#redcarpet asks

[redcarpetwhump]

thoughts on whumpee begging to be hurt a certain way because if they don't it could be too visible and then they won't be allowed out and it'll mean more time with whumper and they really can't.

(perfect way to meet caretaker. good old "i understand you're angry but please- anything but my face- please-")

oh this is good. this is so good. the idea of having to negotiate with whumper about where and how they'll be hurt because whumpee knows there's nothing they can do to prevent it. it's just damage control. (cue some internalised victim-blaming because i asked for this. i told them to hurt me there. i literally begged them to do it.)

for any whumpee, this is awful, but especially one whose whole life is in the public eye. injuries that someone else could leave the house with and hope no one would notice have to be covered in at least three ways in case someone decides to look too closely at a photograph or record them in public without whumpee realising.

and this kind of whump reveal to caretaker is my absolute favourite. pain and abuse is so common for whumpee that it's expected. and caretaker is confused and horrified because first of all, what the fuck??? and second of all: whumpee is surrounded by people all the time. they have entire teams dedicated to their personal appearance and life. the media never leaves them alone. and nobody has ever said anything about this. which means either nobody has noticed, or they have and are just... letting it happen.

[redcarpetwhump]

Another situation I'm compelled by: famous caretaker and bodyguard whumpee. Maybe because of whumpee's proximity to caretaker, they have a fan base of their own.

Whumper is caretaker's manager, and planned on whumping caretaker, until whumpee stepped in and volunteered to take the whump for caretaker (without their knowledge of course). Caretaker is worried about whumpee, who doesn't say anything about the bruises now showing up.

It all comes to a head when whumpee, out at an event with caretaker, collapses for seemingly no reason next to the red carpet.

i'm eating this post alive holy shit. nobody expects the bodyguard to collapse. nobody's even looking at them, they're so distracted by caretaker. so when whumpee goes down, everyone's initial reaction is shock. and then concern, obviously, but that concern could easily be directed at caretaker, because why else would whumpee be hurt unless they were trying to protect caretaker from something?

(and collapsing specifically on the red carpet!!!! my favourite!!!!)

nobody knows whumpee or cares about them enough to assume someone is targeting them specifically. they're a bodyguard. they're meaningless. they have no power. there's no point. which makes it so easy for whumper to get away with.

it's so easy to hide whumpee's injuries as well. bodyguards aren't supposed to do the talking or look all happy and smiley. nor are they supposed to wear fancy outfits that could reveal something. unless whumpee is literally at the end of their pain tolerance, they're probably carrying on like nothing is wrong.

and the one person who whumpee is actually close to and who could actually do something about it being caretaker... yeah whumpee is truly alone in this because caretaker can't find out. if they do, then they're both in danger. whumper will start hurting caretaker too, and then all whumpee's pain will have been for nothing.

[redcarpetwhump]

whumpee who is very vocal about a topic. advocating against abuse, maybe they played the role of a victim in a movie and now they're being praised for it. or maybe they revealed something from their past and receive a lot of support.

whumper watching an interview or reading posts to whumpee. mocking. "you're so brave, aren't you. so strong"

yes yes yes yes yes. this is something i do so often with my celebrity ocs. there's so many ways to go about it, but my favourite is when the advocacy is very personal to whumpee, but it looks completely performative because it's not safe for them to admit they've been through what they're talking about. especially if the abuse situation is ongoing.

because whumpee is rich and famous, it seems really shallow to talk about this as if they can understand. because there's more than just empathy in the way they speak. it's like they have experience with it, but they don't. they can't. so people take it as whumpee speaking over "actual survivors" or downplaying what it's really like to live with trauma because "they played a character with PTSD in a movie and now they think they know what it's like??? what the fuck???"

and whumper's involvement oh my goddddd. letting whumpee go out there and make all these speeches and raise all this awareness to put an end to the horrific things they talk about, then laughing because when the cameras are turned off and whumpee and whumper are alone, it's clear whumpee's words are entirely empty.

"you're so brave in front of the cameras, telling people you want to help them. so brave, and so full of shit," whumper laughs. whumpee flinches. "go on, stand up to me like you stand up for them. put a stop to it."

another thing i love doing with this trope is having whumpee publicly base their advocacy off abuse they've experienced "in the past", but in reality it's a cover-up for something that's still ongoing. nobody is going to question that things are wrong now if whumpee says they've escaped the problem. everyone knows they have PTSD. everyone knows they might act differently sometimes or have bad days. everyone knows it happened to them. so when they see all the signs that things are really not good on whumpee in the present, they assume they're just going through a rough patch with memories from the past.

[redcarpetwhump]

One of my fav tropes is how the whumper pushes the whumpee to perfect a performance by making them practice until they pass out. And more.

oh yes this is fun. i love it also when whumpee is forced to practise so much that it becomes impossible to ever reach whumper's goal. they're passing out, rehearsing until physical pain, developing repetitive strain injuries. they're actively regressing in their skill because they can't work through this. but, of course, whumper won't let them stop until they're satisfied.

and then what happens? whumpee's friends start noticing things. the way whumpee returns from practice nervous and dejected; the way their hands now have a constant tremor or cramp; the way they're rushing off to rehearse more and more often and coming home later than ever.

then whumpee's performance happens. it goes well, everyone's cheering, but whumpee knows they messed up in a tiny way that only whumper will notice. and whumper will call them out on it. and it will hurt.

bonus thing: whumpee gets interviewed about their preparation for the performance.

"How did you prepare for this? I imagine it was a lot of work," the interviewer asked.

"Yeah," Whumpee replied, casting a furtive glance at Whumper before continuing. "Yeah, long hours. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Y'know."

Behind the interviewer, Whumper smiled.

[redcarpetwhump]

Famous whumpee sick before their first big interview/public event. They're a rising star, still new to the spotlight, so the pressure is immense and their manager is no help, only reminding them of how hard they worked to book this so whumpee better not mess up.

It never mattered how they felt. Sick, tired - those were excuses. What mattered was that they could perform. Manager was right. If they stopped every time something happened, they wouldn't have made it this far. Whumpee sighed. They've been run down for days. Exhausted as they were, they kept going.

Stylist remarks on how warm Whumpee feels as they do their hair, taking extra time to hide the dark circles and ill complexion. When they almost stumble out of the chair, Stylist urges them to sit back down, but Whumpee rushes off. Lateness is not acceptable.

Whumpee sat heavily in the car. Everything hurt. They took a breath, trying to reassure themselves by repeating Manager's guidance, though both the words and their breath felt shallow.

The lights were blinding. Smile, stand straight. You're doing great. They blinked. Right, a question - it was getting hard to keep up. They felt like they were suffocating it was so hot. Deep breaths. They tried, broke into a harsh cough before they could respond. A reporter offers a glass of water which they accept with a smile and trembling hand.

Somehow they pull it off*. But their body gives up as they head backstage. Before getting out of view, whumpee's legs buckle, their eyes roll back, and they pass out in front of the media.

(*bonus if media starts analyzing tiny details in pre-collapse screenshots/video, talking about all the ways they seemed off, "diagnosing" them, etc.)

hey anon how does marriage sound because i love you for this.

ok but seriously this is one of my favourite things ever and there's so much to get into. i really love the idea of whumpee pushing themself so far in this scenario, only to be told once they've collapsed that they didn't have to do that.

two options for this:

#1: to get to where they are now, whumpee was raised with ridiculously high expectations. even as a kid, people pushed them to go far. they've been overworked their whole life to get to this point and raised in such a toxic environment that it never occurred to them that getting to the actual industry might not really be like that. sure, there's a lot of pressure. but it's also run by humans, most of whom have empathy and do actually care about whumpee.

#2: at some point in the not-so-distant past, whumpee switched managers and teams. their old team was really abusive, constantly pushing whumpee past their limits and hurting them badly in the process. but whumpee was so used to it that they didn't realise it wasn't normal.

so now, when they're sick under their new management, whumpee is insisting that they're fine and can go on because that's what they think is expected of them. they don't want to cause a fuss or make their managers mad by complaining.

their team raise a few eyebrows, but decide to let whumpee go on anyway because they're very insistent, but behind the scenes, everyone is worried. worried enough that they're almost prepared for when whumpee finally collapses.

whumpee comes to, slightly disoriented, surrounded by medical people, and they're terrified because they think they're about to be in so much trouble. but their new manager just asks why whumpee didn't say they were feeling so ill.

(cue my favourite: "Whumpee, what did you think I was going to do you?" followed by new manager's horror as whumpee recounts even the mildest punishment whumper would give them for trying to skip out on an event)

AND THE MEDIA ANALYSING THE MOMENTS LEADING UP TO IT anon you get ALL the bonus points. again, this is one of my favourite things ever because it's just so public. there's so much scrutiny, and if it happens once it's likely to happen again, so now whumpee feels like they're constantly being picked apart.

no one will stop talking about it. whatever the event was actually about doesn't matter anymore, because all anyone will say about it is "oh, did you see whumpee passed out? yeah, like they proper collapsed" and then the clip gets brought up again and again and again.

and technically it's not that big of a deal. whumpee just fainted. they're sick. it happens. but for whumpee, who has never been allowed to be any of those things before, especially not publicly, it's terrifying (even moreso if the sickness is directly related to some other whumpy event they're trying desperately to keep a secret, and now they're scared that people will start scrutinising their old interviews in the same way and realise what whumper was doing to them).

[redcarpetwhump]

Consider: journalist unexpected caretaker with famous whumpee. Like, doing an interview (private? Or ends up *becoming* in private?) and realizing something is off, whether through whumpee's physical condition or their journalist skills picking up on whumpee's emotional state/behaviors, and like. Whether whumpee collapses or breaks down and spills the whole story, the journalist, instead of making this their promotion-winning headline, intentionally destroys any records and becomes an unexpected/reluctant caretaker instead bc yes, they're a bloodthirsty reporter, but theyre also a human being and this is another human being who is in immense distress and theyre not a MONSTER, okay?! (Whether this has faith in humanity or whether caretaker is just a much better person than they think and their peers would have thrown whumpee to the wolves is up to the writer.) Meanwhile whumpee is terrified bc theyre vulnerable in front of someone primed to exploit that vulnerability, only to be taken care of and treated with awkward but sincere kindness. (And again, was this interview already in a private space, leading to some amount of discretion, or do they cut off some kind of televised/streamed interview on purpose for whumpee's sake, risk their job, hardly able to believe theyre doing this for a celebrity they dont know personally and arent even particularly a fan of?)

oh anon your MIND. not only has this trope been considered but it has now been devoured and set up permanent residency in my brain.

interviewer caretaker is not something i'd ever thought of before but now i am obsessed. there's so many possibilities. everything you said and more.

whumpee has gone into the situation nervous already because it's an interview. they're going to be asked questions and put under scrutiny, but even if it's well-meaning this is a problem because whumpee has something to hide. and, whether they meant to or not, caretaker has found this thing out.

the relationship between whumpee and caretaker is so interesting here as well. they're acquaintances, they've just met, or they've done interviews together before, or they're aware of each other's careers in some way but have never spoken. this kind of "i don't know you, but i know of you" dynamic that provides enough of a baseline impression for caretaker to realise that whumpee is not acting the way that they normally would, and maybe they need to go somewhere without a camera.

an idea i had with this was a whumpee who is in an ongoing, steadily-worsening abuse situation, and a caretaker who has interviewed whumpee multiple times throughout this. each time caretaker has noticed something is a little different about whumpee from the last time they spoke. but it's small enough that they shake off their concern as a figment of their imagination. until that one interview when things are wrong and caretaker realises that those small things they were noticing were actually signs of something much bigger.

and what really gets me with this is the bit about the interview *becoming* private. because in doing that, the problem becomes public. or at least, more than just caretaker are made aware that there's an issue. and people know that caretaker was in the room and will then be pushing them for details. and whumpee has to weigh up whether they can trust caretaker to keep silent with how long they can go before their body gives out on them and they have no choice but to let caretaker see it all anyway.

also what does whumpee do next when they've 'recovered' (at least from the scene that's just happened, not their full trauma). caretaker has just seen something incredibly private, they're connected to the press, and whumpee has no actual power to keep them quiet. my brain immediately takes me to whumpee trying to offer caretaker the position of being a new whumper to stop them saying anything.

"i'll do what you want, just please don't tell anyone."

and caretaker, of course, is horrified. they promise to stay quiet, and then that's that.

until caretaker interviews whumper one day... (see how that might turn out here)

[redcarpetwhump]

i LOVE your blog! famous whumpee is a particular favourite of mine. i have a very specific scenario that you may enjoy:

whumpee is an artist -- a singer, poet, writer, painter, whatever -- and also extremely traumatised. to cope, they pour all of their emotions into their art. lyrics to songs deal with the pain they suffered, their paintings depict the traumatic event, scenes related to the trauma come up again and again in their writing… and it's all incredibly disturbing. the phrase 'disturb the comforted and comfort the disturbed' fits perfectly. they gain a following, perhaps even a fan base, which they didn't really expect. they're able to monitize their art, which they're glad for as the trauma they suffered makes it difficult to hold down a more conventional job.

then they go mainstream. suddenly thousands of eyes are on them at all times and people are demanding to know what it all means. did all of these awful things they allude to in their art actually happen to whumpee? people are nosy, whumpee is harassed, interviewers ask invasive personal questions. whumpee hates it. they only wanted to make art, work through their trauma, and now they feel they owe the world answers, but they're still working through everything that happened, they're not ready to tell the world what they went through without using their art as a crutch. they want an out, but to stop creating for the public means cutting themselves off from their income. they have nothing else they can do.

but the fans are relentless. whumpee is a public figure now, that means they belong to them, right? they're entitled to know whumpees personal business. if whumpee wanted privacy then they shouldn't have gotten so detailed in their work…

and then something is uncovered. perhaps someone found a police report, court documents or even footage of whumpees trauma. maybe it was whumper that released these things for everyone to see. suddenly everyone knows exactly what happened to whumpee and their world comes crashing down. they fall apart completely, perhaps even publicly, and it is down to caretaker to shield them from the worst of the publics reaction and to keep them from going completely off the rails.

-@whump-for-comfort

this is like crack to me you don't understand how often i think about this. i have an oc that basically lives this exact scenario: he's a singer that writes music to help process all the awful things that have happened to him, and he's kind of stuck between admitting all the songs are about him, or letting the people in his comments call him a freak and disgusting for 'writing about it for fun'.

being able to monetize this art is an extra fun idea because it keeps whumpee trapped in their trauma. they can process it all they like with their music, but if they try to heal or distance themself too much they'll lose their niche and their audience will stop paying. and i think the audience would keep whumpee stuck too. when you're in the depths of trauma or mental illness, there's something about recovery or happiness that feels so alien it's silly. cringey. boring. so when whumpee tries to make art that isn't their usual doom and gloom, they get comments like "i miss when whumpee's art actually meant something" or "this is so cheap and happy now, what happened to their old stuff?" and whumpee is so disheartened by it they push themself to a relapse to get the validation back.

and the 'disturb the comforted and comfort the disturbed'. yes. just yes. that's my favourite phrase ever. i love it when things are disturbing. not just bad, but unsettling. hearing about it leaves a weird feeling under your skin. it's the kind of art that makes people tell you to stop making it. by making it, whumpee opens themself up to so much more abuse, but the fact that it comforts that tiny percentage of people is such a powerful feeling that the harassment is almost worth it.

a fun idea i had with this was that whumpee made all of their trauma-based art anonymously (or at least on a small enough scale that barely anyone would recognise them), then went on to have a separate, public career. they have a huge fan-base, they're famous, and nobody has a clue about their old creations. until the videos are dug up again, the pictures, their old accounts. suddenly everyone is realising "wait, that's whumpee? holy shit, i would never have made that connection" and whumpee has to decide whether they embrace it or shut down and hide.

because as horrible as it is to be reminded of everything and to have everyone know, a part of them is kind of glad. glad that the art survived and can now reach a wider audience of people who might need it but not know where to find it. glad that whumpee can look back at their past self and see how far they've come and how much they've changed.

[redcarpetwhump]

Ive never sent an anon for writing before but I've been thinking about this idea for a little..

Hear me out, Whumpee is apart of a girl group/boy band and the group is learning a choreo. Whumpee repeatedly makes mistakes and gets yelled at for it by Whumper. Eventually Whumper gets completely fed up and snaps physically harming whumpee right in front of all their group mates who can't say anything about it

Bonus points if Whumpee is excluded from group activities for the time being and their group mates are forced to create excuses for their absence.

(is this anything 💔)

no this is fun. this is really fun. consider: whumper has been abusing whumpee privately for a while. hurting them, manipulating them, blackmailing, whatever. the other members of the group have no idea, and if they notice whumpee spending a little extra time with whumper... well, it's not their place to ask questions.

the abuse starts off small and subtle, but grows until whumpee is injured and in pain nearly every day, barely able to hide it, and whumper is getting tired of them because it's not fun anymore. whumpee isn't bouncing back and pretending everything's fine like they used to. it's becoming harder to keep it a secret, and whumpee's performance is declining rapidly.

then they're rehearsing. it's simple choreo, really. stuff that should be easy for professionals like them, but whumpee is struggling. they're exhausted from their sleep being interrupted by pain and nightmares, trying to move on injuries that really need to be rested, and unable to focus because their mind is just full of fog.

whumpee's brought back to attention when whumper slaps them across the face. whumper's shouting: "i'm giving you basic fucking instructions. if you can't follow them, i'll replace you."

eventually whumper calms down. whumpee can feel the shock radiating from the rest of the group. they're surprised, but at the same time, it wasn't entirely unexpected. whumper was disciplined and efficient, not nice. this was bound to happen eventually. and all of them realise pretty quickly that if they want to stay on whumper's good side, then they have to keep their mouths shut.

whumpee breaks after that. they need some time off, so whumper makes them take it. of course, whumper doesn't actually let them rest, but whumpee is barred from seeing the rest of their group. days turn into weeks and the group haven't seen or heard anything from whumpee at all. when asked in interviews, they have to lie and make up excuses about where whumpee is because they truly don't know, but they have a growing suspicion that whumpee might be in pretty deep trouble.