2019 Schedule, Rules, Page-a-Mod

[flowersforgraves]

Unconventional Fanworks Exchange is a gift exchange for fanwork besides traditional fic and art, including (but not limited to): meta, in-universe documents, vids, podfic, audio not!fic, chatfic, and multimedia fanwork.

Links:
AO3 Collection
Tagset

Schedule:
Nominations from 12th August - 20th August 20:59 GMT-0600
Signups from 21st August - 29th August 20:59 GMT-0600
Assignments out by 1st September 20:59 GMT-0600
Assignments due 14th October 20:59 GMT-0600
Work reveals 21st October 20:59 GMT-0600
Creator reveals 28th October 20:59 GMT-0600



Nominations:

The form will allow you to nominate five fandoms with ten character slots each, as well as five freeform tags.

For character nominations, please nominate individual characters with the canonical tag where possible. For groups of characters, please use the format "Group: A & B" or "Group: A/B" -- these should also be nominated under the character slots. Please disambiguate if you know your nominated tags are prone to wandering.

Freeform tags should be a type of fanwork. Please feel free to be specific with broader categories (for example, "Haiku Series" or "Sonnet" rather than "Poetry"). Freeforms that do not specify a type of fanwork will be deleted.

Note that any sort of documentation freeform will be assumed to be in-universe, unless explicitly indicated otherwise. For example, "Goodreads Review" would be requesting a fictional book review of a book that exists in the source canon. Poetry- and meta-related freeforms will be assumed to be out-of-universe.

Signup:

You will be required to request 3-10 distinct fandoms with 1-10 characters or groups, along with one or more freeforms to determine the fanwork medium. Multiple prompts within the same fandom are allowed as long as there are at least three distinct fandoms in your signup.

You will be required to offer 4-10 distinct fandoms with 1-10 characters or groups, along with one or more freeforms to determine the fanwork medium. Multiple prompts within the same fandom are allowed as long as there are at least four distinct fandoms in your signup.

If your offers do not allow you to match with any requests, you will be contacted via email by the mod and asked to add or change an offer so you can be matched. If this isn't possible or if you delay more than 48 hours responding, your signup will be deleted.

Pieces that involve explicitly stated DNWs will result in the creator banned from this exchange for one future round, and the recipient will go out as a pinch hit to receive a gift that complies with their requests. DNWs included in places other than the AO3 signup (such as in a letter) will not be enforced.

Assignments:

OR matching will be done based on fandom, character, and freeform. You are guaranteed to match only on one fandom, one character, and one freeform.

You will be required to produce a fanwork based on your recipient's requests. If the freeform you matched on provides a general guideline (such as certain poetry forms), that will be the minimum requirement. If the freeform you matched on does not provide a general guideline:

Written Work:

There will be a 1,000-word minimum for meta, in-universe texts, and similar.

Interactive Fiction:

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style works should also meet the 1,000-word minimum.

Poetry:

In non-form poems, the minimum will be declared via line count within the freeform tag itself (for example, "Free Verse (2-30 lines)", "Free Verse (30+ lines)").

Audio:

Podfic and audio not!fic of existing works must have permission from the original creator(s) and be a minimum of 1,000 words in its original form. Original audio work must be at least five minutes of edited content. A piece written and podficced specifically for this exchange should be a minimum of 500 written words.

Vidding:

Minimum requirement is 45 seconds of edited video.

Fanmix:

A fanmix should have 10 or more tracks.

Other Types of Fanwork:

If there is another common type of fanwork missing here, please feel free to contact me by commenting on this post or by private messaging me.



Other notes:

- This exchange may rely more heavily on "put in a good-faith effort" than other exchanges due to the nature of the fanwork. However, you are expected to create a quality gift you would be pleased to receive. Please keep that in mind when both requesting and offering.

- If possible, please host your fanwork on AO3. If not, you will still need to fulfill your assignment on AO3 in order to make it easier to tell when everyone has gotten a gift.

- Treats are extremely welcome, and do not have to fit the minimums.

- Again, any sort of documentation-focussed fanwork will be assumed to be in-universe unless otherwise specified. Exception: poetry of various kinds.

Comments

[sirvalkyrie]

Do you want the canonical tag to be used even if the AO3 canonical is wrong and they refuse to fix it? Do you want the canonical used even if we know it is fandom prone to wandering if the tags aren't disambiguated?

[flowersforgraves]

Disambiguated tags are great -- I'll update the post to reflect that.

My primary concern is whether or not the tags are understandable to people interested in offering or requesting the fandom. As long as it's clear, the fixed tag is acceptable.

[seinmit]

Can you request/prompt RPF with alternate universe elements? Like, for instance, if I want the academic text that Kant would write if he got picked up by aliens, would that be a legitimate part of this exchange?

[flowersforgraves]

Totally!

[(Anonymous)]

How are we counting word count min for poetry? Sonnets and many other formats won't amount to 1k words.

[flowersforgraves]

If the freeform you matched on provides a general guideline (such as certain poetry forms), that will be the minimum requirement. -- i.e., if you match on villanelle, you're only going to have to write one villanelle.

Hope that clears it up?

[gamerfic]

I’m planning to offer fan songs/fannish music. Did you have a minimum length in mind for this?

[flowersforgraves]

If you mean writing, performing, recording, and editing, that'd be 30 second minimum. If you will just be writing lyrics, one song would be good. As long as you'd be satisfied with receiving it as a gift and you put in a good-faith effort, it should be fine. (If you want to PM me with specifics, we could discuss it further, but it's up to you.)

[(Anonymous)]

Is there an upper limit on freeforms in a request?

[flowersforgraves]

You will have to choose between 1 and 20 freeforms. But, as long as you have three distinct fandoms in your signup, you can make the same fandom and character request with different freeforms.

[kinktomato]

Would icon sets and graphics be eligible or would that fall too much under fanart?

[flowersforgraves]

They are definitely eligible this round. It might change in the future if this exchange runs again, but for this round yes, absolutely.

[melody_jade]

Can we nominate 'No characters' and/or 'Original character(s)'?

Edit: Thought of a second question. One of the things I'm thinking of requesting is meta/art of a fandom tarot deck, like which tarot card goes with which character. I'm not expecting a full deck, just however much the creator wants to do. Is this allowed, and if it is, can I nominate it as 'Tarot card meta/art'?

[flowersforgraves]

Yes, that's totally fine. Please add the fandom name in parentheses at the end of the nomination.

The tarot cards are eligible, but I'm not sure that phrasing is explicit enough to get across what it is you want. Perhaps "tarot card archetype meta" or "tarot archetype assignment meta" would be clearer.

[(Anonymous)]

Is offering/requesting comics OK as a medium option?

[flowersforgraves]

Yes. This might change in future rounds (if those happen) but for this round you absolutely can nominate comics as a freeform.

[sunlit_stone]

Should there maybe be a lower word limit for poetry, even when it isn't a form with a strict number of lines? Like, if someone asks for blank verse, for example? I don't know, it kind of seems like 1000 words of iambic pentameter is a lot more work than 1000 words of prose.

[flowersforgraves]

There is no word limit for poetry. Line count will be the minimum, defined in the tag itself (we have "Free Verse Poetry (0-30 lines)" and "Free Verse Poetry (30+ lines)" in the tagset at the moment). I'll update this post to make that clearer -- apologies for the confusion.

[sunlit_stone]

Oh, I see! I'm sorry, I guess I should have checked the tagset. Thanks for the clarification :)

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! I'm really excited by the idea of this exchange.

Can I ask what the plan is for requests that seem a bit shady when it comes to AO3's Terms of Service? For example: gifsets and icons. I may very well be wrong about this, but I didn't think things like gif and icon sets were allowed on AO3? I'm asking about those specifically because I'd like to offer them (among other things.) Will it be possible for certain fanworks to be hosted outside AO3 or will the entire exchange experience be within AO3?

[flowersforgraves]

The work should be hosted on AO3 if at all possible, but if not, hosting fanwork outside of AO3 is acceptable, as long as you link to the page through AO3 (i.e., you will still have to click the "Fulfill" button on your assignment).

[rugessnome]

Oops, come to think of it, I probably should have specified a line count (maybe 10-15+?) for the trochaic tetrameter, as it only specifies the content of a line and isn't a fixed length form like a sonnet or vilanelle

[flowersforgraves]

I'll update your nomination. Thanks!

[fencesit]

How should I best nominate if I want to request someone make me something for any fandom and any ship?

[flowersforgraves]

I am inputting "Any Fandom", with character sub-tags "Any Character (Any Fandom)" and "Group: Any Ship (Any Fandom)" -- if that doesn't cover it, please feel free to nominate under "Any Fandom".

[unapologeticallymeatwad]

Hi! Where do I go to nominate something? Sorry, I'm still kinda confused as to how these work. This is such a cool idea though! I 'm pumped.

[flowersforgraves]

Here is the nomination form. You can also access this by going to the tagset, then clicking the button that says "Nominate" in the top right above the information about the tagset.

[simplecoffee]

What are the rules re: crossposting (for example gifsets or other images, to Tumblr or other websites) after the anon period is over?

[flowersforgraves]

Crossposting after reveals is totally fine! Please indicate it was created for an exchange, and/or include the recipient's account name.

[simplecoffee]

Perfect, thank you! 💛

[jiokra]

What about fanmixes? Is there a limit for number of songs, length?

[flowersforgraves]

Does 10 tracks for a fanmix sound acceptable? I'll add that to the main post shortly.

[jiokra]

That sounds great thank you!!

[zdenka]

The tagset looks really awesome! One question: what's the difference between "Audio and/or Visual - Music Video" and "Audio and/or Visual - Songvid"? Or are those the same thing?

[flowersforgraves]

To my understanding, they are substantially the same thing, but it's been decided to keep them separate, since "music video" is associated with anime fandoms and "songvid" tends to be used for live-action and Western animation fandoms. Hope that helps!

[zdenka]

Okay! Then I'll just use both of them as applicable. Thanks!

[flowerdeluce]

Hi, does the medium of: 'Cards and Games - Tarot Card Design' refer to art or something else?

[flowersforgraves]

Yes, I believe so. It might also cover basic designs / positioning and assigning characters to various major arcana archetypes. The requester should absolutely not expect a full deck.

[flowerdeluce]

Thank you for answering so quickly! This is good to know.

[(Anonymous)]

If my hypothetical recipient requested the "Crafts and Games - Card/Board Game" freeform, would it be acceptable for me to take an existing game and create a version of it specific to the fandom we matched on? For example, could I make something like a "The Witcher" themed game of Monopoly, or a deck of "due South" themed Fluxx cards, or a create the files necessary for someone to 3D print all the pieces of a "Hannibal" themed chess set (not that I have the skills to pull off the last example, but maybe somebody who does have the necessary skills might want to try)? Or would I be expected to create an entirely new game with its own unique rules and mechanics of play?

And speaking of things like 3D printable files, what do you suggest participants do for anonymously hosting any type of works which cannot be kept directly on AO3 or uploaded to a free image hosting site?

[flowersforgraves]

1) Yes, a themed gameset would fulfill that prompt.

2) For 3D printable files specifically, you could look into sites such as thingiverse. In general, if there is a place to host under a pseudonym different from your AO3 handle (such as itch.io), that would be acceptable.

However, if that is not an option, it is more important that the gift is accessible / present than that it is anonymous. If the degree of anonymity being lost is an issue, I apologize. This is something I will look to make clearer in the future, & am open to any suggestions either for this first round or going forward.

[(Anonymous)]

Does "any fandom" mean "any fandom at all", or "any fandom in the tagset"?

[flowersforgraves]

I'd intended it to be "any fandom in the tagset" but since there's been some feedback and discussion about expanding it, I won't be enforcing that. So if you offered any fandom, you can pick any fandom at all.

[(Anonymous)]

Some types of non-conventional art I wonder if you'd consider eligible...

1) Animation. (I'm not sure how you'd count this, perhaps in unique frames, if it's traditionally drawn 2D. But there are other ways to animate, e.g. 3D and 2.5D where perhaps it should be in seconds?)

2) Animatics or storyboards.

3) Poseable models, either 3D or 2.5D, where the recip could basically make their own animations with it.

4) Fancomics/doujinshi.

5) I'm not sure what the word for this is, but I've seen it on tumblr a bunch of times--it's kind of the fanart version of an AMV/vid, where the artist embeds the song at the top of the post, then posts a bunch of art pieces with the lyrics on each piece, so that you're meant to scroll down as the song plays and look at the art corresponding to the current lyrics.

The first two could theoretically include voice acting or music, or might have no audio.

[flowersforgraves]

The first four would definitely qualify, but I'm not super sure what you're referring to in the 5th point. If you could provide an example that would be great!

I can add these to the list of potential freeforms for the next year's tagset.

[graveexcitement]

I'm not the anon you're replying to, but I'm pretty sure they're referring to lyricstucks (well, they're called lyricstucks in Homestuck fandom; the concept isn't HS-exclusive but I don't know if there's a different word for it in other fandoms.) lyricstuckarchive has a bunch of examples.

[flowersforgraves]

Thanks for the link! I'll see if I can find another word, but if not those should qualify.