Rules & Guidelines

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Here are the rules and guidelines for the community/exchange. Please feel free to leave any and all questions in the comments (anonymous commenting is on) or you are welcome to email rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com.

Eligibility:

You must be 18+ to participate in this exchange. Only one sign-up per person.

A pairing must fill the following criteria to be eligible:
1. Be a "/" ship with two or more more characters that are women (canon or genderbent) or genderqueer characters that you are comfortable nominating in a f/f exchange.
2. Have no more than 250 works works on AO3, completed (no WIPs), and written in English, while using the otp:true filter

Nominations:

Will be done on AO3. An AO3 account is required to participate.

A nominations post will be made once it is time for them to open.

Each participant may nominate up to 10 fandoms with up to 10 relationships in each. Ships must be disambiguated with their fandom tag (e.g. Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov (MCU)).

All fandoms and ships requested and offered in this exchange must be chosen from those nominated into the tagset. Should you miss nominations and are able to message the mods in between the time that they close until the time that sign-ups open, additions can be made on your behalf.

RPF: RPF is permitted, subject to eligibility as outlined above. Non-famous family members are not eligible. Under-18s are not eligible for modern RPF.

Threesomes/moresomes: are allowed, as long as they are eligible.

Genderbent: Allowed, but stories about their male counterparts will be counted to determine eligibility (e.g. f!Steve/Natasha would not be eligible, as Steve/Natasha has more than 250 works written, but f!Sam/Natasha would). When you nominate, please nominate as ‘F!Sam Wilson/Natasha Romanoff (MCU).

Crossovers: Crossover ships are permitted, subject to the eligibility rules above. These should be nominated under 'Crossover Fandom' with the fandom name for each character in brackets, e.g. Natasha Romanov (MCU)/Leia Organa (Star Wars: Original Trilogy).

Original characters in non-original canons: You may nominate Character/Original Character(s) and are welcome to be as specific or as broad as you wish, e.g. Leia Organa/Original Jedi Character (Star Wars). Any original character(s) nominated will be assumed to be female.

Original Works: Original ships are permitted. These must be nominated under 'Original Work' in the format 'Character Type/Character Type' e.g. ‘Princess/Maid', 'Pilot/Soldier/General', etc. All characters will be assumed to be female. If they are not nominated in this way, they will be rejected.

We do not allow recursive fandoms to be nominated in this exchange.

Sign-Ups:

An AO3 account is required to sign-up/participate.

You can request 3-10 fandoms with 1-10 ships and a choice of fiction, art, or both. While you can repeat fandoms, you need to have 3 unique ones.

You can offer 3-10 fandoms with 1-10 ships and a choice of fiction, art, or both.

If you requesting one or the other and are open to treats (e.g. requesting fic but welcome art treats), please make a mention of it in the details of your sign-up.

You can edit/delete your sign-ups until the sign-up period closes.

If a sign-up does not include the required number of fandoms, it will be deleted when sign-ups close.

All fandoms and ships requested and offered in this exchange must be chosen from those nominated into the tagset. Please nominate to make sure what you want to request/offer appears.

If there aren’t any offers that match your requests, you will go out for claiming as an initial pinch hit (IPH).

If there aren’t any requests that match your offers, the mods will contact you at the email address associated with your AO3 account to see if there is anything else you can offer. If you do not reply within 24 hours, or there is nothing else you can offer, your sign-up will be deleted.

Dear Creator letters: There will be a section in the sign-up where letters can be linked give your gifter further details on your likes, dislikes and other request details. Dear Creator letters are optional.

In the optional details and in Dear Creator letters, please do not place preference for one ship over the others, as there isn't a guarantee you will be matched on that ship.

Please include anything you absolutely don't want to receive in the Optional Details field in your AO3 sign-up and label this clearly as "Do Not Wants" (DNW). In the event that a DNW is included in your gift, only reasonable DNWs in your sign-up will be enforced. Please remember that DNWs cannot be used to box your creator into producing a very specific work.

If your sign-up breaks any of the above rules or is found to be in bad faith, the mods will contact you and without a response, your sign-up could be deleted. We want everyone to have fun enjoying this exchange.

Assignments:

Assignments are only guaranteed to match on one fandom, one ship and one medium.

Minimum requirements are a complete work of fanfiction of at least 500 words or a nice completed sketch for fanart.

AI/AI assisted works are not permitted in this exchange.

Your assignment must focus on one of the requested ships. Your recipient may have anywhere between 3-10 requests but you are only required to create for one. This doesn’t have to be the one you matched, as long as it is one they requested.

If your assignment does not match the fandoms/ships/medium you offered, contact the mod as soon as possible. It will not be possible to change assignments for any other reason.

Please do not discuss or post about your assignment in public in a way that will reveal who your recipient is. Creators should remain anonymous until it is time for reveals.

If you would like to seek clarification from your recipient about your assignment, please email the mods at rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com with your AO3 username and your question. We will send it to your recipient on your behalf.

Posting:

To post your fic/art on AO3, navigate to your AO3 dashboard, click on 'Assignments', find your Rare Femslash Exchange 2023 assignment, and click 'Fulfill'.

Works containing excessive spelling or grammar errors (enough to hinder comprehension) will not be accepted.

Gifts must be completed at the time of work reveals to fulfill the assignment requirements. WIPs/half-finished art (e.g. a fic posted as "1/?" and a piece of art posted as "1/?") will not count as a completed gift. If you are posting a chaptered work, all chapters must be posted by the time works are revealed. If your work is not complete, your recip will be immediately sent out as a pinch hit and you may be banned from future rounds.

As works should remain anonymous during the collection's anonymous period, do not post your work elsewhere before the creator reveals or discuss the details publicly.

You can edit your work after posting it until the collection is revealed, but your gift must be complete enough to stand as it is by the deadline.

Saved drafts do not fulfill assignments. Make sure you actually post your gift!

If you create a gift that intentionally crosses your recipient’s DNWs, stir up wank/drama, or harass any other participants during the process, you may be permanently banned from the exchange.

Defaulting:

If you cannot finish your gift, please default.

To default, navigate to your AO3 dashboard, click 'Assignments', locate your Rare Femslash Exchange assignment, and click 'Default'.

If you default and your creator also defaults, you will not be assigned a pinch hitter and are not guaranteed a gift.

There is no penalty for defaulting before the deadline.

If you need an extension, please email rarefemslashexchagemod@gmail.com, including how long you need (no more than 72 hours will be granted) and your AO3 username. We don't need any explanations regarding why you need an extension. Extensions will not be given once the deadline has passed.

If you have not posted a gift by the deadline, the mod will default you. This may result in a one year participation ban.

Pinch Hits:

Pinch hits will be posted to the Dreamwidth community (this community!).

Please reply to the pinch hit post with the pinch hit number and your AO3 username. If you are successful, the mods will reply to your comment or email to confirm and will officially assign the pinch hit to you through AO3.

You can claim a pinch hit even if you aren't signed up for the exchange, but you will need an AO3 account.

If you do claim a pinch hit without logging into Dreamwidth, we will not be able to respond to your comment. If you don't have a Dreamwidth account, please email us.

Treats:

You can write/draw additional gifts for other participants and post them to the exchange collection as treats. These do not have to be for your assigned recipient.

If you would like a treat, we recommend including a note in your sign-up to indicate that you are open to receiving treats. (Doing this does not guarantee you will receive a treat.)

If you would like a treat, please check your preferences to ensure you accept gifts from unassigned creators. You can check this setting by navigating to your AO3 page, clicking 'Preferences', and clicking 'Allow anyone to gift me works.' under 'Collections, Challenges and Gifts'. (Doing this does not guarantee you will receive a treat.)

You are welcome to create treats even if you aren't signed up for the exchange.

To post treats, navigate to the collection and click 'Post to Collection'. You will need to manually add the name of your intended recipient - please check this very carefully!

Treats do not have to fulfill the minimum word count. They must, however, include a fandom, relationship and medium requested by the recipient.

Treats will not become main gifts for this exchange.

Commenting:

Please comment on your gifts. If you cannot comment on your gift for any reason, please contact the mods before creator reveals via email at rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com. If you do not comment on your gifts by the time nominations open for the next round, you will be ineligible to participate.

Miscellaenous:

We accept do not match requests for this exchange. Please email us before sign-ups close at rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com letting us know your AO3 name, the AO3 name of the participant you would like to not be matched to, and what you would like us to do in the instance where you are their only match as a creator, you are their only match as a recipient, and you are a pinch hit. We don't need to know the reasons for this request. We'll do our best to adhere to your request.

Please don't be an asshole. We're here to have fun with our rare pairs.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Doesn't genderbending contradict the rules?

1. Be a ship with two or more more characters that all identify as a woman

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It could definitely be seen that way. I wasn't thinking specifically in canon, just general, so if they were genderbent, they would still identify as such. But I will definitely try to think of a way to add that in or reword to avoid future misunderstandings. Thanks for bringing that to my attention!

[dirty_diana]

Can we qualify OC noms? ie Leia Organa/Original Jedi Character

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Yes, you can be as specific as you would like. :D

[(Anonymous)]

Bit of a niche question perhaps, but considering the lesbian identity has always included nonbinary identities, are nonbinary characters accepted?

[svgurl]

Thanks for asking! Nominations are closed, but at this time, we are not.

[(Anonymous)]

hi!

i'm pretty new to this so i'm not too sure how writing up offers work? if i don't want to write certain things, say scat, how can i detail that in my offer? thank you so much! :)

[svgurl]

Hi! You will only be matched by fandom, ship, and type of fanwork you are offering (art, fic, or both). You won't be matched by specific details because it is not hand matched and the algorithm will only take those into consideration. Just offer the pairings and fandoms that you are willing to write and/or make art of. Once you are matched, you can see what your recip likes/doesn't like. In fact, you can see what people are asking for already: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/RareFemslashExchange2021/requests

Even if they like something that you are not comfortable with, they are not allowed to box you into writing just one type of story so you should have other options.

Hope that helps!

[(Anonymous)]

Can treats be written based on the tagset, or is it requests only?

[svgurl]

That is a good question. It isn't something we've thought about before, but sure, if you want to post a work to the collection without a recip, you're more than welcome. Thanks for asking!

[frausorge]

Is there a particular timeframe within which comments should be posted, to be considered as meeting this rule? I'm all for responding to gifts, but hoping there's also some leeway around possible RL conflicts that might make it difficult to read and comment immediately.

[rfemod]

Yes, you just need to have commented before the start of the round the following year so you will have approximately 9 months. I'll make sure to edit and make that clear. :)

[(Anonymous)]

I saw a post on Tumblr about nominations being open. And you write that you should nominate ships on AO3. But I really don't understand how?

[rfemod]

Hi there. AO3 based exchanges have a specific tag set that you nominate at and in this case, it is here: https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/17353/

You need an AO3 account and if you are logged in, it will show you a nominate button that you click on and from there, you follow the instructions listed above. If your nomination is approved, you will see a little check mark next to it.

I hope that makes sense! Let me know if you have any further questions.

[juniperberry]

Question re: fandoms: Are we counting them by a specific pairing or actual canon the characters appear in? I'd love to offer something for Kendappa/Souma (my icon), but they appear in RG Veda and alternate-universe versions of them also appear in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. (They're eligible for this exchange in either canon.)

Thanks!

ETA: OH WAIT I just saw the note about umbrella fandoms! ...No, my question still stands. RG Veda and TRC are not really umbrella fandoms except in that they're both created by CLAMP--it's not a shared universe, but shared characters.

[rfemod]

Hi. Thanks for asking! If your canons can stand alone, which from what you said, it sounds as though it is, then you're welcome to nominate and request them separately and they will be counted as two separate offers/requests, even if the characters are the same.

I hope that answers your question!

[juniperberry]

Oh, excellent, thank you!

[rfemod]

You're welcome! :D

[(Anonymous)]

For video games, are we permitted to nominate characters from mods? I'm asking particularly because Stardew Valley has a highly active modding scene, with several very popular expansion mods and character mods. ("Very popular" equaling 8.2 million downloads for Stardew Valley Expanded, and smaller but still quite high numbers of downloads for several other expansion and character mods.)

[rfemod]

Thanks for asking! While I am not familiar with the fandom, you are welcome to nominate for the SVE. However, they will not be treated as two separate fandoms when nominating/requesting. Please make sure to disambiguate properly! :D

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks very much! I've nominated one ship from SVE, and Juna/Mia from these two mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/8606 and https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/9999

Both ships are nominated under the Stardew Valley fandom, and disambiguated as "Stardew Valley modded". Please let me know if that's not quite right, or if you have any further questions.

[rfemod]

I think that should be fine. I've accepted everything as you nominated them. Thank you! :D

[tempural]

Thanks for running this event! The rules say that genderqueer characters are allowed. In the comments, though, it's said that non-binary characters are not allowed?

https://rarefemslashexchange.dreamwidth.org/671.html?thread=15263#cmt15263

Could I ask what is the distinction between genderqueer and non-binary characters for this event?

[rfemod]

Hi there! The comment that you are referring to is from 2021, asked during our first year of the exchange. It was something we hadn't considered when creating the exchange and since the nominations were already closed, we said no. The rules have since changed to allow genderqueer characters and that includes nonbinary characters on the basis that it is someone that you would feel comfortable nominating in what is still a femslash exchange. I'm trusting people to use their judgment on this one. If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask.

[tempural]

Ok that clears things up, thank you!

[rfemod]

Glad to hear that! You're welcome!

[stardust_rifle]

Would it be possible to nominate Canon Female Character/Any Other Canon Female Character from a specific fandom?

[rfemod]

Thanks for asking, but unfortunately, "any" nominations aren't being accepted at this time. Sorry about that!