Welcome to the VLD Tropes Fest!
This is an all-inclusive, fandom wide fest that welcomes everyone to participate and is open to all pairings.
It’s recommended if you are participating that you follow @vldtropesfest on Tumblr to keep up with important announcements, check-ins, and the actual posting of the submissions!
**You are expected to read, understand, and adhere to the challenge rules. If you do not understand something, it is your responsibility to ask the moderators for clarification.
It is your responsibility to be familiar with the challenge schedule and manage your time.**
Sign Ups - September 22 - October 6
Optional, this one is just to let the mods know if you still plan on participating and how far along you are.
Check-In #2 - November 10
Mandatory, if you miss this check in we’ll assume you have dropped from the fest. You will have one week to respond to the check in. This is to assure that you will be prepared for posting.
Posting Period - December 3 - December 16
Please note this fest will have open posting. This means you will have two weeks in which to post your submissions. You will choose your own posting date within the time frame.
Requirements and Information
Open to ALL ships, characters, and ratings!
1,500 word minimum for fics and art effort equivalent, no upper word limit.
NSFW - NSFW content for this fest will only be accepted if you are over the age of 18. All characters portrayed in sexually explicit situations must be over the age of consent.
Do not discuss your idea publicly before posting. We know you’re going to be super excited to share your work with your friends + followers, but we ask that you do not share your work with anyone except your alpha/beta readers or your collaboration team until after you have posted.
You must tag all art and fiction with any triggers or warnings that apply.
Participants are allowed to register as both Author and Artist.
Authors may write only one story for the challenge. You may co-write, but you may only submit one story.
Sign ups will be accepted via completion of a google form (link will be added when sign ups open)
Your story should be brand new for this challenge or previously unpublished. No part of it may be posted prior to your posting date.
All works must standalone. No cliffhangers.
Your fic must be posted in its entirety on your posting date. Serial posting is prohibited.
All fic submissions must be beta read. Please utilize the @vldbetareaders directory on tumblr to find a beta! The fest will also put out a call for beta signups closer to the submission date for those that need a beta.
All stories must contain at least one trope. We will provide a list of tropes, but you are welcome to come up with your own! There is no limit to how many authors can use the same trope.
Serial posting is not permitted. You must post the entirety of your work all at once. If your fic is not posted in entirety it will be disqualified from the fest.
We will not accept graphics/playlists/moodboards/etc as a submission.
We will accept edits depending on effort to show the trope.
All art must contain at least one trope. We will provide a list of tropes, but you are welcome to come up with your own! There is no limit to how many artists can use the same trope.
If participants are creating traditional artwork, please scan or take a high-quality photo of your piece. CamScanner is an app on both iOS & Android that can help you with this!
Drafts of your artwork should not be made public or promoted on social media until you post.
We will not be setting up collaborations on this fest, but participants are encouraged to work together if they would like to!
If you are collaborating with another author (co-writing) please only submit one form for both of you.
If co-authors are used, any issues that arise will be the sole responsibility of the authors. Moderators will not be asked to get involved. The authors will settle any disputes amongst themselves. If there is a split for any reason, the authors will be given a chance to each submit their own separate works, individually (dependant on time left in the challenge).
If you are collaborating with someone from a different media (ie. artist & author) you will each need to submit a form.
We understand how life gets. It’s okay to drop from the fest. We hope if you do need to drop out that you’ll come back for the next round!
There are no penalties if you drop out late in the game, so if you feel you need to drop wait until the last minute! You never know what you’ll be able to accomplish in the short time that you might have left!
Please use the drop out form if you feel you need to leave the fest, so we can remove you from the mailing lists.
Participants will be dropped if they do not check in at the mandatory second check-in.
We will not be offering extensions. There is a set posting period of two weeks and you will choose your own posting date. If there is any reason you can not post during that period, we recommend that you drop from the fest. We will begin working on the Master Post for this fest on December 17th and no further submissions will be accepted.
We will be promoting all works on the Tropesfest Tumblr page.
You can either post the promo to your Tumblr and we will reblog it, or you can submit the information to us and we will make the post for you.
Templates for Tumblr posts will be provided. Please make sure your post is made properly.
The rules for promotional posts will be sent to you before promotional posting begins.
All fic entries will be posted to AO3 and added to the fest collection.
Art entries will be posted to tumblr (and other platforms as desired by the creator).
All entries will be promoted on Tumblr with a link to the submissions.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the process of posting to AO3 please take a look at this post explaining how everything will work.
**None of these rules are open to interpretation. If you have any questions feel free to contact one of us. In the event of a disagreement all decisions made by moderators are final!**
