Outside the Community

[happyshep]

Fan-fiction communities provide an environment for H/C writers in which their interests can seem normal and shared.

I rarely talk about H/C outside the community because I tend to assume that only a fellow fan would understand. Outside the anonymity of the internet, it is very special to have such a trustful relationship with a person that you can discuss your personal fantasies with them. And such a conversation is always in hushed voices. I remember confiding with one of my closest friends many years ago, although jokingly – do you think these are normal things for us to think about or are we some new kind of sicko? And then I discovered fan-fiction and was reassured.

While conducting this investigation I have been interviewing some of my peers and have seen that generally most women (and gay men) would admit to looking forward to scenes characterized by what we would call H/C, angst and whump in their favourite TV shows and books, even though they couldn’t give a name to it. One girl also admitted to lying awake in bed at night and fantasizing herself in H/C situations with her favourite canon men (and real life crushes), which I mention because a number of you could relate to this in our first topic.

It seems to me that women have always been fanaticizing in this way. Edward from “Twilight” is in many ways today’s Mr. Darcy.

I suppose I only have one question this time. What are things like for you outside of the fan community? I mean to ask, what do other people think about your interest in H/C? Is it awkward? Do your girlfriends generally relate to it better than your male friends? I can easily imagine some of our male partners rolling their eyes at us staying up all night reading/posting stories.

Another question which just came to me:
What was it like for you when you first discovered H/C fan-fiction? Were you relieved, was the idea new to you, or were there other aspects of fan-fiction which drew you in?

I’m mainly just sharing my ideas with you because I am very interested, as always, to hear your comments and personal reflections on anything which I might have mentioned here.

[stealthdragon]

The only person who I talk to about whump, or H/C, is my younger sister who is a fellow whumper. She doesn't write fanfiction, but a show isn't complete for her unless there's some H/C involved. She and I pretty much like the same characters in the shows we watch (such as Dr. who and Supernatural) and both get excited when whump is involved, and then sometimes discuss it afterwards. Other than her, I don't talk about it with anyone else. Not with my friends, because most of them rarely watch TV, and when they do aren't into the same shows as me. Not with the rest of my family because they don't really get it and I hate having to explain things. But I'm in general a rather private person and won't discuss personal tastes with anyone unless our interests cross paths.

I was totally psyched when I discovered fandom and fellow whumpers. For a while, I honestly thought there was something a tad wrong with me that I liked it when characters got hurt. I was a whumper at a tender age (five, I think). I discovered whump (although I don't think it had a label back then) through Star Wars and Indiana Jones. I came to realize that shows were more fun when there was an element of hurt. That the characters were getting hurt gave more depth to the danger involved in the show or story. I knew the characters wouldn't die (well, the main characters , but the possibilities of what might happen to them were many, creating another layer of suspense.

Without whump there's a sort of predictability to the story. Because the characters seem incapable of getting hurt, there's only two outcomes - the hero saves the day unscathed, or the hero dies. Usually it's the former. The story ends up losing that extra layer of suspense and, in many cases, leaves me bored. It doesn't matter if the character has a gun to his/her head, doesn't matter that they're trying to outrun the bad guys in a car, doesn't matter that they're going undercover; because they have yet to get hurt, I know they'll be fine. This is especially so for TV series and books. You know the whump in a show or books is either going to take a while to come or never happen if the characters keep escaping dangerous situations unscathed over and over. It's also rather unrealistic, because injuries happen, especially when people do dangerous things.

But I always thought it was just me who felt this way, and I felt relieved to know that I wasn't. But fanfic I got into because it's like getting extra episodes. The H/C was a bonus

[mpbrennan]

I don't share much outside of the online community. I've shown my fanfic to a couple of RL friends--both guys. They seemed to like it, but the stories I showed them were very gen with no whump or h/c. I noticed that they were much more interested in the action/adventure aspects than the emotional stuff I was trying to focus on. Men who watch shows that feature whump seem to treat it in a much more cavalier manner. A male friend of mine would laugh while watching "Lost" whenever Sawyer got hit--not because he disliked the character, but simply because it was such a common plot device that it became a running joke. Other men have introduced me to games in which you take a drink every time a "Firefly" character gets shot or every time a "Battlestar" character gets punched. Men seem to be less interested in the comfort aspect and more worried about whether a given character is "getting what he deserves." On the other hand, it might be that whumping a male character is as disturbing to them as whumping a female is to us. (shrugs) On the other hand, male script writers have been behind so much of our "source material," that some must have at least an understanding of, if not an appreciation for, these aspects.

Female friends have seemed even less likely to share my interests, perhaps because it is less socially acceptable for females even to be familiar with these shows. While watching an episode of "The Pretender" with a female friend, I noticed that she was very disturbed by the "hurt" scenes and had to look away at times. (To be fair, I was disturbed by that particular ep too; it was a very whump-heavy episode.)

It's only online that I've been able to connect with other readers and writers who have similar interests. I'll admit that when I first discovered h/c, I was partly relieved and partly disturbed. I could relate to these stories and the authors who wrote them, but so many authors took it so much further than I ever would have. I was relatively young (and *very* young for my age) and the sexual aspect of torture was a new concept to me.

[space1traveler]

My friends who associate with me on a daily basis know that I read fan fiction, not all of them know why. Those who do know why, think I need intervention, prayer, or a psychiatrist.

They think its sadistic that I want my favorite characters to be taken to the brink of death or at least have a respectable injury.

I have been this way since TV became my window to the world. Funny, my background is one where people (families) fought a lot . I could never stand to be where there was a brawl or a family dispute. I felt helpless, vulnerable, and afraid. All I wanted was for them to stop! Stop fighting! Stop hollering! Stop being angry with each other! I still don't like confrontation, anger, and violence in RL, but I eat it up in fan fiction. And I want it to happen to the one I love the most.


I'm going to date myself now. There was an episode of Bonanza when Lil Joe was stomped by his horse while his pa and brother were gone. I still remember it scene for scene and wish I had it on DVD now. In fact, I could most likely describe to you all the episodes where Lil Joe was whumped in some way. The same goes for all of my favorite characters in all my favorite shows. My mom knew I liked these kind of shows and did not understand why I liked this stuff. She told me I was sadistic. In order to deflect comments I would let others think it was a school girl crush kind of thing, and maybe that was part of it. Yet each week I would read the TV listings and circle the ones that said the hero was going to be in jeopardy that episode. I would reschedule my life so that I could be right there in front of the screen when it began to play out; secretly, I waited through each episode to get that tickle in my stomach. I was deeply satisfied at that moment and would relive each scene and run off to write a scene of my own; now I do the same with fan fiction and ignore my friends.

When I discovered fan fiction and H/C I was very very happy and it was as if I had come home. There were others like me; I now had someone to talk to about the stuff I liked. It was peacefully nice.

[mpbrennan]

Just a quick update.
I'm in counseling for some RL stuff and today the counselor got me talking about coping mechanisms. She'd never heard of fanfic, but I gave her a brief, nonspecific rundown and mentioned that this was one of the ways I expressed my own emotions at times--that the detatchment helped me deal more easily with what was going on in my own life. She seemed almost absurdly pleased. Of course, I didn't mention h/c or whump specifically, so God only knows how she'd react to that. All in all, the jury's still out on whether or not I'm psychotic, but I'm hopeful ;-)

[azalea3]

-------what do other people think about your interest in H/C? Is it awkward? Do your girlfriends generally relate to it better than your male friends? I can easily imagine some of our male partners rolling their eyes at us staying up all night reading/posting stories.



Many of my friends are SF fans of long standing. It is very rare for any SF fan not to know about fan-fiction, at least not in my age group. My friends who don’t have SF backgrounds are still pretty cool with the idea that I post my writing on line. I write book reviews (not professionally and never for Amazon) and I post essays (non-SF) on line. Anyone who gives me any grief about my writing would not be my friend for long. Many professional writers began their careers as fan writers. Many editors and book industry professionals are aware of fan-fiction and read it. They are looking for trends and patterns, and are well aware that fan-fiction is ahead of the curve when it comes to projecting future market interest and trends.

I know this is true because I was asked by two publishers to send them information about SF trends, they think of me as a kind of first responder and I base some of my predictions on trends I perceive in fan-fiction.

It is hard for me to imagine anyone getting weird about reading or writing fan-fiction. It is an activity that has much value and very little down-side.




--------What was it like for you when you first discovered H/C fan-fiction? Were you relieved, was the idea new to you, or were there other aspects of fan-fiction which drew you in?

I did not discover fan-fiction, I was writing media fan-fiction before it became an organized fan activity centered on Star Trek fandom. There were precursors to modern fan-fiction especially in the SF fanzines leading up to the Star Trek breakaway. People who were writing early fan-fiction knew they were taking a separate path away from the APAs and other SF fanzines. Initially we were treated as second class citizens in the fanzine world. But that didn’t last long, as more and more fans, mostly women, who didn’t have a strong SF fandom background poured into Star Trek fanzine fandom from their love of the television show instead of from traditional SF tracks (like my college SF club.)

I was subscribing to SF zines prior to Star Trek zines which is how I knew of them. I believe most of the earliest Star Trek zine editors were traditional SF fans that knew how to produce fanzines and jumped ship to create their own Star Trek zines. There were some dislocations when the fandoms differentiated as old guard SF purists were inundated by Star Trek centric media fans. But the mix made for a surprising brew of interests which are still apparent in the strange fusion that is fan-fiction fandom.

[mpbrennan]

It's good to hear that people in the publishing industry are aware and respectful of fan fiction. Several of the most talented fic authors I know are also working on original novels that they would like to see published (something I might like to do in a decade or so if I ever have time). It's a relief to know that some writers have made the transition.

[gaunicorn]

Outside of my my immediate family (my mother, sisters, one niece) I rarely discuss my participation in fandom with anyone. And my family accepts it, reads my stories (and occasionally ones I recommend), but aren't really "into" the fandom themselves. Friends and acquaintances know that I go to Cons, but don't seem to understand that I do so because I am an active participant in fandom. The few times I have tried to explain it, even to people who enjoy a show, don't understand why I would write stories based on those characters. For them, the show is enough. They don't feel the need to explore the characters outside of the episodes. It's a little disappointing when I try to explain to someone and get the "well, you always were a little different" look, but I've learned to accept it. And there is always online.

What was it like when I discovered H/C fic? I'd known since college (when I wrote bad Star Wars fic, before the internet) that there were those fans who liked to see their favorite characters injured (physically or emotionally) and then cared for, and I was one of them. I'd be disappointed if the show didn't provide at least a smidge of the "c" portion of h/c, but could always make something up in my head. I didn't know it had an official name until I became active in fandom again. With the advent of the internet, those of us with the h/c kink have so many more options for reading and discussing. It's wonderful!

[happyshep]

I can't respond in full to this at the moment, I may do later. But know that each respose I print and go through in great detail.

I'm going to close this topic to channel a bit of traffic into the new ones.