A. Regina Cantatis's Blog, page 19

All my ebooks are half price this week (and two are secretly free!)

It's "Read an Ebook" week at Smashwords, and I'm offering all my ebooks for half price - this week only. So if you've been thinking about buying something but haven't gotten around to it yet, now's your chance. Just follow the link above, choose whatever you like (as many as you like), and enter the coupon code "REW50" at checkout.

Also, if you've been waiting for a copy of Octopus Vulgaris and/or Willing Subject, you can get either or both of those completely free just by emailing me privately for the coupon code.

Enjoy!

Perfectly faceless

Have you heard of Maison Martin Margiela? It's a fashion house so committed to drone-like depersonalization that the labels it puts on its clothes are just a series of numbers. But its biggest claim to fame is the masks you see in these pictures. They turn their models into faceless objects, less than human but oh so beautiful. That's how I see it, anyway.

Let's ignore the fact that a certain famous somebody (who's so conceited already that I won't lower myself to say his name) is a big part of why these masks became famous. Instead, let's revel in the idea of people whose individuality has been stolen from them. These models been reduced to living mannequins, objects of art - and they've been put on display in all their mindless glory, so that we can admire the skill of the ones who made them that way.

The attraction of compulsion

Not too long ago, I discovered that I could get the complete works of Clark Ashton Smith in e-book format here (Okay, it's in a weird e-book format, but you can find free apps that will open it). You can also read all CAS's stories online at The Eldritch Dark.

 So now I'm rediscovering the joys and aggravations of one of my favorite Weird Horror writers of my teenage years. At his best, as in The Dark Eidolon, CAS is every bit as freaky-good as Lovecraft. At his worst, well...let's just say that the collection I downloaded is so complete that I'm guessing he wrote a few of the stories when he was twelve.

A lot of CAS's fiction involves outright or at least implied mind control, and I thought I'd quote my favorite passage here. This is a fragment from The City of the Singing Flame, a story in which travelers cross a gateway into another world and find themselves irresistibly drawn to a fountain of "singing flame" where they're tempted, against every survival instinct, to throw themselves into that flame. The narrator has already resisted the temptation before but can't bring himself to keep coming back - or to bring a friend along:

We crossed the plain, and came at length within earshot of the siren music. I warned Ebbonly to stuff his ears with cotton-wadding, but he refused.

'I don't want to deaden any new sensation I may experience,' he observed.

We entered the city. My companion was in a veritable rhapsody of artistic delight when he beheld the enormous buildings and the people. I could see, too, that the music had taken hold upon him: his look soon became fixed and dreamy as that of an opium-eater.

At first, he made many comments on the architecture and the various beings who passed us, and called my attention to details which I had not perceived before. However, as we drew nearer the Temple of the Flame, his observational interest seemed to flag, and was replaced by more and more of an ecstatic inward absorption. His remarks became fewer and briefer, and he did not even seem to hear my questions. It was evident that the sound had wholly bemused and bewitched him....

The streets were like the prolonged and bewildering labyrinth of a nightmare. But the music led us forthrightly, and always there were other pilgrims. Like men in the grip of some powerful current, we were drawn to our destination. As we passed along the hall of gigantic columns and neared the abode of the fiery fountain, a sense of our peril quickened momentarily in my brain, and I sought to warn Ebbonly once more. But all my protests and remonstrances were futile: he was deaf as a machine, and wholly impervious to anything but the lethal music. His expression and movements were those of a somnambulist. Even when I seized and shook him with such violence as I could muster, he remained oblivious of my presence.

The throng of worshippers was larger than upon my first visit. The jet of pure, incandescent flame was mounting steadily as we entered, and it sang with the pure ardor and ecstasy of a star alone in space. Again, with ineffable tones, it told me the rapture of a moth-like death in its lofty soaring, the exultation and triumph of a momentary union with its elemental essence.

The flame rose to its apex; and even for me, the mesmeric lure was well-nigh irresistible. Many of our companions succumbed, and the first to immolate himself was the giant lepidopterous being. Four others, of diverse evolutional types, followed in appallingly swift succession.

In my own partial subjection to the music, my own effort to resist that deadly enslavement, I had almost forgotten the very presence of Ebbonly. It was too late for me to even think of stopping him, when he ran forward in a series of leaps that were both solemn and frenzied, like the beginnings of some sacerdotal dance, and hurled himself headlong into the flame. The fire enveloped him; it flared up for an instant with a more dazzling greenness, and that was all.

This isn't the end of the story; it's just my favorite part. But If you choose to read the more on your own, I suggest you stop before Chapter 4 ("The Third Venturer"), because it's actually the start of a far-inferior sequel. "The Third Venturer" and everything that follows is to "The City of the Singing Flame" what The Matrix II was to The Matrix. You have been warned.


*The artwork in this post is by Hervé Scott-Flament

Chrome dome

This is an image I meant to share with you ages ago but just forgot. When I did the cover for "Mirrored in Your Eyes," I created a full face shot for Marina as a slave, and I was sorry I had to hide half of it behind the foreground image of Marina as a Domme. So, like I said, I meant to share the whole, unobscured image on my blog.

And now here you go. :-)

Credit where credit is due: The original shot came from Lex of HypnoDolls, and the model was the lovely Porsha.

The Blue Queen

Here's a photomanip I did based on a story by someone else: trilby else. The story is Pawn, and its ex-queen Shilwan is one of my all-time favorite MC victims. I've always wanted to see what she'd look like in "real life," so I decided to make it happen.

It's such a rush, doing this to real models through my art. Sometimes I get literally dizzy.

Of MILFs and Mind Control

I've just finished uploading "Union, Reunion: A Tale of MILFs and Mind Control" to Smashwords and Amazon. As usual, the Amazon link won't go live for about 12 hours; and my blog readers are better off purchasing from Smashwords anyway because here's a coupon code to get you 25% off, good for one month: BM25V.

And here's a synopsis:


Back in her college days, Allie was a goody-two-shoes; but now she’s a lesbian who writes mind control erotica and fantasizes about her old friend Becky, the girl who got away. When Allie is invited to a reunion with her ex-sorority sisters, she tries to hide her secrets; but “trying” isn’t good enough when she’s faced with an entity right out of her darkest fantasies. Despite herself, Allie will show her sisters how much she’s changed. Then she’ll change them.
It all begins at Hunt’s Peak, where, more than a hundred years ago, Mama Gilman and her cult called forth a creature from beyond the stars. Now that creature is back, looking to reclaim the ground it lost and make further gains; and in Allie it’s found the perfect vessel. With her combination of lusts and imagination, she might be able to deliver the whole world into the Mother’s lap.
 “Union, Reunion” is Lovecraftian erotica about mind control, MILFs, and magic of the darkest kind.
I had a lot of fun creating this cover.  Be sure to notice the smirk I put on Venus. Also, if you look closely, you might notice that everything that isn't Venus is octopod. I found a bunch of great public domain art here. It's a fun site to browse.

One of the great classics of mind control science fiction

I guess no matter who you are or what you're obsessed with, you can't cover all the bases of that obsession. One base I've missed until now -- despite being a lifelong fan of books, science fiction, and mind control -- is Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters. I didn't get to read it until last week. Now, in my defense, I do have an excuse. And I'll share it if anyone actually wants to know, but I don't think you came here to read about teenage neuroses. So instead, let me tell you why you should read The Puppet Masters. Then I'll give you an extended quote from the hottest scene.

The villains in this story are a race of mind-controlling alien slugs who ride their victims like jockeys ride horses. Quite naturally, they want to conquer the earth; and quite naturally, there are a handful of secret agents who want to stop them. Their leader is "the Old Man," but the protagonist is a younger agent who mostly goes by "Sam." In the scene I'm about to quote, Sam has been taken over by a slug, but he and it have been captured, and the Old Man is trying to interrogate the slug. He has Sam strapped to a chair with a hole in its back, leaving the slug exposed; but Sam has to do the talking for his master because it doesn't have a human mouth.

You'll appreciate this scene even more if you know that 1) Sam was a tough-ass secret agent at the beginning of the book, but 2) he was also terrified by what the slugs could do and literally nauseated at the thought of being controlled by one of them.

Now here we go. I'll pick up just after the Old Man finishes threatening the slug in order to make it talk.
.....
I listened with half an ear; I had already been trying my bonds, neither hoping nor fearing, but finding them, as I expected, impossible to escape. This did not worry me; I had neither worries nor fears. I was oddly contented to be back with my master, to be free of troubles and tensions. My business was to serve and the future would take care of itself.

In the meantime, I must be alert, ready to serve him.

One ankle strap seemed less tight than the other; possibly I might drag my foot through it. I checked on the arm clamps; perhaps if I relaxed my muscles completely--

But I made no effort to escape. An instruction came at once -- or, I made a decision, for the words mean the same; I tell you there was no conflict between my master and me; we were one -- instruction or decision, I knew it was not time to risk escape. I ran my eyes around the room, trying to figure out who was armed and who was not. It was my guess that only the Old Man was armed; that bettered the chances....

"Well?" the Old Man went on. "Do you answer my questions, or do I punish you?"

"What questions?" I asked. "Up to now, you've been talking nonsense."

The Old Man turned to one of the technicians. "Give me the tickler."

I felt no apprehension, although I did not understand what it was he had asked for. I was still busy checking my bonds. If I could tempt him into placing his gun within my reach -- assuming that I could get one arm free -- then I might be able to --

He reached past my shoulders with a rod. I felt a shocking, unbearable pain. The room blacked out as if a switch has been thrown and for an undying instant I was jolted and twisted by hurt. I was split apart by it; for the moment I was masterless.

The pain left, leaving only its searing memory behind. Before I could speak, or even think coherently for myself, the splitting away had ended and I was again safe in the arms of my master. But for the first and only time in my service to him I was not myself free of worry; some of his own wild fear and pain was passed on to me, the servant.

I looked down and saw a line of red welling out of my left wrist; in my struggles I had cut myself on the clamp. It did not matter; I would tear off hands and feet to escape from there on bloody stumps, if escape for my master were possible that way.

"Well," asked the Old Man, "how did you like the taste of that?"

The panic that possessed me washed away; I was again filled with an unworried sense of well being, albeit wary and watchful. My wrists and ankles, which had begun to pain me, stopped hurting. "Why did you do that?" I asked. "Certainly, you can hurt me -- but why?"

"Answer my questions."

"Ask them."

"What are you?"

 The answer did not come at once. The Old Man reached for the rod; I heard myself saying, "We are the people."

"The people? What people?"

"The only people. We have studied you and we know your ways. We--" I stopped suddenly.

"Keep talking," the Old Man said grimly, and gestured with the rod.

"We come," I went on, "to bring you--"

"To bring us what?"

I wanted to talk; the rod was terrifyingly close. But there was some difficulty with words. "To bring you peace," I blurted out.

The Old Man snorted.

"Peace," I went on, "and contentment -- and the joy of -- of surrender." I hesitated again; "surrender" was not the right word. I struggled with it the way one struggles with a poorly grasped foreign language. "The joy," I repeated, "--the joy of...nirvana." That was it; the word fitted. I felt like a dog being patted for fetching a stick; I wriggled with pleasure.

Purely for the sake of laughs

I found this a minute ago on Gizmodo and thought it was fairly amusing, so I've decided to share. :-)

Next weekend I'll treat you to an extended quote from one of the mainstream-ish SF MC classics, and sometime after that will be a new e-book. In the meantime, have a smile.

Big Trouble 2...x2

So here's the follow-up to last week's manip.You're getting two versions of it because I know some of you want to see Jack's johnson and some of you don't. Yeah, it's a shame that you can see his equipment when you can't see Susan Wayland's, but I doubt the male model gets as much exposure (hah) as she does. He's not a porn star, just some kid who was willing to get his kit off for a photographer.

That photographer, BTW, takes lots of pictures of handsome, submissive men; so if you're into that sort of thing, check out his Deviant Art page - and also check out this guy's Deviant Art page. I plan to use more of these photographers' images for this series, but hopefully I won't have to do as much work to them as I had to do with this model. See, this is what I started with. I'm showing him to you because even though this manip isn't perfect, I want you to know how much work I put into it. ;-)


And this is how much work I put into to the Susan Wayland part of the image. Again, I mainly just want you to know; but I also know that more of you come to this blog to see hot women than to see hot men. So enjoy.

Big Trouble

Here's another of those photomanips I was making and stockpiling over the holidays. Now you know why I've been hunting for photos of handsome, submissive-looking young men. You're damn right this image will have a follow-up! I've already done one and have plans for more. The problem is that these things can take hours or even days to create if you're as obsessive as I am. You might not even realize how many things I changed about the Susan Wayland photo I started with, but if you want to have a look, compare my manip with the first of the three photos in this old post. Now think about this: I did two or three times as much work on "Big Trouble 2." Sadly, a lot of that was self inflicted. I won't bore you with the details; I'll just say I hope I've learned my lesson about over-manipulating.

Anyway, I'll share that manip next weekend; but before I close this post, just let me call your attention to the fonts. I'm sure you noticed the changes in color, size, and typeface on your own; but just notice the beauty and perfection of that custom font. I went looking for something that combined a pseudo-Asian vibe with a cybernetic vibe, and I ended up with Orchidee from dafont.com. Granted, I could have gone with something more in keeping with the tone of Big Trouble in Little China; but this manip series is only very loosely connected to the movie, and that font was just too good to pass up.

Obsessive, remember? ;-)