Loyalty Missions is a Mass Effect gift exchange for non-protagonist pairings, focusing on characters finding love and friendship outside of Commander Shepard and/or Pathfinder Ryder. Participants create a gift of either a story of at least 1000 words, a complete piece of art, a fanmix with cover art and at least eight tracks, or a video/song/piece of music of at least one minute, and receive a gift in return.

As matching is done via AO3, an account is required to participate. If you don’t have an account, please contact the mods for an invite.

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Schedule (PST)

Nominations: August 27 - September 10
Signups: September 11 - 24
Assignments sent out: September 25
Gifts due: November 6 7 (live countdown)
Gifts revealed: November 9
Creators revealed: November 16

Structure

Nominations

Submit a form on AO3 suggesting ships you want to offer, request, and/or see fanworks for.

Ships...

Cannot include Commander Shepard nor Pathfinder Ryder
- By Pathfinder Ryder, we mean the protagonist of Andromeda; Alec and the twin who does not become Pathfinder are eligible so long as they do not become Pathfinder in the gift

Can be romantic, sexual, or platonic
- Use / between characters for romantic or sexual ships, and & for platonic ships

Can include more than two people

Cannot include canonically homosexual characters in heterosexual romantic or sexual ships

Signups

Submit a form on AO3 requesting nominated ships you would like to create for and receive, and which medium(s) you would like to create or receive gifts in. These do not need to be the same; you may offer different ships and/or mediums to your requests, and different mediums for different ships.

For ease of matching, you must request at least five ships and offer at least three ships.

In the details field, you can optionally include anything you don’t want, general likes, prompt ideas, rating restrictions, etc. Except for the don't wants, these are optional for the creator to follow. You can also link a letter with more information.

You may not specify any customization for characters nor world states (except for ME3 endings) in your prompt, eg. stating a class for NPC Ryder, describing Hannah Shepard’s appearance, or choosing a background Shepard’s gender or pronouns. These will be removed from your signup if you include them.

If there is anyone you do not want to be matched with, please let the mods know.

Matching

Mods will match people based on their offered and requested ships and mediums. Your assignment will always include at least one ship in a medium you offered.

Creation

Make your gift! You must make one fanwork for your giftee; you do not need to use every ship they requested.

All gifts must be complete, standalone, and created specifically for this exchange. They cannot have been previously posted elsewhere nor be part of a previously posted series.

Gift minimums:

Story: At least 1000 words

Art: Must be complete; can be traditional, digital, or renders

Fanmix: Cover art + at least eight tracks

Video/song/piece of music: At least 1 minute

Gifts can be any rating and must be appropriately tagged; they cannot include background ships unless it is another ship your giftee has requested. You must follow your giftee's don't wants but do not need to use any prompt ideas they gave.

Posting

All gifts must be posted on AO3 by November 7th PST (live countdown). If you need an extension or need to default (drop out of the exchange after matches are made), please contact the mods.

As AO3 does not yet have image nor video hosting, host them offsite and embed them into the work. For fanart and fanmix cover art, we suggest image hosts such as Imgur or Cloudinary, or draft/private posts on Tumblr. Videos may be embedded from hosts such as Google Drive or Youtube. For fanmixes, you may post the track list or embed a Youtube or Spotify playlist. Songs and music written as gifts may be embedded from hosts such as Google Drive or Soundcloud.

Treats

Treats are optional extra gifts for participants whom you are not necessarily assigned to. As with assigned gifts, they must be created specifically for the exchange, be complete and standalone, and follow giftees’ do not wants, but as they are optional, they do not have to reach minimum word, track, or time limits.

People who are not signed up for the exchange may also create treats by adding their gift to the LoyaltyMissions2018 collection and adding the giftee’s name to the written for field.

Though you are not required to make treats, we hope to open with at least one treat for everyone in the exchange.

Pinch hits

If a participant’s gifter drops out of the exchange without making a gift (life happens), or none of a participant’s requests match any offers, we will seek someone to be their pinch hitter and make them a gift. These are subject to the usual gift rules but if it is late in the exchange, we may give an automatic time extension.

Rules

Don’t be a jerk. Bigotry, bullying, and harrassment will not be tolerated. Respect other participants’ ship preferences. Character bashing and kink shaming are not allowed.

This is an anonymous exchange. Do not publicly name your giftee, and until creators are revealed, do not post your gift elsewhere saying you made it, link your Tumblr and/or other blogs in your notes, nor place it in an AO3 series with non-anonymous creations (as this will make it easy to guess who made it).

Do not prompt nor create sexual fanworks for underaged characters.

Loyalty Missions: A Mass Effect NPC ship exchange