Merry Crisis

[coalcube]

On the 7^th night of Hanukkah my vindictive author gave to me....

Madness Opens: Mon 26 Dec
Author Reveals: Sun Jan 1

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Comments

Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

I got assigned a friend and wrote a story I thought she’d like. She doesn’t, and doesn’t realize the author is on the discord where she’s expressing disappointment/criticism. Do I perma-anon this? Do I warn her I wrote it? This is weird, uncomfortable situation, but it’s going to be worse after reveals.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

I would orphan it to avoid the conversation, tbh.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

Shame on your friend tbh for complaining about their gift in public.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

All gift complaining should be private, and should be preceded by "hey, you didn't write for me, did you?" prior to the complaining!

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

Nope. If it's a healthy friendship, you'll get past the awkward. Keeping this to yourself will likely breed unhappiness and resentment. You meant well, but even when we're writing for someone we know, we don't always get it right.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

There's no reason to embarrass the friend by being open about it when you can just orphan it and accept the meaning well part quietly on your own.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe you're not the type of person who would end up ruminating/stewing on it endlessly if you didn't confront the situation head-on. Maybe the OP isn't. For me, though, I'd basically HAVE to say something, or accept that I'd be losing the friendship six months to a year from now.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

Or maybe the embarrassment would teach her a lesson.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

"Friend, I realize this is going to be awkward, but I wrote your gift fic. I'm sorry to hear it didn't land; I truly thought you would like it. [for treats: I will remove your name from it.] [for a gift: I will not be offended if you reject it.] No harm, no foul. That said, now that you know, please stop complaining about it where I can see it. No need to respond to this, again I am aware it is an awkward situation but I felt it would be worse if I didn't say something now."

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

+1.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

+1 This is good advice depending on how close the friendship is. If it's more like a loose acquaintance, maybe better to orphan and move on.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

This is an incredibly mature way to handle the situation.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

I am in awe at this adult-level conversation.

Also in horror - if our characters did this in fic, 1/3 of all plots would be resolved in 2 pages! Then again ... it would leave more time for them to bone.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

In an ideal world, we would all have adult-level interactions with other people, and leave the drama and stewing to our fictional characters.

...Alas!

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

Disagree, fic can still be interesting with communication

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

Disagree with the other anons. I would not acknowledge any of her complaining. When reveals come, the awkwardness will shift to her when she realises how badly she's behaved, thus leaving her obligated to apologise to you.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

Then you risk ending up with the same situation you could end up with if you orphan/leave the fic in the anon collection: she might end up so resentful that the friendship ends up cooling. It's just that she's the one who'd be doing it instead of you doing it without telling her why.

Your advice here is what you do if you're trying to "win." If you're prioritizing the friendship, you get ahead of it, and communicate, and hopefully your friend is a reasonable & apologetic person in response. If they aren't, then the friendship might still blow up, but you did the best you fucking could.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

+1.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

DC

Disagree. She'll feel awkward enough when it goes live that this will compound her feelings - after all, right now she feels wronged because she thinks she got a crap gift and is probably assuming things like, the author didn't try / the author has the opposite of my preferences and wanted me to know that / etc. Finding out it was by a friend won't make her want to apologise, it'll make her feel doubly betrayed. Even if author!nonny meant well and actually put a lot of effort into it. Whether the recipient's reaction is based in anything logical right now, finding out it's by a friend is not going to make her feel better about it or, crucially, more likely to re-evaluate her criticisms.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

Is there a third party on the discord you could ask to step in for you? Just a gentle nudge of "hey other people in that fandom are here, maybe cool it til reveals just in case?" Give her a chance to step back and apologize before it has to be a giant thing (and you get more hurt.)

I also wrote for someone in my private discord and luckily the recip is at least pretending to like it, but also my beta is there, and it was great to know they'd run interference as needed.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

Could be worse, nony. You could be roommates.

*Roommates*.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

oh my god they were roommates

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

That's awkward being in the same Discord, but that's on your friend for expressing disappointment in namespace.

If I couldn't leave the conversation and pretend I wasn't ever there, I'd want to say something mild like, "Sorry you didn't like it, I'm sure the author tried to give you a good gift." And then bow out until reveals.

I disagree with the nonnies saying you should tell your friend. It's against Yuletide rules to deanon before reveals. I don't like the idea of setting a precedent where it's okay if someone's bagging your fic, and you want to defend yourself.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

omg it's not "setting a precedent." Nothing this coalie does is going to somehow affect the Greater Yuletide Community, especially since, fyi, people de-anon in DMs all the time.

Re: Awkward situation

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry to report that if that's setting a precedent, I already did that several years ago, and not even in a situation as bad as the one this coalie is in. (I have a friend who every year reads a lot of Yuletide and DMs me detailed critiques works they especially like or dislike, and one year during the anon period they told me they were about to read my story. I immediately told them it was mine. I'll do the same if they read my story this year before reveals.)