AU-gust Writing Challenge

A creative challenge for anybody, not just writers! @AU_gust on Twitter. Find us at '#au gust 2026' and '#au gust'!

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Dear diary this list came to me in my dream! Looks like AU-gust 2026 is here...

What is AU-gust? It stands for Alternate Universe August, and it is a creative challenge for everyone. Writers, artists, fans; anyone can join! Be sure to check out our FAQ for more answers! Join us on BlueSky, AO3, Discord and under the tags #au gust and #au gust 2026.

Special thanks to @yaoyorozoops for creating our wonderful graphics!

[ID] 31 days challenge prompt list as follows: 1 Steampunk, 2 Roommates, 3 Boogyman, 4 Hero, 5 Farmers and Markets, 6 Magic Realism, 7 Long Lost Relative, 8 Alternate Timeline, 9 Seamstress, 10 Arthurian Mythos, 11 Small Business, 12 Reality TV, 13 Cults, 14 Isekai/Reincarnation, 15 Fourth Wall Broken, 16 Only One Bed, 17 Time Travel Fix-It, 18 Sirens, 19 Animal Trainer, 20 Graveyard Keeper, 21 Glitch in the Matrix, 22 Technopunk, 23 Midlife Crisis, 24 Post, 25 Monster Hunter, 26 Soul-bound, 27 Virtual Reality, 28 Bad End, 29 Survival, 30 Earth Two/New Planet, 31 Two of the Above. You have four Jokers: Not Related, Daemons, Furry, TTRPG Players.

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Dumb question, even though I have been in fandom for around 5 years now, I have no idea what a Steampunk AU is. Like, I know the style, cosplay and aesthetic side of it, but how is it put into AUs in fandom?

Story-vise, Steampunk AU is an alternate universe where most machinery is powered by steam and this aesthetic seeps into everything - from clothing to careers. Take MCU, for example - IronMan operates a huge, steam-powered robot instead of a sleek suit. Or LotR - the path to Mordor is shorter when you can drive a steam car, but the orcs now have tanks!

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Looking forward to August! Excellent prompt list.

Can I ask for some examples of Magical Realism please? This one has me stumped.

Magic treated with the seriousness of science. Eragon would, in my opinion, be a good example. The series has a hard magic system where each action that you take through magic takes as much energy from you as if you were to do it yourself, and that fact is well-known and studied deeply. There is a lot of focus on the relationship between words and magic, too. The series treats magic like an exact science.

Another take on magical realism is a world with "magical" beings that are not really all that magical (or the magic can be quantified like any science, like mentioned above). Fairies? Humans plus evolution equals wings. Werewolves? Virus plus a dose of magical energy equals lycanthropy.

The story doesn't need to involve a lot of science and pondering to be magical realism, though! Sometimes, magical realism is simply fantasy without its mysteriousness and wonder.

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hello! is it possible to use a one-shot we write fill a prompt for prompts from both au-gust 2025 and au-gust 2026?

Yes, that seems reasonable.

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what does 2 of the above mean? did it mean any 2 of the 30 prompts or day 29-30 prompts only?

Pick two of this year's prompts and combine them into one AU. :)

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Hello! I’m gonna be trying this challenge to start writing again, and maybe get more confident in my writing hehe,, i had a question tho, in the roomates tag, if they’re already canonically roomates, could i work something like a college au where they share a dorm or something similar? Thank you!! Have a nice day ^^

You can either use a Joker and replace the prompt, or you can write a different "flavour" of the AU, like you suggested. Instead of living together as adults/friends, they share a dorm room (or the same Fallout vault). Go wild!

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Hey, sorry if this has been asked before but...I tend to get a bit carried away with AU's and they can end up being multiple chapters. Would it be okay to post say just the first chapter of an AU on the corresponding day? or would it need to be the entirely finished fic?

Posting just one chapter is fine! Some people are still posting their AU-gust longfics from multiple years ago. :o

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I know the technopunk question has been beat to death already but I was thinking about it more and wondering if a Pacific Rim AU would count? Might be a bit of a stretch because the technology integration isn't really society wide in the way you described, but I thought I'd ask because I've had a Pacific Rim AU idea rolling around in my head that I haven't written yet. Maybe I could justify it for the Soul-bound prompt if Technopunk doesn't work though.

I wouldn't say it fits - basically everything else is normal in Pacific Rim, iirc. Soul-bound would fit better, if the premise of the story is right.

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Super duper excited for this! Just was wondering if something like a Hanahaki disease fic would suit the Magic Realism prompt?

Yes, that would be an excellent use of the prompt!

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I saw this reddit post and wondered if the difference between Technopunk and Cyberpunk lies with the people's lifestyle. Like if cyberpunk means that despite the advanced technology, people are still living in poverty and are struggling (*ahem* like real life *ahem*) but the government is getting richer with the citizens' suffering, while technopunk is where people are thriving/having easier life compared to modern timeline because of the advanced technology they used

https://www.reddit.com/r/DetroitBecomeHuman/comments/16ddm3u/is_detroit_become_human_considered_cyberpunk/

Sorry this is legit so confusing and Google isn't being helpful, keep showing the technopunk music genre instead

Yes, that is also a good distinction. In Technopunk, technology is a huge part of everyone's life. Even the poor use a machine that manifests any kind of food out of thin air to make breakfast and fly to work with a jetpack. Technology is everywhere and the price for it isn't human suffering, it lies somewhere else, humanity forgetting how to be without it or paying some other huge price that they aren't aware of. This "price" doesn't need to be the focus of the story, I'm just pointing out another distinction. And Technopunk can be on Cyberpunk technology level, it's just a different genre and can include different technological levels too, not just cyberpunk.

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What does the "alternate timeline" prompt mean? Is it based on the canon of the fandom we're making it for? If yes, would it be the same to canon divergence?

Plus the "cyberpunk vs technopunk" still confused me. I saw the response of an ask about it, but I still had a hard time differentiating them 🥲

Alternate timeline can mean two things: either the canon story happens in a different era (medieval instead of modern, for example), or it happens on a different timeline. For example, instead of knowing months in advance that an army is coming towards the city, they only have a week to prepare, and instead of victory, the battle ends in a crushing defeat. Technically, all AUs and all fanfics are canon divergence, but yes, alternate timeline would be close to Canon Divergence in some cases.

I'm sorry, I didn't know the Technopunk prompt would get so confusing. 😅 Technopunk can mean any "tier" of technology but it focuses on a story/society where technology is deeply integrated into everyone's lives. Cyberpunk is a "tier" of technology that involves a lot of digitalisation, optimisation and some integration into our own bodies. I get where this gets confusing.

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is the event shipping only or platonic stuff is allowed?

Platonic stuff and no ship is allowed too. :)

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Just wanna say Im IN LOVE with the new prompts and graphics this year! I'm already buzzing with ideas!

Just a quick question tho and I know you'l probably explain it when AU-gust comes along, but what exactly is "Arthurian Mythos"? I looked it up and got many different definitions lol, so I just wanted to ask here.

Atrhurian Mythos refers to the myth about King Arthur. The AU can either replace the king and his knights with characters from your fandom or you can do a modern retelling of the myth within your fandom's setting. There is probably a secret third option hiding somewhere. Any prompt can be stretched and twisted to the absolute limit. :D

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how loose is the definition of AU? if i wrote a scene nominally set in the canon universe but technically not canon compliant in the sense that the timelines don't allow for that scene to have plausibly happened, is that an AU? what if it's just a missing scene? ty!

Ah, technicalities... Technically, every fanfic that is not an exact retelling of canon is an AU. So, technically, anything goes. Usually, however, AU-gust is about setting changes, not missing scenes. I'd say it's a question of whether the missing scene changes anything about the canon story, or whether it's just a changed scene. Which is up to you to decide and answer for yourself - I will not be scrutinizing every single fic and comparing notes with canon to find out if you really wrote an AU... in August. 😅

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is soul-bound the same as a soulmate au? or is there a difference? thanks so much, you're the best!

It can be positive, yeah, like soulmate AU... Or it can be negative. 😈 Doomed to ruin each other. The villain and the hero bound together so that the hero feels the pain that the villain inflicts. Lovers who are bound on a supernatural level (ABO) falling apart and trying to move on even as the bond remains. Tune the angst up!

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Hi! There's a complete fic I wrote for AU-gust 2025 that I'm thinking of adding another chapter/more lore to in the same AO3 work for a prompt for AU-gust 2026. Is that allowed?

It's not quite within the rules of this challenge, I'm afraid. The works should be new/newly posted. Sequels are okay but new chapters push it too far. :/ However, AU-gust is meant to inspire, so if this is what you're inspired to do, go for it. It should not be posted into this year's AO3 collection, though.

(Can you tell I'm very bad at setting firm rules for AU-gust? Lol, I just want people to have fun.)

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I am so hype! This is like Christmas for me, lol. I was just curious about two things!

One, is there a difference between technopunk and cyberpunk? I can't find much online about technopunk specifically and want to make sure I'm not missing anything major as I come up with my ideas and stuff.

Two, what might glitch in the matrix entail? I think it's a super cool prompt but for some reason I am completely coming up blank on what I could do with it, haha!

Thank you so much for the prompt list!!! Words cannot express how excited I am to participate :)

I elaborated on Cyberpunk vs Technopunk in this poste here. :)

A Glitch in the Matrix can be funny-interesting (wow, out of thirty complete strangers in this restaurant, four have the exact same shirt and none of them look good in it!) or scary-interesting (crap, three of my friends got killed on the same night by three different people and everyone insists it's a coincidence but how can something so random even happen?!) or just interesting (every 562 days to the dot, a person from a rural town in Iowa wins somewhere between $25 000-45 000 in lottery, and that's been going on for over 20 years!) or just scary (the cops have undeniable physical proof that I committed a crime, I see myself on that video, that's my car, my lost earring they found there, but I. did. not. do. it!)

"Glitch in the Matrix" situation give me the same feeling as liminal spaces. And the first thing that comes to my mind for this prompt is how the heck do I hear trains near our home at night when the train line had been cancelled for decades?! Yes, it's because it's haunted, but it could also be a glitch!