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.
Círdan's Guide to sailing the Straight Road by daughterofshadows
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Introduction & Chapter One - The Straight Road
Introduction
The time of the elves in Middle-Earth may have come to an end, but not all have chosen to depart for the Blessed Realm.
Some never will.
But there are those that only wish to enjoy a world finally freed from evil before joining their kin across the sea, and it is for them that I write this book.
Mithlond is almost deserted, and soon, I, too, will depart these shores, and few will be left here who know the way to Aman.
It is my hope that this text will be a guide to those who still wish to sail the Straight Road, even after the Havens have been deserted.
It is not a map, for mapping the way to Aman is nigh impossible. Instead, I hope to provide you with all the skills necessary to safely make the journey to the West.
I have included instructions on how to build a boat capable of surviving the journey, a list of creatures one might encounter on their travels (especially those that should be avoided at all costs) and many more useful titbits that hopefully will ensure that those who set sail will arrive at their destination unharmed. Should you use this guide, I would be pleased to hear from you in the Blessed Realm and receive a report of its usefulness.
Wishing you a swift and peaceful journey,
Círdan, Lord of Mithlond, Shipwright
As you leave Middle-earth behind, never to return ere the world breaks, there are a few places you should visit at least briefly, because even the lands buried beneath the waves are not without beauty. Without my Lord’s knowledge, a list has been included for your perusal at the end of this text. Take a moment to stand at these shores and sink your consciousness deep into the land one final time. May you have a safe journey and may the wind be always in your favour.
Aerchen of Mithlond
Chapter 1 – The Straight Road
It has come to my attention that there might be those among you who do not know what I mean when I refer to the Straight Road.
If this book reached you, I cannot possibly see how you could not have heard of the Fall of Númenor and the reshaping of the world, but since this is supposed to help you make it safely to the Blessed Realm, I suppose it is for the best if I ensure that we are all on the same page.
I will try to keep the history lesson as short as possible, and if you are already aware of the Straight Road, I advise you to continue to Chapter 2 – Basics in Boatbuilding. I doubt the first chapter will teach you anything new.
The end of the First Age brought many a change to these lands. Not only had the scourge that was Morgoth been defeated, but his destruction had cataclysmic consequences. Beleriand sank below the waves, and in its stead the isle of Númenor was raised, halfway between Middle-Earth and the blessed Realm.
Men settled on this new land, and for a time, there was peace and happiness across the lands.
There were many great sailors among the Númenóoreans, and they often returned to these shores, bringing news from Tol Eressëa with them, but unfortunately the good times did not last.
They grew too prideful, wishing for what they could not have. It angered Eru and in his wrath, he once again reshaped the world.
A great storm arose, and Númenor sank back into the depths of the ocean. The subsequent loss of life was tragic and regrettable, but what would prove to be far more devastating for the elves was the reshaping.
It might sound difficult to believe, but Arda once was flat, and all its lands were located on the same plane of existence.
And then. And then! Eru sank Númenor, removed the Blessed Realm from our plane, and reshaped the world. And it has been a sphere ever since.
You cannot imagine the confusion this caused.
Centuries of mapping the seas, the stars, wasted! Constellations I had known since my childhood during the Great March, gone from the skies.
We had to begin all over again!
Truly, those were some of the most frustrating years of my long, long life. But we managed, even if there were some mishaps along the way.
The first ships to sail to Valinor after the calamity found lands on the other side of the world instead of the shores of Tol Eressëa! If it was the eastern shore of Rhûn, or another continent altogether, we were unable to determine at the time, and it has remained a fascinating mystery ever since.
But that is not where you wish to go, so I shall do my best not to stray too far from our goal.
It took many tries before we finally discovered the Straight Road, and even then, crossing through the void was a terribly difficult undertaking.
There are no winds in the Sea of Stars, only the slow current of the waters to pull you ever onward, closer and closer to your destination.
Be sure to never stray far from the centre of the path! We have never dared to find out what happens if you fall off the edge of the Straight Road, but I cannot imagine it will be pleasant.
So when you sail the sea of stars, the place between worlds, look to Eärendil to guide you across.
I hope to provide you with all the tools and knowledge you need to make it safely to Valinor, but it will be him who will lead you home.
