Although I'm not a particular h/c reader myself, I knew that if Shadowscast had been able to go this year, she would have been at this panel. So these notes are for you!

Friendshipper moderated, and opened by discussing her introduction to original Trek. Then Tazmi discussed how interested she was early on in shows and cartoons about all the ways the characters could be injured. She mentioned playing actual doctor with a friend as a child, and started out in SGA fandom where h/c is prevalent. Greyias didn’t know at first that she was interested in h/c, until she realized that her favorite stories in SGA were h/c. She got some laughs mentioning that in her previous fandom other people simply thought she was weird, wondering why she liked to hurt her characters so much, and she’d reply “He’s stoic, he likes it. It’s fun!”

Friendshipper then began speaking about different kinds of h/c that she liked. She said that she tended to be on the end of the spectrum where she was less into the hurt or the comfort, but liked it as a way of exploring character -- seeing how characters could be pushed, what makes them tick and how they react to less than optimal conditions. Tazmi then brought up how she enjoyed the family aspects of it, the extent that people have to go to in order to take care of one another, despite how uncomfortable it could be for them. There was then a show of hands of who preferred hurt and who did comfort (I think it was the latter). One person brought up a poll she had run on her journal where people offered what sorts of hurt they enjoyed. She said in her case it was not illness, which she didn’t like, but maiming. She called h/c the porn of gen, the desire to see men put into vulnerable situations where they become (closer to being) a woman. Someone else agreed that it was emo-porn, and you could have h/c as a form of PWP. A third person said that it displaced characters from their comfort zone, because normally in canon they go through all sorts of terrible battles and situations but barrel right on through and h/c explores what would happen if they didn't.

Friendshipper then brought up how in h/c there are generally active and passive characters, and the favorite character is generally the one who is doing the suffering. Friendshipper asked how many people would switch back and forth in terms of who was the caretaker and who was the one being hurt. There was no consensus and Tazmi then spoke up again and mentioned that for her, in SGA for example, what was important for her was getting the whole team hurt and having to care for one another. Michelel brought up how unusual it was to see the injured-wakes-up-in-rustic-cabin-being-cared-for-by-some-stranger and having the stranger be an OC. Tazmi said that there had been such a well-regarded story in SGA fandom called “The Last Survivor.” Then Nwhepcat discussed discovering that she was writing h/c without having realized it. Someone else discussed having a case where the injured character could end up being unconscious for so much of the story that it would tip the balance of the story and also become kind of squicky in its one-sidedness. Someone else mentioned she liked the struggle to return to health/save the situation, and to have the most-injured character be part of the burden of the favorite character, having to overcome his own situation and rescue the other character as well. Then Kalima mentioned she wanted the characters to grow, and so the obstacles were part of the appeal. Someone else mentioned that too many shows end an episode with characters just recovering from an incident, whereas what many fans want to see is what happens after that, the rest of the recovery, the actual comforting part. Friendshipper agreed that many fans see shows as coitus interruptus, where the shows end before the fans want it to, that they’re interested in the implications of what’s left unaddressed.

Tazmi mentioned she wanted to see the hurt and comfort balanced in a story, that too much of one or the other didn’t appeal to her. Friendshipper suggested that part of that was really a structural problem in story writing, where stories being written on the fly ended up repeating things over and over without reaching an ending. She said that the problem for the writer was not to so focus on one’s kink as to make the readers feel like they were being voyeurs into someone else’s fantasies. Instead stories needed to be plotted so that scenes would contribute to the rising action developing in a story.

Someone else brought up a story she was writing about a disabled S1 SPN Dean, and she was concerned about the ethics and morality of writing h/c. She’s also dealt with alcoholism and drug addiction and knows that people on her flist have had or know people who have had those problems. She was concerned with taking difficulties other people have and turning them into entertainment for people without those problems. Friendshipper said that people will respond to a story based on their own background, so that writers do need to be aware of issues that could be upsetting to readers. In her case, torture/prison stories and mental illness stories might be particularly triggery to people. She encouraged research to know what it is you’re writing about. Bellatemple mentioned she wanted to keep what she was writing about it as real as possible. She said someone asked for a Dean as narcoleptic fic (someone else chimed in that it was her, prompting the room to laugh), and it turns out that she had a friend with narcolepsy. She determined she had to write the fic because she felt she was obligated to write the reality of it from going through her friend’s struggle to learn about and deal with her condition. She enjoys more realistic stories, where the author is acknowledging the crisis as a reality for people.

Kalima brought up the recent debate on warnings and said she was glad that warnings exist, that she doesn’t want to go into stories that have torture. She said that one can always shut off the TV when you hit something you dislike, and that the reader also has to take responsibility for what they’re reading, and to pay attention to warnings issued. Nwhepcat mentioned she has had multiple surgeries for orthopedic problems as a child, and she and a friend were always pushing memoirs on one another, and hers were always about physical issues and her friend’s were about psychological ones. She suggested that people who had physical issues felt a catharsis in reading such stories.

Someone else brought up that the key to writing h/c is empathy, even if it’s comedic, as long as it is portrayed with empathy it will be ok. People tell other people their stories all the time, so it always gives them some relief to say these things and be heard. Tazmi discussed writing a story about a woman who lost a child, but felt unsure that she could really understand what it was like to go through because she doesn't have children. A friend who had suffered a miscarriage got a hold of it and said she felt better by having read the story, she felt it had been well researched and dealt with the topic empathetically. She was offended to hear that Tazmi wanted to keep it from her in fear that it would distress her.

Roque_classique brought up a fight that broke out in the comments to a story she’s writing, where one person wanted the comfort to arrive because it was getting too painful, while another reader was emphatic that it shouldn’t happen, and that “life is painful.” She was unable to get to her comments before the fight had gone on and is now thinking she may not finish the story so she doesn’t have to deal with resolving that problem. Friendshipper discussed the magical healing devices in SGA fandom that tended to quickly resolve problems and how this could be problematic. She suggested that people who brought up concerns about the hurt issue not being realistic might help one become a better writer, that one could learn things from such an issue arising. Kalima then said that at the same time readers could be feeling too entitled. She had also run into situations where she didn’t care for where a story was going and realized that she needed to back out, and that the author was writing it for her own reasons. Someone else suggested that these comments weren’t necessarily a critique of the story, but that the person making the comment needed a carthasis, a way of expressing her own story, that she wasn’t finding in the story itself.

Texasfan suggested that people who were concerned about the direction of a story weren’t something a writer should feel insulted by. Instead the writer could perhaps respond to people offline about where it was going so that readers could make a decision for themselves, to deal with their own needs. Friendshipper said that it was a matter where authors also need to know what they want to do, and take ownership of their stories. Michelel then mentioned that she did want to be read, and she was going to put out warnings. If one person wasn't feeling satisfied with a story and wanted to change it she would feel it was just something they might not want to continue reading. But if many people felt that she was going too far with a story, she’d prefer people tell her rather than simply going away. Someone else said she writes because she’s looking for kindred souls, not just to be read, so that she’s not going to change her story because it’s ok if she’s not connecting with some people because she will be with others. That’s her way of writing for herself.

Tazmi said there’s a wide spectrum of what people want from a story. One thing relates to length of stories, preferring a long story with some h/c in it, whereas others are more focused on the h/c and are shorter. Nwhepcat mentioned she doesn’t have a lot of time to read so she prefers to have shorter stories, but as she drives a lot she’s begun to enjoy really long podfic, and she found that there’s a lot of h/c podfic out there. Someone else mentioned that at certain times of the month she’s feeling more fragile and she can’t deal with something really intense. So it’ll depend on her own mood. Tazmi agreed that she would often choose stories based on word count, but that how long she wanted would vary based on her schedule. Confusedkayt then mentioned that she felt that the emotional moment she wanted tended to be better served by different story lengths, and very stoic characters like Buffy or Batman might need different types of stories to bring them to that point.

Friendshipper talked about the divide in SGA fandom with h/c fics between Sheppard and McKay, and it also exists in SPN fics with Dean suffering the majority of hurt. She suggested it had to do with the nature of particular characters, who needed more of a push to reveal certain aspects of themselves. Friendshipper talked about it being difficult to identify patterns in fandoms because each one has different groups and there are different approaches. One approach is to take the particular character apart, and another is to take the person they care for apart. Michelel spoke about how in SGA one could take Sheppard apart emotionally by attacking his team because it was one of the few chinks in his armor. Friendshipper brought up a metafandom post discussing the breakable moment of each character, finding that particular weakness.

Someone else said she was more into psychological h/c, so she liked to write Rodney, who already has emotional issues. She discovered though that as she wrote it, the story became all about John, and Rodney’s breaking incident went into the background as an event that had already happened. Friendshipper agreed that it was interesting how writing fanfic helped you discover things you didn’t realize about a character. Tazmi asked if anyone had seen the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? In the movie Rafael had fallen through a ceiling, and spent most of the film injured, while the team leader was very upset something bad had happened on his watch. So he suffered while Rafael also discovered he could suffer for his tendency to go off on his own and be overly gung-ho.

Scarlettgirl then said you can sometimes not even realize you’re reading h/c except that you get little moments where a character gets a little bit of comfort from a secondary character. Some fandoms and characters would be difficult to put in these situations, such as Dr. Who or Jack in Torchwood, who hardly reacts to being buried alive for centuries. Tazmi said she would prefer much more subtlety in her stories, and that most people are not that vocal in their hurt, much less so some of the particularly stoic characters in many shows fans watch. Sometimes the small moments of recognizing people’s pain or recovery are all that’s needed.

Greyias said that she agreed with that approach, she thinks it has more emotional impact. She compared it to stage and film acting, where some things need to be smaller on film. Friendshipper agreed that there was more potential to subtlety because the problem is that you then have to keep raising the stakes, so it’s better to begin smaller because there’s only so far you can go. She then spoke of the story Sheppard’s Moon, and talked about how the whole story centered on a goodbye with Rodney who was dying. The story was built up for chapters and readers see the end coming. But when it happens, the characters just look at one another and say nothing. She said that being surprised by moments that come out of nowhere and hit you in the gut, can be really powerful stories. Someone else then pointed out that roller coasters allow you to go from highs to lows, whereas having a build in the same direction gives you less room to move.

Tazmi said that she sometimes wrote self-indulgent fic, short pieces that focused just on the h/c and that was ok, but other times in stories where she’d have more of that build was where the responses came from. Friendshipper then talked about how difficult it can be to write about things that are personal kinks. Someone mentioned she really enjoys h/c but can’t overcome her feeling of self-indulgence to write it. Someone else said that for her fan fiction was “share and share alike,” that her readers gave her things she liked to read and that she was giving things other people liked to read. It wasn’t necessarily a direct exchange but general reciprocation. She felt it was a sharing issue. Tazmi said she had encountered the term “soul fic” and it was a story that took her over, that she had to write it, and neglected other things to do it. She discovered what was driving her to write the story when she remembered and recognized a deep psychological pain in her own life, which was not what happened in her story but the issues were similar. Friendshipper agreed that all people had felt grief, loss, fear, and such, and could respond to the honesty of something in a story even if they hadn’t felt exactly the same in their own lives. Someone else talked about how exploring kinks in your writing isn’t like masturbation but like confession. She discovered that when she goes over things in her head until the point when she writes them down and posts them, the purpose is to unburden herself. It no longer weighs on you, and you no longer have to wake up in the middle of the night to write down the perfect phrase.

As the session came to a close, Friendshipper brought up medical resources for h/c fic. She recommended little_details, especially for things like first person account of how something happens, as well as professional knowledge. Someone else reminded everyone to not just Google first but also use the tag system to find something so that the community (which is high traffic) doesn’t get spammed. They also want you to describe what search terms and resources you’ve already consulted (this can be handy to people searching the community too, possibly answering a question regarding search terms). Greyias recommended the Yahoo group, fanfic_med. Nwhepcat recommended “Where there is no doctor” a pdf book online. Friendshipper also recommended the Merck Missionary Medical Manual, which helped with issues such as field surgery. Someone else suggested boy scout first aid manuals. Michelel suggested urbanparademic.blogspot.com, which was very helpful for first-hand experience. She also mentioned the Making Light index page has a link to various medical posts by Jim McDonald tailored for writers. Someone else suggested Cascade Hospital on Geocities which shows details of one person’s hospital. Tazmi said one can also simply ask one’s friendslist for very specific details – you might be surprised what people’s jobs are.

Nwhepcat, as a final comment, shared a story from Wiscon of a girl who had memories of a book in her childhood whose extended h/c content had always stuck with her. Later, as an adult, she reread the book only to realize that the h/c content was never in there.