villainous_big_bang | Sticky: Rules, FAQ, and About (Reply)

Hello everyone and welcome to the Villainous Big Bang! This is a big bang-style event for fictional villains, evil-doers, criminal masterminds, etc. from all over the fandom spectrum. This is unfortunately not an event for the Villainous webseries, although we're definitely happy to see Villainous show up in the bang.

What's a big bang?

A big bang is a fandom event where writers sign up to create a fic of a certain length within a set timeframe, and artists sign up to claim fics to make artwork for! For this event, writers are responsible for fics of 15k or more, and artists have to make two (somewhat loosely defined) art pieces in response. If you're new to big bangs, don't worry! There's no such thing as a stupid question. (Well, there is, but we trust that you know the difference between a newbie question and a ridiculous one. Seriously, though, ask away.)

What fandoms are eligible?

That's the fun part! You can write for any fandom you want, as long as it has a tag on AO3 or can be given one. The only fandom not eligible for this is RPF (historical or current) and hopefully you can understand why. The limitations on this bang are the following: it has to focus on a character cast, whether for all or part of the canon, as a villain.

Is [X] character eligible?

This is the fun part! On the schedule below, you'll see 'eligibility roast' as an entry. There'll be another post explaining this in more detail, but basically, you have the opportunity to get onto this comm and tell us all the reasons why your favourite villain is a despicable cad and why you should be allowed to write for them. You don't commit to writing for the bang by doing this, and you can do it for as many characters as you like (in separate posts). Basically, roast your faves!

I think [X] ship is gross/it's weird writing this villain/[insert other completely unsolicited comment about morality].

Cool. Don't write it.

I want to sign up pre-paired with an artist.

No, sorry! There's not much point in being part of a big bang if you want to work with somebody you already know.

I'm worried nobody will know my fandom.

This is part of why we're doing the eligibility roasts - but sometimes it's just like that. Fortunately, there are many artists out there interested in doing fandoms they might not be super familiar with (and why our art requirements are so broad)! If you're worried about being claimed, you can save a small fandom fic for another event, but we encourage you to live your dreams. Who knows? Maybe you'll drag somebody new to the dark side.

Rules and schedule under the cut!

RULES:

1) Fics must center on a villain or villain(s); not a hero, and not an antagonist. The differentiation between an antagonist and a villain is something to chew over in the eligibility posts, but as a general rule, they have to have done something evil or bad by the standards of their canon - whether or not they're redeemed later in the canon. Additionally, the canon can't have framed it as something Sad But Necessary at the time, or have taken the character's side at the time.

2) Each writer is responsible for writing a 15k word fic within the timeframe given. It must be new OR unpublished content; you can repurpose an unpublished fic, but it can't have gone up anywhere and you have to be adding to it. Ideally, you'll add 15k new words to it, but we can't actually hold you to that, so, honour system.

3) There are no banned ships, but we ask authors to tag their content responsibly and be respectful of each other. Additionally, please be conscious of racism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia and other societal issues both when writing and interacting with others. (Your Kink Is Not My Kink, but also, The World Sucks Real Hard Right Now.) Ship and/or character-based harassment is grounds for removal from the event.

4) Artists can create two or more of the following: a fanmix of 12-to-20 songs, a video, a podfic, a piece of fanart (digital or traditional), a batch of 8 icons, two banners/title art pieces, or alternate art as suggested to and approved by both the writer and the mod team. Two artists may sign up as a team and work together if they want.

5. For what we hope are fairly clear reasons, RPF is not eligible for this event.

6. While we respect that villains aren't fun if they don't do anything villainous, we ask that certain touchy real-world topics be handled with extreme care. This doesn't mean don't write them - it does mean be cautious with how you approach them, and if it's in your canon and you'd rather avoid the implications, it's ok to just write around it. These topics include genocide and mass shootings.

SCHEDULE:

Eligibility Roasting: Feb 15th-Feb 28th
Author Signups: March 1st-March 15th
Check-in #1: May 1st
Artist Claims: May 2nd-5th
Check-in #2: June 15th
Posting: July 1st - August 1st

This sticky will be updated with the AO3 collection and Discord chat as the event gets going!