The deadline has passed, and the main collection is temporarily closed.

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!

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Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.

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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Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app
Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.