First, quick reiteration of an announcement: the HSO mods are looking for first readers! Your duty would be to read works as they come in (I assume you're not responsible for reading ALL of them, but an assigned chunk) and make sure that tags have been correctly applied and that the works correctly follow the rules of HSO and of the round itself.

Second, a reminder to check out the revised tagging policy. This is really important, so make sure you read it thoroughly!

Third, and of course most excitingly for everybody, Bonus Round 1 has gone up! Copying and pasting here, as usual:

Bonus Round 1

Genre-Mixing

Hey, shippers! Welcome to your very first bonus round proper--we hope you have lots of fun with it! This time around we're going to be asking you to mix it up a little--each fanwork posted for this round will be a mish-mash of two different genres, blended together in a delightful incestuous slurry to create an UNSTOPPABLE CREATIVE CONCOCTION--er. Or. Something.

Yeah, we're genre-mixing. That's what we're doing this round. 

Rules

1. Submit prompts! Prompts should consist of two different genres and one ship. This cannot be your team's ship! These are worth 5 points each.


2. Look through the prompts and fill whichever you like!


3. You may not fill prompts for your ship, nor may you fill your own team's prompts.


4. Fills should be posted as replies to the prompts which they are for, following the format below. They may be any medium.

[This part didn't copy right, whoops, it's just the boxes with the format for comment titles for prompts and fills. You'll already be on the BR1 page when that's relevant, so get it from there!]

Scoring
For prompt posts: 5 points each

For fills (as stated here):
First 5 entries in each post: 30 (per entry)
Entries 6-10 in each post: 20 (per entry)
Entries 11-15 in each post: 10 (per entry)
Entries 16+ in each post: 5 (per entry)

All scored content must be created/assembled new for this round.

If you have any questions, please ask them at the FAQ post here, or email them to us (homestuck.shipping at gmail). Otherwise, we cannot guarantee that we will see them in a timely fashion! 



So basically, you get to ask for anything you want and you can fill anything you want AS LONG AS IT'S FOR SOME OTHER SHIP. I think maybe a good rule of thumb would be to only make as many prompts as you're willing to fill for other people, or as many as the team can cover for you. Basically: don't go TOO crazy making prompts but have lots of fun and do as many as you're able! Of course, I'm not going to hold you to this, it just seems like maybe a cool, polite thing to do, and a good way to make sure the team does a lot of fills.

I'll definitely be participating as much as I can in this round, since it seems like you guys have Round One pretty well covered. I'm really excited to see how that comes out!

Also, if you have AIM, let me know if you want to join the atomicclocks Blast Group. It's like a buddy chat that never goes away. Also, we have a permanent chatzy room here. If you guys ever want to make a time to just hang out and chill and bounce ideas and share things and maybe just flail about Homestuck and life, make sure you give a specific time--that's the best way to make sure people will come, instead of just waiting for someone else to name a time. XD

Anyway, have fun, you guys, and I'll see you around!

Your lazyfail palhoncho,
Asher

OH and before I go: link your prompts and fills in comments below, okay? We can't fill prompts from our own team members, but I definitely want to see them!

Geez, I should upload some of those awesome banners and icons to the comm, shouldn't I.

The Round One Prompt went up last night, as most of you who stay up later than I do probably already know! Pardon me as I just copy and paste the entire thing here.

ROUND ONE: GAMBLING

they call you lady luck

Hey shippers! 
We are so incredibly excited to announce the first main round prompt and the official start of the HSO!
This year, we’re loosely theming the prompts around patron trolls. We’re also trying to give you a little more creative space with this year’s prompts, so we’ll see how this works out!

For Round One, incorporate gambling--literal or metaphorical--in your submission. It doesn't need to be the central focus, but it should be a major theme.

And as always, if you are unsure whether something counts or not, just ask! You can reach us at homestuck.shipping@gmail.com

All submissions must be created/assembled new for this round by members of your team.
No fan-created content is allowed that has not been made by members of your team specifically in response to the prompt. Mainstream creative content is fine (e.g. popular music, well-known art pieces, the Homestuck soundtrack), but not fanart, fan music, etc. This is largely to ensure that the original content in your entry is clearly identifiable as distinct from the borrowed content.

This challenge will run until 11:59PM EDT June 23. If your Palhoncho sends it in after that time according to the gmail timestamp, your team’s submission will get posted--but we cannot guarantee that it will be posted in a timely manner. 

Requirements (as stated in the Info Post)
Fic/meta must be between 800-3000 words.
Combination fic/art entries cannot have more than 4 images.
All other image-based media (including comics) cannot exceed 10 images/panels.
Cosplay must be at least 75% created or assembled new for the challenge.
The penalties for going over 3k words will be as follows:
3000-3050: no penalty (to allow for disparities in wordcount software)
3051-3150: -30 points
3151-3250: -60 points
etc.
PLEASE NOTE that gdocs is notoriously bad at generating an accurate wordcount, so you should probably check your submission at http://www.wordcounter.net/ just to make sure.
Also, this year we are requiring transcriptions of all text on images. These transcriptions count towards the wordcount.

Please remember not to post your HSO creations publicly until voting ends, whether or not they are chosen as part of the team submission. We would like to keep things as anonymous as possible!

Submission Format
We’re still working out the details, but this year we’re probably going to ask palhonchos to post their entries directly to the round comm! Stay tuned for more details.

Questions about this challenge should be emailed to homestuck.shipping@gmail.com; we will attempt to check the comments on this post, but we cannot guarantee that we will be able to see all of them.
Please remember to check the Info Post and FAQ to see if your question is answered there! 





Remember: collaboration is not required for this round, but it is encouraged, so if you've got a great idea but need a  helping hand, get right on up here and ask!

GET EXCITED, GUYS, THIS IS GONNA ROCK!

You probably already know, but Bonus Round 0 has started! We're supposed to make icons/banners for other teams. I want to see these, so show us here when you finish AS WELL AS POSTING THEM TO THE BR0 ENTRY (as that's the only way we get points), and have fun!

The deadline is June 1st!