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whumble-beeee · 8 months

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Tortured? I Was Tortured Once.

The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping | Cont'd from Part 5

Content: disabled whumpee, trans whumpee, past captivity references, torture, threats, begging, blood

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Except from: The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping; a self-help guide for villains and bounty-hunters

[{When hero-keeping in the short term}... it's imperative to do everything in your power to keep your identity a secret; wear a mask to hide your face, cover as much of your body as possible to minimize the amount of prints, hair, or other forms of DNA/evidence you could leave behind at the scene. Use a voice modulator, and if you can help it, don’t even be in the same room with the hero when they are conscious. Most importantly, do not tell the hero any identifying details about yourself, your loved ones, or your past.

This is solely to protect you, the dastardly villain! Should the hero ever escape or decide to take revenge (not that a hero would ever dare, as long as you follow the instructions in this guide!), you want to make it nigh impossible to find you and hurt you, lest they turn you into their captured villain!]

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“Alright!” Deeby clapped his hands together, chipper than ever. “So, back when I was in the early days of my job, I sometimes made some… questionable choices. Dangerous ones. Not that what I do isn’t dangerous, I can handle the dangers of the job. I mean I fucked with the wrong people. Powerful people. Not in the sense of… y’know, what you have. Super-powers. I mean like they were like a crime lord or CEO, lotta money, lotta power… God, I was a fucking idiot. But hey, live and learn, right?”

He brushed at Stan’s cheek to ease his attention up and away from the floor, where it had been firmly located since the start of the monologue. Stan just leaned away slightly and tried not to let his burning eyes brim over into tears. “I’m still here, right? Still kicking, so I must have done something right.”

“Unfortunately…” Stan mumbled.

“Repite?”

“Nothing.”

Deeby tilted his head matter-of-factly. “Look, if you’re gonna be defiant, at least do it loud and proud, bud.” He ruffled Stan’s hair much too aggressively for Stan’s liking.

“Might actually respect you if you did that. Anyway, I’m sure you can figure out what basically happened after that; I got hired to rough up some asshole’s waste-of-space trust fund kid, gave him back with a couple bones broken and a couple extra bullet holes, but he was fine, then daddy got mad and managed to find me somehow, and here’s where it gets really interesting, bud. You wanna know what this chain’s for?”

He reached up and jangled the metal loops reaching down from the ceiling, and the chain shifted just enough to barely nudge into Stan and nearly send him careening backward again from fear.

“Uh…” He’d been doing his damndest to ignore the mercenary and retreat into himself, and was actually half succeeding right up until the required audience participation. The question just served to jarringly rip him back headfirst into the painful and hopeless despair of the present situation. “Not–... Not really…”

“Sucks to be you then, I guess. So I get knocked out and kidnapped, and I wake up in this, like, fucked up white-tiled torture room with like a drain in the floor and suspicious cabinets and all that, and then I'm strung up in the center of the room–...”

He grabbed Stan's arms and wrenched them up all the way above his head, so his wrists were together in Deeby's hands and held flush with the chain. Then he pulled up even more. Stan squeaked and briefly struggled to tug away, but quickly fell into pliable stiffness under the mercenary’s warning stare. So instead, he stretched as tall as he could, shoulders pressing the sides of the collar into his neck to try and relieve the tension. It didn't really work.

“...–Like this. So I was literally hanging from the ceiling from my wrists, feet barely even touching the ground, cuffs grinding into my wrists so bad they were already bleeding when I woke up, it hurt like shit. Hold your arms up there, would ya bud?”

Deeby let go of Stan's wrists and he immediately pulled them back into his sides. No way he was holding himself in a torture position. No way.

That was until the mercenary regrabbed his wrists and slammed them back up into the chain, leaning down slightly and getting way too close to Stan’s face. He could feel the body heat radiating off the man.

Stan leaned away as much as he physically could, which wasn’t much with his arms holding him excruciatingly erect.

“You’re really starting to get on my nerves,” Deeby growled, not a trace of his usual smile highlighting his fiery eyes. “Hold the position or I’ll lock your handcuffs up there just like they did to me and we can roleplay it exactly as it played out. You wanna do that instead?”

Stan managed a minuscule shake of the head. He was sure he’d be able to feel the bounty hunter’s breath on his face if it weren’t for the mask.

“Speak up, runt.”

“G-got it,” Stan breathed.

Deeby more tentatively let go of Stan's wrists this time, an unnecessary precaution, since Stan grasped the chain and held onto it for dear life so as not to anger him further.

This isn't so bad. He lied to himself, Deeby mercifully backing up to more than inches away from his face. At least there aren't any flashbacks now. Just have to hold the chain.

“Yeah, just like that. Perfect.”

He held up his fingers to create a fake camera frame around Stan. As if he knew exactly what picture he wanted to paint with Stan's body.

“So I woke up like that, hanging by the wrists, and of course I recognized the guy because I do my research, y'know? So I woke up and I already knew exactly what was happening. He tried to monologue at me, I bantered back, the guy was getting all pissy because I guess I was too smug or whatever. And… well, I forgot to say, when I woke up, they'd taken off my shirt–”

Deeby started to twiddle at the top button on Stan's button-down and, with an amount of force that surprised the both of them, Stan slapped his hand away and nearly toppled to the ground jumping backward.

“Don't touch my shirt!” he yelped. He tripped over the chain that anchored him to the corner sending spirals of agony out from his knee again before he stabilized himself and stared at the mercenary in abject terror.

Deeby stared back in disbelief. Then a flash of danger, a slight tilt of the chin, furrowing of the eyebrows, a tensing of the shoulders.

“You… really don't know when to quit. Do you?” he growled.

Stan took another small limp back. “I–”

“I'm not gonna take your shirt off.” Stan barely withheld the primal urge to fully turn around and run when the mercenary surged forward, grabbed Stan by the chain of the handcuffs, and yanked him forward. The southern twang rang so hopelessly clear through his wrathful voice. “I am many unsavory things, but a perv ain't fuckin’ one of 'em. Get back over here and stay before I kick your ass again.”

Then once again, Stan found himself with his arms pinned above his head and flush against the chain. Though this time, the mercenary clamped his hand over Stan's own, pressed them in so hard that Stan's fingers smushed painfully between the chain links. He didn’t even try to struggle. Just tried to shrink away from his towering presence and keep his eyes on the floor. Not let Deeby see the redness of his eyes that threatened tears.

“So, Stan, whaddya think they did to me next?” Deeby questioned, humor all but gone from his voice. “Strung up, shirt off, completely helpless and at their mercy. What would you do if you were a sick sonofabitch getting revenge on the person who tortured your son?”

Stan stared off to the side. “I… I don't…–”

“Oh come on, bud, you must have some sort of idea. Can't think of a single way you'd hurt–”

“No, no, no no nononoNO!” Stan mutter bordered on shouting as he started trying to yank his hands out of the mercenary’s grasp and only succeeded in yanking them hard enough that he was being held up solely and much more painfully by the cuffs themselves.

He couldn't take this anymore, was Deeby gonna torture him or not?

“I can't think of a single way I'd wanna torture someone! I'm not some– some freak sadist kidnapper-torturer like that guy! Or like you!!”

Deeby hummed lightly, unfazed by yet another one of Stan's outbursts, holding the cuffs firm. “You'll learn.”

Stan growled and yanked again, hard enough that when they didn't give it all, he actually lifted into the air slightly. He cried out from the bite of the metal digging into his wrists and scraping into the top layers of skin. A few drips of blood started to pool on the surface.

If Deeby noticed the scarlet now smeared across Stan's wrists, he didn't show it. He just pulled the chain of the cuffs up further. Stan's elbows locked straight up, pressing into the side of his head. He almost had to go up on his tiptoes.

“Besides,” the hunter continued nonchalantly. “What he did to me isn't what I would do to you, if I were to torture you.”

“IF!?” Stan groaned, trying another weak yank against the cuffs and sending small lightning bolts of pain down his arms. “What do you mean ‘if’?! What–… What do you call this?”

Deeby shrugged. “Foreplay?”

Stan froze dead in his tracks. He could physically feel all the blood leaving his head and rushing down straight to his feet. Foreplay? As in… There was… Ge wouldn't, right? There was no way.

“Y-you–...” He could barely even get words to form properly, barely able to suck in enough air to even speak. “You–... Wait, you–”

“Cálmate, Stan, Christ, it was a joke. Loosen up. Wanna know what I would do, though?”

“Ah…”

His head felt like it had just been dunked underwater. Or maybe that was the concussion coming back haunt this waking nightmare once more. Who’s to say? Why not both, make it a party.

And yet, Deeby still leaned down to whisper in Stan's ear; “There's a reason I put the leash chain on your good leg.”

Before Stan could react, Deeby leaned back on his heels and pulled the chain hanging from the ceiling with him, unbalancing Stan just enough that he had to try to take a step forward to readjust, except the fetter on his ankle caught on the very end of the leash. He couldn't get his good leg under himself for support. Which left–

Stan let out a yelp as his full weight fell onto his injured knee, shooting rivulets of pain all the way up to his spine. And couldn't shift his weight off of it with how to chain dragged him out, so when his knee immediately buckled to save himself from the screeching pain, he had the new problem of the cuffs knawing into his already bloody wrists, which made him scream again and claw desperately at the chain and the hand holding him up until he was death gripping the chain in a half pullup. His arms were already shaking from the strain of it.

“DEEBY!!” He choked out. “Deeby! Deeby please stop, stop, I can't AUAGH–” He slipped and spent agonizing moments flailing before he got another hold again, moments in which Deeby didn't let up at all, despite Stan's amiable requests.

“Deeby you said–!” he could barely squeak out a phrase through the tear-blurred vision and gasping breaths and the sheer amount of concentration it took to focus through the already horrible aches and agony the clench onto the chain and hold himself up and not make it worse. “You said no torture! You– you said–! Let go! You said you wouldn't–”

“I said I wouldn't hurt you if you did what I told you to.” Deeby retorted nonchalantly, pulling back on the chain just a bit more and wrenching Stan even more off balance. “Which you didn't.”

“Let go–!” Stan tugged as hard as he could. No give.

“Repeatedly.”

“I can't–” Stan's voice cracked. His hands were on fire clutching onto the cold metal links. “I can't hold this, I can't, I can't, please let go-o, it– it hurts! Please!”

“That's the point, bud, it's a stress position. It stresses you. You’re doing great, chiquito, taking it like a champ.”

Little droplets of blood left bright red tracks down Stan's forearms as whines squeaked out from behind his gritted teeth in place of the full blown screams he refused to let out.

“I hate you.”

“Tell you what, bud. If you can shut up for just 30 seconds, no whines, no cries, no begging or grand sweeping declarations of feelings, I'll let you down. Deal?”

“That’s–!”

“Take it or leave it. Deal?”

“Deal–! Deal!”

“Great, now mouth-shut.”

Stan immediately squeezed his lips together as violently as possible and focused every single fiber of his being into holding himself up, keeping off his bad knee and not letting the cuffs scrape his arms to bone while also not squeaking in pain or cursing Deeby out. That may have been the hardest part of the entire balancing act. His muscles burned with the strain. His hands started to slip on the chain from the sweat, so he gripped harder, hard enough that his hands started to go numb. That was fine. Less pain, right? Was thirty seconds over yet? Stan just had to pray that Deeby would keep his word this time and actually only do thirty seconds. God he would give anything to just go home. See his family again. Be out of this hell.

Then a new, perfunctory voice shattered his fragile concentration. He'd been so laser focused hadn't even noticed someone else enter the room.

“Oh, did I interrupt an intimate moment? I can come back in ten minutes if you two wanna finish up.”

Stan’s grip slipped on the chain and he cried out, catching himself after an agonizing centimeter fall and praying to anyone that would listen that Deeby wouldn’t get mad at him for it. Though Deeby didn't seem to care too much anymore as his own grip holding Stan's cuffs loosened and a small growl ementated from the bottom of his throat.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Then Stan was suddenly freed, cuffs no longer held in the iron grip of a bounty hunter, and he collapsed to the floor in a graceless heap.

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Taglist: @flowersarefreetherapy | @pirefyrelight | @cakeinthevoid

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pensbridge · 3 months

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This is going to be my only post I ever do THIS. It needs to be said (if even only for me). Be warned. (& I'm totally being a little funny & unserious with my words, but I also mean it). but really I just need to be so silly for a moment..

I've been in some fandoms and every fandom goes through this, but...There's no fandom on earth that quite literally walked in with no changes to the picture of the Community meme like the Bridgerton fandom. yayyy! we made history again We are the exact same picture, because it wasn't that bad! I can nearly guarantee you, people noticed the quality change, but it literally wasn't bad like you say! Some of us truly stumbled in here like wtf, and still haven't gotten the answer. Stumbling into Part 1..was stressful, but Part 2 was actual insanity!

like, I honestly don't think some people watched it all the way (i saw something about ppl finishing in 2 hours)! If they even went back, who knows?! But the takes are just literal fables!

I actually think the blind trolls coming back from the dead & thin air for part 1 have deluded some of you into thinking that part 1 was bad (it wasn't; it was good), and as a result made you think that part 2 was worse than it is. I totally respect your differing opinion, but you're wrong!

There are 2 real "issues" with this season and the other stuff is artificial grass.

#1 The lack of happy couple moments that get replaced by boring side plots (part 1 was actually enjoyable to me, but this one I actually almost fell asleep watching Benedict before I was awoken by his bi awakening). But to be frank, it's always been an ensemble, and I find it funny that people forget: People bitched about polin season 2; they bitched about Penelope since season 1.

The fact that they don't get a full episode 8 of being happy in love was criminal (but i will admit my wrong expectation, because this is Bridgerton (what else is there to expect, lol). However they are cute! Naysayers, deny it all you want, but they are literally perfect! They are literally a cute engaged couple, the moms including Lady Danbury cannot help but squeal over them, and the only thing holding them back is that this conflict is seemingly dragged on, BUT it doesn't even go on long! (perhaps it felt that way because there were only 4 in this batch of eps). And I get you can be upset, but stop the bullshit because "WE WERE ROBBED." You are lyyyyinnnnnggggg.

He finds out in 6! Anthony was with her sister for 6 eps ... Simon....avoided her til she had to make the move at the end. If we're including Queen Charlotte, George got the most cohesive story, but we'll chalk that priviledge up to the fact that he got only 6 eps; and also don't lie, the recycle-rinse-repeat episode was boring(!!!!) minus the last scene & the visitation of his trauma (u can disagree w/this, but I was bored the first time watching and didn't ask for the copy & paste same episode).

#2 is the pacing (really the last 1⅓-ish episodes is the problem)- because I wish they made up by the end of 7, which is really more of the same of what I said about them being happier in the final one. However, (which brings me to my point) if they'd shifted him finding out earlier... (again they only had 1 episode prior to do this in (because there was no way it was happening in part 1 even if the 2 part split never existed), ...it could have fixed most likely all of this: if everything was moved up an episode (+ they switched Cressida's reveal + Colin finding out), they'd be fighting in 7 but united for Cressida's lie, then they'd make up by the end, and they wouldn't still be struggling with differences between them in the first part of episode 8 at all, thus there would be the happy couple moments from my point #1.

And I newly realized how this aspect of polin's season arc compares to the others. The conflicts of the other 2 seasons have been more heavily external obstacles preventing them from really getting together, while visiting some internal demons later after the drama; but this season is pretty much just them with internal conflict between them (if not for all of part 1 then for the entirety of part 2! (i personally think that the Debling stuff is less love-trianglry than what they've done in the past & fr he is in 2 eps really and not even fully courting her for majority of it)! Enemies to lovers does have internal conflict between them in the beginning, but it's not something actually between them that's "preventing" them from riding into the sunset (other than fake fighting like they hate each lol i say w/love 4 the characters & E2L). But since Colin and Pen's conflict is actually her (Whistledown) it maybe feels like they are more at odds than what is truly going on under the surface. Because they are established to love each other already unlike the other couples, who you are seeing the journey and getting to the end. While Part 2, you are seeing the unraveling of an established couple even though the love is there and the only important reason you need to get how they can work it out. We won on complexity and realness harder than the people w/bad takes can fathom, they have to make stuff up!

The other (kind of related for some) stuff:

The sex scenes: I get it! They lied (lol)! I hope we get them! But we know why it's lacking; they're deleted scenes; they exist! But the carriage scene - HOT. The mirror - HOT. The 30 second scene (lol) - HOT. But again: K*nthony got 2 spicy scenes their season! S*phne got a montage but it kind of sucked looking back (i'm not seriously hating but you know that it was too much, literally even then i think ppl knew) but plz don't start the ship discourse again & PLZ DO BE LOUD ABOUT THESE SCENES THO, I NEED THEM (lol)

But the love confession.....sssssssss. There were so many!!! *that book one is not good, i'm sorry (i'm being lighthearted here; you can disagree w/it but I do kind of hatttte it!)

"They didn't include..." don't know if you know but the writers make the story. Their story is not the book. You knew what you jumped into. (you can be sad but..) [i am not touching the conversation on Fran. But if we're really being real that side shouldn't wanna be grouped w/the side of The Departeds who are forever the head of online harrassers....by - now causing official pages to disable their comments (you don't have to tell me it wasn't all of you. I know 😔). it's actually kind of funny how I did not know like 95% of the actual discourse those first couple days (and there's a lot of discourse to see). but, anyway my main concern this whole post are my top 2 mcs. [ps the Departeds I meant traveling; i'm not that mean]

The misinterpretation of Colin: if you hate him, then go away! Thnx 4 the record-breaking views!

The baby? Cheers to 2 years in the future w/baby No Name! *lol* I'm not gonna say you shouldn't be upset about the name. For me, it was fine, because I knew they'd be back for s4. Also, preparation guys, I doubt we will even see the child that much if Daphne is any indication.

This show has never been comparable to your favorite Oscar-worthy film (literally obviously!), but the show is not terrible like some very widely popular of what's out there (and i'm not even talking about bad shows that everyone knows are bad). There is some depth to the characters and some ingrained-trauma to living in a male-dominated society with no autonomy, and traumas to the men as well. Re: the choices and drama every season. It's... a drama show! People need to go re-read the fantasy books if they want happy, lack of conflict all the time (and men yanking their wives by the wrists)... Go read fanfic if you don't like the show and a certain couple. Bridgerton is escapism and in some crazy overtaking of loud voices in the fandom, this fandom has been one of the least escap-ist fandoms ever. Because people will be like "*suspending my disbelief*" every 2 secs, but ...babe that's not doing what you just said. There's embellished "Based on a True Story" documentary fans that do this better than you tbh (i'm being a lil funny here, but honestly)

And I simply need to say this, regardless that it won't change, I need the acknowledgment jokes and the mental cleanse. if u don't want to read × The fandom...bro. I'm not even upset, I actually laughed at some of this - like, there's 3 types of people:

#1 offended people responding to op posts, because they don't like what they said; lol, the hypocrisy! The amount of people in my comments in this past month alone if I said something positive...abt the show, abt the characters...anything (new posts, old post) is more hatred than ever ever. The good polin fans are sensitive, but any and every bad typists in the comments are so easily offended...over positivity. Why.are.you.bitter?

"I'm bitter cause.." I literally don't care

#2 people reblogging things they hate to say what they hate. thnx for the notes??? bro, some comments on other ppl's gifs (rants on what they didn't like, crying abt a character/why they hate a character, and sometimes it has nothing to do with the scene gifed).

#3 "I'm allowed to be upset." why are you fighting for this? You can! Go in peace. Some people had no issues with what you say, but you are fighting this because you are determined to make people agree with your negativity no less. If you cared about the courtesy (i know that you don't) you'd let some ppl bask in what they weren't disappointed in & were excited to end the journey with (*and i expect nothing from the haters, but some of this was coming from inside the house lol). The reason you were wrong for this is because YOU WERE WRONG! There are ppl that liked it. You have no control; I get it. dw i'm sure you'll be fine.

Anyway, if anyone even read this far, you rock 4 that. If you got it, we're healing from this dumpster fire together; and if this even made 1 person laugh or feel better, it's worth it. I'm actually good now but it was rough that first stepping into the chaos and I had so many thoughts at first, so i wrote a lot from the initial shock those moments, [and now i'm in the laughing about this bullshit phase] so if u get it u get it (and can maybe have a chuckle) >>> This is literally just your neighborly (if ur nice here) joke!post *we're laughing thru the pain* / w/e to you (if you're not because i need to & this stuff isn't new & that one goes for all divisions of the fandom not just the main contented one of this post)