#a great example of this is “it's not me it's my central nervous system” by samuel roy-bois

[fyterx]

i love room-wide art expositions. i love it when you can go inside of an art piece and walk around in it and view it from different angles. i love art expositions in general. i love art in general. fuck

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for failing to spread misery and depression?

Hello and good day to all! I am a humble traveler, spreading good cheer and smiles to all who will listen!

For example, a week ago I walked up to a young girl who looked rather sullen. So I told her, "I just saw a baby chick choke on a worm. They both died! Isn't that great? "

The Mayor (Probably was going to die in the next decade!M) told me to leave the town for good and never speak to any of the townsfolk again. I'm not sure why. I even tried to cheer him up to convince him otherwise! (Did you know puppy dogs sometimes eat their own tails?) But he just kicked me off into the middle distance.

I wandered the forest for some time, befriending critters and feasting on crickets. (They have no central nervous system, so they don't feel it when I pick off their legs! Isn't that great?)

One evening, while I relaxed by the lake, I received a message from the townsfolk: Ever since I left, nobody could stop laughing, and they couldn't get anything done! They wanted me to come say something "miserable and depressing" so they could get back to their lives.

Now, something miserable and depressing? I was really rackin' my brain for that one! But I looked down, and I saw a weird snake. With no better ideas, I spent an entire day sewing a snake costume.

I strode into town, declaring myself "Weird Snake Joe". I wasn't really sure what I was doing, but I had hoped maybe it'd be miserable and depressing… but… gee, I think they just all laughed even harder, and they all died.

It made me feel real sad. I always just wanted to spread happiness and joy, so I didn't know the first thing about how to help the townsfolk! I think I just made everything worse! AITA?

[adiawu]

Reflective Blog Post - Toward Dickinson Goals

--- Adia Wu

--- A senior student at Dickinson College

When I first got to Dickinson College, I was a bit worried about if this was the right place for me. The school campus is located in a small town, Carlisle, which is in the central of Pennsylvania, also with its small student population, I was nervous about making social connections and finding opportunities for my future developments as I was unsure about the resources and opportunities that the college could provide. The slower pace of life here was also another fact that I felt not used to at first, consider someone coming from a more urban background. As the result, in the first few months, I focused on getting involved in various clubs and curriculums, trying to explore more experiences here. When I started to discover the courses and curriculums here, I found that Dickinson actually offer a wide range of activities and courses, which allowed me to not only expand my social circle but also develop new skills and interests toward my education. I then gradually became more comfortable in my new surroundings and learned to appreciate the unique benefits of studying at a smaller institution like Dickinson College.

I actually gained lots of benefits during my four years at Dickinson, I discovered that the college's size and setting were actually great for my personal growth and academic success, a slower life pace in a smaller town might sounds boring at first, however, it was really helpful for me to calm down and focus on my study. The close-knit community also allowed me to form strong relationships with faculty members, who have provided me with valuable guidance and supports in both my education studies and personal life. For example, when it was hard for me to return to the U.S. from China in 2020 due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, Dickinson provided me with an opportunity to continue my studies at a great local university in China, Shanghai Donghua University. This unique experience helped me learn about the Chinese educational system and expand my cultural understanding, which is what I hadn't been exposed to during my seven years of studying in the U.S. I also made connections with the local Chinese students and faculties, creating a global network of friends and professional contacts. This international perspective, combined with the interdisciplinary education at Dickinson, prepared me to lead a fulfilling life as an engaged global citizen, which is right in line with the Dickinson mission.

After I become a computer science major student at Dickinson, I found that the courses I took offered a comprehensive and well-rounded education. The CS curriculums here at Dickinson not only provided me with a strong theoretical foundation in computer science principles but also equipped me with practical skills that translated well into the professional real world. For example, my foundation in computer programming was significantly strengthened by taking CS 130 and CS 132 during my first year at Dickinson. CS 130 provided me with fundamental knowledge of Python, a versatile and widely-used programming language, while CS 132 introduced me to Java, another popular language known for its versatility and object-oriented principles. These courses played a crucial role in securing an internship for me in the summer of 2020, where my main responsibility during this internship was to help develop a machine learning models using Python which was related to Transformer Object Detection API. The knowledge I gained from CS 130 and CS 132 enabled me to hit the ground running in my internship, providing a solid foundation for working with programming languages and understanding the underlying principles of machine learning.

Another example can be CS 190 and CS 290 course that I took from Dickinson, which focused on the fundamentals of open source projects and version control systems, and delved into webpage development, covering topics such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and responsive design. These courses proved to be invaluable during my summer 2022 internship at a blockchain company, where my primary responsibility was to help develop a webpage application designed to enable customers to switch between cryptocurrencies with lower service fees. I collaborated with a team of developers to implement back-end functionalities, optimize the user experience, and ensure the security of transactions. I secured this internship opportunity by demonstrating my understanding of webpage development and knowledge of open-source projects during the interview (since mostly all the works are done through GitLab, which is similar to the open-source experiences that I had in these two courses using GitHub). The hands-on experience I acquired in CS 190 and CS 290 not only prepared me for real-world challenges but also gave me the confidence to excel in my internship and contribute effectively to the project's success.

Moreover, I took on a capstone project for my senior seminar focusing on open-source software in machine learning. I worked on a tech-spike project in which a deep-learning model was developed to estimate the infection rate of the COVID-19 virus using training data such as CT-scanned lung images; this project enhanced my knowledge and mastery of Pytorch considerably. I am also contributing to an open-source project called Hugging’s Transformers (https://github.com/AdiaWu/transformers), a collection of deep-learning libraries that are applied in modeling speech, text, and image applications. I believe that my education at Dickinson has prepared me well for a successful career in computer science and has empowered me to contribute meaningfully to the ever-evolving world of technology.

As no doubt, I also realized that there was still much for me to learn during the actual job and the actual working with the project, but the foundation I had built through my coursework at Dickinson allowed me to quickly adapt and contribute effectively to the team and projects. What I gained through my learning at Dickinson ensured that I was capable of applying the programming techniques and best practices I had learned in class to real-world challenges, while also expanding my understanding of machine learning algorithms and prepared me well for any other works challenges that I may encounter in the future.

As I embarked on the next phase of my academic journey, which is to pursue a graduate degree, the support and guidance I received from the faculty at Dickinson again proved to be invaluable. The professor provided a lot helps to assist me during the application process, ensuring my success in transitioning to graduate-level studies. They provided timely submission of recommendation letters, which highlighted my strengths and accomplishments as a student and as an individual, emphasizing my readiness for the challenges of a graduate program. The Dickinson faculties also offered valuable guidance on which schools and programs would be the best fit for my academic interests and career goals, helping me make informed decisions as I navigated the complex application process. Their insight and experience in the field of computer science allowed me to identify the graduate programs that would not only align with my objectives but also provide the most enriching learning experiences and opportunities for growth.

All in all, Dickinson College has not only provided me with a strong skills in computer science field but also prepared me well for the challenges and opportunities for pursuing graduate degrees. The faculty's unwavering support and guidance throughout my academic journey have been instrumental in shaping my success and ensuring a smooth transition to the next stage of my education and career. One long-term professional objective of mine after study is to take the knowledge and computational literacy I gained from Dickinson and contribute to open-source software development, specifically in the areas of database system, information systems, and machine learning. I believe that open-source development has the power to inspire passion and encourage the pursuit of life-long learning, regardless of background and prior experience. While I aspire to become a better data professional myself, I also hope to inspire others through my work just as others have inspired me.

[fruityyamenrunner]

i think my intuition that blood cells are self is quite typical in that when people are cut they think "i'm bleeding!" and not "my pets are escaping!". i think if they have an autoimmune disease, they think "my body is turning against itself", not "i am actaeon, pursued by my own hounds".

i also think people are genepilled enough to believe in "my dna" and to think that if a cell has "my dna" then it is "me" -- and white blood cells certainly have this. i don't think people generally are aware of somatic recombination in B and T cells and to the extent they are, I don't think they think it results in non-self cells. certainly people seem to think gametes are self, and sperm are a much less central example of "me" cells.

i don't think white blood cells are particularly self-minded. once you account for the fact they exist loosely coupled in the tissue of the blood -- and that blood is a tissue and not empty space like in a a bad immunology cartoon -- rather than tightly connected in the intracellular matrix, white blood cells don't seem particularly independent. heart cells pulse all by themselves, all kinds of cells respond to hormones. all kinds of cells are presenting surface proteins and doing signalling. if white blood cells are spooky and independent, then i defy you to show me a cell that isn't spooky and independent.

the strongest example of a wilful bodily action i can think of is motor control of a limb, but even there muscle cells are largely doing their own thing -- contractile strength is built up in a muscle according to the degree that the motor units (i.e. a motor neuron and its fibres) are recruited into the action. And anyone who has done any kind of weightlifting knows that motor unit recruitment is not done by consciously asking each and every motor unit to please fire now. Instead, somehow it works out that when you begin a new training routine, your central nervous system takes a few weeks to adapt and learn to recruit the motor units better for the routine, resulting in the pleasing miracle of fast gains that happen all by themselves.

your heart beats by itself, and although it is certainly willing to take input from various sources, it very much beats by itself, and it beats by itself because the individual heart cells beat by themselves, and the individual heart cells beat synchronously not because of any decision you make, but because some of the heart cells in the sino-atrial node have taken it upon themselves to coordinate things. conscious control over these cells is a difficult thing to learn and people take drugs to help them.

i don't think they're very free either. they go where the blood goes, and where the blood goes is defined by the vascular infrastructure built at great expense and powered by the organ of organs, the heart. i think in this connection you're thinking especially of macrophages, but even then they operate pretty physiologically - they're created - mostly from more boring white blood cells - and destroyed in similar ways to other cells and their functions are clearly adapted to fit the context they find themselves in - it just so happens they sometimes range a little wider than most cells.

and of course they have "my dna". unlike tumours, macrophages aren't trying to reproduce at the expense of the tissue they find themselves in. like any other cell line, their growth is very regulated.

there are two other places where you also find cells doing amoeboid migration, and they are in metastases and embryos. while a metastatic neoplasm is more clearly parasitic and not-me, this is one of the ways in which metastases are neotenous -- amoeboid motion in embryology is important in, for example, the embryogenesis of nervous tissue and probably other places too.

but ignoring all this, and sticking with the mind's obviously unphysiologically based notion of "self", sure, you can freak yourself out and believe white blood cells aren't you. you can freak yourself out and think anything is you, or everything is you, or nothing is you. it doesn't mean anything. people don't normally do this to white blood cells, i think.

i think, choosing the word very carefully, it is sophomoric to do this.

I think white blood cells are fascinating because they're "part of your body", but they're not actually attached to you. And they're not in any way directly controlled by your brain. They live freely in your blood stream and move around totally autonomously. So they're really a lot like an independent organism that just lives inside your body.

[jarofstyles]

Fan Club IV

A/N: This part 👀 I can’t lie, it’s very hot and smutty. Y’all did ask for filth though so, be warned. It’s the catalyst to essentially the rest of the story. This of course, as all our stories are, is all fiction, so, sit back and enjoy! ✨✨✨ - n + d

send feedback and requests here

masterlist

pairing: Harry Styles x Reader

warnings: smut, filth!, exhibitionism, DIRTY talk, degradation!kink, messy 👀, angst

word count: 16k

When Jeff texted Y/N about an event that she was meant to attend with Harry at the club she got slightly nervous. One, because she knew there would be loads of paps, two because it was a club night with Harry, three because drunk Y/N was something else. 

The outfit was already selected, Y/N had picked out something she knew would wow both Harry and everyone else at the club. She figured since most girls Harry had on his arm were beautiful in the model way, Y/N would show off what it meant to be beautiful in another way. The dress showed off every single curve she had, accented her waist and brought attention to her assets with grace. It was a light pink silky dress and it fit like a glove. Y/N has spent the night before and day of preparing. Showering,  moisturizing, doing her hair and makeup to make sure it was absolutely perfect. She sprayed herself with her perfume and checked herself out in the mirror one more time. She looked impeccable if she did say so herself. 

Harry hadn’t been sure about what the night would bring. Things with Y/N had been alright. Sometimes he would be a little cold but it was mainly after she would turn him on, and he had to kill the mood ASAP. Because if he didn’t? He may do something he regretted. 

Tonight she was going to go home with him. Jeff had chartered a car for them, so he had gotten driven to pick up Y/N as well, they’d never had a sleepover before. He wasn’t sure what that would bring either. How far his self control could stretch. Harry liked to think he could be good with it. But with the possibility of Y/N now knowing his weakness, his lowered inhibitions, and close quarters would be so difficult for him. He felt a little nervous pulling up to her place, popping a piece of gum in his mouth. Jeff had said they needed to be a bit more obvious about their relationship now, and Harry needed a few drinks in him to really let go. To her it would be acting. To him? It was living out a fantasy with an excuse afterwards. However when Y/N had crawled into the car, his throat went dry. No. No fucking way— he was gong. To die. The silk of the dress clinging to every inch of her, her lips glossy and a deeper color. He was going into overdrive in his mind.

“Hiya!” Y/N giggled as she hopped into the car. She knew. Of course she knew the outfit she was wearing was going to push the envelope, it would make Harry act a certain way and inevitably help her find out how he actually felt about her. Y/N wanted to know for a fact if she was making up the sexual tension between them because Harry really was just flirty. Fucking libra placements. Jeff had instructed the two of them to drink tonight, let loose and just have fun. That worried Y/N a tad bit because well, when she was drunk she had no filter. For the sake of the club night and people watching them it would be great, for them alone tonight? She wasn’t so sure. From what she knew about drunk Harry? Well, he’d be all over her too. But drunk Harry really just clung on to anyone around him. 

During the week Harry and Y/N had seen each other a few times in the morning at the bakery, did their usual routine and well, Harry truly would have eaten his body weight in lemon bars by the end of it all. More fans were coming into the bakery, expecting to see him. They were actually surprisingly really nice to Y/N and gave her compliments and told her that she was doing a great job. Y/N was told not to confirm or deny to make things seem more natural, but still let them know that it was in fact true.

Harry had to reconnect his brain to his mouth because half of him was dying at the moment. The bottom half. His brain was fuzz. How did a girl look this good? How? And of course. It was the one person he shouldn’t be having at all. But his body gave not a single fuck, and his heart too, apparently. 

“Hi...” He said after clearing his throat. “You look.... uh, good.” Fit. Sexy. The dress clinging to the curves that had his mouth watering and the fact he knew they’d be dancing tonight and she would feel if he was hard which... he couldn’t kid himself and say there wasn’t a high possibility. It was scary. There was more than just sexual frustration too, for example, how Harry did actually like her, but he was too afraid to get hurt. How he wanted to hold her hand and always, always wanted to be touching her all the damn time. He knew after a few drinks he could be needy, clingy. Would Y/N be okay with it? Their mornings at the bakery had resulted in some cheek kisses and hugs longer than needed but, he hadn’t been very touching before.

“thanks babe.” Y/N smiled, “you look nice as usual.” She added as she buckled up. They talked more often now, things were less awkward during car rides and frankly she had a feeling Harry was only quiet because he was overwhelmed by how she looked. The drive was a short one, seeing as they were relatively close to central by car. It would be quick to get to the club they were meant to be at and Y/N knew that the second they stepped out of this car they’d be all over each other. 

As they arrived, paparazzi stood waiting for them, having expected this event. Jeff has planned tonight to be the official announcement of their relationship. They had been photographed for four months now and well, people were eating it up.

“Alright.. I know that the paparazzi are a lot sometimes so just don’t let go of my hand and I’ll make sure you’re good. Yeah?”’ The memories of her panic attack made him so sad. So worried. Harry didn’t want that to happen again but if it did, at least now he knew how to deal with them. Half of him was giddy with excitement though. Getting to be touchy with her, getting to hold her close and be coupley? He was very much wanting that. Either it would help him get it out of his system or it would fuck him over. Either way, he would be touching her. 

Harry got out first, holding her hand as he helped her down. He was feeling extra protective but this time they stood back. Still shouting things but he squeezed her slender hand in his and helped her towards the door. It really was show time. 

Y/N appreciated how worried Harry was, nodding at him as he spoke and giving his hand a squeeze. Stepping out of the car, she was thankful that this time the paps actually had barriers they couldn’t cross. It took a lot of the anxiety away and well, she just stayed close to Harry and walked inside feeling like she really had accomplished something. The person working the door took her jacket, exposing her and all her beauty to everyone at the event. The silk of her dress made sure she felt the warmth of Harry’s touch even more so than usual, a smile spreading across her face as she looked up at him. 

Harry wrapped an arm around her waist, “we’ll go find Jeff first, okay? If you get uncomfortable just let me know. I know we’re gonna be a bit much but I don’t want to overstep boundaries.” It was whispered to her.

Y/N’s face softened, noticing his worry yet again. “It’s fine, really. I don’t mind.” Y/N spoke softly back to him, “I trust you.” She really did. Harry was always extremely respectful and she knew that he was asking because he wanted to make sure. Despite them being together for, what? four months now, and the fact that this was a normal occurrence, she was happy to know he respected her the way he did.

Harry felt relief when she said she trusted him because honestly, her opinion did mean a lot to him. Even if he didn’t want to let himself accept it— she was important to him already. He wanted her to feel safe with him, always. 

“That’s good.” He smiled down at her. Y/N looked so good and he was going to have a good time playing it up tonight. Especially because he was going to be able to drink and say whatever because it was ‘acting’ to Y/N and she didn’t know he meant probably everything she was going to hear. He escorted her to the bar, settling behind her as he wrapped one arm around her waist and the other rested on her tummy. She has this little tummy that Harry found incredibly enticing. He wasn’t sure why but he loved it. Always wanted to touch and kiss on it when he thought more and more of it. 

“What do you want to drink, baby?” Harry spoke against her ear as the music was. A little loud. But his lips were close to her ear, making it feel a little more intimate.

Baby. God he really was starting off strong. Y/N couldn’t say she didn’t feel a little insecure as he put his hand on her tummy, always being cautious of it whenever she was wearing tight clothes. She knew it was actually normal and most girls had one, but something about being Harry Styles’ girlfriend made her feel like she shouldn’t have one. At least that’s what the media made her feel like. 

“Vodka cranberry, make it a double” She told him, giving him a little smirk. “I can handle alcohol.” Y/N teased, pressing a kiss to his cheek just because she wanted to. She couldn’t resist. Plus, she was playing it up for all the workers too. Her kiss left a mark on Harry’s cheek and Y/N giggled a bit, “it looks cute, but here...” she said and gently wiped it off his cheek so that it wouldn’t be viable in the photos they were most likely set to take. It was an event after all. She wasn’t sure what it was for but Jeff would let them know as soon as they found him.

Ordering the drinks, Harry took her hand and laced it with his, pulling her back against him and swayed them a little bit. She obviously was caught off guard but the giggle was confirmation that she was okay with it, him humming the song in her ear while the bartender made their drinks. 

“My girl can handle the drinks? I’d like to see that.” He teased. “Probably can drink me under that table, yeah? And sound well sexy doing it.” Oop. Admission of her voice being ‘sexy’ when she spoke it was accidental but he wasn’t going to take it back. It was. But now she had far more ammo against him. Y/N was obviously planning on doing just that, her evil little smirk up at him making him pout. “Oi, don’t tease me with it.” Harry whined. “I’m being nice tonight. Don’t be mean to me.” Irony, a little, but mostly because he didn’t want to be hard yet.

If only Harry knew how long Y/N had been waiting to hear him say things like that to her. If she hadn’t thought about it a thousand times before she’d definitely been thinking about it a thousand times more. Her heart was swelling, feeling extremely giddy just doing all these things with Harry. They were just talking and swaying. Tonight was going to be a long night. 

“Sexy hmm?” Y/N smirked, “are you being nice tonight?” She asked knowing full well that was false. Harry loved teasing, he teased his fans like crazy so surely he’d tease her even more. “You play nice and I’ll play nice. Is that a deal?” God, she wanted him to destroy her. That look in his eyes, she could already feel the tingles. When their drinks were ready Y/N said a small thank you to the bartender, taking her drink in her hand and looking at Harry with his. “Cheers, to playing nice.” She smiled at him, knowing that it was officially game on from here on out.

It was then Harry knew that they both were in for it, because he was going to give in to his wants of touching her and she was seemingly all for it which was equally as dangerous. Getting to be this way was going to make it so he would push past things he probably shouldn’t. He toasted with her, taking his drink and sipping all the while watching her over the glass. Y/N was a minx. A little flirty minx who was going to make him lose his mind. They had to go find Jeff, so he took her hand again and spun her so she was facing the right direction. 

“Let’s go find the boss.” 

They walked closely, Harry's arm back around Y/N’s waist as he held her to his body. She felt good pressed up against him. He loved it, if he was being honest. Wanted to feel her front pressed up against him so he could feel her tits. He needed a good feel by the end of the night. Needed it.

Y/N liked this. She liked this a lot. She swayed her hips a bit more now, wanting Harry to feel what they were capable of. It was like she had this new power in her that she didn’t have before, all because of Harry. The whole acting thing was definitely helping as well, she could just play this character and exaggerated version of herself and get away with it. Harry seemed to be loving it a little bit too much for his own liking, she could sense it. 

Jeff and Glenne were stood over in the vip section, chatting with a few other celebrity guests. Y/N forgot that that was also a thing. In her mind Harry wasn’t a celebrity, he had never been. He was just her idol that was hard to reach, the concept of him being a celebrity himself always weirder her out. Like whenever other people mentioned him she always forgot that they knew who he was. All eyes were on them. Literally everyone. Y/N kept herself calm and confident, acting as if she wasn’t phased by it at all though she was internally freaking out. 

“Hi!” Y/N smiled as she gave Jeff and Glenne a hug, “you guys look great!” The gang was together again.

“About time you showed up!” Jeff punched Harry lightly in the arm. He could sense something was changing. Harry held on a bit tighter to her, and wasn’t consciously doing it. 

“Oi, watch it. We just got some drinks. You know, little thing has Russian blood. Isn’t that right, Kiska?” Harry had googled a pet name’s in Russian and she was definitely a kitten, kiska, if you will. Coy and sly and utterly adorable, a little clumsy all in one. Pure and evil all the same. He could tell the Russian name caught her off guard. Oh, he was going to pay for that. She returned to his arms, and he decided to sit her on the bar stool and stand between her legs. For right now, this was good. He’d have a hand on her and look intimate while they talked.

Y/N looked at him with a shocked expression, raising her brow and giving him a look which said he would pay for that. He went home and looked it up, just to play with her emotions? Of course he did. The bastard. She took another sip of her drink and rolled her eyes, “Mister, just had to be fashionably late.” She told Jeff from her seat on the bar stool. 

She was still quite tall in these shoes, probably the same height she would be if she was standing up. Harry felt more comfortable like this, clearly liking having power over her. They would see about that. “Хотел меня удивить?” Y/N spoke, setting her hand on his chest before picking up his cross necklace. “I said, you wanted to surprise me?”  She smirked, looking him in the eyes. Two could play this game. The night just started and they were already pushing each other to the limit. They barely had any drinks in them but boy were they touchy feely. As a new couple should be. Y/N was positive that people were more shocked at the fact that Harry was showing any type of affection publicly. It was something he simply didn’t do.

It really wasn’t. Harry was the type to keep it private. But he liked being open and free with her. Even if it wasn’t ‘real’ as some would say— it sure as hell felt like it. He was thoroughly enjoying every bit, and it was translating well to people watching. He was positive that people were going to take photos, but he didn’t care. That was the point. Her leg catching over the back of his though, rubbing the back of his calf with her foot? She was giving it right back to him. And then the speaking in Russian, the one thing that really got him. 

“Da, Kiska.” Yes, Kitten. Harry grinned, liking her way of playing back with him. The drink in his hand was gone, so he called for another one. He was going to drink and use that as an excuse even though he was sober at the moment. Yep.

Y/N was pulling all the stops, assuming that nothing would actually come of it but she couldn’t have been more wrong. The leg move was something she figured would give her the upper hand, clearly showing everyone that he was her territory. Maybe they were doing too much? But she didn’t really care, she only cared about what he thought. 

“Осторожно.” Careful. She warned, knowing there was no translation needed. The tone and the word itself implied being careful, especially because he was playing with fire and he knew it. Y/N too had finished her drink, knowing Harry was about to go and get more. “Go, I’ll wait with Jeff.” She told him, wanting nothing more than to peck his lips in that moment but she couldn’t. 

The look Jeff had on his face said it all, a laugh coming from him. He and Glenne were in the same position she and Harry were just in, but they were a bit less.... horny. Y/N blushed, shaking her head a little because she knew they were coming off strong but she wasn’t acting. She never was acting with him.

Harry grumbled as she sent him off to get drinks. He was having fun with her. They worked very well with their chemistry and he felt utterly enamored with her. After a few drinks it was going to get worse. Would he basically dry fuck her against the bar? Perhaps. He felt like he could right now if given the go ahead. He got her a double shot and made his the same as well, going back to the table. They were all laughing about something and she hadn’t paid him much attention, taking the glass and spreading her legs a bit again so he could stand there. Honestly! A good response for when he came over. 

“I got you the same.” He spoke to her, voice a bit darker. “There are some people with their cells out taking photos too. I figured you knew though.” She was so good, learning to catch on quite easily. They could both feel cameras on them. Surely they’d make a pretty penny selling them or something. But after he finished that drink, he felt a slight buzz kick in. That made him more comfortable, holding on her waist and listening to her conversation. Wanting some of the attention back.

Y/N decided she’d play the game a bit more, making him work a bit to get the attention that she had been so good at giving him. Now that she knew her strengths she would play on them, forcing Harry to push harder than he was. She wanted to know what he wanted from her. The cool feeling of the glass between her legs and Harry’s looming figure sent a shock straight to her crotch, the slightly annoyed look in his eye making her smile smugly. 

“Thank you, ziya.” She cooed, knowing if he had searched for Russian pet names he would have found ‘bunny’ too. “Are saying you want to give them a show then?” Y/N teased as she wrapped her lips around the straw of his drink and took a sip. It wasn’t meant to be as sexual as it ended up being, she kept eye contact but cut it short because they really were being a bit too wild. 

The headlines would say, ‘Harry’s horny?’

Harry absolutely wanted to give them a show. Only the show he was thinking of was pulling her panties to the side and sliding into her cunt, taking her hard up against the bar. And he didn’t think that was quite what Jeff had meant by giving more affection. 

“Come.” He stood them up and brought them over to a plush couch without saying anything to Jeff. He knew Harry wanted Y/N alone right now, and he didn’t need to ask. Plus, it would help if they were seen all on their own together. Only he sat with her next to him, quite close. His arm wrapped around her and he basically curled around her form, the hand holding his drink putting it down after he downed it again. Ignoring the burning in his throat, he took his cool hands and brushed them against her neck. The touch seemed to affect her, a sharp breath coming from her. “You’re playing games.” He mumbled, using his fingers to tuck the hair from her neck. “Naughty.”

“And you aren’t?” Y/N asked boldly, finding his eyes as they snapped up to look at her. If there was such a thing as eye fucking they were definitely doing it in that moment. They couldn’t be sat here for too long, no, they definitely needed to go dance or mingle or do something that wasn't in each other's space like this. But it was so hot. He was so close to her, his touch, his words. It was all proving to be too much. The Harry she had always imagined was coming out, fulfilling a lot of her fantasies that he didn’t even know she had. This was something she sat thinking about in her bedroom, sitting there rubbing her clit to the idea of Harry being a tease in public.

“Didn’t say I wasn’t, baby.” Harry shrugged. He was definitely playing and teasing. He needed to get her to it for a second so he had an excuse to get close enough to leave a mark. It was closer than he had gotten pulling her closer in the chair. Her neck was so deliciously bare. And he was feeling possessive right now with the way or her men saw her. She was beautiful and a little naive towards the way other men had been ogling her tonight. “Was gonna suggest ...a mark.” He proposed. “Righhhhht here.” He ran his finger over the exposed flesh that would show his mark if she let him. “I think you’d like that.” He was pretty sure the easiest way to do it would be on the dance floor. “Can let people see you’ve been marked. Just gotta get up and go dance for a little bit. It’ll feel nice.” He was driving her absolutely mad and he knew it too. The way he spoke to her and the way he was touching her, it felt far more intimate than anything else she’d ever felt. This couldn’t be fake, she wouldn’t believe what he said if he tried to deny it. It wasn’t the alcohol either. 

“I think I’d like that too..” Y/N responded, feeling her voice go a little quite towards the end. It would feel nice, having his lips on her neck and marking her as his. The way he was asking for permission though she had already given him free reign to do whatever he wanted. It was all a bit much. “Come on.” She said, getting up and downing her drink before taking his hand and guiding him towards the dance floor. The dance floor was quite busy, now a good few hours into the event. They had arrived a bit late anyway so the party was in full swing. Y/N was quite a good dancer and she knew that. 

Harry wasn’t a bad dancer. Not necessarily skilled though, so he had a feeling Y/N would be doing the talking if they had to truly dance. At the moment though, it seemed as everyone was doing their own things, which felt good. He stayed towards the edge of the dance floor though, taking her hand and pulling her into him. His hand was on her waist and she looked up at him with those eyes he’d been dreaming of and he felt like a crazy person for not having had her already. She was the ideal person to have sex with, he thinks. The perfect mix of dirty and innocent and he hadn’t even found out how bad she could be. He had a feeling he would be finding out rather soon. 

“Come.” He pulled her to be pressed against his body, one hand on her and the other holding her own. “You’re going to kill me, sweetness.” He muttered quietly. “Swear to god. You’ve been so naughty. And you know it.”

Y/N squeaked a bit as he pulled her against him, relaxing into his touch after a few seconds. It still made her dizzy. The whole being a fan thing didn’t help, it really didn’t help. She was already into him and now he was just playing it up and she felt like she would pass out. She moved her hips to the beat, grinding on him without hesitation. What? If they were dancing, they were dancing like everyone else was. 

“I’ve only been as naughty as you.” She said as a matter of factly, “but you like that, don’t you?” The alcohol started to work in her system convincing her to just say what was on her mind. Four shots of vodka all hitting her system at once definitely did the trick. There was nothing more she wanted to do than kiss him. She just wanted to sit him down and make out with him. Straddle his hips, grab his hair and just kiss him. They’d been ‘dating’ for four months and no one had seen them publicly kiss yet, but Y/N decided she’d make it her mission for him to kiss her tonight. If not now then never.

“I can’t say I mind.” Harry breathed. God, Y/N was grinding on him. She knew how to move and she was going to get him all worked up. Whatever photos anyone took would potentially be very sexually charged because his hand did drop lower, holding her hip a bit tighter. Her grinding slowed a bit and he wanted to groan. Y/N looked very happy. Very pleased to be making him feel like this. There was no way that she’d give up now. It seemed to be her goal to push his buttons. “I’m just trying to figure out just how naughty you are.” He had his face closer, mouth approaching her ear. “Because I can tell what you’re doing. And I’ll let you know, it’ll work. You’ll get what you want from me. You’re pushing me just hard enough.”

Everything about their interaction screamed sexual tension. The rubber band would snap soon and Y/N wasn’t sure how she felt about it yet. She felt high on the feeling, knowing that all she needed was a little push and she’d cave. Self control was important right now because as much as they were enjoying this moment, they were technically working. 

“Mmm keep trying then.” She whispered in his ear, lips brushing against his lobe ever so slightly. Y/N wanted to move lower and kiss at his neck, but she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from doing more. Harry seemed to be on board and that was something that she would run with. “What do you think I’m doing?” Y/N asked, genuinely pushing every button that she could just for the sake of it. Maybe he’d actually do something. It was his image after all, if there was anything he wanted to do or didn’t want to do, she wanted to make sure that it was his decision. She didn’t want to over step.

“To get me to break.” Harry muttered. This time, he pressed a kiss under her ear. Here it goes. He knew that there was no going back now. Now when Y/N was rubbing up on him and he had her where he wanted her. “You want me to touch. And you’re getting that.” Harry gave another kiss a spot lower. “And I’m going to give you a mark on your neck. People are going to see it, yeah? See photos of me making it. And you know it’ll feel really good.” His mouth was rubbing against her skin with every word, getting lower so he could find the spot. “Trying to push me. Being a naughty girl and getting me to do things I shouldn’t.” Like, fucking her raw and senseless. Harry was coming in short when it came to thread holding his resistance. Y/N may know that now. However he had found the spot he wanted to mark— so he began to kiss on it, nipping at the skin. She absolutely melted into him, the sweet little gasp making his cock twitch in interest.

Y/N closed her eyes the second his teeth touched her neck. It was going to be hard to dance as if this had happened before, as if this wasn’t the first time they were interacting in a sexual way. People knew Harry was a horny bastard, talking about how his new album was about sex and being sad. They’d assume he already fucked her. She wishes that was true. 

“But it’s not my fault, is it?” Y/N nearly moaned, “you want it as badly as I do.” She added, feeling her breath hitch as he began to kiss and nip at the sensitive part of her neck. “Trust me, you haven’t seen me act naughty.” Y/N confirmed, a gasp following her statement. Y/N couldn’t take this. He was doing things to her that she never thought were possible, endorphins flooding her body and making her feel like she was floating. She had melted into him completely, still dancing with him because she couldn’t just not move. “Fuck that feels good..” She whispered in his ear, a small moan escaping just for him to hear.

Harry’s arm held her tighter, keeping her up in a good position as he continued his assault on her perfect neck. “What if I want to see that?” He asked. His fatal mistake because he knew far too well that Y/N would show him. She would do as he asked and kill him. That was the scary thing and he wanted it. He didn’t give her time to answer though, beginning to suck on her neck. It was light at first, but continued on. Getting a bit harder. The music covered it, but he heard a whimper come from her as he sucked over the sensitive skin and scraped over it lightly with his teeth. It felt too quick. He had given her one and didn’t want to make it truly hurt, so he moved to right under her ear and began to nip at it. “Mm. Maybe two. I think that’s a better idea.” He confirmed with her, feeling her nod hurriedly. His hands had her hips and pulled her up against him, and he knew that Y/N was feeling just as good about it as he was. “Shh, baby. Gonna make them think I have my hand under your dress.”

He gave Y/N the answer she had been waiting for. He had wanted to see her naughty side, wanted to see her unravel completely for him and show him just how bratty she could be. Y/N was sure he wanted it, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to do that here. Not when everyone was watching. He knew that as well. Y/N really has been deprived of touch and affection, simple love bites were practically making her fly off the rocker. Maybe it was because Harry was the one giving them to her, but she really needed him to stop or she would lose it. 

“If you don’t stop i’ll have to take you up on that offer.” Y/N told him, a whimper still present in her voice. She moved a hand up to his hair, tugging at it hard enough to get him to pull off her neck. “You have to stop, I’ll lose it..” She told him genuinely. It was a bit embarrassing to say, but she’d rather not make a fool of herself in public from a few hickeys.

Ha. Harry had won this round. Driving her crazy. The way she had said it though... saying she had wanted his hand under her dress... he was tempted. 

“M’sorry, Kiska.” He promised, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t sorry at all. He was thriving off of this energy and was dying to at least get his mouth on her. “If I could get away with my hand under your dress.. it would be there.” He could tell she wanted it too. The whimper of disappointment she let out. God, he wanted to destroy her. “What would you have done if I kept going?” They continue to dance, Harry's lips a bit damp with his own spit from kissing over and sucking on her neck. Their dancing had an even rhythm now, but he wanted to know what she thinks would have happened if he had continued on. Y/N was flushed and the marks were beginning to get darker. “What about it makes you crazy? Did you like the little bit of pain? How it’s a little tender? I want to know what you’re thinking.” He lifted a hand and ran his thumb over one of the marks and smirked when she jolted but her eyes were darker.

Y/N knew she had lost but she didn’t care, she really couldn’t take it. Her body was practically shaking with desire, never having been so turned on in her life. Y/N felt her like her body was on fire. Sure, their dancing was sexually charged and the neck kissing was as well, but to an outsider that’s all it was. They didn’t know what was actually happening. 

“I—I wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret.” Y/N told him, “it’d be too obvious, we’d have to leave.” That was true. Her knees would have buckled and she would have forced him to take them home. It wasn’t acting, they both knew that now. Would they speak on it again? No. “The pain.” She told him hesitantly, “I like the pain and the thrill of people watching.” There it was, the first little insight on how naughty she really was. He had asked to know after all. “It’s been a while— it’s a lot.” Y/N added wanting him to know that she really had been deprived of all the good things. “I think we need another drink.”

Harry was living for it. He truly was. Y/N was flustered and he was hot and bothered and now had 2 different marks on her neck. This was exactly the situation he originally had been trying to avoid but now was actively pursuing. 

“Two double shots.” When they’d got to the bar again, he had his hands on her. It was like he couldn’t let go. Standing behind her, he nuzzled his face into the side of her neck and kissed both of the marks before smirking and hiding again. He was being a tease and going to drive Y/N mad and he knew it but in all honesty, it was fun. Like a game. “Just don’t speak Russian. Cause then I’ll be forced to do things that aren’t very public appropriate and there’s tons of cameras everywhere.” 

Hopefully the drink would cool Y/N down, her head was spinning and Harry wasn’t helping one bit. Her breath hitched a little as he pressed kisses to the marks. “Dick.” She muttered, lifting her hand up to play with his hair. She scratched his scalp a little bit as he hid into her neck, humming softly to herself. “Maybe I should and not let you touch me.” Y/N teased, “Maybe you’ll play nice then.” Of course she wasn’t going to let that happen. She loved his touch far too much though she also loved the idea of teasing him and getting her revenge. She was still shook up from their little stunt earlier and wasn’t sure if she could handle anymore teasing. Especially if they went home and didn’t do anything. “Cause you can’t keep working me up like this and not fuck me sore.” Y/N whispered in his ear, being completely serious. If he kept this up and they went home and he did nothing she’d be extremely moody and pissy.

Harry was a little surprised with her crassness. Truly, he hadn’t expected her to come out and say it. That she wanted to be fucked hard. But god, he could do it. He could very well run in to her and just bend her over any surface and take her. Their chemistry was off the charts and he had a feeling other people could see it. He knew too well that it was wrong of him. But his body didn’t care. 

“Is that what you want?” He questioned, eyes blown with lust. She was giving him such a time. “Wow.. you seem so innocent, but you’re here talking about being fucked sore. Have you ever been properly fucked, Kiska?” His voice dropped to a growl, moving them closer to the bar. To any onlooker, it just looked like he was hiding his face against her but he was really giving his little fake lover a run for her money. “Been pounded away until you can’t breathe? Because you seem so sweet. But I can see now that you’re a dirty little girl and you’re a tease. Isn’t quite fair to me.” He scolded, his hand slipping to her thigh for a moment before he rested his chin on her shoulder and sent a charming smile to the bartender.

Y/N bit her lip, wanting so desperately to moan at how dirty and rough his voice sounded. “Yes, it’s what I want...” She told him honestly, deciding if she was going to spill any night it could be tonight where she could pretend she was more drunk than she was. She wasn’t anywhere near drunk right now though. The second he asked if she’d ever been properly fucked is when she lost it, knowing she needed him desperately and needed him now. But they had to be here until Jeff told them they could leave. “I haven’t, I’ve been so deprived.” She whimpered into his ear, “could you help me, daddy?” It was a stab in the dark seeing if he liked being called daddy, but she had seen a video of him on tour saying ‘yes daddy I will’ which proved to her that he may in fact enjoy being called daddy. But who really knew? She was about to find out.

Oh god. Oh god damn it. Harry was going to die. He was sure of it. She had tapped into one of his kinks that he was sure probably wasn’t a secret but... fuck. Y/N had sounded so pretty with her whimpers and then asking him to help her? That she hadn’t been fucked right? 

“Fuck.” Harry groaned against her skin. “I want to. Shit, baby. You’re dirty, I love it.” He pressed himself against her ass and let her feel his cock that was getting harder at her teasing. And the little minx pressed back against it. He couldn’t touch her here, but he could tease and talk to her with his cock against her ass and work her up. He pulled her closer and swayed them slightly, giving himself a bit of friction. “You wore this to tease me.” Harry's voice was deep, a little raspy. “Wore it to drive me crazy and you knew it would.”

Ha. Y/N won this round. Noticing how he was slowly starting to crack, slowly giving into her teasing and her pleading. The feeling of his semi hard cock rubbing against her was also a confirmation that she was doing something right, smirking to herself as she pushed back against him a little bit. 

“Of course I did.” She hummed, “thought it's about time I gave you no option but to give in. Those tops I wear didn’t quite do the trick, but this....” Y/N was very confident now that she knew it was working, needy, but confident. She just knew how to play up on the whiney neediness and the sexy neediness at the right times. Harry was lapping it up too. They both knew they’d go to his and have mind blowing sex, four months of pent up frustration sex. It was just a matter of when they would do so. Jeff really was the one who was going to give the go ahead and well, Harry was most likely going to keep teasing the both of them.

“Calculated little thing. Know how to get your way, hm.” Y/N was proving to be a force to be reckoned with. And Harry couldn’t even be upset over it because he was bringing this upon himself. He truly was. This woman was giving him a run for his damn money. “You said you liked the thrill of people watching, baby?” He asked. “S’it getting you off? All these people around and you’ve got my cock up against this gorgeous ass? And getting all wet inside those panties?” He knew she had to be soaked. “You’re probably so wet. A little bit sticky too, hm? Gonna start getting on your thighs. Wouldn’t be surprised now if you liked that. Liked getting all worked up and having no one know what I’m telling you.”

Y/N rubbed back against him anytime she felt like she wanted to moan, gripping at his arm that was around her waist. God she could kill him but she wasn’t going to let him get the best of her, she could control herself for a little while longer. If it was promising enough. 

“You have no idea.” She simply responded, knowing it answered all of the above. Yes, it did thrill her, it did get her off, it was getting her wet inside her panties and he had no idea just how much. If he really wanted to, he could have a feel, she was sure if he peeled off her underwear there would even be a trail of wetness that pulled with it like a strand of spit. Yes, she was that fucking wet. “You better fuck me real good tonight, daddy... Я с ума сойду у..” She whispered in his ear, adding the ‘or I’ll lose my mind’ in Russian just for added effect. That should do the trick.

“Fuck..” Harry pressed her up against the bar. it was crowded enough that he could sneak a hand between her thighs, and as soon as he got under the dress he could feel the soaked and sticky panties. “My fucking god... you’re really soaked through.” He hissed, kissing her cheek a few times and smiled down at her. Harry pressed his fingers harder against her and his arm around her waist tightened, her knees weakening in his hold. Finding her clit, he pressed and rubbed a few times, sighing in pleasure when her hips bucked a little bit. Luckily there were people behind them talking, and no one was paying attention. His head was hidden and it was hard to tell who ended and who began. “Soaked little princess. Poor pussy... needs some attention.” He purred, nuzzling his nose against her cheek. “I shouldn’t be touching you at all, Kiska. Not at all. But you’ve been teasing me, and talking to me in that sexy little voice, you’re killing me.”

Y/N swore she stopped breathing, heart skipped a beat. Harry Styles was touching her fucking pussy. How on earth did she end up here? Y/N almost lost it, nearly moaned out loud with the poor bartender standing right there. Y/N sipped on her drink, using it to stifle the moans and whimpers that were threatening to escape. Her knees buckled, losing balance as his fingers started working on her clit through her panties. She sighed in pleasure, playing it off as if she was just sighing but really she was dying. “Please...” She begged, biting down on her lip, “you’re killing me.” If he was going to keep doing this she would full on cum in public and she wasn’t exactly ready for that. She wasn’t sure if she could hide that, holy fuck it was already overwhelming. She wished they were alone. “Funny.... you touched my clit before kissing me.”

“Mm. I know that once I start m’not gonna stop.” And that was the truth. The man knew that he would get one taste of her cherry mouth? He would want to sip on it for a while. And plus... it was less obvious. But he took his fingers away, bringing them to his mouth and sucking the slick arousal off. It was sweet. Beautiful. The best he had ever tasted— and Harry did like to eat pussy, so that was saying a lot. 

“What’s stopping you? It will feel good.” Y/N repeated his words from earlier in the night, hoping he’d listen. She thought she’d pass out just then, a shiver ran down her spine at the sight of him sucking her wetness of his fingers. The man really wanted to end her didn’t he? The look of pure enjoyment on his face, it should be illegal. 

“So good. But... turn.” He instructed, cupping the side of her face with the clean hand. “You’re being very good now. So..” Harry murmured, leaning down and connecting their lips. And he swore, he completely lost his mind. It was like that instant connection just made sense. Being like this with her, the kiss, it had him feeling. Truly. He was incredibly shocked but he continued the kiss. It wasn’t too dirty— it was relatively soft considering he was just rubbing her cunt moments ago. But it was delicious.

Good god. Y/N’d never felt this before. A true surge of electricity bolted through her, the kiss passionate but not too off putting. It was just a kiss two people that really liked each other would share. Y/N knew people were taking photos, it was as if she could feel people’s eyes on them. The gasps from around them also sort of helped. She just let one of her hands wrap around his wrist while the other gripped onto the lapel of his jacket. She could get lost doing this all day. Y/N hoped they would get to do this freely from now on, she wasn’t sure she could ever go without kissing him again.

Harry couldn’t care less about the people taking photos. His hands held her soft little face and their lips pulled apart only for him to go back— this time for tiny little pecks to make her giggle. It was cute. He wanted her to feel that way when he kissed her. 

Y/N did giggle at the pecks that he left on her lips, scrunching her nose a little bit because she just couldn’t believe that she was in fact kissing Harry Styles. This was truly a dream come true, unfortunately she’d sound like a nutter if she told him that. 

“S’good.” Harry said when he pulled apart for real, placing one last kiss to her forehead. “Want to leave, Kiska?” Harry wanted to get her alone. Get her in his damn lap. The moment the car pulled away from the club he would have his hand back up her dress. He was positive Y/N knew the same. He needed to get inside of her. Have this one night. Maybe it would get his need for her out of his system. Sure— he didn’t think so, but he was hoping so that his heart wouldn’t be in danger. He didn’t realize his heart was already right in the palm of her hand and she had the power to crush it into powder.

“Can we?” Y/N asked softly, eyes wide and soft. Ready to submit and she knew that he knew. Y/N wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him for a moment before finishing her drink and walking with him towards where Jeff was to bid him and Glenne a good night. They probably would get scolded on a normal night, but they had made quite the show. They did more than enough, too enamored with each other to even think to speak to anyone else. Jeff knew that they were both very much into each other and laughed because they were both in denial. Y/N less so.

“Gonna have a lot of cameras outside. Just be a good girl for me, yeah? Gotta behave until we pull away.” Harry spoke to her as he helped her with her jacket, moving her hair out of the way. It was dumb to be so proud of a mark on her neck, but he had been aware of how guys looked at her. Aware that she wasn’t. And then people would know, they’d be so aware that Y/N was his pretty girl. Confirm that relationship. Opening the door, he had a tight grip on her waist as he led her out of the club. The questions were yelled out but he focused on getting her to the car. It took a minute, but he opened the back of the door and picked her up with her up by the waist once again. She moved over, and Harry got in behind her. 

“My place, please.” He called to the driver before shutting the partition. Once it was closed, and they began to drive away? Harry turned right back to her. “You... make me lose control.” He growled, pulling her into his lap. Her hips were bigger and there was that tiny little belly that he liked, but his hands gravitated towards her ass. Gripping it tightly with one hand, the other came up to her throat. Her gasp had him twitching in his pants. Y/N seemed to love it.

Y/N squeaked as he pulled her into his lap, her dress riding up significantly. She set her hands on his shoulders to stabilize herself, moving them down to his chest once she felt comfortable. The hand on her throat though, that was the best surprise of the night. 

“Mmm.” She whimpered, looking down at him with a smile. Y/N was a kinky bitch. No man had ever really understood that. She was never able to play up her sexuality in bed, never able to truly let loose and do whatever she wanted because the guys never knew how to properly dominate her. But Harry knew, she knew he would. “That’s a good thing.” She teased, “need to loosen up, rockstar.” 

Harry was happy. She was taking to it easily, and that only added to his arousal. Y/N was what he wanted in bed. Seemingly submissive but a little bit of a brat. So far she had been lippy but he loved it. 

“Do I?” He murmured. “I can think of a few ways to help me relax.” His mouth moves forward to her chest, kissing the swells of her tits. “These... these fucking tits.” It was a hiss, licking over between them before he switched to the other side. “You know how much I love them.” He needed to have a good taste. It was necessary. “And you’ve got them up on display, wanting for me to touch them, hm?” He questioned. “Do you know how many times I’ve been thinking about them covered in cum? Hm?”

“You like them, don’t you daddy?” Y/N cooed, watching as he went to kiss at her soft pillowy breasts. “Had them out just for you...” She added because she really did. No one else mattered right now. But, he’d.... thought about her tits? His cum on her tits? Multiple times? She must be dreaming. Sure, she’s been masturbating to the thought of him since she was 13, but to think he was jerking off to the thought of her? It made her moan out loud. “It’d look so pretty.”

“You... are absolutely sinful.” Harry’s mouth closed in near her covered nipple, and looked up at her. “Mmm. Had them out for me? What a great, sweet girl.” Harry's head was going into overdrive because he wanted to be touching any inch he could of her. Wanted to touch and lick her body over and over again and drive his cock in deep. “Said that you’ve never been fucked properly before... s’so sad, baby. Isn’t it? Need to have a good cock inside of you. Do you like it rough?” He questioned, looking up at her honey eyes. “Like it hard? Or do you want it soft?” He wanted to make it good for both of them, so he asked the question even though he was fairly certain of the answer.

“Only for you...” She told him, knowing she had never been this sinful in her life. Only in her mind in the fantasies that he lived in. Y/N let out a moan, nodding her head at his question. “N—no never...” She answered honestly, thinking about how she liked it. She liked it rough but liked it soft as well, figuring that whatever it was Harry decided to do she’d love it because it was Harry and his glorious cock that she felt bulking up against her crotch. 

Y/N loved how vocal he was, how he talked to her through every little action. It’s almost as if he wanted her to fumble as he pleasured her. Y/N didn’t mind though, she thought she sounded quite hot when she was being pleasured. Her previous encounters loved phone sex with her. Her hand went to the back of his head, tugging at his hair like she knew he liked as his plump strawberry lips wrapped around her nipple. He looked so fucking pretty like that. 

“I like it rough mostly, but some soft bits are nice... mix it up.” She told him, “just use me... I like it deep. I want to feel you in my belly.”

His sweet girl. This innocent thing was asking Harry to use her. She was dirty in ways that he knew a lot of other people weren’t. Sure, they talked a good game but when it came down to it, they couldn’t take it. But Y/N? She was sitting in his lap with his hand on her throat and ass and asked him to use her. That, was exactly what she wanted. He could tell by her face. That was the hottest thing. She wanted to be his baby, but his baby slut. He loved it. Y/N was surprising him at every turn. Sure, he had expected a little kinky from how she had been acting but... she turned around and used daddy, had let him play with her cunt under a bar, all of it and that was hot. 

“Deep in that precious belly, hm? Bury myself in your little cunt and make you take it, s’that it, my girl?” Harry kept calling her his. Because in the back of his mind, she was. Y/N had been his since that first day, even though he would keep denying it.

“Yes, please, daddy...” Y/N nodded in response, truly looking so bloody happy to be in this position. They’d be at his soon and she would get her relief soon enough. She felt like she had proven herself to be a good girl and that he wouldn’t tease her as much when they got inside. “Told you I was naughty...” Y/N reminded him, “but it’s just the way you like it.” She smirked and moved her hips forward to add a little pressure to his cock. “And I guarantee I’m the naughtiest you’ll ever have.” It was a bold statement but she was positive it was true. All she wanted was for him to be pleased.

Y/N felt the car come to a stop and was slightly upset that their little car journey was over, but even more excited to get inside and see what exactly he had planned for the two of them. Y/N loved how dominant Harry had proven to be, thoroughly enjoying pleasuring her as well as himself. She was positive she’d never feel this amazing in her life.

Harry was looking forward to seeing Y/N to ruin him. He wanted to make her feel good but he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to get this out of his head every time he saw her. 

Grabbing her little bag, he tipped the driver handsomely before scrambling into the house. He needed this and wanted it and didn’t want to waste a single damn second. Y/N was eager too, Harry snickering as she basically tugged him up to his front door. They couldn’t do anything out here— but as soon as he got inside? 

He slammed the door shut and pressed her against it, mouth on hers yet again again. Harry found that it was one of his new favorite places. The taste and the warm feeling... he loved it so much. Her tongue ran across his lips and into his mouth and he was hooked. Shoving their jackets off, he grabbed hold of her and lifted her with ease, legs wrapping around his waist. 

“Gonna wreck you, baby. Make you cum so hard that you can’t fucking breathe.” He hadn’t tried overstimulation before but he just as well may with her. She overwhelmed him quite a bit.

Y/N groaned against his mouth, eagerly moving to push his jacket off of him just as he pushed hers off. Her arms immediately wrapped around his shoulders as he lifted her, the kiss only becoming that much more intense when his hands landed on her ass. She swore it was one of her favorite feelings. 

“Ugh, yes, daddy PLEASE!” She moaned out, desperate to get this dress off and to get him naked as well. Y/N only had a small thong underneath, having forgone a bra for the sake of the dress. It was tight enough that it kept them in place. Her dream was coming to life and she would make damn sure to make the best of it. Y/N’s moved to kiss from the corner of his mouth to his jawline, finding a soft spot right below his jawline on his neck. She decided to return the favor from earlier, living a hickey of her own there. Hopefully he didn’t mind. “Can’t wait for you to fill me..” she whispered in his ear. “Я хочу тебя.” A simple, I want you in Russian just to get him going. “I want you so bad..”

It was the Russian that had Harry’s blood hot. He wanted to hear her speak it all the time. What if they had kids? She could teach them— Wait. 

Fuck. That was a weird fucking thought and he had to shake himself out of it. There wouldn’t be kids. The hell was wrong with him? It had to be the power of her pussy— but he hadn’t even been inside yet. 

“Gotta get you naked.” Harry needed her naked and wet and ready for him. That was the goal, anyways. To have this girl spread out and eager to be taking his cock. Y/N was telling him that she couldn’t wait so he held her to him, walking towards his room. They wouldn’t be leaving that bed, unless it was to fuck against a wall or in the bathroom. His shoes were kicked off as he stepped in, nearly blind because they were kissing again and Y/Ns hands were all over his hair,  it was amazing. Truly. His cock ached and was begging to be inside of her but every second of this was incredible to him.

Once Harry placed her on the bed Y/N sat up, unzipping her dress and lifting it up above her head quickly, but careful as to not rip it. She really liked that dress. It was at this point that Y/N was eye level with his cock, allowing her hands to travel to the loops in his pants, pulling him closer to her. 

“Fuck me...” She mumbled, one of her hands palming over his aching cock. She unzipped them and pulled ever so slightly until they pooled at his ankles, eyes still very much focused on his cock. Y/N looked up at him, a devilish look in her eyes as she wanted for some direction. She admittedly got distracted but it was because this was the cock she had been dreaming about, the cock she imagined filling her mouth and her cunt and even her ass. “You’re so big daddy, so handsome...” She commented, pressing a kiss to his clothes cock and smiling to herself. She was pushing buttons.

There was something so incredibly hot to Harry about her sitting on his bed, eye level with his cock. She had just instinctually gone to it, kissing on it... that was the hottest thing. Being so genuinely into him and wanting to touch. There had been many a time now these past few months and he had thought about this view. However now he was in full view of her tits and her messy hair, her looking up with those eyes at him. He was a mess. 

“Yeah? Thank you, baby.” He murmured. “Why don’t you take it out, hm... suck a little bit. And then I want to have my turn.” He was thirsting for her cunt. Literally. He just wanted to kiss and suck and lick her sweet pussy until she came over and over again. He wanted her to feel how good it was to have her cunt properly worshipped. Y/N was a good girl, but she was so bad. He had a feeling she would utterly love that.

Y/N smiled as he gave her the go ahead, tugging on his shirt and muttering a small “off” because she wanted to see his perfectly toned torso and chest. Harry was really her version of a perfect man, everything about him made her crazy and she couldn’t stop herself. Not now, not anymore. This was raw and real. Y/N gently pulled his cock out from his boxer briefs, pushing them down all the way while she leaned in and spat all over his cock. Y/N locked her eyes with his, letting the spit travel down his cock while she went to lick from the base to the top. She let her hand spread the sloppy mess that she made, pumping at the base while her lips wrapped around the lip and began sucking. 

The amount of times she had thought about this, the amount of times he imagined hearing him moan for her and pull her hair. Just feeling the weight of his cock on her tongue, it was everything she desired. Y/N took more of him into her mouth once she felt comfortable, moaning against him a bit because she knew it would feel good.

Holy shit. Harry had expected her to be eager, a little dirty— but she may be right. It’s probably that Y/N was going to be the dirtiest girl he’s ever been with. It was evident by how she spit on his cock, looking right up at him as she made a mess. Something Harry fucking loved. Other partners didn’t love a mess but he did. In his opinion, it was hotter. More passionate. A good spit or cum all over was good. Arousing. And Y/N was on her knees, licking over his cock and pumping her hand at the bottom. Harry was big, but Y/N took it like a fucking champion. His hand gathered her hair in his fist. Gently yanking on it to show he had control before allowing her to continue. And then she began to moan with his cock in her mouth, bobbing her head up and down— it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. 

“God, yes. Keep sucking my cock like that— fucccck. That’s a girl.” He praised, watching her closely. “Messy little girl. You like it messy, huh? Like getting daddy’s cock all wet? Good job. Doing just what I asked.”

Y/N was determined and dedicated to making him feel good, making it very clear with the way she was working her mouth over his cock like he was a lollipop of sorts. She hummed in response, not wanting to pull off because he seemed to really like what she was doing. Y/N kept eye contact as she tried to take more and more of him into her mouth, giving him full control over her with his hand in her hair. She did say she wanted him to use her so it really was free reign. They had all night to play around with each other, but she could already tell she had left a damp spot on his bed with how increasingly wet she was getting from watching him. The way his face contorted in pleasure, his gritty voice. She was thoroughly enjoying every second and she wouldn’t stop unless he told her to.

Harry was in love with her mouth. He wanted it around him 24/7. Harry was also an incredibly sexual person with a filthy, kinky mind. “Can imagine you warming my cock just like this while I take some calls. Would be very nice, wouldn’t it, Y/N?” He grabbed her hair tighter and began to pump in and out of her mouth. When he first met her he hadn’t ever imagined actually being able to fuck her mouth. But the girl gave over control, looking up with watery eyes as he took over. She could handle a little deeper. So he did just that, hissing when her throat tightened a bit around his Fock before pulling out. She sputtered but then— the slut whined. “Even after gagging on my cock, you’re still whining to have it back in your mouth? Fuck. You’re a cockslut, Baby. Can't believe this.” He gave it back and immediately had that suction again, her every suck in time with how he thrusted into the mouth. Every so often he would get just deep enough to make her gag and repeated the process, watching as she began to drool on him. “Shit— so messy. Such a messy little whore. Drool all over your chin and you’re still eager for my cock.” He was in awe. Y/N was something he had dreamed of and she only kept getting better.

Y/N felt smug. Harry was so shocked every time she whined for his cock and she wondered what I’m earth those other girls were doing. To Y/N, it wasn’t good sex unless she was fully letting go and doing everything her heart desired to and with her partner. Y/N pulled off of him hesitantly, licking up and down his cock as she caught her breath and then spoke. 

“Can I make you cum like this daddy?” Her voice low and hoarse, “think you’ll be able to go again if I do?” She asked, just wanting to make sure though she was positive he would. Harry seemed like a kinky bastard and she wanted to make him cum as many times as she possibly could tonight. Her pussy was fucking aching. She was practically bouncing against the bed trying to get some friction. She whined a little bit, not wanting to full on ask because she was too busy servicing his cock, but she wanted it... bad.

“Yes— yeah, I can cum again for you.” Harry could. If it was Y/N? He knew that he’d be able to give her anything she wanted as long as she gave him those eyes and that little pout. He was so whipped already and he was positive that she was going to turn his life upside down. It was too late to stop it. “Go ahead. Make me cum, then.” He coaxed. “Want it in your mouth and on your tits. I know you can do that for me. You’ve been such a slutty girl, and you’ll like being covered in daddy’s cum.” 

That seemed to set Y/N off. Her mouth was on his cock and sucking hard, hand going quickly over it. Harry’s mouth opened and a groan left him, overtaken with pleasure. It was no doubt he was going to cum quickly. It had been a while since he had fucked anyone and Y/N had some spell over him. He didn’t have to say much else, Y/N returned her mouth on to him and let her hand work the rest that she couldn’t reach. She remembered all the spots that set Harry off and paid close attention to them, sucking harder and moving at a quicker pace than before. Y/N moaned against him, as if begging him to cum for her. She wanted to taste him, wanted to see him in that wonderful state of bliss. She had already moved past thinking that she wasn’t attractive to him, clearly she was doing things to him and it boosted her ego far more than should be allowed. When she felt his muscles start to tighten she continued her actions, moaning against him and keeping at her actions waiting for him to blow his load. It was glorious. The sound that came from his mouth, the way he filled her mouth. She pulled off of him and let some drip down her chin, making him blow the rest of her load on her chest. 

“That’s it daddy, cum all over me..”

Harry hadn't cum that hard in a long time. Maybe ever because his toes felt a little numb, his mouth open and his cock actually throbbing with the arousal. His load had to have been huge, considering he hadn’t cum like this in a long time. She let half of it in her mouth, and then opened it and let it drool down her chin— which was one of the hottest things he had ever seen. Her hand continued to work his cock as he covered her tits in ribbons of cum. There was nothing quite like the sight of her covered in it. Once he had calmed slightly, he lifted her up and tilted her head back, immediately going forward her mouth. Some guys refused to kiss their significant others when they’d gone down on them— but the messy state of her mouth had him beyond horny. Y/N responder with a mewl and Harry's hand went directly to her pussy. 

“Down on the bed.” The mix of her spit and cum strung between both of their lips. “Spread your thighs. I want to lick you out.”

Y/N moaned against his mouth, eagerly moving back on to the bed. She had been waiting for him to touch her like this since the beginning of the night. She had a little taste of it at the bar but this? This was a whole other animal she swore she was absolutely not ready for. She was extremely sensitive to touch, it had been a really long time since anyone had slept with her and she truly forgot what it felt like. His warm ring clad hands on her caused goosebumps to spread all over her body, she was very much aroused. Harry nestled himself in between her legs, her heart pounding so hard she swore it would fly out of her chest. He hadn’t even done anything and she was already whimpering, pussy throbbing just from the sight. When you’ve been thinking about it for as long as she had, you would receive similar reactions. She convinced herself that she psychologically wired her brain to associate Harry with orgasms and that’s why it was affecting her like this.

Harry groaned. She had soaked through the thong. It was nearly see through, the pink tiny thing. He decided to lick right over it as a tease, and lottle Y/N jolted on the bed. He took hold of her by the apex of her thighs and held her down, swiping his tongue over the sticky fabric again. 

“Hm.. what have we got?” He purred up at her. “A wet little pussy, huh?” He held her body to the bed, moving one arm now to stroke over her tummy. He moved up and kissed over her mound, over to her belly button and covered the surrounding areas with kisses. “Love this.” He had an attraction to it that he couldn’t quite explain. He just thrives off of seeing it. And now he would have to remember every single time to give it some love. But right now he needed some pussy, and that’s what he was going to get. He began to peel the panties off, growling in pleasure when he sat they were quite literally stuck to her. Fuck. He had done that, and he was proud of it. Her inner thighs were wet too, and Harry felt the heat of his body rise even more. “Christ, pet. You’re so wet...” He whispered. “Soaked through the panties... look at this. They’re stuck to you.” He said in awe. He gently peeled it back further, watching the arousal string on them. He was keeping these. “These are mine.” He took them and placed them on his night stand before taking a look. He didn’t waste much more time before leaning down, and taking one broad, long lick.

Y/N blushed, heat rushing to her face and chest as he observed her body. She was expecting to feel shy and embarrassed, but it was quite the opposite really. It was something she had always worried about, but the look in his eyes said it all. He was absolutely fucking perfect. A small giggle left her mouth at his astonishment, not realizing just how wet she actually was. 

“Oh my god.” She moved her hands to cover her face, shaking her head before moving her hands so she could sit up a bit and lean on her elbows to watch him. She wasn’t sure how long that would last but she would try. The moan that left her was pornographic. Her whole body twitched at the feeling, pleasure spreading through her body already. She really was sensitive. “Harry..” She whimpered, looking down at him and seeing his darker green eyes flash up to look at her. “That feels... so good.”

Harry knew now that he was going to be obsessed with her pussy. Not only did it taste amazing but it felt so good on his tongue. Warm and soft, he didn’t mind the slick all over his chin as he ran his tongue up and down the little slit. Y/N was giving him everything. 

“So sweet, princess. Taste so fucking good.” He was sure he was going to end up down here again tonight. He wanted it more than once and truly did have this affinity for her pussy. His tongue swiped up, running flat over her clit a few times. Swollen, he decided to rub his tongue around it in circles, which had her squeaking and moving her hips. To which he held her down again. He would decided when she could fuck his face.

Y/N tried closing her eyes thinking that maybe it would be less intense if she couldn’t see him but she was so so wrong. Her senses heightened and she swore she could feel every single cell in her body vibrate. He wasn’t even doing anything that special, but he had teased the fuck out of her to the point that anything would set her off. Y/N leaned back once again, allowing one of her hands to move to his hair while the other gripped at his blanket. He looked so happy to be nuzzled between her thighs, his eyes closed and invested in making her feel good. 

“Ah fuck—“ Y/N’s voice went a few octaves higher, those circular motions always did her in. He was still going relatively slow and Y/N just tried to bite her moans back. It was embarrassing all the sounds she was letting out, but she truly had never had a guy pay this much attention to her pussy. She appreciated it so damn much. “Is there anything you can’t do? Fuck—” She whined, feeling like he was just good at everything he did. This man had no flaws in her book, the only problem was his terrible communication skills, but she wasn’t too fussed about that when his face nuzzled in her pussy.

Appreciating the compliment, Harry hummed against her and gave a bit of vibration to her. He had always enjoyed eating pussy, don’t get him wrong. But Y/N was on a whole other level. Reacting to every flick of his tongue, she was his favorite. He pulled away for a moment, spitting over her and going back to spread it around her with his tongue. He was going to blow her mind and he was ready to have her cumming all over his mouth and then his cock. It was a plan to have Y/N soak him and his bed. The next move was his favorite. Wrapping his lips around her clit, and sucking. Just slightly at first, but it was an immediate reaction. Letting out some curses, the grip on his hair tighter, he had a rhythmic and slow way about it, sucking over and over again on the little thing.

“Holy shit— fuck me—” Y/N cursed, gripping tighter on the bed sheets and his hair. Her breathing was slowly starting to pick up as the knot began to tighten in her stomach. Harry has clearly licked out plenty of pussies in his and enjoyed it. She always imagined him to be obsessed with it, but the way he treated hers made her feel like a princess. “S—so good...” Y/N whimpered, knowing that it would only get more intense from here. “Ещё Harry, пожалуйста!” More Harry, please! Her hips unintentionally moved up against his mouth once again, pleading for more in Russian. Maybe he would understand, maybe he wouldn’t, but she knew it was a big turn on for him so she thought maybe he’d do it naturally. There was only one way to find out. Her pussy throbbed against his tongue, her hole begging to be filled. “Please, fuck me... please...” Y/N begged, her voice sounding whiny and desperate. She desperately wanted to feel what it was like to have him fuck her. Properly Fuck her. Make her scream so loud she lost her damn voice.

“Mm. Patient. Daddy’s having fun.” Harry scolded, but dipped his fingers through the cum on her chest before going back to her clit. Using the dirty fingers, he began to slide one of them inside of her. There was something about the thought of his cum inside of her cunt that had Harry wanting more and more of it. He was nearly fucking nursing on her clit, humming happily as her cunt clenched hard around his finger, and he added the second. There was a high noise coming from Y/N, trying to lift her hips but he was doing a good job keeping her down. He wanted to make her cum like this. He was steady, thrusting the two fingers in and out of her soft pussy while defiling her with his cum. Every so often he would go up and scoop up a little more, sliding it back inside of her. It’s where it belonged in his mind. Y/N’s clit throbbed against his tongue, and his fingers could feel how badly she wanted to be fucked. Trying to milk them like she would be on his cock— god, he was going to be a mess as soon as he was inside of her. He was now. Nuzzling against her cunt and sucking harder against her clit, he wanted her to lose her mind

Y/N’s head was spinning. She’d never experienced pleasure like this and she knew for a fact it was all that teasing that did her in. For about three hours she was being edged on, touched, and teased. Even now he wasn’t doing enough to make her properly cum. No, this was all still build up. Whimpers and whines continued to escape her lips as she tried to stay still and relaxed, but it became harder and harder to do as he started pumping cum covered fingers inside of her. God, he was filthy, she loved it. A pussy full of Harry Styles’ cum? A dream. She’d have his fucking baby now if he asked, but frankly she was on the pill. It was surprisingly part of the contract because apparently even Jeff knew Harry liked to fuck raw. 

“Please daddy, please let me cum...” Y/N pleaded, the despair present in her voice. “I’ve been so good for you, p—please daddy it hurts!” She whimpered, despite thoroughly enjoying the pain. It was worse than having an itch you couldn’t scratch. “I want your cock, pretty please!”

“Hm. I want you to cum for me first, baby. Before you can have my cock, I want a mess on my face.” Harry was desperate for it actually. He wanted it all over him and wanted to feel her cum on his fingers. Which he did absolutely begin to thrust in and out of her cunt even faster. It was so hot. Y/N was a moaning mess, literally begging for his cock while he finger fucked her. He could hear how wet she was with every thrust of his fingers, and she was rolling her hips as Harry sucked on her clit over and over again, trying to coax her into orgasm. Y/N felt good. She felt like she was meant to be on his tongue, like his fingers even felt perfectly aligned with her hips, and he knew that she was close. “Cmon baby. Let go for me. I know you want to cum for daddy.”

Y/N whined at his response, huffing and whining as he picked up speed. “Oh fuck— daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy!” It didn’t take long for him to find the perfect rhythm and she swore all the breath left out of her lungs. “Oh my god!” The noise she let out was somewhere between a moan and a scream, her orgasm ripping through her. It was a sight to see. Her back arched off of her bed and legs shook uncontrollably, eyes rolling back from the sheer amount of pleasure that was coursing through her body. “Oh daddy..” She breathed heavily, a smile spreading across her face. She had never felt so good in her life. Y/N tugged I’m his hair, begging him to come up for a kiss. She needed it. She had fallen in love. There was no question about it. After knowing what she knew about him and getting to know him over these four months she had decided that she was in fact in love. She’d never tell.

----

It was 3 rounds. 3 rounds of hot and heavy and rough sex unlike anything else he had ever done. Harry knew sex wouldn’t ever be the same again. Y/N had ruined him. Completely and utterly ruined his ass and he couldn’t even be mad yet. Y/N was in his arms, underneath the covers. His hand stroked her hair as they spoke quietly about random things. He was relaxed and soft right now and Y/N had him in the perfect situation to get him to talk. Pillow talk was something he was good at. It's easier to be vulnerable when he was sexed out. 

Y/N was messy but in a sexy way. Her hair wild and lips beyond swollen. They’d both need chapstick in the morning, but it was worth it. Her fingers played on his chest and traced his tattoos. Leg over his hip, snuggled right into him. It was unreal. The feeling of euphoria she had just experienced. Three whole rounds of incredible sex that definitely blew everyone else out of the water. She never thought she could connect with anyone like that, but if it would be anyone, it would be Harry. She pressed soft kisses to his warm and somewhat sweaty skin, tracing his tattoos that were still visible in the moonlight that came through the windows of Harry’s room. They never really spoke when they were alone and in private together, she figured now was probably a good time to talk. 

“What are you thinking about right now?” Y/N asked softly, genuinely curious because she had no idea what to think. She knew that she hadn’t been acting all night and that what they just shared was special, but what did that mean for them? Honestly, it was all I’m Harry’s hands.

“Well...” Harry was quiet, finger tangled in her hair. “I’m thinking about how that was really good. And how your legs are going to feel like jello tomorrow.” He let out a gentle laugh. Y/N was very, very good at riding. And taking spankings. “But mainly about how good that was. Never seen someone who was willing to go through it… like actually be as kinky as they said.” It was an upheld promise and it meant a lot to him, even if the premise was kind of dumb in hindsight. “A lot of people talk up a good game but when it comes to fulfilling promises or doing things they’re asked... it’s always bullshit. Overcompensating. It’s annoying.” He ran his hand over her arm. Y/N had given him a new point of view. “Especially in entertainment. People promise a lot and rarely deliver at all. They’ll introduce you to someone or they’ll call you, or they’re very good at x y z and end up being shit. It’s just hard. Everyone in this industry likes to talk big games. I know it’s a little dumb but, was nice to see someone who lived up to their talk. Also... someone who didn’t mind getting their mouth spit into.”

Y/N giggled are his comments, listening closely as he spoke. Lucky for her, his voice was nice and slow, very relaxing and comforting. She kept going back to the thought of her in her room thinking about doing this one day and here she was. This was the most he had ever opened up to her and she definitely wasn’t taking it for granted. It was a special moment, it felt like a breakthrough. Her heart was swelling three times its original sizes, she swore it. 

“It’s not dumb, it makes sense.” Y/N spoke softly, still tracing his tattoos as a form of soothing him. She laughed at his last comment, taking a second to think before speaking. “I know you were a bit apprehensive about letting me into your life, and maybe you still are, but I do appreciate all the time we get to spend together.” Y/N spoke I’m a small voice, almost scared he’d reject her kindness because he usually did. “You’re a really great guy, Harry.” It was like word vomit, she just had to tell him how she felt without scaring him. Tell him that she liked him, a lot.

Harry’s heart tugged hard. Fuck. He hated that he had to be so distant to her. It was better than the beginning but he knew he was getting too close. Tonight he thought he was going to let himself live in the fantasy world he wanted to be in. 

“Thank you.” He smiled at her. God, she was stunning. He could hear the nerves in her voice and he wasn’t going to be the one to crush her right now. He’d wait at least until the morning to remind her that they shouldn’t be doing this and that it was his fault but he couldn’t. Fuck, even the thought made him want to vomit. this felt so right. Y/N was what he wanted but it was that part of him that was so desperately terrified to get close to people that kept speaking from the back of the head that got him every time. “You are too. Far too good.” Realistically he knew Y/N was good, but that deep rooted fear of being used had him holding on to the reins and not willing to let go of his stupid thought that perhaps she just wanted to be famous. There had been no signs. Nothing. Not promoting her bakery any more than normal, not talking to the media. But he was still hesitant. “You’re very nice to me, Y/N. I know sometimes I don’t deserve it but I appreciate it.”

Y/N closed her eyes, listening to his heart beat relax. She had heard it shift, knowing something must have made him nervous and she decided to ignore it for the time being as just listen to what he was saying to her. He was being nice to her, in a Harry in private type of way. 

“I didn’t think you—” She paused herself, something telling her to be careful with her choice of wording. “I thought you didn’t like me for a really long time... I just wanted you to accept me because I know this situation isn’t ideal.” Y/N explained, “I hoped I could help in any way...” God she was back to being nervous all over again, word vomit just spewing out because she was terrified he wouldn’t speak to her again. She didn’t want to be the clingy girl after sex. She had gotten way too ahead of herself thinking that he actually liked her like that.

“Hey... you’re good.” Harry panicked a little, pulling her closer to him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you nervous.” Damn, he hadn’t wanted Y/N scared. He was just trying to articulate. But he was kind of mean to her. “You’ve been perfect. I know dealing with me hasn’t been easy. I’m not the perfect person and it’s hard for me, too. I’m not good with new people. Or trusting them.” It was so much easier letting fans into the sliver of his life because they’d never truly know him. But Y/N was a scary aspect because she would be close. Know all his secrets. And he would be forced to trust her. “I never didn’t like you.” That much was true. “I don’t trust easily. It’s a bit scary when... when the whole world wants something from you. You never know who it is and who is safe. Who will pop up and ask something of you. There’s differences. It takes me a while to decide if someone is okay. And it was hard because you’ve been thrusted right in the hardest part. But I can tell you that you’ve been the best and the only person I think that can deal with me.” She was a saint for how she put up with him.

Y/N felt a little pang in her heart at his words. It was sentimental and maybe she was a baby because she was going to hold on to these words for the rest of her life, but she didn’t care. It would be those words that would get her through the tough days when he was acting super distant or when she was sad in general. 

“It’s okay, I understand. I never expected to just walk into your life and suddenly be your best mate... I guess my point is I’m glad you trust me enough— enough to do all these things with you.” Y/N said quietly, feeling herself already drifting off into sleep. 

“Night night.” She whispered softly, pressing a soft kiss to his chest once again before feeling herself slip off into dream land. The sex had properly tired her out and she needed some rest.

----

It was weird. Harry got a good night's sleep which was incredibly rare for him. He hadn’t wanted to equate it to the sleepy kitten like girl in his arms but it had to be. 100%. Y/N was snoozing in his arms and it physically pained his chest to get out of bed but he needed some coffee. 

11 am. They’d slept in rather late. Considering they’d been up until probably 4, it made sense though. Now his mind was racing as he started the coffee pot, wondering how he could push Y/N away. He couldn’t become dependent on her. For sleep or sex or affection. Anything. He hadn’t been regretful at all— he loved last night. He wished that his head wasn’t such a mess. But Y/N deserved better than him for a real love. He had trust issues and insecurities and he was a jealous man and the only reason he hadn’t gone out and punched people who hit on her was because he couldn’t. Y/N needed someone emotionally out together. She had a good heart and would probably offer to help him but he needed to tell her it would be better if they just remained distant friends. His thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell— and a slightly embarrassed to be shirtless Harry had to make his way to the door. Thank god he had pulled on sweats.

Y/N woke up shortly after Harry, feeling the warmth missing. Last night was truly incredible and she just hoped to god things stayed okay. Prayed that she didn’t mess things up by sleeping with him. She pouted a bit at the lack of warmth in the bed, but the smell of coffee meant he was most likely downstairs. Aw that’s sweet. She got up and went to pull on his shirt that was laying around from last night, walking down the stairs just as she heard the doorbell ring. 

Huh. That was weird. Was he expecting anyone? Maybe it was Jeff? Regardless, Y/N let her sore legs guide her downstairs only to be met with the sound of a familiar voice. An unwelcome familiar voice. Was it who she thought it was?

Rounding the corner, the identity was confirmed. Kendall fucking Jenner.

-----------------------------------

[part 5]

A/N: oof 🥵🥵🥵 but also a cliff hanger?? the tension!!! you’re in for a bumpy ride

let us know what you think!

masterlist 

[mypoisonedvine]

I don't know how to break this to you but I think you just have ADHD.. I mean if you haven't already been diagnosed, you say Adderall doesn't give you a high- the way it would for neurotypical people. And it makes you more productive and better at focusing which is part of the reason why most ADHD people take Adderall is so that we can get basic stuff in our lives done that we lack the energy and motivation to do otherwise. You might just have a dopamine deficiency caused by ADHD and that's why Adderall doesn't work to make you "high" the way it would for a non-neurodivergent person

you've definitely got a point and I've also considered this before, but I don't have a significant number of add/adhd symptoms. (I have some sort of neurological weirdness which I've been avoiding diagnosing for mostly legal reasons, but my experience as someone who literally observed students and recommended them for testing for things like this leads me to think I don't have adhd.) my only real 'symptoms' are that adderall works for me and that sometimes I really relate to those humorous posts on here about 'adhd/neurodivergent things' and neither of those are dsm-v criteria haha.

the thing is, neurotypical people don't necessarily get a high from adderall either, none of the ones I know who use it would describe it that way. it's not a party drug, it's a study drug, because in general, adderall takes people at whatever level of attention they're at and moves them up the scale for a while. it has very similar effects on people with and without an adhd diagnosis, but for the former it's more of a luxury amount of attention while for the latter it's a vital and standard amount needed to get through life in a society that evolves much faster than human brains do. this is because it's a cns stimulant and people with add/adhd have the same central nervous system that everybody else does.

this psychiatrist blogger has a great article about this and sadly it is one more drop in the bucket of evidence that adderall is generally pretty cool and gatekeeping it with add/adhd diagnoses is probably not worth the effort and also shockingly arbitrary.

as for me, specifically, my performance on less-than-legally attained adderall is pretty comparable to my unmediated self on a good day. my record for writing, for example (since I took the adderall tonight to write more) is about 10k in one day and that was sober; I haven't beaten it on adderall because I haven't tried and also the effects wear off faster than it takes to get that much down. that to me is a sign that I don't 'need' adderall because it doesn't take me past my known capabilities unmedicated, it just guarantees a 'good day'.

sooo moral of the story, I appreciate you thinking of me and reaching out, I'm glad that you shared a bit of your experience and perspective, and I'm using your ask as an excuse to ramble about neurology because I'm still just feeling the effects of low-dose amphetamines enough to be willing to write down all my unnecessary thoughts on this.

[mettaminerals]

Life Healing Energy With Crystals

For quite a long time, many individuals Healing Crystals in adornments for the shear excellence of them. Gem Healing is considered by numerous a pseudo logical elective medication strategy that utilizes stones and crystals for healing yet is an antiquated practice that traces all the way back to something like 6,000 years. The Romans utilized crystals as charms to advance great wellbeing and accommodate insurance in fight. Roman and Greek specialists blended crystals in with plant removes, warmed them, and utilized restoratively. Antiquated Egyptians accepted these stones had the ability to reestablish wellbeing, and would likewise cover their dead with a quartz gem, which they accepted would direct their adored one securely to existence in the wake of death. Chinese utilized them to advance healing, edification, and fascination of wants.

Today, healers, Shamans, and clerics use crystals for their particular healing properties. I generally had an interest with stones and crystals yet that was the extent that it at any point went, until I was acquainted with crystals and their healing capacity at a Mind, Body, and Spirit Festival. Since crystals vibrate with the energy of the earth, they can assist you with adjusting your body to the Earth's energy. With these crystals, presently you as well, may vibrate at the most noteworthy energy - Earth Energy! This is the place where the healing starts. Utilizing crystals, and tuning yourself into their energy, you are then clearing blockages inside you which will upgrade your own normal healing forces. Most don't understand, yet our bodies were intended to act naturally adjusting and normally mend themselves. In any case, as life occurs, we here and there neglect to pause and deal with ourselves so frequently, that our bodies escape sync with that healing interaction, eventually making blockages in our physical and mental bodies.

Any blockages inside your life power is the thing that causes throbs, torments, and even illness to show in the actual body. It's therefore, I presently use crystals consistently for strength in a specific region in my life, for healing that is required that day, for individual reflection and clearness, or for use in my Reiki practice to incite love and light while cleaning and clearing Chakras. Reiki, as only one elective healing methodology, in it's most straightforward interpretation is Universal Life Force. It is the act of diverting the general life energy in a specific example to mend and fit the psychological and actual body and every one of our Chakras, which gets, absorbs, and communicates physical, passionate, and profound energy coursing through our bodies. There is a clearing method I use, just as an alternate explicit precious stone for each Chakra to clear any blockages around there. This makes room for life power energy to stream to you and through you to keep the psyche, body, and soul in it's heavenly condition of amazing wellbeing. In the event that we keep our brain, body, and soul vibrating on a high recurrence of affection and healing energy, we don't permit throbs, agonies, and infection to show and get comfortable the actual body.

 This is only a short outline on Chakra healing with crystals. Every precious stone has its own novel healing property and a particular Chakra it reverberates with because of its tone. Our first Chakra, being the Root Chakra, manages establishing, and basically vibrates with and can be mended utilizing Red, Brown, or Black Crystals like Red Garnet, Hematite and Black Tourmaline. Our second Chakra, the Sacral Chakra, managing the mid-region and joy focuses, can mostly be fit with Orange Crystals, such Carnelian, Amber, and Orange Calcite. The Third Chakra, being the Solar Plexus Chakra, managing the Digestive System and individual force, reverberate with and can be mended with Yellow Crystals like Yellow Citrine, and Sunstone. The Fourth Chakra, the Heart Chakra, manages the Heart, Lungs, and Love. The Heart Chakra vibrates in a healing way with all Green or Pink crystals like Rose Quartz, Jade, or Green Aventurine. The fifth Chakra, the Throat Chakra, manages conveying, and reverberates with Blue Crystals like Blue Agate, Sodalite, or Sapphire. The 6th Chakra, the Third Eye Chakra, managing instinct and knowing, vibrates on a healing level with Violet Crystals like Amethyst, Lolite, and Flourite. The seventh Chakra, the Crown Chakra, managing the Central Nervous System and the Divine, resounds best with White or Purple Crystals like Selenite, Clear Quartz, or Amethyst.

I've actually been utilizing Crystals for my own healing for a lot, yet since starting the utilization of crystals for healing, I've had a couple of remarkable examples of overcoming adversity, some of which are important to me. The primary example of overcoming adversity is my better half who had rotator sleeve medical procedure. This, based on what I'm told by many individuals, is the most over the top agonizing a medical procedure you can have. This is most certainly an issue with a long healing time as he's just acquired around 3/4 of his movement back around there without torment so far over the most recent 5 months. At first, I would Reiki him while we were sitting and unwinding and the finish of every day. Then, at that point I brought a Carnelian ball into the image and what he disclosed to me while utilizing the healing ball was quite astonishing. The Carnelian ball brought him stunning warmth, practically like a hot stone wherever it contacted him assisting with unwinding and recuperate the muscles that had been cut off and controlled during a medical procedure, alleviating the aggravation actually like a hot stone back rub.

 The second example of overcoming adversity is likewise precious to me as it has to do with my sister. My sister Deneen has Lupus, which is basically a provocative sickness where your body's resistant framework assaults its own tissue and organs. From what I hear and own her going, it is an extremely excruciating sickness and specialists simply toss various meds at it as an experimentation thing until they discover a medication that works. All things considered, she's as yet in a phase of her infection of not knowing what medicine works in aiding the aggravation which she bears each day. I've done Reiki healing on her various occasions in the past which has facilitated the aggravation barely enough to bring some relief, yet it wasn't until I begun Crystal Healing Therapy, that she's had supported help from the aggravation. I utilized different various Crystals to Cleanse and Clear her Chakra's, yet I additionally requested that she wear a Reiki Charged Hematite wristband for a couple of hours daily. It's been half a month and she's accounted for not having had a truly downright terrible day since.

My third example of overcoming adversity in only a couple of brief weeks has to do with somebody that has degenerative plate sickness which is torment in the lower back or neck because of a compromised circle in the spine. While there is a marginally hereditary reason to this infection, it's fundamentally brought about by normal mileage or some kind of injury to the body. With this kind of illness, there is ordinarily a steady, generally a slight benchmark torment. It likewise includes gentle to serious scenes of back or neck torment that by and large could endure anyplace from a couple of days to a couple of months and can be weakening during that time, prior to getting the individual once again to what they think about their standard in the aggravation division. Rachael had been languishing over numerous years with degenerative circle sickness when she came to me. I assisted her with the healing energy of Reiki and a Carnelian ball, which I used to treat lower back issues. After those two things, I utilized Hematite on her which, for her purposes, resembled the Belle of the Ball. When the Hematite stones connected with the skin on her lower back, she announced a dissolving of the aggravation very quickly and remained however long the Hematite remained on her back. I then, at that point educated her to proceed with this training all alone while she was not with me and to purge the Hematite with a Selenite stone so the entirety of the cynicism and poisons the Hematite assimilated from her, would be cleared prior to returning them to her lower back once more.

So regardless of the reported healing gem utilization of a considerable lot of our progenitors, some actually ruin the utilization of these stones alongside different types of elective medication. There are very few examinations to demonstrate or even refute the force of elective types of medications, for example, gem healing, needle therapy, Reiki, or even yoga as healing for the psyche, body and soul. This doesn't imply that these healing practices aren't viable. It simply implies that cash isn't being spent on what some consider to be "New Age" healing; that equivalent healing therapy that is really healing ancient. Likewise, regardless of the absence of exploration for these kinds of healing techniques, still around 33% of Americans utilize these or different types of elective medication. It is not necessarily the case that Crystal Healing Therapy is a fix all. You should in any case look for the assistance and clinical consideration from your PCPs, yet as you can see from these three totally different issues and infections from the above cases, Crystal Healing Stones really serve to enhance all endeavors of healing; regardless of whether you have enthusiastic injuries, explicit actual ailment, or basically need to build your energy levels, you can utilize crystals to vibrate with similar frequencies of earths energy and once again initiate your body's own personal healing capacities!

https://www.mettaminerals.com/

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Treat Your S(h)elf: Imperial Boredom: Monotony and the British Empire by Jeffrey A. Auerbach (2018)

The British Empire has had a huge impact on the world in which we live. A brief look at an atlas from before World War One will show over hundred colonies that were then part of the Empire but now are part of or wholly sovereign states. Within these states much remains of the commercial, industrial, legal, political and cultural apparatus set up by the British. In many former colonial areas, political issues remain to be solved that had their genesis during the British era.

The legacy of the British has been varied and complex but in recent years much attention has been on making value judgements about whether the Empire was a good or bad thing. Of course the British Empire was built on the use of and the continual threat of state violence and there were appalling examples of the use of force. As well as the slave trade, there was the Amritsar Massacre in 1919, the 1831 Jamaican Christmas Uprising, the Boer War concentration camps (1899-1902) and the bloody response to the Indian Mutiny of 1857. However, we must not just focus on these events but examine the Empire in all of its complexities.

In the current moment of our times, it would seem that as a nation we are more concerned about beating ourselves up and making the nation feel guilty than understanding how and why the British came to exist, and setting the growth of the British Empire into historical context to be wise about the good, the bad, and the ugly. History has to be scrupulously honest if it’s not to fall prey to propaganda on either side of the extreme political spectrum.

Truth be told I find these questions about the British Empire being good or bad either boring or unhelpful. It doesn’t really bring us closer to the complexity and the reality of what the British Empire was and how it was really run and experienced by everyone.

For myself personally the British Empire was part of the fabric of our family history. The Far East, the Middle East and Africa figured prominently and at the centre of which - the jewel in the crown so to speak - was India. In my wider family clan I’ve come to learn about - through handed down family tales, personal diaries, private papers, and photos etc - the diverse experiences of what certain eccentric characters got up to and they ranged from missionaries in India and Africa to military men strewn across the Empire, from titans of commerce in the Far East to tea farmers in East Africa, from senior colonial civil servants in Delhi to soldier-spies on the North West Frontier (now northern Pakistan).

My own experience of being raised in India, Pakistan as well as parts of the Far East was an adventure before being carted off to boarding school back in Britain and then fortunate in later life to be able to travel forth to these memorable childhood places because of the nature of my work. Having learned the local languages and respectful of customs I have always loved to travel and explore deeper into these profound non-Western cultures. Despite the shadow of the empire of the past I am always received with such down to earth kindness and we share a good laugh. So I always assumed that the British Empire played a central role in the life of Britain has it had in our family history just because it was there. But historians are more concerned with much more interesting questions that challenge our assumptions.

So when I was at university it was a great surprise to me to first read a fascinating history of the British Empire by Bernard Porter called ‘The Absent Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society and Culture in Britain’ (2004). Porter was, in his own words, “mainly a response to certain scholars (and some others) who, I felt, had hitherto simplified and exaggerated the impact of ‘imperialism’ on Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, after years in which, except by empire specialists like myself, it had been rather ignored and underplayed. […] the main argument of the book was this: that the ordinary Briton’s relationship to the Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was complex and ambivalent, less soaked in or affected by imperialism than these other scholars claimed – to the extent that many English people, at any rate, possibly even a majority, were almost entirely ignorant of it for most of the nineteenth century.” It became a controversial book but a welcome one because it was well researched and no doubt made some imperial historians choke on their tea dipped biscuits (and that’s not even counting the historically illiterate post-colonial studies crowd in their English faculties who often got their knickers in a twist).

Years later I read another fascinating collection of scholarly chapters by different historians called ‘Anxieties, Fears, and Panic in Colonial Settings: Empires on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ (2016) edited Harald Fischer-Tiné which challenged a rosy vision of Britain’s imperial past by tracing British imperial emotions: the feelings of fear, anxiety, and panic that gripped many Britons as they moved to foreign lands. To be fair both Robert Peckham’s Empires of Panic: Epidemics and Colonial Anxieties (2015) got there before him but Tiné’s history set the trend for others to follow such as Marc Condos’s The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India (2018) and Kim Wagner’s Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear and the Making of a Massacre (2019).

They all set out their stall by highlighting the sense of vulnerability felt by the British in the colonies. Fisher-Tiné’s edited book in particular highlights the pervasiveness of feelings of fear, anxiety, and panic in many colonial sites. He acknowledges that: “the history of colonial empires has been shaped to a considerable extent by negative emotions such as anxiety, fear and embarrassment, as well as by the regular occurrence of panics.” 

The book suggests that these excessive emotional states were triggered by three main causes. First, the European population in British India was heavily dependent on Indian servants and subordinates who might retaliate against unfair masters or whose access to European dwellings could be used by malevolent others to poison the white elite. Second, anxieties about the assumed toxic effects of the Indian climate fuelled also poisoning panics. Diseases such as malaria and cholera were considered to be the ultimate outcome of an “atmospheric poison”. Third, Indian therapeutics and the system of medicine were also identified as a potential cause of poisoning European communities. These poisoning panics only helped reinforce the racial categorisations of Indians, the moral supremacy of the white population, and the legitimacy of colonial rule. Overall the book expanded the understanding of how a sense of fragility rather than strength shaped colonial policies.

Now comes another noteworthy book which again sound a little quirky but is no less meticulous in its research and judicious in its observations. Many books about the British Empire focus on what happened; this book concentrates on how people felt. When I was first given it I was predisposed to be negative because here was a book about ‘feelings’ - the current disease of our decaying western culture. But I was pleasantly surprised.

Was the British Empire boring? So asks Jeffrey Auerbach in his irreverent tome, ‘Imperial Boredom: Monotony and the British Empire’ (2018).

It’s an unexpected question, largely because imperial culture was so conspicuously saturated with a sense of adventure. The exploits of explorers, soldiers and proconsuls – dramatised in Boys’ Own-style narratives – captured the imagination of contemporaries and coloured views of Empire for a long time after its end. Even latter-day historians committed to Marxist or postcolonial critiques of Empire tend to assume that the imperialists themselves mostly had a good time. Along with material opportunities for upward mobility, Empire offered what the Pan-Africanist W.E.B. DuBois called ‘the wages of whiteness’ – the psychological satisfactions of membership in a privileged caste – and an escape from the tedium of everyday life in a crowded, urbanised, ever less picturesque Britain.

The British Empire has been firmly tied to myth, adventure, and victory. For many Britons, “the empire was the mythic landscape of romance and adventure. It was that quarter of the globe that was coloured and included darkest Africa and the mysterious East.” Cultural artifacts such as music, films, cigarette cards, and fiction have long constructed and reflected this rosy vision of the empire as a place of adventure and excitement.

Against this widely held view of the empire, As Auerbach argues here, however, the idea of Empire-as-adventure-story is a misleading one. For contemporaries, the promise of exotic thrills in distant lands built up expectations which inevitably collided with reality. 

In a well-researched and enjoyable book, the author argues “that despite the many and famous tales of glory and adventure, a significant and overlooked feature of the nineteenth-century British imperial experience was boredom and disappointment.” In other words, instead of focusing on the exploits of imperial luminaries such as Walter Raleigh, James Cook, Robert Clive, David Livingstone, Cecil Rhodes and others, Auerbach says pay attention to the moments when many travellers, colonial officers, governors, soldiers, and settlers who were gripped by an intense sense of boredom in India, Australia, and southern Africa.

For historians, the challenge is to look past the artifice of texts which conceal and compensate for long stretches of boredom to unravel the truth. Turning away from published memoirs and famous images, therefore, Auerbach trains his eye on the rough drafts of imperial culture: letters, diaries, drawings. He finds that Britons’ quests for novelty, variety and sensory delight in the embrace of 19th-century Empire very often ended in tears. Indeed Auerbach identifies an overwhelming emotion that filled the psyche of many Britons as they moved to new lands: imperial boredom.

Precision in language and terminology is essential and Auerbach begins by setting out what he means by boredom. Adopting Patricia Meyer Spacks’ approach, he points out that the term first came into use in the mid-18th century. Auerbach identifies then the feeling as a “modern construct” closely associated with the mid-18th century where the spread of industrial capitalism and the Enlightenment emphasis on individual rights and happiness that the concept came to the fore. This does not mean that nobody previously suffered from boredom, but that, with the Enlightenment’s emphasis on the individual, this was when the feeling first became conceptualised. Like Spacks, he distinguishes boredom from 19th-century ‘ennui’ or existential world-weariness and also from monotony, which has a much longer history. Whilst a monotonous activity or experience may generate a feeling of boredom, it will not necessarily do so. The two terms must, therefore, not be equated.

Significantly, in a footnote, Auerbach cites a passage from 19th Century English satirical novelist, Fanny Burney, in which an individual is described as ‘monotonous and tiresome’ but, as he emphasises, ‘not boring’. To prevent confusion, the term ‘boring’ is best avoided when describing an activity or experience because this is to beg the question as to whether it does in fact generate feelings of boredom in a particular person.

How then should this state of mind be assessed and what should be seen as the symptoms of imperial boredom? As Auerbach acknowledges, boredom ‘is not a simple emotion, but rather a complex constellation of reactions’. Building on that approach, he says ‘imperial boredom’ reflected ‘a sense of dissatisfaction and disenchantment with the immediate and the particular, and at times with the enterprise of empire more broadly’. If this tends to mix cause and effect, the idea of dissatisfaction and disenchantment essentially mirrors Spacks’ definition of the symptoms of boredom, namely, ‘the incapacity to engage fully: with people, with action, with one’s own ideas’. ‘Imperial boredom’, therefore, was more than a fleeting moment of irritation with a particular situation or person and reflected a mind-set that derived from, and in turn, further contributed to, a sense of disillusionment with the overall project.

It stemmed, so Auerbach argues, from the marked contrast between how empire was represented and how it turned out to be, between ‘the fantasy and the reality’. ‘Empire was constructed as a place of adventure, excitement and picturesque beauty’ but too often lacked these features. Nowhere is this better described than in George Orwell’s Burmese Days, in which the promising young John Flory has become ‘yellow, thin, drunken almost middle-aged’. Beginning with this illustration, Auerbach argues that historians have too often overlooked this essential aspect of empire and sets out to discover the extent to which it was characteristic of what Flory called the ‘Pox Britannica’ more generally.

During the 17th century the British Empire sustained itself on the story that the colonial experience was both righteous and unbelievably exciting. Sea voyages were difficult, and when one eventually did reach landfall there was a good chance of violence, but the exotic foreign cultures, the landscapes, and the wildlife made the trip worthwhile. The British colonialist was meant to be swashbuckling. Advertisements for even the most banal household goods offered colourful and robust propaganda for life in the colonies. Travelogues and illustrated accounts of colonial exploration were wildly lucrative for London publishing houses. All of this attracted a crowd of young Brits eager to escape the drudgery of life in the metropole.

By the 19th century, expectations were catching up. As Auerbach makes it clear, from the beginning, the sense of boredom experienced by many Britons in new colonial settings was much more profound during the nineteenth century. Indeed, the latter was marked by a series of bewildering social, cultural, and technological changes that stripped the empire of its sense of novelty. The development of new means of transport such as steamships, the rise of tourism, and the proliferation of guidebooks jeopardised the sense of risk, newness, enthusiasm that had long been associated with the British imperial experience. Consequently, while “the early empire may have been about wonder and marvel, the nineteenth century was far less exciting and satisfying project.

Auerbach spent 20 years gathering evidence spanning the late 18th century to the turn of the 20th, which records feelings of being bored, miserable and deflated. It’s a captivating history of imperial tedium drawn from memoirs, diaries, private letters and official correspondence. In “reading against the grain”, as Auerbach puts it, he has focused on recorded events normally skimmed over by historians, precisely for being boring – multiple entries repeated over and over again about the weather, train times, shipping forecasts, deliveries, lists and marching; or about nothing ever happening.

In five thematic chapters, “Voyages”, Landscapes,” Governors,” Soldiers”, and “Settlers,” Auerbach shines new light on the experience of traversing, viewing, governing, defending and settling the empire from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. The monotonous nature of the sea voyage, dreary and uninteresting imperial lands, daily routine, depressingly dull dispatches, mind-numbing meetings are some of the sources of an utter sense of imperial boredom.

Whilst the first chapter, Voyages, may be the logical starting-point, it presents particular problems. They may have been monotonous, but it is unlikely that they would have engendered feelings of disenchantment and disillusion at the outset of an empire life or career. Auerbach begins with the somewhat surprising assertion that ‘not until the first half of the 19th century did long-distance ocean travel become truly monotonous’, arguing that this was because, until then, the weather had been ‘a source of danger and discomfort’ whereas, by the mid-19th century, ‘it was barely worth mentioning’. Leaving aside the obvious difficulties with that approach – many 19th-century travellers, assuming they survived, described enduring terrifying typhoons in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea – voyages certainly could be monotonous, particularly, when steam replaced sail.

However, his assertion that this ‘helped to produce feelings of boredom that had never been felt before’ is more questionable. For example, whilst Sir Edmund Fremantle (1836–1929) wrote in his memoirs that, although the sea passages were ‘monotonous’, ‘it never occurred to [him] to be bored’, Auerbach suggests that, ‘in several places his memories [sic] belie his claims’, in that they refer to the ‘the monotony’ of various experiences, including cruising out of harbour under steam rather than under sail, which ‘always possessed some interest’. But, this not only contradicts what Fremantle wrote but also equates boredom with monotony and, thus, deprives it of any proper meaning.

Similarly, because the Royal Naval Surgeon, Edward Cree (1814–1901) recorded his passing the time ‘reading, drawing, walking on deck, eating drinking and sleeping’, Auerbach concludes that ‘almost every leg of his 1839 journey to the East was boring or disappointing’. However, he omits the opening words of this journal entry which reads, ‘making but slow progress towards China. Weather intolerably hot … The time passes pleasantly enough on board’, which suggests he was certainly not bored. Much of this chapter is not concerned with monotony but with how ‘dreadful’ sea voyages could be, particularly, for travellers to Australia, most of all transported convicts, who, as he shows, had to endure the most brutal conditions. But they had no expectations of empire and this seems to add little to the understanding of imperial boredom.

It may well be that, because voyages were so unpleasant, travellers became all the more expectant and thus disappointed, when, on arriving, they found, as Auerbach argues in the next chapter, that much of the landscape was dreary and uninteresting. Moreover, many could not decide whether they were in search of a landscape that was picturesque and exotic or ‘normalised’ by reproducing English architecture, gardens and surroundings. This dichotomy generated further disenchantment.

If Auerbach dwells too long on obscure painters who often had little success in making these imperial landscapes picturesque, there is no doubt that many of them were monotonous, not least the vast tracts of Australian out- back. Consequently, whilst ‘the early empire may have been about wonder and marvel, the 19th century was a far less exciting and satisfying project’ and this contributed to feelings of boredom.

In the chapter, ‘Governors’, Auerbach essentially covers the administration of the empire. Here, there was also a lot of monotony, although Auerbach wavers between whether this was caused by having too much or too little work to do. Either way, it leads to the assertion that ‘throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, British imperial administrators at all levels were bored by their experience, serving king or queen and country’. However, this is qualified in the next paragraph, in which he cites the Marquess of Hastings, who served in India in the early 1800s, and Lord Curzon, who served as Viceroy at the end of the century, neither of whom, he says, suffered from boredom. It was ‘during the middle decades, that imperial service was far less stimulating’ but he does not explain why it should have been limited to this particular phase.

Indeed, in terms of the staggering quantity of paper generated by the ICS, the problem stretched back to the early 18th century. Records were copied and recopied, and months were spent waiting on instruction from London. The few encounters with colonised subjects came in the form of long, drawn-out formal events. Lord Lytton as Viceroy of India between 1876-1880 was required to bow 1230 times during one particularly ceremonial reception with the Viceroy.

Whilst it is ultimately fruitless to exchange examples of officials who did and did not find government service boring, some of those chosen by Auerbach are not convincing. James Pope Hennessy, for example, the eccentric Irishman who delighted in antagonising the colonials and endearing himself to the indigenous people with his unconventional views on racial equality, certainly found the European life-style monotonous but, as a result, made sure he kept ceaselessly active. In the words of his biographer, ‘the chief impression [he] made on British and Orientals alike was one of superlative vitality. “He would do better”, wrote Sir Harry Parkes “if he had less life”’,  Coming from Parkes, that arch- imperialist, who allegedly died from over-work and could never have been bored, the comment is telling.

While idleness certainly contributed to boredom, it was often the labour of maintaining colonial control that proved to be the most dull. Increasingly professionalised, the management of the colonies became characterised by strict report-making, bookkeeping and low-stakes decision-making related to staff. Whilst these officials may have become disenchanted, it is unclear what sort of mind-set they had when they started out: according to Auerbach, ‘they may well have entered imperial service out of a sense of duty, or perhaps looking forward to a colonial sinecure that offered status and adventure as well as a generous salary, but instead found themselves inundated by a volume of paperwork and official obligations that they had never anticipated, and which they found to be, quite frankly boring’. As a result, they were ‘eager to escape the tedium of the empire they had built’.

Whilst this suggests that, as a result, they threw up their empire careers, the example of Sir Frank Swettenham does not seem to fit the picture. He may have found life from time to time ‘extraordinarily dull’, but he continued as a government official in the Malay States for thirty years, before retiring in 1901. His belief in the imperial cause seems to have overcome the dullness and trumped any possible disenchantment.

In the chapter entitled, Soldiers, Auerbach concedes that ‘the link between military service and boredom can be traced at least to the mid-eighteenth century’. However, he argues, what was different in the 19th century was that boredom was no longer simply ‘incidental or ‘peripheral;’ it was ‘omnipresent’ and this was ‘a function of unmet expectations’, namely, the unsatisfied thirst for action and bloody combat as the ‘small wars’ of the Victorian age became shorter and fewer. However, citing Maeland and Brunstad’s Enduring Military Boredom, he concedes that this omnipresent boredom is a ‘condition that persists to the present day, especially among enlisted men’. This, therefore, divests it of any imperial character and suggests that it was, and remains a feature of modern military service.

Nonetheless, it would have been interesting to know how this boredom affected the performance of the military in the context of empire. Certainly, it gave rise to some of its more unsavoury aspects, with drunken soldiers brawling and beating up the locals and spending much of their time in the local brothels.

According to Richard Holmes, by 1899, there was ‘a real crisis’ in the infection rates of venereal disease of British soldiers in the Indian Army: ‘for every genteel bungalow on the cantonment … there were a dozen young men, denizens of a wholly different world, crossing the cultural divide every night’. Here was imperial boredom in the raw and urgent measures had to be taken to abate its consequences.

Although the final chapter is entitled ‘Settlers’, it encompasses a much broader category of imperial agents, including women, who until this point have been little- mentioned, and, in particular, women in India ‘most of whom went there in their early twenties to work (or to accompany their husbands who were working) and then typically left by the time they reached their fifties to retire in Britain’. It is unclear why these women and, indeed the whole topic of women in empire, should be subsumed under this chapter heading, given their importance in the empire project and the attention given to them in post-colonial scholarship.

In recent scholarship, empire white women have been frequently misrepresented and lampooned in the literature, including the novels of E. M. Forster, George Orwell, and Paul Scott and all too often reincarnated as representing the worst side of the ruling group – its racism, petty snobbishness and pervading aura of superiority and shown as shallow, self-centred and pre-occupied with maintaining the hierarchy of their narrow social worlds. They have invariably been portrayed as both bored and boring.

The wives of these officials were encouraged to run their households in a similar way, managing a large domestic staff and keeping a meticulous watch on financial expenditures. Socially, they were faced with constant garden parties and dinners with whatever small group of colonial families lived nearby. It’s difficult to imagine just how dull the existence of these administrators must have been, yet in reading these colonial accounts, the temporality and the totalising effects of boredom feel undeniably similar to the way that we describe the monotony of work today.

Auerbach effectively reiterates the trope as a clichéd illustration of a female, reclining aimlessly on a chaise longue, conjuring up the familiar image of ‘the same women [who] met day after day to eat the same meals and exchange the same banal pleasantries’ and concluding that ‘it was not only in India that women were bored, which suggests that the phenomenon was not a localised one, but a broader imperial one’.

Of course many western women did find life in empire monotonous and suffered from boredom, if not depression, and no doubt many were insufferable, as were their husbands, but there is an alternative image and the analysis is so generalised that their contribution is, once again, in danger of being dismissed out of hand.

A more nuanced approach would have examined ways in which women overcame their boredom by pursuing activities in which they were anything but bored, including, most obviously, the missions, a category which, despite its importance, does not feature, save for one cursory comment to the effect that, ‘even missionary women, whose sense of purpose presumably kept them inspired, could find themselves bored’. The example given is that of Elizabeth Lees Price, who, at one point during her eventful life, had to help run three schools for 30,000 pupils. But, just because her diary recorded ‘with increasing frequency’ the comment ‘nothing has happened’, it seems a stretch to infer, as Auerbach does, that ‘not even missionary work was enough to stave off the boredom that afflicted women all across the empire’.

For Auerbach, recuperating boredom means reframing the experience of empire as one of failure and disappointment. In the context of colonial scholarship, which tends to focus on the violence of colonialism and the myth-making that went along with it, Auerbach’s book is rather counter-intuitive. He drains the power of these myths, looking instead at the accounts of those responsible for building empire from the ground up: “What if they were not heroes or villains, builders or destroyers,” he writes, “but merely unexceptional men and women, young and old, rich and poor, struggling, often without success, to find happiness and economic security in an increasingly alienating world?” The agents of colonialism struggled to find any semblance of agency in the work that they were doing. Imperial time stretched out, deadened over decades of appointment in far off islands and desert outposts: a sort of watered down version of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” in paradise.

Whilst Auerbach demonstrates that much of empire life was monotonous, to my mind, he is too quick to infer that this monotony necessarily gave rise to feelings of ‘imperial boredom’, properly so-called. He also too easily assumes that, where people were bored, this could only operate in a negative way and, whilst he may be right in concluding that, ultimately, ‘the British were, quite simply bored by their empire’, he fails to draw the evidence together to explore what impact imperial boredom had on the development of empire, for better or worse, during the long 19th century.

If not quite an invention of the 19th century, boredom was a particular preoccupation of the period: the product of new assumptions about the separation of work and leisure and a prominent theme of fin-de-siècle literature. Less clear is whether Auerbach is right to treat boredom separately from other emotional states – anxiety, loneliness, anger, fear – which afflicted the imperialist psyche. After all, a long literary tradition – from Conrad to Maugham, Orwell, Lessing and Greene – describes precisely how those varied shades of neurosis blended into one another.

Besides, a more capacious history of discontent and Empire might help to connect the frustrations of the imperialist experience to the suffering of imperial subjects. When, for instance, did boredom turn to aggression and violence? One danger of Auerbach’s approach in Imperial Boredom is to portray an enervated and under-stimulated, yet still extraordinarily powerful, elite as more or less passive.

As imperial rivalry intensified towards the end of the century, so did the quest for new ways of staving off boredom, not only for men in the British Empire but also for those in the other European empires, and war was one of the most obvious solutions.

As other imperial historians have argued, what Europeans were seeking was everything the nineteenth century, in its drawn-out tedium, had denied them. War as Cambridge historian Christopher Clark has argued, “was going to empower them and restore a sense of agency to their limbs and lives.” Auerbach refers to what Clark called ‘the pleasure culture of war’, citing the example of Adrian de Wiart who, serving in the Boer War, knew ‘once and for all, that war was in my blood. I was determined to fight and I didn’t mind who or what’. But he does not explore the consequences of this mood further, other than to say that these adventurers also ‘ended up bored … and disillusioned’. But, the implications were, arguably, much more far-reaching.

Even if it was not directly causative, this mood was ‘permissive’ of the more direct causes and certainly formed part of the background against which Europe went to war in 1914. It may be thought that it did so in a fit of imperial boredom.

I admire the audacity of Auerbach’s writing and as a revisionist piece of history it has the dash and dare of British imperialism and colonialism. But after reading the book I came away thinking that sweeping statements such as that the empire developed “in a fit of boredom” are a tad unconvincing.

Although he spent about 20 years collecting materials, Auerbach seems not to have visited Africa or India during his research. Had he done so, I doubt if he would all too easily accepted that colonial accounts of being bored represented the full experience. Absent are deeper discussions of how expressions of being bored are linked to racism, arrogance and the need to assert power in exotic, challenging and unstable environments. Emotional detachment, disdain and a demand to be entertained were also part of a well-rehearsed repertoire of domination.

But where Auerbach does succeed is in admirably capturing the texture of everyday imperialist life as few historians have. Most of these examples are compellingly relevant and illustrative of some of the colonial circumstances that drove Britons mad with boredom, challenging one of the enduring myths about the British Empire as a site of exciting adventure.

If you are a lover of histories of white imperial rulers and thumbnail portraits, this book is for you. It’s full of excellent quotes. Lord Lytton, for example, fourth choice to be governor-general of India in 1875 (and appalled by the prospect), later summed up the British Raj as “a despotism of office-boxes tempered by the occasional loss of keys”. It was certainly the case that propaganda about empire and the populist books written about it to make money created false expectations, leading to bitter disillusionment. Nostalgists for the age of pith helmets and pukka sahibs will find little comfort here.

In mining the gap between public bombast and private disillusionment, Auerbach demonstrates that – even for its most privileged beneficiaries – Empire was almost never a place where fantasy became reality. I would suggest that rather than the British Empire being mostly boring, more accurate would be David Livingstone’s verdict on exploratory travel while battling dysentery: “it’s not all fun you know.”

The concept of imperial boredom provides a novel and illuminating lens through which to examine the mind-set of men and women working and living in empire, how it was that, despite the crushing monotony, so many persisted in the endeavour and what this tells us about the empire project more generally. There are all states of mind familiar to historians of empire (in the lives of their subjects, of course). It has long been argued that strategies to relieve moments of white boredom in the empire included cheating and adultery, husband hunting, trophy wife hunting, massive consumption of alcohol, gambling, copious diary and letter writing, taxidermy, berating the servants, prostitution, bird-watching, game hunting, high tea on the verandah, fine pearls and ball gowns, all were par for course in the every day lives for those bored British colonisers.

Auerbach’s book reminds me of a not so nice female character bemoans James Fox’s scandalous but true to life colonial novel White Mischief (1982), as she looked out over the Rift Valley in 1940s colonial Kenya, she declares, “Oh God! Not another fucking beautiful day.”

An earnest post-colonialist studies reader might might feel triggered by such a flippant remark as evidence of all that was wrong with the imperial project but at heart it’s a pitiful lament disguised as boredom at the gilded cage the British built for themselves to capture the enchantment and disenchantment of every day life in the British Empire.

[hpenvs3000]

Nature and its healing abilities

I think that the most amazing thing I know about nature is its vast healing abilities. Nature and its products can positively influence people's mental health, physical health, and it always seems to find a way to heal itself. Nature serves so many purposes!

We as humans are spiritual beings. We can walk into a forest and look around and magically feel at ease. The songs that birds chirp and the sound of leaves ruffling evoke feelings of serenity and peace. Not only does nature positively influence our emotions, it can also heal us. Due to our spiritual nature, I believe that connecting with nature is something that we need daily to feel good. When I am having a really bad day I often have an intense urge to go outside. When I am outside I walk, sit, run, or write. It does not matter what I am doing though, as long as I am outside, simply being there makes me feel at peace. Many people can resonate with this because as a species, we have a tendency to be closely associated or interact with other forms of life in nature. This tendency is called biophilia! Recently it seems as though we have begun to integrate nature in different mental and physical healing treatments. Some examples include naturopathic medicine, therapeutic horticulture, restorative environments, therapeutic landscapes, and healing gardens. Although nature has always been an integral part of many cultural healing techniques, it seems as though it is becoming more popular now!

Here is a video I found of a walk through a forest with the sound of rain. As you can see it is very relaxing to watch, and there are hundreds of videos just like this!

I believe that my generation in particular is seeing a big shift in our lives. Most of us went from living a very fun childhood, spending most of our time outside playing in the sun, in the forest, or at a cottage by the water, and now we spend a large portion of our life inside with a cell phone glued to our hands. We now use nature to escape the lives that we are living, and I think we can all agree that the older we get the more we realize the importance of nature and what effect it actually has on our mental health. There is actually evidence to support the role of nature experiences in an increased psychological wellbeing (Bratman et al., 2019). Not only does technology pull us away from nature, different living situations can as well. Often people are encouraged to move to urbanized areas due to different opportunities such as a higher education or a well paying job in the area. These opportunities themselves may promote mental health, but the necessary contact with nature in urbanized areas is often lost or at least greatly reduced.

Here is a photo I took of my dog when we were on a walk in a forest!

Not only does nature positively influence our mental wellbeing, it is also very important in our physical health. In nature and healthy ecosystems, healthy plants are grown. Plants are very important sources of food and medicine! One example of a medicine that can be found in nature is Chamomile (Matricaria recutita L.) This plant is actually considered a weed! It has a long stem (about 20-30 cm) with white flowers at the end. When the flowers of this plant are dried, they are consumed as a herbal tea (chamomile tea) (McKay & Blumberg, 2006). According to McKay and Blumberg (2006), in vitro studies, chamomile has been found to have antimicrobial activity against some species of bacteria, fungi, and viruses and has shown to be particularly effective against molds and yeasts. Antioxidant activity and antiplatelet activity have also been found in vitro studies of chamomile (McKay & Blumberg, 2006). In animal model studies anti-inflammatory, anti-tumorigenesis, antigenotoxic, hypocholesterolemic, positive cardiac and gastrointestinal effects have been found. Chamomile has also been found to have positive effects on the liver and central nervous system (McKay & Blumberg, 2006). According to (McKay & Blumberg, 2006), chamomile in oil form has been found to have positive effects on the gastrointestinal tract in combination with other components. Chamomile oil has also been found to reduce pain of women giving birth and positively influence mood. One of chamomile's most well known effects is its mediation of anxiety and insomnia, as chamomile acts as relaxant.

Here is a photo I took of Chamomile tea!

Not only can nature heal us, it seems as though nature always finds a way to heal itself! A great example of this is invasive plant species. Oftentimes when invasive plant species come in, they have the potential to take over an entire ecosystem. Despite this, every species has a natural enemy. A great example of this is the gypsy moth, which is an invasive species to North America. Gypsy moths eat foliage on trees, and they can do so very quickly. Even though they are rapidly spreading and causing a lot of damage to trees, they have many natural enemies which can help to keep their population numbers in check. These predators include wasps, flies, beetles, ants, spiders, birds, chipmunks, squirrels, and racoons (City of London, 2021).

Here is a photo I took of some gypsy moth webs in some trees in my backyard.

In conclusion, I find it very fascinating that nature has the ability to heal so many things and people. Even when things get out of check, nature seems to find a way to bring things back to equilibrium. As long as we protect nature, nature will protect us. We live in a symbiotic relationship with nature and that is why it is so important that we protect it!

QUESTIONS:

Have you ever treated an illness or wound (or any other medical problem) with something from nature?

How do biocontrol methods relate to natures ability to heal itself? How can we take advantage of this?

References

Bratman, G. N., Anderson, C. B., Berman, M. G., Cochran, B. Vries, S. D., Flanders, J., Folke, C., Frumkin, H., Gross, J. J., Hartig, T., Kahn Jr. P. H., Kuo, M., Lawler, J. J., Levin, P. S., Lindahl, T., Meyer-Lindberg, A., Mithcell, R., Ouyang, Z., Roe, J… Daily, G. C. (2006).  Nature and mental health: An ecosystem service perspective. ScienceAdvances, 6. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aax0903

City of London. (2021). Gypsy moth. City of London. https://london.ca/living-london/water-environment/trees/invasive-species/gypsy-moth

McKay, D. L., Blumberg, J. B. (2006). A review of the bioactivity and potential health benefits of chamomile tea (Matricaria recutita L.). Phytotherapy research, (519-530). DOI: 10.1002/ptr.1900

[payne1ac]

Meet Alexandria!

My name is Alexandria Payne, I’m a senior at Central Michigan University, pursing a double major in Marketing and Information Systems. I’m beyond excited to graduate in the upcoming semesters. Throughout my college career I have changed my major multiple times, which has allowed me to have experiences in various industries. I have bounced around from Marketing, Logistics, Human Resources and Diversity Inclusion - I like to think this makes we well rounded! I’ve only officially changed my major twice, but I am happy that I did because I would not have found my true passion, and what makes me excited!

I am from Southfield, MI which is in the Metro Detroit area. After graduation I’m excited to head back to a major city and thrive in that environment. I am not entirely sure of the route I want to pursue, but I know I want to do Consumer Marketing and Consulting at some point in the future. This is the first blog that I’ve ever had, and I’m am both nervous and excited to see how it goes. I hope that what I say will challenge people to think, and open their eyes to things that we are sometimes blinded from, learn new information and crack a smile. 

One company that I have always admired for their usage of social media and originality is Wendy’s. I follow Wendy’s on Twitter and love when they interact with other companies alike them. Although Wendy’s does a great job at this, I think McDonald’s is also top tier for their social media efforts as well. If you were to take a look at McDonald’s social media you would notice that they continuously use the principle of Participation very well. McDonald’s is very current on popular slang, trendy topics, and viral memes. They always find a way to use these things and promote their business in an entertaining way. For example, there is a funny saying that McDonald’s Sprite is overhwellingly strong and powerful. McDonald’s used this as an entertaining way to promote their fountain drinks, and suggested getting a Big Mac to lessen the drink’s powers. In addition, everyone knows that McDonald’s and Wendys are rivals, every so often they go back and forth on social media, and rag on each other in light- hearted entertaining ways. But the most important thing that they do is interact with their followers; creating polls, responding to comments/ direct messages, and providing entertainment. 

I encourage you to check out their social media once you get a chance! I’ve included the link to their website and Twitter handle below!

- McDonald’s Website

- Mcdonald’s Twitter

I hope you liked reading my blog, tune in next week for more topics!

-Alex

[dlkardenal]

Sociopaths  – The guy we imagine when we hear the word “villain”

When I did my research about the topic, I was pleasantly surprised, that there are more and more articles out there that point out the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath. I admit it is hard enough to spot either and even harder to tell which one we see because there are a lot of overlaps between the behavior of a psychopath and a sociopath. Sociopathy is not a diagnostic term in psychology, instead, it is called antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), and I think it is only fitting to call the child by its name.

Let’s start with the similarities! Both psychopaths and sociopaths lack empathy and tend to manipulate others, and because of that, they can walk down the dark path towards being a criminal. Although some say that people with ASPD have a conscience – that little voice in the head that tells you, that you are doing something wrong – it is really faint, while in psychopaths it just doesn’t exist. I must point out as I did in the previous blogpost about psychopaths, that people with ASPD are not all criminals. A lot of them can blend into society, although not as successfully as their more calculating psychopath counterparts, and they’re not nearly as good actors.

Why? Let’s talk about the differences.

To sum it up, psychopaths are the “cold-hearted” while people with ASPD are the “hot-headed” type of villains if we want to stay on the topic of literature. Those with the latter are impulsive and reckless, inconsiderate or disregarding the consequences of their actions. They are often aggressive, display a dysregulated temper, and thus can react violently to provocation or frustration. They don’t have the kind of self-control and acting skills a psychopath has. On the other hand, they are capable of establishing relationships and connect with others. Don’t get me wrong, they are bad at maintaining them, and because of their behavior it is challenging for their environment to tolerate them but at least these relationships are not as empty as in the case of psychopaths. They can truly care about someone or something.

From the biological point of view, ASPD is caused by a combination and interaction of genetic and environmental influences. Although we know about specific genes related to ASPD and psychopathy – for example, a gene that produces a protein that transports a hormone called serotonin in and out of brain cells, and another one that’s responsible for the breaking down and eliminating of serotonin – we can’t see clear differences in the brain structure like in the case of psychopathy, only the different activity. It seems that ASPD is more like a hormone-related thing, rather than neurodevelopmental.

Traumatic events can lead to a disruption of the standard development of the central nervous system, which can generate a release of hormones. Testosterone, for example, is a hormone that plays an important role in aggressiveness while cortisol facilitates the cognitive control of impulsive tendencies. This is important because if childhood trauma can lead to hormonal changes that distort the brain structure, it means that sociopaths are not born this way, they are made by the environment. 

Yepp, we finally arrived at the bad and/or dead parents kind of villains. 

Of course, they need to have some tendencies from birth, but the right (or in this case, wrong) environment is needed to push that button. If you want to write a villain with a tragic backstory, that they are bad because their father was abusive, or both parents were alcoholic, than APSD is the psychological disorder you are looking for.  

Another difference between psycho- and sociopaths, is that the latter is treatable… sort of. Certain, long-term psychological methods exist that can manage an ASPD patient but only under very specific circumstances: the patient has to acknowledge their disorder and show a willingness to change it not long after the trauma that triggered their condition happened. Which means during childhood, preferably as early as possible. Adult or unwilling sociopaths cannot change, and no medication exists that can ease the symptoms. And even a young kid has not even close to a 100% chance to recover from the damage. In most cases (those really, really rare cases) psychologists see a brief period of hope where the patient shows less and less ASPD symptoms, but after that they mostly regress into their original state. So I hate to disappoint you, but this isn’t the kind of villain who’ll turn their life around if enough love and compassion surround them.

To show a great example, my favorite sociopath is Sherlock Holmes from the BBC show “Sherlock”. In the first episode he even calls someone out on the difference of the two mental disorders, and I can’t think of better representation. He cares about Watson and Mary, showing clear signs that he can form strong bonds, however often disregards their feelings as the nearly nonexistent social finesse he possesses doesn’t cover such an intricate interaction with others (at least intricate for someone with ASPD). He’s sometimes seen firing a gun in the living room because he’s bored, thus confirming his lack of impulse control. He is a genius of course but acts rashly, sometimes reckless, takes a lot of risks, and doesn’t think of others while he does this. Sherlock is definitely not a villain, but as one of the police officers says in the first episode, there is always a risk the next corpse they found will be provided by Holmes himself.

If we put Sherlock beside Hannibal Lecter the difference between a person with APSD and a psychopath is unmistakable. Because Dar wants to get involved in everything, his choice for great sociopaths are either Oswald Cobblepot or Edward Nigma from the series Gotham. Can you think of another good representation of sociopaths in movies or in books? Which type of villain do you prefer better in a story? I think a psychopath with their acting skills is way more terrifying because you can never know what is an act and what is real.

Next week we either move onto the next member of the dark triad, the narcissistic personality disorder, or we take a break from the villains and talk about another popular trope, the outcasts through the lenses of anthropology.

Lory

[hempactivegel]

Hemp Joint And Muscle Active Relief Gel With Natural Ingredients

cannabis medicine and I've treated thousands of patients with medical cannabis in CBD over the years and this is where I share all of that knowledge with you so in this episode today we're going to be talking about CBD used for chronic pain so how can CBD help chronic pain conditions what kind of chronic pain conditions it helps with and which ones it may not be so helpful with and then we're going to talk about how to actually use CBD and the experiences I've had using high CBD types of hemp in medical cannabis with my patients with chronic pain so this is a question I get asked all of the time in facebook groups by email and of course with my patients is they really want to try to use CBD and usually in an oil forms of CBD oil for their chronic pain now there's some CBD oils that you can get over-the-counter in some countries that are from hemp and they don't have any THC in it or less than 0.2 percent THC so basically none and then there's the medical cannabis that really has high high high CBD low THC but does it a little bit of detectable THC in it let's say 1% THC so in my medical practice in Canada where medical cannabis is legal I use a lot of very high CBD very low THC oils to help patients with chronic pain now chronic pain it's a just a huge broad area of medicine because there's so many areas where pain can come from pain can come from the nervous system being injured and come from the nerves called neuropathic pain or nerve pain it can come from inflammation so if someone who has an autoimmune disease or they have arthritis from just wear and tear they can all get different types of pain and you have pain in the nerve endings and you have pain in the body and then you have pain that starts in the brain that's again something called central pain so with all of these different types of pain actually one of the most important systems in our body to manage pain is our own cannabis system in our body our endocannabinoids system so what this means is that when we are facing pain whether it's chronic pain or acute pain there's molecules in our body there's chemicals our body makes to help fight that pain and our body makes cannabis like compounds cannabis like molecules called endocannabinoids it helps to really regulate our pain perception how we kind of perceive pain and also how pain really changes the brain over time so a really common question I get is you know what should I do when I've already tried CBD from somewhere over the counter from a hemp store for example for my chronic pain and it didn't do anything does that mean that cannabis medicine in general and CBD in general it just can't help me the answer is usually no usually the answer is that it probably can be helpful somewhat but it really depends on the type of CBD the concentration of CBD it's different for every person in every pain condition and a lot of other factors like was it a full spectrum cannabis medicine product with lots of different chemicals in it besides the CBD or was a just CBD without anything else like a CBD islip what I find with a lot of chronic pain conditions is because CBD actually interacts with our own cannabis system in our own bodies called the endocannabinoid system it doesn't actually turn pain off directly like a painkiller for example what it does instead is it down regulates our perception of pain and the kind of tones our our nervous system so to speak so it can help with chronic pain over a period of time but often times it might take weeks or months to see in effect and it doesn't cure chronic pain so you have to keep taking it so what can happen with a lot of people is they start taking a very small amount of CS CBD oil and they don't really see much difference if anything oftentimes they have to use a different dose a different product or sometimes adding a tiny bit of THC so using in Canada for example where this is legal a strain of cannabis oil that has a tiny bit of THC and still very very high amount of CBD actually works better for chronic pain in many cases because it actually binds directly to some of the the pain receptors using the THC and then the CBD makes the THC work even better even at these tiny little doses so normally even at those tiny doses of THC people don't normally feel impaired or high so a lot of times people think that CBD oil is going to work directly for their chronic pain but again because CBD actually doesn't bind to either one of the cannabis like receptors in our body the cb1 or the CBT receptor like THC does it works in a more kind of overall toning capacity like a lot of herbal medicines it's all about really toning the nervous system and this is where CBD can be helpful over time there's also still so much we don't know about CBD and about the cannabis plant in general we're really only at the beginning of our scientific understanding and this is really I mean I mean when I say the beginning I mean I read the most up-to-date cutting-edge research every week on this topic and I'm still feeling like you know we're really at the beginning so that being said how can you actually use CBD if you have chronic pain well one way that you can use it is you can help use it to help decrease the anxiety that comes with chronic pain because what happens when you have chronic pain is in the back of your mind even though your brain gets used to having chronic pain it takes up so much bandwidth in your brain so much mental and brain energy to basically dampen the pain signals so you can just go about your life and not feel like you're in constant trauma that over time it can cause a lot of brain anxiety and it can cause a lot of fatigue so what I find seem to be helpful with when someone has chronic pain one of the ways there's many but one of the ways is helping to decrease the brain anxiety levels so basically it helps kind of calm their brain down which dampens the fight-or-flight response or you know the danger response system in the brain and that also dampens pain signals and it also dampens our pain perception because when you have chronic your nervous system is on edge all of the time it's like you're caught in this fight or flight running away from a saber-toothed tiger cycle all of the time and everything is heightened so your awareness of everything of sounds of smells of bright lights and of pain everything gets amplified so basically it just helps kind of calm everything down a notch and even in itself that's really helpful with chronic pain sufferers another way that can actually help chronic pain is if the chronic pain has an inflammation component so that's actually most types of chronic pain even indirectly if you have nerve pain sometimes there's an inflammation component as well so what CBD does in animal models we know and we think in humans although we need really bigger research studies to say exactly how this works but it's probably very similar to what we're seeing in animal models is that CBD actually works on inflammation through a number of different pathways in the body so it can shut down inflammation in some pathways so if pain is coming from inflammation CBD used daily over time may help reduce inflammation and that kind of pain as well another factor in many forms of chronic pain even if you didn't start out this way is the longer the pain goes on the nervous system tries to adapt to the pain and basically your own endocannabinoid system in your other pain control systems they get out of whack they just don't work as well and they kind of reach this new baseline this new kind of dysregulated baseline of I'm okay but actually the nervous system is really just regulated so this is where CBD may be able to help again because it may be able to help rebalance the endocannabinoids system when it's gotten out of whack so the last thing that I'm just gonna mention is okay what types of chronic pain do I see enjoy treat with medical cannabis and high CBD strains especially so I see quite a variety of chronic pain conditions one of the really interesting things that I've noticed in my clinical work with patients and this is not something that's really in the published literature yet is after someone's received chemotherapy for cancer in many cases they use different drugs that really affect numbness and tingling and burning sensations of burning pain the hands and the feet and this is kind of a neuropathic or nerve type of pain that specifically people get after a lot of chemo therapies especially the breast cancer chemotherapy regimens and what I've found is when patients use CBD oil after they finish their chemo and they keep using it their pain their burning pain in their hands and their tingling pain in their hands and their feet tend to tend to go away a lot quicker then I would say on average so it may be really a place specifically received II show some promise there's some animal studies on that type of pain specifically using CBD and we need more research to say exactly how it works in humans but it's really promising another type of pain that I treat is fibromyalgia I also treat arthritis pain and pain that's associated with a lot of other chronic diseases so I'm gonna talk about each of those in another video specifically but in general I think for chronic pain CBD holds a lot of promise especially when it's combined with other chemicals in the cannabis plant and potentially with other herbals and other medications so if you like this video please subscribe to our Channel and also please share this video with your friends and family who might benefit from it too and if you want more great free resources from me on CBD cannabis medicine and evidence-based natural medicine come over and join me on dr. Danny Gordon comm and sign up for our emails where you're going to get updates for me personally and exclusive content

[uranianrights]

When different writers from the period have mentioned Kraft-Ebing, it has been in pretty different ways, but I found this quote in the appendix of The Intermediate Sex which seems to cast some light over the issue:

Sexual inversion has usually been regarded as psycho-pathological, as a symptom of degeneration; and those who exhibit it have been considered as physically unfit. This view, however, is falling into disrepute, especially as Krafft-Ebing, its principal champion, abandoned it in the later editions of his work.

- Otto Weininger, Sex and Character. 1906

This clears up for me how his earlier statements square together with his later advocacy against antisodomy laws. 

In 1879, Ulrichs wrote in Critische Pfeile, the last part of his series of pamphlets on uranians:

My scientific opponents are mostly psychiatrists. They are, for example, Westphal, Krafft-Ebing, Stark. They made their observations on Urnings who were in institutions for the mentally ill. They appear not to have seen mentally healthy Urnings. The rest follow the published views of the psychiatrists.

Which is to say, he regarded Krafft-Ebing as an opponent. 

Hubert Kennedy, Ulrichs biographer, writes:

Ironically, the man who became the major proponent of the sickness model of homosexuality, Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902), became interested in studying the subject precisely as a result of reading Ulrichs’s writings, as he explicitly stated in a letter to Ulrichs of January 29, 1879 (Critische Pfeile, 92). Already in 1877, Krafft-Ebing had written that Ulrichs was “afflicted with this perverse drive” and that Ulrichs “still has not furnished proof that he, as an inborn phenomenon, is eo ipso a physiological and not perhaps a pathological one” (Krafft-Ebing 1877, 305–306). With only a slight change in the wording, this statement was included in his Psychopathia sexualis (1886, 58) and it remained in all later editions of this perennial bestseller. 

Although Krafft-Ebing became interested in the subject because of Ulrichs, his understanding of it was rather along the lines of the degeneration theory of Bénédict Auguste Morel (1809–1873), as presented by Morel in 1857. This is shown already in the title of Krafft-Ebing’s 1877 work, which may be translated: “On certain anomalies of the moral drive and the clinical-forensic evaluation of them as a probable functional sign of degeneration of the central nervous system.” Nevertheless, Giovanni Dall’Orto sees a positive influence of Ulrichs on Krafft-Ebing, in that Krafft-Ebing “softened, thanks to him, the original premise, which saw in the homosexual a serious degenerate, and a criminal for life” (Dall’Orto 1985, 66).

Seeing as this mentions Krafft-Ebing never editing out the part about homosexuality “likely being pathological rather than inborn” I’m not sure what edits, exactly, he did make. I suppose that even in thinking it a “biological error” -- as he did all sex not turned to procreation -- he may still have expressed himself less damningly on the subject. 

At any rate, historian Harry Oosterhuis writes about Krafft-Ebing:

Krafft-Ebing’s overall attitude became more and more lenient and humanitarian: from the early 1890s he opposed the penalisation of homosexual acts and he was among the first to sign Hirschfeld’s petition advocating the abolition of Section 175 of the German legal code, which made so-called ‘unnatural vice’ punishable. In his last article on homosexuality, published in Hirschfeld’s Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen [Yearbook for Intermediate Sexual Types], Krafft-Ebing admitted that his earlier views on the immoral and pathological nature of homosexuality had been one-sided and that there was truth in the point of view of many of his homosexual correspondents who asked for sympathy and compassion

And while I can no longer find the source, I have once seen a quote where Ulrichs, shortly before his dead, expressed great hope at Krafft-Ebing support for the petition to repeal Paragraph 175, seeing it as a sign that his words were finally being heard, years after he had retired from his advocacy. 

[tinycrowned]

The Science Behind a Psychic Scream; via my brain knowledge and some crash course videos compiled into a document that hopefully makes sense

Psychic Scream

Hypothesis: If the Psychic Scream can force a fight or flight response for a short, controlled amount of time, then the way in which it triggers the chemical response can be classified as a physical effect on both the caster and the victim as well as the environment around them. 

It’s Physical:

Fun Fact: The name of the spell, ‘Psychic Scream’, can be called an oxymoron because of the two words’ official definitions. Psychic, relating to something not physical [adjective;“relating to or denoting faculties or phenomena that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, especially involving telepathy or clairvoyance.|relating to the soul or mind.|noun;a person considered or claiming to have psychic powers; a medium.”] and Scream, something physical [verb;“give a long, loud, piercing cry or cries expressing excitement, great emotion, or pain.|noun;a long, loud, piercing cry expressing extreme emotion or pain.”].

Now, to project and permeate a scream far enough into someone’s mind seems a bit… outlandish and ridiculous, if you ask me. But, I think I can manage to explain it using aspects of physics, vibrations, and frequencies. 

To scream would mean a sound, a real sound that is carried by soundwaves and vibrations- so right off the bat, the word ‘scream’ has to be classified as physical because it’s something you can hear and react to. Reacting and sensing are physical. The initial action is physical- in game, the caster projects a shout, using their magic to trigger a fight or flight response within his enemies as an area of effect. 

And by shout I mean a literal shout. You’re not the dragonborn, calm down. Parthurnax isn’t about to bestow some wisdom of The Voice into your brain- that’s not how it works here.

Now we know that the Psychic Scream has to project a physical sound with a mental side effect because of the way it triggers the fight or flight response so easily. You can imagine a scream in your head, but would it really scare you that much? [bear with me, ‘fight or flight’ comes up a lot here because that’s exactly what we’re trying to tie the physicality into.]

Soundwaves are physical vibrational frequencies that are created by particles moving back and forth in the air so fast it creates a directional wave. For our case and for the regular shape and range for the spell, the Psychic Scream would be a Spherical Wave with intense oscillation (vibration) with its starting point being the caster themselves. From there the waves would fan outward- but there’s one problem.

Soundwaves usually get weaker as they travel outward and even slow when they pass through things- this could be a potential reason the Psychic Scream’s effects only last eight seconds. But at the same time, it has a max range of eight yards. So the scream would have to be super powerful and super loud to output the intended effect- make your enemy flee. 

So how can this sound from, for example, a normal human, be amplified to such a drastic effect? 

Magic. Obviously. 

I won’t get into the science of Azerothian magic, I don’t think I’m equipped enough to handle that right now- but what I can explain is the Doppler Effect and how it works in our favor here. 

The Doppler Effect is the difference between pitches by distance. [This can also be used for light and measuring the distance of stars, but we’re not talking about that right now.] For example; the town crier is yelling about something stupid going on in Stormwind’s cheese industry. The farther she is away from you the quieter the sound will be because the soundwaves aren’t as strong as opposed to her being directly in front of you, yelling in your face while her minty, breathy sound waves bounce off of your physical form and vibrate your eardrums so our brains can actually process the sound and hear what she’s saying at a pitch loud enough to irritate the hell us. 

So how does this tie in with the Psychic Scream? You ask, desperately wanting to be untied from the chair I’ve put you in so I have someone to ramble to about the science of a video game. 

Well, lucky stranger! It has to do with the pitch of the Psychic Scream being loud enough to trigger a neural response in your amygdala, the ‘fear circuit’ of your brain. The amygdala is triggered when a sound that scares you vibrates through your eardrum and your brain processes the sound as BadTM, which then triggers a neurological response.

You see, humans can comfortably hear things from one picowatt [one million millionth of a watt] per square meter to one watt [the SI unit of power, equivalent to one joule per second, corresponding to the power in an electric circuit in which the potential difference is one volt and the current one ampere.] per square meter. To use real life examples, this range of pico-to-watt is the equivalent of a rock concert. What’s very unsafe for humans to be subjected to is one-hundred watts per square meter, which is the sound of being thirty meters away from a jet plane. 

((You know, there’s a reason alarms wake us up. They’re loud enough [standard alarm clock is eighty decibels] to scare our body awake, but not loud enough to hurt us or trigger an active fear response such as… well… running away, like Psychic Screams do.))

So again- we know that Azerothian magic in priests and such can use minor wonders from their DND sets to amplify their voice as well as summon unspeakable horrors to the void, and maybe even pull screams from the Twisting Nether just to screw with you- but that won’t change the fact that the initial scream from the caster is a physical thing that happens in game to begin the process of the chain reaction that is the Psychic Scream spell. 

Let’s break down the physical process- 

We’ll use my priest man Anden.

For one, when you activate the spell Anden will shout, bend backwards a little and point his face upward. Up. The given point for the spherical sound wave to travel will start above his head and move outward to cover the maximum range of eight yards. This ensnares the victims in the sound and causes them to run away. Saying it again- I tell you, triggering the fight or flight response. 

From his hands there will be a little burst of shadow magic, which confirms our potential ‘amplification’ spell to enhance the original, physical shout/scream. 

That’s where we end our physical journey.

TLDR: Soundwaves exist in all noises- especially a scream where it involves physical vibration to even process a sound. And for a scream to affect a person enough to scare them and make them run it would have to be a spell-amplified scream above the normal yelling level to have victims be properly affected by the scream itself. 

Bill Nye Neurological Process Guy

So, now that we have the physics down, we can move onto how the scream actually affects the brain and why it makes the victims run. 

Imagine this- Anden has just released the Psychic Scream and you can somehow see the soundwaves heading right for you. The sound travels into your ears and vibrates super hard, because it is super loud, right against your eardrum- and you’re suddenly struck with heart-palpitating dread as well as the intense feeling to RUN. So you do that. But why? How can fight or flight be triggered by a scream, even if it is amplified? 

I’m a battle-hardened warrior, Tiny, you say very annoyed at me, screams don’t bother me. 

Well friend, this isn’t a normal scream. As evident from the spell, using the void alongside the scream can somehow push a neurological response onto you, forcing you to run away for the amount of time it takes for the full soundwave to pass through you. Eight yards, eight seconds. Once you’re out of the range, the spell should wear off even if the caster isn’t wailing anymore. 

Have I tacked on that Psychic Scream is also a defensive spell? Why are you attacking a priest anyways? Stress can kill, you know! 

So, anyways, back to the forced response. We all know what screams sound like- in movies and such, in real life. Our brain helps us distinguish between the screams of pure, agonizing horror or pain- or the shrieks and screams of playing children. A sudden noise, like a scream, is so surprising to hear and causes more shock than paralyzing fear because of the sudden increase in volume. A scream can go from soft to loud 150 times per second. Wild, innit? 

But if you hear this really loud scream coming at you and it suddenly triggers an immense amount of bad stress to be released from your amygdala- what I mentioned earlier- and not eustress, the type of stress that makes your nervous system go haywire and cut off blood from certain parts of your body to provide blood to others to get you out of some sort of life threatening situation even if it’s not life threatening. 

… stress can kill, kids.

[The Super Sciency Version That I Managed to Pull From Old Textbooks and Notes And Some Crash Course Videos]

To make you move on your own like this your brain has to send action potentials[the change in electrical potential associated with the passage of an impulse along the membrane of a muscle cell or nerve cell.] down your spinal cord and into the preganglionic neuronal axons. [at its most basic form, preganglionic fibers are fibers from your central nervous system.] The signals firing go all the way to their ganglia, which is a structure containing nerve cells linked by synapses. Once they reach their destination they release neurotransmitters called acetylcholine or ACh. Acetylcholine is a standard neurotransmitter used throughout your entire sympathetic nervous system. If enough ACh manages to send enough signals to stimulate action potentials in several neurons on the postganglionic fibers, the other end of the preganglionic fibers. 

The postganglionic neurons then carry the action potentials down to the appropriate muscles, in our case- your hip and leg muscles. The postganglionic releases another neurotransmitter called norepinephrine, which is always the one transmitter released from postganglionic fibers in your sympathetic nervous system. Norepinephrine is always the one to activate the certain muscles you need to move and open up blood vessels to- again, hip and leg muscles. 

Norepinephrine is the neurotransmitter that can open up blood flow for muscles like your hollow organs(stomach,bladder,liver) and limbs and the Norepinephrine hormone can halt the blood flow to smooth muscles like your hollow organs.

I know, this is a lot of science jargon. Trust me, I never used to understand it either. 

So basically, the priest throwing this Psychic Scream at you is forcing your Central and Sympathetic Nervous System to react to a threat that it created to scare your body enough to turn around and run.

The one good thing about running away is that you’ll be out of the Psychic Scream’s range, which means even if they keep screaming and you’re like, ten yards away from them, it’ll be loud- probably a bit of a concussive blast depending on the power of the amplification spell- but you won’t be forced to run. 

Now For The Big Question

Can a Psychic Scream affect the environment around you? 

Or more specifically, (the one I’m trying to answer here)

Can a Psychic Scream shatter glass? 

Let’s go back to the physics of a soundwave- and then talk about resonance frequencies including glass. 

Pitches can change depending on distance. Vibrations can get faster the closer you are to something. So hypothetically, physically, Yes! You can shatter windows with a Psychic Scream loud enough, powerful enough, and close enough to windows for even the slightest potential. 

If you flick a wine glass, for example, there will be a certain resonance/pitch that humans can actually match, and if you hover your mouth next to the glass and mirror that pitch for a while with your voice, the glass will break! 

The thing about Psychic Scream being able to break windows is one) it’s a spherical sound wave which travels outward- but needed to do so will include a concussive blast that fractures and vibrates against the glass, applying more and more pressure as soundwaves do. But to do this, the caster would need to emit a blast and pitch that’s ultrasonic, which humans can't hear, and hold that pitch and force until the window breaks. 

So that’s pretty much the only downside. You’ll have to be fighting some giant monster to produce a Scream that is damaging. You can’t really do it normally. Which brings me to the final question!

Can There Be A Physical Limitation? 

For our priest’s poor vocal cords, using an amplification to the scream could cause damage if used for more than a few seconds. Psychic Scream is a scream that can force a fight or flight response- and that in itself needs to be incredibly loud. Screaming or yelling in general isn’t good for your vocal cords, so we can assume that this poor priest’s voice is going to be hoarse no matter how long he uses it. 

Whilst using Psychic Scream, holding the noise for an extended amount of time could drain up your oxygen, and light-headedness to fainting is possible. Ten seconds max, people! Breathing is important!

Well… we don’t need to talk about the physical limitations of using the void for too long, I think that’s pretty evident. 

I don’t really like people whispering in my ears for a few hours just ‘cause I wanted to scream at someone for a few minutes. 

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 20

Your Nervous System: Part 3

When you hear the words “nervous system,” what comes to mind is a cluster of cells called neurons. But this is a great mass of cells, and we should always remember that we are referring to the most complex matter in all of creation.

(continued from the previous issue)

Using the distinct groves and folds on the hemispheres as a guideline, a map drawn on the cortex identifies focal points, where the various senses are concentrated, and activities in particular regions. Each of these different colored schematic centers has a specific name and performs specific functions. For example, the region above the neck at the back of the head (occipital lobe) is the field of sight; the sections that coincide with the temporal region is the field of hearing; immediately in front of this, on the left, is (generally) the field of speech; in the forehead region (frontal lobe), on the anterior wall of the middle canal is the initial center of planning of movement; on the top section of the front region is the field of complex movement; immediately behind here, in the middle-side region, is the field of simple movement; the area behind this, next to the hearing field and extending upwards, is defined as the touch receptive field. However, these areas are not confined, but rather spread out, and have a very complex connection network. The duty of the adjoining areas of these regions is to display and decipher the meaning of the signals received from the nerves. As the received signals regenerate past experiences and memories, the object or event sending the signal is recognized. To perform voluntary complex movements, the plan of movement must initially be defined in the mind and then the combination of this plan is conveyed through my nerve fibers to the movement regions. As complicated activities in humans, such as talking, and activities that involve the sensory integration mechanisms are miracles in themselves, it is quite astonishing that certain people claim that humans evolved from apes, later learning how to speak. The spinal cord (medulla spinalis) that extends from the skull in the form of a long cord, is the central nervous system sending signals to the body regions under the neck. The grey matter of the brain is located on the surface, while the white matter lies beneath the cortex; however with the spine, the butterfly shaped grey matter is inside, and the white matter on the surface covers the grey matter. In this central nervous system, all of the sensual messages that are received from the entire peripheral system, in particular from your skin and muscle, are immediately connected with the synapses or connections of the movement cells, and thus a spinal reflex is produced. As a section of the connecting cells (synapses) responds with a reflex, the other section transmits the signal to me to determine the appropriate voluntary response. For instance, if you tread on a nail, as the nail goes into the foot, a signal is transmitted by the sensor fibers to the spine, and to avoid a loss of time, the spine immediately signals the movement nerves before me, and a command is transmitted to your muscle you to raise your foot. And after your foot is saved by instant reflex, you begin to perform the other conscious activities, for example; you avoid putting weight on the foot, and bandage the wound if it is bleeding.

31 pairs of nerves (right and left) emerge from the spinal cord; 12 pairs from the brain area lay beneath the skull. These are all nerves that emerge from the central nervous system, and are distributed to various organs of the peripheral nervous system. All of the head nerves that emerge from the skull, with the exception of the tenth nerve, called the vagus nerve, control activities related to movement and senses in the head and neck region. Each of the 31 nerves exit from a space in the side of the vertebrae, and each of these nerves has two roots, an afferent nerve (sensual nerve), and an efferent nerve (movement nerve). These roots join immediately outside the spinal cord, and form the cords that carry the sensual and movement nerve fibers. These nerve cords are distributed in a plan and system that is specific for each organ. For example, the receptor sensor cells that sense a needle pricking your finger transmits this signal to the spinal cord through the receptor cell of the arm. The responsive reflex of pulling the hand away, a reflex from the spinal cord, is sent to the arm and hand muscles, and you pull your hand away. This is an example of a simple reflex. The movement nerve cells of the peripheral nervous system are divided into two, the somatic nervous system, which is distributed to the skeletal muscles, and the autonomic nervous system, which is distributed to the inner organs. Whilst the majority of the activities of the somatic systems occur voluntarily at the conscious level, the activity of autonomic systems is mainly involuntarily, or below the level of consciousness. The autonomic nervous system controls the smooth muscles of the heart, glands, blood vessels, respiration, digestion, urination and reproduction systems without our even realizing it. Dear Peter! Could you manage to do all this if you were in control? Your self control can only intervene until you place food in your mouth. Then the digestive secretions, the stomach and bowel activity, and the excretion of waste are all conducted automatically, totally beyond your control. Your breathing continues while you sleep, your kidneys never cease to function, your heart never rests, and your liver never relaxes while you sleep; your pancreas continues to produce insulin. All of your internal organs and blood vessels continue to function with the smooth muscles whenever necessary. And all this activity is conducted without you even being aware of it. If you tried to do all this, you would become exhausted within five minutes, lose interest and become unable to cope.

The nerve cords of the autonomic nervous system are divided into two, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. These two systems have been created in such a way that they respond in opposition to one another, and every organ is provided with a stem from both. Therefore, no organ of the body is left uncontrolled. Whilst one signals and encourages the organ to function quicker and generate more outcomes, the other acts to the contrary, sending signals that encourage the organ to slow down. In which case, with these two contrasting signals, the organ protects its optimal functioning tempo according to the situation and conditions. The sympathetic system generally responds in cases of stress and shock, preparing the body for the effects of such situations. For example, an increase in your blood pressure, blood-sugar level, and perspiration, the dilation of your pupils, and an increase in the flow of blood in your muscles all occur from the effect of the sympathetic fibers. The parasympathetic system sends adverse signals, such as reducing blood pressure and so on, so that the organs return to their neutral state and continue their normal functions.

From the very beginning I have described many of my sections and signals, but I have not yet told you about my key to life, my nerve cells, and how my nerve cells function. 30 billion cells, known as neurons, are the actual units that function in every part of my system. A neuron has a cell body and emerging filaments like tree branches. The single thicker filament like the tree trunk is called the axon, and the thinner filaments that emerge in larger quantities like tree branches are called dentrites. The nerve signals advance from the axon to the dentrite in the form of an electrical pulse. In the space between the connection point (synapses) of a nerve cell axon and the other cells, the dentrite, a chemical substance, called the neurotransmitter, is released. When these substances, in the form of neuropeptides, amino acids, acetylcholines, and monomines, reach the wall of the opposite cells, it an electrical pulse is immediately ignited in the dendrite. Just like a row dominos, falling down one after the other, or football fans performing the Mexican wave, a wave-like effect is generated and these electrical messages are fired with great speed from one end of the cell to the other, advancing in the form of tiny electrical pulses to be transmitted to neighboring cells. While a cell at rest has a potential of 70m V, the action potential of up to +30 - +40m V can transmit all types of information. Every cell can transmit up to 1,000 signals per second.

While you still do not recognize the true value of what you call the memory, which records hundreds of experiences every day, various theories are presented regarding how this bank which stores information in your brain actually functions. But we all know that the answer to this question lies within the millions of neurons that constitute me. Just as all of the senses, thoughts and actions occur from electrical and chemical signals that are transmitted from one cell to another they are presumably recorded in the same way, that is, with electrical and chemical signals.

[amberess]

My Invisible Disease

Last summer I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia after many years of widespread symptoms and often long periods of extreme pain and illness. For the first time I am opening up about this topic and actually it is quite scary. You might have perceived me as a twenty-something year old hard worker with many goals and dreams, but now I am actually at my weakest point ever. The bad news is that there is no cure for fibromyalgia. The good news is that it is not life threatening.

What is fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is a chronic disease, caused by a sensory disorder of the central nervous system, mainly resulting in extreme pain and tenderness over the entire body, as well as extreme fatigue.

My body aches from the moment I open my eyes in the morning until I go to sleep, and even during the night I often wake up in extreme pain. During the day, I am lucky if my pain feels acceptable and if I am able to perform normal, daily tasks. Sadly, there are days that I am forced to spend my days in bed, either doing nothing or sleeping.

There is a lot more to it though. I deal with ‘fibro fogs’ on a daily basis, meaning periods of unclear and vague thinking or failing to process normal stuff. For example, I cannot follow an easy conversation between family, let alone remember what they said afterwards. Luckily, I am fully aware of such brain fog, which causes me to postpone important decisions for example. Unfortunately, postponing decisions is not possible when I am driving my car for instance. Sometimes I feel like I am putting myself at risk whenever I am ‘in the real world’ during a fibro fog.  

A brain fog is just one of many symptoms on the list, aside from the extreme pain and fatigue experienced on a daily basis. Fibromyalgia is complex and touches many areas and functions of the body. Therefore, it cannot be easily explained.

Everyone might think I am perfectly fine but...

I am struggling. Don’t get me wrong, I am a very happy human being, surrounded by lots of love from my partner and friends, but I am always suffering from pain all over my body. To other people I look fine and healthy, sometimes a little bit tired maybe, but no one would see the gravity of this condition. It is an invisible disease.

Confusion and incomprehension comes with the invisibility of this disease. I experienced that it is really important to talk about fibromyalgia and let your family, friends and collegues know how it is affecting you. It is the only way to comprehension and happiness.

Living with fibromyalgia is hard work

When I was diagnosed, my first reflex was to ask the doctors how we are going to fix this. The response was quite harsh, namely that up to this day, there is no cure for fibromyalgia. No medicine on the entire world would give me my health back. That was hard to deal with. The only thing doctors would say, was that you needed to find a way to live with the consequences of this disease. Honestly, I could not feel more let down. When I got over feeling powerless, I was ready for action, meaning finding a way to put up with this disease. My desire to stay happy, my (career-oriented) ambition and need to become healthier, motivated me to search for things to feel better.

Fibromyalgia is a freaking labyrinth with a million paths to choose and just one path that leads to a desirable outcome. You can choose many different paths, from heavy pain medication like morfine to no medication at all, from bed rest to intense work-outs, from physiotherapy to psychological help and so on. Doctors have no clue what the right path is for this disease and every path is one of ‘trial and error’. So there are a million possibilities, but in the end the fact is that there is actually no real cure.

That does not mean that there are no solutions to, at least, feel better. I have found some medications, recommended by my doctors, and some therapies that work for me. If there is some interest in this matter, I will definitely write another post about it. Let me know in the comments. I am definitely not ‘there’ yet and I am still looking for ways to improve my daily life. If you’ve got any tips and tricks, feel free to share them!

I hope you have a great day! Thanks for reading.

This article aims to start the conversation about fibromyalgia and encourages comprehension for this condition. Feel free to ask me whatever you want to know about fibromyalgia.

For more information about fibromyalgia, go to:

https://www.gethealthystayhealthy.com/fibromyalgia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et2yca1g0sM&list=PL90J4uXAnjlg4B5TPR0VtXw1jq0dP7rLD&index=2&t=0s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnXh9dnzYgE&list=PL90J4uXAnjlg4B5TPR0VtXw1jq0dP7rLD&index=2