I think I'm gonna sit Yuletide out this year. I'm definitely sitting out Festivids (again), though that's mostly because I don't feel like fighting with my vidding software - my interest in vidding in general has tanked since having to switch software, it's just too much hassle to be fun for me anymore. For Yuletide, I just...don't have a lot of panfandom energy right now. Skimming through the list of eligible fandoms this year, nothing particularly caught my eye, and my main default safety Yuletide fandom (History Boys, always) doesn't have my preferred characters in the character set. Even though I haven't actually matched on it in years, it's definitely a bit of a security blanket for me when it comes to signups. (I know, I should have nominated it myself, but I just plain missed the noms period, oops.)

Plus, I'm neck deep in writing and posting a longfic WIP already, and if I do somehow manage to finish that one in time for the holiday season, I've already got a Christmas-themed plotbunny that's been on the backburner since LAST year that I'd rather dive into instead. My brain is just very single-fandom-focused at the moment; nothing else interests me at all. It does this sometimes.

I'm always a bit bummed when I miss out on Yuletide, because I participated starting its very first year and kept that streak up for well over a decade - even in the few years I dropped out of fandom entirely (as a creator, at least), I still managed to drag myself back in to write a Yuletide fic. But the past few times I did participate, it kinda felt more like a chore than a hobby I do for fun - even though I do like the fics I wrote in the end! - and I'm just too burnt out in too many parts of my life right now to bring that sense of dread and drudgery into my primary source of escapism. So, yeah. Gonna give it a miss this year. Hopefully I'll be in a better mindset for a fun holiday exchange next year instead, because I do love Yuletide and Festivids and the little niche communities they provide, and hope they continue to do so for many years to come.