Creator Reveals!

[pumpkinkingmod]

Creators have been revealed! Thank you everyone for a great round, you all did amazing work.

Community Challenge Results
At last count, the community treated 234 people—85% of participants. Congratulations! The prize badges for Tiers 1 and 2 can be found at this post.

Thank you again to the anonymous artist for the custom badges, and thank you to shadowsapiens for running the treating spreadsheet.

2021 Feedback
I would love to get feedback on how the exchange went for participants this year, including:

- In general, is there anything that could be better clarified in the FAQ for next year?
- How was your experience with the community challenge?
- Did the addition of relationship matching negatively or positively impact your matchability, finding people to treat, etc?

Note: I won't be replying to every comment here but will get to questions as I can. If you'd prefer to give feedback privately, my email is halloweenmod@gmx.com.

I'll confirm whether TOT 2022 will include the option of relationship matching by the end of this month, so everyone has time to plan their 2022 exchange calendars.

Comments

[vialethe]

Love the ship matching in addition to character matching, it makes it so much easier to find people who are interested in receiving what I want to write!

[eggsbenedict]

Thanks for running this! I chose not to request ships this time around, but I offered a mix of characters and ships. I don't really mind having the mixture of character/ship matching, though I'd still lean towards character matching given the choice (especially as an artist).

An earlier reveal time would be great, too. The 31st won't always fall on a Sunday, and at least one group of timezones is always going to suffer, but reveals being 6-12 hours earlier would make enough of a difference.

[laughingpineapple]

Loved the community challenge - simple and aimed where it matters. Much appreciated, thank you.

The timing of the collection reveal didn't impact me personally but I agree with others that it could probably benefit from some tweaking.

However, the single character matching was the main draw of the exchange for me and it has made things less fun for me, so if relationship matching persists I'll probably drop this.

[(Anonymous)]

If you're going to keep ship matching then I really hope you stress in the rules that requests for characters aren't limited to only gen. That was the major draw for me and many others. TOT always had a sweet grab bag sort of allure where you could request characters and gave a list of / and & ships you enjoyed, and you didn't know what you were getting, much in the spirit of trick or treating. While I do see the usefulness of ship matching for anyone wishing to avoid requests for their NOTP, I do worry it created the mindset that anyone who requested characters will only receive gen regardless of their prompts. I have seen a few reports from those who had all character requests with ship ODs only received gen.

[(Anonymous)]

As a gen writer I was worried about adding ship matching, but it worked for me! In previous years I often wrote for people who wanted shippy fic: not a good match for them or me, but it was hard to avoid these mismatches. This year I could offer characters and & relationships and match to people who were interested in the same things as me.

My vote would therefore be to keep this combination of relationship and character matching. Then everybody has options to request what they want.

[stefanyeah]

I didn't treat as much as I had hoped, but that was life being life.

As for ship adding, I matched on solo and treated solo and a gen ship. Thanks to the new and sparkling app, looking for treats was easier than ever, so no increase of work involved either. If Shipoween doesn't return, I'm fine with having ships on board.
If Shipoween runs again, I'd say return to character matching as Tot's "unique selling point".

[(Anonymous)]

Is Shipoween coming back?

Am I correct in thinking if Shipoween comes back, ToT will return to character matching only?

[eclipsemidnight]

Thanks for running this exchange! It was great fun as usual--I'm sort of neutral about ship matching, I didn't request or offer it and ended up with something fun to write just fine, but I hope you definitely keep character matching.

[(Anonymous)]

Another vote for going back to character matching only and opening earlier.

[anaraine]

For some belated feedback, I didn't sign up for ToT this year because of the changes to matching, though I did still pinch hit. The addition of relationship matching made me much less enthusiastic about the exchange as a whole, so the community challenge wasn't even really on my radar, though I've happily participated in the past.

I also think that the time of reveals for ToT wasn't great, given that Halloween was practically over when it happened, and would support pushing that back by several hours at least.

If ToT goes back to character only matching, I will definitely be back next year! But if it doesn't, I probably won't return. I really didn't like the addition of relationship matching, and it definitely fucked with how I looked for people to treat (/and would have negatively impacted my matchability, had I signed up, given the fandoms I normally go for).

[(Anonymous)]

I'm late to the party, but I wanted to say that relationship matching improved my experience and I hope it stays! I only treated in previous years and this is the first time I signed up. I mostly asked for characters but I did get fic for a ship request and I was thrilled by it.

I'm fine with reveals being the time they were, but I suspect I'm in a different time zone from most participants, so I'm also fine with them being moved up.

[evilmuffins]

Loved relationship matching. I greatly prefer to read ship fic, and hadn't signed up the past few years because I didn't want to risk receiving gen. Solved the issue and I had a great time!

[abrightshiningstar]

I would be happier if we returned to character only matching.

[(Anonymous)]

The one thing I would like to see changed is when the collection is revealed. Twelve to fifteen hours earlier would be ideal to me, but any earlier at all would be much appreciated.

I loved the addition of relationship matching and hope it sticks around. I might treat next year if it's removed, but I wouldn't sign up. Relationship matching makes it easier for me to decide on offers and find things to treat. Either way, it was fun this year. Thanks for running this!