Welcome to our collection of TORn’s hottest topics for the past week. If you’ve fallen behind on what’s happening on the Message Boards, here’s a great way to catch the highlights. Or if you’re new to TORn and want to enjoy some great conversations, just follow the links to some of our most popular discussions. Watch this space as every week we will spotlight the most popular buzz on TORn’s Message Boards. Everyone is welcome, so come on in and join the fun!
Continue reading “TORn Message Boards Weekly Roundup – September 9, 2013”
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A week to the day since the fun and games kicked off in Atlanta, we’ve all returned to our homes – even the Road to DragonCon guys have made it back! So we thought we’d share with you a few highlights of our weekend at the convention.
TheOneRing.net is always delighted to be out and about meeting fellow fans, so the biggest highlight of the con for us was chatting with everyone who stopped to say hi, either at our table in the Hyatt hotel or after the two panels we gave over the course of the weekend. Thanks for coming over and sharing the Tolkien love with us!
Our two panels were on Saturday afternoon and Sunday lunchtime. The first was The Hobbit: One book, three movies – a look at why this seemingly short story may (or may not) merit being made into three films. On Sunday we explored The Desolation of Smaug, with much speculation on what we may see when the film hits the big screen later this year. Both panels were very well attended, with folks lining up well in advance. Staffers deej, greendragon and MrCere were the panelists.
TORn was also delighted to help out with the Tolkien Track’s two evening events, Friday’s An Evening at Bree and Saturday’s Middle-earth goes Retro 80s dance party! greendragon planned the fun for Friday night, with TORn favourites Emerald Rose rocking the house, as ever, and inspiring everyone to dance the night away. Attendees were very excited when William Kircher, Graham McTavish and Sylvester McCoy showed up to host the costume contest! They were fabulous MCs, and the entries into the contest this year were just stunning. Bravo to everyone who took part – the judges had a very hard time picking winners! (Big thanks to Namadriel, Soinma, MrCere and Nicole Kircher for taking on judging duty!) The party even included a marriage proposal, as ‘Smaug the Terrible’ knelt down and popped the question to ‘Azog the Defiler’ – both amazing costumes, and a very happy couple at the end of the night!
deej revealed why her TORn nickname has been deej for all these years, as she hosted and dj-ed the dance party on Saturday night. It was just wonderful to see everyone getting into the spirit of things! Many folks came in amazing ‘Middle-earth in the 1980s’ costumes, including one gal who was The Eye of Sauron – complete with ‘Venetian Blinder’ sunglass lens! Elves, dwarves and men took to the dancefloor and strutted their stuff as Saturday turned into Sunday; eventually, soon after 1am, we had to shut the party down and everyone reluctantly headed out to seek their beds – or another party elsewhere!
What with running the table all day every day, partying in the evening, and appearing on a few panels in addition to our own two, TORn staffers were kept pretty busy throughout the weekend of DragonCon! (MrCere was of course particularly busy, wearing his two hats of being both TORn staffer and Tolkien Track Director.) The Roadtrip gents did an amazing job of live streaming from the event, so we could keep in touch with folks at home. By Monday evening, everyone was exhausted – but exhilarated! Many thanks again to all who stopped to say hello, and maybe to buy a shirt or a button, and show their support for the website. We always love to meet you all, and it’s great to see familiar faces year after year!
TORn is in Salt Lake City just now, at Salt Lake ComicCon. Next weekend we’ll be representing at Cincinnati Comic Expo; and then our next BIG event (and party!) will be in New York City, for NYComicCon, October 10-13. Stay tuned for news of that – we hope to see you there! Just need to catch up on some sleep in the meantime…
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Continuing the speculation of what Smaug will look like in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, 13 year old Ringer Manuel sent us his vision of what Smaug will be, based on the glimpses we’ve had so far.
Continue reading “What Smaug might look like – a concept”
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TheOneRing.net would like to thank yet another supporter of our 2013 Pledge Drive: Kumbuya!
Kumbuya connects like-minded individuals through common interests. Join communities to share content and buy and sell products. On Kumbuya, users join and create themed communities. Within each community, members connect over the things they love by posting topic-related media, comments, and user-generated content. Because communities are curated by the most enthusiastic fans, members get to engage in a beautiful medium that caters directly to their interests.
You may wonder if there is a community of Tolkien fans already on Kumbuya. The answer is Yes! In fact, it is run by TheOneRing.net’s own Quickbeam, aka Clifford Broadway. You can see that community right here. [Tolkien Community on Kumbuya]
TheOneRing.net would like to thank Kumbuya for their generous support and we are glad to include their logo as a corporate sponsor on our ‘Tale of Honour’ page for 2013/2014.
Did you want to support our pledge drive? Check out The Tale of Honour to see how you can show your support for TheOneRing.net and keep us online for years to come! [ The Tale of Honour]
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Are you a Tolkien fan? Do you fancy yourself a writer? Do you sometimes imagine what
The Lord of the Rings or
The Hobbit may have been like in the hands of another author? Well now is your chance to make that fantasy a reality!
We here at TORn are pleased to announce our new monthly contest, Rewrite Tolkien, where you, the fans, can rewrite your favorite passages or scenes in the style of another classic author. We will select a theme each month, and then it’s up to you to best take advantage of it!
The theme for the month of September is:
THE HOBBIT AS WRITTEN BY DR. SEUSS
In anticipation of The Desolation of Smaug, pick a scene that will be in the upcoming film, and write it in the style of that most whimsical of children’s authors, Dr. Seuss. Possible scenes include but are not limited to:
Meeting Beorn
Being captured by (and/or escaping from) the Elves of Mirkwood
The arrival at Lake-town
Bilbo’s encounter with Smaug
Our judges will read through all of your submissions, and choose the best of the bunch. The Grand Prize Winner will get their entry read live by our own Quickbeam on an upcoming TORn Tuesday!
The contest deadline is 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on September 23rd. Please be sure to read all of the submission guidelines below and submit your entry to rewrite_tolkien_contest@theonering.net.
Good luck to you all!
****Submission Guidelines****
- Contest is open to individuals worldwide, age 13 and up at the time of entry.
- To avoid duplicate submissions, please include your name and location on all entries.
- To qualify, submissions must be a minimum of 500 words and maximum of 2000 words, feature characters from The Hobbit and be in the style of the author/genre for that month’s contest.
- All submissions should be emailed to mailto: rewrite_tolkien_contest@theonering.net with the entry in the body of the email. No attachments.
- No posting your entry on the message boards or TORn’s Facebook page.
- No profanity. We realize that some authors’ styles require it, so if you MUST use profanity, please censor it with asterisks.
- By submitting, you are giving TORn permission to reproduce your entry on our website or other formats (Twitter, Facebook, etc…)
- You may submit as many entries as you want, but do not submit the same entry more than once.
- Contestants are only eligible to win once in a 12 month period.
- Entries that do not follow these submission guidelines will not be considered for the contest.
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TheOneRing.net’s 2013 Pledge Drive – Light the Beacons is drawing to a close – but there’s still time to support us, and we want to let you know about another generous corporate supporter.
Vanderstelt Studio, home of the amazing artist Jerry Vanderstelt, have generously added their own pledge to TORn’s fundraising efforts. Jerry Vanderstelt is a formidable painter who is an ardent fan of sci-fi and fantasy, and particularly of C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien. His paintings include work inspired by The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
Jerry has donated some stunning artwork to TORn’s current auction. These pieces are exclusive prints, personally signed and with unique sketches by Jerry added to the print. One auction item is for three Lord of the Rings pieces, and the other is for a wonderful painting of Dwalin the Dwarf. You can find the auctions items here and here; don’t miss this chance to own some extraordinary pieces of Middle-earth art!
TheOneRing.net would like to formally thank Vanderstelt Studios for their continued support of TheOneRing.net!
[Visit Vandersteltstudio.com] [Pledge Your Support Today]
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