Around the World and Web includes announcements and items of interest from beyond the SWG.
Week of Kiliel
Welcome to Week of Kiliel!
This event will be held May 17-23! The goal of this week is to celebrate and be creatively inspired by the relationship between Tauriel and Kili Durin! We want to encourage The Hobbit community to make Kiliel art, fanfiction, edits, crafts, and more!
Rules:
• There are prompts for every day to inspire your creativity! You can pick one or multiple from each day, and they can be followed as loosely or as closely as you would like!
• Please use the tag “#week of kiliel” so we can reblog your entries! You can also tag @weekofkiliel! We are so excited to see and support all of your work!
• Late entries are fine, though we ask that you do not post earlier!
• If you have an existing work that fits one of these prompts that you would like to submit, that is fine, but please repost about it with the hashtag on the day it corresponds to! While we accept already existing works, we really want to encourage new Kiliel content as that is one of the goals of Kiliel week!
• NSFW is allowed! While none of the prompts are explicitly NSFW, NSFW is permitted as long as it is properly tagged!
• While the main ship and characters should be Kiliel, background ships and characters are welcome! However, for this event we do not accept Durincest or other incest ships.
NO AI WILL BE PERMITTED FOR THIS EVENT, ANY AI ENTRIES WILL BE UNOFFICIAL AND WILL NOT BE REBLOGGED OR ENDORSED
Prompts
Day 1 - Modern AU, First Kiss, Dating, Fluff
Day 2 - Courting, Erebor Never Fell AU, Wingman, Khuzdul
Day 3 - Sickfic, Poison, Angst, Healing
Day 4 - Mirkwood, Culture Shock, Meetcute, Sindarin
Day 5 - Height Difference, Cuddling, College AU, Bed Sharing
Day 6 - Crossover AU, Fake Dating, Arranged Marriage, Confession
Day 7 - Afterlife, Everybody Lives, Scene Rewrite, Alt First Meeting
Aspec Arda Week 2026
Aspec Arda Week: May 10th-16th, 2026
This event celebrates asexual and aromantic spectrum interpretations and headcanons of Tolkien's Legendarium.
Any creations about the aromantic and asexual spectrums are welcome! You can create edits, gifs, fanart, fanfic, fanmixes, and more! All versions of canon/fanon and characters are included, be it from the books, movies, TV, OCs, etc. Please tag your posts with #aspecardaweek AND @ mention this blog @aspecardaweek so that your work can be easily found. If you are posting your submission to AO3, we will have an event collection! This is not an event for generative AI works.
The prompts below are a guideline for the week’s events, though you are not obligated to stick to them when participating. They’re completely optional, and more of a source of inspiration than a mandatory guideline. Feel free to explore them however you’d like; an explanation for each is given, but you can interpret them differently if you want to.
Day 1 / May 10th: Asexuality || Hope
Day 2 / May 11th: Aromanticism || Community
Day 3 / May 12th: Across the A-Spectrum || Loneliness
Day 4 / May 13th: Worldbuilding || Dragons
Day 5 / May 14th: Relationships || Linguistics
Day 6 / May 15th: Intersectionality || Found Family
Day 7 / May 16th: Freeform
For further clarification, check out our FAQ, code of conduct, and prompts pages! Happy creating!!
Detailed Prompts
DAY ONE: Asexuality
What characters do you see as asexual? Why? How does that impact their lives?
Alternative prompt: Hope
DAY TWO: Aromanticism
What characters do you see as aromantic? Why? How does that impact their lives?
Alternative prompt: Community
DAY THREE: Across the A-Spectrum
“Asexual” and “aromantic” are umbrella terms encapsulating a wide spectrum of identities. From grayromantic to demisexual, and aroace to lithromantic —there are many other labels on the a-spectrum. This is a day for exploring those identities and the characters you associate them with.
Alternative prompt: Loneliness
DAY FOUR: World Building
How does acceptance and prevalence of aspec identity vary over both cultures and species?
Are all elves really baseline demisexual? What’s up with one third of dwarven populations focusing on their craft instead of taking a spouse? How do soul bonds work between elven couples who don’t want to have sex? Did Númenor get aphobic when they started distancing themselves from the Elves? Do aspec hobbits feel pressure to settle down and have large families?
Alternative prompt: Dragons
DAY FIVE: Relationships
Aspec people can have many different kinds of relationships, including romantic and sexual ones— but some kinds of relationships are more unique and common to the aspec communities, such as queerplatonic ones. Today is a day for exploring all these different kinds of relationships!
There are several relationships in Tolkien's works that could easily be read as queerplatonic, including Frodo & Sam, and Legolas & Gimli. There is also an interesting footnote in The Nature of Middle Earth which describes something like a queerplatonic relationship and provides some Quenya words for it.
Alternative prompt: Linguistics - Many of the terms for aspec identity come from root words of Latin, can you postulate translations for aspec terminology in any of Tolkien's languages?
DAY SIX: Intersectionality
There is more to a person’s life than just their orientation. Outside of fantasy species, how does being aspec interact with a character’s other identities and experiences, such as race or disability or religion? What’s the impact of a character’s aspec identity on their gender or other orientation labels? Today is a day for exploring the intersections of the aspec experience with other aspects of identity.
Alternative Prompt: Found Family
DAY SEVEN: Freeform
Post about something aspec related not yet covered in the topics this week, or return to a prompt you have more thoughts about! Alternatively, we have some additional prompts for inspiration that did not quite fit into the other days.
- Recommend a fic, meta post, etc. that includes aspec identity.
- How would a particular character respond to allonormativity / amatanormativity? What kind of amatanormativity / allonormativity have they faced?
- What is a particular character’s relationship with their aspec identity Is it a big part of their life?
- Post about an aspec character’s family, either found family, or blood relations. Does their family support them? Does their family (or society) have expectations of marriage and children of them?
- Post about aspec community (symbols, cultural practices, mentorship and friendship with other aspec characters) within the context a culture within Tolkien's Legendarium, or take a character and post about what parts an aspec community they would resonate with in a modern Earth AU.
Angbang Week 2026
This is the official blog of Angbang (or Melron) week.
We follow the tags "#AngbangWeek" and "#Angbang Week" as well as the current year variations of those tags. We have our ask box and DMs open if you have any questions!
List of prompts for Angbang Week 2026:
- Day 1: First meeting/Reunion
- Day 2: Dating/Intimacy
- Day 3: Competitions/Rivalry
- Day 4: Eyes/Gaze
- Day 5: Letters/Long distance communication
- Day 6: Last day together/Separation
- Day 7: Canon divergence
As always, there are two prompts a day to choose between. You may create any original work you feel relates to the prompt, and if you did not connect with a prompt, feel free to skip it. All previously unposted creations made by you are accepted (fic, art, moodboards, playlists, etc). For any adult content, please keep it below a read more and tag it accordingly.
When posting your works, please post them on the day the prompt appears on or on a later day and tag this blog directly by using @, or add one of the following tags (#angbangweek2026, #angbang week 2026) to your post's tag list so we know the post is for the event. Please note that the event rules have been updated to clarify that we do NOT accept any creations made using Generative AI of any sort, and as such we will not be featuring any such content on this blog. For any questions or further clarifications, feel free to reach out in the asks or DMs. Happy creating and we'll see you in May!
April/May Teitho Challenge
Our prompt for April/May is Heartbreak. There are so many possibilities with this one!
Will you go back to the very beginning with the heartbreak of Melkor’s discord during the creation?
Or will you take us to the time of Miriel and Finwë? Fëanor’s heartbreak at the loss of his mother?And later his father’s death? Or the loss of the Silmarils themselves, that led to so much heartbreak for so many?
The kinslaying. The ship burning. The Helcaraxë. Battle after battle. Betrayal. The heartbreak of The Oath itself.
The death of Fingolfin. Fingon. Finrod. The sons of Fëanor, one after another. The heartbreak of those left behind: Maglor, Galadriel, Elrond.
The tragedy of the House of Hurin.
Or will you come to the time of Celebrimbor—the glory of Eregion and Khazad-Dûm and the devastation that followed? The Last Alliance?
The travails of Frodo. The lonely travels of Aragorn. The heavy weight of duty straining the hearts of both Boromir and Faramir. Eowyn’s heartbreak in Edoras.
The doomed love stories that are woven into Tolkien’s books—Turin, Finduilas, Gwindor, to name a few.
Heartbreak can be so many things—with love, with loss, with changes that shift our entire world. But heartbreak can also be in the small moments—for a child, a parent, a friend, a comrade. It can be momentary or span years. Or even lifetimes.
Will you break our hearts with your stories and art this time? Or will you find a way to heal the heartbreak and find the hope that can endure and persist?
We can’t wait to see what you do with this prompt!
Submissions are due May 31, 2026. Please send them to teitho.contest@gmail.com
Your teitho mods
Sian22, Lotrfan, and Cassie.
Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2026
Schedule
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March
1: 2025 Gallery Opens
The Gallery for 2025 is live! Enjoy the beautiful pieces created for last year’s TRSB!
22: Suggestion Form Opens
This form gives potential authors (or anyone else who wants to play!) the opportunity to suggest characters, places and scenarios they would like to see in the submitted art. We will post a link to the form on our Tumblr and here on the website. The answers will feed into a publicly available spreadsheet listing the ideas submitted; artists can peruse this to get inspired!
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April
12: Sign-ups Open
We post links to our sign-up form on all the usual platforms. You can then sign up as an artist, an author, a beta, a cheerleader, a pinch hitter, or as two or more of these. Please see the ‘Sign-ups’ section of the FAQ for more details on what these terms mean.
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May
3: Artist Sign-up Deadline
9: Art Draft Due
Participating art submissions must be sent to the mods by this date to be eligible for the Claims Gallery.
For more details on how to do this, see the ‘Art Submissions’ section of the FAQ. Artists may submit up to two pieces of art, for claiming by two separate authors.10: Discord Server Opens
Come hang out with your fellow participants!
15: Art Previews Open
Our online gallery of art prompts will be visible to signed-up participants only. Signed-up authors can browse the artworks and see which pieces appeal to their muses!
16-17: Discord Art Talks
These are live chats on Discord with mod presence – start times to be announced – where we go through the beautiful gallery and admire the work of our artists. It has been great fun in past years!
20: Author Signups Deadline
23 (Saturday) 17:00 UTC: CLAIMS
Authors submit a ranked list of the artworks they would like to claim to write fic for. Claims are on a first-come, first-served basis. One artwork will be allocated to each claiming author; the mods will email you to confirm which piece you have successfully claimed and how to get in touch with your artist. See the ‘Claims’ section of the FAQ for more information.
TBA – Additional Claims
If any artworks are left unclaimed, we will hold one or more additional claiming rounds as needed. Generally, there will be 24 hours between rounds, but the timing is at the mods’ discretion. The additional round(s) will be announced to signed-up participants by email and on the TRSB Discord.
31: Post-Claims Check-in
The mods will email each artist/author pair to ensure that you have successfully established contact – even if you are not planning on a close collaboration, it is polite to check in with your partner, say hello, and make sure you’re both clear on must-haves and do-not-wants. One person from your pair must respond and confirm that you have done this!
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June
14: Free Rein Art Due
We know some artists like to give their authors as much creative freedom as possible, and we have a dedicated collaboration option for this (see ‘Art Submissions’ FAQs). However, this means we require these artists to share the final art with their authors much earlier than artists who are prepared to be more involved.
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July
12: Check-in #2
The mods will email each pair to ensure everything is on track. One person from your pair must respond – see ‘Check Ins’ in the FAQ.
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August
9: Final Art Due
Artists must share the final art with their authors – but don’t post it yet!
Don’t email it to the mods.16: Final Check-in (#3)
Deadline to abandon your fic to a pinch hitter. There will be no penalty for dropping out on or before this date. This year we ask both collaborators to contact the mods at the final check-in.
The mods will email all participants beforehand to ensure everything is still on track. We will ask you to confirm:
- Whether the art is complete (Artists: did you share it with your author? Authors: have you seen the final art?)
- Whether you have discussed posting logistics (ie, have you talked about how the art will be posted (embedded and/or posted separately to the collection), who will handle promo posting, any specific posting needs)
26: Art Can Be Posted
Artworks can be posted to your preferred platform on or after this date (but before they are due in the collection). Hype your collab wherever you like and get the excitement going! Artists should ensure that their author has received a link to the art for embedding or linking in the finished fic as agreed upon before August 30th (deadline for posting the fic to the collection).
30: Fic Due In Collection
Authors should post their stories in our AO3 collection with the artwork embedded or linked. See the “Posting fic” section of our FAQ.
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September
5: COLLECTION REVEALS
Around the World and Web Archive
Events listed here are no longer active but are listed on the site for historical purposes.
All of Arda Is Autistic 2023
All of Arda Is Autistic is a month-long fanfiction event on Tumblr for neurodivergent fans celebrating neurodivergent headcanons of Tolkien's characters. The event runs from 1 April to 30 April, which is Autism Acceptance Month. All Tolkien fans who fit somewhere under the neurodivergent umbrella (self-diagnosed or clinically diagnosed, it doesn't matter) are welcome to participate. This event is during Autism Acceptance Month, but allistic neurodivergents are totally welcome to join as well! Neurotypicals, feel free to support the event and enjoy the stories!
Official tags for the event are #all-of-arda-is-autistic and #all of arda is autistic 2023.
Tolkien Ekphrasis Week 2023
Material culture and art add vibrancy to our lives, and it seems that there are so many options in Middle-earth ripe for interpretation! A poem on Nerdanel's statues, a tapestry capturing Nessa's dance, a prose fic describing the impact of seeing Númenor's frescoes, a painting exploring the beautiful quotidian architecture of a Hobbit hole ...
This is a Tolkien-fandom-wide event dedicated to the art of ekphrasis in Tolkien's worlds. Its goal is to illuminate the artistic surroundings of the places, people, and stories we love, in as many media as possible. As such, fanworks are welcome to take almost any form: see the FAQ for the full list!
The prompts are multi-part. The first part of the prompt is mandatory, describing the kind of art to be interpreted. The subsequent parts are optional thematic, formal, or visual add-ons that people may choose to incorporate or not.
For example: "Day N. Art form: Metalwork. Formal prompt (writing): Epistolary format. Formal prompt (visual art): Mixed media. Thematic prompt: Trade and cross-cultural connection."
If you miss the day, or are desperate to create work about some form of art not included in the prompts, don't worry! Posting amnesty/prompt free-for-all day will be June 17, and posting here and in the AO3 Collection will be open for a year from June 10, 2023.
How It Works
Prompts are currently being posted! Participants will have slightly more than two months to create whatever sort of art they like inspired by one or more of those prompts. Then, no later than June 9, 5 PM PST, they will post their works to the AO3 Collection (linked above), tagged with the appropriate day. The mod will do a quick check, and then the week of reveals will begin. During the week of June 10-June 16, pre-posted fanworks will be revealed daily according to theme (see calendar) in the AO3 Collection and reblogged on Tumblr. On June 17, anyone who missed the deadline will have an opportunity to post their late works and have them celebrated on Amnesty Day.
In short, the timeline is:
- Read prompts starting March 22.
- Create!
- Post tagged work to AO3 before June 9 deadline.
- Enjoy daily reveals between June 10 and June 16.
- Amnesty day June 17 for late posters.
Inclusion
Tolkien Ekphrasis Week is open to all characters, genres, and ratings, and all Tolkien canons. This includes books, movies both live-action and animated, fan-made films like Born of Hope, TV shows that have aired (so yes to Rings of Power, no to the yet-unreleased Rohan animated series), and game canons such as Lord of the Rings Online. It also includes Tolkien's non-Arda works, such as Roverandom. Crossovers between two or more Tolkien canons are welcome.
Tolkien Ekphrasis Week wants to be as inclusive as possible. As such:
- All canons and versions of canon are equally welcome and encouraged to participate.
- Fan creators of all levels of experience should feel more than welcome to join in the fun.
- All languages are welcomed, and works in languages other than English are actively encouraged.
- All styles of art and all types of fic are permitted. Apart from following the Art Form content prompt for each day, there are no restrictions on genre, style, rating, or ship. There is one exception: no character bashing.
Above all, this event is supposed to get us thinking and feeling about art, which is for everyone. With this in mind, TEW asks participants to be respectful and inclusive at all times. In particular, TEW values its queer and trans participants and participants of color and will moderate as necessary to ensure that this event remains a welcoming space.
Please see the FAQ for full instructions on how to post and tag.
Calendar
June 9: Submit all works to the AO3 Collection
June 10-16, 2023: Reveals
- June 10 - AO3 collection reveals begin with Day 1 Prompt (Textiles and Fashion)
- June 11 - Day 2 Prompt (Lutherie and Instrument-Making)
- June 12 - Day 3 Prompt (Dance)
- June 13 - Day 4 Prompt (Gardening and Landscape Architecture)
- June 14 - Day 5 Prompt (Music)
- June 15 - Day 6 Prompt (Calligraphy)
- June 16 - Day 7 Prompt (In-Universe Religious and Devotional Art)
- June 17 - Amnesty Day and Free-for-all posting
June 18, 2023: Tumblr Queue begins posting tagged works.
June 9, 2024: AO3 Collection and DW community close to posting.
Housekeeping
The DW site is the primary home of Tolkien Ekphrasis Week 2023: this is where to check first for dates, news, FAQs, links, and prompts!
Prompts will also be posted on Tumblr. The Tumblr blog will be used for event promotion ahead of the event, answering questions via the ask function, and reblogging your creations, if they are posted and tagged on Tumblr.
This event does not and will not exist on any other form of social media other than Tumblr and DW, though I encourage you to spread the word in your other online communities.
Links
Polyship Week 2023
Polyship Week offers prompts for all fanwork types that focus on polyamorous characters and relationships. The event runs 16-22 April 2023.
- Works featuring polyamorous characters and relationships of all kind are welcome — any characters, ships, fandoms, and OCs too!
- Works may be in any medium — fic, art, gifsets, podfic, vids, and more!
- Participate in as few or as many days as you like. Choose your favorite prompt each day or mash them up — whatever sparks your imagination!
- Please tag us @PolyshipWeek or use the hashtag #PolyshipWeek23 so we can reblog your creations! Artists, please also remember to tag or link to the OP as requested for the art memes when you post. :)
Ao3 Collection | carrd | Twitter | Tumblr
WIP Big Bang 2023
We are the WIP Big Bang and our goal is to take the stories we've already started and to finish them by August 8, 2023. We are an all-fandoms-welcome exchange and will have artist claims and everything. It's like a real Big Bang, with a twist. You only need at least 500 words of a story you've already written prior to signing up and the goal isn't a word count* but to finish the thing. So, are you ready to defeat that WIP? Sign up now!
Schedule
All times are by 8:59pm PST. Convert time zones.
Sign-ups Begin- April 1st
Sign-ups Close- April 21st
Check In #1- April 22nd
Check In #2- May 15th
Snippets Due- June 1st
Art Claims Begin- June 17th
Check In #3- June 22nd
Check In #4- July 6th
Rough Drafts Due- July 15th
Posting Claims Begin- July 23rd
Posting Claims Ends- August 1st
Final Drafts/Art Due- August 7th
Posting Starts- August 8th
Posting Ends- October 31st (the last two weeks are reserved for emergency posting)
B2MeM 2023: Drabble Duel and Eregion Art-a-Thon
Drabble Duel
Are you a writer who delights in the shortest of stories, the tiniest of tales? Then come join us from March 17 to March 25, and help settle the debate!
How to play:
- Two collections will be provided. Glorfindel’s Drabble Gallery & the Girabbit’s Drabble Exhibition.
- The rules are simple. If you believe that a drabble is exactly 100 words, not a single one more or less, post your drabbles to Glorfindel’s Drabble Gallery. Should you agree with the Girabbit that 99 words are as true of a drabble as 111 words are, post your drabbles to Girabbit’s Drabble Exhibition.
- On March 25, the Mods from Spies in the Shadows will tally all drabbles that were posted in the correct collection, according to the AO3 word count feature, and whoever received more support will win the argument!
Post your drabbles to the B2MeM 2023 AO3 collection. There are also live drabbling events available on the B2MeM 2023 Discord server; contact one of the B2MeM mods for an invite.
Complete Drabble Duel guidelines can be found here.
Eregion Art-a-thon
We are calling all artists to make use of the portal and submit their art to the Museum of Eregion, and if perhaps… there are some subtle hints hidden in those arts that could alert Celebrimbor to his future fate, then who could possibly object? (Do make sure they are subtle, though. We would not wish Annatar to catch on!)
How to play:
- This event will primarily happen on Discord, though there might be a Tumblr museum as well once the portal has closed again. If you are not playing Spies in the Shadows, but want to join the server for the week, DM one of the mods for an invite or hit us up on tumblr @spring-into-arda.
- You will be given access to bingo prompt cards that you can use to create for the event.
- We will have some live creating events throughout the week, and a bingo night!
Gen Freeform Exchange 2023: Nominations and Sign-Ups
Gen Freeform Exchange is a multi-fandom exchange focused on gen fanworks, with freeform tag matching so that you can request and offer all your favorite gen tropes. We’re defining gen fanworks as works with no romantic or sexual content. Gen can focus on platonic relationships (friends, family, colleagues, enemies-with-whom-there-is-no-sexual-tension, etc), usually indicated by a & between characters rather than a /, or it can focus on a singular character with no particular focus on any relationship.
Both solo characters and gen character combos can be requested. Media allowed: fic, art, vids, and podfic.
Please follow this comm for all your info about the exchange!
Schedule
March 4-11 9:59PM EST - Nominations
March 13-20 9:59PM EST - Signups
March 23 - Assignments sent by this date
May 14 9:59PM EDT - Assignments Due
May 21 9:59PM EDT - Work Reveals
May 28 9:59PM EDT - Creator Reveals
Links
Poll: LotR Ladies Week Date
We're planning a LotR Ladies fandom week and would like to know what month would work best for as many people as possible to be able to participate. Keep in mind other fandom events going on in those months too that you might be participating in- we want to know what time frame would the most people have space for. (Here's a list of some of the other fandom events that may be happening this year!)
Call for Submissions: "Ephemera" Fan History Zine
Submit work to Ephemera, a zine dedicated to fan studies and fandom culture! We are looking for: visual art, photography, analytical writing, personal essays, poetry, historical accounts, ethnographic interviews, straight-up trash, memories, collections, secrets both dark and cringe.... Send work to ephemerafanzine@gmail.com or submit through our form. Submissions should be 1,500 words or less (though longer submissions will be considered), and previously published works are accepted. Both print and online versions of the zine will be available.
Fun With Fanon Fest
Fun With Fanon Fest is a celebration of fanon and community storytelling in the Tolkien fandom, 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.
The two-day mini-event will be occurring quarterly, with the first event March 25-26. Daily themes remain the same every event: Day 1 (Saturday) is Favorite Fanons, and Day 2 (Sunday) is Fanon Inversion.
Four prompts are available for this year's event but are optional; exploration of any fanon is welcome.
- Maglor = Lindir
- Arkenstone = Silmaril
- Fin-galad
- Scarred Maedhros
Fandom Trumps Hate 2023 Bidding Open
FTH is an online fanworks auction, designed to raise money for progressive nonprofit organizations that help and support marginalized people. In the past five years, hundreds of fans have joined forces to raise over $190,000 for a range of progressive organizations.
The moment you've been waiting for has finally arrived - we've processed all the signups, posted and tagged all the auction posts, made all the edits creators have contacted us about, and run all the scripts to open the bidding forms, which means ...
YOU CAN GO BID ON FTH 2023 AUCTIONS!!
Bidding closes at 8:00pm EST on Sunday, March 5. Any bid that registers on the bid sheet with a timestamp after 8:00:05pm (or before 8:00:00am this morning) will not be counted.
If you subscribe to a bidding spreadsheet, remember that it may take a few minutes for it to notify you of a new bid, so don't rely on it in the last moments of the auction.
If you win your auction, we will require proof of your donation to one of the listed nonprofits by 8pm on Sunday, March 12 (a week after auctions close) or your auction may be passed on to the second bidder.
Good luck!