#hypno book reviews

[wisegirl29]

Just finished The Gilded Wolves trilogy and I-well actually I don’t know what to say. I’m speechless. I genuinely can’t think of any words to express how I’m feeling.

[fredwkong]

Hello FWK vacations! I've been reading some rave reviews and wanted to see if you guys could help me find the best place to take some weeks off of work, do you have somewhere where I can soak in the local culture, forget the stress and chill out? Maybe then I'll stop freaking out whenever I try to hook up with a guy.

Thanks for your booking with FWK Vacations. We’re sending you on a cultured getaway right now!

You feel the good vibes pumping into your ears before you fully wake up. There’s music playing, a lowkey party mix with this low buzzing underneath it that somehow makes you feel horny. You open your eyes and see your reflection in your computer screen.

You grin wide at your handsome face, exposing your sexy dimples. Your headphones keep on pumping music into your ears, the buzzing making you feel good and sexy, like a good horny himbo. You start flexing your big pecs and huge arms, chuckling dumbly at the blissed out expression on your face.

It’s when you raise your arm that it hits you. MUSK. All the hair on your body is catching all your sexy sweat and building up a stronger and stronger smell every second. And these big himbo muscles sweat a LOT.

The buzzing in your ears peaks, and you feel an idea float through your dumb, empty head. Without hesitation, you reach down and grab your big, hairy foot. It’s a bit of a stretch, but you pull it up to your head to give it a good sniff. It’s even better than your pits, the potent musk burning through your head to clear out the last of your useless thoughts. A stinky hypno himbo doesn’t need to think. He doesn't work, stress, or wash. All he does is OBEY.

Enjoy your vacation!

Want to go on vacation? Drop me an ask!

[thesunshineriptide]

Hello fellow nerd, Og stories anon here,

Poor Riddle taking the story to heart. Rook being the only one not upset over the story. But i was thinking what better way for Idia to find out about our version of mythology than through the game Hades. Finds it a work plays it and starts asking Yuu questions about mythology

Book anon! Good to see you! Yeah so I bought the game and played a bit of it because I’ve heard good reviews and also because I honestly had no idea what was in this game/how it related to irl mythology so sorry for the delay but that’s why! Also Idia would love/hate this game

The Black Parade

Characters: Idia Shroud, Yuu, Ortho (mentioned)

CW// talk about death, kidnapping(?), Mythology, spoilers for the game Hades and potentially for twisted wonderland and Hercules by extent?

Idia has been playing this game intently for two hours. His face hasn’t moved a muscle in several minutes as he beats at a brimstone, only to get stabbed in the back again and respawn back in the lobby.

He groans and leans back, throwing his hands up, “I don’t get it. There’s no winning this game! It’s rigged.”

Yuu held in a laugh, being his personal life audience.

Ortho chirps from his phone, “Big Brother, search results for Hades ending indicate-“

“No!” He yelps, turning off his phone, “No, thank you, Ortho. I want to get there myself.”

Yuu stopped trying to hide their amusement, giggling wholeheartedly at Idia.

He turned and pouted comically, “Why are you laughing? A-am I doing it wrong?” Fear managed to worm its way into his expression, eyes going wide, “Wh-what is it?”

Yuu shrugged, shaking their head, “It’s just kinda funny, that’s all! And-“ they stifled down a giggle, “You’re so worried about min-maxing that you’re missing the conversations with the side characters. How else will you activate god mode?”

He stared at them, “You’re joking, right?”

“No, God mode really is a mechanic of this game.” They hummed, leaning forward, “You gotta talk to Skelly to get it, though. You’re just running around fighting the monsters.”

Idia huffed and nudged them away from his laptop, “Yeah, yeah, okay smarty pants. Well what else do you know?”

They leaned on his shoulder, earning a bright pink blush as he stiffened under their touch. He leaned away, hands shaking.

“Well, Zagreus is pretty interesting. There’s some early mentions of him as the ‘highest god’, on equal footing as Gaia herself. Then some say he’s the Orphic Dionysus, or like, the OG version of him. Then later, some suggested that he might be the son of Hades and Persephone, or possibly just another version of Hades? It’s not super clear.” They watched as Idia finally went toward Hypnos, clicking on him for text.

“Okay,” he said, eyes flicking to Yuu for a second, “And what about this guy?”

“Hypnos? He’s not mentioned a lot,” they replied, “But he is mentioned a few times. Once, his son Morpheus saved him from the clutches of Zeus after he defied him. I think it had to do with the Trojan war. That’s where the story of Achilles comes from, by the way.”

Idia stopped what he was doing, staring at them with wide eyes, “Kay, I was joking before, but you actually know all this stuff? You might as well be a walkthrough for this stuff.”

Yuu smiled at him with pride, still watching his game, “This Hades must be pretty different from your world’s Hades, huh?”

Idia shrugged, “I dunno, ‘s not like he’s around to ask. But our Hades definitely wasn’t this…” He trailed off, mumbling something to himself before finishing with, “this much of a drag.”

Yuu smiled and nodded, “He’s honestly kinda different from the myths too. And I still haven’t seen Persephone, which makes me wonder.”

“Hmm? What about Perseph-who’s it?”

Yuu went wide eyed, “Wait, you don’t know about Persephone?”

Idia shook his head, and after a moment of silence turned from the screen to look at Yuu. They were staring at him in shock, and not really the good kind either.

“What’s so important about her?”

Yuu gulped and huffed out a sigh, “Well…” they racked their brain to think about how to explain it. “Okay, just pause the game, there’s some videos we need to watch.”

After watching all of these videos, Yuu was finally satisfied.

“So your guys’ Hades is just like, a chill dude with a dog? Sounds kinda lame.”

Outside, a moment after Idia’s statement s finished, rumbled thunder. Low and dark and long, as a sudden thunderstorm overtook the building. What’s worse? It caused a power bump that ended up crashing Idia’s game.

Yuu started to giggle again, “Sorry, Hades.” They said to the open air as Idia stared.

“He isn’t dead?!” He asked incredulously, “This world’s Hades is still alive?!”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” Yuu asked innocently.

“Hercules drowned him in the Styx! Everyone knows that!” Idia cried, pacing around the room before beginning to pray to Hades in apology because oh god oh fuck.

Yuu didn’t have the heart to tell him that they couldn’t be sure if the gods were alive or not, but they simply found the immediate thunderstorm funny and we’re cracking a joke. But who knows?

[akjzsd]

New pinned post because GWEH

DNIs are Blank/Ageless blogs, feeder/feedee blogs, Minors, and any kind of sissy blog. Go away plz <3

I'm AK, I'm a 21 year old transfem who's been on HRT for like, 2 1/2 years now??? If you want to find me literally anywhere else my username is gonna be AKJZSD like it is here, maybe AKJ_ZSD or AKJ ZSD depending on the platform Ɛ> (this blog is also heavily nsfw and mutuals can ask for my discord)

Also adding a counter of how many people's brains I've personally programmed with hypno: 9

I am pan with a lean mainly towards fem presenting people, but I will admit dudes can be cute as hell sometimes. This blog is mainly quick reblogs, though I occassionally add comments or post original stuff. When it comes to original content, here's the tags.

#ak snoozes: any of the dreams that I wrote down and decide to post here

#ak slaps: whenever I post beatsaber shit it'll go here

#ak speaks: whenever I post audio files, whether nsfw or sfw, they'll go here

#aks scrawls: any original art I have, be it pictures or writing, will be under here

#ak reads: any time I have a book review I'll put it here

#ak answers: any asks will be under here :)

#I marked the post as mature it wasnt auto Ɛ>: this is where my irl photos go, and there is quite a backlog

Mutuals can ask for my discord, though I mainly either chill and play game of the week, or am at work.

Kinks and such!

I'm a transfem, what'd you expect, two of the biggest ones are petplay and hypno. I am a massive switch for pretty much everything, but you can just ask me if I'm into something lmao. I am also not opposed to taking requests for hypno audios as I am still trying to get better at them.

(also I'm a shill so woe, wishlist upon ye)

If you've made it this far, tell me some shit you'd want me to do to you or vice versa in the ask box I suppose

also funny bdsm test results

[foggyparadisecandy]

On Safeties and Agency in Hypnokink

There are a lot of great resources out there on these topics and I encourage everyone to read them.

I see a lot people jumping in to hypno headfirst as if they are invulnerable to the effects.

Pro-tip: You aren't so take care of your precious self please.

SAFETIES

This one is for the people who know they aren't exactly safe so they have built up "safeties" - things that can protect them from bad trances or effects or jerky tists.

I'm going to make a comment that might seem confusing, and possibly unpopular, and maybe even unbelievable, but please bear with me and hear me out. I think you will benefit if you do.

Most safeties are like being given a suit of armor made out of toilet paper before heading out to battle.

People who feel that they are safe might take risks because they have that lovely suit of armor ... made out of toilet paper.

"But oh no, Foggy, my safety works for me because ... "

Ok. I really hope it does work for you. I sincerely do.

I've shredded safeties on many people who have insisted they have magical shields, or armor, or amulets, or rocks, or ... whatever ... keeping them safe from bad hypno magic.

I've done it by telling them I'm going to do it to show them how unsafe they really are. I've warned them I'm going to shred them so their defenses are up and ready. And I've still broken through (on most, not all ... and I'll get to that in a minute).

So what do you think is going to happen if an "evil tist" really wants to do what they want with you, safety or not.

Your safeties are NOT an excuse for lack of vigilance.

**YOU** CALL THE SHOTS

You should only work with people you trust and are trustworthy. You should only listen to files where you are sure that a) you want the effects listed and b) you trust that's all you're going to end up with.

You should know that you can revoke trust at any time.

And that's the real "trick" and way to keep yourself safe.

Know and believe that fundamentally that YOU are always in control in hypnosis.

Always.

And even with this truth - and I want you to burn the truth that YOU ARE IN CONTROL deeply into your mind, now and forevermore - you can get jammed up, so I'm laying out a few suggestions for you.

BEFORE YOU START

It starts with knowing what you are getting into before you start.

If the tist has a known bad rep, well ... use your lovely beautiful brain and explore other options.

If the file or tist says they are going to mindwipe you and make you a puppet, well ... maybe believe them and don't think your safeties are going to stop that from happening.

If you are getting a bad vibe and the tist is hungry to get going before you feel comfy, well ... go with your gut - that's not a great indicator.

If you hear a lot of people going gaga for the files or tist, well ... not always a bad sign but things that smell culty aren't usually great so be cautious.

If the tist is eager to "help" you remove triggers, well ... they probably want to know your triggers to use them against you.

If the tist has a social profile, take some time and review it and if it seems sketchy af, well ... sometimes books can be judged by their covers.

AS YOU GO

At any time, you remember that fundamental truth and you know that YOU are in control.

You feeling uncomfy before the trance begins? Stop.

You being asked during trance to agree to something? Stop.

You feeling pressured to do something? Stop.

You find you are longing to return to a tist or set of files? Stop.

You feel like you aren't being heard? Stop.

You find yourself doing things you didn't really want to do but somehow are still doing them? Stop.

YOU can always STOP.

"No" is a lovely word.

Anyone that objects to you using the word "no" is a STOP.

Anyone that tries to gaslight you with "oh gee, hypnosis only makes you do what you want" is a STOP.

Anyone who twists you up when you want to STOP is a HARD STOP.

IF YOU GET JAMMED UP

There are clearance files out there. I have my CLEAR text trance. Secret Subject has two on her YouTube channel - the newer one is excellent.

The trick to clearing out bad effects?

Actually dead simple.

It's just a matter of remembering: YOU are in control.

YOU can say no to your brain and thoughts and hypnotriggers and effects.

YOU can think of those triggers - visualize them - and just put a giant "NOPE" over the top of them.

And when your brain thinks of them - the condition, the word, the effect, the feeling - you instead can visualize "NOPE".

NOPE - I don't believe I will respond to that thing.

NOPE - I am going to disregard that thing.

NOPE - I am free to do what I choose because I am in control.

NO NEED FOR PANIC

There is no need for panic.

But there is a need to accept, fundamentally accept, that YOU are in control.

And once you have done that, your safeties will work because they are backed by the fundamental knowledge that YOU are in charge.

Frankly if you accept that YOU call the shots, you don't really need safeties in my opinion.

They don't hurt if you accept the truth that YOU can stop any time you choose and put that giant "NOPE" over bad hypnothings.

But even still, look before you leap.

Avoid the bad actors.

Talk, talk, talk about limits before you start.

And if you are one of the "do anything to me" people, please understand that there are people out there that will happily fuck you up for their own enjoyment.

So maybe evaluate your desires and finetune them into what things are acceptable and what things aren't.

And what things are hot and fun as TEMPORARY changes.

It's not great to have permanent things done when you want a temporary burst of fun. It's up to you to know and express what you want.

And if the tist isn't willing to take the time to listen to those things you want and how you want them? Fuck 'em. Move on. I know there are more subjects than tists, by far, but even still ...

Protect your beautiful precious lovely sweet wonderful self.

I hope this is of some use to people.

Feel free to Ask or DM if you have questions or think I got something wrong.

Happy to discuss it.

[hotsexydorks]

😈 Generic Plot Ideas 😈

Generic | Incest | Cheating/Cuck | Hypno  

He called it community service. They called him Glory Hole Whore.

“Shit! Sorry Coach! I didn’t think anyone was here..” “Don’t worry about that, why don’t you come join me, nothing about a shower between men.”

“Think he’ll notice?”  “Bro that slut? He’s been eyeing up your bulge since you walked in the door.”

“What did I say? If I find you near my daughter one more time. I'd show you what happens when real men are in charge.” 

“So still want to complain about me and my guys moving into your apartment complex? Me and my boys can leave and find somewhere else to live …. no? That’s what I thought.” 

“This one's good boys, come on in!! Hope you guys like parties, cause you’re about to be the center of one.”

Turns out you didn’t need to do anything to turn your arrogant boss into cock hungry slut. He already was one, all you needed to do was drop your pants. The boss had a reputation for ‘guiding’ the young new interns.

“You’d do anything for that promotion eh?” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll use a condom…not.”

“Told ya I used a condom… never said it had to stay on.”  

“You don’t need to be ashamed here son, the team locker room should be a place you can be to feel free. Now why don’t you drop that towel.”

Your pledge night task tonight determines if you’re sorted into either the cock hungry frat or join the Alpha stud brotherhood.

“What do you say, partner? Want to make this stakeout a little more lively?”

Doctor Smith was great for house visits, he always had the best remedy for your morning afflictions

Coach always loves when he gets progression pics from his athletes. This wasn’t any exception

“ALRIGHT MEN! Listen up. We’ve got new management. As you know the company has been bought by a larger global conglomerate, and with this will come some changes. First! Uniforms. Please look at Brent over here as our example. Secondly, following the new uniform policies all employees will be sorted into new jobs and assignments.”

When your neighbours asked if you could look after their sick son for the day you were happy to oblige. You knew just what the patient.slut needed.

“Come now Mr.Carson. Your rich parents are paying for you to raise your grades from these extra lessons. The least you could do is read some of the book while you’re down there.”

“Hey dude, could you help me? Think anyone will notice I’m freeballin today?”

You were so glad when your mother suggested that the family hire a pool boy for the summer, she just didn’t know how much fun the pool would bring you.

Those clothes, that mirror, the phone, that school bag. Looks like mister popular quarterback had a few secrets of his own. What would he think once he knew that he has been lusting after his teacher’s tasty cock for the last week. Only one way to find out, Friday night’s game couldn’t come quick enough.

“So I heard that you gay guys make the best cock suckers. Since we’re going to be roommates this year why don’t we start off things right and see if that myth is true or not.”

“This is how you nail a job interview”

“I told you before, boy, if you fail at that competition, there will be consequences. And don’t think you’ll be finished once Principal Martin is done. The entirety of the staff and school board are next.”

“Where do you think you’re going slut, you don’t get to hide. I want you looking into these cameras, we’re going to make sure you really make an impression with those scholarship reviewers.”

“Remember, you might be the straight married conservative senator now but, you’ll always be that little cop cock slut.”

“Working from home is great, all your own food, your own music and your very own cock sucker during meetings.” 

“Step one - tell your straight guy friends that gay guys do it better.   Step two - work them up until their so horny they’re dumb and curious Step three - Reap all the hard cocks.”

“Time to get dressed for work as the office sissy. Fitted shirt, nice tie and my tiny thong. Check.”

“Hey Fag, my food’s here, you know what that means! Time for you to enjoy your meal of my cock. On your knees while I eat bitch.”

Coach started giving us these specialised protein blends for our workouts. Now my ass is too big for my pants.

“You want to be on the team fag? We’ve got the perfect position for you, now open up. You’re going to be our new ball boy.”

[throughtartaruswithyou]

tsats review (spoilers)

ok so glad to see i wasn't alone in having mixed feelings about this book.

i love my solangelo moments and i'm glad rick had a queer co-author to help write those scenes. I'm glad we got to see nico have a somewhat happy ending and allowed him to work through his trauma. that was very much needed and im glad that happened. I also loved how nico and will's relationship became more balanced throughout the book. I liked that will needed nico at some points instead of it always being the other way around. The progression of this was natrual and well done imo.

HOWEVER two things can be true at once. there were some parts i disliked.

i hated nico knowing what montero was. that was an awful addition. if anything will would've known? i would've hated it significantly less if will made that refrence. especially becuase will introduced him to starwars?? how does nico know lil nas x but will doesnt??? there was some other minor dialect inconsinsences that i didn't LOVE but like whatever.

My main issue was how they seemed to set up so many plot ideas but it just because a huge nothing at the end. First one was nico "learning to live without his darkness". to me this implied that he may have lost access to certain areas of his power? maybe this one was a stretch but i felt like it wouldve increased the stakes of the book a bit more. it kind of felt like nothing really HAPPENED. no one lost anything or gained anything. bob just walked away at the end (litterally). I also noticed will getting paralleled to persephone and gorgyra's river. both of which where "stuck in tartarus" at some level would've loved that too but maybe more in a metaphorical sense?

i suppose rick usually writes books in this way (nothing permenently impactful happens) but idk. just felt unfinished in that area. for what it's worth i recently re-read HOO and i did not get the unfinished vibe.

Oh yeah and the plot holes. bianca chose elysium, apollo never did anything to help will after apollo promised to be more watchful, hypnos didn't put people to sleep during the battle of ny ect ect. other people have better posts but those are the ones i noticed.

ANYWAYS i would rate it a 3.5/5. worth the read for solangelo fans but wont be worth it if you aren't invensted in their realationship. reads better as a parable for building a healthy realationship.

[dreamingdarklyblog]

Have you enjoyed yourself any hypno-themed games? I'd be interested in any recommendations. Or if you just want to talk about what you like about them if you have any.

Yes! Many! I even made a few...

Of course, calling these games is a bit of a stretch. They're really more Choose Your Own Adventure porn stories with some gamified elements. The Change has a heavy focus on transformation and personality shifts, which ReWrite is more of a reality warping thing.

I also started a few others... I had a third CYOA book in the works that was half done, but was Very ambitious and I kind of burnt out working on it. Time looping story with reality warping elements and a complex meta story, but time looping spawns exponential increases in content if you allow freedom of choice, which I wanted to do...

I also learned how to use Twine and was partway through a game based loosely on my Book of L comic series. But I also got bogged down in the sheer amount of work required to let you feel like you had freedom to explore. It would have been much easier to put it on rails, but that's not so much a game as it is a story with buttons.

As for recommendations... Well... That's a much bigger topic isn't it? I've played dozens, some fun, some boring, most of them at least somewhat hot (or I would have quit).

Here's one that's actually on steam O_o

The link likely looks dead because of the adult content filter. But it should work, you'll just have to click to view it. It's pretty decent. Also not much of a "Game" more like my own CYOA, but with lots pictures and I think some audio? I can't recall, it's been a while since I played it.

Personally I think there are much better games out there, but it being on Steam it's very accessible, and has good art. *shrug*

If it's something people are interested in I could write up some more detailed reviews/recommendations for games I've found scattered on the internet. It would just make for a rather huge post/project to dump them all at once in one post.

Anyway, let me know if that's something you guys are interested in ;)

[elliepassmore]

Threads That Bind review

5/5 stars Recommended if you like: fantasy, magic, mythology, threads of fate, mystery Big thanks to Netgalley, Penguin, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review! I really liked the magic in this book. The premise is that some people are descended from gods, but only the gods who come in sibling sets. There are a bunch of different city-states in the book, each with their own culture, but the one Io lives in is a Greek-esque city-state called Alante. For Alantians, their "other-born" pairs are things like the Fates, the Muses, descendants of Hypnos, and the Phobos-Deimos twin pair, etc. We do get to see some people who are from outside the city and thus are descended from a different set of gods, but for the most part the focus is Greek. I liked the way each person in a sibling set had a power associated with one of the gods, and that each of the different god powers worked in different ways. I also liked the worldbuilding in the book. It's a dystopian fantasy, so the world we're exposed to is post-collapse, and it's implied that the world was similar to (if not the same as) our own. Then the collapse happened in a mix of environmental and magical events that resulted in the world we see in the book. I liked the bits of history that are brought into the book, like the Iceberg Wars, and the little things that make the world seem more real, like the roof bridges and flood screens for storefronts. Io is the moirae-born who can cut people's threads of fate, but she tends to use her ability to see the Quilt (i.e., the threads connecting everyone) to be a PI. She's a little rough around the edges, but it's clear she does care about people, and over the course of the book her drive to fight for the people no one else will becomes stronger. At the same time, she's pretty wary of opening up to other people as a result of her eldest sister, Thais', treatment of her when they were younger, before Thais walked out on Io and their other sister, Ava. Part of Io's arc over the course of the book is reconciling everything that happened with Thais and growing into someone who's at least a bit more open to others. It was surprisingly easy to like Edei. Based on the synopsis and the very first scene we see him in, I wasn't sure how I'd feel about him, but he's actually a pretty good guy. Edei is someone who is easy to get along with and who has a relatively gentle demeanor about him. Despite the fact that he's the second of the Fortuna gang, the gang that runs the Silts, he's not that rough around the edges, probably the result of the fact that he had a very different upbringing. I liked the side characters in the story and enjoyed how they opened up different sides of the characters. For all her wariness of opening up to other people, Io actually makes friends pretty easily, and it was nice to see her joking around with Nico and Chimdi from the Fortuna gang just as easily as she joked around with Ava and Rosa, her best friend. I hope we get to see more of Rosa, Nico, and Chimdi in the next book, and am curious to see where things go with Ava. Bianca Rossi, the Mob Queen, is definitely someone to be reckoned with and I had a hard time getting a feel for her. There were times when I liked her and times when I didn't, so I'm looking forward to getting a better of understanding of her in the sequel. I did guess what the motive was pretty much from the get-go, but it was definitely a weird kind of predictability because even though I knew the why, I couldn't settle on the who, lol. There were actually a number of pretty viable suspects presented throughout the book, which I think helped obfuscate things in a way that still kept the story going without requiring weird twists. One thing I will say is that Io jumps to conclusions way too much for someone who's a professional private detective. Her second suspect was really the only one with any solid evidence pointing toward them, but Io treated all three as equally viable, which I thought was a mistake. The mystery is solved by the end of the book and it worked in a way that I didn't see coming, which I loved! I love how this book mixes fantasy, dystopian, and noir, and am dying to see what happens next as Io follows up on the loose threads (haha) from the end of this book.

[bipheonyx]

My only problem with tsats is the lore and canon errors. Bianca chose rebirth didn't she? And I read a LOT more in the Goodreads reviews (the bad ones) and the thing is even reading through the book I felt something was off lore wise. How did Nico miss Jason when he was first in Tartarus, they didn't know each other at all. And didn't in HOH they establish chaos as first, then nyx and then THEY had children ouranos Tartarus Gaia but here Gaia is nyxes sister?? Like what is happening. But but also by the end of the book someone says Nyxes parents are chaos and Tartarus like bro whaaat???? No nyx is PRE Tartarus she is PRE corporeal creation.

Next issue. In Nicos first tart rerun his encounter with nyx is completely different, she is a goddess, she is all knowing, she is even wise in an apathetic way, she isnt evil she just is darkness, she is PRIMORDIAL you can feel it. And then in the book canon she's just, a basic bitch of a RR Greek goddess obsessed with killing or trapping some hero, even her aversion to change is.... Weird and Soo poor as a motive and character trait. Hypnos and Nemisis betrayal seemed a lazy way out and wasn't it Morpheus who put Manhattan to sleep in the battle and NOT Hypnos?

Sigh just some of my greivances, I like the book but I genuinely can't argue against most of the scathing crtisicm it got.

[maizethecorn]

Review of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie with spoilers

I just watched this movie and was amazed. The movie was alot darker and edgier than the TV show. Draxum and the almost all the yokais were not present in the movie. You have to watch the movie possibly a second time but Big Mama’s corspe is shown in the movie opening. Hypno-potamus and Warren Stone are the only two yokai to briefly appear in the movie. I really liked Leo being the leader of the turtles in this movie. Raph was so stressed being the leader in the T.V show towards the end that I thought one of the other turtles needed to be the leader. Splinter seemed to recognize Raph needed to step down and that Leo had more of the temperament to be the leader. Leo was a big prick not listening to his teammates until Casey gave him the cold hard truth of how everyone dies in the future. Casey and Leo bonded really well over the course of the movie. Casey was so somber and polite for a kid. I think this was due to the bleak future he grew up in. I liked the end of the movie where April was showing him his mom Cassandra as a teenager on his phone. Casey’s expression was so funny to see his mom as a young person. April and Splinter got some good action scenes. I liked Splinter driving around with April. April was able to land hits on one of the villians with a book. As for the villain know as the Kang, the Kang was definitely more of a threat than Shredder ever was. The Kang was just one big oozing hive mind that took over planets/universes and reassembled them the way it wanted to. Splinter’s line about the Kang being a psychopath getting kind of old hit the nail on the head for me. I would have liked a villain that was a little less one dimensional but that was fine. Mikey definitely a got mystical power upgrade through opening up the portal at the end. Donnie’s asking everyone how they would rate their escape experience made me laugh. I also liked the high tech Donnie used throughout the movie. The action, music, and story were really good in this movie. Watch the movie on Netflix if you haven't already.

[deeperforme]

Reviews of Five Hypnosis Books You Can Buy for Kindle (+ Douche-O-Meter)

I wrote this a few years ago on my blog, reposting because @ragezdasta​ asked about some of these books and because I’m proud of this effortful writing, from when I was living among the mountains of Italy with no IRL access to hypnotic community. Luckily my life is very different now! But glad I did the reading (I also reviewed Mind Play, Look Into My Eyes, Hypnotize Your Lover, and Hypnotic Realities).

My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson

- Edited and with Commentary by Sidney Rosen

Tone:

Folksy, paternalistic anecdotes and worshipful commentary

Valuable for:

Another dose of Erickson and his powerful approach to the unconscious mind, although little that can't be found in a better form in Hypnotic Realities.

Some nice stuff if looked at purely as folksy life wisdom: "When dealing with a problem of difficulty make an interesting design out of it. Then you can concentrate on the interesting design and ignore the back-breaking labor involved."

Many examples of Erickson's conversational, storytelling method of therapy, where the patient's unconscious absorbs the point of sometimes apparently pointless stories (there's some good examples of confusion and boredom being used).

Douche-o-meter (1-5):

4.  I have a hard time with Erickson's quite explicitly paternalistic orientation. Richard Bandler writes, "He only had five goals for people to get well: get out of the hospital, get a job, get married, have children, and send him presents. That was his definition of a cure." It's nice to believe in all-wise gurus, who will forcibly steer your life for your own good, but with statements like "acne can be cured by removing all mirrors" and that he got someone to win an olympic gold medal by telling them "It would be all right,” to do so, he was at least partly full of shit. And that's in an account from inside the cult! One from outside (reported by Bandler): "Virginia [Satir] had met Milton and thought he was creepy and didn’t want anything to do with him." More than a couple of the stories he tells involve a woman getting her breasts out during the session - and he makes sure to remark on the attractiveness level of almost every single female patient.  

I could only find one story Erickson tells where he did not effect a miracle cure: a woman who came to him about weight loss.

In the case of the woman who was not motivated, this was also easily determined when she would not follow the simple suggestion of climbing Squaw Peak. Erickson had already guessed that she was lazy and self-indulgent when he saw her general demeanor, which included the ostentatious, artificial fingernails. ... After she had left, the group was interested in why Erickson had asked her to climb Squaw Peak. Did he want her to “get in touch with her own feelings”? Did he want her to accomplish a task successfully? His answer, surprisingly, was “So she would obey me.”  

Since the book uses his own words, I could at least get a hint of his calm mastery and charisma. But as his transcriber writes, "Erickson was really quite comfortable with power."

Hypnotic language example:

“Did you know that every blade of grass is a different shade of green?”

The bottom line:

Good reading when you've run out of other Erickson books, and have braced yourself for the plunge into the cult of personality.

--

Richard Bandler's Guide to Trance-formation

Tone:

Half university lecture, half ego-tastic rant.

Valuable for:

Step by step therapeutic devices, e.g. "Changing Feelings by Dissociation", usually in the form of a series of visualizations. I doubt that they all work as powerfully as advertised, but they're set out in good detail so you could try for yourself.

A nice glossary/manual of Ericksonian techniques at the back (which you can get from Hypnotic Realities, but not as organized - very much unlike Erickson, he is a systematizer)

Lots of powerful hypnosis advice. "the truth is, you speak in a monotone if you’re going to speak incongruently. If you speak congruently and slowly and inflect your voice downward where you give commands, people will respond much more intensely."

Bandler is the source (loudest if not the first) for a number of ideas we now teach as fact, like about the unconscious not processing negations.

Douche-o-meter (1-5):

5. I was put in mind of L. Ron Hubbard for the level of dubious self-aggrandizement: he describes himself as a mathematician and computer scientist as well as a psychologist, and he brags about curing allergies, schizophrenia, and holocaust trauma. Having tasted blood with NLP, he introduces his freshly trademarked Design Human Engineering (DHE) and Neuro-Hypnotic Repatterning (NHR). He's extraordinarily bitchy to Erickson, who Bandler asserts never did the handshake induction correctly: "Since he was paralyzed, he couldn’t have carried out the movements as smoothly and as rapidly as is required. But I do credit him with giving me the idea."

Hypnotic language example:

“You’re sitting back in the chair, your feet are on the ground, your hands in your lap . . . and you can start to feel more relaxed.”

The bottom line:

Something of a greatest hits collection from a master, who it seems is second only to Erickson in constructing the foundation for modern hypnosis - and yet before reviewing my notes, I mostly remembered the bad impression.

--

Monsters and Magical Sticks: There is no such thing as hypnosis?

- Stephen Heller and Terry Steele

Tone:

Bragging and hectoring.

Valuable for:

The message that hypnosis permeates daily life and interaction - at least by their definition of hypnosis as "any transaction and communication that causes an individual to go into their own experiences and call upon their own imagination in order to respond". They write:

hypnosis is a form of education. Ideas, beliefs, possibilities, fantasies, and much more, may be “suggested” and, if accepted, and acted upon several times, they may become a conditioned part of your behavior.

The authors argue that we spend most of our lives reacting in an unconscious way. To be more functional we have to learn to detect these patterns, and when necessary, break them.  

A lot of interesting material about people's different modalities (e.g. visual, auditory), and the idea that therapeutic ends can be reached by moving people between modalities. This is one of a number of specific technical procedures that are described, as in Bandler's book.

Douch-o-meter (1-5):

5. Full of hero psychiatrist stories, more dubious than the other books. There are soberly presented anecdotes about parental mistreatment causing someone to become a homosexual (when, after playing doctor with a girl, a boy is beaten, he learns "It is bad to do this with girls, but it is OK to do it with boys.") or a slut (when a girl told her mother "no", her mother said, "Don’t you ever say ‘No’!" so now she can't say no to men) And this from a book published in 1987! And these authors may be the two unfunniest people in the world: "I am now going to go out on a limb. I hope that you will refrain from sawing it off while I am perched upon it." Finally, I consider their attempts to use to use dumb NLP devices on the reader extremely tacky. ("You may wish...now...to utilize the above example..." etc)

Hypnotic language example:

"Can you remember a time you took a ride by yourself and really enjoyed the scenery or a time you were working on your hobby and felt pleased. That's a nice feeling isn't it."

The bottom line:

Read to me like a photocopy of a photocopy of Erickson, except nearly illiterate (a chapter title is "Reality...Really???"), but with something to say about the unconscious.

--

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hypnosis

- Roberta Temes

Tone:

Basic, and reassuring.

Valuable for:

A lot of basic information that checks out with everything else I've read and experienced. It's a curious book for how it specifically tells you not to hypnotize people (not without a degree of some kind), and yet provides step-by-step instructions that would help to do it. But ostensibly the focus is on self-hypnosis, and on preparing you for a visit to a hypnotherapist (and incidentally promoting hypnotherapy). So there's much that is useful for pre-talk.

There's a lot of nice imagery and language for guiding someone in a positive way, and more accessible Erickson than maybe can be found anywhere else. There's definitely an emphasis on writing and word choice, since her approach involves constructing a script alongside the client and then just reading it to them in trance. While I have doubts whether simply giving someone a list of suggestions like this could really change their longterm behaviour, I like how this collaboration process emphasizes trust and consent.

I like that unlike every other hypnosis book I've read, the author mentions scientific experiments to support certain points - of course this is of limited value without citations. (in some cases she provides a name and affiliation, which would usually be enough to look up the study)

Since the theme of the book is, "hypnosis can help with a lot of things", there's material about how to approach bad habits, work patterns, medical procedures, parenting, social anxiety, and more, that I haven't found anywhere else.

Doucho-o-meter (1-5): 2.

Only a little - there's a part at the end of the book where, after scaring her readers away from amateur and stage hypnotists throughout, she gives a list of her hypnotherapist friends, including their office phone numbers. But in general it's warm and helpful. There are chapters on very questionable topics, like past life regression, but she adds an appropriate amount of disclaimers. She does tell a few "hero psychiatrist" tales - I wish one of these books would talk about problem solving with a client, where the first thing doesn't necessarily work. Even with as much hypnosis as I've done I know she's leaving out a lot.

Hypnotic language example:

Have you noticed how

tranquil

the ocean is today?

The bottom line:

Not a bad first book about hypnosis, both for hypnotists and people who want to be hypnotized. For more advanced practitioners, if you can look past the title, the dumb cartoons, and all the other busy affectations of the "Complete Idiot's" editorial style, there are some fresh perspectives.

--

The Easy Way to Stop Smoking

- Allen Carr

Tone:

Happy fast-talking 1950s salesman, with something actually helpful to sell.

Valuable for:

A wonderful case study in suggestive language, creating expectations, and reframing, all employed in the "shotgun" approach also described by Erickson. Carr didn't know what approach would stick with a given reader, so he fires off all of them, so many ways of hitting his core messages:  quitting is easy; you don't like cigarettes since they're gross, you're just addicted to nicotine; and you will love being a non-smoker. Personal stories, powerful sensory images, semi-scientific facts, and straight up commands.

He uses many devices us students of hypnosis will recognize. The biggest one is his instruction to keep smoking while reading it, and not stop smoking before you reach the end. Which of course is an implicit suggestion that you will stop smoking when you finish the book.

Douche-o-meter (1-5):

2. Although this book is full of promotions for other products of his, and disses of other approaches to quitting smoking, Carr is so full of genuine joy and enthusiasm that it's infectious (which is kind of how the book works). He literally encourages you to say to yourself, "YIPPEE! I’M A NON-SMOKER!" I also enjoyed his old timey language, as in "All smokers know in their heart of hearts that they are mugs."

Hypnotic language example:

"Go to a party, and rejoice in the fact that you do not have to smoke. It will quickly prove to you the beautiful truth that life is so much better without cigarettes."

The bottom line:

Well worth a look - especially if you're trying to quit smoking.

[thegothiclibrary]

Review of The Hypno-Ripper—Victorian Crime Fiction

Review of The Hypno-Ripper—Victorian Crime Fiction

What if the world’s most notorious serial killer never meant to hurt anyone at all? Jack the Ripper is probably the serial killer to most often appear in fiction, as the unsolved mystery has led writers to conjecture about his motives and identity for well over a century. Interestingly, some of the earliest of these conjectural works present the Ripper himself as a victim rather than a ruthless…