Hurt/Comfort

Hurt/Comfort is a genre of fanfiction that heavily focuses on the interaction of a pair of characters; a regular character is damaged, either emotionally or physically, and another character (usually the character's partner, love interest, a teammate, or a Mary Sue) must comfort them. This comfort can become... intense. Alternatively, the author creates a Sympathetic Sue to get damaged so the author's favorite canon character can comfort him/her. Can take place after specific episodes or installments of South Park, or else the writer creates a new predicament.
Conversely, the above methods are often used by fanfiction authors as a way to force together two characters that would otherwise be at each other's throats or have nothing to do with one another. Maybe the characters don't know each other too well, or maybe they wouldn't get along well under normal circumstances, but once they see that poor kid bleeding on their doorstep there isn't much alternative to taking them in and nurturing them back to health.
The illuminating quality of Hurt/Comfort can be used to explore characterization. The 'hurt' character may exhibit a fall from grace, a personal weakness, or a flaw that they have paid for. The 'comforting' character may show the audience some hidden depth of their characterization, or show how they could relate to another person's suffering.
Often used as part of Shipping. In cases of physical hurt, it may be accidental or deliberately inflicted, but almost always there's some thinly-veiled reason why the injured cannot be taken to get medical attention (at least at first), which would involve them being cared for by mere strangers (with medical training) rather than someone who cares.
Fanwriters love this device because it gives the characters a situation which they both must struggle to overcome, without the author having to think too hard to create a believable plot. These types of fanfics will often be riddled with fluff and overly dramatized scenes in which the injured character lays out their entire tragic past for their rescuer to sympathize with (since most fanfiction writers are female, part of this might appeal to women's tendency to value emotion and vulnerability), and more often than not transforms the characters' relationship from strained to romantic without much explanation in the interim, regardless of either character's gender or preference.
Can occasionally be done well, if the affliction is realistic and the story is well-written. Due to their single-facet nature, they are usually short: oneshots, drabbles, or short stories (7500 words or less).
==Variations==
===Whump===
: Whump is a sub-genre of hurt/comfort involving a lot of hurt and very little to no comfort. Any comfort included generally comes through friendship and team interaction, not romance or sex. Whump often involves torture or extended suffering of the character that the Whump is focused on. The term is also almost exclusive to TV show fanfics, with almost 1,300 out of about 1,350 listed on FanFiction.Net being for television shows. Whump fics are not nessesarily bad, but can be if it includes poorly researched medical treatments/procedures.
===Fluff/WAFF===
: While fluff is a larger genre of fanfiction, fluff often takes hurt/comfort format, but focusing on the comfort rather than the hurt. WAFF (standing for 'warm and fuzzy feelings') is another term for this genre.
Category:Fanfic Classifications
Category:Terminology