kizu-tsukeru

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been thinking for WEEKS about a character coming home after a jarring captivity/fight, bruised and cut all over, tired to the bone, every movement aching as they slowly enter together with their s/o who found them... and the character decides to go ahead and take a shower but ends up sitting down just as they turn on the water, letting sink in what just happened to them, only slowly coming to terms with being safe again, as the shower rains down on them, unmoving and numb to it pattering on their open wounds... and s/o comes in, initially just to bring a fresh set of clothes, and the character looks up with a weak, sad smile, trying to go all competent again, "I, uh, was just taking a little breather, I'm almost done", but s/o decides to help their partner and just takes the showerhead down and sits on the edge of the tub and asks the hurt character to tilt their head back so they can gently rinse the blood out of their hair, avoiding touching injuries as well as they can, avoiding getting soap in them, as they lead the shower stream over their neck, and shoulders, and arms, with an ever so slight twitch of furrowed brows as they glance at the injuries... all the while the character gradually relaxes and starts leaning against their s/o with closed eyes, enjoying the warmth and those soothing hands, thankfully whispering a small declaration of love just barely heard through the running shower

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finished s2 of the umbrella academy 👌

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someone recently liked this old short piece of fiction I have almost forgotten about, and I'm dying a little

another short fic no one asked me for :)

TBC

B finds themselves lying on the ground, staring up at a white ceiling. everything around them is white, actually, except for the giant glass wall leading to what seems like a hallway. they get themselves on all fours, heading towards the glass.

they don’t remember how they got in here. they barely remember the last few minutes before they fell asleep. they only remember… 

“A?” they ask-whisper, just loud enough to make them realize the hoarseness of their own voice. if whoever got them here also brought a little bit of water, that would have been nice… B clears their throat, hand on the glass and cocking their head to get a better look at the empty hallway. it doesn’t help much. then they try again: “A, are you there? can you hear me?”

“B?” 

it’s coming from their right. A has to be just on the other side of that wall. B feels their heart jumping in their chest, and almost instinctively they shuffle to the corner where the two rooms meet, closer to A’s voice. 

“yes, it’s me,” B says, breathlessly. god, not being able to see A- just- “are you-” images flash in their mind. something coming back. something- that sound, there was that damn loud sound, and A’s heavy weight against them, and they look down at themselves until they spot dark red stains.

“are you alright, A?” B’s voice wavering. “I, I don’t know if i’m remembering right. didn’t something happen? before? are you-”

“I’m fine,” A says, sounding obviously-not-fine. he tries to scratch the tiredness out of his voice before answering, but it doesn’t work as well as he’d like. “what about you? are you okay?”

“I… guess so. maybe a bit dizzy, but… no, I’m good.”

that’s all he needs to know. 

“you’re not, though. you’re not good, A, I can hear it. please don’t lie.”

he allows himself to close his eyes for a minute and focuses on blending out the throbbing pain in his side. he’s pressed his hands on the wound ever since he came to, and that had been hours ago. the people who caught them hadn’t been kind enough to pay a visit and check up on them yet. he is sure whatever they need them - him - for, he’ll have to be alive to do that. they can’t be far. they’re probably watching.

“weren’t you-” 

oh, seems like B’s memory is starting to come back. A takes a shivery breath. 

“hey! hey, A, you were shot! goddamn-” 

then their words surrender and instead he can feel B banging their hands against the wall behind his head. somehow it’s comforting. like, they’re really there, and he didn’t even knew whether they were alive since he woke up by himself and called for B first-thing without getting an answer for so long, and there they are, finally. not as close as he’d want them to be, obviously, but close, and alive, and… and angry.

“fine, my ass!! I said, don’t lie to me!”

“I… haven’t lied since you just said that.”

“don’t smartass me either!!”

“okay.” A props himself a few centimeters, biting his lip to keep down a pained groan when the tiniest movement tears at him. just because he won’t lie, doesn’t mean he has to let B experience the full magnitude, at least, as far as he can help it. he sighs. “okay, I’m… not exactly. fine.”

“does it hurt a lot?” B wants to kick themselves in the shin, right as the words fall out of their mouth. of course it hurts a lot. who even asks that. “I’m s-”

“I mean I can’t really… move much.” or breathe. or think. “that’s about the level of it…”

when are these idiots finally come out and start their petty little interrogation? he just wants to get it over with.

a big thud makes A flinch and open his eyes. shortly, another thud follows. A turns his head towards the glass wall, just in time for the third thud.

“… B, what are you doing.”

thud. “you think, I’m just sitting here, waiting for you to bleed out?!” thud. 

he thinks about B throwing themselves against the glass wall, probably leading with their shoulder. “I’m certain this is bulletproof glass. you’ll hurt yourself.”

thud.

“stop it. please.”

thud.

“B, goddamn-”

a lock clicks in place, but not in the hallway, and not in A’s room, and his eyes wander to his right, to the one wall with the almost invisible door frame, and how it’s not opening, while another one’s slightly squeaking, another one’s being passed through, one, two, three sets of steps, and next thing he knows he’s on his knees facing the wall as if he could see right through it, and banging his hands against it, and shouting without hearing what he’s shouting and

a loud noise - familiar - interrupts him, and then there’s a hole in the concrete, somewhere above his head. 

A stands still.

“would you kindly shut up, A?” 

a voice running through his veins like ice.

“I bet, you were already waiting for our little game here, weren’t you? now then, behave at least.”

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When the whumpee is hurt, exhausted, and desperately needs to take a bath or shower, but doesn’t have the energy left to do so. The caretaker assisting them, gently helping them wash, and cleaning any debris out of the whumpee’s wounds at the same time, then carefully drying off the barely awake whumpee. The caretaker gently finishing cleaning the wounds, then bandaging them and helping the whumpee into bed, and the whumpee falling asleep as soon as their head hits the pillow.

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thinking about the movie Victoria (2015) this morning

//SPOILERS//

one of the characters gets shot and hides it for like 20 minutes. when found out he refuses to go to the hospital, but even when the ambulance is called it's already too late and he dies. it's really fucking sad but also done really well cause the hints that he's not doing good only increase incrementally and it's mostly conveyed in the acting and it's like 👌 loving the subtlety

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Brick (2005)

Maybe I’ll just sit here and bleed at you.

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When the whumpee lives alone, and they stumble home exhausted and badly hurt, then fall asleep in a chair before they can do anything to patch themself up or contact anybody for help. The caretaker finding them there the next morning, and gently waking them up, asking what happened and how long they’d been sleeping in the chair, then helping them move somewhere more comfortable and caring for their injuries. 

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Whumpy scene I’ve been thinking about for way too long but don’t know which fandom to write it for and/or can’t build up an actual story around it #1

Character A and B are fighting the bad guys in a forest (or anywhere else, really, as long as it’s remote) and it’s basically A and B versus a shit-ton of people. They were not prepared (#itsatrap) and A ends up kneeling on the ground, utterly spent, blood everywhere (split lip, cut cheekbone, fist fight-related injuries, nothing too serious) surrounded by not-so-friendly faces. One of the bad guys grabs them by their hair/chin to make them look up (the debate remains open over hair or chin, I tend to lean toward hair but whatever floats your whumpy boat)

Now that their face is up, A sees through half-closed eyelids and the dozen pair of legs encircling them that B is running to the tree line, away from the bad guys. Relieved that B is safe, A allows himself to fall unconscious after Bad Guy’s first punch.

A wakes chained to the ceiling/tied to a chair/chained to a wall/any configuration you like to have your character in when they’re about to be tortured. They’re alone for a while, which gives them time to prepare for the torture they know is about to start. As Bad Guys opens the door, A gets a glimpse of the hallway: metal doors lined up, probably a facility of some kind where Bad Guy’s organisation keeps their prisoners. 

Bad Guy takes a chair, sits down in front of them and asks the first question. Of course A tells them to fuck off/is defiant in general and expects punishment for that but nothing comes. Bad Guy simply nods and writes something in a little notebook, something short, not more that a couple of words. Bad Guys looks back up and asks a second question. Again, A doesn’t answer. Still nothing. A nod, a note, on to the next question. 

At first, it makes A dread even more the torture they’re sure is about to come. It makes them immediately uncomfortable because that’s not how it usually goes and what the fuck is going on. But they slowly get used to it, and after a while they don’t even bother answering. Still, Bad Guys doesn’t do anything. Five seconds of silence, a nod, a note, on to the next question.

The sessions last no more than an hour, Bad Guy going through the same list of question every time.

In-between sessions, A can hear distant screams, probably the other prisoners kept in the facility. A usually manage to drown the sound out and get some rest, but it makes them wonder why they aren’t being tortured too. It’s not like Bad Guy seems to mind torturing people.

It goes on like this for days. Until that one session that changes the pattern.

Bad Guy opens the door, but doesn’t immediately takes up a chair like he usually does. He keeps the door open, and two other Bad Guys enter, carrying someone by the arms, their feet dragging on the floor. They throw them on the ground and A starts panicking because that’s B lying a few feet in front of them, and no how is that even possible, they escaped, A saw them run away, no no nononono.

A realizes that it was B’s scream they heard all this time, and that every time they didn’t answer a question, it was B who was punished.

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The kindness of strangers trope definitely is a great opportunity to do an AU for your OTP where they meet under non-canon circumstances. My favorite would be Character A saving Character B, or stopping someone from mugging B, but getting banged up in the process, and B is so thankful, they help clean up A's wounds and/or take them to the hospital.

Agreed!!  Excellent opportunities for AUs!

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look i’m not evil or anything i just absolutely love the exhaustion and shakiness in a character’s voice after a near death experience and the way they just kinda collapse onto someone’s shoulder (or the ground?) and they’re laughing at first but then they’re crying because they could have died

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Fighting Words

Active verbs to use in a fight scene or an otherwise violent encounter, color-coded by severity (with red as most intense and purple as most mild), and categorized by type of fight.

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did i do this right?

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Homegrown, Organic, Certified “Whumper-Free” Whump

I was going to say “cage-free” up there too but then I realized that’s not always the case…

Anyway. Here’s the thing, folks. It could just be the blogs I happen to follow, but I’ve noted a fairly recent trend of people lumping torture fic in with whump fic, or using the terms interchangeably. Specifically, I’ve seen posts implying that there needs to be a “whumper” character hurting a “whumpee” for a fic to be considered whump (and while this isn’t inherently torture, most of how it’s interpreted as prompts and fics tends to be).

I just wanted to set the record straight. There is no need whatsoever for one character to purposefully/personally hurt another character in whump. That’s just limited thinking. Heck, the only thing “required” for a whump fic is a situation in which one character accepts their vulnerability in a situation (and, arguably, overcomes it with or without help), which usually involves an injury or illness. *Old man voice* back in my day, “whumper” was a term exclusively used for a person who enjoyed consuming/creating whump content. 

Can torture be a part of the injury or the cause of the vulnerability? Sure! Is is required? Absolutely not! In fact, I’d argue that torture is only a very small segment of the whump world, and similarly, the presence of torture does not a inherently a whump fic make. (Straight up non-whump torture fic exists, and that’s fine to use/enjoy as it’s own tag/separate category!)

So, what other situations can you use to create whump without using a “whumper” or torture?

Accidental

Falls- tumbling off a cliff and breaking a bone

Burns- saving another character from a fire and ending up with their own injuries

Bites/stings- sticking their hand somewhere to accomplish a mission, ending up envenomated

Poison- accidentally eating something not meant for eating/surviving an assassination attempt

Friendly fire- character ends up accidentally shooting his friend

Lost- hungry, tired, cut off from all communication or resources

Environmental

Storms- whumpee gets hit with flying debris

Floods- whumpee gets swept away from friends and injured

Lightning- whumpee gets struck by lightning

Cold- falling into an icy lake or being stranded in the cold with no way to warm up

Heat- dehydration, heatstroke, hyponatremia from needing to do hard work in the heat

Collapsed building- getting trapped when a building collapses

Low-resource setting- something that would be perfectly treatable is now possibly deadly due to not having the right equipment/medication

Violent

Active shooter- whumpee catches a stray bullet and has to wait for the building to be cleared to get help

Bombing- getting caught up in a blast, losing hearing or vision, catching shrapnel

War- high stress, bullets, bombs, desperate people, getting trapped behind enemy lines without help

Bank hostage situation- busman’s holiday-type situation where the whumpee just happens to end up trapped and needing rescue without being the target- possibly injured, ill, or slated to be killed

Emotional

Fear- specific phobia or just plain situational fear

Another characters death- mourning, grief, disbelief

Mental illness- specifically ones that mess with the ability to regulate emotion

Trauma- acute or PTSD

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two teammates are captured by enemies and kept in rooms/cells right next to each other so each hears the other being interrogated. both of them are tied up by the wrists and have their mouth shut with duct tape when it's not their turn to answer questions. as one of the whumpees only barely withstands the punches to their stomach and face, slowly losing their defiance, the other starts snapping their fingers, using a secret code to communicate their moral support. the whumpers quickly catch on though - so one of them splits off to break the whumpee's fingers.

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Time for the runner to look after the operator.

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I'm watching a tlou2 playthrough..... I'm living