#submission guidelines

Submit to [email protected]

This guide is available in PDF form upon request, just shoot us an email!

What you can submit to this zine:

You may submit writing up to around 3000 words, though less is completely fine. Average submission expected to be around 1500 words. You may write smutty horror fiction, gothic poetry, or you may write about a real life kink scene (it's up to you to keep your playmates safe! Make sure that the information of participants other than yourself is adequately anonymised). The subject line for these should be "Writing submission" and a name/identifier.

You may submit art or photography in greyscale or colour (please use cmyk formatting for digital art!). All photography subjects must be 18 years or older and participants must consent to their photograph being shared. The subject line for these should be "Image submission" and a name/identifier.

You may submit photographs of only your own body parts for our anonymous back cover collage. The subject line for these should be "Body part submission" and a name/identifier.

You may submit a letter to the editor to chat about whatever you want regarding this project—usually used to comment on content from previous issues. The subject line for these should be "Letter to the editor" and a name/identifier.

Note: Identifiers used in subject lines will be used for internal organising purposes only, not published in the zine!

What's allowed?

This is a space for horror smut & dark fetish above anything else. We invite the gross, gothic, gorey corners of your mind to unfold in good company. Fictionalised taboo content which is welcome here includes but is not limited to:

Kidnapping, abduction, stalking

Coercion, manipulation, abuse

Dubcon, rape, molestation

Death, snuff, necrophilia

Violence, beatings, guro

Incest, bestiality, power dynamics

Transformation, mind control, dollification

Body modification, sharps, scarification

Gender play, orientation play, blurplay (system kink)

Bodily fluids, scent, mess

If you have something nasty that's not on this list, send it in. The worst we'll do is say no, but we might love it! We prioritise erotic depiction of marginalised groups as expressed by people from those groups.

What's not allowed?

Okay, but some limits here. Everything that makes it into this zine is up to our discretion in the end, but here's some general stuff we won't publish:

Cop, Nazi, MAGA or white supremacy kinks

Intentional weight loss/starvation kinks

Depictions of genuine assault or photographs of nonconsenting individuals

Heavy/extreme ageplay [ageplay or age gaps are welcome as a layer on a piece, but preferably not as the main focus]

Fanfiction [characters you have developed out of a fan concept are fine, but if I need the context of a film or book to understand your piece properly it doesn't belong here]

Off-theme [the theme is: horror, smut. We are generous with our interpretations of both, but not to the point of incoherence]

AI-generated works

Dickheadery [don't use this zine as a platform to harass a person, group, or type-of-person]

We're pretty open to a lot of things. Don't make me add to this list :D

Sumbission details:

Or, what info should I send with my submission? You should of course send a file containing your submission, whether that's a PDF with your writing in it or a PNG with your art. You're welcome to scan something physical or photograph a sculpture, we'll do our best to fit it into the zine—format isn't a huge deal, but something my computer can read is necessary. Each page of the zine will be half an A4 page in size, so bear this in mind regarding how much detail will be seen by the viewer. [If there is interest, we may publish a large-print version of the zine—let us know!]

With every submission email, we need your written confirmation that you understand that this zine will be published both physically and online, and that you (and any participating parties, such as photography subjects) consent to have your work published in this way. This consent can be revoked at any time prior to publication via email.

Please let us know if there are any important stylistic choices present in your piece we might not think to keep such as font, colour, etc. While we will be trying to edit the zine into something cohesive, we'll do our best to showcase your artistic vision! We will not edit grammar or spelling of submissions unless requested, though we are absolutely happy to do so for anyone who wants a proofreader.

Part of the curation of this zine will involve the notation of up to 10 content "tags" per written submission to help a reader decide if a piece might not be for them. A tag is a word or phrase which describes an aspect of your piece—"bondage" "wolves" and "feet" are all tags which might apply to different content. Please feel free to suggest your own tags for your submissions.

You are welcome to send multiple submissions in multiple categories. You are welcome to submit writing or comics with intent for serialisation—we'd love to have ongoing pieces across multiple zines. You are welcome to submit pieces which have been published elsewhere. You are welcome to submit multiple different pieces to be displayed next to each other.

We do not guarantee publication to anybody on the basis of prior publication or social cache. A reply to your submission is only guaranteed if it is accepted. We may hold your submission for use in a future volume of Vile Things—please make us aware if you do not wish for us to do so.

You are welcome to submit further biography alongside your piece & we'll do our best to fit it in, but none of these details are necessary—if you're worried about being identified please just don't give details! The following are examples of things you might share with the audience:

Submission title (absolutely anything)

Submission details (description, content notes?)

Name/pronouns (whatever you want!)

Age ("mid 30's" is fine)

Area (as vague as you like!)

Website (is there somewhere readers can find your work?)

Additional notes (anything you'd like to add?)

Note: Submissions to the back cover collage will be published with no biography details as the collage is intended to be anonymous.

Submit to [email protected]

What if I get in?

Accepted participants will recieve an email response prior to publication with details. Participants will recieve a digital copy of the zine (incl. a print formatted version), as well as a physical copy if they'd like (though I'm not forcing anyone to share their address). That's it! Then you get to say "look at me, I'm published in a zine!" and hope to hell your friends know what that means.

Join our mailing list!

Stay updated with the latest zine drops and submission calls. We we will never spam you! In the age of social media, we simply don't trust that we won't get our accounts nuked constantly. This is the best way to stay connected.

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Just keep it PG-13, no erotica, no heavy gore/body horror! Vampires have always endured because they adapt to the times. So should your story. Your vampire might be:

Ancient or newly turned

Monstrous or sympathetic

Bound by rules or breaking every single one

Feeding on blood… or something else entirely (if not blood, however, give us a solid reason for the departure!)

We welcome all vampire traditions, tones, and styles. Classic, modern, folkloric, experimental. What we ask is this:
 Bring us something that feels alive (undead!). To keep this anthology fresh and meaningful, every story must include at least one of the following elements:

A meaningful cost of immortality

A twist or inversion of a known vampire rule

A moral dilemma connected to survival, hunger, or power

A legacy, lineage, or inheritance element

A moment of invitation, permission, or crossing a boundary

A unique or non-traditional method of feeding

All of these fit the requirement of a Haunting vampire. Your interpretation is yours to craft. Please stray from a story filled with obvious tropes. It's not an automatic rejection to have a head-of-a-lineage vampire living in a castle on a hill with succubus girlfriends and a handsome protagonist under a delirious spell... but we ask that our writers think outside the box.

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You can see by the final bit of the guidelines that Dracula would be disqualified. Sure they say it's not an automatic rejection but look at the wording. The disrespect.

It also confuses me on what 'heavy' gore is but the body horror as well. Because a lot of vampire tales involve the initial death and rebirth and that can be gross but is it body horror? I don't know.

The last list and final bit is what's getting me. What's giving me the same garbage so many of these horror submission guidelines do anymore.

"You have to be fresh and new but also still be about the thing, it has to be the thing, recognizably the thing but completely different from everyone else's version and especially the classics that made the thing."

What do they want?

Vampire coffeeshop? Another little vampire book? Mister sweet old man across the hall who never seems to sleep or leave his house and always has a mustache like he just drank some juice? The fuck do you want from me?

Because I'll be honest, half the time these places are asking for vampire stories what they really want are ghosts. They want ghosts. But they want sexy ghosts, tragic ghosts, ghosts that can touch you but not like that, no never like that (only Dan Aykroyd gets away with that).

'Adapt to the times' but also we welcome all traditions, tones and styles. Except no tropes from the classics.

Make sure you read the REFERENCE GUIDE first!

You can either @homestucklineup OR you can submit through our submission box! We will reblog from you or post your submission.

If you are submitting through the submission box, please make sure you put in the description your art social so we can credit you!

We will not accept submissions from any problematic individuals! (Problematic as in breaking BASIC DNI)

If it looks like the above, you should be good! Also, feel free to submit multiple artworks! If your artwork of the character is different enough from the previous submission, we will count it. :)

The Drarry Rec Room is a space for 18+ Drarry fans to share recommendations based on a rotating theme, category, or trope voted on by the community.

Feel free to submit theme suggestions at any time! The ask box is always open to general suggestions, questions and concerns about the blog itself.

Submission Guidelines (below the cut):

Hi all, I've gotten a big influx of followers so I think it's time I make a proper pinned post explaining the submissions and asks guidelines for this blog,,,

Submissions and asks are open!!! Also feel free to DM me to submit stuff as an alternative,,

Submission Guidelines:

If in doubt about something, feel free to send it anyway, and I can decide whether it's suitable for the blog or not.

As a general rule of thumb, I do not post photos where human's faces are clearly visible, where animals are having sex, or where animals are dead (with an exception to non-gorey predation) or severely injured. Clean skulls are usually fine.

If two or more bugs are stacked on top of eachother that is usually sex. iNaturalist has tags on posts that state whether an animal is reproducing in an observation, you usually have to scroll down a bit to find it though.

Please leave a link to the source, it has to come from iNaturalist.

The image has to be chaotic, I appreciate that sometimes I break my own rules here and that the lines of chaotic or not are blurred, but generally I just post something if it makes me laugh or go "oh my god that's crazy". The more it stands out as strange the better, but submissions where the animal or the chaos is difficult to see will likely be rejected. (This doesn't include animals that are literal blurs or have glowing eyes, motion blur and glowing eyes often makes it better if anything.)

There is a chance I may have already queued up whatever you submit, if so I will just edit the queue to add the submission tag and "submitted by [your @]" at the end.

Try not to submit something that's already been posted on tumblr by either me or someone else if you can help it.

If you find something that's already beed posted on tumblr, and it comes from iNaturalist, send me a link to the post!! It's really difficult to find stuff to reblog so sending me links to tumblr posts is helpful!

Ask and DM Guidelines:

There's a chance I may update this later, but as it stands there are no guidelines currently other than just common sense "be nice" rules. If you want to send in a submission anonymously, asks is probably the best way to do it. If I don't like a question I just won't answer it.

Once you get too deep into the sauce it usually starts appearing in your dreams, too. And most of the time it's really amusing; a bit like extra material for our favourite guys that no one could come up with in a conscious state.

But although it's fun to hear everyone's dreams, they sadly also have no real place in a fandom - so I created one.

So if you want to share your nightly creations or read what others' brains have come up with, this is the place for you!

How to submit your dreams:

There are several elements the authors must include in their submissions in order for @rc-catalog to include the work in the masterlist and weekly roundup. Submissions missing the information will not be reblogged until they are corrected (the creator will be contacted by one of the mods).

Fanfiction/Art MUST INCLUDE:

Title [REQUIRED]

Pairing and/or characters [REQUIRED]

Romantic pairing should be marked by the letter x between the characters names, e.g. Vicky x Malbonte.

Platonic relationships should be marked by the symbol & between the characters names, e.g. Vicky & Sammy.

Trigger warnings [REQUIRED]

Trigger warnings are subjective, but if you think that certain topics may cause discomfort to your readers, please state them in warnings. If you are not sure whether you should use a warning, you can always contact the mods, we will try to help!

Examples of topics which should be included in trigger warnings: death, violence, sexual harassment/abuse, drug/alcohol use, racism*, sexism*, -phobia*, -erasure, suicide, mental health issues, etc.

With all of these you may state: mentioned, implied, attempted etc., for instance "racism mentioned" to make it more clear what the reader should expect.

*PLEASE NOTE: these triggers are only applicable for themes addressed in the submitted work. If the mods find out that the author endorses in their creation/engages in any kind of harassment, the reblog will be taken down and the author contacted/blocked.

Rating [REQUIRED]

The preferred rating system:

General [G]: Content suitable for all ages. It should be free of coarse language, violence, adult themes (even if only implied). Teen [T]: Content suitable for teens and older. It may contain moderate violence, swearing, suggestive material and adult themes such as drug/alcohol ab/use. Mature [M]: Suitable for ages 18+ and older; may contain non-explicit adult themes, violence, strong language, drug use. Trigger warnings required. Explicit [E]: Suitable for ages 18+ and older; may contain explicit adult themes, violence, excessive drug/alcohol ab/use, strong language. Trigger warnings required.

A "Read More" page break [REQUIRED]

Please include a page break in longer posts (which is most fanfics and web weaves). If you need help with adding a page break, you can follow our page break instruction post.

It is crucial that the author tags @rc-catalog to minimise the risk of the mods missing the fanwork! If your submission doesn't appear on the blog within 2 days, please contact the mods (@calebly, @averymarkss, @reneedenoailles) via DMs or ask.

Ideally, your submission should look like this:

Title: ... Pairing: F!MC (Vicky) x Lucifer; [optionally: Mimi & Astaroth, Christopher, Sammy, Geralt] Trigger warnings: mild violence, blood mention, character death Rating: T Tag list: @rc-catalog ... :page break:

You are free to add other categories you consider important, such as word count, category, etc., but these are the requirements the submitted fic has to meet.

Do you have any specific page dimensions or color profiles I should look out for?

The zine's page size is US Letter (8.5 x 11 inches) and is currently digital-only.

We don't have any restrictions on color, though if you are submitting something meant for at-home printing (ex. miniature standees), we definitely recommend that you have a limited-color or black & white version to be included as a supplemental file.

Images with a transparent background are preferred for ease of use around text and other page elements.