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[dorinda]

Happy endings for that last post!:

* I got my laptop back from the laptop hospital, all fixed up and spruce. We had the rest of the long weekend to cuddle and bond. :D Now to catch up on the computery things I need to get done...

* I'm finished with the antibiotics, and had my followup with the ENT today. All better! And this time she had the scope with the exterior screen, so she gave me a look at my throatly inner workings, to see how they look when they're healthy. Cooooool. Stomach is settled back down now as well, and I am still enjoying the kefir. Nomf.

* Still no words written on anything new, not entirely sure what the problem is there--but I did get some productive revision done on a betaed thing, thanks to marycrawford encouraging me into it.

* The last of the Nutella is gone, but I baked a cake. I am too quick to let the teeny-slantiness of my oven discourage me from actual baking--this turned out pretty nice.

Let's see, in other news...the Yuletide tagset for this year is up, and delightful. Rejseholdet|Unit One is there, Sinbad (TV) is there, Peacemakers is there. *rubs hands*

Almost Human is there, with a larger tagset than I remember from last time: John and Dorian of course, Rudy, Sandra Maldonado, Valerie Stahl, Richard Paul, MX-43 gets its own character slot, and now also Danica (the next model after Dorian, the kickass scary XRN played by the fantastic Gina Carano).

Some wonderful person out there nominated The Invisible Man (TV 2000), with Darien, Bobby, Arnaud, and Claire. No The Sting, but somebody did nominate Spy Game, with Nathan, Tom, and Elizabeth. Elfquest is there, but the character nominations seem a little...odd, or at least oddly specific. Two canonical f/m pairs (Nightfall, Redlance, Moonshade, Strongbow), Skywise, and then two of the chieftesses of ancient days (Rahnee the She Wolf and Huntress Skyfire). No Cutter, weirdly; given the things I'd be interested in writing for EQ at the moment, I suspect I may not offer it this time around.

(Speaking of oddish nominations--the movie Hot Fuzz is in, yay, but the four characters are Nicholas and Danny, Frank Butterman...and Amanda Paver. The townsperson who rides the bike. That last one seems almost arbitrary, unless someone out there has been beefing her up as an almost-OC or something.)

No Man from UNCLE TV show (I expected that; the movie on the other hand is included), but The Wild Wild West is in, with Artemus and Jim. ♥

Now it's time to nail down my list of requests/offers, and imagine what I might write for each assignment. I always feel better when I've put a bit of thought into it--not that I'll definitely use whatever ideas I come up with before I see the actual assignment and letter, but I like to have some plans in the bullpen just in case.

Comments

[kerithwyn]

I didn't nom Elfquest (since I was sure it would be in the set), but was thinking about requesting and maybe offering it.

As a Yuletide newbie...what's the proper strategery for requests? I was thinking about requesting one character out of each canon, since that makes matching easier...but if, say, I asked for Redlance with the intention of asking for a focus on Redlance/Cutter, and the person who matched only wanted to write Redlance/Nightfall, am I the jerk there? (Not that I would be sad to receive Redlance/Nightfall!) But I'm also thinking about other canons and nervous about requesting 2+ characters in case the offer doesn't exactly match.

I was thinking of a format like:

Elfquest
Redlance
+ Nightfall, Moonshade, Skywise, Strongbow

--In other words, Redlance is my official requested character, but I'd be happy to read fic about any of the others. Is that kosher?

OR is it better to request more characters and put in a "You don't have to use them all" note?

No wonder people stress out about this so much. :p

[dorinda]

I'll need to read the latest rules more carefully, to doublecheck--but, having said that, my understanding of Yuletide matching is that it's AND matching, not OR. Whereas Night on Fic Mountain, for instance, was OR.

This means that in Yuletide your author will have to be matched on ALL of the characters you request. So if you officially asked for Redlance, Nightfall, Rahnee the She Wolf, Moonshade, you'd only be matched with an author who offered *all* of those characters (and those who offered them + more, as well, like an author who offered "Any", which means "Any character in the nominated set").

So, the more characters you ask for, as I understand it, the harder you are to be matched, unless the people offering are mainly offering to write "Any". (And there's no way to know that.)

And technically, the rule is that the author must write a story including *all* of your requested characters. Although in your notes field in the signup you are allowed to let them off the hook by saying "You don't need to write a story including all of them, any one or combination of these is fine".

But, that note means nothing to the official signup/matching algorithm. So if you did ask for that example set of characters, you wouldn't get matched with an author who offered only Nightfall and Redlance, for instance.

(Whereas in OR matching, like Night on Fic Mountain, your request would mean Redlance OR Nightfall OR Rahnee OR Moonshade, so an author who offered any one *or* more of those could be matched to you. So someone who offered just Nightfall and Redlance could be assigned to you.)

This is a reason why I am not on board with some people's seeming desire to inflate the nominated character sets. I think it means you run the risk of missing out on authors who could otherwise have been assigned to you.

So, like, suppose I offer Almost Human, and don't feel prepared or able to write a character study of Rudy or Danica. So I wouldn't put those names in my offer at all, because if I did, I might get matched to someone who only asked for Rudy, or only asked for Danica.

If I only offer John and Dorian, I would never get matched to someone who idly asked for John, Dorian, Danica, even if their notes said "I'd love a sweet John/Dorian story or an exploration of Danica and where she is now." So we'd miss out on what otherwise would have been a perfect match.

I hope that makes sense--I don't mean to make it sound complicated, and hopefully other people with opinions will see this and chime in.

[dorinda]

Oh, so, to be more specific to your example: me personally, if I wanted to maximize my chances of being matched I'd ask for Redlance, and then in my notes say "I'm also happy to read about any of the others!" (or, "Redlance's relationship with any of the others", though of course shipping requests are not at all mandatory; the author is only required to write 1) a story of at least 1000 words, 2) including the character(s) you requested, period.)

What is NOT NOT NOT kosher is to request, for example, Redlance, and then in your notes say "What I really really want is Redlance/Pike plz!!!". Pike did not get nominated, and it's both against the rules and rude to put an author in the position of having or feeling pressured to include a non-nominated character.

[dorinda]

P.S. Oh wait I missed an option--the absolute best way to maximize matching, IF you honestly don't care which character(s) get written about, is to select ANY as your character request.

This means that someone who offered any or all of the nominated EQ characters can be matched to you.

It also means, though, that if you really most wanted Redlance in there somewhere, you by no means are guaranteed to get him. And it would be against the rules and rude to then specify in your notes "any pairing with Redlance please!" because your assigned author might have offered only Rahnee and Moonshade, and been matched to your ANY. ANY means any (from within the nominated set of characters).

[kerithwyn]

Riiiight, got it. That definitely helps! I'm trying to narrow down to six fandoms to request, so I think the next step is obsessively studying the tagset and refining my focus. (So yes, asking for Redlance/Cutter would have been a dumb n00b move, and thank you for the correction. *g*)

[dorinda]

I suppose I'd be subject to a rap on the nose if this is wrong, but in the case of for instance Cutter, I could conceivably imagine a delicately-worded inclusion of him in one's notes, as long as it was a hands-off mention. Just in case your writer really wouldn't mind including him. But you'd need to stay away from any pressure or expectation.

So I could imagine asking for Redlance, and then saying something along the lines of "anything with Redlance would be great! Like, a character study, or his history/relationship with Nightfall, or his dynamics with any of the other characters, or even his time denning with Nightfall and Cutter, though of course I know Cutter's not nominated and you're free to ignore the thought."

Or some such. So that someone who really doesn't like Cutter wouldn't feel steered, but someone who's like 'gee I wonder why Cutter didn't get nominated' would be able to pick the idea up if she felt moved to do so. There's no rule *against* including non-nominated characters necessarily (as far as I know), just against specifically asking for/expecting them.

[klia]

So relieved your throat and stomach have both recovered! YAY! Glad you found some kefir, too, and are enjoying it.

Yay for laptop recovery, too!

I think your writing brain has just been stressed and exhausted, just like your body, and you'll feel more inspired after you've been completely recovered for a little while. {{{you}}}

[dorinda]

Is very nice kefir, with blueberries in. *schlurp*

Poor brain. Maybe it does need a nap, in a little Brain hammock. Now I always think of the Defective Yeti comics, with sober little Brain wearing glasses and trying to resist the blandishments of Heart being OTT enthusiastic. *g*

[marycrawford]

Hooray for good news, and also, WHAT CAKE WAS IT. Science needs to know!

I feel remiss for not offering to nominate stuff for whoever wanted things nominated, since iirc that is still something you can do without joining yuletide proper? I could've nominated Cutter. Then again, who could guess he'd not be in there, how odd.

[dorinda]

Heh! Was a very simple little white cake. I am not much of a baker, and I'm way out of practice, so I go slow. Next time, I have my eye on this Orange Rosemary Bundt Cake, because I haven't made it before but it also looks simple & autumnal. And I have a bundt pan just lyin around waitin, which I'm not quite sure where it came from. Rob Surplus maybe?

And that's a kind thought, but nahhh I wouldn't bother with nominating without playing. I mean I figure it's not technically against the rules as far as I know, but I can't help but feel like it's contrary to the spirit. (Of course, so many people are dedicated to Min-Maxing the shit out of the whole challenge, any possible spirit be damned. Ech. That's why I try not to get involved other than in the actual writing. It can get too depressing.)

It does seem odd he got left out. It's obvious that not every nominator took advantage of all possible slots, since you can nominate four characters and there are a total of seven. It makes it seem that Cutter is being left out on purpose, though other characters who are close to him are approved of. I wouldn't want to wade into that, if someone has a hate-on for him.

[mollyamory]

Hey, while you're nailing down your list of offers, could you do mine, too? You know what I like, right? =D

Glad your throat is better, lady! Relatedly, I'm going to have to look into this Kefir thing myself. Probiotics YAY!

What kind of cake did you bake? Was it gluten free? CAN I HAVE IT?

[dorinda]

Let me see... 1) Vorkosigan, 2) Vorkosigan, 3) Vorkosigan, right?

By the end I was taking Many Probiotics Indeed. There was the kind she prescribed me, and then Paul gave me a few others, including a yeast. Plus I also started drinking kombucha or kefir, whichever was handy.

Sadly the cake was not gluten free, so I will be a very brave and good and noble friend and EAT IT ALL so it will not harm you. *cries a single crystalline tear* It was a simple little white cake recipe, not much to it--flour, baking powder, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla. But I wuz tellin Mary that next I would like to make a bundt cake flavored with orange and rosemary, because it looks equally simple but I've never tried it (and rosemary in a cake sounds interesting), and I have a random bundt cake pan lying around for some reason. (Reason: CAKE.)