Rarest of Rarepairs 2025

[toothpastepancake]

It's back for another year!

Welcome to the Rarest of Rarepairs ficathon, a ficathon designed to get more fic for your favorite rarepairs out into the world! This one is for the ultra rare ones—-50 works or under on AO3. (This is slightly changed from last year's 65.)

AO3 Collection

Schedule: 

Prompting and Fills open: October 13, 2025
Prompting Closes: January 25, 2026

Fills will remain open after prompting closes.

Info:
-Any medium, even if it is called a ficathon. I don't really care. 
-Any rating!
-No minimum or maximum but fills must be complete.
-You may prompt RPF as long as the individuals involved are over 18.
-You don’t have to fill something to leave a prompt. The more prompts, the merrier!
-One prompt per comment, please.
-Prompts (except “any” prompts) and prompted works must be for ships with 50 fics or under on AO3 ( in the tag using English language works filtered with otp:true) (we're not taking into account other fanfiction archives for this round.)
-You may link to the fill if it is posted elsewhere. Regardless of where it is posted, please include warnings or say choose not to warn.
-If you'd like me to count your fills at the end of the event and award a badge, please post under the fills thread too.
-You may combine these with other events, as long as the other event allows it and there is no anonymous period.
-Canon couples/small fandoms absolutely welcome!

Posting Prompts:
Post the prompt in the following format: “Fandom: Ship - Prompt”
For example:
”Babylon 5: Susan/Na’toth - Undisclosed Desires”
-“Any fandom” and “any relationship” allowed and encouraged!
For example:
“Any: Any/Any - Demon AU”
”Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Any/Any - up too late”
 

Posting fills:
-Reply to the comment with either your fill under a cut or a link to your fill. 

Have fun, and let’s get the creativity flowing for your favorite underappreciated ships!

This year, there are ship-themed (haha get it) badges to award, based on elasticella 's Hotties Haunting The Narrative event! They can be seen below.

Comments

Questions, comments, etc!

[toothpastepancake]

Questions? Comments?

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[lumiosecity]

Are there any rules with regards to RPF and adjacent fandoms? I’ve gotten into wrestling lately and have some prompts in mind, but I don’t want to step on any toes.

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[toothpastepancake]

Ooh good question! I'll add this to the post but RPF is chill as long as everyone involved is over eighteen.

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[lumiosecity]

gotcha!! thanks for letting me know. :]

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[penaconysprincess]

Is it possible to use more than one prompt when creating media? While, of course, It'd be one fill/fic/etc, would it be against any sort of guideline to be inspired to use, for example, two prompts? What would your rules on that be like?

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[toothpastepancake]

You can totally do that!

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[harlow_turner_chaotic_ace]

Will there be an Ao3 collection for the fest?

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[toothpastepancake]

It's Here! I've also added it to the post. :) Thank you!

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[torturedpoetskywalker]

I just wanna say I loved this, thank you for hosting!!

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[merryfortune]

I'm so excited, I loved this event last year so much!! I hope to write just as many fics o77
//its funny, I was planning my own bootleg version of this event but it seems I've been beaten to the punch haha

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[(Anonymous)]

Would original characters and/or original works be allowed as prompts and fills?

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[toothpastepancake]

For wholly original works, I would say that's probably out of the scope of this event. However, for [canon character]/OC works I'd say that's fine since OCs are typically individual to the creator and therefore the rarest of rares :P

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[the_no_name_system]

Are self-fills allowed? That is to say, are we allowed to fill our own prompt?

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[toothpastepancake]

Yes totally!

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[vampiricdelicacies]

Hi! I'm very new to this and dreamwidth! Aside from posting the work on ao3, how do I properly fill the prompt? Do I just comment with a link when I'm finished? And if a prompt is already filled am I allowed to fill it as well if I want? Thank you!!!

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[toothpastepancake]

Sorry for the late reply! Yep, you just comment with a link, and anyone can fill any prompt even if it's already been filled! thank you :)

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[torturedpoetskywalker]

Is it only for romantic ships? Or are platonic/friendships allowed too?

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[toothpastepancake]

This round will be focusing on romantic/sexual dynamics, I think!

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[(Anonymous)]

Can we write fills for a prompt that's already been filled?

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[toothpastepancake]

Yep of course!

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[greeby]

Are there any plans to make some kind of list post for the current prompts? There are now so many that it's easy for some of them to get lost in the shuffle.

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[toothpastepancake]

Unfortunately no--I tried to do this with another event but found myself far too busy to reliably keep up with it, my apologies.

Prompts List Spreadsheet

[badass_tiger]

Here it is!

Sorted by fandom. Let me know if this looks okay or if anything needs changed, added, or if there are any mistakes (some prompts were formatted in a way that confused me since I wasn't familiar with the fandoms so I might be a bit mixed up on them)! I'll update this every few days but feel free to poke me if it's been a while, I probably just forgot :)

Re: Prompts List Spreadsheet

[deadheaddaisy]

This is really helpful - thanks! I guess at this stage the links are only to the prompts and the fills will only be on AO3?

Re: Questions, comments, etc!

[deadheaddaisy]

Are crossovers allowed for this event - whether within the franchise (e.g. Star Trek) or completely different fandoms (e.g. Star Trek/Stargate)?