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(I would like to emphasize that this meme encompasses only stories that promise or include equal opportunity whumpage, whether of all the characters or between a certain number of characters.)
Don't you hate it when you read a story promising whump for all the characters including your fave, each character gets whumped in a bad way and your character... twists his or her ankle but is otherwise fine?
I am, by no means, any kind of an expert on equal whumping. In fact, it tends to make me nervous since I want to whump each character in a way that's satisfying to the fan's of that character. But depending on what's going on in the story, sometimes I'm limited in the various ways I can whump someone.
What annoys me, though, is when a character is given the short end of the whumping stick - i.e "the twisted ankle". Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes more subtle, and not necessarily done on purpose (though there have been stories that have kind of made me wonder). And it doesn't matter the character, whether it's a favorite of mine or not, I just think it's unfair to promise whump for everyone only for fans of a particular character to get jipped.
As a writer, I know a lot of it has to do with personal taste. Of course you're going to dump the most whump on your favorite character, and save what you feel is a lesser form of whump for you're least favorite character, or the character you least like seeing whumped (for me, that sometimes tends to be Teyla - not because I don't like her, but because I don't like female whump.)
It may also depend on what you're trying to accomplish - you physically whump characters A through C but leave D unscathed to heap mental angst on him/her. Or you go the opposite: heap the physical whump on D leaving the mental angst for everyone else. I see this happen a lot with Sheppard. He's either been so physically bashed that he's pretty much out through most of the story, or his team has been brutally bashed leaving him to suffer uber angst. Which is all well and good. What isn't all well and good is what tends to be left out, and that's the details. Heavy physical whump will have mental consequences on a character. Mental whump will have physical consequences. What bugs me is when the character wakes up from his coma and is "seemingly" all fine and dandy mentally despite all the crap he'd gone through. Or the character has suffered major mental trauma yet the only side affect is "he has shadows under his eyes because he's not sleeping well... maybe." Depending on the mental trauma, bad sleep and nightmares may be the only visible consequence. But the bigger the trauma, the bigger the consequences. I'm not asking for the consequnces to eventually lead to whump, but I would at least like to know what's happening to the character outside their mind (are they sleeping bad? Are they even sleeping? Are they eating? Do they look thinner? Stooped? Are they shaking? Overdosing on something? etc).
Another annoyance is an injury being downplayed or so small it results in little or no consequences (Ex. a cut not leading to infection.) I tend to see this happen a lot to McKay. People promise Shep and McKay whump, Shep gets shot, McKay gets a little cut that he whines about but ultimitaly forgets about because Sheppard's wound is more serious. I'm a Shep fan, but I find that kind of whumping completely unfair to McKay whumpers. Not just unfair but also kind of rude in a way, because McKay whump was promised, even if it was just "some" McKay whump, and a little laceration that doesn't even get infected isn't exactly what I'd call satisfying whump (and I won't deny that I may have been guilty of this myself, though I am trying to change that.)
Annoyance number three - the characters have survived a horrendous ordeal that has left some of them more scathed than others. Those less scathed have aches and pains, yet because they seem fine on the outside and either insist they're fine or have no real wounds that they know of, they are relased to go clean up, eat, rest whatever. I'm not a doctor, I don't know how hospitals/infirmaries work, but that just doesn't seem right that a doctor would just send people off unchecked, no matter how much those people insist they're fine. There could be infections, the characters in some state of shock that has rendered them completely oblivious to what's really wrong with their body, and so on. That seems wrong to me.
The more satisfying equal whump stories I've read are those that...
A. Try to give each character a unique form of whump, causing them individual sets of problems. In other words, they don't give the characters the same injury - Ex. Character A has a broken leg and can't walk, Character B a broken arm preventing them from carrying character A, and the bad guys are coming. Or if they do have the same injuries, the results of the injury may be different for each character - Ex. Chest trauma: for character A, it causes respiratory problems while character B has to put up with internal bleeding.
B. Don't skimp on the details. Every character is going through something, whether mentally or physically. We know what the characters are going through both mentally and physcially, however they've been whumped. I've read stories where my fave character was the only one to get away scott free and unscathed. Yet their mental trauma was so well handled and described that the angst alone was satisfying enough so that I didn't even care that they didn't get physically whumped.
C. Pretty much deliver what they promise. When a writer promises whump for all, then every character whumped is what the reader gets, and in a way that satisfies. I've read a lot of stories where the characters get the snot whumped out of them save for one character who either doesn't get whumped, barely gets whumped, or they get whumped then one chapter or a few paragraphs later they're up on their feet with no consequences to show for it; never to be whumped again for the rest of the story.
You can't please all of the people all of the time - I know that. Everyone has their favorite character and their favorite method by which that character is whumped. But I feel there's no excuse for not at least trying to whump every character you promised to whump in a way that doesn't leave that character's fan feeling completely jipped. If giving a character a sprained wrist is your way of whumping the character while keeping them mobile, you can always whump them in some different way later on. Ex. have them collapse from exhaustion and/or dehydration after everything's said and done. Or, maybe, have them go through some bad angst where they can't eat or sleep. Have the sprained wrist become a broken wrist. Nothing major, just something more, especially if every other character is getting the crap beat/traumatized out of them. It's only fair :D
Don't you hate it when you read a story promising whump for all the characters including your fave, each character gets whumped in a bad way and your character... twists his or her ankle but is otherwise fine?
I am, by no means, any kind of an expert on equal whumping. In fact, it tends to make me nervous since I want to whump each character in a way that's satisfying to the fan's of that character. But depending on what's going on in the story, sometimes I'm limited in the various ways I can whump someone.
What annoys me, though, is when a character is given the short end of the whumping stick - i.e "the twisted ankle". Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes more subtle, and not necessarily done on purpose (though there have been stories that have kind of made me wonder). And it doesn't matter the character, whether it's a favorite of mine or not, I just think it's unfair to promise whump for everyone only for fans of a particular character to get jipped.
As a writer, I know a lot of it has to do with personal taste. Of course you're going to dump the most whump on your favorite character, and save what you feel is a lesser form of whump for you're least favorite character, or the character you least like seeing whumped (for me, that sometimes tends to be Teyla - not because I don't like her, but because I don't like female whump.)
It may also depend on what you're trying to accomplish - you physically whump characters A through C but leave D unscathed to heap mental angst on him/her. Or you go the opposite: heap the physical whump on D leaving the mental angst for everyone else. I see this happen a lot with Sheppard. He's either been so physically bashed that he's pretty much out through most of the story, or his team has been brutally bashed leaving him to suffer uber angst. Which is all well and good. What isn't all well and good is what tends to be left out, and that's the details. Heavy physical whump will have mental consequences on a character. Mental whump will have physical consequences. What bugs me is when the character wakes up from his coma and is "seemingly" all fine and dandy mentally despite all the crap he'd gone through. Or the character has suffered major mental trauma yet the only side affect is "he has shadows under his eyes because he's not sleeping well... maybe." Depending on the mental trauma, bad sleep and nightmares may be the only visible consequence. But the bigger the trauma, the bigger the consequences. I'm not asking for the consequnces to eventually lead to whump, but I would at least like to know what's happening to the character outside their mind (are they sleeping bad? Are they even sleeping? Are they eating? Do they look thinner? Stooped? Are they shaking? Overdosing on something? etc).
Another annoyance is an injury being downplayed or so small it results in little or no consequences (Ex. a cut not leading to infection.) I tend to see this happen a lot to McKay. People promise Shep and McKay whump, Shep gets shot, McKay gets a little cut that he whines about but ultimitaly forgets about because Sheppard's wound is more serious. I'm a Shep fan, but I find that kind of whumping completely unfair to McKay whumpers. Not just unfair but also kind of rude in a way, because McKay whump was promised, even if it was just "some" McKay whump, and a little laceration that doesn't even get infected isn't exactly what I'd call satisfying whump (and I won't deny that I may have been guilty of this myself, though I am trying to change that.)
Annoyance number three - the characters have survived a horrendous ordeal that has left some of them more scathed than others. Those less scathed have aches and pains, yet because they seem fine on the outside and either insist they're fine or have no real wounds that they know of, they are relased to go clean up, eat, rest whatever. I'm not a doctor, I don't know how hospitals/infirmaries work, but that just doesn't seem right that a doctor would just send people off unchecked, no matter how much those people insist they're fine. There could be infections, the characters in some state of shock that has rendered them completely oblivious to what's really wrong with their body, and so on. That seems wrong to me.
The more satisfying equal whump stories I've read are those that...
A. Try to give each character a unique form of whump, causing them individual sets of problems. In other words, they don't give the characters the same injury - Ex. Character A has a broken leg and can't walk, Character B a broken arm preventing them from carrying character A, and the bad guys are coming. Or if they do have the same injuries, the results of the injury may be different for each character - Ex. Chest trauma: for character A, it causes respiratory problems while character B has to put up with internal bleeding.
B. Don't skimp on the details. Every character is going through something, whether mentally or physically. We know what the characters are going through both mentally and physcially, however they've been whumped. I've read stories where my fave character was the only one to get away scott free and unscathed. Yet their mental trauma was so well handled and described that the angst alone was satisfying enough so that I didn't even care that they didn't get physically whumped.
C. Pretty much deliver what they promise. When a writer promises whump for all, then every character whumped is what the reader gets, and in a way that satisfies. I've read a lot of stories where the characters get the snot whumped out of them save for one character who either doesn't get whumped, barely gets whumped, or they get whumped then one chapter or a few paragraphs later they're up on their feet with no consequences to show for it; never to be whumped again for the rest of the story.
You can't please all of the people all of the time - I know that. Everyone has their favorite character and their favorite method by which that character is whumped. But I feel there's no excuse for not at least trying to whump every character you promised to whump in a way that doesn't leave that character's fan feeling completely jipped. If giving a character a sprained wrist is your way of whumping the character while keeping them mobile, you can always whump them in some different way later on. Ex. have them collapse from exhaustion and/or dehydration after everything's said and done. Or, maybe, have them go through some bad angst where they can't eat or sleep. Have the sprained wrist become a broken wrist. Nothing major, just something more, especially if every other character is getting the crap beat/traumatized out of them. It's only fair :D
Details, details.......yes, they do matter.
Date: 2008-07-11 02:27 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)I do not care for Teyla whump. I like Teyla. But Teyla whump is not for me.
I don't really like heavy Rodney whump. Some big whump for Rodney (and Ronon)is fine but, not the really heavy-duty stuff. Rodney is more interesting when he's angsting (and Ronon is just so cool doing his protector thing). I'm not adverse to a little change-up now and again, though.
It's a little anti-climatic when the characters are whumped (as promised) but the whole infirmary scene is missing, and they go straight from being whumped to being well on the mend or even healed.
Either that or we go from the whump to several days later in the infirmary with no idea how they got home or the pain and effort it took to get there. It's like, "Oh, hey. You're awake! We're back home on Atlantis. We made it." Or "Rescue team found us after you passed out. Oh and you're going to be fine."
The end.........*hmmm*
In other words, there's the whump action, but no post whump and enduring whump.
What happened?
What was it like for the whumped character(s)
What was it like for the non-whumped characters.
It's all well and good to slap the characters around......but, we need details, after-math, consequences, coping methods, etc.
I have to say though, I've enjoyed many a story that may not have entirely filled the whump bill, but was very good anyway. I hope whump authors continue to write, as I will continue to enjoy.
Have a good one!
November