After a very busy Jubilee challenge—which resulted in more than sixty fanworks and hundreds of comments—we're introducing a new challenge for the next month that is an anti-challenge.
Dark Matter, just like the substance in the universe that it is named after, involves creating a fanwork around an absence, using an anti-prompt. If that sounds as mysterious as the concept of dark matter itself, it's actually quite straightforward: don't include the prompt or prompts you choose in your fanwork.
The Dark Matter challenge uses a random prompt generator to choose a prompt or prompts across three possible categories: motifs and tropes, literary techniques, and words and letters. You can pick one prompt. You can pick three. You can walk the middle road and pick two. You can reroll the prompt generator as many times as you want, and if you want to try multiple prompts, cherrypick prompts you like as they come up and roll the other categories until you find something you like there too. If you want to take the full Agent of Chaos approach, you can just take what you get and make a fanwork without it.
Because this challenge is a different, unfamiliar approach, we've included a range of difficulty levels in the prompts. After the hubbub of Jubilee, taking low-hanging fruit is fine, but if you are up for creating a fanwork without the letter E, that diabolical anti-prompt is in the mix too (in the Words & Letters category). As always, we never judge what "counts" for a challenge and embrace our challenges' purpose in increasing the number of Silmarillion fanworks out there in the world!
In other news, Mereth Aderthad continues to proceed apace and we have a few updates to share!
First, our program of meta and scholarship presentations has been posted on the Mereth Aderthad 2025 page. We have twelve tantalizing presentations on deck for the event. Watch this space for fanworks to be added too in the weeks to come!
Speaking of fanworks, if you want to create a fanwork for Mereth Aderthdad (the live event, the event's zine, or both!), fanwork sign-ups opened today.
Registration for the even will open on March 15, for both in-person and virtual attendees.
Finally, we will feature interviews with the presenters and creators of Mereth Aderthad in the weeks to come so that we can celebrate their work and let attendees get to know them a little before the event. We're looking for volunteers to help with these interviews. We provide the questions to get you started and you direct the conversation from there. Interviews will be over email or another text-based format unless you and your interviewee prefer differently. We'll handle the rest! If you'd like to help out, reply to this email and we'll be in touch!
SWG News
New Challenge: Epic 80s
This month's challenge features hundreds of fresh prompts from the bodacious decade of the 1980s.
Cultus Dispatches: Communities Do Comment
Comment data from the SWG underscores community as an essential component to a robust commenting culture.
Instadrabbling Sessions for July, August, and September
Instadrabbling continues on the first Saturday of each month on our Discord server.

New Fanworks
Is it raining with you? by AdmirableMonster [Writing]
In the last days of Númenor, two very different men meet in Umbar and fall in love.
(Please note that while this work is heavily inspired by Disco Elysium, no knowledge of the game is necessary to read the fic!)
Read more ...Wrensong and Roses by Isilme_among_the_stars [Writing]
Concerned by his responses to the paraphernalia of healing, Fingon steals Maedhros from his room for an impromptu garden excursion. Maedhros battles with dark thoughts.
Read more ...Bon(e)fire by Fuin [Writing]
On the night before the battle, Caranthir and his ally share thoughts about their peoples' traditions:
Burning bones ward off evil.
Read more ...McShady by Babblecat [Writing]
Melkor has himself a bad time in the Void.
Read more ...
Updated Fanworks
A Thousand Winds that Blow by StarSpray [Writing]
When uneasy dreams bring him back into Beleriand, Daeron finds a pair of twins who have lost their home, and an enemy who has lost himself. The Shadow's reach is growing ever longer, and if they are to survive, they must do it together.
Read more ...Nasyalossë by Lovimmy3365 [Writing]
Erestor lay up against a tree, brown washed to black in the wet of the snow. The black disc of the new moon sailed across the dark sky. Erestor wished it were gone. He had no need to look into dark eyes any longer.
He was dying.
(AKA Erestor unwittingly travels back in time to the days between the Dagor Bragollach and the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, meets the sons of Feanor, Thingol and his ilk, many Laiquendi, many Dwarves, and Men besides, and THEN decides to solve the drowning of Beleriand himself. This has nothing to do with his personal problems. Nope. Not at all. Erestor is having regular feelings.)
Read more ...Until the Stars are All Alight by Dagstjarna [Writing]
Reembodied in Aman, Celebrimbor decides to return to Middle earth to help heal the darkness and hurt wrought by the ring.
Read more ...From That Rubble by StarSpray [Writing]
Fëanor shrugged, studying the contents of his wine glass. “Something must be done about that house. It will fall down eventually.”
“It does not follow that it must be you that tears it down single-handedly. Are you sure you do not want help?”
“It’s not as though I have much else to do. I need to build something new there,” he said after a few moments. “To do that, I must first clear away the old and broken things.”
Decades out of Mandos, too many things in Fëanor's life remain broken. He can't do anything except wait for his sons to come to him, but he can do something about the old and crumbling house where they once lived.
Read more ...The Mirror Crack'd by AdmirableMonster [Writing]
Rescued from a brutal Angband hunt, an ex-thrall with a strange and powerful artifact embedded in his spine is brought to Himring, for it is one of the only places in Beleriand which welcomes such folk. Though he has no memories of his life before, Anniavas slowly becomes accustomed to his new life and finds he has a queer connection with Maedhros, Himring's lord. As their intimacy grows, however, so do the dangers surrounding them, both without and within. What secrets are hidden inside the depths of Anniavas's lost memories--and how will those with whom he is forging and deepening bonds react, when those secrets are at last revealed?
Read more ...Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael [Writing]
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously thought on the matter who the Ainur are, who Eru is, how he matches our own religious pantheon, and this has been conducted after serious research of many esoteric teachings of our own planet's heritage.
Read more ...Around the World and Web
Scribbles and Drabbles 2026
Scribbles & Drabbles is a fic and art exchange with a minimum word count of 100 words.
Tolkien Disability Pride 2026
This Tumblr event focuses on ALL creative works focusing on disability in Tolkien's universe.
Tolkien Gen Week 2026
Tolkien Gen Week will run from July 6-12, 2026 to appreciate all of the incredible characters and relationships within Tolkien’s legendarium that fall under the broad category of “gen.”