04 October 2015 @ 12:50 am
Secret Santa Sign Up Post  
Hello wonderful bar, it’s Secret Santa sign up time! Please read the following information carefully as we’ve made some changes for this year, and please do follow the instructions for the sign up form because it makes everything easier. Thanking you!

TIMELINE

REQUESTS: from now until Midnight Saturday 10th October
CHOICES POST: will go up shortly after and be available until Thursday 15th October 18:00 GMT
ASSIGNMENTS SENT OUT: by the 17th/18th October
CHECK IN: Mid-November
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Midnight Sunday 6th December
GIFT POSTING STARTS: 19th/20th December


THINGS TO KNOW

An exchange is where you sign up with ideas for what kind of gift you’d like and what kind of gift you'd like to give, then everyone gets a gift and makes a gift, and it's all anonymous until reveals at the end. For this exchange gifts can be EITHER a fic OR a gift basket.

This post is to sign up to take part in the exchange. We also like to have a graphics team, for gift banners and other goodies, pinch-hitters, beta readers, and cheerleaders, so there’ll be another post later on for people interested in those. And community gifts are always welcome. You can do any or all of these extra things regardless of whether you’re in the exchange or not.

RULES

1) THE RULES OF THE COMM APPLY

2) Your gifts need to have a focus on Clint and/or Natasha – solo or as friends, partners, lovers, colleagues, spouses, enemies… We love other characters and welcome fics with all pairings and no pairing group gen fics, but the focus of our comm are on these two. SEE THIS POST and message a mod if you have any questions.

3) Fics must be a MINIMUM of 1,000 words and a MAXIMUM of 10,000 words. Gift Baskets are the arty option, but should be the equivalent of the same length fic. They can be made up of art (such as a wallpaper, painting, picset, or graphic manip), a fanmix (minimum cover and 5 tracks), icons (minimum 10), or a combination or any of these, or a combination of these and a short fic (minimum 500 words).

4) This is an anonymous exchange, so don’t reveal who your giftee is until after the reveals!


TROUBLESHOOTING

If at any point during this exchange you feel you won’t be able to submit your gift by the deadline please do let us know straight away by email or PM. We don’t yell, we just want to make sure that everyone who participates gets a gift.

To keep things fair, for participants, pinch-hitters, and your mods, if you don’t submit by the deadline a pinch-hitter will automatically be assigned. If you submit by the agreed extension date the pinch-hit will be a community gift, and if you don’t then whatever you create will not be posted as part of the exchange and the gift for you will be reassigned as a community gift. We’ll still love you, but please be considerate of your fellow bar members and mods – unlike Santa’s elves your mods can’t work logistical magic.


TO TAKE PART IN THE EXCHANGE AS A GIFT GIVER AND RECEIVER

To take part please copy and paste the sign up form into a comment and fill it in. Instructions are behind the cut.

Comments are screened to keep them anonymous. After the sign up deadline of Midnight Saturday 10th October we will do a public post of all the anon requests, to which you will be able to comment with your preferences, so which request you’d like to create for. (Like we did earlier this year for the AU Exchange.)

You’re not guaranteed your choices, but we will be using these to match you up as best we can and keeping to your choices as much as possible. We aim to match everyone up in the best combinations possible, but we make no guarantees of perfection! Please feel free to include lots of info in your sign up form; it actually makes things easier, both for matching and for whoever gets you as an assignment.

Once matching has been done you will receive your assignment by email. We’ll provide information closer to the time on how to submit your gifts, but this will also be by email. Remember, this is an anonymous exchange!

For questions: there’s a thread at the top of this post that we will keep un-screening the comments on so we can chat.


SIGN UP FORM

Copy and paste into a comment to this post:




INSTRUCTIONS

Email: your email address, even if you've given it to use before so we know if what we have is up to date

TO RECIEVE

Gift Type:
this can be FIC or GIFT BASKET or EITHER. If you would like a gift basket you can say if you’d prefer art, a fanmix, icons etc but this is not guaranteed.

Prompts: prompt at LEAST 3 ideas and no more than 6 that you would like. This can be anything! Winter kisses or fireside cuddles, SHIELD missions or Avengers battles, domestic fluff or silly antics, AU ideas or crossovers… Past Secret Santas and the promptathon posts can be helpful if you get stuck. If you really don’t mind what you get then feel free to say so, but you still need to give at least 3 prompts so that if in doubt your giftee has something to work with

Yes please: a brief list of things that you like that aren’t as specific as a prompt, like genres, kissing, other characters, banter etc. Your gift giver isn’t obliged to use them, but it can help give them some ideas. Again, please don’t just say ‘I don’t mind’, say something like ‘I don’t mind but feel free to include…’ For example this might include if you like the comics or just the movies, any other characters you’d like to be included, what genre of fic you like…

No thank you: Anything that your really do not want, such as character death, angst, fluff, background pairings that you actively dislike, music that you can’t stand (f you’re asking for a fanmix), anything that might be triggering for you etc. (Feel free to specify if some things are just a rather not and some are no-way, not-ever.)

Post Age of Ultron Preference: would you prefer your gift to be: based in canon / canon murky (eg Clint/Laura/Natasha) / canon divergent (eg Laura exists but she isn’t with Clint, or Clint has a relationship with Natasha after Laura) / canon denial (the farm and Laura don’t exist) / no canon at all, I’m just here for complete AUs / I really don’t mind – writer’s choice! (feel free to pick a number of these options or be more specific)


TO GIVE

Gift Type:
this can be FIC or GIFT BASKET or EITHER. If you’d like to create something specific for a gift basket (such as a fanmix, vid, wallpaper) do let us know.

I’d like to: genres, background characters, ideas etc that you’d like to create, that you’d feel comfortable creating, that you would be really happy to have assigned to you! Would you be happy writing from the comics, or just the films, or mixing them up? Are you comfortable writing AUs? Are sexy times your thing or missions or hilarity?

I’d rather not: Things that you don’t really like to create or feel uncomfortable with, like a background character you don’t feel confident in writing or a genre that isn’t your strength

Absolutely Not: Things that are an absolute no for you, such as anything triggering, character death, things that you will not do. (You may get a request that has something it in from your ‘rather not’ section that you can ignore, because the request has other prompts in it or because it’s not a deal breaker for the requester, but these are things that we will make sure you don’t get in your assignment if we can absolutely help it. Please don’t use this for general dislikes that go on forever or lines in the sand; it’s the no-way, no-how, not-evers.)

Post Age of Ultron Preference: would you prefer to create/write: based in canon / canon murky (eg Clint/Laura/Natasha) / canon divergent (eg Laura exists but she isn’t with Clint, or Clint has a relationship with Natasha after Laura) / canon denial (the farm and Laura don’t exist) / no canon at all, I’m just here for complete AUs / I really don’t mind – surprise me! (feel free to pick a number of these options or be more specific)

ARE YOU EXCITED? HERE WE GO!
 
 
( Post a new comment )
inkvoices: avengers:assassins snow[personal profile] inkvoices on October 3rd, 2015 11:53 pm (UTC)
Questions & Chat Thread
If you have any questions etc reply to this comment thread and your comments will be unscreened.
[identity profile] esgeee.livejournal.com on October 4th, 2015 05:07 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
Hey, I'd love to make participation banners again! I've made then two years in a row (you can see them here: http://be-compromised.livejournal.com/355112.html and here: http://be-compromised.livejournal.com/435755.html) and am totally interested in making some more!
inkvoices: avengers:assassins hug[personal profile] inkvoices on October 4th, 2015 05:12 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
Fantastic, particupations graphics for this year would be great :D

And it took me a moment to realise - you've changed your LJ handle handle. AHA! ;)

Edited 2015-10-04 05:12 pm (UTC)
[identity profile] esgeee.livejournal.com on October 5th, 2015 09:32 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
oh yeah, I completely forgot to mention that! And yes, I changed it a couple of months back since slytheringurrl was getting old.

Edited 2015-10-05 09:32 pm (UTC)
[identity profile] perpetuations.livejournal.com on October 8th, 2015 02:01 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
oo, i'd love to make participation banners too!
inkvoices: avengers:assassins snow[personal profile] inkvoices on October 8th, 2015 07:03 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
Brilliant! We'll have a graphics, and other things, sign up post a bit later. If you've seen the past secret santas we like to have participation and anticpation graphics - mini banners and icons - and also a banner for every gift. The more the merrier for graphics makers!
scribblemyname: calligraphy[personal profile] scribblemyname on October 6th, 2015 06:23 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
Midnight what time zone? I'll doubtless be finishing my sign up Sat night.
inkvoices: avengers:assassins hug[personal profile] inkvoices on October 6th, 2015 10:44 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
Midnight whatever time zone you're in :) I'm GMT time zone, so where i've said GMT that's where i'm cutting to the wire. (I don't like to be timezone strict with deadlines when i can help it.)

Edited 2015-10-06 10:45 pm (UTC)
scribblemyname[personal profile] scribblemyname on October 6th, 2015 10:46 pm (UTC)
Re: RE: Questions & Chat Thread
Yay. I'm MST
[identity profile] meatball42.livejournal.com on October 12th, 2015 04:37 am (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
I've never done an exchange with gift baskets, and I'm not quite clear on them. Is it an art mix specifically, or a general mixed bag? Specifically, do I have the option of writing multiple fics instead of one fic? As long as it's all under 10k total?
I'm getting bunnies for multiple prompts off one person, is all :)

Edited 2015-10-12 04:54 am (UTC)
inkvoices: avengers:assassins hug[personal profile] inkvoices on October 12th, 2015 08:20 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
The gift basket is our all things arty option, for people who would rather do that than fic, or the combination art and fic option. If you take a look at past years - linkd in the sidebar or tags - there are some examples, especially in 2013.

It's not really for multiple, different fics. What i'd suggest is write as many as you like but keep one as your gift and post the rest as community gifts - there'll be more on that later in a post, but basically it's a non-anon gift to everyone. Or you could post more after the exchange and still put that they're for that person. We encourage still filling promptathon and exchange and inspired creations in as much tine after as you like or need :)

Does that clear things up a bit?
[identity profile] meatball42.livejournal.com on October 23rd, 2015 07:59 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
ugh sorry for late-- Yes, that does help. Thank you!
inkvoices: avengers:assassins hug[personal profile] inkvoices on October 28th, 2015 09:16 pm (UTC)
Re: Questions & Chat Thread
No worries, glad that makes sense :)
[identity profile] meatball42.livejournal.com on October 12th, 2015 04:54 am (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
I've never done an exchange with gift baskets, and I'm not quite clear on them. Is it an art mix specifically, or a general mixed bag? Specifically, do I have the option of writing multiple fics instead of one fic? As long as it's all under 10k total?
inkvoices: avengers:team shawarma[personal profile] inkvoices on October 3rd, 2015 11:55 pm (UTC)
I know with the AU Exchange people wanted to know how many people and who else had signed up, so if you’d like to let people know that you’re joining in feel free to comment here and your comments will be unscreened. (It’s fine to chat about being in the Exchange as long as you don’t reveal who you get matched with until after the reveals at the end of the exchange!)
[identity profile] jacedesbff.livejournal.com on October 4th, 2015 04:53 am (UTC)
May I just say that this is one of my favorite activities of the year because it motivates me to actually WRITE a fic at least once a year? :-) Love it!!!
[identity profile] spyforaday.livejournal.com on October 10th, 2015 03:11 am (UTC)
Well... I'm in!
[identity profile] meatball42.livejournal.com on October 4th, 2015 06:00 am (UTC)
Signed up! Anyone else?
inkvoices: avengers:natasha dropping in[personal profile] inkvoices on October 4th, 2015 05:13 pm (UTC)
Well there are five sign ups so far, including yourself :)
inkvoices: avengers:assassins snow[personal profile] inkvoices on October 8th, 2015 07:06 pm (UTC)
Now at 12 sign ups, TWO DAYS TO GO!
[identity profile] foolondahill17.livejournal.com on October 4th, 2015 05:41 pm (UTC)
Me too! First ever exchange and I'm absurdly excited!
[identity profile] alphaflyer.livejournal.com on October 4th, 2015 08:02 pm (UTC)
Woot! I count four 'newbies' already! (Plus this old fossil.)

This is THE BEST exchange going. Superb quality of fics, friendly atmosphere, squees galore... Plus Clint and Natasha. What's not to love?
inkvoices: avengers:compromised love[personal profile] inkvoices on October 5th, 2015 08:23 pm (UTC)
It's great to see how many new people we've picked up with promptathon :D Any more for any more; lurkers feel free to join in Secret Santa!

[identity profile] esgeee.livejournal.com on October 4th, 2015 06:17 pm (UTC)
Yep, just filled out the form! I'm so excited for this!
[identity profile] alphaflyer.livejournal.com on October 4th, 2015 08:08 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
HA! Here I thought you were a newbie. Name change!!!! (Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] inkvoices for figuring that one out...
inkvoices: avengers:team hawkeye[personal profile] inkvoices on October 5th, 2015 08:22 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
It was very much an AHA moment ;)
[identity profile] esgeee.livejournal.com on October 5th, 2015 09:34 pm (UTC)
RE: Questions & Chat Thread
yep, I'm no newbie; sorry for thowing off your count ¯\_(ツ)_/¯