Re: Assumptions You Make

(Anonymous) 2019-12-28 06:02 pm (UTC)(link)
DC "there are also a significant percentage of Yuletide writers who don't bother to incorporate any of those likes into a fic, or who write stuff that should be opt-in."

If you matched to one of those people, your letter won't do anything, true. But nothing you could do was going to do anything.

This is more about the median Yuletiders, who are OK to decent writers but might not have a lot of ideas. Those people will generally give you better gifts/more tailored gifts if you give them more to work with. And yes, your treats will also be better/more likely to exist with a better letter.

(Femslash -- I've had good luck as well, but even there -- the All About Eve author who wrote untagged M/F endgame is a good example of someone who was never going to write a good story for that particular recip. So even with F/F, it happens.)

Re: Assumptions You Make

(Anonymous) 2019-12-28 06:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Whereas I have found that the femslash writers in my fandoms are the ones most likely to give me blatant DNWs or to do other shit that pisses me off.

Re: Assumptions You Make

(Anonymous) 2019-12-28 06:13 pm (UTC)(link)
This

Re: Assumptions You Make

(Anonymous) 2019-12-28 06:55 pm (UTC)(link)
CYRT

I consider the All About Eve fic het written for a femslash prompt, much like the Last Leaf fic was gen written for a femslash prompt. Despite what those recipients clearly asked for, their writers went in a different direction. You can't control that by writing a more detailed letter, and in Yuletide, the likelihood of treats is too low to hope for a good treat writer. To the original point that people who are disappointed in their gifts should have written better letters, it's a demonstrably false assumption coalie is making to justify not feeling bad for recips who got disappointing gifts. I do feel bad for those recips. I don't blame them for not writing letters up to OP's standards. I've received enough bad YT gifts (and good gifts for the same prompts) to know how little a letter affects the final result when your assignment is handed to someone who isn't a good writer or who doesn't care what their recipient wants.

Re: Assumptions You Make

(Anonymous) 2019-12-28 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
I consider the All About Eve fic het written for a femslash prompt, much like the Last Leaf fic was gen written for a femslash prompt. Despite what those recipients clearly asked for, their writers went in a different direction. You can't control that by writing a more detailed letter,

While I do think some people would get better stories if they wrote better letters that were more clear about what they did and did not want, your All About Eve example is correct. The best letters in the world aren't going to keep assholes from being assholes.