#no real story here but i imagine it as vigilante whump

[befuddled-calico-whump]

polaroid collection :)

general whump art tag list:

@whumpsday , @kira-the-whump-enthusiast @regrets-realization-acceptance @kixngiggles

[coldresolve]

I’m sorry if this comes off as ignorant, that is not my intention.

What is torture apologia? I haven’t been able to find a specific definition and it’s confusing for me. What does it look like in regard to the whump community? On top of that, what are some ways to avoid this in writing?

If you don’t want to type out a response to this, how can this be researched? You make some good points in your post about it, and I want to make sure my own writing isn’t based on stereotypes and misinformation about the subject. I am very, very new to the “whump” community, so I don’t fully understand the ways that torture apologia might be displayed in some of the popular writings.

Thank you for your time, and I apologize if this comes off as ignorant or confrontational.

hey no worries, youre not gonna offend me by asking a clarifying question. what pisses me off are the people who flat out dismiss everything i have to say without actually engaging with it. youre nowhere close to that lmao i promise

uh. i use the sexual assault r-word a bit here, because i just came up with a good rule of thumb that requires drawing similarities between torture and r-word, so. trigger warning if you dont wanna read that

there is no real definition of torture apologia out there, but i treat it in the same way i would rape apologism. and i actually think theres real worth in keeping with that similarity, because rape is considered a form of torture. so like. yeah

id go as far as to say you can switch out "torture" with "rape" in your story to see if the logic holds up, if you might be saying something you don't want to say. for example, "my hero tortures the bad guy, and this is framed as a form of vigilante justice", swapped with rape, uh, might not exactly be the sorta message you would want to send lol. your hero can torture the bad guy ofc, im not saying they can't, but you better be ready to grapple with the full fucking depth of morality of a situation like that

off the top of my head, things i'd steer clear of:

anything that implies that torture is useful for any purpose. torture just traumatizes people, that's about it, and it's dangerous to spread ideas about whatever imagined utility, because your average person has zero grasp on basic ethics - this is what turns your "useful" torture into "sometimes justified". a third of people globally believe torture can be justified "in some cases". like i can't stress how real this issue is

torture works as an interrogation method or as a way to obtain false/forced confessions (useful)

torture can be used to make someone obedient (useful)

torture can be used to change people's beliefs (useful)

torture can be used to brainwash people/control them (useful)

stockholm syndrome through torture is included in ^ (useful and also just. ehh)

any variant of the ticking time bomb scenario (useful + justification)

torture being portrayed as "scientific"; torturers being "experts" in the "skill" or "art" of torture (implies utility)

when the bad guy does it, it's torture; when the good guy does it, it's vigilante justice (justification)

there's a handful of ideas people use a lot in fiction that i wouldn't necessarily categorize as apologia, but which do still send a message you maybe should think twice about sending. torture victims/survivors being "broken", they'll never be able to live full, happy lives, etc. and there's also this idea that torture only negatively affects the person who is being tortured. i especially think showing the effects torture has on perpetrators is worthwhile, but that might just me having a weird fascination with perpetrator trauma. torture also tends to fuck up the organizations that use it, so

[irondadfics]

do u have any super whump fics like the third option or when you cant crawl?

The Third Option by @signofuncertainty and When You Can’t Crawl by @jolinarjackson are both wonderful reads! Besides just being SUPER whumpy they do share some similar themes.

Peter dealing with abuse and/or bullying.

Peter struggling with doubt and his own self worth.

Peter keeping secrets/hiding the severity of his struggles from Tony until they become too much for him to handle on his own.

Tony misunderstanding Peter’s situation and maybe not handling it very well at first because he doesn’t have all the details.

Here’s a few stories that share some of OR all of these concepts, but please remember to check the tags. Stay safe!

Hindsight by elephreak @ironwebbs

In hindsight he knows that he saw this coming. He recognised the signs with more than enough time to have alerted May, or anyone on what he knew was progressing. But in the end, he just really wanted it to not be true. Just to be a figment of his paranoid over-reactive teenage mind, conjuring up the worst possible scenario. Maybe he had just seen it so much out on the streets as Spiderman that he was bringing it home with him, still seeing the darkness in those kinds of people’s eyes… in the way they moved and spoke. Or maybe he had just assumed that the blearing alarms of his spider-sense from the moment he shook hands with the guy was just aftershocks of the armed robbery he had just wrapped up only moments ago.Hindsight can be a real bitch sometimes. OR The one where Peter is being abused in the worst way

Damaged At Best (Like You’ve Already Figured Out) by JolinarJackson @jolinarjackson and ShoyzzArt @shoyzz-art

”Don’t come any closer,” Spider-Man said, his hand raised threateningly, his fingers resting against a trigger mechanism nestled into his palm.”Alright,” Tony answered. For a moment, they looked at each other – Tony stuck to the wall on one side of the alley and Spider-Man stuck to the other – then Tony opened his helmet to show his face. ”Hey, there”, he said. ”Nice to finally meet you.”—The Avengers are left shaken in the aftermath of the Sokovia Accords. With half the team under house arrest at the Compound, Tony finds himself seeking refuge in Avengers Tower and starts forming a tentative friendship with the neighborhood vigilante Spider-Man. A friendship which is quickly threatened by Secretary Ross doubting Spider-Man’s intentions and integrity.Tony is left wondering who to trust, especially when Spider-Man manages to uncover the one secret Tony never wanted anyone to know about: the child Tony had with a woman named Mary Fitzpatrick sixteen years ago.

Sick by WindsOfWisteria

After not seeing Peter for over a week, Tony Stark gets a frantic call from May Parker. Due to her call, he makes his way to her apartment only to find Peter dangerously ill. Despite his high fever, profuse vomiting, and blaring headache, he refuses to go to the hospital or to Bruce. The question is- why? Tony knows there’s something more to this than Peter is telling him.

broken playgrounds by hailingstars @hailing-stars 

“Kid,” said Tony. He gripped the edges of the workstation and let out a breath. “Look… I’m not trying to grill you, or call you a liar, alright? It’s just you and me down here, and you can tell me, if something’s wrong… it’s just, I have this feeling – that something might be.”Peter considered it. Telling Tony the truth. The words were on the tip of his tongue. They were begging to get out, but he couldn’t. Tony wouldn’t understand, and he had this covered. He could handle Skip on his own. He just hadn’t worked out how he wanted to go about doing that yet. He managed a smile, but it faltered. “Everything’s good, Tony, really. Everything’s fine.”ORWhen Peter finds out a man who sexually abused him as child is working as a teacher at Morgan’s school, he struggles with his past, whether or not he should tell Tony what had happened, or handle Skip himself.

Waste Not, Want Not by mttraspberrypie @miactive 

Really, Peter’s only trying to make life easier for everyone.It sucks that he has to starve to do it, though.

Make Way For Tomorrow by hopeless_hope @tonystarkstan  

Peter swallows and looks at Tony, unable to keep the heartbroken look off his face. His hand grabs for his book bag while his other sweeps the vials up. Maybe he’s being paranoid, but he can’t risk going back into the system. He closes his eyes, for just a second, to mourn the life he could have had.“I’m sorry,” he says to Tony.He doesn’t wait to see the man’s response before he pushes through the crowd of people and runs. “Wait!” Tony calls after him.But Peter’s already out the door.-Before Ben died, Peter won a booth to present his project at the Stark Expo. But even on the run from the foster care system, he can’t pass up the opportunity to attend and show the world his project. It all goes so well, until it doesn’t. Trying to avoid being caught, Peter runs out on Tony just as the man is about to make him the offer of a lifetime.Bold of him to assume Tony won’t try to find him.

Comeuppance by PinkEasterEggs 

“Do you think all bad people get their comeuppance?” Peter asked suddenly. “What makes you ask?” Mr Stark looked worried.“No reason,” Peter shrugged. “I would like to think that karma gets everyone eventually,” Mr Stark said eventually. “Do you believe in karma, Pete? Do you believe all bad people get their comeuppance?”He paused for a second and thought. How many times had be dreamt of Skip getting put behind bars? How many times had Peter imagined the man getting what he deserved? It seemed like countless nights that Peter had closed his eyes and dreamt of a world where the man who’d hurt him was finally exposed for what he was: a monster.But then Peter opened his eyes and Skip was still living a good life, his true self hidden from the world.“No,” Peter sniffed, trying to not see the look of worry Mr Stark was giving him. “I don’t.” Peter Parker was 9 years old when his Aunt and Uncle hired a babysitter to look after him. He was 9 years old when his life changed forever and Peter realised that monsters weren’t something that hid under his bed at night.

Peter Parker is young, dumb and reckless (and also in constant pain) by Minkey222 @minkey222 (series)

It was about the time in the night where Peter started to think about going home when a shrill noise enters his ears.