Well, I’m glad both Derik and Gall are seeing some forward progress on their emotional development! And now their professional partnership will have a bit more “partner” in it . . . and come to think about it, a bit more “ship” as well! I’m amused that even before Derik started to notice any physical feelings towards Gall, he was subconsciously recognizing both her interest in himself (through dismissing the attempted dancer as “wasn’t Gall’s type”), and some jealousy (through his mental dialogue consistently referring to the dude through snake metaphors.)

And hey: the characters need to be free to live their story as it naturally unfolds. There’s nothing wrong with letting them have an “action” scene if it’s true to their feelings and growth. : )

You have taught me THREE new words with this story! “Debride,” “bandeau,” and “velar.” “Debride” in particular made for an excellent metaphor here, and I hope to keep it in the back of my mind to use someday myself!

—doctorlit flirted intensely with three naps this weekend

I think this was a good character piece, and as best as I can tell the NSFW bits work in context towards the overall goal here. I'm glad things are looking up for Derik.

So yeah, I can see why you'd waffle on posting this, and I'm glad you did anyway.

I don't have much to say on the writing front - I freely admit my head skimmed some of the longer "action" paragraphs (I've currently got the third Fourth Wing book out from the library, and the same happens there), but the emotions hit well throughout, and I really enjoyed Derik's extended metaphor on the tunnel-snake.

It's probably a good thing you wavered over it, not because of anything about the piece, but because of me. If you'd posted this in a time when I was actively writing for the PPC, I would definitely have taken it as a challenge, which is exactly what you're trying to avoid. :D

hS

Well, this is a first I guess. While I have read myself only a small portion of PPC stories, I believe this is the first one where the "action" is onscreen?

Regardless, I think you did a good job, and it really passed the message that things weren't, and couldn't be, smooth because Derik still has his Issues (and Gall, is, well, Gall. Not the subtlest creature out there). The prose was a bit purple IMHO here and there, but it could be me - I tend to end up being a bit beige myself. And, besides, even the purpler pieces weren't purple enough to be distracting. Definitely no Urple there!

I believe this piece existing is good food for thought: since we mock badfics, many of which include M-rated content (I missioned a couple "action-y" badfics myself), and we counter that with our own writing... why should we stop short of making good M-rated content ourselves when we strive to make good content of everything short of it? Of cours,e we shouldn't turn the Prime multiverse in Luxury's one of origin XD! But in the PPC, we mostly deal with wish-fullfillment "action" in badfics, and in a lot of canon media is mostly there for the fanservice. But that's not the only way "action" can be used. Yours is a piece in which the "action" actually shows us things about the characters that wouldn't be as easy to show otherwise, meaning that "action" can be used as a storytelling tool!

I admit that I did that myself in The World without Authors, since Nikki doing it with Syaoron and Sergio with Ami was pretty good way to show the current mental place and issues of the three core cast characters. I stopped short of the "action", though, as the leadup and the aftermath were already passing on everything I wanted to show - no need for the reader to know which positions they used or what their naughty bits looked like, only that Nikki, Sergio and Ami were "lost" and doing mistakes.

All in all, while you broke the taboo, so to speak, I don't think we'll suddenly get a ton of PPC smut. Like all tropes, it has its specific uses, and there aren't many cases in which the "action" is the best, or only, way to tell you something about the characters. I might follow the lead someday, as one of the plotbunnies I had rejected in the past was making a part-comedy, part-hearwarming piece about Sergio and Nikki trying to figure things out due to their PPC service meaning they knew very well what not to do but had little clue about what to do in their first intimate night.

If I do, though, it will be nowhere soon as I have a lot of stuff I'm trying to finish first, and that while I'm still dealing with finishing up work in my new house while moving stuff out of the old one...