rarepairexchange | 2025 Rules and Guidelines. (Reply)

Please make sure you familiarise yourself with our rules, guidelines, and eligibility criteria. While Rare Pair shares a theme with a few exchanges on the circuit, we do have a few key differences in how we choose to run our exchange.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them on this post (anonymous commenting is on) or email rarepairexmod@gmail.com. (If you email us, please allow two business days for a response before following up.) We will not be responding to Discord messages.

House Rules

You must be 18+ to participate in this exchange.

Don't be an asshole. We will ban participants who act in bad faith and will do so without warning. We reserve the right to ban any participant for behaviour we deem to fit this category.

We do not allow socks in this exchange. One account per person.

The exchange is an AO3 exchange. All participants are required to have an AO3 account to participate.

This Dreamwidth community will be the main communication channel for the exchange. Please ensure you follow it for announcements!

AI works are not accepted. We will permanently ban anyone caught using AI to create fanworks in this exchange.

This exchange is a shipping exchange. All works must focus on a romantic and/or sexual relationship at its core, and the relationship must be rare by our eligibility criteria. We use "/" as the signifying format for our relationships in our tagsets and when tagging works.

Please note the mod team is on AEDT/AEST time.

Eligibility

A pairing must fill the following criteria to be eligible:

Works must be about a romantic and/or sexual relationship. We do not allow platonic works in this exchange. All works submitted to the collection must include the requested ship as a "/". We will query and even reject works that use the "&" format for the main ship.

Nominations

Nominations and nomination queries will be managed on the Dreamwidth community. The nominations themselves will be hosted on AO3. An AO3 account is required to participate.

We will be rejecting any nominations that use "&".

Each participant may nominate up to 10 fandoms with up to 10 relationships in each. Nominations must be disambiguated to be accepted (e.g. Maria Hill/Sam Wilson (MCU)). ("Maria Hill/Sam Wilson" is the ship and "(MCU)" is the fandom disambiguation.)

All fandoms and ships requested and offered in this exchange must be chosen from those nominated into the tagset. Additional fandoms and ships will not be added outside of the nomination period. Please nominate what you want to receive and create for!

We do not allow two different ships to be nominated in one nomination slot, i.e. "Amy/Laurie & Jo/Bhaer (Little Women)". Each nomination slot must be one ship with no "&" signifier.

Regarding specific canon eligibility:
- RPF: We allow RPF. Non-famous family members and under 18s are not eligible. We will not be allowing nominations for world leaders and reserve the right to reject any RPF nomination that we feel will cause distress to our participants.
- Threesomes/moresomes: Polyamorous and threesome/moresome ships are allowed, as long as they are eligible. The characters involved must be specified; we will not accept "Natasha Romanoff/The Avengers (MCU)" as a nomination.
- Crossovers: Crossover ships are permitted, subject to the eligibility rules above. These should be nominated under "Crossover Fandom" with the fandom name for each character in brackets, e.g. "Natasha Romanov (MCU)/Leia Organa (Star Wars: Original Trilogy)".
- Original characters in non-original canons: You may nominate "Character/Original Character(s)". You are welcome to be as specific or as broad as you wish, e.g. "Leia Organa/Original Jedi Character (Star Wars)" or "Steve Rogers/Original Male Character (MCU)".
  
  We highly encourage you to ensure your nomination specifies the gender of the OC unless you're interested in receiving a fanwork with any gender, i.e., "Misty Quigley/Original Character (Yellowjackets)" is broad and unspecific, and means your creator will be allowed to define the gender of the OC. If you are interested in a specific gender for the OC, please nominate this specifically, i.e. "Misty Quigley/Original Female Character (Yellowjackets)".
  
  We will not allow participants who try to box their creator into a specific type of relationship using their optional details in their sign-up. Please keep that in mind while nominating.
- Original Works: These must be nominated under "Original Work" in the format "Character Type/Character Type" e.g. "Princess/Maid (OW)", "Pilot/Soldier/General (OW)", etc.
  
  We encourage you to be specific regarding gender. Please try not to be overly specific—our tags have character limitations, and we also will not allow boxing in creators.
- Recursive: We do not allow recursive fandoms to be nominated in this exchange, as we feel recursive works do not support the theme and popular relationships have been nominated in the past. We apologise for any disappointment this may cause, but this decision eases the mod workload.
- Canon/Reader: We do not allow Reader/Canon Character to be nominated in any form.

If you're wondering how to use the otp:true filter, please see our guide below:

The otp:true filter is a way to isolate the works using a specific ship tag. Since a lot of works tag multiple ships for the one story, our criteria exclude including those stories as counting toward the maximum 250 work limit for a ship.

If we use MCU as an example, we want to see how many works are in the Natasha/T'Challa ship tag and that are specifically about that ship to see if it's eligible.

When we search Natasha/T'Challa, AO3 will show us there's less than 250 works under that tag. You can see from some of the fics on the first page that the tag has been used with other ship tags. We don't want those stories to count toward the 250 work limit. That's when the otp:true filter comes in.

Go to the grey search and filter box on the right-hand side and click on the section under "More options". In the "Search within results" textbox, type in "otp:true". Then click "sort and filter."

This will show you the works that are solely tagged as Natasha/T'Challa (which you can see here). We're using this criteria to determine if a ship is a "rare pair" for this exchange. Since there are less than 250 works in the isolated ship tag, it's eligible for the exchange.

Sign-Ups

An AO3 account is required to sign-up/participate.

Requesting and offering:

You can request 3-10 fandoms with 1-10 ships and a choice of fiction, art, podfic, a combination, or all three. While you can repeat fandoms, you must have 3 unique ones selected to participate. You cannot request fandoms that solely sit under the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" umbrella. Please ensure your fandoms are distinguished with unique lore.

You can offer 3-10 fandoms with 1-10 ships and a choice of fiction, comic, podfic, a combination, or all three. You must offer 3 unique fandoms to participate.

We will not allow requests of 1 fandom in this exchange due to the additional workload this will add for the moderators.

Everyone is guaranteed a gift, with the default guidelines taken into consideration.

You can edit/delete your sign-ups until the sign-up period closes.

If a sign-up does not include the required number of unique fandoms, it will be deleted when sign-ups close.

All fandoms and ships requested and offered in this exchange must be chosen from those nominated into the tagset. Please nominate to make sure what you want to request/offer appears.

If there aren't any offers that match your requests, you will go out for claiming as an initial pinch hit (IPH).

Please do your best to be matchable as a creator. If there aren't any requests that match your offers, we will contact you at the email address associated with your AO3 account to see if there is anything else you can offer. If you do not reply within 24 hours, or there is nothing else you can offer, your sign-up will be deleted. (Please ensure this email is up to date before sign-ups close!)

You only need to create one medium for one request, so if you offer art, fic, and podfic, you only need to make a piece of art or fic or podfic for one request. It's your choice what medium you create for, as long as you have offered it.

Additional things to consider:

Do Not Wants (DNWs): Please include anything you absolutely don't want to receive in the Optional Details field in your AO3 sign-up and label this clearly as "Do Not Wants" (DNW). These are concepts etc. that would ruin a gift for you.

If a DNW is included in your gift, only reasonable DNWs in your sign-up will be enforced.

Please remember that DNWs cannot be used to box your creator into producing a very specific work. We encourage you to be specific and clear about what you would like to not receive. Please do not use defamatory language when describing your dislikes as what you dislike may be what someone else likes.

If you choose to include a set of likes or prompts, please ensure you provide a variety. We will not be enforcing sign-ups where the only prompts offered are smut-related. (We are a shipping exchange, not a smut exchange.)

Dear Creator Letters: There will be a section in the sign-up where letters can be linked to give your creator further details on your likes, dislikes, and other request details. Dear Creator letters are optional.

Please be aware that we will not be enforcing any DNWs that are in your letter. DNWs must be in your sign-up.

In the optional details and in Dear Creator letters, please do not place preference for one relationship over the others, as there isn't a guarantee you will be matched on that ship. Please only request what you want to receive!

If your sign-up breaks any of the rules above, we will contact you to request edits made to your sign-up. If we do not receive a response, we will delete your sign-up.

Sign-ups made in bad faith will be deleted without contacting the recipient. This exchange has been designed to be an enjoyable community event.

Do Not Match requests:

We accept do not match requests for this exchange. Please email us before sign-ups close at rarepairexmod@gmail.com letting us know your AO3 name, the AO3 name of the participant you would like to not be matched to, and what you would like us to do in the instance where you are their only match as a creator, you are their only match as a recipient, and you are a pinch hit (would you prefer to drop out or would you be okay with your DNM creating for you?). We don't need to know the reasons for this request (unless it involves harassment). We'll do our best to action your request.

Assignments

Assignments are only guaranteed to match on one fandom, one ship and one medium.

Minimum requirements are a complete work of:
- Fic: 1,000 words minimum.
- Comics: Clean lineart on unlined paper or the equivalent of one comic panel.
- Podfic: A recording of a completed fic of 1,000 words minimum that is about the requested rare pair.
AI works are not permitted in this exchange and will result in a permanent ban.

Your assignment must focus on one of the requested ships. Your recipient may have anywhere between 3-10 requests but you are only required to create for one. This doesn't have to be the one you matched, as long as it is one they requested.

If your assignment does not match the fandoms/ships/medium you offered, contact the mods as soon as possible. We will not allow anyone to change assignments for any other reason.

Please do not discuss or post about your assignment in public. This is an anonymous exchange! Creators must remain anonymous until creator reveals.

Contacting recipients:

Please do not contact your recipient asking them for clarification on their requests.

If you would like to seek clarification from your recipient about your assignment, please email the mods at rarepairexmod@gmail.com with your AO3 username, your question, and your recipient's AO3 username. We will send it to your recipient on your behalf. (We will do our best to ensure the recipient remains in the dark about what they are receiving!)

Please feel free to give us as much information as needed, and please assume the mods are canon blind when sending through your question(s).

If you'd like your gift to remain a surprise, please feel free to send through some dummy questions or let us know so we can ensure the question is as generic as possible.

Please avoid negative self-talk in author's notes. We will ask you to remove this as we feel everyone participating should feel proud of their work. We will not approve the work until such notes are removed.

Do not include any self-identifying information, i.e. links to social media. You're welcome to include this after the round is over.

Assignments: About Mediums

You are more than welcome to create above the minimum! We highly encourage this, but it is not required to go above the minimum in order to participate in this exchange.

Fic:
- If you choose to create a piece of written fiction, you are required to complete a work of 1,000 words minimum that includes a beginning/middle/end and is about the requested relationship. The requested relationship must be the primary focus of the story.
Art:
- If you choose to create art, you are required to complete clean lineart on unlined paper (or the equivalent of one comic panel).
- It must focus on the requested relationship.
- This does not need to be coloured.
- We will be leaving it to the discretion of the artist as to whether they include an art credit tag on their artwork. (This is one of the only times we will be lenient on anonymity.)
- Artists are welcome to upload their works to their chosen host. We are aware this may break anonymity. (This is one of the only times we will be lenient on anonymity.)
Podfic:
- If you choose to create a podfic, you are required to record a completed fic of 1,000 words minimum that is tagged with the requested relationship and is about the requested relationship.
  
  If you're unsure whether a tag qualifies, please reach out to the mods at rarepairex@gmail.com!
- We recommend searching for authors who have a blanket permission statement in their profile. fpslist.org is a great tool.
- Please do not record fic written by authors who have not given permission for podfic to be made of their works.
- If we cannot find evidence that the author has granted permission for their work to be podded, we reserve the right to remove the work from the collection. (If they have given it to you privately, please email this proof to us.)
- Podficcers are welcome to create cover art for their podfic. This is not mandatory.
- Podficcers are welcome to include their usual introductions on their recordings. We will leave this to the creator's discretion as to how they prefer to submit their work when it comes to anonymity. (This is one of the only times we will be lenient on anonymity.)
- Podficcers are welcome to upload their works to their chosen host. We are aware this may break anonymity. (This is one of the only times we will be lenient on anonymity.)

Posting

The collection is moderated so works can be checked for completion and ensure they fit the exchange's criteria. If your work stays in moderation for longer than three days, please reach out to the mods.

Works containing excessive spelling or grammar errors (enough to hinder comprehension), unclear art, an incomplete recording, or any work marked with "&" as a relationship tag for the requested relationship will not be accepted.

Gifts must be completed by the assignment deadline to fulfil the assignment requirements. WIPs (e.g., a fic posted as "1/?", art posted as "1/?", and a podfic posted as "1/?" or, in the instance multiple links are included for a multi-chapter do not seem to reflect a completed work) will not count as a completed gift.

If you are posting a chaptered work, all chapters must be posted by the assignment deadline. If your work is not complete, your recipient will be immediately sent out as a pinch hit and you may be banned from future rounds.

As works should remain anonymous during the collection's anonymous period, do not post your work elsewhere before the creator reveals or discuss the details publicly. You can do so after creator reveals—and we highly encourage you to once the exchange is over!

Please do not submit incomplete works by the assignment deadline; it will be deemed incomplete and your recipient will go to pinch hit and you may be banned. You're welcome to edit your work after the assignment deadline, but it must be complete and able to stand on its own at this deadline.

Saved drafts do not fulfil assignments. Make sure you actually post your gift so we can accept it into the collection!

If you create a gift that intentionally crosses your recipient's DNWs, intentionally stirs wank/drama, or harasses any other participant during the process, you will be permanently banned from the exchange. The purpose of this exchange is to have fun.

Please avoid tagging your work as "gen" and selecting a relationship tag with "&". If your work suits this signifier more than it does "/", then it is not on theme and will be rejected. This is a ship exchange with a focus on romantic/sexual relationships.

Extensions

If you need an extension, please email rarepairexmod@gmail.com, including how long you need and your AO3 username. We will confirm the extension and new deadline via return email.

We don't need any explanations regarding why you need an extension. (Though please do let us know if you have extenuating circumstances so we can figure something out if time allows.)

Please ensure you ask for an extension before the assignment deadline. Extensions will not be given once the assignment deadline has passed.

Defaulting

If you cannot finish your gift, please default.

To default, navigate to your AO3 dashboard, click 'Assignments', locate your Rare Pair Exchange assignment, and click 'Default'.

If you default and your creator also defaults, you will not be assigned a pinch hitter and are not guaranteed a gift.

There is no penalty for defaulting.

We will default you if you have not posted a gift by the deadline. This may result in a one year participation ban.

Pinch Hits

Pinch hits will be posted to the Dreamwidth community (this community!).

Please reply to the pinch hit post with the pinch hit number and your AO3 username. If you are successful, we will reply to your comment or email to confirm the allocation and will officially assign the pinch hit to you through AO3.

You can claim a pinch hit even if you aren't signed up for the exchange, but you will need an AO3 account.

If you do claim a pinch hit without logging into Dreamwidth, we will not be able to respond to your comment. If you don't have a Dreamwidth account and aren't comfortable commenting to the active Dreamwidth pinch hits post, please email us to claim at rarepairexmod@gmail.com with your AO3 username and the pinch hit you wish to be assigned.

Treats

You can write/draw/pod additional gifts for other participants and post them to the exchange collection as treats. Treats posted to the collection do not have to be for your assigned recipient.

If you would like a treat, we recommend including a note in your sign-up to indicate that you are open to receiving treats. (Doing this does not guarantee you will receive a treat.)

If you want a treat, please check your preferences to ensure you accept gifts from unassigned creators. You can check this setting by navigating to your AO3 page, clicking 'Preferences', and clicking 'Allow anyone to gift me works.' under 'Collections, Challenges and Gifts'. (Doing this does not guarantee you will receive a treat.)

You are welcome to create treats even if you aren't signed up for the exchange. (Please note treaters who are not participants or pinch hitters will not be receiving gifts as part of the exchange.) We highly encourage it!

To post treats, navigate to the collection and click 'Post to Collection'. You will need to manually add the name of your intended recipient—please check this very carefully!

Treats do not have to fulfil the minimum requirements. They must, however, include a fandom, relationship and medium requested by the recipient and do not feature any DNWs. (As the mods are not artists, we recommend artists ensure their work is clean enough to stand as complete.)

Treats will not become main gifts for this exchange.

Treats to the collection (so no recipient) are allowed but must focus on a rare pairing that is in the tagset. (Please note that if you treat the collection, our mandatory commenting policy does not apply to your work.)

Commenting

Comments are mandatory as part of this exchange. Please comment on your gifts.

If you cannot comment on your gift for any reason, please get in touch with the mods before the next round via email at rarepairexmod@gmail.com.

If you reject your gift for whatever reason, please get in touch with the mods at rarepairexmod@gmail.com so we can note down that you received a gift and will not be commenting. We do not need to know why you rejected it unless you feel it's necessary.