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?



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.


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Tag set housekeeping

• We've removed Mouthwashing (Video Game) as that was approved in error. Sorry for getting your hopes up, nominator!


• 烏は主を選ばない | Karasu wa Aruji wo Erabanai | Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master (Anime): It’s come to our attention that Nazukihiko and Wakamiya are the same person, so we’re merging those characters.


• Nominator of Luca (The History of Sound) - it looks like the Wikipedia page for this movie incorrectly listed Luca as the name of Lionel's lover in Rome; according to IMDB and the original stories this movie is based on, it's Vincent (who was also nominated), so we're deleting Luca.

Thank you for all the tag set issues you’ve let us know about so far! Please continue to check the tag set and let us know of further corrections we should make. Please tell us about these corrections before 9am UTC, Monday 13 October, so we can fix them before sign-ups.

Limited Do-Not-Match option

Most of the time, the person assigned to create for you in an AO3-based gift exchange, and the person assigned to receive a gift from you, are determined by the tags you select in the sign-up form.

Some exchange moderators also offer participants the option to say "Please do not match me up with [ExampleUserName] or [ExampleUserName2]. I don't want to receive a gift from them or create for them." This feature makes it easier, for example, to offer a fandom requested by six different people including someone you'd prefer to avoid, and have peace of mind that you can still avoid that person.

A Do-Not-Match option is difficult to offer flexibly in Yuletide because of the large number of participants and the large number of people who have only one possible creator or recipient. However, we see a Do-Not-Match option as a valuable tool to reduce friction and make everyone happier, so we intend to offer a limited version of this feature in Yuletide, on a trial basis. Please note that this is not an absolute guarantee you won’t receive a story from one of the people you list.

How it will work

When you sign up on AO3, the sign-up form will also link out to a Google form where you can list the AO3 names of up to 3 people you do not want to match to and can tell us if you want to avoid writing for a person, receiving an assigned gift from a person, or both. We will also ask for those people's AO3 ID numbers, which you can find on their AO3 profiles, and for the email associated with your AO3 name. We will not ask for the reason you wish to avoid a person.

After we run the matching process, we will check all matches against our master Do-Not-Match list. We will take the following actions:

• If your assigned recipient or creator is someone you asked to avoid, we will attempt to match you to someone else.


• If your only possible recipient is someone you asked to avoid, we will email you to recommend you expand your offers. However, we will leave the match in place if you do not respond in the first 24 hours following the close of sign-ups.


• If your only possible creator is someone you asked to avoid, we will send out your requests with initial pinch hits.


• If you are the only possible recipient for a creator you asked to avoid, we will leave the match in place, but will prioritize your requests for double-assignment to two creators. [Because of how matching works, there will always be Yuletide participants who start out with two assigned creators; generally we try to choose them at random.]

We will not take the following actions:

• We will not ask a creator to drop out or expand their offers if their only possible recipient is someone who would prefer to avoid them.


• We will not inform a participant that someone else has asked not to match to them. [This information will be restricted only to the core Yuletide mods, Isis, Morbane, and pendrecarc, and will not be shared with the larger pool of Yuletide assistants.]


• We will not review treats for unwanted matches. Putting someone on your Do-Not-Match list will not prevent them from creating a treat for you (but please see FAQs below for other tools to achieve this).


• We will not prevent someone on your Do-Not-Match list from claiming you as a pinch hit. We will check our master Do-Not-Match list when assigning pinch hits, so if the first person to claim you is a person you prefer to avoid, we will leave a short amount of time to see if another claim comes in. But we will not hold your pinch hit indefinitely or tell the first creator they aren't allowed to claim you.


• We will not ask you why you wish to avoid a particular match.

FAQs (foreseeable/anticipated questions)

Who am I allowed to put on my Do-Not-Match list?
Any three AO3 accounts you would prefer to avoid matching to. This can be for any reason, serious or unserious. Do not tell us the reason, please. If the reason is harassment or similar, we recommend reaching out to the Policy & Abuse team separately. You may only give specific names, rather than a description like "anyone who mostly wants porn".

Can't I just block people I don't want to match to?
No. Adding other users to your block list stops them from giving you a treat (see item AO3-6502 on this news post). It also stops them from being able to comment on your work. However, it does not affect challenge matching. A person you have blocked can be assigned to create for you, and you can be assigned to create for them.

Wait, am I allowed to block people in Yuletide?
Yes. Feel free to use the blocking feature to improve your AO3 experience. However, blocking someone and also matching to them could lead to unhappiness for both of you - so please consider using all the tools at your disposal to avoid matching to people you have blocked. This could mean choosing not to offer a fandom if you suspect it has been requested by a person you wish to avoid, or it could mean using the Do-Not-Match option for people you have blocked.

What other AO3 tools exist to manage my gift experience?
If you wish, you can choose to receive gifts only from assigned writers in a gift exchange or people who have claimed your prompts in a prompt meme. This is sometimes described as turning treats on and off. If you created your account after February 2022, please review this setting in your AO3 account preferences. If you select the setting "Allow anyone to gift me works", you can receive treats. If you do not select this setting, only an assigned author can give you a gift in Yuletide.

Will this be a feature of Yuletide going forward?
Maybe, maybe not. It will depend on how well it works out this year!

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The 2025 tag set is available here! Please browse and enjoy!

Fixes and Polishing

We're ready to work on corrections. Please tell us what we need to fix! We may make posts with further queries, depending on the issues you raise. Please keep an eye out for those! Sign-ups are projected to start October 14. If nothing's wrong in your fandoms - or if you can multitask - take part in activity at yuletide!

If your fandom is the wrong category. (such as Books when it should be Celebrities & RPF - etc.)...

• first, please check if it is also in the right category. If it is also in the right category, we can't help.


• If it's only in the wrong category, please tell us what it is and what category it should be in.

(Please note that if it's a canonical fandom on AO3, we can't change it in the Yuletide tagset - however, we can notify the wranglers of the issue.)

Tell us about…

• if you nominated something, but you can't find it at all


• if you nominated characters in a particular fandom, but you can't find them there


• if the fandom or characters you nominated were changed to something incorrect


• if you see the exact same character tag (including disambiguation) in multiple fandoms


• if a character or fandom name is mis-spelled (we don't care as much about disambiguations, so if the words in brackets entered after your fandom name are wrong (mis-spelled, misleading), feel free to tell us, but this may not be corrected.)


• if you see something that doesn't belong


• if you see two fandoms that are duplicates of each other


• if you see the same character twice under one fandom


• if your new fandom has been categorized in the wrong media category (and it isn't in any other category).

For missing nominations and corrections to your nominations, please provide your nominations link.

DO NOT tell us:

• if your fandom is in the wrong media category (a book under movies, etc), unless that is the only category that it is in. Please check ALL the categories before you report a problem.


• if your fandom is in Uncategorized Fandoms. This is a work in progress, please be patient as we work through these fandoms.


• if the characters in your fandom all belong, but the disambiguation tags entered in brackets after their names aren't all the same. Sometimes we have to enter really long strings after a character name to keep the character where they're supposed to be. We only care if the information in brackets is wrong.

Suggested template for corrections requests:
<b>Fandom tag (current)</b>:
<b>Problem</b>:
If correcting a tag or tags:
<b>The current tag(s)</b>:
<b>The correct tag(s)</b>:

Some Stats

This year, we approved 16,466 characters across 4,278 fandoms!

The most nominated fandom this year was Murderbot (TV), with 15 nominators. Close behind it was Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Video Game), with 13 nominators.

Nine Worlds Series - Victoria Goddard is far in the lead by approved characters for a second year in a row, with 39 to select from. Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett has 30, and The Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison is in third with 27.

At the other end of the spectrum, 82 fandoms were nominated without characters.

Worldbuilding was nominated 356 times this year! John edged out Jack for the most common first name. Our review suggests the most ubiquitous characters of 2025 are, once again, Dracula and Sherlock Holmes.

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

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