Frederick the Great, discussion post 16

[cahn]

We have slowed down a lot, but are still (sporadically) going! And somehow filled up the last post while I wasn't looking!

...I was asked to start a new thread so that STDs could be discussed. Really! :D

Comments

Re: Exchange structure

[mildred_of_midgard]

I always do the thing where I nominate Fritz and Katte and Suhm (or in my case Fritz and Wilhelmine and MT), and specify in the signup and letter that not all of them have to be written together, and make sure my letter goes up before signups end so people can see what my deal is :)

And that worked because you and Selena knew each other, and she was willing to offer all the characters you requested, but if somebody sees that I've said A and B or A and C, they still have to offer A and B and C to match on me, and that means that if someone else requests A, B, and C, they could end up matched with that other person who expects them to write all three characters! So you're gambling if you offer more characters than you can write, and on your own requests, you're gambling that someone else will gamble when offering.

And I just really like the option to nominate and request way more characters per fandom. You don't get that kind of flexibility with Yuletide. How on earth would Selena have gotten Fritz/Heinrich, Heinrich/Seydlitz, Heinrich/Lehndorff, Lehndorff/Keith, Fritz/Keith, Heinrich/Mara, AND Fritz/Fredersdorf out of Yuletide?? :P

I mean, unless we convinced the mods that Frederician RPF and Henrician RPF were two separate fandoms. ^_^

Re: Exchange structure

[cahn]

Ohhhhh, yeah, so since you're not an exchange/Yuletide regular you may not know, but there's a whole Thing around letters and posting letters and gaming for people. There's even a website someone made (https://tagset2019.firebaseapp.com/#/) that collects letters. (Why Yuletide does not just open requests to plain view I do not know. Possibly no one does except the mods.)

And, of course, you're right; it's still gambling (and in your particular case might not work anyway because a lot of people who would be willing to write Fritz/Katte would probably decline to even consider signing up for Suhm). I don't mind the gambling aspect, in large part because I don't apparently think of fic exchanges in terms of relationships :) But your point about being able to request more characters/relationships is well taken! Yuletide is too big for that, I think. But I regularly request literary fandoms where I nominate and/or request zero characters, so...

Re: Exchange structure

[mildred_of_midgard]

I am aware of that app! I checked it regularly last year. And what I found was that I was not comfortable gambling as an author that I would get matched up to the offer I was eyeing, because there would be one letter for fandom + characters I felt I could write for, but another I couldn't, and the matching could go either way. I reeeally need to be able to nominate my own extremely small fandoms.

And yeah, I feel like I would have to pick Fritz/Katte, and while I love them, there are so many other things I would be happy with, but the alternative would be Fritz alone, and that's just too open-ended, especially in other fandoms where the author is more likely to go for major characters I'm not interested in.

I also want non-overlap between my requested and offered fandoms, and 3 nominations is just not enough for 4 offers + 3 requests, even with some overlap. RMSE FTW!

Re: Exchange structure

[cahn]

That is very fair! We just have very different exchange priorities, I always find that interesting.

Did you check out chocobox? It's quite close to Yuletide with a short writing period, and IDK how you feel about a 300-word minimum, but it does all the other things you want, I think :) (And allows for both & and / as well as non-slash relationships, which is a big plus for me but not sure about you?)

Re: Exchange structure

[mildred_of_midgard]

I did! (This one was at least on my radar as a thing that existed, unlike RMSE.) Also, & and / is great. :D