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.
I enjoyed your take on those quotes from canon a LOT, especially how you cast two of the most revered Valar AND Olorin in an entirely different light (and form). ;-)
LMAO - this is weeeeiiird! And poor Olorin. The life of a voyeur is just so hard.
Ehem. Seriously, HoME is a seemingly endless source of strange information; these odd little tidbits can really tickle one's imagination. You made wonderful use of this one. :-)
The HoMe is a treasure trove of oddities and wonderful inconsistencies. This comic from Sheldon (and I'm probably violating the SWG's graphics policy by posting it here, but hey, I'm rebellious) sums up the HoMe:
Heh. The cartoonist is apparently a Tolkien aficionado. He has another one which pokes fun at the Tolkien estate, e.g., publishing JRRT's grocery list. :^D
Yep, JRRT was amazingly prolific and imaginative (to say the least).
Oh I so love the BotL *sighs*, one day I might be able to afford those PA's, they appear to be such a treasure of plotbunnies!
Anyhow, I love the humorous take on this encounter where Gandalf should not be where he just showed up, but oh well curious fella huh? Lorien must have his hands full with him if he recognises that scent immediately, perhaps the next time he's not fast enough?
This was a lovely take on how Valar can take any shape if they pleases, I do wonder who that elf is (from: So that is how the Elf was made to confront his hubris). Yes, I am curious too! Wonderful ficcage Pandemonium!
I far prefer the Valar of the BoLT, so between that and the science fictionish Notion Club Papers, they're morphed into something thoroughly unholy in my mind. I don't know if you'd recall this little tidbit, but when my Sauron, in Ch 11 "View from Barad-dûr" in The Apprentice says that the Valar are "manipulative monsters," he means it! :^D
As for the Elf, I highly recommend Ignoble Bard's "Fait Accompli." That is all I'll say because I am already risking spoilage. :^)
*nearly dies laughing* Oh dear Lord, Pandë, this isn't even the first time I've read this, but it never fails to make me collapse in laughter. Hooray for Lovecraft!Valar and stoner!Irmo! XD (also, voyeur!Olórin... *grins and shakes head at him*)
Heh. Thanks so much, K! This was a wildass crack!fic written for my pal, Ignoble Bard, who is the master of humo(u)rous Tolkien fan fic, and I'm pleased it not only amused him, but others, too. :^D
I don't really know how to react to this. There is a part of me that wants to congratulate you, another is too busy trying to breathe through the hysteric laughing fit I seem to have developed and the third is chanting "Ya ya Shub Niggurath!". So, I'll just tell you I loved it.
Jokes aside this is, in my opinion, a very good example of perfect parody of both Lovecraft's style and Tolkien. Still, from now on you have planted in my mind the image of Eru as Azatoth sleepin in the center of the universe serenaded by " the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes" played by the Ainur who didn't descend in Arda.
Just please, please. Tell me the elf the two Valar are talking about is Thingol. XD
Thanks a million, Valentis, for the review! I was writing this for Ignoble Bard, who is a master of humor in the Tolkien 'verse, so I had to step up my game for him.
"the image of Eru as Azatoth sleepin in the center of the universe serenaded by " the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes" played by the Ainur who didn't descend in Arda."
AH HAHAHAHA! That's fantastic! And subversively appropriate. :^D
For a more serious treatment of Tolkien in the style of Lovecraft, I heartily recommend Dawn Felagund's Hastaina. And the elf the two Valar discuss? His identity is revealed in Ignoble Bard's Fait Accompli. :^)
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.