#whump reference

I think people outside the USA severely overestimate how long hospital stays are here.

Like, appendectomy, right? That's maybe 24-36 hours door-to-door if there's no complications. If the appendix actually burst it might be 3 days, but only because they're giving you IV antibiotics and setting up home care to do that at home would take longer than just keeping you in the hospital.

A scheduled surgery like a hysterectomy, cholecystectomy, mastectomy, or anything else they can do laparoscopically (though small "keyhole" incisions)? You're probably not staying overnight at all.

Planned surgeries that need some kind of after care (like bariatric surgery, knee replacements, hip replacements, total vaginal hysterectomies, bladder lifts, etc...) would be usually 1-3 days.

Minor heart attack? 2-3 days.

Fracture and surgical repair of a large bone (like the femur)? About 2-3 days.

What about the exacerbation of a chronic illness like asthma, COPD, heart failure, or hypertension? IF they admit you (not just stabilize and discharge from the emergency department), it will be generally less than about 3-5 days.

Gunshot wound to the abdomen with surgery to repair things? 3-5 days.

And a stroke, sepsis, gunshot wound to the chest, or major heart attack? That would be somewhere in the 5-7 day range.

Severe trauma with multiple severely broken bones and relatively extensive surgery? This might be somewhat longer, but usually for nursing and pain control reasons rather than the surgery or injuries themselves. 1-3 weeks would be usual.

In the hospital for a mental health reason like decompensated schizophrenia or major depression? A little less than a week is normal, though some people stay several weeks if medications aren't working well.

The people who stay in hospitals for weeks or months typically have whole systems that don't work, or are waiting for a major organ transplant. For example, I had a patient once whose entire abdomen was open and couldn't be closed surgically. She was on TPN (IV nutrition) and IV antibiotics and needed massive amounts of wound care done every hour or so because her intestinal contents were spilling out of her open abdomen. She was there for months and ultimately didn't make it.

Are there people who stay longer than these cases? Of course! These are just averages pulled from medicaid data and personal experiences, based on patients who are coming in relatively healthy. Patients who have other significant health problems usually stay longer than patients who come in with a single problem.

Y'know, I think one of the things that people get wrong with conditioned whumpees is their rules. Specifically, when a whumpee was in long term captivity/training and they later get released or escape.

Most people write them as latching onto a caretaker or new whumper, and begging for new rules so they know they're doing something right. A new set of laws to live by, a new framework to behave to.

And that's... not really how conditioning works.

Conditioning means automatic reactions. Your body doing something that was trained into you without consulting your brain first.

There is no decision making. There is no choice. The trigger hits, and you are immediately performing the correct action regardless of anything else.

You're told to kneel? Your knees have already hit the ground. You're supposed to be standing in one part of the house when you hear the front door open? You've launched into movement before you even realize what you heard.

These rules are woven into the fabric of your body. They are insurmountable. The conditioning overrides emotion, internal conflict, hesitation, beliefs, wants... everything.

Your whumpee may very well hate what is being done to them, and after the moment has passed they'll be cursing themself and their whumper. They're still a person on the inside. That person is still very much alive. Most of the time, they will have some level of awareness that what's being done to them is wrong. They'll be angry. They'll be hurt. They will hate that there is nothing they can do about it.

But the next time that trigger occurs, the response still hits them exactly the same.

So now take your whumpee out of that situation. They ran away, were rescued, were sold. They got out. Now they're with new people, a new caretaker, a new whumper. Or they're on their own and trying to make their own way in the world.

But those conditioned responses are still there.

There's no turning them off. You don't just replace them with new rules. They have been built into the very framework of who you are.

The next time someone says the word "kneel", your knees are on the ground again. No matter where you are, or who you're with. The response happens before you can stop it. If they don't know why, everyone looks at you like you're insane.

Deconditioning is an agonizing process that takes more effort than I can even begin to describe to someone who's never experienced it.

Every time they hit that trigger, that response will still be there. Over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over.

Breaking those rules down takes YEARS. It is a constant effort that the whumpee has to choose to undergo every single time. Progress is measured milimeter by milimeter. You're told to kneel, and you kneel. You're told to kneel, and your mind catches up with the fact that you already did it— but a little sooner than it did before. Then a split second sooner. Then as you're doing it. Then you feel the impulse just before your knees hit the ground. Then you have a split-second of resistance before you go down. On and on and on and on, inching toward progress despite the fact that you're fighting with all your might.

Worse? Progress is anything but linear.

You don't just start obeying new rules. You don't latch on to your caretaker's new way of doing things and drop everything that you were conditioned to do before. These rules don't just get replaced.

Conditioning is not a belief system. It's a flinch response. Programmed deeper than the instincts you were born with.

You can be ordered not to obey the old command, and moments later when the trigger comes, you will anyway. Because in conditioning, the action comes before the choice.

These rules, these laws of your existence, come above everything else. If your new whumper wants to replace them, they are going to have to beat the new rules into you so often and so severely that the pain becomes stronger than the old conditioning. At that point, the newly desired response will very, very slowly start to take over.

You're not swapping out new rules. You're layering new, worse conditioning on top of the old. Your brain will spend time stuck in that split-second between both responses before one finally grows stronger than the other. Even then, the change will not happen quickly.

LOOK

tie a guy up references (more under the cut)

Over the years, I have come up with some headcanons regarding how I believe the Ninja Turtles' bodies work. I thought that perhaps it might be nice to finally share them with all of you.

These don't apply to all the iterations, of course, but they are pretty well universal in my mind, and I tend to incorporate most of them into my fanfics.

The Turtles (like leatherback sea turtles, echidnas, and some dinosaurs) are mesotherms, meaning they are neither warm nor cold blooded. They are, instead, in a middle-ground: they internally generate heat, but not to a constant temperature. In the Turtles' case, they will shiver when cold, and their bodies will not shut down right away when the temperature dips too low, though they may lose some energy and find it hard to concentrate.

Unlike many other modern reptiles and amphibians, who have a three-chambered heart, the Turtles have four-chambered hearts (like mammals and dinosaurs) that are larger and stronger than average human hearts and located at the center of their chests.

While the average human blood capacity is around five liters, the Turtles have about seven. Much of the blood flows under the shell -- a remnant of their lives as ordinary turtles, whose own blood does so in order to warm them when they bask. This means that the Turtles could lose close to three liters of blood before dying, while a human would only be able to lose two.

Their blood is also highly efficient at clotting, but that also means that storing blood for transfusions is difficult, and so must be directly transfused from one turtle to another in emergency situations.

Owing to their extensive circulatory system, they also have a larger lung capacity than humans and more oxygen-rich blood, and so are able to hold their breath for extended periods of time without adverse effects. Other than this, the Turtles' respiratory system is very much like humans', utilizing a diaphragm to inflate and deflate their lungs.

Like regular turtles, they do not have ribs, but rather their carapaces and plastrons serve that purpose, and they have muscles under their shells that keep their internal organs right where they belong.

Also like regular turtles, their spines curve along the insides of their shells. A direct hit on the center of their shells, then, could cause damage to their spinal column and nervous system, but fortunately their vertebral shields offer a fair amount of protection, so it would take quite an impact.

The Turtles are highly resistant to most infections and diseases, which increases their immunological responses. They do not get sick easily, and they recover quickly.

While their scales are not apparent, they are integrated into their skin, making it tougher than human skin. It takes a very hard hit to raise a bruise, and it is difficult to cut through without a very sharp or pointed blade.

Their bones are similar to humans, but are more resistant to breaking. They also heal quicker and stronger if they are broken.

Their muscles are also very close to human-like, but they are stronger than an average human due to compensating for the extra weight they carry in their shells. Because of this, their ligaments and tendons are also tougher, and it is difficult for them to have a joint dislocated.

Their sense of smell is more acute than humans, but not to an extreme degree. They are also not as bothered by foul smells (though this has more to do with living in a sewer than their physiology).

Their eyes are a bit tougher and more resistant to damage than human eyes due to a protective membrane that covers them. They see a bit better than humans in dark places and underwater.

Their hearing is somewhat more attuned to lower frequencies than human hearing, and is not dependent on external ears but rather an internal auditory system (making direct damage to their hearing unlikely).

They are capable of being knocked unconscious, but it takes a significant impact. Permanent or lingering damage to their brains is unlikely due to their structure, and so they also do not tend to suffer the same side-effects that humans would in the same circumstances (nausea, memory loss, etc.).

Although their nutritional needs are similar to humans, they do not need to eat every day, and in fact can get by quite well without food for a week if necessary (though they won't enjoy it). When food is readily available, however, they will eat as much as possible to store up energy. Their metabolism does not slow down when they do not eat, so overexerting themselves when they haven't had any food for a while can burn them out suddenly.

Their sleep schedules are much like most diurnal animals, though they are able to stay awake for extended periods of time and can get by on little sleep, if necessary. There have been times when they have been awake for days on end, getting by on short one hour naps here and there. In general, though, they like to have a regular sleep/wake cycle.

Like other reptiles, the Turtles never stop growing throughout their lifetimes; however their growth is slow, topping off at about 1-2 inches every five years.

OH GOSH let me think about that i would be so happy to share

so for a few disclaimers, obviously, i practice in a particular jurisdiction, with particular practice directions and customs. i am a criminal defence attorney but i am by no means an expert. these are just things i think about a lot. also, in the tradition of lawyers everywhere, nothing here is legal advice (tho idk how anyone could even think it was lmao), and this is all hypothetical for fiction purposes.

the primary like, focal point of legal whump for me is in the dehumanization of the legal process and in retraumatization. this goes for if the whumpee is accused/charged or if they're the victim or if they're proceeding through a civil court process for like a restraining order or family court issue or civil suit. it's humiliating and horrible and any time you end up in a situation of cross-examination you're put on the spot to be vigorously challenged and, depending on the approach of the lawyer, bullied about what you say happened to you and the exact details.

some specifics under the cut that might be inspirational/helpful. i am always happy to chat about this sort of stuff with people, answer what questions i can, and generally put my legal education and professional experience to use for evil :)

GO TO PART TWO

please use this information to hurt him. or do other things to him. also send me links

I grew up with CRT TVs as a kid but like. I was a kid. I'm much more of a computer science person than a mechanics person but whatever

I'll also toss in some speculation on what each thing could mean for tenna here and there

Depending on how long the Dreemurs have had their TV, Tenna could probably be from anywhere between the mid 80s to the early 2000s.

I went to a manuals website and picked the Panasonic TC-14S3R at random. From what I can tell this particular TV is from the 80s, and I'm going to base a lot of the information here on that particular manual.

Various Settings

Contrast: Low contrast = more gray, less range in color and brightness. High contrast = more vibrant colors, lights are brighter and shadows are darker. Both increasing and decreasing contrast can cause detail to be lost. Lowering contrast can lose the subtle differences between similar mid-level shades and colors, whereas increasing it loses differences in bright and dark images. Could perhaps correlate with emotional state? Low contrast = low emotional range (maybe not necessarily depressed, but both happiness and sorrow etc. are muted? Could have a similar effect to taking an anti-depressant, perhaps), high contrast = high emotional range, highs are higher but lows are lower. Perhaps helpful for being exciting for TV but difficult to deal with emotionally.

Colour: The manual didn't specify what this does that I saw, but it's probably just the saturation setting. No saturation = black and white, high saturation = extra bright colors. Emotionally, I imagine low saturation would correlate with depression, whereas high saturation would correlate with joy (or even mania).

Brightness: Pretty straightforward. Darker image vs brighter image. If contrast and color were to stand in for emotional state, I imagine brightness would be more associated with energy levels. Perhaps his screen gets dimmer as he gets more tired.

Sharpness: Low sharpness = blurry image, high sharpness = things look clearer and harsher. Perhaps his image would become sharper as he focuses... and things like drugs and alcohol (or equivalents) could cause his image to blur.

Also related to image settings: The colored bars you often see are the SMPTE pattern. It's used for calibrating brightness and other color settings.

Here's a screenshot from a video I referenced that shows some other settings you might see on a CRT TV:

Some I didn't list already include:

Mode: From what I understand, just a bunch of presets for watching different sorts of things. Pictured is sports mode but there might also be a movie mode among others. Modern TVs still generally have this

Apparently "Picture" here is just contrast.

"Hue" as far as I can tell lets you shift, well, the hue. It's not normally something you need to mess with. If your reds are red and your blues are blue, etc. You're probably fine. If we assume that colors have some association with Tenna's emotions, though, I imagine that messing with his hue settings could really screw him up. Make him happy when he should be sad, something like that.

And then there would also be things like volume (I feel like turning down his volume has a lot of potential), input (normally he'd get input through his RF Input, as discussed in the next section, but I feel like switching him over to a different port would again, have potential.

Ports and Such

Alrighty, the spicy stuff.

So there's a few different ways to get an image and such onto your CRT tv.

Usually with a modern TV you'll just have HDMI and that's it. One cable and you're done. Maybe your tv will even be fancier than that and have a USBC port. I feel like QUEEN is probably a bit too old for USBC, but she probably does have HDMI. But I'm getting off track.

RF Input: Stands for Radio Frequency input. Handled both video and audio with one cable. As far as I can tell it became common in the 70s? Was often used for cable TV or "over-the-air" broadcasts from TV stations. The cables are also called Coaxial Cables. They have a prong in the middle, and are attached by screwing them on. Apparently RF is also prone to interference. Things like wifi, bluetooth, and microwaves can all cause RF interference, apparently. And also electric fences. So basically put a shock collar on that guy and see what happens

This is what Tenna's antennas would be connected to. I imagine disconnecting him from this would be... disconcerting, at the very least. He'd probably go blind and deaf or something.

Composite: The red white and yellow cables. Very common, you've probably seen them before. The yellow cable handles video, while the white and red cables handle the left and right audio specifically. Having one cable unplugged doesn't stop the others from working: you could have just the right audio but nothing else, or just video but no audio, for example. Again, implications. possibilities. This is what my Nintendo Wii uses. Usually provides a clearer signal than an RF connection but not considered great.

S-video: A cable for video transmission that's better than composite, apparently. Doesn't do audio though, so the audio data needs to be plugged in separately.

Component: Needed for high-definition television. Three cables for Luminance, Blue difference, and Red difference. Doesn't seem to handle audio by default?? And apparently there can be up to 5 of these cables??? They were quickly wiped out by HDMI cables though. Considering Tenna's age it seems unlikely he would have had ports for these.

The power cable on a CRT tv would usually be permanently attached.

Screen and Internals

Right so this is where I start to struggle to understand things, but I'll do my best. If I get anything wrong here please let me know or reblog with a correction.

The front of a CRT screen has a coating that glows when it is hit by electrons. The screen does not technically have pixels, but does have an array of different colors of phosphor (the coating). To create different colors, different dots are hit. As far as I can tell this functions very similarly to pixels or how images are printed in magazines.

Anyway, at the back of the TV there is basically a laser (not the right word I don't think because it's not beams of light it's beams of electrons but whatever) that is shot at the different areas of the screen to create an image.

Anyway it's all rather complicated if you want to learn more read the wikipedia page or watch one of the videos I linked. Here's the stuff I care about:

CRT screens are very delicate and you basically can't repair them, because they are vacuums. When you smash a CRT tv you can kind of see them implode in a cloud of dust. You can't really come back from that. From what I can tell the only way to repair a CRT tv with a shattered screen is to replace the screen entirely, which seems to be by far the most important, complicated, expensive part. If the screen shatters you can salvage some components but ultimately the screen will need to be rebuilt or replaced entirely. Also, they don't make CRTs anymore because they are so complicated and the market isn't there. What I'm saying is Tenna is extremely lucky the Knight didn't break his screen, and if Tenna's screen ever did break that man is screwed. And not in the fun way. Unless you are me.

I added too many images so I'll reblog this again with the rest of the info I find

GO TO PART TWO

Sources

How to Calibrate and Correct Color and Brightness on a CRT TV, BVM and PVM Using SMPTE Pattern.

Panasonic TC-14S3R User Manual

History of Video Cables

TELEVISION CONNECTIONS EXPLAINED: RF vs. RCA vs. HDMI… COMPOSITE VS. COMPONENT

F connector

What Is RF Interference, What Causes It, & How To Block It

S-Video Cables

Component Explained

Cathode-ray tube (Wikipedia)

What is Color CRT Display?

So first off full disclosure, I have schizoaffective disorder - think some bits of bipolar and some bits of schizophrenia kind of squished together, and as such hallucinations are a BIG part of my general existence.

Definition: A hallucination is a perception of a sensory experience—such as sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch—that appears real but is created by the mind and lacks an external stimulus.

Now, I see a fair few "hallucinations" type prompts in whump events, and just generally within the whump community, and I see a LOT of auditory hallucinations type prompt fills - mainly in the form of malevolent whispers - and ye that's a thing, but there are so many other hallucinations.

The thing is hallucinations can effect literally any sense, not just hearing - though I will add that auditory is usually regarded as the most common.

this is a long post so I am going to put a cut here... below the cut is exploration of the tyoes of hallucination, the causes and a bit about insight.