![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sua_layWhat makes a person write ultimate hurt/comfort?
I'm not talking about the good old 'Blair is kidnapped, Jim finds him and bathes him' -kind of romantic sludge. Am not even talking about a certain amnesia fic where a certain Uruk-Hai ends up getting his teeth.... yeah. I'm talking about extreme torture and then extreme mush.
I just don't get it.
Years ago, I read a fic in Eroica fandom that made me sick. I'm not very squeamish about stuff (considering my fic taste goes from incest to kink to violence), but that story with its eccessive torture simply disgusted me. In the end, both main characters were scarred both physically (lost arms and eyes, raped) and mentally (I skimmed over the rest of the fic and apparently at least one of them was completely insane or in a vegetative state). Then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladyria showed me a HP fic where the Death Eaters had taken over Hogwarts and raped everyone for months.
Today, I read a CSI fic where the guys were tortured, lost various body parts and by the time 'Nicky' was in a catatonic state, I just ran.
I'm not saying you can't write such fics or post them. With warnings, you can post whatever you want to. I just wonder what's the attraction in these kinds of fics.
Writing about various horrors that are inevitably followed by a trauma is all right, but h/c is a form of art that needs to be treated carefully. If someone is in a car crash, he'll need physical therapy. If he's tortured and/or raped, he'll probably need both physical therapy and then some psychologist to rant to.
Love doesn't cure things.
Some people forget the healing part. [glares at all those Star Wars authors who seem to love the magical Healing Jedi Dick] Or then the story is one huge therapy session (usually written poorly). And I'm still talking about an ordinary h/c here.
Guess what happens when both the hurt and the comfort go where no fanfic has gone before?
Writing bad things happening to people can be artistic and is usually necessary to get the show on the road. I admit it freely! Once I started killing characters in a fic, it was kind of intriguing to watch how other characters reacted and tried to go on. But it's a different thing to hurt or kill a supporting character for the sake of the plot than it's to torment the main characters for no other reason than to make them hurt.
You read a fic because you want to read about these specific characters. I may not love each and every character I read of (as I've said earlier, there are those I like just because for some reason the character I love seems to be stupid enough to want to be with them; Hercules and Duncan MacLeod come to mind immediately), but I care enough to want to make them happy. That means they should have at least some glimmer of hope in the future as independent beings, not as broken toys the other characters take care of.
*fumes*
The thing about extreme h/c also boils down to my ages old pet peeve; charactarization. Most traumas in fic induce even the most crabby character into the teary eyed hand holding lover who murmurs sweet nothings into the other one's ear.
//"God, Blair, if I'd thought you might get a hangnail, I would have bought you cotton gloves and some hand cream ages ago," Jim muttered, his blue eyes filling with tears as he watched Blair struggle with his wound. //
There are characters who indeed have sat by sickbeds and carried their friends across the wilderness/plains of Gorgoroth/whatever. Then there are characters who clench their jaw and go and kick ass while their friend is going all *meep* in the hospital. My problem is, usually all characters in fic react with the 'oh my love, my darling' -way which doesn't fit most of them.
Yes, if your loved one almost dies, you want to coddle them and wrap them in a blanket and hide them from the world. That's perfectly normal. But if you actually do wrap them in a blanket and hide them from the world (and they allow you to), then you're in for some serious trouble. I guess it's all right for a knight in a shining armor to carry his princess to his castle and coddle her, but none of the characters I read of would settle for that kind of life.
/rant
So it's not my kink.
I'm not saying people shouldn't write extreme h/c just because I don't like it. I just wonder what makes people want to treat their characters that way. Is this one of those guilty pleasures; people reading weird crap in secret and not admitting it to anyone, or is there indeed a high regard on these kinds of fics?
I'm not talking about the good old 'Blair is kidnapped, Jim finds him and bathes him' -kind of romantic sludge. Am not even talking about a certain amnesia fic where a certain Uruk-Hai ends up getting his teeth.... yeah. I'm talking about extreme torture and then extreme mush.
I just don't get it.
Years ago, I read a fic in Eroica fandom that made me sick. I'm not very squeamish about stuff (considering my fic taste goes from incest to kink to violence), but that story with its eccessive torture simply disgusted me. In the end, both main characters were scarred both physically (lost arms and eyes, raped) and mentally (I skimmed over the rest of the fic and apparently at least one of them was completely insane or in a vegetative state). Then
ladyria showed me a HP fic where the Death Eaters had taken over Hogwarts and raped everyone for months. Today, I read a CSI fic where the guys were tortured, lost various body parts and by the time 'Nicky' was in a catatonic state, I just ran.
I'm not saying you can't write such fics or post them. With warnings, you can post whatever you want to. I just wonder what's the attraction in these kinds of fics.
Writing about various horrors that are inevitably followed by a trauma is all right, but h/c is a form of art that needs to be treated carefully. If someone is in a car crash, he'll need physical therapy. If he's tortured and/or raped, he'll probably need both physical therapy and then some psychologist to rant to.
Love doesn't cure things.
Some people forget the healing part. [glares at all those Star Wars authors who seem to love the magical Healing Jedi Dick] Or then the story is one huge therapy session (usually written poorly). And I'm still talking about an ordinary h/c here.
Guess what happens when both the hurt and the comfort go where no fanfic has gone before?
Writing bad things happening to people can be artistic and is usually necessary to get the show on the road. I admit it freely! Once I started killing characters in a fic, it was kind of intriguing to watch how other characters reacted and tried to go on. But it's a different thing to hurt or kill a supporting character for the sake of the plot than it's to torment the main characters for no other reason than to make them hurt.
You read a fic because you want to read about these specific characters. I may not love each and every character I read of (as I've said earlier, there are those I like just because for some reason the character I love seems to be stupid enough to want to be with them; Hercules and Duncan MacLeod come to mind immediately), but I care enough to want to make them happy. That means they should have at least some glimmer of hope in the future as independent beings, not as broken toys the other characters take care of.
*fumes*
The thing about extreme h/c also boils down to my ages old pet peeve; charactarization. Most traumas in fic induce even the most crabby character into the teary eyed hand holding lover who murmurs sweet nothings into the other one's ear.
//"God, Blair, if I'd thought you might get a hangnail, I would have bought you cotton gloves and some hand cream ages ago," Jim muttered, his blue eyes filling with tears as he watched Blair struggle with his wound. //
There are characters who indeed have sat by sickbeds and carried their friends across the wilderness/plains of Gorgoroth/whatever. Then there are characters who clench their jaw and go and kick ass while their friend is going all *meep* in the hospital. My problem is, usually all characters in fic react with the 'oh my love, my darling' -way which doesn't fit most of them.
Yes, if your loved one almost dies, you want to coddle them and wrap them in a blanket and hide them from the world. That's perfectly normal. But if you actually do wrap them in a blanket and hide them from the world (and they allow you to), then you're in for some serious trouble. I guess it's all right for a knight in a shining armor to carry his princess to his castle and coddle her, but none of the characters I read of would settle for that kind of life.
/rant
So it's not my kink.
I'm not saying people shouldn't write extreme h/c just because I don't like it. I just wonder what makes people want to treat their characters that way. Is this one of those guilty pleasures; people reading weird crap in secret and not admitting it to anyone, or is there indeed a high regard on these kinds of fics?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:21 pm (UTC)The problem with permanently injuring a character is that you're then changing the whole character and their world. You can't give a cop AIDS and then go on with him working normally and just angsting over the whole thing with his lover. No matter how he tries, he can't just be a cop anymore. His world will be full of hospital visits and taking pills and facing pity and prejudice. The same goes with all other major injuries and diseases.
That changes the whole concept of the fandom.
I have written some unfinished deathfics, but I don't ever like to read them. Never, ever. It's bad enough to watch movies where a main character dies and the other one is left mourning. Can't deal with that in a fic.
*is a total wimp*
I like h/c if it's reasonable and dealt with a way that's according to the fandom. If every h/c pairing calls each other sweetheart and bathes each other, then the author isn't doing her job very well.
The comfort part can be more than actively comforting someone. It's not calling someone ten times a day, trusting and hoping they'll call you if they need you. It's letting someone get up on their own so that they can test their skills and train their muscles instead of letting you carry them all the time. It's being there for that special someone and not doing stuff; sometimes holding someone is a bigger thing than a thousand words.
And yes, I've heard the D&P ep is cool. *smirk*
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:45 pm (UTC)It was cool because I got to write the comfort they didn't which, as you said, included lifts to the hospital, learning about the symptoms and effects of what had happened, etc.
I sometimes think people should do some more research and get to know their characters a bit better.
I'm turning into a really picky slash reader!
I do reread one of my deathfics - a short one in which I murdered the first character and had the second one take his own life. It's got a certain peaceful symmetry to it. I guess, like the other one, it is me trying to work my own stuff out.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 01:59 pm (UTC)And no smirking either! They'll start season 8 of D&P here this week, and then I have to wait forever till they start season 9.
The thing about deathfics is that I can deal with stories and movies where both characters die. That way no one is left mourning for ages, and I can at least think that they're together wherever they went.
Yes. I'm disgustingly romantic.
*hides*
Working stuff out in a fic is all right, as long as the author remembers that not everyone has had their experiences and that even if you scream from the roof that it was inspired by your own trauma, a lousy fic is still a lousy fic. I read through lots of bad anorexia fics ages ago, and it pained me, because they were so horrendous and I couldn't really say anything in the fandom, because the authors were so clearly doing a kind of theraplay with their fics.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 03:00 pm (UTC)The thing about deathfics is that I can deal with stories and movies where both characters die. That way no one is left mourning for ages, and I can at least think that they're together wherever they went.
I think that's why I like the fic - that's why I don't feel that it's too sad. I don't know, I just know it has a feeling of peace about it and I think you're right as to why.
I'm a terrible romantic too!