Don't Stop Coal Now!

[coalcube]

Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real coal time
I feel alive
And the exchange I'll turn it inside out, yeah
I'm floating around in agony
So, (don't stop me now)
(Don't stop me)
'Cause I'm having a coal time, having a coal time~


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Comments

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

op

really?? genuinely not trying to be snarky but especially with a femslash or boyslash prompt i would never default to friendly interaction without at least some pre-slash or additional UST. (to be clear, i don't think the fic i got was malicious or full no homo, it just... was not what i asked for!)

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

This is legitimately common advice given to people who only write gen or just don't ship a pairing when they're given shippy prompts (in a non shipping exchange like this one). People are told that rather than default, write them as friends -- especially canon-like -- and to let the recip read the pre-slash or ust into it. As long as you don't go "only friends no homo".

I'm a multishipper, but sometimes the prompts just lend themselves to preslash or ust, and I would always assume that "A/B or just A" meant A&B preslash or friendship would also be acceptable (though not ideal), but just no solo B.

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Writing gen interactions without blocking the potential for the ship is the most basic sort of advice for these sort of situations. If someone is only interested in their two requested characters together in a / fic and only wants one of them if gen, then they need to say so because that's just not the norm.

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

+2

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

+3

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

+1 Also, for many people who only write gen, it's because they legitimately have trouble writing ship - "just add a line or two of UST or pre-ship" sounds easy but some people would have no clue how to do that, or where the line is between subtle ship and plain friendship fic (which is why they only write gen. Or like I used to, only gen and porn, and sometimes you just can't porn.)

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

nc

The fic ends with the two of them holding hands. Boom: you've written ship fic.

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

This does not always follow from the fic written though.

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

Because friends never hold hands, I guess?

Like I did eventually figure out after years in fandom that if at any point in the fic, they a) touched each other or b) had a thought about the other person looking good or c) had a thought about how they would like to spend more time with the person, it would be read as shippy, so I am now much more likely to tag non-porn stuff as shippy. But that was not actually intuitive? Because those are not things exclusive to people you want to date? And that's exactly the kind of thing someone who doesn't do ship fic isn't going to find intuitive either. Which might be why they're doing a non-ship-matching exchange.

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

In a case where you match on groups of characters and not ships specifically, it kind of is what you asked for.

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

+1

You requested these two characters, you got them.

Re: Who Got Coal

[(Anonymous)]

+1

You got what you asked for. You didn't get optional extras, which are, in fact, optional.