Potterverse Tarot Fest Rules and FAQ
The Potterverse Tarot Fest
Frequently Asked Questions and Fest Rules
1. What is the Potterverse Tarot Fest?
The Potterverse Tarot Fest is an ongoing fanfic and fanart community, which has sporadic "rounds" of posting, using the 78 cards of the Tarot as the prompts/challenges, and offering prizes to the best examples in each round. (The prizes have consisted of banners to be proudly displayed in journals. Round One and Two prizes have been awarded and can be seen here, while round three is here.)
There are many parallels between the Tarot and J. K. Rowling's story (some intentional on her part, some not), and the many "meanings" of each card lend themselves to Potterverse interpretations, so we thought it would be a really fun fest theme.
The fest includes all genres of fanfic/fanart, gen, het, slash, canon rewrites, AU, etc. All fics/art must be based in the Harry Potter universe and have a tie to the Tarot, and all participants must have a LiveJournal, InsaneJournal, or Dreamwidth journal. An actual tarot card or reading does *not* have to appear in the work (unless that is a theme for a particular round).
2. Gulp. I don't know anything about Tarot. Can I still participate?
Absolutely. You don't need any prior knowledge of the Tarot at all. If a Fest Round is not going on, check out the Master List and see if a card inspires you! Anything that spawns a plot bunny is considered awesome in our estimation.
You might want to explore some of the links on the left-hand side of the community page, which go to some nifty Tarot resources online, including some neat artists who are creating their own version of Harry Potter-themed Tarot cards.
3. I know about Tarot already, and I have a different interpretation of a card that I want to use for my fic/art than what the comm says. Can I use it instead?
Yes! Half the fun of Tarot is the differing interpretations people can have on the same cards, just as half the fun of fanfic is the different interpretations people can have on the same characters. Which meshes together nicely, no?
4. Sounds neat! How do I get started?
The next round (Round Four!) signups begin on July 15th 2011 and run through July 31st 2011. Posting will begin on August 22nd. See the signup post and the Rules post for more info.
5. Is this an exchange? Will posts be anonymous?
Right now we have no plans to make an exchange fest, nor anonymous postings with guesses as to who wrote what. Each member of the comm has the power to post their own work and during fest rounds, each participant is assigned a posting date. We expect you to pimp your own work in your journal and encourage your friends to visit the comm to see it.
6. What are the STORY REQUIREMENTS?
Stories must be at least 1000 words and must be beta-read before posting. (Seriously folks, please take some pride in your work and at least get the spelling errors and punctuation fixed up before you post, all right? We reserve the right to pull down any story that does not meet community standards and ask you to fix it up.) Any type of fanfic, including gen, het, slash, AU, canon rewrites, etc... at any rating, is acceptable for the fest so long as it combines the Harry Potter universe with the tarot-based prompts.
EDITED for ROUND TWO and beyond:All stories must be posted in the hp_tarotcommunity and not in your own journal! (You must join the community to be able to do so.) In Round One we allowed people to post in their own journals and just follow with a link, but we've already "lost" several contributions forever when people's journals were deleted, they didn't pay LJ, or what have you. In keeping with the goal of trying to get one fic and one piece of art for every card in the deck, we'd like to avoid losing things that were done. Once the fest round is over, you may re-post and archive your work wherever you want. But during the fest, hp_tarot should be the only place it appears.
All posts must follow the following template:
Title:
Author:
Type: Fiction, Art
Length: Word count or size (one-shot, short story, novella, novel, series, etc...) All pieces must be at least 1000 words long. There is no limit. If you want to write a novel, go ahead!
Main character or Pairing:
Card:
Card Interpretation:
Rating: (Use G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17 please)
Disclaimer:
Warnings: (i.e. DH spoilers, Chan, Incest, Bestiality, Non-con, Death story, D/s, etc...)
Summary: No need to give away the whole plot, just enough to give readers an idea of what the story is about.
Author Notes: You might want to thank your beta-readers here, and put any other insights into your story.
After the above headers, please post the content of your story/art behind an lj-cut, regardless of the rating.
And yes, it's okay if you want to make your Tarot Fest story also conform to or meet some other challenge like 100quills, fanfic100 or what have you. Use a Tarot Fest prompt as a basis for the chapter of a WIP if you like! As long as the card you choose prompts the fic, that is what we most want to see. Just remember it must be posted HERE in the fest comm only during the fest.
7. What are the ART REQUIREMENTS?
Please use the same template above, and post all art behind a cut or with a fake-cut to where the art is archived. The art does NOT have to look like a Tarot card or be shaped like one, though it would be kind of neat if we ended up with a "HP Tarot Fest Deck" when all was said and done! All ratings are accepted.
All art will be hosted in a special server for HP Tarot to avoid Livejournal weirdness and the problems we've had with people losing access to their scrapbooks/Flickr/Photobucket, etc. All art submitted for the fest must come with permission from the artist that it is OK for us to archive and host the art indefinitely on our own server.
8. You keep talking about slash and warnings. Is there an age requirement for this community?
We have a don't ask, don't tell policy about age. We don't ask your age, you don't tell us. If people follow the rules, every post will be rated, and we leave it up to you to honor the ratings and not read things which are not for your age group. Since LJ now has its own age verification requirements, the burden is on the reader to be truthful.
The Authors and the Community Maintainers are not responsible for underage readers. The community is set to "Adult Concepts" but some submissions may contain same-sex relationships, explicit sex, or nudity.
9. What happens when each round of the Fest is over?
We will compile a master list of fics and art and hand out prizes and congratulations. The master list will be posted and pimped at places like hogwarts_today and daily_snitch.
10. What was the schedule again?
ROUND FOUR 2011:
Signups Start: July 15th 12 noon Eastern (US)
Signups End: July 31st 10pm Eastern (US) -- or as soon as all slots are filled
Submissions Due: each submission is due on its posting date (you post yourself)
Posting begins: August 22nd 2011
Posting Ends: September 26th 2011
11. SPOILER POLICY
At this point (summer 2011) we expect most readers of the comm to have read all seven Harry Potter books. No special efforts will be made to 'protect' readers from plot spoilers. References to the events in all seven books may be made in story titles, summaries, and notes above the cut.
12> WHAT ABOUT PRIZES? IS THIS A COMPETITION?
This is not a competition, but the fest does reward work well done! We give prizes to commenters, first of all, for the top commenter and the best comment of the fest, and to artists and writers based on nominations from everyone. We take nominations (anonymously and in comments) for anything that people want to praise. Best Romance? Best Post-war Snape? Best AU? Most Fun to Be Had On A Broom? Most Gorgeous Use of Sunlight in a Painting? You get the idea.
The prizes consist of a banner suitable for posting in your journal and userinfo.
HOWEVER, there's more in Round Four! Since the last time we ran this fest, I've been publishing original fic with a digital romance publisher. I've been writing a series called Magic University which is a very Potter-esque story, except that our hero arrives at Harvard and discovers he can see the magical buildings hidden on the campus. The Magic U books have a lot of Tarot in them, both in the plot and the themes, and I've gotten permission from Ravenous Romance to give away some copies of the ebooks as prizes! Everyone who wins a prize of any kind will get their choice of the Magic U ebooks, and the Top Commenter, Favorite Overall Fic, and Favorite Overall Art will each get a paperback of book one, as well.
13. You still didn't answer my question, and/or you've got a huge error in the FAQ here!
In that case, please comment below and let us know! We'll try to answer all comments with alacrity.