yuletide_coal | The Dirty Energy Source

The Dirty Energy Source

Do you want to make a spreadsheet about spreadsheets?
Do you still need to figure out what two other fandoms you should request beside the only one you really want fic for?
Or are you trolling ALL the letter posts for placeholders, just so you can write those people some nice, dry coal?

We want to know all about it.

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If last year's letter still does a good job of capturing what you want, go ahead and use it, or lift the sections that are still relevant. It's not that unusual for people to request the same fandoms and sometimes even the same prompts more than once. It kind of makes sense that you might like the same things this year than you did last year.

Continued!

To answer your first question: yes.

Because I see people requesting "any" when they clearly aren't particularly interested in some of the nominated characters - Those are usually the kinds of letters we mock. And try to avoid. :(

If someone requests "any" characters and I offer to write characters A, B, C, can I be matched to write for that person?

Yes, you can. And it seems like most of the people who choose "any" really only want a couple of characters, and some want characters that weren't even nommed, because they don't understand how the feck "any" works.

I personally hate the "any" choice for all of those reasons. But you pays your money, you takes your chances.

Yes, you can match to someone who requests "any". And if people who request "any" don't actually WANT "any", then they're requesting it wrong. You wouldn't be doing anything wrong in that scenario. I wish more people really though through their "any" requests so that this wouldn't happen!

ayrt

I have one somewhat popular fandom I can offer fic for, so I do think there will be someone I can write for, but I'm afraid I won't really have a lot of people I could treat.

Codename: Ogilvy

Yes, if not surpassed. There are definitely a few letters I'm eyeing for Madness-sized treats that I may try to get started on this weekend if I have the chance to rewatch the canons. There's one treat idea that I am simultaneously really excited and scared shitless of trying my hand at.

...I actually just realised that, _coalie. *off to change the wording for one of my prompts*.

If it's still applicable, it's repeatable.

If you want to repurpose prompts for a different fandom in your current fandom, that's okay too.

For those using crossover only, I think a lot of people haven't heard the word fusion before or haven't heard crossover vs. fusion before. If I didn't hang out on FFA occasionally I would not have run into it - I just don't hang out in any fandom meta spaces in general.

Hee, whoever you're thinking of, I'm sure their ladies are awesome. :D

(Seriously. I kept drifting off, going "MUSCLES OMG!" and "omg, butch ladies are so hot" and "omg, but plump pretty femme ladies!" and "omg, LADIES!!" It was the hardest thing to stop from drooling over pictures of my ladies and actually write my damn letter. xDDD)

...Maybe it's a good thing that femslashex stories get released soon... I can read a bunch of femslash and then be able to concentrate on stuff again. :D [Or get worse, I suppose.]

"There's one treat idea that I am simultaneously really excited and scared shitless of trying my hand at."

Color me intrigued! Hints as to the canon?

lol! Happy to help!

I wrote a really long and involved treat for someone last year because she had a really inspiring prompt that I fell in love with. She was pretty enthusiastic with her reply, but I got shy and didn't respond to it. Lo and behold, she has once again posted her letter for this year... with a prompt I adore, and want to write a very long, involved fic for. Is this creepy? Am I a yuletide stalker? Am I overthinking this? Help?

Thanks for the replies, everyone! It's a fandom I definitely want to offer because I'd love to write fic for it, I guess I'll just have to hope I won't get matched with that person. And if I do, then it's their own fault if they don't get the fic of their dreams.

I lift my general stuff from past letters, although I always re-read over it and rephrase some stuff/take some out/put some in.

Fandom requests - I'll c&p past fandom requests into my letter for reference, but I usually rewrite the prompts pretty extensively. I never want exactly the same thing as I did before. But the squee parts can stay more or less similar.

This is the third year I've repeated an entire fandom section - I haven't gotten fic for it yet, and I am way too lazy to rewrite the section when nothing about why I want it/what I want has changed.

I update my DNWs slightly every year because I base them on the fandoms. Ex. I took incest out because none of the characters I requested this year are family.

If you were repeating fandom sections where you'd gotten stories before you might add "I can't get enough of (fandom)!" but I don't think any of the rest matters.

I'm thinking of the Rosemary and Thyme ladies. I've always thought there was something awesome and sensual about them, but now I'm thinking of it even more, and EXPLICITLY.

Don't worry about it. A lot of authors never reply to comments (I don't know why, but some just don't do it). Also, fics get revealed anonymously at first, so it's not like she will know immediately that you wrote another treat for her.

If you stil feel weird about it, just put in an author's note about how much you loved her prompt. I doubt anyone would mind getting another long treat from someone whose writing they apparently like.

Alias: Grace
Original goal: 2
New goal: At least 3!

DO IT. Write it! The more treats in this world, the better. If I was in your recipient's shoes, I'd be ecstatic to get something from you again. In fact, if I was your recip and loved the fic you wrote last year, I'd probably look at treating you back this year if I knew your fandoms.

Definitely overthinking it. I'm sure she'll just think that you and she have similar interests (which it sounds like you do!).

This. I think a lot of people are just not familiar with the difference between crossovers and fusions, so they use crossovers for everything that somehow combines two fandoms in any way.

Want to write something specific, like femslash? Space AUs? Darkfic? A/B/O? Dewclaws?

Ask here so people can point you towards letters asking for those things if they've seen them!

DA is guessing it's Instrumentality of Mankind

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The Dirty Energy Source

Re: Repeating letter content

Good Letters/Prompts

Re: still confused about "any"

Re: still confused about "any"

Re: still confused about "any"

Re: Treat Pact Check-In

Re: Treat Pact Check-In

Re: Crossovers vs. Fusions

Re: Repeating letter content

Re: Crossovers vs. Fusions

Re: What has writing your letter taught you?

Re: Treat Pact Check-In

Re: Crossovers vs. Fusions

Is This Creepy?

Re: still confused about "any"

Re: Repeating letter content

Re: Repeating letter content

Re: What has writing your letter taught you?

Re: Is This Creepy?

Re: Treat Pact Check-In

Re: Is This Creepy?

Re: Is This Creepy?

Re: Crossovers vs. Fusions

Letters Requesting Specific Things

Re: Treat Pact Check-In