I learned to stop cringing and love the triange

Lie to your stupid idiot dupe about how he's the most talented special important boy. Tell him he's better than everyone else, that he's gonna change the world. Tell him that he's the only one that truly understands you, that he's the only one that can save you. Lie about how you'll rule the universe together, that he'll never be alone again.

Lie until you realise the horror of what you've done, of what you've made yourself want. Lie because you can't stop yourself, because you can't stop thinking about him. Lie until you've chained yourself to him, until you're completely and utterly reliant upon him. Lie until you aren't lying anymore. Lie until you no longer have any choice but to make it true.

#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