Comics Collection Melissa N. Collection [2024-10-29] [Melissa N.]

[misseva88]

I also get the feeling Joel was tied in with Joanna - at that first dinner, it's Joel who begs Elena to drink as Andrew is having a hard time doing his devoted wife bit, and then Elena is off to the bathroom and Joanna just happens to pop up and can now provide the drugs to mix with the alcohol.

Do you, like Elena (p806), think Joanna is the same person as Theodora Makris, the wife of Roan Gjoka? I also think they're working with Joel (and by proxy, Seferi) to take down Toska. Do you think Dimitra is an actor in all this game as well?

 

[Stevedore100]

Dimitri could be as well, as she is "new" in town and doesn't seem to have any real purpose so far. Same with James, and Filip. The bench people of whoever is behind all this.

As to Joanna, that's a big if - that info came from Joel. Who seems untrustworthy. The Seferi-Joel- Gjoka- Toska interaction is weird. Are they enemies, or on the same team pulling some scam? Gjoka especially - everyone says he's bad, but the few scenes he's been in have been him doing not much (he did showa gun, but that seemed really for show).

You know a lot of this story is what people "supposedly" did as opposed to us actually carrying them do bad things, other than Seferi shooting Joel, and even that has a fake element. Maybe that's just Melissa's style.

 

[misseva88]

Dimitri could be as well, as she is "new" in town and doesn't seem to have any real purpose so far. Same with James, and Filip. The bench people of whoever is behind all this.

Dimitra keeps Elena on her toes as a potential mother to the bride if Eva and Stefanos are going to get married. Which is very quick to bring that up as those two haven't seen each other in a long time. That doesn't make her someone to mistrust though, so who knows.

As to Joanna, that's a big if - that info came from Joel. Who seems untrustworthy.

You did just say you think Joanna and Joel are in cahoots. Why would that be if he's then lying about her to Elena?

The Seferi-Joel- Gjoka- Toska interaction is weird. Are they enemies, or on the same team pulling some scam? Gjoka especially - everyone says he's bad, but the few scenes he's been in have been him doing not much (he did showa gun, but that seemed really for show).

You know a lot of this story is what people "supposedly" did as opposed to us actually carrying them do bad things, other than Seferi shooting Joel, and even that has a fake element. Maybe that's just Melissa's style.

To me, the story requires Andrew and Marina to be taken apart. The people making them drift apart are suspicious to me, as that helps with Andrew accepting himself as Elena. Gjoka following Marina on Crete allows James to be in her inner circle. James does two things after he talked his way into some sort of relationship with her: 1. His presence makes Marina leave the doctor's office after which Elena gets extensive surgery and 2. Makes a similar entrance as Andrew at that party, showing Andrew is replaced as Marina's husband.
So he plays a role in the surgeries and cementing the changed relationship between the two of them. Elena also doesn't trust James (p1149) and I think it's very fair to ask what James gets in return for this. Sure, Marina says he gets a free holiday extension, but is that all? There may be more there.

Gjoka, solely by his stalking presence puts James in that position. So that's interesting. Joel using Gjokas picture also keeps Elena paranoid enough to continue parading as Nikos' wife. That doesn't make him evil, but if we assume Joanna = Theodora Gjokas wife played an active role in Elena's feminisation. And could he really be innocent then?

 

[Stevedore100]

Dimitra keeps Elena on her toes as a potential mother to the bride if Eva and Stefanos are going to get married. Which is very quick to bring that up as those two haven't seen each other in a long time. That doesn't make her someone to mistrust though, so who knows.


You did just say you think Joanna and Joel are in cahoots. Why would that be if he's then lying about her to Elena?


To me, the story requires Andrew and Marina to be taken apart. The people making them drift apart are suspicious to me, as that helps with Andrew accepting himself as Elena. Gjoka following Marina on Crete allows James to be in her inner circle. James does two things after he talked his way into some sort of relationship with her: 1. His presence makes Marina leave the doctor's office after which Elena gets extensive surgery and 2. Makes a similar entrance as Andrew at that party, showing Andrew is replaced as Marina's husband.
So he plays a role in the surgeries and cementing the changed relationship between the two of them. Elena also doesn't trust James (p1149) and I think it's very fair to ask what James gets in return for this. Sure, Marina says he gets a free holiday extension, but is that all? There may be more there.

Gjoka, solely by his stalking presence puts James in that position. So that's interesting. Joel using Gjokas picture also keeps Elena paranoid enough to continue parading as Nikos' wife. That doesn't make him evil, but if we assume Joanna = Theodora Gjokas wife played an active role in Elena's feminisation. And could he really be innocent then?

all Joel says to Elena about Joanna, who Elena is already suspicious of, is that she is married to Gjoka, which just adds to Elena's suspicion of him that Joel and Seferi are already telling her.
Gjoka may indeed be a bad guy, but he may also be someone everyone is trying to make Elena think is a bad guy. I'm still curious why at times they seem to be searching for Andrew Woods - that's who Gjoka is looking for and I think Seferi brings him up too. Again, scare tactic to keep Elena's impersonation going or are they really interested in Andrew? and how do they even know he exists - Angeliki is the only one besides the family who knows that I am aware of.

 

[Tjssss]

In terms of plot, this story is completely off the rails.

In wanking terms, it still throws up little boner fuel scenarios for my specific likes. I never thought about the salon visit. I very much like the idea of it. I like the gradual changes from a bit of a meatheaded guy in his 20s to a feminine and stylish (and still hot) woman in her 50s.

For me personally, the whole unreliable narrator, mystery genre stuff is antithetical to getting my rocks off. Is it meant to be like a tense erotic 1990s thriller? Is it directed by Paul Verhoeven? Who are we meant to relate to?

I dunno, all the mystery stops me from being able to get in the headspace of Elena, especially when there are "Oh yeah, I remember actually I did that" parts. I wonder what the whole thing will look like once it's done and chopped up into actual chronological order of the timeline, so we're not constantly wrongfooted by weird flashbacks and dreams and stuff.

All that seems like a rant, but I still really like this. It's definitely Melissa's most ambitious creation, which I completely applaud despite any of my personal bugbears with the plot. Sometimes I forget that my sexual kinks are being served here, despite being sort of niche, and I am grateful. I just wish it was a bit more... fetishy, rather than the hotness being overshadowed by some Keyser Soze (Keyser Sissy?) plot twistiness.

 

[rebirth095]

Sometimes I forget that my sexual kinks are being served here, despite being sort of niche, and I am grateful. I just wish it was a bit more... fetishy, rather than the hotness being overshadowed by some Keyser Soze (Keyser Sissy?) plot twistiness.

That's kind of the contradiction when it comes to being critical about the story, right? On the one hand, erotica can be a bit more loose with it's rules. It follows a "rule of sexy", and there's a bit of a larger than life aspect where part of the premise is that people are more impulsive, the sex is more wild, and people make dumber choices.

But the flip side is that a mystery story invites the reader to speculate. The fun of it should be looking for the details and figuring it out. The "Ah-Ha" moment is part of the reward.

Overall, I think I agree with you. I do wish it was more "larger than life". I wish the feminization felt more like it mattered. Like, on the one hand I'm thrilled Joel's being feminized so that we can have more feminization in our feminization story. But I also realized the other day, if he wakes up and is just already an attractive woman and we don't get to experience the steps of him coming to terms with his feminization, then it's also kinda superficial.

Maybe if Andrew was a more compelling character. I find it hard to enjoy his feminization. Usually stories I'm either fantasizing about inflicting that transformation on someone, or fantasizing about having that done to me. Or both at the same time. But with this one, Elena is so passive (and not in a sexy way) that the feminization elements really aren't really registering as feminization to me. This recent part is a great example. There are stories where the protagonist has gone through so much brainwashing and they're struggling with the question of what part of them has been changed because THEY want to or is it just the conditioning? And that scene can be really hot and sexy. But here... Maybe because of how unclear the method acting works, Andrew's inner thoughts on whether or not he really wants the transformation have come off as more... repetitive?

I think for me, the high point was when Elena first woke up after the memory loss. That was when the feminization was still being explored, it felt related to the plot, and the gaslighting by everyone added both to the mystery and to the feminization. It reminded me of one of the things I like in body swap/identity theft stories. But over time, the mystery isn't really about the feminization anymore. It's not a mystery of "how is the feminization being done?", or "who is going to be feminized next?"

Instead, we're mostly at a point where the prevailing question is "Is anyone actually leading this conspiracy or are we really supposed to believe this has been a string of coincidences?"

 

[Tjssss]

I think it's basically a feminization soap opera, and I get frustrated that the soap opera elements completely overshadow the fetishy feminization stuff. I do want to stress, that's just my personal frustration with it though, I'm not saying DURR, MELISSAS DUN IT RONG or anything.

 

[rebirth095]

I think it's basically a feminization soap opera, and I get frustrated that the soap opera elements completely overshadow the fetishy feminization stuff. I do want to stress, that's just my personal frustration with it though, I'm not saying DURR, MELISSAS DUN IT RONG or anything.

Sure, but I tend to think that it's worth digging into why a story or piece of art might not resonate with what would usually be its "core" audience. Taking risks is something very liberating as a creator, but it can also blind us to shortcomings of that same exploration.

Erotica has always struggled in this area. Is it "art" or is it "porn" and/or is there a difference? There's a number of writers (myself included) that discuss in this thread, and I think there's a lot to learn and to self-reflect on. Like the discussion on what constitutes a "happy ending" is one that's good to get different perspectives on. Getting feedback and actually learning from other's is a great way to give your own work a leg up. Early TG stories were hilariously misinformed. I think a lot of those early common mistakes (bra sizing being the most common one) don't show up as often as the awareness went up. For a while, the average quality of writing had also been going up. I do think that in recent years, the average quality has dipped down a bit and one of the things I've noticed, particularly on Fictionmania, are some extremely defensive authors that don't take kindly to criticism. Nor do people seem to read other people's works and their reviews to learn from them anymore...

 

[Thalantyr]

I dunno, all the mystery stops me from being able to get in the headspace of Elena, especially when there are "Oh yeah, I remember actually I did that" parts. I wonder what the whole thing will look like once it's done and chopped up into actual chronological order of the timeline, so we're not constantly wrongfooted by weird flashbacks and dreams and stuff.

All that seems like a rant, but I still really like this. It's definitely Melissa's most ambitious creation, which I completely applaud despite any of my personal bugbears with the plot. Sometimes I forget that my sexual kinks are being served here, despite being sort of niche, and I am grateful. I just wish it was a bit more... fetishy, rather than the hotness being overshadowed by some Keyser Soze (Keyser Sissy?) plot twistiness.

For me it needs to strike a balance. I like the sex scenes and all the fetish stuff, but I find it way more sexy if I know or can imagine what the characters are thinking and feeling, both physically and emotionally. And a really good story fills in that information. I see it as sort of two ends of a spectrum in terms of TG comics. On one end you've got a simple transformation sequence, maybe with a sex scene, but no story or something only vaguely implied. And on the other you've got something like what SturkWurk has been doing lately where the story is part of this vast and convoluted multiverse that's been serialized for over a decade and the main character is a happy, well-adjusted female superhero who used to be a man 8000 pages ago and has been fighting crime fully-clothed ever since. All the sexy fetish stuff was long forgotten years ago and was rendered on ancient technology and it shows.

There is a sweet spot, but artists rarely hit it, especially with DA and Patreon both becoming so prudish and the pricing models encouraging sprawl.

 

[Tjssss]

encouraging sprawl.

I think that right there is one of the problems. Stay with me here, because I'm going to get weird.

I'm an old guy. Old enough that I remember one of the most horrific films ever made from my childhood. It starred two incredibly attractive people, one of whom got transformed into something disgusting rather than a beautiful woman. The Fly. I know its gross instead of hot, BUT it's a transformation.

There were three characters in that film. Absolutely fucking tight screenplay. if it was on the Patreon model, we'd still be looking at the stocking sitting there in the transporter pod.

What I'm saying is that in a self contained story, we know the mental states of the relevant characters and can empathise with BrundleFly. Elena? No idea.

 

[rebirth095]

There were three characters in that film. Absolutely fucking tight screenplay. if it was on the Patreon model, we'd still be looking at the stocking sitting there in the transporter pod.

Generally though, I think there's two major "problems", one directly due to Patreon and one indirectly due to Patreon.

The first is what you allude to. The overall model of Patreon incentivizes authors to:

1) Divide their works into monthly bits.

2) Pad out their work.

3) Tease the next month so that subscribers don't cancel.

The ironic part is that this isn't necessarily something awful. In the hands of experienced artists and writers, this can benefit both them, their craft, and the patrons. But the indirect problem is the second problem:

The VAST majority of people on Patreon are amateurs. That by itself isn't a problem, but it's also coupled with how on Patreon, an amateur author isn't exposed to the editing process.

Having an editor professionally critique your work is a huge part of growing as a writer. When you post your stuff to people who are already paying and already like your work, it's much less likely you'll get the feedback needed to grow.

There are plenty of long runners that have loads of characters, intricate storylines, etc, but are still good even after 1000 chapters or 200 episodes. But that's only possible if the tenants of good writing are there.

 

[Stevedore100]

I prefer longer, complex stories, but as noted here they often get bogged down for one reason or another, often related to the lack of editing or critique. One thing that often bugs me in longer stories is that the writer begins to love their characters a bit too much as things progress and softens or eliminates the flaws that made the character interesting in the first place - character growth is great, but don't make them saints.

AM gets an A for effort and ambition - I think the flaws here are having too many characters who are too cryptic in what they do, so that we really have no idea what they are up to. Joanna shows up a few times, does some weird thing and then falls off the map. Same fur Filip and others, to the point where even deciding what the plot is is difficult. And, yes, Andrew/Elena is a bit of a mess who flip flops too much, seems to make little effort to fix any part of their situation, and we can't really get an idea of what is motivating this character.
It is interesting that the transformation was pretty much complete early on, and the long story length kind of made the Joel part necessary, as well as the dream sequences to remind us that, yes, Elena used to be this guy not long ago.

 

[Oled65cxpua]

Generally though, I think there's two major "problems", one directly due to Patreon and one indirectly due to Patreon.

The first is what you allude to. The overall model of Patreon incentivizes authors to:

1) Divide their works into monthly bits.

2) Pad out their work.

3) Tease the next month so that subscribers don't cancel.

The ironic part is that this isn't necessarily something awful. In the hands of experienced artists and writers, this can benefit both them, their craft, and the patrons. But the indirect problem is the second problem:

The VAST majority of people on Patreon are amateurs. That by itself isn't a problem, but it's also coupled with how on Patreon, an amateur author isn't exposed to the editing process.

Having an editor professionally critique your work is a huge part of growing as a writer. When you post your stuff to people who are already paying and already like your work, it's much less likely you'll get the feedback needed to grow.

There are plenty of long runners that have loads of characters, intricate storylines, etc, but are still good even after 1000 chapters or 200 episodes. But that's only possible if the tenants of good writing are there.

Exactly. In my opinion, subscribing to a Patreon only makes sense if you're doing it as a Patron, not as a customer, strictly to subsidize an up and coming artist. It simply doesn't make sense as a customer from a transactional standpoint, when you think about how much you'll end up having to pay a subscription for a whole comic compared to the purchase price for a single release.

I mean compare Melissa's works for example. Even if you combine the release price on Lulu for Parts 1 and 2 of That's a Job for a MILF, you end up paying $12. That's a fair price for a full story. But if you've been subscribed to Melissa since September 24, 2021 when Chapter 1 of Aphrodite's Mirror was released, you have now paid a whopping total of $185 for this comic.. and it isn't even complete! Has it really been worth close to $200?