#dehumanization?

where the head goes the body follows so it’s an effective way to immobilize them if they’re attached to something, or drag them around like livestock

it’s a good way to keep those horns from impaling you as well, stay safe out there whumpers!

If they fight too hard, well, hopefully nothing breaks, or cracks, or god forbid start pulling out of the skull (in extreme cases (except deer, their antlers fall off every year anyway))

Characters who were so proud of their horns or used them to fight now seeing them as a liability or a reminder of trauma

And of course, if they’re desperate enough, who’s to say they won’t saw off their own horns to escape?

The room itself wasn’t bad. Perhaps with furnishing other than a stale pillow underneath him, it could make for quite a nice work space.

Realizing he was trapped in here was what made the room significantly more unpleasant.

He yanked at his chains until he was out of breath and his arms and legs ached and burned. There was no way they’d come loose at this rate. How would he get out of here? Would he have to wait for Regan to come bail him out?

Could she? Would she?

The door opened, and Griffin whipped his head up to look at whoever had entered. His eyes narrowed.

“So, how was our mystery man’s sleep?” Maverick asked, closing the door behind him as he stepped in with what looked like a medical bag.

“I swear, Maverick, if anybody—if Regan or Josh find out about this, they’ll—”

“—Probably look the other way, Allenby,” Maverick interrupted. “They know very well what would happen if they didn’t.”

Griffin stared silently at the floor. Maverick advanced.

“Now, are we ready to begin, or are you going to need some breaking in, first?” Maverick set the bag down, dropping to one knee and taking Griffin’s chin, forcing it up to look at him.

Griffin’s nose twitched. “I’m not an animal,” he said calmly, staring fiercely back at him. “Let me go.”

“Defiance,” he tutted. “That’ll come back to hurt you, Allenby.” Maverick pulled out of the bag what looked like a large branding iron. He held it up, analyzing the symbol on it. Hallow’s emblem. “Do you know what this is?” he asked, tracing the pattern.

Griffin didn’t reply. The metal wasn’t hot, so unless Maverick was just planning on showing it off, he had a faint idea of what it meant.

“Then I suppose you’re about to find out,” Maverick unchained one of Griffin’s arms, and Griffin immediately ripped it away.

“Touch me with that and you’ll regret it,” he said.

“Oh, no, I don’t think I will.” An amused smile broke onto Maverick’s face. “What can you do about it? You’re all chained up. Like a bad dog,” he chuckled, shaking his head and taking Griffin’s arm, gripping it painfully tight as Griffin wriggled to get away.

Then, before he could react, a molten-hot pain ripped through his arm as the man pressed the branding iron to his skin, and he sucked in a gasp of pain, his arm seizing even as Maverick shoved the iron harder against his arm. Griffin grunted, his neck damp with sweat, but whenever he pulled away, Maverick pressed harder.

“S-stop...i—“

Maverick pushed harder. “The longer you resist...” he stared back, his gaze cold. “...the worse it gets.”

Griffin could feel his skin breaking, and he let his arm go limp as it trembled from the pain.

Then he lifted the iron up, tearing off scorched skin in the process as Griffin held back another noise of pain. Pain danced across his mind, spinning his thoughts in circles, but he managed to confirm that the tool was made of cold iron. A material that burned most fae.

They were trying to figure him out.

Griffin’s eyes drifted down to the smoking scar on his arm, a wave of nausea rushing over him at the smell of burning flesh. His flesh, which now bore Hallow’s emblem. His arm, which had been marked, like branded livestock, showing he was theirs.

Maverick let go, and his arm swung limply down, flopping onto the floor as Griffin’s back rose and fell with heavy breaths and his arm throbbed.

“Now, if you don’t tell us what you are, things are only going to get worse for you, Allenby,” Maverick tutted, pulling his wrist up to clip it back into its cuff, needles of pain shooting through his arm as he grazed the cauterized flesh.

Things will get worse if I tell them the truth. They’ll kill me, Griffin reminded himself.

“Judging from what that iron did to you... you could be an elf, a dragon, a nymph, a faerie, a werewolf, a demon...countless other things, very few of which we are able to distinguish at the moment. My point is, leaving it up to us to figure it out will make this process much more painful for you,” Maverick said, pulling out a needle. “Of course, I could always take that pain away... if you spilled your little secret,” Maverick smiled with false sweetness.

Griffin eyed the needle for a moment. A painkiller of some sort, no doubt, though he also had a hunch it would do more than that. Besides, he couldn’t have it unless he told the truth, and if he told the truth, he’d die.

“Piss off,” Griffin said through his teeth. His arm still trembled, but he didn’t care.

Maverick’s smile disappeared. “Have it your way,” he got up, heading for the door.

A thought suddenly rushed to Griffin’s mind. “Wait!” He shouted after him.

Maverick stopped. Griffin could feel him smile, even while he only saw his back. “Changed your mind, Allenby?”

“What did you do to him?”

“Who?” Maverick almost turned, before he realized. “Oh! That beast you were keeping as a pet? An answer for an answer, Allenby. Tell me yours and I’ll tell mine.”

“What did you do to him?” he pressed harder.

Maverick merely waited in silence, presumably for him to break and confess, then walked out the door, closing it as he glanced back, smiling ever so slightly.

“Maverick!” Griffin called after him, pulling at his chains before his arm throbbed in reminder and he sank, seething in pain.

why do many social justice types on the internet (writ large!) say "folk" instead of "people?" 

examples include:

trans*folk

nonwhite folks

oppressed folk

and so on.