Asking this in the softest tone possible... So after Faber's breakdown following his encounter with Caleb, then the Lludd incident, and later Efnisien's kidnapping and Gary's collapse... Faber will finally get some rest and comfort, right? Riiight?? (；▽；)
Now that I think about it, we probably still have quite a long way to go before Gary's collapse... and I'm already not ready for it.
I'm even less ready if you tell me this poor boy still has a lot more emotional breakdowns to go through before he finally gets some comfort ASDFGHJKL
I don't mean to sound impatient or anything, but after the amount of emotional terror from the previous chapters, I think I just need a tiny bit of reassurance (*T^T)
That said, I know I'll probably love whatever you decide to give us anyway 🤍
I've had a few questions like this, and I feel like it's from folks who either aren't used to reading my stories (I don't just mean the Underline series, I mean like, most of my stories), or who don't know just how angsty my stories can be, or for that matter, how long they can be.
So, Underline the Red is likely to be around 300-450k in words. Currently we're only 113k words in, and I know we're definitely not near halfway into the story, so we're around a quarter of the way in. A third if we're being generous. In that sense, the big turnarounds for comfort aren't close.
They aren't close in most of my stories that end up around 400-450k words long. It's rare for me to write content as fluffy as Underline the Gold, or as short, for that matter. In Game Theory, Gwyn went through multiple assaults (including from his love interest), repeated bouts of torture (including one incident where many of his bones were broken repeatedly and he needed a long time to recover), abuse from multiple avenues including from his own mother, and even then at the end, only attained a hopeful ending, and not a true happy one.
He then went through the events of The Court of Five Thrones which again, includes more of the above, and then he goes through the events of The Ice Plague. There are multiple "hopeful endings" in there, but Gwyn resists comfort, therefore, he doesn't get that much of it. My story Eversion was the same.
Anon, if you're waiting for everything to become wall-to-wall comfort soon, and haven't picked up the comfort or moments of comfort already available and happening in the story, you might not know my writing very well, or it might not be a good fit for you. Or you might have forgotten that I've done stories like this before (in which case if you've read Game Theory and Eversion, you probably know that this might take a while! But reading a story at once vs. waiting for it week by week can make that experience very different too!)
For example, in Game Theory and The Court of Five Thrones, Gwyn was also receiving increasing amounts of aftercare, he rarely felt truly comforted by it, but it was there. He received an increasing number of allies on his side, and he might not have trusted them, but they were there. He is the kind of character - much like Faber - who doesn't see those things, but those things are happening, it's just that comfort sometimes hurts when you're not used to receiving it. Certain readers still enjoy that and still find it helps, others don't. Only you can decide which one you are.
Faber has received a lot of gentleness, aftercare, two relatively soft scenes and three bouts of individual aftercare from Kenneth, some of which involved embraces or even falling asleep side-by-side. Faber's confided in Efnisien and shared an increasing number of his burdens with him. He's got more people looking out for him even if he doesn't want to see it than he did at the beginning of the story (Caleb and Efnisien and Kenneth, for example).
None of these things make up for the hurt, but it does mean Faber's already had multiple instances of rest and comfort. He might not receive it in a way you want him to! And it might not be what you, personally, need from the story. But Faber's journey is a long one, we are not halfway there, we are not even possibly a third of the way there, and, yes, we have a hell of a lot more emotional breakdowns to come. We haven't even seen the biggest ones yet. Trust me.
Some of my readers, I know, will be shaking their chains and screaming happily because of this, this is exactly the kind of hurt/comfort story they want. It's exactly the kind of hurt/comfort story I want. I have a history of writing these stories across both of my AO3 accounts, Eversion was the same. And for those readers who have read those stories before and know what to prepare for, they (hopefully) trust that I know what I'm doing. I literally have the 'slow burn to comfort' tag for this story for a reason, anon, and for me, it's not slow burn if I resolve everything a quarter of the way into a story.
And then for other readers, the ratio of hurt/comfort and/or the speed at which we get there isn't fast enough, and that's fine! But I can't make that call for them. I'm writing Faber's story, and Faber is a character who would rather go through hell, than heal. It will take a lot to break him down, because he's not interested in going through healing without it. He puts himself in dangerous situations, and he will keep doing that.
Now that I think about it, we probably still have quite a long way to go before Gary's collapse... and I'm already not ready for it.
Not really, Gary's collapse happens in the same 24 hours as Efnisien's abduction, which happens on this same night. In the same 12 hours really. It's a very compressed period of time. (They literally drive there the same night of the attack, save Efnisien, and drive back, even with the pit-stops it's around 9~ hours in total). Like, it's still a few chapters because Faber's dealing with a bunch of stuff overall, but timeline wise, that's not a long time at all. That's all one 24 hour period.
I'm even less ready if you tell me this poor boy still has a lot more emotional breakdowns to go through before he finally gets some comfort ASDFGHJKL
If you can't see or feel the comfort already in this story, then you probably won't see or feel the moments coming in the future either, until the pivot point that happens much, MUCH later in the narrative. That's okay, some people just need more. But I'm being blunt so you can make a considered decision about if you need to step away from this story for a time, or for good, and stick with my "lighter" works. I'm not going to sugar coat it, because that just gives folks false hope.
Faber's life will get better, he will have a happy ending, but he will fight that. And that will be angsty, and it will be filled with moments like this. There is no story to tell, honestly, if he was just like 'okay hug me now and I believe you when you tell me everything will be okay and ahhh warm blankets.' When we reach that point in Faber's mental development, we will be way closer to the end of the story! But since this is a tale about Faber's characterisation and an exploration of the things that make a person hostile to gentleness, comfort, care, and trust, well... without uprooting his character entirely, that hostility has no reason to go away just because he's experienced the kind of violence he experienced when he was younger. That's just another day he'd rather forget and move on from.
I don't mean to sound impatient or anything, but after the amount of emotional terror from the previous chapters, I think I just need a tiny bit of reassurance (*T^T)
The reassurance is in the tags, and the fact that I've never written a tragic ending in a long story after writing millions of words, and probably in my other stories that have a similar tone but ultimately have a happy ending. But if - for example - you've avoided those stories because they're "too dark" then you have an answer, which is that I can't reassure someone if their metric for how they enjoy hurt/comfort just doesn't align with this story. I can't reassure someone if I suspect my story might actually just not be great for them as an experience, that's just...unfair.
I'll be honest, this story is just going to be too dark for some people, or too angsty, and I can't reassure you if you are one of those people anon, and you are the only person who can decide that for yourself. If you're reading this and the moments of comfort haven't been enough so far, and/or you need there to be a huge turnaround for Faber soon, you are absolutely going to be disappointed, and possibly repeatedly. There are much lighter stories out there under the hurt/comfort tag, in fact that's most of them, which is why I crave writing stories like this in the first place. So you'll always have a ton of options! But it might not be this particular story.
I've jokingly called myself an angsthound in the past (I even joke that the dogs in my avatar on AO3 are "angst hounds") - I am writing what I love, angst with moments of comfort. I, personally, feel like Faber hasn't gone through enough yet, and I'm looking forward to putting him through worse. I want more emotional breakdowns, lol. It is with a view, ultimately, to a path of healing, but if the turnaround happened now I'd find this story really unsatisfying. Maybe at the halfway point, I'll have a better idea of when Faber will be getting a lot more comfort. Until then, we are in the angst pit. But there's always a ladder to climb out at any time you need, anon, with thousands of lighter hurt/comfort stories along the way, and the rest of us angst hounds will be happy down here in the meantime. :D My reassurance is that you can choose to take a break, or stop reading, or find something lighter at any point you need. Maybe you need the story to be finished and to read the last few chapters to decide if it's for you, but ultimately, it will be your call. This is slow-burn to comfort, after all, and we're only a quarter of the way through.
