#CharactersTell Antagonists Week - Interview with Heather Monroe's Superego

A litral angel on her shoulder, it seems

Another week, another interview, of course! And this one's an interesting one: for our antagonists this time we have a Main Character's psychological facet - Heather Monroe's Superego. After all, sometimes our greatest enemies and hurdles come from inside ourselves! Heather Monroe is the protagonist of "The Admonition Position", the second book of the Marshmellow Slut erotic saga from Marsha Adams! This Superego seems to have quite the hard time trying to keep Heather in check in her exploration of more and more intense and extreme kinks~

Look at that glance. She must have some
other delightful deviousness in mind.

Marsha is a lovely Scottish writer, who has already two books on Amazon! You can find her Amazon Author Page here, along with her books, by following this link!

She's active on Twitter as well (and you should totally follow her using this link right here!)

But let's get down to it, shall we?

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With the second week of May, we get to know some of our antagonists a bit better - and today we’ve got one of them! I have to admit, though, this is a first for me, interviewing a psychological construct. Would you please introduce yourself, your book and your author for us?

Hi, I’m Heather Monroe’s superego. Marsha Adams wrote “The Admonition Position” about me. Well, Heather says it was written about her, but we both know it would have been a better story if I was the main character.

So, you’re her Super-Ego… I must confess, I might be a tad rusty on my psychology. Can you tell us what you represent in her?

I’m her conscience, I guess. I’m the part that makes smart choices. The right choices. I’m fighting a constant battle with her id. She wants Heather to have ‘fun’.To be a bit adventurous. I try to keep Heather on the straight and narrow. Not ‘straight’! Not like that. But, you know, morally correct. I try to stop her making mistakes. I’m… I’m not very good at my job. She doesn’t listen to me.

To be honest, you make it sound like you have a lot of fights to keep Heather on the right path, or at least the one you seem to define as such. You were very quick about trying to specify you weren’t talking about ‘straight’ in that manner. Was that a difficult part as you were growing up with Heather and her id?

It wasn’t, not at all. I don’t know where she gets these ideas from. Well, I do. They conspire against me. Peter gives her notions, her id thinks they sound like fun and Heather sides with the two of them. She hardly ever listens to me. I’m having a bit of an identity crisis if I’m honest: I’m not even sure if I know what ‘right’ is any more.

You really sound stressed out by all of this. Is it always this much of a constant struggle? Do you ever get at least some little victory in Heather’s mind or do you feel like you’re slipping?

I do win sometimes. But it’s like she has to hit rock bottom before she listens to me. I keep telling her she can have fun safely, and id keeps pushing her to go further. I think I saved her when she was at her worst. She was… well, she was close to giving up. On everything, you know? But I made her get help. From Peter. I’m not sure that was right either, but it was better than the alternative.

At least you do get some shots in. I think it’s important. And, was there ever a time when you thought you were right but instead you were wrong? You mentioned you don’t think you know what’s right anymore, what is it that you’re changing your mind on?

I convinced her to start seeing Peter. He seemed like he’d be the sensible choice if she really wanted to listen to id. He came across as moral. I don’t think he’s moral. I think I made a mistake there. The thing is, I’m only as smart as Heather. She’s not stupid, not at all, but she can be naive. So I’m kind of naive. But trusting people is a good thing, right?

It tends to be as a general rule, but I think you yourself noticed that it might be a mistake to trust everyone. So, tell us about you. Do you remember when was the first time that you actually made a difference in Heather’s life? What’s the first time you had to push her to do the right thing?

When she was 13, she lost her father. That was my chance to really shine. Her grades started to slip and I turned her round. I made her into a determined young woman, ready to take on the world.

Do you think you might have overdone it, perhaps? A big boost of confidence and strength can bring to underestimate possible physical or social risks.

You see, this is why I doubt myself. What if I’ve always been wrong, even when I thought I was doing my best job? Working hard, striving, never giving up: those are supposed to be good things, right? Moral choices. But they’ve got Heather into trouble, more than once. And out of trouble too, I suppose. I do my best. I do. That’s the moral thing: always doing your best. That’s what I want for Heather.

They do say that hindsight is 20/20, so I guess you can’t really consider how something can affect someone in the long run until you see it happen. So… Tell us. What sort of trouble are you trying to keep Heather out of? You seem pretty worried about this, what do you think can happen to her?

She makes poor choices. About sex. Sorry. I shouldn’t talk about that. Or maybe I can? This is half the problem: I’m supposed to be enforcing social standards and I don’t know what they are any more. And Heather is in some very odd social situations with some very unusual people these days. I’m a bit lost, frankly. I just worry that she’ll end up with people who don’t care about her like I do.

Of course you can talk about sex. We explore all sorts of themes around here, I even wrote a blog post about sexuality. And well… I can completely understand your worry. Especially in that field, we can end up getting burnt very easily, the lines between physical and emotional safety are very much blurred when physical contact comes into play. Does she get in a lot of… well, weird situations, sexually speaking?

She only gets in weird situations these days. It’s like someone took the lid off a big box of kink and everything’s jumped out. All the urges I’d been keeping under control, all the awful stuff she fantasises about when she thinks I’m not looking… everything.  It’s worrying. And I don’t even know if it’s wrong. It feels wrong. Her mum wouldn’t like any of it.

Then again, sexuality is a very personal thing, isn’t it? And it’s definitely not something we usually share with our parents in the more…’explicit’ sense of it. Doesn’t it feel good to have her feel good? What sort of fantasies does she have that upset you so much?

The BDSM stuff confuses me. And it makes me redundant, I think: she likes being punished, she’s punished when she’s bad, so she likes being bad. Where do I come into that? Nowhere, that’s where. I’m useless. And anonymous sex! How can I help her do the right thing if I don’t even know who she’s doing it with? Don’t even get me started on the public stuff. Sex is private, like you said. Personal. It’s not supposed to be on stage, for an audience. Except almost everyone around her is actually a decent person. They are. They’re good. But… they do these awful things. And she tells me I mustn’t judge them.

You might be playing a bigger part than you realize though. Without your warnings and the feelings you provide, wouldn’t the rush in certain things get lessened? And perhaps you might want to look at it from a different perspective - more at how to keep doing this but recognize hard boundaries than trying to pull her away from this world all together.

I’m not sure Heather would have any boundaries if it wasn’t for me. She says she does, but then her id goes to work, and Peter talks to her, or Gabriella does, and then she ends up doing things I told her not to. Because I’m not allowed to judge this stuff, apparently. Her new rule is “everything’s okay if everyone’s having fun”. I’m trying to adjust to that. I guess judging people for how they have fun is… wrong? How can I do my job if the rules keep changing like that? This is not how we were brought up.

I mean, as long as everyone, and especially Heather, is having fun and are safe I think pushing some boundaries is fine. But you do seem to have a lot of work on your hands regardless to make sure they aren’t pushed too far, divide social norms that can be wrong from actual possible harm, you know? Anyway, I’m afraid we’re almost out of time! Is there anything you’d like to say to our audience before we conclude the interview?

Well, the right thing to do would be thank them - and you - very much for listening to me. And apologise for complaining so much, I guess. And for talking about… you know. That stuff. And for gossiping about Heather. Oh hell, I’m just bad at my job, aren’t I? Sorry.

Ah, don’t take it badly. It means we get to know more about both Heather and you, innit? Thanks for coming! Hope you and Heather id can find a way to coexist well together! Can’t wait to see your influence in “The Admonition Position”!

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And this concludes our interview for this week! As always, remember that YOU can have YOUR Characters interviewed on this blog as well! Just send me a direct message on Twitter on my profile, which you can find through this link here!

See you next week with a new Side Character!!

TIOGAIR

Book pitch:

It's 2067. 

It's been 3 years since the Gatecrash, the cataclysmic event that mutated a quarter of the human population.
Magic - known as Ether - returned to the world, and monsters roam again in the wilderness, crossing the portals opening to unknown worlds that appear throughout the globe. 

As a constant reminder of this event stands the azure sphere of chaotic energy, glowing in the hills northeast of ex-Colorado Springs, now rebaptized Cerulean Springs due to that unending glimmer: a city that changed its face just as quickly as its name, becoming an enormous metropolis with its own dark sides in the span of a few decades.

These sudden, worldwide changes caused chaos at first - but, with the 'humanitarian' support of the corporations, the flash-fire riots were quelled, and the population settled - the rise in power and standing of the corps being just a side effect, of course.

Society evolved, assimilated the new and adapted: from fear to unease, from unease to new business venues and research fields, just as it did in the last decades with the blindingly fast development of technology and the discovery of the almost mystical Essences. After all, what's a new weirdness in a world where mechanical implants are common and the body is nothing but a canvas to change and adapt to one's wishes?

Despite all this, certain things never change: there's still the need for shadowy figures able to do things that others wouldn't.
Zoe is one of them: a mutated human - a Gatecrasher - and a combat mage by trade, introduced into the life of an underground mercenary after the Gatecrash riots.

She's minding her own business between jobs, when the disappearance of a woman working in her favorite Pleasure House pushes her to go on the hunt to uncover the dancer's fate - free of charge.

Once on the trail, though, she will quickly realize she might have bitten more than she can chew: what started as a simple investigation will bring her to uncover darker and more dangerous secrets, forcing the Irish mage to use all her tricks and delve into the dirtiest parts of Cerulean Springs to keep her word, while trying to keep sane indulging in the pleasure of the flesh.

One of the ways she keeps her mind busy from the painful memories of a past she's still trying to cope with.

My experience writing it

This is my second novel!

And...it's been quite a surprise, really. Last year I was working on Elemental 2 and I was starting to get a tad burned out (I was coming out of translating, formatting, etc Elemental 1, and the whole publishing thing, which can be somewhat stressful), so I decided to write a short just for the heck of it.

Just for kicks, I decided to make it an erotic short.

In the meantime I was continuing to promote Elemental on Twitter, where I've seen some erotic books being promoted.

And that was pretty much the moment I decided I wanted to try my hand writing something that still had erotic contents, but had a serious story and well rounded characters into it.

I had the Cerulean Springs setting in mind for quite a long time now, and I always had an intention to write in that universe. And I thought to myself "Why not now?"

Soooo... I did!

I wrote the first draft in about a month or so. I was completely engrossed in the story, and in the end I got this missing person thriller going, with some spicy elements to it - elements being the keyword since in the end the erotic parts are more tied to character fleshing out and development than the story itself. It's a story about someone who's extremely sexual, but the driving plot is actually something much darker and 'detached' from sex, to the point that in one specific pitch (which I still hold dear to this day!) I've been told the naughty bits took too much of a backseat to the story for that house. And that was the most brilliant and helpful rejection letter I received, one that I still am thankful for.

This experience helped me cement my views on sexuality in fiction, which I talked about in detail in this blog post.

And in the end, Tiogair had its big launch party during #MCchat on Twitter last week!

There are a lot of projects I'm tying to this universe as well - one that I'm currently working on a Tabletop Roleplaying Game based in it, still in the works - and I do intend to write more stories in this setting, along with Elemental 2.

Where can you find it?

First, a warning: Tiogair contains mature themes that place it in the 'adult only' category (graphic sex and violence, use of substances, foul language). With that out of the way you can find it through these links:

English Versions:

- Tiogair - Kindle eBook

- Tiogair - POD Paperback on Amazon

Italian Versions:

- Tiogair - Kindle eBook

- Tiogair - POD Paperback su Amazon

Goodreads:

- Tiogair page (all editions available)

Short - Tryouts (NSFW)

 I don't remember exactly what made me write this short. I just remember that, shortly after I finished the first draft of Tiogair, I had someone talk about 'putting unicorns in the WIP' on Twitter, and so, considering my new book's setting is quite apt for that, I did.

 Set in the Heart's Delight, Cerulean Springs' best sex club, it depicts a 'normal' casting day for a new dancer. Meet Zoe, the MC of the new book, Paula, the owner, and Ian, the heavily-augmented DJ.

 And George, the unicorn.

“You think it’s real? I mean, it can’t be. It has to have had some work done, an implant or something.”

The tigress was sitting on the chair in front of the stage, her eyes completely fixed on the spectacle that was being presented. The slow, obvious, ridiculously sexual saxophone and bass accompanying the dance echoing in the empty club, soundwaves reflecting in the spacious room making them distort slightly.

Not that she cared. Or the other two people along with her. They were way too distracted.

“Mh. Dunno. If he had some work done, it doesn’t really show.” Paula replied, arching her eyebrow as she scuttled a bit on the chair to get more comfortable. “The coat is absolutely gorgeous, though.”

“Whiter than the snow in December~” the melodic tone of the dj chimed in. The metal plates forming his features were curled and contorted in a sly, appreciating smile.

The music picked up the pace as the tryout gyrated around the pole, well defined muscles bulging under the short, brisk fur and skin, the three spectators all letting out varied stupefied sounds as they saw the body contorting and hanging masterfully in mid air.

“Dìa, that is impressi- Cac naofa!” The tigress widened her eyes as she felt a swift Ether manipulation in the air surrounding them, and the bottom clothes of the tryout were ripped off by a magic surge in the middle of the rotations, revealing everything underneath.

Still stunned by the sudden discovery of the tryout having Ether talent, the tigress lost her chance to compete in the short-lived, one-sided battle ensuing, with Paula using her mechanical arm and bodybuilder physique to push the DJ away and catch the prize.

An electronic, disappointed hiss rose from the internal speakers of the scorned showman.

Finally stopping his swirls on the pole, the perspective dancer spreaded his legs, giving the back to the audience to show the chromed shaft slide across the perfect buttocks to a graceful halt kneeling on the stage floor.

The slightly equine-featured head tilted back, a seductive smile barely visible and, as the music stopped, he tapped the pole with the long, spiralled horn protruding from his forehead, his free hand holding a massive, hung shaft already hard and pointing, just to the side enough for his audience to notice the tip and the jet-black skin.

A very long silence weighed in the room as the three judges blinked, Paula still squeezing way too tightly onto the easily discardable trousers that were tossed their way.

George, the dancing unicorn trying out for the club, frowned. “Was...something wrong…?” he asked. “I’m still working on the Ether control, but-”

“I think” Paula interrupted “that you have talent, George, but you do know dancing is only part of what we offer here at the Heart’s Delight.”

Both Zoe and the DJ opened in a wide grin.

Paula ignored them both, clearing her throat and trying to hide at least part of her blushing cheeks with the cascade of now pink hair flowing on one side of her head. “As the owner of the club, I do think it is just fitting that I’m the one to put you through the rest of the tests to-”

“Oh, I disagree!” Zoe, outraged, interjected, her tail swiftly flapping from side to side, ready for battle. “As a representative of the general customer population, -and- with the capacity to judge from -both- sides of the spectrum, I’m clearly the most qualified person in this room, nay, in this entire -club- to judge his performance!”

A sneering, distorted hiss came from Ian’s speakers. “And with the sense of rhythm of a drunkard, hip-challenged middle aged man. I have the equipment to clearly analyze every aspect of his performance, and especially make sure it’s up to the standards not only of a sex club but of a dancing club as well. You know music does play a part on some of the play scenes upstairs too.”

“I am going to fry that goddamn metal face of yours, I can dance!”

“No you can’t.” Paula retorted.

“I so can! And besides, he needs to know how to fuck the brains out with style not only do it on a beat!”

“This is why I don’t invite you two to tryouts! I am the club owner, I get first dibs!”

“But come ooon, have you seen him!?” Ian pouted.

“Hands off, tincan! He needs to behave when he gets oral. Guess who doesn’t have a speaker in the way of our throats?” the tigress victoriously smirked, pointing at her and Paula. All under the confused looks of the poor aspiring dancer.

The three looked at each other angrily, still bickering on first dibs before Paula shushed them rising her hand.

Bopped on the nose with the flailing pants, the tigress scrunched her face, glaring at her.

“So. George. I know you didn’t write anything about it, but you do know we offer the option for group sex, right? How do you play with numbers?”

“Ah, I’m quite apt. Had my experiences.”

Immediately the bickering stopped, and all three opened in a wide grin, standing up in unison.

“Well then. If you care to follow us-”

“Wait!” the tigress moved to the unicorn, her eyes fixed unashamedly on a very specific spot, biting her lower lip. “So, before we do this, I need to ask. Is that real? Can I touch it?”

George chuckled, with a knowing smile and presented himself openly. With a childish grin, the tigress rose up on the tip of her toes and wrapped her hand around it, giving it a long stroke, gasping.

The spiraled curves of the horn felt so interesting under her palm, and the consistency was clearly natural. “Do you…”

“Yes.”

“In both-”

“Oh, yes. It’s a very common request.”

“RIGHT, PAULA, GET THE ROOM READY!”

//END//

On sex and character development

 It still feels kinda weird that everything led to me writing a bad review of something so close to opening this blog.

 I mean, it's not like it was planned but it was mostly something that happened.

 Still, since as every artist I'm a creature heavily depending on the opinion others have of me for my self-validation, I do find it important not to leave it alone as a precedent and as some sort of...'indication' of things to come.

 Even because I'm not entirely sure how much I can keep up doing ranting reviews. They're fun to do, but I'm quite aware that I have a bit of an issue with commitments.

Me when nobody watches. Nakedness included.

But I felt I wanted to be positive more than negative, and boy can I be negative (as I already displayed in my review of Open House). So I wanted to do something about it.

 Let me introduce you to "I Roved Out in Search of Truth and Love" from Alexis Flower (here's the twitter profile) Now. Warning. It's DEFINITELY NSFW, but I meean, look at the title of this post. Y'all knew we were about to talk about some naughty stuff. Hell, some of you might be here just for that, and the fact I've found this probably says a lot on my take on the subject.

*

*Consume with moderation. Make sure to keep hydrated. Images depicted aren't a representation of real life interactions.
But don't let that stop you from trying to make it so. :3

 Now, why am I going to talk about this comic? Well, first because my upcoming book does entrench kinda in the same 'territory', but using it as an example sounded a bit too self-aggrandizing (and who knows me knows I'm really not a self-aggrandizing person).

 Second, because it's a good way to speak about something I do find important. Story in porn and porn in stories. Weird, I know, but I'm a big advocate for it.

 Third, simply because I enjoyed the hell out of all of it, the author has been so amazing to put it online for free, and it's awesome and hot, and even funny at times. Just look at the writing on the map! LOOK AT IT! *squeals*

The story so far

 The comic introduces a big number of characters, but the ones we'll be following more during the adventure are Cinder (or at least that's one of the names she uses) a buxom-y, very, very friendly and kinky elf working as a scout ranger for the local guild, and Maeryll, a silver haired, posh, lithe magically active elf with a taste for fine clothes, chess and boobs. The two enjoy thoroughly their time together and with various other people, and both of them are very reluctant and actively trying their best to avoid the BIG OVERARCHING QUEST™ looming over The Land menacing to suck them in, just wanting to enjoy life, go around, and basically pretty much fuck their way through their long, elven life.

I approve of this course of action.

  Of course, all good plans meet with reality eventually, and starting with the untimely demise of a Royal figure, the two will both take their path throughout the land with a lot of new encounters on the way, mysteries to solve, and raunchy, graphic, messy flings with a lot of people.

 And all of this with an absolutely delightful artstyle that is a feast for your eyes. The anatomy and the 'softness' of the bodies is portrayed delightfully, the colors are vivid and enticing, the details on some of the shots is astounding and the landscape as well! It's just lovely. The quality you see on the cover is the same sort of quality you can expect in the bulk of the books themselves.

 So, to top off this mini 'review' part, go, read it, enjoy it, share it around and support the artist !

GET ON WITH IT!

Ok, ok, put down the spears. Geez.

  So, the reason I wanted to talk about this comic it's because it's a perfect example of what I like to call 'porn with story'. Which, incidentally, it's what I tried to do with Tiogair (even if Tiogair kinda went the way of being a story with porn, but hey, I'm absolutely fine with it.)

  Now, I'm not saying everyone in their stories should have graphic orgies between twenty characters every few pages, but please, please please, if you're people who are writing for adults and want to tackle this sort of themes, don't be stopped by the thought that 'if I put a graphic scene into my work, my story will be lessened'. And at the same time, if you're writing erotica, don't be stopped from exploring deeper stories and character development because 'no, the two things don't mesh well'.

  We tackle mainly stories that have as protagonists people - sure, some might very well be not exactly people, but you get my point. In a lot of cases, not all of them obviously, sexuality is an important part of a person, and knowing how they act, how they flirt, what they like (even if it's not shown in the book!) can make a story so much more enticing, because it makes the character rounded. Your big, strong, brooding warrior perhaps likes softness in intimacy, and just him glancing  with a bit of a discreet, longing gaze to a happy, cuddly couple because he knows he has an image to maintain and won't be able to show that side of his if not in very private settings, can give us an idea that under that big chin, the broad shoulders and the big sword there's something more.

  And the comic I've brought here today as an example is an amazing testament to this, exactly for its erotic nature - while the sex is absolutely prevalent in the whole work of this artist, we don't lose track of the fact that these are all people. With their personalities, their ideas, their way of living, and so on.

  That they actually enjoy genuinely all the naughty bits, not being just a mean for pornographic images (nothing wrong with that either btw, as long as the work 'knows' that's its reason) and they have a deeper, more interesting story to look forward to after all the bodily fluids have been gushed out and the afterglow passes.

  In a society where sex, and people working in the sex industry, still is seen as something 'taboo' and 'weird', where people who enjoy different lifestyles are being shamed, normalizing and realizing that under the kink there are actually real people - in fiction and not - is a powerful thing.

  So go forth, my fellow pervs and pervettes. Find more works of this genre. And if there's none?

  Hey, we are writers for a reason, aren't we?

  If you feel like giving it a try, make some.

  Toodles!