Archive of Our Own

Hi and welcome to Winter's Delight: A Four Swords Calendar!

Some of you may remember us from last year, when we ran the Four Swords Advent Anthology (FSAA) event. We received a lot of constructive feedback afterwards. A number of you felt the FSAA was too restrictive, due to being based on a the Advent calendar (a Christian item), and that it might not be welcoming to other faiths, cultures, and nationalities.

We have listened to you and rebranded. This year, the event will run throughout the entirety of December, and be open to more participants.

Winter's Delight is organised by fans of the Four Swords games and manga, for the fans of the Four Swords games and manga. It covers the 1st to the 31st of December. In the months leading up to it, we invite artists and writers to prepare pieces of fanart and fanfiction, to be posted on Tumblr (and, if the participants chose so, to our Ao3 collection) in December to spread joy and delight in the Four Swords fan community.

Each year we have two themes. To represent the name of the event, one theme will always be WINTER. The other is determined through submissions from fans and voting. Submission for themes this year is open until the 13th of August, whereupon a poll will be posted on our Tumblr on the 14th of August and voting can commence. The poll will be open until the 20th of August.

Last year, we had a limited number of available spaces for artists and writers to sign up for. This year we invite anyone interested to post fanart and/or fanfiction on any day in December (subject to the guidelines listed). If you do participate, please tag us (@fswintersdelight) so we can reblog your piece and help even more fans see your work!

Please see our Guidelines for dates and deadlines.

One OR both of the themes has to be visible in the submission. The themes for 2023 are: WINTER and [TBC]*.

The submission 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. This is a family friendly event.

We welcome all ships and AUs.

All written submissions should be in the range of 500–8,000 words. (We are at this time unfortunately only able to offer proof-reading or editing for featured writers.)

Art can include short comics.

Due to the turbulent times we live in, we want to be extremely clear that when we say this is a family friendly event, we mean 'family friendly' to include LGBTQ+ and other minorities. Discriminatory or derogatory visuals/language will not be accepted, and may lead to you being banned from the event.

*The second theme of 2023 is to be confirmed in the poll on @fswintersdelight, available from Monday the 14th of August.