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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Is the show streaming anywhere? Or do I have to go to greater lengths to see it?

I think that offering "any" is fine, as long as you truly are prepared to write any combination of the "any". But I have been screwed WAY too many times by recips asking for "any". In femslashex I got somebody who asked for "any" in Original Work - there were like 39 very different pairings! And they were like, "Oh, I especially like this subgroup of pairings" (none of which I'd offered), but left no specific prompts of any kind. I was like, DID YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT THIS.

You could just ask for no character bashing.

da

this actually happened one year

Probably not. The fans that are active are divided between "I like this group of characters over here" and "I like that group of characters over there," with lots of suggestions that the other group should be killed off because they're ruining everything.

I promote the one that is my year-round fandom whenever there is a relevant fest, but I have yet to have any takers. I live in hope, though!

Please, someone write this fic. The real question is: where does the xeno fit in?? Castle/Giant Squid?

The worst that ever happened to me was the year my recipient asked for fluffy holiday het in a slash-dominated, not-Yuletide-popular fandom, I sweated bullets making that damn fic work, and then the recip disappeared into the ether. They defaulted, didn't comment, and gave no evidence anywhere that they'd even read it. I've had a lot of fics get disappointing receptions, but I've never had a recip flake on me before or after.

The worst I've ever done was probably write a tiny, high-concept joke fic for my recip in addition to the regular gift. They were confused and unamused, and I felt like a pill.

omg pez dispenser!Andy.

This may just be my perception, but the impression I get about this kind of thing is that the YT mods and/or AO3 culture is so Western-source-focused that a lot of Japanese canons can sneak through. Christ, I think Pokemon slipped through the first round of vetting one year.

Yes, frequently. Generally to the tune of "I want this particular fanon characterization that diverges wildly from canon characterization".

There are a few fandoms out there where pointing out you want the character written to match canon is probably a good idea, because OOC fanon is the norm.

My answer to both questions is the same thing.

Years back, I got matched to a person without a letter or optional details. All it had was characters and "post-canon". But there were some things about that particular fandom that REALLY needed optional details. (Hard to explain without outing the fandom, but it's basically a fandom where if you like one thing, great, but if you hate it and you get that for your fic, you'll probably hate your fic.) So I quickly sent an e-mail to the mods to get them to ask a question to them, and never heard anything back. Nothing. I stalked their LJ and AO3 a bit and there was nothing about this fandom ANYWHERE (the only fandom we matched on and that I was familiar with in their requests).

So finally I decided to just write the idea I had in my head and what I was most capable of writing, regardless of what they might like. I like what I wrote, and I still like it years later, and so did other people in the fandom. My recipient? No comment. No "thanks for writing for me", no "fuck off you're terrible" or anything else.

Cut to two years later and that recip shows up on the PH list. Still no letter, but now in their optional details they specifically said the kind of fic I wrote was a DNW. It wasn't anything extreme, I swear. But it did have a (canon-appropriate) sad ending, so that was what they objected to. (No one else who read it had any objections, so oh well.)

Maybe I could have written something else (though lighthearted fare really does not match the fandom at all), which is where I am at fault. But at least me ruining their Yuletide taught them to put their DNWs in their request.

DA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7iwjiANviI

The first episode isn't the best quality, but I just finished the second and it was fine. (As a side note to OP, I'm definitely on team Calvin/Nikko! Smart people who bicker but end up saving the other's life are 100% my jam.)

a sex ritual used by the human race to destroy the gods is probably out

Unfortunately. I would read that so hard.

My first year I wasn't a very experienced writer and wrote dialogue-only gen for a video game, when it turned out my recip had requested shippy fluff for the comic. I almost feel bad about it, but I was told by several people that I got the character voices down perfectly, so it probably wasn't coal....

Don't be a dick, man.

ayrt

Yay, I'm glad someone else wants to see this! Nonny, if you like S&G, try Nick Drake. His songs are always great for beautiful images. Not so much for characters, though, more just feelings.

/stealthmusicrec

na

Sailor Moon (and its pretty terrible eng dub) was my first fandom when I was a wee bairn so it's mind boggling to me that Western fandom spaces would be unfamiliar with it.

The same could be said for MCU and comics.
Having an awareness of the existence of a franchise, doesn't mean they know the intricacies of the fandom and which parts of canon are truly different and which parts are "too" similar.

Someone else requested fic for my favorite tiny fandom I thought nobody had ever heard of! Hi I want to be your friend and hug you and write fic for you even if we don't match.

nayrt

I use "any" correctly, i.e. someone who offered literally any combination of characters should be fine with me as a recipient and I'm happy to have them. I think you might be strongly anti-people-who-don't-know-what-any-means.

I'm quite surprised that my fandom has so many offers, but so few requests! and only one letter up so far. :(

I see the sign up summary is starting to crap out again. Do you think it's going to complete fail this year again has to be nudged into working again?

So, coal, I had a bit of a wibble I wanted to consult with you on.

In someone's dear author letter, I saw a five-minute fandom I really liked. I was planning a treat for it and thinking about getting started right away. Then I hit uncertainty. It's just a five-minute fandom. If that got uploaded for them really early in Yuletide, would that be a big disappointment? I'd make an assignment-quality treat - I thought I had a strong plot for it - but even so.

So then they signed up, and their name appeared in the profile page, and their fandom appeared on the 1,0 list.

But now it's gone. Their name is still in the profile page, but the last time the summary updated, that fandom wasn't on the list. It's still in their letter.

So... is there any way they could have requested it and the system ate it?

Or are they running with the system another coalie suggested, of putting more requests in their letter than they're actually signed up with?

Either way I'm pretty sad, because I was all set to write a story and... now I'm not sure they want it. Or, not as much as they want other things.

???

You tempt me, coalie, you tempt me.

I can't help feeling it would cause wank somewhere along the line. But I'm probably going to do it. Main assignment would have to be startlingly brilliant, that's all.

*is spreadsheeting helpful looking letters*

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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The Dirty Energy Source

Re: Fans who love canon differently than you do

Re: Bad Letters

Re: Intimidating letters

Re: Challenge: Wankiest Letter

Re: uh-oh

Re: Challenge: Wankiest Letter

Re: Worst Yuletide Ever

Re: Challenge: Wankiest Letter

no subject

da

Re: Worst Yuletide Ever

Re: Fans who love canon differently than you do

Re: Bad Letters

Re: Worst Yuletide Ever

Re: Paging douche patrol

Re: Yuletide Regrets

no subject

no subject

Re: things that make a coalie's shrivelled heart grow two sizes

Re: Bad Letters

Re: Signup Summary Thoughts

And so it starts

Are they requesting it or not....

Re: NaNoWriMo

Re: NaNoWriMo