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Current Mood: idexcited

Challenge 266:
A WALK IN THE PARK

What could be easier? It’s just a nice stroll through the park. A relaxing summer evening, a crisp fall morning, an afternoon with the kids…

But maybe it’s not quite that simple. Maybe the weather’s out to get your characters – a relaxing walk is interrupted by rain, snow, or lightning. Maybe the park has been overrun with wild geese, and now you’re facing a gauntlet of angry birds just to get to the picnic tables. Or maybe no matter how hard your characters try, getting an afternoon off from saving the world just isn’t happening.

So how does their walk in the park go? Do they get to enjoy it?

Write a story about a walk in the park.

BONUS GOAL: Birdwatching

If your submission features birds (of any species), it will earn an extra point to be tallied in voting!

Challenge ends Monday, July 14 at 9:00PM EST.

• Post submissions as new entries using the template in the profile
• Tag this week's entries as: [#] submission, 266 – a walk in the park
• If you have questions about this challenge, please ask them here

Here are this week's votes tallied, and below the cut are our winners for Challenge #265 – Trickster!

( This week's finalists are... )

Total Challenge Words Written: 3135

Congratulations to both of you, and thank you to everyone who took the time to cast their votes!

autobotscoutriella will be making this week’s banners, so keep an eye out for those next weekend.

You may now post your Challenge 265 entries to any additional communities, blogs, archives or sites as you'd like! We also have a FandomWeekly AO3 Collection if you'd like to add your stories there!

(Image credit: Mike Pennington, shared under Creative Commons 2.0)

Summary: Finn and Hengest contains Tolkien's translations of and commentary on two Old English texts - the "Finnesburg Fragment" and a small excerpt from Beowulf. Both are allusive accounts of the Battle of Finnsburg, a medieval Germanic conflict which we now know about only from Anglo-Saxon poetic sources. Tolkien's translation and commentary bring the battle to life for modern English readers while proposing solutions to the central mysteries of the texts.

Why should I check out this canon? Admittedly this is not Tolkien's most accessible work, but if you're interested in seeing his linguistic/philological practice in action, this is for you! What emerges is a tragic story of betrayal and divided loyalties, broken oaths, and vengeance. It's also a fascinating text for anyone interested in the history of northern Europe, the origins of England and the mythologising of Englishness, or medieval languages.

Where can I get this? It isn't the easiest text to get hold of but can be ordered online, either new or second hand - though if you're affiliated to a school or university you may be able to access an online version free of charge through your institution's SSO. Amazon also offer a digital copy for a few pounds/dollars cheaper than the physical book, if you'd prefer to use an e-reader.

What fanworks already exist? There are a couple of crossover fics in Russian on AO3, but that's all I could find, so the ground is pretty open!

Journaling prompt: What are your favorite summer-associated foods?

Creative prompt: Draw art of or make graphics of summer foods, or post your favorite summer recipes. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

My favourite sumer food probably sounds very boring, but if one takes care to use the best quality possible, it’s delicious. Boiled white fish with new potatoes, clarified butter and chopped hard-boiled eggs. When I was a child the fish we used was northern pike, which my father or grandfather had just caught, but nowadays we usually buy fresh cod. The new potatoes come from the garden. The clarified butter must be real butter, and organic eggs taste the best. One can mix the butter and the eggs, but we prefer to keep them separate, so each can take after taste.

Also, for me this tastes best eaten outside the summer house, on dishes called “Grön berså” (green bower) by the Swedish designer Stig Lindberg in 1960.

Introduction Post * Meet the Mods Post * Friending Meme * Challenge #1 * Challenge #2

Remember that there is no official deadline, so feel free to join in at any time, or go back and do challenges you've missed.

( Sunshine Revival Challenge #1 )

Check out the comments for all the awesome participants of the challenge and visit their journals/challenge responses to comment on their posts and cheer them on.

And just as a reminder: this is a low pressure, fun challenge. If you aren't comfortable doing a particular challenge, then don't. We aren't keeping track of who does what.

Summary: This 2019 biopic explores the early life of J. R. R. Tolkien – the friendships he forged at school in Birmingham and later at Oxford, his romance with Edith Bratt, his experiences in the First World War, and of course the blossoming of his lifelong fascination with linguistics and mythology.

Why should I check out this canon? Let’s get this out of the way up front – opinions on the film were decidedly mixed when it came out. Yes, I admit, it does take a few liberties with the facts as we might know them from Humphrey Carpenter’s biography, the Letters, or John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War – but in terms of situating the man and his passions within the generation of doomed young men who went to war and came back irrevocably changed, if they came back at all? It nails it. The cast are wonderful, the score gorgeous, and there are some lovely nods to book-readers: the scene with Edith dancing in the woods, which famously inspired the meeting of Beren and Lúthien, is beautifully done. What makes this film for me, though, is Tolkien’s relationship with his school friends – especially with Geoffrey Bache Smith. (The queer subtext is very, very deliberate.)

Where can I get this? In the UK it’s available on Disney+, or to rent on Amazon Prime for £3.49. Availability in other geographies may vary. A quick Google suggests it’s not too tricky to get hold of on DVD or Blu-Ray so your local public library might be an option too.

What fanworks already exist? According to the AO3 tags there are 36 hosted there, although in reality it's fewer than that - Tolkien (2019) seems to have been adopted as an umbrella tag, which makes it harder to filter! If you scroll through, though, there are at least a dozen fics based on the film, ranging from tiny ficlets to novellas. Many involve Tolkien interacting with characters from his own legendarium.

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Editor's Note: If your item was not linked, it's because the header lacked the information that we like to give our readers. Please at least give the title, rating, and pairing or characters, and please include the header in the storypost itself, not just in the linking post. For an example of what a "good" fanfic header is, see the user info. Spoiler warnings are also greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Off-Dreamwidth Links
Blogtor Who: Video of the Day – Doctor Who: Belinda and the Fifteenth Doctor, 2025
Blogtor Who: Master Replicas Doctor Who TARDIS Collection
Blogtor Who: Video of the Day – Doctor Who: The Story & The Engine, 2025

(News from

doctorwhonews_feed and

blogtorwho_feed, among others.)

Discussion and Miscellany

nwhyte on Castrovalva, by Andrew Orton (and Christopher H. Bidmead)

purplecat with Costume Bracket: Round 4, Post 5

Fanfiction
Complete
Taken by

badly_knitted (G | Tenth Doctor, Martha)

Recommendations

romanajo123 recommends Smothered by Shivver

If you were not linked, and would like to be, contact us in the comments with further information and your link.

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

It's the end of another

unconventionalcourtship round! Many thanks to all that participated this year. Whether you wrote fic, read fic, signed up, made banners, promoted the fest or fell down the UC Generator rabbit hole your participation was very much appreciated.

Now the fest is over here is this year's masterlist to peruse while you give yourself a pat on the back!

Here is this year's masterlist of fic:
( Read more... )

News and Announcement

•

hd-fan-fair: Announced H/D Career Fair 2025.
•

change-is-perceivable: Announced Percy Weasley Appreciation Week.
•

theswiftyhallows: Announced The Swifty Hallows July Sign-up.
•

pieceofshitregulus: Announced Piece of Shit Regulus Fest.
•

hd-erised: Posted H/D Erised Exchange Sign-up Form.

( Read more under the cut. )

A rainy day seen through a window. The camera focused on the raindrops on the window, rendering the cityscape beyond blurry.

(written by

Perching )

Summary: In 1980s Oxford, professor Michael Ramer discovers a method for the mind to travel in time and space while the body is asleep. He presents his discoveries to the Notion Club, a social group strikingly similar to the Inklings of the 30s and 40s, and while some are skeptical, others take off with the idea. Then one night, a great storm rises up out of the west, and Arundel Lowdham cries to the others, “The Eagles of the Lords of the West are at hand!” A time travel story connecting the mythological fall of Númenor to the (then) near future of the 1980s, The Notion Club Papers went forever unfinished, and by the end of it the main characters have experienced only one major dream/vision: that of Ælfwine, an Englishman from the Middle Ages. In an outline, Tolkien gestures towards the tale of Ælfwine meeting Elves on Tol Eressëa, a “Beleriand tale”, and the fall of Númenor as told through the eyes of Elendil and his friend Voronwë. Why should I check out this canon? The Notion Club Papers draws on many more famous aspects of the Legendarium and will appeal to fans of:

Númenor and its fall
Ælfwine and his meeting with the Elves
portal fantasy and contemporary fantasy
crossovers between Middle-earth and the modern day
and, of course, the Inklings.

Where can I get this? The entire text of The Notion Club Papers, including commentary by Tolkien’s son Christopher, can be found in volume nine of The History of Middle-earth, which is titled Sauron Defeated. Check your library and any local bookstores, or buy it online.

What fanworks exist already? Fanworks of The Notion Club Papers are, not surprisingly, hard to come by. fanfiction.net hosts at least one work by shakespeareanfish, which you can read here. AO3 has a recently posted piece of meta in Russian. JD-Kloosterman on DeviantArt has contributed fanart. Between these works, there’s lots of space for fans to take up a pen (or keyboard, paintbrush, stylus, etc.) and bring something new to The Notion Club Papers universe.

You above all else (9847 words) - Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 (on dreamwidth)

Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Bridgerton (TV Show)
Rating: Teen and Up
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton/Kate Sharma
Characters: Anthony Bridgerton, Kate Sharma, the Bridgerton family plus Simon Hastings, the Sharma family.
Additional Tags: Friends to Lovers, Regency setting, Angst, Pining, The Gulf between Social Classes, Canonical Character Death Referenced, Eldest Children Syndrome, Time Jumps, Unconventional Courtship 2025
Summary:

Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma were inseparable as children since he’d defended her from an irate tutor. Once she thought there was something more growing between them until grief and the divergent demands of their positions drew them apart.

To Kate, the warm, close knit Bridgerton family lead a charmed life and spending Christmas with them is both an honour and a relief from the challenges her own little family face.

But when she comes face-to-face with Anthony again, she hardly recognises him in the cold, aloof man he's become. Worse, he seems to see her as a spinster maid, below his notice, and an outsider

--

Inspired by HOME TO FAMILY by ANN EVANS

Amnesty post - sorry this is late!

Current Mood: accomplished

Here are the entries for this challenge:

( List of entries )

Please Note: Because we only have 4 entries this week, there is only a First Place and Runner Up to vote for!

In order to vote, please reply to this post using the form provided. All comments are screened, and entries are listed in the order they were submitted. For your vote to qualify, you must fill out your entire voting card (both spots) in order to be counted. Winner votes are worth 2 points, Runner Up votes are worth 1 point. Meeting the bonus goal on an entry gets an extra point for that submission.

When voting, please copy/paste the ENTRY NUMBER and the FIC TITLE from the list above into the spot you're voting for (this prevents accidentally mis-numbering a vote and casting it for the wrong entry). It should look like this:

First Place: 61. Fic Title Here
Runner Up: 88. Another Fic Title

Please note that you cannot vote for your own entry, and that votes cannot be made anonymously. You do not have to be a member of the community in order to vote, nor have submitted an entry for this week; everyone is welcome to participate in the voting. IP addresses are logged to prevent duplicate voting.

Voting closes Wednesday, July 9 at 9:00PM EST.

Theme Prompt: 265 - Trickster
Title: Early Access Wife Plot
Fandom: Scum Villain Self Saving System
Rating/Warnings: minor off screen injury
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 688
Summary: Luo Binghe is sick of women throwing themselves at his Shizun. Shen Yuan wants to know why they’re running into wife plots early.

( make you proud )

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Caiti's Musings

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[Bridgerton - Kanthony] You above all else

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