The Overuse of H/C

Meta
Title:	The Overuse of H/C
Creator:	delle
Date(s):	February 18, 2000
Medium:	online
Fandom:
Topic:	Fanfiction, hurt/comfort, La Femme Nikita
External Links:	The Overuse of H/C/WebCite
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The Overuse of H/C is an essay by delle.

It is part of the Fanfic Symposium series.

It opens with a paragraph about a then-current plagiarist: "The fandom in general has been concerned enough to contact LFN Productions," but the essay is not about that.

Excerpts

My purpose here is not to discuss our plagiarism problem. But her predilection for using violence on Michael has made me reconsider the violence in many LFN fanfics. Many, many LFN authors like to hurt Michael. Not just injure him; I admit to injuring him in my stories. (One of those minor annoyances in being a professional assassin, getting hurt.) But there is a definite trend to really hurting him, making him comatose, drugging him senseless, driving him to suicide. I can see from reading the articles in the Symposium that this is not a trend limited to my particular fandom. So what drives writers to damage their characters in this fashion?

In LFN fanfic, the justification I have heard is 'what would it take to break Michael?' Michael, you see, is the top-op, superspy boy. Always in control, his emotions submerged behind a blank mask. And I understand that hurt/comfort is a common thread in many fandoms. It is the gratuitousness of the violence that bothers me. It’s as if some authors enjoy hurting Michael; please excuse the vulgarity, some actually get off on the idea of destroying this proud, difficult man/character.

I’m certain this conundrum exists in all fanfics. I’ve heard the phrase "La Femme Blairika" (imagine the giggles I got from that, considering my fandom) about the treatment Blair receives from some TS writers. And I'm not objecting to the use of pain/injury as a means to open a character or to draw characters together. It's the amount of vicious damage inflicted in some stories that bothers me.

I certainly don't think that h/c stories should be banned or any silly thing like that. I completely understand that different writers (and readers) want different 'takes' on the characters. And I certainly can stop reading a story that goes overboard on the h/c component. What I don’t understand is why is an author driven to try to destroy the character that draws them to the show to begin with? Sometimes (and only sometimes) I believe it is simple laziness; since so many fanfic authors are female, it's easier to write a story where the strong capable male character falls apart (like a woman?) rather than try to deal with the realities of the male mind.