Another story I want to highlight:
Banner Year by Shrink42. A coming-of-age story with a higher than typical frequency of traumatic events and a deeper than typical life-mate romance, which the dual protagonists slowly mature through and into—and all told, a pretty darn good read. That said, oh man, do I have mixed feelings about it.
On the one hand, it's a masterful example of how to make almost every sex scene, and there are a lot of them, important to the story. "Almost" because I noticed I think it was two that don't in some way either highlight or develop characters or relationships, and so are gratuitous. This is Really Impressive Writing.
On the other tentacle, it's a prime object lesson in how institutional norms get propagated: all approved sex is strictly cis-straight vanilla, with almost every kink that does get shown on-screen getting shamed—and worse, it's almost actively homophobic, in that most queers are depicted negatively, with the homosexuality of a couple characters treated as at best neutrally without ever showing approval for them as a person. (Pointing out that at least the author didn't bury all the gays Does Not Help.)
So, yeah, ambivalent much.
I should mention there are crossover characters with other stories, making this part of a web of tales. Unfortunately, the few I've tried to read were all DFN for one reason or another, usually disinterest. But in this story, at least, the author had the storyteller spark.
