#defaulting

The no-penalty default deadline is July 8th, 2024!

Have a look at how your assignment is going! If you're feeling good, fantastic! Congrats! If you're concerned, it's better to default on time (and maybe try to finish your fic as a treat) than get locked out of the exchange in the future.

The probelm with them was that the basegame palm tree mesh only had one subset while most of modern models have at least two - one for leaves and the other for trunk. And while the first palm tree from base game was fairly ok to make, the bon voyage one was waaaaay harder! This one already had two subsets - great! But...one of them was repositoried to the base game palm tree *PACEPALM* (pardon the pun XD).

Long story short, after long hours of struggling I decided that I needed to make the new trees have only one subset instead of two (they are stunning conversions by @beautifulnerdkitty​ by the way, from this set here) which involved making a new combined texture with both leaves and bark and UV editing of the mesh plus a lot of cleaning inside palm trees files. But look, it worked!

Hi everyone! We can’t wait to see all the delights you’ve been working hard to create over the last several weeks. And we’ll see them soon because… ASSIGNMENTS ARE DUE IN A WEEK!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!

BUT. If you already know there’s NO WAY you can finish on time, please default TODAY on AO3. You can do that by logging in to your AO3 account, navigating to your M&M signup, and hitting “default.” There is no judgment if you need to do this! You don’t need to let us know why; we know this is a busy time of year for many people and we also know that sometimes you just get blocked and no creating happens. But please do default today if you know you can’t finish! We love you!

*okay, so, technically you can drop out later, but today’s the last day to do it and give a pinch hitter a whole week to make a gift for someone before the creating period ends

The AO3 form has an automated matching system, which assigns everyone a giftee based on the tags people have put in their requests and offers. A Mod’s job is then to go through and make sure that everything really does line up, and that no one’s DNWs have been overlooked. Some adjustments might then be made, if something doesn’t fit.

(Differently, for the DCU Rarepair Exchange, the mods did all of that matching by hand, as lining up rare pairings and characters is far harder than general Dick prompts.)

Participants do not get a say in who they get, as it’s all done by best match.

There are many instances in exchanges where a participant chooses not to fulfill their assignment. It’s called “defaulting”, and a participant has the ability to do this by hitting a button. Often this happens at a later stage, when someone realizes they won’t be able to complete their assignment and thus gives it up to be taken by a pinch hitter.

There is a deadline for defaulting without penalty; if someone defaults after that deadline, they will be banned from next year’s event.

As for doing so immediately upon getting your assignment, I’d say that’s extremely rare. The matching system works well in giving people what they’re comfortable with, and even if it isn’t perfect, people have enough respect for the commitment they’ve made to not just willy nilly toss aside their assignment.

the chocolate clusters will probably remain as is, besides some minor tweaks. The macadamia nut cookies i'm less sure of. idk if i love the blue and yellow? i may make it darker, or an entirely different color. i can't really decide how else i want it to look lol. and for the most part, i'm doing everything from scratch and that just makes it all the more intimidating? because i am by no means an artist, i'm barely learning photoshop for the first time !! but all i want to do is lately is complete this little project, it'll definitely make me feel proud of myself! ˙˚ʚ(´◡`)ɞ˚˙

We get a lot of questions about terminology around here, so I’ll 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 don’t have to make any nominations to participate, and you technically don’t have to participate if you nominate, although it’s considered rude to nominate if you don’t plan to take part.

For our purposes, nominations are only ships

You haven’t 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, you’d better nominate them. Exchange mods can weed out tags that don’t suit the exchange. IE: if someone nominated shadowgast, we’d remove it, since we’re 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 “Any”, whether you are creating fic or art, and the ratings you will write OR “Any.” 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, it’s 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.

Hi everyone! We can’t wait to see all the delights you’ve been working hard to create over the last several weeks. And we’ll see them soon because… ASSIGNMENTS ARE DUE IN A WEEK!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!

BUT. If you already know there’s NO WAY you can finish on time, please default TODAY on AO3. You can do that by logging in to your AO3 account, navigating to your M&M signup, and hitting “default.” There is no judgment if you need to do this! You don’t need to let us know why; we know this is a busy time of year for many people and we also know that sometimes you just get blocked and no creating happens. But please do default today if you know you can’t finish! We love you!

*okay, so, technically you can drop out later, but today’s the last day to do it and give a pinch hitter a whole week to make a gift for someone before the creating period ends