Demure

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Comments

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

Anyway mine is that my recip DNW'd non-canonical MCD but one of the characters they requested is dead at the beginning of the canon. I kind of want to write a fic with a fair bit of grief in it because there's canonical grief over this character, but I don't know if this will be upsetting to the recipt if they've DNW'd non-canonical MCD.

I know it's not against the DNW, but idk. Would you be upset to receive grief hurt/comfort for a canonical death if you've DNW'd non-canonical death?

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

To me, non-canonical MCD is about being surprised by it in the fic. I don't want to read a fic and then get surprised by the death of my favourite character. So, the canonical death and grief over that would be just fine with me.

However, in this case, it might be best to just ask through the mods? Or look at the recipient's likes to see if they enjoy angst and darker narratives, or if their likes are full of fluff and comedy tropes, in which case it might not be the sort of fic that would make them happiest.

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

cyrt

Thanks for the view, nonny.

Yes, I was thinking about asking through the mods.

Unfortunately they have no likes :/ It's kind of a bare bones letter. I mean, it's ok, I like their prompts, but there are no clues in there about whether they'd be ok with grief h/c or not.

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

DC

I think asking through the mods is definitely a good idea.

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

I would be a bit wary of writing that for them, TBH. Like, I don't think it would be a dick move or anything, but I also don't think there's necessarily any easy way to predict whether they just don't want any additional main characters to die but would be cool with a fic focused on grief, or they mean it's okay to mention or imply that canon death still happened but aren't necessarily considering the possibility of a fic heavily focused on it, or they actually would rather not have any death at all but thought it would be a bit unreasonable to DNW the canonical death of a character who's been dead the whole time. Not that you can be expected to read their mind if they didn't give any other details, but it's still an area where I'd tread a bit carefully if they didn't explicitly opt in to it.

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

cyrt

Yup that's my fear exactly, that they DNW'd non-canonical MCD because they don't want to read about character death as a prominent part of their fic.

I think my perfectionism is kinda fucking me over here tbh, because they requested three characters who don't all have to interact between themselves but my brain was instantly like "I have to make them all be in this fic". This problem wouldn't even be a problem if I just decided to write a fic without the third character.

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

I can't tell from what you are describing here if the dead character gets resurrected somehow later in canon?

Because if someone requested Jesus as one of their characters, I think it might be fine to write fic about the Marys crying over his death if the fic ends with him popping back up alive at the end and everyone gets to hug it out.

But if they requested, like, Ned Stark, who dies in Season 1 and remains dead, my instinctive assumption would be that the recip is looking for early canon or pre-canon fic where the character was still alive, not for a story that features one of the requested characters being sad about the other requested character's death.

In general, if there's so much uncertainty about how the request and the DNW go together, I think asking the mods is always a good idea.

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

cyrt

Character dies early on and remains dead. However, the other two requested characters don't even know each other before his death and one of the prompts is for these characters interacting, so I have to assume recip is in principle fine with fic set post-canonical character death.

Yeah, you're right, mods are probably the way to go here.

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

That sounds fine to me. If they didn't want you to dwell on the death of the character who dies, they could have DNWd grief themes more generally, or DNWd death more generally.

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

As someone with that DNW, I'd be so fucking hype to receive grief/mourning, but I'm also pretty sure it's in my likes. /checks
Shit, it's not in my likes anymore, but it used to be. I guess I better put it back in for my next exchange!

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

I think there's a good chance they specified non-canonical MCD in their DNW so that it wouldn't rule out fic that deals with a canonical death.

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

+1000

Why are you worrying about the thing that they deliberately excluded from their DNW?

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

One of my pet peeves with how some ppl approach DNW culture: assuming a DNW indicates general squeamishness rather than...what the DNW says.

Re: Yuletide dilemmas

[(Anonymous)]

+1 I would probably generally hesitate to write a mourning-centered story for someone who didn't request it at least by implication, regardless of DNWs... but given what you've described of the letter, with the characters they requested and the deliberate exception in the DNW, I think that is close enough to a request for it.