• You may email me at silentnightmod@gmail.com with your request. Please state that you are looking to create an AO3 account and provide me with the email address you want me to send the invite code to. You will receive an invite email from AO3 (note: check your Spam folders if the process takes too long.)



• You may request an invite straight from AO3 here, but do keep in mind that if you are in the site's queue, it may take several days for you to receive an email and thus may miss nominations period. If you are concerned about missing out on nominations, you may provide us with your requests in the Nominations Negotiations post or email me (you are allowed up to 20 Wish Items per fandom) and I will place them in for you.

How to Participate

Nominations:

• Nominations will run from October 7th 7AM CDT to October 15, 2016 7PM CDT.
 


• For the first stage of this exchange, participants will pick what they want to see in the fest. We will use the tagset as the pool of options to select from during signups. Each item in the tagset will be referred to in this guide as a Wish Item. We will be dividing Wish Items into three categories: Characters, Relationships, and Worldbuilding.



• If you haven't done nominations before: generally as a rule, if you see a Wish Item that has already been accepted into the taglist, you do not need to nominate it again.



• The Wish Items will appear as "Characters" slots on the nomination page to make matching easier on the mod's end of things. :) Each person will have the option of nominating 20 Wish Items for two fandoms each (20 for SSSS and 20 for aRTD.)



• If you wish to nominate a single character, type in Character: into the slot and the character's full name (ex: Character: Sigrun Eide). You may nominate Original Characters as well! For this, we ask that you do not give your OC a name (such as if you have a Perssssona) but specify their role in your nomination in these examples: Character: Original Icelandic Mage or Character: Original Cleanser Character. You may go more into detail in your letter if you wish.



• Do the same thing for any Relationships. To keep things organized, please nominate characters in relationships in alphabetical order by their surnames. Examples: Relationship: Sigrun Eide & Mikkel Madsen for platonic and Relationship: Reynir Árnason/Lalli Hotakainen for romantic. Original characters can be nominated for this exchange, and for relationships we request they are placed second after the canon character regardless of the alphabetical order (example: Emil Västerström/Original Female Character or Tuuri Hotakainen & Original Mechanic Character  
  
  
  • A note about Relationships: AO3 is very precise about language. "Sigrun Eide/Tuuri Hotakainen" indicates a shippy or romantic fanwork. "Sigrun Eide & Tuuri Hotakainen" indicates a platonic or otherwise non-romantic relationship. If you wish to nominate a relationship, please be mindful of whether you use the / or the &. This will be extremely important when it comes to matching!
  
  
  
  • You may nominate more than two characters in a Relationship so long as the surnames are in alphabetical order and OCs are listed last (example: Relationship: Sigrun Eide & Mikkel Madsen & Emil Västerström.) If the characters have the same surname then alphabetize them by their first names (example: Relationship: Lalli Hotakainen & Onni Hotakainen & Tuuri Hotakainen.)
  
  

• A note on Worldbulding. If you request a Worldbuilding item, it is generally regarded as an entity on itself. Your gifter may be matched on that item but not on any of your other Items, so we recommend that you do not combine a Worldbuilding item with a Character or Relationship. Example: if you select Worldbuilding: Tuonela it is expected your prompt will be about Tuonela in general (such as a fanart about it or a story exploring the experience of being a spirit in Tuonela), and not a story about one of the canon characters going to Tuonela. If you wish for that, then request the character and prompt for that scenario instead.

• We will be having a Nominations Negotiations post here if you wish to discuss and make agreements with other members on how to divide up your 20 nomination slots per fandom.  
  
  
• You do not have to fill all 20 slots nor are required to nominate for both fandoms, and you will not be disqualified from participating if you do not nominate. But it will help us to know what people are interested in requesting come sign up period! :)
  

Sign Ups:

• Sign ups will run from October 16th 7AM CDT to October 29, 2016 8PM CDT.
 


• You may edit or delete your signup up until signups close.



• You will be matched on at least one fandom + one Wish Item + one medium + one rating.
  
  Requests:
  
  
  • You are allowed 1-5 Requests (by fandom) with 3-20 Wish Items per request. How you wish to conduct your requests is up to you. You may put everything in one request. Or, if you only want certain things for fic and certain things for art, you can divide up your requests by that. Or, if you wish to request Explicit-rated fanworks, you may have a separate request for that.
  
  
  
  • Please note, if you wish to request a fanwork about a character in a singular situation (such as Lalli during his scout duties or a day in the life fic of Mikkel in Denmark) then you request them as Characters. If you wish to request characters interacting, be it in a platonic or romantic setting, then you need to select them as a Relationship (Sigrun Eide/Emil Västerström for shippy fic, Sigrun Eide & Emil Västerström for platonic, for example.)
  
  
  
  • Each request will ask you to choose the following:
  
  
  • Fandom (SSSS or aRTD)
  
  
  • Wish Items (3-20 per Request)
  
  
  • Additional Tags (Choose whether you want Fic or Art)
  
  
  • Rating
  
  
  • You may see a visual sample of a sign up form here
    
  
  
  • Dear Creator letters and Prompt details will help your creator tailor your gift to your likes. You may either write in your prompts in the Prompt Details box, or choose to write a letter. For all requests we would like you to at least provide some prompts, general likes, Do Not Wants, and anything else you would like your Gifter to know.
    
    Letters:
  
  
  • Letters may be hosted on your Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Tumblr, Googledocs, or any other personal webpage so long as it is publicly accessible. Post the link to your letter in the provided field.
  
  
  
  • If you are writing a letter, the basic structure of your letter should contain:
  
  
  
  • General likes
  
  
  
  • Dislikes (or, your Do Not Wants)
  
  
  
  • Prompts for each of your requests. They can be short or long, it is up to you. But keep in mind your Gifter is required to write only one of your requests.
  
  
  If you would like some examples of Dear Author letters, you can take a look at these:
  elleth's Femslash Exchange 2016 letter
  kiraly's Trick or Treat 2016 letter
  yuuago's Yuletide 2016 letter
  independence1776's Innumerable Stars 2016 letter
  
  
  Offers:
  
  
  • You are allowed 1-5 Offers (by fandom) with 3-20 Wish Items per offer. How you wish to conduct your offers is up to you. If you are, for example, both an artist and a writer but only wish to draw solo characters while want to write relationships, then you can split your Offers by having one set of offers for characters and art, and one for relationships and fic.
  
  
  
  • Please note, if you wish to offer a fanwork about a character in a singular situation (such as Lalli during his scout duties or a day in the life fic of Mikkel in Denmark) then you offer them as Characters. If you wish to offer characters interacting, be it in a platonic or romantic setting, then you need to select them as a Relationship (Sigrun Eide/Emil Västerström for shippy fic, Sigrun Eide & Emil Västerström for platonic, for example.)
  
  
  
  • Each Offer will ask you to choose the following:
  
  
  • Fandom (SSSS or aRTD)
  
  
  • Wish Items (3-20 per Offer)
  
  
  • Additional Tags (Choose whether you will be writing Fic or drawing Art)
  
  
  • Rating
  
  
  • You may see a visual sample of a sign up form here
    
  
  
  • You will have the option to add in offer details. This is purely optional and may help with matching if there is anything you wish to tell the mod about your preferences, such as if you prefer one genre over another. If you put in, for example, "Will prefer not to write kidfic" I will try my best to make sure you will not be matched with someone who wants *only* kidfic. However, please be flexible with your offers as the more restrictions could make matching more difficult. Offer details are only viewable to the mod.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Pinch Hits:
  
  
  What is a pinch hit?
  Pinch Hits are assignments that do not have a creator. There may be initial pinch hits at the beginning of the exchange after matching if no match was found for that participant, or the creator had defaulted on their assignment. The pinch hits are up for anyone to claim them as an assignment. Pinch hits will be posted both on the Dreamwidth community and on the exchange's Google group.
  
  I would like to be a pinch hitter, or I did not sign up for the exchange but I am interested in being a pinch hitter.
  Then join the Google group here. Pinch Hits will be listed both on this community and on the Google group. You will receive notifications of each new pinch hit.
  
  To claim a pinch hit, email the mod's email at silentnightmod@gmail.com with your AO3 name the assignment number you wish to claim.
  
  
  
  Assignments:
  
  • Assignments will go out no later than November 1st, 2016. Assignments will be due on January 7th 8PM CST.
  
  
  
  • Your fanwork must focus on one of your recipient's Wish Items. You are not obligated to write for every Wish Item your recipient requested. But if you wish to create a fanwork for more than one Wish Item, you are free to do so.
  
  
  
  • Please do your best to avoid your recipient's listed squicks, dislikes, and DNWs.
  
  
  
  • You do not have to write for the Wish Item you matched on if something else in your recipient's request interests you.
  
  
  
  • Due to the schedule, extensions will be difficult to give. All works must be complete and posted by the time the collection goes live. The due date is on January 7th, but you may continue to edit your fanwork up until the moment the collection goes live on January 15, 2017 at 7AM CST. The collection cannot go live without everyone having a gift in the collection.
  
  
  
  • If you have any problems or questions about your assignment, do not hesitate to contact the mod at silentnightmod@gmail.com.
  
  
  
  • If you think you may not be able to complete your assignment for whatever reason, go to your Assignments page and click on the "Default" button next to your assignment. The mod will look for a pinch hitter for your assignment. But keep in mind that if you default and your Gifter also defaults, then you may not go out as a pinch hit and may not receive a gift.
  
  
  
  
  Posting on AO3:
  
  • When you are ready to post your assignment fanwork, go to this link (http://archiveofourown.org/users/YOURUSERNAME/assignments) and click on "fulfill." Then fill out the form with all relevant information. AO3 should automatically add this fanwork as part of the collection and add in your recipient in the "Gift this work to" field.
  
  
  
  • After you post to AO3, you may continue to edit your work up until reveals date.
  
  
  
  • If you are posting art, you will need to host your art elsewhere. You may use Tumblr (set the post to private as to remain anonymous until Creator Reveals), Imgur, or numerous other photo hosting sites.
   
  
  
  • If you are posting a treat, go to this year's collection page here and click on the "Add to collection" button on the upper right corner. You will need to add in your recipient's name in the "Gift this work to" field. Make certain the name matches their AO3 username exactly or it will not appear on their Gifts page and they may not get an email notification that they have received a gift.
  
  
  
  • You work will remain anonymous on the day of reveals (January 15). On the day of reveals, all works will be revealed but not the names of the Gifter. This will be the anonymous period, just for a bit of fun as everyone enjoys the works and maybe guess who did what. Creator names will be revealed on January 22.
  
  
  
  
  
  Extra:
  
  I completed my assignment early! Now what?
  That's excellent! Did you post it to the AO3 Collection? After you're done, if you still wish to create more works, you can look through the Requests Summary and write or draw treats! :)  
  
  When can I share/promote my fanwork?
  Please refrain from promoting your fanwork until the Creator Reveals date of January 22. The anonymous period of the exchange is part of the fun! :) After that feel free to crosspost/share/promote everywhere!
  
  I have a question that was not covered here.
  You may either send me an email at silentnightmod@gmail.com or reply in the Page a Mod post.