In a rather cursed year, Yuletide has been a nice end of season bright spot. I received a delightful Bedlam Stacks fic – The Question of the Chicken and the Egg - that dives into Merrick and Keita's relationship over time. It's perhaps my favourite thing about Bedlam/Watchmaker, and the fic covers some very beautiful moments between these two amoral Company boys.

Some other recs from my limited readthrough:

The Way of the Househusband is striking it out of the park this year, with both delightful loyalty porn ("as you are") alongside :fire: burning hot three-way porn ("I Want to Be With You Night and Day "), with Tatsu watching from the side included :eyes:

Antique Bakery is back in Yuletide, my friends, and this fic serves up Ono and Tachibana off on a trip to Hokkaido ("Obscura")

Wimbledon: Peter is too idiotic to realise his best friend is into him, because of course ("The Best Part of 1996"

Cthulhu Mythos/Dream Cycle: Randolph Carter is going to bring all the horrors to the yard ("Onwards the rite "), and damn right, he's a better dreamer than yours

Then, a now-perennial Yuletide classic, Snake Fight Portion of Your Thesis Defence crossed over with Rivers of London. You know where this one is going, and you know you're going to click on this fic.

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sarasa_cat

Something I have been thinking about for far too long but haven't gotten around to because ⋆.ೃ࿔.𖥔 ݁ ˖*:･༄ life oh life ⋆.ೃ࿔.𖥔 ݁ ˖*:･༄ omfg (꩜ _ ꩜)

Getting reading to start a low-commitment Creative Practice community that is all inclusive: fandom works creativity, original works creativity; writers, artists, graphics makers/graphic designers, photographers (virtual, digital/film, video), fiber craft/fiber arts, musicians, programming/making electronic things for fun, etc etc.

The idea is far less about showing your work --- there are already many places for that --- and far more about committing to a creative practice, maintaining that practice, and setting challenges that make sense for you, and reflecting on your creative practice. Goal setting where goals are widely defined to include not just output but the kinds of experiences you want to have while creating or with other creators. Self education info. Etc.

Considering challenges like:

(1) Creative Practice Bingo Cards with a wide range of possible prompts to make cards very customizable

(2) Monthly Creative Practice Pledges that focus on practice, process, and learning rather than output goals (because we already have many other challenges for that)

Also want the community to serve as a place for:

(A) Collecting and sharing various info on creativity, creative practice, creative process, etc.

(B) Providing encouragement, waving pom-poms, finding accountability partners, etc.

(C) Sharing progress, insights, and different approaches to starting or restarting a creative practice, to keeping it going, to juggling different kinds of creative activities, etc.

(D) ??? TBD !!!

Will make DW the primary space for the community in order to community-lock members' post but also use one or more other sites (tumblr, etc) as satellite spaces. Might eventually consider creating a Discord if there is enough interest and someone offers to help with that further down the road.

If this interests anyone or anyone has an idea, suggestion, or question, please comment!

yuletidemods posting in

yuletide_admin

At push of button, this year's Madness collection has 227 works in 183+ fandoms.

Madness collection

Main collection

AO3 wranglers have processed a lot of new fandoms; in the main collection, the 992 that appeared on the fandoms page at reveals have become 1065! Thanks to everyone who has helped make wranglers' jobs easier by using canonical tags, tags from the tag set, or other recommended tags, as appropriate in each case.

If you've written in a new fandom that isn't wrangled yet, we encourage you to use Unspecified Fandom as a tag to help people find your work; many works originally tagged this way now have wrangled fandoms, in which case, you can take the tag off if you wish.

As in the last post:
Commenting
Please comment on your gift(s) to let your writer know you appreciate them. Please also comment on anything else you enjoy!

Recs
Making work recommendations is a tradition. Please see more information at the participant community about where you can post your recs.

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

Anonymity
Yuletide is designed to be an anonymous exchange until 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.

The Yuletide event concludes at 9pm UTC, 1 January 2026. At that time we will reveal creator names at both the main and Madness collection, and also open the new New Year's Resolution collection.

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yuletide_admin

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.

yuletidemods posting in

yuletide_admin

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.

lassarina

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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...

For warnings, Choose Not to Warn is a valid warning tag. You may wish to use the end notes if there is content that you don't want to spoil with specific tags.

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 treats

Please 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.

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ficinabox

2025 Wrap Up/Stats!

Thank you all for participating this year! It's been a lovely year, with a lot of amazing gifts given! We're looking forward to coming back again in 2026! We hope to see you there!

Stats!

We have a few stats for you this year! We've linked screenshots of some overall stats below, and you can also check this spreadsheet (link) for a view of those stats as well as all of the fandoms and mediums!

General Stats

The last PH has been picked up and we should be at 100% by the end of the year!

Ruleset Stats

Largest Single Work Per Ruleset

Mediums by Number of Works (Top 10)

Mediums by Wordcount Equivalent (Top 10)

Fandoms By Number of Works (Top 10)

Fandoms By Wordcount (Top 10)

fic_in_a_box_mod posting in

ficinabox

Between now and the 2026 round we're going to be going through all the mediums in the collection and setting up explanations of what each medium is with links to examples! While we're expecting to do most of this work ourselves, we wanted to put out a call for volunteers and opt-outs for those of you who would like to be involved or uninvolved with this sort of documentation!

For example works we will be pulling from all past rounds of FIAB! We will prioritize volunteered works first, then look for past FIAB works, then look for outside resources that are meant to be used as references.

2025 Tagset Link

Volunteering Your Works As Examples Of Mediums

If you would like to volunteer your works as examples of mediums please let us know the following:

Your AO3 Name
The work link
The 2025 FIAB medium tag(s) the work is an example of

Please only offer up examples if they are your own work, or if they are something that was created with the intention of being referenced such as a wikipedia or fanlore article.

Deadline: There is no deadline for offering up examples but we will prioritize any posted prior to March 1st.

Help Us Explain Mediums

If are a creator of a medium and would like it explained in a certain way, or just want to help us out with writing up all these explanations, you can post explanations for us to use! Please let us know the following:

The 2025 FIAB Medium Tag
Option 1: Short explanation of what the medium is, to be included in the spreadsheet
Option 2: Information about the medium that you think may be useful to us in writing an explanation of what it is
Option 3: Both of the above
Your name and if you'd like to be credited if we use your written explanation.

Deadline: Explanations are due by March 1st, as that's when we'll begin writing our own. In some cases we may not use provided explanations or may use the information from your explanation as the basis for writing it a different way.

Opt-Out of Medium List

We know some of you would prefer to not have any of your works linked from elsewhere, so we wanted to make sure you could easily opt out of this. If you would like to opt out please comment on this post (which is screened) or email us with with:

Your AO3 Name
A statement that you are opting out

Deadline: There is no deadline to opt-out. Even if you see this after the whole list is public, you may always contact us to ask us to not use your work as an example and we will remove the link. If you've already opted out of reading lists in 2025 we've marked you as opted out of being an example.

This post is screened and will only be seen by the mods.

fic_in_a_box_mod posting in

ficinabox

Creators have been revealed! Head over to the collection to see who made what! Tomorrow we will be posting some stats, as well as a small update about something we'll be working on between this round and the next round!

fic_in_a_box_mod posting in

ficinabox

Rec Post

This post is for anyone to post recommendations from the 2025 collection! You may post recs as a comment here, or link to recs you've posted elsewhere! You may post one rec or many!

How much information you include is up to you! Suggestions of things to include:

Work Link
Fandom
Title
Medium
Category (e.g. m/m)
Warnings
Relationship or characters
Tags
Summary
Why you're reccing it (or, alternatively, if you're posting a list on a theme, include the theme/trope/kink at the top of the list!)

(The list above is just suggestions of things that someone might want to see while browsing and not a list of required information!)

This post will remain open indefinitely.

fic_in_a_box_mod posting in

ficinabox

Today's lists are Template/Workskins & Tutorials, and Late Treats! If you notice anything missing, please let us know!

Here's a countdown (link) to creator reveals!

Template/Workskins & Tutorials

Expand Template/Workskins & Tutorials List

Grid/Graph Paper Work Skin & Tutorial (Variant of How to Create Notebook Lined Paper on AO3 by La_Temperanza) : https://archiveofourown.org/works/71226571

No Fandom
General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
,
Work Skin, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, CSS, HTML, Template

Late Treats

Expand Late Treats List

All of These Words Whispered in My Ear (9261) : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75993056

陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
M/M
General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji, Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Original Female Character(s)
Love Confessions, Epistolary, Misunderstandings, Post-Canon, Travelling Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Rogue Cultivator Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Waiting, featuring a blink-and-you'll-miss-it Legend of the Condor Heroes cameo mention, Pining

As Strong As The Mountain (4770) : https://archiveofourown.org/works/76040361

Original Work
M/M
General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
Jaded Warrior King/The Charming Prince Who Is His Betrothed, Original Characters, Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s)
Arranged Marriage, Opposites Attract, First Meetings

/r/OurSong SCREAMING SOBBING THROWING UP WANGXIAN CONFIRMED : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75955566

陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
M/M
General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Original Redditors
Reddit Comments, Coming Out, Fandom, Alternate Universe - Reality Show, Alternate Universe - Music, Wangxian teaches antis the meaning of true love

The Perfect Plan is No Plan At All (1364) : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75536981

Wicked (Movie 2024)
F/F
General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
Elphaba Thropp/Galinda Upland, Elphaba Thropp, Galinda Upland
Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Magical Pregnancy, Slice of Life, Fluff, Galinda Upland is Called Glinda, POV Galinda Upland, Established Relationship, Pregnant Galinda Upland

old familiar (1305) : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75642076

Original Work
M/M
Teen And Up Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
Famous Cat Burglar/Detective Determined to Catch Him (M/M), Cat Burglar - Character, Detective - Character
Fic in a Box 2025, vaguely 1920's setting, Detective Noir, Unresolved Tension

Intern to the Wayne PA : https://archiveofourown.org/works/73984421

DCU (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Gen
General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
, Original Characters, Tam Fox, Tiffany Fox, Lucius Fox, Tim Drake (DCU), Vicki Vale
Logic Grid Puzzle, Puzzles, Worldbuilding, Wayne Enterprises (DCU), Interns & Internships, Meeting Schedules & Itineraries, Treat

To run a ribbon round a shoe : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75466831

Original Work
Teen And Up Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
, Original Characters, young female witch
Poetry, a witch's ancient poem, end rhyme, Worldbuilding: intricate rituals

in a bright mercy : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75526461

Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Teen And Up Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
, Johanna Mason
Poetry, a poem inspired by Johanna Mason, Haiku, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort

Have you heard the news? : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75468821

Star Trek: The Original Series
M/M
General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
James T. Kirk/Spock, Starfleet Characters (Star Trek)
WB: Starfleet Gossip, Poetry, Haiku

[Art/Dress Up] Dress To Impress (Shixiong) : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75351036

人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Gen
General Audiences, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
, Liu Qingge
Digital Art, hashtag dab, Dress Up, Coloring Page (?)

[Podfic] road trip games after the end of the world : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75598596

Hermitcraft SMP
Gen
General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
, GoodTimesWithScar, Grian, Pearlescentmoon, ImpulseSV, Mumbo Jumbo
Hermitcraft Season 8, post Season 8 finale, just some friends chatting in the endless void, Friendship, Boatem Crew (Hermitcraft), Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes

[Art] Dress a Diva : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75360036

Invisible Inc. (Video Game)
Gen
General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
, Collette \"Rush\" Phan
dress-up game, Online Dress-up Game, Art

[Art] Mixed Signals : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75514736

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Cartoon 2005)
M/M
General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply
Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar), Zuko (Avatar)
Art, Post-Canon, Sketches, Adult Gaang (Avatar), Oblivious, Zuko being pretty

[Video] Endless Abyss : https://archiveofourown.org/works/75354371

人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Gen
Teen And Up Audiences, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Luo Binghe/Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu, Shen Yuan | Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe
Video, Hurt No Comfort, Subtitles (no dub)

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Page generated Dec. 29th, 2025 04:47 am

Something to tide you over

A pick me up

Reading

Tips

Formatting

Your comment settings

Tagging and "Unspecified Fandom"

Your author's notes

Treats!!

2025 Wrap Up/Stats!

Stats!

General Stats

Ruleset Stats

Largest Single Work Per Ruleset

Mediums by Number of Works (Top 10)

Mediums by Wordcount Equivalent (Top 10)

Fandoms By Number of Works (Top 10)

Fandoms By Wordcount (Top 10)

Volunteering Your Works As Examples Of Mediums

Help Us Explain Mediums

Opt-Out of Medium List

Rec Post

Template/Workskins & Tutorials

Late Treats

Navigation

Page Summary

Style Credit

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