Relationshipping Exchange

Hi everyone!

New management here. The 2026 schedule should be posted in the next 3-4 weeks, and you can expect mid or late July-Sept, potentially (but hopefully not!) stretching into early Oct for delays. 

But I'd like to talk about something else!

Nominations for this exchange are currently pretty complicated, and they always have been complicated, since mods used to have to confirm that characters were related before approving nominations. Sometimes that's straightforward, and sometimes the nomination is for a rare fandom without a wiki and no clues in the names that characters are related. This puts a lot of - I think unnecessary - stress on the mod, and the alternative used last year (marking every character by how they're related) seems to have made things more complicated or confusing for participants.

Since this exchange has always been so open and welcome to AUs (something that I've loved about it since its early days, thank you TDC!), I wonder if we might make things a little bit easier on everyone by removing the requirement to list how characters are related (unless of course there is an AU you'd like to bake into your nomination), and treat any unrelated ships without specific relationships baked in as an "Any type of relative" AU request, since we will always allow AUs. 

This removes the obligation of the mod to spend hours researching incest ships during nomination approvals, and also makes approval the default, which means participants don't have to keep as close an eye on the exchange dreamwidth for fear of their ship getting a query post without their noticing, and not ending up in the tagset. However, there's a caveat to this approach. If your fandom is very complex, ongoing, or the relationship is implied but not stated overtly, it's possible that a canonically related pair being canonically related might have slipped past your assigned creator, leading them to treat it as an "AU any" request, instead of researching the canon further or sending you a question through the mod. It's also possible you and your assigned creator have different opinions as to how a pair are related to begin with, potentially leading to disappointment.

If we (speaking collectively here - I want to work with you on the best solution for the exchange!) go forward with this approach, it would be very wise to state somewhere in your signup if you suspect that your ship might not be so obviously related to other people as it is to you (e.g., recently revealed to be related, the creator of the media said in an interview/on social media they're relatives, it's hidden in item flavor text in a video game canon, etc) a note that clarifies their canonical relationship. Basically what you'd have replied to a query post with here a few years ago! 

DNWing AU relationships other than the canonical relationship would be permissible. DNWing a particular kind of relationship on an unspecified AU relationship would NOT be permissible, but stating a positive preference (e.g., "I especially like brother/brother and brother/half-brother ships!") is always welcome. As always, DNWing incest would NOT be permissible. This is an incest exchange.

I'd love your feedback on this, and look forward to another year of Relationshipping!