#whump analysis

[emachinescat]

what got you into whump and what got you into writing fanfic of whump of hiccup? what about him and the other character dynamics drew you to him? there’s just something about him, am I right? his canon character is so strong-willed but has so much emotional depth. I don’t know why I read so much whump, but I love it. don’t get me wrong, you’ve got some of the best writing skills I’ve read on AO3 as a veteran. I’ve been reading whump fanfics ever since I was 12 years old on AO3 (23 now). what I suppose I’m trying to say is I’m not sure why I like the genre so much. do u ever think about this?

Ooh yeah I think about this a lot! (Also thank you so much for the kind words and the ask! 😊)

I think whump is pretty much something I've always enjoyed, even before I knew what it was! When I was seven years old, I remember distinctly that my favorite Babysitter's Club Little Sister book was the one where Karen fell out of her treehouse and got lowkey impaled by a stick and ruptured her spleen lol. And as a kid, I also remember that my favorite Babysitter's Club books were the ones where Stacey got diagnosed with diabetes and Mallory got mono and one of the other girls (can't remember which?) had an asthma attack, and my favorite episode of Full House was the episode where Michelle fell off her horse and got amnesia.

But the fandom that really got me into whump as a genre (when I started reading and writing it regularly) was American Dragon: Jake Long when I was 13 haha. I still remember posting my first fanfic to Geocities and Fanfic.net waaaay back in the day, and it involved a tied up Jake, an identity reveal, and a very sappy ending. :)

As for what drew me to whumping Hiccup, I think you hit the nail on the head! Definitely his defiance and strong will have soooo much to do with why he's so wonderfully whumpable! I'm also a sucker for sassy whumpees that use sarcasm as a shield, who are fiercely protective of the people they love, who have a lot of trauma and angst backlogged (bonus points if they have or have had daddy issues at some point lmao, because same), who struggle and fight and claw their way through obstacles and who are self-sacrificing to a fault. And if that doesn't describe Hiccup Haddock perfectly! And an underdog, to boot? Yes, please!

Like, Hiccup's lonely past, the loss of his leg, the challenges that come with living with a disability but the way he NEVER lets those challenges stop him and even turns them into strengths? He's an incredible, incredible character and I love him (and whumping him lol) so much! ((Also, the shows especially just give us so much whump material to work with with this guy! Midnight Scrum, anyone? Hello?!?!))

And I do definitely think about why I enjoy whump a lot. I actually mentioned it to my therapist once, and she was like, "Oh, cool, you wanna know the subconscious psychological reasons behind it?" (I was supposed to make a post about this a while back and forgot - oops.) But essentially, she said that often engaging in media in this way can stem from a desire for control. We have very limited control in our own lives, especially when things suck, and although we may not realize it on a surface level, whumping characters is a way of immersing ourselves in a shitty situation while still maintaining control. She also said it can be a way to process trauma. (I've realized through several of my fics that I was actually processing trauma I didn't realized I hadn't processed, some of it nearly 20 years old! Crazy!)

I think I like whump for many reasons -

(1) It highlights the strengths and weaknesses of characters and their relationships with other characters in such a stark way. So much of the fun of whumping Hiccup comes from the sheer satisfaction of seeing him bare his teeth at his enemy, dig in his heel, and refuse to give in, no matter what is done to him. It's in how even when there's not a happy ending, he remains defiant and fights to the bitter end. It's in seeing how far he's willing to go to protect his dragons, his friends, his family, his people, and his home. It's in seeing the way his father and his dragon and friends react to the whump, how they worry and protect him, how much it forces even people like Snotlout to show how much they truly care! And I'm using HTTYD as an example for obvious reasons, but this rings true for pretty much any fandom.

(2) Like my therapist said, there's an element of control. I have severe anxiety and OCD. I crave control over my own life. I want safety and security, to know that even when things are bad, things will be okay. That I can escape. And whump gives that to me because I can be immersed in this awful situation, but it's not happening to me personally. And if it gets to be too much, I can just step away (like I can't in real life).

(3) I think it's completely normal for humans to engage in dark, taboo, and macabre subject matter in fiction! I taught college literature for 7 years, and let me tell you, most of the stuff I taught is BLEAK. Think Candide by Voltaire, A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor, A Simple Life by Gustav Flaubert, Sarasine by Honore de Balzac, The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe (which, let's be honest, is pretty much just whump lol), The Lottery by Shirley Jackson... and so. many. more. Fiction is the way that humanity has engaged and contended with the darkness in the world since storytelling was conceived. It's a safe way to explore subjects that are morally and socially taboo.

I am so sorry for writing like half a novel in response to your questions, but they really got me thinking! Thank you again, anon, for the ask, and the kind words! (Hopefully you don't mind the hella long response lmao!)

[thewhumpcaretaker]

Why Are So Many Whumpees Male: An Essay

"It's not my fault I comforted him, your honor. He needed to be held or he would have died."

I frequently hear about tropes in writing being an excuse for repressed sexuality. On some unconscious level, we don't want to admit that we desire crazed, no-hold-barred sex, so we use concepts like a/b/o heat, sex pollen, succubi, etc. to make an excuse for why characters we identify with would act so sexual. It's a way of bypassing the taboo and freeing up our brains to enjoy anything they want to enjoy.

I want to use this same psychoanalytic logic to address the reasoning behind whump, and specifically male whumpees. Because male whump is a whole…thing. There are a ton of masculine whumpees, and a lack of female whumpees, and a lack of femme nonbinary whumpees. A lot of people struggle to understand why that is. Female whump is definitely out there, but some people have no interest in it at all. Why do men in pain have a unique appeal for a lot of us, especially those of us who imagine ourselves as caretakers?

For me, at least, the answer is that it's forbidden to comfort a man and treat him like a princess. According to the good old sexism ingrained into most of us, you need a special reason to do so.

At the bottom of whump caretaking is the desire to pleasure someone, to make them feel good. I have been taught that men, particularly those who are dominant and disagreeable and difficult to be around, do not deserve that kind of affection. So here I am putting them in situations where they MUST be held, MUST be forgiven, MUST have something to dull the pain - or else they might die. I want to cuddle a man. I want to pat him on the head and tell him to drink enough water and "take care" of his pleasure. But this is made taboo, both by the social structures that define the traditional male ego, and by the frankly sexist beliefs that say men are dangerous/undeserving/etc. That a man's pain will always turn into anger and a man's anger will always turn into something unforgivable.

So that's what it comes down to, at least for me. Male whump is male fluff in disguise (plus with extra drama, which doesn't hurt either). I'll definitely continue writing male whump, because I love that it challenges typical gender dynamics this way and I love that it's so full of juicy conflict. But realizing this makes me also want to write more male fluff. I might start writing more about treating men like princes for no reason at all. Women get the princess treatment all the time in media - being swept off their feet, being cuddled, receiving lavish gifts, getting breakfast in bed, being listened to with compassion, being pleasured with no questions asked. If women deserve it, so do men. Yes, even angry men, vengeful men, men who express themselves loudly. They deserve it both in fiction and IRL. Let's make them feel good!

[fuck-edfrugs]

Reminder that whump and sadism are not the same thing but neither is bad or better than the other and disliking or liking one or the other or both does not in any way make you morally superior or inferior and not using one of the terms does not make you a coward.

Also I'm going to say outright that I do not speak for everyone, and this post is not meant to be cohesive, I'm just rambling and explaining what I've found and discussed and there very likely will be inaccuracies but I'm doing my best

Sadism is typically related to bdsm and kink, (not necessarily sexual, but often is. If I get things wrong, please do correct me, I don't know much about sadism so I am not really going to talk further about it) whump can be sexual, but currently generally isn't

and yes, the two can and very often do coincide in artwork and writing. One of the differences is that whump specifically refers to artwork and writing.

Whump originated as a fandom term, and that is to my knowledge mostly how it is used. It seems to have come out of stargate in the 90s (though there are claims of it being used in 1996 in the earth 2 fandom) specifically with the character Danny. People loved him and wrote content about him suffering, this became referred to as "Danny-whumping" the fanlore page refers to it as "a form of hurt/comfort that is heavy on the hurt and often found in gen stories"

the big difference is sadism is typically experiential, whump is typically a storytelling tool.

And as stated by the fanlore site, similar terms have been used, they aren't seen much now but they refer to similar types of stories. Terms referenced are "muldertorture" for x files "get 'em" for Star Trek, "trash" in many fandoms and "bonk" in a lot of early UK fanworks

if you want to look into it more its actually pretty interesting

[bandits-whump-collection]

"Poor thing."

I love these two words more than any other. It's so versatile, it could be a ginger comfort in a way to say "Yes, you suffered, you're in pain and I can see you, you aren't alone" to a creature you don't know the name of, it could be a mocking way to spit a dehumanizing sneer by a whumper, it could be a dull way to fill the silence as wounds are tended to...

The possibilities of this are unmatched, and I feel my heart flutter every time it comes up.