Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
New Challenge: Bollywood This month's challenge offers songs, films, and tropes from Bollywood, the world's largest film industry based out of India, as prompts for fanworks.
Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data provides insight into how comments benefit authors and which authors are most impacted by a lack of comments, with a digression on authors' perspectives one-click feedback like kudos.
A Sense of History: Passing Ships As Tolkien's characters in various texts gaze out to the sea, what do they see? What is brought by the ships coming out of the West?
Beta-Reader List Now Available The beta-reader list and profiles have been moved into our new system and are available again.
Nimruzimir, a natural philosopher recently out of his apprenticeship, hardly considers himself very important to anyone, least of all his colleagues. When his strange, prophetic fits bring him to the attention of the High Priest, however, he may find that his existence is less superfluous than…
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously…
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
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Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
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Holiday Party
No matter if you're in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, it's a time of year to think about holidays. Whether you're bundling up in blankets or slipping a swimsuit into your suitcase, we invite you to an SWG holiday party! Read more ...
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that authors view comments as driving their motivation to create fanfiction. However, perception of comments by authors is part of a larger shift in fandom around how and how often fans interact with each other.
The arrival and departure of ships across the Great Sea carries mythic significance for the peoples of Middle-earth. The image of ships crossing out of and back into a mysterious West appears as well in Beowulf and is alluded to in Tolkien's tower analogy in his lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," where the tower allows those who climb it to observe the passage of the ships.
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that while most authors self-identify as taking their craft seriously, a growing subset of authors may be pushing that norm.
He and Diamond were visiting, though Pippin had been disappearing every afternoon, and taking Frodo and Elanor and most other lads and lasses in the neighborhood with him—though why they couldn’t use Pippin’s own pony, Sam couldn’t imagine.
So gathered they were to Bree, what lieutenants who could be spared, from their scattered watches west and east, for their chieftain had returned from his long sojourn in lands godless and mountains strange.
Aragorn returns from the South to tells his tales. Halbarad listens.
Elrond Week 2024
Elrond Week is a fandom event dedicated to Elrond Peredhel that will run from July 10th to July 16th on Tumblr.
July challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for July has been posted to the Dreamwidth community. The thematic challenge is: original character or unnamed canon character; the formal challenge: fixed length of multiple of 50 words. New participants welcome.
Teitho June/July Challenge: Mentor
The June/July prompt for the Teitho challenge is "mentor" and invites fanworks about this relationship in Tolkien's works.
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Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.
I love this, the understanding between Fingon and Maedhros, the dance that they do. The underlying question of why the Valar truly released Maedhros from Mandos comes out midway, but underlies the entire grouping. And the reactions of Fingolfin to the two, as he recognizes that they truly belong together, is golden. I loved this piece so much...
Thank you so much for reading and for your generous review! I really like your description of the interaction of Fingon and Maedhros in this piece as a dance - I had not thought about it in those terms, but it very much captures something I was hoping to achieve.
‘I think they want him for something, so they gave him to me to try and patch him together again...’
What a terrifying thought. After Angbad, after Mandos.... what else is Maedhros supposed to endure? Whatever his guilt, seeing him utterly broken twice should be enough even for the Valar.
So the prospect of your next in this series is actually a bit frightening to me, though I also adore every word.
According to one of the versions of the fate of the Silmarils at the end of Arda in HoME, it is Maedhros who releases the light from them. Depending on what you think that does to Feanor, it could be a very harrowing task. However, I'm not planning to write about the breaking of the Silmarils at the moment, and what I had in mind when I wrote this story was something that you will probably consider much less terrifying... Also, I don't write the stories in the series in chronological sequence - there is at least one rather dark story still to be written, but in terms of chronology it comes before this one, so I hope it will not be too frightening!
Thank you very much for reading and reviewing and for your sympathy with my version of Maedhros!
Idolatry, a task for Maitimo... I have a feeling I know what it is about, and why it requires Maitimo to be as whole and healed as he can be at the moment. I say at the moment because there’s that final piece for his recovering still missing.
About time Fingolfin caught up! I wonder, were Finarfin’s “hints” very subtle of was the idea of his son with Maedhros too alien for him? Finarfin must have been quite frustrated with his brother not getting it. I enjoyed the difference between Fingolfin’s reaction and Finarfin’s, it showed the difference in temperament. Whether he likes it or not, Fingolfin has a little more of Fëanor in him than he realises, I always thought.
I love how you describe the relationship between Fingon and Maedhros. Maedhros still thinks he’d curse anyone he cares about, doesn’t he? Lucky for him Fingon is stubborn and won’t let him alone. Your Fingon is a sweetheart, have I mention that?
Just as Findekano firmly interposes his jutting shoulder between Maitimo and the rest of the world, that curve of Maitimo’s body seems to be trying to shield Findekano from anything that might threaten him This is a lovely image. And yes, Maitimo may not do anything to defend himself right now, but I doubt he’d hesitate to defend Findekáno.
Thank you! I'm happy you liked that image--and also very glad that you liked Fingon so much in this story!
Yes, in Finarfin's eyes the fact that Maedhros loves Fingon makes him more human (or "elven", I guess!) and less threatening than if he didn't, but in Fingolfin's eyes it makes him very alien--at least at first.
"And the image he is conjuring up is hard to resist: Maitimo going down to the garden each day for an hour to practice screaming and running away with all his customary concentration and discipline..."
I absolutely lost it when I read this line. And then the very next paragraph showed Fingon losing it as well. I love it when a writer can set a character and myself as emotional mirrors of each other, especially when it's done so hillariously. Good story.
Of all your fics set in this time period, this one is my favorite, and I'm finding it hard to pin down why. I think I just really like Fingolfin's emotional arc - he starts out blindly angry and unable to separate Maitimo from all his old perceptions and family history, but ends the story seeing the little details that reveal how real the love is between Maitimo and Findekano, and comes to quiet acceptance. And actually, the fact that Maitimo is so changed, which is established so early, makes Fingolfin seem even more conflicted since it seems those changes should be obvious.
Somewhat tangentially, I really love this line - "The soup is hot and spicy the way I like it." - because Fingon seems like the type who would. (He's brave? He can take the heat?) I love the last scene, but I think parts five and six are my favorites.
I've been meaning to review this for months. I think I'd be happy reading this, or fics like this and about this subject, forever.
I'm always a bit anxious, writing Fingolfin--but yes, that emotional arc was what I was going for here and I'm happy it seems to have worked.
I think I included that line about the spicy soup because in my mind Fingon is someone who likes things--you could perhaps say he dares to enjoy things--although I guess that sounds a bit ponderous and solemn, doesn't it?
Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.