We have the following Pinch Hits looking for a loving home. See below for general details. More specific information can be found by clicking the links. All previous Pinch Hit posts are no longer being updated.

All current pinch hits are due by 11:00 AM UTC on 1 February 2026.

This year, we will do a pinch hitter treats sign-up post, so that anyone creating a pinch hit fanwork who is not signed up for the main exchange is able to potentially get a treat made for them - you can check this post for more info.

Before you start your assignment, please make sure to familiarise yourself with the exchanges rules, including fanwork minimums.

( CLAIMED! #2: Riverdale (TV 2017), Glee (TV 2009), Person of Interest (TV)  )

( CLAIMED! - #4: Dead by Daylight (Video Game), Borderlands (Video Games), Pocket Monsters: Black & White | Pokemon Black and White Versions  )

( CLAIMED! - #7: Disco Elysium (Video Game), Final Fantasy VIII, The Locked Tomb Series | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir  )

( CLAIMED! - #17: Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga), LEGO Ninjago (Cartoon 2011-2022), Miraculous Ladybug, Bungou Stray Dogs, Nanatsu no Taizai | The Seven Deadly Sins - Suzuki Nakaba (Anime & Manga) )

If you're interested in claiming any of these pinch hits, send an e-mail to holly.poly.exchange@gmail.com with your AO3 name or reply to this post. (Comments are screened.)

Collection: https://ao3.org/collections/holly_poly_2025
Tag Set: https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/25541
Tumblr: https://holly-poly.tumblr.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/holly_poly_ex
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/holly-poly.bsky.social
Google Groups - Holly Poly Updates: https://groups.google.com/g/holly-poly-updates
Google Groups - Holly Poly Pinchhits: https://groups.google.com/g/holly-poly-pinchhit

The deadline has passed. We are currently in the process of checking for any Post Deadline Pinch Hits, which will be posted soon.

If you don't have a gift yet, don't panic! We are approving fanworks as fast as we can. Additionally, some people have been granted 48-hour extensions.

The collection has been reopened for treats and works that will be coming along post deadline. Check this post for more info on posting treats.

We'll be working hard reviewing and approving works during the following days. If your work has not been approved yet but you have not received an email from us, don't worry, we're still working on the queue.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave a comment. Comments on this post are NOT screened but Anon is available. You can also reach us at holly.poly.exchange@gmail.com


Collection: https://ao3.org/collections/holly_poly_2025
Tag Set: https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/25541
Tumblr: https://holly-poly.tumblr.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/holly_poly_ex
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/holly-poly.bsky.social
Google Groups - Holly Poly Updates: https://groups.google.com/g/holly-poly-updates
Google Groups - Holly Poly Pinchhits: https://groups.google.com/g/holly-poly-pinchhits

This is a reminder that the deadline for posting your assignment is 11:00am UTC on 25 January 2026, which is less than a day away. Please click here to see a countdown.

Please remember that we're only allowing extensions of 48 hours as standard. If you'll need one, send an e-mail to holly.poly.exchange@gmail.com before the deadline gets here.

We have two outstanding Pinch Hits that we really need a creator for so reveals can move forward as planned. Check out the latest Pinch Hit post to see them.

Posting your assignment

You have two ways of posting your assignment:

1. RECOMMENDED - Go to your Assignments page (https://archiveofourown.org/users/[YOURUSERNAME]/assignments), find Holly Poly 2025 and click Fulfill. AO3 will fill in the collection and recipient details automatically so you just need to fill in the rest.
2. Go to the AO3 Collection and click Post to Collection. Fill in the deatils as any other work you post on AO3. Don't forget to add your recipient in the field Gift this work to (copy/paste your recipient's username to make sure you have the correct one).

Posting your Treats

To post a Treat for someone you weren't assigned to, for a Pinch Hitter (find Pinch Hitter requests here), or to the Collection:

1. Go to the AO3 Collection and click Post to Collection. Fill in the deatils as any other work you post on AO3. Don't forget to add your recipient in the field Gift this work to (copy/paste your recipient's username to make sure you have the correct one).

Make certain that your assignment is actually posted by the deadline and not still a draft.

• For fics, if you're posting something that's multiple chapters then make certain all chapters have been posted by the deadline. If a work is still clearly unfinished at the deadline, it will not count as being posted even if you've started to post it.
• For podfics, check you're able to stream/download your work properly. We'll be checking for placeholders.
• For art, moodboards, gifs and videos, make sure you've embedded the correct work and that it is publicly viewable. Double check your image is hosted properly and won't be taken down before reveals.
• For fanmixes, make sure your fanmix is publicly available and that all songs listed on the tracklist are available

We'll be working hard reviewing and approving works during the following days. If your work has not been approved yet but you have not received an email from us, don't worry, we're still working on the queue.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave a comment. Comments on this post are NOT screened but Anon is available. You can also reach us at holly.poly.exchange@gmail.com


Collection: https://ao3.org/collections/holly_poly_2025
Tag Set: https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/25541
Tumblr: https://holly-poly.tumblr.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/holly_poly_ex
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/holly-poly.bsky.social
Google Groups - Holly Poly Updates: https://groups.google.com/g/holly-poly-updates
Google Groups - Holly Poly Pinchhits: https://groups.google.com/g/holly-poly-pinchhits

In the spirit of enjoying the process more than the product, I've been picking up an old hobby this month: collecting alphabets.

I was feeling a bit nostalgic for language learning in December, and I thought that in January I might study Arabic or Mandarin, since I already have textbooks for those, and maybe I should try to keep up my French ... and then I watched Kpop Demon Hunters.

In university I taught myself Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, because it's really cool. It was invented by King Sejong in 1443 specifically so that peasants could learn to read without having to learn Chinese characters.

한글 (Hangeul) doesn't look like an alphabet if you're used to western ones, but each of the character blocks is actually made up of separable letters. So (simplification) ㅂ is b or p, and 비빔밥 is bibimbap, and you can see ㅂ in four places in that word, three times at the beginning of a syllable (upper left) and once at the end.

The thing is, my goal is not actually to learn Korean. If I wanted to be able to have a conversation or watch a movie in Korean, I would need to take a class so I could actually hear it spoken and make sure I was pronouncing the sounds correctly and practice using it with real human beings. It's awkward having both an interest in languages and social anxiety.

If I had done that in university, I might have remembered the alphabet over the intervening 15 years, instead of forgetting 90% of it because all I used it for is sounding out signs.

But I like being able to sound out words, even if I never pick up the vocabulary properly. It makes me feel like I am part of a multicultural society. So I got a Korean textbook from the library, and I'm going through it focusing on learning to read, but also finding out interesting things about Korean language and culture as I go. (Two sets of numbers!)

I thought I still had Korean flashcards I'd made in university, but it turns out they're actually from when I tried to learn Arabic. When I think I've gotten what I can from this book maybe I'll try Arabic again.

About this time last year I read a book on statistics and then one on combinatorics, making notes and doing the math exercises. They didn't stick as much as I hoped they would, but I enjoyed studying them anyway.