coaltide | Offseason #1

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offseason

Offseason #1

Use this post for any exchanges running from January onwards into the first quarter of the year. Try to keep final Yuletide thoughts in the last coal post of 2019 for ease of conversation.

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Hey! If you have any particular questions, feel free to ask and I, at least, will try to give you an non-intense answer.

But in general, "request what you want" is a good place to start.

Currently I am fretting about my requests being too niche or making me stick out as a weird new person who is clueless. I see people talking about my favorite content on memes but know that doesn’t mean anyone will make a thing, so I guess most immediately I’m wondering how long is considered polite to keep requesting an unfilled prompt?

I know in Yuletide “someday my fic will come” is common, but outside of YT is the expectation that you’ll get the hint and give up eventually?

DC 1) There are people I cross paths with who've been requesting the same set of small fandoms for 2-3 years now. They often end up on the IPH list. They also get picked up eventually, and usually get a good gift. None of them get wanked about.

2) It's not all-or-nothing. I have a few tiny fandoms I love that I often request, but I also have several larger fandoms I also enjoy and swap into my requests as I feel like it.

3) You can also work to grow your fandoms. Ways to do this: leave enthusiastic recs on fandom pimping posts for exchanges that have them. Suggest the fandom(s) on anon memes when people ask for canon recs that fit. (Just make sure the rec really does fit! You don't want to be the person recommending a book with a male MC to someone who's asked for female MCs.) Leave good comments on your gifts. Be known as a generally cheerful and enthusiastic person who's fun to write for. Include links to free excerpts of the canon online in your letters, if you can.

4) If you've been asking for the same thing for a long time (like a year+), new prompts might help -- especially if people have written the fandom for you before. There are people out there who I've written for before and am out of ideas for, but who have the same prompts. I'd be more likely to write for them if they gave me something new. But that being said, there's really no expectation that you need to do so.

CYRT

I guess most immediately I’m wondering how long is considered polite to keep requesting an unfilled prompt?

IMO there's really three questions here, and the answer varies:

1) How long is too long to request and unfilled prompt when you also have other prompts? The answer to that is no such thing. Keep asking for the niche prompt of your heart (or the rareship of your heart or whatever) forever! Your fic is way more likely to come if you ask for it every chance you get rather than just at Yuletide.

2) How long is too long to ask for your niche prompt and only your niche prompt? The answer here depends on the prompt, but for a lot of people the answer will probably be "if you make it super clear that the only thing you want is necro watersport, that's kind of a dick move no matter what." Opinions differ on this, but if literally the only thing you want for a particular pair is something super niche and you want to avoid wank, it's probably a good idea to hold out for a freeform exchange where you can request freeforms that match your niche desire.

The reasoning behind this, by the way, is that while ODAO is of course a thing, most writers really want to please their recips, and therefore it's not great to put them in a position where they have to chose between writing something very niche that they may not like, going fully ODAO and displeasing you, or defaulting.

If there is one thing you really want the most, I think it's fine to say "would really love X, but if that's not your thing, I also like A, B and C," as long as you actually do like A, B, and C. That way, someone who might be willing to try their hand at X knows it's your dream prompt, while there is still indication that there are other things that will please you.

3) How long is too long to ask for only super rare canons/ships that make you constantly linger as an initial pinch hit?

This gets a wide range of answers. Many people will tell you to keep asking for what you really want as often as you want. Some people may wank if you're a lingering IPH for a lot of exchanges at the same time. It's up to you how much you're willing to tolerate the potential of the latter.

SC

To clarify point 1 a little more, because I feel like the way I conflated prompts and rarepairs might be confusing. The point I'm making is:

1. Prompts: If you have a watersports necrophilia prompt alongside five other less niche prompts, it's cool to just keep asking for that forever.

2. Small ships: If one of your three requests is always the tiniest rarepair of your heart that no one ever fills, but your other requests are big enough that a fair amount of the time you match or get picked up quickly when you're a PH -- again, totally fine, no need to worry at all about just requesting the rarepair from now until forever. Lots of people do this.

For instance, my request often look like: MCU, Star Wars, tiny fandom of my heart. Most of the time my gifts are MCU or Star Wars, but recently I've gotten several for the tiny fandom, which just goes to show sticking it out and asking again and again is worth it!

DC +1 to your last two paragraphs. That's been my method (with more medium-size fandoms than MCU and Star Wars).

I know I could "guarantee" a gift for one of my rarest fandoms by just asking for them, but I personally am not comfortable with that method. I'm out there promoting the rare fandom(s) and trying to write great prompts to bring people in, but if nobody's into it, I've got other fandoms I also love that people can create for instead. When people do write my super-rare fandoms (and they do!), I know it's because they're genuinely into them.

CYRT

with more medium-size fandoms than MCU and Star Wars
Yes! I should probably clarify to OP that this is obviously fine, too -- MCU and Star Wars are literally just the other fandoms I happen to be in (apparently my tastes run megapopular or tiny, lol). You don't need any megafandoms if you aren't into them.

DA

I know I could "guarantee" a gift for one of my rarest fandoms by just asking for them, but I personally am not comfortable with that method.

I always do that, because I know I would be disappointed with a gift in my bigger fandoms. I tried it a couple of times, and I realized the method wasn't working for me because I was so much more critical of those gifts than gifts in my rarest fandoms. I'd rather be a frequent IPH and receive gifts that make me happy than to mentally be "oh wow, this is so much worse than the average fandom output" about my large fandom gifts.

Thank you so much! This helps me to separate out the circumstances. I have rare ships in medium-to-large fandoms and can shift some of the focus of my prompts around for those from event to event. My first exchange did freeform matching, but since I didn’t have any history going in it wouldn’t surprise me if some authors who might like to write (unfilled thing) wouldn’t risk their niche thing efforts on an unknown quantity re: feedback or recip behavior.

It's fine to keep requesting unfilled prompts.

The problem only arises when none of your canons have readily available writers and in exchange after exchange, you linger for a long time with the same unchanged set of canons. If you have eternally unfilled fandom A alongside fandoms B and C that get filled, there's no problem with you.
If people notice that you keep requesting A, it'll be more the "hope nonnie gets this one day" response rather than "here comes nonnie with 3 fandoms nobody has ever heard of, available only in the original hieroglyphics" response.

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