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
Holiday Party
No matter if you're in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, it's a time of year to think about holidays. Whether you're bundling up in blankets or slipping a swimsuit into your suitcase, we invite you to an SWG holiday party! 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.
Busted! by Gwenniel
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Busted!
BustedIt was a warm afternoon, and the dust in the air swirled about Fëanáro Curufinwë's feet as he walked in the halls of his father. He was coming from the forge where he had been working on some gems. He was particularly proud of today's result -- he had made a small diamond shaped like a star.
Nothing could dampen the spirits of the young prince -- until he turned into another corridor and saw what he would have to walk past if he was to get to his room. There stood one of Fëanáro's least favourite persons -- second only to his step-mother. His young half-brother Nolofinwë stood in the corridor. For some reason he was clutching a quill in his hand and blushed when he saw his elder brother strutting in and raising his eyebrow suspiciously.
"What are you doing here?" Fëanáro asked his brother who he had successfully avoided meeting for the past few days. Nolofinwë said nothing, but looked at his toes. For some reason he was standing in a puddle of black ink, and his small sock-clad feet were dirty.
"Perfect," Fëanáro thought looking at the mess on the floor. "The little bastard's been up to mischief." He smirked as he thought what his father would say when he heard that his beloved son had done.
"What are you doing?" Fëanáro asked again, now in his most authoritarian voice. He stood tall and kingly and glared at his brother as only Fëanáro could. The child did not say anything, but shifted uncomfortably as if trying to hide something behind him. Fëanáro grew now very suspicious. He lowered himself to lean on one knee - -careful not to smudge his pants in any of the spilled ink -- and his eyes on the same level as Nolofinwë's he hissed in a most intimidating voice.
"Nolofinwë. Don't be a coward."
Slowly Nolofinwë raised his head. He looked at his brother. Then unexpectedly a small smile crept upon his childish face and his eyes glimmered. "I drew," he mumbled.
Not what Fëanáro had expected. That his brother had been drawing explained the ink and the quill, but the small innocent smile of the child surprised him. "Drawing what? I don't see anything," he replied. Nolofinwë shifted on his feet again. Fëanáro sighed. "You're afraid of showing it to me?" he muttered. "A coward."
He stood up again. "Look at the mess around you," he scolded the child. "Father will not be pleased." Small footprints of ink covered the wooden floor and there were smudges and fingerprints on the wall as well. Then it hit Fëanáro. "You have been doodling on the wall!"
Nolofinwë looked at his toes again. "I wanted to draw..." he said. "I drew..."
Fëanáro interrupted his brother by pushing him out of the way. On the part of the wall that Nolofinwë had tried to hide behind him was the drawing.
"Don't ruin it!" poor Nolofinwë cried out. "It's still wet." Fëanáro didn't care and the embarrassed child bit his lip as his far more talented brother examined critically his painting.
"What's this?" Fëanáro asked crossly. "Is that supposed to be me?"
The doodle pictured the Two Trees shining brightly and there was a mountain behind them - presumably Taniquetil. In the front stood two elves -- one short and one one taller. Fëanáro squinted to decipher the letters below the figures. The taller elf was labelled as "Curu", whereas the other had an arrow drawn to it.
"What's this?" Fëanáro asked a bit more softly. The second elf -- apparently holding the "Curu"-elf's hand -- was entitled "Nolo".
"I hadn't seen you for many days. So I drew a picture," Nolofinwë said squirming as he stood. "That's you and that's me," he said explaining his artwork.
"Why did you draw me?"
"You're my big brother, so I drew you spending time with me," Nolofinwë said simply. He looked at Fëanáro as if the message of the drawing was obvious. The elder brother looked at the young one sceptically.
"Okay," he said at last. "Let's go spend some time together then." Nolofinwë smiled and laughed with joy. He ran in the hallway, leaving even more smudgy footprints on the floor. The child stopped to wait for his elder brother and Fëanáro followed him. They went outside into the garden bathing in light. Again very unexpectedly after glancing at his brother Nolofinwë slipped his tiny inky hand between Fëanáro's fingers. Fëanáro glanced back at him. He could not help but smile. No matter how much he tried to hate his sibling, the young one would always be the faithful follower that he was.
