#the source material is so whumpy

[frownyalfred]

Are there any tropes or whump ideas you can't believe no one has done or there is little of?

I say this because I adore your fic "pull out the pin." Possession trope is so WHUMPY and makes me giggle and curl my toesies like an idiot. I don't care if the "Fight it" "This isn't you" "give him back" dialogue is cringe, I gobble that shit as if I were in a famine. It has so much potential and I'm so surprised how underused it is.

Love your work! Love your account! You inspire me to write - one day at least haha❤️ 😔✊

Thank you so much! Yeah even if it is cringe I’m gonna write it 😅 I hope you write someday!

I would probably say eldritch and/or Gotham being weird, giving the Batfamily powers, etc. I know there are fics out there with those that are great, but it didn’t seem to catch on as much as you’d think with all the canon source material.

When I was writing my eldritch superbat fic there weren’t a ton of similar fics. I then wrote that post about cryptid/weird batkids getting powers over time and that seems to have sparked a few new fics which is awesome! I’ve been reading all of them hahaha.

People tell me pretty frequently that the mind bond fic is rare for DC. I would also say that a lot of the older fandom tropes (reincarnation, royal AUs, sex pollen) have also decreased in recent years, but that’s not always a bad thing! Just means fandom interests are shifting to other tropes.

I’ve mentioned to fellow writers, in the whump realm, that we don’t cover Clark in blood nearly enough. And we definitely don’t talk enough about the batkids getting hurt trying to emulate Bruce, not necessarily in his vigilante activities, but in his social/Brucie Wayne identity ones.

As always, if anyone has recs to prove me wrong here, I happily welcome them!

[redd956]

Announcement! Whump Community!

@theres-whump-in-that-nebula and I (@redd956) are currently working on and starting a mental health positivity blog, which on Mondays will post mental health advice, positivity, and more.

After the events which many of us in the whump community are familiar with that occurred a little over a month ago, we discussed whether there was something we could do about the situation. A lot of ideas were thrown about, and eventually we decided on this.

The mental health in the community obviously hasn't been the same. As we are a community already consisting of many of those turning to whump writing as a coping mechanism it would make sense either way to provide a potential resource containing mental health positivity.

Plenty of other outside sources are also straining the mental health of about everyone around the world.

I wouldn't normally interrupt the whump community with something non-whumpy, but I strongly feel this is related to our community, and want to open this blog to those who may need.

I also open this blog to anyone who stumbles across it, needs it, follows me for separate communities, and everyone. This blog is easily for everyone. Mental Health Monday is open to everyone.

The blog itself will post and reblog positive mental health related materials on Mondays, and potentially there are ideas of doing a few occasional types of post throughout the week.

If you are in love with this idea, and interested in it, feel free to reblog so others may note it's sudden existence. @theres-whump-in-that-nebula and I (@redd956) will do our best to keep it active, and clean with helpful content.

[leyswhumpdump]

Do you like whump? Do you like webcomics?

For those who enjoy the visual medium, I really wanted to recommend a whumpy webcomic that doesn’t get anywhere near the love it deserves.

@bd-bandkanon​’s Senhyakkin (🚨LINK HERE🚨) is a post-apocalyptic samuraipunk sci-fi set on an alien world with sapient robots, hivemind bug people and warrior people with horns. The landscape is dangerous, the wildlife wants to eat you and the robots (also known as “Skeletons”) are definitely hiding the history of this place.

Main cast includes a Big Fighty Lady, dodgy guy with Secrets, an empath with crossbow skills, a tactical genius bug dude on a mission to find his missing guardian, and a mysterious robot with memory problems. There is whump from the very first chapter, with a good mix of physical and emotional pain.

Technically this is a Kenshi fancomic, but don’t let that put you off—the author’s goal is for this to be accessible without knowledge of the source material. All characters so far are OCs with the exception of a few antagonists, and the author does a brilliant job of adding depth and detail to what was a mostly-sandbox world.

(Art and link shared with the permission of the author!)

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

I only just recently read Burn The Witch and i loved it so much. It’s wild to me (but also not really) that people paid the most attention to the smut chapter than anything else when to me, my favourite thing about that series was the gritty, darker parts of it.

That is something that personally I love so much about your writing, I love it when it gets gruesome and hard to read because it draws me in even more. Since I’m a huge angst/whump reader might give me a bias but it goes without saying that you are really fucking good at writing fics with horror/angst elements.

It baffles me when people get butt hurt about how a fic ends or how a characters acts in a fic because like- if you don’t like it then just…don’t read it? Go find another fic and just leave it at that? Better yet, just go back to reading or watching the source material… People’s urge to just tear down other people for the select reason being that they don’t like it is so insane to me. Is it hurting anyone? Nope, okay then move on with your day. It’s as simple as that!!

this message literally makes me so happy omg.

I love writing angst and whump and horror so much. I love it. it is something I love writing even more that smut (and the reason most of my fics are smut is because I enjoy writing it) - but I find that I am almost afraid to write it, because I am afraid of my fics being too dark and too depressing. like the things I want to write are like those 'top ten most disturbing horror movies' - those movies that people watch just for shock value that they have to turn off half way through

I love writing visceral, descriptive horror. I love writing gut wrenching angst. but I am always afraid of going too far with it (even if I put warnings on it).

also friendly reminder that my requests for TWD are open (idk if you watch the show and you're familiar with the characters? I don't remember if you have mentioned that before) - but this would be a great opportunity for you to request something really angsty and whumpy for that fandom (especially because TWD is such a great backdrop for writing angst).

writing Burn The Witch was one of the most eye-opening experiences I had as an artist, because writing the scenes of emotional angst and physical torture were some of the most fun I had, and a time where I stretched my legs creatively where I had been static for a long time (writing simple smut fics in a kind of routine?) - and it really reawakened me as an artist. it made me realize that I can write stories beyond simple smut (and you can see that in so many stories I have written since then) - but I was disheartening for me to post that story and see people only pay attention to the smut chapter when the parts I was post brought of was every single chapter after it.

anyway - thank you so so much for this message. it really means a lot to me. and this will probably inspire me to pay more attention to my angsty ideas in the future <3

[convenientalias]

I Rate Cdramas by Whump: Part 2

Two years ago now I made a post rating every cdrama I'd watched at the time by quality of whump. I feel I've watched enough cdramas since then that it is now time for a sequel.

(Note: If you like kdramas, I made two posts rating those by whump as well, for your reference.)

Some notes before I begin:

Yes this is entirely objective. What do you mean??

If the ratings seem a little high, it might be because whump is one of the things that convinces me to watch a show to begin with.

There will be spoilers, but vague spoilers.

I'm only listing shows I've completed and remember well enough to rate.

THE RATINGS.

Addicted Heroin--8/10. This is a gay school romance between surprise stepsiblings, it's not really meant to be whumpy. Despite this, it has some drunk and angsty scenes, some sick scenes, and even a kidnapping!! I would give it a 10/10 purely for going the distance it Did Not Need to Go (although the source material is even whumpier, but that's another story) but I feel I should be honest and say it is primarily a show of comedy, not over the top whump. The whump is definitely there though.

City of Streamer--I'd probably be more into the whump here if I was more into lady whump, as a lot of bad things happen to female characters, both physically and emotionally. Men go through distress but it's usually not as physical as I'd like. Since I'm very picky about lady whump and this show mostly doesn't hit the spot for me, I'll give it a 3/10.

Granting You a Dreamlike Life--10/10, Luo Fusheng's life sucks. People in this show get beat up, threatened with guns, stabbed, arrested, kidnapped, chased by wolves, trapped by an avalanche, literally shot.... "People" here mostly meaning Luo Fusheng but Tianying and some others get a good share of whump as well. Granting You a Dreamlike Life is living the dream.

Joy of Life--I really wanted to see Fan Xian get whumped but by halfway through the show I had to accept that it was more of a power fantasy type drama about Fan Xian being Clever and Competent. If you ever see me complaining about Joy of Life, know that this is a solid part of my sour grapes. 3/10, credit given to the Teng Zjing arc and the couple times Fan Xian gets captured or arrested.

Rattan--9/10. This show has two endings and I swear they did that specifically to deliver two different brands of whump/angst. But more importantly, they put poor Qin Fang through the fucking wringer! In the first fucking episode he gets drugged, arguably kidnapped, and almost dies in a car crash. Then the rest of the show he suffers from a curse, gets kidnapped, gets hurt so bad he falls into a coma.... They really do not go easy on this poor boy. Honorable mention to Si Teng's tragic backstory and Qin Fang's business partner also getting abducted that one time.

Reset--Ehhh the leads are going through it but they're mostly just getting tired. They do get arrested/interrogated a good deal, and die a whole lot. But I'd call this a suspenseful show, not a whumpy one. 2/10, rare nonwhumpy fave for me.

Sword Dynasty--I must begrudgingly admit they whumped the prince in this show pretty good, and they whumped the MC a lot too, I just hated him. This show is bad but I will admit it is moderately whumpy. A very begrudging 5/10.

Under the Skin--Level of whump maybe a bit higher than average for a crime procedural. Police officers being menaced is pretty standard, especially when one is an ~artistic genius~. Shen Yi sure does drown a lot, though, and the flashback revealing his reaction to Lei Yi Fei's death is really angsty. I'd give it a 6/10 bc my standards for thrillers are higher than my standards, for example, for a school drama like Addicted Heroin.

Weaving a Tale of Love--I said my taste in lady whump was picky and guess what, a cheerful crossdressing female lead getting whumped is in fact my taste. I loved seeing bad things happen to Liuli/Xiao Douzi! I would have been up for seeing her get drugged or imprisoned some more!! 7/10 bc while the whump is good when it's there, the majority of the show is cheerful, shippy, or plotty, and not really all that whumpy.

Winter Begonia--Whump is not what I go to Winter Begonia for. I go to it for the slice of life vibes, the slashiness, and the Chinese opera. But, as whump goes, it's actually quite strong. There are opera performers losing their voice, losing their ability to walk, losing their reputations, some even losing their lives. And then there's Cheng Fengtai, friendly and kind of shady businessman who has his own shit going on--most notably he goes into a coma at one point and also is once kidnapped by bandits. Honestly 8/10, I don't think of it as whumpy when looking back on it but objectively there is a lot.

Word of Honor--People are slowly dying with nails in their chest. People are mourning their lost loved ones and falling apart. And sometimes getting beaten up or captured in the present as well. 9/10, I could go higher but I always get a sense of restraint from this show. Even if the leads are pushed to the breaking point, it's not quite as gleeful about it as some others on this list; there's generally a sense of "fuck it, I've been through worse, I'm used to this", which doesn't quite push my buttons but may appeal a lot to other tastes. I could be convinced to give it a 10 though? Mixed feelings.

Xiang Long--The urge is to give this a 1000/10 but I'm a principled rater and cannot break my rating system! and yet! this show breaks my brain!! every day I have to get up and remember that Long Xiang shot his own subordinate in the head in an attempt to convince Bai Lusheng to quite a hunger strike and then proceeded to get mad at him for being passive aggressive while eating!!!! every day I go on living in this world. Fuck. He threw the dude's gun down a well, damn it! I will someday find a way to transmigrate into the world of Xiang Long and murder Long Xiang, but anyways: kidnapping, Stockholm Syndrome and an abundance of Lima Syndrome, torture, people getting shot and whipped and blown up etc etc etc..... 10/10 bc I'm a principled person and will adhere to my rating system. If you watched this show for a reason other than whump, I'm not sure whether to fear or admire you, but you're stronger than me.

Some final notes:

I said in my last cdrama-whump-rating post that whump and serious drama do not correlate, but I've begun to think whump even flourishes MORE in a less serious/more over the top or tropey show. Xiang Long and Granting You a Dreamlike Life are great examples of this, as they both put melodrama over realism. Rattan and Addicted Heroin have a mostly light tone but can include some extreme whump without a tonal clash bc they aren't super serious about their whump either. In contrast, Reset and City of Streamer generally have a more grounded and suspenseful tone, and their whump level is low--even if people get hurt, it's rarely focused on. Meanwhile, Winter Begonia lies in a weird intersection of melodrama and tragic melancholy, and I think it's because it's whump tends to play more to the serious side of the show that in my head I'm always thinking of it more as angsty, less as whumpy. But maybe this is all due to how I classify whump rather than the inherent characteristics of whump in general. I'd be happy to hear anyone's thoughts!

[seek--rest]

Most fics where Flash is an abusive bully and Peter is infantilized/bullied/weakened so that Tony has to save him are whump. Fandom loves whump, especially whump of ~uwu white guys. But... Spider-Man™ is already a whumpy media and character?? His whole deal is throwing himself into dangerous situations. You (general you) don't need to write these awful OOC scenarios demonizing characters of color just to have Peter get his ass kicked and be sad about it. Just... write a regular Spider-Man story.

Exactly you get it.

The lengths so much of fandom, particularly irondad, goes to 1) woobify Peter and 2) demonize Flash Thompson is just racism. It’s racism! If the same fandom that can make Tony Stark who said FAR WORSE to Peter, see Peter as his SON, cuddle up with him in bed and have sleepovers at the tower things which is another rant for I’ve had for years suddenly /has/ to be canonical for the Brown boy that canonically IS NOT this aggressively physical and abusive bully… there’s only (1) explanation. And no, it’s not story and plot or creativity. Not when it’s consistently done and consistently done by white women in their 20s and 30s

It’s racism. And it’s weird as shit, considering the source material.

[emcscared-whumps]

WiJ 2022 - 04: Share a TV Show/Movie/Story /Media That Gives You the Whumperflies

WiJ 2022 Navigation Post

Whumpy Shows 'n' Stuff

I mentioned in the first two wij posts that vampire knight served as my gateway into understanding whump as a concept, but it remains, to this very day, the whumpiest shit I've ever watched.

It's not perfect (far from it), but at least for me, Zero suffering and angsting in every single episode was totally worth it.

Ofc, if you're tired of me harping on about Vampire Knight, Danny Phantom is also concerningly... there. Canonically, some fucked up shit happened and whoops, there were some whumperflies in there, whoops -sweats- Listen, it has so many parallels to my favourite whump shit ok--

Oh yeah, and the fandom is far worse (in terms of traumatising the bbies), and even better because they age him up for all the horrible things they do to him lmao. There is SO much fanfic and fan art and fan-made content (that is often better than the source material), and the whole community is like us-- super friendly, and still going strong to this day (despite the original show running from 2004-2007).

It's very cool, 10/10 would recommend!

If animation isn't your style, Daredevil is also pretty fun :)) I've not watched it all the way through yet (I made it pretty far tho), but Matt Murdock all beat up and angstily trying to hide his secret is pretty damn fun >:D

@whumpmasinjuly

[oddsocksandstuff]

Entering a new fandom and realising the Worst Possible Thing

[Image Description: the shrek 2 union meme but edited to say "they don't even have whump writers". End I.D]

[luckgods]

Why all the white guys in whump?

I got Inspired by a post asking that question, and here we are. Warning: long post ahead.

I think it’s due to a combination of factors, as things frequently are.

The preference for / prevalence of white male characters in fandom is well-known and has been examined pretty thoroughly by people already.

What’s worth noting for discussing this tendency in whump in particular is that the ‘whump fandom’ itself is not a ‘fandom’ in the traditional sense of being made of fans of one single source narrative (or source setting, like a particular comics fandom, or the Star Wars extended universe) with pre-existing characters. Although subsets of traditional fandoms certainly exist within the larger whump fandom, a lot of whump is based on original, ‘fan’-created characters.

So, given the tendency of ‘traditional’ fandoms to create stories disproportionately centered on white male characters due to the source material itself being centered on white male characters (and giving more narrative weight to them, characterizing them better, etc), if we say hypothetically that the whump fandom is split say 50/50 between ‘traditional’ fandom works and original whump works, you’d expect to see a higher number of works focused on white men than the demographics of the ‘traditional’ fandom’s source work would predict, but not as extreme of a divergence between the source material & the fanworks as the one you’d see if whump fandom were 100% based on popular media.

However, that doesn’t quite seem to be the case. Whump stories and art remain focused on overwhelmingly male and frequently white characters, which means that the tendency of the fandom to create stories disproportionately centered on white male characters cannot be ONLY explained by the source material itself being centered on white male characters (and giving more narrative weight to them, characterizing them better, etc).

And, having established the fact that whump writers & artists presumably have MORE control over the design of their characters than writers & artists in ‘traditional’ fandoms, we have to wonder why the proportions remain biased towards men, & white men in particular.

—

The race thing is pretty simple in my opinion. Mostly, it’s just another extension of the fanbase’s tendency to reflect the (predominantly US-American, on tumblr) culture it exists in, which means that, in a white-centric culture, people make artworks featuring white people.

There’s also the issue of artists being hesitant to write works that dwell heavily on violence towards people of color due to the (US-American) history of people of color being violently mistreated. I’ve actually seen a couple of posts arguing that white people SHOULDN’T write whump of nonwhite characters (particularly Black characters) because of the history of actual violence against Black bodies being used as entertainment, which means that fictional violence against Black people, written by white people, for a (presumed) white audience, still feels exploitative and demeaning.

I'm not going to get into all my thoughts on this discussion here but suffice to say that there's probably an impact on the demographics of whump works from authors of color who simply... don't want to see violence against people of color, even non-explicitly-racialized violence, and then another impact from white authors who choose not to write non-white characters either due to the reasons stated above, or simply due to their personal discomfort with how to go about writing non-white characters in a genre that is heavily focused on interpersonal violence.

Interestingly enough, there’s also a decent proportion of Japanese manga & anime being used as source material for whump, and manga-styled original works being created. The particular relationship between US-American and Japanese pop culture could take up a whole essay just by itself so I’ll just say, there’s a long history of US-Japanese cultural exchange which means that this tendency is also not all that surprising.

—

GENDER though. If someone had the time and the energy they could make a fucking CAREER out of examining gender in whump, gender dynamics in whump, and why there seems to be a fandom-wide preference for male whumpees that cannot be fully explained by the emphasis on male characters in the source text.

I have several different theories about factors which impact gender preference in whump, and anyone who has other theories (or disagrees with mine) is free to jump in and add on.

THEORY 1: AUTHOR GENDER AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
 Fandom in general is predominantly female, although these days it might be more accurate to say that fandom is predominantly composed of cis women and trans people of all genders. However, pretty much everyone who isn't a cis man has had to contend with the specter of gendered violence in their real personal life. Thus, if we posit whump (and fandom more generally) as a sort of escapist setup, it's not hard to see why whump authors & artists might willfully eschew writing female whumpees (especially in the case of inflicted whump), because (as in the discussion of people of color in whump above), even violence towards women that is explicitly non-gender-based may still hit too close to home for people whose lives have been saturated with the awareness of gender-based violence.

THEORY 2: SICK OF SEXY SUFFERING.
 Something of an addendum to theory 1, it's worth noting that depictions of female suffering in popular media are extremely gendered (in that they specifically reflect real-life gender-based violence, and that said real-life violence is almost exclusively referenced in relation to female characters) and frequently sexualized as well. There's only so many times you can see female characters having their clothes Strategically Ripped while they're held captive, being sexually menaced (overtly or implicitly) to demonstrate How Evil the villain is, or just getting outright sexually assaulted for the Drama of it all before it gets exhausting, especially when the narratives typically either brush any consequences under the rug, or dwell on them in a way that feels more voyeuristic and gratuitous than realistic and meaningful. All this may result in authors who, given the chance to write their own depictions of suffering, may decide simply to remove the possibility of gendered violence by removing the female gender.

THEORY 3: AUTHOR ATTRACTION. 
I'll admit that this one is more a matter of conjecture, as I haven't seen any good demographic breakdowns of attraction in general fandom or whump fandom. That said, my own experience talking to fellow whump fans does indicate that attraction to the characters (whether whumpers, or whumpees) is part of the draw of whump for some people. This one partially ties into theory 1 as well, in that people who are attracted to multiple genders may not derive the same enjoyment out of seeing a female character in a whumpy situation as they might seeing a male character in that situation, simply because of the experience of gendered violence in their lives.

THEORY 4: ACCEPTABLE TARGETS.
 The female history of fandom means that there's been a lot more discussion of the impacts of depicting pain & suffering (especially female suffering) for personal amusement. Thus, in some ways, you could say that there is a mild taboo on putting female characters through suffering if you can't "justify" it as meaningful to the narrative, not just titillating, which whump fandom rarely tries or requires anyone to do. This fan-cultural 'rule' may impact whump writers' and artists' decisions in choosing the gender of their characters.

THEORY 5: AN ALTERNATIVE TO MAINSTREAM MASCULINITY.
 Whump fandom may like whumping men because by and large, mainstream/pop culture doesn't let men be vulnerable, doesn't let them cry, doesn't let them have long-term health issues due to constantly getting beat up even when they really SHOULD, doesn't let them have mental health issues period. Female characters, as discussed in theory 2, get to ("get to") go through suffering and be affected by it (however poorly written those effects are), but typically, male characters' suffering is treated as a temporary problem, minimized, and sublimated into anger if at all possible. (For an example, see: every scene in a movie where something terrible happens and the male lead character screams instead of crying). So, as nature abhors a vacuum, whump fandom "over-produces" whump of men so as to fill in that gap in content.

THEORY 6: AMPLIFIED BIAS.
 While it's true that whump fandom doesn't have a source text, it's also true that whump fans frequently find their way into the fandom via other 'traditional' fandoms, and continue participating in 'traditional' fandoms as part of their whump fandom activity. Bias begets bias; fandom as a whole has a massive problem with focusing on white male characters, and fans who are used to the bias towards certain types of characters in derivative works absolutely reproduce that bias in their own original whump works.

—

I honestly think that there is greater bias in the whump fandom than anyone would like to admit. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems as though whump fans avoid introspection and discussion of the issue by bringing up the points I talked about in my previous theories, particularly discomfort with depictions of female suffering for amusement.

However, I think that, as artists, we owe it to ourselves and one another to engage in at least a small amount of self-interrogation over our preferences, and see what unconscious or unacknowledged biases we possess. It's a little absurd to argue that depictions of women as whumpees are universally too distressing to even discuss when a male character in the exact same position would be fine and even gratifying to the person making that argument; while obviously, people have a right to their own boundaries, those boundaries should not be used to shut down discussion of any topics, even sensitive ones.

Furthermore, engaging in personal reflection allows artists to make more deliberate (and meaningful) art. For people whose goal is simply to have fun, that may not seem all that appealing, but having greater understanding of one's own preferences can be very helpful towards deciding what works to create, what to focus on when creating, and what works to seek out.

—

GENDER ADDENDUM: NONBINARY CHARACTERS, NONBINARY AUTHORS. 
Of course, this whole discussion so far has been exclusively based on a male-female binary, which is reductive. (I will note, though, that many binary people do effectively sort all nonbinary people they know of into 'female-aligned' and 'male-aligned' categories and then proceed to treat the nonbinary people and characters they have categorized a 'female-aligned' the same way as they treat people & characters who are actually female, and ditto for 'male-aligned'. That tendency is very frustrating for me, as a nonbinary person whose gender has NOTHING to do with any part of the binary, and reveals that even 'progressive' fandom culture has quite a ways to go in its understanding of gender.)

Anyways, nonbinary characters in whump are still VERY rare and typically written by nonbinary authors. (I have no clue whether nonbinary whump fans have, as a demographic group, different gender preferences than binary fans, but I'd be interested in seeing that data.)

As noted above with female characters, it's similarly difficult to have a discussion about representation and treatment of nonbinary characters in whump fandom, and frankly in fandom in general. Frequently, people regard attempts to open discussions on difficult topics as a call for conflict. This defensive stance once again reveals the distaste for requests of meaningful self-examination that is so frequent in fandom spaces, and online more generally.

—

TL;DR: Whump is not immune to the same gender & racial biases that are prevalent in fandom and (US-American) culture. If you enjoy whump: ask yourself why you dislike the things you dislike— the answer may surprise you. If you create whump: ask yourself whose stories you tell, and what stories you refuse to tell— then ask yourself why.

[touchmycoat]

cnovel!anon: yeah, I won't comment on the drama to avoid spoilers, but there were major changes from the novel (it felt like one of those shows that starts filming before the writer is done with the source material, so it makes up stuff after getting all the characters in place - see Fullmetal Alchemist, GOT, etc.). The drama does do whump on both of them (though I am not as into whumping a woobie; which is why ilu & your LQG :P). And the actor for Wang Zhi was really good (aged up, though).

cont'd: I like WZ added to the Suizhou pairing, because he's extra spicy :P Also because he's more likely to take initiative than Suizhou (and he'll roll his eyes extravagantly while giving the push). Novel!Wang Zhi is a bit more bratty than drama!Wang Zhi, but I love them both. I really love how MXS explores the different ways people enact their principles, like Yu Ai in trying to save the sect destroys its central tenets, and how those reflect on the main charas and their choices.

--

I entirely see what you mean by the major changes, sigh. I don't love woobie whump either, as beautiful as darren chen is. Also the whump just wasn't landing?? Maybe I need to check out the sui zhou whump episodes smh, but yeah I skipped to eps 42-44 to see the legendary given-to-the-antagonist scenes but,, it wasn't even that whumpy,,,,

omg wang zhi. Sleuth's casting decisions were overall hella solid for me and I kind of love that wang zhi genuinely looks like an 18 year old. He's not actually a baby is he?? I never know with these actors. Novel!Wang Zhi is totally a brat and the kind that I eat up with a spoon (i'm a thousand percent sure I'll write him at some point, he's just too good for dialogue). damn right he's SO spicy. Also there's that whole bit where Tang Fan volunteers to go to the warzone lake place with him and he's genuinely taken aback and reflects on Tang Fan's 為人？I love how much it speaks to Tang Fan's goals and character that he can "tame" someone as 囂張 as Wang Zhi—he didn't do it with that goal in mind necessarily but goddamn if the 緣分 isn't delicious. On the flip side I also love that Wang Zhi 領情了, and does genuinely come to him repeatedly for help without holding back his own shitty personality lmfao. Appreciating Tang Fan's intellect is one thing, but he clearly also appreciates Tang Fan's character and knows he can unleash every single one of his 霸道總裁 tendencies without Tang Fan taking it personally.

(though okay, dislocating tang fan's arm and slapping tang fan across the face is still to date the sexiest thing to have happened in the novel. C'mon Sui Zhou, step up your game.)

The Suizhou developments are uhhhh, bone broth?? Delicious and clean and takes time to cook all the flavors into. It's so SLOW but i guess it's lovely. all the nuances are there and I really do appreciate how Sui Zhou's character is laid out. It's precisely Tang Fan's capabilities that he appreciates and loves so the (fun but admittedly a bit 矯情) tropes of jealousy and passionate whatevers don't play out along the conventional scripts. I love that he's taking his time with the confession and the waiting for a reply and the romance (even if he's literally wifed himself for Tang Fan already).

(also i cracked up at the wang zhi-sui zhou dynamic of WZ: "hey bitch, bitch, cunt, asshole, bitch," SZ: 冷眼, WZ: "ugh tang runqing how do you stand him")

[captain-of-the-historicfuture]

~hello~ !! For the meta asks!: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, and 25 :))

Hello!! Thank you for sending these; I was really excited to see that ask game and I was hoping somebody would send some in. It still took me a while to actually answer them though, and for that I apologise. But without further ado! Some meta answers (under the cut because they ended up being fairly long, whoops):

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (Consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway.)

I thought of a few examples, but they could basically be grouped together under a common theme: whumpy/angsty scenes that were self-indulgent as all heck. The whole self-indulgent aspect often required the characters to be just the teeniest, tiniest bit OOC and/or necessitated rather unrealistic plot circumstances. So it was simply easier to keep such scenes as maladaptive daydreams, rather than trying to think of explanations for the character/plot issues…or exposing myself to judgement for them LOL.

Receiving permission to write/share one such scene anyway is an opportunity I can’t let slip by though. It might be because I’m writing this while running on zero (0) hours of sleep—let’s hear it for insomnia, y’all!—but I suddenly couldn’t remember any of my newer ideas under this category. However, I did recall a one-shot I had started writing a couple of months ago that sort of counts? “Sort of” because I could actually be arsed to write it since I was, ya know, writing it. Only got about six hundred words down though.

…should I share those six hundred words…?

………nahhh. I don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet.

But here’s the gist of it: Coulson and May (because of course it’s Philinda) were married for quite some time before the Attack on New York. But then Coulson DiedTM and then got ResurrectedTM. But gasp of horror, he had to lose his memories of his romantic relationship with May because reasons. (I actually did have some ideas for those reasons but sshhhh this is about me yeeting context and setup.)

The first half of S1 still happens as normal (except MayWard doesn’t happen because??? Vows) and it’s now post-E20 “Nothing Personal”. The morning after (or a morning soon after, whatever) the T.A.H.I.T.I. reveal! May’s mom—who doesn’t know about GH.325 and whom May fed a cover story about Coulson divorcing her or something equally as oof, IDK—shows up at the hotel and starts ripping into Coulson for breaking her daughter’s heart, then dragging her back into the field with her ex-husband (him), then accusing her of terrible things and forcing her away again.

Poor guy’s confused as heck, and so is the team, and soon enough so is Lian. The only one who understands what’s going on is May, and she’s freaking dying off to the side like why is this happening to me and eventually everybody’s like! Explain??? (Was thinking about including something from Coulson like, “Are you still keeping things from me?” Just for that extra smidge of angst, yay!)

So yeah then May gives a, like, two-sentence debriefing that elicits more questions than answers. Coulson decides to take May aside and they have a heart-to-heart. Lots of feelings and angst and hurt/comfort and at some point plenty of kissing too. Just! May hiding her feelings for Coulson’s sake but really magnified, plus some actual apologies and consideration of the grief May’s been through on Coulson’s part.

And uhh yeah that’s basically it I dunno hdsjncjshd. I warned y’all it’s OOC, plot-bendy, and very self-indulgent!

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

I don’t think I could name a single character for this. I get different things out of taking on different voices, you know? I guess recently I’ve found myself gravitating towards more taciturn and introspective points of view, like JQ from my original novel Rosewood or M. Yisbon from my…other original novel Temple.

Generally, however, I like tackling stories from an outsider’s perspective. That’s why I so rarely write my more “substantial” (serious? demanding? for lack of better words?) projects from the PoV of my “preferred” character. This usually means writing from their love interest’s perspective, but not always. With shorter fanfic, using a more removed/unconventional/niche PoV can be really fun. Like, I once wrote a canon compliant ficlet purely(-ish) about Philinda from Tony Stark’s perspective. That isn’t always sustainable with stories that demand more character development or closer character studies, however, which is why it’s a good thing I like writing drabbles!

9. Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other?

My word counts tend to run long, but I usually only write one-shots for fanfic. If I’m even inspired with a novella- or novel-length story idea for a fandom, you already know I’m in deep with them. And if I actually find the motivation to plan and execute that idea? Dangg. That’s only ever happened…twice, maybe thrice, and I’m in a lot of fandoms.

At times, I wish I could go for more of a middle ground ’cause, like, you know what I love to see? An AO3 dashboard with several completed novellas for my ship/character of choice. I mean yes, I hecking love >90k fics, but sometimes I’m in the mood for quick reads…and what am I supposed to do when I burn through all the drabbles and 2k one-shots? (Besides despair and/or reread my faves desperately.) Novellas are basically always safe for me LOL, and I’d hope to be able to give as much as I take.

Ultimately though, I think I’m okay with where I am with regards to that. I wish I could write more in general, but I’d be okay with “writing more” just meaning “writing more one-shots”, ya know? More than okay, really. I have mad respect for fic writers who have, like, a hundred or more one-shots under their belt for this one ship. The fandom ecosystem would be incomplete without them (as well as every other type of writer, but sshhh that’s the type of writer I’m closest to being right now).

I’m definitely a plotter, and I definitely prefer it that way. It’s cool having such a detailed record of my process. I like feeling like a frazzled genius on the brink of a major discovery with all of my different outlines and colour coding and many drafts and various websites.

12. Do you want your writing to be famous?

Not exactly. It might be cool if my original works were recognisable in the world, but I don’t think I’d want to be recognisable. As for fanfic, I’d low-key enjoy gaining a place in that fandom’s community as a fic writer. Like someone who gave and got fic gifts from fic writer friends, who participated in challenges and GCs, who received writing prompts on Tumblr, whose name was known for doing a certain trope/genre a bunch of times… Ya know what I mean?

Unlikely to happen when I’m so hecking hesitant to publicly (i.e., outside of AO3) claim credit for my writing, but fjnskfsjhfjs. A writer can dream, right?

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

Of those three, tags are the easiest for me, for I have a reliable system for figuring out those.

Next easiest would probably be titles. For fanfiction, I like to use titles that are a quote from the source material. You should have seen all of my old Hamilton fanfic… I was really proud of some of those titles. And I don’t mean, like, whole lines—usually only two to five words. It’s a unique type of wordplay that I just love dabbling in.

And lastly, summaries. Sometimes inspiration strikes me and a snappy and intriguing synopsis just jumps out—one that I’m quietly pleased with—but most of the time I’ll spend way too long trying to think of such a synopsis and eventually just go with whatever I’d come up with so far. And live with my quiet dissatisfaction for the rest of time.

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (Plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations...?) Tell us about them!

Typically, no. If I have deleted scenes, I save and publish them separately, but that’s about it. I sometimes think of AUs for my own work and might talk about them in my author’s notes—might even talk about writing them—but I never really do anything with them.

Although…

It’s not uncommon for me to decide a plotline isn’t working for a certain story or to think of an interesting but undoable arc for a certain character, but what I’ll do is make a whole new story for those ideas. Once I’m done developing the original idea and the branched-off one, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell they grew from the same roots. Does that count?

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as (film, webcomic, animated series, etc.)?

That depends on the story. I’ve actually written stories in other mediums—movie screenplay, musical stageplay, poetry, TV show scripts, play scripts, roleplay—but the novel does tend to be my comfort zone. Sometimes, if I have an idea that I think could work, or would even work better, as another medium, I’ll label it as such in my folder of ideas and decide not to write it as a novel.

Most of the time, my non-book projects are collaborations. I’m working with five different people on six different story ideas: two webcomics, one stage musical, one anime, and two animated TV shows. Little concrete progress has been made in any of those, mind you, but they’re still fun to discuss!

24. Would you say your writing has changed over time?

Absolutely. But I’ve been writing stories since I was five years old, so we would hope so, huh?

I wouldn’t say my writing’s changed completely, though maybe that’s just my insider’s perspective.

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

Oh gosh, I can’t believe you’d make me choose. Writing is just such a wonderful experience for me; I love just about everything to do with it. Admittedly, not all the time, but. Since that barely qualifies as an answer, however, I’ll give you this—

The endings. Not only that intense feeling of rightness when you wrap up that last sentence, but also the moments before. The adrenaline of knowing you’re almost there but you gotta push just a bit more to actually get there. And also the part right after—the real wrap-up, honestly: the revision and the editing. Heavens, I love revising and editing my work.

Which is not to say I don’t like writing it out for the first time, too—there’s nothing quite like seeing your cursor scroll to the next page, like going from a blank expanse to a Oh man, how many more lines are even going to fit on this page?, like watching that page counter tick up another number. However, there’s something cathartic about finally ironing out those problems I had to force myself to stop worrying about earlier because “just finish the first draft dangit”.

I guess that’s not really the end of the writing process, but whatever. Close enough (as fic writers are wont to say).

Another thank-you for these asks, and feel free to come back with more at any time! ;P

Send in fun meta asks for your friendly neighbourhood writer!

[iwhumpyou]

omg Envy i’m watching DC Titans right now, which takes place in the DCU and focuses a lot on Jason Todd and Dick Grayson and it just got to a part i kinda recognized (a shot of Dick kneeling, holding his hands behind his head) and it’s cause you reblogged a gif of it months before you even got into batfam whump DJSNDJSND (also, if you were interested in seeing some dc source material, Titans is a pretty good place to get some!!) —@whumpydaydreams

@whumpy-daydreams.

I’ve seen some scenes here and there - Jason falling, the rooftop scene, Dick fighting Jason (why everyone feels the need to shoot fight sequences in the dark I don’t know, this is why cartoon/anime fight scenes are so much better), and now I went and searched for the arrested scene because you brought it up and I completely forgot about it. 😂

sometimes you discover the dc universe multiple times, that’s just how the world works

I’m not sure I’d be that into Titans, anything that has an overabundance of superpowers without a corresponding CGI budget always comes off a bit...odd.  I was into Arrow for a long time (nearly five seasons, I think), because the show had a lot of whump and whump potential and Amell’s abs (the salmon ladder scene jfc).

[evilwriter37]

30 Day Challenge - Fanfic Meme - Day 18

Where do you get the most inspiration for your fics (aka “bunnies”) from?

I get the most inspiration from whump prompts and scenarios. I also like prompt lists for smut and whump. Also, I draw quite a lot of inspiration from the source material. There were so many chances to turn it whumpy, or smutty, and I just have to take that. 

[thenewcastleincident]

Do you portray your muse differently to the general fandom? What thread types (e.g. angst, fluff) do you think portrays your character at their most genuine?

Do you portray your muse differently to the general fandom?

Not consciously, but that is mostly because I stay away from other portrayals of all my muses. I deliberately don��t want to be influenced by them, be it taking on something they are doing or deliberately not doing something just because they are doing it. Kind of the same rule as an author with fanart, I guess.

I write him how I see him from the comics, mostly, so I guess he would be different than portrayals mainly based on the show.

What thread types (e.g. angst, fluff) do you think portrays your character at their most genuine?

Angsty, whumpy, dark stuff. Because that’s what his source material is. So that is the easiest to keep him in character with.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Hi!!! Ok first of all I love ur writing so much omg 😩😩😩 I’ve read all ur stuff except for endurance, and I wanted to know whether u think it’s something that someone who hasn’t read ADSOM could enjoy and understand?? thanks!! (and sorry if you’ve answered this question already!)

Thank you so much for reading!

I’m not sure on Endurance - the story picks up after an event very near the end of the first book, and essentially does a “instead of Protagonist winning this pivotal fight, what if the secondary antagonist did instead? and then, uh, six chapters of angsty smut and then it got away from me and turned into a friggin’ novel with a real plot. So...

I have had some of my friends on here say that they loved it, and read each chapter, without having read ADSOM and found it pretty easy to pick up on things they needed ot know about the setting as they went. I also play a bit fast and loose with world-building and the way the author intended magic and stuff to work in the setting.

Personally, I think once you get past the initial first few chapters, you should do just fine reading it even without reading the source material! It’s a pretty whumpy story so if you came to my blog for the whump, you will still find plenty of what you are looking for! But also it deadass turned into a novel about found family, redemption arcs, and the love you are given freely mattering more than the love you ‘earn’ or are ‘good enough’ for.

I would love it if you gave it a shot, but i’ll understand if it’s too confusing without having ADSOM to fall back on. But I think it should be good to read!

[killian-whump]

Whump Poll!!! Where do you personally draw the line for whump? Like what make you step back and say “okay, that’s a bit much for me”?

Realistic gore is the main one, probably?

When it comes to writing, where the actual visuals are left to the reader’s own mind to supply, I really don’t have a limit - so long as the whumpee somehow (even impossibly, lol) survives the ordeal to be rescued. And in a canon environment like Once, where there’s magic to conceivably fix even the most grievous of injuries... Well, I’m basically like

But when it comes to live action whump... I’m a total wuss. Too much blood, or gross squelching sounds, or internal organs popping out to say hello... and I’m gone. Done. Toast. My cringing and shrinking back from the gore totally eclipses any enjoyment I might have of the whumpiness of the scenario - even if a rescue does come or would still be possible.

And, I guess, in both mediums, I really do dislike it when the whumpee gets killed or is maimed to such a degree that recovery isn’t really possible within the context of their environment. As much as I love torturing whumpees, it’s always with the implied expectation that they’ll be saved and nursed back to health by their significant other. The more intense the whump/trauma is, the more intense you expect the rescue/comfort will be - but when they stiff me on the second half of that equation, it just ruins the first half for me, and I’m gonna have to imagine my own conclusion to the story, where the whumpee gets rescued just in time. And, you know, that’s work for me - and I’m lazy. I don’t like work.

Don’t get me wrong, though - I still prefer whump that ends in death over a lack of whump. If there’s no whump at all, then I have to imagine the whole scenario on my own. At least if there’s whump, I just have to imagine a better resolution than what the source material provides.

Other than that... I don’t really have limits? I love sexual whump - from torture to molestation to all-out rape, I like it all. Extremes and taboos are okay by me - castration, other mutilation, cannibalism, incest, you name it - so long as there’s a reasonably believable means for recovery. Humiliation and mind-fucks are glorious. I’m pretty much okay with anything, though I do have some things I enjoy less than other things...

I’ll be honest: I prefer scenes with antagonists and non-consensual pain and trauma to BDSM-tinged stories where the victim wants it. That’s my main turn-off when it comes to A/B/O stories, because they basically instill a biological imperative to obey in the bottoms, and that just ruins it for me. I like my whumpees kicking and screaming the whole way ;) Also, I’m extremely judgmental about BDSM fics that portray the practice in a negative or unrealistic light without a disclaimer making it clear that such things are merely fantasy and not intended to be realistic, so those kinda make me leery.

Oh, I’m also not a fan of mpreg, because I spend the entire story wondering where the baby’s supposed to come out of and squirming at the though of either possibility and inevitably seeing that one SNL skit replaying endlessly in my head, and then I can’t take anything seriously for the rest of the day XD