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scripttorture · 6 years

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Hi! You've talked a lot about the details involved in 'pumping' someone full of liquids, and I've considered subjecting a character to this - a healthy soldier in their late 20s. I'm curious about how to write the recovery process provided they're rescued a day or so after the torture and taken to a hospital. How would this be complicated if the liquids the victim was given included things like human waste, mud, salt, laxatives etc., and if the captors had beaten them after they were 'full'?

WhelpI’ve asked @scriptveterinarian and the good news is it’s highly unlikelytheir organs would rupture. Which is good because I’m not sure whatthe treatment for a popped stomach or intestine would look like.

Rupturingthe oesophagus ispossible especially when something like a tube or metal funnel isinserted into it while pumping. But drowning on the liquid is morelikely.

Accordingto ScriptVet the level of dissension can put pressure on thediaphragm making it difficult to breathe.

Anyone of those things can be fatal.

Thefact that pumping usually isn’tfatal suggests to me that for whatever reason most of the time thesethings don’t happen.

Anda big part of the reason why is probably that vomiting is the body’snatural response to this huge and unnatural level of stretching inthe stomach. If it’s getting to the point where the stomach ispainfully swollen, there’s pressure on the diaphragm and so forththe body expels the excess. If torturers were to keep going at thispoint there’s a good chance the victim could drown in their ownvomit.

So-my educated guess is that pumping is survivable because torturersgenerally stop when the victim starts to vomit large amounts ofliquid.

Thediarrhoea, which can come at the same time but will definitely show up later, is due to taking in more liquid than the body canabsorb. As far as I can tell.

Assumingthat the torturers start beating the victim around the time theystart vomiting; well the victim is probably going to vomit even more.It would cause a lot of pain. It shouldn’trupture the stomach because the torturersaren’t really capable of hitting with that sort of force (you’retalking car-collision force).

Thevictim accounts I could find aren’t clear on whether this wouldalso trigger diarrhoea. They describe feelings of weakness,light-headedness, shakes. Which aren’t unexpected when you’recoupling a large amount of pain with nausea and a prolonged period ofvomiting. Especially as most torture victims are already dehydratedand/or under fed.

I’mnot entirely sure what hospital treatment would look like. Thistorture is still used but is a lot less common than it was 80 yearsago. As a result I’m not really finding any medical articles ontreating it now.

Isuspectthat he’d probably have expelled most of the excess fluid by thetime he’s rescued. Which means his treatment would probably focuson any wounds he has and re-feeding/re-hydrating. That would probablybe done via a drip.

Eachof the things you’ve suggested adding to a pumping mixture wouldhave different effects. Some of them are pretty risky for thecharacter.

Humanwaste is going to cause an infection. Probably not in the stomach butin the throat. Stomach acid is generally pretty good at killing theinfection-causing microbes that would be present which is why I thinkthat’s less likely (it would still be possible).

Thethroat seems most likely to me because the implements torturers useto force liquid into the stomach generally cause small cuts in thethroat and mouth. Things like plastic tubing, metal funnels and thelike are forced into the mouth and to the back of the throat. Whichcreates a lot of small injuries and a lot of likely sites forinfection.

Idon’tthink this would be lethal in the time frame you’ve got. Thecharacter is at the hospital in plenty of time for the infection tobe treated. As the infection takes hold his throat may swell, makingbreathing difficult. But if he’s already in hospital by that pointhe should be alright- it’s something modern medicine can deal with.

Itwould also cause diarrhoea, there are some sources I’ll quote laterthat would help you with that. This would be dangerous, probably evenlife threatening. But it would also be relatively easy to treat in ahospital.

The combination of the two however could result in a pretty life threatening condition. I think he’d need to be kept on a drip for quite a while to make sure he has enough fluids and ensure a constant delivery of antibiotics.

Mudis likely to be much more dangerous.

That’sbecause the big exception to the ‘stomachs are hard to rupture’stuff I was talking about earlier is...when the digestive tract isblocked by something solid and indigestible. Like mud.

Evenif the character’s stomach didn’trupture while the torturers were beating him pumping with mud wouldgive him incredibly serious digestive problems later on. It can inessence clog up the system. It’s not a substance the body canreally remove any way but physically and it is physically difficultto shift.

Thecases that are coming to mind are famine victims. Sometimes in themiddle of famine people will start to voluntarily eat mud. That’sbecause the pain from hunger is so bad that they just want to ease itany way they can. Mud can provide a very short term relief, anillusion of fullness. Until it passes a bit further and completelyblocks the intestines causing an agonising death.

I’mnot 100% clear on all the dangers and risks that are applicable whena character eats mud. ButI can give you an idea where to search. The technical term for eatinginedible things is ‘pica’, searching for that in relation tofamines in particular should help you find sets of symptoms andhopefully a treatment profile as well.

I’munsure how it could be treated or indeed if there’s a treatment andthat’s part of the danger. Hospital staff may not spot just how badthe situation is until it’s too late and something’s ruptured.

Outof all your suggestions my instinct is that mud is the most dangerousand would require the longest hospital stay. Possibly involving multiple surgeries.

Saltis easier. It would encourage the character to vomit more and leavehim even more dehydrated.

That’sa horrible feeling and a pretty lasting form of pain. But it iseasily remedied.

Dehydrationtends to cause headaches, light-headedness, tiredness and thesensation of a dry mouth. It can cause fainting, confusion andblurred vision. In extreme cases it can cause seizures.

I’vebeen dehydrated enough to faint and not be able to see straight anymore. In that state water tastes sweet and drinking it causes a sortof euphoric rush, almost like the early, pleasant stage ofdrunkenness.

Treatment would concentrate on rehydration.

Laxativeswould also cause the character to become more dehydrated.

I’mnot sure how long common laxatives effect people for. I thinkthey’re relatively short-acting but it would be best to check.There’s a big difference between the effect of a substance thatwould give him diarrhoea for a day and one that would give him it fora week. The first isn’t too worrying though it would likely beincredibly painful for the character. The second is much moredangerous even if he’s in a hospital.

Diarrhoeacan kill. In fact it is stillin the top ten causes of death world wide. Though it has fallen from5thto 9th(from 2000-2016), showing that we have made progress against thediseases that cause it.

Themajor risks if the character has diarrhoea for a long period aredehydration and lack of nutrition. He might need to be kept on a dripfor a while and it might be a long time before he’s back to fullstrength. I’m not sure exactly how long it would take or what thattreatment would look like.

Thereare resources on diarrhoeal diseases that would probably be a goodstarting point for working out what the treatment he’d receivewould look like. I’m not a medic so I can’t really give muchadvice myself. Butthe WHO has a page here which serves as a pretty good starting pointon diarrhoeal diseases, their prevention and treatment.

Noneof these substances would effect the pain the character feels whilehe’s being tortured. The initial period would be pretty similarwith each. It’s the longer term physical recovery that theseeffect. They’re each causing a prolonged period of sickness aftertorture, but they’re doing it in different ways.

Ithink that if you’re unsure which, if any, substance to pick thebest way to approach it is to think about how long you want thecharacter to be in hospital for. Salt will likely give the shortesthospital stay. Laxatives with a short term effect would also means ashort hospital stay.

Longerterm laxative and human waste would mean longer hospital stays- I amguessing here but I think 2-4 weeks wouldn’t be unreasonable.

Mudis likely to mean he’d be sick for a prolonged period of time.There are a lot of possible complications or things that could gowrong. He might need multiple surgeries. He might be in and out ofhospital for a much longer period of time.

Ihope that helps. :)

Disclaimer

#tw torture #tw lack of hygiene facilities #tw vomit #pumping #laxatives #pica #eating mud #infections #human waste #diarrheal diseases #thehungryvortigaunt

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proudtoehaver · 6 years

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The Phasma fangirls you've been fielding lately are some real galaxy-brains. Really don't see her appeal beyond "shiny" and her actress' accomplishments outside Star Wars, since in SW she's a pathetic villain (and from a 'feminist' lens she's a stereotype of the 'ball-busting bitch boss' who's secretly a coward). As with Kylo, fans bend over backwards to conjure 'abusive pasts' for faves while ignoring how they treat other characters like shit. Literally first thing she does is a massacre...

The schmucks were something alright.

It seems that villain woobification of white villains at the expense of characters of color truly transcends gender. Not the kind of step forward for gender equality I want to see.

She and Kylo are both equally culpable for the Tuanul massacre, they both have the blood of unarmed civilians on their hands.

Would I have liked to have seen more of the relationship between Finn and her in the movies? Certainly - I’ll never forgive Rumpelstiltskin for cutting that alternate fight scene - she’s important to Finn’s past so I do fidn some appeal in her that way, but she was always a minor villain who’s importance was on par with Hux’s.'

#mara blabs #thehungryvortigaunt

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scripttraumasurvivors · 6 years

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thehungryvortigaunt replied to your post “Good morning, would anyone be interested if I made a discord for like…...”

Seems like a pretty good idea. Don't have a Discord though - would a Google Doc work?

I feel like a google doc would get extremely unwieldly. either I’d have to make a new one for each ask or people would have to scroll forever and things could mixed up where as discord allows seperate conversations to go on in one thing.

The bright side is that discord is free and typically pretty easy to use.

#thehungryvortigaunt

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scriptmedic · 7 years

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I have a young woman who loses all fingers on her right hand to an automatic saw at the slaughterhouse she works at. First-aid is denied since employer is callous, so instead she dips her hand into boiling water to 'cauterize' the wound, and waits for hours until she can return to her shack. I was thinking that since she'd still have her base knuckles, she could tape sticks/bits of plastic/metal onto her nubs (living near a junkyard) to serve as cheap 'prosthetics'. Is this plausible?

OW OW OW OW OW

NO BOILING WATER

WHY

Bandages will do the job JUST FINE

Shirt sleeves. Cut up socks. A rag. ANYTHING*. *clean

OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

As for finger prosthetics, honestly, even though she’d lose the fingertips, the stumps themselves might be able to accomplish what she needs. They’re still her fingers, just shorter. She can do lots of things with them. Honest. (Finger prosthetics are usually for appearance’s sake, not necessarily for functionality.)

We’ll get to this, but, cauterization on stumps isn’t a great plan. Cauterization literally burns the flesh and the skin, damaging the exact part that needs to heal over. And fingers won’t bleed enough that some direct pressure won’t stop the hemorrhage.

By the way, there’s nothing saying she can’t do this, just that it’s a terrible idea.

Also: as much as I love Half-Life and Vortigaunts, have you considered the name TheHungryHungryVortigaunt? Like a hungry hungry hippo, but a vortigaunt? (I am often a Hungry Hungry Homo...)

Hope this helped!!

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

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This blog isproudly sponsored by generous Patrons. Have you considered sponsoring the blog?

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#amputation #cauterization #hand injuries #thehungryvortigaunt

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thedancingwalrus-blog · 7 years

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Saw you reblog a post about questions to ask authors, figured I'd bite - 16: Are there any characters who haunt you?

Depends on how you interpret ‘haunt’.

I think it’s stories and situations that haunt me more than characters. It’s not so much characters that scare me, or keep me up or that I think about years later with a little shiver of dread. It’s the situation they were put in by the author.

It wasn’t Hannibal Lecter that haunted me when I read ‘Hannibal’ for the first time as a young teenager. It was the image of a boy finding his little sister’s bloodstained teeth in the snow.

I wouldn’t say any of the characters from Fullmetal Alchemist haunt me either. But the images of Mustang raining fire on Ishballan civilians, of Al carrying his bleeding brother to the Rockbell’s and of Ed refusing to sacrifice prisoners for science in Lab 5- those all stayed with me.

I couldn’t tell you the names of any of the characters in The Last Unicorn but the scene of the harpy attacking the heroes and eating the woman who held them prisoner- that I remember.

So, no. I don’t think I’m haunted by characters. I’m haunted by images and moments.

#fiction #ask memes #writing #hey look I did a meme #I can meme #thehungryvortigaunt

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shalebridgecradle · 7 years

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(Dunno if you're up for answering any more game character questions, but here's another): Strelok from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?

For Strelok, I’ll do one more response! :D

First impression: “…who?”

Impression now: everyone please look at this small, sad eyed nerd; he’s the best kind of legendary badass and I love him.

Favorite moment: the “true” / destroy the C-Consciousness ending to the game, wherein a very tired Strelok just up and decides it’s naptime now. I mean, that’s fair.

(Although my personal favorite moment in Shadow of Chernobyl has to be the time I was meandering through the industrial area near the Duty base–Wild Territory, I think? It was getting dark, but I’d already planned to crash at a campfire I knew was in the area. Except then the stalkers there got murdered by a horde of rats just as I arrived, and it’s dark now, and raining, and too far to safely run back to Duty, and oh yeah there’s bloodsuckers everywhere. And I’m terrified of bloodsuckers.

And that, friends, is the story of the time Strelok spent a night crouched on top of a dumpster, swatting at bloodsuckers and dogs in between eating sausages. Such is life in the Zone.)

Idea for a story: I’d love another S.T.A.L.K.E.R title with Strelok as the protagonist. (I actually haven’t played the other two games yet, just watched an LP of Call of Pripyat; part of the reason I’m stalling is I’d rather play as Strelok.) Actually, wasn’t he meant to be the protagonist in S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2, which ended up getting canceled? …brb, crying.

Failing that, I could do with a story about what he got up to between the end of SoC and when he reappears in CoP insisting that the Zone be destroyed.

Unpopular opinion: I head canon Strelok as asexual and don’t ship him with anyone. Which is probably an unpopular opinion, since I’ve seen him shipped with everyone from Degtyarev to Kruglov.

Favorite relationship: I barely remember Strelok’s group from the pre-SoC days, so…eh. I guess my favorite relationship would have to be the one between Strelok and the Zone itself. I count the Zone as its own character, anyway.

Favorite headcanon: listen. I adore the fanon that Strelok is this small, extremely Tired™ man who the rest of the stalkers routinely underestimate because look. This is the least intimidating person they’ve ever seen. Most stalkers know Strelok only by reputation, so that guy in the corner? With the sad puppy eyes and the receding hairline? Who looks like he needs about 10 naps? That can’t possibly be the Strelok.

I feel like he wins a lot of fights that way. He’s the very definition of small but scrappy.

Also, I have a head canon that Strelok is like a cat. He’ll sleep anywhere, the stranger the better. If you invited him into your house, you’d find him later asleep on top of a bookcase. Or under the kitchen table. Strelok does not understand the concept of mattresses.

#thehungryvortigaunt #meme nonsense #strelok #long post #I adore that nerd so thank you for the ask about him! :D

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lj-writes · 6 years

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@thehungryvortigaunt Snoke can't threaten your family anymore if you kill them all...

#anti kylo ren #anti reylo #kylostans are wild #and furthermore

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dan-lee99 · 5 years

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Tagged by: @jgraydingler

Rules: Answer 19 questions and tag 4 people you want to get to know better.

Nickname/s: Don’t really have much in the way of nicknames. I remember ones like “Dan Lee”, and “pup”, more when I was a wee lad.

Zodiac: Leo, born in the year of the Rabbit.

Height: Not sure.

Last movie I saw: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The animation in that was soooo good! It really shows what happens when the higher-ups of Sony don’t go and meddle in the creation of their own films.

Favorite musicians: Oh, boy, let’s see. Nine Inch Nails, Breaking Benjamin, Zack Hemsey, Woodkid, Starset, Message to Bears, and many more.

Song stuck in my head: Well it depends on what song I listen to each day.

Other blogs: I’ve got two other blogs, a n.sfw blog(that I don’t use anymore, for obvious reasons) and a blog for a fic that I’m in the process of writing, though I haven’t used the latter blog for anything since I created it.

Do I get asks: Practically never.

Following: 45.

Amount of sleep: About 8 or 9 hours.

Lucky number: IDK. What I’m wearing: Dark pj pants and my Desmond Miles hoodie.

Dream job: Comic writer. I think I’ve always had an interest in storytelling, and it wasn’t long ago that I got into (DC)comics which made me think about various ideas that I’d like to work on in the form of comics one day. They’re not getting enough love, nowadays.

Dream trip: I used to think the US of A, but with everything that’s going on right now, I might have to wait it out.

Favorite food: Pizza Shapes.

Play any instruments: None. I’ve got a guitar nearby that I’ve never used. Maybe I should change that.

Favorite song: ... you might have to go through my music tag, because I don’t just have one favourite song. :3

Random fact: My mom met Mark Hamill once, when she was way younger. I had the idea of arranging a met-up of sorts, likely through the use of Skype or the like, so she can talk to Hamill again(for the first time since all those years ago) for her upcoming birthday. At least, that was the idea.

Describe yourself as aesthetic things: I’ve got nothin’. :/

@willjones4179 @n0rmandysr1 @blvck-watch @thehungryvortigaunt

#personal

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spacebeyonce · 6 years

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thehungryvortigaunt replied to your post: getting extra annoyed at this ongoing traitor shit...

Rian Johnson is a good writer

the devil is a liar and so, it seems, are you

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scripttorture · 7 years

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(1/2) Hi - Thanks a lot for your alternative scenario to my Widowmaker question. :) I'm going to be working on a story involving intelligence/black-ops agencies, and one recurring theme I'm emphasizing is that the tortures done by multiple characters are inefficient, pointless and counter-intuitive. The protagonists' cruelty backfires horribly by hardening the resolve of their victims (and the victims' loved ones); guilty members 'betray' their team by reporting the atrocities to the public...

(2/2) Any useful info gathered by agencies (American, Japanese, Russian & Turkish) is done nonviolently, so torture's done for sadism or to INTENTIONALLY demoralize. Any other ways could you suggest to portray 'enhanced interrogation' as needless and unconstructive? Don't wanna accidentally veer into apologia i.e. implying that torture fails and a time-bomb goes off because 'we didn't torture suspect hard enough'; and I fear that in pop-culture, 'moral appeals' alone won't be convincing enough.

You're right that popculture tends to dismiss moral appeals (usually by buying into apologistarguments) but I think whether they work in a piece of fiction depends on howthey’re written.

A purely moral argumentis a lot less likely to have an emotional impact when the character it comesfrom is: privileged, unlikely to ever be in danger, has no experience with victims,has no family background connected to atrocities. Anyone who comes across asunconnected can be tarred by the narrative.

The usual ways that isdone are either by showing the character as a desk jockey with no realpractical experience of the world, showing them as flighty with their head inthe clouds or showing them as using atrocities to score political points.

Moral arguments comeacross more powerfully when they come from people who have seen and experiencedatrocities, whether it’s in the past or present.

My English education isprobably gonna show a little here but I’m reminded of Sassoon’s war poetry andhow angrily some of it was directed against the British public and politics-

‘You smug faced crowds with kindling eyes,

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you’ll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.’

Moral arguments can beincredibly powerful things in fiction and art. I don’t think we should dismissthem.

The problem withwriting effective moral arguments infiction is well essentially it’s about how you write.

In order for somethingto have an emotional pay off it needs to be appropriately built up in the storyand supported by the narrative. And there’s no one simple way to do thateffectively.

A ‘Big Speech’ can makepeople lose interest but only if it’spoorly written.

I suppose the way Ithink about successful moral arguments is that you’re trying to write what TVtropes would call a ‘Crowning Moment of Awesome’ (I’d link to that but I’mafraid my readers may become stuck in an internet black hole from which theymay never escape.)

Doing that effectivelytakes work. It means carefully balancing everything that happens in the storyup until that moment. It means judging howyou’re manipulating your readers’ emotions.

Any big speech is goingto fall flat if it isn’t backed up by actions and by what happens more widelyin the story.

The way I’ve tended todo that is by having characters take big personal risks to do what they thinkis right. Because I write a lot of pacifists and because pacifists seem to beparticularly prone to this sort of dismissal in fiction (that their beliefsaren’t practical, that it’ll all get better if they just kill the baddies,etc-) I made a deliberate choice to avoid ‘Big Speeches’ and instead show thesecharacters backing up their words to the hilt.

Getting the emotionaltone right is key and it’s also one of the hardest parts of writing.

There seem to a fewmain approaches with torture in particularly. There’s a very stark,minimalistic statement of what happened, similar to an Amnesty internationalreport. In a rich, descriptive narrative that can be incredibly shocking andhorrifying. It’s a sudden shift in how the story comes across and that createsan impact.

Another strategy is to writealmost the way Alleg does. Keeping the pov very firmly with the victim andputting the reader as firmly as possible in their shoes. That means a lot moredescription but not purely of things like pain. It means appreciating thedetails people notice when they’re stressed and scared.

Alleg picked up onthings like the cleanliness of the board he was strapped to, the general senseof the crowd around him, the fact some of them were drinking beers while theywatched. That his shirt was used as a gag. The incredibly young age of some ofhis torturers and the way they talked to him (as if it was all a sportingevent). The way Algerian prisoners responded to him, a Frenchmen, who had takentheir side and was suffering for it.

Pulling back from realworld accounts there are a few other approaches I found particularly effective.They’re more to do with focus thandescription.

Babylon 5 and Farscapeare two sci fis that have a lot of flaws (and I haven’t re-watched themrecently so I can’t swear that totally accurate portrayals of torture isn’toccasionally one of them-) but they’re all very good at giving the audience anemotional impact from atrocities they show.

Babylon 5 is set on thetitular space station, a sort of diplomatic way point designed to be neutralground used to navigate political crisis’s. A central plot point is theon-going conflict between the Narn and the Centauri. At the beginning of thestory this is pretty much purely political, Centauri used to occupy Narn butNarn broke free and has since become much more powerful. Over the course of thestory this shifts drastically. The Centauri take over Narn again and begin apolicy of widespread slavery and genocide.

We rarely see any of this. We do not generallymeet the victims.

But the consequenceshit the narrative like a hammer.

We see the Narnambassador go from being one of the most powerful individuals on the station toa refugee there. We see the Centauri ambassador become a pariah. We see attemptafter attempt to help the Narn people from all sorts of sides. It affects everything that happens in the story,warping it.

Farscape is much morefocused on individuals.

In Farscape the leadcharacter, Crichton, is tortured repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) by peopletrying to get information on wormhole technology from him. And the narrativetakes the time to show the ways it’s affected him. It does this in privatemoments, when he’s alone or interacting with the people he trusts. Graduallyover the course of several seasons he changes. To the point that going from anepisode in the first season to one in the last makes him almost seem like adifferent character.

Like Babylon 5 it’sabout consequences. But it’s consequences on a very personal level.

Unlike Alleg’s accountit’s not, necessarily, from Crichton’s point of view. Some of it is. Some of itisn’t. The audience watches the character deteriorate. But we don’t see himgive up and his responses to a large degree aren’t judged. Just presented.

You’re showing torturefailing in multiple ways.

Not resulting in usefulinformation. Negatively affecting torturers/bad guys and causing them to changesides. Making victims more strongly opposed to their enemies (and presumablyacting as a recruitment too and propaganda victory for their own side).

I think the rest of itcomes down to how you construct the narrative and the emotional tone you put inthe story. I think I’ve covered emotional tone.

With a story on thekind of scale you’re telling there are going to be characters who support andargue for torture. But you can use the story itself to show that they’re wrong.

The easiest way to dothat is to show them as…well as delusional as torturers tend to be. Show themclaiming they were responsible forthings the reader knows other people(and non-torture methods) achieved. Show them coming out of a session where allthey ‘got’ was inarticulate noises and claim it was useful. Show their‘information’ being wrong and show that costing their side, in time and lives.

You’re already doing anawful lot more in your story than most fiction bothers to. I don’t think you’reat risk of accidentally writing apologia.

This kind of writingadvice is difficult for me because I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-allapproach to writing, narrative style or building emotional depth in a story.

I think there are veryvery few things that writers should ‘never’ do and I’m very aware that myapproach to writing wouldn’t work for everyone. I spent years strugglingbecause I’d read all these writing ‘tips’ and ‘tricks’ telling me things I‘shouldn’t’ do that were key to someone else’s style and absolutely uselesswhen it came to mine.

Figuring out what worksbest for the way you write is something only you can do. As is figuring outwhat would work best in the story you want to tell.

I hope this helps. :)

Disclaimer

#tw torture #torture as interrogation #ways torture fails #writing torture #effect of torture on victims #emotional impact #writing styles #construction of narrative #thehungryvortigaunt

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scripttraumasurvivors · 7 years

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Hi! This character's life is messy, but I figure it's important to elaborate so as to double-check if her reactions make sense. My tritagonist was sold to a cartel at age 6 by her abusive rural family, where she was used as a slave (menial labor/sex), tortured to the point that she's disfigured and in chronic pain, before finally being dumped in a slum, having given birth to her first kid at age 11. She abuses her daughter, partly from resentment and constantly being reminded of her captors 1/?

(2/?) And partly because she’s modeling parenting from the cruel people she’s known and is currently living with. Specifically, she is callous to her daughter’s emotional needs, verbally & physically abuses her if she isn’t submissive, forces her to dress inappropriately. She wants her daughter to conform, believing she’ll avoid the same abuse the mom suffered. She’s stuck in a job at a slaughterhouse where she kills terrified animals whilst the manager abuses and robs her. (more)

(3/?) She bears a 2nd kid from the manager, but when the kid’s deformed and he denies being the dad, she decides to keep the kid anyway to raise her more kindly - although she still struggles with feeling affection for her first daughter. Eventually, the manager sells her out to the police, leaving her in jail for a week, but another middle-aged man - the father of her first daughter’s girlfriend - bails her out and looks after her while she’s delirious. (One more ask after this!)

4/4 Got a few questions for this set-up - wanna show how, once removed from her abusive situation at the slaughterhouse, this abusive mother struggles to mend broken bonds and form new relationships. How could she try to reach out and apologize to the daughter she used to mistreat? How to trust the older man who looked after her while she was weak? How to deal with constant flashbacks of death, pain and abuse - of herself and others - without lashing out violently? Thanks for reading all this!

(5/5) Sorry, forgot to specify - by this point, the mother would be 21. Perhaps that can give a better idea of how she can process all that trauma and guilt? While under stress she’s impulsive and sadistic, once removed from her job she’d be far quieter and sensitive; although her emotional state would still be heavily warped. I figure she might try to hug her older daughter or speak intimately with the older man, only to either clam up immediately because of her remaining insecurities.

—-

(For clarification, I have touched base with the asker re: the ages that everything happened.

To summarize: Daughter#2 was born 7 years after the first. So kid number one at 11 and kid number two at 18.

The majority of this ask takes place a few years later when she’s left the slaughterhouse)

So your oldest kid is going to be 10ish when her mother decides to well… be a mother.

Which is good for you in terms of ‘likelyhood daughter wants to make amends’ bad for her in terms of ‘very likely already had severe trust issues.’

I am going to say- I think it’s in our other correspondence that you mention one of the… things that makes mom wake up us a single incident where someone else mentions how nice her daughter is to his kid…..

That’s not very likely. Outsiders complimenting abused kids doesn’t usually make abusers realize they’re being irrational or cruel- it just makes them think that their kid has the wool pulled over someone’s eyes. The kid may even get punished for that or pulled away from that person because clearly, they’re too lenient/a bad influence. Or even the abuser taking it as the fact that the abuse is working.

Which isn’t to say that it should cause that reaction in your story- just to keep in mind that it will take a lot more than a single person’s good word to convince them.

Back to the present question

How can mom try and mend things?

Honestly, just think of Awkward Mom things, and add in ‘child wildly distrustful that this isn’t a trick to get them hurt.’

Mom might try and mimic behavior she sees the man doing or even the other girl doing. Oh? They pat her back when she’s upset- mom’s going to try and do that now.

Mom trying to compliment the daughter, but the daughter flinching back after years of being told she’s horrible.

Mom maybe giving the girl something? Poverty limits what it might be, but even picking a flower or trying to make a homemade toy.

Mom might try and apologize for some of the behavior, though keep in mind that while some abusers are willing to do this- if pushed on what they’re apologizing for or pushed to apologize for more than what they’re offering- they often become defensive and aggressive again.

Mom might overly apologize. Which is also.. not a good because the kid will most likely feel required to try and soothe mom. And now you’re building a cycle of ‘I have to help people not feel bad about hurting me’ in the kid. It is, however, a realistic cycle.

A lot of this also depends on what sort of… abused kid you want your eldest to be.

Fun fact, I used to volunteer heavily at an elementary school. I was well known and for the most part, I worked with one type of child. Children teachers suspected something was wrong with. some of them just needed extra attention, some had a bad case of ‘I fell behind and now I’m acting out’, we had kids whose families were in bad financial situations…

General profile of abused kids I’ve known/kids I suspected were being abused but could never get enough evidence to report:

- Soft, sad little boy who literally brightens up the moment anyone says a kind word to him ever. Often accused of being violent and aggressive when the worst he was was… well.. hyper and maybe a little unaware of his body. (….. racism also played a big role there.)

- My overly friendly thief.

- Angry little girl who was well… Angry. At school. Didn’t want to work with anyone, didn’t want to have friends. Very angry. Very defensive. Very dead eyed and personalityless at the end of the day when she knew she’d have to go home.

- Big Guy trying to make himself small. Hunched shoulders, tucked in knees, didn’t want to play with the other kids.

- Mr. Sleep All Day.

- ‘What do you mean I can’t come home with you? I’ll wash your floor. I’ll do the dishes. I’ll do whatever you want I just want to come home with you so bad. You’re so nice, TS.’

- Class clown that cried when the other kids were told not to pay attention to his antics.

- Kids who cut off stories in the middle and suddenly jump somewhere else because they realized that the story they were telling involves a Bad Event. Pulling them back to the story they were telling is damn near impossible.

- Mr. ‘I’m going to climb the book shelves and try to escape out of the window’

I’ll break down possible responses to Mom trying to make things better by general…. profile.

Your ‘I do my best to try and please my abuser’ types are still most likely going to be distrustful. This may be in the direction of ‘I know you could flip on me at any second’ or ‘I can’t figure out what’s different now so I may fuck up at any second and then you’re going to hurt me again’. There’s going to be some confliction in these types too. They want their abuser’s approval and kindness, they’ve been fighting for it- but it usually doesn’t feel as good in real life as it does in our heads. In our heads- now that they approve of us, we’re safe. and when that feeling of safety doesn’t follow…. This may cause the child to avoid the abuser more often. It may cause them to double down on trying to win approval.

Your acting out types is where… you have a lot of potential issues. The mother doesn’t currently have coping skills to deal with normal child behavior. If the child lashes out? Abusers will often revert back to abuse and take it as a clear ‘see, they behave better when I hurt them.’ Or, if they do feel guilt- ‘they made me do it’

Depressed sad kids .. might not even realize that an attempt is being made. A lot of them have just… checked out.

As for the mother trusting the man… Do you want her to trust him? Because you could have her go the route of ‘I would not be surprised if you touched me inappropriately, but at least you’re kinder than the rest, let me try and make you happy’

Do you want her not to trust him and him have to win her over? Small acts over a long period of time. Her trying to sleep with him (because that’s why she thinks he has her) and him turning her down, small pieces of kindness. There won’t be a quick fix.

Either way, in general, if he gets extremely upset (say… he witnesses her being Not Great to the oldest), expect a fear response. Or argument and then recant of the ‘you can’t tell me what to fucking do with my kid- oh god I’m so sorry I’m a horrible person you’d be right to kick me out’ variety.

As for flashbacks, you have two general… routes here.

One: She learns coping skills or at least to pull back. Possibly because there are other people there that can take care of the kids, possibly he’s told her to go to another room if she feels like that, or he does get upset with her over something she lashed out over- and she’s trying to avoid that.

These don’t have to be good coping skills. Nails biting into her own arms, smoking/drugs/drinking. They also don’t have to be ‘therapy’ coping skills- deep breaths/imagine a _____ place. They can also just be ‘now that I’m in a safer place… throwing myself into cleaning/cooking at least makes some of the flashback recede.’

Two: In a different environment, her response to flashbacks change. She doesn’t lash out. She gets quiet or she gets scared or she just freezes.

Maybe the man encourages her to talk about what happens. Maybe he validates where she’s been and tries to soften the blow re: how she treated her daughter. She was doing the best she could at the time with the information she had- but now? Now she has to do better because she knows better. Now if she wants to stay, she needs to try.

Hopefully that helps,

#ts answers #rape tw #abuse tw #ptsd #thehungryvortigaunt #long post #i think i hit all the questions here

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