coaltide | The Coal Game

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2021

The Coal Game

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Who stayed up all night tracking a source in its original Latin
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Sometimes stories are full of "I didn't know I loved that but now I do and I have another thing I love wtf" which is the opposite of a surprise DNW.

so, say the only thing to read in the waiting room of waiting was a printout of a fic containing nothing from your likes list, but full of surprise new things for your likes list.

Would you rather receive a fic like that, or 1.5k checklist fic for YT?

CYRT

so, say the only thing to read in the waiting room of waiting was a printout of a fic containing nothing from your likes list, but full of surprise new things for your likes list.

No, I mean really: that's not possible for me.

I know what I like and what I don't like. My likes list is long. Every fic that doesn't inclcude anything from that list by default either hits a DNW or hits something I would DNW if I could.

SC

For the sake of the game, if it was between '1.5k of soulless fic written for your prompt and 15k of amazingly written total ODAO', I'd choose the former!

It's just the '15k of amazingly written total ODAO that you end up enjoying' part that throws me for a loop.

DC

I'm with you. I have a lot of likes, and many of them are very broad or general, to the point that I think even someone trying to write me deliberate spitefic would have trouble avoiding all of them. I would consider it ODAO if someone wrote me a fic where the only likes they included were the really broad ones, but it's still perfectly likely that I'd love the fic.

CYRT

My likes aren't even particularly broad, but if you write a fic that doesn't hit my DNWs, you'll likely automatically hit some of my likes. There are one or two exceptions of things I hate that I can't DNW where an author could theoretically say "fuck this person's very clearly stated preferences, I'm going to write the opposite" and not run into a DNW, so it's not like ODAO isn't possible at all - but that's not going to be a story I'll enjoy, ever.

No, I mean really: that's not possible for me.

So ... Have you never encountered a new thing you didn't know you liked until you found it?

CYRT

With fic? Not in a decade or so, no. I've been reading fic for so long that if a trope exists, I already have some kind of opinion about, so it's either in my likes or DNWs. If it's something where my opinion varies and I'm particular about how I like it, I generally DNW the broad theme rather than say 'if you write A/B/O, please only do it that way and not this way'.

Huh. I'm glad I haven't run into the wall of "no more things I did not know I liked until I found them".

I hope I never do.

Hard agree. That sounds terrible.

CYRT

I suppose it depends on the kind of person you are? I'm really glad that I reached the stage where I figured out exactly what I like and what I don't like. For me that makes it easier to find things I like, because I know exactly what I look for. I wish it was as easy with everything as it is with fic.

What if a new trope is invented? Like hanahaki. Do you update your likes/DNWs list all the time?

CYRT

I do update my likes/DNW list occasionally, though that's rarely about new things and more about clarifying phrasing.

I think that most tropes that are "newly invented" fall under umbrellas that already exist, and which I would already like or DNW. In this particular case, I didn't need to change my details to include hanahaki specifically because it runs against several of my more general DNWs.

NCYRT

To me this question seems beside the point. It would be hard for someone to write me a fic that didn't contain ANY of my likes, but it could easily ALSO contain new things I didn't know I liked before.

The confusion here for me is that in my signups, I try to make sure people know that I like a variety of things, sometimes including every possible version of a thing. For example, I might list "drabbles, ficlets, vignettes, fics near the minimum word count, and longfic" all as likes, because I don't want my writer or any possible treaters to hesitate about gifting me any of those things. If I list all of those as "likes," it's just about impossible for my writer to go full ODAO. But besides hitting my "like" for vignettes (or whatever), they could also include lots of other stuff that I didn't ask for but would enjoy.

Wow you must be awful to write for! Is your likes list longer than the average fic?

Cyrt

No, it really isn't. Since I get lots of repeat writers and treats, I assume they like writing for me. But if you hate it when people are precise about what they want and don't want, yes, you'd hate to have me as a recipient.

+1

My likes list is long enough that I have it split into sections (to keep it readable) and includes some pretty broad topics, it'd be basically impossible to include none of my likes and write a fic that I would enjoy. They wouldn't be able to write fixit, canon divergence, missionfic, casefic, rescuefic, fluff, curtainfic, hurt/comfort, or worldbuilding because all of those are in my likes. Banter? Nope, that's in the likes list. Also I guess they just can't write any romance because pre-relationship, get togethers, and established relationship are all in my likes.

I've gotten fic before that only hit one of the broad likes and absolutely loved it, so I'm pretty easy, but I can't imagine liking something that didn't hit at least one.

Sometimes I wonder if conversations like these are just coalies who only list specific things in their likes and coalies list pretty broad topics in their likes talking past each other.

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