T&N

The fest’s only real requirement is that your creations focus on canon divergence. It’s entirely up to you what pairing or pairings (or none at all — your creations don’t have to feature romantic/sexual pairings) you want to feature, what length/medium and what rating you want to go for. We trust you to tell whatever story you want to tell and make the right choices for it. As long as it’s canon divergence, the world is your oyster. Have fun!

TIMELINE

The prompting period will be from September 8th to September 14th.

The sign up period will be from September 15th until the 21st and you’ll be able to either claim a prompt from the list or sign-up with your own idea.

Artists, writers and podficcers will then have until the deadline on October 19th to finish and post their creations.

Posting will start on October 27th and we will stagger the posting of your creations so that everyone has time to read, enjoy, and hype up every creation. 

Reveals will happen on the 15th of November.

Let’s go through what every step entails:

PROMPTING

Prompting will open on September 8th, and will end on September 14th. Anyone can prompt and you can prompt as many ideas as you’d like using our form.

Once you open the form, you’ll be asked for the following info:

- pairing (if applicable)

- your prompt (this can be as detailed or as vague as you want it to be)

- if your prompt is nsfw (so that creators browsing the prompts can filter those out if they want)

- your ao3 username (optional)

This fest isn’t an exchange so all prompts are there for inspiration in the first place. Creators do not have to include every single detail of a prompt if they pick it, but do have to use the main idea as a starting point for their works. If you leave your ao3 username when prompting, the creators can choose to gift the fic to you, though this isn’t at all a requirement.

Note that if you’re wanting to write your own idea, you don’t have to prompt it and then claim it later. There will be an option for self-prompting once sign-ups open!

SIGN-UPS/CLAIMING

The prompt list with all the available prompts will be live from the moment prompting opens. Prompts might take a few hours to pop up after being added via the prompting form but you’ll be able to check the list every day during the prompting period, so you can start gathering potential picks to claim.

Sign-ups will open on September 15th. Please note that while claiming was open until the deadline last year, you only have until the 21st to sign up this time around.

The sign-up form will ask you for your name, ao3 username and an email we can use to contact you. Email will be the main form of contact between the mods and the creators so please keep this in mind when signing up.

You’ll be asked to specify if you’re creating art or fic, and if you’re claiming a prompt or self-prompting.

You can then pick a prompt from the list to claim it if that’s what you’re doing, or leave a short description of your idea if you’re self-prompting.

For the sake of the form, podfics count as art. If you’re podficcing, please leave the link to the original fic in the prompt box.

There will also be a box for any questions/comments.

The prompts left during the prompting period will only be available for claiming once for art and once for fic. 

The option to sign-up as a team (either co-writers, co-artists or a writer+artist team) will be available. Co-writers will be asked to sign-up only once, and leave the information that you’re co-writing in the questions/comments/concerns box. Writer and artist teams will be asked to each sign-up individually, but let us know that you are collaborating in the questions/comments box, too.

Creators will be limited to one prompt.

CREATING

Submissions must be completely new and finished works. Unfortunately, this means no sequels for previous fics or comics you may have, and no finishing WIPs you’ve already started posting.

Even though this is an anonymous fest, we understand the rampant issue that is reposting and art stealing, so all artists are allowed to submit watermarked/signed works. You will also be given the option to take part in the fest and post your work to the collection, but for it to be posted after reveals, so it’s never anonymous.

There is no minimum word count for fics. We trust that you know the best way to tell your story, and only ask that your works are tagged appropriately and follow the prompt (if applicable) and theme.

Having your fics beta-read isn’t a requirement, but if you’d like yours beta-read and don’t know how to reach out to a beta reader feel free to ask the modding team and we can get you in touch with someone! 

Podficcers are welcome to choose any fic previously posted on Ao3 that fits the Then & Never theme to read/record, as long as the original poster allows for podfics of their work to be made. 

As you know, the fest will be posting anonymously so we ask you to be creative when sharing wip snippets. We trust you to know what would easily identify your fic once it posts and what is vague enough to slip through the cracks ;) 

We will NOT be accepting AI-generated art or fic.

DEADLINE; CHECK-INS, EXTENSIONS AND POSTING

We will be emailing every participant during the creation period, but your final deadline for posting is October 19th. You can submit your work as soon as you have it done, though.

You’ll get detailed instructions for posting to the collection via email, and we’ll post those on both tumblr and twitter closer to the posting date. Following these instructions is crucial so that your work ends up in the collection and remains hidden until we post it and anonymous until reveals.

We’ll be sending every participant a check-in email during the creation period, but we promise that isn’t as scary as it sounds! We won’t be asking you to show us what you’re working on, or how much you have already. We just want to make sure you’re having a good time :)

If you need to drop out, please don’t hesitate and do not feel guilty. Shit happens, we get it. We only ask that you do it as early as possible, so we can adjust the posting schedule accordingly. If you need a few days past the deadline to finish, we should be able to give some people extensions too, just keep us in the loop.

There’s a lot of behind the scenes invisible work put into this by your modding team so we’d rather be told “hey, I’m really sorry but I’m not going to meet the deadline” than being ghosted. We’re all adults here, let’s respect each other’s time and efforts.

It is our priority above all that everyone enjoys taking part, so we’re here to minimise stress and worries. 

When posting, don’t forget to add AFTG Then & Never 2024 as one of your tags and post your work to the collection — this will make sure it remains anonymous and hidden until we release it out into the world. Please don’t leave any references that reveal who you are before the anon period is over. You can add all your usual social media links and other potentially-revealing info when reveals happen.

You can find the collection here, and you’ll be able to find it when posting if you type AFTG_thenandnever on the “Post to Collections / Challenges” section.

There will also be a form to fill in with your name, the title of the work you submitted and the link to the work, that you can fill once you’ve posted. The link to this will be shared with you in the posting instructions email :)

(A little note: after you hit 'post' the work will be hidden in the collection until we reveal it, so the easiest way to get to it should you want to edit or just to copy the link is to go through your stats page.)

But don’t worry, we will be reinforcing all of this as we go along!! This is just so you have all the information in one place!

Once your work is posted by us, remember to change the date to the day it’s posted so it appears on top of the list for your pairing/the fandom, instead of the date you submitted it into the collection.

The whole point of this is for it to be a fun and enjoyable experience both for the participants and the readers so we’ll be running lots of activities and hyping up every work as we go along! Please keep an eye on our twitter and tumblr and join in :)

If you have any issues at any point, we’re here to help and to answer any doubts or questions. Do keep in mind we all live in different timezones and are unfortunate victims to the capitalist grindset. If you DM/ask/email us, we promise to get back to you ASAP.

We hope you have lots and lots of fun!!

💚 Your mods,