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Smut 4 Smut 2023: Nominations and Sign-Ups

Welcome to Smut 4 Smut, a multifandom gift exchange for smutty fic and art! Our schedule for 2023:

Feb 3-10, 8pm: nominations (nomination rules can be found here)
Feb 11-12: tagset cleanup
Feb 13: sign-ups open
Feb 23, 8pm: sign-ups close
Feb 26: assignments out by this date
Apr 8, 8pm: works due
Apr 15, 8pm: work reveals
Apr 22, 8pm: creator reveals

All times in EST/EDT. You can contact us at smut4smutmod@gmail.com, or comment on this post with questions.

2023 Collection | 2023 Ships Tag Set | S4S Permanent Kink Tagset

Oxonmoot 2023

Oxonmoot is an annual event hosted by The Tolkien Society which brings together over 500 Tolkien fans, scholars, students and Society members from across the world. Oxonmoot 2023 is our Fiftieth Oxonmoot and will be held over four days from Thursday, 31 August, until Sunday, 3 September, at St Anne’s College, Woodstock Road, Oxford and online.

Oxonmoot hosts a variety of presentations and activities across the weekend.

Quick Links:

• Register for in-person attendance at Oxford University
• Register for online attendance
• Event information
• Call for papers
• Information on how to submit a proposal for an activity, entertainment, the masquerade, or the poetry reading will be forthcoming

February challenge at the tolkienshortfanworks community (Dreamwidth)

This month, for our tolkienshortfanworks challenge, we have been inspired by A Fandom Tribute to Keiliss, a collection on AO3 for tributes to Keiliss, a well-known and beloved fandom writer who died last year, due to be revealed on 19 February, which would have been her birthday. So we have chosen prompts in honour of Kei, although this is an entirely independent challenge that can also be filled if you should happen not to have encountered Kei's work at all (although, if so, please consider this a rec).



So here is our thematic prompt and our formal challenge for February:



The thematic prompt is: a piece featuring Glorfindel or Erestor or both Glorfindel and Erestor. (Kei often wrote these as a ship, but you do not have to write them as a pairing, unless you wish, and the piece does not have to be shippy, unless you want it to be.)



Optional bonus prompt element: in honour of Kei's last, sadly uncompleted but very substantial WIP, The Pink Flamingo: include a flamingo or something pink or red, especially if it is a bird.



The formal challenge is to write something involving the number 19: nineteen words, nineteen sentences, nineteen lines, nineteen paragraphs--or any other idea you can come up with.



As always, the two prompts can be filled entirely independently or combined with prompts from other challenges (in this case, obviously, especially A Fandom Tribute to Keiliss).

 

More details about the tolkienshortfanworks challenges at the linked post.

Tolkien Reading Day 2023

Tolkien Reading Day is held on the 25^th of March each year. The date of the 25^th of March was chosen as the date on which the Ring was destroyed, completing Frodo’s quest and vanquishing Sauron.

It has been organised by the Tolkien Society since 2003 to encourage fans to celebrate and promote the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien by reading favourite passages. We particularly encourage schools, museums and libraries to host their own Tolkien Reading Day events. Check the Tolkien Society website for more information on their event.

Tolkien Society Seminar: Númenor, the Mighty and Frail

The Tolkien Society Seminar is a short conference of both researcher-led and non-academic presentations on a specific theme pertaining to Tolkien scholarship.The Society held three seminars in 2021 (Twenty-first Century Receptions of Tolkien, Tolkien and Diversity, and Translating and Illustrating Tolkien) and their online setting has seen increased interest with over 700 attendees from 52 countries at ‘Tolkien and Diversity’. After the seminar, all paper recordings from the seminars are uploaded onto the Tolkien Society’s YouTube channel. We are delighted to run hybrid seminars where delegates can enjoy discussions on Tolkien in person and online.

This year's event, "Númenor, the Mighty and Frail," will be held both online and in-person at The Hilton, Leeds on 2 July 2023. Both events are free. 

The seminar aims to examine the role that Númenor plays in Tolkien’s legendarium. Although the island was pivotal to the secondary world narrative of the Second Age, it also re-emerged consistently in Tolkien’s writing and thinking from The Lost Road (1936-37), through The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) and The Notion Club Papers (1945), to ‘Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner’s Wife’ (1965) and other late essays. Númenor, then, is central to the growth of Tolkien’s legendarium and is a catalyst for seismic change in Arda.

Although Tolkien consistently refers to Númenor as the greatest human kingdom, its overwhelming military splendour and grand civilisation mask its frailty, which only grows over time. As is seen with the fractions of the King’s Men and the Faithful, Númenor’s fall may have been inevitable from its conception. However, its legacy in the Black Númenóeans and the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor evince that its legacy is still somewhat alive after its downfall.

Register to attend the event on the Tolkien Society's website.

The Battle of Maldon: together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth

The Battle of Maldon: together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth is the first ever standalone edition of one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s most important poetic dramas, that explores timely themes such as the nature of heroism and chivalry during war, and which features unpublished and never-before-seen texts and drafts. Leading Tolkien scholar, Peter Grybauskas, presents for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien’s own prose translation of The Battle of Maldon together with the definitive treatment of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth and its accompanying essays; also included and never before published is Tolkien’s bravura lecture, ‘The Tradition of Versification in Old English’, a wide-ranging essay on the nature of poetic tradition. Illuminated with insightful notes and commentary, he has produced a definitive critical edition of these works, and argues compellingly that, Beowulf excepted, The Battle of Maldon may well have been ‘the Old English poem that most influenced Tolkien’s fiction’, most dramatically within the pages of The Lord of the Rings. The Battle of Maldon: together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth goes on sale 30 March 2023.

Year of the OTP 2023

Year of the OTP is an event designed to encourage participants to make more content for a particular ship they love and end 2023 with twelve new fics for an OTP. The goal is to make one fanwork featuring a ship for each month in 2023, and each month features multiple prompts.

Year of the OTP 2023 AO3 Collection

Prompts

January

first kiss | mission fic | fake dating | “whenever I look at you…” | snow | historical au

February

valentine’s day | pollen/fear gas/truth serum | established relationship | “if i kiss you, will you shut up?” | different | mermaid au

March

fresh starts | road trup | getting back together/mutual pining | “make me” | acceptance | fairytale au

April

pranks | canon divergence | (seemingly) unrequited love | “no, i’m not dating your brother” | peace | university au

May

flower language | sick fic | pet/child acquisition | “who are you” | sunshine | fantasy/medieval/dark knights of steel au

June

wedding/proposal | saving the world | (accidental) love confession | “you aren’t what i expected” | downpour | soulmate au

July

vacation together | power swap | enemies to lovers | “batman won’t like this” | stars | coffee shop au

August

au of your choice | time travel | meet cute/blind date | “you’re the only one i could turn to for help” | storm | vampire/werewolf/dc vs vampires au

September

high school/college sweethearts | hurt/comfort | meeting the family | “i wrote this for you” | flood | shifter au

October

couples costume | test messaging | identity shenanigans | “you can’t bench me!” | lightning | sports team au

November

life changes | de-aging | secret relationship (reveal) | “be careful what you wish for” | growth | music/band au

December

holidays together | crack treated seriously | moving in together | “that’s my favorite thing about you” | forgiveness | tattoo parlor/flower shop au

Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology XIII

This year will be the thirteenth and final Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology. For one last time, we'll be collecting short lady-centric podfics by different readers in different fandoms to release as an anthology and as a collection of individual files.

The submission deadline for podfics is February 14th, and we will post the anthology on February 28th.

The theme for this year's anthology is transition. It's optional—all podfics are welcome as long as they follow the rules laid out in the Submission Guidelines—but feel free to let it inspire you if you'd like.

If you are not familiar with this project, you can see the previous anthologies here.

To Podficcers: Interested in participating? We'd love to have you. This should be a low-stress project, even for people who are new to podficcing, due to the word-count: 1500 words or less (with many being as short as 1-2 minutes). If you'd like to record something for this anthology, please fill out this quick google form and we'll send you the link to the spreadsheet where we'll be keeping track of all the podfics. If you would prefer to interface via email instead of using the form/spreadsheet, you can email klb at sekritproject@gmail.com, and she will reach out to get you set up.

Here are some good places for finding short fics about female characters:
-The Women Being Awesome, Female Characters, Female Character of Color, POV Female Character, and Female Relationships tags at the AO3, limited to word counts of 1500 or less.
-The Misses Clause Challenge from Yuletide
-Femslash Minis
-Awesome Ladies Ficathon (original LJ ficathon deleted, but these works crossposted to AO3 remain)
-Real Women Fest
-Female Character Trope Fest
-The Bechdel Test Comment Ficathon
-The Bechdel Test Comment Ficathon II
-Where No Woman: Un-erasing the women of Star Trek and Women of Star Trek
-Femslash Kinkmeme
-The Femslash February Collection
-Focus on Female Characters Collection
-Purimgifts

Since this project has a relatively quick turnaround time, you may want to refer to this database of authors who have posted blanket permission statements and/or install this browser extension that highlights all blanket permission authors from that database in green.

To the Podcurious: If you have ever thought you might like to create podfic, this is a really great starting place. It's low pressure, you might get listeners you wouldn’t otherwise reach, you're contributing to a cool fanwork that celebrates our love for female characters, and it's not too intense of a spotlight, because your piece is in the company of many other voices.

To Everyone: Feel free to comment with links to other fests or specific works that you think would be a good fit for this anthology. Additionally, we are looking for beta listeners who can absolutely commit to at LEAST two hours of beta listening between February 17th and 24th. Please let us know if you'd be available and interested; we'd be very grateful!

To Authors: We've had some awesome authors get involved in the past, in pod_together style, to create short female-centric pieces for the anthology in collaboration with podficcers. If you’re an author who’s interested and is seeking podficcers to work with, feel free to comment below. Podficcers who would like this sort of collaboration, please reply directly to the authors.

See this post for the rules and submission guidelines. If you have any additional questions, please let us know!

Gore Swap 2023

Gore Swap is an exchange for fanworks that include significant gore content, meaning described/pictured violence, injury and/or bloodshed. The minimum requirement is 500 words or a nice sketch on unlined paper. The 2023 schedule is as follows:

Nominations: Jan 15-22
Sign ups: Jan 24-31
Assignments out by: Feb 3
Assignments due: March 12
Work Reveals: March 24
Creator Reveals: March 31

You can find more at Gore Fest's AO3 Collection or the complete rules.

Teitho January/February Challenge: Starting Over

Teitho is a bimonthly Tolkien fanfiction contests. You can find full information and rules for Teitho here. Our challenge for January and February of this new year is Starting Over, a prompt that gives our creators options for both beginnings and endings.

Will you tell us a tale of the first Elves leaving Cuiviénen for Valinor, stories of the hosts of Fëanor and Fingolfin journeying to Beleriand, or Luthien and Beren’s time in Tol Galen?

Perhaps your story will follow Sauron after the War of Wrath. Or the Men who became the Nine.

Shall you tell us of the survivors of Erebor and their new dwellings? Or Samwise and Frodo, when they return to the Shire? Or cross the sea to the West?

Perhaps you will share the story of Gandalf's time in Lorien, after he defeated the balrog and became Gandalf with White? Or Glorfindel coming back to Middle-earth from Valinor in a new body?

“How do you pick up the threads of an old life?” Frodo asks, in Peter Jackson’s film version of The Return of the King. “How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back.”

The start of a new year is a chance to start again. Where will you take us with this prompt? We can’t wait to see!

Please submit your stories before January 31, 2023, to teitho.contest@gmail.com