#standoffs

TAT: Standoff. The hero is trapped with a seriously injured teammate and they're surrounded by enemies. "Give it up, hero. Come out now and we'll let them live." The hero knows it's a lie, but at this point, their friend is dying anyway. The whumpee is fighting to stay conscious and beg the hero not to go, "It's a trap. You know it's a trap." But the hero is staring down at their bloodied hands pressed over their friend's wounds. "What'll it be, hero?"

TAT: (Potential spam time, perhaps?) Betrayal. Love. Heartache. Here the two members on the rapidly declining team stood facing each other with a wall of fire separating them. Once lovers, now a spiraling mess, nosediving onto a scorched earth with both of them having a score to settle. "It'd be wise to just walk away from this," character A spoke, "I know where your loved ones are. Let's not give the funeral home too much work at once, eh, B?" Suddenly, this just got a whole lot harder for B.

Whumper holds whumpee at gunpoint and tells the rest of the team to surrender and they have no choice but to do so and all end up being taken by whumper. Whumpee blames themselves for getting everyone captured...

Standoff TAT: When a whumpee has suffered so severely but thinks no one can understand them so they've just been letting things build and build until all they have left to give is misplaced anger, snapping at everyone, pushing them all away, trying to distance themselves from getting hurt ever again. The caretaker is pushing their buttons, tired of seeing them destroy themselves, trying to understand why, and the whumpee just breaks and sobs, finally letting themselves start to heal with help.

I know I’m a little late for TAT, but one of my favorites for stand-off, a trope that makes my toes curl and my stomach flip, is this classic: “Take me instead.”

Loud and obnoxious whumpee that can't STFU even when they're captured by cold blooded whumper. They're so annoying that whumper beats them up everytime whumpee comes up with another sarcastic remark or pop culture reference that whumper can't understand. Whumpee insults whumper's haircut while blood drips through their teeth... or spits blood at whumper's face. (some-like-it-hurt)