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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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.

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.

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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.

Yuletide works are scheduled to go live a little under five days from now, at 9pm UTC 24 December (if all goes well and there are no further pinch hits needed).

COUNTDOWN TO REVEALS

Treats

Treats in both the Madness and Main Yuletide collections are enthusiastically welcomed. You can post a treat for someone in the main collection up until 9pm UTC 24 December, and in the Madness collection up until 9pm UTC 25 December. There's more information about posting treats here. If you're hunting for inspiration, see also the mini-challenges tag at yuletide, and of course, please consider treats for pinch hitters.

Pinch hits

We’re still looking for intrepid writers to take on post-deadline pinch hits. As of this post, we need writers for:

PH #184: Aveyond (Video Games), Quasimorph (Video Game), Geneforge

PH #198: even if TEMPEST 宵闇にかく語りき魔女 (Visual Novel), Flowers Series (Visual Novels), Lkyt. (Visual Novel)

As well as offers from writers, we're keen to hear (yuletideadmin@gmail.com) from anyone with tips on how to consume or review details of these canons!

Please look at our outstanding pinch hit details, and help if you can!

Beta requests

Can you help out a fellow writer by beta-reading their work? Please check the hippo-want-ads at the Discord server, or email mods if you can help with one of the following requests and we’ll get you in touch.

As of this post, beta readers are needed for the following requests (click/expand to view):

1.2K T-rated Mayor of Kingstown
15k+ E-rated Damien/Gerald Coldfire Trilogy
7k Batman Wayne Family Adventures
Racepicker and sensitivity reader for a 10k fic featuring a young Black English girl
4.7k slang and other dialogue choices right for a Gen Z Black Londoner, Rivers of London
13k Lunar Chronicles
2.8k fic for The Odd Couple (TV 1970)
4k Nicked by M.T. Anderson

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We also have some less time-sensitive beta requests in the server's betas-wanted channel:
WH40k
The Witcher III/Chronicles of Narnia
The Stakeout from Inside No. 9
Daria (Cartoon)

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Meanwhile, please check your work

• Please check that you uploaded the right draft. Mistakes can happen to anyone, but checking that everything looks right is a crucial part of posting. Make sure your work has a title and that the summary doesn't say "tbd". Please check that all the text is there and you didn't post the version with [name?] and [thing goes here] notes. Any uploaded version must be a complete story that is readable as it is, even if you're still making edits between now and reveals. Please don't risk disappointing your recipient or requiring mods to seek a back-up pinch hit.


• Please check that all required characters feature in the work. This is likely to mean all the characters your recipient tagged, not just the ones they wrote prompts for. Or, if they selected Any, a character from the tag set. They may have selected additional tags that give further guidance about which characters to include - please check that too. If your recipient selected Worldbuilding and you're not sure there's enough of it, get a second opinion - a friend, a beta. If there is any doubt about whether your story contains all the characters it needs to contain, please check with mods. Prompts alone are not automatically permission to leave characters out. The use of additional tags may still leave some grey areas.


• Please review your author's notes. Yuletide stories are anonymous for one week - do not give your name or link to your personal sites or socials in your author's note. Do not promise expanded, future, or replacement gifts - your work needs to stand alone. And do not apologise for your work in your author's note, or talk about what a struggle it was to write. People often feel doubt as well as excitement when giving someone a story, but don't give your recipient your doubts as part of their gift. In your author's note, please follow the principle that if you cannot say something positive, don't say anything at all.


• Please check your recipient's Do-Not-Wants. Yes, again.


• Please check your story in general! You don't have to get it beta read, but please check spelling and grammar. Please make sure that it’s not a wall of text with no spacing between paragraphs - and, conversely, that there aren’t too many blank lines between paragraphs.

(And, having fully prepared for reveals - we hope that you are excited for them! We are!)

Miscellaneous

• If you're unlikely to be able to comment until the end of the anon period or later, consider letting your author know at the AFK post.
• You can find beta volunteers at this post or at the Discord server.

LINKS
Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Tag Set | Tag Set App | Community DW | Community LJ | Discord | Pinch hits on Dreamwidth | Beta post

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.