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
Naturalist's Guide to Middle-earth
Sneak a peek into notebooks of the scholars and explorers of Middle-earth, with prompts that are images from historical naturalist publication. 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 didn't realise that I was holding my breath until the very end, what a build up. I wonder what argument they had, but the regret on both sides is so immensely palpable. It feels to me that Elros managed to move beyond it, whereas for Elrond reality just sank in. Most of all I love the ending, I love how Elros goes out with his son and grandson to meet his people for that last time, as if he would want to say goodbye to his great family gathered outside on the square. That image will stay with me for a while.
I think I've spotted a typo in your author's notes, though. If Gil-galad was Fingon's son, he and Elrond would be first cousins twice removed, not thrice: Gil-galad would have been Idril's first cousin. He would have therefore been Earendil's first cousin once removed, and Elrond's and Elros' first cousin twice removed.
That's a minor niggle, though, against the enjoyment of the rest of the story. I only point it out because I'm certain that you'd want to correct it.
Thanks, Surgicial Steel. I will indeed make the correction. I must not have been paying attention. I am glad you enjoyed the story in spite of this minor error.
Very poigniant and touching. I enjoyed most hearing about Elros' wife and children. How hard it must have been for Elrond to say goodbye to his brother. I liked the ending very much
Thank you, Roisin. I am glad you enjoyed this story, especially hearing about Elros´ wife and children. It is a pity that Tolkien never mentioned who Elros married. She had to be an extra special person to capture his heart.
It was a very beautiful story. Reading so much about Elrond and Elros lately has made me really think about how hard it must have been, and their reasons for choosing as they did, and how the decision affected the other. You do a very lovely job of showing this interplay, and I particularly liked the ending. It reminded me that, at first, they lay down their lives when it was time. What an amazing concept of being ready and content with what you've done! Thanks for a great story.
Thank you, Fireworks, for your reivew. I am very pleased that you enjoyed this, especially the end. It is indeed an amazing concept and it is a pity we do not have that ability (if we ever did).
This is a very moving story. It gets an especial poignancy from the fact that Fiondil has taken the statement that Veantur was the first to sail back from Numenor to Middle-earth and made this the first contact between Numenor and Lindon after Elros’s death. Other stories on this theme that I’ve read have either assumed that Elrond and Elros were in telepathic contact (because they were twins or because of Elrond’s powers) or that Elvish mariners were sailing back and forth between Lindon and Numenor (or rather stopping at Numenor on their way to and fro from Tol Eressea). Thus, the loss of contact between Elrond and Elros after Elros’s departure is absolute, and this is the more painful, because in this version of the story Elrond clearly resented his departure. Their only chance of achieving closure is the penning of a letter that Elros cannot be entirely sure his brother will ever receive (although, in fact, he seems to be remarkably confident that Elrond will do so eventually). When Elrond does receive it, the fact that his brother has died is such a shock that it takes some time to sink in that, in fact, his brother died so long ago that in Numenorean terms another lifetime has passed; clearly for Elrond, living the life of the Eldar, the likelihood that Elros would have died by this time was by no means obvious. The pain is mitigated by the lovingly depicted supportive environment that Elrond, despite his early losses, now enjoys at Mithlond and, for the reader, by the fact that Elrond is apparently well on his way in his career as a healer. It is also mitigated by the success that Elros has made of his life in Numenor and the contentment he has achieved. The latter, however, is somewhat overshadowed by the knowledge that Elros’s achievements will in the end be ruined and lost by his descendants, because they themselves cannot be content the way he managed to be.
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.