We are in a busy time of year in the world of Tolkien fanworks, where many big events and challenges are running. Ours are always ongoing, and we wanted to highlight different ways to get inspired and involved in creating for the SWG. Also, if you are doing another (or more than one!) of the bigger events, remember that you can always use our challenge prompts in your fanwork for that event and post with us when the other event allows you to, even if it is past our challenge deadline. Just let us know when you do so that we can give you your stamp!

Our new challenge for August is Kids These Days, a bingo-card challenge filled with prompts centered on those timeless gripes about youngsters that every generation indulges in. You only need to use one prompt to receive the stamp (and the response does not need to be about kids or teens; as always, we encourage you to bend, twist, and loophole the heck out of our prompts to make them work for you), but if you're feeling like someone who can walk uphill both ways in shoes stuffed with newspaper, you can complete rows, columns, or diagonals for special stamps. And if you're so powerful that you can get a job with just a firm handshake and a confident look in the eye and you want to do all the prompts, there is a card blackout stamp too. (Let a mod know if you need one of those stamps.)

We are also looking for help creating prompts for September's Jumble Sale challenge, where you will have your chance to offer up past challenges and prompts to other creators to work their magic! You can offer up to five items "for sale" at the jumble sale by combining past challenges and prompts and even set an additional "price" by adding your own conditions to those prompts. You can send in your prompts for Jumble Sale here.

Finally, Anna (IdleLeaves) hosts instadrabbling every month on the first Saturday. The next session is coming up not next weekend but the weekend after on September 6, 2025 at 6PM/18:00 UTC on our Discord server (find this in my timezone). If you're new to instadrabbling, learn more about this long-running Tolkien fandom creative tradition here.

SWG News

New Challenge: Allusive
Literature and art constantly refer back to each other using allusions, and this month's prompts are inspired by allusions to literature, myth, art, and history.

Cultus Dispatches: "The Rings of Power" Is a Ripple (So Far)
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data for 2025 shows that "The Rings of Power" TV series has not had the same impact on the fandom as the film trilogies did ... so far.

New Challenge: Building Middle-earth
Let global architecture be your inspiration in this challenge, where you will work with a prompts that are architectural styles, locations in Arda, or both.

Instadrabbling Sessions for July, August, and September
Instadrabbling continues on the first Saturday of each month on our Discord server.

New Fanworks

Explain This by Elrond's Library [Writing]

Melkor demands an account of Mairon’s failures.

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Message in a Bottle by StarSpray [Writing]

Over the course of his very long life he had found a handful of messages in bottles, but it had been a very long time. So when he found the glass bottle on his little stretch of pebbly beach, he picked it up with the intention of tossing it into his recycling. But it wasn’t, he found, just another beer bottle.

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Nerdanel/Nienna moodboard by Independence1776 [Artwork]

A Nerdanel/Nienna moodboard.

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Updated Fanworks

The Stars of Home by Idrils Scribe [Writing]

Elrohir has been found after his long abduction by the Black Númenóreans of Umbar. He comes home to Rivendell, but all is not well: the Elf-child that was taken is now a Man grown. War and darkness have left Elrohir deeply scarred, and even at home there is danger...

An alternate universe for the Under Strange Stars series, in which Elrohir goes with Glorfindel instead of running away from him after the events of Under Strange Stars. This story can be enjoyed without having read the original.

Many thanks to Grundy and Marchwriter for their excellent beta-reading and brainstorming.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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Around the World and Web

Finwean Sibblings Prompt Fest 2026
A prompt-based fandom event aiming to focus on celebrating Finwë's children: Fëanor, Findis, Fingolfin, Lalwen, & Finarfin - ships, gen relationships, or character-centric

Gigolas Week 2026
Gigolas Week is a tumblr event focusing on the relationship between Legolas and Gimli

Innumerable Stars 2026
A character-based Tolkien fandom gift exchange is returning for another year of gifting.

Tolkien Sapphic September
Tolkien Sapphic September is a month long event focusing on Sapphic relationships and characters in Tolkien and adjacent materials.