New Year's Resolution

SWG Resolution challenge banner - a homemade 2024 planner with the month of January showing; text "Resolution: SWG Challenge 1 Jan - 15 Feb"

Happy New Year! To help you start 2024 off right, we’re giving you a chance to catch up on any challenges you missed in 2023. Our annual amnesty allows you to pick from any of the previous year’s challenges. Whether finishing that epic novel for the challenge that ran away or making a sketch or writing a drabble, the idea is to make something fannish with one of our challenges as inspiration!

You do not need to use a new prompt to be eligible for this challenge. Participants can choose to complete any of the previous year's challenges. Did you miss a challenge you wanted to complete? Do it now. Did you start a fanwork for a challenge but never completed it? Here is your chance to finish. If you didn't leave any unrealized or unfinished projects behind you (congratulations!) or if none of the unfinished challenges strike your fancy, choose from any of our past challenges. (For a summary of the 2023 challenges and direct links, see the Challenge Prompts section below!)

You will receive a stamp on your 2024 collection for any challenges that you complete now*, as well as a stamp for the New Year's Resolution challenge on your 2023 collection. When you post to the SWG archive, please make sure you select the 2023 challenge you're completing and the New Year's Resolution challenge.

*If you choose to complete a challenge older than 2023, we will not be giving out past stamps; you will, however, receive your January 2024 stamp.

To help the mods correctly process stamps for this challenge:

  • Inform the mods if you need commenting stamps for 2023 challenges prior to Experimental, and which stamps you need. (All challenges have commenter and 5 comment stamps; some challenges have stamps for 10 or higher numbers of comments.)
  • For August's Roaring Twenties challenge, please let us know if you need column, row, diagonal, or card blackout stamps.

This challenge opened in .

Prompts

Choose your prompt from the collection below.

View Prompts

February | Cheesy Corn Chips
Celebrate the corny and the cheesy, the sappy and sweet and schmaltzy and saccharine in popular culture by choosing from our collection of corny, sentimental, and heartstring-rending prompts.

March | Middle-earth Is Multitudes
Use our daily prompt calendar to populate your fanworks with a more diverse array of characters.

April | Rejects
Create a fanwork around one of Tolkien's rejected ideas from the legendarium. Choose a prompt at the link above.

May | Bestiary of Arda
Choose a prompt from our "bestiary" of music and images of animals found in Arda.

June | Secret Gate
A Matryoshka challenge where prompts are based on the common plot points and tropes from mystery novels. Message the mods for a prompt set. Specify if you would like two, three, five, or seven prompts. If you've never done this type of challenge, read our Matryoshka challenge FAQ.

July | Dip the Ladle
Tolkien had many tales, places, and artists who inspired his work. For this challenge, prompts invite creating a fanwork using one of Tolkien's influences. Select one of the unassigned prompts, available at the link above.

August | Roaring 20s
Use bingo prompts from 1920s-themed cards to create a fanwork.

September | Turgon's Rock Opera
On the anniversary of the publication of "The Silmarillion," we’re reflecting on the importance of music in Arda with prompts that come from rock songs. Choose from one of the unassigned prompts, available at the link above.

October | Experimental
Tolkien was an experimental writer, pushing the boundaries of literary and artistic convention. This month, we invite you to experiment with a new technique or approach to your fanworks. We’ve listed some prompts you can select from, but you’re also free to develop your own.

November/December | Understory
This month's challenge is a remix challenge, meaning that you will use another person's fanwork as your inspiration. You will choose a minor character, small detail, or minor plot point and develop it into its own fanwork. Make sure you review the schedule and expectations for using another fan's work in the challenge guidelines. The link above includes a list of SWG creators who are willing to give permission to use their work in this challenge.

Fanworks Tagged with New Year's Resolution

This is a Series fanwork

Narin and Anglithiel by Lferion

Celebrimbor and Narvi were not the only Elf-Dwarf pairing in Ost-in-Edhil.

Tales featuring an original Elf character named Anglithiel and her partner and love original Dwarf character Narin.

Fanwork Information

This is a Writing fanwork

A good day by daughterofshadows

Salgant gets some unexpected gifts

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Couldn't Drag Me Away by Grundy

Elrond is curious about the music - and why his daughter has been avoiding certain subjects.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

After The End by cuarthol

[F]or his father was dearer to him than the light of Valinor or the peerless works of his hands; - The Silmarillion

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Not a Pipe by Lferion

In Ost-in-Edhil, Narin gets a look at her wife's new sculpture.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

Two werewolves in a dark startlit landscape

Unbound by Anérea

For Draugluin, death was just the beginning ...

Fanwork Information

This is a Writing fanwork

Forest-dwellers by chrissystriped

Rog helps a visitor with his prosthesis.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

In love that we are made by stormfallen

They say there are cities far to the East and South, for those who can find them, whose entire populations slowly forgot the need for flesh and faded into memory of routine, living in their empty homes and walking their empty streets even when those homes and streets are no more.

For thousands of years the City has awaited you.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Assistance by Himring

Early in the Second Age, Gil-galad receives an important collaborator.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Quantum Song by Lferion

Fingon attends a concert given by the Tirion Academic Symphony.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Flames by elennalore

From an account of an enslaved Elf in Angband.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

A Bow of Burning Gold by Lferion

What bow, what arrows will serve against such a foe as Glaurung? A single drabble.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Cocktail Party, Reprise by Lferion

The competition cocktail party was a regular event, and Fingon gradually learned to appreciate, if not always enjoy it.

A triple drabble, with images and recipes for 9 cocktails.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Foreboding by chrissystriped

Círdan's ship arrives in Forochel to take Arvedui south.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

The Nature of My Game by elennalore

Fëanáro needs Melkor's secret knowledge to create his Silmarils, but Fëanáro will also be an invaluable asset to Melkor in the Vala’s own game.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

(Not So) Cheap Sunglasses by UnicornsInSpace

In a modern/all human AU, Celeborn meets Galadriel while going to eat with his family and is smitten.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

What Old Tales Say by StarSpray

How oddly the old tales changed and twisted through the years!

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Artwork fanwork

Portrait of Eärwen, Swan Maiden of Alqualondë by between_thepages

A portrait of Eärwen, created for Middle-earth is Multitudes

Fanwork Information

This is a Writing fanwork

The Watchfires Burned Low by cuarthol

There came a time of winter, when night was dark and without moon; and the wide plain of Ard-galen stretched dim beneath the cold stars, from the hill-forts of the Noldor to the feet of Thangorodrim. The watchfires burned low, and the guards were few;

The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Devotion by Flora-lass

Beleg loves Turin. Despite everything, because of everything, forever.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Drunken Lullabies by Grundy

News of the Sudden Flame has reached Nargothrond.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Organum by mairoff

 When Melkor approaches him it is not necessarily out of ill intents - he thinks. As Aulë’s second he enjoys a certain reputation - one that gives him the moniker Admirable.

No, Mairon does not start evil at all.

Though, perhaps it is in his nature to ever evolve, ever iterate, he is fond of empirical processes and his surroundings feel small and smothering sometimes. But Mairon laughs, Mairon cares, Mairon even loves.

And that is his own doom.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Artwork fanwork

The Light of the Trees of Valinor by Varda delle Stelle

Through the Light of the glass shine the Light of Laurelin

Fanwork Information

This is a Writing fanwork

Caused Fire to be Set by Narya

Maglor, on Losgar, and what might have been.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Children of Aulë by cuarthol, Zdenka

A moment between those known by others as Petty Dwarves.  Their name for themselves is unknown.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents