It's time for you to decide on posting date! Date claims will run differently from last year's challenge. Inspired by other fandom Big Bangs, we request that all teams choose multiple preferred posting dates and the schedule will be created based on each team's selection. This way, we can accommodate everyone's scheduling requirements.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

By claiming a posting date, you are committing to having your work complete and ready for posting by the date you have picked; this counts as your check in for the BB. If your team does not claim a date by October 29th, 19:00 UTC, we'll assume your team can reasonably post on any date, and will assign your team to a date accordingly.

We will not grant any pre-emptive extension requests at this time. Extensions will be considered only after posting dates are claimed. We strongly encourage all participants to meet their posting deadline, and only ask for an extension as a final resort. If you believe you won't be able to finish your work by next month, please communicate your concerns with your partner(s) and the mods as soon as possible.

Incomplete works, failure to meet the deadline, or a complete lack of communication on and after your posting date will result in a ban. Bans are done individually and not as a team; participants who have completed their event work will not be held responsible for the actions of their partner(s). For further details on bans, read through the Defaulting and Participation Eligibility policies.

HOW TO CLAIM YOUR DATE

30 posting dates are available from November 1 to November 30. Only one team will be posting on any given day so that all of your brilliant new Stevetony content is staggered for people to enjoy!

Before picking your date preferences, please make sure you have discussed this with your partner(s). If you have multiple partners (if a work was double claimed), you are required to have all the work posted on the same date by midnight, PST, so make sure the dates you pick will work for everyone on the team. Only one member from the team should claim a date; make sure you coordinate and figure out if there are any dates that absolutely will not work for you and your teammate(s), and be prepared in case you are unable to pick your initial choices.

Date claims will be done through a Doodle poll, which only needs to be filled out once per team. Please use your Team Name when picking dates; all teams are required to select exactly 3 dates for when they will be available to post their Big Bang works. Each available date will have a maximum of three slots, meaning only three teams will be able to select it. Each team will only be scheduled for one posting date by the mods.

Your posting date will be determined by which dates you have chosen and where you are on the queue. By default, your posting date will be scheduled for the latest date you have chosen on the Doodle poll, but if you have a different preference, please make a comment on the poll itself, leave a comment on this post, or contact the mods at cap.im.events@gmail.com.

(In the image example above, Team Cap will be scheduled for November 13th and Team Iron Man will scheduled for November 14th, the latest dates they have chosen. Team Nomad will be scheduled for November 9th, their top choice. Team Extremis' request cannot be accommodated because each posting date is limited to one team, so they will be scheduled for November 11th, their top choice.)

If you have any specific requests regarding your chosen dates, please let the mods know on the poll, as a comment to this post, or through email. For example, if you are participating more than once in this year's challenge, you can request to have your posting dates for both teams within the same week, as far apart as possible, etc. If there is a range of dates for which you'd be available to post beyond the three dates you have chosen, you may also let us know through the comments. Please note that we cannot guarantee to accommodate all special requests, and will address them on a first come, first served basis.

The Doodle poll will be available on October 28th at 19:00 UTC (what time is that for me?) until October 29th at 19:00 UTC. Date claims are now closed.

 Remember, you must choose your dates within that 24 hour period, otherwise you will be assigned a posting date by the mods. If you or your partner(s) are unavailable during that time, you may use a proxy or contact the mods for help.

On October 30th, teams will receive an email with their scheduled date and additional information regarding their deadline. A calendar of all teams and their posting dates will be provided once all the posting dates are scheduled.

WHAT TO DO ON YOUR POSTING DATE

On your scheduled posting date, your team is responsible for uploading your story and artwork(s) individually, then having one member of the team make a masterpost on the Dreamwidth community. Be sure to read the posting instructions linked below: 2018 Big Bang Posting Instructions

All posts must be made before midnight, Pacific Standard Time on your posting date. Do not post your work early. If something comes up and you won't be able to upload your work on your posting date, you must contact the mods at cap.im.events@gmail.com as soon as possible and we can make arrangements.

Cap-Iron Man Big Bang Claims are now CLOSED.

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This is the CLAIMS phase of the Big Bang, and where the artists come in! An amazing TWENTY-FIVE drafts have been submitted and are now awaiting artists to claim them for a second time. By claiming a story, you assert that you will collaborate with your author(s) to produce custom artwork to accompany their story when posting begins in November. There is no penalty-free dropping out after this point. You do not need to be a member of the cap_ironman community or have a Dreamwidth account to make your claim. Anonymous comments on this post are enabled.

Your schedule:

• October 1st at 1:00 UTC: Summaries open for new artists (participants who have not claimed in Round 1) to claim
• October 2nd at 1:00 UTC: All artists (including those who have claimed a work in Round 1) are invited to claim a second work.
• October 3rd at 1:00 UTC: Claims are closed for ALL artists
• October: Artists art, writers put finishing touches on their fics
• October 28th: Artist and author teams pick posting date in November
• November: Fics and art begin posting

A recap on some of the main rules:

• Please remember to read through our General Event Policies and the Big Bang Event Guidelines for all participants, as well as the Artists’ Guidelines for this year’s challenge before going on to claim any fics.


• Acceptable art includes traditional and digital art. Other visual mediums—such as edits, manipulations, fanvids or works that rely on or are derivative of existing material—are not eligible for this Big Bang.


• You are required to make, at minimum, one piece of accompanying fanwork for each fic you claim, and are expected to treat your fics equally. The artwork(s) must be new and made solely for the story in question.


• This is a collaborative challenge; you are expected to keep in touch with your entire team for the duration of the challenge. You must coordinate with your partner(s) during the posting period.


• All participants must be 18 or older.

To claim a summary, you will need to leave a comment with the following information (just copy and paste in your own details):


<b>Username(s) including site name:</b> [This is how we, and your partner, will address you; please use one of your primary pseuds such as Tumblr, DeviantArt or AO3 username.] <br/> <b>Email:</b> [This is the address we will use to contact you and which your team partner will be given, so please make sure it is one which you check frequently, and that you are happy to give it to us.]<br/> <b>Choice 1:</b> [FIC CODENAME, for example BRAVO.]<br/> <b>Choice X:</b> [Your lowest ranked choice. Please make sure you only put down fics that you are happy to produce art for as your options, choose as few or many as you like.]

Two or three options are recommended as we cannot guarantee that you will get your first choice. However, you may include more if you wish or even list just one choice if there is only one summary you are interested in. Remember that you are signing up for a collaborative event—please do not list summaries that you would not be genuinely happy to work with.

Claims will be made on a first-come, first-served basis and you will be assigned the first option that is still available in your list.

When matching is complete, we will send out emails to connect artists with their authors, along with further instructions. This might take a while, as making a mistake at this crucial stage is something everyone would like to avoid; please don’t panic if you don’t receive an email immediately.

NOTE: After you receive the email, PLEASE RESPOND DIRECTLY CONFIRMING you have received the information. Please wait until you have replied to this email before contacting your partner. After confirming the assignment email has been received, it is the artists’ and writers’ responsibilities to open communications with team members and keep in touch for the duration of the collaboration.

A word about warnings: Many of these stories include strong language, substance abuse, sexual situations, violence, etc. We limited warnings here to the big stuff. If you have a specific concern and would like the mods to vet a story draft before you make your choices, please let us know at cap.im.events@gmail.com.

Please send any questions or things to cap.im.events@gmail.com, especially if you would like to opt out of second claims.

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( On to the Summaries! )

ALL REMAINING AND AVAILABLE SUMMARIES ARE AVAILABLE FOR CLAIMS HERE. Please head to the new post and do not make your claim on this post.

This is the CLAIMS phase of the Big Bang, and where the artists come in! There are now FOUR drafts awaiting artists to claim them. By claiming a story, you assert that you will collaborate with your author(s) to produce custom artwork to accompany their story when posting begins in November. There is no penalty-free dropping out after this point. You do not need to be a member of the cap_ironman community or have a Dreamwidth account to make your claim. Anonymous comments on this post are enabled.

Your schedule:

• September 29th at 13:00 UTC: Summaries open for artists to claim
• October: Artists art, writers put finishing touches on their fics
• October 28th: Artist and author teams pick posting date in November
• November: Fics and art begin posting

A recap on some of the main rules:

• Please remember to read through our General Event Policies and the Big Bang Event Guidelines for all participants, as well as the Artists’ Guidelines for this year’s challenge before going on to claim any fics.


• Acceptable art includes traditional and digital art. Other visual mediums—such as edits, manipulations, fanvids or works that rely on or are derivative of existing material—are not eligible for this Big Bang.


• You are required to make, at minimum, one piece of accompanying fanwork for the fic you claim, and can make as many pieces as you'd like. The artwork(s) must be new and made solely for the story in question.


• This is a collaborative challenge; you are expected to keep in touch with your team for the duration of the challenge. You must coordinate with your partner during the posting period.


• All participants must be 18 or older.

To claim a summary on Saturday, September 29th, you will need to leave a comment with the following information (just copy and paste in your own details):


<b>Username(s) including site name:</b> [This is how we, and your partner, will address you; please use one of your primary pseuds such as Tumblr, DeviantArt or AO3 username.] <b>Email:</b> [This is the address we will use to contact you and which your team partner will be given, so please make sure it is one which you check frequently, and that you are happy to give it to us.] <b>Choice 1:</b> [FIC CODENAME, for example BRAVO.] <b>Choice X:</b> [Your lowest ranked choice. Please make sure you only put down fics that you are happy to produce art for as your options, choose as few or many as you like.]

Two or three options are recommended as we cannot guarantee that you will get your first choice. However, you may include more if you wish or even list just one choice if there is only one summary you are interested in. Remember that you are signing up for a collaborative event—please do not list summaries that you would not be genuinely happy to work with.

Claims will be made on a first-come, first-served basis and you will be assigned the first option that is still available in your list. You may only claim once, and you will be assigned a single fic—this is to give everyone who can't be there for claims opening a chance to claim something as well. Writers, remember that artists have different schedules and timezones, and that though we try to accommodate everyone, your fic may not be claimed in the first few hours. Please be patient, and don’t look at claims as a competition. This challenge is about pairing like-minded creators who will work together to produce exciting new Steve/Tony content; sometimes it takes a while for the right person to come along!

Artists, if the claim time is inconvenient for you, we encourage you to find someone who will put in a claim for you by proxy. All your proxy has to do is comment on the claims post instead of you when the time comes, providing your username, email and claims as set out above in this post. If you do not already know someone who can do this for you, you can email the mod team (cap.im.events@gmail.com) for assistance in finding a proxy.

When matching is complete, we will send out emails to connect artists with their authors, along with further instructions. This might take a while, as making a mistake at this crucial stage is something everyone would like to avoid; please don’t panic if you don’t receive an email immediately. NOTE: After you receive the email, PLEASE RESPOND DIRECTLY CONFIRMING you have received the information. Please wait until you have replied to this email before contacting your partner. After confirming the assignment email has been received, it is the artists’ and writers’ responsibilities to open communications with team members and keep in touch for the duration of the collaboration.

A word about warnings: Many of these stories include strong language, substance abuse, sexual situations, violence, etc. We limited warnings here to the big stuff. If you have a specific concern and would like the mods to vet a story draft before you make your choices, please let us know at cap.im.events@gmail.com.

Please send any questions or things to cap.im.events@gmail.com, especially if we've made a mistake with your summary.

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( On to the Summaries! )

ALL REMAINING AND AVAILABLE SUMMARIES ARE AVAILABLE FOR CLAIMS HERE. Please head to the new post and do not make your claim on this post.

NOTE: This is the claim preview period. You are not able to claim any fics yet.

Artists, please take this time to read over the summaries and compile your wish list for the day of claiming. You will need to return this Saturday (September 29th) after 13:00 UTC (>What time is that for me?) to submit your claims list and make it all official. Please check the world clock link above, >or this countdown to be sure when this is in your timezone.

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This is the CLAIMS phase of the Big Bang, and where the artists come in! An amazing TWENTY-FIVE drafts have been submitted and are awaiting artists to claim them. By claiming a story, you assert that you will collaborate with your author(s) to produce custom artwork to accompany their story when posting begins in November. There is no penalty-free dropping out after this point. You do not need to be a member of the cap_ironman community or have a Dreamwidth account to make your claim. Anonymous comments on this post are enabled. (Commenting will open when the claiming phase begins).

Your schedule:

• September 29th at 13:00 UTC: Summaries open for artists to claim
• October: Artists art, writers put finishing touches on their fics
• October 28th: Artist and author teams pick posting date in November
• November: Fics and art begin posting

A recap on some of the main rules:

• Please remember to read through our General Event Policies and the Big Bang Event Guidelines for all participants, as well as the Artists’ Guidelines for this year’s challenge before going on to claim any fics.


• Acceptable art includes traditional and digital art. Other visual mediums—such as edits, manipulations, fanvids or works that rely on or are derivative of existing material—are not eligible for this Big Bang.


• You are required to make, at minimum, one piece of accompanying fanwork for the fic you claim, and can make as many pieces as you'd like. The artwork(s) must be new and made solely for the story in question.


• This is a collaborative challenge; you are expected to keep in touch with your team for the duration of the challenge. You must coordinate with your partner during the posting period.


• All participants must be 18 or older.

To claim a summary on Saturday, September 29th, you will need to leave a comment with the following information (just copy and paste in your own details):


<br /><b>Username(s) including site name:</b> [This is how we, and your partner, will address you; please use one of your primary pseuds such as Tumblr, DeviantArt or AO3 username.] <br/><br /><b>Email:</b> [This is the address we will use to contact you and which your team partner will be given, so please make sure it is one which you check frequently, and that you are happy to give it to us.]<br/><br /><b>Choice 1:</b> [FIC CODENAME, for example BRAVO.]<br/><br /><b>Choice X:</b> [Your lowest ranked choice. Please make sure you only put down fics that you are happy to produce art for as your options, choose as few or many as you like.]

Two or three options are recommended as we cannot guarantee that you will get your first choice. However, you may include more if you wish or even list just one choice if there is only one summary you are interested in. Remember that you are signing up for a collaborative event—please do not list summaries that you would not be genuinely happy to work with.

Claims will be made on a first-come, first-served basis and you will be assigned the first option that is still available in your list. You may only claim once, and you will be assigned a single fic—this is to give everyone who can't be there for claims opening a chance to claim something as well. Writers, remember that artists have different schedules and timezones, and that though we try to accommodate everyone, your fic may not be claimed in the first few hours. Please be patient, and don’t look at claims as a competition. This challenge is about pairing like-minded creators who will work together to produce exciting new Steve/Tony content; sometimes it takes a while for the right person to come along!

Artists, if the claim time is inconvenient for you, we encourage you to find someone who will put in a claim for you by proxy. All your proxy has to do is comment on the claims post instead of you when the time comes, providing your username, email and claims as set out above in this post. If you do not already know someone who can do this for you, you can email the mod team (cap.im.events@gmail.com) for assistance in finding a proxy.

When matching is complete, we will send out emails to connect artists with their authors, along with further instructions. This might take a while, as making a mistake at this crucial stage is something everyone would like to avoid; please don’t panic if you don’t receive an email immediately. NOTE: After you receive the email, PLEASE RESPOND DIRECTLY CONFIRMING you have received the information. Please wait until you have replied to this email before contacting your partner. After confirming the assignment email has been received, it is the artists’ and writers’ responsibilities to open communications with team members and keep in touch for the duration of the collaboration.

A word about warnings: Many of these stories include strong language, substance abuse, sexual situations, violence, etc. We limited warnings here to the big stuff. If you have a specific concern and would like the mods to vet a story draft before you make your choices, please let us know at cap.im.events@gmail.com.

Please send any questions or things to cap.im.events@gmail.com, especially if we've made a mistake with your summary.

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( On to the Summaries! )

Guidelines for Writers

• Remember to read through our General Event Policies and Big Bang Guidelines for All Participants, as well as the writer's guidelines outlined below.


• Completed stories must be a minimum of 25,000 words. There is no upper limit, but fic can’t be a work-in-progress at the time of posting.


• Your fic must be an self-contained story written specifically and exclusively for the Cap-IronMan Big Bang and can't therefore be a sequel to an existing fic or a part of an existing WIP that has been posted online. If you have an unposted WIP that has not been shared (in full or in part) anywhere and that you think would be perfect for this Big Bang, then it's eligible as a Big Bang entry.


• You can sign up alone or as part of an author team (minimum word count remains the same).


• To enter the 2018 Big Bang, you must submit a draft of at least 20,000 words prior to sign-ups closing on September 26th.


• Submitted drafts must be mostly complete by the sign-up date, including an outlined ending and expected wordcount, so that your artist has a clear idea after claiming of where you’re taking the story in the following few weeks.


• Fics need to be complete by the beginning of November and ready for posting by your team’s posting date.


• Even if you finish early, do not post your story or any portion of it anywhere before the posting date. Doing so will disqualify you from the Bang.


• There is no penalty-free dropping out after your summary has been claimed by an artist. When you send in a draft be sure that you’ll be able to finish in time to post.


• To participate, authors are required to have an Ao3 account and will be responsible for posting their own fics to our Ao3 collection upon their posting date. If you don’t have an account, you can request one here. If for any reason you do not receive an invitation through the queue and it’s already close to your posting date, please contact us and we will try and provide you with an invite code.


• Detailed posting instructions will be e-mailed closer to the deadline.


• If you don’t have an idea for a story to work on yet, you might want to check out our prompt post and browse the ideas that people would like to see in fic.


• Because writing a long fic can be daunting business, we invite you to make use of our Creator's Workshop posts!


• As you're working on your story, please keep in mind that summaries are posted anonymously during claims (see the Claiming Process section) and we urge you to be tactful during the pre-claim period.

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Draft Requirements and Submissions

To officially enter the 2018 Big Bang, you must submit a draft. Submitted drafts must be mostly complete by the sign up date, including an outlined ending, so that your artist has a clear idea after claiming of where you're taking the story in the next weeks. When you send in a draft we need you to be sure that you will be able to finish and post your story at a posting date in November, because from this point on you are collaborating with someone. As a rough guideline you should have about 80% of your drafted story written by then, but the important thing is that you feel confident you can finish the story in time.

Drafts need to be at least 20k of the required 25k word count. Drafts of less than 20k will not be accepted. It is okay if you have skeleton scenes or bits that still exist in outline form or are not more than a sentence in your outline that is nothing but a placeholder for a scene yet, but the majority of your draft needs to be prose. Remember, your artist will read and work from your draft, along with your input and needs something to go on.

Drafts are due on September 26th. You can send in a draft at any time from now until submission closes.

Because this is a collaborative event, there is no penalty-free dropping out after your fic has been claimed. You sign up to finish the story. If you run into trouble let us know as soon as possible. We'll see what we can do. If you need to drop out, you must do so before September 29 (the claiming date); dropping out after your work has been claimed will be considered defaulting on the challenge and will result in a ban.

The draft does not have to be beta read at this stage. We only expect a rough draft that you are still working on. We do encourage authors to have their stories beta read before posting though, so it might be a good time to check out our list of active beta readers.

You do not need a title at this time. Titles won't be used in the claiming process.

To submit your draft, email us at cap.im.events@gmail.com and write "BB 2018 ROUGH DRAFT" and the username you want to sign up with into the subject line. Don't forget to attach your draft file. We prefer .ODT, .DOC, .DOCX, .GDOC and .RTF format, but we can handle just about anything. Please also name your draft file to include your username.

In the body of your e-mail, include the following information:

Username: <br />Word Count:<br />Completed Percentage (estimation): <br />Genre: <br />Universe:<br />Characters/Pairings other than Steve/Tony:<br />Warnings: (common warnings like non con, mpreg, and anything you want your artist to be aware of) <br />Rating:<br />Summary: (no more than three paragraphs)

Please keep the length of your summary to 200 words or less. It can be as detailed or spoilery as you like. Be honest and straightforward; artist claims will be based entirely on summaries. If you're unsure how to write a good summary for the matching, we have a How to Write A Big Bang Summary Guide.

Make sure to be clear and thorough about trigger warnings so that artists will know what they are signing up for. You must put any and all warnings in this version of your summary, even if you choose to use an "author chooses not to warn" label later. We don't want anyone to be unhappy with the match, so please warn for common triggers like noncon, dubcon, excessive or graphic violence, underage sex, incest, character death, or anything else that might be potentially problematic for a reader.

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Claiming Process

After you submit your draft and it's been approved by the mods, it will be available for claims on September 29th. Claims are done anonymously. Artists will be claiming stories based solely on the summary and details you provide for your fic. Out of fairness to all participant and stories, please don't advertise which story you wrote.

We don’t allow pre-formed teams, and we expect all participants to be open to working with new people. We also can’t guarantee that a particular author and artist be paired together as there will be a random element to the claiming process.

If claims go quickly, a second round of claims will be opened to give more artists a chance to participate. This means that your BB story will potentially be 'double claimed' — claimed by two artists — and you'll be coordinating with two partners/teams. If you'd like to opt out of having your work double claimed, please let the mods know when you submit your draft.

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Creation Period and Posting

Once your work has been claimed and you've been teamed up with an artist, all that's left is to finish your BB fic! The posting period begins in November and mods will send out an email to all participants when the posting period starts.

For long term accessibility reasons, we require the finished fic to be hosted in our event collection on AO3 when posting dates come in November. If you need to make an Ao3 account, please request an invite here and keep in mind that it might take a few days for you to get it and be able to create the account.

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FAQ

What kind of fics do qualify?

This challenge is run by the cap_ironman community and this is a Steve/Tony fest, so we’re looking for fics with a focus on the relationship between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark in any context and in any setting or continuity you can think of.

In pre-slash fics, secondary pairings should be kept to the background and the focus should be clearly on Steve and Tony and their interactions, relationship, friendship, etc.

If there is romance, then the focus should be clearly on the Steve/Tony relationship. Relationships that feature a character who is neither Steve or Tony are not allowed to be the main focus of your work. For example, Steve/Tony/Tony is allowed to be the main dynamic in your work, but secondary pairings, a relationship that features Steve or Tony, or Steve/Tony/other character are not allowed. If other pairings are included, they should also be in the background.

Other Steve- and/or Tony-pairings can all feature in the background or during the set-up of the story, but should not be the focus of the story’s main plot. The Steve/Tony content and the Steve/Tony pairing/pre-slash/gen relationship should be the main point of your story and the “endgame” relationship.

What does "endgame" mean?

Does it mean they have to be together at the end? Not exactly. If Steve and Tony's relationship is the only dynamic explored in your Big Bang story, then they do not have to be "together" at the end of your work. However, if your fic features multiple relationships, then the endgame or "goal" of your story should be exclusively Steve/Tony.

For example, the following type of story would not be allowed in the Cap-IronMan Big Bang:

• A story where the first 90% is Steve/Tony and their breaking up, only for them to end up with other characters as their true loves.
• A story where the main relationship at the end is Steve/Tony/other character.

The following types of story would be allowed in the Cap-IronMan Big Bang:

• A story where 100% of the story concerns Steve/Tony and their breaking up and subsequent unhappy ending.
• A story that ends with Steve or Tony dying, and the other is left to pine and grieve for his one true love and regret missed chances.
• A love triangle where Steve and Tony finally realize they are the only ones for each other and the romantic trouble gets resolved as Steve/Tony, with Steve and Tony's relationship at the forefront of the fic.

If you have any questions, they may already be answered in our General Event Policies page. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact the BB mods at cap.im.events@gmail.com!