tolkienrsb | Entries tagged with mod post

Lovely TRSBers (and/or lovely folks who might want to become TRSBers!)

We are still looking for a pinch hitter for The Wedding of Aegnor and Andreth, an AU where Aegnor and Andreth defy fate, marry, and live happily ever after. (Silmarillion/HoME, any rating.)

If you are interested, please contact the mods for further details.

grundyscribbling

Lovely TRSBers, this Saturday, August 16th, is your final and most important check-in!

If you do not check in, we will count your fic as abandoned and send the art to pinch hitters. If this happens, you will not be permitted to claim art next year.

An email has been sent out to all authors & artists with the check-in details. (As ever, please do not reply to that email to check in - send us a fresh email. It makes life much easier for the mod team as we try to check everyone in.)

Please note that we now require art to be submitted to the AO3 collection, either by embedding the art in the story or by submitting the art as a stand-alone work in the collection. If the art is not embedded, authors must provide a link in the story to where the accompanying art can be found, and artists must provide a link in the art to the accompanying story. You should discuss art posting with your partner prior to the check-in so you are both clear what you will be doing.

Authors, this check-in is also your last chance to abandon your fic to a pinch hitter without penalty. If you have any questions or concerns about your collab, please do not wait until the last minute. Let us know now so we can help you to the best of our abilities!

grundyscribbling

Lovely TRSBers, we hope that summer is treating you well!

The mod team would like to let you know that the next check-in is this Saturday, July 12th. You know the drill - please check with your partner about your collab's progress and send us an email confirming that everything is going smoothly OR inform us of any issues. We will send you an email with all the details later today so keep an eye on your inboxes. (As ever, please do NOT reply to the email we send out - that makes our job more difficult. Send us a fresh email!)

grundyscribbling

Artists! If you chose 'total free rein for author' as your collaboration level, the final art must be shared with your author no later than June 14 - that's five days from now.

grundyscribbling

To any TRSBers wondering why we're suddenly posting to DW - to tell the truth, the DW community was more or less forgotten the last couple rounds. On remembering, we pulled it out of the Mathom-House and dusted it off for TRSB25. Announcements will be posted here as well as on Tumblr, but we emphasize that the main place to look for event information is the website - the FAQs, schedule, rules, and links to signups are all there.

grundyscribbling

TRSB 2025 banner - Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn on horseback approaching Edoras

Links:

This is a Tolkien-fandom-wide event celebrating the talent of our fanwork creators. Participating artists create a piece of art, which is posted anonymously for authors to view and claim. The authors then write a piece of long-ish fiction (minimum 5k words) based on the art they chose.

We are open to all characters, genres and ratings, and all canons that fall under the Tolkien fandom umbrella. This includes movieverse (i.e. the LOTR and Hobbit trilogies), Rings of Power, lesser known works by Tolkien (such as The Father Christmas Letters), and/or other works with a clear link to his life or creative output (for example, Tolkien's translations and academic texts, the 2019 Tolkien biopic, fan-made films like Born of Hope, and game canons such as Lord of the Rings Online). Crossovers between two or more Tolkien canons are permitted.

When founders Raiyana and Narya started this event, they absolutely agreed on a desire for maximum inclusivity. In practice this means that:

We encourage participation from all sections of the Tolkien fandom, whether you prefer bookverse, movieverse, game canon, smaller canons, or Tolkien’s academic papers.
Fan creators should ALL feel safe and able to join in, regardless of experience levels or perceived ability. This means that everybody is welcome, whether they’re a professional artist/writer or a complete beginner, whether they’ve been a fan for decades or fell in love with the films last weekend.
As far as practically possible, all styles of art and all types of fic are permitted. We do not set restrictions on genre, style, rating or ship, although we do keep NSFW art submissions behind a lock, for the safety of our younger participants.

Above all, the event is supposed to be fun. Fandom should not be a place of difficulty, conflict and stress. With this in mind, we ask participants to be kind, inclusive, respectful and welcoming at all times.

Summary of Key Dates for 2025:

~~22 March - suggestions spreadsheet opens~~
~~12 April - sign ups open~~
~~3 May - artist sign ups close~~
~~9 May - art drafts due~~
1~~0 May - Discord server opens~~
~~16 May - art previews open~~
~~17-18 May - Discord art talks~~
~~21 May - author sign ups close~~
~~24 May - claims~~
~~(***TBA - additional claims as needed***)~~
~~1 June - post claims check in~~
~~14 June - final art due from artists who chose the “free rein” collaboration option~~
~~12 July - check in #2~~
~~9 August - final art due~~
16 August - final check in / deadline to abandon your fic to a pinch hitter
~~30 August - fics due in collection~~
~~6 September - reveals~~
~~13 September - staggered Tumblr reblogs begin~~

Housekeeping:

The website is your one stop shop for key information - dates, FAQs, timelines, links to forms and past AO3 collections, and galleries of past collaborations.

Tumblr will be used for event promotion, answering questions, and to reblog the results of your collaborations to ensure maximum publicity.

Tumblr and Dreamwidth will be used for publicising key announcements (e.g. sign up forms opening).

If you have any questions, you can get in touch with the mods via email - tolkienrsb@gmail.com.

narya_flame

Right then, lovely TRSB-ers – the promo posts are reblogged, the paints are away, the caps are back on pens, and the mods are all collapsing with treats and beverages of choice. Thank you and well done to all participants; that is (almost) a wrap on this year.

Why do I say almost? Because sadly a few of our artists were let down at the last minute by their authors, and we have some utterly heroic post-deadline pinch hitters working on fics for them. These will be reblogged as and when they are ready.

On a personal note – this year, it really is goodbye from me. I’ve run this event with my wonderful co-mods for the last five years, and it’s time for me to step away. I have loved watching TRSB grow from its humble beginnings into the behemoth it is today; I have had an amazing time making fic and art for the event, and I’ve met (and collaborated with!) the most brilliant people. TRSB will go on without me, as these things do, but I wanted to say to each and every one of you – thank you for making the event what it is. It’s been a joy.

Namárië.

~ Mod Narya

narya_flame

Claims confirmation emails are now up to date for all rounds of claiming. For those of you who have claimed artwork, please remember that you are required to contact your partner within 48 hours of receiving their details from the mods. If you haven’t received their contact details then it is your responsibility to flag this to the mods, but please check your spam folders before doing so.

We don’t have a formal way of tracking contact until first check-in this weekend. However, we have a number of artists whose artwork was claimed on Sunday who haven’t yet heard from their partners, and some of them are understandably asking if their art can go back out for claiming by somebody else.

If this applies to you, then as per the email that went out last night, you need to contact your partner today. Past this point, it will be up to the artists as to whether they wait for delayed contact or put the art back out for claiming by someone else.

narya_flame

It’s that point in the event again. The official posting deadline is tomorrow (although we have granted a number of extensions) and fics and art are starting to flood into the collection.

Authors, if you have submitted a fic and it hasn’t been approved, please check the following:

• Have you tagged it with the art slide number, or included the slide number in the story summary or notes?

• Is the art embedded/linked in some way, &/or is the artist credited?

• If your fic is a treat, have you tagged it as such? (We know that treat makers may not know the identity of the artist and won’t necessarily have the art URL; this is fine and expected.)

• Is the fic marked complete?

• Have you left the fic in draft mode?

If you aren't sure whether your work has been approved or not, click on "works" under the TRSB21 collection, and scroll through. If you can't see your fic, chances are it hasn't yet been approved for one of the above reasons.

You should be able to access and edit your unapproved works via your statistics page on AO3.

Artists, remember that you are also welcome and encouraged to post your pieces as standalone works in the AO3 collection, if you have an account - it it isn’t just for fics! (If you don’t have an AO3 account but would like to join their waiting list and add your artwork later, that’s fine - the collection won’t close.)

Finally, I know a few people are feeling deadline stress, so could I please take this opportunity to remind everyone of our core expectations for the event - to be kind, inclusive, and respectful, and to act in good faith. There have been a couple of incidents over the last few days where this has not been the case. Keep your heads, please, folks; we’re almost there, and if you’re experiencing an issue, the best way forward is a calm, measured conversation with the mod team. We’ll do everything we can to help.

Good luck - almost there now, and we can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on all summer!

Mod Narya

narya_flame

Please don’t forget to email the event inbox and let us know whether you are on course to finish by the deadline (writers, this is pretty much your responsibility at this point - artists should already be done).

If you need to drop out, this is your last chance to do so penalty free.

narya_flame

ARTIST SIGN UPS FOR THE 2021 TOLKIEN REVERSE SUMMER BANG CLOSE AT 23.59 CET ON 9TH MAY - THAT'S TOMORROW!

Links:

narya_flame

There is just over a week left for artists to sign up for 2021’s Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang. We’ve got some great submissions already but it would be wonderful if more of you could join us - the more artwork, the better!

We've answered some common artist questions and concerns under the cut, but the TL;DR version is that you don't have to be an experienced artist, it doesn't have to be finished before submissions, and you can do things that aren't drawing (e.g. a moodboard, a piece of cross stitch, calligraphy, collage...) as long as the final piece can be provided as an image and you can demonstrate/articulate a link to one or more Tolkien canons.

( Read more... )

Up to 3 pieces, for claiming by three separate authors.

OK, I’m in. What next?

The artist signup form is over here - once we have your signup, we will send you a confirmation email welcoming you to the event (this can take up to 48 hours depending on mod availability). We can’t wait to see your beautiful creations!

narya_flame

For those who don't know already, this is a Tolkien-fandom-wide event celebrating the talent of our fanwork creators. Participating artists create artworks to be claimed by one of our signed up authors. Authors will then write a 5k word fic based on the art they chose.

Sign up as a writer here. Writer signups are open until May 21st. You can only claim artwork if you are signed up as a writer.
Sign up as an artist here. Artist signups are open until May 9th. (NOT the 99th, please ignore our Tumblr sidebar on this one, we’ve tried to amend it but it appears to be a sentient being with a will of its own.)
Sign up to beta here, to cheerlead here, to treat here, and to pinch hit here. Explanations of what all of these mean can be found in the relevant section of our FAQ. Signups for these roles will not close and will get you access to the gallery; however, you must be signed up as an author to claim.
Want to suggest a prompt to our artists? Our suggestions form will be open until May 14th.
Want to see what others have already suggested and get hyped with us? Check out our handy spreadsheet.
Questions? Come and visit our shiny new website, which has our FAQs and timeline all set out.

Please be sure to familiarise yourself with the rules before signing up :)

We are open to all characters, genres and ratings, and all canons that fall under the Tolkien fandom umbrella. This includes movieverse (i.e. the LOTR and Hobbit trilogies), lesser known works by Tolkien (such as The Father Christmas Letters), and/or other works with a clear link to his life or creative output (for example, Tolkien's translations and academic texts, the 2019 Tolkien biopic, fan-made films like Born of Hope, and game canons such as The Lord of the Rings Online). Crossovers between two or more Tolkien canons are permitted.

We hope you're as excited as we are! We can't wait to see what you make.

narya_flame

March is galloping by, which means the mods are hard at work on 2021’s TRSB. The suggestions form opens on April 1st - that’s just under two weeks away! - and sign ups will open on April 16th. The sticky post on the Dreamwidth blog has been updated with 2021's key dates and deadlines, if you want to make a note in your diary.

More information, including an event timeline, can be found on our Tumblr blog; we're currently updating the FAQ, but these will be ready for review before sign ups open. We're not planning major changes to the rules, though, so feel free to peruse last year's version in the meantime.

Please help us spread the word - tell your friends, reblog the Tumblr posts, drop links in your Discord servers, share the timeline across your communities - and help us make 2021 our best year yet!

Questions? Feel free send us a Tumblr Ask or Dreamwidth message, or email the event inbox – tolkien rsb at gmail dot com.

narya_flame

Here is the link; please let us know your thoughts so we can take them into account for next year.

We don't guarantee that we will implement every requested change, but we do consider all suggestions, and many of the rules updates in previous rounds have come directly out of feedback from this form - so it is important and we do appreciate the input! <3

narya_flame

FINAL CHECK IN TOMORROW

Writers, please check in by the end of Sunday to tell us you will be able to post your fic(s) in the AO3 collection on or before 30th August.

Please send us an email with “Final Check In” in the subject line and the following information in the body of the email:

Your username
Your partner’s username
Art slide #
Are you on track?
Have you discussed posting logistics?
Do you have any particular requirements as to when the mods should reblog your promotional post? (For example, avoiding Shabbat.)

If you cannot complete your fic by the deadline of 30th August, this is your last chance to let us know and drop out penalty-free. We will consider short extensions to accommodate emergencies.

In line with previous years and the original posted schedule, if you don’t check in by the deadline this time you will be automatically defaulted and you will not be permitted to take part next year.

narya_flame

OK, I'm sorry, I have utterly dropped the ball with doing the showcase posts on here - we queue them on Tumblr, and because Dreamwidth has no equivalent function, it's far too easy to forget to cross post. Especially when you're working a full time job, dealing with family commitments, running an event and writing two fics as well – not to mention handling the general mess that is 2020.

I think, if we do the showcase again next year (which is not yet decided), we will manage the Dreamwidth posts for it in the same way we manage cross-posting of the promotions for final collab results – i.e. round them up in batches, rather than making an individual post for each one. Happy to take thoughts on this, either via comments or on the feedback form at the end of the event.

For this year, we'll continue to make individual DW posts for each Showcase submission, albeit at an accelerated pace to catch us back up to the Tumblr blog. Apologies again from your absent-minded mod.

narya_flame

Since our last artworks were claimed this evening, a couple of people have been in touch to ask how they can get access to the gallery and write treats if they missed signups.

We don't post the gallery link publicly as it wouldn't be fair to our artists, who submit their art unsigned to preserve anonymity during claims. However, if you are interested in writing a treat for one or more of our hardworking artists, and you have so far not signed up to the event, you can fill out this form. When we receive your signup we will send you an email with a gallery link, and you can browse to see which artworks you might like to treat for.

What is a treat?

A treat is a fic (or a poem, or fanmix, or other fanwork!) based on one of the artworks in the gallery. It is not subject to our minimum wordcount requirements, though we don't set a maximum either - you can write anything from a haiku to a full-blown novel.

The main thing that separates writing a treat from writing for a claimed piece of art is the level of collaboration involved. For claimed art, even pairs who are working in a "hands off" way are expected to check in with each other periodically through the summer. If you are writing a treat, you will not have contact with the artist; you're working independently, inspired purely by the image(s) you have chosen to write for.

Do I still have to stick to the artist's must-haves and DNWs?

Yes. Considering it's a treat, it would be pretty bad form to write something the artist has specifically said they don't want to see!

What if I don't see anything I want to write for?

That's completely OK! The sign up is not an obligation. There are no penalties for not writing a treat.

I already signed up as an author but I didn't claim as I only wanted to treat. Do I need to sign up again?

Nope, you're all good. This is mostly for people who missed the signup deadline and still want to join in.

What do I do with my treat once I've written it?

Post it to the AO3 collection here. (Please either tag it as a treat or mention in the summary that it is a treat for TRSB20, to minimise mod confusion when fics start flooding in at the end of August!)

If you would like to know who the artist is so you can gift it to them, or let them know you have made it, please contact the mods.

I have a question that isn't answered here!

Message the mods, or send us an email (tolkien rsb at gmail dot com). We don't bite ;)

narya_flame

A huge thank you to our signed up writers; all available art has now been claimed.

The mods need to complete a few last pieces of admin, and then we will make art visible in the gallery again so potential treat writers can browse for inspiration.

We hope you’re all excited about your new summer projects; we can’t wait to see what you have in store.

ETA - Due to a change in heart/circumstance, we have a piece of Glorfindel/Erestor art available again, if anybody would like to claim it!

ETA2 - CLAIMED, thank you!

narya_flame

Claims are tomorrow at 19:00 CET! We’re super excited, and we hope you are too.

We know emotions run high on claims night, and there is going to be a lot of chat and activity happening on various Tolkien platforms. Some people will be high as kites, others may be nervous, and a few may go away disappointed (we always hope to avoid that but unfortunately it can happen). With that in mind, could we please ask you all to…

Be kind. You don’t know whose art is whose, or exactly who is hoping to write what. You do not know everyone’s personal circumstances. Think before you type/speak/post, especially in public or semi-public spaces, and consider how your words might sound if a creator overhears them.
Be respectful. Creators have a right to their must-haves and do-not-wants. You are of course entitled to your personal views on these, but please see point 1 if you’re considering starting an open discussion about them.
Be inclusive and welcoming. We have artists and writers of all experience levels taking part in this event, from complete beginners through to professionals. Length of time in fandom and knowledge of different canons will also vary. Keep conversations positive and encouraging; we do not gatekeep here.

With that out of the way, all that’s left is to wish claiming authors the best of luck – we hope you all get your heart’s desire! – and everybody else a fun and memorable claims night. We can’t wait to see what happens!

Mods Raiyana and Narya