So this is your first exchange
We get a lot of questions about terminology around here, so Iāll try and hammer some of that out. These are in roughly chronological order.
Nomination: This is step 1 of an exchange, where you enter the ships, characters, or fandoms that you would be interested in writing/drawing or receiving fic/art for. These nominations go into the tag set (see below). A nomination is not a sign-up, meaning you donāt have to make any nominations to participate, and you technically donāt have to participate if you nominate, although itās considered rude to nominate if you donāt plan to take part.
For our purposes, nominations are only ships
You havenāt signed up or made requests yet
Tag set: all the nominations people put in make up the set of tags that people who sign up can pull from to make their requests. You can only request things in the tag set. So if you really want to be able to create for (offer) or receive a certain ship, youād better nominate them. Exchange mods can weed out tags that donāt suit the exchange. IE: if someone nominated shadowgast, weād remove it, since weāre a rarepair exchange.
Sign-up: This is you committing to being in the exchange. This is also where you make your requests for what you want to receive and offers for what you want to create.
Request: These are how you get fic or art. The more different requests you make, the easier it is to match you to someone. For this exchange, you get to make up to 10 requests, and you must make at least 4 DIFFERENT ones. Requests must each include 1 fandom, whether you want fiction or art (in the additional tags), 1-15 relationships, and the ratings (G-E) you are comfortable receiving. You set these fields for all requests. More details like prompts, likes, and do not wants are optional but highly recommended. See DNWs for more information.
Offer: This says what you are willing to or want to make. You make 4-10 of these. They must include 1 fandom, 1-15 relationships OR āAnyā, whether you are creating fic or art, and the ratings you will write OR āAny.ā Note that you SHOULD NOT pick ANY unless you REALLY MEAN IT. Offers do not contain prompts or DNWs
Do Not Want (DNW): Your DNWs are things your gifter must avoid to create something you will enjoy. DNWs are expected to be used for things such as triggers, squicks, NoTPs, or things that would otherwise spoil your gift and are not to be used to "box" a creator into creating a one specific gift. Be specific in your DNWs. (See the exchange rules on ao3 for more information).
Dear Critter Letter: This is the Critical Role specific term for a Dear Creator Letter. Basically, itās more details about your likes, dislikes, wants, DNWs, quirks, and the prompts. Read this for more information. These are OPTIONAL.
Assignment: You will get matched with someone! Yippee!! DO NOT TELL THEM WHO YOU ARE. Look at their requests, read their Dear Critter Letter, and then pick one (1) of their prompts to fill.
You are expected to write 1 fic.
You expect to receive 1 fic.
Anything else is a treat.
Default: This is the POLITE way to exit an exchange. If you exit before the no penalty deadline, we bid you farewell and you can try again next year. If you exit after, you will not be allowed to participate in future exchanges. Default also applies if you do not complete your gift or post only placeholder fic/art by the due date or ignore DNWs.
Pinch-hit: This is when you swoop in to save an assignment after someone else defaults. Know that if you do this, the mods love you very much. Pinch-hits follow usual assignment rules.
Treat: These are bonus fics. You donāt have to be signed up to write them, and they can be for anyone. They can be shorter than your gift, but they must still adhere to requests and DNWs. Know that if you do these, the authors love you!