The Clarity of Catastrophe

“I could wish for something softer but you know me. I love a tragedy. I love when it’s urgent.” - Caitlyn Siehl || Whump, hurt/comfort, and dark fiction sideblog. - He/him - over 25 || Contains depictions of violence, blood/injury/gore, abuse, and other dark themes. Please keep your personal comfort and boundaries in mind while browsing this blog.

[angstingantlers]

Whump, angst, hurt/comfort, and dark fiction sideblog. General cw for blood, injury, threat, harm, and otherwise dark themes.

Note: This is not a sexual blog. I am generally not a fan of explicit NSFWhump and will rarely if ever post things that are intended to be read as sexual. Feel free to like/reblog for those reasons but please do not add overly sexual comments on my original posts unless they already contain explicit sexual content. For my comfort I will block blogs that I notice doing this.

DNI, blog info, & tags under the cut.

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About Me

My name is Hunter, he/him. I am a queer, neurodivergent, and mentally ill adult over the age of 25. I'm a digital artist and writer who tends to be drawn towards horror, tragedy, and content involving either my original characters or specific fandom characters I've latched onto. I am white and live in the UK, and have a BSc (Hons) in Criminological & Forensic Psychology.

My main special interests include the horror genre and the nature of fear and trauma in media, psychology (especially in relation to rehabilitation and prison reform), prehistory, and my original characters.

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DNI

I am very liberal with the block button. Consider this a heads up that if you follow/like/reblog from me and I notice you fit the following criteria, then I will block you (and report you, if appropriate).

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⦿ The usual suspects: radfem, nazi, support Palestinian genocide, other bigots, MAPs, zoophiles, radqueer, etc.

⦿ LGBTQ+ exclusionist (transmed, anti-MOGAI, against mspec lesbian/gay, against aspec/arospec/aplspec identities, etc.)

⦿ System exclusionist (anti-endogenic, sysmed, etc.), against informed self-diagnosis for disability/illness, or 'fakeclaims' others

⦿ Proship/anti-anti/etc., treats pedophilic/incestuous dynamics as cute/desirable, ships real people, or posts kink content featuring underage/incest/RPF

⦿ Blogs that encourage self-harm or heavily focus on IRL self-harm -- including EDs

⦿ Blogs with a heavy focus on discourse/drama regardless of your particular 'stance'

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Tags

I try to tag specific media, characters, and actors wherever possible so they can be easily searched or blacklisted, using the following format:

⦿ #media: X, #character: Y, #actor: Z

Example: "#media: Doctor Who, #character: The Tenth Doctor, #actor: David Tennant".

Please feel free to correct me if I make a mistake when tagging media/character/actor names.

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I'll eventually have a tag to put all my original content under. For now you can find it by looking for:

⦿ #writing prompt, #whump prompt, #whump writing, #whump art

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I tag content that features or reminds me of OCs with the following:

⦿ #oc: can't a man just be fucking sad? [Finsterl Tyto]

⦿ #oc: a sad guitar [Deslie Tyto]

⦿ #oc: root of all evil [Hemlock]

⦿ #oc: eric needs a tag [Eric Elsonheir -- @victoryillustrations]

⦿ #oc: the bitter with the sweet [Rowen -- @victoryillustrations]

⦿ #au: supers in seattle

⦿ #au: -tag pending: zombies-

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Interests

The rest of this post serves as an extremely long breakdown of the things under this umbrella that I do and don't enjoy, followed by media that fulfills these interests or that I want to check out. For anything not mentioned here, you can assume I either don't feel strongly on it or don't know it exists.

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Character archetypes I like:

⦿ Resistant, defiant, & sassy

⦿ Arrogant & egotistical

⦿ Intensely manipulative

⦿ Completely broken/conditioned

⦿ Feral & animalistic

⦿ Non-human/anthropomorphic/magical

⦿ God-like figures

⦿ Villains & anti-heroes

⦿ Siblings

⦿ First responders (paramedics, firefighters, etc.)

⦿ Characters trying their best but still making mistakes/that aren't infallible

⦿ Specific OCs/fandom characters

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Hurt themes I like:

⦿ Interrogation

⦿ Hostage, ransom, kidnapping, etc.

⦿ Targeted, sustained abuse over time

⦿ Betrayal

⦿ Solo survival (lost alone, being hunted, trapped in rubble, etc.)

⦿ Surgery & surgical emergencies

⦿ Medical experimentation

⦿ Self-sacrifice/self-inflicted suffering

⦿ Near-death experiences

⦿ Being bloody/injured/beaten up & generally in pain

⦿ Being very vocal & reactive to pain

⦿ Enduring extended suffering & dissociating from extreme pain

⦿ Shivering & trembling

⦿ Exhaustion & being forced to give up/unable to keep going

⦿ Heart conditions

⦿ Fever, headaches, & migranes

⦿ Sleep deprivation & insomnia

⦿ Hallucinations, delusions, & paranoia

⦿ Emotional distress & breakdowns, especially in fear/panic

⦿ Suicidal ideation & casual risk-taking/recklessness as a result

⦿ Sadistic/impossible choices

⦿ Hypnosis, brainwashing, & mind-control

⦿ Conditioning, especially subtle/unnoticed

⦿ Slow breakdown of willpower/resilience

⦿ Sensory deprivation -- blinded, deafened, etc.

⦿ Loss of bodily control via possession, transformation, etc.

⦿ Threatening with weapons, particularly guns

⦿ Gunshot/stab wounds

⦿ Treating your own wounds (ineffectively)

⦿ Infected wounds

⦿ Restraints; chained up, bound in rope, collared, muzzled, etc.

⦿ Being trapped, purposefully or by accident

⦿ Manhandling & pinning

⦿ Grabbing by the face, throat, chin, & hair

⦿ Forced to kneel or take another respectful posture

⦿ Forced to accept comfort or other intimacy from their harmer

⦿ Backhanded affection or praise

⦿ Tragic ending/no escape/no recovery/etc.

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Recovery/comfort themes I like:

⦿ Slow, complicated trauma recovery & "messy" victims/survivors

⦿ Focus on restoring the recovering person's autonomy as much as possible; re-learning indepedence & self-care

⦿ Learning to live, not just survive

⦿ Anger/lashing out as a trauma response & learning to manage it

⦿ Unhealthy coping mechanisms -> healthy coping mechanisms

⦿ Exploring/coping with triggers & phobias caused by trauma

⦿ Realistic de-conditioning

⦿ Hidden trauma/injuries being discovered & treated

⦿ Aid with caring for injuries

⦿ Resistance to accepting help & learning to accept help

⦿ Having no choice but to accept help (severe injury, illness, etc.)

⦿ Caretakers as friends, teammates, found family, or siblings

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I'm sometimes interested in but can be sensitive to:

⦿ Death of significant characters

⦿ Characters dealing with grief

⦿ Impalement except in specific circumstances

⦿ Most natural disaster scenarios

⦿ Honestly most of the standard comfort-focused/caretaker content that's out there, it ranges from being uninteresting to making me feel uncomfortable 4/5 times

⦿ Caretakers as parental figures or romantic partners

⦿ Whumpers as parental figures

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I'm usually uninterested by/can tolerate:

⦿ BBU & other socially accepted pet/slave scenarios

⦿ Idealised/'perfect' caretakers

⦿ Focus on romantic or sexual relationships between characters in general

⦿ Generic character names (ie. just called 'Whumpee'), it just takes me out of it

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I may sometimes write the following myself, but almost always avoid or need to be in a specific mindset for:

⦿ "Bad boy/girl/dog/etc.", "You've been bad", etc. -- I hate that word and characters being called it

⦿ Explicit usage of medical needles/syringes

⦿ Alcohol/recreational drugs & substance use disorders

⦿ Trapped in fires & other fire-based scenarios/harm

⦿ Focus on graphic abuse or violence to children/younger teenagers (if it's offscreen or in backstory it's fine)

⦿ Parental abuse from father-figures

⦿ Infantilisation & treating bodily adults like children

⦿ Abuse for being autistic or having a similar condition/disability

⦿ Abuse related to enforcing gender identity standards, ie. demeaning a man for being feminine/woman for being masculine, misgendering a trans person, forcing someone to wear gendered clothing, etc.

⦿ Abuse related to a perceived lack of intelligence, ie. excessive use of insults like "stupid" or "dumb", being ridiculed or punished for not understanding something, etc.

⦿ Explicit sexual harrassment & sexual abuse

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Media

A list of content I've seen that scratches my itches well or that I want to look into. Always open for recommendations if you think there's something I'd like!

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Completed:

⦿ A very, very, very long list of generic horror movies

⦿ Apostle

⦿ Beaten To Death

⦿ Hannibal NBC

⦿ The Inheritance Cycle (Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, & Inheritance)

⦿ Jekyll & Hyde (Musical)

⦿ Lucifer

⦿ Mad Max: Fury Road

⦿ The Passenger

⦿ Ravenous (1999)

⦿ Watership Down

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Partially Completed:

⦿ 9-1-1 & 9-1-1 Lone Star (s2)

⦿ Casualty & Holby City (scattered arcs/episodes)

⦿ Game of Thrones (literally just Theon's scenes)

⦿ Grey's Anatomy & spin-offs (... s14? Or so?)

⦿ Grimm (unsure how much)

⦿ Once Upon A Time (scattered episodes)

⦿ Our Flag Means Death (s1)

⦿ The Vampire Diaries (s5 I believe?)

⦿ The Walking Dead & spin-offs (partway through s9 or 10)

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To Check Out:

⦿ The Blacklist

⦿ Broadchurch

⦿ Doctor Who

⦿ Endeavour

⦿ Hawaii Five-O

⦿ House MD

⦿ Leverage

⦿ Loki (& some MCU)

⦿ The Magnus Archives

⦿ The Revenant

⦿ Peaky Blinders

⦿ Prodigal Son

⦿ The Rookie

⦿ Station 19

⦿ Supernatural

⦿ The Witcher

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Notes To Self

I'd love to learn how to make my own movie/TV show gifs at some point. I know the basics but not enough to be happy with. This is a reminder of things I want to gif once I am ready to dedicate time to learning.

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⦿ The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It: Ed's heart condition

⦿ Mad Max: Fury Road: Max bound/muzzled & scenes with Furiosa

⦿ Apostle: Lots of Thomas and of the goddess

⦿ The Walking Dead: So much

[avicorax]

Oasis

Drew this cute Dilophosaurus during pride month!

[pvtashby]

Do you know exactly why you like whump?

Yes

No

Show results

Voting ended onMay 1, 2025

Reblog/reply with your reason! I'd be super interested to see what others do it for!

[angstingantlers]

For me it's about the unflinching look at the most uncomfortable and tragic experiences that can happen to a person and what comes after.

The human condition is beautiful and complex, and trauma and pain and illness and survival are just as important as any other element of it. Whump is a stark and brutal exploration of that whilst also being more honestly hopeful than any other subgenre I've seen. It doesn't see the world as an ideal place where things just work out even in the most dire circumstances. Characters often don't come out of the story the same as they went in. But much of the time, they do make it through. They endure. They survive. And many do get to the other side, and they have an After -- a Future -- despite everything they had to fight through to get there. It's not easy and the pain might never go way, but they're here. They survived and now they can start to live again.

So many people see things like this, in fiction AND real life, and they turn away and hide it as far back in the shadows as they can. At the very least they sanitise it and simplify it to make themselves more comfortable and pretend people just get over the pain they endure and go back to 'normal' again. But pretending wounds never scar, both physical and mental, makes me frustrated -- honestly, sometimes straight-up mad. So I appreciate whump for showing the darkest corners of life, of pain and anguish, without shying away from it. The whump community embraces and honors the violence and the gross and the complicated, and it treats imperfect people as just that: people. Sometimes the people improve, sometimes they don't, but they're still people no matter what and they're still given the same empathy and care.

There are other aspects as well that further enhance my enjoyment of whump -- horror is one of my Main 3 Special Interests, I have a fascination with injuries and blood and gore and such, I'm a Crim & Forensic Psychology graduate and the psychology of people who harm and people who are harmed and the effects of trauma and loss and such in those contexts is extremely compelling to me -- but first and foremost, I like whump for saying the quiet parts out loud. Shit hurts. Things change people. Sometimes you can't change them back. But just because they're different now, doesn't mean they're broken or wrong -- and doesn't mean they can't forge a new way forward.

[woobifiedvillain]

Big fan of characters realizing they don't get to die. They have to live. And grow. And be a person. And deal with shit they thought they'd never have to. And be fucked up about it. I would like more of this. Enough dying for honor or as redemption. It ain't. You're just a corpse. There is no moral value in dirt time.

[3-2-whump]

As much as I love Whumpee x Caretaker...

Rb if you think Caretaker can be a brother, a friend, or just some guy who found Whumpee at the right place, right time and stay that way

[letthewhumpbegin]

Mad Max Fury Road (2015)

[ablatheringblatherskite]

OKAY BUT

Whumper ruffling whumpee's hair. Pinching their cheeks. Patting their heads. Holding whumpee's shoulders to keep them from falling over. Grabbing whumpee's face with one hand and squeezing their cheeks so they're forced to pout. Grabbing whumpee's head with both hands and forcing them to look at them. Poking whumpee's nose or cheeks almost playfully.

GOOD STUFF.

[a-whumped-tea]

Whumper was expressionless as they opened the front door, but that slowly turned into a fond smirk as they looked over Whumpee, whose own eyes were on the floor and filled with shame.

"You realized you couldn't live on your own, didn't you?"

Whumpee gave a single nod in response.

Whumper reached out and cupped Whumpee's cheek, they were gentle as they stroked it with their thumb.

"Good. Maybe this time around you'll behave."

[whump-galaxy]

“How…how am I….?

“Alive? You were on the brink of death, so I possessed you for long enough for the healers to find you. I still wouldn’t move though, your body’s still in rough shape.”

[the-bar-sinister]

🎉 Write characters that you find interesting and compelling.

🎉 Don't worry about making characters too over the top, or 'too much'.

🎉 Write characters who want big things.

🎉 Write characters with conflict between what they want and what they need.

🎉 Write characters who don't realize they are doing harm.

🎉 Write characters who don't know how to communicate well.

🎉 Write characters with people they love in the way of what they want.

🎉 Write characters with amazing abilities who use them in ways that unintentionally fuck them over.

🎉 Write messy characters!

[gummybugg-deactivated20251021]

🎉 Write characters who have contradicting traits.

🎉 Write characters despite knowing there's a trope or two your characters may fall under.

🎉 Write characters you forgot about 8 years ago.

🎉 Write characters without feeling the need to justify their behavior.

🎉 Write characters with long, ridiculously elaborate names.

🎉 Write characters who are 100% convinced they are correct and will not back down no matter what.

🎉 Write characters who are unredeemable protagonists.

🎉 Write characters you like and not what you feel others would like!

[the-bar-sinister]

Whumper slams whumpee against the wall hard by their neck, digging their nails into the flesh of their throat. Whumpee struggles and scrambles for purchase, scratching and scrabbling and tugging at whumper's hand, trying to get air.

[a-whumped-tea]

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."

[whumpslist]

Halt and Catch Fire 1.04 episode “Close to the Metal” (with some aftermath into 1.05).

Character: Joe Macmillan, performed by Lee Pace.

Type of whumps: beadly beaten up, arrested and handcuffed in pain, hurt and sore, gingerly walking.

[yourwhumppromptoftheday]

Monster whumpee.

Nobody is coming to save them. After all, whumper is just trying to turn them human again. It doesn’t matter how much pain their in, or if they eat out of a dog bowl, or if their limbs are ripped off and tested, or if their forced to be in bright lights, or if their blood is being taken to see if it can cure people of disease.

After all, it’s just a monster. It can’t feel things.

[anomalys-taxonomy]

I think there’s something about a hero seeking out a villain’s help. You’d think a hero would have plenty of people they could rely on for help. Other heroes, medical workers, concerned citizens etc. Villains, sure, they backstab each other all the time. A villain has no social support or system in place to help them. If a hero seeks out the villain, it explicitly means they can’t trust the system they’ve been upholding. That the status quo has betrayed them. Something to that, I dunno..

[schnoobums]

How many of your co-workers did you just eject into space to get rid of me, huh?

[i-seeaspaceshipinthe-sky]

I would like to remind you that I was just bait for Mr. Fire-Fingers.

Jaskier + burns on his fingers