You Can Call Me Chem

#363

content: nonhuman whumpee, immortal whumpee, lady whump, lady whumpee, lady whumper, captivity, torture, starvation, sleep deprivation, hallucinations, psychosis whump, sadistic whumper, emeto, rocky recovery, recovery fic, comfort, nonverbal whumpee, aftermath of whump, death, major character death, grief

Twenty-four years of torture. Whumpee had endured twenty-four years at the hands of her wicked captor who couldn't get enough of her pained screams, cries, and begging. Each day she came down to the basement to find new and creative ways to torment her, while depriving her of food and sleep. Twenty-four years of starvation, torture, sleep deprivation, and losing every bit of her sanity to psychosis and hallucinations, completely detached from reality.

And why did she know it had been twenty-four years?

and when bucky had nothing he had steve

inspo by @/whump-and-what-not

content: past trauma, aftermath of whump, nonverbal whumpee, emotional whump

They used to be a chatterbox.

Maybe that was why it hurt Caretaker the most that Whumper had taken it from them.

When Whumpee wasn't staring at walls blankly, they were shaking their head or nodding, or occasionally, when they really needed something, they tapped them on the shoulder to get their attention. They hadn't said a word since rescue, leaving the team guessing as to what all had really happened to them — that is, the things not readily decipherable from the scars on their body. Oh, those told a whole story.

Uh.. idk what this is or why. Enjoy.

Cw: anxiety, self-destructive habits, lab whump, solitary confinement, implied kidnapping, prolonged captivity, abuse, non human whumpee

Caretaker was too old for “take your child to work day”. They were well into adulthood, yet because they still lived with Parent, they were dragged along to the odd looking facility at where Parent worked.

It gave them the creeps just being there. The walls were almost all concrete, the floors made of a white tile that reflected the fluorescent white lights. Every single door required a key card and pin entry to open.

“Parent, I’m too old for this,” Caretaker sighed, interrupting their excited rambling about their job.

“You’re my child, and as long as you live under my roof, I’m in charge of you,” Parent said matter-of-factly, straightening their white lab coat. “I promise it gets more interesting. But as I was saying, we work with complex live specimen, interacting with and examining them. We analyze their brainwaves, and how they differ from ours, then we work to replicate the DNA sequences, so we can clone the organism, it’s all quite amazing. You’ll see, our most complex subject can even speak!”

“You mean, like a parrot?” Caretaker decided to indulge their excitement. After all, they never really saw Parent smile anymore, especially after the divorce…

“Not exactly,” Parent grinned like a child offered candy, their eyes lighting up. “You’ll see soon.”

Not knowing what that meant, but willing to play along, Caretaker followed Parent through a door into some sort of decontamination room.

“We haven’t been able to replicate this one yet, so until we are able to, we must take extreme measures to ensure nothing happens to it,” Parent explained, as they began to scrub their hands in a hospital-grade sink. “It’s lived longer than any other, so you can understand why it’s so precious to us,”

Caretaker just nodded along, and washed their hands as well.

“Now, this one is usually well-behaved, but if a problem were to occur, this is what this little remote is for,” Parent said, as they picked up a little remote from a shelf. “With the press of this button here, it will automatically deliver enough electricity to incapacitate the subject, a stun which will provide us enough time to leave the room and call for security back up.”

Parent then turned to face Caretaker. “Are you ready to see something amazing?”

“Uh, sure?” Caretaker couldn’t help but phrase it like a question.

Parent turned to the door, and tapped in a key code. With a click, and a woosh of air, it opened.

Caretaker’s heart dropped.

What was inside the plain, padded room looked undeniably human, and utterly terrified.

***

“Caretaker, this is number five, or as I like to call it, Whumpee,” Parent smiled widely, and gestured across the room. Curled into the corner sat… something. It looked human, as far as it came to features, but… with wings? Large wings, like those of a crow, with ruffled black feathers. There were gaps, where it seemed handfuls of feathers had been torn out.

The poor thing looked up at Parent with obvious fear in it’s eyes.

“Whumpee, say hello. This is my child, Caretaker. The one I’ve told you about,” Parent said slowly, enunciating each syllable like they were talking to a child.

“Hel-hello,” The creature chirped, half hiding behind it’s trembling wings. “Care-Caretaker.”

“Isn’t it just amazing?” Parent grinned.

“Yeah… amazing…” Caretaker echoed, glancing around the room as Parent went off on another ramble about the creature. The room itself was small, the only furniture being a mattress shoved against one wall, the single blanket tossed askew, and a toilet sink thing in the corner, like the type you see in prisons. In each corner, there was a camera, allowing not even an ounce of privacy. “Parent,” They cut in, looking back at the creature. “What exactly are they?”

“I like to call it an Avionoid, as I was one of the main contributors to the initial study and analysis of it. The scientific name, however, is Pecerus afror.” Parent straightened their lab coat. “Whumpee, why don’t you come here and say hello?”

Caretaker’s attention was turned back to the creature, who slowly pushed to their feet, and even more hesitantly walked over to where Parent stood. Parent roughly clapped a hand over the creature’s shoulder, and they winced much more than they should have, Caretaker noted with a frown.

They weren’t that tall, maybe five foot one or two, with buzzed short hair. So close, Caretaker could see the faint markings in their skin, a light gray pattern against a natural ashen hue. It’s eyes were dark, quite so they couldn’t tell if they were brown or black, or another color entirely.

“Hello.” The creature repeated, it’s voice slightly raspy, sounding like it hadn’t spoken in a while.

“Hey,” Caretaker breathed, watching how the creature shook under Parent’s hand. “Are you- are you okay?”

“Why of course it’s okay,” Parent laughed. “This is a building full of doctors, it couldn’t be better!”

“I mean, they look scared,” Caretaker hated speaking as if the thing wasn’t right there in between them.

“Oh, that’s just nerves. It hadn’t met anyone new in a while.” Parent roughly patted the creature’s shoulder, and it but it’s lip, barely holding back a whimper. It was obvious something was very, very wrong.

“Why are they trapped in here? You guys could at least give it something to do,” Caretaker shifted their weight back and forth between each foot.

“Believe me, it has plenty to do all day. These avionoids are easily overstimulated by things such as bright colors and loud noises. We wouldn’t want to risk that,” Parent shook their head. The creature looked at Caretaker with wide, pleading eyes, their bottom lip trembling, looking as if they were about to burst into tears.

“What happened to their wings?” Caretaker asked, not looking away from Whumpee.

“The poor thing is sick out of their mind. It rips out its own feathers. We don’t know why yet, but it looks like some sort of psychotic disorder unique to its own species,” Parent shrugged. “One more reason we have to be careful when attempting to replicate it, we don’t want any of the bad genes ruining our model.” The way they talked made it wound like they meant some car model, not an actual living creature. A creature who was injured and scared.

“Oops- Come on Caretaker, we have to get going now,” Parent released the creature, and motioned them towards the door, their phone buzzing in their pocket.

“Wait, Parent,” Caretaker thought quickly. “Could I stay just a bit longer? It’s so interesting, how it can speak and all of that, I want to study it some more.” They lied.

“We have everything you could ever want to know on hard drive, I’ll show you in my office-“

“I know, but that isn’t the same as actually being with it. You could head back to your office, and I could just stay with it for a bit?”

“I don’t know…” Parent looked back and forth between their phone, and their child. “I suppose so.”

“Thank you,” Caretaker took the remote as Parent handed it to them.

“Press this button if anything happens, you know what it does. The code to both doors is written on the back of the remote for when you want to leave. Don’t stay too long, it’s feeding time is soon. Come back to my office when you’re done,” Parent pulled them in for a quick hug. “I love you kiddo.”

“I love you too, Parent,” Caretaker echoed as Parent tapped in the code, and left the room. Only once the door slid shut, did Caretaker turn back to face the creature, who had returned to its corner.

“Please,” It whimpered. “I- I was good! Good, good! I was really good, pl-please,”

“What?” Caretaker froze.

“Please don’t, I was good,” The creature sniffled, it’s voice trembling.

“Don’t do what?” Caretaker asked, glancing at the remote in their hand.

“Please don’t shock me, please. Please,” The creature tucked it’s head under its wings.

“I- I won’t, I won’t shock you,” Caretaker slid the remote into their pocket, crouching down to the creature’s level. “I promise. Your name’s Whumpee, right?”

The creature peeked out, and shook its head.

“It’s not?”

“Nnn- I mean, yes, yes, yes it is. My name is Whumpee. Whumpee, Whumpee, Whumpee.” It offered a small, obviously forced smile. It’s teeth were oddly shaped, as if they had been sharp, but then filed down.

“What’s your real name?” Caretaker questioned, sitting down. Red flags were going off throughout their mind, something was seriously wrong here.

“I- I don’t know how to say it in your language. I- I’m sorry, please don’t do it.”

“I’m not going to shock you,” Caretaker repeated. “I promise. Can you try to say it?”

“Nn-no, I- I’m not- not, not, not allowed, not allowed.”

“Uh, okay… it okay,” Caretaker mumbled, resisting the urge to reach a hand out to the creature.

Whumpee whimpered, and curled their wings around themself, burying their face in their knees.

“What are they doing to you?” Caretaker whispered.

“Bad things.” Whumpee muttered, as their hands went to their wing, twisting and pulling at a feather until it came loose, letting it drift to the floor. “Bad, bad, bad things.”

They were anxious, that’s why they were pulling out their feathers. They were scared.

~ Don't mess with the Soldier ~

A feral WS from my patreon 🖤

Ko-fi | patreon

Look, I know over the years, Tumblr has rolled out various changes and pointless features that we’ve hated. And we moaned and groaned about many of them for a few days before getting over it and accepting the nonsense. This latest update to the notes feature is not that. 

WE NEED TO PROTEST THIS. WE NEED TO BE LOUD AND FREQUENT ABOUT IT. WE NEED TO FIGHT TO SAVE THE TUMBLR WE LOVE.

Reblog culture and community aren’t just two facets of Tumblr, they are Tumblr. And this new update effectively slaughters them both and kills the Tumblr we love and actually want.

If you don’t understand why this is such a big deal, I urge you to go to the original announcement post and read through the comments and reblogs from your fellow users. See why we are so up in arms about this. 

This new feature is bad in so many ways:

First and foremost, it spits in the face of creators. An original poster will no longer be able to see all of the engagement on their beloved work. If I post a story, and you reblog it to screech at me, and then one of your followers sees it, reads my story and loves it, then reblogs your reblog to screech at me, I WILL NOT GET A NOTIFICATION ON THEIR REBLOG (or the note for it), YOU WILL. So now, creators, who are already experiencing the worst engagement drought in a very long time, are literally having engagement–and credit for their work!!–taken away from them by the very makers of this hellsite. I truly cannot even. It makes creating and sharing anything here literally pointless.

They are killing community, which is the #1 reason why so many of us are here. Those lore posts we all love that wind up on your dash every once in a while with their millions of notes and hilarious add ons? GONE. The ability for OPs to keep track of how their posts move around Tumblr and how folks respond to it? GONE. The basic function of being able to connect with others through reblog culture–the reason why SO MANY OF US ARE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE (AND NOT ON TWITTER OR THE LIKE)–GONNNNE. 

The new user interface is ugly, confusing, and tedious to deal with. Check out this silly chain of posts between myself and a mutual. Look at how it goes on and on and is broken up by a stupid notes tally bar at the bottom of every single reblog, totally disrupting the flow of the chain. It’s stupid, ugly, and just…WHAT ARE STAFF THINKING? HOW IS THIS AN IMPROVEMENT?!?! Not to mention we are now losing the function of aggregated note counts (which so many of us love). As an example, check out this post to see the nonsense firsthand. 

This is an invitation to spread misinformation and harassment. Since reblogs now silo a post into a new post, it means you lose access to how a post may have evolved, such as fact checking or corrections, important updates, links to new information or resources that may have been later added. This is just going to lead to so much more hatred and harassment.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, I’m not a creator, so why should I care?” YOU SHOULD CARE. I assume you’re here because there’s content on Tumblr you enjoy. How long do you think those creators and blogs are going to stick around and continue to create the content you love when they no longer receive engagement or credit for it? When creating and posting is pretty much useless now? 🤡

As a writer myself, I am seriously considering walking away from Tumblr over this. This change makes it POINTLESS to share your work here. Literally. They have killed the core function that so many of us love and that makes this hellsite thrive.

I am begging you to please, please, please protest this change. If you enjoy Tumblr, if there are creators here that you love, content that you love, if you avoid all other social media but Tumblr is your vibe–SAVE THE VIBE!

Here are some practical actions you can take to fight back against this insidious change: 

Comment and reblog with your feedback on the original announcement post AND the Changes reblog. Be sure to tag @/staff @/tumblr @/changes (minus the slashes). Bombard their notifications, make them hear you. Supposedly the Changes reblog is the post staff is monitoring and “responding to” although I have yet to see any replies. BE SURE YOU ARE ENGAGING ON THOSE SPECIFIC POSTS. DUE TO THIS NEW DUMBASS CHANGE, THEY WILL ONLY RECEIVE NOTIFICATIONS AND SEE YOUR COMMENT/REBLOG IF YOU INTERACT ON THOSE POSTS, NOT SOMEONE ELSE’S REBLOG OF THEM. Also, if you have the time and bandwidth, hit them multiple times a day, don’t stop. (I have some copy below you can use if you struggle with what to write. As a writer, this is the only time I will ever condone and actively encourage others to use my words as their own.)

If you have Tumblr Premium or some other paid subscription, cancel it immediately, and then comment on the two posts linked above, tag all the staff accounts, and tell them you canceled due to this change. We need to hit them where it hurts, and money speaks louder than anything else (unfortunately). 

Go to your device’s app store and leave a 1-star rating and review telling folks that this update, which is effectively killing Tumblr, is why you are giving them one star.

Send asks to the staff accounts to protest this change, again, we need to blow up their notifications and bombard them with the consequences of this stupid ass change that no one asked for and no one wants. Just copy/paste whatever original comment/reblog you used. Make this as simple for yourself as possible. I believe it’s volume, more than the actual messages, that matter most right now.

Vote on this poll while you’re at it to boost the numbers and show staff data they can’t ignore.

(I left out sending a Feedback help ticket submission because staff are not reading or responding to them, and the auto-email response just redirects you to the Changes reblog to share your feedback.)

Sample comment/reblog copy you can use: 

Please roll back the new notes change. This update destroys the reblog culture and Tumblr community that we love. It harms and disincentivizes the very creators you claim to support, the creators who are the backbone of this site. If they no longer receive engagement and credit for their original work, what is the point of posting and being here at all? Not to mention the new UI is confusing, ugly, and not user friendly in the least. It is a HUGE step back in functionality and actually stifles engagement and connection, which is the whole point of being here. We don’t want Tumblr to be like other social media platforms, we want it to be Tumblr. Please listen to your user base and roll back this update, otherwise, you are effectively killing your own community and website, and it’s a very sad day for us all.

If you’ve read this far, you’re a real one, and I love you ❤️ I can only hope that together we can fight to protect the Tumblr we love, and that staff will admit they made a mistake and roll back this nonsense. 

Tagging some folks to try to get the word out...

The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve. 

Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.

If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.

Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.

As this rolls out over the next few days and you explore it, we’ll keep reading your replies and reblogs, so please keep sharing your questions, concerns, and ideas.

Your creativity has always been the heart of Tumblr, whether you’re the original poster or adding something brilliant in the reblogs, and nothing about this change is meant to limit that.