hitmanexchange | Hitman Valentine's Date 2024 Announcement & Schedule (Reply)

Welcome to Hitman Valentine's Date,
an annual relationship-focused gift fic exchange for the Hitman fandom!

Hitman Valentine's Date 2024 Collection

General Links
2024 Collection | 2024 Tag Set | hitmanexchange | hitmanexchange

Schedule

January 7 – Nominations Open

January 14 – Nominations Close

January 14 – Sign-Ups Open

January 21 – Sign-Ups Close

January 21 – Assignments Out

February 10 – Assignments Due

February 14 – Gift Reveals (16:59 UTC)

February 19 – Creator Reveals (16:59 UTC)

All times are 23:59 UTC unless otherwise specified.

The Basics

Hitman Valentine’s Date is a relationship-focused gift exchange for the Hitman fandom. Relationships can be platonic/familial or romantic/sexual.

Assignments should have a minimum wordcount of 500 words.

What is a gift exchange?

Each participant offers to write a story about characters or pairings of their choosing, and in return gets to request to receive a story about characters or pairings of their choosing.

Nominations

The first phase of Hitman Valentine’s Date is nominations, where you submit the characters, relationships and additional tags that you are interested in writing or receiving in this exchange to the tag set. Each person can nominate ten character or relationship tags and ten additional tags. The tag set is what participants will use for their requests and offers later in the process.

What fandoms are eligible?

Hitman (Video Games), Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman (Comics), Hitman: Enemy Within, Hitman: Damnation

Nominations Format

You can nominate relationships and additional tags.

Nominating Relationships

Your Valentine’s Date doesn’t have to be romantic! Platonic dates are welcome, too!

You may nominate / or & relationships. "A/B" is a romantic or sexual relationship; "A & B" is a platonic or familial relationship.

Please alphabetise ships by family name.

Nominating Additional Tags

You may nominate additional tags to shape the Valentine’s date you’re looking for. Try to come up with fun activities and situations for the characters! It’ll make it easier to suggest prompts later when you sign up, and it’ll make it easier to write your assignment.

Requests

How many requests can I add?

You can add up to four requests (minimum: one) to your sign-up.

Additional Tags

For each request, you can include up to twenty additional tags from our 2024 tag set. If you’d like to suggest a specific scenario, add it to your request’s description.

Try to find the right balance between an interesting idea that gives authors something to work with and a too restrictive request.

Relationships

You may add one relationship to each of your requests. Make sure to request the correct ship tag — A/B for romantic or sexual interactions, A & B for platonic or familial interactions.

DNW and Letters

You also have the option to add a link to a letter. These can be very useful to give your writer ideas for possible gifts. It can also be invaluable for telling them what you do not want at all.

If you have anything you Do Not Want (DNW), it must be in the request directly to be enforceable. Authors should respect the Do Not Want list; however, the requester should not abuse it to try and force the author into a corner. Do Not Wants that appear only in an external letter will not be enforced.

Am I guaranteed a gift?

Yes, this is a gift exchange. Each participant will write one story and receive one story in return.

Offers

How many offers can I add?

You can add up to six offers (minimum: one) to your sign-up. In case your offer makes you unmatchable, you will be contacted via email and given the option to add another offer.

Assignments

Minimum Requirements

The minimum requirements are low: 500 words. If you want to write more, you can!

Assignments need to include the requested relationship and relationship dynamics. They don’t have to include the scenario suggested in your recipient’s request, but it is highly encouraged. Works may not include any of the DNWs listed in your recipients sign-up. You only need to write one story according to one of you recipient’s requests.

Works need to be newly published for this exchange and created by you.

Posting

Either go to your Assignment page on AO3, which you can find under the "Assignments" link on your Profile page, or go to the Hitman Valentine’s Date subcollection page and click on "Your Assignment". You should see two buttons at the top right of your Valentine’s Date assignment: "Fulfill", and "Default".

Click "Fulfill", and you'll be taken to a posting form. This will automatically post your story into the current year's Valentine’s Date collection. It also has your recipient's name already filled in. All you need to do is fill in the rest of the form, preview it to make sure it looks okay, and post.

If you're posting a treat, you won't have an assignment or "Fulfill" button. Instead, go to the subcollection and click on "Post to Collection" under the collection title. This will take you to a form with the challenge collection name already filled in. Fill in the recipient's name manually, then fill in the rest of the form, preview it to make sure it looks okay, and post.

Deadline

Assignments are due February 10th, to make sure there’s enough time to find pinch hitters if needed.

Work Reveals

The works will be revealed on February 14th, as soon as every participant has at least one gift.

Anonymity

Works are anonymous until creator reveals, the Monday after work reveals. Please do not add anything to your work that gives away your identity, including adding the work to a non-anonymous series.

Additional Gifts (Treats)

If you’d like to write an additional story for your recipient or for another participant in the exchange, you may do that. Please make sure that the recipient of your treat has additional gifts enabled and is open for treats.

If you’re open for treats, make sure that you have additional gifts enabled in your user settings, and leave a note about it in your requests.

Be friendly!
Make sure that your prompts and your fanworks do not contain any hostile elements towards people you disagree with in any part of the fanwork (title, tags, summary, author's notes, body text). Refrain from adding DNI notes.

If you shame or harass other participants, or if there are signs that you have deliberately caused problems in multiple exchanges, the mod will delete your signup.