Double standards

My last blog entry on role models made me think of double standards, especially in the US (if only because I happen to reside in the US, and am more familiar with everyday life here than elsewhere).

Here is another double standard for you – related, I think, to the double standard that allows Jerry Brookheimer to make TV in which I am subjected to a grisly murder (with lots of food colouring and Karo syrup) in the first three seconds before I can even reach the remote to shut the TV off – but in which it is offensive to women to have a plucky female character tied to the buzzsaw.

Some of you may be familiar with Philip Pullman’s sort-of children’s book series called His Dark Materials. The first book of the three was published in the UK as Northern Lights and in the US as The Golden Compass (also the title of the movie they made of it). The books are a little controversial because the author is a self-avowed atheist, and the books are seen as anti-religion in general and anti-Catholic in particular. I have my problems with some aspects of the books – having read the first one – not because he is anti-religion, more because his hostility to organized religion is so adolescent, so fundamentally trivial for all the gussying up.

But I digress. Small parts of the last book in the series were censored in the US because of references to the central character’s (a girl on the edge of puberty) emerging sexuality. Now, before we go all gangbusters on an anti-censorship rant, let’s admit that free speech has some limit, even if the right is very broad. We don’t want graphic porn in the hands of little kids, for example (well, I don’t).

But Pullman is hardly porn. So even though I really disagree with this particular example of censorship, it’s on the lack of merit of this case, rather than a general (and empty) platitude of “censorship is wrong.”

Now at the same time, this being close to Hallowe’en, one can go to any mall in my area and find specialty seasonal stores selling costumes and props for Hallowe’en for kiddies and grownups. Have you seen what they make for little kids these days? I don’t mean 18 yr olds, or even 13 year olds. I mean have you seen what they are selling for 6 year olds? Let’s just say things that in my view are highly age-inappropriate. Stuff with the same creepy tinge as the sort of outfits you’d find in very disturbing JonBenet kiddie beauty pageants.

So let me get this straight: it’s OK to dress up my first grader like a whore from the Emerald City of Oz, but it’s not ok to let my adolescent daughter read something true and accurate about her first sexual feelings. Right. And I am weird for liking damsels in distress?

Role Models

One of the hoariest reasons for the decline in DiD scenarios in mainstream media is that the role is inconsistent with female empowerment, out of touch with today’s societal roles, etc.

This is bunk. Women are still treated badly in today’s media. The only change is that they are treated far more brutally than they would in a classic serial – that’s Hollywood “realism” for you. Apparently it’s better for women in movies and TV to be horrifically murdered than imperiled and saved. Right.

Frankly, I have not had time for TV for years – and I find most of it unwatchable. It’s gruesome for the most part. And it’s not any “faster” than before. It’s actually slower – but more visually kinetic, which is something else entirely. I can process it visuals just fine –it’s not that I am an old slow geezer, and besides, I can, if needed, play video games as fast as anyone. But TV is so often just motionless vibration – and it makes me seasick to watch.

Back to roles. Women still have drastically truncated opportunities in mainstream media. How else do we explain the rise of a Megan Fox? Sure, she’s “hot” – but what exactly does she do? Even La Fox has pointed out that Michael Bay films are not exactly about the craft…..

No, girls still get killed, raped, tied up, drowned, tortured. They are either whores, or arm candy, or “bitches,” and they disappear at 35, only to reappear as wise/benevolent grandmas at, oh, 45. Yes, there is a parallel trend of Meryl Streeps et al who are making a go of it longer than other women – but in action films? Tentpole productions? TV? Forget it. How is this better than the damsel in distress as the centre of attention?

Why then is a DiD role condemned as limiting? If you look at early serials, the women were very independent and capable. Pearl White – I’ll say it – was a proto-feminist in Perils of Pauline, doing things women of the time could usually only dream about. Tell me Lois Lane is not a full, juicy character -- unless portrayed by a humourless bad-school feminist like Margot Kidder. (I am not trying to start a political debate about feminism, I am making a point about Kidder’s treatment of a great role.) The political correctness kills the character, and when you’ve turned a living, breathing character into a poster for any ideology, you’ve disenfranchised not just women, but the human spirit as a whole.

No, I think the problem with old-time DiD scenes is their escapist feel at a time of a cultural fetish of “realism” and authenticity. Even preposterous series like Lost still need to be grounded in a visual and metaphorical language of signs that are easily digestible for a docile public – visual soma. What keeps us from DiD is not the (non-existent) insult to women. It’s that it’s too hard for modern audiences to understand a female action character on TV who isn’t a cartoon.

Someone who needs the treatment...

...maybe just treatment. But no, "the treatment" would do her a lot of good. Tightly trussed up, gagged, and in an old melodramatic trap.

For those of you lucky enough to live outside the zone of US cultural imperialism (a true empire of idiocy) the photo above is a non-fake one of Kim Kardashian, whose slender claim to fame (she's the daughter of part of OJ Simpson's defence team -- er, the first one) has been parlayed into a baffling omniprescence. Since she's not much good at anything other than filling out a jumpsuit, I say we give her her own ""Perils of Kim" TV series.

Sorry for the long absence. RL has been very hectic. I hope I am around to blog more, but can't promise it near term.

Every day, in every way, I get better and better

For a long time I felt
Without style or grace
Wearing shoes with no socks
In cold weather
- Talking Heads

Well, my adolescent socially integrative hurdle was not an excess of 80’s preppie-ness (although I did go to a sort of prep school, but that’s another story). Mine was that, for the longest time, I didn’t dare resolve my real life attraction to girls with my fantasy life of seeing them tied up and in peril. That really screwed me up for a long time, and when you’re already earmarked for social ostracism (waaay too smart to be popular, not much use at team sports – at an all-boys school) then having an internal barrier to meeting girls becomes nearly insurmountable.

I really thought I was weird. I didn’t really think I was uniquely weird (the refrain we often see among newcomers to the DiD world: “I thought I was the only one.”) I just thought that anyone who admitted to having a kink like mine would subject himself to ridicule among peers and abhorrence from adults. And maybe that was even true, but in retrospect – so what? It’s not like I wanted to, oh I dunno, jet to Argentina on the taxpayer’s tab….

But so bad was my psychological dissonance that I could not really imagine any girlfriend (or, more accurately, desired girlfriend) as a damsel in distress as an adolescent. This wasn’t a problem in childhood – I often daydreamt of some of the girls in class – no later than first grade – as captives of some villainous mad scientist or what have you.

All that changed in adolescence. And it really wasn’t out of shame of the eroticism of the DiD for me – it wasn’t some sort of weird version of a Madonna/whore thing, which I have never had. No, it was my inability to think that any woman (or girl, since we are talking about teen years) might find being a damsel in distress exciting. I thought any girl I told my fantasies to would look at me like I was an axe murderer and conclude that I hated women or something.

And if you know anything about me, you know – I like girls. A lot. And not just the way any hetero guy would. I like being around them, talking to them, working with them, listening to them. Apart from my (male) friends, I typically despise being around guys. I detest pro sports. I don’t bond over beer and hi-cholesterol snacks. I don’t use appellations like “Bro” or “Bud” or any of that crap. However, I also don’t have that nasally superior NPR-listener voice, with that effetely impotent condescension of what passes for the intelligentsia in this benighted country. Neither am I metrosexual, to use a fave term from 2002. I am not nearly vain or douchy enough for that. I guess I am just a very heterosexual gay man. But I digress.

I think I was incapacitated right through college by this very deep split between what I was (and loving the damsel in distress is more than just a sexy kink for me, it’s a core part of my identity) and what I thought was socially acceptable, or romantically acceptable. Since there was only one girl I had a massive crush on in college, we have a small statistical sample for what I am about to say: never, not once, not even in retrospect, could I ever imagine her as a damsel in distress.

However, there were plenty of girls whom I did not have crushes on that I DID fantasize tied up and in peril. Some I thought were cute. Some I was not particularly attracted to. But the moment I “invested” emotionally in one – and it was only one in college – she was, in my mind, cut off from the DiD fantasy world.

Parenthetically, I still remember that girl in college with enormous fondess, even thought we went out exactly once. She is the physical model for one of the heroines in my (non-DiD) fiction, although the character does not really share that much of her personality.

I’m not really sure when I really became comfortable with my “inner villain.” I suppose it started in grad school, which was simultaneously very isolating but also in a weird way socially liberating. Maybe it was seeing people far more socially impaired than me. At any rate, in retrospect, I think one relationship finally did it: my most “ex” of ex-girlfriends. I think I started off in the same failed mode as before, but the relationship turned into something so uneven, so “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours we share” emotionally speaking, that at some point I just snapped and thought of her in peril. So maybe my happy state of mind now is really just the by-product of a grudge match. I never got to tie her up – shame, it would have done her good.

At any rate, I still am not foolish enough to think that I could let the world at large know I am a DiD aficionado. I don’t think that is some sort of criminal societal hypocrisy; one doesn’t immediately share one’s cholesterol count or SAT scores (well, maybe the latter if you are some Ivy League fuckwit – full disclosure, I am Ivy League, but I hope not a fuckwit). One has to slowly ease into DiD just as one has to be a little circumspect about any other intimate revelation. But at least I now no longer care whether it’s right or wrong in an absolute sense.

News flash: Women wearing miniskirts later

Who says the news is always depressing? UK women are wearing miniskirts longer, according to Debenham's department store.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090901/lf_nm_life/us_britain_miniskirts

I say Rule Britannia! I know for some of you, the thought of an old woman in a miniskirt is not that appealing, but we are not talking about wrinklies here, we're talking about women in their late 30s/early 40s. If you're fit and can pull it off, please go for it! There are plenty of un-fit 20-somethings whom I'd less rather see in a short skirt than a toned 40 year old.

Plus, a few words in praise of older women. They can be a lot more feminine, and that's a good thing. To me, there are few, say, teen girls at the prom/graduation dance who look right in long dresses or ball gowns. They don't know how to wear them, how to walk in them. The limits on dressing go in both directions, young and old.

Plus, as damsels, older women sometimes just seem to "get it" more instinctively. They know just how to struggle, how to be helpless without being a twit, how to strain just so, how to really work it in the ropes....

The Proust questionnaire

Since I am still sort of "starting over" with this blog, I thought I should repost the old blog below for new readers, since it is pretty much all most of you will ever want to know about me.

For reasons no longer pertinent, I decided a while back to fill out the notorious “Proust Questionnaire” – the list of questions the novelist answered at a party when he was in his 20s. A version of the questionnaire is often asked of a celebrity in Vanity Fair magazine. Now, if all goes well with my life I shall never be on the back page of Vanity Fair, but that doesn’t mean I can’t test your patience here and now. This is probably more about me than you’ll ever want to know….

What is your most marked characteristic?

Decisiveness and will

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Humility

The quality you most like in a woman?
Loyalty

What do you most value in your friends?

The ability to point out my flaws with kindness

What is your principle defect?

Pride

What is your favourite occupation?

Writing, or chopping wood – but favourite activity is skiing

What is your dream of happiness?

No need to dream, I live it every day

What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?

Losing my memories, even the bad ones

What animal would you like to be?

A tiger

In what country would you like to live?

Grande Siecle France or Edo period Japan

What is your favourite colour?
Black

What is your favourite flower?

Rose

What is your favourite bird?

Phoenix

Who are your favourite prose writers?
Conrad, Gogol, Kafka, Willa Cather, Gaddis

Who are your favourite poets?

Auden, Lermontov, Ronsard, Keats, Akhmatova, Aphra Behn, Rilke, Blake, Edith Sitwell

Who is your favourite hero of fiction?

Feanor in The Silmarillion (warning: he is me)

Who are your favourite heroines of fiction?

Imogen (from Cymbeline), Rebecca West (in Rosmersholm), Beatrice Rappaccini (Rappaccini’s Daughter),Angellica Bianca (in The Rover), Emily St Aubert (Mysteries of Udolpho), Lois Lane, Cinderella

Who are your favourite composers?

Bach, Telemann, Purcell, Haydn, Mozart, Copland, Shostakovich

Who are your favourite painters?

Sargent, El Greco, Turner, Rembrandt, Vrubel

Who are your heroes in real life?

Horatio Nelson, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Cincinnatus, Ernest Shackleton, Saladin, Chuck Yeager, Basil II Bulgaroctonus ("the Bulgar-killer"), Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Who are your favourite heroines of history?

Lou Salome, Margaret of Anjou, Mary Queen of Scots, Helen of Troy, Emmy Noether, Jane Jacobs

What are your favourite names?

Women: Siobhan, Isabeau, Cassandra, Elizabeth, Vanessa, Lucy, Callista, Priya, Suki, Rebecca, Citlali, Rosamund, Emily, Katinka

Men: John, Santiago, Eamonn, Stephen, Laszlo, Andrew, Ethan, Alistair

What is it you most dislike?

Disrespect

What historical figures do you most despise?

Stalin, Robespierre, Luigi Cadorna, Iwane Matsui, Donald Trump

What event in military history do you most admire?

Battle of Verneuil, 1424.

What reform do you most admire?

Edict of Milan

What natural gift would you most like to possess?

20/20 eyesight

How would you like to die?
In aerial combat.

What is your present state of mind?

Restless

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
In others? Jealousy

What is your motto?
Sursum corda.

Guity Pleasures

No, not that kind. I am talking about bad music. Really bad music.

I am in the mood for a confessional, of sorts and within reason. A close friend asked me recently for a deep dark secret wish, and it turned out our minds thought a lot alike. You really don’t want to hear that one. But I had already shared a really embarrassing fact earlier in the conversation, and that was one of my guilty musical pleasures – a song I know I shouldn’t like, but do anyway.

I’ve made a list. Go ahead, laugh. Some of these get me in a mood for peril, some don’t.

“Miracles” – Jefferson Starship, 1976. Oh lord, where to start? The dippy little 1970’s stardust keyboards? The strangulated sax arpeggios? How about the most gruesome sound ever recorded: Grace Slick trying to sound sexy in the b-vox? I let this out of the Ghostbusters containment field where it had been sequestered these 33 years. And it is even trippier-dippier than I remember. I love it, but… any time anyone tells you the 70s didn’t suck, just say Marty Balin for the win. I was there. I know.

“Misunderstanding” – Genesis, 1980. Phil Collins. Don’t need to say much else to damn this 3 minute ode to exactly one (inadequate) musical idea and the perfidy of Woman. But it was a great tune to get drunk underage to. Plus, it – and its utter vacuousness – perfectly summarizes my early teen understanding of relationships. The guy who wrote this deserves to have been dumped – as did the skinny, dorky kid who thought this said it all.

“Brandy” – Looking Glass, 1972. A retelling of the Odyssey from Penelope’s point of view? Er, no. The chee-zee 70s soft rock vibe just makes it all go down smooth. Like motor oil. This song reminds me of a close friend, one who loves peril, so it gets me in the mood for highly idiosyncratic reasons.

“C’est la vie” – B*witched, 1996. Just in case we thought the sucking stopped in the 70s, here comes along this bit of Eurovision Oirish whimsy to brighten your day and destroy your future.

“Lido Shuffle” – Boz Scaggs, 1976. Anyone who refers to Chicago as “Chi-town” has never been there.

“Jungle Love” – Steve Miller, 1976. The second of a brace of guilty pleasures from two guys who went to the same prep school in Texas. For all the goofy guitar work on this, Steve-o sure put in some dark lyrics: “We all reach a scarlet conclusion/But we live our life in a dream…”

“New in Town” – Little Boots, 2009. Despite how it looks, my musical taste is not locked in the Carter Administration. Most of the contemporary music I get I actually think is good (Grizzly Bear, Phoenix, JJ, Yeasayer…) but this is a great, trashy song. You might know the origin of the name “Little Boots” better in the original Latin: Caligula.

“Let’s Go” – Wang Chung, 1984. Now, those old enough to fear the past probably recall the ultimate 80s-sucks song “Everbody Have Fun Tonight.” Believe it or not, Jack and Nick actually wrote that one as a very sweet, quiet song, which the label weasels turned into the icon of crap it is to this day. And “Dance Hall Days” is a clever quickstep. But you have to love the utter ridiculousness of this song. Well, you don’t, I guess. But I do.

I could go on, but I have incriminated myself enough for one day....

A peril vignette

I haven't posted this before -- it's an old vignette I wrote for someone a few years ago. Hope you enjoy. Photo reflects the peril but not the heroine's attire therein....

When we last left our heroine….

You had picked up a mysterious note left accidentally near the café where you worked. Two quiet men had sat down, ordered nothing but coffee, and barely exchanged a word as they opened up their briefcases and exchanged files. One small slip of paper had fallen on the floor, and you noticed it long after the pair had left. The slip was an electrical bill for an address – simply “The Rambles” – and you were about to throw it away when you saw the handwriting on the back. The handwriting was neat, and consisted of two words. “Fire Jade.”

You knew you had heard that phrase recently...but where? Then it had hit you: in the newspaper – the report of the jewelry heist. The famous “Fire Jade” pendant.

Your mind began to race. As a journalism major, paying her way through university with waitressing and part time jobs, this might be your big break, if you could unravel the secret of the missing gems! And you knew where The Rambles were – it was the old, spooky house at the end of the lane not far from her home. The Rambles was supposed to be unoccupied – some credulous folk said it was haunted. And someone was paying an electrical bill there? Perhaps, you thought to yourself, you could investigate. You wouldn’t do anything foolish – just see what was going on, if anything, at the old, creepy Victorian mansion.

After work, toward sundown, you return home, and prepare for your first big sleuthing adventure. You think of the Famous Five books you had read as a child – and how they always seemed to run into smugglers. You laugh to herself as you dress in “detective black” – black short leather skirt, mock turtleneck (it was a bit chilly out) chic black tights and your black leather knee boots. You throw on a leather jacket to keep warm, and bring along your tape recorder, electric torch, and a notepad and paper. Your long black hair catches the late afternoon breeze and trails slightly as you walk toward the Rambles.

It does not take you too long to arrive at the house. The dark mansion was set back from the road with a hundred and fifty year old iron railing around it. Inside the decorative gate, the front yard was overgrown as befitted an empty house. The building itself was shuttered up and in the first stages of dilapidation from neglect.

You remain out of sight across the street, and watch. There is no sign of anyone coming in or out of the house, but even from across the street you could see the door was ajar. Was the Rambles a drop off point for the stolen items? A rendezvous site? ”Maybe I should take a look a little closer,” you think, visions of awards and accolades leading you where caution would keep you away. You look around – no one was coming down the street, so the crooks would not see you enter the house. “OK, back up story in case I am confronted…” you say to yourself. “I was doing a story on neglected architecture for the local paper, and the building seemed open and unoccupied.”

You suck in a deep breath and head purposefully toward the house. The heels of your boots click quickly on the stone path as you stride briskly past the front gate. There still seems to be no one around, inside or outside. Swallowing hard to overcome some last minute misgivings about the enterprise, you pull the massive oak doors open just wide enough for you to slip inside.

The house is dusty and filled with cobwebs from years of neglect. The light is very dim, just enough to walk around without tripping on something, but not enough to really see much more than shadows at depth. The red sunset light shines dimly through the gaps in the boards which cover the large bay windows.

You are in the foyer, a generous space that opened to the parlour to the right, a dining room to the left, and a wide balustraded staircase that went straight up to the first floor. The parlour to the right is very large, with a high ceiling. From the centre of the ceiling, around cracked mouldings, a glass chandelier hangs, wired for electricity but dark. The furniture is all covered with white sheets, both in the reception room as well as the dining room

So still is it that dust hangs suspended in the air, sheets of it seeming to form where the horizontal shafts of dying daylight illuminate the interior. You turn on your flashlight and begin tiptoeing through the empty rooms. You can hear your own breath as you walk through the reception room, your footsteps echoing faintly and leaving slender boot prints on the dusty floor.

All this dust….You examine the side tables, the sofas, the fireplace with its enormous mantle. “Achoo!” You can’t suppress a sneeze as you sweep your flashlight’s beam across the walls. There are dark patches where pictures had been hung, and light had not faded the wallpaper. Those pictures are all gone – packed away in all likelihood in the cellar, and –

A loud creak on a floorboard. You freeze. Was that someone? Or just the house settling? You can’t tell for sure, but your courage is leaving and a common sense instinct to leave the house was taking over.

Your flashlight catches a swirl in the dust. Odd – You haven’t moved. It must be --- mmmpphhfffff!

Everything goes dark as you are enveloped in a sheet of some kind. You drop your torch, and try to flail to escape the unseen attackers who have snuck up behind you. But strong male arms pin yours to your side, and lift you off your feet. You try to kick, but you cannot get free!

Finally, a voice: “I got her, Nigel! She’s got some spirit, I’ll tell you!”

Another, deeper voice: “Let’s get her downstairs, Rog.”

You feel yourself being wrapped more tightly in the sheet and now picked up by two men. You buck and fight uselessly as they take you down the stairs, screaming for help, your cries muffled partly by the sheet used to trap you, until they plunk you on the floor, still wrapped up.

“Let me go!” you yell still literally as well as figuratively in the dark.

The voices ignore you. “Tie her up and gag her until I figure out what to do with her!” says the deeper voice. Your blood runs cold as you realiz this is no accident – you are the prisoner of these ruthless men! What had you stumbled upon?

You feel the sheet being unwound and you prepare to make a bolt for the exit as soon as it’s off. But as you try to run, powerful hands grab you by the shoulders and pin you to the ground as another set of hands pull your slender wrists behind your back.

In this basement there is some dim light bulb providing some dismal illumination. You can see one of your assailants now: Nigel, the deeper voiced man: tall, thin, with a thin, cruel mouth, a hawklike nose, narrow, mean eyes, and fingers like talons. You try to kick at him with your pointy boots with their narrow heels, but even with a direct hit on his shins Nigel just makes a face of mild pain without relaxing his hold on you at all. All you are doing with your kicks is annoying him, and you stop.

Meanwhile the other, Rog -- who is kneeling behind you out of your field of view – is tying your wrists wincingly tight. “Ow! Please, that hurts!” you say, hoping your pitiful pleading will make him ease the torque in your bonds.

“Gotta make sure you can’t get away!” says Rog, as he knots off the ropes. You test your wrist bonds, twisting your upper body in a futile gesture of resistance.

“Please! Why are you doing this? I’m researching local architecture and – “

Nigel looks at Rog, ignoring you as he cuts you off. “Rog, you seen her before?”

Rog comes around as Nigel pushes your booted feet together and starts tying your ankles. Your heart sinks. Rog is one of the fellows at the café. Your cover is blown. “Yeah, I seen her!” says the smiling, creepily affable man with the fleshy face , oddly reminiscent of Spencer Tracy – on a really bad day. “I never forget a pretty face, I do! She was the waitress at the caff!”

“No! Please! Let me go! I am sorry I intruded!” you plead, tears of fear forming in your eyes.

“Yeah, that you will be…” says Nigel with a grunt as he continues to tie your ankles. You try to kick, but Nigel holds you fast, enjoying your wriggling as it makes your short skirt ride up a little, exposing more of your lithe, delicious legs. He cinches your bonds, and knots the ropes.

You try to kick once more, but with your legs now tied, resistance is hopeless. You look up at your two kidnappers, you eyes wide with fear. “Wha…what are you going to do with me?”

Nigel smiles evilly. “Yeah, you’re right Rog, she’s a fine bit of crumpet,” the thin man says.

“Please, I don’t know why you are doing this!” you wail, hoping ignorance will save you.

Nigel holds your purse in front of you and opens it. Reflexively you pull your feet in closer to you, as the criminal violates your privacy. “Leave my things alone!” you protest. “I don’t know why you are doing this!”

Nigel takes out the slip with the clue on it. “I think you know exactly what we are doing, Miss…” he pulls out your wallet and looks for identification. “….Alexis. Pretty name. You’re a pretty girl. A pretty girl in a lot of trouble.”

You feel a sense of panic rising in your throat. “But..but..you have to let me go….this is kidnapping!” you shout.

“Rog, please gag our guest.”

“Nooooo!” you wail. “You can’t do this!” You thrash furiously in your bonds, accomplishing exactly nothing. “Please! Let me mmmpppphhhh!”

Your pleading is cut off as Rog pops a wad of old cloth in your mouth. Before you can spit it out he clamps a hand over your mouth, then with the other hand gets a scarf ready. He forces the scarf between your lips, wedging it deep between your teeth. He pulls the scarf back til it digs at the corners of your delicate mouth, highlighting your cheeks and forcing a kind of terrified involuntary smile on your face as the cleave is pulled taut. You feel the thug lift your long black tresses before he knots the cleave gag bracingly tight. Your jaw already is starting to ache. Your wrists are raw, your hands and feet numb from the savagely tight bonds. And now the two criminals look at you with diabolical triumph as they savor your utter helplessness.

“So, thought you’d tip off the police and get a big reward, right Alexis? Or maybe some prize? Well, it looks like you made a foolish choice today!” says Nigel, leering at you and patting you on the leg.

“So, Nigel, what do we do with her?” asks Rog. You look back at the one, then the other, your terror rising as they begin to discuss your demise.

“I think she knows too much,” says Nigel, rising to his feet and placing his hands on his hips. “I think she needs to meet Chip”

Rog laughs heartily and entirely inappropriately. He whispers in your ear, “He means the wood chipper in the other part of the cellar….”

You nearly pass out in terror, until Rog says “Hey, won’t that make too much noise?”

You nod energetically, and writhe pathetically in your bonds, moaning miserably in the hopes they take pity on you and let you go.

Nigel strokes his chin. “Hmmm, yes, I guess it would attract too much attention to this supposedly ‘haunted’ house.”

“Mmpphhfffff!” you try to interrupt their plans for your elimination. They look at you – Rog winks at you – smile, and carry on with their murderous plans.

“OK, then we’ll time it so that we can get away while she meets her maker. Rog – help me get her set up on the conveyor belt.”

You moan a muffled “Noooooo!” through the gag as the two men pick you up, Nigel by your feet, Rog by your shoulders, and carry you through a doorway to another, larger part of the cellar. There you see a very large metal box, easily eight feet cubed, with apertures at opposing ends. A fifteen foot conveyor belt, with high stainless steel sides, leads to one opening in the box. You can see the grinding wheels and teeth of the wood chipping machine through the aperture – an aperture wide and tall enough for you to go through!

The two thugs prop you up against a long piece 2x8 plywood and begin tying you down to it. You squirm to no avail as they lash you at the shoulders, waist, knees and ankles to the plank, then lift you and the plank to put you on the conveyor belt.

You frantically twist and turn but can do little as Nigel and Rog place you on the conveyor belt, feet first, heading level straight toward the maw of the crushing, gnashing machinery! You try to slide your way off the conveyor, but the sides are too high, the belt itself too narrow, for you to move at all! All you can do is raise your head to look directly at the inert, but evil-looking gears and crushing teeth of the machine’s infernal innards.

“Mmmmpphhfff!” you make once last attempt to beg for you life, but all you do is provoke the derision of your heartless captors.

“She’s make great compost,” says Rog sunnily.

“I thought you thought she was pretty?”
“Aye, that she is, but gardening comes first, don’t you say?”

Nigel chuckles and surveys your delectable, bound body as he answers his demented colleague. “That I do, Rog. That I do. Now Rog, you gather up the rest of the jewels and prepare to decamp. I’ll attend to our snoopy guest.”

Rog leaves you to Nigel’s dubious mercy. Well, Alexis, it has been an all too brief pleasure,” the thin man says. “But we leave you in the hands of Chip, who will embrace you in a very special way.”

“Mmmphhfff!” you moan, sobbing in your gag, your eyes desperately pleading for him to reconsider.

“Ta ta!” Nigel says, throwing a switch on the side of the machine. The teeth start to rotate slowly inside, in a hellish augury of your immediate future if you aren’t rescued in time!
Nigel pushes a lever and the conveyor belt starts to move, achingly, cruelly slowly.

You arch your back, but you cannot loosen your bonds that way. You twist and turn, thrusting your knees forward one at a time to try to make your restraints yield. But it’s no use! You are being drawn slowly but inevitably to your doom!

Nigel blows you a sarcastic kiss as he leaves you to your grisly fate. You are now maybe 13 feet from the maw of the wood chipping machine. You are blinded briefly as tears well up in your eyes. So stupid of you to try to get the ‘big scoop.’ Now look what’s happening.

You writhe helplessly some more. No use. No hope at all. 10 feet from your demise. The machine makes a low, diabolical hum, as if it is relishing the chance to sink its rotating teeth into your soft flesh. You think, incongruously, of how your clothes will be ruined!

Eight feet. You hear the footsteps of Nigel and Rog leaving the house. You are all alone now. It won’t be long.

Seven feet. Your struggling is slowing down as you are left exhausted and weakened by your earlier, useless attempts to get free.

Six feet. “Hewp! Hewp!” you try to scream through the gag, knowing no one will hear you.

Five feet. It must be sundown by now, you think. But you can hardly tell in this boarded up cellar. You slump in your bonds, defeated, helpless.

Four feet. You realize this is going to hurt a lot as your booted feet will be the first to be eaten by the machine. You thrash again wildly at the thought, then give up again.

Three feet. You think of your friends and family, how they will miss you and you them.

Two feet. The lead edge of the plank enters the maw of the machine. A horrible gnashing wail is emitted as sawdust and woodchips fly everywhere. You now realize how horrible the end will be! You try to pull up your feet but they are just tightly bound to the plank, which shudders in nausea inducing fashion.

Twelve inches. The end is here. There is no hope. No one will save you.

Six inches. You close your eyes. The plank is being eaten up in front of you. Bits of plywood fly everywhere.

Three inches. Suddenly, all goes quiet. You open your eyes. The light is out as well. What happened? You struggle, but you’re as tightly tied as ever.

Footsteps on the main floor. “Helloooooooo?” says a new voice. You try to call him, but your voice is stifled by the hateful gag. “Helloooooo – it’s Powergen – I’m here to read the meter…”

Footsteps coming down to the cellar. “Look, sorry to cut off your power, but you haven’t paid your bill!”

You see a torchlight beam sweeping back and forth. “Anybody here?”

You growl as loudly as you can. Footsteps race toward you. A flashlight beam on your face, gagged tightly.

“Mmmppphhfff!”

“Why, Miss! Whatever happened to you?”

You can make out the outline of the meter man in the twilight as he pulls you away from the machine. He quickly unties you and ungags you, and you thank him profusely as you rub your wrists to get the circulation back. A narrow escape, but maybe you have a story for the paper after all!

How not to create a villain

(The enchanting Spirit, once of Hunter's Lair, and compensation for a summer re-run...)

In my travels I came across this website on “How to create a credible villain in fiction.” It was so absurdly namby-pamby, I have to share it with you with a few reactions. Come laugh along with me as we rebut:

http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Credible-Villain-in-Fiction

1. Start by reading Create a Fictional Character from Scratch. This will give you a foundation on which you can create any type of character.

2. Choose the degree of evilness or just plain "ick" you want to place into your villain. Some tales require the viciousness of a serial killer, while others only call for a bully.

>>>>> How tedious. Grading villainy on a scale of 1 to 10 is like saying I like Jackson Pollock because he used a lot of grey. Villains have to be fun!

3. Create a single, traumatic incident for your villain. It could be as devastating as seeing his parents murdered or as sublime as seeing a prized rosebush destroyed by the whims of nature.

The reason for this is to create a turning point in the villain's life.

>>>>> I loved Seth Evil in the Austin Powers movies. Inherited villainy. Just like real life. Perfect! This turning point idea – as if goodness were the natural state of the human condition. Rubbish!

4. Expand on this singular incident. Exaggerate it, twist it, and distort it until it becomes the rotten core of your villain.

>>>>> No. Better idea. Take a normal hobby – exaggerate that, twist it, and distort it until it becomes the rotten core. That’s closer to the honest truth. Example: butterfly collecting. Make the villain's attentions turn, for example, to collecting pretty damsels in glass cases, anaesthetized into a state of aware living death, and held captive and in chains. Why? Just because.

5. Choose a single thing that the character adores without greed or malice. It doesn't have to be a big thing--in fact, it's better if it's not. For example, the villain may enjoy strolling in a rose garden in order to clear his/her head. Or, even smaller, the villain enjoys the simple pleasure of cracking open a sunflower seed on his tongue and enjoying the saltiness of the meat inside.

>>>>> Oh spare me this cliché. Every villain adores a pretty girl. A bit too much. And not in a socially acceptable way. Why should the villain be this twisted? Making him quite normal on the surface makes him all the more dangerous when provoked.

6. Combine the "turning point" and the "single thing" and bounce them back and forth in your mind. How are they related? Why does the villain love one thing so much and is still filled with malice, hatred or just plain "ickiness"?

>>>>> If you have to think about this, it’s over.

7. Take into account the hero of the story. How does the hero fit into the villain's life? How do his wants mix, match, and collide? How are they similar, how are they different?

>>>>> A useful idea at last.

Warnings

· The creation of a truly villainous character can become especially intense. Try writing about him in smaller chunks than you ordinarily would. If you don't take a small break every half-hour or so, you may find yourself absorbing a portion of the villain's negativity, which can affect your relationships with the people you care about.

>>>>> Whaaaaat? Hey, listen: being a villain is my good side, an escape from my negativity!

· Avoid the temptation to start a villain from one of the deadly sins. If you do, you'll end up with a parody of a bad guy instead of a true villain. It is one thing to end up with a character that is the epitome of a deadly sin. Just don't start there.

>>>>> No kidding. I love the line in Serenity where the high-minded villain (called simply The Operative) asks all his victims “Do you know what your sin is?” before he assassinates them. The hero replies, “I’m a pretty big fan of all seven, but right now I’m going to go with wrath.” Then he proceeds to beat the crap out of the villain.

OK, I need to detox. Some lyrics from They Might Be Giants:

I look like Jesus, so they say,

But Mr Jesus is very far away

Now you’re the only one left who can tell me if it’s true

That you love me, and I love me

I built a little empire out of

Some crazy garbage called

The blood of the exploited working class

Now they’ve overcome their shyness

And they’re calling me “your highness”

And the world screams “Kiss me, Son of God.”

Bait

A great photo from Deviant Art - artist is Koukei. http://koukei.deviantart.com/art/Bait-60780990.

Although I generally don't have much time for heroes in RP, I do love the idea of torturing a damsel with the knowledge that she is bait for a trap set for soemone she cares for. That tends to make them a little less rude, you know? The struggling gets more desperate, the pleading that much more sincere....

NB the problem in RP is that it is hard enough to get 2 people in sync over IM -- villain and heroine. It's almost impossible, in my experience, to do it with 3. The hero usually treats the villain as someone to be overcome and dispensed with as soon as possible, and though I don't mind that, if you do it too quickly it is boring. And, as I sometimes take a great deal of care and time to set up a peril, I'd liek to get my money's worth, as it were.

Anyway, it's been so long since I actually set up a girl as bait that this photo really hit me. In this case, because it's Little Red Riding Hood, obviously fanciful, etc, I don't at all mind the loose bonds or lack of gag. That makes it suggestive in all sorts of ways I like.

Rewriting Star Trek

Slightly off topic, but for some reason I have been thinking about how much I like the girl yeoman outfits on Star Trek (the original series). I know they weren’t all yeoman – some were lieutenant this or phaser technician that, but really, in skirts that short with the scoop neck collars and the tights and go-go boots, they were all yeoman. And that’s a good thing.
More should have been in peril. Yeoman Rand got herself kidnapped and tied up in “Miri”, but that should have, like, happened every episode if I were running the show.
So, as an unabashed straight guy, I started thinking of Star Trek: TOS babes – especially the guest star babes. Here is a partial list of the ones I can remember – or ones I am particularly partial to: a top five in ascending order of awesomeness:
Lt. Marla McGivers in “Space Seed” (Madlyn Rhue): Misguided, accidentally treacherous, and filmed through only-in-the-60s gauze. Who cares? If only she had crossed Khan and paid the price. But no, it’s the Shat who winds up in the decompression tank. What a waste.
Yeoman Smith in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (Andrea Dromm): She never got to wear the skirt – no, she was in black pants like she was a waitress in some dreary late-1990s restaurant. But who cares when you are this hot? She made the frumpiest uniform awesome. And she’s on for about 10 seconds.
Yeoman Mears in “Galileo 7” (Phyllis Douglas): Another wasted opportunity. Plucky and capable crew girl marooned on a planet inhabited by really big cannibals. What could possibly happen to her? Actually, nothing.
Lt. Marlena Moreau in “Mirror, Mirror” (Barbara Luna): Man, did she rock the evil universe outfit (bare midriff, thigh high boots) or what? And (if I recall right) the sultry purr in her voice? Why go back to the “good” side?
And for my all time fave:
Dr Helen Noel in “Dagger of the Mind” (Marianna Hill): …and Kirk disses her because he’s so fricken Mr-Captain-nobody-between-me-and-my-ship dude. Jimmy, what in the name of Rigel XII are you thinking? I cannot even begin to describe her pulchritude! She even kicks a little ass in the episode, after being a little damsel-ly too. And she totally rocks the oufit. Totally. This is the reason you enlist in something as dippy as Starfleet.

Odd gags

(Not a terribly odd gag, but a thorough one. Darla Crane as Spellbinder...)

Here's a little list of odd gags I have used in perils. I’ll give the ones I can think of off the top of my head in a moment. First, I need to point out that I really have been giving attention to devious gags only in the last 2-3 years. For whatever reason, in the past I would often come up with unusual methods of binding a heroine, but would then just stuff a nice, cute little silk cleave gag in her mouth to shut her up, or else apply tape (ouch! But the peel off smarts!)
But lately I have diversified my gag portfolio in RPs and stories. As with materials used for restraints, I find that I just try to imagine myself using whatever materials are at hand as a gag. The scenario – the location, the peril, etc – has an influence on the gag.
The damsel also has a role. Mental images of a damsel often will steer me to particular gags. Or, if I know of a particular damsel weakness -- a favourite food, perhaps, or a penchant for a particular pampering – I take great delight in subverting that, and using that against her.
I started off diversifying with pretty standard things – if I had a girl hogtied in a scenario, I might serve her on a plate with an apple in her mouth for laughs. Heroines caught in large spider webs usually got their mouths stuffed with spider webs by large arachnids with a curious need to gag their victims. But then I started to branch out more. Here are a few odd gags used in perils that I can think of. No guarantees on realism here.
· I had a secret agent girl tied up in a car set to roll down a mountain road until she plunged over a cliff. I wrapped the car seat belt between her teeth and around her head before strapping her down in the seat (she had already been tied up before being placed in the car).
· An evil delivery man stuffed an unsuspecting damsel’s mouth with a bouquet of flowers
· A damsel about to be taken by conveyor belt into a giant paper shredder had her mouth stuffed with shredded paper before the tape went over her lips.
· A damsel turned into a tiny winged fairy, captured by other fairies and gagged with a single thick blade of grass. This was a part of a very atmospheric peril based on a Victorian era painting.
· A heroine captured by carpenters, who gag her with a wooden dowel rod fastened in place by black electrical tap in the shape of an X
· In a garage peril, the heroine finds herself gagged with a thin, supple inner tube
· I can’t recall why, but I do recall gagging a heroine by packing her mouth full of chocolate truffles.
· The heroine was to be eliminated by being tied in a crucifix pattern to the arms of a giant kite, then flown in a thunderstorm in a horrible recreation of Ben Franklin’s experiment. She was gagged with kite string. Lots and lots of kite string.
· The damsel had been kidnapped, but had to be taken out in the middle of Times Square and led to her demise under the tracks of the S subway line. So she was tied, her coat over her shoulders, and then gagged with clear tape so that in the evening, she could be held hostage in the middle of a huge Manhattan crowd, and no one would know she was being kidnapped.
· In the middle of farmland, the only gag available was a metal horse bit – used (ewwwww!)
· A block of ice was used once, that would melt too slowly for her to cry for help before she was destroyed.
· The damsel was on a movie set, tied up with film stock from a reel, also gagged with celluloid. The really fiendish part of this trap was that the heroine was slowly dragged by her mouth under a giant hinged film cropper – kind of a makeshift guillotine – until her neck was under the blade and the trap triggered
· Again, so long ago I can’t recall the details, but a superheroine story in which the heroine was subdued by special drugged nerf balls fired from those kiddie toys and bouncing off her spandex clad body, then when she awoke, she was of course tied with superheroine-proof cables, and her mouth stuffed with a nerf ball to keep her powers depleted until her diabolical demise.
· In a really sensuous (for me, certainly) finale of a story, strips of red velvet silenced our delectable heroine at a costume ball.
· In one of my more fantastical stories, the heroine had been taken prisoner by giant insects, and had been glued to a giant honeycomb with honey, and gagged with the same, as the queen bee’s larvae wiggled toward the damsel to slowly eat her. Ewwwww!
· Damsels should take care with their fashion accessories. I have used their berets (raspberry or otherwise), hats, scarves, belts, handbags, etc...
· Another superheroine found herself tied to a rock under giant rubber bands, and gagged with the same.
· A heroine captured in a bakery of sorts, her hands bound with molten sugar that hardened when set, and hardened spun sugar gagged her. She was dunked in cake batter and nearly turned into black forest torte
I am sure I am forgetting a lot of things. But this is a little sample of my devious and warped mind.

Talk talk talk

Something jogged my memory of a comment made by a very good online friend a while back. She said she was turned on by the idea of being, say, a superheroine who had been captured by a villain and put in some trap (the specific exampel was tied to the tracks). Her character escaped, but the peril was in a public enough place that it was covered on the evening news, which she and her friends were watching. And there she was, with all her friends commenting on the (public superheroine's) peril, while she in her secret identity had to play along.

I can relate to that. A recurring daydream of mine -- not a dominant one, but one which recurs from time to time, is of a damsel giving a sort of TV ad for a show of her "real story." It would go something like this: "Hi. I'm Caitlyn. I'm a secret agent. And I get captured. A lot." Cut to clips of her latest episode where she is indeed tied to a chair as the time bomb ticks away. "Tune in at 8 PM to see if I escape in time..."

A variant of this daydream is to imagine a damsel's internal thoughts as she struggles, tightly bound and, say, headed to the buzzsaw. "I...I can't budge! This time there's...there's no way out!"

I really don't know why, but the idea of a damsel in distress commenting on her own predicament seems to enhance the peril for me. Weird, or what?

Thoughts on a live action Penelope Pitstop movie

Many of you already know how much the reruns of the cartoon Perils of Penelope Pitstop warped my young brain. That, of course, and Yvonne Craig’s Batgirl, but that is a topic for another day. Anyway, a few years back it looked like they were thinking of doing a live action version of the cartoon. And why not? They’ve made two friggen movies about Transformers, a cartoon based on a toy. They’re making a movie about Hong Kong Phooey, for Jah’s sake. So why not a movie whose characters are human beings – what could be so difficult about that? The Pitstop movie was going to star Reese Witherspoon as Penelope and Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek: Next Gen) as the Hooded Claw.

I am not a huge Witherspoon fan, but at least she is a real Southerner and bankable. And Spiner, if you think all he can do is robot – well, the guy is a great character actor all around and (IMHO) is a brilliant casting idea for the Hooded Claw. He would have the perfect update of Paul Lynde’s maniacal laugh. It seems though that it all fell apart…

Too bad. Perhaps the suits got nervous about the idea of all those perils, and how it would play to the 20-somethings. I think they needn’t have worried; it’s only the 40-somethings who would take the role stereotypes seriously. C’mon, dammit – we need to get a whole new generation corrupted by melodramatic gender roles and of course some good old fashioned bondage and death traps! Otherwise the central task of civilization – to perpetuate bad ideas – will collapse!

Argggh. It is not to be. But perhaps that liberates me to think of ideal casting for today for a live action Perils of Penelope Pitstop movie:

Penelope

I tried to limit myself to young Southern blondes, a discipline which produced this short list:
Hillary Duff – very annoying to some, but I do think she’s pretty for all the fakery and Disneyfication. She doesn’t seem to be Southern, but she was born in Texas, so she qualifies.
Britney Spears – yeah, I know, would have been sexier pre-breakdown, but Penelope can’t be jailbait, you know? Spears can’t act? Who cares, she’s from Louisiana.

Dakota Fanning – born in Georgia, check. If you think she is the little kid from War of the Worlds, well look again. She’s turning into a real beauty. By the time I got my movie green lit, she’d make a great young heiress.

The Wild Card Pick: Katy Perry. I know, I know. Brunette. Californian. But talk about someone who knows how to be very girlie but also very outspoken and self-reliant! Plus she is really pretty, has curves in all the right places, and knows how to use them. Her instinct for melodrama overrides technical objections in my view…. OK, so I just want her tied up and in peril, sue me.

Hooded Claw

It’s really hard to beat Brent Spiner. I have only one very offbeat alternatives.

Bono – Admit it. Isn’t he annoying now? The glasses, the posturing, the sanctimonious hectoring of people who actually know what they are doing? Now imagine all that bad faith in a dark suit, the same zeal aimed at sweet young Penelope’s fortune. He can keep the stupid shades – that will help.

Bully Brothers

We need some comedy here….

Jon Heder (a/k/a Napoleon Dynamite) and his twin brother Dan. Who does slackjaw better?

If we wanted to depart from the cartoon’s identical twin dimwits, how about a pair of physically similar political opposites. I am thinking of Michael Moore and Glenn Beck for example, both pudgy and vaguely thuggish. Their bone-headed semi-theological wrangling over how many liberals/conservatives dance on the head of a pin could provide Penelope with her window of escape….

Anthill Mob

No casting. Utterly irrelevant to the drama. Or better still, if we used, say, the principal cast from some awful pseudo-ensemble movie like Armageddon, just have the Claw kill them off in the first scene, to show that, in this movie, Penelope really is in danger!

Anybody have suggestions?

Poetry in Motion

(Another summer re-run from the old Yahell blog....)

A very pleasant comment on a very old blog entry set me thinking the other day. The comment was all about struggling as "poetry in motion." How true! And like poetry, struggling comes in its high forms and doggerel, rhymed and free verse versions.

When I look at DiD scenes on TV or clips, it occurs to me that some girls just know how to struggle better than others. It has always been difficult for me to define what makes some struggling "good" and for a long time I just thought there was something ineffable about a damsel who could. Part of the reason was that there were so many different types of heroines, and personality-appropriate struggling meant there were countless variations of sexiness in struggling.

Take Yvonne Craig as Batgirl -- talk about an actress who made that pattern cutter scene work! She isn't even really tied up under those belts - but Yvonne made it utterly believable! And yet her manner of struggling is very different from, say, Jane Seymour in Memories of Midnight -- a mch more traditional damsel in distress. But both struggles are epic, making a potentially ho-hum scene a classic.

Bad struggling can wreck even a great set-up. It's a little like dancing - if you just "learn the steps" by rote, it can be technically good but still look tedious. You have to give something of your personality - you have to commit to it -- to make a great struggle. But, like dancing, it's not a matter of "just go out and do it." There are elements that good and bad struggling have in common.

So here, in a somewhat rude fashion, is my "do and don't list" as a primer on good struggling form. Sorry for making it look like a demand --it's just the easiest way to make my point. I don't even know why I am making it - it's not like I'll be directing a DiD movie any time soon.... But if I were, here would be some of my ideas for a DiD actress:

DO

Do change facial expressions. We want to see a range of emotions from defiance, to frustration, to anxiety to terror.Just presenting one face means you haven't embraced the role of DiD - you're just going through the motions.

Do moan. It shouldn't be too loud or constant, but an occasional whimper of exhaustion as you are defeated by your tight bonds is a nice touch.

Do vary your struggles. Try to wriggle out of the wrist ropes, then try your ankles, then try rocking your body.

Do act with your eyes. Don't be self-consciously "wide eyed" because it will come across as fake. Just think of the set-up peril, look at it, and believe yourself to be in great danger. You'll look convincing.

Do slump in despair from time to time. We have to believe you're trying, and failing, to escape. It should be tiring.

DON'T

Don't move rhythmically. There is no way that anyone really desperate to escape her bonds would twist left and right, move her feet up and down, in anything in a regular pattern for long. Staccato =frustrated and afraid. The only exception of course is a girl who has found a sharp object to slowly cut her wrist bonds. Rhythmic sawing, especially slowly done, can heighten suspense: will the villain return to catch her escape attempt? (Hint: yes.)

Don't self-consciously try to show off your "best attributes." Nothing reeks of lack of credibility than lifting your feet to show off your bound legs - even if they look nice. A damsel first and foremost shold be thinking of her own predicament, not how she looks in fromt of the camera (or spectator). Of course, the obvious exception is a girl who has been captured but not yet placed in peril, trying to persuade the villain to let her go by twisting ever so slightly in her bonds to emphasize her good points. But the exception proves the rule -- what makes this acceptable is that the heroine is thinking of escape.

Don't scream nonstop into your gag. It gets annoying. You can scream as your doom lurches closer, or when you're extra frustrated. But constant yowling into your gag will come across as "something you're supposed to do" as opposed to a genuine reaction. Don't feel the need to cry unless you really feel like it. If you try to fake it, it will look fake.

Again -- JMHO YMMV

Hogties

(not a hogtie of course but since we'll be talking about immersion perils soon...)

Many readers of the old blog know I am not a big fan of hogties. The name repels me: I don't think of damsels in any way as hogs. (I think of them as princesses). I have thought hogties extra degrading for some reason (as if being left in a death trap could not be seen that way!) And since I can abide almost any fate for a heroine, no matter how grisly or bizarre, as long as I do not feel she was being objectified, there the matter stood for some time.

I have thought about it some more. I think there is another, more concrete reason I don't care for hogties, and the reason was revealed when I thought of the exception: having the damsel tied up over a vat of acid/molten lead/bubbling wax/etc.

Now, I can easily go with alternatives -- hanging her by her wrists, tying her up in a net, leaving her on a verrrry rickety wooden platform suspended by feeble, fraying hemp. Anything but upside down, really. But I do like the idea of having a girl hogtied over a bubbling cauldron of good hot liquid death.

At first I thought the reason was for her: the damsel is face down, looking at her horrible fate. But I think that's not the only thing. I, the villain get to see her face as she dangles over her doom, since usually she is suspended well above floor level.

And I think that's the reason I don't like a girl hogtied on the floor: she is naturally face down. Sure, she can look up, but I really don't get to see her from the front overall as she struggles.

Funny what my little peculiarities turn out to be....

Miniaturization

(the photo above is of Becca, a sweetheart among damsels: http://www.super-becca.com)

There are quite a few people out there -- both damsels and villains -- who are drawn to the theme of the shrunken or miniaturized heroine facing peril. This has been something I am more than willing to do in a story or RP, and it can certainly be fun. But it hasn't been something I would suggest myself.
I think the reason for this has been the difficult in tying the damsel up if the size difference between the villain and heroine is too great. I go back and forth at the importance of having the heroine tied up -- certainly when I started on the net, it was very important to me. Then it got less important than having her trapped and in peril -- and I think the bondage aspect is starting to rise in relative importance again.
For example, strapping down a tiny heroine with a piece of cellotape/scotch tape is certainly fun even now -- but not as sexy as it might have been, oh, a year ago. Then again, in RPs I am not always looking for raw erotic appeal. Humour has its place as does the sheer satisfacvtion of having pushed someone's buttons, even if they aren't exactly the same buttons as mine (within reason -- there is a sort of elastic limit to my fantasy desires, as I suppose there is for anyone).
But the more I thought of this, the more I recalled my childhood and adolescent fantasies. I can't recall having had any shrunken girl peril fantasies as a child -- after all, at first, my fantasy damsels were the prettiest girls in school, and at age 5/6 (yes, it started that early) you're so small that you hardly need to be shrunken to imagine your sweetheart in the clutches of much bigger villains, ie adults. I can distinctly remember a really cute little blond girl who lived a few blocks away who was (in my daydreams) constantly captured by mad scientists, strapped to a tilted metal table and menaced with lasers or other death rays.
Hey, now that I think of it, she was also a secret superheroine -- I still remember the red sort of teri-cloth body suit (which must have been a modification of an actual article of clothing she had) and little white ballet-like flats as her superheroine costume.) I imagined the villain's lair as an underground complex under the playground in the small park that separated her street from mine. She'd be all triumphant and joyful rather than cocky, just before the villains nabbed her and dragged her through a secret hatch under the sandbox...
As an adolescent, I think I did have the occasional miniaturization peril fantasy. But if I recall right, these were usually multiple damsel affairs -- an ongoing story of (usually) four girls I fancied who were mysteriously abducted by a villain, miniaturized and left to negotiate a shrunken world of model trains, pendulum traps and the like -- one rescuing the others, on a rotating basis.
In this case I think in retrospect the shrunken aspect was just to solve the problem of how to keep four damsels, some of whom are in peril and some not at any given time, from just running away. If I remember right there was nothing epecially intriguing about the aspect of the damsels' being shrunken in itself.
Also, it was not until I started online that I really embraced beign a villain. As a little kid, I was the hero; the villains were never me, but usually the guys I disliked the most in school. This was even true in college. And by the time I was ready to accept my inner villain, I wanted a full sized, captive female for -- well, let's not dwell on that.

Bad RPs -- addendum

Thanks for the comments! They are much appreciated.

The quote of the day, apropos this topic, has to be from Martha Gellhorn (I paraphrase): "The only part of our travels remotely interesting to other people are the disasters."

- Evil TRU: I wish I could say I only had 3 awful RP experiences. These are the only three that are funny. Most of the others were just dreary.

- Vladi: The hypocrisy you point out is very funny!

- Athena: Someone who just does a bait and switch like that really doesn't need an RP partner. Just a mirror.

My Worst RPs Evah! (Er, no, the word is Ever. Ever.)

(The pic has nothing to do with the blog -- I just happen to like it. Check out the rest of the artist's work on http://arnie00.deviantart.com/)

Back on the old blog I often extolled those friends whose sensitivity, descriptive talent, and out and out sexiness have in my mind merited special attention. But todayI have a mind to share some of the most entertainingly godawful online experiences I have had.
Now, what will follow are to me distinct from what I would call ‘failed RPs.’ I have had plenty of RPs which just didn’t click – a simple lack of compatibility, or perhaps I just wasn’t properly tuned in to what the girl wanted. It happens, and I’ll take the blame. Who knows, perhaps I am on someone else Worst Evah! list. But I would not accuse of those people of being bonkers – we just didn’t mesh, for whatever reason, but I still think of them as reasonable people.
No, these are different. The experiences that follow were not abusive, but so weird as to be from an RP Twilight Zone. I have to take extra care in dissembling here, because I really have no desire to wound people. I doubt any of the people I will recount here (in disguised form of course) will be reading. But you never know – one person’s dreck is another’s gold. Anyway, I will change enough details to make it very hard to discern the exact person I am talking about in each of these examples.

Bad RP #1:
This person wanted to be a superheroine with a secret identity. OK, no problem. Then it turned out “she” (well, I have my doubts about this part too) wanted to be captured in her secret identity so she could not turn into the superheroine. Also, OK – a standard melodrama trope, and kinda fun if handled right.
Then the RP began. I lured her into a warehouse, and captured her. Tied her to a chair. Started an interrogation. I thought she might like that, given the need to protect her true identity. I asked her questions. Response? “You fiend!” Not just once, but every time.
Ohhhh-kay. Maybe that was a hint? I should threaten her? I tried that. “Talk or else (insert fate worse than death). Response? “You fiend.”
No matter what I did, the response was “You fiend.” At first I thought I was just not hitting the right button, not giving “her” her thing. But no matter what I tried, I got the same reply, and no guidance as to what the next step ought to be.
Now, I mention this because an absolutely fantastic RPer – and a close friend – also resorts to calling me “Fiend!” when I trap her. But in this other case, it’s perfect. It’s just one reaction amidst so many others. In this other case, because I am getting so much information about what’s going on in her mind, when she says “you fiend!” it just sends me.

Bad RP #2:
This person was less obviously a man, but I still ended up thinking she too was a faker. She wanted a standard kidnapping for ransom. OK, no problem. She was rather specific about setting, and that should have been my first warning. I had to arrange a rather elaborate kidnapping given the setting – but that was OK, as I like the challenge.
Then things started to go all pear-shaped. I was going to take her to somewhere isolated to be held captive until the ransom demands were made. No, she wanted to be sold into white slavery. Ohhh-kay, I thought it was for ransom, but OK, I was willing to adapt midstream.
Every step of the way, whatever choice I made, it was wrong. Something extremely specific and not divinable beforehand had to be inserted as a correction pretty much with every line I sent her way. I was taking her in a van. No good. Must be a plane. OK, the van takes you to an airstrip. Then she had to be loaded into a crate. Etc, etc.
It was so specific that I felt I was just there to provide specific text for her amusement. It was ridiculous, and I just dropped it. Nevertheless, like bad RP #1, she kept coming back for more every time I showed online. That, by the way, was why I had severe suspicions about the sex of both these RPers – their relentless hitting on me any time I was online was an indicating sign of maleness. They were always on, they never gave it a rest – yep, they were guys.

Bad RP #3:
This was so loopy it was amusing after a while. I shouldn’t even call it a bad RP as we never got that far.
This one had me raising an eyebrow early. She volunteered she was 18, shy, and (this part was likely true) not a native English speaker – yet she had found my profile and asked me to RP with her. Right.
Anyway, she wanted to play a particular well-known character. Not a problem. Then she wanted me to play not just the villain but also the romantic male lead who also is captured alongside her. Again, in principal not a problem, but the way she seemed to stress this before we even got started was….odd.
I tried to start an RP – and I couldn’t get three words out before I was asked about back story. OK, we spent – I do not exaggerate – 3 sessions, about an hour each, working out a detailed back story. Every time I tried to pin a decision – any decision – on her, there were all sorts of complications. Finally we agreed. I tried to begin the RP again, and at the third line I got another query why the characters were behaving this way – wouldn’t it make more sense to do it another way? Another way completely different from what we had spent three hours working out? Forget it. I just started laughing at this end, glad that only three online hours of mine had been wasted on this bizarre set up.

Conclusions from Clinical Trials

So, what have we learned? Well, we have not learned that I attract psychos. Not at all. Some of my best online friends are ones that came to me, not vice versa.
I have learned, however, that if something strikes me as odd at the outset, that person usually turns into a nutjob. Also, one of the usual attributes of male fakers is – not so much annoying persistence, but monomania combined with fricken ubiquity. God, don’t you people have jobs? Hobbies? Trips to the convenience store?
There are exceptions – someone who was posing as a girl and turned out to be a man (and someone whose friendship I still esteem very highly) had mercifully none of the more obvious male giveaways in his female persona. He most definitely has a job, and most definitely is not online all the time, and – most importantly – does not treat me as if I were put on this earth for his amusement. He is a friend. He was not faking that part. These three others above – well, they were just fakes about more things – and more important things -- than their sex.

A peculiarity of mine

Right. Like the whole DiD thing didn't make me peculiar already. I came across this photo (on Deviant Art: http://dazzle-63.deviantart.com/) and it made me think why I found the damsel in this photo so appealing when the thought of actually going to a Hooter's "restaurant" fills me with acid reflux.

For those of you outside of the reach of US cultural imperialism, Hooter's is a restaurant and bar chain whose wait staff consist of nubile blondes attired like Dazzle in the photo. To give you an idea of the mental level of the clientele, I will point out that the decor includes yellow diamond shaped traffic warning signs such as "Danger - blonde thinking". Lotsa laffs. Oh yes -- the food, from someone who has actualy been to one, is crap. Not that that matters.

Anyway, I don't have anything against a girl making a few extra bucks by letting some neanderthal alternatively drool over/patronize her. Nor do I assume anything about the wait staff. All I will say is that I don't find the idea terribly enticing.

But there is somethign about the girl next door - someone who obviously is not working at Hooter's - who allows herself to get dressed up in a slightly silly outfit like this. Dazzle also happens to be quite pretty (IMHO) on her own, non-blonde-party-girl terms. Maybe it's the message that this isn't just work for her - that she is willing to dress like this as a departure from the everyday. Maybe she even likes it. That (to me) is quite a turn on.

I think that appeal can be extended. I am not sure I am terribly excited by real ballerinas in a ballet. But a girl with nice legs who would dress up lke that (and, ideally, fall into peril)? Magic.

That "off duty" willingness to engage in a little fantasy might be so appealing because it strips away part of my "character" facade as well. I love, for example, RPs with women playing superheroines. In the little world we create online, she is a superheroine and I am a villain. Thinking about a woman who is obviously not a superheroine makes it easier for me to imagine a real life peril for her. I'm not talking about stalking someone - believe me, I just don't think that way. I am suggesting that it makes it easier for me to imagine the fantasy of simulating the fantasy in real time, in the flesh. The photo above makes it easier for me to imagine her really tied up in front of me, enjoying the role but revealing her real feeligns toward the DiD fantasy.

Peril fantasy du jour

(The photo has only the vaguest conection to the peril below, but, hey, I like it...)

I had been thinking of how best to tie a girl to a chair (we villains have to think of these things you know) and I was about to write about arms behind versus arms in front, and how the least preferable way to tie her for me was to tie each wrist to a separate arm of a chair. (Too loose, plus half the fun is watching a damsel twist her wrists prettily...) Well, instantly I thought of an exception to that preference, and that led to a write up of the following little vignette. Hope you enjoy it.
The first thing Callista became aware of was the pounding inside her head.
The secret agent girl had confronted her prey – the global criminal mastermind known only as “The Engineer” – after having tracked him down to his hidden lair deep in forgotten, abandoned air raid shelters directly under the busiest streets of the city. She had him cornered….and then the billowing white fog surrounded her. Knockout gas, she realized too late. Agent Callista tried to evade the soporific fumes, but her knees buckled almost instantly, her head started to swim, her gun dropped out of her hand, and….
…and the second thing Callista became aware of was that she was seated in a chair – and tied up in it. Her wrists, still covered by her long black silk gloves, were tightly tied with white nylon straps to the wide arms of the massive stainless steel chair, and her ankles, sheathed in sleek black leather knee boots, were bound snugly to each other and to a rod that connected the two front legs of the chair. She twisted in her bonds, testing them for weaknesses, her skin tight black catsuit squeaking slightly as she wriggled and flexed her lithe, trained muscles. But to no avail: the straps dug into her wrists, and pinned her ankles, and as she struggled Callista noticed yet more straps lashing her to the chair about her waist.
She was not yet able to truly focus her eyes; the knockout gas was wearing off slowly. She was in some large room; a basement, windowless. “Typical villain hideout,” Callista muttered, determined to escape. She pulled at her restraints some more, the effort forcing little gasps from her as she strained her muscles with greater effort but no more effectiveness.
“Ah, our guest has awoken!”
Callista snapped her head angrily toward the voice. A tall ashen faced man in a white lab smock was approaching her. Several hideously sharo and curved metal implements poked out from the breast pocket of his smock. Callista recoiled momentarily, then tugged ferociously at her bonds and addressed her captor angrily.
“You’d better let me go if you know what’s good for you!”
The villain smiled as he came up to her. “Oh, I think you should develop some manners very soon if you know what’s good for you!”
Callista twisted helplessly in the white nylon straps, trying to pull out one wrist, then the other, grinding her catsuit-clad hips into the chair as she tussled with her bonds. “You don’t scare me, Mr Engineer!” she vowed
The villain laughed with diabolical amusement. “You know my name? Well, just my nom de guerre, of course. You are no closer to discovering my secrets than any other fool in your pathetic little counter-espionage agency. I, on the other hand, know all about you, Agent Callista Barnes…” The fiend pulled out a PDA, punched a button, and began to read. “Echelon 1 secret agent, ooh, well done, top rank! Hmmm, martial arts trained, black belt aikido and judo, infiltration expert – oops, that didn’t work out so well today hah hah….various commendations, letters of thanks from world leaders, yadda yadda, oh, here’s an interesting thing: always works alone – tsk tsk, I guess no one will be coming to rescue our pretty little spy girl today!”
Callista fumed and tossed her long blond hair over her shoulder with a shrug in order to focus her blue eyes straight at the smug villain before her. “If you kept reading, Mr Engineer, you’ll see I have never needed rescue – 100% mission completion rate.”
“That’s Dr Engineer, PhD to you my fetching little captive.”
“That’s redundant, douchebag –“
“Not when you have 2 PhD’s, crumpet.”
.”—and your language is starting to really annoy me!” Callista spat out in fury.
“Don’t split your infinitives, cupcake – as long as we Strunk & Whiting it.”
“OK, I’ll just split various parts of your anatomy when I get free of – uhnnn! these restraints.”
The Engineer let out a low, menacing chuckle. “Oh, but you won’t get free my dear. Go ahead, struggle all you want, you can’t escape. At least, not in time. You see, I know all about your secret agent bag of tricks, the little tools you have – or rather, had hah hah hah….”
Callista looked down at her pinned wrists and fussed pointlessly in her bonds, growling in frustration.
The villain giggled and drank in the sight of his prisoner, her entire body wriggling in futile efforts to free herself, from her blond flowing hair, down her high-collared catsuit all the way to her sleek high heeled boots. “How deliciously sexy you are when you struggle, Callista, all tied up and in my clutches!”
Callista let out a savage “oooh” of frustrastion as the straps defeated her again. She glared at the Engineer. “Well, what are you going to do with me? Bore me to death?”
“Oh no. I have gone to great lengths to set up an intricate demise for you.” The villain flicked a light switch and the entire darkened area before the captive spy girl was suddenly illuminated. Callista gasped as she saw a huge model train set all laid out in front of her, complete with little model landscape, buildings, streams, trees and hills. The tracks were set up like a crazy spaghetti pattern, criss-crossing and switching with bewildering frequency. The whole set up covered several square yards, and filled up a significant proportion of what was revealed as a huge underground warehouse-sized bunker.
“Aren’t you a little old for toys, Doctor?” Callista said mockingly.
“Look a little closer, dearie.”
Callista did as she was told. Soon enough she understood what the Engineer was talking about. Near her, across the tracks, lay a little figurine of a girl in an incongruous black catsuit, just like the one Callista wore. The figurine, the real spy girl could tell, was tied to the tracks with what appeared to be pipecleaner.
“You have one weird hobby,” she said.
The Engineer was unfazed. “That little figuring represents, you, my dear. The figurine is made of metal, and is attached to wires that go all the way the the city’s electrical mains – more voltage than third rail of the city subway lines. Now, I will place two train engines on the track….”
The villain stepped over and placed one train on one side of the display, then placed the other one on the other side of the track array. He continued his explanation. “If either of these trains runs over the little damsel-in-distress figurine of you, the circuit will be completed, run right up the steel chair to which you are so exquisitely tied, and incinerate you to a cinder.”
“You….you fiend!” was all Callista could say, to the Engineer’s great amusement.
“Oh, now, I’ll give you a sporting chance. You see how many switches there are on this track? Confusing, isn’t it?” The Engineer pushed another wall button. Callista gasped as two panels slid back on the top of her steel chair arms right under the palms of her hands. Up from the interior of the wide chair arms came two groups of small red buttons, each arranged in rows within reach of the spy girl’s fingers, despite the nylon strips restraining her wrists.
“How do I know which button controls which switch?” Callista asked.
“Hah hah hah, that’s the great part – you don’t!” the villain roared with laughter. “But I tell you what – hee hee hee…” the Engineer tried to contain his glee, “if you manage to make the two engines ram each other and derail, the mechanism is so that the springs holding your nylon straps in place will release. You’ll be free, if your pretty little head can figure it out in time.”
“No…don’t you dare!” Callista growled as the Engineer threw another switch. The model train display’s lights flickered, then shone true as the engines started to move slowly.
“The trains will pick up speed the longer this game goes on, Callista my pet, hah hah hah…”
“You…you bastard! You’ll – uhnnn! – you’ll never get away with this!” Callista said angrily as she began more furious tugging on the straps.
“OK, I think I’ve heard enough out of you!” the Engineer walked back toward his captive and pulled a thick silk handkerchief out of his pocket.
“No! Please don’t ga—mmmmpphhhfff!” The secret agent girl’s plea was truncated as her captor pushed the silk wad into her mouth, then swiftly took out another long handkerchief, wedged it between her teeth, and pulled the cleave gag tight, knotting it in the back and making sure her long blond hair flowed freely over her constricting gag.
Callista looked nervously at the villain, her blue eyes open with silent pleading, her bravery all but eroded by the hopelessness of her predicament.
“I’d pay attention to the melodrama unfolding before you, pretty Callista,” the Engineer said. “I think your prefect mission completion record is going to suffer a little blemish….”
“Mmppphhfff!” Callista could only release a muffled cry, then turned anxiously to the toy train display below. The track set up was crazy, toy tracks went this way and that, from the far wall of the huge underground lair practically to her bound, booted feet.
Callista started pushing buttons to see what would happen, but if it was easy to figure out which button activated which switch, it was far more difficult to determine the effect of a switch in all that crazy, loopy track layout. Did a switch put a train on the path toward the bound figurine before her? Or did it take her out of harm’s way? It was almost impossible to tell until the trains had run a few circuits – but Callista couldn’t let that happen. And watching two trains made the task even harder!
“Farewell, Miss Barnes.” The Engineer drank in the sight of his beautiful, bound captive, turned, and walked away, shutting the door behind him. Callista was now alone, facing her own electrocution!
She cringed as one train rounded a bend and suddenly seemed on course to run over the miniature version of her! But no – that was an optical illusion given by the parallel tiny tracks at such a distance.
Callista moaned into her gag as she flezed her wrists and tested out the buttons. She could soon identify what each did but – what was the use? The trains were now picking up speed, and Callista writhed instinctively against her bonds – all to no avail!
As one of the trains rounded a corner to her right, Callista realized it would pass on the tracks closest to her feet in a few seconds. A desperate plan came to her. If she could just….kick the train off the track!
She would have just one chance at this. “Come on, Callie, come on…” she found herself thinking as the toy train approached. It was fifteen feet away, then ten…. The tied-up spy girl prepared herself as the train came closest to her. Five feet away….two feet – now!
Callista kicked with all her might, pushing her bound ankles to the limit the straps would allow, hoping the pointy toes of her boots would connect with the train as it passed by. But the straps were too tight! She missed, and the train continued on its way.
Now the other train seemed to be heading for the figurine damsel in distress. Callista had neglected it as she focussed on her useless effort to derail the other train. She mewed with terror and started to push the small red buttons on the arm rests frantically as the train seemed on a collision course with the miniature spy girl in the display!
Was this the end for our sexy spy girl? How could Callista ever escape?