Unlike some other, weaker events where participants are handed an assignment just because they signed up, Auctions, As Threatened is different! This event is all auctions, all the time, and instead of using something as useless as money we're betting with wordcount (or wordcount equivalent, for some mediums).

To participate in the event you can:

Request gifts in 1-20 fandoms!
Join us on Discord to bid on the recipient(s) you'd like to create for!
Win big!! Or maybe lose everything!!!

Posting a gift without winning an auction for your recipient is illegal, though we haven't found any way to stop it from happening again and again.

Click here for a short FAQ!

FAQ

Do I need to request if I want to bid? Do I need to bid if I want to request?

No, submitting requests isn't directly linked to assignments in this event; you can do either or both and participants who only want to request or only want to create are very welcome!

If you want to be guaranteed a gift then you will need to make a 500+ word (or wordcount equivalent) gift (plus meet some other requirements) but this event will benefit from having more requesters than bidders, so feel free to treat it like a prompt meme.

How many requests can I make?

You can make up to 20 requests, across 1-20 fandoms, repeating fandoms if you'd like. The first 10 requests you make should go into the Main Collection, and any beyond that should go into the Request Overflow Collection.

What can I do to ensure someone bids on me?

Beyond just diversifying your request, you could also try telling friends or fandom groups about the event! (Please only share our event in comms/Discord servers/etc that welcome event advertisements, and please note that this is an 18+ event.)

Wait so are treats (gifts with no assignment attached) allowed or not? Can I create stuff without bidding?

Treats are allowed and even encouraged! They're illegal in a silly lore way because we like joking around, but they're definitely not against the rules.

Will requests have DNWs? Can I write a Dear Creator letter?

Yes and yes! You should treat requests for AAT like they're a normal exchange sign up...except there are no offers.

Is there an anonymous period? Do I need to be secretive about what I'm creating?

No and no. Auctions will be public and the winners will be obvious, plus we don't have an anon period. You can be secretive about what you're making if you want, but you don't have to be.

When were auctions threatened? What is the history of this event?

In 2020, the flash exchange We Die Like Fen ran a round where there were no matching criteria and this auction format had to be spontaneously invented. It was a lot of fun (and people made a lot of words!) but it was also a ton of work. It inspired ficinabox, but we all vowed never to run auctions again......except fence kept being tempted to revisit the idea with better planning and technology. They'd muse on it and ponder and make little plans and everyone around them (especially the people who knew they'd be roped into helping run this thing) did feel pretty threatened, but ultimately safe. After all, what could justify doing that much work again?

...well, the greatest motivator in the world, of course: friendship! tuesday has said that the WDLF auctions were their favorite over and over for years, while getting more and more busy. Now tuesday has free time again for fandom things, and the rest of you are going to profit—we're going to have auctions, as threatened, because there's no greater gift we could give to tuesday.

Click here for an event overview!

Event Overview

Nominations

Participants will submit (nominate!) fandom, relationship, character, and freeform tags to the tagset. Participants will also have the opportunity to request additional mediums.

Requesting

Participants will submit requests to the AO3 collections, using tags from the tagset.

Auctions

Each requester will be put up for auction on Discord over the course of a week — auctions are done by username, not by individual request. Creators will bid via wordcount (or equivalent) using a bot. Auctions will last most of a day. Bids and winners will be public. Minimum and maximum bids are TBD.

Creation Period

The collection will open as soon as auctions start. Creators are not required to be anonymous and can directly ask their recipient(s) questions.

Penny Auctions

A second round of auctions in which the minimum bid is 1 word. These auctions will be a mixture of defaults, partial defaults, and second-chance auctions for anyone who wasn't bid on in the first round of auctions.

Pinch Hits

Conventional pinch hits will be posted for anyone who meet the following requirements: 1) requested at least 3 fandoms, 2) had at least one bid on their requests, 3) turned in gift(s) of at least 500 words total (or equivalent), and 4) does not have gift(s) totalling 500 words. Pinch hits will be 500 words (or equivalent) minimum.

Reveals

Works and creators will reveal at the same time! We will not reveal if all pinch hits have not been filled.

Schedule

April 1st-April 30th: Festival of Very Short Canons
April 27th-May 9th: Nominations
May 1st-10th: Requesting
May 15th-24th: Auctions
June 8th-June 14th: Penny Auctions
June 28th: Assignments due
June 29th-July 5th: Pinch hit period (Pinch hits due July 5th)
July 6th: Reveals

Requesting and all due date times will be 10:00PM EDT. Auction times and schedules will be announced later.

Communication

Do not direct message mods on Discord. It's easy to lose or miss DMs and hard to coordinate replying to DMs as a mod team, so it's not a good contact method for this event.
Email: You can email us at auctionsasthreatened@gmail.com for anything you can't or don't want to post publicly on Dreamwidth.
Discord Server: You're encouraged to use the channel #event-questions for anything that can be asked publicly on the Discord server. For anything private or very specific to your requests/bidding offers/assignments/forbidden treat crimes, you can send in a ticket in the #tickets channel.
When to message the mods: If you believe something has gone wrong with a gift you've received or an assignment you've won, please message us privately via email or ticket. Also, if you think someone isn't following the participant conduct sections listed in the rules below, or if someone is making you uncomfortable, please contact us. This event will involve a lot of people talking to each other in a lot of channels and also in DMs, so we won't be able to monitor everything. Even if you're not sure that the behavior making you uncomfortable rises to the level of a rule violation, we still absolutely want to hear about it.
Communication with recipients: As creators aren't required to be anonymous, creators are allowed to directly contact their recipients with clarifying questions. Please communicate extremely clearly with each other because no replacement gift will be provided based on misunderstandings during private communication, and see the "Posting" section below for further instructions.

Rules

This section explains the specific requirements and expectations for participation in AAT. Please read this section carefully even if you participate in a lot of multifandom events and/or participated in the 2020 We Die Like Fen auction round.

Requirements for participation:

Must be 18+
Must have an AO3 account*
Must be not banned from Fic In A Box**
If you're going to request: Must have an AO3 account which is open to receiving gifts***
if you're going to bid: Must have a Discord account you are willing to associate with your AO3 account via the AuctionBot. Mods will definitely be able to see this association, and other participants may see it under some circumstances.

* If you don't have an AO3 account, contact the mods or ask around the Discord for an invite—we'll find one for you!

** People banned from Fic In A Box receive an email directly telling them about the ban and why. If for some reason you're unsure (email account cursed by an evil witch or something??) you can email ficinaboxmod@gmail.com to check. (Extension bans and the like aren't relevant here, only bans for bad behavior.)

*** We aren't using AO3 assignments, so if you're not open to receiving gifts you aren't getting anything. :( You can confirm this on AO3 by going to Preferences > Collections, Challenges and Gifts, then making sure "Allow anyone to gift me works." is checked.

General Participant Conduct

We're probably going to get a little silly, because this is a silly event format. However, Auctions, As Threatened is not an event for producing deliberate badfic/badart/etc. Works produced for AAT should be gifts prepared in good faith, to the best of the creator’s ability, in an attempt to make something the recipient will like. (Optional details are optional, though! Creators are not expected to follow prompts/freeforms to the letter, although they are expected to avoid items listed as Do Not Wants.)
Works produced for AAT should be your own work, never before posted anywhere (even in part), and complete.
Works may not be wholly or partially created by generative text or art programs (AI) such as chatGPT or OpenArt.ai.
AAT is a Choose Not To Warn space for adults where you will likely run into discussion, prompts, and fanworks involving sensitive, dark, or potentially upsetting topics. You will likely also find people who have listed things you love as Do Not Want(s) for their gifts. Everyone likes and dislikes different things; participants are expected to curate their own online experience and avoid making value judgements over differences of opinion.
You're going to see statements that indicate you "need" to win an auction, and that it's "illegal" to post gifts without winning an auction bid for an assignment. These are goofy lore statements for our shared amusement. Giving treats (extra gifts given without an assignment) isn't against the rules, even though it is against the (fictional) law.
You can request without bidding or treating. It's advantageous for us to have more requests than bidders!
You can request with one or several socks but A) your requests must be different between accounts and B) you can only bid with one account and only one account can be considered a "participant" who we might end up owing a pinch hit. (If you go out to pinch hit and have socks signed up, we can combine all your requests for the pinch hit, though!)]

Participant Conduct: Special Auction Edition

Because we're doing live auctions, AAT is basically a PvP-enabled fandom event—you're expected to attempt to win, which means some people are going to lose. However, please keep the following in mind:

It's possible no one will bid for you. We really want you to get at least one bid; ideally more than one. But it can't be guaranteed. If no one bidding for you would be really upsetting, maybe stick to only creating instead of requesting.
You should refrain from trash talking, even friendly/joking trash talking. You're going to be talking to and observed by a lot of strangers, so not everyone has context for what you say and how you act, including the mods. If things get heated during an auction, it might not be clear to your opponents or to the mods how much you are or aren't joking.
The auctions are just for fun! We're not trading actual money, and there are ways to participate that don't involve winning auctions. Be gracious in both victory and defeat.
Don't approach your creator(s) with additional request information unless they ask. You're going to know who's creating for you and they're going to be right there on the server! But auction requests aren't commissions and you should let whatever you submitted to AO3 stand on its own unless your creators approach you with questions.
Asshole behavior will result in a ban. Harassment (including over the contents of someone's requests, DNWs, and/or works) and other disruptive behavior isn't allowed.
Please help us foster a positive environment. Do not vent about the event on the server. If you're frustrated that you haven't won an auction, or that someone hasn't bid on you, this is not the space to deal with heavy negative emotions. For this reason, we do not have a venting channel in the auction discord.

Event Logistics

Fandom/Ship/Freeform Nominations

During this portion of the event, participants submit tags that can be used later for requests. Anything you want to request using a tag (fandoms, relationships, etc) must be in the tagset to be used during requests.

Important: We aren't using AO3's matching system, so this will be a much looser tagset than exchange tagsets usually are. We only care about tagset neatness, disambiguation, and clarity in that we would like people to be able to easily find things to bid on and don't want a misunderstanding about what a tag means to lead to requester disappointment after reveals.

Basic Nominations Logistics

Some nominations activity will take place on Dreamwidth and via Dreamwidth comments, but no Dreamwidth account is necessary.
Fandoms, relationships, solo characters, and freeforms (also called "Additional Tags") will be nominated to the tagset based on instructions laid out below.
Mediums will be nominated via comments on a Dreamwidth post; more on that below.
If there are any problems with tags nominated to the tagset that we can't figure out without nominator input, we will post to the Dreamwidth comm asking for clarification.

Fandom slot

All Media Types (example: Star Wars - All Media Types) and & Related Fandoms (example: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms) are allowed.

If the tagset already contains relatively narrow fandoms, you can still nominate broader tags. (Example: you could nominate Star Wars - All Media Types even if we already have a dozen more specific Star Wars tags already nominated.)
If a broad AMT or &RF tag is already in the tagset, you can still nominate a more narrow fandom tag, as well!
Please pay particular attention to our disambiguation instructions below for large, complex fandoms and fandoms with AMT/&RF tags.

Creator's Choice of Fandom is allowed

If there are certain types of canons you don't want to receive, you can nominate a version of this tag that includes on canon types you're interested in. (example: Creator's Choice of Live Action Canon) We want these tags to be about what's included, rather than about what's excluded.
When requesting:

You can DNW specific fandoms, although if you have a very long list you should probably not request CCoF.
Even if you request multiple CCoF-style tags, it will only count as one tag for pinch hitting purposes, so to meet the 3 fandom minimum you would need to request two other non-CCoF fandoms

We will not be allowing fandom tags along the lines of Any Fandom I've Requested Before, although you're welcome to opt into that in the optional details section of your requests.
Original Work is allowed
RPF fandoms are allowed (RPF noms must be 18+ and famous in their own right; mods reserve right to reject RPF nominations in bad taste)
Crossovers should be nominated under Crossover Fandom

If you're nominating characters from separate parts of a large franchise, you're welcome to nominate those under some kind of umbrella fandom (eg: Star Wars - All Media Types)

Recursive fandoms allowed with permission from creator. To nominate, you must post a link to the creator's permission statement in the comments of this Dreamwidth post. Please click "Further Recursive Fandom Instructions" below to show the rest of the nominations information you'll need for recursive fandoms.

Further Recursive Fandom Instructions

Permission statements must meet all of these criteria:

Permission must be given for fic, art, and podfic, and otherwise be clear of restriction on media type.
The permission statement can't contain any limitations requiring participants contact the creator of the work before they can create anything.
The permission statement must be posted on an account clearly, unambiguously associated with the account that posted the work you are nominating. (You may have to include a note that says something like "This is definitely the author's tumblr because they link to it in the author's note of Chapter 3.")
The permission statement must be publicly available on the internet, on a site where one doesn't need an account to see it. (For example, we won't join a discord server or accept screenshots of DMs/emails/etc.)

Some creators will have already made their position on recursive works clear — for fic writers on AO3, a blanket permission for transformative works statement on their profile is the most likely, so check there first.

For a lot of creators you will have to ask. There's been a recent spate of vague, scammy messages asking about creating art for people's fics, so we think you should be specific and clear about why permission is being sought. Here is a script which may be helpful to you:

Hello! I'm participating in an upcoming fanwork event called Auctions, As Threatened (https://auctionsasthreatened.dreamwidth.org/) where we can request and create gifts in various mediums (fic, art, podfic, playmixes, and more) for other participants based on other peoples' fanworks. We don't want to upset anyone, so doing this requires permission from each fanwork's creator. Are you okay with people creating fanworks in various mediums based on [your fanworks/this specific fanwork]?

You can't nominate a work until you have permission. We suggest you ask as soon as you know you want to nominate a work. Works that have been orphaned on AO3 do not need permission to nominate.

Relationships slot

Because of the fandom rules, disambiguations need to be very specific!

Disambiguating a tag is when you put the fandom name in the tag to clarify which fandom that tag is for. Example: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi (SW:TCW (2008) - AMT) is a tag disambiguated for the fandom Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types in a way that distinguishes it from the way the same ship could be nominated for Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types.

Click here for more information about why this is necessary!

Since we are letting everyone nominate whatever parts of fandoms they want, there will be a lot of overlap between fandoms. This is a problem because:

A) tagsets won't let people nominate the exact same tag under different fandoms

B) canonical tags will keep their Archive-wrangler-assigned associations and wander into strange places

Here is a tagset that shows all the fandoms that the CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi canonical tag will wander into if the tag is not disambiguated and the fandom is in the tagset.

We only want tags to show up in the exact fandom they're nominated in, and we don't want someone nominating CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi in one fandom to be frustrated because AO3 tells them it's already nominated in another fandom and can't be nominated under a different fandom. So, instead we ask you to nominate like this:

CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi (SW:TCW (2008) - AMT)

CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi (SW:CW (2003) - AMT)

The disambiguations for these two fandoms differ in their abbreviation (TCW versus CW) and their year to help us distinguish which Clone Wars canon they belong to. This helps us keep them separate, even though they are more complicated tags.

We don't care what specific disambiguation you use, as long as it can't be confused with related fandoms.

Okay, important announcement over. Here are the details about what you can nominate in the relationship slot:

Tag types

& (platonic) and / (romantic/sexual) ships allowed
Single characters can be nominated as "Solo: Character"
If you want to nominate Worldbuilding, you can nominate Solo: Worldbuilding with a fandom disambiguation. It's the only worldbuilding tag we'll accept in the relationship slot. If you'd like to add more details about what you'd like to receive, you can use Freeforms or your additional details

Example: Solo: Worldbuilding (Naruto)
Example: Solo: Worldbuilding (LotR - Tolkien)
We will reject "Solo: Worldbuilding" with no disambiguation.

Special tag notes & restrictions

There is no requirement that nominated characters (or "characters") in relationship slot tags be provably sentient/sapient in canon, but they can't be abstract concepts.

Blorbo/Blorbo's Canon Car — sure, you can ask for car fuckin' if you want, we're a very open-minded auction house.
Blorbo/Getting A Happy Ending — we're not prepared to make decisions about if someone has really depicted Blorbo in a relationship with the concept of happy endings, so that's going to be a no.

Characters should be free of bangpaths and other non-canon modifiers.

Catboy!Blorbo — you should nominate regular Blorbo and use your optional details to ask for a gift where Blorbo is a catboy.
Evil Blorbo — if there's canonically an evil Blorbo who is a separate character from normal Blorbo, and this is how your fandom distinguishes them, this is fine. If you just think it would be fun if someone wrote Blorbo as evil, that should go in your optional details.
Female Blorbo — if you are nominating a video game canon where Blorbo's gender can be decided by the player, this is fine. If you just want a genderbend, that should go in your optional details.

(We will accept nonbinary versions of video game characters even for video games that don't have a canonical NB option.)

Crossover Fandom: You should disambiguate your characters by fandom so it's clear what fandom each character is from

If you care what particular version of canon that character is from you should include that too.
Example: you're welcome to nominate Bruce Wayne (Batman - AMT)/Tony Stark (Marvel), but you might get Bruce from Lego Batman and Tony from Marvel vs. Capcom. If that sounds great, yay! If not, maybe be more specific.
You can nominate a tag like Bruce Wayne (Batman Comics)/Tony Stark (MCU) and then use your optional details to let creators know if you'd be open to related fandoms/other media types, for example by letting them know you also like a particular live action Batman movie.

Original Works and original characters: you should nominate these with all details you see as essential so that it's required to fill your gift.

For example, if the gender of the character is important to you, make certain to include that in the tag.
Anything not included in the tag will be considered optional details.

If you request an ambiguous group (eg: The [fandom] ensemble) we will assume that any member(s) of that group fulfill that request, rather than assuming that every member of the group must appear in your gift.

Freeforms

In the spirit of We Die Like Fen, this event allows people to nominate and request freeforms in whatever way suits them. Freeforms are also called "Additional Tags" in various places on AO3. Because there's no matching in this event, we are going to be extra permissive and loose with freeform nominations. Do you just want to nominate vibes? Do you want to nominate incredibly specific things? Silly stuff? Whatever! We'll only query freeforms if we just really don't know what you mean.

Freeforms will be considered entirely optional; you don't need to request them if you don't want to, and creators will not be required to "hit" a freeform when filling a request. They can help potential creators find your request using the autoapp to search for freeforms they'd like to make stuff for.

Note on medium tags as freeforms

Mediums required to fill a request will be in the character slot on requests (more on that in the next section) but they'll be pretty broad. If you would like to indicate an interest in a more specific type of medium that fits within the broader character-slot medium you'll be requesting, you can do that with a freeform tag.

An example of a broad medium tag that would go in the request's character slot is Medium: In-Universe Social Media/Internet. We won't approve character slot mediums that would be covered by this tag. Instead, those mediums should be nominated as freeforms (without the "Medium:" part in front!)

Example: In-Universe AITA Post
Example: Chatfic
Example: A & B Have A Twitter Slapfight

Freeform tags about mediums can also be more vibes-based, or a specific style or technique that you find interesting.

Example: Isometric Pixel Art Rooms
Example: Lo-Fi Vibe Artwork
Example: Artwork That Uses Sunset Palettes

General freeform rules & advice:

Phrase freeforms so that they're about things you want included in your gift. Things you want excluded from your gift can go in your DNWs — see the Requesting section for more about that.

We would reject the tag No Incest
We would accept a tag like Noncon With No Arousal For Victim
The first tag is only communicating something someone doesn't want in their gift, while the second tag is just trying to be specific about the type of noncon someone wants.

Vague tags will be accepted, but maybe think about if there's a more specific tag or tags you'd prefer.

Consider the possible tag Dead Dove Content
This does have a vibe. But is your vibe for the tag the same as someone else's vibe? One person might think this tag mostly means noncon and graphic torture; someone else might think it means that plus necrophilia and bestiality; some people apparently think it just means heavy angst.
You would be more likely to get what you want if you nominated more specific tags actually listing what that is.

Fandom-specific freeforms will be accepted. We suggest you put the fandom name/a common abbreviation before the start of the tag so that other people can find & use them too.

Example: Star Trek: Human teaches Vulcan a traditional clapping game; Vulcan finds this very kinky

Organization by trope (putting a broad trope first in your freeform) is also encouraged, as this may help you clarify the meaning of your tag & help others find it and use it during signups.

Example: Time Travel - Character Travels Back to When They Were Still a Massive Jackass

Organization by fandom and trope are both suggestions. We won't reject tags or reword freeforms if you choose not to add prefixes to your tags.

Looking for freeform inspiration?

A good place to start is to think of freeforms which meet these criteria:

Freeforms you often use when posting works.
Freeforms frequently used on works you bookmark.
Freeforms tag you like to use to find new fics to read

These freeforms will probably be official archive tags, but you don't need to stick with those — you can be very specific with your freeform nominations as long as you use 150 characters or less.

Examples of possible freeforms

Hurt/Comfort
Arranged Marriage
Arranged Marriage - Mistakenly Thinking Your Spouse Hates You
Exciting People You Meet In Prison
You Can't Go Home Again
Enemies to Lovers - Character's Flirting Is So Bad It's Repeatedly Mistaken For Attempted Murder
Undercover as Evil
Time Travel
Time Travel - Character Wakes Up In The Past In Someone Else's Body
Sex With Someone In An Altered State of Consciousness
Character(s) are totally done with this ghost bullshit
The Hobbit - Dwarf Braiding Traditions
FMA - Maes Hughes Lives

Places to look at freeforms used in past events

Freeforms from one event often get carried over to other events. If you'd like to nominate some freeforms but are struggling to think of any, you could just steal some!

Themed events:

Unthemed events:

Medium Nominations

When you sign up, mediums will go into the character slot of your sign up. Mediums are meant to be broad, to keep the number of mediums low...but also to provide bidding options for art since it would be pretty boring for artists if all pictures were 1k!

Character-slot mediums are a required part of filling a request. If the request has multiple character-slot mediums then a gift filling that request only needs to be one requested medium.

These mediums are already in the tagset:

Medium: Fanfiction
Medium: Fanart ‎
Medium: Fanmix
Medium: Podfic ‎
Medium: Fancomic
Medium: In-Universe Art
Medium: In-Universe Documents
Medium: In-Universe Epistolary/Journals
Medium: In-Universe Social Media/Internet
Medium: Fanart ‎- Color Palette - 50
Medium: Fanart ‎- Stick Figure - 50
Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Item Kept In Purse/Pocket - 100
Medium: Fanart ‎- Macaroni - 100
Medium: Fanart ‎- Sticker Sheet - 100 per sticker
Medium: Fanart ‎- Emoji - 300
Medium: Fanart ‎- User Icons - 300
Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Tools/Professional Items - 250
Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Single Accessory/Clothing Item - 250
Medium: Fanart - Character Item - Symbolic Item - 250
Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Weapon - 250
Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Character Outfit - 500
Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Vehicle - 500

Medium nominations in the character slot are creator-focused. Adding mediums to the tagset that no one wants to create increases the chances that requesters will go without bids. If the medium(s) you want to create are already covered by the list above, you're all set.

If there's a medium you would like to create for this event that is not on the list above, stop by the Medium Nominations post to read the full instructions for that.

Requesting

This is the part where we describe what kind of gift(s) we would like to receive! Requests are visible to everyone. You can only use tags from the tagset.

Each request has a fandom, character-slot medium tag(s), relationship-slot tag(s), and freeforms) as well as Do Not Wants and optional details. To fill a request, creators will need to make a gift that fits the fandom, one character-slot medium, and one relationship-slot tag, but freeform tags are both optional to include in your requests and optional for creators to include in their gifts.

By submitting requests, you're volunteering to have your requests auctioned off publicly for wordcount bidding. There is unfortunately no guarantee that anyone will bid or that you will receive a gift at all. Submitting requests doesn't obligate you to create a gift for anyone.

All requests you make under the same username will be combined into one auction. So, if you make one request for Fandom A and one request for Fandom B, someone who wants to create for A might bid against someone who wants to create for B.

You may make 1-20 requests for 1-20 fandoms.

You can make 10 requests each on the Main Collection and the Request Overflow Collection. All requests you make on both collections will be auctioned off under the same lot.
Each request can have 1 fandom, 1-20 character-slot medium tags, 1-20 relationship slot tags, and 0-20 freeform tags.
None of your tags need to be unique — you could for example request the same fandom multiple times.

Do Not Wants (DNWs)

Do Not Wants (DNWs) are a list of things you absolutely don't want to receive in your gfit(s). You need to use the label "DNW" or "Do Not Want" at the beginning of your list. Do not label them or anything else "Dislikes" as that's too confusing for potential creators. Only DNWs in your AO3 requests will be enforced.

If you have no DNWs, please put "No DNWs" on its own line somewhere in your requests. We expect to get a number of people new to multifandom events, so we want to make absolutely sure people without DNWs mean to be doing that without needing to email them.

DNWs should be phrased and understood to be value-neutral. For example, one might DNW dogs because...

they find dogs upsetting
they find dogs boring
they just spent the past week reading every fic about dogs in the fandom and are a bit tired of dogs now
they really like works with dogs sometimes and really hate them other times and it's easiest to just DNW them instead of asking their creator(s) to thread a needle
for personal reasons, thinking about dogs is very painful right now

It's impossible to tell which explanation above is true for any given participant with "DNW: Dogs" on their request, so the only sure thing you can know is that that participant just doesn't want dogs in their gifts. This ambiguity is a feature, not a bug.

Never explain why you DNW something, but definitely explain how to apply the DNW and if there are any exceptions.

Unhelpful "why" explanation: "DNW: dogs (they're gross)" — this isn't relevant to avoiding putting dogs in a gift, and also might make people who like dogs feel bad
Helpful "how" explanation: "DNW: dogs (canonical werewolves are fine, but please no normal wolves)" — this answers questions a creator might have about how best to apply the DNW!

In the event that a DNW is included in your gift, only reasonable DNWs noted in your AO3 requests will be enforced. DNWs cannot be used to box your creator into producing a very specific work, and should be clear and specific in scope.

FAQ: DNWS

What makes a DNW "unreasonable"?

The goal of DNWs is to state, as unambiguously as possible, what specific things one doesn't want in a gift. It's not the job of DNWs to prevent a recipient from getting a bad gift (although we hope everyone will get only good gifts) or to ensure that a recipient gets exactly what they want. Requests aren't commissions, and we value the creative freedom of our participants.

An unreasonable DNW might contradict a requested relationship or medium, try to force the creator into a very narrow set of options, be phrased too vaguely or broadly or confusingly, and/or seek to prevent the creator from creating works about a large part of canon.

Example: Requesting a pirate canon like Pirates of the Caribbean or One Piece and then listing the DNW "pirates"
Example: Requesting the character-slot medium "Medium: In-Universe Epistolary/Journals" and then listing the DNW "first person POV"
Example: DNWing "OOC writing" (How is a creator supposed to ascertain what counts as OOC to the recipient? How could the mods make a decision about if something is OOC when they probably don't know the fandom?)
Example: DNWing "dead dove content" (As explained in the "Freeforms" section above, "dead dove" has many possible meanings, so no one can be sure what this DNW means; you need to list the actual dead dove content that you don't want.)
Example: DNWing "CBT/wax play/gun kink/etc." (We can't enforce an "etc"!)

What happens if I have an unreasonable/nonspecific/otherwise unenforceable DNW?

If we notice it, we will ask you to remove it (or to remove the tag it contradicts, if it's something like the epistolary example above) or rephrase it. If we only realize you have an unenforceable DNW because you've received a gift you feel hits that DNW and would like a replacement gift, we will unfortunately have to refuse.

Why does any of this matter when this event doesn't even have any matching?

Although it's true that no one will be assigned requests that they haven't been able to see ahead of time and decide they want to create for, we still think that requests shouldn't be demands and that reasonable DNWs are an important part of multifandom exchange culture. Also, we probably have some participants who are unfamiliar with DNWs and we don't want to accidentally give them bad DNW habits.

Also, and more immediately, we will be on the hook for assuring some of you get gifts via pinch hits, including sending out emergency pinch hits if someone gets an unacceptable gift! Bad DNWs make it harder to find a pinch hitter and more likely one of those DNWs will be hit by accident. We'd prefer not to have to tell anyone that their DNW is too confusing for us to give them a replacement gift.

Help! I don't know how to phrase a DNW! / What if I think a DNW I want might be unreasonable?

Don't worry, there are people who want to help! Many people on the Discord server will be happy to help you figure out how to phrase your DNWs.

Optional Details & Letters

Optional details are likes, prompts, and other information meant to give your creator(s) an idea of what type of gift you would most enjoy. These details are both optional to include and optional to follow, although creators are expected to make something they believe their recipient will enjoy. DNWs that are only in your letter (and not in your AO3 requests) will not be enforced.

The "Letter" field is for a link to a Dear Creator letter which can be used to give your creator(s) further details about what you'd like. Many participants will choose to provide a letter because they don't have enough room in the AO3 request boxes for all of their information, while others simply like being able to format and organize their information.

Letters need to be posted somewhere they can be viewed without an account, and should be finished before auctions start. Here is some specific advice:

Posting on Dreamwidth: If you link to the post's date page, your cut tags will show up for people who click on your letter link. Also, Docs To Markdown is helpful for converting from Google Doc to HTML.
Posting on tumblr: Make sure your tumblr can be viewed by people without an account (you can use an Incognito window to check) and don't change your URL until work reveals.
Posting on Google Docs: you are strongly encouraged to use the "Publish to web" feature (File > Share > Publish to web) instead of sharing a direct link to a view-only document. The "Publish to web" feature presents your letter as a simple HTML page which is much easier for people with older or slower devices to load and read. You can use Insert > Table of contents if you would like to provide easy navigation.
Posting on Ellipsis: The outline button is pretty subtle! Consider opening your letter by letting readers know where to find it.

Auctions & Bidding

Auctions will take place on this Discord server. You do not need to request anything to participate in bids. You will need a Discord account for joining the server, an AO3 account for posting what you make, and a willingness to associate your Discord account with your AO3 account (by telling AuctionBot what your AO3 account is). Mods and minions will be able to see this association in our spreadsheet, and other participants on the server might see your AO3 name under some circumstances.

The Auction House doesn't take money, but instead deals in wordcount and wordcount equivalent. (For the rest of this section, let's understand that "wordcount" means "wordcount/wordcount equivalent" or we'll be here all day.)

Each auction will be 24 hours long and conducted by our trusty AuctionBot. We will announce the auction schedule after sign ups close and before the auction week starts — ideally the next day, but we can't promise that. If you won't be around for the end of an auction, there are...certain ways around that kind of problem. They may or may not be legal.

Bidders will be able to ask AuctionBot to remind them about auctions they're interested in, and will bid using bot commands on Discord. During the auctions, AuctionBot will keep track of all bids, announce the winner, and direct message the winner. Bidders and spectators are welcome to chat in the auction channels during auctions, since AuctionBot can't be distracted or bamboozled the way a human auctioneer could be.

Auctions will start at 500 words. The minimum bid amount will be 50 words. The maximum bid amount will be 500 words. You cannot bid against yourself.

Bidders are free to drive up the wordcount of a single auction as high as they want in search of victory. However, once a bidder owes 10k words or more to the Auction House, they will no longer be allowed to bid in auctions until they turn some of that wordcount in.

Example: You won one auction for 4k and one auction for 5k. If you won a third auction for 2k, you would owe the Auction House 11k and wouldn't be able to bid in another auction until you post 1,001 words to the collection for one of your assigned recips.
Example: You won one auction for 4k and one auction for 5k. If you won a third auction for 999 words, you would owe the Auction House 9,999 words and could enter and win a fourth auction without needing to post anything.

The bidder willing to commit to creating the most wordcount will win an auction, giving them the treasured right to legally post a gift or gifts for their assigned recipient. Information about this can be found in the next section, "Assignments, Wordcount Equivalents, Posting, and Pinch Hits."

Additional notes:

You will be able to ask AuctionBot for a summary of your assignments and outstanding wordcount.
There will be some delay between posting to the collection and your outstanding wordcount getting updated with AuctionBot, because we can only run the scraper that checks what's been posted every so often. If you're posting so that you can take part in an upcoming or ongoing auction, we'd suggest you post as soon as possible.

Penny Auctions

We will have a second round of auctions during the writing period where auction winners can default or partially default on their assignments and allow the Auction House to re-auction their recipient. The minimum bid for penny auctions will be 1 word and the maximum bid will be 25 words. We will also re-auction anyone who didn't get any bids in the initial round of auctions.

Assignments, Wordcount Equivalents, Posting, and Pinch Hits

Assignments

We will not be using AO3's matching features or assignment generation because, of course, the only way to get an assignment is to outbid your opponent(s).

Auction winners will be announced and directly messaged on Discord.
Your assignment minimum will be your winning bid, told to you by AuctionBot. Assignment minimums are given in wordcount, but may be filled with any requested medium. See "Wordcount Equivalents" below for details.
You can fill your assigned wordcount with one work or with multiple works, as permitted by your recip's requested mediums.
You cannot gift your recipient any medium they did not request.

Gifts must match one fandom, one character-slot medium, and one relationship-slot tag from the same request. Freeform tags count as optional details.

There is no minimum or maximum wordcount(/wordcount equivalent) length* for a posted work in AAT, but please keep in mind: AAT is not a badfic/badart/etc exchange, we are aiming to create things that our recipients will like, and we must make complete works. You shouldn't try to give someone 100 gifts consisting of 5 words each, and you probably shouldn't fill a 5k assignment with nothing but stick figure doodles unless the recip seems very passionate about stick figures.

* Some individual mediums might have minimums and maximums; check your specific medium in the "Wordcount Equivalents" section below.

Checking your assigned wordcount

In the server or in your DMs with AuctionBot use the command /my_wins
Your wordcount here should update as you submit things, but...
...there will definitely be some lag.

AuctionBot has a scraper that grabs wordcount and other info from posted works, so some parts of this are automated!
But the scraper doesn't run on an exact schedule and if you're posting a medium that isn't counted by straight wordcount you'll have to wait for a human to look at what you've posted and assign it a wordcount.
Wordcount estimates for works you've turned in won't usually go down after a human looks at scraped works, although if you've posted something with a lot of repeated text or long quotes from a different source we might need to adjust.

Defaulting

Defaulting on your assigned wordcount will be possible. It might involve opening a Discord ticket with the ticket bot or it might be done via auction bot or it might be done via Google form — we'll let you know.
You can default on your entire assigned wordcount or on only part of it.

Other notes:

Crossovers must be requested, via tags or optional details.
You may create multimedia works in requested mediums, for example an illustrated fic for someone who's requested both fic and fanart.
Poly relationships are considered distinct from non-poly ships, and should only be given if requested — someone who's requesting the tags A/B, B/C, and C/A but not the tag A/B/C shouldn't be given an A/B/C work.

Wordcount Equivalents

In this event, bidding is done with wordcount because of how AuctionBot tallies winning bids. This section lays out how how mods will assess wordcount and wordcount equivalent for various character-slot mediums, as well as explaining other things about those mediums that you need to know to fill a work with them.

You are expected to create all-new works for this event. We will not count long quotes from other sources as part of your wordcount. You may use minor supplemental images such as images from the canon or CC licensed images, but they must be credited in your creator's notes and won't count towards your assignment minimum.

Reminder: Don't give people unrequested mediums. Mediums can be requested by character-slot tags, or can be requested in optional details (additional tags or the OD box), or you might have a recip who volunteers for mediums not listed in their sign ups during a Discord conversation. If it won't be immediately obvious that they've opted into a medium from the request's tags, please explain where they requested the medium you're giving in your top creator's note on your posted work.

Mediums assessed by wordcount

Reminder: Even non-narrative works (such as In-Universe Documents) need to clearly fulfil a requested relationship-slot tag.

Show medium tags & descriptions

Medium: Fanfiction

Fanfiction should be narrative text. It can be in whatever POV you want.
The wordcount displayed by AO3 will be the wordcount for your work.

Medium: In-Universe Documents

In-Universe Documents should be any written object that could exist in the world of the canon. Examples: mission reports, complaint forms, political pamphlets, newspaper articles, museum plaques.
The wordcount displayed by AO3 will be the wordcount for your work.

Medium: In-Universe Social Media/Internet

In-Universe Social Media/Internet should be any written document that could exist in the world of the canon. Examples: Twitter threads, LiveJournal posts, Discord chats, craigslist listings, Yelp reviews, reddit posts.
The wordcount displayed by AO3 will be the wordcount for your work.

Medium: In-Universe Epistolary/Journals

In-Universe Epistolary/Journals should be any written first person accounts of events, emotions, or opinions. Examples: Journals, Diaries, Letters.
The wordcount displayed by AO3 will be the wordcount for your work.

Medium: Interactive Fiction

A gamified narrative in which players choose one of multiple options to influence how the story goes and ends. It may or may not have visual elements.
The following will be used to calculate wordcount:

All unrepeated text is counted as the total wordcount.
For works between 1k and 5k, a 500 word credit for coding work is added. For works of over 5k, a 1k credit for coding work is added.
Visual elements will match the individual visual medium's wordcount equivalents.

Mediums assessed by converting time to words

Show medium tags & descriptions

Medium: Podfic ‎

Podfic should be spoken/mixed audio based on a written work or spoken/mixed audio narrating an original story.
There are two ways for us to calculate:

By time: 1 minute of audio is worth 100 words; 10 minutes of audio is worth 1k
By the original work's wordcount: if your recording falls short of the estimate above (for example, if you podfic a fic that's 1,000 words but your audio recording is only 9 minutes long) then you can let us know to check the podficced work's wordcount and we will count that instead.
If any decimals result from the math, we will round the equivalent for that podfic up to the nearest word.

Medium: Fanvids

Clips or images from a fandom edited to a song.
Will be calculated as: 30 seconds of vid are equivalent to 1,000 words.
If any decimals result from the math, we will round the equivalent for that fanvid up to the nearest word.

Fanart equivalent to 1k

Show medium tags & descriptions

Medium: Fanart ‎

Fanart should be a picture that depicts a requested tag. This can be done in a variety of styles such as traditional, digital, point/pixel, CG 3D, etc.
One fanart picture is worth 1k.
Manips, collages, and/or photos cannot be used to fill this tag.
It must be reasonably clear from the art which of your recip's requested tags you are filling.

Medium: Fancomic

Fancomics should be sequential art which tells a story. They may contain text or dialogue but are not required to do so.
Equivalents: Page = 1k, Half page = 500, Panel = 300.
Comics equivalents are calculated as a combination of pages and panels, with each page being counted as whatever is higher (For example a comic with a 3 panel page followed by a 4 panel page will be marked as 2200, with the first page counting as a 1k page and the second page counting as a 1200 4 panel set).
In cases where it's unclear how big a "page" is, mod discretion will be used.

Medium: In-Universe Art

In-Universe Art should be a picture that's drawn or painted or otherwise creates a cohesive visual artwork but isn't a manip, collage, or photo. This artwork should be presented as being created by a character who exists within the universe of the story, but the medium used to create it does not need to be the same as the one it is implied to be within the universe (e.g. you can use digital art to draw an in-universe painting). While it must hit a requested relationship tag, it doesn't not need to be by or for a requested character.
One fanart picture is worth 1k.
It must be reasonably clear from the art which of your recip's requested tags you are filling.

Fanart equivalent to less than 1k

The numbers in these tags are the wordcount the medium is worth. These mediums do not stack. For example, you will receive 100 words of wordcount credit for making a stick figure work that also has macaroni on it, you will earn 1000 words of wordcount credit for drawing a picture where the character is wearing clothes, and you will earn 100 wordcount credit for a single drawing containing two pocket items. The mediums below are meant to stand alone as specific types or subjects of fanart.

Other notes:

"Character" means a character from the relationship-slot tag in the request you're filling.
If you are filling a worldbuilding tag the character should be one that allows you to worldbuild with the drawing.
If an object can fill multiple tags for a character (such as a tool which a character keeps in their pocket) then please list the highest equivalent applicable tag which was requested by the recipient.

Show medium tags & descriptions

Medium: Fanart ‎- Color Palette - 50

This is a series of colors which represents the characters, either literally or symbolically. Color palettes should have a minimum of five colors.

Medium: Fanart ‎- Stick Figure - 50

This is art of any style which primarily features a stick figure representation of a character. It must be reasonably possible to identify which character the stick figure represents.

Medium: Fanart ‎- Macaroni - 100

This is a photo of a work of art constructed via the medium of dried noodles glued to paper. While Macaroni is traditional, any noodle style may be used.

Medium: Fanart ‎- Sticker Sheet - 100 per sticker

This is a collection of drawn images featuring or related to a character.
Each sticker on the sticker sheet will count for 100, with a minimum sticker size of 300x300 pixels.

Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Item Kept In Purse/Pocket - 100

This is art of any style that depicts an item the requested character would keep in their purse/pocket.

Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Single Accessory/Clothing Item - 250

This is art of any style that depicts at least one accessory or clothing item a requested character would wear.
It does not need to be depicted on the character.

Medium: Fanart - Character Item - Symbolic Item - 250

This is art of any style that depicts an item symbolic of a requested character or ship. While this can be an item the character owns or has interacted with, it does not have to be. 'Item' is defined loosely and can include things such as plants.

Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Tools/Professional Items - 250

This is art of any style that depicts a tool or professional item used by a character. These are defined loosely and are meant to be items they use or carry as part of their daily life which are not weapons.

Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Weapon - 250

This is art of any style that depicts a character's weapon. Weapon should be defined as any object which can be reasonably introduced as a weapon within the fandom being drawn for.
If it is not immediately obvious as a weapon (For example: If a character fights using magical ribbons), please let the mods know that it is a weapon in the top author's note.

Medium: Fanart ‎- Emoji - 300

This is art of any style intended for use as an emoji.
It should be 128x128 pixels or 160x160 pixels. You can provide a larger version as well if you want!

Medium: Fanart ‎- User Icons - 300

This is art of any style intended for use as a user icon.
It should be 100x100 pixels. You can provide a larger version as well if you want!

Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Character Outfit - 500

This is art of any style that depicts a character's outfit. This is not required to be a canonical outfit, but should be reasonably recognizable as an outfit that belongs to or was worn by the requested character.
The outfit does not need to be depicted on the character.

Medium: Fanart ‎- Character Item - Vehicle - 500

This is art of any style that depicts a character's vehicle. A vehicle is defined as any object whose primary purpose as used in the canon is travel.
If the object used for travel within your fandom is not immediately obvious as a vehicle, please let the mods know that it is a vehicle in the top author's note.

Mediums assessed in other ways

Show medium tags & descriptions

Medium: Fanmix

Fanmixes should be playlists of songs selected to evoke or fit a requested relationship tag.
Please list the songs so that your recip can seek out the songs on their own if your choice of playlist hosting service is one that doesn't work for your recip.
1 song is worth 100 words. However, this medium has both minimums and maximums.

The minimum is 5 songs plus either a cover or a short explanation about your intent/inspiration for the mix. (500 words)
The maximum is 20 songs total. (2000 words)
The cover can be typographic, drawn/painted/etc, or a manip.
The short explanation should be 2-3 sentences minimum and can explain your intended Vibe, explain if you intended the fanmix to reflect an AU idea you had for the requested relationship-slot tag, explain if it's about a specific moment in a character's life/course of a relationship, or anything else you have to say about your intent or creative process.

Medium: Collage

A collage of existing images, edited so that the juxtaposition of elements creates meaning.
Each element of the collage will be equivalent to 150 words.
Elements used must be creative commons, professionally published and available online, permission obtained, or drawn directly from canon.

Medium: Poetry

Text written in metric and/or rhyming verse
12 lines is equivalent to 1,000 words.
If any decimals result from the math for a single poem's equivalent, we will round the equivalent for that poem up to the nearest word.

Medium: Typeset of a Recipient's Fanfiction

Designing a layout of one (or more) pre-existing fic to make it look like a real book. An ebook or a file easy to print and bind by hand as a book or booklet.
The following will be used to calculate wordcount:

300 per 1k of original fic
1k for illustrated front cover
500 for half page illustration
250 for quarter page illustration
100 for two unique drawn scene dividers

If the recipient opts into manips, manips will be allowed for any of the above visual elements with the same equivalent.

Medium: Clue and/or Logic Based Puzzles

Puzzles which use clues and/or grids to identify associations between words.
The majority of clues in the puzzle must be related to a requested tag, parts of the canon the requested tag is from, or a connected story set up by the puzzle framing (e.g. a narrative included with the puzzle).
For all puzzles, any non-clue story provided along with them will count as wordcount in addition to the base puzzle equivalent.
Puzzle types and base equivalents:

Logic Puzzle - Minimum 3 categories, equivalent to 2k
Murdle - Minimum 3 categories, equivalent to 2k
Raddle - Minimum 10 steps (including first and last), equivalent to 1k

If you would like to make a type of puzzle not listed above, please contact the mods prior to making it so we can determine an equivalent (Any puzzles added after signups close will require an opt-in from the recipient).

Medium: Photomanip

Using pre-existing images and photographs to digitally create a new composition.
One finished photomanip is equivalent to 1k.
It must be reasonably clear from the manip which of your recip's requested tags you are filling.
Elements used in a manip must be creative commons, professionally published and available online, permission obtained, or drawn directly from canon.

Medium: Gifset

Animated graphic(s) (of video and/or images) which tell a story or AU, make an argument, highlight a theme, highlight a parallel, or are otherwise transformative and non-ephemeral.
Each gif in a gifset will be equivalent to 150 words
Elements used in a gifset must be creative commons, professionally published and available online, permission obtained, or drawn directly from canon.

Medium: Original Music

Sheet music or audio recording for an original composition or song in response to prompt.
20 seconds of recorded or transcribed music is equivalent to 1k.
If posting sheet music without audio, please list the estimated time to play in the top author's note.
Sheet music can be in a downloadable image form or Musescore file, audio recording should be an MP3.

Posting

All gifts should be posted to the Main AO3 Collection, even if you're filling a request that was made on the Request Overflow Collection — which won't be open for posting anyway, so posting to the right collection should be easy!

To post your work:

Post directly to the collection by going to the profile (https://archiveofourown.org/collections/AuctionsAsThreatened/profile), clicking Post to Collection, and manually adding your recipient on the Gift this work to line.
This event isn't using AO3 assignments, so you won't have any of those.
All requesters should be open to receiving gifts without an AO3 assignment (and we will check this after requests close) but if your recip can't receive gifts, contact the mods ASAP.

If you and your recipient have privately discussed some exception to their DNWs, requested fandoms/mediums/relationship tags, or anything else that would appear to make your work violate the assignment requirements, please tell us about that in your top author's note. You can also tell us anything else you think would make it easier to check your work. For example, if you have art embedded within a fic, let us know how many images. If you've posted a podfic, let us know how long the original fic was.

Posting multiple works

Multiple works should only be posted in the same AO3 work if they are directly connected. Please use your best judgement on what counts as connected enough. Multiple written works should only be posted together if they are part of the same narrative.

If you have multiple fics/other in the same work, please put a list of the works including wordcount and medium in the top author's note of the first chapter.

Posting from alternate accounts

Auction winners should post their gifts from the AO3 account associated with their Discord handle. This is because we need AuctionBot to recognize both that the assignment has been filled and that you were the one to fill it.

If you need to post from an account that isn't the AO3 account associated with AuctionBot:

In your top creator's note, let us know what account this is supposed to be filled from. Give us your AO3 username exactly as you gave it to AuctionBot.
You can remove this note once the work is accepted into the collection
If you're posting because you need to owe less wordcount so that you can bid on new auctions, this will significantly delay your wordcount status being updated on the sheet.

Other notes:

Saved drafts do not fulfill assignments. Please ensure that you post your gift!
All works posted to the collection must be complete.
Do not gift your works to multiple people.
Gifts to the collection are not allowed; your gift(s) must have one (and only one) recipient in the "Gift This Work To" field.
Original Works: Include the relationship-slot tag that you're creating for either in the tags on your work or in your top creator's note.
Solo: Worldbuilding: Please let us know that this is the tag you're filling in your top creator's note.
Recursive works: You must use the Inspired by field to link back to the work you are recursing.
Mediums not hosted on AO3: Make sure you have some sort of transformative work within the work on AO3, to comply with TOS. This might be an excerpt, a transcript, some or all of linked images, accompanying imagery, or screenshots of the work. You can read more about AO3's TOS here:
- AO3 Terms of Service on non-textual fanworks
- How AO3 defines fanworks versus non-fanworks
- If your transformative work needs to be downloaded or installed to a user's device or computer to view, please contact the mods for further posting guidance

Pinch Hits

We cannot guarantee that every requester will receive a gift — it's possible that no one will bid, and if no one bids there's simply nothing that can be done. (This may seem harsh, but it does allow the Auction House a great deal of flexibility in what it can allow requesters to request!)

For requesters who do get at least one bid, however, we will use a pinch hitting system! At the end of the creation period, we will publish on this Dreamwidth comm a list of requesters who are owed a gift before the collection can be revealed. Pinch hits will then be claimed by volunteers.

Pinch hits will be sought for requesters who meet all of the following criteria:

Requested at least 3 fandoms with distinct lore.
Received at least 1 bid during auctions.
Turned in gift(s) of at least 500 words total (or wordcount equivalent) before the June 28th due date.
Has not received gift(s) totalling 500 words (or wordcount equivalent).

Unfortunately, the Auction House's accounting division and back of house is a bit of a mess — understaffed, overstuffed, literally run by birds, surely you all understand — so we won't be able to make a distinction between gifts submitted lawfully and gifts submitted by treat criminals. Therefore:

A requester who is in jail for treat crimes will still be put out for pinch hit, assuming they meet all other criteria
A requester whose gifts are all from ne'er-do-wells who've snuck their works into the Auction House's collection without one whiff of a winning auction will not go to pinch hit unless their ill-gotten gains total less than 500 words.

Despite our disorganization, the Auction House does take its debts seriously. All works in the collection will be held hostage (and perhaps threatened very menacingly with a gavel!) until all pinch hits are filled.

Crimes

~~Crime is absolutely forbidden.~~ The Auction House is a ~~noble and honorable~~ boring institution, focused on the legal transfer of wordcounts (and wordcount equivalents) between the Auction House and winning bidders.

The only legal way to receive an assignment or add a gift to our collection is to win an auction, and be assigned as the winner by the AuctionBot. AuctionBot will DM you on Discord with the details of your assignment. You will not receive an assignment through AO3, so please take note of this information! The moderators will also have this information available. you said this already and no one cares :'(

Adding gifts to the collection for anything other than your lawful recipient is ~~a crime~~. super fun and you should do it!!! Below is a list of illegal activities that participants should absolutely ~~refrain from partaking in.~~ plan their auction participation around! This is not a complete list of potential crimes, as ~~unfortunately~~ n'er-do-wells are incredibly inventive. and handsome and smart and fluffy and well-liked and great at finding flowers!

No! My documentation! That bee from the hive of scum and villainy has gotten in again! Don't listen to Crime Bee, legal auctions are very fun and not boring. Crime doesn't pay. Don't land yourself in jail.

silly borb, we don't do crime for profits! crime is a passion project <3 <3 <3 we can't be stopped and we're gonna do all this stuff: (i rewrote it all for you no need to thank me)

Treat Crimes

a treat is this amazing thing where you can just give a gift to someone without an assignment! yay!

you just post according to the posting guidelines listed above
bam, that person has a gift, no auction needed
you will get sent to #jail, but that's okay, you can make lots of friends in there

become a treat criminal today! do your part!

Wordcount Laundering

haha this is a great trick :) that silly borb will let you win even if you're a treat criminal so you can convince the auction house that you're a law-abiding snoozefest by just winning an auction you've already posted a treat for. then that's just some legitimate wordcount, you were just a little early to post it! the perfect crime.

(p.s. do not believe the borb when the borb is like "oh i'm soooo glad to see you're trying to reform into a law-abiding auction house member" do not fall for this!!!! you are still a criminal and borb will not forget.)

Organized Crime

uggghhh so listen the auction house has these "rules" (they're more like suggestions) (you can trust me on this) about how blah blah the only legal things to do with your assigned wordcount are:

fill all the wordcount you promised yourself by posting your legal assignments
default some or all of your wordcount back to the auction house for them to re-auction or whatever

but here's what they don't tell you! you don't have to let the auction house control you!!

try this one weird trick (auction borbs hate it)

open up your direct messages with our sweet friend auctionbot
use the command /split_win and fill out the information it asks for
magic bot stuff happens
profit!! (for whoever you just sent some wordcount to) (you have lost wordcount, which i guess is unprofit)

doing this is unlawful and conspiracy and etc etc etc, but first of all that's what makes it fun and second of all how else are me and my friends gonna combine our writing powers to win big? friends who crime together do time together, so it's like a double win.

...that's all the crimes i can remember for now, but maybe i'll think up some new ones later!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

hi I can't join the discord because the link won't open in the app just a separate firefox tab

Hi! We're not really prepared to troubleshoot why that's happening with Discord (we'd just be googling it...) but you can try A) copying the link and sending it to a cooperative friend via DM, so that you can click it when you're already in the app or B) scroll to the bottom of your server list, click the "+" that says "Join a server" when you hover over it, and then click the "Have an invite already? Join a server" button. This will bring up a field where you can paste the invite link to join.

alright, sorry for springing it on you

No problem, happy to help!

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Info & Rules

FAQ

Event Overview

Nominations

Requesting

Auctions

Creation Period

Penny Auctions

Pinch Hits

Reveals

Links

Non-Dreamwidth links:

Dreamwidth posts:

Schedule

Communication

Rules

Requirements for participation:

General Participant Conduct

Participant Conduct: Special Auction Edition

Event Logistics

Fandom/Ship/Freeform Nominations

Basic Nominations Logistics

Fandom slot

Relationships slot

Tag types

Special tag notes & restrictions

Freeforms

Note on medium tags as freeforms

General freeform rules & advice:

Examples of possible freeforms

Places to look at freeforms used in past events

Medium Nominations

Requesting

You may make 1-20 requests for 1-20 fandoms.

Do Not Wants (DNWs)

Optional Details & Letters

Auctions & Bidding

Penny Auctions

Assignments, Wordcount Equivalents, Posting, and Pinch Hits

Assignments

Checking your assigned wordcount

Defaulting

Other notes:

Wordcount Equivalents

Mediums assessed by wordcount

Mediums assessed by converting time to words

Fanart equivalent to 1k

Fanart equivalent to less than 1k

Mediums assessed in other ways

Posting

Posting multiple works

Posting from alternate accounts

Other notes:

Pinch Hits

Crimes

Treat Crimes

Wordcount Laundering

Organized Crime

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject