I am very pleased to say that 47 members have signed up to take part in this year’s Secret Santa event. And that’s not including the people who didn’t officially sign up, put themselves forward as rescue writers and artists anyway. 

Hopefully, all participants have their assignments by now. Most of you have replied to my email to confirm you have, but I do have two responses outstanding. If you have signed up but haven’t seen a message from me, please check your spam inbox. And failing that, please reach out to the mod team! 

Participants must post their fics (or art work, if applicable) between 12:01 am site time on December 1st and 11:59 pm on December 31st. If something goes awry and you cannot meet the deadline, again, please contact us! We understand life happens, but we don’t want anyone to end up giftless. Letting us know if your muse abandons you/cat eats your laptop/garden gnome blows up and takes your house with it means we can avail of our aforementioned rescue writers and artists. 

Members are welcome to make and upload their own fic banners, or commission another member to make a banner for them, as usual, but there is also a default gift fic banner (pictured above), if you need it. If you use the default banner, please credit MillennialCryBaby, or if you're including a custom banner with your fic, it must have "Designed for Elysian Fields' 2022 Secret Santa Event" written somewhere legibly on it.  

Reminder: only participating members will get an event award for Secret Santa. There are no shinies for betas or banner artists.

Once it comes time to post your fic, you’ll be able to tick a box that will appear on the submission page, like so: 

Please state clearly who your gift fic is for in either your story summary or story notes. Optional, but you may like to add the prompts you are meeting in your story end notes. 

We recommend members reach out to their giftees once you have posted, to make sure they don’t accidentally miss it. That would be such a shame after all your hard work. 

Giftees, we shouldn’t need to say this, but it is good etiquette to respond to your gifter to let them know you’ve seen and appreciate all their efforts. 

Here is a screenshot of a sample fic showing the icon that will appear beside your fic, once posted, to indicate its status as part of the event:

One last reminder: Each fic should be a “one-shot” size (or be posted as a single “chapter” in the case of art). That is, the fic must be under 14,750 words in length. 

Any issues or questions, please email EllieRose101 at ssolace@gmail.com