Sex Pollen Plus - Emergency Pinch Hit

Oct. 21st, 2025 08:32 am
westiec: bee on a yellow flower (pollenmod)
[personal profile] westiec posting in [community profile] pinchhits
Event: Sex Pollen Plus is a multi-fandom exchange focused on sex pollen and other fuck compulsion tropes. Minimum for fic is 1000 words, and works must be rated M or E.

Event link: [community profile] sexpollenplus Event rules are in the sticky!

Due date: ASAP – creator reveals are October 26 at 7 PM GMT

We have one emergency pinch hit for the following fandoms:

EPH (fic) - NoPixel (Web Series), 吸血鬼すぐ死ぬ | Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu | The Vampire Dies in No Time (Anime), 薬屋のひとりごと | Kusuriya no Hitorigoto | The Apothecary Diaries (Anime), 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs


We also still have two non-required PDPH whose details are listed here

PDPH 10 (fic) - Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon)

PDPH 13 (fic) - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Video Game), Challengers (Movie 2024)

🔸

Oct. 20th, 2025 05:26 pm
vidwindow: (kaede)
[personal profile] vidwindow posting in [community profile] addme
Name: lise

Age:

30s

I mostly post about:

every day interactions, projects i’m working on, movies, mostly just my every day life! i’m probably going to start posting some photography too.

My hobbies are:

photography, cinema, writing, art in general, cooking, reading, watching obscure films & shorts, learning italian, thrifting, collecting vhs tapes

My fandoms are:

not really in fandoms much, but some of my media interests include: horror (halloween series, five nights at freddy’s, no i’m not a human, giallo films, killer7, deadly premonition, etc), speculative fiction (kathe koja especially), psychological thrillers, internet ephemera, weird niches in general. i’m really into things like mannequins, dolls, masks, and animatronics as well.

I'm looking to meet people who:

are artsy & weird! people who always have a project going (doesn’t have to art related - stem can be included here too), activists,

My posting schedule tends to be: just returned to dw (lifelong online journal-er though) sand i am fairly busy so it’ll most likely be weekly



When I add people, my dealbreakers are:

not really anything besides the obvious! just be respectful & tag warnings appropriately :)

Before adding me, you should know: i had a deadjournal since i was 11, i think that says everything about me hahaha

Pinch Hits & Mid Sign-Ups Notes

Oct. 20th, 2025 01:31 pm
yuletidemods: A hippo lounges with laptop in hand, peering at the screen through a pair of pince-nez and smiling. A text bubble with a heart emerges from the screen. The hippo dangles a computer mouse from one toe. By Oro. (Default)
[personal profile] yuletidemods posting in [community profile] yuletide_admin
Sign-ups close at 9pm UTC 24 October. We're more than halfway through sign-ups - if you haven't signed up, get in quick! If you have signed up, we're glad to have you. Please check all your details are correct.

If your sign-up includes a letter link, please make sure that link works for all viewers! In particular, if your letter is on tumblr, please set it up to be viewable for people who do NOT have tumblr. If you're using Google docs, we recommend linking a web-published version of your letter.

Pinch hits

Pinch hits are a major part of Yuletide. Pinch hits are writing assignments that need to be claimed by volunteers, and pinch hitters are the writers who claim and fulfil them. Currently, we publish pinch hit details on [community profile] yuletide_pinch_hits, but we also send out notifications of new pinch hits to members of the Yuletide Discord server who have taken on the "yulephs" role, and to anyone subscribed to the Google Group for Yuletide pinch hits.

If you're interested in helping out by taking on extra assignments, please check that you're signed up to receive notifications by one of these methods! We'll send a test message out soon.

Sign-ups

We've introduced some new features this year! You can now request up to 8 fandoms, and you may fill out a form (linked from the sign-up form) if there are people you would prefer not to match to. Beginning in 2023 we have also included an additional tag checkbox where you can specify whether you want all of your requested characters to appear, or if you’d be happy with particular combinations you specify, or any combination your writer chooses.

If you have questions about any of these, please email us at yuletideadmin@gmail.com! We'd like to make sure things go smoothly for you.

Requesting characters can be a tricky aspect of Yuletide, so just in case, here's a refresher:

If you select 2-4 characters in a request, you can only match to someone who offers them all, even if you’ve indicated in the additional tags that you’re happy with any one of them. If there are 4 or fewer characters nominated, and you’d be happy with a story about any of them, selecting no characters gives you the widest range of matches.

If you select no characters in a request, that means your writer may write about any nominated character or about the fandom world in general. Please only do this when you'd genuinely be happy with a story about any nominated character, or the world.

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.



AWS outage

Oct. 20th, 2025 10:11 am
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.

Fandom Gift Basket - due October 25th

Oct. 20th, 2025 04:43 am
anaisonfire: An empty woven basket with a red and gold bow on the handle. (empty gift basket)
[personal profile] anaisonfire posting in [community profile] pinchhits
[community profile] fandomgiftbasket is a multifandom gifting fest, where people sign up with information about the fandoms they want and others then fill their requests. A fill must be a minimum of 100 words for fic, 100x100 pixels for graphics or icons (unless specified otherwise), a small doodle for art, or equivalents for other mediums. Read the full rules of the fest here.

In order for this event to reveal, every eligible person who signed up must receive at least 2 gifts.

The current due date is October 25th 11:59pm UTC. You don't need to be signed up or formally claim anything to post a fill.


Needs 2 gifts:

#1 - Hazbin Hotel, Slow Horses [art, podfic of own works, recursive fic of own works], Overwatch, Death Note, The Letter (Video Game) [art]

#2 - Attack on Titan, Honkai Star rail, Free! Iwatobi Swim Club [fic, art]

#3 - Wahkonda (Band), Springtime (Band), Mind Your Language (TV) [fic, art]

#4 - Given [fic, art], Jujutsu Kaisen, Wind Breaker [fic]

#5 - Balan Wonderworld (video game), Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo!, The Spectacular Spider-Man [fic, art]

Needs 1 gift:

#6 - Charmed (1998), W.I.T.C.H. (Cartoon), Black Magician Series - Trudi Canavan [fic, art, interactive fiction]

#7 - The Black Dagger Brotherhood (TV), The Black Dagger Brotherhood (TV)/Sons of Anarchy (Crossover), The Black Dagger Brotherhood (TV)/Sons of Anarchy/The Vampire Diaries (TV) (Crossover), The Black Dagger Brotherhood (TV)/The Vampire Diaries (TV) (Crossover), The Fall Guy (2024)/The Vampire Diaries (TV) (Crossover), La La Land (2016), La La Land (2016)/Song to Song (2017) (Crossover), Logan (2017), The Originals (TV)/The Vampire Diaries (TV) (Crossover), Song to Song (2017), Sons of Anarchy, Sons of Anarchy/The Vampire Diaries (TV) (Crossover), Tenet (2020), The Vampire Diaries (TV), The Wall (2017) [fic, moodboard, vids]

#8 - Omega Mart [art], Avalon: Web of Magic, Homestuck and Hiveswap, Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers, My Immmortal (fanfic), Uma Musume: Pretty Derby (game & anime) [fic, art], Angel: The Series [fic, art, graphics]

#9 - Pokémon (Anime), Teen Titans (2003), The World Ends With You, Initial D, LOVE ME HARD - Jerry Heil (Music Video), The Seven Deadly Sins, Beyblade Burst (S2/Evolun), Metal Fight Beyblade (Beyblade Metal Saga), Belle (2021), JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Toonami [fic, meta], Beyond the Universe (2022), Black Dynasty Series by Marilena Barbagallo [fic, meta, fanmix]

#10 - Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, Cherry Ames - Helen Wells/Julie Tatham, Fairy Tail, Voltron: Lion Force (1984), Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Picard, He-Man (1983 cartoon), Clue/Clue Master Detective board games, Marvel What Ifs, Chalion Saga, Jem and the Holograms (Cartoon) [fic]

#11 - Bullet Train, Kraven the Hunter, Gladiator II, Nosferatu, 28 Years Later [fic, art, podfic]

#12 - The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton novel & 1983 movie), Tex (S.E. Hinton novel), That Was Then, This Is Now [fic, art, podfic, meta, ship manifesto], Trigun & Trigun Stampede, War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy novel) [fic, art, podfic]

#13 - SaGa Frontier / Romancing SaGa Re;univerSe (SaGa series) [fic, art], Fire Emblem: Genealogy Of The Holy War, Tales Of Destiny, Tales Of The World: Radiant Mythology, Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, Fire Emblem Gaiden (Katsuyuki Ozaki novelization), Dragalia Lost, Guardians Of The Cosmos, Granblue Fantasy [fic]

#14 - The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, literally anything featuring Miguel Ferrer, Dishonored, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Saints Row [fic, art]

#15 - Sk8, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Winx Club [fic, art]

#16 - Alice in Borderland (TV series), X (X/1999)/Tokyo Babylon, Ring 0: Birthday, Dune, Mortal Kombat, Marvel Cinematic Universe [fic, art]

#17 - Hazbin Hotel, Golden Sun, BCV: Battle Construction Vehicles [fic, art]

#18 - Carnival Row [fic, art, meta], Cat’s Eyes (TV 2024), 사랑의 불시착 | Crash Landing on You (TV) [fic], 무빙 | Moving (TV) [fic, art], Snowdrop [fic, fanvid, art]

#19 - Five Nights at Freddy's, Kingdom Hearts, Portal 2/Portal Stories: Mel [fic, art]

#20 - The Hypnotists series (Gordon Korman), Masterminds series (Gordon Korman) [fic, art, animatic], The Owl House, Stranger Things [fic]

Dear Yuletide author, happy Yuletide!

Oct. 19th, 2025 07:43 pm
jenett: Big and Little Dipper constellations on a blue watercolor background (Default)
[personal profile] jenett
It's been two years since I signed up for Yuletide, but I'm looking forward to it this year!

Thank you so much for writing for me, and I hope you also have a fantastic Yuletide exchange, whatever that looks like for you. I've included both what I particularly like about each canon and a couple of prompt ideas, but I'm up for anything that doesn't hit my DNWs and includes the characters.

General notes, things I love, my do not wants )
All Of Us Murderers - K.J. Charles )
Greta Helsing Series - Vivian Shaw )
England Series - K. J. Charles )
The Odyssey - Homer )
flexagon: (Default)
[personal profile] flexagon
Perceived time scarcity seems somehow to be the order of the day. I might move these summaries to Monday permanently, but for the moment here is the brain dump:

  • Major News Outlet said no to my second puzzle submission, just with a form letter. Some of the wording in the form letter ("this puzzle didn't emerge as one of our favorites") might mean that it made it to the final stage though, and got voted on by the team of editors? It's amusing. These crossword rejections are written in code that looks like English, and can mean something precise, just like performance-related wording at work used to be. Anyway, I have two more in progress with two different collaborators, and am going to re-submit that last one to a different outlet just to get practice.

  • Spent most of Friday making a protest sign for No Kings protests, then a good chunk of Saturday carrying said sign. I went to the really big one with the bug and another friend, dressed inconspicuously; Perse dressed up in an elaborate fairy costume and held a sign, at a smaller protest, saying "Faeries against Fascism". Hilarious... we have a bit of a Wednesday/Enid vibe going on. But the protest itself was good, a cheerful and chill affair. I'm glad I turned out to be counted.

  • Finally had a long date with my squirrel. I'm not even sure when we last had a sleepover -- had it been four weeks? He is super overscheduled now and struggling to make time for me, but the snuggles were good and I helped him set up his new pullup bar from BaseBlocks.

  • Bug got his guided cortisone shot for his frozen shoulder, on Thursday, and says it's feeling a little better! Very happy about that. He'll have PT on Monday and then we'll know more about how it's responding.

  • Backbends and handstands continue to be awesome. I felt a huge back release and further range of motion this week when doing cobra pose (on a wedge) and holding a weight over my head, where the weight ACTUALLY FINALLY started helping me deeper into the pose. I also had a giant epiphany about anatomy in handstands that, so far, when I explain to other people is resulting in a massive "so what". Therefore, I won't attempt it here. I think doing it justice requires an animated video or at least a several-page comic.

  • The major disappointment, yet again, was failing to close on a condo. And indeed, I also found out that the insurance quote I had for it wouldn't be honored if I rented to non-students, which in this area is a real no-go -- and also WTF, I'm shocked that it's legal for them to do that. I know it's illegal for me to evict someone for quitting their job and starting classes mid-lease, and also why are we discriminating explicitly against people who are seeking education? I did a lot of swearing and then found more expensive insurance. And still the town issues no certificate. I did a bunch of hurry-up-and-wait regarding closing on Tuesday, no, Friday, no, I guess it'll be next week. I really freaking hope it will be next week.

  • Really wonderful afternoon wandering Harvard Square with a sparkly friend who was visiting from Philadelphia. We got together for lunch, initially, but then crawled three bookstores and one more cafe. I regret nothing.

  • Also, nice acro practice session with visiting base the Monk. This has happened twice now, and it's really startling how much more like home his hands feel than my recently-usual base (who I really like, but haven't yet spent six years practicing with). Looks like I won't easily be able to visit him in turn, but one of these months for sure.

  • I played a bunch more Blue Prince. I think that once I get another real house I'll need to find a stopping point on that; most people I know haven't 100%ed it. But not quite yet.

tombstuck: A Photo of Sam Winchester from the TV series Supernatural, edited to add a pink bow in his hair. (Default)
[personal profile] tombstuck posting in [community profile] addme
Before adding me, you should know: that i am open to making friends with people who are very different from me! i think it's wonderful and healthy to be friends with people who have a different worldview from me, and i always try to be nice and respectful, even when i don't agree with someone.

basic info:
tombstuck, mid 20s, missouri usa
 
gender and sexuality: bisexual, poly (not currently open to new partners), trans, enby, femboy, they/them
 
other identifiers: alterhuman, gnome/elf otherhearted
 
my vibes: silly, horny, friendly, excitable, odd and unusual

I mostly post about: daily life, my current exciting interests, music, and fandom
 
My fandoms are: I read widely in any fandom if the summary and tags catch my eye, and if the author is a friend! my fandoms in particular are supernatural, homestuck, and marvel stuff (specifically spider-man right now). But I have a lot of other fandoms I'm less active in too.
 
I'm looking to meet people who: are interested in my writing and will listen to me yapping about it (i will do the same for others!), people who will interact with my journal entries... um, not a dealbreaker by any means but it would be nice to know some other alterhumans, therians, otherkin and things like that, because my brother is a therian, i'm otherhearted, and i don't know any other alterhumans at all.
 
My posting schedule tends to be: very sporadic! i just created my account recently so it's up in the air, but i plan on being here every day for the foreseeable future.
 
When I add people, my dealbreakers are: i'll add anyone who adds me, but i will probably remove them if i have personal issues with them after that.

i hope to hear from some of you soon!~
 

morbane: A cute, fierce Raichu with a light saber (Reychu)
[personal profile] morbane posting in [community profile] pinchhits
[community profile] crossworks

Crossworks is a gift exchange for fusion or crossover fic or art, where a gift must combine two fandoms from one of a recipient's requests (participants make several sets of requests).

Our main deadline has passed and pinch hits are urgently requested. Works are due 11:59pm EDT 22 October, or negotiable. Works must be complete, 1,000 words+ or a piece of complete artwork, must depict a combination of two canons from the same section of the recipient's requests, must stand alone, and must be wholly the creator's own work.

Please contact me at the [community profile] crossworks community to claim!


PH #2

Art/Fusion, Fic/Fusion: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger, Bionicle - All Media Types
Art/Crossover, Art/Fusion, Fic/Fusion: Ghost Rider (Marvel Comics), Transformers: Prime
Art/Crossover, Fic/Crossover: Tetsuwan Atom | Astro Boy, Portal (Valve Video Games), Metroid Series
Art/Fusion, Fic/Fusion: Ghost Rider (Marvel Comics), Tron - All Media Types


PH #5

Fic/Crossover: ONE - Cheesy Hfj (Web Series), ねこあつめ | Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector, Toy Story (Movies), Solaris - Stanisław Lem
Fic/Crossover: To the Moon Series (Video Games), Inside Out (Pixar Movies), Mindplayers - Pat Cadigan, Solaris (2002)
Fic/Crossover: The Greengage Summer - Rumer Godden, Monsieur Spade (TV), Song of the Sea (2014), Trouble With Lichen - John Wyndham


PH #6

Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: 盗墓笔记 - 南派三叔 | Daomu Biji | The Lost Tomb - All Media Types, 太岁 | Tài Suì - priest
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: 盗墓笔记 - 南派三叔 | Daomu Biji | The Lost Tomb - All Media Types, 叛逆者 | The Rebel (TV 2021)
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: 镇魂 | Guardian - priest, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester, 盗墓笔记 - 南派三叔 | Daomu Biji | The Lost Tomb - All Media Types
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: 镇魂 | Guardian - priest, KPop Demon Hunters (2025)
Fic/Crossover: 盗墓笔记 - 南派三叔 | Daomu Biji | The Lost Tomb - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types


PH #8

Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: モノノ怪 | Mononoke (Anime & Manga), 蟲師 | Mushishi (Anime & Manga)
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: Lancer (Roleplaying Game), Infinite Revolution: Overdrive (Roleplaying Game), I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Video Game), Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: Pressure (Roblox), Lancer (Roleplaying Game), Mystery Flesh Pit National Park - Trevor Roberts, Carrion (Phobia Game Studio Video Game)
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: Psychonauts (Video Games), Dandadan (Manga), CAIN (Roleplaying Game)
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: Norfolk Wizard Game (Web Series), Columbo, Deltarune (Video Game)
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: Kill Six Billion Demons (Webcomic), Lancer (Roleplaying Game), CAIN (Roleplaying Game)
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, とんがり帽子のアトリエ | Tongari Boushi no Atelier | Witch Hat Atelier (Manga)
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: 悪魔城ドラキュラ 暁月の円舞曲 と 蒼月の十字架 | Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow & Dawn of Sorrow, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Fic/Crossover, Fic/Fusion: Any Other Fandom I've Requested in CW2025, Any Other Fandom I've Requested in CW2025 (Select ONLY In Combo With AOF Tag & No Other Fandoms)

(no subject)

Oct. 17th, 2025 02:49 am
toothpastepancake: (Default)
[personal profile] toothpastepancake posting in [community profile] addme
Name: Agnes

 

Age: mid 20s

I mostly post about: personal stuff and fandom equally, also my creative projects (I'm a huge writer and artist!) I also talk about my tech projects and such. Health struggles & disability/mental health activism and destigmatization. Cooking. Life goings-on. My OCs. I'm trying to get back into using dreamwidth more, so I'd love to make some new friends!

My hobbies are: writing, digital art, watching tv, making video games, playing video games, crafting, thrifting, technology (mostly self-hosting and personal websites right now), cooking...

My fandoms are: I'm a huge science fiction fan, so right now it's Babylon 5, The Orville, Star Trek (mostly lower decks and star trek online), etc. Also super into Yellowjackets and Psych at the moment.

I'm looking to meet people who: don't mind my journal being a little all over the place, are kind and accepting, love science fiction, art, writing, tech, or making OCs, or creativity in general. People who are spiritual but queer-affirming, pro-choice and open-minded. People who like to talk and don't mind if I'm awkward. People who share my fandoms, especially my special interest which is currently The Orville. Other neurodiverse folks. Or anyone who is cool with the things I mention here!

My posting schedule tends to be: sporadic

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, fatphobia. Please don't be a bigot. Also, I don't wish to add anyone who identifies as an "anti" or believes certain types of fiction should inherently be censored, and will unadd for this kind of behavior. 

Before adding me, you should know:  I have autism and dissociative identity disorder. These things make it a little hard for me to communicate, but I promise I always mean well. I also have memory issues.

siderea: (Default)
[personal profile] siderea
Canonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1885137.html


Content Advisory: US government classified and controlled unclassified info leaked to news outlets, within.

[Previously: The Essequibo (Buddy-ta-na-na, We Are Somebody, Oh): Part 1]

Now, when looking at these strikes being carried out in the Caribbean, shockingly, I think there's not been a ton of coverage on this. CNN, for one, their Pentagon reporters, have been some of the only ones consistently covering what's happening in Venezuela. CNN and the New York Times right now, I would say, are the two that are kind of all over this and have been for a while. I don't know why it's getting so little coverage elsewhere, but it is. So, normally I would like to look at these, uh, these reports and source them from multiple different outlets and we just don't have that because there's so limited coverage around US military operations in SOUTHCOM right now.

— Preston Stewart [PrestonStewart on YT], 2025 Oct 15, "American Bombers Send A Message To Venezuela"


[...] I know that the people of the United States are attentive observers and the people of the United States are very aware of what is being attempted against Venezuela is armed aggression to impose regime change.

— Nicolás Maduro, 2025 Oct 3, via Times of India via AP via VTV, "Venezuela Deploys Army & Tanks After Another Deadly U.S Attack, Fighter Jet action"


I am still desperately trying to pull together Part 2 of this series, but in the meanwhile, more things keep happening. I keep checking in with my focus group, aka, Mr. Bostoniensis, about what he is seeing in the news, because my own algorithms are, uh, rather peculiarly trained at this point, and the answer seems "rock all", so I thought I'd post a news round-up of some of the developments over the last couple of weeks. (Holy crap it's been two weeks.)

October 2nd


It comes out that the Trump administration has literalized the 'War on Drugs'. [CW: 'controlled but unclassified'] )

US terminates diplomatic relations with Venezuela )

October 3rd


Fourth US strike on a boat in Venezuelan waters is announced by Trump admin )

October 6th


Venezuela announces it foiled a false-flag plot against the US Embassy in Venezuela )

October 8th


Democrats in Senate try to limit Trump's war powers but fail )

October 9th


The Venezuelan opposition leader wins the Nobel Peace prize )

Venezuela requests emergency intervention from the UN Security Council )

The US asks Grenada, 100 miles off Venezuela's coast, to allow US military installation )

October 10th


The Nobel Peace Prize winner dedicates the prize to Trump, confusing a lot of people who haven't been keeping score )

It comes out that Maduro had been trying to negotiate his way out of US demands for his outster by offering up 'a dominant stake in Venezuela's oil' )

UN Security Council has emergency meeting per Venezuela's request )

October 13th


Maduro closes Venezuela's embassies in Norway and Australia )

Venezuelan activist and political consultant in exile in Colombia were shot )

October 14th


US bombs fifth boat off Venezuela, six killed )

US announces Admiral in charge of US SOUTHCOM visiting Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada )

Which brings us to today. (Well, it was today when I started writing this.)

October 15th


Trump has authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela [CW: 'highly classified'] )

Three US Air Force B-52 bombers buzzed Venezuela for four hours; Venezeula scrambles an F-16 in response )

It comes out that the boat of Colombians bombed in September was not bombed by mistake, but was deliberate )

Nobel Laureate Machado exhorts Trump to rescue Venezuela from Maduro )

Trump is musing aloud to the press about airstrikes on Venezuela )

This post brought to you by the 220 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one
of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.


Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!

Yuletide 2025 Sign-Ups Open

Oct. 14th, 2025 02:21 pm
yuletidemods: A hippo lounges with laptop in hand, peering at the screen through a pair of pince-nez and smiling. A text bubble with a heart emerges from the screen. The hippo dangles a computer mouse from one toe. By Oro. (Default)
[personal profile] yuletidemods posting in [community profile] yuletide_admin
Please read this post even if you have signed up before!

After reading this post, please look at the tag set to see what fandoms are available this year, and make a shortlist of what you plan to offer and request. (The same fandoms can be on both lists, if you want.)

Then sign up at the collection. We recommend you allow at least half an hour to sign up. While you can edit your sign-up over the next week, you will not be able to make any changes after sign-ups close at 9pm UTC 24 October.

If you would like to avoid matching to up to three other participants, with limitations discussed here, you may do so by filling out a Google Form from a link within the AO3 form. If you want to use this feature but cannot use Google Forms, please email the mods. Do Not Match requests will close at the same time as signups.


Requests

  • You can request 3-8 fandoms

  • Each fandom must be different

  • You can request 0*-4 characters in each fandom

  • *Requesting 0 characters means "I am happy to receive any nominated character for this fandom. My author gets to choose which one(s)". That includes Worldbuilding for fandoms where Worldbuilding is nominated as a character tag. If no characters are nominated for the fandom, requesting 0 characters means “I am happy to receive any character or worldbuilding for this fandom.”

  • "AND" matching means your writer must include every character you select. If you are happy with a subset of your selected characters, indicate this with Additional Tags, and clarify any exceptions in your optional details.

  • You can only request characters from the tag set, though your optional prompts may mention other characters to appear too.

  • In some fandoms, you can request Worldbuilding as a character. You can find guidance on that here.


AND matching and additional tags
Generally, when you select characters in your sign-up form, it means you want and expect your gift to include all of those characters. This is a key principle for matching and assignments. However, some people like to give their author further options. We are using the Additional Tags section of the form for this.

If you requested 0 characters, or you want all the characters you selected to appear, you will tick the first Additional Tag option, which says "My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)". If you think your situation might be different, please read last year’s post about additional tags and select additional tags that are right for your requests. This information is also in the sign-up form.


Optional Details and Do Not Wants (DNWs)
"Optional details" = prompts, ideas, likes, explanations of how you see the canon. Optional details and DNWs can be recorded in the main text section of your requests.

Optional details are optional (ODAO)! Your writer doesn't have to follow your prompts, though they must avoid your DNWs. You don't have to give prompts here, either - though prompts and ideas may be a more inspiring first impression than a list of DNWs on its own. Prompts may be particularly useful if you are requesting a Worldbuilding tag.

See this 2020 post for some considerations when writing your DNWs. Last year, we also clarified our rules and guidance about DNWs.

The Optional Details section of your AO3 requests is especially relevant if you have selected option two of the additional tags, "My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags; or it may use exceptions I explain in the form". In that case, please use this section of the form for explaining how and when your writer is allowed to leave out some of the characters you selected.

Please use minimal html in the optional details field. No images, please.

Please also note in the form if you're able to receive treats - or if you don't want them! Yuletide has a long-established culture of extra gifts, but if you created your account recently, you may have extra gifts turned off by default. Please check your AO3 preferences, and then state in your sign-up form whether you do or do not accept treats.


Letters
You can write prompts and preferences in another space, such as Dreamwidth, Livejournal, Google Docs, or Tumblr, and put a link in your sign-up. This is known as a "letter". Some people write letters; some don't. DNWs and character subsets that are listed in a letter but not in the Optional Details AO3 textbox cause confusion and difficulty for creators, and will not be enforced by the mods. Otherwise, your letter is an extension of your optional details and is treated the same way.

Important: You cannot add a letter after sign-ups close.

Offers

  • You can offer 4-10 fandoms

  • Each fandom must be different

  • You can offer 2-20 specific characters in each

  • If you want to offer a fandom that has 0-1 characters available, tick the "Any" box

  • If you are willing to write any combination of nominated characters, including Worldbuilding for fandoms where it is nominated, tick the "Any" box

  • "Worldbuilding" can also be selected as a character for many fandoms. Please check here to see how we're using it.

  • Offers are secret! Please don't declare openly what you're offering.


If you have several fandoms in which you want to offer to write Any nominated characters, you can make your last offer a "Bucket Offer". You can read about bucket offers in the Sign-ups section of the AO3 FAQ. This older tutorial has pictures!

Signing up!

The sign-up form is here.



Please check the tag set or the app when signing up. The autocomplete drop-down list in the sign-up form may not show all available characters. If they're in the tag set, you can enter them manually.

Sign-Up Summary

The list of requested/offered fandoms will be available after five people have signed up. Bucket offers do not show up in the list. Checking the sign-up summary for people you may be able to write for is a good idea - although many people sign up at the last minute. The sign-up summary says it updates hourly; in practice it may update less frequently.

Fandoms at 1-1 on the sign-up summary may mean that the same person is offering and requesting the fandom, not that there is a match.

Welcome to Yuletide!

Feel free to ask us questions.


Bonus! Yuletide advertisements

Thank you to [personal profile] crantz (who also made images for us to share in 2019 and in 2020). Please use these to encourage friends and other fans to take part!

Yuletide exchange promotional image using mountain forest scenery. Text says Write off the beaten path - Yuletide Rare Fandoms Exchange.

To repost this image, copy this html:
<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2025/profile"><img src="https://www.yuletide.fandom.exchange/images/yuletidegraphic1.jpg" alt="Yuletide exchange promotional image using mountain forest scenery. Text says Write off the beaten path - Yuletide Rare Fandoms Exchange."></a>



Yuletide exchange promotional image using an image of an 1887 ice palace. Text says Travel the Worlds of Imagination - Yuletide Rare Fandoms Exchange.

To repost this image, copy this html:
<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2025/profile"><img src="https://www.yuletide.fandom.exchange/images/yuletidegraphic2.jpg" alt="Yuletide exchange promotional image using an image of an 1887 ice palace. Text says Travel the Worlds of Imagination - Yuletide Rare Fandoms Exchange."></a>



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.



yuletidemods: A hippo lounges with laptop in hand, peering at the screen through a pair of pince-nez and smiling. A text bubble with a heart emerges from the screen. The hippo dangles a computer mouse from one toe. By Oro. (Default)
[personal profile] yuletidemods posting in [community profile] yuletide_admin
Tagset corrections are in, and signups are opening soon! It’s just about time to decide what you’ll be requesting and offering.

This year, you can request eight fandoms! Previously, it was six. Because of that, we're reviewing our process for sending author questions.

Each year, we receive questions from authors about their recipient’s requests. These might include clarification on prompts or requests to understand how a DNW applies to a specific fandom–for example, does a DNW for character death include discussion of deaths that occur in canon?

We’re always happy to pass these questions along! Please always contact the mods directly rather than reaching out to the recipient yourself.

Traditionally, when we send these questions to recipients, we try to disguise the fandom the author plans to write for, so the gift is still a surprise. If the question is generic and applies to all fandoms, we can pass it along as-is. If the question is specific to one fandom, our team of volunteers writes decoy questions for the other fandoms and sends along the whole set.

This is fun for us to do, but it takes time. It's also extra work for the recipients to read and respond to multiple questions. This year, as we’re allowing up to 8 requested fandoms (which could mean up to 7 mod-created questions), it seems like a good time to check in and see if our participants find it helpful.

So, a poll! Going forward, which would you prefer mods do?

Poll #33725 Author Questions Poll
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 264


Going forward, which would you prefer mods do with author questions?

View Answers

Mods should continue to send decoy questions for all fandoms, along with the author’s actual question, to maximize the mystery of which fandom a recipient will receive. (This is how things work currently.)
41 (15.5%)

Mods should send questions for several fandoms, including the author’s actual question, but possibly not all–even though that could narrow down which fandom a recipient may receive.
213 (80.7%)

Something else (Please let us know in comments!)
10 (3.8%)



Keep in mind the question may be from a potential treat writer, so receiving questions for a particular set of fandoms isn’t a guarantee that your final gift will be in one of those fandoms.

We may not necessarily change our process this year based on community feedback, but it will be helpful in making our decision!

We'd also love to hear from you if you'd like to share a past experience with sending or receiving questions! If that has never happened to you, we hope you enjoy this peek behind the administrative curtain.


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

Please either sign in to comment, or include a name with your anonymous comments, including replies to others' comments. Unsigned comments will stay screened.

Splatter

Oct. 13th, 2025 11:50 am
flexagon: (Default)
[personal profile] flexagon
It's a sleepy sleepy Monday, which it probably is for a lot of people because a) it's a holiday and b) we are having a nor'easter here, which means rainfall. Many cozy feelings are thereby created.

Weird number of postponements and rejections this week:

  • Major News Outlet said no to my first crossword puzzle submission, although they did it in the nicest way possible. Not a form letter. They gave real feedback about what they liked and didn't, and encouraged me to try again. Joke's on them, another is already in their queue and I have two more in progress with different collaborators. One of which made a ton of progress this week!

  • I was supposed to meet with my financial advisor. It got postponed, but in preparation for that I did my numbers for the year so far and looked harder, especially, at my latest six months of spending. Insert some annoyance, here, with my budgeting program... but I fixed things up until I believe the data, and the good news is that I'm spending less this year than I have any year since 2021. Even with all the circus lessons. This stands in contrast to the returns from the market so far, which don't feel real or make sense to me at all.

  • I was supposed to close on my stupid new condo tomorrow. Guess what got delayed again. This time it's most proximally the town's fault. *shrug* At least other people (Unit 2 buyers in the same building) are providing urgency on it now; they can wake me up when the sale is actually happening.



Some other happenings:

  • It's been... six months since I retired? I think I'm planning to do a 6-month update post on LinkedIn, but my biggest lesson is that six months aren't enough. I never expected it to be, but now I know it's not, and that's conceptually a little worrisome. The larger milieu of politics, finance and tech seems messed up, and apparently all I can manage is dropping out and playing dead.

  • My neighbor suddenly got rid of all the ivy that used to cover our front yard! I knew she wanted to pull it back from the house, but didn't realize she was going to remove ALL of it until it was already done. I was startled. But I also remembered telling her to do what she wanted in the front, and the time (at my last address) that I was trimming hedges only to have the older woman upstairs yell at me in the street. So I simply expressed mild surprise. Maybe it was time for a change anyway.

  • I had coffee with my walkover coach, who is pregnant with a donor egg, and talked her through some of how it went with me and Birdie and E&V. I need to do more follow-up on that since, weirdly, E is going to be in town next week, and probably my coach would rather talk to the egg recipient than the donor.

  • Went climbing with [personal profile] jadia, which was super fun except when I confidently failed the belay test by engaging my circus rope-pulling circuits (in circus you NEVER let go of a rope entirely but it is considered OK for it to slide through one's hands; in rock climbing it's the opposite; and both endeavors consider it a significant safety concern). This spun off a conversation on a Discord server I'm on, in which apparently belay technique maybe has also changed in the last 10 years, but my particular cross-wiring was almost certainly circus. We were prepared to fall back to the auto-belay routes which were really fun, and I also got to be belayed on a nasty no-hands-section climb that made my legs all shaky.

  • More social: dinner with a bunch of Zillianaires, which... was honestly pretty exhausting. Overall positive, but way out in the boonies in a house that made me slightly twitchy.

  • Backbend progress -- both a contortion class and a walkover class in which I did New Things and my body graciously put up with it. I've been working out twice a day, most days this week, which is on the high side.... but there's a lot of joy happening and I'm not injured, so I got a tub of creatine and am going to carry on as long as coach availability is this good. There'll be downtime later.


It's a lot, right? The time I used to spend on "work" has exploded into a lot of smaller things, and I know that what is important can get lost in here's the pile of random shit that happened. But if nothing else, this is true to my experience too. I think life is good. I miss my squirrel, who's been away for two weekends running, but that will end soon.

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