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Winter's Delight: A Four Swords Calendar
Hi and welcome to Winter's Delight 2025: A Four Swords Calendar!
If you have participated before, welcome back, and if this is your first time here, welcome to a month of fan creation.
Winter’s Delight is an event organised by fans for fans. This is the fourth year in a row that this event runs. In the past we have experimented with zines and daily prompts, but most participants seem to agree that art+writing reveals create the greatest sense of joy, delight, and community that we’re looking for.
This Year’s Themes: WINTER & FLIGHTS OF FANCY
What does “Flights of Fancy” mean?
“Flights of Fancy” as a theme
is about fairytales and folklore. This could be
Fae AUs and Fairytale AUs, but it could also be about storytelling and the tradition of sharing stories at home, on the road, and around campfires. It’s about imagination, wonder, and the unexplained. It could be your traditional (or not so traditional) Cinderella-type concept, or it could lean more into horror, the supernatural, and the surreal.
As usual you’re encouraged to think outside the box and do your own spin on the themes!
Winter's Delight 2025: A Four Swords Calendar runs from the 1st to the 31st of December. In the months leading up to it, we invite artists and writers to prepare pieces of fanart, fanfics, or similar to be posted on Tumblr (and, if the participants choose so, to our Ao3 collection) throughout December.
Each year we have two themes. To represent the name of the event, one theme will always be WINTER. The other has been determined through submissions from fans and voting. This year, the other theme is FLIGHTS OF FANCY. Any piece you create for the event must contain at least one of these two themes.
The event has a total of 31 available spaces for artists and writers. Spaces are made available on a first-come basis. To sign up, please fill in and submit the Google Form below.
Once the sign-up form closes, you will be assigned a number of days across the month of December. (The number will be indicated by yourself when you fill out the form.) You will be expected to create an individual piece of art or writing for each of your assigned days, and to post these pieces on the assigned days. When you post, please tag us (@fswintersdelight) so we can reblog your piece and help fans find it!
Please see the full extent of our guidelines below.
Like last year, there will be a private Discord server for participants. As the event is in the form of reveals, we ask that participants don’t share their completed piece(s) until their assigned day(s). You may, however, share little sneak-peeks (screenshots/photos of sections of an artwork or a few lines of text). You may use the server to ask other participants for feedback on drafts.
General Guidelines
One OR both of the themes has to be apparent in the art or writing. The themes for 2025 are: WINTER and FLIGHTS OF FANCY.
The art or writing must include character(s) and/or setting(s) from either the Four Swords games or the Four Swords manga.
We do NOT accept mature or explicit content.
We welcome all ships and AUs.
All written pieces should be in the range of 500–8,000 words.*
Art can include short comics, crafts, or other creative expressions.
Music or videos are permitted, provided they are no longer than 5 minutes.
*If your piece is an illustrated recipe or similar, the text itself may be shorter than 500 words. We do, however, ask that pieces of this type be clearly related to themes and characters/setting, either via an attached short story or illustrations.
To share your piece on your assigned day, please do the following:
STEP 1: Create a Tumblr post on your own account, featuring your piece. (If it’s a fanfic, piece of music, or a video, a link to the piece is sufficient.)
STEP 2: Tag us (@fswintersdelight) so we can reblog your piece!
STEP 3: Use this year’s tags: #fswintersdelight2025 OR #fswd25
STEP 4 (optional): If you would also like to post your piece to Ao3, please consider adding it to the appropriate Winter’s Delight subcollection. The subcollection will be made available from the 30th of November.
Deadlines and Important Dates
12th of September: Sign-up form opens.
25th of October: Sign-up form closes.
1st of November: Final assignments and Discord invites sent out.
22nd of November: Check-in for anyone assigned days between 1st and 15th of December.
29th of November: Check-in for anyone assigned days between 16th and 31st of December.
1st of December: FSWD25 officially opens.
31st of December: FSWD25 officially closes.
Thank you for spreading the word!
With your help we can make this December a kind, loving, welcoming, and vibrantly joyful month.
I look forward to seeing everyone's fantastic artworks, and to read all the fanfics you share for the event.
Hugs, spice, and all things bright,
Kalh
