OMFG YAYYYYYYY!

Each person can nominate five fandoms and five pairings.
Just to clarify, does this mean a max of five pairings per fandom nominated?

Up to five pairings in each fandom, so max 25.

Oooh, I am super excited that this fest is happening!

I am wondering if you would be willing to reconsider one of your criteria for what qualifies as femslash, specifically this one: You may also request fic about genderqueer and gender-questioning characters with female anatomy, such as Franky from Skins UK.

I'd like us to be able to request fic about genderqueer and gender-questioning characters regardless of their current body configuration or assigned gender.

Two reasons for this. The self-serving reason is that I'd really like to request fic about what I consider my favorite femslash pairing from the show Huge: Becca, who is a cis teen girl, and Alistair-Athena, who is assigned-male but gender-questioning, and who, in my headcanon at least, will probably transition sometime in the next five years (the characters in the show are teenagers). The other reason is that, philosophically, I feel really uncomfortable with the idea of drawing a line around which genderqueer characters "count" as women (or women-enough-for-femslash) based on their assigned genders.

Does that make sense? I'm glad to discuss any of this further if that would be helpful.

I kept the rule verbatim from femslash12, because, when I took over, the mods asked me to maintain the inclusion of trans and genderqueer characters. However, I think they were arguing for more inclusion over less.

The trouble with headcanon, with no offence intended to your own, is that it can get very odd, very quickly. Claiming that Alistair-Athena as gender queer is one thing, but claiming that, say, MCU Loki is genderqueer is another (though of course people are free to interpret Loki as such, you can see where that would get out of hand if allowed here). I suspect why the assigned female rule came from in the first place.

However, your point about excluding genderqueer characters based on binary assigned gender is well taken. Let me talk about it with the other mod, and get back to you.

Would a pairing involving a canonical female character and an OFC count as a nominated pairing? (Example: I'd like to nominate the film Pacific Rim, which only has two female characters with speaking roles. The pairings I'd like to nominate are, accordingly, Mako/Sasha, Mako/OFC, and Sasha/OFC.)

Sure. That would be fine.

Are all the Star Treks considered one fandom for these purposes? That is, would Jadzia Dax/Kathryn Janeway be a crossover, or not?

Original Universe Star Treks will be separate, largely because there doesn't seem to be a meta tag that lumps them together but differentiates them from AOS.

So that would be a crossover, though you could do Janeway/anyone from TNG, as she appeared in both franchises.

I'm not a mod or anything, but I'd think Janeway/Dax wouldn't be a crossover. We know Voyager stopped off as DS9 for several days so while KJ wasn't technically seen on screen, its canonically supported that she was there the same time as Dax. So I'd think that would go under the DS9 fandom myself.....but that's just me (being nosey lol)

...okay, so less than a month before you decided to do this, I was commenting to my beta on your rarepairfest stories that since I'd increased my m/m fic output by two with that ficathon, the next one I did had to be femslash. Clearly the Universe was listening. ;-)

Just one question: what if the number one Doctor Who femslash pairing I love is a Big Finish-only character and a TV-only character--Charley/Martha--I take it that would be ineligible (for nomination, anyway)? :-/

Never mind. The thread above answered my question. *g* I'll just have to put it in my optional details. ;-)

Edited 2013-09-02 05:40 am (UTC)

Hey, I did ask for femslash. I'm blaming that one on your muse :D

Hmmm... I wonder if I should just roll BF into the tv fandoms. They usually seem to be off doing their own thing, so I hadn't really considered it.

Just to be clear: Once nomination period is over, each fandom will have five pairings you can choose to request/offer, right?

Negative. At the end of nominations, each fandom will have as many pairings as people have nominated. So if I nominate Sinbad and only nominate three pairings, and no one else nominates Sinbad, then that's how many there will be. If I nominate Marvel 616 and nominate five pairings, and two other people also nominate five different pairings, then there would be fifteen at the end of nominations.

Is 'Canonical character/original character' an acceptable pairing? ie, if I put, "Renee Montoya/Original Character"? That was an option I liked having in the old femslash format but idk if it would work with AO3's architecture.

We are doing Character/OFC. I'm not sure how it will show up in the tags, but I guess we'll find out!

Has anyone made any banners or anything like that to use to promote the exchange? I have a few Tumblr followers that I think would love to participate, and I can definitely pimp without a graphic, but figured I'd ask before doing so!

I'm not very good at making banners. I'd be happy if someone else did though!

I am interested in this, but I tend to prefer drawing to writing - is there any sort of way to participate in that vein?

At this time it's a fic exchange, I'm afraid. AO3 isn't deeply art friendly, and there's not really a sorting mechanism in that line. (Or if there is, the learning curve for setting up on the archive for the first time is steep enough for me as it is).

We will be doing treats, with all the prompts becoming visible a week before reveals. You're certainly welcome to draw a treat for that.

Question: will you consider Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel two fandoms or one?

Two fandoms (there doesn't seem to be a combined tag for them), though that would include characters that appeared on each in each potential tag set. Please check to make sure that you're not duplicating pairings across the two (like Buffy/Faith is already listed under Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Question for requests: if characters are married in canon, is it okay to indicate in optional details that you're okay with a polyamorous scenario, provided the focus of the story is on the f/f relationship(s) and not on the background canon m/f relationships? I'm also down with divergence AUs where the canon relationships never happen, but this is definitely relevant to what I might suggest for one of my fandoms.

As long as the focus is on the f/f (or f?/f?), background het is okay. Probably a good idea to make it optional however, as your author might not want to include het, background or ortherwise.

In canons where actors have appeared as themselves, are they eligible for nomination as part of a pairing?

You mean shows with meta episodes like Hercules and Supernatural? Yes, that would be fine. Nominate under the show itself.

Okay, so I've read over these rules, and I have a question.

In the Dear Author letters, can we express a preference for any side ships that may or may not be femslash? (I.e. I have a character that if she's not a part of the femslash ship and her love life is mentioned, I'd either want her to be single or with a specific male character - not someone she's commonly paired with, either.) Is this okay, or should it be left out? Obviously I know that the femslash ship is the focus of the story, but considering my fandoms, the odds of another ship being mentioned would be somewhat high.

Thanks for reading all that, ha. :)

That's fine. As long as you leave the option for her to be single, politely stating a preference for background het pairings is okay.

Hi! Just wondering what time the deadline is tomorrow for fics to be due. Is it 10pm PST, like the no penalty default date was? Or is it another time?

Yes. That's correct. I'll post a 24-hour warning tonight.