Smash the Champagne Bottle

Inspired by launchtheship *, Smash The Champagne Bottle is a low-pressure multifandom challenge to write the first fic for a ship in a fandom! Launching a ship on the seas has always been accompanied by ceremony, and our name comes from the tradition of smashing a bottle of champagne across the bow of a newly laid ship as the hull slides out of dry dock into the sea.

Have a ship you love that has zero fics on AO3? This is the challenge for you!

*Please note, we are not trying to step on any toes or replace Launch the Ship, which is a beloved event. However, since there has been no indication one way or other if the event will run this year- including attempting to ask on the LTS DW going unanswered, and people have been looking for it, so we decided to step in and create an event in the same vein with enough time for the event to take place before the year ends. We hope all is well for the LTS admin/s, and this will only become a repeated event if it should happen that LTS does not continue.

Schedule (all times and dates are US Eastern time)

Sign up: starts now, and will run though the deadline, though last minute signups could be slightly delayed in being added to the collection
Deadline: Friday, November 15th, 11:59pm
Collection Opens: Saturday, November 16th, 12:59am


1. Qualifying Ships

Anything that currently has 0 fics in English, of any length, be it for a romantic or gen ship (/ or &) qualifies. There are also no ship requirements. Your ship can be a gen ship between two peope, or three, or four, or twenty-seven. It can be a romantic ship between two people, or a polyamorous ship between three people, or even eighteen people. The open sea is the limit.

Note: If someone else posts the ship you want to write during the creation period, that's still fine. Your ship qualified during the sign up period it qualifies. 

ETA: A question has come in regarding fics in other languages. Our stance is: the more people who can take part in this, the merrier! So with regards to language, the qualifying rule is "zero fics in the language you want to write in". If you're writing in English, it should be zero fics in English. If you want to write in another language, it should be zero fics in that language. If you'll be writing in another language, please let us know in your sign up! Otherwise we will take it to be English.

2. Fic Requirements

Your fic just has to be complete. That's it. There are no word count requirements. Your fic can be a poem. Your fic can be co-authored. Your fic can have ten different relationship tags, provided the main one has zero ships.

If you are writing for several zero fic ships, please make sure you post them as separate fics though.

All ratings are welcome as long as they are appropriately tagged.

3. Signing Up

Post a comment on the sign-up post with the fandom your ship is in, and what your ship is! That's it! You don't need to have a dreamwidth account to join us - anyone is free to post anonymously, or signed in if they do have a dreamwidth account and wish to do so.

You can list as many ships as you want, provided they all qualify. If you decide to change your mind during the creation period, that's fine too. You can do anything you want, as long as your ship qualifies!

This isn't a formal exchange, so signing up isn't mandatory. It's just a nice way to commit to the deadline and to join a small community of people working together. When your fic is added to the collection, if you did not sign up previously, we will verify that your ship meets the requirements. Please note that there is a potential advantage to signing up, as we check for the ship at the time of signup, so if you don't sign up and someone else posts your ship in the meantime, it may not meet the event qualification.

4. AO3 Collection

You can post your work(s) to our collection! Works will remain unrevealed until Saturday, November 16th at 12:59am, which is when the entire collection will open. If you’re running a little late, no problem, the collection will remain open at least a week afterwards for you to add to it. 

At the end of reveals, we’ll do a round up post here on dreamwidth to showcase all the fics submitted!

5. Promos

Entirely optional, but totally encouraged! Come share with us your squee! Tell us why you love the ship you’ll be writing for! Do they look amazing together? Did they tease at something more in canon that was just a teeny tiny snippet that left you craving more? Do they have compatible attitudes? Are they character foils of each other? Do you think the snarky banter between them would be oh so glorious? Are they two characters who never interacted in canon but definitely needed to? Two characters from completely different fandoms who absolutely need to meet? We're here for all of this...and more!

Come share, peruse, and cheer each other on as we get ready to do some bottle smashing!

6. OC's and Self Inserts

 These are great, and we completely support their creation. However, we do see them as different entities from ships comprised entirely of canonical characters, and the event will be limited to canonical characters.

7. I have a question. How do I contact you?

Please leave a comment on this post, send up a PM on Dreamwidth, or send an email to eratoschild@gmail.com. We can also be found on Discord at the Exchanges After Dark server!