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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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