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FAQ:

1. What is this?

This is a low-pressure fic/art gift exchange for the Fandom "A practical guide to Evil". The exchange is based on the same principles as Parallels and Yuletide, and focuses on character- and relationship-driven storytelling (transformative or "AO3-style" fanfiction/-art)

Participants who sign up agree to write a story of no less than 1000 words, or to create a piece of fan art that is at minimum clean, finished line art on unlined paper and can stand as a completed work, in exchange for receiving one story or one piece of fan art.

2. How does it work?

The exchange begins with a one week nomination period followed by a one week sign-up period. During the nomination period anyone can submit up to 20 character/relationship tags to the exchange tag set. Anyone who wishes to participate in the exchange must sign up during the sign up period and request/offer fanworks for some combination of nominated characters/relationships. Once nominations and sign-up closes, matches between requests and offers will be automatically generated. Participants will receive an e-mail with their recipient's requested characters/pairings and have to create one (1) piece of fanwork based on their recipient's wishes

3. Who can participate?

Anyone who wants to create Fanwork for APGTE. You can't sign up using pseuds from the same account. If you intend to write under multiple sock accounts, please recognise you will be expected to produce at least one fanwork for each signup.

4. What can I nominate?

The tag set nominations will be based on characters and relationships from a practical guide to evil

You may nominate up to 20 pairings, moresomes, friendships, or individual characters (this is the maximum number of nominations allowed by the Archive's software). To nominate a platonic relationship, use the "&" symbol. To nominate a romantic relationship, use the "/" symbol.

You are allowed to request a single character. that doesn't mean that only that charcter will turn up in your gift, it just means that they will be in it.

5. What are the rules for requests and offers?

Participants can make 3 to 10 requests, with 1 to 20 characters/relationships for each request. Please feel free to fill up/group nominated characters/relationships into request slots at your discretion; adding multiple characters/relationships in the same request slot does not mean you will be matched on more than one, or that your writer/artist has to incorporate more than one into the same work).

Requests will come with a request box in which you can leave prompts and ideas, as well as list specific Do Not Wants (i.e. non-con, kidfic, AU). You must select whether you want to offer and receive fic, art, or either. Do Not Wants that you wish to be honoured should appear in the sign-up box.

You must offer at least31 character/relationship from the nominations list. Additional offers can be made as long as the minimum has already been offered, up to ten. Again, you can put multiple characters/relationships into the 3 offers but this does not obligate you to create a work containing all the ones in the offer; you only ever need to include one.

Letters (blog posts or other off-site resources) are optional but encouraged for going into greater detail about your requests.

6. What are the minimum requirements?

After assignments are sent out, you must write a complete story of at least 1000 words, or create a finished piece of fan art that is at minimum clean, finished line art on unlined paper and can stand as a completed work. (You may create a complete story which is longer than 1000 words or a piece of fan art that is larger than the minimum. You may create multiple works for the same recipient.)

The fanwork you create must be focused on the characters in the platonic or romantic relationship in the request, or on the one character requested. It may include other relationships or characters as well, although the finished work must abide by the recipient's Do not Wants.

The other details in the request box are optional, there to help you get an idea what your recipient might like. Only the listed Do Not Wants in the sign-up must be respected.

To fill the assignment, click the button beside your assignment in your list from your AO3 dashboard sidebar. Fill in the boxes, including any site-specific warnings as needed, and post. Works will be viewable to you from your own Statistics page and your Works in Collections page, but invisible to anyone else until after reveals. Editing your work after the deadline is fine but do not upload unfinished works which can't stand on their own.

 

7. What about treats?

Love a prompt or a participant and want to show your appreciation? You can treat them to an extra gift!

A treat is an optional extra work created for the collection. You can see everyone's requests from the "Requests Summary" link on the left sidebar, and you are welcome to create treats for any other participant(s), as many as you like. Treats should fill a stated request and respect the recipient's Do Not Wants, but otherwise do not have to conform to the 1000 word minimum or clean finished lineart rules; they can be as short or as long, as sketchy or detailed as you like.

How do I post a treat?

While signed in on AO3, go to the profile page and click the 'Post to Collection' button. Simply fill out the form – adding the recipient's AO3 username in the 'Gift this work to' field. Do not click the 'Does this fulfil a challenge assignment' button if you are posting a treat.

8. Anything else?

Please only sign up if you are confident you can meet the deadlines. There is a default button next to your listed assignment and if you feel overwhelmed, please default early rather than leaving the mod no choice but to call in the pinch hitters. For all the fun without the pressure, give someone a treat!

Remember, this is an anonymous exchange, so if you want to chat about your assignment, do so judiciously. If you have a problem with what you were assigned because you didn't offer it, please contact the mods ASAP. If you don't like what you were assigned but you offered those characters during sign-up, consider this an opportunity to stretch your creative muscles.

Please do acknowledge (ideally comment) on your gift, even if you default. Someone has spent their free time and effort on creating something for you, even if you couldn't reciprocate.

If there's an explicit Do Not Want in your gift, please contact the mods.