issue? As I sat down to plot things out I just couldn’t find the drama. If the business exec is already submissive and already submitting to the domme who later brainwashes her… has the character really been changed all that much by the mind control?

Perhaps a better author than I am could have a field day with it but as I wrote draft after draft I had to stop and admit that my concept was not working. I gave myself permission to abandon my original idea and go wherever I needed to with the story.

I spoke with some author friends and did a bit of brainstorming. I wrote a new outline that had the drama I’d been missing. I wrote a treatment and started to get excited. Then, I made the mistake of digging through my pics folder and realized I had no photo assets, whatsoever, to support this new version.

Back to the drawing board.

I stared at a blank page (phone screen) for three days straight (in between massive amounts of the freelance work I mentioned at the top) trying to have an idea that would work for the photos I’d already collected and satisfy the drama quota I’d set for myself.

And then, I had an idea. Just a little spark of inspiration about the relationship between the two main characters. But that character dynamic immediately suggested a plot point. And that idea would require a certain kind of set up early in the story to pay off later. Suddenly, the flood gates opened and the ideas began pouring through.

I took an hour long break from freelance stuff and wrote a nearly three thousand word outline containing every idea I’d had in this brainstorming session. The next day, during another hour long break, I rewrote the outline. This time with an eye on structure and pacing.

Then I wrote it one more time, as a sort of question and answer exercise to map out the various plot points I would set up and pay off. Along the way, the characters have solidified in my imagination and the themes have risen out of the ideas on the page.

Last night I sat down and wrote a thousand words or so. It’s a first draft and it definitely needs refinement but I’m very pleased with it. I finally feel like I’m on a path that will lead to this project getting finished.

As for the photo work, I don’t quite know how I’m going to pull it off. But, I feel confident enough in my abilities that I can create what needs to be seen. It might not be as straightforward as I’d prefer but if I’m challenging myself with the writing, why not challenge myself with the manip work as well?

The one thing I’m not going to do is give up on this one. In fact, now I’ve really got a fire beneath me to see it finished. I think I’ll go work on it now!

See you next time.

New Manip: The Good Doctor

August 10, 2019

Welcome back friends! Last time I know I teased something about having a new manip in the works. I believe I said something about having a seed of an idea and that I was gonna take another crack at writing it. Well I did that. And then I did a LOT more of it. I woke a sleeping giant trying to write this latest piece. It became one of THOSE projects. Those projects that aren’t done until they decide to be.

Anyway, it decided that its done! Read on for my (lengthy) director’s commentary but first, please go check out The Good Doctor, I do hope you like it!

So, right off the bat lets talk names. Last time, I mentioned that the seed of inspiration I was going to take into my third pass at writing was that the manip called to mind golden age Hollywood cinema. There’s a number of memorable hypnosis scenes from that classic, black & white era and, appropriately, a number of memorable hypnotists to go with them.

All of the names that appear in the manip were derived from three wonderful actors and the characters they portrayed:

  • Gloria Holden playing the Countess Marya Zaleska in Dracula’s Daughter (1936). The tag line for the film is (I kid you not) “She gives you that WEIRD FEELING!” When I saw the movie as a younger man, with its very memorable woman-on-woman hypnosis scene, it definitely gave me that. 😉
  • Gale Sondergaard as Catherine Vail in the Hope & Crosby romp Road to Rio (1947). In this flick, Sondergaard plays an evil aunt who is using her hypnotic powers to condition her niece into signing some papers so she can marry the young woman off in some way that will benefit only herself.
  • Lenore Aubert as Dr Sandra Mornay in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). While the devious Dr Mornay isn’t exactly a hypnodomme, the plot does hinge on her seductive manipulation of Abbott’s character. There’s a fair amount of hypnosis that goes on too, courtesy of Bela Lugosi’s Count Dracula. The scene that especially stayed with me over the years was when Dr Mornay became a bit uncooperative and Dracula entranced her and bent her to his will. It tickles my “broken domme” button just enough to still seem hot.

The names aren’t the only thing that these formative films contributed. I was also trying to bring in a period sensibility to the characters and dialog. In my mind’s eye the “acting” is very obvious and the dialog just a bit conspicuous… as was the norm in that era.

I don’t know if that comes across as intended but that’s what I was going for. Thinking about these films and the characters in them ended up being a very big part of the inspiration for the writing. Though, it was certainly an odyssey getting there.

These past couple of weeks, working on this manip has been an interesting journey. I’d really hoped to have had three new updates in three weeks. That would’ve felt like a nice achievement. So, I picked out an image that I’d come across and manipulated months ago. I figured the “hard” work was already done, all I needed to do was write a little caption to go with it.

So, monumentally naive of me.

Continue Reading…

The Good Doctor

Lenore checks on her good friend Gloria to find out if Doctor Sondergaard’s treatments have cured her mysterious ailment.

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