Depressed But Impressed

[whump-im-serious]

A noble whumpee, after having been held captive and tortured by whumper and then saved, recovers and faces whumper in a fair fight. Whumpee defeats them with no difficulty. Whumper is lying on the ground, whumpee stepping on their chest holding their weapon to whumper’s throat. They have to kill whumper for the cause, not out of revenge. But they can’t bring themselves to do it, because they don’t believe it right to kill another human being. They are not afraid, they do not pity whumper — they simply don’t have so much bitterness inside them as to go against all their beliefs. They hesitate, putting themselves in great danger.

And that’s when caretaker suddenly steps in to make that final blow. And they don’t do it for the cause, no, they don’t care about the cause. They do it out of pure revenge for everything that whumpee has suffered.

[justbreakonme]

Caretaker killing whumper my beloved.

[real-language-facts]

the English tribe has no word for "not a virgin". this must mean that the Englishes are an ever virginal peoples who never felt the touch of another

[spongeified]

mr bob at the SEAAA

[yaboitroi]

So this is what Homer meant by a wine dark sea

[asneakyfox]

one reason internet discourse is so annoying is how often you run into someone who believes things that are provably factually wrong about something really important, but they came to the conclusion because they're in legitimate pain and the false belief seems to explain and validate the pain, so any attempt to dispel it feels to them like dismissal of the pain.

you run into this all the time in all sorts of different domains. people who believe in various sorts of medical woo - morgellons syndrome, wifi hypersensitivity, vaccine overload - because it seems to explain the chronic symptoms their doctor's ignoring. people who believe adoption is inherently evil because they've decided that the fact of being adopted in and of itself is what explains their childhood trauma, even though talking to them for five minutes reveals a bunch of other obvious unrelated reasons. other people who think NPD or BPD or some other personality disorder makes you ontologically evil because that's what explains why their parents treated them badly. various flavors of nationalist weirdo who believe a bunch of complete lies about the historical geopolitical relationship between <insert country here> and <insert neighboring country> because they seem to explain legitimate discrimination and trauma they've experienced as a member of the first country. terfs who got into that school of radical feminism because they are women who have a history of abuse by men and they've decided the explanation is that testosterone is a sort of evil supersoldier serum and that abuse is just the natural inevitable result of people with and without penises existing in the same space.

all of this happened before the internet, of course, but on the internet it's super easy for these people to find each other and form communities where they constantly affirm the false belief to each other, which makes it way worse.

the frustrating thing is that understanding this is what's happening never actually helps. it does not matter how much you say "i believe that your chronic headaches are absolutely real and extremely severe and you're not imagining them and they have a real physical cause, and I believe you that they're absolutely debilitatingly painful and it sounds so scary on top of the pain, and you deserve help. but there is strong evidence that is not true that the headaches are being caused by an invisible alien named glonzo who hates you personally." emotionally they are totally incapable of not hearing the last sentence as meaning "your headaches are fake and you have no reason to be complaining about them."

the best thing you can do about it is probably try to catch when you're doing it yourself, and remember that your pain can be valid whether or not a particular narrative that feels like it validates the pain is true.

[fagstaynight]

And if I were Ms.President I would do well to make sure Golden Freddy can no longer harm the american people

[sirwilliamlucasstanaccount]

Yes, Charlotte Lucas made her choice about marriage consciously and without self pity for it, but I will always firmly believe she was naive in doing this, and you cannot convince me that she ends up particularly happy. (Strap in, I’m ranting conducting “literary analysis”)

My first point to this argument is admittedly due to a bit of subjective reading, but I think Charlotte’s line telling Elizabeth “I am not romantic” after her engagement is misread by a lot of people. I don’t believe this is her saying that she never cared whether she likes her husband. I think she is saying this to mean she does not (or cannot) subscribe to the romantic strategy of marriage. For the sake of being thorough, I will specify that in this time, there were two main elements to a marriage: practicality (gaining title, property, fortune, or connections) and romance (how much you cared for and respected your partner). Obviously choosing a partner for both were ideal, but unless you were very rich or unbothered about losing a few degrees of social status, it was pretty dangerous to eschew practical marriage prospects for the hope of a better future romantic partner. I believe that is what Charlotte is saying to Elizabeth - not that she never hoped or cared to like her husband, but that she takes a practicality-first strategy to marriage rather than a romance-first one. And given her station in life, she wasn’t ever able to hope for the latter.

This brings me to my second point, which is that Jane Austen’s works serve often to critique the lack of autonomy young women have for themselves in her era, particularly those so unlucky to be born not that pretty, and fairly poor. (There is a whole aside to be had here to discuss that this just means poor in the gentry, but I will resist the urge for that rant.) Part of this critique is that the privilege of choosing a spouse based on romance only or even romance-mostly is reserved for very wealthy, firstborn children/often men. Completely removing romantic desire from Charlotte hollows the argument. You cannot say ‘it is unfair that women are shunted off to live small lives with ridiculous men based on the random circumstance of their birth’, while also saying ‘but some women don’t want anything more.’ You are supposed to feel that Mr Collins is an unfair option for both Elizabeth and Charlotte, but recognize that for a woman in Charlotte’s position, it is the most fair option she has. That is the critique. That you can be smart, and funny, and charming, but that a Mr Collins can be all you are able to realistically wish for. And that this may be due to no fault of your own, but whether your father is rich, or you are pretty. The injustice of the situation is only properly felt if Charlotte would have ever liked to be romantic, and Jane Austen obviously wants you to feel this injustice.

I recognize that part of Charlotte’s marriage to Mr Collins is supposed to be a lesson for Elizabeth to understand other points of view, but I don’t think the lesson is solely that ‘some sensible people don’t care that their spouse is ridiculous’. In fact, Jane Austen is pretty thorough in pointing out that relationships where one spouse is smart and the other simple are not good ones, and the smarter spouse ends up often suffering for most of their life in this choice. Rather, Elizabeth’s lesson is that she is improperly judging sensible women for not living up to idealistic romantic standards. If having a guaranteed home comes at the cost of putting up with a ridiculous husband, you cannot blame a woman for thinking this is a lesser evil than an unstable or no home. Judge the system, but do not judge her. Elizabeth needs to stop being elitist; she needs to stop scorning women for not maintaining a romantic ideal when they do not have the circumstances to make it safe. You can see this philosophy reflected in the kinder way Jane Austen treats Lady Elliot in Persuasion for choosing Sir Walter, for example, contrasted with her less apologetic take on Mr Bennet’s choice.

All of this is to say that I don’t think Jane Austen wants us to think this is an ideal choice for Charlotte, or even a very desirable one. I think she wants us to recognize that it kinda sucks, but it’s the best option Charlotte could hope for, and isn’t that unfair? We have to watch her accept him, and we have to grin and bear it because it’s the best she’s got, and we certainly cannot judge her for it, and isn’t that awful? So no, I don’t think Charlotte will actually be happy in that situation.

But, textually, I think there is also another peek into Charlotte’s mind that shows us not only that she is not wholly satisfied with her position, but also that she overestimated how much influence she would have in managing her own happiness. That comes when Lizzy is visiting Kent:

In her kind schemes for Elizabeth, [Charlotte] sometimes planned her marrying Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was beyond comparison the pleasantest man; he certainly admired her; and his situation was most eligible; but to counterbalance these advantages, Mr. Darcy had considerable patronage in the church, and his cousin could have none at all. (Volume II, Chapter IX)

Charlotte shouldn’t care about this distinction, unless she is hoping she and her family could be offered the parsonage of Elizabeth’s future spouse. And that is where her naivety is clear. She initially thought she just wanted a comfortable home, which she achieved, but now she is realizing that it is important she also has tolerable society, which neither her husband nor Lady Catherine provide. We are told she does not have a high enough income to maintain acquaintances with families in the village around her; this could maybe be overcome if they were inspired to a bit of condescension by his clergyman status, but her husband’s behavior makes this unlikely. So, she is hoping she might change her situation, and hoping she can rely on Elizabeth to do it.

(Another interpretation is that she is just after as big of a living as they can get or an otherwise primarily material motive, but I think is an uncharitable read.)

I think this is where she shows she is in a bit over her head. She thinks this is possible despite knowing that Elizabeth does not like Mr Collins, and that she finds his company embarrassing. He is not tolerable company for neither her nor Darcy. At this moment, Elizabeth is putting up with him for Charlotte’s sake, but Charlotte would have to be either dimmer than she is described in the novel, or just desperately hopeful, to believe that Elizabeth would be willing to go so far as to make Mr Collins the beneficiary of Darcy’s parsonage and thus keep him in their close personal circle. I personally think it’s a farfetched idea borne from desperate hope. This is her butting up against the realities of choosing a simple husband. Charlotte is finding that she is unable to insulate herself from Mr Collins by filling her world with people like Elizabeth, because having him as her husband must bring acquaintanceships with more silly people, and push away relationships with more rational people.

All this collected, I think Charlotte specifically is Jane Austen’s demonstration of the journey of early folly that befalls someone sensible when they choose to marry someone senseless. That even when someone sensible knows what they are choosing - and actively attempts to mitigate their partner’s senselessness - they will find themselves trapped in the barriers their partner’s poor behavior creates. That you will always be marked by the company you keep, particularly as a wife. And isn’t it terrible that this is a choice we force many smart young women to make?

——

I honestly think Charlotte is Austen’s most interesting character, mainly for the reasons that her future isn’t really specified, and the narration does not give us a real insight into her mind. I think there are so many ways to interpret her, and so many things she could represent, that I don’t think there’s ever a way to be quite sure of what she is or isn’t. But this is my personal contribution to be added to the pile

[just-a-mall-rat]

American Psycho is mostly sad to me because it’s a story about a severely mentally ill person who is repeatedly saying things as a cry for help, but everyone around him ignores it.

I feel like this has been understated over the years? Let’s ignore the may or may not of the murders for a moment and moral qualities of the character, the source material has the character legitimately suffer from psychosis symptoms and it impairs his functioning a lot at times. (hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, occasional speech impairments, etc.)

[just-a-mall-rat]

Maybe I’m going off-topic from the tags, but this reminds me of something. I’ve opted to do a direct text interpretation for my current re-read of this book but this other idea I have also works through the lens of satire. Another reason beyond shallowness for why Patrick’s problems were ignored was the commonly held view of mental illness in the story.

Given that Patrick is supposed to represent the privileged mindset of that time by copying it, it’s presumed his viewpoint was shared by everyone else around him. The characters dealt with both mental health and substance issues, but Patrick only acknowledged it negatively for groups of people that were “undesirable”. One that comes to mind is homeless people, who were often written as mentally ill and/or addicted to drugs that the characters in Patrick’s friend group frequently made fun of. Another more subtle example is when Patrick described how his brother, Sean, was the black sheep of the family and included how his coke addiction had become unmanageable. In contrast, Patrick abused a wide variety of substances but it wasn’t written as being a problem despite contradictory information that he suffered a lot from it.

What I’m getting at is that Patrick was a character who wasn’t seen as in need of help because of how he was able to superficially function in society. People ignored Patrick because they didn’t bother to help others and that he didn’t look like a mentally ill person to them.

Or maybe that was the conclusion I was supposed to reach? 😅

[callmeethaniguess]

YUP!!! The people around Patrick don’t see him as mentally ill because he’s a conventionally attractive man with slicked back hair and a nice smile! What I’ve sort of noticed is that they don’t seem to view any sort of outbursts or signs as concerning because not only does the guy not ‘look’ unwell, not sound it, but he’s one of them, so he can’t be. And again like you said, these people do have struggles with mental health, like Price literally fucking having a breakdown in a club and running away screaming. That’s a breakdown and yet he returns like nothing happened. There is something so severely wrong with not just Patrick, but probably a majority of p&p considering the fact that all of those shitheads are most definitely on coke.

The thing really is just that these assholes are so privileged, so rich so powerful that they view their mental health struggles as less of an issue because they have the means to cope with it in a way that seems ok to them, even if it really isn’t helpful (ie, Patrick’s affinity for working out that also just ends up becoming an addiction if that makes sense). They view their struggles as ‘better’ than the homeless peoples because they’re rich, even though some of them (mainly Patrick, look at how he freaks out on the streets of nyc it’s so disturbing) are sometimes ??? Way more mentally unstable than the people they make fun of.

But yeah your conclusion is pretty spot on imo. Patrick isn’t seen as mentally ill because he’s handsome, and has integrated into society and you could also argue it’s because even after an episode, his behaviors always just…go back to what seems normal for him.

Sorry if this is sort of rambly, I’m writing this before leaving for work lol

[anghraine]

I'm always torn between "am I just defensive over my fave or do they truly Not Get It" when people dismiss Mrs Reynolds's testimony.

I saw a take recently that was like, eh, so he's nice to a handful of people, that makes him marginally less of an asshole in a perfectly common way—and it's like, uh, no, the servants and tenants and family of someone with that much power = a lot of people, actually, any or all of whom could be screwed over by his whims at any moment and never have been.

And the idea that rich, powerful landowners commonly conducted themselves with generosity and concern towards their servants and tenants is absurd. Of course they didn't! Darcy is really the only one of the love interests in Austen's novels with that kind of power, and one of the only characters of that stature to be treated favorably at all, and he only gets away with it because he's Not Like The Other Ones. Even Wickham says:

"It has often led him [Darcy] to be liberal and generous, to give his money freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the poor."

Wickham is covering his ass in case Darcy's sterling reputation catches up with him, obviously, but there is a reason that Darcy's reputation is so exceptional. There's a reason Elizabeth is surprised even by something so small as him keeping on a housekeeper who is elderly and not particularly "fine" in appearance.

On top of that, the idea that being dismissive towards strangers but a loving and scrupulous guardian to his dependent sister in particular = an everyday occurrence? Yeah, no. The trope of young women who are exploited, disregarded, or otherwise screwed over by their brothers was really common and reflected an all-too-frequent reality (as discussed by Wollstonecraft!). The reason that well-off male characters' treatment of their siblings and especially their sisters could function so easily as a metric of inner character is because it was so often not the reality.

Men in that rough position were supposed to look after the welfare and interests of dependent sisters, esp orphaned ones—but few could actually make them do it and typically they gained little if anything from doing so. Mrs Reynolds's assertion that Darcy would do anything for Georgiana and his marked affection for her and willingness to defend her, even to older relatives when Georgiana isn't there, forms a contrast not just to the likes of John Dashwood but ... like, honestly, to Edward Austen-Knight as well.

It's not that nobody was ever more like Darcy in this respect, but it was frankly not all that common, and the novel emphatically treats his scrupulous, affectionate care for Georgiana as exceptional and part of his shining reputation.

With regard to his other family members—we don't meet many of them, but Colonel Fitzwilliam's surprise at and mockery of Darcy's current behavior leads Charlotte to conclude that it "proved he[Darcy] was generally different, which her own knowledge of him could not have told her."

This of course foreshadows Darcy proving to be "different" when encountered later. It's not that Darcy's behavior is radically transformed from what's normal for him, but that it's radically transformed from what's normal for him with people outside his (large) circle of family, friends, and dependents. And Austen takes pains to show that he largely reverts back to "old" Darcy when he's uncomfortable. The point of this isn't that his change isn't real, but that it's not some unrealistic total transformation.

The way he treats Elizabeth and the Gardiners isn't alien to his previous characterization. There were always people (whether Fitzwilliam, Mrs Reynolds, whomever) he treated like that. The change is extending that "generally different" conduct to people of much less consequence than himself, but not so much less that he has any particular obligation towards them. He's able to clearly and immediately recognize the Gardiners' virtues, to go investigating a random plant with Mr Gardiner, to form a rapport that will become genuine love for them over the course of his relationship and marriage to Elizabeth.

And a man like Darcy not only marrying a woman with relations in trade, but loving those relations and bringing them to his home as honored guests, is again, not common. Some historians have argued that his choices would be wildly unlikely IRL.

So yeah, no, Darcy isn't just decent towards a few people in a common way, nor nice to the people in his life that anyone in his situation would be, nor is his grand change unprecedented for him and uncomplicated by external factors or only to be expected. In the social world he was created in, he would be an extraordinary person.

[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' (which, to be clear, is a very normal thing to do).

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.

[imnotadogiswear]

Considering how much of classic literature is about women with creepy/possessive men, there’s a real chance that a modern romantasy book could someday join their ranks.

[jhoca]

Dracula

I just finished reading Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897) and ngl I wasn't expecting to like the characters so much lmao (the cowboy is my favorite). So naturally I had to draw them... I am also years late finding out about Dracula Daily, but I am ready for next year!

my art  (my dracula art)  |  instagram  |  cara  |  bluesky

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Metahuman with super healing powers whose entire job is that once a week they go to a nearby hospital and are put into a medically induced coma for 24 hours while all their organs and blood are harvested, and kept there until they've healed up again.

They get paid a small stipend by the Heroes Council for this, and they live off that.

No crime fighting, no obvious heroics, and they only took a Super Identity because it's technically hero's council policy. Nobody's ever seen them in a cape.

Every so often the Heroes council will release an official report to the public, and there'll be another bunch of news articles wondering how some unknown super calling themselves 'Meat Factory' somehow consistently holds the record for most lives saved across the city.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

It is essential to my vision that they are not at all sanctimonious about this.

Like, they regularly act like they're getting away with something. They joke about how they get to earn money in their sleep. They show up to their hospital visits in deliberately ridiculous disguises, on the excuse that they need to 'protect their identity'.

Part of their employment contract is that they get served the same post-operation vanilla ice cream that they normally hand out on the childrens' ward. Also a sticker. Their overnight bag is covered in stickers.

[shinyhappygoth]

Okay, Meat Factory is awesome and hilarious, but if they're being harvested for and regenerating absolutely everything, may I suggest an alternative super name: Theseus.

[pains-and-aches]

characters that have to kill or bury a part of themselves in order to survive. not “came back wrong”, but “came back something else entirely”. the person who came out on the other side of anything looks like them, though maybe with more scars than before, a leaner figure, less light in their eyes. the person that came back shares their name and birthday, can tell you all the same things about their childhood and hobbies. by all means, the person who came back should be the same person who existed before the trauma. but they’re not.

maybe they had to cut themselves off from fear and empathy to get a job done or pull themselves out of danger. maybe they had to suppress their natural instincts and mold themselves into what someone else wanted to see. maybe they’ve followed orders for so long they’ve forgotten what their own desires are, or they’ve suppressed those desires so they can be more obedient. maybe they’ve been isolated from others to the point that they had to stop valuing the connections that used to be key parts of their life so they don’t mourn the solitude. they may have even had to burn down their entire concept of their identity to build a new self who had what it took to make it out alive.

maybe it was a conscious choice to sever part (or all) of their past self from their current self, or maybe it was something involuntary. are they aware of how much they’ve changed? do they look in the mirror and see an echo of their former self that doesn’t feel at home in their body anymore? do they grieve the self they lost, or do they have a more pragmatic approach, thinking that this is just the way things have to be?

or do they even know the extent to which they’ve buried who they used to be?

[whump-bunny]

After yet another failed escape, Whumpee breaks down sobbing in their cell. Though they try to hide it, CareWhumper is quick to notice the little sniffs and red rimmed eyes when they return.

"What's wrong, Whumpee?" CW asks sweetly, putting a hand on Whumpee's shoulder and completely ignoring how they flinch away from their touch.

Whumpee bursts into tears, unable to keep it together anymore.

"I- I almost made it this time... I was s-so close!" Whumpee sobs, curling into a ball as they replay every moment of the escape attempt in their head. They remember seeing the door, seeing a light, so close, yet so far out of reach.

CW rubs what they think are soothing circles into Whumpee's back, shushing and cooing at them. Whumpee is too worked up to communicate that they hate this, so all they can do is retreat further into the corner of their cell.

Despite Whumpee's reluctance, they do calm down a bit, enough for CW to speak.

"Oh, sweetheart..." CW coos, sounding genuinely sympathetic, "It's not your fault. I built this facility to contain you specifically. Of course you couldn't escape. You weren't even close."

Whumpee's breath hitches, "But- But I saw the door... I saw the outside."

Whumper clicks their tongue, brushing the hair out of Whumpee's face with their fingers.

"I had been planning to surprise you with the courtyard. But I guess that you saw it."

Courtyard. A fucking courtyard.

"If you promise to be good, I can take you out there sometime, Whumpee."

Whumpee does not respond, still reeling over the notion that all their months of planning and hardwork had resulted in nothing more than a glimpse of an enclosed outside area, an open air prison.

They start to cry again, and they don't fight as CW wraps them in a comforting embrace.

[another-whump-sideblog]

“From now on, you have no responsibilities, no stress. I understand if you need to keep fighting, though. You need to feel like this is completely out of your control, or else you’ll feel guilty for resting. It’s alright. Fight until you’re satisfied that there’s no escape. I won’t take it personally.”

[yaboitroi]

Self-sacrificing and kind to a fault whumpees are all well and good, but where are the selfish whumpees? The ones with self-preservation who aren’t ashamed of doing what they have to do in order to escape?

[stealingpotatoes]

for some reason my cat always acts surprised and sniffs me when i pet him even if he's literally sat on me