Coalway to Hell

[coalcube]

Yuletide Weather Forecast:
 
Temperatures are estimated to fluctuate between active panic and total apathy into the next weekend. Main assignments will have a minimum temperature of regret and a complete climate change once editing is complete. Expect treat writing to continue at all free hours unless the dangerous front of procrastination cropping up in the Northeast successful moves into the area, effectively killing the treat storm conditions for the season. 

 

Mini-Challenges (App):
YuleSwaps | Interactive Fiction | Wrapping Paper | Seasons Treatings
Yuleporn | Femslash Festivus | Tide of History
YuleBuilding | Two for One | Crueltide | Cheftide

 

Yuletide Discord for Hippos. Google Group for PHs. F_F wiki for history. yulefairy for treats you can't find a recip for.

 

yuletide_admin | yuletide | Writing Post
Sign-Up (Summary) | 2020 Collection | Tagset

2020 App (Easter Eggs) | Letters Post

Flat / Recent | Top-Level (Last) | Search

 

Comments

Minichallenges on app

[(Anonymous)]

Here!
https://tagset2020.firebaseapp.com/#/minichallenges

Re: Minichallenges on app

[(Anonymous)]

Were they ever updated?

Treats you still want to write/finish

[(Anonymous)]

Vague about them here

Re: Treats you still want to write/finish

[(Anonymous)]

One is a horrible first date, one is a road trip, one is five things about names, one is detectives investigating love and one is therapy via body horror. None of them should be more than 2k, so it's not impossible I will finish all of them by Christmas.

Yüültyd

[(Anonymous)]

Express your impatience here, both on your own gifts and in fandoms generally.

Re: Yüültyd

[(Anonymous)]

I am impatient for more fics in fandom I care about to appear in the fandom listing! What do you mean this would happen if I wrote them myself?! No write, only read.

Pinch hitting commiserations and celebrations

[(Anonymous)]

Talk about the pinch hits you're working on

Re: Pinch hitting commiserations and celebrations

[(Anonymous)]

Hurt/comfort which is perhaps a bit too mundane/low-stakes for this canon, but I'm being self-indulgent. Hopefully my recip likes that kind of thing.

Dear Recip

[(Anonymous)]

Something you wish you could tell your recip? Say it here.

Re: Dear Recip

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Recip,

This fic is not great but you are not a great exchange participant so I'm not losing any sleep over it.

Ambivalent regards,
Your Writer

What time and zone does Yuletide reveal on Dec. 25th?

[(Anonymous)]

Could not find it on the ao3 schedule

Re: What time and zone does Yuletide reveal on Dec. 25th?

[(Anonymous)]

It's on the AO3 profile, with all the other dates and times:

Works Revealed:
Fri 25 Dec 2020 09:00AM UTC (04:00AM EST)

Five more pinch hits out!

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm, #252. "Mainly I'm thinking of this canon crossed over with one of my other canons (which I have no reason to believe you matched on)." At least most of their other canons are public domain, I guess?

Re: Five more pinch hits out!

[(Anonymous)]

I feel bad about 173 languishing but I don't think I can pick up any of the fandoms in time / can't get the books for free anywhere.

Shame

[(Anonymous)]

It's my fault and I know it, but I got caught with a placeholder for the first time in several years of Yuletide participation, so I'm officially in default. :( I'm so embarrassed and I feel shitty about it.

Re: Shame

[(Anonymous)]

Shame without penance is meaningless. You must perform a sincere act of contrition, finish the placeholder fic for your recip, and write a treat or NYR fic.


Ego te absolvo in nomine spirituum Yuletide.

Pinch hit question

[(Anonymous)]

I picked up a pinch hit when the first post deadline batch went out but it’s not showing up under assignments. Is this normal or have the mods missed me?

Re: Pinch hit question

[(Anonymous)]

Not normal. I would reply to the email that said the pinch hit was yours and let them know.

[(Anonymous)]

One of my friends has said they’re excited to read all the fics for a certain fandom in the collection... one of which is mine!

Newbie question

[(Anonymous)]

Is it considered bad form to re-date your story to the reveal date if you posted really early?

Re: Newbie question

[(Anonymous)]

It's extremely normal. Definitely not bad form. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Me trying to write a shippy treat: What IS sexual chemistry? We just don't know.

[(Anonymous)]

*pats seat* Please come sit by me. Maybe together we can figure it out!

Vents and struggles

[(Anonymous)]

Coal mining is hard work.

Re: Vents and struggles

[(Anonymous)]

I believe that fics are as long as they need to be and it typically has noting to do with how the author feels about you as a recip, but a part of me really hopes my main recip does look at what else I wrote after author reveals. Your fic could have been that good too, recip, if you'd given me something to work with! In this case you should feel bad that your author wrote more for someone else!

Treat Game

[(Anonymous)]

How to play:

As a recip:
1. Go to your gifts page
2. Comment below with how many gifts you have waiting for you.

As a writer:
1. How many fics have you posted thus far? How many do you have left to write?
Bonus: Give the first letter of the username for your next recip to inspire some home.

Re: Treat Game

[(Anonymous)]

As a recip, me and my sock have one fic a piece.

As an author, six fics posted. 5 more to go but no guarantees. Next recip will be a t or h!

Who's working on a gift for a fandom with no fics in the collection yet?

[(Anonymous)]

Sound off! Tell us how many different fandoms, if you've got more than one.

Re: Who's working on a gift for a fandom with no fics in the collection yet?

[(Anonymous)]

Meeee. Just the one for now, but I've got my eyes on a couple more.

So many socks

[(Anonymous)]

Does it disconcert anyone else how many people on coal admit to having socks? Like they just casually say, oh yeah, I’m doing XYZ on main, and ABC on my sock... it unnerves me to think that their socks might be well-established accounts with identities separate from main, and that I might have interacted with both of them without realizing it.

Re: So many socks

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry to galaxy brain this but...welcome to the internet? Everybody here is operating under a username. A lot of the “BNFs” for Yuletide are people with only a dw who have have no other social media or who (smartly) keep whatever real online or irl friends they have separate from the exchange scene. No twitter, no tumblr, no discord, no wallet name. There is no functional difference between them and a sock.

Someone like rosefox, who puts all their business online, could still be someone’s elaborate sock puppet or catfish project.

I would much rather interact with a sock of someone who puts care into making a letter, writing a fic, and commenting than I would with an actual Nazi like ars_belli or some weird asshole on Discord that’s always causing wank. It’s not even a question to me.

Behind every account is a real person, even if sometimes they wear a moustache and clip on a different name, so how that person acts is all that matters to me, regardless of the name. One person being average or great across five accounts >>>>>>>>> One person being awful with their walletname and social security number for all to see.

The gift you "deserve"

[(Anonymous)]

Based on what you've uploaded.

What is it?

Re: The gift you "deserve"

[(Anonymous)]

Long shipfic based on my most outrageous prompt in my smallest fandom, with a few random likes tossed in.

And like five treats.

Quick Question

[(Anonymous)]

When does the main collection close to new fics? I imagine it's sometime on December 24th, but is it closer to morning or evening? I'd like to know how much time I have left to try to get these treats done.

Re: Quick Question

[(Anonymous)]

9 am UTC on the 25th. This may or may not be on the 24th in your time zone.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you think we'll beat 2019's collection in terms of the number of fics uploaded? Like... can/will we crack 2074?

[(Anonymous)]

That's just a little over 300 more in the main collection. I think that feels pretty doable. There are always a TON of treats that get posted in the last 3-4 days before the collection opens.

What's your reading approach once the archive opens?

[(Anonymous)]

Assuming you read your own gifts first, where do you go from there?

I always start by reading any other fics people I've written for have received, then the other fics in the fandoms I asked for, then slowly go through the whole archive for fandoms I'm familiar with.

Re: What's your reading approach once the archive opens?

[(Anonymous)]

After my gift(s):

1) All the fics in the fandoms I requested
2) All the fics in the fandoms I offered
3) The fics whose characters and/or ships I enjoy in fandoms that appeal to me that day
4) Things recced by friends or on meme that sound up my alley

It usually ends up being a lot. Over 100 for sure, though the comments get shorter as the week goes on.

How would you feel about a 200w treat?

[(Anonymous)]

I have a fandom-general likes combo plot bunny but not much time. 200 words is just an example.

Re: How would you feel about a 200w treat?

[(Anonymous)]

Stick it in Madness so I'm gentler with my expectations.

Triumph Over Tribulation

[(Anonymous)]

The opposite of the venting thread.

Re: Triumph Over Tribulation

[(Anonymous)]

After having my very picky but good at concrit beta look at it and enduring the immediate shame that followed, I've finally kicked my stupid almost longfic assignment into shape that I'm not ashamed of!!!

[(Anonymous)]

Why is Franzeska someone to be wary of, again?

[(Anonymous)]

https://fanlore.org/wiki/Your_Vagina_is_a_Bigot;_My_Vagina_is_a_Saint

Relationship? It's Complicated...

[(Anonymous)]

I'm having a hard time categorizing this fic. In canon, these two characters have an intense, co-dependent platonic relationship. Maybe parent-child, maybe romantic, it's hard to say. There's canon-creator meta about how it was left intentionally ambiguous.

In my fic one of the characters admires the physical beauty of the other in amongst plot. There is no indication this will ever go further than admiring from a distance - in fact it would be impossible for anything more to happen, given the givens.

Should I tag this as a / or & relationship?

Re: Relationship? It's Complicated...

[(Anonymous)]

Yes.

Do author's notes ever bother you?

[(Anonymous)]

As per the the mod post. Does it actually affect how you read your gift if the author says it isn't beta read or they struggled with your prompts or they're going to finish their story later?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

[(Anonymous)]

Not beta read: indifferent if basic SPAG is respected, annoyed if not
Struggled: pleased that they tried, even if I don't end up liking jt much
Finish later: fuck RIGHT off, why didn't they default!!