Hello, I am known as K-8 (aka "conscious_object"). Here I keep a fetish blog with a (skewed) sense of humor. Contained herein you will find my various random thoughts on my unique fetishes, and interesting finds culled from all over the intarweb, including art by my friends, and sometimes my own art.

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I've joked in the past that you could almost devote a whole blog just to instances of X-Men author Chris Claremont injecting his favorite fetishes into the stories he writes. However, I was wrong. You can actually devote a whole blog to any one of his fetishes, as just proven to me by the fittingly named ClarMindControl.

Figured I should post this next, since a few people enquired after I mentioned it.

X-Men #1-3. The X-Men are battling Magneto and his Acolytes. The fight comes to an abrupt stop thanks to an Acolyte called Chrome. Guess what he does?



This is not the first time Claremont has statuefied an X-Man.

Perhaps seeing this is what gives Magneto the idea to do what he does with Moira MacTaggart. See, Magneto isn't very happy with Moira. Moira was entrusted with him when he was reduced to an infant for a period, during which she examined his genetic code, and discovered what might be responsible for his behaving like such a crazed maniac in adulthood. (And when ultimately reverted back into an adult, he wasn't aged back fully for some reason, which is why he appears so young in the comics for someone who's a Holocaust survivor...and that's just a mild example of how convoluted the X-Men got during the 90s).

Magneto is highly disturbed with the thought of someone tampering with the core of his being while in a vulnerable state, and makes Moira aware of this fact.





Absolute control over her body...and her ability to speak: ( Continue Reading... )

I once mentioned some time ago about how Chris Claremont has a reputation for injecting some of his pet fetishes (that is to say: fetishes he particularly enjoys, not fetishes for pets ;-)) into his stories, many of which I seem to share (body transformation, mind control, etc.).

I've thought off and on of making a "regular feature" of occasionally posting about stories of his where these elements pop up, but I admit I've been unsure what tone to take in writing about it. Because on the one hand, his earlier stories are very well-written, and the fetish themes are more subtle, which makes it seem less indulgent on his part. Yet his later stories are a little more un-good, and the fetish themes either pop up so often that they start to get annoying (like when some variety of mind control pops up in every other story), or are so un-subtle as to become obnoxious (see the Storm S&M romp X-Treme X-Men: Storm - The Arena, which I'm sure I'll cover one of these days).

As a result, I'm torn between wanting to celebrate Claremont and how reading stories like this with certain themes popping up often enough for me realize I probably wasn't alone in these fetishes and fascinations (before I was even aware of the word "fetish"), or to poke fun at how ridiculous it eventually becomes.

Which means, y'know, I'll probably be end up doing a little bit of both. ;-)

Aside from that story I previously mentioned, the other earliest Claremont issues I remember reading were X-Men (1991) #1-2, and Sovereign Seven #11. The X-Men issues happen to contain a bit where Magneto coats Moira MacTaggart in a thin layer of metal, allowing him to restrict her movements however he likes, and even put her on mute if he so desires...but I'll get to that another time. ;-)

This issue of his creator-owned series Sovereign Seven, on the other hand, I think might be the most transform-tastic issue he's ever written. I could be wrong, because I've not yet read every single thing Claremont has written, but where its usually just one or two people that get transformed in odd ways, in this one it's nearly half the team.

Three villains have entered their quarters in order to attack the team, which villain named after an artist, with powers based upon the imagery of their namesake. Escher disorients them by turning their surroundings into impossible constructions. Bosch summons a bunch of giant demon flies...which actually behave more like spiders, for no explainable reason other than that so characters can get all bound up in goopy black webbing and have their own little S&M experience:



A moment later, the fly pinches his nose shut, forcing his mouth open, and ejaculates a goopy narcoleptic substance into his mouth. I'm not joking.

And the third villain is Arcimboldo, who -- guess what? -- transforms characters into living objects.

At least, that's what he does most of the time. The transformations start out looking fairly Arcimboldo-like, with one woman turned into a construction of matches (and initially threatened with a lighter, but turns the tables on the villains at the end after they've been subdued):



Another character turned into, I guess, a human Erector Set:



And Cruiser, whose power is fueled by how much body mass he has, is starved and then turned into:



But then the transformations stray a bit. Because I don't really recall Arcimboldo ever painting people to look animal-esque, yet here's one of the team turned into a fishgirl:



And other teammate being threatened to become a catgirl:



Wait no, change her first before you run away...! What a tease.

So, y'know, not the coolest-looking transformations or anything, but I'd never seen a story quite like this.

I posted earlier about Claremont often writing fetish-y elements into his stories on X-Men (subtle at first, but gradually more blatant as the years progressed). The funny thing is, themes of forced-transformation were so common in his run, that even after he left, other writers would end up continuing it, perhaps not entirely realizing since it'd become just the X-Men-like thing to do.

One common theme that continues to pop up today is roboticization. (Oh, hey look -- Wikipedia even has an article on the topic...which reminds me I need to write an entry on the dark Sat-AM Sonic The Hedgehog cartoon. I know several of you have similarly fond memories, since I've discussed it with a few of you. ;-))

The first X-Men roboticization story I encountered (written years after Claremont had left) involved the return of an old villain named Cameron Hodge, who'd turned himself into this being of organic machinery. He brings with an old girlfriend Archangel's, revived from the dead. As Archangel starts ripping into Hodge, his old girlfriend discovers something suprising:







That image of her pulling at her lip with her roboticized hands, in particular, has always stuck in my brain. Not because I found this particular example of the fetish to be in any way erotic, but just because it's so "omg, intense."


Most recently, a different roboticized character has actually joined one of the main X-Men teams. In the late 90's, a new type of mutant-hunting Sentinels were introduced, called Prime Sentinels. These are unassuming humans implanted with nanotechnology, who act as "sleeper agents." When activated, the human's body is transformed into an armored machine, their consciousness overridden by Sentinel programming to hunt down whatever nearby mutant.

When Claremont returned to the X-Men in 2001, he naturally latched onto the idea. He introduces a new character, whose just recently discovered he's a mutant...and when his powers first materialize, he and his girlfriend discover that she was unknowingly a Prime Sentinel.

A few years later, Claremont revives the Sentinel girl, coming up with a way where Xavier is able to undo her programming. Unfortunately, she's still stuck with a cyborg body, and has to adjust to this new development. Her cyborg body doesn't have hair, so she wears a wig to try and appear more "normal."

Wikipedia actually has a quote from Claremont talking about why he likes the character:

"I liked the idea of her. The notion... of someone being transformed into a wholly mechanical being and what effects that has on sense of self, sense of soul? She’s an outcast from both human and mutant society, yet bound by her own personal sense of honor to try to protect both."

Oh Claremont, you had me at "I liked (...) the notion...of someone being transformed into a wholly mechanical being," lol. In that same series, he also brought back an old favorite character of his, but whose now adjusting to being stuck with her arms having been transformed into tentacles. I kid you not.

Current X-Men writer Mike Carey seemes to like the robo-girl character (now going by the codename "Omega Sentinel") enough to make her an official honorary X-Man in his series. Rogue's team finds her shut off and in a state of disassembly during one mission, and bring her back to the mansion. Here Beast is working on putting her back together, after which she joins the team:

Okay, not really, but I would've been amused. ;-P

(And wouldn't have been entirely out of place in an issue of Claremont's Sovereign Seven.)

Chris Claremont, for those unfamiliar with the name, is most well known for a stint writing the X-Men comic that lasted 16 consecutive years (1976-1991), during which he helped popularize the characters (the X-Men was previously one of Marvel's lower selling team books, at one time having even been cancelled for a period!). He's responsible for co-creating a number of prominant characters during his run, such as Rogue, Mystique, Sabretooth, Phoenix, Shadowcat, Gambit, Jubilee, etc. etc.

Those who are attentive of such things will also notice when reading his stories that he seems to love regularly injecting BDSM undertones into his stories (in recent times to the point of overindulgance and almost self-parody, unfortunately), and clearly has a fetish for mind control, as well as a transformation fetish. (I think it'd be amusing one day to put together a checklist of all the stories he's written with one or all of these themes. ^_^)

Claremont had moved onto other things by the time I'd started reading X-Men as a kid, so I was only exposed to his original X-Men stories via reprints and back issues. But early on -- before I was even familiar with the word "fetish" -- I recognized that we seemed to have some of these similar interests, lol.

The first story of his I ever read was from Uncanny X-Men #179 (from 1984). One sequence in particular always stuck in my head, that upon first reading made my 10-year-old self feel all weird in ways I didn't understand. ;-P





The girl, for those who've only seen the movies, is Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat), the one who can walk through walls. And yes, for a short period in the 80's, Storm sported a mowhawk. The only transformation here that really appeals to me is the faceless drone (which I'd actually completely forgot was there, until rereading this story again for the first time just today!), but the sequence really got the wheels of my imagination turning as far as pondering what sorts of things would be possible with such a power.

And then of course there's the line at the end, "I'm not some toy, a doll for you to play with!" Wait-- both "toy" and "doll" in the same sentence? OMG *sudden moment of realization*...I think this whole blog may be all Claremont's fault...!

;-P