summerofhorrorexchange

Entry tags:

rules

RULES

Summer of Horror is a gift exchange focusing on horror fic and art across all kinds of fandoms. Work minimums are 500 words or a piece of original art (no manips), either digital or on unlined paper.You must be 18+ to participate.

2025 Schedule
Nominations Open: April 28
Nominations Close: May 5
Signups Open By: May 7
Signups Close: May 14
Assignments Sent By: May 16
Works Due: July 6
Collection Reveals: July 13
Creator Reveals: July 20

All closing and reveal times are 8pm EDT.

2025 AO3 Collection
2025 Tagset

Horror Subgenres, with explanations and examples
Some special features of Summer of Horror
How to Prompt for Horror (And Other Signup Notes)

If you have a question or a problem, please leave us a comment here on DW or email us at summerofhorrorex at gmail. Anon DW comments are enabled.

Your mods are

snickfic and

scioscribe. :)

Nominations

All fandoms are allowed, including RPF, as long as all real people nominated are famous in their own right and over the age of 18.
You can nominate up to 10 fandoms, with a maximum of 20 relationships/solo characters per fandom.
In the relationship field, you may nominate groups of characters (eg: Nebula & Gamora (MCU)) or solo characters (eg: Solo: Raylan Givens (Justified)). This exchange does not match on / ships. Groups of characters must be nominated with "&". Any "/" nominations will be edited or rejected. (You may still mention ships in the optional details of your request.)
Please disambiguate your nominations by putting the fandom at the end of each tag in parentheses. (eg: Sam Winchester & Dean Winchester (SPN)).
Crossovers: Should be nominated under Crossover Fandom. Please disambiguate each character. For example: "Varric Tethras (Dragon Age) & Stan Pines (Gravity Falls)."
Original Works: Should be nominated under Original Works. If the gender of the characters is important to you, please include it in the character tags.

Nomination for specific fandoms:

Marvel Cinematic Universe nominations may be nominated under the appropriate movie subfranchise (Thor, GotG, etc) or in Avengers. If nominating in a subfranchise (for example, Thor (Movies)), all characters in the nom should have appeared in a movie from that subfranchise. Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter, Wandavision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, and the Marvel Netflix universe of shows are also all separate fandoms. The Marvel Netflix shows should be nommed together under The Defenders (Marvel TV).
Marvel comics may be nominated by title or under the name of the appropriate Marvel universe (Marvel 616, Marvel Ultimates, etc). Nominations for “Marvel (Comics)” will not be accepted.
Star Wars nominations may be nominated under the appropriate movie, trilogy, TV show, etc (eg, Rogue One, Sequel Trilogy). “Crossover” noms between different parts of the Star Wars universe may be nominated under “Star Wars - All Media Types.”
Star Wars Old EU: Books should go under "Star Wars: Legends Books" and be disambiguated with (SWL Books). Comics should go under "Star Wars: Legends Comics" and be disambiguated with (SWL Comics). Games should go into their individual games either combined or split depending on what is normal for that fandom.
Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel: The Series will both be nommed together under “Buffyverse (TV).”
Star Trek is divided by show and the Alternate Original Series is alone. Movie characters from the Original Series or Next Gen movies may be nominated under the respective shows.
DC Comics: All DC Comics nominations can go under that fandom, but if you would like a specific version please disambiguate which version of the character you want in parenthesis after each character.
DC's Arrowverse: Please nominate characters from Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, Superman & Lois, and Black Lightning (plus the webseries tie-ins) under "DC's Arrowverse".
Dragon Age: Please nominate under "Dragon Age (Video Games)"
Stargate: Please nominate under "Stargate - All Media Types"
X-Men Movies: Please nominate for both Original Timeline Movies and Alternate Timeline Movies under "X-Men (Movieverse)," and disambiguate for the timelines. The other X-Men movies, like Deadpool, should be nominated under their own series/movie title.

Signups

You must be 18 or older to sign up.
You may sign up with up to two well-behaved accounts. Only do this if you genuinely think you can fulfill both assignments.
You can request 1-10 fandoms, each with 1-20 groups of characters and/or solo characters, at least one medium (fic or art), and at least one horror subgenre.
You can offer 1-10 fandoms, each with 1-20 groups of characters or solo characters. Just be sure your offer matches at least one request of another participant (including medium and horror subgenre) by the close of signups!
You may request the same fandom more than once.
Include anything you absolutely don't want to receive (Do Not Wants) in the Optional Details field in your AO3 signup. In the event that a DNW is included in your gift, only reasonable DNWs noted in your signup will be enforced. (Please bear in mind that DNWs cannot be used to box your creator into producing a very specific work.) DNWs should be clear, neutrally phrased, and--where possible--specific. DNWs can only be enforced if they appear in your signup.
If you request a character group tag, you may DNW shipfic between those characters. "DNW: gen" will not be enforced.
The optional details field can also be used to list prompts, likes, or anything else that might help your creator craft a gift you will enjoy.
Dear Creator letters may be linked to in your signup in order to give your gifter further details on your likes and dislikes. These are optional.
If you are requesting less than 3 distinct fandoms and are out as a pinch hit after the initial deadline, you will be asked to add additional fandoms. If you are unable or unwilling to add additional fandoms, your pinch hit will stay up, but we won't hold up reveals for you. We will hold reveals until everyone who requests 3+ distinct fandoms has a gift.
Mods reserve the right to delete signups from badly-behaved accounts, including sock accounts. Bad behavior includes but is not limited to harassing or shaming other participants and serially defaulting across several accounts.

Matching

If you are unmatchable as a creator (i.e. no one is requesting anything you are willing to create), the mods will contact you when signups close and ask you to add more offers. If you do not reply within 24 hours, your signup will be deleted.
If you are unmatchable as a recipient (i.e. no one is offering anything you are requesting), your requests will be posted to the Dreamwidth community for claiming as a pinch hit.

Assignments

Assignments are only guaranteed to match on one fandom, one group or solo character, one medium, and one horror subgenre.
If you create a work based on a request for a group of characters (eg, Sidney Crosby & Evgeni Malkin (Men's Hockey RPF)), you may create either a gen or shippy gift for those characters, as long as the gift respects your recipient's DNWs. You must include all the characters in the group. If the characters were nominated as an ensemble group without their individual names listed, i.e., "The Avengers," then you must include at least two characters from that ensemble.
Minimum work requirements are one fic of 500 words or one piece of original art, either digital or on unlined paper. (Manips are not accepted.) The fic or art must match the medium, fandom, group or solo character, and subgenre of the request. We understand that the horror subgenres have flexible and sometimes ambiguous boundaries, so the last qualification is fuzzier, but please make a good faith attempt.
You must create your work yourself. Your work may not contain computer-generated art or text, graphics from another source (such as photomanips, aesthetics/mood boards, or screen captures), substantial sections of material quoted or copied from canon, or plagiarized material.
Works should remain anonymous during the collection's anonymous period. Do not post your work elsewhere, link to it under your name, or put your name anywhere on the AO3 page (for example, linking your tumblr in the notes) until after creators have been revealed.
If you cannot finish your gift, please default by going to your AO3 assignments page and clicking the "default" button on your assignment. You don't need to explain to the mods why you had to default. We know that life happens!

Treats

There are no work minimums for treats.
Treats may be posted to the collection without a recipient (as "gifts to the collection") as long as they fit a horror theme. Treats do not have to match tags from the tagset.
AO3 has recently implemented a setting to opt out of non-assignment gifts, including treats, even treats in an exchange that you are signed up for. If your account was created after 1 Feb, you are automatically opted out of non-assignment gifts. For the duration of the exchange, we recommend that you go to your ao3 preferences page and click the box that says "Allow anyone to gift me works." If you prefer NOT to receive gifts besides your assignment, please put this in the optional details field of each request, the same place you put your DNWs. This prevents someone from making you a gift and then realizing they can't give it to you. ☹

Pinch Hits

Pinch hits will be posted to the Dreamwidth community. Please reply to the pinch hit post to claim, including your AO3 username. You can claim a pinch hit even if you aren't signed up for the exchange, but you will need an AO3 account.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Can we have guidelines for the X-Men movieverse? I don't care if they are combined into X-Men Movieverse and we disambiguate by timeline or if everything is split up.

Thanks for bringing this up! I've added a clarification about it to the nomination instructions. We'll combine it into X-Men Movieverse and disambiguate by timeline.

Hello, will you be treating cdramas and the cnovels they're based on as separate fandoms? (Ie, are Mo Dao Zu Shi and The Untamed being separated?) I'm assuming yes, but just wanted to confirm!

Hi! Yes, those should be nominated as separated fandoms, thanks!

I missed the part about only nominating groups with an & and messed up my nominations, is it possible to go back and edit them?

No worries! You should still be able to edit your nominations page if you go to the tagset and click My Nominations in the upper-right corner and then Edit (also in the upper-right). If you run into any snags, just link us to your nominations page and tell us what changes you want to make, and we can make sure your nominations get in correctly. (You can email us at summerofhorrorex at gmail dot com if you don't want to put that here.)

I'd like a bit of a clear-up if possible!

I understand the relationships will only be matched with & relationships, but does that also apply to the gifts, or is that only for the matching process?

For example, if you get matched for character A & character B, but in your recipient's sign up they state they wouldn't mind character A/character B as an option, would it then be allowed to make character A/character B for the gift?

Or, did I misunderstand the exchange, and this exchange is only for platonic relationships?

You've got it right! Shippy gifts are absolutely welcome. If a recipient's request says they also ship their requested characters/would enjoy a shippy gift for them, creating a shippy work for them is completely fine.

Making all the formal tags "& relationships" is just to acknowledge that sometimes it's hard to fit shippiness and horror into a gift (especially with a low minimum), so we want to give creators flexibility there.

thank you! That's very helpful!!

Hi! I think I messed up:

"Please disambiguate your nominations by putting the fandom at the end of each tag in parentheses. (eg: Sam Winchester & Dean Winchester (SPN))."

Is this necessary in all cases, or only in those with room for confusion? Is it not enough to list relationships under their respective fandoms' form? Should I go back and edit my noms?

You're fine, don't worry! It's good to do it for all nominations, just in case--sometimes tags get disassociated from the fandom nominators submitted them with, for example--but if your nominations have already been approved, we've probably already added the disambiguation on the back-end.

If your nominations are still pending, you can definitely edit them to put the fandom in parentheses after the relationship, and we'd appreciate it. But if they've already gone through, it's not a problem.

Holy cow guys you moved fast lol

I went to edit and there was only one fandom left to do. Kudos for the team!

And thanks for the quick reply, I understand now :)

Hi! Can works be gifted to the exchange collection if they’re not for any particular recipient?

Yes, treats gifted to the collection are fine!

Is it possible to submit a nomination that allows the author/artist to create their own original character within a canon universe? E.g. 'Sith Lord Original Character (Star Wars)'? If so, what is the proper format? Thank you. :)

It is! Please nominate these as Original [Character Designation] (Fandom Name), like Original Sith Lord (Star Wars), under the Star Wars canon you'd like.

We reserve the right to veto anything that's too specific--getting into describing the original character in detail, for example, like Original Sith Lord with Auburn Hair and Purple Eyes--but "general role they'd have if they were in the canon" is fine.

Thank you! ^_^

Is Worldbuilding allowed as a character? I'd like to nominate Mystery Flesh Pit National Park as a fandom, but it has very little in terms of characters, since the project mostly focuses on the setting.

Yes, worldbuilding is allowed as a character! Please nominate it as Solo: Worldbuilding.

Hello! How would I nominate the Mass Effect games? Should I nom characters specifically from the original trilogy under Mass Effect Trilogy and those from Andromeda under Mass Effect: Andromeda? What about if I want to crossover? How would you like those disambiguated? Thank you!

Yes, please nominate under Mass Effect Trilogy and Mass Effect: Andromeda, separating the characters out by trilogy. Crossovers between the two can be nominated under Crossover Fandom.

For disambiguations, ME and ME: A will work. Thanks!

If I don't care what era a character comes from when they appear in multiple, can I nom them in SW AMT? Like I personally don't mind if someone sets Leia in the Empire Era, Rebellion Era, or New Republic era but I realize having her in multiple properties AND AMT might make it hard to match on...

In this case, SW AMT is reserved for "crossover" relationships between characters in different parts of the SW franchise.

However, if a character appears in multiple eras and you're fine with all of them, you can either request one and specify in your optional details that you're good with stories or art set during any of the eras/franchise installments they appear in. You can also nominate the same character or relationship tag in multiple eras, and then request both Star Wars Original Trilogy and Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, for example.

Thank you!

New question (I'm sorry) what if there are characters that canonically exist in an era but aren't shown in that specific canon. For example, I want to see Leia and Mon Mothma during the era of Andor, but Leia isn't in Andor, though she's alive during the time, can I still nominate them under the Andor?

EDIT: Or like if I specifically wanted Amilyn Holdo & Leia during the Rebellion but Amilyn only appears in the ST and some supplementary comics?

Edited (additional question) 2023-05-06 00:34 (UTC)

If you wish to request two characters who appeared in the same installment, please nominate them together in that installment.

If the two characters have not appeared in the same installment, please nominate them under SW - AMT, and identify which canon each one comes from. For example, you could nominate "Amilyn Holdo (SWST) & Leia Organa (SWOT)." You can nominate more than one "crossover" tag involving the same characters, for example you can also nominate "Amilyn Holdo (SWST) & Leia Organa (Marvel comics)" and request both of those tags.

We want to clarify that when you nominate a specific canon or specify a canon in a crossover nom, you are not specifying the era in which your gift is set. For our purposes, the point of specifying canons in crossover noms (or any noms, really) is so the person offering the tag knows what canon you are expecting them to know, so they can judge whether or not they can confidently offer the tag.

However, you are welcome to include "Leia and Amilyn during the rebellion" as one of your prompts in your optional details, just as you can prompt for backstory fic/art or future fic/art or fic/art set in any era of the broader canon.

We hope that helps! Please let us know if that wasn't clear or if you have more questions.

That helps so much! I hadn't realized that we weren't requesting the era as well. So that makes things so much more clear. Thank you (and for being so patient)!

Treats may be posted to the collection without a recipient (as "gifts to the collection") as long as they fit a horror theme. Treats do not have to match fit tags from the tagset.

What are "fit tags" (or is it a typo)? If I get an idea for a ship that hasn't been nominated, can I write a fic for it and gift it to the collection even though there's not a matching relationship tag?

That's a typo, sorry! It should just be "treats do no have to match tags from the tagset," so yes, if you get an idea for a non-nominated ship, you're welcome to still gift it to the collection as long as it's horror.

Hi there, I just came across this awesome exchange but I wasn't here to nominate anything. Is it okay for me to sign up regardless when sign ups open?

Hi! Yes, you're absolutely welcome to sign up regardless of whether or not you nominated anything. Sign ups will be open in a few hours!

ahh that's great news, thank you! I'm such a big horror fan, this is like my dream exchange and even though I didn't get to nominate, there's a bunch of stuff nominated that I would love to request and write for, so yay! Will def be signing up later, thanks so much and thanks for hosting this!

SO!!! AMPED!!!!! that this is running again!!

I have a question about a character I'd like to nominate, specifically the Winged Lion from the manga Dungeon Meshi. The Winged Lion is a demon that takes on various forms throughout the story, but it is always the same being throughout. Prior to the canon's present day, it took on the form of a little goat/lamb type beast. I want to nominate the Winged Lion in its current winged lion form, but I'm also interested in stories set in the past with the demon in its ungulate form.

My question is, I'm not sure how or if this should be reflected in my nominations? The character tag seems to have been canonized as The Winged Lion and I guess I have concerns as to whether other fans offering for Dungeon Meshi might be confused about what character I mean if I nominate with a non-canonical tag. Would it be better to nominate the character as The Winged Lion across the board, and clarify what I'd like in my optional details?

I'm sorry if this question is hard to parse sdgsdgdfhfgj

Hi! We're so happy you're thinking of participating!

Please nominate the character under its canonical tag and, like you said, use your optional details to clarify that you're also interested in it in its previous form.

Thank you!

Question! The Texas Chainsaw Movies have different timelines but the canon tag just groups them all together - what would be the proper protocol for nominating, especially if I want to nominate characters/dynamics from different continuities? I think the character names make it clear which canon/movie they're tied to but wasn't sure if it would be better to split them up.

Splitting the franchise up into the separate continuities makes sense to us. Go ahead and nominate the different continuities as separate fandoms in whatever way seems best to you, and we'll let you know if we need to tweak the names.

Okay, thank you!

Oh darn, I think I messed up my nominations and characters I wanted to nominate aren’t in the tagset. Is that what the query post is for tomorrow?

If your nominations aren't in the tagset or mentioned in the query post that just went up, let us know!

Does "any "/" nominations will be edited or rejected" apply to Original Work nominations?

Yes, that applies to all nominations. (A few slipped through by accident, but we're catching them as we clean up the tagset.)

Cool, thanks. Apocalypse Maiden/the Heroine Supposed to Kill Her to Save the World is the obvious /. I see a few other / in fandoms, like League of Legends Malcolm Graves/Twisted Fate.

What about nominations that presume romance, then? For example, Wife & Husband Who Changes Into A Greedy Giant Monster seems romantic, to me. Demon Who Possessed a Human & The Unsuspecting Significant Other They Fall In Love starts romantically between the Human/SO and then romance between the Demon/SO.

I can add the other / or presumably romantic nominations I've noticed, if wanted.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

RULES

X-Men Movieverse

Re: X-Men Movieverse

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are shippy gifts allowed?

Re: are shippy gifts allowed?

Re: are shippy gifts allowed?

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Gifts to the exchange

Re: Gifts to the exchange

Question about OC nominations

Re: Question about OC nominations

Re: Question about OC nominations

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Mass Effect Games

Re: Mass Effect Games

Star Wars question

Re: Star Wars question

Re: Star Wars question

Re: Star Wars question

Re: Star Wars question

Treats for the collection

Re: Treats for the collection

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Oops ><

Re: Oops ><

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