b2mem | Six Recommendations from This Year's B2MeM (Reply)

B2MeM Prompt and Path:Fan Favorites, Yellow
Format:rec list
Genre:resource
Rating:PG
Warnings:None
Characters:Various
Pairings:Various
Creator’s Notes:Tolkien provided the sandbox, I merely play with the bucket and shovel he left behind. No profit of any kind is made from my fanworks.
Summary:My opportunity to recommend six postings in this year's B2MeM that I found outstanding and worth your reading/viewing.

Blue Path:

From the blue path, I recommend lynndyre's marvelous art piece, "Departure from Valinor", posted on March 29th.

http://b2mem.livejournal.com/472165.html

This one just makes me laugh. Everything about it brings me back to my hippie days in the late 60's and early 70's. I can totally see passing this Valinor Van on a back road in the Colorado mountains.

Green Path:

Two recommendations from the Green Path.

Starting with a piece of artwork that had me laughing as I moved the cursor down from picture to picture, reading each caption. This was brilliant and spot on. Congratulations and well done to Mirach for her "Finrod Reborn", posted on March 28th.

http://b2mem.livejournal.com/467337.html

I work in many different media, but polymer defeats me time after time, despite the fact that several good friends are at the top in that field. This was absolutely inspired.

The second item from the Green Path was "5 Books About Middle Earth That Were Not Written by Tolkien" by mybluerose1990, posted on March 24th. As fanfiction readers and authors, we tend to focus on the massive amount of material provided by the writings of JRR Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien. However, there are other books out there that are essential reference materials for us to use too.

http://b2mem.livejournal.com/457043.html

Purple Path:

A single story stole my heart on the Purple path. As I told the author, I'm not fond of Númenor, but this was outrageously beautifully conceived and written. It's dark - this is NOT a feel-good story, but her original main character is a total triumph and if all of her Númenor writings are of this quality, I'll happily read them.

Here is a link to fernstrike's glorious "Faithful", posted on March 24th.

http://b2mem.livejournal.com/455748.html

Orange Path:

Two articles really perked my interest on the Orange Path, and both of them dealt with in-depth looks at the Tolkien fanfiction community and B2MeM specifically.

On March 23rd, our own Dawn Felegund posted "Review Plz? Feedback Behavior in the Tolkien Fanfic Community" based on her outstanding and exhaustive survey made more than a year ago. She first quickly posted a few topics for feedback and then focused intensive attention on the single aspect that generated the highest number of responses. I don't think there's another story in this year's B2MeM offerings that has generated a higher number of reviews/comments. Check it out.

http://b2mem.livejournal.com/455334.html

My final recommendation from this year's postings was posted on March 21st by lignota. It's her wonderful dive into the statistics available to her as one of the moderators of B2MeM. The title is "Some B2MeM Statistics by Zdenka" and it's massively interesting. I would love an update based on posts put onto the board through midnight tomorrow because I'm really curious about things like "Most popular character" in this year's stories. Maybe if we ask politely, she'll consider doing a quick follow-up look. Here's a link to her wonderful analysis:

http://b2mem.livejournal.com/451224.html

So there you have it. My choice of six excellent articles/stories/artwork for you to take a look at, based on looking through every item posted since March 1st through the afternoon of March 30th. Follow the links and enjoy!