A person for submission, and on the submission of persons.

I was reviewing some of the first years coming in this year.  It's something necessary, even though I usually consider this something of an inconvenience.  I suppose getting used to administrative work in an official position is something they're trying to teach us as well.  I understand the necessity of it so that the new students may get proper placement at New World.  But at the same time, when I've got an idea or a thing on... which seems to be all the time now, I do admit.  In any case... when i have a thing on, it's hard not to see things like this as an annoyance.

Usually.

In particular, the case of Leland 'Lee' Radcliffe-Forsythe is a fascinating one.  This scion of the elite, straight out of P2A4 in Destiny is has the sort of lineage one might normally dismiss as destined for the plutocracy.  And it would be a sad disservice to the person in question.  Her family all but disavows her as a traitor to her kind.  Was relegated to the Morton house in Primaschola, which incidentally is where my father was sorted before he decided the institution had nothing further to offer him.  (The anonymous calls to various bureaus and the small scandals and disciplinary hearings among the elites that followed in his wake, I'm sure were 'purely coincidental'.)

In Lee's case, her dedication to study and the pursuit of a hypothesis to its logical, illogical, or sometimes outright purely nonsensical or unintentional conclusion is, from all reports, nothing short of breathtaking.  The results of her pursuit of the marriage of Mundane Technology and Mundi-Artfice, while producing often unintentional or chaotic results none-the-less GET results.  And that's right in line with Laveau's philosophy.  Properly encouraged and nurtured, her talents and abilities can be nothing but a boon for Mundi society.

Her more iconoclastic tendencies are in a word, unexpected, from one of her lineage and will likely cause difficulties for her with the more 'unsoiled' among the student body.  Especially if allowed to be inducted into a House Croatan in some misguided effort to 'fix' her by surrounding her with family and colleagues she could only hope to offend.  The Casa might be an interesting fit for her, if she is to be led into their mascot's mischief working ways, but a waste of a first rate mind and potential.  With her stated drives to bring positive change to the world with experimentation and innovation without the unnecessary fetters of tradition and mundane predjudice, it would be remiss of Laveau not to offer her immediate placement within its more tolerant environs.  How a person could come from the unsoiled so...  unsoiled is astounding.

Now to a different tack:  The mind...

Here's an idea.

Many Mindbreakers, at least from what I've seen, tend more toward 'seeing' and using one's extrasensory perceptions to get into someone's head and know what they do.  Getting around mental blocks or protections set up in the mind against untoward reading or remote viewing.  Or perhaps postcognition.

Naturally, being myself, I've often wondered what kinds of artfice could be applied to the 'science' of mindbreaking.  More to the point, there is the concept of hypnosis and framing the context of a situation in order to produce the circumstances under which a person's natural inhibitions to a suggestion would be greatly lessened, or perhaps even non-existent.

"What does any of that even mean, Snow?" you might ask.

Many of the more mundane born among us will be familiar with the concepts of hypnosis and mind control; if only through mundane science fiction, hero stories, or fantasy.  Wherein a person is fixated and relaxed, or talked into a state of suggestive hyper-awareness.  One in which the conscious mind is fixated or distracted or relaxed into submission while the 'under-mind' or subconscious takes the wheel.  And in this state, that inner computer that drives or does things on autopilot while the conscious mind is considering other things is in control, and suggestible.

Many mundanes will use props in this regard.  Usually with the intention of producing eye fatigue or conscious distraction, hypnotists will employ things like spirals and the ubiquitous pendulum or swinging pocketwatch.  And lots of times this kind of object or visual fixation is married to a spoken induction that keys into the learning modes of the subject.  Sometimes brainwave states are induced with the use of a binaural tone, or to put it plainly, an alternating tone in both ears that can induce brain states conducive to learning states, trance states or suggestibility.

You can already see where I'm going with this.  Mere clairvoyance or invasive telepathy must usually set up a combative state in the subject.  Often times this would likely affect the information gleaned from the subject.  Likely traumatizing them in the process, or damaging their sanity which further damages the qualilty of information.  Positive reinforcement instead of negative always gets better results.  You frame the situation so that it's in the best interest of the subject to want to share information with you.  In the context of trance, where the subject's subconscious is working actively towards their best interests, it will gladly cooperate with beneficial suggestions.

Now add a subliminal element to this, where the hypnotist's intentions can be communicated below the threshhold of conscious perception.  Now add a binarual tone to encourage the person's physiognomy to be more suggestible.  Add in a visual element that can not only fixate, but add subliminal suggestions faster than the conscious eye can see.  Add a biofeedback generator to encourage physical calm.  THEN start leading the person into trance.  It still takes talent and training in order to talk the person into a trance state where they'll speak to you.  But the results of a session used in combination with the suite of tech suggested here?  All of that charmed and enchanted to enhance the enchanting effect of the apparatus?  I'd think any Mindbreaker would sign up to put such a thing into common use.




Note... the staggering possibilities for misuse are of course plain.  Such tech would need to be a regulated thing.  While not entirely useless in untrained hands, there's enough people in the world who've read a book or two with untoward intentions to make them dangerous to others.  The possibilities for positive use beyond mere interrogation are just as staggering.  In the absence of actual brain damage, such a suite could be used for therapeutic purposes.  Helping wizards who've accquired the odd neurosis or mental effect in the course of their own works.  The detoxification of panic or terror in those with crippling phobias.  The elimination of undesired habits or toxic behaviour patterns.  Properly used, it could be a boon to all.

Music Time Again

Here's meditative and hypnotic types of music today.  Again, here's an 800% slowed piece I chanced on.  Which honestly has me considering slowing some of the music I already have down to see what effects it might produce.  The musician herself is from Thunderbird, and were she not such a public figure, I'd place money she was Mundi-folk.  As it is, I'm almost sure she's mixed lineage, or has some fey in her.

There is a Scots punk band from the early 1980's that managed quite nicely with a singer who doesn't so much use words to make sense, but as devices to use her own voice as a complimentary instrument.  It has been known for her to sing the scientific names of butterflies, or to have picked random words from a hat to sing.

When I am down...  when I need to remember that on the grand scale, none of the evils around me truly matter.  When I need to remember the goodness of a simple breath and the majesty of the great everything around me.  When I need to inspire myself to do better.  I listen to this.

And if I need to be a bit more pumped up while doing it...