New Challenge: Potluck Bingo
Sit down to a delicious selection of prompts served on bingo boards, created by the SWG community.
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: Potluck Bingo
Sit down to a delicious selection of prompts served on bingo boards, created by the SWG community.
Bingo Cards Wanted for Potluck Bingo
Our November-December challenge will be Potluck Bingo, featuring cards created by you! If you'd like to create cards or prompts for cards, we are taking submissions.
Tolkien Meta Week, December 8-14
We will be hosting a Tolkien Meta Week in December, here on the archive and on our Tumblr, for nonfiction fanworks about Tolkien.
New Challenge: Orctober
Orcs on a quest for freedom seek a place sheltered and safe from the Dark Lord. Fulfill prompts to gather the clues needed to bring them to freedom.
[Writing] Collection of Potluck Drabbles by Artano
This is a collection of true drabbles completed for the 'Four Words' drabble bingo card.
[Reference] Mapping Arda, Part III: The Second Age by Varda delle Stelle, Anérea
A series of articles featuring fan-made maps of all the lands of Arda. Part III explores the island of Númenor and mainland Middle-earth during the Second Age.
[Writing] Getting Dirty by Elleth
A collection of NSFW ficlets for the "Keep It Clean" bingo card of the 2024 Potluck Bingo.
[Reference] Doom and Ascent: The Argument of ‘Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics’ by Simon J. Cook
Simon reads 'Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics' to conclude his account of the Anglo-Saxon tower of its allegory.
[Artwork] 2024 Potluck Doodles by silmalope
Assorted prompt fills for the 2024 Potluck bingo boards, to varying degrees of completion! :)
[Artwork] A Collection of Maps Exhibiting the Changing Political Landscape in Beleriand by Artano
Created for the 'Geography/Maps/Places' prompt on the "Tolkien meta" bingo board, this is a collection of maps marked with the various people groups showing how they arrived and moved about Beleriand. This collection focuses specifically on the time from the arrival of the Teleri, Vanyar, and…
[Writing] On the Nature of the Sindar’s Hunting the Petty-dwarves by Artano
This is an analysis on whether the Sindar ate the Petty-dwarves during the years they hunted them, completed for the 'Literary Analysis' prompt on the "Tolkien Meta" bingo card.
Potluck Bingo
Help yourself to a collection of prompts on bingo boards designed by members and friends of the SWG. Read more ...
Inspiration
Your characters inspire you--but what inspires them? Consider what inspires your characters to act and create. Read more ...
Mapping Arda, Part III: The Second Age by Varda delle Stelle, Anérea
A series of articles featuring fan-made maps of all the lands of Arda. Part III explores the island of Númenor and mainland Middle-earth during the Second Age.
Doom and Ascent: The Argument of ‘Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics’ by Simon J. Cook
Simon reads 'Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics' to conclude his account of the Anglo-Saxon tower of its allegory.
Why People Don't Comment: Data and History From the Tolkienfic Fandom by Dawn Walls-Thumma
A reworking of the 2018 article for Long Live Feedback that includes data from the 2020 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey, pointing to a lack of comments as related to skill, confidence, and community connection.
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features fiction, artwork, and essays that transcend the idea of Orcs as the enemy, instead considering their humanity.
Alliterative Verse for Arda by Rhunedhel
Part of our Themed Collection series for our newsletter, this collection features alliterative poems about Middle-earth.
[Artwork] Long-tressed Wingildi by Anérea
"... the long-tressed Wingildi ... spirits of the foam and the surf of ocean."
~ a painted sketch for Scribbles and Drabbles 2024.
[Writing] Partners in Craft by elennalore
Annatar realises that he might like Celebrimbor too much.
[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.
Teitho November/December Contest: Healing
The theme for Teitho's November/December contest is healing.
Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2024
LotR SESA has been ongoing for twenty-one years and is running again this year as a prompt meme hosted on AO3 for all genres of Tolkien-based fanfiction.
Kiliel Week 2024
Kiliel Week is a Tumblr event for fanworks about the Kili/Tauriel pairing.
November challenge at tolkienshortfanworks
The challenge for November has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. Thematic prompt: refuge. Formal challenge: include imitation of a sound. As always, these can be filled independently and also freely combined with SWG and other challenges. New participants welcome!
November 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals
Calls for papers and proposals for conferences and publications that are open during the month of November 2024.
This is an impressive effort. You managed to find light within the darkness of your plot line. And courage under thralldom. I'm a coward when it comes to reading violence; it was a little on the dark side for me. OK, I am trying not to laugh at myself, if you did this stuff to a man, it probably would not have bothered me much at all. In my life, I have found more tenderness and compassion with women, a desire not to hurt (of course, there are plenty of women who enjoy hurting people also). I think that is one reason the violence repelled me--therefore, it was effective within the construct of your story. Another may be that we are accustomed in our fandom existence to run across more m/m stories than f/f stories and, therefore, have become more inured to violence and torture in the m/m stories.
The title is very good and especially moving given the source.
I am so sorry that you found the violence in my story so unsettling and I adjusted the rating for violence accordingly prior responding, I thought it would fit the moderate category since it was not explicitly shown (rating a story is not my strongest thing) - I did had that planned initially, to tell the story from Morwen's point of view as she lived through those long twenty years. However the story ended up differently and I opted for letting the character tell what she did want to tell, through my storytelling.
To write a story about a woman claimed for spoils of war as requested by another woman, with domination to any degree: I can imagine that it can be read as very disturbing... Also it is writing about a very sensitive issue because it is nowadays considered as a war crime and to dive into those details throughout history made me feel uncomfortable as well. It still happens though, sadly enough. Since Ludovica gave it as an option to write it in our history, I considered writing it during either the roman age or dark medieval age, but as I was reading bits of Children of Húrin and knowing what happened after the Nírnaeth in Dor-Lómin... the bit where Turin finds out when Brodda speaks so brashly made me wonder... if Morwen intimidated the male incomers, how could she serve as a thrall then? Together with the parts where it is said too often how cruelly the people of Morwen were treated, being held as cattle in Brodda's mead hall, I decided to weave in many Saxon-Anglo elements like Acca the peace weaver - yet with middle eastern/Arabian influences. I hope that that shone through though and that the violence used didn't throw you that much off the story. If so, my apologies: that was not my intent.
By the way, I never said: I really like this first part of the story and it made a strong impression on me.
I'm afraid I found the rest of the story too difficult for me. I can be rather a wimp, on some subject matters!
I remember that once I got the assignment to write this request, I wondered how far I should go in describing thraldom/slavery, combined with the other elements. It is one thing to read about slavery and women being claimed as spoils of war - even into present day - but to write about it... that was an entirely different matter. But this was the fate of those men in Dor-Lomin after the fifth battle, and it shaped Morwen's fate and that of her son. For me to write it was a journey, because I wanted to have it a meaning for her in the end and also that Húrin's words shortly after she died would carry that extra meaning.
Thank you for taking your time to read and review it, I know it is an unsettling story for some and you have my utmost respect for making it so far, and to admit that it was hard for you shows that what I wrote hit to close home. I hope that one day these war crimes will no longer be committed against women and children alike, but I am afraid we're not there yet.
Your drabble today led me here, and wow, what a rollercoaster of emotions this story gives! It is so dark in places, with such palpable relief when Morwen is safe in Doriath, and of course, the concluding scene is hot as hell. :) There is such ambivalence too that makes the story unsettling (in a good way and as a way that seems very honest about how a woman in Morwen's situation might have felt) in her simultaneous attraction/love/desire for Acca and the terror and loathing that accompanies her mutilation. Then, of course, discovering that the mutilation was itself a work of art, which itself has unsettling implications.
I also liked what you did with the motif of kneeling throughout the story, much in the same way.
I thought your characters were great: Morwen so strong and unbroken, Melian so peaceful and ethereal, but Artanis I just loved and thought you did such a wonderful job in capturing her character in relatively few words.
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