✅1️⃣ | Hypnosis Doesn't Work Like That!

1: Too Smart to be Hypnotised

Her name was Adelaide Juniper Spenser, though she wouldn't have minded if a few people forgot about that. The lowest point of most days at school was the cheerily malevolent face of Belle Carter calling out "Hiiii Juniper!" across the yard, like they were the best of friends.

If she could blame any one thing for her lack of social success, Adi thought, it would have to be her middle name. Certainly not the abs she'd inherited from her long-absent father, which looked fit without any sign of a paunch no matter how much she ate. She couldn't complain about her chest either, though she certainly didn't take after the Spenser side of the family in that regard, or the silky, waist-length auburn braids she'd inherited from her mom. She was cute, she knew, more than sexy. But with enough of both that she was sure the boys would be falling at her feet, just as soon as any of them noticed that she existed.

The only thing standing in her way was the goofy name, she was sure. And maybe the fact that it was hard to find anyone who really understood her. She wasn't into the same music or movies as most of her friends at school, because everything was so lame these days. She wondered sometimes if she was too smart for them, but she couldn't really say so because then she'd have no friends at all.

She didn't think about her name often, but she thought it was a pretty nice name, She could shorten it to Adi, or Della, or Adele (although she wouldn't have picked that one at the moment because it was associated with a vapid celebrity she just couldn't stand). Different friends could call her whatever fit them best, and she kind of liked that. It was only the middle name she had a problem with. And today, she was only thinking about it because a droning voice kept on telling her to think about her name.

Adi was interested in hypnosis, because it seemed like something that was so awesome, and that you needed to think about. She loved the idea of a hobby that was awesome, but also made it obvious just how smart she was to understand it. The only problem with that was that she was, of course, too smart to be hypnotised at the same time. So all she could do was keep on trying all the different recordings she could download, while feeling superior to all the dumbasses that these things actually worked for.

This one was called "baby name trigger". The description she'd quickly glanced at said it would be stronger on more intelligent subjects, which would have made it perfect for Adi if that was even possible. But she felt some kind of obligation to try them all, just so she could explain what was wrong with the style. None of the files had ever worked for her, and she was sure they never would, just because she understood too well what they were doing. She could feel relaxed easily enough, but it needed a very weak mind to get all gooey and obedient just because somebody told you to relax, no matter how well they described it.

The introduction was a bit different, at least. The woman's voice on the tape started out by asking her to repeat her name over and over. She didn't see how that was going to work, but she could play along for now. Sooner or later, no doubt, it would turn into some kind of mantra. It'd start telling her to say that she was a slave, or that she was weak-willed, or that she was starting to relax. And someone without her intelligence wouldn't be able to say those things without starting to believe them. That was how gullibility worked, and that was how a hundred and ten percent of these so-called hypnosis files could pull the gullible into their orbit. While she repeated the syllables over and over, testing out different patterns of stress each time she repeated Adelaide, she had already decided that her review for this particular recording was going to be damning with faint praise; about as positive as she ever got.

"Now stretch and sit up," the voice in the file instructed, "I hope you're feeling refreshed and awake now. And maybe you'd like to leave a review for this file?"

"Yeah, maybe," Adi stretched. She thought again, and decided maybe she wouldn't be so positive after all. She'd nodded off while repeating her name, and missed most of the recording. If it couldn't even keep her attention that long, then it clearly wasn't deep enough to hold her attention. She might give it two stars for a neat concept, but there was no way she could offer three if it was monotonous to let her doze off while it was playing.