Recent exchange fic

[sholio]

It's been a busy month, so it's been a little while since these exchanges revealed, but here is what I wrote in two recent exchanges in June!

Very unsurprisingly, they are both Biggles.

Shadow for Hurt/Comfort Exchange (Biggles/EvS pre-ship or shippy gen, 5000 words)
Post-Sakhalin, Erich follows Biggles around the city to protect him until collapsing on his doorstep.

Notes on this fic

There's a bit of a story behind this one! I wrote the first half of the fic, everything up to their meeting under the awning, and I liked it. But where it originally went from there is that Biggles and Erich went back to Erich's place, and there were a lot of homey little details about his flat (saved for future fic purposes), and I eventually stalled out because I wasn't sure where to go from there; I've written a dozen different versions of that "Biggles comes over to his flat for the first time" scene, and it was all feeling kind of emotionless and dull. I mean, it would've worked fine for some kinds of stories, but it didn't feel like it was living up to the gloriously idtastic setup.

And then I decided, what if I jettisoned everything after the awning scene and just went pure, full-on id? The assignment that I had for this one was loaded with idtastic tags and details that were basically just "whump Erich a lot," and I decided you know, why not lean into that and do the most iddy thing I could possibly do here, which is having him collapse after following Biggles around the city for weeks. So that is exactly what I wrote, and everything went great from there to the end. XD

A Touch is Worth a Thousand Words for Fluffity-Fluff (Biggles/EvS, 3700 wds, mature)
Biggles is suffering the physical consequences of not being 22 anymore. Erich lends a hand. (Late in series, established relationship.)

Notes on this fic

This was inspired by actual events, so to speak. I tweaked my back a little this spring working in the garden - not bad, but one of those *twist, twinge, OH NO* sorts of things. It was fine after a couple days of taking it easy, but it also made me think - since I was, at the time, trying to think of an angle for this fic - that I might as well take advantage of the characters being more-or-less middle-aged in late canon, and writing about some of the things that tend to happen to slightly-less-young bodies. It's a lovely setup for a lot of sensual, gentle h/c, which seemed perfect for this exchange! (It also made me realize that this fandom does not have nearly enough sexy massage fic. I noted a lack and I am filling it!)

Comments

[sgatazmy]

I have never heard the term “shippy gen” before…. How is that different than preship?

[sholio]

I think I would personally define it as something like "does not contain actual ship, but would probably put off people who don't like the idea of these characters in a ship relationship" or "pre-ship but without actual relationship talk." Or what used to be called smarm. Basically they do things that would be slightly OOC or might read as flirty for these particular characters in a strictly gen fic (snuggle, sleep in the same bed, etc) but it's not openly hinting at an actual relationship by the end of the fic, although it could easily go there eventually. Does that make sense?

[philomytha]

Going for All The Iddiness is often a very good solution to stuck stories! These were both adorable <333

[sholio]

I am increasingly thinking that "add more id" is a solution for many plot problems. :D Thank you!!

[sweetsorcery]

I need to still read and comment on Shadow, but now I'm even more eager to read it!

Obviously, I've read the second one, and while I'm sorry it was inspired by actual RL pain, the resulting fic was just wonderful. And I second the call for more sexy massage fic in this fandom! :D

[sholio]

I'm completely delighted you liked it! <3333 It was really just a minor bit of inspiration compared to what Biggles is experiencing in the fic - but yes, we definitely need more sexy massage fic! 🥺