Showdown!

[rheasilvia]

Poll #22464 Showdown!

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

View Respondents

When you realize your showdown will be about as long as the entire rest of the story, the best response is to:

View Answers

shrug! Wordcount is meaningless, like smoke in the wind.
22 (73.3%)

giggle madly!
17 (56.7%)

find ways to shorten the showdown.
1 (3.3%)

write more of the non-showdown part of the story.
10 (33.3%)

eat cake.
15 (50.0%)

insert sex scenes into the rest of the story.
6 (20.0%)

insert sex scenes into the showdown.
5 (16.7%)

decide only the last bit of the showdown actually counts as a showdown.
10 (33.3%)

Just kidding, I won't be inserting random sex scenes. Although I have to say that is IS weird that none of my stories appear to include actual sex scenes anymore. Am I turning decent in my old age? Perish the thought!

No Sunday Six as of now, as I am actually working. You can tell by the fact I am posting polls on DW. ;-) But I did look at my showdown notes again, so that counts, right?

Comments

[rheasilvia]

I've been puzzling a lot lately over what makes some pairings easier to porn than others. There are some that easily lend themselves to dirty little PWPs, and others that just don't seem to.

It really is intriguing! I haven't thought about it much yet, but I will have to - the differences are really quite striking. The reserve is certainly a factor, I would say, but in my writing experience, there hasn't been a correlation to high levels of canon certainty about the relationship. High levels of emotional importance to the characters are a factor, though...

For me, I think it has a lot to do with the complexity of both the characters and their relationship. Both Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei are complex people, and their relationship - as unquestioned and soul-deep as it is - is even more complex, with steep differences in knowledge and secrets and other such impediments littering the emotional landscape. And because the stakes are so high for both of them, they are both very careful every step of the way... so casual sex seems out of the question, and there is a lot riding on every advance in the relationship.

It makes it tricky! Even sex in an established relationship seems tricky to me, because the relationship is still so complex, so deep and so important. Writing all of that into the sex (even without dwelling on it) is quite a challenge, and requires a lot of thought on my part.

I will think on it more!

[lauand]

I tend to think it's actually related to the intensity of their feelings is canon. Their relationship is, as you all have acknowledged, very complex and layered. They're pretty much restrained in canon, their feelings are obvious and not purely platonic, there's most definitely a lot of UST going on there, but the thing is that the base for it is the kind of devotion that trascends everything else, including the physical. On the one hand it's their past, things left unsaid and things not remembered, things they can't talk about for fear to change what's bound to happen, but it's also their present, how they hold back and talk to each other in riddles and are reluctant to say anything overt whereas they are also utterly unafraid to act and show the strength of their love or how special and fascinanting they found each other. It's the kind of thing that makes porn difficult because there's so much feeling behind it that trying to boil it down to sex feels like cheapening it or something. Which might look strange at first, because their story is not the kind of epic love story that we hold as stereotypically romantic (no damsel in distress/white knight dynamic, both are pretty much equals in every possible sense), but in a sense, I think that makes it all the more powerful because of it, so it's difficult to treat it/approach it as we would those other stories.

(So, yeah, I pretty much agree with your analysis, really.)

[rheasilvia]

It's the kind of thing that makes porn difficult because there's so much feeling behind it that trying to boil it down to sex feels like cheapening it or something.

To me, it just isn't the kind of relationship that *can* be boiled down to sex. The sex is happening, I think we all agree on that, but because of who they are and how they relate to each other, it's woven into the relationship in a complex and meaningful way that is just extremely difficult for me to get right in my mind.

I don't think that I've ever written a "stereotypically" romantic pairing, so I wouldn't know how to approach writing sex there, either. But usually it's easier to get from desire to actual sex, when here, there's so much else that plays into it... and in the end, the physical desire is the least important part of their all-encompassing desire for each other.

[lauand]

I'm not very good at writing sex in general myself, to be honest, so I totally get the hardships of getting the smut right in one's head. What the hell, I don't even think I can get the grasp of their regular interaction, not just yet.

... and in the end, the physical desire is the least important part of their all-encompassing desire for each other.

Yes, I totally agree.

(And still, still, after literally 10.000 years waiting and holding back, it should be an easy-enough-to-break dam that's keeping Shen Wei in check. One would think that kind of blue balls would make smut easier to happen, and not harder.)

[china_shop]

but in my writing experience, there hasn't been a correlation to high levels of canon certainty about the relationship. High levels of emotional importance to the characters are a factor, though...

Yeah, I think I'm expressing the "canon certainty" thing badly. I was trying to get at "because of how things go in canon, I'm pretty confident that they will get together and stay together, in a relatively stable relationship." As opposed to two guys who meet twice in canon but somehow spark like fireworks in fic. But I have tiny sample sizes, and that factor may be more correlation than causation.

Both Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei are complex people, and their relationship - as unquestioned and soul-deep as it is - is even more complex, with steep differences in knowledge and secrets and other such impediments littering the emotional landscape.

I don't think it's about complexity for me. I had an RPS pairing for a while that were a complex mass of all kinds of interdependencies and issues, and they were wonderfully filthy. And I had a similar smutblock (though to a lesser extent) with Fraser/Kowalski in Due South, and their relationship was actually pretty straightforward.

But in the instance of Guardian, I think you're right -- those high stakes and the care they take definitely exacerbate the problem.

Ooh, maybe it's simply how careful they are of each other? Hmm... *continues to ponder*

[rheasilvia]

Hmm. It may be that we are hampered by different things here, because the more I think about it, the more the "emotional high stakes and complexity of the relationship"-combination makes sense to me as my impediment in writing sex.

I had a similar smutblock (though to a lesser extent) with Fraser/Kowalski in Due South, and their relationship was actually pretty straightforward.

That's interesting! Hmmm, I think I could have written sex for Fraser/Kowalski without problems, if I had written that pairing at all. To me, the only possible issue there seems to be Fraser's reserve and protective facade of asexuality (but I don't think he is actually asexual, and it would have been fun to show him being completely uninhibited and just doing whatever feels good with no hang-ups whatsoever).

OTOH, I did have a little bit of the same issue with Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr in X-Men First Class - and there it also had to do with the complexity of the characters and their relationship, *and* the high emotional stakes that sex is bound to have to the characters.

But the extent that the Guardian guys are smutblocking me is really a first for me. :-) Still, I will get them there eventually! I am determined. ;-)

[china_shop]

FTR, I did write a fair amount of F/K smut; I just found it startling how much easier Ray/Ray were in comparison. They required almost no coaxing at all! ;-)

Still, I will get them there eventually! I am determined. ;-)

*cheers you on*