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)

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.

yuletide |

yuletide_admin |

yuletide_pinch_hits | App

2025 Collection | 2025 Madness | Tagset | Letters

Flat / Recent | Top-Level (Last) | FAQ | Search

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How? How on earth is it very restrictive to not mention that the tavern girl has a husband, whether or not it would be anachronistic for her not to? She can be perfectly historically accurately married OFF SCREEN, you just don't put in a scene where she puts down your requested ship's beer and goes "By the way, I'M MARRIED IN A RELATIONSHIP I'M FUCKING SOMEONE HELLO STRANGERS I HAVE A HUSBAND, WE HAVE SEVEN POINT TWO KIDS AND HAVE BEEN MARRIED HAPPILY FOR 8 YEARS, WE MET AT THE PIG FARM DOWN THE WAY WHICH IS OWNED BY A MARRIED COUPLE"

Just don't! it's that easy!

DC

Yeah, I just don't get it. This isn't information about your background OC that needs to be mentioned, unless the story is actually ABOUT the OC. And frankly, if you're writing a story about an OC rather than about the requested character, you need to ask yourself if you're still fulfilling the assignment in the first place.

Ok, but these DNWs mean that if you decided to give that tavern keeper a name just to make things clear, and her name was Mrs. X, that would be a violation of their DNWs. You wouldn't need to have to go on and on about her married status. A fic doesn't need to be focused in any way on OCs to sometimes occasionally find giving a background OC that is mentioned in like two lines of dialogue a name to make things clearer for the reader. And of course you can write around it in many ways but it is restrictive.

Again, that's Aurae stupidity level of "people are not actually that unreasonable with their DNWs"

SC and for fuck's sake just call her "Pretty Bess" or "Old Martha" or whatever if you're so up your own asshole about not even edging close to the line of accidentally mentioning that someone has parents instead of was spawned immaculately into the world.

What I'm learning from this wank is that I should really DNW original characters because some writers seem to be hell-bent at including them.

Watch out, CYRT will shit themselves that they are now writing a fic to spec of your characters in an empty room where no one else exists in the universe

Aw, please don’t, or please put “mentions okay”. I promise most of us are only trying to include OCs if they seem reasonably welcome or as devices to further a plot you specifically asked for.

I promise you that when I include OCs in a fic they are literally just plot devices to move the plot forward or to exist for one sentence to provide background color to flesh out the scene and put things in context. They are absolutely the definition of 'mentions only' OCs. But if having an OC exist at all would make you unhappy, then you should DNW that.

DNWing original characters is a great way to DNW longer fic, yes.

Nah. I've read and written plenty of longer fic ("longer" in terms of Yuletide standards, so 8-15k and not, like, 200k) that only features the requested characters. And I think at the end of the day I'd rather have a shorter fic about my blorbos than a longer one with lots of extra characters.

Noted.

if you decided to give that tavern keeper a name just to make things clear, and her name was Mrs. X,

But why would you HAVE TO call her Mrs. X rather than Maria or whatever?

Like, you're the the one one who invents the character, so I don't see why you're saying "her name is Mrs. X" like it's a fixed fact. You can name her whatever, and there's pretty much an unlimited amount of names out there. There's still an unlimited amount of names if you eliminate the ones that are in direct violation of you recip's DNWs, so saying "it's restrictive that I can't call her Mrs. X" is completely insane.

But if I decided to give that tavern keeper a name just to make things clear, and his name was Poopy Shitface, that would be a violation of my recip's body fluids DNW. I wouldn't need to have to go on and on about Poopy's toilet habits. And of course I could write around it in many ways but it is restrictive.

DNW any fic henceforth that doesn't include a stop at Poopy Shitface's Tavern

Because it would violate the recipient's other DNW of anachronisms to call a female character by their first name in that context? Having them know a female OC well enough to call them by their first name would require a lot of focus on that OC and would very obviously be a bad gift. I don't get why you are reading everything in such bad faith.

This is great, please keep going.

After a busy weekend and stressful workday this is the wank I deserve and I’m loving it.

Absolutely. You deserve stakesless silliness and I am glad you have it.

Why does the tavern keeper have to be female? Why do they know the tavern keeper enough to know her name in the first place? Why is that necessary for the fic, if it's just a walk-on character? Is this really information that the readers need?

Like, I'm not trying to read this in bad faith, but all of those seem like arbitrary, completely unnecessary and also potentially unwanted writing choices. I'm imagining that this was a gift for me, and I'd be so confused why Mrs X had to be Mrs X rather than a random tavern keeping who brought out the ale and disappeared again so I count read about my requested characters instead.

This all feels very, "Look, if I just climb over this fence, break a window to get in, remove a safety cover and jam my fingers into the mechanism, electrocuting myself on this thing is unavoidable!" Like, at some point you need to acknowledge the problem is maybe less to do with DNWs being too restrictive and more to do with your apparent determination to make a whole series of completely unnecessary active choices in the writing in order to hurl yourself into deliberate conflict with them and then cry about it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

One Wank After Another

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time

Re: Unpopular Opinion Time