Time Begins on Opening Day 2026: a baseball RPF prompt meme for everyone
Any league in the world, any team you love, any person in the 150+ year history of this sport - everyone’s welcome. The prompt meme covers the entire 2026 MLB season, from Opening Day on March 26 to Winter Meetings in December.
Fills must prominently include at least one baseball player who lived, breathed, and played in real life. Pairing prompts must include at least one real baseball player. General non-team/player prompts must involve baseball RPF in some way. Fandom and RPF crossovers are welcome, but all fills and prompts must prominently include at least one real life player.
ABOUT (on ao3)
FAQ
RULES
☀️ Schedule ☀️
March 26: prompts AND posting open
July 14: Soft Deadline #1
September 27: Soft Deadline #2
December, TBD: Final Deadline, collection closes for prompting and posting
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if you're gearing up for the wpbl, the qualifying stages of the women's baseball world cup began play today (7/22/26) with its first 6-team bracket. group rockford is playing in rockford, illinois and is comprised of the national teams from Australia (#10); Canada (#3); Hong Kong, China (#8); Korea (#12); Mexico (#4); and the USA (#2). they'll be competing in a 5-day round robin tournament with the top 3 teams advancing to the finals in 2027, also hosted in rockford, alongside the top three teams from group tainan who are scheduled to play in taiwan in august.
games are played each day from the 22nd through the 26th at 11am, 3pm, and 7pm (central) and are streaming for free in the us and canada on the bally live sports mobile and tv apps, with mexico airing on TVC Deportes 1 and 2. those in the area who can't make it to rivets stadium can check their local programming for broadcasts, while international fans are being directed to W-Sport and All-Women's Sports Network (AWSN).
the rockford group will have over two dozen signed wpbl players who will turn around to begin the league's inaugural season just five days after the conclusion of this world cup stage, with Canada bringing (9), the US (8), Australia (4), Mexico (4), and Korea (1)
boston hunters: hyeonah kim (korea), maria josé valenzuela & edith de leija (mexico), molly paddison & ticara geldenhuis (australia), raine padgham & alli schroeder (canada), kate blunt (usa)
san francisco firebells: rosi del castillo (mexico), ela day-bédard & andréanne leblanc & liz gilder (canada), jill albayati & kelsie whitmore & alexia jorge (usa)
los angeles queens: caitlyn eynon (australia), michelle roche (canada), ashton lansdell & meggie meidlinger (usa)
new york heights: diana ibarra (mexico), claire o'sullivan (australia), madison willan & jaida lee & claire eccles (canada), denae benites & kylee lahners (usa)
full game schedule under the cut
all times in central
note: 7/27 has been marked for make-ups in case of weather delay
Hi. Twice in the text blurbs on ao3 you have mistyped opening day as the 27th instead of the 26th. I don't think this really matters but just letting you know <3
Thank you for the head's up! I was setting the dates up last night while ripshit mad at Netflix for paywalling my team on Opening Night so was bound to miss some stuff 🥲
The Time Begins on Opening Day baseball RPF prompt meme just closed for this year, so I made a comment bingo card! Comment on works that fit those categories (get 3 in a row, 2 lines, or all 9 spots, whatever you want) and if you feel like it, post your card and link the fanworks as a rec list!
Have fun and leave some nice comments! There are over 100 works (fic, visual art, poems, zines...), so there's lots to enjoy!
@timebegins-onopeningday
If you want a few bonus comment challenges:
Comment on a work with a song lyric title (and listen to the song)
Comment on a work from a previous year’s collection that you’re discovering for the first time, or that you’re coming back to again
Comment on 2 works that responded to the same prompt
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Reminder that the prompt meme closes at 12pm ET (2 hours from now) for the year. We'll be back in March 2026 OF COURSE, but this is your reminder to get your works in for this year!
Thank you for another great year!! We'll be back at the end of March as usual. Keep an eye out in January/February for some updates to the prompt meme. And your mod will hopefully be a little more proactive next year too :')
ALSO! If any of you make rec lists, round-up lists, bingo cards for comments, any of that, please tag the blog so I can reblog! I always love to see the community-building projects you all make and would be more than happy to spread them around.
Reminder that the prompt meme closes at 12pm ET (2 hours from now) for the year. We'll be back in March 2026 OF COURSE, but this is your reminder to get your works in for this year!
hi! i have a fic that's taking a little longer to write, but it'll be multichaptered - if i post the 1st chapter by the deadline, does that still count for the collection? i can post the other chapter/s very soon after!
Yup that's fine! We've had that happen before. As long as the first chapter is in, it's all good.
hi! any idea what the hard deadline is going to be? thank you!
YES my apologies to all of you beautiful creators, my attention has been elsewhere (<- mental health tanked the second half of the year).
December 13 is the hard deadline! The prompt meme will be closed for all submissions at 12pm ET on December 13. And then we'll have a couple months break before we're back in March 🎉
I will have some slight changes for next year, but the main one is I will be looking for a co-moderator sometime this winter (post-hard deadline) once I figure out what specifically I need help with. Keep an eye on the blog.
Thank you all for your beautiful works and your creativity this year!!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Hi hi!! Quick question, I’m filling out a new prompt for my sign up and I want to add a new ship tag! Which is Will Smith/Yoshinobu Yamamoto! But it wouldn’t let me submit it due to it and I need to ask the moderator to add new tags, can you add it for me? If not then that’s alright :) idk why it isn’t letting me summit my sign up prompt with a new ship tag in it
Hello! So I cannot add new ship tags based on how the prompt meme works. You can tag the players (if they have tags) and then write the pairing like this in the text box:
Pairing: Will Smith/Yoshinobu Yamamoto
[Prompt text]
The prompt meme will allow you to leave a prompt without any tags, players, or pairings, so hopefully that will work for you!
I have a longer explanation here if you're interested (we've run into this before), but the tl;dr is that I can't add new tags after we open the prompt meme because of how the collection is set up on AO3's end.
Thank you for asking!! Galaxy brain pairing omg I hope we see it!!
Hi mod! Any end of summer updates we should know about?
Hi hello!
End of summer updates:
Soft Deadline #2 is on SEPTEMBER 28 🌞
Our Hard Deadline still tbd since I think we're still waiting to hear when Winter Meetings are but prob around the second week of December again
I am cooking up some small sub-challenges and games for our Time Begins crew for later in September -> December. Would include challenges for both commenting and creating. TBD 👀
I think that's it! I apologize for being a way less involved mod this year, I bit off much more than I could chew this year fannishly and some severe health challenges have had me scrambling for most of the spring/summer. We WILL be back next year (I promised last year if there was a fiber arts fill I'd run this forever and @soyouwinagain said, bet. 🧡🫡) and hopefully I'll be less sick and more normal.
What are the soft deadlines? Do I need to have anything done by then?
Nope, you do not have to have anything done by then! Soft deadlines are just a mid-year deadline for people to aim for if they need a kind of arbitrary deadline. The collection does not close and there are no consequences for not finishing by the July or September soft deadlines.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
The new rule says "Everything added to the collection should be written this year, within the schedule of the prompt meme."
Would I be able to post a work that I started previously but that isn't finished yet and that I will finish during the event? Or do they have to be fully created during the event? I have a few WIPs languishing that I was thinking of continuing and posting here (mostly stuff I wasn't able to finish in time for last year's deadline)
Totally fine to post WIPs you started earlier and are only just finishing now! As long as the work was completed during the event timeline, it's welcome.
