Hurt/Comfort Poll! And a question.

[amatara]

Just a small question first, that doesn’t have anything to do with everything else: is someone here familiar with the series Crossing Jordan? It’s an NBC crime-drama-ish type of show revolving around a team of forensic pathologists, and I just recently bought the first season on DVD. Bought it in an impulse, one might say, mainly because since my Twin Peaks re-watch I appear to have the hots for Miguel Ferrer   I read that it was pretty good and we needed something new to watch anyway  it was ridiculously cheap in Media Market  Okay, I did buy it because of Miguel Ferrer, right? *blushes furiously* And it was incredibly cheap, but that wasn’t the reason, just a mitigating circumstance. *smirk*

Now the thing is, watching it – I actually am rather enjoying it, for more reasons than the obvious one. *g* For one, the main character Jordan is a kick-ass woman with an attitude, a screwed-up past and great dialogue. Secondly, her two main relationships, at least at the start of the series, are not of the romantic kind, nor do they involve stereotypically young and stunning guys. Instead they’re her dad and her boss. (The boss is Miguel Ferrer, by the way, in a role that couldn’t be more different from Albert Rosenfield except for the being a pathologist too, and he and Jordan have terrific chemistry. Not of the romantic kind, but I love it even more for that.) Anyway, turns out the only season out on DVD is the first one. There are six in total, so I was wondering (A) if it turns out I’m addicted to this by the end of season 1, what do I do? Are there, perchance, any European TV stations broadcasting this? Are there other options? And (B) are the later seasons worth going through all that fuss for in the first place?  Anyone able to answer even part of those questions will have my everlasting gratitude.  

*grins*

All right, that was that. Now for what I really wanted to talk about. Every so often, I find myself drifting back to the topic of hurt/comfort and why I (we) enjoy it. What I keep being amazed about is how personal it all is – not just in whether the genre pushes ones buttons or not, but also what specifically pushes those buttons. Seeing character A be crudely poisoned may well do something for me, but it could send you away screaming. Similarly, if you enjoy characters B and C sharing a room during a vicious flu outbreak, it may give you warm fuzzies, but maybe it leaves me all stone-cold. I’ve posted about this once before, and what I took out of that was that h/c, to me, is a kink, plain and simple. Which doesn’t mean I have no standards for it. J I’m generally a pretty picky person where fic is concerned, and that goes even more for my kinks. And while I have no trouble at all appreciating well-written fics that are about the h/c and nothing else, character exploration is also a big part of it for me. H/C can, after all, be a great trigger for a lot of deep stuff (she says, innocently *g*)

So, what I find very interesting is how different we all are in our, ahem, preferences. In fact, I think nearly every discussion that could be had about sexual kinks, could be applied to h/c as well, and exactly what does something for one person but not for someone else, now that fascinates me. So here’s a little poll for y’all, just to see how different or similar we all are. *g*

Some general stuff first.

Poll #1589765


Secondly, just for fun and silliness, and because I'm curious as hell how y'all feel about it. ;) In the following pairings (can be considered as romantic or friendship, however you see them) whom, if any, would you prefer to be the one comforted?

Poll #1589766

Comments

[mithen.livejournal.com]

*grin* I SAID I don't care who's on which end, but further on discovered that it's kind of got to be Spock. :P Other than that I don't much care!

I did find it interesting you defined it as "who gets comforted," when I think a lot of people would have framed it as "who gets hurt." I think a lot of the shame that comes from enjoying h/c seems to come from people thinking the hurt is the point. And sometimes it is--in fact, for me I do think the being hurt part if what I like, more than the comfort. I still don't think that's shameful, because I think seeing a stoic character bear pain right up to the breaking point, especially when only the audience or one other character knows how they're truly suffering...well, that's a common image in religion or in war/masculine narratives, and well-done I think it can be beautiful and moving. I only need a smidge of comfort at the end to make it all worthwhile...and even just a tacit understanding, not cuddles, is enough to turn a fic sweet at heart to me.

Interesting issues!

[amatara.livejournal.com]

Well, Spock certainly seems to be popular in a hurt/comfort context - am I really the only one who picked 'both'? *giggles* Though if I had to pick a favorite, I would say it's the situations where The Trio K/S/M all end up hurt and they need to patch each other up. :D We talked about 'The Empath' before, haven't we? That is still my Canon H/C Event Extraordinaire, lol. I don't know how often I rewatched that one after I first saw it, but it must have been a LOT.

You know, I should have phrased it as "who gets hurt" because, when I think of H/C, that's kind of the main point for me too. :) What you say pretty much matches how I feel about it - I prefer some light at the end of the tunnel, rather than those fics that are just a massive angstfest with no hope at all, but like you I love it if the comfort is understated - not a "they lived happily ever after, the end" but rather a "and they learned to live with what happened, the end". I also tend to prefer physical over emotional H/C - or rather, when it comes to emotional H/C I need realistic, everyday situations (rather than childhood traumas or, say, rape or physical abuse, which I avoid when I can) and I don't really see that as H/C but as character building. For the most part, the characters I like seeing hurt/comforted are also the stoic ones, and I don't want them turned into wrecks through some kind of emotional trauma. Rather, I like to see them suck it up and bear it, or at least try to be stoic about it for as long as they can, and physical H/C is great in that it puts people in a situation they simply don't have control over. When it comes to physical H/C, I also don't mind at all if the situations are cliché, or exaggerated, as long as they're well written (though I do avoid stuff like cancer and real-life potentially deadly diseases.)

And, well, I definitely don't think liking H/C should be considered shameful - I just seem to have a certain fear to talk about it openly. In fact, I'd have a much easier time talking about p0rn and what I enjoy on that count, than about H/C, which in my experience is not even very different from p0rn. Weirs, no? It's just - it's less accepted? I don't know. It's hard. *g*

I usually have a very definite preference for who gets to be on the hurt side, but kill me now, I couldn't tell you the logic behind it. I just mentioned preferring the more stoic characters, but that's not always true, because then I'd have to, say, pick G'Kar over Londo which is definitely not the case. Same for Spock and McCoy - here I'd pick the latter, if I had to pick. Ah, well - keeps it interesting, doesn't it? ;)

[mithen.livejournal.com]

It's interesting you talk about the difference between physical and emotional h/c--when talking about it with my husband way back when, I kept having the weird feeling that we didn't seem to be talking about the same thing, somehow. It turned out that when I meant h/c I meant pretty much only physical h/c, and he meant only emotional h/c. They're rather different things, in my experience! In addition, his definition of h/c generally included the assumption that one member of the OTP was responsible for the emotional suffering (for example, when Timov upbraids Londo for his treatment of her without knowing it's for her own good), whereas I tended to assume there was a third party causing the physical suffering. The beauty of Londo/G'Kar is they have just about every possible permutation of emotional/physical and inter/intra pairing pain, lol.

[amatara.livejournal.com]

I forgot to say - I finally have an idea for that Spock & McCoy fic I still owe you for your birthday! It took a while for the muses to pass by, but anyway - I'll make sure to cater to your H/C preference. ;)

[maspalio.livejournal.com]

Surprisingly, I found the second poll to be more interesting than the first. It certainly got me thinking a bit. I'm still not sure I understand why some characters getting hurt and comforted me happy, while some others don't.

With Spock I suppose it's been ingrained in my brain since I first started reading fics as a teenager. The first fanfic I ever read was a K/S h/c story and I was surprised to enjoy it so much. There's something about Mr Stoic being made vulnerable that just gets to me, I guess. Doesn't work with Uhura, though, because as much as I love both characters individually, I don't really care about their relationship.

Londo and G'Kar I can take either way, although if I had to choose at gun point, I'd rather have Londo being comforted. I'm guessing that the key point is that I love both characters and their relationship.
On the other hand, I realised I don't want to see Vir being hurt. Like, ever. It's a bit strange, because I love Vir and Londo's relationship too.

Coop and Albert I like either way, but Coop and Audrey just doesn't work. I absolutely love Locke and Ben but I just can't see the comfort part working, here. Don't know why.

I'm a bit confused, now.
What I'm getting at, I suppose, is that h/c is great but that how well it works for me depends on the characters, and what kind of relationship they have, but if there's a rule in there, I don't know what it is.

[amatara.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's the same for me! I've been trying for ages to find some kind of logic behind it, but come up short every time. With emotional H/C (which I enjoy as long as it's subtle enough - I'm not much for the Horrible Childhood Traumas) I don't care so much who the character is, as long as it's someone who interests me. With physical H/C, though, who hits my buttons being hurt is about as unpredictable as which characters I fall for and which ones I don't. It really is almost a physical thing for me, too - a good H/C scene in a show is one that makes my stomach flip, every time, and I can name several scenes in, say, ST:TOS (which was a great show on the H/C front) that still have that effect on me, no matter how often I've seen them. :)

As for which characters: like you I can identify some types and lay down a few general rules, but there are so many exceptions to those rules I don't know anymore.

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, are sort of interchangeable for me - I can read H/C for them them in any combination. Londo and G'Kar - there my preference is definitely for Londo, though I can enjoy G'Kar too because I love the character, but not in quite the same way. Jack/Ianto - here I would have to say Jack, but I have no idea why. Coop and ALbert - yes, both. *g* Coop and Audrey isn't as interesting to me, but I could see Coop as the hurt one there, if I squint. Etc etc. :)

So yeah, no logic behind it at all, but I sure enjoy talking about it, and comparing preferences! ;)