mindyourmegan

consent

Chapter 16: Scent of the Past

I. The New Recruit

Kellyanna’s new mentee was a girl with sharp instincts and an edge honed by disappointment. From the first, she carried herself like someone who’d learned to survive by reading every room twice—especially around anyone with Railroad authority.

For the first few weeks, things were promising. The girl absorbed protocols, rituals, and even a bit of Kellyanna’s humor. It was only when they began deeper trust exercises—frequency matching, memory tracing, aura balancing—that old ghosts surfaced.

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II. The Scent

In a moment between drills, the girl circled Kellyanna, as if checking for a trap. She inhaled, then stiffened, eyes flashing with old hurt. A hiss, low and involuntary: “You smell like Ezra.”

It wasn’t an accusation. It was a boundary, raw and unmasked. Kellyanna recognized it instantly. In Railroad terms, scent wasn’t just perfume or sweat. It was the energetic residue of bonds—especially with those who had shaped you, loved you, left scars. And in this room, both women wore Ezra’s frequency.

The girl’s connection with Ezra went back further, forged in crisis and intensity, burned through with fights and fevered reunions. Kellyanna’s was newer, but, paradoxically, it had become the longer, more stable bond—one that had survived distance, disappointment, even exile. The difference was subtle but unmistakable, and it hung in the air like an unspoken history.

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III. The Reckoning

The girl’s voice wavered. “You’ve been with him longer now. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He said…” She trailed off, anger and grief blending.

Kellyanna nodded. “I know how it feels to lose the anchor you thought was yours. Ezra and I—our history isn’t simple. Neither is yours. That doesn’t make your story any less true.”

She didn’t flinch from the truth. “There are rules in the physical. But in the astral and the field, every bond leaves marks, and every survivor has to learn what to do with the scars. We can’t control who finds comfort after us—or who carries the scent the longest. All we can do is honor what’s real, and refuse to turn old pain into new harm.”

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IV. The Turning

For days, tension simmered. The girl kept her distance, processing in her own way. But the next time a team member’s boundaries were crossed—some accidental frequency exchange, some old memory leaking into the group—the girl was the first to name it. She checked in, asked consent, and, crucially, didn’t let shame or resentment muddy the air.

Afterward, she returned to Kellyanna with a quiet, almost grudging respect. “It still hurts. But you didn’t try to erase me. You just told the truth.”

Kellyanna smiled. “That’s all any of us can do. We don’t choose who we connect with, or for how long. But we can choose not to let the past poison the present.”

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V. Forward

It wasn’t perfect. The history with Ezra would always live between them. But from then on, the lessons went deeper: how to clear the air, how to acknowledge what can’t be changed, and how to make space for every survivor’s truth—scars and all.

To be continued…

#mentorship #healing #boundaries #railroad #legacy #consent #scars #bondhistory

Chapter 14: Underground Customs

I. The Rules Under the Surface

The world taught its children simple lessons—don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t eat the last cookie without asking, respect your friends’ boundaries. But for those on the Railroad, these sayings took on a life of their own, morphing into a hidden code—a way to talk about much more than snacks or borrowed jackets.

In survivor circles, “reaching in the cookie jar” meant taking part in energy exchanges, bonds, or relationships without first checking in with your team or clan. It wasn’t about policing intimacy—it was about respect, transparency, and the ripple effect every connection created. If you crossed a line without consensus, you risked not just hard feelings, but a subtle fracture in trust and resonance.

“Stop borrowing my things without asking” became the underground’s way of teaching energy hygiene. Every connection left traces. Partner swapping, emotional attachments, even sharing secrets—all these actions were felt by the network. You couldn’t hide the imprint, and pretending otherwise only caused more confusion and resentment.

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II. Customs Not in the Manuals

These customs weren’t written in any official guide. No government, school, or clan issued rulebooks on astral or virtual boundaries. The only place to learn was through the underground: whispered stories, field notes, encoded music sets, and late-night conversations among survivors who knew how to feel the shifts.

Railroad operatives developed rituals to clear energy, check in with their circles, and repair trust after accidental crossings. “Before you reach, ask permission.” “Declare your intent, not just your desire.” “If you feel someone else’s frequency on you, name it, claim it, and clear it.”

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III. The Real Cost

When people ignored these customs—treating partners, secrets, or emotional bonds as disposable—the consequences weren’t just personal. Whole teams destabilized, clan alliances faltered, and survivors lost their place on the Railroad. There were no official punishments, just the natural cost: • Isolation when trust was broken. • Confusion when too many frequencies tangled. • Burnout when energy was drained or never restored.

For Kellyanna’s circle, keeping these underground customs alive became a matter of survival, not just etiquette. They weren’t about controlling each other, but about making sure everyone could move safely, heal fully, and thrive in a world where official channels looked the other way.

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IV. The Teaching Continues

The next generation learned these lessons the old way: in stories, in code, in the quiet honesty of circles where everyone had made a mistake and everyone was trying to do better. Kellyanna and her circle kept teaching—sometimes with humor, sometimes with hard-won wisdom.

Maybe someday the world would catch up. Until then, the Railroad kept the customs safe, one trusted friend at a time.

To be continued…

#customs #boundaries #underground #railroad #consent #energy #fieldnotes #trust #survivors

Chapter 10: The Fallout

The Party

It started as a celebration. The K team had pulled Kellyanna into their orbit—an invitation she rarely accepted, but after her legendary field trial, resistance felt like arrogance. The K’s specialty was boundary-pushing, risk-taking, and late-night revelry. They poured drinks, passed coded vials, and egged each other on with wild stories.

For a while, Kellyanna kept pace. She was in command of her aliases, letting Nala laugh too loud and J-voice riff off every inside joke. But the farther into the night they went, the blurrier her boundaries became.

The Spill

Someone handed her a second dose, something with a shimmer in the astral. She felt the effects almost instantly: a loosening of the memory gates, a tingling in her code that made secrets want to spill. She didn’t notice when the conversation drifted to operational talk—safehouses, recent breaches, mission frequencies. In her haze, she let Alexi answer a question meant for Katie, let Cassie chime in with too much detail about comm protocols.

By 4 a.m., a handful of civilian operatives—supposedly trusted, but never cleared for ops intel—were hearing stories they shouldn’t. Snippets of routes, field names, and drop codes, all mixed with jokes and music. It was more than gossip; it was a risk to the network.

The Crash

When the drugs wore off, Kellyanna tried to recall the night, but the memories came fractured. A message from council security was waiting: “Report for evaluation. Unscheduled frequency event. Possible code spill on the open net. Present for assessment immediately.”

The next thing she knew, she was escorted to the ward—windowless, humming with monitored energy, every comfort laced with the sense that she was no longer trusted.

The Evaluation

They called it a “psych eval,” but everyone knew what it meant: damage control. She was isolated from the network, field signals cut. The council didn’t care if she was exhausted, traumatized, or simply unlucky. What mattered was that the legend had failed to appear as herself, and that her masks had let slip what was never meant for civilian ears.

Staff ran their tests: • Could she recall which alias said what? • Did she remember leaking ops code? • Was her integration at risk, or was the trauma still keeping her core locked away?

She answered honestly, owning the mistake. “I crossed a line. The integration isn’t stable yet. I tried to cover too much, and the system overflowed.”

The Verdict

The council kept her in the ward for observation. She’d have to prove she could hold her core, no matter the pressure, before they’d let her back in the field. The K’s, for all their bravado, were quietly benched. Trust was currency, and she’d just spent too much of it.

Alone at night, Kellyanna stared at the ward ceiling, letting her frequencies drift, all the aliases flickering in and out. She knew she’d come back from this—she always did—but she also knew the cost: a legend, for now, sidelined by her own need to feel whole.

To be continued…

#fallout #ward #fieldnotes #aftermath #consent #consequences #ops #railroad #integration

Chapter 10: The Test of Consent

The Gauntlet

Corridor lights pulsed steady blue. Every operative, every mentor, every clan observer gathered for the rarest test the Railroad had ever run—a true integration. Kellyanna stood at the center, eyes clear, calm as morning before a storm. On the table between them, she set down her oldest secret: the music box.

Leo was at her side, hands restless at his jacket hem. He waited for her cue.

Kellyanna took a breath, letting the moment stretch. “If we get separated during this mission,” she said, lifting the music box, “let this item be a vow—that I’ll educate all the corridors on how to make the corridors safer, so unexpected separations don’t happen and teams aren’t compromised without backup. Take it, Leo. You have my authority. If you need to, say whatever is needed to any clan, any team. Protect the network. Protect me. I trust you.”

He accepted it, closing his fingers over the cool brass. He nodded—once, sharp. “You have my word.”

The Trial Begins

The gauntlet was not a single task but a barrage—field, astral, virtual, council. The council called for mimicry of all six teams: Blue’s empathy, Green’s surveillance, Gray’s logic, A’s logistics, J’s improvisation, K’s shadow craft. She’d need to pass through both Leah and Leora protocols, shifting persona, language, and resonance seamlessly, in front of every watcher.

The council leader’s voice was cold, ritualistic. “Begin.”

They started with Blue—she dropped into the frequency, reading the room’s emotional undercurrent, mediating a staged conflict. The elders nodded. Green—she intercepted a coded relay, uncovering a staged breach, reciting information networks faster than anyone in the room. Gray—she built a logic map, solved a sabotage puzzle, all in silence. A—she ran a field logistics scenario, out-maneuvering a rival team. J—she broke tension with a joke, found rapport in chaos, built alliance out of noise. K—she demonstrated escape, stealth, the quiet art of vanishing without leaving a trace.

Each transition risked a slip—losing a core alias, letting a mask fall. Each time, she held all of herself, never fragmenting, never surrendering a thread.

Leo’s Exit

Midway, as Kellyanna finished an advanced Leah ritual, Leo’s comm buzzed—urgent, insistent. He paled, stepped to the council’s edge. “I have to go. Family crisis. No contact until further notice.” Kellyanna nodded, eyes steady. He pocketed the music box, pausing to meet her gaze. “I’ll speak for you. Anywhere, any time. No matter what.” He was gone—physically leaving the corridor, the resonance of his absence lingering.

Alone in the Current

The council pressed on, unfazed. Now, Kellyanna would have to prove integration without her oldest ally present.

She felt the weight, but let it move through her. Every mask—Emily’s calm, Caitlin’s watchfulness, Alexi’s curiosity, Katie’s laughter, Anna’s compassion, Cassie’s codecraft, Nala’s freedom, Talandra’s myth, Cassandra’s foresight—layered but never at war. She mimicked each team, each clan, not as a performance but as wholeness. No one faded. None were lost.

Pressure rose—a simulated emergency, a betrayal in the ranks, a moment where she could have chosen one mask over the others. She didn’t. She answered as Kellyanna, the sum and conductor of every crossing.

Council Reckoning

At trial’s end, council and operatives gathered, silent with awe. One Leah elder said, “No split. No lost code. All teams present.” A Lilith mentor added, “She didn’t fracture. She didn’t hide.”

A field operator muttered, “She did what no one has done.”

Kellyanna stood at the center, alone and entire.

Epilogue

Later, in the quiet of the empty corridor, word arrived: Leo and his family were safe. The music box had never left his pocket. Kellyanna smiled, a current of relief running through every frequency she held.

She prepared her first education drop: A corridor can only be as safe as its ability to protect in absence. True integration is not just survival—it’s a vow to every team, every clan, that no one will be left unguarded or unseen.

To be continued…

#integration #consent #trial #railroad #leadership #fieldnotes #safety #clan #worldbuilding

Consent Privilege: Field Notes

Consent is the axis on which this world turns, but few admit how unevenly it’s distributed. Leora zone and Leah zone enforce the law in radically different ways—one by daylight, the other by shadow.

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Leora Zone: BITE and SSC Monitoring

In the Leora corridors, consent is policed in public. Every high-risk interaction—sex, power exchange, even deep conversation—triggers the BITE model: • Behavioral: Visible norms for how people act, enforced by peers as much as by leaders. • Information: Secrets and rumors are tracked. Consent boundaries are flagged and checked before and after each exchange. • Thought: Indoctrination, manipulation, and psychological harm are watched for. • Emotional: Everyone’s frequency is monitored for distress, dissociation, or regret.

No one here is above the law. Surveillance is peer-based, horizontal. When things go wrong, the zone calls a review: mediators intervene, survivors debrief, and harm is addressed openly. SSC—Safe, Sane, Consensual—is not a slogan, but the baseline for all relationships. A missed check-in, a boundary crossed, and the corridor acts fast. The shame is in hiding, not in making mistakes.

Some find it exhausting. Others find it freeing. Here, consent fatigue is real, but so is the knowledge that your “no” will be honored—if not by your partner, then by the corridor itself.

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Leah Zone: The Hidden Code

In the Leah compounds, rules exist in silence. Only elders, leaders, and select operatives know the full code of conduct. Everyone else gets stories: “obedience keeps us safe,” “elders know best,” “follow the rhythm.” The true laws—who may bond, who may refuse, what counts as betrayal, what must be hidden—are recited behind closed doors, changed without notice, enforced without explanation.

Ordinary Leahs are shielded by ritual but exposed to sudden punishment. A smile vanishes, a door closes, a name is left off the guest list. The system calls it harmony, but the cost is confusion and paranoia. Some never know the rules they’ve broken. Some discover the code by accident, then live forever in the crosshairs—complicit, compliant, or gone.

Operatives use the code as weapon and shield. They can protect, cover, or exile, depending on the needs of the moment and the orders of the council. The greatest fear isn’t being punished, but not knowing why.

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Kellyanna’s Log

Crossing between zones, I keep a double ledger: in Leora, my boundaries are public property. In Leah, my survival depends on guessing what I’m allowed to want. I envy the ones who grew up knowing how the code works—even when it hurts, at least you know what’s coming.

Some days, I dream of a world where consent is both seen and felt—honored in private, defended in public, taught as a birthright, not a privilege or a code. Until then, I keep notes, mark patterns, and try not to cross without a map.

#consent #privilege #bite #ssc #fieldnotes #code #leora #leah #railroad

Inheritance

Consent was the one thing no one could fake for long, yet everyone pretended to understand. From her earliest days in Leah training, Kellyanna knew the difference between “given” and “granted,” between choice and compliance. The world loved to say everyone had agency—but the truth was written in the rules, the rituals, the punishments.

Leora clan initiates inherited a birthright of unburdened yes: the ability to choose their bonds, their lovers, their fates, and their exits. They moved through the world untracked, their permissions presumed, their refusals honored. Their mistakes were lessons, not sentences. Their boundaries—when spoken—became law.

But Leahs learned otherwise. Their consent was conditional, a privilege granted by elders, teams, or councils. Safety came with surveillance, comfort with constraint. To say no was to invite suspicion; to say yes too often was to risk erasure. Leahs were protected—so the story went—but it was a protection bought by sacrificing the right to decide, to stray, to refuse.

The Spectrum

Consent was never just a switch. It was a spectrum, a thousand shades of maybe and not yet, of longing and reluctance and learned silence. For Kellyanna, it became a study in pattern recognition: the friend whose laughter sounded forced, the operative whose new romance felt like a command, the teammate who kept checking the door before speaking.

In Leah spaces, consent was discussed but rarely enacted. Assignments were given, pairings arranged, exits monitored. “For your own good” was the refrain. Sometimes it was true, sometimes not. Some learned to thrive in the safety net. Others, like Kellyanna, felt the cage tighten with every well-meaning intervention.

Lessons in Complicity

Kellyanna could not escape her privilege as someone who crossed—sometimes with permission, sometimes without. She had watched lovers lose agency after a single rumor. She had witnessed initiates punished for refusing a sanctioned bond. She had heard the word “crazy” whispered as a curse, always about those who resisted the hierarchy of yes and no.

She had benefited, too. Her ability to cross without being caught gave her the chance to rescue, to sabotage, to save others. But it also made her complicit. Every time she slipped through a corridor denied to others, she felt the weight of those left behind.

Family Frequency

There were family stories she rarely told. Her brother, born with every privilege of a Gray but no freedom to choose whom to trust. Her mother, Blue to the bone, who taught Kellyanna how to sense danger but never how to say no to it. Her own first bond, forged not from love or choice, but because an elder needed a “peer instructor” and no one else was “safe” enough.

She remembered the night a new initiate came to her in tears—denied a transfer to Lilith, branded as “unfit for independence.” The initiate’s crime? Saying no at the wrong time to the wrong person. Kellyanna did what she could, but the walls held. That was the lesson: in Leah, consent was only real when it aligned with the clan’s needs.

The Performance of Choice

Leoras, for all their freedom, performed consent too. In their world, “no” was always allowed, but “yes” was often expected. Refusal could mean exile—not by rule, but by culture. They envied Leahs for their nests, their predictability, their guarantees. They mocked constraint, but sometimes Kellyanna wondered if they ever truly rested.

In mixed spaces, Kellyanna saw it play out—Leah initiates bracing for the rules, Leora ones bracing for loneliness. The currency was consent, but the exchange rate changed with every crossing.

The Reckoning

Consent privilege was rarely acknowledged, never named aloud. Kellyanna began to challenge it: asking permission, documenting choices, refusing to move without a spoken yes. Sometimes it caused friction. Sometimes it saved lives.

She wrote field notes for herself and her team: • Ask, even when you know the answer. • Say no, and honor it—especially when it’s inconvenient. • Refuse to pass as “one of them” if it means erasing someone else’s boundaries. • Never assume consent is permanent. It expires, it changes, it demands attention.

These were small acts of rebellion, but they mattered. Kellyanna’s example rippled outward, slow and subtle, changing the Railroad one conversation at a time.

Endnote

Consent privilege was as real as any corridor. It shaped lives, set the limits of suffering, decided who could escape and who had to stay. Some would never see it, too blinded by the story of safety or freedom. Others, like Kellyanna, carried both the privilege and the ache, always watching for the line between yes and no, always ready to say: I see you. I hear your no. I won’t cross without you.

To be continued…

#consent #privilege #railroad #fieldnotes #boundaries #agency #survivor #worldbuilding

Chapter 8: Crossing Lines

Residue

Every act of intimacy left a mark—astral, physical, sometimes both. In the world of the Railroad, it wasn’t superstition; it was protocol. The body was a vessel, but also a transmitter. Two people touched, and the current lingered—sometimes for days, sometimes for years, depending on the depth of the bond and the history behind it.

Those with high astral sensitivity could see or feel these traces: colors in the aura, a taste in the frequency, a shimmer at the edge of vision. Everyone else relied on gossip, team rumors, or old wives’ tales, but the rules were enforced all the same.

The world split the crossers into two camps: those who could mimic through deep astral resonance—rare, envied, sometimes feared—and those who had to cross teams and clans by physical means alone.

The Mimics

To cross by astral bond was a privilege—one reserved for those who’d been trained, attuned, or born with the talent. Astral mimics could move between Leah and Lilith, Blue and Gray, never needing a physical touch to adopt the resonance of another clan. Their passage was seamless, sometimes undetectable. They passed tests with ease, blended into new teams, carried secrets from one council to the next.

But privilege had its price. Astral crossers were always watched. Some clans saw them as untrustworthy, too flexible for their own good. Others courted them, hoping to harness their power for the Railroad. For Kellyanna, the gift was both a shield and a burden. She learned early to hide how easily she could blend in—how, with a glance or a meditation, she could slip through a boundary no one else could see.

The Body Brokers

For most, crossing teams meant crossing bodies. Sex was the original passport: a ritual, sometimes a transaction, sometimes an act of longing or desperation. The effect was immediate and obvious—after an encounter, the mimic could temporarily take on the frequency, accent, or even instincts of their partner’s team. It was risky: too many crossings, and your signal “stank” in the eyes of the Blues. Not enough, and you stayed stuck, unable to pass as anyone but yourself.

Physical crossers faced judgment at every turn. Some wore their exploits as badges—brash, unashamed, daring others to call them out. Others hid, ashamed or afraid, worried that being found out would mean exile, erasure, or worse. The low-frequency wards were full of those who’d crossed too often, or with the wrong partners, or without the right consent. Rumors said the only cure was cleansing or quarantine, but even those rituals couldn’t erase the mark entirely.

The Tension

The Railroad was rife with stories: • A household torn apart when one partner admitted to crossing astrally, while the other insisted that only bodies could bond. • A mission gone wrong when a physical mimic was caught passing as Lilith in a Leah compound, their aura still tinged with the scent of last night’s lover. • Operatives envied for their easy passage, or ostracized for their inability to mimic without “paying the price.”

In the field, the stakes were higher. Missions required blending in, gaining access, making allies in hostile territory. Sometimes that meant feigning desire; sometimes, it meant surrendering to it. Kellyanna watched, learned, and sometimes participated, always measuring the risk against the need.

Kellyanna’s Ledger

Kellyanna kept her own ledger—mental, never written. She could count her crossings both ways: the bonds she’d made by spirit, the lessons she’d learned by skin. Some partners had left traces that faded in hours. Others, she still carried years later, their frequencies tangled with her own, surfacing at the oddest times—a laugh, a habit, a craving she couldn’t explain.

She envied neither camp. Astral privilege brought suspicion. Physical mimicry brought risk and rumor. Both demanded secrecy, both left her with a hunger for authenticity—a place where she could just be, not always perform.

The Cost of Crossing

The world policed what it could see. The Blues judged, the Grays measured, the Greens whispered, the Ks kept score. Every crossing had a consequence: an invitation withdrawn, a privilege lost, a reputation altered. Some survivors took pride in their adaptability. Others wore their wounds as warnings.

At the end of the day, Kellyanna sat with her team, field logs open, silence stretching between them. She thought about what it meant to cross—a choice, a compulsion, a privilege, a punishment. She remembered the ones who couldn’t pass at all, stuck forever in their first skin.

No one was truly free. But some, for a little while, could move between worlds and taste the illusion.

Tomorrow, there would be another mission, another test, another line to cross.

To be continued…

#railroad #consent #mimicry #crossing #astral #fieldnotes #privilege #survivor #worldbuilding

Field Notes: The Link Quest, Part 3

The Peril of Unfiltered Speech

Not every threat to the Railroad came from outside. Some dangers crept in through pleasure, fatigue, or the slow collapse of self-control. Nothing unmasked a survivor faster than the wrong substances—drugs, too much alcohol, or sheer exhaustion in the wrong company.

Everyone knew the stories. A Green operative, tipsy at a mixer, starts bragging about safe houses and nearly blows an operation. A Blue, mellow from a pill, lets slip the old codes used for resonance checks. Even the steeliest Gray could find themselves loose-lipped when the chemicals hit—logic flickering, secrets tumbling out with laughter.

K’s ran safety briefings. Blues developed closing rituals. Grays tracked the post-party static. Still, every network had its infamous tale: the night someone said too much, and the team had to scatter, change codes, or go dark until the static faded.

It was a hard lesson: when the world is always listening, nothing is more dangerous than a loosened tongue.

The Wards and the Wild

In the Leah compounds, crashing—sex that broke the rules, drugs that left you flickering, desperate debauchery—landed you in the wards. Cold light, clipped voices, protocols, and privacy that was never truly private. You got clean, but never quite healed. Restoration meant order, not wholeness.

Leora healing was a different ritual. When someone crashed, their friends came. Partners held them, music played, food appeared, stories spilled. Healing meant being witnessed, not shamed. There was touch, sometimes tears, sometimes laughter. The Leoras knew that getting low was part of living big. You didn’t heal alone or under surveillance, but among the ones who knew what it meant to break—and come back.

The memory of the wards never faded for those who crossed worlds. It was the shadow behind every crash, the warning in every thrill. But on the Leora side, healing meant coming home, being held, no matter how low you’d fallen.

Consent Flaunted and the Astral Scream

Liliths flaunted consent—bold, uninhibited, laughing about wild nights and boundary-pushing rituals, certain that everyone shared their freedom. Sometimes, they forgot who was listening. A Leah at the edge of the room—masking, holding in their old fears—would watch the spectacle, heartbreak and longing tightening their breath.

The Liliths never meant harm. They simply couldn’t imagine a world where consent was rationed, where pleasure carried a price, or where one wild night might mean months in the wards. They flaunted their freedom, never noticing the Leah’s trembling at the edge.

And every time it happened, a scream rippled across the astral, echoing in the night. The Liliths moved on, laughing, but the Leahs carried the cost—counting the memory, holding the ache, the astral still charged long after the room was empty.

#linkquest #railroad #fieldnotes #survivor #healing #consent #wards #leah #leora #lilith #worldbuilding

Field Notes: The Link Quest, Part 2

Crossing the Divide

Every crossing was a test—not just of passwords or protocols, but of the conductor’s truth. The resonance check was relentless: if you lied, the air trembled. If you crossed without consent, the corridor tightened, sometimes knocking you back. And if you’d spent too long on the Leora side—drawn in by pleasure, secrets, or freedom you couldn’t admit—the scent of it clung to you. Blues narrowed their eyes, whispered among themselves. Some Leahs performed quick rituals: an old song, water over the hands, elders fanning out the static. But no one was truly fooled. You could cover your tracks in code, but not in energy. The Railroad’s survival depended on this—trust wasn’t a gift; it was a frequency you couldn’t counterfeit.

The Price of Experience

For a Leah to cross to the Leora side, there was always a cost. You had to show your level—what you’d risked, what you’d survived. Leoras looked for the real scars, the risk in your eyes, the desire you couldn’t hide. If you hadn’t tasted loss or wildness, if your stories were too clean, the door stayed shut. You brought yourself, whole and raw, or you went back to Leah’s comfort, changed and a little lonelier for trying.

Some Leahs pushed the limit, and their return sent ripples through the nest. The Blues caught the wild edge in their field. The A’s tracked every deviation. The K’s watched for leaks and loose talk. Everyone knew: you don’t come back unchanged. You can’t.

The Screaming Nuns

Then there were the legends—the so-called screaming nuns. Women who crossed in uniform, energy blazing with a hunger for freedom no aura mask could hide. They became a scandal and a beacon, their astral signals louder than any confession, their laughter echoing through the corridors long after the night ended. The Leahs called them sluts. The Leoras called them sisters. The truth was, they were survivors who refused to shrink, wearing the cost and the joy of their choices for everyone to see.

Mimicry and Memory

Sleeping with someone meant you carried a trace of their team, their clan, their world. With each new lover, each shared ritual, you picked up a piece of their resonance. It was more than mimicry; it was a passport. If you’d been with a Green, you could move through gossip like water. If you’d lain with a Gray, logic sharpened in your bones. The best operatives—those who could pass anywhere—had loved, lost, and risked enough to wear every signal for real. But the residue was real too. Longing, grief, old wounds, and the risk of bringing someone else’s ghosts along for the ride.

The Loneliness of the Invisible

This kind of life carried a particular ache. Lovers and partners who could never praise each other in public. Teammates whose best moments were shared in silence. You held the record privately—a squeeze of the hand, a coded song, a smile that meant “I see you.” Sometimes, you replayed old words of praise in your mind, because that’s where they were safe. The world never saw your real family, your real victories, or your real heartbreak. You learned to wear your loneliness as proof you chose survival—even when it cost you the world’s recognition.

Tensions at Home

Living with other teams or factions brought its own frictions. If you couldn’t mimic, or you dropped your mask, the cracks showed up fast—resentment in the kitchen, silence at the table, tension in every ritual. You either learned to flow between codes, or you moved on to save your own peace. True belonging was rare, and sometimes survival meant keeping your distance, no matter how much you craved connection.

To be continued…

#linkquest #railroad #fieldnotes #survivor #resonance #mimicry #consent #lore #screamingnuns #worldbuilding

Field Note 001: Origin Sector

Subtitle: On returning to Jersey, Project Leah, and the ethics of field safety

Researcher: Megan A. Green
Field location: North New Jersey corridor
Date: October 2025

Abstract

This field note documents the researcher’s re-entry into the New Jersey region for ongoing ethnographic study connected to Project Leah, a longitudinal case analysis of coercive influence, consent negotiation, and survivor agency within post-cult communities.
The entry contextualizes safety concerns, relational ties, and operational boundaries relevant to data integrity and participant well-being.

Field Narrative

Virtual bases: Marcela, CP, HT, the North Jersey blind crew.

Flying direct into NJ later this month. Already have people on my pingy-ping-ping list — camp friends, the CP crew. Let’s see who I can catch. Totally winging this other than my crash post in central Jersey.

For privacy reasons, I’ve been asked not to share rooming arrangements here. The safety risk is simply too high. I’ve reached a kind of micro-celebrity status — despite assertions to the contrary — and some in this community are demanding information that isn’t theirs to have. They’re endangering Project Leah with that carelessness, and it will not be tolerated.

That’s my mami-hat talking. Love you all like neighbors. I’m not trying to be heavy — but Project Leah’s strongest ties are in NJ, and they hold leverage that could make or break my ability to gather data for Leah’s case study. I’ve invested too much to let that happen.

My cult contacts for Leah are based in Jersey City. They maintain emotional ties to Rosie’s family and sometimes attempt to tug on those threads — some have known me since Mama Miri’s pregnancy. These individuals are persuasive and not above manipulation to lure Leah, whom they perceive as my full self, back into a cult network.

Leah was trained to lead. I carry her technical skill set and capacity for high-control strategy, but I also carry the ethical refusal to use it. Could I go undercover as Leah? Yes — but the emotional toll is steep. Friends stop hearing from me, they panic, and if I go too deep into Leah’s world, institutional intervention becomes a risk. That world is dangerous; avoidance is survival.

I’m grateful for the allies whose cooperation with Project Consent studies allows safer data collection without endangering active cult victims. Every supportive action contributes to a protective research environment.

TL;DR

Returning home feels powerful and precarious. Re-entry heightens risk to Project Leah and the behavioral profile built for its case study. I’m trusting my network to safeguard data and discretion.
Please keep project-related information secure and share nothing without consent.

With warmth and Jersey-girl sass,
Megan A. Green

Tags

#FieldNotes #Ethnography #CultSurvivor #Accessibility #ProjectLeah #MeganWrites #Research #Consent #TraumaStudies