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[personal profile] tavina2025-08-01 12:55 am
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[sticky entry] Sticky: 2025/2026 Round Schedule

Schedule:

  • Nominations: 11/16/25-11/30/25
  • Tagset Cleanup: 12/1/25-12/4/25
  • Signups: 12/5/25-12/19/25
  • Assignments out by 12/21/25
  • Soft Check In Deadline: 2/1/26
  • Assignments Due: 2/15/26
  • Work Reveals: 3/1/26 3/15/26 3/29/26 10pm EDT
  • Creator Reveals: 3/15/26 3/29/26 4/12/26 10pm EDT

All deadlines are 10pm EST

Important Links:

Modmail: TavinaFanfiction@gmail.com

Relationship Tagset | Freeform Tagset | Main Collection | 2025 Collection | 2025 Auto App Link

What Is This Exchange?

AU5k is a gift exchange focused on creating gift works that are set in alternate universes to existing canons with a minimum of 5 thousand words (or words equivalent!). See assignments under "General Rules and Info" for more medium related details.

You must have an AO3 account and be 18+ to participate.

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[personal profile] tavina2024-11-11 03:23 pm
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[sticky entry] Sticky: General Rules and Info

General Rules and Info:

Don’t be an asshole.

Must be 18+

This is an anonymous gift exchange! To that end, please don’t contact your recipient or publicly share snippets of your work before it’s posted. If you find yourself needing clarification from your recipient, please email the modmail (TavinaFanfiction@gmail.com) to pass on a question. When posting, do not include links to other socials or publicly post the work on other platforms until creators are revealed. We understand if artists want to sign their work, or if podficcers want to include a “read by” in the audio. This is allowed.

We strongly encourage you to not post any apologies or negative self talk in your author’s notes! Be proud and positive about what you’ve created!

Nominations:

Please see the nominations guidelines post for more in depth information on how to nominate tags.

We have two tagsets, one for characters and relationships and one for freeforms. This will allow us to reuse the freeform tagset for future years so we don’t have to nominate all our AUs again as well as keep the fandoms/characters/relationships up to date and current.

Each participant can nominate up to 10 AUs as freeforms in the freeform tagset, and 10 fandoms with 10 characters/relationships each.

There are no rarity requirements to nominate a fandom, ship, character, or type of alternate universe freeform.

Original Work and Creator’s Choice of Fandom (CCOF) will not be allowed.

Real Person Fiction (RPF) is allowed. All people nominated for RPF must be famous in their own right and 18+ for modern RPF. The mod reserves the right to remove any tags they feel would be out of scope for a fanwork exchange.

Crossovers are allowed. Please nominate them under “Crossover Fandom” so that they are easily locatable, except for crossovers that take place entirely within the Star Wars Universe. In that case, as per the franchise post, please nominate them under Star Wars - All Media Types.

Franchises will be accepted into the tagset based on the Franchise post, found here. If you have a fandom that is a large and sprawling franchise of many parts, check the post to see how to nominate, or inquire on that post or with the modmail if you don’t see your franchise there and think it should be split up in some way.

Signups:

We will match on 1 fandom + one relationship/character + one freeform + 1 medium

Participants can request 1-10 fandoms. In each request, participants may request 1-20 characters or relationships, 3-20 freeforms, and 1-3 mediums. You must sign up with at least three unique fandoms (found in the tagset) in order to be guaranteed a gift, however, you can sign up with fewer than three if you’d like.

Participants are allowed to offer fewer than 3 fandoms as long as they are matchable to an assignment (able to create for at least one other participant.)

Unmatchables (those who do not have anyone they can create for) will be emailed, and will have 24 hours to respond to add offers to become matchable. At the end of 24 hours from the time emails go out, anyone who has not responded will have their signup deleted so that matching can be rerun and assignments can be sent out in a timely fashion.

Please include DNWs (Do Not Wants) in the optional details box in the AO3 signup form with the format DNW: [things DNW'd here]. Only DNWs included in the optional details box will be enforced. If your optional details box is blank by the time assignments go out, your signup will be assumed to have no DNWs.

As this is an exchange with a high minimum, socking is not encouraged. Please sign up with only one account per person.

Assignments:

All participants are signing up to create and receive a work that is a minimum of five thousand words or art or podfic equivalent.

For fic, the minimum is 1 completed work that is five thousand words long.

For art, the minimum is 1 completed comic that is 5 pages or 20 panels long.

For podfic, the minimum is 1 podfic of a five thousand word work, or a podfic of a newly written two thousand five hundred word fic.

All assignments must fulfill one of the recipient’s requested fandoms + relationships/characters + alternate universe freeform tags + mediums.

All works must be created by the participant. This exchange does not support AI generated works.

Extension Policy:

Participants may request one 48 hour extension per assignment prior to the works due deadline. No second extensions will be granted.

Please email the mod email at TavinaFanfiction@gmail.com to request an extension on your assignment or pinch hit.

If you pick up a post deadline pinch hit and require an extension, please email the mod to discuss the specific circumstance!

Defaulting:

Press default button on ao3 next to your assignment ahead of default deadline to no fault default.

Late defaults/no show defaults at deadline will be barred from signing up for the next round but can return to participate in the round after that.

Participants may request a 48 hour extension of their deadline at any point during the creation period. See “Extension Policy” for more details.

Pinch Hits:

Pinch hits are assignments in search of a creator!

Pinch Hits will be posted to the dreamwidth comm and must meet minimum requirements as outlined in Assignments.

To claim a pinch hit, please either comment on the relevant pinch hit post with your ao3 username and the pinch hit you wish to claim, or email the modmail with your ao3 name and the number of the pinch hit you wish to claim.

All pinch hits that have requested 3 or more unique fandoms must be filled with a gift that meets assignment minimums before the collection opens. The collection will delay in week-long increments until all pinch hits necessary to open the collection are filled.

Treats:

Treats are welcome for this exchange and do not have to meet assignment minimums.

Treats will not become main gifts.

Treats to the collection are allowed, however all treats to the collection should be alternate universe focused. Treats to the collection do not have to have a recipient. If you do submit a treat to the collection, please put "treat to the collection" in your top author's note! This will help prevent confusion, and you can remove it after it's been approved into the collection!

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[personal profile] tavina2026-04-12 09:58 pm
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2025/2026 Round Creators Revealed! & Feedback Post

Creators have now been revealed for the 2025/2026 round of AU5k! Thank you all so much for participating - this exchange is always one of my absolute favorites to run and I love seeing the love we have for AUs every year.

A few notes, and a few questions I’ve had for you guys regarding the event:

  1. Do you like the length of the creation period? Too long? Too short? Prefer a more formal check-in in the middle?
  2. Do you like the time of year that this event takes place? (mid November to March/April) Is it potentially conflicting too much with FFFX and HAex or are we okay with where we’re at in the event calendar?
  3. How do we feel about a commenting rule for next year? I think if I implement one, it’ll start on works submitted for the 2026/2027 round (meaning no one will be penalized for not commenting on gifts until 2027/2028 round signups) and be something close to FFFX’s “please comment on gifts before next year’s signups open, or otherwise contact me to discuss,” but I’m not entirely married to the idea and would like some input on whether we think that’s something you guys would prefer as a group.
  4. Any other feedback? Comment down below!
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[personal profile] tavina2026-03-29 09:56 pm
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Work Reveals!

Works have been revealed! Behold them at the collection!

Please join me in thanking all of our tremendously hard working pinch hitters - this year they filled 32 pinch hits, which is 160k of minimum word count equivalent to open the collection - and thank you so much to all of you as well for participating!

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[personal profile] tavina2026-03-27 09:57 pm
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All Assignments In; Reveals on the 29th

Hello hello! I am pleased to report that all required assignments have been posted, and the collection will reveal roughly 48 hours from now at 10pm EDT on March 29th.

Please make sure to check in on your scope creep's health, get those last bits of polish in, edits wrapped up, and everything ready to go! We're almost there at the finish line!

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[personal profile] tavina2026-03-20 03:02 pm
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All Pinch Hits Claimed; Reveals Tentatively Set for the 29th

Hello Hello! All of our pinch hits have now been claimed, and the collection is tentatively set for revealing at 10pm EDT on the 29th of March.

We still have six works that need to be filled by hard working pinch hitters before the collection can reveal, so I will be able to update all of us at the latest on the night of the 28th regarding whether or not the collection will reveal on the 29th, but my expectation is that everyone will come through, which means it is getting Very Close Now Indeed, and it's definitely time to start getting those last polishing edits in, avoiding scope creep for real this time, etc etc.

We're almost there!

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[personal profile] tavina2026-03-14 12:16 am
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Further Delay: PDPHs 5, 9, 22, 28

Navigation: Rules and Info Post | 2025 Collection | Mod Contact: TavinaFanfiction@gmail.com

As we still have 4 open pinch hits in search of a creator, we will be delaying reveals for two weeks in order to find pinch hitters. Work reveals will now be on March 29th, at 10pm EDT and creator reveals will be pushed back to two weeks after that, on April 12th at 10pm EDT.

We currently have 3 other creators who are working with extensions on open pinch hits, which means we have seven open assignments that still need to be filled before the collection can open.

We currently have 4 pinch hits due on March 27th, 2026 at 10pm EDT.

Pinch hits must meet the assignment minimums (see minimums under “assignments” on the Rules and Info Post.)

In order to pick up a pinch hit either email the modmail or comment on this post (all comments on this post are screened) with:

  • The number and or username of the pinch hit you would like to pick up
  • Your ao3 username
  • An email where I can reach you
PH 5 - Dune (Movies - Villeneuve), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), Henry Danger (TV), Henry Danger (TV), Little Women (2019 Movie - Gerwig), Little Women (2019 Movie - Gerwig), The Princess Diaries (Movies) )

PH 9 - 阴阳师 | Yīn Yáng Shī | The Yin-yang Master (Movies - Guo Jingming), 밤에 피는 꽃 | Knight Flower (TV), 陰陽師 | Onmyouji (Anime 2023) )

PH 22 - NoPixel (Web Series), Video Blogging RPF, 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs )

PH 28 - DCU (Comics), Gravity Falls, Stranger Things (TV 2016) )

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[personal profile] tavina2026-02-26 08:37 pm
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Delay + PDPHs: 2, 4, 9, 10, 13, 14, 22, 29, 30, 32

This pinch hit post is out of date! Please see our most recent pinch hit post! Read more... )

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[personal profile] tavina2026-02-18 04:42 pm
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PDPHs: 4, 9, 10, 13-15, 22, 28-31

This pinch hit post is no longer up to date! Please see the most recent pinch hit post!Read more... )
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[personal profile] tavina2026-02-16 03:46 pm
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Post Deadline Pinch Hits: 2, 4, 5, 9, 10, 12-15, 22, 24-29

This pinch hit post is no longer up to date! Please see the most recent pinch hit post!Read more... )
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[personal profile] tavina2026-02-15 10:08 pm
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Deadline Has Passed!

Hello hello!

The works due deadline has passed - thank you to everyone who has turned in a work or otherwise contacted me regarding an extension, our next deadline is on the 17th, when all our extensions are due.

There are several participants who have not contacted me prior to deadline - thus far I've marked these as mod defaults on the sheet, but if you get your default, work, and or mod contact in before 10am Eastern (roughly 12 hours from now) tomorrow on the 16th when I get the pinch hit post out, you will not incur the one year ban penalty for no show defaulting.

Let's all take a collective possumscrem, and write/pod/art like the wind to meet the deadline on the 17th everyone! O/ We got this!
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[personal profile] tavina2026-02-05 10:04 pm
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Pinch Hits: 1, 4, 9, 10, 13, 14, 20-25

This pinch hit post is no longer up to date! Please see the most recent pinch hit post!Read more... )
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[personal profile] tavina2026-02-02 12:44 am
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Soft Check In Deadline 2026

Hello Hello! We are now just under 2 weeks out from the assignments being due, and with that in mind it is time for a soft check-in! Please take a look at current commitments, etc and take some time to decide if you will be able to meet the current posting deadline on the 15th of the month. If not, please make sure to hit the default button, or contact the mod at TavinaFanfiction@gmail.com for a 48 hour extension! Each participant is eligible for one 48 hour extension upon emailing the mod.

You do not have to email or otherwise comment on this post to confirm that you are still committed to finishing your work, and there is no specific penalty for defaulting post this check in time as long as you do so before assignments are due, (there is a small penalty if I have to no show default a participant at assignments are due deadline) however comments are screened on this post in case you'd like to comment or otherwise drop me a message.

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[personal profile] tavina2026-01-08 02:02 pm
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Pinch Hits: 1, 4, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, NEW: 19

This pinch hit post is no longer up to date! Please see the most recent pinch hit post!Read more... )
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[personal profile] tavina2025-12-21 01:54 pm
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Pinch Hits 1-18

This pinch hit post is no longer up to date! Please see the most recent pinch hit post!Read more... )
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[personal profile] tavina2025-12-21 01:51 pm
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Assignments Sent! 18 IPHs to follow

Hooray! Assignments have been sent! Please don’t hesitate to reach out to the modmail (TavinaFanfiction@gmail.com) if you suspect that there’s been a problem with your assignment.

Keep an eye out on the comm for the Initial Pinch Hits! These will be posted shortly.

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[personal profile] tavina2025-12-19 11:42 pm
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Signups for 2025 Round Closed! 10 Unmatchables

Hooray! Signups for the 2025/2026 round of AU5k have closed, and matching has been run!

We have 10 participants who are currently unmatchable (do not have a recipient). These people have all been emailed - if your AO3 username starts with A, d, F, g, M, p, S, or T please check your email!

Further, we have 6 participants whose currently only match is to someone who is unmatchable. In the interest of making sure we don’t have any potential unmatchable cascades, these participants have also been emailed! If your AO3 username starts with H, j, k, m, T, or x please also check your email and get back to me!

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[personal profile] tavina2025-12-05 09:27 pm
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2025 Round Signups Open!

Thank you everyone for your patience while we work through Tagset Cleanup. There is still one outstanding query for The Witcher - AMT, if this is a fandom you would like to offer or request, please see this post for more potential details and get back to us!

As of now, signups are open! Please find the signup form here.

The amazing DontStopHerNow has created a freeform picker to help us with signups, see here for the link to make your own freeform picker, and here for a handy list of new freeform tags that we have added for the 2025 round that weren’t in the 2024 round.

Signups will close on December 19th, 2025 at 10pm EST. (Signups Closing Countdown Timer)

Signups Closing Countdown Timer | AU Freeforms Picker Spreadsheet | Signup Form | 2025 Relationships Tagset | Freeforms Tagset | 2025 Collection | 2025 Auto App Link

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[personal profile] tavina2025-12-01 08:18 pm
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2025 Tagset Cleanup Post

See any duplicates in the tagset(s)? A misspelling? Comment down below to let us know as we start to work through tagset cleanup!!

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[personal profile] tavina2025-12-01 08:14 pm
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2025 Nominations Query Post

Hello Hello!

We have some nominations queries! Please let us know within 24 hours about how we might update these tags, so we can get the bulk of tagset cleanup under way!

Relationships and Characters:

  • Alan Wake (Video Games)
    • Fictional Alex Casey/Fictional Ilmo Koskela (Alan Wake)
      • Nominator, we’re not sure that “Fictional Ilmo Koskela” is a canonical character in this game. Can you, or anyone else that’s familiar with this game let us know? Thank you!
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
    • 1: Founder Undercover at Starfleet Headquarters as Admiral Leyton Who Transforms into a Bird (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
      • Nominator, would you mind if we accepted this as “1: Founder-imposter Admiral Leyton (DS9)” for the sake of making this nomination more succinct?
  • Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
    • Nominator, I’ve heard from you a bit about why you’d prefer All Media Types for this fandom - other people who might request or offer this fandom, would you take this to be “I don’t really care which version of canon I get” ? I’m not inherently opposed to accepting this as it’s own thing outside of the games, show, and books for this year, though I think in future we might want to discuss this a bit more on a future Franchises Post to clarify what we mean, since we use Star Wars - AMT to catch Star Wars inter-canon crossovers. (Though I suppose that might be more of an edge case than anything.)
  • 燕云十六声 | Where Winds Meet (Video Game)
    • Tags with “Female Shao Dong Jia” - Nominator(s) can you confirm that Shao Dong Jia is the player character or that their gender is customizable in game (and therefore that there’s a corresponding Male Shao Dong Jia)? If there’s only one canonical gender for this character, would it be acceptable to accept these nominations as Shao Dong Jia? Sorry, I wasn’t able to find a character list for this game when investigating!

Freeforms:

  • ALL: Alternative Hanahaki AU
    • Nominator, we’d prefer a bit more specificity on what kind of alternate hanahaki au you’re looking for, can you update us on what kind of Alternative Hanahaki? (Platonic Hanahaki? Hanahaki where they cough up lizards? Hanahaki that doesn’t kill you? Hanahaki that doesn’t require a confession? Something else entirely?)
  • ALL: Bad Guys Win
    • Nominator, we have “ALL: The bad guys win/The good guys fail” in the tagset already - is this an acceptable tag, or were you aiming for something slightly different with this nomination? Let us know your thoughts!
  • ALL: Different characters get together
    • Nominator, we discussed and thought this tag might be a bit confusing esp if you end up requesting canonical ships. This might be something that’s already baked into the ships you request, even if it’s technically an AU. If you were thinking of a more specific scenario/think there’s a way to clarify this that we haven’t thought of, please let us know!
  • ALL: Hogwarts AU
    • Nominator, we already have “ALL: Harry Potter AU - Hogwarts Setting” in the tagset! Were you thinking of a different kind of Hogwarts AU? Let us know if what’s already in the tagset makes sense for what you’d like to request!
  • ALL: Superheroes AU
    • Nominator, we already have “ALL: Superhero/Supervillain AU” in the tagset! Let us know if this tag would be what you’re interested in requesting and/or offering, or if there’s a way to clarify that this tag is substantially different!
  • White Collar: AU where Neal is not a CI but an indentured slave and Peter and El take him in (with or without smexy tiems).
    • Nominator, I appreciate your love for this specific scenario, but we discussed and felt that this might be a bit too much of a “boxing your creator into writing one very specific prompt” situation. Would it be acceptable to you to accept this tag as “White Collar: Neal is an indentured slave AU” ?

Rejected Tags with Undefined/Too Large Groups:

  • All for the Game:
    • Palmetto State Foxes Members & Neil Josten (AFTG)
  • Avatar the Last Airbender:
    • The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
  • Critical Role Exandria:
    • Bells Hells & Ashton Greymoore (CritRole Exandria)
    • Bells Hells & Orym (CritRole Exandria)
    • Cerberus Assembly & Caleb Widogast (CritRole Exandria)
    • The Mighty Nein & Caleb Widogast (CritRole Exandria)
    • Volstrucker & Caleb Widogast (CritRole Exandria)
  • DCU Comics
    • Batfamily Members & Dick Grayson (DCU)
  • Fire Emblem Three Houses
    • Byleth Eisner and Blue Lions Students (FE:3H)
  • Marvel 616
    • Beyond Corporation & Ben Reilly (616)
    • God Fighters Team & Ben Reilly (616)
  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians
    • Camp Half-Blood Campers & Luke Castellan (PJO)
    • Kronos Army Demigods & Luke Castellan (PJO)
    • The Gods & Luke Castellan (PJO)
  • Teen Wolf TV
    • The Pack & Stiles Stilinski (Teen Wolf)
  • Young Justice Cartoon
    • Dick Grayson & Members of the Team (YJ Cartoon)
  • Pluribus
    • The Others & Carol Sturka (Pluribus)
    • The Others/Carol Sturka (Pluribus)

If any of the nominators of these rejected tags would like to discuss re: this group being well defined and not more than 6 distinct people (unfortunately, guaranteeing a work will include all the members of a group that’s larger than 6 + anyone else in the nomination already is very difficult even for a 5k event!) please let us know in the next 24-48 hours, and we can add the nomination back in!

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[personal profile] tavina2025-11-30 10:11 pm
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Nominations Closed!

Nominations are now closed!

We are mostly done processing freeform nominations (with the exception of outstanding queries) and in the process of wrapping up relationship and character nomination processing, so keep an eye out for a query post sometime tomorrow evening!

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[personal profile] tavina2025-11-30 05:30 pm
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4.5 hours from Nominations Deadline!

Hi everyone! We're 4.5 hours or thereabouts from nominations closing for the 2025/2026 round of AU5k!

What time is that for me?

After nominations close later tonight, there will be a query post going up likely sometime tomorrow - we do not have many queries, so be on the lookout if your nominations have not been processed 24 hours after nominations close.

Next, we will head into nominations cleanup, where we will look for and remove duplicates, fix up any nominations that need to be queried, and finish processing all of the nominations still outstanding in the tagset, before we begin to open for signups. Signups may open early depending on the quickness of the process for nomination cleanup, but this cannot be guaranteed, so expect signups to open at the scheduled time.

Thank you to everyone for your interest in this event, and an especial thanks to DontStopHerNow for their outstanding work during the nominations period, your help is much appreciated.