{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/vermin/thrall-emotions",
  "path": "/posts/vermin/thrall-emotions",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-09T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "For a mortal enthralled to a chrylurk's will, one's mind is not one's\nown. Trivial wisdom, oft quoted.  But for all its overpreached\nbanality, few have reckoned with what this truly means.  Chrylurk\nsubjugation is no less than a challenge --- a refutation, an\nannihilation --- of the human condition.  Beyond human!  Subjectivity\nitself ought experience a profound vertigo in the face of the thralls.\n\nThe kiss of the chrylurk distorts and stains.  To be infected ---\ninflected --- by that is to utter an alien word on the common tongue\n--- what one speaks can no longer be wholly one's native language.\n\nPoets have waxed with lyrical abandon, inspired or horrified by the\nbeatific smiles and dilated pupils.  Bewitched, mesmerized, hypnotized\nthey are!  The chrylurk is a siren, a temptress, a slither-tongued\nliar.  Awe and lust are the words all are fain to use, but hardly do\nthey understand.  Philosophers ruminate in more sober words,\ndiagnosing victims as perhaps suffering an abject weakness of the will\n--- no less culpable or pitable than drug-addled begging for more.\n\nThis, perhaps, may be the truest words yet spoken on the matter.  What\nis a drug, but a foreign body?  Some substance the body could not,\nwould not, produce on its own, whose effects send the patient into a\nstate by efforts of a metabolism strained astray?\n\nWe have digressed for long enough.  The subject at hand is the\nthrall's subjectivity, and we contend that it is a poor understanding\nindeed which fails to grapple with its revelations.  And it is a\nrevelation --- just as a devout on the altar receives new lore from\nthe divine, not merely known facts nor permutations of the mundane.\n\nWhat does a thrall feel?  Remain no longer in this suspense: we\ncontend a thrall bears a mind made anew.  Enthrallment is a\ntransfiguration of the the heart, and it stirs and aches to a new\nlogic.  Is a thrall in love with the chrylurk?  Is this one sad\nwhen left drained and alone? Is that one happy to forsake their\nmortal origin? Fools would speak an affirmative.\n\nHere, we shall, with the light touch of an outline, categorize\nobservations and reports.  So as not to predispose our findings, each\nemotion shall be assigned an anonymous numeral, rather than given some\nmisleading analogy to human experience.  Consider these notes for\nfurther research.\n\nState-I is aversive.  This is the pain known to all who contract\novirexia.  Thus, the malaise is in part an immune response, a\ndeliberate irritation of the sinuses, a purging of the gut.  Yet it is\nnot some pathless pit of despair.  It is (the victim soon realizes) a\nstate of acute craving.  One aches in hunger and one feels very tense.\nWhen the chrylurk's parasitic brood is nourished, this stress wanes.\nWhen one smells the musk of their ravager (or even an old\nscent-marking) one feels at ease.\n\nState-II is slowly-building, conditioned.  Above all, it is\ndefined by a heightened awareness.  The chrylurk becomes a fixation.\nAn object of cathexis. Too easily, one presumes this to be the \"love\"\na thrall feels for their captor --- not so.  S-II is quite\ncompatible with disgust and anxiety. Where in S-I the host attend to\ntheir parasite's needs, here their own desires arise once more.  They\nwant, whether it's more time held in the chrylurk's supernumary\nlimbs, with hissed acknoledgment, or to get away, flailing and\nstriking and harming that monster. \n\nState-III is arousal, sharp and fleeting.  Arousal in the clinical\nsense: stimulation and exciment.  Sexual readiness may be present, but\nirrelevant.  The heart beats a pulse rapid, and veins dilate, blood\nsurging warmly to the skin's surface, a blush extended even down the\nthe neck.  If S-I may mean comfort in the presence of the chrylurk,\nand S-II may mean interest, S-III is the desperate need, the whine\nin the throat, the pawing hands.  But each state is paradox ---\nbecause S-III also mixes colors from the fear response's palate.\nTrembling, mindless terror --- perhaps because chrylurks find startled\nprey so easily herded, so pliable to threats.\n\nSpecial mention it to be made of a substate, (S-IIIb perhaps?): it\noccurs when the puppy's whine summons master's attention, when the\npredator catches the prey.  The chrylurk feeds, that needle-toothed\nproboscis draining blood.  Chrylurks make a habit of injecting prey,\ndosing it with venom, but here the fangs serve the dual function of\npumping fluid back into the veins to replace the stolen volume.  This\nis not a primer on chrylurk biology, so what matters is how it\nfeels, and it is waves of drugged ecstasy and gushing relief.\n\nIII is a state of being overfull, brimming with too much energy that\ndemands venting, and its substate is nothing less than the perfect\noutlet. One falls into the light-headed weakness of blood-loss like a\ndrunkard into wine's embrace.  The needy thrall itches so terribly ---\nand whatever pain the chrylurk inflicts upon the body in the process\nof administering this seems to scratch in so welcome a fashion.\n\nState-IV is depressive.  The come-down from the fever of a\nbite-begging thrall.  In perhaps a grand irony or perversion, this\ndark stupor is the most similar to unaltered human psychology.  There\nis no undue attraction to chrylurk scents and sensation.  There is no\npleading for a new venom-dose.  There is no obsession with the\nchrylurk, save what dwells in the host's private memory.\n\nThose same memories haunt one in the throes of this state.  Words\nspoken in drugged delirium stand in a sober light.  Every thing the\nchrylurk has done is remembered, salient as to a dreamer past the\nthreshold.  How does one reconcile or cope?  Shall the thrall fall\ndeeper into chrylurk's grasp, or resist and remain torn in two by the\ninconstancy?\n\nThis is also the most physiological state.  The thrall is recovering\nfrom blood loss; and their brain suffers withdrawal from the\nchrylurk's most potent venoms.  It's worth remarking as to how\nthralls are able to have such rich emotional spectrum, seemingly\ninvented whole-cloth by this disease.  It's the venom, of course ---\nsuch prolonged dose, so regularly, overpowers the endocrine system.\nHormones and neurochemical are catalyzed and synthesized by the body\nmetabolizing chrylurk toxins.  Test the blood of a thrall rescued from\nmonths, years in a chrylurk's care, and it will sit nowhere in the\nrange of healthy human results.\n\nState-V is another borderline disordered state.  It may be acute\nor subtle, it may be conscious or repressed, but it is inevitable.\nAfter so long exposed to the power and potency of chrylurk anatomy,\nafter bearing its wriggling larvae within oneself, the disparity grows\nstark.  The host is not a chrylurk.  And yet, nor is the host is the\nhost human, or djramul, or freemouse, or whatever race they once hailed\nfrom.  What human thinks these thoughts, feels these feelings? The\nlarvae are capable of fusomorphosis, replacement-mimicry of their\nhosts' own body.  They are infested and transforming --- if only by\nthe brute alchemy of a the chrylurk's claws and fangs and tight, tight\nsilk bindings.  When was the last time they even wore clothes?\n\nSuffice it to say, when caught between worlds like this, the thrall is\nafflicted by a keen dysphoria.  Their body is wrong.  Their voice is\nwrong.  The way others speak to the name --- is it the name, the\ntitles, the pronouns?  The clear disgust?  They need to assert an\nidentity, to cling to something.  But again, the paradox --- because a\nthrall who advances to this state may be enamored with their chrylurk,\nlustfully envious of the insectoid angles, or they may be kicking and\nscreaming through this hell, and grasping for any proof they are still\nhuman, that there's any hope of remaining --- returning to --- whom\nthey were.\n\nState-VI is (so far!) the last woe we have seen fit to classify.\nAs befits its postponed finality, it's the most difficult to grapple\nwith --- so uncommonly seen among the thralls we have rescued and\nstudied.  Breaking with pattern of the last two, this is a mood of\npositive affect.  It is not the fresh and crushing infatuation of the\nthrall's first brush with S-II; it is not the lurid thrill of giving\nonself over completely to one's mistress in the throes of S-III.\n\nThis is the joy of devoutly serving.  Waking each day secure by faith\nthe chrylurk will provide, feeling the pride at seeing one's larvae\ngrow and change oneself, giving a vindicative, sadistic smile when one\nsees Mistress has captured a new sister --- yes, the thrall does more\nthan endure or plead, this one helps condition and control others. Oh,\nrejoice, and moan in satisfaction, knowing this will never end.\n\nKnowing this will never end.  Here lies the backwards edge: Stirring\nfrom the fugue paralyzed by the fear the chrylurk will give next what\none is choiceless to refuse, feeling suffocated by a body that never\nsettles --- not ever alone, policed by the gut full of the worms loyal\nto one's captor --- and laughing despite oneself when one sees the bug\nhas dragged in a new victim.  At least now its attention will be split\n--- at least now one gets to exercise a bit of power over something.\n(Oh, gods why --- oh, what crime merited this punishment!?) This is\nthe horror of a body and mind that is one's own to suffer, but never\none's to command.\n\nSuch is the thrall's lot.",
  "title": "On the Emotions of Thralls"
}