#on one occasion the mc was tied to a flag pole and lit on fire

[mamamittens]

I think one of the greatest plagues to fanfiction and good writing in general is a phenomenon I like to call

"The Pain Olympics"

It's where a particular genre or fandom goes through their own little emo phase and now every MC has to fucking suffer for a sliver of happiness. And not just suffer either! Out suffer every other MC for as long as humanly possible, and then another few laps for good measure.

Look, I'm a slut for hurt/comfort. I didn't scrape the HP fandom clean several times because I thought Harry was cute. But like... Your character doesn't need to have words carved into their body or be sold into a child SA ring just to earn the chance to one day be told they're worthy of love. Or idk, hugged without ulterior motives.

No one needs to earn kindness or love through pain and suffering.

We can just... Have that. Without brutally torturing the character for so long I start to wonder if the antagonist is paying you to keep the torment going.

I pinky promise I can empathize with someone without them having to be waterboarded for sneezing past 6 on a Friday night.

Some people enjoy Grimdark (more power to them tbh).

But I know I'm not alone when I say that I read fiction for an escapist fantasy. Mostly.

There's whump (untagged or otherwise), hurt/comfort, and then there's this.

#even when its tagged nothing quite prepares you for the length of details these fics will go into #ive read little HP getting crucified so hed be adopted by Snape #or sold into prostitution to become soulmates with fred and george #on one occasion the mc was tied to a flag pole and lit on fire #i did not read past that