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.
The Supreme Artist by belegur
| | |
Chapter 3
...
“I am so happy you have changed your mind.” my brother says, leaning behind my shoulder to see what I'm writing. “What is that? I know that it is mathematics, but...”
“Fractal geometry.” I say.
“That is lovely.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I will then leave you alone to work.”
...
The Halls of Mandos are of the shape of a cube, and are immense. Their walls are one hundred fifty meters thick and two kilometers high. This makes the free space of one thousand seven hundred meters of length and width, that is two million eight hundred ninety thousand square meters of free space.
In my captivity I had been amusing myself with the numbers that surrounded me and their relations.
As they were dragging me to my prison, through my blindfold I had an immediate impression of the numbers that marked the grim outline of the edifice. And they have remained my obsession throughout the whole time of my incarceration.
I wanted to have something I despised constantly before my eyes so not to falter in my conviction.
What do numbers tell us? They are an empty shell, a husk that our words cannot make alive. Cannot set aflame. What did numbers tell you about the horror of Mandos that is yet just a pale shadow of the austerity of our Father's face?
The Artist had managed to position numbers in such a way that they not only reflect but encapture light, so that it seems that it's their own light, and not a light stolen – a fitting deception for a being who usurps the name of The Flame.
...
“So, teaching?” says my brother.
“Yes.” I say.
“You will have the time? I know how busy you already are with all your creative work.”
I smile. “The only thing to which I would give even more time is teaching them. You said once that when I saw them I would see the crowning glory of our Father's Creation and that I would change my mind about some things. That even I would be mellowed by them. And you were right. They are beautiful. You did right to stop me and bring me here as soon as Orome came back to sing to you their songs. I didn't have time to harm them, and I am grateful for that. I would have regretted it.”
My brother looks at me with true gentleness.
“They are our Father's greatest work.” I say “If I had harmed them, I know that you wouldn't have forgiven me. You did your best to beat me fast so you could still forgive me when you finally faced me.”
My brother now seems saddened but the gentleness towards me remains. Yes, he is now thinking of his own shortcomings.
“They wouldn't let me, but I would still forgive you. A law without mercy is unfair. And I understood it, in a way. But one cannot disagree so violently, as you disagreed, when he is surrounded with fragile things.”
“Yes, this is a Room of Glass.” but then a joke comes to me “A Room of Crystal.” I say and smile.
...
It is easy for me to talk about the things I have built myself because all those things are now destroyed.
To talk about the things that exist around me becomes painful soon, because in them I see unpunished arrogance. My arrogance was punished, so I can talk with ease about the things I made and are now no more.
The Siege lasted 200 hundred years. Even when defeat was certain, I kept ordering my creatures to attack so that my kin could destroy as many of them as possible. The creatures I made hideous on purpose not to offend my Father – I could not leave them if I was now keen on humbling others of my kind in their glorious abode.
My brother was the first to come in – a young king pale as lightning. He usurps the white of light and the blue of the sky. He is an arrogant one.
At that time I already abandoned all vain pursuits. As the master of Udun, I was a dark king – humble and contrite.
...
As I make my way to the cathedra, there is still a commotion in the hall. Listeners from the previous lecture are still in the room. Some of them are sitting – they will stay here. Some of them are leaving. Among those who are leaving I spot the Artist – raising from his seat, taking with him his coat.
He doesn't spare me even a glance. Is it just a trick of light that his face still remains in shadow? Yes, without Them, he seems insignificant.
He is a dreamer and will soon be insane.
This would be my first lecture. As many other vile things that I have done this too will discipline my spirit.
...
If it ever happens to be that I meet a creature whose blasphemy is so great that it resembles supreme beauty, I would say to that person never to write a word, a number, or draw a line again – this is what I promised myself.
It isn't hard for me to encourage mediocrity, as I happen to encourage so often as the mentor of my students, but not so long ago, a brilliant person came to see me and had shown me some staggering mathematical ideas – an application of the laws of crystals on written texts. Such blasphemous beauty in the concept as well as in the mechanics! It touched me so it made me uncomfortable.
I wish I could have said to him, with all compassion, not to write a word again – but an even greater blasphemer was free and working. I was stern in my commendation, but I couldn't do much more. I could not have warned him of the perilous path that he took. Hopefully this one will sort himself out in the ranks of mediocrity on his own.
...
“In the Great Journey we had such weapons. But they were crude.”
“What did you have in mind, exactly?”
“Not only iron, but steel. You know such secrets.”
“I do.”
...
Sixty years have passed since mercy was shown to me, as they now say and write. Ten since the crafting of the Jewels. Ten since I began to teach the ignorant how to be blasphemous. It is the 1460th year of The Trees.
The Trees. It might be fitting for me to describe them now, but I won't. For their beauty is too great - their description would bother me afterwards. I will describe them in detail and will give justice to their beauty with my words only when I am about to destroy them.
...
“His presence is overwhelming. I would be vary of such a man. His eyes and his voice are burning with conviction of his own righteousness. His zeal is that of a fanatic.”
This is what they now say of The Artist. I never fail in my predictions about a creative mind.
...
My brother must now be wo-ho-ho-ing. The Artist has drawn his sword against his half-brother. The Conclave has decided I am to blame – the beauty of The Artist's sword must have said so.
Has he not learned many things from me, even though his face always remained in shadow as I taught him? That shadow must be attached to his being, as his eyes lack the luster he gives to his works.
Why not to play to his arrogance, even though he sipped knowledge from my hand? Let's pay him a visit.
...
His Eyes! His Eyes!
