coaltide | One Wank After Another

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2025

One Wank After Another

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.

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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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Yuletide Discord for Hippos & Exchanges After Dark for namespace ~~drama~~ 18+ discussion.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CYRT

I guess that's true. I'm definitely in group 1, and I do exchanges all year round. Most of my fics are good to excellent to me, but stuff like smart worldbuilding and writing skill doesn't really factor into whether I like or dislike a fic - beyond it being actually 'what is happening here? these are words but the way they're combined doesn't make sense' unreadable, but that's vanishingly rare.

DC

Ha, yep, I'm definitely a type 2 person and have only ever done Yuletide, at least up until this year where I branched out into Casefic Exchange. I think of myself as having no DNWs because I just want good fic for my fave extremely rare fandoms, and the things that ruin a gift for me have nothing to do with content, it's all skill-level-related stuff you can't actually rule out with DNWs, like 'character voices don't sound enough like themselves' or 'painfully unfunny humour'. I put in a few token DNWs to stop people panicking about the fact I haven't listed any, but in general I don't like to rule stuff out, because someone going ODAO and writing something wildly off the map of what I usually read but that they were super into and passionate about is genuinely more likely to produce something that works for me than if the writer makes a very forced attempt at following my likes that they weren't feeling at all. If it feels like an in-character version of the canon characters doing whatever random-ass thing they're doing, that's automatically a better gift and more enjoyable fic for me than one where my blorbos in name only blandly act out a trope I said I particularly like.

+1000 same here.

CYYRRT

2. Oh, that's me. Got me in a box! Illuminating, coalie, thank you. Except for the part about being Yuletide-oriented, I'm a year-rounder.

Although I think there's some middle ground between the two, because I'm a lot more likely to overlook mid writing for the sake of a few nice moments if it's the rare fandom and blorbo of my heart.

I’m more of a #2 in terms of whether I *love* a given fic— but I’m also only in tiny fandoms, so I’m willing to give just about anything a good-faith try and can probably find something I like about it. But I also just don’t find it that hard to appreciate a gift fic and write a generous comment emphasizing the things I liked even if there are some things about it that I find mildly irritating, never mind whether or not it’s s fic I would consider “objectively good” or even plan to reread.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CYRT

I'm not entirely sure if the difference between us is purely semantical or something more fundamental. Because I do think annoying = bad gift (which does point to a fundamental difference) but on the other hand, "Eh, not feeling this bit" (which happens a lot but doesn't really affect my enjoyment of the gift overall) isn't something I would consider something that annoys me. Annoyance is a stronger feeling to me - so maybe it's just semantics after all

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.

+1

My gifts are very often godawful in new and exciting ways, but no one hears that from me in namespace except my best fandom friend.

Serious question: Why do you keep doing exchanges, then? I don't get it.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

(Anonymous) - 2025-11-12 10:28 (UTC) - Expand

CYRT

I have plenty of friends in the exchange scene - we haven't had fandom overlap for over a decade, so no need to lie to each other about whether we like our gifts, and we do talk about bad gifts, but it's a once-in-a-blue-moon situation rather than a common occurrence. None of us would continue doing exchanges if we felt like that because what's the point if you just put in effort and get bad gifts out of it. Like, I have masochistic tendencies, but not like that.

I feel like some people either get a gift they loved or one they hated? But most people don't. Like on my birthday, most of my gifts are kinda mid. It's nice to get a gift, it was fun to see what they did with my prompt and characters, new fic for my small fandoms is always a win, being part of the event and sharing the excitement on reveals is great, I had a good time
reading it and it's nice to read stuff I might skip on a normal day, expand my horizons. Also there's about a 55% chance the writing is kinda mid and I'll never feel the need to reread because there's lots of better stuff to read. This makes sense because most fic is mid, that's what mid means.

That's not at all the same as I always get a bad fic.

(10% of the time it's just bad. The other 35% of the time it rocks my socks off and becomes a favorite, so it's not like I never get something I adore.)

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

(Anonymous) - 2025-11-12 14:38 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

(Anonymous) - 2025-11-12 14:50 (UTC) - Expand

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!

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

Thanking someone for giving you a gift is not in fact a upper-middle-class white female exclusive norm, wtf.

Honestly if there's a behavior unique to that group I'd say it's the opposite: throwing a shitfit because you *gave* them a *list*, how *dare* they get you a gift that wasn't *exactly* what you asked for, this is model *52a* and you asked for *52a-x*.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

(Anonymous) - 2025-11-13 04:54 (UTC) - Expand

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