#honestly this is one of the reasons i still visit ffnet

Not to be a disgruntled ace on main, but I really do miss the prevalence of gen hurt/comfort, or “smarm” fics that I remember from fandoms in the 90s and 00s.

This is not meant to be an attack on slash fic.  I’ve loved slash fanfiction since I was young enough to lie about my age to get into the good mailing lists and archives.  It’s great!  I remember the days when slash fanfic was still in the minority, and folks would pearl clutch at the thought that people would dare to imagine these popular characters as gay (or bi).  I’m so glad that the past couple of decades have moved away from that.

But honestly?  Romance isn’t everything.  Sex isn’t everything.  And I feel like so much of slash hurt/comfort is so focused on the primary pairing that it ignores that these characters have complex and interesting relationships with more characters than just the one that they’re fucking.

For all that we love “found family” stories, it really does feel sometimes like comfort has become an exclusively romantic/sexual thing.  And I can’t help but feel like we’ve lost something there.