#forced to kill trope

[thewhumpcaretaker]

i hope u dont mind i go to you for whump ideas !! do u have any ideas/prompts for a living weapon/forced soldier(?) type thing👀

I certainly do not mind! I do love making prompts.

This is basically a whole genre of whump, so this will be long and I'm just getting started honestly.

💥 Living Weapon Whump 💥

Whumpee is forced to kill - this is kind of the heart of the trauma. How do they deal with it? Do they blame themself? Do they hate the ones who did this to them? One way or another, they have to live with terrible memories of what their own two hands have done.

...Or maybe they don't live with the memories. Whumpee dissociates heavily and perhaps even deals with amnesia from things they can't bear to face.

Dissociation overall is important. To act violently and efficiently in a fight, when you don't want to act, requires separating emotions from actions and becoming distant. When whumpee gets hurt, or sees something horrifying, they don't respond. They're calm. Too calm.

Self-hatred. Viewing themself as a weapon, only good for killing and incapable of love or kindness. Unworthy of having basic human needs met.

If the training started young, whumpee was raised in isolation, so they struggle to understand basic social cues, pop culture references, and just how to act normal. They're very nervous around people.

This can also have other effects on how they socialize and on their personality. Maybe it wasn't safe to have empathy for others if everyone around them was getting hurt and killed regularly, so they lost touch with empathy. Maybe any mistake or sign of weakness would lead to punishment, so honor became crucial.

They're probably going to have an unusual relationship to physical touch. They've mostly only been touched in violent ways, so they'll either be touch starved or touch averse. They flinch when someone moves suddenly. It takes a while to learn that touch can be positive. Maybe sparring and playfighting is one of the only ways they feel comfortable touching other people - or maybe it's something they never want to do with people they love, because it's connected to too many bad memories.

Whumpee expects to be hurt and thinks it's normal. They get into bad relationships, difficult jobs, etc. They don't take care of their health. Why? Because their suffering "doesn't matter." They're just a tool.

Maybe whumpee is conditioned to respond to a code word. When they hear that word or phrase, they start killing anyone around them indiscriminately until another code word (or passing out, or something else) snaps them out of it.

If they can't control when they'll become dangerous (either because of a code word like that, or because they get violent during PTSD triggers, or just because they don't trust themself), maybe they try to incapacitate themself or lock themself up. Maybe they get thrown into prison or an institution on purpose, to protect their loved ones. Maybe they run away.

Maybe whumpee has permanent physical alterations because of their training. Maybe they were branded or tattooed. Maybe they have cryogenic implants or embedded tracking devices. Maybe they've sustained injuries that now result in chronic pain.

Whumpee faces trial for things they were forced to do, things beyond their control. But maybe they blame themself completely. Or maybe they don't, and they're enraged to be in this situation.

I could continue this list for days honestly haha, this is one of my favorite tropes. Now I want to do a separate one focused on living weapon comfort...

[thelilylav]

Oh my brother, my brother, my brother

Who have you become in the wake of all that's happened here?

On Cerise and Ramona and being destined to kill your sibling.

[solargeist]

i think the Watchers are talented beautiful artists, they adore creating, but, i think that since a lot of them have access to a sorta ~creative mode, able to spawn in things, and are so, so, old, they lose their way a bit and take cheaper routes, just to get through their schedules.

why cook ? they can spawn in food. theres no use for grinding, they can build walls in seconds, theres no need to travel for supplies, no need to go beyond what they know, no need to be extra.

its much like a/i "art", its easy, but so soullessness, lazy, and cheap.

another layer of disappointment for Grian. at first, everything seems so beautiful, so overwhelming, but the food is bland, and he notices the asymmetry, he counts the stone tiles across the hall and down.

Hes looked at in confusion or even annoyance when he suggests doing things the longer way.

[starry-bi-sky]

pouring one out for luo binghe in my disciple SQQ fic, poor guy has taken a backseat here. we're nearly 30k words deep and he hasn't even shown his face once. it'll be much longer before he even actually talks to Shen Qingqiu.

(i say im pouring one out but in reality im sitting in my director's chair chewing on a cigar and wearing a beret as he tearily and unsuccessfully pleads with me for more scenes with Shen Qingqiu)

[motherfactorin-pi-face]

I see someone at Game Freak has, in fact, had the Paris Taxi Cab Experience (tm) (FWIW: Yes, I have heard Stories about...the Taxi Cab Protection Racket in Paris and oh lord is it a THING. Admittedly I've mostly heard stories from people who have been from overseas, but...yah, the cabbies in Paris are apparently Infamously Monopolistic and the folks I know who had the Experience subsequently thanked all the small gods that the Paris Metro is a Thing lol)

[dearmyloveleys]

May I present something I find heart wrenching to the fandom: Li Lun’s rattle never used to be a full fledged weapon. Somewhere along the way, he replaced the branch head with a spear/dagger tip

[invisible-pink-toast]

girls in love triangles | she's all i wanna be

[thewhumpcaretaker]

i yearn to see johns backstory some day. to see the pain and hurt as it happens where he hasn’t yet built up his walls. maybe i just love to torture these men but god damn. i love the idea of young john wick and his complexity.

Overall, I think he started off very innocent and desperate to please his guardian, as children usually are. He tried to follow orders and to earn as much of the Ruska Roma's respect as possible.

As a teenager and young man, he lost that innocence and wasn't so different from Iosef - only much more disciplined. He started to enjoy killing and to enjoy being the best at his trade, or at least he told himself that he did. In reality, he was taking out his anger about his stolen childhood.

It wasn't long before that left him feeling empty and his innocence re-emerged as strong remorse.

Below the cut, there's a snippet about child Jardani from my abandoned fic, The Broken Veil. I had a lot of flashbacks in mind, to various points in his upbringing. Maybe I'll write more of them at some point.

TW: animal death, physical and verbal child abuse

“Choke him, Jardani. Until he’s dead.”

The little boy refused to let his voice break. “I don’t want to.” He was about ten, though he doesn’t remember exactly now.

The Director repeated his words, tutting. “You don’t want to. Tsk.” She had placed a viper in the cage with his pet pigeon. He grabbed him quickly enough, and clutched him just below the base of the skull between his fingers. But he was being trained as an assassin, and assassins do not just grab their prey to hold it firmly by the base of the skull. “Then let him go back in the cage.”

“I would like…to put him outside.”

She laughed uproariously. “That’s not one of the options I’m giving you. Sometimes, life doesn’t give you any options you like, boy. Kill him, or let him go back in the cage and eat his fill.”

He could feel the snake’s strangely malleable throat thrumming against his flesh as he turned his head and flicked his tongue, desperate to escape. Jardani hesitated.

“Too late.” The Director smacked his wrist, hard, forcing his fingers to splay open. The viper fell back to the floor of the birdcage, momentarily stunned. She closed it and dragged him away, his arms twisted together behind his back in a single one of her hands. “Stand still and watch.” He let his body go slack and she released him. The viper, rapidly recovering its strength, sprung forward and sunk fangs into the fluffy white breast that Jardani had so often cradled to his cheek. Red, seeping from the wound. Her body, thrashing as if in seizure. And The Director, standing above him.

In a moment of blind rage, he lunged at her throat. He was already well trained enough to make contact with her collarbone before she flipped him to the ground. Panting above him, she praised his outburst. “Good. You’ll do so well in this world.”

“I loved that bird,” he grunted from underneath her shoulder, seething. “She was my friend.”

“Love? I’ll tell you what love is. Love is a stranger’s body hitting the floor. We kill strangers so we don’t have to kill the ones we love. If you love anything in this world, kill the first thing that tries to take it from you. An enemy, a bystander, even someone you are sworn to. It doesn’t matter. Kill, without hesitation. That is love. If you loved her, that’s what you would have done.”

[gods-favorite-autistic]

Why is it that pretty much every ya thriller is like “random teenage girl decides to investigate year(s) old murder/disappearance of perfect sweet angel of the community and continuously puts herself in situations where she is alone on purpose with people she suspects might have had a hand in the murder but also along the way finds out that literal victim might not have been so perfect all along and also some things should just stay hidden oooooh spooooky”

[amandamadeathing]

This.

People frequently come back in this universe "somehow." It's even more insulting to a week later watch someone else get impaled by a lightsaber and live. Again.

Obscure death (I still don't buy that a body was covered metal and no less than 16 leather pouches and the only salvageable thing was GLASSes, and coincidentally his most distinguishing feature)

No proper, "No, this is for real. We are going to pause the plot to sit with how real this is." Just let it be an awkward bantha in room for conversations where the guilt is all about "I feel bad for myself. I allowed this to happen because of my bad choices! I regret it!" It is the difference between Black Widow and Iron Man's deaths.

Lots of unresolved arcs. This story about being "More than a squad; a family" and redemption. Having all these open-ended things like spending a lot of screen time on a character to have him be, "Nobody from nowhere" is a letdown. Rex and Echonare trying to humanely rehabilitate Clones, but don't even get to try with him.

Yes, conspiracy theories abounded. But they were not unfounded.

I put a lot of the blame on Disney and their business practices. Based on how little merch there is, or how I can meet Hera and Ahsoka, but not Hunter and Wrecker in Galaxy's Edge, The Bad Batch is "just whatever; good for a few bucks from the diehard TCW holdouts."

Their strict 3-and-done policy so they don't have pay their talent more truncated a season and a finale that needed more breathing room. Possibly the writers' and actors' strike limiting what could be created...because Disney didn't want to pay more money. Or cost-cutting measures to keep the last season of episodes shorter than before...because of Disney's money issues.

[thewhumpcaretaker]

The Broken Veil: Chapter 1 - Let Me In

Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash

If you're coming over from the preview of this chapter, new content starts at "Out of the plane and into the high-class underbelly of Rome."

TW: grief, crying, nightmare, brief mention of suicidal ideation

Summary: John Wick has just agreed to kill Gianna D'Antonio, repaying the marker that gave him a life with Helen. However, Helen is trying to contact John from the afterlife, to show him that it is possible to stop the cycle of violence – not by forfeiting his own life, but by creating a fundamental shift in international systems and perhaps even the balance of good and evil in this world. But he doesn’t have to do it alone. She’s coming back.

“He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. “Come in! come in!” he sobbed. “Cathy, do come. Oh, do—once more! Oh! my heart’s darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!” The spectre showed a spectre’s ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light.” - Mr. Lockwood, speaking of Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights

Autumn evening in New York reels between gold and grey. A pale white sky bruises over with grey smog. Even the sky is beaten in New York, and yet even the sky sparkles. Golden streetlamps and distant red flashes hang as earthly stars between the glassy black voids of skyscraper walls. Airport whiskey sparkles amber in John Wick’s grasp, and his inward body buzzes faintly against its motionless exterior. Not drunk, not tipsy, not that it would matter. He knows himself drunk, drugged, tired, bleeding, the way the machine of his body handles in every state.

On the street below, a child in a woolen pea coat grabs onto his mother’s hand as they step up into the queue to check luggage. From the bar, John can’t see their faces, only the knit caps crowning both their heads. The boy has a backpack as his carry-on, and it’s too large for him. He shifts uncomfortably. At his movement, the mother fusses and leans down to adjust it. John’s eyes are fixed on her. They begin walking again and the child, excited by something on the far side of the taxi line, dashes towards oncoming traffic.  She pulls the little boy back from the street as a car swings recklessly close to the curb. John flinches away from the scene. It was hardly a close call – the kid had a long way to go before reaching the road, and even then, no doubt the car could have swerved at that speed. But it’s the sentiment of the thing, her tenderness…another swig of whiskey so he can’t finish the thought, and he turns from the window.

Drifting, playing the businessman without effort, scanning the crowd, uneasy with this moment of peace between wars. Stay in the moment anyway. Black wingtips clicking too crisply on grimy tile.  A glimpse of his reflection in the storefront of a candy shop, an impeccable mask. First class is boarding at JFK Gate 11, direct to Rome. No threats among the passengers – not that he expected any, but an enclosed box in the sky is a bad place to run into an enemy. It’s an opportunity he’s exploited himself in the past. A cordial smile to the flight attendant.

Now there is no more moment to stay in. Only the trans-Atlantic stretch of night, brutally alone.

He doesn’t want to be here. He knows how the machine of his body handles in every state, and right now he handles it by tricking it into doing what it’s ordered to do. Don’t think about doing anything, don’t think about killing. Just sit still, stare straight ahead, and don’t talk yourself out of this job. The job right now is to stare at the blinking light on the wing of the plane and not move, that’s all.  He remembers Gianna in their youth. She didn’t want to be a part of all this. She never had much in common with Santino. His ruthlessness, sure, but it was in service of something other than a desperate grasp for authority. She lived her life her way, pursued pleasure quietly between business, on her own terms. Don’t think about it. He thinks about how to do it instead. It’ll be right to give her a moment to face her death. Worth the risk. He owes her that much. Or is that the body rebelling again? Don’t think about it at all. Go to sleep.

He leans back and shuts himself down.

***

He’s making coffee for Helen. The bag crinkles as he scoops rich grounds into the machine. This feels so vivid, he can even smell it. He freezes. Feels vivid…this isn’t real. Lucid dream. They are always so fragile, they don’t have much time. Where is she?  Movement, out of the corner of his eye. Between the kitchen curtains, he can see her outside in the garden, her back to him. The way her hair falls above the cotton of a simple sundress, the way it just touches her shoulders…she is before him, he is ready to do anything to get to her. “Helen!”

She turns towards him and her face flares with a mirror of his own desperation. She points to the front door and disappears to the left, and he runs to meet her. There is a strange vastness to the entryway, he can’t reach the far end, but the door is already open. Only the screen is locked, and she’s trying the latch, silhouetted in light. He can feel his racing pulse all the way through his wrists now. She’s looking at him with so much urgency, his heart rattles almost sickeningly with each test of the latch and she’s saying over and over, “Rome, John, Rome! The moment is coming. Let me in.”

***

When he gasps awake, his lungs are already heavy with tears. There’s something darkly gorgeous about the disoriented longing still raging through him like an adrenaline shot and he lets it linger. Hope.

It takes him several minutes to even become irritated with that final twist. A play on words, a stupid, too-obvious, unoriginal trick of the unconscious, lacking the elegance she deserves. “Home, John, home. The moment is coming. Let me in.” If I ever can, I always will. Believe me. But I can’t. He crushes a sob against his ribcage with a deep inhale, swallows, and buries his face in his hands for a moment. Don’t even go there, don’t even imagine the impossible. Then he watches the sun make sheens of silver over the jagged European coastline, still basking in the memory of how she fought to reach him.

***

From the edge of the finite, a form withdraws, regathering strength but burning with the lingering sight of him.

***

Out of the plane and into the high-class underbelly of Rome: this…this he can work with. Preparations are in order. Efficiency. Right answers. It doesn’t hurt that these preparations involve only the finest toys of every kind. Fresh suits, fresh intel, fresh guns… There he stands, one beautiful machine encountering another. Half deliberately and half by accident, he lets the rush take the place of guilt and misery as he cocks a Benelli M4 with all the force of his shoulders, gripping it just as hard as he would if he were fighting for his life. It responds deftly despite its size. What a weapon.

The routine of preparations solidifies his resolve on a physical, Pavlovian level. A wave of calm descends slowly, a winding back, the first twinges of adrenaline pregaming his muscles. Excitement. Regrettable as it may be, grim as its flavor might taste, that's what this efficient hyperfocus really is.

But it doesn’t last.

There’s several hours left until nightfall. What to do? Sit in the Continental, stewing? No. He begins to wander ancient streets. New York reels between gold and grey, but Rome is just gold. It is all archways and domes, stability, unity, an unrelenting sense of holiness. The dream is still coloring his thoughts with terrible hope. “Let me in,” she said.

Why not.

He buys a single rose from a sweet young shopkeeper and carries it by the stem back out in into the crisp late afternoon. Fortunately, she was too intimidated by his appearance to ask who it’s for. It’s a dark orange rose, and a fine specimen despite one petal blemished with a yellow tip. It’s almost the same color as Gianna’s hair, from what he remembers.

In a little courtyard by a cathedral, he takes a seat on a bench. There’s no one around. Even the sun is hidden by the shadow of the belfry. The courtyard is trimmed with hedges that shelter it from the street in a pocket of quietude. He sets the rose beside him, pulls out a lighter, and holds the flame against its head. He doesn’t speak. But he prays.

Helen…I don’t think you can hear me. But maybe I’m wrong.

I have to do this. I know it isn’t ideal. But to defy the marker means death, and I can’t die. It’s not that I don’t want to. But your memory lives in me. As long as I live, my love for you lives, and if I die, it’s cut short, and no one knows what happens to me, to my soul, to my love for you. So I give glory to you in every moment, for as long as I can. It’s the only thing I care about. I won’t stop. I won’t give up. I’m honoring the oath that gave me five years with you, and I’m living. That part…that is what you would want. This is my offering to you. I love you, Helen.

There’s a small pile of ashes next to him on the bench. Fuck. He’s crying again.

***

She’s too frantic for that serene equilibrium to express her existence. A pulse in the deep matches his breathing. In, and the pulse draws back. Out, and it rushes forward again, stronger this time. She slams herself at the barrier, and it’s almost (almost!) as if her body strikes a wall.

***

He wipes his face and exhales, relieved, more peaceful. Resolve solidifies its hold over him. He’s doing the right thing, or at least doing the wrong thing for her. He walks back to the Continental, his eyes flat with certainty. Gianna will be dead in a few hours and he will be a free man. Survive. Execute. He’ll take a shower, prepare for the arrival of the new suit. He’ll enjoy this party. The door of his suite clicks open and he’s almost smiling as he steps inside.

There’s a rose on the bed.

A dark orange rose.

A knock at the door.

“Delivery for you, Mr. Wick.”

He steps aside, watching in a daze as the concierge places packages onto the table. His custom suit, finished as a rush job, and his selection of weaponry. “Did anyone else enter this room while I was away?”

“Certainly not, sir. We offer only the highest security.” The man pauses. “Did you find anything to be amiss?”

“N-no.” Better not to explain.

The concierge’s phone rings as he picks up the last package. “Excuse me, my apologies Mr. Wick.” He steps into the hall for a moment. He’s talking discretely about another guest, some impropriety in their manner of conducting business. Some attempt to make amends with the Continental. “Well then you tell him, offer not accepted. The offer is not accepted. It has been returned to him because the offer is not accepted.” Three times, he said it.

The man reenters with the final package. “Are you well, sir?”

There’s a beat before John can manage to speak. “Yes. Thank you.” He shuts the door without looking away from the rose.

He approaches slowly, staring at it like a bomb.

He touches the thorns, lifts it, turns it over in his hands. It’s real. Is someone trying to psych him out of the job?

It has a yellow blemish on the tip of one petal.

[animegirlmattmurdock]

extremely funny to me how marvel tried to do a daredevil/punisher ~generational dynamic~ with joe and elektra bcs ppl like frank and matt right???? like literally same text but different font, kind of like gwenpool/miles...only to do absolutely nothing with it LMAO

[muse-write]

Just finished OUaT S2E14, “Manhatten”. AMAZING episode, and the themes of intergenerational trauma are, as expected, clearly on display. In fact, Bae even points this out in one of the last scenes when he and Emma have a conversation about not breaking Henry’s heart (like Gold did to him and he then did to Emma). Henry being the lynchpin, the glue that drives everyone together, the one thing everyone is united on, makes perfect sense. He’s the character who presents a chance for them to make a difference, to begin a fresh slate. He’s related in some way to nearly everyone, and he is the one person they can all agree doesn’t deserve to be hurt (unless Rumplestiltskin does in fact decide to kill him, which he probably(??) will).

[ravenffxiv]

MiqoMarch Day Three-Free Day

A moment of respite

[bhaalsdeepbat]

vampires overwhelmed by their heightened senses as a metaphor for sensory overwhelm and overload.