Schedule 2025

[hurtcomfortexmod]

Welcome to the Hurt/Comfort Exchange, a pairing and freeform matching multifandom gift exchange run on AO3.

The schedule for this year is:
Nominations: 7 - 23 Feb
Signups: 1-16 March
Posting deadline: June 1
Work reveal: 13th June
Creator reveal: 20th June

All deadlines are at 23:59 UTC What Time Is That For Me?

Collection
Nomination Guidelines for Tagset
Tagset
Rules and Guidelines

The mod e-mail is hurtcomfortexmod@gmail.com

Work requirements are a story of at least 1000 words, or a piece of artwork that is not on lined paper and is at minimum clean linework that is at least 500x500 pixels

Comments

[simplecoffee]

Super excited! 💛

[elrhiarhodan]

Thanks for the info - will be important for planning my writing next year.

[sholio]

Yay! I'm so excited this is running again. :D

[eglantiere]

ohhhh yeah i'm so here for that.

[booksarelife]

Did you mean 11:59pm EST?

[hurtcomfortexmod]

No, it's correct, 4:59 pm UTC. We changed the time from last year to better fit the mods' schedules.

[prixmium]

I started my nomination form a little while ago while the link was still available but while typing you closed to tagset. I assumed that the nominations would close later during the day on the deadline. Is it possible that you could reopen the tag set until midnight eastern time or just for another couple of hours?

[prixmium]

Sorry I misread the deadline time. Oh well. I wish you could have made a warning post given the unusual time.

[chomiji]

Help! It's still about 90 minutes to shutdown but my nominations aren't being accepted! It says

"hurtcomfortexchange2020 is not currently accepting nominations."

[(Anonymous)]

Is there a date set for when the collection will be open for posting? (I finished my assignment, but I'm getting told the collection isn't open yet.)

[hurtcomfortexmod]

Apologies! With everything going on mods forgot to open it. It's open for posting now.

[alessandriana]

Just to double check, story reveals will be at 11:59 am (i.e., noon) 22 May?

[marycrawford]

I thought the author reveal was supposed to happen an hour ago, but maybe I calculated it wrong?

[hurtcomfortexmod]

Sorry about that, since the collection opening was pushed back we pushed back reveals too, we just missed editing the post.

[eratoschild]

Can the same ship not be nominated under two fandoms? This might be a little weird, but I tried to put Wallace Bardias/Gaius Worzel (hurt Gaius) under Sen no Kiseki and Hajimari no Kiseki but it told me I was trying to nominate the ship more than once.

This is technically all the same fandom, but it's different parts of one coherent series, with different titles to each part. Hajimari is very new so most people won't even look at that one, but a few will so I'd like to have the ship available under both.

[hurtcomfortexmod]

Sorry for the late reply! If the characters are the same people, they can't be nominated in two fandoms. But if there's significant difference they can be.

So Link and Zelda can be in multiple Zelda games when they're different people, but Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa are the same people in Star Wars OT and Star Wars ST.

You can ask for the characters to be any age and at any point in canon (or AU and nothing related to canon) no matter what fandom it's under in the tagset. Are they essentially the same characters and it's just a matter of time passing?

[(Anonymous)]

Will requests be visible during the sign up?

[hurtcomfortexmod]

Yes they will be.

[(Anonymous)]

A bit of a random comment, but did you mean UST for the timezone or did you mean UTC? (Freudian slip, maybe? XD)

[hurtcomfortexmod]

Yes, just a bit of a typo!

[(Anonymous)]

Hello! Just wondering (1) what's the exchange policy on re-dating works once works are revealed and (2) is there a deadline for treats? Thank you!

[hurtcomfortexmod]

Re-dating is up to the author, but generally we suggest once after reveals and once more after author reveals in most fandoms moving quickly enough to push the work down the ao3 page.

There is no deadline for treats, the collection stays open and becomes unmoderated after author reveals.

[(Anonymous)]

Can treats be gifted to more than one person?

[hurtcomfortexmod]

No, treats should be made for and gifted to only one person.

[(Anonymous)]

The deadline on AO3 says 12am EDT and here says 23:59 UTC, both on May 13 but those are (nearly) opposite ends of the day. Can I just check if it's meant to be the first minute of the 13th EDT or the last minute of the 13th UTC?

[prettyarbitrary]

Hiya! Just checking in: do you folks expect to run this exchange this year?

[hurtcomfortexmod]

We plan on it! Expect updated stuff very soon.

[chomiji]

So nominations are closed? I missed it?

[hurtcomfortexmod]

We'll send you a private message on DW.

[(Anonymous)]

Will late treats be approved before author reveals? Or will you be waiting until then to do one last approvals pass?

[hurtcomfortexmod]

We're checking and approving treats as they come in. Ao3 did recently update the collection approval process, so if a treat seems to be taking longer than 24 hours to approve please message us and we can figure out what's going on.

[(Anonymous)]

I tried to save a draft for a participant, but I got the message "We couldn't find the collection Hurt Comfort Exchange 2023". I could only save the draft without a collection.

What did I do wrong? :( I'll try to post the work later (instead of just saving it as a draft), but I wonder if I misspelled the name of the collection?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, the name of the collection is " hurtcomfortex2023 " it needs to be put in exactly like that.

[thedevilchicken]

Sorry to be a pain but I'm just wondering: do signups close at 23:59 on the 15th, or at 12:00am?

The comm says 23:59, but the AO3 collection says 12:00am; 23:59 would be the last minute of the day, but 12:00am would be the first.

[hurtcomfortexmod]

I made a countdown. And it should be the last minute of the 15th, I sometimes get mixed up trying to convert from UTC to EDT/EST.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! I have a question: If I need to default this round (hopefully not!), can I still participate in future rounds? Thanks!

[hurtcomfortexmod]

Absolutely. We have no penalty for simple defaults.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! I was just wondering if it's possible for CCOF to be an option this coming round? For freeform exchanges I sometimes have certain tropes I love to request for any fandom, and CCOF is a great way of doing that.

[hurtcomfortexmod]

I will look into how it usually works in other exchanges and see if it looks like something that would work well for H/C, and have any rules updates done before nominations open.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, someone pointed out one of the dates on the AO3 is incorrect. The sign-ups closing date currently says February 16th when it should say March instead.

[hurtcomfortexmod]

It's been corrected.

Assignments

[killerqueer]

Hi! I'm super excited to participate in the exchange - I was reviewing the schedule and saw that signups close on March 16th and the posting deadline is June 1st, but I don't see an expected date for receiving assignments! Does this mean we will receive them on the day the signups close (3/16) or will there be a delay of a few days to give the mods time to arrange them? Thanks!

Re: Assignments

[hurtcomfortexmod]

It depends on how signups go. If everyone can create for someone else when signups close, they'll go out right away. Realistically, people with no one to create for will be e-mailed and given 24 hours to respond to add more offers or drop out. Then if they drop out any new unmatchables will be contacted and given 24 hours. Usually assignments go out within three days.