🩷 Round 3 🩷

This round is a WIP exchange fest, posting for Valentine's Day. How does that work, you may ask? Here's all you need to know....🌷. To join this fest, you must submit 2-4 NCT WIP works that are each over 500 words. This can be a published WIP that you've abandoned on AO3, or an unpublished WIP that has been gathering dust in your files..🌷. Upon signing up to the fest, you will submit your WIPs to our WIP Bank, providing short descriptions of what you've written so far, and what the end goal of the WIP is (if you know it)..🌷. After signing up, we will place everyone's responses into our WIP Bank under anonymous names, and send it out to participants. You will have 5 days to rank at least 3 preferred entries you'd like to claim (and be their Valentine!). We will then use your ranks to match all participants and send out your final match, doing our best to put you with one of your choices..🌷. You will receive the details of your match - the documents containing the WIP or ao3 name of your match.
o A. If the WIP you chose is in Google Docs, you may do some editing work to the WIP so far to align with your writing style or amend a plot point.
o B. If the WIP you chose is on AO3, the original author will be asked to mark that work as complete and put it in a series. You will pick up from that point verbatim and post the continuation as a following part in the series..🌷. Valentines do not have to stick strictly to any detailed plot notes provided by their recipient, but should aim to follow to the general 'idea' as seen in the WIP Bank. Ships/characters must stay the same unless waivered by the exchangee. As the intention is to give the work as a gift for Valentines day, we do encourage you not to change up the work to an extreme extent! Valentines will not know who their exchangee is or see their writing so far until the matches are sent out..🌷. We ask that you rank your WIP preferences with the goal in mind of FINISHING the WIP you receive. However, if you choose or expand a WIP into a huge idea that will take longer than the writing time, just let us know! We're happy to work case by case..🌷. While the fest is Valentines themed, your work does not have to be romantic/valentine themed. This is purely for the sake of exchanging the works around Valentines day..🌷. We will also be taking sign ups for:
• Pinch hitters: participants willing to be called upon to help us fill gaps
• Eyes Open matches: friends wishing to swap with each other on their own terms
• Solo sprinters: those who wish to work on the fest timeline to finish their own WIP
• WIP adoptions: after matches have been sent out, anyone wishing to join who doesn't have WIPs of their own to submit can pick up one of the remaining WIPs from the Bank, if you'd prefer to join the fest from the start rather than be called up as pinch hitter later on. This is also a great option if you're interested in picking up a WIP, but want a lower-commitment option than the exchange.

.❌. Please do not submit WIPs including real life minors, including NCT WISH minors Ryo and Sakuya. Do not submit or write in any real or fictional minors for NSFW WIPs..❌. If the WIP contains Taeil or Lucas, they should be substituted for another character before submitting the WIP to the fest. WIPs containing Sungchan and Shotaro are welcome, but the work must ultimately focus on current NCT members..❌. As this exchange relies on building upon existing content, no content is off the table (except the above rules regarding characters). However, participants will be able to include their personal hard Nos when sending in their WIPs - Valentines should respect these Nos when continuing the work. Participants should also note any NSFW, dark or potentially triggering content in their existing WIP when submitting..❌. If you are a minor, please don't contribute or pick up NSFW content for the exchange. Participants should flag any warnings or explicit content in their WIPs when signing up.

• Days Left Until: Reveals

If you are entering with an unpublished work, you will be able to choose upon signing up whether you wish to be listed as co-author to the final work or not.

Your Valentine (the person continuing your WIP) will be anonymous until reveals. If you have any questions for your recipient, you should pass them through the BDF mods in order to retain your anonymity as their Valentine.

Pinch hitters are participants who sign up to help us fill slots if participants have to drop out, to make sure everyone gets a gift in the exchange.Pinch hitters will not submit their own WIPs and thus will not get a work in exchange, and will work on a shorter timeline due to the nature of pinch hitting. If you'd like to sign up as a pinch hitter, we would love you forever, as they are super important to helping us fill in gaps later on! <3

These things happen, and we will be opening up for pinch hitters for the express reason of preparing for that scenario! However when joining, please check your schedule and assess your free time to make sure you are able to commit to the event. The nature of the exchange is for everyone to give and receive, and that becomes harder if participants need to drop out.

• Signing up: A guide

In order to make the signup process as seamless as possible, this page will lay out the processes of signing up and submitting your WIPs to the fest, demonstrating exactly what you need to do and how this will work in the fest.This information is most useful to read and refer to while submitting your sign-up form.Submitting your WIPs
Published:
.🪻. If your WIP is published (on ao3), you must mark it as complete and place it in a series, then add the ao3 account BlindDateFest as a co-creator to that series. This is so we can add your Valentine as a co-creator closer to submissions, and they can submit their continuation into the same series..🪻. You also need to add your WIP to our To Be Continued collection. This is so we can hide your WIP from ao3 during the WIP bank ranking period, to make ranking as equal as possible.We will make your WIP public again (but anonymous) after matching period to help maintain the anonymity of participants. The works will be made un-anonymous again around postings period, which will ping any subscribers to your account/WIP, and (we hope) help direct readers to the continuation! Any WIPs that aren't selected to be continued will be ‘rejected’ from the collection and returned to your account as they were after the round is over..🪻. You may also want to put a clarifying note in your author's notes about how the fest works and why your WIP is marked as complete - being in the TBC collection will help flag this, but it doesn't hurt to give readers a heads up..🪻. Please do the above at the same time you submit your form, so that we can check everything is in place in a timely manner! We will remove ourselves as co-creators across all series once the round is over.Unpublished:
.🪻. If your WIP is unpublished, you must upload it to google docs. Once it's uploaded, please share the file with us at [email protected] and set it to Anyone with the link: Viewer..🪻. If you are not sure how to do that, please find support here or reach out to us for help. If you are still struggling, or for whatever reason would prefer not to use Google Drive, email us a docx file of your WIP and we will upload it for you..🪻. Please make sure your submitted WIPs are clearly labelled with titles corresponding to the titles you give them in the form.What stays the same, what changes?
.🪻. As a standard, the main thing that your Valentine should keep the same is the main plotline of the WIP as you summarise it in your main summary box. They are not bound to follow any further outline to the letter, and may edit your existing (unpublished) content in order to add their own spark to it..🪻. However by sticking to the main plotline, they should keep the same characters/ship. If you'd be happy for your Valentine to change the characters/main ship in your WIP, you can choose to waiver your characters at the relevant question on the form..🪻. If you select 'Yes', Valentines should pick new characters/ships within your selected NCT unit/s - they may also not change your characters or ships at all if they so wish!
.🪻. You cannot select the 'Yes' option if you are submitting a published WIP, as your existing work cannot be changed by your Valentine.Answering the important questions
.🪻. To help guide you when answering this form, here are some example responses to some of the key questions about your WIP.Please summarise the overall plot/idea behind this fic in 5 sentences or less.You’ll want to format this similar to how you’d format a prompt, summarising the main concept, rough character progression, and if you have any particular ending in mind, mention that too. Remember that any specific details you can compile and hand over in a separate box, so this section should only have key info. A zoomed out view of your fic, if you will.This WIP follows Chenle as a time traveller who has a condition that jumps him around through history randomly. He starts meeting the same man at many different major events and time periods - Jaemin, who can never die. They take comfort in one another, isolated from the rest of humanity with their respective curses. They often meet out of linear order, but Jaemin takes it all in his stride, entertained by Chenle's stories of the future. Then, finally, they meet in Chenle's modern day, and Jaemin comes with a warning.Or:Kun has nightmares, and Ten always appears in them. At first he thinks it’s because Ten is his competition as one of the best trainees, and Kun is desperate to make it into the new Chinese boy group. Except after they debut, Ten never disappears from his nightmares - and one day, he mentions the events of one of them offhand. Only Kun has never told anyone about his nightmares.How much of this story have you written so far? Please provide a word count and one line describing how far you got (intro, certain scenes, etc.)This should be purely description of what your Valentine will have to work with if they pick your WIP.I've written 5k, which covers Chenle's first time meeting Jaemin in a scene set in the roman empire, a following scene in the middle ages, and Chenle's first date with Jaemin in 1900s USA.Or:10k, six scenes, three of them nightmares, plus Kun’s first meeting with Ten, their debut in Wayv, and the first time Kun feels something is off about Ten’s presence in his dreams.If you have any Hard Nos that your Valentine should NOT include in their continuation of your WIP, please list them here.Nothing is off limits except general dead dove content and hard kinks.OrNo major character death, no guns or graphic violence, no dead dove content, and no minors should be hurt in the events of the story please!