Yeah, I think the matching works very differently... I've never participated in Yuletide (I've tried a couple times to parse the labyrinthine instructions but failed!) but I get the sense that since Yuletide is for *very* obscure fandoms, you could end up with literally no one who matches your requested fandoms at all, and have to be put on a pinch-hit list for that reason?

Whereas here, almost everyone requests multiple Holmesian 'verses, at a range of obscurity levels, so any given participant will *almost* always match with someone. And the mods have said in that past that they match the smaller fandoms first (even if someone also requested, say, BBC, they'll match them on the basis of other, smaller fandoms if they offered them as well), in the hope of encouraging a wider range of gifts.

(And if I were assigned a pinch-hit, depending how late in the process it came up, I would probably go for whatever was easiest to write, which would probably not be the most obscure fandom – but I suppose that all depends on how early or late a pinch-hitter gets to start.)

I'm just intrigued by that Newman!Moriarty fic, because *no one* offered that in sign-ups. Which leads me to suspect someone who's known to be ultra-well-read in the smaller 'verses. Like...you. (Still not conclusive, though, because anyone could have matched on pocketbookangel for something else, and then decided to write in that 'verse instead.)

Aw, thank you! I'll make a note for myself for next year to maybe contact you and ask for a tiny bit of help. :-)

Yes! I know it's one of those things where it looks impenetrable, and then once you've done it the first time it turns out not to be difficult at all...but I haven't managed to get past that "this is impenetrable, how do I do it even a first time?" stage. Which is a pity, because yeah, what cool small fandoms are on offer there!