Announcement: 2021 Lunar New Year exchange

[sundial_exchange_mod]

We are thrilled to announce the second edition of the Sundial Exchange, for 镇魂Guardian and 镇魂Guardian-related fanworks!

This is the 2021 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 镇魂Guardian and related canons.

The timeline:

SIGN UPS START - November 22nd, 2020
SIGN UPS CLOSE - December 6th, 2020
ASSIGNMENTS SENT OUT - By December 13th, 2020
MANDATORY CHECK-IN - January 3rd, 2021
ASSIGNMENTS DUE - Friday, February 5, 2021
GIFTS REVEALED - Friday, February 12, 2021 (Lunar New Year)

Sundial Exchange Values

The Sundial Exchange does not tolerate discriminatory behaviour (e.g., racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, demiphobia, acephobia, transphobia, sexism, cissexism, misogyny, etc.). Instances of behaviours that are intentionally and maliciously discriminatory and hurtful should be reported to mods, who will investigate and take appropriate action, which may include banning.

Fanworks that explore these types of themes (racism etc.) are fine but must be tagged for unless using 'Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings'; fanworks that in themselves constitute hate speech are not. We are not aware of any instances of the latter in 镇魂Guardian fandom, but we want to make our position as mods absolutely clear and make a commitment to BIPOC fans that we have their backs and that this space is for all of us, not just white fans.

With the exception of the above, you are responsible for curating your own experience. We ask that participants heed warnings; if you see a tag for content or themes that squick or trigger you, don't engage with that particular fanwork. Also please be aware that despite best intentions, no tagging scheme will be perfect. The Sundial Exchange believes that Your Kink is Not My Kink and That’s Okay, and that if you Do Not Like, Do Not Click.

Specific Guidelines


1. Please treat each other with appreciation and respect, in a way that would make Shen Wei proud of you. We are all here to have a good time and have fun. Please keep in mind that every participant will have different takes on canon, on ships, on how they experience the characters, informed by the blending of what that person brings to the text in life experience and the text itself.

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 and not revealing yourself to your recipient in advance. 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 right to acknowledge their efforts, just as we are sure you’d like your efforts to be acknowledged.

4. We are committed to being an accessible exchange. Vids and gifs must include content notes for flashy effects; here is some info on how to make light transitions more photosensitive-friendly in gifs and vids. All text must be able to be read by a screen reader. Alt-text must be provided for texts in PDF and for images, and loud spikes in noise must be denoted for audio. Here is a link to more info about how to write good alt text. Participants will have space to opt out of receiving specific types of fanworks.

5. If you have any other concerns, please contact the mods. There are four of us, and you will absolutely not be ‘bugging’ us, you’ll be helping us! Our goal is to make this a fun, relaxed exchange where everyone can enjoy creating and consuming fanworks.

Resources on Chinese Culture
We've assembled some resources on Chinese culture that we've found helpful in understanding the context of 镇魂Guardian and 镇魂Guardian-Related Fandoms, for example this post on Chinese names: "it still really jars me when I see just “Zhao” or “Shen” used to refer to the main characters in Guardian" by surreality51. It is important to keep in mind that Chinese culture is not a monolith, and there are differences in usage in different parts of the PRC, Taiwan, and the diaspora. Often the best guide to navigating and engaging with a different culture is to de-centre one's experience, question one's assumptions, and be curious.

✨Chinese culture and language resources✨

About the Exchange


1. Who can participate?

ANYONE interested in creating/receiving Guardian Extended Universe based fanwork is welcome to participate, provided they abide by the Sundial Exchange Values.

'Guardian Extended Universe' is defined as the original Guardian C-Drama, as well as any work that includes Zhu Yilong or Bai Yu, including RPF. It also includes the Guardian novel, which we consider to be a separate fandom to the drama. See point 6 below for a non-exhaustive list of examples of eligible related fandoms.

2. How does the Submission and Assignment Process work?

Sign-ups will be via a google form which will be available once sign-ups open. You will be signing up to create a fanwork in the medium of your choice for your assigned participant, and will receive one fanwork from another participant. You will be required to specify the fandom, character, and themes (romance, smut, gen, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, character study) which you are willing to use in your creation, and which you would like to receive. The mods will use these, and your answers to the free-text questions, to hand match participants.

To ensure that everyone is matchable, you must have the Guardian drama in at least one slot for both your requests and offers.

- Requests (minimum 1, up to 3): These 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, and then #3.
For each request we will ask you to provide some of your likes and any specific prompts, as well as "do not wants" (DNWs). We very much encourage you to think beyond fic when filling this in and include prompts for art and other mediums! You can also link to a Dear Creator letter hosted on your journal, but anything not within the form itself will be optional for your creator and will not be considered by the mods in matching.

We will also ask for you to tell us generally about what sort of mediums you might prefer to receive. We will consider this when matching, and your creator will have this information, but they will be allowed to work in any medium other than one you have listed as an exception (see point 3 below).

- Offers (minimum 1, up to 5): These are NOT ranked. You may be matched on any of your offers, so please only offer fandoms/characters/themes you are happy to create for. We will also ask what mediums you are considering creating in, and bear this in mind during the matching process, but we won't treat this as binding -- you may be inspired in a different direction by your recipient's prompts!

3. What if a particular type of fanwork isn't accessible to me?

There is a space on the form for you to say if you'd rather not receive certain kinds of fanworks, and this will be passed to your creator. Do not justify the reason behind it. If you feel like explaining your situation may help your gifter better tailor their gift for you, you may do so in a 'Dear Creator' letter. Please remember that the Sundial Exchange is a multi-media fest and refrain from wordings that belittle a type of fanwork or that leave only one type of fanwork open to your creator. So for example "DNW anything except fic" would not be permitted, but "nothing with words" is.

4. Can I ask not to be matched to a particular person?

We're aware that one of the pitfalls of small fandom exchanges is that you can end up assigned the same person over and over again -- or matched to your beta! This year we're introducing the option to tell the mods if you'd prefer not to be matched with a particular person. We don't need you to tell us the reason - we'll simply make sure neither of you are assigned to create for the other, and we'll keep your request completely confidential.

5. 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.

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

Here is the list of ✨Fandoms Eligible for the Sundial Exchange 2021✨

7. Can I offer/request crossovers?

Yes, between any of the eligible fandoms. 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.

8. 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 encouraged 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. As such, please bear this in mind when formulating your requests and offers on the sign-up form (which you can edit up to the deadline). If you'd welcome a visual or craft fanwork, having one-word prompts or references to specific scenes can be very inspiring; if you'd welcome fanvids or gifs, can you think of a song or scene you'd love?

9. 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!

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

As a creator please use your best judgement for your specific medium. The general guideline is to produce a completed, standalone work of a quality that you would be happy to receive yourself. The following gives an indication of size:
🍭500 words
🍭5 minutes of audio
🍭1 minute of video
🍭5 related gifs
🍭A clean lineart
🍭A well-lit picture of a finished craft product

11. Are treats allowed?

Yes!

12. How will posting work?

All works need to be posted to the Archive of Our Own and submitted to our Sundial Exchange 2021 Collection. Your AO3 post may contain an embedded version of your work, or a preview and link to where you prefer to host it (particularly relevant for audio files). If you don't have an AO3 account, or are having difficulties finding hosting, please contact a mod so that we can discuss options.

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 February 12th, all fanworks will be publicly available and will include the names of the creators (unless you also include your work in one of the AO3's anonymous collections).

For any questions please comment on this post or send us an email at sundial.exchange@gmail.com! 

The Mods,
frith_in_thorns yue_ix glymr amara1783

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

Comments

[lacommunarde]

Do you know of an exchange like this but for the novel verse as a priority rather than the drama?

[sundial_exchange_mod]

There isn't one exactly like ours, afaik, but there are a couple of upcoming ones that you may be interested in.

For one, I do know that the Guardian novel is eligible for Yuletide this year! So if you have a couple of other fandoms you'd be willing to offer/receive (for example, Lost Tomb, Time Engraver, and ZhuBai RPF are also eligible and in the Yuletide tagset this time, I believe) you could sign up for Yuletide. No guarantee that you'll get matched on the novel in Yuletide, of course, but you can make it one of your offers/requests and aren't required to have the drama as any of them, unlike the Sundial exchange. (In fact, the drama is no longer eligible for YT this year.)

Another is the 520 Exchange that sid_guardian runs, though that won't start until late March next year. For that one, the participants post what they're willing to create and you choose three 'offers' that you're interested in, and will be matched to one of them. Since you get to choose the offers that you want, you'll be able to curate and select only novel offers. Just make sure you're ready when the offer choosing goes live, since offers are removed from the list after a certain number of people request them. The earlier you make your list of requests, the more choice you have.

You might also ask around on Twitter. There seem to be parallel fandom tracks for Guardian, with those who love the novel, those who love the drama, and some overlap between them. While I don't know of another exchange exactly like ours, right now the Zhenhun Big Bang is going on (https://zhenhunbigbang.carrd.co/) and Weilan week is coming up in Novemeber (https://weilanweek.carrd.co/). I have no idea who is running either of these events, but they both seem to be novel-friendly.

Finally, if you don't completely hate the drama, you might still consider signing up for the Sundial exchange. Last year we were able to match people's first choice of request fandom in every single case. And plenty of people request multiple fandoms, so there's a good chance that you'll get matched to someone with multiple creation options to choose from. But if you're uninterested in receiving or creating for the drama under any circumstances, that's understandable! In that case, one of the ones listed above would probably work best for you. :)

[lacommunarde]

Thank you!!! I'm already doing the Big Bang and have signed up for Yuletide (and requested it), but might get paired based on one of the other things I requested. (I offered DMBJ Chongqi/The Lost Tomb Reboot, Silent Reading/Mo Du/The Light in the Night)

(Unfortunately, while I am more than happy to write for the drama, the treaty politics and worldbuilding don't ping right in the drama/are such that I strongly disagree with what Hai Pao Shi is doing in the drama - it changes it considerably for me when he's dealing with living people! and for much the same reason that a lot of lawyers can't watch law and order, this international law and human rights student can't turn off their brain enough to not want to write a refugee convention that lets dixingren apply for asylum and be tried by haixing courts.)

[airawyn]

While I understand why you wouldn't want to bring RL stuff into fandom spaces, I think fic or meta involving international law in Dixing affairs would be fascinating!

[sundial_exchange_mod]

No pressure, but I just want to say that I agree with airawyn - I would read the hell out of "a refugee convention that lets dixingren apply for asylum and be tried by haixing courts".

On that note, have you read this one? https://archiveofourown.org/works/18886507 It seems like it might be up your alley (or maybe not, if you're trying not to mix school and leisure! But it's an EXCELLENT story).

I completely understand your reservations; hopefully the other events I suggested can scratch the itch. We're really lucky in Guardian fandom to have an active fanbase that likes both the novel and the drama, and many options for exchanges, etc!

[lacommunarde]

On second thought, I will enter it with the requirement of a request going for drama-verse. Thank you so much for setting this exchange up!

[goss]

\o/ Yay! I'm excited to participate in this exchange again! And the timing works out perfect for when assignments go out, as I have vacation starting that same weekend. ^___^

[sundial_exchange_mod]

Wonderful! Your art was absolutely breathtaking last year. I can't wait to see what you create this year!

[china_shop]

Hi, just a couple of questions about treats:

1. Do the same minimums apply for treats?

2. Since sign-ups are done via google forms, are the requests going to be posted anywhere for the purposes of treating, or should treats just be done off letters?

Thanks!

[sundial_exchange_mod]

Thanks for your questions!

1. There are no minimum requirements for treats.

2. The requests submitted via the google form will not be posted anywhere. There will be a special post for participant's 'dear creator' letters.

[china_shop]

Awesome, thanks! :-)

[tinny]

Yay for another round! \o/

I would like to mention that purely visual works - i.e. gifsets, icons, manips - won't really profit from "alt text" and being made "possible to be read by a screen reader". Does the rule still apply to those? Just checking, because adding descriptive alt text to the amount of icons I made last time would take a significant amount of time. :)

[sundial_exchange_mod]

Yay! We're very excited.

Note: this is Yue-ix mod speaking - I wanted to offer an answer from my own visual artist perspective.

That's a good question. Our understanding is that alt-text is there to describe content for people who can’t access it - for disability or technological reasons. However, one key point of alt-text is to differentiate between images that are decorative and images that are informative, since alt-text means to convey information. Sometimes, that core information is simply "icon of Zhu Hong smiling", or "computer drawing of Zhao Yunlan with long hair. Shen Wei is brushing it. Both are very happy." In that context, yes, we recommend purely visual works to have alt-text

However, in the case of your icons posts, I don’t think you need to describe each icon. IMO, the pertinent information is often our characters, themes or subjects. You already wrote those down in this entry last year - I'd say for an equivalent piece you could simply cope-paste that in the alt, or perhaps add "touching forehead" for thoroughness. Does that make sense?

Same for icons: it would convey the necessary information to simply have the same type of header as you do on DW or posts like this, or, in the alt of the first image, write "5 icons of Zhu Yilong" or "2 icons featuring Shen Wei's swords".

To note though: an “empty” alt-text on every icon code would still be best (aka: alt="") , because in a total absence of any tag some screen-readers or browser will read/display the full URL instead. (See full explanation on w3c here).

I hope this helps!

[tinny]

Thank you for the comprehensive answer, Yue! Totally makes sense, yes.

I will take care to make the text around icons as descriptive as possible - if I end up making icons.

I usually put the filename into the alt text - because that's useful for me - but I didn't think that this would be a bad idea in this case, so I'll make sure to just add empty alt tags.

Thank you!

[mekare]

Hi! I’m not sure I can commit this year, but do need pinch hitters (for art)?

[sundial_exchange_mod]

We will absolutely have a pinch hitter thread up once things get going, and we would love love love if you would volunteer! <3

Also, if inspiration strikes you once the letters post is up (after sign-ups close), anyone is very welcome to make treats for people with no sign-up or commitment needed!

[badpennygirl]

hi!

sorry if these questions are obvious or silly.

I am not sure where to "check in" next week. Will there be a check-in post?

Also I am not at all sure how to post a work on A03 so that it is "submitted to the Sundial Exchange 2021 Collection". Do I use a tag, or is there a different process for that?

[sundial_exchange_mod]

These are EXCELLENT questions!

There will be a check-in post. Here is what the post looked like last year (this is NOT the post for this year's exchange! Please don't reply here! :) I'm linking so people can see what it will look like when we put up this year's check in post.

We'll have a guide for posting to a collection! We can also hold your hand and walk you through it if you need to. It's not too difficult; there's a section for it when posting something. As the submission date nears, we'll put up a how-to. ^_^

Please let us know if you have any more questions, or if you'd like further clarification of these answers! <3

[teaotter]

I just wanted to check --

Does my fanwork have to feature all the characters that my recipient requested? Or is it okay to have a subset of them?

[sundial_exchange_mod]

There is no requirement that your fanwork feature all the characters that your recipient requested. It's fine to have a subset, provided you take into account any preferences your recipient expressed. For example, if your recipient mentioned that they especially like romantic Zhao Yunlan/Shen Wei, but also listed "The SID" in their character list, writing a story that only focused on Guo Changcheng/Chu Shuzhi wouldn't really be within the spirit of their request (and we've tried to avoid mismatches of interest like this).

If you're really concerned, please reach out to us privately with your idea and we can either take a look at your recipient's requests and see if we think it fits them, or even contact your recipient as mods and ask in a general way, "Is this all right with you? Would you be disappointed with this?" We've made several such inquiries on creators behalves already, and we'd be more than happy to make one more. ^_^ You can message us here on DW, email us, reach us on Discord (I'm at glymr#7185 there), or on Twitter (glymrs).

Thank you for reaching! Please let us know if there's any other way we can help. :)

[teaotter]

Thank you! That makes sense.

[plingo_kat]

Ah, quick question -- when will the AO3 collection open?

[sundial_exchange_mod]

Great question! It is now open! The collection name is: "Sundial_Exchange_LNY_2021". We'll be putting up a post soon explaining how to add items to the collection. :)

[plingo_kat]

Yay, thank you!