Rainbow Exchange 2024 Schedule and Rules

[sasheneskywalker]

Rainbow Exchange is a multifandom gift exchange for everything queer. We welcome works focused on queer characters, relationships, experiences, tropes, themes and more.

2024 Schedule

Nominations: April 15th - April 22th
Sign-ups: April 24 - May 1st
Assignments out: May 4th
Works due: June 16th
Works revealed: June 22nd
Authors revealed: June 30th

All deadlines are at 22:00 UTC.

2024 Links

Collection | Tag Set | Sign-ups | Dreamwidth Community

General rules
Rainbow Exchange is a gift exchange dedicated to queer fanfic and fanart. Participants must create a story that is at least 1000 words long or a piece of artwork that is at least a clean, finished line art on unlined paper. Each work must match the recipient's requested combination of fandom, work medium, character/relationship, and an additional tag and respect their DNWs.

You must be 18 or older to participate, as requests may include content not suitable for minors.

AI generated fanworks are not allowed.

Please be respectful toward other participants and keep things civil and polite.

The mods reserve the right to update the rules if needed.

To contact the mods, please email: sasheneskywalker+exchange@gmail.com

Nominations
- You can nominate up to 10 fandoms with up to 10 relationships/characters each and 20 freeform tags.
- Nominate all relationships and characters in the relationship field.
- Solo characters can be nominated in the relationships field with the format "Solo: Character Name".
- Please disambiguate all relationships and characters with the full or abbreviated canon name.
- Nominate crossover relationships under Crossover Fandom, with a fandom disambiguation after each character's name. Example: Bob (Fandom 1)/Alice (Fandom 2)
- Nominate original relationships and characters under Original Work. You can specify genders of the characters in the tag. Example: Non-binary Prince/Female Knight (OW)
- You can nominate "Any" character, either as a solo character or in a relationship. You can specify the category and gender of the character in the tag. Example: Any Male Villain/Bob (Fandom)
- Please keep in mind that the "/" is for romantic and/or sexual relationships and the "&" is for non-sexual and non-romantic relationships.
- RPF nominations must be for famous people 18 years old or older. Non-famous relatives or associates of famous people are not allowed. The mods also reserve the right to reject RPF nominations in bad taste (Nazis, contemporary political and religious leaders, etc.).

Freeform tags
- Freeform tags must reference something queer, but beyond that they can be as general or as specific as you want.
- Freeform tags may include a particular queer identity, queer relationship configuration, queer experience, queer trope, queer theme, queer event and more.
- Examples of freeform tags: "lesbian character", "non-binary demiromantic bisexual character", "everyone in the polycule is trans", "pride parade", "two pansexual women in love", "realizing you’re gay at the absolute worst possible time", "arospec character in a world with hanahaki disease", "pining after your straight best friend", "identity porn with a genderfluid character who looks very differently depending on their presentation", "serving in the military during the time of don't ask, don't tell policy", "gay character ashamed they're turned on by straight character's homophobic dirty talk".
- Fandom-specific freeform tags are allowed. Example: "DCU (Comics) - correct gender in the superhero suit, not in the civilian identity"
- We understand that "something queer" is a very broad category. We encourage people to nominate tags in the spirit of the exchange. The mods will be as inclusive as possible when accepting tags. Freeforms that are unclear will be rounded up in clarification posts where participants can post comments clarifying the meanings of the tags.

Requests
- You must request 3-10 fandoms. Each request can have 1-20 relationships, 1-2 mediums (fanart and fanfic), and 1-20 freeform tags.
- You can request the same fandom multiple times, as long as you have at least three unique fandoms.
- A DNW is a thing you Do Not Want to get in a fic. All DNWs must be included in the optional details of the request in order to be enforceable. DNWs should be clear, free of judgement, and not box your creator in or be in conflict with the request.
- You can add prompts and likes in the optional details, or create a separate "dear creator" letter.
- You can sign up more than once with well-behaved sock accounts.

Offers
- You must offer 1-10 fandoms. Each offer can have 1-20 relationships, 1-2 mediums (fanart and fanfic), and 1-20 freeform tags.
- If your offers are unmatchable you'll be contacted after signups close and asked if you wish to drop out or add more offers. Please check the requests and make sure you're offering something at least one person has requested.
- Make sure that the email address linked to your AO3 account is working and remember to check your AO3 email during the exchange.

Assignments
- To fulfill your assignment you must create a new, complete work for this exchange, and post it in the exchange's collection. It must be about one of the recipient's requested fandoms, relationships or characters, freeform tags, in one of the media they requested. It cannot include any of the recipient's Do Not Wants.
- Fanfic must be at least 1000 words long and in English.
- Fanart must be at minimum clean, finished line art. Edits/graphics are not allowed as gifts.
- Your gift may have only one recipient.
- Treats are optional additional fanworks. They are given to a specific recipient based on their requests. Treats can be of any length but they should still be complete works and respect the recipient's DNWs.
- Works without a recipient but using tags/pairings in the tag set and following the theme are allowed and considered gifts to the collection.
- Please do not post about your assignment in public/semi-public spaces before creator reveals.
- If you have a question about your assignment, please email the mods.

Defaulting and pinch hits
- If you cannot complete your assignment, hit the "default" button on your assignments page on AO3. Please try to do it as early as possible, so your former assignment can go out for pinch hit.
- Pinch hits will be posted to this community.
- If you default and your creator also defaults, your assignment will still go out for pinch hit but we will not delay reveals if you don't get a gift.
- If you are "no show" at deadline, or the mods find you with an incomplete placeholder after the deadline, you will be banned from participating in the Rainbow Exchange next year.
- If you need additional time to finish your assignment, you can email the mods and ask for a 3-day extension.

Reveals
- Works will not be revealed until everyone who fulfilled their assignment has a gift.
- Please leave kudos and comments on your gift(s). If you aren't sure what to say, a simple "Thank you for the gift!" is fine.

Comments

Re: Kink/subculture

[sasheneskywalker]

"Leather Mentorship" is fine, because it's specifically very integral to queer culture historically. I'm unsure about "Pet/Owner Dynamic" and its connection to lgbtq community, so I'd appreciate an explanation. Or you could change it to "Gay Pet/Owner Dynamic" or something similar to include a more overt queer aspect if you want.

Re: Kink/subculture

[flowersforgraves]

There's a significant subset of pet/owner that's explicitly part of Leather communities; in meatspace, Leather bars and clubs will often have a monthly (or weekly!) pup night. A lot of the time when people complain about "seeing kink at pride" they're specifically talking about pup hoods -- leatherpups are some of the most targeted people with that kind of rhetoric.

Re: Kink/subculture

[sasheneskywalker]

That's interesting to know. Sure, you can nominate the "pet/owner dynamic" tag and any other kink/subculture tags you want. We're always open to learning new information and if we have any questions, we'll include them in a nominations clarifications post.