2025 Schedule & Rules

[smut4smutmod]

Welcome to Smut 4 Smut, a multifandom gift exchange for smutty fic and art! The schedule for 2025:

Feb 8-15, 8pm: nominations
Feb 16-17: tagset cleanup
Feb 18: sign-ups open
Mar 1, 8pm: sign-ups close
Mar 4: assignments out by this date
Apr 11, 8pm: works due
Apr 18, 8pm: work reveals
Apr 25, 8pm: creator reveals

All times in UTC. You can contact the mod at thedevilchicken+s4s@gmail.com, or comment on this post with questions.

2025 Collection | 2025 Ships Tag Set | S4S Permanent Kink Tagset

The Basics

Smut 4 Smut is a gift exchange dedicated to smutty fanfic and fanart. All works in the collection must be rated E (Explicit) for sexual content. Fic must be a minimum of 1000 words, and fanart must be at minimum clean, finished lineart on unlined paper. Matching is on fandom, relationship or character, archive warning, and kink freeform.

Ground rules: Don't be an asshole. No kinkshaming. Participants must be 18 or older. We reserve the right to update the rules if needed.

Nominations

• The pairing tag set is here: https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/22576
  
• The kink tagset is here: https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/9985
  
• You can nominate up to 10 fandoms with up to 10 relationships each, plus 3 kink tags.
  
• Solo characters can be nominated in the relationships field with the format "Solo: Character Name."
  
• RPF nominations must be for famous people 18 years old or older. Non-famous relatives or associates of famous people are not allowed.
  
• Nominate crossovers under Crossover Fandom, with the tag format "Character A (Fandom A)/Character B (Fandom B)."
  
• Original works nominations should be split by relationship category. Nominate under "Original F/F", "Original F/M", "Original M/M", and "Original Other or Solo".
  
• Tags with "&" will not be accepted.
  
• The kink list will get reused each year, with some editing. Please no fandom-specific kink tags.
  
• Kink tags should be kinks, sex acts, or otherwise clearly sex-related. These are not intended as general freeforms.

Requests

• You must request 3-10 fandoms. Each request can have 1-20 relationships, 1-5 archive warnings, and 4-20 kinks.
  
• You can request the same fandom multiple times, as long as you have at least three unique fandoms.
  
• The archive warnings you request are topics you want to see in your gift. If you select "graphic violence", that means you actively want to receive graphic violence. You are only guaranteed ONE of the archive warnings you've selected.
  
• Note: not selecting an archive warning is NOT the same as opting out of receiving it. You are guaranteed a gift containing a selected warning; you are NOT guaranteed a gift without unselected warnings. If you do not want to receive e.g. noncon, please make sure noncon is in your Do Not Wants.
  
• Optional details: All Do Not Wants must be included in the signup form in order to be enforceable. You may also add prompts/likes in your signup, or create a separate "dear creator" letter.

For Do Not Wants, "enforced" means that if your gift accidentally contains one of these DNWs, we will get you a replacement gift if you request one. We consider the following DNWs too broad and limiting for this exchange, and won't enforce them:

- "DNW unrequested kinks"
- "DNW PWP"
- "DNW sex"

You can sign up more than once with well-behaved sock accounts.

Offers

• You must offer 3-10 fandoms. Each offer can have 1-20 relationships, 1-5 archive warnings, and 4-20 kinks.
  
• You can offer the same fandom multiple times, as long as you have at least three unique fandoms.
  
• You may offer "any" tag or "any" relationship, but make sure you mean it. Your assignment could be anything from the tagset.
  
• The archive warnings you select are topics you are willing to create. If you select "graphic violence", that means you are willing to create a graphically violent work. Your work must contain a warning requested by your recipient.

Assignments

Assignments will be out by March 4, and will be due by April 11, 8pm GMT. This is a hard deadline. For the 2025 round, we will not be granting extensions.

To fulfill your assignment, a work must be complete, newly created/posted for this exchange, and rated explicit for sexual content. It must be about one of the recipient's requested fandoms, relationships, kink tags, and archive warnings, in one of the media they requested. It cannot include any of their Do Not Wants. Additionally:

• Fic must be at least 1000 words long and complete. At least 500 words must be sexual in nature.
  
• Art must be at minimum clean, finished line art. Complete nudity isn't required, but the art should be clearly sexual in nature. Edits/graphics do not fill the art requirement for assignments.
  
• Your gift may have only one recipient.
  
• AI-generated content is not allowed in either fic or art gifts.

If you have a question about your assignment, please email the mod at thedevilchicken+s4s@gmail.com.

Defaulting & Pinch Hits

If you cannot complete your assignment, please hit the "default" button on your assignments page as early as possible. This gives us more time to find a pinch hitter.

If you are "no show" at deadline, or we find you with an incomplete placeholder after the deadline, you will be banned from participating in Smut 4 Smut next year.

Pinch Hits will be posted to this community.

Treats

Extra treats are welcome! You can treat whether or not you've signed up to the exchange. Treats can be given to a specific recipient or given to the collection at large either by specifying no recipient or gifting it to the mod account. Treats can be of any length but should still be complete works. If given to a specific recipient, the treat must follow their requested fandoms, ships, archive warnings, kinks, and Do Not Wants.

Other Rules

• Do not post about your assignment in public/semi-public spaces before creator reveals.
  
• Do not repost artwork from the exchange on twitter/tumblr/discord etc. Linking to it is fine, reposting is not. (Exceptions made for actual artists after creators have been revealed, of course)
  
• All gifts (even treats) may have only one recipient.

Comments

Question about offers

[(Anonymous)]

Will I be able to offer different gift types for each fandom? For example, could I offer only art for one fandom, only fic for another, and either fic or art for a third?

Re: Question about offers

[smut4smutmod]

Hi! Yes, you will. Each offer and request slot has its own art/fic selection.

[marmolita]

Question about RPF rules -- I know that all the people nominated for RPF must be over 18, but is it okay to request fanfic about a person who is now IRL 25 to be set when the person was 17 or request the underage warning on RPF?

[smut4smutmod]

Yes, that's all right! From a moderating perspective, our only concern is the person's IRL age.

[semjaza_xx]

Hi, if I've chose some noncon freeforms for a request, can I DNW a specific character as the victim? Or should I just leave out those freeforms if I'd only want them in a certain way? Thanks!

[smut4smutmod]

Thanks for asking! At risk of being unhelpfully vague, our answer is "it depends." How specific/elaborate/numerous are your other DNWs? Are there more open-ended freeforms the assigned creator could work with instead? The goal is to have a variety of reasonable possible responses to your requests, and not to railroad. If in your best judgment, "DNW victim X" doesn't end up railroading, then it's okay.

[redbrunja]

If I want to write a treat for someone (NOT the fic for my assignment) is it possible to upload it after the deadline but before the reveal or do I need to upload any treats by April 10th?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi there! Is this exchange running again? :)

[redbrunja]

I have my fingers crossed that the answer is yes, it’s my fav fannish event of the year.

[prettyarbitrary]

Hello! Do you you folks anticipate running this event again this year?

[marmolita]

Adding another voice here because I'm also eagerly awaiting news of whether this exchange is happening or not, it's my favorite fandom event of the year! (also if the mods need help I'm willing to assist!)

[(Anonymous)]

Are "do not match" requests accepted for this exchange? Thank you.

[smut4smutmod]

Generally yes! We have one firm exception:

We will not take requests not to match participants' socks to each other -- if you don't want to match to yourself, please adjust your own offers and requests accordingly.

And one softer guideline:

For "don't match me as this person's creator" requests, we ask that you consider adjusting your offers as a first resort.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello, sorry to bother you through this, but I sent a question to your email and you haven't answered, can you please let me know if you've received it or not?

[(Anonymous)]

I find the rules a little confusing WRT archive warnings. Are requested archive warnings the only warnings that can be included in the gift, or are other warnings acceptable as long as one of the requested warnings is included?

[smut4smutmod]

Archive warnings in requests work like any other category of tag in requests. Here's the relevant part of the rules:

"[A gift] must be about one of the recipient’s requested fandoms, relationships, and archive warnings, in one of the media they requested. It cannot include any of their Do Not Wants."

Just like requesting "hole spanking" doesn't preclude a gift from also including "anal fingering," requesting "graphic depictions of violence" doesn't preclude a gift from also including "rape/noncon." Participants should list unwanted content as Do Not Wants in their signup.

However, there's one warning tag that works differently. For a gift to include "no archive warnings apply," the gift obviously can't include death, rape, graphic violence, or underage, or it no longer fulfills the NAWA tag by definition.

Disclaimer: this is a very general, technical answer, not an assessment of any individual situation. We encourage participants to use their best judgment to create gifts their recipients will enjoy.

[swingandswirl]

How does nominating for parts of a giant sprawling fandom work? Is it possible to nominate just The Avengers vs the MCU as a whole?

[smut4smutmod]

Thanks for checking! Please nominate MCU all together for this exchange.

[gloriousgoblinqueen]

I don't know if I did something wrong or what, but I intended to nominate "Deepthroat Training" as a kink tag and it got accepted as "Deepthroating". Are you able to change it?

[smut4smutmod]

Looks like an auto-change from AO3. We've added Deepthroat Training separately!

[(Anonymous)]

Pardon me if this is a dumb question - is there an FAQ somewhere on how this works? I'd like to sign up but I have never participated in an exchange like this before! ^^;

[smut4smutmod]

Hi! There will be more instructions when signups open tomorrow. In the meantime, a different exchange mod wrote a guide to signing up for freeform exchanges that might be helpful to you:
https://soulstoned.dreamwidth.org/8735.html

[kradeelav]

my apologies if this is obvious (new to how DW exchanges operate) - if I as a potential treat-er see a fandom in the big fandom list, but don't see it in the "requests summary" list, does that mean letters are still being written or will it not show up?

[(Anonymous)]

By the big fandom list do you mean the tagset? (https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/18622) Those are the set of fandoms/ships that are available to be requested and offered in this exchange, not the actual requests that have been made, so there's no guarantee that any requests will come in for any specific tag on that list.

An easy way to find requests is on the AO3 AutoMagic page for this exchange. (https://autoao3app.fandom.tools/#/smut4smut2024) You can search for a particular fandom or a tag, browse through the categories, or bookmark fandoms and requests you're interested in; it will be updated throughout the signup period so you can keep up with new and changed requests.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello, I'm kinda new here! Doing this for the first time.
Could I nominate some more fandoms and/or relationships, or it's too late already?

Question

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! I received my first ever assignment. Do I choose among the 3 options my giftee gave me or do I have to write the 3 of them?

Re: Question

[(Anonymous)]

You choose among their requests. :) See the "assignments" heading above for what your one (1) work needs to have in it.

As well as your assignment you can make as many treats as you want, if you want to do all three of your recipient's requests.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello! Would it be OK to tag “Chose not to use Archive Warnings” for someone who requested specific archive warnings, as long as the work still meets/could be interpreted as meeting those requests? i.e. extreme dubcon that could be tagged R/NC, or characters whose age isn't explicitly mentioned in the work, but who are underage in canon so could be tagged as underage? When it's ambiguous I usually prefer CNTUAW but if that wouldn't meet the requirements I am happy to just click the box to make it explicit, haha. Thank you!

[smut4smutmod]

Hi! As long as the actual content includes what your recipient requested, you are free to tag as you please. :)

2025?

[(Anonymous)]

Just checking in out of curiosity over whether y'all are thinking you want to do a 2025 round!

Re: 2025?

[smut4smutmod]

A 2025 round is actually about to start! Nominations should open later today (8 Feb).

[(Anonymous)]

For 2025, would you be willing to move from the 3-fandom minimum to the "1 fandom to sign up, 3 to be guaranteed a gift" model that some other exchanges (IPQ and Consent Issues are the ones I can think of off the top of my head) have used?

[smut4smutmod]

I'm afraid that won't be happening for this year, but I'm willing to look at it for next time. I've taken the exchange over at relatively short notice and it's a lot more straightforward for me to keep things (almost) exactly as they are for now.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! I am hoping this exchange will happen for 2025 - it’s my favorite exchange!

[smut4smutmod]

It is indeed! Nominations should open late today (8 Feb).

Question

[(Anonymous)]

Possibly a dumb question, but how is "smut" defined for the purpose of this exchange?

Re: Question

[smut4smutmod]

It's basically this from the rules above: "All works in the collection must be rated E (Explicit) for sexual content." Works need to include at least one kink that the recipient has requested and be rated E for sex (at least 500 words of it).

[(Anonymous)]

Since the exchange is under new management, do the 3 separate OW categories still count as separate fandoms?

[smut4smutmod]

They do indeed! Very nearly everything is exactly the same this year, except the fandom nominations max is higher, the time zone is now set to the UK, and the email address has changed.

[(Anonymous)]

If I request Underage Sex as archive warning, is it possible to DNW sex involving pre-pubescent children or sex under a certain age? Should I request only freeforms about teenagers?

[smut4smutmod]

Yep, as long as it's not a "DNW: anything but the day before their 18th birthday" kind of situation and there's still a fair amount of scope for a work to include the warning, that's fine for this particular archive warning. But obviously freeforms about teenagers would also get the point across!

Doubles

[everayy]

Just letting you know there are some doubles in the Trigun: Stampede (2023) fandom!

Re: Doubles

[smut4smutmod]

Thanks! I'll make a note to take care of that after nominations close.

[(Anonymous)]

What exactly counts and doesn't count as unique fandoms? For example, a book canon and its tv adaptation, would they be unique or not?

[smut4smutmod]

That's fine! If fandoms are separate in the tagset, they count as unique.

Anonymity

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! When we are posting later, is it possible/allowed to keep the works under an "Anonymous" creator on AO3? As in, do we have to be revealed when creator reveals happen, or can we place the fic in an extra collection which keeps the poster anonymous?