coaltide | One Wank After Another

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2025

One Wank After Another

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.

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Thursday 1 January: Author reveals, end of event (9pm UTC)

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I was surprised by how many of the 'hidden' requests in my fandoms actually turned out to have letters that just weren't posted on the letters post/in the app, and so I decided to look at the numbers.

There are currently 452 letters in the spreadsheet generated by the app, but 805 letters linked in people's sign-ups. Therefore out of 1,215 total sign-ups, 66.3% wrote a letter but only 37.2% linked their letter on the app/letters post; only 56.1% of letters are linked on the app/letters post.

So I was right: a lot of people write letters without using the app or the letters post—not much less than half of all letters are 'hidden'. I don't know how many of the 43.9% of hidden letters were unfinished at close of sign-ups (in which case they wouldn't have been allowed on the letters post) vs. how many the letter-writer just didn't feel like linking vs. how many participants write letters but don't know about the letters post.

I’m betting that there are a lot of placeholder letters in there.

The autoao3app will pull the last link in a request into the "letter" field, so some of those may be source links or something rathee than actual letters. (I assume most are letters though.)

I usually post a letter on the app in advance but this year I didn't bother. Reason being, I guess I feel like it isn't worth it unless you do it early? I didn't do it early, and posting it a few days before sign-ups closed felt pointless - I'd already missed all the early discussion of letters, and most people's sign-ups are already over and done with at that point.

Like 20% of the people who signed up for Yuletide signed up in the last day, so sure, most people were done by that point but lots weren't.

Also, at least judging by coal, there's a significant number of people who game who check in on the last day just in case new letters have gone up and they want to change their signup. Up to you if you want to make your letter accessible to people who game that hard, but even putting the letter up in the last couple hours will help if you do.

CCYYRRTT

I mean, I don't think judging by coal is a good idea. All the late sign-up talk of "Oh, a letter just appeared that I'd love to write for!" makes it feel like it makes a huge difference, but that's just reporting bias - and how many of those cases even result in actually getting that assignment? Genuine question here, but from skimming coal, I don't think it's that many. And most participants still approach YT a lot more casually.

Even if I was trying to bait a specific person (who I know games and pays attention to letters and writes our shared fandom) into gaming for me, there are so many Yuletide casuals offering Any on a bunch of different fandoms that the chances of having someone game for you successfully after seeing your letter still seem pretty low.

SC

Don't get me wrong, I like that people post early letters... but it definitely feels like a weird half-measure when it comes to requests visibility. It's great for generating hype and giving you something to talk about during the sign-ups phase, but I doubt it does much for actually helping people find assignments they like. It might help exclude fandoms, but that's it. (And that's only if you have enough possible offers. Personally, if I dropped my offer for every fandom with unknown requests, I wouldn't have enough to sign up.)

As I said, I am genuinely curious to hear from coalies how many times they 1) gamed for a specific request based on a visible letter, 2) what gaming looked like for them, 3) if they actually got the assignment.

I always have a long list of “maybes” that I only offer if the visible letters are good/inspiring. This year there was a letter that I liked and I adjusted my offer accordingly (they had 3 characters, two of which I wouldn’t have offered, and a “one or more” request) so I added those two characters to make sure we matched, since there weren’t any other requests in the fandom. That’s probably the most I’ve ever gamed (and I got the match).

I’m also always a last day signup person so yes I am still refreshing a few hours before deadline to see what letters are out there.

I don't think of it as gaming but when I'm compiling my final list of offers (usually on the last day) if there's some "maybes" where I'm excited by the idea of offering them and they're showing as needy in the signup summary, but I am not certain I could write absolutely anything for that fandom, I will check the letters post, and if the letters that are up make it seem like most people are more or less in line with what I can do, I will add it. And if there's no letters or the letters that are up aren't what I was hoping, I will not.

(It's usually for stuff like this is a five minute fandom, are people interpreting it in the same broad strokes? or this is a canon with a lot of breadth, are people going to expect me to have read all of the tie-in comics? that kind of thing, not so much "are they all requesting my otp" or making sure I like they're DNWs. and they're probably going in the bucket offer so I want to make sure the 'any' isn't going to bite me in the butt.)

There's some fandoms I won't offer if I can't see the requests. Big casts (because I never manage to anticipate all possible pairings), fandoms that often have incest requests (which usually isn't in my wheelhouse so I game away), and canons I'd struggle with if I got a blank signup, for example.

However if I see a great letter I will absolutely game for it if there's a way. I had one I wanted with an available character set of 10, and the letter wanted one specific character. I offered that character and another character who'd be very unlikely to show up in anyone's request with the other (think offering for Leia and putting in Jar Jar as the second offer.) I'm still vulnerable to Any requests but there's no getting around those no matter what you do.

I didn't get it, but requests show if I'd gotten that fandom it would have been the letter I wanted. And I still might treat it. This is pretty typically how I do Yuletide, I've been doing it too long and been burned too many different ways by offering too widely not to!

I mean, you do you, but most of your reasoning is just factually wrong.

CYRT

I would love for you to elaborate on that, but I have a feeling you're using "factually wrong" to mean "You're factually right about when most sign-ups take place, something that is easily verifiable, but I feel like late letters are still worth it despite that, which is a personal vibes-based judgement call I can neither really argue for nor quantify".

lmao +1

Some people adjust their offers before sign-ups close, though. Now that requests have been revealed, I can see that there are two requests I would have loved to write for, at least one of which would very likely also have loved me to write for them. But since I didn't see the request, I didn't know what they wanted and didn't offer the fandom.

You also can't post a letter to the app/post if it's incomplete. That stops a lot of people before sign ups end.

Yep, that's what's stopped me, before. This year I was only able to do it because I was home sick.

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One Wank After Another

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