Nominations are open!

[press_start_mod]

Nominations are open! You may find the tagset here!

Before we start nominating, some preliminary information.

Character Nominations
You are able to nominate characters and character combinations! This means the following:

• Character A (video game title) - A fanwork where Character A must be the focus;
• group: Character A & Character B (video game title) - A fanwork where the gen relationship of Character A and Character B is the focus;
• group: Character A/Character B (video game title) - a fanwork where the shippy relationship of Character A and Character B is the focus. You are also free to nominate group: Character A/Original Male Character or group: Character A/Original Female Character.
• group: Character A/Character B & Character C (video game title) - a fanwork where the shippy relationship between Character A and B, as well as their gen relationships with Character C are the focus.

The above examples are for two-three characters, but there is no maximum for how many characters can fit into a relationship tag (outside of the character limit in the nomination form itself).

Matching is "OR", meaning that you match on a tag. If you want Character A and Character B in your gift, nominate them as a group. If you nominate each of them separately your creator only has to include one of them. Please keep that in mind when nominating!

Putting the video game title in brackets after your nomination is essential. This is to aid me in identifying wandering tags and in cases where some fandoms are synned to each other in weird ways I can force the tags to go where they need to. Do not nominate without it!

Crossover Fandoms
Crossover character combinations are eligible.

There are some basic rules though so that I don't cry a lot.

• When nominating a crossover, the fandom is Crossover Fandoms. I have already nominated Crossover Fandoms into the tag set so please use that spelling. Not nominating a crossover into this fandom will mean that nomination will be rejected;
• Nominations can be for gen fic or ship fic;
• Nominations are to be written like this: Group: Character A (Video Game 1) & Character B (Video Game 2) (or group: Character A (Video Game)/Character B (Video Game 2);
• There is no limit of the number of characters that are in a tag set, short of AO3's character limit;
• All characters in the crossover combination must be video game characters.

Series of Games
The test for whether a game is part of a series and should be nominated as one is as follows:

1. Is the game marketed as being part of a series (i.e. a trilogy, games set in the same world etc etc);
2. Are the games that make up the series part of the same continuity or different continuity;
3. Is there a significant crossover of major characters between the games?

At the moment:

• Dragon Age (Video Games) is the correct tag for any nomination for Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Dragon Age Inquisition;
• Mass Effect Andromeda is a separate game to the Mass Effect Trilogy;
• Final Fantasy games are separate to one another, except for the ones that are explicitly in continuity with each other;
• Kingdom Hearts is a separate continuity to Final Fantasy;
• The Star Ocean games can be nominated separately;
• The Kiseki/Trails series can be nominated as individual series (i.e. Sora, Sen etc etc)
• Fallout can be nominated separately.
• Final Fantasy VII is separated in Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII Remake.

If you are considering nominating a game that could be a series, or could be a tie-in, please drop a comment below so that I can hash it out with you first.

Eligibility of Games
For a game to be eligible it must:

• Be released by the time that signups close; and
• Not be heavily dependent on another, non-video game canon.
• If it is a game that is coming out in instalments, one instalment must be released.

Finally, a reminder: if you defaulted after the no-penalty default deadline in previous years, you remain ineligible to participate in this round until you complete your penalty gift. If you don't remember what you need to do, please email me and I will let you know what you need to do!

Otherwise, happy nominations! Noms close 11:59pm on 29 June.

Comments

[rubylily]

I spotted a duplicate under Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses:

group: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Female Byleth (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Group: Female Byleth/Edelgard von Hresvelg (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)

[thedevilchicken]

Okay, time for me to argue for Assassin's Creed to be split up!

It's an All Media Types tag, so all the games (and books, comics, audio drama, movie) are included in there. Aside from that, I'd argue that the main games are separate enough for them to be split from each other.

Basically: the games are connected by the modern storyline, which is becoming less and less important (in terms of plot and in terms of playtime in-game) as the series progresses.

The bulk of the games themselves centres on different casts in different time periods in different countries (Renaissance Italy, Greece during the Peloponnesian War, Revolutionary France, etc.). They're only connected by the concept of Assassins vs Templars (and in the case of Origins and Odyssey, not even that), and the vague idea of there having been people who came before humans and left artefacts behind. None of the backstory of which you need to know in order to understand the main plot of an individual game. It's completely possible to be into one part of the series in isolation and the story of the others just not matter at all.

Crossover of characters is generally limited to a) brief cameos or mentions, or b) the modern storyline, which represents a tiny portion of each game's playtime. Without the modern storyline, they're in continuity with each other the way human history is in continuity, and you probably wouldn't nominate Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc and Judi Dench in the same fandom. ;)

The issues I can see with splitting the games would be:

1) crossovers (because if you wanted e.g. Ezio from the Ezio Trilogy and Jacob from Syndicate, well, they're 400 years apart and not in the same games)
2) it would be theoretically possible to have an all-Assassin's Creed signup if you wanted more than one game
3) there are also games outside the main series, like the Chronicles games (which could be nominated separately) and the mobile games (which I've never seen anyone request, but I also don't know enough about them to make any suggestions)

I'd probably split this into the individual games, except 2/Brotherhood/Revelations together as the Ezio Trilogy. Crossovers between games I'd suggest either its own crossover tag (some exchanges have used a separate crossover tag for in-universe Star Wars crossovers, for example) or Crossover Fandom.

I'm arguing for splitting primarily because I do think it should be split, but also because it's possible to run up against the 6 character limit for requests very, very quickly if you're into multiple Assassin's Creed games - they have huge, separate casts and you'd be over 6 just by having one ship per game.

[laughingpineapple]

I never thought I'd see the day when my rare OTP had a duplicate:

Group: Volfred Sandalwood/Tariq (Pyre)
group: Volfred Sandalwood/Tariq | The Lone Minstrel (Pyre)

[silverwill]

Noticed a dupe in the FF7 Remake set:

Biggs & Wedge & Jessie (FF7R)
Group: Biggs & Jessie Rasberry & Wedge (FFVII Remake)

[tiny_ninja]

One more duplicate - Celes Chere appears twice under Final Fantasy VI!

Celes Chere (Final Fantasy VI
Celes Chere (Final Fantasy VI)

[isis]

Is it okay to nominate games without specifying characters, for requests focusing on worldbuilding where any character could be used?

Is it okay to nominate original characters specific to the game? Like, Original Qunari Character for Dragon Age?

[rynling]

What should be done about the Legend of Zelda games?

I'm given to understand that "continuity" is a touchy subject in some circles, but I'd argue that most of the games are distinct from one another in a similar manner to the games in the Final Fantasy series, at least for the purpose of this tagset.

Perhaps it might be worth considering the general tag, "The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms," as separate from the tags for each game (such as "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" and so on).

I didn't see any of the tags already on the tagset, but I apologize if I'm missing something!