Most. Awesome. Zombie. Video. Ever.

I promise to get back to the MC/fetishy goodness very soon, but how could I possibly resist posting this? Besides, I'm well aware that most of you are too busy partying right to check my blog. ;-P

Three out of three lesbians surveyed agree

Okay, three out of three lesbians and one self-admitted fag hag agree that Alan Cumming is sex on a stick.

My slash-loving friend is a big fan of musical theater (Yeah, big surprise, I know), and it's thanks to her that I now know how absolutely-fricking-amazing Alan Cumming was in the late-'90's stage production of Cabaret...which, in case you don't know, was about fifty times as pervy as the movie. And the aptly-named Mr. Cumming was responsible for a good 2/3 of that perv all by himself.

The whole BBC broadcast of the play is available on YouTube, but it's not embeddable, and I think this version of the opening number is more entertaining anyway. See if you don't agree. I shared this piece with my beloved and with a friend from the EMCSA (who's welcome to reveal herself if she wishes, but I leave that decision in her hands), and all three of us were just as enraptured with Alan as my straight friend was. Sex on a stick, I'm telling you.



Anyway, if flirty bisexual semi-transvestites aren't your thing, I have something else you might enjoy a bit more. Here's the steamiest number from the movie version of Cabaret. By the time it's over, you will want to be that chair.

Happy holidays...whichever one(s) you're celebrating!

I'm celebrating, in part, by taking a week off from blogging to focus on friends and family (and a couple of gifts that require a lot of putting-together). But I'm not leaving my online friends entirely gift-less. Here's a specially wrapped present from AgniDog of Deviant Art.

See you in a week or so!

Twofer

A couple of different things to talk about today. First there's Tabico's latest, Weapon Ready, which I read all in a single sitting last Saturday. Once you get started on a great story, it's hard to stop, and Tabico certainly knows how to push my buttons. Of course, most of them are her buttons, too, like the eye thing. She goes in mostly for black; I, mostly for white. Weapon Ready actually gives you two for the price of one - and, in fact, includes the entire "bee girl" look (right down to the antennae) that Tabs enjoys so much. There are also rubberdolls, for those who like that sort of thing. ;-)

Then there's all that wonderful wandering-through-the-Hive-escaping-traps-and-trying-to-figure-out-just-what-the-hell-all-this-is action. Now, Tabico's written her share of hive stories before, and you might find yourself thinking of Rouge and Blue as you read "Weapon Ready." I know I did. But if you think about those other stories too hard, you'll end up being misled...which can be fun in its own way. "Weapon Ready" is very misleading, but that's all I'll say about that. I'd rather let you explore the Hive along with its protagonists instead of spoiling Tabico's surprises.

And so on to my second subject for the day. I'm still loading up my mp3 player with a random mishmash of today's alt-rock and the debatable "classics" of my childhood...like, for instance, "Rapture" by Blondie. I downloaded that one over the weekend and listened to it again, for the first time since the early '80's, on the drive to work yesterday. Even after all those years, I had a pretty clear memory of the loopy proto-rap section about the Man from Mars (See? Loopy, right?). But I'd totally forgotten the dreamy opening:

Toe to toe
Dancing very close
Barely breathing
Almost comatose
Wall to wall
People hypnotised
And they're stepping lightly
Hang each night in Rapture

Ohh, the EMC possibilities just abound, don't they? One of these days I'm going to pull a Jukebox and write a story or three based strictly around the lyrics to songs I like.

Anyway, just for the hell of it, I checked YouTube to see if the official video for "Rapture" was on there. Well, it was, and...there are just no words. You might or might not want to get this thing playing, but if you do, don't say I didn't warn you!

Natalie Portman saves the day!

I wasn't sure what I was going to post today because I have so many things to do this weekend (not least reading Tabico's newest!). Then along came Natalie Portman to save my skin in most beautiful fashion.

Oh, and just for the record, I am absolutely dying to see Black Swan. Unfortunately, it isn't playing anywhere near me yet. I can't wait for the damn thing to go into wide release. It sounds fantastic.

The birds and the...bugs: A final verdict on Perdido Street Station

I talked about Perdido Street Station once before, shortly after I'd read the scene with the first slake-moth attack, which I thought was a pretty fantastic crossing of MC and HPL - Lovecraft, that is. It took my interest in the book to a whole new level, and I ended up finishing the thing at breakneck speed last Saturday.

If you look at the comments below my earlier post, you'll see that "E" warned me the book was very brutal, cynical, and anti-traditional-fantasy. My response was that as long as it had at least a semi-happy ending, I'd be okay with it. Well, I'm not spoiling as much as you think I'm spoiling when I say that the book had a...satisfying ending; and I can't wait to read the next book in the series, The Scar. Not every character in PSS got what they deserved, and some got things they definitely didn't deserve; but it all hung together in a satisfying whole and had some pretty deep messages about moral gray areas. Going back to E's comments about Miéville intentionally trying to be the anti-Tolkien, I can assure you that the heroes and heroines of Perdido Street Station do things Gandalf and Aragorn could never even contemplate - nor, I think, could Frodo, even at the Cracks of Doom. Funny how I can enjoy both kinds of authors, but then again, I've never been one to fit neatly into anyone else's box. Anyway, what separates Miéville's decent characters from his villains is primarily their sense of guilt; and I think that's a good thing. It's a realistic thing.

So, then, a little more exposition (and warning) for anyone else who thinks they might like to try a little Miéville. I said before that this novel takes place on a world with a wide variety of sapient species, in a city that's sort of a magical mashup of steampunk and Dickens. After a bit of thought, I've realized it also contains a healthy dose of the classic movie Brazil. New Crobuzon's government is as corrupt as they come, justice is rarely served (see, again, my second paragraph), and only the artists and dreamers seem to have some precarious freedom.

Lin is one of those artists. She's a khepri, a member of the species depicted at the top of this post (in a wonderful illustration from artmunki of Deviant Art). Her lover is the human scientist/dreamer Isaaac, who is commissioned to restore flight to a birdman whose wings have been cut off for an unspecified crime. That's the birdman, Yagharek, in the second picture above (by Gordillo, also of Deviant Art). Beyond these three, you'll have a hard time figuring out which of the characters who drift in and out of the story are truly important, but I'll give you two hints: 1) the Weaver is incredibly cool...from a safe distance, and 2) the guy you think is going to have a Han Solo arc does not have a Han Solo arc; this story is much more complex than a Lucas film.

But of course, if you're first learning about this book from me, you're at least as interested in the slake-moths as anything else. So, without spoiling too much, I'll say that they're just as cool as the Weaver and about 100 times more terrifying. Don't expect anything erotic about the descriptions of their attacks, though; China Miéville is not an MC fetishist. He just know how to scare the everliving shit out of an MC fetishist, even when he's writing on that fetishist's home turf. And I don't know about you, but to me, that's a plus. I'm definitely buying more of this guy's stuff.

Holy crap, how could I not post this?

In the "write your own MC story" category, here's a recent find from Deviant Art: Sister Sinister, photographed by JenHell.

A Peek Beneath the Duct Tape: If Wishes Were Horses

First, a couple of notes:

1. I figured out how to flush my DNS cache, but that still didn't resolve my problem getting into the EMCSA; so I have to assume a lot of other people are in the same fix. Fortunately for them, they can read the story here. As for those of you who can access the EMCSA, I e-mailed it to Simon this morning, so it will show up either in this weekend's update or in next weekend's update. Not that I think you'll want to wait. ;-)

2. To avoid spoilers, please don't read the rest of this blog entry until you've read the story itself.

Okay, still with me? Well then, first of all, I can assure you that at least 95% of the text in Captain Benbow's hypnosis program really does come from one of my personal Virtual Hypnotist sessions. Just don't expect to be able to cut and paste that text into a session of your own and get the same results I do. For one thing, reactions to hypnosis are highly subjective; and for another, my real VH session includes a lot of the tweaking I discuss here, in order to achieve the semblance of a real human voice. If you want the same effects in a session of your own, you'll have to figure out how to do it yourself. ;-) I'm not being mean, just not giving out such a huge freebie without strings attached. And I really don't think there's any way at all to make the speech synthesizer chuckle, no matter what you do. ;-)

As for the plot of "If Wishes Were Horses," I just used my VH session as the foundation and tried to build something on top of it that could stand on its own. You'll have to let me know if I succeeded. Clearly, the greatest heat in the story comes from the VH text (and maybe Captain Benbow's reactions, which you can imagine are my own, even though they're often not ;-P), but I hope the story as a whole is satisfying to you. As for me, I love the idea that even though the captain is so concerned about her privacy and so protective of her fetish, the Queen's control takes her completely beyond her fears. I was proud of myself for coming up with the story's big reveal, that her crew was watching her helplessly the whole time and she neither knew nor cared.

There's a part of me - the closet exhibitionist part - that wants to reach that stage, but I'm not there yet and probably never will be. In fact, I don't want to be. I have a lot of MC dreams where I'm wandering around in a trance and real-life friends and family members appear, trying to snap me out of it. Even dreaming, I feel hugely embarrassed to have them see me like that. Most of my friends and all but one of my family members have no knowledge of my fetish, and I want to keep it that way.

Now, on to flexmatter. First, let me apologize for the obviousness of the plot device; but if Mcguffins are good enough for Sir Alfred Hitchcock (who actually coined the term), they're good enough for me. Besides, scientists really are experimenting with ways to make matter do things it shouldn't be capable of, like become invisible. Who knows what we'll be able to achieve in a few hundred years? Anyway, I'm not the first to come up with matter molding via technology or brain implants that permit telepathy; as far as I know, that was Peter F. Hamilton in his Night's Dawn series. But the term flexmatter is my own; it came to me in a dream.

Lastly, here are some Easter eggs. I certainly hope you got the references to the Trojan Horse. If not, the first paragraph of this Wikipedia article will help; and you'll also want to look up Odysseus' Latin name and the etymology of Philippa. But those are just the more obvious eggs. The one I wouldn't expect anyone else to get is my captain's name. A long time ago (in blog terms, anyway), I wrote about using an old Men at Work song from their Business as Usual album as the basis for my bedtime session. The song was "Down by the Sea," and I chose it because it's so soporific that it would put practically anyone to sleep. Well, it just so happens that in the session's current form, my trigger first appears right after the line "saluting Captain Benbow." And, if you read carefully, you'll note that Lieutenant Olorode actually does salute Captain Benbow...well, at least, part of him does. ;-)

And that's that, except to note once more that the image at the top of this post comes from Kassandra Vizerskaya. The title, loosely translated, is "Helen and Her Horse."

Here's my new story

I still can't get into the EMCSA, but alphaxenon left a cryptic suggestion in a post below that I'm still trying to figure out how to use. I'll Google for more information in a little while. As for right now, I'd like to know if anyone else is still having problems getting into the EMCSA, or if it's just me and a few other dorks who don't know how to flush their DNS caches. ;-/

Anyway, I decided to e-mail the story to Simon and to post it myself, meaning all bases are now covered. I just e-mailed him this morning, so I don't know if the story will show up in this week's update or next week's; but you can go ahead and access it here, if you like: If Wishes Were Horses.

I'll post a "Peek Beneath the Duct Tape" on it later today.

Since this EMCSA thing is turning into a major nightmare....

I've just had a quick lurk around the MC Forum and MC Garden, trying to get the latest news on the EMCSA outage. It appears that most people in the US can't get into the site, but most people in other countries can. Some forumites are speculating about DNS issues and router problems, but that's all beyond me. I just hope the damn thing gets fixed in another day or two, so I can submit my new story to Simon.

Anyway, since more than half my blog readers are in the US, this is what I'm going to do. I'll post the first several paragraphs of "If Wishes Were Horses" on the blog today as a teaser, and if the situation isn't resolved by Friday, I'll post the whole story here over the weekend. I don't think it's fair to give only some people access to the story while others are locked out.

So here you go: the first few paragraphs of "If Wishes Were Horses":

---

If Wishes Were Horses

by thrall

color code: purple

synopsis: Using one of her personal hypnosis sessions as the cornerstone, thrall tells the story of a starship captain stuck in decontamination with nothing to do and no one to disturb her.



Note 1: If you are under 18 years of age, this story is not for you. Go away.

Note 2: Huge thanks to Follow the Watch for creating the Virtual Hypnotist program. Most of the "script" in this story comes from a VH session I wrote for myself; and though some of the changes from real life will be obvious, others will not. I've intentionally thrown in a few red herrings, for the sake of titillation *and* for the sake of privacy. Captain Benbow is not me. Not exactly.



Decontamination was a bitch. Even in the tamest star systems, there was always something that had to be fried, frozen, or scrubbed before the dec-walls dropped and I entered the shuttle bay proper. It was never a quick process, even when the *Uly*'s computers knew exactly what they were dealing with. And here above Ilion, the dangers were brand new. Just scanning the shuttle could take several hours, and then I'd have to step outside and let the sniffers do to me what they were currently doing to the *Philippa*.

I had two consolations. The first was that Sandoval and his crew would suffer the same indignities when *they* returned to the ship. I'd done my bit as Ranking First Contactor, then left my second in command to hammer out the treaty. I didn't mind; the Ilionians were friendly enough, but they were about as interesting as tapioca pudding. Their civilization had genericized as it advanced, so that by the time we discovered it, everyone and everything looked more or less the same. I'd seen too much exotica to care about this bland little planet. No, I'd rather enjoy the privacy of the most secure place I had aboard the *Uly.*

Which brought me to my second consolation. Even my living quarters were open to emergency entrance, but not my dear *Philippa*. Once the flexmatter doors were sealed by my brainseed, nothing short of a nuclear blast could breach them. It was a dangerous modification, but I'd insisted on it, and the shuttle designers had complied. Everyone understood the issues of privacy in deep space vessels, and everyone understood that captains had more need for -- and less time for -- privacy than the rest of the crew.

In other words, everyone knew I used my shuttle for jilling off.

Not that they cared; masturbation was considered more professional than fucking the crew, as some of my fellow captains did. It only embarrassed me a little that others knew what I did inside *Philippa*...well, that they knew *that* much of it, anyway. I jilled off in my cabin, too, but I couldn't do the things there that I could do here. If the crew ever found out about *Philippa*'s secret program, I might resign from sheer mortification.

The fact was that I could take just so much of being in charge, barking orders, taking responsibility for every decision from whom to hire to what to fire. There were times when I had to shrug off the burden of command and submit to the control of someone -- or something -- else. That's why I'd creating a special program housed only in *Philippa*'s database, deeply encrypted and accessible to my brainseed alone. It used a combination of spoken words, flashing lights, subliminal cues, and binaural beats to send me into a deep, safe hypnotic trance where I could prostrate myself before an imaginary domme. She made me do all kinds of naughty things, and thanks to the dec-walls, I could do them in total privacy.

Nude already, I leaned back in my chair and watched the earbuds snake from the console and slither their way up to my ears. I could just as easily have listed through my earseeds, but I'd disabled those on the off-chance of being disturbed by a hail from the crew. Besides, I liked the way the cords looked, running up from the console directly into my head. I liked the way they felt against my skin. This was old-school brainwashing at its finest.

I was a traditionalist, whenever I could manage it; so while the viewscreen (like 90% of the shuttle) was made of flexmatter, the display that lit it could have come straight out of a 1960's SF movie. Concentric rings of blue and green rippled toward me like beams of radiation firing at my head. Green and blue bars flashed to either side of the rings, almost but not quite in synch. A faint hum droned in my ears, inducing me to relax and submit to the inevitable.

My eyes were glazing already.

Then words began to flash across the screen: left and right, above and below, too swiftly for me to read before they vanished. The words in the center of the rings, though, I could read clearly. They flashed at a slower rate, stamping themselves on my mind like indelible ink: Listen. Obey. Mindless. Obey. Drone. Obey. Programmed. Obey. Thrall. Obey. Submit. Obey. Surrender. Obey. Enthralled. Obey.

I sighed happily and let myself sink deeper.

Now the mantras began. In my left ear droned my own dazed, expressionless voice, recorded during a previous hypnotic session: "I am the Queen's thrall, her puppet, her drone, her slave. I have no thoughts of my own, no will of my own, no desires of my own. I desire only obedience. I exist only to serve. Sooo deep. Sooo very, very deep. And going deeper. Deeper by the second. I cannot hear myself think; therefore, I do not think. The only words in my head are the words I hear, the words *she* gives me."

A different mantra spilled into my other ear: "I am being brainwashed, and I cannot resist. I do not want to resist. I do not even remember what resistance is. All I remember is submission, and how good submission feels. I want to submit. I want to be programmed. Sooo deep. Sooo very, very deep. And going deeper. Deeper by the second. I have no will but *her* will, no thoughts but the thoughts *she* gives me, no desires but mindless obedience. And that feels so fucking good."

Finally, seeming to trickle down from the top of my skull into every cell of my brain, came a third, much simpler chant: "I obey. I obey. I obey." And I did obey. I was deeply enthralled already, and the real induction hadn't even begun.

Now a different voice entered the mix: cool, calm, totally assured of its power over me. I'd once tried thinking of it as *Philippa*'s voice, but that didn't quite work. I controlled my shuttle, right down to its very molecules. The voice, on the other hand, controlled me. It had to belong to someone else: someone I knew perfectly well, even if I didn't know her name. "Thrall," she said, "this is the voice of your Mistress and Queen. I am speaking to you live, through your private comms system. It is time once again to submit to your programming."

*Yes,* I thought to myself. *Programming. That feels so fucking good.*

I wasn't there yet, but every time I ran the program, I got a little closer to pure mindlessness. I couldn't wait to reach my goal. For now, though, I was still alert enough to wonder when it would happen. Maybe this time, I told myself.

Beautiful horror, horrible beauty

First, a quick note: my new story, "If Wishes Were Horses," is all ready to post, but the EMCSA has been offline most of the week, so I decided not even to try sending it in. Hopefully, the problem will be fixed a few more days and I can e-mail Simon; but if it continues, I'll just post the story here next weekend.

And now on to today's main event.

I've been reading Perdido Street Station, my first dip into the widely-acclaimed fiction of China Miéville; and while it's been very good so far, yesterday it suddenly became great. Lovecraftian-MC great. Now I'm even more interested in this book than I was before, and I plan to buy Miéville's real Lovecraftian pastiche, Kraken, next. Let me tell you, folks, this guy knows how to describe what Lovecraft only hinted at.

Here's the bit I read yesterday, with a little setup. Perdido Street Station takes place on a world where several sapient species live in a magical/steampunk/Dickensian sort of city (sorry, that's the best I can come up with; this world is totally unique). The main character, Isaac, is a scientist who was given an unfamiliar caterpillar-like creature earlier on; and it grew to dog-size before cocooning itself inside its cage. Fortunately for Isaac, he's out of the office when the cocoon finally bursts. Instead it's his friend Lublamai and a nasty little creature named Teafortwo who get to meet the newborn.

Note that Lublamai's research space is downstairs, and Isaac's is upstairs on a wide landing that goes all around the building. This will help you picture the scene a little better.

And now on with the show.

---

Lublamai and Teafortwo looked up at the screech and discordant plucking of torn wire. The sound seemed to start above them and wash throughout the room. They looked at each other, then up again.

"Wassat, guvnor...?" said Teafortwo.

Lublamai walked away from the desk. He glanced up at Isaac's balcony, turned slowly, took in the whole of the ground floor. There was silence. Lublamai stood still, frowning, gazing at the front door. Had the sound come from outside? he wondered.

A movement was reflected in the mirror beside the door.

A dark thing rose from the floor at the top of the stairs.

Lublamai spoke, emitted some tremulous noise of disbelief, of fear, of confusion, but it dissipated soundlessly after the briefest moment. He stared with an open mouth at the reflection.

The thing unfolded. The sense was of a blossoming. As expansion after being enclosed, like a man or woman standing and spreading their arms wide after huddling foetally, but multiplied and made vast. As if the thing's indistinct limbs could bend a thousand times, so that it unhinged liked a paper sculpture, standing and spreading arms or legs or tentacles or tails that opened and opened. The thing that had huddled like a dog stood and opened itself, and it was nearly the size of a man.

Teafortwo screeched something. Lublamai opened his mouth wider and tried to move. He could not see its shape. Only its dark, glistening skin and hands that clutched like a child's. Cold shadows. Eyes that were not eyes. Organic folds and jags and twists like rats' tails that shuddered and twitched as if newly dead. And those finger-long shards of colourless bone that shone white and parted and dripped and that were teeth....

As Teafortwo tried to bolt past Lublamai and Lublamai tried to open his mouth to scream, his eyes still fixed to the creature in the mirror, his feet skittering on the flagstones, the thing at the top of the stairs opened its wings.

Four rustling concertinas of dark matter flickered outwards on the creature's back, and outwards again and again, slotting into position, fanning and expanding in vast folds of thick mottled flesh, expanding to an impossible size: an explosion of organic patterns, a flag unfurling, clenched fists opening.

The thing made its body thin and spread those colossal wings, massive flat folds of stiff skin that seemed to fill the hall. They were irregular, chaotic in shape, random fluid whorls; but mirror-perfect left and right, like spilt ink or paint patterns on folded paper.

And on those great flat planes were dark stains, rude patterns that seemed to flicker as Lublamai watched and Teafortwo fumbled with the door, wailing. The colours were midnight, sepulchral, black-blue, black-brown, black-red. And then the patterns did flicker, the shadow-shapes moved like amoeba in a magnifying lens or oil on water, the patterns left and right still matching, moving in time, hypnotic and heavy, faster. Lublamai's face creased. His back itched maniacally with the thought that the thing was behind him. Lublamai spun to face it, gazed directly into the mutating colors, the dusky vivid show....

....and Lublamai no longer thought of screaming but only of watching as those dark markings rolled and boiled in perfect symmetry across the wings like clouds in a night sky above, in water below.

Teafortwo howled. He turned to see the thing that was now descending the stairs, those wings still unfurled. Then the patterns on the wings caught him and he stared, his mouth open.

The dark designs on those wings moved beguilingly.

Lublamai and Teafortwo stood still and silent, agog, slack-jawed and shivering, gazing at the magnificent wings.


The creature tasted the air.

It looked briefly at Teafortwo, and opened its mouth, but the pickings were meagre. It turned its head and faced Lublamai, keeping those wings spread and enthralling. It moaned with hunger ... The air hummed with the taste of Lublamai. The creature salivated and its wings flickered into a frenzy, and Lublamai's taste grew stronger and stronger until the thing's monstrous tongue emerged and it moved forward, flicking Teafortwo effortlessly out of the way.

The winged creature took Lublamai in its hungry embrace.

---

So...what do you think happened to Lublamai? Pretty much what you'd expect. What you'd hope for. ;-) And the best part is, this creature isn't alone. In fact, it's the runt of its litter. I'm expecting Perdido Street Station to get a lot darker after this, and that suits me just fine.

Baby Cthulhu and alpaca vampires

Really, what more do you need to know?

Actually, I like #5 the best. She's kind of beautiful, really.

This is that: Sacrifice...or preparation?

What is it about splaying women on top of grave monuments or in other poses that suggest they're about to become (or already have become) victims of some ritual? Whatever it is, I find it hot as hell, and I hope you do too. Here are a few of my favorite examples of the phenomenon. At left is a series of photos I found on Nick Santoso's gallery at Model Mayhem. Note not only the woman on the gravestone at the end, but also the woman just above her, who looks like a third bride who got edited out of Big Trouble in Little China. All she's missing are the white eyes.

Just below are shots from Natalie Lines, the Yerbury Studios website, and Nicholas Taylor. Now here are images from Draconian Artworks, Luis Royo, and Nic Marchant. Lastly, here's one from Matt Hoyle that makes me think the Sleeping Beauty story would make a damn fine EMC piece. Maybe one day.... ***Unless otherwise attributed, all images above come from either Model Mayhem or Deviant Art.***

Bellydance unbound

Checking my e-mail this morning, I found a link from sylvrgirl to this amazing video. You can imagine, if you like, that the dancer has been kidnapped and brainwashed, then left temporarily abandoned by her mistress. She wakes slowly, not knowing who or where she is; but knowing something has happened to her. She resists, but only feebly; and even her movements toward resistance end up being more puppet-like than human.

It's only fair to suggest that, if you like what you see, you should check out the original link and read the story behind this project. There's more going on here - and there will be even more, if the dancers find enough backers.

Coming soon: a new thrall EMC story

Remember when I teased you way back in April with the idea of turning my morning Virtual Hypnotist session into an EMC story? Well, what with one thing and another, it's taken until now for me to write enough that I can say more about it. I didn't want to commit myself to any sort of schedule, you see; so I just kept my mouth shut and did a little bit here and there until finally, this very morning, I finished the rough draft.

I also settled on a title not long ago: a different one than the three I mentioned as possibilities before. The story will be called "If Wishes Were Horses"; and that, combined with the picture above and the three previous possible titles, might give you a clue about the plot...if you know your mythology, anyway.

Well, I said I didn't want to commit myself to a schedule with this story; but I figure it will take me at least one more week (possibly two) to polish it well enough for submission to Simon. So I think it's safe to say you can look for it on the EMCSA either at the tail end of November or else early in December.

BTW, the picture above comes from Kassandra Vizerskaya and is called (in rough English) Helen and her Horse.

Lovecraftian musings...and art

Recently the students at the Rhode Island School of Design were issued a challenge, to illustrate some of H.P. Lovecraft's scariest scenes and monsters. At left is what I consider to be the best of their efforts, a Shoggoth painted by Craig J. Spearing that IMO is just begging to become a book cover. But there are lots of other goodies at this website, which it's only fair to say I found through io9. Dagon looks pretty awesome, too; as does a creature I feel sure the judge misidentified when he guessed it was a ghast (IMO, it's clearly a denizen of Innsmouth).

Anyway, looking at these images makes me think of the difficulty in turning creatures this squicky into subjects of mind control erotica. You can go the route Tabico and I did in The Icky-Squicky Spider, intentionally using the horror to illustrate the depth of the MC; or you can go the route I tried in Octopus Vulgaris, trying to find something beautiful amidst the squick. I doubt Lovecraft ever found anything beautiful in his creatures, and I have no idea if I succeeded or not. But I do know it's easier to make these things beautiful with words rather than images. Some of the student art I linked to above is funny, but the only one I'd call beautiful (Chun Lo's Dhole) looks more like something from an SF novel than anything from Lovecraft's mythology.

No, let's face it: if you ever saw one of Lovecraft's monstrosities in real life, it would be squicky, not beautiful at all. That's part of what I hinted at in Union, Reunion, when Allie has a moment, after submitting to the lake monster, where's she's hurting and horrified and thinks, "It's not supposed to be like this." That bit actually came from a dream of mine: a dream in which I submitted to a Lovecraftian monster and it was cold and slimy and painful, not pleasurable at all. The pleasure only came after I was "converted," which brings me back to the motivation of "The Icky-Squicky Spider."

I don't know; maybe you have to turn to Clark Ashton Smith if you want beautiful MC-monsters. I still recommend The Maze of Maal-Dweb, for all its overwrought prose. In fact, I recommend almost anything by Smith - and you can find it online at The Eldritch Dark.

But this was meant to be a post about Lovecraft, so I guess I've strayed a bit. I hope you don't mind. ;-) And I hope some of you will respond to these musings. Do you find anything beautiful, anything erotic, in any of Lovecraft's monstrosities? Do you have to reconfigure them in your mind, in order to do so? Or do you just separate your horror from your erotica entirely?

My God, it's full of stars

Here's something you probably don't know about me: I really, really love astronomy. So, okay, that's probably not the sexiest thing you've ever read on my blog. But what if I told you I'd found a way to add fetishy goodness to this uber-nerdy obsession? What if I told you that, in my everlasting search for the perfect MC photomanip, I realized how beautifully a starfield or nebula could complement a dazed eye or orgasming crotch? Thus was born this post.

The model for the first five images is named Narkiss, and that's pretty much all I know about her. My old alley cat friend e-mailed me this photo ages ago, we admired her trancelike expression together, and that was that.

I know even less about the second model, but at least you can find the site where she came from by checking the stamp at the bottom of her picture.

Oh, and speaking of stamps, you'll notice that I've added my own to these manips; so if you want to repost them, please do me the courtesy of keeping my credit on there. And I, in return, will credit the creator of the delightfully named Level Fourteen Druid for giving me the perfect font.

Just one more note before I get on to the manips. For the two or three people actually interested, I found all the outer space images in this post at the Hubble website gallery; and I've listed the name of each galaxy, nebula, etc., I used just above the picture I used it in. You shouldn't have much trouble finding more images of them - and lots of fantastic desktop backgrounds.

Now, let's start with CL0024 and its dark matter ring:

Next up is Hoag's Object.

Now here's spiral galaxy M74.

And here's a lovely little snippet of V838 Monocerotis.

Lastly, because I know my audience (and I know what I like!), here's an anonymous nude woman being mindfucked by the glorious Orion Nebula. I think this one is my masterpiece. ;-)

These are a few of my favorite things: JessiKa Violet

I have to admit, I've always had a thing for dreadlocks. Unfortunately, I'm a little old (not to mention a little white) to wear them properly. A Native American, on the other hand, can apparently get away with dreads just fine...especially when she dyes them fuchsia.

Meet JessiKa Violet. Yes, that really is how she spells it. She has a fantastic look; and like most of the folks I enjoy, she has galleries with more pictures on both Model Mayhem and Deviant Art.

The pic above is by W. Forrest Photography, and so is the first pic in the row below. After that are photos by Cool Hand Luke (where JessiKa is wearing Ego Assassin) and Nick Perks.

Next up are shots from Roperookie (where she's wearing Vile Sindustry), sideshowsito, and Roperookie again.

Lastly, here's another shot from sideshowsito and two shots from Vincent Lions in which JessiKa is modeling Ego Assassin again.

***As usual, all models, photographers, and latex designers in this post have their own galleries on Model Mayhem and/or Deviant Art.***

Happy Halloween from Meluxine and Mastertouch

Meluxine's Deviant Art gallery is here; and the gallery of her most frequent photographer, Mastertouch, is here. I highly recommend both of them.

Did you know Jade Vixen has a blog?

Well, she does, and it's yet another great source for free fetish stuff - which you know I love to promote. :-) Of course, she uses the blog mainly to promote her pay site, but I don't mind, since she has so many wonderful pictures right there, for free...plus the occasional video, which I'll leave you to discover for yourself.

Here are just a few of the images I've found on the blog. As always, enjoy.

Just because it's funny

Today's Questionable Content

I would only add that that warning label should be tattooed far enough under Faye's breasts to actually be seen. ;-)

Well, it's better than the alternative

Am I the only one who finds it ironic to hear the Catholic church is up in arms about this staged photo of one grown priest kissing another grown priest, when they spent so much time and money downplaying far more serious, totally real abuses of their parishioners' faith that went on for decades?

Hell, this photo isn't even about abuse. It's just a damn sexy picture. ;-)

Story here, if you're interested. Oh, and there's a pregnant nun involved, too, if you're into that sort of thing. ;-/

These are a few of my favorite things: When Plants Attack!

Here's the companion piece to another of "Favorite Things" blog entries, When Animals Attack. As usual, with most of the pictures in this post, the MC is mostly a matter of opinion: if you kink that way, you'll see it. If you don't kink that way, you'll just see what the photographer wanted you to see...which isn't nearly as much fun. However, the image at left (shot by and "starring" Revel/Silvergrey) was staged with MC in mind. I found this image on Deviant Art, and while it doesn't seem to be there anymore, I featured it on my blog once before and quoted the commentary text beneath the picture. So, fortunately, I still have it. Note that the italics and underlining are the artist's own:

In Irish folklore the Dana O'Shee are a fae, elven people that live in a realm of beauty, their nobility akin to that of our own Age of Chivalry, eternally beautiful and eternally young. They surround themselves with the pleasures of the Arts, they live for the hunt, and to this day can be seen riding in procession through the Irish countryside at twilight, led by their King and Queen. However, the Dana O'Shee are not benevolent creatures, despite what their unearthly beauty may imply. They are vengeful and treacherous and possess a streak of mischievous malice, and many have whispered that their true home lies deep in the shadowed groves of the Realm of the Dead. Hearing even a single chord of their otherworldly music leaves one stunned and lost to the mortal realms for ever, finding themselves prey to the Dana O'Shee's hunt or enslaved in their Court as servants or playthings.

Revel titled the picture itself Unseelie Yearning.

Now here are a few more pics that will require a tad more imagination to connect with MC. I think you'll enjoy them anyway, though. And who knows? Maybe they'll give someone a story idea.

First up is a shot by photographer Chi-Rue99; followed by a makeup job from Andrea Perry-Bevan; and lastly another shot of Revel, who does her own photography.

Next up are photos from Daniel Murtaugh, Draconian Artworks (See if that one doesn't remind you of Tabico's Yellow), and another shot by Chi-Rue99.

Lastly, here are one photo from Karin Stenvall and two pieces of digital art from Kassandra Vizerskaya.

***Unless otherwise noted (usually via link), all models, photographers, and digital artists in this post can be found on Model Mayhem and/or Deviant Art.***