Mid-Nominations Notes

Sep. 20th, 2025 11:40 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
Thanks for all your nominations so far! 2732 fandom choices have been submitted so far (note that if two people nominate the same fandom, that counts twice towards that total).

Nominations will close at 9pm UTC 26 September. If your fandom requires evidence, please also submit it by that time. We can't give a decision on all fandoms on the Evidence Post by close of nominations, but the sooner you make your case, the better your chances of a swift answer.

We've seen some very large fandoms among the nominations! Yuletide is an exchange for rare fandoms. We will reject all of the fandoms below, so if one of them is your nomination, please choose again:
  • Baldur's Gate (Video Games) - I & II will be approved, as per evidence, but this label will be rejected

  • Actor RPF

  • Andor (TV)

  • Baldur's Gate (Video Games)

  • Black Sails (TV)

  • 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga)

  • Deltarune (Video Game)

  • Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)

  • Downton Abbey

  • Gravity Falls

  • Horizon (Video Games)

  • House M.D.

  • 전지적 독자 시점 - 싱숑 | Omniscient Reader - Sing-Shong

  • The Pitt (TV)

  • プロジェクトセカイ カラフルステージ!| Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE! (Video Game)

  • 斉木楠雄のΨ難 | Saiki Kusuo no Sai-nan | The Disastrous Life of Saiki K

  • Star Trek: Enterprise

  • Undertale (Video Game)

  • Warframe


We also won't approve "All Media Types" or "& Related Fandoms". If you've nominated any of the following fandoms, please either pick a specific piece of media, or argue your case on the evidence post.
  • Ender's Game - All Media Types

  • History Boys - All Media Types

  • Midsomer Murders - All Media Types


We've seen nominations for relationships, original characters, or Reader characters. Please only use the Character field to nominate specific characters who appear in a canon. For exceptions, see the eligibility post.

We've also seen many well-formatted nominations and nominations we are excited about! Please keep them coming.

We are happy to answer questions about nominations.

Schedule, Rules, & Collection [still being tweaked for this year] | Contact Mods | Tag Set | Community DW | Community LJ | Discord | Pinch hits on Dreamwidth


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juushika: Photo of a cat in motion, blurred in such a way that it looks like a monster (Cryptid cat)
[personal profile] juushika
Title: John the Skeleton (Luukere Juhani juhtumised)
Author: Triinu Laan
Illustrator: Marja-Liisa Plats
Published: Yonder, 2024
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 540,855
Text Number: 1999
Read Because: more spooky picture books, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A classroom skeleton retires to live with Gran and Gramps in the country. This is unlike any picture book I've read; maybe that's the author, maybe they write different in Estonia, but I appreciate it and hope to see more picture books in translation. Episodically structured, this cleaves to its premise: the small adventures of an inert anatomical skeleton, scaring off ne'er-do-wells and hanging out at a sauna; it has a candid respect for the eccentricities of private life, and trusts children to inhabit new perspectives and experiences, like aging and death. The black and white sketches with blinding red accents aren't aesthetically pleasing, but the human forms are diverse and realistic, drooping and bulbous and beautifully normal.

All of that makes for a grounded, dense picture book with little momentum; this is one I put in the "more interesting than enjoyable" category, but one of the joys of picture books is that they're a prime medium for experimentation. Constrained by their format, alleviated by illustration, they can get as weird as they want to without overstaying their welcome.


Title: Bog Myrtle
Author: Sid Sharp
Published: Annick Press, 2024
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 145
Total Page Count: 541,000
Text Number: 2000
Read Because: more! but this one is a graphic novel, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: In an effort to make a nice gift for her miserable sister, our protagonist accidentally offends and then befriends the local swamp witch. I liked that half of the book, which has an offbeat, blasé humor, generous illustrations and dynamic text, a blandly spooky forest and a cynical whimsy. But the anti-capitalist screed in the second half doesn't work for me. Exploitation at the scale isn't inter-familial, isn't a power differential determined by a few years and a bad attitude, so the message feels incoherent, and I'm not sure how well jokes about unions land for the target audience. I'd love to read more by the author, because when this is good I adore it, but it needs refinement.


Title: Millie Fleur's Poison Garden
Author: Christy Mandin
Published: Orchard Books, 2024
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 40
Total Page Count: 541,040
Text Number: 2001
Read Because: more!, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A girl's strange garden is unwelcome in her neat and uniform town. Fascinating that two nearly identical picture books came out in the same year (the other being Ferry's Prunella); the premise could be a coincidence, but the remarkable similarity of the plot feels telling: strangeness is first isolating and then a site of social bonding, although in this case the protagonist initiates, creating rather than finding like-minded fellows. Neither approach is superior, although I prefer the more realistic plants in Prunella. It's an optimistic, pointed, reassuring message about being different—so much so that it grows trite. Picture books are allowed that kind of wholesomeness, but I find it almost alienating: this isn't why I read about weird little girls, or the kinds of reassurances I wanted or trusted when I was one.

(Identical right down to the diverse group of kids visiting the garden including a wheelchair-user who struggles not at all with the unfeatured grass? paving? you don't know, don't worry about it, there is a by-the-book-ness of modern picture books which is embarrassing when quite this obvious. While I'm being petty, the title and obviously premise of this one is inspired by the Alnwick poison garden, so the cartoony, anthropomorphized, distinctly not poisonous plants are such a let-down.)

dear podficcer (ITPE '25)

Sep. 15th, 2025 10:16 pm
girderednerve: crop of a twelfth-century scribe against a blue background (Default)
[personal profile] girderednerve
Dear podficcer,
Thank you for being here! ITPE is super fun & I'm so glad to be participating again this year. I hope you can find a story that you're excited to record, because I'm sure I'll be excited to listen. My favorite thing about podfic is listening to the way that the reader interprets character voice, so if there's a bit of dialogue or a scene that really grabs you, I'm delighted to come along for the ride. I'm okay with any rating, gen to explicit; however, please avoid pregnancy and kid fic, police or incarceration AUs, heavy suicide themes, major character death or hurt-no-comfort, and omegaverse.

My fandoms, in no particular order:
Batman: I am in it for Batman/Superman. I want tropes, angst, camaraderie—literally any version of their dynamic is fun for me. I put in the Batman tag, but Clark-centric stories are welcome here!

Fast & Furious: Dom/Brian, moresomes that include them, or interesting gen, please. 

Transformers: I'm here for Megatron, especially if he's making bad choices about Optimus Prime.

due South: I love the tone of due South, sad and funny and a little peculiar; a story that has that feeling to it about literally any character is welcome (no Ray wars! we love Rays here!). 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy/Spike or Faith/Buffy or really fun gen, please! Extra points if Giles is there.

The Pitt: I'm mostly here for Mel/Frank—I love their whole instant-understanding thing—but I love Samira and Trinity and would be happy to hear about friendship between Mel, Trinity, and/or Samira, too.

Lord Peter Wimsey: Harriet 😭 I want to hear about my good friend Harriet Vane and her adventures and her internal strife and so on, literally any story that has Harriet Vane in it & I will be so delighted.

Naruto: Kakashi (in a relationship with someone or not), Team 7 shenanigans, or Sasuke making bad choices but in a way where it's so sympathetic. Absolutely no being mean to Sakura or I will cry, thank you

9-1-1: Buck/Tommy or Buck/Tommy/Eddie please! I like Buck being an adorable nerd, Tommy being kind and a little awkward, and Eddie figuring himself out. 

Interview with the Vampire: There are so many dazzling little one-shots in this fandom that really explore voice and vampire perspective, and I would be delighted to hear your take on any of them. I like Louis, Lestat, Armand, and Daniel in any combination and Claudia by herself or with Madeleine.

Giving: Everything above, plus I can do Stranger Things, The Witcher, Men's Hockey RPF, Stargate Atlantis, X-Men (alternate timeline movies), Star Trek (TOS, 2009, Lower Decks, or Strange New Worlds), and The Old Guard. 

Nomination Coordination Station 2025

Sep. 15th, 2025 06:14 am
serenity_ribbon: An image of the 13th Doctor, on a pink background with heart doodles (Default)
[personal profile] serenity_ribbon posting in [community profile] yuletide

WARNING: Do NOT submit nominations here. Post for coordination ONLY.


This post is where people declare what they have nominated, or ask other people to nominate for them. So if you do comment and/or add your nominations to the spreadsheet, that's great, because it helps other people decide what to nominate, but it WILL NOT result in your fandoms or characters being in the tagset. The only place to nominate is the Yuletide tagset. Use the comments on this post and the coordination Google spreadsheet to coordinate nominations with others.

  • For information about nominating fandoms and characters, what is eligible for nomination, and other important links and announcements, refer to [community profile] yuletide_admin.

  • Nominations run Monday 15th to Friday 26th September. Nominations will be approved after that time.

  • Before tags are approved (after September 26th), you can only see your own nominations.

  • You can nominate up to 5 fandoms and up to 4 characters in each fandom.

Please copy and paste the following information to comment on this post. Every item is optional except fandom.

  • A nomination is something you plan to nominate. A request is something you're hoping someone else will nominate for you, because you ran out of slots.

  • View and edit the google sheet here: Yuletide 2025 Nomination Coordination Station.

  • If you can add your information to the spreadsheet yourself, please do! That would really help. PLEASE DO NOT SORT THE SHEET. If you want to view the list by nominated fandoms, use the autogenerated "sort by fandom" tabs.

  • During the nomination period, the spreadsheet will get re-sorted by username daily at (approx) 6PM GMT, to keep the data tidier.


Help Wanted


If you have a few minutes and enjoy a bit of data entry, please volunteer to update the spreadsheet with information the comments in this post! If you do, add the data from the comment to the spreadsheet and reply to the original comment with Added to spreadsheet.

(h/t to [personal profile] ashling for the original coordination station post text and spreadsheet!)

Yuletide 2025 Nominations Open

Sep. 14th, 2025 09:07 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
Why should I nominate?
To create the pool of fandoms available for this year’s Yuletide. More at AO3.

What can I nominate?
Up to 5 rare fandoms and 4 characters you want to request or offer. See what’s eligible here.

When can I nominate?
From now until 26 September, at 9pm UTC. Please check the date and time in your own timezone! Until then, you can also edit your nominations.

Where can I nominate?
Tag set.

Who can nominate?
People with AO3 accounts who intend to take part in Yuletide. You may use only one account for nominations. If you don’t have an AO3 account, add yourself immediately to the invite queue or email the mods.

How do I nominate?
First, check what's eligible. Then go to the tag set on AO3, and make sure you're logged in. Click "Nominate" at top right, enter your fandom and character choices, and click Submit at the bottom. Check the results on the page to make sure you entered them correctly. You don't have to submit all your choices at once - you can change your mind and add or edit your nominations until nominations close.

If you need to explain or argue for your fandom, please make a case for it on the Evidence Post as well as nominating on AO3.

Do I have to use fandom tags that exist on AO3?
Please do, unless:
  • There is no tag for your fandom (it's totally okay to nominate something with no fic!). Make one up, following this guide.

  • The tag that exists on the Archive describes a larger fandom with many parts and your fandom is one distinct part or subset. In this case, instead of using the tag that exists already, please use a tag that describes your specific subfandom.

  • The tag that exists on the Archive has the words 'All Media Types' or '& Related Fandoms' in it. Please don't use a label that includes those words without arguing for it on the Evidence Post
  • .

Please label fandoms according to the Archive's wrangling style. If you’re not sure how to label your fandom, please ask.

When will I see what was nominated?
Not for a while, sorry! You can share what you've nominated and coordinate with other participants at [community profile] yuletide. Moderators will approve tags starting approximately 28 September, and will release the tagset in early October. We will post questions about nominations between now and sign-ups, so please keep an eye on this community.

The Additional Tags at the bottom of the tag set are a new feature from 2023. Here is a post explaining how they work and some background (1, 2).

Disambiguation
When a character name could appear in more than one fandom, or is common, or short, please put information in brackets after the name to show where it belongs. For example:
-Bonnie Parker (Bonnie and Clyde 1967)
-Robin Hood (Prince of Thieves)
-Tulku (The Shadow 1994)
-Leonardo da Vinci (Da Vinci's Demons)

Disambiguation will also solve your problems if you receive the error message: “This character was rejected because it was nominated in another fandom.” If that happens, add more information to the name and resubmit.

Worldbuilding "character"
In most fandoms, you may nominate worldbulding as a character tag, in the format Worldbuilding (Your Fandom Name). However, mods will not accept "worldbuilding" nominations for RPF fandoms or where it is nominated without explanation for a purely mundane canon - there should be a clear fictional element to worldbuild around. See 2021's discussion post about worldbuilding; you may also find recent requests helpful to see how people have used this option.

Other character tips
If you submit a character that is new or rarely used on AO3, a suggestion from AO3 may appear in bold and in brackets next to your nomination after it has been submitted. This is okay, and does not mean that your nomination will be automatically changed. However, if you don't have any disambiguation information in brackets after the name, you may want to add it, because there may be another character with that name. Even if your character has two names, such as “Harrison Chase” or “Elizabeth Burke”, that name may appear in multiple unrelated fandoms.

RPF and Anthropomorphic fandoms must be nominated with characters. Other fandoms will be approved without characters if none are nominated.

Superhero and similar names may belong to more than one character. For example, Batman’s Robin could mean Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, or Stephanie Brown, among others. Please make sure it’s clear which one you mean - in cases where it’s ambiguous, please use their “wallet” name.

We don’t accept group nominations if the group contains named, distinct characters (for example, under Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold, we wouldn’t accept The Five Gods as a character). However, we will allow distinct groups that do not contain individual, named characters. If it may be difficult for us to determine whether this applies to your nomination, please comment in the Evidence post.

Check your nominations!
After submitting, check that your nominations have gone through: click away from the tag set, click back, and, if still logged into the same account, you should be able to see "My Nominations" at top right. Check the spelling and formatting! You can edit your nominations until the nominations period ends.

Enjoy!

PS: as pre-approved nominations can only be seen by mods, consider discussing your nominations with other participants on [community profile] yuletide or at the Discord. In particular, please see this year's RPF discussion post.


Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Tag Set | 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.

2025 RPF Coordination Post

Sep. 10th, 2025 11:37 am
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 use this post to talk about the RPF or RPF-adjacent fandoms you're interested in nominating, requesting, or offering this year!


RPF nomination categories can be fluid in Yuletide, so we encourage RPF fans to coordinate with each other about the social circles, career groups, and characters you're interested in, to help ensure the resulting categories suit as many people as possible.

Coordinating your RPF nomination with other fans is the best way to make sure we can approve RPF fandoms quickly and easily. You are also welcome to reach out to us directly at yuletideadmin@gmail.com to discuss a potentially sensitive nomination.
This year's eligibility post covers what characters and fandom labels you can nominate. Here is a post from 2023 that explains why we may reject some RPF nominations.

While each RPF fandom must still meet Yuletide rules for size (no more than 1,000 complete works in English), we won’t reject an RPF fandom label for being too broad (i.e., for covering too wide a topic). However, we prefer not to approve two fandoms if one of them is a subset of the other, so please use this post to make sure your nomination doesn't clash with someone else's.

Click for links to some previous tagsets
2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014.


Schedule, Rules, & Collection [still being tweaked for this year] | Contact Mods | Tag Set | Community DW | Community LJ | Discord | Pinch hits on Dreamwidth

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Yuletide Fandom Promo 2025!

Sep. 10th, 2025 05:28 am
crantz: A sweet flying fairy. (happy fairy)
[personal profile] crantz posting in [community profile] yuletide


Welcome to the Fandom Promo post, everyone!

Here's where you get those eyes on your fandoms for sign-ups!

Share what makes your Yuletide fandoms the shiniest and why you love them. A big part of Yuletide is how small our fandoms can be, and this is a good way to make sure other people know what gems there are out there!

SPREADSHEET: Check it out! Thank you to Ouie!




Here are some areas you can cover:

<b>Title</b>:
Please put your fandom's title in the subject of your comment, too. This helps people find your promo again.

<b>Media</b>:

<b>Approx length</b>:

<b>Where to find it</b>:
(If giving links, please only link to legal sources. You may want to encourage people to contact you directly if they are having trouble finding a canon and you can give them tips)

<b>What is it, in summary?</b>:

<b>What do you love about it?</b>:

<b>What sort of things are you likely to request for it?</b>:

<b>Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?</b>:

<b>Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence)</b>:
This is at your discretion and is not expected to be comprehensive




(Bonus options: What are you thinking of requesting for this? If you're thinking of nominating worldbuilding, what sort of worldbuilding topics might people explore?)


Useful tip (Not required, but helps people if they want to engage with your fandom!):


- It's best to make each fandom its own entry with its own title in the subject line! That makes it easier for people to find/see what you're promoting! Don't worry about 'spam', that is the entire point of this entry and you're using it exactly as intended.



Previous fandom promo posts can be found at this tag!

Yuletide 2025 Evidence Post

Sep. 10th, 2025 10:17 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
Yuletide 2025 nominations begin on September 15 and end at 9 PM UTC on 26 September. See what can be nominated on the eligibility post. You can brainstorm, coordinate, and promote your fandoms at the participant community on DW.

Some fandoms need evidence to be approved. Comment on this post if:
  • The fandom you are nominating has too many stories to be eligible, but only because a tiny pool of authors has written most of it, OR because a significant majority are unrelated but tagged as crossovers, OR because a significant majority tagged as 'English' aren't in English

  • The fandom you are nominating appears on AO3 as part of a larger “umbrella” fandom, but you can clearly show that the fics for your fandom are under the limit

  • The fandom you are nominating is a fanwork (please include a link to the creator’s permissions statement and also describe how the fanwork is distinct from its source fandom)

  • The fandom you are nominating is an original work shared on a fan archive (please include a link to the creator’s permissions statement)

  • The fandom you are nominating is a social media post (please check RPF restrictions), headline, meme, or other “ephemeral” canon (please include the URL for the canon)

  • The fandom you are nominating includes a Worldbuilding nomination for an RPF or other real-world fandom

  • The fandom you are nominating includes the words “All Media Types” or “and Related Fandoms” and you believe you need to use that label

  • The fandom you are nominating is closely related to another fandom, especially if the other fandom is ineligible (ex: a Star Wars cartoon or tie-in novel, a prequel to a popular book series, or an audio drama sequel of an ineligible TV show)

  • The fandom you are nominating does not yet exist on AO3 and is hard to google (very common name, few sources in English, etc). Note: Most new fandoms do not need evidence.

Mods will not consider the following evidence:
  • Use of original characters

  • Crossovers

  • Fic quality

  • Ambiguous endings in stories that are marked 'complete'

  • Mistagging, wrong language, or not-many-authors evidence for fandoms that appear to have 1100+ eligible works on AO3. If you believe your fandom should be an exception, talk to the mods directly before commenting with evidence


If your fandom is one of these cases, you must leave evidence this year even if the fandom has been approved in the past. Otherwise, mods may reject the fandom if it’s nominated without evidence.

You must submit evidence before nominations close at 9 PM UTC on 26 September. It may take us some time to review and respond to your post, so if your nomination slots depend on our response, we recommend posting your evidence as early as possible!

Please put the fandom name in the subject line of your comment as well as inside your comment.

Suggested template:
<b>Fandom</b>:
<b>Possible issue with the fandom</b>:
<b>Why this fandom should be considered eligible</b>:
<b>Link to source (ephemeral fandoms, fanworks, and original works on fan archives)</b>:
<b>Link to creator's permissions statement (fanworks and original works on fan archives)</b>:

You are welcome to link to documents containing your evidence, if your post is long.

You can use bookmarklets for checking how many of your fandom’s works on AO3 are in English, complete, and over 1,000 words long, for any rating.

If your fandom appears too big before you use those filters, and is easily under 1,000 works after you apply the filters, then you don't need to tell us about it.

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

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juushika: Painting of multiple howling canines with bright white teeth (Never trust a stranger-friend)
[personal profile] juushika
Title: The Puppets of Spelhorst
Author: Kate DiCamillo
Illustrator: Julie Morstad
Published: Candlewick Press, 2023
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 540,790
Text Number: 1998
Read Because: came up on a spooky picture book library list despite being a MG novel, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review:
"In my dream," said the wolf, "I am chasing and being chased, both things at the same time."


A puppet troupe moves from the ownership of a lonely old man to a pair of little girls, searching for the story they have to tell together. This melancholy tale has a folktale-esque tone, with sketchy, sparse illustrations and a gravity unexpected for such a petite volume, a particularly evocative wolf and a search for identity and role set against the rather more realistic childhood of officious, prickly little girls. But it doesn't feel like it's really for children*; the girls exist as a foil to adult concepts of longing and grief and, frankly, if I'd read this as a kid, the "transforming toys traumatizes them" plot point would have upset me a lot. Perhaps more interesting than successful, I liked the whimsical-but-somber vibe.

* The usual caveat: don't have them, don't know them, what would I know! Still, let's all count the innumerable number of times I've called a Candlewick Press book not-actually-for-kids.
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