coaltide | C.R.E.A.M

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2021

C.R.E.A.M

Coal ruins exchanges around me - spitey spitey fic y'all.

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If you got a sign-up with no DNWs in the optional details and a letter thread that said outright "I have no DNWs in these fandoms", would you believe them or would you assume they were naive?

Naive

How about "I have no DNWs for these fandoms up to and including literal squicking"

There are worse things in the world than squicking, so I would assume this covers all DNWs up to but not surpassing squicking.

da

I wouldn't even know what that means. Some people get squicked by feet. Others get squicked by wound fucking. Others get squicked by the color teal.

That DNW amounts to "I have no DNWs for these fandoms up to and including stuff I hate", which... what even?

NC

I'm pretty sure they're referencing the fandom etymology of the term "squick" - AFAIK the story is that it originated as onomatopoeia for skullfucking, and from there it turned into a more general term for "thing that viscerally grosses someone out". Literal squick = non-generalized, actual skullfucking sound effect.

Literal squicking is skullfucking. (“Squick” is the sound it would make, according to the denizens of alt.tasteless in 1994.) The more expansive definition derives from that one.

Yeah the first fic I read with it (in the 90's) was basically like, intercrural except it was between the lobes of a living person's brain after the top of the skull was removed.

(I am always delighted when Tumblr kiddies complain the term is too "cutesy".)

I might still be doubtful, because most people have at least a few DNWs. But it would encourage me to take you at your word, because once you've announced that you're alright with literal squicking, you probably won't react badly even if you do get a DNW in your gift.

If I received that in a letter, I'd still err on the side of sticking close to canon content and tone.

I still wouldn't include extremely controversial content unless I got a specific go ahead. (Eg "I have no DNWs, and I'm fine with character death, torture, and noncon.")

I definitely would use common sense about sensitive subjects, and not take this as a challenge to write the darkest fic I could. (Eg "Character A tries to save Character B from dying of COVID!")

What if one of the fandoms had canon vivisection kink? Would you at least assume it meant anything up to what's in canon is fine? I don't want to have to list out everything I'm fine with and end up like Renault person upthread, but I honestly can't think of anything that would be over my line this year.

For something as unusual as vivisection, I'd probably be more comfortable writing it if the letter said, "Anything up to what's in canon is fine."

I assume a person is ok with anything included in the canon unless they explicitly say otherwise.

If you're a Hannibal fan, for example, I assume you're okay with cannibalism in fic.

So if the canon has vivisection, I'd assume you're okay with that.

I'd believe them because they said so outright! It's not just a void situation. But I also never write very out there things unless they're specifically prompted anyway, not because I'm scared to but because my natural wheelhouse tends pretty vanilla.

Naive. I'd take them a lot more seriously if they specified "I have no DNWs for these fandoms including common squick and triggers, from character death and gore to out-there kinks and controversial subjects".

I'd believe them, because that's how my optional details + letter look, and I mean it. Like other coalies, I'd believe them more if they specified further, which is what I do: "I have no DNWs in these fandoms, including kink/content covered by AO3's archive warnings/anything you might otherwise think of as opt-in".

I still wouldn't be inclined to wander very far from their actual prompts and/or likes, because that's just how I approach exchange gifts - but I'd worry less about content decisions I was making later in the writing process, since I wouldn't have to go back and check those content decisions against their DNW list.

Ayrt I'm not sure I'd be comfortable explicitly saying "even super controversial subjects that are usually opt in" because I don't actually want to appear to encourage, like, fic about how the Covid vaccines are a Jewish-Islamic conspiracy to turn our aryan kids trans.

(But I don't think I'd DNW it either because tbh if you'd write that unprompted I'd rather you did, so we know that about you now.)

da

(But I don't think I'd DNW it either because tbh if you'd write that unprompted I'd rather you did, so we know that about you now.)

Honestly, that seems like a very bad strategy when there's stuff you genuinely don't want, especially since your "I have no DNWs, write me anything" essentially means that you're okay with everything that's being written unprompted.

Like, I can see why you'd side eye someone writing you RL conspiracy theories they appear to support, but what if you'd get, say, toddlercon cannibalism fic? Because "no DNWs" means "no DNWs", and I wouldn't side-eye an author who took you at your word.

I'd be fine with toddlercon cannibalism! It's not my top wish or anything but one of my fandoms has a toddler where it wouldn't be OOC and if my prompt led them there I'd happily follow. I wouldn't think my writer actually supported toddlercon cannibalism.

And it wouldn't ruin my yuletide to get Hitler-was-right fic, I'm one of the people who considers my gift just the really nice cherry on top of all the rest, I'd be happy to have done the service of taking them out of the match pool for everyone else and then go read other stuff. But I don't particularly want them to see my letter in the app and go "oh here's my chance, someone who wants my concentration camp guard/prisoner romance at Dachau!"

AYRT

Sure - I meant more "you could phrase it like whichever of these options best expresses what you actually mean, possibly more than one of them", not "you need to put in all of them or else your lack of DNWs looks insincere"!

As for your parenthetical, agreed. I think if someone is the kind of person who would write you fic about how Covid vaccines are a Jewish-Islamic conspiracy to turn kids trans, because TECHNICALLY you didn't not ask for it, no DNW in the world could have gotten you a reasonable good-faith gift out of them. Most people are going into Yuletide genuinely hoping to write you a gift you'll enjoy; the ones who are looking for ways to rules-lawyer your optional details so they can wave their edgelord flag because look, you gave them ~permission are few and far between, and not worth customizing your approach to exchanges over.

believe as long as their letter was normal and they have a good track record of commenting on gifts

Mh, if it's in a letter thread I definitely think they know about exchanges that opting out of DNWs is a conscious choice. I might react differently if it was in the optional details.

I would believe them in terms of writing whatever I was inspired to write without worrying about hitting a squick or trigger. I would not, however, take it as a challenge.

This is actually exactly what I'm going for, I may end up stealing some of your wording!

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