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: Potluck Bingo Sit down to a delicious selection of prompts served on bingo boards, created by the SWG community.
Bingo Cards Wanted for Potluck Bingo Our November-December challenge will be Potluck Bingo, featuring cards created by you! If you'd like to create cards or prompts for cards, we are taking submissions.
Tolkien Meta Week, December 8-14 We will be hosting a Tolkien Meta Week in December, here on the archive and on our Tumblr, for nonfiction fanworks about Tolkien.
New Challenge: Orctober Orcs on a quest for freedom seek a place sheltered and safe from the Dark Lord. Fulfill prompts to gather the clues needed to bring them to freedom.
The majority of the Silmarillion was penned by a single Elf--an Elf who was so thoroughly written out as to appear only through the ways in which their perspective shaped the stories we see. This is their story, the historian's history, the Pennas Pengolodh.
The Exiles of Gondolin come to Sirion. The residents of Sirion welcome them, and friendship blossoms between the last remaining loremaster of Gondolin and a young poet of Sirion.
Fingon returns to Barad Eithel after a late-autumn hunt, finding someone unexpected with his wife. The night takes an even more unexpected turn for all three of them.
A series of articles featuring fan-made maps of all the lands of Arda. Part III explores the island of Númenor and mainland Middle-earth during the Second Age.
A series of articles featuring fan-made maps of all the lands of Arda. Part III explores the island of Númenor and mainland Middle-earth during the Second Age.
A reworking of the 2018 article for Long Live Feedback that includes data from the 2020 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey, pointing to a lack of comments as related to skill, confidence, and community connection.
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features fiction, artwork, and essays that transcend the idea of Orcs as the enemy, instead considering their humanity.
Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2024
LotR SESA has been ongoing for twenty-one years and is running again this year as a prompt meme hosted on AO3 for all genres of Tolkien-based fanfiction.
Kiliel Week 2024
Kiliel Week is a Tumblr event for fanworks about the Kili/Tauriel pairing.
November challenge at tolkienshortfanworks
The challenge for November has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. Thematic prompt: refuge. Formal challenge: include imitation of a sound. As always, these can be filled independently and also freely combined with SWG and other challenges. New participants welcome!
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.
Every line screamed ‘Galadriel’. I like how different the first two are from the last one. She was restless and very proud and it’s clear how she matured as she found her place in Middle Earth (though the pride is still there).
Thank you--I'm very glad that you think I got her right!
Yes, a great many things have happened between the first two and the last one, and they've all had their effect on her. She is not the kind of person who would ever lose her pride entirely, I think, but it has become leavened with more complex emotions.
"... it is almost possible to believe that you were not really party to the Flight of the Noldor, that you were just going on a trip of exploration and accidentally got mixed up with us at Alqualonde."
All with her cousin, Teleporno, of course. :D
But that aside, I love this. Galadriel is always strong, of course, but it is good to see her vulnerable too, and maturing too.
Do you know you are the first person who commented on this story to take notice of that sneaky allusion to the alternate version in HoME? I suppose it is perhaps not entirely polite to the Professor, but I enjoyed working it in in a way that made sense to me.
My Celeborn, of course, is proud to be a Sinda and is neither Tele- nor -porno!
I'm very glad you think it works as a character study of Galadriel!
I love your characterisation of Galadriel in these little pieces. Her musings on the beaches of Losgar are a little heart-breaking - I love that she considers sending a message "home", so to say, and then realises how futile that would be. Her conversation with Finrod actually made me laugh out loud. Finrod's observation is so spot-on! "Does not apply" - keep telling yourself that, Professor. XD And finally, I loved the idea that Galadriel wasn't so much subject to "fading" after Nenya lost her power, but simply suffered from the same effect as Frodo. Finally-finally, your reconstruction of how the phial was made was also fascinating - and beautifully written, like all of these. This was excellent!
Glad you enjoyed my attempts to make sense of Galadriel and her arc!
Yes, I couldn't resist the attempt to poke a little fun, gently, at the Professor and his Galadriel AU.
As for the fading, I'm not denying it as such, since it's clearly a thing, but it seemed to me that it might have been a bit more and other than that, in Galadriel's case.
Wow. I simply loved this. Galadriel is a character we don't see much in Silmfic (for whatever reason!), and you've managed to capture so much of her character, so keenly and poignantly and in so few words, across the span of her history. You show both her pride and her vulnerability--Galadriel the little sister/cousin whom others feel they must still protect--and also her strength and the kind of no-nonsense wisdom that likely led her to survive when others did not. (I loved how she washed her hands of worry about her father under the observation--the very true observation!--that she could do nothing for him. That felt very true to her character.)
The line about feeling Endore being ripped out of her by the roots really struck me for whatever reason. Something, maybe, about an attachment that she felt toward the land and its people, shown in her help toward the Fellowship (evidenced in the final, stunning double-drabble) when others would abandon them.
I'm very glad you think I've managed to capture some of Galadriel's character here!
I don't know about issues others might have, of course, but I do find her quite difficult because there is such an unusual amount of source material, but it is so disparate and sometimes contradictory and has worrying gaps. As I'm not even trying to write a Galadriel novel, I don't feel the need to solve everything, but I was trying to get a feel for her.
I know others have questioned Galadriel's attitude to Endore and Lothlorien (especially from a post-colonial or anti-Noldorin angle), but I rather see her as gradually engaging more and more fully and more deeply, over the Ages--and I feel that this makes her both stronger against Sauron and in support of the Fellowship and, in the end, more vulnerable.
It's really good to hear that the final drabble works for you here as it does! It was written much later, for a different challenge, and I only decided to add it to the earlier pieces after I had written it.
<i>He makes her impatient sometimes, does Findekano. She knows it is partly jealousy. He has so clearly arrived where he was going, in Hithlum, in Beleriand. She has not. She has quite a long way still to go.</i>
I like your depiction of a younger Galadriel who does not quite understand the implications of her new reality. You can see here that Finrod is the eldest. Well done!
Thank you very much for your comments on the chapters of this fic!
Galadriel has perhaps not lost quite as much as she thinks, at that moment. But Middle-earth and especially Lothlorien had very much become part of her, so it does feel as if she is losing that part of herself.
Of course, if readers read LOTR first and the Silmarillion later, as they still mostly do, they usually only work out afterwards the extent to which the Star Glass condenses all that!
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.