coaltide | One Wank After Another

Entry tags:

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.

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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Crueltide | Femslash Festivus | Yulebuilding | Three Turtle Doves | Two for One | Yuleporn
Family Matters | Queering the Tide | Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational | TransTide
Chromatic Yuletide | Unconventionyule | Wrapping Paper | Babytide | MultiLingYule

Yuletide Discord for Hippos & Exchanges After Dark for namespace ~~drama~~ 18+ discussion.

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If your assignment is the only gift your recip receives (or the only one posted before the deadline, assuming no redating), and they don't default, then yes, they'll be able to tell it was your assignment.

It might also be a treat that became elevated to a main gift when their actual author defaulted at deadline.

Yeah, that's happened to me more than once. I didn't go out to PH because someone had written me a treat before the deadline.

How did you know?

Sorry nonnie, that sucks, especially if it happened more than once.

This is why I always try to wait at least until the recip has another gift before uploading a treat.

It doesn't suck. They gave a gift and got a gift, and the gift they got was something someone chose to make for them out of being inspired.

CYRT

It sucks when you know you could have had two gifts and you only got one because Yuletide has this stupid policy.

In other exchanges, if someone wrote you a treat and you go out to pinch hits, the person who wrote you a treat can claim you and use their treat as their pinch hit, no?

Cyrt

If the treat is already posted, I don't think so. Possibly depends on the exchange, though.

But either way, in every other exchange except Yuletide, it's only ever done if the treater agrees.

But since this is the policy for Yuletide, everybody who posts a treat before the deadline is implicitly agreeing to their fic becoming a pinch hit, no?

And most of the exchanges I have done do allow for previously posted treats to become pinch hits if needed. Why would they ever block that if the treat meets the requirements and the writer is willing for that to happen?

Yuletide should just not open until everyone has five gifts.

CYRT

Yes, "treats that have already been posted as treats should not be repurposed as a main gift" and "Yuletide shouldn't open until everyone has 5 gifts" are clearly exactly the same thing, you're right!

I suspect this "stupid policy" helps keep Yuletide able to open on time. There are always a lot of post-deadline PHs, and then later ones drift in as (presumably) those pinch hitters default, or the mods find placeholders, or whatever. Big exchange, rare fandoms, and a hard deadline for when to open mean that mods are going to do whatever they can to make sure everyone who has written a gift has a gift, including counting treats.

It would be interesting to know how often it really happens. And then it's interesting but unknowable how many pinch hits go out where someone wrote a treat and waited to post it until after the deadline.

I have some sympathy with people to whom that missing gift feels really real because their only gift is marked treat, so "if only" is very tangible, but also idk the whole social contract of pinch hitting rests on the idea that pinch hits are needed. So I think it's fine to not mess with that.

It also sucks when that treat doesn't actually meet the minimum requirements but the mods turn it into your main gift anyway rather than send you out for pinch hits. Now you have one thing, it's labeled as a treat, and your treat writer assumed you'd be getting something else so they weren't worried. Either you turn them in, and risk getting someone else in hot water for posting something that should have gone to Madness in the main collection, all for wanting to give you what they thought was an extra little fun treat, or you suck it up and say thanks and basically go without a gift that fills your request.

Mods could solve a lot of problems by emailing the treat writers and asking like they do in other exchanges.

Or people could put treats that don’t meet the minimum requirements for a main gift in the Madness collection, like they’re supposed to. If you don’t want your treat to become a main gift, and also don’t want to wait to post it until the recipient already has a main gift, there’s a specific place for you to post it so it will definitely stay a treat!

Coalie, you can't email someone if their only interaction with your collection is posting a work. You don't have their email address.

NC If it's someone signed up, the mods have the email.

Also mods share way more info than they should. If you've ever done an exchange, they can see that, DM the mod of that exchange on the mod discord, and get your email that way.

Re: Can anyone tell which was the assignment and which was the treat?

(Anonymous) - 2025-11-07 03:09 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Can anyone tell which was the assignment and which was the treat?

(Anonymous) - 2025-11-07 03:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Can anyone tell which was the assignment and which was the treat?

(Anonymous) - 2025-11-07 04:18 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Can anyone tell which was the assignment and which was the treat?

(Anonymous) - 2025-11-07 04:37 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Can anyone tell which was the assignment and which was the treat?

(Anonymous) - 2025-11-07 05:07 (UTC) - Expand

You were only guaranteed one to begin with. I get it, the FOMO stings (or more like Awareness of Missing Out, so AOMO?), but this is the definition of brattiness.

I think there's a massive difference between "only guaranteed one gift" (not getting a treat is totally normal) and "knew someone wrote you an extra treat but you ended up only getting one gift anyway". Of course the latter one is a shitty feeling.

I just fundamentally don't get this.

But also I've received so many late pinch hits that were shit.

Would you rather be a lingering pinch hit because someone is waiting to post a treat instead of picking up your pinch hit?

Asking because I've never picked up a pinch hit for this reason. I want my treats to stay treats. But is that bad for taking up a pinch hitter's time or making extra work for the mods?

People compete so hard for yuletide pinch hits I can't imagine anyone would begrudge you not taking one

CYRT

I don't think in Yuletide the risk of lingering is too big.

But yes, I'd rather linger for a bit. (I'd also rather a treat recip linger than having my treat become their only gift.)

I want my treats to stay treats. But is that bad for taking up a pinch hitter's time or making extra work for the mods?

I don't think that's bad.

I'm one of the people arguing on the side of the mods' policy, where they don't seek a pinch hit when someone already has a treat. I think pinch hitters should be sought when they are needed to get everyone a gift. But that's because the person who posted the treat "early" had a choice about that. I think if you feel uncomfortable with your treat becoming the main gift, then you should post it in a way that you're comfortable with, and you're writing treats and that's a good thing.

I hope that if that specific pinch hit lingered and lingered, you would consider picking it up with your treat, but that's a relatively rare situation.

The following situation is rare but not impossible:

-You write a treat for B
-You hold on to your treat
-B goes out as pinch hit
-G volunteers to write a pinch hit for B
-C goes out as pinch hit
-G is the only pinch hitter who knows C's canons
-C lingers and lingers and lingers because G is writing a pinch hit for B, who theoretically didn't need a pinch hit, because you were ready to post a gift for them.

And as a sometime mod, I didn't make that scenario up completely. It's happened.

But still, overall, I think it's okay to hold your treats if you want to hold your treats. We're all supposed to be having fun here. Even the mods seem to agree based on giving advice on how and in what circumstances your treats might become main gifts.

Well, this scenario where it's "your fault" relies on G definitely wanting to write for C and only not doing it because they're doing another ph. Maybe they don't want to write those prompts, or they're tired of those canons, or they're sick of C.

Re: Can anyone tell which was the assignment and which was the treat?

(Anonymous) - 2025-11-07 21:51 (UTC) - Expand

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