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!

A round's theme should inform the work as a theme or as a plot device, but it does not have to be an intense focus of the work. We need to see the influence, but you don’t have to beat us over the head with it. (Unless of course you want to!)

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, Homestuck panels or its 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.

In a similar vein, you cannot build off of an already-existing AU such Aquariumstuck or Hemostuck. You can use general AU ideas, such as a memaid AU or a bloodswap AU, as long as you do not take from any already-existing work that uses that AU setting. Crossovers with other fandoms are allowed but are not recommended, as they require knowledge of titles which other participants may not be familiar with.

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. For more information, read the HSWC Anonymity Policy.

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.

• See Scoring for how main rounds are scored.

• Go to Main Round Work Guidelines for information on how main round prompts and fills are formatted.

• Go to Disqualifications to see what could get your main round entry disqualified from final vote.

Main Round Work Guidelines

Because this event is open to fans of a wide variety of ages and backgrounds, we want to make sure that HSWC is a safe and accessible place for all. As such, all main and collab round entries must fill out the following info block in its entirety at the top of their post:

• TITLE: --The title of the work--
  SHIP: --The name of your team's ship--
  RATING: --A rating for the work, from G, T, M, or E--
  CHARACTERS: --Characters that appear in the work--
  SIDE PAIRINGS: --Other ships that appear in the work--
  MAJOR TAGS: --Here you will list any of the Major Content Tags that apply to your work. If none apply, state NONE. If you do not wish to tag certain elements of the work to keep from spoiling your work, you must put the phrase TAGS OMITTED in this section.--
  ADDITIONAL TAGS: --If your work contains other elements you feel should be noted, feel free to list them here. You may also use additional tags to help summarize your work or entice readers. As with Major Tags above, you can choose to say TAGS OMITTED or NONE.--
  SUMMARY: --A brief summary of the work.--
  WORK COUNT: --An overview of your work: word count, art count, length of audio/video files, etc. This allows participants to gauge how much time they will have to devote to your entry.--
  SCRIPT: --Games, choose-your-own-adventure-style entries, voice acting, music, video, etc. must include a full script with the entry or it will not be eligible for that round's final vote.--

If you are using the HTML code layout to create your post, here is a code box for your copy-and-pasting convenience.

After the info block, you must place your round entry behind a cut when posting it to the main round comm. There are two ways of doing this:

• If you are using HTML view, use <cut> before the main body of your entry, and </cut> after you’re done posting it.

• If you are using Rich Text view, click right above where your entry starts, and then hit the button on the sidebar that is highlighted in blue in this screenshot.

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.

There is no penalty for submitting your entry after the round closes. However, there is a bonus for submitting your work on time. For more information, see Scoring.

We discourage the editing of main round submissions after they are posted because it would put your team at a disadvantage, since some of the individuals voting on your division may have already read/viewed your team’s entry and made their decision and thus would not see the new content. However, if you do wish to edit your entry, you must edit the current post before voting opens for that round. Never delete and resubmit your round entry.

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

• See Scoring for how main rounds are scored.

• Go to Collab Round Work Guidelines for information on how main round prompts and fills are formatted.

• Go to Disqualifications to see what could get your collab round entry disqualified from final vote.

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 edit your submitted entry after voting opens.
• 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, and fanfics do not require additional scripts). When in doubt, include a script with your entry.
• 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.

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.

After a bonus round ends, it will be closed for a short period while the mods count up the points. Then it will be opened again to prompts and fills, though entries to that bonus round won't receive points anymore.

• 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 Bonus Round Work Guidelines for information on how bonus round prompts and fills are formatted.

Bonus Round Work Guidelines

Please link to NSFW fills and very high-resolution images 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 your fill is too long to fit in a single comment, submit the second half of the fill as a reply to the first half of the fill, either replacing the subject line with something like “CONTINUED” or “Part 2 of X” or making sure that the “Re:” is present so that it is obvious that this is a reply/continuation and that you aren’t attempting to sneak in a second fill for your team.

You will receive points as long as your prompt or fill follows the guidelines below, regardless of whether the prompt you are filling for isn't formatted correctly or if a fill submitted to your prompt isn't formatted correctly.