#but actually through doing lots of work with researchers & learning how research works in my own field

[justgivemethephd]

26.09.2024

Hello everyone! Oh my god, I am so excited. After a while of waiting for my project's ethics to be finalised I'm actually going to have access to the samples I need!!!! This is absolutely huge and I'm so relieved things are finally moving forward. To celebrate I made a lasagna for me and my boyfriend, and we enjoyed it with wine and good conversation when he came home from work.

I am looking after my parents' cat this week while they're on holiday, and here he is providing cuddles and ample moral support while I try to get through my FACS gating and data analysis. I haven't done it in a while so I was a little rusty, but I made it in the end! I have also accidentally stumbled upon a website that seems to be a free resource to learn Python, which I've been meaning to do for ages! I am quite busy with experiments this week but I plan on digging my teeth into this properly next week. It's always so exciting to learn a new skill! I'm looking forward to the challenge.

I also attended a small conference yesterday. At first I didn't want to go but to my surprise my friend was there and a lot of the speakers either had really interesting research to show or were just really inspirational people. While nothing was directly relevant to my own project, it's always good to get insights from others regarding how to design presentation and new ways of thinking about data.

Finally, I signed up to a bunch of workshops taking place over the next few months, both to refine current skills and learn completely new ones, and, while I am completely drained today, I am very hopeful about the next few months.

Keep your head up guys! Be patient with yourself and keep learning, it is the key to growth.

~~~~~

🎧 - Swan Lake, Op. 20, Act 2: No.10, Scene. Moderato - Tchaikovsky

🎮 - Monster Hunter Rise

📖 - The Priory Of The Orange Tree (on GOD I have 100 pages left and it's such a good book I NEED SOME FREE TIME TO GET TO THE END!!)

[whentherewerebicycles]

i really and truly believe that there are only two genuine human superpowers, both of which can be actively cultivated:

the ability to find anything interesting, ie the ability to reframe and reflect on any situation or encounter, even/especially negative or boring ones, so as to make what is happening to you interesting, engaging, and personally meaningful to your human experience. this habit of mind is mostly curiosity but it's also woven through with psychological flexibility, especially the ability to regulate your own emotional reactions so that you can respond to challenging or tedious situations in more thoughtful and values-aligned ways that develop your sense of self instead of making you feel trapped or bored or fragmented

the ability to teach yourself new things. idk maybe as a teacher i am biased but i really believe that the single most transformative gift you can give any human being is a deep understanding of how people learn and improve at things. what is more hopeful, more inspiring, or more life-affirming than the realization that you can learn new things at any age, and that the new things you learn (plus the joyful process of learning itself!) can utterly transform the way you experience the world and understand yourself? what is more amazing or incredible than the realization that learning things is not a mysterious & passive process that happens to you but a reasonably consistent set of steps and tools that you can learn how to master and apply to virtually any skill or domain of human knowledge? the superpower of being able to learn/improve at anything you set your mind to… but also the superpower inherent in that quiet unwavering certainty that even if you feel stuck at various points in your life, you have within yourself the capacity to get unstuck through learning and changing and growing and experiencing new things. wowowowowowowow!!!!! what an extraordinary gift!!!!

[bitchapalooza]

I was thinking I wanted a queer platonic partner, but thinking about it more I don’t? I don’t want any intimacy whatsoever. I don’t wanna be touched unless it’s simple arm holding/arms linked together or a quick hug or lean on when in troubled times. I don’t want to be called a partner or anything either. I guess I just want a best friend to maybe live with? Just be close to someone with mutual trust and comfort and understanding and respect? I don’t wanna rope someone into a relationship that’s other than friendship because that’s all I want; I wouldn’t ever want to hold someone back if they want to be an intimate or romantic relationship! Having a close friendship sounds so heavenly to me, while having any other kind of relationship makes me feel anxious and uncomfortable to think about. God this book did so much for me ngl..

[noxtivagus]

my skill is making nonsense out of nothing fr 👍

[fluidity-stupidity]

Beginner Witch Things to Research

So many older - more experienced - witches tell beginner - baby - witches to start with researching things like protection spells, grounding, cleansing and warding but what do you research afterward? These are just a few things that I would recommend every individual to research, regardless of how experienced you may think you are.

Carl Jung's Map of the Soul This is where the archetypes stem from, a what a lot of witches dread doing - Shadow Work. Shadow Work is uncovering not just traumatic ventures of our pasts but also revealing what made and makes us who we are today. Studying where it all started makes working through your own shadow a lot less stressful and a lot hammering on the soul, it also leads to a lot less martyrdom in the spiritual community.

Honing in on your psychic abilities and Intuition Gaining the ability is easy, everyone has these abilities, you just have to work to get them to where you want them to be. Remember a spiritual practice is still a practice, you have to put in the effort to get better, just as you would a physical sport or an instrument.

Egregores and Amalgamations vs. Deitys vs. Pop Culture Deitys Egregores and amalgamations exist solely in the astral plane and can (and will) mimic, imitate, and parody deities. Being able to decern these, especially with your intuition will always provide useful. Learning that Lucifer from Dantes' Inferno is reaching out to you versus aspected, epithetic source Lucifer will give you a much better relationship and outcome in your practice.

Deity Work vs. Deity Worship Offering play a key role when learning to decern these from each other. You can in fact, do both, but be warned deities get jealous of each other.

Find what you love and surround yourself with it Incorporating things that you love into your practice and not actually doing what you love about your practice is one of the key differences I saw in my practice when I learned how to differentiate them. I found incoporating pop culture media into my practice made me get burnout from both that piece of pop culture and my spiritual practices.

Finding a form of divination that you are most comfortable with Everyone likes using cartomancy, divination using cards or pieces of paper, is the most common form of divination, but learning your favorite form of divination will help avoid burnout and creating tension for yourself in your practice.

[pizzapizzadickz]

I feel a lil bit better today after getting some rest in. I always feel better when I can spend a day at home. I think tomorrow I'll wear my noise cancelling headphones or something so I can chill even more.

...funny how my way to chill is just trying to eliminate all external stimuli

(Pt 1 for description rant)

[citricacidprince]

doodle request on relativity falls - id love 2 see ur vers of fiddleford and where he stands in the story!! :DD

Of course!!!

Oh Fiddleford, my dearly beloved Fiddleford, he’s just a little guy who makes machines that hurt people and I love him for that <3

In my Relativity Falls AU Fidds is a kid from Tennessee who moved to Gravity Falls pretty recently, like in the past year.

He’s still really handy with mechanics, like a genuine prodigy, but he’s so riddled with anxiety that it’s a battle to get him to share any of his projects outside of his robots he makes to get revenge on those who wrong him!

He really does like hanging out with the twins, he thinks their both fun and is very happy they actually wanna be his friend, however their constant ‘Getting into weird and magical trouble’ is so stress inducing to him he’s going to get gray hairs by the time he’s 20 (Dipper can relate-)

I don’t have a lot of things solidified for him yet, other than I want him to be EXTREMELY tempted to use the Memory Gun on himself, to forget a lot of the horrifying things he’s seen over the summer, but is stopped by Candy (The inventor of the gun) at the last second. You see, Candy didn’t spiral like Fiddleford did in the show, she only ever used the memory gun on herself once. However, she used it to erase every bit of knowledge she ever learned about the weirdness of Gravity Falls, and Candy had spent YEARS of her life dedicated to it, she was arguably more curious about the weirdness of Gravity Falls than Dipper was. He was only curious out of morbid curiosity, she saw the whimsy and wonder in it all. So when Candy used the Memory Gun on herself and erased such a huge chunk of her memory it cracked her psyche, not leaving her a rambling and insane kook like Fiddleford, but more oblivious and unaware to everything around her while also being a liiiiittle ‘not all there’.

Between the two of them Candy definitely got the better end of the stick. Fiddleford was deemed insane and used the memory gun over and over again until he couldn’t even remember who he was anyone, his life falling apart. Candy used it once to make sure no one could ever use her research to hurt anyone after she learned her lab partner was literally working with an otherworldly being who could go into peoples heads and it cracked her mind because her research WAS her entire life, leaving her oblivious and dazed. However, Candy managed to find people who cared about her and were willing to care for her despite this. Sure she lives in the dump, but whenever a storm comes through or she gets hungry she can always go up to her friends Grenda, Mabel Mason, or even Pacifica at some point to help her out. Fiddleford had no one.

I want Candy to give Fidds a little pep talk, convincing him that despite those memories being scary and uncomfortable he’s going to need all of them because they’re what will help him grow as a person. He can’t just pick and choose which ones he wants because one day he’ll realize he doesn’t have any memories left to burn.

Maybe there could even be a moment where Fidds tries to use the memory gun on Candy because he convinces himself he NEEDS it and doesn’t want to deal with the consequences of hating choice, but freezes up when he realizes it does work on her anymore. The realizes what he just did because of how badly he wanted that memory gun seconds after he did it and starts to tremble, dropping the memory gun as he begins uncontrollably crying that he ‘didn’t mean it’ and he’s sorry. Candy wouldn’t hold it against him, just seeing a scared kid who was so desperate to make the mind numbing anxiety that he would do anything, and she’d hug him and tell him it’s okay before leading him back to the rest of the group.

Fiddleford makes me soooo ill I love him <3

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI’s productivity theater

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

When I took my kid to New Zealand with me on a book-tour, I was delighted to learn that grocery stores had special aisles where all the kids'-eye-level candy had been removed, to minimize nagging. What a great idea!

Related: countries around the world limit advertising to children, for two reasons:

1) Kids may not be stupid, but they are inexperienced, and that makes them gullible; and

2) Kids don't have money of their own, so their path to getting the stuff they see in ads is nagging their parents, which creates a natural constituency to support limits on kids' advertising (nagged parents).

There's something especially annoying about ads targeted at getting credulous people to coerce or torment other people on behalf of the advertiser. For example, AI companies spent millions targeting your boss in an effort to convince them that you can be replaced with a chatbot that absolutely, positively cannot do your job.

Your boss has no idea what your job entails, and is (not so) secretly convinced that you're a featherbedding parasite who only shows up for work because you fear the breadline, and not because your job is a) challenging, or b) rewarding:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer

That makes them prime marks for chatbot-peddling AI pitchmen. Your boss would love to fire you and replace you with a chatbot. Chatbots don't unionize, they don't backtalk about stupid orders, and they don't experience any inconvenient moral injury when ordered to enshittify the product:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

Bosses are Bizarro-world Marxists. Like Marxists, your boss's worldview is organized around the principle that every dollar you take home in wages is a dollar that isn't available for executive bonuses, stock buybacks or dividends. That's why you boss is insatiably horny for firing you and replacing you with software. Software is cheaper, and it doesn't advocate for higher wages.

That makes your boss such an easy mark for AI pitchmen, which explains the vast gap between the valuation of AI companies and the utility of AI to the customers that buy those companies' products. As an investor, buying shares in AI might represent a bet the usefulness of AI – but for many of those investors, backing an AI company is actually a bet on your boss's credulity and contempt for you and your job.

But bosses' resemblance to toddlers doesn't end with their credulity. A toddler's path to getting that eye-height candy-bar goes through their exhausted parents. Your boss's path to realizing the productivity gains promised by an AI salesman runs through you.

A new research report from the Upwork Research Institute offers a look into the bizarre situation unfolding in workplaces where bosses have been conned into buying AI and now face the challenge of getting it to work as advertised:

https://www.upwork.com/research/ai-enhanced-work-models

The headline findings tell the whole story:

96% of bosses expect that AI will make their workers more productive;

85% of companies are either requiring or strongly encouraging workers to use AI;

49% of workers have no idea how AI is supposed to increase their productivity;

77% of workers say using AI decreases their productivity.

Working at an AI-equipped workplaces is like being the parent of a furious toddler who has bought a million Sea Monkey farms off the back page of a comic book, and is now destroying your life with demands that you figure out how to get the brine shrimp he ordered from a notorious Holocaust denier to wear little crowns like they do in the ad:

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2004/hitler-and-sea-monkeys

Bosses spend a lot of time thinking about your productivity. The "productivity paradox" shows a rapid, persistent decline in American worker productivity, starting in the 1970s and continuing to this day:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox

The "paradox" refers to the growth of IT, which is sold as a productivity-increasing miracle. There are many theories to explain this paradox. One especially good theory came from the late David Graeber (rest in power), in his 2012 essay, "Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit":

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit

Graeber proposes that the growth of IT was part of a wider shift in research approaches. Research was once dominated by weirdos (e.g. Jack Parsons, Oppenheimer, etc) who operated with relatively little red tape. The rise of IT coincides with the rise of "managerialism," the McKinseyoid drive to monitor, quantify and – above all – discipline the workforce. IT made it easier to generate these records, which also made it normal to expect these records.

Before long, every employee – including the "creatives" whose ideas were credited with the productivity gains of the American century until the 70s – was spending a huge amount of time (sometimes the majority of their working days) filling in forms, documenting their work, and generally producing a legible account of their day's work. All this data gave rise to a ballooning class of managers, who colonized every kind of institution – not just corporations, but also universities and government agencies, which were structured to resemble corporations (down to referring to voters or students as "customers").

Even if you think all that record-keeping might be useful, there's no denying that the more time you spend documenting your work, the less time you have to do your work. The solution to this was inevitably more IT, sold as a way to make the record-keeping easier. But adding IT to a bureaucracy is like adding lanes to a highway: the easier it is to demand fine-grained record-keeping, the more record-keeping will be demanded of you.

But that's not all that IT did for the workplace. There are a couple areas in which IT absolutely increased the profitability of the companies that invested in it.

First, IT allowed corporations to outsource production to low-waged countries in the global south, usually places with worse labor protection, weaker environmental laws, and easily bribed regulators. It's really hard to produce things in factories thousands of miles away, or to oversee remote workers in another country. But IT makes it possible to annihilate distance, time zone gaps, and language barriers. Corporations that figured out how to use IT to fire workers at home and exploit workers and despoil the environment in distant lands thrived. Executives who oversaw these projects rose through the ranks. For example, Tim Cook became the CEO of Apple thanks to his successes in moving production out of the USA and into China.

https://archive.is/M17qq

Outsourcing provided a sugar high that compensated for declining productivity…for a while. But eventually, all the gains to be had from outsourcing were realized, and companies needed a new source of cheap gains. That's where "bossware" came in: the automation of workforce monitoring and discipline. Bossware made it possible to monitor workers at the finest-grained levels, measuring everything from keystrokes to eyeball movements.

What's more, the declining power of the American worker – a nice bonus of the project to fire huge numbers of workers and ship their jobs overseas, which made the remainder terrified of losing their jobs and thus willing to eat a rasher of shit and ask for seconds – meant that bossware could be used to tie wages to metrics. It's not just gig workers who don't score consistent five star ratings from app users whose pay gets docked – it's also creative workers whose Youtube and Tiktok wages are cut for violating rules that they aren't allowed to know, because that might help them break the rules without being detected and punished:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/13/solidarity-forever/#tech-unions

Bossware dominates workplaces from public schools to hospitals, restaurants to call centers, and extends to your home and car, if you're working from home (AKA "living at work") or driving for Uber or Amazon:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/02/chickenized-by-arise/#arise

In providing a pretense for stealing wages, IT can increase profits, even as it reduces productivity:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

One way to think about how this works is through the automation-theory metaphor of a "centaur" and a "reverse centaur." In automation circles, a "centaur" is someone who is assisted by an automation tool – for example, when your boss uses AI to monitor your eyeballs in order to find excuses to steal your wages, they are a centaur, a human head atop a machine body that does all the hard work, far in excess of any human's capacity.

A "reverse centaur" is a worker who acts as an assistant to an automation system. The worker who is ridden by an AI that monitors their eyeballs, bathroom breaks, and keystrokes is a reverse centaur, being used (and eventually, used up) by a machine to perform the tasks that the machine can't perform unassisted:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But there's only so much work you can squeeze out of a human in this fashion before they are ruined for the job. Amazon's internal research reveals that the company has calculated that it ruins workers so quickly that it is in danger of using up every able-bodied worker in America:

https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-warehouses-hiring-shortage

Which explains the other major findings from the Upwork study:

81% of bosses have increased the demands they make on their workers over the past year; and

71% of workers are "burned out."

Bosses' answer to "AI making workers feel burned out" is the same as "IT-driven form-filling makes workers unproductive" – do more of the same, but go harder. Cisco has a new product that tries to detect when workers are about to snap after absorbing abuse from furious customers and then gives them a "Zen" moment in which they are showed a "soothing" photo of their family:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-bringing-zen-first-horizons-192010166.html

This is just the latest in a series of increasingly sweaty and cruel "workplace wellness" technologies that spy on workers and try to help them "manage their stress," all of which have the (totally predictable) effect of increasing workplace stress:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/15/wellness-taylorism/#sick-of-spying

The only person who wouldn't predict that being closely monitored by an AI that snitches on you to your boss would increase your stress levels is your boss. Unfortunately for you, AI pitchmen know this, too, and they're more than happy to sell your boss the reverse-centaur automation tool that makes you want to die, and then sell your boss another automation tool that is supposed to restore your will to live.

The "productivity paradox" is being resolved before our eyes. American per-worker productivity fell because it was more profitable to ship American jobs to regulatory free-fire zones and exploit the resulting precarity to abuse the workers left onshore. Workers who resented this arrangement were condemned for having a shitty "work ethic" – even as the number of hours worked by the average US worker rose by 13% between 1976 and 2016:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

AI is just a successor gimmick at the terminal end of 40 years of increasing profits by taking them out of workers' hides rather than improving efficiency. That arrangement didn't come out of nowhere: it was a direct result of a Reagan-era theory of corporate power called "consumer welfare." Under the "consumer welfare" approach to antitrust, monopolies were encouraged, provided that they used their market power to lower wages and screw suppliers, while lowering costs to consumers.

"Consumer welfare" supposed that we could somehow separate our identities as "workers" from our identities as "shoppers" – that our stagnating wages and worsening conditions ceased mattering to us when we clocked out at 5PM (or, you know, 9PM) and bought a $0.99 Meal Deal at McDonald's whose low, low price was only possible because it was cooked by someone sleeping in their car and collecting food-stamps.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/20/disneyland-workers-anaheim-california-authorize-strike

But we're reaching the end of the road for consumer welfare. Sure, your toddler-boss can be tricked into buying AI and firing half of your co-workers and demanding that the remainder use AI to do their jobs. But if AI can't do their jobs (it can't), no amount of demanding that you figure out how to make the Sea Monkeys act like they did in the comic-book ad is doing to make that work.

As screwing workers and suppliers produces fewer and fewer gains, companies are increasingly turning on their customers. It's not just that you're getting worse service from chatbots or the humans who are reverse-centaured into their workflow. You're also paying more for that, as algorithmic surveillance pricing uses automation to gouge you on prices in realtime:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy

This is – in the memorable phrase of David Dayen and Lindsay Owens, the "age of recoupment," in which companies end their practice of splitting the gains from suppressing labor with their customers:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-03-age-of-recoupment/

It's a bet that the tolerance for monopolies made these companies too big to fail, and that means they're too big to jail, so they can cheat their customers as well as their workers.

AI may be a bet that your boss can be suckered into buying a chatbot that can't do your job, but investors are souring on that bet. Goldman Sachs, who once trumpeted AI as a multi-trillion dollar sector with unlimited growth, is now publishing reports describing how companies who buy AI can't figure out what to do with it:

https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/gs-research/gen-ai-too-much-spend-too-little-benefit/report.pdf

Fine, investment banks are supposed to be a little conservative. But VCs? They're the ones with all the appetite for risk, right? Well, maybe so, but Sequoia Capital, a top-tier Silicon Valley VC, is also publicly questioning whether anyone will make AI investments pay off:

https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/ais-600b-question/

I can't tell you how great it was to take my kid down a grocery checkout aisle from which all the eye-level candy had been removed. Alas, I can't figure out how we keep the nation's executive toddlers from being dazzled by shiny AI pitches that leave us stuck with the consequences of their impulse purchases.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/25/accountability-sinks/#work-harder-not-smarter

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[dcxdpdabbles]

Am going feral for Danny's grill, I'm salivating for another part, perhaps the batfams reactions to Tim's theory of Danny being fae and just "ohh oh that tracks, that tracks a little too well, but atleast he's a nice fae? Also I vainly remember Constantine drunkenly complaining about a pariah being a bitch king so maybe Danny is actually fae royalty which is why he can afford to be nice??"

Sry for rambling ♡

Tim's investigation updates are alarming, to put it nicely. Bruce can't say he's thrilled by how his son discovered a new Fae court or that his son is now untraceable within the said court.

He would think Tim was missing if it weren't for the reports he finds at family information locations. Thankfully, the fae seemed benevolent—at least for now.

Bruce would be the first to admit that he did not like how, out of all his kids, Tim always seemed to get involved with the oddest of missions.

Reading the Young Justice reports always gave him a headache- baseball game for the plant? Accidentally killed Santa Claus?!? - So, he not only figured out a Fae had appeared in Gotham but also ate the food the Fae offered him? Yeah, that was his Tim.

Bruce had picked up Tim's progress reports before anyone else. His other children were focused on a missing person case and their own cases.

Bruce figured that as long as Tim was treated right, he could spend time searching for a way to get his son home safely without worrying about the others. He has spoken with every member of the Justice League Dark, interviewed any god or goodness in the Justice League, and done extensive research on Faes themselves.

Almost everything had given him the same result: A human could be returned from the Other World only if the Fae allowed it.

It's not impossible to trick a Fae into releasing Tim, but it must be delicately done. Those types of beings rarely forgive and never forget.

He had planned for this to happen to him long before he became Batman—after all, he knew those creatures were real after learning of Aliens—but each of his plans to escape the Fae had an "It's alright if I die" in progress.

He could not apply those plans to Tim as he did care if his son lived.

He was replaying his interview with John Consitiante- seeing as that man had a lot of practice swinging his soul as a bargaining chip- when Jason came stomping down the stairs.

"I can't find him!" He swears, throwing himself in a computer chair with a huff. Bruce lowers the volume on his computer, making a sound in the back of his throat. It's the usual noise he makes to convey to his children he is listening and is curious about what is upsetting them

Jason, easily able to understand his sounds now, ranks a hand through his hair with a scoff. "The favor one of my contacts called in. Alvin Draper. I can't find anything on him before my contact took him in"

"Could be a fake name," Bruce offers, typing into his search engine some keywords John spilled in his drunken state. He reads over the runes that pulled up while considering Jason's words. "He gave your contact his name in the same breath as his work. He would unlikely have trusted him that much, so he creates a false name to cover up his street name, which he only gives to customers. His birth name is even less spoken."

"Yeah, I thought the same, so I took the initiative to look at anyone working in his usual areas. Some working girls who answer to me have also asked around. Anyone even remotely matching the description has been tracked down and kept safe, but none were the target. I've even had the others look into it just in case the few corner boys didn't trust Red Hood would be more forthcoming with information. Nothing. Zip. Nada! I'm not an amateur, Bruce. " Jason snarks and Bruce fights off the wave of pride. Of course, his children were able to do all that without him. His kids were incredible at their work.

"No one has seen or heard of Alvin within the industry. If he's a corner boy, he's a private one. Those are the worst because it usually means the clients are crazy powerful and extra careful to not be seen."

Bruce pauses, mind rushing at lightning speed. "Power, not seen and....does this Alvin Draper happen to work on these streets?"

He pulls up a map with various colored dots on it. Bruce had been carefully tracking down where Tim and his Fae had been going through. Tim mainly stayed at the Fae's manor but was allowed to go out to work. One of the reasons Bruce truly believed it was benevolent.

If he ignored the information in the packages, it seemed like Tim was taking some personal time off. His other children surely thought so. They all just laughed at the fact Tim was not about but was still solving the most cases out of all of them.

It was primarily remote work, which Bruce didn't mind. Tim needed a vacation from Red Robin and Wayne Enterprises' CEO.

"Yes!" Jason gasps, leaning towards the map. "How did you find all the targeted areas? My contact said Alvin moved almost every night."

Bruce weighs his options before carefully admitting. "It wasn't my intention to get Alvin's area. I have been tracking a new Fae court that followed these paths."

There was a significant pause before Jason asked with great patience. "There is a what in Gotham?"

"A Fae."

"...Okay, and how long has this been in our city?"

"About two months now."

Jason takes a deep breath. He reaches around Bruce to press the communications line, which he presses four times. At once, the cave is filled with the noise of his children going about their night- either in or out of costume.

All but Tim, since he is still within the Fae's castle. It's a setback that Bruce can't find the castle, even after Tim tells him exactly where it is with coordinates.

He assumes that he, as a human, has no access to the building. Nothing on his computers or tests proves that there is a building there, but Tim swears that's where he's been.

"We have Faes in Gotham. B. has known about them for two months," Jason announces, cutting everyone off. The lines go very silent, and Bruce blinks, confused when he can pick up some anger in his children's silence.

"B?" Dick says in that You better tell me everything right now, old man voice. It's the strangely sickly sweet tone he uses that disguises danger.

Bruce is mystified. Why is he angry? "Two months ago, Tim informed me that a stranger had caught his attention and that he was going undercover. He mostly noticed inconsistencies with his target, but it was only after following the suspect home that he realized the man was not human-"

"Father, are you saying a Fae has Red Robin?" Damian interrupted which is unusual. His youngest almost never does that; he's far too polite and disciplined.

"Yes. He's been in his castle the whole time he's been away."

"Did he eat anything the Fae gave him!?" Duke's cries sounded almost hysterical.

"Yes, he has been there for two months. Tim needed to eat."

"RR has been gone for almost three months, B.!" Harper snaps. She was out as Bluebird for the first time in a while. Her college assignments were really cutting into her hero time.

"Is he okay?" Cullen asks quietly. Bruce had always suspected the lad had a crush on his son, flushing deep red whenever Harper brought him over.

"He is fine. Tim has kept contact with me and seems to be thriving with the Fae. I have been working to get the being to give him back without causing him harm."

"That's what all the research you've been doing lately was about?" Barbara demands.

Bruce squints at the screens where voice lines are beside the images of his children. He doesn't know why but understands that even she is cross with him. "Yes."

"Master Bruce, we will be having a conversation later," Alfred hisses- actually hisses, and Bruce feels cold, hard dread slip down his spine. Oh no. Had he done something wrong again?

Should he not mention his theory that Tim and Alvin are one in the same? Would that make things worse or better?

Jason lets loose a series of swears in Spanish. He leans against the table, pitching his voice loud enough that the rest of the Bats can hear him. "Crude, I think the Fae collects people with the same physical characteristics. Tim and Alvin are known as people of the same height, eye color, age, hair color, and even skin color."

Dick, Damian, Duke, and Harper all swear in their own native tounges, which makes Bruce fight the urge to sink down. Yes, it is better not to mention his other theory of Jason's contact being said, Fae.

Not until he has proof, at least.

"Let me guess." Steph chimes in with a sigh. "Tim followed the Fae because he's pretty."

Bruce remains stubbornly silent, but he thinks that Tim finds the Fae or "Danny" quite handsome. Why else would he spend three paragraphs of his report describing Danny's hair?

"I think we all need to come together to work on this," Dick says next, voice taking charge. Bruce's pride and adoration for the children grow a few notches higher when they all agree without thought.

"Who knows what Tim or Alvin are going through."

Meanwhile, Tim sighed as one of Danny's "hired" help carefully worked out some knots in his back. How long has it been since he had a spa day? Too long. "Was that too rough?"

"No, it's the perfect pressure."

"Wonderful. After we are done here, would you prefer a mud bath or a soothing seaweed wrap?"

"Oh, a mud bath for sure."

[msbluebell]

How We Fall For People Like James Somerton

We're all joking, but this James Somerton thing has me really fucked up.

I wasn't a huge fan of James. I saw a few of his videos and liked them. In the ones I saw he was calm and explained things straightforwardly and even the one or two times he said things against white women...well, that's language I've been seeing on Tumblr since I joined back in my tweenage years. I thought it was just a dismissive joke pointing out a frank reality.

I didn't watch him too much. Just a few videos. I kept meaning to watch more, but I didn't because sometimes I wanted something easier. But I regarded him sell because of how informed he seemed.

And that's the thing, isn't it? He SEEMED informed. He spoke confidently and sometimes quoted queer sounding articles and I trusted him blindly. And why? Because he was giving me information that SEEMED well researched.

Illumanaughtii too. I WAS a consistent fan of hers before other youtubers came out. Because she presented information really well and I like hand drawn characters and because she read academic sounding quotes. I trusted her and her information was stollen. And I feel like a fool for ever having trusted her now, but at least her stollen facts were apparently accurate. Maybe.

James though, he straight up lied. Todd in the Shadows went through a lot of effort to expose those lies. He did so much research that I didn't bother to do. And he admitted he only did it because he happened to know people more informed than him that noticed the lies and went down a rabbit hole.

And maybe if I was more involved I would have noticed. But that's beside the point. what's getting me is I didn't bother to check myself, I just blindly trusted.

And the worst part is I can see why it happened.

I work.

I work, and then I get home, and when I get home I stress. I stress about work I have to do tomorrow, or classes, or finding a new job that actually pays a livable wage. And to escape that stress I go online to AO3, or tumblr, but especially Youtube.

Because I like youtube, I like to have noise in the background while I work. I like to listen to things while I read. And some of the time it's ASMR videos, or watching someone cook something. But mostly? It's history things or video essays.

And when I'm working, or reading, I'll hear a fact, and I'll look up, and I'll think "Huh, that's interesting to know, I didn't know that." And I won't think anything about it.

Because I'm busy, or I'm tired. I'm tired from work, and I don't want to do more work. Or sometimes it's mental health. This is my coping mechanism. I'm trying to learn things, do something to distract myself. I'm not looking to disprove things.

In other words I'm lazy. Or, if I'm being kind to myself, I'm tired.

Maybe if the topic was something I was an expert in I would have noticed. I'm a former ballerina, I'm a failed history major dropout. Maybe if he'd said something like "Holodomor never happened" or "Boudica is a Finnish folk hero" I'd have noticed. Maybe.

But he didn't, and I didn't notice. I assumed he did the work, and why?

Because surely a gay man wouldn't spend hours on youtube talking about Queer history if he wasn't passionate. Because he, a queer man, would surely know about queer history. Surely he wouldn't want to spread lies and hate. And he's quoting from books and articles so why wouldn't I trust him?

My trust was blind and unfounded.

And now I'm reeling from that. I'm reeling because I'm starting to feel like I can't trust a lot of people. How can I listen to any Youtuber casually now?

I can't, I never should have assumed I could.

Now every informative video feels like I need to do tens of hours of research just to be sure what I'm hearing is true. I feel like I can't trust anything unless I do.

James Somerton took my trust.

And it's not only that either. That's not what scares me the most. It's that there are THOUSANDS of people like me. Millions like me. Who are learning something from a video or a tweet or a tumblr post from someone they assume is an expert and are blindly trusting because they assume they can trust it. They don't intend to do their own research because they're tired, or don't know how. And that scars me. I was a history major, I studied tyrants and misinformation and the rise of propaganda, and I, with all my tools to notice, was still blind.

You cannot blindly trust a video, you cannot blindly trust a tweet, you especially cannot blindly trust a tumblr post.

YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO PROPOGANDA

[pressureplus]

Hey!!

Love you writing, and say your ask box was open!

Was wondering if you could do headcannons for Seb with a partner(who’s also an experiment) who’s extremely scared of physical contact, basically helping them recover and learn to find comfort with each other?

Just thought it was a cute idea and would love to see some headcannons for it!!

keep up the awesome work!!

Hi! Thank you, we have a lot of fun writing things for you all, and we adore this fish as much as everyone here💕 I LOVE these kind of Headcannons, comfort is one of my personal favorite kinds of things to write for! Hope you like it! 💕💕💕

(Also, I didn't know if you wanted romantic or not, so I pinpointed where the platonic stuff stops and the romance begins for y'all)

Sebastian Solace x Experiment Reader Headcannons

Warnings: Mentions of abuse, Mentions of Violence, Injury, Blood, Trauma, and Touch Related Issues

◞꒷◟ ͜ ͜ ◞ྀི◟୨୧◞ྀི◟ ͜ ͜ ◞꒷◟◞꒷◟ ͜ ͜ ◞ྀི◟୨୧◞ྀི◟ ͜ ͜ ◞꒷◟

• You only really met because you needed his help

• Had you not found yourself wounded, hungry, and on the brink of death, you'd never have trusted any creature that could take Pandemonium in a fight

• But, as you may have guessed, the stars aligned in your favor and you gained a friend

• The things that had made you the thing you are today gave you a less than ideal relationship with the idea of being touched

• Your old cell, a less so opinion of being in confined, cornering spaces

• Sebastian had been pissed when you writhed and shrieked and fought him when he was trying to tend your wounds

• Almost gave up on you immediately and turned you out, grabbing you by the shoulders and nearly heaving you back into the vent you'd drug yourself through in the first place

• It was the fear in your eyes that changed his mind, something that was familiar to him in a way that ran deep

• it was his own looking back at him

• You had to tend all your own injuries, but he did make a point to slide you the med kits instead of wrestling you or throwing them

• Was surprised when you pulled through, honestly, and even more surprised when you returned that night after your first outing in weeks to sleep in the space he'd give you to recover in

• By this point, he'd grown fond of having the company, finding his own comfort in the familiarity and shared experiences you two had

• The Expendables don't understand what it's like to be in this place the way it was, they don't understand getting experimented on like this, being conditioned a certain unnatural way, being mistreated and seen like monsters

• The researchers and scientists and actually valued UrbanShade Personnel could never understand either, finding some sort of honor or privelege in getting to aid such a massive, self-justified name like the one this god forsaken company holds over its own head

• Not even the other creatures here could relate to him, unable to speak, many of them truly mindless and animalistic- if not those things than things people were afraid to disrespect for fear it would lash out, a luxury that Sebastian and Yourself never got to know on account of the fact they all knew you to be prisoners and knew you to be weak to one thing or another

• Painter was close, but never human. The only one willing to speak to him like a person... Still yet unable to connect with for not knowing what it is to have been human and to have it taken

• But you understand him.

• You two were treated alike, coming from similar backgrounds, coming from places that would never prepare you for this

• You both need that connection, and he knows that when you pull yourself into his shop. The same way you know this when he slides your food forward for you to have in the evenings

• Touch isn't natural to you anymore, nor is it to him, so no matter how much you both want it, you stay distant

• Your voice suffices for a long while, finding the bond you grow to share in old stories from the world that was taken from you and in time spent helping him run his shop and in dreams to feel the sunlight on your new scales

• This new skin has never known sunlight, but it is starting to know kindness, isn't it?

• "Would it be too far for me to hold your hand? Would it be strange?"

• The first hurdle you have to jump on your recovery is still at distance, hesitantly and awkwardly pushing your hand against his own, sitting stiffly on opposite ends of a desk and refusing to look at one another

• It's not comfortable, but it gets the job done, right? A good step in the right direction!

• God the road to recovery is long =_=

• The first time it happens on its own seems to surprise you both, it's a hand on your back when he leans around you to grab for some of the data on the table in front of you for sorting

• Both of you were a little stiff about it, but it was quick and had a purpose, so it wasn't torture

• A neutral experience, but not bad!

• After this, it eases into being natural

• Brushing hands, correcting a strand of hair for him, patting you on the shoulder- even playful little hip bumps when you two get comfortable enough

• Like ice, the wall between you melts away as you fall into rhythm with your shared life

• It starts to feel nice when he gives you attention like that

• Those big clawed hands stop being scary, and you can no longer imagine why you were very frightened when he reaches forward to boop your nose and call you a stupid little idiot for dropping something

• Is never going to be completely nice to you, did you forget the man you decided to marry harass is mean?

• If you don't feel anything for him further than things that are platonic this is where your life together mellows and settles, into a comfortable spot where you two take care of each other and support one another, everything one another has

• If you feel more?

• It's laughing and joking, and all at once you break through the surface tension in ways you never thought you were ever going to have again

• You share a kiss.

• It's hard to tell who leaned in first, but before you can even think about it, your lips are warm and your mind is buzzing

• It's slow and steady and light, hands coming up to cup your face so softly and gently

• Any place your hands rest on him, he leans into, purring and kissing at you as long as he can get away with

• His fins? Fluttering. His tail? Wagging. . . His heart is damn near stopped with how many skips it's taking

• Heart may as well be playing hopscotch, you better pull away before he hits the ground

• After this, you get to enjoy time cuddling and kissing and basking in what it feels like to be loved again

• He could never be more content than he is to be pressed against you

• Even in the bodies you're stuck in now, he could never be happier than this ❤️

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

want talk about how important have AAC in your language.

language of birth country, of family, big language, so many native speaker, even more second third learned language speaker. but, even that, is language not often seen in robust AAC apps develop by western countries—because not one of big western countries.

there only one robust symbol based (or TTS tbh) AAC app have that language: TD snap.

which mean. must make it work.

how important it is have AAC that fit your needs: right grid size, right motor plan, right access support (switch, eye gaze, etc), right editing, right symbols, right color & color coding & contrast, right everything. n so much of this, actual need, and not preference.

which why there so many english symbol based AAC apps, each with different logic to where words are, how word organized, what symbol use, what editing feature have, all backed by their research & tech development… you get choose. if one app not right for you, have others. sometimes is prefer one over other, but other times is, some apps unusable for you, conflict needs for you, cannot understand it (e.g touch chat for me).

TD snap organization not work for me. core word not enough, fringe word organized not fit way my brain work, n overall not enough words that match own daily life.

but have to make it work. because it between this, or not communicate in words with family & with world in country where everyone speak this language.

so, am deleting everything, all words, all boards, & remake, reorganize. trying make it work. begging make it work. pay no mind how it take tens even hundreds of hours (years in making, still not finished). …it my only option.

n, this lucky case scenario—

people who cannot, or not allowed to, edit their AAC in such big way. people who cannot use that sad one app that contain your language.

or, especially: there languages & speaker of those language who need AAC but have no AAC because there no AAC that support their language.

their voice robbed.

but that not all. for longest time still not able use AAC in birth country language. because have no voice go along.

want talk about how important have useable voices in AAC in your language.

in gender that reflect you, tone & personality that reflect you, pronunciation & accent & everything that reflect you.

using voice that not used to, already feel like speaking through someone else mouth. very odd feeling—it you speaking, it you communicating, but it coming out of someone else mouth, in their voice, not yours. where yours?

even with voice that like, still take me while fully connect with voice. with voice mere tolerate, always feel discomfort, not fully mine. with voice that opposite who you are?

averse. rather not talk at all.

not willing choice. but physical reaction, recoil, hate, uncomfortable deep under skin, disgust.

between acapella voice group & IOS voices, there maybe 5-6 voices for birth country language, all very gendered, middle age “karen” sounding, robotic unnatural, unclear, hard hear what trying say, tele-announcer tone. 5-6, but somehow all sound same.

and, make no mistake, 5-6 badly made ones. is lots. other languages, have 1, or 2. or none. this, lucky.

so, not communicate with words at all. completely nonverbal all the time, so gestures, noises, grunts, is what left. need parents with 24/7, because other don’t know why not talk, don’t even know can not talk, don’t understand what mean with all these body language noises/-n, by the way, parents is part reason have cPTSD, but have be around them, because nonverbal high support needs, what can you do, what other option you have?. and, still, frequent meltdowns n tantrum—because often no one understand.

have words that cannot use. in language that itself is trauma trigger.

today, found that apple/ios now expanded voices for birth country language. so many now! so many also have enhanced & premium options, that come with ios, no extra cost. so many different personalities, tones, inflections. and, sound so natural.

cried. because. finally may able communicate with words in birth country language again.

don’t know how explain to people who, never had go through forced silence, how important and huge and even life changing this is.

won’t take away communication disability, won’t take away other AAC difficulties, won’t take away trauma, won’t make birth country language any less of trauma trigger, but—

it there when ready.

—to all my AAC users who speak language that not commonly supported by robust AAC apps on market. especially those BIPOC, those diaspora and those from the country. those who speak language with few speakers. especially those nonverbal nonspeaking who have no other option. those who cannot type, who can only use symbol base AAC, so effectively stranded without one that support their language. love you all, see you all, even if AAC companies don’t.

[a-certain-romance]

No One Knows

Characters/Ships: Yandere!Ruan Mei x fem!reader

Warnings: Smut written by a minor, Possessiveness, Fingering

For years, Ruan Mei has struggled with her ongoing research in the origins of life. Failed experiment after failed experiment. The emanator she created was only a short-lived example of all those years of hard work. Maybe it was too ambitious. And frankly, too large to manage. She needed something more stable, and tangible for long enough to be studied.

Through hours upon hours of trial and error, she finally succeeded in the creation of her most prized possession: you, her perfect little creation.

Her attempts at creating life were finally fulfilled with the help of that trailblazer from the Asteral Express. You were timid at first. Her modifications gave you the knowledge and ability to speak and read, but it took some time to warm up to her. Ruan Mei desperately wanted to study you immediately, but she’ll settle for simple observations until she gains your trust.

It was a slow process. If Ruan Mei has learned anything, it’s that she needs to learn how to show you affection. She spent more time with you when it didn’t involve her research. Although she’s been apathetic for some time, you’ve given her the courage to step out of her comfort zone. For the sake of this project of course.

Whatever she did worked. You eventually became as clingy as her past experiments. It’s only natural for you to adopt that same loving nature as the others have, but this time she’s enabled it a little more. She lets you be in the same room when she’s doing side projects and shares her knowledge of the biological and ecological aspects. She shares a lot of her pastries with you, and even makes the time to bake things with you. Sometimes when she’s spending a lot of time writing, she lets you lay your head on her lap for a while. She used to only see you as an influential accomplishment, but now she feels a sense of protective ownership over you.

She can’t keep you at the space station forever. Even though Herta doesn’t mind, she’s starting to get a little too curious about what Ruan Mei is keeping in that unoccupied level of the station.

And worst of all, her little creation is starting to wonder what’s behind those big steel doors that keep her locked in. And that just won’t do. She’s seen you giving those doors such longing looks, seen you tap and occasionally scratch the glass window. She makes a mental note to re-enforce the durability—‘just in case’. She knows she should observe your new behaviors a little closer, but she came to that conclusion a little too late the day she caught you stealing her card.

Were you…actually trying to escape? But why? She transformed this entire area just for you. Her past experiments have prepared her for what it takes to give something life; from food to sunlight to entertainment to company, what more can you possibly need?

“I’ll show you how much you need me.”

Her kisses are feather light at first. She pins you against the very door you intended on breaching. Even the pinning is gentle. You could probably struggle against her, but something tells you that she can easily overpower you with enough motivation.

Just as gently, her knee pressed right against your core. Her lips brush against your cheek, “Do you want more?” She asks sweetly. A little too sweetly. You shake your head, and she flips you around forcefully. In her breathy voice commands: “Hands against the door.”

Your palms shakily press against the surface. “Perfect,” she muses.

She strokes here hands all along your body, eventually settling on your waist. “Look at the way your body reacts to my touch. You’d miss this if you left me.” She kisses and nips your skin with satisfaction as her lips move down your neck.

“Only I can make you feel like this. I created you; I know your body like the back of my hand,” her thumb tugs at your waistband, causing your breath to hitch, “See? Spread your legs for me…yes, just like that, wider. That’s my girl.”

She rolls your pants down carefully to the floor, prompting you to kick them off. Your underwear follows soon after. She returns to her stance behind you. Her gloved hand finds its way to your entrance, and her middle finger is the first to push past your folds. “Be good for me.” She rasps, planting kisses around your shoulder blade.

Your slick coats her finger with every stroke. She retracts from you for just a moment to bite her soaked glove off with her teeth. She tosses it behind her before returning to your inviting warmth with an added finger. She sighs pleasurably, almost nothing is obstructing her skin from yours.

Her other hand forces you to look out the window as she scissors her fingers inside you. The glass is somewhat clouded from your panting, but you can make out the sight of how her green eyes bore into yours.

Her fingers curl and rub feverishly against your sweet spot. Your body shudders as you inch closer to your climax. “Let go,” she moans, “let go and cum for me.” Your slick spurts through her slender fingers as you climax.

As you come down, Ruan Mei whispers a few “good girl”s as she kisses your neck. Her arms wrap around your body possessively with no intention of letting go.

She’ll make arrangements for a more permanent residence to keep you close. No one knows of your existence, and she intends to keep it that way.

[ellaenchanting]

Hello, I have a new sub (he’s new to all kink, including hypnosis) who is definitely experiencing hypnoamory.

I keep trying to explain to him that hypnoamory is not safe but I don’t fully understand the risks myself so it’s difficult to explain them to him.

I can’t find much online and you have amazing insights and I’m hoping you can help explain it to me, so I can explain it to him?

Thank you, in advance.

-A

Reader's follow up message for context:

"A here, I asked about the hypnoamory. It seems almost like he’s falling in love, and it’s been obscenely fast.

He keeps mentioning (undefined) feelings, and is expressing them strongly. Wanting to constantly be with me, even if it means breaking his own rules of not being on a Zoom call while his sister (his roommate) is around. (I nipped that in the bud and said I didn’t consent to that.)

When I suggest caution, and bring up, hypnoamory, it’s quite hard to explain to him why it’s risky when I don’t fully know myself.

(I’ll admit, some of these (undefined) feelings are reciprocated, and that also worries me, because how can I take care of him, if I’m also dealing with it.)”

Answer:

Hi anon!

Thank you so much for this question! I'm really excited to answer it. Not only do I (apparently) have lots of thoughts here, I'm really excited to hear about what others have to say on this topic. Hopefully we’ll create some good discussion about hypnosis and love and consent/safety- I know I’m really curious what people with different experiences have to say about this!

ON HYPNOSIS AND LOVE

For this response, I’m going to assume “hypnoamory” means love or attachment that is created primarily or largely through hypnosis play. I know someone on one of my Discords defined “hypnoamory” as a “speed run to intimacy”- another definition that can really be fitting. It makes sense to be concerned about a partner who seems to be feeling too much or moving too fast. How do you manage a relationship with someone who seems to feel so much so fast?

So- to back WAY up: We tend to think of love as this magical, enigmatic thing that just happens to us, but there's actually a fair amount of research on variables that may lead to greater connection and even love. There’s no one formula that applies to all people, but there are some actions that seem to make love more likely. Sex is one- a good orgasm involves dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin and these are all neurochemicals linked with attachment. Of course, people often HAVE sex to express their love so the attachment is already there but it's also seemingly common for people having casual sex to fall for one another.

Emotional intimacy is another common precursor to love. You may have seen this list of 36 "questions that lead to love" floating around (https://www.verywellmind.com/unpacking-the-36-questions-that-lead-to-love-8559179) . This list of questions works (when it works) because it speeds up the natural process by which people build intimacy. It invites sharing and listening and vulnerability and trust. Those same things will happen naturally over time in a healthy relationship, using the questions is just designed to speed that process up.

These ideas may be a good framework to start thinking about hypnoamory. Hypnokink play is often full of things that are known "love triggers" for many people- things that would naturally make them more likely to bond or even fall in love. Hypnosis itself seems to release some of the same neurotransmitters associated with love- dopamine, GABA, serotonin.* There's often sexual arousal and sex/orgasms that make people feel good. Happy calm feelings. Happy safe/cared for feelings. There's novelty and learning. There's communication and trust. There's engaging in an activity both people enjoy. There can be feelings of danger, leading to physical arousal and then emotional/sexual arousal. There's dependence. There’s intimacy. In fact, the whole process of hypnotizing someone is giving them the illusion that you're in their brain. What could be more intimate than that?

Then there's the kink aspect. Pretend someone has gone through their life with this secret, hidden desire. It’s something they dare not talk to anyone about for fear that they’ll be mocked or shamed. No one else in the world seems to get their kink. They don't even know if the thing they want is POSSIBLE.

Then, one day they meet a person who DOES get it. Not only does this person get it, they seem to want the same things. And, better yet, not only does this person have similar fantasies, they actually want to DO the thing. With YOU.

How could you not fall in love?

Here's a personal anecdote:

When I fell in love with my wife, it happened slowly and gently. We dated, we got to know each other, we hung out more and more, and then I turned around about a year later and I was in love. I was like a dropped feather- slowly drifting downwards until I gently landed on the ground. Happily and safely eased into love.

I fell for my first hypnokink partner like a rock falls from a cliff. It FELT like those teenage romances from books and movies- Romeo and Juliet, Buffy, Titanic- landing with a big "thump" of feeling and obsession. I was well into adulthood when it happened, fortunately, so I didn't do anything too disruptive or embarrassing with it. I was in a situation where I could talk it through. But- I remember being able to finally understand how people in love could do crazy things. It DID feel a bit like an addiction. I was going about my life and then- completely knocked on my ass. Nothing I had done before prepared me.

All of this is to say- hypnoamory definitely exists. It doesn't happen all the time** but in my experience it happens frequently. And, just like love "caused" by sex or answering the 36 questions or, say, surviving a disaster together, I wouldn't say hypnoamory love is inauthentic. In fact, I don’t think love CAN be inauthentic. We feel what we feel. What I WOULD say, though, is that most people caught up in that initial high are experiencing a particular stage of love called "infatuation". (Around the community you may also hear the term “new relationship energy” or “nre”- it's basically infatuation but make it poly). The infatuation is fun but can also be a cause for caution.

People contrast infatuation*** with "real love" but IMHO that’s short sighted. For many people, infatuation is actually the first stage OF being in love. When someone’s infatuated, attraction feels almost overwhelming. Your whole neurochemistry (dopamine, norepinephrine, phenylephrine) is driving you to spend more and more time with the person you love. You think obsessively about the other person. You feel bad when they're not around. It feels a bit like an addiction.

Strong infatuation actually resembles being high in some ways. Like when you’re high, your amygdala isn't quite working right and thus your judgment can be impaired. This is the phase where people can sometimes feel extra compelled towards bad decisions. They may do things like move in with someone they just met, leave a long-established relationship for someone new and hot, or stop doing things to take care of themselves****. They may neglect other important parts of their life and people in their life. In kink, someone who is infatuated may push for strong attachment play (brainwash me!), push for constant contact/play, or disregard boundaries that were pretty firm before. They may want to jump into the most intense kinky play more quickly.

For most people, infatuation is a phase. It can last from days to weeks to years depending on the person (and the research you're looking at) but- ideally infatuation will settle down into a more stable relationship in time. It’s not the strong impairment of being drunk (or being hypnotized)- it’s still pretty accepted in the hypnokink community (and in general) that someone who is infatuated can give reasonable, legitimate consent. That consent may just take a bit more discussion and thoughtfulness.******

Also- on the positive side, infatuation can be really fun! And being in love feels great! Being infatuated doesn't automatically mean someone is immature or unintelligent or incapable of having a kink relationship. Infatuation is just a possible side effect of hypnokinky play (and kink play)(and having a relationship)(and life).

A NOTE ON SUB FRENZY

In addition to “nre”, another term you might here around the community is “sub frenzy”. Sub frenzy is the tendency for new subs to want to do ALL of the things (and often play with all of the people) when they first get started in a kink. It's like infatuation, but for an activity instead of a person. My friend @daja-the-hypnokitten (who suggested and really helped out with this part of this answer) described it for me as being like someone who always thirsted and never got water- but now that they HAVE water they might gulp it down and drink so much that they make themselves sick. Someone who is in sub frenzy may push for tons of play in a way that harms them/where they neglect other things and may push for the most intense play ASAP.

A lot of the suggestions I talk about below might help with both sub frenzy and regular infatuation for a person. My friend suggested that what's often most helpful for her is having logistical conversations about her stronger desires- (ex. “Hey, if I give you a fetish for the color red, how might that work practically? What problems may come up? What safeties might we need in place?”) That way, she knows an idea is being worked on (which can soothe that craving for more more more now) but is also thinking about it in a practical way instead of just as a hot fantasy.

COPING WITH INFATUATION

So- infatuation is common in what we do, especially if you are someone’s first kinky partner. That being said, I definitely understand your caution with it. You're looking out for your sub and not wanting to influence them unduly. You don't want to continue a relationship dynamic that may be unhealthy for them. It speaks well of you as a dominant that you are paying careful attention to how your sub is doing and what may be influencing them/their consent.

Here's how not to handle it:

1. DON'T go for a magic cure. For some people, it would be tempting to want to cure this by hypnosis itself- to hypnotize your partner and give them a suggestion to not feel love for you anymore. That would be a BIG mistake. Repression tends to cause more problems than it answers and trying something like this could lead to really bad consequences. Also, especially if you tried this without your sub's conscious consent, it would be a big violation of their personal autonomy and their trust in you.

2. DON'T go radio silent or start backing away from your sub without talking about it. If you felt responsible for your sub’s feelings or actions, you might be tempted to limit your contact with them to not do any more "damage" to them. Shame or regret may make you want to back off. If that’s happening, I urge you to reconsider it. You can have kind intentions, but if you just disappear one day, your sub will likely blame himself and that would create problems in future relationships. He might think about you MORE after being ghosted or feel more in love with you in unhealthy ways. For some people, that sudden drop can keep them ruminating about the relationship for YEARS. You'd also lose everything that YOU have invested in this relationship, as well as the chance of it being healthy and rewarding relationship for you. Your sub being in love with you isn’t something you’re doing TO him, it’s just the situation you find yourselves in. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad one.

(This isn't to say you shouldn't be able to set boundaries for your mental health and even safety- I’ll talk about this more below. There might even come to a time when going radio silent is the best option! Hopefully, though, disconnecting without speaking would be a last resort if other attempts at boundary setting didn’t work .)

Here are some things to consider instead:

-DO have a big ole conversation with your sub. Several conversations. MANY conversations. ONGOING conversations. It sounds like you've already started having these. Great! It's totally fair to express your concern about his feelings using some of the language and explanations in the first section. That being said, ultimately neither you nor he are going to be able to control what he feels. Being infatuated is usually not something someone can just decide to stop doing. That’s not how feelings work. "I'm worried you're in love with me because of our hypnosis play" may be a good place to start a conversation but- it doesn't give him a lot to respond to. He can't just choose to not be in love with you any more- just like he can't choose to make you not worried. It may be helpful to think more about WHY you’re worried- what do you think might happen? Do you want him to change his behavior towards you right now? Are things OK now but you’re worried how this may affect things in the future?

A lot of times, starting from concrete observations might help start a conversation. Ex: "I know you've been talking more about how much you care for me. You've seemed more willing to push your own boundaries- like having your sister in the room when we talk." From there, you can move in to what you're worried about. (ex. "I'm worried you're getting so caught up in our play that you aren't studying", "I'm worried you seem to be neglecting your other relationships", "I'm worried that you're ignoring your boundaries and that you'll end up either regretting it or getting hurt.")

After you state your concerns, give him time to talk and listen to what he says. Ideally, you'll be able to both express your point of view and understand each other's by the end of the conversation. From here, you may be able to work out a plan together to address what’s going on. Or, you might be in a place where the plan is to keep touching base about your feelings- or even in a place where the hypnoamory doesn’t feel so worrisome. I know for me and my sub, we'll have frequent "hey, am I influencing you too much?" check ins. At this point, those check-ins seem to function primarily to provide reassurance to me as the domme- but that’s ok! They're also good chances for both of us to discuss how our D/s is going, what we’re feeling, if we have any new boundaries we need to set, etc. Even if I’m initially nervous about bringing something up, I usually feel really reassured when a conversation is over.

HEY, ARE YOU INFLUENCING YOUR SUB TOO MUCH?

I didn't say this above but I'll say this here- I doubt your sub's strong feelings are due to the way you're doing hypnosis or hypnokink. A lot of things probably have more influence on how he is feeling and responding than your play together. After all, people naturally get closer and have looser boundaries and pick up each other's preferences/habits/mannerisms the more time they spend together even without kink. In hypnokink we sometimes romanticize some of these natural responses as part of “brainwashing” but- in actuality, they’re normal parts of many longer term relationships. However, I don’t want to ignore the role hypnosis and kink play may have in influence. Here are some things to consider if you are worried that you are influencing your sub too much in play:

- How ARE you wording your suggestions to him? Are you telling him that he's enraptured, helpless against you, worshipful, obsessed with you, etc? Are you implying or saying you're the only one that can make him feel this way? There's a lot of language that people regularly use in hypnokink that wouldn’t be out of place in a particularly saucy Victorian love poem. I doubt these words alone are creating love whole-cloth, but this kind of flowery kink talk is also packed with suggestions and suggestions can have effects. Even the harsher-sounding kink talk- things like "You are my property" or "You're worthless without me" can create dependence and feelings of love. Flowery sexy hypnotalk suggestions can linger sometimes even if you are "just" role-playing or if you give suggestions to “cancel” those previous suggestions at the end of a session. They also might not! It really depends on the person! (Example- Think of a sad movie you've seen. You can often still feel the sadness now even though you KNOW the movie itself wasn't real.)

If themes around romance/dependence/worship are coming up in your scenes, it's a good idea to be mindful about them and how you're using them. Is this something that you both consciously wanted as a theme in play or did it just kind of sneak in because those are typical tropes? How are you both feeling about those themes now? I wouldn't say to stop speaking in ways that are hot to you both, but talking about how and when and why might be a good next step. Sometimes even both consciously and verbally setting intentions about what you want the relationship to look like outside of scenes helps. Know that even in really self-knowledgeable subs, there can be "bleed" of emotions from in the scene to out of it- so it’s good to keep checking in! “Positive” emotions especially may have this tendency to linger.

Putting limiters around a scene may not work perfectly, but it may help prevent some emotional bleedover. Some ways you might do this could include setting up fantasy scenarios/ role play, consciously undoing suggestions at the end of a scene, or "locking" suggestions to limit them to a certain person/certain time/certain place. Doing good check ins after a scene and aftercare can help you discuss lingering effects- especially if the aftercare moves someone out of a submissive headspace and into a more normal one.

- Are you doing long term conditioning? If you're doing any suggestions that linger outside of a scene, those suggestions have the chance of tying the other person to you (even if unintentionally). Here’s an example that seems really innocuous: Pretend that I give someone a suggestion that every time he walks through a doorway, he will touch his nose. This person does this a bunch of times during the week. Fun! Silly! But also- there's a secret sneaky second trigger in here. While this person is touching his nose, he is also likely thinking of me, the hypnotist who gave him that suggestion. Maybe he thinks of how much fun we're having together or how hot it is that I've compelled his behavior. It IS hot and fun! Now he’s thinking of me in hot/fun ways a bunch of times a day -every time he walks through the door, in fact! It might not have been my intention, but I’ve accidentally conditioned my guy to think of me in positive ways all day every day. No wonder he might start feeling attached! And this is just a basic example. Imagine the associations that could happen if he had to ask me before he had an orgasm!

Conditioning happens outside of play too. Are y'all talking all day every day? Are you doing positive things at each other randomly and unpredictably? Those actions are probably making you feel closer. (Those unpredictable rewards are POWERFUL.) None of that has to be malicious or consciously manipulative, it’s just how humans bond.

Again I want to emphasize- Feeling close is not a bad thing! Nor is falling in love! And even if you have been engaging in some of these actions, you aren’t responsible for your sub’s actions or emotions. These are normal things for hypnokinksters to do and normal risks for us to take. The question isn’t one of blame (for yourself or him)- it’s where you both want to go from here.

COOLING THINGS DOWN

Hopefully you will both talk together and come to a mutual decision/conclusion. Let's say that you and your your sub talk and you both decide to cool things off a bit. What might work?

- Coming to a true mutual decision about your goals and strategies for cooling things off. Open, non-judgemental, and ongoing communication about feelings here would be helpful. What does “cooling things off” look like? How will you know when it has happened? It’s ok to modify expectations as you go.

- Setting stronger boundaries. If y'all are playing all day every day, you might instead schedule a time to play once a week. You might limit unpredictable suggestions or times where you're texting during the day. You might table bigger relationship step conversations (collaring, moving in together, exclusivity, heavy brainwashing play) for a period of time to settle into the relationship and how you relate to each other after some of the initial intensity has passed. You may also table types of play for a time (for example, if themes of begging and worship are contributing to his strong feelings maybe you both want to back off those for a while pending further conversation).

-Developing trustworthiness in yourselves and each other- If you're worried about him having impaired consent because of love or hypnosis or kink or any combination of these things, talk about this specifically! Make sure you make a relationship where setting boundaries feels really good and comfortable- and where bringing up those conversations feels safe.. I know I try to be really verbally grateful when a partner sets a boundary or even gives critical feedback- it lets me know that they trust me and I can trust them to be taking care of themselves. You can even frame this as part of submission ("you're my property so you need to take care of what's mine") or your partnership/consent ("I worry when you keep changing boundaries because I would feel guilty if I hurt you/our relationship accidentally"). Trust usually increases bonding, but making fertile ground for boundaries can help you both have the conversations you need to make sure the relationship doesn’t feel like “too much”.

- Playing with other partners. Are you worried that your sub may be more in love with kink/ hypnosis itself than they are with you? Sometimes it takes time and experience for new kinksters to really distinguish for themselves if they’re having strong feelings for a person vs strong feelings for an activity. Encouraging his own introspection may help, but playing with other hypnotist partners can help him figure this out too. If you decide to take this step, y'all would want to do it within your own comfort zones and he would want to be careful about who he played with. Suggesting playing with others should never be a command- more of a helpful idea. There's unfortunately some ill-meaning hypnotists out there- so if he’s interested in playing with others, passing on information about finding safe partners and taking care of his subject agency might help him with branching out.

-Talking to other experienced subs. If your partner talks with other hypnosubs, he is likely to be able to find people who can relate to how he is feeling. Sometimes even hearing from someone else who has had similar experiences may be helpful. He could also potentially get tips on how other subjects manage strong emotions in their kink dynamics. Ditto for you talking to other dominants. This is a known issue within the community- many people have dealt with it and can offer empathy and ideas.

YOUR BOUNDARIES MATTER

I’ve been talking a lot in this response about his boundaries and your mutually agreed upon kink boundaries but- you get your own boundaries too! We sometimes skip talking about dominant/top boundaries in kink but- it’s very important that you are paying attention to your own comfort zone and needs. Boundaries help both of you continue to play in a way that feels fun/safe/enjoyable for everyone involved. This may sound harsh but- just because your sub is in love with you, that doesn't necessarily have to change what YOUR boundaries are (unless you want it to). Similarly, just because your sub is wanting to ignore his earlier boundaries, it doesn’t mean that you have to change your boundaries if that makes you uncomfortable. (In fact, I tend to be the brakes in a relationship more often when I'm topping than bottoming- and I think that's pretty common for a lot of switches.) For example, I'm really glad that you were clear and firm about not having his sister around on calls. If he’s doing things that are dangerous to himself in a way that pushes YOUR boundaries, it’s OK to say that and set conditions. (Ex. “I know you are really invested in our kink play, but if you drop out of school because of it, I won’t want to play with you any more.”)

If you’re worried about managing sudden boundary changes on his part, you can always give yourself pauses to think and decide what’s comfortable for you. For example, let’s say that he contacts you right before a scene and wants something that would push his previous boundaries. It would be OK in that case to say if you’re not comfortable with that- that you’d like to think about it and discuss it later. Or you may even say “no” outright if it's uncomfortable for you. You might even consider a new relationship rule- if he (or either of you) want to do something that pushes previously-held boundaries, you need to have a sober discussion about it first.

Lastly, if he’s pushing your boundaries and KEEPS pushing them after you try to talk, you might have to set stronger boundaries- up to and including breaking up with him. Being in love can explain his intensity, but if he can’t take a “no” then we’re moving into something really unhealthy. (I like this little worksheet about separating a healthy relationship vs an unhealthy one vs an abusive one- it’s not kink specific but has good information in general about what each of these relationships may look like- https://idas.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Healthy-Relationships-Checklist-2.pdf )

I know this was a lot of information anon! I hope it helps! Please feel free to write me with follow up questions (and that goes for anyone reading). Also- I only know things here from my own experience and life philosophies- I hope other people will read this and add their perspective/knowledge! Between all of us, I hope you find the knowledge you're looking for!

Thank you to @linnybeenaughty , @ultinath ,@dancercoder , @spiralturquoise , and especially @daja-the-hypnokitten for the beta reads!; I appreciate your thoughts and help checking this for me! Any grammar mistakes or spelling mistakes or general wonkiness are my fault, not theirs.

Footnotes (for Nerds)

*I realize I’m leaning a lot on neurotransmitters here so- just to say, MANY activities release these neurotransmitters, not just hypnosis and love. Neurotransmitters are always swimming around in our head- they help our brain through its daily functioning. People especially sometimes talk as though things that trigger dopamine are innately addictive but- brains are much more complicated than that. I probably get a dopamine hit from brushing my teeth. It’s a piece of the puzzle here, not the whole thing.

**Side note- That being said, if you've never experienced intense hypnoamory, that's OK too! There's nothing wrong with you and it doesn't mean you don't care about partners. You just fall in love in a different way.

***Other/similar words and concepts it might be helpful to look up- limerence, nre (new relationship energy), puppy love. It isn't exactly "sub frenzy" but learning about that might be helpful too. :)

****Infatuation can make therapists really nervous sometimes because that’s when people do things like stop treatment, go off medications, relapse on drugs, make huge life decisions, etc. It can be hard to balance being infatuated and still working on yourself!

******Infatuation and being Infatuation-impaired is actually its' own subkink. A lot of pro work is out there on that theme. It's edge play and I'm assuming not what you're writing about, but I wanted to acknowledge down here that it exists.

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

A ramble on imposter syndrome and the accessibility of witchcraft

So, I’ve been thinking. I think a lot in case you haven’t noticed. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the major imposter syndrome I’ve been feeling lately in regards to this blog. TL;DR is at the bottom of this post.

People have been, occasionally, sending me asks requesting my opinion on things/how I do things/what I know about XYZ topic. If you are one of these people, I promise I’m not vagueposting about you in particular- in fact, I love these questions! They’re so fun to get and they actually make me sit and think sometimes, or even encourage me to write out something that I’ve been meaning to for my book of shadows. Genuinely, they're wonderful asks to receive. These questions have made me confront something, however; my blog is still small, but some people actually like what I write and value my opinion even if just a little. 

I feel like a mimic hiding in the witchcraft community. I feel like, were people to truly understand my experiences, they would want to “expose” me for knowing so little.

So I sat down with those feelings and turned it over in my head and I’ve come to a conclusion. The fact is, I don’t do research. At least- not what I think of when people talk about research. My "research" consists of the occasional rabbit hole I go down, one and two halves of different books I never finished under my belt, what I see scrolling through various social medias, and conversations I've had with other witches. I check to make sure I'm not stepping on the toes of any closed practices- in fact, that's what most of my energy goes to when it comes to research. This isn't a complaint; I'd much rather know that my craft isn't appropriative.

But I don’t know much about mythology, even that of the deities I work with. I don't even remember the holidays and what they're for. I thought Nyx was an Egyptian deity until like four months ago because I'd just heard her name in passing as a child and had never looked into the mythology... Even though I mainly work with the pantheon she belongs to. Y’all, I’ve done like three spells that I remember. My book of shadows is a messy disaster and I love it but it's got so little information in it, because I rarely write things down. Most resources (especially mythology resources) are academically worded or difficult to read for me personally, and all of these things feel like secrets I have to guard with my life because if I were to ever say them aloud, people would know I'm a fraud.

Today I've come to the conclusion that that is, in fact, absolute bullshit.

Maybe it's not, maybe this post will make some people really upset, but in my practice it's bullshit. All of the above is a result of my ADHD and the fact that I am nothing if not a hands-on learner. My craft is mostly my own experiences because that's how my whole life is; I learn by doing. My ideal learning style is sitting with another autistic person whose special interest is whatever I'm learning about and just talking for five hours, but if that's not something I can do, puzzling it out myself is the next best thing. That's what I've been doing ever since I felt had a basic foundation for my craft. Hell, even before I had a foundation I was putting my own experiences into my craft because "Well that rule just doesn't fucking vibe with me."

This post is mostly for me, but partially for anyone who feels similar. We are not broken or doing witchcraft/paganism wrong. We are simply what happens when the kid who could never do homework ends up practicing the "religion/spirituality that comes with homework." Witchcraft and paganism, in my experience, is far from accessible when it comes to the typical image of it. UPG is what makes it accessible. So yes, my practice is heavily UPG, and I don't do as much research as I think people have assumed. But I'm going to let go of the idea that I'm a fraud, because frankly I know enough about witchcraft to have supported my practice this whole time and my deities haven't smited me yet so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

TL:DR:

Fuck the rules, I don't do much research. I've researched the "basics" and what I need to so I'm not stepping on any toes of closed practices, but people seem to think I know way more than I actually do. I've felt like I was lying this whole time but frankly witchcraft just isn't accessible to someone with my flavor of auDHD, so my craft relies heavily on UPG and I've decided that I'm not broken or wrong for that and neither is anyone else. I'm tired of seeing myself as an imposter just because I make my practice doable for me.

[childotkw]

Squib!Harry?

For actual squib Harry, I’d likely keep it short, and probably make Neville the BWL rather than Harry. So with James and Lily tortured to death, there’s no one to care what happens to their squib son.

Harry grows up much like he did in canon - under the boot of his aunt and uncle. He doesn’t know why they hate him so much, doesn’t know what he did to deserve their anger and disgust, or what they mean when they call him a ‘freak’.

Unlike in canon, there is no miraculous growing of his hair after that awful haircut, there is no blue-haired teacher, or teleporting onto a rooftop to escape Dudley and his gang.

Unlike in canon, there is nothing for Harry to cling to. No spark of curiosity, no questioning the way of the world, no magic.

Harry suffers in silence for years, and when his eleventh birthday comes and goes without a hint of a letter, Petunia and Vernon are…confused. All these years they had thought - but the boy had never really done anything strange, had he? They wait a month, but there’s not a whisper from Hogwarts. August comes, and still no news, so they begin to wonder if maybe their nephew wasn’t as magical as they had thought.

Just when they start to think they had been forgotten, there’s a knock at the door.

It’s not Dumbledore. It’s not any witch or wizard. No, it’s much worse.

It’s a social worker, brought in by the referral of one of Harry’s concerned teachers, who had noticed the boy’s deteriorating state for months now.

A lot of things change that day.

Harry is taken away, given to an elderly couple a few counties over, and for the first time in his life Harry feels like he can breathe. He grows up, unaware of an entirely different world that rests just beyond his perception, and goes into engineering because knowing how things work satisfies a deep-seated itch inside his brain.

In this world, Harry never hears the name ‘Voldemort’, and never learns that he is defeated by a young man called Neville Longbottom.

——————————

But there are many ways this plot line could play out - this was just the first one that sprang to my head.

You could also do one where instead of trying to kill Harry, Voldemort merely bound his magic and then skedaddled. Sirius rocks up, finds baby Harry and the bodies of Lily and James, and then runs after Peter.

Dumbledore steps in to keep Sirius from going to Azkaban, since Voldemort isn’t dead this time and the war is ongoing, and lets him raise Harry just in case they can unlock his magic again.

Harry grows up being trained by Sirius, mainly in a physical sense since he can’t use magic, and starts to focus on being one of the chief strategist / tactician behind the Order’s movements, since he can’t fight on the front lines with them.

Everything changes though when, through pure happenstance, the Order manage to get their hands on a horcrux. Harry, after months of research, finds a way to use the magical energy of the horcrux to unlock his magic (because its a sliver of Voldemort’s soul, the curse on Harry’s magic registers it as the caster).

Only Harry’s magic is volatile. It’s been growing, unencumbered and unused, for years, and now that it’s awake? Oh, now that it’s awake it’s angry.