Rules & FAQ

[coniferous_mod]

Rules

Work Requirements

• You will write, and receive, a fic of at least 1000 words which involves pining as a central plot element.
• Fic created for this exchange must match your recipient's requested fandom, relationship, freeform, and requitedness tags as specified in the rules, and may not include recipient DNWs.

Nominations

• You may nominate up to 10 fandoms, 10 relationships per fandom and 10 freeform tags.
• Freeform tags should be in the form of general tropes and prompts related to pining.
• Crossovers, RPF, and Original Works nominations are all acceptable.
• How to nominate relationships:
  • Please indicate in parentheses which character is pining. (Please use only (Character [A/B/C] pining) OR ([both/all] pining) and not (either pining).
  • Please nominate romantic/sexual relationships as ‘Character/A Character B’, non-romantic relationships as ‘Character A & Character B’.
  • Relationships involving multiple characters, or a mix of & and / relationships, are allowed. (E.g. Character A & Character B / Character C (A pining)).

Requests

• You may request between 3 - 10 fandoms, 1 - 10 relationships per fandom, 1 - 20 freeform tags, and one or both of the requitedness tags.
• You may request a fandom multiple times, as long as there are at least 3 unique fandom requests in your signup overall.
• If there is content you do not wish to receive, please specify this content as a DNW in the optional details of your AO3 request. DNWs can include anything but may not be used to railroad your gifter into making one exact type of gift, and may not contradict your requests (e.g. requesting a / ship between a character and their canonical sibling, but DNWing incest and AUs). If you list a DNW that appears to be contradictory you will be required to elaborate by the mods.
• If you request ‘Any’ in any category, this indicates you are willing to receive content for any nominated tags. You may not request 'Any' and then DNW certain tags.

Offers

• You may offer between 3 - 10 fandoms, 1 - 10 relationships per fandom, 1 - 20 freeform tags and one or both requitedness tags.
• You may offer a fandom multiple times, as long as there are at least 3 unique fandom offers in your signup overall.
• If you offer ‘Any’ in any category, please note that you may be matched on any one tag in that category. Please do not select this unless you are willing to write any and all of the nominated tags.

Matching

• You will match on one fandom AND one relationship AND one pining freeform tag AND one requitedness tag.
• If your requests are unmatchable, you will go out as an initial pinch hit.
• If your offers are unmatchable, with no possible recipient, we will contact you to add offers. If you cannot add offers or do not respond by the specified time, your signup will be deleted.

 

Defaulting and Pinch Hits

• If you are unable to complete your assignment, please default (go to My Assignments on your AO3 profile and click ‘Default’ next to your pine4pine assignment).
• There are no penalties for defaulting before the deadline, except the following: if your assigned writer also defaults, you will not be sent out as a pinch hit.
• If you do not default on your assignment and do not submit a fic by the assignment deadline, you may be penalized or banned.
• Pinch hits will be posted to this comm. To claim a pinch hit, reply to the post or email pine4pinemod@gmail.com.

Treats

• Treats are not required to meet the minimum word count for gifts, but they must still match on one fandom tag AND one relationship tag AND one requitedness tag AND one freeform tag, as well as avoiding all the recipient's DNWs.
• Treats should be posted to the collection on AO3 and gifted to the intended recipient. When posting your treat, remember to manually fill in your recipient’s name and the AO3 collection name (pine4pine 2021) on the New Work form.
• You do not have to be signed up for this exchange in order to write treats!
• Each year's collection will remain open after the official end of the round for additional treats.

 

FAQ

What do the requitedness tags mean?

These tags indicate whether the pining in the gift fic is eventually requited or not.

 

The choices are:

• eventually requited (the requitedness must be clearly stated/realized in the fic)
• never requited (the feelings remain ambiguous, are explicitly rejected, or are otherwise not returned on-screen)

You may request and offer either or both of these tags.

 

 

Do the feelings have to be romantic?

No, platonic pining is eligible for this exchange! Please nominate platonic relationships in the following format: Character A & Character B (A pining).

 

Can I ask my recipient to clarify a prompt or requested tag?

If you have questions about your assignment, we encourage you to ask! However, if you need to ask something of your recipient, please don't contact your recipient directly. Email the mods and we will relay the question to your recipient.
 

 

Please comment on this post or email pine4pinemod@gmail.com with any other questions you may have!

Comments

[lamiacalls]

In poly pairings, I have a few where I want the couple to pine for the third. Is it okay to indicate multiple (but not all) characters pining with slashes or ampersands?

i.e. either:
Character A/B/C (A&B pining)
or Character A/B/C (A/B pining)

[coniferforest]

Hello! Yes, 'Character A/B/C (A&B pining)' will be fine.

[ziskandra]

Oops, my bad! I accidentally nommed under Dragon Age - All Media Types but I meant to nom under Dragon Age (Video Games) so that would be perf, thank you.

[twoam]

Hi mods, it looks like the collection is still closed on AO3. Not sure if it's intentional or an oversight, but I thought I'd let you know!

[coniferforest]

Hello! I've opened the 2020 collection now - sorry about that.

[lizthelizzard]

Hi, I have a question.

I want to nominate various Batman-related comics. Can I nominate each continuity separately, or do they need to go under some umbrella tag (like batman comics or DCU or DC comics)?

My favourite character's backstory and the age gap between some pairings vary from one comic continuity to another, so I'd like to nominate them separately, if possible.

[coniferforest]

Hello! That sounds all right to me, and go ahead and nominate them separately.

[eleosepistrophia]

Just wondering, can we gift things to the collection rather than a specific person?

[coniferforest]

Hello! Yes, we allow gifting to the collection as long as the work matches with at least one relationship tag and at least one freeform in the tagset. Pining for all!

[eleosepistrophia]

Thank you kindly!

[(Anonymous)]

It sounds like the "requited" tag requires that the relationship be explicitly realized onscreen. If someone is okay with the relationship remaining unrealized at the end of the fic as long as there's nothing explicitly shutting down the possibility of the feelings being returned, should they only request requited and add a note that they're also okay with it remaining ambiguous, or request both requited and unrequited and DNW the pining character getting explicitly rejected?

What about for offers, if we're okay writing open-ended but not explicitly one-sided?

[coniferforest]

Hello! If you're strongly opposed to writing or receiving a work that would explicitly shut down the possibility of feelings being returned, we suggest requesting and offering 'feelings requited' and mentioning in request details that you're open to ambiguity of feelings as well as unambiguous declarations of requitedness. If you're not comfortable writing explicitly one-sided pining, we don't recommend offering 'feelings never requited'.

Requested tags

[(Anonymous)]

Are all tags for the type/situation of pining in the request required to be used in the story? Or can some be left out/tweaked?

Re: Requested tags

[coniferous_mod]

Hello, great question!

This exchange runs on OR matching as per bullet point #1 under Matching: You will match on one fandom AND one relationship AND one pining freeform tag AND one requitedness tag.

Thus, your gift is only required to match ONE pining freeform tag and ONE requitedness tag requested by the recipient for the relationship you matched on. You are welcome, but not required, to include additional pining freeforms that the recipient requested if you would like.

(If you have an idea about tweaking a pining freeform and want to know if your recipient would be okay with it, please ask through the mods at pine4pinemod@gmail.com !)

[(Anonymous)]

are reveals delayed again, or are they still happening today?

[coniferous_mod]

Hello! The collection has already been revealed on (delayed) schedule and an announcement post will be forthcoming :)