Hello, everyone! We hope you've been doing well and are staying safe during these horrid heatwaves.
We'd like to announce that sign-ups for the Gifts of Eos second year creative fan exchange will be opening on August 1st! The itinerary for this small fan event this year looks as such:
Sign up period: August 1st - September 30th; sign-ups close at 00:00 Central time on October 1st.
Pairing Period: October 1st - October 7th (could be done earlier than this time frame!)
Creative Period: October 8th - January 31st
Deadline: February 1st
Grace: Til February 15th
You'll note that we've extended the duration for the sign-up and creative periods this time around! It is our hope that this will allow people to feel like they have more time to sign up, and more freedom to make something for their recipient this year.
While our sign-ups are not yet live, we do have a countdown on our carrd's Sign Up tab that'll redirect anyone who's watching it as it ticks down to the form once it hits the countdown goal. :>
Updates to our rules and FAQ this year found below:
Rules Expansion
We have made an addition to our rules with this being one of them:
If you have received something, please take the time to show appreciation for the gift that was made for you. This is, as stated before, a free event, and everyone is volunteering their time and effort willingly to make something nice for someone else within the fandom. Please repay that effort in recognition of their gift to you by saying something nice in the form of a comment or nice tags pending on platform.
We, unfortunately, had a couple incidents where people worked hard on their submissions that seemed to receive no acknowledgment from the recipients they were for, and we would like participants to please not leave the person who did your gift hanging, or feeling like it was disliked. We can't control how you feel in the end, and it will always be unfortunate for everyone involved if the work is disliked, though we would like it if everyone at least extended the courtesy of acknowledging something was made for you.
FAQ Changes and Updates
We have expanded upon some of our FAQ answers for, hopefully, better clarity on our carrd:
What is allowed in the exchange?
[…]
We ask that all OC creators that enjoy seeing their OC or OC x canon ships to not feel shy about being resolute in asking for content of your creations born of love for the setting we've all had the joy of experiencing and creating for. This exchange is about spreading joy and hopefully receiving joy in return. That includes your OCs if you love them and having them in the world of FFXV.
This was added as an addendum to this segment because it felt like a lot of people were really shy about asking for any FFXV OC content. While we do recognize that, yes, this is a space where we want to celebrate our favorite canon characters, we also want OC creators who have their FFXV characters know that they are allowed to also celebrate their own creations. Please be kind to OCs; they were created out of love for their creators' experiences with FFXV to play in the world of Eos in their own way.
Is this event meant to be anonymous?
Nope. You don't have to be anonymous if you don't want to be. We do, in fact, encourage you to reach out to your gift recipient just to make sure you're on the same page as one another (and also to make sure that you have the right person). […]
If you want to keep your work and submission a surprise until you're done, or until the deadline, that's still fine. If this is the case, we're always open to having you contact us to be a middleman in contacting your recipient to keep them aware of any complications, or ask for any needed clarification so that you retain your anonymity.
Due to some miscommunication last year between participants, we had an instance where there was a mix up in who was receiving what, and a participant ended up being the recipient of two gifts. While we're not going to enforce reaching out if you want to keep your submission a surprise, we are always happy ourselves as the moderators of this event to act as messengers between two people to keep the anonymity aspect.
This extends to any participants wishing to drop out for any reason at all; if you do not want your recipient to know who you were, but still want to communicate that you're dropping out for us to find a pinch hitter, we will keep you anonymous to your recipient so that your privacy is ensured.
What is the minimum word count for written entries?
1,000 words is the very bare minimum of what we'll be comfortable accepting as a finished ficlet. With the increase of time for 2026's Gifts of Eos, we hope this will be more than enough time to write something that meets that, or surpasses that.
This word count will not apply to things such as lyrics or poems, which generally tend to hover around an average of ~150 - ~170 words. Same consideration for haikus as they are meant to follow a 5/7/5 format and could not reach that if it is one on its own. That said, we do recommend maybe writing multiples of said forms of writing instead of settling on one or two given how small a word count they usually average at.
We've gone ahead and bumped up what we'll allow as the bare minimum of word count for a finished ficlet for the event is, as well as are encouraging people that are more inclined for poetry or song lyrics to do more than just one or two pieces for the event.
With all of that out of the way, please don't hesitate to ask any questions about the event, or if further clarification is ever needed on anything regarding the event! We're only two people, and last year proved that there were still a lot of things that we didn't think to ask, or consider until someone who was participating decided to point it out and ask! We always appreciate it, and if it makes things easier for everyone in the end, then it's for the best! :>
We look forward to seeing you for Gifts of Eos 2026!
Sign-ups for the Gifts of Eos year two have gone live, and will remain so until October 1st @ 00:00 Central! You can access the sign up form here.
We've gone ahead and moved away from Google Forms this year and will continue to do so by instead using CryptPad due to it valuing security and privacy more than Google. Likewise, we have opted to switch from a Google owned email to Proton. So if you need to email us for any reason, you must do so with the new one: [email protected]
If you're new to what Gifts of Eos is, we ask that you please check out our carrd found here for all information regarding it! If you have questions that aren't answered by the carrd, please ask us anything that you feel requires more clarification! We will be happy to answer and explain to the best of our ability!
We hope to see you for Gifts of Eos 2026 this year!
It is with great excitement that we can announce that the Gifts of Eos Final Fantasy XV fan exchange event is now live and will run from today, September 1st, until September 30th! The form will officially close at midnight Central (-6 GMT) October 1st where we will then begin going through all of the entries to start pairing everyone off. :>
Sign Up Form Here!
General reminders are:
Creatives of all kinds and skill levels are welcome! You can be a writer, a visual artist, a musician, a merch creator -- anything that involves making something!
Absolutely NO AI WILL BE TOLERATED.
This is a free event for the sole purpose of making other fans within the fandom happy; we ask that you respect everyone's time and efforts.
You can find our rules and other information in full either here on tumblr, or on our carrd.
Hello, and happy start of August! Gifts of Eos has one more month until sign-ups are live for the month of September, and our first Final Fantasy XV fan gift exchange takes place! We have been really happy to see others that have shared our posts on both here and over on our BlueSky, and seem to be excited for it to take place! We look forward to seeing all kinds of different fanworks created for the sole purpose of making someone else happy within the fan sphere. ♥
We are also happy to announce that our Gifts of Eos Discord is now live as well!
It is not a requirement to join our Discord to participate in the gift exchange. While it may make organizing everything easier for us, we are aware that not everyone wants to join a Discord just to be part of something. That is fine! We will do our best to keep all of our venues that are available outside of it as updated as possible!
Thank you for being excited for what we hope to make an annual autumn gift exchange! ♥
Officially, there are ten days until deadline for the Gifts of Eos exchange! We hope that you've been having fun working on entries for your exchange recipients!
We would also like to give a gentle reminder that even though the hard deadline for the Gifts of Eos exchange is December 1st, there is a grace period for late entries that lasts until December 14th. Should anyone need more time than that, please reach out to us to let us know on any one of our different platforms. We know that this time of the year can get a little hectic, so if things are looking hectic for you, we'll make sure we can accommodate for it. :>
Be sure that, if you do ask for an extension, let us know if you've already reached out to your recipient on your status / situation, or if you would like for us to let your recipient know that their gift will be delayed in the event that you wish to have your entry remain a surprise for them.
On the topic of uploading your entries, please remember to reach out to us on any of our official platforms with links to where we can find them so that we can share and document them!
On tumblr, you'll have to send a message to either @paintedscales or @destinidestati, or you can send us an ask here that we won't publish as we cannot accept tumblr DMs through this profile. You can also email us at giftsofeos[@]gmail[.]com, reach out to us on bsky, or post the links in our specific exchange channel on the Gifts of Eos Discord. Whichever works for you!
If there's anything you need to know, please check out our carrd, and if there's something else, don't hesitate to reach out! We'll do our best to answer any and all questions and concerns. :>
Thank you everyone who has signed up for our first ever Gifts of Eos: Final Fantasy XV fan gift exchange!
It's been so wonderful seeing how many people ended up joining us for this event, and we're looking very forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for their gift recipients.
For full transparency: both admins running this event are in the participation pool to give and to receive, and so we have asked for third party assistance in the pairing process. @blossomblade has graciously accepted our request as a non-FFXV fan, and as someone not in the fandom circles to roll the pairing process as a neutral party.
Additionally, though this is a random pairing process (AKA, Secret Santa style type process), you are allowed and even encouraged to reach out to your recipient in order to discuss and brainstorm ideas. You do not have to do this if you don't want to, though we please ask that you don't leave your partner hanging if they choose to reach out.
We plan to have all pairings sent out by October 7th! But if you have received a message from us with Gifts of Eos before that date, please feel free to start as soon as you want.
If you ever need a refresher on rules, FAQ, or timelines, please check out our carrd as it has everything easy to access. If you have any questions, Discord is admittedly the easiest way to guarantee a response, but we do our best to answer any that come our way on tumblr and Bluesky as well since we know Discord is not always a favored option (it just might take a little longer as a result).
Goodness, only one day left before sign ups will be live? How exciting! :D
We hope you're looking as forward to it as we are! ^ u ^
If this is the first time you're hearing about us, please be sure to read our rules, and familiarize yourself with our carrd! We're open to questions and concerns, so please don't hesitate to ask any if you got 'em!
Thank you again to everyone that's been sharing, interacting, and looking forward to this event! We look so very forward to seeing all the different creations that you end up making for your fellow FFXV fans! ♥
