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Jul. 4th, 2022 02:01 ama thing I am seeing more & more in fanfic these days is authors marking out sex scenes as "optional", and giving people info on where to skip if you don't want to read that part.
and! like! more tools for curating one's reading experience! care for your audience! that's -- I understand where it's coming from, is what I'm saying.
but it also means the sex scenes are really, really boring. Like. so boring. because if they're optional extra scenes, they aren't there to illuminate character or plot, they're just there to be....sex. this is the most boring kind of sex, in fiction or real life. it's so boring that the few times i have bothered to read one of these optional scenes my eyeballs turned to dust and my heart shriveled up like a prune and my liver withered and my vagina locked and barred the door.
I've always skimmed way more sex scenes than I read, because frankly most people aren't good at writing sex that illuminates character or plot, but some of the optional scenes make normal boring sex writing look like high erotic art.
yes, i am being very mean here, but that's because it should be impossible to write sex this boring AND YET here human beings go, managing it handily! once again humankind does the impossible! go us! this is up there with airplanes and telecommunication!
also, there are some things i don't like about oldschool slash aesthetics in fanfic but i gotta say when you have 90% oldschool slash aesthetics in your fanfic but also use "cum" as a verb i get whiplash. but that is a rant for another time, even though it is Related to the whole incredibly boring sex thing.
and! like! more tools for curating one's reading experience! care for your audience! that's -- I understand where it's coming from, is what I'm saying.
but it also means the sex scenes are really, really boring. Like. so boring. because if they're optional extra scenes, they aren't there to illuminate character or plot, they're just there to be....sex. this is the most boring kind of sex, in fiction or real life. it's so boring that the few times i have bothered to read one of these optional scenes my eyeballs turned to dust and my heart shriveled up like a prune and my liver withered and my vagina locked and barred the door.
I've always skimmed way more sex scenes than I read, because frankly most people aren't good at writing sex that illuminates character or plot, but some of the optional scenes make normal boring sex writing look like high erotic art.
yes, i am being very mean here, but that's because it should be impossible to write sex this boring AND YET here human beings go, managing it handily! once again humankind does the impossible! go us! this is up there with airplanes and telecommunication!
also, there are some things i don't like about oldschool slash aesthetics in fanfic but i gotta say when you have 90% oldschool slash aesthetics in your fanfic but also use "cum" as a verb i get whiplash. but that is a rant for another time, even though it is Related to the whole incredibly boring sex thing.