But also, I should note, someone else here (and I was hoping ticky would run in and make one of his epic analyses) might view this all in an entirely different light. My classification of what constitutes porn/erotica may be prudish or slutty, depending on their view.
Awww, you flatter me griever
...You do realize I'm female, though? Ah whatever, the internet mixes peoples' genders up a lot anyway XD
To be honest though, I didn't really post anything because you kind of posted exactly what I was going to say already. I don't consider myself a prude, and I find no problems with sex in any media, but I think you hit the problem here exactly. I'll try not to step on your toes, so I'll just add everything else I would have said.
That is to say, it is generally considered writer's "etiquette" that unless you are writing full on pornography, the sex scenes are more composed of innuendo and metaphor than actual sex. It makes them more fun to read, and lets a wider audience enjoy the story, instead of just the ones that don't giggle whenever someone says "sex." Of course most of the (extremely lax, if I may add) rules of writing get lost in the internet, but that still brings up the question of "when does sex become porn?"
Well, maybe I am a bit prudish, but my idea of when sex in writing becomes porn is when it becomes graphic sex, because of how I was taught. And boy oh boy, those parts with the little [m] next to them sure sounded graphic to me. I've seen some great stories with sex in them, where the word "sex" or anything really pertaining to sex was never mentioned. The author still got their point across, and even if we didn't see every little detail of the act, we all knew what happened and who did what.
I would say that you could try to edit out the more graphic parts, but no one else has commented on the
rest of the work.
There are two words that make my blood curdle, that make every fabric of my being cringe and move two inches to the left: Song fiction.
Which isn't to say that songfics are bad, it's just that...well, they're bad. I have yet to meet a writer that didn't have a very specific set of music that they listened to for writing, I have about twelve playlists on my computer at any given time reserved for just that. But that doesn't mean you have to
actually put those into the story. I mean, really. If I wrote something while watching, say, The Wolfman, I'm not going to tell people in a big bold title up top, "WATCH THIS MOVIE WHILE READING THIS OR YOU WON'T GET IT." No. If you wrote it well enough the writing itself should convey exactly what you wanted it to. Not that I'm saying this to just you two, I'm saying this to all songfic writers out there.
As an added "bonus" to songfics, if your audience doesn't listen to the
exact same music that you do, then they really won't get it. Whilst skimming through every piece of writing on your site I found...maybe five songs that I knew, max. The rest of it was just radio static running through my head.
To be honest, I don't think either of you write very well at the moment. Maybe it's because I'm actually trying to major in creative writing and I'm overly critical of everyone and everything for it, but that's what I think. The sex is bordering on porn and doesn't fit well with the stories surrounding it at all, and the surrounding stories are constantly jerked around by music I don't listen to and, if I may be frank, writing that needs work.
As a side note the art is actually pretty good, and I love your work with b&w line.
As a quick critique on the technical side of things: USERNAMES CAN'T HAVE CAPITAL LETTERS. Sorry to break out the caps, but I'm very tired of telling this to people, as it can be found if you look around the site. tam=good. tatsnmems=good. TaM=bad.
Also, I would have recommended learning HTML and FTP (Though you'll need SCP for xepher) before you applied, so you could have at least had a basic knowledge of how to make a website. Too many people come in here without any prior knowledge of how to make a website work, and it really just makes things harder for them.
There you go, griever. One tickyhead supreme, ooooorder up! I gotta run.
(EDIT: Wow, I make a lot of grammar mistakes when I'm rushed. Fixing!)
