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 ...
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 ...
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.
Oh, I liked this a lot! I love to think about the politics of who was placed where on that map of Beleriand and this does it well. I also like to think about the ways in which Maedhros interacted with his brothers. I think it answers the fanon cliché well. The almost forgotten pranks were hilarious and very nicely balanced against the ending where Maedhros reveals what I believe he truly must have felt.
"Of course I'm trying to protect you; you've not even turned one hundred yet! I'd put all my younger brothers in the south were it feasible, but it's not; as it is, I can hardly be faulted for doing what I can to ensure my baby brothers get at least a brief chance to enjoy their young adulthood before the burdens of war descend on us all. Don't be so eager to grow up, Ambarussa; it's a highly over-rated experience."
The beginning of the letter to Fingolfin is a perfect ending also.
I'm glad you liked it, Oshun! It's always fun to watch Maedhros being simultaneously clever and protective, and he really did handle both the tricky situation with his brothers and the political landmines of Beleriand well. And I like the idea that the fanon cliche of the twins as the brothers Weasley arose because once (whn the twins were young), it wasn't a cliche at all; they just never get the chance (before the Nirnaeth, at least) to live down their youthful reputation.
Oh what a wonderful take and I am delighted to see what you did with this challenge. It reads so smoothly - to me - after Devious Council and the energy of the twins (Fëanorian energy doubled) just sparkles of the screen here. I hope those two enjoy growing up a tad more in peace with the youthful silvans :)
... pair of rambunctious young Elves who once filled all the fountains in Grandfather's garden with frogs and salamanders right before his spring festival party, which was made rather… memorable… by their presence, since they kept hopping into people's plates and croaked so loudly the musicians were all but drowned out.
Oh this made me giggle so madly to imagine how the courtiers must have been shocked, or dismayed during this incidents: no music to be heard that also must have meant no political discourse at the tables. Wonderfully written!
I'm so glad you enjoyed the story, Rhapsody. "Devious Council" was on my mind when I was writing this; I know my Maedhros is certainly willing to manipulate his brothers for their own good, and if he can also realize some political gains in the process, that would be all thore more reason to do it. And you'll see more of the twins (or one of them, at least) in my next fic, and learn a bit about what they've been up to down in those woods...
And I love the thought of some prim Vanyar ladies shrieking in horror when frogs suddenly go hopping right into the middle of their plates just as they are ready to take a bite to eat. (I'm probably being unfair to the Vanyar, but I've always imagined them as rather prim and proper, as Elves go.) No Elegant Dining, no Witty Discourse (political or otherwise), no Tasteful Music that evening, only a rather nice fascimile of a primoridal swamp. The twins tell me that even the resulting punishment meted out by their furious grandfather was oh, so worth it!
Copy of my MEFA review:
Ithilwen has managed to turn one of the drier passages in the Silmarillion (which itself reads a bit like a geography lesson) into a moving story. What I like about this story is the way it manages to combine the subject of politics with insight into the relationships between family members. Maedhros's lesson in map-reading is very convincing in itself, showing his insight into political aims, necessary compromises and strategy, while, at the same time, it conceals his ulterior motives with regard to his brothers. If his arguments were any less lucid, they would presumably not serve to convince Amrod and Amras. For Amrod and Amras themselves are clearly not easily satisfied - Ithilwen has certainly met the terms of the Fanon Inverted challenge she set herself by making them much more responsible and strongly motivated than they are usually depicted. Given the eventual outcome of Maedhros's plotting, all this is bitter-sweet. The mutual affection between the three brothers under challenging circumstances is confirmed and, in fact, Maedhros's calculations will more or less work out on both counts, as ensuing events in Beleriand go on to show, especially after the Dagor Bragollach - but, in the end, all this will still not be enough to save Amrod and Amras (or, of course, Maedhros himself).
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