Back To The Future

June 2021 SWG challenge Back to the Future banner - Futuristic cityscape showing glowing tree-like structures with challenge title and dates superimposed.

"I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years: that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh."

J.R.R. Tolkien, "Letter 211 to Rhona Beare" (1958)

In the same letter to Ms. Beare quoted above, Tolkien also wrote, "I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary time, but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for place," leading many fans to interpret our current time as the Seventh Age. However, as the quote shows, Tolkien was far from certain of that conclusion--and the rapidity with which his ideas were evolving at this point in his work on The Silmarillion casts similar doubt on just about anything he wrote during this time. (Dome of Varda, anyone?)

This month's challenge asks you to put a character, culture, or place in Arda in the Seventh Age. When the Seventh Age actually is--is it right now? in the future? or was Tolkien totally wrong and it's actually passed?--is completely up to you.

Furthermore, June is Pride Month, and as in years past, fanworks that include LGBTQ+ charcters will receive a special stamp.

This challenge opened in .

Fanworks Tagged with Back To The Future

This is a Writing fanwork

Shore Beyond the Shadowy Sea by Quente

In which Elfwine goes to sea to find himself, but finds Beleriand instead, and then finds himself.

Or

Ulmo sends another human in a swan crest to Gondolin, with expected results.

  • This tale is a paean (and sequel of sorts) to Bunn’s work, the Undying Lands. This will have a few spoilers, so you might go and read this glorious work, and the one before it.
  • But long story short, Beleriand is back, and Fëanor might have built a few pathways between Middle-earth and Beleriand, just for fun.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Something Old, Something New by Grundy

A young woman who is more than she seems joins Starfleet. (Silmarillion - ST:TNG crossover.)

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This is a Writing fanwork

Show your pride by daughterofshadows

In which Celegorm receives a strange message from his brother and talks to Aredhel.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Sylvan. by hennethgalad

Maglor writes to Thranduil and Celeborn in their castle in Transylvania, asking for help when an early archaeologist tries to dig up The Shire.

(Thranduil and Celeborn canonically 'meet up' in the middle of Mirkwood after Sauron is defeated.)

 

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This is a Writing fanwork

Winter Solstice by Narya

Maglor in Avebury, at the turning of the year.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Fire Like Ice by Lferion

Fingon would not have anticipated that he would ever find himself thinking of heat the same way he thought of extreme cold, and yet, here he was.

Takes place in a version of Arda with Beleriand Risen on the Aman side of the Straight Road, as in Bunn's Return to Aman and Undying Lands.

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This is a Writing fanwork

For All Elvenkind by elennalore

An interstellar spaceship is ready to go. Its all-Elven crew and passengers will become the first explorers and settlers of an exoplanet orbiting the star Vega, or Luinil as the Elves call it. But only Mairon knows that the captain of the starship, Celebrimbor, has a hidden agenda.

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This is a Writing fanwork

At the end of days, again by Himring

Sometime, somewhere, in the Seventh Age, another distant descendant of Elendil dreams of Numenor.

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