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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Mods to author: "Hey, looks like you're unaware of this rule! This is the rule!"
Author: can't pretend they didn't know next time
Mods: check that author's fic immediately at deadline next time, send pinch hit if required

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, except that both characters are in it. The other's just in a very small role. There is no rule that says that both characters have to have equal screentime.

[(Anonymous)]

Should both characters appear in 100% of the fic? 75%? Could Character A appear in 60% of the fic and Character B be in 40%? 66/33? 75/25? At what point would you report the author for not understanding how the rule works?

[(Anonymous)]

DA

In the story in question, doesn't one character appear in basically a no dialogue quick walk-on, though, so it's like a 99.9/1% ratio? Or he has one line and disappears or something? I don't understand how it's so contentious to say that in "and" matching, that's not how it should be done.

It seems possible the author didn't know the rule and tossed the character in there thinking they were being magnanimous by including the other requested one ever so briefly, or they knew the rule but didn't want to write that character and thought if the one showed his face for half a second, nobody'd blink.

[(Anonymous)]

By now, somebody needs to find that fic. Because I want to see this percentage with my own eyes. For all we know, OP exaggerated the lack of character B.

[(Anonymous)]

Yep. I come down on the side of "a quick walk-on is not acceptable," but that's for an actual quick walk-on. Maybe this isn't. I find it a little hard to believe that the recip still liked the story much if it didn't include the characters they expected to be in it. And if they did like it, maybe they weren't that invested in having them both anyway, so why worry about it?

[(Anonymous)]

+ 1

Also my personal opinion is that the minimum ratio should be at least 20% for the least important of the requested character. 10% is pushing it and single digits the mods should look into.

I may be baised since I only like shipfic so most of my fic and gifts are equal or near equal in screentime but if someone asked for a gen day in the lives of Big Bird & Ernie, you can’t just have 15 scenes or Burt and Ernie running errands with one 50 word paragraph where Big Bird runs into them at the bank and asks how they’re doing.

[(Anonymous)]

How do you calculate the ratio then? Amount of dialogue broken down by who says what? Number of words devoted to a given character's thoughts or actions? If those 15 scenes of Bert and Ernie running errands are shorter in terms of total word count than the single paragraph of Big Bird running into them, does Big Bird actually have more screentime?

[(Anonymous)]

DC

It's like pornography, I know it when I see it.

[(Anonymous)]

Think of it this way. A fic is tagged with both Ernie and Bert. As a Bert fan, would you be disappointed in how small Bert's role is?

[(Anonymous)]

....it depends, do I have a size kink for Bert?

[(Anonymous)]

For me, I would report if character B was in 20% or less of the fic. In this case, it's really egregious.