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 AO3If 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
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 | DiscordPlease either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.
Tuesday ✎ Favorite Tropes [DW]
Today's theme is favorite tropes. What are some things you like to see in stories? What's something you never get tired of seeing characters experience? Pick out some tropes that you enjoy and prompt 'em! Don't worry about the level of cliché or the cringe factor. (No judgments here, not even from yourself!) You're bound to find others who share your interests.
Feel free to add specifics to your prompts, like whether you'd prefer a gen fill over something shippy, or if you have a squick or trigger you hope to avoid. Original fiction, fanfiction, and fanfic crossovers are always welcome. ~_^
Just a few rules:
No more than five prompts in a row.
No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
Use the character's full names and the fandom's full name
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.
If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the above-mentioned spoiler cut.
Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt
Some examples to get things started...
+ Andor and/or Rogue One (Star Wars), any +/ any, sharing clothes
+ The Bear, Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto +/ Richard "Richie" Jerimovich, mutual everything (any feelings, support, memories, etc)
+ author's choice, any +/ any, cooking/preparing a meal for someone they care about who may not be used to being taken care of
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. See further notes on this option here.
Not feeling any of today’s prompts? You can use LJ’s advanced search options to limit keyword results to only comments in this community. Fret not, DW members; we are working on a way to search through old entries for prompts for you! As of right now, the best way to search for a lonely prompt on DW is to search the community’s archive, which can be found [[HERE]].
While the use of LJ's advanced search and DW’s archive are options, bookmarking the links of prompts you like might work better for searching in the future.
As a friendly reminder about our schedule, Lonely Prompts and sharing completed fills are encouraged on Sundays, while new themes and prompts are posted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day. We'll share our posts on DW and LJ for everyone's convenience. Keep an eye out for notifications!
If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word!
tag=favorite tropes