Hello! Call me Sage! I go by they/them pronouns, and am in my late 20s! I've been lurking for a good long while, and have been promising an intro post for a looong time (what do you mean 2023 was 2 years ago?!), so here it is!
You'll find this blog as a sort of a repository of reblogged whump tropes and prompts, as well as my writing! You can find all the tracked tags I have on this blog tagged to this post for ease of navigation 😊 This is also a sideblog, so you'll see any likes or follows coming from @digitalcactusblog instead of this blog!
I have a wide range of likes when it comes to whump, though I strongly prefer whumperless whump to having a whumper! I do dabble on occasion, though, especially in certain AUs for my OCs. And boy, do I have a lot of AUs.
As far as favourite whump tropes go, I love characters fainting/collapsing, the "hidden injury" trope, and so so much the "moment of awakening" trope—when a whumpee finally wakes up from unconsciousness and is super out of it. And, of course, more, but we can't be here all day 😂 I generally write/reblog a pretty wide variety of stuff!
My inbox is always open if you want to hit me with an ask/message! I'm always down to chat 😊
OC details and writing masterlist under the cut:
OC List:
Shaoyuan Nie (he/him): Introduction here!
Shaoquan Nie (any pronouns): Twin sibling to Shaoyuan, and the Abel to his Cain. A silvertongue smooth-talker with a careful eye for detail, and such a sharp insight into the thoughts of others that you'd think they're able to read minds (and in some AUs they do). They much prefer words over weapons, though one could say that words are their weapons, and they're a master of using them to devastating effect. They strongly believe that violence is unnecessary, and murder even more so.
Aristides de Silva (he/him): A mafia leader that inherited a dying empire from his father, who is determined to build it up to something worth inheriting. An enigmatic man whose mind seems to work in inscrutable ways, even to the ones who know him best. If life is a game of chess, then at any given moment, Aristides is thinking ten steps of the people around him. Catching him by surprise is a difficult task; he always seems to know more than he ought to. In most AUs, he's the father of three young children: his son, Demophon, and twin daughters, Delfina and Desideria.
Celestinus Cheng (he/him): A doctor who was born an outsider to the criminal underworld, but was pulled in after associations with Aristides. Since then, he's become Aristides' trusted right hand and advisor, as well as the de facto medical professional for members of his gang. Despite his constant air of exasperated frustration, his bark is far worse than his bite, and his heart is too big for his own good. No matter ally or enemy, he can't stand to watch and do nothing when someone is suffering or hurt.
Anne (she/her): An independent arcane researcher, and a member of the circle of "angels" that have descended to bestow magic upon the humans in Hell Is Another Word For Home. With her cheerfully heartless demeanour, however, one might be forgiven for thinking of her as a demon. Her first and only love is her research, to which her heart belongs—but, she has a special place in her heart for those who inspire her curiosity.
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Writing Masterpost (by AU):
Mafia AU: A cold-hearted assassin who killed his entire family. An ambitious mafia leader, looking to expand his enterprise. A civilian doctor, saddled with keeping these two chucklefucks alive.
When Aristides secretly buys out Shaoyuan's contract from the management agency that owns him, Celestinus isn't too convinced that this traitorous assassin, who has wiped out two whole "family businesses," can be trusted. Through time, effort, and the judicious application of precise headshots, he finds otherwise.
Whump Tropes: Living weapon whumpee, exasperated caretaker, hidden/downplayed injury, [more to be added].
Characters: Shaoyuan, Celestinus, Aristides.
Relationships: Shaoyuan/Celestinus/Aristides
Intro: Aristides and Shaoyuan
Warming To Your Resident Murderer: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, tbc
Whumperless Whump Event 2024: Day 1, Day 11
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Hell Is Another Word For Home: After Shaoyuan is caught for helping his siblings escape a sisyphean hell that turns children into human weapons, all attempts to execute him for this crime are stymied by the discovery that he is a Saint—a human weapon that has attained the pinnacle of magical mastery and become immortal as a result. So what do you do with a criminal you can't kill? Why, you use him as the subject for experiments that would kill a normal man, of course.
That slight shift of the eyelids, the tiny flutter of the lashes and the furrowing crease of the eyebrows as the whumpee regains consciousness and the pain starts to set in.
Give me the collective panic when the whumpee voluntarily sleeps...
Maybe they're inhuman, or maybe they just have a sleep schedule so bad that the caretakers are convinced the whumpee just... doesn't sleep. Either way, when the whumpee is still in bed/passed out on the couch beyond their normal waking time, the caretakers start to worry.
caretaker comes to whumper's house, a small first-aid kit hanging off their shoulder. "where are they?"
whumper gestures to a side room and caretaker goes in wordlessly. they flip the light on and set their bag down on the floor before kneeling next to whumpee.
"i'm here to fix you up, not to hurt you. i'm sorry this has happened to you, but there's nothing i can do to stop it. let me know if i need to stop, i'll be going quick."
"who are you?" whumpee asks. "please help me."
"i'm sorry, there's nothing i can do, truly." caretaker says, looking over their shoulder to see whumper standing in the doorway.
someone on my “consider letting characters be disabled after they have all their bones broken” post just commented “have you considered that people are having fun?”
im in tears. im in real tears. dont you realise who you’re talking to? im a mean cripple and in my kingdom, fun will be banned and every fictional character will be FORCED to be disabled.
A character holding another all through a painful or distressing wound tending, not so much restraining or holding them down as embracing them and soothing them through the procedure, the hold supportive but more tenderly personal than merely positioning them for access to their injuries.
A character is having heated words with another, getting increasingly agitated, until their ill or injured companion reaches weakly for them from where they're lying, whereupon the angry character abandons the escalating fight and switches demeanour entirely, no argument more important than not distressing their companion further, as they catch up the feeble hand in both of theirs and hurriedly obey the summons to reassure them.
An ill or injured character is lagging farther and farther behind the group they're part of as their strength wanes so that when they do try to reach out for help and then finally collapse nobody else is aware until quite a ways on when they glance back and see a crumpled figure on the ground in their wake.
more characters with psychic powers who get migraines and seizures after they use them. i wanna see someone kill a bunch of ppl with their mind and then lay in a dark room vomiting for two days
Passing an injured or ill character from one companion to another- the first companion has the character resting in their lap or leaning against their side or propped against their chest and they carefully shift them to transition them to the other companion, who slides into place and settles the ill or injured character back into the same position in their own hold, being careful to move the character as little as possible in the process.
Magical healing and potions with a touch of realism can maintain world building while making space for whump and more satisfying/meaningful injury recovery/resource use. So, some ideas for that:
Healing potions that speed up the natural healing process, but require the same energy expenditure from the person being healed (if not more energy) relative to healing naturally. This can look like pulling someone back from the brink of death, but at the cost of weeks of mental and physical exhaustion or extensive sleeping. Muscle weakness or pain that lingers even after the physical damage is repaired.
Healing with a high metabolic cost, making the person incredibly hungry and need way more food than normal. If they can't eat enough to compensate, they lose weight proportionally.
Healing that can mend tissues (broken skin or bones knit back together) but not restore blood volume or reverse other types of trauma (like head injuries).
Energy or stamina potions that have a similar metabolic cost, acting more like an adrenaline rush that blinds the body to pain temporarily but can easily result in overexertion. Maybe it borrows the energy from the future too, so that when the character crashes, it's twice or three times as hard as they would have crashed had they not taken the potion.
Magical healing that takes a toll on the caster, beyond just expending their magic. Referred pain taken on by the healer, bone deep aches that nothing but time can relieve, physical stress and strain, feeling too hot or too cold (symptoms similar to heat stress or other conditions resulting from extreme physical exhaustion), fever, needing to sleep or eat more, weight loss, tiring faster in other activities, elevated heart rate, headache, dizziness, etc.
Potions that have a level of toxicity to them. You get the desired effect, sure, but the plants needed to make it are very slightly toxic. There are strict dosing guidelines to avoid negative effects, but side effects can range from nausea and headache at low doses to full on poisoning (vomiting, passing out, tachycardia, and even death). Different potions have different toxicity levels and tolerated doses.
How long a potion's effects last, how intense it is, how effective, etc can all be influenced by a person's body size and metabolic rate (among other factors), just like modern medicine.
Potions can be diluted by adding water, or strengthened by steaming off some of the water already in it, to various effects. They can also spoil or be ruined by some conditions (heating or cooling past a specific temperature, expiry date, etc).
Different application methods--drinking a potion vs injecting into muscle or into the blood stream vs applying it on a cloth or mixing with gelatin/other ingredients to form a salve or lotion.
Potions that are healing on their own but become toxic if taken together.
Potions that function like modern pain medication--relieving the pain, but at the cost of numbness, fatigue/drowsiness, or altered consciousness.
Magic restoration potions that allow more magic use, but slow natural magic regeneration for a few hours, and may have side effects like a low grade stimulant (feeling jittery or wired, dizziness, nausea, etc). May feel unsatisfying and the magic restored may feel different (less potent? More artificial?) compared to the person's naturally present magic. Maybe it's enough to delay or lessen symptoms of magic depletion, but still leaves them feeling ill or "off" somehow.
not to just post the thirteen most stressful seconds of the movie out of context but I really like the vocal performance here, the shrieks and breathing getting a wheezy sharp quality makes it sound really authentically panicked
