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The second part of our 10-year Steve/Tony CA:CW celebrations is our mini gift exchange! Just like Steve gifted Tony a letter and flip phone and Tony tried to gift Steve FDR's fountain pens in CA:CW, we'll be giving one another presents as well, though hopefully ones that are less heart-shattering—unless you ask for your heart to be broken, of course.

Everyone who joins will be matched with another participant, for whom they'll secretly create a Steve/Tony fanwork. At the end of the event, the gifts will be posted anonymously, and after all the gifts have been posted, creators will be revealed!

Ready to join the fun? Fill out our sign-up form here!

Or see below for more info on the event as well as info on how to participate if you're interested, but you don't know if you can commit.

About the anniversary event

Gift exchange schedule

July 19: sign-ups open

August 8: sign-ups close at 11:59 PM EDT (what time is that for me?)

August 10: assignments sent out

October 10: works due at 11:59 PM EDT (what time is that for me?)

October 17–22: posting period

October 23: creator reveals

Minimum work requirements

Fic: 500 words

Poem: 500 words

Art (traditional or digital, including fancomics): one polished work on an unlined surface

Vid: 30 seconds

Music (with or without lyrics): 30 seconds

Gifset: three gifs

Podfic: 250 words if you’re writing the text for the podfic or 500 words if you’re recording a pre-existing work

Graphic/edit/manip: one polished work

Fanmix: ten songs and cover art (this can be digital, traditional, an edit, etc.)

Mood board: three images + 200 words (the text doesn’t have to be a fic; it can be a description, lyrics, quote, etc.)

Multimedia work: the minimum requirement for at least one of the fanwork types included in the work

These are just the minimum work requirements. You’re always welcome to create more, whether it’s a bigger work or multiple works.

General rules & guidelines

You must be over the age of 18.

You must have an AO3 account. If you don’t have one, request one here or contact us.

Only one sign-up per person/team is allowed. If you sign up as a team (i.e., collaborate with someone to co-create a work), you can’t sign up separately as a solo creator as well.

Using multiple accounts to sign up for the gift exchange more than once or to leave comments/kudos on works to hide your identity during exchange reveals is not allowed.

There is NO limit to how many works you can create or how many prompts you can request or fulfill.

Making multiple works for a single prompt or combining multiple prompts for a single work is okay.

Works must be new works made for the event.

No gen AI/LLM (e.g., ChatGPT) use is allowed.

Keep your prompts, gift recipients, and gifts a secret until after reveals happen. See more info in the “anonymity and reveals” section of our gift exchange guidelines.

Creators will do their best to create a work for your prompt(s) and must respect your DNWs, but they’ll bring their own viewpoints and sensibilities. While we’ll do our best to match people, you should not expect to be matched to specific creators or have your prompt fulfilled exactly the way you imagined it.

Everyone has different viewpoints on CA:CW, but we're all fellow fans at the end of the day. Please be kind to other participants as we want this to be a fun event for everyone! ❤️

Content rules

You must fulfill at least one of your giftee’s prompts. Alternatively, you can create a gift based on just your giftee’s likes and tags, but we strongly encourage you to work with their prompts.

Do not include any of your giftee’s listed “do not want"s (DNWs) in your work.

All prompts/works must focus on Steve and Tony's relationship, whether it's platonic (pre-slash or gen/not shippy at all), romantic, or sexual. You can indicate your likes/DNWs on the sign-up form.

All relationship permutations—gen, pre-slash, unrequited or requited love, mutual or one-sided pining, established relationship, get together/get back together, breakups, etc.—are allowed. You can indicate your likes/DNWs on your sign-up form.

We welcome everything from the 100% sugary sweet to the 100% bitterly dark. All kinds of endings—unhappy, ambiguous/open, bittersweet, hopeful, or happy—are welcome. You can indicate your likes/DNWs on your sign-up form.

Darkness and angst all the way through "dead dove: do not eat" and works looking at the events of CA:CW critically are welcome, but character bashing is not allowed.

You're allowed to request other romantic/sexual relationships featuring Steve and/or Tony (including poly). These are okay ONLY IF the primary focus of the prompt/work is on Steve and Tony AND the work concludes in one of the following ways (you can indicate what you prefer in your request or leave this up to your gifter): - Steve/Tony end up together (no poly) - Steve and Tony are single at the end - Steve and/or Tony is in a relationship with someone else at the end, BUT it's made obvious that the relationship is unhappy or doomed because of Steve's feelings for Tony/Tony's feelings for Steve

You cannot create a work that includes Steve and/or Tony in a relationship with another character unless the giftee explicitly said they’re okay with it, however. If the giftee gave the green light, remember your work still needs to follow the guidelines above. This also applies to works with POVs of other characters.

Prompts/works must either be set in CA:CW or heavily based on CA:CW if the prompt/work is canon-divergent, post-CA:CW, crossover, or fusion.

Interested but don't know if you can commit to participating in the gift exchange?

There are two ways you can still get involved in our CA:CW anniversary event. The first is joining our no-commitment event, the prompt fest. There is NO minimum requirement, all ratings are allowed, and all fanworks are allowed. We have 305 prompts for you to check out.

The other way is to sign up as a gift exchange pinch hitter. Pinch hitters are people who fulfill an assignment if someone drops out. If we reach out to you, you’re under no obligation to take on the assignment; we just ask that you let us know promptly whether you can or can’t take it on. If you’d like to volunteer as a pinch hitter, you can sign up here.

Questions?

I did this ages ago for for a Reverse Big Bang art/fiction collaboration.  And I’ve been sitting on it impatiently ever since.

But the time has come!

This is companion piece to the fan fiction DONA NOBIS PACEM  written by @thegraytigress

^_^

And I agree! Sort of. Meaning, I agree with the idea that people aren't entitled to a story working out the way they personally want.

BUT.

In my admittedly limited time hanging out in this fandom, I don't think that's what I've seen. It's certainly not what I personally experienced in my own viewing of the finale.

While it's perfectly reasonable to say that people aren't entitled to stories working out the way they want, I think it's just as reasonable to say that they are allowed to expect a story to function and resolve following its own internal rules. They are allowed to assume a story will maintain its genre, follow through with its message, address loose threads in a way that makes sense within its established logic.

It's not "entitled" to be weirded out and disappointed when your whimsical, fun, satirical comedy-with-a-dash-of-romance suddenly veers wildly off-course and ends up awkwardly metamorphosing into a nihilistic tragedy. It's not petty or whiny to be sad about characters you've known and loved for years being destroyed so suddenly and unexpectedly. Falling in love with a story that - for decades - has had a specific, uplifting, accepted thematic message, only to be upset when that message is abruptly tossed out and replaced with something wildly different isn't the same as demanding writers bend to your will.

Isn't that the point of choosing a genre, or an established fiction? If I want to watch something scary, I'll seek out horror. If I want something heartwarming, I'll go for... I dunno... a Pixar movie or whatever. That's not me demanding things or being entitled; it's me making a choice about what I want to see based upon the established characteristics of specific bits of media.

People aren't upset just because they didn't get the kiss they wanted; they're upset because they decided to watch GO3 with the understanding that this piece of fiction was built around a specific sort of theme and vibe and wholesome message - based upon an established canon - and then they were smacked upside the head with something entirely different.

Its possible to one day look at the friend that has been there for you through the most challenging days of your life and have a very italicized oh. Oh no. In your head.

One day they may even unexpectedly kiss you as you stand there, completely frozen and when they start to apologise you say "no, please do it again."

And for one day them to tell you they think they're in love with you as you both laugh with joy at this little bit of hope.

It is possible to find the kind of love where you fall asleep holding hands every night, still a bit amazed this has happened.

Truth be told, its possible to find this love because of Aziraphale and Crowley rather than requiring their sacrifice. At least that's how it worked for us.

And sometimes, a bakery will advertise chocolate cake but its really just a vanilla cake with chocolate chips. And you take it, because at least its got chocolate but you just wish it was advertised properly.

And sometimes, people say that something is a vanilla chocolate chip cake but its not even chocolate! Its just sultanas that everyone thinks were meant to be chocolate, but the bakery never said it was going to chocolate, even if they never said it wasn't.

And whenever you go into a new bakery looking for chocolate cake, everyone looks at you weirdly and tells you to enjoy vanilla chocolate chip cake when maybe you don't want the focus to be on vanilla.

And when you DO get chocolate cake, its always the same kind. And you settle, because hey, beggars cant be choosers, right? Its always just white chocolate all the way through, no dark chocolate, no milk chocolate, not even a Mars bar on the side. It feels more like a vanilla cake, to be honest, regardless of the fact that its undeniably technically chocolate.

And you just wish that just once you could finish a chocolate cake and have it taste nice all the way through, especially with all the growing hatred towards chocolate in the world, but every time you order one, no matter how much you ask the waiter not to take it, or trust the chef not to make it taste bad at the center, you never get a good chocolate cake. And you can make your own, but its never going to be sold in bakeries.

And Shane is like, “yeah, I’m married to you.”

This is the greatest news Ilya has ever heard. “What?” He asks, happy tears springing to his eyes. “Me?”

“Yeah.”

“For real?”

“Yeah, Ilya, of course. I love you; we’re married.”

“You love me?”

“Yeah,” Shane laughs. “A lot.”

“Wow. Wow.” Ilya is stunned. “I really married you?”

“Yeah look.” Shane takes his hand and shows him the wedding band on his finger before showing off his own. He presses a sweet, chaste kiss to Ilya’s mouth and the poor guy melts.

“Oh wow,” Ilya sighs. Then pauses. “Wait, come back here. We’re married, come—”