Is it Yuletide yet?

[heavensqueen]

*yawns and stretches*

happy new YT season, coalies!
Looks like this year everything will happen a lot sooner. But don't worry, the best time to think about yt gifts is when your still sitting at the beach or around a pool with a cold cocktail in your hand... right?

YT 2016 Timeline: https://yuletide-admin.dreamwidth.org/28822.html

FFA or not Poll: https://yuletide-coal.dreamwidth.org/6080.html

Comments

Songs for titles

[heavensqueen]

Last year you guys requested song lines for title posts, please repost your favourites here, thx!

*lazy!mod is lazy*

Re: Songs for titles

[(Anonymous)]

Oh Coalie Night
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Dewclaws?

NEW POST, SUCKERS

[(Anonymous)]

YESSSSSS

no I didn't have anything else to say

Wank predictions

[(Anonymous)]

What wank will happen? What will that one wanky person do?

Re: Wank predictions

[(Anonymous)]

Untherius wank seems to have been, well, de-clawed. If you look at his works over the last couple of years, he doesn't seem to have written any unexpected gore or dewclaws or shoved his weird headcanons into his gift stories, and he seems to have knocked off the long rambly AO3 comments about his writing process.

I'd heard a rumor that he was hand-matched to at least one volunteer recip who was guaranteed to be Cult Of Nice about any gift they received. Not sure if that's true, but he did write a story for at least one person who used to be a tagmod and she positively overflowed with Performative Squee, which smacks to me of a concerted attempt to stamp out potential wank.

Tbh, it'd be just as well if the perennial Untherius Wank was allowed to die a slow death. I never did figure out if he was trolling or not, but whatever he was doing, he was getting way too much attention for it for a while.

Straw(man) Poll

[(Anonymous)]

Pick and choose.

What are your opinions on:

• Hockey teams in Yuletide


• Marvel comics in Yuletide


• Treats becoming main gifts


• How closely to follow optional details


• Use of UTC for deadlines


• The early schedule


• Mods


• Fanworks in Yuletide


• Gen outs


• Some other perennial topic or new one

Re: Straw(man) Poll

[(Anonymous)]

Marvel comics in Yuletide:

I like it when the comics aren't about the characters that have 30 million fics written about them in the MCU. And yeah, it's a different version of the characters, but they're not *that* different. It feels wrong, somehow. OTOH, I would love to see my faves who aren't in the MCU adaptations (She-Hulk! Ms. Marvel! Spider-Gwen!) and my faves who are in the MCU in name only (Patsy Walker, Hellcat shares only a few passing similarities with Trish Walker of Jessica Jones). So, uh, I'm probably a hypocrite?

Use of UTC:

It's not America-centric and every time zone is going to be inconvenient for somebody. Deal with it.

Gen outs:

I'm on the fence. I usually give gen prompts, but it's not because I'm giving outs- it's because I really do like gen. There are a few fandoms where I'm less likely to ask for gen, just because I ship the characters so hard, but the only time I'll be actively upset about not getting a shipfic is when I'm participating in a shipping exchange.

RelationShipping

[(Anonymous)]

The signups for RelationShipping (an exchange for incest ships) are open! Join in, if that's your thing! :D

http://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/1408
http://archiveofourown.org/collections/RelationShipping_2016

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, my first day of classes was today! And this year it doesn't even look like I have anything major due right around Thanksgiving. Thank God. (One class left to get a syllabus for, though, so that could change.)

Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

Unpopular in general or on _coal, what are yours?

Re: Unpopular Yuletide Opinions

[(Anonymous)]

I don't get why people who don't have any specific likes (let alone prompts) or are ok with "anything!" sign up.

They certainly are entitled to. I just don't get why they do.

/inb4 "I still want a fic in return, I just don't care what about." I don't! get! the! point!

Place your bets

[(Anonymous)]

1.
Date of Morbane's first anonfail

2.
Number of sign-ups in 2016

Re: Place your bets

[(Anonymous)]

1. Sometime in October because she'll be doing mod stuff and is too dumb to meme in a completely seperate browser. This is my tip to you, morbane. Not an incognito tab, a whole seperate browser: if you mod in Chrome, meme in Firefox.

2. More than 2k because there will be more time to hear of Yuletide. Lots of older-yet-casual 'Tiders will fail to sign up though because they don't track and didn't get the memo. They'll notice when the mods send the wake up email to the PH list, which will be too late.

Oh, hey

[(Anonymous)]

It's the season of going back to LJ and seeing ugly icons.

Re: Oh, hey

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, you.

Delayed Tracking Notifs

[(Anonymous)]

Anybody else having new comment emails show up out of order and majorly delayed?

Re: Delayed Tracking Notifs

[(Anonymous)]

Out of order, yes. Not sure about delayed.

Do you know

[(Anonymous)]

1) What you're nominating?
2) What you're requesting?
3) What you're offering?
4) What you'll put in your letter/sign up?

Re: Do you know

[(Anonymous)]

1. I know a handful. I have a few socks myself so I'll add more as I remember during the nom period.

2. I know I'll be recycling a few of my fandoms, so yes. The others are a mystery. I don't know if I want to do a full load this year? Last year it worked out in my favor and every fandom I requested got me a treat so I may tempt fate and hit the maximum.

3. Nope.

4. General likes and dislikes will be recycled on top of whatever fandoms I rerequest. Other stuff will be from scratch.

Other exchanges

[(Anonymous)]

Appetite whetters for Yuletide ITT

Re: Other exchanges - Trick or Treat

[(Anonymous)]

Any other coalies excited for it?

[(Anonymous)]

Is this going to be the year the mods finally start counting stories on Wattpad for rarity?

[(Anonymous)]

Wattpad has a wall that blocks you unless you sign up, so god I hope not.

Tiny Hill of People Who Like Shipping AND Gen

[(Anonymous)]

Who's on it with me?

(yes, we have a flag)

Re: Tiny Hill of People Who Like Shipping AND Gen

[(Anonymous)]

I'm on that hill.

...But I usually tailor my letters towards shipping now because my gen-heavy letters have tended to result in me getting that very bland type of Yuletide Gen where it's 1000 words of a character thinking about something or a retelling of a canon event.

Low-effort participants are gonna low-effort, but even though I enjoy well-written gen and shipping equally, I get a lot more enojoyment out of low-effort shipping than low-effort gen.

People who actually LIKE Gen

[(Anonymous)]

Or would take it over 'Thank you for writing for me'-worthy OOC shipfic.

Re: People who actually LIKE Gen

[(Anonymous)]

Bad gen to me equals introspective navel gazing where nothing happens...so no. I would probably enjoy fic where half my otp rapes the other in an OOC manner if only because at least I could laugh at that. There's nothing worse to me than a fic where nothing happens between the first and final sentence.

Gifts You Got Last Year

[(Anonymous)]

I want to turn the gen vs. ship wank into something fun.

List the type of fandoms that you requested last year, if you reicieved fic in them, if what you got gen/ship/hybrid, and if you were happy with that.

Example:

1. Books & Lit - My main gift did my gen prompt the most perfect justice.
2. Anime & Manga - Got one shippy treat! Very happy.
3. TV Shows

Re: Gifts You Got Last Year

[(Anonymous)]

Books & Literature - Got nothing. I had been asking for canon death fix for a canon couple.

Celebs & Real People - Shippy and used the prompt I wanted most.

Other Media - Followed one of my prompts to the letter and was absolutely flawless. I reread this fic constantly. Ship fic of my heart.

Movies - Took one of my vaguer prompts and stuffed at least half of my likes list into it. It's a romantic canon and they gave my canon ship the ending they deserved.

Movies - Shippy and too cute for words.

Movies - Majority was gen with a shippy ending and...not great? Not because of the gen tilt, in my opinion. The fic was dictated to me, not described. They recapped/summarized canon events for most of the fic, there wasn't much dialogue or character interaction happening in the moment. It may be the worst fic in the fandom and is definitely the worst for the pairing. I wonder if this person used the fandom as filler and matched to me even those me and the other people requesting all had our letters posted early. It's longer than 1k though so it could have been a bad writer doing their best. Any other year I would probably have been more mad but all the other fics made up for this dry lifeless mess.

Has anyone received unwanted shipfic?

[(Anonymous)]

I know there's a famous example (of someone who requested the two characters in the most popular pairing in a fandom, and was upset when they got shipfic), but other than that, does it really happen that often?

Are you planning to write in your letter that you don't want a specific pairing?

Re: Has anyone received unwanted shipfic?

[(Anonymous)]

the example person doesn't even count because the pulled the happy with anything card and didn't mention the ship as a dnw

Gen and Ship Writers: what have you actually done

[(Anonymous)]

-when the request was for a ship
-when the request was for no ship
-when the request was for gen
-when the sign-up was blank?

Re: Gen and Ship Writers: what have you actually done

[(Anonymous)]

- Write ship fic using as many of their likes and aspects of their prompts as humanly possible.
- Just went through all my Yuletide AO3 assignments and this has never happened even with my noncanon ships. I agree with other anons: this isn't an issue for most people unless you're out of step with your fandom.
- Again, never happened. I don't remember many gen requests for fandoms with character combos I'm looking to treat either.
- Blank sign ups have been for requests that involve two people in a canon pairing so they got ship. I always do a canon divergence type of plot for blank sign ups because I figure that's the best way to make something they'll maybe like. Fandom usually eats it up as well, which is a bonus.

What should DNWs be used for?

[(Anonymous)]

It seems obvious it should be used for things that are triggering or upsetting (eg "DNW: animal harm", "DNW: eating disorders").

It seems like abuse for it to be used to create very specific requests (eg "DNW: under 10K words", "DNW: anything except casefic").

But what about stuff that falls in between? Especially since DNWs are meant to be enforceable by the mods.

Re: What should DNWs be used for?

[(Anonymous)]

Anything that makes you want to instantly close the tab when you spot it in the tags or when you encounter it in the fic. In a perfect world the things that make you avoid fic in the wild should apply to exhange gifts, but if you're really picky then 'abuse' can happen.

Things that could actually be a like/can be phrased as a double negative shouldn't be DNWs, see: 10k+ fic, casefic is your fav. "I don't like fic that isn't 10k" is an abusive reach to turn that concept into a DNW. It should be in your likes/fandom section as "I really only like fic that's at least 10k."

Things that wouldn't come up anywhere else in your letter should, see: noncon, death, a POV/tense preference, watersports. Those things probably would have no organic way to show up during your prompts so there is no other section for them than in your dislikes.

IT'S SEPTEMBER FFS

[(Anonymous)]

...oh, right, the gang's all here.

Carry on.

Re: IT'S SEPTEMBER FFS

[(Anonymous)]

THE COALIES ARE BACK IN TOWN

Fests Within an Exchange

[(Anonymous)]

ITT Drinkswap, Candyswap, Yuleporn, Crueltide, Misses Claus, the POC one, etc

What are you excited for?

Re: Fests Within an Exchange

[(Anonymous)]

I'm hyped for Yuleporn and Crueltide. Hopefully there will be stuff I can write that fits into both for maximum fun.

Yuletide Hopes

[(Anonymous)]

For letters, nominations, gifts, morbane anonfails, whatever: what are you hoping for this year?

Re: Yuletide Hopes

[(Anonymous)]

I just really, really don't want another gen fic.

What WOULD ruin your Yuletide?

[(Anonymous)]

We joke about "you ruined Yuletide!" all the time, but really, what would really suck if it happened? Getting awesome lady issuefic? Untherius levels of "holy shit what the fuck?" in your gift? Surprise Poe/Finn outta fuckin' nowhere? Getting assigned to Zarabitha? What's your Yuletide nightmare scenario?

Re: What WOULD ruin your Yuletide?

[(Anonymous)]

Tumblrfic

Can you nominate if you're not eligible for YT?

[(Anonymous)]

I till have to upload my NYR story and m hoping to have it done over the weekend. I know we actually have until the end of the month to post these stories to b eligible for YT signups, but can we nominate in the interim? Anyone know?

Re: Can you nominate if you're not eligible for YT?

[(Anonymous)]

As a late defaulter last year, I'm really curious about this myself. I'm not sure if my New Years Resolutions Story will be ready for posting by the time nominations roll around.

No treats for you!

[(Anonymous)]

Have you ever been looking to write treats, and made the definite decision that there was someone you absolutely did NOT want to want treats for? What sealed your decision?

Re: No treats for you!

[(Anonymous)]

Yes. The person in my fandom who always requests fandom -- and sometimes is the only one requesting fandom, or the only one requesting the character(s) I want to write -- and has a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad commenting record. Also a terrible placeholder record. (Think FF_D: The Undiscovered Years.)

Thankfully it looks like there'll be at least a couple requests for fandom that aren't her in exchanges over the next couple months, though, and I'm planning on treating those people instead!