love the prompts this year, they’re great! however, i do have a question- one of the alternate prompts says “animal attack.” would that not count as a whumper? or do animals not count as one?
Interesting. In my head, no, an animal doesn't count as whumper. They're part of a situation. A startled, wounded, or territorial animal doesn't fill the same role as a violent or malicious person. I haven't considered this, though, so just in case:
Good question. Content warning for car accidents, here.
Fishtailing is when a car in bad road conditions starts to swerve side to side (like a fish tail, the back end loses control). Usually, this ends in a crash. This happens when the road is too slippery for the wheels to get traction, usually in heavy rainfall or ice.
If a character is driving and the car starts to fishtail, hitting the breaks can cause the wheels to lose more traction.
I intended the trope to be both an "oh shit we crashed" prompt and a "that was scary, but we didn't hit anything" prompt, so you can take it however you want.
Hello I want snake venom to do things to one of my androids but snake venom was not designed to do things to androids. What course of action would you take here?
Hello Feather! I have two immediate ideas:
Simple option: Make the venom corrosive. Have it eat through the wiring, dissolve fake skin, burn like hell. Maybe normal snakes would only puncture the poor thing, but acid and robots do not mix. If you don't want to find/make up a fancy snake, maybe this venom is only corrosive to that android's metallic compounds.
More complicated option: If the android runs on fluid components, perhaps part of the venom interacts badly with a chemical in the fluid. I'm no scientist, but there's a lot of possibilities.
The venom contains a chemical that, when combined with one of the fluids in the android's body, could become a clotting agent. There you have a blood clot. That messes with any system you place it. Coolant can't travel through the body anymore, lubricant no longer reaches vital joints, water builds up with nowhere to go. Fun fun fun!
The venom contains a chemical that overwhelmes, attacks and dismantles one of the fluids in the android's body, halving the efficiency of fuel or coolant. Now they're running on low power, struggling to move, can't seem to keep charged. Delightful!
If the first option seems too far-fetched, maybe the venom mixed with one of the fluids in the android's body becomes a corrosive agent. Now they're getting eaten from inside their faux veins. Fantastic news!
Thanks for giving me the chance to explore more whumperless robot whump. I hope this helps, my dear mutual!
do you have any prompts/vibes for the "full team whump" day.... i think it's a really fun prompt but i'm having trouble thinking of ideas
Of course! It's one of my favorite tropes ever, so here's a few:
The Big Battle is over and they've barely won, but Medic/healer is down for the count. First aid and self-done stitches are in order until they can get their doctor conscious again
Tournament setting--pit the whole team against each other. Who wrecks shop? Who holds back? What's the play to escape? Who wins, and crucially, who loses?
The good ol' cold sweep. Give everyone the flu. Make everyone deal with the sniffles and take turns caring for each other. Bonus points if blorbo refuses to acknowledge their own illness until they collapse
Natural disasters, car accidents, and explosions make for great team whump starting points
Thinking about what injury/symptom each team member has, and how they got it, can help. And don't be afraid to just use two or three whumpees. Having the entire cast is overwhelming a lot of the time, so take it easy and have fun.
Hi! I was hoping you could give some advice to me, but of course if this is not a relevant enough ask for this blog specifically feel free to ignore me! So I was/ am really excited to write something for the event, but I keep running into the same issue that I run into every single time that i try writing whump. Whenever I get to describing the specific parts that would usually be among my favorites to read about (the whump itself) I freeze up and can't continue and in the past I've had so many unfinished works because of this and it makes me really sad because the parts that trip me up are specifically the ones that i love reading about from other people. Do you have any advice for this?
Hey Anon! I'm sorry to hear you're struggling. And thank you for reaching out! I'm happy to help, if I can!
There's a lot of reasons for writer's block: perfectionism, self-doubt, lack of inspiration, et cetera. Personally, I falter when I don't feel confident in portraying what I want, or when I worry it'll be the same as every other version of the trope. You're not alone in this, dear anon.
The main advice I want to give is to go for it. Do everything you can to submerge yourself in it all. Hit the freeze point and keep going. I know this is hard. The important part is that you can get through it, and the more you do, the easier it will get. But just telling you to get started is not very helpful. So! Here we go, long post ahead:
Exercises for Getting Started:
Come up with arbitrary limits. For example: only write 50 words. Or 100. The next sentence has to start with the word "no". The next paragraph needs to say the same phrase twice, but it has to mean different things each time. If you listen to music, you can't write when the chorus of the song is playing. If you're freezing because of choice paralysis, it might help to slam down some guardrails--you can disregard them all later, once you've gotten started.
Narrow down the starting point. It helps to start with a question. However, thinking "How do I do this?" when staring at a blank page is universally torturous. "How" is abstract, with a thousand answers. Try replacing it with a more concrete question. For example:
Where do I want my character to be standing? What position are they in? Now, why do they change that position? Let's say my scene starts with a character standing. Now I have a starting point, and I can find a reason to get them on the floor instead. This generates movement. Movement is good.
What is the first sense I can emphasize in the scene? Blood in the mouth, cold air on the skin, ringing in their ears, blinding white light, the smell of smoke, et cetera. Starting point--now, what is the character's reaction? Now you have movement.
How does your character portray the emotion they're feeling? Do they have some hidden twitch in their hands if they're in pain? When they're angry, do they blow up or shut down? Start from the emotion, then draw a line to action. Movement!
Stop thinking when you write. This one is tricky, but the more logical you frame the work, the harder it is to keep going. Questions like "where does her hand go?" or "should they shut the door or leave it open?" are gateways to keep going, not points to agonize over. Pick one and move on. Later, you can change it, but try to make your choices as quickly as possible.
Write three words at a time. From your ask, it seems like you get to the point you want to write, and then freeze. In that case, write three words, and put it down. It's hard to make a full sentence in three words, so when you pick it up again five minutes later, you already have a starting point. Three more words.
End in the middle of a sentence. Like above, except every time you decide you're done writing, end as close to the end of a sentence as you feel comfortable ending without making it a full sentence. It's a neat little diving board for the next time you open the draft.
Remember: you don't have to follow rules if they aren't helping. You don't have to start at the beginning; you can start in the middle of a conversation. You don't have to write the moment a character gets hurt; you can start with the aftermath and chaos. If you can locate the pressure points that make you freeze (for me, beginnings and big reveals), you can come up with strategies to override the pressure.
On my main blog, I have post for writing the scenes you don't want to write, which has some applicable advice as well. I'll link it here for you, anon.
As a farewell, I want to tell you this: you can do it. I believe in you. One foot in front of the other, one word at a time. I can't wait to see what you create!
Does it count as whumperless if the cause of the whump is like... a robotic parasitic hivemind type thing?
context:
I'm doing the prompts as a drabble series set in the world of a game I'm working on, using the characters and plot and stuff. The "bad ending" involves the main character getting assimilated into the robot parasite hivemind and (at the very end of the game) killing all her friends/party members and then the robot parasite kills her from the inside out (its a very sad and bad ending I know). Does that count as being whumperless or is the robot parasitic hivemind malicious enough to count? I noticed the discussion about Animals, Whumper or Not? and how people in the comments agreed it was malice and how purposeful the action was to make an animal a whumper or not, and how in the pinned blog post it also says that (essentially) as long as the person causing the harm is faceless/not directly targeting the mc (a random mugger vs a stalker mugging them) right?
so does this count orrrr?
(Sorry for a long ask, wuups)
-🍰
General rule of thumb: use your best judgement. The point is to avoid the themes that are present in whump with a whumper (torture, kidnapping, malice, et cetera). If you portray the parasite as sapient enough to, say, taunt your protagonist, then I would say that's a whumper. Characterizing the hivemind as a species doing its best to survive, or a disease without real sentience, is different.
I have a question. For Animal Attack right, if the animal is a canonical character in the media and sentient, would that count as a Whumper? Or is that okay?
In a previous ask, we discussed that the reason an animal does not count as a whumper is because they're not necessarily acting on purpose, and they don't harm with malicious intent. Rather, what causes them to lash out at a character is the situation they're in (threatened, hungry, wounded). This is also why "fighting with a friend" is on the list--because their actions aren't malicious, but instinctual. People snap. It happens.
For example (possibly niche), Morgana in P5 looks like an animal, but he can talk and argue, while Koromaru in P3 can't talk and acts most of the time like a normal dog. I would count Morgana hurting someone on purpose as a whumper, while Koromaru hurting someone on purpose as an animal in a situation.
Go with your gut. If the animal is acting out of conscious, malicious intent, probably not. If they're just acting on instinct, you should be fine.
