coaltide | Don't Stop Coal Now!

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2021

Don't Stop Coal Now!

Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real coal time
I feel alive
And the exchange I'll turn it inside out, yeah
I'm floating around in agony
So, (don't stop me now)
(Don't stop me)
'Cause I'm having a coal time, having a coal time~

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ODAO means ignoring all the prompts and general likes and writing something that wasn't mentioned at all, it crosses into coal when it's got the opposite of a request or deliberately going against what the requester asked for. If some general likes such as tropes are included it's not ODAO even if it hasn't got the requested ship.

+1

And to be clear, writing gen does not qualify as deliberately going against the request unless there's actual no homo happening.

A ayrt rt

That depends on the request.

How?

Ayrt

If the letter makes it clear that they only want shipfic (or gen, or fluff, or a missing scene) and the fic does the exact opposite thing, it's still ODAO even if it theoretically also hits the present tense like.

DA

But IMO the exact opposite of a ship fic would be a "no-homo we would never, ever, EVER consider getting together" fic. Just plain gen that leaves the door to a shippy interpretation is fine.

If one would really only be happy with shipfic, they should wait for a ship matching exchange for that request, which is many, MANY other exchanges.

Ayrt

Or you just roll the dice and hope for the best. It usually works out, and if it doesn't, you say thanks, grumble quietly on anon or privately and move on.

The two requested characters being friendly is not the exact opposite of shipfic.

And a sign up that makes it clear you only want one specific thing that the exchange does not match on and will hate anything else is a terrible, dick move sign up.

DA, it really isn't, if it includes any like, and if it doesn't nohomo the ship, or insist that there's no way they'd ever... Then A) it's not the opposite of the request and B) it's not ODAO in an exchange that doesn't have ship matching.

There is absolutely nothing wrong, within the rules of Yuletide, about ODAO. Sometimes the recip is requesting something the author cannot find a way to write. That is okay. It is not malicious. It is an understood part of Yuletide.

Yuletide doesn't match people based on prompts. It matches people based on fandoms and characters. You don't know in advance which prompt you're going to get, and not everybody uses the spreadsheet to filter out pairings that might match them with the unappealing prompts --even if everybody filled it out, which they don't. I do promise I can write Bert and Ernie. I can't promise that I can write Bert and Ernie form a K-pop band while inside a whale.

By signing up for Yuletide, I promised to write N characters in N fandoms, and to do the best work I know how to do.

Me, a writer, I do my best to hit at least some of the asker's prompts. But sometimes there's a bad mismatch between me and the asker, to the extent that I just can't envision what they want. Not because I despise them, or their prompt. Because I flat-out can't make it work. My brain is not producing the words. When I ODAO that, I'm well within the intentions and spirit of Yuletide.

Something can be completely within the rules and still be disappointing. I've requested femslash in ship-matching exchanges and received gen. I'm there thinking, you couldn't add a "Hey, she's cute" thought to either character? I've been doing Yuletide for over a decade and even when I hate the ship being requested, I write it, if only very briefly. It would be within the rules and within my rights to keep it gen but my goal is to make something my recipient likes. I've gotten too many things where the writer clearly didn't care about doing anything I asked for, they just wanted their own gift. It's coal.

Something can be completely within the rules and still be disappointing. I've requested femslash in ship-matching exchanges and received gen.

But that's... not in the rules? If you request a ship, match on the ship, and receive gen, your author broke the rules and you are due a pinch hit. That's a terrible example of your argument.

Please don't grit your teeth and write my ship if you hate it.

+1

I'd hate to get a gift from someone who felt like they were required to suffer through writing my ship just to guarantee their own gift. I'd much rather just get the gen that my author presumably wanted to write (since they offered the characters and hate the ship). I'll bring my shipping goggles, it's fine.

-1

I'd be still happier getting shipfic from someone who hates it than gen.

And I would prefer the gen in that scenario, so maybe we can just agree that "write the ship no matter what" isn't the only way to genuinely try and give your recip something they will like and anyone doing otherwise obviously doesn't care and just wants to get their own gift?

Ayrt

I think it depends on the recip, and it's helpful to look at their letter for guidance.

Then the letter also needs to be clear on what they want.

Then you need to stick to exchanges that match on ships.

Ayrt

No. I got maybe 40 Yuletide gifts, most of them great. Not a single one of them gen. If I get a gen fic one day, I'll say thanks, move on, and avoid the author in the future. The chance of getting something I love is easily worth the risk of getting coal.

TBH If someone's a really good writer I'll take it and like it whether they had to grit their teeth or not. (If the quality of their writing is impacted significantly by the fact that they don't like my ship, obviously that's different.)

You'll never know. It isn't as though it will have an author's note saying lol this ship sucks.

No one says it's not within the rules of the exchange. Many things are within the rules that still lead to disappointment (not commenting, for instance). You filled your obligation, so you get a guaranteed gift of your own in return. That's the deal. Just because you stayed within the rules, you're not owed your recip's gratitude, their happiness, or even their willingness to keep the gift.

No.

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Don't Stop Coal Now!

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