You know there's MC in Captain America: Civil War, right?

But before I start talking about that, here's a quick announcement: I think I'm ready to start blogging and writing regularly again. My personal life has stabilized a bit and that has allowed my creative juices to start flowing again. I had to put that Transfixed CYOA aside for a couple of months, but I'm ready to pick it up again. Anyway, thanks to everyone who's expressed their sympathy for me, both here and by email. It really does mean a lot. I want you to know that.

And now on to the new Captain America movie, which I can't help thinking of as the new Avengers movie because, hell, almost all of the Avengers are in it. I won't talk about anything you couldn't infer from the commercials and trailers, so you don't have to worry about spoilers in this part of my post unless you want to go into Civil War with your eyes and ears completely virgin. You'd just better have seen The Winter Soldier first if you plan on that, because otherwise you'll be totally lost.

So anyway, as you could see from those trailers and commercials, Bucky still hasn't broken free of all his Hydra conditioning. He remembers who he is most of the time, but it turns out that Hydra programmed him with trigger words that can revive the Winter Soldier in his mind (Those triggers reminds me of the nonsensical phrases trilby else used to employ; "ammonite contraband" was one of my favorites). But in Bucky's case, it's a whole string of disconnected words, so when he gets triggered, we get to watch him scream and struggle until he inevitably but oh-so-slowly falls back into drone mode. And then, stone-faced, he chants that most perfect of slave mantras: "Ready to comply."

IMO, these scenes (Yes, there's more than one) are much hotter than the single reprogramming scene we saw in The Winter Soldier. I thought of writing about that one when the movie came out, but in the end I decided against because the process was painful and pain turns me off instead of on. However, I did like the brainwashing rig from that movie, so I'm including a picture of it here. You can make up whatever scenario you like to go along with it. Or, hell, if you are into pain, you can just fantasize about the movie scene itself. You have watched The Winter Soldier, right? I can't imagine any MC fetishist would give it a pass. Well, I'm here to tell you that Bucky's programming scenes in Civil War are things of heat and beauty. It's just a shame he got rid that faceless, dehumanizing mask. I'd love to have seen him in that again (Oops, was that a spoiler?).

But now let me switch topics and talk about the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse. I will have to drop some medium-sized spoilers here, although they're rumors and guesses that might prove false, so it's your gamble whether to bail out or keep reading. I'll be back next weekend anyway with a scorching hot new fantasy I've been toying with. But for now Apocalypse is on the front burner, and I'm hoping he'll give us plenty of heat. Already we know he collects powers by taking over the bodies of mutants with abilities he covets. We also know from the trailers that Magneto kidnaps an unconscious Charles Xavier by pulling his wheelchair toward Apocalypse and the horsemen. What you might not know unless you caught the most recent YouTube featurette is that there's a scene in the movie where Charles is lying on a slab like the one Oscar Isaac was on in the earlier trailers, and Oscar-as-Apocalypse is looming over Charles. The implications seem obvious. In fact, I've read that Apocalypse specifically covets Charles' telepathy, but you have to dig a little to find out how he wants to use it. This might be a false rumor, but I've read that Apocalypse wants to use Charles' telepathy to MC every person on the planet. Well, you can imagine how desperately I want that to be true. Unfortunately the trailers make it look like Apocalypse is more interested in killing people than enslaving them...but maybe he plans to kill the weak and MC the strong. That would make sense because in the movie, Oscar-Apocalypse was betrayed by his last set of horsemen, and I'm sure he doesn't want to risk that again (Plus, in the comics Apocalypse does MC his horsemen). So I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll see some MC action in the new movie before the X-men inevitably take him down. The premiere can't get here soon enough for me.

Wanna hear a song about "sexuality inside the hive mind"? Of course you do.

I'm still on hiatus (see my last post); but I promised that if I found anything worth sharing, I'd share it. Well, I've found something. Oscar Isaac, a.k.a. Poe Dameron, used to be in an alternative rock duo called NightLab, and I've just started listening to their music. The first time I heard the song "People Keepers," I couldn't make out enough of the words to understand their meaning; but I did hear references to drones, honey, and a priestess. That made me curious enough to look up the lyrics, which I'm posting below.

But NightLab has posted their music in a few different locations, and I found a note about the song before I found the lyrics. This note, written either by Oscar Isaac ("Monscar" here) or his partner, describes "People Keepers" this way:

NightLab Industries agents Monscar and Boocho submit a proposal entitled "Sexuality Inside the Hive Mind." 

The funny thing is, even though their nicknames are jokes, the description itself is not. This really is a song about a woman finding peace by submitting to the hive mind. The lyrics are creepy/cool in all the best ways, and the music matches it perfectly. Actually, I really like a lot of NightLab's stuff; and it's all available for free on SoundCloud, so you can have a listen for yourselves. Here's the link directly to "People Keepers," and you can easily get to the main NightLab page from there. (Alternately, if you haven't signed up for SoundCloud and don't want to, you can download that song and several others from Reverb Nation without having to give up any personal information.)

Okay, so here are the lyrics for "People Keepers":

We are the People Keepers
Smoking out your potential
We are the Holy Waters
Take this love from us

The push, the pull, the grinding of teeth
Hands full of hair, her heads underneath
Quiet as bones, I don't know how
But heaven knows she's comfortable now
Heaven knows she is comfortable now
Heaven knows she is comfortable now

We are the Weeping Healers
Roping out your dimensions
You are the lonely daughters
Bleed your honey for us

The push, the pull, the grinding of teeth
Hands full of hair, her heads underneath
Quiet as bones, I don't know how
But heaven knows she's comfortable now
Heaven knows she is comfortable now
Heaven knows she is comfortable now

Priestess, priestess, swallow me into your swarm
Priestess, priestess, suffer the queens and the drones
The drones.

You know its getting pretty late now
So say goodnight, say goodnight
You cant change our minds

We are the People Keepers
Smoking out your potential
We are the Holy Waters
Take this love from us

The push, the pull, the grinding of teeth
Hands full of hair, her heads underneath
Quiet as bones, I don't know how
But heaven knows she's comfortable now
Heaven knows she is comfortable now
Heaven knows she is comfortable now

Update

The reason I haven't posted in a few weeks is that I and my family are dealing with a perfect storm of serious issues. I am here, and I plan to stay here, but I'm not sure how much posting I'll be able to do until certain things are resolved. I appreciate any kind thoughts and prayers you care to send my way.

Does this get your motor running?

Last week I blogged about the fact that Oscar Isaac had been cast in the upcoming movie adaptation of Annihilation. He'll be playing the biologist's (Natalie Portman) husband - a secondary character in the book who should have lots more screen time in the movie. You see, the book is told from the biologist's point of view during the twelfth expedition, as she tries to find out what happened to her husband during the eleventh expedition. Eventually she discovers his journal and learns the truth by reading it, but you just know that in the movie we'll see his story play out live. And trust me, it's going to be very exciting.

But while we're waiting for the movie to start production, what about a little more background on what happened when the eleventh expedition returned from Area X? The passages I'm going to quote will give you some small spoilers, but since they're all within the first 40 pages of the book, it shouldn't matter much. So if you want to read about virile young men being turned into zoned-out zombies - and the biologist's attempt to have sex with one of those zombies - read on. And for maximum effect, imagine Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac in these two roles.

The first quote begins after the biologist has explained how the returnees just showed up, at various and in various places, with no clear idea how they got back from Area X. The second quote explains how her husband returned, and how she handled his bizarre reappearance.

---

 
Estrangement, in all of its many forms, was nothing new for these missions. I understood this from having been given an opportunity along with the others to view videotape of the reentry interviews with the members of the eleventh expedition. Once those individuals had been identified as having returned to their former lives, they were quarantined and questioned about their experiences. Reasonably enough, in most cases family members had called the authorities, finding their loved one’s return uncanny or frightening. Any papers found on these returnees had been confiscated by our superiors for examination and study. This information, too, we were allowed to see.

The interviews were fairly short, and in them all eight expedition members told the same story. They had experienced no unusual phenomenon while in Area X, taken no unusual readings, and reported no unusual internal conflicts. But after a period of time, each one of them had had the intense desire to return home and had set out to do so. None of them could explain how they had managed to come back across the border, or why they had gone straight home instead of first reporting to their superiors. One by one they had simply abandoned the expedition, left their journals behind, and drifted home. Somehow.

Throughout these interviews, their expressions were friendly and their gazes direct. If their words seemed a little flat, then this went with the kind of general calm, the almost dreamlike demeanor each had returned with - even the compact, wiry man who had served as that expedition’s military expert, a person who’d had a mercurial and energetic personality. In terms of their affect, I could not tell any of the eight apart. I had the sense that they now saw the world through a kind of veil, that they spoke to their interviewers from across a vast distance in time and space.

---

In case you couldn't guess, the "compact, wiry man" with the "mercurial and energetic personality" was the biologist's husband. Now, skipping ahead just a little, let's see what happened when he returned.

---

One night, about a year after he had headed for the border, as I lay alone in bed, I heard someone in the kitchen. Armed with a baseball bat, I left the bedroom and turned on all the lights in the house. I found my husband next to the refrigerator, still dressed in his expedition clothes, drinking milk until it flowed down his chin and neck. Eating leftovers furiously.

I was speechless. I could only stare at him as if he were a mirage and if I moved or said anything he would dissipate into nothing, or less than nothing.

We sat in the living room, him on the sofa and me in a chair opposite. I needed some distance from this sudden apparition. He did not remember how he had left Area X, did not remember the journey home at all. He had only the vaguest recollection of the expedition itself. There was an odd calm about him, punctured only by moments of remote panic when, in asking him what had happened, he recognized that his amnesia was unnatural. Gone from him, too, seemed to be any memory of how our marriage had begun to disintegrate well before our arguments over his leaving for Area X. He contained within him now the very distance he had in so many subtle and not so subtle ways accused me of in the past.

After a time, I couldn’t take it any longer. I took off his clothes, made him shower, then led him into the bedroom and made love to him with me on top. I was trying to reclaim remnants of the man I remembered, the one who, so unlike me, was outgoing and impetuous and always wanted to be of use. The man who had been a passionate recreational sailor, and for two weeks out of the year went with friends to the coast to go boating. I could find none of that in him now.

The whole time he was inside me he looked up at my face with an expression that told me he did remember me but only through a kind of fog. It helped for a while, though. It made him more real, allowed me to pretend.

But only for a while. I only had him in my life again for about twenty-four hours. They came for him the next evening, and once I went through the long, drawn-out process of receiving security clearance, I visited him in the observation facility right up until the end. That antiseptic place where they tested him and tried without success to break through both his calm and his amnesia. He would greet me like an old friend - an anchor of sorts, to make sense of his existence - but not like a lover. I confess I went because I had hopes that there remained some spark of the man I’d once known. But I never really found it. Even the day I was told he had been diagnosed with inoperable, systemic cancer, my husband stared at me with a slightly puzzled expression on his face.

He died six months later. During all that time, I could never get beyond the mask, could never find the man I had known inside of him. Not through my personal interactions with him, not through eventually watching the interviews with him and the other members of the expedition, all of whom died of cancer as well.

Whatever had happened in Area X, he had not come back. Not really.

One point to ponder and another to excite you

I'd planned to write about one thing this week, but then I heard some news that gave me a second subject to talk about; and since the two happen to be tangentially related, I'm giving you both.

First, let's talk about a little movie coming out soon, which you might have heard about: X-Men: Age of Apocalypse. The most recent trailer and promotional images include several shots of Apocalypse's eyes turning white when he uses his powers. Now, if you've followed the X-Men comics for a while, you know that several mutants have white eyes - either permanently white, or just white when they use their powers (Storm seems to go both ways. Hah....Sorry.)

Now, I grew up reading DC comics instead of Marvel, and (as I've said many times) watching Superfriends and other Saturday morning cartoons that used white eyes to show that a person was under someone else's power rather than to show the person had special powers of their own. Then there's that drool-inducing scene in Big Trouble in Little China that I'm sure pushes all our buttons. With all that in my history, I'm much more inclined to connect white eyes with MC than with power.

But it's not that simple. Think about white-eyed zombies, again mindless and will-less; but then contrast them with video game characters whose eyes turn white when they use magic. The fact is that in fantasy and SF, white eyes can have one of two contradictory meanings. My guess is that the "white eyes=power" meme is newer and probably started with Marvel Comics, but that's just a guess; and figuring out the origin of the idea is less interesting than figuring out why someone came up with it. I like to imagine that he/she/they were already MC and/or white-eye fetishists who just couldn't get enough, so they decided to tack a second meaning onto the look just so they could include it in more comics. Maybe that's how it happened, and maybe it isn't. All I know is that I get almost as turned on by white eyes that symbolize power as I do by white eyes that symbolize MC.

And now on to my second, related topic, the one that I hope will excite you as much as it excites me - and I am very excited indeed. You probably know who Oscar Isaac is now that he's played Poe Dameron in The Force Awakens, and of course that's him in the top photo playing Apocalypse. He also starred in Ex Machina, which I raved about back in January and which - stay with me here, because this is important  - was written and directed by Alex Garland. Garland is a genius and Oscar Isaac is this generation's Pacino, only with a geeky SF bent. And the two of them together are going to be working on the movie adaptation of Annihilation, a book I blogged about several times last year because it's the start of a trilogy that leans heavily on hypnosis and MC. The actual star of the movie is another highbrow actor-geek, Natalie Portman, but I'll wait until the next paragraph to tell you who Oscar Isaac is playing because it's a small spoiler and I want to give you a chance to back out if you want to stay spoiler-free. But I'll try not to say anything that you wouldn't see in the movie trailers, so I'd personally recommend you keep reading. This is going to be hot.

Okay, still with me? Natalie Portman is playing the biologist (None of the characters in this book have names), and she's one of four women who've been sent into what might possibly be alien-occupied territory in the Florida swamps called Area X. I wrote more about the setup in my previous posts, so I'll let you follow the link above if you need the details. But here's something I didn't tell you before. We find out somewhere near the middle of Annihilation that the biologist had a husband who was on the expedition prior to hers. He came back, but only sort of, and finding out what happened to him is one of her chief reasons for going there. You see, before hubby went into Area X, he was a brilliant, vibrant, and probably very sexy man. But the person who came back from Area X was just a shell: reminiscent of the man the biologist loved, but flattened and confused and just...not all there.

Well, Oscar Isaac is playing the biologist's husband, and Oscar is a brilliant, vibrant, sexy man. Seeing him go through that transformation will be simultaneously horrifying and hot as fuck. I'm going to be even more sexually confused about him than I am right now, and I have a ginormous straight crush on the guy (How could I not? Just look at him!). Watching him get turned into a zombie is going to throw me into system overload. Even now, I'm getting dizzy thinking about it.

So there you have it: Oscar Isaac and Natalie Portman in a SF/fantasy/horror movie with a strong MC element, written and directed by Alex Garland. It just doesn't get any better than this...until you add in Jennifer Jason Leigh as the psychologist! I'd never have thought of her for that role, but whoever did think of her was a genius. She's going to knock it out of the park. They all are. I can't wait for this movie to come out.

One for the ladies, one for the gents, and a bonus

You might or might not have noticed that I've started my own YouTube channel. It'll be a good way for me to keep up with the videos I like and share them with you. Right now I've only uploaded a couple of videos of my own (a cleaned up and complete version of the lesbian vampire seduction from The Vampire Lovers and the transformation sequence from Invasion of the Bee Women), and since I've already posted about them here once, you might have seen them already. If not, or if you want to see them again, just go to my channel. :-) I plan to upload more videos, but there's no telling when that will happen.

Fortunately, I'm also curating a playlist of my own favorite MC videos, and it's expanding all the time. Last night I added several different versions of the Fright Night club seduction scene from three different Fright Night movies. My reasoning is that since the original 1980's scene keeps getting taken down, and there's no telling whether the other movies will fare any better; so it's nice to have some backup copies. But for the moment, these are the best versions on YouTube of all three scenes (yes, three, not just two). As always I recommend that you download your own copies while they're available.

First up is the glorious, notorious scene from the original 1980's Fright Night, with Chris Sarandon seducing Amanda Bearce in the middle of the dance floor. It's funny to think that I was just a little younger than she was when she filmed this, and I actually looked a good bit like she did. My hairstyle was exactly the same too. And of course, both of us eventually came out as gay. But I swear to you in total modest confidence that I could have performed this scene just as convincingly as she did. Feel free to imagine me in it if you like. ;-) After a long, long search, I've finally found the whole thing uncut and in order, in pretty high definition. I was surprised to see how long it's been up without my noticing, but I wouldn't trust it to stay there; so again, download your own copy.



Now here's a clip from the mostly forgotten sequel to the original Fright Night, unsurprisingly called Fright Night 2. The movie overall is best forgotten, but it does have this one fantastic scene where the vampire (the sister of Jerry from the first movie) turns the tables on our hero Charlie by dancing/entrancing him just like Jerry danced and entranced Charlie's girlfriend in the first movie. Incidentally, apropos of nothing, I love her dress.



Now here's your bonus: the Jerry/Amy seduction scene from the 2011 Fright Night remake -  plus the beginning of the scene where Jerry taunts Charlie with Amy's vamp-induced betrayal. I didn't like Colin Farrell in this role because he was sleazy rather than sexy; but I love every second of Imogen Poots' performance in the club scene - especially her hand drop at the end. You'll see what I mean.

The guy with over 1,000 mind control videos, part 2

This is the conclusion of a two-part interview with Antjack, also known as TANTRICLEGION, also known as Diana Prince, and probably a few more pseudonyms. I've been enjoying his MC video clips for years, and he's posted comments several times on my blog, so it seemed only natural that I should interview him. After all, if you're into women being hypnotized or enchanted or brainwashed or what-have-you, the best place to start is with Antjack.

Last week we talked about the kinds of videos he posts and where he posts them, and he shared several recommendations with us. This week we'll talk about how he picks and creates his videos and how you can do the same, if you're so inclined.

Then he'll offer even more recommendations, because of course he will. ;-)

The first time I watched one of your videos, I was surprised to find two- and three-second snippets of unrelated material randomly interspersed with the content. For readers who don’t understand, please explain why you do that. 

YouTube has a very strict copyright policy and also a very strict nudity policy. I found that out very early when I first started my first of many, many YouTube channels. You can post a video clip with no nudity, but if two or more anonymous people complain or are offended, YouTube will flag your video and give you 1 of 3 strikes. After the 2nd strike your channel is pretty much toast and you will lose access to the vids you uploaded. This is the first of two explanations. The second is that if you post/upload a YouTube video that has a clip lasting over 40 seconds, you can go at least 28 seconds without it getting flagged for copyright. So whenever you watch an upload of mine, you will always notice that around 28 seconds there will be some other unrelated clip or picture there. That is so it won’t become flagged for any violation on YouTube. It works, but the downside of posting like that is most of the time it kills the spirit/mood of the video clip. That is the whole reason for starting my blog. There, I can post pretty much whatever I want to post unrestricted, just the way I want it to be.

Some of those little snippets seem to be from poser videos. Do you make those posers yourself? 

No, I don't make the poser videos (I wish I did, though). Most of them come from various sites from around the net (most of our MC community knows where).

What is YouTube’s policy on nudity, anyway? I know they mark some videos as age restricted, and they allow breasts in those. Would they allow full frontal on an age restricted video? Where do they draw the line? 

Well, that is a good question to ponder, because I see other channels that post full frontal nudity and full rear nudity. Also, that "Age Restricted" warning is a sham. Again, if someone on YouTube complains about a video clip, they usually will flag it and send you a nudity flag/strike (1 out of 3, with the third strike getting your channel deleted). but I've also had videos on YouTube flagged and no strike was given, but they reclassified them to “18 and older.” So as you can see, I like YouTube, but I don't love You Tube.

Where do you get your material, and do you actually watch the full episodes and movies of everything you sample? 

I have a vast knowledge of various sites to go to, and I have some great and loyal fans who have followed my stuff for years who sends me their files. If I don't have it, they will. Also, special shout out to fellow upload blogger "Sleepless" for his encouragement through the years. If not for him, I wouldn't have started a blog.

Let’s say some of my readers want to start their own channel of EMC videos. What’s the protocol when it comes to re-using other collectors’ clips? For instance, what if someone wanted to use one of your clips? Should they put it in a playlist rather than copying it, or should they copy but give you credit? Does it make a difference whether you manipulated the clip before you posted it? 
 
The only controversy I've encountered posting content material has been with the videos of a certain actress who does superhero cosplay. Her stuff is great, but I can’t share it because she's very hardcore about me not posting them, not even a two-minute clip. That being said, I do try to respect the rights of others when I post. If someone who owns the material I post sends me a private message, I always respect their wishes and remove the material.

Do you have any other advice for EMC fans who want to start their own channels (e.g., how to manipulate the videos, what programs to use, etc.)? 

If a person wants to learn how to upload, I would say to them to get some free upload equipment and start experimenting. I personally do not like YouTube because it is so restrictive. They should start out on Dailymotion first because they are looser on nudity and what you can upload.

The main programs I used for editing are Corel Video Studio Pro 5, and I use Videopad video editor. I use quite a few more for various effects.

Do you have any new projects in the works that you’d like to talk about? 

Well, I have tons and tons of videos, CGI, and new material to share always. The problem is time. I work a lot, and actually I sometimes experience the equivalence of writer’s block. I guess that happens when you post so much stuff (lol). I will beat it though. I know that when I post I have on many occasions a tendency to over-edit videos. That's a bad fault I have, that I have been trying to remedy. But I do thank the ones who appreciate what I try to do.

In your personal opinion, what are the three all-time hottest MC scenes in mainstream TV and/or movies? 

The greatest scene(s) are all three Invasion of the Body Snatchers films, particularly the women turning, and more recently Girlsway Film’s "The Turning."

Are there any questions that I haven’t asked you, but that you’d like to address? 

There are some other influences that I would like to acknowledge, one being you, thrall. Then there’s Tabico, Queen Calafia, Iago, Dr. Esterhazy, Plague Maiden, Tantric Legion (just to name a very few); and also http://h3ncomics.blogspot.com/?zx=68266a73629e64ba .Those are just some of my great influences on what I read and share.

I will just leave it all there. Thanks for wanting to know what’s in my world.....THEANTJACK