Hi whole bunch of new followers I never expected to make!
Thanks for all the likes and reblogs!
I haven't posted anything new in a while so it might be pertinent to warn you. I am a notorious mood whumper. I may quite literally go months without updating, then spend three days spamming your dash with reblogs, and then go back to another month of utter silence.
This is a random sideblog I made so I could store whump inspo for a few WIPs of mine. I literally never expected to have any followers. But you all are forever welcome! This is just a heads up.
Team Leader saying "Leave. That's an order." hits twice as hard, when they're the kind of person who hates hiearchies and avoids giving direct commands.
enemies who both have leather-bound journals and take obsessive notes on each others general behavior, fighting strategies, conversational quirks, pressure points, etc. creating a detailed guide to thoroughly deconstruct a single person. needing to think their thoughts one step ahead of them. in my pocket i carry a hand-written carbon copy of you. you privately study a version of me that contains everything but the flesh. i must see you more, fight you more, you are my favorite game and i need to win. so very intimate
Peeling the veins out of my celery stick like whumper pulling veins and arteries out of whumpees arm one at a time without anesthesia đĽ°đĽ° puuuuull riiiiiiiip
A defeated enemy bound and forced to kneel in the centre of the camp/base, left like that until someone decides what to do with them, all too aware of the many hostile eyes on them.
Fiction makes, implicitly or explicitly, some kind of argument. A fictional portrayal of a guy simply going for a walk might make the argument that walking is a nice activity to do. This might not be a particularly earth-shattering message, but messages like this are implicit within the literary tools we use in how we portray characters, behavior, settings, and relationships. This underlying argument â a theme â is present in all of fiction. Itâs why youâll often see people make the statement that âall art is politicalâ. And when it comes to torture â a subject which in and of itself has been the topic of political debate for millenia â how we approach the ideas and arguments made within fictional depictions of torture warrant, in my opinion, a degree of care. Torture isnât just something that happens in movies. It is something that happens today, to real people, on a global scale. Itâs not even particularly rare.
The difficulty with the subject of torture specifically is that for the past two decades, the public perception of torture has shifted on a global scale, seen most clearly in how torture is presented in contemporary media, fiction or otherwise. Everybody believes these myths. And getting indoctrinated into having reactionary takes on a topic is nobodyâs fault, considering that almost every source outside of academia feeds you misinformation. But thatâs, yâknow, kinda why I made this blog: in the hopes that I might be able to get people to consider what ideas theyâre presenting in their writing.
I want to start out by briefly reitorating some basics of how torture apologia typically works within political discussions, because this very much is relevant to how you can avoid accidentally sending the wrong message.
The first thing you need to understand is that the real-life debate surrounding torture isnât framed in terms of whether or not torture is good or bad â everybody, including torturers themselves, will concede that it is bad. The more insidious argument is that torture is useful for achieving certain goals, and that it is therefore justified in extreme emergencies. Not only does this argument try to soften the usually rigid negative framing of torture in moral discussions, but it also seeks to poke holes in the international laws which ban the use of torture outright. Itâs a moral, political and legal argument all wrapped up in one reactionary package. For this reason, having the theme of âtorture is badâ doesnât always mean a piece of writing isnât making use of torture apologia. âTorture is usefulâ serves that goal just fine.
Torture is also often discussed in terms of civility â not the civility of the torturers, but the civility of the victims. Itâs the argument that the people who are being tortured are bad people, and therefore donât warrant the respect and dignity we usually offer to other human beings; they are so bad, essentially, that itâs fine for us civilized people to war crime them. Whenever Iâve encountered this argument, it has usually been presented in a way that was, shall we say, sussy as fuck â some even give up the pretense and straight up call their victims âsavagesâ or âdegeneratesâ. I hope I donât need to explain why this line of thinking is insane, but in any case, itâs just my way of getting you to consider that a lot of the myths surrounding torture are rooted in broader sociopolitical issues, often racism and religious discrimination, and historically, most often within the context of colonialism.
With that in mind, letâs get into the myths, starting with the most obvious one.
"Torture for information works."
Every study Iâve read has concluded that torture is counterproductive when it comes to gathering intel from reluctant sources. Under severe pain or distress, victims are more focused on saying whatever they think the torturer wants to hear to make the torture stop, as opposed to providing accurate information. On a neurophysiological level, severe pain or distress actually interferes with the pathways of the brain relating to long- and short-term memory; this means that torture in and of itself is likely to destroy the very evidence it sets out to gather. Furthermore, victims are less likely to cooperate if subjected to physical abuse, including torture, and nothing in the infliction of pain itself works as some kind of truth serum. Lying and defiance are more likely under torture.
To a large minority of people, portraying torture as a reliable tool for gathering accurate information will make the implicit argument that torture, although usually bad, can hold utilitarian value in certain exceptional cases. Iâve written about this more in depth here.
"Under torture, everyone cooperates sooner or later."
French prosecutors used torture in the events leading up to the French revolution, as a way to gain forced confessions from suspects. Their failures and successes were jotted down, leading us with a pretty revealing insight â the highest success rate for gathering forced confessions was in Toulouse, an exceptionally high 14%. In Paris, only 3% of suspects cooperated long enough to sign their name â the rest did not. This is one of the primary reasons that the French criminal justice system eventually dropped using torture for intelligentsia. To quote Darius Rejali, who wrote The Book on torture: âTorture the clumsiest method available to organizations.â
So no, not everybody talks â in fact, rough estimate, 90% of torture victims never do. Defiance is by far the norm with torture.
"When the bad guy does it, itâs torture â when the good guy does it, itâs a tough, but morally justifiable decision."
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Heroes of stories, especially in the action genre, often engage in the use of torture for information, usually following the framework of the ticking bomb scenario, a thought experiment based on the false notion that torture works as an interrogation method. Here, torture is turned into a heroicact, one that speaks to the toughness of the person who uses it. Ask yourself if you want to frame torturers though this lens â because if you do, you are literally justifying the act torture, and, yâknow, you do you, but I am gonna call you stupid and reactionary. Torture done by a âgoodâ person is just as abhorrent as torture done by anybody else.
"Some methods of torture are less severe than others."
This myth stems from governments trying to downplay the use of certain methods of torture, and usually goes hand in hand with euphemistic redefinitions of the concept, such as the CIAâs âenhanced interrogation methods,â also known as âtorture lite,â or the Israeli âcoercive interrogation.â The methods that have been proposed in this supposed less severe category of torture includes stimulated drowning, also known as waterboarding, as well as caning, beatings, limbs being broken with clubs, sleep deprivation, stress positions (ex. forcing a person to crouch against a wall for extended periods of time,) mock executions, sexual assault, and more. If these things all just sound like torture to you, itâs because they are. There is zero evidence to suggest that any torture methods, including those that leave no physical mark on the body, have less severe outcomes than those that do not â on the contrary, non-physical torture methods, including mock executions, or witnessing the torture of a loved one, have been ranked by victims as causing equal amounts of psychological distress as physical torture.
"Torture only causes harm to the person who is being tortured."
This is incredibly unrealistic. Torture is an act that is destructive in all directions, causing trauma to victims, their family, witnesses, and even torturers themselves. It disintegrates the structure of the organizations that use it, it breeds resentment and hatred in the communities around it, and it radicalizes people into extremism. Pretending that consequences like this donât exist isnât torture apologia per se, but if your aim is to show the realistic outcomes of torture, these are some of the things you need to consider.
Torture is portrayed as âscientificâ; torturers are âskilledâ in the âartâ of torture.
The most common methods of torture in use today are: hitting people, sleep deprivation, and starvation. These donât require a whole lot of brain power to conjure up, in fact the infliction of intense suffering is very straightforward. Human beings are full of nerves. Stick a knife anywhere, and Iâd be more impressed if it didnât cause pain.
Not to mention, portraying torture as âscientificâ or something that ârequires technical skillâ makes the implicit argument that torture works for its intended use, here under the condition that you should at least do it right â which brings us right back to that utilitarian fallacy.
"Torturers are expert interrogators, and possess an extraordinary ability to detect lies in their victims."
Studies have been done on the ability of police officers to detect lies for about four decades now. The average person will have a 57% accuracy rate, meaning theyâre barely better at spotting deception than a coin toss. For police officers, the highest estimate is around 65% - but it might also be as low as 45%, meaning they might be less accurate than a coin toss â even though police officers tend to think of themselves as exceptional at spotting deception. The same trend is seen in torturers.
In fact, this myth in particular originated from torturersâ accounts of how they conceptualize themselves, which is not only false, but also cringe. When an interrogator starts making use of torture, their focus tends to shift away from gathering reliable information, and more towards âperfectingâ the infliction of pain, which means that over time, those interrogative skills are substantially degraded â they are terrible interrogators. So torturers are no better at spotting lies than your average person; they might actually be worse. They canât read minds, and they donât possess some secret mystical knowledge about the psychology of their victims.
"You can train someone to resist torture."
Loads of intelligence agencies and revolutionary groups around the world have published material that supposedly serves as manuals for resisting torture, but the truth is, torture is so extreme, there really is no way to prepare or train someone to âresistâ it; this is something that even the CIA has acknowledged. Everybodyâs reaction to pain will be different. There is no way to predict how torture will affect anyone, much less give them instructions beforehand that will somehow magically negate those effects.
"Brainwashing through torture works."
Torturers canât change the emotional framework of a person through the infliction of pain. They cannot change the strongly held beliefs and opinions held by their victims through the infliction of pain. They canât erase someoneâs entire personality or make them a âblank slateâ through the infliction of pain. They canât predict how a victim responds to torture, much less direct that response to their own benefit. This is not how pain works.
This is not only an implicit argument for the usefulness of torture to change someoneâs behavior or force religious conversions, but the myth that torturers have some form of control of their victims even after the torture has ended is also used in real life to paint survivors as dangerous or unstable, and thereby bar them from treatment and aid, and even to allow access into countries to escape the circumstances that facilitated their torture in the first place. That last point is why you often see the advocacy of refugee rights in organizations that work to prevent torture; these two branches of activism have a huge overlap.
Torture victims cannot be controlled by their torturers. Brainwashing isnât real.
"Stockholm syndrome is real."
This is a derivative of the brainwashing myth, which means all the connotations previously mentioned remain, but as a cherry on top, Stockholm syndrome as a trope can also serve as an implicit argument for the utility of domestic abuse. So thatâs cool.
If you deliberately inflict suffering on someone, that is guaranteed to make that person dislike you. In real life, torture survivors not only tend to be extremely resentful of their torturers, but they also tend to be resentful of anyone belonging to the same demographic as their torturers, whether that be ethnicity, nationality, or even gender or general appearance. Like I said, torture radicalizes people.
"Torture makes people obedient."
Any physical abuse or neglect, including bad cell conditions, access to medical aid, decent food and clean water, is likely to breed resentment in victims and makes them far more reluctant to cooperate with their aggressors. With torture, defiance is the norm, by far. You saw this on a larger scale in the war on terror, for example â turns out that carpet bombing a country to deter terrorism only radicalizes the civilian population, producing more terrorists. No form of violence exists that will make a person particularly eager to shut up and do what you want them to do. It will just make them hate you.
The notion that torture makes people obedient is also an implicit argument for the use of corporal punishment or as crime deterrence, something that along with capital punishment has repeatedly been proven false by sociological studies. People just do not function like this. If you want to create obedience in your story â violence is the last thing you should use.
"People âbreakâ under torture."
Victims of torture sometimes make the conscious decision to do what their torturer wants them to do, and this often serves as a means to buy enough time to plan an escape, or mount up whatever act of defiance they can manage. Sometimes they simply do it to get the torture to stop â this, too, is a tough, conscious decision. If you want to consider this a form of âbreakingâ, by all means go ahead, but implying personal weakness or lack of willpower in torture victims rubs me the wrong way. I personally see it as a rational choice made by a person who is in an otherwise impossible situation.
"Torture survivors are âbrokenâ."
Torture certainly can lead to extreme psychological distress, but again, the term âbrokenâ here implicitly makes the argument that torture victims simply lacked the mental fortitude to withstand their trauma. In my opinion, thereâs a certain degree of victim blaming involved with framing torture survivors in this way, and certainly, itâs a framing that inherently strips away their agency.
Another thing that rubs me the wrong way is the fact âbrokennessâ implies a degree of permanence and rigidity to human beings that simply isnât there, as if we are solid objects that, once shattered, can never regain the function we once had. Itâs a nitpick, but I view people as organic things, capable of healing and growth â not as glassware.
Conclusion
Iâd wager that while reading this, a good portion of you recognized some of these myths from depictions of torture in fiction; thatâs not particularly surprising to me. These myths arenât just widespread, theyâve been engrained in the global public perception of torture by decades of political debate and government propaganda, and as a result, have seeped into popular culture.
Torture isnât rare, and neither is torture apologia. According to Amnesty International, 31% of the global population believes that torture is justified âin some casesâ; as of 2014, AI had also reported on torture or other ill treatment in 141 different countries, despite the fact that torture is internationally recognized as a war crime.
In an ideal world, the subject of torture in fiction is treated with the same due diligence with which we have learned to portray subjects like homophobia, sexual assault, and racism; because, to be fair, all of these things have the capacity to intersect, and very often do. The first step in that regard is to spread awareness about how torture actually functions, which is what I hope to slowly start doing on this blog. At the very least, I hope I can make people more aware of how they choose to portray torture in their writing.
Content: beating, royal whump, noncon touching, restraints
A grabs whumpee by the hair and yanks them away from B
A: "That's not how you hit him---you can't beat his head! We need him coherent! Here. Let me show you." (Punches whumpee in the gut, watching him buckle over with a gasp.)
Whumpee having a preference between the two and silently begging for A to take her.
Whumpee: "A, I'll do what you say. Please." A: "See, I told you B. That's how you break 'em."
Arguing in court over royal whumpee and which person captured her and which person is the highest rank and A wants to execute whumpee and B wants to humiliate them and whumpee is nearly in tears as they fight over them.
A and B physically pulling at whumpee's arms in the sockets as they try to take the prize. When whumpee tries to protect their shoulders, the two of them beat whumpee down and as soon as they're retching on the ground, they go back to fighting.
Touching whumpee and starting to shove each other out of the way until it gets violent, leaving whumpee to crawl into the corner as well as they can in their bonds
A whumpee whoâs so broken and conditioned that when they plead for mercy, they donât plead âno please, donât do it, pleaseâŚâ they just beg âplease, not yetâŚâ
They just need a moment, they know itâs hopeless and theyâre gonna get the shit beat out of them not matter how good they are, but maybe if the have just a second to peel themselves up off of the floor, the first kick wonât hurt as bad.
Just a second to catch their breath. A minute to spit the blood out of their mouth. A pause, just long enough for them to wipe the tears away so they donât run into their cuts and sting worse.
Noooo they're just a little guy don't hurt them nooo
What whump* scenario would you put your blorbo in?
Illness
Physical injury
Kidnapping
Emotional Distress
All of the above
Multiple of the above
Other (share in the tags)
Nooooo they're just a little guy don't hurt them noooo
Voting ended onJun 6
*Whump: The term whump (or whumping) generally refers to a form of Hurt/Comfort that is heavy on the hurt and is often found in gen stories. The exact definition varies and has evolved over time. Essentially, whump involves taking a canon character, and placing them in physically painful or psychologically-damaging scenarios.
Whumper and Whumpee who are on the same team. Whumper will provoke whumpee until they snap and then go cry to the rest of the team so that Whumpee develops a reputation for having a temper and being emotionally volatile. Now everytime they express something theyâre dismissed.
So when Whumper starts causing real damage; starts crossing lines and escalating past verbal altercations, starts showing up at Whumpees house after fights so they can âfinish things properlyâ. Until they start threatening Whumpees position on the team, saying that if they tell anyone about the little predicament Whumpee is in, theyâll tell everyone that Whumpee is the one threatening Whumper.
Whatâs worse? They recorded a video of Whumpee snapping after a particularly bad fight, snowing Whumpee cursing, threatening, and snapping at Whumper. Of course, the earlier footage, of Whumper beating the daylights out of Whumpee is all conveniently edited out.
Whumpers who make sudden, threatening movements on purpose just to see Whumpee flinch.
Even better if Whumper lets out a chuckle at how easy it is to get a reaction out of their victim. Just goes to show how much power they truly have over Whumpee.
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report and block. i'd also appreciate it if you shared this post, bc that blog was JUST created and was already tagging a LOT of people, and i know not everyone has the scam-sensing instinct, even if this might seem obvious to some.
