#23.1

Fun with Fanon Fest: A Tolkien Fandom Mini-Event

Hello and welcome to the first Fun with Fanon Fest!

This event is a celebration of fanon and community storytelling in the Tolkien fandom! It was created to encourage the interaction of fans with the source material and each other, interrogating and uplifting how we create narratives together as a community.

Share your favorite bits of fanon! Give fanon your own spin! Tackle the questions posed or answered by fanon, and address them in a new way! Create your own counter-fanonical version of events!

Our event aims to celebrate collaborative creation by honoring and encouraging the interrogation of fanon concepts, whether by going “headcanon accepted!” or by saying “Wait, what if ___ instead?” We welcome both depictions of common fanon and fandom tropes, or offered alternative and inversions of the same. The more people joining in this collective conversation and sharing ideas, the better!

This is a 2-day mini-event occurring quarterly! Our first event is March 25-26. Our daily themes remain the same every event: Day 1 (Saturday) is Favorite Fanons, and Day 2 (Sunday) is Fanon Inversion.

We will also provide 4 prompts for each event, to get your brain working. Our current prompts are “Maglor = Lindir” and “Arkenstone = Silmaril,” and we’ll be adding two more in the weeks to come! If you want to submit an idea for those prompts, you can do that here!

PROMPT ANNOUNCEMENTS!

Chosen in part from your submissions, here are the first four prompts for our inaugural event!

1. Maglor = Lindir

Maglor wandered alone forever...or did he? Perhaps Elrond took him in, and he took a new name, Lindir... OR NOT! Is Lindir an entirely seperate person? Did he ever meet Maglor? Or did Elrond never find Maglor at all?

2. Arkenstone = Silmaril

The third Silmaril was cast into the fiery pits of the earth, never to be seen again...or was it? Perhaps it traveled through the earth’s core and re-emerged in Erebor in the Third Age, and became the Arkenstone... OR NOT! Did anyone mistake the Arkenstone for a Silmaril? Did the Silmaril melt down in the fires of the earth? And where did the Arkenstone come from, anyway?

3. Fin-galad

Finduilas died, pinned to a tree by a spear...or did she? Perhaps she survived, and reinvented herself as Gil-galad, High King of the Noldor... OR NOT! Did anyone question Gil-galad’s gender and/or parentage? Did Finduilas hear of this rumor in Mandos? Or did she survive, but do something else with her life?

4. Scarred Maedhros

Maedhros returned from Angband with the shadow of pain in his heart, but physically only his hand was marred...or was it? Perhaps he was scarred all over his body, bearing marks of torment obvious for everyone to see... OR NOT! Did he have some scars, but an untarnished face? Did he have a disconnect between the scars of his soul and his unblemished body? And why would the Enemy leave him unscarred, anyway?

These prompts are optional, and you may explore any sort of fanon during our event. These are just to get your brain working!

Remember, we welcome both depictions of common fanon and fandom tropes, or offered alternative and inversions of the same. You can explore these concepts as if they are true, or you can consider a contradictory concept!

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Today is the day!! Fun with Fanon Fest begins with the prompt FAVORITE FANONS!!!

Create something about your favorite fanon concepts! Any type of creation is welcome, and it can be any level of quality! Have FUN!!!

Please @ mention your creations with @funwithfanon AND in the tags as #funwithfanon within the first 20 tags!! Thanks!!

Fun with Fanon Fest is one week away!

This event will run March 25-26! Day 1 is all about Favorite Fanons, and Day 2 is for Fanon Inversion.

Our prompts for this round are:

Maglor = Lindir

Arkenstone = Silmaril

Fin-galad

Scarred Maedhros

Interested? Check out our About and FAQ!

Fun with Fanon Fest continues with FANON INVERSION!!

Create something challenging or interrogating a fanon concept! Give another interpretation or spin, tell a different story!!

Please @ mention your creations with @funwithfanon AND in the tags as #funwithfanon within the first 20 tags!! Thanks!!

The prompt submission form for our first event, March 25-26, is now OPEN!

Check out our guidelines here, and submit prompts here!

We already have two prompts chosen, but we will be choosing two more from your suggestions. Those prompts will be announced on March 15.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the first Fun with Fanon Fest this weekend!! It’s wonderful to see your ideas and creations about our fandom’s collaborative conceptions.

If you didn’t manage to get your submission finished in time, that’s okay! We accept late submissions and are happy to share outside of the event.

And the next event is just around the corner...I don’t have solid dates yet, but this is a quarterly event, so the second event of 2023 will happen sometime between April and June!

Thanks again!