suffering feels religious if you do it right

Oh I love royal whump!!! There's so many possibilities for it!

Poison the royal! assassin attempt that drives them sick with fever. Have them laying in bed for weeks on end, twisting in their sweats with hot and cold flushes

Let them loose the war, taken as spoil by the victor. Fall from the grace of luxury to a slave. treated like precious gems one moment and then nothing more than cattle, stock, the next. the captors might not even care who they were, they're nothing now

alamort (adj) : half- dead of exhaustion

CW: Blood, trauma response, memory loss/traumatic memory recovery, callous talk of murder, nonsexual nudity, pet whump references, guilt, referenced stabbing

Jake Gets Fucking Stabbed: One Two Three Four Five

The water went cold a while ago, but Antoni hasn’t moved. The chill of the porcelain along his lower back soothes the itching, aching burn scars underneath, the icy blast of the shower raining down on his locks his muscles into a constant teeth-chattering shiver, but it feels good.

It feels so good

It feels like what he deserves.

Just as I had shown with the 3 love posts for this series, there are a ton of ways that trauma can be shown through character behaviors or even speech patterns. Different people react differently when it comes to trauma, and you should also keep in mind what kind of trauma the character had gone through and what they were like before it occurred before deciding how they would be like now.

In the following post, I will be giving some different responses to trauma that your characters could display.

I. The “IDGAF Anymore” Trauma Response

Perhaps one of the most used responses to trauma that you see in characters in media is the character that blocks off their emotional responses to anything thereafter. They may fall in love with someone but they’ll never admit it because they don’t wish to be hurt. They may find a new family to love them but they shut themselves off from expressing said love because they are afraid of being hurt again.

Essentially what this response boils down to is a fear of being hurt again. Most people that shut down emotionally have been abandoned or abused or betrayed by someone they once trusted in some way; sometimes the thing that makes them feel betrayed isn’t even the other person’s fault such as an older sibling moving out of the house and away from their family once they get older or the death of a loved one.

II. The “Anger Issues” Response

I have known 2 people personally really well that have had this response to trauma. This response is where a person is so emotionally shut down (much like the last response spoken about) that they won’t allow themselves to show any emotion other than anger.

I once had a therapist tell me “usually when a person is angry, there is another emotion behind the anger, whether it is fear or depression or otherwise.” So the first question you should ask yourself when making a character with the rage response is… why are they angry? What emotion is being masked by the explosion of their anger? What are they trying to hide from? What traumatic experience is making them feel this way and how do they really feel about said experience? Depending on your answers and the kind of character you’re writing about, the angry outbursts can be different.

Some people will yell, some will get violent, some will punch holes in walls and doors and furniture… some will scream into a pillow… some will storm away in the middle of a conversation or hang up the phone if someone says just the wrong thing. Really think about what your character is like, how they respond to tense situations, before you lean into their anger response because some anger responses do not fit certain personality types.

III. The “Sensitive One” Response

Some people, when dealing with tense situations, become intensely emotional. They may cry easily when someone just looks at them cross-eyed. They might go quiet when they’re anxious. They might get really defensive at the smallest things. The Sensitive One can be shown in many, many ways, as there are lots of different types of sensitivity, so really consider your character and what they’ve been through before you decide which type of sensitive person they are.

IV. The “Unmasked Hero” Response

Not all heroes wear capes… that’s the saying, right? These people are the activists. These are the people that will talk to anyone for hours and hours just to talk them down. These are the people you always hear saying “I never want people to feel the way I felt when I went through this.” These are the people that become therapists to help others going through their issues. The Unmasked Heroes live their lives to make it so that no one has to experience the pain that they felt, if they can help it.

V. The “Rebel” Response

I do what I want. That’s the theme song of the Rebel. They lash out, usually acting like the victim no matter what happens (sometimes they really are, but sometimes they aren’t). Trauma can completely rewire a person’s brain, but with the Rebel, they often felt repressed before or like they were unable to fully be themselves and when something traumatic happens, something snaps in them to trigger that “I don’t give a flying fuck” response in their brain and suddenly they’re doing anything and everything they ever wanted to do (and sometimes even didn’t want to do) just to spite the rest of the world and if you don’t like it, you can kiss their ass. This can also be shown through a runaway after something traumatic happens.

This is another very common, often used trauma response.

VI. The “Mental Breakdown” Response

As a mentally ill woman myself, I want to emphasize: not all who go through trauma get mental illnesses and not all with mental illness went through a mental break. That being said, it is very common for an extremely traumatic experience (or life, in some cases) to give someone a mental illness. Or rather, to bring it out of them. There are illnesses like Bipolar, PTSD and more that come to the surface after an extreme mental break, PTSD being the more famous for this very situation.

What is important here is that there is no one situation that will cause a mental break. Depending on the person, it can be something that would be nothing to one person but would completely break another down while a third person might be going through 5 things all at once and seem to be handling it well. There are so many different illnesses out there, and a lot of them are very similar, so what I think is most important is that you do your research before you write an illness you have not personally seen or experienced. If you know someone with an illness you want to write about, ask them if you can run some idea by them and make sure it isn’t stigmatizing the illness, as mental illness gets stigmatized left and right in media.

VII. The “Class Clown” Response

Another common thing that is shown in media - and I’ve noticed is very common in real life - is the depressed clown. There are so many people that listen to society telling them it isn’t okay to not be okay, so they laugh and clown around to make others laugh and just like a lot of people need others’ compliments to feel validated, these people often need laughter to feel validated.

Some people that become the Clown type will deflect their sadness by making dumb jokes. Maybe, if you write about your character texting or on social media, you can show them in a downward spiral and just get on their social media page to post a dumb pun to negate the negativity. Or make a joke at their own expense, which is also common. A lot of people will make others feel bad for not being able to laugh at themselves, and these people are [often] great at doing exactly that, even if they end up in tears later on when they’re by themselves.

VIII. The “Angsty Artist” Response

As I’m sure a lot of you are aware, a lot of artists have a lot of emotions they are processing and a lot of them will use their art (whether it be visual or writing or otherwise) in order to process it.

You may have a teenager writing angsty fanfiction or poetry. You may have a young adult opening their first blog where they write about their life beginning adulthood. You may have a person that is drawing dark, gory artwork. Whatever it may be, the art can either directly reflect the way they feel, such as the dark artwork, or they may do the opposite and write about their personal idea of a utopia and use art to escape. Either way, the art is a means to process and understand themselves better and/or escape from reality for however long they do it.

The only good and bad thing about using this response is that a lot of people that use art end up getting lost in it. They end up becoming obsessed and never cease to work on the art or think about the art and may become consumed by their own processing creativity.

IX. The “Addiction” Response

Addiction can come in so many forms. It can be the typical drugs, cigarettes, alcohol… or it can be addiction to getting lost in a hobby (see #8: The “Angsty Artist”)… or it can be becoming a workaholic. Honestly, anything can become an addiction if you let it consume you, so keep that in mind. It could even be something such as them becoming a hoarder because they are afraid to let their past go, so they won’t let anything go.

Yes, that’s incredibly plausible and something that a lot of survivors grapple with. It’s not a universal experience but it is common.

 Things like sleep deprivation, which causes delirium and significant memory problems even outside of a torture context, feed into this a lot. So do periods of unconsciousness.

 The pattern I usually see has torturers feeding into these anxieties. They might tell a victim that they’ve already given up information for example or produce a confession that they say the victim has already signed. Torturers exploit the anxieties they expect victims to have.

 Having said that I can also think of accounts where survivors have been genuinely unsure what they said or did not say, what they did or did not do in a way that seemed completely separate from the torturers.

 I’ve also seen accounts where survivors were unsure about what happened to them at particular points because they passed out.

 Some survivors do come out incredibly sure that they did not say anything. Henri Alleg is a good example of this and his account in The Question is a pretty good one to use as a model for that kind of defiance.

 But his experience isn’t universal. A lot of torture survivors doubt themselves. A lot of them are aware that there are flaws in their memory or that they were delirious at some points. Memory problems can create a lot of anxieties.

 So yes. This is completely plausible and I think it is a good way to create drama in your story. Especially if you’re exploring this character’s mental state. Memory problems are a huge problem for survivors and while they’re relatively well studied in the scientific literature that message doesn’t seem to have filtered down to on the ground treatment.

 A lot of trauma survivors aren’t aware of how common, how normal memory problems are as a symptom. Or how they can manifest.

 And I think that creates a lot of unnecessary anxiety. They don’t know what they’re going through or how to combat it which makes life that much more difficult. The impression I get from the trauma survivors who have contacted me is that most doctors either don’t know about these memories problems or don’t communicate it to their patients.

 You might want to take a look at the masterpost on memory problems over here. You don’t have to use sleep deprivation in your story but the sort of thing you’re describing is more common in survivors who were sleep deprived. And I have a masterpost on sleep deprivation over here.

 Beyond that, this seems like a really good scenario.

 I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Screenshots from our conversation are below the cut. I’ll try to come back later and transcribe the screenshots for whump writers who use screen readers.

c.w. whumpee escaping, mentions of guns, implied future torture, mentions of death, whumpee bonded with their whumper, slight victim-blaming, emotional whump/crying, burns and scars 

——

“You have everything you need, right? You’ve got a gun?” 

Hayko didn’t know his own motives for asking. He had seen the other man cramming one into his leather jacket before they left and surely that couldn’t be the only one. He’d been careful from the start anyway, wouldn’t let something like that slip.

Santiago grunted a response. Felt down his sides where the weapon should have been and sighed when he found it taught against the pocket right where it should be

“Do…” Hayko asked, “you know how long it’ll take?” 

If Santiago left now, the trip would hardly take a day and there he would get some cover or so it was going to be. Then, he would continue down the road with whoever it would be— Hayko felt inadequate for not being told— and make off from Oklahoma. To New Mexico. It had been the goal from the start. When Santiago had told him, he had gone through the plan over and over until he could have repeated it back to him verbatim

Santiago shook his head. Cast an uncertain glance at the waiting car in front of theirs, cast another one pushing to the horizon where the sun began to dim and back to Hayko now. “How long will it take you to get back?”

Hayko scoffed low. “Does it matter?”

“I’m more worried about you than me. It’s nothing personal but—they find me? I’m gone. It’s as simple as that.” 

“He’s crying already,” Whumpee 2 snickered. Whumpee 3 was watching rather solemnly.

Whumpee crouched down in front of their former torturer who was firmly held in place by the manacles on his hands and ankles. Unlike them, he wouldn’t get away.

CW: Pet whump, dehumanization, blood, collars, noncon references, restraints, gagged, masochism, knife

(also used a prompt “are you hungry”!)

Timeline: Jameson’s time with Nanda, his first owner

---

Nanda looks like a fucking idiot today.

The pet watches him, half-preening in front of his mirror, in a blue-and-red checked button-up and puffy vest over the top with khakis, all of it crisp and new. His hair, usually a mussed-up mess, is carefully combed and parted on the side. His fucking pants are even ironed to get rid of the folding marks from the store. He’s playacting at the kind of man he tells people he is - genial and jovial, a good old boy just like them - but the pet knows better. 

You don’t buy a masochist if you’re just like everyone else.

The pet lays across Nanda’s bed, a rare luxury, the soft plush blue blanket over the top like laying on some kind of cloud. A little of his hair falls over his eyes, and downstairs he can hear the faint echo of Nanda’s dogs barking from the little side room he keeps them in, with the special door they can use to go outside into their big dog run. 

“This’ll do, I think,” Nanda murmurs, his soft custard words settling heavy on the pet’s thoughts, weighing him down with vanilla, sugar, and blood. He looks over his shoulder at the pet, half-smiling. “What do you think?”

The pet considers, rolling onto his stomach, hoping he’s left bloodstains from his back on the soft blanket. “You look fucking stupid,” He says, voice rough. His own voice feels like no one else’s, but its taste and texture is faded, more each day.

In a moment like this, it feels stronger.

CW: Nothin’. This is just Antoni and Chris fluff. Sorry so many of these ended up fluffy, I guess that’s just my mood right now!

Timeline: Chris's first year in the safehouse

Chris’s lips press together in concentration as he dig the spoon into the bowl, scraping up the mix of soft white cheese, spring onions, and dill until it’s lightly rounded on the top. He looks up, holding out the spoon. “Like, like this?”

Antoni smiles back at him, his own hands hard at work laying out the dough, four baking sheets lined with parchment already full of the rolled-out circles, waiting for the filling. “Yes, perfect, Chrisha. Now-” He gestures, stepping back. “Drop the filling into the center.” 

Chris leans over, moving so slowly and so carefully to press the filling out of the spoon until it drops down, slightly off to one side, on top of the dough. “Oh, I, I, I did it wrong.” 

He looks a little heartbroken. 

Antoni leans over quickly. “No, no, Chrisha, you are fine. Let me show you, we only change how we close it a little.” He takes Chris’s hands - long fingers, always a little cold at the ends - and shifts them, helping him to fold over the dough, creating a half-circle with pinched edges that look almost scalloped. They work together in a brief silence. “See? Just fine. It will cook just as well as any others.”

Chris nods, quickly, relieved that he hasn’t ruined it. Antoni is trusting him to help, and he is desperate to be worth trusting. 

“There. That is one. Only...” Antoni’s eyes skim over the baking trays. “Thirty four piroshki to go.”

Chris’s eyes travel over the circles of dough, and he breathes out slowly. “That’s, um, that’s... that’s a lot... of those things.”

“Piroshki are good to make for many,” Antoni says with a smile, sliding an arm around his shoulders. His skin still prickles at touch, but the new young rescue seems to need it so badly, and Antoni never has the heart to pull away. 

Chris bumps lightly against him, bouncing on his toes, before he pulls away and moves to scoop the next mound of filling from the bowl. “Where did... where, um, where... where did you learn... to, to, to... to-to make these?”

Antoni shrugs, and ignores the sense of faint unease that rises at the question. “I do not know. I just know how. Maybe it is in my blood, hm?” He smiles, but Chris isn’t looking at him this time, concentrating on the next spoonful dropping into the center of the next circle.

They fall into a rhythm - Chris adds the filling, and Antoni closes up the circles, his hands working with easy experience, memories he can’t access. Chris likes to help, to be useful, and Antoni had thought maybe giving him something his hands could do would help to quiet his always-spinning mind.

They finish, and Antoni looks at the teensy bit of filling left in the bowl with a slight smile. There was a bit of dough leftover, and he uses the filling and dough to make one half-sized piroshki, setting it to the side. “Now, we freeze them.”

“Freeze? Why, why, why aren’t we, aren’t... aren’t we, um, cooking them?”

“These are tomorrow night’s dinner.” Antoni puts a finger to his lips, leaning in close. “I will tell you a secret, Chrisha.”

Chris brightens and leans forward as well. “What?”

“Tomorrow is Nat’s birthday,” Antoni says, keeping his voice hushed. “We are not supposed to know. I will surprise her with piroshki and Jake will buy a cake.”

“What, what... what can I do?” Chris asks. His hands rub over his own stomach, at the fabric of his t-shirt, drop down to the pajama pants he’s wearing, move back up. He sways a little, side to side. He is smiling. 

“You will go with Jake, and pick her a gift. Yes?”

Chris nods quickly, and Antoni smiles as he helps to load the baking trays into the mostly-empty freezer, with the little half-circles of dough and filling lightly covered. “Do, do, do... do do I get a birthday?”

Antoni turns to look at him and blinks, moving a small saucepan onto the stove and pouring in plenty of oil, setting it to heat. “What?”

“Do we, um. Do we get, get birthdays? I don’t-... I don’t know my, my, my birthday.” Chris looks out the window over the sink, the sun shining warm outside. A bird trills a song, some kind of sparrow, in a nearby tree. 

“None of us know our birthdays,” Antoni says, gently. “But you may pick one, and we will celebrate it. Or the day you came to us.”

Chris shakes his head, quickly, pale eyebrows furrowing. “No... no, no, no. Not that day. That, that wasn’t... a, a good day. Wasn’t safe. Um. I’ll, I’ll think about-” He seems to just now notice the heating oil. “Why-... I, I thought we weren’t cooking them now?”

“I have this one.” Antoni picks up the small half-circle made of the leftover dough and cheese. “I am going to cook this one, just for you.”

He wonders how his house ever felt warm before they had Chris here to smile.

---

CW: Referenced past torture and pet whump, referenced alcohol use, brief reference to dissoci@tion

Follows on Was It Good?, takes place the next morning

Ryan wakes up with maybe the third serious hangover he's ever had to find a glass of water and a couple Tylenol on the side table next to the bed.

His hip hurts, a strange tight ache over his old tattoo, and he feels like his mouth is full of cotton and his head has been used as a bowling ball. Fuck. He never gets hangovers - it's the family blood, Dad says, with a hint of his brogue and a slight smile. Just how the Michaelsons are.

Their liquor doesn't touch us the same, Patrick had said when Ryan asked, tipping a glass to him, eyebrow raised. That's why I import the liquor my own people once made.

It had made perfect sense at the time. Now, though... what people? The Michaelsons have all left Ireland. They're all here now.

In any case, it'd been his dad's shit he'd been drinking last night, and too much of it. The world's faint queasy spin tells him that, even if last night is still a mess of nonsense impressions slowly coalescing back together.

He takes the pills and drinks the water after, ignores the uneasy twist of his stomach, and pulls on a t-shirt, soft as second skin, and wanders out in that and his boxers.

Danny is up before dawn, every day, and today is no exception. His brother is sitting at the kitchen table, coffee in hand, staring out the window over the kitchen sink at the fading depth of night, finally giving way to pinkish sunrise.

When Ryan enters, those wide blue eyes move immediately to him. They are not soft, or sad, or lost - they are precisely focused, and the skin under the red of his scars is pale, nearly colorless under a smattering of freckles. Both of them pretend Danny's whole body doesn't still twitch with a need to slip to his knees on the floor as soon as someone enters. "You took, um, the pills?"

His voice is soft. And still Ryan feels unsettled, something between uncertainty and guilt. "I did, yeah." He moves to pour himself a cup of coffee, the peppermint mocha creamer he'd bought changing dark brown to silky tan. Not that you need much, with Danny's coffee.

Ryan could half believe in magic, really, just from seeing how Danny didn't seem to do anything different but his coffee is still always the best.

TIMELINE ― a few months into sonya’s life with pyotr

CW ― smoking, very slight dehumanisation

When Sonya can’t sleep, he likes to wander the halls, pretending he’s a ghost. Flitting from moonbeam to moonbeam, spinning tragic backstories: he’s a war-ravaged soldier, returning to find his beloved has fallen for someone else; he’s a society belle, struck down with some mysterious illness. He’s a lonely, only son, drifting unseen and unloved through the cool throat of the hall.

It helps, in a way; it’s a degree of freedom he doesn’t deserve, but his ghosts make the Laval House a little less lonely. 

That night, he’s a jilted bride; imagining the dress fluttering at his heels, he runs through the halls, the glass balcony doors looming like the pearly gates, an event horizon he’s never been brave enough to cross — the balcony has always remained out of bounds, a tantalising impossibility.