Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2020: Week 31
The term whump (or whumping) generally refers to a form of Hurt/Comfort that is heavy on the hurt and is often found in gen stories. The exact definition varies and has evolved over time. Essentially whump involves taking a canon character, and placing them in physically painful or psychologically damaging scenarios. Often this character is a fan favorite and may sometimes be referred to as a woobie.
Furthermore, whumping (at least in the way it was used in the Stargate SG-1 H/C list) was meant to indicate a character who was in jeopardy, or hurt, and then other characters come to comfort said injured character. Hence the term H/C or hurt/comfort fics can be used as an interchangeable descriptor tag for "whumping" fics. However, there are also whump fics that focus entirely on the hurt with no comfort in sight, so whump is generally consider a darker genre.
Whump is a term that has migrated from its origins in Stargate SG-1 to become a pan-fandom term, with active communities on sites like Tumblr. It is most common in fandoms where the source material already places characters in dangerous situations, but given the limitations of that media, the trauma inflicted on characters is rarely explicitly shown or addressed in the canon. For example, procedural TV shows.
Whumping should not be confused with character bashing, where the negative aspects of a character's personality are exaggerated to express hate for that character.