Do you think that the OPBB will ever return?
Thank you for your question (and sorry it took us this long to reply)!
Let me start off by saying we appreciate the interest and the wish to participate in a Big Bang event. It is really great knowing there's always interest for this!
We've decided to take a break from the event and the blog for a while.
With a miniscule change in our team, we are considering coming back with something more low key to start later this year or early next year, depending on real life obligations and other fandom projects.
Based on feedback received during every previous run, we want to preface this by saying the rules of posting will not be changing this time either; all posting will be happening on each team's designated day. The Big Bang is a great unique challenge for many writers and it's been a fan favorite for many years, and we want to honor that and the spirit of the OPBB as it's been conceived since it's beginning.
What we are changing is the base word count (for something lower and more chill to take the pressure off) compared to the previous years. We would also like to incorporate a sort of theme to the event to encourage writers to step outside their comfort zone a bit and trust in their fellow creators to choose a concept based on the idea rather than the popularity of the characters involved.
One Piece is an incredibly vast universe with a rich cast of characters so we would be excited to host a BB focused more on that range of characters and pairings that maybe don't get as represented normally. We hesitate to call it strictly a rarepair event, since Gen content is most welcome and much appreciated as always.
With so many amazing zines and projects coming out lately, it's becoming increasingly clear that the fandom as diverse as this one holds interest for so many themes and characters, and we'd be delighted to hold an event that brings all these ideas together.
Any official announcements will be happening when we get closer to figuring the logistics of everything out. We're open to questions at any time, but this time around, we will be deleting any negativity or hate should any be sent to us.
We've received the same question from @pencilmagiciann and @aibhilin-atibeka so I'm tagging you instead of replying to the same ask more than once.