Around the World and Web includes announcements and items of interest from beyond the SWG.
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.
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!
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
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
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.
Teitho November/December Contest: Healing
Welcome to the Teitho Contest, where you can participate with a variety of other writers and artists and send in stories and pictures based on our themes.
Join us in this writing and drawing contest!
A new challenge is posted every month. On the first day of the challenge, we announce a new theme on this site. You then have two months to create your entry, which has to be finished when you send it in.
After the deadline of the contest, the voting period begins. Based on the number of entries, it lasts for two or more weeks. The winners are usually announced a day or two after the end of the voting. Teitho remains one of the last prompt-based, independent, Tolkien fan-fiction/fan art monthly contests. Full contest guidelines are here.
Our prompt this month is Healing.
Healing figures significantly in many of Tolkien’s works. We encounter healers like Elrond, the staff of the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith, Aragorn and the healing hands of the King.
We see many characters being healed—Frodo, Faramir, Eowyn, Merry.
Healing isn’t only confined to physical injury—there is healing of mental and emotional hurts as well.
And we also see incomplete healing—where characters may be healed of bodily injuries swiftly but the horrors and trauma they endured persist—Maedhros, Gwindor, Frodo.
Healing also affects the land in Tolkien. Ithilien—where Legolas and his people go at Aragorn’s request, to rejuvenate and cleanse the land—is just one example of this.
Healing can also be seen in the context of interpersonal relationships—Maedhros healing the rift in the house of Finwë, the repair of Bilbo and Thorin’s friendship at the end of the Battle of Five Armies.
What stories of healing will you give us? We can’t wait to see where your imagination takes you!
Stories or art should be submitted to teitho.contest@gmail.com by Dec 31!
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.
Acorns and Oak Leaves: A Year of Bagginshield
Throughout 2024, the Bagginshield community Acorns and Oak Leaves offers monthly prompts to encourage new creations of all kinds (i.e. art, fics, gifs, etc) - but don't worry, there are no deadlines. Pick and choose whatever prompts you like, and be sure to tag the @acorns-and-oakleaves blog on Tumblr so we can share your Bagginshield creations!
Monthly prompts for the Year of Bagginshield can be found here.
Around the World and Web Archive
Events listed here are no longer active but are listed on the site for historical purposes.
Call for Proposals: Tolkien Society Summer Seminar - Tolkien & Diversity
This summer's Tolkien Society Seminar is online and will consider diversity and Tolkien. Papers may consider, but are not limited to:
- Representation in Tolkien’s works (race, gender, sexuality, disability, class, religion, age etc)
- Tolkien’s approach to colonialism and post-colonialism
- Adaptations of Tolkien’s works
- Diversity and representation in Tolkien academia and readership
- Identity within Tolkien’s works
- Alterity in Tolkien’s works
Proposals are due on 23rd April!
Tolkien Short Fanworks: April Challenge
Here is a thematic prompt and a formal challenge for April.
You can combine the thematic prompt and the formal challenge, but they can be filled entirely independently.
Thematic prompt: Duck or Egg.
You can fill the prompt any way you like!
But here is a bonus prompt for "duck": an image of a very special duck and an associated podcast (link goes to the Ashmolean Museum website).
The formal challenge is to write a quatrain or quatrains.
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 May, but the prompts don't expire and late fills are always welcome!
Tolkien South Asian Week
This will be a week dedicated to celebrating South Asian peoples, cultures and lives through Tolkien’s Legendarium. I started my Everyone in Middle-Earth is Brown series a year ago to re-interpret Tolkien characters as people like me. This event stemmed from that and aims to diversify and enrich high fantasy, Tolkien’s literary works and fandom.
Everyone’s free to participate. You don’t need to be South Asian or have an in-depth knowledge of South Asian cultures and peoples. This a great opportunity to educate yourself though!
All creation types are welcome – graphics, art, fanfiction, gifs etc as long as they represent a South Asian element(s). That can be a language, a culture, anything. I find the simplest and truest way to focus on South Asians is to use South Asian face casts. Creations should also be Safe for Work so no explicit content will be accepted.
Please tag you contributions with #tolkiensaweek and mention me @arwenindomiel.
Here are the prompts — they are not mandatory but meant to inspire you. Feel free to create outside these themes.
Day 1: Ainur, Beorians, Doriath, Vingilot, Dragons, Origins.
Day 2: Elves, Númenóreans, Gondolin, Silmarils, Balrogs, Loss.
Day 3: Men, Durin’s Folk, Arnor, Aeglos, Great Eagles, Evolution.
Day 4: Dwarves, Silvan Elves, Halls of Mandos, Palantir, Mûmakil, Resilience.
Day 5: Nazgúl, the Noldor, Gondor, Rings of Power, Fellbeasts, Melancholy.
Day 6: Hobbits, The Fellowship, Moria, Arkenstone, Ents, Growth.
Day 7: Freeform, Unnamed women of Middle-Earth, The Shire, Mithril, Horses, Hope.
