Style Sheets and Ethics and Buggy Code, OH MY!
Scroll down for Eri’s post about her aspects. I know some of you have waited a long time for that.
My post turned into a bit of a ramble concerning the ethics and misconceptions of slave life, albeit a ramble in gloss. Also, I’ve had little sleep. You have been warned.
* * *
Before realizing I didn’t want to fight with IE to get CSS and JavaScript to work cross-browser, I made a few fancy layouts that looked wonderful in Firefox. Pulling them up in IE nixed my enthusiasm in short order. A blog doesn’t require something nearly so pretentious, anyway! So, I tweaked the default layout a bit and cobbled together a banner with some inky fonts along with the eye and pendant from Madam’s main site.
Before coding, I started working on an editorial style sheet for Madam’s spin-off series. Stylistic grammar won’t change between chapters anymore, and no one will experience a random dye job! Madam was genuinely perplexed and a hair disturbed that I got so excited over the idea of making one. I’m a nerd: I joyously admit this. What’s not to adore about niggling over the tinniest facets of stylistic grammar while arranging in definition-list form the less flexible aspects? This isn’t only about grammar, of course; there will be character notes, too.
Slave life? I’m working on my own post, but it’s going to take a while. I’m not sure how much I want to detail. Some of this is fairly private, and I don’t always realize how much is private to me until I’ve blanched upon rereading it the next day. Also, I don’t want to give the impression that I have no mind of my own. I’m owned, but I very much think for myself! Eri does, too, even though she enjoys getting lost in what we like to call magic. Even the darkest-sounding things she wrote about in her last post had layers of safety programming interlaced to ensure nothing contradictory to her genuine wants would be able to work. Madam gave me the same programming. If I don’t like something, or I can’t handle something, nothing short of her literally robotizing and rewriting me is going to make it happen!
I know I’m not really a robot, and Eri knows she can think for herself just fine when she wants to. The thrill is knowing Madam could do whatever she wanted, that we love and crave and trust her enough to open ourselves this deeply . . . but knowing all the while that we’re safe because she would never abuse that trust. Sure, I sometimes find myself singing the Folgers song and literally orgasming at the end (I ABHOR Folgers "coffee" and I find the jingle equally repulsive), but that’s hardly mindwiping me and turning me against my nature.
My point? I want to write about my experiences, but I don’t want to scare people or give the impression that Madam is doing unethical things when she’s actually being meticulous and frequently double-checks to make sure I’m happy with this.
I cringe and sometimes feel physically ill when I read the experiences of other slaves who sound, well . . . like they really couldn’t give a damn if they tried. So many HypnoDominants really are doing questionable things without checking, or they check while the submissive is under (which is a rant post all by itself). Often submissives don’t bother to look at their fetishy surroundings to see what’s going on because they blindly trust their dominants. Blind trust in this sense is a bad thing since they haven't taken the time to see what they're trusting. Really, it’s not disobedient to ask questions or even to firmly say “no!” It’s not disobedient to say something might happen later but that it’s not comfortable right now. It’s not disobedient to expect privacy, mentally and physically. Madam encourages me to do that. I find it incredibly offensive when others say she needs to keep me on a tighter leash or that I am merely an extension of her name (or, in one case, that she owns my words). Madam doesn’t want drones; she wants complex personalities she can explore and savor and play with beyond merely rewriting or giving commands.
But those reading might interpret my anecdotes as yet another weak hypnoslave with an egregious Mistress who toys with and controls every aspect of her slave without a passing thought (or allowing her slave a passing thought). Even a close real-life friend sometimes gets needlessly worried about what goes on between us. He called Madam’s playful “time travel!” explanation of how I was built “Voodoo doming.” That made no sense. Madam isn’t allowed to be playful? I know that’s not really what happened! In fact, I know I was born human and am human right now. But I like getting lost in the magic, too, and Madam is good at making it thick and exquisite so that one gets lost to the point of forgetting reality. Even so, I never forget reality in ways that could be harmful. I always revert easily to normal at the slightest provocation.
Obviously Madam will do things with me that she wouldn’t do with others. She didn’t do some of what she does with me now until I moved here. Madam is my life partner first, my Madam equal to that—but my life partner above everything else. If I felt like I could no longer submit, she’d still be my partner. So I feel comfortable with things a slave who is only a slave probably wouldn’t, and she feels comfortable trying things with me she wouldn’t try with others. We know each other well enough for that to be safe. Also, she submits to me sometimes. I find it easier to trust her since I’ve been in her head and have experienced her in the same vulnerable, sublime, tenderly trusting way she experiences me.
I would get lost in the magic while writing about my experiences. I would sound like I don’t know reality from fantasy. I would sound like I’m controlled to the point where I really don’t have a choice about what happens to me. None of that is true, but my writing would convey that impression. So this post is a mini-rant on slave life and ethics, and a preface to my next post, which will be my slave life post: I am indeed self-aware and in control of what happens to me, and it is this self-awareness and control that allows me to safely get lost in Madam’s magic.
Perhaps I didn't need to ramble about this, but I felt the need to make my situation clear before writing about my experiences. Given some of my visceral reactions to others I've read, I wouldn't blame anyone who read mine for making the same judgment. D/s experiences, especially hypnotic D/s, can appear scary when observed from the outside. I'm not judging anyone with this post, though I do think anyone writing about this sort of thing should detail the precautions they've taken and provide some context as to the relationship they have beyond D/s. Such details make these things much easier to enjoy and understand. Few things make me feel worse than reading what could be a yummy experience if it didn't lack that context. There are quite a few people in this community I don't respect because they can't provide this context honestly and they try to dress up what they're doing while making the rest of us look awful. But I know most people are not like that. Most of us just want to enjoy ourselves, and we're ethical about it.
~Valbot
My post turned into a bit of a ramble concerning the ethics and misconceptions of slave life, albeit a ramble in gloss. Also, I’ve had little sleep. You have been warned.
* * *
Before realizing I didn’t want to fight with IE to get CSS and JavaScript to work cross-browser, I made a few fancy layouts that looked wonderful in Firefox. Pulling them up in IE nixed my enthusiasm in short order. A blog doesn’t require something nearly so pretentious, anyway! So, I tweaked the default layout a bit and cobbled together a banner with some inky fonts along with the eye and pendant from Madam’s main site.
Before coding, I started working on an editorial style sheet for Madam’s spin-off series. Stylistic grammar won’t change between chapters anymore, and no one will experience a random dye job! Madam was genuinely perplexed and a hair disturbed that I got so excited over the idea of making one. I’m a nerd: I joyously admit this. What’s not to adore about niggling over the tinniest facets of stylistic grammar while arranging in definition-list form the less flexible aspects? This isn’t only about grammar, of course; there will be character notes, too.
Slave life? I’m working on my own post, but it’s going to take a while. I’m not sure how much I want to detail. Some of this is fairly private, and I don’t always realize how much is private to me until I’ve blanched upon rereading it the next day. Also, I don’t want to give the impression that I have no mind of my own. I’m owned, but I very much think for myself! Eri does, too, even though she enjoys getting lost in what we like to call magic. Even the darkest-sounding things she wrote about in her last post had layers of safety programming interlaced to ensure nothing contradictory to her genuine wants would be able to work. Madam gave me the same programming. If I don’t like something, or I can’t handle something, nothing short of her literally robotizing and rewriting me is going to make it happen!
I know I’m not really a robot, and Eri knows she can think for herself just fine when she wants to. The thrill is knowing Madam could do whatever she wanted, that we love and crave and trust her enough to open ourselves this deeply . . . but knowing all the while that we’re safe because she would never abuse that trust. Sure, I sometimes find myself singing the Folgers song and literally orgasming at the end (I ABHOR Folgers "coffee" and I find the jingle equally repulsive), but that’s hardly mindwiping me and turning me against my nature.
My point? I want to write about my experiences, but I don’t want to scare people or give the impression that Madam is doing unethical things when she’s actually being meticulous and frequently double-checks to make sure I’m happy with this.
I cringe and sometimes feel physically ill when I read the experiences of other slaves who sound, well . . . like they really couldn’t give a damn if they tried. So many HypnoDominants really are doing questionable things without checking, or they check while the submissive is under (which is a rant post all by itself). Often submissives don’t bother to look at their fetishy surroundings to see what’s going on because they blindly trust their dominants. Blind trust in this sense is a bad thing since they haven't taken the time to see what they're trusting. Really, it’s not disobedient to ask questions or even to firmly say “no!” It’s not disobedient to say something might happen later but that it’s not comfortable right now. It’s not disobedient to expect privacy, mentally and physically. Madam encourages me to do that. I find it incredibly offensive when others say she needs to keep me on a tighter leash or that I am merely an extension of her name (or, in one case, that she owns my words). Madam doesn’t want drones; she wants complex personalities she can explore and savor and play with beyond merely rewriting or giving commands.
But those reading might interpret my anecdotes as yet another weak hypnoslave with an egregious Mistress who toys with and controls every aspect of her slave without a passing thought (or allowing her slave a passing thought). Even a close real-life friend sometimes gets needlessly worried about what goes on between us. He called Madam’s playful “time travel!” explanation of how I was built “Voodoo doming.” That made no sense. Madam isn’t allowed to be playful? I know that’s not really what happened! In fact, I know I was born human and am human right now. But I like getting lost in the magic, too, and Madam is good at making it thick and exquisite so that one gets lost to the point of forgetting reality. Even so, I never forget reality in ways that could be harmful. I always revert easily to normal at the slightest provocation.
Obviously Madam will do things with me that she wouldn’t do with others. She didn’t do some of what she does with me now until I moved here. Madam is my life partner first, my Madam equal to that—but my life partner above everything else. If I felt like I could no longer submit, she’d still be my partner. So I feel comfortable with things a slave who is only a slave probably wouldn’t, and she feels comfortable trying things with me she wouldn’t try with others. We know each other well enough for that to be safe. Also, she submits to me sometimes. I find it easier to trust her since I’ve been in her head and have experienced her in the same vulnerable, sublime, tenderly trusting way she experiences me.
I would get lost in the magic while writing about my experiences. I would sound like I don’t know reality from fantasy. I would sound like I’m controlled to the point where I really don’t have a choice about what happens to me. None of that is true, but my writing would convey that impression. So this post is a mini-rant on slave life and ethics, and a preface to my next post, which will be my slave life post: I am indeed self-aware and in control of what happens to me, and it is this self-awareness and control that allows me to safely get lost in Madam’s magic.
Perhaps I didn't need to ramble about this, but I felt the need to make my situation clear before writing about my experiences. Given some of my visceral reactions to others I've read, I wouldn't blame anyone who read mine for making the same judgment. D/s experiences, especially hypnotic D/s, can appear scary when observed from the outside. I'm not judging anyone with this post, though I do think anyone writing about this sort of thing should detail the precautions they've taken and provide some context as to the relationship they have beyond D/s. Such details make these things much easier to enjoy and understand. Few things make me feel worse than reading what could be a yummy experience if it didn't lack that context. There are quite a few people in this community I don't respect because they can't provide this context honestly and they try to dress up what they're doing while making the rest of us look awful. But I know most people are not like that. Most of us just want to enjoy ourselves, and we're ethical about it.
~Valbot
Labels: D/s, editing, housekeeping, hypnosis, life, rambling, valbot
posted by valbot at
11:12 AM
8 Comments:
Thanks so much for posting about this. As easy and enjoyable as it is to get lost in the magic, it's good to remember that we're still people. We're not soulless drones
Now get back on your knees in the kitchen and make me a sammich, knave! -giggles- kidding, of course. This is all very true, and part of the reason I'm sometimes hesitant to go too much into detail myself. Some of my tricks are not ones I want the world at large using, if only because well... hand one person a knife, and they can take a piece of wood and make it into a pretty apple. Give that knife to another person, and you get a bunch of shavings.
^^ Madam posted :P Also, oh god my bandwith ^^
I would see no joy in breaking someone mind...Yanta-wise, for lack of a better description. It sounds to me like Madam would (and should) have more enjoyment letting you speak your mind after that "Folger's" trick, rather than making you think you like it.
Well that might not make much sense but that's the point I'm trying to get across...Better to have everyone happy with the way things work than to eliminate the..thrill(?) of being in trouble after making you sing the Folger's song :p
Hope I'm not making anyone uncomfortable lol. But I agree with what I think it was Madam said a few months back, that 'slave' should be a term of endearment, rather than a term of ownership.
Eri: No, we're just coffee drones. ^.~
Madam: How can I reach the sandwich supplies if I'm on my knees . . . ? Seriously, though, an experience hypnotist has a right to her secrets. ^^ The thought of others trying to use some of your tricks makes me uncertain whether to laugh or cringe. But you can still write about experiences! You don't have to say how things were done, though I suppose some of the how would be difficult to hide given that there are only so many ways to do certain things . . . Either way, you should make hypno posts!
soeroah: She relishes me speaking my mind after such things because it enhances her joy in being able to make me do what provoked that indignant reaction. *blushes* No coffee geek should be forced to sing the Folgers jingle and get off on it! :( Doing this for a while made me start to like the jingle, at least subconsciously, and I catch myself starting to sing it sometimes...x.x;; Damn you, Madam! But I love her. And I still abhor Folgers posing as coffee. You're not making anyone uncomfortable. 'Slave' is definitely a term of endearment coming from Madam. As much as I bitch about certain things she does, I delight in them and would be quite sad if she stopped. I really miss needing to beg before I can make coffee . . .
Soeroah: I did it *again*! x.x Your name gets lowercased sometimes because Google lowercases it and yours is often the last comment I respond to and thus the last name I see, so it gets typed like that... I talk with most of the other people who comment, so I capitalize their names purely out of habit no matter how Google displays them. It's nothing personal! Just an annoying quirk. >.< Thought I'd cover that before you asked again.
You wrote eri with a captial :p
And I have no problem with it, I was just curious >_< Shouldn't have brought it up, sorry!
Soe: That's a reasonable thing to bring up! Eri gets capitalized because I wasn't in a position to lowercase her 'e' when we started talking, so that's habit too.
I also wasn't habitually lowercasing when i met Val... i actually kinda didn't start until Madam had been doing it for a while without me even realizing it, then "slipped", capitalized my name, and subsequently pointed this out.
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