ps, please write me more fic

Last night I was thinking about this conversation brooklinegirl and I had a couple months ago -- it basically consisted of rambling on and on, as we are wont to do, this time all about Fraser and the idea of these idealized Victorian manly friendship-type things. Blah, blah, blah, tracey and I are dorks, but this afternoon I've been pondering the differences between two different kinds of set-up for slash stories. I'm trying to think of the right way to phrase what I'm thinking about, but I guess it's sort of a difference between stories where the emotional and sexual components are really heavily intertwined (Ray is attracted to Fraser, Ray loves Fraser, Ray wants to have sex with Fraser, all wound together) and those stories where the components don't quite go together in the same way. I'm thinking of stories where that emotional connection is just as strong and intense, but it isn't formulated by the characters in a romantic or sexual way, at least to begin with. Ray needs Fraser and loves Fraser, can't live without Fraser in his life, he's willing to move up to the arctic circle or who knows where -- but it's not the same thing, in his mind, as wanting Fraser to be his boyfriend.

That on its own would just be preslash or smarm, though, I suppose, so -- I'm trying to think over the examples of this subgenre that have struck me, and it seems like there are two different ways the sexual component enters the equation: either it's something gradual, slow, teensy weensy steps that the characters don't actually notice until it arrives, or it's something more of the case of the character thinking it up themselves, almost as a way to make sense of the emotional connection -- that okay, if I have this need, this love, this want, it's going to have to be sexual eventually -- or even, occasionally, for me to get what I need emotionally from this person, they deserve to be getting sex in return.

I don't know, I'm thinking of Crys's True North, Lale's Third (time is the charm, or so someone told Ray once) and Look Way Up to the Sky, maybe Ces's Flying Blind, a lot of astolat's stuff (none of which is dS, of course), a lot of other ones I can't think of names for right now. It's not the same thing as We're Not Gay, We Just Love Each Other, but I wonder if the differences in the emphasis on the relationship makes it ... hmm, maybe a purer kind of slash in some ways? I don't think I've ever actually written anything I'd put in that category, but it's definitely interesting to consider.

I always end these sorts of entries with the realization that I haven't really had a thesis statement.