Event Layout

The main bulk of the HSWC is made up by two Main Rounds and one Collab Round. There are also seven (or eight) Bonus Rounds that run throughout the event.

All rounds (whether Main, Collab, or Bonus) present a prompt to the community. Teams and participants then do their best to fulfill the prompt challenge.

Main Rounds

There are two main rounds. Each main round has its own Dreamwidth community where teams will post their round submissions.

This is how main rounds generally go:

• The round prompt is released! Excitement abounds!
• Team members flex their creativity and create awesome content based on the prompt.
  • Each team member may create whatever they wish to fulfill the prompt and represent their ship. Teammates may also work collaboratively to create Main Round entries, but it is not required.
• Each team decides which entry they want to represent them.

• The Friendleader submits the chosen entry to the round’s community.

• The round closes, and everyone gets to enjoy the delicious new content!

• Everyone votes on their favorite submissions!

• The results are posted, points are awarded, and the whole thing starts all over again!

All submissions must be created new for the challenge. No fan-created content is allowed that has not been made by members of your team specifically in response to the prompt. Mainstream creative content is fine (e.g. popular music, well-known art pieces, the Homestuck soundtrack), but not fanart, fan music, etc.

For example, you can create a parody of a song on the radio but you cannot use an already-existing fan song in your entry, and you cannot take someone else’s fanart and use it to make a graphics set unless said art was made by someone on your team specifically for that round. This is largely to ensure that the original content in your entry is clearly identifiable as distinct from the borrowed content. For more information on work caps and requirements, please check the Main Round Work Guidelines.

Although a team may create many works in response to a main round prompt, each team may only submit one cohesive entry to each main round. This entry can be multimedia, and can be created by multiple team members. After (not before) the round's voting is complete you may post unused round entries anywhere you want, such as tumblr or our Archive Of Our Own collection.

Your team's main round entry must focus on the ship you are representing, though there may be mentions of other ships, and even mentions of your team's characters being in other ships (gotta fill those quadrants, after all).

Do not post your HSWC creations publicly (i.e., on tumblr, AO3, etc.) until voting ends, whether or not they are chosen as part of the team submission. For more information, read the HSWC Anonymity Policy.

All work for the HSWC must be made exclusively by that team. You cannot ask people outside of your team for help.

Multi-chaptered works are fine, as long as they are not works-in-progress or incomplete. Crossovers are allowed but are not recommended, as they require knowledge of titles which other participants may not be familiar with. However, if it is a well known story, such as a fairy tale, it should be okay.

• See Scoring for how main rounds are scored.

• Go to Formatting &Tagging Your Entries for information on how main round prompts and fills are formatted.

Main Round Work Guidelines

If you are submitting anything with text such as a game, a choose-your-own-adventure style entry, voiceacting, music, etc. you must include a full script with your entry or you will not be eligible for that round's final vote. For games, you should also seriously consider including a video walkthrough of your game. That way, if people have trouble loading or playing your game, they can still get an idea of what you entry is like.

If you are submitting photos of things, please try to make sure they are decently clear/well-lit! We will not be doing image/color correction for you, and it will not be our fault if people can't make out what your submission is. Also, we suggest but do not require that you submit 3-5 photos of whatever it is from different angles, just so we can get a better look at it!

Collab Round

Collab Round Work Guidelines

Disqualifications

Your main/collab round entry will be accepted to the round, but not eligible to move on to final vote if:

• You do not include a full-length script with your game, choose-your-own-adventure, voice acting, video/animation, etc. entry (where applicable; obviously if you have no words a script is not necessary).
• Your entry is a work-in-progress/incomplete.

• (MAIN ROUNDS ONLY) Your entry is 5% over the work cap in any medium.

  • For example: the word maximum is 4,000 words. 5% over that is 200 words. Therefore, entries with 4,001-4,200 words will be penalized 50 points, but still eligible to advance onto final vote. Entries with 4,201+ words will not be eligible for final vote, but the team will still receive participation points.
  • This applies to all mediums. If an entry includes audio or video and the recording goes 5% over the time limit, then the entry is disqualified from final vote. If a team is using the 1,000 word/20 image limit and submits 21 images, they are within 5% and will incur a 50 point penalty. If they use 22 images, they will be over the 5% cap and disqualified from final vote.

• You leave any part of the entry header block blank, especially the Major Content Tags.

Anonymity Policy

Bonus Rounds

Bonus rounds are like candy in-between the main round meals to help keep participants going. Each bonus round has a theme that participants must follow. Participants can post ships and prompts that follow the bonus round theme, and other participants can post fills for these prompts.

All bonus rounds are posted on the HSWC DW Community and each one lasts for two weeks, as noted on the Schedule. To participate, members leave comments to the bonus round post with prompts, and others comment to the prompts to leave fills. For more information, see our DW Walkthrough.

• You can submit prompts and fills for any ship imaginable, not just those represented in the HSWC, and you can fill as many prompts as you want (though you may only receive points for some of them; see Scoring).

• All fanwork types accepted for main rounds are also accepted for bonus rounds, including multimedia fills.

• You can prompt and fill for any ship that isn't your own. Team Jade <3 Kanaya participants cannot prompt or fill for Jade <3 Kanaya during bonus rounds, but they can prompt and fill for any other ship, including Jade/Kanaya in other quadrants (spades, diamonds, etc.), Alpha!Jade <3 Kanaya (but not Grimbark!Jade <3 Kanaya because that's still beta timeline Jade), and ships like Jade <3 Kanaya <3 Vriska.

  • Team Abstrata can fill and prompt for any ship.
• You cannot fill your teammates' prompts. (Team Noir is exempt from this rule.)
• You cannot fill your own prompts.
• You shouldn't collaborate on bonus round fills, but if you do, you will only receive points for a single fill (no matter how many people worked on it).
• You can only fill each prompt once.
• Multiple people can fill the same prompt.
• You can prompt and fill for leprechaun ships.
• If you are on a ship team, your prompts and fills gain points for your own team, regardless of the ship you are creating for.

• When Team Noir creates bonus round fills (not prompts) for a ship that is represented in the HSWC, that ship team will receive points. When Team Noir creates fills for ships that are not represented, Team Abstrata will receive points. For more info, read Scoring.

• You can cross-post your bonus round fills wherever and whenever you want.

• Also see Scoring for how bonus rounds are scored.

• Go to Formatting &Tagging Your Entries for information on how bonus round prompts and fills are formatted.

Bonus Round Work Guidelines

Please link to NSFW fills instead of posting them directly to the bonus round, as you cannot use cuts in comments. You may include a small safe-for-work sample (e.g., image thumbnail, 100 words of fic) if you would like to give a preview. If this is for some reason impossible, please at least put a prominent warning at the top of the fill.