Good squick vs. bad squick

Last night I received an e-mail from that author I've been hinting about, telling me she'd just sent her final draft off to Simon; so look for my recommendation in a late Sunday blog entry. In the meantime, I'm still thinking about a question I raised with her in my reply. I know that squick is supposed to be a bad thing, something that turns you off because it's just so squirmy/icky that it makes you want to run away from it. But then again, there are certain things that appear in various EMC stories - mine included, of course - that are both squirmy/icky and at least intended to be hot. Thus, Octopus Vulgaris or Arachnae, or The Icky-Squicky Spider. The horror is part of the turn-on, or at least that's the intent. You realize just how deeply your heroine is controlled when she revels in submission to something that should send her screaming.

I've never been sure if that's how most folks on the EMCSA see squick, or if that's just how I see it. In fact, I've never been sure it was wise of me to go with that name for the spider story (Yes, in case you haven't guessed, the second half of the title was mine; Tabico suggested the much more mainstream "Arachnae").

It seems to me that we ought to have separate names for icky squick and for yummy squick: "squick" vs. "squelch," or something like that. Any thoughts?

Not that many of you are around to see these, but...

Yesterday I had the lowest hit count ever since I started with Stat Counter, though I see that at least a few of my regulars were around to enjoy the Kinski snake-gasms and new story recommendations. Maybe those folks will check by again today - and maybe the rest of you all will eventually return from your holiday travels and page back through my old entries - to find these yumscious shots I just discovered this morning.

That's Ulorin Vex at left, from Deviant Art; and at right are Jade Vixen and Darenzia from Christine Kessler's blog.

...and look what else I've found while I was waiting

Between work and working on "Spy vs. Guy" (first draft now complete and orc-approved), I haven't had time until now to investigate the December 21 EMCSA update. But guess what I just found: two hot and twisty new stories from a couple of long-time favorites: Jukebox's Every Rose Has Its Thorn and sara castle's Enciphered. Superheroines and cyberpunk - that's about all I can say without spoiling any surprises. Just go have a look...and enjoy. ;-)

EDIT: Ah, I see the new update was being posted even while I was reading the old one. Still no sign of the story I've been hinting about, but I think I've made up for the lack with these last two blog entries. ;-P

Holy snake-gasm, Batman!

Still waiting to see if the new EMCSA update gives me what I'm looking for, but in the meantime, like mother, like daughter.

Gaiman's Law of Superhero Films

Judging by my recent stats, most of you fine folk are either a) off for the holidays or b) too busy partying to surf the net or c) both, so I'm taking it easy on the blogging this weekend. Depending on whether or not a story I was asked to proof gets posted in the next EMCSA update, you might or might not find a new author recommendation from me late Sunday. In the meantime, I'll just point you toward Neil Gaiman's delightful musings about Watchmen, Batman, and what makes a great superhero movie.

Happy holidays! Your gifts are wrapped and ready!

From left to right we have Ancilla Tilia from somewhere or other on Deviant Art; Darenzia and Jade Vixen, shot by Christine Kessler and posted on Darenia's blog (I didn't even know Darenzia had a blog until recently); and the inimitable Kumi Monster from damned if I know where, but I didn't get it off her website. Enjoy. :-)



Oh, and one more thing before I leave you to your various festivities. "Spy vs. Guy" is coming along every bit as fabulously as a story about gay men should. I hope to finish the rough draft by Sunday, and then I'm sending it off for inspection by a friend who actually knows something about gay male life. My timing will be terrible, of course; but I never planned to post it over the holidays anyway, since no one would be around to read it. If my friend gets it back to me quickly enough, you should see the first chapter in the January 11th EMCSA update and the second and third chapters in the two weeks following.

Good news!

Sara H's stories are back up on the EMCSA. For those of you too new to the world of mind control erotica to know who she is, Sara H was among the very top tier of F/f writers on the EMCSA when I first found the place about a decade ago. She continued to churn out stories for several years afterwards, then pulled all her work from the web and disappeared under what I, at least, consider to be tragic circumstances.

But now Sara is back - appearing first on the MC Garden, and then on the EMCSA. I look forward to seeing what sorts of new fantasies that brilliant mind of hers will produce down the road, but for now, I'm just happy to have her old work back.

Check her out for yourself. She's worth it.

On a related note, the reappearance of Sara H's stories has given me a great excuse to update my Reader's Picks page again, which meant not only taking out the references to the Wayback Machine, but also adding in another story that I just haven't been able to get out of my head since Jukebox posted it several weeks ago. He's been a great writer for years, but his relationship with Lady Ru'etha has really set his imagination on fire.

I've just sent Simon my updated Reader's Picks, but I figure it's probably too late for him to fit them in with this week's update, so I've decided to just go ahead and copy in my new recommendation here:

Soft and Wet
Jukebox has now officially reached the stage (along with trilby else and Tabico) where he's churning out so many great stories so quickly that I hesitate to add any more of them to my Reader's Picks page for fear of playing favorites. But after several weeks of being unable to get this little treasure out of my mind, I finally gave in and made it an official Pick. "Soft and Wet" is one of the best depictions of the bliss of total enthrallment that I've found on the EMCSA. It doesn't matter if you're a fan of red, purple, green, cyan, or yellow stories; you'll love this one no matter what.

A couple of things I find interesting

First is the picture at left, which I found on My Fetish Diary Blog a few days ago. Could this image be any more directly up my alley? On closer inspection, you can even see a glint of silver in the model's eyes.

Second, sad news from the entertainment world: Ellen Page's lesbian werewolf flick is now officially kaput. Not that it ever stood much chance of being made in the first place, but wow, wouldn't that have been cool? I was especially intrigued by the concept because, shortly before I came out to myself as a lesbian and for some time afterwards, I had several dreams about being a werewolf, myself. I know a good bit about dream analysis, and I interpreted those dreams of mine to be about my potentially dangerous secret self, the part I had to hide from the world, the primal part of me. As a matter of fact, a big step in the process of accepting my homosexuality involved some dreamwork on "embracing the beast" from another dream.

Also - and here I go, teasing you again - those older stories that I mentioned in my interview with Callidus, the ones I wrote under another name and which are still online, involved a) a heroine struggling to hide her true nature from an unaccepting world and b) another character who was a werewolf. All except the final story were written back when I thought I was straight; but that last one, in which the heroine and the werewolf hook up permanently, was written after my discovery.

Make of all that what you will.

Anyway, I'm curious to know if any of my other gay or bisexual readers have had their own werewolf dreams or fantasies. I don't know if this is a recurring theme for sexual minorities or just something my own subconscious has latched onto as a handy metaphor. Comments, anyone?

I can feel your breath on the back of my neck

Over the last month, I've noticed several new blog visitors from my home state, including a couple recently from my own back yard.

No, of course I'm not going to tell you who you are...but I do hope you come back so I can tease you some more. ;-P

Story update

First, the collaboration train has just taken on another rider...but I can't say anything more about it than that. Just Be Prepared. :-D

Second, I got off to an excellent start on "Spy vs. Guy" over the weekend. The characters are pretty much writing themselves, which is always a delight and makes for a great finished product. Guy Wylde and his merry band of brainwashers are turning out to be a really fun group to hang out with. I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I do.

Oh, and while we're on the subject, did you know that the Transporter was secretly gay?

Now, finally, here's a little tidbit of genuine science that fits quite nicely with my plans for brainwashing Mr. Square-jawed Superspy.

A Peek Beneath the Duct Tape: Ethna Redux

I was first introduced to the ancient Irish fairy tale of "Ethna the Bride" through an e-mail conversation that veered from Oscar Wilde to supernatural MC and back to Oscar's fairy-tale-writing mother, Lady Wilde. Her version of the story, for any of you that haven't gotten around to reading it yet, is here.

My first thought, on reading Lady Wilde's version, was, "Wow, those mysterious mid-air voices were almost too helpful, weren't they?" And close behind that came, "I wonder if Ethna was really all that glad to be rescued from a life of ecstatic, immortal slavery."

Then, of course, my authorial gears started turning. It didn't take me long to wonder if there might be some other fairy close to Finvarra - a wife, perhaps - who could take an interest in Ethna and steal her back again, this time for good. So I did some online research; and lo and behold, I discovered that not only did Finvarra have a wife, but she was a goddess! Even better, she had her own separate fairy mound far, far away from her husband's.

At first I thought Oonagh's mound was Knocksheegowna, an actual mountain on the far side of Ireland from Knockma. You can imagine how that tickled me. I even found a lovely panoramic image of the view from the summit here, which I can't resist sharing even now that I know it's not Oonagh's mound, just because it's so lovely. I wrote the first draft of Ethna Redux with Kerovan confronting Oonagh at Knocksheegowna, so it's a good thing I had sara castle to fact-check me (and a good thing I had Lady K to catch another embarassing error). Damn, what a difference a single letter makes! Oonagh's actual mound, Knockshegowna (with one "e") is in Tipperary and is, in fact, only a couple of hundred feet taller than Knockma. But hey, at least it is taller. ;-)

As I said in a previous entry, I modeled Finvarra in large part on Cluracan as depicted by Neil Gaiman in the Sandman series, and also on fetish model Perish. There's also a hint of the Galadriel-Celeborn dynamic in Finvarra's relationship with Oonagh. I've always had the idea, in reading The Lord of the Rings, that Tolkien wanted to give Galadriel a mate who was her equal; but he just couldn't do it. Galadriel is just too glorious to have any equal. Celeborn comes across as a mere hanger-on.

As for Oonagh, details online were scant, but I used everything I could find: the hair, the rainbows, the dewdrop gown - even her reputation for devotion, though I had to pervert that one a bit. ;-) Unfortunately, I couldn't find any images of her that weren't a) inaccurate, b) incredibly cheesy, or c) both; so you'll have to content yourself with the painting of the legendary Celtic queen Medb (a.k.a. Maeve) at left above. I actually did have this image in mind when I wrote the "Bride, meet wife" scene. Medb's attitude here is pretty much what I imagine Oonagh's to have been, and Medb was famously insatiable in bed.

Interestingly enough, Medb is said to be buried atop Finvarra's mound. Funny how these things work out.

And now for Kerovan. First of all, I dredged his name from another, longer version of the Ethna story that I found during my online research. This version is incomplete because it's just excerpts from a book Google is trying to sell you; but if you're interested in having a peek, click here. Anyway, I didn't find anything else in this version that I wanted to use besides the hero's name; the rest of it was just too sappy.

But again, about that hero....Once I really delved into the story, I found myself admiring Kerovan too much to just dump him by the side of the road like I do with most of my other so-called heroes. Kerovan is the real deal. He's very much a product of his time; but he's a good, brave man who will go to any lengths necessary to free Ethna from slavery. He just doesn't understand that slavery is what she really wants.

Oh, and by the way, that's not something I made up for the story just because I liked the idea. You can see Ethna's essential passivity even in Lady Wilde's version of the tale. In fact, she's so passive that I had a hard time making a heroine of her at all, though I did my best. Just as I did with Kerovan. That's why I left his final decision entirely in your hands. Whatever you want for him is what he gets. He deserves it.

The opening act

Before the main attraction, "Ethna Redux," hits the stage sometime on Sunday, I thought you might enjoy whiling away the time with another visit to roperookie's expanding gallery on Deviant Art. He's been posting some lovely - and for him, uncharacteristically romantic - new stuff lately. Have a look.

And yes, I do already have the "Peek Beneath the Duct Tape" on Ethna written. I'll post it here as soon as I see that the story is up.

Benedict Campbell goes Salvador Dali one better

Yeah, I've noticed Benedict Campbell before now. He has a small but fairly interesting gallery on Model Mayhem, and I even chose one of his pictures there for my first Ecstasy of Surrender collection. But it was his new gallery on io9 that really made me sit up and take notice. He's not just photographing interestingly made-up models anymore; now he's adding in all kinds of cool digital effects to deliver us a world full of beautiful cyborgs: male, female, and something tantalizingly in-between. The picture below probably isn't the the one all of you will like best, but it did give me an excuse for a great subject line, so here you go:

Oooh, oooooh, oooooooooh!

I'm too tired to grab you any screencaps tonight, but head over to io9 for a truly geek-gasmic new Watchmen trailer, including shots of Richard Nixon, Moloch the Mystic, a dead Dollar Bill, and lots of fantastic footage of Rorschach's mask morphing.

Oh, and BTW, all the goodies are in the first clip, the second is just a reshuffling of footage from the older trailers.

More tasty treats from io9 to come tomorrow; I have another post timed to hit the web at 12:00 noon, EST. Of course, if you spend any time browsing the site beyond your Watchmen visit, you might already have seen it for yourself, by then. Oh, well.

Nighty-night.

So, what's the big deal about...

Funny how Blogger gives you space in your profile to list the things you like, but not the things you dislike. Me, I have several, including quite a few that other people seem to find strangely arousing. Sure, I get that fetishes aren't always rational; but honestly, what's the big deal about...

• Smoking: Yes, I get that cigarettes and cigars are phallic symbols, but so are lollipops. And lollipops don't make you stink, turn your teeth yellow, and give you cancer.
  
• Eyepatches: What's so sexy about the hint of hidden disfiguration? Or is it the pirate thing? C'mon, folks, you know all those scruffy, dirty men didn't have anywhere to bathe out on the open seas. Just think how they must have smelt! Yes, even Captain Jack. And don't get me started on a life without toothbrushes. EDIT: I have been reminded that Eye of Serpent's awesome MC heroine Corelle D'Amber is the one exception to the eyepatch rule. She can get away with it...but no one else can.
  
• Hot cars and motorcycles: I guess I just don't have enough testosterone for this one.
  
• Unnaturally large boobs: see below
  
• bimboization: Sorry, there's just nothing whatsoever hot about stupidity. Intelligence is much, much sexier, even when it's bound into immobility.
  
• pain and blood: In a vampire story, they can be hot - in moderation. Otherwise? Uh uh, not my thing at all... well, aside from Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series, but even that grew too florid for my tastes after a couple of books. It's not that I'm squicked out by gore; one look at my list of favorite movies will show you that's not the case. I just don't find anything sexy about it.
  
• scat: Do I even need to explain this one? I think not.
  

And they're off!

Well, it's off. "Ethna Redux," that is. Unless Simon takes an unexpected vacation, you should be able to find it in next Sunday's EMCSA update.

So now it's on to the mystery collaboration (still percolating) and the M/m story (all ready for writing, if I can just find some time).

*tap tap* Is this thing on?

Ah, good. The sound check is complete and now it's time for the interview! Callidus has been kind enough to give me another chance to hog the spotlight, and he's asked some pretty interesting questions. I think you'll enjoy the results. If you do, be sure to drop him and me both a line!

While we're waiting for the soundcheck crew to finish up

Here's a little something to pass the time while we're waiting for whichever of my Big Announcements is ready first: Apnea, looking even more entranced than usual. More on her blog, if you're so inclined.

Now here's something you don't see every day

Well, two things, both of which I found on Christine Kessler's most excellent My Fetish Diary Blog. First up is a lovely tattooed lady with a tattooed artificial leg. Now, let me make it perfectly clear that I am neither aroused nor appalled by amputations in general and would never make fun of anyone because of one. I just think this model has a great look, and I'm intrigued by the tattooing on the prosthesis. I think it's a cool idea.

Second, there's this hilarious, star-studded take on the idiocy of Proposition 8, with no less a personage than Jack Black playing Jesus, thumping the Bible-thumpers right back with their own scriptures and showing them how selective they are about what they choose to take literally. And of course, the show wouldn't be complete without A Certain Special Someone to wrap things up in his own inimical snarky style. Here, have a look:

Oh, and hey, look what I just found

I'll have to investigate this site further, when I have more time. For now, all I got was this juicy little spider bite. If it were on the EMCSA, it would be purple with codes ff, mf, fd and bd. And yes, it would fit quite nicely onto the EMCSA. :-)

UPDATE: Looks like the story has been removed. Well, it was great while it lasted. *shrug* Sorry, folks.

Many plates spinning

There's "Ethna Redux," almost ready for a final polish; my interview with Callidus soon to be posted on his site; the M/m story, which is shaping up very, very nicely in my head - it's almost time to start writing; and that mysterious other project I can't say much about yet and may not ever be able to say much about, depending on what we decide as a team. That's the (only) downside to collaborating: you don't get to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it - or say whatever you want to say whenever you want to say it. Me, I've got a pretty big mouth...online, at least. Some of my fellow writers, not so much. Dammit. ;-)