Oh hc_bingo no?
Oh hc_bingo no?
H/c (and its cousin, smarm. Mmmm, smarm) is a genre of tropes. We who love h/c do all sorts of awful things to our favorites, then patch them up again; or take what canon does to them and get them in shape for next week. Some awful things seem more amenable than others to h/c; or become vessels for whatever-it-is that makes a h/c lover love h/c; or just enter the fannish over-brain as something we write about; and ta-dah, a trope. Ever dropped a favorite down a well? I have!
So I jumped at hc_bingo when I started seeing cards appear, even though the rules baffled me for a spell because, yk, good Methodist here, bingo confuses me. Tropes and more tropes! And I do love tropes.
The following my be triggery. I tried to be circumspect, but just so's you know.
And then… well, I did something I shouldn't have. I followed a link out of a post of friendshipper's ( Metametameta on h/c bingo) to damned_colonial's Hurt/comfort and the real world, in which s/he advises "hurt/comfort, as a genre or trope, can be problematic." Well, yeah. It's been my assumption that most things that need warning for are most commonly found in h/c stories (or at least, that's where *I* find them). Haven't we been having this conversation for a while?
S/he continues, "The thing about these hurts (and about many/most of the hurts on the hc_bingo list, though not all -- let's exclude things like "wings (sudden onset)" and "zombie apocalypse" for now) is that they are real things in the world, which real people experience. I suspect that there are people who reading this journal who have experienced each of these things in the real world, and in many cases are still living with the effects of them." Um, yeah... I mean, every time I go looking for fic in areas I don't know much about, I wade past (or into, depending on mood, author talent, and my own taste) plenty of stories which are shouting, "MY ISSUES, LET ME SHOW YOU." And when I asked for a bingo card I specified no sexual trauma, because I don't have it in me right now to do that sort of story well. Not saying I never could, and I have loved stories with these elements, but it's a big world, yk? And there's plenty else for me to write that I find a lot less problematic.
The lecture continues. S/he hits upon the fact that, IRL, comfort doesn't always happen, or if it does it doesn't happen like in fic, and it rarely solves the whole problem, and and and… And I'm thinking, yeah, discussed this one a time or theee. But, yk, I'm hoping a lot less lectureyish.
S/he goes on, "So when the unrealism (unrealisticness? unreality?) of h/c fic mirrors and supports those dangerous attitudes in the real world, that affect real people, that worries me too. I'd like people who write H/C to consider what the living with a hurt is really like, and what kinds of comfort are really useful and appreciated by those with real-world hurts (and which aren't), and reflect that in their fic."
And I think, what the bleep kind of h/c has s/he been reading? And what sort of monsters does s/he think we h/c writers are?
"I'd just like to see some discussion of the issues around it and how h/c can be done in a more respectful, less faily way."
Well, yes, I try every day to be less faily. And thank you for pointing out that I should be spending more time thinking about something I'VE BEEN WORKING THROUGH MY FEELINGS ABOUT, AND ISSUES WITH, SINCE THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION. In all sorts of settings, including LJ but certainly not exclusively.
And… well, here's the thing. Yes, there are unrealities in almost all h/c, the same ones in most all genre fiction, fan or pro. There's a plot, a progression. People don't live 200,000 words of unhappiness and then choke to death alone in suburbia. I can't wrap my head around how this is a bad thing; if I want to dabble in tragedy, there's always RL.
And that said, what makes h/c (moreso than other types of fic, I don't know) work is making it as realistic as possible. A story that goes, "Bad thing happens to X, Y finds X, BIG HUG/SEX, all better, all done," really isn't that satisfying. That's your typical action/adventure TV plot (probably minus the third step) and fanfic is what we do to mitigate this. Plus, the old suspension-of-disbelief thing works a lot better if you're skating as close as you can to How It Would Really Be. Minus the dying alone in suburbia.
- - - - - -
Okay, yeah, not happy with the meta; but, by itself, it wasn't so bad. The comments (and ones talking about it over at friendshipper's) showed a range of views, from HOW DARE YOU SAY I CAN'T WRITE XYZ (which is never stated by the OP) to Oh, I never thought of any of this!, to Well, I've never read any h/c, but this is the problem I'm sure it all has. And everything in between. One thing that particularly had me going Huh? is the idea that serious topics can't be dealt with in few words. Has nobody ever heard of poetry? BID.
I fumed a bit, boggled a bit, and snapped a bit, then went roller skating, then slept on things, then snapped a little more (but more mildly) and I kind of now see where at least some of the criticism is coming from. And I've also been pondering why it pissed me off so much.
It's been my observation that unsolicited advice, on any topic, elicits the following:
(1) D'oh, thanks! I've never thought about this this way, I'll rework my life accordingly.
(2) How great of you to point out what those weaknesses! I see them all the time in other people and I've never been able to express my issues as well as you. Bravo!
(3) How dare you talk to me like this! I've been doing this for X years blah blah blah.
(4) Oh no, I did SOMETHING WRONG! And I worked so hard not to! Okay, maybe not this time, or the time before, I didn't, but some time I did. Or maybe you see that I can, or will, fail - what a total screw-up I am! That's it, I'm never doing anything like this again! That will teach you! (And keep me from screwing up like I must have, or must be about to. Or something.)
(5) I'll show you! I'll do the opposite!
(6) Okay, from here out, I'll be very, very, very careful. Then maybe you won't yell at me again.
(7) What? Huh? Where? (Splat.)
(8) A lecture from the advisee.
(9) Total misunderstanding of the main point, with the reaction going in some completely unforeseeable direction.
ETA (10) from kerravonsen: (eyeroll) Whatever. :-)
Me, I tend toward (1) (because I can be pretty clueless), (2) (not very frequently), (3), (5) (in moderation - but this is why my default icon's Nick Rush), (7) (though I've learned to modulate this), and (8), especially if you're talking child or church stuff. (4) and (6) are not uncommon reactions, though; and making sure (9) doesn't happen is a major parenting and work challenge.
It's (4) which is the most problematic for me, though, because it really is a bad place to put someone else. And gets a lot of flak that the advisor really can't figure out the source of.
The problematic parts of the above list can be avoided by careful wording, and, most importantly, by speaking from the I. "This is what I've seen in myself, this is how I corrected it." Which is why when someone in the h/c community metas about this I don't go WRYWIEORW whereas with damned_colonial I kinda did. (Identifying oneself as part of the h/c community but not really speaking from the perpetrator-I doesn't help too much. I'm not saying you can't say what you want, and that it won't help your cause, and isn't what some situations really need. It just might get you more (4) and (5) than (1).)
Of course, there are times you just can't do this - where there is no I to draw from, or you just need some behavior stopped NOW. I've no problem with being very direct, and I've found it really does work pretty well at stopping certain behaviors. It's hard to go on from there to the type of relationship I like to have with people, though.
- - - - - - -
So I'm going to work my bingo card. Take my favorites and do things to them I haven't before, with the care I try to apply to everything in life except housework and gardening. There are some squares I won't touch, and some which, by touching, I'm afraid I'll give away too much (my issues, I don't want to show you!). But it will be fun, in the way that stretching oneself usually is.
H/c (and its cousin, smarm. Mmmm, smarm) is a genre of tropes. We who love h/c do all sorts of awful things to our favorites, then patch them up again; or take what canon does to them and get them in shape for next week. Some awful things seem more amenable than others to h/c; or become vessels for whatever-it-is that makes a h/c lover love h/c; or just enter the fannish over-brain as something we write about; and ta-dah, a trope. Ever dropped a favorite down a well? I have!
So I jumped at hc_bingo when I started seeing cards appear, even though the rules baffled me for a spell because, yk, good Methodist here, bingo confuses me. Tropes and more tropes! And I do love tropes.
The following my be triggery. I tried to be circumspect, but just so's you know.
And then… well, I did something I shouldn't have. I followed a link out of a post of friendshipper's ( Metametameta on h/c bingo) to damned_colonial's Hurt/comfort and the real world, in which s/he advises "hurt/comfort, as a genre or trope, can be problematic." Well, yeah. It's been my assumption that most things that need warning for are most commonly found in h/c stories (or at least, that's where *I* find them). Haven't we been having this conversation for a while?
S/he continues, "The thing about these hurts (and about many/most of the hurts on the hc_bingo list, though not all -- let's exclude things like "wings (sudden onset)" and "zombie apocalypse" for now) is that they are real things in the world, which real people experience. I suspect that there are people who reading this journal who have experienced each of these things in the real world, and in many cases are still living with the effects of them." Um, yeah... I mean, every time I go looking for fic in areas I don't know much about, I wade past (or into, depending on mood, author talent, and my own taste) plenty of stories which are shouting, "MY ISSUES, LET ME SHOW YOU." And when I asked for a bingo card I specified no sexual trauma, because I don't have it in me right now to do that sort of story well. Not saying I never could, and I have loved stories with these elements, but it's a big world, yk? And there's plenty else for me to write that I find a lot less problematic.
The lecture continues. S/he hits upon the fact that, IRL, comfort doesn't always happen, or if it does it doesn't happen like in fic, and it rarely solves the whole problem, and and and… And I'm thinking, yeah, discussed this one a time or theee. But, yk, I'm hoping a lot less lectureyish.
S/he goes on, "So when the unrealism (unrealisticness? unreality?) of h/c fic mirrors and supports those dangerous attitudes in the real world, that affect real people, that worries me too. I'd like people who write H/C to consider what the living with a hurt is really like, and what kinds of comfort are really useful and appreciated by those with real-world hurts (and which aren't), and reflect that in their fic."
And I think, what the bleep kind of h/c has s/he been reading? And what sort of monsters does s/he think we h/c writers are?
"I'd just like to see some discussion of the issues around it and how h/c can be done in a more respectful, less faily way."
Well, yes, I try every day to be less faily. And thank you for pointing out that I should be spending more time thinking about something I'VE BEEN WORKING THROUGH MY FEELINGS ABOUT, AND ISSUES WITH, SINCE THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION. In all sorts of settings, including LJ but certainly not exclusively.
And… well, here's the thing. Yes, there are unrealities in almost all h/c, the same ones in most all genre fiction, fan or pro. There's a plot, a progression. People don't live 200,000 words of unhappiness and then choke to death alone in suburbia. I can't wrap my head around how this is a bad thing; if I want to dabble in tragedy, there's always RL.
And that said, what makes h/c (moreso than other types of fic, I don't know) work is making it as realistic as possible. A story that goes, "Bad thing happens to X, Y finds X, BIG HUG/SEX, all better, all done," really isn't that satisfying. That's your typical action/adventure TV plot (probably minus the third step) and fanfic is what we do to mitigate this. Plus, the old suspension-of-disbelief thing works a lot better if you're skating as close as you can to How It Would Really Be. Minus the dying alone in suburbia.
- - - - - -
Okay, yeah, not happy with the meta; but, by itself, it wasn't so bad. The comments (and ones talking about it over at friendshipper's) showed a range of views, from HOW DARE YOU SAY I CAN'T WRITE XYZ (which is never stated by the OP) to Oh, I never thought of any of this!, to Well, I've never read any h/c, but this is the problem I'm sure it all has. And everything in between. One thing that particularly had me going Huh? is the idea that serious topics can't be dealt with in few words. Has nobody ever heard of poetry? BID.
I fumed a bit, boggled a bit, and snapped a bit, then went roller skating, then slept on things, then snapped a little more (but more mildly) and I kind of now see where at least some of the criticism is coming from. And I've also been pondering why it pissed me off so much.
It's been my observation that unsolicited advice, on any topic, elicits the following:
(1) D'oh, thanks! I've never thought about this this way, I'll rework my life accordingly.
(2) How great of you to point out what those weaknesses! I see them all the time in other people and I've never been able to express my issues as well as you. Bravo!
(3) How dare you talk to me like this! I've been doing this for X years blah blah blah.
(4) Oh no, I did SOMETHING WRONG! And I worked so hard not to! Okay, maybe not this time, or the time before, I didn't, but some time I did. Or maybe you see that I can, or will, fail - what a total screw-up I am! That's it, I'm never doing anything like this again! That will teach you! (And keep me from screwing up like I must have, or must be about to. Or something.)
(5) I'll show you! I'll do the opposite!
(6) Okay, from here out, I'll be very, very, very careful. Then maybe you won't yell at me again.
(7) What? Huh? Where? (Splat.)
(8) A lecture from the advisee.
(9) Total misunderstanding of the main point, with the reaction going in some completely unforeseeable direction.
ETA (10) from kerravonsen: (eyeroll) Whatever. :-)
Me, I tend toward (1) (because I can be pretty clueless), (2) (not very frequently), (3), (5) (in moderation - but this is why my default icon's Nick Rush), (7) (though I've learned to modulate this), and (8), especially if you're talking child or church stuff. (4) and (6) are not uncommon reactions, though; and making sure (9) doesn't happen is a major parenting and work challenge.
It's (4) which is the most problematic for me, though, because it really is a bad place to put someone else. And gets a lot of flak that the advisor really can't figure out the source of.
The problematic parts of the above list can be avoided by careful wording, and, most importantly, by speaking from the I. "This is what I've seen in myself, this is how I corrected it." Which is why when someone in the h/c community metas about this I don't go WRYWIEORW whereas with damned_colonial I kinda did. (Identifying oneself as part of the h/c community but not really speaking from the perpetrator-I doesn't help too much. I'm not saying you can't say what you want, and that it won't help your cause, and isn't what some situations really need. It just might get you more (4) and (5) than (1).)
Of course, there are times you just can't do this - where there is no I to draw from, or you just need some behavior stopped NOW. I've no problem with being very direct, and I've found it really does work pretty well at stopping certain behaviors. It's hard to go on from there to the type of relationship I like to have with people, though.
- - - - - - -
So I'm going to work my bingo card. Take my favorites and do things to them I haven't before, with the care I try to apply to everything in life except housework and gardening. There are some squares I won't touch, and some which, by touching, I'm afraid I'll give away too much (my issues, I don't want to show you!). But it will be fun, in the way that stretching oneself usually is.