Tachibana Makoto Birthday Fanworks Exchange

The 2015 Makoto Birthday Exchange has officially come to a close, with the bonus round as well as the commenting contest ending today. Of course works for all three years of the exchange remain available for everyone’s enjoyment.

If you want to be considered for a prize in the 2015 Commenting Contest, be sure to send in your entry by end of day on December 2nd. (Details here.)

To everyone who participated in the exchange and/or the commenting contest, and to all who signal boosted and otherwise offered support—thank you so much for contributing to another wonderful event this year! 

The extension deadline for the Makoto Birthday Exchange is end of day today, November 7th. That gives you 13 hours from the time of this post.

COUNTDOWN CLOCK

Additional extensions are not being granted.

Remember that your work does not have to be perfect by the deadline, just complete (you will be able to edit/polish during the grace period as we get ready to go live for Makoto’s birthday).

Good luck!

::Content Requirements::

• Your fanwork must  include the characters in the request you choose to fill from your assignment.
• Your fanwork must be the type specified by your recipient for that particular request.
• Details and specific prompt requests in your recipient's letter are optional. Having said that, it would be great if you could respect and avoid their dislikes.

• original work previously unpublished
• finished/polished quality
• standalone (not part of a larger work or series)
• complete (the whole story should be told)
  • multi-chapter stories are allowed only if all chapters are posted
• English language only (or, in the case of art/comics/manips, no words)

::Technical Requirements by type::

If you are doing a fill for Party Favors, the bonus round for extra gifts, please note that there is no minimum requirement. All other requirements apply.

Art

• minimum of 600px per dimension; no maximum 
• traditional as well as digital media
• color or b&w
• still/static or animated/moving image

• minimum of 3 panels; no maximum
• color or b&w

• minimum of 1000 words; no maximum
  • while you’re more than welcome to do multiple fics for your recipient, one of them must be at least 1000 words
• optional: the find a beta post

• minimum of 3 panels; no maximum
• must use screencaps or other official art (no fanart)
• still/static or animated/moving images
• accompanying text/ficlet is optional (not required)

• To post your fill, click "Fulfill." This will take you to the page where you can post your work, with the challenge and your recipient's name already filled in.
• To drop out, click "Default." The event coordinator will get a message and send the assignment to a pinch hitter.

• Remember that you do not need to fill a specific prompt. You only need to do a fill of the type requested, using the characters requested. All other details are optional, including relationships and nsfw content/rating.
• Some people put their general likes/dislikes in their “Dear Creator” letter – so if your recipient included a link, be sure to check that out.

In the spirit of Makoto swimming in the ocean in Season 1, it would be great if you could do your best. But if you simply cannot, please default through AO3 as soon as possible, so we can give the pinch hitter who picks it up as much time as possible.
 

A reminder for those of you who are still polishing/revising/adding to your fills for the main round of the 2014 Makoto Birthday Exchange:

The hard deadline for the main round is midnight PT on November 16. That’s about 35 hours from now, at the time of posting. Please note that midnight is the start of the day, not the end (so realistically you have until end of day on the 15th).

To avoid any and all confusion, here’s a COUNTDOWN CLOCK.

Party Favors, the free-for-all bonus round, is open now through November 24th. Details are available here.

 

Good luck and have fun!

Hi, guys!

I’m concerned that a couple of you may be posting in a way that will end up defaulting you.

Currently, there are 23 works in the archive but only 21 assignments have been completed, according to AO3.

Unfortunately I can only see works from the “completed assignments” page, so I have no way of figuring out what the discrepancy is. My best guess is two participants have posted the first chapter of a multi-chapter work, which makes the assignment look incomplete.

If you are posting a multi-chapter work, please be sure that it appears as complete by the deadline!

In other words, if you have checked the box for “This work has multiple chapters” in the “Associations” section, be sure that you put the number of chapters you have actually posted.

You can always change the number in that box during editing, if you need/want to add another chapter.

I hope this makes sense and/or is helpful!

• If you're posting art, instructions on how to post images to AO3 are here.

Reminder for everyone participating in this year’s Tachibana Makoto Birthday Exchange: fanworks are due in ten days, on November 5th.

COUNTDOWN CLOCK

We’ve already several completed assignments—congratulations to those who have finished and good luck to everyone who is still working on it!

If you need to drop out for any reason, sooner is better than later as that will give the pinch hitter who takes the assignment more time.

Speaking of pinch hitters, it’s not too late to join us as one! You can learn more here.

We’re also still open for betas. More info is at this post—and if you’re an exchange participant in need of a beta, have a look through the comments there to see if anyone can help you.

Basic instructions on posting and dropping out are at the end of the Assignment Guidelines.

For artists and anyone else posting images, there’s more info behind the cut, if you need it.

( posting images to AO3 )

Here are some basic text instructions:

1. Upload your image off-site.

AO3 does not have native image hosting yet, so the first thing you will need to do is upload the image elsewhere. You can use a free site like postimage.org, which allows adult content, or another one of your choice; or you can make a private post on a site like tumblr.

NOTE: If you use an account somewhere  (like tumblr, livejournal, deviantart, etc.), be sure to to post privately. Works should not be posted publicly until after the collection is live on AO3.

Once you have the image uploaded, get the direct link. One way to do this is to use the “view image” option from the context/right-click menu.

Some image hosting sites will give you the option of an “embed code” or an “embed link” after you’ve uploaded the picture. You can also use this. 


3. Posting on AO3.

Log into your AO3 account, go to your “Assignments” page (linked in the side menu of your dashboard), and find the Makoto Birthday Exchange.

Press “Fulfill”. This will take you to the page where you add your work. The collection and recipient fields will be filled out already. Fill out the other fields (self-explanatory; note that many of them are optional, so it’s up to you how much to include).

If you are using a direct link:

In the “Work Text” field, choose the “Rich Text” tab. Click the “insert/edit image” button (7th from the left). Paste the direct link in the pop up form.

If you are using an embed code:
In the “Work Text” field, choose the “HTML” option. Paste the embed code.


4. Confirming

Press “Preview” to make sure it looks the way you want it to. You can edit to make any changed you want.

When you’re happy with how it looks, press “Post”.