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36 Hours to Reveals

Dec. 23rd, 2025 10:06 pm
yuletidemods: A hippo lounges with laptop in hand, peering at the screen through a pair of pince-nez and smiling. A text bubble with a heart emerges from the screen. The hippo dangles a computer mouse from one toe. By Oro. (Default)
[personal profile] yuletidemods posting in [community profile] yuletide_admin
We're so close! This year, Yuletide reveals are at 9pm UTC on 24 December - that has changed since last year.

COUNTDOWN TO REVEALS

Tips

Formatting

Getting your story up on AO3 is the main thing. But, now it's there, please check it over again before reveals - especially to see if you've left in any bits you're going to replace like [xxx]. But also please check for legibility - check for text with no gaps between paragraphs, or text with massive gaps between paragraphs. Click/tap for more information...
Issues often arise when posting from Google Docs. You can use this Google doc or this extension to help convert your document to HTML for a better copy/paste experience. The problem with italics and punctuation can also be solved by including the punctuation inside the italics tags.

If your story has no space between paragraphs, check to see if you pasted your story into the HTML tab instead of the Rich Text tab. Paragraph spacing occasionally gets added to places like summaries when you edit them, so you might want to double-check that also!

Below the cut are examples of spacing that’s too big, too little, and juuuuust right. )

If the spacing in your work is wacky, we recommend editing it to avoid putting off potential readers.

Your comment settings

In recent years, AO3 changed the default settings for comments on your work. If you want to allow comments from guests/readers who aren't logged in, check your work. Click/tap for info...
Before July 2024, the default setting for comments allowed on your work was "Registered users and guests can comment." In July, AO3 changed that so that the default setting is "Only registered users can comment." That means that if you posted your Yuletide work without changing the settings, no one can comment on your work without logging into their account.

If that matches your preferences, that's great. If you'd like to make it possible for anyone who reads your work to comment, please edit your work and change the setting. This setting is directly above the Work Text field.

Tagging and "Unspecified Fandom"

Please tag your work accurately, including warnings. We encourage you to use "Unspecified Fandom", alongside a specific tag, to help users find a fandom that isn't wrangled yet. Please reach out if you're not sure how to tag a new or non-canonical fandom. Click/tap for info...
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If your fandom is completely new, please use the tag that was approved into the tag set. These tags were formulated to meet archive guidelines and will be more quickly canonized, so that your work can be found from the Fandoms page of the collection. We recommend you also use "Unspecified Fandom", because this will show up in the fandoms list immediately, even if the actual fandom tag isn't wrangled straight away. Please do not tag your work with Unspecified Fandom as the only fandom tag. Instead, tag with both Unspecified Fandom and the actual fandom tag.

If your fandom is a subset of a canonical tag (like an RPF fandom that belongs in Actor RPF, or a season of a Let's Play fandom that has an overarching canonical), we recommend tagging with the parent fandom. Please reach out to mods if you're not sure that's what you should do.

Your author's notes

Please keep these positive. Please don't identify yourself - no social media links! Also, please don't apologize for your work, tell your recipient all about what a tough time you had writing, or otherwise ask your recipient to accept a negative sentiment along with their gift.

Treats!!

Additional works are warmly welcomed for participants signed up to Yuletide* and all additional pinch hitters.

Please check these guidelines for whether to post treats in the main Yuletide collection (closes Dec 24) or the Yuletide Madness collection (closes Dec 25). Unlike in some exchanges, Yuletide's treating period does not continue indefinitely. Please get your treats in before reveals - or you'll need to wait until next year.

Not all users accept treatsPlease do not create treats for: Arsenic, BluebirdCT, Budouka, couch1141, theblakery, Witgifu. This list is subject to change, as you can change the setting to accept treats (or not) at any time. Check with mods if unsure.



Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app

Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.

dialecticdreamer: My work (Default)
[personal profile] dialecticdreamer
Recipes for Hugo
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only):1653
[A few days before Christmas 2016]


:: Heron has assembled a complicated gift for his cousin Hugo. It sparks a surprising reaction in the younger man. Part of the Finn family and the Shiv/Omaha story arcs in the Polychrome Heroics universe, the story was written in the December 2025 prompt fest, with my deep thanks to the reader who suggested it. ::




“Recipes for Hugo.” The period at the end of the sentence grew irregularly, creeping from beneath the tip of the gel pen. Heron stared at it with a flat, narrow-eyed glare, and capped the pen silently before dropping it into the black fireproof trash can labeled, “Test to Destruction” with a strip of duck tape and red permanent marker.

That tiny noise nearly woke Mallory, asleep on the sofa.
Read more... )
[personal profile] chanter1944
Today started out and, really, stayed busy in exhausting ways, because it's the last-minute countdown to giftmas stuffmas and the scramble is apparently not over yet. :( However, then things improved! Credit and gratitude to George the pharmacy tech, who was both delightful and kind and who also saved my butt by simply doing his job, knocking down my stress level in a significant way. A prescription refill for necessary meds is go. Whew! Credit and gratitude also to L the coworker, for being more gracious than I likely deserved about my being wound up and showing it. To make a long story short, we were both stressed, we were both buried in work, we were both contending with silly issues brought on by human error, and neither one of us blamed the other in the end. Double whew!

I'm getting a little writing of the fictional kind in, and then I'm going the heck to bed. ZZZZZZ!
ride_4ever: (Christmas Ray slash Fraser)
[personal profile] ride_4ever
ArcticBunny68 is a very new and very talented due South fic writer and has created multiple dS 'verses in the form of the "Haines to Haines Junction" series, the "An Arctic Fairy Tale" series, and the "Borderline" series, and during November and December has tagged parts of them with "due South 2025 Christmas Chronicles". Here, for your holiday reading pleasure on AO3: due South 2025 Christmas Chronicles by ArcticBunny68. (Note that one of these fics is a short stand-alone while the others are portions within larger works.)

Hug!

Dec. 23rd, 2025 11:10 am
china_shop: An orange cartoon dog waving, with a blue-green abstract background. (Bingo!)
[personal profile] china_shop
I doodled this in front of the TV last night. Looking at it today, I think it might be an accidental, stylised hug. (One person is the yellow and orange upright rectangle type, and the other is glommed onto/around them.) So here, have a hug!!



ION, writing is still stuck, ugh, but I did manage to finish off an M-rated Guardian masturbation flashfic set during ep 4, so there's that at least.
goodbyebird: Pluribus: Carol wearing a Santa hat and a decidedly grumpy expression. (Pluribus carol of the bells)
[personal profile] goodbyebird
+ Had an extended family dinner today and got to listen to my lovely aunt and cousin talk about how great ChatGPT is, how she's using it to plan a girl's trip to Italy, and how helpful it'll be for writing the speeches at my grandmother's funeral. Fucking shoot me into outer space strapped to a rocket.

+ Got to see the latest Avatar movie at the cinemas. My least favorite of the three, lacking the genuine awe and beauty of the world. What they did try just felt forced, and one character in particular should have been left to die in the second movie ugh.

+ Big plus for the cozy and hazily lit curtain fic promo trailer thingy they did before the movie. IYKYK. Kinda made me wish I had an ear to the ground in that fandom still.

+ I think I've successfully broken through my iconning block!! Shout out to dysfunctional vampires and dysfunctional lesbians.

+ BIG psa: Apple shifted Pluribus to air on the 24th, two days earlier than usual. I'll have to get up extra early to see it before 2 Nøtter Til Askepott, because if not I'll be thinking about it and wanting to all day lol. It's been such a good series for me to watch? There's this whole thing where there's two wolves inside of me, one appreciating the thought and care put into every decision, and how slow it's allowed to move, the second wanting to pick into every detail and tear through it. Both enjoyable in different ways!

I have watched every episode a minimum of twice. It may be my new comfort watch show?¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 22

Pluribus I'd say spoilery for last week's episode. )

Series Rec: ClaireBell (2025)

Dec. 22nd, 2025 01:27 pm
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula
ClaireBell poster featuring Bell and Claire on a bunk bed


(8 × ~45 minutes (TV version) or ~60 minutes (uncut version))

Claire and Bell meet in a place no one enters by choice: prison. Wrongly convicted of drug possession, Bell begins her fifteen-month sentence only to find herself targeted by a powerful group within the grounds. Even the warden turns a blind eye to their actions. Her only path to safety is to go to Claire, a violent inmate no one dares mess with. Nothing is as easy as she'd hoped. As their bond deepens, their path reaches a crossroads and they must choose between life and love. (MyDramaList)

Read more... )

the inevitable commentfic

Dec. 22nd, 2025 01:54 pm
philomytha: Biggles pulling Angus from the water (Biggles drowning rescue)
[personal profile] philomytha
Sholio wrote a wonderful variation on the evergreen 'presumed dead' trope and invited continuations, and since there are certain kinds of temptation I don't even bother trying to resist, I wrote some more for it.

Sholio's fic (second one down)

1400 words of waking up after being presumed dead (Biggles gen) )

cheap sushi

Dec. 22nd, 2025 10:49 pm
mindstalk: (food)
[personal profile] mindstalk

If there's one food that's cheaper in Japan, it's low-end sushi. Supermarket had a tray of 8 seafood nigiri: 2 salmon, 2 tuna, mackerel, shrimp, the big roe, and some pink gel. 598 yen. $6 by PPP, which is already good deal; $4 by exchange rate. Probably would be $12 in a Philadelphia supermarket, or $15.

But! I actually got it at 50% discount, near closing time. So 8 nigiri for $2.

...maybe I should be more aggressive about walking off with as much discount sushi as I can carry...

2025 short stuff rec list

Dec. 22nd, 2025 05:51 am
mrissa: (Default)
[personal profile] mrissa
 

Of course I hope you've enjoyed my short fiction and poetry (and nonfiction!) this year. But other people have been absolutely lighting the place up as well, and here are my recommendations for speculative short fiction and poetry for 2025. Even I can't read everything, so please do not take this as a comprehensive list! I'm sure there's great stuff out there I've missed, and if you want to comment with it, that's great. Spread the joy.

Heritage/Speaker | Hablante/Herencia, Angela Acosta (Samovar)

The Witch and the Wyrm, Elizabeth Bear (Reactor)

Thirteen Swords That Made a Prince: Highlights From the Arms & Armory Collection, Sharang Biswas (Strange Horizons)

Biologists say it will take at least a generation for the river to recover (Klamath River Hymn), Leah Bobet (Reckoning)

Watching Migrations, Keyan Bowes (Strange Horizons)

Bestla, James Joseph Brown (Kaleidotrope)

Mail Order Magic, Stephanie Burgis (Sunday Morning Transport)

With Only a Razor Between, Martin Cahill (Reactor)

As Safe As Fear, Beth Cato (Daikajuzine)

And the Planet Loved Him, L. Chan (Clarkesworld)

“To Reap, to Sow,” Lyndsey Croal (Analog Mar/Apr 25)

Atomic, Jennifer Crow (Kaleidotrope)

Flower and Root, J. R. Dawson (Sunday Morning Transport)

Six People to Revise You, J. R. Dawson (Uncanny)

The Place I Came To, Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko (Lightspeed)

Understudies, Greg Egan (Clarkesworld)

All That Means or Mourns, Ruthanna Emrys (Reactor)

Holly on the Mantel, Blood on the Hearth, Kate Francia (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

The Jacarandas Are Unimpressed By Your Show of Force, Gwynne Garfinkle (Strange Horizons)

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Gorgon, Gwynne Garfinkle (Penumbric)

The Otter Woman’s Daughter, Eleanor Glewwe (Cast of Wonders)

In the Shells of Broken Things, A.T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld)

In Connorville, Kathleen Jennings (Reactor)

Michelle C. Jin, Imperfect Simulations (Clarkesworld)

What I Saw Before the War, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Reactor)

The Name Ziya, Wen-yi Lee (Reactor)

Barbershops of the Floating City, Angela Liu (Uncanny)

Kaiju Agonistes, Scott Lynch (Uncanny)

The Loaf in the Woods, David Marino (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

One by One, Lindz McLeod (Apex)

10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days, Samantha Mills (Uncanny)

Everyone Keeps Saying Probably, Premee Mohamed (Psychopomp)

Liecraft, Anita Moskát (trans. Austin Wagner) (Apex)

The Orchard Village Catalog, Parker Peevyhouse (Strange Horizons)

Lies From a Roadside Vagabond, Aaron Perry (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

Last Tuesday, for Eternity, Vinny Rose Pinto (Imagine 2200)

The Horrible Conceit of Night and Death, J. A. Prentice (Apex)

The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For, Cameron Reed (Reactor)

Ghost Rock Posers F**k Off, Margaret Ronald (Sunday Morning Transport)

Regarding the Childhood of Morrigan, Who Was Chosen to Open the Way, Benjamin Rosenbaum (Reactor)

No One Dies of Longing, Anjali Sachdeva (Strange Horizons)

Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything, Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots)

Orders, Grace Seybold (Augur)

Unbeaten, Grace Seybold (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

After the Invasion of the Bug-Eyed Aliens, Rachel Swirsky (Reactor)

“Holy Fools,” Adrian Tchaikovsky (Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers)

A Random Walk Through the Goblin Library, Chris Willrich (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

“An Asexual Succubus,” John Wiswell (Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers)

Phantom View, John Wiswell (Reactor)

Brooklyn Beijing, Hannah Yang (Uncanny)

Unfinished Architectures of the Human-Fae War, Caroline Yoachim (Uncanny)

The Day in Spikedluv (Sunday, Dec 21)

Dec. 22nd, 2025 06:38 am
spikedluv: (winter: mittens by raynedanser)
[personal profile] spikedluv
I did two loads of laundry, hand-washed dishes, went for a couple walks with Pip and the dogs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, scooped kitty litter, and showered. Supper was leftover strip roast.

I finished the second Jack Reacher book and watched the Bills game. Another close game, but they pulled off the win! Secrets of the Zoo was my evening background tv.

Temps started out at 35.4(F). It went up about a degree, then started going back down. It hovered around the 29 degree mark most of the day. We had a lot of wind (which made it feel more like the temp was in the teens), but not as much snow as they were calling for, thankfully.


Mom Update:

Mom sounded about the same when I called her. more back here )

Thai BL Icons

Dec. 22nd, 2025 02:01 pm
magicrubbish: The Vampire Academy - Lisa (The vampire academy)
[personal profile] magicrubbish posting in [community profile] fandom_icons
 Preview
     


 76 icons from various Thai BL dramas ( 4 minutes , Jack & Joker , KinnPorsche , Love in the air , Love mechanics , Manner of Death , Only Friends , Sotus, The Heart Killers , Triage )

See the icons here[personal profile] magicrubbish 
 

Want to make art for WisCon?

Dec. 21st, 2025 11:49 pm
boxofdelights: (Default)
[personal profile] boxofdelights posting in [community profile] wiscon
Want to get paid for your artwork? WisCon is open for art submission. Deadline 01/15/2026.

Here is the form: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11nAnzOsm2GlY1B03mJ1hmntB-V1CYRX0/view



#WisCon #WomeninSFF #feministconvention #art #artist #submission
dialecticdreamer: My work (Default)
[personal profile] dialecticdreamer
Exceptional Return
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1568
[21 December 2016]


:: An hour after Summer left the diner, the teleporter returned. She couldn’t have predicted that, so everything that followed was utterly flabbergasting, in the best of ways. Part of the Polychrome Heroics universe, and written for the December of 2025 Giftmas event. This is a gift for the solstice, on the solstice. This is for all those readers who hate getting lumped in with “Well it’s almost Christmas anyway.” ::




Summer Longacre was still trying to wring the water out of her hair after her fifteen-minute shower, when the distinctive z-z-z-zziiip echoed through the front door. She peered through the peephole at the broad concrete landing where snow and ice clung to the black enameled railing made of common square stock. The winter breeze pushed through the area so fiercely that no one was allowed to leave outdoor gear next to the entryway.

She looked down, checking her long teal caftan and nodded. Someone rapped on the door just as her fingers brushed the knob, making her jump back. “Right here,” she called through the door. Her breath whistled in the back of her throat.
Read more... )

How To Avoid The Holidays

Dec. 21st, 2025 09:02 pm
autobotscoutriella: Franziska von Karma with her arms folded (AA Franziska 2)
[personal profile] autobotscoutriella
How To Avoid The Holidays

Summary: Ema hasn't enjoyed Christmas in a long time. Neither has Franziska.

Fandom: Ace Attorney
Characters: Ema Skye/Franziska von Karma
Rating: T
Warnings: Angst, offscreen character death
Notes: Written for AA Holiday Rarepair Week, prompt "Traditions"!

That’s the Skye sisters for you: they haven’t had a happy holiday since Ema was fourteen, and it doesn’t seem likely to change anytime soon. )

(no subject)

Dec. 21st, 2025 06:24 pm
autobotscoutriella: teenage Ema Skye writing in a notebook (AA1 Ema)
[personal profile] autobotscoutriella
Me: I'm not going to put a bunch of pressure on myself for AA Holiday Rarepair Week. I'm just going to relax and write whatever comes to mind and if it's good, great. If it's not, that's okay.

Me, a few hours and 3300 words later: so that was a lie

Vacation doesn't stop me from being a fanfic overachiever, I guess...
outstretched: A chibified cute furret on a brown backround (Default)
[personal profile] outstretched posting in [community profile] betaplease
Hello, this is your mod. I've finished cleaning up the tags for the new year.

I'm starting to notice that some people are using this community in an attempt to find an editor for their full, original novels - works 50,000+ words or more. I worry that [community profile] betaplease is being used to take advantage of beta-readers for commercial work. This is a space for fandom and fandom-adjacent works, and part of the spirit of fandom (on the fic side, anyway) is that we do not make money on our editing or writing.

After some thought, I've decided the rule is, if you are intending to publish your writing with the goal of making money, it does not belong here on [community profile] betaplease.

If you are publishing your work with the intent of making money, you should be paying an editor for a professional pass. This is for three reasons:

  1. If you are trying to make money on your work, asking someone else for free work so that you can profit is unjust and disrespectful.

  2. Frankly speaking, it is extremely unlikely that you are going to find any editors who are willing to edit a piece of that length for free. Even 10k can be exhausting, especially if you are expecting a professional level editing job.

  3. If you are publishing in a commercial capacity, then your work should get a more professional type of editing pass than what we here in this community can give for free. The amount of effort an editor is going to give a story of over 50,000 words, to a stranger, for characters they don't even know and aren't guaranteed to enjoy reading about, for free, is minimal. You and your readers deserve more than the bare minimum.


I myself have worked as a professional freelance editor for over 15 years. I made this community because I love editing and I love fandom, and I want to support both. Using this community to find free editing for commercial projects feels like you're not respecting editors and our craft. Editing, just like writing or art, is a skill that is honed through years of effort.

With that said, I am not banning original fiction, and any novel-length works posted to [community profile] betaplease before now will be allowed to remain. And of course, if you are looking for an editor for your 50,000+ word original fiction that you plan to publish on AO3 and are never going to try to make money on, by all means, you are welcome here. However, if I notice continued posts in this direction from this point on, I will return this space to being strictly focused on fandom works only. I have also updated the rules to be explicit on this point.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for always supporting this small community. Best wishes to your writing and editing adventures in the new year.

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yossi: Gabrielle and Xena looking affectionately at each other (Default)
aka joey

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