The 2026 Gameplay Post

[brightknightie]

FK Fic Fest 2026

Welcome to our 2026 fkficfest Forever Knight game!

This is our 17^th annual game. We're marking the 34^th anniversary of FK's premiere, the 30^th of its cancellation, and our continued regard for it and each other!

We're playing challenge style this year.

• We've created a common pool of 13 prompts to share. Each story must use at least 1 of the official prompts:
  
  • Long time no see
  • the whisper of what could have been
  • "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." —William Shakespeare (Hamlet, 1603)
  • Sunset
  • The frustration of everyday life could be overwhelming at times.
  • "Everything is a reenactment." —Errol Morris (Columbia Journalism Review interview, 2017)
  • Forced to move on
  • The child sat on a small suitcase, jacket neatly folded over one arm, a well loved stuffed bunny tucked tightly in the other.
  • "Eat this life til your heart is full." —BTS ("Like Animals," ARIRANG, 2026)
  • Childhood memories
  • Guess who's coming to dinner
  • “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” —Marcus Aurelius (Meditations, c.161-180)
  • Medical experimentation
• All fest fanworks should be in queue on our AO3 collection or DW community by the end of Saturday, July 18, to be sorted and scheduled on Sunday, July 19, and then released throughout that week, starting Monday, July 20. (All Pacific Time.)

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Timeline | Mod | Gameplay

How to post

Timeline

1. Saturday, July 18, 11:59pm (Pacific Time): Submissions requested in our AO3 collection or on our DW community.
2. Sunday, July 19, 12:00 noon (Pacific Time): Collection closes. Submissions sorted and scheduled for release.
3. Monday, July 20: Releasing starts, in an order and at a rate to encourage reading fun for all (likely 1-2 per day).

Meet your mod

Your moderator is me! brightknightie / brightknightie. Please contact me at my DW account (or you may use my personal email address that I've used on the FK email lists since '99 if you've known me that long).

As you may know, I loathe surprises. If something is going wrong in the game, please let me try to help as soon as possible. Don't wait until the last minute!

Gameplay

FKFicFest celebrates the remarkable television show Forever Knight (1992-1996) and its wonderful fans!

Challenge-style summary

• Each player addresses at least 1 of our 13 official prompts,
• in a new FK fanwork,
• of 500 words or more (or equivalent in art, etc.),
• that is queued for reveal on the AO3 or DW by the due date.
• As the stories release, fellow FK fans read and comment.

Tip: A writer may "address" a prompt by fulfilling it, subverting it, making it a red herring, or any other approach by which a reasonable reader will clearly find the prompt's influence in the story. It's part of the game that while we hold the prompts in common, each application is unique.

FAQ

• May I submit multiple works? And may I use multiple prompts in the same work?
  Yes. Those are not expected and they are not customary, but they are permitted. (All submissions must meet the same requirements; for example, all must be 500 or more words and use 1 or more elected prompts.)
  
  
• Are there limits on relationship categories?
  No. Gen, m/f, f/f, m/m, etc. are all equal in FKFicFest. Please respect your diverse audience and fellow players.
  
  
• May we have crossovers?
  Yes. FK must be at least 51% of the content, however you choose to measure.
  
  
• How long must a story be? And what about other kinds of works?
  All written submissions must be a minimum of 500 words. We have no maximum length for works posted to the AO3. Works posted to DW could hit a length limit; please reach out to your mod in advance if you could be in that situation.
  
  Any medium of new work that can reasonably be queued for reveal via the AO3 or DW (for example, an embedded image, video, or music file) is welcome. Other fanwork types must be a reasonable equivalent of 500 words of effort and enjoyment, for fairness. If you want to submit another kind of work and don't know how, contact your moderator early and we'll figure it out.
  
  
• What about beta-reading?
  Yes, please! :-) Ask a friend to play test audience! Show off your ideas to their best advantage! (We will have a post to help beta-readers and writers to find each other.)
  
  
• May I use a large language model like Google Gemini or ChatGPT?
  If you'd like to use a generative-AI LLM to help you brainstorm or proofread, you may. However, do not use an LLM to draft or to write. We're looking forward to reading your insightful new take on FK! We're not interested in a predictive-text chatbot mixing and matching takes that are already out there. Please share your own words and imagination with us! ♥
  
  
• CANS O' WORMS! What would your moderator very strongly prefer not to have to moderate?
  • Underage sex. No character who is or appears to be under 18 years of age should be depicted "on screen" in sexual activity. (For example, no Divia sex scenes.)
  • Real people. No real private individuals. Historical public figures may appear as in canon. (For example, Saint Joan in "For I Have Sinned," Rasputin in "Strings," Hitler in "Jane Doe," Jack the Ripper in "Bad Blood," and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in "Blind Faith.")
  • Trolling or flaming. If the moderator believes that you've trolled or flamed, in your story or in replies and conversation, she will ban you. This community is pro-Forever Knight, diversity, tolerance, kindness, respect, truth, justice, and the Canadian Way … oh, wait, that's the Knightie Creed. You know the drill! Constructive criticism is fine. Bashing is not. Baiting is not. We're a lovely, supportive community, and we'll show it!
    
    
• What if I don't have an AO3 account?
  Ask your moderator for an invitation! (Ask now, please. Don't wait until stories are due, just in case. Seriously.)
  
  
• What if I don't want to use the AO3?
  You may post to the queue here in our DW Community, as we did before the AO3 existed. Alert the mod to your choice well in advance. Use our header template (below) and cut-tag the body of your story. Important: You can't edit a post in queue on DW the way that you can on the AO3. Please plan accordingly!
  
  <b>Subject</b>: "[Title]" by [Your name] ([Rating], [Type]) <b>Title:</b> <b>Author:</b> <b>Beta-reader:</b> <b>Length:</b> <b>Rating/warnings:</b> <b>Summary:</b>

How to post

When you finish, post to the 2026 FKFicFest collection on the AO3. Here's the direct "post a new work to FKFicFest 2026" link. (The parent FKFicFest collection is permanently closed; stories go to the annual sub-collection.)

Steps:

1. Either start by clicking this link, post a new work to FKFicFest 2026, or, if starting from scratch on your AO3 account page, click Post New.
2. In the Tags block, pick a rating and set any warnings. Enter Forever Knight as the fandom. (For a crossover, also enter the other fandom(s).) Add any other tags you like.
3. In the Preface block, enter the title and yourself as the author. Enter a summary and notes, if you like.
4. In the Associations block:
   • For "Post to Collections / Challenges," ensure “2026_FKFicFest” is entered. This is what queues your story for the fest.
   • If you're gifting your story, enter your recipient’s AO3 username for “Gift this work to.”
   • Select any other options you like. (If applicable, remember the “This work has multiple chapters” option.)
5. In the “Work Text” block, paste your story. Tip: You can work in either “Plain text with limited HTML” or “Rich Text.”
6. In the Post block, consider checking the “Preview.”
7. Then post! Your story will be visible to you (and to me, your moderator), but everyone else will see a “mystery work” until the reveal.

Thank you very much for playing! Yay, us! Yay, Forever Knight!