I was living in a black and white world, part 2....

… only 2 years after part 1.

Once again, and I don’t quite know why, I got it into my head to find a particular silent peril scene – one I recall seeing a still from in an out of print book on silent cliffhanger serials. The scene was of a very young, pre-“glass” period Harold Lloyd, in his Lonesome Luke character, trying to extricate a girl tied to a log heading for a buzzsaw. Well, searching Harold Lloyd and Lonesome Luke didn’t work, so I wracked my memory to think of the name of the actress playing the damsel, and I thought it was Bebe Daniels.

Well, I was sort of right, in that Bebe Daniels certainly did act opposite Lloyd in several Lonesome Luke shorts. But I am no closer to determining which short film the scene comes from , let alone a clip from it.

However, that led me to looking up Bebe Daniels. Oh my goodness – no wonder she was a star. Born in Texas to a US diplomat father and an Argentine mother, Bebe to me looked better than most of the other stars of the period – certainly her film persona came across as a lot less overt than, say, Clara Bow, but to me a lot more alluring. Like all of the enduring stars of the period, she has a presence that transcends the gulf of very different conventions of glamour of the silent period and today.  She looks uncannily like someone I know, in fact!

Willpower, seduction and wit

I believe it wise upfront in this entry to emphasize that I am only speaking for my own experiences up to this point.


I think the dividing line between truly submissive people and those who like to roleplay (physically) weak or easily intimidated characters is their attitude toward willpower.

A recent conversation made me think about this. Roleplay games with this particular friend have a wide range of outcomes, but she herself tends to play characters who are fairly easily captured and imperiled, so much so that one might come to the erroneous conclusion that she is a classic "submissive" personality. She does not think of herself that way, and I don't think she is either.

What struck me recently was her characterization of her pleading with me to let her go as a battle of wills with me, the villain. And, full disclosure, she has moved even a hardened chestnut of a fiendish cad like me to let her go in an RP or two.

Now, what I found fascinating was her choice of words for how she got me to release her: not persuasion, not seduction, but a battle of wills. And I thought: you know, she's absolutely right!

I think this aspect unifies pretty much every woman I RP with (admittedly a very small group). None of them are submissive (and this is not at all a knock on you if you consider yourself one -- I am merely relating my experience, not placing a judgment of any kind). All of them are engaged in some sort of contest, in very varied ways, with very different means, but all of them utterly, utterly feminine (sorry, having a Goethe moment here), whether demure or fiery, fearful or fighting.

Even in the two exceptions to a battle of wills that I can think of, there is still a fundamental power sharing: One such exception is someone with fantasies of being sold into white slavery and humiliated en route. I don't normally do that kind of RP but she has charmed me with her exuberant sense of humour and reassured me with her even-headedness to indulge her. Even in her case she resists her abductor and is defiant. And I crack up every time with her spontaneous wit (before I gag her) as gloating villain and captured damsel trade insults. Even in the case of a girl who jokingly will wait by the railroad tracks waiting to be pounced on, her sarcastic wit and offbeat but utterly original plot ideas drive at least 50% of the RP action (as well as keep me both riveted and amused.)

And I am sure that such willpower, however it is expressed (and it can take very sly forms), is what keeps me keen, whether the heroine is able or incapable of escaping. The heroine has to be able to "win" -- however defined. Not that she'll have an easy time of it. Odd that the power struggle really begins after the heroine is captured and placed in a trap, not before.

Elaborate captures

[Ed Note: This is an old blog entry re-run -- the exhbits mentioned are long gone, sadly...]

Before I start I should mention to anyone in the DC area that you should run, not walk, to the National Gallery, for it has currently not one but two stupendous special exhibits on – the first being a masterful collection of Rembrandt prints, including the only known intact plate of any of his prints. The other is a side-by-side exhibit of each of Constable’s “six-footers” and the oil sketches for each. I am not a great fan of Constable, but this left me far more impressed with him. I also, by the way, had a chance to make a special pilgrimage to one of my favourite paintings, Sargent’s Repose (Nonchaloir). She and I had a moment alone in Gallery 70…..OK, back to our show.


I like to emphasize all three words in the phrase “damsel in distress.” The distress part, that’s pretty obvious. Ingenuity in the peril is very important, of course. As for “damsel” – also pretty obvious. The star of the show. I have harped ad nauseum in this blog about how important the damsel herself is, how she makes or breaks the peril – not her technique at roleplay, as enjoyable as that can be at this end, but how much her essence inspires my “villainy.”

But that little word in the middle, “in” – for me that encapsulates all the details and embellishments that, for me, complete a peril scenario. It stands for all those elusive things called “mise en scene” in the movies, and more.

I threatened to write about elaborate captures recently, and the more I started to look things over (those RPs I can recall, or stories I have saved) I realized this was about more than just ingenuity. I am sure there are plenty of more ingenious villains out there, with more elaborate traps or more creative ways to bind or threaten a damsel. I certainly won’t try to claim first prize there, even if that were my style.

But I do work hard whenever I get the chance on atmosphere, and that I think means not just the technical aspects of a peril, although I do try to make a peril as gruesomely realistic as possible. No, atmosphere means unusual locations, weird and specific villains and henchmen, fashion for the damsel, historical period at times, time of day and light quality. The idea is to create a movie, or a painting if you will (literally, in one adventure).

In the course of setting the stage, I find that unusual bonds, positions, gags, and even perils come to me. I am guessing that this is not the way it usually works: I am under the impression that most villains think of the peril first, then build a scene around it, leading up to it.

Well, I sometimes do that, but more often, it’s the other way around. Usually, it works more like: “I saw a picture in a magazine the other day, mmm, I bet damsel X would like that place (or that dress, or that colour, whatever), hmmm, how could she fall into a trap in that setting/outfit/time period? OK, if she is caught doing Y, what is the most logical way to dispose of her?”

One direct and linear example of this was a quasi-challenge (publicly posted, so no prizes for guessing who) to come up with a suffragette peril. So I thought, hmmm, turn of the century, the Industrial Age, voting machines…..eureka! I “lured” her into the back of a newfangled voting machine where she, not a ballot, would be punctured to death. And I refrained from any hanging chad jokes!

Anyway, I thought I would list a few special captures, settings, and bonds and gags I have come up with. I will jot down more as they come to me, but here, delivered courtesy of my random access brain, is a sample. I am leaving out the tours-de-force (example, I set a peril in the reign of Byzantine Emperor Phocas just to see if I could do it. The peril was a grisly one, involving blinding by vinegar, that was about 80% historically accurate.)

Spun Sugar: I think I mentioned the confectionary peril in my “baroque” entry. Well, the damsel in question was bound by being held fast as several pastry chefs glopped molten spun sugar over her wrists and ankles until it cooled and hardened to the consistency of quartz. I think I gagged her with sugar, too. Well, she was literally as well as figuratively a sweetie…

Fun with Maxwell’s Laws: Superheroines are always fun to take down. I recall one, who had rather formidable electrical powers, including the ability to hurl lightning bolts, who was trapped by her very own powers: a special metallic floor to generate enough magnetic conductance to “glue” her feet to the floor. The overconfident superheroine tries to blast her way free, not realizing that there is a lightning rod in the room that attracts her bolts and completely drains her of her special powers. After that, subduing her was trivial. I think I planned to lower her into a vat of bubblegum (the villainess in this one was all pink.)

Don’t trust chippies: In a long and sexy scene, a magician’s assistant was trapped for a nasty interrogation by being cuffed inside a cabinet used for the “disappearing lady” trick. She manages to trigger the release, and falls through a trap door. She runs, only to be swiftly recaptured by carpenter minions of the magician villain, who menaces her with the old “lady sawn in half” trick, and then suspended, tied up over the water tank that I conveniently filled not with water, but with acid. The twist was her gag: since carpenters had caught her, I hit upon the idea of gagging her with a wooden dowel rod between her teeth, the rod being taped into place with two long strips of black electrical tape in the shape of an X over her lips.

It’s for a good cause: I think what took the cake was the elaborate ruse used to lure a heroine to a special charity ball. For this I had to invent a whole world, including the character’s fictional friends and adversaries, to attend the event with her. In fact, the way it was set up, she did not even know who the “bad guy” really was until well into the adventure.

These little synopses really pale for me compared to the actual adventures, but I want to keep the latter as gifts for the heroines they were written for (or participated in, in the case of RPs). But I think in this case, to give you some flavour, I will post the “invitation.” Before we even had started this RP, I sent her this:

The pleasure of your company
is requested for

cocktails and reception

for the benefit of

the Arkham Institute for Psychopathology

Tuesday, 29 November 2005 at 8 o’clock

Ravenscrag

West Point, NY

                     RSVP                                                      Black Tie

Anyway, the heroine got to pick out her own gown, and we spent a good long time (by her choice) just having her deal with “real life” before the “heroine adventure” itself started. She was completely thrown into a social setting way out of her depth, and had to sink or swim in it before we even got to her first diabolical trap.

This is something I seldom try until a get to know someone very well. Once a damsel knows that she is doomed to capture and peril, then I enjoy just playing with her, keeping her in suspense as to exactly how she will be blindsided, tricked, or ambushed.

In this case, she was invited to a special tour of the mansion. I used her own curiosity in her character’s professional field against her, then seduced her in the wine cellar, then wheedled her into trying out a new neurological device. Funny how those always involve reclining chairs with manacles on the arms. Once I had her in those, the arc of the evening changed a bit….

Well, as I come up with other recollections I will add them in.

A taste for the baroque

Anyone who has read my stories or RPed with me knows that I don’t have a lot of obsessive traits when it comes to particular elements of a peril theme. In other words, it’s not like a heroine must be attired a certain way, or must be tied up in a particular position, say any particular thing, etc. I have my preferences which are easily garnered (in case you care) in the public stories I have posted in the Yahoo Group called Peril Place. But the damsel always comes first: I am always willing to yield to her choices on these things.

That said, I do have a taste for the baroque in terms of the peril environment. That can mean either a wildly over-elaborate trap (my early corruption by Batman reruns and by Roadrunner cartoons, I guess). But it can also mean a very exotic locale that turns a clichéd peril into something special, at least for me.

So I thought I might, just for kicks, highlight a few perils that have especially tickled me for their excesses. This is not quite the same list as my all-time favourites, although there is overlap, because my all-time faves list is determined by other elements, including the heroine’s reaction (or participation, in the case of RPs), the overall quality of my writing, and, frankly, the heroine herself, regardless of the peril. This list takes out that last, critical, all-important consideration.

Ice floe peril: This is one I did for a story called “Union Busters” in the Peril Place group. In this story I had three damsels to imperil, so what better thing for a villain to do but out them in a situation where one would have to perish to save the others, or at least give them a little more time.

I had the three lovelies tied up and placed on a large flat disc of ice that in turn was placed in a warm swimming pool. A swarm of ravenous hammerhead sharks swam underneath, making it impossible for them to paddle their way to one of the sides of the pool without being munched on. Not that they could have done it tied up as they were. As the ice floe melted, it shrank, slowly reducing the area they had to sit upon until it could no longer bear three of them. Who would go into the water first? Second? Third?

Judgment machine: This was part of a wildly elaborate role play story that consistently wiped me out (in a good way). It helped that my partner really got into the story. She also really was affected (so she told me) by the name I gave this peril – especially since she was told the name before she actually got to see what it was. The weirdness of this particular villain was his belief that the world needed to be judged and purified in some sort of apocalyptic moment (I simplify the very intricate amd bizarre Gnostic cosmology of this villain). So this peril fit in with his general imperative of re-absorption into the Infinite.

The “judgment machine” was a huge steel balance scale, like what medieval apothecaries or goldsmiths would have used to weigh things. Heroine on one side, the other slowly filling with sand. As the sand weighed more heavily, the damsel side of the scales would rise, until the top of the scale touches an electrode hooked up to a large power generator. Zap! Fried damsel. She was of course quite tightly tied when she was seated on her side of the scale, but were she to get any silly ideas of jumping off her side of the scale, the entire machine was surrounded by a pool of hydrochloric acid. It sounds very odd and arbitrary out of context, but it fit with the general theme of the story.

Cake peril: In this peril, the damsel had been bound and gagged after being captured in an industrial kitchen serving a caterer. She was then placed in a large metal mould, immersed up to her neck in cake batter. The cake tray was set on a conveyor belt to take her slowly into an oven to bake her into the afterlife.

This was a rare time I really enjoyed the messiness of the peril – usually, I don’t like to mess up a damsel’s clothes, and I like to “see” them struggle. But this one was delicious both literally and figuratively. And I have a great weakness for cake. Red velvet especially -- made by a real Southerner only, please! Reasons supplied upon request.

Old Glory: In this one, the heroine was tied with threads that were sewn into a large tarpaulin stretched out on a metal frame. Above the frame, a huge, sharp contraption looking like the needle of an old sewing machine (only much much larger) was moving on gimbels and gears of criss-crossing beams above. The giant sewing needle was pre- programmed to sew the stars and stripes of the American flag (this might have worked even better with a Union Jack, but the heroine was American and Old Glory just worked better in terms of the whole set up in this case).

So our heroine was trapped, watching nervously as the deadly sharp sewing needle moved back and forth, getting closer as it stitched and stiched, relentlessly until it pierced her…. Oh yes, I also made the pre-programming random, so that the machine would sew some blue, then lift, then swoop down somewhere else and sew some red, so that the trapped heroine had no idea of when the lethal strike would come.

The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke: The actual peril in this was rather straightforward – our heroine was tied down and looking up at an executioner with an axe about to decapitate her. What made it a recent favourite of mine was the weird departure I took in the setting.

Long story short, the damsel in this story is being sucked into the world of various famous or notorious paintings. This peril took place inside a canvas called The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke, by Richard Dadd.

Dadd had a psychotic break, killed his parents, and then spent the rest of his days in an asylum where he continued to paint. One of his “insane” paintings was this flat but very busy – in a word, typically schizophrenic -- scene which I’d post if I weren’t worried I might get zapped for some ill-defined, unspecified, and retroactive TOS violation. You can google it easily enough. Tiny sprites in a variety of quaint clothes are cavorting under giant flowers, toadstools, grass, etc. A comparatively tall sprite with his back to the viewer is holding up a large two headed axe near a white mushroom.

So I had the damsel turned into a fairy with gossamer wings (how she got there was quite baroque as well, but I digress. Again). When she tried to fly away to escape I had the small boy fairies in the painting lasso her with bilboquet strings. She was then tied down to the mushroom cap as if on a table, and – I really enjoyed this little twist – I made the axe man the homicidal artist himself, Richard Dadd. He...well, he was not very talkative, let’s put it that way.

Sea Cave: In this episode of a long story, the heroine was a Nancy Drew type character who had been captured by smugglers and taken to a secret cove by some low New England cliffs. There, she had been tied up and gagged, with a heavy weight attached to her bound wrists. She was placed in a small rowboat that had been anchored inside the little cave. Now, the tide was coming in. The cave flooded at high tide, and the anchor line for the boat was set up deliberately too short, so that the boat would rise with the water for a while, then get stuck as the water rose up to match the length of the line. Then the water would slowly rise up the sides of the small rowboat, until seawater poured over the sies of the boat, sinking it. The dead weight the damsel was tied to meant that even the best swimmer in the world could not escape by hoping to swim to safety, weighed down and tied up. Oh, yes, and as the water rolled in, the cave got darker….

Death of a thousand cuts: I have done plenty of variations of this recipe. Ingredients: One (1) fetching damsel. One (1) long table. One (1) large pane of glass, suspended several feet above table. One (1) shotgun. One (1) kettle. Tape. String. Plenty of rope. Nice silk scarf from some place like Ferragamo or Hermes (if a girl has to die, she’s going to go in style).

Lure damsel into dank, leak-ridden warehouse. Ambush damsel. Tie damsel with rope. Tie her to table, face up to look at the glass, suspended above her. Tape shotgun to pillar so that barrel is aimed at centre of glass pane. Attach string to trigger with care, and lay other end of string over convenient horizontal beam. Tie remaining end of string to kettle handle, conveniently placing open kettle under drip of old warehouse roof. Explain to damsel that the leak will fill the kettle until it is heavy enough to pull the trigger of the shotgun, which will blast the glass pane into shards, which will fall and dice damsel into pieces. Cackle maniacally. Allow her her moment of panic, defiance, pleading, as she sees fit. Be sure to laugh at any vows, threats, or bluffs damsel may utter. Then gag damsel with silk scarf. If damsel struggles, invite her to “Go ahead, struggle all you want.” Remind damsel that trap is foolproof. Cackle again. If time and funds permit, set up close captioned TV so that you can watch from a convenient location, champagne glass in hand. Cheers!

Marionette: I have done a few variations on this theme, but it usually gets a good reaction from damsels, who like the involuntary nature of the movement involved. (Parenthetic note: it has really surprised me how common the theme of mind control is among the women I have talked to in a DiD context. Brainwashing scenarios, hypnosis, spiritual possession – these are more widespread than I would have thought. What follows goes a down a similar road.) Damsel is tied up like a puppet, with some sort of mechanism allowing the villain (or a machine) to force her to step or move as he (or it) wishes. Usually the damsel is forced to take steps toward her doom, like to the edge of a flaming pit, or some such.

In one memorable variation of this theme, our heroine was a ballerina who had been captured, knocked out, and tied up in one such marionette apparatus. She awakes in mid-jump, her body frozen in a mid-air dozens of feet above the stage and suspended in a grand jete by puppet strings. The villain manipulates her body into a sequence of ballet moves utterly impossible without strings attached before threatening to dash her to pieces on the hard stage waaaaay below her. (The actual peril was more particular and involved than this, but that part was really designed for one damsel in particular and I’d rather not share it, although I really thought it was a bit of inspired creativity on my part.)

Giant Kite: Not original, but still fun. I had a superheroine character captured and bound in crucifixion position to the wooden cross that formed the “backbone” of a giant kite. She was lifted waaaaay up into the air as menacing stratocumulus clouds announced an approaching electrical storm…. This was fun in that I had the kite swerving and turning giddly in the air thousands of feet up, really creating a wild ride for the beleaguered heroine.

Perhaps I should also write up some of my more exotic capture methods in an entry – I put as much effort into captures as perils sometimes, if the scenario warrants it.

Putzes

(Hey folks -- it's a genuine new post!)

In DiD-speak, a putz is a male “damsel in distress.” The term is pejorative, because it seems most heterosexual male DiD fans are very turned off by the sight of a bound and gagged man. Some even find a man captured alongside a woman to be a buzzkilling distraction. A classic example is Jimmy Olsen (played by Jack Larson) in the old 1950s Superman TV show. I assume he was usually captured alongside the luminous Noel Neill so that the censors didn’t think the writers were trying to sneak in something… . unhealthy. Another example is Payton Hass, who played an irrelevant co-hostage with the often-captured pre-robotic Jessica Alba in a refitted Flipper series from the high 1990s. I have no idea why he was there.

I should also add that there is a less pejorative terms, “dude in distress” which is presumably employed by those who like that sort of thing. I won’t go so far as to spoil anyone’s parade, so I’ll only speak for myself: I find calling them “dudes in distress” as silly as calling myself a male lesbian – I like girls, but I just happen to be a guy. That is a prejudice, I am not defending it -- I am just laying out my tastes.

I can’t say that having a male tied up with a girl ruins the effect for me in, say, a movie or TV show. However, it is a minor irritation, and in a TV show or movie where a male character is the one taken captive, rather than the girl, I do feel a disappointment. (Or rather, did – I hardly ever have time for TV any more, and the movies I watch seldom have peril or actions scenes like that in them.) I feel about the same as I do when a damsel in distress is treated badly – bruised or injured for the sake of some cockamamie ‘realism’ – what a shame, the actress could have been a pretty damsel. Of course I feel empathy for any physically abused character, but it loses all erotic appeal instantly.

But I thought to something that really does instinctively piss me off, and that is a gagged dude. (By the way, why does no one remember the origin of the term ‘dude’: a dude ranch was a place for dudes, people who are ranching neophytes. That’s right, whenever you call your bro ‘dude’ you’re insulting him as a ‘noob’ – but I digress) I was thinking in particular of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which I was dragged to see for some forgotten reason. In it, Orlando Bloom – Legolas – was the feckless lover of Keira Head-on-a-Stick Knightly, and the pirates gag him as she I think had to walk the plank. I was more than disappointed that KK – mantis in human disguise that she may be – was not bound and gagged. I was deeply annoyed. And it was not some sort of longstanding pining to see KK in bondage (although the costuming was great).

This revulsion makes me think that the gag is really, somehow, the essential part of a DiD’s captivity for me. Once the heroine can’t speak, she’s really helpless. Maybe because it assumes she’s already restrained and unable to pull the gag off – maybe a gag is a particularly potent synecdoche for her overall captivity. Maybe I have an oral fixation – but I really don’t think so. Maybe because I like bantering with a damsel, toying with her, and once she’s gagged there is no going back.

It’s odd, because I wouldn’t come to that conclusion from my DiD imagination itself. It’s not like a heroine always has to be gagged in her perils. I’m not a “gag snob” to use another term from the DiD-tionary. But a gag just seems to be off limits to men as far as I am concerned – I find it unwatchable. How very strange.

Oops

It has been pointed out to me (by a reader far more assiduous than I am a writer, apparently) that my last post attracted no comments, when it in fact garnered one. Sorry, Evil Tru -- I did not intend to snub you. The post was a repost from the old blog (where it in fact did not receive any comments)  -- and I just cut and paste with abandon. Really, between my lackadaisical attitude and my my time constraints, it's a miracle anything comes out intelligible at all.....
I do appreciate any and all comments! Thank you, Tru! And thank you, Miss Anonymous, for pointing it out!

Fictional villains I admire from a distance

Having bored you all (well, I got no comments so I assume it bored or confused you all) with the characters I draw on for my villainous persona, I'd rather turn the tables and talk a little about villains who most definitely are not me, but whom I nevertheless, for lack of a better term, admire. Well, find interesting. OK, tolerate.

1. Maximilian Largo (from the sort-of-last Sean Connery Bond film, Never Say Never Again). You just can't beat the smirking, joking, scene-chewing Klaus Maria Brandauer as Maximilian Largo. His yacht has a screen that keeps minute to minute tabs on his net worth (the number keeps racing upward like the National Debt billboard near Times Square). He has the cheesiest 1980s taste in videogames (he and James Bond play a ridiculous version of something that resembles Tail Gunner (the primitive arcade version) for those of you who have your advanced degrees in paleogaming). He likes nuclear weapons, a key megalomaniac obsession. But most of all he has excellent taste in villainess sidekicks (the mesmerizing Barbara Carrera as Fatima Blush, who reponds to Largo's plans to kill 007 with this line delivered with her unforgettable, hyper-enunciated alto: "Oh, Maxi-millllian. Youh sense of humah issss deeee-licious!")

He's not like me because his villainy is too easy, too Eurotrash, not nearly obsessive, warped, intellectual or driven enough. He wants to conquer the world because...because...pourquoi pas? Not me.

2. Dracula: Drac has lots of traits I like in a bad guy: weird charisma, immortality, thorough sense of history, and he's particular about his beverages. But there is something offputting about him. I can't really say I've roleplayed him to my satisfaction (and I have tried with generous partners, it still didn't work).

I know what the problem is: it's lack of empathy in the character. How can Drac really relate to his heroines? If you really are a different species, and you feed off damsels, how could you not treat them like cattle after a while? I really don't want to objectify my heroines, not matter how diabolical a peril I put them in. In fact, the mere act of planning a diabolical peril requires some basic respect, in a twisted way, for the damsel. It's almost out of character for Drac; he just wants to bite them. After a while, kinda repetitive. I think I'd rather be Van Helsing in this one (and not like in the movie).

3. Agent Smith (from the Matrix movies): Lots of good stuff about this guy. Smart, motivated, malicious, unpredictable. That great line in the first movie, "You are the disease and we are the cure!" -- well, anyone who has played as a heroine defending law and order against me as a villain in RP knows that I love riffing on that kind of sentiment.

But Smith is just implacable, there is a lot of intelligence but no soul there (well, he is a computer programme). It's not just the heroine who has to have a weak spot; the villain should have one too (preferably, if obviously, for the heroine herself).

4.  Liam Neeson's Ra's Al Ghul in Batman Begins: Well, first of all, I would want Liam Neeson to play me on film -- he's about my height (ie very tall), quiet, intense, with not an ounce of the fey about him. He's older than me but so what?  And he was married to Natasha Richardson, whom I admired, thought was very pretty, and have direct proof was a sweetheart (no I never met her personally).

Anyway, Neeson's "Ra's" is soulful, brooding, and warped beyond recovery. Hmm, maybe my villainous persona really is like that. I think though that the portrayal is of a character too ascetic to really be me. I have my need for purity (specifically, in freezing cold, on two fiberglass planks at 12 000 ft elevation, surrounded by rock and ice), and I have a deep appreciation for the aesthetics of, for example, Japanese calligraphy. But I don't make asceticism a goal for long unless I am in a really, really foul mood. And in RL I just find that (for me) that is running away from something, rather than reaching for something. For me Zen is a tool, not a state of being. YMMV.

5. Verbal Kint (from The Usual Suspects): I love the whole story of Keyser Soze, the way Kint plays the police for fools. I am just not that good a liar, and don't really want to be. Deceptive, yes. Manipulative, of course. But profuse lying like that? As a villainous character I'd rather distort the truth than completely reinvent it.

That doesn't mean I think the character of Verbal Kint is a level of evil to which I won't stoop (in character of course). Quite the opposite. For a brash lie may require more pyrotechnic skill than a subtle distortion of the truth, but the latter can endure, and can change the victim. Which weapon is more diabolical: a grenade, or a virus?

6. The Operative (from the movie Serendipity):skilled, principled, and utterly misguided. I like his style, his articulate nature, and his dedication to a deeply flawed cause. At the same time, the character is politically naive. And that is one thing I am not.

It has become a cliche that "no villain knows that he is evil." Well, that was a useful corrective to some of the stock Snidely Whiplash characters in the movies, but in a world not of black and white but grey, I think a villain who recognizes his own morally compromised nature is more dangerous, as he can empathize with both heroes and heroines, and find their vulnerabilities more easily. In short, the notion that "no villain considers himself evil" is turning into a crutch to make bad guys static characters. In any drama or literature, characters should go on a journey. If you take the cliche too strongly, that process does not happen.

And I suppose I should supplement this little excursus (having started with a Bond villain) with a comment about 007 as anti-hero. You'd think I, as a guy, would love to be James Bond: Bond gets all the girls, he gets to shoot whomever he pleases, and he looks like (oh, who is it now? who cares).

Well, I don't envy him, not really. Why not? Pretty simple. It's not the anomie of his existence that is so charmless. It's not even his fundamental misogyny (although I just can't relate to that either). It's that his tastes, his peccadilloes, are so...so...pedestrian! Shaken, not stirred? It doesn't make a goddam difference. Only a fanboy could give a monkey's. I do want the car, though -- well, only the Astin Martins -- the DB5, the DB7 or the V12 -- not the stupid Beemers….

Vulnerability

A repost from long ago that followed up a rather air-headed post on my favourite terms in English. Well, skip the bad and go staight to the, er, better...

Another favorite word is "vulnerable." I vastly prefer this term to "weak" as a general attribute of heroines because (I think) it emphasizes what makes a damsel so desirable without disparaging them. Of course, most women are physically weaker than men (certainly than me at 6' 3" and 200 lbs), and of course if I use tricks like choloroform on a damsel then she is going to feel quite weakened and confused.


But more generally, vulnerability rather than out and out weakness more comprehensively describes what makes a heroine so attractive. That vulnerability can stem from sheer lack of physical strength, or else innocence and meekness, or excessive curiosity, all the way to a headstrong spirit that gets our intrepid heroine in a situation she can't handle herself, to the classic weaknesses of superheroines (kryptonite or what have you.) - These vulnerabilities are not character flaws -- they actually make the heroine a better person usually, all the more reason for one to be very focussed on her in peril.

Also - and this may or may not make sense -- as villainous as I am, a damsel in distress, even in fantasy, brings out very protective instincts even in a "cad" like me. I can't help it and I suspect most men can't -- we are hard wired to respond to females in trouble. This is the reason why, ladies, if you are ever pulled over for speeding, crying works better than showing a little leg. The protective instinct transcends (but does not replace) the more direct desires a man feels when he sees an attractive woman. It's a very chaste sentiment, actually: "Dans le véritable amour, c'est l'âme qui envelope le corps." (In true love, it's the the soul that surrounds the body.)

Every damsel in peril moment is a hit of such "true love." Even as a villain I feel it. It creates huge tugs of war when I really have to decide if a damsel in my (online) clutches is really going to snuff it or not (which of course is always resolved the right way). Her utter helplessness can be a tremendous source of power to her.

In real life I am not the diabolical fiend at all. I can recall very vividly being on the London Tube (Piccadilly line actually) in a crowded train and some guy was giving a woman (apparently his ex-girlfriend, although it was not clear) a rough time -- verbally. He was just laying into her, "who do you think you are" etc etc - it seemed that her crime was to reject him or she was unfaithful to him. She just had her head down, ashamed, and wasn't even answering back to his abusive onslaught. At any rate, whatever her offense, she didn't deserve public humiliation I thought. Everyone else was pretending this wasn't happening.

Finally the bloke says "And you know what? You're not even that pretty." At that point I just had had enough of this bully. That just crossed a line for me -- not sure why. Maybe because she was in fact quite attractive, but I hope I am better than that. Anyway, I just said, loudly, "Uh, I think you're wrong there, mate." So the guy starts challenging me to a fight (bad idea as I was younger, bigger, and certainly meaner). I declined his offer, long story short.
But out of the corner of the woman's mouth, in a whisper to me, after I had defended her looks, came a soft "thank you." I never saw her again of course. But I was high on that thank you for a week.

Components of My Villainous Persona

At the risk of sounding incredibly vain, I'll mention a few of the characters whom I have used to "construct" my villainous persona. By that I mean creating those components of a villain in roleplay that are necessarily inventions because in real life I don't want to do horrible things to damsels. Another way of putting it is that the personalities below intersect with my own if I were actually living out my fantasy life. To some extent, they reveal the "hidden me" obscured by the tedious conventions of everyday life.

Some are real historical personages, some are famous characters from fiction. Some (not many) have traits I admire; more have flaws I guess I also possess.

I wanted to avoid the obvious cliches -- I mean, I know my nom de guerre is Sylvester Sneakly, but that's just because I want to trap Penelope Pitstop. I do not want the high-pitched voice of Paul Lynde. Nor should I have to: my real life voice is pretty low (not gravelly) and (I am told) mellifluous. I guess I give good phone lol.

Most of the names here are from English language literature and history. There are great differences in cultural attitudes to villainy. In most Anglo-Saxon melodrama, the villain is exceedingly smart and powerful, making him a very capable threat to hero and heroine alike. All you need to add is a sporty loucheness, and the heroine is really in dire distress! The French tradition often has the most genuinely terrifying villains being extremely stupid. Stupidity is dangerous because of its random destructiveness. It reveals much of French attitudes that evil intelligence is less feared than evil stupidity -- at least you can reason and negotiate with the former. I think the French really have a point here.

However, I am more in the English than French speaking world, though I grew up with both. I find playing evil intelligence a lot more fun than playing stupidity. So here are the 'villains' (or not) I channel while I have our heroine in my clutches:

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647-1680):

The notorious wit and rake of the English Restoration, an indiscriminate boozer, hustler, and fornicator with both men, women and probably other things. He died, horribly but inevitably, of the pox (syphilis) in his early 30s. Oops -- don't you hate when that happens? A movie about his life, The Libertine, starring Johnny Depp, was released a few years ago. It was savagely panned by the likes of Entertainment Weekly. To be sure, the technical aspects of the movie are terrible (editing, sound, etc) but all the performances are startling. I am a huge Johnny Depp fan and he gives Rochester all the wit, danger, and charisma of the real person. I think the real problem many people have with the film is that it truly depicts the spirit of the Restoration -- a period whose people would look on our times with derision, laugh at us and make us feel small.

Anyway, enough digression. Rochester was smart, very handsome, with a rapier wit and absolutely no compunction about using others to suit his ends. A true model villain for me. Great at parties. Decent poet. Rochester, appropriately enough, kidnapped his future wife when she was eighteen. Just bundled her into his carriage, and took her. She stayed with him to the end. In that respect at least, my kind of guy lol.

Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642):

The villain of the Three Musketeers; also, in history, the architect of the France we know today, who saved the country from the collapse caused by the Wars of Religion. His will was inflexible, his energy implacable.

Here is a synopsis from a new biography on Richelieu by Anthony Levi. "For a man who might justifiably lay claim to being the father of the French nation, Cardinal Richelieu , the first minister of King Louis XIII's council, was quite remarkably unpopular. His overtaxed countrymen, ever rebellious during his lifetime, lit bonfires to celebrate his death, and "it may well be true," according to his new biographer, "that it is impossible to name any historical personage in French public life who has provoked more hatred." [Richelieu was] a complex man of manipulative intelligence and inexhaustible nervous energy, capable of good humor and charm as well as violent mood swings."

Captain Nemo (20 000 Leagues Under the Sea):

Jules Verne's classic villain. A tortured soul, inscrutably bent on revenge against civiliation, Nemo is both cultured and estranged. I like drawing on him as an explanation of villainy - some tragedy in the past, some injustice, that has warped a clever mind into twisted evil and total paranoia.

Cary Grant (1904-1986):

The ultimate male movie star. How boring today's leading men are by comparison. He was suave, debonair, but there was a hard, impenetrable centre to him - probably the result of growing up Archie Leach, a poor boy with an insane single mother, eking out a hardscrabble existence on the London vaudeville stage before moving to New York with nothing more than the shirt on his back. He could, and did, play both hero and villain at a time when Hollywood did not often let you mix and match types as an actor.

Joker and Riddler (Batman comics and movies):

Both Batman villains intrigue me. I have found Joker a bit too brutal for heroines, Riddler a bit too fey, so I like drawing on both of them, each balancing the other's limitations, for camp value. Plus, I can do the Riddler's demented cackle just like Frank Gorshin did.

Edward III, King of England (1327-1377):

A vastly tall, blond Plantagenet, "with a face like a god" according to contemporaries, Edward III launched what has come down to us as the Hundred Years' War. I can recall the thumbnail sketch of him in Desmond Seward's very readable book on the war --- I am quoting purely from memory, so it won't be perfectly accurate:

"Edward III was one of England's most formidable kings. No one will ever know what drove him -- a father complex or simple megalomania -- but for over thirty years he ruled the country with a demonic energy. The cult of chivalry, so much admired in its day, has obscured the man beneath, yet a personality nevertheless emerges: extravagant in friendship, hardhearted and cruel in enmity, he was also a relentless womanizer who eventually ruined his health. He saw himself as the perfect hero-king, but for all this he was also practical and clear-headed: his motto was 'It is as it is.'"

Except for the womanizing part and the crown (and if my face is 'that of a god' it's not an A-lister deity) -- wow, that's pretty close to the real me.

To this day the upper (male) echelons of British royalty carry the title KG after their names, which stands for Knight of the Garter and originated as a military decoration in the Hundred Years' War of the 14th and 15th centuries. The Order started when Edward, making "outrageous advances" to the Countess of Salisbury, the beautiful nineteen year old daughter of one of his closest friends, removed her garter from her leg, put it on his arm, and dared anyone to say anything with the line "Honi soit qui mal y pense" (shame on him who thinks ill of this". The slogan -- and the garter! -- can be found on Royal Coat of Arms to this day.
Mr Darcy (Pride and Prejudice):

"Hardly a villain!" all Jane Austen fans will protest. Entirely the point. Cold, sneering, distant, Mr Darcy eventually wins Elizabeth Bennet, mostly through irritating her to the point of distraction. A lesson for all "nice guys" out there.

I especially liked the portrayal by Matthew MacFadyen in the recent movie based on the book. I seldom like Jane Austen's men -- the world they inhabit is too closed, too girly to appeal to me. I know I am not being fair to Jane Austen, whom I admire from a distance -- but she did set her novels in what she knew: the rather privileged (although fragile) and fairly useless world of late 18th century English gentry. There are only so many tea parties I can handle. Anyway, MacFadyen does a great job of being a man in this movie, not a little cardboard cut-out whose sole purpose it is to eventually fall in love with the deserving heroine.

And -- in case I am giving you the wrong impression by all the reprobates above -- no, I am not promiscuous, alcoholic, bisexual, paranoid, distant, or delusional. But it is fun to pretend.

A Canterbury Tale

Reposted from a long time ago....

A Canterbury Tale


I recently saw again a favourite film of mine, one I had not seen in ages: Michael Powell’s A Canterbury Tale, made in the UK in 1943. The opening sequence is a landmark: it shows a group of medieval pilgrims out of Chaucer, ends with a falconer releasing a hawk, which rises in the air, changing into a Spitfire which then comes down at the falconer, now wearing a helmet and an Army uniform. It was later stolen by Kubrick for the classic shot out of 2001, where the ape tosses up the bone and it comes down as a space station.

Now, this is in many ways a weird film: the central plot involves discovering “the glue man” who is dumping glue on the hair of women who dare stray out after dark, in order to deter them from dating those horrid Yank servicemen stationed all over Kent (where Powell was raised: he knows every inch of the Canterbury area, and it shows.) Never mind the bizarre silliness of the idea – Powell uses it, in my view, to tremendous, though highly idiosyncratic effect. For example, when the female lead (Sheila Sim, who would later become Lady Attenborough, is tremendously appealing as a doughty but vulnerable and damaged character) has her hair glued, there is a shot which closes with her head in a bucket, her hair being soaped and washed by five pairs of male hands. Weird.

Anyway, the reason for highlighting this is, as you might guess, the villain: Culpepper, played by the amazing Eric Portman. For subtlety, sympathy, attenuated charisma and threat – whose villainy is less and less obvious as the film goes on – you can’t do any better than Portman in this film.

I can’t say enough about how much I relate to this figure – not the vaguely creepy glue jobs, of course, but the twisted morals, the profound loneliness, the irony of being in a position of respect in his public life and reviled in his alter ego. Portman breathes into it a sadness so deep, an alienation so complete that you almost don’t see it at first.

It helps me (if I may flatter myself) that my speaking voice, altered for accent of course, is not that far away from Portman’s. His voice has the same smoothness as mine, although even his has a slight tang (not twang – I mean something acidic) to it that mine doesn’t.

If you want to see what my villainy is like – hell, you want to see what my real personality is like, watch the scene in this movie where Portman’s character is holding a lecture for the servicemen. It’s one of the most striking visual sequences in black and white film I have seen -- at times blatantly so, then turning to great subtlety in the blink of an eye.

If you do view it, I hope you can see the greatness behind the technical limitations of the time and the velly odd 1930s actor’s diction that comes out of Miss Sim (“Oh, end how dooo we dooo theyat, I wondah?”) I didn’t say she was sexy; I said she was extremely appealing. Oh, and please see the UK version, not the US version, with its moronic (though charming in its own obsolete way) bracketing story. Just like The Third Man – for Jah’s sake, see the UK version, for the US has a different opening voiceover that completely changes the tone of the film.

Adversity builds character

I've been inspired recently by a new correspondance to dig up some out-of-print blog entries from my Yahoo 360 days and re-post them. These are, oh, maybe 5 years old in some cases. They're so old, don't think of them as re-runs. They're encore presentations! Who knows how old this first one is. I am guessing 2007.

Adversity builds (villainous) character
Hollywood and fictionmongers in general often make a hash when called upon to make a back story for villains. The horrible Hannibal Lecter prequel is just the worst of a bad lot. The hash (in my view) made of the bildung of Darth Vader is another example of how not to do it.
Even the back story to such a “my kind of guy” villain as Magneto in the X-men movies (I have no idea how true it is to the comics) really let me down in its over-simplification. And really, the setting of the Magneto story is so resonant for me and the character (at least Sir Ian McKellen’s rendering of it) is so close to my personality in a lot of scary ways) that if you can’t sell me on that story hook line and sinker, you’ve messed something up badly.
It might make good drama to have a few key pivotal events force a moral choice on a villain, but the reality is, I think, more subtle. Villainy is not a trauma or a wound, it is an integral part of one’s personality, and it originates not in choices, but observations. Ever noticed that people lie? Ever noticed your so called betters are fools? Ever noticed things aren’t fair? Ever noticed more mischief occurs out of character weakness than strength? Well, how should I handle that? Villains have logical, if sociopathic answers.

I can give you some of the moments in my experience growing up that, looking back now, I believe contributed not just to my villainous persona online, but to my RL character, good or bad. I think this may show (again, probably to my detriment) the degree to which my villainous persona is not really an alter ego, but a distortion, or amplification, of what I am really like.

Camping with cretins

Like a lot of kids, I was sent to summer camp. It was a pretty good one, but I still hated it, except for the brief real camping part, where to earn your spurs they sent groups of 10 year olds with some pot-addled teenage councillor thug on 1-3 day canoe trips. Well, on the first and supposedly easiest such trip, we take compass readings about half way through the expedition and everyone’s compass reads a different direction. Not a little different, but a lot. North is everywhere. I am thinking lodestone, but the none-too-bright councillor “leading” us decided that, since his compass said north was that-a-way, that was indeed where north was.

I insisted that navigating by the sun in July for such a short distance with such clear markers as cliffs and swamps could hardly be inferior to just picking the tallest guy’s compass. I went unheeded; my fellow campers were either dolts, or obsequious, or both.. Sure enough, within an hour we were climbing down 500 ft cliffs – with no safety gear –- into horrid, mosquito-dominated marshes. I was lucky to get back alive, but mostly I was outraged that we missed Friday supper, which was usually the best meal of the week.

I won’t even bring up my bout of dysentery, and the recommendation (in July) – that I might stop drinking water as the local water must have caused it – save to say that my parents thought I was something out of a concentration camp when they saw me a fortnight later.

I realized during the hike that this was how the world worked – chain of command more important that the right answer, even at risk of life and limb. I have in general held authority in contempt ever since and have seldom been proven wrong.

Nearly killed by a dog and learning to like them

When I was about 11 or 12, I was walking late at night past a church when a large dog came racing across the lawn, barking and snarling at me. At the time I was a little frightened of large dogs. I backed up away from the animal, between two parked cars. I must have backed out too far into the street because I felt the swish of car brush against my backside as it sped past in the dark. One more step back and I would have been killed, in all likelihood.

Well, that peeved me. I looked at the dog, and all I wanted to do at that moment was to kick its butt, regardless of how much damage it could inflict on me. I was on a mission to teach the cur a lesson, I hoped a terminal one. The dog sensed my anger and as I moved toward it in a blind rage, it started to cower, finally turning tail and running.

I came to understand a lot about the use and exercise of power and violence in that episode. The lessons, I have found, are even more applicable to people than they are to animals, who seldom deserve to have their butts kicked.

I have no longstanding dread of dogs, as it happens. The funny thing is, this episode was a first step on the road to learning when and how to command, and if anything I am grateful that a dog, of all things, started me on that road. I actually started to like dogs, because I started to understand them – and no, I don’t mean as dispensers and recipients of violence, but their reactions and dare I say “thought processes.” I naturally understood cats a lot earlier, for cats’ solitary nature is closer to my own.

Although the second episode could be called traumatic, I would hardly say that the traumatic aspects of it were what made me “think like a villain.” Instead, the lesson that episode taught me in a roundabout way about socialization made it even easier to have the sort of engaged/detached mindset that separates what I would consider a villain from, say, just a bully, or just a hermit.

First post in a long time, I know. I have been busy, but really I just haven't had anything new to say, and others (Babygothgirl, for example) are doing a far better job posting videos and photos than I ever could.

But I just want to acknowledge that, for the first time in a very long time, someone responded to the blog wanting to RP -- this someone comes across as intelligent, sane, and courteous. So, I guess the blog is not useless after all...