Team Angband

to krakenguard.

And our winning team is (drumroll)…. TEAM EDAIN! Great job, you guys! I’ve no doubt that you’ve made the Edain proud with your enthusiasm! I’ll be hijacking your blog tomorrow to explain the victory giveaway, etc.

All the Bingo Card giveaway winners have been chosen - I’ll have a post tomorrow announcing the winners and the prize situation. (LotR Read-Along giveaway winners, you will be included in that post tomorrow, I promise!)

And a heartly thank you to all our fellow Angbandians for these funny months! It has been a great experience! Hopefully we will keep this group alive in the near future, with some activities and such. Feel free to complete your team bingo cards (or start them again if you want!), even if the Read-Along is over... just for fun and to keep our tag fresh.

We might be the bad lot, but we will not be so easily defeated. ;)

With ash and fire (and lots of cookies),

Under the cut

Everyone, the raedalong is over! Please check some post before this one to see the details but don’t forget that there’s still a feeeew time to collect the points for our team. I know that some of you hosted discussion, but i don’t know who and there’are no proofs of it. WRITE TO ME! let me know it!

Well, my friends, we’ve reached the end. Assuming you’ve stuck to the schedule, you should have completed The Silmarillion by now. I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading it, whether it was your first time or just a chance to re-read it in a community. And though the book is done, our fun isn’t quite finished yet. Here’s what’s happening this week:

GIVEAWAY ENTRIES DUE FRIDAY! If you’re entering Bingo Card giveaways, the instructions can be found in this post. If you hosted a discussion and want to enter the Discussion Host giveaway, all you have to do is send me a message with a link to some sort of proof (you can put links in asks if you put parenthesis around any periods, for example tolkienreadalong(.)tumblr(.)com)

TEAM CHALLENGE ENDS FRIDAY! It’s up to the teams and their captains to tally up their points, so if you hosted a discussion or completed your team’s Bingo Card, be sure to let your captain know! 

MAKING DECISIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE! There are two more read-alongs planned for the upcoming months, and some ideas about how to keep the community active in the time between them. If you’re at all interested in helping me make some important decisions about these events, I’ve got two more (NEW) surveys for you to take! This one is all about the upcoming read-alongs, and this one is all about ways to keep the community active until the next read-along.

Wow. So we’ve reached the end of the Silmarillion. The Dominion of Men is preparing, and all things are changing, and the last of the Noldor leave Middle Earth for ever. But these pages are still full of rings, and of excitement, and that’s what I want to leave the readalong with today. A ring of ice and berries, and a huge punchbowl, full of Christmassy cheer, for the Third Age to drown their sorrows in. Seriously, guys, it’s been such a great time, thank you so much to tolkienreadalong for making it happen, and to everyone who liked and reblogged these ridiculous drinks! You’re all amazing. 

A PUNCH FOR THE THIRD AGE (Serves many)

5 x cloves

1 cinammon stick

TBS sugar (to taste) 

1 litre apple juice

2 shots brandy (to taste) 

1 bottle chilled fizzy wine

Cranberries

Mint Leaves

Ring shaped cake pan or normal pan (not bigger than your punch bowl)

Links to each slot under the cut.

Ehy everyone. Let’s face it, the end of this adventure is approaching. Wipe your tears, angband will be in your heart forever and I promise I’ll send you cookies until your death u.u While enjoying these last pages and days together, your Morgoth and Sauron need you to help us resume all the things you’ve done during the readalong. These are the instruction for the last days:

OKAY HERE’S THE DEAL. So many of you have spent the last few months creating amazing things for the read-along, and really made this entire experience so much more enjoyable for the group as a whole. And some of you multi-tasked your awesomeness in getting your work to line up with the Bingo Cards I provided in the beginning. Extra kudos to you.

So now we’re at the end of the ride, and it’s time to make it all official. So, here’s what you need to know:

GIVEAWAY ENTRIES:

You have all of this and next week to get entered for the giveaways (official cut-off is midnight PST on Friday, June 13.)

Make a Bingo Roundup post, publish it on your blog, and tag it “tolkienreadalong bingo”

After making your post, send me a message letting me know so that I can make sure to go find it (just in case I, for some reason, miss it in the tag.)

Within the post, be sure to include the following:

A picture of each bingo card you completed, with some sort of marker to show what you did.

A list of every post you made to fill a square (with links to the actual posts, so that I can check – also so that everyone has a handy masterpost to your read-along awesomeness.)

That’s it – hestiaschaetzeken did a roundup post for her work in the Characters Not In The Movies card that’s exactly what I’m looking for - you can do separate posts for different cards, or lump it all together into one post, totally up to you.

DISCUSSION HOSTS: Don’t think I forgot about you! Same idea applies - just send me a link to some sort of proof that you hosted a discussion, and you’re entered in the Discussion Host giveaway.

GIVEAWAYS:

I’ll be announcing the giveaway winners on Saturday November 29. Here’s how it works:

One giveaway per type of card (as in, one Standard Card giveaway, one Feanorian giveaway, one special Numenorean card, etc.) Plus the Discussion Host giveaway, making for 10 giveaways in total.

A “bingo” (a full row of filled prompts, whether that’s vertical, horizontal, or diagonal), is one giveaway entry.

You can have up to three bingos per individual card.

A “blackout” (a completely filled card) is worth three giveaway entries (or five for the Standard Card, since it’s so much larger.)

Giveaway winners will be chosen at random, but of course the more entries you have the better your odds of winning.

PRIZES:

We’ve entered the last week of the Silmarillion Read-Along (!), and so it’s time to talk about what’s coming up next:

BINGO CARD GIVEAWAYS

There’s a much more detailed post about this coming out later today, but here’s the important part: As far as Giveaway entries go, the due date is November 28 (that gives you an extra week to catch up on prompts and get everything together.) 

TEAM COMPETITION

I’ll also be announcing which of our wonderful First Age teams earned the most points during the read-along on November 29. The winning team will have a special giveaway, but you don’t have to worry about entering - you were automatically entered when you were assigned to the team. :)

POST READ-ALONG SURVEYS

It’s time for feedback! This is my second read-along, and I’m planning on hosting others, so getting feedback from you guys is hugely helpful to me. If you haven’t finished reading yet that’s totally fine, and I’ll have another post for this again next week, but I’ve already got the survey up and ready if anyone wants to take it now.

FUTURE READ-ALONGS

The weather is getting colder, hot drinks are becoming an afternoon must, and Halloween has come to a close, which means it’s almost time for the winter holidays! And with that, the time for the Tolkien Secret Santa project has come!

What is Tolkien Secret Santa?

Inspired by Secret Rocker Santa and made in conjunction with Tolkien Read-Along and Ask Middle Earth, Tolkien Secret Santa is a project to bring together people who love Tolkien’s works and universe.

Starting December 1st and carrying on through December 21st (the Hobbits’ Yuledays celebration), anyone signed up will receive anonymous messages from their Secret Santa. On December 21st, that person will then reveal themselves-and hopefully start a friendship in the process!

At the same time, you will be sending a message to another person, brightening their day and being their “Secret Santa!”

Singing up and Rules

YOU MUST READ THESE BEFORE PARTICIPATING

To sign up, REBLOG this post (likes will not count unless for bookmarking purposes)

Fill out this survey for “matchmaking” purposes.

Tolkien doesn’t have to be your main fandom, but it should be one of your fandoms. 

MAKE YOUR ASKBOX OPEN TO EVERYONE, INCLUDING ANON MESSAGES.

This must be done by November 21.

By November 30, you should receive a message from me or one of my team saying who you should send messages to as their “Secret Santa.”

On December 1st, you should start receiving messages from your Secret Santa and start sending messages to your assigned URL!

You can send messages about anything you want as long as you don’t reveal your identity-play games, discuss books, movies, or characters, send lyrics, funny pictures, etc. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Tolkien-related!

We have a tag-#tolkienss. Please tag any messages you receive using that!

Please do not sign up if you cannot send at least a few messages a week. Conversely, if your Secret Santa hasn’t messaged you in over a week, please message me and let me know!

REMINDERS

THIS IS FOR FUN. Have fun with your Santa, and please don’t be mean! We have a zero-tolerance policy for rudeness. We’re all here to have fun and celebrate Yuledays!

Try to keep a note as to who you’re assigned to! While I will be able to look it up for you, it would be much easier for us if you had some sort of reminder.

If you change your URL at any time during the project, please let me know.

Even though this is in conjunction with the end of the Silmarillion Read-Along-YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE A PARTICIPANT OF THE READ ALONG TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS. Secret Santa is open to the whole fandom!

This blog is made for reminders and updates, so it is not a requirement you follow it, although it may be helpful!!

Don’t be afraid to sign up!!!!

If you have any further questions or need advice during the project, please do not hesitate to message me!

The eighteenth square of the Standard Bingo Card is now unlocked! You can find more general information on the Bingo Cards here, but below are the three prompts for the “Week 18” square:

The Last Alliance

Gondor and Arnor

The Istari

You can choose any one of these to fill the square. And remember that anything that adds to the Read-Along community can count (fanart, fanfiction, poetry, hosting a discussion, knitting, embroidery, costuming, meta/analysis, edits, fanvids, cosplay, recipes, playlists, etc etc etc.)

It’s Week 17! Hopefully you made it through The Akallabeth (but remember, if you didn’t finish it, you can always cheat by catching up on the major plot points as summarized in the Reader’s Guide!) Now we move on - or, actually, we move back. This last section of the Silmarillion rewinds the clock back to the beginning of the Second Age. But this time, we follow what was happening in Middle Earth, instead of Numenor. Which means more elves! And (somehow) even more Sauron.

Like the Akallabeth, you’ve got two whole weeks to read this section. And in the next couple days I’ll start making posts about the fast-approaching End of the Read-Along. So be sure to keep an eye out for those.