Deep Conversations

Hello and welcome to yet another round of Rare Male Slash Exchange!

A little later than usual but nonetheless I will continue running this exchange. No rules have been changed since last year: Please address all questions to the tentaclemod@gmail.com address or comment on this post.

Here is the tentative schedule, to be finalised later this week:

SCHEDULE 2025

(all times 20:00PM UTC)

Nominations Open: Thursday 19 June
Nominations Close: Sunday 29 June
Signups Open: Thursday 3 July
Signups Close: Sunday 13 July
Deadline: Saturday 16 August
Works reveals: Saturday 30 August
Creator reveals: Saturday 6 September

AO3 | Tagset

Eligibility:

To be eligible, a pairing must fulfill the following criteria:

• Be a slash ship involving male characters only
  
• Have no more than 200 fics on AO3 - this includes only complete works of at least 1000 words in English (using "otp: true")

Where numbers are borderline, the mod reserves the right to use their discretion; please feel free to make a case in the eligibility post!

Nominations:

The tagset will be available here. An AO3 account is required.

Further nominations instructions (disambiguation, how to nominate franchises, etc.) will be available on the eligibility post once nominations open.

Each participant may nominate up to 10 fandoms with up to 10 relationships in each.

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!

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: these are permitted, subject to eligibility as outlined above. All ships must include only male characters.
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. Tony Stark (MCU)/Bruce Wayne (DCEU).
Original characters in non-original canons: You may nominate Character/Original Male Character(s), e.g. Luke Skywalker/Original Male Character; Harry Potter/Original Male Characters. Any original character(s) nominated will be assumed to be male.
Original Works: Original ships are permitted. These must be nominated under 'Original Work' in the format 'Character Type/Character Type' e.g. 'King/Advisor', 'Pilot/Soldier/General', etc. All characters will be assumed to be male. If they are not nominated in this way, they will be rejected.
Note that there is a 100 character limit on the number of characters (the literal letters/numbers/spaces, etc., not the people!) in tags on AO3. If you run into the limit and need to check how many there are in yours, you can use the spreadsheet here.

Signups:

Signups will be here. An AO3 account is required.

You can request 3-10 fandoms with 1-20 ships and a choice of fiction, art, podfic, or either.

You can offer 4-10 fandoms with 1-20 ships and a choice of fiction, art, podfic, or either.

As long as you request/offer the minimum number of required fandoms, you can repeat fandoms. e.g. requesting Harry Potter, Supernatural and MCU for your three required fandoms, plus another slot of MCU.

If a signup does not include the required number of fandoms, it will be deleted when signups 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 no offers match your requests, your requests will go out for claiming as an initial pinch hit. Please bear in mind that if this is unclaimed for a number of weeks, you may be asked to add extra requests; however, the mod will do all they can to prevent this.

If no requests match your offers, the mod 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 signup will be deleted.

Dear Creator letters may be linked to in your signup in order to give a creator further details on your likes and dislikes. These are optional.

Please include anything you absolutely don't want to receive (Do Not Wants) in the Optional Details field in your AO3 signup. In the event that a DNW is included in your gift, only clear and reasonable DNWs in your signup will be enforced. (Please bear in mind that DNWs cannot be used to box your creator into producing a very specific work.)

Participants may sign up with a maximum of two accounts each. If you sign up with two accounts, please bear in mind you will be expected to produce at least one fanwork per signup. Please sock responsibly!

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 1000 words or a completed piece of fanart or a complete work of podfic of at least 500 words. Art & Podfic should be original work created entirely by you; icons, manips, etc. cannot fulfil art requests. Do not post a work in progress.

Your assignment must focus on a requested ship, and must include a romantic and/or sexual relationship of some kind. This is not a friendship exchange!

That is not to say, however, that all gifts must include explicit material. Explicit gifts are not required, but are permitted (subject to recipients' DNWs).

Please do not discuss - or post! - your assignment in public; creators should remain anonymous until creators are revealed. Do, however, feel free to discuss with a beta reader.

You only need to create one fanwork for your assignment, e.g. if your recipient has 6 requests, you do not need to create a work for all 6. This does not need to be the one you matched on; you can use any of their requests. However, please do not create a work for a fandom you don't know.

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.

Posting:

To post your fic/art on AO3: navigate to your AO3 dashboard, click on 'Assignments', find your Rare Male Slash Exchange 2023 assignment and click 'Fulfill'. Should artists need help posting, please contact the mod at tentaclemod@gmail.com.

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

As works should remain anonymous during the collection's anonymous period, do not post your work elsewhere before creator reveals or discuss it 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. Please ensure that you actually post your gift!

Defaulting:

If you cannot finish your gift, please default.

To default: navigate to your AO3 dashboard, click 'Assignments', locate your Rare Male Slash 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 have not posted a gift by the deadline, the mod will default you. You will need to post a full gift for any request in the exchange (excluding your own) before you will be permitted to participate in any further rounds.

If you need an extension, please email tentaclemod@gmail.com, including how long you need (no more than 48 hours will be granted) and your AO3 username. I do not need to know why you want the extension. Note that no extensions can be granted once the deadline has passed.

Pinch hits:

Pinch hits will be posted to the Dreamwidth community.

Please reply to the pinch hit post to claim, including your AO3 username; if you are successful, the mod will contact you and 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.

Note that if you claim a pinch hit without logging into Dreamwidth, I will not be able to respond to your comment.

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.

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.



The aim of this exchange is to create gifts that the recipients will enjoy. If you break the rules above or are found to be participating in bad faith (e.g. signing up with multiple accounts in bad faith; acting spitefully toward the mod or other participants; using uncredited works as your own), you will be banned from participation.

You must be at least 18 years old to participate.



If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! You can either comment on this post (anon is on) or send an email to tentaclemod@gmail.com.