yuletide_coal | It's always coalest before the dawn

It's always coalest before the dawn

Posting deadline: 18th December at 9am UTC - may be the 17th in your time zone
Story reveal: 25th December
Author reveal: 1st January

Yuletide Discord for Hippos. Google Group for PHs.

Main Collection - Madness

Letters @ LJ - Letters @ DW - App - Spreadsheet - Ao3 Page - Text File

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Is there any talk in the Discord channel or elsewhere about when the text file with all the requests will be released? It's normally right there from the start, so I'm not sure if there's a problem with it this year or what.

Oh my God, Coal, I just discovered that under one of my canons my requested characters somehow just...disappeared from my signup. So it looks like I requested any but all of my prompts are for a specific subset of the nominated characters.

Author, if you're reading this, I swear I'm not an asshole who misuses Any, I genuinely have no idea how this happened.

I guess ars_belli is covering their bases re last year's magnificent Queen Vic hunts Nazis fic. Enforceable because in the sign up:

DNWs:

AUs which completely recontextualise the characters (including apocalypse, coffee shop, kidfic, high-school/university, [character] does Yuletide …)

Changes to the gender, ethnicity, or biology of the characters (e.g. no mpreg, A/B/O, hermaphroditism, transfic …).

Issuefic

It's pretty funny seeing their whole sign up just a long list of DNWs. They also requested Conspiracy, which is actually a film I love, but JFC, the Reinhard Heydrich boner is still on display. At least it's a Gen request.

... so I don't have to/because I can't

I went to do my canon review and my DVDs won't play. Probably because they've been on my shelf untouched for ten years but still. >:(

I posted this on FFA, but I wanted input from coalies as well:

I'm a nonnie who picked up a canon based on a rec here (specifically, the Myst Series). I was not assigned to it, but I was looking at treating. However, I came across something confusing.

Myst Series is listed under Video Games and synned to that on AO3. There are three people requesting it, and the majority of the prompts align to the video games. But one of the people mention what appear to be tie-in novels in their prompts, and another one references them as something that can be read if you're further interested in world building, but not something that's needed for their prompts at all.

This is where I get confused. Shouldn't the requests only deal with the video games, seeing as it's in the video games area? The games are a "series" (Myst, Riven: The Sequel to Myst, Myst III: Exile, Myst IV: Revelation, Myst V: End of Ages, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst), and the novels (The Book of Atrus, the Book of Ti'Ana, The Book of D'ni) are written by someone with the input of the creators of the game. The provide further background and world building and have many of the characters who are in the game, but not all and also have other characters.

I looked at prompts for past years and like this year, prompts are split between the video games and the books. Some people incorporate both, and some people nominated characters that seem to only appear in the books. The confusion, of course, is doubled when people prompt characters who a
re both in the games and the books.

From my research, it seems that the fandom for Myst is very small and somewhat insular and focused exclusively on the games (not fic output), and many of the people have read the books.

However, as someone not aware of it, if I had matched on someone requesting book lore, what would I do? It doesn't seem fair, as the fandom is synned to video games, but people request the books, and there's not disambiguation.

Is that a fair thing to argue for disambiguation if I nom them next year? For example, Myst Series (Video Games) vs Myst Series - Miller, Miller, Wingrove?

Based on this YT and past YT, the old guard doesn't seem to care, but for new people getting into it, it's confusing and doesn't seem fair.

I know it hasn't been that long but I have an AMAZING IDEA and I need to know if you'll like it. JUST WRITE YOUR DAMN LETTER PLS

Jeez, Yuletide has a lot more homophobes than normal exchange fandom. I don't think I've ever seen this many DNW slash.

Have any?

I deleted the post with all my 2017 canon review notes, after I finished writing last year, figuring I wouldn't need it again, and then I got assigned the same fandom this year and I have to reread a whole book series again because I can't remember anything.

ITT

I'm getting annoyed at the writers who use googledocs to post their letters since I'm now listed as "sharing" them on my drive.

Have you ever not commented something because you knew it would possibly be *too* wanky and you didn't want to kick off something on coal?

(Have you ever posted something a little OTT just to get some coal discussion going?)

This question brought to you by me finding something stupid AlexSeanchai said a few months ago while looking for recent coal namespace wank and NOT posting it here because it probably would have led to a grudgewank spiral even though I just want to laugh at their lack of shame.

Now that we have everything, ask for letters requesting x?

flatmemeing is quite the experience right now

I have kind of a weird, silly problem, coal! My recip and I overlap on two fandoms, both within the same relatively narrow genre, and as such the prompts are really similar for both, including a specific type of AU. I'm definitely on board, because the genre sort of implicitly lends itself to this AU (think, say, requesting a space opera AU of a canon involving space travel - the possibility is built into the premise itself), but the problem is that now I have two solid ideas for the same variety of that AU for both fandoms. I really want to write both, but I feel like it'll be pretty damn obvious that they share an author.

What should I do? Just own it in the author's notes? Try to make them different enough that it's not quite so blatantly announcing they're both written by me? Just act as if it's not an issue and if they figure it out, they figure it out? (Am I overthinking this??)

Recip, thank you for finalllly unlocking your letter & having some interesting prompts in there.

Reassurances, pleas, or threats you have for that special someone writing for you.

just wondering

Is there a post to get banned from coal to avoid anonfailing, or do I just risk it?

Is a gift.

Hey recip, thanks for letting me know to put minimum possible effort into your 1100 word fic!

https://yuletide-coal.dreamwidth.org/11092.html

Not some rando post, but HQ official:

https://yuletide-coal.dreamwidth.org/11092.html

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txt file?

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