coaltide | Coal All The Way

What would you say, if you could be totally honest?

Recip # 1 - Girl, I don’t know what to tell you except next time add DNWs.

Recip # 2 - I see you’ve gotten other gifts but mine seems the most fun and well-thought out. I know you can’t say it’s your favorite but really it should be.

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 12:03 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-27 02:05 (UTC) - Expand

Dear author- I love this ship to bits. I was ridiculously excited to get fic for it, and fully prepared to lower my expectations if necessary. And having read this fic (skimmed over half of it, to be honest), it looks like the expectations should have been lower. It's coal, author. I'm sorry for both of us.

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 09:51 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 09:59 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 15:47 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 17:04 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 19:06 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 19:12 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 20:55 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2019-12-26 23:36 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 09:56 (UTC) - Expand

I'm sorry for the coal that a neural network could probably have done better. It technically hits all the points in your letter so maybe you'll like it anyway?

Dear Author,

I want to be your best friend. I want to marry you. I want to follow you around with hearts in my eyes and have long conversations about your favorite books. I am so grateful you wrote this for me, I never thought I'd get it. It's a stunning story and I adore you and everything you choose to be.

I promise I'll be less weird in my comment. Coal, I'm not even finished the fic and I've lost my mind.

Love,
A Coalie Who Is Crying From Joy and Possibly Also Bailey's.

Recip - someone treating you had a similar idea to me, and I hope you enjoy both fics! I'm going to enjoy that mine is just a little bit better.

Author - you hit it out of the park, I already love this.

Dear Author,

You appear to have consistently replaced one character's name with the name of her dead mom. I should probably be irritated, but honestly, I just kind of want to read that AU now.

xox,
Your Recip

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 10:49 (UTC) - Expand

Recip #1: Bye forever!

Recip #2: Sorry I couldn’t make the porn work

Assigned author: Sorry our ids didn’t mesh, hope you had an alright time anyway.

Treaters: 😍😍😍😍😍

Dear Author: That was awesome and mind-bending almost to the point of being nauseating and how the FUCK do you write like that?

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 10:16 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 17:56 (UTC) - Expand

The implied backstory of this fic is massively more interesting than the fic itself, which is not to say the fic is bad but goddamn you tease!!

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-27 13:08 (UTC) - Expand

Dear Author:

This story was okay. Not great or anything (you would have needed a beta for that, and maybe not write the entire thing post-deadline), but okay.

Until you managed to spectacularly bungle the landing, that is.

Thanks for taking the most generic of my prompts, not making any real effort to include any of my biggest likes even though they're not difficult, and writing this vaguely in character stuff that I've put aside halfway through to finish later if I can be bothered.

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 10:59 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 11:14 (UTC) - Expand

Dear author,

Your comments on the fic you wrote took didn’t excite me about your fic at all. I wish you deleted all your self-doubts for the fic and took pride in what your wrote.

coalie

Dear Author - I have never written a comment so long in my life. You’re so cool.

Dear Recip - I can hardly wait for you to wake up and read my efforts! I am proud of my work but I gotta know if I wrote your kink that is not my kink well

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 12:05 (UTC) - Expand

Dear author,

Okay, I'll admit it. I had some doubts, when I first shook for length. But MAN, you absolutely nailed the tone and feel I was looking for, and the character voices, the messiness and complexity of the central relationship ... EVERYTHING. This is so good, and I love it to bits. ;-; Thank you so so much for making my Yuletide dreams come true!

Dear assigned recip,

OH GOD PLEASE LIKE YOUR GIFTS. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-26 12:44 (UTC) - Expand

Dear Treat writer,
I wish you had tagged your work as a Treat, so that my recipient would know my work was the assignment. It's not a big deal, just bugs me a little.

Dear Recipient,
Thank you for promptly reading both our fics, kudosing them both, and leaving us both a great comment! May your Tide be Yuleful!

Re: Dear Author/Dear Recip

(Anonymous) - 2019-12-25 12:57 (UTC) - Expand

Dear Author,

It's been 3+ hours since the collection opened. This isn't the time when you should still be working on your fic. (And I'm not talking about small edits like fixing typos.) You had two months.

Dear recip, sorry it’s not a heist, there is a con but I’m not sure you wanted that like interpreted that way. Will try to get you as skippy heist for NYR

Dear author, formatting would have made that far easier to read. The feeling that you offered this fandom because it was zero requests/zero offers and got monkey pawed with my late sign up is high.

Dear Author, I expected this fic to be an averagely enjoyable but forgettable caper like is typical of the fic in this fandom, and instead it turned out to be perfect. I love the subtlety of characterisation, and even after being excited to see the tags I never expected to get anything this good. I was mostly in it for the writing my own fic side of things, but you've made my Yuletide. <3

Dear Recip- I'm glad you seem to like your story. Maybe next time you ask for a PWP, mention a couple of things you enjoy in sex scenes? I'd have loved to write you a longer fic, but 'dirty sex, no heavy kink' isn't a lot to go on and meant I only felt safe erring on the side of vanilla.

Dear author,

I think you probably usually do OR matching exchanges and only realised you had to include all my requested characters at the last minute. I like my gift but I'm a little sad that my fave is barely mentioned :/

Author: You worked wonders with the prompt I threw out on a whim. The story kind of cuts off abruptly & I do wish you'd gone a little further with it, because the mechanics of the plot device were SO interesting & I wanted more, BUT I'm delighted at what I got, so just going to leave a very happy comment!

Recip 1: AHHH I hope you like it, I'm really proud of it :D

Recip 2: My weird brain demanded that I write this story, so I'm just glad I was able to write it for you & that you enjoyed it! I lucked out when I saw you were interested in [other canons I incorporated], a lovely moment of serendipity.

Dear Recip - I really really hope you don't hate what I wrote for you. I had a hard time avoiding one of you DNWs while keeping with the canon mood you wished for, since its close trope-sibling is a big part of canon and I have no idea where you draw the line between the two (which also made it pretty impossible to ask follow-up questions via the mods). My beta thought it'd be okay, buuuut you haven't commented yet and now I'm second guessing myself...

Dear Author - Your are awesome, and I hope my comment reflects my joy!

Author #1: Even if everything else about this Yuletide ends up sucking, this fic will have made it worth it. It's so perfect I can't believe it.

Authors #2 and 3: I don't actually think your fics are going to end up sucking at all. However, they are both somewhat to very long, so you will have to wait until after Christmas for me to read them. I'm very excited, however!

Dear Author,

I really wish you had defaulted on me. Instead I got your lukewarm 1001-word fic and you were barely even trying. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten 1K+ length gifts before where I could see the writer was making a huge effort to tailor them to my letter and make me happy. But you? It's like you made a special effort to piss all over my gift. You uploaded it in early December so it was clear you just didn't give a shit but took care not to default so you wouldn't be penalized. If it had gone to pinch hits, I'm sure someone would have picked it and done a far better job (because it's such a popular fandom). So fuck you.