New Challenge: Potluck Bingo
Sit down to a delicious selection of prompts served on bingo boards, created by the SWG community.
SWG News
Bingo Cards Wanted for Potluck Bingo
Our November-December challenge will be Potluck Bingo, featuring cards created by you! If you'd like to create cards or prompts for cards, we are taking submissions.
Tolkien Meta Week, December 8-14
We will be hosting a Tolkien Meta Week in December, here on the archive and on our Tumblr, for nonfiction fanworks about Tolkien.
New Challenge: Orctober
Orcs on a quest for freedom seek a place sheltered and safe from the Dark Lord. Fulfill prompts to gather the clues needed to bring them to freedom.
New & Updated Fanworks
[Artwork] 2024 Potluck Doodles by silmalope
Assorted prompt fills for the 2024 Potluck bingo boards, to varying degrees of completion! :)
[Writing] Ransom of the Fairy Twins by Rocky41_7
Maglor and Maedhros trade Elrond and Elros to King Gil-galad in exchange for a Silmaril, but they have miscalculated.
[Series] Pennas Pengolodh by AdmirableMonster
The majority of the Silmarillion was penned by a single Elf--an Elf who was so thoroughly written out as to appear only through the ways in which their perspective shaped the stories we see. This is their story, the historian's history, the Pennas Pengolodh.
[Writing] Havens by AdmirableMonster
The Exiles of Gondolin come to Sirion. The residents of Sirion welcome them, and friendship blossoms between the last remaining loremaster of Gondolin and a young poet of Sirion.
[Writing] Collection of Potluck Drabbles by Artano
This is a collection of true drabbles completed for the 'Four Words' drabble bingo card.
[Writing] Hurting Tyelpë by elennalore
Sauron has taken Celebrimbor as a prisoner in Ost-in-Edhil. Whump happens.
[Writing] On a Night of Snow by Elleth
Fingon returns to Barad Eithel after a late-autumn hunt, finding someone unexpected with his wife. The night takes an even more unexpected turn for all three of them.
Current Challenge
Potluck Bingo
Help yourself to a collection of prompts on bingo boards designed by members and friends of the SWG. Read more ...
Random Challenge
New in References
Mapping Arda, Part III: The Second Age by Varda delle Stelle, Anérea
A series of articles featuring fan-made maps of all the lands of Arda. Part III explores the island of Númenor and mainland Middle-earth during the Second Age.
Doom and Ascent: The Argument of ‘Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics’ by Simon J. Cook
Simon reads 'Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics' to conclude his account of the Anglo-Saxon tower of its allegory.
Why People Don't Comment: Data and History From the Tolkienfic Fandom by Dawn Walls-Thumma
A reworking of the 2018 article for Long Live Feedback that includes data from the 2020 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey, pointing to a lack of comments as related to skill, confidence, and community connection.
Featured Themed Collection
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features fiction, artwork, and essays that transcend the idea of Orcs as the enemy, instead considering their humanity.
Alliterative Verse for Arda by Rhunedhel
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features alliterative poems about Middle-earth.
Beyond the Silmarillion
[Writing] Homage to the Song of Durin by Flora-lass
Legolas is inspired by Gimli's song - and by Gimli himself.
[Artwork] Long-tressed Wingildi by Anérea
"... the long-tressed Wingildi ... spirits of the foam and the surf of ocean."
~ a painted sketch for Scribbles and Drabbles 2024.
[Writing] Partners in Craft by elennalore
Annatar realises that he might like Celebrimbor too much.
Around the World and Web
Fluffcember 2024
Fluffcember is a Tumblr event with daily fluffy prompts during the month of December.
Hidden Paths 2025
Hidden Paths, an event dedicated to the celebration of smaller Tolkien canons, has released their early prompts for the 2025 event.
Teitho November/December Contest: Healing
The theme for Teitho's November/December contest is healing.
Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2024
LotR SESA has been ongoing for twenty-one years and is running again this year as a prompt meme hosted on AO3 for all genres of Tolkien-based fanfiction.
Kiliel Week 2024
Kiliel Week is a Tumblr event for fanworks about the Kili/Tauriel pairing.
Pale Stars Rising (Over The Oaks) by The Wavesinger
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Pale Stars Rising (Over The Oaks)
When the girl wandered into the clearing, a woman stood there, a tall, beautiful woman with golden hair, and she was singing. The song was in a language the girl had never heard, and it was beautiful, so beautiful that tears rose to her eyes, and it seemed as if the trees danced with her, and the grass around her feet swayed to her tune in a breeze that did not blow.
The girl's eyes closed of her own accord, and she took a step forward. A twig snapped.
The woman turned, and it seemed to the girl that she had been frozen in place with a glance from blue eyes the colour of clear, pale waters leaping in a spring. She could not move. She dared not breath. The woman stared.
And then she laughed, and the spell was broken. “No creature of the Dark are you, fair young one, no creature of the Dark are you. You would do well to warn of your arrival, then, to those who fear the Dark.” Whether she spoke in the girl's tongue or some magic enabled the girl to hear her, the girl never knew.
In spite of herself, the girl felt anger flair. “I'm a hunter. Stealth's something I need.”
“But I am not your prey,” the lady rejoined. “I'm not your prey, my beautiful child of the twilight, daughter of Men, mortal girl. I won't harm you.”
“Won't you?” The woman was dangerous; that much was clear to the girl. But dangerous to herself? She did not know.
“I will not, child,” the woman said.
The girl took a step towards her. “Tell me who you are, then.”
“River-Daughter I am in this place. Daughter of the river, mother of the river. Everything at once.”
The enigmatic answer was clue enough; the girl nodded decisively. “You are one of the Great Ones, then.”
“If you speak of the Powers—I am, yet am not.” The woman smiled, again, but it seemed to the girl that there was a deep, ageless sadness in her eyes.
“And why not?”
“Because I have sinned,” said the woman, “in their eyes.”
“How?”
“By loving my sister too well; once she was one of us, and when she fell to the Dark, I couldn't condemn her, my heart-sister, my dearest sibling. And so I was condemned.”
The girl tilted her head curiously (and wondered, distantly, why she did not flee at this revelation, but she knew the answer: her people had dabbled in the Dark, with the Evil One, and now fled the horror. This woman had no touch of evil.). “To what? This is a beautiful place; if your punishment's to stay here, that's not punishment at all.”
The woman shook her head. “Hasty child. I never said this was my punishment.”
“Then what is it?”
The woman smiled. “That I cannot tell you. But this isn't a dreary prison; this where my heart is. I love the woods, and I love this land.”
“Doesn't mean you're not lonely,” the girl pointed out.
A shadow flashed across the woman's face, gone as quick as it came. “So I am, sometimes. So I am.”
“Can I stay with you?” The girl blinked; she did not know herself what she meant to say until the words were spoken. But once they were, the girl suddenly understood that they were the perfect truth. She would stay here, with this woman, for all eternity if she could.
“No.” The woman shook her head. “It is kind of you to offer, but you cannot.”
“Why not?”
“You have a great destiny ahead of you. I cannot keep you from it,” the woman whispered. “But we'll see each other again, twice. That I can promise.”
The girl nodded. Then, again, an unbidden question. “Can I kiss you?”
“Yes.”
And the girl flew to the woman, and they kissed, a kiss tasting of honey and sunlight and flowers. And when it was ended, the woman pressed her lips to the girl's brow. “Goodbye, hunter. Until our next meeting.”
And the girl nodded. “Until our next meeting.” And then she walker away, and when she turned back, the woman was not there.
Chapter End Notes
I knew as soon as I saw this prompt that I had to write this, because I love the idea of Goldberry as a kind of Middle-earth Calypso, and I'm sorry it doesn't have more femslash! Goldberry's sister who fell, in case anyone's curious, is Thuringwethil.
