KotLC Fairy Tale AU Exchange
| Gift Exchange | |
|---|---|
| Name: | KotLC Fairy Tale AU Exchange |
| Date(s): | May 29, 2024–August 14, 2024 |
| Moderator(s): | Catherine Amber, ghostically, lemontarto, when-all-hope-feels-lost, silveny-dreams, a-lonely-tatertot |
| Founder: | Catherine Amber |
| Type: | "OR" matching on relationships and fairy tales; fanfiction and fanart |
| Scope: | Fairy tale AUs |
| Fandom: | Keeper of the Lost Cities |
| Associated Community: | Keepblr |
| URL: | AO3 Collection, Tumblr blog |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The KotLC Fairy Tale AU Exchange was a 2024 gift exchange run by Catherine Amber, primarily for Keeper of the Lost Cities fans on Keepblr. It matched via AO3 and required participants to join a Discord server for communication. Its style of running, especially the organization of the Discord server, was heavily inspired by Antimony Medusa's MCYT events, such as the MCYT Recursive Exchange. The exchange may have been the first AO3-run exchange in the KotLC fandom's history. It had 22 signups and ended with 54 works in the collection, counting treats, which were a focus.
Tag nominations ran for two weeks, during which participants nominated the relationships and fairy tales they wanted to be part of the exchange. "Fairy tale" operated under a broad definition, allowing AUs to be made out of any story with fairy tale elements, including adaptations (such as Tangled) and participants' original stories. Signups used "OR" matching, so participants would match on one combination of relationship and fairy tale.
The exchange works revealed one day late, due to a late work, then had an anonymous period of six days before author reveals at the scheduled time.
Afterwards, Catherine Amber suggested a few other exchanges for participants to try out, now that many participants had been introduced to AO3 exchanges (or exchanges at all) for the first time. These were the Keeper Big Bang, the Extreme Timed Challenge Multifandom Gift Exchange, and Fic In A Box, which all ran around the time the exchange ended.
Significant Events
Book Club
After works were revealed, but before the Discord server closed, some people on the Discord server ran a "book club" of the works. They would roll a random work in the collection, then create a thread and live discuss it as they read it (or, in the case of fanart, looked at it). The first work that was rolled was this love will end today], the second-longest work in the collection at 21k. Despite this, several did read and discuss the entire work over the course of two hours. This included the author, bookwyrminspiration, who read along pretending not to have written it, since this was during the anonymous period of the exchange. For some fans, this became one of the fondest memories they had of the exchange, and they wished to carry "book club" to future exchanges.
Quil's Prolificacy
Each time a pinch hit came up in the exchange, bookwyrminspiration (Quil) asked Catherine Amber if they could take it. This became a running joke between the two of them, with Quil even trying to get Catherine to let them pinch hit themself.
Catherine Amber: dreaming about the fairy tale exchange and how much fun that was. i am absolutely dragging this fandom into yearly themed exchanges with me for the rest of time nowbookwyrminspiration: #cath let me loose let me loose again cath #let me go ape shit again cath #next year let me pinch hit myself cath #you wanna let me explode cath #you know you wannaCatherine Amber: "next year let me pinch hit myself cath" (Meme of Ben Affleck smoking) #absolutely go crazy that was so much fun. BUT! NEVER!!! #you WILL GET A GIFT. ALWAYS[1]
They picked up two pinch hits total, and in just the month-long creation period, they wrote two fanfictions totaling 41k words, and drew a fully-rendered two-character art piece. During treat week, they created five additional works, mostly fanart. Catherine credited them with being a critical part of helping the exchange run smoothly, and many were impressed by their prolificacy.
Example Works
Fanfiction
- this love will end today: A Brant/Jolie King Midas AU by bookwyrminspiration, for ThatRandomLemonOnYourCounter
- Tangled up in Memories: A Sokeefe Tangled AU by MyFairKatie, for dancing_phantoms_on_the_terrace
- As You Wish: A Sokeefe Ella Enchanted AU by Catherine Amber, for cavenmalore
Fanart
- u good down there?: A Sophie and Amy Foster Alice in Wonderland AU by bookwyrminspiration, for Catherine Amber
- find me among the faerie folk: A Dex/Fitz fae AU by JadeNightTheWriter, for feline_shroomy