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[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

[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.