An MC-Flavored "Top Twelve" List for 2012

When Callidus visited me in September, one of the things we did together was brainstorm a list of our top ten favorite MC scenes in movies and TV. We were thinking about publishing a single list of picks we agreed on, but later we decided it would be easier to each make our own list and publish that in our own time. So here's mine, just in time for the end-of-year retrospectives. In honor of the year (and because that's how many clips I found on YouTube out of all the ones I searched for), I'm giving you not ten, but twelve of my favorites.

If you like what you see, you'd better download these clips immediately, because there's no telling how long they'll stick around. Already, some of the videos I'd featured previously on this blog are gone; so I've had to make do with lesser quality versions or, in a few cases, interesting remixes. Then there was one (Eve Plumb in the "Pied Piper" episode of Wonder Woman) that I couldn't find at all. If you've seen that episode, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It would definitely have been in my top five.

Anyway, here's my "Top Twelve for 2012" MC countdown, minus Eve Plumb. Download while you can.

12. Lily's Seduction in Legend: Mia Sara is by far the best thing about this movie, and this is by far her best scene. Who or what is really seducing her here? No telling, but it's probably female...and Mia definitely loves it.




11. Emma Peel's Brainwashing in The Avengers: Brief and to the point, which is a blessing since this is supposedly an execrable movie. Thankfully, the only bit of it I've watched is this scene, which Callidus shared with me on his visit. I can't imagine what the poor guy suffered to bring us this brief moment of transcendence.






10. "I Want It" from Looker: Haven't we all been hypnotized by TV once in awhile? Too bad most of us don't look at hot as Susan Dey when it happens.





9. Close to You/Mirrormask: Neil Gaiman comes through again, this time with clockwork robots dancing to the very last song you'd ever expect to hear in an MC context.





8. Picard Gets Assimilated: I couldn't find a clip of his assimilation isolated from the rest of the plot, but I found something that might be even better: a chronological mashup of several MC-related moments from both parts of "Best of Both Worlds." Not only do you get the full horror of Picard's assimilation, but you also get the thrill of watching him betray the people he loves, all without having to wait on an actual plot. [Edit: I've replaced the original embedded video with a better, more atmospheric one - though oddly enough, both feature music by the same band. Even if you don't like Linkin Park, I recommend keeping the sound on because of all the horrified muttering by the Enterprise crew.].





7. Mannequin - Mutation: Here's something I stumbled across several years ago (via Asudem Latex, IIRC). I'm surprised and delighted to find it still online.





6. Carmilla Seduces a Young Maiden: I had thought this scene was gone from YouTube, but maybe I just needed to be logged in to see it. I found it today, anyway, in the middle of a ten-minute segment. If you don't want to wait around, just drag the slide bar over to 4:46. Carmilla smolders wonderfully, and her victim's expressions are almost as lovely as her pale, helpless body.





5. Fleurs du Mal: This video is technically an advertisement for Agent Provocateur lingerie, but in reality it's oh so much more. Xenia LaFleur linked me to the original clip on the AP website, and today I found a copy on YouTube that I could embed here. If you want the link to the original in its great big .mp4 glory, it's available here; and if you want to download that .mp4 but don't know how, you can find my instructions here.





4. Fright Night Club Scene, 1985 version: Here's another of those cases where I had to use a remix because the original video has disappeared. The shots in the remix are out of order, but at least the video is high quality. Plus, you get to see some nice bits from other parts of the movie. Nothing beats the club scene itself, though.





3. Eve's Virginity Test: Here's a clip from The Lair of the White Worm by famously wacko director Ken Russell. There's some extraneous stuff before and after the MC scene, but somehow I don't think you'll mind watching it. ;-P





2. Dana Scully's Hypnotic Orgasm: This scene comes from the X-Files episode "The Red and the Black." She's being hypnotically regressed so she can remember an alien abduction, but damned if it doesn't look like she's remembering something else! Unfortunately, there are no clips of the episode itself on YouTube and I've had to settle for dailies. Well, at least they're good enough to show you why this scene pushes my buttons the way it does.








1. Big Trouble in Little China: When the Calliduses visited me, we quickly agreed that "Big Trouble in Little China" is the right answer to anything. Best exploding heads of the 1980's? Big Trouble in Little China. Least convincing straight character in a fantasy film? Big Trouble in Little China. Shortest Neanderthal hockey player in the Brazilian league? Big Trouble in Little China. Anyway, if you're reading this blog, chances are you've already discovered that scene for yourself....and also that scene, and that one. At the moment (no guarantees how long this will last), you can watch the whole movie on YouTube with great quality video but out-of-synch audio (thankfully not much of an issue with that scene) and subtitles. Blogger won't let me embed it here while simultaneously starting the video at the right point, so you have two paths to choose from. If you want to jump over to YouTube and start at the right point, click here. Alternately, if you want to watch from here and scroll to the right point on your own, just enjoy the following pictures on the way down, then pick up the action at 1:07:25.

Happy Holidays from George "Oh My" Takei

This is all the gift you need, and more. ;-)

Freaky sex with a side of MC

...and some body-horror, for those of you like me who enjoy that sort of thing. I might or might not have had this scene subconsciously in mind when I wrote Hoarder.

This story, though, is American Gods, which I'm currently rereading. As I was enjoying the scene below, it struck me how perfectly appropriate it is for this blog.

If you haven't read the novel, all you need to know is that in modern America, the ancient gods of the Old World are near-powerless because they're deprived of worship. They make ends meet in different ways as determined by their temperaments. Bilquis turns  tricks.

All ellipses below are in the original text. I'm not leaving anything out.

Now buckle your seatbelts and enjoy....



He unbuttons his blue jeans and removes his olive T-shirt. She massages his white shoulders with her brown fingers; then she turns him over and begins to make love to him with her hands, and her fingers, and her tongue.

It seems to him that the lights in the red room have been dimmed, and the sole illumination comes from the candle, which burns with a bright flame.

"What's your name?" he asks her.

"Bilquis," she tells him, raising her head. "With a Q."

"A what?"

"Never mind."

He is gasping now. "Let me fuck you," he says. "I have to fuck you."

"Okay, hon," she says. "We'll do it. But will you do something for me, while you're doing it?"

"Hey," he says, suddenly tetchy. "I'm paying you, you know."

She straddles him, in one smooth movement, whispering, "I know, honey. I know, you're paying me, and I mean, look at you. I should be paying you, I'm so lucky..."

He purses his lips, trying to show that her hooker talk is having no effect on him, he can't be taken; that she's a street whore, for Chrissakes, while he's practically a producer, and he knows all about last-minute ripoffs, but she doesn't ask for money. Instead she says, "Honey, while you're giving it to me, while you're pushing that big hard thing inside of me, will you worship me?"

"Will I what?"

She is rocking back and forth on him: the engorged head of his penis is being rubbed against the wet lips of her vulva.

"Will you call me goddess? Will you pray to me? Will you worship me with your body?"

He smiles. Its that all she wants? We've all got our kinks, at the end of the day. "Sure," he says. She reaches her hand between her legs and slips him inside her.

"Is that good, is it, goddess?" he asks, gasping.

"Worship me, honey," says Bilquis, the hooker.

"Yes," he says, "I worship your breasts and your hair and your cunt. I worship your thighs and your eyes and your cherry-red lips..."

"Yes..." she croons, riding him.

"I worship your nipples, from which the milk of life flows. Your kiss is honey and your touch scorches like fire, and I worship it." His words are becoming more rhythmic now, keeping pace with the thrust and roll of their bodies. "Bring me your lust in the morning, and bring me relief and your blessing in the evening. Let me walk in dark places unharmed and let me come to you once more and sleep beside you and make love with you again. I worship you with everything that is within me, and everything inside my mind, with everywhere I've been and my dreams and my..." he breaks off, panting for breath. "What are you doing? That feels amazing. So amazing..." and he looks down at his hips, at the place where the two of them conjoin, but her forefinger touches his chin and pushes his head back, so he is looking only at her face and at the ceiling once again.

"Keep talking, honey," she says. "Don't stop. Doesn't it feel good?"

"It feels better than anything has ever felt," he tells her, meaning it as he says it. "Your eyes are stars, burning in the, shit, the firmament, and your lips are gentle waves that lick the sand, and I worship them," and now he's thrusting deeper and deeper insider her; he feels electric, as if his whole lower body has become sexually charged: priapic, engorged, blissful.

"Bring me your gift," he mutters, no longer knowing what he is saying, "your one true gift, and make me always this...always so...I pray...I..."

And then the pleasure crests into orgasm, blasting his mind into void, his head and self and entire being a perfect blank as he thrusts deeper into her and deeper still...

Eyes closed, spasming, he luxuriates in the moment; and then he feels a lurch, and it seems to him that he is hanging, head down, although the pleasure continues.

He opens his eyes.

He thinks, grasping for thought and reason again, of birth, and wonders, without fear, in a moment of perfect postcoital clarity, whether what he sees is some kind of illusion.

This is what he sees:

He is inside her to the chest, and as he stares at this in disbelief and wonder she rests both hands upon his shoulders and puts gentle pressure on his body.

He slipslides further insider her.

"How are you doing this to me?" he asks, or he thinks he asks, but perhaps it is only in his head.

"You're doing it, honey," she whispers. He feels the lips of her vulva, tight around his upper chest and back, constricting and enveloping him. He wonders what this would look like to somebody watching them. He wonders why he is not scared. And then he knows.

"I worship you with my body," he whispers, as she pushes him inside her. Her labia pull slickly across his face, and his eyes slip into darkness.

She stretches on the bed, like a huge cat, and then she yawns. "Yes," she says. "You do."



*The image above, of course, is by H. R. Giger.

Two Neils and Some Smut

I've thought for some time that the coolest name anyone could give a male child is Neil/Neal. Just think about it: Neil Gaiman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neil Stephenson, Neil Patrick Harris....the list goes on and on. If you want your son to be awesome, just name him Neil.

So anyway, I just happened across this delightful interview with Neils Gaiman and deGrasse Tyson - who, being the wacky and wonderful souls they are, promptly start talking about venereal disease. For the full effect, you should watch the video before reading on.



Okay, now, if you're like me, you're suddenly curious to know more about the Earl of Rochester. I've just done a bit of googling and turned up several quite entertaining X-rated poems. These are the two most accessible for non-poetry geeks:

The Imperfect Enjoyment (spoiler: it's about premature ejaculation)
Signior Dildo (This one should be obvious)

As always, enjoy!

P.S.: If you really want to know more about Rochester, you can always rent this.

How many ways can you describe an orgasm?

The more erotica I write, the more of a challenge it is to find new ways of describing sexual climax. I can write about pulsing, throbbing, bells and gongs, feelings of electricity, fireworks, the mind going white, falling into an abyss, a flower blooming (That's one from my upcoming "Sleepwalkers"). Then, for men, I can add in guns and clubs and towers. But there has to be more, doesn't there?

I'm not talking about words for body parts (like "pussy" or "cock" or Ulorin Vex's adorable "ladyflower"), or about euphemisms for the sex act (like Shakespeare's "making the beast with two backs"). I'm talking about metaphors. Analogies. Poetry. How many different ways can you describe an orgasm? Feel free to leave ideas in the comments below this post. If I use any of them, I'll be sure to give you credit.

Then again, if you don't feel like commenting, at least you can enjoy these not-so-subtle metaphors. The art is by Hajime Sorayama, the song is by Cracker, and the skit is by Monty Python. It's an odd mashup, but I think it works. ;-)

Just because it was inevitable, that doesn't make it any less funny

This is important and exciting

Lana Wachowski has made her first-ever public speech, at the annual Human Rights Campaign gala. For anyone living in a cave, Lana and her brother Andy directed the Matrix trilogy, among other things, they never do press, and Lana is transgender. So this is a coming-out speech for her in several different ways. She's funny and heartbreaking and affirming all at once, and her message is one for everybody, not just TG's.


The video doesn't seem to be embeddable for Blogger, but you can follow this link to have a look. Go Lana!

Count the fetishes

Here's another one of those "look what I found when I wasn't looking for it" things. This is one sculpture from the Fountain of Neptune in Bologna. I found a smaller version of this shot (as well as a side view) on guilty-pleasure site Oddee, then a much larger and more satisfying version of the frontal shot on a blog about a woman's vacation in Italy. I want to give her credit for the image, but at the same time I feel like it would be wrong to link her sweet vanilla blog to mine; so I'll just remind you that Google Is Your Friend (as is Google Image Search).

In the meantime, while Oddee and the sweet vanilla blogger are amazed that this statue lactates, I'm boggled by her total pose, including her outthrust hips, the strap around her midsection, whatever it is she's grinding on, and the suggestion of scales on her legs. I'm imagining an MC story where she's ensnared by Dagon and turned, mid-orgasm, into a living statue.

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

I think not!

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

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.

Love Kills

As you know if you've been following this blog, I've begun work on the longest EMC story I've ever written. My current outline calls for eight or nine chapters. It will be a purple story, according to the EMCSA's color codes, and it will have straight and gay inductions of every possible combination.

Not too long ago I wrote a particularly nasty M/f induction for this saga. I knew going in that if I was going to write an M/f induction, I had to go all the way with it. I couldn't skimp on the details just because they made me uncomfortable - and some of them certainly did. But the relationship between the man and the woman in this scene made it satisfying for me to write, from a hot-button standpoint. You'll see what I mean when I publish the story. Me being me, I won't post it until I have the whole thing written; and I'm still not sure how long that will take. But I can tell you that I'm so excited about it that I'm writing or at least brainstorming in every spare moment.

Meanwhile, I stumbled across this video last night on YouTube. The theme of the song ties in neatly with this post, and the famous Metropolis robot scenes provide an added dash of fetish - especially since they're presented with almost no context.




Finally, if you're still in the mood for betrayal stories, you might enjoy (and/or be horrified by) this poem Neil Gaiman recently offered up on his blog.

Happy pre-Halloween.

Adventures in self-hypnosis

Lately I've been tinkering with my morning session, creating a more sinister second version as if the first version wasn't sinister enough! But I've had a very strange problem when I try to use it.

I've written a new scenario for the last part of the "suggestions" section that's loosely based on this Sorayama image, and I added into the script just after the part that puts me in deepest trance. At this part in the original morning script, I'm totally zoned out staring at spirals and subliminals; so I was hoping I'd still be deep enough when the Sorayama scenario kicked in to buy into it 100%.

Unfortunately, every time I've run morning2, I've still been so zoned out when the Sorayama part kicked in that I might as well have been fast asleep. I can't enjoy it because I can't pay enough attention to enjoy it. Even adding commands to pay close attention now don't help. The previous passage had just taken me too deep for anything else.

Now I've revised morning2 to put the Sorayama bit before the zoned-out bit. I haven't had a chance to run it yet, but I have high hopes. Meanwhile, as I was rearranging my script, I tweaked a few other lines and ran across one in the zone-out section that made me roll my eyes. Right there, in the original set of commands, was the suggestion that eventually I'd be able to go deep enough to become a mindless drone, just like I'd always wanted to be. I guess that command took hold of my subconscious a little more strongly than I'd intended.

I never know which suggestions are going to stick and which aren't, and the fact that I've commanded myself not to notice the deep suggestions in my morning program means that I hadn't thought about them consciously in ages. I'd forgotten that line was in there, but damn if I didn't zap myself good.

Anyway, this is all part of my continuing quest to find just the right level of trance. If I'm not deep enough, I tend to analyze the script instead of enjoying it and my mind occasionally wanders. On the other hand, if I'm too deep, I don't even know what I'm experiencing. I know there's plenty of middle ground between those poles, but I'm still trying to home in on it.

Everything you need to know to write an EMC story with sexual imprinting is right here

I found this on io9 a few days ago and saved it up for my weekend post:

Maryland politician is not, I repeat not, becoming a lustful cockmonster

In my continuing quest to provide you with grade-A ammo against (maybe) self-hating closet cases in high office, I bring you the delightfully blistering takedown of Maryland delegate Emmet C. Burns Jr. by Baltimore Ravens punter Chris Kluwe. Please give Kluwe (and teammate Brendon Ayanbadejo) a great big standing ovation...then share this link with as many people as you can.

Vell, Zaphod's just zis guy, you know?

Callidus and Mrs. Callidus are fantastic people (though he does look more than a little like the Techno Viking. Don't make him angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.), and we had a fantastic visit. I am sooo glad I got to meet this online friend in person after years of emails, and I look forward to meeting him again in the future. We could have talked all through the night - and probably for several more days - if time had allowed. I wish I could tell you all about everything, but a) I have to leave some things for him to blog about, and b) we'll both want to keep other things to ourselves.

So let's see, where should I begin?

We had lunch at a nice local restaurant where I got so exciting telling Callidus about my next story that I sat for five minutes with a forkful of salmon in my hand and never brought it to my mouth. He asked a lot of incisive questions and gave me all kinds of great ideas to flesh out one of the character's arcs. It was great having the chance to share my ideas with him at such an early stage of the process. This story is going to be huge, probably six chapters and maybe more, and more complex than anything else I've attempted for the EMCSA. Having Callidus' input was fantastic. (BTW, because it is so huge and complex, it's going to take an extra long time to complete. I'll post updates from time to time, but it might take me a year to finish the thing. I just don't know yet.)

Anyway, back to the current narrative. I gave the Calliduses a tour of the city, including some quirky shops where I dropped tentacle in-jokes that made Callidus snigger. Mr. and Mrs. C. found some nice souvenirs and we all had a great conversation about the Coen Brothers' movies with a store clerk who heard me quoting the "Her womb was a rocky place in which my seed could find no purchase" line from Raising Arizona. We also toured some local landmarks, took pictures, talked about ghosts and UFO's, got rained on hard, and ended up back at my place for Round 2 of the epic Meeting of the MC Minds.

Somewhere in the middle of that discussion, Callidus suggested we make a Top Ten list of the best MC scenes in mainstream media. One of the ideas he offered was this scene from the otherwise execrable 1998 Avengers movie starring Uma Thurman and Rafe Fiennes. Prepare to pause and start screen grabbing in earnest at 0:53. ;-)

We brainstormed our list for awhile and came to instant, enthusiastic agreement about #1 and #2, then did a lot of forehead-smacking as we tried to remember other scenes that should have been right at the forefront of our brains. One of my ideas, James Spader's hypnosis scene from the mostly forgotten Jack's Back, turned out to be harder to track down than I thought. Last night it looked like we'd found the whole movie on YouTube and I started downloading it while we talked about other things; but when I tried to watch it after the Calliduses left, I realized I'd just captured some damn kids' movie with the same title. :-/ Apparently, the Spader Jack's Back isn't online anywhere safe and you can only buy it in VHS format unless you live in the UK, where it's available in PAL. If any of my readers can give me that one scene (just not via a link to a sketchy torrent site, please), I'd be eternally grateful. I'm almost positive that that clip would still push my buttons. Plus, Spader was a steaming hot young thing at the time. If you don't believe me, just follow this link.

Besides our Top Ten list, Callidus and I talked about real life friends and adventures, online friends and adventures (Tabico's ears must have been burning like crazy, but don't worry, Tabs: it was all good. :-)), and our continuing amazement at internet culture in general. It was such a great conversation, like we'd been friends all our lives and were just catching up after a year or two apart. I'm sure it will be the same when we meet again, which we almost certainly will.

And that's all for the moment, I think. Again, if anyone out there can find me a clip of the Jack's Back hypnosis scene, you'll have my undying gratitude. And if anyone out there has suggestions for our Top Ten list, just post them below. We are still smacking our foreheads to remember some of them.

A Sunday school teacher and a Hell's Angel walk into a bar...

So...here I am with Callidus. He told me ahead of time that he looked like a biker, and I told him ahead of time that I looked like a Sunday school teacher. Actually, he looks more like a roadie for a death metal band, but I do still look like a Sunday school teacher. ;-)

We'll be off in a little while for lunch and touring, but until then, we're at my place chatting about Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and comic books.

And now, over to Callidus....

I'm sitting at thrall's computer trying to reconcile the blog I visit regularly, the EMC fiction I've enjoyed for years, and the epic email discussion I've shared with the clever, cheerful person sitting next to me. In some ways she is exactly what I expected and still a complete surprise. It is so...fun to finally be connecting in-person with this lady I've known for years through her messages and website.If the past hour is any indication, one day isn't going to be nearly enough to talk about all the things we have in common and all the things we want to share.

-Callidus

thrall again. I'm having just as much fun getting to know the real-life Callidus and Ms. Callidus. They're very sweet and funny people and clearly have a wonderful relationship with each other. I'm looking forward to spending the day with them. So now we're off (after I give them a quick tour of my Virtual Hypnotist setup). More to follow.

a secret rendezvous

One of my happiest discoveries about people in the EMC community is that, for the most part, they're just like people anywhere else. When you talk to a fetishist one on one, you're far more likely to chat about things like your favorite books and movies than about anything MC-related.

Okay, well, MC does tend to slip in there once in awhile. But after you get past the initial "I love your work" stage, the conversation turns to other things you have in common. For instance, Callidus and I seem to have nearly identical taste in movies. We've raved about The Dark Knight Rises and Prometheus, and we've literally spent hours brainstorming a good third installment of the Alien franchise (The taking-off point, quite naturally, is that Newt and Hicks live). So if Sigourney Weaver ever wants her dignity back, she's welcome to contact us.

Callidus and I have talked about plenty of other things over the years, and eventually we hit that tipping point where a casual online friend becomes someone you'd like to meet in person. So not too long ago, I mentioned that if he was ever in my neck of the woods, he should drop by for a visit. We already knew we lived close enough to make that happen; and after I extended my invitation, we figured out pretty quickly how to make it happen.

I can ditto almost every line in his own blog entry about the upcoming get-together. Not only is he someone I like and respect, but he's also someone I'd trust with my real identity. Part of me always wants to reveal myself to the world, but there are only a handful of people in the EMC community I'd actually invite for a visit. Callidus is one of those few. You might imagine our meet-up as being like Batman and Batwoman taking off their masks and settling down for a chat about criminology and the perils of fighting in skintight rubber.

I'm really looking forward to meeting him, and I'm sure we'll both blog about it afterwards. So watch this space. And that one. ;-)

titillating tubing

I've had Sorayama on my mind lately. No point asking why - just enjoy!

Most of these images can be found at d4rkw00d.net

P.S. re: Hoarder

I swear I found this just now by total coincidence.

A Peek Beneath the Duct Tape: Hoarder

First things first. The painting at right is by noted Lord of the Rings artist John Howe. When I went looking for a dragon illustration for this post, I immediately thought of Howe because he does all the best dragons. So I did a bit of googling and came up with the perfect image to tie in with Hoarder. I promise I'd never seen this picture before writing this post, but once I saw it, I knew I didn't need to look any further.

As for "Hoarder" itself, I've mentioned before that it began as a personal fantasy about MC by dragon. I'd been running it in my head since I was a teen, but it didn't have much of a plot until recently. The original fantasy sprang from the 1981 movie Dragonslayer. In the film, a kingdom is terrorized by a dragon and sacrifices maidens to it to keep it pacified, they draw the victims' names by lot, and the princess's name is always withheld - though in the movie, Princess Elspeth doesn't suspect that. When she finds out, she rigs the lot so that her name is chosen...but that's all I'll say in case anyone out there wants to watch the movie. I have no idea how well it stands the test of time, though, so be warned. After all, it is an '80's flick.

I built my private fantasy on that movie and added in the idea of layered enchantments, each one binding the victim a little tighter and entrancing her a little deeper until she had no freedom left at all. But then, because my fantasy began with an unjust sacrifice, I imagined the dragon turning its victim against her hometown. She'd be taking revenge for what they did to her, even if she was in no position to realize it by then.

And that's all there was to my fantasy at first. Not much of a story for the EMCSA, eh? But I loved the basic idea and always planned to write it up, if I could just think of the right plot. And as it turned out, I'd had that plot in my head all along.

When I was a child, I owned a book of fairy tales that included a bastardized version of the Childe Rowland fable. Whoever adapted it for a children's book decided, for some inexplicable reason, that the King of Elfland should turn his kidnapped maidens into jewels. Even as a kid I didn't understand the point of that. If it's maidens you want, why turn them into gemstones? If it's gemstones you want, why make them out of maidens? It just seemed like the waste of a good captive to me.

A few months ago I was thinking about that old bastardized Childe Rowland story when suddenly it hit me: the jewel thing was illogical if an Elf or wizard did it, but if a dragon were the mage, it made perfect sense. And right there was the solution to my dragon-story dilemma!

Excited now, I looked up the Childe Rowland story online and was surprised to find how badly it had been mangled for me. In the official version, "Childe" Rowland was chopping off heads left and right - not excluding the kind people who helped him along the way; and there were no jewels at all aside from the lamp, which made its way into my story. There was, however, a lovely suggestion of MC in the spell placed on Burd Ellen. (Do notice her name, by the way. ;-)) And if you choose to follow the Childe Rowland link above, you'll find several other names and things I appropriated for "Hoarder." The more I delved into the original fable, the more I found that I could make use of).

As I said several times while hinting about my upcoming story (here and here, for instance) "Hoarder" really did write itself. My favorite "aha" moment was realizing that the seams of gold in Ehlen's lapis lazuli could easily be the remnants of her poison, but stuff like that kept happening all through the writing process. I didn't even know how the dragon would use the Sword when I started out, but when the idea came to me, I knew it was perfect.

I'm extremely happy with the way "Hoarder" turned out. I hope you are, too.

P.S.: Rule 34 came to my aid again, in researching what a dragon's sexual organs might look like.

Heads up!

I've just sent the conclusion of "Hoarder" off to Simon, so you can expect to see it in the next update. And now I have to get moving on the accompanying Peek Beneath the Duct Tape!

Unexpected treasure

I just stumbled across this video by a band I'd never heard of, but you might have: Nero. If you don't care for the music, turn off your speakers and just watch the story unfold. It's very nearly MC nirvana.

It also reminds me of a book I enjoyed as a teen: This Perfect Day, by Ira Levin. I'll give you a little synopsis, mostly spoiler-free in case you want to check it out for yourself. It's definitely worth a read. The story takes place in a future where selective breeding and drugs have turned everyone into near-clones who even share the same small set of names. They seem to be living quite happily in a utopian environment, but you don't see at first how much the drugs influence their outlook.

Then the protagonist, nicknamed Chip, finds a way around the obligatory monthly injection and starts to see life in a new way. He meets up with a small band of fellow rebels and falls in love with one of them, but resistance is tricky when one shot of whatever-it-is turns you back into a happy drone who'd betray your friends in a heartbeat.

I feel almost sure the makers of this video have read that book.

I thought you'd like to know

...that I've just sent Simon the first chapter of "Hoarder." Look for it in the next EMCSA update. :-)

This and that

Here's a little mishmash of a post to tide you over until I finish polishing "Hoarder." I have the first of the two chapters just about where I want it, so I'll probably post it in the next EMCSA update. Then if all goes as planned, I'll publish the conclusion the following week.

In the meantime, here are a couple of other things you'll enjoy.

I'm happy to report that the problem with people downloading my Virtual Hypnotist sessions is solved. If you want to download the files, all you have to do log into Google (feel free to create a dummy account - I don't care) and request access to the files. I check my email every day and you'll get a quick response.

Now, just for kicks, here's an MC-centered episode of that loopy old cartoon The Tick. Our Hero is pretty brainless to begin with (although he's quick to remind you he's nigh invulnerable), so when Mr. Mental gets hold of him, he becomes a shambling, spiral-eyed zombie. Good times.

Are people having trouble downloading my Virtual Hypnotist sessions?

Every once in awhile I get an automatically generated email from Google Documents that says someone is requesting access to one of my VH session files. I got two just now.

Please help me figure out whether this problem is affecting everyone or whether the people who generated these auto-requests eventually got the downloads to work. I want to make sure people who want the sessions can really access them.

Comments, please?

Happy accidents

I've blogged before about Windows 7 causing a few glitches for Virtual Hypnotist, but there's one I haven't mentioned until now. I assume it's a Windows 7 glitch, but it's still a little mysterious to me because it only happens in my "morning" session, not my "bedtime" session. That would lead me to believe there's a glitch in the "morning" code, but the workaround I've found makes me think it's not the code causing the problem.

Here it is, in a nutshell: sometimes the background track to my "morning" session doesn't loop. It plays once and stops, so then I have to listen to the rest of the session with no sound except the speech synthesizer reading the script.

I can fix the problem by exiting the program and rebooting my computer, which is why I don't think the code is the issue; but of course, once I get into the session, the very last thing I want to do is exit and reboot the whole damn machine. :-/ As a result, I've learned to restart my computer every morning when I get up (I leave it running all night with the "bedtime" session paused).

Well, yesterday morning, I rebooted my computer and then noodled around for maybe half an hour before starting my morning session. I didn't think that would be enough to stop the background track, but I knew it might; and I told myself that if it did, I'd just keep going. I've done that before a couple of times and still enjoyed the session.

Anyway, the background track did stop after a couple of minutes. I was already pretty deep because I've used this session so often that it drops me like a rock, and I'd primed myself beforehand to cope with the stoppage if I had to. I was half expecting it to happen...but what I wasn't expecting was that my subconscious mind popped up with the perfect in-session explanation for the problem.

A quick explanation if you haven't read (or remembered) my previous posts about my morning session: It begins with a supernatural Mistress saying she's talking to me live, through my computer. She's been brainwashing me for a long time, and now it's time for more programming. You can imagine some of what happens from there, but if you want some specifics (with a few red herrings), just check out my story If Wishes Were Horses.

The background track is three layered tracks of me chanting mantras about submission, obedience, and my inability to resist my programming. That's what dropped out, just as my imaginary Mistress said she was taking me deeper.

And that's when my subconscious chimed in with the perfect rationale for the chants dropping out. It told me I'd reached such a deep level of programming that Mistress didn't need to use the background chants on me anymore; instead she deigned to speak to me directly, with no distractions to dull my mind.

I was still alert enough at that point to know I was playing a game, so I had a moment of surprised delight at my own inventiveness. Then I let the idea do its work, and within seconds my mind was very nearly blank, with Mistress's words echoing in my empty skull just as realistically as the script said they should.

It was an incredible experience.

Totally off topic, but too beautiful not to post

R&B artist Frank Ocean came out of the closet last week with a painfully honest story about a romance that didn't happen. Last night he debuted a song about (presumably) that same romance, and it's incredible. So honest, so graceful - and so much more honest and graceful because of all the boundaries he's breaking here. This is an incredibly moving, brave and beautiful performance. May hardened hearts be softened by listening to his song.



Via

Coming soon to an EMCSA near you

You might remember me mentioning a very old private MC fantasy involving a dragon. I wanted to turn it into an EMC story, but last I wrote, I hadn't figured out how to build a plot around it.

Well, I finally cracked the code. This is the story I've been hinting about for the last few months, the one I said was writing itself. That's always a good sign for me. It makes for pleasurable writing and, I hope, pleasurable reading.

Anyway, Wednesday afternoon I completed the rough draft of what will be called "Hoarder." Based on the polishing process for my other stories, this means it will be about three weeks before I'm ready to post the story on the EMCSA. I hope you all will enjoy it.

(painting of Smaug by by John Howe)

Paging Dr. Freud. Dr. Freud, please report to the Prometheus medical bay immediately.

This isn't a review of Prometheus (though, for the record, I liked it). In fact, I'll do my best to avoid spoilers in this post, so feel free to read on if you haven't seen the movie yet but plan to do so.

What I want to blog about today is the movie's concept art and makeup. You probably know that H.R. Giger was the driving force behind the look of the original Alien. As far as I know, he didn't have any direct input in Prometheus, but his indirect influence flows everywhere like kinky black slime. Just look at the images below. I picked these mostly for their Freudian squick and Lovecraftian overtones, except for the last two. Those, I threw in because they look like excellent brainwashing pods.

The artwork here is by Ivan Manzella. If you choose to repost these images, please be sure to give him credit for them.

I gathered these images from three different sources: this Concept Art World page, this io9 page, and this io9 page. If you like what you see below, just follow the links for more - but beware of mild spoilers.

Damn, I love Rule 34

Recently I got distracted while poking around on Know Your Meme, but it was worth it. I know a lot of people view Rule 34 images with the same kind of horrified fascination they give train wrecks, but I just think they're funny. Damn funny. That's why I ended up doing a Google Image Search to bring you more of this insanity. Fortunately, I already had the Godzilla/King Kong one, so I can attribute it directly to its originator. Plus, I found a website about yarn fetishists ages ago, so it made a perfect addition this post - especially since it's the only thing on this page that exists in real life (I think). Anyway, if you want to see more people who love total enclosure itchiness,  here you go.

Oh, and just so we're clear, I fully support the knitters' right to laugh at my fetish. In fact, it's kind of fun to think what a "Rule 34: No Exceptions" poster based on a Lovecraftian MC story would look like. Perhaps it could involve that proto-facehugger from Prometheus, eh? Does anyone out there want to give it a go? ;-)