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Round 154 Poll

Somehow it's September so here have a poll!

Poll #33571 Round 154 Dates

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

View Respondents

When should we have Round 154?

View Answers

5-7 Sep (i.e. like tomorrowish)
5 (55.6%)

12-14 Sep
3 (33.3%)

19-21 Sep
5 (55.6%)

26-28 Sep
3 (33.3%)

hmmmmmmmm
1 (11.1%)

writing? in this economy?
5 (55.6%)

how to fake your death and join the circus reddit
5 (55.6%)

and I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for that meddling
6 (66.7%)

ticky box
5 (55.6%)

Entry tags:

daily: check in

Daily Check-In: Day 3

Good afternoon everyone! Did you get any writing done?

Yes
No
I've thought about it.
I'm busy right now.
I'm taking a break for now.

Entry tags:

A 2025 Experiment: Increasing fandom slots for nominations & requests

As we all start planning our nominations and requests, mods have been reviewing our rules around the number of fandoms that can be nominated and requested.

Traditionally, Yuletide has allowed participants to nominate a maximum of 3 fandoms to the tagset, with up to 4 characters each. We increased that to 4 fandoms in 2023 and got positive feedback about that change.

During signups, participants have been required to request at least 3 fandoms, and up to 6 fandoms if they choose. They must offer a minimum of 4 fandoms.

We've needed to limit the tagset size due to a combination of AO3 technical limitations as well as the logistical effort to confirm each fandom is eligible while avoiding duplicate fandoms. The good news is that we’ve found AO3’s tagset interface loads the moderation tools a bit faster lately. We've also developed more scalable processes and a group of wonderful, experienced volunteers to help with that checking. We think we can handle more nominations this year, but we won’t know until we try!

Change to nominations:

For 2025 only, we are going to increase the number of tagset nominations from 4 fandoms to 5 fandoms per person. The maximum number of characters will remain at 4 per fandom.

We’ll see how this goes, and whether the additional workload seems manageable to us, before deciding whether to keep the increased limit in 2026.

Change to requests:

For 2025 only, we are also going to increase the maximum number of fandom requests from 6 to 8. The minimum of 3 will not change. This means you must request at least 3 fandoms, and up to 8 fandoms if you choose.

Everything else remains the same: for each fandom, you will still be able to request up to a maximum of 4 characters. You will still be required to offer at least 4 fandoms with a minimum of 2 characters each.

Again, we will evaluate how it goes, and how this affects our workload, before deciding whether to keep the increased limit in 2026.

We hope this opens up some exciting possibilities for you in the 2025 round! Please stay tuned for our usual eligibility and evidence posts.

Entry tags:

Two things

I'm not recovered from going out last week, but hopefully I will be soon, or at least before I have to go out again next week. Anyway, two fannish things:

1. People may remember a few Yuletides ago, I wrote We'll Burn That Barn When We Come To It, aka the first Harold/William the Conqueror fic on the archive (how???)* because a) Irresistable Request and b) childhood obsession with all things 1066.

Anyway, the BBC have made a big epic about William and Harold! I have tried 10 minutes and so far it seems decent and though it did the standard opening with Grimness, just to show it was that kind of thing, it was all right & I liked everything else so far, so yay. As far as I know, the last time the BBC did a thing about William the Conqueror, it was the 60s and it had Julian Glover in so never in my lifetime, omg. Don't let us down...

(I was wary and slow to start it because ill and also the preview made it look a lot like The Last Kingdom, which was too much for me, although tbf to TLK, I hear it got more interesting as it went, but I was there for Matthew Macfadyen and then they killed him in the first episode and I was too ill for all the Vikings. Matthew Macfadyen led me to Spooks after being great in v different ways in a small role in Enigma and as Felix in The Way We Live Now, but he has worked hard to stop me ever since Tom Quinn walked into the sea, damn him.)

The BBC have apparently paid attention to historical detail like the size of the ponies but somehow missed the fact that the one thing we can all see in the Bayeaux Tapestry is that the Anglo-Saxons have epic moustaches and the Normans are clean-shaven by deciding to give all the Normans moustaches and have the Anglo-Saxons clean-shaven, but you can't have the French wandering around without a proper goatee to show they're French, sacre bleu etc.

Watch on YouTube

Matilda and William just mentioned Emma of Normandy in a way that suggests she should be Significant, so I got v excited. I await her actual appearance with anticipation. \o/

(Someone has already dropped a fresh kudos on my fic, because there are still only 3 William/Harold works in the world. I look forward to it becoming a tiresome large-sized vessel soon, as Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is playing William, so that should bring some people in, right?)

2. I just found that

daibhidc wrote a really great Miss Marple ficlet based on my Miss Marple is a goddess fic (talking of Yuletide hits of yore), which brightened up the week no end:

Nemesis the Virgin (614 words) by DaibhidC
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jane Marple
Additional Tags: Historical, Anglo-Saxon, Miss Marple is a Goddess
Summary: An Anglo-Saxon priest has a strange encounter with a parishoner.

(We are TECHNICALLY on Ro3 for Goddess Jane Marple now, except one of those is a translation of my work so it doesn't really count. Hmm...)

I shall stop typing now because I am still not really up to it, but lo a post, a positive post. With 1066-ness and Miss Marple in it!

* and it was a Modern AU, what a terrible person I am. ;-p

Entry tags:

daily: check in

Daily Check-In: Day 2

Where are you at in your fic?

Planning/Outlining/Researching
Writing down some rough drafts
Editing it right now
Sending off to my beta-reader for proofreading
Adding some finishing touches
Posting it right now

Entry tags:

September Theme + Request Post

Recs of any sort may be posted at any time, but in addition we have monthly themes.

tardis_library's theme for August is now closed, and here is our new theme for September:

Eighth Doctor // Dream(s)

"It was a childish dream that made you a doctor. You dreamt you could hold back death. Isn't that true? Don't be sad... You'll do great things."

Time to bring out your favourite fanworks for the Eighth Doctor and anyone and anything from any of his many eras! Or any work that ties in with the theme of dreams in any way. Or, as ever, both!

Post your recs to the community in the normal way any time from now until midnight on 30th September 2025 in your timezone. (See Info & Guidelines for posting template and instructions). Recs posted for monthly themes have their own tag with banners at the end of the year for reccers who posted a rec for 6 or more of each year's themes.

When making your post, add the tag "other: monthly theme". (The mods can take care of any other needed tags if you prefer, but a challenge/theme tag could easily be missed.)

Our current Seasonal Challenge is Reccer's Bingo, which is open for sign ups for cards and posting recs until 21 September 2025.

Request List
Anyone may also request any specific recs they'd like to see. (e.g. "Fourth Doctor fic, not on Teaspoon," "Cheerful Bill Potts artwork," "Leela vid," "recent Ten/Rose," etc.) If you are only interested in one medium (fic/vid/art etc/), don't forget to specify.

Current requests:
* Classic Who fanvids, any Doctor/TARDIS team (music, no/minimal audio quotes preferred), especially out there on tumblr/YT -

thisbluespirit
* Twelfth Doctor h/c that's not on AO3 (any pairing or gen) -

ruuger
* Rose/Nine fic, any genre, anywhere - anon
* Jack/Esther fic (Torchwood) -

chamilet
* Babyfic and/or de-age fic, any era/any team -

romanajo123
* Fanworks in more unusual media (not Art, Fic, or Vids) -

lurking_latinist
* Gen fic featuring the Doctor's scarf any era -

liadt
* fic set after Planet of Giants that focus on the events of that story -

scifirenegade

Make your requests in the comments here to be added to the list. (Anon commenting is on.) If you make a rec that fills any of these requests, please add the "other: request" tag to your entry so it can be found easily.)

Any other questions? Ask here or at the Info & Guidelines post, or PM the mod.

Entry tags:

daily: check in

Daily Check-In: Day 1 (September)

How's the writing coming along?

Great!
Good
Okay
Could be better, could be worse
Badly
Didn't write today. (i.e. too busy or on break)
I've thought about writing once or twice.

Code deploy happening shortly

Per the dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

Mississippi site block, plus a small restriction on Tennessee new accounts

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

Entry tags:

(no subject)

I forgot I hadn't quite brought my

rainbowfic posting up to date, so here's the last one I wrote before summer:

Name: Singled Out
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #29 (Pleasure); Beet Red #29 (Wear it well)
Supplies and Styles:
Word Count: 3726
Rating: PG
Warnings: Minor injury.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray, Leion Valerno, Kadia Barra, Seahra Jadinor, Kettah Jadinor.
Summary: Leion is being frivolous, Viyony has a question, and Kadia is behaving strangely yet again...

Entry tags:

daily: check in

Daily Check-In: Day 31

Good afternoon everyone!

It's the end of August, and September is just right around the corner to start fresh.

And so, have you written anything today?

Yes
No
I've thought about it here and there.
I'm taking a break.
I'm too busy right now to write.

Entry tags:

i've never seen star wars

I've Never Seen Star Wars: Escape Room

There was a time when escape rooms were all the rage. I've loved escape rooms games on the computer/phone where you have to solve puzzles to eventually get the key to the room, so I really wanted to do one. But somehow all my friends did one before I even knew they existed and didn't want to do another one. I did an online one during lockdown, but there were so many people it was hard to contribute.

But this summer I finally did an escape room! I did it with my eight year old nephew. It was like the computer games, although I sort of wasn't expecting it to be, I'm not sure why.

We actually had three small rooms and had to get to the last one. A few things:

It was during a heatwave and although the 'office' had air con, the room didn't. Although considering it was an airless room with no windows it wasn't as hot as you might expect.
The lighting was low and there were a lot of combination padlocks to open. Which shone off the combinations and I couldn't see them. Fortunately my nephew could, so he had to open all the padlocks.
There were a couple of things that required you to be above a certain height and I could only just reach. I did consider asking for a step stool...
At the start we were told to ring the bell to get a clue and we wouldn't be given a clue if we didn't ring the bell. But at the end we got pretty much told what to do. Which was fine because we wouldn't have escaped otherwise - we could have done with another half an hour really.
When we get out we were told that it was impressive we escaped because that room we did was best for 5-6 people because there was so much to do. Yet it didn't say that on their website.

Overall I enjoyed it, although it felt like the hour went so quickly. I prefer solving puzzles with no time limit, but I can see how that would be hard to run when people could be in there for hours. My nephew also enjoyed it and is up for another one. Next time I'll ask them what's good for two people when the tallest is 5 foot 1.

I'll give it 8/10.

Mirrored from my blog.

Entry tags:

daily: check in

Check In: Day 30

Hello! Happy Saturday!

How's writing been today?

Discussion question: What's a fandom you enjoy reading fics for but will never write for?

Entry tags:

2025,
schedule

Yuletide 2025 Schedule & New Year's Resolutions

It’s time to start thinking about Yuletide! Here is our schedule for this year. Please note that the time of some deadlines has changed from last year. This may mean the date in UTC has also changed, or that the date relative to your own time zone may have changed.

2025 Schedule

Monday 15 to Friday 26 September: Nominations (end 9pm UTC 26 September)
Tuesday 14 to Friday 24 October: Sign-ups (end 9pm UTC 24 October)
Sunday 26 October: Assignments out (may be earlier)
Wednesday 10 December: Default deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 17 December: Assignment deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 24 December: Main collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 25 December: Madness collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 1 January: Author reveals, end of event (9pm UTC)

Please check back closer to the time if you want to be sure about deadlines! Deadlines in other timezones may be closer than they appear. If your region has a seasonal time shift during the above dates, your relationship to the deadline will also change. We recommend using timeanddate.com to check when each deadline is for you before it occurs.

New Year's Resolutions

We just sent an email to everyone who took part in Yuletide 2024 and who needs to complete a New Year's Resolution story before signing up again.

We use the email that's associated with your AO3 account. This is a good time to check what that email is! If you have any doubts about whether you received it, you're welcome to check your status with us by emailing yuletideadmin@gmail.com. Please include your AO3 name.

Who needs to complete a New Year's Resolution

If you took part in Yuletide and defaulted after the default deadline, or you submitted an incomplete story at the posting deadline, or you defaulted in Yuletide twice in a row, we generally ask you to complete a New Year’s Resolution story before you sign up again.

See the rules for defaulting on AO3

If you defaulted in a previous year, we will not have sent you a new reminder. We issued a general amnesty for ordinary defaults before the 2023 round, but if you were told you needed to complete a NYR due to turning in a placeholder story or a similar problem, you are probably still on our NYR list. Please check with us if you aren’t sure!

How to fulfil the requirement

Stories written for the purpose of re-qualifying for Yuletide must be posted to the New Year's Resolutions 2025 collection before you sign up to Yuletide 2025. They must be over 1,000 words, written for a specific person's past Yuletide prompt, and given to that person. You can write for any Yuletide 2024 prompt, or you can choose an older Yuletide prompt as long as the fandom in which you write is small enough to still qualify for Yuletide (that is, there are fewer than 1,000 fics on AO3 that are in English, complete, and over 1,000 words long).

Purpose of New Year's Resolutions

The NYR system exists for several reasons:

It's an incentive to encourage people either to default early, or, to push on through and post something

It works as a warm-up, or as practice, or as a way of proving to yourself you can finish a story to a prompt

It's a contribution to the project of getting more stories written in tiny fandoms

It's a way of ensuring that past prompts don't get entirely forgotten.

If you had to default in a past year, we are aware that this may have been for a carefully-considered reason or in a difficult time. Needing to complete a NYR does not mean we think you're terrible. Even members of the mod team have needed to write NYRs in the past. We hope you use it as an opportunity to write something you enjoy.

People are also welcome to write NYR stories just for fun! The collection will stay open for late fills until Yuletide 2025 sign-ups close (approx Oct 24).

2024 prompts

On AO3

In an app

In a text file

From pinch hitters

As part of the Someday My Fic Will Come mini-challenge

Prompts for Yuletide 2010-2024 can be found through the relevant individual collections and the NYR collections (see the Yuletide parent collection).

Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits | Discord

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

Entry tags:

monthly: hosting volunteers

Volunteers for September

I'm not available during week 4 for taking check ins as I'll be on holiday.

Week 1: 7th to 13th
Week 2: 14th to 20th

glitteringstars
Week 3: 21st to 27th

fleetsparrow
Week 4: 28th to 4th

linaewen

Entry tags:

monthly: sign up

September sign up

It's time to sign up for the September WIP challenge! Some people join the challenge mid month, or comment on check-in posts without signing up, which is fine -- I'm glad there's a way for the challenge to be useful in a variety of ways. For those of you who find the commitment of signing up useful, please leave a comment with the below information.

Sign-ups will be open until the end of September.

Level of challenge:

Fandom(s) involved:

What you're looking for from the challenge:

What you could offer other participants yourself:

How people should contact you:

Time zone:

Copypaste below:

The post for hosting the daily check-in is here and thanks to everyone who helps out with this. If you're interested in helping out and there are still slots available the post remains open until the last week of the month and we generally run our week Sunday to Saturday, I'm happy to chat via PM on DW for anyone who might need it.

If you have ever completed a fic through this challenge we have a collection on AO3 and on SquidgeWorld both collections are open and unmoderated. Should there be an issue with adding a work, let me know and I'll see if there's a fix for it.

Entry tags:

daily: check in

Check In: Day 29

Hi all! Congrats to making it to Friday!

How has writing gone today?

Not a discussion question, but borrowing from other check-ins: What's your writing goal for this weekend? Do you plan on having daily word counts? Set aside time for brainstorming or editing? Focus on recuperation or general life events?

Entry tags:

daily: check in

Check In: Day 28

Helloooooo! Happy Thursday! We're almost through this week~

How did writing go today?

-Amazing!
-Okay!
-Got a bit done!
-Got some editing done!
-Got some brainstorming done!
-Too busy/Rest!

Discussion question: Because of my recent obsession with a new item of jewelry, I must ask, has anything you've ever gotten or bought inspired the creation of an OC or an interpretation of a cannon character?

Entry tags:

Fic: Revisions (A Fatal Inversion)

I was feeling a bit better yesterday and typed up this, which I've had in my notebook since spring, for A Fatal Inversion. It of course ended up less shippier than planned and maybe even darker than canon warrants, idk. But it was where my brain went when I rewatched it. (The first time around it's a sort of reverse murder mystery; the second it's an intense character study of the fallout in those involved.)

For

genprompt_bingo,

allbingo,

100fandoms &

100ships, because if I'm going to write super obscure fic that probably won't make sense if you don't know canon, I might as well make it count!

Revisions (1529 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: A Fatal Inversion (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rufus Fletcher/Adam Verne-Smith
Characters: Adam Verne-Smith, Rufus Fletcher (A Fatal Inversion)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Dark, references to murder, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Flashbacks, Community: 100fandoms, Community: genprompt_bingo, Community: allbingo, Community: 100ships, Pre-Canon, Past Trauma
Summary: Adam and Rufus try to resume their friendship where they left off. It's not the best idea.

Tomorrow I go to have my eye test, so no doubt I'll be around a bit less again, although I'll try to post the last AU_gust bits still if I can - they add up to a bingo line for

allbingo and it would be a first if I actually got it completed within the month, lol. (We'll see).

Entry tags:

daily: check in

Check In: Day 27

Helloooooo!

How has writing gone today?

-Amazing!
-Pretty good!
-Okay!
-Did some editing!
-Did some brainstorming!
-Too busy/rest day!

Today's discussion question: What's your favorite piece of fan-created media?