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)

Mini-Challenges:

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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Comments

Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I'll go first! All treats should be posted to Madness and not the main collection.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I'll reverse that and say dump Madness and put everything in the main collection.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Yup, agreed. The Madness collection is silly and anyone can learn to filter out shorter fics if that's what bothers them about Madness. No other exchange has a separate treat collection and Yuletide didn't used to either. It's time to go!

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

+1000

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Hard agree

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Never thought about it before, but I agree. I usually forget about Madness. Many years I've thought "man, what a shame there was no (insert fandom here) fic this year, only to much later realize there was a ton in Madness.

It's bad for the writers whose stories don't get as much attention, and bad for readers who will have a harder time seeing them. Just pointless extra steps.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

People are agreeing with you so this is not an unpopular opinion!

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

-1

Everything that's not an assignment should go to Madness.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

So you want it to be way more obvious who defaulted based on them not having a gift in the main collection?

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

They might not have defaulted, they could have just rejected.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Almost no one cares if you default or even pays attention to it (unless you do it regularly), and if someone is so incensed that things come up in people's lives that they feel the need to go through over 1000 participants and cross-reference sign-ups with gifts, that says more about them than it does about someone who had to default.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Why is that?

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

A three strikes and you're out policy if you don't comment on your gifts.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I don't give a fuck about where treats are posted (that is not the unpopular opinion).

I just want Yuletide to have ship matching (this is the unpopular opinion).

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

There should be limitations on what people can DNW.

I know that would be a nightmare to enforce, and thus will never happen, but:

DNWs didn't use to as formalized as they are now. You were just generally expected to Not Be An Asshole About It. I dug up this from the old archive, just out of personal curiosity:

"Your author may do their best to accommodate your more specific requests, but they are not bound by them. We hope that all concerned will be generous and gracious in their interactions. As with the writing half of the challenge, the more flexible you can be as a reader within the boundaries of what you like, the more enjoyment you're likely to get out of the process."

To be clear: I LIKE that we now have formalized DNWs. It gives the mods something concrete to point to rather than "you were being kind of shitty in how you interpreted that letter".

But. I do think (some/many) people are now using DNWs as a way to make the optional details not optional.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I feel you. There's a pretty thin line between "These elements in a gift would be a dealbreaker for me and I won't be able to enjoy the gift" and "I want the gift to be about these specific things and have no interest in anything else". My current assignment DNWs big chunks of canon and that's the point where I feel like this is just using DNWs to enforce your likes/prompts.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

I could honestly quite happily roll with an exchange that only allowed you DNW specific archive warnings (plus optionally maybe a handful of other things like explicit smut in general, AUs or crossovers). Anything else you could still express as a preference in your optional details, but no more hair-splitting lists of 47 complicated yet fuzzily explained dealbreakers.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, yeah. I see people using a ton of DNWs to essentially commission a fic exactly to their specifications when looking through the requests. I don't love what it has done to exchange culture.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

+1

I have no idea how one would write rules that restrict DNWs without being an actual accessibility asshole, because real triggers are unpredictable and some people do have many more than others and there's no way to force people to prove they need them. But at this point it's become "Optional details are optional, unless you get one of those people who decides to railroad you with DNWs, in which case you're gonna write one very exact thing"

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Chaos option: eliminate the box for additional details in the sign up form. No DNWs, no prompts. You request one or more characters and that's it. Forget ODAO, now we're doing NDAN (no details are needed). What insane thing will your writer create from the raw clay of the characters from Macdonald Hall or Murderbot? It'll definitely be a surprise!!

(Obviously, in this scenario, letters are also eliminated. NDAN!)

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

All participants must link to three recent stories they commented on in their signup

(helps the writer see what kind of fic they like, also encourages people to leave comments/warns you if your recip leaves short comments/makes the good commenters in demand for treats)

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

Related to the other thread (and clearly an unpopular opinion, given the reactions there):

I think commenting with "Thanks for writing." (and just that, nothing else) is a lot worse as a reaction to a gift you dislike than rejecting it.

Rejection feels like an honest, value neutral reaction to me, but whenever I see a "Thanks for writing" comment, the passive-aggressiveness is making me think "well, fuck this person" even if I was previously in their corner re: the gift was bad.

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

[(Anonymous)]

BFE culture DNWs are reaching the point of railroading for some participants. What started as squicks or triggers has become akin to commissioning fic requirements, except in this corner of fandom commissions are not socially accepted.