All Comments on 'Fifth Time's the Charm'

Jan says she wants a relationship. Did she consider that starting it with a forced rape might not be the best way?

He had no choice. He awoke and was shown a fait accompli, cum oozing out of her. And he never had a choice about it. There was no romantic attachment before she forced herself on him. That would be unacceptable to me.

Now if she had just offered to cure him of his hangups, then I could sympathize. Her technique might then be a valid one. But not like this.

And well-written.

... I felt like I was only reading a portion of what should have been a much longer, much more detailed story. From reading Elenriel's other stories I understand that hypnosis / mind control and dub-con are some of their favorite genres and that's fine but there's some issues in that they're often used as plot devices to maneuver around certain dramatic moments that should really be detailed before getting to the sexy parts. That was definitely the case in this story. Before I go into it more, it should be noted that I have read the following two chapters in this story. I was expecting more of the details to come to light in those but I was disappointed to find that they both took place after a leap in the timeline and were basically just examples of how the hypnosis was used to enhance their sex lives.

The big issues I had with this first introduction to these two characters was firstly, the fact that Alex's first four long-term relationships are only vaguely alluded to and secondly, that Alex and Jan's new budding relationship is... pretty much a fabrication. For the first one, considering that the number of Alex's failed relationships is even relevant to the title of the story, more details about them and how they were devastating should have been given. I get it, Elenriel wanted to focus on their new, fifth relationship, but learning about why Alex was so traumatized and how Jan used her techniques to circumvent them was important in my opinion. Not including at least more details than "found her doing one of my groomsmen the day before the wedding" left me feeling dissatisfied as though a huge plot point had been purposely left out. It also served to make the timeline a lot less clear. We're never really given any concept of how old this pair is, though I was led to believe at least late 20s to early 30s.

As far as the second plot point I had an issue with, I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Soooo many details about who Jan is and why she wanted to be with Alex were just not even mentioned. I'll be perfectly honest, I found Jan to be a little creepy in this first chapter and that's a definite mood killer. Why, exactly, did she do all of this so soon? Why didn't she get to know him a bit better first to see if they were compatible in other ways? What made her suddenly choose to entrap Alex, for lack of a better way of saying it, other than the fact that she thought he was a catch and he was highly suggestible? Other than checking him out and a few brief conversations with him at the company picnic, we're given virtually no indication that the two of them know one another at all. The way she went about it so quickly after first considering that he might be date material and the way she'd implanted herself into his memories made her come across as pretty cold-blooded and calculating. There's definitely no indication that she's in love with him at all, even though she assures him after they're married that she'll be a good wife and do a lot to please him. The second and third chapters seem to say that she did fall in love with him, I just felt that not showing her doing so in this first introduction to their odd romance was a big oversight.

The hypnosis age regression was confusing at first. I'd thought initially that she was trying to create a false memory in which they'd actually met at college to try to trick him into thinking they had a brief, hot relationship in the past before all his other disasters happened. It became clear later on that she was just accessing his emotions from a time when he was more open to intimacy and marriage in order to implant the suggestion that she was a remarkable candidate for a wife and lover. It was an interesting concept and I liked the way it was done even though it did make her seem manipulative, as I mentioned above. What I didn't like was how Alex reacted after she released him from his trance. It was all... too easy. There was a sense of violation and intrusion that was important that was left out and it really shouldn't have been. He knew what she'd done to him, that she'd taken his will away and tampered directly with his emotions. Other than a brief moment of fear, however, he doesn't even give it a thought before he sees her pendant, a now important gift that is pretty much a giant lie, and is all, "Yay, let's marry!" Once again, the hypnosis was used as a plot device to circumvent what should have been a very interesting, dramatic confrontation. It was Elenriel's prerogative to go that way, I just found it disappointing.

The last thing I felt was disturbing and contributed to my impression that Jan was calculating was how often she mentioned her first dead husband. She mentioned him and their relationship a LOT. Too much, especially in the second chapter; what they did with her power, what he liked, how they got off, how she gave him her triggers... It was creepy. I got definite vibes that she just found in Alex a guy she thought had the temperament to be a stand-in replacement for the husband she already lost. Granted, she did earn a few points in that she wanted a girl this time since she had a boy with her first, AMAZINGLY GREAT HUSBAND WHO YOU'RE STANDING IN FOR, but it was still iffy. Where was all the focus on Alex, what he liked, why he was different and important and why she loved him? Just didn't sit right with me.

Reading this huge comment it'd be natural for one to think that I completely hated this story but that's not true. I actually really liked the ideas behind it, the initial set up, and even the outcome of them becoming a couple in the end. What I'm expressing is my disappointment that there wasn't much more to the plot to make it a deeper story. I was really looking forward to a profound narrative describing a woman who fell in love with a man and used her strange talent for hypnosis to help him overcome the trauma of his past relationship failures in order to open his heart up to the possibilities of a lasting love between the two of them. That wasn't what this story was and it's a shame. It had a ton of potential but pretty much just ended up being a tale about a lady who used hypnosis to seduce a guy, have sex with him while implanting a false emotional impression, then making him fall for her. That's too bad.

Great story, dunno if I had snapped her neck or called the cops when/if i could ever escape her evil control but an intriguing idea if not a ton of rapey

Bit of a Stockholm situation, what? If women can fall in love with their rapists, why not men?