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bdsmexchange2023-05-11 09:12 pm
slashmarks) wrote in bdsmexchange2023-05-11 09:12 pm
2023 Rules and Schedule
2023 Schedule:
Nominations: May 11-19
Sign Ups: May 20-31
Assignments By: June 2
Works Due: July 23
Work Reveals: August 4
Creator Reveals: August 11
All deadlines 11:59 PM EDT.
2023 AO3 Collection | 2023 Tagset
BDSM Exchange is a kink-themed freeform exchange for fic and art. Works must be on-topic and include either a kink that falls under the BDSM umbrella, or the BDSM community itself in some way.
Note that this is not an exchange with a required smut minimum. Smut will be among matching criteria in the 2023 round. Please also note that while noncon and dubcon are welcome, they do not qualify a work or tag for this exchange by themselves. Noncon/dubcon works must center on nonconsensual or dubiously consensual kinks. For example, a fic centered on blackmail isn't necessarily on topic, but a fic where A blackmails B into participating in ponyplay would be. Likewise, violent noncon isn't necessarily on topic, but violent noncon which focuses on A forcing B into bondage would be. Please use your best judgment for the line between simple force and kink.
Nominations:
Fandoms:
You may nominate up to 10 fandoms. In general, all fandoms are eligible (with a couple of exceptions below). You may nominate Creator's Choice of Fandom. You may nominate fanworks if the creator has made a public permission statement for transformative works.
All crossovers should be nominated under Crossover Fandom. (More info on formatting under relationships).
RPF involving real life serial killers or people famous for participation in the Nazi regime is not allowed. I may add to this list, or ban thinly fictionalized versions thereof, according to my sole discretion.
Franchises:
Please nominate Star Wars fandoms under their specific property, e.g., Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: The Old Republic, etc. Note that characters are only eligible in properties they appear in or under Crossover Fandom, so for example, Ahsoka Tano cannot be nominated under Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.
Please nominate MCU movies under MCU, and MCU TV shows by individual show.
Please nominate Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series under Buffyverse.
Relationships:
Characters and relationships should be nominated under the relationship category. You may nominate up to 20 per fandom.
Individual characters should be nominated in the format "Solo: X." Note that these tags cover any fic including at least that character, and other characters may appear in the fic.
Relationships should be nominated in one of the following formats:
-X/Y for sexual, romantic, or kink play between two or more characters, in which any or no characters may top
-X tops Y for sexual, romantic or kink play between two or more characters in which X will top in the application of the freeform tag. If you match on a freeform involving penetration, this may refer to X penetrating Y, but for other freeforms it may mean that X dominates Y without indicating the order of penetration. If you would like to nominate a group of more than two characters in this format, please use the format X + Y top A + B (with apologies for making the tagset look increasingly like math class).
-X & Y for a BDSM-themed fanwork involving X and Y in a platonic relationship in which the fanwork does not focus on kink play between them. For example, this may mean a fanwork where X and Y are undercover at a fetish club together without engaging in play, or where they commiserate over trying to date in the BDSM community.
-Larger groups may be combined, for example, X/Y & A/B/C or A & X tops Y.
You may nominate members of groups, "Any Character" or original characters as part of relationships. In this case required details must be baked into the tag. Any ambiguous details will be up to the creator's choice. For example, you may nominate "Natasha Romanoff/Any Female Avenger," but you may not request "Natasha Romanoff/Any Avenger" and then insist upon or DNW Natasha Romanoff shipped with a male Avenger. Particularly keep in mind that in cases of ambiguous group nominations, creators may choose any member of that group.
Disambiguation (putting the fandom after the pairing in parentheses) is nice but not mandatory except for crossovers. Crossover pairings should be nominated in the format X (fandom)/Y (fandom), X (Fandom) tops Y (Fandom), etc.
Freeforms:
You may nominate up to 10 freeforms.
Freeforms must be on topic to be eligible. The rules for what is considered on topic have changed. In order to be eligible, a freeform tag must either fall under an umbrella category in the acronym (bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism or masochism), or reference BDSM community, symbols, traditions, etc. directly. "Any Kink"-type nominations are still allowed, with the understanding that they must be filled with an eligible kink.
The line between fictional noncon and kink can be thin. In general, noncon is not eligible alone as a freeform, but nonconsensual kink is, e.g., blackmail or noncon are ineligible by themselves but "Blackmailed Into Ponyplay" or "Nonconsensual Bondage" would be eligible. Ritual, formalized or extended domination is also usually eligible, e.g., "AU - Marriage Involves Obedience Magic" or "Sex Slavery."
The "Smut" prefix rule has been eliminated, and sign ups will include ratings-based matching for directly requesting smut or works without smut.
I encourage participants to consider whether their freeforms are potentially ambiguous when nominating. For example, "formal BDSM" has many radically diverging meanings and you will have no guarantee that if you match on it, your matching participant will interpret it the same way. It may help to add more information to clarify.
I will query freeforms that are ambiguous or if I am undecided if they are on topic, but will otherwise reject off topic freeforms this year. If you feel a freeform was rejected when it should have been accepted, you are welcome to comment with questions. You are also welcome to comment with questions before nominating.
Specific Clarifications:
Freeforms that are eligible:
-Clothing which restricts movement, e.g., hobble skirts, corsets
-Any pain-related kink
-Freeforms which specify doms or subs doing something or with certain traits, e.g., "AU - All Doms Are Cat People"
-Collars
Off topic freeforms (may be made eligible by adding on topic details):
-Material and texture-based clothing, e.g., leather or latex
-Crossdressing (forced feminization and similar are eligible but must be specified)
-Most uniform fetishes
-Body fluid kinks (except most bloodplay)
Banned Kinks: Freeforms involving historical Nazis, Nazis symbols, ideology or atrocities, or in-character Nazi fetishism/roleplay are not allowed. I reserve the right to add to this list or ban thinly fictionalized versions thereof. Note: Hydra and Hydra-related freeforms are permitted as long as they do not appear to be meant to circumvent this rule, do not involve Nazi symbols, ideology or war crimes, and are not set during WWII or Nazi Germany.
Sign Ups:
You sign up by going to the sign up form while sign ups are open and filling in the form for each field. Each field will have either a checkbox list or a text box. Tags will autofill as you type, but in some cases this may not work. In that case the easiest thing to do is to copy/paste the tag from the tagset. You can click "add request" and "add offer" below the first request and offer to add more, for up to ten of each.
You may request 1-10 fandoms with 1-2 mediums, 1-2 ratings, 1-20 relationships and 3-20 freeforms each. You must request at least 3 distinct fandoms to be guaranteed a gift. If you request 1 or 2 fandoms and you are an initial pinch hit or your creator defaults, I will still post your pinch hit, but will not hold the exchange until you have a gift unless you add fandoms.
Ratings matching is used to determine whether you are requesting/offering smut (that is, explicit sexual acts). It is not used for any other purpose and is not binding on rating for other acts. Select "Explicit" to request/offer sexually explicit works, "No rating" for non-sexually explicit works, or both if you would like to request/offer either.
You must offer something someone else is requesting. Participants who are unmatchable on offers will be contacted and given 24 hours to add offers. After that their sign ups will be deleted.
You may add extra details about your request in your optional details box, or link a letter with more information on another page. (Some participants choose to do this because they have more control over formatting, no length limit, and can edit the letter after sign ups close, and external letters are easier to bookmark and link.) These details are optional for your creator and cannot be enforced, except for DNWs (Do Not Wants). These must be listed in your sign up, not on an external page, to be enforced. They must be reasonable, not in conflict with your request, and clearly worded. You cannot use DNWs to require your creator to make a very specific work (e.g. "DNW anything but a coffee shop AU"). For the purpose of this exchange, you may not DNW all unrequested kinks, but you are free to list as many kinks as you want in your DNW list. You also may not DNW general/vague concepts like "formal BDSM." Instead, please list the specific practices you do not want to see.
Optional details are not required. Participants are encouraged to use optional details to declare whether they have extra gifts turned on in their AO3 settings, and something about their likes, prompts, or the kind of work they're looking for. Alternatively, participants who are open to anything are encouraged to say so explicitly. Many creators find having this information encouraging.
Assignments:
Once matching is complete, I will make an announcement at the comm. If you have notifications turned on, you will get an email from AO3 with your assignment, and the assignment will become accessible from the "My Assignments" page.
You must create a complete work of at least 1,000 words or a lined or colored artwork on unlined paper. It must feature a combination of relationship, medium and at least one freeform your recipient requested. It does not have to be the request you matched on. You must respect your recipient's reasonable DNWs. You can fulfill your assignment by uploading this work to AO3, either by clicking "fulfill" on the assignment page or by creating a new work and checking the open assignment on the new work page.
You may default at any time before the deadline by clicking the default button on your AO3 assignment page. There is no penalty for defaulting before the deadline. If you upload a placeholder assignment, "no show" default, or incomplete work, you must create a treat (extra gift) of at least the minimum requirements for some request (not necessarily your recipient) before signing up again.
You may, instead of defaulting, swap your assignment for any open pinch hit at any time. In order to swap your assignment for a pinch hit, contact the mod privately.
You may request an extension at any time up to the deadline. Extensions will be granted generously into the first week post-deadline with no excuse. Longer extensions will most likely not be granted on assignments.
Other:
You are required to comment on your gift(s). If you receive a DNW violation, an incomplete work, or anything else which results in a pinch hit, you are not required to comment on your gift as long as I am aware of the situation. Contact me if there is something preventing you from commenting on your gift. However, there is no time limit to this requirement, except that you will have to comment before signing up again.
Treats (extra gifts posted to the collection without an assignment) are welcome. Treats gifted to specific users must fulfill a relationship, medium and freeform they requested and respect their DNWs, although treats do not need to meet assignment minimums. Treats may be gifted to the collection without a specific recipient, in which case they should be on topic for the exchange and feature a nominated relationship and freeform.
The mod can be contacted by dreamwidth PM or email at shimmeringwords@gmail.com.
Nominations: May 11-19
Sign Ups: May 20-31
Assignments By: June 2
Works Due: July 23
Work Reveals: August 4
Creator Reveals: August 11
All deadlines 11:59 PM EDT.
2023 AO3 Collection | 2023 Tagset
BDSM Exchange is a kink-themed freeform exchange for fic and art. Works must be on-topic and include either a kink that falls under the BDSM umbrella, or the BDSM community itself in some way.
Note that this is not an exchange with a required smut minimum. Smut will be among matching criteria in the 2023 round. Please also note that while noncon and dubcon are welcome, they do not qualify a work or tag for this exchange by themselves. Noncon/dubcon works must center on nonconsensual or dubiously consensual kinks. For example, a fic centered on blackmail isn't necessarily on topic, but a fic where A blackmails B into participating in ponyplay would be. Likewise, violent noncon isn't necessarily on topic, but violent noncon which focuses on A forcing B into bondage would be. Please use your best judgment for the line between simple force and kink.
Nominations:
Fandoms:
You may nominate up to 10 fandoms. In general, all fandoms are eligible (with a couple of exceptions below). You may nominate Creator's Choice of Fandom. You may nominate fanworks if the creator has made a public permission statement for transformative works.
All crossovers should be nominated under Crossover Fandom. (More info on formatting under relationships).
RPF involving real life serial killers or people famous for participation in the Nazi regime is not allowed. I may add to this list, or ban thinly fictionalized versions thereof, according to my sole discretion.
Franchises:
Please nominate Star Wars fandoms under their specific property, e.g., Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: The Old Republic, etc. Note that characters are only eligible in properties they appear in or under Crossover Fandom, so for example, Ahsoka Tano cannot be nominated under Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.
Please nominate MCU movies under MCU, and MCU TV shows by individual show.
Please nominate Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series under Buffyverse.
Relationships:
Characters and relationships should be nominated under the relationship category. You may nominate up to 20 per fandom.
Individual characters should be nominated in the format "Solo: X." Note that these tags cover any fic including at least that character, and other characters may appear in the fic.
Relationships should be nominated in one of the following formats:
-X/Y for sexual, romantic, or kink play between two or more characters, in which any or no characters may top
-X tops Y for sexual, romantic or kink play between two or more characters in which X will top in the application of the freeform tag. If you match on a freeform involving penetration, this may refer to X penetrating Y, but for other freeforms it may mean that X dominates Y without indicating the order of penetration. If you would like to nominate a group of more than two characters in this format, please use the format X + Y top A + B (with apologies for making the tagset look increasingly like math class).
-X & Y for a BDSM-themed fanwork involving X and Y in a platonic relationship in which the fanwork does not focus on kink play between them. For example, this may mean a fanwork where X and Y are undercover at a fetish club together without engaging in play, or where they commiserate over trying to date in the BDSM community.
-Larger groups may be combined, for example, X/Y & A/B/C or A & X tops Y.
You may nominate members of groups, "Any Character" or original characters as part of relationships. In this case required details must be baked into the tag. Any ambiguous details will be up to the creator's choice. For example, you may nominate "Natasha Romanoff/Any Female Avenger," but you may not request "Natasha Romanoff/Any Avenger" and then insist upon or DNW Natasha Romanoff shipped with a male Avenger. Particularly keep in mind that in cases of ambiguous group nominations, creators may choose any member of that group.
Disambiguation (putting the fandom after the pairing in parentheses) is nice but not mandatory except for crossovers. Crossover pairings should be nominated in the format X (fandom)/Y (fandom), X (Fandom) tops Y (Fandom), etc.
Freeforms:
You may nominate up to 10 freeforms.
Freeforms must be on topic to be eligible. The rules for what is considered on topic have changed. In order to be eligible, a freeform tag must either fall under an umbrella category in the acronym (bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism or masochism), or reference BDSM community, symbols, traditions, etc. directly. "Any Kink"-type nominations are still allowed, with the understanding that they must be filled with an eligible kink.
The line between fictional noncon and kink can be thin. In general, noncon is not eligible alone as a freeform, but nonconsensual kink is, e.g., blackmail or noncon are ineligible by themselves but "Blackmailed Into Ponyplay" or "Nonconsensual Bondage" would be eligible. Ritual, formalized or extended domination is also usually eligible, e.g., "AU - Marriage Involves Obedience Magic" or "Sex Slavery."
The "Smut" prefix rule has been eliminated, and sign ups will include ratings-based matching for directly requesting smut or works without smut.
I encourage participants to consider whether their freeforms are potentially ambiguous when nominating. For example, "formal BDSM" has many radically diverging meanings and you will have no guarantee that if you match on it, your matching participant will interpret it the same way. It may help to add more information to clarify.
I will query freeforms that are ambiguous or if I am undecided if they are on topic, but will otherwise reject off topic freeforms this year. If you feel a freeform was rejected when it should have been accepted, you are welcome to comment with questions. You are also welcome to comment with questions before nominating.
Specific Clarifications:
Freeforms that are eligible:
-Clothing which restricts movement, e.g., hobble skirts, corsets
-Any pain-related kink
-Freeforms which specify doms or subs doing something or with certain traits, e.g., "AU - All Doms Are Cat People"
-Collars
Off topic freeforms (may be made eligible by adding on topic details):
-Material and texture-based clothing, e.g., leather or latex
-Crossdressing (forced feminization and similar are eligible but must be specified)
-Most uniform fetishes
-Body fluid kinks (except most bloodplay)
Banned Kinks: Freeforms involving historical Nazis, Nazis symbols, ideology or atrocities, or in-character Nazi fetishism/roleplay are not allowed. I reserve the right to add to this list or ban thinly fictionalized versions thereof. Note: Hydra and Hydra-related freeforms are permitted as long as they do not appear to be meant to circumvent this rule, do not involve Nazi symbols, ideology or war crimes, and are not set during WWII or Nazi Germany.
Sign Ups:
You sign up by going to the sign up form while sign ups are open and filling in the form for each field. Each field will have either a checkbox list or a text box. Tags will autofill as you type, but in some cases this may not work. In that case the easiest thing to do is to copy/paste the tag from the tagset. You can click "add request" and "add offer" below the first request and offer to add more, for up to ten of each.
You may request 1-10 fandoms with 1-2 mediums, 1-2 ratings, 1-20 relationships and 3-20 freeforms each. You must request at least 3 distinct fandoms to be guaranteed a gift. If you request 1 or 2 fandoms and you are an initial pinch hit or your creator defaults, I will still post your pinch hit, but will not hold the exchange until you have a gift unless you add fandoms.
Ratings matching is used to determine whether you are requesting/offering smut (that is, explicit sexual acts). It is not used for any other purpose and is not binding on rating for other acts. Select "Explicit" to request/offer sexually explicit works, "No rating" for non-sexually explicit works, or both if you would like to request/offer either.
You must offer something someone else is requesting. Participants who are unmatchable on offers will be contacted and given 24 hours to add offers. After that their sign ups will be deleted.
You may add extra details about your request in your optional details box, or link a letter with more information on another page. (Some participants choose to do this because they have more control over formatting, no length limit, and can edit the letter after sign ups close, and external letters are easier to bookmark and link.) These details are optional for your creator and cannot be enforced, except for DNWs (Do Not Wants). These must be listed in your sign up, not on an external page, to be enforced. They must be reasonable, not in conflict with your request, and clearly worded. You cannot use DNWs to require your creator to make a very specific work (e.g. "DNW anything but a coffee shop AU"). For the purpose of this exchange, you may not DNW all unrequested kinks, but you are free to list as many kinks as you want in your DNW list. You also may not DNW general/vague concepts like "formal BDSM." Instead, please list the specific practices you do not want to see.
Optional details are not required. Participants are encouraged to use optional details to declare whether they have extra gifts turned on in their AO3 settings, and something about their likes, prompts, or the kind of work they're looking for. Alternatively, participants who are open to anything are encouraged to say so explicitly. Many creators find having this information encouraging.
Assignments:
Once matching is complete, I will make an announcement at the comm. If you have notifications turned on, you will get an email from AO3 with your assignment, and the assignment will become accessible from the "My Assignments" page.
You must create a complete work of at least 1,000 words or a lined or colored artwork on unlined paper. It must feature a combination of relationship, medium and at least one freeform your recipient requested. It does not have to be the request you matched on. You must respect your recipient's reasonable DNWs. You can fulfill your assignment by uploading this work to AO3, either by clicking "fulfill" on the assignment page or by creating a new work and checking the open assignment on the new work page.
You may default at any time before the deadline by clicking the default button on your AO3 assignment page. There is no penalty for defaulting before the deadline. If you upload a placeholder assignment, "no show" default, or incomplete work, you must create a treat (extra gift) of at least the minimum requirements for some request (not necessarily your recipient) before signing up again.
You may, instead of defaulting, swap your assignment for any open pinch hit at any time. In order to swap your assignment for a pinch hit, contact the mod privately.
You may request an extension at any time up to the deadline. Extensions will be granted generously into the first week post-deadline with no excuse. Longer extensions will most likely not be granted on assignments.
Other:
You are required to comment on your gift(s). If you receive a DNW violation, an incomplete work, or anything else which results in a pinch hit, you are not required to comment on your gift as long as I am aware of the situation. Contact me if there is something preventing you from commenting on your gift. However, there is no time limit to this requirement, except that you will have to comment before signing up again.
Treats (extra gifts posted to the collection without an assignment) are welcome. Treats gifted to specific users must fulfill a relationship, medium and freeform they requested and respect their DNWs, although treats do not need to meet assignment minimums. Treats may be gifted to the collection without a specific recipient, in which case they should be on topic for the exchange and feature a nominated relationship and freeform.
The mod can be contacted by dreamwidth PM or email at shimmeringwords@gmail.com.