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Crueltide 2022
Not every story is pleasant. Not every story has a happy ending, and not all happy endings come without a dark and painful journey. And sometimes, those are the kinds of stories that we really, really want to read.
If you're one of the many people interested in either writing or receiving darkfic or horror, then Crueltide is here for you!
The short version
The long version is beneath the cut.
Why Crueltide?
Because darkfic isn't to everyone's taste. By making it easier to identify darkfic prompts and people open to receiving darkfic in yuletide, we can all indulge our preferences without placing undue pressure on our assigned writers or risking gifting unwelcome fics to our recipients. (And also: the name was the least cutesy of those being thrown around in 2014.)
What is darkfic?
Depends on your definition. But here's a (non-exhaustive) list of darker tropes to get you started:
(White text used as some content may be triggering to some - highlight to read.)
Does a darkfic story have to have an unhappy ending/some other specific trope?
No! Not at all. Just because a story is packed with darkfic tropes doesn't mean there's no light at the end of the tunnel. Also, just because you like one trope, it doesn't mean you like all of them. Feel free to specify your do-not-wants alongside your wants.
Great, how does it work?
-- If you end up writing a darkfic story, just tag it with Crueltide when you upload it to the collection, and that'll help readers find more of what they like. It would also be good to tag any particular tropes you've used, to help readers find/avoid them. That's all you need to do! If your recip requested dark or horror fic but didn't comment on this post, you can still tag it with Crueltide if it fits the theme! The Crueltide tag helps all of us darkfic and horror readers find more things to read. :)
-- If you would like to receive a darkfic story in one of the fandoms you've requested in your yuletide sign-up, you can advertise that here by replying to this post. (The template below is merely a suggestion of what to include - the level of detail in prompts/tropes is entirely up to you. But please do limit yourself to fandoms on your Yuletide sign-up - the Yuletide mods need to be sure you get a fic in one of those, and a treat in an unexpected fandom could make that awkward. )
AO3: ao3 username
Letter: dear yuletide writer (URL)
Fandoms: fandom details here
Happy Endings Preferred?: yes/no/don't mind
Wanted tropes: list any of your favorite dark tropes, themes, or prompts here.
Unwanted tropes: list your darkfic do-not-wants here.
If you want to advertise your requested fandoms as being particularly dark and of potential interest to others, feel free to comment along those lines too.
Alternatively, if you only want your assigned writer to know what you're into, just make a mention of darkfic/crueltide in your optional details as part of your signup.
If you're one of the many people interested in either writing or receiving darkfic or horror, then Crueltide is here for you!
The short version
- Read the comments to find people to treat with darkfic.
- Tag your yuletide darkfic with 'crueltide'
The long version is beneath the cut.
Why Crueltide?
Because darkfic isn't to everyone's taste. By making it easier to identify darkfic prompts and people open to receiving darkfic in yuletide, we can all indulge our preferences without placing undue pressure on our assigned writers or risking gifting unwelcome fics to our recipients. (And also: the name was the least cutesy of those being thrown around in 2014.)
What is darkfic?
Depends on your definition. But here's a (non-exhaustive) list of darker tropes to get you started:
(White text used as some content may be triggering to some - highlight to read.)
Addiction - Amputation - Animal Abuse - Apocalypse - Betrayal - Body Horror - Brainwashing - Cannibalism - Character Death - Child Abuse - Claustrophobia - Conspiracy - Degradation - Disease - Dystopia - Gaslighting - Hauntings - Humiliation - Hypothermia - Insanity - Invasion of Privacy - Lovecraftian Cosmic Horrors - Medical Experimentation - Mind Control - Monsters - Murder - Mutilation - Non-Con - Paranoia - Poisoning - Prison - PTSD - Sadism - Slavery - Suicide - Torture - Unhappy Endings - Violence
Does a darkfic story have to have an unhappy ending/some other specific trope?
No! Not at all. Just because a story is packed with darkfic tropes doesn't mean there's no light at the end of the tunnel. Also, just because you like one trope, it doesn't mean you like all of them. Feel free to specify your do-not-wants alongside your wants.
Great, how does it work?
-- If you end up writing a darkfic story, just tag it with Crueltide when you upload it to the collection, and that'll help readers find more of what they like. It would also be good to tag any particular tropes you've used, to help readers find/avoid them. That's all you need to do! If your recip requested dark or horror fic but didn't comment on this post, you can still tag it with Crueltide if it fits the theme! The Crueltide tag helps all of us darkfic and horror readers find more things to read. :)
-- If you would like to receive a darkfic story in one of the fandoms you've requested in your yuletide sign-up, you can advertise that here by replying to this post. (The template below is merely a suggestion of what to include - the level of detail in prompts/tropes is entirely up to you. But please do limit yourself to fandoms on your Yuletide sign-up - the Yuletide mods need to be sure you get a fic in one of those, and a treat in an unexpected fandom could make that awkward. )
AO3: ao3 username
Letter: dear yuletide writer (URL)
Fandoms: fandom details here
Happy Endings Preferred?: yes/no/don't mind
Wanted tropes: list any of your favorite dark tropes, themes, or prompts here.
Unwanted tropes: list your darkfic do-not-wants here.
If you want to advertise your requested fandoms as being particularly dark and of potential interest to others, feel free to comment along those lines too.
Alternatively, if you only want your assigned writer to know what you're into, just make a mention of darkfic/crueltide in your optional details as part of your signup.
no subject
Letter: https://skazka.dreamwidth.org/176944.html
Fandoms: The Black Phone 2022 (Finney Blake); Call For The Dead - Le Carre (George Smiley, Dieter Frey); Hell House - Richard Matheson (Ben Fischer); The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters (Caroline Ayres, Roderick Ayres); The Power Of The Dog - Thomas Savage (Peter Gordon)
Happy Endings Preferred?: No preference.
Wanted tropes: Ghosts and hauntings; claustrophobia; captivity; body horror; gothic horror; trauma and PTSD; surviving terrible stuff and being changed by it; major character death; murder; consent issues and noncon; psychological horror; trauma bonding; survivor guilt; big spooky decaying houses with lots of creepy rooms; characters coming back from the dead “wrong”; vampires.
Unwanted tropes: noncon resulting in true love or the victim secretly wanting it all along; pregnancy; self-harm cutting; disordered eating; unrequested incest; unrequested CSA themes; explicit sex involving characters under 16, except as indicated. (CSA themes/underage noncon for The Black Phone or Hell House, a-okay; in Call For The Dead or Little Stranger fic, no thanks.)
Hell House, The Black Phone, and The Little Stranger are all horror canons of very different stripes and I love all of them, A++ would rec:
Hell House is an intense sleazy psychological horror novel about four people locked up for a week in the haunted mansion of an infamously depraved occultist and his brood of doped-up decadent hangers-on, seeking out the objective truth of life after death at the request of a rich eccentric. Shit goes off the rails fast. There’s lots of queer themes and trauma themes if that’s a draw, but they’re handled with all the delicacy of… a trashy horror novel from 1971.
The Little Stranger is a much more delicately-shaded and twisty psychological gothic novel set in post-WWII Britain, about a cool-headed country doctor’s lifelong fascination with a decaying country house and the upper-class family who live in it; I’m requesting Caroline, the daughter of the family who’s had her first taste of independence during the war, and Roderick, her brother who’s living with disfigurement and disability after his service in the RAF. This one’s also got queer themes out the waz, but handled with a lot more nuance.
The Black Phone is a 2022 period horror film about two young siblings in suburban Denver, 1978 — shy and sensitive 13-year-old Finney and his mouthy, courageous 9-year-old sister Gwen. When Finney’s abducted by a masked child-killer, Gwen’s racing against time trying to find him with the help of some troubling visions, but even locked in a soundproofed basement Finney isn’t alone, and the disconnected telephone on the wall starts to ring. (It’s ghosts. With me it’s always ghosts.) Lots of trauma, lots of ghosts, lots of fun.