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.
Subscribe to the SWG Newsletter
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.
This is a wonderful story to start the month! I am so accustomed by now to super-serious!Third-Age!Elrond and Elros-the-ancestor-of-all-the-badass-Edain that seeing them as they are here--as little more than adolescents, still struggling with their place in the world and still angsty--is really an interesting change for me. And I love how you've done their characters somewhat the opposite of how fanon often has them in youth: for example, Elrond's admitted impetuosity and lack of diplomacy and Elros's sharp political mind, able to comprehend the power of so small a change as his name will make. This moves quite beyond the characterization of the twins as, respectively, bookish and impetuous, and in Elrond's case, it certainly implies a considerable evolution of character over the years to become the lord of Imladris that we will someday meet in LotR. At the same time, you show glimpses of their futures, as when Elrond heals Maglor's hand; in the end, I feel that they are intriguing and complex as you have written them.
And the ending! Indy, this made tears prickle my eyes: "He pulled me into a hug and I embraced him, memorizing what he felt like in my arms."
Again, you have written a beautiful story that will be the perfect of two bookends to Akallabeth in August--thank you! :)
It is an interesting change, because I can\'t see Elrond at this point in time going, \"Okay, have fun being a mortal\" when he\'s lost everything (and in this \'verse, is now living among virtual strangers). And that does play into his actions/reactions here. It does mean a \"considerable evolution,\" and deliberate choices to behave in certain ways. I can\'t see Elros as not having a political mind, due to both who raised him and what he\'ll become. I\'m glad you feel they\'re complex, because we have only so much to work with! :D\r\n\r\n*grins* I\'m glad. Pure extrapolation from the last time I saw my twin.\r\n\r\nThank you!
You portray them beautifully, the difference between Elrond and Elros, who wants different things in live. Elros was frightened by the thought of living forever watching the world change around him, a fear, which as a mortal, I identify.
I wonder after the end of Third Age when time of the Elves passed and the world waned and his daughter chose mortality as well, if Elrond ever regretted his choice as a mortal.
Love how Gilgalad comforted Elrond in his own way. They are indeed have much in common.
You aren\'t the only one!\r\n\r\nI\'m glad you think I portray their differences well. Wow-- I\'m glad you can identify with that, for I\'m more like Elrond! (Though obviously still mortal. :P)\r\n\r\nI don\'t think he ever regretted it, but wondered, yes.\r\n\r\nThey do indeed! Which is one of the reasons I hope to expand this someday.\r\n\r\nThank you for reading!
Indy, this is a wonderful tale - I love the differences between the brothers' personalities and even their choice of patronymics, and the sense of inevitability to the choices made. Wonderfully told!
Thank you! It wasn\'t hard for me to imagine the love-- I\'m a twin myself, and can only imagine what Elrond and Elros went through. And the conflict obviously flows from that. I\'m glad you liked it. :D
Oh, what a moving story. I have rarely read younger Elrond stories and even fewer of stories of this nature. You did a wonderful job capturing how conflicted he was. Very moving and the end had me nearly in tears.
Thank you so much! I\'m glad you took a chance on reading it even though you normally don\'t. *grins* Is it bad that I\'m glad I nearly brought you to tears? I was hoping for that effect.
Indy, as noted in another venue, the interaction of Elrond and Elros rings with such authenticity: twin brothers, so much alike yet with what will grow to be a chasm of difference between them. In a short story, you have captured nuanced and distinctive character in each young man. Their uncertainly comes across clearly, and you have made it clear that they have not lived easy lives. I have the privilege of seeing Elrond in a much later time, and what you have done with his younger version truly connects with the seasoned man. And the brief interaction with Maglor is touching. A very emotional piece without stooping to overt sentimentality.
On a technical note, kudos on the effective PoV switches! That worked quite well!
Thank you so much! I am truly stunned at the response this fic has recieved. Rather than rewrite and expand it, I\'m going to write the story I had hoped to tell as another story entirely-- I don\'t want to mess this up.[br][br]I\'m gratified that my characterizations are believable given all the fanon about this seperation, especially in light of what you know of the \"future\" Elrond.[br][br]*laughs* Maglor just walked in and refused to leave. And he would know more than most what estrangement is.[br][br]I\'m glad it wasn\'t overly sentimental-- it\'s a fine line.[br][br]Thank you-- it\'s the major problem in first person POV story with jumping viewpoints, so I\'m glad they worked.
An interesting take on that very difficult time in Elros and Elrond’s lives. As others have said, your young Elrond is quite different than the Third-Age Elrond I am more familiar with. Clearly, he had a lot of growing and learning to do. And yet, I find your characterizations of the twins to be convincing and believable.
This was well written and the ending, very moving.
I\'m glad you find the characterizations believable. It\'s difficult to make them different than the common portrayal (or the canon one thousands of years later) and yet still recognizable.
I can happily add my review to the chorus of superlatives: this is a splendid, very touching story. I agree with what's been said about the portrayals of Elrond and Elros; I like Maglor's appearance too. I love the allusion to the Valar's attitude toward the peoples of Beleriand, and I nodded at what Elrond mentioned about belonging to the House of Feanor (and the potential reception of it).
I really LOVE that you've given us such a thought-provoking insight into the extremely difficult choices that had to be made by the relatively young and inexperienced brothers.
One minor thing: Andor won’t be inhabitable for years, so I have time to learn.
I think you might want to change the above and have either: Andor will be inhabitable, or Andor won't be habitable.
I\'m delighted that you liked Maglor\'s appearance-- it was the part I was most worried about. And the Valar… Yes, I have problems with them.
They were hard choices, and especially in my \'verse, they had no one to talk about it with except each other.
\"Inhabitable\" was suggested to me by Pandë, and I just now double-checked in the dictionary: I\'m using it correctly. Uninhabitable is what Andor is during the story.
"Inhabitable" was suggested to me by Pandë, and I just now double-checked in the dictionary: I'm using it correctly. Uninhabitable is what Andor is during the story.
My apologies, then. My dictionary says: "habitable" = fit for habitation; "inhabitable" = not suitable for habitation. That's why I thought you had this wrong. Well, each day once can learn something new :).
Others have praised your Elros and Elrond (who are indeed worthy of praise), so I'll just throw in a quick word to say how much I enjoyed your Gil-galad. Yes, he would be the exact person for Elros to speak with regarding suddenly coming into kingship at a young age and with limited experience. It's nice to see him as part of this story and imagine what influence he would have had over Elros' leadership strategies in later years. Really nicely done.
*grins* Thank you! I think too many forget or fail to recognize how hard of a time he would have had with it, especially since he came into it just before the War of Wrath. And wars have a way of making or breaking leaders. Yet he survived it with his position intact and founded a realm. In doing so, he\'s able to help Elros learn how to do the same.
Just lovely and heartwarming--your explanation for the twins' choices is very convincing. Their parting greeting to each other was perfect and such a simple tear jerker, at least for me. Maglor's appearance helped in many ways as well.
Thank you! Their parting words just flowed, and I\'ve been wanting to use the Tolkien quote in a fic for a while now, so I was ecstatic when I realized it fit. Yes, it did, didn\'t it? :)
Eli read this to me while I was away, and so I think I got a special treat. I love how you write Elrond's POV. I really enjoy your Gil galad. You did a really beautiful job with the emotional werstling, and the acceptance. This is truly a beautifully written story. Thank you for sharing it with us. It sounds every bit as wonderful read aloud as it looks on the page. "hugs"
*hugs* Thank you so much, and thank Eli as well for reading it to you! I\'m glad it reads well aloud, since I normally don\'t read anything I write aloud. I\'m delighted you enjoy both Elrond and Gil-galad. Again, thank you!
Just want to say this is lovely! Especially like the relationship between Maglor and Elrond. I can never get enough of this time period and think this is one of the most beautiful execution's I've come across.
I don't know if I ever reviewed this. It a very nice story! I loved this line: "I am a bonfire, brilliant while it lasts. You are a lampstone, steady and long-lasting.”
I am more like Elrond in your story, I'll always "rage against the dying of the light" and need more time! But you handle the differences in perspective here very well and give a better explanation for me of Elros' choice than my own.
Thank you! I'm glad that line worked for you; it was a bit hard to figure out a non-cliche version of it.
I'm more like Elrond, too. (Though maybe if we had Elros' lifespan…) I'm glad the perspectives worked for you and that you think Elros' choice makes sense here.
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.