A few days ago I considered writing a full recap of this yearâs Charmed, but as I kinda expected Iâm not really gonna be able to do that. Instead, Iâm going to list events in (hopefully) chronological order, and attempt to go into detail on each. There will be some things I will decidedly not go into detail about, mostly the bad things, but Iâll still try to list them. Iâm also going to wait to tag people until the end, and just use their scene names or how theyâre known when they come up. Here goes!Â
Note: I did not have any erotic or otherwise NSFW scenes this Charmed, so the closest thing even to nudity in this post is a picture of a Lovcraftian amalgamation of manikin parts and a mention of shirtlessâoâclock.Â
APOLOGIES FOR SUCH A LONG POST!
I was mugged. Yep, sadly thatâs the first thing that happened when I got to Baltimore. I was jumped by 3 guys, tackled from behind, beaten, and they stole my phone, wallet, and keys. I got my phone back eventually, as youâll see. I spend around 3 hours dealing with the police, after they were called by a good samaritan who was willing to help after I was robbed. Also it turned out one of the guys in the ambulance is into hypnosis. Who knew!
Dinner with Ariadne and Shaun. We went to Pickleâs Pub, which has great food and fantastic atmosphere. Food and company was necessary after the attack.Â
Saw friends on the 12th floor, talked about what happened, socialized. Keys and Lee gave me some anti-inflammatory medicine and some cash. I almost didnât accept the cash, but realized that without it I had nothing, so I thanked them for their generosity.
I was also given a number to call while up there, for the person who apparently found my phone. It was very late at night however, so I called the next morning.Â
I called the person about my phone, using my roommate (and very good friend) Blue Primeâs phone. She is wonderful and Iâm kinda sad we didnât find the time for an official scene during the weekend.Â
Turns out the person who found my phone turned it in to the police that morning, before Iâd even woken up. To skip all the frustration I had dealing with the police, Iâll just say they took the entire day to figure out where it was in their own system. I missed a good bit of the con while on the phone with 3 different police districts, the ECU, and finally Citywide Robbery, which is where I was taken Thursday night after the incident, and where my phone ended up.Â
After lunch, I went to Orgasm Control by Ariadne. Not only is she a wonderful presenter, but hypnotic pleasure and orgasms are my jam! Sadly, out of all the scenes I had this weekend, I didnât get to play around with it.Â
Advanced Induction Techniques by Wiseguy and Ariadne was another fantastic class, and one Iâd seen before. Itâs really fun to see them go through so many different inductions with volunteers from the audience.Â
Negotiating/Building Dynamic Scenes by MrDream and Pinky was an interesting class. They demonstrated how to negotiate and plan scenes by getting to know your partner.Â
Speed Trance! Pinky ran her Speed Trance again, and it was quite fun as usual. I tend to talk to more people than I trance during it, but I still got to try a few different kinds of inductions, including a confusion/overload induction which are not the easiest to improvise (for me, at least).Â
Late night hangouts! I donât quite remember exactly what happened that night, but iâm sure it was fun. I did a lot of just hanging around during the con, I probably wonât be able to recap most of that.
I think I missed the first class period? Not sure how this day started.
Youâre Getting Sleepy by The Secret Subject! I mostly just wanted to go to one of her classes, and though sheâs a wonderful presenter and I enjoyed the class, it ended up just being another inductions class.Â
During lunch I went to get my phone from the police station, and ended up going to a fantastically weird diner with Ultra and Fiona. It was called the Paper Moon Diner, and itâs easier to explain with a pic. Hereâs what we saw from our table (we were actually to the right of this pic, got it from Google):
Like, holy shit. Look it up, people. The food was pretty good, too!Â
Pleasure Conditioning by AskJeeves and Jennifer Kohl was a fun class! It ended up being a lot of things I didnât know I already knew, but it was great to hear about all the ways to positively influence behavior.Â
Consent and Etiquette by Alianne Cimorene and Tennfan was interesting, small, and an important discussion. There were strangely only 3 of us other than the presenters in this class, so we all moved to the front row and had more of a conversation than the average class. Despite the subject getting heavy at times, I honestly enjoyed it quite a bit. A few hilarious quotes I recall:
âSo how do you all identify when it comes to hypnosis?â
âBottomâ
âTopâ (Me)
âSwitchâÂ
âOne of each, excellent!â
Tenn, looking at me:Â âAlright, let me say something to you, as weâre the two bearded white guys in the room-â
Alianne:Â âThe two bearded white guys, wearing a red t-shirt and blue jeans.â
Me, looking down at my shirt:Â â..oh. Well then.â
It was after this class I finally got to talk to a new person Iâd been seeing around the con, PawnLily, my scene with whom Iâll talk about later (she was the switch that was mentioned above).
Group dinner at Nandos! Hung out with the NJ folks, always a fun crowd.Â
Saturday night means fancy dress!Â
I actually had a few scenes that night!Â
Surprisingly enough, the first of them was on the floor in the hallway by the elevators. Mel is an amazing subject, and it was great to finally have some fun with her! She ended up seeing my energy powers as a mix of light blue, purple, and green, to match the fluorite crystal I tranced her with, and even the energy itself took on crystalline properties. Because of that it had a naturally calming and grounding effect on her, and it was so lovely to see her so happy.Â
I also had a scene with Verbena at one point that night. We had wanted to do something together since DMDW, and only now found the time. We were both pretty nervous and indecisive about it, but we still had a good short scene. Sheâs a wonderfully good subject, Iâm glad we finally got to do something fun!Â
I stopped in the Hypnotic Speakeasy at one point, which was a really cool experience. Despite not being affected by the potions, it had a great atmosphere and it was cool to hang with my friends in that environment. Also, watching people be compelled to dance from drinking a magic potion is hilarious. Combining Harry Potter stuff and hypnosis is great fun!Â
Speaking of HP, I bought a Time Turner from Noelle at her vending table! She also gave me cookies for free because she wanted to show support after the mugging.Â
I want to take a break here to give another shout out to my friends in the hypno community. You have all been so supportive, so generous, so empathetic, I have no idea how I can possibly repay you all for you help, except by showing the same support for any of you who might end up in a similar horrible situation. Even the hugs were more than you had to give, and I really, really appreciate you all. Gotta pass the good vibes on. We really do protect our own.Â
The Unconference was interesting! I think I only went to one class, but it was still quite well organized and there were some cool-looking things on the board.Â
Dublin and Moon were teaching judo throw inductions, which was really fun to watch. I knew theyâd been teaching it for a while, itâs about time I went to see it. And itâs great to see Dublin getting back in his groove!Â
PawnLily and I finally found the time to have the scene we discussed the day before. Sheâs a lovely person and a fantastic subject, and I canât wait to get to know her better! We did some simple things in our scene, she sees my energy as green fire iirc, and I turned my pocketwatch into a pause button where sheâd slowly but surely realize that something was going on (hypnotic amnesia is fun!). It was amusing as hell to me to pause her in the middle of a nerdy conversation, and just watch her start right where she left off.Â
Subway is better than Jimmy Johns. Fight me.Â
Bimbos A-Z by Captain Mike was hilarious, and quite informative! Itâs always great to see a class in such high spirits and laughing so much. Side note, the Overheard at Charmed board was fan-fuckin-tastic, and very quotable! I got a great laugh when I brought up one of those quotes in this class:Â âBarbarians are just fight bimbos.â Itâs true!Â
Mind Breaking by Ariadne and Vi was intense! They demoed two scenes that covered overload, fear play, and all ranges of intense emotions designed to break the mind of the subject. Itâs honestly not really my cup oâ tea, but I enjoyed it nonetheless! Sometimes itâs really interesting to go to classes about areas of hypnosis you never intend to test yourself. Plus, as tends to happen, I ended up coming up with an idea that fits with the topic.Â
Dinner at Nandos (again), followed by hangouts!Â
Later that night I ended up having a scene with Ariadne, which we had been trying to do since Mindquake. This is the first scene where I attempted to bottom, since I trust her enough to let her try (and the fact that sheâs hella cute really helps). We actually went back and forth between roles, which was quite the intimate experience. Sheâs both a wonderful subject and hypnotist, and though I never did go fully under she definitely got me somewhere. Sheâs also the first person to see my energy as an element from the periodic table, rather than an element like fire or air, and it was quite funny trying to play around with a handful of helium. I really, really enjoyed this scene.Â
More hangouts and room parties!Â
Checkout, farewells, and lunch at Panera! I cried. A lot. Both due to end-of-con unstable emotional state combined with the trauma from before, and because I was sad to see everyone leave.Â
I spent the day back and forth from the parking garage trying first to get my car out and to a Ford dealer (no towing company around had a truck short enough to fit the clearance of the garage), and then to get a locksmith to get me a new car key. I spent a lot of effort to no result. As there was trouble with the locksmith AAA got me which set everything back. Still, since my friends kept going back and forth between the garage with me, I was never bored and they kept me from getting overly frustrated. Calamity, Ragez, and Shaun all went with me there over the course of the day.Â
I hung out with a number of friends who were staying one more night, both due to delayed/cancelled flights, and because they chose to. We had fun times in like 3 different hotel rooms, hypno-shenanigans abound, and everyone who could trance ended up so fractionated that we were all laughing and coming up with incredibly fun hypno games. I donât regret that night one bit, honestly it made me so damn happy and Iâm sure everyone involved could say the same.Â
I slept on a chair, and I donât care. Iâm just grateful to have had a room to stay in that extra night. Calamity, Ragez, Yoshi, and Andy Hypnostory, you are all fantastic friends and Iâm so fucking thankful for all of your help.Â
Contacted a locksmith and my apartment complex. The latter went very easily and my new keys were in my mailbox when I got home. Â
Went to a cool sushi place with the NH crew.Â
Couldnât get a key code from Ford while at my car with Calamity and the locksmith, so he got another guy to come down and break into my car in order to create a new key much later.Â
Drove back to the hotel with Andy (who had gone back to my car with me after Calamity and Ragez left), said my goodbyes, and finally went home.Â
And there we have it! There were a lot of things I didnât list of course, since I didnât quite remember when they happened or they happened all over. I hung out in the hall between classes a lot and interacted with friends, I had an emotional breakdown while on the phone with my parents, I got a bunch of Hypno Scout badges, lots of cool stuff. All-in-all, despite the trauma, my Charmed weekend was amazing. Iâd say I wouldnât change it for the world, but, yâknow.Â
And now, my wonderful friends. Hopefully I havenât missed anyone, but I probably have: @calamitybrain, @ragezdasta, @yoshibound, @tell-a-hypnostory, @meltinggoldanddippingthingsinit, @digitalswitchgamine, @thesecretsubject, @enscenic, @sebsteerpike, @droned-out, @lord-des-esprits, @l1quidcryst4l, @thelotusvirus, @hypno-moon-gazer, @unitviv, @dublinoshea, @chocolateandink, @clawsandlace, @mr-ackerman, @lily-ackerman, @amhypnotic, @thementalconfetti, @xxmasterandmargaritaxx, @margaritanikolayevna, @sleepnowkay, @khatsha, @hypnoobiwan, @fayvie, @h-sleepingirl, @cckitten78, @hypnokinkwithmrdream, @downwardspiralcomic, @minddiver, @arihi, @convoluted-moonscape, @theleeallure, @trancingwithmyself, @erogenousmind, @dancercoder, @aboutâblank, @zanydanger, @tennfan2, @hypnosophist, @diaryofasnowflake
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