Thank you to everyone who took part in this year’s holiday fic exchange, from writers to beta readers to all you lovely people who leave comments! With an especial shout out to our heroic pinch hitters, Cassie and Caiti <3

All gifts and authors have now been revealed, both on AO3 and on the masterlist (here and on tumblr). You’re now free to post, share, and link to your gifts wherever you like! If you could in some way link back to the exchange or the community, to direct people to all of the other wonderful fics as well, that would be appreciated.

If you feel inspired to fill any other prompts, or create stocking fillers or non-participant fills, please feel free. These just won’t be included as part of the Secret Santa exchange or on the masterlists.

And just to note that this is the first time we’ve run the exchange (mostly) on AO3. Your feedback is very welcome!

From all your be_compromised mods, we hope you have a happy holiday season and wish you all the best for the new year! <3

( Secret Santa 2023 Masterlist )

Hi All,

Instead of posting a few fics a day, ALL Secret Santa fics are now live on AO3. That's EIGHTEEN new fics for our delight and entertainment!

Authors will remain anonymous / a mystery until reveals, which will take place towards the end of next week.

Thank you to everyone who's taken part, with an especial shout out to our wonderful pinch hitters <3

Hi All, just to note that all Secret Santa Assignments have now gone out to participants via AO3.

If you haven't received your Assignment, first please check your spam folders and filters for messages from AO3, then please check AO3 directly. If you're still having problems please comment to this post or otherwise let me know ASAP!

Almost everyone taking part has been matched to an assignment from their Choices made on the SS Choices Post. As a reminder, the ask in this exchange is to fill one of the prompts requested by the person you have been assigned and to avoid their 'No Thank You's. You don't have to use any of the additional information that they may have provided on their likes, but it's there in case it helps. Similiar, you can play with more than one of their prompts if you like. Have fun!

Please submit your completed gift to AO3 by 15:00 GMT Monday 11 December.

If you have any issues throughout the exchange please contact a mod - inkvoices, CloudAltas/franztastisch, or gsparkle. If at any point during this exchange you feel you won’t be able to submit your gift by the deadline please let us know straight away. We don’t yell, we just want to make sure that everyone who participates gets a gift and that everyone taking part in all ways has as few worries as possible. We may be able to offer you an extentsion, or you can default and we can organise a pinch hitter. If you don't contact us by the submission deadline we'll assume that you've defaulted, but the earlier you speak to us the better!

A reminder that you can feel free to let people know that you're taking part in Secret Santa, but keep your assignment (with the exception of any beta readers) and your own sign up details anonymous please until reveals at the end.

And sign ups to pinch hit remain open.

Happy Writing!

Hello to everyone who signed up to Secret Santa this year! (Also a shout out to the people who have volunteered so far to pinch hit if needed, thank you <3 )

The next step is to make your choices...

Below is an anonymised list of what the 18 people who have signed up have said that they would like to receive as a gift in this year’s Secret Santa exchange (taken from the Details/Description section of the AO3 sign ups). Please can everyone taking part in this exchange reply to this post by 18:00 GMT Sunday 22nd October with:

1) Your AO3 user name /handle
2) Your FIRST, SECOND, THIRD, and FOURTH choices for what gift you’d like to create. We’ll use these choices to help match people up.

For example:
inkvoices
FIRST: THREE
SECOND: SIX
THIRD: NINE
FOURTH: TWELVE

All comments to this post will be screened to keep your replies anonymous. You don't need a DW account to comment. If you have any questions please reply to the questions/comments thread at the top of this post where we will unscreen comments in order to reply.

A few things to note:
- You're not guaranteed your choices, but we WILL keep to your choices as much as possible!
- You have until 18:00 GMT Sunday 22nd October to comment with your choices, otherwise we'll do our best to match you up without one.
- If everyone comments with their choices before the deadline then we’ll try to send assignments out earlier if offline life permits!
- Your assignment will be sent to you via AO3, using the email address you have on AO3. Please check your spam folder and your AO3 account to make sure you receive an assignment.

And onwards to the main event…

( SECRET )

Hi All and welcome to Secret Santa 2023!

This is a Clint Barton and/or Natasha Romanoff end of year fic exchange where matching is based on prompts and everything is anonymous until the author reveals at the end. You don't need to be a member of the be_compromised community to take part, however this year almost all of the exchange will be taking place on AO3, so you will need an AO3 account; if you don't have one and would like an invite code please contact a mod. For fans of our usual format, don't worry, we're still keeping Prompt Choices which is the one element that will be done on dreamwidth.

Whilst this is labelled a 'Secret Santa' as it takes place in the run up to Christmas, fics do NOT have to be related to Christmas, New Year, winter etc. We welcome celebrations of other holidays and no theme at all. However we understand if you would rather not take part due to the labelling. We wish you all a happy holiday season <3

HOW TO TAKE PART IN THE EXCHANGE:

1) SIGN UP HERE AT AO3.

In the REQUEST section in 'Details/Description' you must include: at least 4 prompts and no more than 6. These can be anything! From a one word prompt like 'kisses' to a specific AU idea. Past Secret Santa prompts (such as 2022 here) or promptathon prompts (2023 here) may be helpful if you get stuck. If you really don't mind what gift you receive then please feel free to say so, but you MUST leave at least 4 prompts for your giftee to have something to work with.

You are also welcome to include in the 'Details/Description' section:
- a Yes Please note: a brief list of things you like that aren't as specific as a prompt, such as a preference for the comics or film, sexy times, female friendships, hurt/comfort etc. Your gift giver isn’t obliged to use them, but it can help give them some ideas.
- a No Thank You note: anything that you really do not want, such as character death, angst, fluff, 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.

Matching will be based on the information from the 'Details/Description' section ONLY. Optional: you can use 'Ratings', 'Archive Warnings' and 'Categories' to list all those that you would be comfortable receiving. You can use 'Characters', 'Relationships', and 'Tags' to select things that you like (from all canonical AO3 tags). As above, your gift giver is not obliged to consider or use these, but it may help them with ideas.

In the OFFER section the only thing you need to complete is the 'Details/Description' with:
- I'd Rather Not: things that you don’t really like to create or feel uncomfortable with, anything 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.

2) The prompts and any additional notes you included in the 'Details/Description' section for your REQUEST will be anonymised and posted to the community dreamwidth. You MUST reply in a comment to that Choices Post (which will only be visible to the mods) with your top three picks of which requests you’d like to create for. You don't need a dreamwidth account to do this; you can comment using OpenID or anonymously, however please remember to include your AO3 handle in your comment so we know who you are! (More information will be available in the Choices Post.) This will be available as soon as possible following the closing of sign ups until 18:00 GMT Sunday 22 October. (If all participants comment earlier we will try to get matching and assignments out faster.)

3) Your prompt choices will be used by the mods to do manually match participants in the exchange. We can't guarantee that you’ll get your choices, but we’ll do our best keep to your choices as much as possible! Where there are any issues with matching or where participants have not commented to the prompt choices post as in (2) we will use your OFFER notes to help with matching and avoid your 'Absolutely Nots'. (In rare cases 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.)

4) Assignments will be sent out and you'll have until 15:00 GMT Monday 11 December to submit your gifts (which aims to cover our usual 'midnight on the Sunday whatever your timezone).

5) We will reveal gifts in the week leading up to Christmas (aiming for 15 to 19 December; exact dates to be confirmed depending on any pinch hit requirements) and authors will be revealed the weekend before Christmas (aiming for 22 to 24 December).

You can also sign up as a pinch hitter for this event as well as or instead of taking part in the main exchange on dreamwidth here.

And/or you can volunteer to be a beta reader in the community discord Writing Help channel, create clintasha graphics and art to inspire and keep us going, and cheerlead - what would fandom be without cheerleaders?! We LOVE comments and encouragement and all the great stuff that makes this comm the place it is <3

TIMELINE:

SIGN UP: from now until 15:00 GMT Monday 16 October.
CHOICES POST: will go up as soon as possible and be available until 18:00 GMT Sunday 22nd October.
ASSIGNMENTS SENT OUT: we aim to have these to you within the following few days. (If all participants make their choices earlier, then we'll aim to get assignments out earlier!)
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 15:00 GMT Monday 11 December. (This is to allow time for pinch hitting if/where needed.)
GIFT POSTING/REVEALS: Dependent on if participants submit on time / any pinch hit requirements, we aim to reveal gifts somewhere between 15 to 19 December.
AUTHOR REVEALS: We aim to reveal authors 22 to 24 December, giving readers some time to read gifts before we do this.

RULES:

1) We're a community for fans of Clint Barton aka Hawkeye and Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow, individually as well as paired together as friends, partners, lovers, spouses, or any combination. We welcome all things Marvel, including other characters and pairings (and threesomes or moresomes). For this exchange, at least ONE of your prompts MUST focus on Clint/Natasha or Clint & Natasha, OR be a generic prompt to enable everyone who takes part to have a prompt they know that they can fill. All gifts should include Clint and/or Natasha in some capacity.

2) Fics must be a MINIMUM of 1,000 words and should be no more than 10,000 words.

3) Please treat everyone with respect. This includes no character bashing or ship wars. (Saying what you like: yes. Disparaging what other people like: no.) Our community is a positive fandom space.

4) No plagarism. For the purposes of this exchange, we also ask that you do not use AI or chatbots to create fics.

5) As we're a community primarily focussed on fictional characters, we ask you please not to post any Real Person Fanfiction.

6) All fics must include a rating and either appropriate AO3 warnings OR choose not to warn if/as applicable.

7) This is an anonymous exchange, so don’t reveal who your giftee is until after the reveals! Please feel free to let people know that you're taking part, however please don't link to a gift letter, share your prompts, post your gift elsewhere, identify yourself in an authors note, or otherwise reveal yourself until the author reveals at the end of the exchange. For people who have taken part in our annual exchange before, a reminder to please make sure your request/prompts are different to in previous years to keep things anonymous!

ANY QUESTIONS?

We will maintain an FAQ on AO3 for this exchange. If you would like to ask any questions we've not already thought of or to contact a mod you have a few options:

1) For anonymous queries: reply to this post. All comments will be screened to keep you and your question anonymous. Mods will not be able to reply to your comment without unscreening it, so please include how you would prefer us to reply and the relevant contact information. This could be as a dreamwidth private message, a message on discord, or an email address. We will keep an eye on comments to this post throughout the exchange.

2) For general queries that wouldn't reveal your offer/request information and that you're comfortable sharing: reply to the general Questions/Comments/Chat thread at the top of the comments in this post. All comments in this thread will be unscreened. (This needs to be done manually by the mods, so bear with us.)

3) To contact a mod directly: the best place to find a mod for Secret Santa is in a reply to this post or to @ one of us on the community discord. You can also message the be_compromised tumblr account or message one of us on any platform that you spot us, although that may take a little longer for us to see. Your mods are inkvoices, franztastisch aka CloudAtlas on tumblr and discord, and gsparkle.

Happy writing!

It takes a community to support an exchange! If you’d like to pinch hit for the be_compromised Secret Santa gift exchange 2023 in addition to participating, or instead of participating, please comment to this post with the following:

Your email address: Your AO3 user name/handle: Absolutely Not: (Things that are an absolute no for you, such as anything triggering, character death, certain ratings, things that you will not do) Kinda Like: (No guarantees, but we can try to match you to something you'd like!)

Comments to this post will be screened. If you have any questions please reply to the questions/comments threat at the top and we will un-screen those manually to reply. (We are not able to reply to comments here without un-screening them.)

The deadline for the Secret Santa exchange is 15:00 GMT Monday 11 December and we aim to post/reveal gifts somewhere between 15 to 19 December. We will be assigning pinch hitters to anyone who defaults in advance of this deadline or on this deadline. If any participants arrange an extension date with the mods we will set that extension deadline in advance of the planned posting dates. This means pinch hitters will have anywhere between weeks to a few days to complete a pinch hit, but we’d hope to give you at least a week.

We will let you know by email (from be_compromised@hotmail.com so please make sure that’s approved and not classed as spam) as soon as a pinch hit is needed, with the details of the assignment, to check if you’re still free and able to help. The rules of Secret Santa 2023 will apply to any pinch hits eg. gifts must be a minimum of 1,000 words.

There is no deadline to sign up for pinch hitting, but if you can give us an idea early on it will help the mods if we have any early defaults or if we spot a pinch hit that we think you might particularly like to do.

Thank you! <3