New Challenge: Bollywood
This month's challenge offers songs, films, and tropes from Bollywood, the world's largest film industry based out of India, as prompts for fanworks.
SWG News
Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data provides insight into how comments benefit authors and which authors are most impacted by a lack of comments, with a digression on authors' perspectives one-click feedback like kudos.
A Sense of History: Passing Ships
As Tolkien's characters in various texts gaze out to the sea, what do they see? What is brought by the ships coming out of the West?
Beta-Reader List Now Available
The beta-reader list and profiles have been moved into our new system and are available again.
New & Updated Fanworks
[Writing] Unforgotten by daughterofshadows
Carrying the Silmaril for millennia has consequences.
[Series] The Light and the Sea (Steampunk Númenor) by AdmirableMonster
Largely focused on Númenor, its fall, and the aftermath, as seen from the perspective of two Mannish scientists, bit players in some ways, but who nonetheless cast their shadows across the history of Middle Earth.
[Writing] Reflections by AdmirableMonster
A story of three friends in Númenor, one of whom attracts the attention of the High Priest. What does friendship mean in the shadow of the Black Temple?
[Writing] No Time Have I by Flora-lass
A Silmarillion acrostic.
[Writing] An exercise in music... And patience by Aprilertuile
Makalaurë was sitting at the harp in his music room. He was holding a dark blindfold in his hands and was looking at it with much scepticism.
[Writing] I called it Fate that I should fail by AdmirableMonster
Nimruzimir, a natural philosopher recently out of his apprenticeship, hardly considers himself very important to anyone, least of all his colleagues. When his strange, prophetic fits bring him to the attention of the High Priest, however, he may find that his existence is less superfluous than…
[Writing] All of you by chrissystriped
Elrond and Celebrían celebrate their anniversary with their family.
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Love Conquers All
Show how one character helps another to overcome a difficulty in his or her life through love. Read more ...
New in References
Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that authors view comments as driving their motivation to create fanfiction. However, perception of comments by authors is part of a larger shift in fandom around how and how often fans interact with each other.
Passing Ships by Simon J. Cook
[]The arrival and departure of ships across the Great Sea carries mythic significance for the peoples of Middle-earth. The image of ships crossing out of and back into a mysterious West appears as well in Beowulf and is alluded to in Tolkien's tower analogy in his lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," where the tower allows those who climb it to observe the passage of the ships.
Fanfiction and the Serious Business of Writer's Craft by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that while most authors self-identify as taking their craft seriously, a growing subset of authors may be pushing that norm.
Beyond the Silmarillion
[Writing] Staging a Battle by StarSpray
[]He and Diamond were visiting, though Pippin had been disappearing every afternoon, and taking Frodo and Elanor and most other lads and lasses in the neighborhood with him—though why they couldn’t use Pippin’s own pony, Sam couldn’t imagine.
[Writing] From whose bourn no traveller returns by losselen
[]So gathered they were to Bree, what lieutenants who could be spared, from their scattered watches west and east, for their chieftain had returned from his long sojourn in lands godless and mountains strange.
Aragorn returns from the South to tells his tales. Halbarad listens.
[Writing] Sand Sorcery by StarSpray
[]It is well known that Psamathos does not leave his cove. He does not like to get his feet wet, and prefers to spend his days dozing under the sun.
Around the World and Web
Fellowship of the Fics: Summer Stories 2024
Fellowship of the Fics offers four weeks of summer-themed prompts during the month of July.
July challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for July has been posted to the Dreamwidth community. The thematic challenge is: original character or unnamed canon character; the formal challenge: fixed length of multiple of 50 words. New participants welcome.
July 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals
Conferences and publications that have open calls for papers and proposals in July 2024.
Teitho June/July Challenge: Mentor
The June/July prompt for the Teitho challenge is "mentor" and invites fanworks about this relationship in Tolkien's works.
Scribbles & Drabbles 2024
A chill Tolkien event, where artists make art, and authors write little stories in response. Begins in June and ends in November.
New and Updated Fanworks
Include Beyond the Silmarillion Fanworks
Meanwhile by Lferion
Life among the Noldor, in the Fourth Age, Elrond musing on custom, courting, popular songs and other such matters.
| Major Characters: Elrond, Gimli, Legolas Greenleaf |
| Major Relationships: Celebrían & Elrond, Celebrían/Elrond, Gimli & Legolas, Gimli/Legolas |
| Genres: Family, Fixed-Length Ficlet, Fluff, Poetry, Romance, Slash | Challenges: Vintage |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 6 | Word Count: 1, 400 |
| Posted on 15 June 2022 | Updated on 15 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (6) |
SWG Vintage Challenge by Lferion
25 chapters assembled into five stories. Each chapter fills four prompts, one from each of the four cards in the SWG May 2022 Vintage Bingo Challenge, for a total of 100 prompts filled.
The five stories are not all in the same continuity/universe -- for one thing, Ilverien and Red Crow cannot coexist, though there are elements they have in common -- but all of them can be read as part of an overall set of ideas.
| Major Characters: Elrond, Elwing, Fingon, Gimli, Legolas Greenleaf, Littleheart, Maedhros |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Drama, Family, Fixed-Length Ficlet, General, Poetry, Poly, Slash | Challenges: Vintage |
| Warnings: No warnings apply | |
| Posted on 15 June 2022 | Updated on 15 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is complete. |
| View Fanwork | Comments (0) |
Free Press by Lferion
Four colleagues work together on increasingly complex challenges in storytelling.
| Major Characters: Original Character(s) |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Comic Strip, Drama, Fixed-Length Ficlet, General, Poetry | Challenges: Vintage |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 3 | Word Count: 1, 542 |
| Posted on 15 June 2022 | Updated on 15 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (3) |
Red Crow by Lferion
Glimpses of life in Aman, after the events of arriviste's void junk and Idrils_Scribe's Wings of White and Silver-grey.
| Major Characters: Elrond, Elwing, Fingon, Maedhros |
| Major Relationships: Fingon & Maedhros, Fingon/Maedhros |
| Genres: Drama, Family, Fixed-Length Ficlet, General, Poetry, Slash | Challenges: Vintage |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: Violence (Mild) |
| Chapters: 4 | Word Count: 2, 467 |
| Posted on 15 June 2022 | Updated on 15 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (2) |
| Major Characters: Original Character(s), Maglor |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Fixed-Length Ficlet, General, Poetry, Science Fiction | Challenges: Vintage |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 7 | Word Count: 1, 931 |
| Posted on 14 June 2022 | Updated on 14 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (0) |
Candles and Confidences by grey_gazania
Elrond and Gil-galad play a game and discuss some painful truths about their families.
| Major Characters: Elrond, Gil-galad |
| Major Relationships: Elrond & Gil-galad |
| Genres: General | Challenges: Vintage |
| Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate | Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 2, 479 |
| Posted on 14 June 2022 | Updated on 14 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (0) |
Music for the Breaking of the Heart by StarSpray
Daeron first fell in love beneath the dark tree-shadows of Neldoreth, not far from the starlit waters of the Esgalduin.
| Major Characters: Daeron |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Ficlet, Fluff, General | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 581 |
| Posted on 14 June 2022 | Updated on 14 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (0) |
Down to the Harbor by grey_gazania
A Círdan fanmix.
| Major Characters: Círdan |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Music | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Posted on 13 June 2022 | Updated on 13 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is complete. |
| View Fanwork | Comments (1) |
Wrapped Up in Books by grey_gazania
Scenes from the lives of Caranthir and his wife Parmacundë.
| Major Characters: Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s), Caranthir |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Warnings: No warnings apply | |
| Posted on 7 March 2021 | Updated on 13 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is a work in progress. |
| View Fanwork | Comments (0) |
Wrapped Up in Books: A Fanmix by grey_gazania
A fanmix for Caranthir and Parmacundë, his wife.
| Major Characters: Unnamed Canon Character(s), Caranthir |
| Major Relationships: Caranthir/Unnamed Canon Character |
| Genres: Music | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Posted on 13 June 2022 | Updated on 13 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is complete. |
| View Fanwork | Comments (1) |
The World Is Wide by grey_gazania
A Nellas fanmix.
| Major Characters: Nellas |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Music | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Posted on 13 June 2022 | Updated on 13 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is complete. |
| View Fanwork | Comments (2) |
Russingon playlist by firstamazon
I've selected these songs thinking about Fingon and Maedhros' relationship. I have tried to put them in an order that would convey how I see their growing closeness, then their separation at Losgar, Maedhros' imprisonment in Angband, and, finally, their (happy) reunion :)
| Major Characters: Fingon, Maedhros |
| Major Relationships: Fingon/Maedhros |
| Genres: Music (Bossa Nova) | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Rating: General | Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn |
| Posted on 11 June 2022 | Updated on 13 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is a work in progress. |
| View Fanwork | Comments (2) |
Letters to the West by daughterofshadows
Erferil writes letters to someone who once was very dear to her.
And even if Amrûn cannot reply, the letters still comfort her.
| Major Characters: Original Female Character(s) |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Ficlet | Challenges: Vintage |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: Check Notes for Warnings |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 506 |
| Posted on 12 June 2022 | Updated on 12 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (8) |
Shadow'd from Heaven's Eye by kimikocha
Mairon is seduced during the Years of the Lamps.
| Major Characters: Melkor, Sauron |
| Major Relationships: Melkor/Sauron |
| Genres: Slash | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Rating: Adult | Warnings: Check Notes for Warnings, Mature Themes, Rape/Nonconsensual Sex, Sexual Content (Moderate), Violence (Moderate) |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 1, 959 |
| Posted on 12 June 2022 | Updated on 12 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (0) |
The Kids Are All Right Outtakes by grey_gazania
Scenes that didn't make it into "The Kids Are All Right", whether because I couldn't make them fit or because they were from the wrong POV.
| Major Characters: Original Male Character(s), Unnamed Female Canon Character(s), Celebrimbor |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Alternate Universe, General | Challenges: Vintage |
| Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate | Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn |
| Chapters: 2 | Word Count: 1, 501 |
| Posted on 26 May 2022 | Updated on 11 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is a work in progress. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (0) |
A Momentary Pause in the Act of Death by grey_gazania
It wasn't supposed to end like this.
A short scene in Doriath.
| Major Characters: Curufin, Maglor |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Experimental | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate | Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 236 |
| Posted on 6 April 2011 | Updated on 10 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (4) |
Family by grey_gazania
Elrond has an uncomfortable conversation with one of Maedhros' followers.
| Major Characters: Original Female Character(s), Elrond |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: General | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate | Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 1, 657 |
| Posted on 3 June 2022 | Updated on 10 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (3) |
Fathoms Below by Raiyana
Uinen moves, fluid as water, sinuous as a snake, her limbs – green-webbed fingers longer than fingers ought to be, skin decorated with the lumps of pale barnacles clinging to her, a body that is thick and feels strangely nurturing in a sense he does not quite understand, ending in a mass of squid-like tentacles each thicker than his legs – flowing like she is following her own current.
Ossë laughs, high and bright, and an elf-shaped hand darts into view, gripping his shoulder. The bruise beneath flares to life, hot and painful, and the best reminder than this is no drowning-dream.
He is fathoms below, dropped into the depths of the sea.
| Major Characters: Maglor, Ossë, Uinen |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Drama, General | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 2, 656 |
| Posted on 9 June 2022 | Updated on 9 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (0) |
Water Music by grey_gazania
Elrond, newly arrived to Balar, has a brief conversation with Gil-galad that makes him reassess his situation.
| Major Characters: Elrond, Gil-galad |
| Major Relationships: Elrond & Gil-galad |
| Genres: General | Challenges: Vintage |
| Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate | Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 563 |
| Posted on 7 June 2022 | Updated on 7 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (4) |
The hammer and the star by Chiara Cadrich
A voluble dwarf delights the inn with a legend adulterated by his drunken elucubrations. It's up to you to disentangle the true from the false...
| Major Characters: Narvi |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Horror | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Rating: General | Warnings: Violence (Graphic) |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 2, 542 |
| Posted on 6 June 2022 | Updated on 6 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (0) |
Three Bredlik Poems by Himring
Three bredlik poems featuring an unnamed orc, Melian and Tilion.
| Major Characters: Melian, Orcs, Tilion |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Humor, Poetry | Challenges: Vintage |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 92 |
| Posted on 5 June 2022 | Updated on 5 June 2022 |
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (8) |
Full of Gorgeous Life by StarSpray
Three of Nerdanel's sons come home: a trio of double-drabbles.
| Major Characters: Caranthir, Celegorm, Curufin, Nerdanel |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Family, Fixed-Length Ficlet, Fluff | Challenges: Vintage |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 623 |
| Posted on 5 June 2022 | Updated on 5 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (9) |
Loyalty Outtakes by grey_gazania
Short scenes that didn't make it into Loyalty.
| Major Characters: Caranthir, Maedhros, Ulfang |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Drama, General | Challenges: 10th Birthday Celebration |
| Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate | Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn |
| Chapters: 2 | Word Count: 748 |
| Posted on 13 July 2015 | Updated on 2 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is a work in progress. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (3) |
Too Late, Cried the Gulls by grey_gazania
“Too late the ships of Círdan and Gil-galad the High King came hasting to the aid of the Elves of Sirion; and Elwing was gone, and her sons.” - The Silmarillion
| Major Characters: Celebrimbor, Círdan, Elwing, Gil-galad |
| Major Relationships: Círdan & Gil-galad |
| Genres: Drama | Challenges: Vintage |
| Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate | Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 3, 311 |
| Posted on 2 June 2022 | Updated on 2 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (0) |
Darkness and Light by grey_gazania
Fingon's wife and daughter face their grief in the aftermath of the Nírnaeth Arnoediad.
| Major Characters: Unnamed Female Canon Character(s), Gil-galad |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Alternate Universe, General | Challenges: No challenge listed |
| Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate | Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 3, 142 |
| Posted on 18 September 2018 | Updated on 1 June 2022 |
This fanwork belongs to the series
| This fanwork is complete. |
| Table of Contents and Single Chapters | Show All Chapters | Comments (4) |
