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.
Even More About Maedhros by Himring
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Defensive Architecture
Maedhros and Curufin: two sons of Feanor and a fortress yet to be built.
With an epistolary epilogue.
Rating: General (no warnings)
‘You want me to turn this hillock into a mountain?’ asked Curufin, regarding the high hilltop of Himring with a scepticism that perhaps it didn’t quite deserve. ‘Who are you taking me for? Aule?’
‘No,’ said Maedhros patiently. ‘I do not want you to turn it into a mountain. What I said was that Hithlum has barriers already that are defensible and we made use of them as we found them: the Ered Wethrin and also the Hills of Mithrim. These lands here are not so well defensible by nature. But if the Valar can raise the Pelori as a defence—and Morgoth can raise Thangorodrim—so can we make barriers, in our own fashion. But I am taking you for a Noldo, not a Vala!
Indeed, if all I wanted to do was to turn Himring into a mountain, I would not need your help, Curvo! All I would need is a great many Eldar carrying a great many stones up this hill and piling them up on top of each other—although I doubt it would be the best use of our time. But we are Noldor, Curvo, and we do not aimlessly pile up rubble, we build!
I want walls, Curvo—walls to defend us against our enemies and walls to protect us against the weather of the world for I do not think winter will be kind up here. Since we came to Middle-earth, you have devoted much thought to perfecting the weapons and armour we had devised in Valinor. Now think stone, not metal! Make me a shield for a whole people rather than a single warrior! Can you do it, son of Feanaro? For if you are not willing to try, I will go ahead without your help!’
‘You will do no such thing!’ said Curufin. ‘Show me those plans of yours! Give!’
He grabbed the scroll proffered to him, unrolled it and shook his head exasperatedly.
‘No, no, no! Those splendid walls of yours are likely to fall down on top of you if you do that! Here, here and here! You could… Let me think…’
He stalked off muttering, scroll in hand, to inspect the hilltop more closely. Already, in his mind, the fortress of Himring was beginning to rise like a fair crown on the hilltop’s forbidding brow, surpassing anything he had built before...
Maedhros smiled. Curufin had taken even less persuasion than he had expected.
To my lord Nolofinwe, High King of the Noldor in Endore, his nephew Russandol, now of the Marches, sends cordial greetings and I hope my letter finds you safe and well.
Our project of construction at Himring proceeds apace. Curufinwe has just revised the plans again, incorporating a few tricks he learned by studying Dwarven masonry during a recent visit to Belegost. With the building style Curufinwe is now developing, I trust we shall not only succeed in making Himring a place of strength fit to hold against any assault from Angband, we can also make use of it elsewhere to reinforce the natural defences other locations might offer.
With my letter, I enclose another series of sketches made by Curufinwe’s hand and humbly request you, uncle, to cause copies to be disseminated as widely as possible among my cousins and your other commanders, if it so pleases you…
Chapter End Notes
Written for B2MeM 2015, for two prompts:
Prompt 1 (by Erulisse, alias Engarian):
Maedhros and Defensive Architecture:
The elves have left Valinor and arrived in Beleriand, a land of opportunity surrounded by enemies. How did elves who grew up in a land without need for major fortifications know/learn enough to build fortresses strong enough to withstand the forces of Morgoth as well as link to other fortifications, creating a line of defense across the landscape? Did they consult with Sindarin warriors? Did they have an intrinsic understanding of thick walls, arrow slots, draw bridges, portcullis entrances, etc? Was one style duplicated in all of the buildings by each "king" (brother) or was each construction totally distinct. Let your imagination go wild. At least one of the Sons of Feanor should be featured, but it doesn't have to be Maedhros.
Prompt 2 (by Amy Fortuna alias Starbrow):
Image Prompt: Fortress on a hill
http://starbrow.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/1107/13196
Picture looking straight up at the side of a fortress on top of a rocky hill. Could be Himring?
(Picture is of Edinburgh Castle, taken by me - a fairly unique angle, as it was taken from the train line directly below the castle, one day when a train I was on stopped for a while.)
