ATTF: H/C comment ficathon!
Welcome to Friday, best bar on Earth, and another edition of ATTF, this week hosted by yours truly and anuna_81.
While researching for hurt/comfort tropes, I came across this really interesting column on hurt/comfort, a lot of which rang true for me.
This especially:
The C in HC is not to be confused with smarm, BTW - that's a different kink, a kind of uber-comfort with only enough hurt (sometimes none) to trigger it. I like smarm, but I also like the hurt in and of itself - what another fan once called "char torture." I like comfort to come after, but I'll read stories with insufficient amounts of comfort if the hurt is done well.
I can't really explain what the appeal is. Partly it's the emotional intensity. Partly it's the jeopardy. Partly it's the angst (viva angst!). But naming different parts of the appeal doesn't really explain what or why it is.
I suspect part of it is the desire to see blatant caretaking going on between the characters, but knowing that, if they are true to character, that won't happen unless something really extreme has just occurred. So rather than force them out of character to comfort each other for a minor incident, I will produce something extreme and make the comfort in character. I will also create moments when the characters have nothing TO do but caretake - there's no more reasonable action they can take, they have to wait or hide out for some reason - so no one will tear their hair out screaming at them to stop TALKING and DO something, damn it. The characters must behave like the intelligent adults they are or it's no good.
....
Pain - like love, death, and sex - is one of the universals of human experience. We all feel it, we all have to find some way of coping with it. Whether it's physical, emotional, mental or spiritual (despair is a spiritual pain), we're all gonna run into it. HC lets us exercise (as Stephen King said, "exercise, not exorcise") our feelings of fascination and repellence regarding pain. Like a kid with a sore tooth, some of us just can't resist playing with it compulsively. It hurts, but it's a safe way to explore the hurt without actually having to feel the heights of true agony ourselves.
So here's our challenge: Leave prompts, write h/c fic and have fun! :D
When posting your fics, please don't forget to add a rating and potential triggers in the subject line. Thanks a mill!
Things to remember:
1) Always label NSFW (Not Safe For Work) stuff in the title and post under a cut.
2) Fic and artwork needs to have a rating and warnings (or you can say that you’ve chosen not to use warnings).
3) For people with annoying internet connections, say in the title if a comment is graphic/images/gif-heavy and post picspams under a cut.
4) Have a damn good time! (Because if that’s not happening then this post has clearly failed.)
While researching for hurt/comfort tropes, I came across this really interesting column on hurt/comfort, a lot of which rang true for me.
This especially:
The C in HC is not to be confused with smarm, BTW - that's a different kink, a kind of uber-comfort with only enough hurt (sometimes none) to trigger it. I like smarm, but I also like the hurt in and of itself - what another fan once called "char torture." I like comfort to come after, but I'll read stories with insufficient amounts of comfort if the hurt is done well.
I can't really explain what the appeal is. Partly it's the emotional intensity. Partly it's the jeopardy. Partly it's the angst (viva angst!). But naming different parts of the appeal doesn't really explain what or why it is.
I suspect part of it is the desire to see blatant caretaking going on between the characters, but knowing that, if they are true to character, that won't happen unless something really extreme has just occurred. So rather than force them out of character to comfort each other for a minor incident, I will produce something extreme and make the comfort in character. I will also create moments when the characters have nothing TO do but caretake - there's no more reasonable action they can take, they have to wait or hide out for some reason - so no one will tear their hair out screaming at them to stop TALKING and DO something, damn it. The characters must behave like the intelligent adults they are or it's no good.
....
Pain - like love, death, and sex - is one of the universals of human experience. We all feel it, we all have to find some way of coping with it. Whether it's physical, emotional, mental or spiritual (despair is a spiritual pain), we're all gonna run into it. HC lets us exercise (as Stephen King said, "exercise, not exorcise") our feelings of fascination and repellence regarding pain. Like a kid with a sore tooth, some of us just can't resist playing with it compulsively. It hurts, but it's a safe way to explore the hurt without actually having to feel the heights of true agony ourselves.
So here's our challenge: Leave prompts, write h/c fic and have fun! :D
When posting your fics, please don't forget to add a rating and potential triggers in the subject line. Thanks a mill!
Things to remember:
1) Always label NSFW (Not Safe For Work) stuff in the title and post under a cut.
2) Fic and artwork needs to have a rating and warnings (or you can say that you’ve chosen not to use warnings).
3) For people with annoying internet connections, say in the title if a comment is graphic/images/gif-heavy and post picspams under a cut.
4) Have a damn good time! (Because if that’s not happening then this post has clearly failed.)