Where was I going with this?

Madam is finally going to rewrite the first three Silververse stories! Don't worry, the originals—typos, waffle continuity errors, and grammatical mishaps—will be preserved on her site. She is only rewriting for polish and clarity, not to change the plot. I remember reading The Adventures as she wrote it; she posted it on DeviantART before sending it to the Archive months later. I think I mentioned proofreading would be a good idea. But, Madam being Madam, she took a while to break that write-and-hit-send habit.

I had no clue I would eventually fall in love with her (let alone that I would move from Florida to OREGON to live with her), and that I would get to edit these stories. She didn't know there would be stories after the original. I'm astonished by how elaborate and lengthy this series ended up and, speaking honestly, I'm surprised this series got so popular given how muddled the first story is on a technical level. Let alone how LONG it is. Those who suggest new authors should post shorter stories as their debuts raise a very good point! Perhaps people were less scared of new authors two years ago. Either way, I'm proud of Madam for creating something so gorgeous and elaborate, and I'm overjoyed that she's finally going back to apply the polish these earlier stories deserve. I think her series deserves to be popular, but I'm just a bit surprised some of her more intelligent fans were willing to read through it when she was a new author and they had no basis upon which to have faith in her storytelling ability. Apparently these are good stories, and I'm not the only one who saw that!

Our relationship is only slightly older than the Silver series (we met on May 22nd, 2005; she sent the first three chapters to the Archive in November of that year). I'm still trying to get my head around that, and around the reality that I'll be editing what was my first exposure to the world of MC fiction. As much as I bitch about the community, it really has changed my life in unexpected ways. Meeting and bonding with Carin; Doublefine moving here and becoming a wonderfully close in-person friend; another woman I truly hope will become a close friend if only for how much I enjoy geeking out with her; Erika meeting Madam through her podcast post; the various people I've been able to explore hypnosis with from the hypnotist side. Even my earlier time in the Garden was mostly positive. I wouldn't have discovered some of my MC sub-kinks or so quickly grown comfortable talking about this with anyone but Carin had it not been for my encounters there.

Whoops. I didn't mean to get sentimental! Our third anniversary is close, and the Silververse is closely laced with it. Carin is what drew me to this community, and she is what helped me to branch out reading-wise beyond her work while helping me to get over so many of the squicks being sheltered had given me regarding fetishes and sexuality. She is what inspires my life overall.

Writing and editing of the spin-off series is going better than she makes it sound. Writing is slow, but she's broken a new tier of quality and nothing will be posted until November, anyway. Some of the arcs she has planned . . . One infuriatingly vague but yummy hint I can give is Massive's song "Dissolved Girl." I have a shivery, painfully erotic music video in my head of Sylvia and Aurora to that song, and it's definitely not just sex.

Anyway! Madam really does need to post more, preferably when she's awake. I keep bribing her with ice cream. At least make a review post? You did read and enjoy some things in the past few updates. Erika should post, too.

Madam keeps teasing me about having a fetish for semicolons. What can I say? They're cute.

~valbot

Procrastatron must be stopped, no matter the cost...

The title of this post by the way is borrowed from the 1980's Transformers: The Movie line about Megatron. I've been procrastinating like crazy whilst sick, and guess what, I'm finally just barely well enough to stop catering to it! Haha! I will rise above! Sort of.

I had to be bribed to make this post with ice cream, after all . . .

Well, there are many things I've been meaning to say, so this post may be long. You'll just have to deal with that if you know what's good for you.

Why do I sound mean? I'm making this post so you can read it. Longer means more. If its too much, you can put it down and come back later without having to wait for something truly new. I'm doing you a service. My sickness has made me spiteful. More Kistulotican kindness is in order. So, I apologize for some of the snark MC MK is about to lay down along with some mad beatz. For real, yo.

Ow.

So first, last week's update: I know, nothing from me, but hey, live with it. I'm going to be posting less often now, but with more quality I believe. I'm not Lisa Teez, and thats hopefully one of the reasons you like my work.

I know, I need to not mention authors that make me roll my eyes so much, but come on, that begged it.

So anyway! Updates and such. In my writing, I've been working on something special for a commission - a fan fic story in fact. Not really something I write very much, but on commission I bend my limits a little. It got really far, then I got miserably sick. I plan to be done with it in short order.

Future works include: The Secret Origin series, volumes 1 and 2 at the very least, staring Dust and Pink accordingly. Many people wonder how these two supers got their powers. You'll find out in short order within these stories!

There are two stand alone pieces, a fantasy and a sci fi I also have relatively well plotted . . . but if either of these will ever be written is anyone's guess.

After these projects I plan to draw somewhat into seclusion and publish a lot less often while working on the obvious "sequel" project that will allow a lot of time for me to not worry so much about deadlines and push quality up high as it goes. For a little idea of just what that could be . . . this link should say it all.

If it doesn't, well . . . reread everything I've ever written.

Oh, a new Rose story may be churned out somewhat soon, purposefully being delayed until after V-day.

Right.

We all know thats sickness talking . . .

So, looking back at the last update I see one thing I enjoyed reading. Omega Girl 4! It puts Lacie into another lovely sticky situation. I'm loving the latest developments. OG is a series that to me proves I'm not a total snot/snob. There are many niggling little things inside of it, but overall I enjoy it for its fun, its story, and its ideas if not always its execution. The OG series is actually getting a crossover with the SG series, though using 2nd tier characters I suppose. I need to get on my part for that- though no one will be seeing any of it until it's posted, and that won't happen till it's done.

Still, Omega Girl 4 continues to keep me drawn in, which is no simple task!

Also in this week's red update, we have Sara Castle with her lovely elfen surprise nudity. Despite the hours I could spend groaning about how if she's going to rip off shadow run so much she could at least spell elven as such . . . I won't go into that.

Why?

Because I tried reading Touch of Frost, chapter 1.

I know I've hammered on about how I dislike her work before, but when told this was "a hint more toward what her writing was like before it was Jo-ified" I thought I would read one last SC tale to finale just to see what I could get from it.

What did I get from it?

A headache.

So here, I will finally be saying reasons why I think that Sara Castle is the doctor without clothes (due to her profession, a twist on the emperor and the like). Using big words does not make you an intelligent writer. Adding suspense by not going just from scene to scene, but saying "Things were not what they seemed AND PEOPLE KNEW AND OH MY GOD SOMETHING WILL HAPPEN" is not building suspense.

Looking back over much of my older work as I have as of late, I see her constant tense problem reflects some of my own work in an embarrassing way. Perhaps part of why this bothers me so much is I didn't even realize I was doing it. Harsher self editing will be fixing this to the point where I hope one day to count the caliber of my work among well... the best.

Taking a cliche plot and twisting it in a new way isn't a bad thing. However, taking a plot everyone knows and adapting it into a slightly different fetish genre is not the same. Making your cliche cyberpunk into cyber porn is not translation, or transition, it's the same thing people do when they just add sex to established fandoms - crap.

Lately I've been reading a lot of Iago - a writer who is I believe a master of the no-induction induction story - so I can enjoy a story that doesn't take a kacknotically long time to do a subtle sensual induction. I love such inductions done well, but I don't need them and they can often be a crutch. One part of a story cannot make up for the rest. However, if you're going to go through the trouble of pretending to have such scenes - the actual how and why and such - don't make them suck. Maybe one reason I hate the kind of cyberpunk she writes, is because she may as well be writing high fantasy with how ridiculous some of that tech is.

But in the end, I find that sadly a lot of the problem with her work now is what it was back when I wanted it to be good. I'm always left with at least some kind of half-full feeling. This done well, will make the average person (IE: undiscerning reader) believe that something went over their head. This however, does not mean the writer was too intelligent for you to follow. If you have to reread things over and over to fully understand a twisted induction and its yummy and such, thats one thing. If you're left rolling your eyes feeling as if the writer didn't even know part of the plot and found it clever?

That's not brilliance.

Thats a lack thereof.

I apologize in a way for this rant, as it was planned about two weeks ago so some of this isn't really coming to fruition due to me only remembering bits and pieces.

So, in this post, I make a new promise to you my readers: I will work harder with each piece I write that nothing that I bitch about or snark about will hit you in the face the way it hits me when I read it. I will work harder and harder to make sure no plot twist is convoluted. I will work harder to make sure if anything is over anyone's head, it is only above the character's head and if you miss it, well, you get to find out when the character does or upon a reread. I will make sure that I show my understanding of the English language without making you question my high school diploma.

There's more of course, but there's also a reason I haven't been writing whilst sick. I haven't been capable of that. Sadly this makes me worry my coming out of rust will still take more time, but well . . . such happens! We all just have to do our bests, right?

So, heres hoping theres something worth me reading tomorrow.

I'd rather not just go "oh great, men writing themselves into lesbian fantasies and sara castle pretending she can."

Also I would like to note that recently, the Jo herself, Valencia and I engaged in a conversation of SC's writing, to which Jo said that it should partially be excused due to her extenuating circumstances.

She can be forgiven for such, to an extent.

Her writing must stand on it's own.

If you are in a state where you have to make excuses for your writing, or those defending you need to, maybe you should work on honing your craft more instead of posting stories. A writer can always "clarify" after the fact, but a piece must stand alone. There are some of my own pieces that are weaker perhaps without someone pointing out facts, but I won't say you should ignore that. Perhaps I suggest reading through them to get to my better works, but never at the cost of pretending a story can be "supplemented" as such.

That's just cheapening your time, and mine.

Well, I think that finishes this up. Nothing more occurs to me.

Oh, one thing does: I've been rereading backlogs of writers since well . . . new stuff ain't doing it for me so much. I've gotten through most of my favorite writer's entire lists. Are there any writers I should glance through? Red stories only please, I'm not as forgiving as I was when I was a forum personality.

Also any Trilby stories I haven't read: would be nice to know which were less heavy on the repetition and more on the required reading list! So your blogger is begging for things to read during her recovery so she can give you more to read. Indulge her.

Well, thats a wrap. Love all of you my fans, and wish me a happy 21st birthday on Tuesday :)

~Madam Kistulot

Drowsy Snarking: Reviews, Polishing, and STANDARDS!

This post was written by a very sleepy valbot. I didn't bother to sleep last night. Apologies in advance for a post that doesn't look anything close to what an editor should write.

My problem with many reviews is not the reviewer's like or dislike of a story. My problem is the apparent lack of understanding regarding statements such as “brilliant,” “professionally written,” “a standard we all strive for,” and “I’m the best person to understand this story, because . . .”

A story muddled by appositive commas and faulty parallelism (especially one that has been "edited"), minimal creative tinkering with heavily derivative concepts, .05 dimensional characters, signposted plot twists, and cumbersome levels of blurriness throughout the narrative is NOT professionally written, brilliant, or a viable writing standard. This (well-educated, ironically) author has a chronic issue with all of the above in most of her work. Her earlier work, while not timeless, is noticeably clearer and more creative than her recent efforts. She also handled the technical aspects better before a certain proofreader got involved. This proofreader’s writing isn’t much better, but it garners the same level of glowing praise and is considered a standard.

“Professionally written” has lost much of its prestige as a compliment over the centuries. Publishers want the familiar, something they are certain will sell. Even the technical standard has loosened over recent decades. New territory, even brilliantly written new territory, is unlikely to get published by a new author. Publishing is a business, after all. Much of the groundbreaking things published these days come from authors who establish themselves with familiar, mainstream work. That is what gets an author in the door. Even so, there is a level of quality in (most) published work that is not even timidly hinted toward in this story.

Many stories garnering this compliment fall achingly short of real standards. “I loved this!” “I’d buy this if I saw it at the bookstore.” “Great work!” Aren’t those more reasonable things to say? They convey the same affection without the grating distortion or the unintended deception. Also, such statements need to be supported, even though the process is heavily subjective. WHY is a story brilliant? SHOW, using quotes and at least minimally elaborated points concerning flow and content, why a story is professionally written. EXPLAIN why a given story should be a writing standard. If you absolutely must assert yourself as the best person to understand a given work, explain why (preferably in enough detail to soften the aura of ignorance you will indelibly attach to yourself)!

No one is the “best person” to understand a story, not even the author. We all approach reading with our own backgrounds and expectations. A story may speak particularly clearly to a person if the content relates strongly to that person’s experience, but saying in a review that you are the best person to understand something is severely discrediting to the author, implies more ignorance than understanding, and is a level of arrogant I think few people wish to associate with themselves. Authors can‘t truly claim this, either: the story one intends to write and the story one actually writes often differ enough that the assessable result is more often an inkblot than a snapshot.

Internet porn is not subject to harsh criticism or to high standards, you say? Then don’t take yourself seriously as a writer. Don’t act as though you know something technical about writing. Don’t review a story of this type in the same manner as you would a novel in a literary criticism journal. So many people around here (myself included) fail to remember the difference between literature and porn. Much of what we read and enjoy within this community is porn. There are excellent writers, though, writers who craft literary erotica that is belittled when a work of porn is reviewed as a work of elegant literary art.

How insulting it must be for those who write literature to see their work adored in precisely the same terms as the work beside it that doesn’t so much as tentatively convey the same level of dedication, precision, technical skill, or creative effort! Few things piss me off more than seeing a work such as "Yellow" or "White Slavery" mewled over in the same review post as, say, something written by Lisa Teez. That is one name I have no reservations about clearly mentioning. She even acts as though she knows something about writing . . . literature. A narrative focusing on the testicular discomfort of a unicorn that a “premed” student (this student wanted to be a veterinarian!) at Fairy Tale Land University is inflicting for her own amusement is NOT literature! That is not even supermarket porn. Lisa's writing is often worse than her plots.

Those two stories and that author have never coincided in a review post, but similarly jarring juxtapositions happen in almost every update.

Many stories in the updates qualify as literature, but they are not good literature. They deserve praise for showing more effort than the pervasive, redundant porn, but that praise needs to be tempered! My grievances with the prevalent review style on the two MC forums apply also in reverse: rending a story needs to be done with support.

Hypothetically, as a technosexual, I should have squirmed with a compulsion to read one of this update's stories based on an absolutely dazzling review. I attempted to read that story. I sincerely tried to lose myself in the narrative, but I ended up getting a headache and feeling mentally drained from the boredom and irritation the experience inspired. That story is not professionally written or brilliant any more than my coffee mug is sentient! A little explication in this review might have either shown me it was a highly individualized perception not suitable as a general guide, or helped me to respect the framework of a genre I mostly dislike.

I dislike cyberpunk because most of it is startlingly horrible and clumsily derivative of itself in ways that don‘t even attempt to twist the concepts into something personal to the authors. What few good stories I’ve read have made me wish other competent writers would contribute to this genre. I am a lesbian who will read male/male cyberpunk stories that are well-written, which means I must actually adore this genre. Finding anything good is simply difficult! This is also a depressing trend for robot stories, transformation stories (robot and otherwise), and for just about any story including technophilia. What is good is glowing; what is awful—the bulk of the selection—makes me embarrassed to tell people I have these fetishes.

Privately, various people have said (even about this story): “fills a niche tolerably well.” This does fill the cyberpunk niche on the Archive tolerably well. This does not fill it brilliantly. Why don’t reviewers say these things in their actual reviews? Wouldn’t any serious writer appreciate feedback like this? Instead, the reviews are often unclear to the point of seeming to say things contradictory to what they intend. A work of “publishable quality” really meant “could fit the Fall line-up, mainstream,” not “This is such a good story!” (I asked for this reviewer’s permission to include these statements, by the way, and clarified with him that this is what he meant.)

Usually when I tell people about my mind control fetish I find myself quickly explaining that I am aware most of the stuff on the Archive is trash, even the stuff that gets glowingly praised.

Believe it or not, I don’t even like seeing my Madam’s work reviewed in this style, mewling or grumbling. A review simply mewling that her current story is glowing, well-written, or hot doesn’t really tell her anything about the story. A review saying one of her stories is better than another, or that it didn’t hit the mark, also doesn’t tell her much. Why is her story glowing? Why didn’t it hit the mark? I don’t appreciate those who delight in her work reviewing it vapidly. I would appreciate reviews even from those who dislike it if they explained why. I’d actually be grateful to them as a fan and as an editor. One review of "Coping Mechanism" (the original version, not the one linked here) did this negatively and I was glad to see the honesty. This actually helped to show the difference between the two versions and highlighted some writing weaknesses MK has since corrected.

"Unit 9" is a good example of how even negative reviews often say little about a story, to the author and to potential readers. I spent four hours tediously editing this heavily revised two-year-old story. Many of the things I found were obvious revision errors. There were immature sentence constructions and embarrassing grammatical blunders left over from her less cautious, less skilled days. That draft was a nightmare to edit but the edited version allowed the well-constructed, creepy story to shine through unencumbered. Erika also spent a while combing over this story. MK did an editing pass with my edits, then another with Erika’s.

Two passes should have been more than enough to make this story easily readable. I can’t even read the posted version because she edited it so pitifully. The massive revision errors, leftover bits of immaturity, self-indulgent lines she refused to cut, and general lack of caring (at least the posted version appears as though its author doesn’t respect it enough to clean it up) make her look ten times less skilled than she was two years ago! The STORY is intriguing, creepy, and meticulously done in some aspects. The writing severely disfigures this story.

Most of the reviews were positive; only one even lightly mentioned the decline in quality (not nearly in so much detail as might have been helpful). This is far from MK’s best work, but one would never be able to tell from most of the reviews. I suspect those who read this based on reviews, those with standards, were a bit miffed. Some solid feedback would have shown MK how this lovely story suffers from poor handling, as well as to what degree she succeeded in revising an older work into something reflecting her current writing and storytelling ability.

This incident did lead to a better editing procedure. Eri and I see each other’s edits, now, and I get a final pass after MK goes over our draft. Sometimes I get two passes after she goes over our draft if what should be my final pass reveals too many new niggles. This procedure came about mostly through my offline snarking. Some informative reviews would have done wonders to nullify the need for me to be the one to nip MK. I felt guilty for doing that even though I knew it was necessary. That story was written for me; being the one to come down so harshly about it was a bit uncouth. I was grateful for Grey's honest, even if not unquestionably clear, review. His reviews are brief. Others do lengthier reviews while failing to touch the blunt points he at least mentions.

Several people make the effort to review every story. If they would do this more clearly, and honestly, this could drastically improve the overall quality of the updates. Two reviewers do have a blunt style, but one is the unclear example from earlier and the other has a tendency to mewl if the name is one she relishes. I do admire both of them for sometimes cracking down on the Lisa Teez rung of authors, though!

Please respect your work enough to polish it. I’ve read some less-than-well-written stories I could still respect for the obvious amount of effort and passion the author invested (Omega Girl, for one). There is NO excuse for a skilled author who does have tools and experience to post something so unpolished as “Unit 9.“ A few honest, well-thought reviews would have served as a good lesson to MK, and to other writers, on the need for clarity and caution.

This really was going to be a review post!

My review of "Paradise" is mixed; I see my review of "Scribe and Shadow" being the same. I should try reading other colors. I can sometimes appreciate purple and, as previously mentioned, cyan. Cyan doesn’t seem appropriate to review in a lesbian HypnoDomme’s blog, though. I’ll save that for the next remarkably good cyan technofetish story. Maybe I should review the two that made me pay attention to that color in the updates. I mostly read red, but the recent red has been tepid.

I rant like this because I adore this fetish and the good writing devoted to its lavishing and exploration. Fiction is a medium in which these often dark and unethical concepts are safe to explore as fully as one can fantasize. I want to do in my own reviews what I feel the others lack. I want to provide detailed feedback, positive and negative, and I want to be honest!

My review style will likely be clumsy at first. I will start with MK’s work; I can use something familiar to me so that my focus can be on working out a good style while not having to worry so much about understanding the stories. I work with them enough to not have the need for rigid concentration reviewing other stories will demand. This is a service, I think, not a cop-out. MK knows how I feel about her work. Using it to form my style means other authors will get better feedback in a refined format instead of the awkward early format I’ll likely need to adjust.

I would love feedback on what types of reviews authors would find helpful. I am a snarky bitch, I can’t tame that, but I will be honest in a constructive way. Tell me if you don't want me to review your work. You probably don't need to worry if you don't write red or anything related to science fiction or robots. I will niggle a bit over technicality—I'm always in editor mode, I can't help it!—but not as the focus.

I’ll make a post at some point following the general format of the Readers' Picks section on the Archive. Some of the stories I crave to praise in detail are obscure.

My introduction post did note my proclivity for rambling.

A real review post will come this Saturday. Madam can spark what little remains of my mind into oblivion if not! Bedtime for valbot.

~Valbot

*peeks shyly out of her mug*

I am valbot, Madam’s girlfriend of nearly three years and the head of the editorial department here at Kistulotican Industries. (Since when did tech companies have publishing divisions dedicated to erotic mind control...? Let alone ones that literally build their editorial staff!) I have a painfully deserved reputation of being viciously snarky, a tendency I‘m learning to soften into something curious rather than caustic. My delight is the exquisite: gloss is for hair, not for stories and trancing! But I won’t split infinitives over the issue.

I will likely post less frequently than Madam. I’ll try to post story reviews each Saturday. I might post other things during the week: commentary elaborating on the podcasts, rants concerning the MC genre, and my thoughts on hypnosis, mind control, and all else erotically piquant.

Linguistics is one of my geeky obsessions. I’d make a career of it if medicine weren’t my lifelong passion. Speaking of medicine, I can read searing lesbian sex with the same clinical detachment with which I’d read an EKG. I’m not sure if this makes me a better editor, a terrible writer, or closer to the humanoid robot typing this post. I am a linguist, not a grammarian. I respect grammar as the clarifying framework of any language, but languages are supposed to evolve with their speakers rather than constrict them. Rigid teaching squelches so many delicious idiomatic facets of language! Fiction in particular demands linguistic fortitude.

Hypnosis is another of my passions, one which pairs splendidly with whimsy and detachment alike. My first induction attempt, an embarrassing, kacky bit of fluff I refuse to transcribe, was seven years ago. Vanilla was the nature of my interest until I was about twenty. Madam is to blame for my erotic twisting. I’ll never be half the sizzling hypnotist she is even though she has fewer years of experience. Granted, she has much more practice! My trances were sparse for quite a few years. Her ethereal writing talent no doubt predisposes her to hypnotic badassery. I’m as much a writer as she is sane.

I am also her slave. I’ve been questioning my D/s orientation, lately: am I really a Domme that found the one person on the face of the earth to whom I can submit, am I a S/switch, or am I a pure submissive prone to occasional Domme urges a quick scene can soothe? I thought I was the first, but I’ve only been experiencing this lifestyle for two years. I have enough experience to guide those new to this type of exchange while still having an overwhelming amount to explore and work out for myself. I’ll probably post about this exploration, time to time.

I am also prone to rambling. You've now sampled a notably convoluted corner of the Kistublot. Is the ink bitter, thick, pleasing? Let me know! I won't post much, if at all, if my perspective detracts from or spoils Madam's.

Finally, as a disclaimer: Madam will not see these posts prior to publication. She will not censor me. What I write is entirely my opinion. Madam is not responsible for the content of my posts and she may virulently disagree with them at times. An unpleasant trend of certain people within the MC community treating us as interchangeable prompts me to state the obvious.

~Valbot