#Lil Whale Anon 🐳

[the-bloody-sadist]

Thank you for your last advice! I have another question, if I may. Do you have any advice on writing dissociation during torture? Is it something a character can learn? How long might it take them to grow sort of mentally numb or broken (for lack of a better wording)? And perhaps the most important question, could music help the dissociation process? 🐋

Oh gods, I love talking about dissociation. For me, writing it comes from personal experience, so I feel it in my BONES and I write it naturally, but let's see if I can try to break it down!

First of all, dissociation is a trauma response, so technically it's not something a character will be controlling, and I think it would be best not to show it that way? I THINK? The thing is - your character shouldn't have to learn it, because it happens naturally when the body is put through something it can't process. Whether this is physical or emotional, both cause dissociation pretty easily. It's a survival mechanism. There's no need to 'encourage' or 'help' this process by doing anything BUT traumatizing the body in some way. (I hope that makes sense!)

All you need is one torture scene where you can build up to the dissociation moment - this is the mind pulling out of the body, so to speak, and 'observing' the event from a safe distance. Emotions and thought detach, leaving things numb. The body may act on its own, but the person has no control over it, anymore. And then you've established that the character will dissociate. If I were to write it, I'd do one torture scene without the dissociation, and the next one with it, having the torture ramp up a little in severity. It gives the illusion of progress through an arc.

Fortunately, you don't need very long to get to the mentally 'broken' stage. I would say about five scenes (although I tend to drag psychological details out in my own works, so maybe you could pace yours quicker) ought to get you to that point. And I would suggest showing that breaking moment as a sort of climax to the torture arc. It depends on the type of torture, honestly, because certain methods break people a lot quicker. Things like sleep deprivation or sensory deprivation, say. And - because we as an audience highly identify with how scary those things are - you don't need much to convince us the character will go insane in, like, TWO scenes. LMAO.

As far as the music thing, I hope I answered that with the dissociation questions! Music/sounds can certainly be used as a torture method, but it's not going to encourage dissociation any more than the actual torture would.

However, it can be used as a trigger for dissociation, if that's a route you want to take. Say the torturer always plays the same song when they come in to torture. After about three times of this, you could show the song being played and the character getting triggered into dissociation because they know what's coming, so their mind prepares for it.

Just a thought, if that's what you were going for!

[osarina]

okay no thoughts just dazai seeing wife!reader while at work and being SOOO obnoxious about it 😭😭 maybe she’s just out grocery shopping minding her business and all she hears is a BELLADONNAAAA and dazai running up to her with the biggest grin on his face. he’d gone out to get groceries with atsushi and kunikida for the ADA cuz maybe they have a lil snack shelf and they were running out. kunikida just sighs and reluctantly pushes back all his plans for at least the next half hour cause he knows dazai is NAWTTT gonna wanna leave wifey. but he is very polite and so is atsushi, who is just bewildered at how fast dazais mood has changed. cue a thousand kisses all over her forehead and cheeks and a whole dramatic spiel about how BORING work is and how he just wants to go home😡😡😡

also god forbid she’s pregnant or with their baby because kunikida is just dropping him off atp LMAOO u cannot pry dazai off wife!reader or their little baby

- 🐳 anon! also happy belated bday!

WEEPSSSSS WHALE NONNIE OKAY SOME OF THESE ARE ALMOST A MONTH OLD IM SO SORRY </3333 forgive me ive been so busy </333

STOPPPPPP WIFE!READER & LOSER!DAZAI, im weeping because dazai is truly so lame and romantic, he's the type that's like - "everyday i just fal in love with you more and more", every time he takes you on a date he gets nervous and giddy like it's his first time taking you on one and could you IMAGINEEEEE his first time seeing you in public while he's with the ADA, he pretends he doesn't know you, prances right up to you, dramatically trying to woo you and of course kunikida and atsushi are embarrassed. kunikida starts apologizing on his behalf, trying to drag him away, but you wave him off like 'no IM sorry for my husband" and kunikida is just like "what-" because of course dazai would never mention this to them just so he could see their reactions in a situation like this

and you kNOWWWWW the ada would love you, as soon as everyone else finds out about you, yosano and naomi are badgering dazai to bring you around and once he does for the first time, that's the end. dazai starts getting pouty because suddenly he's losing out on time with you because his coworkers want you to come out drinking with them. so you have to deal with an EXTRA pouty dazai when the two of you get home.

omg :((( and u have me YEARNINGGGG dazai running into wife!reader & their lil baby :'))) im missing dadzai. and LOLLLL YES kunikida just gives up, he sighs and goes off to finish what they were sent to do on his own the moment dazai starts bounding over to the two of you. you try to scold dazai and tell him to get back to work, but he's too busy fawning over u and the baby :'))

[sqtorux]

this is my first time doing this but anyways ur smaus are really cute and i like them a lot ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

also hope ur doing well !! take care of urself lovely creator, make sure you’re getting a good amount of sleep and food

(can i be whale anon or is that taken)

-🐳

eeeeee hi welcome you cute precious lil my baby im doing well thankyou so much.

ofc u can be the whale nonnie <3

[kurosukii]

exaaaaactly 👏 Hirugami is so pretty it was inevitable that I simp for him 😬

AND the fact that he became a vet like yes sir I mean sir I mean sir I mean daddy

((this is the Hirugami simp btw 👁️👄👁️ can I call myself 🐳 anon is that free if not then feel free to dub me anything you like 😋))

he’s the prettiest !! and the fact that he doesn’t take korai’s shit LOL and his hair...so fluffy...

[dvlboy]

no literally aliennie and whale anon are being smited by god rn

I MEAN YEA GOD HATES ME BUT AKSKDKCK 😭😭😭

it hurts but i had to laugh 🤣 again no one was taken to the hospital, but the lady in the other car almost got arrested bc her behaviour was getting on the cops' nerves and , in his words "unnecessary".

again im okay, i just cant go to work or do too much bc i feel like glass rn.

but i am alright. no hospital visits for me, but i did need a doctors note for work.

otherwise, i feel like ive been on the gods' hitlist for years lmfao

🐳

be careful abt whiplash because it’s a lil bitch

[samatedeansbroccoli]

Whale anon here, Broccoli honey. I just wanna say a lil opinion that Team Metal's chemistry in MW3 is a great one and if I do say so myself, a bit better than the Safehouse Crew bc it's all messed up. Sincerely, you can't change my mind 😎

~🐳

I 100% agree. If by anything, I find the Perseus Pursuit team to lack the proper chemistry needed for proper comraderie (I actually don’t know what I’m trying to spell please bear with me google isn telling me) for a clean feel. Granted, Modern Warfare is more about what you can trust than who you can trust and BOCW pulled that off beautifully with how it never felt just right to fully trust Adler, Park, or Sims. Plus, team Metal has at least a year of being together whereas the Perseus Pursuit team only formed around January 20th, and the Bell part started February… 23rd…? Something like that. So wicked different dynamics. They’re a bit hard to compare.

[bumble-b-goode]

here's some flowers and a smol cat for you 💮🌹💮🌹🌺🌷🌻🌼🌼💮🌷🌺🌷🌺🌷🌺🌷🐈 ily!!!

Ahh thank you anon! 😆☺️Have some lil bees and a whale 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐳

[the-bloody-sadist]

Hi! It's been a while and I realized I didn't follow you on my other account. I hope you've been well. I have some questions relating to my writing project that I want your insight on.

Do you think a character that is human experimented on could have their curiosity sparked by the experiments and pursue knowledge in that area? I don't want it to just look like "the torture was good actually".

How would you go about adding stakes in a story where the main characters are basically immortal?

Is it possible to instill negative traits into a story in a way that still feels intentional? For example, looping to my second question, I want to have the feeling of "these monster attacks and exploding orphanages are getting boring and it's boring because the villains wont die", but without outright chasing the reader away.

Thank you for your time and I hope you have a good day! 🐋

Hi Lil Whale!!! Good to see you again!! Here's some answers for your questions:

Absolutely. If you think about it in terms of trauma, a good deal of trauma survivors will repeat certain behaviors of the trauma they suffered, as a means of controlling the circumstances around what happened to them. This is a coping method as well as a possible self-destructive behavior, depending on how it's used, so going into the experiments after surviving being experimented on could offer the victim a chance to process what happened, nail down the details of what was done to them so they can have closure, and continue in the field as someone who experiments instead of getting experimented on. Or, perhaps, they're also getting experimented on, or experimenting on theirselves, which is just another way to put themselves in control of the abuse they didn't have control over in the past. If they define how much is enough, what they'll do to themselves, and so on, it can lend a feeling of overcoming that past abuse. Now they're in charge, and now the person in their past cannot hurt them.

This is not as tough a concept as it might initially seem! When stakes are not based on life or death, there are plenty of other (and imo infinitely better) stakes you can raise. First off, though, you can always create a method in which immortals CAN be killed, still. Lots of good stories about immortal characters do this! Take Heaven Official's Blessing, for example - all of the characters are either gods or ghosts, but there are still methods to disperse their remaining souls. For instance, the ashes that remain of a ghost's dead body are forged into items that the ghosts hide. If these ashes are found and destroyed, that destroys the ghost for good. For the gods, who are humans that have ascended into immortal beings, their bodies are technically still alive, they just regenerate. Because of this, the main character suffered a worse fate more than once because he CAN'T die, which I believe is far more powerful than death stakes. Because he couldn't die, a mob stabbed him with swords over and over. Because he couldn't die, he tried to commit suicide and could not after his parents' deaths. Because he couldn't die, he was locked up in a coffin where he survived for ages. This is infinitely more terrifying in my opinion than simply dying. Other than this, you can also give the characters strong emotional stakes. Friends, someone they love, etc., and losing these friends by betrayal or other circumstances out of their control. I'm not sure how much help you would need on that subject though, so I'm assuming you were going for my first answer on the immortality stakes!

I'm not entirely sure if I have the right idea on what you're asking on this one, but I THINK I do, so I'll try!! If you mean that you want the readers to know you ALSO think it's boring to have the villains not die and keep returning to bomb orphanages, you must mean that you'd be doing that to build up to a better thing that's not boring. That's absolutely doable, and it won't scare the reader away as long as you hint at that growing thing, not spend TOO much time on the boring things, and make it clear through your writing voice that you're fed up with the villains not dying, too. I hope that makes sense. It's a bit of a nuanced thing and easier done than said for me, but as long as you have the subtle promise of something on the horizon creating tension in the readers, you'll be able to keep them. That's literally ALL it takes, if your writing is good enough!

Thank you for the ask, and I hope you have a great day too! <3

[the-bloody-sadist]

Hello, I hope you are well on this hellish afternoon! If I may ask a weirdly specific question, in your opinion, what do you think is an appropriate amount of time for a character to be locked in a torture lab in a novel (story length wise?) Because it's plot relevant and plot stuff happens, but also I don't want it to be too much? 🐳

Hi Lil Whale! I WAS WELL UNTIL YOU REMINDED ME IT WAS A HELLISH AFTERNOON 🤨. Lol JK I love the question, and there's a lot of factors that would contribute to the right choice for your story. First of all, it depends on where in the plot this event takes place. Is it a midpoint, where everything changes in the middle of the story? Or is it the Dark Moment area, where this is going to bring your character to their lowest (if it's the MC) so that they can either turn evil/give up if it's a tragedy or rise to triumph if it's a hero's journey type? The length depends mostly on the pacing of the story as a whole, as well.

If this is a midpoint occurrence, I'd say you can have them in there for quite a while, as long as you keep an undercurrent of conflict and scenes that always end with a change--or contribute to the build-up. This can be as minor as whoever is torturing them trying to get one answer out of them or trying to break them down one inch in one area, and that either succeeding or failing, etc. with the methods always ramping up somehow in the next scene to help the reader stay involved. If you're not constantly building up to something, that's when it can feel too long or too slow, especially when it comes to capture and torture. Don't fall into the belief that just because your audience might be into whump/torture that you don't have to do any work aside from showing the pain. That's not what makes these scenes in movies so good, and without movies giving you the extra goods like sound and visuals, your version is just writing, which forces you to make SURE you have the best version of pain you can offer, which means connecting the arc of change, the buildup, the emotional impact, and the struggle through conflict to reach a decision.

If this is a Dark Moment occurrence, I would advise it be shorter but stronger. You want to bring them to their absolute lowest emotionally and physically, but the dark moment is a bridge to the end, and readers will feel slogged if you drag that out too much. So hit hard and fast, basically, hit those plot points, and then either drag the character out or drive them to madness.

If it's not either of these, I think I would suggest a sort of midline between both. The Midpoint is where you could have the most fun (if you like the torture portions), and anywhere else in the story should be both short enough to act as a minor arc and long enough to fulfill that minor arc.

I REALLY HOPE THAT HELPS BUT FEEL FREE TO ASK ME ANYTHING MORE IF YOU HAVE REMAINING QUESTIONS OR NEW ONES!! A lot about the story itself and what you plan to do with it has to be known before I could say anything more concrete. So feel free to give me that (or not) if this advice doesn't work for you!

I learned the most about how to write prolonged torture when I wrote Sinner, because almost the entire novel is spent in that sort of situation, and I was worried at first about it getting repetitive or boring. But there's a certain rhythm to it that makes it probably more fun and simple than anything else I've ever written, and I wish I could do a hundred just like it.

[the-bloody-sadist]

I think answering specific questions on writing advice instead of trying to provide unprompted advice sounds like it would work better for you, anyways! Not that your advice isnt valuable, but I think your art and writing are what people know you for more, and if that's what you like the most, there's not much reason to dedicate yourself to branching out to regularly scheduled writing advice.

That said, if you still like the advice-giving, just saying that it's an option and that people are open to ask is valuable. 🐳

Yes, thank you - I totally agree! I just feel like I wrote that first post, sent it out and went "yo WHO asked though" LMAO. Glad to have your support on my decision to do it this way!

It works in the category of my writing, and I love to share advice with those who actually ask for it and think that my advice would be valuable to them, so I'll look forward to that, if I get any asks!

Thanks, sweet! 🫶

[the-bloody-sadist]

If I may, what are your thoughts on worldbuilding? I might have just misread, but do you dislike it overall, or just in certain ways? 🐳

Oh no no, I don't dislike world building as a whole, that would be foolish of me - I hate that part of writing as a writer, and I don't enjoy reading a story that is more about the world and less about the character IN that world (because I'm interested in people, not world mechanics and all that).

In short, it's about portraying the world THROUGH the character's eyes, and having an interesting outlook from their POV. I don't care about the world and how it works unless I'm seeing what the main character thinks about that and how he finds it interesting or otherwise. I hope that makes sense! I couldn't tell if you sent this before or after I made my post on this topic, but here's the link to that if you want to read more in-depth:

Me-centered narration in fiction

[the-bloody-sadist]

Send help I had a dream in your art style aaaaaaa 🐳

Um hello? Why can't I have a dream in my art style? (Me to Sandman over the phone)

[the-bloody-sadist]

This might sound kind of dumb and obvious, but since your blog header says "intimate/erotic whump", would you call that your... Idk, genre? Or do you have more specific ways of describing your themes? I don't know where this question came from... 🐳

Hey Lil Whale!! I missed you! Noooo it's not dumb and obvious at ALL, because I actually have a sort of complicated relationship with whump LMAO. I don't really consider it a genre, much less MY genre. I just spent time looking through Tumblr communities before I started up my own to learn where my work might best fit in, and the whump community was definitely where I knew the biggest potential audience would be. So I label and tag my stuff with those things because I know it gives people a good idea of what they'll find and if they'll like my stuff or not! My genres are psychological thriller/romance and for Dancing With Death specifically, probably romantic suspense, or just plain fantasy romance if we're talking about what it might get labelled in the professional industry.

I'm glad you asked this, by the way, as I do like to explain it. Whump is just the name for the painful things that happen to a character during his story journey. That's why I don't particularly enjoy a lot of Tumblr's "whump" content, since it usually lacks plot or scene development and most especially characters. I enjoy those who write actual stories that include an abundance of that content and/or tropes. Which...regular stories include most of the time. But someone getting beat up means next to nothing for me if it's not an actual character I've grown to love.

However, if I had to consider one of the whump types a genre, it would probably be boxboy whump. That has a whole universe around it and multiple stories that can portray it differently, thus better fitting the genre description for me. Anyways! Hope that answers it for you!

[the-bloody-sadist]

I don't know how that chain got in and out of him and at this point I'm too afraid to ask. It's not like a tentacle! 🐳

WHY IS EVERYONE SO HUNG UP ABOUT HOW IT GOT THERE

I am genuinely suffering from this backlash

[the-bloody-sadist]

Ayyy! Happy new year! This time I have a writing question for you! Do you have any suggestions for how to deal with suspension of disbelief in the context of writing a really fucked up whumper? Like, I just want to write. I have the basics of the dynamic and motive down but if I think about it too hard I start rationalizing myself out of it and thinking things like "Okay, sure he's a terrible person... But his thought process doesnt make sense to me," which is frustrating because it also DOES make sense to me, but it's so easy to poke holes in. Another example being creepy, posessive whumpers which I'm trying hard to write, and I GET that it's irrational but also I just end up thinking "But... If you love him... Why is he in a cage with his eyes gouged out..."

🐳

Hello Whale!! Happy New Year to you too :D

Thank you for your questions! This is something I'm particularly passionate about, but I tend to NOT see it in the whump community (which honestly, I don't really like to say I'm a part of, I just know that tagging my works as that will bring in the crowd who can enjoy it most). There are so many dead characters that are only there for the sake of causing pain and creating whump. It's frustrating to me lol.

First of all, the biggest reason you'd most likely have trouble with the suspension of disbelief in the context of a fucked up whumper or villain would be because you don't know his motivation. People don't just do fucked up things out of nowhere for the sake of doing fucked up things for fun. And even if people might exist in real life that seem to do this, it's just because we don't actually know what's going on inside their head.

With villains/whumpers, you have to understand their belief system, their goals, and their drive that pits them against the hero/whumpee. I know people in the whump community are typically pretty lazy with this, but if you're wanting the writing advice that you should follow in any story, then...you know. Stop looking at whump writing for examples (and by this I mean MOST, not ALL. I found a couple like @deluxewhump and @whumpzone most notably, who have well-formed characters and cohesive progression of arcs.).

And I don't say this to sound high and mighty, so I hope it doesn't come off that way. I just get frustrated, having studied writing and characters my whole life, seeing such flat writing being excused because of its so-called whump content. T_T Moving on, though! I struggle with concern over certain characters I have coming off as cartoonishly abusive, as well, such as Mother in Little Bird, which I just recently published a sample of here. It's a little hard for me to describe the intricacies of my thought process when trying to assure big, awful villains come off as realistic, but the first step is definitely their reason for doing it in the first place.

To use Mother as an example, I added elements of her environment to make sure that violence and extreme brutality were part of her world, her upbringing, and the dynamic she has with her son, Ellum, in general. So she's the partner of a Russian pakhan, a leader of a syndicate. This is a particularly brutal environment, which offers the perfect space to breed cruelty and nurse bad habits. She can get away with abusing her son, she has more aggravators around her that can set off her anger, and since I gave her the added struggle of mental disorders, her unstable state is even further kicked out of balance by the way she lives.

With creepy and possessive whumpers, or otherwise captors like you mentioned, think of irl serial killers. Behind almost all of them and their extreme brutality, there was a mother or parent who was awful to them in their childhood. An unstable environment and a horrible upbringing would lead to a cycle of abuse and, later on, someone who would hurt others out of "love" or "lust", because their impulse control is extremely low.

The most important thing is to show more than one side to your villain, because humans in general do things that they believe are correct. The villain has to believe in himself and think that what he's doing is the right answer to whatever he's dealing with, internally or externally. He loves someone, he wants them to love him back. They don't love him back? Well, he'll make them. They still won't? Well he'll show them what they get for rejecting him. He doesn't want to get hurt anymore, and they hurt his feelings, so they deserve X, Y, or Z because of it.

And his motivation could be just pure selfishness. He wants it, he gets it. They don't have to agree or consent. Going back to Mother from Little Bird, she takes from Ellum because it makes her happy, and forcing him to be codependent on her fulfills her need to be needed, so she wrongly treats him almost as a lover to fill the hole that her husband leaves, since he's emotionally detached and uninterested in her. She feels rejected, so she goes after an easier prey.

To summarize, hopefully, because I never know if I'm speaking coherently enough for it to be understood lol, "Sure, he's a terrible person" should be followed by "but why is he a terrible person? What made him that way? Why doesn't he just stop and try to be normal?" And that should help you begin to understand your villain's motivation for cruelty.

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK LIL WHALE, IT WAS FUN TO ANSWER THIS ONE! I hope it helps.

[the-bloody-sadist]

My torture lab scene is in kind of an odd place, since the two characters get taken in the middle of the last battle. It's like when you're watching an episode of something and you're like "the climax just happened! Wait, oh no, there's still 45 minutes left" because this thing ends on a

downer

The plot beats I need are going from defiance and protecting the other person she's with > The other person gets moved to another room > The other person gets rescued but she doesnt > Despair > Smuggled out. It sets up a lot of distrust and abandonment issues down the line and shapes the character's choices later on. 🐋

Okay! In that case, I would say go for the mid-length version that I mentioned in the first answer!

Whenever the audience recognizes the climax, they automatically start anticipating the ending. You have to be VERY careful about your pacing if you choose a big moment to show after the climax. No matter what happens, the audience will be distracted waiting for the ending with every scene.

So, the shorter the better in this instance! But it sounds like you have a fair amount of plot points and emotional build-up to do, so I would make sure that you really want to place it after the climax!

I'm not sure if you actually meant that though, considering you were using that climax comment as an example. Still, hope it helps!

Also the DOWNER in different font made me laugh so hard LMAO