So, let me run something by you guys ...

[sholio]

I'm contemplating my requests for Yuletide (no, signups aren't open yet, but it's never too early to start planning, right?).

In pretty much all of the fandoms I'm requesting, I have some very definite "do not want" preferences on pairings. What I'm trying to figure out is how to phrase it so that I don't make my writer feel like she's been slapped in the face. I wouldn't normally be stressing about it too much (in the bigger fandom exchanges, I don't) but if there are only 3 people writing in a fandom and they're all big X/Y shippers, is it going to be too much of a blow if my request says "Please no X/Y"? (In one teeny fandom, all the fic I've ever seen is X/Y pairing that I don't want; I think that's the one I'm most worried about.) I don't know if it would be better or worse to explain why -- that I have an incest squick, that I don't want to see canon couple Y/Z broken up, or whatnot -- or just to ask for no X/Y or ... well, I just don't know. Where do you think the line falls between a polite request and a request that bashes someone's preferences?

Comments

[amathela.livejournal.com]

I think going on at length about what you don't like about a particular pairing is probably unnecessary, but a brief, non-judgemental note about why (a simple "I like the canon couple, and would rather it not be broken up," or "incest isn't really my thing," or whatever is applicable) probably isn't a bad idea - and knowing why you don't like a particular pairing, rather than just knowing that you don't, might clue your writer in to some of your general preferences regarding the fandom, too.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yeah, I was leaning towards adding a really short explanation; though my request notes are getting long enough as it is!

[snarkydame.livejournal.com]

I think that most of the writers try very hard to please their recipients, so a firm, but calm, request to avoid that pairing would go over pretty well. It would help if you just don't request those characters in your sign up form, so that you aren't accidently paired up with someone who only offered those characters (and likely, with that ship in mind) -- but then, that would mean that those characters may not show up in your fic at all, which isn't neccessarily what you want.

Still, going on more about what you do want, and would like to find in your fic would tend to make it easier for your writer to please you -- then, even if that ship was what they'd naturally write, they'd have a better idea of how to write something from a different point of view.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Well, the problem in general is that I want to request X and Y, but I don't want X and Y paired with each other. Otherwise I don't think I'd worry about it; I'd just request the characters I want and, if I feel *really* strongly about it, ask that certain characters not be in there. But I think there's a good chance in some of these fandoms that I might end up with an X/Y shipper writing for me, and I don't want my request to make her feel bad.

However, the point is to get a gift, and it'd be completely silly to be too wishy-washy in my request and end up with something I don't want!

[patk.livejournal.com]

>>However, the point is to get a gift, and it'd be completely silly to be too wishy-washy in my request and end up with something I don't want!<<

Exactly. So I would say, be polite but be honest. Say that you like to see x and y but that you dislike to see them paired with each other and add what you would generally prefer instead. After all, if a writer tries to write something for you that is supposed to be a gift and therefore to your taste, he/she *needs* the knowledge. Personally I think it's better for your author to know that beforehand instead of finding out later that you generally didn't like the very thing she wrote *for you*.

:-)

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

Hrm.

'Because I have a deep incest squick, I request that the stories do not have X/Y as the paring, please'.

?

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was thinking something like that. I just don't know if describing someone else's pairing as a squick for me would hurt their feelings, and I don't want to do that.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I don't think it would hurt most fans' feelings.

I'm going to request "Frasier" again this year, and again, I really want Niles/Frasier brother-slash like burning. But in my Dear Author letter, I will say that I understand some people are deeply disturbed by that idea and cannot write it and that I would appreciate a gen story that highlights the brothers' close relationship just as much.

I think if you succintly lay out why you don't want the pairing (and also include that you haven't seen any stories that *aren't* that pairing; a lot of authors respond well to the idea of a challenge or being the first to do something) and then spend a lot of time talking about what you *do* want the characters to do and how you conceive their relationship, that should be fine.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yeah ... ideally, all these different iterations of the characters could exist side by side; I just wouldn't want to phrase my request in such a way as to offend or hurt a writer who was set on a different reading of the characters. I'm mostly going to focus on what I want rather than what I don't; most people do really try to provide what their recipient wants, so just letting them know that ought to be most of what's needed ...

Edit: How bizarre, your comment isn't showing up in LJ at all, at least not for me! I got the notification, and I was able to reply to it (unlike when a comment is deleted), but it's just ... not there when I view the whole thread.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Huh.
I don't see my comment or your reply either.

Weird.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

It deleted the original comment and moved the thread to the end. Bizarro.

[trobadora]

That's an ongoing problem - the disappearing comments sometimes reappear spontaneously after a while. As far as I know, LJ is working on a fix.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

How very, very odd. *shakes LJ to see if comments fall out*

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info!

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

LJ's been messing up things like that all week wrong. Comments being emailed and not showing up or disappearing and reappearing or the comment count on the entry not matching the number of comments on the page. It's annoying.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

That happened to me a couple weeks ago and I've heard other people mention it, too.

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

I understand. But you're not saying that it's their pairing specifically, but rather that it's the concept of incest.

I suppose you could just say that incest is a squick so you don't want any pairings involving siblings?

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I think I'm just going to say I don't want X/Y and not be too much more specific. Looking through the New Years' list (i.e. the unfilled requests) is helping a bit, since I'm seeing how other people handled that problem.

[roga.livejournal.com]

I think if you mark a few characters and request "gen, please" that should be enough! And if the characters you're interested in aren't X and Y to begin with, just mark the other characters without X and Y when you sign up, instead of "Any". That way you won't have to deal with the issue at all; people who offer to write "any" in the fandom, and not just X and Y, should be prepared to write any without X and Y.

I don't think you need to worry about "bashing someone's preferences" at all. It's generally accepted and agreed upon that signing up to write for a rare fandom means you might be asked to write gen or pairings or characters you're less familiar with, and that's one of the challenges of this ficathon. People need to be careful with what they offer to write, not in what they request.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

The only problem with requesting "gen" is that some of these fandoms include canon pairings that I'd like to see included; I was tying myself in knots trying to figure out a way to say that I don't mind these pairings over here, but I do mind those pairings over there ...

You're right, though, that one of the big things about doing an exchange like this (well, any exchange, really) is that you might get requests that aren't your normal thing; I've even been assigned to write a pairing that I'd specifically asked not to write (not in Yuletide) and ended up enjoying myself, so ... who knows? And I'm not feeling too concerned about it after thinking it through a little bit more. The comments really help. :)

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

Dude. As long as you stay calm and, as you said, polite about it, I don't think you, of all people, run the risk of bashing anything or anyone.

I mean, you're not required at all to explain your preferences, and that you're worrying about hurting someone's feelings by asking for something makes me pretty confident you'll figure it ou.

Uh, I hope that makes sense.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

*g* Thanks; it does make sense! And the discussion here has helped with my dilemma.

[trobadora]

*points* What she said.

And a lot of X/Y shippers, myself included, are perfectly happy writing gen about X and Y so long as no one tries to tell them that X/Y slash (or het, as the case may be) is OMG EVIL AND WRONG, which I figure you're in no danger of saying. *g*

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Excellent! That's what I was hoping for. :) And I definitely hope not to give the impression from my request that I think there's anything wrong with it, just ... it's not what I want.

[sheron]

I don't think you have to explain, just say no thank you to a pairing. I mean, we all have preferences and the whole point of Yuletude is to have them met to some extent. If something squicks you, whether it's a pairing or something else, I think just saying as much to the writer is enough.

And as far as worrying about offending people...some people will get offended no matter how much you bend over backwards for them. And some won't.

[sheron]

That said I think 'squick' does have a fairly negative connotation. If I was in this position I would stay away from using that word...

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

And that's the sort of thing I *was* wondering about; is it enough to just say "please no X/Y" or do I need to explain, and if I do explain, how detailed can I be without causing potential offense to my writer? Right now I'm leaning towards just "no X/Y" and maybe a wee bit of explanation depending on circumstances.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I see your curly tree and raise you another curly tree! :D

Anyway ... yeah; I guess all you can really do is say "This is what I want, and this is what I don't want" and hope that people will respect it and won't feel as if their own tastes are being called into question. And like you and a couple other people have said, it's just how Yuletide works ...

[sheron]

Yay, pretty curly trees! :D

Yeah, exactly, that's how it works. Besides there's also the undercurent of a 'rare' fic going on there -- like you can request rare fandoms, or new fandoms. So it's understood that sometimes the most mainstream pairing won't be the one you get to write for Yuletude of all things. :)

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's any reason you can't just say "I'd love this, but please not X/Y" without any explanation. It doesn't matter if it's a squick or just not your cup of tea - it's not something you want for a gift you're requesting.

(I'm in a similar conundrum. I seriously suspect I'm going to fail my resistance throw and sign up for Yuletide and my main pre-Stargate fandom is a small Yuletide-available fandom and I definitely could write for it, but I absolutely will not write non-gen fic for that fandom (and I think it's gotten much less gen-focused than it was while I was in it) and I'm pretty sure I can't request then when signing up as an author - so do I say I can write that fandom?)

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yeah, I can sympathize; the fandom that I'm having the most trouble with is one in which the only fics I've ever found for it (largely from Yuletide) are focused on an incest pairing -- which *are* the characters I want to write or read about, but not as a couple! I know I could write them in a gen kind of way, but I am pretty sure I couldn't make that leap to writing them (or thinking about them) sexually. I am definitely requesting them (with the caveat) but I don't know whether I should offer that fandom as a writing fandom, as much as I'd love to write for it.

But I think you're right that just being firm but fairly non-specific with my likes/dislikes is probably the best thing.

I seriously suspect I'm going to fail my resistance throw

Hee. I love nerddom! :D (The sad thing is when I say stuff like this around friends and family who don't have that geek/gamer background, and they give me that slightly baffled look ...)

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

Man, I just keep staring at your curly tree icon.....it's gorgeous!

*nods* Honestly, I'm not sure I'd want to write in the fandom I was mentioning for Yuletide since I think of that exchange as a chance to branch out and not write a fandom I'd been entrenched in. But I feel like it makes the mods job easier if you volunteer every fandom you could write in and I probably don't really have all that many of them. But it's a fandom that skirts the RPF line enough that I cannot, will not write ship/slash/etc.
So, yeah, very similar to your problem.

Yes to nerddom and the sadness. In college we practically had our own, mostly nerdy, language going on and I had to train myself out of it once I left.

[snarkydame.livejournal.com]

They do make that caveat though-- that optional details (like gen/het/slash) are optional. So if you do offer to write certain characters you wouldn't be forced into writing something you just don't want to. It might end up a sorta shippy gen, or a pretty gen-like ship, but the recipient would know you did your best to both please them and keep true to your own sensibilities. So if you'd like to try writing for that fandom you should do so! Does that make sence? Who knows. . . Maybe you'd make someone Yuletide, just by writing those characters as you want to write them.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

As long as you're polite about it and not ranting on and on about how much you hate the pairing (which I can't imagine you doing in a request anyway!), I think it's fine to specify a pairing you don't want.

I mean, really, if people are so hurt by the fact that someone exists who doesn't like their pairing, that's their problem, not yours.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yeah, I think that I'm just going to make my likes/dislikes clear, and that ought to be good enough!