May the 4th Be With You Fanworks Exchange

Last chance to add something to the tag set. May Mod will be closing nominations over morning coffee in about eight hours or so. Your friendly mods will clean up the tags, and sign-ups should start around 23:59 UTC.

A little over a week left to nominate, and there are already over 550 tags in the set!

After some discussion, the mods have a question/request for the person who nominated the various "tentacles" noms (we salute your kinky heart and associated suckery appendages!): can you please edit your nominations to include a more specific character with tentacles, such as the Bor Gullet, the Sarlacc, a Rathtar, or any other tentacled creature of your choosing, or can we edit it to "Canon Tentacle Creature"? It's hard to justify allowing in what is essentially a kink rather than a character for the nature of this exchange.

Tag Set

(As an aside, if there is enough interest in a kink-matching SW exchange, I could be convinced to put something together for the summer.)

May the 4th Be With You is gearing up for another round! As always, if it's Star Wars, it's in. Holiday Special, yes! Forces of Destiny, yes! Campaign podcast, why not? As in previous rounds, the rules are simple: create a minimum 500 word story or 500 x 500 pixel piece of fan art based on your recipient's requested character(s) or relationship(s) and respecting their Do Not Wants.

The tentative schedule is as follows, with most due dates and deadlines at 1159 PM UTC (Edit: Schedule has been updated with new dates!):

Feb 18 - Mar 6: Nominations
Mar 4: Tag set clean-up and last minute discussion
Mar 6 - Mar 16: Sign ups
Mar 17ish: Matching and assignments go out, requests go live
Apr 20: Early default deadline
Apr 27: Assignments due, pinch hits go out
May 2: Pinch hits due
May 3: Last minute scrambling and panic
May 4: Works go live
May 11: Archive closes and creators revealed

Nominations and assignments were early before due to real life commitments which are not a factor this year. If you have strong opinions about the timing, this is a great opportunity to speak up. We're also taking ideas for the Initiate Trials, a set of mini-challenges that we ran last year. Did you like them? Did you care? Would you rather aim for a bingo-style challenge? What kinds of activities, incentives, or games would you like to see this year? We are continuing both character and relationship matching, using the "Character & None" style in the Relationships field for nominations. We are continuing with one archive for assignments and treats. Are there other changes you'd like to see? Let us know and we can discuss it here in the comments to this post.

The collection is live! Remember to redate your works to May 4th! Read, look at pretty art, and say thanks to your creators. If you have any issues, please email us at maythe4thmod@gmail.com and we'll see what we can do.

The archive will remain anonymous until 23:59 UTC on Sunday May 7th, or around 8PM EDT. Treats can be posted to the collection at any time.

Thanks to everyone who has made this happen! There's a lot of great stuff in the archive this year, and you guys put it there!

This is not a drill. Assignments are due by midnight UTC, Friday April 28th. Countdown! As a reminder, AO3's servers are notoriously robust. Post early if you can, and if you can't upload, please email your finished work to the mods at maythe4thmod@gmail.com. Due to the deadline extension, no further extensions will be given.

If you decide to default, doing so earlier gives us more time to find a pinch hitter. Someone defaulted today from last year's exchange rather than this year's, so be sure to pay attention to which assignment you're fulfilling or defaulting on.

PLEASE CHECK IF YOU LEFT YOUR WORK IN "DRAFT" FORM! Items in "Draft" status can't be viewed by the mods or anyone else, and at deadline you will be marked as defaulted! We have three works no one can see in the collection right now.

Check out the treats and challenges spreadsheet. We've already hit several challenge goals!

Questions? Comments? Panic? Reply here or send us an email, and we'll get back to you asap.

Last day to sign up! Sign up form. We hit twenty-five signups, which means the Requests Summary is now visible. Don't forget to post a Dear Yoda letter!