Hello, everyone! We hope you've been doing well and are staying safe during these horrid heatwaves.
We'd like to announce that sign-ups for the Gifts of Eos second year creative fan exchange will be opening on August 1st! The itinerary for this small fan event this year looks as such:
Sign up period: August 1st - September 30th; sign-ups close at 00:00 Central time on October 1st.
Pairing Period: October 1st - October 7th (could be done earlier than this time frame!)
Creative Period: October 8th - January 31st
Deadline: February 1st
Grace: Til February 15th
You'll note that we've extended the duration for the sign-up and creative periods this time around! It is our hope that this will allow people to feel like they have more time to sign up, and more freedom to make something for their recipient this year.
While our sign-ups are not yet live, we do have a countdown on our carrd's Sign Up tab that'll redirect anyone who's watching it as it ticks down to the form once it hits the countdown goal. :>
Updates to our rules and FAQ this year found below:
Rules Expansion
We have made an addition to our rules with this being one of them:
If you have received something, please take the time to show appreciation for the gift that was made for you. This is, as stated before, a free event, and everyone is volunteering their time and effort willingly to make something nice for someone else within the fandom. Please repay that effort in recognition of their gift to you by saying something nice in the form of a comment or nice tags pending on platform.
We, unfortunately, had a couple incidents where people worked hard on their submissions that seemed to receive no acknowledgment from the recipients they were for, and we would like participants to please not leave the person who did your gift hanging, or feeling like it was disliked. We can't control how you feel in the end, and it will always be unfortunate for everyone involved if the work is disliked, though we would like it if everyone at least extended the courtesy of acknowledging something was made for you.
FAQ Changes and Updates
We have expanded upon some of our FAQ answers for, hopefully, better clarity on our carrd:
What is allowed in the exchange?
[…]
We ask that all OC creators that enjoy seeing their OC or OC x canon ships to not feel shy about being resolute in asking for content of your creations born of love for the setting we've all had the joy of experiencing and creating for. This exchange is about spreading joy and hopefully receiving joy in return. That includes your OCs if you love them and having them in the world of FFXV.
This was added as an addendum to this segment because it felt like a lot of people were really shy about asking for any FFXV OC content. While we do recognize that, yes, this is a space where we want to celebrate our favorite canon characters, we also want OC creators who have their FFXV characters know that they are allowed to also celebrate their own creations. Please be kind to OCs; they were created out of love for their creators' experiences with FFXV to play in the world of Eos in their own way.
Is this event meant to be anonymous?
Nope. You don't have to be anonymous if you don't want to be. We do, in fact, encourage you to reach out to your gift recipient just to make sure you're on the same page as one another (and also to make sure that you have the right person). […]
If you want to keep your work and submission a surprise until you're done, or until the deadline, that's still fine. If this is the case, we're always open to having you contact us to be a middleman in contacting your recipient to keep them aware of any complications, or ask for any needed clarification so that you retain your anonymity.
Due to some miscommunication last year between participants, we had an instance where there was a mix up in who was receiving what, and a participant ended up being the recipient of two gifts. While we're not going to enforce reaching out if you want to keep your submission a surprise, we are always happy ourselves as the moderators of this event to act as messengers between two people to keep the anonymity aspect.
This extends to any participants wishing to drop out for any reason at all; if you do not want your recipient to know who you were, but still want to communicate that you're dropping out for us to find a pinch hitter, we will keep you anonymous to your recipient so that your privacy is ensured.
What is the minimum word count for written entries?
1,000 words is the very bare minimum of what we'll be comfortable accepting as a finished ficlet. With the increase of time for 2026's Gifts of Eos, we hope this will be more than enough time to write something that meets that, or surpasses that.
This word count will not apply to things such as lyrics or poems, which generally tend to hover around an average of ~150 - ~170 words. Same consideration for haikus as they are meant to follow a 5/7/5 format and could not reach that if it is one on its own. That said, we do recommend maybe writing multiples of said forms of writing instead of settling on one or two given how small a word count they usually average at.
We've gone ahead and bumped up what we'll allow as the bare minimum of word count for a finished ficlet for the event is, as well as are encouraging people that are more inclined for poetry or song lyrics to do more than just one or two pieces for the event.
With all of that out of the way, please don't hesitate to ask any questions about the event, or if further clarification is ever needed on anything regarding the event! We're only two people, and last year proved that there were still a lot of things that we didn't think to ask, or consider until someone who was participating decided to point it out and ask! We always appreciate it, and if it makes things easier for everyone in the end, then it's for the best! :>
We look forward to seeing you for Gifts of Eos 2026!
