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.
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
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.
Imaginative and entertaining! I've always thought that story had a shady sound to it. I think I would tend to find a more straightforward explanation--e.g., they lied or exaggerated, perhaps she actually spent more time ruling than the history books said she did--than that of Barahir, but love that he tried to explain an unsatisfactory bit of history and particularly with a theory which reflected a clever woman's successful method of subverting a misogynistic system. (The older I get and the more I read, the more often I encounter contemporary sources which disprove historical pseudo-facts I learned at highly regarded universities!) Maybe Tolkien throws those details in to mimic real-world puzzles and half-truths that historians love to chase.
I'd like to try to read some of those Tumblr discussions. Perhaps I'll look, but usually the time expenditure in tracking them down and then following the threads wears me out. The more that people use Tumblr for intriguing discussions, the more I wish it were more easily searchable.
I'd loved the ending! Her reflections on her own history and her desire to be more supportive of his assumption that one might find stronger and more capable women than the histories reflect.
I'm so glad you enjoyed both parts, Oshun, Barahir's theory about Vanimelde and the ending, with Ivriniel looking back on her own life!
My actual take on the politics of Vanimelde is: Vanimelde Dances, and it's more straightforward, saying that what she was attempting was a kind of cultural politics and the historians missed the point, because they failed to grasp that there could be such a thing.
I did wonder briefly whether I should try and write Barahirs' theory as the plot of a canon divergence AU. But then I decided I would be more interested in writing the story, as well as get more of the theme of the challenge in, if there was a overarching narrative featuring a female historian rising above her beginnings and coaching a young historian.
I'm afraid I didn't file any links to those Tumblr discussions for future reference (I'm pretty sure there were at least two), because it was some time back and I didn't realize they would feed into a story. I might try and find and link them, but it would be a bit like a needle in a haystack, looking for them!
Fics where characters have the same discussions we do as readers are so much fun, because for them it's not fiction it's real history. Barahir's theory is an interesting one, and a great use of both prompts in this fic. I love budding-historian Barahir, and his relationship with Ivriniel.
That's an excellent theory, young Barahir, even though Ivriniel rightly points out the holes in the fabric. I do hope he'll continue to think about the hidden injustices of history. It is rather suspicious that so many Númenórean princesses weren't interested in the sceptre apparently, or that those who were supposedly didn't do a particularly great job! (But then, as the great Mary Beard has also observed, women not only have to fight harder to succeed, but also face much harsher judgement if they fail...)
Yes, I regret that I don't remember who raised this on Tumblr, about the Numenorean princesses, I think I saw it raised at least twice.
It's sort of striking, how the Numenorean succession is invoked to support Aragorn's right to the the throne of Gondor (via Firiel), but when Tolkien comes to write out the details of that succession, he seems so very lukewarm about all that. Well, I guess he always preferred all that about the straight male line from Isildur and the other claim was always very secondary to him. Nevertheless, he could have really done something with Telperien, for example, and that would have made Arvedui and Firiel's claim look better, but no.
I’ve always associated the Numenoreans with Ancient Egypt, so I’m in total agreement with this take! It is (as pointed out) a bit fanciful, but wouldn’t it be such a great story? I know your own fanon diverges, but I would 10/10 be down for a ficlet exploring this!
I'd be quite happy if someone decided to adopt this as a plot bunny and write it as a story!
I don't often write AUs to my own 'verse, though. As you see, it's not because I can't imagine other plots or fanons. It's more that once I've gotten a feel for a character, I usually find it difficult to tweak or switch their personality.
I'm glad you enjoyed this piece! Thank you for reading and commenting!
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.