One Wank After Another

[coalcube]

A blank assignment is a funny thing, isn't it? When you have it, you don't appreciate it, and when you miss it, it's gone.

Wednesday 10 December: Default deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 17 December: Assignment deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 24 December: Main collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 25 December: Madness collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 1 January: Author reveals, end of event (9pm UTC)

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Sample reasons to default:
You want to

You can't reconcile the canon, your writing strengths, and your recipient's DNWs

Life got in the way

A new installment of canon ruined your ideas

You use generative AI such as ChatGPT, and you just saw the rule that that's not allowed in this event

You can't see how to get the characters to do what you want them to do

You want to




I'm glad they call out AI, but what are the odds that the kind of person who uses Claude to write their exchange fic is going to think "yeah, but I'm good at it, they won't catch me"?

[(Anonymous)]

No one's caught me yet



:)

[(Anonymous)]

ai can't make a decent butt

For the people writing multiple treats

[(Anonymous)]

How long are they? I always want to write treats, but the most I've every been able to manage are two full treats + a madness true drabble.

But then, my main assigment has never been under 5K the past ten years, and usually around the 10K mark. It's just how I've come to prefer to write. Curious to hear from others, though!

Re: For the people writing multiple treats

[(Anonymous)]

Varies a lot depending on the prompt. Longest treat I've written was 20k, but that was in a year when I didn't actually sign up so I had no other main assignment. More typically my exchange fics seem to cluster around 2.5-3.5k for a shorter idea or 7-8k for a more plotty one, and I'll write 3-5 fics total, assignment included. (The most I've ever managed in a single Yuletide was seven fics, and skimming back over the works I posted that year, five of them fell in the 1-2k range which is shorter than I usually manage to keep things.)

Feelings about gift shaking so far

[(Anonymous)]

For coalies who have something and have looked at what it is, how do you feel?

Re: Feelings about gift shaking so far

[(Anonymous)]

Cause I’ve DNW’d an unwanted interaction type between my ship A/B and requested A and B. The fic is tagged A/B, A, C, and Unwanted Interaction Type. No other tags. I’m over here squinting at it lol

FINISHED!

[(Anonymous)]

Now I just need to read it over and edit out hundreds of commas, the read it again and put them all back as the ritual requires.

Re: FINISHED!

[(Anonymous)]

Just for luck you should also replace some instances of pronouns with the characters' names and then swap them back again.

Pinch hits 73-81

[(Anonymous)]

Half of them have already been claimed, but four still up for grabs @ yuletide_pinch_hits:

* PH #73: A Date With Death (Visual Novel), ぶっちぎり | Bucchigiri?! (Anime), Dead Plate (RachelDrawsThis Video Game)

* PH #74: 向风而行 | Flight to You (TV), 如懿传 | Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace (TV), 延禧攻略 | Story of Yanxi Palace (TV), 度华年 | The Princess Royal (TV), 知否知否应是绿肥红瘦 | The Story of Minglan (TV), 庆余年 | Joy of Life (TV), The Half of It (2020)

* PH #78: Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses (2006), Mulan (Disney Animated Movies), 如懿传 | Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace (TV), Voyage of the Unicorn (2001), Kung Fu Panda (Movies), 延禧攻略 | Story of Yanxi Palace (TV)

* PH #81: Hallo itt Mátyás király! - Bogáti Péter, Mátyás a sosem volt királyfi (TV 2006), Mátyás király | Matthias Rex - Kubinyi András

Re: Pinch hits 73-81

[(Anonymous)]

Oh dear, 81's back?

Fandoms of interest

[(Anonymous)]

What fandoms are already calling to you in the tagset?
What are you still hoping to see? (may or may not be your request)

Re: Fandoms of interest

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't shaken further, but interested in Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Fleetwood Mac, and October Daye. Hoping to see North of North.

[(Anonymous)]

Reading one of my recip's other fandoms and I don't like it

[(Anonymous)]

same hat. which fandom you got?

[(Anonymous)]

rab
bit?

[(Anonymous)]

N
O

[(Anonymous)]

I played the Blue Prince game because it was on the promo post (or maybe from a letter?) and I'm really enjoying it! Does anyone else have random puzzle or point and click type game recs?

[(Anonymous)]

The Room series and House of Da Vinci are my two faves along those lines.

Pinch Hits 81-89

[(Anonymous)]

Up at yuletide_pinch_hits. Still needed:

* PH #81: Hallo itt Mátyás király! - Bogáti Péter, Mátyás a sosem volt királyfi (TV 2006), Mátyás király | Matthias Rex - Kubinyi András

* PH #82: Worlds Beyond Number (Podcast), Astreiant Series - Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett, Dimension 20 (Web Series) - Campaign 17: Mentopolis, Hades II (Video Game)

* PH #87: Lord Ermenwyr Series - Kage Baker, 新・世界樹の迷宮2 ファフニールの騎士 | Etrian Odyssey Untold 2: The Fafnir Knight, Final Fantasy V, The Face in the Frost - John Bellairs

Re: Pinch Hits 81-89

[(Anonymous)]

From the comm, looks like #82's been claimed now too.

Not surprised #88 went fast. I wonder if they'll get a treat, even more than one, for the Onion cyclist socks thing.

[(Anonymous)]

I went to pinch hit :(

I hope someone who is really excited about one of the fandoms picks me up but I still feel a bit rejected.

[(Anonymous)]

Aw coalie. Your original writer probably just had life happen or they love your canon but that doesn't translate into actual plot ideas this time around.

Download your gifts

[(Anonymous)]

If you love them.

The internet is only forever when you don’t want it to be.

Re: Download your gifts

[(Anonymous)]

+1

This also applies to fic and fanart not gifted to you. I have fic on my hard drive I saved in the late 90s and that has disappeared from the internet decades ago, and I'm so glad teenage me had the foresight to save everything.

panic thread

[(Anonymous)]

For those of us looking at the calendar, doing some quick uncomfortable math, and feeling that nice “oobh I got plany off time” feeling starting to evaporate

aka “I don’t even know what I’m writing yet and it’s Dec 6/7, oops”

Re: panic thread

[(Anonymous)]

I know what I'm writing, I just need to finish canon review and get started, and I don't wanna, but I'm quickly running out of don't wanna time :(

[(Anonymous)]

Should I default? I've started 4 or 5 documents and gotten about 500 words in before realizing I don't have any ideas, my fics are just sort of vibes because I can't think of a story. I'm just so uninspired....

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, probably. Unless you can get someone to look at your ideas and tease them out a bit, either in email or chat?

Why is your story not done yet?

[(Anonymous)]

Me? Oh, I just found out that marriage law in the year I'm writing in the place I'm writing means that the central point of my story is impossible.

Guess I'm rewriting 5K plus words significantly.

Re: Why is your story not done yet?

[(Anonymous)]

Or it's in an AU where the marriage laws were different in that year.

[(Anonymous)]

I played myself with spite.

Ran across a fandom acquaintance talking very frankly about the gifts they received where I think they didn't expect I could see them. They're rather critical.

The weird way my brain works is: I want to write them a treat because I think they'll talk frankly about it in namespace. Either I'll know they like it, or they'll disparage it and I can comfortably judge them*. Win/win!


Yes, Coal, I know this is actually a terrible idea and I should stick to writing treats for the simple reasons that I would enjoy writing them and I think my recipients will enjoy reading them.

But sometimes pettiness is powerful (and the neurotic desire to get honest feedback).



*Actually they mostly complained about the one they liked least, which was amateur but not terrible, and didn't say much about the ones they liked. So if they didn't hate it they'd probably leave me a friendly, bland comment, not say anything in the other location, and leave me wondering forever if they were being honest - because me and karma vibe like that.

Has anyone shaken their gifts yet?

[(Anonymous)]

Any unfortunate tags? Could it be coal?

Re: Has anyone shaken their gifts yet?

[(Anonymous)]

see:

https://coaltide.dreamwidth.org/9396.html?thread=21800884#cmt21800884

higher up on the same page

Uncategorized Fandoms

[(Anonymous)]

Posed but my fic doesn't show up because it's a brand new fandom. Is there a way to get the mods to categorize the fandoms in advance? I can see there is one non-Yuletide fic also in the fandom...

Re: Uncategorized Fandoms

[(Anonymous)]

Double fandom tag it with Unspecified Fandom until the wranglers catch you.

[(Anonymous)]

Please remind me that when you write a slightly longer fic in a large exchange, crickets in the first 24 hours is 100% normal? /o\

[(Anonymous)]

Yes. Especially if you're talking about FIAB, which has over 1300 works in it.

[(Anonymous)]

who's getting an unwrangled fandom? looks like me! :)

[(Anonymous)]

How can people have no idea what they'll even be writing by now? It's the second week of December! You had since October 27th to work on this!

[(Anonymous)]

Calm down Morbane

[(Anonymous)]

Just reread the signup after rereading canon to make sure and realized that once again my recip has dnw'd a major element of canon without elaborating. Why would you DNW "genderswap" in a canon where one of the requested characters is canonically magically genderfluid and another one is a different character's "female counterpart" from another universe??

Oh yeah because you copy-pasted boilerplate dnws into all eight of your prompts. I guess you're getting very boring fic and I'm using that "don't have to write all requested characters" tag!

[(Anonymous)]

one of the requested characters is canonically magically genderfluid and another one is a different character's "female counterpart" from another universe

I wouldn't assume either of these would be affected by a genderswap DNW.

Write 50 words right now on your fic

[(Anonymous)]

If you literally can't, write a sentence.

Re: Write 50 words right now on your fic

[(Anonymous)]

Shan't

[(Anonymous)]

Well, BFE finally wanked itself out, anyone here have thoughts on art?

[(Anonymous)]

I've received amazing art gifts. I don't like getting "bad" art gifts where I think "I could have drawn that" or "I don't actually know what I'm seeing". I don't know if tracing is ethically bad or not. However, I don't like getting art where it looks weird and then later someone who knows more about art tells me that that's because the artist traced something and didn't really understand what they were tracing.

It seems hard to be an artist in an exchange. It seems like it takes far more work to make good art than it takes me to write a 1k fic, but also, I don't want to ask for art and get really disappointing art.