Spectre Requisitions

Assignments are out!

Please check your AO3 assignments page or the email you have associated with Ao3 and see who you were assigned to! There were two initial pinch hits, both of which will be posted in a few minutes. If you’d like to sign up for a newsletter for pinch hits, it’s here.

We have done our best to try to ensure that everyone has a good match, but if there is an issue with yours, please contact either mod privately or go through our inbox. We will handle things discretely and privately.  

Since assignments have gone out, there are a couple things we’d like  all authors and artists out there to keep in mind:

• You are only committing to writing or drawing one thing for your assigned recipient. That means, of the 5+ ideas they have offered, you are committing to writing one. If they asked for two pairings in the same line, you’re obligated to write only one of the two (your choice). 
• Please remember that the spirit of this exchange is for rare pairings.Do not use the exchange to try to write/draw a mega-popular pairing, with a less-popular pairing in the background. We do not allow backdoor mega-pairings to dominate works in this exchange.
• Please do not post your fic or art on Tumblr/DeviantArt/etc until the exchange has been revealed. It is imperative that everyone gets their gifts at the same time.
• Please don’t contact your recipient directly. If you have questions you want to ask them, please contact us! We are happy to be intermediaries for you!
• If you are writing a story that features elements Ao3 has default warnings for, such as underage/non-con/etc, remember to tag your stories for such elements to advertise it to those that want it and respect those that don’t.
• You are obligated to respect your recipient’s DNW/squicks, but optional details are otherwise that - optional.
• Please be careful to not reveal who your recipient is. Posting “I’m so excited about my assignment!” is fine; posting “I’m so excited about writing Shoker for my best friend @participant!” is not.

If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know!

Mod K and I have finally gotten together and been able to go over all your good comments and criticism from our feedback survey.

Here's what we'll be taking away from it, in addition to the changes we mentioned earlier:

NOT CHANGING:

-  The minimum word count will remain at 1K, and the writing period will remain six weeks. Those looking to get longer fic may want to check out the Mass Effect Big Bang or Fandom5K.

- We won't police tag usage among authors. Authors can and should feel comfortable using Choose Not to Warn. Authors can and should either use Choose Not to Warn OR tags that accurately reflect the content of their fic.

GENERAL HOUSEKEEPING:

- we will have the countdown clocks better run next year. Mea culpa.

BINGOS:

- We are definitively keeping comment bingo, and may well expand it next year to have more options for commenting.
- For both writing and commenting bingo Cards, we will publish a full list of potential draws and will allow some things to be opted out of next year. We will publish the full list of potential prompts and you will be able to opt out of several so people won't worry about being "trapped" into writing something they're uncomfortable with.

Both of these will also be coming to Black Emporium, our sister exchange, this summer.

COMMUNITY/DISCORD:

- We have now promoted bioticfox into mod capacity on the discord; she'll be handling any questions/concerns that pop up while Mod A and K are sleeping. Please show her the same respect you show us.

- We will be doing weekend writing/sprinting/drawing paries, group events/challenges/games over the weekends next year, ideally to hit evening time zones in at least a couple continents.

- We may be cleaning out or moving things around on the Discord channel, depending on how we decide to implement certain changes for next round. If there's something on there you want to save, save it now.

TUMBLR/DREAMWIDTH:

- If you ask a question in Discord that you feel is not adequately explained on our Tumblr/DW, please tell us so we can put it on Tumblr.

1) Please take this survey and give us feedback about this year! Feedback helps make us improve each year so knowing what you like, what you didn’t - all of that is like catnip to us. The survey is short, completely anonymous, and all questions beyond the first are optional - but the more information we get, the better we can make SpecRecs for next year. 

CLICK HERE TO TAKE OUR SHORT SURVEY!

2) While we may have more rules changes depending on feedback, we do have two rule changes we are making up front for next year: 

• Please do not place works into collections other than SpecRecs2018 until after Author/Artist Reveals! When you place it into a collection of your other works, it is easy to deduce who the author/artist is since other, non-anonymous works will have your name on it. Please feel free to add it to any collection after reveals, however; this is purely to preserve anonymity on works during the opening week. 
   
• Please do not write extreme kinks that your recip does not ask for without double-checking with the mods! We don’t want anyone think we’re going to morality police on this, but we’ve noticed a bit of an uptick in people getting more extreme kinks than they asked for and people not exactly knowing what those kinks are. Extreme kink when asked for - yes, please, all the more!
  
   As for what we define as extreme kink, it is somewhat of a nebulous term but would roughly include things that are not in the common, fandom vernacular in regards to sex. For example, Turians having hidden genitals is something that most people who read E-rated fiction featuring turian characters would probably be comfortable reading. However, writing Turians having hidden tentacles that slowly devour their lovers (ie vore tentacles) might be a bit left-of-field for your recipient. We ask people to use common sense and to always be comfortable asking through the mods if you’re not sure, and definitively to continue doing a great job tagging your kinks.
  
   Again, this rule is to help both authors/artists and their recips make and receive something both can enjoy, not to make you feel bad for writing extreme kink (PLZ, we love it) or to play morality police. If your recip asks for Thorian tentacle mind-control porn, by all the means, write it for them! 

Click This Link to see the countdown to when we will be opening!

Also, Comment Bingo Cards are available! These are bingo cards that have different categories to challenge your reading material, such as to read works from different races, different lengths, types, etc. If you’re interested in one please send us a message or reply to this post and we will make sure to send you one. 

Once you complete a bingo (or, for the truly brave, a full house/blackout), let us know and we’ll make you a post bragging about your success in the challenge, along with bad photoshop artwork done by Mod A!