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)

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Comments

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, you're explaining that's what you mean when you DNW all original characters and why a barmaid silently handing someone a drink while they have an argument in a bar is a dealbreaker than means you can't read your gift and have to go sit in a corner and cry for a bit.

I mean maybe you don't DNW all original characters, this is coal, nobody can keep straight who said what and who's being hypothetical and who's making up examples and who thinks two comments are the same coalie but aren't. But at the very least the argument you were making is that this is a valid reason to DNW all original characters and this is the result you would hope to get from it.

And I can also think of a bunch of wildly different ways to write a coffeeshop AU fic too, they don't have to be the same genre or setting at all, you can write a fluffy coffeeshop AU and an intense suspense coffeeshop AU with spies and a coffeeshop AU in space! and a canon-divergence coffeeshop AU and a whumpy coffeeshop AU and a pornographic coffeshop AU. I have read and/or written all of those. And yet it's still pretty railroady to force your writer to guess which of those you want as opposed to, you know, just explaining in your likes what you like.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

means you can't read your gift and have to go sit in a corner and cry for a bit.

come back when you can argue in good faith

/nominally on your side

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

+1 from this DC disappointed at the unnecessarily snippy digs

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

I DNW OCs because I don't want OCs in the fics I read. I find them distracting and annoying.

A coalie asked me what type of fic I like to read and I gave them examples. That doesn't mean that this is WHY I DNW OCs.

a barmaid silently handing someone a drink while they have an argument in a bar is a dealbreaker than means you can't read your gift and have to go sit in a corner and cry for a bit

Yeah, I'm sure you're arguing in good faith.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

DC

It's too bad CYRT had to be a dick about it, because I don't blame you for not addressing their points, but you didn't really address their points.

You said people DNW things because they're dealbreakers in fic, and went on to list OCs (among other things) as an example. You say you find them "distracting and annoying". That still doesn't really gel as a "dealbreaker" to me, and using the word like that does more to support the idea that a lot of people are using DNWs extremely casually, as a way of making the fic follow their likes, than to discredit it.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

c cyrt rt yeah, I was being more snarky than I probably should have been, but that is exactly why I added that extra bit: if you're using "dealbreaker" to mean "I was annoyed by a distracting writing choice" instead of "I couldn't finish reading the fic and had to go have a good cry" you aren't using "dealbreaker" the way a lot of people use dealbreaker.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I was using "dealbreaker" as in "in 9 of 10 cases when I run into fic that uses OCs in the wild, I will stop reading because I'm distracted to a point where I'm not enjoying the fic anymore". I'm not going to cry, sorry, and I'm not going to have a panic attack. If that's required for something to be a dealbreaker for you, I don't have any dealbreakers I guess.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

No, fair enough, "unable to finish the fic" would count as a dealbreaker for most people, the crying is just a garnish.

That said I do think there's a difference between "unable to finish the fic" and "wouldn't bother to finish the fic if I encountered it in the wild". A huge proportion of all the gift fic I've gotten is stuff I probably wouldn't have pushed through in the wild because there's so much fic out there that I can afford to be extremely picky. But in an exchange I know there's no way I can guarantee I'll get that, you can't DNW bad writing, and I'm prepared to push through a gift I might not otherwise in order to find the things I really do like about it, which are almost always there if I'm willing to put in the effort and the grace. That's just how exchanges are.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

DC +1
Yeah, I think this is a case of unrealistically high standards. If you're that picky about what you can even finish reading, then it makes sense to use DNWs to get something that's so finely tailored, but I think past a certain point of pickiness you're definitely in "treating giftfic like a commission" territory... which was the original topic of this thread.

Like, god, if I backclicked out of every gift fic with something I find annoying or not quite up my alley, I would have more rejected gifts than accepted ones.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Like, god, if I backclicked out of every gift fic with something I find annoying or not quite up my alley, I would have more rejected gifts than accepted ones.

That's absolutely crazy to me. Like, WTF, no?! The vast majority of my gifts don't contain things I find annoying. If I find something annoying, I DNW it. If it's something I can't DNW because it's too vague or tied to a specific canon, I either stop requesting the canon or only do the type of exchanges where that vague thing isn't going to come up.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I think we've had a similar discussion on here before and the conclusion is:

1. some people will truly love any fic that has their blorbos in it and avoids a short list of things they dislike, because they mostly just love their blorbos

2. some people will truly love a good, well-written fic whether it has their blorbos or not, but the things that make it good and well-written for them are almost impossible to quantify, or they're things like "really accurate canon voices" or "really smart worldbuilding that makes me see canon in a new way" that you can't DNW for because you can't DNW "mid writing skill".

People in 1. are like of course you DNW everything you find annoying, why would you risk getting a fic you don't love. People in 2. are like of course you're probably going to get a fic you don't love that's just how it works because people have all different levels of writing skill and interest, that's not the point and it doesn't mean the gift was bad

Intuitively I feel like type 1 people are way more likely to be in year-round exchange fandom because that's how they get fic they really love. And type 2 people are more likely to be mostly-yuletide exchange people because yuletide is less about fic to order and more about sharing your rare fandoms and trying new things and such for a lot of people.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

I mean, I'm easily annoyed by a lot of things, many of which it's just impractical to DNW, or I'd be DNWing 100 innocuous uses of the thing for the sake of catching the one specific use that actually rubs me the wrong way. My main dealbreaker in gifts - as in, the thing most likely to make me struggle to even finish it - is "it's boring and nothing happens", and I wouldn't know how to DNW that.

But if there are things to love, too, then it's going to be a very positive experience on the whole.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I remain fascinated at how exchanges, which are supposed to give you a gift you want, so often wind up about people forcing themselves to read a gift they don't really like to say something nice about it because otherwise you're being mean.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

dc

I only ever hear this on meme and coal.

Yes, sure, occasionally you get a bad gift, but it should be the exception not the rule. "Most of my gifts are bad and have stuff in it that annoys me" is completely unfeasible to me. I wouldn't do exchanges if I felt like that.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

DC

Speaking as that coalie, you misread me and I think you misread me in a very telling way.

What I said: "if I backclicked out of every gift fic with something I find annoying or not quite up my alley, I'd have more rejected gifts than accepted ones".

Nowhere did I say that every gift that contains something I find annoying/ not quite up my alley is a bad gift! In fact I've been weirdly lucky this year even with wildcards like OW. But in several thousand of otherwise enjoyable prose, it's still quite possible for something to crop up that makes me go 'Eh, not feeling this bit but let's keep reading'.

Annoyance!=bad gift.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

You only ever hear this on meme and coal because nobody wants to say "most of my gifts are kinda mid" in namespace. That's the kind of thing the anon spaces exist for.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

DC

Lol, coalie. That's like saying "I can't believe first dates, which are supposed to let you meet someone you like, so often wind up with having to force yourself to say 'You seem nice, but I'm not interested in a second date', otherwise you're being rude".

The ideal outcome and the statistical outcome have very little to do with each other!

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

It's very....revealing of the upper-middle-class white female professional class hobbyist circle exchanges began in, let's say.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

You say you find them "distracting and annoying". That still doesn't really gel as a "dealbreaker" to me

I genuinely can't wrap my mind around that, sorry.

Of course being distracted and annoyed by something I'm reading for fun is a dealbreaker and makes me backclick.

Unless you're arguing that only actual triggers count as dealbreakers or DNWs? In which case, sorry, that's not how I approach fandom, reading, hobbies in general or exchanges in particular.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

DC

I'd personally consider something a "dealbreaker" in a fic if it caused me to finish the fic with an overall sense of annoyance and dissatisfaction. It sounds like tiny OC snippets meet that criteria for the coalie who has been saying they are distracted and annoyed by OCs.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

DC

"This fic was dissatisfying" and "This fic was unreadable" are very different things to me. Trying to DNW anything that might contribute to a fic being dissatisfying just sounds like trying to DNW bad writing.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

DC

You can't DNW bad writing because that's subjective and vague. You can, however, DNW specific things that make writing bad for you (the most popular one would be people DNWing epithets).

And DNWing other specific and avoidable things that are not "bad writing" per se but also are guaranteed to make a fic dissatisfying to you is normal. As a writer, I would hope that my recip would do that rather than be aware that something makes a gift dissatisfying to them and just not tell me. D:

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

I kind of doubt that actually works. If someone is bad enough writer to use epithets, then them painstakingly amputating every epithet in their story will probably not save the fic from being bad.

But you (generic) do you.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

SC

*overuse epithets, smh.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

I don't disagree. But if someone is *specifically* annoyed by epithets, DNWing them will help them anyway. It doesn't mean that the fic will be great, but it means that it will not have the thing that annoys me.

That's all DNWs do. They don't guarantee you a fic that fits your id like a glove or that's amazing/great/good. But they do guarantee you a fic that doesn't contain any actual dealbreakers.

If a fic not having "good writing" is a dealbreaker for you, of course, then that's a problem. But that's not at all the same as "my dealbreaker are epithets / original characters / unrequested relationships".