One Wank After Another

[coalcube]

A blank assignment is a funny thing, isn't it? When you have it, you don't appreciate it, and when you miss it, it's gone.

Wednesday 10 December: Default deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 17 December: Assignment deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 24 December: Main collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 25 December: Madness collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 1 January: Author reveals, end of event (9pm UTC)

Mini-Challenges:

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Family Matters | Queering the Tide | Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational | TransTide 
Chromatic Yuletide | Unconventionyule | Wrapping Paper | Babytide | MultiLingYule 

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Comments

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

There should be limitations on what people can DNW.

I know that would be a nightmare to enforce, and thus will never happen, but:

DNWs didn't use to as formalized as they are now. You were just generally expected to Not Be An Asshole About It. I dug up this from the old archive, just out of personal curiosity:

"Your author may do their best to accommodate your more specific requests, but they are not bound by them. We hope that all concerned will be generous and gracious in their interactions. As with the writing half of the challenge, the more flexible you can be as a reader within the boundaries of what you like, the more enjoyment you're likely to get out of the process."

To be clear: I LIKE that we now have formalized DNWs. It gives the mods something concrete to point to rather than "you were being kind of shitty in how you interpreted that letter".

But. I do think (some/many) people are now using DNWs as a way to make the optional details not optional.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I feel you. There's a pretty thin line between "These elements in a gift would be a dealbreaker for me and I won't be able to enjoy the gift" and "I want the gift to be about these specific things and have no interest in anything else". My current assignment DNWs big chunks of canon and that's the point where I feel like this is just using DNWs to enforce your likes/prompts.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I could honestly quite happily roll with an exchange that only allowed you DNW specific archive warnings (plus optionally maybe a handful of other things like explicit smut in general, AUs or crossovers). Anything else you could still express as a preference in your optional details, but no more hair-splitting lists of 47 complicated yet fuzzily explained dealbreakers.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

exchange that only allowed you DNW specific archive warnings (plus optionally maybe a handful of other things like explicit smut in general, AUs or crossovers)

As someone who isn't fussed about archive warnings at all and has other DNWs that are absolute dealbreakers, this would be my nightmare exchange.

(On the other hand, that means if the recip doesn't DNW smut, you can write your rare kink for everyone, which sounds fun from the writer side. I bet there would be a ton more watersports fics.)

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

There probably wouldn't be a ton more watersports fic, unfortunately. I was around in the days before DNWs and I can't think of one time they got written without a very specific request or very clear spite.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

cyrt

I was around back then, too, but I think an exchange NOW that operated on "you aren't allowed to DNW things other than archive warnings, smut, crossovers and AUs" would not be the same as Yuletide 2004. This theoretical exchange explicitly doesn't let the recipient opt-out of specific kinks per its rules - so especially for kinks that frequently get DNWed in normal exchanges, writers would just be happy to have an exchange where the recip knows that if they don't opt-out of smut, they can receive anything.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like if there really were that many people sitting around desperate to write weird kinks for strangers, the yuleporn challenge would get more takers. Also the proportion of people who write super long DNWs or DNW all kink in Yuletide isn't actually that big, no matter how much we complain about it. If you really wanna write somebody watersports just because they didn't DNW it there's already lots and lots of options on the app.

And if you've already got a really specific thing you wanna write you don't actually have to wait for an exchange, plenty of people are just writing their kink smut on their own time, and those people aren't doing it solely in expectation of one recip comment.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

sc I mean if you did an exchange where the *selling point* was that everybody is explicitly opting in to all weird porn, writer's choice, sure, you'd get a lot of people who want weird porn (but your recips would presumably want it too.) (and now I kinda want that exchange too.) But that's different from one that limits formal DNWs but still generally expects people to try to write a fic based on what the recip wants.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

cyrt

Also the proportion of people who write super long DNWs or DNW all kink in Yuletide isn't actually that big, no matter how much we complain about it. If you really wanna write somebody watersports just because they didn't DNW it there's already lots and lots of options on the app.

You'd have to be an absolute arse to write someone extreme kink in a regular exchange, though. That's very different than an exchange that says "no DNWs except [allowed list of DNWs], everything else is fair game". If you sign up for that, you're pretty much opting into everything that's not DNW-able.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

especially for kinks that frequently get DNWed in normal exchanges, writers would just be happy to have an exchange where the recip knows that if they don't opt-out of smut, they can receive anything.

You'd think so, but there's weirdly less really weird kink in Kink Lucky Dip, which is explicitly designed for this, than I'd expect.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, yeah. I see people using a ton of DNWs to essentially commission a fic exactly to their specifications when looking through the requests. I don't love what it has done to exchange culture.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

+1

I have no idea how one would write rules that restrict DNWs without being an actual accessibility asshole, because real triggers are unpredictable and some people do have many more than others and there's no way to force people to prove they need them. But at this point it's become "Optional details are optional, unless you get one of those people who decides to railroad you with DNWs, in which case you're gonna write one very exact thing"