Schedule

[chocolateboxmod]

Welcome to Chocolate Box, a low pressure, low commitment multifandom gift exchange run on AO3. For 2021-2022 the AO3 community can be found here.

 

The schedule for this year is:

Nominations: 20- 28 December

Signups: 1-7 January

Assignments go out: by 10 January

Posting deadline: 7 February

Story reveal: 14 February

Author reveal: 21 February

All deadlines are at 11:59pm EST with the exception of reveals which are at 6am EST.

Comments

[dreamiflame]

The rules say: You have to offer to write in at least four fandoms. You can add two more for a total of ten fandoms, if you want.

Is it six in total, or ten in total?

[chocolateboxmod]

It's ten; I just can't add.

[shadowcat]

I hope this is a good place to ask a question?

Are you going to have a pinch hit list of some kind?

I ask because I really want to participate, but am having a problem doing the sign up from my tablet. I broke my ankle and had to have surgery the day before Christmas. It’s difficult to get situated to use the laptop due to having to work around my leg.

If I am not able to get a sign up done in time, I would still love to be able to write for someone.

[chocolateboxmod]

Pinch hits are posted to this community, with comments screened. If you add this post to your friends list, you should see the pinch hits. Keep an eye out for posts tagged "pinch hit"!

[meatball42.livejournal.com]

I have been trying to convince my friend to participate in exchanges for a while, and finally convinced her that Chocolate Box is a good place to start, but now the wait list for an account is past the end of sign-ups here. Are you able to get her an account faster? I know other exchanges are capable of this, but I don't know how hooked in you are to Ao3.

[chocolateboxmod]

Could I ask your friend to email me? I'll see what I can do with Support but I can't make any promises on their behalf.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi. I feel like I'm telling tales out of school, but in the interests of avoiding trouble later can you check out these sign ups please:

anna -- has requested "any" for Fast and Furious but then says "any gen" in her request, which given only four out of twenty of the nominated relationships are gen seems like asking for trouble

outruntheavalanche -- has requested "any" for Phantom of the Opera but then has preferences in her request, which probably won't go well given there's only one ship nominated

the_other_lutece_sister -- seems to currently be requesting Orphan Black three separate times

piggy09 -- has requested Orphan Black twice

I feel like an ass for pointing this out, but I really wouldn't want to match with the first two. (The other two just caught my eye.)

[chocolateboxmod]

Hi there!

I'm not going to contact anyone about their requests during the signup period as what a person requests is subject to change during this period. If upon being assigned a participant has concerns about their assignment's prompts, I would recommend that they contact me by email to discuss.

In terms of the duplicates, I will be reviewing all signups and making contact with all participants with duplicate fandoms on signups closing.

I hope this helps!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! I'm wondering, are there any rules for treats? I want to write a treat or two, and I know that the fest minimum words is low as it is, but would treating a 100-word drabbles be a no-go?

[chocolateboxmod]

No rules whatsoever in terms of treats. Go nuts!

[coaldustcanary]

Quick question - will the collection close for posting on 7 February? If so, what time? And if not, for how long will treat posting be allowed? Up to story reveals? Up to author reveals? Thanks!

[chocolateboxmod]

The collection will not close! I will hit the button to default all outstanding assignments after 12:01am on the 8th, but the collection is open for treats indefinitely.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, so I feel deeply pathetic, b/c I'm writing in a pretty damn large fandom, but it's not one I'm really in, and I'm having a hard time finding a beta. Does the challenge have anyone who is essentially a "pinch beta"? If not, no worries, I can always prevail on someone to just do a SPAG and not worry about other stuff, but I thought I'd check in any case. Best!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi!
There's the beta post and the comments, where a lot of fandoms are listed, here:
https://chocolateboxcomm.dreamwidth.org/12895.html#comments
Also, I volunteer as tribute, if you don't mind me eventually not knowing canon, and you can contact me at hubdidingle@gmail.com

[sunspot]

I can edit my posts up until works go live on the 14th, right? I feel like I need to clean up the ending to my assignment, but I need another day or so to do it (it's like, workable now. If I explode tomorrow, my recip will still get a complete work, I just feel like I could do better, you know?).......

[chocolateboxmod]

You can edit works until then, yes! I will be checking works over the weekend, but that's more to make sure that the work is not one sentence repeated 86 times, or text c+ped from a fic in another fandom entirely, or other things like that.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! Are reveals planned for 11:59pm EST, like the posting deadline?

[chocolateboxmod]

Hello! I am aiming for 12:01 am, but it depends on whether all eligible participants have a gift first.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! Thanks for all your work on this so far :)

May I know what time author reveals are?

[(Anonymous)]

The "Sign-up closes" and "Works revealed" dates on the AO3 collection are listed as happening in December 2017.

[chocolateboxmod]

Whoops! That should be fixed up now.

[(Anonymous)]

Yay! I’m so glad this is happening again this year!

[mahmfic]

I'm so pumped for this!

[luzula]

Hi! I wonder what time nominations close on the 29th?

[chocolateboxmod]

11:59pm EST!

[(Anonymous)]

Oops, I nominated an anime called Sengoku Majin GoShogun and it was approved, but I just realized that it's called GoShogun | Macron 1 on AO3, it's listed under TV series and the tags use the English names from the heavily edited dub whereas I used Japanese names in the relationships I requested.

I'll contact AO3 to ask if it's possible to edit the tags so that they include both the English and Japanese names like some other anime fandoms do, but will this cause problems if someone writes a fic for this fandom for the exchange?

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, turns out the category has no canonized tags, so I guess it doesn't matter after all?

how do I submit fandoms?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi hi I'm really new to this sort of exchange, and I'm not sure how to submit a form! Sorry omg

Re: how do I submit fandoms?

[chocolateboxmod]

1) Click this link.
2) Enter the fandom you want into the box next to the label "Fandom 1"
3) Enter the relationships you want into the boxes labelled "Relationship", with one relationship per line.
4) Once you're done entering fandoms, scroll down to the bottom and hit the button that says "Submit".

Hope that helps!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, this is my first time participating and I hope this is the right place to ask this question but: are/will there be channels to chat with the other participants, even if just to look for a beta? Specific posts, a channel on Discord or whatnot?

[chocolateboxmod]

A beta post will go up once signups are running. As for a Discord channel hypothetically this link should work!.

[(Anonymous)]

How does the matching work when it comes to relationship? Will we get matched with someone who offered *at least one* of the relationship we request, or only with someone who offered *all* the relationships?

Asking because I really want to request some very minor relationships/ A LOT of relationships for a few of my fandoms, but if we only get matched to someone who offered all of them (like Yuletide for example) then that'll probably diminish chances of actually getting a work in that fandom.

Hope the question makes sense!

[chocolateboxmod]

It does! Matching in this exchange is "OR", meaning that a person can match to you if they offer any of the ships that you request.

[(Anonymous)]

Mod, I messed up, I've hit a wrong ship tag on my Original Work request without realizing it, and now I'm requesting a ship dynamic that I put under my DNWs. Am I in time to request the ship deleted?

[(Anonymous)]

My phrasing was ambiguous, what I meant is: am I in time to request you to delete that ship for me?

[mahmfic]

Is there a min. word count for treats?

[chocolateboxmod]

No, there isn't.

[mahmfic]

I dunno if it's just me but I can't get the spreadsheet search results to work. I'll input the fandoms in search tab, but nothing shows up in the search results tab. All requests tab works.

[aome]

How do I go about asking for an extension? *puppy eyes*

[chocolateboxmod]

I'll need an email from you including your AO3 name, your recipient's AO3 name, what progress you've made and when you need an extension to. We'll discuss it from there. My email is chocolateboxmod[at]gmail. Thank you!

[mahmfic]

Can we post treats after the author reveal?

[chocolateboxmod]

Yes!

[daisychain_fallout]

If a fandom only has one character/pairing in the tagset, does it get excepted from the 2 fandom minimum for offers?

[chocolateboxmod]

It sure does!

[doxian]

(hope this is the correct place to ask this!)

just a quick question, for the purposes of signing up, does a crossover fandom count as a fandom of its own, or nah? (i.e. i sign up offering The Arcana, two other fandoms, and "crossover" (one of the canons involved being The Arcana, which i've already offered as a fandom on its own. would that count as offering four fandoms, or would i still need to offer one more?)

thanks!

[chocolateboxmod]

Crossovers do count as their own fandom!