Is it wrong of me to laugh so hard at this?

I think not!

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On display

There's a train track just behind where I live. I've grown used to the whistle and the way the building shakes, and sometimes I even use them to give an added kick to my "morning" Virtual Hypnotist program. As I'm sagging there in my chair, deep in trance, I sometimes feel the rumble of a train going by (I can't actually hear it with my earbuds in place). Then I tell myself the rumbles are actually explosions: my friends know I've been captured by an evil brainwasher and they're trying to rescue me. Unfortunately for them, I'm too far gone to save. I'm bound in place by nothing more than a flashing monitor and the oh-so-thin cord of my earbuds. I could escape so easily, if only my brain weren't bound.

After awhile - and this is the most important part - my would-be rescuers break into the bunker far enough to see me in my chair. They can't reach me, because my Mistress is still in control, and they'd never have gotten this far if she hadn't allowed it. But they can see me.

I'd been describing myself as a closet exhibitionist years before I learned anyone else used the term. It's a central part of my fetish: the idea of being put on display, sometimes as a brainwashed slave whom my friends are powerless to help, and sometimes as a drone who's been so thoroughly depersonalized that people don't even realize she's human.

The train came by this morning while I was running my VH session, and the extra enjoyment it provided left me wanting to reread trilby's else's Dark Forest. I did, and it didn't disappoint. If ever a story deserved the "exhibitionism" code, it's "Dark Forest." I sooo want to be Veronica, or better yet, Bridget. And thanks to my VH "morning" program, I at least know what Bridget's stare feels like. I stared that way again as I was reading the story.

Later I scrounged through my folders of saved images, trying to find something suitable for this post, but I couldn't settle on just one. So here are three photos, all came from Model Mayhem. From left to right, we have shots by Steve Prue, Uberdog, and Rebecca's Rubber Room.

Something beautiful

I'm in the mood for something soft and beautiful today, so here's a love scene from Tipping the Velvet, by Sarah Waters. Just for the record, I'm not leaving anything out; the ellipses are there in the book.

The picture at right (which doesn't really depict the scene from the story) is by Eyeworks. The models are Sindel Chaos and Lee Loo.

And then, as if through some occult power of its own, the space between our lips seemed to grow small, and then to vanish: and we were kissing. She lifted her hand to touch the corner of my mouth; and then her fingers came between our pressing lips - they tasted, still, of sugar. And then I began to shake so hard I had to clench my fists and say to myself, 'Stop shaking, can't you? She'll think you've never been kissed before, at all!'

When I raised my hands to her, however, I found that she was shaking just as badly; and when, after a moment, I moved my fingers from her throat to the swell of her breasts, she twitched like a fish - then smiled, and leaned closer to me. 'Press me harder!' she said.

We fell back together upon the bed, then - it shifted another inch across the carpet, on its wheels - and I undid the buttons of her shirt and pressed my face to her bosom, and sucked at one of her nipples, through the cotton of her chemise, till the nipple grew hard and she began to stiffen and pant. She put her hands to my head again, and lifted me to where she could kiss me; I lay and moved upon her, and felt her move beneath me, felt her breasts against my own, till I knew I should come, or faint - but then she turned me, and raised my skirt, and put her hand between my legs, and stroked so slowly, so lightly, so teasingly, I hoped I might never come at all...

At last, I felt her hand settle at the very wettest part of me, and she breathed against my ear. "Do you care for it,' she murmured then, 'inside?' The question was such a gentle, such a gallant one, I almost wept. 'Oh!' I said, and again she kissed me; and after a moment I felt her move within me, first with one finger, then with two, I guessed, then three...At last, after a second's pressure, she had her hand in me up to the wrist. I think I called out - I think I shivered and panted and called out, to feel the subtle twisting of her fist, the curling and uncurling of her sweet fingers, beneath my womb...

When I reached my crisis, I felt a gush, and I found that I had wet her arm, with my spendings, from fingertip to elbow - and that she had come, out of a kind of sympathy, and lay weak and heavy against me, with her own skirts damp. She drew her hand free - making me shiver anew - and I seized it and held it, and pulled her face to me and kissed her; and then we lay very quietly with our limbs pressed hard together until, like cooling engines, we ceased our pulsings and grew still.

Naming Conventions

This is a post I've been thinking about for awhile, but when I found a thread about the subject on one of the EMCSA-related forums (Sorry, I can't find it again now and don't remember which forum it was on), I decided to hold off since people were already discussing it. I skimmed the thread a little but didn't read it carefully, so I might or might not repeat some of what's in there, but I guess it doesn't matter since all of you won't have read that thread anyway.

So. Onward. Every author has their own method for naming their characters. Some pull names out of the air, some go for the exotic, some go for the symbolic, and some name them after people they love or hate. Me, I try for realistic.

I don't know if I succeed (and I guess I probably don't, always), but this is how I play it: If I'm writing fantasy, I try to make up names that don't "get in the way." I don't want them to be so exotic that the reader can't get past them easily enough to just enjoy the story.

On the other hand, if I'm writing a story a story set on present-day or near-future earth, I make up names that sound almost, but not quite, the ones you hear every day. I try for a mix of nationalities and use sources like this Wikipedia section to find common surnames, and then I ignore the most common ones in favor the fairly common ones. To my way of thinking, a surname like "Smith" is so common that it does get in the way of the story; it leaves the reader wondering why the author didn't choose something a little less obvious. Now, I know Stephen King did that on purpose with The Dead Zone, naming his protagonist "Johnny Smith" to show just what an everyman Johnny was. The thing is, I didn't think it worked. Sure, King is a hugely successful celebrity author and I don't have a single published title to my name, but that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

But why am I going on about all this now? In part, it's so I can offer you another teaser on my next story (to be called "Sleepwalkers."). It's set about a hundred years in the future, in an empire composed of the entirety of North and South America plus Greenland, so I've tried to seriously consider the names that would be common in a population like that. I figure that mixing Canadians with Americans would lead to a slight uptick in the number of French names, while the mixing of all of South America with North America would lead to a bigger uptick in Spanish names - especially in Phoenix, where my story begins. Then I factored in the shifting popularity of first names over time and went for slightly exotic...in a few cases.

I don't know how obvious these thought processes will be to you when you read "Sleepwalkers," so that's part of why I'm making this post. I've put a hell of a lot of work into the backstory, doing real world building (I hope), and I want to brag a little. ;-) Expect more of these kinds of posts in the future.

In the meantime, and in no particular order, here are the names of a few characters who appear in "Sleepwalkers": Reynaldo Cruz, Angela Boyd, Vadim LeFebvre, Melora Boykin, Paul Medina, Shara Sullivan, Josue Valenzuela, Aimee Pender, Zane Hammond, Charlotte Moody and Marcus Choi

Please give a warm welcome to our special guest blogger

As you know if you've been reading this blog for awhile, I'm currently working on my longest story yet - basically an X-rated SF novella. Since the plot is so complicated, I've asked Lady K, with her great eye for detail, to help me keep the plotlines straight.

She was happy to oblige, and when she offered to write a guest entry for my blog describing her experience, I was happy to oblige her. It's a nice teaser for my blog readers, and for me, it's fun to see how someone else describes my writing approach. I'm shy about sharing rough drafts, but when I do, the people I share them with invariably give great feedback.

So now, without further ado, I'm turning the mic over to Lady K.

Hi there, readers of thrall's blog. Lady K here. I've been a friend of thrall's for a few years now and have long been an admirer of her fiction. I've even served as a beta-reader for Ethna Redux. My fascination with Celtic mythology finally came in handy on that occasion. Recently, thrall asked me if I'd like to be a beta reader for her current saga. I jumped at the chance. This was a chance to read one of thrall's stories from its beginning stages. How often was I going to get a chance to do that?

Mostly, thrall has me looking for holes in her logic, whether the inductions are clear and the continuity of the story. I'm very honored. You have to understand that thrall almost never lets anyone read her rough drafts. I'm getting a really Interesting look at the creative process behind thrall's work.

First off, I can safely say that her rough drafts are more polished than a lot of the finished work I see on EMCSA. She really cares about her writing.

So far, I've read the first and second drafts of chapter one and the rough drafts of chapters two and three. The plot has a strong sci-fi theme and it makes sense. thrall has created a new world where a particular type of MC is a logical offshoot of the society. The characters are strong and the inductions are hot. 

In one of her emails, thrall expressed some concern about the continuity between chapters one and two. So she went back and added a new character. This new character fits seamlessly into the story, explains a couple of plot points and answers a problem with the logic. That's how much she cares about her fiction.

However, I should say that this is not a stroke piece. It's MC fiction written for MC fetishists. 

So far it's looking like another winner from thrall. I'm just really happy that I get to see the story as it develops. 

Goddamn ASSTR

I just want to say how frustrated I am that the EMCSA is still half broken. I checked into the MC Forum and MC Garden yesterday, just long enough to see if there were any updates about the situation, and it appears that there aren't any. What's more, some folks are expressing doubts that the ASSTR will ever get around to fixing the problem. If they don't, I can imagine people eventually migrating their stories to other sites, but it would be a shame to see the EMCSA go down. It's been such a unique and wonderful resource for so long, and Simon's a hero to maintain it like he does.

But I'm getting way ahead of myself. Maybe the ASSTR will fix things, or maybe Simon or another EMCSA regular will find a workaround.

In the meantime, those of you following Tabico's Compromise will be happy to know that the ten chapters she posted before all this trouble started are still available, and even if she doesn't get the chance to post the rest of the story, she's left off at a very good place place. Not every question is answered, but most of them are - barring a last-minute twist. Slave Shuu's odd advice Lady Li-Hwa is still on my mind, as well as Slave Shuu's even-odder behavior afterwards. Maybe someone will save the day...or at least try.

Anyway, if you've started "Compromise" but are having trouble getting to chapters nine and ten, just go to the end of chapter eight and do a hard refresh* (or two or three). Eventually you'll get the right-pointing arrow that takes you to chapter nine. You might have to hard refresh again at the bottom of nine, but eventually you'll get get to chapter ten.

It's a great story. If you're missing your EMC fix and haven't started "Compromise" yet, now's your chance.

*Control + F5

Just FYI, the apocalypse is upon us

Just found this over on io9. Count the memes. I've got four so far:
1. Bert and Ernie are gay
2. ___ raped my childhood
3. Rule 63
4. What has been seen cannot be unseen.

Feel feel to share your own. This is good(?) stuff.

BTW, this is not my usual weekend post. It's just something I stumbled upon and felt compared to share. God knows why.