I hope you're all ready for the third round of Rare Pair Exchange!
Nominations are open! They will close on Sunday 10 August at 11:59pm EDT. [ In your timezone + Countdown ] Please submit your nominations here.
Please read the guidelines before nominating and ensure your nominations meet our eligibility criteria. Keep an eye on this community in case clarification is needed from you before a nomination is accepted.
Eligibility criteria
Please ensure you check your nominations meet the eligibility criteria.
To qualify for this exchange, the ship needs to have less than 250 works on AO3, be complete and written in English, and be filtered using the otp:true filter while logged into an AO3 account. If you're unsure of how to filter a work via AO3, please see
here on the Rules/Guidelines post explaining how to use the "otp:true filter".
Nomination guidelines
- You can nominate up to 10 fandoms with 10 relationships ("/" only) each. We will not be accepting solo character nominations or relationships using "&".
- Each nomination must be of one single relationship. We will not be accepting "Ava Starr/John Walker & Yelena Belova/Bob Reynolds (MCU)" as a nomination.
- All nominations must be disambiguated with the name of the canon after the relationship, e.g. "Theodore "Laurie" Laurence/Amy March (Little Women — Gerwig 2019)". If they are not disambiguated, you risk your nomination being rejected.
- We do not accept "All Media Types" and "& Related Fandoms" as a canon nomination. Please specify which version of canon you would like rather than nominating under the 'all media' version of the tag, e.g. "Dragon Age (Video Games)" vs "Dragon Age (All Media)". There are a few exceptions to this rule—please see our "Nominating specific fandoms" section for more information.
- Crossover nominations: Please nominate crossovers with "Crossover Fandom" in the "Fandom" section of the nomination form, with the crossover relationships filling up the relationship textbox. i.e. "Crossover Fandom", "Natasha Romanov (MCU)/Dinah Lance (DCEU)".
- We do not allow Reader/Canon Character pairings and recursive fic to be nominated for this exchange.
Disambiguations
Disambiguations help us identify which canon a character/relationship belongs to, and are mandatory as part of your nominations. These assist us greatly in the backend, and also allow requesters and creators to know which version of a character is nominated, especially for large fandoms with various mediums or character versions.
You are welcome to abbreviate the fandom name when nominating your relationships to save space, although please make the abbreviation distinct, i.e. for The Hunger Games, you could use "THG - Collins" and "THG Movies". If your tag goes wandering, we want to be able to put it back in its rightful place. If your disambiguation is too generic and your nomination goes wandering in the tagset, you risk it being removed entirely.
Examples of disambiguation are below (the disambiguation is bolded):
- John Walker/Ava Starr (MCU)
- Finnick Odair/Katniss Everdeen (THG - Collins)
- Jessica Jones (JJones)/Wanda Maximoff (WandaVision)
- Female dragon rider/Female dragon hunter (OW)
Fandoms
We have no restrictions on rarity or media on fandoms. You are more than welcome to nominate a very popular fandom or very rare fandom; however, the relationship must be rare and fit our eligibility criteria.
For more specific canon types:
- RPF: RPF is permitted. Non-famous family members and under 18s are not eligible. We will not be allowing nominations for world leaders and reserve the right to reject any RPF nomination that we feel will cause distress to our participants.
- Original characters in non-original canons: You may nominate Canon Character/Original Character(s). You are welcome to be as specific or as broad as you wish, e.g. "Veronica Mars/Original Female Character (VMars)" or "Abed Nadir/Original Male Character (Community)" as long as it fits our eligibility criteria.
We highly encourage you to ensure your nomination specifies the gender of the OC unless you're interested in receiving a fanwork with any gender, i.e., "Misty Quigley/Original Character (Yellowjackets)" is broad and unspecific, and means your creator will be allowed to define the gender of the OC. If you are interested in a specific gender for the OC, please nominate this specifically, i.e. "Misty Quigley/Original Female Character (Yellowjackets)".
We will not accept participants who try to box their creator into a specific type of relationship using their optional details in their sign-up. Please keep that in mind while nominating.
- Original Works: These must be nominated under "Original Work" in the format "Character Type/Character Type", e.g. "Female Detective/Male Criminal Mastermind (OW)", "Female Pirate Captain/Male Privateer (OW)", "Female Archeologist/Female Librarian (OW)", etc.
We encourage you to be specific regarding gender and what you're after. Please try not to be overly specific—our tags have character limitations, and we also will not allow boxing in creators.
- Recursive: We do not allow recursive fandoms in this exchange.
- Crossovers: Crossovers are permitted. These should be nominated under "Crossover Fandom" with the fandom name for each character in brackets, e.g. "Taissa Turner (Yellowjackets)/Michelle Jones (Spider-man Holland)".
- Threesomes/moresomes: These types of romantic relationships are permitted, i.e. "Peter Parker/Michelle Jones/Ned Leeds (Spiderman - Holland)". If you are nominating characters that do not exist in the same canon, please ensure you do so under "Crossover Fandom", i.e. "Peter Parker (Spider-man Garfield)/Peter Parker (Spider-man Maguire)/Peter Parker (Spider-man Holland)".
- Canon/Reader: We do not allow Reader/Canon Character to be nominated in any form.
- Creator's Choice of Fandom: We do not accept any CCOF for this exchange.
Nominating specific fandoms
- Assassin's Creed: Please nominate Assassin's Creed under "Assassin's Creed - All Media Types".
- Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel: The Series: Please nominate these under "Buffyverse (TV)".
- DC's Arrowverse: Please nominate characters from Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, Superman & Lois, and Black Lightning under "DC's Arrowverse".
- DC Comics: Please nominate all DC comics under "DCU (Comics)", but please disambiguate which version of the character you want in parentheses if that information is important to you.
- DC Extended Universe: Please nominate all DCEU movies under "DC Extended Universe". This includes Wonder Woman, The Justice League, Suicide Squad, Batman vs Superman, Man of Steel, Aquaman, etc. The Batman (2022) and Superman (2025) should be nominated separately.
- Dimension 20: Please nominate all campaigns under "Dimension 20 (Web Series)".
- Dragon Age:
- Nominate all video games under "Dragon Age (Video Games)".
- Nominate all comics under "Dragon Age (Comics)".
- Nominate all books under "Dragon Age - Various Authors".
- Nominate all tabletop RPG under "Dragon Age (Tabletop RPG)".
- Final Fantasy VII Remake: Please nominate this under "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII".
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Please nominate all MCU movies under "Marvel Cinematic Universe".
- Please nominate all Netflix Marvel TV shows under "The Defenders (Marvel TV)". This includes Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron First, Daredevil, and The Defenders.
- Please nominate the MCU television shows separately from the MCU. These should appear as separate entities within the tagset, i.e., "WandaVision", "Ms Marvel", "Loki", "Falcon and the Winter Soldier", "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", etc.
- Marvel Comics: Please nominate these under their appropriate Marvel universe, i.e. "Marvel 616", "Marvel Ultimate", etc.
- Star Trek: Please nominate these via their separate shows and the Alternate Original Series, such as "Star Trek: Alternate Original Series ", "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", "Star Trek: Discovery", "Star Trek: Enterprise", "Star Trek: Picard", "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds", "Star Trek: The Next Generation", etc.
Crossovers between these shows must be nominated under "Crossover Fandom" and correctly disambiguated,
- Star Wars:
- Star Wars movies: Please nominate under the appropriate movie, i.e. "Star Wars: Original Trilogy", "Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy", "Star Wars: Prequel Trilogy".
- Star Wars TV shows: Please nominate under the appropriate television shoe, i.e. "Star Wars: Rogue One". We will allow "Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types" to be nominated.
- Star Wars books: Please nominate under either "Star Wars: Legends Books" (Old EU) or "Star Wars: Extended Universe Books" (new/current books).
- Star Wars comics, video games, etc.,: Nominate what's normal in the fandom or by individual title. If you're unsure, comment below and we can figure out how to proceed.
- Star Wars in-universe crossovers: Please ensure any Star Wars crossovers are nominated under "Star Wars - All Media Types", i.e. "Leia Organa (Star Wars: Original Trilogy) & Ahsoka Tano (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)". Please ensure you disambiguate which version of the character you want.
- The Witcher: Please nominate via media, i.e. "The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski", "The Witcher (TV)", and "The Witcher (Video Games)".
- X-Men Movies: Please nominate either "X-Men (Movieverse) (OTM)" for Original Timeline Movies and "X-Men (Movieverse) (ATM)" for Alternate Timeline Movies.
- Original characters in non-original canons: You may nominate Canon Character/Original Character(s), e.g. "Diana (Wonder Woman)/Original Female Character"; "Jess Mariano (Gilmore Girls)/Original Characters". These belong under the canon character's fandom.
You can be as specific as you would like. If you do not specify a gender within the tag, you cannot box your creator into a specific combination, so please make sure to request the dynamic you would prefer.
- Original Works: These must be nominated under "Original Work" in the following format: "Character Type/Character Type", e.g. "Princess/Maid (OW)", "Pilot/Soldier/General (OW)", etc. If they are not nominated in this way, they will be rejected.
You can be as specific as you like, i.e. "Male Pilot/Male Soldier/Female General (OW)". Please remember that you cannot box your creator in with a specific dynamic that isn't already indicated by the nominated tag.
Relationships that are close to reaching 250 works
If the relationship you want to nominate has 245-250 works on AO3 and meets our eligibility criteria (works are completed, written in English, and you're logged into AO3), please reach out with a link of your eligibility checking so that we know that the relationship was eligible at the time nominations were open. We do not see nominations in the order they are submitted.
Rejected nominations
If your nomination does not meet the eligibility criteria, it will be rejected without query.
Please ensure you disambiguate your nominations to avoid the risk of it being rejected for not meeting our guidelines.
Questions
If you have any questions or would like to seek clarification on a potential nomination, please comment here (anon is on) or email rarepairexmod@gmail.com.
Please be patient during the nomination period. Checking nomination eligibility requires searching via AO3, and this triggers the "Retry later" message. I have built a couple of days into the exchange's schedule to allow for any nomination querying/eligibility checking overflow.
Happy nominating!
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