January Taboo Challenge Stories

[dawn_felagund]

Yesterday the January 2017 Taboo challenge closed with an incredible twenty entries. Here is a list of links to the stories written for our first new challenge. Check out these stories and consider leaving the authors a note if you enjoyed their work! (Remember that the review challenge never expires, and we have several stamps for reviewers that we'd love to give away ...)

All links go to the table of contents for the story, where you can view warnings, author's notes, and further details about the story.

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Aftermath by Lyra. After the Darkening, Nerdanel struggles to pick up the pieces of her life - a difficult job with the legacy her husband has left her.

Assignation by Dawn Felagund. When Turgon discovers a forbidden affair between his sister Aredhel and cousin Curufin, he has all intentions of telling his father. But Aredhel and his cousins devise a way to keep safe the secrecy of an affair that will span ages. Aredhel/Curufin/Celegorm

By Any Other Name by Tyelca. After Fëanor’s death, Curufin writes a letter to his father and ponders with which name to sign.

Dancing in the Dark by Grundy. History remembers Curufin as the villain. There are a few who think better of him.

Decisions by Silver Trails. Caranthir tries to understand his feelings.

Hymn to Disturbia by Tyelca. Gondolin falls, and Maeglin has one last mission to fulfill: kill Tuor and claim Idril as his own.

In Between by Himring. Thengel of Rohan and Morwen of Lossarnach had two daughters that were born in Gondor, before Thengel's father died and he returned to Rohan to take up the kingship. Such a daughter might have found it easy to adjust--or she might not...

Long Pork by Fernstrike. Galadriel attends the wedding of Beren and Luthien, newly returned from their journey to Angband. There, a roast boar is cause for the resurgence of old, bad memories - and consideration of what truly makes one an outsider in Doriath.

Mirror Image by Tyelca. Curufin is troubled, and Fëanor decides to talk to him. Fluff!

My Heart on My Skin by Oshun. Fingon wants a graphic symbol of his love. In this world—Tirion, Age of the Trees, my personal canon—Fingon is in a committed relationship. He is of age, although barely, and his cousin Finrod (Ingo herein) is only a few years younger. But despite youth and questionable judgment, Fingon is his own man and does not need this ploy to attract and hold the attention of his beloved. (But Fingon never gets tired of trying ever more extreme stunts to prove his love to Maedhros.)

ostracism and exile by hennethgalad. the first meeting of Voronwë and Tuor

Pariahs by LadyBrooke. The Sindar will not conform, in names, trust, or Kings. Elu, Nimloth, and Oropher are reborn rulers in a society that sees them as primatives.

religious taboos by hennethgalad. Tuor tells his son that he will sail with Idril to Valinor.

sexual deviance by hennethgalad. Tuor seeks the aid of Voronwë in preparing for his wedding

Solitude by Erulisse. It is written that Melkor was imprisoned in the depths of Mandos for Three Aeons after his capture in Middle Earth. Studies in modern times have proven that true solitary confinement leads to madness and that interaction with others is essential to mental stability and healing. Yet, Melkor sat isolated and alone - was he already insane, or did his extreme solitude tip the balance and plunge him into deeper madness. I present a conversation between Melkor and Namo written for the Taboo challenge categories of Murder, Cannibalism, Ostracism and Exile and Consequences.

stigma by hennethgalad. Tuor is helped to fit in in Gondolin

table manners by hennethgalad. Maeglin is envious of the beauty of Tuor

Taboos Were Made To Be Broken by Kaylee Arafinwiel. A collection of Silmfic written for SWG’s January 2017 ‘Taboo’ prompts. Some will be co-written with, or perhaps solely written by, my co-author and dear friend Emma, and those will be noted.

The End of All Things by Tyelca. An Orc dies; what happens when he wakes up again in the Halls of Mandos and is forced to remember that he too belonged to the race of the Eldar?

The Vala, the Hound and the Elfling by Tyelca. Of how Huan came to be in Celegorm's care. Features a Vala without a sense of time, a puppy that does not yet know how to behave, and a curious little Elfling wanting to speak with birds and foxes.

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Participants (authors and reviewers), I will be starting on stamp collections tonight and hope to have them all sent out by the end of the weekend. Keep an eye on the email you have registered with the SWG archive! Our new challenge will be announced on Wednesday, 15 February.

Comments

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

Such a lot of good stories. I've read most of them and they were quality stories.

[dawn_felagund]

I loved the one I've read so far! (Yours! :D)

I am really looking forward to many of them based on the summaries. It was all I could do to finish mine on time, but I hope to have some time to read tomorrow. I'll be home by myself all day with a snowstorm on the way.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks. Yay, for snowstorms!

[dawn_felagund]

I'm not daring to hope it will actually happen. One because VT weather prediction is terrible at best. Two because I don't want to hope for a day off Monday and then not get it (or even a two-hour delay, which would mean that I get to sleep in and don't have to take a bunch of preteens snowshoeing).

[zdenka]

I'll look forward to reading them!

I think the third story down, by Tyelca, is missing a link? (I just want to make sure I've seen all of them.)

[dawn_felagund]

Thank you so much for catching that! I included the URL but not a name for the URL. Which is generally useful to making a link work. :D

[just-jenni.livejournal.com]

I swear I am going to read all of these stories! Mine wasn't ready in time but I'm not going to cry over it! This was such a compelling challenge that I wanted to give it a go and I want to see how it inspired others. :)

[dawn_felagund]

Please keep working on your story and post it when it is ready! We never take down the challenges because it is our hope that they will continue to inspire new stories. The deadline is only for challenges that are going to receive stamps; it's needed mostly to keep the mod making the stamp collections (me!) from going crazy monitoring old challenges ad infinitum. But if you don't mind not receiving a stamp, late entries are welcomed and encouraged.

[just-jenni.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Dawn! Yes, I don't mind not receiving a stamp. I didn't want to rush the story (not that I'm able to rush things that much anymore-LOL). It wasn't supposed to be a long one but after writing the first section I realized this fic needed more to achieve what I wanted to say. I'm a third of the way along and will post it when finished.

I just wanted to say that I thought this challenge was pretty awesome. And I used the Silmfic Generator to give me some ideas - the first one I got was mindblowing so I could not resist writing for it! The Silmfic Generator has now become something I could not live without. :)

[dawn_felagund]

I LOVE the Silmfic Generator! It's dangerous for me to go there because I always end up with a prompt I want to write. I actually have a story started with one prompt, and another story based on a prompt that Himring gave me ... but my next few weeks are going to be pretty cluttered with fandom chores, website building, and I really need to get back to my Tamlin story so who knows when they'll be finished. (Although I'm also pretty psyched about the new challenge being posted on Wednesday ...)

Best of luck writing! :) I'm glad the challenge and the Silmfic Generator were inspirational; I can't wait to see what comes out of that unholy mashup of challenge materials! :D

[hhimring]

Thank you very much for running the challenge, for the stamps and to whoever made them!

[dawn_felagund]

You're very welcome! :)

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Wow! Such a lot of stories! :) I'll have to look through them all...I'm going to try and get serious about Silm-fic this year, hopefully these challenges will help with that! I'm so glad I got to participate this year.

I think I'm going to split "Taboos Were Made To Be Broken" when I crosspost it to AO3, and make that the series name instead, since "What Uncle Glorfi Says..." has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the chapters following it, for "The Steward's Tale" and what followed on from it. I only wanted them together here because I wanted my Taboo stories together.

Will there be collections on AO3 to post these to?

Thanks for creating such a great challenge!

Kaylee Arafinwiel

[dawn_felagund]

I'm glad the challenge was enjoyable for you! :) I hope they continue to be inspiring. We have some pretty cool ones in the works, imo!

We do not set up AO3 collections but others are certainly welcome to do so if they want to. These challenges take a lot of effort and setting up a collection on another archive (when we're trying to encourage participation on our archive) just isn't the best us of my/our time right now. But if you or someone else wants to set up a collection, please feel free and promote it here, and I'll add a link in the next challenge announcement so people know about it.

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

oh - well, when you put it like that, of course it makes sense there isn't an AO3 collection. I guess I was thinking ahead to B2MEM...*loves B2MEM forever and ever and ever*

Which reminds me. Will SWG have a separate March challenge (since challenges are released halfway through the month) or will it be all B2MEM for March?

Kaylee

[dawn_felagund]

We will have a March challenge, but it will be an intentionally low-key one, and we are encouraging people to use it alongside the B2MeM event (and also Feanorian Week, which is at the end of March).

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Oooh. What's Feanorian Week? Is it one day for each of the sons of Feanor? *speculates*

Also, it's the 15th already in some timezones...👀

(not mine, but a girl can dream of having writing ideas before bed, right?? Hah! :) )

[dawn_felagund]

Here's the tumblr post about Feanorian Week.

I live in New England, which is in the EST time zone. When I refer to dates and time, I'm referring to them in my time zone. And I work all day, so new challenges won't go up until the evening, my time.

Please keep in mind that these things are not accomplished with the snap of a finger. I know things appear on websites, LJ, tumblr, etc seemingly without effort, but there is a lot of work behind the scenes to make that happen. I will probably spend an hour tonight making posts, polishing announcements and HTML code, and uploading files and images. I've been at work all day. I'm exhausted and would rather be reading or doing something I want to do--not this. Some patience and understanding is appreciated.

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, Dawn. That comment was insensitive of me, and made without fully understanding what your workday entailed, not to mention what running a website entails. I only meant I was super-excited for the challenge, but I still shouldn't have said it.

I hope you can forgive me for my thoughtless comments, and I hope things get less busy in future.

Kaylee Arafinwiel

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the Tumblr post. I'm reading it now.

Kaylee