Some friends and I would love to sign up, but we're super confused. Do we have to have an AO3 account for this? Are we randomly generating titles for possible fills? Are we typing in whatever tags we want to request/fill and do those tags need to be generic enough to be matchable - but what if we're open to anything? We've read the rules and FAQ, but would it be possible to have a brief 'how to' for the sign up form? 😅
You do need an AO3 account for this event because we're using AO3 for our request + matching process.
I'm not quite sure what the title question means. Please reword it and resend, I'm sorry.
You are putting in the tags that you would like your eventual gifter to write or draw for you. If you're open to anything, then you can click the "Any Additional Tag" button. The "Any Relationship" button and the "Any Fandom" button are also available.
We'll work on making a "How To Sign Up" form onto the FAQ, we're sorry about this oversight in our instructions.
For the time being, here's a quick walk-through:
Press the "Sign Up" button
Start filling out the form with your preferences for a gift that you would like to receive. As an example, I've filled out the form with for a fluffy WangXian AU:
In the title area, I filled in a general summary of the vibes of my prompt. That said, you can leave the title blank. It's entirely optional and solely there for if you want it. It will autogenerate as "Request" if you leave it blank.
For the fandom area, I just select what fandoms I would like. I can click just one. Or I can select "Any Fandom" and that basically selects all.
For the relationships box, I filled in the ship I wanted. I can pick up to 20 ships per prompt. The only ships that you can pick are ships that are in the tagset. If I don't care and I'm willing to have a creator make something from any of the relationships available in the tagset, that I may select the "Any Relationship" button.
Btw, these are the "Any" buttons that I keep referring to:
Next I select the tags I want. I need to select a minimum of 3 and I can select a maximum of 20. The Additional Tags act as the prompts that you will be matched to your gifter with. The additional tag options can all be viewed in the tagset. Pick the ones you want most or select "Any Additional Tag" if you are comfortable with any of them.
Archive Warnings are Opt In, which means if you select one, it means that you are comfortable receiving a work with that warning. It doesn't mean that you WILL receive a work with that warning, but it does mean that the gifter as the option to give you something.
The "Description:" section is entirely optional. You can literally leave this blank for the matching process. That said, it is advisable for you to discuss what you want from your prompt here. You can list things like details of your prompt. As an example "I want a coffee shop au where WangXian learn that they're soulmates", your gifter is not beholden to those details, but it helps them give a good idea of what you like. You can also just leave a general list of tropes and themes you really love to read. Though, the part of the description that is most import would be the Do Not Wants (DNW) section. Your gifter IS beholden to obey those and it's there for your comfort.
A DNW can be anything as small as "i'm not in the mood for coffee shops today lol, so i'll list it as a dnw" or as serious as "eating disorders are literally a trigger for me, i cannot read anything containing them, so I am listing it as a dnw"
It is advisable that you keep your DNW list as neutral as possible. There's no need to explain or justify yourself. It's just things that you don't want. So a sample list of dnw's might look like:
DNW: coffee shop aus, noncon, eating disorders, tempura shrimp, mentions of eye colors, bdsm
If you don't want to see it or read it, it's there. You do not have to fill out a DNW list, but if there is anything you strongly or casually don't want, it's helpful to your gifter so that they don't accidentally step on your toes.
Finally you fill out the offers form:
The offers form is literally just "what are you willing to create for your giftee". So you can just select the "Any" button across the board if you're genuinely willing to create anything (please be mindful that this event IS dead dove friendly, so anything could be a wide variety of prompts). Or if you're more particular about what you're willing to create, you can be more picky. It's heavily advisable that you take a peak at the sign ups that already exist to make sure you're matchable with a request that does exist. It's all well and good if the only thing you're willing to write is "BingQiu coffeeshop AU" but if no one actually requests it, then you will be unmatchable.
The sign up form can be edited at any time until the end of sign ups. So you can fill all of this out and edit it later. So you can loosely fill out the offers form now and then edit it later when more requests have arrived.
Requests can all be viewed here:
You can see that we already have some lovely MoShang, HuaLian, QiJiu, LiuJiu, FengQing, and BingQiu request options!
