It's always coalest before the dawn

[coalcube]

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.

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Comments

ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

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.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

We had this wank before but just because it’s gen doesn’t make it less gross. Someone with a kink doesn’t need a sexualized context to enjoy it. If you have a foot fetish, getting a picture of your favorite set of feet is still great even if nobody is sucking on them. Such is the same with someone who loves all this nazi shit.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

+1

nazis being peak nazi is probably more their speed than nazis fucking or raping others.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

Fair enough. I guess my initial reaction was overly generous in the sense that I don't think historical fic about bad people is wrong per se, but you're right that they've more than blown through the benefit of the doubt.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

People still wear strappy sandals or take off their shoes in public even though someone might enjoy that.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, but there's a difference between wearing strappy sandals because you wanted to wear them, vs. wearing strappy sandals because your coworker asked you to so he could take pictures for his "anatomy textbook." I feel like writing someone an exchange fic is closer to the latter.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, I think people lose all sense of perspective when it comes to ars_belli. People write about all manner of shady historical characters and kink on all manner of things that can be (and sometimes are) frankly distasteful, including underage (including extreme underage), but somehow we're drawing a line at nazis? And that doesn't strike anyone as hypocritical?

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

hiiii ars_belli

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

Look, if someone else were requesting RL perpetrators of mass genocide, I’m sure _coal would rightfully scorn them, too. But in the meantime, I’m fine with _coal hating someone who admires and masturbates to RL white supremacists who slaughtered millions of people, many of whom as still considered undesirable and lesser today because of their disabilities, sexuality, skin color, or religion, and still today live fear of violence against them because of continuing discrimination.

People who enjoy underage fic are not harming people IRL. But people who admire Nazis are admiring and perpetuating a very specific ideology of murder on a mass scale for a greater cause. They deserve far worse than just a bad rep in a fanfic exchange, and if you fail to understand that, maybe watch Night and Fog before you go around decrying how unfair it is that people are anti-Nazi.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

+0.5

I understand the issue emotionally because I have a different visceral reaction to Nazis than I have to, say, Nero and Atilla the Hun (likely because there are no ideological descendants of them still about in RL) or someone asking for underage snuff fic, but I don't think Yuletide is the place to police fic content.

I don't like the kink shamy nature of AIRT's comment with the "frankly distasteful kinks", but I do think it's requestionable to morally police one specific thing and not anything else. (Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for policing everything that's potentially distasteful or controversial. I don't think there should be any moral policing at all.)

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

For me, it's an issue of degrees of separation. Someone asking for "shady historical characters" (and I'm assuming when you say "characters" you mean fictional people in historical settings) or extreme underage might make me think "... welp, glad I didn't match to them!" But ars_belli tried to nominate Nazi RPF for Yuletide at least once, IIRC - when it's entirely possible that relatively direct descendants of their victims are also participating. That, to me, is very obviously more fucked up than either of your other hypotheticals, and is such a different scenario that I don't think "hypocritical" applies to being bothered by one and not the others.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

The world can never have enough nazi hunting fic. Someone pls get on this.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

Technically the assassination of Heydrich by Czech partisans is discussed in the voiceover at the end of the film, so there's your loophole, I guess.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

true, but nobody should write her fic, except for her assigned author.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

What happened with ars_belli this time? (Or I guess last year)

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

last year? nothing. she got a hilarious futuristic nazi-hunting fic:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13014315

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

lol_meme's sock got assigned to her and wrote her an amazing post-apoc fic about Victoria (the Queen) reawakening in the future and fighting Nazis. There was a lot of yelling DEATH TO ALL NAZIS. It was great.

ars_belli took the high road at the time and left them a long, positive comment, but apparently she didn't love it as much as her comment said she did. :D

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

There's nothing wrong with any of those DNWs. Nor is there anything wrong with your signup just being DNWs and actual prompts being in your letter. If you want to keep bitching about this person, cool, but don't whine about things that are completely normal.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

Do you know the context? It’s funny because her DNWs are clearly a reaction to the troll gift she got last year.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

When is that woman going to get the hint and just stop participating? She's pretty vile.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

She won't, because she's pretty vile. She probably enjoys upsetting the rest of us.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

I'd forgotten about that fic and what a triumph it was. I wish we could coordinate so she could never receive any author who wouldn't just give her troll fic.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

I think lol_meme or the main writer who uses their account has resigned themselves to always asking the mods to match themselves to her.

Is it better for the mods to have her get kittyfic (if lol_meme stops knowing her fandoms but keeps offering anyway) rather than banning her? I don't really care about her gifts tbh, I feel bad for those who get assigned to her. If I were a mod I would have a sock participant that would get created after sign ups. The sock will have an empty sign up with all one or two of fandoms, she gets matched to them and then the circle of DNW is closed off so nobody else gets touched. She doesn't write treats, right?

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair to ars_belli that is a beautifully finessed "Please don't write me Nazi hunting fic this year" request.

I hope her author can find a way to wriggle around it, but it's elegantly done.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

They didn't DNW deathfic so just have the Nazis die or write a world where everyone is mixed and white skin/blonde hair is gone. Sorry, non-Nazi's who have those things, take one for the team.

Or write a fic that's basically what if the program that man Kahn in Star Trek happened in one of her fandoms. The true master race is a brown person! We all win!