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teddy bear whumpee. A whumpee whose sole function is as someone to cuddle with. Chained to the bed all the time. Given lessons on how to cuddle someone the best. Doing all they can to be the best because they don’t want to be the stress relief in ANOTHER way. They don’t want to be punching bag whumpee.

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lab whump

being treated as less than by everybody, dragged kicking and screaming down the hallway as everybody continues on their day.

Being expandable, useful only as a tool. Covered in scars and given the bare minimum to survive.

on the other hand being treated as a valued weapon to be taken care of. Given a big soft crate, a special diet made just for you, lots of health checks and when restraints are necessary, soft leather ones.

You’re still a tool but a very valued one that receives lots of attention. Being given your own little pet to take care of to keep you happy. Whether this pet is human or animal is your choice.

imagine if the treasured lab whumpee was given the abused beaten down whumpee as a gift.

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housepet

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for some reason I love to imagine magic causing exhaustion and burns on your hands if you overuse it too quickly

Some of my favorite magic side effects:

-Nosebleeds. Never gets old.

-Coughing up blood. The good ol’ “cough into your hand and pull it back to see blood” also never gets old.

-Headaches. You keep fighting as your head pounds, desperately telling you to take a break. At first they fade within minutes when you stop using magic, but overtime, they become chronic.

-Fatigue. After a big battle, you stand triumphant, and then just fall asleep on the spot.

-In a similar vein, overuse causing you to straight up faint rather than just fall asleep. Darkness begins to overtake your vision in the middle of battle, unconsciousness abruptly looming over you.

-Any of the side effects happening to another person. Maybe two close characters are connected, and whatever side effects character A would normally endure are transferred to character B. When A uses a blast of magic B screams loudly because holy shit that hurt.

-Magic gradually deteriorating your mind. Using it too much eventually caused hallucinations and an inability to retain memories, or even larger scale memory loss. 

Feel free to add more, I’m looking for some to steal

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exhaustion whump

literally the best thing ever

A enemy soldier trying to fight back but too weak and hurt to do anything but squirm or flinch as they are captured. Roughly with carelessness for their useless struggles or gently understanding that they can’t do any harm in this state.

hanging from ropes. When they are released they flop into the ground, unable to support themselves.

a defiant whumpee looking up with fear and exhaustion. Just weakly glaring and twitching away from whumpers hands.

being pinned to the ground by someone much stronger and more skilled than them. Giving up and stopping struggling because what’s the point? It’s not like they can win this fight.

A soldier dragging themselves to their feet. Bone tired and shaking but too stubborn to give up.

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Some of my favorite magic side effects:

-Nosebleeds. Never gets old.

-Coughing up blood. The good ol’ “cough into your hand and pull it back to see blood” also never gets old.

-Headaches. You keep fighting as your head pounds, desperately telling you to take a break. At first they fade within minutes when you stop using magic, but overtime, they become chronic.

-Fatigue. After a big battle, you stand triumphant, and then just fall asleep on the spot.

-In a similar vein, overuse causing you to straight up faint rather than just fall asleep. Darkness begins to overtake your vision in the middle of battle, unconsciousness abruptly looming over you.

-Any of the side effects happening to another person. Maybe two close characters are connected, and whatever side effects character A would normally endure are transferred to character B. When A uses a blast of magic B screams loudly because holy shit that hurt.

-Magic gradually deteriorating your mind. Using it too much eventually caused hallucinations and an inability to retain memories, or even larger scale memory loss. 

Feel free to add more, I’m looking for some to steal

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[delicateprincepaper]

Whumptober Day 5: Debris

This is a standalone story in my original Mind Games universe, a modern-day sci-fi/fantasy thriller setting about ordinary humans with superhuman abilities and the people who want to use or destroy them. Full description in my Whumptober masterpost, which is linked in my pinned post.

This story contains: male whumpee, environmental whump, team whump, torture mentions, death whump, tragic love

Words: 2700

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Everything hurt.

Felix couldn’t see well enough to assess his injuries. Everything was dark, except for a small sliver of blue directly above his head. Blue sky—could it be? He hadn’t seen blue sky in… he didn’t even know how long.

The sight made him smile. His lips tasted like blood.

He didn’t know what had happened. One second, he had been sitting in his cell, crosslegged on the floor, staring at the wall. Wishing himself free. Wishing himself dead. Wishing for the walls to come down.

And then… they had.

A far-away boom, and another, like a fireworks show but without the cheers at the end. A crack running up one wall, just to the right of the door. A terrible groaning sound. And then the sky had been falling, plaster raining down around him. He had stood up to face the ceiling as it caved in, and let out a whoop of delight…

Then everything had gone black.

Even if not for the darkness, he wouldn’t have been able to move well enough to get a good look at himself. Every time he tried to shift, a spike of pain shot through his body. Something heavy weighed him down. Maybe just the rubble. Maybe the weight of his own flesh, which felt impossibly heavy every time he struggled to draw in a breath.

He coughed. Hot blood ran down his chin. The rubble shifted, crushing his left side until he let out a groan. A sharp bolt of pain brushed down his left hip, and from there to his knee, all the way to his foot. There was something wrong with his foot. It was a ball of pain, and the ball was the wrong shape.

His cough turned into a laugh.

The laughter made his whole chest burn, and jostled his ribs in a way that made him certain they were broken. He didn’t care. He went right on laughing.

He hadn’t thought this was what freedom would look like. But who cared? He was free.

He would die looking at the blue sky.

He focused his eyes on that slim crack of blue, and didn’t look away.

“I’m telling you, I heard something over here.” A woman’s voice, somewhere above him.

“Probably one of them,” a man warned. “Be careful.”

Felix would have called out, but he didn’t have the breath. His laughter had faded into a wheeze. But it didn’t matter, because a second later, the blue crack widened into a rectangle. Then it became a wide expanse of color as a wary-looking man lifted a chunk of rubble away from his head.

The man tossed it aside with a grunt of exertion. Before Felix could try to find the breath to say Thank you, a crouching woman thrust the barrel of a gun into his face. “Start talking. Who are you?”

“Can’t do much talking like this,” he wheezed.

She jerked her chin at the man. He called another chunk of debris off his chest. He saw it move, but he didn’t feel any different. If his eyes had been closed, he would have sworn nothing had happened. The weight on his chest didn’t lessen.

That didn’t seem good.

He struggled to draw in a breath. “If you wanted the bastards who ran this place dead,” he said, “I’m on your side.”

“What’s he wearing?” the man asked the woman. “Prison clothes, or one of their uniforms?”

The woman ran her gaze down his body. She hastily averted her eyes, her face twisted in an expression he preferred not to try to interpret. “I can’t tell. There’s too much blood.”

“Come on,” he said, trying for a smile. “Even if I was one of them—which I’m not—what do you think I could do to you like this?”

“Plenty.” She didn’t take the gun out of his face. “If you worked here, there’s a better than fifty-fifty chance you’re Enhanced. For all I know, you could kill the two of us without lifting a finger.”

“Hand me an object and I can tell you everything about who touched it last. It’s a useful ability—useful enough for the PERI bastards to pull out all my fingernails trying to persuade me to work for them. But it won’t help me much here.”

All that talking made his vision go gray for a second. Blood trickled out from the corners of his mouth.

The woman still kept the gun pointed an inch or two above his nose.

He drew in as much air as he could and recited the first couple of lines of a poem. The effort made his chest ache until he was tempted to stop breathing entirely. And chances were good it wouldn’t mean anything to them anyway. The poem had been a favorite of his old team leader, before she’d taken a bullet to the lung on a mission and died slowly. They had kept the code active after her death, probably for longer than they should have. It had been a way of keeping her alive.

The code wouldn’t mean a thing to anyone else, though. There were a lot of small, isolated groups out there fighting PERI. And it had been years since his capture. His old team was probably long gone.

But behind the gun, the woman’s eyes widened. “Holy shit,” she breathed.

The man glanced down at her. “What is it? That mean something to you?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s one of our old codes.” She stared down at Felix as if she had unearthed a fossil. “And I’m talking old. Like six, seven years ago. Before your time.”

“Someone could have given it up under interrogation.”

“If he’s trying to win our trust, why would he give us an ancient code there’s hardly anyone left to remember?” She tucked the gun away. “Hang in there. We’ll get you out of here.”

The man pulled away another chunk of rubble, and another. Sometimes Felix felt it as a sudden release of pressure. Sometimes it sent a sudden jolt of pain up nerves that had fallen asleep, and he had to bite his lip to suppress a cry. He didn’t want to make them feel guilty for hurting him. Not when they were doing all they could to save him.

Even if, deep in his gut, he suspected their efforts were futile.

The woman helped shift the rubble aside. As she did, she kept stealing quick, quizzical glances at Felix. Like she was trying to figure out if she knew him. Her eyes gave no hint of recognition. She probably couldn’t tell much, if he looked as bad as it sounded like he did.

As for him, the longer he looked at her, the more he swore he had known her a long time ago.

But it might have been his imagination. Because she had responded to the code, and because he wanted to see a familiar face before he died.

It had been so long since he had seen anyone who didn’t wear the gray PERI uniform. He used to dream of rescue, but even the dreams had stopped. Sometimes he lay awake, trying to picture the faces of everyone he had known before. But they all melted into a blur. He didn’t even have his memories for company.

He had even forgotten what blue sky looked like. It was so much brighter than remembered. Even now that it was fading around the edges. He was glad he had gotten to see it one more time before the end…

“He’s fading.” The woman crouched down beside again. “Hey. Stay with me.”

He blinked up at her. Her face was so familiar. Maybe she was an angel, sent to end his suffering. It was about time.

“Better late than never,” he mumbled with a wheeze. Then, “You’re beautiful, you know that? The most beautiful angel I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, no. I don’t think so. I’m no angel, I promise you. And you’re not going to be seeing any real angels any time soon.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face, making his blurry eyes blink open wide. “I told you to stay with me. And I don’t like my orders being disobeyed.”

That voice… did he know that voice?

“I know you,” he mumbled. His tongue was thick. “Your name is…” But the name slipped through his fingers like a small, wriggling fish. It disappeared into the brightness of the sky, and was gone.

“Work faster,” she told the man tensely.

“I’m trying,” he snapped back. “He’s pinned under here good. I thought your information said there weren’t any prisoners being held here anymore.”

“It’s not my fault the info was bad!” But the look on her face said she didn’t believe it.

“It’s okay,” he said. His lips were going numb. It was hard to move them. They felt like two clumsy weights attached to his face. “At least… I got to see the sky.”

She turned back toward him with a scowl. “I told you, I don’t want any more of that talk. Focus. Talk to me.”

There were two of her now, each more beautiful than the other. He tried to refocus his eyes. “Talking… hard.”

“It’s better than dying, isn’t it? Tell me anything you like, as long as it will keep you focused. Tell me about your team. Maybe we had some friends in common.”

The question appeared in her eyes again—all four of them. She wanted to know if she had known him. If she wanted to know, why didn’t she just ask him his name?

A flash of sharp pain in her eyes made him close his numb lips on the question.

“There was Billie,” he said. “Demolitions expert. She told some of the dirtiest jokes I’d ever heard. She still around?”

The look in her eyes told him the answer, even before she shook her head. “Dead. Two years ago.”

He hadn’t thought there was room in him for more pain. The sharp ache her words sent through his heart proved him wrong. “Dallas. Had a face like a puppy—made you want to pat him on the head and give him treats. But man, could he shoot.” He had taken an unlucky bullet shortly after Felix had joined up with the team.

She shook her head. “I didn’t know him. Must have been before my time.”

“Anastasia,” he said next. “She was fierce.” He paused as a weak, wet cough shook his body. “She was like you—didn’t like being disobeyed. Heaven forbid anyone should call her a little old lady.”

She had deserved a better end than she had gotten.

The woman’s face creased in fresh pain. “She was something special, all right.”

She had been around to see Billie die after Felix’s capture. And she had known Anastasia before he was taken. So their time with the team must have overlapped. They must have crossed paths. But then who…

“Do you remember Trini?” she asked, her voice small, like she was afraid of the answer.

Trini. She’d had a crooked smile with the dimple on one side. Her voice had been as sweet as a songbird’s, unless she wanted to get your attention, and then her bellow could have made a Marine jump to attention. She was quiet when it was all of them together, but catch her one-on-one, and she had a wicked sense of humor.

On their first date, they’d gone out for coffee, because that was what normal people did, and they had both craved a little normalcy in their lives. That was when she had told him about how she’d dreamed of opening a cat rescue when she was ten, and how she sometimes still wished she’d done that instead of this. On their second date, he’d taken her to volunteer at the cat rescue about twenty minutes outside of town. He had worried she wouldn’t like it—after all, who wanted to go on a date to do work? But when she had figured out where they were, her grin had dwarfed the sun in brightness.

Two dates were all they had gotten. Then it was an interrogation room for him, and then the prison cell. Those two dates had been enough to carry him through the first couple of years of his imprisonment. He would remember that grin, and let the memory reassure him that there was still light somewhere in the world, even if he couldn’t see it.

Then the memory of her face had faded, just like everything else.

“Trini,” he whispered. “You’re even more beautiful now… than you were then.”

His eyes refocused enough to collapse the two images of her into one. Her eyes glistened with tears. “Felix,” she said. “I thought it might be you.”

She ran her fingers softly down his cheek. Even that light touch made him swallow a scream. There was something broken in there. But he smiled up at her. That brief touch was more precious to him than the sight of the blue sky above.

She smiled back. There was more sorrow on her face than pain. He understood why she hadn’t asked him his name. She hadn’t wanted it to be him.

Because she knew he was dying.

All of a sudden, the man shifting the rubble went still. He straightened and stared up at the sky, frowning.

“Keep going,” Trini snapped at him.

He shook his head slightly and cupped a hand to his ear. “Do you hear that?”

A second later, Felix heard it. A distant whirring, coming closer. Helicopters.

His vision was too blurry to see clearly, but he didn’t think those black dots in the sky were supposed to be there. And they were coming closer.

“Reinforcements,” the man said tightly.

“We can get him out,” Trini urged. “We just have to work faster.”

The man shook his head. “I can’t shift the rubble that’s trapping his other leg. Not without a lot more time, or equipment we don’t have. And…” He paused, biting his lip. Shaking his head.

“No,” Trini said, her voice fierce.

But Felix finished his sentence for him, saying what all three of them knew. “And it won’t make a difference. I’m dying anyway.”

 The tears in her eyes spilled free. “It’s my fault,” she said. “My source told me there were no prisoners here.”

He tried to shake his head. The movement sent a bolt of pain up through his neck that turned his vision white for a second. “At least this way… I got to see the sky.” Through his numb lips, he offered her a faint smile, all he could manage. “At least this way, I got to see you.”

The black dots were getting closer. “We have to go,” the man said. “Now.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Trini said. “I’ll stay until the end.”

He shook his head again, enduring the pain it brought. “No.” He sent every bit of energy he had into that fierce whisper. “Don’t let them take you. Trust me—I’ve been there. I know what they’ll do to you.”

She must have heard the determination in his voice, because she nodded. She bent to kiss him. His eyes fluttered shut.

His lips were too numb for him to feel the kiss. But her hair tumbled around his face like a curtain, and the smell of her filled his nose. She still smelled the way she always had. Like cinnamon.

Warm tears dripped onto his cheeks, mingling with the blood. Washing him clean.

He let his eyes blink open just long enough to see the bright blue sky through the curtain of her hair. Then they closed again.

He let himself drift away into memories of her face, and of the sky above.

There was still light in the world. Even if he would no longer see it.

His lips curved into a smile.

He never heard her leave.

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Tagged: @cakeinthevoid @gala1981

Ask to be added or removed from my Whumptober 2023 taglist.

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THE MYSTERY. What is she going to do with him? Is that a defiant look on his face? Is he a sailor that was captured by a pirate? If anybody and anybody at all wants to write about a story to this that would be awesome.

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I love this drawing so much. Like the anger, humiliation and helplessness of Superman combined with the smugness and power of Zod is just perfect. The way Superman is completely vulnerable to any attack because he can’t see it coming.

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How to write believable traumatized characters in the long term

Everybody reacts differently to trauma. Rene be that character with support always do better. If the character was abused as a child, their brains might not have developed correctly. This happens because when a chemical called cortisol is released it can affect brains that are still growing. Cortisol is released during fight or flight mode.

Cortisol is basically like hey guys bad shit is happening and then the rest of the brain is like oh no we have to prepare for this. The brain doesn’t develop areas like adapting and learning that are considered unimportant for survival. It just focuses on areas that it considers helpful for surviving. Characters might have trouble fitting into everyday society because of this. They might do really well in life or death scenarios because their brain is well developed and skilled in that but when it comes to learning and adapting, the brain has no idea what it’s doing.

The nice thing is brains don’t really ever completely stop growing so your characters brain, with support and care, can change. However the traumatic event will most likely affect people for the rest of their lives.

Also the whole what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger thing is wrong. What doesn’t kill you gives you trauma. Brains aren’t meant to deal with extreme pain and suffering. Back in caveman times, you got badly hurt and you died or you only got a little hurt and survived. There wasn’t any branding, gaslighting, water boarding or the other horrible things humans came up with. Our brains didn’t have to learn how to deal with that until much later. So the idea of, wow this guys so tough he can get tortured for years and then be fine is completely wrong.

“Being tough” doesn’t protect you from trauma. Trauma isn’t something that you can somehow be immune to with power and determination. In other words DO NOT CREATE DUMBASS CHARACTERS WHO ARE SOMEHOW IMMUNE TO TRAUMA. Make it realistic. Of course if you just want to have fun writing that’s fine. But if you want to have realistic writing then give your characters trauma.

Also this was inspired by calligraphic-tacs comment

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Whumpee eyes

there are so many ways to describe the emotions in a whumpees eyes.

Exhausted but defiant. Eyes almost closed but trying to glare anyways.

Cold collected and stoic. Staring defiantly back without a hint of fear. Extra points if the chin is raised.

Aggressive and furious. Narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw. Maybe a little head tilt. The look Carl Grimes gives Negan is a great example of this.

Terrified and confused. Not making eye contact, eyes darting around the room. Eyes wide and scared.

Confident and at ease. Eye contact without fear. Eyes neither tense or wide open.

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Whump trauma tips continued

The memory of the trauma is often affected because the frontal lobe shuts down. This is done so more energy will go the muscles which are considered more necessary for survival. The frontal lobe does lots of things but one of the more important things it does is processing memories. The brain can’t effectively process memories because of this. This is why people who have been through trauma often cannot remember the trauma very well or if they can they can only remember it in bits and pieces.

However there’s a chemical released during fight or flight mode that makes memories stronger. The combination of the frontal lobe being shut down and this chemical is that memories are incomplete but very strong.

The frontal lobe also controls decision making so when it shuts down people are unable to make good decisions. This is why people act like such idiots during crises.

Often when the frontal love shuts down people rely on habits and behaviors they know. This is why people might seem fine after trauma. They are just doing the behaviors that they know well such as smiling and saying hi.

People who have been through trauma often had mental disorders from it afterwards like ADHD and anxiety.

Our physical and mental well being are very connected. When we get hurt, a change in our physical well-being, we can become traumatized, a change in our mental well being. It works the other way around too. If someone is traumatized they might have physical symptoms like stomaches, headaches or sometimes even become blind or paralyzed.

Well that’s everything that I learned that might help with writing traumatized characters. If you want to know more about anything, just ask, giving my ADHD brain a reason to rant would make me very happy.

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Whump Trauma Tips

I just finished a three month long research, fieldwork, and interview project on trauma so I figured I'd put the knowledge to good use and write some tips on how to create realistic trauma whump

Trauma Denial= Your brain purposely forgetting about the trauma to protect you. Your character could be unable to heal becuase they couldn't process what happened to them, could suddenly remember the trauma all of a sudden or could recognize a abuser but block the trauma out so they don't know why they recognize them.

Trauma avoidance= Coping with trauma by avoiding all reminders of it. Your character could not do things they liked before becuase it reminds them of the trauma.

Triggers= Things that remind someone of the trauma and give them flashbacks or make them feel scared or angry. Your character could get triggered and not be sure why they felt that way, dislike someone becuase they something about them slightly triggers them or have a flashback and have a caretaker comfort them. A way to heal from triggers is by bringing them up again in a safe enviroment so you could write about that going wrong and the person having a panic attack.

Fight, flight or freeze= A common thing our body and mind do to help us get away from danger. This can extend well after the trauma is done. Freeze becomes staying in bed and dissociating, a coping mechanism where you disconnect from your enviroment. Flight becomes escaping from the negative emotions using alchol, drugs or risky behavior. Fight becomes hypervigilance, a constant state of scanning for threats and being stressed. Characters could be hypervigilant and see a caretaker as being threatening when they're just trying to help or be jumpy and punch someone who suprises them.

There's a lot more but i'm too lazy so please tell me if you find this helpful so I know to write more.

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Exhausted whumpee Ideas

When a whumpee is too tired to fight back and doesn't even react when someone grabs them.

When a whumpees words start to slur as they become more and more exhausted.

When they try to look defiant but they're too tired to glare.

When somebody releases them from their bindings and they just crumple to the floor.

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I love that one scene from last of us where Ellie fights David. And that part where she’s slowly dragging herself towards a weapon and he’s like “you don’t give up, do you? Just not your style.’ Like yes the grudging respect, the acknowledgment of her strength of character. Just *chefs kiss* like yes he’s a pedophile and an absolute piece of shit but I love that scene.

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Give me some defiant whumpee that never gives up. Give me a whumpee that everyone admires for their determination and bravery. Give me a whumpee that, when knocked to the ground, takes a painful wheeze and forces themselves to get up again. Give me a whumpee that glares whoever captured them in the eye.