Saint James Infirmary #1122: “Let The Right One In”

[Daphne]

Script: Daphne • Line Art: Plutonian Knight • Colors and Lettering: Octavia Moon

[mns_95125]

I'm having a lot of trouble getting a read on Adrian's character these days.  If Miriam thinks she "belongs to" him, it's probably because Adrian used the crystal to make her that way.  So why is he reacting that way to her pronouncement?  Half of the time he seems like he's deeply uncomfortable about mind control and its consequences, the other half of the time he's using the crystal to program women and ordering people around.  It's like Good!Adrian doesn't know about what Controller!Adrian has been up to.

It's very difficult to reconcile the Adrian from #808/811 with the Adrian from #604/606.

[caseyx]

I'm having a lot of trouble getting a read on Adrian's character these days.  If Miriam thinks she "belongs to" him, it's probably because Adrian used the crystal to make her that way.  So why is he reacting that way to her pronouncement?  Half of the time he seems like he's deeply uncomfortable about mind control and its consequences, the other half of the time he's using the crystal to program women and ordering people around.  It's like Good!Adrian doesn't know about what Controller!Adrian has been up to.

It's very difficult to reconcile the Adrian from #808/811 with the Adrian from #604/606.

My take on Adrian in 604 is that he was under the psychic influence of the spell that Erin started with Miriam in 564. During that sequence Erin gets dragged under by Jakob's influence that he'd left in Miriam's mind and for a while thinks she's one of Jakob's mindless slaves.  Through their previous ritual connection Dani and Adrian get affected too. He has a sudden change of personality in 578, which seems to indicate that he's channeling Jakob's personality. Given that, I feel like his programming of Miriam, Raven and Reka was done "under the influence", so to speak.  When he's in his own mind, so to speak, he shows the reluctance to mind control that has been a hallmark of his character throughout. As the story has progressed he's shown more comfort with the situation and willingness to use his control when there's a reason. But he's still fundamentally a reluctant master.

I know a lot of folks here really dislike this reluctance.  To me it makes the character much more interesting as a protagonist.

BTW - thanks for giving me a reason to reread that chapter of the story.  "Tits and holes" is one of my favorite parts.

[Haight]

I know a lot of folks here really dislike this reluctance.  To me it makes the character much more interesting as a protagonist.

Eh, it's a big part of what made me check out. That, and specifically how the story presents when the girls do mind control as nothing to worry about. Usually kind of telling of people's ideas about male and female sexuality in general, and it's an incredibly annoying trope in MC erotica.

[Daphne]

That, and specifically how the story presents when the girls do mind control as nothing to worry about. Usually kind of telling of people's ideas about male and female sexuality in general, and it's an incredibly annoying trope in MC erotica.

I literally do not understand what you mean here.

[mns_95125]

My take on Adrian in 604 is that he was under the psychic influence of the spell that Erin started with Miriam in 564.

While I agree that Adrian's behavior in #604/606 was influenced by the mind-link, after that point he keeps flipping back and forth.  He's deeply reluctant in #808/811, but was quite willing to use mind control to put people in danger during the airport sequence, which happened later.  In #1109 he's acting like he owns her, but in #1122 he seems to be saying that he doesn't.  Controller!Adrian wasn't a one-time thing, he comes and goes.

BTW - thanks for giving me a reason to reread that chapter of the story.  "Tits and holes" is one of my favorite parts.

Surely that should be two or more of your favorite parts?

[caseyx]

In the airport sequence it seems to me that he was very motivated to help Dani and thus felt it was necessary.  In 1109 I see at his Adrian getting frustrated and acting out of that frustration to get Miriam to shut up.  Not so much a flip-flop as a reaction. Which kind of backfires on him, judging from the last panel.  Anyway, YMMV.

[Haight]

I literally do not understand what you mean here.

Like when Erin and Danielle (I think it was) used the crystal on Miriam. It's presented in a very different light than a lot of the other mind control.

And it's super common in MC erotica in general; reluctant, niceguy controller, who gets mind controlled women dropped in his lap, basically. And oftentimes in those stories women do plenty of mind controlling to but it's treated with different moral weight than if a guy does it.

[lancehunter]

I literally do not understand what you mean here.

Like when Erin and Danielle (I think it was) used the crystal on Miriam. It's presented in a very different light than a lot of the other mind control.

And it's super common in MC erotica in general; reluctant, niceguy controller, who gets mind controlled women dropped in his lap, basically. And oftentimes in those stories women do plenty of mind controlling to but it's treated with different moral weight than if a guy does it.

I think a lot of that has to do with male-dominant vs female-dominant mc erotica. In femdom mc stories (whether the subject is a man/woman/etc), it is very common to see the same amount of moral gravity given to the woman controller's actions as you'd see given to the man a male-dominant story.

As for the reluctant, nice-guy controller trope; I think that often comes from a lot of mc fans' desire to square the circle of having this fetish while being moral, empathetic people. As the disclaimer in the beginning of the Mind Control Theatre videos goes: sexual coercion of any type is a horrible crime. While it can sometimes be hot to read stories with controllers who are amoral (or outright evil), more often someone who has fantasies of this type of control wants to see a scenario where someone like them is doing the controlling. So you end up with stories where a nice-guy controller has hot women falling into his lap. And you also get stories where those hot women then control even more hot women, free of moral concern since nice-guy's morals are the story's focus.

I will say that there have been some interesting subversions of this trope. Stories where the nice guy controller becomes corrupted through the very act of controlling. I don't know if that is the direction things may be going down in this story. Also, it is notable that I've never encountered a femdom mc story that has a similar "nice-girl controller".

[GodWilling]

Like when Erin and Danielle (I think it was) used the crystal on Miriam. It's presented in a very different light than a lot of the other mind control.

But is it? The authorial voice in SJI is pretty quiet; we're basically just shown what happens. The characters may feel differently about it, but then all of the characters in that scene had been mind controlled to think differently about a lot of things. It seems perfectly possible that Miriam having sex with Adrian - an outcome of that scene as I recall - has had, or is going to have, catastrophic consequences. Whether that's the case or not, the outlook of the women in that room at that moment would have been the same.

[mns_95125]

I think the sequence where Astrid gets her hooks into Caitlyn has the same kind of 'serious' feeling to it as a lot of the maledom MC in SJI.

[janxspirit]

Interesting foliage they have on campus.