The deadline for Secret Santa 2015 is fast approaching on MIDNIGHT DECEMBER 6TH (that’s midnight in whatever time zone you live in) so here’s some REALLY IMPORTANT INFORMATION THAT YOU REALLY NEED TO READ aka your three step guide to submitting your Secret Santa gift. Paying attention to this post will make the lives of you, your mods, your pinch hitters, and your graphic makers so very much easier. If you have any questions at all about anything please just ask, even in a PM or an email if you’re shy. Thank you :)


STEP ONE: Getting It Done

Complete your Secret Santa gift by the deadline of SUNDAY 6th DECEMBER. That’s finished, beta read if you wanted, all polished and ready to be gift-wrapped.

The community rules (on how to warn, plagiarism, etc) and the exchange rules (gifts need to focus on Clint and/or Natasha and be a minimum of 1,000 and a maximum of 10,000 words) apply, so make sure you followed those.


STEP TWO: Gift-wrapping

Send your gifts to be_compromised at hotmail dot com – wrapping them up as follows:

Create an email. The subject line should be: YOUR LJ NAME + Secret Santa Gift

Place this header at the top of your fic or in the main body of your email. Use it exactly as it is, just copy and paste, fill it in and replace the capital letter parts with the relevant names:

<!-- <b>A Gift From:</b> <user site="livejournal.com" user="YOUR LJ NAME HERE"> --> <b>Type Of Gift:</b> (Fic/Gift Basket) <b>Title:</b> <b>A Gift For:</b> <user site="livejournal.com" user="GIFTEE's LJ NAME HERE"> <b>Rating:</b> <b>Warnings:</b> <b>Summary/Prompt Used:</b> <b>Author's Note:</b> LJ cut text(s) (if you'd like something besides the default):

FIC should be submitted as an email attachment, preferably as a Word or .doc, but it can be a plain text or .txt file. If your fic is longer than will fit in a single LJ post, or if you would like it to be posted as chapters, please indicate in BIG CAPITALS THAT YOU WOULD LIKE A BREAK HERE kind of thing. All fics MUST be html coded if you want words to be bold or italic etc. There is a guide to html on livejournal here and feel free to ask questions before you submit. Otherwise your fic will be posted as submitted.

ART/GRAPHICS should be submitted as attached files, NOT links to already uploaded works. To keep you anonymous we will upload them to the community’s photobucket account. Please specify if multiple art peices should be in any particular order, and if you have any blurbs or captions etc.

VID/MIXES also need to be anonymous. Please submit the actual work or a link to a privately shared file and we will upload it to a community media account anonymously. Cover art should be submitted as per art/graphics.


STEP THREE: Place It Under The Tree

EVERYONE MUST COMMENT TO THIS POST BY MIDNIGHT SUNDAY 6TH DECEMBER. EVEN IF YOU HAVE AN EXTENSION. We need this for banner making as well as a check in and confirmation list. All comments are screened.

What we need:

<b>My gift is for:</b> (your giftee) <b>My gift type is: (fic/gift basket) <b>Title:</b> (yes even if you haven’t finished it yet, we need this for the banner) <b>Banner Blurb:</b> (we really don't want loads of detail, just an idea of the theme or tone of your gift so that we can tailor our gift banners. Something like 'snow, sad' or 'pirates AU' or 'dark fic'. <b>Submission:</b> (I have submitted/I have an extension until X date/this is a submitted pinch hit/this is a pinch hit due on X date)


PROBLEMS: We Know They Happen

If for any reason you think that you won’t be able to submit by the deadline of SUNDAY 6TH DECEMBER you need to let us know as soon as possible. We don’t yell, we just want to make sure that everyone who participates gets a gift and that everyone taking part in all capacities has as few worries as possible.

If you can’t submit by the deadline a pinch hitter will automatically be assigned. If you then manage to submit by an agreed extended deadline the pinch-hit will become a community gift. If you don’t let us know by the 6th December deadline that you can’t submit we will assume that you have dropped out. If you don’t submit by the agreed extension we will also assume that you have dropped out. In both of these cases the gift for you will be reassigned as a community gift and we will rely on your pinch hitter. Once assumed to have dropped out we will not be able to accept late gifts as part of the exchange.


What Happens Next

This is an anonymous gift exchange, so please don’t post or upload your gift elsewhere until after the reveals.

We aim to start posting gifts on December 19th/20th. Once all gifts have been posted we will have the reveals, at which point there will be a master post and an AO3 collection for this year’s exchange if you want to cross post your work.

And we get to appreciate lots of wonderful gifts :)