coaltide | C.R.E.A.M

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2021

C.R.E.A.M

Coal ruins exchanges around me - spitey spitey fic y'all.

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....and a Partridge in a Pear Tree!

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Yuletide is a big favorite time of the year for me, and I have a wonderful association with heading down to my local library to get a nice big cup of bubble tea and some tasty not-at-all-healthy pastries so I can sit down and get those last few treats/edits thrashed out. I'd love to hear some favorite moments and memories from you all.

Still the year I fell in love with a book after nominations and thought it wasn’t in the tagset. Then I got my assignment, matching on something totally different, and there was the fandom! Just under a different name. And the absolute perfect request, too. I worked down to the wire that year and turned in something I and the recip both loved. In other years, I’ve gotten absolutely wonderful gifts, but the magic serendipity of that year really made it for me.

If this was a very long prequel fic, rest assured your recip still thinks of it as magical, too! ♥

I could add that meeting my recip, who continues to be awesome in many ways, was the cherry on top. <3

Most memorable for me was trying to finish a 10k+ fic I had been racing to get to the end of, on Xmas Eve, at my parents' house with siblings present. All I had left was the porn, and in an Xmas Miracle, everyone decided to take a long walk while I stayed back. Got the porn finished without anyone looking over my shoulder and posted in time for the main collection! Recip really seemed to love it and it's still one of my favorite fics.

Writing for someone with a perfect prompt that made writing 100% effortless (which had never happened before and hasn't happened since then) and getting an amazing comment from them that was almost a Yuletide fic (1000 words). It made my whole year.

That’s such a good feeling!

It really is! I still reread that comment whenever I need a little pick me up, and hope I'll get to write for this recip again one day.

The year I got assigned my obscure OTP-of-all-time I thought nobody shipped and had no idea was being requested (didn’t even game for it!), and wrote a fic that was also extremely self indulgent because our ids matched

The recip later said in passing that it was their dream fic and I’m just so glad I was able to write for my OTP and actually make someone happy at the same time!

- Fulfilling a recipient's Didn't Think Anyone Would Write This request and getting an amazing comment
- Getting to do that again a few years later!
- Listening to audiobooks every year around this time to do canon reviews; it's become a weird October-December only habit
- That time I accidentally got beta'd by my recip. Horrible in the moment, but they were awesome about it and continue to request things I just always want to write somehow
- Jamming as a beta for someone who likes my beta style and just going crazy in chat for a few hours with them

I too treasure my trips out to the Starbucks by the library to escape the family and get some quiet writing time in. Also memorable was saying up late the night of Christmas Eve while everyone else is asleep, writing by the multi-colored lights of the tree to squeeze in one last treat.

Honestly, every Yuletide is a good memory for me. My depression is always at its worst during the holidays, and Yuletide helps me to keep it together. Even when I'm too depressed to write something myself, there is always something there for me to read. G-d bless everyone who takes part: writers, readers, commenters, betas, mods & etc. - every single one of you! ! At the risk of sounding super corny, you are all more important and essential to me! Please keep on being awesome! ♥

same coalie-
I forgot to thank the awesome coadie, who definitely makes Yuletide season a joy. Your app is magical and so are you.

OP here. yes this, all of this, I wanted to say it but didn't want to sound too cheesy. GOSH i love yuletide so much

I was too intimidated to sign up, but I found a request I liked and visited my local Pain Quotidien multiple times just to write it. Sipping from a bowl of coffee and typing away while it snowed outside... A really fond memory for me!

For several years now (maybe the last 3 years? maybe even 4?) I have inadvertently started a tradition of beginning and finishing a last-minute treat while drinking wine on Christmas Eve after my parents go to bed, so not even starting writing it until 10 or later. In at least two of these cases, the fic in question has been the best one I wrote for that year's YT, and very well-received. It's kind of fun to see what comes of the last minute scramble! We'll see if it happens again this year.

Waking up super early on Christmas morning to read my gift fics (I received TWO dream fics, from who later turned out to be one of my best friends), in the light of an amazing sunrise. (Seriously, the sunrise was spectacular that day.)

My third Yuletide, I had a lot of stress going on IRL, and I matched on a canon that was perfect for channeling every feeling I had about hope in difficult times and the support of a community. My recipient loved it and came back years later to tell me it still made them cry. I'm so proud of it and all the flashes of associated memory (days sitting on the couch typing feeling like I was becoming symbiotically bonded to that darn couch, bouncing a plot idea off my mother, post-it notes everywhere) make me smile.

Someone prompted something incredibly juicy but just out-there enough that my brain went "...how would that work?" and that was enough to kick off one of the most fun, involved, and pleasantly challenging writing experiences of my entire life. It's still what I look back on in terms of what I want to be able to achieve more often, really stretching my comfort zone and giving my skills a meaningful workout, and it would never have happened if not for this person letting their freak flag fly in the best possible way. I've written for them since then and it's always a blast but that was just such a high point in an otherwise dreadful year for me, getting to totally immerse in writing something fun.

I have many, but I'll always particularly treasure the year I wrote a smutty treat for my BFF, who had been having a spectacularly shitty time with her senior year of college. This was very early days, and treating wasn't nearly as much of a thing as it is now - and it especially wasn't a thing for me. I had no confidence in my writing and could barely handle one assignment! But I banged that thing out on Christmas Eve (before accompanying my parents to their "midnight" mass at 10pm). Not only did she love it, but she apparently had NO IDEA AT ALL that it was me, right up until author reveals, when I got a very surprised and effusive second comment. I was so happy and proud of myself, which was especially great given that I'd been having a shitty few months myself, trying to navigate post-college life.

(Years later, my BFF is signed up for Yuletide for the first time more or less since then, and I'm super happy about it, so I'm feeling all the warm fuzzies in general.)

Back when things were on the old website and when you submitted your fic that was IT, no editing, I finished my fic within seconds of the deadline. The fic was very well-received, which is great, but nothing else has ever matched the euphoria of beating that clock.

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C.R.E.A.M

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