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
Trinkets and Treasures
Create a fanwork about an object that is magical or otherwise valuable in some way, either canonical or of your own invention. 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.
Fly me to the Moon by daughterofshadows
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Fly me to the Moon
This fic serves double duty as being my (first?) Cheesy Corn Chips submission and my first B2MEM prompt board fic.
The Cheesy Corn Chips prompt was the photo of two people watching hot air balloons rise.
The Random Number Generator picked the word prompt "tumble" from the board.
And yes, the title is a reference to the Frank Sinatra song. I felt it was appropriately cheesy
Now enjoy!
The outer walls of the first ring of Minas Tirith are the best place to look out on the Pelennor fields, and today, nearly the entire city has congregated here.
The Pelennor is alight with hundreds of flickering flames, as hot air balloons begin to rise.
Aragorn’s arm is wrapped firmly around Arwen’s waist, and she rests her head on his shoulder. The spirit of the White City darts in and out of the masses watching the spectacle below, revelling in her people’s happiness, but as the first balloons rise to the sky, so does she, laughing as they climb higher and higher.
“I dreamt of a scene just like this, once,” Arwen whispers, a memory of her youth tugging at her mind.
“I stood on an open field, surrounded by Men and flames. But they did not burn. Instead, the Men tamed the fire and flew. I never believed it could actually happen! And yet… here we are!”
“Here we are, indeed,” Aragorn says. His voice is soft, but when Arwen lifts her head, she can see the wondrous smile on his face.
Minas Tirith returns to the ground, draping herself across Aragorn’s other shoulder and reaching out for Arwen’s hand in front of his stomach.
She takes it, linking their fingers together and smiling at her lover.
Minas Tirith’s eyes sparkle with joy.
“You should have seen it! Even Mindolluin looks small from above! It felt like I could touch the stars if I went just a little bit higher!”
“One day, you will reach the stars, I am certain of that,” Aragorn replies, with a surety that gives Arwen pause.
She knows her husband does not have the gift of foresight, but to her ears, his words sound like a prophecy nevertheless.
High above the world, in the place where stars and sky meet, a mariner sails, the light on his brow brighter than all others in the sky.
His world is a quiet one. A lonely one, some might say, but he doesn’t agree.
Eärendil is alone perhaps, but he isn’t lonely.
He hasn’t been in a long time. Not since his granddaughter and her lover tumbled over Vingilot’s railing.
Their spirits shine softly in the dark that surrounds them.
A city and her queen, still inextricably tangled together.
Eärendil remembers little of Gondolin.
A youthful spirit tucked against his grandfather’s side, whispering. Flashes of a merry face, and a salty breeze.
When the city fell, Gondolin chose to die with their people, rather than find a new home with the survivors.
Minas Tirith has crumbled to dust, and yet, her spirit is still here.
Eärendil asks her about it once.
She smiles softly, hands tangling with Arwen’s.
“It is different for each of us. Some of us, we are children of the stone and wood that make our city. We live and die with the buildings of our home. Others are linked to our people and as long as they live, so do we, even if we are no longer together. I came into being with the first stone they placed at Mindolluin’s feet, but it was the people that gave me life and they are not gone yet. They will not die while Arwen remains.”
There was no ship to bear her across the sea, but high above the world, Arwen finds a new home on a ship sailing the skies.
Chapter End Notes
Special thank you to Kaylee and Lyssa who let me info-dump parts of the fic and a lot of lore on them, respectively! You're amazing!
