ranking the best things I have heard surgeons say mid-surgery:
1. "Five second rule!" while scrubbed, after dropping a sterile scalpel on the floor (no they did NOT pick it up again but I swear everyone's buttholes puckered)
2. (spoken during the closing of a particularly long and difficult case) "Nurse - my tunes." :heavy metal starts blasting:
3. Gently to a fretful patient, pre-anaesthesia: "It's going to be okay. I promise, I've dealt with worse."
As soon as the patient is unconscious: "This is literally the worst thing I've ever seen."
4. [okay this one was a med student] "Wowwww, that's so gross!!"
Reg: "Please remember that [patient] is awake for this procedure."
Student to patient: "Oh my god. I am so sorry, that was really unprofessional - "
Patient, cheerfully, also engrossed with what's happening inside them on the screen: "Nah - it's, like, super gross, right?"
5. [another procedure where the patient couldn't be put under GA] Patient: *starts singing country roads midway through the procedure*
Surgeon: *shrugs and joins in with surprisingly good harmony*
Synopsis: Leo’s life is turned upside down when he sees his boss getting murdered. What’s worse, was that he witnessed the mercenary behind the hit taking off his mask, and saw his face. Leo promises not to go to the police with his identity, but the mercenary decides it’s not worth letting him go.
General content and warnings: multiple whumpers, whumper is also caretaker, intimate whumper, kidnapping, captivity, torture, depictions of violence, minor character deaths, stockholm syndrome, manipulation, nsfw themes but nothing explicit
@avvail-tales for new content!
Main Story (Completed)
Behind the Mask
Brass Family
Clean Break
Carving a Claim
The Detective
Glass Shards
Shocked to the Core
Compromises
House Rules
Sit, Stay, Roll Over
Escape Plan
Pretty Lips
Lashes
Obedience
Target Practice
Open Arms
Parting Ways
Entertainment
Pinned Like a Bug
Hell House
End of the Line
Appoggiatura
The Little Duckling
Wants and Desires
Chaconne
Great Escape
Square One
Uncharted Territory
Twenty Minutes
Bedsheets
Heated
Step Closer
No Escape
Unwanted Rescue
Interrogation
Last Chance
Forty-Eight Hours
The Finale
Alternative Endings/Universes:
💸 Money Solves Everything
🩸 Fangs (Vampire AU)
🧚♂️ Trickery (Fae AU)
💌 Horns & Tails (Incubus AU)
🌲 Capture Recapture (Reverse AU)
⭐ Bathtubs (Gender Swap AU)
Requests:
Roy’s POV
Shopping & Shock Collars
Picked Up By a New Whumper
Leo Has a Nightmare
BTHB: On a Leash
BTHB: Homesickness
Roy Using Leo As a Lure
BTHB: Can Only Move the Eyes
⭐ Fem!Leo Starts Her Period (Male Roy)
Roy Gets Sick and Leo Takes Care Of Him
The Aftermath of Leo Leaving From His Father’s POV
Leo and Roy Talk About Rafi
💸 Hair Dye
Asks and Answers
Extra:
Ask Game Tag
NSFW Discussion Tag
Tags That Make Me Laugh
Questions:
Pet Names
Update Schedule
Roy’s Childhood
What Does This Terrible Chef Even Eat?
Chapter 28
Punishments
Music
Roy’s Reaction to Potential Suicide
Post Story:
Future Life
Leo’s Mental Health
Do They Really Love Each Other?
Main Tag List – @unorganisedalienrubbish @d-cs @rabidrabidme @sordayciega @burningkittypoet @whumpawink @mannerofwhump @suspicious-whumping-egg @welcome-to-the-whumpfest @whatwasmyprevioususername @crilex29 @firefly017 @dutifullykrispyland @wibbly-wobbly-whump @there-will-always-be-blood @anonintrovert @justawhumpjunkie @whumptastic-world @ha-ha-one @whatwhumpcomments @whumpterful-beeeeee @anonymous1235 @sonder35 @unforgiven235 @whumpasaurus101 @mj-or-say10 @professional-idiocy @seaweed-is-cool @theelvishcowgirl @atomicsandwichprince @sunshiline-writes @peasandpotatos @pirefyrelight @enigmawritesstuff @reverie1234 @obsessedsplicer505 @mithras-energy @morning-star-whump (the main story is now complete)
Almost all of these are about variety. Humans need stimulation! We need enrichment! We literally cannot do the same thing every day!
The other day I was feeling miserable, so I hopped on a bus and rode it all the way back to where I’d started, and my brain, which had finally had some proper stimulation via new environments, was suddenly ready to go again!
This is why taking walks/drives and trying new hobbies are good for you! Don’t turn yourself into a sad zoo animal! You need some pumpkins to roll around in your enclosure!
okay but do you ever think about the inherit twisted intimacy of torture?
two people spending hours together, lost in the same process. fingers on your skin. the only voice you hear for days on end. the only presence you know. the closeness of having your skin be torn apart under their fingers. having another understand perfectly just how much pain you're in. having to rely on them to treat your wounds, being you water and food so you survive and heal. cry before them, break and have your every emotion on display. having them turn into your whole world.
do you get it?
and then -- the way the torturer can use it as another tool.
torture that leans into intimacy. hands stroking your hair as your warm blood pours out of you. soft whispers urging you to stay awake when the pain is overwhelming. strong arms holding you as you cry, those same arms holding you down as you thrush from agony. suddenly gentle fingers pulling your skin back together because you need to heal before you can take more. having your begging be answered with words of comfort that don't stop the torture. waking up to their gentle smile before the pain begins anew. hearing your name on their lips. taking all the comfort from someone who hurts you, because that's the only comfort you'd ever get.
or -- torture that is clinically, intentionally devoid of intimacy. no questions, no words spoken. the only touch you feel is that of the blade and the thick gloves. not being allowed to see their face. knowing no matter how much you beg not a single word of yours will be acknowledged. never being addressed until you forget that you're still a person. being trapped in a hell with not an ounce of comfort. isolation while still seeing someone daily.
or -- a torturer that combines the two. that goes from all the intimacy to none if you do something wrong or if their mood changes. they come in in gloves and you cry and beg to be acknowledged. constant anxiety from not knowing what kind of day it'd be. getting used to their hands closing your wounds before they're gone. breaking down and trying to do your best to fix whatever mistake you've made to have it back. getting used to no skin contact until they take off the gloves. flinching away from touch as if it burns only to immediately lean in. twisted gratitude when they hug you. always fearing losing what little comfort they give you.
Content: reluctant caretaker, bad caretaker?, stern caretaker, whumperless whump, mentioned bruises, homelessness, referenced risk of death, past relationship (whumpee x caretaker).
It was so dark that Whumpee tripped twice climbing the stairs. So cold that they couldn't even feel their hands as they blindly reached for the broken handrail.
This was a terrible idea, but the only one available. Whumpee couldn't sleep in the streets again tonight, they're sure they'll freeze to death.
Which leaves them to knock on Caretaker's door.
Reserving any warmth they could, Whumpee hugs themselves and rub his numbed arms. When the door opens, Whumpee has to squint their eyes to the light from inside.
Even with half-open eyes, they could see Caretaker wasn't much different from the last time they saw each other. The years were kinder to him than to Whumpee, perhaps because Caretaker actually had a home and food available to him.
"Please don't shut the door," Whumpee whispers. This was their only hope, they needed Caretaker to at least listen to them.
It takes a few, tense seconds before Caretaker's shock darkens into an aggrieved scowl. "What the fuck are you doing here? After all these years, you think you can just appear-!"
"I have nowhere else to go!" Sounded more desperate than they meant to, but it did the trick. Caretaker takes half a second of hesitance to look at their clothing, their bruises, their meagerness.
Whumpee just needed that brief glimpse of hesitance.
"I know how... this ended. I'm not asking for a second chance or-" A wave of cold wind makes them shudder and hold back a pained whine as their bruised muscles tighten. "Just... I just need a night. I can sleep anywhere inside, I'll be out of your hair by early morning- Just... Just the night, Caretaker. Please. I don't have anywhere warm to stay."
It was a small change, just a gleam of reluctant concern Whumpee had gotten used to in the final weeks of their relationship, if it could be called that. But it was enough for them to let out a relieved sigh, knowing they were safe for the night in a warm place to sleep.
The door opens wider, and Whumpee sees that, despite Caretaker not have changed much, the house was completely unrecognizable to them now. "Are you living on the streets?"
Always direct to the point, the insensitive shit. But the familiar concern deep into the tone did a weird thing to Whumpee's stomach as they stepped inside and shuddered because of the warmth.
"... I guess you know the answer already," Whumpee mumbles, looking around. "You... changed the things around here."
"You were gone for five years," the door clicks shut quietly as always. Whumpee hears Caretaker leaning against the wooden wall. "A lot changed." Not only the house.
Whumpee turns to Caretaker, but can't hold his gaze. Not that Caretaker was looking them in the eyes, either. His silent gaze was in Whumpee's bruises.
"... Can I use the couch for tonight?" They say, instead of addressing the elephant in the room.
Caretaker's scowl turns darker, and for a second they just stand in silence. "Only after you shower. You're not dirtying my couch," Caretaker says at last, pushing away from the wall and walking towards the bedroom.
"I don't have other clothes with me," Whumpee tried to interrupt. "Can I just have a blanket to put on the ground? It'll be easy to clean-" Now it's their turn to be interrupted, by a shirt thrown in their face.
"You're thinner, but my clothes should still fit you." Caretaker throws an underwear and pants at Whumpee before picking up a heavy blanket. "What you're waiting for? Go shower."
Whumpee had to breathe away a sharp, loaded feeling that spread their chest at the idea to use Caretaker's clothes again.
They remembered the way to the bathroom. It changed as much as the rest of the house, but Whumpee still felt like crying at how familiar it still felt.
Once they stripped off the rags they were using for clothes and looked down at their battered body, Whumpee could hear the fireplace being lightened up and the couch being moved closer to it.
The tears struck harder than Whumpee could foresee.
They missed home.
They missed Caretaker.
They didn't know how to find the strength to leave in the morning.
Looking out of people’s windows is such a peaceful way of travelling… I got a snowfall in Argentina, a nice sea view in Ukraine, a clothes line in the fog in Bangalore. Antonella from Tavernaro, I like your wooden bird.
If you are a USAmerican in a relationship that might be affected by legislation that dissolves same-sex marriages, who may no longer be recognized as next-of-kin, especially if you have children, get your rights in writing!
Your marriage certificate may not be enough to prove you have rights to make medical decisions for non-biological children or for a same-sex spouse or partner.
Go to a lawyer, get it spelled out as clearly as possible that you have a voice in emergency medical and legal situations.
For those of us who aren’t lawyers or well-versed in law generally, can someone clarify what kind of document, by name, people should be drafting with their lawyers? Is it a type of letter, or is there a name for this classification of document? I’m aware that it probably varies by US state, but a lot of people are likely feeling extremely lost right now and don’t know where to start on this. I definitely don’t. I live in a state that isn’t likely to nullify existing marriages or prevent new ones from taking place, but who knows what they’re going to try at the national level and enforce from the top down.
Power of Attorney should cover most partners and spouses to ensure that they will be making each other's health care decisions in cases of serious illness. LGBTQ+ spouses and domestic partners must execute proper Health Care Power of Attorney documents listing each other as the highest priority agents for making each other's health care decisions in case of incapacity.
Consider writing or updating your wills, also. If you can, do so with an elder law or estate attorney. Sign them with witnesses and with a notary. The last thing you want is to lose everything to probate because your marriage "doesn't count" anymore, and so you have no rights to your partner's assets -- including real estate, if you aren't both listed on the deed.
Also, a very important note: Regular Power of Attorney and Healthcare Power of Attorney are different! Not all states consider them equivalent. Healthcare POA lets you make medical decisions and be proxy for someone else. A regular POA ("Durable" or "Financial" Power of Attorney) is often more about financial decisions, life decisions, standing in as signatory, and other things of that nature. In NY, for example, a regular Power of Attorney does not count for medical decisions.
I was trying to articulate why I like "bad characters", and bitter realism is definitely a reason there, but I was also walking around a much more complicated and also trauma dump-y reason. But fuck it, why not indulge my habit of oversharing on this site, right?
I was, for a period of time that wasn't even that long ago, a kinda Caretaker. And I was bad at it.
It was all honestly kinda whumpy in retrospect.
Whumpee appeared in my life one day, wishing to escape an awful situation and having nowhere to go, so of course I let her in. She was obviously traumatized, and I had enough experience with it to know what was going on, and I tried my hardest to help.
A lot of stuff happened. Holding her bleeding body after she lost consciousness in my bathroom? Check. Having her startle and and stare at me in uncomprehending horror when I did such strange things for her like buy her favorite candies? Check. Spending hours and hours hugging and comforting her through another nightmare, another panic attack, another episode of not being able to move? Check. Holding her hand as she went to a therapist, encouraging trying but allowing her to back down when she ultimately thought she didn't want that? Check. Check check check check. She told some of the wildest stories I've heard before or after. With how some of them went, being a mess of trauma and coping mechanisms was completely understandable.
I tried. My absolute damn hardest. To be the kind of person I wished was there for me: to be steady and calm, supportive no matter what, give her whatever comfort and help I could, never flinching when it crossed my boundaries, because I wanted to help, right? I wanted what was best for her. She deserved so much better, and she didn't have anybody else to turn to, how could I say no?
(tw sexual assault until the end of this paragraph. One of the ways that helped her feel loved and safe was physical contact. I am bad at it. I don't like being touched. But she wanted it, and so I gave it to her, hours of dissociating and waiting for it to end because I wanted to help her. With the need for physical contact came the desire for sex. One day, she touched me and hinted at doing sex (it wasn't the first time) and I fell apart, unable to stop crying for a whole dozen minutes, shaking and wanting nothing more than for everything to stop. I calmed down, and she asked if I was okay, and I answered that sure. She told me it made her feel bad that I didn't want to have sex with her. I didn't want her to feel bad. I gave in. It wasn't the only time, as you can imagine. I was trying to help her -- in whatever way that came.)
Either way. It lasted for about a year. Her health did get better -- no more collapsing on my bathroom floor or being incapable of moving for long stretches of time. She was often exhausted and always brittle, and I tried my damn hardest to never show any frustration, any anger. Healing is hard and recovery isn't linear and it's gonna hurt before it gets better. I knew that from experience. My last suicide attempt was less than a month before she moved in.
I couldn't hide that I was, too, exhausted beyond reason most of the time. Most of my waking time, my every thought was dedicated to trying to figure out what was best for her. Give her time and attention and love, and then swallow back my own triggers when she pulled away because I worded something wrong. Give her my everything, and refuse to acknowledge it was taking a toll on me, because that one time I brought it up she burst into tears and refused to talk to me in fear of being too much. I was trying to help her. I was really, really trying.
I needed a break, and the summer break was coming, and I was expected to come to my hometown and take care of my little brother and my overworked mother for a bit. I told... Whumpee: "I was going to see my family for a bit." I invited her to come with me and promised to visit her in just a couple of weeks. I left her the keys for our shared flat and my credit card in case she needed money.
Two weeks in, she wrote to me that she'd talked to her family (the awful situation she was running away from in the beginning). They told her I was abusive, holding her back and limiting her, and who knows. Maybe I was. I didn't know how to navigate any of that, and I tried to talk her out of continuing with that job she took that threw her back to the whole nose bleeding to the point of dizziness and near collapsing. I didn't want her to hurt herself (kinda because I didn't want to deal with the consequences, because I already felt like I was spread way too thin, trying to care in any way I could), and that was limiting. Maybe I should have let her do whatever she wanted. Just be a safe space for her to return to? I tried to be that, genuinely, but apparently I failed.
Whatever. I don't think I was ever cut out to be a caretaker.
She told me in that message: the fact that I called my mother and brother "family" meant she wasn't my family. Meant I didn't love her. I promised I did, and reminded I was coming home to her soon. Just another week?
By the end of the week she told me she never wanted to see me again. Her right. I didn't try to stop her: it was her decision. I was trying damn hardest to let her decide things and respect these decisions. If being with me sucked and she wanted out, I was damn sure going to respect that. In the beginning, she wanted me to promise I'd never leave her, and I did promise that, ignoring my every reluctance to say the words like "love" or "forever", letting her in and working my best to stump out any of my trauma reactions that would have made me push her away. She promised to stay, too, but that was okay. She was obviously allowed to change her mind. I almost started to believe those nice words she wanted to hear from me, but I knew a forever was a silly fantasy. It was okay. I wanted what was best for her.
I told her that, and by the time I came home our shared flat was empty. It was dirty, too: dishes left in the sink, fridge turned off for some reason, with piles of rotting food inside. That was something to fixate on, the frustration of having to clean up mold instead of the pain of the fact that I had failed and was never going to see her again.
I've never talked to her again. I wanted to. But she told me in no uncertain terms that I was an abusive asshole holding her back, and I didn't want to distress her by reminding her of my existence. If that was so bad, it's for the best if I don't remind her.
As far as I know she's alive. I hope that she's doing better now. I don't know if she does, but I sure damn hope that she found something that works better for her. I was sure not that. Not enough.
But either way. Undoubtedly good caretakers that only want the best and somehow never fail make feel uncomfortable. Guilty, I suppose? They annoy me both because I never had such a person in my life, and because I failed to be such a person. Seeing a character unflinchingly take the burden of the other's whole existence and then manage it, somehow, makes me feel like even more of a failure than I already do. If they can do it, surely I should have tried harder? Be less selfish? More considerate? Less broken, in my own way? Give her more space to make her own decisions, and help her deal with the consequences whatever those were. I don't know what I could have done differently or better, but surely there had to be something. Surely.
I had panic attacks about that for half a year afterwards. Arguably, I had a near panic state just the other week, because of that experience and other fun experiences of my life that are definitely not trauma, nuh-huh. Just thinking about it -- about being required to give my all to someone, again, to push away every emotion, every discomfort, every desire to cry and ask to be left alone, or cry and beg to stop her from leaving. I felt trapped, many times. Letting her hug me when I didn't want to be touched, staring at the ceiling and waiting for it to be over. Desperate for it to be over, sometimes. It sucks that it was like that. She deserved someone who truly wanted her in every way, not the tired facsimile of care.
It took a toll and I wish it hadn't, and I wish I could be better at pretending it hadn't, and I wish I could have been satisfied with making her my entire world (she hated it, when I spent time with other people, I barely talked to any of my friends during the year) the way she wanted to make me hers. I wish it didn't hurt so much more than a year later, some potent mix of failure and guilt and loss and relief and loss again.
It sucks that it went like that.
I'm glad that she left, because I wouldn't have.
Real life is too complicated to put into the nice easy boxes of whump tropes. And that kinda sucks.
Can I request a ghostly/incorporeal caretaker who can possess Whumpee to take care of them, do things for them when they're too drained, that kind of thing?
At first, Whumpee was scared shitless when they heard a disembodied voice from the shadows. They thought they were going mad. And then things started to float randomly — never off the shelf, though, more… back onto the shelf, in their place.
“Hello?” they called out one time when they saw a sock inching its way towards its matching pair. “Are you there? Is this house haunted?”
The sock stopped. “It is,” came a distant reply from somewhere beyond the realm Whumpee could see. “I didn’t want to scare you again by talking to you.”
Whumpee swallowed. They were talking to a literal ghost. “Why… why are you haunting me? And why like this?”
“I’m not malicious,” came the voice from a bit closer. “It’s just been so long since anyone’s occupied this place. I’m just trying to help.”
“Yeah, I can… I can see that. Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
Whumpee suddenly felt a chill run down their spine and they just knew the ghost was circling them. “Y-You’re really not malicious?”
“Not at all. Don’t be scared. Here, I can help you even better if you let me into your body—”
“No! No. That’s alright. I’m fine.”
The presence moved away. “If you ever change your mind, just call out to me. My name used to be Caretaker.”
And Whumpee did change their mind, one night, when they were drunk off their ass and too tired to do anything. “Caretaker?” they slurred into the dark bedroom. “Are you here?”
“I am,” the voice came from behind them, and Whumpee jumped a little. “Are you okay?”
“No… No, I was wondering… Can you just take my body and… I don’t know… Help me get into bed?”
“I can. But are you sure?”
“I think so.”
Caretaker moved closer, and Whumpee once again felt like a cold wind had swept through the room. And then they moved even closer, chilly, invisible body merging with theirs. It wasn’t terribly violating — Whumpee felt like they could’ve struggled against it if they wanted. But they didn’t want to.
“Let’s take a bath first,” Caretaker spoke through their mouth. “Then take some painkillers and drink some water in advance. Tomorrow’s gonna be a hell of a day otherwise.”
i've been feeling incredible anger and frustration lately with these posts lamenting what the next four years will look like in the u.s., how much "worse" things will get under the trump administration, as if we haven't been witnessing a holocaust for the past year funded by the biden administration. if you have seen a single video from gaza, a single picture, read a feature from a gazan journalist, spoken to a single person in your inbox when they plead for your attention and help, words like "worse" or "better" turn to ash in your mouth. just yesterday my friend hilda texted me that even when her family manages to get food, smoke from the fire needed to cook aggravates her sinus allergies, making it difficult to breathe. this is how she's been living for the past year and a month, under a democrat-funded genocide.
below is a small fraction of the palestinians who have reached out to me for help with their campaigns. it is a huge source of shame to me that i can't keep up with all of the people in my inbox. please go to their accounts and read their stories. and please give what you can spare.
Usamericans should be more anti-war actually. They should be straight up insulting marines and shutting down weapon factories, 60s anti-war protests kind of shit. I'm sorry for pontificating from down here but the US military-industrial complex is currently supplying a genocide, and this is not a new thing, the US has sold weapons to Saudi Arabia to starve millions of Yemenis, the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, these are within memory. And though some people think it's not the point, it Is also true that there are trillions upon trillions of dollars that could be spent in anything else that go to the black hole of corruption (and call it for what it is, corruption) that is the Pentagon. Any of those resources could be destined to literally any other activity and be better spent.
I'm talking full contempt here. You should outright be HATING the military. Instead of lining up to watch Top Gun you should see it as a glorification of a fucking killing machine that serves imperial interests, enriches megacorporations and supports genocides. For the love of God be more angry about it. Goddamn.
the public reaction to i saw the tv glow is like a perfect case study into how cis people take up queer spaces and unknowingly mock and enjoy trans suffering. sitting in the theater, i had a pit in my stomach the entire time. so many times, i would tear up and then someone else in the theater would laugh. and i wouldn’t cry because how would they look at me when the lights came back on? because they don’t see it. they don’t see the pain. they think it’s funny. i left the theater completely silent, not saying a word to my boyfriend and he didn’t say a word to me until partway into the drive home. the people around us immediately got to picking it apart, explaining what it all meant to each other, dumbing it down, making theories. cis people see the the movie, just like transness, as something to debate. a conversation. something to dissect because it makes them uncomfortable if they don’t understand it in their easily digestible way.
snowghoul
jbbartram-illu
gummygunk
jacobvanloon
germansingergirl
janainaart
areudirty
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