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Notes on Torturing The Character In The Science Facility

my takes on this trope rarely if ever have anything to do with the character being "special" or being studied for powers they innately have, if they are special its something that was done to them

it's about the medical trauma

it's about the violation and lack of bodily autonomy

the "living weapon" trope, but the key characteristic is catastrophic functionality

i love, love, love the concept of "catastrophic functionality" in a person: character that can tank ludicrous amounts of damage and just Keep Going in virtually all circumstances barring outright dismemberment. They can keep going, so do they "deserve" rest and/or pain relief?

after a lifetime of having their distress treated as whiny and unreasonable, they have what would be a dangerously high tolerance to pain and exhaustion.

another key function of the Science Facility is to fix the damage Character takes, maybe using enhanced healing technologies or 3D printed organs or something. this leads to Character's body being treated as relatively disposable cause "we can just fix them"

extreme version of this: Character can't die even if they wanted to

people who work with Character are informed that they're dangerous and arbitrarily violent, and their fear of Character makes it easier to justify restricting autonomy

It is TRUE, cause Character does not have tools to set boundaries or protect their body other than violence. vicious cycle of being perceived as dangerous and therefore denied autonomy, and being forced to use violence to defend autonomy

the restraints used to hold Character look like major overkill, which underscores how dangerous they are. LOVE this trope

character being desexualized to the point that their non-consent to touch, to being stripped down and examined, or to procedures is trivialized. There is no non-clinical context for their body, and the "clinical" framework eclipses any possibility for bodily violation to be understood as violent.

types of uncanniness: Character looks human but has some subtle inhuman traits or characteristics. (I'm obsessed with reflective eye shine, personally.) OR Character looks like they've been taken apart and put back together, like flesh pulled over a much more unforgiving and indestructible metal scaffold. OR Character gives off "undead" vibes; they're just not quite alive in a way that sets off air raid sirens in people's brains

Often, Character is dead and Came Back Wrong (varying levels of literalness)

anyways yeah. i never stopped writing this trope and probably never will. it's a good one

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I love the random replacements for clichés writers insert in science fiction shows. like when a 21st-century human would say "stop pacing you'll wear a hole in the floor" but in a space show the alien/future human says "you're oscillating like a Betelgeusian night badger" or some shit. like fuck yeah he is. amazing drive-by worldbuilding. I'm gonna spend the next half hour wondering why the Betelgeusian night badger evolved to do that

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If I may add onto the whole “post-skandia Will is triggered by the cold” headcanon— what if, despite being triggered by extreme cold, he weirdly craves it?

I can picture Will struggling with a warmweed craving. Every time the urge hits, he feels incredibly ashamed of himself. Ashamed that, while in Skandia, he chose self-destruction over the cold. Ashamed he wants it again.

This time, he chooses the cold. He just wants to prove to himself he can resist the craving. He wants to feel strong, like he’s made real progress in his recovery. And if it takes jumping into an icy lake to prove it, so be it.

Needless to say, this isn’t a very healthy way to go about it. It inevitably makes his craving stronger, and he gives in half the time. The other half, he’s so overwhelmed by the traumatic memories he can hardly function.

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The Foxhole Court Chapter 1 Webcomic

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Some color sketches I did with Sevro and Roque.

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Very VERY minor Morning Star spoilers (not plot related either)

It fucks me up that Sevro was such a little freak that Darrow, Mustang, AND Cassius all thought that he was going to purposefully sh*t himself to prove a point. Meanwhile he was fully having a heart attack TT