yuletide_coal | Coalclaw Adventures

1. Drop the links to four letters. One may even sneakily be your own.
2. Mention the fandoms inside said letters
3. People in those fandoms will tell you why they tried-but-failed/couldn't/wouldn't/failed to treat them
4. Hopefully some form of closure is found

1: http://imamaryanne.livejournal.com/49831.html (BSC, Boy Meets World, Carry On)
2: http://scripsi.livejournal.com/112486.html (Penny Dreadful, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Outlander, Deadwood, Ivanhoe, Vorkosigan Saga)
3: http://wickedwonder1.livejournal.com/75330.html (Tomorrowland, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, Diagnosis:Murder)
4: http://raktajinos.livejournal.com/62019.html (Red Eye, Kate Daniels, Fox and O'Hare, Air-G Willow Wilson)

2. They ship het/gen in Penny Dreadful and Strange & Norrell. I only do slash and femslash in those fandoms so I couldn't give them that. I would need beefier gen prompts to treat them gen.

3. The Birdman section of their letter is fine, but nothing really jumps out at me? Actual prompts with the tropes they mentioned might have gone a long way. Instead of saying "I love crack", have a prompt that is like "People really miss the Colbert Report. Harvey's practice has been slow on cases lately so he takes up the gig to suppliment his income". Same with misunderstandings and the other tropes they listed.

It would help show what kinds of crack, misunderstandings, etc that they're into and help me as someone who is trying to write as many treats as possible and maybe can't waste time trying to come up with a prompt for theirs when other letters have prompts handy and ready to go. I may not use your exact prompt, but it will always inspire me more than a mere "misunderstandings!" would.

So, only one of these letters has a fandom I would write in (2), but the sections are very sparse and they didn't list which characters were requested so I would feel a bit nervous doing so. (Same goes for the others on there that don't list the characters, plus the part about not knowing the fandoms.)

1. Thought about treating them for BSC, but couldn't find any inspiration for their favorite characters, mostly because I don't give a fuck about the triplets or Jeff Schafer. Also, there's not a lot of actual prompting to give me a story start; I've written plenty of treats for characters I don't particularly love when a prompt inspired me, so if there had been more to this letter, I might have ended up writing for them.

2, 3, and 4, I don't know any of their fandoms.

Re: 3 + 1: Letters that didn't get treated

(Anonymous) - 2015-12-28 03:59 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3 + 1: Letters that didn't get treated

(Anonymous) - 2015-12-28 04:18 (UTC) - Expand

2. This letter has the only canons I know of the bunch. However, I would only commit to a JS&MN canon refresh if I reeeeally loved a prompt, and there's nothing nearly that inspiring here. Same goes for the Vorkosigan Saga, except the canon refresh would potentially be even more onerous, and the "prompts" here are even worse. This is seriously a "I want anything!" letter. They don't even mention what characters they requested.

I would not treat any of the other three, because I don't know the canons. Which, lbr, is the reason most people don't treat most letters.

1. Didn't list their requested characters in the letter and talks about characters (and fandoms) not in the tagset. No actual prompts. Listed poor grammar as a squick without actually including any punctuation after it.

2. "Not very keen on slash though." Vague/non-existent prompts. Potentially confusing statements (no darkfic but angst is fine).

3. I don't know the fandoms at all, but it looks like only Tomorrowland has a prompt that's really a prompt. Stuff like lost episodes, casefic, and crossovers are the kinds of things that go in a list of likes, rather than as prompts themselves. Unless more specifics are added, anyway. also I think the dental refs in letters are frowned upon now? idk, _coal's whims are sometimes a mystery to me.

4. Mentions they didn't unlock the letter until late, so maybe that's part of the problem. Lists -isms in dislikes, which multiple people have said they find insulting/presumptuous. Weirdly defensive about the villain of Red Eye (seriously, "he plays a role for when he's working, but he's got some goodness in him" -- he is literally a terrorist).

I checked out #2 for Vorkosigan saga, but since the request was so open-ended, and they didn't list characters, I got no inspiration from the letter. Now if I had a treat already in mind, this is someone I might have gifted it to, since they seem quite easy to please. Well, as long as I wasn't writing slash, anyway.

Re: 3 + 1: Letters that didn't get treated

(Anonymous) - 2015-12-28 19:03 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3 + 1: Letters that didn't get treated

(Anonymous) - 2015-12-28 19:11 (UTC) - Expand

#2 is the only one with fandoms I know. I remember clicking excitedly on this link in the letter post because I know multiple of their fandoms. However, their prompts and write-ups were very bland, veering on non-existent. The only way I would have treated them is if I been in the mood to dust off some unfinished drawer fic and give it to anyone whose letter would allow me.

The Ivanhoe prompt turned me off. The short section contained more hate about Ivanhoe the character than love for requested Rebecca. Just say you want post-canon fic about Rebecca in which Ivanhoe does not appear, and that you'd like her to be over it by the time the fic starts; any other characters welcome.

http://agonistes.dreamwidth.org/1370045.html - Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, True Detective

http://beedekka.livejournal.com/93336.html - True Detective, Undisputed, Game of Death, The Expendables, Pay Day

http://dr-zook.livejournal.com/125461.html - Loin de hommes (Far From Men), Plunkett and Macleane, True Detective, The Eagle

http://sweetcarousel.dreamwidth.org/115708.html - Babysitter's Club, Captain Planet, Cold Case, Earth Children, True Detective

agonistes - It just strikes me as very highbrow, to the point where some stuff just rubs me the wrong way. Like "Rust’s nihilism comes from trauma and doesn’t make him cool." and "Bonus points: on-point use of music". They wouldn't like the kind of fic I write, period.

beedekka - I have a half-finished treat for them, so obviously I love their letter! Unfortunately, they're also a person I would like to be friends with and someone whose writing I admire a lot. So I froze up and second-guessed everything I wrote, feeling like it wasn't up to par to gift to them.

dr-zook + sweetcarousel - Both of these letters are great, and I would've been happy to treat them if I'd had the time.

I didn't try to treat True Detective because the canon is too intimidating for me, but here are the reasons why I wouldn't treat these letters

1. I have no interest in gen about Rust? The one period in his life I wouldn't mind seeing gen exploration is his Crash days, and they explicitly say no to that.

2. Would treat this one. Only thing I can say about it is that it doesn't give me the push to write for the fandom. Some letters have a certain prompt that will make me get over my fear of a fandom but this one doesn't do it for me.

3. The Eagle and TD prompts are short but good. Falls in with the above where I would just need a little more to make me feel like I HAVE to treat them, my fears be damned. The European Renaissance one comes really, really close. A little bit longer/more detail and there would probably be a fic in the collection by me this year.

4. My favorite of them all. Really good but again none of the prompts pull me. If they had written the European Renaissance one then I feel like we would have had a winner/match made in heaven. Maybe if they got a little more out-there with their prompts it would work? But if they actually only want are fics like they left prompts for (which is fine!) then maybe we're not compatible because those are the kind of fics that scare me. Their last prompt is the one I would be most likely to treat but it would be at the bottom of my priorities list.

Re: 3 + 1: Letters that didn't get treated

(Anonymous) - 2015-12-28 04:36 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3 + 1: Letters that didn't get treated

(Anonymous) - 2015-12-28 04:43 (UTC) - Expand

agonistes: I found the use of other media for examples off-putting, since I'm not about to go research fandoms I don't know in order to write a treat. It's not a bad letter otherwise.

beedekka: I don't know most of the fandoms, but this one looks good to me.

dr-zook: Nothing especially bad here. Possibly the prompts are a little short?

sweetcarousel: This one looks good to me, too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

sweetcarousel had the only fandoms I could have treated in this batch, BSC and Earth Children. I decided not to try EC because I didn't think I could get the voice right. Probably would have treated them for BSC, except I wrote a couple for my assignment and wanted to treat in a different fandom. Good prompts, though, and though the pairings aren't my favorite, I could have worked with that.

1. spacecadet72: http://bearholdingashark.tumblr.com/post/131468590340/dear-yuletide-writer-letter (Cinderella 2015, Lois Lane: Fallout, The Man From UNCLE 2015, Man of Steel, The Scarlet Pimpernel)

2. alessandralee: http://alessandra-lee.livejournal.com/195142.html (Emelan, Protector of the Small, Girl Meets World, Call the Midwife, Stitchers, The Librarians)

3. duckgirlie: http://duckgirlie.livejournal.com/130141.html (Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Women's Hockey RPF, Descendants)

4. LadySilver: http://argentum-ls.dreamwidth.org/67066.html (The Tomorrow People 1973, The Tomorrow People 2013, My Secret Identity, Psion, Into the Wild Nerd Yonder, Supergirl)

My only fandom on here is Man from UNCLE but they asked for no slash, which is the only thing I'm interested in.

For 1, the prompts are mostly too vague for me? I wouldn't mind being assigned to this person and could probably have written them something they'd like, but to treat I'd need a specific idea. The prompt for Scarlet Pimpernel about Marguerite poking fun at Percy post-reveal is the closest to what I would want, and I might have managed to treat that if I'd had time.

For 2, the formatting throws me off a bit - why bullets for every thought, rather than just for separate prompts? - but otherwise there's nothing especially bad about this. I'd have to have recently reread the Emelan books to feel like I could treat that, so I might have done it in a year where Emelan was my assignment; same goes for Protector of the Small, I'd need a refresher and so this wouldn't be at the top of my list. For The Librarians, I think I'd want a little bit more guidance as to what kind of case they might enjoy in a Cassandra/Ezekiel casefic. Also, given that they list "character-centric fic" among their likes, there's not much to go on in terms of how they see their requested characters/what it is they like about them, which might help me feel more like I could write them a character-centric story they'd enjoy.

For 3, I don't know any fandoms, and same for 4. But I failed to treat LadySilver in another year even though they were on my list, and I now keep an eye on their letters so that if they ever ask for something I do know again, I can fix that.

2 and 3 I don't know the fandoms, so that's why.

1's letter is a little short and sparse on prompts for my treating tastes, though is definitely not a bad letter. Otherwise the only thing, as coalie above me said, is the request for no slash - our reasons for liking the fandom seem different, and I'd be worried about writing something that they wouldn't enjoy!

4 is one I actually looked at to treat, but never got around to checking back on! Aw, I'm surprised they didn't get any treats. A lovely and detailed letter, with good prompts. Unfortunately they only updated the supergirl - the only fandom I could reliably write in - section in December and that was a little late for me this year. More a fault of fandom than person, I suppose?

I considered treating #3, but she just didn't leave any prompts. The enthusiasm was there and that's fun, but if I don't get a spark of an idea right away, I move on to the next letter requesting those characters.

3. I came really close (fic was outlined and I had all their likes/DNWs in a doc to guide me) to treating them but the lack of prompts and their commenting history made me turn to someone else. If that other person hadn't signed up, I probably would have made do and treated 3 instead.

This made me check to see if they commented on any of the fics in the fandoms they requested and it looks like they didn't, not even the one I thought to treat them in. Seems like I made the right call.

alessandralee is the only one with fandoms I know, but I could have written for Emelan, Protector of the Small, or Girl Meets World. I'd really like to write for their Emelan prompt, actually, and had I seen this letter earlier, probably would have treated them. I may write a NYR fic instead. I am a little put off by the generally het nature of their requests, especially considering there is at least one canon lesbian, though in the fandom where they don't want romance stories.

Re: 3 + 1: Letters that didn't get treated

(Anonymous) - 2015-12-28 21:56 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 3 + 1: Letters that didn't get treated

(Anonymous) - 2015-12-28 21:57 (UTC) - Expand

How do you tell who doesn't have treats? Do you just click on random recips?

Basically. I knew my recip didn't have a treat, and I combed the letter post and AO3 together. Was kinda interesting, seeing how many people had multiple treats and the stuff I stuck my tongue out about was the stuff that people treated.

Ooh, fun! I like the analytical bent of this.

1. http://dorinda.dreamwidth.org/59068.html
PEACEMAKERS, REJSEHOLDET|UNIT ONE, SINBAD (TV)

2. http://wickedwords.livejournal.com/702893.html
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Killjoys (TV), The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015), Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells

3. http://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/131460826609/dear-yulegoat-its-that-time-of-year-once-again
Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson, Lady Audley’s Secret - Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Chee and Leaphorn Series (TV), Framed (TV 1992), Jonny Quest, Veritas: The Quest

4. http://lorax.dreamwidth.org/65458.html
Check Please! (Webcomic) [Jack Zimmerman, Kent "Parse" Parson, Eric Bittle], Die Hard [John McClane, Matt Farrell], Kings [Jack Benjamin, David Shepherd], The Losers [Jake Jensen, Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez, Franklin Clay, William Roque], Make it or Break It [Payson Keeler, Sasha Beloff]

I don't know any of the first three people's fandoms.

For the fourth person, I would've only been interested in treating Parse/Bitty in Check Please!, but the letter makes it pretty clear they're really only interested in ships featuring Jack, so yeah...