Annoyances within whump

[kriadydragon]

Must... vent...!

A few of my pet peeves when it comes to whump

Injury, what injury? - Sheppard is injured in one chapter and yet you never hear about the injury again. I will admit that this is sometimes a bane with my own writing, mostly in the aftermath if Sheppard has quite a list of extensive injuries. I understand that the more injuries there are, the more easily some of them are to forget. But if it's a single injury then there's no excuse.

I'm bleeding out my ears, but I still have time to talk - Sheppard is injured, bad, and yet still has strength to stand there and say a long good-bye to someone.

Turns out it wasn't that bad after all (or, as I like to call it, skimping out on what could have been good whump) - basically, it's just when a writer has great whump, H/C or angst potential and doesn't use it.

He's injured. But more importantly he's a security risk! - I wasn't actually quite sure what to call this one. What it really is is more along the lines of Sheppard having gone through something bad, and me getting the feeling that the gang isn't helping him the way he needs to be helped. More forced demon purging, for example. Another example is Sheppard having been brain-washed or cloned, his brainwashed-self or the clone wreaking havoc, and normal Sheppard getting the blame for it. It's usually not that obvious, just the way the story was coming across to me. The flip side would be the gang too caring and not cautious enough, so it's kind of a very fine line. Still, I have read stories that have left me thinking, "I really don't think they should have handled it that way. It didn't seem fair to Sheppard."

Stomach/abdominal wounds - this is simply just a personal injury dislike of mine, not so much something annoying the writer does. I prefer wounding to the chestal area, not the gut. To each their own when it comes to whump but I do tend to like a story less when it's McKay getting the broken ribs and Sheppard the one getting shot in the gut. I like it even less when a purposeful wounding (like being cut for torture purposes) is to the belly region. I was just reading a story where that very thing happened (McKay has the broken ribs, Sheppard being sliced in the gut). I knew it was coming, I don't know how, but it still bugged the snot out of me. I just think the chest region offers more angst potential since it contains the more vital organs.

So, uh, just where was he injured exactly? - This frustrates me beyond words. Sheppard is injured but the author takes several paragraphs - even chapters - to say where. All you get until then is "he was bleeding badly and it hurt." I'll be thinking he was shot in the shpulder only for it to turn out he was shot in the thigh. "He was injured in the side." Okay, which side? In the ribs or  above the hip? I like details in a story as they make a fic more three dimensional. Being vague about where a person was injured flattens the story and even makes me stumble a bit during reading, especially if the wound ends up being not where I had first assumed.

And that's pretty much it. It really does help to voice (or write) such things and get them out in the open. I tend to let too many little, unimportant things get to me too easily. I try not to, try to ignore it, but it remains like an obnoxious tickle at the back of my mind. Venting like this helps, it really does. I have been able to let so many obnoxious, piddly things go so much more easily by voicing them.

Comments

[karri-kln1671.livejournal.com]

*pats you* I'm obnoxiously picky about my fanfiction reading. Sometimes I can articulate what bugs me, sometimes I can't, but I do well comprehend both pickiness and venting. :)

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

Oh these are some of my personal hates as well. I despise it when someone glosses over the injury. Fine, none of us are doctors, but if you injure him I want to know WHERE.

I also don't want it to be ignored. He has a broken rib but is running around with no issues. He has a freaking concussion but nope, doesn't seem to have an effect. Sorry don't do that.

Multiple injures have cumulative effects, yet they are ignored and I think thats sloppy writing.

I laughed when you mentioned the serious injury and Shep having a long conversation...that really annoys me. Its an easy fix, make him labor to talk, break up his speech patter, or better yet, the man can't say anything except a word or two when he's bleeding out, or lacking oxygen.

I disagree about Stomach/abdominal wounds ..those are good because you can be injured in those areas and still be up and around. It takes a long time-- again it various --to die from those wounds. The chest = incapacitated and although the angst is great, I don't like my Sheppard out of commission for most of the fic which would be realistic in the case of an injury to the chest.

Of course if the fic is centered around the injury itself and recovery and if that's the case I'm all for it! Or the wound to the chest is during the 'climax". Wounds to the belly are a painful, one of the worst ways to die and equal great angst! :-P

If you're a whump writer, I'm sorry some research is required. For any level of realism. We are not doctors but let's pay attention to what a wounds does to the body and how to treat it. I'm, lucky I have a medical source I can e-mail if I'm in bind, if not I hit the net and research like crazy, but I like detail and thats just me.

A great source is

www.emedicine.com

Its kind of thick, but for any given search is lists, tests, treatment, what to look for and follow up in medical detail. You have to sign up, but its not a big deal..or heck wikipedai gives the basics.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Well, depending on the story and what's going on, I'm not always opposed to gut injuries. They're just my least favorite form of whump (appendix stories especially). Also depending on the story (and it's hard to describe to give an example) it's sometimes just annoying.

It's a biased, I know. I'd rather Sheppard be the one to get broken ribs, not McKay. So giving McKay broken ribs and Sheppard a gut injury is a sure way to get me to like a story less. I know it's wrong, but that's just the way I am, and I'm pretty sure there are those who dislike some of my stories for the same or similar. And I don't mind that.

And when I talk chest injuries, I'm usually talking broken ribs and/or cracked sternum, which doesn't always incapaciate.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

The folks in the pegasus galaxy really need to discover some Ancient healing device, like the milky way folk had the sarcaphogus. Otherwise, you're limited with injuries. I mean, some injuries i've read in fanfic will get poor shep a one-way trip back to earth and probably out of the USAF as well.

But, my very favorite injury was a broken arm in a star trek next gen story... picard had a broken right arm on page 3, left on page 4, back to right on page 5. I was like, does the guy have TWO broken arms? aiee...

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

Yeah I'm not a fan of perm injury....unless the writer has a trick up their sleeve to cure him...sometimes that can be seen as a cop-out, but there have been many times when it fit very well.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

I've read one or two stories which had the characters suffer major (pardon the pun) injuries, stuff that would get them rotated back to Earth, etc., but via an alien device, got fixed. If it's done well, no problem. I mean, it's not like they didn't do every other week or so on SG1 ;)

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

With the right amount of imagination (and well-discovered ancient healing devices), you can do just about anything to Sheppard. But another problem is the mental trauma that would follow. I've read a lot of stories that whump Shep so bad there is no way he should come out of it mentally unscathed. But he does. I love whump that leads to mental angst, but it's a fine line to walk as there is trauma that even Sheppard would not be able to recover from.

Unless that's what the story is about, of course. That aside, a lot of writers do things to Sheppard that no way would he recvoer from physically and/or mentally.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Well, Sheppard (and other characters) all go through that. I've seen some stuff done to Daniel Jackson that would send him to la-la land. In fact, I did read one story where that did happen. He never recovered. It was a great story (fanzine) but whoa, you were like, he's never going to get better?

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I thinki I read that story. It was really dark, but really good and well-handled. None of that forced demon-purging crap.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

All I can recall really, is that Daniel no longer really worked for the SGC (couldn't handle it anymore) and liked to work in a locked room.

[drufan.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the alien device...no I haven't used that at all. Cough(nanites)Cough!

When it comes to whump we seem to have our own fetishes. For me, as long as he get incapacitated at some point in time...I'm good. Broken bones though are a squick for me...but I will persevere on through the story anyway. :P Denial of food and starvation...eh. If it's paired with other traumas, all steam ahead!

The kind of whump I so get bored with is the whump without end. It just keeps going on without a plot. I don't mind (and I'm guilty) more than one injury or multiple times but give me a story to go with it. Give me a purpose for the whump. Give me the drama! Give me the consequences. Give me a beginning, middle and end. Some stories ended because the author didn't feel like writing it anymore. What? You didn't start this with a definite ending in mind? Aargh!

But this is fanfic and I can understand some poetic license. We whump because we care!

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

That's funny since broken bones and starvation are my thing. Starvation coupled with abuse, actually. Thinking about it, except for gut wounds and anything having to do with certain nether regions, I don't have a lot of squicks.

Yes, whump with a purpose! There are so many whump for whumping's sake stories that have wasted such wonderful H/C angst potential. It's good writing to take a fic beyond mere whump. I refuse to whump unless it serves a greater plot purpose.

And your icon won't stop cracking me up.

[drufan.livejournal.com]

I snurched it off of a board my husband frequents. They had this whole cat theme going. Which in print sounds very seedy...

[reen212000.livejournal.com]

I have noticed your penchant for starvation. LOL You do it so well! I definitely agree with your whumpage issues. There are some writers that just seem lazy. If I can't find enough information, then I won't write it. However, I can only write things I'm familiar with. At least well. Insomnia, emotional angst, a fever here and there, just all around miserableness that's whumpage on another level.

I've never broken a bone, so I have to ask people who have for they way they felt. Never had an operation, or a hospital stay. Week of sleeplessness? Got it. Waking from a concussion? Consult.

I'm also not a fan of blood transfusions, so when I read the endless transfusions and then a week later, he's fine... I gotta question that.

Whumpers unite! Whump with a purpose! That should be a ficathon...

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I feel like I do the starvation thing to death, but it's my favorite form of whump. I like putting a character through the wringer, stacking the odds against them higher so that it's all the more poignant when they finally beat those odds. Injuries usually aren't enough so I like to take it to the next level.

I'm not savvy when it comes to the medical stuff myself, so I like to keep things relatively simple. I know the basics that we all know (heart monitor, IV), but everything else I gloss over. I tend to find very technical infirmary scenes rather annoying. Though some do manage to make it interesting, others tend to go on and on using terms that mean nothing to me.In fact, I read a story in which the writer described each injury very technically. I had no idea what they were talking about, so had no idea just how and where the characters were hurt.

But if research is necessary then I will research.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I forgot to say - it should be a ficathon.

[sholio]

*g* I think everybody is helped by venting sometimes. And it's really fascinating to me to see how people's h/c kinks vary from person to person. Starvation is actually a rather major squick of mine; I know that it's a feature in many of your stories, but I just close my eyes and skip past those parts because it gives me unpleasant shivers. *grin* Of course this is not meant to be a slur against your stories; it's just something that I don't find enjoyable to picture, for several reasons that I won't go into here. On the other hand, abdominal injuries are a guilty pleasure of mine because their h/c potential is through the roof -- life-threatening, painful, fairly slow. Although I know that the odds of surviving one are rather low, and the recovery very long, which is why it's a guilty pleasure. But you were pretty clear in your post that it's a personal preference not a writing commandment. And I do think we've all got our own specific fetishes. I really do have a massive thing for life-threatening injuries of all types, 'cause I like the angst it engenders in others -- as well as characters being drugged or woozy. *sighs*

Having injuries disappear or not dealing with the ramifications of them ... I'm kind of conflicted on this, especially since I know I've done it myself. On the one hand, inconsistencies in stories drive me batty. I'm sure I've probably been guilty of accidentally writing such things myself, but really, this is what editing and betas are for! Like grammar and spelling mistakes, they aren't that hard to fix and avoid, and they knock me right out of a story if I notice them. As for the other part, I really want a story to give me physical realism. If a character is badly hurt, I want them to act like it, dammit. At least I think I do. But ...

But here's where the conflicted part comes in ... an awful lot of what we do to the characters would completely put them out of commission -- probably permanently. I can think of several of my stories where I've committed acts on the main characters that would have resulted in a one-way ticket to Earth. I've also been very much guilty of writing stories in which characters really should have been unconscious, or dead, and were not only conscious but capable of actually doing stuff. "Fading Sun" is probably the worst offender. Even at the time, I knew I was having Sheppard do stuff he shouldn't have been able to do in his condition! But the alternative would have been having him in a coma for the entire story and then sending him back to Earth ... the wrong Earth. When I was writing the story, I remember thinking "...crap. He's just had major surgery. He ought to be in ICU for a very long time and then retired from service. I, er, think I'll just ignore it and have him run around Atlantis and hope no one notices that I'm being completely unrealistic." And ditto for the recovery back on Atlantis ... I mean, I've got him walking around within a week for pete's sake. I've also had characters break bones, and I know, personally, from having broken bones, that the effects last a lifetime. If you have a bad break, you never truly recover 100% from that.

But here's how I see it -- it's fanfic. I really do try to be realistic, and I do actually have a couple of stories in my "to-finish" folder that realistically deal with the fallout from injuries (including a head injury one for John that I'm really having trouble writing because the implications of doing something so devastating to a favored character are so traumatic for me). From a writerly point of view, I hate the cop-out of using a magical healing device or just ignoring a trauma. I would never do it in an original story. But as as *fan*, there is a soft little core of me that wants to see things go back like they are on the show. One of my goals for my future stories is to be more realistic -- physically and emotionally -- but at the same time, realistic injuries don't hit my kinks quite as well as ones that play with the laws of physics just a wee bit. So I'm kinda torn between the needs of the story, and my own wants as an h/c fan.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing a trend here. A lot of my favorite whumps make a lot of people squick. Abdominal wounds, which is the majority favorite form of whump among whumpers, is the only whump I kind turn away from and basically never use if I can. Most amusingly ironic.

I've never really thought about long-term physical ramifications from injuries except for bone scarring. I broke my shoulder a while back and the doctor told me that I probably wouldn't have the same range of motion that I did before the break. But I managed to get it back.

What I always worry more about is the long-term affects on his mental health. I always try to leave a heavy-whump story open where he obviously isn't all better mentally but you're given the impression that he's at least on his way. I've read a lot of stories where writers gloss over this.

As for injuries, I think it can vary. There have been some people who have suffered major injuries and made a complete recovery, and some suffering minor injuries that later developed complications for them. So I guess that's why I don't really think about it. Plus, during moments of duress, I would think it easy for a guy like Sheppard - with a high pain tolerance - to ignore the pain of his injuries for quite a while. But, yes, there would follow consequences. Which is why what you did in "Fading Sun" worked, in my opinion. I think it just depends on the person more than the injury, although I could be wrong. *shrugs*

[sholio]

I had never really noticed abdominal wounds being that prevalent; the only story I can think of off the top of my head that really dealt in-depth with a belly wound and the ramifications of such (sepsis, etc) did it to Rodney. On the other hand, since it isn't a personal squick, they don't tend to stick in my head either (or perhaps I just mentally file them under the broad category of "internal injuries" in my mental rolodex ... and internal injuries or bleeding, I agree, are pretty common).

A lot of my favorite whumps make a lot of people squick.

Maybe, but it certainly doesn't appear to interfere with you being a fairly popular writer in the fandom, because the quality of your writing is quite good. *g* I admit that your stories do tend to lean towards sorts of injuries that squick me, but the world-building is fantastic and you do a really nice job with the character interactions without ignoring or bashing any of the major characters, so I look forward to them regardless and I'm always happy when a new one of yours pops up on ff.net (although every once in a while there's one I just can't read because of my squicks, but that's not your fault).

H/c is such a personal, fetishy kind of thing that I'm not surprised that one person's kink is another person's squick, even within the broader kink of h/c. There are times when I really wish I could find more of a particular thing that I like (nobody writes hypothermia, for example, and I adore it! I just have to write it myself 'cause no one else likes it *sniffle*) but luckily, I'm mostly in it for the comfort, so the specific injury leading up to it doesn't really matter to me all THAT much, assuming that it doesn't set off my medical unreality tripwire TOO much.

(I am in no way associated with the medical professions; I'm just a nitpicker. *g*) I did have a fair amount of experience with hospitals as a kid, so I try to stick in things that I know about from my own personal experience but don't see very often in fic -- like the PCA (device that hospitals use to allow patients to self-medicate with morphine, which really strikes me as something that Sheppard would like since he gets to have that measure of control over his physical state).


As for injuries, I think it can vary ... I think it just depends on the person more than the injury

I think that's sort of true; the effects of injuries and the amount of time it takes to recover are hugely variable. I just start to get tired of writers so often having characters at death's door one minute and then back on duty by the end of the story (even though I realize I've done it too). It's not really that I mind reading a story in which Sheppard (or Rodney) rebounds from some impossibly debilitating injury, because I understand the h/c writer's wish to skip over the more difficult aspects of rehabilitation or to let them be the one-in-a-hundred patient who recovers quickly without complications. That's okay. But the stories start to bug me when all of them are like that. It makes me start wishing for a story that really would deal with the probable fallout from a serious injury -- I have read a few that did, but not very many, which is why I've got a couple on my hard drive that are that way. I don't wish to begrudge people their fantasies, since I share many of those fantasies myself; I just want a more realistic bent every once in a while.

And, yes, emotional trauma is going to be a huge issue with some of the things that John (and others) go through in fic. Again, same deal as the above; I can understand wanting to return things to their base state, and fic is supposed to be an escape from reality, but I get tired of every story being the same way, and I want to see someone really push that, and break their toys without putting them back together again, as painful as it would be to read (or write) something like that.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I can understand wanting to return things to their base state, and fic is supposed to be an escape from reality, but I get tired of every story being the same way, and I want to see someone really push that, and break their toys without putting them back together again, as painful as it would be to read (or write) something like that.

I read an SG-1 story where someone did just that - only it was mental breaking more than physcial. They'd really put Daniel through the wringer in such a bad way that he couldn't be put back together, and that's how the story ended! It was sad, powerful, and so totally fascinating. Someone else did a story where Sheppard broke his back and had to learn to live without the use of his legs.

I think that's why I end a lot of my stories with Sheppard slightly better than he was but not one-hundred percent. I hate the sudden "and then he was all beter and heading back out on a mission" endings. Probably because it's such an overdone ending. Plus, depending on the story, it comes off as a bit lazy. There's an infirmary scene where demons are purged, and suddenly everything is hunky-dory with the team heading off on another mission. No real dealing with consequences, just a need to get the story finished already.