The joys and woes of hurt/comfort

So maspalio requested a Londo and G’Kar h/c fic, which is coming along rather nicely, and has been bringing me lots of writerly joy! However, now that I’m nearing the finish, the Great Inescapable Question inevitably poses itself: is the stuff I wrote any good? Which in turn leads to another question, one I see popping up time and again but that is seldom properly answered: what does make a good h/c fic, anyway?

Or, no, maybe I should rephrase that to: is there any such thing as a good hurt/comfort fic? Because – well, let’s be fair here: not everyone seems convinced of that. In fact, “h/c equals badfic” is right over on the big heap of cliché objections to genres, along with “gen is boring”, “slash is icky” and “het is Mary Sue”. Now, I can understand perfectly that not everyone is into everything; a type of fic loved to death by reader A can be reader B’s absolute squick, and simply not do anything for reader C at all. Personally, it took me a long time to give slash a chance, and even now (though there are exceptions *g*) I tend to leave the explicit well enough alone. And that’s fine, isn’t it? But why do we have the tendency to take our own dislikes and preferences and try to squeeze everyone else into them, expecting they'd make a good fit? Regarding h/c specifically – the most extensive piece of meta I read about that was a ten-page long essay (okay, so I skimmed, not read it) meticulously explaining why all h/c is supposedly bad quality, the main argument being that the meta author defined h/c as a type of fic that portrays excessive angst in an inherently OOC and canon-defying manner. Hence, all h/c is rubbish; point proven. Which is not really a fair argument in any way; I mean, come on!

( Click for more meta-y rambly rambling )

What do you think makes for good h/c; what do you expect from a story like that? If anyone has some good ones to recommend, that’s very welcome too! It would seem there are presently no Londo and G'Kar h/c fics in existence at all, which I find very strange indeed. Have I missed some, maybe?

About the one I'm writing: will you believe I’m not quite sure if I’ll find the courage to have it beta’ed? Not because it’s bad, because it really isn't; I'm even kind of proud of it, in a way. But... Well, for some reason, having this one picked apart by a beta would make me feel more – vulnerable? Is that the word I'm looking for? – than I feel about other types of stories. Mostly, I guess, because showing people some of your fantasies (no matter how small, and no matter how innocent) is a scary, scary thing. And h/c is, perhaps, more about fantasies than a regular fic. Does that make sense, or is it just me?