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.
Tolkien Short Fanworks July Challenge
July features both a thematic prompt and formal challenge. You can combine the thematic prompt and the formal challenge, but they can be filled entirely independently.
Thematic prompt: sea shell.
Two bonus quotation prompts related to this theme:
I walked by the sea, and there came to me,
as a star-beam on the wet sand,
a white shell like a sea-bell;
trembling it lay in my wet hand
[From Tolkien's "The Sea Bell"]
In the twilight by the river on a hollow thing of shell
He made immortal music
[From Tolkien's "The Horns of Ylmir"]
The formal challenge is to write a poem in couplets.
Usual reminder that although you can fill the thematic prompt any way you like, in order to post the fill to this community or to the related collection on AO3, the fanwork can only have a word count up to 1000 words and must be linked to a Tolkien fandom.
Rec lists and podfics can be posted as fills for thematic prompts, as long as the fanworks concerned meet those conditions.
The next challenge will be posted at the beginning of August, but the prompts don't expire and late fills are always welcome!
Oxonmoot - Calls for Papers and for Activities (deadlines)
Oxonmoot is an annual event hosted by The Tolkien Society which brings together Tolkien fans, scholars, students and Society members from across the world. Oxonmoot 2021 is being held over four days, from the afternoon of Thursday 2nd September until lunch time on Sunday 5th September. This will be a hybrid event bringing together online delegates with those attending in person at St Anne’s College, Oxford.
The Call for Papers and Call for Activities are open. The Call for Papers closes at 8:00 am UK time on Thursday 1st July, while the Call for Activities closes at 8:00 am UK time on Sunday 18th July.
Registration is now open. Fees range from £35 to £95, depending.
Tolkien Society Summer Seminar 2021 (3/4 July) posts its programme
The Tolkien Society Seminar is a short academic conference of both researcher-led and non-academic presentations on a specific theme pertaining to Tolkien scholarship. The theme for this year's conference is "Tolkien and Diversity" and recognizes the growing need for discussion of diversity and representation in Tolkien's works and adaptations of those works.
This year's seminar will be held online via Zoom and livestreamed on the Tolkien Society's YouTube channel on Saturday, July 3rd and Sunday, July 4th. Registration is free, and you can register on the Tolkien Society website.
The schedule has now been posted on the same page; the papers cover a wide variety of relevant topics in the Legendarium and in the reception of Tolkien's works.
Jeff LaSala completes blog post series on orcs on Tor.com
As part of his series Deep Delvings into Middle-earth on Tor.com, Jeff LaSala has completed a mini-three series of three blog posts on continuities and change in the portrayal of the orcs in Tolkien's Legendarium and their implications. The first post covered The Lord or the Rings and The Hobbit, the second covered Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion and the third covers treatment in the History of Middle-earth.
Survey: Sociolinguistics in Fandom
Interested in online sociolinguistics in fandom? Then have we got the survey for you! We were contacted by a researcher at Bellevue College, who asked about boosting their study, so we’re passing this along. The study is about sociolinguistics in online fandom, and really digs into how individuals personally define various fannish terms. There’s a particular focus on shipping and antis, and a portion of the survey is optional and uses trigger warnings for potentially upsetting content around antis and anti discourse.
The number of survey questions vary depending on your answers. People have finished in around 20-30mins, and some have really dug into the optional, long-form questions and have taken an hour! We figure around 30-45mins is a good estimate for length.
For more information:
Project FAQ
Take the Survey
Tolkien Short Fanworks: June Challenge
The tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth has a thematic prompt and a formal challenge for June.
You can combine the thematic prompt and the formal challenge, but they can be filled entirely independently.
Thematic prompt: the solstice, Mid-Summer, respectively Mid-Winter, as turning points of the solar year.
For Mid-Summer you could also think of Middle-earth equivalents like Loëndë or Lithedays, and perhaps of traditions like bonfires or herbs such as St John's Wort and others.
The formal challenge is to write a a 'dribble' or half-drabble, 50 words, also themed to go with the solstice or half-way through the year.
Although you can fill the thematic prompt any way you like, in order to post the fill to the Dreamwidth community or to the related collection on AO3, the fanwork can only have a word count up to 1000 words and must be linked to a Tolkien fandom.
The next challenge will be posted at the beginning of June, but the prompts don't expire and late fills are always welcome!
New participants are welcome. (A Dreamwidth account is required for posts to the Dreamwidth community.)
Tolkien Society Seminar Registration Open
The Tolkien Society Seminar is a short academic conference of both researcher-led and non-academic presentations on a specific theme pertaining to Tolkien scholarship. The theme for this year's conference is "Tolkien and Diversity" and recognizes the growing need for discussion of diversity and representation in Tolkien's works and adaptations of those works.
This year's seminar will be held online via Zoom and livestreamed on the Tolkien Society's YouTube channel on Saturday, July 3rd and Sunday, July 4th. Registration is free, and you can now register on the Tolkien Society website.
"In Memoriam: Richard C. West" by Janet Brennan Croft
A pioneer in the field of Tolkien studies, Richard C. West died in late 2020 of COVID-related causes. Croft's essay reviews West's contributions to the field of Tolkien studies.
Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature with Guy Gavriel Kay
The eighth annual J.R.R Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature, broadcast online from Pembroke College, Oxford on Tuesday May 11th 2021, features fantasy author and Silmarillion collaborator Guy Gavriel Kay with his lecture "Just Enough Light: Some Thoughts on Fantasy and Literature."
(If you didn't know, Kay was instrumental in assisting Christopher Tolkien in compiling the published Silmarillion!)
Tolkien Short Fanworks: May Challenge
The thematic prompt for May is: The old custom of Maying
Associated quotation prompt:
There's not a budding boy or girl this day / But is got up and to bring in May. / A deal of youth ere this come / Back, and with white-thorn laden home. (Robert Herrick Corinna's Going a-Maying)
Associated picture prompt: Arthur Rackham - How Queen Guenevere rode a-maying into the woods and fields beside Westminster.
The formal challenge is to write a zejel.
(You can find a link to the picture and explanation of the zejel form in the linked challenge post.)
Athough you can fill the thematic prompt any way you like, in order to post the fill to the Dreamwidth community or to the related collection on AO3, the fanwork can only have a word count up to 1000 words and must be linked to a Tolkien fandom.
The next challenge will be posted at the beginning of June, but the prompts don't expire and late fills are always welcome!