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…
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. 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.
Lots to like about this story. Like you, I am obsessed with Elven hair, particularly that of Maedhros and Celegorm. You mentioned other interpretations of Maedhros with his hair cropped, besides mine and your own. Here is one by artist Jenny Dolfen: http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=54908&genre=2
I like the jay and I like Celegorm talking to it and I love the shiny Feanorian hair in the nest.
Jenny Dolfen, it seems, originally drew Maedhros with short hair throughout. It was only on second thoughts that she decided that Maedhros had his hair cut off by the minions of Morgoth to humiliate him and then kept it short as a sign of defiance--at least that is what she says in her notes on "Humiliation" (at Deviant Art, as *Gold-Seven).
Lyra also mentions a hair-cut by Fingon rather briefly in "The Tempered Steel" in Part II, Chapter I.
I have a feeling there might be even more references out there...
I really appreciate your taking the trouble to leave a review when you haven't been feeling well! I hope it means that, in fact, you're feeling a little better?
I love it when you write Maedhros interacting with his brothers, it's always different depending on which brother it is. An obsession with Noldorin hair is something I'm familiar with. And I loved Celegorm talking to the bird!
Thank you very much for your comment! Maedhros's brothers are all very different people (even if they are tied together by a single oath), so it seems logical that they would interact differently with him. I'm glad that you think I've managed to capture these differences in my writing.
Perhaps, it wasn't a whim, only his clinging to everything that was good, that he could still offer. Sad, but with hope. Thank you :) I liked it a lot.
Thank you very much! I was all ready to write an embarrassingly long response, but then I thought perhaps you'd prefer an epilogue instead:
Maedhros lay flat on his back, dizzy with an exhaustion that was not physical. Maglor had been right; he had not really been fit enough for this trip yet, on his own with Celegorm. But he had been wrong, too.
'It was a good move, you will see, Makalaure,' he thought. 'Already he is falling in love with this land. Already he is beginning to unbend.'
As on the preceding evenings, he lulled himself to sleep by thinking of his plans for the hill of Himring: high walls, thick walls, the strongest walls ever seen, strong enough to protect everyone under his care against Morgoth... Tonight, for the first time, he imagined birds' nests among the eaves of Himring and fell asleep smiling.
(...)strong enough to protect everyone under his care against Morgoth...
Exactly what I thought -- that he wanted to convince himself (and everybody else) that he was still good, still human, after being violated by pure evil.
For all that Celegorm can understand animals, and is probably kind enough to them, I don't see him being very understanding of his brother's weakness after his torture. I imagine it shames him to see his brother like that...and shames him to feel like that about his brother himself. And a shamed Feanorian is an angry one! Nicely done with the understatement of all of that here.
Thank you very much! That is a very perceptive comment!
In my version of things, this kind of Feanorian reaction is something that characterizes Celegorm in particular and, for him, it goes deeper than family pride and farther back than Angband. I have written a story from his POV set in Tirion, Racing Down the Mindon, which tries to show this.
I love this so much. Tyelcormo is (at this moment, in any case) my favourite Son and thereby my favourite Silm character. Your portrayal of him really speaks to me, and I loved the idea with the bird and the hairs. Just beautiful :)
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.