Fannish 50 Challenge 2025: Post # 21: Postal Mail from Fen
Jul. 12th, 2025 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ride_4everJune postal mail from fen brought me a beautiful card from elayna. It's colored by hand and she indicated that it was done in pencil -- must be some very special kind of pencil -- there's a depth of color and a shine to it that doesn't look like other pencil-work I've seen. And she pointed out that with one of the images being a compass and one of the images being a wolf or wolf-dog it made her think of due South. Also, she put a wolf sticker on it and used a maple-leaf postage stamp. I <3 everything about this card very much!
elayna. It's colored by hand and she indicated that it was done in pencil -- must be some very special kind of pencil -- there's a depth of color and a shine to it that doesn't look like other pencil-work I've seen. And she pointed out that with one of the images being a compass and one of the images being a wolf or wolf-dog it made her think of due South. Also, she put a wolf sticker on it and used a maple-leaf postage stamp. I <3 everything about this card very much!1 week delay & 1 current pinch hit
Jul. 11th, 2025 11:11 pmlongficmod posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fandom5kHi, all--we're so close to the finish line! I'm announcing a 1 week delay at this time to ensure all our pinch hits are covered. The new reveals date is 26 July at 23:59 US Eastern. We have one pinch hit currently available, with upcoming deadlines on the 13th and the 18th.
Anyone who isn't signed up but is only pinch hitting can leave prompts at our treats for pinch hitters post! This is a great place to look if you're interested in creating treats.
This pinch hit is due 25 July at 23:59 US Eastern time, one day before our new reveals date.
If you can claim this pinch hit, please comment with your AO3 name. All comments are screened.
( PDPH 10 - The West Wing, Neko no Ongaeshi | The Cat Returns, Severance (TV) )
Anyone who isn't signed up but is only pinch hitting can leave prompts at our treats for pinch hitters post! This is a great place to look if you're interested in creating treats.
This pinch hit is due 25 July at 23:59 US Eastern time, one day before our new reveals date.
If you can claim this pinch hit, please comment with your AO3 name. All comments are screened.
( PDPH 10 - The West Wing, Neko no Ongaeshi | The Cat Returns, Severance (TV) )
[ SECRET POST #6762 ]
Jul. 11th, 2025 07:22 pmcase posting in fandomsecrets⌈ Secret Post #6762 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #965.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Prompt 2541: Rainbow
Jul. 11th, 2025 10:33 pmimmortalje posting in dailyiconsToday's prompt is: rainbow
• You have 2 days time to submit an icon for this prompt (in other words, until prompt 2543 gets posted)!
• Prompt 2539 have been closed.
• If you have any questions regarding the prompt, feel free to ask in a comment.
• To submit an icon you simply reply to this post with the following information:
Icon:
Claim: (only necessary if it's a specific claim)
Status: (e.g. #1/10 - number of icon completed/table size)
Fortune Wheel 02.25: Weekly Reminder 9
Jul. 11th, 2025 07:54 pmprisca posting in fandom_empireIt's Friday, and about two days to go until week nine is over. Posting for this week officially ends Sunday, July 13 17.00 UTC. There is a grace period until the week is finally called 'closed'.
We have 3 regular participants so far; and 2 participants in the team challenge. Feel free to check the score lists. The total score and the teams will be counted on Sunday. If you find a mistake or you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave a comment here.
You can earn 15 regular weekly points + some extra points when using the lucky color.
You can use a wildcard at any time, to grab any prompt from your promptlist. The connected color prompt won't change!
You can post two fills for the team challenge. Even if you haven't signed up, you can participate as a joker to support a team. Joker fills can't earn any individual points!
We have 3 regular participants so far; and 2 participants in the team challenge. Feel free to check the score lists. The total score and the teams will be counted on Sunday. If you find a mistake or you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave a comment here.
You can earn 15 regular weekly points + some extra points when using the lucky color.
You can use a wildcard at any time, to grab any prompt from your promptlist. The connected color prompt won't change!
You can post two fills for the team challenge. Even if you haven't signed up, you can participate as a joker to support a team. Joker fills can't earn any individual points!
Follow Friday 7-11-25
Jul. 11th, 2025 12:29 pmysabetwordsmith posting in followfridayGot any Follow Friday-related posts to share this week? Comment here with the link(s).
Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die".
2025 Schedule & Rule Updates
Jul. 10th, 2025 10:54 pmfic_in_a_box_mod posting in ficinaboxHello friends! Below is the schedule for FIAB 2025, which will run Late July-November instead of August-November.
Schedule changes, in brief:
- We've added in extra time for mod admin tasks such as tagset clean up and request checking.
- We've given you a full 2 week sign up period
- We've added a couple days of extra time to the creation period.
This extra time will help us utilize our helpers better because we won't have such tight scheduling! It will also allow for the possibility that the swaps puzzle will take longer than in previous years – we don't want to punish swappers with less creation time if it takes us longer than usual to get swaps out, so just building a little extra time into the creation period seemed best.
The rest of this post will cover:
- Updates to several specific medium tags and medium rules.
- A slight change to the way OCs can be nominated.
Discord server reminder! Fic In A Box is a complex exchange even for exchange veterans, so we thought that if we were going to invite a bunch of new people to the exchange we should provide a space where they can ask lots of questions throughout the process. This server is open to everyone (we won't kick you out if you've been doing FIAB for years already) but its purpose is to help people participate in the exchange, so it will probably be most useful/enjoyable if you're kinda confused about the exchange. Like FIAB itself, the server is an 18+ Choose Not To Warn space.
2025 Schedule:
July 24th-August 2: Nominations Pre-Gaming (participants can load tags from last year’s tagset into this tagset)
August 3-12: Nominations
August 13-16: Nominations Cleanup
August 17-August 31: Signups
August 20: Swap requests open
September 6: Assignments Out By This Date
September 7: Swap requests close
October 19: Assignments Due
November 9: Last Day To Submit Makeup Assignments
November 15: Work Reveals
November 29: Creator Reveals
All deadlines are at 11:59 PM EDT except for those in November, which will happen at 11:59 PM EST
New In 2025
Mediums Rules Updates
Art Ruleset
We'll be adjusting the language for the ruleset to make it clear that if multiple characters are requested they must all be visibly within the artwork.
We will also be adding "Papercraft" (creating an image using layered paper cut into the necessary shapes) as a style to the ruleset. This will be a possible style for any art tag that doesn't specify another style (such as "Drawn") and can be requested specifically by nominating the desired art tags with at "Papercraft - " prefix.
Multimedia Works
We'll be adding more guidance for the requirements if combining two different requested medium tags into a multimedia work in the Posting Guidelines.
Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Printable Sticker Page Layout
We are changing the rules for stickers to clarify a medium-checking issue we had last year. New rules will set a minimum number of stickers per sheet (five unique stickers per sheet), for an equivalent of 2k per sticker sheet.
Medium Opt-In: Audio - Fanmix
Medium Opt-In: Audio - FST (Fan Soundtrack)
These tags will be merged into the tag "Medium Opt-In: Audio - Fanmix/FST (Fan Soundtrack)"
Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Cross Stitch Pattern
We will be updating the rules for this medium to clarify that you can't auto-generate a cross stitch pattern from pre-existing art.
Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Web-based choice-based IF not hosted on AO3
Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Twine
Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Ink
Medium Opt-In: Writing - Interactive Fiction - AO3 style Choose Your Own Adventure
Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Visual Novel
We will be restructuring all of these tags into the following four tags:
- Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - AO3-style Choose Your Own Adventure
- Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Choice-Based IF Not Hosted On AO3
- Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Illustrated AO3-style Choose Your Own Adventure
- Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Illustrated Choice-Based IF Not Hosted On AO3
Length Opt-In: Drabble
Length Opt-In: Double Drabble
Length Opt-In: Triple Drabble
These are being changed to the following:
- Length Opt-In: Drabble (100 Words Exactly)
- Length Opt-In: Double Drabble (200 Words Exactly)
- Length Opt-In: Triple Drabble (300 Words Exactly)
Length Opt-In: Drabble Series
We are removing this tag because it caused some confusion last year. If you'd like to request drabble series please mention it in your optional details. Drabble series of over 1000 words are opt out (similar to other fic formats such as 5+1 things), and for drabble series of under 1000 words you may opt-in within your optional details while requesting a drabble tag.
Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Craftwork
These tags will be adjusted to have an equivalent of 2k.
Medium Opt-In: Instructions - Recipe book
Medium Opt-In: Instructions - Cocktail Recipes
For clarity these will be singularized into:
- Medium Opt-In: Instructions - Recipe
- Medium Opt-In: Instructions - Cocktail Recipe
In addition it will be clarified in the rules that recipes are required to be the original creations of the poster.
Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Sheet Music - Arrangement of Music From Canon
Medium Opt-In: Audio - Arrangement/Cover Music
Medium Opt-In: Audio - Song Parody
Medium Opt-In: Audio - Commentary Track
Medium Opt-In: Audio - Commentary Track - MST3K Style
It's been brought to our attention that someone received a warning from AO3 for posting an arrangement of sheet music from a canon song. The last thing we want to do is risk anyone getting a copyright related warning from AO3 due to a medium in this exchange, so since all of the above tags involve copyrighted music or audio in some way, we're removing them from the tagset.
Nominations Rules Updates
Original Character(s) nominations will not be accepted. This is because "Original Character(s)" is meant to mean either Original Character (singular) or Original Characters (plural) but we've seen some evidence that people who want just one or the other are selecting this phrasing simply because it's common in canonicals.
Tentatively, we will try out simply editing these nominations to be singular if they come up on the AO3 interface, but if that's too burdensome we will reject like all other incorrect tags.
Click here to view tag examples!
Elmo & Original Character(s) (Sesame Street)
Big Bird/Original Character(s) (Sesame Street)
Solo: Original Character(s) (Sesame Street)
Not allowed per this new rule.
Elmo & Original Character (Sesame Street)
Big Bird/Original Character (Sesame Street)
Solo: Original Character (Sesame Street)
Allowed! These tags will get you a work with one OC, plus other listed characters if there are any.
Elmo & Original Characters (Sesame Street)
Big Bird/Original Characters (Sesame Street)
Solo: Original Characters (Sesame Street)
Allowed! These tags are phrased as plural, but per our other nominations rules "Original Characters" counts as an ambiguous group so requests with this phrasing could be filled with 1 OC or 2+ OCs.
Note that you can't limit the number of OCs if you pick a tag like "Big Bird/Original Characters (Sesame Street)" so if you're really only interested in a threesome but not a foursome, you should instead nominate like…
Elmo & Original Character & Original Character (Sesame Street)
Big Bird/Original Character/Original Character (Sesame Street)
Allowed! These tags need to be filled with as many OCs as are listed in the tag. Per other nominations rules, you can list up to 6 characters in a relationship tag.
If Big Bird and five other characters isn't a big enough orgy/polycule for you, you can A) list the last character as the plural "Original Characters" to leave yourself open to more than 5 OCs, or B) use your optional details to opt into more OCs at your creator's discretion. (We suggest you do this in the AO3 optional details box so it's easy for us to find, rather than buried in a letter.)
Admin: Poll: Challenge tags
Jul. 10th, 2025 04:33 pmteaotter posting in fan_flashworksBackground: Dreamwidth has a 1500-tag limit, and fan_flashworks is constantly bumping up against it. So we have an ongoing tag management project to try to gain ourselves some elbow room. You might have seen our periodic posts about merging old single-use fandom tags. Unfortunately, we are coming to the end of the easily-merged fandom tags, and so need to find another way to reduce our tag use.
Today's topic: We mods have been talking about the challenge tags (c: amnesty, c: science, etc.) These tags label an entry as responding to a particular prompt (or being part of an amnesty round).
We're not sure if anyone's actually using these! So we wanted to check in with you all before deciding between A) removing them entirely, or B) leaving only the ones from the last 12 months (and only tagging amnesty posts with the amnesty tag). Option A) would make our mod lives easier, but if they are serving a purpose for some of you, we definitely want to take that into account when making our decision. :-)
If we remove the challenge tags, we will change the standard subject-line format for all rounds to "[challenge]: [fandom]: [medium]: [title]", ie, the same as the current format for amnesty rounds. Community members are welcome to go back and add the challenge to the subject lines of previous entries, too (though we know that for some of you, that would be a Herculean task!).
Please take a moment to vote in this poll.
fan_flashworks is constantly bumping up against it. So we have an ongoing tag management project to try to gain ourselves some elbow room. You might have seen our periodic posts about merging old single-use fandom tags. Unfortunately, we are coming to the end of the easily-merged fandom tags, and so need to find another way to reduce our tag use.Today's topic: We mods have been talking about the challenge tags (c: amnesty, c: science, etc.) These tags label an entry as responding to a particular prompt (or being part of an amnesty round).
We're not sure if anyone's actually using these! So we wanted to check in with you all before deciding between A) removing them entirely, or B) leaving only the ones from the last 12 months (and only tagging amnesty posts with the amnesty tag). Option A) would make our mod lives easier, but if they are serving a purpose for some of you, we definitely want to take that into account when making our decision. :-)
If we remove the challenge tags, we will change the standard subject-line format for all rounds to "[challenge]: [fandom]: [medium]: [title]", ie, the same as the current format for amnesty rounds. Community members are welcome to go back and add the challenge to the subject lines of previous entries, too (though we know that for some of you, that would be a Herculean task!).
Please take a moment to vote in this poll.
Poll #33347 Challenge tags
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 22
How do you use the challenge tags here?
I don't use them.
14 (63.6%)
I use them to find new-to-me fanworks for a specific prompt.
2 (9.1%)
I use them to filter out fanworks that don’t interest me.
0 (0.0%)
I use them to find specific fanworks on the community that are already familiar to me.
1 (4.5%)
I use them (in addition to my maker tag) to find my own fanworks.
5 (22.7%)
I use them some other way. (Please elaborate in the comments.)
3 (13.6%)
So that's what those tags are! I never knew!
1 (4.5%)
Challenge 485: Face
Jul. 10th, 2025 04:21 pmteaotter posting in fan_flashworksOur new challenge is:
As always, you can interpret the prompt literally or figuratively, in whatever way works for you.
Each work created for this challenge should be posted as a new entry to the comm. Posting starts now and continues up until the challenge ends at 4pm Pacific Time on Sunday, July 20th. No sign-up required.
Mods will tag your work with fandom and challenge. When you've posted entries to three consecutive challenges, you will earn a name tag, and we'll go back and tag all your previous entries with your name.
All kinds of fanworks in all fandoms are welcome. Please have a look at our guidelines before you play. If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to contact a mod. And if you have any suggestions for future challenges, you can leave them in the comments of this post.
Also, keep an eye out for the nextffw_social post, which will go up in the next couple of days. If you haven't joined the ffw_social comm, it's never too late to come and check it out. (Posts are locked, which means you have to join to see them.)
FACE
As always, you can interpret the prompt literally or figuratively, in whatever way works for you.
Each work created for this challenge should be posted as a new entry to the comm. Posting starts now and continues up until the challenge ends at 4pm Pacific Time on Sunday, July 20th. No sign-up required.
Mods will tag your work with fandom and challenge. When you've posted entries to three consecutive challenges, you will earn a name tag, and we'll go back and tag all your previous entries with your name.
All kinds of fanworks in all fandoms are welcome. Please have a look at our guidelines before you play. If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to contact a mod. And if you have any suggestions for future challenges, you can leave them in the comments of this post.
Also, keep an eye out for the next
ffw_social post, which will go up in the next couple of days. If you haven't joined the ffw_social comm, it's never too late to come and check it out. (Posts are locked, which means you have to join to see them.)Admin: Challenge closed
Jul. 10th, 2025 04:20 pmteaotter posting in fan_flashworksThe Science challenge is now closed. Here are the entries:
Stoker: Fanfic: no longer human (the nothing that can’t hurt us), bybluedreaming
Torchwood: Fanfic: Impossible Science, bybadly_knitted
Spooks (MI5): Fanfic: Not Quite James Bond, bysmallhobbit
Kim Possible: Fanfiction: Speaker Phone, byinfinintum_noctem
S.W.A.T.: Fan Fiction: Auction Revelation, bydarkjediqueen
The Professionals: Fan Fiction: Torn in Two, bylucy_roman
Gundam: Fanfic: Study, bysamuraiter
Torchwood: Fanfic: SUV-mersible, bym_findlow
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Fanfic: Guilt and Pain, byveronyxk84
Guardian: fanfic: Winging It, bychina_shop
Greek Myth: Fanfic: In the Family, bydrabblewriter
Iron Man - Marvel 616 : icons : Do ALL the Science!, byhighlander_ii
Original Fiction: The Science Behind Shame, byanalogbasilisk
Science: City of Streamers: fanfic: by the fancy tie round your wicked throat, byteaotter
Congratulations tolucy_roman, who earned a name tag!
\o/ \o/ \o/
Thank you to everyone who participated! You're now free to post your entries to your journal or wherever else you'd like. If you're archiving on AO3, you can add your work to our fan_flashworks collection there.
New challenge coming right up!
Stoker: Fanfic: no longer human (the nothing that can’t hurt us), by
bluedreamingTorchwood: Fanfic: Impossible Science, by
badly_knittedSpooks (MI5): Fanfic: Not Quite James Bond, by
smallhobbitKim Possible: Fanfiction: Speaker Phone, by
infinintum_noctemS.W.A.T.: Fan Fiction: Auction Revelation, by
darkjediqueenThe Professionals: Fan Fiction: Torn in Two, by
lucy_romanGundam: Fanfic: Study, by
samuraiterTorchwood: Fanfic: SUV-mersible, by
m_findlowBuffy the Vampire Slayer: Fanfic: Guilt and Pain, by
veronyxk84Guardian: fanfic: Winging It, by
china_shopGreek Myth: Fanfic: In the Family, by
drabblewriterIron Man - Marvel 616 : icons : Do ALL the Science!, by
highlander_iiOriginal Fiction: The Science Behind Shame, by
analogbasiliskScience: City of Streamers: fanfic: by the fancy tie round your wicked throat, by
teaotterCongratulations to
lucy_roman, who earned a name tag!\o/ \o/ \o/
Thank you to everyone who participated! You're now free to post your entries to your journal or wherever else you'd like. If you're archiving on AO3, you can add your work to our fan_flashworks collection there.
New challenge coming right up!