Slashy Nominations 60: Slash Both Pure and Good

[thefourthvine]

Nobody is a bigger fan of the explicitly smutty story than I am. But smut cannot stand alone, my friends; it has to fit in the story, be part of the story's framework, or it's just another boring cookie-cutter sex scene that readers skim through to get back to the plot. So I am also a big fan of those authors that only put smut where it belongs

Comments

[guede_mazaka]

When I first came across 'Gynecology,' I almost didn't read it because it was late and the formatting made my eyes howl. But I stuck it out, and I was v. glad that I did. That story really, truly reads like Sorkin wrote it himself

[may he never learn what happened to his characters after series cancellation]

Also, I actually would peg it at PG-13, maybe borderline R for innuendo and language and stuff. But I've definitely seen PG-13 movies with more sex-stuff than that.

[jamjar]

Charlemagne is a he and currently goes by the name of Synchronik, His journal can be found here and his RPS is here.

[thefourthvine]

Whoops. Thanks for the correction on the whole sex thing, and the links. I will now go fix it, and wish once again that English had a neuter singular pronoun.

(Only in FF would it come as a surprise to anyone that a person named Charlemagne was, in fact, male.)

[guede_mazaka]

Ah. Thank you.

[fanofall]

Two of my very favorite fics in one place, at one time. le sigh.

Isn't SportsNight wonderful? SportsNight is love, and love is SportsNight. So saith the Bhagwan SportsNight, whose arbiter I am.

And Wine, Women and Schlong has always cracked. me. UP.

[viva_gloria]

Oooh, thank you for reccing me yet again! And especially for reccing this story, which seemed to sink without trace -- I'm rather fond of it, and I like writing Jack's serious side; often well-hidden but very definitely there beneath the merriment and sway.

One thing, though -- 'Scarborough Fair' isn't anachronistic; I grant that Jack won't have heard the Simon and Garfunkel version, but it's a traditional English folksong that been around for centuries before they got their grubby mitts on it and left out the 'Trad. arr Simon and Garfunkel' in the attribution.

Actually, I'm grateful for this rec for another reason -- reviewing the fic, I noticed a background detail which is creeping into more and more fic, including a WIP: this is almost certainly where it started.

[anneline]

"it's just another boring cookie-cutter sex scene that readers skim through to get back to the plot"

See, plot's usually the part I skim through to get back to the smut. I'm just saying. Actually, thanks for all these great recs. That's the first Pirates fic I've read and it was fabu.

Plus, you're dragging me into this dark Sports Night of the soul fandom or whatever that show is. I've never seen it and know nothing about it, but it produces great fan-fic, funny, well-written, great fan-fic.

[thefourthvine]

See, plot's usually the part I skim through to get back to the smut. I'm just saying.

Oh, I totally get your point, and I'm right there with you much of the time. But that's pretty much proof of a well-done sex scene, to me. If the fic contains smut and the smut holds your interest, then the sex belongs in the story, and it matters, and the author knows how to write it. And we, as readers, rejoice. But haven't you ever read a story and thought, hey, I just don't care? These guys can get together, not get together, watch paint dry, adopt a Golden Retriever, have a latte - whatever. It doesn't matter.

I have. And I know then - when I could care less whether the story ends with a fight, a fuck, or a half-skim caramel double espresso latte - that the story doesn't hang together.

And then there's the stories I'll read to the end, no matter what - sex, coffee, the Westminster dog show. Those are the brilliant stories. (Because if you can make me care about sex, well, I'm thrilled, obviously. But I'm only human - I'm interested