Around the World and Web includes announcements and items of interest from beyond the SWG.
April Challenge at tolkienshortfanworks
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for April has been posted to the Dreamwidth community.
The thematic challenge for this month is: Wood.
This could be in the sense of "forest" or in the sense of the material.
It could also be "wood" as an element in compounds or names.
The formal challenge this time is: linnod.
This is the traditional verse form used by Gilraen in the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen (LOTR Appendix A).
We only have that one canonical example with translation:
Ónen i-Estel Edain, ú-chebin estel anim.
"I gave Hope to the Dúnedain, I have kept no hope for myself."
The name of the form probably means "chant-seven".
Our Sindarin example seems to show two times seven syllables, although there may be other ways to interpret the form.
Imitate the Sindarin original or its English translation in any way you like.
Alternatively, your piece could include someone using a short response in verse in the way Gilraen does, without your imitating the form of the linnod itself.
These prompts can be filled separately and freely combined with other challenges and prompts that allow this. New participants welcome.
More detals on the challenges at the linked post and at the Dreamwidth community.
Celedriel Week 2025
Celedriel Week is a Tumblr events for fanworks about Galadriel and Celeborn. It will run April 6-12, 2025, with the following prompts:
April 6 - First Meetings, Impressions, The Heart Stirs. (A Gaze Caught. The Fire Ignites. "Eru save me, I've found my doom.")
April 7 - Dedication, Courtship, The Heart Blooms. (Flowers and Letters. Words of Love. "My heart, my love, my eternity. My soul soars for thee.")
April 8 - Marriage, Vows, The Heart Bound In Love. (An exchange of rings. Families bound. "In joy and suffering, in life persevering, in death enduring, I take thee and thee alone.")
April 9 - Kingdoms, Refuge, The Heart Endures. (Crowns of silver. Realms rise and fall. "Blessed are they who stand before the darkness and do not falter.")
April 10 - Separation, Conflict, The Heart Grieves. (War and loss leave wounds. Paths diverge and change. "I must follow this thread alone, but not forever.")
April 11 - Lothlorien, Children, The Heart Heals. (Wounds become scars. A silver realm. "Let our children bring joy amidst darkness.")
April 12 - The West, Undying Love, The Heart is Eternal. (A test endured and passed. A goodbye, but not a farewell. "In life and eternity, endless bliss under golden trees.")
Neurodivergent Arda Week 2025
Neurodivergent Arda Week will run from March 30 to April 5, 2025 on Tumblr. This is an event to celebrate Neurodiversity in Tolkien's works. Although there are no characters who are explicitly Neurodivergent, many Neurodivergent folk have found themselves in Tolkien's world. All creations are welcome, such as art, writing, podfic, gifs, and more.
Neurodiversity is the realisation, celebration, and acceptance that there are many different ways for a brain to function. Diversity is a natural part of existence. All brains are valid and real, whether or not they may fit into categories. And the world needs every brain in order to function. There is no such thing as a “better” or a “worse” brain, they’re just different. And different is good. Diversity is a vital and natural part of our world.
Here are some prompts:
Day 1 - March 30 - Worldbuilding
Day 2 - March 31 - Characters
Day 3 - April 1 - Stimming
Day 4 - April 2 - Special Interests
Day 5 - April 3 - Assistive Technology
Day 6 - April 4 - Intersectionality
Day 7 - April 5 - Free Prompt
Submissions do not have to follow the prompts.
When submitting, please tag your post #neurodivergentardaweek and mention @neurodivergent-arda-week
Please include image descriptions on submissions.
Content or creators that endorse these prejudices are not allowed -
- Homophobia
- Transphobia
- Racism
- Ableism
- Fatphobia and body shaming
- Biphobia and panphobia
- Polyphobia and sentiments against polyamorous folk
- Radical feminism
- Fascism and alt-right politics
- Aphobia
Tolkien at UVM Registration Open
Event Description:
Keynote Speaker: John Garth
The theme for this year's conference is Tolkien and War. John Garth is a British journalist and author, known especially for writings about J. R. R. Tolkien including his biography Tolkien and the Great War and a book on the places that inspired Middle-earth, The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien. He won a 2004 Mythopoeic Award for Scholarship for his work on Tolkien.
Dates and Time:
Friday Fireside Reading with John Garth: Friday, April 4th, 2025 from 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Saturday Conference: Saturday, April 5th, 2025 from 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
The registration deadline for this event is April 1, 2025.
Location:
Fireside Reading: Burack Lounge/Davis Center
Conference: UVM Campus, Lafayette L207, or virtually.
Cost:
$40
Tolkien Ekphrasis Week 2025
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.
In short, the timeline is:
- Read prompts starting March 17.
- 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, and game canons such as Lord of the Rings Online. It also includes Tolkien's non-Arda fictional 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 are two exceptions: first, no character bashing; second, no AI-generated writing or art.
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 all rules and full instructions on how to post and tag.
Calendar
June 9, 2025: Submit all works to the AO3 Collection by this date
June 10-16, 2025: Reveals
- June 10 - AO3 collection reveals begin with Day 1 Prompt (Dance)
- June 11 - Day 2 Prompt (Leathercraft)
- June 12 - Day 3 Prompt (Painting)
- June 13 - Day 4 Prompt (Tattooing, Piercing & Body Art)
- June 14 - Day 5 Prompt (Culinary Arts)
- June 15 - Day 6 Prompt (Textiles & Fashion)
- June 16 - Day 7 Prompt (Lapidary & Hardstone Carving)
- June 17 - Amnesty Day and Free-for-all posting
March 17, 2026: 2025 AO3 Collection and DW community close to posting.
Housekeeping
The DW site is the primary home of Tolkien Ekphrasis Week: that is where to check first for dates, news, FAQs, links, and prompts!
Prompts will also be posted here 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.
If you have any questions, you can get in touch with the mod, @chestnut_pod, via Tumblr ask or comments on the Dreamwidth community's equivalent post.
Links
Teitho March/April Challenge: Mothers
Exploring the idea of mothers in Tolkien lets us go behind the scenes. We have quite a few mothers directly in the narrative, primarily in the Silmarillion—where we see Miriel, Nerdanel, Morwen, Idril, Aredhel, Luthien, Elwing, and even have mentions of Anaire and Earwen.
In The Lord of the Rings we read of Galadriel being Celebrian’s mother and Arwen’s grandmother. Aragorn’s mother Gilraen, Faramir and Boromir’s mother Finduilas, and Rosie Cotton—Sam’s wife—are all mentioned in the narrative. The Hobbit gives us a memory of Belladonna Took, Bilbo’s mother, and mentions of Thorin’s sister Dis—the mother of Fili and Kili. The stories of any of these characters would make for fascinating fic! Or art!
There are many who remain unmentioned and unnamed—Legolas’s mother, Gimli’s, the mothers of generations of Dunedain, of Gondorians, of the Rohirrim, of the Shire. And consider Ungoliant, mother of Shelob! And mothers among the ranks of orcs.
We are excited to see where this prompt takes you and which character gives you inspiration! Please submit your fic or art by April 30 to teitho.contest@gmail.com
Around the World and Web Archive
Events listed here are no longer active but are listed on the site for historical purposes.
Arafinwëan Week 2025
Welcome to Arafinwëan Week! This is a new event following in the footsteps of @arafinweanweek, last run in 2019. This event celebrates the House of Finarfin and all of its descendants.
The event will run January 5–11 and accepts all types of fanworks. There is an AO3 collection for the event here.
Below are some suggested prompts for each day of the week. They are not mandatory; feel free to combine them or disregard them entirely.
Day 1: Finarfin | Eärwen | pre-Darkening | family, duty, and kingship
Day 2: Finrod | Darkening and Flight of the Noldor | oaths, loyalty, and sacrifice
Day 3: Angrod | Aegnor | Crossing of the Helcaraxë and the War of the Jewels | lordship, allies, and vassals
Day 4: Galadriel | Second Age | choices and regrets
Day 5: Orodreth | Finduilas | textual ghosts | Third Age | heritage, history, and heirlooms
Day 6: Gil-Galad | Celebrían | Arafinwëan OCs | Valinor and re-embodiment | future and legacy
Day 7: Later generations | free choice
Please mention @arafinwean-week (mind the dash! arafinweanweek is the old event's blog) in the body of your post and tag #arafinweanweek and #arafinweanweek2025 in the first 10 tags. You may also submit a post. Please place any NSFW content beneath a read more/link to AO3.
My Slashy Valentine 2025
From the Years of the Trees to the Fourth Age, from sultry tales of the Silmarillion to romances in the Ring Wars … sound familiar? That’s right, Slashy Swaps are back and it’s once again time to make your Tolkien fanfic dreams come true.
My Slashy Valentine is a hand matched slash fiction exchange focused on the people of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Sign ups are now OPEN so spread the word, recruit your friends and fellow authors, and get ready for MSV 2025.
Sign-up Period: December 6th to December 20th
Assignments distributed: by December 28th
Deadline for first time participants: January 31st, 2025
Deadline for veteran participants: February 7th, 2025
Archive opens: February 14th, 2025
Take a look through our rules and FAQ – or on AO3 if you’re on the mobile app, because Tumblr – and then come along to our SIGN UP PAGE and share the adventure.
Tolkien Pinup Calendar: 8 Nights of Smut
For December, we are working with @hanukkahbingo to bring you some naughty prompts for the Festival of Lights! @hanukkahbingo is a panfandom event so these prompts are open to anyone. This Tumblr will be reblogging all of the Tolkien-related content and @hanukkahbingo will reblog for any fandom!
As always, any fic, moodboard, fanart, edit, etc is allowed to be submitted!
To submit: 1) Tag us @tolkienpinupcalendar and @hanukkahbingo 2) use the tag #tpc8nightsofsmut 3) use the smutmissions form here
Tolkien Pinup Calendar: Dead Dove December
It's that time of year again! Time to cozy up with blankets and hot cocoa, and read some beautifully crafted non-con smut . . . Everyone does that, right?
We are bringing Dead Dove December back with all new prompts!
As always, any fic, moodboard, fanart, edit, etc is allowed to be submitted!
To Submit:
- Tag us @tolkienpinupcalendar
- Use the tag #tpcdeaddoveedevember
- Use the smutmissions form here
Thorin's Spring Forge 2025
Calling all Thorin fans! We are happy to announce that sign-ups for Thorin’s Spring Forge (TSF) 2025 are now open!
What is TSF?
TSF is a minibang-style event where writers and artists come together to create fanworks centred on Thorin Oakenshield. Fanworks can be based on the book or the movie version of the character. Any pairing or gen are welcome and we look forward to seeing what you create!
You can participate in this event as a:
- Writer;
- Artist;
- Beta reader;
- Pinch hitter (writer);
- Pinch hitter (artist).
Explanations of what each of these roles is can be found in our FAQ. You may sign up for more than one role, but there is a maximum of two fanworks per participant (i.e. you may write two fics, or create two artworks, or do one of each).
Participating authors create a short summary/synopsis of a fic, which is posted anonymously for artists to view and claim. Artists will then create art based on the fic they chose, and authors will write a complete fic (minimum 2,500 words).
Sign up as a writer
Sign up as an artist
Sign up as a beta reader or pinch hitter
Sign-ups for authors and artists will be open until January 5th 11:59 pm EST.
Sign-ups for beta readers and pinch hitters will remain open for the duration of the event!
Please be sure to familiarise yourself with our rules and schedule before signing up!
Questions? Visit our FAQ or contact us via thorinsspringforge@gmail.com, or send us an ask or DM on Tumblr.
If you have an idea you want to suggest: Add something to the suggestion form (this does not constitute a sign-up!)
If you are unsure of what you want to write: Check out the suggestions list!
Festival of Lights Fest 2024
Happy Hanukkah! The Festival of Lights Fest mods are pleased to announce the fest's return this year as an SWG event.
This is a fun and low-key event meant to encourage works about or inspired by Hanukkah. Fanworks might directly depict Hanukkah (e.g., a modern AU with Jewish characters), might relate to Hanukkah (such as an in-universe celebration similar to Hanukkah), or might just be inspired by our Hanukkah prompts.
In conjunction with the Potluck Bingo Challenge, we offer participants two Hanukkah-themed Bingo boards. (The boards have similar, but somewhat different, content, and the content is in different orders on the two boards.) Play one, play both; go for a bingo, or just go with what inspires you! Notes that both Potluck Bingo and the Festival of Lights Fest are listed as SWG challenges this year on the archive. Janeways and Independence1776 are your mods for this event!
Fluffcember 2024
Fluffcember is a Tumblr event with daily fluffy prompts during the month of December.
- This is a 1-month-challenge for fluffy fanworks.
- All sorts of fanworks (art, writing, graphics) welcome.
- We will however not accept any AI-Art or AI-Writing!
- SFW and NSFW is both welcome - but please make sure to tag it accordingly.
- Tag content warnings if you share under this tag!
- No minimum or maximum word count for writing!
We will reblog entries during the month of December!
If you have questions: The asks are open!
Prompts
- Day 01: Roasted Marshmallows
- Day 02: Winter Flu
- Day 03: Snow Man
- Day 04: Christmas Sweater
- Day 05: Northern Lights
- Day 06: Gingerbread House
- Day 07: Condensed Breath
- Day 08: Sparkling Snow
- Day 09: Sugar Rush
- Day 10: Carols
- Day 11: Slippery
- Day 12: Skiing
- Day 13: Fire and Ice
- Day 14: Winter Soup
- Day 15: Naughty List
- Day 16: Chocolate
- Day 17: Snowed in
- Day 18: Mistletoe
- Day 19: Fondue
- Day 20: Fairy Tales
- Day 21: Cabin in the Snow
- Day 22: Winter Storm
- Day 23: Confessions
- Day 24: Christmas Tree
- Day 25: The Perfect Gift
- Day 26: Forgiveness
- Day 27: Family Gathering
- Day 28: Cold Turkey
- Day 29: Mint
- Day 30: Warming Up
- Day 31: Fireworks
Alternatives:
- Hot Bath
- Fallen Through The Ice
- Holiday Decoration
- Homecooked Meals
- Coming Home
Hidden Paths 2025
Hidden Paths is an event dedicated to the celebration of smaller Tolkien canons. For the purposes of this event, we define "smaller canons" as any Tolkien canon or text (including academic works and translations) that is not explicitly set in Middle-earth and is not based on The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, or The Silmarillion and closely related histories.
Your friendly mod (Narya) will post prompts to tempt your muses - one set a few months in advance of the 'official' event dates, then two more sets during the event itself.
If you like the prompts, then use any or all of them to create and share a fanwork based on one or more small Tolkien canons. If they don't speak to you, please feel free to do your own thing – the prompts are there to spark creativity, not impede it!
Early prompts can be found here.
We welcome fanworks based on past prompts - these can all be found here.
Kiliel Week 2024
Kiliel Week will run on Tumblr from November 17-23, 2024 and accepts all types of fanwork for the Kili/Tauriel pairing.
We accept fic and fanart but also moodboards, edits, playlists and anything else your fannish heart wants!
We take submissions not in English. If you speak a language other than English and want to submit something in that language, please send it in!! We would be happy to reblog it!
If you are submitting something NSFW please tag the @tolkienpinupcalendar. If you are interested we are collabing with @tolkienpinupcalendar for the simultaneously run Kiliel Smut Week!
How do I submit:
Tag @kilielweek, and use the tag #kilielweek2024
If the post is also for Kiliel Smut Week please also tag @tolkienpinupcalendar and use the tag #tpckilielsmutweek
Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2024
So, it's that time of the year again: time to sign up for the Lord of the Rings Secret Santa exchange! Slash, femslash, het and gen; you can request it all, so why not join in?
Lord of the Rings Secret Santa has been going for twenty-one years, and we'd love to see you join us and keep the tradition going.
LotR SeSa has been a traditional exchange since its inception, but we continue to adapt and refine the exchange to best serve all participants. The exchange has been in the form of a prompt meme since 2020. If you are new to the format, AO3 has a helpful FAQ here.
This year's timeline (2024)
- Prompt Posting: November 1st to 25th.
- Claiming: November 26th to December 27th.
- Collection Open for Posting: November 26th to December 27th.
- All Fills Due: December 27th
You will be able to post up to 2 prompts, and we will do our best to make sure that at least one of your prompts is filled.
Please note that this is an FPF challenge. (i.e. Fictional, not real people fiction/RPF.) We're always open to all the Peoples and Ages of Middle-earth, which means that characters from The Hobbit and The Rings of Power are welcome too!
The Rules (2024)
- You will be able to post up to 2 prompts between November 1st and 25th, and we will do our best to make sure at least one of your prompts is filled.
- Your fill is due December 27th 11:59 pm Pacific Time (you can check what that is in your time zone here). Please post it to AO3 (and nowhere else, until January 3rd).
- As a matter of fairness, please make your story more than 750 words (1000 is better).
- Signing up: the sign up form can be found here (or here if the main link gives you an error message). If you need help with signing up, please don't hesitate to contact the mods at lotrsesa[AT]gmail.com.
- Once claiming has opened, please only claim a prompt if you plan on actually fulfilling your end of the bargain, and please only claim one prompt at a time. After you have completed your fill, you may claim a new one.
- Claiming a prompt: use the "Claim" button next to the prompt you want to claim. (You can find open prompts under "Prompts" in the sidebar.) Several people can claim the same prompt. You can also claim a prompt without having submitted any of your own.
It's a good idea to join the LotR_SeSa LiveJournal community or the Dreamwidth community so you can keep track of any admin posts. You can also follow us here on Tumblr.
