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.
Songs of Stone and Mountain by pandemonium_213
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Chapter 3: The Elf-child
After her mother left the nursery in the company of that impossibly tall elf-woman, Dísa sized up the much smaller elf-child who stood before her. Clad in a stiff dress, the little creature's dark hair was pulled back into mass of tiny plaits, so tight that the skin of her forehead was stretched, giving her a surprised look. That made Dísa glad that old Gulla did not braid her own hair so tightly. Bright flecks of silver glinted in the girl's grey eyes. They looked like mithril shards catching the moonlight.
Dísa crossed her arms in front of her and tried to look stern and important while the elf-child glared back at her. Her brother, Dagr, as the heir of their House, had been invited to go along with Father and those even taller (and scary) elf-men, but Mother firmly told her she was to remain in the nursery with Gulla.
Mother had scolded Dísa after she complained about being left out. "Have I not taught you that it is not proper for our women and girls to mingle with men of the Others? You shall remain here and entertain the little girl."
It was so unfair! Father often took her with him to the forges, but now it seemed that Dagr was more important. She did not want to be nice to this girl, whose lips were pursed and eyebrows scrunched, looking like she was none too happy to be left here with Dísa.
"You shall be kind to her," Mother had whispered in her ear. "This child is kin to Celebrimbor, who, I don't need to tell you, is a loyal friend to the House of Narvi. Her parents are important people in the Elven-City, and your father wishes to make a good impression on them. So you behave and mind Mistress Gulla."
The elf-woman also eyed her daughter. "The same must be said to you, young lady. Comport yourself properly and no mischief."
Mother's cheeks flushed, and she looked startled that this stranger overheard her, but the elf-woman was not flustered in the least. "I am sure they will be fine, Lady Hlín. Now, shall we be off to your herbalists' guild? I am most interested in hearing of their success with burn wounds."
"Certainly, Lady Culinen. Let us be on our way." Mother led her out of the nursery, but shot Dísa a sharp look before she closed the door.
For a long time, they just looked at each other while Dísa tried to think of what to say. She had never met an elf-child before. This tiny girl was so odd: no wisps of a beard grew on her chin, and she was fine-boned and skinny, like a fledging bird. Dísa's curiosity at last shoved her anger aside, and she spoke first.
"How old are you?"
"Seven. Seven sun-rounds. Years, I mean." The girl spoke the Grey-Elven tongue, but with a different accent compared with what Dísa and Dagr had been taught. Her words were rounder somehow, like water flowing over smooth rocks.
"You are so tiny! You can't be seven."
The elf-child straightened, as if trying to look bigger. "Am so."
"You're too short to be seven."
"Well, I shall be taller than you when I am a grown-up."
"And I shall be stronger! Mahal made the Dwarves from stone!"
The elf-girl opened her mouth, but snapped it shut, as if she meant to say something but thought better of it. Instead, she asked, "How old are you then?"
"Nine."
"Huh. You may be bigger than I am now, but you're not that much older." The elf-girl looked around the nursery. "What is there to do here?"
Dísa pointed to the many books and clever toys on the nursery's shelves. "I guess we could read, or maybe play with the clockwork toys."
"You have clockwork toys?" The elf-girl's eyes were wide as saucers. "Oh, yes! Let's do that!"
Dísa and the elf-child played with the clockwork toys, winding them up and watching them march past and into each other. Dísa forgot about being angry, and the elf-girl must have, too, as they laughed at the antics of the toys.
The elf-girl asked question after question about how this one worked, and that one, so she and Dísa took apart the wind-up raven and put it back together. The child pieced the intricate gears back together, adept as any Dwarf-girl. When they at last looked up, old Gulla was snoring, slumped in her chair, and her knitting had fallen from her lap to the floor.
"I have an idea," Dísa said. "Do you want to see one of the forges?"
"Yes!"
"We'll have to be careful. I am not allowed to be in the forge by myself."
"Me neither."
"It wouldn't hurt just to look."
The elf-girl nodded with enthusiasm. "Just to look, yes."
"We'll have to sneak out and squeeze through a tunnel. You might get that dress dirty though."
"I don't care. I hate this dress. It's itchy."
Maybe this elf-girl wasn't so bad after all. "Let's go then…what did you say your name was?"
"Didn't say. But it's…well, you may call me Mélamírë. I mean, Mélamírë at your service." The elf-child bowed. "That's what I am supposed to say, right?"
"Yes, that is what you're supposed to say. Then I say, 'Dísa at yours.' Now follow me, and be quiet!"
Later, with their clothes torn and filthy, hair unbraided and tousled, they stood before Mother and Father and the grown-up Elves. Dísa bore the brunt of Mother's disappointment.
"What are we to do with you, girl? Why do you not do as you're told? Was your disobedience worth tearing up your new tunic and ruining Lady Naryen's dress?"
Dísa ducked her head while Mother scolded her, but she glanced up once and saw her great-grandfather's friend — Celebrimbor — looking down at her. He grinned briefly and winked. Then Mélamírë nudged her with her little hand. Dísa saw the same fleeting grin on her face and a wicked glint in the elf-girl's eyes. Oh, yes, it had been worth it.
Chapter End Notes
In the Pandë!verse, I adhere a bit more closely to the source texts (zounds!) with regard to Dwarf-women, i.e., from The Lord of The Rings Appendix A, Part III, Durin's Folk:
They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other people cannot tell them apart.
From a scientifictitious standpoint, Dwarf-women of the Pandë!verse secrete naturally higher levels of androgens, which may contribute to their beards (which are not sparse when they are adult women), heavier facial bone structure, and deep voices. This may also account for the slow reproductive rates of Dwarves through reduced fertility.
