Dear Yuletide Writer Letters 2025

Oct. 13th, 2025 11:07 am
morbane: uletide mod image of guinea pig among daisies (mod)
[personal profile] morbane posting in [community profile] yuletide
It's letters time! If you're writing a letter along with your Yuletide sign-up, you can comment here with a link to your letter and also enter the details in the 2025 tagset app. For browsing convenience, the app also generates a google spreadsheet you can access directly. (Bookmarking will be available in the app once tag set corrections are complete.)

What's the deal with letters?
Letters are an optional tradition of Yuletide. When you sign up to the event, there's a space in the form for linking to somewhere in your own space (journal, public document, etc) where you can go into detail about what you like in fic and fandom. This post collects these links. The prompts on AO3 are hidden through sign-ups, but letters are visible as soon as you want them to be.

Letters are an optional extra in Yuletide. If you only post a letter here, you haven't signed up. To get an assignment and a gift, you need to sign up at the collection - open Oct 14-24. If you're using this post before sign-ups are open, please check back on AO3 to sign up there!

What makes a good letter?
Mileage varies. We encourage you, at minimum, to include your AO3 name, the fandoms and characters you're requesting, your Do-Not-Wants (DNWs), and whether or not you can receive treats. [This is a feature you can set in your AO3 preference settings. New accounts have permission to receive treats turned off by default, but participants with older accounts should check if they have not checked this in a while]. There are additional posts here and here discussing how to use DNWs.


How to post your letter
  1. Finish your letter and make sure it's publicly visible. Here's the tagset to check what you can request

  2. Enter it in the app*! You can edit your letter after submitting it - save the key, or ask the mods for the key if you lose it

  3. Comment below! Include:
    • Your AO3 name

    • A link to your letter

    • The fandoms you are requesting (3-8)

    • The characters you are requesting in your fandoms (1-4, or Any)

    If you post to the app first, it will spit out a handy chunk of text with all these details for you to use when commenting.
*Please reach out here if you're having trouble with the app! Characters can be selected by clicking on them.


!!! We ask you to add your letter both places to make sure it gets to people who are excited to read it. If for whatever reason you can only comment on a post, then please include the following line in your comment:

Mods, please add my letter to the app.



We will sweep the post occasionally and add letters to the app.

Warning: Locked or placeholder letters will be removed. You can add your letter when it's done.

If you have a question, contact a mod on Discord or comment here


Mini-challenges
As mini-challenges are posted, they will be added below.
See links to this year's mini-challenges under the cut. )


The opening (and closing) of sign-ups will be announced at the admin comm.

Enjoy! And thank you to karanguni for the app!
sovay: (Sydney Carton)
[personal profile] sovay
After a run of welcomely lovely days, it was perhaps inevitable but deeply resented that I should hit a couple that sucked on toast, logistically, emotionally, resource-wise. I lost one completely to driving to a doctor's appointment that could have been virtual and too much of this afternoon and evening was spent in the kind of frustrated flat uselessness that I hope counts as convalescence because otherwise it's even more of a waste than it feels to me. Without spending that much time in the car, I have been listening to a lot of college radio. Girl in Red's "I'll Call You Mine" (2021) turns out to be a queer outlaw ballad while Jay Som's "Float (feat. Jim Adkins)" (2025) is a sweetly affirming house party. I was doing all right with the Divine Comedy's "Achilles" (2025) until it pulled out Housman and Patrick Shaw-Stewart and then the video was directly in the line of Jarman. I am unduly entertained by the reference to methylene blue in Jealous of the Birds' "Tonight I Feel Like Kafka" (2016).

Hotel Life

Oct. 12th, 2025 12:45 am
settiai: (Bilbo -- dark_jackal32)
[personal profile] settiai
Ever since I moved into the hotel, I've felt about watching television too late at night because I know from personal experience that sound carries. When I watch something after 10pm or so, I've turned it down low, which means I miss things. And that's been a big pain especially when it comes to Critical Role since it doesn't even start airing until 10pm, so if I want to watch live then I end up missing things because I have to keep it quiet unless I want to be an asshole.

As I mentioned in my most recent Critical Role post, though, I finally figured out an alternative that seems to be working well. It doesn't work for anything that I'm watching on the hotel's cable, but since most of what I'm watching in the evening/night is streaming, that means I use my Fire Stick. And my Fire Stick has the ability to connect to Bluetooth devices. Such as the ear buds that I usually keep in my purse for when I'm out and about, which I realized earlier in the week.

And, well, it's working great. The last few nights I've been able to watch movies late at night without accidentally disturbing anyone in the rooms next to me or above me. The video is playing on the shiny new TV that the hotel gave me, but the audio is entirely in my ears and not bothering anyone else nearby. For example, right now I'm finishing up watching The Martian, but it's essentially silent in my room because the sound's playing on my ear buds.

Now if only I had thought to do something like this ages ago...
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
in the downstairs front hall. Hasn't worked in over a decade. Flip the switch, nothing happens.

I happened to be lying on the floor today when I saw....

Me: Huh. Hey, Jenn? Does that hall light have a pull cord?

Jenn: What? No, I don't think so.

Me: I'm looking right at it. You just can't see it because there's less than an inch of it left, right up against the ceiling.

After I sourced the stepladder and a new light bulb it turns out - the whole time, the only reason it didn't work was because the pull cord was set to off.

Welp, it's fixed now!

***********************


Read more... )

Cafe: 3 AM by Langston Hughes

Oct. 9th, 2025 11:55 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Detectives from the vice squad
with weary sadistic eyes
spotting fairies.
Degenerates,
some folks say.

But God, Nature,
or somebody
made them that way.

Police lady or Lesbian
over there?
Where?


********


This poem is brought to you by the NYHS exhibit on The Gay Harlem Renaissance, which you should definitely see if you're in the city. They have pay-as-you-wish admission every Friday from 5 - 8.

Also, I'm incrementing my Robert Moses counter up but only a little, because it was a complaint embedded in an exhibit about somebody else, but it was at the NYHS, so it doesn't really count. So it has now been one day since the last Robert Moses mention, but only kinda.

Pyra Cantha D&D

Oct. 11th, 2025 12:05 am
settiai: (D&D -- settiai)
[personal profile] settiai
Oh. My. Gods.

I've been playing clerics in D&D pretty much nonstop for ten years now, and in all that time I've never, never, never succeeded on a Divine Intervention roll.

Until tonight. With Kes, my adorable dumbass. We're level 14, and I rolled a fucking 11 on a d100. An 11! It succeeded! And it was fucking Kes!
settiai: (Kes -- settiai (TriaElf9))
[personal profile] settiai
In tonight's game, the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.

Tenth of the Tenth.

Oct. 10th, 2025 10:15 pm
hannah: (steamy drink - fooish_icons)
[personal profile] hannah
I'm beginning to hear unconfirmed rumors from family members a local grocery store might close. I hope it's just rumors - we've lost enough independent grocery stores in the neighborhood already. I know people talk badly of the story, and largely that's fully justified. The best way I know to describe it is that it's a secondhand grocery, where a decent amount of their business comes from selling overstock from other places. There's a lot of stuff they do firsthand, and when it's a product like canned tomatoes or dish soap or beer, there's very little concern about who got it first. That said, every so often, something from Whole Foods or Target shows up, and I can't begin to guess how it got there.

Within the last four years, three other grocery place - one bodega corner store, two organic markets - shuttered for various reasons. Rent's a big motivation. Wanting to retire's another. The unconfirmed rumors include that the owners can't find someone to carry on the business. I know it's not an easy way to make a living, and it's not something I'd ever want myself. It's something I want others to do, and it's something I'm happy to support.

Worst case scenario, I'd like to know ahead of time to stock up on things like salt. Best case, the unconfirmed rumors never move beyond neighborhood gossip.

Yuletide

Oct. 10th, 2025 07:40 pm
settiai: (Yuletide -- liviapenn)
[personal profile] settiai
The Yuletide tag set when live yesterday afternoon, and I've spent the last day going through it to figure out A. what I want to request this year and B. what I want to offer.

I think that I've just about figured out what I'm requesting this year, although I'm still wavering back-and-forth when it comes to my final spot (or maybe two). There are a few things that ended up in the tag set that I wasn't expecting, and I'm hesitating a little on the decision because of it. I'll hopefully have it figured out within the next few days, though.

That said? The list of fandoms that I'm considering offering is currently sitting at a whopping 111, which is at least a fun number if not necessarily a reasonable one.

(no subject)

Oct. 10th, 2025 04:40 pm
musesfool: NY Giants helmet (big blue)
[personal profile] musesfool
I had to wait about 45 minutes after my scheduled appointment because CVS's internet was down intermittently or something (and several customers got a little shirty about it) but I finally got this year's covid and flu shots.

In sports news, my friends from Philly, I still love you, but I enjoyed last night's Eagles and Phillies losses tremendously (lbr, I also enjoyed the Yankees getting eliminated but that's not quite the same). I especially enjoyed the Dart and Skattebo show for the NY (football) Giants! Gosh, I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to enjoy a football game my team played in! And then the post-game show with Dart showing his Star Wars fan bona fides (all with prequels questions too, which was funny) and Skattebo ripping his shirt off with Ryan Fitzpatrick! Not only did they win, they were fun! Though Dart needs to learn how to protect himself better on those runs. Yikes. Not that I expect them to win many more games this year, but boy it was enjoyable that they did last night.

In other fannish news, it sounds like book 8 of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series is supposed to come out in June 2026, which I guess is ok. Still no word on Alecto the Ninth though.

And now I kind of want a DCC/TLT crossover...they are incompatible canons but oh boy it would be fun.

*

The Legend of Vox Machina

Oct. 10th, 2025 03:20 pm
settiai: (TLoVM -- settiai)
[personal profile] settiai


What can I say? There's been a lot of Critical Role related things happening this week thanks to NYCC. This post is about the adorably hilarious (and not at all safe for work) summary of the first three seasons of The Legend of Vox Machina that they released. In song format. Sung by Grog.

Todukkot is Sukkot

NSFW Oct. 10th, 2025 09:44 am
chestnut_pod: A close-up photograph of my auburn hair in a French braid (Default)
[personal profile] chestnut_pod
( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )
starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
[personal profile] starwatcher
 
Till "midnight." Still no clue to which midnight.

Filter genres and/or booksellers at top of page.

https://earlybirdbooks.com/deals/best-ebook-deals
 
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Nomnomnom )

*************************


Read more... )

All the trees carve shards of light

Oct. 9th, 2025 11:47 pm
sovay: (Lord Peter Wimsey: passion)
[personal profile] sovay
Since [personal profile] spatch's schedule blocks him from joining my birthday observed this weekend when my niece will be in town, it was important to him to take me somewhere nice on the day itself, and after some reconfiguration of plans based on parameters of pain, sleep, and sunset and some obstruction from construction and accidents on Route 2, we managed somewhere very nice indeed.

Panoramas two-thirds sky and one-third land. )

We did not make it to the originally proposed bookstore: it was fine. We drove home down looping roads close-lined first with trees and then with malls as we made our way back from the Pioneer Valley into MetroWest. Fog drifted once across the highway from the marshes we were driving over. I looked for further meteors out the window through the least light-polluted hills and meadows, but saw mostly that I could still have read by the eighty-five-percent moon. It was a lot of time in the car and all worth it, an inland gift. It was, for everything going on in my life and outside of it, a good birthday.

Critical Role: Campaign 4, Episode 2

Oct. 10th, 2025 02:25 am
settiai: (Critical Role -- settiai)
[personal profile] settiai
As I mentioned last week, I'm going to try to type up posts each week as I watch the new episode of Critical Role. It's a combination of quotes, random thoughts, and some speculation, and it's full of spoilers (albeit vague ones in places).

Spoilers under the cut. )

Yeah, that episode was a winner too. So far, this campaign is starting off strong.

My biggest issue last week was that I couldn't turn the television's sound up enough to properly hear things without disturbing people around me, so I decided to try something new this week. I couldn't get my Fire Stick to connect to the headset that I usually use with my computer, but I was able to get it to attach to my ear buds, so I was able to properly listen to the episode without worrying about disturbing anyone else this week. And, hey, it worked! It was much easier not to miss things.

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sigerson

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