More musings on Yuletide, while I dink around with my letter and signup

[sholio]

... er, this is totally a serious question: does anyone consider it uncouth/in poor taste to use Christmas icons on Yuletide posts? I know that Yuletide-the-ficathon =/= Christmas, but the ficathon timeline is not-so-subtly built around it, and they're definitely associated in my head. Plus I rarely get to use those icons, SO... But I don't want to make anyone feel excluded by using holiday-specific icons, when I could just as easily use writing icons instead. Um. Thoughts?

Anyway, I've been pondering the new signup form. You can now add some new things to your request: you can specify kind of pairing (Gen, F/F, etc), you can add a freeform tag (like "hurt/comfort" or "fluff") -- none of these are guaranteed, but they might make it easier to match authors with other authors with like tastes.

I think for me, this actually makes it HARDER, because my requests are usually pretty varied (I'd love this OR this other thing OR this completely different thing) and now I have to figure out if I want Thing #1 enough to use tags specifically geared towards getting it. In a fandom where I would be very happy with gen or with pairings X and Y, do I check "gen" or one of the pairing options or just leave it blank? If I check "gen", will that make it less likely for my writer to write me Pairing X even though they love Pairing X as much as I do and have a great idea for it? *wails*

I already dithered a lot on choosing characters, because if I have several options for my writer involving different characters, do I pick all of them even though I don't actually mean "all of these have to be in my story"? Or do I pick some subset of them, even though I would be just as happy with pairing a/b as I would be with gen featuring b, c, d?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's awesome that they have all these options! I imagine it probably works better for Yuletide writers who are more specific than me, or more willing to exclude things. I think actually, the way my Yuletide brain works tends to go more in the "anything BUT this" direction than in the "must have THIS" direction -- usually I'd be happy with any pairing but the one or two that really squick me, for example, or I'd like a story from any part of canon except this one section that I really hated, or whatever. But it's hard to get that across in the signup in a non-judgmental way.

Don't mind me, just dithering, carry on. :D

This entry is also posted at http://friendshipper.dreamwidth.org/298504.html with comments.

Comments

[roga.livejournal.com]

I for one do not mind the Christmas icons at all. I mean, it's not an Xmas exchange for me, but there are people for whom it is and yay for them :-)

[sholio]

*doodles little hearts around you* ♥ ♥ ♥

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

Non Christians are just as offended by the PC regime as Christians when it comes to this. They aren't worried about being upset, it's only the elite intelligentsia that worry. We had a Government Department get their backsides kicked on Thursday (quite rightly!) because they didn't stop for a minute's silence at 11.

[sholio]

Well, I hope it doesn't make me elite intelligentsia if I don't want to make someone on my flist feel hurt or excluded. Although as someone on the DW version of this post said, the Christmas iconography/connotations with Yuletide are rather ... overt anyway, so it's not like another Christmas icon is going to make all that much difference one way or the other.

[sholio]

Mmm, that may have come out unreasonably snarky, and I really didn't mean it that way. Let me try again! :D

Speaking as a non-Christian myself -- culturally Christian, but not religiously -- I don't think non-Christians are a monolith on this subject. I know people who think it's ridiculous, and people who genuinely appreciate having others take that extra little bit of care to not exclude them. And there is no way to know how my flist feels unless I ask them!

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was more worried about upsetting you than what you had said. Especially the bit about the intelligentsia. That was more aimed at the snobs with the cultural cringe than thoughtful people like you who are actually just thinking about others.
And remember that this is YOUR journal, so what YOU say goes!

[sholio]

*hugs* No, you didn't upset me at all. :) And yes, I really hope I didn't come across like I'm ... just trying to score points, I guess, or anything like that. It was a serious question.

[flingslass.livejournal.com]

No worries :)It was a valid question.