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

Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

Is a gift.

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

Re: Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

Imagine if AO3 made it private, like that one weird anon wanted. How would we know who the rude jerks are?

Re: Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

someone wanted it private? What would even be the reason for it?

Re: Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe they just don't write longfic well. I know some people want to slog through 10K of obligatory dross on principle, but I'll take 1100 of something decently written to my prompts over that every time.

Re: Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

why because they're a non-commenter?

honestly people place too much significance on recip comments. write a great fic instead and maybe you'll get a dozen comments from other readers.

Re: Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

in a big fandom maybe! but not in the majority of yuletide fandoms.

if the recip doesn’t care about their gift then it makes even more sense to be done with them quickly and write for more fandoms so you can get more comments by other recips/and +2 or +3 people who also know those fandoms, by your logic. some people have to write 4-5 fics to get up to a dozen people who even know one of those fandoms enough to comment.

Re: Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

Fuck, most of the stuff I write outside of Yuletide doesn't even get twelve comments.

Re: Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

I have to agree. Petty revenge won't get you anything from your recip - they'll just be another poor innocent whining about the coal they got (never mind that they deserved it). And probably justifying their non-commenting with the shitty fic they received. Basically they can't learn their lesson so don't bother trying to teach them.

I wouldn't go the extra mile for a non-commenting recip, but I still say at least put out a decent fic for the fandom, then at least there's a chance you'll get something for your trouble, and the asshole recip has no excuse for their shitty behaviour.

Re: Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

Comments are hard enough to come by in really rare fandoms (as opposed to popular-for-Yuletide fandoms, where yeah, if you write something great, you'll get plenty of comments even if your recip ghosts you), and depending on what your recip's optional details and DNWs are, you could end up with something that literally only one person actually wants to read. So if they don't comment on it, it sucks.

Re: Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

+0.5

Personally I feel like people place too much significance on the length/sincerity of the comment.

Re: Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

If people wanted to write for themselves they would do a fest. If they wanted someone to write for them, they’d leave a lot of kink meme prompts. An exchange is to give and get fic, so lots of people who do them actually want a little interaction with the person they gifted. Expecting lots of comments or to become BFFS with them, but yes, seeing their happiness if the fic made them happy would be nice. A shock, I know.

Re: Gift History

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Yeah but then you'd have to be constantly judging whether or not a comment carries a sincere amount of happiness or whatever. Some people think their comment is already long enough, and some people will see a comment with several sentences and go "wow I should've written for a different recip they didn't like it enough :(" I have genuinely had people do that with comments I've written that were like a paragraph long. And then if I try to gush, I wouldn't be surprised if someone whined about performative squee.