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.
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.
[Writing] No Time Have I by Flora-lass
A Silmarillion acrostic.
[Writing] I called it Fate that I should fail by AdmirableMonster
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…
[Writing] All of you by chrissystriped
Elrond and Celebrían celebrate their anniversary with their family.
[Writing] Lament for the Singer by daughterofshadows
A short thing about Maglor, death and grieving.
[Writing] Cosmological Poems of Arda by AaronAzrael
I would like to share my revelations of Tolkien's Universe in the form of narrative and emotional poems.
[Writing] Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael
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…
[Artwork] Map of Valinor by Aprilertuile
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
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 ...
Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]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.
Passing Ships by Simon J. Cook
[]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.
Fanfiction and the Serious Business of Writer's Craft by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]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.
[Writing] Staging a Battle by StarSpray
[]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.
[Writing] From whose bourn no traveller returns by losselen
[]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.
[Writing] Sand Sorcery by StarSpray
[]It is well known that Psamathos does not leave his cove. He does not like to get his feet wet, and prefers to spend his days dozing under the sun.
Fellowship of the Fics: Summer Stories 2024
Fellowship of the Fics offers four weeks of summer-themed prompts during the month of July.
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.
July 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals
Conferences and publications that have open calls for papers and proposals in July 2024.
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.
An interesting take on what this meeting might be like. Poor Nerdanel, getting all the information on the events second hand. And yet her heart didn't break until she got the news of Maitimo. The waiting really is the hardest. You handled the situation believably and poignantly.
Thank you for your kind words. I know that many people consider Nerdanel to have survived. But in my opinion, if any elf would die of grief...it should be her, the poor woman. Maitimo alone didn't *really* send her over the edge. It was just so much bad news, all at once...and that was the last part. But he is definitely hearing "It's all my fault."
Oh this one is lovely, it is sad and bittersweet and just very veyr nice to read! Very well done!
I like how Nerdanel lingered and remained strong until she finally was given the news on what had befallen her family on the other side of the sea, how she no longer recognised the sons sh had once brought up and how that brokeher heart. Very nicely done. I always like Nerdanel and trying to imagine her reactions once she finds out what has happened to her sons.
I also very much liked the touch of how it was the mention of daughters that had estranged Feanor and Nerdanel in the first place, a lovely touch which with the backstory and the odd ways couple works is a very beleivable and human touch.
very nicely written
Nerdanel fascinates me. She must be the only elf to have *seven* children (and all sons at that!), and of course she's the only one who could ever influence Fëanor. I see her as very strong and...unflappable, as well as wise. *Not* the type of elf who would usually die of grief! But the news from Middle Earth would definitely have pierced her heart like a sword. I tried to think of what seemingly innocent comment of hers would make Fëanor suspicious enough to lose his trust in her - and the daughters seemed innocuous and unreasonable enough! Thank you so much for the review, ford_of_bruinen!
I cannot help to wonder what Maedhros is learning to discover the rules and boundaries in Mandos :) It feels like a story on its own. I was however unfamiliar with Fourth Station of the Cross, so I searched for it, read up about it and read the story anew. To me it surely placed the story in a new light. I will admit that I felt disappointed of Nerdanel not understanding the hearts of her sons that they would pursue the oath with such fire and that this mere fact undid her (also Mithluin, I wasn't so sure why Nerdanel was there and the realisation that she was dead came at a perfect timing). Yet it makes sense, for her to remain faithful to her husband and sons: not willing to believe (like Mary remained faithful to her son Jesus when all his disciples fled). However, it is her sadness here, a sadness in her heart she has to share and this comes out beautifully in this piece. In her own way, she is seeking for her own healing and redemption and seeking out her eldest feels like a good start.
Besides this theme, I like your take on how Fëanor reacted to having daughters and how he would see it as a weakness to have them. This might be a taboo to address this patriarchal behaviour and people might fault Fëanor for that, but there is such grief lying underneath it, so I feel its fair to give Fëanor a hearsay about this in Mandos (oops I hope I just didn't sick a bunny on you). Ok I am going to cease rambling, there is much more I want to say about this piece, but I will safe that for another time. This is a great story and gives the reader much to ponder about!
</i>*It feels like a story on its own.*<i>
It is! :) This particular WiP is called 'Lessons from the Mountain,' and it begins with Maedhros' death and judgement. Thank you for such a thoughtful review, Rhapsody! I am flattered that you looked up the Stations of the Cross to understand it better. Nerdanel perhaps should have known them all better, but she was reacting to the shock. The last she heard from them was Alqualondë and the Doom of Mandos. To hear that they had *all* died (except Maglor, who was still lost to her)...was just too much. Also, if she had heard the story from someone a bit more...sympathetic...to the Fëanoreans, she might have understood it better. Instead, she's hearing that her oldest ended as a thief and a murderer, universally condemned. No doubt she is blaming herself for not staying with them..what did she do wrong as a mother? and all that.
I agree that the daughter idea is very...charged. I hoped to show that Fëanor's complaint had little to do with patriarchy (the man had 7 male heirs, after all!), but was more his own deepest-seated insecurity and fear of betrayal. His mother abandoned him, and his father (alone of all elves) married another woman. Nerdanel has always been his steady anchor </i>apart<i> from all of that...so it was the only way I could think of to identify her with Indis in his mind. Not that he would ever admit any of this! Which is why Maedhros' conversation with Fëanor is going to be quite...interesting...when I write it ;).
Thank you again for such a kind and insightful review!
I often wonder what Nerdanel would have said to her sons if she were to meet any of them. This is a very interesting, bittersweet take on a possible meeting. The reference to the Way of the Cross makes your story more poignant. This is a wonderful read. Thank you. I enjoyed it very much.
Yes, we hear so little from Nerdanel that it is hard to know what she would say, given the chance! If it makes you feel any better, I imagine her finding healing in Mandos and being restored to life. Thank you for the kind review.
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