Break The Stigma Fic Fest: Round 1 (2025)
Break The Stigma Fic Fest is a new 1D fic fest focused on mental health. This fest was inspired by the mods' frustrations with fanfic around mental health frequently being inaccurate at best, and offensive at worst. Our goal with this fest is to uplift and encourage accurate and thoughtful representations of mental health in fanfiction.
The mods are not mental health professionals, we are simply people living with mental illness who like fanfiction and One Direction— actually a shockingly common combination if you think about it.
Due to the nature of this fest, it's going to work a little differently to fests you may be familiar with. We want to be as low-mod as possible to encourage creative freedom, but some rules are necessary for this sort of fest;
Your fic must include at least 1 member of One Direction (Harry, Louis, Liam, Zayn, Niall). Any pairings (or no pairings!) are allowed.
Mental health must be the focus of the fic in some way. Characters don't have to have a specific diagnosis, but mental health is the spirit of this fest and thus should be at the forefront of your fic.
This is a tricky rule to enforce, but please do aim to keep your representation accurate. Stereotyping, romanticizing, and/or promoting stigma around mental health is not allowed.
Dark/DDDNE topics are allowed, as long as you tag and warn adequately. But remember: it doesn't all have to be doom and gloom! Mental health can be represented in many different ways.
Love cannot be the cure for a character's mental condition. While love is a beautiful part of life, it doesn't fix all, and it especially doesn't fix mental illness.
If you post any snippets (or, once fics post, any fic posts) please tag us so we can reblog it!
This fic fest will not have prompts, but rather each and every writer will be allowed to come up with their own prompt and plot. This is to avoid users submitting prompts that are unintentionally offensive, as well as to give writers the chance to write about something they care about without fear of the idea already being taken.
The mods running this fest are @todayisdeadinside, @prettystylinson, and @summer-lovin-09. Feel free to contact any of us with questions or concerns about the fest! :>
Sign-ups open on August 1st and close on September 15th. Once you've signed up and received an email from us, feel free to start writing!
Check-in emails will be sent on November 15th. If you need an extension or to drop out, please let us know at any time! There's no penalty for dropping out of the fest.
Fics must be submitted to the collection by December 15th.
Posting begins on December 18th.
