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] An exercise in music... And patience by Aprilertuile
Makalaurë was sitting at the harp in his music room. He was holding a dark blindfold in his hands and was looking at it with much scepticism.
[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…
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Middle-earth Olympics
Complete Olympic events Middle-earth style! 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.
With a cold rush of blood... by Rhapsody
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Chapter 1
All she knew was that a stratus of clouds surrounded her. They closed in on her like suffocating mantle. It was there, she just knew it was there, and fear set in. The beating of the vulture's wings chilled her to the bone. Or was it something else? Once more, she tried to turn her body away from the dark menace hiding behind the grey clouds, coming so close.
But it mattered not. There was nowhere to go, even though she tried so hard to yank the chains that confined her to this rock, and hanging, just barely, by one arm. There was one way out. It was a simple solution... Sharp rocks tethered on the edge nearby. Could she? Did she dare to maim herself? Did she have the courage to pick that rock and cut through skin, through flesh and then fling herself against the stone slopes, hoping that her wrist would break? Only to fall into freedom, away from this pending danger?
Such a perfect body...Such a fine mind. So perfect and well built: her Maitimo.
With a cold rush of blood to her head, she bolted upright, fisting the sheets that covered her. Bewildered, she looked around as her heart raced and her mouth went dry.
"Here, take a sip and come to your senses." Nerdanel met Irmo's gentle gaze; his concern apparent and no words came. It was their doom that invaded her dream world, reminding her that she should be there with them. She abandoned her sons to a cruel fate. What kind of mother was she?
"I cannot speak. There is naught I can do. It is my burden to bear as they fall to their doom," she whispered sadly.
"Nay, look at yourself, Nerdanel. It is obvious that you are weary from grief. Your eyes mirror the pain you feel and must tear you apart from inside. There must be a meaning to all of this," Irmo insisted.
Nerdanel laughed bitterly. " Meaning? And what meaning would that possibly be? I have tried to search for a meaning. What good has it done? Perhaps, it tells me that I have to let go of my children, those brought forth from my flesh. How much more painful than giving birth to seven can it be?" She remained silent and rose to leave, to pass him, defying Irmo as he stood by the door.
Chapter End Notes
This was initially a triple drabble, but then Nerdanel wanted more to it... in the middle of the night.
