SWG News

Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Voices - Using Fanon in Fanworks

Posted by SWG Moderators on 18 November 2023. Last updated on 23 December 2023.

Fanon, or fan-generated theories about the legendarium, has had mixed reception in the twenty-plus years on online Tolkien fanfiction. This article, part of our "Fandom Voices" collection in the Cultus Dispatches column, caps off a three-part series looking at fanon and Tolkien fanworks. Fandom Voices asks Tolkien fans to respond to an open-ended question. This month, we asked simply: What are your thoughts on fanon?

Responses were selected, organized, and presented with minimal editing to contribute to our growing picture of how fanon and other fan-generated theories fit within the world of Tolkien fanworks. (The full set of responses are also available.) You can read the article "Fandom Voices: Using Fanon in Fanworks" here.

If you missed the chance to respond, the form is still open here. While we will not update the article, we will continue adding new responses to the collection as they come in.

New Challenge: Understory

Posted by SWG Moderators on 14 November 2023. Last updated on 20 January 2024.

In his lecture "On Fairy-stories," Tolkien spoke of the Tree of Tales. As a metaphor, this functions on multiple levels, implying that stories don't just draw from the store of myth and history at their roots but constantly grow and branch from each other. Building on Tolkien's metaphor, this month's challenge considers the understory: that foliage that grows in the shade of larger branches, or the smaller characters and plots that give dimension to a tale and tantalize the reader into wondering where they'd go, were they allowed to grow.

This month's challenge is a remix challenge, meaning that you will use another person's fanwork as your inspiration. You will choose a minor character or minor plot point and develop it into its own story. Note that this is a two-month challenge. Make sure you review the schedule and expectations for using another fan's work below.

Schedule

15-22 November. We encourage creators, especially those who plan to participate in the challenge, to fill out the form about how participants can use your fanworks. This is not required, but we will post a list of creators here on November 23 who are open to having their works used for this challenge. Note that you can fill out the form after the 22nd, and we will update the list as new responses come in.

23 November-15 January. Contact a creator with an understory you'd like to develop into its own fanwork and get started!

Working with Other Creators

It is imperative that all fanworks used for this challenge are used with permission and credited according to the creator's expectations.

Some creators will give open permission to use their work. You should credit the creator and link to the original work in your fanwork notes.

In all other instances, you should obtain permission from any creators whose work you wish to use. Be clear about what work you want to use and how you plan to remix it, and make sure to ask how they wish to be credited.

To contact SWG creators, click on a creator's name and use the Contact link at the top of their profile. Note that some creators may have this feature disabled. You can contact creators through other sites and social media also. If you cannot find a way to contact a creator or do not hear back from a creator, do not use their work for this challenge.

Other Details

"Understory" implies written fanworks, but non-written fanworks can serve as inspiration for this challenge, and responses can be in any form that you choose. In fact, non-written fanworks like artwork and playlists can be especially suitable as inspiration for this challenge.

The fanwork (or fanworks!) that inspires your response to this challenge does not need to be archived on the SWG. The same rules for contacting the original creator (or following their permission statement, if they have one) apply.

Many thanks to Cuarthol for this month's beautiful banner and stamps!

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 January 2024. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

A Sense of History: First Brick in the Wall

Posted by SWG Moderators on 11 November 2023. Last updated on 23 December 2023.

"We don't need no education!" In this month's A Sense of History column, Simon J. Cook uses this line from Pink Floyd's classic song to interrogate the perspective of foundational Tolkien scholar Jane Chance concerning Tolkien's analogy of the tower in "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics."

Tolkien was himself part of academia and valued highly both historical and philological inquiry. Yet, Simon argues, the critics who followed him and tried to make sense of his work, often for non-academic audiences and publication sometimes miss the point of his work in an effort to shape their interpretations to the academic trends of their days. In unwinding the complexities of Tolkien's tower analogy, Chance somehow ends up with the critics as the monsters.

As in past columns in this series, Simon takes the title of the column, "A Sense of History," as a guide to consider not just the historical context in which Tolkien wrote but the historical context in which the first Tolkien scholars did their work. You can read Simon's analysis of Chance's ideas in here, in "First Brick in the Wall."

Thank You, Shadow!

Posted by SWG Moderators on 5 November 2023. Last updated on 5 November 2023.

If you follow the SWG on social media, you may have noticed that the announcements there no longer come from Dawn. This is because Shadow (daughterofshadows) has graciously offered to serve as our Social Media Manager!

The SWG is a lot of little parts and pieces, and many different people help keep them moving. Shadow's role is super important for getting information out to our members and followers and freeing up the site admins to focus on fixing and expanding the features the site has to offer. Thank you, Shadow!

If you want to help support the SWG by volunteering, open volunteer roles can be found here.

Character of the Month: Celegorm

Posted by SWG Moderators on 4 November 2023. Last updated on 25 November 2023.

Tolkien is generally not recognized for his skill at creating complex characterizations. On the surface, Celegorm seems a prime example of this: a basic villain who betrays a beloved king, kidnaps a princess, and keeps company with the types of people who murder children. Even his dog rejects him.

But, as a deeper investigation of his character reveals, Tolkien did consider him with some nuance, often drawing back from pure villainy to add details to his character that allow for the kind of speculation and inference that makes reading (and creating fanworks about) The Silmarillion so enjoyable. Even after deciding that Celegorm should play the role of a villain—and this decision evolved over the course of years—Tolkien seems not to have lost sight of Celegorm's earlier, more benevolent form and appears to have acted with intention to shape Celegorm's character accordingly.

You can read the first part of Celegorm's biography here.

Tolkien Fanartics: Interview with Ruslan Shapolov

Posted by SWG Moderators on 28 October 2023. Last updated on 23 December 2023.

It is a common experience of readers to visualize the setting, characters, and story as they read. All of us likely have our own mental images of what certain people and places in The Silmarillion look like, often inspired by fan artists, the films, and other sources. Rarely, however, do we get to see our visions come to life on the page.

A self-described workaholic, Ukrainian Tolkien fan and artist Ruslan Shapolov sought to do just that. In only a year, he created more than fifty illustrations for The Silmarillion, along with initial capitals and illuminated pages for each chapter. Although part of a Master's project in art school, Ruslan exceeded the project's expectations to create a book's worth of stylistically distinct and thought-provoking illustrations. For this month's Tolkien Fanartics column, our art editor Anérea chatted with Ruslan about his inspiration, training and technique, and what it is like to work as an artist in a country besieged by war.

You can read Anérea's interview with Ruslan Shapolov here.

New Challenge: Experimental

Posted by SWG Moderators on 21 October 2023. Last updated on 14 November 2023.

Tolkien described his creative approach as progressing from language to story rather than the other way around, which he assumed to be the normal or usual way an author crafts a novel. Indeed, Tolkien's work teems with experimental approaches: frame stories, pseudohistorical texts (in a multitude of drafts), and repeat violations of the "rules" fiction writers generally learn about plot, character, setting, and description.

Tolkien was, in other words, an experimental writer, pushing the boundaries of literary and artistic convention. This month, we invite you to experiment with a new technique or approach to your fanworks. We’ve listed some prompts you can select from, but you’re also free to develop your own. (If you go your own way, please clearly state what your self-created prompt is in your fanwork notes!)

Note that some experimental approaches may use structures, layouts, and markup that are difficult to render using the existing fanworks submission forms. If you are taking such an approach, contact the mods if you need help getting your work onto the site as you want it.

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 November 2023. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

Many thanks to Independence1776 for this month's stamps and banner!

Cultus Dispatches: Interview with Scedasticity of the "Silmarillion Headcanon Survey"

Posted by SWG Moderators on 21 October 2023. Last updated on 18 November 2023.

Cultus Dispatches is winding up a series of articles on canon, ending with a sub-series on fanon, or fan-generated theories. As the series has showed, fanworks creators put quite a lot of stock in the ideas of their fellow fans—more even than they do Tolkien scholars, filmmakers, or even Christopher Tolkien.

Yet fanons and headcanons—fanon's less sprawling cousin among fandom terms for fan-generated theories—can be contentious in fan spaces. While most don't rise to the level of Balrog-wings in terms of the heat they generate, debates over fanons and headcanons are common in fandom spaces. As we continue to understand the role of canon—and more specifically fan-generated theories and authority—in fanworks communities, Dawn spoke with Scedasticity, the creator of the Silmarillion Headcanon Survey, to get a sense of what insights her work with fan theories can give.

You can read the interview "Theorycrafting: Interview with Scedasticity of the 'Silmarillion Headcanon Survey'" here.

A Sense of History: Fawlty Towers

Posted by SWG Moderators on 14 October 2023. Last updated on 11 November 2023.

When we look at our own creative work, we are often conscious of the historical context that produced it. Fanworks explored sexuality, gender, race, and disability in Tolkien's legendarium are often linked to events and discussions happening in our particular historical moment. But this same sense is sometimes lost in Tolkien. In this month's "A Sense of History" column, Simon J. Cook continues his series on Tolkien's extended metaphor of the tower in his lecture-turned-essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" by looking at the characters who populate that metaphor.

Tolkien scholars have often taken these characters as neutral components of the metaphor. Simon makes the case that they were real people, and viewing them as scholars who were part of Tolkien's orbit, driving the debates that informed his academic work, transforms how the metaphor is read. The loss of this historical context, Simon argues, impacts how the metaphor is read within the larger trajectory of Tolkien's work and leads to some ... strange ... conclusions from popular Tolkien scholars.

You can read Simon's article "Fawlty Towers" here.

Call for Volunteers!

Posted by SWG Moderators on 14 October 2023. Last updated on 25 November 2023.

If you enjoy the SWG and want to help keep the site alive and thriving, we are looking for volunteers to help with a few minor but important roles running the site. You can always find open volunteer positions on our volunteer page with complete up-to-date details on each role. The following new roles have been added:

Social media manager: works with the moderator team to ensure that announcements posted to the site make it onto our social media accounts on Discord, Tumblr, and Dreamwidth.

Around the World and Web editor: ensures that that section of the site is updated at least weekly.

Both roles require about 30 minutes to an hour of time commitment per week. SWG moderators and volunteers always work together to ensure that we cover time off for each other when needed.

We are also sunsetting our Character of the Month column for the simple reason that most of the major characters have now been covered! We have a few characters we want to make absolutely sure we include: Elendil, Gothmog, Yavanna, Eönwë, Manwë, Hador, Nienor, Melkor, Curufin, Marach, and Olwë. If you'd like to take on one of these characters, writers of all ability levels are welcome, and we are happy to provide support to writers new to nonfiction and research writing.

Interested in helping us out? Contact the mods with questions or if you'd like to volunteer!