It was then that I realised that he didn't want me to succeed. That it wasn't about me being good. I don't know how it took me so long, but that was the moment that I understood -- there was no way to satisfy him, and there never would be. I would never be good enough.

That was the moment when I stopped craving his approval. I finally saw him for what he was. Not better than me, not more deserving. Just petty, and cruel.

And in that moment, all of my shame and my guilt evaporated, like desert dew under the blaze of the rising sun. And all that I felt was anger, as bright and hot as a forge-flame, transforming me into something sharp and new.

Sorry, no idea. That's all there is.

questions for conditioned characters

A) do they know what conditioning is? B) do they understand that they've been conditioned? C) how does this understanding, or lack thereof, affect their perception of themselves?

Spider understands pretty clearly. She understood the purpose of her training, she went along with it in the understanding that it was the easiest path, and she later observes the resulting effects in herself with a degree of almost academic interest.

Sometimes it's intensely frustrating, other times it's just a fact of life. To start with, before her escape, she views a lot of it with almost pride. Look how well she learned. Once she's free, she works very hard on erasing the visible tells. It's a struggle.

---

Chewtoy!Ariadne has a very limited understanding of conditioning. She knows you beat prisoners for behaviour you don't like, and you do it until they stop. Or die. And you can reward behaviour you do like but honestly how often does that happen.

She knows Riven "teaches" her the same way. She's aware of some of the most obvious things. Like how much she has learned to fear him. And her aversion to touch. And how afraid she is of disobeying. Most of the details she doesn't really grasp, or hasn't thought about. Like how strongly she's been taught to never explain herself or argue in her own favour.

She thinks she is pathetic for her compliance. And broken in some fundamental way. Everything he's taught her is both a mark of his ownership of her and a sign of weakness.

She has no grasp of what is going on once she's free and supposedly safe and all the conditioned and trauma responses don't just go away.

incredibly whumpy conversation w shavit of @floral-comet-whump

ft. walenty of thales, boundary pushing w/ delta, imperial sadism >:)

not quite RP, just discussing au ideas

(content: dehumanization, cutting, living weapon whumpee, mention of minor whump (child emperor walenty))

Picked "believes they're a terrible person" because I'm a sucker for "actually is a terrible person and is going through the process of realising it".

(Kinda shitty but not that terrible person also works.)

Not really into characters who falsely believe they're terrible and deserve it.

Although I am into characters with such bizarrely distorted views that they think it is just normal and reasonable, even if they didn't do anything to deserve it.

Knowing they're good and don't deserve it is also very good.

I'm into kink and whump (much more into whump haha, I'm barely kinky), but the Venn diagram only has a moderate overlap.

(I may have written something along these lines before, enh, not sure.)

For me it's like... Kinky but not whumpy - consensual nonconsent, consensual play in general, most fetish wear Kinky and whumpy - some fetish wear (collars), kneeling, power exchange, limited amounts of pain/humiliation, (some) fictional noncon/dubcon Whumpy but not kinky - any serious injury, anything illness related, actual fear of death, trauma and mental illness, all of the grim realistic details

Obviously the boundaries are fuzzy. And you can make anything whumpy if the victim is sufficiently upset by it, etc. But they're broadly two separate but overlapping interests for me.

There is an aspect of the thrill that is shared between the two, that is mostly generated by the things that fall into the "both" category. It's not an inherently sexual thing for me.

Kinky for me I think is when that specific feeling happens in conjunction with sexy feelings. Whump sometimes involves that specific thrill, but not always. Stuff that's really more at the horror end of whump feels pretty different.

Some NSFW whump walks the line, but a lot of it falls firmly into the whumpy-but-not-kinky category for me. It's about the horror and helplessness of it, not about being sexy.

His Hands

Professional//Victim Masterlist

With his hands incapacitated, Tommy has to rely entirely on Caius to get through his bedtime routine.

A flashback to a pivotal moment in Tommy's decline.

CW: Noncon touching and intimacy, humiliation, spanking, drowning, self hatred, food denial, and uhhh. Abusive teachers?

~

Tommy sobbed, clutching his hands to his chest. 

“No more, no more,” he begged, but the client - Miss Mietta- waved off his pleas with a stern look. 

“What did I tell you about moving your hands back? Good boys keep them on the desk, Tommy, don’t you want to be a good boy?”

That pneumonia hit me pretty hard, but I am on the mend now. And I have, indeed, been taking notes 😉

Cmmon symptoms, treatment, etc can be found online from health organizations that actually know what they're talking about, so these are just going to be a few little things from my personal experience.

Feel free to use as inspiration in anything whump-related. Enjoy!

CW: irl illness and a bit of medical stuff

writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

other things I'm bitching about but which could still be useful as writing advice for 1 eyed characters:

2. they're going to favor their sighted side, obviously, but it doesn't always manifest in the way you think. when I walk down a hall I walk much closer to the wall on my sighted side than on my blind side. which is the opposite of how it might seem logical to do that bc it means the world at large is on your bad side, but the reason is I can't fucking See the wall if it's right next to me in the blind side and I end up knocking into it.

3. door frames and poles are my enemy. If your character is smart this will not be a problem but for me it is. I am King of walking into shit I could absolutely see but couldn't tell how far away from me it was. on this note, their blind side hand is getting bashed into every jutting out thing in a 5 mile radius.

4. having 0 depth perception is less of a big deal than you'd think it is. Especially with driving. I've become a Much safer and more wary driver because I can't tell how far the other cars are from me. however I fucking suck at parking now. because I can't tell how far the lines are from me either.

5. you know how people who lose limbs get phantom pains? that happens with eyes too but like. phantom sights. for me it's like. a lot of bugs. like every so often my brain will just put something suddenly skittering beside me there. hate that.

6. it is completely possible to "get stuck" somewhere because your ability to tell how wide a space is is just Gone. shopping isles especially where bumping something or Someone is matter of embarrassment or potentially breaking something. it can be legitimately paralyzing and also irritate everyone around you because they can tell there is Plenty of space for you to get your cart through even if you can't.

7. if the eye is still in their skull it can still be the normal kind of painful. Glares off of shiny surfaces causing weird sharp pains you can't figure out the cause of are genuinely one of gods greatest tests of my patience.

The point of fiction is actually to put that guy in a situation™️, and he might try to tell you the point is to then get him out of the situation, WRONG, second situation

One of my writing teachers in community college told me that the first step of writing fiction was to run a character up a tree, and the second step was to throw rocks at him. Words to live by

Better

masterlist

content: lady whump, whumper turned whumpee, prison setting, past trauma, emotional whump, conditioned whumpee

Several days after the visit from Vivienne, Rosalynn was still shaken up. She’d tried so hard to rebuild her life, to not let those three terrifying days define her and consume her every waking moment. All for what? All for Vivienne to just turn up at her door a year later?

She had been sentenced to thirty-two years. Rosa had hoped she would get life in prison, but thirty-two was still a pretty good number, a number she’d made peace with.

So why? Why was Vivienne at her fucking house a year later?