Character development question: What would be a fate worse than death for your whumpee?
Mike Driver

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@whumperiffic
Character development question: What would be a fate worse than death for your whumpee?
tony breaking as he’s forced to watch pepper suffer from the extremis virus
Around the World in 80 Days 1x05
MBTI & Whump!
This is just a fun silly lil’ poll, nothing serious! I’m just wondering if there is a predominant (or a couple/few predominant) MBTI type(s) that are into Whump. The term “Whump” here is all encompassing, it can be whatever type of Whump, nothing in particular.
What’s MBTI? It stands for “Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator.” You can take a common (FREE) test here to figure out your type if you want!
What MBTI Type Are You?
INTJ (Architect)
INTP (Logician)
ENTJ (Commander)
ENTP (Debater)
INFJ (Advocator)
INFP (Mediator)
ENFJ (Protagonist)
ENFP (Campaigner)
ISTJ (Logistician)
ISFJ (Defender)
ESTJ (Executive)
ESFJ (Consul)
(RAN OUT OF OPTIONS TO ADD!😤)
For the reminding types, comment the affiliated emoji to vote! I will make a separate tally after the poll is closed and share results!
ISTP (Vituoso) - 🛠️
ISFP (Adventurer) - 🎨
ESTP (Entrepreneur) - 🧑💼
ESFP (Entertainer) - 🎙️
Quit squirming, Mr. Winchester. They’re Houdini-proof.
Dean Winchester 7.04 Defending Your Life
✩ 2nd Lieutenant William Bush recovering behind bars
I’m not usually one for conditioned whumpees, and especially not for recovery, but I think I would really enjoy those types of scenes more if the trauma responses were allowed to be more nuanced and complex.
This isn’t a criticism of anyone specific, it’s just something I think I lack in the community, and I don’t think I’m the one to write it either, but I think that what puts me off is that I know what it’s like to be triggered by something, and it’s such a complicated and not always conscious process.
Like yes they might feel that someone they’re with is angry or upset with them and suddenly try to do anything they can to please them, but that might come with a wave of shame and self loathing once they’ve realised that nothing was wrong and they’ve just embarrassed themselves in front of someone close to them.
Or maybe they’re scared of that part of themself, and they’re so scared that other people will see it or hurt them again that they push them away, maybe they test their boundaries, maybe they hurt the people they love instead because they want to see what happens when they finally do get angry.
Maybe they hate that part of them that makes them become someone else, that makes them get lost in their mind. Maybe they resent how it makes relationships hard, how they try to move on but some small thing ignites a carefully buried spark of fear and the whole thing starts again.
I also wish there wasn’t so much of a power dynamic of whumpee and caretaker, where the whumpee is someone who is mentally ill and traumatised and not expected to ever be independent or live alone. No, I want them to have friends and partners and lovers, and struggle and find joy in equal measure, on their own terms.
There’s absolutely people writing this sort of content, and there are things I will read because I think they capture that complexity, and of course these are my personal feelings but I do urge people to think about this when they write, if they want to.
most writing of conditioning bugs me because it tends to be whumpees desperately trying to please whumper because they really do LOVE them now and loathe themselves,
not because they know they're supposed to and this is the safest thing. Like I prefer some more realism. Where the narrative at least shows it isn't love, it's self deceit out of self defense. Whether the whumpee realizes it at first or not- and they will nearly always eventually have their taught ideas break down in the face of the evidence of reality. It might take years.
I know some say Whump doesn't need to be realistic! And mostly no it doesn't. but if you're going to write about things real people have gone through, that shape them for life, and need a lot of therapy to work through, I feel it's respectful to at least know a little about it.
CW ahead for survivors of ABA or Conversion Therapy- Maybe don't read. Yes that is Conditioning and I'm about to get close to describing it.
I very much agree with what @redwingedwhump said!!!
So. Background. My knowledge of conditioning comes animal cognition (just finished a masters in animal behaviour!) (activate science mode!!!). But basically:
Conditioning is associating something else (food) with stimuli (a bell) with some kind of behavior (drool) in its most basic form. But it can, and does get more complicated than Pavlov.
So for example: (Abuse cw)
It's possible to associate the raising of a hand. With a slap. And that provokes a flinch.
Usually conditioning itself can become almost involuntary. (Not always but often). For example that flinch or the drool from before.
There are other examples of like: (sex cw)
Orgasms being learnt to be associated with certain smells and so that smell along becoming able to one it's own, turn someone on.
..
Anyway!!! The point I'm trying to make is, if you wanna add some realism to conditioning:
Add that conditioning can become a reflex.
Add that the behavioural response of the whumpee isn't under their conscious control or them having to think consciously to avoid those reflexes.
And then it means that recovery is just that more slow and means they have to work at deconditioning themselves slowly. They have to unpick what is their normal response and what is their body freaking out.
It also means that a whumpee's internal and external dialogue may not match what their Body forces them to do.
Their conditioned response to a situation would override their actual desired response.
Which I personally think is more interesting.
The fear of your body not cooperating is interesting.
I hope that helps! And yay! Look at me using my masters!!!
I do feel like although there are situations where people can learn to associate say a raised voice with danger or a belt or a raised hand with impending pain and punishment, the way that people’s trauma responses and triggers form can be more complicated. Their captor wouldn’t be able to accurately predict what aspect of the situation their brain might latch onto and then have locked as a trigger.
But I also really like what you said about it being involuntary, because I think it’s really interesting when it is an unconscious response, so their body is panicking but mentally they know they’re safe. And there’s this disconnect and that can be so frustrating because they know that things are okay but some part of their mind won’t let them relax.
One thing (of many) about the way most conditioning whump is written that bugs me is that the premise is "they are a sobbing stuttering mess because the whumper hit them a lot and now they think everyone will" as if they were taught this crying etc behavior by the whumper. In the first place, my brothers and sisters in pain, please think about how a whumper is going to react to that kind of display. Because I have a lot of whumpers with a lot of different motives and methods and I can't think of a single one who would put up with that from a whumpee. In the second place, speaking from experience, conditioning doesn't rob you of your ability to distinguish between whumpers (abusers) and friends. You know your friends are not your whumper (abuser).
You don't kick into that level of distress because you're used to getting hurt and expect everyone to hurt you. You kick into that level of distress because you're used to one person who had you in isolation hurting you, and now that you know you're with friends, you don't know WHAT to expect. They are probably not going to behave like a whumper, but how much is that accustomed (NOT universally expected) hurt actually going to be mitigated? You don't know. Do your friends have their own unspoken "rules" you'll have to learn like you had to learn your whumper (abuser)'s unspoken "rules"? You don't know! They’re unspoken! So you're panicking, and most whumpers (abusers) do not in fact tolerate panic or tears, and now that it's happening it creates a spiral.
But at that point you're not afraid of getting hurt for whatever you started panicking about. You're afraid of getting hurt--or worse, left--because you know from experience that panic and tears are not tolerated. You have been told a million times that panic and tears will never be tolerated by anyone ever, not just the whumper (abuser). You're not sure about whatever set this off, but you are 100% sure about THAT.
Also, echoing the flat caretaker who is always patient and cuddly as a pet peeve. If you have ever been in a cptsd panic spiral, you know that people for the most part are not always patient or cuddly. They snap at you when you can't break out of an apology loop, or ask for the 20th time if they're absolutely positively sure they're not mad. Almost nobody will hold your hand 100% of the time. The people that do tend to be former whumpees (victims) themselves. Because those are the only people who really understand why your freakouts are happening.
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan - 1x01 - Pilot
okay but whump where both caretaker and whumpee are injured or ill so it just kind of morphs into whumpee and whumpee (worse) and they’re just kinda trying to hold on to each other!!!
Daniel and Osiris in “Last Stand”
That thing in whump where caretaker goes to tend to whumpee's injury only to realize things are so much worse than whumpee initially let on and now caretaker is way out of their depth and very scared >>>>>
Don't pass out otherwise we get creative.
I just want unlimited whump content with the exact scenarios and tropes I want in the media format I want for the characters I want.
Is that too much to ask?
WOO DO HWAN as Kim Gun Woo BLOODHOUNDS 사냥개들 (2023) dir. Jason Kim
12.02 - Mamma Mia
#I know he was being tortured and torture is bad mmmkay#but GODDAMN he looks so good#and the whole knife thing is SO HOT#and yeah his eyes in that last gif#just FUCK ME#spn 12x02#Sam!whump via @jinkieswouldyoulookatthis
yeah...you get it
Ok literally prettiest pic of him. Like wtf why does he look so good a little roughened up