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Entry tags:

2025,
reveal

Yuletide 2025 Anonymous Period

Hello, Yuletiders–as you may have noticed, the anonymous setting on the Yuletide collection, which should hide all author names until reveals on January 1st, does not seem to be working as expected, and shortly after our planned works reveals, we had an unplanned reveal of author names. We’re very sorry for this unexpected breaking of anonymity!

We’re reaching out to AO3 to help us resolve the problem. In the meantime, we have updated all works manually, and author names should now be hidden again. If you notice we have missed any, please reach out to us privately at yuletideadmin@gmail.com.

Again, our apologies–and we hope you enjoy the collection!

Yuletide Madness is scheduled to reveal at 9 PM UTC on 25 December, but this may be delayed if necessary to ensure author anonymity.

ETA: We know many of you have received email notifications to say, "The collection maintainers of Yuletide 2025 have changed the status of your work [work] to anonymous..." This is a result of us updating them manually to hide author names, in order to achieve the same effect you would expect from reveals in an ordinary Yuletide. Sorry for the confusion! You can safely ignore these notifications; we will reveal author names on January 1st, manually if we have to.

Current Mood: excited

Entry tags:

ficathon: yuletide

Yuletide

Yuletide just went live a little while ago, and I got not one but two lovely gifts!

(And, for the record, I opened both of them immediately upon golive before things glitched, so I haven't seen the writers yet and intentionally am avoiding looking to try to keep myself surprised since I know the mods are manually going through and fixing it right now.)

First up is my main gift, the kid is the turf for Home Alone. Some amazing person took my link to to a Bluesky post from last year ("the Wet Bandits team up against another burglar duo going after Kevin because he is *their* kid") and went with it, and it's brilliant. Gen. 3,489 words.

The second fic was a gorgeous treat for Stealing Fire by Jo Graham (part of the Numinous World series) called Her Last Confession. It focuses on Thais, written in the format of her speaking to Alexander decades upon decades after his death. Gen, with background F/M and M/M. 6,796 words.

As for my own fics, I ended up writing a fair number this year. I didn't beat my record from 2023 (ten fics), but I came close.

Entry tags:

yuletide

Happy Yuletide!

The Yuletide collection is live!

Enjoy browsing the collection! Leave kudos and/or comments if you enjoy a story! Comment here to recommend stories, and/or recommend them at the

yuletide comm!

I have three stories in the collection. Can you find them?

I shall now spend the rest of the day cuddling with my cats and reading Yuletide stories.

Entry tags:

rec index

Admin Post: Snap, Reccle, Pop! Rec Index Post 2025

Recs: in general

The main Yuletide collection has just opened, with Yuletide Madness to follow shortly, so it's time to think about recs (recommendations)! It's traditional to kudos or comment on works and tell their anonymous creators that you liked them. It's also traditional to tell other people about the Yuletide stuff you like. There are many different ways to share your recommendations for works.

On AO3 itself
You can bookmark a story and add the bookmark and its notes to the Yuletide Recs collection. (Note: This is not the same as the main Yuletide collection.) Detailed tutorials can be found here and here.

In Discord
At the Yuletide Discord, you can post recs with very brief comments in the #yuletide-recs channel.

Here at Dreamwidth
You are welcome to post recs to this community Please follow the guidelines:

Any individual post to the community must contain recs for at least 3 separate works.

You can put the full text of your recs post in a post to the community, OR you can post your recs on some other platform, then put the link in a post on the community or in a comment to this post.

If your post is long, consider cut text code (DW) or details code to compress your text.

Recs: central/index post

THIS POST can also serve as a hub for recs. You're welcome to reply with your recs (especially useful if you don't have a Dreamwidth account). Or you can ask for recs that follow a theme, or just make a comment linking to a recs post elsewhere. Collect Your Recs Here!

Entry tags:

2025,
reveal

Yuletide 2025 is live!

Yuletide 2025 Collection Is Live Here!

Enjoy 1539 works in 992 fandoms! (The number will go up as wranglers canonize fandoms - this will take a little time, though.)

The reveals process takes a little while to work in a collection of this size; if a story in the collection is still a mystery work an hour after opening, please let us know.

Finding works
You can find your own gifts on your AO3 gifts page: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YOUR-NAME-HERE/gifts, or by searching the box at the top of the collection works page for the full name you signed up with, or by checking your email if you get email notifications from AO3. Note: your email notifications may bundle together, and it might look like you only got one gift, when in fact you got more.

You can browse the collection by tags or by fandoms. Some fandoms are new and may not show up immediately (wranglers are working on this) or where you expect them; please check labels such as Original Work, 19th Century Historical RPF, Object and Concept Anthropomorphism, and Unspecified Fandom. More info about Unspecified Fandom here.

Anonymity
Yuletide is an anonymous exchange until creator reveals January 1. Please don't give away what you've written. When logged in, you can, if you want, reply to comments on your own works, and you will show up as Anonymous Creator until the authors of the collection are revealed.

Commenting!
Please comment on your gift(s) to let your writer(s) know you appreciate them. We also recommend commenting far and wide to spread the comment joy around! You may enjoy the challenge of a comment bingo card [update for this year's link!].

AO3 changed default comment settings last year. If you want to make sure people can comment on your gifts when they aren't logged in, you may need to change a setting on your work. More information here, under 'Your comment settings'.

Recs
Making work recommendations is a tradition. Please see more information at the participant community (

yuletide) about where you can post your recs.

Madness
For those still writing, the 2025 Yuletide Madness collection will stay open for new stories to be posted for 24 hours. It will close for posting, and open for reading, at 9pm UTC 25 December. If you're looking for prompts, there's a roundup of links here.

Problems
If there is something wrong with your gift or you have another concern, please contact the mods at yuletideadmin@gmail.com.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Food

What you eat could decide the planet’s future

What we put on our plates may matter more for the climate than we realize. Researchers found that most people, especially in wealthy countries, are exceeding a “food emissions budget” needed to keep global warming below 2°C. Beef alone accounts for nearly half of food-related emissions in Canada. Small changes—less waste, smaller portions, and fewer steaks—could add up to a big climate win.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Birdfeeding

Today is partly cloudy and mild.

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/24/25 -- We hacked up most of the remaining brushpile in the parking lot, and some of the older one by the driveway, feeding those into the chipper.

EDIT 12/24/25 -- We moved the new mulch to the mulch pile.

EDIT 12/24/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio. As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Entry tags:

christmas

Merry Christmas

ETA: Meant to add this bit from A Christmas Carol. It's from the Ghost of Christmas Present, and one of the parts that's never really included in any adaptation, but I love it.

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

Wednesday Reading Meme

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Christmas books! So many Christmas books. Look, the problem is that so many Christmas books are short, all right? Like Janice Hallett’s The Christmas Appeal, a slim novella that I definitely should have read last year when The Appeal was still fresh in my mind, as I spent about half of The Christmas Appeal remembering who was who. But it was still a fun fast read and there was a cameo by my girl Issy, who remains just as Issy as ever, bless her little heart.

Continuing this murder kick, I read J. Jefferson Farjeon’s Mystery in White, a fascinating example of the genre in that the closest thing the book has to a detective is a guy from the society of psychic research who keeps murmuring about how it’s like the crime WANTS to be solved… well, that’s one way to explain why the heroes keep literally stumbling upon the evidence. Enjoyed the snowy atmosphere and the character portraits, especially the chorus girl Jessie, who should have gotten David in the end IMO. Not sure they were really that well-suited, but I was annoyed that a more class-appropriate girl appeared three-quarters of the way through the book.

And also Agatha Christie’s Murder for Christmas, known in the UK has Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, but presumably American publishers were afraid that without the word murder in the title American readers might assume that Poirot is having a holly jolly Christmas eating plum pudding without any murder at all. Quite enjoyed this one. Always nice to see a horrible family dynamic play out in a murder mystery.

Also Ruth Sawyer’s The Long Christmas, a collection of Christmas legends from around the world and a reminder that the Christmas Spirit, for all its current holly jolly picture-perfect Hallmark movie reputation, can in fact be pretty metal. The Christmas spirit is not about giving a bit of spare change to a photogenic waif before retreating to your mansion with the gingerbread on the eves perfectly outlined in Christmas lights. The Christmas Spirit says, “Oh, none of you are going to share your fireside and your last crust of bread with this weary footsore traveler on Christmas Eve? Well, then, I am going to raise the floods and drown your entire selfish town.”

Although Sawyer’s This Way to Christmas did not repeat this particular story, some of the other stories overlap with The Long Christmas. Published in 1915, the story centers on a little boy facing a lonely Christmas on a snowy mountain where none of the neighbors speak to each other, for they are of all different nationalities and races: German-American, American Black, Brazilian Portuguese, and small Ruritanian country that just got invaded by Germany.

However, our hero (inspired by a visit from a fairy wearing a squirrel suit) visits each cottage, hears a Christmas story from each person, and in the end inspires his foster parents to invite them all to Christmas, invitations in the form of signposts saying THIS WAY TO CHRISTMAS, hence the title.

And in the archives, I read Lee Kingman’s The Magic Christmas Tree, illustrated by Bettina. Little Joanna is lonely because she’s the youngest of ten and always in the way, until she finds her own special secret place: clearing in the woods with a pine tree just her size. Little Julie is lonely at home because she’s the only child in a vast mansion, but finds solace when she finds a little pine tree in the woods perfect for a hideaway. And then at Christmastime, Joanna hides a beloved doll by the tree… and Julie, thrilled by this magical appearance, brings the mystery doll a little doll bed and fur coverlet… and when Joanna returns with a baby doll so her doll won’t be lonely, she in turn is astonished…

OMG. So cute. I do wish it were longer so there was more time for the girls’ friendship to develop after they finally meet.

What I’m Reading Now

Unable to face another Christmas book, I broke down and started Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s In the First Circle... which turns out to start on Christmas Eve! The German POWs are having a Christmas tree. One of the other zeks is making a Christmas present. I can’t even. I’ll never escape.

What I Plan to Read Next

Non-Christmas books! Anything but Christmas! In particular, I’ve got Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary and Mai Ishizawa’s The Place of Shells checked out, while Emile Zola’s Therese Raquin and Elizabeth Enright’s Then There Were Five are on hold.

Entry tags:

2025,
schedule

Works will be revealed at 11:59PM EST

Works will be revealed at 11:59PM EST | 8:59PM PST

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

Solitary Challenge: Babylon 5: On The Outside

Title: On The Outside
Fandom: Babylon 5
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Garibaldi, Zack Allen
Rating: PG
Word Count: 300
Spoilers/Setting: Moments of Transition.
Summary: These days, Garibaldi can only rely on himself.
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 501: Amnesty 83, using Challenge 30: Solitary.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Babylon 5, or the characters. They belong to J. Michael Straczynski.
A/N: Triple drabble.

( On The Outside... )

Current Mood: 🤩 amazed
Current Location: 🌎

Entry tags:

Challenge 199 - Voting

There are over twenty marvelous movie icons entries. Thank you very much to all the participants!
Voter Guide
Anyone is welcome to vote.
Please choose FOUR (4) icons for the main placements and one each for the categories Best Color (Coloring), Best Image Crop & Best Composition.
Please, don't vote for your own icons or ask others to vote for your icons.
Please try to vote for the best quality icons, not only the subjects, fandoms or makers.

Important:
Please vote for a different icon for each of the categories (Color, Crop, Composition).
There is a checkbox & text answer combo poll, to change your votes, click the poll link.
Voting will be open for one week.
Thank you for voting.

( Vote Here 🗳️.... )

Entry tags:

games

So, 1000xResist

I was too tired to have the focus for Dark Souls-ing in the last few days, so binge-played 1000xResist and now I feel like I'm been punched in the head.

Basically a walking simulator/visual novel, so don't go expecting complex gameplay, but HOLY FUCK.

For all of you looking for fiction with fucked-up complicated women who are somewhere on a spectrum from "morally grey" to "evil but sympathetic" (with the odd dip into "idealistic but destructive") having fucked-up dynamics with other fucked-up complicated women: 1000xResist has SO MANY of them. It has almost no characters who don't fit that archetype, in fact.

(I considered whether it passes the reverse-Bechdel test -- i.e. two male characters have a conversation that's not about a woman -- and I think it may juuust scrape past in a 5-second exchange in one of the flashbacks, but barely. There are very very few men in this story, for plot-related reasons.)

Watch on YouTube

I found out afterwards that the development team were a devised theatre group who decided to start making a game when everything was shut down during the pandemic, and somehow this fully checks out (complimentary).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1675830/1000xRESIST/ (you can even pick it up in a bundle with Slay The Princess for bonus visual novel headfuck)

Do note the content notes from the devs: Photosensitivity Warning: Flashing Lights, Cursing and Crude Language, Generational Trauma, Acts of Violence and Terrorism, Disease Outbreak, Mention of Suicide, Mention of Animal Cruelty/Pet Death, Blood, Body Horror, Emotional Abuse, Bullying, Dead Bodies, Vomit, Drowning, Fire, Gore, Needles, Racism and General Mature Content.

(I would also add a specific note for torture, and for fucked-up mother-daughter and sister-sister relationships, that being one of the core elements of the game, along with the aforementioned generational trauma.)

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

recurring posts

Cuddle Party

Everyone needs contact comfort sometimes. Not everyone has ample opportunities for this in facetime. So here is a chance for a cuddle party in cyberspace. Virtual cuddling can help people feel better.

We have a cuddle room that comes with fort cushions, fort frames, sheets for draping, and a weighted blanket. A nest full of colorful egg pillows sits in one corner. There is a basket of grooming brushes, hairbrushes, and styling combs. A bin holds textured pillows. There is a big basket of craft supplies along with art markers, coloring pages, and blank paper. The kitchen has a popcorn machine. Labels are available to mark dietary needs, recipe ingredients, and level of spiciness. Here is the bathroom, open to everyone. There is a lawn tent and an outdoor hot tub. Bathers should post a sign for nude or clothed activity. Come snuggle up!

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Poem: "The Right Combination of Features"

This poem is spillover from the February 2025

crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from

dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "Experimentation" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the Big One and Kraken threads of the Polychrome Heroics series.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Poem: "No Matter How Morally Unworthy"

This poem came out of the February 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from

mama_kestrel and

see_also_friend. It also fills the "Violent Behavior" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Poem: "Happy Instruments of Salvation"

This poem is spillover from the July 1, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from

gothfvck and

see_also_friend. It also fills the "Resist Oppression" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with

fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.

( Read more... )

Yuletide 2025 Anonymous Period

Yuletide

Happy Yuletide!

Admin Post: Snap, Reccle, Pop! Rec Index Post 2025

Recs: in general

Recs: central/index post

Yuletide 2025 is live!

Food

Birdfeeding

Merry Christmas

Wednesday Reading Meme

Works will be revealed at 11:59PM EST

Works will be revealed at 11:59PM EST | 8:59PM PST

Solitary Challenge: Babylon 5: On The Outside

Challenge 199 - Voting

So, 1000xResist

Cuddle Party

Poem: "The Right Combination of Features"

Poem: "No Matter How Morally Unworthy"

Poem: "Happy Instruments of Salvation"

(no subject)

Platonic Rare Pair Flash

Star Wars: Clone Exchange, Valentines Exchange