Power & Control @control-whump - Tumblr Blog

There's no ash trays in here. Guess you'll have to do...

Dad Cop Bad Cop, ltsJustBits1

Anyway. Too many posts assuming whumper is powerful and competent and well liked. Show me an absolute fucking loser who's gonna take it out on the poor bastard they got their hands on.

In fact, show me someone who's Perfectly Average, but hates that they're not exceptional. Show me the girl who could've had the world if she pushed a little harder, and is going to burn it all down because she fell just short. This isn't a revenge arc, this isn't her tormenting her rival or getting back at the CEO who made a shitty decision. This is her taking control by ruining someone who has no say in the matter.

#admittedly that's the relationship between Ian and Jack - Ian wants powers like Jack because Ian is just a normal human

useyourtelescope

GIFTOBER 2025 | day 9: injured/wounded

Leo Suter in Lynley 1.04 'With No One as a Witness'

i am going to recommend you something it’s from saw III google saw amanda mercy kills adam trust me on this take my hand and trust me

This?

It's pretty good. A little dark, lighting wise, tho meaning it's hard to see exactly what's happening.

#replies #recommendations

thedeafprophet

forced immortality is a fun trope. unappreciated. someone/something wants you to remain so it makes you. it will not let you die

#just the story of Jack Harkness of Dr Who / Torchwood

sugdenjohn

EMMERDALE 03.09.2025

#sometimes I wish these shows didn’t run for fifty years and thus can never be started

saints-who-never-existed

“In the war film, a soldier can hold his buddy—as long as his buddy is dying on the battlefield. In the western, Butch Cassidy can wash the Sundance Kid’s naked flesh—as long as it is wounded. In the boxing film, a trainer can rub the well-developed torso and sinewy back of his protege—as long as it is bruised. In the crime film, a mob lieutenant can embrace his boss like a lover—as long as he is riddled with bullets.

Violence makes the homo-eroticism of many “male” genres invisible; it is a structural mechanism of plausible deniability.”

–Tarantino’s Incarnational Theology: Reservoir Dogs, Crucifixions, and Spectacular Violence. Kent L. Brintnall.

uuuhshiny

#😍#the boss

thesoldiersminute

Near Dark dir. Kathryn Bigelow | 1987

#near dark

bondageville

Petition to change "whumper" and "caretaker" to "A" and "B" please I'm begging you.

#also maybe open to other words but what we have right now just is not it #whump

muzzledspellcaster

As a longtime enjoyer of whump and hurt/comfort, I have to say I don’t like the term ‘caretaker’. It carries to much real world connotation, medical baggage ect and feels icky. I get why it’s used bc it’s sort of a catch all term, since they can be anyone technically taking care of the whumpee. I tend to just use friend, rescuer ect, to avoid the term. As a hurt/comfort enjoyer, I propose ‘comforter’ something along those lines.

erdarielthewhumper

tbh as someone who's been around the whump community a long time as well and is maybe a bit stuck in my ways, it's also kind of weird to think about bc like... i remember when i started hanging out in these circles, that's... not really a word that was used? (nor was whumper in the sense of the character role, actually, i'm pretty sure, though we did call ourselves whumpers - usually for the character role you'd just say "villain", but also back then you used to see a lot more environmental/wilderness whump and other scenarios where there wasn't always necessarily anyone actively purposefully inflicting harm on the whumpee, the harm just happened due to other forces)

like, in the prompts and scenarios you'd see around, it would never be "caretaker" it'd be "medic", "teammate", "friend", "s/o", or whatever, something more focused on what the character doing the helping is to whumpee outside the moments when the whump is happening. Like the specific word caretaker wasn't really used at all when I was new to whump, though I couldn't tell you when it started being common

tbh i think i kinda preferred things that way, too, though for me that's less because the word itself feels icky and more because i do actually like that specificity, i'm very much interested in who the characters are to each other outside of the context of one of them being hurt and vulnerable and in need of help or comfort, and how what they are to each other colors the dynamic when one (or both) characters are hurt and need all that

yet-another-heathen

I think a lot of that shift has happened because people have gradually taken "whumpee", "whumper", and "caretaker" to be rigid archetypes, rather than temporary, situational descriptors.

Your last paragraph really hit the nail on the head.

A lot of what makes whump compelling as a storytelling device gets lost when these dynamics stop shifting. A medic who sometimes gets hurt themself, who gets too stressed and turns snappy when they shouldn't, and still has a bond with the victim where they mutually support one another when no one else does is far, far more intriguing than 'the one whose role is to be a one-way, endless source of comfort-giving, full stop'.

For as much as whump is centered around empathy, the way these archetypes sometimes get used is very dehumanizing. It flattens the stories, and takes away so much. I wish we saw the average whump story focus more on characters—complicated, messy, multi-dimensional characters—than roles.

lumpsandwhumps

This is an EXCELLENT breakdown and I’d add that this type of flattening has become really prevalent across all media and fandom over the past decade.

There has been a noticeable shift towards “tropification” of stories. Like, I was a fan of TVTropes back in its heyday but this is an extreme. It feels like now people are actively seeking out specific tropes and creating based almost solely on strict interpretations of those tropes. And with that has come a certain subset of folks who seem to get upset or even offended when their preferred tropes aren’t “done right” or don’t go the way they want or expect.

(Caveat: I’m not saying this mindset didn’t exist before, but the predominant way fandom operates nowadays is strongly influenced by this sentiment in a way that it wasn’t before.)

Tropes aren’t rules. They’re not even guidelines. They’re just patterns that repeat across stories.

No one should be beholden to these sort of strict archetypes - they’ve never been meant for that.

control-whump

I've also noticed a shift that makes whump resemble more sub/dom relationships in that meta kinda way which just...doesn't seem to fit for me.

raakhti

people who have an oc universe with a title as if it’s a game or a book series or whatever are genuinely the sexiest people to exist. it’s just a fact. there is nothing more attractive than passion for the things you create

especially if you’re a little unhinged and obsessive about it acting like a mad scientist whenever you’re creating new lore or someone asks you about it

control-whump

Mine is called "Die Trying" but as a project it's always in the planning stage haha

dailymarvelstudios

Moon Knight 1x05 "Asylum"

#he has no idea he's crazy #moon knight

quietwingsinthesky

im a fucking sucker for the “character gets so badly injured that they can’t think clearly and start calling for help in a distressingly vulnerable way.” characters who start using nicknames for their friends they haven’t used since they were kids. characters who start begging for their brother they haven’t seen in years to be there. characters who would usually use their parents’ names or call them mother/father/etc crying out mama when they go down. u understand.