coaltide | Coalie in Post-DeadlineLand

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2019

Coalie in Post-DeadlineLand

Coalie was beginning to get very tired of waiting for their gift to be posted, and of having nothing to shake: once or twice they had peeped into the tags of the fic their dentist had been gifted, but it had no characters or freeforms on it, "and what is the use of a fic," thought Coalie, "without ships or tags?"

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My fic is finished enough, but it could be finished more better. However, my idea for getting it more better is potentially awkward. Advice please!

My recip asked for A, B and C. A and B are related, A and C are married, B and C are dear friends (recip ships B and C, and also ships A and C, in canon B set A and C up). Recip DNWs poly, but is silent on infidelity.

If I include B and C together romantically, either now or in the past, while A, married to C, finds out and is ambivalent/neutral about it, am I hitting the poly DNW? I think I might be skirting it, and infidelity being generally opt-in is making me think it is maybe not quite a good idea. What do you think?

I think you shouldn't write cheating if they didn't specifically ask for a ship that requires cheating.

CYRT

They specifically asked for both A/C and B/C. It's just not clear how they want it handled if you want to write both ships, except that they don't want poly.

I agree on no infidelity if they don't specifically request it. Do you think it would skirt uncomfortably close to either infidelity or poly if there was past B/C (in their misspent youth, say), and current A/C, and A found out about the past relationship? Would it be okay if A didn't find out? Would it be okay if A found out, but treated it as any other past romance?

DC My guess is that they asked for both A/C and B/C because they assumed that their author would write whichever one they preferred, not because they wanted both in the same work. (This would be my guess in general, but for someone with a poly DNW, it goes double.)

I would not put this in. It seems like a really big risk to take for not much payoff.

I would say that if they requested both ships (and didn't DNW things like "ships ending" or whatever) that having past B/C from before the A/C started is fine (I hope so, because I'm doing something similar in my fic) as long as you didn't play it hard as A treating it like infidelity or like a precursor to poly.

If the recip DNWs poly, they're even less likely to enjoy a love triangle, especially if it involves cheating. Don't do it, coalie!

I had to update my DNWs after someone gave me a fic including multiple of my requested ships ages ago. I’m sure they thought “Coalie wants all these, so I’ll give her everything she wants!” But the end result was a fic where two of my fave ships broke up, so I was too sad about that to enjoy the endgame ship.

Which is an anecdote to say, unless they say “I want both ships in the fic” it’s safer to assume “I ship XY and YZ” means in different fics.

+a million

I have fandoms where I multiship, but that doesn't mean I want X and Y to break up so Y and Z can get together; I mean I'd be happy with scenarios where Y gets together with X or with Z.

It's like a switchboard, not a mixing bowl.

OP here: thank you all! You've clarified really well, and I have an idea for how to manage without even brushing anywhere near poly or infidelity

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