Signups are Open!

[chocolateboxmod]

Signups are open here! Go forth and request fic!

As you do, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the rules and the FAQ. Please let us know if they need any clarification. You can comment here or shoot us an email if you have any questions.

There are more details at the FAQ, but here are the basics:

You’ll request between 4 and 10 fandoms, with between 1 and 20 characters or relationships and between 3 and 20 genre tags per fandom.

You’ll offer between 5 and 10 fandoms, with between 1 and 20 characters or relationships and 3 and 20 genre tags per fandom.

Characters and relationships will both be in the Characters field, and you’ll receive a story focused on any one of the items you select in that field.

If you'd like a story about Character A, select Character A in this field. If you'd like a story about either Character A or Character B, select Character A, then select Character B.

If you'd like a story about Character A and Character B in a romantic or sexual relationship, select Group: Character A/Character B. If you'd like a story about Character A and Character B in a gen relationship, select Group: Character A & Character B.

You'll be matched to a recipient who requested at least one of your offered fandoms and at least one of the offered characters or relationships in that fandom. However, you can choose to write a story in any one of your recipient’s requested fandoms, focused on any one of the items (character or relationship) they requested for that fandom, even if you didn’t offer it.

The genres in the Additional Tags are intended to give a general sense of what kind of story you’d like to read or write for a given fandom. We’re going to attempt to assign offers and requests that share a genre. If that results in too many initial pinch hits, AO3’s matching code will still prioritize matches by genre.

Here is the full tag set!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hey mods! When you have time, do you think you could put up the letters post? With the AO3 signup summary being nonfunctional, having a letters post up early could be helpful to participants.

Thank you for running this!

[sidleypkhermit.livejournal.com]

The Requests Summary page is working, if that helps:

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Fandom5K2018/requests

and they are already looking pretty amazing

[glinda]

Hello! There seems to be a wee glitch, where characters are showing up in the tag set under fandoms, but when I try to select them in my sign-up form they don't all show up (eg when I look at Leverage in the tag list there are eight character/groupings, but when I try to pick characters on my sign-up it only offers me five options?).

[chocolateboxmod]

That is a known AO3 bug, yes! If you copy and paste the tag exactly as appears in the tagset, it will be saved into your assignment even if it does not appear in the drop down menu.

[glinda]

I did not know that! Thank you I'll try that instead. :)

[badass_tiger]

Is the Sign-up summary page not working or is it just me? ^^;

[longficmod]

It's not just you--it seems to be a known AO3 issue. Some people have made it work by refreshing multiple times or opening in an incognito window, and I've had some luck by trying different browsers.

The requests summary does seem to be working for everyone:

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Fandom5K2018/requests

[badass_tiger]

Oh bugger, how annoying. Guess it'll be trawling through the requests pages after all. Thanks for the prompt answer!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi mods, could I get some clarification wrt to gender unspecified original work ships?

Do people requesting them have to be okay with any gender combination or is it the authors who should be willing to write anything according to their recip's wish?

[chocolateboxmod]

The answer is "both". In the case of unspecified genders in a tag, a specific gender is an optional detail. Recipients can ask for a specific gender combination in the hope of receiving it but are not guaranteed to receive it, and authors can choose whether to write a particular gender combination or not, much like any other optional detail.

Should you or any other participant match to someone requesting an unspecified gender tag who does specify a gender, and you want a prompt for a different gender combination, let us know at fandom5kmod@gmail.com! We will contact your recipient to try and get more prompts for you.

[(Anonymous)]

What about instances where a recipient uses DNWs to limit possible gender combos, like "DNW: female characters" if they only want slash, or "DNW: male characters" if they only want femslash, or "DNW: same sex relationships" if they only want het, or even something like "DNW: male jesters, female dragons" if they wanted to get really specific about the gender dynamics of their jester/dragon ship? Would an author be required to honor something like that, or would it be considered an unreasonable DNW?

[chocolateboxmod]

Determinations on whether a DNW is unreasonable are on a case by case basis. Should you or anyone else match to someone who you think is misusing DNWs, send us an email with details about your assignment.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for your reply, now that I think about it, it makes sense that it would be both!

Though in practice, if someone has requested a specific gender combination to the exclusion of all others, I'm going to guess they're not going to be thrilled with getting something else. But then it's no fun for the author either to force themselves to write something they don't actually want to? Tricky.

Anyway, might I suggest adding this clarification to the rules/nominations post next round to make sure everyone is on the same page?

[longficmod]

I think calling it out during nominations next round is a good idea--we'll plan to do that for 2019, thank you! It is tricky, as you say.

[(Anonymous)]

Can the fact an Original Works pairing is listed as f/f, m/f, or m/m in the filterable spreadsheet you posted be taken as it being explicitly gendered?

[chocolateboxmod]

It's an aid, that's all. It's hard for me to answer your question unless I have specifics - is there a particular tag that you think has been misclassified? Or is it something else that I'm missing?

[(Anonymous)]

Group: Confused Gardener/Earth Goddess Who Is Flirting By Making Her Garden Grow Like Crazy is listed as f/f in the spreadsheet and from discussion on FFA was intended as an f/f tag but people have interpreted as m/f. I really don't want it as m/f and don't want request it if the mods view it as a non-gender specific tag.

[chocolateboxmod]

Our view is that it's a f/f tag. If you're the nominator and can link me to your nominations, I can see if anyone has requested or offered the tag and if not, amend the tag to avoid any ambiguity.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not the nominator and it has already been requested from the request summary.

[chocolateboxmod]

Thanks for letting me know.

[(Anonymous)]

If the spreadsheet is going to be the final word on the interpretation of the genders of the Original Works tags, can I ask that you promote it a bit more strongly than "here's a helpful thing we made if it helps" and make clear that people should request/offer with those interpretations in mind?

Just glancing at the f/f section, I can see some other tags that I honestly don't think are unambiguously f/f just from the wording of the tag alone, in the shape of Superheroine/Twin (could arguably be a non-identical twin brother) and Chanteuse/Resistance Fighter (nothing to indicate the Resistance fighter is female, though of course many were). And I haven't looked at any of the other sections.

[longficmod]

Thank you for calling out those tags--I have updated both to Unspecified! I mentioned in the original spreadsheet post that there might be errors and some tags are ambiguous, asking for corrections there, but I've now added a note to that effect in the spreadsheet itself. It is not intended to be the final word on the Original Works tag, only a convenience for those searching for tags to offer/request.

For the Gardener/Earth Goddess tag, we do think the nomination is f/f, as "her garden" disambiguates the Gardener character. If there is confusion over this and a recipient's DNWs, we'll address that on a case-by-case basis.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

In which case can we take it as read that if we request Garden/Earth Goddess and have a DNW: het if this is the assignment match the writer will not be allowed to ignore the DNW?

[longficmod]

We think the clearest reading is that it's an f/f ship, and if a requester has het as a DNW, we'd expect the author to respect it. If an author offered it thinking it was an ambiguous tag and had a problem writing f/f, they could contact us privately to come up with a solution.

If you have concerns about specific requests or letters, please contact us over email to discuss them.