Still Dreaming

@chubby-p1nk made me these birthday presents back in June and I'm finally posting them to show them off

#tropes #I know this sounds like a kink thing #and it likely is #but also outside of the kink there are probably a lot of people among protagonists who would welcome the relief #of not having to worry about whether or not they're making the right choices #the relief of knowing that the world isn't in their hands anymore. the relief of being freed from all their self-imposed restrictions #I'm just saying #people who treat mind control as ONLY the scary thing fail to understand that it's MORE scary BECAUSE it's appealing #that a lot of people crave even just a brief moment of not having to make hard choices #and that craving can be exploited or fed by someone with a mind control power who spends a thought for making it feel good to obey #and so you want it. and you know you shouldn't. but it was the best thing you've ever felt. but they're the bad guy. #and if you don't have another outlet. some way to feel like you can just BE instead of having to be the HERO

#eventually you'll have a bad enough day that you stop caring about the consequences #because you know the sense of consequence is the first thing that leaves when you're brainwashed #the fear of mind control is not only the fear of being under the thumb of someone who forces you to do bad things #the fear of mind control is also the fear of realizing that it's preferable to be controlled #than it is to be your own free agent in a world that pulls you in dozens of directions at once #at least with the mind control only one thing matters #at least with the mind control you don't feel lost or scared or paralyzed #at least with the mind control you can find simplicity in a complicated world #and knowing you're weak enough to go back even knowing it's not good for you? that has its own enthralling horror to it too #and people don't play with that horror enough outside of kink spaces

#all of this to say: yes. if your hero doesn't have lasting side effects from remembering what it was like not to have to care? #you're leaving free character development on the table #because there are so so so many things you can do with this if you're not afraid to explore your character's internal conflicts #you can decry the mind control as fake relief if you feel the need to #or you can say "the fact that you need this is a cry for help we didn't interpret in time" #you can even say "there's nothing wrong with needing this. just... don't go to the villain for this. there are other ways." -my personal fa #if you're really not afraid to explore character dynamics say that the villain is surprised to see the hero come back #and that by itself opens so many potential story directions with the hero-villain dynamic

LKAJSDKL I did this one months months ago ( ⸝⸝´ ᵕ `⸝⸝) And one of ma dear wifes (@takemetomyfragiledreams) made me remember to post it- Though I know they don't like angst without a lil fluff SOOOOOOOO