Selling out

When it comes to music, I tend to be a bit behind the times - like five years or more behind. I won't mention any of my favorite bands by name, but if you've been following my blog these last few months, you already know about my latest obsession (A couple of you have even been kind enough to let me rave at you about them  ;-)). This band has been together since the '90's.

Now, bear with me a moment. I promise we're heading toward EMC territory, but today we're taking the slow road.

Because I do discover bands so late in their careers, I've been able to pick up on a strange phenomenon. You might have noticed it too, but if you follow the music scene more closely than I do, your opinion about it could be different than my own. I'm talking about the way longtime fans will complain that a band has sold out if their newer music doesn't sound like their older music. Look at the message boards - or even the YouTube comments - of any band that's been popular for several years, and you'll see what I mean.

Well, okay, maybe you wouldn't find those kinds of complaints about Nickelback; but that just proves my next point, because Nickelback sucks.

And now we've arrived at the borders of EMC territory.

I consider myself a creative person. You probably know about my mind control erotica, but I have a lot of other interests - and a lot of other stories connected to those interests - floating around out there. I also dabble in art; and while I can't play any instruments or sing on key to save my life, I recognize the creativity involved in making good music. When a band sees each new album as a chance to experiment, that's a positive, regardless of whether or not I like their new sound. It's when a band keeps churning out the same shit time after time (again, see Nickelback) that I think they're selling out. In fact, in cases like that, they probably sold out before they ever picked up an instrument.

I sometimes wonder if any EMCSA readers think I've sold out. I certainly don't write the way I did back in 2002, when I first joined the website. My early stories were sometimes rewrites of fantasies I'd been running in my head for years, sometimes attempts at coming to terms with my sexual orientation, and often a bit of both.

But that was then; this is now. Today I'm more interested in trying new things with my stories, like collaborating with friends, writing from a male point of view, or even writing a cyan story.
Does that make me a sell-out? Hell, no; it makes me a creative person. If I wanted to sell out, all I'd have to do would be to write a yellow story. After all, they're the most popular pieces on the EMCSA. (Please note that I'm not disparaging all yellow stories here; it's just that M/f is a personal squick of mine).

Now let me issue a challenges to you - no, two challenges.

First, think about any bands you've criticized for "selling out" and ask yourself whether they stopped making good music, or whether they just stopped making music that floated your personal boat. If it's the former, fair enough; some bands do sell out - or just lose their touch. But if it's the latter, trust me: they really didn't sell out.They just tried an experiment you didn't like.

Now, with that in mind, let's proceed to the second challenge. Think about your favorite authors on the EMCSA and ask yourself why you keep coming back to them. Is it because you never know what they'll do next; or because you know exactly what they'll do since they always do the same thing but you happen to like it?

It's true that a creative writer (or band, or artist, etc.) will sometimes disappoint you. No experimenter has a 100% success rate; and anyway, you might consider one experiment a failure while someone else thinks it's a success. My point is that creative people have to experiment; it's in their natures. If someone churns out exactly the same product every time they go to work, they're either a manufacturer or a hack.

P.S.:  Just for the record, I didn't write this post to criticize any particular EMC writer (I don't have any individuals in mind), and I didn't write it to defend my own work (I don't know if anyone thinks I've sold out or not). The idea began with my reading complaints on YouTube about bands I like; I just transferred my thoughts to the MC world.

Scar13 color-coordinates with a friend

For most of my readers, the lady at right needs no introduction, but here's a helpful tip for the rest of you: she's Scar13, and she's just as gorgeous with clothes as without. But fortunately for all of you today, this particular photo-set is nude only. ;-)

The photographer for the set is Michael Helms, a man who never gets tired of telling the world how much he loves Scar. He photographs a lot of other beautiful women, too - and never fails to make them even more beautiful. You can visit his gallery on Deviant Art to see more - lots more.

Scar doesn't have a Deviant Art gallery gallery of her own, but you can find a multitude of her pictures in other Deviant Artists' galleries just by doing a DA search on her name.

As for her lovely color-coordinating friend, she goes by the name of Velocity, and she has a gallery on Model Mayhem. You might laugh to hear me say this, but I really love her face. ;-)

Tease, tease, tease

I have a lot of gorgeous, color-coordinated pictures of two models (at least one of whom you know well) to share with you soon, but I'm holding off until the photographer finishes posting the whole set. Expect to see them mid-week, I think.

In the meantime, happy whatever-holiday-you're-celebrating-at-the-moment!

How to turn yourself into a creepy-ass fortune-telling doll

I found this image in a Bizarre magazine article Neil Gaiman had linked to from his blog. I'm pretty sure that's a real person under there because all the other pictures are of costumed human beings. But look at her(?) hand. Isn't it  amazingly plaster-like? She could be wearing some sort of glove, but I know that if I were her, I wouldn't want to have an immobile hand for very long. So I thought to myself, "How else could you achieve that look and still be able to move?" The answer came to me quickly enough: get the right shade of latex gloves and mess them up just a tad. Then you could get a pair of latex stockings in the same color and top them with some old, scuffed ballet slippers; and after that, perhaps some discreet arm and leg braces to wear under your dress, just to make your movements a little creakier. The mask, of course, would be the easy part.

I wish I had an opportunity to try this out myself.

Again, not what I expected to post today

I just read this excellent article on CNN about the reluctance of soccer (football, for Europeans) players to come out of the closet, and how one player who was forced out in 1990 eventually committed suicide because of the pressure and prejudice he faced. The article also includes video interviews with rugby player Gareth Thomas and cricketer Steven Davies, both of whom came out more recently. They both talk about their great sense of relief at being able to be themselves at last.

I know this is supposed to be a blog about fetishes, but I just can't keep stories like this to myself. There are so many young people, athletes and otherwise, who are afraid to share this essential part of themselves - often with good reason. And there are so many young people who can't hide their differences, and suffer the discrimination others avoid because they simply have no choice.

If my blog gives me any voice on this issue, any power to soften one person's heart or strengthen one person's nerve, then I'm going to take it. Whether you, my reader, identify as GLBT or not, please be vocal about this issue in your community. Please work for justice, and please support those who are fearful and persecuted in any way you can.

Thanks.

She wrote me...I think

When you get an e-mail from someone claiming to be a published model, it's hard to tell if they're for real or just someone yanking your chain. But I tend to think the message I got from "merkinstache" on Thursday came from the lady herself. She thanked me for mentioning her on my blog and calling her "enchanting," and she said using the name "merkinstache" helped her not take herself too seriously.

Anyway, the e-mail reminded me that I'd promised to do a post about merkinstache but never got around to it, so here it is now. She really is enchanting, yes? And she's also not afraid to put herself in some pretty freaky situations, as you'll see if you visit her Deviant Art or Model Mayhem galleries.

In the meantime, here's a little something to whet your appetite. :-)

The picture above is by Michael Helms, as is the first of the three images just below. The second is by Dan Santoni, and the third comes from Perry Gallagher.

Next up is another pic from Perry Gallagher, then one from Chad Michael Ward.

Finally, two more from Perry Gallagher and one from Vance.

All the photographers featured in this post have Deviant Art and/or Model Mayhem accounts where you can see more of their work.

Your assistance, please?

There was a time when I only wrote what I knew, but I seem to be moving further and further away from that era. For instance, with the EMC story I'm plotting now, I'll have to know a lot more than I already do (which is practically nothing) about skating sports. Specifically, I need 1) technical knowledge of pairs skating and 2) comparisons and contrasts between hockey and figure skating.

Make of this what you will. ;-)

Anyway, Jukebox tells me there's a Canadian reality TV show where hockey players team up with figure skaters, but I can't access the YouTube videos because I live in the wrong country. :-/ If you can watch the show and have been doing so regularly, you could certainly help me; and if you have personal experience with both sports, you could help me even more. I'm also looking for people with in-depth knowledge of pairs skating (Lady K already has me covered on the hockey front).

If you'd like to volunteer your services, you'll get advance details and peeks on the story in progress, though of course you'll be sworn to secrecy; and I'll give you credit on my blog and in the notes at the top of the story when it's posted on the EMCSA* - assuming you do want that and don't want to remain completely anonymous. But if you would like a credit, I'll use whatever name you wish.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me!

* I make no promises about when it will be posted, but it'll happen.

The Domme Gives a Tour

This post was always meant to center on the photography of John Tisbury, but I debated for awhile over the layout and whether or not to include similar pics from other photographers. In the end, though, I decided just to splash you with almost everything from my folder of saved Tisbury pictures. I don't think I even need to set up an MC scenario for these, do I? They speak so clearly for themselves. ;-)

        

Not *that* kind of grass...or *that* kind, either

The Grass I want to talk about today is a science fiction/fantasy/horror novel by Sheri S. Tepper. "Grass" is both the name of the novel and the world on which most of the story is set: the only planet in human-inhabited space that hasn't been infected by a deadly plague. The novel's protagonist has been sent along with her ambassador husband to find out what makes Grass safe.

The thing is, Grass isn't safe, not at all. It seems perfectly pastoral on the surface, right down to the hunts on which members of the landed gentry chase "foxes" (actually native creatures that aren't very fox-like at all) with the aid of "hounds" and "horses" a thousand times more sinister than their Terran counterparts. In fact, you only have to read twenty pages or so before you start to wonder which species involved in the hunts is really in charge - and what it wants of the other species involved.

There's a lot of EMC in Grass - and do note that I said "EMC" and not just "MC." ;-) I'll give you just a taste of it here, a scene so brief it hardly requires any introduction at all: Dimity is a virginal young thing on her first-ever fox hunt. She's been training for months, though, because it's such a painful and exhausting experience...which, for some reason, no one ever thinks of refusing. Her father Stavenger is the captain of this particular hunt, and her brother Sylvan goes along even though he despises the practice. And that's all you need to know before we dig in:

     The Hunt does go on. Time passes. The fox runs for hours. The riders pursue it for hours. Dimity forgets who she is or where she is. There is no yesterday, nor any tomorrow. There is only an everlasting now, full of the pound of feet on the turf, the rustle of grasses as they push their way through, the scream of the fox far ahead, the bay of the hounds. Hours gone. Days, perhaps. Perhaps they have ridden for days. She would not know.
     There is nothing to mark the passage of time. Thirst, yes. Hunger, yes. Weariness, yes. Pain, yes. All of these have been there since early in the morning: burning thirst, gnawing hunger, aching bones, deep-set as a disease. Her mouth cannot be drier than it is, her stomach emptier. She cannot hurt more than she hurts. And now, at last, she gives up fighting against it. It will last forever. The thing in her head wipes out any concern about that. Nothing measures time. No before. No after. Nothing, nothing. Until the mount beneath her slows and stops and she unwillingly leaves the agonized daze she has fallen into and opens her eyes.
     They are standing at the edge of another copse, moving slowly into it, into a grove, into the dusky cathedral shade of the trees. High above them the foliage opens to allow the sun to pierce the gloom in radiant spears. One of them lights Stavenger where he stands upon his mount with the harpoon in his hands, ready to throw. From the tree branches above comes a scream of rage, then Stavenger's arm whips out and the line streaks behind the harpoon like a thread of purest gold.
     A horrible scream again, this time of agony.
     A hound leaps high to seize the line in his teeth. Other hounds as well. They have it. They are pulling the fox out of the tree, still howling, still screaming, never silent for an instant. Something huge and dark with glistening eyes and mighty fangs falls among them, and then there is only the sound of screaming mixed with the sound of teeth.
     Dimity closes her eyes again, too late not to see the dark blood fountaining among the struggling bodies, and feels...feels a welling of pleasure so deeply intimate it makes her flush and draw her breath in, makes her legs quiver where they bestride the body beneath her, makes her whole body rock in a spasm of ecstatic sensation.
     All around her other eyes are closed, other bodies quiver. Except for Sylvan. Sylvan sits erect, eyes fixed on the bloody tumult before him, teeth bared in a silent rage of defiance, his face quite blank. He can see Dimity from where he is, see her body thrashing, her eyes closed. In order not to see it, he turns his face away.

Again, that was just the merest glimpse of "Grassian" EMC. You have no idea how deep the control goes until nude, mindwiped girls start turning up in spaceports - and even that's not the end of it! Check it out.

Skeletor Saves

First, sorry about the lack of a post last Wednesday. Life, you know. :-/ But I hope I can make it up to you with this post - and this link to more jaw-droppers for those of a certain age.

Some artists in New York City are putting on a He-Man themed charity show to benefit a homeless shelter for LGBT youth. If you live in the NYC area, check it out. If not, consider making a donation and/or spreading the word about this extremely worthwhile cause.

Oh, and just for the record, I expect to be fully back on track Wednesday and swamping you with loads of fetishy goodness. ;-)