In a message dated 2/20/01 5:04:30 AM Eastern Standard Time, N.Faulkner@tesco.net writes:

<< I said almost exactly what Fiona said a few hours ago: Suffering can never be Beautiful. As is typical with discussion on the Lyst, much was said but few if any opinions were significantly altered. If you don't like that, you just have to learn to lump it. >>

This is something I've noticed for years and years... British fans seem to NOT like the more emotional aspects of fan fiction and therefore, many of them don't tend to like the hurt/comfort genre as a whole. In fact, it's mainly British fans who I have often seen refer to h/c as "sadistic" and the like. American fans, on the other hand, tend to revel in the emotional aspects and h/c has been "big" in fan fiction since the early Star Trek days and onward. Yes, slash probably partially developed as an offshoot of h/c, but h/c is not necessarily slash just like slash is not necessarily h/c.

Now, I know I'm generalizing. No doubt there will be some British fans who speak up and say they *like* h/c and there will be some American fans who say they don't. But, I think if there were a way to do a survey, we would probably find that there *is* a general attitude difference *overall*. Frankly, a perusal in the differences in stories between British/Australian zines as compared to American zines will tell the tale quite nicely. (And I should know... I've been reading an average of 10 fanzines a week for the last several months trying to "catch up" on my fanzine reading... not to mention the dozens of zines I've edited over the years.)

Annie