#justwhumpythings

Pictured: Whumpers reacting to their favourite actor's performance

Gonna put this under a read more because it got kind of long. All Good Omens snippets for you! (I will be putting them on ao3 in their own respective fics.)

Who is someone who has made your time on whumpblr special?

(click here for the complete @whumpmasinjuly itinerary)

(image source)

Oh boy, I can’t very well choose just one person. I may have only recently slid back into the whumpblr community, but I still remember many creators from the time before my break with fondness. And a handful of them have ended up following me here as well! which I truly appreciate :3

@straight-to-the-pain - I remember when they were simply an anonymous asker on my very first whumpblr (@shsl-whump), giving me such lovely feedback on my Team SA37 series! It was really cool to see them make their own whumpblr and become a staple in the community. I will forever appreciate their continued enjoyment of the Team SA37 series, even after I disappeared :]

@thatsgonnaleaveamark - Another long time follower from back in my active whumpblr days! They’re really cool and chill and yes, my word, their enjoyment of the Team SA37 series was and is SO encouraging and appreciated :D

@whumper-in-training - Duuuude, I remember when she first showed up, and I really liked her enthusiasm and earnestness and team dynamic focused writing! Then it turned out that I was one of her inspirations, which I have to say, is incredibly flattering! She still reads my stuff, she still remains remarkably earnest, and I think she’s neat :D

Then there’s @whumpers-inc, who is so fun to interact with and makes great prompts. @justwhumpythings​, who was one of the first whumpblrs I ever encountered back in 2018 or so and who has been following me since I still had the @shsl-whump whumpblr.

You know me so well. XD

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about whump.

Well duh, I hear you say (and you’d be right to, haha).

But what I mean is that I’ve been thinking about what whump — the word, the genre, the community — means, as opposed to, say, hurt/comfort or sometimes to angst. And I’ve come to the realisation that for me, whether something ‘counts’ as whump or not — whether it can or should be stamped with that label, seems to rest on the creator’s motivations (or sometimes, what I assume of the creator’s motivations).

Describe what you do and your feelings after posting a chapter. (For example: When do you usually post a fic/chapter update? How do you celebrate a posting? Are you the type to refresh constantly?, etc.)

I post at night, usually before I go to bed so I don't refresh constantly and look at the e-mail non stop lol. I try not to obsess but don't always succeed hehe

What inspired you to write your first fic?

So long ago... The year of our lord 2007 lol. I guess I had read a lot of very nice content and wanted to a) see if I could do it myelf and b) have a story that catered specifically to me and my needs hehe. It's been a long way since!

What is your favorite theme/subject matter/trope/ship to write about? Why?

Well, probably some of you know by now I like whump, and I like hurting characters. But it's not just about the hurt, you know? Is about the fact that the situation calls for reassurance, for affection a reminder that there are still people who care, people who worry and want this person around, despite everything. And also redemption, occasionally. I like the notion that no matter how bad you fuck up, you can get a second chance. But yeah, hurt characters, forever :)

Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?)

I realized to my distinct embarrassment recently that I describe people as pressing their lips together a lot. Which I’m now going to have to watch for, so, whoops. It’s like my ‘cocks eyebrows’ gesture, or something.

Also evisceration turns up a lot, but we discussed that recently. 

On a more serious level...I feel like I noodle a lot around issues of communication, failure to communicate, communication mismatch, and people who have had a communication breakdown of some kind working to bridge that gap. “Better, not good” is another thing I feel like I do a lot of. I used to do a lot more straight tragedy or downer endings; more recently I see myself leaning more toward the bittersweet or the ‘gesturing toward the beginning of healing’ end of things. 

People fumbling toward trying to be better versions of themselves and not always succeeding. 

What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

Which story?

I feel like I write a lot of things that are fairly episodic, but I don’t think most of what I write would be very interesting in a visual medium. Maybe a comic, for some things? But honestly...I just don’t think I’m a very visual writer. I don’t write things that are cinematic or visual or...most of the things that I write are just very in peoples’ heads and that’s sort of. A hard thing to translate to other mediums, I think.

What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

The original idea I’m currently noodling around and trying to work on - the #ex villain project one - is probably the thing that’s been living in my head the longest and most consistently and is still there, though there are a couple MCU fics in progress that have been moving in and out for several years. There are older original ideas that might’ve lived in my head for technically longer but have moved out now.