coaltide | This is Yuletide, everybody make a scene

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2020

This is Yuletide, everybody make a scene

I am the sock with the tear-away face

Low-effort with your gift and gone without a trace

I am the "who" when you call, "Who does an exchange without acknowledging their gift?"
I am the wanker blowing through your fics comments
I am the coalie dragging your letter at night
Filling your exchange to the brim with fright!

This is Coaltide!

Nominations: Tuesday 22 September to Thursday 1 October

Sign-ups: Friday 16 October to Monday 26 October

Assignments out: between 26 & 28 October

Default deadline: Friday 11 December

Assignment Deadline: Friday 18 December

Yuletide Discord for Hippos. Google Group for PHs. F_F wiki for history.

NYR Info | 2020 NYR Collection |

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Yeah, I tend to latch onto a single prompt idea when thinking about writing treats so it's a numbers game at that point: if there are more prompts, I'm more likely to find something I'm interested in.

Sometimes one prompt from a couple is enough, but it doesn't happen often.

I signed up for Yuletide at the end of a very rough year. I took the precaution of DNWing a number of triggers I'm usually happy to read about that were related to the RL situation, but didn't think to expand beyond the specifics.

This isn't *near* the true topics but say say for example I'd DNWed eating disorders or any focus on cooking and eating, and said that I would like to see the character in situations that show off her self-confidence ..... then got a fic that was 1000 words of the character being bullied about her weight and *considering* changing her appearance, with 50 words of fuck the haters to cap it off.

I do think this was as much on me as the author, but those 50 words did not make me feel better about what I had just read.

✔ Jeremiah (TV)
Characters
✔ Jeremiah (Jeremiah)
✔ Markus Alexander
✔ Theo Coleridge
✔ Erin (Jeremiah)

✔ Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Characters
✔ Renee Montoya (Birds of Prey 2020)
✔ Roman Sionis (Birds of Prey 2020)
✔ Victor Zsasz (Birds of Prey 2020)
✔ Ellen Yee (Birds of Prey 2020)

Cyrt

I'm affected by the paradox of choice something awful. (That's when too many options causes distress instead of a positive alternative.)

For me, this starts to kick in around 6 prompts and can make it very easy to panic, freeze, and imulse-default by 9+ prompts.

It's a personal neurosis with associated strong preference for fewer prompts for me.

+1000

I got handholding, going-on-a-date fluff for a ship with a traumatic, fucked-up backstory, where both characters also had tons of interesting canonical issues outside the ship. It wasn't even good fluff. I didn't request that ship again.

My author was a person I knew from a few prior fandoms and was known for putting out pretty bad exchange fic. Their grasp on SPAG was pretty weak and outside of their megafandom they didn't really have a grasp on canon events or character voices.

For our shared megafandom, they actually write decent fic because they get a beta. They posted 50k of beta'd, polished longfic in that fandom that they had written for NaNo that year. But they are not willing to put the same level of care into the fic they give in exchanges. I got a 1.5k unbeta'd mess full of SPAG errors, a major character's name spelled wrong the entire time, and a major canon detail wrong. I left as polite of a thank-you as I could muster (not a 'thank you for writing for me', but a genuine nice and personalized comment) and they replied with an unprompted apology along the lines of "thanks for your comment, I'm sorry if I didn't do a very good job but I hope you could find something to like about it".

Getting a DNW would be worse, but a bad/mediocre fic where it feels like the author has tried their best is something I'm still usually okay with. A bad/mediocre fic where the author clearly phoned it in and replied to my thank-you with some self-serving groveling just kind of stung.

What the hell, that's obviously not on you.

One year I got a sprawling piece of huge and sprawling historical RPF for which the author actually posted a bibliography after reveals.

It was stunning and I still go back and read it occasionally.

Any belated realizations along these lines, coalies?

✔ Sagas of Sundry: Dread (Web Series)

✔ Kayden (Sagas of Sundry: Dread)
✔ Sat (Sagas of Sundry: Dread)
✔ Tanner Sills

Why have you defaulted on an exchange assignment in the past?

Did something pop up IRL that meant you were worried you couldn't meet the deadline, or was it something in your assignment (either the prompt, the fandom, or the requester, including their letter) that led to you defaulting?

Or was it something else?

Yes, for a TV series. I felt so stupid when I realised I'd missed it!

I got a gift fic one year that was packaged as an "AU", but it was awkwardly written and really didn't match the characters (or fandom) at all.

And this "AU" was remarkably similar to the canon of another fandom (which is too big for YT). I wondered if the writer was either recycling a story they'd already written for this other fandom, or if it was just that fandom was what they'd rather be writing.

Once reveals came about, guess which fandom was my writer's main fandom, which they'd written dozens of fics for? The too-big-for-YT fandom, the canon of which was basically a perfect match for the "AU" in my gift fic.

Needless to say, I was really confused.

What was it?

Dark?

Things in Jars - Jess Kidd

✔ Bridie Devine (Things in Jars)
✔ Ruby Doyle (Things in Jars)
✔ Cora Butter (Things in Jars)

DC +10000000

Amazing. I hope they stopped doing multifandom exchanges after that!

My father died.

I defaulted because I felt I couldn’t write something my exchange recipient wanted. The recipient is a lovely recipient, and there was nothing wrong with their letter or their request. I was drawing up blanks for ideas on my end.

✔ All Seeing Eye - Rob Thurman
Characters

✔ Jackson Lee Eye
✔ Hector Allgood
✔ Abigail "Abby" (All Seeing Eye)
✔ Meleah Guerrera

I nominated it.

Real life was just too much.

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Page 48 of 97

This is Yuletide, everybody make a scene

Re: Good Letter Help

Re: Worst YT gift you’ve ever received and why

Re: Report Approved Noms Here

Re: Report Approved Noms Here

Re: Good Letter Help

Re: Good Letter Help

Re: Worst YT gift you’ve ever received and why

Re: Worst YT gift you’ve ever received and why

Re: Worst YT gift you’ve ever received and why

Re: Best Gifts

I Should Have Nominated That

Re: Report Approved Noms Here

If you've defaulted before, why?

Re: I Should Have Nominated That

Re: Worst YT gift you’ve ever received and why

Re: I Should Have Nominated That

Re: I Should Have Nominated That

Re: Report Approved Noms Here

Re: Worst YT gift you’ve ever received and why

Re: Worst YT gift you’ve ever received and why

Re: If you've defaulted before, why?

Re: If you've defaulted before, why?

Re: Report Approved Noms Here

Re: I Should Have Nominated That

Re: If you've defaulted before, why?