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Subject: {ASSM} {REVIEW} The Annex Reviews, 7/11/03
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 22:10:04 -0400
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The Annex Reviews, 7/11/03
by Lady Cyrrh (ladycyrrh@aol.com)
Website: http://members.aol.com/ladycyrrh
Har har, ye mateys! FranzKafka79 has organized the first of
this summer's contests on ASSM, the Summer 2003
Pirate Challenge, prompting repostings of pirate stories
from the past and new pirate stories from writers of the
present. This is to coincide with the release of the
movie "Pirates of the Caribbean" starring male eye candy
Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. Though I still can't
figure out why anyone would write a script based on a
Disneyland ride, I picked eight pirate stories from the
challenge to review, which is unusual for me as when I
do theme reviews it's by story genre, not subject
matter. I found it a nice change. Arrgh! Arr!
In reading them I discovered that most pirate stories
are, in a sexual sense, about the obvious: jolly, or
cruel, or equally jolly and cruel buccaneers capture
some poor young (usually female) thing, and have their
way with her. The settings range from the golden age of
piracy (the 16th - 19th centuries) to the modern and
future ages. Sometimes the females are blushing upper-
class virgins;, other times, spunky adventurers or
spoiled daddy's girls, while the pirates have all the
flash and glamour of Hollywood depictions. Rescues are
rare: ravishment, often including BDSM and slavery, is
the norm. The ravishings may be either romantic or
nonconsensual in nature. What more can you ask for from
a wily pirate captain?
I would also like to note that in these reviews I will
begin to add the Message ID of each story (if posted
through the newsgroups) so readers can more readily look
them up, and I will be leaving off the author's and
poster's emails, as it has occurred to me they are far
too tempting a target for spambots. If anyone wants to
contact the author of a story, they're going to have to
reference the original, sorry.
The Stories:
Pirates! (Dark Dreamer): M+/f, f/f, teen, rape, viol
Captain's Whore (ben-wa): M/F, ncon
The Pirate, Parts 1 and 2 (Wolfpup): M/m, F/m, original
slash, BDSM, slave, tort
Pirates of the 22nd Century (Meme Misspelt): M/F, M/M,
SF, nosex, nc, viol, satire
The Oarlock Tier (Valeria): M+/F, BDSM, slave, ncon,
rape, hist
A Pirate's Treasure (Spoonbender): M/F, F/F, rape, bond,
ncon, rom
Share of Booty (Anynom): M/F, mc, hist
Slaves: The Lady and the Pirate of the Sands (Brush
Strokes): M/F, D/s, slave, hist
Pirates! [B-/C+]
Where posted: ASS
When posted: 8/17/98
Author: Dark Dreamer
Message ID: 6r894q$gl1$45@winter.news.erols.com
Type: M+/f, f/f, teen, rape, viol
This story was one of the modern ones with modern
pirates. Rich-bitch Jordan goes on a sailboat trip with
hunky Bucky (hee hee, nearly wrote hunky Bunky) in the
hope he'll deflower her, which she sees as just one more
distraction for the terminally bored. Unfortunately
Bucky, being rather dim, takes along his younger sister
Brianna, who is supremely uncool and unchic, prompting
Jordan to invite along Darcy, an even dimmer hunk, in
the hopes he'll distract the little busybody. Thus the
merry crew sets out. Unfortunately they're soon stopped
by pirates, the males are thrown overboard, and the gang
rape of the two girls begins.
Dark Dreamer is writer who has a large following among
those who like non-con and rape tales, but frankly, I
don't see where it comes from. The story is well
structured and the prose carefully written, but the
characters were so unrealistic I felt that, as a reader,
my intelligence was being insulted. It's like the writer
didn't have a clue what teenagers were like in real
life. OK, they're rich, idle teenagers, and thus inhabit
something of a fantasy world from the start, but surely
their behavior would be more grounded in reality than a
poorly written, endlessly droning soap opera. Not that
realism is always needed in a sex story, but if it's
lacking, the author had damn well better be aware that
it's lacking, and proceed forthcomingly into satire or
camp, or chock the story so full of other unrealistic
elements that the lack of character doesn't matter. This
story took itself too damn seriously.
Not only were the characters and their machinations
unpleasant, but instead of cheering when the "bad" girl
gets her comeuppance, I yawned. There's no point to a
torture story unless we can empathize with the victim
and share vicariously in his or her fate, whether they
deserve it or not. And in this story, I didn't
empathize, and I didn't care, and reading the whole
thing was extremely tedious. Not only that, there's
plenty of offensive Latino stereotypes, and some truly
stupid plot twists (Jordan fools the Mexican pirates
into thinking she's the maid of the gringos by speaking
high-school Spanish and wearing an unattractive dress.
Yeah, right.)
Not recommended unless you like overdetailed rape
stories with unrealistic teenagers.
Captain's Whore [A]
Where posted: ASSM
When posted: 6/28/02
Author: ben-wa
Message ID: 37093asstr$1025259003@assm.asstr-mirror.org
Type: M/F, ncon
This is what a pirate tale should be. A sheltered young
lass is captured by a "Ho ho! Me lads" type pirate and
brought before him for his inspection. The shredding of
clothes, and the shredding of dignity, follows:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"How dare you! You ruffian, you blackguard," I screamed
at him. My head snapped back as pain exploded in my
right cheek from a slap I had not even seen.
"Watch ye tongue lassie or I'll cut it out. Show proper
respect for the captain," said he. Stars swirled before
my eyes. No one had every struck me before. I would have
fallen, but was still held tightly, now thoroughly
cowed.
As I was trying to recover, I felt his hand lift my
right breast as if to weigh it. "Ye got ample equipment
lassie," said he as his other hand began to maul my left
breast.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, I'm perfectly aware that if you want to argue
realism, the hairy, scabby brigands would be more likely
to rape her, then kill her. But it's all tongue in cheek
here and meant in good fun, playing off our
preconceptions of pirates, and our romantic
preconceptions of pirates as well.
The Pirate, Parts 1 and 2 [C]
Where posted: ASSM
When posted: 7/9/03
Author: Wolfpup
Message ID (Part 1):
43299asstr$1057752605@assm.asstr-mirror.org
Message ID (Part 2):
43300asstr$1057752607@assm.asstr-mirror.org
Type: M/m, F/m, original slash, BDSM, slave, tort
Pirates go slash in this story, which wasn't labeled as
such, but clearly is by the style. It was originally
written and posted ten years ago by someone with the
name of "Wolfpup."
The male protagonist is the victim of a pirate raid in
which his father dies and his mother and sisters are
captured. He awakes tied up in the pirate's ship and
immediately starts feeling sorry for himself ("He felt
his tears flow in grief for his father, and the ship
lurched again. He felt his stomach respond, and he
vomited onto the floor, next to where he was laying.")
That pretty much sets the tone for everything that
follows, in which said vomit receives several more
mentions before finally being cleaned up. I don't know,
is dwelling on vomit really appropriate for a nice
slashy sex fantasy? I'd rather be thinking of other body
fluids. Anyway, as usual for a pirate story the
protagonist is claimed as a slave by the captain:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"Alex, welcome to my world. I am captain of this ship,
the Black Cutlass." The man sighed. "I know what you're
going through, and what you're feeling. I killed your
father, yes. Your mother and sisters are alive, and
were claimed by pirates on other ships. You will not
see any of them again. It is important that you obey me
and not resist me. I have an image to uphold, and,
since you are my slave, so do you. Any attempt to
resist me or escape, and you will be punished SEVERELY.
I have killed slaves before, and I will not hesitate to
do it now, if provoked. Do you understand?"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This speech references an odd combination of personality
traits for a pirate -- he's at once melancholy,
sympathetic and sadistic, and prone to schoolmarmish
lecturing -- and indicates a lack of writing skill on
the part of the author. The rest of the story was not
very good either. It had the overdetailed yet distant
tone of the journeyman slash writer, with a boring style
and lots of overwrought tears and sadism that never went
anywhere. It read like the author was just tooling
around, putting down whatever cliches (such as leashed
and collared slaves crawling about on deck) came to his
or her mind. I couldn't even figure out how old the
protagonist was supposed to be, never mind how he felt
about all this.
Uninvolving and definitely on the "eh" side of slash.
Pirates of the 22nd Century [A]
Where posted: ASSM
When posted: 7/9/03
Author: Meme Misspelt
Author website: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/meme_misspelt/www
Message ID: 43285asstr$1057741803@assm.asstr-mirror.org
Type: M/F, M/M, SF, nosex, nc, viol, satire
This story began in classic mode: the female captive is
about to be ravished by the brigands that captured her.
In this case, she's naked and tied to the mast of the
pirate ship, awaiting the arrival of a savior that never
quite manages to save her. Yet in the middle it took a
180-degree turn into something else, when it's revealed
the whole thing was a virtual reality setup and the
innocent lass is not what she seems. In fact, neither
are the two anti-pirates who eventually save her
(they're gay, for one thing.) To reveal more would give
the story away, but it has something to do with
artificial intelligences and those who use them.
This was a good, clever writing that played with a nifty
science fiction concept and gave it a few extra twists.
I do think, however, that it could have been longer --
an action or sex scene in the middle wouldn't have hurt.
I would also have liked to read more about the couple at
the end, who went off-camera as soon as we were
introduced to them. It may be that this do-gooding pair
have more stories written about them; if they don't,
they should, because they intrigued me that much, and so
did their world.
The Oarlock Tier [A-]
Where posted: ASSM
When posted: 7/9/03
Author: Valeria
Message ID: 43297asstr$1057752602@assm.asstr-mirror.org
Type: M+/F, BDSM, slave, ncon, rape, hist
This story only mentioned pirates in passing, but it had
two of the three necessary ingredients: high seas
adventure and a female who's ravished.
The protagonist of the story is a pleasure-slave whose
owner has tired of her and thrown her to the galley
slaves to give them some amusement. She's roundly raped,
but when her ship engages in battle she becomes more
useful, giving the slaves water and binding their
wounds. So useful that when a pirate craft attacks them
later on the ship's captain elects to whip her instead
of banging his drum to time the slaves' oarstrokes,
knowing that they'll row faster to protect her from
harm.
This was a deliciously cruel concept, and the author
seems to have done her homework regarding the historical
details of the ship and the slaves (though specifics,
like century and geographic area, were not mentioned.)
However, the story contained grammatical errors
("covering her with sperms" "to the Warf") and the
character of the slave herself was inconsistent -- she's
supposed to be a (presumably) Norse shield-maiden versed
in battle, yet comes across as a passive victim in the
beginning, and she mixes her mythology as well,
referencing Norse gods on one hand and Poseidon on the
other.
Nevertheless I thought this was an interesting and
unusual story. You don't see too much galley slave
fiction.
A Pirate's Treasure [A+]
Where posted: ASSM
When posted: 2/9/99
Author: Spoonbender
Message ID: 19796eli$9902090502@qz.little-neck.ny.us
Type: M/F, F/F, rape, bond, ncon, rom
Spoonbender has long been one of my favorite writers. He
hadn't written much in recent years, and has never
created a website to showcase his work. Which is too
bad, as he's one of the finest the ASS newsgroups have
produced, switching from humor to science fiction to
dark, disturbing tales of bondage with ease. What all
the stories have in common is a fertile imagination, an
attention to detail, and a wonderful sense of pacing and
revelation.
Here he takes on the pirate story (though, being posted
in 1999, it was not a response to this challenge.) He
carefully fits in all the classic elements: an 18th
century setting; a charismatic pirate captain; a
virginal young thing; and various other females to be
raped or abused. Sixteen-year-old Lisa is on her way to
meet her betrothed on the Caribbean island of St.
Georges when her ship is waylaid by pirates. Her
combination of naivete, youth, and forthrightness
attracts the notice of the dashing pirate captain
("dressed in a billowing white shirt, gathered tightly
around his wrists and waist... his pearl white teeth
gleamed in the nut brown of his face.") The other
females are divvied up amongst the crew, but young Lisa
is kept in reserve. She's tied to a post, stripped, and
mercilessly diddled; after having been well heated up
she is deposited in the captain's bed. Her reaction to
her deflowering is sensitive and perceptive for this
kind of story:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It was at that point that she looked down and saw it.
She'd heard about them, of course. Many a breathless,
giggling gathering in the gloom of her dormitory had
been called to speculate endlessly on what they looked
like and what they could do. Emily had seen her
brother's once when he was peeing and so she was the
'expert' on this matter which was considered to be of
vital importance to both her and to all her friends.
Emily had said that it was floppy and small and that he
had had to hold it or it would spray everywhere. They
had all giggled and blushed scarlet in happiness. But
they all wondered, in the fastness of their cots, on how
it was supposed to fit inside their secret places if it
was so floppy that it had to be held.
The Captain's was anything but floppy. It looked hard
and mean and menacing as it bobbed between his legs. She
could see the ragged slit carved into the plum-coloured
pulsating head and, to her innocent mind, it looked both
evil and deformed. A true tool of the devil.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The other females don't have it so easy ("Her crotch was
a glistening mass of shifting slime which coagulated and
dripped to the floor") and neither does Lisa, who
eventually has to clean up that glistening mass with her
tongue. But on the whole the nastiness is not dwelt on,
just mentioned, factually, in passing, giving us a
little jolt of cruelty before the story moves on.
The females are eventually by the English Royal Navy and
the brigands imprisoned, but gossip and rumor follow
them around, leading to trouble with Lisa's fiance, the
odious Lord Mayverley. Extracting, and getting not a
little turned by, the tale of her abuse he visits the
prison cell to gloat over the pirates, who are to be
executed the next day. But to no one's surprise the
pirates ambush him and the captain makes off with Lisa,
and the author has made it clear which man she prefers.
A noncon tale that is romantic as well as being cruel.
Recommended.
Share of Booty [A]
Where found: The Mind Control Story Archive
URL: http://www.mcstories.com/ShareOfBooty/index.html
Author: Anynom
Type: M/F, mc, hist
Captain Mesmon is a charismatic pirate known for his
nobility of manner ("However, he had a strange code of
honor that set him apart from most pirates. He did not
slaughter a weakened enemy and, while he would take the
valuables and female passengers, he did leave the ships
in decent enough shape to return home"); his crew
consists of both males and females, all of them devoted
to looting and pillaging in a existentialist way ("We're
not exactly the most popular people around. Although, if
you think of it, we're none the worse than the very
governors you serve. We're just honest with how
dishonest we are.") When the pirate ship captures an
English freighter and the luscious plum Kate -- an
adventuress and a bit of a rebel -- she soon finds out
how the captains gains such loyal followers -- his
hypnotist powers, of course.
This was an interesting twist on the subject matter by
the author; playful without being too sinister, as mc
stories can be. Tongue-in-cheek, too.
Slaves: The Lady and the Pirate of the Sands [A-]
Where found: Randomerotica.com
URL:
http://www.randomerotica.com/Stories/slaves/ladypira.htm
Author: Brush Strokes
Type: M/F, D/s, slave, hist
In this story the pirates are desert (land) pirates who
capture a caravan of bored English wives who are
traveling from Cairo to meet their husbands in Khartoum.
It's the Victorian age, and young Ivy Bradford is
mortified when, after protesting her treatment like a
good Victorian woman would, she is singled out for
attention:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Once again the leader spoke in Arabic. The man who had
just checked their bonds walked over to his camel and
got his riding crop. Walking back to the now terrified
Ivy, he grabbed her by the hair and forced her down to
her knees, pressing her face into the host sand. She
could feel him using the hand which held the crop to
lift up her dress and petticoats. To her dismay, he did
not stop at her bloomers. He pulled them down too.
With her face pressed into the sand, she could not even
scream. Her bare backside was exposed to all the
marauding band of supposed rescuers, and, even more
degrading than this, all of the ladies who accompanied
the column were witness to this shame. Pain filled her
entire body as the crop was laid across her buttocks
three times. Pulled to her feet by her hair, she gasped
for air as she was returned to the line of female
captives. Her face was covered with a mixture of the
dessert's fine white sand and shame.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Later she's slung across the pirate captain's saddle and
secured with a knotted robe that rubs against her
privates, causing continual orgasms as she slides back
and forth. And as if that wasn't enough, at the pirate
camp she's stripped, strung up by her wrists in a tent,
and forced to wriggle to the beat of a whip aimed at her
feet. This promptly converts her over to the joys of
slavehood at the hands of her overwhelmingly handsome
and masterful captor.
This story combined several genres: pirate, Arab-slave,
historical, and D/s, and while it handled them well, it
lacked something. Perhaps the protagonist was too much
of a strident Victorian moralist, instead of deliciously
sobbing out her helplessness or having conflicting
feelings like the heroine in the Spoonbender story.
Perhaps there should have been some humor, some knowing
asides to the reader. Perhaps the heroine's conversion
came too quickly. She's strung up and within the space
of a few minutes becomes a whimpering sub? Not very
likely.
Perhaps the whole thing was just too calculated.
____________________________________________________
Comments to: ladycyrrh@aol.com
Website---> http://members.aol.com/ladycyrrh
--
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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