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Sparked by reading the responses to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
morgan32’s hurt/comfort poll.
I’m a self-admitted h/c junkie—I’ll read almost anything where a character is tortured/injured/frozen-in-the-snow/afflicted-with-ptsd/what-have-you. I like watching characters go through the wringer, watching them be made vulnerable, watching them bleed. I liked that sort of thing in published fiction long before I ever discovered fanfic, as witnessed by my longstanding devotion to Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series (for those of you who haven’t read it or watched the movies: if a book goes by without Richard Sharpe getting beaten up, shot, or sustaining some other kind of injury, he has been a very lucky rifleman indeed). It wasn’t until I got to fandom, and began seeking out more of my own particular narrative kink that I began finding h/c stories that I didn’t like.
They felt ooky. They felt overly touchy-feely. They oozed mush all over my nice character torture. They felt weirdly like emotional voyeurism. They felt, in a word… smarmy.
And I felt conflicted. Much like when I read Wurthering Heights for English class, I felt that I should like these stories, but just couldn’t summon up any enthusiasm. They contained h/c, my particular kink, and were often well-written, but I just couldn’t get into them.
I couldn’t figure out what it was about these stories that turned me off. For a while, I thought it was because the writers were making the characters all co-dependant. Then I read C.S. Freidman’s Coldfire Trilogy and re-watched Starsky & Hutch and remembered that I like them co-dependant. It wasn’t because of the high h/c levels, because I like h/c. Next to long, well-plotted epics, it’s the best thing going.
After reading the responses tomorgan32’s hurt/comfort poll, however, I’ve finally decided that it might be as simple as the fact that I like the hurt part of the h/c equation, while smarm writers appear to prefer the comfort.
The more I read my way through the post’s comments thread, the more it began to seem like people’s answers were falling into two distinct camps regarding h/c. To quote (without permission, natch) two of the ones that seemed to best articulate the divide:
“I also admit to enjoying the hurt; as I said, I've always been attracted to the weak sides of my heroes, the display of vulnerability. Can't explain exactly why - especially as my favorite characters tend to be the badasses; I like them to be strong, but I also enjoy the, hmm, challenge, of breaking them believably.” -xparrot
“To me H/C is about the C rather than the H. Or at least I don't like them to suffer tremendously 'on-screen' so to speak.” -nakeisha
Some posters, likexparrot (who writes wonderful h/c and wonderful gen fic in general, btw), admitted to liking the “h” part of h/c at least as much as the “c.” One or two commenters even admitted to liking it more. They cited the universal appeal of watching a character struggle to overcome adversity, the thrill of seeing a usually strong character made vulnerable, the almost physical pang one feels when sympathizing with the injured character (I told you it was a kink, people). A happy ending was preferable, but the comfort did not have to outweigh the hurt, and in fact was often best when delivered in an understated manner—a “less is more” kind of thing. In short, the whole “pretty when they bleed” aesthetic that defines much of the appeal of h/c for me.
Other posters, likenakeisha, stressed the comfort part of h/c, often saying that they found the gritty details of blood/pain/injury secondary to the greater appeal of seeing characters display their love and concern for one another, seeing a usually undemonstrative character take on the role of nurturer. The best part of h/c, they argued, was the care-taking, the affirmation of the bond between characters, the thrill of seeing one character tend to the physical or emotional needs of the other, often setting aside his own angst or discomfort in order to do so.
After reading everyone’s opinions on the subject, I’ve come to the conclusion that hurt/comfort isn’t one single kink, but two (or possibly more) intertwined kinks. One can have comfort!kink without onscreen hurt, or hurt!kink without comfort, or one can have both at once; real “Hurt/Comfort.” A fic that is heavily weighted to one kink or the other is likely to appeal more strongly to fans of that particular kink than it will to the average reader, just as a pwp written to fulfill a particular kink may leave readers who are not fans of, say, cross-dressing or bondage scratching their heads and wondering what exactly is so hot about Jack Sparrow in a corset, or Sirius Black in a collar.
Take camp two’s “comfort” emphasis, ramp the emotions up a notch, and add a bit of character infantilization (what slashers may recognize as “weepy uke syndrome,” and which can show up all too often in gen fic, too), and you’ve got smarm. Of course, taking camp one’s “hurt” emphasis too far can result in out and out over-the-top character abuse of the most sadistic sort, so neither half of the equation is really superior to the other. In fact, the best h/c fic is generally the sort that lives up to its genre label and uses elements from both sides of the equation.
But it is an equation, something that combines multiple variables to produce a result—not a single quantity.
I can and do enjoy fics by the smarmier brand of writer once in a while, but generally these are well-laced with snarky banter, stick pretty closely to canon characterization, and tend to be on the restrained side when it comes to weepy out-pourings of emotion.
When it all comes down to it, I’m really here for the angst and blood. And gunshot wounds, and diphtheria, and concussion, and hypothermia, and dehydration, and fever, and broken ribs, and stab wounds, and cruciatus curses, and floggings, and…
*troops off to look up defibrillation for her current wip*
morgan32’s hurt/comfort poll.I’m a self-admitted h/c junkie—I’ll read almost anything where a character is tortured/injured/frozen-in-the-snow/afflicted-with-ptsd/what-have-you. I like watching characters go through the wringer, watching them be made vulnerable, watching them bleed. I liked that sort of thing in published fiction long before I ever discovered fanfic, as witnessed by my longstanding devotion to Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series (for those of you who haven’t read it or watched the movies: if a book goes by without Richard Sharpe getting beaten up, shot, or sustaining some other kind of injury, he has been a very lucky rifleman indeed). It wasn’t until I got to fandom, and began seeking out more of my own particular narrative kink that I began finding h/c stories that I didn’t like.
They felt ooky. They felt overly touchy-feely. They oozed mush all over my nice character torture. They felt weirdly like emotional voyeurism. They felt, in a word… smarmy.
And I felt conflicted. Much like when I read Wurthering Heights for English class, I felt that I should like these stories, but just couldn’t summon up any enthusiasm. They contained h/c, my particular kink, and were often well-written, but I just couldn’t get into them.
I couldn’t figure out what it was about these stories that turned me off. For a while, I thought it was because the writers were making the characters all co-dependant. Then I read C.S. Freidman’s Coldfire Trilogy and re-watched Starsky & Hutch and remembered that I like them co-dependant. It wasn’t because of the high h/c levels, because I like h/c. Next to long, well-plotted epics, it’s the best thing going.
After reading the responses to
morgan32’s hurt/comfort poll, however, I’ve finally decided that it might be as simple as the fact that I like the hurt part of the h/c equation, while smarm writers appear to prefer the comfort.The more I read my way through the post’s comments thread, the more it began to seem like people’s answers were falling into two distinct camps regarding h/c. To quote (without permission, natch) two of the ones that seemed to best articulate the divide:
“I also admit to enjoying the hurt; as I said, I've always been attracted to the weak sides of my heroes, the display of vulnerability. Can't explain exactly why - especially as my favorite characters tend to be the badasses; I like them to be strong, but I also enjoy the, hmm, challenge, of breaking them believably.” -
xparrot“To me H/C is about the C rather than the H. Or at least I don't like them to suffer tremendously 'on-screen' so to speak.” -
nakeishaSome posters, like
xparrot (who writes wonderful h/c and wonderful gen fic in general, btw), admitted to liking the “h” part of h/c at least as much as the “c.” One or two commenters even admitted to liking it more. They cited the universal appeal of watching a character struggle to overcome adversity, the thrill of seeing a usually strong character made vulnerable, the almost physical pang one feels when sympathizing with the injured character (I told you it was a kink, people). A happy ending was preferable, but the comfort did not have to outweigh the hurt, and in fact was often best when delivered in an understated manner—a “less is more” kind of thing. In short, the whole “pretty when they bleed” aesthetic that defines much of the appeal of h/c for me.Other posters, like
nakeisha, stressed the comfort part of h/c, often saying that they found the gritty details of blood/pain/injury secondary to the greater appeal of seeing characters display their love and concern for one another, seeing a usually undemonstrative character take on the role of nurturer. The best part of h/c, they argued, was the care-taking, the affirmation of the bond between characters, the thrill of seeing one character tend to the physical or emotional needs of the other, often setting aside his own angst or discomfort in order to do so.After reading everyone’s opinions on the subject, I’ve come to the conclusion that hurt/comfort isn’t one single kink, but two (or possibly more) intertwined kinks. One can have comfort!kink without onscreen hurt, or hurt!kink without comfort, or one can have both at once; real “Hurt/Comfort.” A fic that is heavily weighted to one kink or the other is likely to appeal more strongly to fans of that particular kink than it will to the average reader, just as a pwp written to fulfill a particular kink may leave readers who are not fans of, say, cross-dressing or bondage scratching their heads and wondering what exactly is so hot about Jack Sparrow in a corset, or Sirius Black in a collar.
Take camp two’s “comfort” emphasis, ramp the emotions up a notch, and add a bit of character infantilization (what slashers may recognize as “weepy uke syndrome,” and which can show up all too often in gen fic, too), and you’ve got smarm. Of course, taking camp one’s “hurt” emphasis too far can result in out and out over-the-top character abuse of the most sadistic sort, so neither half of the equation is really superior to the other. In fact, the best h/c fic is generally the sort that lives up to its genre label and uses elements from both sides of the equation.
But it is an equation, something that combines multiple variables to produce a result—not a single quantity.
I can and do enjoy fics by the smarmier brand of writer once in a while, but generally these are well-laced with snarky banter, stick pretty closely to canon characterization, and tend to be on the restrained side when it comes to weepy out-pourings of emotion.
When it all comes down to it, I’m really here for the angst and blood. And gunshot wounds, and diphtheria, and concussion, and hypothermia, and dehydration, and fever, and broken ribs, and stab wounds, and cruciatus curses, and floggings, and…
*troops off to look up defibrillation for her current wip*
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Now that I've read *your* thoughts, though, I think what it really is, is that I don't really have an H/C kink at all: because I don't particularly like my hurt and comfort to be all mixed up together. If I'm in the mood for healing through codependency - which is really what the C in H/C usually is - I don't particularly care to know the details of the hurt; I just want to see the characters bond. And if I'm in the mood for hurt - for seeing somebody get systematically broken - then I don't particularly want the codependency - I'm in it for the *character*, making them into just half a relationship is a let-down. And hurt *not* followed by detailed, sloppy, romantic bonding-through-healing gets classified in my head as darkfic, not H/C, even if there is some hope at the end. So maybe it's not so much that I like comfort better, as that I think the detailed comfort, not the hurt, is what makes a fic H/C.
From:
no subject
Best definition of h/c ever.
if I'm in the mood for hurt ... I'm in it for the *character*; making them into just half a relationship is a let-down.
*nods* I think I see what you're getting at. Some of the schmoopier h/c I've read has tended to short-change the characters' individual personalities in favour of emphasizie their Special Bond (tm). It's not about X dealing with their trauma; it's about X's dependance on Y.
That said, fic that features only X getting hurt, with no comfort or at all, can be grindingly depressing at times (or cathartic, if I'm in the mood for that particular brand of angst).
From:
no subject
That just isn't H/C to me. I think for it to read as H/C to me, it needs to be very, hmm, claustrophobic perhaps. Codependent, yes? Just the two of them. Which isn't to say I don't like that us-against-the-world sort of story; I just ... skip the graphic torture when I read those.