I generally don't care for "mundane/modern" AUs because 80% of the fun is watching weirdos with superpowers have superpowers at each other, and I didn't like romantic drama while I was in high school/college/retail, I definitely don't want to read it now. However, bizarrely, my brain has decided to make an exception for One Piece and One Piece only and I haven't the foggiest idea why. I guess it's because every single character backstory is so howlingly tragic that spitting them into another universe is they only way I can fathom anyone having a 'good' childhood. (The other exception is Copperbadge's Foodieverse but that probably goes without saying)
tfw you find some good dark porn to read but the comments are full of people shaming other commenters for expressing their unabashed enjoyment... I just wanted some fucking food
I’m not sure if “gripe” is the right word for how I’m feeling here but uhhhh I am definitely losing my mind at this:
I think my favorite part of this is, how did the sock trick work on 9 different daughters? Did he throw separate balled socks at each of them, independently, leaving the question of why he had so many socks on him and why he didn't catch on after the first couple? Did he throw just one balled sock, but all the daughters saw the opportunity and lunged in there to catch it? Did he throw just one, and just one caught it, but she used that Ancient House-Elven Magic to charm him into taking the sock back and throwing at each of the other daughters in turn, before they all teamed up for their revenge? What are the logistics here
... Huh. Speaking of bizarre and implausible premises, detailed medical whump really doesn't work when the character is a robot and it's not an AU.
I mean I can think of a couple fandoms that can make that work. Transformers is the big one, but I'm pretty sure Data Startrek could give it a go, and a few others. You have to be a bit more creative about what a risky procedure means to a non-meat-person means, or what lasting consequences might be, but you can definitely do it.
*fondly regards all the canon medical whump in the Transformers franchises* D:BH had some really good medical-flavored robot whump too, and fandom sure ran with it. That intersection of engineering disasters and human empathy really gets a workout in robot fandoms.
I've definitely read AI based whump, or whump for cyborg characters where the problem is in their programming. Bugs eating up thinking room and making it hard to act, or software conflicts making doing certain things painful, or directives making some thoughts or memories off limits and the character having to dance around them - there's for sure a lot you can do.
Murderbot and Imperial Radch also both come to mind as series that have whumped AIs/robots/cyborgs in canon.
i've read some good robowhump in the steamworld fandom i've written a work for steamworld fandom that had a bit of what might count as robowhump it can be done but it is different from organic-being whump ...i am not yet confident enough to try writing robot body horror but that actually exists in steamworld canon
I've seen my share of exo whump in Destiny fandom too. Bonus points for the fact that those robots have a human mind in them that can dissociate itself to death if if becomes too aware of the fact that the body is not that human anymore (which is why in canon they gotta eat and simulate breathing and shit like that) so you can spiral a relatively minor injury into a mental breakdown if you want. (And that's not even going into how canon has whumped its own robots one way or the other)
oooh speaking of weird mental things steamworld has this thing where a bot's personality sort of sticks to and is in all their parts; stuff that canon comments on or heavily implies includes that just using a whole lot of pre-used parts can have disastrous mental consequences, and that changing out too many parts too fast or parts that have been 'settled' long enough can also have massive negative consequences, and that having to use parts that dont suit a bot can also be at best uncomfortable and several playable characters have whump hooks related to this (off the top of my head, fen, rusty, dorothy, valentine, tarah, thayne, and orik) EDIT: originally said "maybe" orik but no, he definitely counts even if it's possible that he's cursed or something instead of the more obvious interpretation
Yeah destiny has one vendor/character who has been reset so often (for reasons that are VERY spoiler) that he has severe damage to his memory,systems, both short and longterm, to the point of forgetting an important friend(perhaps lover's) death abd just generally forgetting a lot if stuff, sometimes mid-sentence. And he's aware of this.
Transformers fandom goes Extra Hard on the medical whump, can confirm. It's one of the best places to observe the interaction of "they're robots, they'll survive that" and "congratulations, you're poor, now learn to live without 20% of your internal organs"
I will say that while I definitely have found satisfactory workarounds for non-organic creatures of various types in writing, it’s a bit more difficult in art. There’s just something about the visual aspect that doesn’t really translate the same way, imo—although it’s often really neat in its own right, so… For me it really depends on whether I’m looking for something specific in that regard, or whether it’s more the general vibe I’m after, tbh. I definitely agree that there’s something specifically satisfying about medical whump with various squishy organic beings, but sometimes it’s more the associated feelings that I want, and that can absolutely translate. That’s just me though.
