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deadlines

2025 Deadline Has Passed - What Next

The deadline has passed, and the main collection is temporarily closed. ETA - now open again!

Congratulations to everyone who has posted! Pat yourself on the back, take a breath, and then please check wordcount, formatting, html; check that you've uploaded the correct version, and that all your text is actually there. You can get to what you've submitted from your Statistics page, or from your Works in Collections. Your story should be marked as "complete" rather than one or more of multiple chapters yet to come.

To all who didn't make it this year: it happens, and we hope you enjoy the collection reveals.

To all who are still working on beta jobs, treats, or pinch hits: thank you and good luck!

Pinch hits coming!!
Post-deadline pinch hits will be available soon at

yuletide_pinch_hits. This next round will be due at 9 AM UTC, 22 December.

See what time that is in YOUR timezone
See countdown

Beta requests
We have outstanding beta requests on the Yuletide Discord (please see the #hippo-want-ads channel), and more betas are always welcome at the Dreamwidth beta post.

There is also an Away from Keyboard post up on the participant community, for you to (optionally) let your author know if it'll be a while before you can read your gift.

If there seems to be an issue with your posted work, we'll contact you via the email address associated with your AO3 account. Please check you can access that!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

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Feeling Ridiculous [896: Carry]

Title: Feeling Ridiculous
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 896: Carry.
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Ianto is injured again and needs help getting back to the SUV.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Double drabble.

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Good Job: My coworker’s emotional support animal is causing me emotional distress!

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

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Signup Post: Fannish 50 in 2026

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(no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’m dreading having to have a talk with my husband, “Winston,” and our 30-year-old son, “Nick.” Nick moved in with us a year ago. The move was necessary to get him out of a dangerous relationship, and Winston agreed beforehand, although he implied he expected it to be a temporary situation. Now my husband has built up resentment against Nick over the last year because he hasn’t taken steps to move out. But I understand why Nick hasn’t moved out: We live in a resort area, where rent is atrociously high and places to rent are scarce.

Nick works about 60 hours a week at a decent-paying job, so he isn’t home much. He contributes to household expenses, brings home food from work, helps take care of pets, and if asked, will generally help out with other things. Could he do more? Of course, he could, but he’s not trashing the house, taking drugs, playing loud music at all hours, or being rude and disrespectful.

Here’s the things Winston resents: He and Nick’s dog hate each other, and the dog barks at Winn when he passes Nick’s room. The dog is old and grouchy, and was abused by Nick’s former roommate. Nick works late and comes home around midnight, which disturbs Winston’s sleep. Nick is forgetful (ADHD) and often needs reminders to complete tasks, but Winston thinks he should only have to say something once.

This all leads to Winston being resentful and snippy, which makes Nick defensive, and then we have a big blow-up where both say hurtful things. These blow-ups have led to Nick trying to leave in the middle of the night after being in an accident (on crutches, no car, and no phone, near freezing outside). I’ve had to physically step between them and tell Winn to back off and shut up to keep it from getting physical.

My husband now deals with all of this by not making any requests directly to Nick (he asks me to tell him), and venting to me, which makes me feel like I’m constantly caught in the middle (suggesting he talk directly to Nick would lead to more blow ups). But, I understand Winston’s frustration. This is not what we planned for retirement! However, there’s no way I could be content knowing my son was living in subpar housing or with dangerous, untrustworthy people like he was before he moved in with us.

I need to get these two to get along. Nick needs to step up a bit more, and Winston needs to be more patient and understanding—before I go crazy or he blows up again and Nick ends up walking out and living in his car. Where do I go from here?

—In the Middle and on Eggshells

( Read more... )

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

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Clean-Up Duty [896: Carry]

Title: Clean-Up Duty
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Kneebles.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 896: Carry.
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Sometimes Ianto has help with clean-up duties.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Double drabble.

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Multifandom Exchange: Traumatic Experiences

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(no subject)

Dear Prudence,

My sister and I are identical twins, but we grew up terrorizing each other. I was the girly girl, while she was on her way to a PhD in preschool. I had a learning disorder, and my sister would constantly correct people and say she wasn’t the ”stupid” one—I was.

My sister started the college track in ninth grade while I went to a middling school. Our parents did their best to treat us equally and celebrate our accomplishments, but you really can’t compare taking a beauty school test to getting a master’s at 21. I will admit I gave as good as I could get. If my sister were the smart one, I was the pretty one, which was stupid, as we were identical twins. I want to say we settled down and grew up to be close, but that would be a lie.

When I got married and was obsessed with all the details, our cousin jokingly called me a bridezilla, and my sister cut her off. She told her this was my big day, and it wasn’t like I accomplished anything else worth noting. This wasn’t the first or last time my sister said stuff like this. I have been married for 15 years and have two beautiful children. We used IVF and have a few embryos still left frozen.

My husband and I were debating whether to have a third child when my sister bulldozed in. She was ready to be a mom, had everything planned out, saved, and sorted, except her eggs weren’t viable. So the completely obvious solution was to give her our embryos!

We refused, and my sister threw a fit. I was apparently stealing her only chance to be a mother, and worse, my parents are on her side. They think that giving her the embryos costs us “nothing,” and we already have children, so I was denying my sister out of pure spite. I don’t know how I would feel if my sister bothered to ask rather than make a demand, but it was a demand and one that isn’t happening. My problem is that I am very afraid it might permanently poison my relationship with my parents. We were supposed to travel to their place for Christmas, but after all this, I am afraid to. Help!

—Twin Trouble

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(no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

When she was 8, we adopted “Alina.” She was the daughter of a close friend, and lost both her parents in an extra painful way. Understandably, she was in a lot of pain the first few years and needed extra parental support. But she worked hard in therapy, and we supported her, and at 15, she’s doing well. The problem is more with our other kids, her siblings. They love each other, but they are all convinced she needs extra care and protection all the time, when actually she’s ready to grow. She’s been pushing back at it, but I think it’s time for us to step in as parents. She says she needs room to mess up and have her own social life, and I think that’s fair.

A classmate asks Alina to the fall dance, and she accepts? Her 14-year-old brother steps in and tells him it will be a double date with him and his girlfriend. Alina dies of embarrassment. Our teens are going to swim at the public pool? Without Alina, they just go together. With Alina, her 16-year-old sister announces they must have an adult. This type of stuff seems to have ramped up since she started high school, and I don’t know how to dial it down. I’m glad her siblings love and support her, but they shouldn’t be taking on this extra role, and she’s also asked them to stop so she can learn on her own. We absolutely do not want to set up a weird dynamic between our kids, but it feels like it’s already started. I love that they look out for each other, but it needs to be appropriate. My husband and I had multiple conversations with the kids about this, but it only stops them from doing concrete examples we mention, not the overall behavior.

—Give Her Space

( Read more... )

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(Less Than) 48 Hours to Deadline

The assignments that you received when signing up, and pinch hits #1-96, are due at 9pm UTC 17 December (see countdown). It's nearly here. For most people, it'll be Wednesday. Please check the links!

When you post your story, please make sure...

It is at least 1,000 of your own original words and marked as complete. You can update and edit your story after the deadline, but any version you upload must be a complete story that could be read in that state, with a beginning, middle, and end, and no placeholder text.

It is not posted as a draft. If your work is still in Draft status on AO3 at the deadline, it will not count as fulfilling the assignment, as no one but you can access it. To check if your work is a draft, go to your assignments. If you see a work title and the 'Fulfill' button, your work is a draft and you have not yet fulfilled the assignment. You can also check your drafts at the 'Drafts' sidebar link from your main AO3 page. Fully-posted works can be viewed from your Stats page and from Works in Collections. You can also reach out to mods to check!

It features *all* requested characters or follows exceptions specified in the additional tags ("My gift must feature..."). Please see this post for a reminder of how the additional tags work. Regarding Worldbuilding: if your recipient has not selected characters beyond that tag, whether to flesh out the world using original characters or canon characters is up to you. If they have vetoed specific characters, obey those DNWs.

It does not contain Do Not Wants. Please check that your story does not contain any of the Do Not Wants (DNWs) listed in your recipient's Optional Details. If you have any doubt about the meaning of your recipient’s DNWs, please contact the mods.

Its title and other metadata are not placeholders. Please don't call your work Placeholder Title or Yuletide 2025 Work - upload a title that reflects the unique work. You don't need to write a summary or append detailed tags, but please make sure that if you do include that information, the information is real.

Other important notes

Stay anonymous! Yuletide is a secret exchange. Don't give away publicly what you're writing or who you're writing it for. Don't add your work to an existing series on AO3, or a personal works collection. Don't identify yourself in your author's notes by, for example, linking to your tumblr or dreamwidth.

No AI! This is a creative writing challenge - do not use ChatGPT, Claude, or any other similar generative text tool to write any part of your story, summary, or notes.

Please don’t use author’s notes to apologise for your story, to go into detail about the difficulties you had writing it, or to promise a fix or a continuation.

Please check your story immediately after posting to ensure it is showing up okay.

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[Multifandom] - Rare Femslash Exchange Sign-Ups are open!

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Challenge 896 - Carry

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Sunday, 14th December, 2025

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Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

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Same Old Problems [895: Future]

Title: Same Old Problems
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, OC.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 895: Future.
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Torchwood, a couple of centuries into the future.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Double drabble.

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Challenge 895 - Lighting the way

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Challenge 895 - Future prospects

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Challenge 895 - Technological limitations

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Challenge 895 - In the moment

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pinch hits

Posting; Pinch Hit; Betas

The DEADLINE is getting closer and closer!

At deadline time - 9pm UTC on 17 December - your Yuletide assignment must be posted (published, not a draft!) to the Yuletide collection as a complete work.

Before then, we need your help, Yuletide! We have an outstanding pinch hit (#121) for the fandoms:
SMPLive
Roughhouse SMP
Mirai SMP - XYouly
Highcraft (Web Series)

See details here. Please email us at yuletideadmin@gmail.com if you can help, and spread the word if you have friends who might be interested. This pinch hit is due at 9pm UTC on 19 December.

More pinch hits will be advertised at

yuletide_pinch_hits, especially after 9pm UTC on the 17th.

Additionally, we love beta reader volunteers! You can connect with writers at this post by filling out a Google form, or you can join the Discord and keep an eye out for beta requests advertised by members with the Hippo role.

Good luck to everyone facing down the deadline!

Entry tags:

keyword: villains

Star Trek: Villain's Week

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