#fanwork exchanges

I was so pleased to have the chance to write for one of my favourite fandom folks again! Thanks for your patience and for sharing headcanons about our weirdly obsessed blorbos, @woahpip - it sounds like the holiday season was somewhat trying for both of us, but I hope you enjoyed the Solstice Swap and I wish you all the best in 2026 🎉

our hands hurt from healing [2400 words, E]

Jyn took one more step forward and for the first time in six months, he was close enough to touch—so close she could feel the heat of his body radiating through the frigid air.

Hi guys,

You've probably noticed that I didn't manage to get the HeiHua Exchange up and running this year, and wasn't able to get Gen and Small-Med organised last year, which brings me to something I've been pondering for a bit.

As you're probably aware (or can tell), running fanwork exchanges takes a lot of effort - as does participating in them! We have 5 regular(ish) traditional format exchanges a year in the DMBJ fandom, 4 of which are run by me, and it's... a lot! And I know it's a lot for all the creators in the fandom, too, especially the ones who try to participate in all of them. (Leaving LNY Exchange aside, given the difference in format and timing to the way the other five are run)

So of the four I run, I'm planning to cut them back to three a year instead, and would like input from all of you on what your preferred look for this would be.

For reference, the exchanges in order of typical engagement are:

Most engagement: Rarepair

Second most engagement: Small-Medium Ships

Third most engagement: Gen

Least engagement: HeiHua

and With these hands (2k, T), a lovely Isabela/Shathann story that fills in both some possible missing scenes from DA2 and background for Veilguard really nicely.

Hi and welcome to the Pingxie Exchange: a fic & art exchange about the Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling pairing! In this exchange, participants will be anonymously matched to create gifts for one another during a five week creation period. The gifts will be revealed on August 17th: the day Wu Xie welcomed Xiaoge back after his 10-year-long absence behind the Bronze Gate. This exchange is open to all the DMBJ canons (adaptations featuring Wu Xie or Xiaoge and the original novels). It will take place on AO3, so you need an AO3 account to participate–if you don’t have one, you can request it here; if there isn’t enough time, no worries - contact the mods at [email protected], on DreamWidth, or on tumblr, and we can send you an invitation! Please read this post carefully before signing up.

Schedule

Sign-ups open: June 18th Sign-ups end: June 28th 11:59 PM Anywhere On Earth (what time is it for me?) Matching: June 29th - July 5th Assignments out: no later than 6th July Assignments due: August 10th 11:59 PM Anywhere On Earth (what time is it for me?) Gift reveals: August 17th Creator reveals and treats deadline: August 24th

Guidelines

This is a ship exchange: as such, all the works created for this event must be focused on Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling. Works with threesomes/moresomes or other pairings involving Wu Xie and/or Zhang Qiling are not appropriate for this exchange, but background ships of other characters are fine!

You will be expected to create a gift matching your recipient’s request. Filling any specifying prompts is not obligatory, but try to create something you honestly think your recipient will enjoy!

You must not include anything stated as “do not want” in your recipient’s sign-up.

The minimum requirements for the gifts are 300 words for fic or one sketch on unlined paper for art (traditional or digital; no manips).

After the matching is done, all the requests will be made visible to everyone to allow for treating! There are no minimum requirements for treats (but remember to mind your recipient’s do not wants!). You can also create manips and fanvids for treats.

Please note: Now that AO3 has changed the way that gifting works on the archive, if you wish to be eligible for treats, you need to select the option “Allow anyone to gift me works” under the “Collections, Challenges and Gifts” section of your AO3 preferences.  You must also indicate that you are open to treats in your exchange sign-up.

This is an anonymous exchange: refrain from discussing your assignment in public. After the works are revealed, there will be a one week anon period when the creators remain anonymous before the creator reveals.

If at any point you need to drop out, just click on the “default” button on your AO3 assignment page (https: //archiveofourown. org/users/YOURNAME/assignments); we’ll find a pinch hitter to create a gift for your recipient instead. If you need an extension to finish your gift, contact the mods before the deadline.

After the reveals, comment on your gift.

Most importantly: be excellent to each other!

Further details below the cut...

Happy New Year! Quick heads-up that the submission deadline is Jan. 7th 23:59 PST👌(You can still edit it before the revealing date)

you can submit your assignment either by tumblr's submission feature or by posting it to the collection on AO3 :)

How it works:

Once a quarter, we will hold a rarepair exchange in which participants will receive a fanwork for a rarepair of their choice and in return will create a fanwork for another participant’s rarepair.

We define rarepair fanworks as those which do not feature any romantic or sexual merthur and which only feature platonic merthur as a background or secondary pairing.

What types of fanworks are eligible? fic, art, graphics, edits, playlists, anything you can think of is all fair game. Please note: you can only request specific pairings, you cannot request the type of fanwork in the sign-ups.

First, please join our community and help the matching process by commenting on this post with:

a list of ships you ship and/or are willing to create for

any ships you will not create for

any characters you particularly enjoy creating fanworks for

any other things you prefer or won’t create for, e.g. poly, femslash, incest, etc

your ao3 pseud, if you have one

this information will then be added to the masterpost.

How to sign-up:

This is easy. You can request 2, 3 or 4 pairings for each round. When the sign-up sheet is posted, simply reply to or reblog it and state the pairings you wish to request.

You cannot sign up for a round if you have not yet fulfilled your assignment for the previous round.

After match assignments are posted:

This is not an anonymous exchange, so it might be nice to contact your recipient and discuss the pairings in further detail, find out why they ship it, etc., and any preferences they may have on details of the fanworks. Recipients, please note that the final details are at the discretion of the creator.

You can post your work as soon as it’s finished, or you can wait until closer to the deadline. That’s entirely up to you. Whatever form your work takes, please post in on ao3. If you do not have an account there, contact us and we’ll get you an invite. If you wish for a link to your fanwork to be on this blog, when posting a link to tumblr please tag both your recipient, and @merlin-rarepair-swap 

An ao3 collection will be created for each round and a link will be included on the sign-up and match assignment posts. If your recipient has an ao3 account, please add it as a gift to them.

If your work is going to be a multi-chaptered fic, you must have posted at least chapter 1 by the deadline.

If you cannot complete your assignment by the deadline:

Sometimes unforeseen problems occur, and life generally gets in the way. If you need to default or you will be posting late, that’s okay, just be sure to notify us as soon as possible.

Extended deadline: if your work is not ready by the hard deadline (the 15th of the next sign-up month) then your extended deadline will be the deadline of the subsequent round. For example, if you can’t complete your round 5 work by the round 5 deadline, then your extended deadline will be the round 6 deadline and you cannot sign up for round 6.

Default: if you know you will not be able to complete your work by the following deadline, or you do not wish to extend the deadline, then you can default, and the request will then be opened up to be fulfilled by a pinch-hitter. (if you later manage to complete a work that was pinch-hit, please still feel free to submit it under the original request)

Timescales will be as follows:

sign-ups will run from the 20th to the 29th of the designated month and the match assignments will be posted on the first day of the following month. You will then have 2 to 2.5 months to complete your fanwork. This is demonstrated below and will continue to follow this pattern.

Autumn 2018 - Round 1:

sign-ups will begin on 20th September 2018

sign-ups will close on 29th September 2018

match assignments will be posted on the 1st October 2018

soft deadline will be 30th November 2018

hard deadline will be 15th December 2018

Winter 2018/19 - Round 2:

sign-ups will begin on 20th December 2018

sign-ups will close on 29th December 2018

match assignments will be posted on 2nd January 2019

soft deadline will be 28th February 2019

hard deadline will be 15th March 2019

Spring 2019 - Round 3:

sign-ups will begin on 20th March 2019

sign-ups will close on 29th March 2019

match assignments will be posted on 1st April 2019

soft deadline will be 31st May 2019

hard deadline will be 15th June 2019

Summer 2019 - Round 4:

sign-ups will begin on 20th June 2019

sign-ups will close on 29th June 2019

match assignments will be posted on 1st July 2019

soft deadline will be 31st August 2019

hard deadline will be 15th September 2019

the heart is hard to translate

[2.5K, rated M]

Cassian's been shipped off to a quiet backwater moon to finish recuperating from his Scarif injuries. He's not sure why Jyn insisted on coming too, and he doesn't know exactly what they are to each other - except important.

Ekevka wrote me a wonderful Mon Mothma character study that perfectly fits the shadowy, cloak-and-dagger mood of the show:

And, for anyone into the women of The Expanse, I wrote Détente, a short look at how Drummer might react to Avasarala trying to seduce her.