"Artist." Aspiring physicist. Currently in the process of writing a science fiction/horror/hurt-comfort novel based on my extensive daydreams. I take writing requests, with some limitations. You might see me interacting with posts about neurodiversity.
My name is Neutron Star (not my real name) and I’m a “writer” and an undergraduate student in physics. I occasionally write poetry, but I mainly write whump and hurt-comfort stories.
Here are my favourite tropes/types of whump:
Hurt-comfort
Whumper turned caretaker
Intimate/creepy whumper
Torture
Interrogations
Knives
Medical whump
Probably other things I didn’t realize I liked
My most significant ongoing project is a hurt-comfort science fiction novel. I’ll briefly explain it here:
The current working title (which may be subject to change) is Love Lies Bleeding. To summarize the plot quickly, my main character finds a strange intruder in his laboratory, tortures him for information, fails at that, feels remorse, and tries to repent by saving the stranger’s life. The story also takes place on a world where a day is hundreds of years long, sketchy medical procedures exist to prevent aging, other mysterious civilizations exist but the main characters know nothing about them, etc.
Anyway, that's the plot synopsis (and some vague descriptions of worldbuilding). If you are writing anything similar (or anything in the whump genre for that matter), please let me know. I’m always looking for reading material, and I would be very happy to read your writing!
Oo you changed your profile pic! It looks nice I like it. Is it an oc?
-Ember
Hey, I'm so happy you like it!
Initially, it was meant to be a slightly edgy self portrait -- I was going to draw her holding a little knife as well -- but I stopped drawing halfway through because schoolwork got in the way. lmao.
The whumper documents everything they do, every experiment they carry out. A lot of notetaking, filling out forms, typing on a computer.
When the whumpee arrives at the lab, the whumper makes a long list of qualitative observations. Curious, the whumpee tries to peer over and see what they are writing.
Bright lights and long, careful examinations of the whumpee's injuries. Maybe some of the injuries appear infected or untreated, making the whumper wonder where the whumpee came from and why they never received better medical treatment.
The whumper is completely silent. Everything is professional and done with a straight face.
Alternatively, the whumper is talkative, constantly explaining everything they're doing, making lighthearted, one-sided conversations.
The whumper has a lab assistant and quietly gives them orders to perform the easier routine procedures. The whumpee leans forward, straining to hear what they're saying.
The whumpee is strapped to a metal table. A bright light is shined in their eyes.
The whumper is rummaging through cabinets, arranging tools on a metal tray or something, while the whumpee is fighting against their restraints to see what's going on.
The whumpee responds to tests/experiments in an unexpected way. Maybe their pain tolerance is weirdly high or weirdly low or something.
Cold lab. Shivering whumpee.
The whumper is asking the whumpee some routine questions (age, medical history, etc.) and filling out a document. The whumpee is asking questions as well, since they're confused. They have no idea where they are and what's going to happen to them.
I like how “post to Tumblr” is always the first option that comes up whenever I send myself documents for school. Like yeah, you know what I’m gonna do with my half-finished quantum assignment? I’m gonna post it on Tumblr.
Demographic Information: Age. The average was 21.3 years.
Demographic Information: Gender.
Favourite and Least Favourite Genres. This was a fun one. Remember that this only represents the preferences of the respondents, not the preferences of the general population.
<3
As I said in my previous post, I definitely plan on doing more surveys in the future. So if you have any questions or requests, please let me know. Future topics I would be interested in covering include whump (and similar genres), writing, and neurodivergence.
I’m also open to collaborating on surveys, though I don’t have much experience with this.
The survey focused mainly on amateur/unpublished stories on websites such as Wattpad, AO3, Tumblr, etc., hence the topics of some of the questions. In the end, I got 89 responses -- which is not that much, but definitely more than I thought I’d get. Most of them were from Tumblr and a few were from Reddit (r/Wattpad and r/samplesize), though it’s hard to know for sure since I forgot to add a “how did you find this survey” question.
In this post, I’ll go over the “dealbreakers” question, which was worded as such:
There will be separate posts for the other questions in the survey, and another one for the demographic information (age, gender, etc.).
This survey was just for fun. This data does not necessarily represent what the general population likes/dislikes, nor does it represent what your audience likes/dislikes.
can you do reluctent caretaker for your bthb for any charatcer ? ( if you're doing ocs!)
Yes, thank you for the request!
--
BTHB: Reluctant Caretaker
What did I do to deserve this? I thought to myself, carefully sliding the door open. Everything was silent. I walked in, not daring to break that sweet, serene silence — not daring to startle the figure that lay by the window.
I took a sip from the mug in my hands and flinched. It was still hot.
Biting my lip, I wordlessly cursed my friends for making me do this, for making me get so close. I definitely wanted to take care of him, but only from a distance. In person, I never wanted to see him again.
"Would you like some tea?" I muttered, holding out the mug.
He wasn't shaking. He wasn't crying. He was calm. And he lay there on the daybed, mostly buried within a heap of blankets and pillows. It was surreal to see him like this, a sudden lack of terror within his eyes, a sight completely unknown to me. He was comfortable and warm. And he stared absentmindedly out the window, head lightly pressed against the glass, hair half falling over his eyes.
Startled, he quickly looked towards me.
"Huh — tea? Yeah," he said, grabbing the mug from me. As content as he seemed, he spoke quietly. Nervously. "Thank — thank you."
Every moment I spent with him made me feel ill. Dizzy. Nauseated. Angry at myself. But as painful as the guilt was, I had to remember that it was probably nothing compared to what I put him through.
What did I do to deserve this? I kept repeating to myself, despite already knowing the answer.
He was probably so terrified. He lay there, looking so calm and serene, so sweet, but deep inside he was probably dying, wondering what I was planning on doing to him. Wondering if my kindness was nothing more than a trick.
He held the mug in both hands, curiously staring into it, jostling it back and forth.
"It's just tea," I said, biting my lip to keep myself from crying, "I'm not going to poison you or anything. I would never do that. Not again, at least."
He looked up in confusion. "I know. I'm just watching the tea leaves swirl around. They look pretty."
"Oh."
He smiled at me and took a sip.
Something was off. He didn't seem at all paranoid.
"Are you cold?" I asked.
"Not anymore. Thank you for all the blankets. And the tea."
"Of course. If you ever need anything, just ask."
He swallowed another sip of tea and motioned me to come closer. "Come here," he whispered. Reluctantly, I sat down on the daybed, right across from him. This made him awkwardly smile. "Please. Just sit with me for a little bit, okay?"
Why? Why did I have to do this? Literally anyone else in this world would be better at this. Better at keeping him company. Better at taking care of him.
He adjusted the blankets, sank deeper into the pillows, and took a deep breath. "Does it always get this cold around here?"
"Usually," I said, "it's really hard to heat up the whole fortress, especially at night. And now that the sun has set, we'll be dealing with the night for the next few centuries, give or take." I pulled one of his blankets towards me, but not enough to leave him cold. He didn't seem to mind. "During these eras," I continued, "we always spend a lot of the time in warm clothes, bundled up in blankets, drinking hot tea."
"That sounds lovely."
"Does it?"
"Yeah. I mean it," he said. He was looking at me, his wide eyes staring into mine.
He gave me another soft, genuine smile, and a new feeling began creeping inside me. I felt less sick and more confused — extremely confused. He was kind. Sweet. Forgiving. And he trusted me. But why?
A while back, I received ‘Reluctant Caretaker’ as a request from my BTHB card, and now I'm getting excited as hell because I love the concept of a caretaker who’s just really bad at what they’re doing.
A caretaker who’s not used to seeing injuries, especially severe ones. They might feel panicked. Or disgusted.
A caretaker who doesn’t know much about medicine and has to provide first-aid treatment. And they spend the whole time internally screaming because they don’t want to screw this up.
Alternatively, a caretaker who does know medicine but doesn’t know how to be comforting or soothing while doing a medical procedure. Maybe they’re harsh or aggressive. Or maybe they’re trying their best to be comforting but their social skills are awful.
A whumper-turned-caretaker who desperately wants to provide comfort but is apprehensive due to their crippling remorse.
A whumper who becomes a caretaker only after they realize they’ve taken the torture too far. Maybe they feel remorseful. Or maybe they don’t -- but they know they’re not allowed to let the whumpee die.
"You'll never escape," I teased, observing the hostage as he lay there, half-sleeping despite the blinding sunlight and the overwhelming screeches of distant insects.
At my cruel words, his eyes shot open to stare in my direction. I loved seeing him like this... So vulnerable and terrified. It wasn't overly cold on the balcony, yet he was shivering. How lovely.
I gave him a quick smile and gestured towards the wilderness, the glorious wasteland of tundra and unidentified vegetation. "The plants are quite nice, aren't they?"
The hostage mumbled something, hugging himself tighter than before. Maybe I should have given him a blanket or a sweater, I thought to myself, then remembered that his mannerisms were not likely from the cold. I was about to speak, about to acknowledge his shaky appearance, but he had already turned away.
He was focused on the scenery.
The strange tundra plants manifested everywhere, a few of their leaves even creeping their way onto the balcony. They were small, stubby, and almost round, painted with peculiar shades of green that could almost be considered blue. And they dragged on into the distance, fading into a uniform colour that slowly blended with the fog. I wondered how far this greenery stretched... Maybe even into the mountains?
"In a weird, haunting way, it's beautiful out there," I continued, speaking straight from my mind while hardly looking at my hostage. "It almost feels safe. Wouldn't you agree?"
"Yes," he said instantly. The sound of his voice shocked me.
I bit my lip. I had been smiling, attempting to make conversation, but my expression quickly dissipated as awful images quickly began flooding my mind... Images of the horror within the wilderness.
There was nothing out there. It was empty. Desolate.
"Please — please don't try to escape," I added, practically begging, "I know you're afraid, but please don't run away. It might feel safe, but it isn't."
I began fidgeting. What had gotten into me?
He looked down, eyes squinting, adjusting his position in the chair to get comfortable. He knew I wanted to keep him alive. But did he know anything more than that?
I impulsively grabbed him by the hair, forcing him to look at me, to listen to me, but I quickly got distracted. Lost, disoriented by his grey, tearstained eyes. Maybe it wasn't his fear that I liked observing so much. No.
"You'd certainly die out there," I murmured, my voice cracking and fading, "and I wouldn't want that."
Sometimes I’ll come up with a great idea for a scene, so I’ll quickly jot down a few keywords only to come back later and completely forget what I was talking about.
Honestly... what is “dead body motif”? Why did I write down “priests in gas masks”? And what the hell is “existential crisis part xyz”?
CW: Medical whump, unspecified arm injury/laceration, turbulent aircraft
"Are — are you sure you know what you're doing?" I quietly asked.
I was trembling, struggling to steady my breathing as my head sank deeper into the pillows. He held my arm out in front of me, his cold fingers interlacing with mine.
"Yes. I've probably done this thousands of times," he assured me. His tone sounded so kind despite his tired, monotone voice. "You won't feel anything. I promise."
He let go of my hand, opening up his emergency medical kit. I peered over, barely able to see its contents. The little tools inside were shaking; I could hear their soft, metallic clanking sounds.
And then I heard the thunder. I was struck by a hard jolt in my stomach at the sudden feeling of weightlessness. I'm falling! The aircraft was rumbling and jostling about in the storm.
"Please don't be scared," he begged, unravelling the hastily-done bandages on my arm.
I flinched at the sight of my own sticky blood, immediately glancing away. "I'm not scared." My breaths were shaky. "I swear, I'm not."
As he put on rubber gloves, I started fidgeting with my fingers in an attempt to calm myself down.
The dim light above us flickered. The aircraft continued to wobble.
I watched as he prepared some sort of syringe and held it above my skin. "Try to stay still. Please."
"Are — are you talking to me or the plane?"
A shot of pain ran through me as the needle stabbed me. I let out a sharp breath.
"It'll soon feel numb," he said quietly, then murmured something about needing to clean the wound. He poked around in his medical kit for a minute, sorting through the strange materials that I barely even recognized, before once again wrapping his fingers around mine. He was so gentle. "I'm really sorry that... that they did this to you."
I didn't respond, but I lightly squeezed his hand.
He abruptly let go, returning his attention to my bloodied arm.
Despite the aircraft's turbulence, I didn't notice a hint of disturbance in his face. Eyes squinting, gazing down. Focused. Unblinking.
When he picked up a handful of suture, I became strangely curious. I wondered how this would be done. With caution, I peered down at my wound, slowly getting used to the sight. The broken skin. The swelling. The traces of blood. It wasn't nearly as gory as I had remembered it.
"Where did you learn to do this?" I asked.
"Medical school," he said. His soft voice was becoming more and more comforting with every word. "I attended for a year. A very long time ago. Since then, everything was self-taught."
I gave a small laugh, either from fear or from fascination.
He looked up at me for a moment and tilted his head to the side. "What? If you lived forever, wouldn't you spend all that time learning about something you enjoy?"
"Yeah, I would," I said, "honestly. I'd learn calculus. Or maybe I'd learn how to grow plants. But I wouldn't teach myself medicine. That's a little fucked up."
He turned his attention to my arm again, but his expression had changed. He smiled for a second — but it was only a second.
Once again, the aircraft made a sharp motion, swaying about in all directions. He'd been holding a pair of surgical scissors, which he quickly placed back in the medical kit. For the time being, he held on to me, a gentle hand on my shoulder.
"Please don't be scared," he mumbled, nervously reiterating the same words he always told me. "I'm here for you."
In all honesty, he was awkward... like he wasn't used to comforting people.
As soon as the aircraft gave us a moment of tranquility, I carefully examined my arm. One small stitch was almost complete, tightly holding two pieces of skin together. He quickly snipped the remaining ends of the suture.
"One is done. Just a couple more to go," he said, "it doesn't hurt, does it?"
I shook my head. "I don't feel it." I watched, indulging my morbid curiosity, as he threaded the needle through the next part of the wound, evidently cautious in case the aircraft made another jerky movement.
With every passing minute, the storm seemed to clear up more and more. I briefly looked up, glancing through one of the tiny windows to see hints of something glowing in the sky. Daylight. I don't think I had ever seen it before.
I turned back around. Two more stitches had been placed on my arm in the time I had spent staring out the window.
"Thank you," I whispered. I tried to smile at him, but it must've come across as unnatural. "Thank you... Thank you for being so kind to me."
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