yes please run that character into the ground. they need to be swaying and staggering by the climax of the book/movie/episode

BUT

they have to get to collapse after. they need to fold into a heap while their friends/team scramble to break their fall. deprive them of that rest until the very end but then they need to actually get it.

bonus points if they’re delirious/drifting/only half-aware the comfort is happening

Darling in the FranXX (Dub) - Ep 5

Hiro

Flowers flowers and more flowers cause it's finally starting to feel like SPRING

This started as something else, but then I wanted to draw flowers and it turned into a sort-of art nouveau... thing. I sketched it over a week ago and promptly got horrendously sick, so I just finished today now that I'm feeling mostly better.

i love when an emotionally inept character who thinks they have no one, gets wrecked and ralphed and Goes Through It before waking up with like seven people worriedly hovering over them, hands pressing against their face, telling them to stay down and that they're okay. and then character, who thought these people just tolerated them at best, proceeds to get coddled for the next week and then every week after that.

Stuff I love seeing in tired characters (whump/writing ideas)

-Being so tired they're barely cohesive but force themselves to stay awake for the sake of whatever they're doing

-Mumbled or slurred words, snapping when they don't mean to

-Holding back on rest so much it only becomes apparent when another character sees them and it dawns on them they are *not* okay

-Falling asleep mid sentence

-Staying in the same clothes for days, hair disheveled and messy

-Downing coffee or energy drinks as they're the only thing that keeps them from passing out on the spot

-Falling asleep slumped over their work at a table or desk and waking to find a blanket over their shoulders from a worried caretaker

-Finally looking in a mirror and being startled by their own haggard appearance

(Will probably make more of these, but feel free to add!!)

Tim finds Bernard unconscious

titans (S4 E10)

ALT

Whumpril 2025 - Day 5 - Neglect

Shang Qinghua neglecting his own health in order to get all that work done, again.

ok but an interesting detail I've noticed in fiction after experiencing this myself.

Usually when fainting, a character's vision goes black and they might be out for hours. Now I'm not an expert as I have only fainted once, very recently. It was due to stress+food poisoning and I was trying to throw up when I heard my dad calling for me and like, I was in a state of confusion and one moment I was haunched over the sink and the next I was on the floor with him calling out for me (can cross that one out from the whumpy bucket list LMAO)

but like, I was out for literal seconds and there was no vision going black, didn't even feel the fall. I just feelt extremely weak and disoriented and had a very skewed passage of time. While I looove a good ol dramatic faint, I want to see more of that in fiction.

Just imagine, whumpee is injured and bleeding out, focused on standing up and determined to find their team but they feel as if the ground is moving under their feet.

When they see their group relief of being "safe" overtakes the adrenaline and one moment they see the group running towards them and the next they're laying in the arms of the leader, who is crying and calling out their name.

Whumpee can't understand why leader's expression seems so anguished.

Whumpee feels someone shaking them as they squeeze their eyes shut, not ready to reunite with the waking world. The floor’s spinning.

‘Whumpee! Are you okay? Did you hit your head?’

‘N-no. I just need a minute…’ Whumpee breathes slowly, calming their thoughts. No, they hadn’t hit their head. There just… may be something else they’ve been keeping under wraps…