#lots of threats in general

[whumpshaped]

this spiralled out of control i apologise. beck's head will clear in 3, 2, 1-

masterlist

tw vampire whumper, suggestive stuff, mind control, threat of death, threat of murder, lots of threats in general, power dynamics, intimate whumper, murder mention

"Oh, I do love it here." Helle stretched out on the king sized bed while Beck was left to stand in the bedroom door, silently fuming. That was his bed, and his room, and his home. "Thank you for asking."

"I didn't," he said quietly, a show of ridiculous defiance he seldom afforded himself. But his home was being turned into a fucking vampire den! Helle went and looked at his treasured family photos, his decorations, touched all his possessions, all while he could do nothing but sit on the sofa and wait for them to leave.

And then they came back. Again. And again. And again. Because they could, and because this was now their new favourite hangout spot; ever since the fucking date night.

"No, I think you did." They gave him a look, a warning, one that Beck always felt compelled to heed. Not this time. He thought he had enough pent up anger to be a little disobedient, so he steeled his nerves and decided to speak up. Well, about as well as a mouse would've against the neighbourhood cat.

"You– you're being... very unfair," he said slowly, forcing out the words one by one, considering each one before committing to it. That wasn't what he'd wanted to say, of course. But he somehow had to repackage his... more blunt sentiments. "And, and you can do that, you can absolutely be as horrible to me as you want. I can't... I can't do anything about it. But I don't want to play along today."

Helle's expression turned playful, and they rolled over to one side of the bed, petting the other as an invitation. Beck wanted to explode when he saw his own fucking bed being offered back to him at a price — a very steep price at that. He didn't want to be anywhere near the fucking vampire.

"Oh, come on," they insisted when he didn't move. He just shook his head.

"Please, get off my bed. You're– you're in your street clothes, and you're rolling around on my blanket that I use after I've showered and I'm clean–"

"Oh, is that the issue?" they asked with a mischievous smile, glancing down at their clothes. "If it is, we can definitely remedy–"

"It's not! It's– it's one of many issues!" he snapped, his little outburst startling him more than it did Helle. "S-sorry. I– just, please, get off."

"You know, sometimes I like it when you get mad at me. Even beyond just the entertainment factor. Because, you see... you are so bland on the surface, but whenever you get angry, it is almost like... I can tell there is something more there."

Bland? What kind of backhanded compliment was that? Or was it just an insult? Beck was so caught off guard that he couldn't even respond before Helle had already moved on, petting the bed again.

"Now, do get over here before I lose interest and just start snapping some bones for fun."

He swallowed, the memory of Helle holding his wrist in their hand and cheerily explaining how easily they could break it seeping back into the forefront of his mind and making his legs move of their own accord. "I said I was sorry," he tried as he carefully lowered himself onto his bed like it was a minefield.

"Yes, I know. And more often than not, I am also fine playing along. But not today, right? Today we are brave and honest."

He hated the way they said that. He had no idea what stupid game they had in mind that required them both on the same bed, but he was starting to get increasingly nervous about it — while Helle easily propped themself up on their elbow, lying on their side, looking at him excitedly like they were at a sleepover.

"I want you to tell me what you actually think. Of me, of spending the night with a vampire, with the specific vampire who has been so mean to you. I want to hear it."

"Wh- what?"

"It is painfully obvious that you are holding back. An understandable choice. But now I want you to just say it. Tell me something absolutely vile."

"I, I don't... I... no, but this, this is what I mean, this is unfair, how can you even– you, you could hurt me so badly," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Is that an invitation?" They raised their free hand before he could answer, cutting him off. "I know, I know. It is not. Not yet, anyway. But very well, if you will not share of your own volition, you shall share under enthrallment."

Beck sat up immediately, his urge to get away suddenly unbearable. "No! No, you said you wouldn't, you said you wouldn't use it!"

"I will if I have to," they cooed. "Or you can just tell me."

"I... will I be punished for this?" he asked hesitantly.

"Oh, Beck, stop being such a coward for one second. Indulge. I can tell you my most depraved thoughts about you in exchange, if–"

"No. No, I, I don't think I want to hear any of that."

"Well, I might tell you anyway. But for now, let me hear your honest opinion."

He didn't want to be enthralled. Now that he was so focused on it, he could already feel it creeping closer and closer at the edges of his consciousness, poking and prodding and gently pushing him to just do it. He knew it could turn vicious at any moment, seizing the information by violently ripping it from his mind against his will.

"I hate you," he said in a shaky little voice, ruining weeks of fantasies of himself yelling these words at the vampire. "I, I hate everything about you, everything that reminds me of you, I hate feedings, I hate you being here, I hate you touching me and my things and, and bringing who knows what into my house, you're ruining my life, I– I wish–" He cut himself off, and Helle pushed further into his mind, forcing the words out of his mouth without his consent. "I wish you had been buried with a stake in your heart back whenever you died. I wish I was there, seeing it through, I wish I could've done it. Hell, you're the only reason I keep a stake in my home, you're the only vampire I ever imagine killing, but I imagine it often and in great detail. I am thoroughly fucking disgusted by you, and I truly wish you were dead and rotting somewhere."

Their hold on him suddenly disappeared, and he was left with the knowledge of what he'd just told Helle to their face. He couldn't run away. He couldn't defend it. He couldn't explain it away. All he could do was sit there and watch them process all of it, hoping that whatever punishment this warranted, he could negotiate it to be a little lighter.

He had never realised just how terrifying a concept enthrallment was. He had been spoiled before, continually presented with choices he thought were impossible... but no, impossible felt completely different. It was his mind being effortlessly taken over and toyed with, it was being helpless, completely helpless against it.

"Okay," Helle said after a while, plopping down onto their back. "Bring your stake and get it over with."

"What..?"

"If you do not comply with this order, I will find the stake and drive it through your heart."

Beck almost fell off the bed in his haste to grab the stake from the drawer of his nightstand, clutching it in his hands uncertainly as he turned back to see Helle still lying on their back, docile as ever. They didn't make a single move to stop him as he reluctantly inched closer.

"You– you wouldn't actually let me," he stammered, and they shrugged.

"You are not going get a better chance."

Well... that much was true. And yet, all he did was kneel there on the bed with a stake in his hand and stare at the vampire.

"You know, from the amount of family photo albums I have flipped through, I could easily find and recognise your mother. Or your brother, really. I wonder whether they would be any more fun, or this particular brand of blandness runs in your family." They looked up at him with a coy smile. "I might just go find out for myself after I've staked you."

There weren't many things Beck was as fiercely protective of as his family. Rage bubbled up in his chest with every word Helle uttered, and he instantly moved to straddle their waist, raising the stake high above his head. He had a clear shot. Helle wasn't defending themself. They were telling him that only one of them was going to leave this room alive, and that if it was them, they would slaughter the rest of his family.

And yet... now that he was actually here, on top of the vampire who had been tormenting him, the thought of killing them was intimidating. It wasn't even killing, all he was doing was sending them back where they belonged! But... but what vampire would take over their territory? Would those vampires grab him too? Would they immediately enthrall him, pump him full of venom, leave him to die? Did he... did he really hate Helle that much..?

He shook his head a little, trying to get rid of the thoughts. This had to be the lingering effects of the enthrallment he'd read about. He did hate them, he hated them more then anything, he wanted them dead, properly, permanently dead. And yet his body wouldn't comply. He wasn't a murderer. He just... he couldn't...

Beck flinched and almost dropped the stake when Helle suddenly moved, trailing their fingers up his thighs, over his hips and onto his waist. He lowered his hands to push theirs away, but they were faster, grabbing him by the wrists and tugging his hands over to their chest. The point of the stake was now right above their unbeating heart, mere inches away from killing them; and they looked up at him with the same calm as always, almost– fond, or... or...

"You could do it now," they whispered, not letting him pull his hands back even if he wanted to. "All those mean, condescending insults, all that pain from feedings, all the ruined date nights, all that frustration from having to tolerate a leech like me in your home... gone."

"I can't," he whispered back, trying to blink away tears of shame. He just couldn't. His life was on the line. His family's life. And he couldn't.

"Why?"

He shook his head again. Maybe he didn't fully know, maybe he just didn't want to talk about it. Maybe he felt like he could just say no now that he was holding a stake to their heart.

"I thought you hated me."

"I do." His hands were shaking badly, worse by the second as Helle slowly worked his fingers loose from the stake. "But I– I don't know what would happen afterwards. And I don't want to kill anybody–"

"I'm already dead, Beck."

"I know." He let them take the stupid piece of wood, the one he now knew he'd never actually get to use because of his own cowardice. He yelped when Helle suddenly flipped their positions, settling comfortably between his legs and putting the pointed end of the stake against his heart.

"I let you do this because I thought it would be a nice little lesson," they said easily, almost pleasantly, no doubt enjoying the way he trembled under them. "I knew you would not be able to do it. At least I was confident enough. Of course, had you tried, I would have simply stopped you... but you did not even try."

There was no trace of fear in their voice or on their face from having been so close to death, nor was there a single tremor that would've run through their hands as they threatened someone with a very much lethal weapon. This wouldn't have been their first kill; nor their first death, for that matter. Beck stifled a little whimper at the thought.

"Whether you admit it or not, you love to hate me. You love to point to me and say I am the source of your problems, you love to fantasise about my death being the end of your misery, but you know it is not true. You love knowing that you do not have to fear vampires out at night anymore, aside from the one you already know. One that is, quite frankly–"

"Spoiling me," he blurted out, and their smile widened.

"Yes. Spoiling you. No magic. No quick and easy scrambling of your fragile, human mind. You love to think I am strict and cruel, because it makes you feel better about the world. You love to think I am the worst of it. But you know it is not true."

"I do, now." He could hear the blood rushing in his ears as he stared up at the murderous being so close to killing him, and he dared hope they wouldn't. Because he knew them, and they knew him, and he dared hope that in itself was enough to keep him from dying tonight.

"I killed my sire like this." They sounded nostalgic, as though they were recalling their most pleasant memories. "There is something... quite special about staking someone. Forcing a piece of wood between their ribs, piercing their heart... I do love doing it. It is quite... intimate."

Beck felt the point be driven further into his skin, nestling between strands of the fabric in his shirt and drawing blood underneath. Maybe he wouldn't have been able to drive it through someone's chest without any momentum. Helle was definitely more than capable.

He held his breath, waiting for his death as the vampire watched the droplet of blood soak a small circle of red into his pristine shirt. Then they threw the stake aside, grabbing a hold of his wrist instead. "But if I staked you tonight, how would I ever turn you into my adoring little vampire servant? No, I am afraid that will have to wait." They kissed the inside of his wrist, and Beck shivered, bracing himself for the bite that would come as a direct result of his own incompetence. "But I am very pleased that this honesty hour has brought us a bit closer together."

~

taglist: @whumpsday @the-scrapegoat @hidden-dreamland @dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night @delicateprincepaper @whumppmuhw @florissimps @nicolepascaline @oliversrarebooks

[prolibytherium]

Would kill to read animal POV fiction that has the animal POV’s interaction with humans be like, semi realistic to the level of caution most predators take with large prey and/or competitors (including humans).

Like instead of the usual - “the human is such a weak, pathetic creature... so slow, no claws, blunt teeth… completely helpless without its 'Fire Sticks'. how is it the master of the earth?” type crap it’s like, the bear protagonist or whatever approaches some dude who spreads their arms and yells and the bear is like “FUUUUUUUUCK THAT THING JUST GOT HUGE. IT'S LARGE AND MAKING NOISES. HOLY FUCK.”

[serpentface]

Interview Question for Etsushir:

What was the vibe like as a foot soldier during the suppression of the North Finn Rebellion? Did it feel doomed from the start or did it only fall apart once the Odomache was assaulted and killed?

[zukosdualdao]

also if i see another “zuko was actually very weak and cowardly for only confronting ozai during the eclipse” post, i am going to explode, actually.

y’all get that you are saying exactly what ozai said, right? you are using the same rhetoric ozai, as an abuser, was using to attempt to manipulate and berate his son.

zuko is protecting himself from ozai here. he has been in physical danger from ozai at least two other times prior to this. (three, i think, if we’re counting comic canon, but i know that’s contentious.) he is taking necessary precautions. acting like that is a bad/weak/immoral thing for him to do is abuse apologism, there’s literally no other word for it.

[puppetmaster13u]

Slowly rotating designs for the meat marionette bodies.

Only sketched Dick & Bruce for now, but I like to think that they're partially made from their own blood. Any corpse that doesn't make it to the morgue, human or animal, might get dragged down by tendrils Gemini Home Entertainment style to the Hive.

Apologies if I am spamming, but what do you think @phoenixcatch7? Tried to make Dick look slightly more mammalian or avian compared to Bruce but idk if that came through lol.

[anominous-user]

full versions of my de-sticked/hsr'ed version of triple threat

types + paths

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Did you see the part where Meg was annoyed that only dogs can be qualified to be service medical dogs? lol guess she's mad a bird can't be a service cardic arrest animal. Once again pulled up the "people think only DOGS can be trained to do this!!! How dare they!!!" *grumbling about mammalian bias* argument. I'm sorry Meg but your fucking bird or a rabbit cannot be a service animal for the blind or anything that dogs have be bred to do

me when they won’t let my service crocodile into Walmart:

[mortimermcmirestinks]

hey kids let's sing our silly little song!

♪ this is our silly little song ♪ ♪ I'm scared of donald trump winning another election ♪ ♪ doot doot doot doot doot ♪

[kermit-coded]

i will never be able to put into words how much the percy jackson books mean to me... they were a formative experience and they truly helped shape me into the person i am today, so the fact that we're finally getting a good live action makes me feel unwell...

[highlifeboat]

They definitely wanted to kill each other. Like, I just know every interaction they had was full of underlying seething hatred.

[prolibytherium]

I've got big opinions on dream sequences in writing. Which is mostly that they really shouldn't be there like 90% of the time because they grind the narrative to a halt, but I think they CAN have value. It's just that they tend to be executed in a way that's kind of pointless.

It's mostly that a lot of writers have the sequences be literal 1:1 depictions of the character's anxieties or feelings, or otherwise the absolute most on the nose symbolism possible. And it's not like dreams are NEVER like that, but why bother stopping the narrative to include a full sequence that essentially just repeats information the reader already knows?

If it's established that Character A is scared that Character B will get murdered by Jeff the Killer, and then A has an entire dream sequence of B getting Jeff the Killed and A wakes up sweating like 'Noooooooooo I do not want that to happen noooooo' it's jsut like. Yeah I knew that already?

[virsancte]

I just realized I haven't even been on simblr for 2 years? this is wild. I feel like it's been a part of my life since Forever

[desthen]

when you finally get the metaphor in Dolls of New Albion that the two concepts warring in every act and between every conflict, in every game, are just "Life" and "Death"

[possamble]

Ooff I see that threesome WIP. Appreciate all that warning. I don't think I have the heart in me to read that hahaha. Just feels weird to have two women in a relationship and insert a man for funsies. But hey, maybe it's just me being being into only Farcille and them being monogamous and only for each other. I'm just gonna pretend it's a separate Falin and Marcille from a little creature universe so I won't look at them differently when I read the fic hahaha. Still will be reading anything else from you though. You're one of my favorite fic writers and will be waiting patiently for updates!!

I truly appreciate you being frank with what you want and don't want to read and being civil about it-- but I have to say. I'd understand and accept if you looked at me differently for making that kind of content. Maybe I'm not the kind of creator you thought I was, or my creative priorities don't line up with yours, and maybe you enjoy my content less because of that. That's all fine and well--you have every right to curate your own fandom experience and I encourage everyone to do so.

But it's very curious that you specifically said that you'd look at the characters differently. I would understand if you wanted to separate them bc it doesn't fit into your preferred image of them and that's all. But at first glance, your wording implies that they would be somehow tarnished for you if they decided to sleep with a male friend for fun some years down the line.

I don't know you, and I won't pretend I have any standing to interrogate you on a minor word choice. But here's an unsolicited heads up, if you'd humor me: you may want to examine where that sentiment is coming from. It could very well just be a knee-jerk reaction to non-monogamous content for your favourite pairing (I get that, I'm usually the one privately bitching when I see Marcille or Falin shipped with anyone else) but it could also be coming from a place that's very disparaging to adult wlw who sleep with men of their own volition. And I hope you'll agree that's something worth being wary of in yourself.

[elftwink]

been learning to play ironsworn (gritty fantasy ttrpg which you can play with a gm but is mostly suited for solo or small group co-op gmless play) after having the rulebook pdf for several years (stars finally aligned to remove invisible thing blocking me from reading it idk) because i'm on another solo ttrpg kick & i don't know what took me so long to get around to this game because it genuinely is exactly what i was looking for. years ago when i was playing through solo 5e modules i should have just been playing ironsworn (believe it or not, 5e isn't very suited to solo play and is extremely clunky when you try lol).

also though i have dabbled in some other solo ttrpgs, a considerable amount of them are journaling games which is fun but imo considerably more work (usually by the time i'm a quarter of the way through the journal entry, i know how to entire scene played out and i want to move on to the next gameplay thing, so i get frustrated and bored quickly. it feels like when you solve a level in a video game but don't have the coordination to pull off the necessary move so you have to spend 20 extra minutes doing something you already figured out), so i really appreciate like not needing to write something for the game to progress (ive been taking notes for my own record since im playing solo and thus am not really out loud roleplaying the way you do in a group, but i definitely could do that instead and not take notes and the game would still function perfectly)

& ive been playing by myself but also in the past ive played a lot of ttrpgs in very small groups which has been other games but is mostly dnd and like. we also should have been playing ironsworn so that having a gm was not necessary. have definitely played games where we had to adapt the rules soooo much to do something that is just base game included in ironsworn. plus it's rules-light enough to do pretty complex moves that pose difficulties in bulkier games (ever introduced someone to dnd and they tell you they want to do a sick backflip and catch something and then attack and you have to tell them that will require several different consecutive rolls and some creative liberties with how the rules are 'supposed' to let you move? you can just Do That in ironsworn. use the strike move and describe it. done!)

the one thing is that although it's rules-light enough to theoretically play any setting or genre (some with more difficulty than others), ive found so far that like... the grittiness and sense of threat is very built into the mechanics so that would be sort of difficult to work around or change (but i think it's great from a game design perspective). what i mean is like, okay: you start with 5 max hp. there isn't really a way to raise this max hp, you just slowly gain abilities (assets) that make you less likely to have to lose the hp in the first place, or that make it easier to recover. when you encounter foes, you rank them on a scale of 1 -5, and enemies on the lowest side of this scale do one harm to you, while enemies on the highest side do five harm to you. so even though encountering an epic enemy won't always be deadly due to the assets you have, they are ALWAYS capable of taking you down to 0 hp with one good hit. so the feeling of threat is much more present compared to games where your character starts to be able to just tank and push through a failure or huge threat.

admittedly also i'm playing solo, im still learning how to balance combat, and also i built a character who has NO combat talents and iron (the close quarters fighting stat) is one of my lowest stats so i personally am under much more threat than if you built a character who knew how to fight or who could do deadly harm. but also the other thing about combat is it's extremely difficult to maintain control of the fight; you have to score a strong hit to do it on basically all moves, and there's a really limited pool of moves available when you don't have the initiative, and obviously none of them really favour you. i don't know that this makes combat genuinely more difficult, but it does make you feel like the fight is always about to spiral out of your control. every second you let it drag without decisive action feels like it brings you closer to dying. like i said, this is a feature of the game design and not a problem in any way. just thinking about it because when i was initially learning i was going to try to supplant it into a homebrew fantasy world of my own but the tone just wouldn't be right. and that it is somewhat difficult to replicate the kind of worlds that i typically play or run for dnd, which tend to lean somewhat sillier and definitely much higher fantasy

but i like to try new things and tbh especially in dnd i find that i very rarely feel that sense of threat and when i do feel it, it has nothing at all to do with the actual mechanics and reality of the combat and everything to do with how well the dm sells it to me and makes it sound and feel scary and dangerous. which is a testament to what a good gm can do for you but i do appreciate the threat feeling more built-in and also being actually real.

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

For the character asks, Blanche. Questions 8, 10 & 12 😊

hiii friend!! thank you for the questions!! <3

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Oh wow. This is a dangerous question, haha!

‘Despise' is a pretty strong word. I feel like the one thing I really can't stand is character assassination (although this is true for every character I like, to be honest). I'm not the authority on what makes Blanche Blanche, of course, but I have seen a few instances when it felt like people only saw the superficial parts of her and forgot about everything else, you know what I mean? Thankfully that's pretty rare around these parts though :)

There's one thing that's more specifically Blanche-related that's a pet-peeve of mine, and it’s the accent thing. I don't really like it when accents are explicitly written down in fanfic, and since Blanche is the one with the strongest accent in the cast, this happens to her sometimes. I just want to point out that this is not wrong per se, it's just a me thing! I prefer to 'hear’ the accent in my mind while I read — if I have to stop and parse the meaning of a sentence mid-action, it's harder for me to fully immerse myself in the story. I don't mind the occasional truncation of a 'g' at the end of a verb, or the odd 'y'all' in a phrase, but if every sentence is written like that it does get a bit hard for me 😅 once again though, this is just my personal preference, and I definitely don't despise the practice.

10. Could you be best friends with this character?

I'm actually not sure how to answer this! If we didn't know each other at all, I think we'd need to be in a situation where we have to spend some time together in order to become friends (like, idk, working together or something like that). We don't share lots of interests (appreciation for art aside), and her passion for men would definitely throw me off at the beginning, so I'd need a reason to spend time with her to get to know her! But we are more similar than we seem, so once I did get to know her better, I'd love to be her friend :) we'd probably drive each other crazy on some things, but I need someone to get me out of my comfort zone at times, and she'd probably benefit from having a more 'grounded' friend, in the same way she benefits from having Dorothy as a friend.

... of course, this is all assuming that she'd want to be my friend in the first place, which is not a given 😂 I'm probably not interesting or fun enough to convince her to give me a chance, but a gal can dream, you know?

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Just one? :')

I've said it before on here, but I headcanon that she's a cover hog. It just makes sense to me! And, still related to sleep, I feel like this is basically canon, but she's a night owl. She's more active during the night, she sleeps in, and it takes her a while to wake up in the mornings.

She actually is knowledgeable about art -- but not necessarily about artists! I think she likely doesn't have a lot of formal education about art (and especially art history), and even if she did study anything related to it she doesn't strike me as an exceptional student overall, but she has a natural instinct for visual beauty -- she's great at things like recognizing which paintings were made with similar techniques or within the same artistic current, distinguishing the traits and characteristics of painters, identifying specific shades of colour, this kind of stuff. Show her a painting and she'll correctly tell you that it's a Van Gogh, how he painted it, the precise shades of colour he chose and why he chose them -- but she also doesn't know that he cut off his ear, you know?

She was a bit of a reckless driver, especially in her youth -- the kind who likes to hit the gas just a tad too much, who plays the music just a tad too loud. She likes acting larger than life, she likes having fun, and she likes attention, so this feels appropriate for her. I figure it probably wasn't noticeable because she rarely drove herself (she always had a gentleman at her side to drive her around), but she never really grew out of that particular trait -- until George's death. After that, I think any imprudence behind the wheel would evoke his accident in her mind, so by the time the Girls met her she had turned into a very conscientious driver.

Thank you, these were so much fun to answer!! I love love love talking about Blanche <3

[CHARA CTER ASK GAME!!! 💫]