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[coldresolve]

how is this the first time ive drawn post-ratio buzzcut renee

[coldresolve]

OC Outfit Doodle Asks

Send one of the following symbols and one of my OC’s names and I’ll doodle:

👀 OC in their typical underwear 💤 OC in their sleep attire 🔞 OC in something sexy 🏄 OC in what they would wear to the beach/pool 👔 OC in what they would wear to a formal event (such as a wedding) ☠ OC in what they would wear to a funeral 👖 OC in what they would wear to a casual event (such as a birthday party) 👑 OC dressed as royalty 🚪 OC in what they wear when lounging around at home 💕 OC in what they would wear on a first date ❌ OC in something they would absolutely never wear 🎃 OC in a costume they’d wear for Halloween 🎄 OC in an ugly Christmas sweater 🚓 OC in a prison uniform 🚲 OC in athletic gear  🐰 OC in a kigurumi of their favourite animal ❄ OC in what they’d wear on a very cold day 🔥 OC in what they’d wear on a very hot day 👕 OC in a T-shirt with something stupid printed on it (think Zazzle) 🎭 OC in another OC’s typical attire 📦 OC wearing something that isn’t clothes (such as a fig leaf, a barrel, etc.) 👻 OC in a really bad disguise 📷 OC in a stereotypical tourist getup 🙎 OC in something embarrassing 👗 OC in something from the 50’s 💀 OC in goth/emo/scene attire 💃 OC in some radical 90’s clothes 🌁 OC in a hoodie 🌋 OC in camping or adventuring gear ♠️ OC in their armor (or in some sort of fantasy armor if not applicable to their story) 🎨 OC in a cartoon character’s outfit  🏨 OC in a maid outfit 🏥 OC in a nurse uniform 🐑 OC in farmer wear 👍 OC in a crop top

[coldresolve]

lineart has begunnnnnnn

[coldresolve]

Oh you can absolutely write SA as traumatizing, not sexy. You have to treat it as horror rather than porn, it reads very differently. I’m a sexual abuse survivor and I actually really got into darkfic when I was younger and specifically stories that dealt with that kind of abuse as a way to work through my trauma. It was a safe controlled way to engage with it, and it was actually really cathartic and healing. I read a lot of stories written by other survivors who clearly *got it*, painful thoughtful honest depictions, and it let me untangle the psychology of SA and *why I was like this*…through characters who weren’t me. Obviously not the case everywhere, but the community I was in was really awesome about consent and awareness and not romanticizing abuse, always calling shit what it was. It was such a good thing for younger me all fucked up about herself. And a lot of the stories were just really good too.

people like you who use fiction in this way to help process things theyve experienced in a controlled environment, creating some needed emotional distance by having it be about a character and not yourself, is one of those reasons i despise puritans with all my being ngl. like the 'you can write about it but going into graphic detail romantazises it' crowd for example, is fucken baffling to me. sa itself is graphic, and i dont think there's anything wrong with a someone wanting to acknowledge that fact, or explore the taboo things everybody else is too uncomfortable talking about. honest depictions can help survivors untangle what they went through, it can help non-survivors get better at empathizing, etc

and like you also touched on a bit, yeah, you can treat it as an act of violence, and not as an act that has anything to do with sex (bc it doesnt.) which helps counter a lot of the victim blaming narratives that surround sa irl ykwim

[coldresolve]

decided im biting the bullet on my excitement to share moreno flashback Horrors and posting teoia the intended reading order after all

also can i just say, van moreno is the coolest oc name ever, im claiming that prize for myself, you can snatch it out of my cold dead hands. what the fuck why is that order of syllables so badass. my brain is returning

how would yall feel if i posted teoia chapters more casually than mm? a little more by the order of whenever the fuck i write them, a little less by the order of where they're supposed to be placed in the story? latter being slower obv, but then you get the actual intended reading experience

[coldresolve]

maybe post them whenever but have the masterlist in chronological order so there’s an option of reading it either way?

its a nonlinear story so id be arranging chapters in the intended reading order and not chronologically hehe, but yea that is basically what i was thinkin about

but im also the kinda person who thinks way too much about when the most effective place to reveal information is, what scenes would make sense following others, contrast/pacing etc. and i do have a few ideas settled in that regard with teoia, especially for the first ten ish chapters, so like. maybe its a shame if i ruin that for some readers just cause im writing out of order and being self-indulgent about posting lmao

[coldresolve]

how would yall feel if i posted teoia chapters more casually than mm? a little more by the order of whenever the fuck i write them, a little less by the order of where they're supposed to be placed in the story? latter being slower obv, but then you get the actual intended reading experience

[coldresolve]

"i was gonna say the r-word" damn i thought you're gonna call anon a retard for asking what SA stands for

lmfaO not that one. the other r-word

[coldresolve]

sa? (i don't think it means separation anxiety in this context now does it)

sexual assault

i was gonna say the r-word but i know thats harsh for some ppl just in casual conversation. and i refuse to call it noncon cause i cant untangle all those fandom kink-ish associations from that term lol so

[coldresolve]

slowly realizing i actually might not have a problem w writing SA in fiction, i just have a problem with the kink/whump/darkfic flavor of SA depictions, and those have just thoroughly stained my view of what fictional depictions of SA are "supposed" to look like

and its the fault of me being dumb forever cause ffs obviously you can write it trumatizing. but everybody and everyone within fandom/tumblr oc spaces insists on writing it sexy instead. and thats fine, you do you, but as an ace violence enjoyer it has turned me away from any nsfw shit cause yknow, im not in it for the kink appeal, im there for whatever uncomfortably realistic brutal fuckery can trigger my existential terror and thereby haunt me for five years

anyway am i currently 900 words into a graphic SA scene chasing this random idea i had? no why would you ask me that

[coldresolve]

THE END OF IT ALL, pt.1 // Vancouver

Previous / AO3 / Masterlist / Next (coming soon)

He doesn’t turn on the radio. A mercy, really, given his preferences.

Cold air hums from every dashboard vent, stinging tired eyes. The dial is set to red, but something in the air conditioning unit has been broken since they met him. They’ve gotten used to freezing drives, and on nights like these, the discomfort acts as a welcome distraction: the tenseness of their shoulders, their back, blending in so seamlessly with the ache of the scuffle, they can pretend it’s all owed to temperature. They can almost forget how much it’ll hurt come tomorrow.

Their ability to sink completely into the ambience of the car is corrupted, though, by a clear sense that he finds their lack of acknowledgement unnerving. It’s not like they haven’t noticed how his thumb has been tapping the wheel continuously for the better part of an hour, dark skin taught over the muscles of his forearm.

For the most part, they keep their eyes fixed out the window. Don’t move. Just watch as gathering drops of rain race across the glass, dimly lit by the headlights; or the white line marking the edge of the road, the illusion of a band of elastic vibrating towards stasis. Never reaches it, obviously.

He lets out a laugh suddenly, and it lingers in his voice for a bit, a breath he never quite lets go. “You can’t deny the poetry, though, hm? He really thought—”

“Stop talking.”

They hear the muted click of his teeth snapping together, and not long after, in their periphery, they see him shaking his head. A sour twinge mars the atmosphere after that, one they’re more than prepared to just ignore.

Big green road signs count down to Vancouver roughly five miles at a time. Woods of escalating altitude eventually contrasted by a sky in the earliest possible phase of dawning. If they stare for long enough, the snowy peaks are visible, if only barely, a hint of something lighter.

He’s still tapping the wheel; they can see it in the reflection of their window.

They close their eyes, gritting their teeth. Try to settle in the hum of the AC, or the sound of rolling tires beneath them. The vibration of their seat, the occasional bump of a crack in the road.

“Sorry,” they mutter.

Gatz lets out a breath through his nose. “Don’t worry about it,” he says.

🔸

A couple dozen tiny cabins are scattered around interweaving gravel roads. The website boasted rooms containing up to eight beds, and maybe that’s possible, technically speaking, if you knock out the internal walls and start stacking.  

It’s cheap, but they’ve done their best to make it cozy. Thin pines still wrapped with bark form a frame around the entrance to the property, decorated with strings of plastic lightbulbs that come on at night. All the signs are carved wood, all hand painted different colors. A bit cliché, perhaps, but there’s a recognizable vision.

With no designated parking spaces, Gatz pulls the ignition on a strip of grass a few yards from the front porch. Sighing heavily, he lets his head dump back against the headrest. They wait for him to say something, but the seconds just drag on, and then he snorts, nods a bit and pops open the door, ducking his head as he gets out.

They sit silently as the car reverberates with the door flung shut in his wake, wishing to some extent that they could stay here alone, even if the rest of them yearns to just get the night over with. The hollow sound of the trunk clicking open is followed by the rustling of canvas. Once they’re relatively sure they can’t put it off further, they sigh and yank the latch, pulling themself to their feet with a hand on the door, in time to see Gatz swing a duffel bag over his shoulder and pull the trunk closed.

The cold air smells like pine and dirt, that earthy, somewhat sharp scent of resin. No moonlight breaks through the cloud layer, and the cabins aren’t fitted with external lighting, so the only source of orientation comes from the small reading lamps in the car. But those are bright enough, somehow, to decently illuminate five yards on either side – enough to get to the porch stairs, even if they have to traverse the rest mostly by feel. Gatz cracks his knuckles against the front door and steps back expectantly.

Nothing happens.

“Don’t tell me she fell asleep.”

Gatz casts them a glance, but it’s too dark to read his expression. “She didn’t,” he says, and knocks again, a little harder this time.

Five, ten seconds pass before a vague thud can be heard from inside, dull footsteps. A light comes on behind the blackout curtains of the nearest window, and then, almost imperceptibly, the corner of the curtain is lifted.

“It’s me,” Gatz says loudly.

The curtain falls. More footsteps, and the sound of the bolt sliding, and then the lock itself clacking. Atkinson steps back when she opens the door, waving a hand to usher them in. An oversized t-shirt reaches a quarter way down her thighs, blonde hair ruffled on one side of her head, dark smears under her eyes from mascara she evidently didn’t remove before lying down. As Gatz maneuvers himself and the duffel bag through the narrow entrance, she stops him, drawing him down for a hug.

“How’d it go?”

Gatz clears his throat, gaze flickering over his shoulder. “Could’ve gone worse.”

Atkinson frowns, taking turns looking at them. “Did he show up?”

“Oh yeah,” Gatz grunts. He pushes further into the cabin, dropping the duffel bag on a narrow bench built into the wall; his head nearly collides with an overhead lamp in the process.

Atkinson’s eyes flicker over them as they pass her; she pauses halfway down. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

Following her gaze, they look down, turning over their hands. A red tint still lingers in the creases between their fingers, smeared over the back of each hand, congealed in the crevasses around their nail beds. It was invisible in the dark, but it’s more than obvious in here.

“No,” is all they say.

They don’t meet Atkinson’s eyes after that, and pretend they don’t notice the glance shared between her and Gatz – they just continue past, careful not to touch either one in the confined space. Maybe retreating like this is odd, but it’s not that deep to them. They’re tired, and there’s nothing to talk about anyway.

A door to the right of the kitchenette leads to a small bathroom which, like all the other rooms in the cabin, is paneled with fir. White porcelain sink crusted with a chalk buildup near the drains, down the sides; dusty box shelves overhanging the mirror and the toilet, right up until the dark teal curtain separating the shower cubicle.

They scrub their hands in too-warm water for several minutes, until their fingerprints have started to crease, and the old scar in their right palm starts to shoot pain up the wrist to their forearm. They wash their face then, and run wet hands through the dark hair framing their face, feel it fall heavy against their cheeks, dripping down their chin. Hooded dark eyes watch them dispassionately from the mirror, pale skin, full lips wasted on a straight line.

Most of the shelves have been occupied by Atkinson, skin products and makeup, a straightening iron, supplements. They’ve managed to carved a corner for themself, a plastic box containing basic toiletries squeezed into one corner; the rest is full of pills, some in boxes, most in fist-sized bottles.

Three blue, one reddish brown, two white, one yellow. Too many to swallow at once, so they break it up into two handfuls, wincing at the discomfort in their back each time they lean down to drink from the tap.

Gatz is still in the kitchen when they emerge from the bathroom; Atkinson must’ve gone back to bed. They keep their gaze down as they head for their room. A subdued desperation just to finally lay down and escape things for a while. And they think they’ve made it, because for whatever reason, he waits until the absolute last moment to speak up.

“Moreno.”

They pause on the threshold, grimacing, hand on the frame. Dragging in a deep breath through their nose, they turn around.

Gatz leans against the stove, picking the plastic cover off a fresh pack of cigarettes. “Listen, man,” he says slow, apprehensively gently. “I assumed you sought out someone like me for a reason. And I don’t mean to nitpick, but…” He smirks. “The next time you say you want to talk to someone, you’re gonna have to be a little more specific about your definition of talk.”

They feel themself tense, teeth gritted. “If you have a problem with—”

“Do you think I have taboos? Honestly?” He lets out a soft chuckle, shaking his head as he cracks the carton open. “I’m not in this to judge people. All I’m saying is that if you want my help, I’d prefer direct communication, that’s all. I hate having to guess. I don’t work with unsaids.”

They swallow, eyeing him up and down, and there’s a bitter taste at the back of their tongue. Saying it out loud doesn’t feel natural; it feels dangerous. Feels wrong, even, like a sin in and of itself. They take a deep breath, jutting out their chin. “I want to kill all of them.”

He meets their eye. Nods his understanding, pulling a smoke from the pack. “I appreciate the honesty,” he says. “Thank you.” And his smile, strangely enough, seems sincere.

It’s not enough to disarm them completely, but maybe the complete lack of condemnation throws them off; they can’t imagine any other circumstance in which those words would be met with acceptance. They feel their jaw working, eyes flickering uncertainly between Gatz and the floor.

Once again, Moreno turns to leave.

“Also…”

They look over their shoulder.

A cigarette bops from the corner of Gatz’ mouth as he speaks, one hand digging in his pocket for a lighter, the other gesturing at them. “Put your clothes in an airtight bag,” he tells them. “I’ll burn it for ya in the morning.”

Moreno nods slowly, eyes drifting to their sleeve. They somehow hadn’t considered it, but on a closer look, tiny droplets have dried in the dark fabric here and there. “Alright,” they mutter.

And they cross the threshold, finally, closing the door behind them. Frozen for a while, adjusting to the hopeful prospect of being alone.

Sinking, inevitably, into familiar apathy.

Previous / Masterlist / Next (coming soon)

[coldresolve]

oh also ive been thinking about changing up the blurb for mm but i do kinda want to involve you guys, cause i suck at getting a feel for good blurbature, and im stuck. spoilers for the entirety of moneymakers or whatever

here's the current one:

pros: vague (mystery + makes the first chapters more of a hook), violence is heavily implied (we love violence), hinting at conrads personality (he is indeed a character), very vaguely hinting at Consequences and Stuff with the 'point of no return' line (we love implications)

cons: too vague? (uninteresting, toothless, turns some ppl away), conrad is implied to be a little more outwardly defiant than he actually is so that might disappoint ppl, the last line is sort of ehh and cringe to me for no reason

i made this blurb vague on purpose bc it means the reader is asking the same sorts of questions conrad is in the first few chapters, which is sorta how i intend those chapters to be read. but i dont think id mind mentioning the red room explicitly in the blurb, because that is yknow, The Basic Premise. and to be fair, its very hard to shill a story without letting people know The Basic Premise, and maybe me insisting i shouldn't is dumb actually

so. ive made this draft for an alternative blurb:

pros: gives a more comprehensive summary of The Basic Premise and is overall more accurate to the vibe of the story (you know what youre getting into), i hint at renee's arc in this one (its sort of important to mm lol), vaguely implies the boiling spaghetti plot structure (very cool if youre into it), mentions torture (we love torture)

cons: slight spoilers for like the entire first half lol (less tension for new readers), no mystery through vagueness (boring), some phrasing in this also sounds dumb and cringe to me (im a perfectionist), i lightly spoil the who-is-the-protagonist bait and switch between conrad and renee (very proud of that transition and i dont wanna ruin it)

what do we feel lads? if you hadnt read mm, which blurb would you be more intrigued by? do you think it would affect how you initially approached the story? am i just overthinking it? well i am definitely overthinking it but like, am i overthinking it to the point where it is bad? lmfao

writing is hard when your #1 priority is just gut feeling ngl

[coldresolve]

Conrad DeWitt is on his way home from a night shift when he is kidnapped by two strangers and forced into a van headed god knows where. Initially hoping he can spare himself from unwanted trouble by keeping his head down, Conrad tries to comply - until he realizes exactly what they have in mind for him. By then, his captors have already gone far past the point of no return. They're in it for the money, and they have no intention of sparing him from pain to get it.

Masterlist: Moneymakers

The first one went smoothly; the second nearly got Moreno killed. Now, they've aquired the help of Gatz and Atkinson, a hitman and his assistant, to track down the nine that remain. As the hunt unfolds, Moreno finds themself the center of a cat-and-mouse game spanning three continents, and their grasp on reality begins to fray, but they can't bring themself to give a shit. After everything - they want revenge. The knife is finally, finally in their hand.

Masterlist: The End of It All

Art tag

Other blogs

[coldresolve]

Psychological thriller // Read on AO3

If you're not comfortable going in blind, read the series on AO3, as that's where I put content warnings on each chapter. I don't do taglists, so if you want to follow along here on tumblr, remember to check in whenever.

Masterlist: The End of It All

Prologue

Part 1 // Vancouver

Extras: // Faceclaims

[coldresolve]

THE END OF IT ALL, pt.1 // Vancouver

Previous / AO3 / Masterlist / Next (coming soon)

He doesn’t turn on the radio. A mercy, really, given his preferences.

Cold air hums from every dashboard vent, stinging tired eyes. The dial is set to red, but something in the air conditioning unit has been broken since they met him. They’ve gotten used to freezing drives, and on nights like these, the discomfort acts as a welcome distraction: the tenseness of their shoulders, their back, blending in so seamlessly with the ache of the scuffle, they can pretend it’s all owed to temperature. They can almost forget how much it’ll hurt come tomorrow.

Their ability to sink completely into the ambience of the car is corrupted, though, by a clear sense that he finds their lack of acknowledgement unnerving. It’s not like they haven’t noticed how his thumb has been tapping the wheel continuously for the better part of an hour, dark skin taught over the muscles of his forearm.

For the most part, they keep their eyes fixed out the window. Don’t move. Just watch as gathering drops of rain race across the glass, dimly lit by the headlights; or the white line marking the edge of the road, the illusion of a band of elastic vibrating towards stasis. Never reaches it, obviously.

He lets out a laugh suddenly, and it lingers in his voice for a bit, a breath he never quite lets go. “You can’t deny the poetry, though, hm? He really thought—”

“Stop talking.”

They hear the muted click of his teeth snapping together, and not long after, in their periphery, they see him shaking his head. A sour twinge mars the atmosphere after that, one they’re more than prepared to just ignore.

Big green road signs count down to Vancouver roughly five miles at a time. Woods of escalating altitude eventually contrasted by a sky in the earliest possible phase of dawning. If they stare for long enough, the snowy peaks are visible, if only barely, a hint of something lighter.

He’s still tapping the wheel; they can see it in the reflection of their window.

They close their eyes, gritting their teeth. Try to settle in the hum of the AC, or the sound of rolling tires beneath them. The vibration of their seat, the occasional bump of a crack in the road.

“Sorry,” they mutter.

Gatz lets out a breath through his nose. “Don’t worry about it,” he says.

🔸

A couple dozen tiny cabins are scattered around interweaving gravel roads. The website boasted rooms containing up to eight beds, and maybe that’s possible, technically speaking, if you knock out the internal walls and start stacking.  

It’s cheap, but they’ve done their best to make it cozy. Thin pines still wrapped with bark form a frame around the entrance to the property, decorated with strings of plastic lightbulbs that come on at night. All the signs are carved wood, all hand painted different colors. A bit cliché, perhaps, but there’s a recognizable vision.

With no designated parking spaces, Gatz pulls the ignition on a strip of grass a few yards from the front porch. Sighing heavily, he lets his head dump back against the headrest. They wait for him to say something, but the seconds just drag on, and then he snorts, nods a bit and pops open the door, ducking his head as he gets out.

They sit silently as the car reverberates with the door flung shut in his wake, wishing to some extent that they could stay here alone, even if the rest of them yearns to just get the night over with. The hollow sound of the trunk clicking open is followed by the rustling of canvas. Once they’re relatively sure they can’t put it off further, they sigh and yank the latch, pulling themself to their feet with a hand on the door, in time to see Gatz swing a duffel bag over his shoulder and pull the trunk closed.

The cold air smells like pine and dirt, that earthy, somewhat sharp scent of resin. No moonlight breaks through the cloud layer, and the cabins aren’t fitted with external lighting, so the only source of orientation comes from the small reading lamps in the car. But those are bright enough, somehow, to decently illuminate five yards on either side – enough to get to the porch stairs, even if they have to traverse the rest mostly by feel. Gatz cracks his knuckles against the front door and steps back expectantly.

Nothing happens.

“Don’t tell me she fell asleep.”

Gatz casts them a glance, but it’s too dark to read his expression. “She didn’t,” he says, and knocks again, a little harder this time.

Five, ten seconds pass before a vague thud can be heard from inside, dull footsteps. A light comes on behind the blackout curtains of the nearest window, and then, almost imperceptibly, the corner of the curtain is lifted.

“It’s me,” Gatz says loudly.

The curtain falls. More footsteps, and the sound of the bolt sliding, and then the lock itself clacking. Atkinson steps back when she opens the door, waving a hand to usher them in. An oversized t-shirt reaches a quarter way down her thighs, blonde hair ruffled on one side of her head, dark smears under her eyes from mascara she evidently didn’t remove before lying down. As Gatz maneuvers himself and the duffel bag through the narrow entrance, she stops him, drawing him down for a hug.

“How’d it go?”

Gatz clears his throat, gaze flickering over his shoulder. “Could’ve gone worse.”

Atkinson frowns, taking turns looking at them. “Did he show up?”

“Oh yeah,” Gatz grunts. He pushes further into the cabin, dropping the duffel bag on a narrow bench built into the wall; his head nearly collides with an overhead lamp in the process.

Atkinson’s eyes flicker over them as they pass her; she pauses halfway down. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

Following her gaze, they look down, turning over their hands. A red tint still lingers in the creases between their fingers, smeared over the back of each hand, congealed in the crevasses around their nail beds. It was invisible in the dark, but it’s more than obvious in here.

“No,” is all they say.

They don’t meet Atkinson’s eyes after that, and pretend they don’t notice the glance shared between her and Gatz – they just continue past, careful not to touch either one in the confined space. Maybe retreating like this is odd, but it’s not that deep to them. They’re tired, and there’s nothing to talk about anyway.

A door to the right of the kitchenette leads to a small bathroom which, like all the other rooms in the cabin, is paneled with fir. White porcelain sink crusted with a chalk buildup near the drains, down the sides; dusty box shelves overhanging the mirror and the toilet, right up until the dark teal curtain separating the shower cubicle.

They scrub their hands in too-warm water for several minutes, until their fingerprints have started to crease, and the old scar in their right palm starts to shoot pain up the wrist to their forearm. They wash their face then, and run wet hands through the dark hair framing their face, feel it fall heavy against their cheeks, dripping down their chin. Hooded dark eyes watch them dispassionately from the mirror, pale skin, full lips wasted on a straight line.

Most of the shelves have been occupied by Atkinson, skin products and makeup, a straightening iron, supplements. They’ve managed to carved a corner for themself, a plastic box containing basic toiletries squeezed into one corner; the rest is full of pills, some in boxes, most in fist-sized bottles.

Three blue, one reddish brown, two white, one yellow. Too many to swallow at once, so they break it up into two handfuls, wincing at the discomfort in their back each time they lean down to drink from the tap.

Gatz is still in the kitchen when they emerge from the bathroom; Atkinson must’ve gone back to bed. They keep their gaze down as they head for their room. A subdued desperation just to finally lay down and escape things for a while. And they think they’ve made it, because for whatever reason, he waits until the absolute last moment to speak up.

“Moreno.”

They pause on the threshold, grimacing, hand on the frame. Dragging in a deep breath through their nose, they turn around.

Gatz leans against the stove, picking the plastic cover off a fresh pack of cigarettes. “Listen, man,” he says slow, apprehensively gently. “I assumed you sought out someone like me for a reason. And I don’t mean to nitpick, but…” He smirks. “The next time you say you want to talk to someone, you’re gonna have to be a little more specific about your definition of talk.”

They feel themself tense, teeth gritted. “If you have a problem with—”

“Do you think I have taboos? Honestly?” He lets out a soft chuckle, shaking his head as he cracks the carton open. “I’m not in this to judge people. All I’m saying is that if you want my help, I’d prefer direct communication, that’s all. I hate having to guess. I don’t work with unsaids.”

They swallow, eyeing him up and down, and there’s a bitter taste at the back of their tongue. Saying it out loud doesn’t feel natural; it feels dangerous. Feels wrong, even, like a sin in and of itself. They take a deep breath, jutting out their chin. “I want to kill all of them.”

He meets their eye. Nods his understanding, pulling a smoke from the pack. “I appreciate the honesty,” he says. “Thank you.” And his smile, strangely enough, seems sincere.

It’s not enough to disarm them completely, but maybe the complete lack of condemnation throws them off; they can’t imagine any other circumstance in which those words would be met with acceptance. They feel their jaw working, eyes flickering uncertainly between Gatz and the floor.

Once again, Moreno turns to leave.

“Also…”

They look over their shoulder.

A cigarette bops from the corner of Gatz’ mouth as he speaks, one hand digging in his pocket for a lighter, the other gesturing at them. “Put your clothes in an airtight bag,” he tells them. “I’ll burn it for ya in the morning.”

Moreno nods slowly, eyes drifting to their sleeve. They somehow hadn’t considered it, but on a closer look, tiny droplets have dried in the dark fabric here and there. “Alright,” they mutter.

And they cross the threshold, finally, closing the door behind them. Frozen for a while, adjusting to the hopeful prospect of being alone.

Sinking, inevitably, into familiar apathy.

Previous / Masterlist / Next (coming soon)

[coldresolve]

i wrote something boys

[coldresolve]

Also an important sidenote, I'm well aware there are other forms of emotional sadism. A good portion of sadists also happen to have no empathy, which makes that alexithymic empathy response impossible for obvious reasons - but they'll still feel pleasure at suffering that's distinct from whatever drives sadistic actions in the first place. And some sadists can't feel guilt or remorse, so they while might be prone to cognitive sadism, they obviously aren't in that Remorseful Sadist category I made up. My more general point is just that I think there's a difference between "the thing that drives sadistic actions" and "the emotional response sadists get from other people's suffering", and that I personally think that difference has the potential to be useful in how we conceptualize sadists

But it's complicated, and everything is on a spectrum, and some people will always break definitions. It's why psychology is so fucking tedious sometimes, all models ever made fall apart eventually. The original post was made from a more normative standpoint for otherwise neurotypical people who do experience empathy and guilt, so yeah

TL;DR take everything with a grain of salt, nothing I've said here is universal by a long shot. I just think it's interesting to think about these things more comprehensively, and I'm grasping at straws because research is scarce lol

My grand thesis on sadism

I'm not an expert on anything whatsoever, and studies on sadism are sparse to say the least, so I'm basing this on squinting at concepts I've seen elsewhere and a layman's gut feeling. Here's my thesis:

Introduction

Sadism is when someone feels emotional pleasure as a result of someone else suffering. That's about it, afaik. And yes, this does mean that that one time you said something mean to someone else in the heat of the moment to hurt their feelings, you were behaving sadistically. Sorry lol, sadism isnt a mythical creature, everyone is capable of it

Obviously, some people are more inclined to experience sadistic pleasure than others, which is where we draw that largely arbitrary distinction between sadist and non-sadist. My thesis is that this distinction is a tad more complicated than a binary spectrum: there are (at least) two different types of sadism, both of which play a role in what type of sadist a person is. Those two types are a) emotional sadism, and b) cognitive sadism. I made these terms up just now for the record

Emotional sadism

This is a type of sadism experienced by people who have alexithymic tendencies. Alexithymia affects about 20% of people. It's that thing where you're not very good at distinguishing or expressing different emotional states; distinguishing emotions from non-emotional bodily sensations such as hunger or fatigue, and; distinguishing between your own emotions from those you feel through empathy. (Loads of alexithymic people think they don't experience empathy; they do, they just don't attribute their feelings to other people.) Alexithymics will often have difficulty describing their emotions beyond negative, positive, or neutral. But some alexithymics, in certain regards to certain emotions, will have difficulty even doing that.

By attributing sadism to alexithymic tendencies, what I mean is this: You see someone suffering, and you feel a rush of adrenaline. But because you kinda suck at distinguishing this rush as the negative emotions felt by the other, transferred to you through identification and/or empathy - your brain interprets the rush as a positive experienced by you, which is influenced by, but still independent from the suffering experienced by the other. I hope I'm explaining this okay lol but this is the most plausible explanation I could come up with as to why sadistic ppls brains will interpret other people's suffering as a source of pleasure, because there is a significant correlation between alexithymia and the dark tetrad.

Cognitive sadism

Cognitive sadism can be summerized very sussinctly by this quote from C. Fred Alford:

Sadism is the joy of avoiding victimhood, though that puts it too passively. Sadism is the joy of having taken control of the experience of victimhood by inflicting it on another.

Cognitive sadism is an expression of control over the role of victimhood by imposing it on another person. I view this as the sub/conscious justification that drives sadistic actions, seperate to the emotional state experienced by the sadist after the act has taken place. These are, in my opinion, two seperate processes.

K, but so what?

Viewing these two things as seperate processes might help us distinguish between different types of sadists, by simply adding or subtracting. Here are some terms for what I mean that I also literally just came up with lol:

The Opportunistic Sadist: Experiences emotional sadism, but has no inclinations toward cognitive sadism. This means that they will experience sadistic gratification at witnessing the suffering of another, but they have no desire to be the one inflicting said suffering themself. (A good portion of yall are like this from what I've seen)

The Remorseful Sadist: Seeks control by imposing victimhood on others, but can distinguish their empathetic response as other-oriented and distinctly negative, leading to intense feelings of guilt/shame/remorse/whatever after the fact. (Industry secret: a large portion of people who broadcast themselves as hardline sadists secretly fall into this category. They'll never admit it lol)

The Pure Sadist: Experiences both the alexithymic empathy response and control-seeking inclinations. What most people think of when they conceptualize sadists; people like this are pretty rare in my experience? But I also have no data on it so like.

Anyway here's a graph I made:

The graph means I'm basically an academic about it lol idk

Conclusion

Fuck if I know, I'm just thinking thoughts about it for now tbh