Fall Round Signups Now Open!
Oct. 12th, 2025 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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seasonsofdrabblesSignups are now open! They will remain open until Sunday, October 19 @ 11:59pm Eastern Daylight time (Countdown). You can browse the requests in the app!
The tagset will remain open for nominations through the end of signups. Please disambiguate your nominations to make the approvals process faster.
Is AO3 not letting you sign up for a character that you know is definitely in the tagset?
Requests:
Offers:
Do Not Wants:
Other:
The tagset will remain open for nominations through the end of signups. Please disambiguate your nominations to make the approvals process faster.
Reminder: We have a relatively new rule that when you sign up, you cannot exclude single drabbles from your offers or requests. You are still welcome to request or offer the other drabble types, you just can't leave 100-word drabbles out entirely from your signup. We will let you know via the email associated with your AO3 account if we notice you've left out single drabbles in your signup. Matching and signups will otherwise work the same as before. See the Guidelines for more details if you have further questions.
GENERAL SIGNUPS REMINDERS:
Is AO3 not letting you sign up for a character that you know is definitely in the tagset?
- If it is simply not appearing in the dropdown, try copy-pasting it from the tagset itself. This is a known AO3 bug.
- If that does not work, please comment here or email us with the exact fandom and character(s) you were trying to request/offer. A mod will then batch load it for you on the backend, and you will be able to request it. This is a caching issue with AO3.
Requests:
- You can request 3-10 fandoms with 1-20 characters each. Fandoms in your requests must be unique, but may be related (e.g., three Star Wars requests would be fine, as long as it was three separate Star Wars fandoms).
- Each request must include at least one freeform (Drabble, Double Drabble, Triple Drabble, Drabble Series/Sequence (Various)).
- Blank signups are allowed, but prompts, likes, and a list of DNWs are strongly encouraged.
- If you wish, you may request Any for the character section, but please note that Any = any character in the canon (NOT just the tagset). Please do not request Any unless you really are open to receiving any character from that canon. If you have character DNWs, requesting Any might not be the best idea, as this could end up with a bad match with someone who had only offered that character. We will be checking for this before we send assignments, but it's possible we could miss something, which would lead to us having to re-assign your writer and send you to pinch hit. (Note that the character DNW would still be upheld in this situation.) If you are requesting Any and do not wish to receive fic about objects, etc., you should DNW that as well.
- If you wish, you may request Any for drabble type. This means you are open to receiving any of the 7 drabble types in the tagset.
- Please note that you cannot opt out of single drabbles. In other words, you are still welcome to request other drabble types, but you cannot exclude single drabbles from your requests.
Offers:
- You can offer 3-10 fandoms with 1-20 characters and 1-7 drabble types each. Fandoms in your offers must be unique, but may be related (e.g., three Star Wars offers would be fine, as long as it was three separate Star Wars fandoms).
- If you wish, you may offer Any character. This means any character in the tagset (i.e., if your recipient has requested specific characters, you must write one of them). Please do not offer Any unless you really are open to writing any character in the tagset for that fandom (including any last-minute additions to the tagset). (If your recip requested Any, y ou may write any character from their requested canon.)
- If you wish, you may offer Any for drabble type. This means you are open to writing any of the 7 drabble types in the tagset. (Note that unless your recipient has also requested Any, you must write one of the specific drabble types they requested.)
- You cannot opt out of single drabbles. In other words, you are still welcome to offer other drabble types, but you cannot exclude single drabbles from your offers.
Do Not Wants:
- Only reasonable DNWs in your AO3 signup will be enforced.
- A reasonable DNW is a DNW that is clear and does not attempt to box your writer into writing just one thing.
- Confused about what a DNW is? See this Fanlore article.
Other:
- If you encounter any issues while signing up that are not noted above, please let us know ASAP, as AO3 bugs can sometimes hit exchanges.
- If you need to let us know something about your signup (such as not wanting to be assigned to a specific other participant), please contact us via email (seasonsofdrabbles AT gmail) or the mod contact post.
We could dream this night away
Oct. 12th, 2025 02:27 pmdolorosa_12I'm about midway through the stretch of the year which is busiest and most exhausting for me at work, and I am feeling extremely drained already. This does not bode well for the remainder of October, but at least I've been doing this job long enough that I know there is a clear end in sight, and exactly when it's going to fall.
This weekend has been lovely, even if it hasn't exactly contributed to my ability to rest and store up energy for work.
Yesterday, after charging speedily around the market to get next week's groceries, Mattthias and I caught the train into Bury St Edmunds, feeling very smug that ours appeared to be the only route not being substituted for a rail replacement bus service. We zipped through fields lined with hedgerows lit with flashes of red berries, listening to the group of middle-aged men next to us talk about their stacks of coins gathered up for some kind of excursion involving gambling, in Essex, for the half-hour duration of the journey, before wandering along leafy streets with cute little houses and cuter little shops, and marvelling at Bury's admittedly much better Saturday market.
We were in town to attend an event at the Bury literary festival: a joint discussion with Olia Hercules and Felicity Spector about their most recent books. I talked about Spector's book in this post, and Hercules's book in this post, but in essence they can be described by three words: Ukraine, survival, and food. (A fourth word would probably be ingenuity.) It was great to hear them speak — they're both excellent public speakers, and work even better together — and just in general to be somewhere where everyone else cared as much about Ukraine as I do, as I find it quite isolating for the most part. (Sample audience member: young woman from the Ukrainian diaspora, with two vyshyvanka-clad small children in tow, remarking that they had travelled for three hours just to be there, and would be travelling back for another three hours on the return journey home.) Both authors signed my copies of their books, and I inevitably also acquired a new cookbook to add to the collection.
Today was the second day of Ely's weekend-long apple fair, which, like most events of this nature, involves stalls around the cathedral grounds, with a heavily apple-related theme in evidence. (Even local shops get in on the action — the amazing bakery was selling apple pies and Danish pastries with caramelised apple, the guy who makes sourdough bread in his kitchen was selling apple and cinnamon loaves at the market on Saturday, etc.) So in the late morning, Matthias and I set out, beginning with a walk along the river and hot drinks from the coffee rig in the market square, and arrived at the fair just before midday to browse the stalls. These were the usual suspects — we go to all these types of events, and it's the same mixture of craft stalls, food trucks, breweries and distillaries, and so on — but we enjoyed ourselves immensely. The weather is properly autumnal now, and today the town has been blanketed in fog all day, which felt an appropriate atmosphere for a harvest festival. We ate lunch from one of the food trucks, drank hot spiced apple juice with whiskey, and returned home with Turkish delight, baklava, various ciders for Matthias, and bagful of apples of all sorts of unusual varieties: a successful haul indeed.
I'm now looking forward to an afternoon and evening doing nothing more strenuous than cooking dinner (an Olia Hercules recipe, but not from the new cookbook), and reading under a blanket. Even reading has been nothing remarkable this week — I've only had the mental energy for rereads of old childhood favourites, which thankfully has been fairly easy to arrange.
Everything feels very sleepy and slow right now — me included.
This weekend has been lovely, even if it hasn't exactly contributed to my ability to rest and store up energy for work.
Yesterday, after charging speedily around the market to get next week's groceries, Mattthias and I caught the train into Bury St Edmunds, feeling very smug that ours appeared to be the only route not being substituted for a rail replacement bus service. We zipped through fields lined with hedgerows lit with flashes of red berries, listening to the group of middle-aged men next to us talk about their stacks of coins gathered up for some kind of excursion involving gambling, in Essex, for the half-hour duration of the journey, before wandering along leafy streets with cute little houses and cuter little shops, and marvelling at Bury's admittedly much better Saturday market.
We were in town to attend an event at the Bury literary festival: a joint discussion with Olia Hercules and Felicity Spector about their most recent books. I talked about Spector's book in this post, and Hercules's book in this post, but in essence they can be described by three words: Ukraine, survival, and food. (A fourth word would probably be ingenuity.) It was great to hear them speak — they're both excellent public speakers, and work even better together — and just in general to be somewhere where everyone else cared as much about Ukraine as I do, as I find it quite isolating for the most part. (Sample audience member: young woman from the Ukrainian diaspora, with two vyshyvanka-clad small children in tow, remarking that they had travelled for three hours just to be there, and would be travelling back for another three hours on the return journey home.) Both authors signed my copies of their books, and I inevitably also acquired a new cookbook to add to the collection.
Today was the second day of Ely's weekend-long apple fair, which, like most events of this nature, involves stalls around the cathedral grounds, with a heavily apple-related theme in evidence. (Even local shops get in on the action — the amazing bakery was selling apple pies and Danish pastries with caramelised apple, the guy who makes sourdough bread in his kitchen was selling apple and cinnamon loaves at the market on Saturday, etc.) So in the late morning, Matthias and I set out, beginning with a walk along the river and hot drinks from the coffee rig in the market square, and arrived at the fair just before midday to browse the stalls. These were the usual suspects — we go to all these types of events, and it's the same mixture of craft stalls, food trucks, breweries and distillaries, and so on — but we enjoyed ourselves immensely. The weather is properly autumnal now, and today the town has been blanketed in fog all day, which felt an appropriate atmosphere for a harvest festival. We ate lunch from one of the food trucks, drank hot spiced apple juice with whiskey, and returned home with Turkish delight, baklava, various ciders for Matthias, and bagful of apples of all sorts of unusual varieties: a successful haul indeed.
I'm now looking forward to an afternoon and evening doing nothing more strenuous than cooking dinner (an Olia Hercules recipe, but not from the new cookbook), and reading under a blanket. Even reading has been nothing remarkable this week — I've only had the mental energy for rereads of old childhood favourites, which thankfully has been fairly easy to arrange.
Everything feels very sleepy and slow right now — me included.
It Will Only Hurt A Lot Because I Am Actively Trying To Make You Suffer.
Oct. 12th, 2025 11:14 amrionaleonhartFor each of my major fandoms, I do a short writeup talking about how it fits into my fandom history. A fandom qualifies as 'major' if I've written five fics for it, or ten thousand words across at least three fics.
The latest addition to the stable is a little weird!
Fanganronpas
The Danganronpa games have a very distinct formula: a group of people, each with a specialised talent, find themselves trapped in an unfamiliar location together. They're told that the only way to escape is to kill one of their fellow captives and get away with it; if they succeed, the murderer will go free, but everyone else will be executed. Every chapter is its own little murder mystery: someone turns up dead, and the survivors have to escape execution by working out which of their friends is responsible.
It's a great formula! The murder mysteries are fun, and the fact that you get to know all the potential victims and killers in advance really heightens the emotional impact of the cases. If a beloved character is killed or, worse, turns out to be the murderer, it's genuinely devastating, both to the characters solving the mystery and to you as the player.
Because the Danganronpa formula is so distinctive, some ambitious people have taken it upon themselves to create Danganronpa-style stories of their own: fan Danganronpas, or Fanganronpas. And then I got into these fan projects, and then I started writing fanfiction for these fan projects, and here we are now!
I didn't originally plan to check out any Fanganronpa projects; I love the original games, but I wasn't sure fan replicas would scratch the same itch. But I became vaguely aware of one Fanganronpa in particular, the YouTube series Danganronpa: Despair Time, because I follow someone on Tumblr who's very passionate about Ace, a character from it. I was a little surprised to learn via his blog that this fanmade character had won a Danganronpa character poll on Tumblr, beating multiple well-liked canonical Danganronpa characters; was this fan project really that popular?
When AO3 created a new canonical tag for Danganronpa: Despair Time, meaning Despair Time fics were no longer folded into the general Danganronpa tag, I messaged the aforementioned Ace enthusiast to let him know. I was very surprised to learn, in the process, that Despair Time had over 1,400 works on AO3. Apparently people really liked this thing! Given my love of Danganronpa, and the fact that at the time I thought we'd probably never see another official Danganronpa release, maybe I should at least give it a try.
I watched Danganronpa: Despair Time at the age of thirty-seven and went insane about it. It had its rough edges here and there, but it absolutely nailed Danganronpa's tone and emotion, it had a lot of fun plot developments and twists, and I really enjoyed the characters. One character in particular is up there with my absolute favourites from the official Danganronpa games.
The other Fanganronpas I've investigated since then are Project: Eden's Garden and Danganronpa Another, the latter of which I'm still working through. I really enjoyed Eden's Garden; I don't think it gets the tone as well as Despair Time, but it's a stunningly polished achievement - it honestly looks better than the official Danganronpa games do - and I'm looking forward to seeing where it's going. I'm struggling more with Danganronpa Another, largely because of translation issues, but I'm finding it interesting as a historical curiosity - it's an early Fanganronpa project that had a big impact on the overall Fanganronpa scene - and it does have a terrible boy I'm really enjoying.
As a side note, the large Despair Time AO3 work numbers that originally provoked my curiosity are actually a little misleading! It turns out there are four specific incredibly prolific authors who have, between them, written approximately 750 works for Danganronpa: Despair Time; the most prolific of the four has personally written 285 Despair Time fics. I have to admire the dedication that leads people to write literally hundreds of fics for a niche fan project, especially when there's not much of a readership to be found; half of the 1,600 fics in the Despair Time AO3 tag have under ten kudos.
Favourite character: David Chiem of Danganronpa: Despair Time, by a long way; I was not expecting to lose my mind this hard over a character in a fan project, but it turns out he's absolute catnip for me. My favourite character in Eden's Garden is Wolfgang; my favourite character in Danganronpa Another is Kinjo. Come to think of it, all three of them share the quality 'this seems like a pleasant young man - oh, no, something is very wrong with this boy', meaning they appeal to the same part of me that adores Light Yagami.
Favourite pairing: I really like David/Arei from Danganronpa: Despair Time; they have some very cute moments, and I was surprised by how invested I became in their dynamic. I'm also absolutely here for horrible David/David selfcest.
Number of words written: 9,645 across five fics: four for Danganronpa: Despair Time, and one for Project: Eden's Garden.
Absolutely historic development: if my Fanganronpa fics are counted, my latest fic means the overall amount of fanfiction I've written for Danganronpa (92,000 words) beats the amount I've written for Top Gear (90,000 words), making Danganronpa my most-written-for fandom by wordcount.
...apart from Assassin's Creed (128,000 words). Assassin's Creed is kind of a special case because I wrote about 120,000 words for a single project, which is very unusual for me; I almost exclusively write short one-shots. Let's discount that project for a moment, because 'another fandom has finally dethroned Top Gear after eighteen years' sounds a lot more impressive than 'another fandom has finally de-second-placed Top Gear after Top Gear got knocked into second place nine years ago'.
The latest addition to the stable is a little weird!
Fanganronpas
The Danganronpa games have a very distinct formula: a group of people, each with a specialised talent, find themselves trapped in an unfamiliar location together. They're told that the only way to escape is to kill one of their fellow captives and get away with it; if they succeed, the murderer will go free, but everyone else will be executed. Every chapter is its own little murder mystery: someone turns up dead, and the survivors have to escape execution by working out which of their friends is responsible.
It's a great formula! The murder mysteries are fun, and the fact that you get to know all the potential victims and killers in advance really heightens the emotional impact of the cases. If a beloved character is killed or, worse, turns out to be the murderer, it's genuinely devastating, both to the characters solving the mystery and to you as the player.
Because the Danganronpa formula is so distinctive, some ambitious people have taken it upon themselves to create Danganronpa-style stories of their own: fan Danganronpas, or Fanganronpas. And then I got into these fan projects, and then I started writing fanfiction for these fan projects, and here we are now!
I didn't originally plan to check out any Fanganronpa projects; I love the original games, but I wasn't sure fan replicas would scratch the same itch. But I became vaguely aware of one Fanganronpa in particular, the YouTube series Danganronpa: Despair Time, because I follow someone on Tumblr who's very passionate about Ace, a character from it. I was a little surprised to learn via his blog that this fanmade character had won a Danganronpa character poll on Tumblr, beating multiple well-liked canonical Danganronpa characters; was this fan project really that popular?
When AO3 created a new canonical tag for Danganronpa: Despair Time, meaning Despair Time fics were no longer folded into the general Danganronpa tag, I messaged the aforementioned Ace enthusiast to let him know. I was very surprised to learn, in the process, that Despair Time had over 1,400 works on AO3. Apparently people really liked this thing! Given my love of Danganronpa, and the fact that at the time I thought we'd probably never see another official Danganronpa release, maybe I should at least give it a try.
I watched Danganronpa: Despair Time at the age of thirty-seven and went insane about it. It had its rough edges here and there, but it absolutely nailed Danganronpa's tone and emotion, it had a lot of fun plot developments and twists, and I really enjoyed the characters. One character in particular is up there with my absolute favourites from the official Danganronpa games.
The other Fanganronpas I've investigated since then are Project: Eden's Garden and Danganronpa Another, the latter of which I'm still working through. I really enjoyed Eden's Garden; I don't think it gets the tone as well as Despair Time, but it's a stunningly polished achievement - it honestly looks better than the official Danganronpa games do - and I'm looking forward to seeing where it's going. I'm struggling more with Danganronpa Another, largely because of translation issues, but I'm finding it interesting as a historical curiosity - it's an early Fanganronpa project that had a big impact on the overall Fanganronpa scene - and it does have a terrible boy I'm really enjoying.
As a side note, the large Despair Time AO3 work numbers that originally provoked my curiosity are actually a little misleading! It turns out there are four specific incredibly prolific authors who have, between them, written approximately 750 works for Danganronpa: Despair Time; the most prolific of the four has personally written 285 Despair Time fics. I have to admire the dedication that leads people to write literally hundreds of fics for a niche fan project, especially when there's not much of a readership to be found; half of the 1,600 fics in the Despair Time AO3 tag have under ten kudos.
Favourite character: David Chiem of Danganronpa: Despair Time, by a long way; I was not expecting to lose my mind this hard over a character in a fan project, but it turns out he's absolute catnip for me. My favourite character in Eden's Garden is Wolfgang; my favourite character in Danganronpa Another is Kinjo. Come to think of it, all three of them share the quality 'this seems like a pleasant young man - oh, no, something is very wrong with this boy', meaning they appeal to the same part of me that adores Light Yagami.
Favourite pairing: I really like David/Arei from Danganronpa: Despair Time; they have some very cute moments, and I was surprised by how invested I became in their dynamic. I'm also absolutely here for horrible David/David selfcest.
Number of words written: 9,645 across five fics: four for Danganronpa: Despair Time, and one for Project: Eden's Garden.
Absolutely historic development: if my Fanganronpa fics are counted, my latest fic means the overall amount of fanfiction I've written for Danganronpa (92,000 words) beats the amount I've written for Top Gear (90,000 words), making Danganronpa my most-written-for fandom by wordcount.
...apart from Assassin's Creed (128,000 words). Assassin's Creed is kind of a special case because I wrote about 120,000 words for a single project, which is very unusual for me; I almost exclusively write short one-shots. Let's discount that project for a moment, because 'another fandom has finally dethroned Top Gear after eighteen years' sounds a lot more impressive than 'another fandom has finally de-second-placed Top Gear after Top Gear got knocked into second place nine years ago'.
Do-Not-Match Option - LIMITED Yuletide edition
Oct. 11th, 2025 03:28 pmyuletidemods posting in yuletide_adminTag set housekeeping
Thank you for all the tag set issues you’ve let us know about so far! Please continue to check the tag set and let us know of further corrections we should make. Please tell us about these corrections before 9am UTC, Monday 13 October, so we can fix them before sign-ups.
Some exchange moderators also offer participants the option to say "Please do not match me up with [ExampleUserName] or [ExampleUserName2]. I don't want to receive a gift from them or create for them." This feature makes it easier, for example, to offer a fandom requested by six different people including someone you'd prefer to avoid, and have peace of mind that you can still avoid that person.
A Do-Not-Match option is difficult to offer flexibly in Yuletide because of the large number of participants and the large number of people who have only one possible creator or recipient. However, we see a Do-Not-Match option as a valuable tool to reduce friction and make everyone happier, so we intend to offer a limited version of this feature in Yuletide, on a trial basis. Please note that this is not an absolute guarantee you won’t receive a story from one of the people you list.
After we run the matching process, we will check all matches against our master Do-Not-Match list. We will take the following actions:
We will not take the following actions:
Any three AO3 accounts you would prefer to avoid matching to. This can be for any reason, serious or unserious. Do not tell us the reason, please. If the reason is harassment or similar, we recommend reaching out to the Policy & Abuse team separately. You may only give specific names, rather than a description like "anyone who mostly wants porn".
Can't I just block people I don't want to match to?
No. Adding other users to your block list stops them from giving you a treat (see item AO3-6502 on this news post). It also stops them from being able to comment on your work. However, it does not affect challenge matching. A person you have blocked can be assigned to create for you, and you can be assigned to create for them.
Wait, am I allowed to block people in Yuletide?
Yes. Feel free to use the blocking feature to improve your AO3 experience. However, blocking someone and also matching to them could lead to unhappiness for both of you - so please consider using all the tools at your disposal to avoid matching to people you have blocked. This could mean choosing not to offer a fandom if you suspect it has been requested by a person you wish to avoid, or it could mean using the Do-Not-Match option for people you have blocked.
What other AO3 tools exist to manage my gift experience?
If you wish, you can choose to receive gifts only from assigned writers in a gift exchange or people who have claimed your prompts in a prompt meme. This is sometimes described as turning treats on and off. If you created your account after February 2022, please review this setting in your AO3 account preferences. If you select the setting "Allow anyone to gift me works", you can receive treats. If you do not select this setting, only an assigned author can give you a gift in Yuletide.
Will this be a feature of Yuletide going forward?
Maybe, maybe not. It will depend on how well it works out this year!
Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Tag Set | Community DW | Community LJ | Discord | Pinch hits on Dreamwidth
Please either sign in to comment, or include a name with your anonymous comments, including replies to others' comments. Unsigned comments will stay screened.
- We've removed Mouthwashing (Video Game) as that was approved in error. Sorry for getting your hopes up, nominator!
- 烏は主を選ばない | Karasu wa Aruji wo Erabanai | Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master (Anime): It’s come to our attention that Nazukihiko and Wakamiya are the same person, so we’re merging those characters.
- Nominator of Luca (The History of Sound) - it looks like the Wikipedia page for this movie incorrectly listed Luca as the name of Lionel's lover in Rome; according to IMDB and the original stories this movie is based on, it's Vincent (who was also nominated), so we're deleting Luca.
Thank you for all the tag set issues you’ve let us know about so far! Please continue to check the tag set and let us know of further corrections we should make. Please tell us about these corrections before 9am UTC, Monday 13 October, so we can fix them before sign-ups.
Limited Do-Not-Match option
Most of the time, the person assigned to create for you in an AO3-based gift exchange, and the person assigned to receive a gift from you, are determined by the tags you select in the sign-up form.Some exchange moderators also offer participants the option to say "Please do not match me up with [ExampleUserName] or [ExampleUserName2]. I don't want to receive a gift from them or create for them." This feature makes it easier, for example, to offer a fandom requested by six different people including someone you'd prefer to avoid, and have peace of mind that you can still avoid that person.
A Do-Not-Match option is difficult to offer flexibly in Yuletide because of the large number of participants and the large number of people who have only one possible creator or recipient. However, we see a Do-Not-Match option as a valuable tool to reduce friction and make everyone happier, so we intend to offer a limited version of this feature in Yuletide, on a trial basis. Please note that this is not an absolute guarantee you won’t receive a story from one of the people you list.
How it will work
When you sign up on AO3, the sign-up form will also link out to a Google form where you can list the AO3 names of up to 3 people you do not want to match to and can tell us if you want to avoid writing for a person, receiving an assigned gift from a person, or both. We will also ask for those people's AO3 ID numbers, which you can find on their AO3 profiles, and for the email associated with your AO3 name. We will not ask for the reason you wish to avoid a person.After we run the matching process, we will check all matches against our master Do-Not-Match list. We will take the following actions:
- If your assigned recipient or creator is someone you asked to avoid, we will attempt to match you to someone else.
- If your only possible recipient is someone you asked to avoid, we will email you to recommend you expand your offers. However, we will leave the match in place if you do not respond in the first 24 hours following the close of sign-ups.
- If your only possible creator is someone you asked to avoid, we will send out your requests with initial pinch hits.
- If you are the only possible recipient for a creator you asked to avoid, we will leave the match in place, but will prioritize your requests for double-assignment to two creators. [Because of how matching works, there will always be Yuletide participants who start out with two assigned creators; generally we try to choose them at random.]
We will not take the following actions:
- We will not ask a creator to drop out or expand their offers if their only possible recipient is someone who would prefer to avoid them.
- We will not inform a participant that someone else has asked not to match to them. [This information will be restricted only to the core Yuletide mods, Isis, Morbane, and pendrecarc, and will not be shared with the larger pool of Yuletide assistants.]
- We will not review treats for unwanted matches. Putting someone on your Do-Not-Match list will not prevent them from creating a treat for you (but please see FAQs below for other tools to achieve this).
- We will not prevent someone on your Do-Not-Match list from claiming you as a pinch hit. We will check our master Do-Not-Match list when assigning pinch hits, so if the first person to claim you is a person you prefer to avoid, we will leave a short amount of time to see if another claim comes in. But we will not hold your pinch hit indefinitely or tell the first creator they aren't allowed to claim you.
- We will not ask you why you wish to avoid a particular match.
FAQs (foreseeable/anticipated questions)
Who am I allowed to put on my Do-Not-Match list?Any three AO3 accounts you would prefer to avoid matching to. This can be for any reason, serious or unserious. Do not tell us the reason, please. If the reason is harassment or similar, we recommend reaching out to the Policy & Abuse team separately. You may only give specific names, rather than a description like "anyone who mostly wants porn".
Can't I just block people I don't want to match to?
No. Adding other users to your block list stops them from giving you a treat (see item AO3-6502 on this news post). It also stops them from being able to comment on your work. However, it does not affect challenge matching. A person you have blocked can be assigned to create for you, and you can be assigned to create for them.
Wait, am I allowed to block people in Yuletide?
Yes. Feel free to use the blocking feature to improve your AO3 experience. However, blocking someone and also matching to them could lead to unhappiness for both of you - so please consider using all the tools at your disposal to avoid matching to people you have blocked. This could mean choosing not to offer a fandom if you suspect it has been requested by a person you wish to avoid, or it could mean using the Do-Not-Match option for people you have blocked.
What other AO3 tools exist to manage my gift experience?
If you wish, you can choose to receive gifts only from assigned writers in a gift exchange or people who have claimed your prompts in a prompt meme. This is sometimes described as turning treats on and off. If you created your account after February 2022, please review this setting in your AO3 account preferences. If you select the setting "Allow anyone to gift me works", you can receive treats. If you do not select this setting, only an assigned author can give you a gift in Yuletide.
Will this be a feature of Yuletide going forward?
Maybe, maybe not. It will depend on how well it works out this year!
Please either sign in to comment, or include a name with your anonymous comments, including replies to others' comments. Unsigned comments will stay screened.
RECS: ART
Oct. 11th, 2025 08:26 pmdracothelizard posting in ourflagmeansgaySome art recs from the Hybrid Signal Zine, which was monster-themed.
You can still buy the complete zine through a $10 donation to one of the three listed charities.
Some Stede/Ned by Cecillusive, an AU of The Lindworm, which is SFW.
Image links
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:ehrff35ymlwurebsait7gmsh/bafkreiac3jqvuxvnw6jzl2i5sfodq5w6xmscmn2i3brqyn726hh22bptrm@jpeg
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:ehrff35ymlwurebsait7gmsh/bafkreiaa4d7sles755uagchx63yhftnszkis5575nr73ejutuefrdermje@jpeg
Ed, Ed and Eddie by Ginnedfish, featuring Ed in three different stages of his life, who is the real monster under the bed? Also SFW
Image link:
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:qwnrbsxcbbdgedh56s6uawwg/bafkreifjjpktna7ibiycx4un4oarmz7jt6ac5hzmsqfq4wmyi4gl3aimgq@jpeg
This sexy slime Oluwande with mimic Izzy is technically SFW but definitely sexy, by draw-just-draw.
Image link: https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:syamfj5yxwv5fimxj7jkfaxd/bafkreiet6pe2zwml6q467hga5sr5b5yfu2b5qzrnntqah7txjabdighyoi@jpeg
You can still buy the complete zine through a $10 donation to one of the three listed charities.
Some Stede/Ned by Cecillusive, an AU of The Lindworm, which is SFW.
Image links
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:ehrff35ymlwurebsait7gmsh/bafkreiac3jqvuxvnw6jzl2i5sfodq5w6xmscmn2i3brqyn726hh22bptrm@jpeg
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:ehrff35ymlwurebsait7gmsh/bafkreiaa4d7sles755uagchx63yhftnszkis5575nr73ejutuefrdermje@jpeg
Ed, Ed and Eddie by Ginnedfish, featuring Ed in three different stages of his life, who is the real monster under the bed? Also SFW
Image link:
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:qwnrbsxcbbdgedh56s6uawwg/bafkreifjjpktna7ibiycx4un4oarmz7jt6ac5hzmsqfq4wmyi4gl3aimgq@jpeg
This sexy slime Oluwande with mimic Izzy is technically SFW but definitely sexy, by draw-just-draw.
Image link: https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:syamfj5yxwv5fimxj7jkfaxd/bafkreiet6pe2zwml6q467hga5sr5b5yfu2b5qzrnntqah7txjabdighyoi@jpeg
Challenge 19: Maxton Hall
Oct. 11th, 2025 07:30 pmwickedgame posting in fandom_itest
► Post your 3 icons directly to this post by the due date of October 25th, 2025
► Comments will be screened
► Icons are 100x100 pixels and less than 60kb
► At the end of the challenge, icons will be voted on.
► I've provided some screencaps for you, but you can use ANY images/screencaps you want from "Maxton Hall". Gallery!
► Any questions - just ask!
( Images under the cut )
Oh my.
Oct. 11th, 2025 06:16 pmgoodbyebird+ Interview With The Vampire had me nervous about the shift in setting and tone, but the season 3 trailer has me extremely hyped! I only watched it once as I want to avoid soaking up too many details up front, but toe-curling excitement!!
+ Finished Alien Earth and enjoyed it for the most part. They did the alien dirty though. And that ending sure cheated me out of a bit of satisfaction; Somebody owes me a horrid death scene.
Got screengrabs from the pilot up oncapshare this morning.
+ They announced a new Rey and Leia book at NYCC, by Madeleine Roux. Please please please be good 🙏
+ I'm hopefully getting my Covid booster sometime next week, and I also talked my mom into getting it. Now to get to work on my friend group 💪 Maybe shoot them this article. Light and easy read, but very clear on the benefits of keeping the boosters going.
+ Some good news on that front: Scientists finally reveal bio-markers of long COVID brain fog.
+ Finished Alien Earth and enjoyed it for the most part. They did the alien dirty though. And that ending sure cheated me out of a bit of satisfaction; Somebody owes me a horrid death scene.
Got screengrabs from the pilot up on
capshare this morning. + They announced a new Rey and Leia book at NYCC, by Madeleine Roux. Please please please be good 🙏
+ I'm hopefully getting my Covid booster sometime next week, and I also talked my mom into getting it. Now to get to work on my friend group 💪 Maybe shoot them this article. Light and easy read, but very clear on the benefits of keeping the boosters going.
The new research also “calls into question the idea that younger individuals and those without risk factors don’t need the vaccine,” Viswanathan says. Instead the data show that, while the shot is most effective for older individuals and those with comorbidities, “it was also protective in those without risk factors,” she says.
Additionally, Viswanathan says that the study design made the evidence “more compelling” because the authors included enough women and younger individuals, which made the results more balanced and provided a fuller picture of vaccine effectiveness for all cohorts.
+ Some good news on that front: Scientists finally reveal bio-markers of long COVID brain fog.
Free for All Saturday, Week 41 [DW Edition]
Oct. 11th, 2025 08:03 amcreepy_shetan posting in comment_fic[ If you're interested in being a Tuesday-Thursday guest host, you can sign up here. Thanks! ❤ ]
↑↑↑ Available dates:
October 14 & 16
October 28 & 30
November 4 & 6
Hello on this chilly and rainy Saturday with no reason to go outdoors! ^.^ Welcome to this week's Free for All. There are no themes to follow for prompts or fills. If you've had any ideas this week that didn't really work with Tuesday's or Thursday's posts, today's your chance to prompt 'em. Be free, and have fun! ✎
Just a few rules:
1. No more than five prompts in a row.
2. No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
3. Use the character's full name and the fandom's full name for ease in adding to the Lonely Prompts spreadsheet.
4. No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here. Unfortunately, DW doesn’t have a cut tag, so use your best judgment when it comes to spoilers.
5. If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the spoiler cut.
6. If your story has possible triggers, please warn for them in the subject line!
Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt
Are today's prompts not catching your eye? No worries, because we have plenty of older prompts that just might do the trick! You can browse through the comm's calendar archive (here on LJ or here on DW) for themed and Free For All posts, or perhaps check out Sunday posts for Lonely Prompt requests. (Or, you can be like me, and try to save interesting prompts as you see 'em... and then end up with multiple text doc files full of [themes + links + prompts] that you can easily look through and search for keywords.) Multiple fills for one prompt are welcome, by the way! Oh, and you are very likely to find some awesome fills to read as well, and wouldn't it be nice to leave a comment on those lovely little writing distractions? ~_^
We are on AO3! If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3, please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2025 collection.
If you are viewing this post on our Dreamwidth site: please know that fills posted here will not show up as comments on our LiveJournal site, but you are still more than welcome to participate. =)
If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word!comment_fic
A friendly reminder about our posting schedule: Themed posts for new prompts go up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day for new prompts of any flavor. Sundays are for showing Lonely Prompts some love, whether by requesting for someone to adopt them or by sharing any fills that you've recently completed.
↑↑↑ Available dates:
October 14 & 16
October 28 & 30
November 4 & 6
Hello on this chilly and rainy Saturday with no reason to go outdoors! ^.^ Welcome to this week's Free for All. There are no themes to follow for prompts or fills. If you've had any ideas this week that didn't really work with Tuesday's or Thursday's posts, today's your chance to prompt 'em. Be free, and have fun! ✎
Just a few rules:
1. No more than five prompts in a row.
2. No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
3. Use the character's full name and the fandom's full name for ease in adding to the Lonely Prompts spreadsheet.
4. No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here. Unfortunately, DW doesn’t have a cut tag, so use your best judgment when it comes to spoilers.
5. If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the spoiler cut.
6. If your story has possible triggers, please warn for them in the subject line!
Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt
Are today's prompts not catching your eye? No worries, because we have plenty of older prompts that just might do the trick! You can browse through the comm's calendar archive (here on LJ or here on DW) for themed and Free For All posts, or perhaps check out Sunday posts for Lonely Prompt requests. (Or, you can be like me, and try to save interesting prompts as you see 'em... and then end up with multiple text doc files full of [themes + links + prompts] that you can easily look through and search for keywords.) Multiple fills for one prompt are welcome, by the way! Oh, and you are very likely to find some awesome fills to read as well, and wouldn't it be nice to leave a comment on those lovely little writing distractions? ~_^
We are on AO3! If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3, please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2025 collection.
If you are viewing this post on our Dreamwidth site: please know that fills posted here will not show up as comments on our LiveJournal site, but you are still more than welcome to participate. =)
If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word!
comment_ficA friendly reminder about our posting schedule: Themed posts for new prompts go up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day for new prompts of any flavor. Sundays are for showing Lonely Prompts some love, whether by requesting for someone to adopt them or by sharing any fills that you've recently completed.
Fanfiction: Mutually Regrettable (Danganronpa: Despair Time, David/Teruko)
Oct. 11th, 2025 01:38 pmrionaleonhartDavid/Teruko did not occur to me at all the first time I watched Danganronpa: Despair Time, but then I saw assorted fun fanart and went 'actually, you know, I could get behind this.'
In this fic, I get behind it in the form of writing a bunch of hatesex. (Also including a touch of... consensual voyeurism for practical reasons?)
Title: Mutually Regrettable
Fandom: Danganronpa: Despair Time
Rating: 16
Pairing: David/Teruko
Wordcount: 2,200
Summary: David wakes with a blade to his throat.
( Mutually Regrettable )
In this fic, I get behind it in the form of writing a bunch of hatesex. (Also including a touch of... consensual voyeurism for practical reasons?)
Title: Mutually Regrettable
Fandom: Danganronpa: Despair Time
Rating: 16
Pairing: David/Teruko
Wordcount: 2,200
Summary: David wakes with a blade to his throat.
( Mutually Regrettable )
This weekend's writing goals
Oct. 11th, 2025 02:44 ammossy_benchI have few obligations this weekend and also have Monday off, so I'll be trying my damnedest to finish my Tomblain/Baron fic in the next few days. It's been multiple cycles of brainstorming, writing, canon-reviewing, and deciding to scrap or fundamentally restructure what I wrote. (This was supposed to be a quick light-hearted PWP and I have written not a word of smut nor indeed the featured couple interacting at all.) But, I think/hope that I've got a good grasp of what I want the fic to be like, at last. Wrote over 1k today and it seems like this time it'll stick.
Hopefully you will hear from me again on Tuesday, celebrating the completion of a draft, even if it's a rough one.
Hopefully you will hear from me again on Tuesday, celebrating the completion of a draft, even if it's a rough one.
PILLION
Oct. 10th, 2025 09:19 pmimpala_chickHoly shit this looks sexy as hell....
Am I thinking about a Brad/Nate AU already? Possibly.
Am I thinking about a Brad/Nate AU already? Possibly.
Lonely Prompts Sunday, Week 41 [DW Edition]
Oct. 12th, 2025 11:45 am↑↑↑ Available dates:
October 14 & 16
October 28 & 30
November 4 & 6
Happy Sunday, everyone! :D It's time for our weekly Lonely Prompts day. If this is your first time at
How to look for prompts:
We have plenty of prompts that might just nibble away at your brain today. You can browse through the comm's calendar archive (here on LJ or here on DW) for themed and Free For All posts, or perhaps check out Sunday posts for Lonely Prompt requests. (Or, you can be like me, and try to save interesting prompts as you see 'em... and then end up with multiple text doc files full of [themes + links + prompts] that you can easily look through and search for keywords.) Multiple fills for one prompt are welcome, by the way! Oh, and you are very likely to find some awesome fills to read as well, and wouldn't it be nice to leave a comment on those lovely little writing distractions? ~_^
Whichever you decide to do, prompt or fill (or both), please remember:
1. You can only request five prompts to be filled.
2. You can request no more than three prompts from a particular fandom.
3. You can, however, fill as many prompts in as many fandoms as you'd like!
4. In the subject line, be sure to say whether it is a request or a fill!
5. You must link back to wherever the prompt is in the community archive (whether filling or requesting), and, if you're filling the prompt, please post the fill as a reply to the original prompt.
6. If you are filling an "any/any" prompt, please let us know what fandom you've written it for (or if it's original!).
8. If there are possible triggers in your story, please warn for them in the subject line!
7. If you've filled any lonely prompts in the past week, this is the place to share them!
9. Finally, please remember to add your prompt fills to our AO3 collection: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2025 collection. See further notes on this option here.
How to link:
[a href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/449155.html?thread=70682755#t70682755">MCU, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, She's wearing daisy dukes and one of his button-down shirts.[/a]
(change the brackets to "<" and ">" respectively)
or:
http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/139897.html?thread=30155641#t30155641
Burn Notice, Sam/Michael/Fi, "It's always been you. And it's always gonna be you."
We are on AO3! If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3, please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2025 collection.
If you are viewing this post on our Dreamwidth site: please know that fills posted here will not show up as comments on our LiveJournal site, but you are still more than welcome to participate. =)
If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word!
A friendly reminder about our posting schedule: Themed posts for new prompts go up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day for new prompts of any flavor. Sundays are for showing Lonely Prompts some love, whether by requesting for someone to adopt them or by sharing any fills that you've recently completed.