Showdown!

[rheasilvia]

Poll #22464 Showdown!

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

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

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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

[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*