Five Figure Fanwork Exchange

Most required works are in! Thank you, pinch hitters! However, two pinch hitters are still working, and to take some pressure off I have decided to delay the collection opening by one more day. Condolences to everyone hoping for Saturday, and congratulations to everyone who can make use of the breathing room.

While you can only be so sure about the future, I do not expect I will need to delay again. ETA: All required works are in.

The 2023-2024 / Round 4 FFFX Collection will now open at:
- 5pm EST, Sunday 3 March
- See countdown

Creator reveals will now occur at
- 5pm EDT, Sunday 17 March


I'm delighted that several of our pinch hitters have treats... but not all do. If you're twiddling your thumbs at the moment, please consider checking out their prompts! Or even a treat for a past pinch hitter (tag is linked). Thank you SO much, pinch hitter treaters.

Treats can be any length/size and can be posted indefinitely, but for those who prefer deadline motivation, consider how nice it would be to post a pinch hitter treat during the two-week anon period.

All signed-up prompts are here.

Hello excellent exchange enthusiasts!

One.
Triple Crown prize claiming is open and will close on 24 June. You are likely eligible for rewards if you did either or both of: a) completing 10k+ of fic or the relevant art/other media equivalent in the third round of each of Heart Attack, Fic in a Box, and FFFX; b) completing 5k+ of fic or the relevant art/other media equivalent in one of these exchanges as a pinch hitter. Congratulations to everyone who either qualifies or put in a darn good effort to try to qualify. The prizes may also be of interest to you if you are tempted to qualify in future.


Two.
Speaking of future plans, here is a draft schedule for Round 4.

Nominations start: 12 July 2023
Nominations close: 21 July
Sign-ups start: 25 July
Sign-ups close: 6 August
Assignments out: 13 August
Assignment Swaps/Final Letter Completion Deadline: 25 August
Check-in Week: 11-18 November
Assignments due: 20 January 2024
Works revealed: 24 February
Creators revealed: 9 March

How does that look? I have a random day off on 14 July I want to take advantage of for tag approving, and I don't want to set the deadline too early in January because of people recovering from Yuletide and in case Chocolate Box or the equivalent comes back. However, the assignment swaps & check-in dates could be adjusted if preferred.


Three.
This is a great moment to check you have commented on any fffx gifts you have received. If you defaulted late in the last round, you can't sign up for this round without a make-up work, but you're free to sign up to round 5. However, a comment-based penalty lasts indefinitely and can only be removed by commenting. Plus, you might have meant to comment so if you didn't, here's your opportunity.

Although nothing is ever certain until it has occurred, we are still on track to open the collection at:

5pm EST, Saturday 26th February

and see
COUNTDOWN

Just in case we do open on time: please get your final edits in by then.


A note on penalties and scheduling
The anon period is two weeks, currently scheduled to end on March 12. The collection remains open indefinitely for late assignments and for treats. If you defaulted after the check-in week, you need to complete an assignment or assignment-equivalent (ie, two half-length works for two different people would do) before signing up again. Sign-ups for FFFX round 3 will be July-August - ie, ~five months from now, which is slightly less time than the entire FFFX creation period. What that means is that if you are telling yourself you can finish a make-up work to join in on round 3... and you didn't create one during this round... you may have less time than you think. Either way, if you have any dreams of making anything now or later, I wish you inspiration and luck.


Redating
When your work goes live, it'll appear in the works list in an order governed by its posting date, unless you've already edited that date. If you're creating an an active fandom, that means it won't immediately come to the attention of people browsing that tag, because instead, they'll see everything posted after it.

I encourage you to re-date your work and assign it the current date when works go live - that means more people can appreciate it. You can do that by editing your work, going to the Associations section, looking just above Language, clicking the box next to 'Set a different publication date', choosing your date, and saving. You may also wish to do this at creator reveals.

FFFX stands for Five Figure Fanwork Exchange. It is a multifandom gift exchange for fanfic of 10,000+ words, and for comics of least 10 pages or at least 40 panels.

AO3 collection | Tag set | App | Canon promo post | Beta post

Current Phase: Round Two of fffx is over! You can see all Round One and Two works here. Keep an eye out for round 3's schedule, likely to be posted before May and to involve nominations around July.

Schedule

Nominations start: 19 July 2021

Sign-ups start: 30 July

Sign-ups close: 11 August

Assignments out by: 18 August

Assignment Swaps / FINAL Letter Completion Deadline*: 31 August

Check-in Week**: 19-26 November

Assignments due: 22 January 2022

Works revealed: 26 February (5pm EST)

Creators revealed: 12 March (5pm EST)


*How do assignment swaps work? This exchange allows you to trade in your current assignment for a different one. This is intended as a safety net. Maybe you tried a new fandom to match a request and it didn't work out. Maybe you matched on something safe, but fell in love with something else after assignments went out. Whether you can swap to the new assignment of your choice will depend on several factors, including whether several other people are already creating for it. You can ask for any other assignment before August 31. Between August 31 and December 31, you can still trade in the assignment you hold for another one, but only if the one you want is listed as a pinch hit.

If you're writing a letter, I recommend you finish it during sign-ups so that your assigned creator can use it right away, but that doesn't always happen. So there's a hard deadline: any linked letters that are incomplete on 31 August will be deleted from your sign-up.


**What is Check-In Week? This is when you contact the mod on a check-in post at this community to confirm that you are committed to fulfilling your assignment(s). If you do not check in, you will be defaulted.


FFFX follows the pattern of many other Archive-of-Our-Own-based multifandom exchanges. The pool of available fandoms is created by nominations (seven fandoms, with five characters or relationships each, per person, with selective additions possible during sign-ups). When signing up, you can offer and request as few as four fandoms (three for offers), with one character or relationship in each, or as many as ten fandoms, with ten relationships in each. You will match on one of those characters or relationships (OR matching). FFFX allows original works prompts. FFFX does not match on freeform tags or rating.

Because this is a longfic exchange and many creators like to have something to go on, you are required to put either prompts, or notes on what appeals to you about a fandom, or general likes, or some combination, in your requests.

Fandom promotion posts and guides to where your canon can be found are encouraged.

The mod can be reached at mod.modzilla@gmail.com as well as through this Dreamwidth community.

Previous sticky post

The fffx 2020-2021 collection was set to reveal on 27 February, with creator reveals on 13 March.

However, we have two unclaimed pinch hits, and I have not finished my own completeness checks of submitted works. As a lesser factor, we also have a large number of pinch hits due on February 21; I hope all goes well for our hard-working pinch hitters, but the larger the number, the bigger the risk that something goes wrong.

Therefore, I am moving the works reveals date 13 days, to 11:59pm EST Friday 12 March, with creator reveals at 11:59pm EST Friday 26 March. Please note the change of weekday. The collection and sticky schedule have been updated.

I'm sorry to those who were ready for their work(s) and gift(s) to go live, and are now disappointed. It's a long time to delay the collection, but I aim to only delay it once.


Current pinch hits
Pinch hits #49 and 61, and any further pinch hits I post, will be due on Friday 5 March, 11:59pm EST. If you can help, please either email me (mod.modzilla@gmail.com) or comment on one of the posts with pinch hit details, where the comments are set to 'screened'. Not this post; comments are set to public. Please include your AO3 name.

Triple Crown
This also affects the claiming and prize schedule for Triple Crown (triplecrownofexchanges). After creator reveals on March 26, I will send the Triple Crown Committee a list of qualifying names, based on who has completed a full gift for another person before reveals, is in good standing with the exchange, and has their name publicly associated with their work (ie, I would not pass on the names of creators whose work is orphaned or in an anonymous collection). This is for their verification purposes - you will have to actively claim the prizes you're interested in as well.

But, given the delay, if you want to speed the process up a bit, you're welcome to contact me privately between now & creator reveals; if you give me permission to tell Triple Crown Committee you completed this leg of the challenge, I'll pass that information on immediately. Again, you can email me at mod.modzilla@gmail.com or you can comment on a pinch hit post, where comments are screened. No, that isn't a trick to give you a pinch hit.

Other
If anyone is considering treats during this delay, please consider prompts from pinch hitters. I hope to add an index of requested fandoms later.

Betas are still available - and needed - at the beta post.