Please don’t do this, guys.
I need to take the time to mention an issue I’ve seen becoming much more common lately. It’s come to the attention of some of the Overwatch writers (including myself) that we’re receiving duplicate asks for very specific things, as if someone copied and pasted into multiple ask boxes.
I saw this pop up on my dashboard earlier this evening from @demialwrites @demialw blog and I said to myself, “wow, this looks almost identical to an ask I received not too long ago” so I checked my inbox and, lo and behold…
With the exception of a few words, it’s basically copied and pasted with a little bit of fluff to start.
It’s worth noting that is this anon really knew our blogs, they’d know that Demial doesn’t do requests.
Now, it’s one thing when you send in an ask or request and it seems to vanish, never to be heard from again and you send it in again or take it elsewhere for a better chance. For that, I am sorry. Motivation and inspiration don’t always work in our favor and there are asks that do get lost in transit. No matter how hard we try, it’s difficult to answer everything that comes our way as soon a possible. We’re trying, guys.
This, however, is different. This seems very rude and deceptive, going from blog to blog with the same ask just to see who gives you what you want first.
It makes it seem as if you don’t really enjoy our blogs or our content, or us for that matter when all you care about is who will give you what you want the quickest, regardless of who it ends up being.
@darkdrabblings sent me this ask earlier today after she checked the x reader tags and saw the following screenshot.
I’m happy that the ask was answered for the anon but @darkdrabblings had already started working on a detailed response when she saw this and instantly felt fooled as a result.
This is far from the first time we’ve encountered this. These instances have popped up numerous times in the past and it’s already getting old.
I know, to some, it might not seem like that big of an issue, but when you begin to work on a drabble or ficlet for someone you feel genuinely enjoys your work or your blog just to see that they are going around asking the same thing word for word, it feels discouraging.
I don’t know if this is one person or multiple people, but I just need to let you know, it’s not okay. Please, don’t try to butter someone up into giving you things for free on their own time if you’re just going to go around, copying and pasting until someone eventually bites.
Sure, there are times when requesters can’t help but ask something similar on multiple blogs, say when new skins or heroes are released and everyone wants to gush about them. It’s completely different and unacceptable to go to multiple blogs with a copy and pasted question over and over again.
Most writers aren’t comfortable with this approach. Please, be considerate with how you support them.