The Coalies & Other Stories

[coalcube]

I will not read them in a Canon-Divergent AU.
I will not read them in Third Point-of-View.
Not in a Crossover! Not in Genfic!
Not in Shipfic! You let me be!

I do not like them in Fanart.
I do not like them even in the Fic of My Heart.
I will not read them in fic of my NOTP.
I do not like them with my OTP.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere!
I do not like my DNWs!

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
Collection Opens: Friday 25 December
Author Reveals: Friday 1 January, 2021

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Comments

Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

What are yours?

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

I don’t know if it’s unpopular but I don’t think it’s unreasonable or surprising that those who write short comments or vague letters aren’t beloved by the treating crowd.

Unpopular because coalies will always spring up to defend those types of recips.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

+100

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

I much prefer having requests be hidden until assignments go out.

Partly for the mystery and excitement of seeing what my assignment is and partly because I hate WIP sign-ups.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

+1 I liked it better that way!

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

+2

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

+3

I don't usually like gambling, but this is one case where I do. Plus it's less stressful for me since I don't feel pressured to watch who signed up for what. (And the WIP sign-ups, of course.)

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

+ 0.5

I do like seeing requests early but not having to deal with WIP sign-ups is definitely a plus.

Incomplete sign-ups are the worst, and I never understand what people really get out of it ... like, do they think they are at the hotel pool and if they don't reserve a pool chair at 6 in the morning all the good ones will be gone by the time they finally are ready to swim?

I suppose maybe the idea is to get more eyes early on their sign-ups, and maybe this works for some people? But personally, the moment I see an incomplete sign-up I'm turned off immediately and it's really hard for me to regain any enthusiasm for their sign-up later on, even if I like their fandoms and ships. I just had this happen with a recip in a different exchange - I wouldn't have minded writing for them but staring at their unfinished sign-up for weeks really made me feel less than benevolent towards them by the time they were assigned to me.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

+4

I wouldn't want every exchange to hide signups, but for Yuletide I like the novelty. I like getting surprised. I think I've only once gotten an assignment whose letter I'd seen before signups closed.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

ME TOO. I hate gaming.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

People are way too fucking emotional about literally everything.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

Giving good-faith ODAO (as in, not phoning it in or skirting DNWs) is always better than defaulting. Yes, even in Yuletide.

It's always lovely to be able to give someone the fic of their dreams, but in my experience going to pinch hits is just as likely to result in ODAO fic as anything else. Defaulting is fine if RL issues come up or if you just can't manage to write anything decent, but it shouldn't be your noble attempt to give the recip another shot at their dream fic.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

I’m replying to you not to change your mind but just to share my opinion, just fyi!

I don’t agree with this, especially for Yuletide. In exchanges or fandoms that are already big, I don’t think your opinion is that bad, but in Yuletide I find it awful. Every fic is one step closer to the fandom being ineligible. If they don’t like the fic, it’s actively worse for them/other people with their preferences than no fic being written because no fic at least doesn’t increase their odds of not being able to request the fandom again.

An ODAO fic for Star Trek sucks but it isn’t the end of the world. But fic for someone in a fandom of 1 or where the number of works are at hovering around the 1k mark, it’s injury to insult. If one author always goes ODAO to write gen for shipfic fandoms (or vice versa, or AUs for fandoms that want canon compliant, etc) and are prolific, they absolutely should default. Yuletide and other rarity exchanges require authors that are flexible in a way that hardline inflexible recips don’t.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

But do I as an author want to spend my time writing good faith ODAO for a recip who many not enjoy it? Or should I use the default option (which is there for a reason) and move on?

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

For me this depends on the kind of ODAO. If someone has dozens and dozens of likes and very varied prompts and you cannot write a single one of those things? I'd rather you default, because it is more likely that a pinch-hitter will write something that isn't complete ODAO. Imo if someone gives you THAT many option and you don't want to do any of them, it's not really good-faith ODAO anymore.

If someone has one prompt and you don't want to write that, then yeah, go ODAO, most people will.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with this, from the recip end. I've gotten some fucking weird stories from the YT pinch hit list, lol, defaulting on me is not upping the odds I'll get the fic of my dreams. And I'd rather my assigned writer still be guaranteed their own gift!

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

I do have to agree with you. There's nothing wrong with defaulting when shit happens, of course! But don't freak out so much on not giving your recip the Fic Of Their Dreams that you end up defaulting. Some of the best YT gifts I've ever been given came right out of left field.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with this if you're still planning to write something that doesn't go firmly against what the recip asks for. Even though details are optional, it seems weird to write super opposite from what they said.

I am saying this as I have gotten fic three consecutive years which include the characters I asked for but just as acquaintances, while focusing on my DNW ship. It would have been fine if they wrote gen fic about my requested characters, but I mentioned I didn't want fic focused on a DNW relationship and they wrote that! Three separate people, three separate fandoms!

Generally it would have been fine except in all three situations it was them ignoring my request for an m/m or f/f ship and writing the canon het ship, so it started to feel like a het vs slash thing even though it was probably just coincidental.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

The attitude that "gen is the default for Yuletide, don't expect shipfic" is really fucking weird to me, especially if you're requesting two halves of a canon couple, and the entire canon (or a major chunk of it) is dedicated to their romance. I'm not providing gen outs for that, sorry.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

It's the default in the sense that Yuletide is a character matching exchange, not a ship matching exchange so you can't expect it or go to the mods if you don't get it.

But I agree with not giving gen outs if you don't actually want them.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

The Madness collection doesn't get enough attention. I'd love for it to open the same day as the main one, or be gone altogether. Treats can be tagged or marked as such in other ways, but after years of doing YT, I don't think a separate collection was ever a good idea.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

I think way too many people take YT way too seriously.

I also find the mods’ hairsplitting about fandoms and eligibility really fucking irritating. I requested an RPF fandom one year that contained a well-known group of people as the characters and used the term that has been in the cultural lexicon for decades to refer to this group. There is a central group and then a couple of satellite groups, but all are considered part of this group.

AnyWay, one mod (I think it was Jenn) spent DAYS arguing with me over who she thought was eligible to be included to be included in the RPF group. Like, fucking hell, maybe listen to the people in the fucking fandom who actually know what they’re talking about, rather than doing 30 seconds of reading on Wikipedia and then assuming you’re the expert?! Jesus. But she was so obstinate about it, I just gave up. I’d had a shit year and just wanted to enjoy some fanfic. I didn’t have the energy to argue about it.

We’re not curing cancer here, everyone. We’re writing and reading fanfic. Fuck!

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

I don't want treats. I avoid posting my letter to the letters post for that reason.

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

As a mentally ill person, I hate the name "madness" for the treats collection. I know it's meant to be fun, but to me it just sounds ableist. I know this is an unpopular opinion, because every time I've mentioned it (in other places, not coal) I was told I was being precious and too sensitive...

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

In response to one of the above threads here, I guess my unpopular opinion is "you can go ODAO and still try to write something you think your recipient will enjoy".

There is a such thing as good faith ODAO, and most sign-ups don't include a long list of general likes to go by. Assuming ODAO = you're writing something you think your recip will dislike is unfair.