Guardian Exchange, Lunar New Year 2020! Timeline, Guidelines and FAQ

[sundial_exchange_mod]

Welcome to the first edition of the Sundial Exchange, for Guardian and Guardian-related fanworks! This is the 2020 Lunar New Year exchange.

This exchange is a type of Secret Santa, where participants are matched with prompts of another participant for whom they secretly create a gift, and also receive a gift from a different mystery gifter. This exchange will encompass all types of transformative fanworks across Guardian (C-drama) and related canons.

The sign up link is here!

The timeline:

SIGN UPS START - December 6th
SIGN UPS CLOSE - December 13th, 11:59pm
ASSIGNMENTS SENT OUT - By December 15th, 11:59pm
MANDATORY CHECK-IN - January 4th
ASSIGNMENTS DUE - January 18th . 11:59 EDT
GIFTS REVEALED - Saturday, 25 January, 2020

The timezone we will be referring to is EDT. Use this link to see what exact time assignments are due for you!


Frequently Asked Questions


1. Who can participate?

ANYONE interested in creating/receiving Guardian Extended Universe based fanwork is welcome to participate.

“Guardian Extended Universe” is defined the original Guardian C-Drama, as well as any work that includes Zhu Yilong (the actor who played Shen Wei), Bai Yu (the actor who played Zhao Yunlan, the chief of the SID) or any of the other main actors from Guardian, including RPF. It also includes the Guardian novel, which we are counting as a separate fandom to the drama. See point 4 for a non-exhaustive list of examples for welcomed related fandoms.

2. How does the Submission and Assignment Process work?

Each person who signs up will be asked to create one fanwork for another participant. Each person who signs up will also receive a fanwork from another participant.

Requests (minimum 1, up to 3): When you sign up, you will have the option to submit up to three requests. These requests are RANKED. This means that we will try to match your request #1 first. If we can’t find a match for your first request, we will try to match your request #2, etc. You can requests Guardian-related fandoms, and something based on the Guardian Drama itself must be at least one of your requests, but it doesn't have to be your #1 request.

If you have any particular Do Not Wants (DNW), please include them in the Optional Details field. This is also where you may share a link to any Dear Creator Letters you might have (either a generic one or one for this exchange). Be aware we won't read the letters and will match you only on what's directly in the form. Everything from such a letter will be considered optional.

Here are a few examples of how you might fill out this form, but you can do it any way you want. We will hand-match everyone to the best of our abilities.

SAMPLE #1: Here is a “How to” version of the form, with no actual requests

SAMPLE #2: Here is an example of someone who ONLY requested the Guardian Drama. 

SAMPLE #3: Here is an example of someone who requested multiple fandoms.

Offers (minimum 1, up to 6): You will have the option to submit from one to six offers. These offers are NOT ranked. You may be matched on any of your offers, so please only offer things you’d really like to create. Something based on the Guardian Drama itself must be at least one of your offers.


3. What if I ONLY want to offer/request the Guardian Drama?

That’s just fine! You’re not required to make any requests or offers beyond the Guardian Drama. However, the Guardian Drama MUST be at least one of your offers and one of your requests. You may make up to three different requests based on the Guardian C-Drama, or you may put all of your Drama requests in one slot. Please see the example forms above for different ways you can phrase your requests.


4. What other things can I offer/request besides the Guardian Drama?

The Guardian novel (Zhenhun)

OR

Anything with Zhu Yilong, Bai Yu or any of the other main actors from Guardian! Some options include:

• RPF or RPS (real person fiction/real person slash) - fanworks about the actors who played the characters. See this primer for more information on the actors
• Time Engraver (L’Oreal Commercial) (starring Zhu Yilong) - this is short and worth watching, even if you don’t want to create for it
• Yang and His Summer (movie starring Zhu Yilong)
• Looking Up (movie starring Bai Yu)
• Detective L (starring Bai Yu)
• Granting You a Dreamlike Life (co-starring Zhu Yilong)
• Love O2O (co-starring Bai Yu)
• Suddenly This Summer (starring Bai Yu)
• The Story of Ming Lan (co-starring Zhu Yilong)
• My True Friend (co-starring Zhu Yilong)
• The Shaw Eleven (co-starring Zhu Yilong - 1st ep is region locked in USA, the rest are available)
• Royal Sister Returns (co-starring Zhu Yilong)
• 0.5 Diors (starring Bai Yu - embarrassment squick warning on this one!)
• Memory Lost (starring Bai Yu)
• Magic Cottage Thermos commercial (starring Zhu Yilong)
• KFC Commercials
• Photoshoots starring Bai Yu or Zhu Yilong
  • Examples: (Bai Yu Rentboy Photoshoot) (Rentboy or CEO ZYL Photoshoot)

Or whatever else you can come up with!
 
5. Can I offer/request crossovers?

Yes, but since this is our first time running this exchange, we don't know how easy these will be to match. For this reason, please only put one fandom in each “Fandom” field. You can request a crossover in the “Optional Details” field, but we cannot guarantee that you’ll get matched on both fandoms. There is a chance that you will only get matched on your main requested fandom.

If you want to offer to create a crossover, please note which characters you’re willing to crossover in the characters field. For example, in a “Granting You a Dreamlike Life” offer, you might put “Luo Fusheng/Luo Fei (Detective L)” to signify that you’d be willing to make a crossover between these characters. Again, just because you offer it doesn’t mean you will be matched on it.

6. What kinds of fanworks are permitted?

This exchange welcomes ANY AND ALL CREATIVE MEDIUMS. We only ask that your gift be a completed original transformative work created for your giftee. Participants can be as creative as they like. Any fan, no matter their skillset, is welcome to participate. Ideas of mediums include but are not limited to: Fanfic, Poetry, Fan Translations, Podfic, Fanart, Crafts (embroidery, modelling, cosplay, dolls, jewelry, etc), Manips, Fanvids, Meta, Gifsets, Fan Music, Games, etc.

If you’re uncertain whether a giftee would welcome a particular type of gift or whether a certain type of gift would be acceptable within the parameters of the exchange, please contact the mods for clarification.

7. I’m inspired! Can I include more than one medium in my gift and make it multi-media? Or post several gifts for my recipient?

Absolutely! The only limit is your imagination. 

8. What’s the minimum requirement for my gift?

We are trusting all of you creators to use your judgement in this. Use this as a general guideline:

• 500 written words
• 5 minutes for audio
• 1 minute of video, or 5 related gifs
• A clean lineart
• A well-lit picture of a finished craft product

A lot of other mediums are hard to put a clear measure on. Your general guideline is to produce a completed, standalone work of a quality that you would be happy to receive yourself. If you have doubts/questions/concerns, please talk to us.

9. How will posting work?

All works need to be posted to the Archive of Our Own and submitted to our Sundial Exchange 2020 Collection. If you do not have an AO3 account, we strongly encourage you to create one. That said, you may also submit your work to us by email and we will post it under a mod account.

Non-text mediums should be embedded or linked in an AO3 post as well (refer to this AO3 resource). Don’t hesitate to reach out if you run into any trouble and we’ll help you find a solution. If you need a way to host images, you can hosts directly on Dreamwidth over here and use their direct link to display in an AO3 post.

Every work submitted to the collection will remain secret until the posting date, upon which we will release them all at once. There will be no anonymous period after the reveal; as of January 25th, all fanworks will be publicly available and will include the names of the creators.

Here is a quick tutorial of how to post to The Sundial Exchange 2020 Collection. Let us know if you need assistance!

10. Can I make treats?

Yes! We will have a post for everyone to share details of their requests, or to link to an exchange letter they've written. You do not need to be signed up to the challenge to make treats.

Specific guidelines

1. Please be respectful. We are all here to have a good time.

2. This is a secret gift exchange, which means you must produce a gift for someone else, making a good-faith effort for it to be a gift that your recipient will enjoy. Please consider your schedule, and whether or not you reasonably will be able to finish creating a gift in the given time frame, before signing up.

3. Please be sure to leave a comment on the gift you receive. Your gifter worked hard on it and it is only polite to acknowledge their efforts, just as we are sure you’d like your efforts to be acknowledged.

4. Communicate with us if anything comes up. If you need to default, don’t feel guilty about it - do it earlier rather than later! We understand that life happens. If at any point you feel overwhelmed or unsure about delivering the gift by deadline, please talk to us. We would prefer it if you talked to us early and requested an extension or defaulted rather than stress out and not be able to deliver on deadline. This will give our pinch-hitters a chance to work their magic. This exchange is meant to be fun. If it’s causing you stress/guilt/bad feels, something’s not right and we want to help sort it out.

5. If you have any questions for your recipient, please email us at sundial.exchange@gmail.com and we will forward them for you. Please do not contact them yourself as it will spoil the surprise.

6. If you have specific concerns about receiving a certain type of fanwork (ie if you can’t consume certain types of media) or any other specific concerns, please contact the mods. There are four of us, and you will not be ‘bugging’ us, you’ll be helping us! Our goal is to make this a low-key exchange where everyone can enjoy creating and consuming fan works.

7. Most importantly, HAVE FUN! We want to keep the love happening! :D

Many thanks to the nifexchange mods for allowing us to use their rules as a base for our own!

For any questions, you can drop us a comment on this post, DM us, or send us an email at sundial.exchange@gmail.com! 

Comments

[yantantether]

This is so exciting! Thanks, mods!

[sundial_exchange_mod]

We're excited too! Glad you're joining us!

[asya_ana]

Woo-hoo! This is fab! <3

[sundial_exchange_mod]

It's going to be loads of fun! :D

Question on signups

[godoflaundrybaskets]

So couple question about the request form and the matching...

1) I have a handful of tropes that I'd be delighted to have (and generally am currently only in the drama fandom). Would it be better for me to just include that in one "request" if it's weighed all about the same to me? Or split it up into more distinct pieces (like request #1 tropeA, request #2 promptB)?

2) Similarly, when matching on characters - if I put more than one and specify that it's an "or" would it be better to just have them be separate requests? Or just have them be in one and as long as I say, "char X or Y" am I good?

(Also brand new to this fandom and very excited to participate in an exchange! :D They are very fun!)

Re: Question on signups

[frith_in_thorns]

It's up to you -- if you put several options in one sign-up your recipient only needs to pay attention to one and it might not be your favourite that you get. While if you split them up you'd be able to rank them and be matched on that character/trope specifically. But then you might have to use all your sign-up slots for that one fandom, so that's a choice you get to make :)

[sakana17]

Yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!! ^________^

[frith_in_thorns]

We are so excited!!

[ranalore]

So excited!

[ranalore]

Is it intentional that there's no place on the sign-up form to indicate "these are the types of fanworks I'd like to receive" or "these are the types of fanworks I can offer?" In my excitement, I did my usual, blinkered default to fanfic, but of course there are a lot more options than fanfic. And especially with so many options, I imagine it would help to know what people can offer and what they want to/are able to receive.

[frith_in_thorns]

It's intentional yes -- the idea is to be default opted-in to everything and if you really don't want something, audio format for instance, you can put that in your DNWs.

[ranalore]

Ah, okay. That makes sense.

[tinny]

I see how I can restrict my requests to certain types of media, by putting that into the details/prompts field.

But I can't see how I can restrict my offers to certain types of media.

I can only offer one type of fanwork (and it's not fic), so how are you going to match me to anyone if they don't specify they'd like to receive this? I am uncomfortable working with fic prompts because someone who expects a fic and gets a gifset will be unhappy.

And then let's say I absolutely want a fanvid, how are you going to find someone who is able to offer a vid?

[sundial_exchange_mod]

The default is opt-in to all fanwork types, so you can't specify that you only want a certain type (such as a fanvid) and have that guaranteed -- you can certainly ask, although we'd much rather you didn't set an absolute constraint like that, it's an optional detail and up to your creator.

Likewise, the expectation is that you create for your recipient in whatever medium you like. If you got a request that you 100% felt you couldn't fill then of course let the mods know. (If someone signed up and said they DNW anything other than a fic we'd contact them to discuss prior to matching because that's not really within the spirit of this particular exchange.)

[tinny]

Okay, I see I misinterpreted the "details/prompts" part of the requests. So I cannot restrict my requests, that's okay.

But the example forms all specify some kind of plot prompts, and I cannot fill those if I don't write fic. I would simply feel uncomfortable with a request like that, because it would make me feel that I can't make what the requester expects.

If the requests are all as open as just stating fandom(s)+pairing, then that would be okay, I guess? I'll have to think about it.

[tsubame_17]

SIGN UP!
I'm sorry for my form! but generally I don't have the opportunity to have someone doing something other than fanfic or fan art in a exchange and maybe this has driven me crazy.

[sundial_exchange_mod]

You're good! You can edit or tweak it as much as you like right up until sign ups close, it's all automatic on our end. :)

[tsubame_17]

That's good to know! THANKS!

[clevermanka]

I feel terribly inept, so please forgive...I just want to make sure I'm signing up correctly (or, rather, signing up for things I actually want to give/receive). For example, do I say "Fic based on ad characters" in the Fandom question and then "character from Bai Yu's L'Officiel ad" and "Zhu Yilong's character in the Thermos ad" in the characters question? help someone please tell me if I'm doing this right

ETA: I am now on a roll of finding weird-ass ships that I desperately love. Like Skinny Hooker and Expensive Escort (as fictional characters) meet and fall in love (obviously). But I want to make sure that's a valid request (for either giving or receiving).

[frith_in_thorns]

As long as you make sure you put a description in "fandom" that your gifter can recognise, you're good! So if it's a specific ad then put the name of the ad, and you could include the link in the optional details field if you're worried about it not being recognised. Then whoever you want in the character field - it'd be helpful to specify whether you're looking for the ad *character* or actor RPF.

[clevermanka]

Thank you!

[sundial_exchange_mod]

You can honestly request whatever you want! As long as one of your requests is for the Guardian Drama, we'll surely be able to find a match for you one way or another. :) Don't stress too much about the more obscure things, just explain what you're interested in and we'll see what we can do. ^_^ I do recommend putting the most obscure things first in your requests if you want them a lot, though, so that we can prioritize them for you.

[clevermanka]

I really appreciate everyone's help with this. My over-organized brain too often tells me "if you don't do this exactly right, nobody will know what you mean and you'll make more work for everyone!" which I know is ridiculous, but... *emoji shrug* So thank you, seriously. I'm signing up RIGHT NOW! \o/

[rheasilvia]

Ack, I'm sorry, I entirely messed it up the first time around by being a huge failbot - but since I didn't receive an email notification, my hope is that the form didn't go through anyway.

ETA: I couldn't find the link to edit my first submission, so I had to make a second one... I really do apologize! Evidently I am still not able to read instructions properly at my advanced age. Please just delete the first submission, if it did make it through after all - you will know it by the non-admissible second fandom. *headdesk*

[sundial_exchange_mod]

Don't worry! I've deleted the 'inadmissible' form - if it makes you feel any better, we had to contact at least one other participant who made a similar request. ^_~ It was no problem, so relax and don't stress, okay? :) Everything is fine.

[rheasilvia]

Coolness, thank you! :-) I decided to sign up at the last possible minute, and was then in such a hurry that I failed to read everything properly. Thank you for sorting it out!

[teaotter]

I posted my story at AO3, and now I can't find it! I assume it's just in the moderation queue, but since there is no signup or assignment through AO3, there's no obvious place to go look for it.

Please let me know if you don't find it in the moderation queue so I can re-post it at AO3 before the deadline!

[sundial_exchange_mod]

Hiya! I sent you a direct message with a link and also approved the work; you should be able to find it now. Thank you!

[teaotter]

Yay, thank you!!

[tinny]

you know what? I only just noticed that you have a link for Looking Up (yay!), but none for Memory Lost. Here it is: https://chauthanh.info/drama/view/memory-lost-(2016)-[cdrama].html

[sundial_exchange_mod]

Thank you so much, that is so thoughtful of you - we have updated the post with the link! <3