Stealing Your Cheese

OH BOY :) only normal things I assure you

Tomas has been red-aligned for as long as they've known about the Parabolan Chessboard, before they fully understood what everything meant. Despite a multitude of developments, and the growing horror of understanding, they are still very much their Queen's knight.

This will have spoilers for: (list under cut)

Hey y'all, uh, know how your captain lost his eye, right...?

Fallen London has a few recurring events, one of which involves a bomb run that accidentally awakens an angry zee creature... but THIS time had a SURPRISE TWIST of instead awakening A FLEET OF SHIPS OVERTAKEN BY EYE-STEALING SPIDERS that have amalgamated to pilot them and menace London's waters.

Welcome to the blog for the Secret Sacksmas Ficswap event, a ficswap event for the Failbetter Games communities! This event has a bit of a twist from traditional events, which will be explained below

Please note that this is a community run event, and is not affiliated with FBG in any official capacity. In addition, AI is not allowed in submissions.

FAQs

Who is running this? That's me, your moderator! You can find me at @arden-in-the-garden or @neathbound-fiends! This is my first event, so please be patient while working out any bugs we run into

Who can participate? Whether you have OCs, an interest in canon characters, or a mix thereof, anyone is welcome that wants to join and swap!

How does this work? In a space that's heavily populated by OCs and personal interpretations of canon characters (hereafter referred to together simply as "your characters" for sake of ease), there tends to run more reluctance for having them written by someone else. This circumvents that by having participants write for their own characters, via fulfilling anonymous prompts from another participant who's been assigned to you.

Your anonymous prompter will give you three or four prompts for different scenarios they'd like to see written with your characters, and you'll post on the assigned date with everyone else! You will do the same for whoever you are the prompter for (who is not the same person who sent for you), so everyone will be both sending and receiving prompts

What do I have to do to participate? Once sign ups are open, you'll fill out a Google Form so I can keep track of data! You'll be added to the spreadsheet, and once sign ups are closed everyone will be randomly assigned for both their roles! Please note that you will need some way for me to contact you, so please have DMs enabled or work out another method of communication so I can make sure you receive everything you need!

What can I request from my writer? When participants sign up, one of the questions on the form will be any hard no's of what they will not write. This information will be provided to you as the prompter so that you can avoid requesting anything that won't be able to be fulfilled. Beyond that, the prompts are open! Consider looking through your writer's available character information or current writings if you want inspiration and to be able to make a more personalized request!

What if I'm not comfortable fulfilling a request? If something comes up where you don't feel able to write for any of the requested prompts, please reach out, and we can see about sorting another prompt for you to fulfill. This may come in the form of your prompter sending another request, or it may come in the form of more generic scenarios from a list so you still have the opportunity to write

Due dates

The current proposed timeline is as follows:

Sign ups will run from June 10th through June 19th

Assignments will be handed out on June 20th and June 21st

Prompts will be SUBMITTED from June 22nd through July 6th, and DISTRIBUTED between July 7th and July 8th

Midway check in will occur on August 15th

Hello!! Sign ups for 2026's run of this event are now OPEN as of today (June 10th), and will remain so through the close of next Friday (June 19th) to give everyone enough time to get themselves added. If you are having difficulty with the form, please contact me here or @neathbound-fiends and I'll make sure to get you added to the spreadsheet.

Sign up form can be found [HERE]

I went through setting up the Burrow church with Samuel recently (extremely funny and embarrassing for him that this storyline starts with getting slapped on the wrist by the entire church of england. can a man not be catholic in peace) and I got very very attached to Sam's absolute disaster of a parish council, so I wanted to try to figure out how to draw them...... I didnt mean to render them all i just got carried away.......

Basic gist is that you are charged by a "Delightful Reverend" with helping to organise a "church in the wild," with the aim of making a church with the traditional vibes of a liturgical christian church but without the christianity, one that's open to humans and devils and anyone else and can't be claimed by either group. My favourite bit of this is that you are asked to assemble a Parish Council and they all give you their advice on any decision you have to make, which MAY OR MAY NOT ACTUALLY BE HELPFUL. Despite being very Christian himself, Sam was intrigued by the idea and wanted to give it an honest try. He chose:

Percy aka The Intrepid Deacon, an alarmingly hell-curious but deeply genuine deacon friend from a different adventure where Sam worked hard to help him seek answers while keeping his soul safe. Probably the one most aligned with Sam's values and the only person here that he trusts. I love him.

The Retired Vice-Admiral, who was the Reverend's pick and Sam didn't want to overrule her on everything. HES SO NORMAL and clearly just trying to recruit for some kind of sun cult. THIS ISNT THAT KIND OF CHURCH, MAN. I love him, Sam wanted to punch him on multiple occasions

The Crimson Captain!!! Sam wanted a devil on the council but felt oddly more comfortable with one of the devils who still serves the old devil monarchy.... They feel the most like they have a Faith as he understands it so there's a strange sort of kinship there? ANYWAY this guy is the soggiest devil imaginable, clearly still haunted by his mistakes and losses in an old Hell war in every piece of feedback he gives. Like getting relationship advice from someone who's been divorced six times. I love him.

And the Delightful Reverend herself! Every time you have to make a decision and ask her opinion shes like "augh i hate making choices" thus making her THE MOST RELATABLE CHARACTER IN FALLEN LONDON, A GAME THAT IS 80% MAKING CHOICES. She's very hard to draw but I love her.

Browser game/Bag a Legend version will come later

Wesley starts as a skittish fellow - who could blame him, really? The fall of London took quite a toll on him, and he lacked confidence when it came to using his new name. But getting out of the attic and starting his work for the Ministry brought him out of his shell.

As has becoming rather fond of the company of both Griz and Mr. Pages.