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Collection | Tagset | Dreamwidth | Tumblr | X/Twitter
Nominations: October 12 - 25, 2025 11:59pm PST
Sign Ups: October 26 - November 8, 2025 11:59pm PST*
Assignments: Before November 15
Works Due: December 27, 2025 11:59pm PST
Work Reveals: January 3, 2026 11:59pm PST
Creator Reveals: January 10, 2026 11:59pm PST
General Rules
In this exchange, you can request and offer fic, art, and podfic.- Fic min: 1,000 words
- Art min: clean sketch on plain, unlined paper at least 1000x1000 pixels
- Podfic min: 1,000 word minimum if podficcing an existing fic, 500 word minimum if podficcing an original
All gifts, including treats, must be standalone and complete and should not be part of an already existing series.
ALL WORKS for this exchange must be created by a human. No AI-generated fics or art will be accepted.
Works of an obviously low quality will not be accepted. For example, fics with so many grammatical errors as to be unreadable, art that is a messy sketch to be incomprehensible, or podfic that cannot be understood.
This is an anonymous exchange. That means after work reveals, there is a one-week anonymous period where your work can be appreciated without your name attached to it. Do not talk about your assignment or recipient, or share your work, in public spaces (i.e. large Discord servers, Twitter/X, Tumblr) until after creator reveals.
All art must be posted on AO3 as part of the collection before sharing it on social media. Do not publicly share your work until after creator reveals.
An AO3 account is required to participate. If you do not have one, you can request one by submitting an invitation request, or emailing tlt.fic.exchange@gmail.com.
Official exchange communications to individual usernames will happen via email throughout the exchange. Please make sure you are checking your emails when we announce emails have been sent.
Be respectful! Everyone has different likes/interests/squicks.
Have fun! (we love you)
Nominations:
During the nominations period, participants create a collective tagset for the upcoming exchange. The tagset is the pool of relationships, characters, and additional tags that will be used during sign ups and matching. This is specific to this year’s exchange, so if you are planning to request/offer any tags you don’t already see in the tagset, nominate them!Please only nominate tags that you plan to use. You do not have to nominate in order to participate. If your desired tags are already in the tag set, you do not need to nominate them a second time.
If you nominate a tag already in the tag set, you will have the first week to change it before it is denied. Once it is denied, you will not be able to change your nominations.
Relationships field
This is the tag field for both individual characters (“Solo:”) and relationships (“Group:”). You can nominate up to 10 tags in this field. Please use a slash (/) for relationships of a romantic or sexual nature, and an ampersand (&) for platonic and queerplatonic ships.Example tags:
- Group: Gideon Nav/Cytherea the First/Loveday Heptane
- Group: Gideon Nav & Our Lady of the Passion
- Solo: Cytherea the First
- Solo: Noodle
Please use the full names of the characters when nominating, i.e. "Solo: Harrowhark Nonagesimus" instead of "Solo: Harrow." For BoE names, please use the full first part of the name. For example: "Solo: Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead", not "Solo: Wake" or “Solo: Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pai Snap Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity”.
Threesomes/moresomes are allowed! Please add the name of each character you would like to see in the group. We prefer if you include given and surnames for all characters, but understand that larger polycules will have to be edited to fit all desired characters in the 100-character limit.
Please disambiguate your ship and character nominations. AO3 will suggest canonical tags when you begin to type in a word—please do NOT use these! This helps the mods on the back end :)
Some tips for disambiguating ships include:
- Adding something new at the end of the names (i.e. "Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus (GTN HTN NTN ATN" instead of "Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus (TLT)"
- Putting the names in reverse alphabetical order
Additional Tags
This field is for the tags you would conceivably use for tagging on AO3—for example “Fluff”, “Canon-Compliant”, “Birthday Parties”, etc. You can nominate up to 20 additional tags. These are tags that add details to your requests and offers during sign ups.Please avoid putting full prompts in the additional tags field. For example: If you plan to request a story about Dios Apate Major in a Wild West setting, nominate "Dios Apate Major," "Alternate Universe - Wild West," and "Ten-Gallon Hats," not “Dios Apate Major Threesome in the Wild West where Mercymorn Has A Ten-Gallon Hat”.
We encourage you to browse the tagset before nominating to make sure you're not repeating what's already there, and to nominate whatever your heart desires. We are allowing everything from the purest of the pure to the blackest of the black to the crackiest crack to ever crack.
Crossovers
Crossovers are welcome! When nominating crossover tags, please be sure to select “TLT Crossover” for the fandom on the tagset. At least one character must be from The Locked Tomb. Crossover nominations with no Locked Tomb characters will be deleted. Please add "Group:" or "Solo:" before your nominations and indicate the fandoms of each character.Examples:
- Group: Naberius Tern (TLT)/Goofy (KH)
- Group: Harrowhark Nonagesimus (TLT) & Data (ST:TNG) & Murderbot (The Murderbot Diaries)
Examples:
- Group: Gideon Nav/Original Female Character(s)
- Group: Nona & Hot Sauce & Original Nonbinary Character(s)
- Solo: Original Male Character(s)
Sign Ups:
Each participant can make up to 10 requests, and up to 10 offers. Please only one sign up per person. No sock accounts!Requests
Rating: indicate whether you want smut (E rating), no-smut (T rating), or either (choose both!)“Character” (medium): not for TLT characters! Use this field to indicate whether you want fic, art, or podfic.
Relationships: use the tagset’s tags to indicate which characters and relationships are in your request. There is a minimum of 1 relationships per request. You can add a maximum of 20 relationships.
Additional Tags: use the tagset’s tags to indicate what you’d like to see in your request. You can add a minimum of 3 additional tags and a maximum of 20.
You will match on 1 relationship, 1 medium, 1 rating, and 3 additional tags. This means that some people's matches will be fairly loose. This is okay! Be prepared to create something you never thought you would create. Remember, you are mostly writing for someone else, and you want to make a gift that they will enjoy.
Additional Details (optional): Provide more information about your request here. Totally optional—if you can get your request across using tags, that’s chill too! Many participants include specific prompts or things they’d like to see, general likes, Do Not Wants (DNWs), information about original characters, etc. Only the DNWs included in your sign up on AO3 will be enforced. You can also use this field to indicate if you are open to accepting treats or not.
If you have more to say than what can fit into Additional Details, write a Dear Creator letter and add a link to your sign up. A Dear Creator letter must be public so your gifter can read it. More information about Dear Creator letters can be found at this elegant and finely-crafted link! Mods will only be enforcing DNWs that appear in the sign up on AO3. Make sure that the DNWs on your sign up are the DNWs on your Dear Creator letter.
Offers
Rating: indicate whether you are offering smut (E rating), no-smut (T rating), or either (choose both!)“Character” (medium): not for TLT characters! Use this field to indicate whether you are offering fic, art, or podfic.
Relationships: use the tagset’s tags to indicate which characters and relationships you’re offering. You must offer a minimum of 2 relationships, and can offer up to 20.
Additional Tags: use the tagset’s tags to indicate what you’re willing to offer. You can add a minimum of 5 additional tags and a maximum of 20.
Additional Details and DNWs cannot be added for offers. Keep an open mind while offering—a creator whose only offer is incredibly specific will have fewer possible matches than someone who offers a broad range of possibilities!
Matching
After signups close, matching offers to requests begins!Offers will match to requests on a minimum of 1 relationship, 1 medium, 1 rating, and 3 additional tags. This means that some people's matches will be fairly loose. This is okay! Be prepared to create something you never thought you would create. Remember, you are creating for someone else, and you want to make a gift that they will enjoy, just as your own anonymous creator is doing for you!
The "Solo: Any" and "Group: Any" Relationship tags will only match to other "Solo: Any" and "Group: Any" tags. If you use these tags, please know that this gives the mods implicit permission to modify the Relationship field of your sign up to allow for easier matching. We will only touch the Relationship field of your sign up. Everything else will be left alone.
Assignments
Assignments will go out the first week after sign ups close. Initial pinch hits, if any, will appear on our Dreamwidth Community shortly after.Although your assignment may contain more than one prompt, you are only required to create one (1) work for your recipient. (If you want to make more than one, though, we're not going to stop you!)
If you cannot fulfill your assignment for any reason, please default! There is no penalty and no judgment for defaulting before the deadline, and no explanation required. Life happens! To default, go to "My Assignment" at the collection and click the button that says "default" in the top right corner. You can also default through your profile under "Assignments."
If you default, and your assigned creator defaults, then you are no longer guaranteed a gift. As there is no way to know if your creator also defaulted, the best way to stay in the exchange is to pick up a pinch hit or write a treat that fulfills the exchange rules (reaches minimum word count, matches a request, and is a complete and standalone work).
If you do not submit your work by the deadline and you haven’t requested an extension, you will be automatically defaulted and your assignment will become a post-deadline pinch hit. Extensions will only be granted if the mods are contacted more than 24 hours prior to the deadline.
Pinch Hits & Treats
Pinch hits will be posted on our Dreamwidth community throughout the exchange period. Pinch hits are assigned on a first-come-first-served basis and have the same deadline as regular assignments, unless otherwise stated. To claim, follow the instructions on the pinch hit post.Treats are welcome, and optional! Many participants create additional gifts for others’ requests, in addition to their assignments. Treats do not have to adhere to the same minimum requirements as regular gifts, but they must still be a complete, standalone work when they are posted. Please make sure your treat matches your recipient's prompt before posting. Add whether you are open to treats in your sign up requests, and if you are, please ensure your AO3 user settings are set to allow gifts from other users.
Writing a treat is not a requirement.
Posting
Please post your assignment before the exchange deadline. To post to the exchange, go to "My Assignment" under the collection page and click "Fulfill" in the top right corner.Posting a fic on AO3
Posting art on AO3
Posting podfic on AO3
All works that are not in by the deadline time will be automatically defaulted and the requests will go out as post-deadline pinch hits.
If you know you will not make the deadline, please either default, or email the mods at tlt.fic.exchange@gmail.com at least 24 hours before the deadline for an extension. Extensions will not be granted after then. There is no penalty and no judgment for defaulting before the deadline.
Reveals
Work reveals will happen on schedule unless a participant is missing a gift. None shall go giftless on reveals day! Any delays will be announced on Dreamwidth, Tumblr, and Twitter.The collection will be anonymous for one week. During that time, if you want to reply to comments on your work, you will be listed as an anonymous creator until the end of the anonymous period.
Kudosing and commenting on your gifts is not a requirement, but it is highly encouraged. Please show your appreciation for your gift by leaving kudos and a comment.
You are also encouraged to read and look at the other creations made for the exchange. Don't forget to leave kudos and comments on the ones you enjoyed!
After creators are revealed, you can publicly share your work with the world.
Have fun! (We love you)
