Round 3 Sign-Ups

[modzilla]

Sign-up instructions

Sign-ups are open at AO3. They will remain open until 11:59pm EDT, August 18.

Basics
-Ask for 4-10 fandoms, 1-10 "relationship" tags in each, and in each of your requests, tick at least one of the additional tags that specifies what kind of gift you're interested in.

-Offer 1-10 fandoms, 1-10 "relationship" tags in each, and in each of your offers, tick at least two of the additional tags that specifies what kind of gift you're willing to create.

-In fffx's tagset, the "relationships" field covers characters, relationships, and worldbuilding. fffx uses OR matching - you will get, or create, a gift focusing on one of those tags. The best way to request all the characters you want together is to select a single "relationship" tag that names all of them in your preferred configuration.

-You can repeat fandoms - ie, you can ask for Original Work twice. You still need 4 unique fandom requests. I have set up the form to require two different offers, but as long as you have someone you can create for, it doesn't matter to me if you are offering just one fandom with identical tags in each of your offers.

-Please list dealbreaking Do-Not-Wants in your sign-ups. You must also put some other, positive information about your interests in each request - this can be a likes list, some prompts, or just talking about what you like about the canon & characters.

Please consider your DNWs carefully. "DNW: unrequested relationships" might suit a 1k relationship-based exchange that also matches on freeforms like "trapped together in an elevator", but may cause stress to someone considering a longer plot. DNWs should give guidance but not constrict your author to a plot that is exponentially narrower than the possibilities of the tag you requested.

-Participants must be aged 18 or over.

-There is a space in Offers - Title - for "Notes to Mod". You can use this space to tell me more about your matching preferences, if you like. You can also leave it blank. If you have Do-Not-Match requests, I may follow up with you for more information.

-You are not eligible to sign up if you have not commented on previous gifts or discussed the situation with the mod. If you defaulted in the first (2020-2021) round, you are now eligible to sign up again whether or not you've posted a make-up work.


How the Additional Tags Work
If you request Fanart: 1 x 10-Page Comic, you will receive 1 gift that is a comic of at least 10 pages or at least 40 panels. (Ie, if there are 40 distinct panels, it can have 9 pages. If there are 10 full pages, it's okay if there are only 36 panels.)

If you request Fanart: 1 x 10-Page Comic OR 2 x 5-Page Comics at Artist's Discretion, you may receive 1 gift that is a comic of 10 pages or at least 40 panels, or you may receive 2 gifts of 2 comics that are each half that long. (If selecting that option, I recommend also selecting Fanart: 1 x 10-Page Comic - there are no drawbacks. But you don't have to.)

If you request Fanfic: 1 x 10000-Word Fic, you will receive 1 gift that is a fanfic of at least 10,000 words.

If you request Fanfic: 1 x 10000-Word Fic OR 2 x 5000-Word Fics at Author's Discretion, you may receive 1 gift that is a fanfic of at least 10,000 words, or you may receive 2 gifts of 2 fic that are each half that long. (If selecting that option, I recommend also selecting Fanfic: 1 x 10000-Word Fic - there are no drawbacks. But you don't have to.)

It is possible that if you select both Fanart: 1 x 10-Page Comic OR 2 x 5-Page Comics at Artist's Discretion AND Fanfic: 1 x 10000-Word Fic OR 2 x 5000-Word Fics at Author's Discretion, you may get two gifts, one of which is a 20-panel comic and 1 of which is a 5,000-word fic. It is possible that if you select "2 x 5" tags for more than one fandom, you will get half-length gifts from two different fandoms. This is up to your creators.

You have to offer two Additional Tags. If you are someone who creates only in 1 medium, you can select both the Fanart tags, or you can select both the Fanfic tags.


Unusual Things fffx Is Doing
Please be aware before you sign up that:

-Letters left incomplete or locked on September 10 will be removed from your sign-up. Please don't link to a letter (an external document containing prompts, general preferences, etc) unless you're confident you can complete it. Of course, you can't predict the future, but if you can't finish your letter ~3 weeks after sign-ups end (preferably earlier!), I believe it's better for everyone if your creator is set free to go ahead with their own ideas. I will send a reminder before removing your letter, but depending on what communication channels I can use or you can check, you may not see it. Letters, of course, are optional - you don't have to link one at all.

-This exchange requires you to put prompts, or general likes, or something you like about the canon, in the AO3 form. It doesn't have to be long or eloquent, but something other than your DNWs is required. Ie, Optional Details are only optional for creators - they are not completely optional for requesters.

-Please sign up with one account only.

-There are also extra deadlines - September 10 for asking to swap your assignment for any other assignment & for finishing your letter, and November 27 for confirming you're still committed to your assignment, as well as the posting deadline of January 21.

-You must comment on any gifts you receive or, if you cannot, discuss the situation with the mod.


Additional this year
I have approved a lot of tags in the style "[CHAR] & Member(s) of [GROUP]". I recommend, but won't enforce, saying explicitly in your request or letter whom you consider to be a member of the relevant GROUP, as a safeguard to ensure you and your creator are on the same page. This will also help me see how well it's working this year.

Additional nominations

The tag set is open again. You have 4 fandoms with 2 slots in each. Please only add nominations that you, personally, plan to request, or where you are adding them for a friend who intends to request them. Please note I will not be posting round-ups of new tags. I may need to ask for more information about your tags, especially if they're new fandoms or involve large groups.

Errors in tag set

There will inevitably be some. Feel free to let me know and I'll do what I can to sort them out (this may not be until sign-ups close). I mostly care about errors that could cause confusion.

Comments

[lirin_lirilla]

I just added a nomination for Adam Goodman & Julia Upjohn under "Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie" but I didn't notice that "Poirot - Agatha Christie" was already in the tagset and is synned to it, so AO3 automatically (& irreversibly) changed the fandom to that. You mentioned that you'd generally prefer to avoid subset fandoms, so do I need to keep this under the larger Poirot umbrella, or would it be possible to have Cat Among the Pigeons as a separate fandom? I'm not asking for any characters who appear outside this book (and all my mentions of Poirot himself in my prompts are "but what if he wasn't in the book at all").

[modzilla]

Open to discussion, but could I check I understand the purpose of having it as a separate fandom? If they only appear in that book, I understand that someone could offer and request that relationship and be confident that that's all they need to know - is that correct or am I missing something? (I could also reflect that in the relationship label, similar to how some of the Supernatural relationships have episode tags to help people remember where a particular character is from.)

[lirin_lirilla]

I guess I was assuming that people might think that they have to have full canon knowledge to be able to offer anything in the fandom, but I suppose I'm just overthinking it. Mentioning the novel in the relationship label sounds like a good option. And I suppose I should probably just mention in my signup that I don't expect someone to have read any of the other Poirot novels.

[firecat]

The Original Work noms in my first nomination list didn’t make it into the tag set. Should I re-add them? I don’t plan to request all of them, but I do plan to offer them.

My original nomination list has disappeared so I can’t check whether the noms were overlooked or disapproved.

Thanks.

[modzilla]

Sorry - which ones are those? (I can't see the previous nominations any more either.)

[firecat]

I don’t remember the exact wording I used the first time round, but:

-Noir Detective/Genie from magic lamp (OW)
-Expert in magic/Expert in alien tech (OW)
-Undercover spy & Observant child in their neighborhood (OW)

[modzilla]

Okay, added. I wonder what happened to them - there was nothing unapproved when I opened sign-ups. (maybe an accidental rejection earlier?)

[firecat]

Thanks for adding them!

[(Anonymous)]

getting a signup error for queen's thief for one of the nominated relationships that is showing up in the tagset; not entirely sure what's up with this?

These relationship tags in your request are not in the selected fandom(s), The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner: Eddis/The Magus (Queen's Thief) (Your moderator may be able to fix this.)

[modzilla]

Try now?

[(Anonymous)]

works now! thank you modzilla <3

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! I saw you accepted "Any Stark Sibling (GoT) & Desmond Miles (AC AMT)" into the tagset, so I nominated "Quentin Coldwater (Magicians TV) & Any of the Pevensie Siblings (Narnia AMT)" under the same basis. Hope that's ok!

[modzilla]

Yes, I think that's fair, in line with other things I've accepted this year.

[lailah_tov]

Too late for this year, but next year, will you let people know to save a copy of their nominations before you close and reopen them? I was planning to use my nominations as a guide while signing up, and was dismayed to find out that they're all gone. :(

[modzilla]

I'm sorry to hear that caused you trouble. Yes, I'll keep that in mind for next year. Unfortunately, it's necessary any time an exchange closes and re-opens nominations to allow for new additions.

[alichay]

hello! you mentioned above there'd be a space under offers called 'notes to mod', but I can't see it? would you like us to use the 'title' field?

[modzilla]

Yes! Sorry to be confusing, I forgot you can rename Optional Details but you can't rename Title.

[alichay]

wonderful, thank you! also, is it ok if I set out my DNWs in my creator letter rather than on the AO3 signup page, just to keep the form on AO3 tidier and not constantly repeating the same info?

[modzilla]

No, sorry, that's a hard rule. You can say "see my DNWs in my request for X" if X is the box it happens to fit best into (requesting fewer pairings or something) and your DNWs truly, truly apply equally across all fandoms. But if being short on space isn't the issue, please just repeat your DNWs.

[alichay]

that's okay, I had a suspicion that was the case, thanks for clarifying!

Noms

[(Anonymous)]

Hi there! I was hoping to sign up/offer for some recursive fandoms. Specifically I was hoping that The Rigel Black Chronicles by murkybluematter (a fanfic of Harry Potter with very different world building and many OCs) and When Harry Met Tom by The Carnivorous Muffin be added. There weren't specific instructions on the noms page for these types of fandoms (and it'd be really problematic if the tags got synned, so I was advised to post here about them).

The Rigel Black Chronicles by murkybluematter
Harriet Potter&Artucus Black (RBC)
Harriet Potter/Caelum Lestrange (RBC)
Harriet Potter&Caelum Lestrange (RBC)
Harriet Potter&Aldon Rosier (RBC)
Harriet Potter&Draco Malfoy&Pansy Parkinson (RBC)

When Harry Met Tom by The Carnivorous Muffin
Harriet Potter/Tom Riddle (WHMT)
Harriet Potter&Alphard Black (WHMT)
Harriet Potter/Alphard Black (WHMT)
Harriet Potter&Alphard Black&Tom Riddle (WHMT)
Harriet Potter/Alphard Black & Tom Riddle (WHMT)

Is what I was thinking! Please let me know how I should be nomming these.

Re: Noms

[modzilla]

Could I get a link to the permission statement for the second one, please? I've seen the RBC fandom before so I know that the author has given permission for recursive fanworks for that one.

It's a good idea to ask about these ones directly, as you have, because of the synning issue. I'll load them into the tag set myself. As a very minor FYI, if nominating in future, platonic relationships are usually nominated with a space on either side of the &, so:

Harriet Potter & Alphard Black (WHMT)

rather than

Harriet Potter&Alphard Black (WHMT)

but the disambiguation tags aka the information in brackets at the end looks good to me!

Re: Noms

[lalagant]

For When Harry Met Tom, this is the fic:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676317/chapters/36419703
If you go to the notes at the end, you'll actually see some of the recursive works, but here's a screenshot from the Muffin discord:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1006419504051531866/1006419517141942292/unknown.png
And here's the link to the message itself:
https://discord.com/channels/536017386453598209/536023109216501760/999028466286608554

And thanks! I'll make a note of that in the future. C:

Re: Noms

[modzilla]

Thanks, that's great.

For that first one:

Harriet Potter&Artucus Black (RBC)

is that Arcturus?

Re: Noms

[lalagant]

Oh you're right! Thanks so much for catching that.

Re: Noms

[lalagant]

Also while I'm here, I've also nommed a few very niche fandoms I was hoping to request for, here's some info on them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D._(manga)
https://www.goodreads.com/series/49284-heist-society
https://www.mangaupdates.com/series/r3w1no1/the-viridescent-tiara

[elegantstupidity]

Hi, I'm also getting the "These relationship tags in your offer are not in the selected fandom(s)" error for Ginny Baker/Cara (Pitch) in Pitch (TV 2016), even after copying it straight from the tagset. Is there a fix for this?

[modzilla]

Thanks! It's fixed now.


Explanation if you're curious:

This is an error that mostly, but not exclusively, affects syns and tags that have been used once or twice on a work and are not yet marked common. The culprit is a syn in this case:

https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Ginny%20Baker*s*Cara%20(Pitch)

When the tag is nominated, it lets me approve it without going through the 'add association' part of tag approvals. The add association step tells the tag set that a relationship (or character) tag is associated with its fandom - but the step is automatically skipped for synned tags and Not Yet Marked Common tags, because part of the system already knows that. And yet, it doesn't "know" this well enough to say it's OK for you to select under that fandom.

The simple fix for me to go create a new association between the misbehaving tags with batch load. It's just that it's quite difficult for me to know ahead of time which tags are in this in-between category. Anyone else reading, please do bring them up when you stumble across them!

[elegantstupidity]

Thank you! For the fix and the explanation (and all the other hard work)!

[yelp]

Hello! Thanks for this explanation. I think I ran into the same thing for the following relationship:

Chongyun & Xiao (Genshin Impact)

Would you be able to apply the same fix? Thank you!

[modzilla]

Should work now!

[yelp]

It worked! Thanks a lot!

[lagaillarde]

Hello! I just added a nom for Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Char: Mysterious Woman (FE3H), and I figure it's worth pre-emptively explaining this one: this is a specific, unnamed NPC who appears a handful of times in the game’s DLC and has a sort of mini story arc going on. ‘Mysterious Woman’ is her in-game label, and she’s the only character who ever uses it, so I figured it was okay to nominate her as that, but let me know if that doesn't work for you. Thanks!

[modzilla]

I appreciate you saving me several minutes' confused googling!

[chase_acow]

Hi! I'm having trouble requesting the movie fandom Rampage (2018). There's no options in the relationship field. Davis Okoye/Harvey Russell is the only pairing nominated and what I would like to request. Any help would be appreciated!

[modzilla]

Should be fixed now. Sorry for the inconvenience!

[chase_acow]

Thank you so much!