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I may have a problem when my first thoughts on hearing the Coulson news were (a) damn it. JOSSED AGAIN. shoulda fucking known. (that sound you hear would be my avengersfest fic needing a rewrite. or maybe whimpering.); (b) I hope it was a LMD and Loki knew, because that would be hilarious if Thor is judgy on Asgard about the death and Loki's all "Dude, he was a puppet, what's your problem?" "... Say whaaat?" Alas I didn't know it for Poison Rain, so now I have to play it that neither of them knew in any follow-up. But that would be spectacular.
YULETIDE AHOY. (Small fandoms, giving out treats, it is my most favoritest time of the fannish year!) I have my sign-up in, but it's still a bit tentative both in requests and offers. Well, actually more on the request side which is unusual for me - I might add a fandom or two to offers, but they're pretty much set. But only one of my requests is set. I'm much more excited about writing other people's prompts this year for whatever reason. Now I can start the tradition of refreshing the summary to see what other people have requested. It's so pretty and colorful! But I think I know fewer fandoms every year...
And here's an introduction to how Yuletide matching works.
Yuletide is a HUGE exchange of thousands of people. So the matching is automated. The program doesn't look at your optional details. It doesn't know you're trying to be nice by giving lots of character options. It looks at your fandoms/characters and assumes you WANT ALL OF IT.
Therefore, if you request Kara, Lee, Sam, and Cavil, the computer will only look for potential writers from those who offered to write Kara, Lee, Sam, AND Cavil (or who offered to write ANY character). The matching system does not care that you're fine with the first three in any combination and Cavil's just kind of cool on his own - it looks for all of them. But Mary Sue Writer is terrified of getting that random person who might request Lee/Cavil, so she offers only Kara/Sam/Lee. Mary Sue would love to write you a story, but she is not a match as a potential writer for you. (Mary Sue is, however, a potential writer for anyone requesting K/L, K/S, S/L, K/S/L, or any of them alone, FYI).
With more restricted character lists this is not quite the issue it used to be (one year the ASoIaF character list was 30 people long, which pretty much eliminated people offering ANY) but still, if you really want a story in a fandom with very few offerors, you increase your chances of getting a match with a slimmer character list. This is especially true if there's a potential combo in your request that people may design their offer to avoid (like a known slash/incest ship, for example).
Worst case if there are no matches for you is that you go immediately to the pinch hit list, where people can see your request and realize you didn't actually mean you wanted everybody. So it's not a tragedy and you won't, like, ruin Yuletide or anything. But still it's easier on the system to request a few favorites, and leave the "these other characters are also awesome and I totally don't mind stories about them if you'd rather write that instead" in your optional details.
Also realize that if you don't say otherwise (in optional details or a letter or something), your writer is required to use ALL OF YOUR REQUESTED CHARACTERS. This might be difficult for some groups of four characters.
Yuletide is great fun! But it's also ginormous and therefore has to be a bit less flexible that your average "let's arrange the matches on the floor"-type of exchange.
YULETIDE AHOY. (Small fandoms, giving out treats, it is my most favoritest time of the fannish year!) I have my sign-up in, but it's still a bit tentative both in requests and offers. Well, actually more on the request side which is unusual for me - I might add a fandom or two to offers, but they're pretty much set. But only one of my requests is set. I'm much more excited about writing other people's prompts this year for whatever reason. Now I can start the tradition of refreshing the summary to see what other people have requested. It's so pretty and colorful! But I think I know fewer fandoms every year...
And here's an introduction to how Yuletide matching works.
Yuletide is a HUGE exchange of thousands of people. So the matching is automated. The program doesn't look at your optional details. It doesn't know you're trying to be nice by giving lots of character options. It looks at your fandoms/characters and assumes you WANT ALL OF IT.
Therefore, if you request Kara, Lee, Sam, and Cavil, the computer will only look for potential writers from those who offered to write Kara, Lee, Sam, AND Cavil (or who offered to write ANY character). The matching system does not care that you're fine with the first three in any combination and Cavil's just kind of cool on his own - it looks for all of them. But Mary Sue Writer is terrified of getting that random person who might request Lee/Cavil, so she offers only Kara/Sam/Lee. Mary Sue would love to write you a story, but she is not a match as a potential writer for you. (Mary Sue is, however, a potential writer for anyone requesting K/L, K/S, S/L, K/S/L, or any of them alone, FYI).
With more restricted character lists this is not quite the issue it used to be (one year the ASoIaF character list was 30 people long, which pretty much eliminated people offering ANY) but still, if you really want a story in a fandom with very few offerors, you increase your chances of getting a match with a slimmer character list. This is especially true if there's a potential combo in your request that people may design their offer to avoid (like a known slash/incest ship, for example).
Worst case if there are no matches for you is that you go immediately to the pinch hit list, where people can see your request and realize you didn't actually mean you wanted everybody. So it's not a tragedy and you won't, like, ruin Yuletide or anything. But still it's easier on the system to request a few favorites, and leave the "these other characters are also awesome and I totally don't mind stories about them if you'd rather write that instead" in your optional details.
Also realize that if you don't say otherwise (in optional details or a letter or something), your writer is required to use ALL OF YOUR REQUESTED CHARACTERS. This might be difficult for some groups of four characters.
Yuletide is great fun! But it's also ginormous and therefore has to be a bit less flexible that your average "let's arrange the matches on the floor"-type of exchange.
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But yes, do be wary of only focusin on one - you have to be able to offer at least the minimum and it seems the fates often give people the assignment they were the most worried about receiving. But the challenge is fun, too!
There are lots (and lots) of fandoms in all kinds of genres from Huge Doorstopper Book Series to cracky YouTube vids, so hopefully you can find some you would like to write about!
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Generally people are just hugely excited to get a story, ANY STORY, in their tiny fandom.
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Also, I know you explained how to structure your character requests, but what about offers? For example, if I offer Shirou and Rin (because I like Shirou/Rin), I might be matched with people who want Shirou/Sakura or Rin/Archer etc., right?
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If you offer only Bill and Saul, you will only match to those who requested one or both of them, but not with anyone else. (and you will also not match to anyone who's trying to be helpful by requesting lots of characters *g*)
So generally, the strategy is to offer as widely as you can/feel comfortable with. "any" is the best (and some fandoms that's all you can do because there are so few characters nominated anyway ). But if there's a character you can't stand, don't understand, or heck, don't even know exists, then it's best to leave it off.
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