RULES and INFORMATION POST of the Harry Potter Kinkfest

[kinkfest-mod.livejournal.com]

Banner by vaysh

Hello, and welcome to the annual Harry Potter kink fest!

The 2014/2015 Schedule:

Prompt Submission: December 29, 2014 – January 4, 2015
Prompt Claiming/Sign-ups: January 6 – 12, 2015
Posting: begins February 3, 2015*
Late Posting Week: February 23 – March 1, 2015

*We realise that barely a months gives you a relatively short amount of writing/drawing time; this is because we want to encourage short, intense, focused fic and also have the bulk of posting done before some of the spring fests begin.


Let's remind you of the ground rules and then get this party started, shall we?


The Idea:

To have a fest that's all about indulging our love of deviant sexual practices and fetishes! We all love a good, thoughtfully written kink fic (or work of art) that demonstrates how delicious a particular kink can be, but how often do we have the opportunity to write or read them? Not often enough, we say!


How It Will Work:

Our goal is to facilitate kink writing/drawing, so we want this fest to be accessible to everyone. As such, we're rather relaxed in our sign-up procedures. You may either claim a prompt suggested by someone else or choose your own kink - whichever you find more inspirational. Once you complete your entry, you may select another prompt but we will limit only one post a week per individual. You'll have five weeks or so to write/draw, and then on your assigned posting day you'll post your fic/art to the community (and a link to the post from your own livejournal if you wish). (Yes, that means this fest is not anonymous.)

The Rules (or lack thereof):

First and foremost: This is a kinkfest where pretty much anything goes. If something isn't to your taste, please scroll on by and let others have their fun. What is more, if you see someone doing it 'wrong', please don't correct them in comments. We are not requiring realism nor adherence to RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink).

Kinks: Any and all! We hope people will use this opportunity to explore more unusual kinks like branding, fisting, pony play and chastity devices, but we welcome more common fare like dirty talk, bondage and d/s as well. If you're looking for ideas, check out this list of Kinks, Tropes and Cliches or this list of paraphilias.
Note: For the purposes of this fest, we are interpreting 'kink' to have a sexual connotation. 'Witty banter', though hot, is not a kink.

Pairings: All are welcome: slash, femslash, het, threesomes and moresomes, gen or solo kink! Characters may come from any era of the Harry Potter universe.

Word limit: None! Make it as short or as long as you think it needs to be in order to best showcase your chosen kink. We do recommend aiming for quality over quantity though; a 700 word ficlet can be just as powerful as a sweeping 30K novella, without the last-minute rush to finish.

Prompts: You may claim a prompt someone else has submitted, or come up with one of your own if you prefer. Once you have submitted one prompt you may claim another. See below for more details.

Due dates: When signing up, we'll ask your preferred posting time (first week, second week, etc.) and then assign you a posting date. This is your due date: you may continue working on your submission until the minute before you post it if you like. We ask that you stick to these assigned dates to avoid uneven posting; if you must re-schedule, please tell us so we can try to have someone take your spot.

Ratings: Fics and art of all ratings are welcome - just because it's a kinkfest doesn't mean it has to be porny. (In fact, both your mods get all tingly at the idea of non-porny kink fic.) That said, we expect we will receive a lot of R- and NC-17-rated submissions. Participants, please provide a rating; readers, please observe your local laws.

Warnings: are critical. Please warn for all and any non-vanilla goings-on.

Betas: Please use one (or more!). There's no quality clause for this fest, but you should have someone look over your fic for SPaG at the very least. We will have a beta post for kink-friendly betas to offer their services as well as a kink discussion post where more experienced/learned kinksters can answer questions.

Posting: • Participants need to be a member of hp_kinkfest. You will post your fic/art to the community on your assigned posting day. We'll give you posting rights on this day.
• You can also post your story to the HP Kinkfest Collection on AO3 and then link to it from your post to the community. We'll approve your story when your posting date comes up.
• We will post Weekly Roundups during the fest, and after the end of the fest we'll put together a Master List.

Anonymous Posting: If you wish to post anonymously, you may submit your work to the mods and we will post it on your behalf. (And we will remain silent about your identity. We mean that.) We strongly encourage you to have your story or art be posted anonymously if you don't want the specific kink or fic associated with you lj-name. We don't allow people to withdraw/delete their submissions after the fic or art has been part of hp_kinkfest. So please take a moment and think about how comfortable you are with posting under your lj-name. It is perfectly fine to post anonymously.

Drop-outs: Need to drop out? That's okay! We understand. But will you send us an email knowing not to expect a post from you? Then we won't worry about you, and we can try to fill any posting gaps.


The Prompts:

Option One:

Beginning December 29, anyone and everybody will be able to submit prompts until Sunday, January 4, noon EST, when Prompting closes. We will allow anonymous prompting to the prompt post, for those of us with secret kinks. :) Prompting is restricted to 7 prompts per person!
Prompts may include a kink, one to three pairings between whom you would like to see the kink explored, and a space for an optional supplementary prompt where you may list a theme/object/scenario you'd like included in the fic.

The prompt template:

Kink: (Just one per prompt, please!)
One to three pairings: (solo characters, threesomes/moresomes, and non-specific pairings [e.g. older female/younger male] also welcome!)
Optional supplementary prompt: (Make this as simple or as detailed as you would like!)*
*Keep in mind that these are only intended to inspire authors/artists and are not gift requests; the claimant is permitted to deviate from the prompt if they wish.

Example:

Kink: Breathplay
One to three pairings: Scorpius/Rose, Draco/Lily, James II/Scorpius
Optional supplementary prompt: School uniform ties

~or~

Kink: Docking
One to three pairings: Harry/Ron
Optional supplementary prompt: I'd like to see one of them being circumcised and the other not, and the uncircumcised partner offering to demonstrate what having a foreskin feels like.


Option Two:

If none of the submitted prompts inspire you, or you have a kink/scenario of your own in mind, you are free to sign up without claiming a prompt! Simply let us know which kink you've chosen and that you'll be writing your own idea.


"I have a question! How does one 'showcase' a kink?"

Good question! The answer is... however you want to. You could write a PWP where the kink is the main sexual act or focus; you could write about someone learning their partner has a kink and how they react to the information; or you could write a story following a character's relationship with a certain kink: how s/he recognizes it, what s/he likes about it, how s/he incorporates it into his/her sex life. Or you could do none of the above! Whatever you want to say or explore about your chosen kink, that's how you should 'showcase' it. :D


"I missed my posting date, but I still want to play! What should I do?"

If you missed your posting date on accident (internet fail/couldn't get to a computer/etc.) but have the fic/art ready to go the next day, you're welcome to post then. Otherwise please hold off until the end of the fest, when we will do a Late-Posting Week and open up posting for everyone who missed their assigned date or did not originally sign up but was inspired over the course of the fest to write something kinky.


Note: Watchers and members of hp_kinkfest should be aware of the laws of their own countries when clicking on links leading to art and stories in this fest. Depending on the subject matter, specific entries may not be considered legal in some countries.

We hope this post has answered your questions. If not, leave a comment or email us at HPKinkfest@gmail.com and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Pimping Banners!

Comments

[gamma-x-orionis.livejournal.com]

I've been so excited for this!

[phoenix-fancies.livejournal.com]

Squeeeeee!!!

[scarletladyy.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! I'm so excited :D

[ashiiblack.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD I CANNOT WAIT. I got into LJ just a bit too late to participate past year. I saved time in my schedule just for this!

[thusspakekate.livejournal.com]

*flails*

[tinarebekka.livejournal.com]

Oh, how wonderful!! I haven't written anything for ages, but I'm looking forward to this - even if it's going to be just one tiny little fic. :-)

[kitty_fic]

I do love this fest! <3 Need to start planning my kinks! :D

[sapphoatsunset.livejournal.com]

I have my kinks all planned... I suppose I should have backups in case anyone prompts the same as me... Hmm... :D

[eevilalice.livejournal.com]

I have a question (actually two!):

1. I'm going away for the holidays starting the 17th and won't have regular internet access. If I decide to work with my own idea, is it possible for me to contact the mods about that before I leave rather than wait for the claiming post (I'm afraid I'll miss the claiming time frame)? Or would it be possible for someone to claim for me by proxy if the first option doesn't work?

2. Any chance the Dreamwidth mirror comm might be set up this year, or at least for those of us interested in posting or crossposting our works there? There's community importing now.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the late reply.

If you are claiming your own prompt you can comment any time in the Claiming Post between the 20th and the 31st... if you are going to be completely off-line during that time, just send us and email at: HPKinkfest@gmail.com saying you are claiming your own prompt and basic details (pairing/kink/and if you have a preference for posting week1, week2, etc...)

As for the dreamwidth question, I'll need to talk to vaysh about it. But regardless you are welcome to post your fic to your own dreamwidth once you've posted here. But we'll get back to you on the larger question of a mirror once we've had a chance to discuss.

[vaysh]

Hi Eevil Alice - me and Maggie discussed whether we want to allow people crossposting on a mirror comm DW and we decided against it.

hp_kinkfest is a self-posting fest, and we always have quite a few writers and artists who are new to LJ. I doubt it would go well if we asked people to post both on DW and LJ. For one, because not everybody has a DW account, also newbies will have a hard time dealing with the crossposting. And we two just don't have the capacities to monitor two communities. A situation where only a few people cross-post makes no sense, we feel.

We decided, though. that we will set up a mirror community, and do a weekly import of the new entries.

[eevilalice.livejournal.com]

I already thought there was a DW mirror comm that just wasn't being used--that's why I brought it up at all; I figured at some point it must have been under consideration. Maybe I'm thinking of another fest...

Knowing it's a self-post fest, I definitely didn't mean to suggest everyone had to post on DW; that's why I said those interested could post there or cross-post. There are fests that do that; I'm not sure I see why that makes no sense, but it's up to you, obviously. You could ask for (a) volunteer(s) to monitor the DW comm.

Thanks for thinking of weekly imports; that's appreciated. :)

[vaysh]

There are fests that do that; I'm not sure I see why that makes no sense, but it's up to you, obviously.
I have never seen that. How does it work? Only the fest entries that are cross-posted appear on the DW community but not the others?

[eevilalice.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if it's a self-post fest, people choose if they want to post to one or both comms (and which comm if only one). I'm thinking of springkink. Some people are just particular about where they post and/or read, and it gives options.

[vaysh]

Interesting. We definitely will not do it this round but keeping the option open for the future.

The weekly imports will happen. Now I have to check whether perhaps we did actually set up a DW comm at one time. ;)

Thanks for your input, Alice.

[starlight-x-a-x.livejournal.com]

Quick question as I dont think I've seen this anywhere, how many prompts are we allowed to submit logged-in this round? I remember last year (omg how has it been a year!) we were limited to 5, is this still the case or is it now unlimited prompt submissions again?

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

yup! still 5. :)

[eevilalice.livejournal.com]

Did my comment w/questions get lost in the prompt deluge, or are things being contemplated? :)

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

a little of both, to be honest. :)