awfulwhumpsideblog - Tumblr blog

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

People of color in the whump community, how do you feel about POC characters?

(I know some people take issue with the term "person of color", I'm using it for convenience here, but this poll applies to anyone who considers themself nonwhite. Feel free to add specifics about your identity in the tags.)

(If you're white, scroll down for the results button and please reblog for sample size.)

I'm curious about how people view nonwhite characters in whump. On one hand, diversity is a good thing. On the other hand, violence against a character of color could trigger people, and a character of color as the whumper could play into racial stereotypes. This also depends on the specific race of the characters-- obviously, POC are not a monolith-- but there aren't enough poll options for that.

I'd really appreciate hearing people's thoughts, especially people of color in the whump community! Please reblog this to spread it around!

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

me: this is a background character who's in one scene, has two lines, and is completely irrelevant to the rest of the story. i am going to stop obsessing over what to name him and use the random name generator on behindthename.com. i am going to accept the first thing it gives me and move the fuck on.

behindthename.com:

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

nothing is more sexy to me in fiction than a time loop being thematically linked to the experience of grief and/or trauma. a constant reliving of loss and pain that becomes literal, an inability to move on, a cycle that always finds new ways to hurt... literally where would we be without it

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

Long hair can lead to a haircut

Whumpee associates their long hair with trauma so they cut it off

Whumpee in recovery desperate for change and to be in control of themselves cuts it all off just so something's different

Or they're still with whumper and whumper likes their long hair so they cut it off out of spite, and whumper sees them with short hair for the first time and gapes at them, and asks "What have you done?"

Whumpees with long hair are blessings 👌

Whumpee gets grabbed and pulled around by a fistful of their hair

Whumpee is half-conscious and Whumper yanks their head up by the hair

Strands of Whumpee’s hair are sticking to the blood on their face

Whumpee’s hair is sweaty and plastered against their forehead during a fever

Whumpee is doubled over with their hair curtaining their face while they recover

Whumpee is comforted when Caretaker gently runs their hand through their hair

Whumpee is humiliated when Whumper cuts off/pulls out a chunk of their locks

Caretaker pulls Whumpee’s hair back for the drama reveal of their head wound

Feel free to add on!

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

Agree with everything you said. Again and again people say "I'm not interested in lady whump, it makes me uncomfortable" and others hear "Lady whump is unethical" when as far as I know, no one is saying that.

To say the whump community hates women characters is so cynical and unfair. Have you considered most of us are women and just not interested in hurting our own? like congrats if that's your deal, but let's not act like there's misogyny at play here.

So being a fellow female survivor of assault, why is it that we have separate tags for lady whump stuff? "Well, because women in DV situations can be too close to home", extremely fair point, I can more than sympathize with that. But then why don't we have an unspoken-rule-type tag for male whump? Why is "whump" in general entirely assumed to be male characters and male dominated? Because it's expected, because most of these women in the whump community love hurting their lil gay bois? We decree violence against women only to turn around giggling with our friends about taking a 12 gauge shotgun to a twink's knees so he has to crawl?

No one said she even had to be a whumpee. She can be a whumper, a carewhumper, a caretaker, a random side character. She can be a mom or a sister or a spouse or a childhood best friend. The problem is she doesn't exist at all. She doesn't get to be the victim or the hero or the villain because she's not appealing enough. I read male whump when I wanna feel spicy, I read female whump when I wanna relate. I want to see the same girl I was, broken and abused, I wanna see her rise to the top, I wanna see her take it too far, I wanna see justice delivered in the bloodiest form, I wanna simp over a bad bitch who would seduce me in a night club with a tight black dress and leave me in an ice bath in the morning.

In a community with 98% male OCs, I think we can spare a crumb for more women who are weak or cruel or kind. Just make more women in general.

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

>Find something labelled enemies to lovers

>Look inside

>The "enemies" in question are just rivals who sass each other

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

*hitting you with a stick* YOU ARE NOT FERAL YOU ARE NOT UNHINGED you are in fact the most normal person I’ve ever seen before in my life, of the billions of people who live and have ever lived many of them have had the exact same thoughts as you and that’s wonderful, that’s amazing, you don’t need to be weird you aren’t weird everything you do is normal you sound exactly like every other gen z tumblr user you use the same phrases the same jokes your messages all have the same rhythm the same rhyme, your sense of humor is not “broken” because you laughed at a surreal photoshop meme your sense of humor is working just fine it’s normal IT’S NORMAL YOU’RE NORMAL *I’m hit by a car*

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

all of my ocs are inherently neurodivergent in someway because i dont know how neurotypical people work

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

“My hands always tremble”. Whumpee said, deadpan. “I have low blood sugar. You’re not special.”

Whumper looked over the person standing before them.

"Are you scared, dear?"

The person shook their head, keeping their face expressionless and their eyes straight ahead.

"I know you're scared," Whumper continued, grabbing the other's wrists and raising them in front of their face. "Just look at the way your hands tremble."

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

we need a🧍except the guy is covered in blood

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

I respect you for elaborating but I'm getting mixed messages here. You say it's fine for people to do whatever they want, but if they answer a poll about their preferences and say they like male-centered stuff, that's discouraging and therefore bad? Or that polls existing at all and giving them a chance to show how popular their preferences are is bad? I think polls are just a fun little experiment and the reality is some things will be more popular than others, and if simply being informed that you're part of the less popular demographic is enough to kill your enthusiasm I think that's an issue on your part.

Of course telling someone "nobody wants to read that" directly is a dick move because "less popular" is very different from "there's no audience for this content at all" and saying no one wants to read wlw content is blatantly untrue. Polls having more options than just male or female would be good though yeah.

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

thinking about my fondness for characters that are unhinged but in a grounded and niche way, as opposed to "haha feral bastard that kills people and is silly about it", although those characters have their place too I enjoy characters who have one of the following traits: -compulsive liars who lie about random shit all the time for no reason -who "infiltrate" niche groups of bad people and pretend to be their friend while really they're just observing them like they're safari animals -disappear for months and rejoin the group like nothing happened. -whole-heartedly and unironically believe in insane conspiracy theories -cultists -old ladies who casually confess to murders they committed decades ago -see themselves as some sort of martyr and hurt themselves for literally no reason because dwelling in their own suffering makes them feel like the next jesus christ -never think for themselves and are completely cucked to the will of some authority figure, and are completely immune to any logical counter-argument that they're doing anything wrong because their faith in authority is so strong they don't even realize it blinded them

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

Honestly I don't think it matters if you have a preference for the genders of your characters in whump content and it's silly to have a superiority complex if you don't. Consuming content isn't and shouldn't be activism. Making sure some of your whumpers are women or nonbinary or whatever isn't going to do anything for society at large or even society at small.

Besides, lots of people are into whump for kink reasons and there are plenty of monosexuals who are only into one sex and there's nothing wrong with focusing on characters you're attracted to. Sometimes straight women just want to see men get fucked up lol and women are under enough scrutiny as it is when it comes to the interests and I say let them vibe.

I've noticed a pattern that these sorts of discussions only come up in spaces filled with women and lgbts. Normie men are living their best lives doing whatever the fuck they want with their media and don't scrutinize each other while we're over here in our niche corner of the internet asking people to diversify their torture fanfictions. It's goofy and unnecessary.

I know this is going to be a controversial take and there's more nuance going on with this whole debacle that I can't fit in this reply I'm writing to kill time while waiting for my lunch to get here, but I just got an impulse to speak from the heart and I have nothing to lose since these days I spend most of my days touching grass and kissing my girlfriend. God bless america or whatever, amen.

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

You can’t let intrusive thoughts “win” because there isn’t a fight to win. There is no fight. There is no danger to contain. The “fight” is punching yourself in the face and telling yourself that if you don’t do this, you’re going to accidentally act on something that terrifies you to your core. That’s the biggest reason why I hate that phrase so much. Not just because it creates misunderstandings and stigma in the minds of the unaffected, but also because it literally encourages the “O” in “OCD” for the affected. “Haha you gotta fight them! Fight it so much it ruins your life! You wouldn’t want them to win, do you?” Even when people are trying to dunk on how stupid that idea is, they still make jokes like “haha if I let my intrusive thoughts win I would be in jail” and it’s like…no you won’t. If you let your intrusive thoughts “win” nothing would happen because it’s just an unpleasant thought with no power. You let the intrusive thought wash over you, you let it “win” by letting it slither over your open palm, you say “that was weird”, and you continue with life. You don’t put it under a microscope. You don’t clench onto it trying to kill it, you just let it go. And then it’s fine.

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

i love you mirror versions i love you possession i love you cloning i love you simulacrums i love you shadow selves i love you digital copies of a mind i love you alternate timeline versions i love you tropes that play with identity and what it means to be a certain person

[awfulwhumpsideblog]

Projection is definitely part of why fanfiction authors write characters as deeply insecure (even and especially when they are not in canon), but I don't think it's the whole story.

I think it's also that insecurity is seen as a "virtuous" character flaw. Saying that your main character is "too humble" is the fiction equivalent of telling a potential employer that your greatest weakness is working too hard. It's safer and easier than approaching those ugly but more interesting character flaws like selfishness, wrath, prejudice. Ugly things that exist in all people, to some extent.

If it is projection, it's an idealized projection to only paint one's cleanest flaws into their story.