(mostly) whump

📖 2026 Event Prompt List

"I told you, I'm fine." / Loss of Balance

"When was the last time you actually slept?" / Sensory Overload

"Stop talking for a second." / Pharmacy Run

"I can handle it." / Lab Results

"You look pale." / Chronic Illness/Injury

"You feel warm." "I know." / Sharing a Bed

"I made coffee/tea." / Tired Caretaker

"Don't look at me like that." / Too Busy To Stop Working/Moving

"Let me help you." / Anxiety/Panic Attack

"Just sit down before you fall down." / Overworked

"You don't have to carry this by yourself." / Fever Induced Confession

"Just give me five minutes." / Hiding An Illness

"Everything is vibrating. Please stop talking." / Shaking Hands

"I'm just tired." / Burning the Candle at Both Ends

"I am completely capable of doing my job." / Brain Fog

“I was just trying to help.” / Exhausted Silence

"Everything is too loud." / Sleep Deprivation

"How long was I out?" / Waking up disoriented

"It's just a headache, drop it." / A cold compress.

"I didn't realize how bad it was until I sat down." / Uncontrollable shivering.

"Can you turn the lights down?" / Fluffy Blanket

"I don't think I can get up from here." / Warm drink

"I've handled worse than this." / New Medication

"I didn't think it would hit this fast." / Contlagion

"Hold onto me for a second, the floor is moving." / Stomach Virus

"My brain won't shut up." / Relapse

"Don't treat me like I'm fragile." / Loss of Fine Motor Skills

"I can't remember the word for it..." / Failed Masking

"I think I'm awake, but I'm not sure." / Wired but Tired

"Is it just me?" / Hot Flashes

"Just rest." / Tunnel Vision

🔄 Alternate Prompts

"Did I already say that out loud?"

"It's fine, it's just a seasonal thing."

"I don't need a doctor, I need an hour of silence."

"Everything is just... too much right now."

"I didn't mean to snap at you."

Ringing Ears

Nausea

Fight or Flight

Fever Dreams

Abandoned Tasks

Hey everyone, a quick note from me.

You might have noticed things have been a bit quiet around here lately, and the prompt list didn’t quite make the midnight debut like it was supposed to. Life got a little crazy behind the scenes, and the scheduled posts simply didn't happen. I’m really sorry for keeping you all waiting!

Thank you so much for your patience and for sticking around. The prompts are officially up now, and I’m incredibly excited to see what everyone creates this year.

(Re)Introduce yourself

What is your earliest memory of enjoying whump?

Restraints

Send an ask to 3 people you haven't interacted with yet

Who are your favourite whumpees?

Bloodbath

Create a prompt for someone else to fill

What are your all time favourite pieces of whump media?

"That's not what I meant"

Reblog some of your favourite whump gifs

Where did you find your place within the whump community?

Falling

Give a sneak peak at something you're working on

What is a recent whump obsession of yours?

Dizzy

Give some fic recs

What is your favourite part of whump?

Smoke

Go back to a favourite whump fic/gifset/art piece and leave a comment

What's one thing you would say to a/your/your favourite whumpee? (It won't impact the plot)

Chekhov's gun

Reblog some of your favourite whump art

How did you end up joining the whump community?

Pickup

Check out someone's rec from a previous day (fic/gif/art) and leave a comment

What's a trope you love that deserves more attention?

"I don't want to"

Create a whump meme

What would be your ideal whump situation/what's your whump wishlist?

Broken

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

It didn’t make sense, was what bothered him the most. He’d had this mental image of who had attacked him. They were cold, impassive, ruthless. A sadist of the worst sort. They had no problem torturing him to the brink of death and leaving him to topple over that edge. 

And then it turns out his attacker was Poppet. A villain with no prior history (that they knew of, he reminded himself) of violent actions. Who he now had interacted with, and he didn’t know what to think anymore.

Save your sympathy for someone worthy of it, they’d said. They hadn’t played on Zera’s soft heart or Elijah’s stubborn insistence on seeing the potential in everyone. 

I’ll tell you everything I did so you can repeat it. They hadn’t denied that they’d hurt Luke. They even seemed genuine when they said they were sorry. 

You were right about me. I’m just Slipknot’s little toy, their stupid attack dog. He didn’t remember those words, meaning he must have said them during whatever encounter led to…

To an otherwise sane, empathetic-seeming kid beating him nearly to death.

He couldn’t make that sequence of events make sense. He was still missing something, and it nagged at him like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. 

The only source for that missing information was Poppet themself. Meaning Luke would just have to wait.

---

The wait ended up being shorter than he expected. It was only a few hours into Luke’s guard duty bedside vigil that Poppet woke.

The signs were subtle at first. Their breathing, which had been regular and deep, hitched and stuttered. Their brows furrowed like they were in pain. Luke got up to double-check the IV drip.

Which meant that he had front-row seats to see Poppet open their eyes. 

They looked like a startled horse, their eyes wide enough to show a ring of white all the way around the iris. Their gaze darted around the room before finally landing on the IV in their arm. Poppet’s breath caught in their throat before coming out as a quiet whimper. They reached for the IV.

“Hey, don’t,” Luke said sharply. 

Poppet jumped. Apparently his presence hadn’t been important enough to register in their look around the room. 

“Whe—” they croaked out before their voice gave up on them.

“Hero HQ, medbay,” he said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Our medic went to the trouble of patching you up, so don’t even think about undoing her work. The IV stays in.”

He saw Poppet’s throat work as they swallowed, then nodded. “It worked?” they asked.

Luke snorted and raised an eyebrow. “Your plan? More or less. We got out, despite the issues there at the end.”

Poppet closed their eyes. Their face smoothed out as they took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Good. That’s- that’s good.”

Luke didn’t bother replying. He let the silence stretch out between them as he studied the villain. He was torn. Part of him, the bitter part that couldn’t see past what had happened to him, said this was an act. This was fake, a way to get someone into the Hero HQ as a spy. Poppet was just a convincing actor, and would stab all of them in the back the first chance they got.

The more rational part of him, the part that could admit he was hasty in attacking Poppet back in Slipknot’s cell, said that that was ridiculous. A dislocated shoulder might be one thing to convince the heroes, but that batshit escape plan that somehow worked? Getting stabbed? Those were something else entirely. 

Poppet’s eyes flew open again, looking at Luke in a panic. “Are you okay? The others? Foxfire and Tempest?”

This villain had no damn right to look so earnest about their concern for his teammates! 

“They’re fine,” Luke bit out, harsher than he really meant. Poppet flinched at his tone, and he sighed. Softer, he added, “Foxfire wore themself out carrying you back here. They’re resting. Tempest is doing paperwork for all this shit. No one besides you got anything more than scrapes and bruises in the escape.”

“Good,” Poppet said, finally breaking that too-intense eye contact. “That’s… I’m glad.”

They closed their eyes, face scrunching like they were in pain. Luke checked their IV again. Everything was fine. 

Their next words were so quiet, he wouldn’t have heard them if he were any further away. “Are you going to kill me?”

Luke actually made himself dizzy with how fast his head snapped around to look at Poppet. “What.”

“I won’t fight you,” the villain said, voice barely audible. Their eyes were open now, but they wouldn’t look at him. They stared resolutely at the ceiling like they were trying to hold back tears. “Or I’ll try not to, anyway. I… I can’t guarantee I won’t use my telekinesis on instinct. But I’ll—”

“Stop,” Luke said.

Poppet’s mouth closed with an audible click. They squeezed their eyes shut.

Luke ran a hand over his face. What the fuck. What the actual, entire fuck. 

Okay. He gets it, okay? He fucked up. He attacked them back in the cell, and said some things that weren’t exactly all rainbows and sunshine. But that was the heat of the moment, alright? He has a temper, and this whole… thing, is kind of a big trigger for it. 

It was one thing to make threats (and… throw punches… yeah, he fucked up, he’s aware) in the heat of the moment. It’s an entirely different thing to talk about it so calmly and matter-of-fact. 

“I’m not,” he started, then broke off with a groan of frustration. Why was this so hard? Why couldn’t this be a simple situation with a simple bad guy that he could simply rage at?

Because life is rarely simple, came a mental voice that sounded suspiciously like Elijah, the even-tempered asshole.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said.

He expected Poppet to be relieved. Instead, they looked more upset after hearing that. They opened tear-filled eyes and stared back up at the ceiling, still refusing to look at him.

“Right,” said Poppet. Their voice was thick with emotion. “I still owe you that list.” A tear escaped and rolled down their face.

List? What list? When had they… mentioned… 

I’ll tell you everything I did so you can repeat it.

Oh.

Fuck.

---

Dun dun dun!!!

Taglist:

Zera grasped them tighter for a second, unwilling to let anyone hurt their rescuer. They would- would—

“Zera, stand down,” Elijah said gently. “We’re back in Hero HQ. We’re in the medbay. Maeve needs Poppet laying down so she can examine them.”

Zera nodded unsteadily, feeling like a poorly carved wooden doll: all splinters and stiff joints. With Elijah’s help, they got Poppet-Bailey settled on one of the beds.

“Is-” Zera started, looking around. “Are you okay? How’s Luke? Where’s Luke? Did-”

“Breathe,” Elijah said, tone somehow even more gentle. He led them to a chair that they more or less collapsed into. “Luke’s fine, nothing more than scratches that a band-aid can handle. He didn’t want to be here.”

Zera made a face at that.

“I’m fine too,” Elijah continued, a small smile on his face. “Again, just minor things. The only one who got physically hurt was Poppet.”

Zera blinked. Then blinked again. If their brain would start working again, that would be great. “Physically hurt?”

Elijah’s smile turned sad. “I mean you, Zera. You were a million miles away just now; you had me worried.”

Zera looked away from him, over to where Maeve examined Poppet-Bailey with glowing hands and a practiced eye.

The sound of a chair being dragged across the floor snapped Zera’s attention back to Elijah. He’d brought one close enough that he could sit while continuing to talk with them.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “I know you, Zera. You’ve got something running through your head. Is it about Poppet?”

“Bailey,” Zera said.

“What?”

Zera shook their head, trying to kick-start their brain’s higher functions. “They said their name is Bailey,” Zera continued.

“They told you their name?” Elijah asked, sounding as incredulous as Zera felt. In their line of work, names and identities were either well known, like with heroes or villains that didn’t care to keep a secret civilian identity, or a carefully guarded secret. None of Slipknot’s associates fell into the former category— Poppet included.

Zera nodded woodenly. Their tone was thick when they continued. “And it isn’t just that they told me. It’s how they said it. It was like… God, it was like it was a relief to say it out loud.”

Both heroes turned to look at the unconscious villain then. 

“I think they were telling the truth,” Zera said. “I don’t know what happened to them, but I don’t think they were there by choice. Not really.”

“Not an informed choice, anyway,” Elijah said thoughtfully.

Zera thought of how Bailey had talked about themself, the loathing in their voice when they called themself Slipknot’s toy. 

“They got hurt because of us,” they said, voice low and hoarse. “They were rescuing us. And their own teammates stabbed them for it.”

Warmth spread over their knee. They looked down to see Elijah’s hand covering it. 

“We can’t change what’s happened, Zera,” he said. It was a phrase he’d told them on many occasions.

“We can only move forward and learn from it,” Zera said, completing the phrase. 

“Over here, you two,” Maeve called tiredly.

Zera and Elijah joined her at Bailey’s bedside. 

“I fixed the internal damage,” she said, pointing to a still-open wound in Bailey’s side. “The knife nicked some blood vessels and punctured their lung. I healed the pneumothorax and the internal bleeding, but that’s all I can do for now.” She sounded apologetic, as though it were her fault she was still recovering from using her powers to patch the group up after their last disaster.

“Will they pull through?” Elijah asked.

Maeve nodded. “They should. I’m going to start an IV to help replace the blood they lost, and stitch up the last of that wound. That’s not why I called you over, though.”

She gently rolled Bailey onto their uninjured side, exposing their bare back. 

Zera’s breath caught at the sight. 

Bailey’s back was a patchwork of cuts and bruises layered over a lattice of scar tissue. If Zera didn’t know better, they’d say it looked like…

“Fuck,” they said quietly. “They said. They said the guests ‘got a little rough’, at Slipknot’s last party.”

It looked like Bailey had been whipped. 

“These are at least two days old,” Maeve said. “They had time to scab over, then re-open. They were cleaned and bandaged, but nothing more than that for treatment. Some of these could have used butterfly closures at minimum, and preferably stitches. I would say that Poppet treated these themself.” 

Elijah and Zera shared a look, his grim, theirs horrified. If they’d needed more proof that Bailey wasn’t an entirely willing participant in Slipknot’s schemes? Well. Here it was.

“I’m too tired to figure out what you’re not saying at the moment,” Maeve said. “Right now, I need steady hands— and someone who’s not coming off an adrenaline high, don’t even think about it Zera— to help me document all this.”

Elijah sighed and nodded, probably thinking about all the paperwork this was going to cause. “Right. I’ll send Iris.”

“I’m staying,” Zera said. 

Both senior heroes stared at them. They did their best not to squirm under the scrutiny.

“I won’t get in the way!” they said, probably losing the battle not to sound defensive. “And I won’t offer to do anything, not that you’d even accept. I just… I wanna make sure they’re okay.” 

They sounded more pathetic than they’d really like to admit at that admission. That was probably what made the senior heroes let them stay. 

Zera did as promised. They didn’t try to help with the procedures or the documentation. They did go ahead and fetch the materials Maeve would need—  saline solution, gauze, bandages, suture kit— but then they were a good little hero and sat down, out of the way. 

Iris and Maeve managed to photograph what must have been every cut and bruise on Bailey’s body before Maeve started on the stitches. She took out hemostats and a curved needle, maneuvering them with precision in her gloved hands. Zera couldn’t remember the medical name for the stitch at the moment, but they knew the sewing name for it: whip stitch.

Whip stitch. For some reason, it was almost unbearably funny. Whip stitch, for someone who’d been- been—

And then it wasn’t funny. Not in the slightest. The laughter they’d been holding back transmuted into sobs.

Just what kind of hell had their nemesis been put through?

---

Taglist:

“What happened to B and C?” Foxfire asked.

“Not applicable,” Bailey said. They wanted to make a joke of it, but it wasn’t the time. Anyway, they doubted the heroes would get the reference even if they made it.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Icarus said. Bailey warily gazed at him, wondering if he was being metaphorical or literal. “What’s Plan D?” 

Metaphorical, then. Bailey let out a little sigh of relief. “Plan D is sneaking our way upstairs and going out through a window.” 

There was a long moment of silence as Bailey worked on the door’s lock. Eventually, they turned to look at the heroes, who were giving them looks with varying shades of concern and doubt.

“What?” they asked.

“Could you elaborate on that plan?” Tempest asked. 

“Because it seems a little…” Foxfire broke off.

Icarus finished for them. “Iffy.”

Oh. Well, that was fair. “There’s a set of service stairs. The lock for them is like this one, set into the wall, so Slipknot didn’t bother to set up cameras for them since they were the only one who could open it.”

The lock was an utter pain in the ass, honestly. It was barely more than a common turn-lock deadbolt, but the placement of it made it very secure. Slipknot could just reach in and turn the thing; Bailey had to work through a good few inches of wall to get at it.

Finally, they got a hold of the knob for the lock and started twisting. As they worked, they continued explaining. “Security is a lot tighter on the lower floors, since, you know, more likely area for breaking in and out. Which is why we’re not going there. There are enough blind spots on the higher levels that we can get to a window.”

The lock finally turned, and Bailey resisted the urge to pump their fist in triumph. They turned to face the heroes. 

“The windows are reinforced,” Tempest said. “Shatterproof.” 

Bailey gave a little nod. “Yeah. All of them. I have a plan for that too, though. That’s the part where timing is gonna be tricky, because I’ll have to get something, and it’s somewhere that’s monitored. We’ll have a small window of time to break the window and jump out.”

“Um…” Foxfire said. “Gravity?”

“Flight, wind, telekinesis,” Bailey said, pointing to Icarus, Tempest, and themself in turn. “Between the three of us, we should be fine. We don’t need to stop our fall, just slow it.”

Icarus still looked unconvinced, but Tempest just nodded. “Lead on,” he said.

Bailey opened the door, and the group made their way out. Bailey led them through the blindspots they’d mapped to the service stairs. They pressed themselves close to the wall while Bailey opened the locked door.

“If you can open this too, why didn’t Slipknot put surveillance up?” Icarus asked.

“Couldn’t do this originally,” Bailey said, frowning in concentration. The lock was sticking; it probably needed graphite, not that it was likely to get any. 

“They don’t know you can open their special locks?” he pushed.

“No,” Bailey said, trying to keep their tone even. He had made them lose their grip on the fucking lock again. “This was self-taught, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

The lock finally turned, and they opened the door to the stairs.

Now they just had to go up, and up, and up. Joy.

“How’d you learn, anyway?” Foxfire asked. Their voice was at least something more pleasant to focus on than the echoing clang of the group’s footsteps on the stairs. “It doesn’t look like it’s easy to do, so why bother?”

“Lots of exposure,” Bailey said curtly. Their head (and back, and nose, and… everything, honestly) hurt too much to keep their tone polite. 

“Sneaking around behind your boss’s back, Poppet?” Icarus asked snidely.

Bailey couldn’t help but flinch at the name. They resolved that as soon as they were somewhere safe(r), they would tell the heroes their real name. Even if they sided with Icarus and decided to put Bailey down, Bailey was going to go out under their own name. 

They weren’t going to remain as what Slipknot had made them into.

“Something like that,” they huffed. 

It was the truth… if breaking out of the room they were locked in counted as sneaking behind Slipknot’s back. When they’d moved in, Bailey had only known about the lock on the inside of their door. They didn’t know about the one Slipknot had set into the wall, the one that could override their settings. 

And that wasn’t even counting the times Bailey had frequented the cells for various lessons and punishments.

Finally, they reached the floor Bailey needed.

“Is this… a dorm?” Foxfire asked.

“Bigger rooms than your average college dorm, but close enough,” Bailey said. “This is one of the residential floors. There’s a window in the lounge. I just need to get something first.”

“What about other residents?” Tempest asked. 

Bailey shook their head. “Not many of them. I wasn’t kidding about these being bigger than your average college dorm. And they shouldn’t be here anyway; this is training time.” 

Which, of course, was when they ran into someone.

Viper opened her door just in time to see the four go past. She stared at them. 

They stared back.

Viper looked Bailey up and down critically, gaze lingering on their broken nose and stiffly-held shoulder. She seemed to come to a conclusion, and nodded slightly. 

“Hm. Seems that what I thought I heard must have been a remnant from that fever dream I was having,” she said, “because I don’t see anything out here.”

Bailey could have cried. Instead, they managed a small, shaky, “Thank you.” 

She gave them a crooked smile, showing off her fangs. “I sure hope that my fever dream ends before I have my meeting with Slipknot in…” She checked her watch. “Fifteen minutes. It would be very awkward to have to explain that to them.”

She dropped the pretense and added, “Go. Get out of here.”

“Thank you,” Bailey added fervently, then led the heroes off at a run.

They got to Bailey’s room, and Bailey frantically started looking for what they needed. 

“Come on, come on, I know I didn’t get rid of it, where the fuck did I put it after last time…” Bailey muttered under their breath as they pulled out drawers in their dresser. 

“What the fuck was that?” Icarus demanded. “You said there wouldn’t be anyone here!”

“Said there shouldn’t, not wouldn’t,” Bailey corrected. “Forgot that Viper is on bedrest and isn’t at training. And that was our new time limit.”

“Honor among villains?” Foxfire suggested.

Bailey gave a half-hearted smile. “Something like that.” 

Viper was one of the villains on the team who was halfway decent. She followed Slipknot’s orders, but she never went beyond the minimum necessary damages in training or on missions. Of all the people they could have run into during this escape attempt, she was probably the best option.

Bailey continued tearing through their room as they looked; it wasn’t as though it mattered if they made a mess, after all. They wouldn’t be coming back. 

“What are you looking for?” Tempest asked. “Could we help?”

Bailey shook their head. “No, it’s— ugh, why do I still have that— it’s small, you won’t be able to help. It’s a necklace.”

“How’s that gonna help?” Icarus asked skeptically.

“It’s a diamond,” Bailey said. 

Foxfire made a noise of agreement. “Not tougher than crystallized carbon,” they said.

Bailey smiled. They should have guessed Foxfire was a nerd. 

“That won’t work,” Icarus said. “The force you’d have to put behind it—”

Bailey cut him off. “I can do it.” 

He scoffed.

Bailey turned to glare at him. “This isn’t just your life on the line here; it’s mine, too. I’m not playing around. So unless you have a better idea? You’re gonna have to go with what I’ve got.”

They turned back to searching as Icarus gaped at them. They knew they still had it; they’d checked when they made this backup plan. And even before that, they wouldn’t have gotten rid of it. Slipknot had it made from one of the diamonds they’d stolen in the heist that led to Icarus’s intervention. It was both promise and threat, and Slipknot made sure that they wore it to every fancy occasion. 

It wasn’t a collar, but it was a claim of ownership just the same.

Bailey finally found the necklace, and the group made their way to the lounge to make their improvised exit. The heroes cleared the furniture away from the window. Bailey held the diamond necklace in place with their powers, then struck it like a hammer against a chisel. 

The reinforced glass spiderwebbed out from the impact.

“Well, well,” came a horribly familiar voice from behind them. “I have to admit, I didn’t quite expect this.”

Bailey turned to see Slipknot flanked by several other villains, including Viper. 

They’d run out of time. 

The ensuing fight was as vicious as it was chaotic. The villains weren’t holding back, using blows meant to maim or kill. Bailey did their best, but they were already at a disadvantage with their concussion and injured shoulder. Add to that the worry of protecting the heroes, as well? They didn’t really have a chance. 

A stray blow sent the broken glass flying from its frame, and Bailey took their chance. “Go, go, go!” they shouted, practically pulling the heroes out the window with them as they jumped. Something cold hit Bailey’s side, but they didn’t have time to think about it. They were falling. 

All of Slipknot’s sadistic training about heights paid off. With the help of Icarus and Tempest, Bailey was able to get all four of them to the ground safely.

And then they collapsed to one knee. Why… why weren’t their legs working? 

They looked down to their side, where they’d felt the impact of something cold. The handle of a knife sprouted from their skin like a weed. 

That’s not supposed to be there, Bailey thought. 

Like a weed, they plucked it from where it wasn’t supposed to be. 

That was when the pain truly set in. Bailey gasped at the sudden intensity of it, falling to their hands and knees under the unrelenting onslaught. 

Suddenly Foxfire was there, hands warm against Bailey’s skin. They pressed against the wound, making the pain worse. Why were they making it worse? Bailey groaned and tried to push them away, but was too weak.

Foxfire was shouting, but Bailey had trouble focusing on the words. The hero’s face softened with something like… concern? What were they concerned about? Had one of the heroes gotten hurt?

“No, no, Poppet, look at me,” Foxfire said. “Look at me, there you go, keep your focus on me. You’re gonna be okay, just hang on. Hang on!”

Bailey smiled weakly. They rasped, “Bailey.”

“What? Don’t worry about anyone else, just keep looking at me. You’re okay; we’re gonna get you to our medic, just hang on, Poppet.”

Bailey shook their head. “Not Poppet. It’s Bailey.”

Their eyelids were so heavy, far too heavy to keep open. They smiled as their eyes slid shut. “My name is Bailey.”

They were going to go out under their own name, after all.

---

I don't kill my characters, don't kill me please! (Exceptions may apply to irredeemable whumpers. Of which I am not one. Again, please don't kill me.)

Taglist: