due South Seekrit Santa gift exchange

Your friendly neighborhood DSSS mods are delighted to announce a new feature in Due South Seekrit Santa: DSSS Treats! Treats are meant to be fun, small, seekrit, and 100% optional. If you have no time for anything beyond your assigned work, no worries! Focus on that (please!), but once you're done making your assigned gift, you are welcome to dive into DSSS at large with drabbles, drawbles, vidlets, and podficlets! Here's how this will work:

Treats Deadline is December 31st!
TREATS may be posted at any point from after you post your assigned giftwork until 12/31/13, 11:59pm Chicago time! Yes, we're allowing Treats right up through New Years Eve!

NOTE: YOU MUST POST YOUR ASSIGNED GIFTWORK FIRST! (You can still revise it after posting, never fear.) We review all works as they are posted so we can keep track of unfulfilled assignments. If you post a treat without already having posted your assigned giftwork, we will delete the Treat from the collection. POST YOUR ASSIGNED WORK FIRST.

Okay! Assigned DSSS work done? WONDERFUL! Read on!

Who can I make Treats for?
• You may make Treats for anyone participating in DSSS 2013: registered participants, pinch hitters who heroically took on an assignment, and the mods. When works go live, the "Guess the Creators!" post will have a list of everyone who made works, including pinch hitters.
• You may make additional works for your assigned recipient.
• After works go live, you may make companion pieces for any of the gifts in the collection. (These should be complementary works, rather than remixes. If you have any doubts, email the mods and ask!)
• You may make companion pieces in response to the DSSS giftwork(s) you receive. (Again, think complementary works instead of remixes.)

How do I know what to make? Aren't requests hidden?
As of now, everyone's signup requests are visible, so you can go and look at all the prompts to see what inspires you! Treats don't have to be in the requested format(s) – whereas the assigned work absolutely does. If you see a prompt that inspires you in a different format, go for it!

Special Rules for Treats:
1. IMPORTANT: Carefully follow the special posting instructions for Treats in the next section.
2. Brevity is fine! No minimums for word count or artistic effort.
3. Our quality standards for all works are still in place, including spelling and grammar. Small gifts are still gifts, after all! Treats that don't meet DSSS quality standards may be removed at the discretion of the mods.
4. Allowing other gift formats not named in someone's request and relaxing the length/effort requirement are the only rules changes we're permitting. We expect Treats to respect the recipient's requested characters/relationships and any DNW info (including Dear Santa letters).
5. Art, vidlet, or podfic Treats must be hosted on the DSSS servers. Like all DSSS works, Treats are SEEKRIT until Reveal!

Special upload instructions for Treats
Consider this the Treats Addendum to the full-length posting instructions for your gift format:

G) Additional Tags: Enter "DSSS Treat", plus any other relevant tags.

N) Does this fulfill a challenge assignment? No! This is a Treat, not your assigned work! You've already uploaded your assigned work, so UNCHECK this box.

O) Post to Collections. Make certain "dsss_2013" is entered here.

P) Gift this work to: Enter the recipient of your Treat here.

What recipient do you enter if your treat is a companion piece inspired by an {Anonymous} DSSS giftwork? Enter the same person who received the inspiring work! If that recipient is you, that's fine! Just enter yourself as your recipient. After Reveal, you may choose (optionally) to edit in the revealed creator of the inspiring work as an additional recipient. (If you enter "Anonymous" as the recipient, your Treat will be gifted to the actual AO3 user who owns that username, rather than to your intended recipient, so don't do that, okay?)

Q) This work...was inspired by another work. (Optional!) If you check this box, a window will appear for you to enter information to link your Treat to an associated work in the AO3.

Be aware that if you use Line Q, the creator of the original inspiring work will get an email notification that their work now has a companion piece. You do not have to use the Line Q option, but it's available if you want to. Likewise, the creator of the original inspiring work does not have to approve the link from their work associating it with your companion piece, but the option exists if they want to.

Defaulters MAY NOT post Treats (with some exceptions)
Please understand that participants must fulfill their assignments for DSSS to succeed. It doesn't seem fair to us for someone to default, leaving the mods to scramble to find a pinch hitter and the pinch hitter to scramble to put a gift together that matches a specific prompt on short notice, only for the defaulter to blithely create optional treats at the end without doing their originally assigned work. Granted, in certain cases we may offer exceptions (e.g. family emergencies, funerals, etc., and please do email us if this applies to you!), but if you default on your assigned DSSS work, please do not expect to post treats instead. Everyone posting their assigned work is our top priority.

Companion Piece Permissions
Within DSSS, we're working under the assumption that gifts are good and more gifts are welcome. If you write your recipient a story, then a DSSS podficcer could conceivably record that story as a Treat for your recipient, or an artist could make you a cover to go with your fic, etc. As mods, we are entirely on board with this, because more gifts, more creativity, more Due South works, YAY! However, if you have concerns, such as really, really not wanting anyone to record your story as a podfic, please email the mods and we'll reply with further instructions. We admit we hope everyone will take the happy potential for more gifts in the spirit of the December gift-giving season, but we're glad to work with you to respect your comfort zone.

So, to sum up:
Optional Treats are optional. Treats posted by people who have not yet posted their assigned work will be deleted. Everyone's requests are now viewable here. You can post treats alllllllll the way through New Year's Eve, Chicago time. And the length and format rules are relaxed for Treats.

Please email us at dsss.admin@gmail.com if you have ANY questions or concerns. We know this is new and may be a little confusing, so ask at will! You guys are awesome. Thanks for being awesome!

Have a wonderful DSSS! <3