hello!! i'm Swann, she/her. this is a blog for me to write, especially whumpy things!
fav tropes: cells, restraints, manhadnling, captive/royal/military whump, multiple whumpers, stoic whumpees, forced to kneel, hurt > comfort (i still do comfort! just focus on hurt) and lady whumpees
this is a whump blog (what is whump?) so there will be sensitive and graphic content that not everyone is comfortable with.
Minors, DNI. Kink blogs DNI. Along with that, I am pro-choice and anti-war. DNI if you are not. Also please do not interact with my work if you use generative AI.
every identity is welcome here. let me know if i miss a tag/you want something tagged. also i love interacting so asks/comments/questions are always welcome!
Stories: (on a bit of a hiatus rn but all are in progress)
🌙 Task Force Eclipse [in progress] - Callie and Xavier - Police Investigation & long-term captivity - Found family
🍂 Amber [spin off] [in progress] - Taylor Sterling - Undercover investigation - In progress
🦇 Starlight [in progress] - Kiera and Gray - Hero whumpee and Villain caretaker - In progress
🪐 Sariel and Lorcan [in progress] - Sariel and Lorcan - Space and military - Angst and fantasy politics
Oneshots:
"No Grave Can Hold My Body Down." (Whumptober No. 6 2025)
Other Stuff:
My Prompts (please tag me if you use these)
Asks (aka every ask I receive)
OC Ask Game (i made this!!! :D)
Polls
People who use AI in your writing, please DO NOT interact with my posts, and don't follow me.
I AM EXPLICITLY STATING THAT I DO NOT GIVE CONSENT OR PERMISSION FOR ANY OF MY CHARACTERS, MY WRITING, MY POSTS, MY STORIES, OR OTHER IP TO BE USED TO TRAIN AI, BE IT ART, WRITING, OR ANY OTHER ARTICIFICAL INTELLIGENCE.
Whumpee with a tendency to downplay their pain so now Caretaker is constantly worried they're doing worse than they admit ☺️ reading into every little movement and breath and facial expression to make sure Whumpee is actually okay
"I'm running out of patience here. Tell me where you were the evening of May 9th."
"How the fuck am I supposed to know? That was five months ago."
The sound of a hand slapping the table rang throughout the room.
"Goddammit, what did I just say?"
"Alright, relax."
Miller was sprawled out in a chair beside the table, the very picture of ease. Grant paced back and forth on the other side, steam practically coming out of his ears, while their suspect sat in a chair by Miller.
"It makes sense, Grant. It was a while ago. And," he turned his attention to the suspect, "it sounds like you were going through a lot at that time."
"Yeah." The suspect, a rather slimy guy by the name of Lester, relaxed a fraction. "Yeah, you know, I really was."
Grant scoffed in exasperation, but Miller nodded, his face entirely sympathetic. "You've got all these women telling stories about you, then the construction job at Lakewood dries up, you've got no income….anyone would be stressed."
Lester nodded, looking imploringly at Miller. "Exactly. I was backed into a corner!"
Miller nodded seriously. "You needed an outlet. That's being human, Lester."
"I…I did." Lester glanced nervously at Grant, who let out a frustrated huff.
"You want to sit here and listen to this bullshit — fine. I'm done."
He wrenched the door open and let it slam behind him hard enough that the camera in the corner of the ceiling rattled. A little theatrical, maybe, but Grant always knew how to make an exit. Miller looked a moment at the door before turning backing to Lester, who was jiggling his leg nervously.
"Lester. I didn't want to say this while he was in here, but I think you do remember that night. The storm. Everything."
Lester didn't say anything for a long moment, and Miller wondered if he'd pushed it too far, too soon. But then he spoke.
"….yeah. I do."
Miller's face stayed perfectly neutral, but his heart rate picked up. Here it was. They were on the precipice.
"Tell me what happened."
"I can't, man!"
Lester's restlessness got worse, and Miller decided he needed to bring the temperature down a fraction.
"Lester. Man. Look at me."
He did, reluctantly: Lester's hazel eyes met Miller's dark brown, and Miller felt like he could see another universe swimming inside them. Guilt. Insecurity. Paranoia. Fear. And it was time for him to lay it all down.
"It's just you and me here, now. You can tell me. I know you're not a bad guy. You didn't want to hurt anyone. I can help you, here, but it's time to let it out."
Lester's expression cracked, and Miller knew he had him.
"Okay. I….God. That night, I….I was using, alright? Like you said, it was a bad time. Right?"
Miller nodded steadily.
"And I went out driving. Stupid. This was after the storm, at least."
After? Calculations immediately began to swirl in Miller's head, but he stayed silent, letting it stretch until Lester spoke again.
"It was dark as shit, I'm driving along, I see this girl….I don't even know what I was thinking. But she had a mouth on her, I'm telling you. Rude for no reason! None! And.…" He broke into tears. Miller felt an unease growing in his gut. "I just…I swerved a little. I didn't hit her! I wasn't trying to! I just wanted to scare her! I felt my tire go over her foot, though, and she screamed so loud, I just took off.
"I don't know if she ever reported it." Lester was babbling on, but Miller had leaned back in his chair, his brain now on a completely different channel. "She was this blonde chick. I just — I already had all these other girls on my back! I couldn't stick around and let another one on my record!"
"Blonde?"
Lester looked perturbed that that was all Miller got from his diatribe. "Yeah. Wavy blonde. Kind of girl who knows she's real pretty. And knows you know. You know?"
"Did she look at all like this?" Miller pointed to Vienna DeNova's glossy picture on the table.
"What — no!" Lester looked at the picture of the dark-haired girl in annoyance. "I told you, man, I had nothing to do with that! I don't know shit about that girl!"
"I believe you." On a dime, Miller's voice had lost all its fraternal softness and edged into something bitter. "Stay here, Les."
He left the bewildered man at the table and walked through the door, closing it carefully behind him. Grant was waiting on the other side with some other agents, watching the interaction through a monitor. They looked up at the flesh and blood Miller as he approached.
"You don't make a bad good cop."
"It's not him," Miller said sourly. "That story's too specific. I don't think he has it in him to be that good of a liar, anyway."
"I agree. And we got his phone records out here, his GPS matches the story he gave you." Grant had abandoned the heavy vest he wore for the bad cop role and was sitting at the table with his sleeves rolled up. "We can get him on assault with this, though. With a deadly weapon. You did good work."
Miller grunted, arms crossed across his chest. "And nothing for the DeNova case."
Somewhere within the light purple folders spread across the table was a list of persons of interest, mostly sourced from the list of contractual Lakewood employees they'd only gotten access to a few weeks ago. Since then, the team had been working at a breakneck pace, funneling every resource, every moment into the new set of leads.
It had been hours and hours of overtime and it was undeniably exhausting — but to Miller, it just felt good, like a workout that was making his muscles stronger every day. To have momentum, something to actually work on, was exhilarating.
But…..the list of potentials was getting smaller and smaller. They'd been coordinating with other FBI field offices to track down the people they needed to talk to, many of whom had gone on to find more work in different areas. The majority of them weren't even in the Lakewood area when Vienna went missing. Most of the ones who were had a solid alibi. And the rest, like dear Lester here, just didn't seem to be their guy. At some point crossing the names off the list began to feel less like momentum and more like their pool shrinking all over again.
In fact….
"We just have one left."
It was Officer Donovan who said what they were all thinking. He'd been more or less designated as the representative for Lakewood PD on investigative matters that didn't involve them directly; Miller had a feeling that Detective Carver had correctly assumed the young officer was the one who had the least amount of friction with the team.
"That's not technically true," Agent Herring protested. "We still have several we haven't completely ruled out."
"Well….you know what I mean," Donovan said somewhat dourly.
And Miller did. While it was certainly technically true that they had several people they hadn't eliminated altogether, the general feeling was that none of them truly fit the bill. The team was still keeping tabs on them, as a matter of course, but not a one of them came close to the profile the team had built — a man in his thirties who was relatively socially isolated, calculated, cool under pressure, with access to private property to do whatever ungodly thing he planned to do with Vienna.
Miller tried not to think too far ahead to that part. They'd get there when they got there, and manage whatever it was.
"Maybe. But I have a good feeling about this one." Miller pulled the photo of their remaining person of interest out of one of the folders. The face that looked back up at him was as familiar as the back of his hand now: dark eyes staring out from a face harshly shaped as if carved from stone, capped by a neat, short head of hair.
The man, still nameless to them aside from a clearly fake alias, was the last of the three initial suspects they identified from Lakewood's contractual employee list. He was proving to be a hard man to find. He'd used an alias to apply for the job and then, as soon as misconduct allegations were made, seemed to disappear into the wind. A man with an axe to grind against the university, someone who had a documented history of problems with women, secretative to the point of going off the grid….it all seemed to fit.
So they were tightening the net.
Herring had put his face out to all the news networks she could get in touch with, using the singular work photo they had of him. Along with a push from the DeNovas, the picture was soon all over, not just Lakewood but throughout the state and beyond. Someone was going to recognize him. They had to.
He was all they had left.
"We'll find him," Grant said confidently. "For now…." He crossed Lester's name off on the list in one stroke of his pen. "We keep going."
Classical music floated through the air of Miller's office. He absentmindedly waved his pen in the air as if conducting while perusing the arrest records from a few towns over. Papers gently rustled as a late October breeze came through the cracked window. It was one of those flow moments where things seemed to align perfectly so he could actually concentrate.
But his internal clock was strong. It was early evening on a Monday, so Zander would probably be here soon, hanging out for a short time before basketball practice. His presence was almost routine now.
It started small — briefly stopping by to check in for any updates, wanting to help with something small but actionable like folding flyers or addressing envelopes. Easy. And if it helped the kid feel better, why not?
Then his visits got a little longer. He'd take books and homework, post up in some quiet corner and just work. He was a hard worker, Miller noticed, even with all this going on. Cared a lot about his studies. He actually did the readings, too, which is more than Miller could say for his own college self. The kid would sit there with a highlighter and pen at the ready, seeming to take in every word. He'd told Miller, more than once, that his office felt like the one place he could really sit down and concentrate. It got to the point where if Zander wasn't in class or practice, he was in Miller's office.
And the real kicker? Miller liked it.
He liked having someone around to remind him exactly what he was working for. He liked having someone who he could throw out words of wisdom or little lessons to — and, even better, someone he knew would actually listen. He liked having someone who knew Vienna DeNova better than anyone an easy six feet away.
And honestly? Miller couldn't help but just like Zander Wright.
He was a good kid. Talked too much trash about Miller's failing NBA team for his taste, but overall he was respectful, hard working, funny, and loyal to the bone. Good qualities. They'd take him far, Miller hoped.
If Miller had to take a phone call or talk to another investigator, Zander would pick up his book or laptop and dutifully march out to the main bullpen until they were done, seeming impervious to the stares that some of the other employees fixed him with. But he couldn't quite help himself, Miller noticed, from looking at him with a little interest and hope each time he walked back through the door. Like any conversation Miller had might just be a breakthrough.
It made him worker harder.
But they both needed a break every once in a while. Zander was getting more and more open to chatting, and Miller liked to teach him things when he could. Just a little something here and there to help him get his mind off things, feel capable. There was the palm concealment trick, then shimming a latch with a credit card. Miller taught him how to spot a lie, read body language.
And, on the increasingly common days where Miller was working through lunch, he'd still make sure he had something available if Zander needed a distraction. Mindless little tasks like alphabetizing files or stapling packets of paper. He'd set them to the side — that'll be good for the kid to do — as if it were part of his daily routine.
Miller also knew Zander's birthday was coming up, October 26. Should he know that, off the top of his head? Probably not, he conceded, especially since he originally saw it in a case file somewhere. But hey. It was what it was.
Zander hadn't mentioned it once. This didn't surprise Miller, not really; the level of self-abandonment he saw in the kid couldn't have cropped up over night. That kind of thing was honed over years. This wasn't the first birthday, he guessed, that Zander had low expectations for. And special days like this were never easy when someone was grieving.
Still, Miller couldn't help but cringe internally when Zander loped into his office a few days before his twenty-first birthday, sitting heavily in his usual chair like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
"Hanging in?" Miller asked. Zander grunted in response.
"I'll take that as a no."
"Was up late last night."
"Studying?" That would track. Kid worked himself to the bone.
"….no."
Something about his tone made Miller look up. Zander was picking at hangnail on his ring finger, eyes bloodshot. He met Miller's gaze and said warningly, "You can't laugh."
"Swear."
"I…was calling hospitals. To see if they had any unidentified patients or anything. You know, like, memory loss? Or that someone dropped off?"
Miller nodded. His throat constricted ever so slightly. He had made that exact phone call, multiple times, trying to keep tabs on Conor.
"There was nothing," Zander continued bitterly. "Obviously. But…I had to try something. You know?"
"I do." Miller said it so genuinely that Zander looked at him with a bit of surprise. "Let's just say I can relate. You gotta let yourself sleep at night, though, man. Or at least rest."
"I'm fine." The typical automatic answer. "Doesn't matter."
"Well, it does to me. Start acting like you matter, because you do.”
Zander covered his face with his hands and his words come out muffled. "I really can't do this today, dude."
Sometimes earnestness, Miller learned, cut Zander just a bit too deep. "Alright, I'll lay off. But I do mean it."
"I mostly just came by to tell you that," Zander said, seeming glad that the conversation was moving on. "And….have you heard anything else about that guy?"
By now, everyone had heard about their person of interest. Zander had actually been one of the first ones to lay eyes on him — Herring had gotten a bunch of college students from Vienna's circle to look at the photo they had of him and confirm if they'd seen him before or not.
Most of the kids had looked the photo over for a few seconds before either confirming or denying that they recognized the guy. Zander, on the other hand, had scrutinized it like it was the missing link to the universe. He'd looked it up close and far away, held it up the light, until finally stammering, "Yeah…yeah. Maybe. I think so. I'd have to have seen him, right? Yes."
Miller didn't have the heart to tell him, of course, that absolutely none of that would be admissible.
"Nothing new yet." Miller was prepared for the slump in Zander's shoulders, so it didn't hit him too hard. "But I really think we're getting closer every day."
"Sure." Zander sounded exhausted. "Well, I've only got a little bit of time, we've got extra practice for the game on Thursday."
Ah, Thursday. The birthday.
"Yeah? Got anything else going on?"
Zander looked at Miller suspiciously, but keeping his face neutral and inscrutable was literally part of the agent's training. He waited innocently for Zander's answer.
"Not really. Just the game. One of our first of the season, so…important."
Miller didn't respond for a moment, wondering if Zander would fill the silence in with anything else; but Zander was starting to learn that trick and just looked back at him with an edge of impatience.
"Well, I'm not worried. You're playing Freestone?"
Zander nodded.
"Yeah. Their forward's got two left feet. As long as you manage not to trip over yourself, you'll be fine."
Zander snorted, rising to go. Still, the look in his eye was real when he told Miller, "Thanks."
It wasn't too much later when Sydney Herring appeared in Miller's doorway. She was put together as ever, tight blonde ponytail in place, wearing a pressed suit with a lavender ribbon crisp on the jacket pocket. It wasn't unusual for them to confer, especially with the DeNova case; there were so many family members and students and other traumatized third parties involved that Herring really had her hands full. But….
"Hey."
It was her tone of voice that made Miller do a double take. It was the same unbearably soft kind she used with clients.
"…hey."
"I wanted to talk to you about something."
Miller felt a sense of unease in his gut. "Work-related?"
She paused in the doorway. "What makes you think it wouldn't be work-related?"
"You're doing the voice thing."
Herring hummed noncommittally and closed the door behind her. Miller sighed internally and leaned back in his chair as Herring took a seat in Zander's usual spot.
"I've been thinking about Zander Wright."
"Okay." Miller felt his defensive walls rising and intentionally tried to stay present. It wasn't like he was doing anything wrong.
"He's here quite a lot."
"Yes," he allowed, "he is."
"I'm wondering if it's too much."
Well, Herring was nothing if not forward.
"I disagree." Miller kept his own voice as steady and neutral as hers. This wasn't unexpected. He'd seen the looks that some of the other agents gave Zander when he was in the office — not disapproval, exactly, but a certain sense of wariness, like they weren't sure if his existence there was allowed. "I'd rather him be here where we know he's not getting himself into anything stupid. I've seen that downward spiral before."
More intimately than he cared for her to know right now.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's safe. But he's never going to develop coping skills on his own if he's always here. And taking care of him is not your responsibility. Working the case is. With a clear head."
Miller looked at her more sharply at that one. "Does anything suggest to you I'm not working with a clear head?"
Indignation simmered in his chest as she took time to think it over. "Not yet. But you've never gotten this personally involved with a case. Not in the years I've known you. You know it goes against our standards."
He couldn't stop himself this time, Miller rolled his eyes. "Sydney, you've known me long enough to know I don't always go by the book. This is what works for Zander. It works fine for me. It's just what he needs at this time."
"With Vienna gone."
"Exactly." But somehow he felt this was just another point for her argument.
"What if she never comes home?"
There it was. Miller fixed her with a stare, trying not to notice how the question made his chest tighten. "We don't talk like that."
"We don't talk like that with the public," Herring responded calmly. "We'd be foolish to never acknowledge at all."
Miller's jaw worked. She wasn't wrong. They both knew what the odds were.
"We need to consider it. How long can he keep coming here? What happens when he has to watch you move onto other cases?"
"I'm not giving up on Vienna. We'll cross that bridge when we get there."
For the first time, her composure seemed to crack. Herring recoiled a bit, as if he'd suggested she'd kicked a puppy. "I'm not giving up on her either, if that's what you're suggesting. It's just that there's nothing in our ethics handbook to guide us on how to handle this."
"There's no guidelines for life, Sydney, and I get through just fine." Better than fine. Better than most. "He needs a healthy outlet. That's all. And if I can be that….I don't see the issue."
"I'm not saying it's entirely unhealthy." She paused delicately before continuing. "I just don't think it's completely professional."
That got him. Miller uncrossed his legs so both feet were firmly on the floor. "We can debate ethics all day long, but you're not going to question my professionalism."
Herring had the humility to look chagrined. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply….you know I respect you. I just…I'm worried about both of you." She paused, searching his face. "This is a hard case, emotionally, for all of us."
Miller didn't say anything. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.
Well. I just wanted to…to make my concerns known."
"Noted," Miller said dryly.
Herring's lips pursed. But even she knew when to give it up. "Well. Have a good evening."
She stood and opened the door. After a brief hesitation, she softly said, "Just…think about it," without turning around. And then finally left, walk still so calm and steady it made something in Miller's jaw twitch.
Long after she left, he still sat there stewing. Where did she get off? After going in enough circles in his head, Miller decided, ultimately, that it wasn't personal — Herring was and always had been a stickler for rules and procedure. Miller had never been that way. Like he'd said to Herring, life didn't come with a handbook. It was never that cut and dry. Doing good in this work, really doing good, meant knowing when to zig and when to zag. It's not his fault she couldn't see that. It didn't mean he wasn't professional.
They just didn't see eye to eye, had completely different philosophies. If she wanted to go by the book, great, fine. But he, Miller, he trusted his gut and his heart, and they told him that having Zander around was just fine. Good, even. Just because she thought differently didn't mean it was the wrong thing to do.
Still. He thought about the entire drive home. And tossed and turned quite a bit more than usual before finally falling asleep that night.
The next couple days flowed just like the last couple had. After allowing himself one fraught night, Miller tried to put the argument with Herring out of his mind. It was simply a matter of different perspectives, he told himself. It certainly wasn't worth getting distracted from work. Very little was.
October rain was lashing against his office window, the heavy clouds making it seem darker and later than it really was. Miller had his desk lamp on for some nice ambiance, typing up an email to a neighboring state's field office when he heard brisk footsteps in the hallway. Miller looked up from over his reading glasses to see who would appear in the doorway.
It was Herring. Coming to talk, surely, about their argument the other day. He was ashamed to admit he'd been avoiding her the last couple days, not feeling quite ready to kumbaya yet. He braced himself for another uncomfortable conversation. At least he had plenty of practice.
But….
Rather than her usual poise, Herring's face was flushed and excited, a single strand of hair dangling loose from her pontytail. It made Miller stop in his tracks. Before he could ask, Herring told him what they'd spent months waiting to hear.
Your dialogue is stiff because everyone is being too honest
Great dialogue can come from radical emotional honesty. But in most real conversations, people
dodge questions
answer indirectly
lie (badly)
change the subject
crack jokes to avoid serious answers
lie (convincingly)
say half of what they mean
tell the truth but get so anxious/angry/defensive others now think they're lying
If your dialogue feels unnatural, it might be because everyone is saying exactly what they think, or articulating their thoughts too well. Try letting characters hide things instead.
protect short sentence stacking as a stylistic choice.
protect fanfic writers—who are kind enough to share their works with people to read for free—from ai witch hunts, speculations and accusations.
“don’t like don’t read” also applies to any fic that is ai-generated and any fic you think is ai-generated by the way. if you don’t like what you’re reading for any reason, you can always stop reading and exit the fic at any point. but harassment is never ever justified. no matter if you think you’ve found a noble excuse to do it. and also…
witch hunts, speculations and accusations harm the writing community as much as ai does. if not more. I don’t want to see another innocent writer get driven away from the community because someone decides to harass and accuse them for using ai just because their fic happens to have “ai telltales” — the same telltales ai got from having been trained on millions of human-made works to mimic how real humans actually write.
If making mood boards, filling out character charts, and making music playlist helps you to write/draw do it! If it just makes you happy.... also do it! Enjoying things is not a waste of time. Play and fun are fundamental needs.
Love a good change in sound design in visual or audio media when Whumpee is dazed and disoriented 👏 Everything echoing or being muffled or tinny or ringing, that's good stuff
very much into "oh. actually, even if you do your best and behave well for me i'm going to hurt you because i simply want to" kind of whumpers. "refusing to be understood and predicted" kind of whumpers.
hey. psst. hey. give your scariest or toughest character a really mundane fear or phobia. have that former living weapon or the leader everyone is terrified of fully scream at a bug or flee at the sight of a cat. have their circle realize. have somebody weaponize it if you're feeling frisky
