Navigation: Rules | AO3 Collection | Tagset | Nomination guidelines | Information for Authors of Recursive Fandoms
General
Who can participate?
There are no age restrictions so long as you are old enough to have an account on Archive of Our Own... but you will need an AO3 account to sign up. We'd love your participation in any form — writing, drawing, betaing, cheerleading, commenting, etc!
What if I don't have an AO3 account?
Because this is an AO3-based exchange, you'll definitely need an AO3 account for nominations, sign ups, and posting your assignment. You can sign up for an invite here; the queue is really short now. I also have a small stockpile of invites I can hand out!
What am I committing to by signing up?
All participants who sign up will produce a fanwork for another participant as a gift! In return, they will be gifted a fanwork by another participant. Creators and their recipients will at minimum be matched on one medium (fic or art) and one relationship/character. Participants won't know who their creator is until after the anonymous period ends.
Creators must produce works that match one of the requests their recipient made, including:
- the correct medium
- at least one relationship/character tag
Creators must avoid their recipient's Do Not Wants (DNWs) and all participants must include the DNWs they want enforced in their AO3 sign up.
All other optional details are optional, although of course you should aim to make something you think your recipient will like.
What are optional details?
Archive of Our Own has a text box where optional details can be added to your request after you add the tags you want to match on. You can use it to let your creator know what kinds of things you enjoy in the fanwork type you're requested — for example, a fic author might want to know that you like canon divergence, or missing scenes from canon, or time travel, and so on.
What are DNWs and how to do they work?
A Do Not Want list lets you specify elements that would prevent you from enjoying your gift. A DNW could be a trigger, squick, something you really dislike, or just something you don't want to receive. This helps creators make a better gift for you!
- You should put all your DNWs in your AO3 sign up; otherwise I can't enforce them.
- The standard formatting is simply "DNW:" followed by a list separated by commas.
- Don't use your DNW section to try to force your creator to create a specific type of work.
- Reasonable: "DNW: Clowns, sickfic, second person POV"
- Unreasonable: "DNW: Fic where ninja exist; art that isn't a coffee shop AU"
Clear and specific DNWs are most helpful, although creators can ask questions through the mod if they need clarification.
If you find yourself needing to clarify your DNWs in your sign up or to me via email, please do so by explaining HOW the DNW can be avoided and not WHY.
- Unhelpful WHY explanation: "DNW: Kakuzu or Hidan (because they're gross and I hate them ugh)"
- Helpful HOW explanation: "DNW: Kakuzu or Hidan (one-sentence mentions are okay, but I DNW focus on them or for them to be present in my gift)"
What are the content restrictions?
There are no content restrictions except for your recipient's DNWs.
Nominations
What are nominated tags for?
Tags in the tagset are the only things participants can sign up to offer/request and then match on — it's a way of making sure we're all consistent in the tags we use when we sign up so that half of us aren't offering Character A & Character B and the other half Character B & Character A, since those tags wouldn't be able to match to each other.
If I nominate tags, does that mean I have to participate?
No. Please nominate tags that you want to match on even if you're only vaguely thinking of signing up or treating, because otherwise you'll be stuck with what other people have nominated.
My nomination(s) haven't been accepted! Why?
Well, for one, the tagset approval process is kind of wonky and disorganized, so I can only see so many tags at once. Maybe I just haven't gotten to yours yet! There might be other tags to go to first, or I went to bed, or something. You should also check out the nomination clarification posts to see if I've asked you to correct your tag or explain why you think a character should be eligible or something.
My nomination(s) were rejected! Why?
Maybe you nominated a character who doesn't qualify for the exchange... or maybe your nomination was really close to a nomination we already have.... or maybe I made a mistake! Rejected tags should be listed in the nominations clarification posts. If you don't see anything that explains your rejection, comment on the most recent clarifications post to ask me about it.
My nomination(s) were accepted but I just noticed an error/typo. What do I do?
This happens to all of us. Please comment on the most recent clarifications post so that I can fix it. There will also be a short period of tagset clean up to look for errors and duplicates before sign ups open. If sign ups have already opened and someone has already used the tag, I'm sorry to say it's basically too late.
Why do we need to use & None for single characters?/Why do we need to add the fandom after every relationship?
On AO3, you can't have identical tags in different sections and all tagset tags are connected to the tags we use on works. That's why you sometimes see tags with - Character, - Freeform, or -Relationship added on to tags. We're nominating both relationships and characters in the Relationships category for this exchange, which simplifies matching, but it does mean that we're definitely 100% nominating tags in the wrong category for single characters! Using & None is just being good AO3 community members.
Disambiguating with fandoms is both for clarity in case the relationship becomes unassociated with the fandom you nominated it under and to help reduce "tag drift" which is this annoying thing AO3 does where it makes a relationship you nominated in one fandom show up in other fandoms.
Sign Ups
What happens if there's no one I can make a fanwork for?
If you have no possible recipients at the end of sign-ups — meaning, no other participants are requesting any of the combinations of tags you're offering, making you unmatchable — I will contact you via your AO3 account-associated email address. You will need to either add more offers or drop out of the exchange.
What happens if there's no one who can make a fanwork for me?
If you have no possible creators at the end of sign-ups — meaning, either no other participants are offering any of the relationship tags you're requesting or that the people offering those things were assigned to other requests — you will go out to pinch hits. Pinch hits will be posted to this dreamwidth community.
How do I sign up? What should I put in my optional details?
Please see the sign ups post, when it's up.
Assignments
When will I get my assignment? What will it look like?
You'll get your assignment as soon as I've run matching and made sure everyone has an appropriate assignment. This may be delayed by people being unmatchable, but hopefully not!
When you get your assignment, you'll be sent an email to the email account associated with your AO3. It will contain a copy of every request your recipient made, not just the request you matched on. You do not need to make something for all of their requests and you do not need to create for the request that you matched on. You just need to create something that fulfilled one of their requests in medium, relationship, and lack of DNWs.
What if I can't fit my recipient's optional details into their gift?
You don't have to! Optional details are optional. You have to respect their DNWs, but otherwise it's okay if you need to ignore the rest of their optional details to complete your assignment. In this exchange, freeform tags are considered optional details.
What if I don't know how to avoid a DNW, or need to ask my recipient something else?
You should email me at dreamingofexchange@gmail.com. I will pass the question(s) along.
Do I have to get my assignment beta'd?
No, but it would be nice if you did! We'll have a post where people can offer to beta and be contacted by creators, if you need help finding one, or you can find your own beta. Creators should please not publically ask for betaing on exchange works on the discord and should in general be very vague about their assignment in all public places, so as to preserve anonymity.
What if I can't complete my assignment?
You should default as soon as possible so I can find a pinch hitter.
To default, find your assignment under "Assignments" on your AO3 dashboard and click on "default."
If you default and your creator defaults as well, you will not be assigned a pinch hitter.
There is a "default deadline" on May 16th. You can default at any time, however, if you default after May 16th, you will need to create and post another gift to the collection if you want to participate in future rounds of the exchange. See more about this in the rules post.
Art
I don't draw, but I do graphics/photo manipulation/icons/mood boards/etc. Can I sign up to be an artist?
Unfortunately, no. As explained above, art for this exchange is expected to be drawn, except if someone opts-in to receive something else.
I'm requesting art and I would be excited to receive graphics/photo manipulation/icons/mood boards/etc, though!
Great! Put it in your optional details/letter and hopefully your assigned artist will want to do that or you'll get a treat! You can't match on it, unfortunately.
How do I post my art on AO3 anonymously?
To post an image on AO3, use this code:
To post anonymously, avoid these things:
- Signing your work.
- Posting your work publicly before the anonymous period is up.
- Using a image link that has your username in it.
I like to use imgur.com to host images, but you could also save a tumblr post as a draft and use that, or any other solution you prefer. Once the anonymous period is up, feel free to re-upload your work with a signature and post it wherever you want, obviously. Please also leave it up on AO3 in the collection, though, because it's a gift to your recipient!
I'm worried about art theft, though, so I want to sign my work./I'm uncomfortable not having any attribution on my work, even for a week.
I understand! The anonymous period is important and fun, though, so I'd really prefer if you didn't. Instead, when you're ready to upload, consider making a blank work first (with empty code, you know) and then adding the AO3 work URL to the art as a watermark.
You could also just wait until the anonymous period is over and post your gift to the collection then as a treat instead of signing up to create.
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