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] No Time Have I by Flora-lass
A Silmarillion acrostic.
[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.
[Writing] Lament for the Singer by daughterofshadows
A short thing about Maglor, death and grieving.
[Writing] Cosmological Poems of Arda by AaronAzrael
I would like to share my revelations of Tolkien's Universe in the form of narrative and emotional poems.
[Writing] Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously…
[Artwork] Map of Valinor by Aprilertuile
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Season's Greetings
Create a fanwork in which one (or several) of the holidays of Middle-earth plays a role. 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.
Elrond Week 2024
Elrond Week is a fandom event dedicated to Elrond Peredhel that will run from July 10th to July 16th on Tumblr.
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.
The Noldolante by Elvewen
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Chapter 1
There are actually several others characters in this story apart from Maglor as the quotes from the Silmarillion will prove. But I did not think it necessary to mention them.
The Noldolante
‘When he found his voice, he looked up to her, her blue eyes did not scorn him, were not repulsed by him and so he found his courage to ask again – “If you would deign to be my wife.” All she said was “Yes”.’
It was the best of times.
“Let those who curse my name, curse me still and whine their way back to the cages of the Valar. Let the ships burn!”
It was the worst of times.
‘“This was not of your making” she insisted. “We will get through this. Have faith in yourself. “She cupped his face, pushed back a strand of blood red hair. “Have Faith in us”’
It was the age of wisdom.
‘Orodreth would not march forth at the word of any son of Feanor because of the deeds of Celegorm and Curufin’
It was the age of foolishness.
‘“O King to whom all birds are dear, speed now this feathered shaft, and recall some pity for the Noldor in their need!”’
It was the epoch of belief.
‘“The Valar will never act, never see justice done. Even I can show more mercy than they. And I have nothing left to lose.”’*
It was the epoch of incredulity.
‘But as the host of Fingolfin marched into Mithrim, the sun rose flaming in the west.’
It was the season of light.
‘In that hour was made a darkness that seemed not lack but a thing with being of its own; for it was indeed made by malice out of light and it had the power to pierce the eye, and enter the heart and mind, and strangle the very will.’
It was the season of darkness.
‘It rose unlooked for, glittering and bright and the people of Middle Earth beheld it from afar and wondered; and they took it for a sign, and called it Gil-Estel, the star of High Hope’
It was the spring of hope.
‘Then in the plain of Anfauglith, on the fourth day of the war, there began Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Unnumbered Tears, for no song or tale can contain all its grief.’
It was the winter of despair.
‘“The deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last days of Arda”
We had everything before us.
‘”To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin and fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be forever.”’
We had nothing before us.
We are the Noldor. It is not in us to sit idle, wringing our hands uselessly at our fate or indulging in pointless self pity and torturous what-ifs. Though, over the years, we have done our fair share of both.
As a veil over every victory and every defeat, every sorrow and every joy, every courageous step and nervous leap, was the Doom of Mandos. But we did not need to actively remember its vengeful words - through the age, it presented itself. In every touch that failed to bring any true comfort, in every tear that failed to bring relief. In every embrace that failed in its sincerity, in every song that failed to lift the heart, in every defeat that fell just shy of victory. In every moment that could have been, but was not.
But our time in these lands was not all sorrow and pain. There is great joy to be found here. Where every day is a new one, not the same day repeating endlessly - unto forever. Where every moment is more poignant because it is unique, because it could be the last. Because here, we cannot afford to take our immortality for granted.
As one clear note flowed to the next, rising to become a harmony so complete, all-encompassing, eternal – the long, nimble beautiful fingers that played them trembled ever so slightly.
This song was more than music to him, it was more than memory. For it was of a time that, for all its flaws, was the most beautiful in his life. And what made it all the more painfully memorable to him was that this song was its people. They were those who made it – their actions, beliefs, hopes, uncertainties.
His song was for them, whom he loved above all others, for all those who were lost, for all those who remained but with the ever present pain of the past.
His song was conflict and courage, it was admission and atonement, it was battle and brotherhood, it was desperation and defiance.
His song was his people.
Chapter End Notes
* Taken with permission from Spiced Wine's dark prince - thank you so much.
All the quotes except for the one mentioned above, the first and the third are from the Silmarillion.
