Seasons of Drabbles - Summer Round 2025
Jul. 26th, 2025 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
littlefics posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
seasonsofdrabbles
Seasons of Drabbles is an exchange for the creation of drabbles and drabble variants. It will run once per season*. The current round is for summer 2025.
*4x per year, with each round taking place sometime within a three-month period (March-May, June-August, September-November, December-February). Each round will take about a month from nominations through author reveals.
Schedule:
Nominations open: Monday, July 28 (will remain open through signups)
Signups open: Monday, August 4
Signups close: Monday, August 11 @ 11:59pm Eastern Daylight time (Countdown)
Assignments out by: Wednesday, August 13
Assignments due: Saturday, August 23 @ 11:59pm Eastern Daylight time (Countdown)
Collection opens: Saturday, August 30 @ 1:00pm Eastern Daylight time (Countdown)
Authors revealed: Monday, September 1 @ 1:00pm Eastern Daylight time
This round's AO3 Collection | Tagset | Nomination guidelines | Requests App | Mod email: seasonsofdrabbles@gmail.com
Need to contact us or have a question? See the Mod Contact post!
New rule as of July 2025: We have a new rule this round that participants cannot opt out of single drabbles. In other words, you are still welcome to request/offer other drabble types, but you cannot exclude single drabbles from your offers or requests. We will let you know via the email associated with your AO3 account if we notice you've left out single drabbles in your signup. Matching and signups will otherwise work the same as before.
Have questions? Expand the "Key Info on the Rule Change" section below for more info. If your question is still not answered, please get in touch via email or the Mod Contact Post.
Key Info on the Rule Change
Q: Why make this rule change?A: Since this is an event celebrating drabbles, we thought it made sense for a 100-word single drabble to be the minimum that participants can expect to write or receive. We received the suggestion from a participant and put it up to a community poll, where a strong majority were in favor of the rule change.
Q: How does this rule change affect how I sign up?
A: It affects the signup process itself very little. You can still select the fandoms, characters, and drabble types you are interested in writing or receiving. You are still free to request or offer longer drabble types. You can still check "Any". However, you can no longer exclude the "Drabble" tag from your signup.
Q: What happens if I don't include single drabbles in my signup?
A: We will reach out to you via the email associated with your AO3 account and offer two options: we can either edit the signup to add single drabbles, or remove your signup. Participants who don’t get back to us by the end of the grace period (12 hours after signups close) will have their signup removed.
Q: How will matching work?
A: Since everyone is requesting or offering single drabbles, you are effectively matchable with anyone requesting/offering the same fandom AND character. However, drabble types are still a matching criterion. In other words, people who want to write/request other drabble types would still be more likely to match with each other. For example, all things being equal, someone requesting Single Drabble and Triple Drabble is more likely (not guaranteed) to match with someone offering Single Drabble and Triple Drabble, than with someone only offering Single Drabble, or someone offering Single Drabble and Single Drabble Series/Sequence.
Q: Do I have to write single drabbles to participate?
A: If you have matched to someone who has only requested the "Drabble" freeform tag, then yes, you have to write a 100-word drabble for your assignment. If they have requested other drabble types, though, you are welcome to write any of them for your recipient.
Q: What if I don't like this rule change or it ends up sucking?
A: We tried implementing the rule change in a way that caused the least disruption on the participant side of things, but we will be soliciting feedback at the end of the round. If you have opinions or ideas you'd like to share at that time, we would love to hear them. This is admittedly a test run.
Guidelines
Definitions: A (single) drabble is a fic of exactly 100 words; a double drabble is a fic of exactly 200 words; a triple drabble is a fic of exactly 300 words; and a drabble series/sequence is a set of at least two drabbles within the same continuity. Quadruple drabbles and greater are NOT allowed in this event.
Drabble series/sequences: Drabble sequence/series are divided into 4 types. The available freeforms are Drabble Series/Sequence (Single Drabbles), Drabble Series/Sequence (Double Drabbles), Drabble Series/Sequence (Triple Drabbles), Drabble Series/Sequence (Mix & Match).
A Drabble Series/Sequence (Single Drabbles) consists of two or more single drabbles (100 words) in the same continuity. A Drabble Series/Sequence (Double Drabbles) consists of two or more double drabbles (200 words) in the same continuity. A Drabble Series/Sequence (Triple Drabbles) consists of two or more triple drabbles (300 words) in the same continuity. A Drabble Series/Sequence (Mix & Match) consists of two or more single, double, and/or triple drabbles within the same continuity, with the mix of drabble types up to the author's discretion.
A drabble series/sequence consists of multiple related drabbles, with each drabble making up a distinct part. Each part should be reasonably able to stand alone—though, just like a book or movie series, they can be deeply connected and it's fine if a later drabble requires the context of an earlier part in order to make sense. If you want to see examples, browse through some of the fics posted for past rounds!
Nominations: You may nominate fandoms and characters you want to see in the tagset, with a maximum of 10 fandoms with up to 10 characters each. Please disambiguate your nominations to make the mods' jobs easier. More guidelines are in a separate nominations post. The tagset will be reused for subsequent rounds in the rest of year; as a result, nominations will be wiped ahead of each new round to allow you to nominate new fandoms/characters for that round.
Fandoms: We welcome a wide range of fandoms and permit RPF, original works, crossovers, and recursive fandoms. Note that we do have some restrictions for RPF (regarding age and notability), recursive fandoms (regarding permissions), and use of generative AI (see the note up top). More information can be found in the nominations post.
Requests: You will request 3-10 fandoms with 1-20 characters each. Each request must include at least one freeform (Drabble, Double Drabble, Triple Drabble, Drabble Series/Sequence (Various)). You may request Any for the character section, but please note that Any = any character in the canon (NOT just the tagset). Additionally, as of this round, you cannot opt out of single drabbles. In other words, you are still welcome to request other drabble types, but you cannot exclude single drabbles from your requests.
Offers: You will offer 3-10 fandoms with 1-20 characters each. Each offer must include at least one freeform (Drabble, Double Drabble, Triple Drabble, Drabble Series/Sequence (Various)). You may offer Any, but please note that unless your recip requested Any as well, you will be expected to write about one of the specific characters they are asking for. (If they did request Any, you may write about any character from their requested canon.) Additionally, as of this round, you cannot opt out of single drabbles. In other words, you are still welcome to offer other drabble types, but you cannot exclude single drabbles from your offers.
Matching: Matching is OR matching. You are guaranteed to match on one character, one fandom, and one drabble type, though it is possible that you match on more than one of any of those criteria.
Optional details: Blank signups are allowed, but you are strongly encouraged to include some likes or prompts in your signup. This may include ships, though you are not guaranteed to receive shipfic. Only reasonable DNWs included in your AO3 signup will be enforced.
DNWs (Do Not Wants): Reasonable DNWs are clear and do not attempt to railroad your author into writing one specific thing. If you are unsure about your own or someone else's DNW, please contact the mods.
Letters: You may write a letter, but should have them done prior to assignments going out. Even if you do write a letter, you are strongly encouraged to include some likes or prompts in your signup. There will not be a letter section of the signup form, so you'll have to add the URL to the main text box.
Assignments: When you receive your assignment, you will write a drabble for your recipient. Your drabble must be for a fandom and character they requested, must be a length they requested, and must not include reasonable DNWs from their AO3 signup. We consider crossovers to be unrequested fandoms unless opted into/requested. Do not put de-anonymizing information in your fic or author's notes (e.g., links to social media) until after the anon period is over.
Length: Since AO3 may count words differently than your writing software, there's some slight wiggle room re: the length of your drabble. That said, try to keep within within a few words of the expected length. For example, a 97 word drabble would be fine, but a 75 word drabble would not be. Specifically, your posted drabble should be no more than 5 words away from a number ending in 100 (unless you have a reason you can point to for the discrepancy, such as punctuation adding extra words to AO3's count).
Treats: We highly encourage treats! They must be for a fandom and character the recipient requested, must be a length they requested, and must not include reasonable DNWs from their AO3 signup. Drabble treats that do not fit any recipient's request may be posted to the collection without a recipient. The same gift should not be gifted to multiple people. Treats can be posted anytime!
Defaulting: If you cannot complete your drabble by the deadline, please default on AO3. If you default and your assigned writer then defaults on you, you will not go to pinch hit.
Extensions: We will not offer extensions for assignments.
Pinch hits: All pinch hits will be posted on the Dreamwidth comm. There will most likely be just the two batches (initial and post-deadline) unless more than a handful come in by the middle of the writing period.
Writing & anon period: Given the length of a drabble, the timescale is also shorter than in most exchanges. The writing period is 10 days, while the anon period is only 48 hours. The time between the assignments deadline and collection opening is for pinch hits and treats.
Multiple signups: If you sign up with multiple sock accounts intending to write a nice drabble for each of your recips, that's fine. Anything else, isn't.
Expectations: This exchange runs under the "don't be a jerk" rule. Don't write DNWs, don't skirt around the edges of DNWs, don't claim someone wrote your DNW when they clearly didn't, don't harass other participants or the mods for any reason. Please operate in good faith and assume others are doing the same.
Participants must be 18+. We won't be actively checking participants' ages, but if someone brings a violation to our attention, we'll enforce the rule.
Generative AI: As of June 2024, canons and gifts that are wholly or significantly created through generative* AI are prohibited from this event. Such canons cannot be nominated, requested, or offered, and giving such gifts may result in a ban. We recognize this is an evolving issue, so please feel free to offer feedback or ask questions.
*By generative AI, we mean tools that create new content. Things like spell-check or translation are not included in our definition of generative AI.
Any questions, concerns, suggested additions - please ask!
no subject
Date: 2025-08-02 12:06 am (UTC)(When you ran the straw poll, I'd been assuming that single drabble would be taken out of the freeform list, since it would allowed by default for every assignment, and that freeforms would become opt-ins rather than a matching criteria.)
no subject
Date: 2025-08-02 03:39 am (UTC)In addition, with this setup people who want to write/request certain longer drabble types would still be more likely to match with each other. For example, all things being equal, someone requesting Single Drabble and Triple Drabble is more likely to match with someone offering Single Drabble and Triple Drabble, than with someone only offering Single Drabble, or someone offering Single Drabble and Single Drabble Series/Sequence.
We'll telegraph this change widely when signups begin, and at the end of the round, we'll seek feedback, including on potential alternate setups like the one you describe. We'd love to hear your thoughts about ways to improve the system after the first test run!
no subject
Date: 2025-08-02 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-04 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-04 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-04 02:18 pm (UTC)