genuinehc

[genuinehc]

Notes on Torturing The Character In The Science Facility

my takes on this trope rarely if ever have anything to do with the character being "special" or being studied for powers they innately have, if they are special its something that was done to them

it's about the medical trauma

it's about the violation and lack of bodily autonomy

the "living weapon" trope, but the key characteristic is catastrophic functionality

i love, love, love the concept of "catastrophic functionality" in a person: character that can tank ludicrous amounts of damage and just Keep Going in virtually all circumstances barring outright dismemberment. They can keep going, so do they "deserve" rest and/or pain relief?

after a lifetime of having their distress treated as whiny and unreasonable, they have what would be a dangerously high tolerance to pain and exhaustion.

another key function of the Science Facility is to fix the damage Character takes, maybe using enhanced healing technologies or 3D printed organs or something. this leads to Character's body being treated as relatively disposable cause "we can just fix them"

extreme version of this: Character can't die even if they wanted to

people who work with Character are informed that they're dangerous and arbitrarily violent, and their fear of Character makes it easier to justify restricting autonomy

It is TRUE, cause Character does not have tools to set boundaries or protect their body other than violence. vicious cycle of being perceived as dangerous and therefore denied autonomy, and being forced to use violence to defend autonomy

the restraints used to hold Character look like major overkill, which underscores how dangerous they are. LOVE this trope

character being desexualized to the point that their non-consent to touch, to being stripped down and examined, or to procedures is trivialized. There is no non-clinical context for their body, and the "clinical" framework eclipses any possibility for bodily violation to be understood as violent.

types of uncanniness: Character looks human but has some subtle inhuman traits or characteristics. (I'm obsessed with reflective eye shine, personally.) OR Character looks like they've been taken apart and put back together, like flesh pulled over a much more unforgiving and indestructible metal scaffold. OR Character gives off "undead" vibes; they're just not quite alive in a way that sets off air raid sirens in people's brains

Often, Character is dead and Came Back Wrong (varying levels of literalness)

anyways yeah. i never stopped writing this trope and probably never will. it's a good one

[genuinehc]

FEBUWHUMP 2025 PROMPT LIST

this year's prompts were chosen through an open suggestion poll (in which we received over 4,000 prompts) and a subsequent vote, where 5,019 votes were submitted. the top 28 make up the core prompts, and the febuwhump mod's favourites that remain have become the alternates. the first prompt in the 28, "vocal chords", was our number one prompt of the vote, with 1,625 total votes.

i am so insanely excited to see what you all create with these prompts, and i hope they're inspiring enough to trigger a whole month's worth of creativity for you!

as an extra added challenge, some creators will be undertaking another, smaller goal, of including apples in each of their prompt fills as an ode to the wildly popular prompt suggestion of "apples" that didn't make it through to the poll. this is totally optional, but is a good extra challenge if you'd like to take part in it!

if you have any questions, please check out the faq before sending an ask, or skim the blog's previously asked questions to see if your question has already been answered.

please note: notifying the blog of completionist status will happen through a google form released towards the end of febuwhump, and if you are interested in joining the febuwhmp discord server, the link will be available to do so for one week towards the end of january.

full write-up of prompts and rules under the cut:

FEBUWHUMP 2025 PROMPTS:

DAY 1: vocal chords

DAY 2: holding back tears

DAY 3: pinned down

DAY 4: hivemind

DAY 5: not trusting reality

DAY 6: forced to stay awake

DAY 7: alternate timeline self

DAY 8: bleeding out

DAY 9: necromancy

DAY 10: magic exhaustion

DAY 11: demonic possession

DAY 12: used as practice

DAY 13: “i don’t trust anyone else”

DAY 14: becoming the monster

DAY 15: icarus

DAY 16: eaten alive

DAY 17: power instability

DAY 18: living weapon

DAY 19: death wish

DAY 20: “i did good right?”

DAY 21: put on display

DAY 22: “grab the little one”

DAY 23: gunshot wound

DAY 24: forced to beg

DAY 25: bound and gagged

DAY 26: concealing an injury

DAY 27: post-victory collapse

DAY 28: recovery

ALTERNATE PROMPTS:

is there a specific day’s prompt you don’t want to fill? here are ten alternatives you can switch them out for!

ALT 1: major character death

ALT 2: blowtorch

ALT 3: pick who dies

ALT 4: body swap

ALT 5: die a hero

ALT 6: emergency surgery

ALT 7: body horror

ALT 8: on the run

ALT 9: in another life

ALT 10: feeding tube

RULES:

soft rules:

prompts should be answered in the form of whump

creators can produce any kind of media they want

you don't have to complete all the prompts to take part

you can use the prompts after the event ends

you can complete them in tandem with any other event

you can post to any platform you want, however this blog will only be sharing links and prompt fills posted to tumblr

if you want to be featured on the hall of fame, you must inform this blog by the 3rd of march that you have completed all of the days using the provided form

if you have questions, consult the faq before asking

hard rules:

to be a completionist, you must complete all 28 prompts, in order, in whatever medium you want, before the end of the event

(specifically for being featured on the blog)

when uploading febuwhump content to tumblr, please use the tags:

febuwhump (or febuwhump2025)

the relevant day's tag e.g. febuwhumpday1, febuwhumpday2...

nsfw (if relevant)

any important trigger warnings

you can also tag the blog: @febuwhump

I cannot guarantee your work will be archived on the blog. a random selection of properly tagged works will be reblogged every day of february.

[genuinehc]

stickers would potentially be:

yearly stickers (febuwhump 2025/revenge of the sixth; febuwhump 2022/tokyo drift) with the official year's designs

completionist or participant stickers in each year's official designs

gag stickers - i.e. febuclown/febubees, use the joke poster designs rather than the official ones

sentence stickers - i.e. "i committed voter fraud in the 2025 prompt poll"

whump stickers - i.e. "i <3 waterboarding", "man i love gunshot wounds", "no. 1 phantom limb pain fan" etc.

either sold individually (if using a provider like redbubble) or in batches (if having the stickers made, sent to me, and then me posting them out)

[genuinehc]

seems like all I’m worth is what I’m able to withstand

[genuinehc]

So I was just recently was reminded of a book I used to LOVE a kid. It was called Johnny Tremain. Anyone else know it? Well I loved it. However, I have no memory of the plot beyond one specific thing that really made the book for me and remains the only thing I remember to this day. This part is the reason I loved this book. And now I'm sitting going "oh. So I have definitely always loved whump". Lol.

This part right here has stuck with me my whole life

[genuinehc]

Pine Warbler (Setophaga pinus)

© Scott Robinson

[genuinehc]

This was a Patreon Request!

[genuinehc]

"why are people suddenly saying kink isn't always sexual" hello! you seem to have picked up on something that is actually de facto considered true in IRL kink scenes and often trotted out as one of the basic foundational truths of kink in educational contexts (i.e. beginners' workshops, it'll be in guides for first-timers at dungeons, etc). come take my hand and let me introduce you to the vast and wonderful world of IRL kink.

"kink," contrary to what a lot of internet-only kinksters seem to think, is not referencing your relationship to a concept--it's referencing the concept itself. for example, "bondage" in this context is not referring to "being turned on by tying someone up/being tied up," it's referring to the concept of being tied up/tying someone up itself. this is one of the most common kinks you'll see people playing with in entirely nonsexual contexts--most rope groups have at least a handful of players who are asexual or entirely sex-repulsed, for example. at a lot of rope play sessions, sexual activity will be banned entirely & you'll generally be expected to not show signs of sexual arousal while in that space. because it's not the space for that--sexual play parties are their own thing.

so what makes something a kink vs. a "normal" interest, if it's not a sexual aspect? mostly social stigma. the group of interests considered "kinks" have developed a shared umbrella due to a shared societal pathologization of those interests in similar ways, and one of the ways that pathology manifests is by considering those interests fundamentally sexual. there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a sexual dimension to your kink, to be clear--but society sees sex as inherently disgusting, and sexualization is frequently weaponized to pathologize all kinds of people.

portraying interest in domination/submission as inherently sexual, for example, means those explicitly navigating consensual d/s play are relegated to the realm of "the bedroom" and signifiers of their relationship (i.e. a collar) are considered "obscene" and not fit to exist in public--even when equivalent signifiers of vanilla lifestyles are allowed and not considered obscene, i.e. a wedding ring. if you portray an interest in roleplaying as a dog as inherently sexual, it means anyone roleplaying as a dog in public is subjecting the public to nasty, perverted sex, it can be classified as obscene, you can arrest people for barking and wearing leashes even if they are deriving zero sexual pleasure from it whatsoever and are not exposing themselves or harassing anyone.

why are most kinks expressed sexually to some degree, or have a sexual dimension to them? because sexually active adults tend to enjoy sex. i don't know how else to explain this, genuinely. if you are a person who experiences sexual arousal and sexual attraction, then you will often be aroused by your interests in a sexual context.

like, i am really into fandom. i love a lot of different things about fandom. one of the things i love about fandom is that it's horny; i'm a big enthusiast of smut, horny cosplay, et cetera and so on. but that doesn't mean that i don't like fandom in completely non-horny contexts, or that my interest in fandom is always sexual and can never be separated from sex. just because i cosplay erotically doesn't mean that i don't also cosplay in other contexts entirely. cosplay turns me on, and i also love cosplaying at conventions and for entirely non-horny reasons.

kink is the same. sometimes the exact same person is both turned on by petplay and interested in it nonsexually. this is actually like... really common, it's not even just "sometimes," i would say it applies to the vast majority of IRL kinksters active in my local scene, and i would hazard a guess that this isn't a major outlier, it's fairly common in scenes across the world. but if you can understand "i like cosplaying, and sometimes i'll cosplay at a convention, and sometimes i'll cosplay for sex, and sometimes i'll cosplay for fun alone in my room, and sometimes i'll cosplay to jack off, and sometimes i'll cosplay for money, and none of these are The Only Reason I Like Cosplay, and sometimes when i cosplay i will do it in a way that only includes some of these reasons and not the others at all," it shouldn't be too hard to apply the same reasoning to kink.

anyway, trying to relegate "kink" to only and solely refer to "this set of stigmatized interests and relationship dynamics, but only in reference to sex specifically" is closing the barn door after the horses are gone. sorry y'all but the kink community developed in response to medical pathologization and severe social stigma. there's no post-hoc way to turn it into an ontological classification of some form--kink is messy and abstract as a category because it isn't a category based in, like, scientific observation or ontological meanings of words. it's a category based in "we think these people are freaks and we need a diagnosis for their freakishness" lol. the forcible sexualization of every aspect of kink is part of the initial classification of this loose social realm as "fetish" and/or "paraphilia." sex is not evil or scary or bad but equally the structures doing the pathologization do consider sex to be evil and that's not something you can just ignore when discussing how sex is utilized rhetorically in these discussions.

[genuinehc]

actually obsessed with restoring dignity in recovery

[genuinehc]

My favorite wester trope! The Angel and the Badman - a collection

The original Angel and the Badman - 1947

The Naomi Watts Version: The Outsiders (2002)

The One With the 45yr old woman in a curly wig Angel and the Badman - (2009)

The Really religious one The Redemption of Henry Myers (2014)

Bonus: Badman adjacent ↓

Civil Love (2012) (one of my favorites)

War Flowers -(2012)

Disclaimer: I'm in no way suggesting any of these movies are good, well acted, or well produced. But ...

[genuinehc]

when a living weapon whumpee only takes orders from ONE person. They’ve been conditioned to ignore everyone else’s orders. This means that after rescue, the team can barely get whumpee to drink or allow them bandage their injuries. One of the teammates manages to imitate whumpee’s handler by deepening their voice.

They stay out of whumpee’s line of sight, standing behind their hospital bed. “Drink this,” they snap, hating how they have to command this broad-shouldered ghost of a person. Without their armor, without their mask, whumpee looks like a wraith. There’s nothing behind their eyes. They play with the hospital blanket with twitching hands that have strangled and maimed.

When whumpee hears the order they stiffen to attention and take the cup offered with those still-shaking hands. But the cup slips through their fingers and lands in a puddle on the tiles.

They immediately tense up, shoulder blades flung so far back they touch. Their breathing quickens, waiting.

But nothing happens.

They give whumpee a new glass of cold water. This time, they lift the cup to whumpee’s lips and hold it steady, with one hand behind their head for support.

[genuinehc]

there's something so fascinating about lab whump and the fact that part of it is super intense - the surgeries, vivisections, brutal tests - and then the other part of it is just ... waiting. recovering. sitting in a little cage or a blank white room, restrained or hooked up to IVs and monitors, staring at the ceiling or the wall, alone with your thoughts and the anticipation. wondering if you'll even get the chance to heal, physically or mentally, before the next procedure.

[genuinehc]

Starcross Chapter 2

Unboxing time!

Content: aftermath of abuse, descriptions of injuries, medical whump, past non-con body mod, broken bones, brief mentions of fictional politics, brief dehumanization, non-sexual nudity, brief mentions of urinary catheters

Free Space, AFS Starcross, 4/5/4763 Ziar peered down into the species containment unit, eyebrows furrowed as she looked at the person confined inside. She turned to her captain. “I’m going to need you to leave, Veya.”

The person was entirely nude, and their body was covered with a seemingly endless number of big, dark bruises. Several tubes protruded from their body, attached to reservoirs of nourishment, fluids, and oxygen, as well as another to remove waste, all responsible for keeping them alive in the tiny chamber. It would be an involved process to get them detached and woken up, and neither of them needed an audience for that.

Behind her, Veya shifted. Ziar could tell she was uncomfortable with the idea of a stranger aboard the ship, but she’d live. The infirmary was her domain, and no one else’s. “I’ll keep you updated. Promise. If there’s some sort of fun new novel parasite, I’ll let it eat me first.”

“Alright.” She chuckled a little bit, turning on her heel to leave. Ziar heard her stop to grab her weapon before thumbing up the stairs to the third level.

“Let’s get you out of there.” Her eyes flicked back over to the display panel, checking their vital signs once more. It gave their species as Human. They were one of the rarer species of the galaxy, and Ziar wasn’t overly familiar with them. However, their vitals seemed to be within normal limits, and the SCU wasn’t screaming loudly at her, so they were probably not awful.

It had been nearly a decade since she had last dealt with stasis units, but waking someone was a hell of a lot easier to manage than induction, so she wasn’t going to complain. She disconnected the feeding and hydration lines, though she left the port connecting device alone. The catheter also stayed in place, though she unattached the collection bag. It was mostly full, and Ziar was glad that they’d gotten to them when they did.

She looked at the panel again, and was surprised to find that Yera had splurged and bought an automatic transfer. All it took was pressing a few buttons to have the levitators float the person from the unit up to a bed. She still had to lug the ventilator around, but that was much preferred to having to carry a person. If Ziar was being honest, though, the person didn’t look like they weighed all that much.

The infirmary’s harsh lighting left nothing hidden as she methodically worked her way down from their head. Their hair had been completely shaved, only a thin layer of fuzz left behind. A dark, bruised ring rimmed their left eye, but the orbit seemed intact. On the right side of their neck, several Yeran letters and numerals were etched into their skin. KM-4682, if she was reading them correctly. Her stomach dropped as she moved on to examining the front side of their chest and abdomen. Their ribs crunched beneath her hands as he felt them, but their chest rose and fell as a single unit and their lungs sounded clear. Shallow cuts and old scars flecked their chest, along with several small bruises. Their left ankle was swollen concerningly, and Ziar was worried it was broken. Blood flow was good, but it should’ve been immobilized before the put into stasis.

On their frontside, that was the most severe injury she could find, but obvious evidence of mistreatment was overwhelming. The skin around their wrists was chapped from over-tight restraints, same as their ankles. And, combined with the electrowhip burns on their thighs, it reminded her of Adaxia in all the wrong ways.

She took a deep breath in, rolling her shoulders back before queueing the bed to roll them onto their side. The electrowhip scars were thicker here, criss-crossing over each other like a knot, but they were much more faded than the ones on their thighs.

Closer inspection soon revealed why.

A thin line of metal protruded from the back of their neck, terminating in some sort of cable port. Further down, on their lower back, was the same device, though a little more robust. They were spinal implants.

What the actual fuck?

Yera was screwing around with some poor soul's nerves. Sure prosthetic technology had advanced, but that had to be absolutely angonzing. What purpose was it even supposed to serve? Had they just done it to see if they could?

Then again, she shouldn’t have expected better from Yera. Or anything Gralla in general.

Furthermore, it was obvious that they hadn’t been taken care of properly. The skin around both was red and puffy, though she didn’t see any discharge. Yet. The implants should’ve been covered with another layer of medical grade, antiseptic dermafibran. It wasn’t like it was too early. She could see where the other incisions had healed completely. Leaving them open like that was unbelievably negligent. She forced herself to take another breath. Anger was not the ally she needed right now.

Just as she laid the person back down at, the intercom beeped. “There's a cruiser approaching us. We need to punch it.” Veya’s voice was steel, despite the stress she had to be under. “You’ve got two minutes while we charge to get stuff tied down.”

Great.

She had just gotten the straps across over their abdomen when the ship’s lightspeed engines revved, and Starcross flung itself off into space.

***

Free Space, YSS Victory, 4/5/4763

Anodyn tisked, hissing at the secretary on the other end of the communicator. “What do you mean it went down?”

The secretary tried to respond, but she cut them off. “I don’t care for whatever excuses he told you to give. I want it made very clear to him that if the asset is not returned, he will pay for his mistakes.”

“Yes Ma’am,” They said, discomfort edging its way into their voice despite their attempts to hide it.

She cut the connection without another word, frustration rolling off her in waves. The program was months behind schedule due to technical issues, and now this. While KM-4682’s implants had been a failure, there was still much to learn from its body. She couldn’t afford this, not if she wanted to keep the program up and running.

Her hand slammed into the lightweight metal of her desk, pain radiating up from her knuckles. This was not how her life’s work was going to be remembered, as a failure. She would bring Yera mech technology, and nothing would stop her. Not the imbeciles she was forced to work with, not time, not money, not the incomprehensible distances between the stars. Nothing.

Smiling, she stood up, straightening her uniform jacket. The door to her office wirred as she left, heading towards the bridge. She would hunt down KM-4682 herself.

And she would not fail, no matter the price.

Taglist: @whump-snob @whump-kia @itsoundslikeafury @emmettland @blackberry-bloody

@whumpacabra @cepheusgalaxy @softvampirewhump @my-little-versaille @pigeonwhumps

@whumped-by-glitter @snaillamp @rainydaywhump @platysaurus @whumpy-daydreams

@whiskygoldwings

[genuinehc]

A character who can only lie in a specific position- having been flogged and needing to lie on their stomach with their back a flayed-open mess; propped semi-reclining up on pillows the better to breathe through wheezing congestion or take pressure off injured ribs; only able to sleep on a certain side in order to keep a wounded arm uppermost; confined to their back due to cumbersome bulky splints or bandages or to the need to keep a leg elevated; and so on...

[genuinehc]

[genuinehc]

photography by @runaround_hound!