fic* in a box!

Hello friends! Below is the schedule for FIAB 2024, which will run roughly August-November per usual, although we've added a new part of the exchange in early August and have had to fiddle around with the dates a bit to accommodate life things this year.

The rest of this post will cover:

• Changes to the rules/format of this round compared to previous rounds.
• A request for feedback on our rules for how large/complex fandoms are nominated/split/not split.

2024 Schedule:

August 9-16: Nominations Pre-Gaming
August 17-24: Nominations
August 25-26: Nominations Cleanup
August 27-September 7: Signups
September 1: Swap requests open
September 10: Assignments Out By This Date
September 11: Swap requests close
October 20: Assignments Due
November 10: Last Day To Submit Makeup Assignments
November 16: Work Reveals
November 30: Creator Reveals

All deadlines are at 11:59 PM EDT except for those in November, which will happen at 11:59 PM EST

New In 2024

New (But Not Really) Rules: Participant Expectations

We've laid out our rules for communication and participant conduct in a new rules section you can read in the 2024 rules post. None of these rules/expectations are actually new to the exchange (we've been doing/enforcing all of this stuff all along!) but now it's written out in one place with some nice bulleted lists. It covers stuff like needing to be 18+, checking your email, turning in complete works, and not being a jerk. Previous participants should read it…but we don't think it's anything surprising.

New Exchange Phase: Nominations Pre-Gaming

In previous rounds, we've allowed you guys to load whole fandoms from the previous year's tagset into this year's tagset by commenting on which fandoms you'd like to see again on a Dreamwidth post. We still think that that saves all of us a lot of time and effort, so we don't want to do away with it, but last year things sometimes got messed up by doing both that and normal nominations at once, so this year we're splitting them up into distinct stages of the exchange. From August 9th through the 16th, you'll be able to request tags from last year's tagset. Then, on August 17th, we'll switch to normal nominations on AO3 and via google sheet.

Worldbuilding Tag Nominations Guidelines & Evidence Posts

We've refreshed the whole nominations post, and in particular added a lot more details about what makes a good WB: tag/what guidelines we assess WB: tags by, which was almost completely missing from previous rounds of the exchange. We're also asking WB: tag nominators to post a short explanation about their WB: tags – ideally all WB: tag nominators will do this, to save mod time googling things, but it will be especially helpful for people nominating more obscure fandoms/hard to google things. (We will not be rejecting WB: tags nominated without an explanation post, though. If you don't post an explanation ahead of time, we will just possibly need you to explain your tag to us in a Nominations Clarification post.)

Mediums Rules Updates and Minor Reshuffling

We've relaxed the anonymity rules for mediums where you need to post using an outside account. In cases where it is difficult or impossible to host anonymously you may post it to a non-anonymous account but it must be kept accessible only to those with the link or a link to somewhere it is embedded (e.g. not public on your page) if that is possible. This rule was added specifically to the audio and video rulesets, but is true in any cases where you cannot post something to AO3. This should be treated similarly to the rules about art signatures where we all pretend your name isn't right there, because there are some limits to how anon is reasonable for some mediums.

We've clarified in the medium rules that works need enough content on AO3 to be valid per AO3's TOS requirements. In most cases this will mean the medium should be embedded or screenshots should be provided, though there are medium specific methods of including content which are also valid.

We've added several mediums to the Typographic Design category. All of these mediums remain in their original mediums except for "Warning Label or Sticker" which now only exists in Typographic Design.

Snazzy New Tumblr Account

We think it's really neat when new people start doing exchanges, and the hardest part of that is letting them know an event exists. We've made a tumblr account (link) so that we can advertise FIAB and keep tumblr users up-to-date. This Dreamwidth will still be the official source of information for the exchange (we pretty strictly believe that rules/documentation should only be in one place at a time) but the tumblr will post explainers and links to our Dreamwidth post.

Please consider following us and reblogging our posts if you have an account!

Snazzy New Discord Server for Newbies

Fic In A Box is a complex exchange even for exchange veterans, so we thought that if we were going to invite a bunch of new people to the exchange we should provide a space where they can ask lots of questions throughout the process. This server is open to everyone (we won't kick you out if you've been doing FIAB for years already) but its purpose is to help people participate in the exchange, so it will probably be most useful/enjoyable if you're kinda confused about the exchange. Like FIAB itself, the server is an 18+ Choose Not To Warn space.

Join the FIAB Newbie Discord! (link)

Feedback Request: Nomination rules for complex/large fandoms

It's been awhile since we've done a complete rehaul of our nominations rules for large/complex fandoms, which often need to be split or combined in ways we're unfamiliar with because we simply don't know about every fandom out there.

Fandoms are split or merged for a variety of reasons:

• For some fandoms, there might be two versions in a different medium that are combined because the vast majority of the fans treat them interchangeably for fanworks.
• Other fandoms must be split along adaptation lines for the sake of matching.
• Some fandoms are combined because the setting, characters, relationships, events, or plots of the disparate parts are so closely intertwined that it's hard to split them up for nominations purposes.
• Some fandoms are combined because the fans who request & offer them in multifandom exchanges want to save their request slots for other things.

Generally, we prefer specific fandom tags that point to what the exact canon is (which is why we avoid tags that include "- All Media Types" and "& Related Fandoms" when we can) and believe that a more specific fandom tag makes for easier pinch hitting. However, even with these guidelines there are usually exceptions and what we most want is a tagset that works for our participants and doesn't drive us insane on the mod end of things.

Please read the list of our nominations rules below and let us know if you think we should be splitting/merging things differently, using a different fandom tag, or whatever else. We can't promise to actually follow your feedback, but we're very interested in hearing it.

( Nomination info for specific fandoms )

Hello friends, Fic In A Box time will be upon us next month! Below you can find our 2023 schedule, a short description of the exchange, and a link to our full 2022 rules. If we make any changes to the rules for 2023, we will make a separate post highlighting those changes. See you all in August!

Schedule:

August 13-20: Nominations
August 21-23: Nominations Cleanup
August 24-September 3: Signups
August 29: Swap requests open
September 6: Assignments Out By This Date
September 7: Swap requests close
October 15: Assignments Due
November 5: Last Day To Submit Makeup Assignments
November 11: Work Reveals
November 25: Creator Reveals

All deadlines are at 11:59 PM EDT except for reveals, which will happen at 11:59 PM EST

Information

Participants in Fic In A Box can sign up to exchange a wide variety of fanworks — and they can do so at volume, and in various sizes! At base, everyone is requesting 10k of fanfiction (which they might recieve as one 10k fic or as ten 1k fics) but participants can opt in to receiving other mediums. "Which mediums?" I hear you asking. Well...any digital medium, as long as we can agree on a clear and easily checked equivalent to 1k of written fic! If you want to get wild, you can even opt into receiving fic in amounts smaller than 1k. Art, vids, podfic, dress-up games, cocktail recipes, emoji, fanmixes, murdles...truly our participants are thinking (and creating!) out of the box.

Being able to split your work into 1k (or equivalent) chunks comes with a couple other neat opportunities:

• Maybe you'd like to write 5k of fic, and then draw the rest?
• If you want to create a non-fic medium, we'll even help you get matched to a recip you can create for!
• Or maybe you'd like to switch things around and create ten different things for ten different recipients? During Swaps, you can tell us who you can create for and how much, we dump everyone's swaps into a big metaphorical pile, and then you get handed back an assignment split between different recips in 1k increments.
• Maybe you're worried about what happens if you can't create 10k? Well, that's what we have partial defaults for! If you cannot complete 10k but have created one or more complete works, you can default on just the remaining assignment wordcount. You will then be guaranteed (via pinch hit if necessary) a gift equivalent to the amount submitted (rounded down to the nearest 1k).

...Or maybe this is all just sounding really complicated? Don't worry — if you want to sign up to give 10k for one recip and recieve only fic in return, you can just sign up like normal, get your assignment, and go!