Listen, I'm shy but I have Interests 👀 In my thirties, she/they, Canada. Mind the tags; I will very occasionally post NSFW content. Likes and follows from gearbee. Unlikely to participate in tag games but I do appreciate the thought.
Peter and Joy: An unfortunate soul and his hard-working nurse. Slightly dodgy medical-flavoured whump.
Blood pressure check
Wash your mouth out
(they'll get their own post when I write another installment. 3 is the magic number.)
Sink or Swim: Collaboratively written with @distinctlywhumpthing . Box boy adjacent, a whumper tries to break into the field of pet whump with a bold new direction.
Unbidden: A long story, less whump heavy, fantasy setting (the world of Sanctuary - loosely a Diablo 2 fanfic). Individual chapter warnings, as far as big warnings go it contains torture and suicidal ideation/intent, and not a great deal of comfort until the epilogue.
whumpees who don't get soft comfort after horrors. who have to wash away the blood themselves and bandage their own wounds and then clean up the mess after. all by themselves. they're not being hurt, but god, it'd be so nice if there was just someone to help with this part. but there isn't, and there won't be. so they do it alone. tired and aching and alone.
As in effective stabbing, I mean stabbing then twisting it inside before you pull it back out. And I aim to infodump on that.
/The Physics of the Twist
When a knife goes in, it pushes tissue fibres aside more than it actually slices them. When you twist it, the blade edge rotates through tissues that were only displaced, not cut, effectively sawing them open. Multiple tissue planes and muscle fibres will get shredded at different angles, and the wound channel will widen. Think “circular” instead of “slit.”
/The Biological Consequences
A straight stab can miss major vessels if the attacker’s unlucky. But adding a twist, there is a higher chance of hitting or partially severing arteries/veins you just barely missed. The jagged, irregular wound edge stops the muscle fibres from clamping down to slow blood loss.
If it’s in the chest or abdomen, twisting can tear through organ capsules (liver, spleen, kidneys). These are bleeding nightmares. It can also increase the risk of multiple organs being punctured in the same wound path. In the chest, the twist can create a bigger hole for air to enter, causing tension pneumothorax (lung collapse + heart squeeze).
Blood loss + pain + psychological trauma = hypovolemic shock will happen much faster. Because the wound is irregular, blood pools internally in messy pockets, making control harder.
/Extraction Bonus Damage
Pulling it out after a twist will cause the rough, jagged exit path to tear the tissues again. If the knife has serrations, say goodbye to smooth tissue edges. It’s like dragging a rake through raw meat. If it’s in the gut, organs can prolapse through the widened wound.
/Survivability
Without immediate advanced medical care? Low.
With rapid intervention? Depends on the location (chest and abdomen = worst prognosis), size of blade, and how much twisting was done and whether major vessels were hit, since more twisting = more contamination risk (gut bacteria spilling into abdominal cavity → peritonitis).
and here's some information of each body parts' fate after the twist:
1. Neck
The neck is basically a bundle of life-support hoses with zero protective bone covering most of it.
Carotid artery / jugular vein damage: Twisting here turns a possible nick into a full sever. You will get high-pressure arterial spray or massive venous pooling in seconds. Loss of consciousness can happen in under 10 seconds.
Trachea/larynx: Twist slices cartilage rings like snapping a straw. Air escapes into tissues (subcutaneous emphysema), causing swelling and choking.
Spinal cord risk: Deep posterior twist = instant paralysis or death.
This is the fastest route to kill without touching the brain :D
2. Chest
The thoracic cavity is tight, so any hole here messes with both lungs and heart by pressure change.
Heart: Straight stab might pierce myocardium, bleeding into pericardial sac (cardiac tamponade). Twist enlarges the hole, making tamponade happen faster and harder to treat.
Lungs: Twisting creates ragged lung tears, causing them to leak air and blood, collapsing both sides.
Major vessels (aorta, pulmonary arteries): Even partial damage turns into full rupture from twist torque. With the twist, you can turn a survivable pneumothorax into a “blood fountain in the chest” situation in seconds.
3. Abdomen
It’s like stabbing into a bag of soft, fluid-filled organs.
Liver & spleen: High blood supply + soft tissue. Twisting here means massive, uncontrollable haemorrhage.
Intestines: Twist opens loops so gut contents will spill into peritoneal cavity, causing peritonitis in hours.
Stomach: Similar contamination risk, but with added digestive enzymes chewing through tissues.
Abdominal twist wounds often look stable for a few hours, but the patient dies from sepsis or hidden internal bleeding later.
4. Back
You’ve got kidneys, spine, and big vessels hiding there.
Kidneys: Rich blood flow + fragile. Twisting shreds them into pulp. The blood loss will be massive and urine will be filled up with blood (haematuria) instantly.
Spinal cord: A twist can completely sever nerve roots, causing permanent paralysis.
Aorta/vena cava: Located behind the intestines, but twist in deep enough, and you’ve just cut the body’s main pipeline.
5. Extremities
Not instantly lethal unless you hit major vessels, but twisting increases odds of severing arteries such as femoral, brachial (this takes minutes to bleed out) and shredding muscles/tendons so limbs lose function even if you survive.
Fastest death: Neck twist into carotid or chest twist into heart.
Most painful prolonged death: Abdomen twist with gut rupture → sepsis over days.
Messiest scene: Chest twist hitting lungs (blood froth everywhere).
Most disabling: Back twist severing spinal cord.
Big fan of the trope of using healing magic as part of torture, inflicting way more pain than could be surivable without healing some of the worst of it every now and then
A character managing to keep it together in the moment whilst treating an injured/wounded companion but falling to absolute bits as soon as it's over, completely going to pieces over the pent-up emotion and what-ifs and delayed reaction of it all.
Whumpee so injured that they can’t get up from the ground. Trying to make it on their feet and staggering side to side. Slamming into the wall with a groan, holding their injuries. Trying to slide toward an exit but ultimately stumbling over their increasingly heavy feet.
Hitting the ground with a hiss. They stare up the ceiling panting, trying to catch their breath. The room spins and the pain becomes too much, before they’re called to darkness.
[Image descriptions in order: a post by a bot named @/kreophagos, which says "the hands that cradled your face and tilted it upwards to kiss your forehead are soaked in unfathomable quantities of blood."]
[There is a question asked by a user named A, which says "But they cradled me, yes?"]
so interesting to hear a whump blog be disinterested towards Woobies! ive always considered them to be kind of the same thing as whumpees? im curious what the distinction is for you if you mind sharing!
A whumpee is just the thing people call their main character/the one getting injured or sick or otherwise hurt.
a Woobie is a sad cinnabun too sweet for this world who has big eyes and is usually White and waifish and slim and pretty/good looking, in a sexy-cute way or a childlike way- it is essential they have all the tropes that show them to "deserve" audience sympathy.
They're also good at being a Sweet Victim, ie not complaining, selfless, martyr complex, "Oh I'm not important!!" often self loathing, bursting into tears a lot. They tend to have no personality beyond being sweet, quirky, cute and maybe a little feisty but in the end always submissive. Common in Pet Whump- usually grovels a lot and begs to be punished. See Wall-E, a LOT of anime Healer characters.
None of all these things are morally Bad or Good or Wrong or Right, it's just a Type Which Exists.
A lot of people find these characters super useful for comfort fantasy and self projection and just writing something where the Sad One gets scooped up and praised and comforted by infinitely patient caregivers. If you think for a while you can see why a lot of people might enjoy that narrative- I didn't get it at first, but I asked around and that's the gist of it in Whump a lot of the time.
For myself, personally: When an author hands me a Woobie and says "Here you have to love this because it's obviously the one you SHOULD feel bad for" I have a kneejerk reaction: "Why does it have to be the Pwetty Uwu one? Why does it need to have big sad eyes and very little character beyond Punish Me Master Pwease?"
I gravitate toward the ones the usual narratives leave behind. The Oldest Child type, the Tough one, the Bruiser, the Tank, The neglected and ignored because they're NOT sweet or cute or pretty or "deserving" or even adorable or sweet.
This probably tells you more about my psyche than you want to know, but frankly it's in everything I write so I ain't pretending I can hide it.
(Now watch someone send me hatemail for "saying woobies are bad" because this IS the "How DARE you say we piss on the poor" website.)
"pain - suffering it, or inflicting it - is the only thing any of us in this world get any choice in" is a fun mentality to give a character that definitely won't have any consequences for them or the narrative whatsoever. try it out sometime.
