Secret Samol is a "Secret Santa"-style holiday fanwork exchange for the Friends at the Table fandom. We've been running annually since 2016 and last year we had over 170 participants!
Past exchanges
Schedule
All times are in EST.
| Signup Period | Saturday, November 9, 12:00AM - Sunday, November 17, 11:59PM |
| Assignments Issued by | Saturday, November 30 |
| Works Due | Sunday, January 26, 11:59PM |
| Works Posted/Go-live | Sunday, February 2 |
Assignments may go out earlier than November 30th if we finish matching early. This gives you at least 8 weeks to complete your assignment!
How it works
Sign-ups: During the sign-up week, we'll open our sign-up form, which will be linked on this carrd. On the form, you will be asked for your favorite characters, ships, and to provide at least two prompts to inspire your gift-maker to create something for you!
Matching: Afterwards, the mods will match all participants by hand based on their common interests. This is pretty labor intensive for us, so it takes a while and not every match will be perfect. Please help us out by submitting a signup that's both detailed and flexible!
Assignments: When assignments are issued, you will receive another participant's prompts. You then have 8 weeks to make a gift for them. A different participant will make a gift for you. Please don't post publicly about your gift during the creation period - it's a secret!
Submissions: About a week before the due date, we will send out a submission form via e-mail. A week after the due date, on the go-live date, we will send out all gifts to their recipients via e-mail. Afterwards, you can post your work wherever you like!
Rules
General
Fic (prose) should be 1000 words minimum.
Visual artwork should be of a reasonable size and image quality. Make something that you would be pleased to receive as a gift!
Other fanwork mediums are welcome and encouraged (e.g. music, textile art, games)! As with drawn artwork, make something that you would be pleased to receive as a gift.
Secret Samol is not intended for exchange of physical gifts. The work you make is a gift for your assignee, but it is also a fanwork intended for public view from the fandom at large.
Rating: Secret Samol is a safe for work exchange. Make sure to warn for sensitive content appropriately. If you use AO3, please use appropriate tags and make sure your gift is rated G or T.
Content warnings are necessary even if the sensitive content is part of the source material. For example, prison slavery is a focus in the first half of Partizan, and racism is a recurring theme across multiple seasons of FATT. Content like this needs to be warned for if your work touches on it.
Depicting characters: We ask that participants be attentive to depictions of race for characters of color in any medium and avoid whitewashing. fatt.wiki and Transcripts at the Table are good resources for canon character descriptions.
Individuals who we are aware have participated in discriminatory or abusive behavior will not be allowed to participate, at the discretion of the moderators. Any participants requesting or creating discriminatory or abusive content in the exchange will be immediately removed.
Dropping Out
Life happens. About 10% of participants drop out every year. Please contact us via e-mail to let us know ASAP. The mods will take care of finding a pinch-hitter to take care of the abandoned assignment. There is no penalty for dropping out!Note that even if you drop out, unless your gifter also drops out, you will still receive a gift.Whenever we are notified of a dropped assignment, we will put out a call for pinch-hitters via social media. (To all pinch-hitters: thank you, I owe you my life, etc.)
Lateness Policy
If your assignment is not completed by the due date (January 26) and we haven’t heard from you otherwise, we will check in with you. The week between the works due and collection go-live date (February 2) is a grace period for participants to finish late assignments, check in with the organizers, or choose to default. If we don’t hear from a participant by the collection go-live date, we will automatically re-assign to a pinch-hitter.If you don’t think you’ll be able to finish your assignment before the collection go-live date, but you want to keep working on it, please let us know ASAP. We will coordinate with your giftee to keep them updated.If you still haven’t completed it two weeks after the go-live date (February 16), the mods will check in with you and the giftee again and you can choose again to keep your assignment or default. Four weeks after the go-live date (March 2) is our hard cut-off — if you can’t finish by then, we will reassign to a pinch-hitter. Please communicate with us and don’t torment yourself over being unable to finish a gift; the goal of Secret Samol is for everyone to have fun and it’s better if someone who has the time and energy to spare takes over an assignment than for the giftee to have to wait indefinitely. We won’t punish you for having to drop out!
What happens if my gifter dropped out/is late?
If your gifter dropped out of the exchange or is otherwise late, you won't receive a gift on the collection go-live date. We will contact you to let you know what the status of your gift is: whether it’s been reassigned to a pinch-hitter or if the assignee is still working on it.Unfortunately every year we have one or two unlucky assignments that go through several pinch-hitters and are delayed by months or never get finished. We do our best to make sure everyone gets a gift, but it's not a guarantee.
Sign Up
Signups are CLOSED for 2024!
If you have any concerns that you would like the mods to know about with your sign-up, you can include them in one of the free text fields or DM/e-mail us.You'll receive an e-mail with the contents of your sign-up form after you submit your sign-up.
Examples of requests
Characters: Samot, Samothes, Samol, Hadrian, Maelgwyn
Ships: Samot/Samothes, Hadrian/Samot
Prompts:
- Anything Samsam is good for me! Post-canon Aubade content is always appreciated, I only ask that (if fic) it be acknowledged that they have to work hard to have a good relationship again. I also like any AUs: modern AU, fairy tale, fake dating, arranged marriage, Hadestown AU, whatever! But also if you have an idea that's better than any of these please go for it!
- For Samot/Hadrian, I am dying for content of a canon-divergent timeline where Hadrian DOES pledge fealty to Samot. Make it as angsty or emotional as you want!
- I would love any content of Samol raising a young Samot who is freshly human after being a shadow for so long. Samot can't have been an easy child to raise... Feel free to include the other gods if you like as well!Characters: Clementine Kesh, Sokrates Artemisios, Absolute Territory, Kalar Anakalar
Ships: Even Gardner/Cascabel, Sokrates Artemisios/Integrity, Tender Sky/Fourteen Fifteen, Crysanth Kesh/Sovereign Immunity, Belgard/Signet
Prompts:
1. Would love to see some content of Crysanth and SI in the before times, either romantic or not, perhaps SI's first assignment with her? A comparison to present times could also be great, perhaps SI is not-so-fondly reminiscing.
2. For any of the other ships, I'd love to see something about the way technology colours their interactions! Even's cybernetics, Tender and Fourteen's different connections to the Mesh or Sokrates/Signet's relationships with actual Divines! Can be fluffy or not.
Example of an offer
Ships: Samot/Samothes, Hadrian/Samot, Hadrian/Samothes/Samot, Adelaide Triste/Hella Varal, Kal'mera Broun/Valence
Characters: Samot, Samothes, Maelgwyn, Adelaide Triste, Hella Varal, Hadrian, Severea, Valence, Kal'mera Broun, Gur Sevraq
Description: I'm willing to draw for pretty much anything that involves the major Hieron or Marielda characters (PCs and gods basically) in addition to what I listed above. I could ESPECIALLY do something if it involves Samot somehow. I also might write if it's a Samot related prompt. I can ALSO do Balence although at the time of writing I'm only up to PARTIZAN 35. Balence forever