Welcome to Space Swap!

[extrapenguin]

Space Swap is a multimedia exchange for fandoms of all sorts (books to RPF to music videos to etc.). The one criterion for inclusion is that the fandom be related to SPACE.

We run it along typical exchange lines: participants will sign up with requests and offers, will be matched via AO3, and will receive an assignment. By signing up, participants agree to make a fannish creation for their assigned participant. In turn, someone will make a fannish creation for them. You will need an AO3 account to participate. You also need to be 18+ and an adult in your jurisdiction.

We'll kick off the swap with a fandom recruitment phase in which everyone can wax poetic about their favourite space fandoms in the hopes of recruiting new fans. Following that we’ll hold nominations to get a set of fandoms for our swap, and then we'll have sign-ups and be off and running!
Note on treats: They are very welcome, and don't have to to fulfil the minimum creation requirements that main gifts do.

Nominations and Matching

During nominations, you can nominate up to 5 fandoms and up to 10 tags (character, relationship, or worldbuilding) in each. The nominations instructions post will be up before nominations start. Please obey its instructions.

When signing up, you can request 3-8 fandoms with 1-15 tags and offer 3-10 fandoms with 2-20 tags. We will also be matching on fanwork type, chosen from a ticky box. (You will have to choose at least one of the fanwork types, but feel free to tick all.)

Prompts are useful for giving your assigned writer somewhere to start from. We recommend writing prompts for each type of fanwork you requested, either into the box provided by AO3, or into a linked "Dear Creator" letter.

Matching will be based on your requests. If you have no possible creators, you'll be an initial pinch hit. If you have no possible recipients, you'll be asked to adjust your sign-up. Matching is OR matching. You will be guaranteed to match with someone who has offered at least 1 fandom that you have requested, and within that fandom, at least 1 of the tags (character/relationship/worlbuilding) and 1 of the fanwork types you have requested.

An example
If one of your requests is Mass Effect with the tags
Character: Ashley Williams
Relationship: Urdnot Wrex/Garrus Vakarian
Worldbuilding: Citadel Sewage System
and the medium
Fanart

and Alice has offered Mass Effect with
Character: Ashley Williams
Character: Garrus Vakarian
and the mediums
Fanfic
Fanart
you could match with Alice, because you share the Character: Ashley Williams tag and the Fanart medium. If you are matched, Alice will make you a fanart of Ashley.

If Betty has offered Mass Effect with
Character: Urdnot Wrex
Character: Garrus Vakarian
Relationship: Urdnot Wrex & Garrus Vakarian
and the medium
Fanart
you could not match with Betty, since you do not share any tags.

If Carol has offerend Mass Effect with
Character: Ashley Williams
Character: Urdnot Wrex
Character: Garrus Vakarian
and the medium
Fanfic
you could not match with Carol, since despite sharing the Character: Ashley Williams tag, you do not share a medium.

If you have matching concerns – e.g. you absolutely do not want to match with another participant – please contact the mod at extrapenguin at gmx dot com during sign-ups and state whether you do not want to create for the person, do not want that person to create for you, or both.

Fannish Creation Requirements

The minimum requirements are:

Fic - 1,000 words
Vid - 1 minute
Art - 1 finished illustration (with color and/or shading)
Podfic - 1,000 words of an existing story podficced OR 500 words of a new story, written and podficced
Interactive Fiction - 1,000 words total OR 3 different endings
Other - Something of equivalent effort to the above

You are, of course, welcome to do more and longer. The gift must be something that matches your recip's request and that you have reasonable cause to think they will like. "AI" works produced using a large language model (such as ChatGPT) or "art generators" (such as Midjourney) are prohibited.

Lineart is equivalent to a sketch. "Finished illustration" means that it has color or shading, and some sort of background.

If you are requesting podfic, please tell the potential podficcers whether you would be okay with your own works being podficced.

Interested in making something else? Comment on the nominations/nominations clarification posts and we'll add it in.

Treats are welcome, and do not have to meet the minimum creation requirements.

Eligibility

We are a space exchange. This includes "five-minute fandoms" (songs, music videos, posters, etc), Space Traveler RPF, Space Vehicles RPF, and space-themed Original Works. Essentially: is there space travel or the implication thereof? If there is, good. If there isn't, then this isn't the exchange for it. If it's borderline, it's up to you – would you be comfortable with having it in a space exchange?

Bans

Mods reserve the right to ban participants in cases of:

• Uploading placeholders instead of gifts at deadline
• Giving a gift calculated to upset or anger its recipient
• Other forms of bad faith participation

If the bad behavior displayed is sufficiently egregious, mods reserve the right to ban participants based on behavior in other exchanges. Banned participants will have their sign-ups deleted after sign-up have closed but before matching.

Schedule & Contact Info

All times below are given as 24-hour times. EEST/EET is the time zone of Finland. Sign-ups and nominations may start ahead of the given time, but will close when stated.
As always, works are revealed on Yuri's Night, the International Day of Human Space Flight.

Nominations start: Sun 26 Jan 17:00 EET (in your timezone)
Nominations end: Tue 4 Feb 17:00 EET (in your timezone | countdown)
Sign-ups start: Fri 7 Feb 17:00 EET (in your timezone)
Sign-ups end: Sun 16 Feb 17:00 EET (in your timezone | countdown)
Works due: Sat 5 Apr 17:00 EEST (in your timezone | countdown)
Works revealed: Sat 12 Apr 17:00 EEST (in your timezone | countdown)
Authors revealed: Sat 19 Apr 17:00 EEST (in your timezone | countdown)
If you have any questions or concerns, please comment on this post or contact extrapenguin via DW PM or e-mail at extrapenguin at gmx dot com, and we'll do our best to address them.

Comments

[dirty_diana]

If the dates are correctly listed here I count 4 and a half weeks? That's a little tight for vids and other non-fic media, which is what I was hoping to offer, which I'm sad about since I do love that this challenge accepts other media. I understandd about rl, though.

[extrapenguin]

Ah, my bad; I double-counted a week - 5 weeks. (Assignments will go out within 32 hours of sign-ups ending - 24 hours for people to get back to me, a few hours for me to fiddle in case AO3 is being uncooperative. Significantly less than half a week, though!)

[extrapenguin]

You can e-mail extrapenguin at gmx dot com, or if that's not possible, use dreamwidth's private message function or DM me on Discord. As long as it's not public! :)

[(Anonymous)]

Hiya, if we post a fanvid for the exchange do you want us to upload it to an anonymous Youtube (or other hosting site) account and then reupload to our main after author reveals? Or would we be allowed to embed an unlisted link from our main accounts starting off? Thanks!

[extrapenguin]

I understand vid hosting can be problematic to make anon. If you have an anonymous/not-your-username account, by all means, upload there and reup at creator reveals. If not, embedding from an unlisted link is fine.

[lemonsharks]

Example of something I think borderline but: I Dream of Jeannie

It's space-adjacent in that there are some episodes featuring space but most of the show is set in Florida, and you could easily swap out the "space" parts of the show for another oddly specific real world feature and the show realistically wouldn't be affected too much.

But also, can anyone really imagine a world where Major Nelson and Captain Healy aren't air force/astronauts for the space program? Me either. (Ie could go either way but I wouldn't be mad about it being included.)

Question!

[gyoroandururun]

So I'm trying to do my offers, but there's some tags I didn't think to request in the tag nominations and I can't simply add one tag. Could "Character: Rose Tico", "Character: Albel Nox" and "Character: Fayt Leingod" be added? Although, if I'm offering Albel/Fayt as a romantic ship, would having "Character: Albel Nox" etc match me with other ships, potentially? If so, I don't think I'll be able to offer that...or the others, really. I'm offering specific ships, but have to add these other tags. XD Sorry, I'm new to this exchange.

Re: Question!

[extrapenguin]

Hi! As sign-ups have opened I can't add new tags. If you are offering Character: Albel Nox, you might match to people who are requesting many other things as well, but if you match on Character: Albel Nox you need to create them something in a requested medium that has Albel Nox in it. You do not need to include any other characters, relationships, or worldbuilding tags your recip may have requested.

Re: Question!

[gyoroandururun]

I don't think there is a tag for that, that's the problem, so I can't offer in that fandom without risking matching for a ship I don't even wanna write for. XD There are like five ships or something for the fandom and a couple of character tags, but none of the character tags match the ship I want to offer. Is there any way you can put the offer to 1-20 character tags?

Re: Question!

[extrapenguin]

The offer is intentionally at 2-20 so that people would have to offer more than one thing in a fandom. If you cannot offer another ship or character, you will have to offer a different fandom. (Please also note that character tags are independent of ship tags and someone requesting Character: A cannot insist on getting A/B. Likewise, someone offering Character: A can't expect to write A/B, as a recip might have DNWed it.)

[eratoschild]

I did not get to finish my signup. After assignments go out, can I ask the mods to relay my suggestions and DNW's to my creator?

If this isn't possible, I understand. In that case, can my signup be deleted? eratoschild is also my ao3 account.

[extrapenguin]

Hi,

As assignments won't go out until our unmatchable has responded, I can simply edit your DNWs and other optional details into your sign-up. Please send me the details either via DW PM or as an email to extrapenguin at gmx dot com.

ETA: If you do not get it in before I send out assignments, I'll pas the DNWs and other details on to your creator. (In addition to editing them into your sign-up so they can use AO3 as a reference.)

[eratoschild]

thank you! sent via DW DM

[extrapenguin]

I don't seem to have gotten it! Could you resend?

[eratoschild]

re-sent by email, i didn't realize that it didn't send due to length

[extrapenguin]

I got it! Editing it in now. :)

playlists

[taken_aback_by_tuesdays]

Would it be possible to add playlists to the type of work that can be created? (If not this year, maybe put it in consideration for next.)

Re: playlists

[extrapenguin]

Not this year, but feel free to bring it (+ minimums) up on the feedback post at the end of the round.

[primeideal]

Just FYI, the two links on the sidebar to the main Space Swap collection on Ao3 don't work. (The link to the 2024 subcollection does work and I appreciate it!)

[extrapenguin]

Two links??? Where's the second one?

Thank you for the heads-up – I've fixed the link immediately above the link to the 2024 collection. I am ??? at how it could've broken, but ah well.

[primeideal]

Oh, hmm, it's only visible when I'm logged in and viewing with my own theme. I think it's copying from the user info/profile "website" link.

[extrapenguin]

Okay, that has been corrected as well! Thank you for bringing it up.

[lezridax]

Since this is a relatively small exchange (based on number of sign-ups), is it okay for us to message you with a specific person we would rather not be matched with?

[extrapenguin]

Yes. Please send me an email at extrapenguin at gmx dot com

Art Submission

[(Anonymous)]

Since we can no longer host art on Ao3 and must embed, is it fine to host the image and make all reasonable attempts not to reveal who we are in the hosting? I'm having trouble figuring out how to follow anonymity rules/reveal schedules for something I need to post somewhere to include.