This came up in the course of Hippo-ing, so I'll just throw this out as a sign-up post. If the Beta post, the Hippo route, or other avenues of research are not quite what an author needs... sometimes they'll want to post to a journal community.

If you absolutely cannot disguise your fandom and/or Yuletide assignment in a research-based community, here (hopefully) are volunteers post for you to preserve anonymity.

(Here are some resource examples from last year.)

VOLUNTEERS: Please put your Yuletide sign-in name in the subject and any communities where you can proxy-post. Plus other contact and availability information, as with the Beta post. If applicable, remember to pass the link to the author so they can monitor their query.

AUTHORS: A quick reminder not to comment directly to the query (at least not till after Reveal). If you are on LJ, you can use the Tracking button and watch your Message Center for notices.

Keep in mind that each community has its rules and procedures. Most of them, including little_details, require that you've made a good faith effort to find answers on your own.

Thank you!!

Now that you're all excited and panicking, remember that if you write to yuletide@yuletidetreasure.org, I can act as go-between to get clarifications, additional details, more prompts, whatever you might need to complete your assignment. It's going to take me a little while to get through the requests I've already received, but I'm going through and confirming that I'm on the case!

When I do this, I also disguise what fandom you're asking about. If your questions aren't fandom-specific, this is easy. If they are, I create bogus questions of similar specificity and depth for each request to conceal the real questions. In doing this, Google and Wikipedia are often my best friends. *g*

So, if you are at all familiar with any of the other fandoms in your recipient's requests, and can create disguising questions about them to include in your queries, that would be incredibly helpful, and speed up the time it takes to actually write to your recipient. This is not mandatory! I do enjoy finding out about fandoms I'm not familiar with, but this kind of help does speed things along.

ETA: Please include your recipient's name when you write! I can find it out, but...

elynross and I will be digging through the various minor snafus and issues that have arisen out of assignments over the next few days, but we have a big pile of email in the inbox, so if you are one of the afflicted, please hang in there and we will get to you soon. There is plenty of time, so take a deep breath and don't panic. *hands out towels*


And here is a little bit of a treat for those who are numbers geeks (this post will probably make more sense if you read the description of the matching process first):

People are "matched" with their recipient on at least one fandom. We prioritize matching on less-requested fandoms in the code.

* 1106 fandoms were matched

Of those 1106:
* 662 fandoms had one match
* 218 fandoms had two matches
* 75 fandoms had three
* 54 fandoms had four
* 30 fandoms had five
* 17 fandoms had six
* 23 fandoms had seven
* 14 fandoms had eight
* 9 fandoms had nine
* 2 fandoms had ten
* 1 fandom had eleven
* and the perennial champ, Fairy Tales, racked up fourteen matches

Out of 2141 participants, all but two people had potential matches; after those two people added to their offers, everyone had a potential match. \o/

All but eight people were automatically matched -- four were missing recipients, four were missing writers. Four lucky people who had matched on rare fandoms were double-assigned as recipients, four requests went out for pinch hits (and were instantly claimed! ♥ you guys). \o/

And only two emails bounced! \o/

David is a specialist in the areas like: Concept Art, Illustration, Storyboard, Digital Painting, Matepainting, Webdesign(Php/Css/Flash), Design, Packaging, Print, 3D.

spanking new fic
[Anne Bishop - Black Jewels universe]
minviendha posted Things Lucivar Does For Love (And the List Is Short) (PG, gen)

[Arthurian legend]
danse_amore posted Merlin's Magic (PG-13, Lancelot/Gawain)

[Boondock Saints]
mailroomy posted Holding Hands (PG-13, Connor/Murphy)

[Flash Forward]
blackmamba_esq posted Stay (PG, Zoe/Dimitri)

[Garth Nix - Old Kingdom series]
wheatear posted Blood of the Ninth (G, Nicholas and others)
echoinautumn posted Remnants (PG, Yrael/Kibeth)

[George R.R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire]
minviendha posted Sister's Keeper (PG, Lyanna and Brandon) and Leather and Flame (PG-13, Brandon, Rickard and Aerys)

[Pushing Daisies]
shinealightonme posted Like No Business I Know (PG, Olive)

[Runaways]
boss_curly posted In a Lonely Sky (PG, Nico/Karolina)

[Sanctuary]
ladyvictory posted Curious Effect (R, Helen/Sophie)

[Suikoden]
buttoneyedfrog posted Close Bonds (sentence-set, PG-13, Ted/Tir)

news inside the com
the com's birthday is coming up on the 21st! (Not that there'll be cake or anything ...).

news outside the com
sign-ups for festivids are open until the 17th
the Masterlist of fics written for the pornbattle over at InsaneJournal is up - rare fandoms written for include 3:10 to Yuma, Coraline, Little Women, A Song of Ice and Fire and White Collar.

( small print )

Please remember we can't match people on anything but the basics -- fandom and characters. We allow people to ask for anything they want in the details, but your job as a yuletide writer is just to get someone a story in the fandom of their choice with the characters they want.


Some cases where you *SHOULD* ignore the optional details:

- recipient chose "Any" in request and then asked for character(s) in the details that you didn't offer;

- recipient asked for a crossover and you don't know the other fandom;

- recipient asked for a different version of the source;

- recipient asked for something very specific you cannot do.


If there isn't enough else in the details to give you a sense of how to write a story your recipient will still enjoy, you can write us privately to ask your recipient for more flexible details -- requests like this are often the case of a recipient misunderstanding how the matching works, and once they have it clarified a little they can broaden their requests easily without disappointment.

Tweets from @Rob_Thurman (probably of a useless and irrelevant nature. Beware.)

09:37 Made mistake of walking through YA aisle at store. An infinity of vampire books. At the end of the aisle I was so anemic I passed out. #

09:41 I woke up to a goth-looking teen with braces gnawing on my neck. Any vampiric orthodontist know how long a braces/fang hickey will last? #

09:43 Men Who Stare at Goats: renter not theater. Two cloven hooves down. Some funny, but not enough to justify the second mortgage for movie tix #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

I was at Hastings the other day, and I decided to look for the Guide to Alalalalagaesia. To my dismay, they didn't have it, but I did find Brickingr Deluxe. I snuck a few shots with my phone's camera before getting away before anyone saw me reading the book. The Deluxe material? Not so great.



In conclusion, the deluxe version? No way in hell I'm shelling out $30 for more Tolkien ripping or dead babies exploding out of their mother. At least Eragon didn't use his teeth.

This is probably only relevant to one or two of you, but I don't know who you are, so this will have to do. Even though I am a maintainer of this community, I'm not participating in the challenge this year. This means if you read elynross's post that contained some useful information about signing up, and you thought "Hey, I might want to contact the mods to get further information from my recipient some time." and you've just now received your assignment and realized that one of the mods is your recipient, all is not lost! I am perfectly willing to play go between for those people who have astolat or elynross as their recipient. If this is you and if you need further information from them as described here, simply contact me at this username at gmail.com instead. I will then go to the trouble of getting answers to your questions without letting on what you're writing, just like elyn and astolat usually do for recipients other than themselves.

You beat yourself up because you LOVE it!




Someone please know this amazing song. Please.

 So yesterday was...interesting, to say the least. An adventure, I suppose. 

Opening night of the play. Friday the 13th. Our director said 'Macbeth' in the theatre only hours before the show started. I was wished 'good luck' by about ten billion people. It was doomed. So yeah, this one kid got caught smoking pot in fly loft (brilliant, right?) and then another kid told the director so now the first kid is out of the show and his understudy has to take over. Even before that, people were lackluster and messing up lines (understandable on the first night, but with everything else...). There was a ton of drama backstage, but I don't think the audience noticed, for the most part. So that's good, at least. 

The cast party took FOREVER to find, considering the people we were following didn't actually know where they were going...but we figured it out. It was pretty fun until the orgy developed on the other side of the room. I think it was strip Rock, Paper, Scissors? Cool guys, really cool...granted, we were playing improv games. In any case, there is another tonight, so hopefully that will be better. And hopefully more people will show...well, specific people seeing as there are a few who really shouldn't show up. We'll see. And hopefully tonight's show goes better! I think it will, except that we will have an actor who hasn't rehearsed his part at all because he's the understudy. Well, we'll see. 

In other news, I lost my notes for my play :( I really, really, really, really, REALLY need to find them, as they have everything I have done with it thus far in them. Characters, plot, setting, etc. I mean, I have most of that in my head and can figure out the rest if I need to, but it won't be the same. Plus, I don't want to have to do all that again...Meh.

I just realized I start off a lot of sentences/paragraphs with 'in other news...' Just a thought.

Better get back to ripping music so I can FINALLY get these CDs back to my friend.

Assignments are going out! It will be a little less than two hours for all of them to go out as we pace them. If you haven't gotten it within six hours, check your spam folder!

NOTES:

- Uploading will not open immediately, as we are moving to the shiny Archive of Our Own (in Open Beta today! \o/) for posting. Don't worry about this for now -- we will be sending out an email with detailed uploading instructions when the Archive is ready, in early December. :D

(SORRY TO THE EARLY BIRDS AMONG YOU WHO LIKE TO POST STORIES INSTANTLY TO TAUNT THE REST OF US :P)

- If you don't get your assignment, you may have typoed your email or you may have an ISP that blocks our messages from going out (cox.net and earthlink.net and comcast all seem to be doing so). If the latter, you'll need to get us an alternate email address. Send us the right email address we can use, and we'll correct your email; you can then get your assignment re-sent.

\o/!!!!!

I just want to let you guys know something.

I've lied to you before. Once. And only once.

This may be silly, but I want you all to know I'm completely and utterly honest in every entry I write.

What did I lie about? It's silly, really.

I made a post once and included the line, "and then someone farted," because my boyfriend at the time, Nathaniel, would have read it. It wasn't someone. It was me. I'm the one who farted. God this sounds so ridic.

That's it. I'm completely honest with you at all times. And, I hope, you appreciate that and return the favour. If you don't want to talk about something, that's fine, but if you do, I hope it sure is the truth.

I love you all. Really. Please believe that. Even if we've had fights in the past, or even if we've disagreed or gotten into a bazillion arguments, even if we've defriended each other at one point or not, like with me and A Dawn, but we've gotten back, all that's water under the bridge.

I used to be a very bitter person. I held grudges. My friend, my pastor's daughter I grew up with, taught me a lot about forgiveness. We'd been very cruel to each other as children, and I'd held it against her all these years. But she didn't hold it against me. I had no idea why. But she's taught me how to forgive and forget. Sometimes I remember and think about it again and get very depressed, but then I remember the words of my father, "Buck up, Cynthia, buck up and move on. I say that because I love you. It may sound harsh, but that's what you gotta do. Don't let the past eat away at you. You'll never get any better."

And then things are fine.

And that's all I have to say about that~♥

Today I saw UP (in 3D! So pretty!), finally, in the cinema with my nerdfriend. It was all I could do to keep the tears (some bits were just so sad) in because I didn't want him to see me crying but it was hard. The dogs were hilarious, though. We just couldn't stop laughing at the alpha dog's squeaky voice. Well done, Pixar, well done. (ALSO, TOYSTORY 3. I WANT.)

Afterwards we loitered around in the city shopping centre and visited the second-hand book store. There I saw Tad Williams's entire Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy for just 10 euros and in pretty good condition. Are there people here who've read those books? Because that's a pretty sweet offer if the books are any good. (I also saw some Storm Constantine and C.J. Cherryh books. *rubs hands*)

( I've finished a shitton of books but Oscar Wilde's Complete Short Stories was the latest. )

Also, I'm kind of in love with the music of Peter Fox. My life is so much better now that it has German dancehall music in it. SWING! Who says white people can't rap? XD. And I looove this song. I totally need to improve my German, it would be such a shame to let years of German lessons go to waste.

( Blah blah swineflu, why are some of my fellow countrymen so dumb, blah blah )

Holy updating, Batman. I have a lot to say today it seems.

I did go and study, which mostly involved lots of writing and watching clips from Top Hat to remind myself of things. Not only do I love that movie, I also have huge admiration for Ginger Rogers. I am just so impressed at how she can do the dance during 'Cheek to Cheek' in those heels. I mean, dude. I am developing such a girlcrush on her, she is so fabulous and pretty and amazing!

On the subject of girlcrushes, I think I am developing one on the whole of The Like. It is like they wrote Fair Game just for me, I swear. I am pretty excited for their new album coming out because I was not overenthused by their last one, but the new songs on their myspace are so delightfully catchy!

Finally, it's saturday. You know what that means, right? ( Merlin :D :D :D )

Tomorrow we get new Doctor Who! I am so ridiculously excited!

So this morning(/afternoon, oh man my sleeping patterns are so bad) I woke up, checked my emails and proceeded to have this fabulous conversation about elves with coppertone:

coppertone: I have been thinking. That if our personal Angrod is a hobag by elf standards.
And if, or rather since, EVERY variation on Angrod/Celegorm/Caranthir needs to exist.
Then, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu32vyCldh8
:D??????
Me: asasdkjsahfkasfh oh my god i love you
coppertone: :DDDDD
Me: and yes, Angrod is a giant hobag! But I think the best thing about it is that he is sort of an accidental giant hobag
coppertone: I love that he is an accidental hobag. He just hasn't found the right man! :(
But I love even more the idea of Celegorm warning his baby brother. Also I love the idea of Angrod wearing what the dude in the video is wearing, amirite?
Me: He can't help it, he just gets tangled up in things too quickly!
Oh god yes and yes. that dude's outfit is so hot.
So pretty much carrie underwood is what girl celegorm would look like?
coppertone: <3_______________<3
...Is Lady Gaga still what girl!spy!Angrod would look like? Because uh.
Me: oh god. Yessssss.
coppertone: Now imagine them both fighting crime with Julia Stiles!
Me: :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
coppertone: The cowboy casanova video just makes me want all the Jazz Age Elves. :( :( :(
Me: oh my god <3__________<3
I want.
I want Prohibition era elves
coppertone: serhjustfkjsxzd
Me: It would be so amazing! Illegal mob alcohol smuggling elves!
coppertone: <3______________________________________________<3 I can't EVEN
Me: oh my god though. They would be the WORST alcohol smugglers!
coppertone: They really would. :D
...Please tell me Angrod is secret undercover law enforcement who falls for his mark(s)?
Come on come on it would be perfect.
Me: oh my god yes yes yes
Oh my god the Finarfians are totally law enforcers. Finrod, dude
coppertone: Angrod is sympathetic to the alcohol-smugglers anyway, not that his superiors ( Finrod. Police Finrod! ) know that
- :DDDDD
Me: :DDDDDDDD Yes
Because goddammit he still appreciates fine whiskey
coppertone: Ohhh this is so going to an Angrod/Celegorm/Caranthir place in my head
I blame Carrie Underwood
But he is made to work with them! And they completely spark off, and Celegorm is like his soulmate in hellraising and he and Caranthir are just one constant game of Asshole Tennis and. :DDDDDDDDD
Me: yessssss and and they are constantly getting in awkward situations, not least because of over enthusiastic law officer Argon!
coppertone: Oh my god yes. :DDDDDDD
And Mae is in charge of the alcohol smugglers and he is probably ex-law enforcement due to a series of Very Tragic Circumstances
And he PINES for Fingon who is still on the Right Side of the Law.
Me: oh my god yes
and Fingon, unbeknownst to Mae, is constantly arguing against prohibition all while still having to do his job. And then! Fingon gets assigned on a case to track Mae down and there are shenanigans!
coppertone: <3___________________________________<3
(contrariangie: What happens then? Does Fingon get busted accidentally?)
Me: :DDDDDDDDDDD
Maybe! But first he and Angrod get together and comisserate on liking their marks too much :D
coppertone: Oh god they totally do.
Finrod despairs.
Me: I think maybe Mae deliberately lets fingon get a hold of him and then declares his undying love or some shit like that and fingon is all <3______<3 i hate you i am supposed to arrest you now D:
and then fingon goes rogue too :D
coppertone: Oh god he would too.
Me: He WOULD

So uh. Yeah. The majority of mine and claire's conversations consist of us gleefacing at each other ridiculously. Someone please write me this AU, my heart aches for it!

Now to study, sigh.