Fandom: Yuletide

[escritoireazul]

Edited 10:25 p.m.

Clarifying a few things.

First, and most important, this is not the recipient's fault at all. All stories written for her came under scrutiny because her assignment was a placeholder at the time the stories were revealed. I don't think she complained about the treat, but even if she did, that's still on me, not her, so no blaming the recipient.

There was never any chance my story would become her main gift, because I made sure she had a story before I posted it, and the second she became aware the assignment story was a placeholder, I removed her as the recipient of the treat so that she would receive another main gift. I encouraged her to discuss the placeholder with the mods. I wrote the treat because I wanted her to have a good Yuletide.

Second, I had already responded to the mods before I posted here, referencing the part of the rules I thought was not clear, and why I had posted where I posted. That's done. I have not attacked the mods, nor am I trying to attack them with this post. If you look back through my Yuletide tag, I talk about Yuletide a lot, and that includes the frustrating parts as well as the joyful parts.

The mods flagging my story does not mean they're going through the archive looking for reasons to reprimand people, and that is not at all what I said or implied.

Third, I have not been banned or made to write a NYR in order to participate next year. That's not what I meant by reprimand, and I'm sorry I wasn't clear about that.

I am frustrated that by writing a treat as a gift for a friend and following the rules as I understood them, I was reprimanded. What's done is done, and I do not regret writing that specific story as a treat for a friend.

---

I just got reprimanded for a treat I posted in the main archive that did not strictly comply with the officially requested fandoms and characters, despite the fact that authors have always been told they do not need to strictly follow this, including using all the characters requested, if the recipient makes it clear it is not necessary to do so, which was made clear to me before I wrote the treat. I was very careful to make sure the treat was not the only story the recipient would receive, both before stories were revealed and then after, when there was a problem with the story from the assigned author. Per the email, this is why I am being reprimanded, because it almost became the recipient's only story, which is untrue.

I have participated in Yuletide for 10 years, and I have written every assignment without bothering the mods for anything, even when there was a potential problem with the assignment. In addition, most years I also write pinch hits and numerous treats. I am disappointed and disheartened that something that helped salvage a shitty Yuletide reveals day for a recipient has earned a reprimand.

Fucking Yuletide 2015 has not been a great experience, I have to say, for a variety of reasons, but this takes the cake. I may talk about this more after reveals, when doing so will not out me as the author, because, for some unknown reason, I am still complying with the rules.

Comments

[newredshoes]

Whaaaaaat. Ugh, that sounds so unnecessary.

[lightbird]

I'm so sorry this Yuletide has turned out to be an unpleasant and unfair experience for you in so many ways.

It seems ridiculous for you to be reprimanded for something that wasn't even your assignment. It was a treat, something extra that you went out of your way to write, which you didn't have to do (and after all the issues with the way your assignment person put in their request).

Don't know if you already responded to the mods or planned to. Either way I hope you're able to salvage the rest of this Yuletide season and get some enjoyment from it despite the down side of things.

[minim_calibre]

::wrinkles nose::

The hell?

[likeadeuce]

OMG the mods

[d_generate_girl]

That is fucking awful. I don't know what's going on with Yuletide this year, but you're the third person on my friends-list this week who's been dicked-over by the mods for trying to do their best.

[alchemise]

Wow that's a lot of bullshit from the mods. But go you for writing so many treats for people!

[littledust]

Ugh, I'm sorry this is happening to you. :( It was a treat! If your recipient is happy, why on earth are the mods borrowing trouble?

[alyse]

That's so unfair, especially when it's a treat, which is supposed to be an EXTRA, not a replacement for someone else's fuck up.

I'm sorry this is happening to you.

[nwhepcat]

WTF. So sorry you got shit for making a gift for someone.

[nwhepcat]

Of course I clicked the wrong "reply" link.

[ilyena_sylph]

Wtff?

That is just --

I don't even know what's in the YT mods' drinks this year, but whatever it is, it needs to go away.

I'm so sorry it's been a poor experience this time. :(

[isis]

That's really awful, and I'm sorry you had such a downer Yuletide, especially since I was continuously impressed by your treat count and wordcount total progress reports!

I'm wondering, though: how did you determine that not all the characters were not needed? Because if this was in the recipient's optional details (that you would have seen during Madness) or letter, that's something you can point to and say, "It would have been okay to be the only gift because the recipient made it clear that it was okay to use not all the characters." And if you'd gone through the mods to ask, they would have known (though I assume this isn't the case, since it's a treat, and I understand the mods don't pass questions for treaters).

So either the mods entirely missed this in the recip's info, in which case you could point this out, or you learned this in some kind of backchannel way that they couldn't possibly know about. I think if you would reply with the source of your information they would likely apologize and retract their reprimand, because the mods strike me as generally decent people who were scrambling to make sure everyone got a proper gift. But honestly, I would be furious and feel much the same as you.

[alyse]

After thinking about it, I wonder if it's something like the mods pulled the assignment, realising that it was a placeholder, but the recipient hasn't known that, thought the treat was their main assignment and maybe complained that it didn't include all of their requested characters?

Or there's been some confusion over whether or not the one story left on this person's account was by their assigned writer?

In other words, it could simply be a mess up on the mods' end because they haven't - correctly - identified this story as a treat rather than the fulfillment of an assignment. (But then I've never run an exchange on AO3, so I don't know what exactly any mod panels show).

Regardless of how it's come about, I'm with Isis - I think you should rebut the mods' e-mail (although as someone who hates confrontation, I realise that this may not be anywhere near as easy as it sounds).

[lilacsigil]

That's just bizarre and mean.

[st_aurafina]

That is so bizarre, and seriously, of all the people to pick on for this - you work really hard to make peoples' yuletides good, every year.

I'm so sorry this happened to you, and I hope the mods apologise.

[umadoshi]

What the hell?! :( I'm sorry you're dealing with that.

[everbright]

How demoralizing. *sigh*

[havocthecat]

Bleh. I'm sorry you had a shitty experience. Please let me know if I can do anything! I mostly have been offline this week; I'm sorry I didn't see this sooner.