Except with most requests that aren't "write me that weird AU or I'm going to kill myself", there's a hell of a lot room between "writing a specific prompt you hate" and "writing something in line with what your recip likes".
You don't have to force yourself to do the first, and anyone who expects you to is unreasonable. And if the recip only gave you one specific prompt and nothing else, I have no sympathy for them when you go ODAO.
But if you get a OD box full of general likes and you ignore them all in favour of writing your own thing because everything else will be "forced and awkward", maybe you're not cut out to write gift fic for strangers and you should reconsider your participation in fic exchanges.
no subject
Except with most requests that aren't "write me that weird AU or I'm going to kill myself", there's a hell of a lot room between "writing a specific prompt you hate" and "writing something in line with what your recip likes".
You don't have to force yourself to do the first, and anyone who expects you to is unreasonable. And if the recip only gave you one specific prompt and nothing else, I have no sympathy for them when you go ODAO.
But if you get a OD box full of general likes and you ignore them all in favour of writing your own thing because everything else will be "forced and awkward", maybe you're not cut out to write gift fic for strangers and you should reconsider your participation in fic exchanges.