Curate, connect, and discover
I’m just curious, why are you so interested in whumping? I stumbled upon this blog by chance and i don’t get it, but I’d like to understand why people are interested in it
Hi there! Welcome! It's okay if you don't get it. Whump isn't for everyone but I applaud you for asking kindly and being willing to learn. And that's a very good question. One we as a community often ask ourselves and we honestly have yet to find a solid answer.
There are a lot of different reasons why we are interested in whump and they vary from person to person. Some of the reasons we've discuss as a community are:
We enjoy seeing people go through difficult times, either physically or emotionally, and recover from it, receive love and comfort from friends and family. Maybe we don't always get that in our own lives so we love seeing our favorite fictional characters get it. Live through them. It's why comfort is such a big part of whump as well. We love the comfort part of whump.
Maybe the characters we love seeing whumped are similar to ourselves and we enjoy seeing their pain validated and seeing them recover from it. It gives us hope that we can recover and our pain will be validated. That someone will see our pain and help us.
It gives a lot of us an outlet to work through our own traumas. Maybe we had a terrible childhood or have gone through something traumatic and whump is a way for us to work through it.
It's a safe place to explore painful, traumatic, taboo things. Whump and dark things have been a subject for fiction for centuries. People have always been interested in these kinds of subjects and we are no different. They're interesting subjects and we like to explore them.
I've seen a theory that we like whump because we're empathetic people and pain gives you endorphins so we get an endorphin rush from seeing fictional characters in pain because we're empathetic.
We like seeing characters be vulnerable and overcome adversity. To go through something difficult and come out the other side. It makes for good storytelling and brings depth to characters.
For some people, it's a sexual thing. That's perfectly fine and a completely valid reason to like whump.
A lot of us are asexual too and I think whump gives us similar feelings to arousal without it being sexual. (at least for me it does)
Heck, some of us are sadists. That's fine too.
Personally, I think some actors just look good like aesthetically when they're bleeding or bruises. 🤷♀️
This is one of my personal reason that I haven't really seen discussed but it's definitely a reason I like whump. Essentially, I struggle with recognizing emotions both in myself and within other people. Always have. Whump allows me to explore and learn about different emotional reactions which helps me recognize those emotions in my loved ones and in myself.
We enjoy the character dynamics that come from whump. The whumpee and the caretaker for instance. Or the whumper and the whumpee.
But honestly none of us really know? These are all just theories we've discussed amongst the community. All we know for sure is that we get good feelings when our favorite fictional characters are in pain. There's just something about whump that makes us feel good. What it is exactly is hard to pin down and changes from person to person (some enjoy emotional over physical. some like hard torture and others don't. we're all different) but we all get what we call "whumperflies" when we see/read good whump. It's a physical sensation that manifests itself in different ways. For most of us it feels like butterflies in the stomach (hence the name) and it feels good. We like that feeling. And we get that feeling from whump. So we like whump.
You'd think this community, being full of people who like seeing fictional characters in pain, would be cruel or terrible people but this community is full of the nicest people you will ever interact with. I think it correlates with our love of whump. I think we're all so nice because we understand pain and suffering and don't want anyone to feel hurt in real life.
I hope this answers your question nonny!! If you want to learn anything else, have any other questions, or wanna explore it some more you are more than welcome! We're a super nice community and all are welcome here :D