hurt people hurt people

imagine the team fighting a possessed/brainwashed whumpee, wanting so badly not to hurt their friend but knowing their friend’s not here right now. imagine caretaker having to deal with the fallout once the parasite lets up, knowing every cut and bruise was one they personally inflicted.

🎤 Give us a whump fic rec of your choosing (shout out or self promo, dealer’s choice!)

If you’re at all familiar with The Stanley Parable you absolutely HAVE to read Hardware Virus. Beyond being excellent sickfic, it is one of if not THE most absolutely beautiful pieces of writing I’ve ever laid eyes upon. Breathtaking. And fucking devastating so mind the tags. But yeah, possibly the best sickfic I’ve ever read, absolute must read if that’s your cup of tea xx

🛟 Free space! Tell us whatever you want.

“Under the weather”

“Not feeling so hot”

“Not 100%”

“Looking peaky”

“A little green around the gills”

“Unwell”

“Has been better”

“Not firing on all cylinders”

“Run down”

“Crashed”

“Come down with something”

“Nursing a [cold/migraine/etc]”

“Caught a bug”

“Laid up”

“Poorly”

“Off colour”

“I know, I know. I’m so sorry.”

“Hold still.”

“Just a little longer.”

“You’re being so good.”

“This’ll all be over soon, I promise.”

“Close your eyes. Tightly.”

“Please don’t scream.”

“Hey, hey, stay with me.”

“This is for your own good.”

“I know it tastes bad, but please just take it?”

“This is going to sting.”

“Can you be brave for me for a second?”

“This is going to hurt like hell.”

“Hold my hand. Squeeze it if you have to.”

“Deep breaths.”

-- @whumpsandwhimpers

⛓️ Favourite Whumper archetype?

I have another answer for this one, but another Whumper archetype I’ve had on the mind lately is just—a slightly reluctant Whumper. Maybe they’re a med student running tests on a living weapon Whumpee, or maybe they’re an interrogator trying to get a confession out of a criminal Whumpee; in whatever case, they’re hurting Whumpee for what they believe is a greater cause, but there’s a quiet part of them that is just staunchly uncomfortable throughout the whole ordeal. Give me someone who’s part of a system of malice, who does terrible things because it’s what they’re taught to do, because it’s their job, it’s their life, because what choice do they have, really?

I think something like this would be really interesting because it’s kind of a different take on the Whumper~Whumpee dynamic altogether. It gives your Whumper an interesting motivation that could lead to even more hurt across the board… Let your Whumper suffer too, no one is safe

Just think of the process of Whumper trying to convince themself that Whumpee isn’t human, not really, so what they’re doing is fine. Trying to shake the sick feeling in their stomach after every round of “treatment”. Maybe they dream about helping Whumpee escape under the cover of night, but can that really erase the hurt they’ve caused already? And what if they’re caught? Are they willing to risk being captured and treated the way they’ve been trained to treat Whumpee?

glitchy speech

pop-up windows or flickering lights in their vision

audible rattling or squeaking from joints/cogs that aren’t quite where they should be

sensors failing, losing all feeling on rusted casing

fans kicking into overdrive

system overheating, human caretakers snatching hands away because they literally burn to the touch

reverting to default ‘new user’ programs when their memory drive fails (forgetting caretaker’s face)

🩹 What’s a trope you think is underrated?

I gave an answer in another post BUT I did think of another one I like which is. Fully self-aware, incredibly salty Whumpee, especially in a sickfic context. Obviously I do love a Whumpee who’s completely feverish and out of it BUT something is endlessly funny about a Whumpee who knows exactly how sick they are and is MAD about it. When Teammate walks in on them chugging an entire 2Liter of water and backs out and closes the door. When their voice breaks mid-sentence and they look at the camera, deadpan. Comedy

🚧 Trope/s you personally don’t like? (Respectfully)

This is kind of a tough one for me, I haven’t been deep enough in the community for long enough to know what is and isn’t common practice, LOL

Maybe I’ll say—I have a real soft spot for a Caretaker playing with Whumpee’s hair (brushing through with their fingers, braiding it etc). I don’t think it’s a rare trope (probably pretty common honestly), but I only see it every now and then, and I realised I use it in most of my own sickfics lmao. Being the change I want to see etc

kind of a peripheral answer bc the thing i learned has nothing to do with whump in itself, just something i learned in order to write a fic that had whump in it. anyway i taught myself to use CSS on AO3 and it was awesome and i think everyone should explore it. here’s a screenshot from when i was testing one of my work skin rules

⛓️ Favourite Whumper archetype?

Oooo… admittedly I don’t get too involved with Whumper dynamics that often, but I do love a good ‘mad scientist’ type. When there’s just something unusual about Whumpee and Whumper is determined to find out what it is, no matter what it costs either of them. Pushing Whumpee’s limits because they have to know what makes them tick, what makes them snap.

♟️ Something you learned or discovered through the whump community?

I’ve kind of just picked up a bunch of random medical fun facts through the writing/consumption of whump media… specifically learning to pick up on things we often misrepresent XD for instance, did you know that if you’re hit in the head hard enough to knock you out, and you don’t wake up within thirtysomething seconds, you’re either dead or going to have severe brain damage for the rest of your life, most likely! :D no coming to in a basement six hours later for you, you fragile mammal

also i have a grosser fun fact which i’ll put under the cut (death mention below)

⚙️ When did you join the whump community / discover a love for it?

I think I started with sickfic back in 2020ish? Maybe earlier? (Kind of uhh, ironic timing, if you think about it…) I feel like my first experience with sickfic and whump more broadly was in the Camp Camp fandom, lol. I remember this one fic where Max got lost in the woods and semi-impaled on a tree branch(?) and the others had to come rescue him, though sadly that’s been deleted now.

🔑 Tell us your best whumpy anecdote(s) from IRL, if you have any and are comfortable sharing

The sickest I’ve ever been IRL was on a school camp when i was about 13 or 14 (I don’t recall the exact year). Some asshole came on the trip with a nasty virus and gave it to pretty much everyone. I remember waking up in a tent in the middle of the night, shaking uncontrollably because of the fever. I also remember coughing so hard it triggered my gag reflex. Brother it was bad

Not to mention it was a super outdoorsy camp so we were doing hikes and stuff through all of this. At one point we had like, a 10km walk (maybe slightly less, was a few years ago) between campsites, and I’m already not super active so by the time I finally got there everything hurt so bad I was just crying openly. When my camp partner and I got our tent set up I crawled into it and just lay on the floor for twenty minutes solid. No sleeping bag, no stimulation. Just me and the precious precious ground lol

I was still sick by the time we got home. I remember going up to my mum and she was like “how was camp sweetie” and in the raspiest ever teen voice I was just like “take me home right now please please please”. My fever spiked to 40°C like a day later and I was just melting into the couch watching TV (episode of Scrubs I think), completely not able to follow the plot because I was hazing in and out of conscious awareness

I have a couple of other good stories per this question but this is getting long enough by itself so I’ll save those for another post lol

❤️‍🩹 What’s your favourite whump trope/s?

💊 Why does whump appeal to you?

⚙️ When did you join the whump community / discover a love for it?

🩹 What’s a trope you think is underrated?

🩸 Favourite Whumpee archetype?

🛏️ Favourite Caretaker archetype?

⛓️ Favourite Whumper archetype?

🚧 Trope/s you personally don’t like? (Respectfully)

♟️ Something you learned or discovered through the whump community?

🔑 Tell us your best whumpy anecdote(s) from IRL, if you have any and are comfortable sharing

🎤 Give us a whump fic rec of your choosing (shout out or self promo, dealer’s choice!)