So you agree that absent other cues it's fine to write canon-typical content, even if that canon-typical content is something that would often be a DNW.
It sounds like the disagreement here is what counts as canon-typical content, and what counts as "other cues".
I would say that in Yuletide there is absolutely 0 expectation that your author (or recip!) knows anything about "the fandom" outside of canon, and you can't expect them to take cues from something they may not know about; that's kind of the point of Yuletide. I would agree that in other contexts it's a lot more reasonable to expect people to know what is typical of the fandom even if that diverges from canon. But this is coal and we're talking about Yuletide.
If someone requests Hannibal bookverse fic, in Yuletide we should not expect them or their writer to know what Hannibal TV fandom is like, or assume their recip wants something similar to Hannibal TV fanon (in fact, in yuletide it's probably safer to assume the opposite, that they waited to request bookverse in Yuletide because they actively did not want TV fic.) If someone does request a small fandom in Yuletide assuming that their writer will know they actually want a large fandom's fanon, then they're doing Yuletide wrong. And if someone requests a just-barely-small-enough fandom in Yuletide, they should not be surprised if their recip isn't part of that fandom year-round and isn't familiar with it.
Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?
It sounds like the disagreement here is what counts as canon-typical content, and what counts as "other cues".
I would say that in Yuletide there is absolutely 0 expectation that your author (or recip!) knows anything about "the fandom" outside of canon, and you can't expect them to take cues from something they may not know about; that's kind of the point of Yuletide. I would agree that in other contexts it's a lot more reasonable to expect people to know what is typical of the fandom even if that diverges from canon. But this is coal and we're talking about Yuletide.
If someone requests Hannibal bookverse fic, in Yuletide we should not expect them or their writer to know what Hannibal TV fandom is like, or assume their recip wants something similar to Hannibal TV fanon (in fact, in yuletide it's probably safer to assume the opposite, that they waited to request bookverse in Yuletide because they actively did not want TV fic.) If someone does request a small fandom in Yuletide assuming that their writer will know they actually want a large fandom's fanon, then they're doing Yuletide wrong. And if someone requests a just-barely-small-enough fandom in Yuletide, they should not be surprised if their recip isn't part of that fandom year-round and isn't familiar with it.