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tinny) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
iconcolors2025-08-18 10:42 pm
We are getting closer and closer to October (where is the time going?!) and the [Sign-Up Post] October Review-a-Thon 2025 post is of course still up. Sign-ups will not close until Oct 31, LOL.
This event took place last October, too, and the rules are the same. I'm super excited to see what reviews will be posted!
(It's a low-commitment event: you can drop your sign up at any time, and if you don't manage to post a review on your claimed day(s), there are zero (0) consequences. Just have fun at your desired comfort level!)
innitmarvelous_og) wrote in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_community_promo2025-08-18 01:35 pm
innitmarvelous_og justmarriedmod) wrote in pinchhits2025-08-18 08:35 amjustmarriedexchangemonkiainen) wrote in dw_community_promo2025-08-18 11:46 amthestoryinside comes in - have someone choose your book for you!quailfence) wrote in videogamefanworks2025-08-18 12:59 amchina_shop) wrote in fan_writers2025-08-18 03:12 pmfic_in_a_box_mod) wrote in ficinabox2025-08-17 10:03 pmDuring signups we're willing to take late nominations! Please only nominate tags that you intend to immediately request or offer.
(*We will add in WB: Any tags to any new fandom free of charge, though.)
Late Relationship/WB Nominations will close on August 30th at 10:00PM Eastern (Countdown)! Make sure you request them before then! No new tags will be added after that point because your usual late nominations mod will be traveling for the rest of sign ups.
fic_in_a_box_mod) wrote in ficinabox2025-08-17 09:45 pm
Signups are open! Go to the collection here (link) to sign up!
Signups will be open until August 31st at 9:59pm EDT (Countdown)
You must be 18+ to sign up.
Other links:
Sign ups are how we figure out who wants what and who's creating for who! The process is this:
You are allowed to sign up with one well-behaved sock (i.e. a maximum of two accounts per person).
You can email us Do Not Match requests, instructions for which are in the rules and info post (link).
Requests are for saying what you would like to receive. They are visible to everyone. You must use only tags from the tagset. Each request is a set of tags that go together: a fandom, relationship tag(s), and (if you want them) medium/length opt-ins.
You must have a minimum of 1 request. You may have up to 10 requests. If you are requesting less than 3 fandoms with distinct lore, you are not guaranteed a pinch hit in the event that your assigned creator defaults in full or in part.
If you are unmatchable as a recipient (i.e. no one is offering anything you are requesting), your requests will be posted to the Dreamwidth community for claiming as a pinch hit.
Your creator will be matched to you based on one fandom and one relationship/character.
You should therefore request as if you will only get ONE of your requested relationships/characters.
You cannot DNW significant parts of the fandom you are requesting. You can't DNW "pirates" if requesting Pirates of the Carribean, and you can't DNW The Return of the King if you're requesting The Lord of the Rings (Jackson Movies).
(Also, this kind of unenforceable DNW is hard for us to catch during sign up checks since it requires that we know the fandom, so DNWs along these lines might be unenforceable even if we don't email you about them.)
When you request a group, you're only guaranteed one member of that group. Groups take the place of characters in relationship-field tags, allowing you to request a category of characters instead of explicitly listing every character, for example, "The Losers Club" or "Batfamily" or "Original Male Characters".
If you request a relationship-field tag that involves an ambiguous group or character description, we will accept your creator's interpretation. If you request "Solo: The Avengers (Marvel Cinematic Universe)" your creator can pick any character who fits the broadest possible definition of canonical Avengers. If you request an original character, Original Work, Reader, or other tag that could specify gender but doesn't, your creator can pick any gender.
You can't DNW parts of tags you've requested. You can't request "Creator's Choice of Jedi & Han Solo (SWOT)" and then try to DNW some Jedi. You can't request "Creator's Choice of Lannister(s)/Any Characters" and then DNW incest or poly ships.
(Also, this kind of unenforceable DNW is hard for us to catch during sign up checks since it requires that we know the fandom, so DNWs along these lines might be unenforceable even if we don't email you about them.)
Fanfiction is the default medium requested in Fic in A Box.
- You cannot opt-out of receiving fanfiction, which for FIAB is defined as narrative fiction.
- You may receive one 10k fic, ten 1k fics, or something in between.
- You can skip selecting any opt-ins if you are only interested in receiving fic.
Opt-ins contained in your Optional Details field (or your Letter) also count, so if you usually have "epistolary" in your likes list but don't want it for FIAB, you should remove it.
Anything you opt into has the potential to be your entire gift. While it is unlikely you will receive 100 drabbles if you choose "Length Opt-In: Drabbles", it is technically possible!
Medium Opt-Ins have wordcount equivalents which you can view here (link).
Dear Creator letters may be linked to in your signup in order to give your gifter further details on your likes and dislikes. These are optional as long as you have something in your AO3 signup saying what you like.
You must include something in your optional details to indicate what you like or have an unlocked letter before signups close. This can be short (for example: "I really like h/c and fluff!") or long, but it needs to be present. If you're linking to a letter which already has publicly visible information to this effect, that is also acceptable.
If you have no DNWs, please put "No DNWs" on its own line somewhere in your requests. We expect to get a number of people new to multifandom events, so we want to make absolutely sure people without DNWs mean to be doing that without needing to email them.
DNWs should be phrased and understood to be value-neutral. For example, one might DNW dogs because...
It's impossible to tell which explanation above is true for any given participant with "DNW: Dogs" on their request, so the only sure thing you can know is that that participant just doesn't want dogs in their gifts. This ambiguity is a feature, not a bug.
Never explain why you DNW something, but definitely explain how to apply the DNW and if there are any exceptions.
In the event that a DNW is included in your gift, only reasonable DNWs noted in your AO3 requests will be enforced. DNWs cannot be used to box your creator into producing a very specific work, and should be clear and specific in scope. You cannot DNW part of something you've requested. If you believe an enforceable DNW has been broken in your gift, please email us immediately.
What makes a DNW "unreasonable"?
The goal of DNWs is to state, as unambiguously as possible, what specific things one doesn't want in a gift. It's not the job of DNWs to prevent a recipient from getting a bad gift (although we hope everyone will get only good gifts) or to ensure that a recipient gets exactly what they want. Requests aren't commissions, and we value the creative freedom of our participants.
An unreasonable DNW might contradict a requested relationship or medium, try to force the creator into a very narrow set of options, be phrased too vaguely or broadly or confusingly, and/or seek to prevent the creator from creating works about a large part of canon.
What happens if I have an unreasonable/nonspecific/otherwise unenforceable DNW?
If we notice it, we will ask you to remove it (or to remove the tag it contradicts, if it's something like the epistolary example above) or rephrase it. If we only realize you have an unenforceable DNW because you've received a gift you feel hits that DNW and would like a replacement gift, we will unfortunately have to refuse.
Why are you making such a fuss about DNW phrasing?
Broadly speaking, we think DNWs are an important and wonderful part of multifandom exchange culture and learning to create and identify good DNWs is imperative for good exchange etiquette. This exchange attracts a large number of new exchange participants, so by explaining in detail we can set our newbies up for success in the wider exchange circuit! If we could do so by just saying "list stuff you don't want in your Do Not Wants" then we would do that, but years of experience has shown that a lot of the information offered above on DNWs is absolutely not intuitive and needs to be explicitly stated for newbies.
Also, and more immediately, we will be on the hook for assuring some of you get gifts via pinch hits, including sending out emergency pinch hits if someone gets an unacceptable gift! Bad DNWs make it harder to find a pinch hitter and more likely one of those DNWs will be hit by accident. We'd prefer not to have to tell anyone that their DNW is too confusing for us to give them a replacement gift.
Help! I don't know how to phrase a DNW! / What if I think a DNW I want might be unreasonable?
Don't worry, there are people who want to help! Many people on the FIAB Newbies Discord server will be happy to help you figure out how to phrase your DNWs in the #sign-up-discussion channel.
Offers are for saying what you would like to make. They aren't visible to anyone but the mods. You must use only tags from the tagset. Each offer is a set of tags that go together: a fandom and relationship tag(s). You can't offer specific mediums on AO3; look at the next section of post for information about offering specific mediums.
You must have a minimum of 1 offer. You may have up to 10 offers. For matchability, we recommend you make at least 3 offers.
If you are unmatchable (no requests match your offers) when sign ups close, we will email you. All participants need someone to match to in order to participate, so if you're unmatchable and don't reply to our email, we'll have to delete your sign up.
Your will be matched to your recipient based on one fandom and one relationship/character.
You should therefore offer as if you will only get ONE of your requested relationships/characters.
When you get your assignment, it will list all of your recipient's requests, but you're only required to create for one of them. If you would like to create for a request you didn't match on, or if you'd like to create for multiple requests, that's fine!
Fic is the exchange's default medium because that's what it's most easy to find pinch hitters for. We don't want to be in a situation where the only way to open the collection is to get someone a gift in a rare medium because that could cause months of delays.
Ideally, we would just make everyone request a medium tag for fanfiction…but there's no way to make participants do that when they sign up. We would have to edit potentially thousands of individual requests to fix people who'd forgotten to request fic, and that's just not something we have the time for. It's actually easier for us to just handmatch people who are doing other mediums.
We do really, really want you to make non-fic things! Think of it like a concierge mod service, hand delivering an appropriate assignment to you. The VIP treatment, because we're so excited about mediums.
(If you're also signing up with a sock, you can put information for both accounts in one email.)
For each username, include:
We need the info about relationship field tags and medium tags not because you will be obligated to create that exact thing, but because we will double check during matching that the recipient we’re matching you to is still requesting what you need. We will check that your match hasn’t, for example, removed the ship and medium you said you can create from their request.
Please do not skip giving us usernames! Matching you by hand to a specific username is super easy and quick, and anyway since we're making you email us we want to give you an assignment you'll definitely be happy with. You will not be obligated to create the exact tags you've told us you can create for your recip.
You can update your offers by emailing us again if things change during the sign up period.
You will probably find the automagic app helpful for finding recipients, as it lets you search requests by medium.
How do I use the automagic app to look at requests?
Follow the link to the app above. The "Grouped Requests" tab defaults to showing requests grouped by fandom. You can use the "Filter" field on that tag to search the fandoms so you don't need to scroll through all of them to find the one you're looking for. You can group by other fields, or you can use the "Search All Requests" to do advanced searching, like searching for a request that has a certain combination of fandom and medium.
How do I use the automagic app to find recipients if I plan to make things that aren't fic?
To find medium matches, go to FIAB's Automagic App and then do one of these things:
Do I need to search use the Optional Tags field to search for mediums?
No, for FIAB's version of the app all Optional Tags are counted as freeforms and included in searches of the "Freeform" field, so you can just search that one field!
Is there a way to bookmark things on the automagic app?
Yes, there is! While sign-ups are open, you can browse requests and use the heart icon next to fandoms to create a bookmark for a whole fandom. Once sign-ups close, you can use the heart button to bookmark specific prompts/requests.
grundyscribbling) wrote in innumerable_stars2025-08-17 04:52 pmlittlefics) wrote in pinchhits2025-08-17 04:43 pmabyss_valkyrie) wrote in your_favourites2025-08-17 08:48 pm
