First whumper uses physical violence to train whumpee. Pain is the great teacher.
When whumpee has been trained to respond to pain, then the actual violence isn't needed. Then all whumper needs is the threat of violence, and whumpee responds.
When whumpee has been trained to respond to the threat of violence, then whumper doesn't need to threaten anymore.
After that, whumper trains whumpee to the implication of violence.
The subtle cues. No one but whumpee would even know that whumper was making a threat.
Even a gentle smile can be an implicit threat.
And whumpee responds.
Whumpee has been taught.
Later-- much later-- caretaker has to work to understand why some of their innocent actions and gestures make recovering whumpee flinch, and jump.
Do other writers ever get this like, hyper-specific dialogue exchange drop into their brains and you know exactly where these character are standing and what they’re doing and how they’re saying these words but that’s all you get. You don’t have much other context and this specific moment that exists only at this time in your headspace??