2017 FAQ

[pumpkinkingmod]

General Exchange Faq by bridgetmkennitt

Every Woman is a fanfic and fanart exchange for works involving women. We take a rather broad approach on women. This exchange allows:
-Cis women
-Trans women
-Canon female versions of canonical male characters
-Characters from video games where you choose the gender
-Characters that exist but canon doesn’t reveal their gender
-2nd person works where it is not clearly stated what gender the character is
-RPF of people who identify as female
-Characters that aren’t necessarily women in canon but that a person could make a case for where a reasonable person would understand why they could be interpreted as female.

For modern RPF there are four guidelines:
-Must be over 18
-They can be removed at the request of the individual
-Must not be in horrendously bad taste. I am the sole arbitrator of horrendously bad taste
-Non-famous family and friends are not eligible

Each participant must make either a fanfic of at least 500 words or a fanart at a minimum of nice sketch stage. Lined paper killed my father. I hate it. So fanart should not be on lined paper.

Allowance into this exchange is not meant as a final definitive statement that a character absolutely, 100% female. However, all characters that are nominated should be treated as women in fanworks produced for this exchange.

Schedule
May 1 - May 8 Nominations
May 9 - 11 Clean up
May 12 - May 19 Sign-up
June 23 Assignments due
June 27 Pinch hits due
June 30 Stories revealed
July 7 Authors revealed

Everything ends at 23:59 Zulu time on the date.

Nominations
-4 fandoms, 8 “characters” each, 4 canon helpers (more will be added if requested)
-You may nominate a clearly defined group of up to 4 women in a character slot. These should be in the format of “Group: Emily & Victoria”. The ampersand does not state what type of relationship there is between the characters. It doesn’t matter if you want friendship, romance, hate, etc. use an ampersand. You should only nominate characters in a group if all of them would fall under that fandom if separated out. Otherwise it must go to Crossover Groups crossover fandoms. (I really shouldn't copy and paste the previous year's faq)
-Make sure you add the relevant canon helpers to your nomination.  If you need more slots tell me and I'll manually add in the rest.  If your canon only has a single version it is still helpful to me if you add a canon helper.  Crossovers and Original fiction don't require any additional canon helpers.
-Canon helpers are used to make sure that you match on the parts of a canon that you are interested in.  They are nominated under the relationships field and should be in the format of CH: Sailor Moon manga.
-You may nominate crossovers under the fandom Crossover Groups
-You may nominate original characters under Original Works.
-If you are nominating a character that is not a clear cut case of being female then post and explain it
Nominations are open now.

Extensions
Yes, you can have an extension if you ask me before gifts are due. There is a catch. If you ask for an extension you must complete a penalty gift for any request in this year of the exchange, except yourself, before May 1, 2018 or else you will not be allowed to participate for one round.

Contact
-halloweenmod@gmail.com
-Private message the pumpkinkingmod account on DW or LJ
-Carrier pigeon

Comments

[gehayi]

I'm confused about the following parts:

Canon female versions of canonical male characters

What does this mean? Could you please give an example? I can't think of any canon where there are canonically male characters that have canonical female versions--and the following portion indicates that you're not talking about choose-your-character's-sex video games.

-4 fandoms, 8 “characters” each, 4 canon helpers (more will be added if requested)

Make sure you add the relevant canon helpers to your nomination. If you need more slots tell me and I'll manually add in the rest. If your canon only has a single version it is still helpful to me if you add a canon helper.

Canon helpers are used to make sure that you match on the parts of a canon that you are interested in.

What are canon helpers? There's no definition or explanation, and I've never heard the term before.

[pumpkinkingmod]

Here are a few examples of canon female versions of canonical male characters:
-Red Dwarf has an episode where the characters visit a parallel universe where most character have swapped genders.
-The incarnation of the Master played by Michelle Gomez
-Hetalia features canon opposite gender versions of most of its characters

What canon helpers are is better defined in the nominations are open post. The short version is that they are a way to make sure you get the part of a fandom that you want. For example, in the tagset one of the fandoms is Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types. If you were only interested in receiving fic or art based on the second game you'd use CH: Dangan Ronpa 2 game. That way people know that is the part of the canon that you want. AO3 would only match you to someone that was offering the second game specifically without having to break the fandom down into its pieces.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not a mod, but there are actually several canons like that.

In Marvel comics, there's an alternate universe where Tony Stark is a woman, Natasha Stark. http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Natasha_Stark_(Earth-3490)

On Red Dwarf, there's an alternate dimension where men are women and women are men, and the protagonist Dave Lister meets his counterpart, Deb Lister. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_Universe_(Red_Dwarf)

On Adventure Time, there are special episodes set in one character's genderswap fanfiction of the events of canon--and a comic based on those fanfics. So instead of Finn the Human we have Fionna the Human. http://adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Fionna (This case is notable, I think, because the m/m version of the popular f/f ship Bubbline has almost as many works on AO3 as the original f/f version does. So I'm all for Fionna getting some love.)

There are also plenty of canons where a male character was reimagined as female in a reboot--for example, Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica, or Pidge in Voltron.