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I wanted to write this before but I was out of town during author reveals. Home now, though, and still highly entertained by this particular exchange experience.

Bite-Sized is only in its second year. It's an exchange for anything that takes fewer than eight hours to complete, so movies, miniseries, stand-alone books, short games. And, most notably in this case, songs.

See, I nominated a couple of songs for the fandom pool for this exchange. Specifically, I nominated a song called Tale of the Shadow, an original shanty by the artist Sail North. It was then one of my requests for the exchange, and I wasn't the only one requesting it, which was pretty cool.

When assignments went out, I got assigned to the other person requesting Tale of the Shadow. That was pretty exciting, I had some ideas, I got it written and posted fairly thoroughly ahead of the deadline.

I was also excited when my own gift appeared, and went to check on which of my requested fandoms it was for.

Tale of the Shadow.

That made me laugh, since it was also what I had written (and yes, it turned out the other Tale of the Shadow requester and I had indeed written for each other).

However, then I got a second gift. This was also very exciting. I haven't been participating in exchanges all that long, and this was the first treat I had ever gotten. All eager to learn some details, I went to check the fandom.

Tale of the Shadow.

I was incredulous but delighted. What a fun thing to happen.

Then I got a third gift, and might have been holding my breath when I went to look at the fandom.

Tale of the Shadow.

By this point, between what I'd written and the gifts I'd received, we'd tripled the number of fics for this song on ao3. There had been two, prior to this exchange.

(To my excitement and delight, I stunningly received a fourth gift, but it broke the streak, and was instead written for the book A Sorceress Comes to Call.)

Anyway, it was a hilarious and wonderful exchange experience, and I had a lot of fun with it this year. The gifts I received were all really excellent: ( Read more... )

In addition to my own official assignment for Tale of the Shadow, I also ended up writing one treat for this exchange this year, for the movie Ladyhawke. ( Read more... )

I've really enjoyed this exchange both years I've participated in it. Will definitely be keeping an eye out for it next year as well.

This year I participated in Highlander Holiday Shortcuts, for the second year running, and in Yuletide, for my first year. I've been dipping my toes into the waters of several fic events, over the last year, and I was pretty excited to participate in these.

That being said, when I sign up for exchanges I frequently sort of forget that I'm going to be receiving a gift, as well as writing one. I mostly just really enjoy the writing, and then I remember I get a gift too, and it's such an exciting treat.

And holy shit, my gifts for these two exchanges have blown me away.

( Read more... )

Gradually working my way through reading the other stories in these exchange collections (or at least the ones for fandoms I'm into, for yuletide, because wow there's so many), and there's some really excellent stuff. I'm really enjoying the chance to read so many great stories.

HLH Shortcuts is imminent, and signups have moved to ao3 this year! I've only participated once before now, but this is a bit of a different process, so I've got here a bit of a guide for that process!

( Read more... )

Additional note and tip from Killabeez: You are welcome to copy/paste previous years' signups into the "What I'd like to receive" field, as long as you also choose between 3 and 20 characters from those available under the 'Characters' dropdown menu, for both receiving and offering!

Hopefully this is helpful!