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…
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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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New Year's Resolution
Our annual amnesty challenge allows you to complete and receive stamps for challenges you missed in the past year. 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.
Oddly, your summary/introduction somehow had misled me into expecting this to be a story in which Fingon and his wife had a wonderful marriage and Maedhros was just a friend. (There are quite a number of people who strongly believe this, after all! And I can even follow their arguments...) I see now that on LJ, you actually have a warning for "bad marriages" for this story.
Why is Anoriel leaving Middle-Earth? Because Maedhros is dead and she thinks there might yet be a chance to salvage her marriage--assuming Fingon was allowed out of Mandos? There seems to be little else about Aman that could attract her?
By the way, I have come across other people who believe in the Finwean family nose. (I think I do myself.) Maybe it is some sort of insidious meme?
I think the happy marriage scenerio is nice one -- I think I was just feeling a little overwrought when I wrote this. I am facepalming whilst re-reading this, to be honest.
Hmm, I suppose it could be that she believed the press that Valinor got! I suppose most of her family/people she knew are dead, and maybe leaving Middle-Earth seemed a good time at the time. Athough personally, it seems like a stutifying place...
That's a meme I can get behind! Maybe there's a Finwean jawline too? Or lips...
Really? Facepalming? If so, I hope it's not because anything I said or failed to say! Re-reading my comment, it seems a bit of a ramble...
I should have said, really, that I very much approve of one of Tolkien's unnamed wives getting to tell her story from her point of view! And we don't hear enough about the point of view of the northern Sindar either.
When I asked about Anoriel's motives for going to Valinor, it was precisely because in the story she comes across as a bit sceptical about the Valinorean hype; at least that is how I read her reactions. But admittedly the fact that so many of her family were dead and Hithlum was gone is a strong reason to leave!
P.S. I believe Fingon's wife actually had a name at one point, Erien. Only Erien was not the mother of Gil-Galad, so she wasn't really the same woman...
Oh, no, it's just going back and re-reading it is a daunting experience for me. I really hate reading my own writing. It's a weird thing for me.
Anyway, yes - I actually really enjoy reading fic that expand on these forgetten women. Although I think I can remember only fic that focused exclusively on Gil-galad's mother.
Ah, I actually wrote the part of her leaving before I wrote the rest, so the fact that she was leaving was set from the start. Although, now having this discussion with you, it seems like she should have stayed. Although, poor Gil gets it too, so there's just more trauma in the future.
There's a touch of Charles and Diana about this tale: or maybe not, I don't want to offend anybody by casting Maedhros as Camilla, in this kingdom or any other... tee hee! Still, I found your rendering believable and sympathetic...
(“Living outside the Girdle of Melian means more than uncertainty and danger. It means that we needed as many allies as we can get, and there is no doubt that these Lechind are strong and powerful.”)
I would ask: are Anoriel and her father Dark Elves, and if so aren't they exiles from Doriath not owing loyalty to Thingol, or indeed does this only apply to Eol? Either way it doesn't really matter, I enjoyed the scene between father and daughter... aspects of both Rigoletto and La Traviata in reverse.
Haha! I hadn't thought of it like that. It's not very flatter to either party, is it? But they are both ginger, though. And I was thinking about unhappy royal couples, so Charles and Diana may have snuck in there...
I suppose I assumed that the elves who lived outside the Girdle, before the return of the Noldor, would owe at least a nominal allegiance to Thingol.
This is such a thought provoking piece- your story telling is perfect. It's a well worn tale over the centuries really, isnt it- but still resonates and I like the glimpses we get that tell everything, Maedhros, the chilly Galadriel, that fleeting reference to Orodreth. Brilliant.
This is such a thought provoking piece- your story telling is perfect. It's a well worn tale over the centuries really, isnt it- but still resonates and I like the glimpses we get that tell everything, Maedhros, the chilly Galadriel, that fleeting reference to Orodreth. Brilliant.
This is such a thought provoking piece- your story telling is perfect. It's a well worn tale over the centuries really, isnt it- but still resonates and I like the glimpses we get that tell everything, Maedhros, the chilly Galadriel, that fleeting reference to Orodreth. Brilliant.
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.