prisoner_exchange | Rules and FAQ

1. Participants must be at least 18 years of age.

2. Absolutely no kinkshaming. Remember, Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That's Okay.

3. Participants who cannot complete their assignments on time must either email the mod for an extension or hit the default button as soon as possible. Participants who are no-shows at the deadline will be banned from next year's exchange. Posting a placeholder that does not meet the minimum requirements for a gift, without requesting an extension, will be treated as a no-show.

4. All gifts must respect the recipient's DNWs. Bad faith attempts to violate the spirit of the DNW while adhering to the letter of it will be treated as DNW violations. If you are confused about your recipient's DNWs or feel they are unenforceable, please contact the mods.

5. Maintain anonymity until creator reveals. Do not contact your recipient with questions; email the mods instead. Do not post your fic, in part or in whole, anywhere but Ao3 and your beta's inbox until reveals. Avoid talking about your assignment or even which fandom you're writing for on social media, Discord, etc., even if you don't think your recipient will see it.

6. Participants are expected to be civil to one another. Mods will deal with infractions on a case by case basis but reserve the right to ban participants for mean-spirited behavior including (but not limited to): harassment on any platform, release or abuse of personal information (doxxing), deliberate spitefic, egregiously bad faith participation, or derogatory remarks in summaries, author's notes, or comments.

FAQ

What is this exchange about?
This is a multifandom exchange for works with a focus on kidnapping, hostage situations, prisons, and all other types of captivity. Participants must create a story of at least 1,000 words or a clean, finished piece of art.

How do I participate?
You must have an Ao3 account and be at least 18 years old to participate.

What are the different stages of this exchange?
Nominations
You may nominate up to ten freeforms and five fandoms, with twenty relationships per fandom. Please use canonical tags for fandoms where possible.

Creator's Choice of Fandom - You may nominate ships under Creator's Choice of Fandom (for example, "C!Any Villain Character/P!Any Hero Character"). You may be as specific with nominations as you like. Creator's Choice of Fandom refers to any fandom in existence, not just any fandom in the tagset. If you request Creator's Choice of Fandom, mods will enforce DNWs for up to three specific fandoms, but mods will not enforce DNWs for whole genres (for example, "DNW: Yuri!!! on Ice" is enforceable, "DNW: anime fandoms" is not).

Relationships

Please include whether the characters in your nominated relationships are captors, prisoners, rescuers, or visitors. Both romantic ( / ) and platonic ( & ) relationships are eligible for this exchange.

Captor is anyone who impedes or is in a position to impede the freedom of the prisoner(s).
Prisoner is used here as a generic term for the sake of simplicity; as previously stated, all types of captivity scenarios are welcome.
Rescuer is anyone who works to free the prisoner(s).
Visitor is anyone that is not a part of holding the prisoner captive, nor working to free the prisoner, but is present while the prisoner is confined. Visitors are not prohibited from coming and going.

Remember to note each character's role (Captor, Prisoner, Rescuer, Visitor) in the scenario. Please use that order when nominating relationships to help keep duplicates down.

Captor!Alice/Prisoner!Bob
Prisoner!Alice/Rescuer!Bob
Captor!Alice/Captor!Bob/Prisoner!Charlie
Prisoner!Bob & Prisoner!Charlie
Prisoner!Bob/Visitor!Charlie

You may also include original characters or groups in your nominations, e.g., Captor!Original Guard(s)/Prisoner!Alice. Please be sure to assign a role (e.g. Captor/Prisoner/Rescuer), even if the descriptor feels self-evident. This is to make sure that everyone has the same expectations for that relationship.

Captor!Original Guard(s)/Prisoner!Alice
Prisoner!Alice/Rescuer!Original Character(s)

You may also nominate specific groups of "any" character, e.g., Captor!Any Canon Villain(s)/Prisoner!Alice. Please be sure that you really do mean "any"! DNWs for specific characters in "any" ships will not be enforced.

You may also nominate single prisoner characters. Use the format Solo - Prisoner!Alice. We will not accept solo captor/rescuer/visitor nominations.

If your relationship tag is too long to comfortably include the full words for their roles, you may abbreviate, e.g., C!Alice/C!Bob/P!Charlie/R!Daphne.

Freeforms

Please nominate only specific kinks and scenarios related to some type of captivity. Most freeforms will need to fall under a category to make the tagset easier to read and prevent duplicates. Categories will be updated as nominations progress, and a list of categories with a brief description of what they mean can be found here. Examples include:

Abduction — For Ransom
Alternate Universe — Prison
Attitude — Stockholm Syndrome
Captor — Succubus
Prison — Abandoned Warehouse
Prisoner — Captor's Worst Enemy
Rescue — Rescuer Poses As Guard Successfully
Rescue — Rescuer Poses As Guard Unsuccessfully
Rescuer — In Love With Prisoner
Slavery — Forced Into Gladiator Fights
Slavery — Sex Slaves

General kinks, such as Overstimulation, will be rejected. However, a tag such as Torture — Overstimulation would be accepted. If you need assistance with relating your favorite general kink to the captivity theme, you can comment on the nominations Dreamwidth post and receive help.

The moderators reserve the right to reject any scenarios and tags that are related to controversial real-world themes; for example, Nazi concentration camps.

Signups
Requests
You will have 10 fandom slots for requests. You may repeat fandoms with different ships/tags. For each fandom slot, you may request 1-20 relationships and 2-20 freeforms. The minimum number of required fandoms is one, but if you request fewer than three unique fandoms, you are not guaranteed a gift and the mod will not delay reveals for you. Fandoms that are clearly different adaptions of the same thing, such as "Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber," "Cats - 1998 Movie" and "Cats - 2019 Movie" will NOT be considered unique fandoms for this purpose. If you go to pinch hits with fewer than three fandoms, you may contact the mods to add extra requests if your pinch hit lingers for more than a week or more than 24 hours after the work deadline.

You may request either fic, art, or both.

If you have a letter at an external site (Dreamwidth, Tumblr, Google Docs, etc)., provide a link to it in the relevant box. Please ensure that your letter is complete by the time signups close.

If you have any Do Not Wants (DNWs) that you wish your creator to respect, they must be in the Optional Details box of your signup. DNWs that are only contained in an outside letter cannot be enforced by the mods.

The mods encourage all participants to use clear, specific, and reasonable DNWs for this exchange. If you have questions about the best way to phrase your DNWs, please contact prisonerex.mod@gmail.com for assistance.

You may request "any" ship or freeform. If you choose this option, you may be matched to someone offering any ship (in that fandom) or freeform in the tagset. Please be sure that you really are okay with receiving anything in the tagset; mods will not enforce DNWs for ships or freeforms that contradict tags in the tagset. If you are creating for a recipient who requests "any" ship or freeform, you only need to be able to create for one fandom/ship/freeform combination from the tagset.

Offers
The minimum number of required fandoms for offers is one as long as you are matchable. You will have 10 fandom slots for offers. You may repeat fandoms with different ships/tags. For each fandom slot, you may offer 1-20 relationships and 2-20 freeforms. You may offer "any" for relationships and/or freeforms. If you choose this option, please be sure that you are prepared to create for whatever relationship and/or freeform your recipient has requested.

You may offer either fic, art, or both.

Matching

Matching works on an OR basis. Your request will be matched to a creator based on just one fandom/pairing/freeform combination.

If you do not have a potential recipient, you will be contacted and asked to edit your sign up. If you do not wish to do that, or if you do not respond within the appropriate timeframe, your sign-up will be deleted.

Assignments

You must create one new, complete, stand-alone fanwork that includes at least one requested fandom/pairing/freeform set. You are required to include at least one freeform tag, though you may certainly include more if you like. You can use any of your recipient's prompts as a starting point, not just the one you matched on.

Fic must be at least 1,000 words and must include a beginning, middle, and end. Authors should avoid stopping mid-scene.

Art must be one finished piece of clean lineart on unlined paper, or digital equivalent.

Works must avoid the recipient's DNWs. If a recipient has an unenforceable DNW, please email the mods ASAP so we can try to resolve the problem early.

If you need clarification about any part of your assignment, please contact the mod, who will query your recipient if necessary. Please do not contact your recipient directly, even if you are friends. Please also avoid talking about your recipient or assignment outside private DMs and emails, even if you don't think your recipient is present. This includes Tumblr, Twitter, fandom Discords, the Exchanges After Dark Discord, etc.

If you find you need to default on your assignment, please email the mods or hit the "default" button on AO3 as soon as possible so that the mods can have time to find a pinch hitter. There will be no penalty for defaulting before the deadline.

Deadlines and Extensions

All deadlines are strict unless the creator has been given an extension. If you need an extension, please email the mod ASAP. Make sure to include your AO3 username and your recipient's username in the email, and let us know how long an extension you would like.

No-shows at the deadline will be defaulted and will result in a one-year ban from the exchange. Posting an incomplete or placeholder work that does not meet the minimum requirements for a gift (word count or art requirements, requested fandom/pairing/freeform, content related to the exchange topic) without requesting an extension will be treated as a no-show and result in a one-year ban.

Pinch Hits

Pinch hits will be posted to the Dreamwidth Community and will be assigned on a first-come, first-serve basis. You do not need to be signed up for the exchange to claim a pinch hit.

Treats

Treats are allowed and definitely welcome. You may write treats for a specific person or for the community at large. If you write a treat for a specific person, please ensure that it avoids their DNWs. If you decide to write a treat for the community, you can gift it to prisonerex_mod on AO3.

Treats may be of any length or medium (for art), but should still be complete, stand-alone works at the time of posting.