#this has to be a good whump show

[whumpty-dumpty]

The Night Agent spoilers:

I'm six minutes into the new Netflix series and the main lead has already been caught in an explosion, has a concussion, is dizzy, falls hard while running after a suspect, is in a fight, gets beaten up and hit by a car!😳

[whumpypepsigal]

I am very very very excited for the live action adaptation of avatar the last airbender. How about you?

hi dear anon!

yes yes. i too am excited!!! i’m not familiar with the original show, but from what i see in the trailers it looks well done (unlike the movie version lol). so yeah, can’t freaking wait.

[befuddled-calico-whump]

Stumbled on the series Altered Carbon a few days ago. I'm only five episodes in, but so far so good. The concept is exceptionally whumpy, but the execution is fairly standard for mainstream TV (handwaved injuries, trauma not really acknowledged). It's also a cyberpunk setting that goes heavy on world building, so naturally I love that.

(mini review with some spoilers beneath the cut)

Pros:

- Whumpy premise. Rebel/mercenary is taken out of prison by a rich guy who wants to hire him (and who almost verbatim claims him as his property)

- Interesting world, colorful and visually fun

- The concept of resleeving (transferring a person's consciousness into a new body) is used for both comedy and horror and it's great

- Episode 4 is like 30% torture chamber

- The way they illustrate "body death" as cheap makes a lot of sense to me for the the setting

- There's an AI hologram character and I love him

Cons:

- Has the gratuitous violence, nudity, and gore that's become typical for "adult" sci-fi. I don't mind it, (and I love the fight scenes) but half the time it seems like it's just for shock value

- excessive amount of sex scenes. Also makes half the female characters sex workers, and has a few instances of 'violence against women as a plot device'. The extent doesn't seem necessary aside from the "gritty" vibes these shows feel like they need to be taken seriously

- most of the romance feels forced

- oh and the male lead is literally drugged and sexually assaulted, but afterwards it's almost played like it was consensual??

- yeah yeah it's typical for sci-fi protagonists to be super tough and unflinching and it's part of the character but holy cow the lead has minimalist reactions to pain

[volfoss]

as a guy that loves getting into obscure media that like. maybe 5 people talk about now. it is interesting the difference between consuming media that is SUPER popular and everyone loves your fave (a curse i would never wish upon anyone. the posts will never be good) and a media that like. there is NO ONE actively posting about. it has barely any fan presence online. and honestly its kind of peaceful

[jackshiccup]

woah this maces and talons shit is getting serious !

[whump-captain]

- Day 4 -

Media that gives you whumperflies

---

I was actually struggling to think of anything I've seen recently that was whumpy but then i remembered The Green Knight.

It's an Arthurian tale with gorgeous visuals and a strange, dreamlike atmosphere. Gawain's journey wears him down fast and we get to see him more and more dishevelled, exhausted, and lost. It's glorious. There are only a few straightforward whumpy moments - like a knifepoint robbery or near-death experience - but the entire movie has this oppressive air of a difficult, taxing quest that was simply *chefs kiss*.

It's Dev Patel, too, who is excellent as always and frankly unfairly beautiful, especially in distress.

Go watch it. (though do look up content warnings bc while not too gory/disturbing, it does have some Non-Gratuitous But Still Weird Dark Fantasy Elements)

[aeide-thea]

still picking my way thru s3 of the witcher episode by agonizing episode but it's going SO slowly bc every time i watch one it's just like. right. this show is a B movie now and not in a good way

[whump-me]

I just went off on a rant because I looked up some stuff about my current favorite show and all I found was a ton of people ranting about how the last two seasons (which had some of the best and most complex character development I’ve seen on TV in recent memory) were terrible because the ship they like was deemphasized...

and then I remembered all the times I’ve gotten mad at a show or a book because it stopped being whumpy enough for me, regardless of how good the writing was. Or because the whump I thought was being promised never materialized.

I am the thing I hate... the only difference between you and me is that you want kissing and I want violence. Which I guess really does not make me any better.

[geekyglamour413]

God gives his toughest battles to his silliest soldiers <- is too picky abt shows and had been searching for something nice for over an hour

[void-tiger]

It is taking all my self control to not binge the Sad Angy God Boi show all over again.

(oh look! comic scans!)

[asian-drama-whump-blog]

Hey, I was looking at your master list (thank you so much for putting in the effort to make it so well 😊) and I was looking into the Thai drama Irresistible for myself. On DramaCool, it says there’s 22 episodes 😅. You know more than I do, but I thought I was bring it to your anttention bc idk. Is there no more whump past episode 15? Sorry if this message is inconvenient or stupid or something.

Hi anon, thanks for asking. The simple answer to this question is that I was lazy and this list is less complete than my other lists. There are 22 episodes of Irresistible which I did watch several months ago but this time around I was focusing mainly on this problem with his eyes. If I remember correctly there isn't much whump after ep 15 and I didn't watch past that so I certainly could have left some things out of the list. Hope that answers your question. :)

[whumpypepsigal]

battered lexi cradling wounded-bleeding out danny. before passing out, danny confesses his love to lexi and regrets not marrying her long ago. lexi tells him that their commingled blood is seen in some cultures as a form of marriage, and they exchange “i do’s”. INJECT THIS SCENE DIRECTLY INTO MY BLOODSTREAM!

[emilybeemartin]

Boromir Lives AU: We Didn't Have a Choice

Alternate title is They're All Just Kids With PTSD, Your Honor

This (ridiculously long? omg why so long, I did not mean for it to be this long) comic is a good example of how my plotlines usually develop---I'll write what I think is a self-contained story and then realize there are whole new narratives beyond it. This is how my first novel, Woodwalker, became a trilogy---I was writing it as a standalone novel until about the last three or four chapters, when I realized I'd kicked off a whole new series of political events. For this AU, I was thinking about how it would feel for Elboron to grow up in the long shadow of his parents, and idolizing his uncle(s) while also wondering how he'd ever measure up. For Boromir, I think he'd be so fulfilled to see his nephew get to come of age in a gentler world that he and his brother and all the others didn't get. Though if he had a future as anything other than a soldier I'm pretty sure it would be as a TikTok star showing us how to create a perfect ballerina bun. Show us your products, Boromir, dang.

This comic also reminded me that I clearly have a distinct set of author tropes because this has STRONG Veran vibes (Sunshield, Floodpath), with a young character feeling overwhelmed with the legacies of his parents. This is a bit of an opposite arc, though--- Veran wants to follow in his mother's footsteps but isn't allowed to, and so gravitates toward diplomacy, while Elboron feels pressured to take up soldiering like his namesake but would rather study language. Come to think of it, the manuscript I turned into my agent a few weeks ago also has some of these themes, which either means I need to stop writing quest follow-ups or start a Protagonists With Heroes For Parents support group.

--------------

Boromir Lives: Helm's Deep

Boromir Lives: Whump-Time After Pelennor

Boromir Lives: GO TO SLEEP

Boromir Lives: Aragorn's Coronation

Boromir Lives: Faramir and Eowyn's Wedding

Boromir Lives: It's a BABY

Boromir Lives: High Uncle of the White Tower

Boromir Lives: The Haircuts

[pluckyredhead]

What the heck is going on in Batman/Gotham War?

I know a lot of people in fandom are confused and/or upset about what's been going on in Gotham War - why is Bruce acting like this, what is Selina doing, why are the Batkids taking sides. So I figured I would fill you all in on what's been happening in Batman and Catwoman since Chip Zdarsky took over with Batman #125, because it has been BONKERS and I have been enjoying the hell out of it.

Below, the quickest summary I can manage while still being comprehensive:

[Content warning: mental illness, abuse, suicide (...ish), LOTS of violence.]

The first arc, "Failsafe," starts with Batman and Robin (Tim, in this case) in pursuit of the Penguin, who is on a killing spree. In the very first issue, Tim gets shot in the neck. Bruce has to take him to the hospital, but first he has to strip him out of his costume and put him in civilian clothes to preserve their secret identities, triggering memories of when he had to do the same to Jason's dead body. There is LITERALLY NO PURPOSE TO ANY OF THIS EXCEPT WHUMP (Tim is back in action with a fucking BAND-AID on his neck very quickly), which is how I knew this was going to be good. Beat Tim up! Make Bruce cry about Jason! I want these men to suffer! (There is also SO much to be said about Tim's own Poor Mental Health Decisions throughout the entirety of Zdarsky's run so far, but that's for a separate meta post.)

Anyway. Bruce leaves Tim in the hospital and goes to confront Penguin, who turns out to be dying of mercury poisoning. He kills himself and makes it look like Batman did it, forcing Bruce to flee. (Penguin actually faked his death and is alive elsewhere under an alias, but that's not important right now.)

In the Batcave, a massive robot called Failsafe emerges. Failsafe attacks Bruce, who usually eats killer robots for breakfast, but he can't seem to get the upper hand on this one. Duke, Cass, Steph, and Dick show up to help, but Failsafe beats them all too, while Tim gets an injured Bruce away and to the Batcave.

In the Batcave, Bruce puts on a weird purple and red Batman costume and a new personality takes over: the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. Now, Zur has a very complicated history going back to 1958, but for the purposes of this story, all you need to know is that when he was younger, Bruce decided it would be good to hang out in a sensory deprivation chamber until his mind created a secondary personality, Zur, who is essentially Batman without Bruce. Zur is pure efficiency who does not care about anything but the mission. He created Failsafe, for one purpose: to kill Bruce if Bruce ever crossed the line and killed someone. And right now, Failsafe believes that Bruce killed Penguin.

Failsafe nearly kills Tim, which Zur is okay with writing off as an expendable soldier's death, but this causes Bruce to take control of the body back because "Tim isn't my soldier...HE'S MY SON!" (Tim Nation, why are you not ALL OVER this story? It's catnip.)

Babs calls in the JLA (SuperBat fans, you will also want to read Bruce's adoring description of Clark when he shows up), but of course Failsafe has kryptonite, which it stabs Clark with. The League dumps Clark and Bruce into the JLA jet and distracts Failsafe while Tim flies Clark and Bruce to the Fortress of Solitude. Bruce tells Tim he's a good boy and jumps out of the jet and into the ocean so that Tim and Clark will be safe from Failsafe. He's rescued by Arthur, who takes him to Atlantis to heal. THIS HAS ALL ONLY BEEN FOUR ISSUES SO FAR.

Two weeks later, Bruce wakes up to discover that Failsafe has taken over Gotham. He teleports up to the JLA Watchtower on the moon to lure Failsafe there, then blows the Watchtower up, hoping to catch a ride on one of the Javelins. But Failsafe has already destroyed them, so Bruce RIDES A BOOSTER ROCKET BACK TO EARTH, OXYGEN MASK CLAPPED OVER HIS FACE. The whole thing has some powerful Scooty-Puff Jr energy.

The only tricky part is reentry, when Bruce starts to burn up - his costume is fireproof, of course, but his chin is exposed. SO HE TAKES OFF HIS LITTLE BAT-PANTIES AND PUTS THEM OVER HIS HEAD. I swear to god this happened in a real comic book and the entire "Bruce falls off the moon and survives" sequence is utterly delectable goofy nonsense and I truly cannot recall a time I've had more fun reading a comic book.

Anyway, Bruce lands directly outside of the Fortress, BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DOES, and runs inside to find Clark and Tim. While Clark keeps Failsafe distracted, Bruce and Tim program nanobots to inject compassion into Failsafe. I SWEAR TO GOD. They zap him with the nanobots, but Failsafe pulls a high tech space gun out of the Fortress and shoots Bruce with it anyway, apparently disintegrating him. Tim falls to his knees in the snow, weeping. TIM NATION, WAKE UP, THIS RUN IS CANDY FOR YOU.

But of course Bruce isn't dead! That wasn't a killing gun, it was a "zap you into another dimension" gun!!! THAT was the compassion!

So Bruce finds himself in a dystopian alternate Gotham, and I'll be honest, I didn't love this arc ("The Bat-Man of Gotham") as much as I loved "Failsafe," but it has its moments. In this Gotham, Bruce Wayne is dead, so Regular Bruce is like "Oh boy, time to Batman this place up." Also he's plagued by hallucinations of a skeleton version of Jim Gordon who is still wearing a trench coat AND A MUSTACHE. Like I said, it has its moments.

This Gotham is controlled by Arkham, and anyone who is diagnosed as "crazy" is locked up. A new villain, Red Mask, is in charge, and Selina and a Venomed-up Harvey Dent work for him. Bruce teams up with an orphan kid (of course) named Jewel and goes after Red Mask, who turns out to be some guy named Darwin Halliday and ALSO...the Joker. Well, he's the Joker who hasn't been Jokerized yet. But one time he breathed in some chemicals that let him see into the main reality of the DCU (???) and glimpsed Regular Joker and now he wants to build an interdimensional machine to mentally connect with Regular Joker across universes which he assumes will make him insane, NATURALLY.

Bruce attacks Red Mask, who sics a Venomed-up Ghost Maker on him. Ghost Maker cuts off Bruce's right hand. Bruce cauterizes it with an electroshock machine and ties some spikes on it (SERIOUSLY) and goes after Red Mask again. Meanwhile Red Mask mentally connects with an alternate dimensional Joker...but instead of it driving Red Mask insane, he's what drives the Joker insane. Desperate to become the Joker somehow, anyhow, he jumps into the interdimensional portal, and Morally Dubious Alternate Universe Selina kicks Bruce in after him.

Meanwhile, Tim is in full "I KNOW I SAW HIM DIE BUT HE'S NOT DEAD" mode, which: bless. So he teams up with Jon Kent, which...gosh, what an astonishingly boring duo. I love Jon, I love Tim, they're perfectly nice and normal around each other, I'm falling asleep. Anyway Tim fights Toyman for a while and then makes a VERY stupid costume where the entire torso is a giant light-up R, because "I want him to see that Robin is coming to save him." GET A THERAPY, TIM.

Bruce finds himself first in the Michael Keaton Batman universe, then the Red Rain universe, BTAS, Batman Beyond (yes I know they're the same universe but I guess he goes there twice), Silver Age, Kingdom Come, Gotham by Gaslight, and more. Adam West gives him a utility belt. The Dark Knight Returns Bruce builds him a robot hand.

Finally Bruce and Red Mask reach the end of the multiverse, which is a Gotham asteroid floating in space, surrounded by giant Jokerized sharks. LUCKILY BRUCE HAS BAT-SHARK REPELLANT IN HIS ADAM WEST UTILITY BELT!!! Honestly this whole arc was worth it for that moment.

Bruce knocks Red Mask out, but now he's stuck. He has a device from Batman Beyond Bruce to get home, but it's only good for one person, and he can't leave Red Mask there to die. Of course, that's when Tim shows up in his stupid giant glowing R costume and they hug it out, thereby fulfilling but also compounding all of Tim's issues since 1989.

Anyway things are fine now, right? Sure, Bruce is hallucinating that his family is on fire, and the Zur personality is not going neatly back into the box where it's been all these years, and he still has a robot hand (Damian, hilariously, immediately announces that he wants one too), but he's FINE. He is a little bit mad at Selina, because she broke out of jail (she was in jail because she killed her fuckbuddy because he was trying to kill Bruce), and also because she didn't tell him Penguin was alive and that would have stopped Failsafe, and also because Other Selina kicked into another universe. Selina, very fairly, is like "Well I'm not responsible for Other Selinas and also maybe don't build robots to kill yourself with and not tell anyone about them???"

THEN we got Knight Terrors, the summer event in which a villain called Nightmare caused everyone to fall asleep and, uh, have nightmares. Bruce, specifically, had a nightmare that he met an eight-year-old version of himself that vomited up a man-sized bat with a gun for a head. I laughed SO HARD. Bruce also had his body borrowed by Deadman for the duration of the event, so while he endured the psychological toll of nightmares like everyone else, he also endured the physical toll of everything Deadman was doing PLUS the mental toll of being aware of what was happening in the waking world even though he couldn't control his body. As soon as the event was over, he lapsed into a coma so that his body could get some damn rest.

Okay. Now we're up to Gotham War.

(I know, I know. But for all of you who are like "How could Bruce do this???" about Gotham War...*points up* THAT'S HOW. HE IS NOT WELL.)

Bruce awakens from his coma and IMMEDIATELY decides to Fight A Crime even though Babs is like "Maybe don't?" But he can't find any crime, which is...weird. His kids confirm that Gotham's been super quiet since he's been out.

Selina hears that Bruce is awake and is like okay, time to pay the piper. She calls all of the Bats to a meeting and explains that she's the reason crime has been down. See, villains like Joker and Two-Face always have goons, right? But what if the goon supply dried up because the goons have better jobs? So Selina has trained All The Goons In Gotham to be...cat burglars. No violence, no stealing from anyone who can't afford it. More importantly, no helping Scarecrow or whoever commit mass murder.

All of the Batkids are like "Hmm...I feel uncertain about this, but it's working...I don't know what to think..." except for Jason, who thinks it's hilarious and is instantly Team Selina, and Damian, who is staunchly Team Bruce. Bruce, meanwhile, is like "No! NO! THIS IS CRIMES, AND CRIMES IS BAD!" and Selina's like "I mean, robbing from the rich is basically a victimless crime" and Bruce screams, I swear to god, "MY PARENTS WERE 'RICH'!" Inexplicable scare quotes and all. I laughed so hard.

Anyway this is the basis for Gotham War and it is endlessly hilarious to me because everyone in the Batfamily is supposed to be a genius and yet not one single character has pointed out that:

There are jobs the goons could be doing that AREN'T illegal. It's not just violent crime vs. nonviolent crime. There are in fact many other jobs! I am POSITIVE Gotham needs construction workers and hospital orderlies. (Yes, I know it's hard for people with records to get jobs. That isn't addressed.)

Being Batman is SUPER ILLEGAL.

They are all so stupid.

Selina's plan doesn't even work, because one of her thieves gets killed by a rich person defending their home, and Bruce is like "See? This is why crime is bad!" and like...pretty much snaps. He's particularly fixated on Jason, even (rhetorically) threatening to kill him, which is when the other kids jump into the fray on Jason's side, all except for Damian, who like I said is firmly Team Bruce. (This makes complete sense to me, Damian has been dealing with severe trauma and isolation pretty much nonstop since 2018 and he and Bruce have finally made a tenuous peace, so I can understand why he wouldn't want to lose that.)

Also, Vandal Savage buys Wayne Manor. It's so random and SO funny.

OKAY BATMAN #138. Bruce has kidnapped Jason and injected him with a variation on fear toxin which will be triggered whenever Jason's adrenaline spikes, the idea being that Jason is no longer capable of killing - but in practice, Jason is no longer capable of even getting up off the floor, he's so terrified. I want to be really, really clear here: Bruce is like 90% Zur here, and the only reason he goes this route and doesn't kill Jason is because the remaining 10% that's still Bruce loves Jason and is trying to help him. He's just incapable of good or humane help because Zur literally can't do feelings.

Dick knows something is up and is sneaking around Bruce's Secret Other House We've Never Heard Of to figure out what it is. Damian attacks him to protect Bruce. Tim attacks Damian so that Dick can do what he needs to do, and handcuffs Damian to a parking meter:

THERE IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK HERE!!! TIM GO TO THERAPY! DAMIAN GO TO THERAPY! EVERYONE GO TO THERAPY!!!!!

Dick figures out what Bruce did to Jason (it's on the computer, for...some reason?) and absolutely loses his shit on Bruce, beating the crap out of him, which tbh is the only thing that felt off to me in this run because frankly I don't think Dick likes Jason that much. BUT WHATEVER.

Tim pulls Dick off of Bruce. Bruce leaves them both tangled in a net and flees as the cops approach. Zur's like "Good, fuck 'em" in Bruce's head, because the cops will expose Dick, Tim, and Damian's secret identities and Bruce will be free of the dead weight of a family, but the little bit of Bruce still in there throws Dick a batarang so he can free them all in time.

Then Bruce leaves. Damian is devastated.

I WILL NEVER RECOVER FROM THIS PAGE. Damian really thought he could have Bruce's love and loyalty if he turned on everyone else! Tim is going to be a therapy dog to a Wayne even if he has to settle for the one he doesn't like! That unresisting, blank hug made me SCREAM when I turned the page. Incredible. (Also the art fucking S L A P S, god bless you Jorge Jimenez.)

ALSO it turns out that Selina's second in command has been Vandal Savage's daughter Scandal Savage the whole time and they are turning Selina's cat burglar army into their own personal army WHOOPS. (This also feels very OOC for Scandal but at this point I trust Zdarsky with my life so let's see where things go.)

SO THAT'S WHAT'S GOING ON IN GOTHAM WAR. TL;DR:

Bruce is unhinged because he nearly died like 19 times in a week and it unlocked the smaller, meaner purple Batman that lives inside him.

Selina is unaware that you can get money legally.

Tim is going to have a nervous breakdown if he can't fix someone, ANYONE.

Damian needs a hug but ideally from someone he actually likes this time.

Jason is so scared.

THE END.

[oohshinywhump]

Thinking about a first time Whumper x veteran Whumpee...

When they first meet:

"You don't seem nearly scared enough. This isn't your first time is it?" "You seem weirdly nervous. Is it yours?"

"Ugh! Out of everyone in the city I could kidnap I had to get stuck with someone else's leftovers!"

"You used to belong to so-and-so, didn't you? Ah! They're my idol! Oh! This is exciting. I get to study their masterpiece up close!"

"WHY AREN'T YOU SCARED OF ME?!!!"

"Oh. You've never done this before." "Stop judging me. I have a knife."

"How is it you know exactly what I like?" "You torturers are all the same." "You've done this before??"

"I won't kill you, but I need you to cooperate. I am new to this, just so you know." "Yup. I'm going to die."

"Mmmm, I love how you move when you're in pain." "Thanks! I've been practicing for years."

"Who taught you to scream like this?"

Whumpee helping Whumper figure out the basics:

"Why are you on your knees?" "Oh sorry. Do you not like that? The last guy liked me that way. I just assumed…" "No, no. It's a good idea. Keep doing that. I just… never thought of it."

"So, what are the rules?" "Rules?" "Yeah, dumbass. Your rules for me. Do you want me to call you sir? Master? Or can I keep calling you jackass?"

"Do you want me to put up a fight or should we skip straight to the submissive stage?" "Oh... uhhh... don't fight too much. I don't trust myself not to accidentally kill you." "Oh, yeah. Good point."

"What kind of scream do you like?" "There are kinds of screams?" "Yeah. The last guy liked it when I ugly-cried. But I'm pretty good a bloodcurdling and whimpering like a kicked puppy. I can try to stay quiet but I can't make promises there..." "Hmmm... try all of them. I'll tell you which I like best."

"You cleaned??" "Yeah? Was I not supposed to?" "I didn't know you could make captives do that?!" "For the record, I didn't do it because I'm scared of you - your arm gets tired after giving me like three lashes. I did it because I'm going to be spending a lot of time bleeding on this table and I doubt it occurred to you to disinfect it."

Whumpee teaching Whumper how to whump:

"Show me what they used to do to you."

Whumper studying the scars on Whumpees body to learn the best places to cut/stab.

"Oh no! A knife? How original!" /s

"If you stab me right there you'll kill me. You have to go one inch to the right. Yeah, right there-AHHHHHH! …yup. Right there."

"I'll make you a deal. Let me have a solid eight hours of sleep and I'll show you where to pinch the nerve that will paralyze my left arm."

"You can't leave me tied up like this!" "I can do what I want!" "Yes. Okay. True. But like, you've either got to tie my knees to my chest or let my feet touch the ground. Otherwise I'm going to asphyxiate."

Whumper having an inferiority complex:

"I CAN DO ANYTHING THEY COULD DAMMIT!" (They = Whumpee's former Whumper)

"WHUMPEE! YOU'RE NOT BETTER THAN ME!" *Whumpee trying not to laugh when Whumper fucks up something really basic.*

"You must think I'm so pathetic." "NOo! Of course not! You're doing amazing! Really you are! I'm so fucking scared of you right now. I promise."

"I'll never be as good as the person who hurt you before." "You'll get there! I promise. I was like his fifth victim - I'm your first. Be kind to yourself!"

"How the fuck did your former Whumper do it?" "Yeah... you're not getting that out of me..."

Whumper being paranoid that Whumpee is manipulating them. Even though they hold the power they feel like Whumpee has more control over the situation because they know more.

Also...

Whumpee knowing just how to manage Whumper. They instinctively know when to be a little defiant and when to do exactly as they are told. They know just the right tone of voice to speak in, and just how to move, scream, to keep Whumper as pleased as possible. The sooner Whumper is satisfied the sooner it will stop.

Whumpee pretending it hurts worse than it does, lying about which places/tortures hurt most, acting more sick or tired than they really are to get rest/food, acting more scared than they really are… It's not like Whumper could know better.

[gingerhastoomanyobsessions]

the lords in black are so interesting to me because. they’re so us. we’re watching the citizens of hatchetfield suffer for our own entertainment just as much as they are. we’re their accomplices in all of it

pokotho made hatchetfield into a musical because musicals are entertaining. and we ate that shit up! it’s soooo fun watching a little man scramble as the world around him bursts into song. the musical genre is satirized because pokey knows how the genre conventions work just as well as we do. we like watching musicals so much that black friday and npmd are musicals, too, even though they don’t revolve around pokotho’s plans as much as tgwdlm. we want them to sing. pokotho does too.

bliklotep is the audience and the audience is bliklotep. trail to oregon calls the audience “the watcher with one thousand eyes” and that’s not all, in watcher world blinky seems to be able to see through the eyes of anyone and everyone who loves spectacle. he wants to see the characters go through angst because WE love angst. it’s fun to watch alice and bill express their buried frustrations. blinky wants it to end in bloodshed because he loves tragedy, and let’s face it, so do we. it’s like that one post about how hamlet is aware of the audience and is angry that we don’t do anything to intervene because we want to see how it plays out. personally, I think blinky could have stopped the woodwards if he really wanted (he’s an elder god, after all) but alice shooting him shifted the narrative so that the emotional payoff would be more fulfilling if they escaped. and blinky loves a good story.

t’noy karaxis has blorbos. we joke about it, but that’s really what it is, isn’t it? he’s the fan who watches the movie again and again and again and again to see his favorite character’s dramatic death scene. he’s the guy who writes and reads angst fics by the hundreds because he likes to see his faves cry. he’s the hatchetfield enjoyer who’s on the edge of their seat waiting to see how ted kicks the bucket this time. the bastard’s box is pretty much just an ao3 account filled with whump and hurt no comfort. he’s sadistic AND he genuinely adores ted, because we fans are often cruelest to the characters we love the most. he puts ted through character growth— the realization that his life went the way it did because of his own mistakes, his inability to be vulnerable with jenny before it was too late— and he does that by writing a 56-chapter angst fic that’s still updating to this day

nibblenephim is the fan who voraciously devours every scrap of content that a creator produces and demands more, more, more. let’s face it, the fandom will never let starkid rest until we see this story through to its end. and then someone will demand a sequel series. nibbly is hungry because we will never stop yearning for more stories. he’s simple because that desire itself is simple— as humans, we need creativity like we need air to breathe. nibbly wants more because we want more. and we will never be satiated.

wiggog y’rath is the ruler and the king because he’s the self-inserting writer. I think jon matteson plays paul *and* wiggly for a reason— wiggly is the only lord in black to be played by the same actor in every single show, and that actor also plays the protagonist of tgwdlm. wiggly wants to be the protagonist. he tries to force himself into the human world of hatchetfield because he wants to participate, dammit! he wants to be the bestest ruler that the earth has ever seen! everyone has to love him because he’s going to be their bestest fwiend! when he appears in human form he’s gonna be the prom king! he’s the ebony dark’ness dementia raven way of the hatchetfield multiverse. he wants every human character to bend to his whims and to love him and to put him at the tippy-top of planet earth because he’s the writer and the writer’s main character, you fuckheads, and he can make whatever story he wants, whether the other characters like it or not! if you’ve ever written a self-insert story? congratulations! you’ve been wiggog y’rath.

and the funny thing? I don’t think the lords know that they, too, are as fictional as anyone else in hatchetfield. maybe blinky knows— he sees through the audience’s eyes, after all— but I don’t think the others do. if they did, maybe they’d be a little less tyrannical. a little bit nicer.

but then the starkid writers wouldn’t have much of a story to tell, would they?