#does this count as environmental whump?

[whumblr]

The gravity of the situation

"Warning. Unauthorized remote override. Warning. Unauthorized increase in centrifugal force."

"Yes! Yes, thank you! I'm quite aware!" Whumpee wanted to shout back as he fought against the ever increasing pull of gravity, but it only came out as a frustrated wheeze as he dragged himself forward, clutching the railing along the hallway for dear life to keep upright.

The white hallway of the space station lit up in red as warning lights flashed on and off. Robotic voices dropped warnings left and right, their tone unimpressed by the impending danger yet they kept droning on with some form of programmed urgency.

Only one voice that broke over the robotic ones was human, recognizable by the unmistakable glee in it.

"You're doing quite well." The disembodied voice echoed through the curved hallway. Whumpee could hear the smirk in that voice, could picture the look on Whumper's face as he watched from a distance from their hacked cameras. Safe in his own spaceship. Probably with his feet up on the dash. In 1G. Or 0G, enviable.

Shut… up! Whumpee settled on screaming in his head. The asshole wouldn't hear him anyway and he had more important matters to spend his energy on. Like making sure he kept standing and inching forward towards Control to kick him back out of their system.

His arms trembled under his weight. Or rather, under twice his weight by now probably. He struggled to keep himself up. Sweaty palms threatened his grip, but he couldn’t even risk it to wipe them on his pants. Easy does it. Step by step.

"Hope you haven't skipped your weight training," the voice crooned. "Here, let's pump it up a bit... See how much you lift."

More warnings echoed through the room, clashed as the robotic voices spoke over each other to deliver their urgent messages. “Thrusters enga—” “Accelerati—” “Rotatio—” “Warni—!”

Forget weight training; every warning sent a spike of adrenaline through his heart, his body trained to shoot to action at the urgent tone and voices. He couldn't help a glance up with a light gasp, then went back to ignoring them and gratefully used the extra adrenaline to wrestle forward.

He did not immediately notice the outer ring of the space station turning faster and faster— thank god because nausea was the last thing he needed right now – but he did start to feel its effects. Slowly but surely gravity pressed further down on him, like a weighted blanket around his shoulders being pumped full of lead by some nefarious individual.

He had to hurry. Before he couldn’t even walk any—

A hand slipped. His heart skipped a beat.

The pull of gravity was merciless.

His chin hit the railing. Hard. Like someone took hold of his head and smashed him down full force. His knees crashed against the floor with a sickening thud that made him worry for his kneecaps and he just about managed to catch himself with one hand. Something in his wrist shifted. Pain shot through his arm but he bit through it, wrestling himself on both hands and knees.

"Ho, you alright?” There was no concern in that voice. Just a hint of amused surprise. “You disappeared from my feed?”

Whumpee panted hard, staring at the floor under him. Little red drops spattered against the pristine white and only then did he taste the blood. He wanted to wipe the iron taste from his lips. Wanted to cup and massage his jaw and maybe crick it back because, god, it felt like that blow had dislocated his entire face. But he couldn’t. Could only focus on staying somewhat balanced on hands and knees.

The cameras above him whirred as they looked around, searching for him.

No. No wait, that wasn’t the camera. The buzzing got louder. Got closer.

A drone flew into view as it traced the curved corridor. Their hacked drone, a blinking red dot signaling that the camera was on.

“Ah. There you are.”

The drone hovered annoyingly in his face. It, too, sputtered, not built for this kind of pull on the tiny propellors, yet it remained airborne. Before Whumpee could even think, he tried to swipe at it. Even a light swat would probably smash it right into the floor—just like him. But his arm didn't go as high as he intended and struck only air.

A low chuckle came from the drone. "Too heavy, hm?"

"Shut—!" he wheezed. Fuck, he didn't have enough air to be drawn into a shouting match. "Up..." he finished weakly.

He slid a knee forward. Crept along. Favored his right hand to support himself, his left all pins and needles and couldn’t be trusted to carry his normal weight let alone getting closer and closer to three times that. Come on, not much further now. Everyone was counting on him. And if he faltered and fell down flat on his stomach he would never make it back up. He’d slowly get crushed to death until his lungs couldn’t expand anymore under the enormous weight. Come on.

It was like a boulder balanced in-between his shoulder blades. Increasing in size with every inch forward. How fast was the outer ring going by now?!

The drone slowly buzzed along with him, keeping an eye on him, a certain someone virtually stepping along. When he crawled into the control room, he heard a tick and a scratching sound behind him and the drone scraped against the floor, its propellors no longer able to carry it an inch above the floor.

Ignore the foreboding omens. Whumpee grit his teeth. Dragged himself over to the main dashboard where the red button to override all controls blinked above him like a shining beacon.

He tried to claw his way up a chair, but it swiveled and nearly sent him crashing back to the floor.

He glared up, let out a growl through grit teeth. Everything, from the controls to the fucking furniture, was his enemy now. Mainly the mocking “Tick tock” noises from the drone’s speaker behind him and the insurmountable five feet tall dashboard in front of him.

Gathering all his strength for a last hail Mary, Whumpee sat back, firmly planted his feet under him.

With a desperate scream, he launched himself at the dashboard. Or rather, forced himself through the invisible forcefield. He clawed a hand around the edge of the panel to make sure he wouldn’t slip back and he let out a small “Ha!” in this little victory.

His other hand scratched at the little plastic cover over the red emergency button. Usually it could be removed instantly with a mere flick of the fingers. Now he nearly had to tear it off. Which, in his impatience, he did.

A final grunt of effort and he slammed his slick palm into the button.

“Emergency override sequence started. Reverting all systems.”

A laugh of relief escaped him. And he let go.

He crashed to the ground as if he fell from thirty feet up instead of the measly five. It punched the air from him, bruised his shoulder. But he didn’t care. He did it. They were safe.

“Now, that was impressive,” Whumper said, and Whumpee was sure he heard a muffled sound of hands slowly clapping. “Well done.”

He lay panting on the floor, rolled onto his back, spread-eagled. Slowly but surely, the pressure on his body let up. He could draw more air into his lungs. And could let his muscles finally relax.

The red hue in the room disappeared. The robotic voices stopped clamoring against each other as everything reverted back to normal, within safe parameters that didn’t set off any more alarms.

For a few blissful seconds, Whumpee just lay there, glad that it was over.

Until a new warning dropped.

“Warning. Unauthorized docking sequence initiated.”

And a more amused voice:

“Thanks for that. I think it’s safe now for me to board your ship.”

-

General whump tag list: @firewheeesky @myfriendcallsmeasickwoman19 @whumpawink @painsandconfusion @auroragehenna @chaotic-orphan @lolrpop @treasureguardingdragon

[letstalkwhump]

Let's Talk Whump! No. 18

Welcome to Let’s Talk Whump, a series of interviews that spotlight the amazing people in our whump community! I’m Malice and I’ll be your host today. 

Today I’m talking whump with the amazing @crash-bump-bring-the-whump! 

Great to have you here, @crash-bump-bring-the-whump! Before we begin, do you mind sharing a little bit about yourself?

Hi! I’m Ruin, I’m a graphic designer and I love horror, drawing, and playing video games!

Alrighty, let’s get started! What does whump mean to you? 

Whump is the juicy bits of a story! It’s the conflict, the agony, the struggle! The good stuff that we’re all here for.

How did you find the whump community?

I found it because I was poking around for more hurt/comfort things to read! @friendlylocalwhumper and @sweetwhumpandhellacomf were actually the first blogs I followed! Lux and the Hunter, and Valerie and Eos were what inspired me to make my own blog. 

Do you feel like your view on whump has  changed since you joined?

Ohhh man all that’s super changed is that I’ve found more tropes that I like! I knew fevers and environmental and self-sacrifice whump were favs, like who doesn’t love a good sickfic or someone taking a bullet for their loved one, but I also really really discovered my love of gore and lab whump, which are just amazing. 

Everyone’s favourite topic: whump tropes! Which are your favourites?

Oh man, so many right now! I love a good drowning, and bouts of hypothermia are fantastic. Those tend to go hand-in-hand though so I usually feel blessed when I find stuff with those. I also love a good fever, “Stay with me”, kidnapping, and self-sacrifice though I’m not as big a fan of death, so this usually also includes intensive caretaking and probably a lot of worry from the other characters which is also amazing.

And your favourite piece you've written?

Oh this is hard, I have a few favorites! 

If I can cheat a little bit and name two, the first is MO-1620, which is my current fav OC Mariano’s prison psych transcript! It was super experimental for me, and I had a blast getting to explore his feelings about his imprisonment and how he sees himself versus the reality of his actions and behavior and circumstances. And the second is my first BTHB 2023 fill, for Possession ! I’d gotten House of Leaves for Christmas one year and the formatting just really grabbed me, so I wanted to try playing with that! Plus I love a good human AU, and my OC Will was too perfect for this prompt.

I love the style and formatting of MO-1620! That’s such a unique idea! Do you have a writing routine?

I usually write during the night! I usually have some flavored water, probably a little snack, and I definitely write best if I can just get a big chunk out at once. I try to write regularly while not putting pressure on myself, so it winds up being every few days at least, unless I’m just super grabbed by something and it won’t let go of my brain.

Is there an easy thing for you to write or anything you struggle with?

Oh I love writing horror. If I can incorporate horror into something, or explore what I think is scary about a situation, then it flows SUPER well. Or if I’m getting to do something with a lot of dialogue. Or lately, smut, because consensual NSFW writing has really been going well too.

I also tend to struggle with delving more into environmental, in-depth descriptions. Or diving hardcore into tactics with my military whump stuff because I…am not a clever man sometimes.  Also patiently staying on a linear timeline is the worst. I can never do it. Which sucks, because it puts me in a situation like now, where I KNOW how a bunch of characters WILL be and I want to write about it publicly NOW but first I have to REINTRODUCE them AND get them through the initial “I want to kill you here and now” conflict. 

Is there anything you're working on at the moment?

I’m working on so much right now! I do written roleplays, my drafts are 15 posts deep, and that’s not even counting my random google docs. Uh I’m working on introducing Mariano’s war buddies again, a bunch of smut, I have a grim reaper fighting a losing battle against a demon, a prompt game request for a friend, a response piece for my co writer, more therapy vignettes for said war buddies, and– you get the picture!

Sounds like you’re pretty swamped! Do you have any advice you’d like to share?

Write what makes you excited! If you don’t want to read what you’re writing, change it! Make it self indulgent! Make more OCs that are specifically catered to you and what you love and want to see! That’s more fun to read anyway, honestly, I love seeing passion!

Shout out to your favourite writing/whump blogs, bffs or people who've inspired you. We're hyping everyone up here!!!

YEAH HERE WE GO! I’ll shout out my co writer @brinkofdiscovery, my bestie @friendlylocalwhumper, my accomplices @comfy-whumpee , @that-one-thespian, and @painful-pooch, uh god there are so many more people. So many people are so sweet! @actress4him, and @inscrutable-shadow, and like everyone in the various servers I’m in, I can’t name everyone or this post would get so obscenely long so quickly… 

Anything you'd like to add?

Thank you for this!! It’s super fun to see this happening, and I like getting to see everyone talking about stuff.

Thanks so much for joining us today!

And to all you folks at home, have a whumpder-ful day!

[loonybun]

what is your favourite type of whumperless whump (environmental, sickfic etc.)? and why?

i think it’s gotta be environmental or self sabotage (does that count as whumperless?). I like environmental because it sort of provides a more inescapable aspect to it that i enjoy. self sabotage because i really like seeing cycles in characters and how they sort of play out.

[thatsgonnaleaveamark]

some great points there! i agree that very specific prompts and also dialogues are very hard to make gifs for, cause we have to work with existing media. i personally dont have much of a problem with really vague prompts cause then i really just get to do anything i want, like theres a shadow in that scene? that counts! but i totally get that doesnt work for everyone, and it does entirely depend on what kind of abstract/vague prompt it is for me too.

i also really like the classics cause theres more to work with. i usually struggle to think of scenes to gif in general cause my memory sucks and i forget everything ive ever watched, but if i get prompts like 'stabbed' or 'nightmares' i can just go to the whumpapedia and search for those terms and usually something will come up for titles i recognize lol

so yeah, very specific stuff and dialogue prompts are difficult to work with (and it gets frustrating when you just cant find/think of anything that works with it) but more generic/classic stuff works better. for me, i personally also like settings like 'forest' or 'snowstorm', stuff that isnt inherently whumpy, cause i can work around that and just pick anything that takes place in/around those settings (and also cause i really like environmental whump hehe)

saw the asks you reblogged, and i had a question. what do u makes a prompt good for a gif maker? being more straightforward, less left to interpretation? or something else? thanks :)

Hi there!

Okay so I'm just speaking for myself here and I'd like to invite other whump gifmakers to say their opinions too but I struggle when the prompts are just way too specific. So much so that there are no scenes to find for it and without a scene we have nothing to gif. Especially dialogue prompts. I hate when there's a ton of dialogue prompts. If that line isn't used in a scene we can think of what are we supposed to make? I also dislike super vague or abstract ideas that make thinking of a scene that fits really hard or you have to really stretch to make it work. There's open to interpretation and then there's things like "shadows" or "emptiness". What do I do with that? How do I make a whumpy gifset for those ideas? Shadows aren't whumpy. And lately it seems like a lot are strictly whumper focused as well and not everyone likes gifing that kind of whump. I hardly see sicknesses or comfort tropes really anymore. Might get one or two. Maybe. And lately a lot of the same tropes are used again and again and I've already giffed everything I can think of that fits the trope so again, what do I make?

It really comes down to, are there scenes in existence for these tropes? Cause if there aren't any scenes with the trope then I have nothing to gif. And I don't want to take weeks to come up with one scene for one trope for one day of a 30 day challenge. Then it becomes overly frustrating.

I like just straight tropes like "stabbed", "fever", "headache", "nightmares", "comfort" etc. Tropes with tons of scenes to choose from so I have options of what to make and how I want to create. I like to make layouts with a bunch of examples but lately I can barely think of ONE scene let alone a dozen for a layout. So tropes that allow for a bunch of examples that are easily thought of means I can spend more time actually creating rather than spending all my time frantically looking for a scene to gif and then quickly throwing something together haphazardly in time to post.

Does that make sense?

Other gifmakers please share your own thoughts!

[foofygoldfish]

Seven Dimensions of Whumpness (For your least know character: I haven't been following for a long time so I'm not super intimate with your characters)

oh god okay

technically i’d probably say it’s cassie, but i never actually finished the outer worlds, and i don’t have enough of her backstory hammered out to do this for margaret, so… i think i’m going to do this for claire, one of faith and alice’s adopted daughters!

also, because i mention them more than once lol: mom is faith and momma is alice

~Physical~

1. Do they have any sort of physical condition or mark that impacts their daily life? (chronic disease, deep scar, disability)

nope! perfectly healthy, strong as an ox, and only mildly clums— oh shut up caro, i’m only a little clumsy

(carolina: she’s super clumsy, it’s hilarious)

2. What is their pain tolerance? Do they close their eyes and block it out, or go into a full blown panic?

i think i have a pretty high pain tolerance? i’m totally immune to the sight of blood and i can usually walk off an injury

3. How long do they typically take to recover from illness or injury compared to average?

…..okay so i don’t really follow directions? if i did it probably wouldn’t take that long, but uh, like i said, i walk things off? typically not good for like… sprains and stuff.

4. What are the most telltale signs that they’re sick or injured?

carmina says that i get whiny

5. What is their response to their friends or loved ones in pain?

i don’t like it. 

~Emotional~

6. How easily do they cry? Is it different alone vs in public?

caro here. she’s a total crybaby.

7. Is there any emotion they find difficult to control (anger, sorrow, anxiety)?

mom’s always said that i have just a bad a temper as momma - i haven’t seen momma get that mad, but everyone that knew her before agrees. it’s not like… i don’t get violent or anything? i just get… it’s hard to explain, i guess?

8. Is there a place, name, object, etc. that holds painful memories for them?

not really. i was only a few weeks old when the bombs hit, so i don’t remember our old house like caro does, or the really rough years. i mean, i remember some of those years, but… it’s been easier for me than it’s been for caro.

9. In a dire situation, are they fight, flight or freeze?

…see the ‘emotion that’s difficult to control’ question…

caro: i literally had to lock her in our room once after the highwaymen came to town

10. How stable do they consider themselves? How stable are they really?

pretty stable. i mean, we’re all a little fucked up now, but all things considered, pretty stable.

~Social~

11. Within their group, where do they fall during emergencies? The leader, the support, the cause of the emergency, etc.?

support. ‘mina and try to help when we can, where we can. caro won’t let me near the radio equipment, and our moms don’t like it when i’m on the front lines, but i do what i can.

12. Do they have someone they trust during their own time of need, or do they prefer to handle it alone?

carmina.

13. Is there a character who often finds themselves worried about your OC?

mom. momma too, but mostly mom. i’d say carmina, but she’s usually just as mixed up in trouble as i am…

14. What kind of image would they like to portray to their group? How does the group really see them, good and bad?

good. 

15. Is there an antagonist or someone who would like to see/make your OC suffer?

i don’t want them to suffer, but i really want the highwaymen to leave us the fuck alone

~Spiritual~

16. Do they have any regrets in their life?

uhm, this doesn’t really count? but i know i would have regretted it if i hadn’t snuck out to go with carmina. momma gave me hell when i got back, but i needed to go with her.

17. What is something they dislike about either themselves or the world?

i wish i could do more. my moms say i’m too young to do much, but… i dunno, that seems flimsy. 

18. Is there a situation that might make it impossible for them to relax?

fuck, the entire situation with the highwaymen - the picnic after willow and rush got here was the first time most of us had relaxed in a while, but that didn’t last for long

19. Are they honest to themselves, or do they ignore feeling hurt or sad?

i… carmina says i ignore my feelings a lot.

20. Do they like to be alone with themselves often or surrounded by friends?

surrounded by friends. i hate being alone - the world is too quiet.

~Environmental~

21. Does the weather in your setting ever affect their health?

i think it affects all of us, ‘specially the ones that came out of the bunkers early.

22. Is their community unsafe for them in any way (violence, pollution, etc.)?

if i stay in prosperity? it’s pretty safe. outside the walls, not really.

23. How do they feel about hospital environments?

…the closest thing we have to a hospital is selene’s little clinic

24. In what season do they typically get sick?

the winter. the air’s too dry.

25. How easily do they catch any bug going around?

most of the year, i don’t get sick. i usually get sick in the winter, though.

~Occupational~

26. Are there any risks for illness or injury specific to their job?

...i twist my ankle a lot

27. Have they overworked themselves into sickness or collapse before?

a few times, after the highwaymen came and after the seige. i couldn’t stay still, there was too much to do.

....28-30 aren’t really relevant to her lol

~Intellectual~

31. What’s one skill or aspect of themselves that they feel self-conscious of? / 34. Do they have an interest/skill they excel at but are embarrassed of? (combining these two, since they’re basically the same answer)

i really like singing, but god, i hate it when people pay attention to me when i do.

32. Do they push themselves too hard/give up when minor things get difficult?

caro here again - she pushes herself a lot. she

33. Have they worried before about never meeting anyone’s expectations, or always having to meet them?

not really. 

35. How do they respond to being criticized for their shortcomings?

caro again! she sulks. a lot. but she gets over it pretty quickly.