New Challenge: Crossroads of the Fallen King
Cross "The Silmarillion" with a second text or fandom in this month's crossover challenge.
SWG News
A Sense of History: Thálatta! Thálatta!
While he never climbs the stairs of this Elf-tower, in Lothlórien Frodo Baggins descends a flight of steps to look into Galadriel’s Mirror, wherein he first sees the sea. This post examines the view.
Choose a Name for Our New Column!
Our temporarily titled "location bio" will focus on the landscapes and locations of Middle-earth. We need your help naming it!
New Challenge: Tengwar
Each day for thirty-six days, we feature a randomly chosen letter from the Tengwar as a prompt.
New & Updated Fanworks
[Writing] On a night of stars, a bird by Quente
Nimloth and Dior meet, and he is naked.
Alternatively,
Melian travels south to visit her daughter, and meets a familiar looking bird.
Written for the Tengwar prompt, Quessë (feather).
[Writing] Apprentice by Quente
Dior is in Menegroth learning to be his grandfather's heir -- but his grandmother decides to take him as apprentice too.
Written for the Tengwar Challenge, May 15: Súlë (spirit).
[Writing] Tengwar: To The Letter by cuarthol
For the Tengwar prompt challenge.
All 36 prompts plus bonus chapter
[Writing] A blip on the radar by daughterofshadows
Humanity took to the skies. Eärendil and Ilmarë adjust.
[Writing] History abandons us by AdmirableMonster
During his incarceration in Roderick Burgess' basement, Dream receives a strange, ancient visitor.
[Writing] Tengwar Acrostics by Himring
Responses to the Tengwar Challenge in which first letters spell out the name of a tengwa.
1) Early Encounter (Nerdanel, Indis)
2) Numenorean Lullaby (Almarian, Aldarion)
[Writing] Tengwar Drabbles by cílil
A collection of Silmarillion-centric drabbles written for the Tengwar Challenge. Short and sweet!
Current Challenge
Crossroads of the Fallen King
Create a fanwork that crosses with a second text or fandom. Read more ...
Tengwar
A daily prompt of a Tengwar letter per day. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Fanon Inverted
Take a fanon you feel passionately about and turn it on its head, creating a fanwork that goes against the fanon norm. Read more ...
New in References
Thálatta! Thálatta! by Simon J. Cook
[]While he never climbs the stairs of this Elf-tower, in Lothlórien Frodo Baggins descends a flight of steps to look into Galadriel’s Mirror, wherein he first sees the sea. This post examines the view.
[]
With Gildor Inglorion we finally climb the stairs of Elostirion and look on the view, and what we see appears to reveal a hidden thread in the story of Frodo Baggins. This post reads two annotated translations of two Elvish songs to step through a crossroads in the narrative to arrive at the tower on the margin of the story, wherein is a stone that is a window onto Valinor.
Grief, Grieving, and Permission to Mourn in the "Quenta Silmarillion" by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]In a book as full of death as the Quenta Silmarillion, grief and mourning are surprisingly absent. The characters who receive grief and mourning—and those who don't—appear to do so due to narrative bias. Grief and mourning (or a lack of them) serve to draw attention toward and away from objectionable actions committed by characters.
Beyond the Silmarillion
[Writing] Waybread (The Waybredlik) by Himring
[]Lembas speaks out.
[Series] Apr 1st Stories by Uvatha the Horseman
[]Once a year on April 1st, a canon character from LOTR or the Silmarillion gets pranked.
[Writing] Crossing Forest River by Dawn Felagund
[]Bilbo recounts, in verse, the attempt of Gandalf, Beorn, and him to cross the Forest River after the Battle of Five Armies. Written for the Hungarian Tolkien Society's 2024 Mailing Competition.
Around the World and Web
Mythcon 53: Fantasies of the Middle Lands
Mythcon 53 will be held 2-5 August 2024 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with the theme "Fantasies of the Middle Lands."
Teitho May/June Challenge: Joker
For the May/June Teitho challenge, you can pick ANY of our past challenges that stir your imagination and write a story or create art for it.
Monstrous May 2024
Monstrous May is a Tumblr event where, for each day of the month of May, there is a prompt involving and invoking the monstrous.
Fellowship of the Fics: Modern AU May
During May, Fellowship of the Fics offers modern AU prompt lists for setting, character occupation, and dialogue on Tumblr.
May challenge at tolkienshortfanworks
The May challenge has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. Thematic challenge: name; formal challenge: acrostic. As usual, these can be filled independently and freely combined with other prompts such as the SWG challenges. New participants welcome!
ferns & violets by hanneswrites
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ferns & violets
Minor/Mentions of background Melian/Thingol & Mairon/Celebrimbor
Written for Innumerable Stars 2022! :)
I'm honestly not sure what to tag this - I headcanon all of the ainur & maiar to be pretty genderfluid? Able to Have Biological Children!Mairon, I suppose.
Melian watched carefully as the small pitch-black raven settled down on the corner of her desk, eyes trained ever-so-expectantly upon her. She wondered if he was watching her through it’s glossy little eyes.
A letter sat plainly on her desk, waiting for her as she returned from yet another meeting with Lord Namo. It was devoid of any writing or embellishment apart from the simple and precise lettering of her name, but she had come to know Mairon’s handwriting very distinctly over these many years.
It had been a long while since their last correspondence - Melian had thought, after her flight back to Valinor following her husband’s death, that she would not hear from Mairon again. And she had been correct in that assumption for a while, hadn’t she? An age had ended, and a new had arisen, and no raven sat tapping upon her windowsill as it had during her long-drawn years in Beleriand - until now.
Melian stepped carefully toward the desk, watching the raven out of the corner of her eye as it curled up and closed it’s eyes to rest. Slowly, she took the envelope into her hands. She turned it over a few times, tested the edges and the seams, and glared at the raven once more - just in case - before she tore open the seal with the edge of her nail.
If Melian were to think for a long while (something she tried very hard not to do where Mairon was concerned) then she may have been able to pinpoint the moment that had started all of this. Mairon, finding her on that chilled eve, after she had wandered curiously through a forest that was just a bit too near where he and his master had first begun to lay the groundwork for Angband. For Melian had always found beauty in the chilled shadows of the deep woods in Beleriand, where the light of Telperion and Laurelin did not reach. From the rich viridian of valley ferns to the soft vibrancy of the moss and mushrooms cloaking the forest floor, they had been new and they had been different and they had been fascinating. (She often missed them, even as she walked now through the glory of Vána’s golden fields) .
She would not call it a friendship. They were at odds too often to call him an ally. Their individual goals were, from the outset, contradictory at best. And yet? It was difficult, she supposed, not to find an odd sort of fellowship with him. For they both understood the meaning of devotion.
Manwë had sent no less than five different messengers attempting to summon her back to Valinor. She knew they had not been fond of this - this soft rebellion of hers. Whatever their thoughts may have been about her union with Thingol, it had mattered not, for he was at her side, his hand was in her own, and his smile brought such warmth to her heart that it burned through her core and into her fëa.
Mairon had sent her a small bouquet of those deep green ferns she adored, nestled together to frame a single dark violet, and a letter, of course. It told nothing of his whereabouts and only asked for her knowledge of thrush husbandry, which she was immediately a bit wary of providing, but ended up penning a letter in response regardless. The fact that he had signed his letter with a single, simple “Good luck,”, (which Melian could read as begrudging support) may or may not have influenced this.
Thus began their somewhat odd and very infrequent exchange of letters and tokens and bits of information - nothing serious, no, never anything of the sort. Though she had always expected something of him, had always been waiting for a pin-drop of water that would break the surface tension of this unspoken agreement they had. It had never come.
The parchment was crisply folded, neat and straight at the edges, just as she expected it to be. She unfolded it carefully, taking in the stark contrast of the dark-lined ink on the page.
It began quite ordinarily, all things considered: her name printed neatly at the top, followed by the same short, polite greeting he penned every single time he wrote her a letter. And then.
“I find myself unprepared, and as you know, that is not something I take lightly.”
There was a heaviness to this line - the words nearly pressed through the paper - Melian could feel the frustration with which they were written as she ran her finger along the back of the parchment, feeling distinctly each line and curve of ink.
“I would not ask this of you if it were not my only option. I am in need of certain guidance.”
Melian sighed, her heart fluttering nervously in her chest as she read on. The penmanship was rushed here - slanted slightly to the right. How very unlike him , she thought, as her gaze drifted down to the next line and--
“I am with child. The sire of the child is of the Eldar.”
Melian’s breath caught in her throat for a brief moment. She read the text once more. Then again.
“I will not disclose any more than this.”
Of course not, she thought, as she closed her eyes for a moment to parse through the information that had just been laid bare before her. When she opened her eyes again, the letter was still firm in her hands. She did nothing for a long while except stare at the tiny splotches of ink surrounding the word “sire” on the parchment, wondering what exactly that could mean and knowing she would likely gain no answer if she asked.
When she finally looked up from the letter, the raven was watching her once more, its dark glass eyes following her as she sank into her desk chair and pulled out her own fresh set of parchment.
