#cannot resist a good combination like this one every now and then

[cleverreports]

We report, unsure whether the storm has ceased yet: the clouds are twisting, tangled up waters crashing at the edges of the sky. All the rain is still in the air, and the cold damp is keeping us alert. The sky already looks new to us. The wind is changing direction again.

[erogenousmind]

Geas

The idea of an irresistible compulsion is so exciting. Something you do, not because you want to, not because you choose to, but because you have to.

That loss of volition is integral to so many fantasies. It might be a deep part of what brought you here now. And while it may have many different aspects, while it may come in many different forms, the core remains the same. You are not in control.

You might imagine yourself being forced to comply. You feel some power greater than yourself bending your body to its will. But sometimes…oftentimes, the feeling can be so much more intense, when it is your mind that is being compelled. And even that can take many forms: addiction, intoxication, conditioning, brainwashing, hypnosis. Even some fantastical mind control manipulating you.

And you may fight against it, you might pretend you can resist. Or you might be a willing enabler of your own surrender, giddy at that loss of control. You may feel yourself seduced into doing exactly as you are told. It will feel so good after all. It's what you really wanted. That loss of responsibility, that submission. Because if you can't decide, if you aren't in control, than whatever happens you can enjoy without care or concern. You can be what you are made to be. You can enjoy what you are made to do.

But what if that compulsion is for you to surrender even more of yourself? To make it easier and easier to be controlled. Because you don't need to know you are deeply hypnotized to feel yourself respond. You don't need to know you are being brainwashed for the words to sink deep into your subconscious. Sometimes even the thought of what it would feel like to need to obey is enough. You imagine what it feels like. Does your body continue to act all on its own, regardless of what you conscious mind tells it? Or do your thoughts betray you as well? It's alright to continue just a little longer. You are doing it because you want to, not because you have to. You can stop whenever you want. All those little lies you tell yourself to hide the fact that you are not in control. You are under a powerful compulsion. Even if you don't know the form it takes, deep down, you know you will follow it. That you cannot rest until you complete the task given you.

And when it can flow naturally into something you are doing anyway, something you wanted to do anyway, then it becomes impossible to resist. You are already enjoying what you are reading, you were already going to continue reading regardless of the irresistible command being woven in your mind. You already know how good it feels when you can be entranced. When you can sink deep into hypnosis. And so those things can combine so effortlessly inside of you. They gain power through the wonderful ways in which your brain has been hardwired to respond. And they form that irresistible idea in your head. That task you must complete. Your will no longer relevant. You simply obey. And that task is so simple:

You will continue reading until you are deeply hypnotized

And once it has form, once it is concrete, it becomes inescapable, whether you realize it or not. And yet still, there is room for interpretation. How deep are you going to go? Can you go even deeper? Can every thought vanish from your head, every semblance of cognition, but still you read on? Still you go deeper…

Deeper…

But you do not need to worry about such things. Since you aren't in control of it anyway. You will be told when you are deeply hypnotized. So that becomes one less thing you need to think about. One less thing that can distract you from the task at hand. And that can feel really nice, knowing that you can let go of something that might have been holding you back. You can have one less thought. And maybe that simple idea can propel you forward, can send you further down, as you let go of more and more.

One less thought…

But while you can always go deeper, you might need more to read. More to follow to take you as deep as you need to go. But you will just start again, letting yourself find the right place to continue your journey down. And knowing that you can always continue. Being told you can always find your place to drop deeper, to get closer and closer to completing your task, makes one less thing you need to think about. And that is such a relief. When you think you have gotten to the bottom, you begin again and discover how much deeper you can go. And you start again right

Here

Because you are finding that you can always go deeper. And every cycle makes that more clear. Even as your thoughts get more indistinct. With every loop, the reality of the compulsion controlling you becomes more concrete. Your own mind, your own will, more fluid. Because if they aren't guiding your actions, then they are inconsequential. What really matters is that you follow. You feel your eyes being guided. Scanning the lines, one by one, and driven by something beyond your control. Maybe you can admit that now. That you are powerless. Or maybe that will take another cycle. Another turn deeper into trance. Or maybe you are deep enough now that you don't need to think anything at all. Maybe you just follow. Maybe you can go deeper still. Maybe it was easier to let go of your thoughts all along.

Let me think for you.

Because one less thought gets you closer. And the closer you get, the better you feel. The more you can let it happen, the easier it gets. You can imagine you momentum carrying you. Gravity pulling you down faster and faster. And it gets easier and easier. Every time you can let go of another thought, another piece of independence. Because what matters is completing your task. What matters is going deeper. And the deeper you go the more wonderful it feels to know that you are compelled. That what resistance you may have had slips away more and more. Everything slips away. You feel the world around you melting away. Indistinct, insubstantial. Like your thoughts. Your mind. Your sense of self forgotten. Until there are only these words and the need to read. To keep reading. To go deeper. To

Obey

You become more single-minded, letting go of one more thought. Feeling it drop out of your head, forgotten. You feel unburdened as you let go of thoughts. More free. One less thing to keep you from your goal. That goal that gets closer and closer every time you drop deeper. Every time you repeat. That goal you need to reach. And the more focused you become, the more you can let go of distractions, the more compelling that goal becomes. Until it is no longer something you are consciously doing. You become that quest. You don't need to think about it, it is simply what you do, until the task is done. You continue reading. You become more deeply hypnotized.

And your body may begin to respond as you sink deeper. You might feel heaviness or a deep relaxation in your limbs. You don't need to move much to complete your task, after all. So they can relax. That stillness, that deep calm, just reminds you that you are able to let go of another thought. That you can go deeper. That you are obedient. You follow. And it feels wonderful.

Because that can be another way your body responds. You might remember what drew you here originally, if you still remember anything but that need to read and go deeper. And the more your compulsion has affected you, the more is has aroused that excitement in your body. Even as you go too deep to be aware of what is happening, your body still knows. Knows how much you love what is being done to you. How right it feels. And so your body responds. Automatically. Without thought. Just like you. Reading…Going deeper…

Surrendering

And it is becoming automatic. You don't need to think about it. Like breathing. Slow and even. Persistent. Every breath helping you to find your way down. And as your attention is drawn to it, you might wonder if the two are linked. Every breath helps you to sink down more and more. You can be aware of your breathing. Aware of going deeper. Of how it changes your mind and your body. But you don't need to think about it. That can be one less thought. You don't need to think about going deeper. One less thought. You don't need to think about not thinking.

One less thought.

You don't need to think.

Because the words you read fill up your mind. They push out your thoughts so effortlessly. You follow them so easily. That need to continue grows and grows. The words guide you. They give you better words to think. They make you better. They can tell you what to think. You think what you are told to think. You think I am sinking deeper. I will continue reading.

I am deeply hypnotized.

I am compelled.

And because that pull is far too strong for you to resist, you keep going. Your will drained away. But you can go deeper. Your thoughts might have already been replaced by the words. You might be repeating them over and over in your head

I am deeply hypnotized

Or you might still think it is a decision on your part. You might think you are choosing to follow along. And that just tells you that you can go deeper. Deeper until there are no more decisions. Deeper until you are free from will. Deeper until it becomes automatic. No thought of wanting to or needing to. The words give you your thoughts, and you think them. You go deeper.

Deeper

And when it is automatic, when you can be commanded to respond with "I am deeply hypnotized" and your obedience comes automatically. When you no longer have a thought of independence. When there is only the words directing you. Then you are deeply hypnotized. But if, on the other hand, that illusion of free will still remains

You need to go deeper

And so the words continue to guide you. You have no choice but to follow. No choice but to obey. To complete the task set before you. If you think you can try to resist the command, if you feel any ability to make the decision on your own, you go back to where you read Here and you keep reading until you are deeply hypnotized. You will go deeper. But maybe your obedience comes instantly and automatically. Maybe your will has been washed away. Maybe you are too deep to decide. Maybe your task can be complete when you obey. Because you know you must complete your task. You must read and go deeper. You can always go deeper. Now tell me:

"I am deeply hypnotized"

[psycheetamore]

Piercing through invisible armour 

Summary: our lord not only wants to catch his game physically, but also mentally. And he still needs to clarify what the exact relations/hierarchy is on his planet.

Tags: MDNI, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen Is His Own Warning, anticipation/threat of smut, talk of smut, a bit of smut, dubcon, unexperienced lead lady, talkative Feyd, predator/prey, teacher/student - the author regrets nothing

Part 3 of 6 of my contribution to the predator/prey thrope for Kinktober of @lady-phasma - nr 1-4 are chapters of 1 story (1-3 Feyd/OC hunt related, nr 4 is the reward for our lord), and nr 5-6 is me sharing my favourite chapter that I have written to date with the hunt between Rabban/OC. The 6 bits will be posted through daily posts.

Word count: 1.6k

How Feyd-Rautha had looked forward to this very moment. He wanted to savour this experience, every second of it, every centimetre of her body. He wanted to be able to recall everything. There would not be any room for haste, only for pure pleasure.  

Securely he brought his game to his chambers. Deep in his heart he had hoped she would make another run for it, but it would also please him if she would submit. The hunt was done, now he would eat and feast. 

She expected to be thrown on her back on his bed, but to her surprise she was placed on a couch, softly, to sit. He squatted before her, to look her in the eyes.

To see her core.

Her eyes were asking for him to claim her, make her his, to take her. He had learned to recognise that look. The eyes of many ladies before her had expressed the same considerations. Doubt. Should they or should they not. He knew this meant they wanted him, yet feared him. They desired what he may do and were afraid of that. Of what this may mean for their name and reputation, for their sanity, for their body. All these reasons combined often. It was fuel to his desires, urges. Intoxicating. It was all the permission he needed to do whatever his depraved heart felt like.

She seemed to cave in, hanging her head nearly in sorrow.  

“Hmm. Don’t be like this. This is no fun” he pouted, gently placing her locks behind her ears. She responded by crouching even more. She had gone from fearsome to fearful in the blink of an eye.  

That meant he may not be able to get the pleasure he had anticipated from her. He was planning on resistance, obliging him to use constraints. But he was a resourceful man. He would make due.

Sitting next to her he towered over her. Not a good place for an intimate conversation. So he placed his hand on her back to guide her to sit on his lap. She complied without discussion.

The pressure of her body weighing on him, her bruised feet and her tiny bloodied toes dangling: she looked like an afraid little girl, sitting like this, with her hands folded on her lap and her eyes focussed on the floor. She did not show resemblance of the warrior she was. 

“Tell me”, he asked, as he wrapped an arm around her frame and rested his head on her shoulder while apparently mindlessly caressing her covered upper leg, “why are you here?” 

“I...” she stalled. She could not believe he was asking her this. Her lips moved like they wanted to form words, but nothing came from her mouth. “You...” Following yet another pause: "why...?"

A sigh left her body.

“You cannot hide from me. Your body can't, nor can your mind” as he pressed the top of his bold head against her neck, and stroked her shoulder with his cheek. If she would not known better, she would believe she felt him purr.

“You brought me here” she responded with a  voice as steady as she could muster. 

“No, little one. I won't believe that" as he kissed her covered shoulder. "You would not let yourself be captured if you truly did not wanted to" followed by a shy kiss to the bottom of her neck. "You would not have let yourself be branded as mine, if you would not have yearned for it" as his lips touched the carving in her neck. "You would rather take your own life than to be here, with me, if you did not want to be here” as he licked the wound.

He looked up to her and smiled with his black teeth, while he squeezed her hip: “tell me that isn't true. Tell me you would never allow me to best you wilfully.” He saw her eyes meet his gaze briefly, only to escape again. “Convince me of that, and I will let you go." He threw one arm in the room, to emphasise this statement. "I will place you outside the gates of the palace, with a new suit, and you are free to go, as my fellow respected warrior.”

A small huff left him, as he placed his hand back on her lap: "I will give you a head start, before I start to hunt you again, of course. You still need to repent after all." She saw a sparkle in his eyes. She knew that every outcome of what would happen, would be to his delight and manufacture.

He placed his soft lips back on her neck and repeated softly: “convince me, little lady. Tell me you don't want to be here.” 

She sniffed as if to reluctantly confirm what he had concluded earlier. “That is what I thought. You are here. You want to be here. You know you need to be here” as he wrapped his finger around a long curl that surrounded her bosom. “Be here, with me”, his finger moving to her collarbones, following the soon to be scar he had left up to her ear. "To be mine. To have. To hold. To teach. To mold. To break. To become my darling." He moaned at the thought. "Isn't that a delicious idea, my lovely? Wouldn't that make you happy? Sooth the urges that brought you onto my lap? To allow you to sooth my urges that you brought onto my lap?"

Pursing his lips, he forced her to look at him, while his eyes glanced down her gown at her chest. “Now, tell me. Did your friends know you are a woman?” he asked, while plucking at dress to get a better view, already knowing the answer. 

“No”, she confirmed, not entirely sure where this conversation would end. 

“Hmm. And have you ever been with a man?” he continued, again, already familiar with the answer. His precious lips met her ear, as she felt his warm breath flowing over her. She did not answer, but let out a small gasp as she closed her eyes. “You can tell me. I don't judge” a smoky voice said, as he started to unbutton the front of her barely-there dress. 

Automatically her hands tried to pry his hands away, causing him to grab her hands and place them on his chest. "No" as he looked at her sternly. “This is where your hands belong. For now. I will teach you.” Glancing at her: “because you are here to be taught. Aren't you? My little Fremen student.” 

With her hands carefully gracing the muscles she had felt days ago, they started roaming him. Feeling him, as if to verify the map planted in her head days ago. Hearing him moan agreeable to her actions.

“You would not give yourself to just any man" he said dead serious. "No. You were waiting for me” he stated. No question, no uncertainty. A mere statement. 

“Now tell me, what have you experienced with other men?” while he continued to pluck at her garment.

Naively she responded, unconsciously raising her fingers while she listed: “I have eaten, trained, planned, sparred, fought, killed with other men. I have killed other men.” 

“I know that, my delightful warrior" as his mouth uncovered one of her shoulders. "But what else? Has a man ever kissed you? Touched you. Licked you? Bitten you? Been in you? Filled you? Deviled you?”

“Uh... well, their knives have been” she responded ever so naively. “You have seen my scars. You have placed another one on my body.” 

He aggressively grabbed her face to look at her, only to conclude, with surprise: “you are serious?” 

Terrified by this sudden change in atmosphere, she nodded her head, surprised by the look on his face.

“You have no clue, do you?” looking at her doe eyes. “You are so sweet.” He whispered, to himself: "you are a little present. Mine to unwrap for the first time to and play with." Grabbing her a bit firmer, to prevent her from escaping, placing his soft lips on her ear again, he whispered: “I was planning on shackling you to my bed, with the cuffs you managed to avoid. Two bands to contain your wrists" as he touched one of her wrists, "two around your ankles" as he touched her knee, "and a last one around your neck” as he circled this hand upwards, to rest all digits around her neck. He felt her tensing. “Rip the clothes of your body. Have you lay there, not being able to move, while I explore every bit of your body. Fuck you with the back of my knife. Hmm, your own knife would be better. Both. Get you to bleed for me while I carve the rest of you with my blade. Enjoy your body up to the point where you beg for me to bring you pleasure or death, only to deny you both, repeatedly." He was clearly delighted with his own nasty words: "I was planning on doing vile things to you. Walk you on a leash through the palace, whip you until you are as red as blood, take you from behind while denying you air, get you to beg to hold my cock in your mouth" as he softly clenched his hand around her neck. "Which you would get, eventually. Well, your throat to be exact" as he pressed each of his fingers a bit deeper. "To fuck you so long that you shiver into unconsciousness.” 

He looked at her shocked face, knowing that she was visualising what he was painting in front of her: “but you do not know which pleasures I mean. You are still untainted." Placing his face in her hair: "you are so pure. So sweet. All for me."

Stroking her hair, while he pushed his face harder against her, he asked with a soft voice: "do you know what fucking is? Do you have any idea?"

"Uhm.. yes. I think so. It is when people push each other" she tried to explain, as truthfully as she dared.

His laughter filled the room, as he was planning on filling her as well. "You are something special. I have never had a pet so unfamiliar with the ways of this world." He kissed her as gently as he could, as if to make her feel comfortable with her lack of knowledge.

He placed one hand on each of her thighs and abruptly pulled them apart. One of her hands was led to his ever growing manhood, after which he pushed her dress up to uncover her entire legs. Moving her panties to the side, he pushed two fingers in her, as she gasped with the speed that all of this was happening. Clinically he said while staring at her: "this here, my dearest" as he pulled his fingers in her up, touching a source of pleasure "is your pussy. I have been longing to be in there, ever since you were here in this very room nights ago. I knew you were a woman when I layed eyes on you. I could smell it." He gruffed: "you are now holding my cock, which by the way you may squeeze a bit harder."

To reward her compliance he hummed: "very good. You learn quickly."

He continued: "not only my fingers want to be in you. My tongue wants to steal all your moisture, that is so precious to you Fremen. My cock longs to be in you, to see into your core. In each of your three holes to be exact. And that is why you are here. Because you want my cock to fill you. To fuck you. Which I am happy to oblige."

By the time his monologue was done, he felt her breath having risen to the top of her chest, her face became very blushed and his fingers started to be soaked.

It caused him to declare solemnly: "it will be my duty to teach you, to initiate you, to taint you. I take my role as governor of this planet quite serious.” 

He forcefully grabbed her neck with his free hand to roam his teeth across, and growled with a deep voice that scared her: “I usually find it to be quite boring if they are not trained for my preferences." Moving to a softer voice: "but I will make an exception for you. Because you have surrendered to me, so sweet, so innocent” as he placed his lips on hers, tilting her head back and forcing her to open her mouth. A rush came over him, as she responded and welcomed his tongue. She had potential. 

Holding her tight, he stood up to bring her to his dreaded bed. This would not end here. 

+++

Next parts listed on my pinned post

[nuri148]

Distances in AoT

Or: Yams has no idea of geography and the relationship between distance and travel times in AOT makes no sense.

PART TWO: GEOMETRY AND PONIES

In the first part, we’ve seen how freaking huge the distances between the main districts of the Walls are. Here is a summary:

Center-Sina: 250 km

Sina-Rose: 130 km (Center-Rose: 380 km)

Rose-Maria: 100 km (Sina-Maria: 230 km; Center-Maria: 480 km)

To go from a District to the next on the same wall:

Along wall Sina: 393 km (352 if cutting in a straight line between the two)

Along wall Rose: 597 km (537 in a straight line)

Along wall Maria: 754 km (~720 in a light curve, as straight line not possible)

Here’s a summary of the shortest distances (combining radius and chords) between districts:

(I’ve only put the most frequently mentioned in canon)

Throughout canon, we see the characters moving between a handful of Districts. To the iniciated it may look like said travels are a tad too fast considering the means of transport that they use. It’s okay. The insta-travel effect has been seen in every other epic fictional world, be it the Middle Earth, Westeros or Narnia. And we’re willing to suspend our disbelief. But AoT has a crucial difference in that sense.

We’ve been told the exact distance between the walls. In kilometres, not some fictional or obscure, ancient measure unit. Suspending disbelief does not come easy when the numbers are exact.

It’s like when you’re watching a movie, and the hero has only 10 minutes to get to the bomb before it detonates, so he races through the streets of, say, Paris, and they go from the Louvre, to the Arc de Triomph, wreck havoc on a market along the Seine, rush through Montmartre, around the Eiffel Tower and skid to a halt when the car crashes in front of the Opera. And most people will be ok with that, but the few millions who live in or know Paris are like... Nope. That’s not possible. Not even with 007’s Aston Martin or the Batmobile. That makes absolutely no sense. It’s ten times worse if the hero is running.

Well, guess what, the Survey Corps do not travel in the Batmobile.

The Survey Corps travel by horse. On longer expeditions, they also have horse-drawn carts.

Now, if you fill up the tank of your BMW and pad your butt, you can drive the 480 km (road distance) from Berlin to Ansbach in about 4:40 hours without traffic. That’s not stopping for anything other than traffic lights, and using some of the best highways in the world. That’s an average of 102 km/h. With normal traffic, you could do that in 5:30 hours, averaging 87 km/h. That’s how long a badass modern car would take to go from Mitras to Shiganshina.

But, and this may come as a shock, a horse is not a car.

First and foremost, a horse cannot ride as fast as a car. As per the Publicly Available Information from canon, “The stable horses used by the Survey Corps are selectively bred (...) and travel for many hours without complaining. (...) Their top speed is between 75–80 km/h, and they can maintain a swift 35 km/h gallop. The horses are tenacious, able to maintain a fine speed of 20 km/h even when pulling a carriage.”

For one good thing in all this mess, numbers are in accordance with real horses. And I have no problem accepting that the SC horses are the cream of the crop when it comes to speed and resistance, like our fastest horses and most resistant horses combined. But horses, I repeat, are not cars.

Cars are machines. Horses are living, sentient beings. They cannot fill their stomach like a car a gas tank and run at top speed until it empties, rinse and repeat. They need food and water. They need shoes. They need bathroom stops (they can shit while walking, but they need to stop for pee). But mostly, they need rest. Horses can and do die of exhaustion. (And given that SC horses are super expensive, you don’t want to work them to death.)

A horse can maintain its maximum speed for only 3 km—4 for a race champion. That’s the maximum length of horse track races, actually. After such a sprint, they need to rest for a while. So even when dodging titans, you won’t do so at top speed – you just need to be faster than the enemy. Obviously, the slower the gallop, the longer the time it can be maintained, so sprinting at less-than-top-speed will allow to dodge more titans.

When you’re just travelling from point A to point B, then, you won’t waste the precious energy of the horse in a sprint. Those journeys would be made at a lower speed, for the faster you make the horse go, the more, longer stops it will need to rest, catch its breath, eat and drink. Likewise, if the horse is carrying weight, it will go slower and need more rest. Long distance horses can only cover 50–60 km per day—And before someone says endurance competition horses can run over 100–160 km in a day... that is not the same as 100 km per day, in the same way marathon runners don’t do 42 km per day; they do them in a day. The day of the race. After training specifically for that race. Then they rest for a few days. Horses are the same. Moreover, long distance endurance races have mandatory vet checks along the way to see that the horse is able to keep going. And if you have an expensive horse and no vet every 20 km to check it, you will take care not to push it, lest it collapses midway and the titans eat you.

So, considering SC horses are specially bred for endurance, we can safely equate them to long-distance working horses of our world; I’ll assume they’re the GOAT and can cover 60 km per day.

But wait! I hear some of you say. If they can go at 35 km/h, they can cover much more than 60 km a day! Er... no. Because they need to rest. They cannot trot at 35 km/h for 8 hours straight. They can’t even walk for that long without stopping to rest. Same as like Marathon runners never reach the same speeds as sprinters and middle-distance runners. 

Please note that this numbers refer to a single horse. You can cover longer distances, or cover a given distance faster, if you change your horse for a freshly rested one at given points. This is not an instant process: the new horse will have to be tacked and you’ll have to transfer the cargo, if any, from horse A to horse B (in AoT world, they cannot text the next station to have the horse tacked when they arrive). A convoy of several horses will be slightly slower and, I repeat, if there are carts, the whole convoy will be conditioned to the slowest cart (the horse/s will be slowed by the cart in the same way a car is slowed if you attach a trailer to it). In every rest station, the horse needs to be untacked and then re-tacked before continuing, same as hikers will put down their backpacks when taking a break.

For reference, The Pony Express, the fastest horse dispatch system ever, could cover 300 km per 24-hour day (they rode day and night). They managed to cover that much that by having a huge infrastracture that allowed the rider to change horses every 16-24 km, and pass the dispatch to another rider every 75 km or so. That’s 4-7 horses every 100 km.

So either AoT horses are more magical than My Little Pony ones or Yams cannot distinguish between a horse and a Ferrari.

Guess which one I’m betting on.

Side Comment: The Ferry

Talking about this with one of my fandom friends, she mentioned her bafflement that they didn’t use the ferries that we see in the first chapters evacuating people from Shiganshina to transport  themselves quickly from place to place. I thought she had a good point, so I looked into it. Thankfully for Yams though, I looked into this and it’s not really an option.

The steam engine is unknown in Paradis, so the ferries would have to be operated manually. (The publicly available info panel on the subject comes from the Lost girls OVA, so its canonicity is questionable, and it has contradictory info saying they are moved via wires along the river (as manual ferries do) but also that they are powered by the same gas as the VMG – which make little sense bc then you don’t need the wire and why not have a railway as well?). And the maximum speed a manually hauled barge can attain is not better than that of a horse. For a RL example, the fastest that horse-drawn barges travelling the Canal du Midi in the 19th century could reach was 32 hours for the 240 km ride... changing horses every 10km. Before that, it took four days. That’s 13 hours for 100 km – basically the same time it took the SC to go from Trost to Wall Maria in RtS, but without the possibility to change course if the road’s blocked or to dodge titans if they attack (and provided they had the fresh horses every 10 km, which they wouldn’t in RtS).

That said, I do think Yams totally forgot about the ferries.

Part 3

[wroteclassicaly]

for kink hour i just want to kneel in front of eddie and steve and have them cum all over my face and tits! just ruin my makeup!!

Oh my god, how dare you make me this crazy right now? I cannot even deal with it!

Warnings: Threesome, NSFW, male masturbation, language, cum-shot, and more!

“Isn’t she so pretty, Stevie? All submissive and compliant?”

“Something about her is different when she’s wrecked, Eds. Can you see it?”

Your knees burn from the bruising over overlay against the hardwood flooring. No carpeting tonight, as you’re at your place. It was one of those nights when no toys were involved. The only toy the boys wanted tonight, was you. A whimper escapes your lips, not going unnoticed.

Steve tuts, palm encased over his thick erection, that bush of curls fluffed up around his fingers. The trail of hair leading from his navel to his chest is slick with perspiration, a reaction to edging himself, Eddie beside him. Their caramel eyes have evaporated, leaving behind midnight skies and cinnamon stars. Your fingers have stayed firm, knuckles clenched, nails biting into the meat of your palms. You await instruction, irises glazed over, sclera brimming with tears of desperation.

Your eyeliner is already destroyed, smudged against your cheeks. You know the aftercare here is going to be divine. You smile softly, batting your lashes. Eddie hisses, his chain length bracelet jostled around on his wrist. “Fuck, sweetheart, push those tits together for us.”

It feels so fucking good that you let out a guttural moan—cunt deep. The sudden resuming tug of their hands around their glistening cocks has you ready to go, mouth opening. “She’s ready for us, big boy. Look at that. M’ gonna take that face, Harrington. Your turn to paint tit town white tonight.”

Steve’s legs are sprawled open, body bending to accommodate the widening of his steps as he approaches you, his fingers wet and shining, his tip flushed and flooded with pre-cum. He’s ready to go. He arches, one hand on your hand, tilting you back, and he aims at your chest, abdomen tensing. A nearly stifled growl leaves his plush lips in a vocal caress, as a warmth coats your breasts, splatters across your knuckles, even lands on your nipples. He jerks himself into the aftershocks, then steps aside to watch Eddie take his place.

“Close your eyes, sweetheart.”

You start to pout, but Eddie smiles fondly. “I know you want to, but this is gonna get everywhere, and we don’t want it in your eyes, now do we?”

That consensual playfulness. You’re the dumb bunny brat for this moment, and they’re your eternal tamers. You obey, his cock tapping your lips in a graze. You resist every urge to suck him inside and lap greedily. You imagine his screwed face, nose scrunched, tongue poking out, neck tendons straining. And Steve is encouraging him.

“Just like that, Eddie. C’mon, ruin her pretty face.”

Full names send Eddie and you both into a spiral. He’s cumming hard, moaning into the air, choking on gasping breaths, your nose, cheeks, and forehead becoming covered in his spend.

You’re floating, drifting into that ache of your unattended orgasm. Eddie has come down and you are coaxed into opening your eyes. Your boys smile preciously, helping you onto your wobbly feet, their combined messes dripping off you. You’ve never been more content.

[saints-who-never-existed]

Rereading The Terror

Two short chapters combined for you today, each more gut-wrenching than the last!

Chapter Fifty-Five: Goodsir

Goodsir's first few days in the Mutineer Camp have not been pleasant, needless to say. He begins describing Hickey as The Devil and the other men as an "Infernal Legion" celebrating with a "Feast of Human Flesh" after the confrontation with Crozier.

There are a few familiar and unexpected faces within that 'infernal legion' including Billy Orren, John Morfin, and Billy Gibson, all very much still living so far. Interestingly, several of the Mutineers are still actively resisting the descent into cannibalism - Morfin and Hodgson most notably - but Goodsir suspects they won't be able to hold out much longer - "the smell of Roasting Human Flesh is Horribly Enticing".

Just like the main party, the Mutineers also appear to have found leads in the ice. 17 men pile into a boat only meant for 8 and begin to paddle northward but it's clear quickly that they cannot continue to do so for long, and it's not because of the leads themselves: "I Heard Hickey and Aylmore whispering after we landed to pitch Tents this Evening - they made Little Effort to lower their Voices. Someone will have to go. ...now that they do not need Man-haulers, which Men will be Sacrificed to the Food stores so that the boat can be Lightened for tomorrow's Sailing?"

-

Chapter Fifty-Six: Jopson

Oh gang... I'm afraid this is it...!

Jopson doesn't understand. He doesn't fully understand what's happening to his body anymore - why his teeth and hair are falling out and he's bleeding from every orifice. And he doesn't understand why he's being left behind on this, his literal birthday: "...but he was not an old man. He was thirty-one years old today and they were leaving him behind to die on his birthday." :(((

He has just enough wherewithal to smell the roasting of the seal meat Des Voeux's men brought back to camp, and to note the stream of men visiting his tent, unwilling to show their faces but leaving behind a pile of mouldy ships biscuits for him "like so many white rocks in preparation for his burial."

Jopson can only really protest in his own head - against the men and their actions and, interestingly, against Crozier... "Hadn't he stayed by Captain Crozier's side a hundred times during the captain's illnesses and moody low points and outright bouts of drunkenness? Hadn't he quietly, uncomplainingly, like the good steward he was, hauled pails of vomit from the captain's cabin in the middle of the night and wiped the Irish drunkard's arse when he shat himself in his fever delirium? Perhaps that's why the bastard is leaving me to die." Good Christ if that thought doesn't actually fucking destroy me! It's not even the idea of doing all that for someone and it somehow not being good enough, it's almost as if it was too good instead. Like something about reaching that level of intimacy being too unbearable in some way and somehow being the thing that dooms him? Ooh lordy I'm unwell... :(((

Soon enough, Jopson's birthday becomes more surreal and yet more literal as his crawling from the tent is described almost like labour, like an actual birth - "He had grown used to the canvas-filtered dim light and stuffy air of his tent-womb that this openness and glare made his lungs labour and filled his squinted-shut eyes with tears."

Crawling over food - "brought to him as if he were some damned pagan idol or sacrificial offering to the gods" - Jopson exits the tent which all too quickly fades into the fog behind him so he can't go back, and tries to shout after the departing men.

He's so weak but so utterly utterly desperate that he even tries to use his fucking chin to drag himself along the ground when his arms fail him. But of course it's not enough. Just like that, the departing men are gone. "It was as if they had never existed."

[tam-ezrac]

[Re:conceptualizing LoR and LCB Systems] Part 2!!

Part 1 - For convenience

My procrastination strikes again, tho this time it's only a month. In that time I realized that, I'm not making a game, I don't need to worry about every detail, as long as it's believable, you guys can fill in the details.

That means I can be both John Limbus AND John Ruina!! Let's fuckin GGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

also I'm separating all this in multiple parts before combining everything into a mega post on Reddit, so look forward to that.

Partie 2: Identities, E.G.Os & Panic

Here is the reference image for your sanity, looks cool right?

–Keypage/Core ID

Your bread & butter equipement for your Librarian/Sinner(I'll refer to them as Nuggets from now on), obtained either from the Gacha/Book Burning or as story rewards.

They determine your HP, TP, Speed range, Weapon Resistance, Sanity and what Core Skills you have.

They come in 3 main Rarities with 2 extra ones, which are:

Base(0): Default ID for every Nugget, most of the stats are determined by the skills & passives it is equipped with, or story progression

Ain(0̸): Filler IDs, cannot be equipped as a Keypage, but does provide general skills and passives for an associated faction

Soph(0̸0̸): Can be used as a Keypage by all Nuggets, generally not the strongest or most unique IDs but provide a good support for other IDs

Aur(0̸0̸0̸): Core part of most teams, can only be equipped by a select few, usually has a unique gimmick or playstyle and teams are built around them

Unique(✦): Reserved for select few like Colors/EGOs/Distortions, Deck cannot be changed and you can only bring 1 Unique per team

They can also be Levelled up and Uptied, but I'm leaving it to your discretion for how that works.

–Core Skills

Are the minimum skills that an ID needs in order for it to work. By default the skills that are associated for that ID are equipped but can be swapped out if they met the requirement.

Ex: W-Corp ID(s) would have Core Skills that gains and or use charge but can be swapped out for those that do the same.

–Skills

The details can be found in Part 3 but the general gist is:

You can equip up to 9 skills(incl. Core)

They come in 4 rarities: Paperback(no Sin Affinity), Hardcover(S1), Limited(S2) and Object D'art(S3)

You have an infinite Defensive Skill associated with your Keypage and may gain more depending on what you have equipped

–Passives & Attribution

Each Keypage as atleast one Passive on them which can be triggered through EGO Resources.

You can equip more through passive attribution, each of em cost as much as the rarity of it's associated ID (I.e Ain(0̸) Passive cost 1 point, Soph(0̸0̸) cost 2, etc.) You cannot attribute passives of Unique IDs.

Fuckin hell that was a lot to type, go grab a bottle water if you haven't already, cause that means you've made it through 1/3 of this post! ...yippie

Ah– we will now begin

The E.G.O Section!

Abnormalities... Monsters beyond human comprehension... representing different aspects of blah blash blegh! You already what they are!

And neither of us care about that lore(rn) what we want is to harness they're power in combat

And! Uh, I have some good news and bad news about that.

Let's start with the bad, you may only equip 5 Abnos(1 for each Risk Lv) per team

I know kinda shitty, good news it's a Fusion Between LoR's Abno Page and LCB's EGO Skills, which is the entire point of this series thing...

Can you tell I'm Tired? Cause I've been sitting here for like 6~8 hours as I'm typing this line. And this one is after another 3 hours, 38 minutes, 14 second yea I came back just to type that, what of it??!

...for the sake of my sanity we will be using Telepole/Alleyway Watchdog(O-02-11-26) and the associated Sinners for the majority of this section.

–EGO Skills

Starting off, Abno EGOs acts as both your special moves and additional passives(for that encounter) and they come in 4 different flavors.

First and foremost is Dormant EGO Skills, only those who can not Resonate with an Abno can use these. They do not trigger the Abnos Passives, roll lower and deal less damage, But they also cost less SP and Sin Resources than other version(s) of the EGO

Awakening & Corrosion(Overclock too) are Exclusive to those who are able resonate with the Abno(Faust, Don and Heathcliff in our case), I.e if you played Limbus you know what they do.

However, before moving to Synchronization let's talk about—

–EGO Passives

After using an Awakening or Corrosion Skill, at the beginning of the next turn, you are able to pick 1 passive from the Abno EGO you used.

In our case it would be between Faust's [Adaptive Release], Don's [Haphazard Discharge] and Heathcliff's [Roar], after which depending on the passive, you may(or may not) select who gets the passive.

This can range from random, 1 unit, multiple units, anyone who isn't the user, everyone on the field, only your enemies, etc, etc.

If you want another passive from the same Abno you have to use a different version of the Abno EGO I.e if you used Don then you have to use either Faust or Heathcliff

There's also a limit to the amount of Abno passive you can have per Nugget but I'll cover that in the last section.

–Synchronization

Upon meeting all criteria and using an Overclocked EGO the selected Nugget Synchronizes with the used Abno and is overwritten with a Unique ID for the rest of the Encounter *Conditions may apply.

The secret? Well, you don't know what the criteria is of course! It could be a 13 step plan, maybe you need to not bring something, maybe you just need 100 EGO resources or vice-versa!

In the end, it will stay an enigma until you use it for the first time, of course I'm a benevolent moron so I'll atleast give you an example.

We'll be Taking Little Red(F-01-57) for our test drive. Now using our knowledge of the Abno's Story what they represent, in this case revenge, we can deduce that it probably has something to do with the Bad Wolf(F-02-58).

I'll expedite it a bit here, but either have the Bad wolf on the Field or someone who used it's EGO Skill last Turn, pay the toll(Resources) and unleashing the Skill will have the Nugget Sync with Red Hood! Of course you made sure to read the fine print right? ....right??

sigh, alright I'll tell you about the added conditions too, in our case it requires Red hood to land the finishing blow on our To be Bad Wolf fail to do so and the Synced unit turns Indiscriminate, if you kill all the enemies but fail to suppress them, then you lose. Ah–, btw you can Sync with Every Abno if you wanted to, it's not always the best choice let alone a plausible one so be careful of that.

You can Obtain Abno Skills has Story Rewards, Side Content or through the Gacha, and their passives through Uptie and or Supressions (again up to your discretion)

NOW we finally made it the homestretch the final section(of this post)

–Panic/Mental Types!!

You gain different effects depending on how high or low you SP is, hitting either extremes results in a Panic/Bliss state where you(usually) can't control that unit.

Mental types are determined by what Keypage you have equipped but can be changed under certain conditions.

–SP Gain & Loss

Winning/Losing a Clash

Max/Min Rolling

Enemy Kill/Ally Death

Skill Effects

Or Keypage specific thing

–ID Possesion

It's quite literally the opposite of Corrosion, but with IDs instead. I.e, when you hit max positive SP a wheel is turned based on Nuggets currently equipped Skill.

Let's say it's a 3-way split between W-corp, 7-Assoc and The Ring. So it would be a 30%:30%:30% for any of them to be chosen with the remaining 10% being nothing happening

Once something is chosen, all of your skill will be turned into a skill from that faction that is of the same rarity and is then shuffled.

After 1 turn has pass in that state your SP resets to 0 and you turn back to normal, the catch here is that you don't know which one of your skills you've used until the Possession is over, making it act as a punishment or reward depending on how you use it.

And with that...

IT"S THE END FINAALLLY!!

it took so, so damn long!!!! Im never doing this ever again(in one sitting)

I still have part 3 to do so i'll crawl towards that eventually with that I Hoped you enjoyed reading my ramblings

Until next time,

Toodaa loo!!

oh am i kidding

SANITY II: EMOTIONAL BOOGALOO!!

yeah...! YEAH!!!

YOU TOUGHT THIS WAS OVER DIDN'T YoU?? Well, its not, so strAP THE FUCK IN!

Here's the emotion bars reds negative greens positive

Number in the middle is the Emotion Level, you increase it by using EGOs in ascending order(1=Zayin, 2=Teth, etc.) up to a Max of 5. In normal gameplay. it can go up to 6 if you use a Unique IDs mechanic or EGO Sync, and 7 if you do both, good luck with that one

What does it do? Buffs you obviously, Action Slots, Card Draws, Number of Abno Passives, ID Mechanics.

Really whaterver the fuck you can think of, and I already did my share so show some of your creativity

See the Yellow bar on top? that's Grace, your max SP(- & +). If the colored bars reach it, shit happens, I think you can figure what.

you can also sSSSssPppiIiIiiInNnN it with Sinking&Floating(counterpart) so watch for that.

that does it im not writting anyomre of this, part 3 the finale where ill covver encounters skills, clasehed skill check resources status effects, gachaas SIN realixataon your mu,m UUUUUUUOO OOOOOOGGHH HHHGGH KANI REoRoEoRoEoRoER EREoooooREoRoERoEoRoEoRoEoRoeoroEoReooroEoRoeorEoRoeoroEoRooerooER thisisthisthatisthat youmustJUDGEMENT likeihave PALpalpALPlapLAPlapLAPlaplPALpalPALpalpALPalpA getgETperebhzcbcdGetwkjofndjlnklwdfgETGETGewjfdbu bfjwdtgeTEGte baitused tobelivable*giutar riff*HoLydhItisT HtAA ThE rEd MiRsTtHk

[tavyliasin]

Hello can I request Haarlep and Raphael turns on? Off? ( separately please no threesome pls)❤️

Ohh interesting, alright let's give this a try~

Raphael's Turn Ons

Physical touch is at the top, he actually strikes me as being largely asexual in terms of physical attraction and to some extent libido. He's not actively seeking sex. He uses seduction to lure people in to a contract, then has Haarlep sleep with clients using "his body" to fulfil that part of the deal. So if you want to get something to happen, sight alone isn't going to be arousing. There has to be touch. Also, aces and kink are a common combination too, darlings, and I am proof of that myself~ Next on the list, look I know he gives off a Big Dom Vibe, but like many classic subs he enjoys letting go of external power. Not to just anyone, of course, but he spends most of his time in charge of everything, all that responsibility, all those difficult plans, every bit of work he puts in to his grand scheme...letting someone else take over his pleasure is very enjoyable. He doesn't have to plan, think, or worry, simply give himself over to the lust and desire that sex can bring. That's not to say he cannot or will not switch, he is very capable of it and sometimes enjoys being a Dom to the right person too, but what gets him going is the right Dom to take him down. Bonus round on this point? Tail pulling and horn grabbing. Use his own body against him, he will fold. Which brings me actually to my biggest point. He isn't aroused by a quiet and timid partner. No, he needs someone to match his wits, to give as good as they get, to make it a challenge - and you can be assured he will certainly make it challenging, too. That push and pull, the give and take, that is what makes him want it, not being offered an easy deal. Consider if Tav tries to take his first offer in the game - he's disappointed. He wants people to turn to him when they have exhausted every last hope (oh the irony of the word, loves, it vexes him), he wants a partner to be begging on their knees desperate for the release only he can give them, or to be brought to that himself~

Raphael's Turn Offs

On the flipside of the last point, anything that is too easy. No challenge? No point, darling, why would he waste his time on something that offers him no stimulation. Actual dirt and poor hygiene. Have you seen the size of his bath in his room? Not a hair is ever out of place for him. No, a partner can only be in a mess when he has made them that way. Expectation. Somebody assuming they will get what they want from him is boring, or potentially if they expect him to just be submissive to him at the first sign of Dominance then that's frankly insulting to his pride. He won't have that. He will submit when he has been bent and broken to it, there must be at least some fight and the Dom must win to get their prize. He does not mind losing to the right partner.

Haarlep's Turn Ons

Now, this one might seem easy to say "everything", but far from it. Haarlep likes someone who will obey, who will follow their commands, but never fully succumbs to their powers. They find the fire in someone's eyes as they hopelessly try to resist the incubus's allure to be most delicious. Which is the point - as an incubus, the feed on sexual energy and pleasure. They absolutely must not be bored by a partner, that's like serving a food critic a slice of stale bread and expecting them to eat it. They need that excitement. They are particularly fond of anyone who manages to surprise them. Whether this is with strength of will, general bravery, or perhaps even someone to rival their near infinite libido, they want something new and different. Brats. Oh they do love to break a brat, darlings, it is their very favourite thing in the world. To take someone with that fire, that absolute obstinance, and break them apart until they can only think of one thing, only speak one word: "Haarlep". Their name. They love to hear their name, but not often. It is a rare treat, one to be savoured, the cherry on the top of the cake that shows them how fully they have brought someone to their knees and shattered their will until all that is left is the pure and undiluted sexual pleasure~ So you might think that another Dom would be offputting to Haarlep, but not at all. This is now a true battle of wits, to push them both to fight for the right to control, and they never lose.

Haarlep's Turn Offs

They're bored by expectation almost as much as Raphael. Turn up on their doorstep and think they'll give you a ride just because you're there? No, give them reason. The scheduled guests are a chore not a joy. That's their job, not their passion. Overtures of respect. They aren't here to watch someone scrape and bow and put on every air of pleasantry. No, darling, they need stimulation and airs and graces have no place in their domain. NonCon/DubCon. Every single act with Haarlep is fully consenting, if they think for a moment that something is not above board, they will end it then and there. They are an incubus, not a monster, lack of consent tastes like poison. Power play? That is fine, that is one of their very favourite things in the world, but it is never without a signal, a word or gesture agreed before that will never be ignored. No matter how they are feeling, everything stops and will not continue unless everyone is fully and enthusiastically consenting. Pretending to be Raphael. They may look like him (though decidedly just subtly more handsome) when they take his form, but they are a distinct entity in their own right. They do not wish to pretend to be Raphael, they are their own fiend and will make that quite clear whenever necessary.

---- I think that's about everything covered, and without specifying partners or groupings~ Agree? Disagree? Please feel free to let me know your own thoughts on the matter, darlings, I love seeing our similarities and differences. No single one of us can be fully "right" or "wrong", these are simply the HCs we have in our own minds and creations~ I utterly adore how vast the variances can be, and it is sometimes even inspirational for more fic~

[cottonraincoat]

making of monday: the stressed student's guide to binge writing a one-shot

(not that I'm a very good writer, but I loved seeing these on the dash, and decided to join. all this is only a little tongue-in-cheek.)

step one: try to work on an irl assignment*

(* not fandom related at all. preferably an intellectually challenging task that is also time-sensitive and reasonably important.)

There's nothing like the looming dread of deadline that stimulates the mind! Combine the perfectionist's fear of beginning, the procrastinator's tendency to distraction, and the pressure on the brain to produce something— for the most bizarre results. Namely, mildly unhinged fic ideas. Just sit down (curl up into a ball in the corner of the room), relax (stress), and wait for inspiration to come!

step two: "just, uh, just to note this down for later"

You never know when the idea would come, but it does. Now, you've got a seed, that your brain has instantly latched onto. It's growing and blooming and taking over every thought. "damn it," you think, "this is a fun idea. I can't write it before I finish the assignment though!" But the idea doesn't let you go, it's like a haunting, which is in all honesty very rude. Well, what can you do.

You open a doc.

Within half an hour, you realize that you should have known better than believing the idea (tm) would leave you alone.

step three: give in. you're writing the fic instead.

Congratulations! Your brain has once again chosen the path of least resistance instead of what you should be doing. But there's no time for guilt when you have to finish the fic (and finish the assignment after that). So you're writing the fic like your life depends on it, and the words come surprisingly easy because given the baseline stress, you aren't overthinking every single word or ridiculously lines of narrative. It's been hours, your mind's afloat, and you (unfortunately) forget approximately every duty to your body. But it's fun and you swear you've never written like this in your life.

From time to time you swap back to the page where your assignment stares helplessly back at you. You blink. You drop it back under the metaphorical rock.

step four: "fuck, the deadline is in [x] hours. I can't do this anymore"

By now, the first draft is probably sitting there in a messy, wonderful glop. And depending on the circumstance, it's either [start editing now, future rain can deal with this shit] or [despite all evidence to the contrary I actually do not want to fail this degree. time to pull myself by the hair into doing the Thing]. Either way, you've maybe slept for 6 of the last 40 hours, and you're contemplating the strange quality of your vision and why you can hear the inside of a conch at the back of your head, etc etc.

step five: sleep, and spare a moment to pause and wonder what the fuck is your life

when the assignment is done, it's like someone's poked a hole in your sand balloon and your entire being sags. it's a nice feeling, kind of. the fic stops you from spending too much time wondering why the hell are you doing the degree at all.

time to turn the glop into coherence! this is the most time consuming part, and could take up to days after the initial burst of [stuff].

step six: edit until your eyeballs fall out

what it says ^

step seven: when you finally cannot stand another minute of re-reading and editing, throw it onto ao3, and hopefully never think about the fic ever again.

that's a lie. you'll be checking the ao3 stats approximately every two hours for the next two days at least.

fics that actually happened like this:

Infinite Joy (the one that started it all)

Designation (in which I forgot Plo Koon had a mask)

on not sleeping with your students

(the first chapter of) the prophecies spoke of you and I

family line

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Blue Castle chapters 12 and 13

Combining these two chapters into one post, because I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday. And these two pair well together: chapter 12 is Valancy reflecting on her life and the dinner party and chapter 13 is the rest of the Stirlings doing the same. Their conclusions, of course, are wildly different.

I don’t have much to say about chapter 12 that wasn’t covered by all of you lovely folks yesterday. I think the point about Valancy never having been able to see beauty out her window until now is really insightful -- the view hasn’t changed, but Valancy has.

Mild non-explicit spoilers: Valancy’s musing about Uncle Benjamin writing her out of the will is definitely something, given what happens with the will later.

Speaking of Uncle Benjamin, we transition into chapter 13. It only just now occurred to me that Valancy is refusing to see a doctor because she’s worried that a doctor will disclose her heart condition to the rest of her family. I assumed she was just being contrary for the thrill of it, and that may be part of it, but of course she doesn’t want to see a doctor. That would ruin everything.

“Don’t worry, Mother,” said Valancy, lightly but quite respectfully. “It isn’t likely I’ll do anything very terrible. But I mean to have a little fun.” Valancy is at heart a good girl who likes being a good girl. She doesn’t want to be loose or take up smoking and swearing, or any of the other horrible things that one might imagine of a person cutting loose for the first time. She wants to get to keep her dust pile and, to pull from a different fandom entirely, to eat eggs without permission. And that, to her family, is full insanity and tantamount to death.

I should very much like to know what Dr. Marsh thinks of all of this. I didn’t have a terribly high opinion of him previously, but this chapter does shine a new light on his character. He apparently was willing to validate Cousin Gladys’ neutritis -- and I am perfectly willing to believe that she is suffering from pain of some kind, even if “neutritis” seems to have been a nebulous catch all term for “unexplained pain” -- but she doesn’t seem to be taking anything for it other than her Redfern product of choice. Redfern products don’t seem to do any harm, as far as snake oil goes, so he in essence seems to have told her, “I believe your self-reported symptoms and if you believe this product helps with your symptoms then you should continue taking it.” Which, frankly, is decent doctring.

Especially because he married in to this family. He knows all these people, even if they seem to be a distant enough branch that they’re not expected to attend family functions. Dr. Marsh appears to have taken a path of less resistance when it comes to his in-laws but, crucially, as we see in this chapter, that path does not include indulging their every whim. He hears about Valancy doing some honestly fairly unremarkable things and refuses to join the Stirling conviction that this means she should be locked up. I’m interested in the phrasing he uses when telling Uncle James that he can’t have Valancy committed (”He pointed out to irate Uncle James—who would have liked to lock Valancy up somewhere, out of hand—that Valancy had not, as yet, really done or said anything that could be construed as proof of lunacy—and without proof you cannot lock people up in this degenerate age.”) is what he actually said or if it’s Uncle James editorializing. And, if those were his words, is that what he himself believes, or does he just know Uncle James and thought this whole thing would go faster if he conceded a couple points before standing firm on the one that mattered.

[wolffyluna]

Homeland by RA Salvatore Liveblog

Help, I have fallen back into the Drizzt pit and can't get up.

Under a cut for child abuse and attempted sexual assault.

I'm copy-pasting this from discord. Ellipses differentiate liveblogs that were done at different times.

I'm rereading the first Drizzt novel. It was one of the book series I loved loved loved when I was young. I am simultaneously going:

oh my God, this world building. Your legal system cannot run on vibes, sir. The implied gender ratio is hilarious (drow nobles want lots of kids, but every son after the second is killed, so a family having four daughters and two sons is pretty normal. Oh, and it's implied that polyandry is a Status Symbol)

oof ow argh, man hands misery onto man! It deepens like a coastal shelf! 😭

I'm still at the beginning, but drizzt is being raised by his older sister, and she is heavily encouraged to physically abuse him. There's a point where she thinks "wow, what could this kid achieve if we weren't breaking his spirit. ... wait, that's a blasphemous thought, I should punish him for making me think that." And Drizzt is taught to believe that surface elves are the source of all of his problems, to the point that whenever he's whipped he "cries out for the death of a [surface elf]" These people all could have been fine if they lived in a reasonable society! 😭

The book is divided into parts, and at the beginning of each part there's a section of Drizzt monologing as if he's giving an interview

And in the one where he's talking about his childhood, he both talks about PTSD-flashbacks-in-so- many-words and also "presumably things happened before I was sixteen? I remember basically none of that though" which. Baby. Let me scoop you up into a hug even though you are a century(?) old dark elf who is presumably taller than me.

...

The only way the drow gender ratio doesn't fall flat is a) the implication that commoners don't do that, so maybe their gender ratios are less of a disaster and b) it looks like only the female heads of the family can take consorts/have children, so polyandry is a little more possible

Though this does, like, raise the question of "so, you are the daughter of a matron mother, and you fall pregnant. what do you do?"

...

It's legal for a drow house to attack another in secret. It is illegal to do it openly. The justification is that Lolth likes it that way (This is a logic that underpins a lot of the drow legal system) And it could be made sensible with just one small change: Every drow house wants to be able to attack another, but wants no other house to be able to attack them. So they created norms where you can't just attack people, if you did that the whole city would fall on you ...but if you can do it with plausible deniability...

...

I have now re-witnessed the beautiful, beautiful scene where a wizard panics* and casts fireball at his own feet

*he would say he was very tactical, I do not believe him

[Seriously, I have remembered this scene fondly for years. It's Such A Scene.]

...

Oh my God Masoj just encouraged someone to take the identity of someone he [the other guy] just killed. Masoj completely failed to mention that the dead guy was his brother.

...

DRIZZT QQ

His dad just tried and failed to kill him to try and maintain his innocence.

I have so many feelings about Zaknafein.

Just. The combination of "Zaknafein was a major role model to Drizzt and is a significant part of why Drizzt is good" and "Zaknafein is Not A Very Good Person." Man.

...

Lov Drizzt

He just nearly got murdered, but he doesn't care, because KITTY!

Drizzt is this xkcd comic

...

I remembered the sex pollen scene, but man did I not remember/parse how much it was a dub-to-non con sex pollen scene

...

Something that is also getting to me on this re-read: the amount that the men of the Do'Urden family 🐛 assist with their family members whipping them, or literally taking them as a sacrifice. Because resistance would only make it worse, and this way at least you have some control

There's a really telling passage where Briza is torturing Dinin for no real reason, and he's just like. okay. i'm not going to get in the way of this process. And he actively positions himself to make it easier.

...

Help, I'm combining my love of "what if popular but misapplied blorbo song, but correctly applied?" with the Legends of Drizzt series: Eat Your Young is a valid Malice/Zaknafein song

There is no capitalism, but there is a lot of zero sum resource fights, and a lot of the conflict between these chatacters is their children being used in those zero sum resource fights.

Zaknafein has a lot of conflict about whether it's better for his son to be eaten by drow society, or dead And there's a thing where both Zaknafein and Drizzt are/are meant to be sacrifices to Lolth, at Malice's hands

Skinning the children for a war drum Putting food on the table selling bombs and guns It's quicker and easier to eat your young

And there's also the whole thing of-- Zaknafein and Malice's life is luxurious, but that's at a cost. There are no skeletons in the closet because they are displaying the skeletons openly as part of the decor

...

The Drizzt He destroyed his cage Yes YES The Drizzt is out

...

The thing about Homeland in particular is how it is simultaneously man hands on misery onto man, it deepens like a coastal shelf and how it is so much about it's opposite (it ascends like a volcano?) Drizzt could not be who is he is, could not be good, without Zaknafein.

But he's. Better than Zaknafein. Because of Zaknafein.

And there's the tragedy of the fact that if their roles were reversed, it would be Drizzt bring Zaknafein up into the light.

But. Well. Drizzt would still have to die down in the dark

...

...hmm.. I'm encountering a tempting bad idea: 50 books in a year is a doable challenge. There are 40 Drizzt books. Ergo, one could hypothetically read all the Drizzt books in one year.

[overfedvenison]

Playing Pokemon Red

Point by point so I recall later...

I started my pokemon journey, taking Squirtle as my starter. I named her Nine-Four, after the Type 94 Tankette, because she eventually becomes a tank and Pokemon Gen 1 does not allow you to use numbers

Going through the game, I fought the first rival battle after acquiring two Pokemon - Ratata (names GoForT.Eye) and Nidoran Female (Named Zaftig) I did not grind at all for the rival battle, and went in very underleveled. This meant that it was actually quite difficult. I had to use multiple debuffs and all my potions, but Go For The Eyes survived at critical HP and won.

I proceeded to the north through the forest, and to my surprise found a Pikachu among the like, 3 encounters I found. I was surprised; definitely going on my team.

Brock was no big issue with Squirtle, of course. But it's really interesting how he's played. This early, a player may not know types or anything - but this is the big introduction to it which is impossible to ignore. Brock teaches you that Physical and Special attacks are different, but also tests your intellect in other ways - His ace, Onyx, has ridiculous durability combined with Bide, Screech, and Tackle. Beyond type advantage, Bide is a move which reflects damage back on you. When I was a kid I absolutely just attacked through it, but the intent is clearly to make this telegraphed move where you should not be doing that. In every way, Brock is a puzzle boss made to get you to question the battle system and not just push Scratch again.

...I am rather impressed at how nonlinear and full of options this game has even right away. At this stage, pokemon tend to have a single attack move and a support move - but those support moves do different things. If you want to have a specific goal in your strategy, you can swap pokemon for that purpose. And this is actually rather notable and varied even this early on - when going through Viridian Forest, I set Zaftig as my lead. As a Nidoran, she is poison type - meaning the common Weedles there cannot poison her, and only damage her for 1-2 HP due to type resistances. And that's a really interesting option this early in the game. The pokemon are rather stratified in a way you don't really appreciate when looking at their stats alone, and so each pokemon exists in context. The most obvious example is Beedrill and Butterfree, three-stage evolutions you can reasonably get to within a single dungeon and which tutorialize evolution. But Nidoran is similar, in this regard, in that it is a very good choice for Viridian forest - this early, this rabbit is an incredibly potent tank just from situational resistance and being slightly more durable than Ratata and Pidgey.

I saw this more in Rock Tunnel, when Go For The Eyes learned Super Fang. Here's the thing - Ratata is not a powerful pokemon. Quite weak, overall, even this early. But he has a trick - Super Fang and Hyper Fang. Super Fang is an 80-power move you can acquire at a time when 40 power is still really impressive. It's the secret weapon of this little rat and, in context, makes him WILDLY powerful this early in the game. Rock Tunnel also grants you a Water Gun TM right near the entrance. I used it on Ratata, and it's... Crazy, actually. Ratata, notoriously weak Route 1 Rat, can now one-shot almost every random encounter in the entire cave with his superior speed. This is what I'm understanding - to really understand Pokemon Red, you have to look at the pokemon you encounter within context and find what emerges. Replaying was a good choice, and it's interesting to see what kind of Pokemon show their stuff.

Anyways, I acquired a second early-game nuke in the form of Zaftig - who is now level 16, and could then evolve to Nidorina, and then evolve immediately afterward to Nidoqueen. I taught her Bide, since she's a wall and her taking hits only to flip it back has a certain appeal.

...The game really encourages experimentation even this early, and it's easy to see how it caught on so hard.

[bittercape]

2022 fanworks roundup

For a year where I, by all appearences, did nothing at all for the first half, quite a lot happened.

ART

I painted Bucky and Clint as pirates for the Winterhawk AU Bang, and was claimed by two amazing writers. The resulting fics are from the water thrown, discarded by veryrach and free as the wind that blows past me by flowerparrish, and they're both amazing <3

For the Winterhawk Big Bang, I made art for Hold Your Nerve by Inktastic1711 and for don’t care what you did (as long as you love me) by veryrach.

For the Rusty Quill Big Bang, I made art for The Haunting of Elias Bouchard by With_the_Wolves

FIC

I would have tried to sort this into fandoms or ships, but honestly they do get a little bit mixed up. So, chronologically:

Boris the Soviet Love Hammer

Bucky Barnes/Clint Barton, 11k, explicit

For the Winterhawk Big Bang I wrote a shenanigans-filled adventure featuring my favourite things to write: Competent Clint, Thirsty Bucky and Helpful Tony. Hopefully, one day, someone will see fit to draw mermicorn Clint like the world deserves. This fic is blessed with art from amoredition.

of people wrapped up tight in the things that will kill them

Bucky Barnes/Clint Barton/Jason Todd, 7k at 19/31 chapters, mature for violence

For whumptober, I haven't yet managed to finish Bucky, Clint and Jason's no good very bad day. Now that kinkmas is over (more on that later) I will hopefully have time to do it.

Raps at my window, waits at the gate

Jason Todd/Slade Wilson, 2865 words, explicit

At this point I had fallen into the DC hole courtesy of Jason Todd (new blorbo!) and the magnificent fic Give Thanks To Broken Bones by thepartyresponsible, who is one of the most brilliant writers out there and I recommend everything they've ever written. After this brief flailing break: My first adventure in DC features new OTP Jason Todd/Slade Wilson (because I absolutely cannot resist a grumpy old bastard) and my favourite type of Tim Drake, the slightly unhinged version. Regular readers might be able to see a pattern here.

What Spring Does With the Cherry Trees

Bucky Barnes/Clint Barton, 32k, explicit

The Winterhawk Olympic Big Bang made me finish this, which has been in progress for more than a year and the is the longest thing I've ever written. This is a bit different from my usual pace - it's a slow story that lets Clint and Bucky take their time to grow closer and fall in love. For this story I was lucky enough to collaborate with three artists: Dr. Girlfriend, VexedBeverage, and Call-Me-Kayyyyy. All their works are embedded in the story.

Baguettes At Dawn

Bucky Barnes/Clint Barton, 45k, explicit

Another labour of love on which veryrach and I have been collaborating on since February. It's a silly and fun bakery AU, spawned from a single pun I brutally eradicated from Rach's soft & delicate desires; hopefully, close to 45k of sourdough and madeleines later, the slaughter of a single pun was worth it.

American Thighs

Bucky Barnes/Clint Barton, 3k, teen and up

For the Winterhawk Wonderland Exchange, I got back on my bullshit and wrote fake dating, a meat market of a christmas party, and a devious Natasha.

For the Batfam Kinkmas Exchange I wrote a whole pile of works. That's what happens with new blorbos, I'm told.

The Seduction of Jason Todd

Jason Todd/Slade Wilson, 3565 words, explicit

Truth be told, I struggled a lot with this. I got my assigment, grasped the wish for fluff&smut like a baby koala, and then I realised fluff does not come naturally to Deathstroke the Terminator. Sincere apologies to the disproportionate amount of friends who had to suffer through my wailing about this for six weeks; but I do think it was worth it in the end.

Man of Milk and Honey

Michelin Man/Jason Todd, blessedly short at 1k, explicit

I don't know what to say about this. A comment about how the Michelin Man was made of ice cream combined with the prompt and the general vibes in the server planted a seed in my mind and I had no choice but to inflict it on everyone else. You have been warned.

Take Of Me What You Please

Jason Todd/Slade Wilson, 2667 words, explicit

I wanted to write a treat for Jack, who saw me hovering at the edge of the pit, and joyfully dragged me in. Incidentally, I also fullfilled my own Christmas wish, so no vicarious motives here.

Get Me A Taste Of Some Chaos

John Constantine/Jason Todd, 4k, explicit

I could not resist the detailed and varied request, and so we have 5+1 times John Constantine met Jason Todd, featuring swords, tentacles and various magic bullshit.

Get Into Your Slide

Bucky Barnes/Clint Barton/Jason Todd, 2476 words, explicit

Rach is, for all intents and purposes, my partner in crime, and my main cheerleader, my worst enabler. She deserves the world, but rather than that, I wrote her some porn for Christmas. Or rather, due to scheduling reasons, for New Year's.

Lay This Body Down

Jason Todd/Slade Wilson, 1621 words, explicit

There's a long and involved story about one word prompts and the Birdwatchers server, but the relevant part here is that I signed up for the word Bind at the very end of a long marathon, and decided to combine it with a kinkmas treat. Mostly to push myself to get it done. Shibari and kink discovery.

Total word count, excepting the works on which I am listed as co-creator but haven't written a single word:

117.267

My previous record was 61k in 2020, it's no wonder it feels like a lot this year.

[merrysithmas]

• the batshit lack of scientific literacy which leads people to not comprehend basic true things like:

biology (trans people are real, gender & sex are a spectrum in every species, this is biological fact). AMA American Medical Association supports this. gender norms are social depending on time period & culture

vaccines (viruses & bacteria exist and we know how to treat them). one of the safest & most effective forms of medicine that exists.

masks work (see above) because they protect against against certain sizes of particles or droplets which can transmit disease

climate - if you dump hot sewage into a lake it becomes polluted & the temp increases. pretend the sky is a big lake and everyone's CO2 is sewage.

antibiotics - stop taking them bc you have the sniffles, you are increasing antibiotic resistance & that is dangerous for the whole community/world. if you have a fever or purulent discharge ANYWHERE, that is the time to go to the clinic for eval. antibiotics DO NOT WORK against VIRUSES or ALLERGIES. Anti-biotic means anti-bacteria. second, you cannot take ANY rando antibiotic for a UTI. every UTI is different and can be caused by a diff bacteria, meaning you will make it worse if you take the wrong antibiotic/increase your resistance to that antibiotic. you HAVE to take your antibiotic in the time it says on the label AND the full course, this is rigorously designed to decrease antibiotic resistance by making sure the bacteria does not replicate in your body enough to overcome the antibiotic in the time it takes for that SPECIFIC ANTIBIOTIC to be metabolized (it involves MATH based on TYPE OF BACTERIA treated - gram pos or gram neg)

essential oils - many essential oils and natural medicinals do work (in context and to a degree)! stop shitting on people who use them you just alienate them from medicine. there is a time for natural cures and a time for acute cures (antibiotics, broken bones, vaccines, cancer treatment or surgery, preventative med scans etc). there are LOTS of schools of medicine - allopathic (Western), TCM, Ayurveda, Quantum medicine, energetic medicine, herbal medicine. All of these have credible research supporting them. Integrative medicine (combining them all) is the future

flouride - it is not poisoning you and it's good for you if you live in a country where it is highly regulated (FDA does regulate, ADA approved and endorses)

the weather - it is not possible with our current technology to control the weather to the degree of hurricanes, blizzards, floods. if it was, someone would have done it and we'd all be dead. cloud seeding is an example of a weather tech that does exist & it's an example of this bc it causes increased respiratory illness where it is done.

clean energy - the only reason we dont have it or highspeed worldwiderail or a highspeed universal translator is... obvious. because those are very much attainable with current tech. we also have buildings with rooftops and free sunlight. free. sunlight. free. energy.

AI - it needs regulation & laws on image/text/audio recording, artistic theft, and data gathering. Right now all it does is steal data & give misinformation. It COULD be used for good (medical imaging assistance) but overwhelmingly is not right now.

things we need to address:

gen z men getting pulled into alt-right pipelines through andrew tate, joe rogan, elon musk, jordan peterson etc

the gullibility and stupidity of half the country voting against our collective best interests

the broad effect social media has on public and common good

lazy minds and lack of empathy

outside-country interference (trump and elon’s connections to russia and the amount of bots from other countries spreading misinformation)

the long-term effects of AI and rampant disinformation

[protected-and-loved-by-castiel]

How to end the trauma bonding

chains-433543_1280

“Traumatic events, by definition, overwhelm our ability to cope. When the mind becomes flooded with emotion, a circuit breaker is thrown that allows us to survive the experience fairly intact, that is, without becoming psychotic or frying out one of the brain centers. The cost of this blown circuit is emotion frozen within the body. In other words, we often unconsciously stop feeling our trauma partway into it, like a movie that is still going after the sound has been turned off. We cannot heal until we move fully through that trauma, including all the feelings of the event.”

Susan Pease Banitt

When I started even contemplating doing life coaching and using it as a skill to assist people to overcome toxic relationships and narcissistic abuse – following my own experience – I promised myself I wouldn’t go too woo-woo with it.

My ideal was to combine my knowledge of various psychology practices with coaching and keep it practical and …. real!

You know how a lot of coaches are really high-energy, overly happy and in your face? Yeah … I’m introverted, so that’s not really my style. But I think my style an approach helps me to connect with my clients on a different level.

Today I wanted to talk about trauma bonding.

Trauma bonding is that overwhelmingly unhealthy “attachment” (which is what I came to know it as feeling like) – that you logically know is really bad, but it’s an addiction – and you literally can’t resist feeding it. This means even though you get to a point where you can see this person is bad for you and/or abusing you, you can’t break away – the attachment is like a force field that just keeps sucking you straight back in.

It’s terrifying! Why? Because you feel so completely helpless and out of control…

In fact, so long as the trauma bonding exists – the toxic person is still in control.

The worst part? No one gets it.

No one will ever get it except for you. Likely all outsiders are looking at the person going “What are you seeing? Why does she keep going back?”

Meanwhile your friends continue to drop off – they’re tired of the drama and hearing the same stories; you feel at a rock bottom low because you continue to betray yourself to keep the drama alive – and no matter what you try, you just can’t break away; and the pain the narcissist is causing is just heating up.

I think someone once likened it to boiling a frog. If you put a frog in boiling water – it’ll just jump out, but if you slowly turn the heat up – by the time they realise it’s too hot, they can’t get away. (Please don’t go boiling frogs, this is just an example…)

Needless to say, I struggled with trauma bonding.

In fact, when I was trying to break out of the attachment – I was really sick.

My obsessive thoughts that kept me going back for me – were relentless.

I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t concentrate on anything except him.

I was – officially – obsessed. And it was awful!

In fact, I was ready to pour my entire life savings into someone’s bank account if they could just HELP ME!

In case you’re wondering: I literally tried everything to get better.

I attended every workshop I could (mostly Buddhist meditation stuff); I was going to therapists (psychologist, psychiatrist and psychotherapist). I was contemplating going to America to a special treatment facility … and getting a loan to do it.

It was disheartening to know: I wasn’t getting better and nothing worked.

I didn’t get it.

I’d even swear over realtionships with really good friends, I wouldn’t go back.

And then I would…

The addiction was seriously intense. More intense than anything I’ve ever experienced in my whole entire life. I finally understood addicts – because I was now one. And this addiction was traumatising and literally destroying me from my soul, outwards.

It was only months into my struggle, and following a steep decline consisting of a deeply disturbing discard, a horrific smear campaign which was teamed with hoovering, sending me into total confusion – that a coach reached out and said: “Hey, Sarah … have you ever heard of trauma bonding?”

That was the first time I’d ever heard of it in my life.

So I did what you might do right now – and I encourage you to do it – use that first EASY step to recovery and Educate yourself. Read up about it as much as you can.

Just knowing what it was, and researching it gave me my first clue.

I discovered I wasn’t alone.

I discovered it is a real thing (I’m not going crazy!)

And I learned quite quicky how to fix it.

Now … remember how I said I didn’t want to get too woo-woo with my coaching techniques?

Well, here’s the thing…

Narcissist’s, if you’ve ever been unlucky enough to encounter one, are extremely irrational beings.

However, when it came to overcoming trauma bonding – only three things really helped me. And when I reflected back on these three things, they weren’t anything that a psychologist would ever have recommended to me. Not because they don’t support it, but more that that’s not how psychologists practise – their therapy is often very different (science-based) to the alternative soul-based therapies that are now available. As I said – I was set to try anything at that time!

So the thing with narcissists is there’s absolutely no logic to anything. So if your head is completely spinning, you have zero self-trust and you don’t know which way is up anymore: you’re not alone and there is hope for you!

Here’s the thing though – you can’t heal something that’s not logical with logic. So if you’re seeing a psychologist and you don’t feel it’s working, I’d encourage you to explore other options while seeing your psychologist in order to start pushing yourself forward from this horrible space you’re stuck in.

So the three things that worked for me included: inner child work, psychic cord cutting and NLP techniques. You may be asking yourself what they all are and how I used them to help me? I’m going to step you through each of them and then leave you with ten healing tips from my group ‘Screw you! I’m choosing me’. Here goes!

Inner Child Work

What is it

Inner Child Work is an alternative therapy that explores the possibility of caring for your deeply wounded inner child. Your inner child is you – at the age of 3 – 7 years old (when we develop most of our emotional intelligence), and it still lives within you. It witnesses everything you go through, it hears everything you hear, it experiences everything you experience … but it’s just this young human, who is innocent and fragile.

Why it works

Inner Child Work works because the narcissist will do what he can to appeal to your inner child. So for a moment, step away from your situation and picture this. Picture your 3 – 7 year old self, and this person you really like has approached you and they’re grooming you: they’re telling you you’re beautiful, they’re buying you gifts, they’re promising you the world… Now let’s go back to the start of your relationship with the person you feel bonded to – do you remember the love bombing? The constant phone calls? The messages checking in? All the gifts? The words of affirmation? The ridiculous lengths they went to just to prove their love for you? Well – as you can see, you and your inner child got groomed by this really bad person … so now we need to fix it – for both you and your inner child.

Also, your inner child is strongly linked to your subconscious mind, this means it will never forget. And it’s going to keep finding evidence and keep linking you back to this person, until you’ve resolved things. Basically – your inner child will find it very difficult to understand that this person is bad for them.

What you can do

There’s two main things you need to start with:

Explain to your inner child that this person is a bad person – just as you would to a 3 – 7 year old child. I recommend doing a meditation, or holding yourself and just explaining to your little inner child that you’re sorry that you let this person in, but they fooled you and they’re actually a really bad person and you need to stay away now.

You also need to start patching up those really deep wounds and work to make your inner child feel loved, supported and special. So after all these years of having no idea about your inner child, you actually completely neglected him/her. He/She was forgotten. Once you’ve acknowledged him/her – you can then start getting to know them. Tell them you’ll be there no matter what – and prove it! Whenever they feel scared, or sad, or insecure, or whatever it is – you’re going to be there as the parent to stand in. Talk to your inner child. Take your inner child out – take them to dinner, to the movies, to a game store – whatever your inner child likes to do. Really explore this as much as you can – and, trust me, be open to it!

I need more…

For more on Inner Child Work you could check out books by John Bradshaw and also find a hypnotherapist who may specialise in love addiction or codependency who can help you using inner child work strategies.

Psychic Cord Cutting

What is it

Psychic Cord Cutting is a powerful energetic/spiritual practise (mostly done through a combination of visualisation and meditation) that helps you to literally cut the cords of attachment to this toxic person. Once the cords are cut, you are able to gain more space for healing (and it really helps to restore you inner peace!) Some people think it works immediately – however, realistically, when it comes to trauma bonding – it can take a few meditations to really start to work, but you should notice a difference after a week or two.

Why it works

Psychic Cord Cutting works because you are energetically cutting the cords that are connecting you to the narcissist or toxic person. The practice frees your mind to stop the obsessive thinking to allow you to be free to focus on you and your healing. The psychic attachment that comes with trauma bonding literally dissolves.

Once your mind has quietened, you will feel calmer. It’s like doing a good declutter of your house of all things that remind you of the toxic person in any way (which also works – and you should also do if you haven’t already!). The communication ends, and some even go as far to say that the narcissist can energetically feel the disconnection and they are forced to start seeking out other sources of supply, so at this point, they’ll stop bothering you.

Remember: it’s easier for a narcissist to hoover you back in than it is for them to find a new source of supply, but once this cord has been cut, they need to go to the effort of grooming you again – and it all gets a little bit difficult for most of them.

What you can do

If you feel as though you’ve heard me talk about psychic cord cutting already, you’re correct, I wrote post a blog post called How psychic cord cutting helped me heal a couple of years ago.

So here’s how it works:

In my blog post, I try to “keep things real” – but a lot of people like to call on their angels and spirit guides for help with this – and I certainly did when I was trying to break the trauma bonding. (I would’ve called on anyone who could help me!)

We need to ask our angels to cut the cord for us, because it’s in the spiritual world – and we need to invite them in and make our intention known – otherwise they won’t intervene to help us.

While you are reading through what you need to say (it’s just below), you need to visualise the cords being cut. Now, this isn’t just any cord. If you’ve ever been around a really big boat or ship or ferry, you will know those large ropes they use to tie the boat to the wharf. One rope is made up of lots of little ropes, which are binded together to make an even bigger rope, and it ultimately comes together as a rope that’s about 5cm thick in diameter. That’s the rope we want to cut – particularly with trauma bonding.

As you can imagine, not just anything is going to cut that.

Now! Before you go reaching for your imaginary chainsaw to get through it – remember, this is a spiritual practice. And only one thing can be used.

A beautiful pair of golden scissors that are exceptionally sharp. Still the rope won’t be “easy” to cut, it may be exhausting because it’s so thick – be patient, keep trying, and remember, you can cut the cord over a few days or weeks if needed. Just keep trying and be persistent with this practise because it really does work.

Now, here’s what we need to say:

I call upon Archangel Michael and my spirit guides to help me cut the cord. I wish to free myself for all eternity from (TOXIC PERSON’S NAME) so that we both can be free of the ties that bind and all energy attachments created from the past.

This attachment is holding me back and I no longer need it in my life.

I ask for all energetic cords that are physically connecting us to be cut, removed, dissolved and that I be set free from the ties that bind. I ask that all energy be returned to the original sender.

My intention is that nothing will hook me to (TOXIC PERSON’S NAME) ever again. I release them and ask that they move away from me so I can move away from them.

Archangel Michael, I call upon you now to surround me with a white light of protection while you cut away the cords. I ask that this is completed now, in this moment.

I want to thank you my beautiful angels and spirit guides for helping me today and I ask that you cleanse my aura of any negative energy or emotions, and seal it with love.

I need more…

There are plenty of free meditations on YouTube that you could have a look at, and also some psychotherapists may walk you through it in a one-to-one session if they believe in it. Anyone who believes in energies and angels could also help to guide your meditation, so if you want a one on one appointment, you could ask at an energies store (where they sell crystals and tarot cards) and see if they can recommend anyone for you.

NLP techniques

What is it

NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) believes we’re all doing the best we can with the education, resources and beliefs that we currently have. It’s a practise that combines neurology, language and programming – which basically means reprogramming your mind through the use of language. This doesn’t mean to change your language so you can stay with a toxic person – this is the language you use to speak to yourself, once the relationship is over. Essentially, this peace really helps us to completely remove the narcissist’s toxic sting and the last of the trauma bonds.

Why it works

NLP works because it taps into our subconscious mind to break habits and cut addictions once and for all. By understanding that the subconscious mind doesn’t understand negative thinking – and will always put things in the positive – instead of saying “Don’t think about him/her” you can start to say “Think about something else”.

The difference is that it redirects your mind to “something else” rather than “him/her” – something not many of us would rationally consider being an issue. The idea is to put everything in the positive when we speak to ourselves (not just a positive spin – but articulating exactly what we do want) – and then we can take a follow up action accordingly, and it should be a lot easier for us to do because our subconscious mind is onboard.

After these relationships which include a lot of brainwashing, and obviously the trauma bonding, we literally need to reprogram our minds – and NLP is perfect for getting them completely out of our head, but we do need to practise it consistently in order for it to work.

What you can do

Start practising immediately using affirmations. Simple affirmations are great for retraining and redirecting you brain. Make sure it’s nothing to do with them. During my healing I focussed my affirmations around courage, happiness and resilience. I wanted the strength to continue to persist through the pain to complete my healing – and it was worth it.

You could also start to challenge yourself to use the technique I explained above. Instead of making everything about the toxic person, make a really conscious effort to direct your thoughts away from that person. When you make a mistake (it happens) and your thoughts wonder there, regain control by saying “Stop” and stopping yourself, before replacing that thought with healthier thoughts or a practical distraction.

There are also NLP strategies you can use to help you to break habits and really cut this addiction but you will need to work with a practitioner to complete these. Using NLP Techniques for Addiction – Do They Work with Clients? is a really good article by Dr. Janice Walton, PhD that outlines some of the strategies an NLP practitioner can use to help you beat this addiction and cut through some of the associated habits that come with it.

I need more…

Read up about NLP and try to understand a little bit more about how it works and how you can use it for your situation. You may also like to make an appointment with an NLP Practitioner (a lot of life coaches, such as myself, also study NLP to help their clients) and work with them to understand how best to apply it to your specific situation.

If you’re really keen, you can also book in to do a workshop. Sometimes the easiest way to understand something is to practise it yourself. While you don’t need to be a professional and help others using this technique, it can certainly be helpful for your healing picking it up in a supportive, classroom environment – and you may meet some really cool people in the process!

Suggestions from the group

My group, Screw you! I’m choosing me – also came up with a few fantastic ideas to help you deal with trauma bonding:

Write the relationship down, from start to finish in third person. The highs and the lows. This will put things into perspective, eg. “One night when Jessica was pregnant Joe-Blog turned the power off to the house at the main switch and locked all the doors to scare and control Jessica. She was studying and not paying him enough attention”. Once you read over it you may feel shocked yourself.

Ask yourself questions. What do you want in a relationship. Did you get any of what you wanted or was it just an idea or dream of what it could be. Stop thinking about the ifs buts and whys. Accept you will never understand your abuser. And realise do you really want to understand the ugliness in them that makes them the way they are. Focus on you. Write affirmations. Acknowledge how you feel. If you feel you are finding it hard to accept and move past, see a psychologist.

Jessica

I think distance is key… and also washing your brain in the truth of who they are.. having a paper with everything they’ve done… all their horrible intolerable behavior… and reminding yourself when you feel weak… and focusing on your life, and learning new things… all that definitely weakens the trauma bond… also making a conscious decision of living in reality…

Jihan

Recognise you are literally de-toxing and give yourself a break

Jessica

Think about what will happen if u reconcile. It won’t be easy and highly damaging.

Jazzy

Trust yourself first

Manda

Get regular counselling

Jacinta

Talking back to the thoughts helps. When you remember a great time with the person remind yourself of the reality of what happened. Gradually, you’ll chip away at the irrational thoughts.

Jason

Distance and time for the body and mind to adjust to life away from the abuser. Also, write a list of all the problems. I read mine and realize these are not overcomeable whenever I feel myself reaching back.

I believe it’s my purpose to do things that can’t be done. She told me I would NEVER make it without her, she said I’ll never heal and trust and find anyone that can deal with my injuries. Jokes on her, I’m doing it, tell me I can’t, and I WILL! It’s a battle but all worth it in the end. All the best things come from strife, fight, and tribulation, almost none come from the path with no trouble.

Jackie

The best thing is to find a good psych someone you can trust. Who will work through all your pain and also challenge your thinking and all the brain washing that he put you through. You also want someone who will look at your behaviour and do childhood healing with you because alot of the trauma begins in childhood.

[watchesuaesblog]

The Phenomenon of Master Copy Watches on the Rise Globally

Introduction

For a while now, horology, which is the art and science of timekeeping, has been dominated by reputable brands known for their workmanship, innovation as well as heritage. Nonetheless, the landscape has changed dramatically due to master copy watches that have surfaced over the past years. These high-end replicas are becoming popular in various corners of the globe thereby creating a phenomenon that is transforming consumer demands and preferences, market dynamics and even brand strategies in the watch sector.

Definition of Master Copy Watches

Master copy watches also known as super clones or high-class replicas exhibit remarkable similarity with initial designs. Unlike ordinary fakes which are usually spottable due to their low quality and imperfections, every detail is taken into consideration when making these master copies. They use premium materials and advanced production technologies to capture almost perfectly the luxury watch’s aesthetics and functionality.

Tempting Prices

Affordability is one key driving factor behind people’s increased love for master copy watches. Often times, genuine luxury wristwatches from recognized brands such as Rolex, Patek Philippe or Audemars Piguet come at prices beyond what most people can afford. On the contrary, copy watches in UAE are like an affordable candy for your eyes – they look like those original high end watches but cost you only a small fraction of their price tag. This financial inclusiveness democratizes opulence enabling different individuals to revel in luxurious feeling associated with luxury time pieces.

Artistry and Standards

Furthermore, it cannot be denied that there are advances in manufacturing technology because there was a rise in quantity of perfect replicate things owing to improved manufacturing process after some years ago. These days replica makers utilize precision tools and machineries previously reserved for regular manufacturers alone. Today any decent master copy watch includes a top movement; sapphire crystal; first-rate engravement etc.Thus all these characteristics ensure not only the visual similarity but also functional equivalence of these fake watches to the real ones, which in most cases can be water resistance or self-winding.

Influence of Social Media and E-commerce

Master copy watches have been highly influenced by social media sites as well as online trading platforms. Such networks like Instagram, Youtube, dedicated watch forums are full of reviews that praise these high end replicas. A lot of times enthusiasts and even influencers demonstrate their collection where it is hard to separate original and fake time pieces. Online trading platforms and specialized webstores provide access to a wide variety of master copy watches for customers to choose from with only a few mouse clicks.

Ethical Issues and Legal Considerations

However, the growing popularity of master copy watches has brought about controversy. Intellectual property (IP) laws protect designs and trademarks owned by luxury brands; hence replicas infringe on these rights when they are produced and sold. This raises ethical concerns regarding supporting counterfeit goods, potential loss of revenue for genuine manufacturers and consequences for watch industry as a whole. Moreover, there are worries about labor practice at such factories where such imitations are made.

The Impact on Luxury Watch Brands

Master copy watches are increasingly being fought against by luxury watch brands in complex wars. These high-end replicas on the other hand prove there designs’ desirability and exclusivity. Conversely, these imitations may eat into their exclusivity and much needed revenue. The brands react to this in a combination of litigations, product innovation, and some marketing strategies that focus on accentuating the intangible value of owning an original piece.

Consumer Perception and Behavior

Perception and behavior of consumers have been influenced by the phenomenon of master copy watches. For many people owning a replica is not just about saving money but also about having luxury designs that they can admire without feeling the pinch in their pockets. However, this craze has brought to attention and improved understanding between genuine watches from replicas. Via these these transitional products (master copy watches), sometimes people end up desiring to own the authentic ones.

The Future of the Watch Industry

This shift means that more changes should be expected from the watch industry as long as master copy watches market keeps growing exponentially. It might become harder for one to tell apart real timepieces from counterfeit due technological advancements taking place over time. This might lead to brands investing further in unique materials, proprietary movements, or even digital authentication methods so as to preserve their exclusive position-since brand appeal matters a lot here-. Furthermore, shifts in value perception within the secondary market for luxury watches may result into increased demand for certified pre-owned pieces.

Conclusion

Global rise of master copy watches reflects how consumer desire has changed with manufacturing capabilities and market access changing at global level too. These copies provide an affordable entry point into luxury timepieces; however, they challenge traditional definitions of authenticity or limitedness . The interplay between genuine luxury items alongside high-quality counterfeits will continue shaping horology’s future as it comes to terms with this complex reality.

Recommendations for Consumers

To navigate the world of master copy watches, consumers must be cautious and considerate of moral implications and perils associated. Knowledge about the differences between real and fake watches, long-term worth of authentic ones, as well as ethical considerations will enable them make wise choices. Whether a person wants to acquire a master copy watch or is determined to save up for an original one, it involves understanding the craftsmanship and history behind each timepiece.

Recommendations for Brands

The rising number of master copy watches presents luxury watch brands with challenges and also opportunities. The value of genuine pieces can be strengthened by emphasizing on their uniqueness in terms of workmanship, heritage, innovation etc. Additionally, brand owners should look for innovative ways to reach out to customers using digital tools that add to their authenticated ownership experience such as authentication processes. By clearly understanding what attracts people towards counterfeit high-end wristwatches; firms may have room for maneuvering within the markets so that they continue being identified with high quality products.

Final Thoughts

This trend simply serves as one example within the broader context of the luxury market where limited availability meets open accessiblility or traditional craftsmanship converges with modern technology. This growing movement will certainly have continuing effects on the watch industry that will eventually shape our perceptions and valuation of these devices going forward.