Let's chat about h/c today!

[frith_in_thorns]

To go with naye's lovely post about comfort tropes, tell me your favourite kinds of hurt for your fictional characters! Do you have ones you like to read but not write, or vice versa? Are there some you will read endlessly in any fandom you're in? Are there some h/c tropes you can bash out a 2k oneshot for at the drop of a hat?

Also, do you find you're equal-opportunity with your hurt, or do you hoard it all for one particular character or character archetype?

I'll start, and say that I'm really into hurt resulting in altered-state, as provided by many things but especially concussion/drugged/fever etc. It's something I find endlessly enjoyable to write -- the vulnerability caused by the skewed perspective, and how that plays out in character interactions, but also I... just like... the hurt bit itself *gg* And currently I have a definite Thing for Shen Wei magically exhausting himself and coughing blood and stumbling in a floppy way and having to be supported by Zhao Yunlan. (I don't suppose this is a revelation to anyone. But I'm so glad to know that I'm not alone!)

Anyway, please share your own likes! And recs!

(This is a positivity-only post. Very uninterested in hearing how h/c is OOC or a moral failing or how some people write it badly or whatever, thanks.)

Comments

[naye]

I'm always so impressed when others can rattle of tropes, because my id likes to keep things really private? To the point where I will know something I love when I see it, but if it's not right in front of me I might not even remember that it's a thing I adore.

That said, I am right there with you when it comes to the altered state! Anything from sleep deprivation to drugs. Nightmares are fantastic. Waking up not knowing what's real, needing comfort but being afraid to trust.

In general, I like those kind of effects that linger after the hurt is done? Not because I want the character to stay hurt, but when something leaves traces - alters a character's behavior, so that they might be skittish, or very tightly controlled. (This then takes lots of loving patience to sort out and then then you get that moment of catharsis when they are back to being relaxed and trusting again! Yay!)

Panic attacks. Panic attacks are so good to me. Either as part of comfort, where they can break down safely and someone can help them through it, or as panic attacks they're having to manage because everything is terrible and they're trying so hard to keep it together because it's too dangerous not to.

Panic attack recs for Guardian:
If Life Was A Movie We'd Have A Better Soundtrack by galaxysoup
Deep Waters Closing Over Our Heads by xparrot

Both are long (gorgeous & fantastic) fics where the panic attack is just one scene, but in both cases those scenes made a huge impression on me.

Um. Also imprisonment usually gives me aspects of altered states together with the long-term effects so yes. Definitely a thing I will read. (Honestly just being held captive is enough "hurt" for me, though this can work to various degrees with all sorts of other kind of hurts.)

Looking at my poor neglected h/c bingo for inspiration, "accepting injury to protect someone else" is one of my bulletproof h/c tropes. (I don't have any recs off the top of my head for Guardian other than OH WAIT: CANON. But I would like recs? ♥)

And going back to the general meta of h/c, I would love to have something I can bash out a 2k oneshot for at the drop of a hat, but alas. I usually have more of a struggle accessing that sweet spot of "I really like this a LOT" and "it's totally okay to write what you like". IDK getting to that point is a work in progress?

Finally: I'm the ultimate in equal-opportunity hurt? I have written numerous fics where characters either trade off being hurt (not just figuratively, because this is Guardian, so...), or where one character has to watch another be hurt. Which then hurts them both! (I did mention the bulletproof narrative kink right?)

Which I think makes me a minority, because I am as invested in Shen Wei flopping prettily as the next fan, but I also do love trying to crack Zhao Yunlan's knowingly casual composure. :D

[frith_in_thorns]

I'm very good at storing tropes I've seen and being like, "yes, that one!" And, I mean. I just like hurt/comfort, really. Pretty much *all* the tropes are ones I like!

Ooh, panic attacks are a good one! I haven't seen them so much in this fandom compared to others. Both those fics you recced I agree are extremely good examples of the them. And they're great because they're so intense and then there's the shakiness afterwards, and also whatever actually caused the attack. We need more!

I definitely do have tropes I can just bash out because I love them and I've written them so many times they're comfortable and familiar by now. The concussion-fic I wrote for Detective L was an example of that, it was super quick and fun to do. And also the sickfic I wrote for your birthday -- I felt a little bad, actually, because I didn't have much time to do it in so I just went for a trope I knew I could just write super fast! (But that was ~cheating~ oh no.) So yeah, concussion, sickfic, and drugged are all ones that I will always write a million times in whatever fandom I end up in.

I do strive for some vague balance in my hurt... but I always play favourites. In Guardian I'm afraid I'm chiefly interested in hurting Zhao Yunlan as a way to indirectly hurt Shen Wei XD (Sorry, Yunlan! I do love you! ...but Shen Wei is just SO appealing to me in that way.)

I feel like I should definitely know some "accepting hurt to protect the other" fics, but I can't think of any off the top of my head! Not the sort of in-the-moment examples I assume you mean, rather than just Shen Wei making poor decisions...

[clevermanka]

Earlier today finished a ZYL panic attack in Ghost Story that was intense enough I had to take a break. It's been three hours and I'm just now sitting back down to crank out the rest of the day's required word count. Reading through the rest of you comment, I think...I think you're gonna like Ghost Story. =D

I don't have any recs off the top of my head for Guardian other than OH WAIT: CANON.
ha ha ha ha /o\

[xparrot]

Galaxysoup's fic is the one that made me realize just HOW MUCH I love panic attacks...and I'd written plenty of them, even, I just hadn't registered it as an individual trope I went for until that moment ^^

[anotherslashfan]

I'm kind of into the seemingly life-altering kind of hurt? The one that will transform the character, be it because they lose their home (or the idea of their home), them having to deal with a mental affliction/illness, a drastic alteration of their bodies... that sort of thing. And I want the comfort to be all about acceptance of their new selves by others - so that they in turn can grow into themselves again. It's probably because of my own history with depression that I find this kind of story incredibly cathartic. I can only go for stories like these every once in a while, though.

[frith_in_thorns]

Ooh! I don't see those ones so often, and I guess as I writer I find them slightly intimidating to attempt? I think one of the things about fic is how "safe" it feels -- the characters go through stuff, but there's usually a sense of returning to the baseline normal by the end. The series I've been posting for the last couple of months has quite a lot of big, permanent things happening and I've been really quite worrying about them as I write them, because I'm so used to leaving space for that return to the status quo.

That said, I've read some really fantastic long-fics which do that extremely well! And I guess in general post-canon stuff for whatever fandom often takes more of a risk in that respect.

[booksarelife]

For you, what about h/c around canonical life altering injuries/events?

[sheron]

I love:

- Panic attacks! Especially with competent characters who have to keep up a front and look like they're totally Fine (tm) it just gets me every time

- Migraines (being taken care of with a migraine is something I don't actually want in RL, because I just want to sleep it off, but in fic it really works for me when the character is looked after, very quietly, by someone they love)

- Hypothermia (CUDDLING!)

- Serious injury (i.e. gunshot, stab wound) and then the care-taker is the one that's freaking out while the comfortee is trying to be strong through incredible pain (yes please)

- Altered state stuff (i.e. the person is hallucinating but won't admit it/tries to act normal. In general, trying to act normal works for me)

- Someone falling down in a cave and having to make their way out (except in cases where claustrophobia gets really vividly described, then I can get a little twitchy)

- Recovery from noncon (mostly emotional)

- Sickfic in an established relationship, or if it's not established then ALL the awkwardness of the "would they want me to do this?" type and "I don't know what I'm doing!!" from the caretaker (In general I tend to love the reversal of the caretaker freaking out XD )

- In long fic, I will always enjoy any kind of "they're lost in the wilderness and thus steadily accumulating injuries that all culminate in a serious situation"

- Every other kind of h/c :D It's hard to go wrong!

[xparrot]

Altered state stuff (i.e. the person is hallucinating but won't admit it/tries to act normal. In general, trying to act normal works for me)

Ahhh, the "trying to act normal" is really bulletproof h/c for me in any context -- altered states especially but also concealing a serious injury (they're bleeding out but no one knows until they keel over and their jacket is soaked with blood)!

[sholio]

This is an excellent list and I approve. :DDD

- Altered state stuff (i.e. the person is hallucinating but won't admit it/tries to act normal. In general, trying to act normal works for me)

You know, when I was thinking of altered states I was mostly thinking of dazed/confused but not outright hallucinating. But now I really want more of that -- the character not sure what parts of their environment are real and what's not, but someone else's voice being a lifeline for them ... yessss.

- Recovery from noncon (mostly emotional)

This is one that feels so indulgent/OTT that I've never actually written it (I don't think? I will probably think of 5 examples in the next 10 minutes XD) but I like fantasizing about it. Just ... being reassured that they're still loved and it's not their fault and they didn't do anything wrong, and someone being there for them through nightmares and listening if they want to talk ... DO WANT.

[clevermanka]

Bring me alllllllllll the emotional trauma! Bodily trauma is...fine? It's fine! I mean, I'm not going to kick it out of bed for eating crackers, but emotional pain is my #1 reading jam.

That said, I'm very much enjoying writing ZYL in some serious physical shit with Ghost Story.

I can't fall down the rabbit hole of thinking of fics to rec right now (I still have to get some writing done today before dinner), but...has everyone seen sisabet's vid On the Prowl? (warnings for everything, esp. after the 1:30 mark)

[naye]

Mmmmmmmm, emotional trauma...! I kind get sensitive about bodily trauma, but characters being in FEELINGS PAIN I can eat up with a spoon all day long and still have room for dessert after.

(THAT SAID I am very much looking forward to seeing what you do with Zhao Yunlan in Ghost Story!!)

And AHHH thank you for that lovely, lovely rec - I'd seen it before but it's always time to watch it again. ♥

[xparrot]

Altered states are probably my favorite, I love drugs (...that is a completely inaccurate statement when taken out of context but anyway), also feverish deliriums, concussions. I love the characters trying to hide it and also when they're so confused they don't know what's fully going on but are doing their best to power through.

One of my favorite tropes for h/c overall is presumed dead -- I can't take real deathfics, but the emotional agony of a character believing they're lost someone, and then the catharsis of return -- and often some physical h/c thrown in there too, depending on how the 'death' went down -- it gets to me.

Also, characters covering up how hurt they are (whatever the cause of the hurt) -- maybe especially when they're hiding it even from themselves, so they think they're doing okay and then they stagger and have to reach out to catch themselves...

[xparrot]

--As far as character preferences go -- I very often do have them! Though it can be hard for me to predict, because it's not always my favorite character that I want to see hurt; sometimes I prefer my favorite to be the caretaker. And then sometimes I don't have a favorite. For a variety of reasons; sometimes it's the aesthetics of seeing the hurt, sometimes it's more the emotional side. Sometimes I want to see one character hurt because the other character isn't good at expressing themselves and I want to see their love shown in their caretaking; other times a stoic character I want to see their walls broken down.

In Guardian I definitely lean more towards wanting Shen Wei hurt, both for the aesthetics and also for the emotionals reasons -- him being vulnerable, and also wanting to see Zhao Yunlan taking care of him. Though I like it both ways (and a number of my favorite scenes in the show are Zhao Yunlan hurt and Shen Wei taking care, though it's the interactions I like there, while as Shen Wei I enjoy seeing hurt and coughing up blood even when no one is around for it...)

There is the case for me sometimes that I have characters I like who I'm not especially interested in h/c for, or only want them in the caretaking role, never the hurt? Guardian's not like that for me, but there have been others. I think some of it depends on the nature of the characters, and how I read them...I like h/c best when I perceive it will help develop or advance the character in some way. Like, characters who have poor self-esteem, getting affirmation that people care about them can be really good for them; characters who are extremely self-sufficient can learn to entrust themselves to someone else. I kind of think this might be the difference between liking h/c vs whump -- whump characters are more those who need different lessons, like, they need to know they're strong enough on their own? (which for me is why Shen Wei especially is such a good h/c target, because he knows how strong he is, he knows he can do things on his own; what he needs to learn is that he doesn't have to...)

[sheron]

concussions. I love the characters trying to hide it and also when they're so confused they don't know what's fully going on but are doing their best to power through.

omg concussions! especially with the trying to hide it yesssss ♥

[sholio]

LOLOL, I love how your list is basically my list, though my list has more things on it, but yours basically all do appear. XDDD SHOCKING.

[no_detective]

oooooh! (how did i miss naye's post? i need to find more time for dw...)

i find altered states really appealing too, although i have to be careful bc unstable experience of reality can sometimes touch upon a (triggery for me) experience of certain types of mental illness. but fever is great, and so are drugs. while i'm open to alternatives, i generally find it easier to read h/c when the hurt is temporary and doesn't have long-term effects (other than scars - i do enjoy scars).

re: pain, it can be a very useful tool for unsettling characters who need to be, well, disrupted in a specific way so that they can reevaluate their situation/strength/life choices etc - and all the more so when they seek it out, consciously or not. for example, it was SUCH a pleasure to watch chris pine's kirk get his ass kicked a bunch of times in the star trek reboot because he, uh, really knows how to take a beating - in so many ways. :D

btw, while the show has left me with a super intense need for shen wei h/c (emphasis on "c" lol), the seeking-out-pain thing is what makes zhao yunlan a good candidate too in my head. maybe it's part of his whole danger kink package (as someone brilliantly called it on twitter recently). i'm also 100% down when it falls under the "this might help people/shen wei, so of course i'll willingly throw myself into pain" setup.

i think the further the type of pain is from my personal experience, the more likely i am to go along with it & be able to enjoy its description in fic (and fever can be kind of enjoyable? idk, that may be just me). so bullet wounds and stab wounds and magical injuries - sure! but headaches and sleep deprivation - no thanks. too real!

[clevermanka]

it was SUCH a pleasure to watch chris pine's kirk get his ass kicked a bunch of times in the star trek reboot
Hands down, the best thing about AOS.

[sholio]

WOOHOO H/C, I've been looking forward to contributing to this post all day when my daily writing was done. XD

Altered states is a big one for me too -- concussions especially, because the dazed/woozy/out of it aspect also goes along with splitting headaches and the other person worrying that there's real, lasting damage. But also drugs, fevers, hypothermia, poison ... anything that makes them dizzy and floppy and unable to walk about without help. ♥

Presumed dead is another huge one for me; it's got all the desperate angst and worry plus a basically instant recovery period once the person turns out not to be dead -- I mean, depending on what's wrong with them, but it usually means you can get instant emotional comfort for the person who thought they were dead plus the presumed-dead person realizing how much they're loved. (Or 20 chapters of avoiding talking about it, depending ...)

Shooting/stabbing/drowning -- really any kind of acute, don't-die-on-me!! h/c also Does Things to me. I recently discovered altitude sickness is tailor-made for h/c and yet, no one ever writes it! But it combines woozy/sick with the possibility of escalating to lethality before anyone can do anything about it (so, desperate worry gets in there) but is also quickly and easily treatable with the right supplies.

I also really like scenarios where they're stranded far from help, or have to get out of a difficult situation where no help is coming, and particularly if both people are hurt in different ways and have to rely on each other. I'm fond of prisoner/torture scenarios, characters trapped places, that kind of thing.

I've also noticed an increasing fondness recently for emotional h/c. I mean, I've always liked it, but I don't think I ever realized it's actually a really big happy button for me until recently -- characters being comforted after nightmares, phobias, or panic attacks; characters being able to talk about their trauma with each other and feeling safe with someone else; hugging/touching for people who aren't used to it; emotional comfort for the person who was distressed in a presumed-dead scenario ...

This is a lovely topic, and very inspiring for Whumptober; thank you for bringing it up! ♥

[clevermanka]

I've also noticed an increasing fondness recently for emotional h/c. I mean, I've always liked it, but I don't think I ever realized it's actually a really big happy button for me until recently
Mmmmm, yes. Welcome to the club! The emo knives are absolutely what finally sucked me into the Guardian fandom. I would've probably continued watching the show and liked it fine, but without the Truly Outstanding Angst I don't think I would've been motivated to write for it.

[frith_in_thorns]

I like emotional h/c but only if it's really very... dialled up to 11? Like, I'm not massively into reading gentle comfort about someone having a distressing day, but calming someone down after a panic attack or someone being completely in shock from a traumatic event are GREAT. I mean, in general I'm mainly into dramatic, genuinely life-threatening h/c much more than any other sort, I'm just not a very restrained person in fiction!

All the other things on your list, absolutely! :D You are so right about altitude sickness, I don't think I've seen it done in a fic either but it has so much great potential.

And yes to concussions being a favourite. Headaches are my least favourite things in real life, I don't really know why they're so endlessly fun to read about in fic! And of course the confused/blurry aspect of it is always wonderful. (I just tried to think of how many concussion fics I have written in my fannish life. I don't think I'm remembering all of them. It's A Lot XD)

[ranalore]

Your list is probably closest to my top favorites, though I'm less of a fan of the splitting headaches aspect of concussions than the woozy aspect. Too much rl experience with severe migraine syndrome. And yet, weirdly, I adore sleep dep h/c, which is also a thing I've experienced a lot of in rl. Go figure.

To hypothermia, I would add heat exhaustion, heat sickness, and extreme dehydration. Any hurt resulting from exposure to extreme climate/temperature, basically (except sunburn).

I'm a huge fan of magical exhaustion or superpower exhaustion or scenarios where characters burn through their reserves because they have a particular, unique skill set that is really needed, but then they flop over. For the really intense h/c feels, this needs to be in a context in which they have a primary relationship with someone who has likely been pushing not only for the character to pace themselves, but has been taking those around them to task because there are alternative ways of doing things, and the possibility of prioritizing tasks in such a way that they don't use up their "resource" like this (likely put in those terms with bitter sarcasm). One of my fandoms was actually founded on a variation of this, with one of the main pairing stealing the other away from a kind of hidden world in which he was a ruler and wasn't actually in danger of dying from his responsibilities, but the weight of everybody's reliance on him and expectations was doing massive psychological damage. This is one I really love in Guardian because canon does give us indications Shen Wei's vulnerable this way, and my god, is he gorgeous when it does. But it's more whump in the canon, and if we want the h/c, we have to create it ourselves.

I love imprisonment, and the extra hurt that usually goes along with it. Frith's "Threads Pulled Tight" is a phenomenal example of this, plus altered states. For a canon that does this perfectly for me, with body horror and experimentation by evil scientists thrown in, there's CA: TWS. Bucky Barnes is the world's oldest living POW, tortured and tormented and mind-wiped and brainwashed into a dehumanized weapon, and it was complete and utter catnip to me. The canon follow-up was not to my taste, to put it mildly, but wow, did that movie itself get the hurt right.

Chalk me up as another one interested in recovery from noncon. Hell, write me up in permanent marker. It's one of the many, many (many) things I love about FayJay's fantastic "The Unexpected Legacy", which also has near-death bodily trauma, volunteering to take punishment in another's stead, and various other h/c tropes shared fairly equally around the main three characters. It's also something that interests me in the fic for Yami no Matsuei. The canon gives us the rape, and the...well, "survivor" (it's complicated) seeking vengeance as a result, but kind of glances off the emotional fallout, otherwise.

I'll go ahead and state the obvious; I have a marked preference for Shen Wei being the hurt one in my h/c, though both is also good! Just, at different points, so Zhao Yunlan is available to caretake Shen Wei. And it's not that I don't think Zhao Yunlan hurts beautifully, or that I'm not interested in seeing the cracks in his carefully crafted persona, but I really do feel like we got some great examples of his hurt and Shen Wei's comfort in canon, where we only got a tease of the reverse that was never followed up onscreen (bring me aaaaaaaaall the post-ep. 33 fic).

I wish there was a hurt trope I could just toss of 2K words of. I wish there was any kind of trope I could do that with. The closest I come is I can usually produce a drabble or so of a decent kiss to a prompt of a word or phrase. And honestly, as much as I love the h/c tropes I love, I frequently feel like an imposter in h/c discussions, because I have so many hard nopes--a combination of triggers, squicks, and just the fact my brain is still so recalcitrant when it comes to giving me words right now--that I could never sign up for something like H/C Bingo or the Hurt Comfort Exchange.

[schneefink]

I consider myself a big fan of h/c, and yet I found both this and the "favorite comfort" posts unexpectedly difficult. Favorite kinds? Idk, I think it depends? On the characters, the world, and my mood, mostly. Hmm. I think in general I tend more towards emotional pain. I find myself surprisingly uninterested in examining my preferences further. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Though, reading through other comments, one trope that I really love in almost every case is "presumed dead." Mmmyes.

[qikiqtarjuaq]

I like emotional hurt - with my favorites being temporarily unrequited love, fear/terror of losing someone, or just going through something harrowing/traumatic. Nightmares are a favorite of mine. Illusions/nightmare traps where someone lives through their worst nightmares, gets trapped in fantasies they can't have... I really wish we got more from the Nightmare Master against Shen Wei or Zhao Yunlan!

This matches well with my preference for comfort offering safety, reassurance, and a chance for characters to allow themselves to be vulnerable. To show that they're afraid, and know that the other person can be trusted with that vulnerability and whose presence can make that fear go away. Praise kink, touch, voice kink, and other cuddly comforts work really well for me here.

[indywind]

Here via sholio. Her recent Whumptober prompt ficlets, plus discussion of when a creator sets up the ingredients for really satisfying H/c, but then --because their goal was something else--the setup doesn't pay off, got me thinking about exactly what I'm looking for under the h/c trope umbrella.

I'm super into a particular constellation of psych/emotional hurt -- where a generally competent, self-reliant character is overwhelmed by combined physical and psych/emotional damage beyond their usually high ability to cope. So they are both dealing with whatever the situation is, and dealing with whatever they feel about needing help/caretaking, their own vulnerability, being afraid, struggling with trust and trying to keep what control they can, that sort of thing. Tough person who never does this sort of thing breaking down enough to cry or admit vulnerability is my catnip.

I'm not really interested in any particular kinds of physical hurts for their own sakes, but for what they do to and reveal about the characters (which I think is more to do with how the author handles it than anything). But because I'm looking for characters with high coping thresholds being overwhelmed, usually minor/moderate hurts with predictable recovery don't hit the spot for me --unless they touch a nerve or trip a trigger particular to that character or interpersonal dynamic, then I am SO IN. On the flip side, I also don't usually care about even really major hurts that are just plain painful and distressing for anybody and comfort/care is SOP.

I don't necessarily want to keep all the hurt for a particular character or type, but I favor different kinds of hurt for different kinds of characters. I'm not much interested in ones who are easily hurt, comfortable being vulnerable and trusting others, and readily and effectively seek help/comfort, just that doesn't create any of the emotional conflict and resolution I'm after. (My feelings are deeply conflicted about reckless, self-harming, or self-sabotaging characters who keep getting hurt intentionally or not, because it's the only way they know to obtain care--that dynamic can be right in the sweet spot of emotional h/c for me, or it can cross the line into a major squick, especially if the hurting character doesn't care if they hurt others.)

The payoff I'm looking for (the parallel to the orgasm in porn or the mutual love relationship in a romance or the defeating the enemy or achieving the quest in adventure) is overcoming the obstacles--practical and psych/emotional--to finally be vulnerable and receive comfort/care in a relationship of trust.


Some recs elsethread.