cakeinthevoid

[cakeinthevoid]

last good whump scene you watched/read/other

ok this is going to be silly but technically it would be the scene in The Incredibles where Mr Incredible is captured and strung up in that high tech holding thing??? and Syndrome is just shocking him to get information out of him. And then he sends a missile at the plane with his whole family so he thinks his whole family died.

Honestly insane physical and emotional whump for a fun family movie but man its a fave of mine

#asks #whump

[cakeinthevoid]

Happy STS, Void!

Do you ever cry when reading? If so, what's one book you remember crying over? And if you write, are you more or less likely to cry? And how would you feel if someone cries over your work?

Hello hello hello I'm back! And happy STS... bc it totally isnt monday rn...

I am so sorry for the delay in responses

Do I ever cry while reading.. no actually! There is one (1) outlier where I cried because of a fic I read years ago where the Family Dynamics got to me.

Writing, never have cried, don't think I ever will. I really don't get all that emotional lol. However if someone cries over my work... that would be so flattering that my writing could evoke emotion like that.

#asks #sts asks #no fr family is one of my all time faves pieces of writing i think #granted havent read it in a while but i made me cry soo

[cakeinthevoid]

Yes, sometimes it's the blood curdling screams and the broken bones and tearing muscles, but other times it's the gentle touch and the hand holding while silent tears fall down dirt stained cheeks

[cakeinthevoid]

#Ash #Zinc

[cakeinthevoid]

a character leans into someone's touch and i just EEEEEEEJHSCNABHCJNDNCNXBN but in the best way possible

[cakeinthevoid]

Obscure: Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of Obscure, novel-length interrogation whump about a rebel leader who can erase memories with a thought, an interrogator who can see inside his subjects’ minds… and the connection they share that neither of them suspects.

Masterpost | the Mind Games universe | Read the completed novel on Patreon

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Kirill

Kirill and Camille woke slowly together, crawling toward consciousness inch by cozy inch. They tugged each other unwillingly upward toward the lazy Saturday morning waiting for them. Kirill surfaced from dreams of fire. He gratefully emerged into the softness of her vanilla-scented hair against his nose and the arm she had draped possessively over his chest in her sleep.

Soft cotton sheets draped over the two of them like a lighter caress. They smelled like fresh laundry. Kirill eased his eyes open a little at a time. The first thing he saw was Camille’s expanse of long blond hair. Then, beyond her, the ferns he had brought a few weeks ago.

The ferns hadn’t died yet. Sunlight lay across their leaves in stripes formed by the Venetian blinds. The fronds drifted back and forth in the breeze from the air-conditioning vent. Like Kirill and Camille, they looked in no hurry to move fast on this long, lazy morning.

Camille opened her eyes with a groan that was half happiness, half reluctance. She blinked up at him and smiled. “I never knew your apartment was so comfortable,” she said, her voice thick with a half-asleep haze. The warm notes thrummed in his bones, threatening to send him drifting off again.

He smiled at her and tapped the tip of her nose. “It’s not like this is the first time you’ve seen it.”

“No, but it’s the first time I’ve stayed over,” she said. “And I wasn’t really paying attention last night.” She gave him a teasing grin. Then the grin turned into a soft smile of pure pleasure. She flopped off him, onto her back, and moved her arms up and down like she was making snow angels. “It’s so… soft,” she said, with the tone in her voice that people normally reserved for a beautiful sunset or a sublime bowl of ice cream.

“What can I say?” he said, making a couple of snow angels of his own. “I like soft and comfortable.” And for now, that was true, because that was what Camille liked, and he liked Camille. Loved her, even—if love was the word for discovering someone whose company could fill the hole inside you for a few blissful months.

The silky sheets were as new as the ferns. The ferns had come after he had visited Camille’s apartment and seen the explosion of greenery she kept there. He had asked her what kind of plant she liked best. She had said ferns.

It wasn’t manipulation. Not in anything but the most benign sense. He wasn’t trying to get anything more from her than she already wanted to give. Someday, maybe six or twelve months from now, they would be done with each other, with no hard feelings on either end. Kirill had long years of practice at keeping his breakups amicable. And when that day came, the soft sheets and the ferns would find their way to the trash bin outside.

But while she was here, he would give her what she liked. Because what he liked, more than any sheets or plants or long lazy mornings, was making her happy.

Her, or whoever took her place once she was gone.

“I’m going to make a pot of coffee,” he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

“No, don’t leave,” she said in a playful groan, grabbing his wrist.

He tensed without meaning to. The hand around his wrist felt like a cuff holding him down to a hospital bed. Back before they had known they could trust him. Back before he had shown them they could take him at his word.

Back when they hadn’t known what effect their injections would have on him—and how dangerous he might be once the drugs did their work.

But that had been a long time ago. He had no need of old memories. Not his own, at least. And Camille’s skin was soft as her finger traced the vein on the underside of his wrist. It was nothing like the cold metal of his memory.

He forced himself to take a deep breath. Camille, mistaking it for a sigh, answered with one of her own.

“Go,” she said with theatrical resignation, loosening her grip. “Someone has to take one for the team and leave this slice of heaven so we can both have coffee. I’m just glad it doesn’t have to be me.” She screeched to the middle of the bed and lay back with an angelic smile. She closed her eyes. “Wake me when the coffee is ready.”

He stood and looked down at her with a soft smile and basked in the glow of being exactly what she needed.

He unplugged his phone, slipped it into his pocket, and padded toward the kitchen on bare feet. In the hallway, to his left, was a blank spot on the wall where his running medals had hung. His last girlfriend, Amanda, had been into races. She liked the exertion, and she liked the competition. They had run a race together almost every weekend.

Back then, he had genuinely enjoyed rising at the crack of dawn to sweat his way through the morning. It had made Amanda happy, and that was what had made him happy. Now, with the lazy weekend glow of Camille settling over the apartment like a pleasant scent in the air, the thought of all that running sounded impossibly exhausting.

His phone rang as he stepped into the kitchen. It was the ring that meant work—not the soothing buzz he had assigned to Camille, but a shrill sound that cut through the air like a freshly sharpened blade. A little of his weekend haze drifted away. He frowned as he pulled the phone from his pocket.

“Kirill Catallo,” he said. He said nothing else. He knew better than to complain about it being a weekend. PERI called him whenever they needed him.

“We have a job for you.” The voice on the other end didn’t bother with pleasantries. Sandhya Ramachandra, his assigned handler, never did. Not since Kirill had shown up in PERI headquarters almost thirty years ago in shoes with holes in the bottoms and pants that didn’t reach his ankles.

He poured water into the coffee machine by rote. “Where am I going this time?” It wouldn’t be hard to explain the sudden trip to Camille. He always told his girlfriends he had some job or other that involved large amounts of travel, to cover situations like this. Camille thought he was a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. But he wasn’t ready to end his lazy weekend just yet.

“No travel,” said Ramachandra. “This one is at headquarters. Convenient for you.”

He frowned, even though Ramachandra was right about the convenience. He lived near headquarters because he needed to go in for his mandated checkups every three months, and because PERI didn’t want to let him too far out of their sight. But he stepped inside headquarters every four months, as required, and that was it.

He never accepted jobs at headquarters. They knew that. They had stopped asking.

He knew what a job at headquarters meant.

“No,” he said as the last of the lazy weekend haze burned off. “We’ve talked about this.”

“I know. But we need you.” Ramachandra’s voice was devoid of sympathy.

“You need me to get information from terrorists trained to resist interrogation, and to find where any but the most emotionless serial killers have buried their bodies. You have people for PERI business. People who aren’t me.”

“For this,” said Ramachandra, “we need you. And this is important enough that you can’t play the waste-of-your-talents card. This prisoner has been poaching talent from PERI for fifteen years. He has an entire network set up to change the identities of candidates and relocate them. We need that network located and shut down. We need you.”

“I don’t work with Enhanced prisoners.”

“Why not?” Ramachandra’s voice remained perfectly even, but Kirill read the challenge there. “You can’t say it’s beneath you this time. So what is it really about?”

Kirill understood the question underneath the question. Ramachandra had never outright accused him of having residual loyalties to his fellow Enhanced, but the insinuation was there every time he refused another headquarters job.

“I’m not trying to protect this person,” Kirill said, in a voice every bit as cold as Ramachandra had trained him to be. “You know better than that.”

“Then get in here,” Ramachandra said, and hung up.

Kirill shoved his phone back into his pocket.

His shoes were wet. Water ran in wide rivulets off the counter and onto the floor. He had filled the coffeemaker with twice as much water as he needed to make a pot of coffee. He was still filling it.

He stopped pouring. He blinked down at the puddle on the floor.

Then he softened his shoulders and his jaw. The lazy weekend smile returned effortlessly to his face as he walked back toward the bedroom to make his excuses to Camille. With any luck, she wouldn’t ask about the wet footprints.

---

Tagged: @cakeinthevoid @suspicious-whumping-egg

Ask to be added or removed from taglist.

#love this character introduction

[cakeinthevoid]

being a whumper i am immune to stupid puritanical takes on fictional harm. "we need to talk about the violence-" HELL YEAH WE DO BROTHER IT WAS MY FAVORITE PART UP HIGH

[cakeinthevoid]

You know, the best thing I ever discovered on Tumblr was that other people enjoy torturing their favorite characters as much as I do.

[cakeinthevoid]

Your whump word(s) of the day

"Suffering through this proves nothing. Take the pill."

#Carrie #yea this is very Carrie lmao

[cakeinthevoid]

19 and 16 for latest ask game :))

19. A song you listen to while doing your whump enjoyer activities

I'm not a song person when it comes to whump, so I don't have one! I mean, I'll listen to any type of music while looking at pictures or gifs, but if I'm imagining or writing then I won't listen to anything (as I do with any type of story imagining or writing).

16. Underrated trope?

I'm not sure it's really a trope, moreso an aspect of tropes, but I love subtle whump. That's one of the reasons I love TV and movies whump so much since a lot of it is subtle more subtle than writing (though that's not to say I dislike written whump, I'm just a lot more picky about it). You can pick up all the visual and audial cues from a performance rather than only a few in writing. Showing is a lot easier is a medium where you can actually show people things lol. But back to subtle whump. Just like: casually invading someone's personal space, quiet or even unspoken threats, trembling, flinching, subtle desperation, ah it's all so good!

Thanks for the ask!!!! :D

#YES SUBTLE WHUMP YOURE SO REAL

[cakeinthevoid]

saw a poll about whether you prefer corruption or redemption arcs and i realized that for me it's not really either, it's a distillation arc: when a character becomes the most intense version of what they could be, everything inessential falling away or being discarded so that only the core remains.

[cakeinthevoid]

guys.

new story idea just dropped

kinda excited might not ever write it but the characters are so cool and there’s so much whump potential

it features a mechanic who’s reserved and uses her words and hands like the weapons they are.

a guy named Will with strange abilities and a god complex. they wants to create something new, something different. metal and man combined and entirely forged through fire. illegal experiment? more like illegal cyborg.

cyborg in question? a guy who’s been missing for years— used to be one of the sophisticated elites and now creeps in the shadows, broken and twisted.

#INTRIGUED #anything to do with mechanics and tech and I’m down lmao

[cakeinthevoid]

You guys seem to like my last extremely specific writer meme so here's another one:

[cakeinthevoid]

A very good dynamic, and my fave tropes connected to it:

Two people who are both whumpees, and both caretakers for each other equally.

Obeying and/or enduring pain they never could otherwise, because they know the other will suffer if they don't

Being able to hold on to their hope and wanting to continue living, not for themselves, but for the other, wanting to get out so THE OTHER has a chance for freedom

Connected to that one, understanding that the other feels the same, so there is no "self sacrificing" their life, because they know the other wouldn't have a will to live without them, therefore STAYING ALIVE FOR EACH OTHER

But also, different ways of caring for one another: Maybe one is more active in the after care, making sure wounds are treated as best as possible, holding the other one while they are crying, etc etc. And the other one is more of the "just hurt me instead" variety. -> This could either be a deep understanding between them or could be a source of ~conflict~ a la "why is it so hard for you to help me get better" "why do you keep throwing yourself into the torture, you're so stupid" etc etc etc

All of this of course being fully used against them, all the time

Additionally, when they both escape together, there only being one person in the world who UNDERSTANDS, and while they might find more friends, or maybe even had a group to return to, no one ever becoming as close as they are, because they have loved each other always, but after what they've been through, they are basically one unit, nothing can seperate them. (Or, if you want more angst on top of your angst, after they're freed, everything they see in each other is a reminder of the pain. They can't be with each other. They can't be without each other. They fought so hard to survive together, be free together, and now they are, but they are alone)

I just love the idea of this love, this connection that they have, being used against them, making them more vulnerable, but in the end, also being the thing giving them hope and keeping them alive.

#Lora and ash

[cakeinthevoid]

Magical restraints

Preferably some invisible restraints. With Whumpee being pressed against the wall (or on the floor), hands held back by an invisible force that they can't break free from. Maybe wisps of smoke around their wrists for the aesthetics.

- Whumper advancing on them, hand outstretched, fingers out. The pressure on Whumpee's wrists increasing with every step closer.

- Maybe Whumper can feel the magic in his fingertips pulse with every useless struggle.

- Or he just casually waltzes up, hands in his pockets.

- Implied Whumper getting closer and closer, right up against them and they can't even bring up a hand to try and force some distance.

- A flick of his hand and Whumpee is forced down to their knees.

- Another flick of his hand, like snuffing out a candle, and the invisible bonds fall away. The casual show of power.

- Whumpee snarling and spitting insults. Whumper just shakes his head and all of a sudden, Whumpee's raging is cut off mid-sentence. A heavy, invisible pressure now digging into their throat, cutting off their air :3

- The team is coming to save Whumpee. They see them alone in their cell, not even tied up, so they think this is going to be a piece of cake. But Whumpee can't get up. And there is no chain to break, no ropes to cut.

- Meaning they have to seek out the source of the magic first before they can get Whumpee out.

- Or well, maybe the source of that magic has noticed the commotion and is already on his way to them :)

- Bonus: he's standing in the doorway to the cell, blocking the exit.

[cakeinthevoid]

currently thinking about whumpee being hunted

having to constantly look over their shoulder, being chased if they’re spotted, trying to navigate tough terrain, never feeling like they’re safe…

#Lora #sf

[cakeinthevoid]

i LOVE the xmen movies someone talk to me about the xmen movies

#I ALSO LOVE THE XMEN MOVIES I THINK THEY ARE NEAT