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.
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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.
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Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
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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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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.
Elrond stood in the doorway clutching his favourite quilt—one of two such that Círdan gifted to the boys at their birth
Awwww, what a lovely little detail!!! I love this so much, Cirdan would have been so good with the boys <3
his confidence was crumbling under the weight of his childrens’ scepticism.
LOL!!!
The press of their warm bodies against him doubled the love in his heart and it spilled over, tears gathering along the rims of his eyes. How he wished he could stay like this forever.
Oh my heart! We wish they could have stayed that way forever, too!
‘Did you not?’ Eärendil tutted, feigning offence. ‘You underestimate me!’
‘Mm,’ she said, eyes falling shut. ‘No, I assure you I do not. Good night, Liantenehtar.’
Aaaahhhh I love this so much!!! Good dad Earendil <3!
Thank you for reading and commenting! I've been thinking about them and about Sirion a lot lately (for a longer WiP, but also because it's such a fascinating place and period in Middle-earth history) and so this kind of naturally came together as a way of using the prompt.
this is a beautiful image of their family! I love that Elrond and Elros get to spend some time with their father, and this is for sure super quality time! I also really really like the image when Earendill scoops up Elrond in his arms, it's so cute!! aww
Nevermind Eärendil, my breath was held with the excitement! This is such a classic in so many ways! I can really see them sitting in their bed, with the blankie pulled up, wide-eyed in rapt attention at their dad, who was already a hero in their eyes!
And his tale... their grandfather's axe, seven strikes, the glowing jewels flowing from "Goliant's" sliced belly, and all forty leagues from Sirion!
Ah, again, this scene is so vivid, sitting on the log, fronts warmed by the fire while their backs are chilled, so different from the comfort of their beds. And receiving no comfort from Maglor like they did from their dad.
I like the way you've evoked Círdan's presence in their lives in both chapters, very much with uncle/godfather feels. (not The Godfather! Although, now my brain mentions it... )
Maglor's projection of his guilt into their view of him, and their actual thoughts, are just so real and relatable, as are their respective reactions to the spider, and its squishing.
And the total disintegration of their family unit with Maedhros' departure is such a mood.
Belo! Behold! Belode!... this is just too adorable, and I hereby designate it a recognised exclamation! I'll be using it at the first opportunity!
I appreciate Amrod being thrown under the bus here. Just because they're the babies Ambarussa seem to be seen as the sweetest (and receive a get-out-of-mandos-free card the easiest), yet the youngest are often the naughtiest and/or nastiest. (maybe because they can get away with it easier thanks to their cuteness.) And fans often forget about them with the line about the sons of Fëanor leaving the El-twins in the cave, or assume the four brothers acted in accord.
Poor Mags, having to face yet one more ugly truth about his family.
And even if he thinks his poem needs some work, the twins were pretty impressed with it, and I am too!
I am happy you noticed and appreciated the references to Cirdan. I've been thinking a lot about Sirion and the childhood of Elrond and Elros recently and I think there must have been so many other people who loved them there besides their parents. A lot of emphasis gets placed, I think, on the absence of their father which a) he may not have been quite as absent as we tend to assume (as I've tried to show in chapter 1) and b) there were so many other people there who might have been involved in their upbringing! Cirdan seems to me like a guy who would have made a good "uncle"/godfather. I headcanon he was a bit like that for Earendil and Elwing when they were kids, too.
The projection of guilt thing arose because when I realised when I started writing this that *I* was projecting Maglor's feelings onto them and it felt wrong but I didn't know why. Then I happened to have a conversation with a 9-year-old (and still so young, even at that age!) and realised what I needed to do to fix it.
Hahaha I was definitely smiling to myself when 'Belode!' came out. Then fretting that I was getting childhood linguistic development all wrong but you know what... they're peredhil so their brain development is wishy-washy at best.
It's funny you say that about the cave story, because it was actually because of some comments someone left on that post I made on tumblr a few months ago, where I pointed out that the sons of Feanor did not find them there but rather left them there, that I developed this headcanon about Amrod (and Amras) at the third kinslaying. Basically the person pointed out that theoretically Amrod and/or Amras could have left them there and Maedhros and/or Maglor could have found them. I don't find that reading super convincing but I admit it's possible! and I do like it as a way of reconciling the narratives, and (most importantly) it made me think more about A&A's role at Sirion. I think it's easy, because they're never noted for doing anything particularly special, to assume they were just "along for the ride". So the passage in Annals of Beleriand is so fascinating to me. I can imagine the Sindar telling horror stories of the terrible twin Feanorians... just when you think you've escaped one, there's another one with exactly the same maniacal face staring you down! Anyway, long digression. One day I hope to write more about them.
Thank you for your kind words on the verse. I don't really have the patience for poetry but I wanted to give it a shot for the challenge.
Yeah, Círdan is just this solid, stable, head-screwed-on-right background presence throughout. Maybe it's his close relationship with Ulmo and water...
Oh! That's interesting about your conversation with a nine year old — we think we can remember what it was like, but our memories are not only coloured but recoded by experiences, so this is a good reminder to check with a good current source!
That someone suggesting Ambarussa hid the twins in the cave might have been me. It's how I initially read it, although I've never settled on whether their motive was beneficent or malicious — and perhaps M&M weren't always too sure either, although in this case Maglor knew they were deranged. I think I've only read one other fic (Idle by Dawn) where Ambarussa were wonderfullly downright ugly, and this is the first fic I've read relating them to the cave, and it's refreshing!
Oh yes, I have read Idle! Loved that. Pengolodh and horrible Ambarussa.
and yeah, I am sure Cirdan's proximity to the sea has something to do with his good sense ;).
(I know I commented already but)
I love how Maglor's own guilt comes out in how he perceives the Twins' expressions. I love how weary Maglor is already, of all of it, but only made worse by the persistent questions of "why can't we go home." I bet he kind of feels the same way... :(
Thank you! I have really enjoyed writing little kids for this (I have been around them in real life recently, so that may have something to do with it) and I may have to write more. Thank you for coming back to read this chapter and leaving a comment.
Oh my gosh, this is so cute! Earendil as the mighty Spider-slayer made up as a story to reassure his small children... It seems especially appropriate since some of Tolkien's stories began as bedtime stories for his children! (I can sympathize with their fear of spiders, haha.)
I like the more serious twist you've added here, too. Maglor putting their father's story in poetry as the first thread of connection between him and the two children... And Maglor's self-reproach and ambivalent feelings are just the kind of Silmarillion angst I enjoy!
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.