Allusive

SWG Challenge - Allusive - 15 August through 15 September 2026

These tales are ‘new’, they are not directly derived from other myths and legends, but they must inevitably contain a large measure of ancient wide-spread motives or elements. After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of ‘truth’, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear. 
~ Letter 131 to Milton Waldman

All stories, art, and creative endeavors depend in part on the stories, art, and creative endeavors to come before them, weaving back and across and through familiar and loved (or loathed!) works. These allusions create a sense of depth and remind us that new creative works are always unspooling, an essential part of our humanity.

This month's challenge considers the concept of the allusion: a reference to a previous work of literature, art, myth, or history. Participants will choose one (or more!) prompts from a list of allusions, found below. As always, you can use your prompt however you want, and we will never question if a challenge work has adequately used its prompt. For instance, you can create a fanwork about the allusion you select, or you can use the specific phrase in your work—or you can take a totally new and different approach!

Thank you to Zdenka for this month's banner and stamps!

This challenge opened in .

Prompts

Choose your prompt from the collection below.

View Prompts
  • Achilles' heel
  • Beatrice
  • bowdlerize
  • boycott
  • Cain and Abel
  • Cassanova
  • Cassandra
  • Catch-22
  • caught between a rock and a hard place
  • chimera
  • cross the Rubicon
  • descent into the underworld
  • doublespeak
  • down a rabbithole
  • draconian laws
  • fallen from the heavens
  • Faustian bargain
  • fiddle while Rome burns
  • fisher king
  • 40 days and 40 nights
  • Herculean
  • the inanimate brought to life
  • Jekyll and Hyde
  • kiss of death
  • Kryptonite
  • labyrinth
  • the North Star
  • over the rainbow
  • Pandora's box
  • Pied Piper
  • pilgrimage
  • pillar of salt
  • poisoned apple
  • poison the well
  • Prince Charming
  • prodigal son
  • Promethean fire
  • Pyrrhic victory
  • raised from the dead
  • rise from the ashes
  • river of forgetfulness
  • running the gauntlet
  • Scrooge
  • Siren's song
  • Sisyphean task
  • sold down the river
  • stabbed in the back
  • star-crossed lovers
  • "There cannot be any 'story' without a fall …"
  • third eye
  • tilting at windmills
  • a thousand ships
  • transformation from/into an animal
  • trial by fire
  • two-faced
  • weaving fate
  • "we're not in Kansas anymore"
  • white whale
  • wings

Fanworks Tagged with Allusive

This is a Writing fanwork

As Fire and Tempest by Zdenka

Gwindor and Celebrimbor share their fears, after a council meeting in which Túrin got his way.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Artwork fanwork

Lindórië looks to the future by Anérea

silhouette portrait of Lindórië, grandmother of Tar-Palantir

Fanwork Information

This is a Writing fanwork

An Alluring Offer by octopus_fool

Tata is offered a solution to a grave problem, at a very low price...

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

most days I don't recognize me by annarobots

Of course, she knew that in the Blessed Land, true harm was unlikely to come to him. The Valar watched over them all, and the lesser spirits were everywhere. It was a great hound of Oromë who had found him happily splashing in the creek, in fact. But anyone could drown in mere moments, even in Valinor. Her heart needed a break.

A story about Nerdanel, the total self-obliteration of motherhood, and what comes after.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Rise from the Ashes by AdmirableMonster

In the wake of Sauron's death, his Mouth remembers Númenor.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Crossing the Great Sea by elennalore

He has perhaps made a great mistake, but it's too late now.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

The Die Is Cast by Fuin

Thus, he lingers in this doomed city for yet another year—until he wakes to alarm bells ringing wildly and to the stench of smoke rising from the reeds.

Celebrimbor, at the Havens of Sirion.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Last Year's Bitter Loving by StarSpray

Finarfin was always tired, but suddenly he was exhausted, just by this conversation. It would just go in circles if they let it, neither of them willing to concede to the other. He didn’t have the words for what he really wanted to say—and even if he did he wouldn’t say them. They would be a child’s words, just hurt that he had been left alone while his older brothers and sisters had gone off without him, taking everything with them that he had ever held dear. 

 

Family is complicated, and Finarfin is tired.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

On Tides of Light by potorov

On Tides of Light, Antariëarcalindalë, begins with Elwing's arrival upon the shores of Eldamar after her flight from the ruins of Sirion. After Eärendil goes alone into Valinor, Elwing is brought to Alqualondë. Rather than hurrying toward the celestial ascent of Vingilot, the core of the narrative is the salt-crusted halls of Alqualondë, where the Falmari must finally confront the devastating history of Beleriand's three kinslayings. 

Elwing must plead the Teleri to bear the Host of the West across the Sea. Despite a mother, survivor and also bearer of a Silmaril - the First Age converged on her: the weight of its sins, its accumulated grief, and the grace through which salvation may yet enter history.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

There Is No Story Without a Fall by Deborah Judge

Miriel makes a dress for Indis.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Down a Rabbithole by Himring

In the Third Age, close to his home near Bree, Marcho, the hobbit who later, with his brother, will lead the first hobbits to the Shire, spots an unfamiliar visitor. A bit of miscommunication ensues.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Into the West by Grundy

Dawn does not call sailing off into the unknown with a guy they've only known a few days a great plan.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents

This is a Writing fanwork

Explain This by Elrond's Library

Melkor demands an account of Mairon’s failures.

Fanwork Information and Table of Contents