====== What is Yuletide? ======

{{ http://i.imgur.com/RLoGxLa.jpg|lump of coal in Santa cap}}Yuletide, [[http://fanlore.org/wiki/Yuletide|as described on Fanlore.org]], is

> an annual rare-fandoms gift exchange fanfic challenge, encompassing gen, het, femslash, and slash. Participants agree to write a 1,000-word (minimum) story for a randomly assigned recipient who has requested at least one of the things the writer offered to do, in return for receiving a story from a randomly assigned writer fulfilling one of the participant's requests.

As [[http://yuletide-coal.livejournal.com/3696.html?thread=3992432#t3992432|described on yuletide_coal]], a LiveJournal community created in 2010 for the purpose of kvetching about Yuletide (and which has been succeeded by [[http://coaltide.dreamwidth.org"|Coaltide on Dreamwidth]]), it is

> a rare if not unique chance to write a fic and post anon, and have the opportunity to have it read by hundreds of people without the baggage of [[acronyms|BNFs]] or past fandom fails hanging over everything. Pre-reveals, no one will fawn over [[http://fanlore.org/wiki/Astolat|Astolat]]'s fic just to kiss her ass. Pre-reveals, no one will avoid or leave passive aggressive snits on their fandom enemy's fic. [[acronyms|NNFs]] who write good fics that affect readers have the same chance at recognition as everyone else. The recs drive more readers to the good fics without the usual circle-jerk of friends reccing friends."

Pretty much every aspect of Yuletide is optimal for creating wank: which fandoms count as "small" or "rare"; the creation of sockpuppet accounts ("dentists" or "valets") in order to get more fic than one writes; authors disregarding their recipients' wishes; feedback and the lack thereof; and so on. [[http://fanlore.org/wiki/History_of_Yuletide|These]] [[http://fanlore.org/wiki/Yuletide#Controversy|Fanlore.org]] [[http://fanlore.org/wiki/Yuletide:_Controversies|pages]] provide some context of past Yuletide wanks.

For histories of famous Yuletide wankers and detailed descriptions of other Yuletide wanks, please see the other pages in this folder.



{{tag>todo events events:exchanges events:exchanges:yuletide}}