Tabico Week Part 1

Damn you Tabico. You write awesome stories, you know that? Why did you have to chose a pen name I can't riff on? I can play with it, say tabsico amongst friends when being silly (I don't know why I started saying that) and tabi could be a cute thing to riff on, like tabby cat, but I can't really get away with that in good conscience.

So, ignoring my little tirade, welcome to Tabico week! The last, but by no means least, of the t-trio! Tabico's specialty is the rawness in everything she writes. She has no limits - or few and far between - and you can feel it in her writing. If something is going to happen, it happens. She doesn't pull away from the squick, diving in head first to stories most authors wouldn't even touch.

Tabico has written a wide variety of stories, including color codes for an author most well-known for her "red" or f/f contributions to the archive. She's collaborated with thrall and the next on my list Iago, and has an impressive series of interrelated stories that have never gotten a name, but I lovingly refer to as the Snowdonverse. She's not exactly the main character, but she is a recurring character that I enjoy quite a bit. Plus, I can never spell Arundsen's name without looking at how it's spelled.

So, for Tabico week, I'm going to start there. This will be a long post - making up for it's lateness - and giving you plenty to read if you haven't gotten to these lovely gems already! Warning, scrolling past where you've read may give spoilers - but not horrific ones.

New Tunez

The first story starts innocently enough. Lissa, a college student, gets an email for a new site that offers music downloads. Deciding to give it a try, she downloads some music that has a delicious affect on her mental state. Losing time is such a yummy way to show someone is being programmed. The fun doesn't stop there, and soon her friend is giving these new tunes a try. A yummy story, full of heat, and delicious mind control.

Cross My Heart

Nicole, Lissa's friend, has worried parents. She's been acting a little differently... and so she winds up being sent to see a shrink. The title comes from an adorable piece of hardware she wears, and I won't spoil that at all. The web of mind control grows further as yet another mind is drawn in deeper, and escape is so rarely an option.

Sweet Oil

Most of Tabico's stories are raw, evil, perhaps even cruel in a way. It would be hard to call most of them sweet, even when everyone is euphoric by the end. Sweet Oil is a sweeter, more lighthearted story as the title would suggest. A few girls get their hands on some special massage oil that has some yummy side effects, and get caught up experimenting, enjoying . . . savoring. No enslavement, nothing lasting, just hot fun. No less worth a read.

Hot Oil

But of course, the oil doesn't need to be used for sweeter purposes, as shown in this sequel. The woman supplying the oil returns to collect, and a sorority is turned into a pack of pets one after the other. Tabico writes a lot of serial recruitment, and perhaps this story is one of the best examples. A yummy story, sizzling really. Read it!

Fitness

A woman's gym changes ownership, and things start to change, dramatically. The changes happen so sweetly subtly to those involved, and for those of us with the luck to watch, you can see the options for anything but enslavement melting away more and more as the story progresses. Also a yummy dehumanization piece, though I don't want to ruin much more. Lots of women being taken all at once - yummy!

Temp to Perm

Snowdon herself pays a visit to collect a new girl, and winds up with another. A delicious short story with a fun protagonist - a temp who enjoys being a temp fluttering from job to job, doing good enough work to get away with surfing for porn on her work computer. I love the title, and this story.

Ronin

Another story where we get a more direct glance at Snowdon, though admittedly the first that I had any problems with. It is a very hot story, with a woman being caught between the games of two powerful mind controllers . . . but the way some characters act, and are allowed to act, strikes me as a little out of character for what we've seen in the past. Its a yummy story, with yummy bikes, but the latter half just doesn't sit right with me.

Arundsen's Device

This story feels to me almost like another half to the 'verse, even if there are only three stories with Andrea, and only two where she is given a more central role. Andrea, a grad student, stumbles upon a mind control made by Professor Arundsen, and indulges in it. She even uses it on herself - a detail that has always made this story stand out in my mind. But things are turned on her, and then once she manages to recover, things are turned again . . . a very fun protagonist, and supporting cast. Yummy.

Socket

Sort of a side story, a colleague of Arundsen tests his own device ant takes himself a yummy new slave. It is m/f md, but its still a yummy story for it's mind control if nothing else. Andrea makes a cameo. I'm feeling at a loss for what else to say for this one, but that doesn't mean it's bad.

Summit

This story is a direct sequel to Arundsen's Device (I finally spelled it without looking! holy crap!) as well as continuation of the earlier stories with Nicole. A 'natural' has been found, and several mind controllers are brought together, made aware of the situation . . . some manage to pull through, while some are taken apart. This story alternates between our more familiar characters and the natural, a man who has the ability to instantly conquer a mind with almost no effort. Arudsen is made a much more interesting character here (as he's actually present for one), Snowdon is developed deliciously, and the Andrea/Nicole interactions are some of my favorite scenes in MC. If you enjoyed the previous stories, you need to read this one. It's delicious.


Wow, that was a lot, but really, these stories deserve to be read as all one big lump - maybe not all at once, but as a continuing growing world with so much to delight in. I enjoy rereading parts of them, or stories in their entirety quite often, and never find myself regretting it.

Until Wednesday!

~Madam Kistulot

p.s. - I need to update the updates page and the front page of my site, but my story picks have been updated again! Give them a look if you still want more to read!