merlincinema

(Note: Please read all the guidelines carefully as we are changing the format for the fest for this year only. These guidelines are applicable to this round of the fest.)

Creator Guidelines:

Sign-ups are open throughout the fest i.e. until posting ends in February.
This fest requires participants to have an ao3 account. All fest fanworks will be hosted on Ao3. If you don’t have an ao3 account, you can request an invite here. It is suggested to request an invite as soon as possible as invites take upto two weeks to arrive.
Acceptable forms of fanwork for this fest are: Fanfics, Fanart, Podfics, Fanvids. This year onwards we are also accepting moodboards and playlists which will become a part of Fanart and Podfics specifically.
Fanworks must be specifically created for this fest. Any fanworks which are in part or fully posted elsewhere will not be counted. However, fanworks which have not posted anywhere and follow the rules and guidelines of Merlin Cinema are acceptable.
Participants can choose to submit more than one entry. However, each of their entries must be based on different movies. For each different movie chosen, the participant must fill the sign-up form again. There is no limit to the number of movies you can choose to write, provided you can execute them all.
Participants can change any detail of their fanwork suiting their needs throughout the fest. These can be no of movies, fanwork format, collabs, genre etc. For this reason, the sign-up form is editable and open throughout the fest.
For this round of the fest, fanfics must be a minimum of 100 words. There is no maximum limit. (Fanfic can be whatever form of writing the author considers as a fanfic. Prose, poetry, plays etc are all permitted.)
Fanart must consist of one complete piece of art. (Fanart can be whatever art form the artist considers as fanart. These include traditional art, digital art, edits, gifs, moodboards etc.)
Podfics made must be original, and must be inspired by/based on a movie. For example: Reading part of the script of a film combined with original writing is acceptable, but making a podfic of an existing fanwork is not. The original content in the podfic must be at least 60% of the podfic and 60% of the total podfic length. Podfics must be at least 7 minutes in length, and only the resulting podfic, and no script/text, is required for submission, unless the podficcer choses to include so.
From this year onwards, fan-playlists are allowed but they must be combined with some original writing or art or video or podfic etc. Participants must post both the playlist and the accompanying piece on their posting day. Accompanying art must be at minimum 1 doodle(sketch/lineart/etc with shading), accompanying writing must be at least 1 drabble (100 words) and accompanying podfic must be at least 2 minutes in length of original content.
Fanvids made must be original, and must be inspired by or be based on movies (see example for podfics above). Fanvids cannot be based on existing fanworks. Fanvids must be at least 50 seconds in duration. Only the resulting fanvid, and no script/text, is required for submission, unless the vidder choses to include so. The original content in the fanvid must be at least 60% of the fanvid and 60% of the total fanvid length.
All fanworks made must be beta’ed.
A particular film can be chosen by any number of participants. However, people are encouraged to choose different movies so as to keep things interesting.
Creators can participate in pairs, groups, or singly.
In the case of a collaboration, only one person in the team must complete the sign-up form and list the ao3 usernames of all collaborators in the space provided, each separated by a comma. If signing up with more than one movie, the same process must be repeated for every different movie.
This is a free/relaxed posting fest. There is not requirement/penalty for dropping out.
In the case of a collaboration, if a team member drops out, the future of the collaboration lies solely in the hands of the remaining members.
The fanworks created here can be used for any other fests, as long as it’s allowed by the other fest mods and are compliant by their rules, and only after posting here first.

Posting Guidelines:

Posting this year will not be the usual form of posting. Since we are running a shorter version of the fest, posting will last 11 days only. (For more information about this, read Info for Merlin Cinema fest 2024.)

Each of the 11 days will belong to a specific genre, and all participants must post their fics based on that genre on that specific day. Participants must also post their headers to either Tumblr or LiveJournal. Or if submitting, submit to our Tumblr or LiveJournal accounts according to their preference or email the header to mods to post it for them. The schedule for each of the 11 days can be found here: Schedule. If participants miss a date, they can post later during amnesty week.
- (Note: Please make sure to post your work on either your assigned posting date or during the Amnesty week and not at any other time in between as it becomes difficult to track fanworks posted out of order.)
- In a collaboration, only one member should post for the entire team preferably tagging all the collaborators and our social media account.
All fanworks must first be posted to Ao3 in our Ao3 collection. They can then be posted or shared anywhere else.
Our Merlin Cinema collection can be found here.
Art, podfics and fanvids can be posted on any hosting site and then embedded to ao3 or uploaded directly to ao3.
You can submit the header on either Tumblr or LiveJournal. If submitting via Tumblr, please make sure to make the header post following the below given format and tag the mods. We will then reblog it on our page. You can do the same if submitting via LiveJournal. Just make sure to tag us and we will repost your header. You can also submit it to our LiveJournal community. If you don't have a LiveJournal or Tumblr or would rather the mods post on your behalf, you can submit you fanwork header at merlincinemamods@gmaildotcom. In a collaboration, only one teammate is required to either post/submit or email the header.

Format for fanwork headers is as follows:

For Fanfic:

Author/s:[Ao3 username. In case of multiple authors, usernames of each author separated by comma]
Title:
Rating:
Pairing/s:
Character/s:
Warnings:
Word Count:
Ao3 Link:
Summary:
Author’s Notes:
(The header may optionally be followed by a preview of the fic or the fic itself under read more or continue reading links.)

For Fanart:

Artist/s:[Ao3 username. In case of multiple artists, usernames of each artist separated by comma]
Title:
Rating:
Pairing:
Character/s:
Media:
Warnings:
Ao3 Link:
Artist’s Notes:
(The header may optionally be followed by a preview or the art itself.)

For Podfic:

Podficcer/s:[Ao3 username. In case of multiple podficcers, usernames of each podficcer separated by comma]
Title:
Rating:
Pairing:
Character/s:
Duration:
Warnings:
Ao3 Link:
Podficcer’s Notes:
(The header may optionally be followed by a snippet or the embedded media itself.)

For Fanvids:

Fanvidder/s:[Ao3 username. In case of multiple podficcers, usernames of each podficcer separated by comma]
Title:
Rating:
Pairing:
Character/s:
Duration:
Warnings:
Ao3 Link:
Fanvidder’s Notes:
(The header may optionally be followed by a snippet or the embedded media itself.)

For Playlists:

Fanwork/playlist creators:[Ao3 username. In case of multiple people, list usernames of each person separated by comma]
Title of the fanwork:
Rating:
Pairing:
Character/s:
Format for accompanying work
Playlist Duration:
Length/no of pieces/duration of accompanying work:
Warnings:
Ao3 Link:
Creator's Notes:
(The header may optionally be followed by a snippet of the fanwork or the embedded media itself.)

All posts on Tumblr must follow Tumblr and LiveJournal's guidelines for fanworks and porn. Similarly, all posts on Youtube must follow Youtube’s guidelines for fanworks and porn.
Note: Straggling links/emails/posting out of order/queries sent to addresses not specified in the post do not guarantee acknowledgement.