at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you
at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.
at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly
at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.
at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.
At some point in your life you will be adding garlic to a dish and you will think "that is not enough garlic." These are angels speaking. They are correct. Add more garlic.
At some point in your life you will be a vampire and you will think "Just a smidge of garlic." This is angels speaking. They are WRONG. Garlic will kill you.
AGGHHH I just gave myself the whumperflies thinking about whumpees who are so badly injured or otherwise compromised, that they abandon attempts to endure or survive, and start acting on OTHER priorities.
The Doomed Whumpee is DIFFERENT from the Self-sacrificial Whumpee.
The Doomed Whumpee knows they will die regardless, so they are NOT giving up their survival. It's ALREADY a given that they will die.
And it's this knowledge that gives them the clarity to switch their efforts to the next most important thing.
Ensuring the rest of the team gets out safely
Instead of trying to figure out how to get three people out they start planning for two.
A team mates says, "there isn't enough (food, air supply, space on the escape pod, magic to evacuate) for all of us," and Whumpee says "It's enough. For two."
Conserving resources
They won't let further medical supplies, food or other vital resources be used on them. This will be particularly difficult if the other team members CANNOT or REFUSE to see how far gone Whumpee is.
Maybe Whumpee is a medic who can tell their injuries are too severe, or a scientist who calculates the radiation they were exposed to is unsurvivable, or a magic user who realises the amount of energy they've just expended means their end is near.
Worse, if they know their own death is assured but will be a long time coming, and they will be using up resources WHILE they still live. Do they take themselves out? Or if they are unable, do they ask their team to do it?
Whumperflies abound in either case.
Comforting Others
Ugh there's nothing like a whumpee already on their way out trying to ease the impact of their demise. Do they have time for solace to land? Or is there a time crunch? If their team members are still in danger and can't afford to fall apart, the stakes get higher.
And how lucid are they? Are they drifting in and out of consciousness? Are their words slurring? Are they trying to make light of it, or trying to be jocular about it? Or are they trying to leave practical, and possibly even life-saving instructions? And what about their team... are they trying to hold it together? Or are they completely falling apart.
Making Peace
Ooh this one's got so much potential for internal dramaaaaa. Whumpee trying to make peace with themself can be intentional or unintentional.
If they're alone, with no-one to perform for or hold the act together for, perhaps they'll let their mask slip. The one that has everyone believe that they're the brave one, the stoic one, or the one who can see the funny in any scenario. What is under the mask they always wear?
The possible time frames they could occupy as they go through their concluding moments...
The present: trying to find something beautiful in the present moment. A sunset. Or a view they are familiar with but are looking at for the last time. Or a tiny, tiny detail-- Blood seeping into grout. The threads on their sleeve. An insect making its way up a wall.
Maybe they feel themselves slipping, and they try to stay present by clenching their nails into their palm, or digging their fingers into the ground.
The past: trying to take refuge in moments where they've felt particularly loved. Someone said something to them in the past that rises up in memory and comforts them in their impending end. Or they see someone from their past, incongruously inhabiting their present. A parent, a sibling, a team mate, a lover... maybe even a younger self.
The future: hallucinating a no longer possible future in extreme detail. Growing older, being safe, in a place that is new yet familiar in this hallucination. Is the vision populated by people they know? Maybe grown up, with children, or old, with greying hair. Maybe they're in a relationship they never dared hope for. In an imagined possibility they never thought they'd build for themself. Is it an epic vision, breathtaking and grand? Or is it small and kind and mundane?
Do they finally dare to admit to themself that they are afraid of being alone? Or are they grateful they're finally alone?
Maybe they try to be grateful for the things they've achieved, and come to terms with the things they haven't.
Or maybe they're not being intentional at all. Their mind is so used to operating a certain way that they are still in that mode. Maybe trying to calculate the amount of ammo their team still has left. Or if their team is still in a fight, they're spotting the common mistakes they are still making, as if they're in a sparring match. Or they're wondering if Taco Tuesday is still on.
Does some small part of them know why they're still stuck in the usual mode of thinking? Maybe they're doing it as a way to comfort themselves, maybe they know they've never really been the sort to brood on things, or maybe they know that if they really look at it, they will collapse into terror.
When death does inevitably arrive, is it a prolonged and ugly struggle, or is it barely noticeable? Internally, do they simply go from on to off, or is there a sensation of embarking on a journey. Or maybe they simply arrive somewhere.
Aaaaugh, so many possible ways to go. DOOMED WHUMPEES.
Yet another new study debunked the basis for the anti-trans sports bans. It was never about sports but for creating legal avenues for exclusion and abjection. This is one of the largest analyses ever conducted, involving 52 studies and 6,485 trans people. Read the study here.
I think about Joan of Arc a lot. Mainly I think about how in her time she was scorned and mistreated for all she'd done. She had no idea one day how many people would remember and uphold her legend.
Do you think she regretted it in those final moments? Going to war for a country that hardly loved her? Or did she love it all the same? Would she be proud of how far we've come?
This is Greg. Greg is on a mission to inspire as many writers as he can. Reblog with something inspirational for the next person to help Greg along! You can do it, Greg bee-leafs in you!
My hot tip (which I saw somewhere on Tumblr), think of the most wish-fulfillment thing you can write that makes you excited and write that. If you're not excited about your writing, no one else will be either.
some of yall don't understand what human rights mean and it is legitimately worrying how some of you think that if a person is 'bad' enough they should have their human rights taken away
Hello, tumblr user. Before you is a tumblr post asking you to name a female fictional character. You have unlimited time to tag a female character, NOT a male one.
