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

Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

Confess your yuletide crimes, coalies. Have you done any of the following, and if so, what happened? Did you get caught? Why'd you do it?

- Uploaded a placeholder story (actual placeholder, not just a finished story that still needs editing).
- Deliberately ignored DNWs.
- Catered a story speficially to go against prompts/wants.
- Wrote an ODAO story out of laziness (as in, you had zero excuses).

...or anything else along the same lines? CONFESS.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

I wrote a fic that went against my recip's prompts.

But to me defence, their prompt was "please write something about [unnominated character I hate]'s [storyline]". I asked for prompts for the characters I offered, didn't get a response, and wrote the post-canon shipfic of my heart.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

Not a crime, IMHO. ODAO is one thing, but when it's an unrequested character, you risk getting exactly what they did; a writer who hates or cannot write that character.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

You did the correct thing!

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

I wrote shipfic of a pairing my recipient specifically DNWed. It pissed me off, because the way they phrased it smelled of subtle homophobia. To be fair, it wasn't explicit, but I wrote the two characters clearly pining for one another and being in love.

Joke's on me though, several people commented how it was refreshing to see gen about these characters. :p

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

Did not comment on a treat written for me, did not even click kudos. There was nothing wrong with it, in fact it was great and about my OTP for the tiny fandom, but I plummeted into a deep dark depression hole that year and couldn't drag myself up in order to express gratitude.

I later befriended the writer (it was a tiny fandom after all, and our shared OTP was not the main ship in it) and finally thanked them for the gift. But we could've become friends much earlier if I had managed to leave a comment instead of avoiding them in shame.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

My first Yuletide my recipient's prompt for the fandom we matched on was "just write anything!" I did. But I gave them something that I now know is considered opt-in only in Yuletide. They seemed extremely happy with it, though.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, one of my best Yuletide stories was a blank signup and I just Did What I Wanted (think like, someone requested Napoleon RPF and I wrote a story about Napoleon being an ice cream truck driver in 1980s Texas) and they not only raved about it but came back a year later to tell me how much they loved it again so like... sometimes you get lucky? Or maybe they left a blank signup because they're really not that picky?

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

Not sure if this counts, but I wrote the characters and ship my recip wanted, A/B, but devoted a large chunk of the story's action to my own blorbo, C, who was also requested but recip seemed to want them as a side character. I made C the person who is the reason for the ship getting together and gave C some very detailed scenes.

Recip loved the fic, since they got their ship, so maybe they didn't mind or actually liked my attention to C.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

I've uploaded a placeholder story where I duplicated part of the story I'd written to make wordcount. I've done that multiple times. I would never do it now but I never got caught.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

As long as you swap it out before reveals...

I once opened my Yuletide gift on Christmas Day and it was literally this.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

Lol my friend got caught doing that and is still banned because she refuses to write a NYR "on principle".

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

I once uploaded a story with a kinda weaksauce ending and got scolded by mods for it. It put me off doing Yuletide for a few years.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

Uploaded an unfinished bus pass that ends at a plausibly “open” place multiple years, but I always go back and write the rest of the story.

One year I forgot about noms and asked for two unnominated side characters in a bonkers rarepair, but did also ask for other nominated characters as I recall. Very glad I seemingly did not match on that fandom.

Commented on a treat that was same fandom/pairing/prompt as my main gift way later and not as in depth as I commented on the main gift…turned out to be from a friend and I still feel bad! Lesson: wait to comment until you’re able to leave good comments for all your writers.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

My bus passes are basically placeholders in terms of how functionally complete they are, but I've never been called out for it. I also wrote for a friend and had to tell her not to open the collection as soon as it was live because I was still working.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

One time I wrote a crack fic treat for someone without noticing they didn't like crack fic until I'd already written the thing. And I was like, fuck it, I will post this anyway, what is the worst that can happen? The treat can end up their only fic, that's the worst that can happen. /o\

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

They had a soft "i would prefer if you didn't include x detail" that I saw the day before yuletide went live and x detail was a major part of my fic. To this day, I'm not sure if I missed it on my initial thirty passes of the letter or if they added it between me reviewing the letter in october/early november and me re-checking it leading up to yuletide.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

My crime is I don't even do yuletide, I just read Coaltide to be entertained by the gossip and wank.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

Wrote a story, then realized it had a major DNW in it, so I rewrote parts of it to just skirt the DNW without technically violating it. It was one of the first things I ever wrote for Yuletide over 15 years ago and while the recipient commented politely at the time, if they'd rejected the gift and DNMed/gamed away from me, it would have been more than fair for that. (They didn't and since then, we've both written gifts and pinch hits for each other with neither one of us ever mentioning that debacle.)

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

Realized 12 hours after reveals that I’d accidentally deleted the last 300ish words of a treat. Frantically added it back. DM’ed my recip, thinking they knew it was me, to be like “oh shit sorry read it again pls”. They had not read it and did not know it was me.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

My first ever yuletide (also my first ever fic exchange) I went ODAO. Didn't hit any of the DNWs but also fully centered the fic around an unrequested character (who is a minor character in canon), including the requested characters (one of whom is the canon main character) only as support. My friend who introduced me to yuletide and who beta'ed the fic did not dissuade me from doing this. When I asked her if this was okay, she said it was still within the rules. Which... yeah... but still. The recip was kind enough to leave a kudos and a nice (if generic) thank you comment, but I found out some time later they rejected the gift. Fair enough. I still feel guilty about it sometimes. If you read this, past recip, thank you for being so gracious about it and sorry I was a dumbass! Your prompts were totally doable I just didn't know how exchanges were supposed to go!

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

My first Yuletide, I forgot to actually post the fic. I kept it in my drafts and one of the Mods had to gently reach out and ask wtf I was doing

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

My first yuletide, it was a five-minute-fandom-type canon. I put it into an rpf setting because at the time I pretty much exclusively wrote rpf and didn't even know this is something a lot of people in fandom don't like.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

The first one, though I'm worse about it in other exchanges where the mods aren't as on top of everything. My secret is writing the beginning and ending and making sure I'm above the word minimum by the posting date, but I've added thousands and thousands of words past the deadline. I've always have a finished fic well before the time the collection goes live, though.

Re: Yuletide crimes

[(Anonymous)]

Defaulted one year due to sheer forgetting.