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
Turgon's Rock Opera
On the anniversary of the publication of "The Silmarillion," we’re reflecting on the importance of music in Arda with prompts that come from rock songs. 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.
I loved this the first time you showed it to me, and it does not become worse for reading both second and third times. :)
The first time around, Maedhros was the one who jumped at my eyes, his pain and the depth he has sunk to are so very obvous by the stupor he sits in, and the anger and reproaches he aims at Fingon. This time however it is the Valiant Fingon who stirs my heart. He who has sacrificed much to come to the rescue of his kin is not reaping any gratitude or recognition. He has cried his bitter and fearing tears over having doomed his cousin to this existence, and at this point in time, he is just numb - and instead of hope he has stubbornness. Poor Fingon. Luckily though not as numb as he thinks himself, when he fights the shadows in Maedhros and wins.
Thank you so much for sharing this story here - it was a delight to reread.
I remember writing it as if in a frenzy and sharing bits and pieces with you as I went :) It was a blast, wasn't it? And then your fab drawing to complete the portrayal of Maedhros :D Thank you a million for your constant support and shaking pom poms :) Surprising arrivals of new muses are indeed very thought-provoking. Lucky me ;)
Every time I read this piece again, something else just jumps at me. It is not so much a happy piece, a test of wills where Fingon is confronted with his actions. Valiant vs the concequences of such deeds, did he actually really think things through properly and considered what Maedhros actually wanted. Again, Binks, this is a fabulous take about the aftermath of Thangorodrim: you bring anger and raw emotions to the surface, not to much, but with the gritty relalistic writers touch that I don't see often when it comes down to these two. It simply jumped off the screen and then you realise how fast you are drawn into this piece. Well done!
Thank you :) It was a very interesting experience, and I'm glad it worked. I do love when stories seem to write themselves, as if someone really whispers words into my ear, and all I need is to type them :)
Thanks again for your review and constant support :D
Binka, thank you again for the story. I just read it again with the same delight that I read it the first two times. The passion, madness, intensity ... wow. And the ending is very touching. I don't think I noted this the first time that I read it, but I found the ending very poignant, very well done.
Wow! Robinka, this is a very powerful take on Maedhros' post-Thangorodrim state of mind and the profound damage he must have suffered. He's precariously balanced at the edge of a knife between sanity and madness. All of the piece is compelling (loved the intensity of the dialogue between Maedros and Fingon and its bittersweet resolution), but your first paragraph is simply fabulous. It drew me immediately into the story.
It was a blast, I can tell you. The muse simply broke the door here and sat me in front of the screen commanding, "Write!". Who was I to argue? And it was the very first time I wrote Fingon :) I'm really glad that my idea worked. Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to leave a review. :D
Beautifully done! I like the way Meadhros has withdrawn, and it isn't clear he will ever be coming back - until faced with Fingon's refusal to let him go.
The contrast between the room - fire-lit, musty etc.. and the outside world - the night air, Maedhros' brothers waiting out there... really worked well for me. I loved this bit about the bat - "he looked up to see a bat meandering in hasty circles". It was a bat all over, and for me it just emphasised the contrast between the room and the free and open world outside the window, where a bat is chasing moths. (Oh - I quite like bats btw, so I can see that people who don't have a very different take on the scene! Worked for me though!)
I finish with the comment Pandemonium gave me... What happens next?
Thank you tons for your wonderful review :D I'm really happy that you found the story interesting and that the details you pointed out worked :) As for your question, I wish I could say, "and they lived happily ever after" *sigh* Maybe my Nelyo muse will decide to tell me one fine day ;)
Once again, thank you very much for taking the time to read and review :)
This is very powerful and thought provoking. I am particularly interested because I have been writing the same story from a totally different perspective—the same impulse but a polar opposite way to get to this point. I decided to tell the story as though Maedhros seems almost preternaturally normal (excuse the contradiction in terms there). He appears to be too well to be true and it is only over the passage of time that Fingon begins to realize the full extent of the damage that he is hiding. Who knows if I can do it; because it is a much slower process, I have barely started after writing some nearly 50,000 words on the subject.
And, yet, when I read yours, I see the same people. I find the characterization very strongly based in the bits of canon that we have for their story. I completely believed in your interpretation when I read this.
Thank you so very much for your kind words. I admit I was pretty uncertain about this ficlet. My Nelyo muse came around quite unexpectedly, besides this was the very first time I wrote Fingon. I'm so happy to hear that my idea worked :D It was a very interesting experience. Once again, thank you a lot for taking the time to read and leave a review. :)
I’ve read this quite a few times, and by now I think it’s quite overdue for a review from me. You’ve got everything just right – the mood, the dynamic between the two of them – it’s moving, and powerful, and overall just excellent. Good work. (Although, I have to ask: the quote you chose for the beginning was an interesting choice – why that song?)
Thank you very much for taking the time to letting me know that you like my story, and more and more thank yous for reading it several times! I'm very happy to hear that and I appreciate your kind words.
As for the song, well, Linkin' Park is one of the bands I really like. When I wrote this ficlet, (and it was a very sudden impulse to be honest. I looked at the flame in my oven and thought: And Maedhros stared at the fire. Then, Of course! Dawn! And I ran to my desk and wrote it.), these lines lingered in my head, so I thought that I'd add them to underline the desperation, both Fingon's and Maedhros' -- the song seems a call for help, but at the same time is very rebellious in tone.
I'd call this a lovely piece, but there isn't anything lovely about it - which is why it's so good. An asture reader knows there had to be a lot of pain in the aftermath of Thangorodrim, not just for Maedhros ('...the shadow of his pain was in his heart'), but for Fingon and theo ther sons of Feanor as well, who are going to have to accept the reality that some hurts they can't heal.
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.