#midnight’s broken computer saga

[caddy-whump-us]

I got tagged by @the-wandering-whumper!

Name: Cat

How old were you when you first realized you liked guys getting hurt?: I'm not completely sure, but I can definitely remember really liking any kids' cartoon that had the characters getting captured or kidnapped for an episode or two--and I still have an inclination towards captivity whump. I know that by the time I was a teenager and getting into animanga, I got into Gundam Wing and X/1999 and I really did like seeing Quatre and Kamui getting thrown around (those two especially).

What was that very first scene you remember gave you those glorious butterfly feelings?: Probably the scene in Disney's Robin Hood where Robin Hood's disguise at the archery tournament is literally sliced off him and Prince John just says "Seize him" and the next thing you know he's pounced on by guards and he's all wrapped up in chains and ropes and looking helpless.

Or else it was a scene in a Wonderworks cartoon where a werewolf has captured a young human character in a forest, rendered them unconscious, and then the character wakes up tied sitting in wooden chair with tall sides (so the character's hands are tied above their head to each side) and they wake up pulling on the ropes and saying, "Please let me go!" but the werewolf is very precisely telling them that he is going to bite them at midnight so they'll turn into a werewolf too--I literally recreated this scene secretly in my room with my toys I liked it so much.

Bonus for the text-based choose-your-own-adventure RPG computer game I played in 5th grade where one of the paths ended with "you" being captured, tied up, and dumped off the back of a truck in the woods (and I always pictured a boy character for this).

And there's an episode of the original TMNT where April is held captive by Shredder for, like, the whole episode and it was my secret fave, but that centers around a female characters, so does that count?

When and how was it that you realized “Hey, I’m not so messed up in the head!” and that there’s a definition and community for this sort of thing?: I guess I never really thought I was all that "messed up" for liking this (after all, they put these scenes in kids' movies), but it seemed like it was just something that one wasn't supposed to talk about. It was a bit like liking scary movies: some people like it, but it's creepy to most people, so it's not polite to talk about it. (I was always afraid of getting in trouble if someone found some of my writings and drawings, but some of it was more vent art than whump stuff.)

I played out some whumpy scenes in my LJ and DW RP days without knowing the terminology for it at the time ("hurt/comfort" was a more common term then) and wrote whumpy stories with OCs for years and years. But it's only been in the last few months that I've realized there's a separate, identifiable community just for these kinds of scenes, even though I've been either imagining or writing them for ages. And y'all are the nicest bunch of sadists I've ever met, it's really true.

What’s your favorite whump trope?: The Helpless Look. You know the one. It's the face-down/eyes-up, soft mouth look when a whumpee is good and stuck and hurting or about to hurt. It's so good. (Weirdly young Hugh Grant makes this face a lot--albeit in non-whump scenes?)

Along with that or following after it is the Submissive Look Down, which is like, so yummy, with the whumpee both feeling helpless and afraid and accepting of the circumstances. Bonus points for a little heavy breathing here.

Helplessness seems to be a recurring theme for me and whump. It may be why I really like whumpees in bandages too--especially kind of trying to get on with things despite hurting. Patched-up and bandaged is a great look for whumpees.

But I'm also a fan of Tied Up and Tied to a Chair and Tied Down to a Bed. Chained to the Wall with a Collar is good, and so are cages, but I'm really more fond of just Tied Up.

I do like a good beatdown, sure, but I really seem to like a lot of "non-traditional" whump, like non-con body mods (ear piercing or tattoos or traumatic haircuts). Surprise, whumpee: you're now part of a human experimentation project, so hold still while we ink on your identification numbers with a needle. Or, oh, hey, the whumper just carved a magic sigil into the whumpee body, making the whumpee into an unwilling magical familiar and storage space for the whumper's spare magical energy.

What’s a whump trope that you hate?: Mindless or aimless physical beatings. It just gets boring to me? I really need some connection between the characters or something to make the situation more interesting. I'm also not a huge fan of whump by inanimate object--like a car accident, say--unless there's some good focus on the aftermath.

What’s your favorite whumped character?: I'm honestly not into all that many fandoms and I've found I really dig OC whump, strange as that sounds. But if I have to choose, I'll look to my past: Kamui Shiro from X/1999 is so pretty when he bleeds or when he's wearing all kinds of bandages.

Quatre from Gundam Wing takes a stab to the gut with a broken fencing foil late in the series and I loved that (and the dozens of doujinshi where Trowa comes to his rescue after) along with the Zero Wing mind-control stuff (again, rescue).

Now for the last several years, I've been hung up on Cain Hargreaves from Godchild/Cain Saga. He's got a painful childhood (which is another issue), but he takes a few hits now that he's grown. He's quite pretty when he's helpless. Now, his faithful servant Riff gets fully whumped on several occasions, which leads to some wonderful emotional whump for Cain, so that's a win-win.

And Setsuna Monou from Angel Sanctuary is great for blood and bandages and drama--he’s a bit spunkier than some, but he gets whumped quite a bit too, and he’s pretty, so it’s nice.

I really think Kamui and Quatre are the base elements for my favorite OC whumpee Julian.

What’s that whumped scene(s) that you’ve watched over and over again. (We know you do it and we understand): I actually don’t have an answer for this? I’m really not into a lot of fandoms (especially not television or movie fandoms), so I’m going to have to skip this one.

Bullet or stab wounds?: Stab wounds, for sure. They're somehow...slower? More intimate? Don't get me wrong: a good bullet wound is fine too (and I wrote a very long big bang fic about the Clint Eastwood character The Man With No Name that involves both bullet wounds and a no-holds-barred beatdown--it's on my ao3 if you want to see it, wink wink). But I love knives--for stabbing characters, slicing characters, holding to their throat, &c. Mmmm good stuff.

Fevers or Hypothermia?: Fevers! Hypothermia doesn't really do it for me, but I bet there's some good whumpy hypothermia that would. But, of the two, fevers: whumpees confined to bed, with caretakers (grumpy ones, kind ones, unwilling ones, resigned ones), labored and shuddering breathing, chills and sweats, delirium, bad dreams, glittery feverish eyes--I love it.

Emotional or physical?: Psychological, actually. That is, what the whumper is doing might or might not be all that painful physically, but the psychological toll might be higher than the physical. I think it’s somewhere between emotional whump and physical whump--or it unites the two.

If I have to choose between the two, though? Physical, but I really need some emotional involvement in it. It's not just about the physical, it's also the emotional (whether I know what the emotional whump is because I know the story or I'm picking up/projecting the story).

Injured and asks for help or tries to cover it up?: Both of these are so good! I think it depends on the character and what's going to make for more delicious whump, really. Because I've got some OCs who are delicious when they're hurt and asking for help and others who are amazing when they try to tough it out.

My fondness for helplessness really does mean I like both.

Lastly, does anyone know about this addiction of yours?: Not...that I know of? Now, someone might and they just haven't told me that they know. I was always down for a whumpy scene in my LJ/DW RP days, but that wasn't so unusual there--it was all for the sake of character angst (as we called it then). I've not confessed to my addition to anyone, though. So there you have it.

Pass this on!