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.
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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.
Thanks so much, Indy! This has been lingering on my hard drive for a while now, and being under the weather yesterday (and hence not up for work-related writing), I fiddled around with the fic a bit and decided to post it. Very glad that you had a read and reviewed!
I'm glad to be part of that limited audience; Pandë-verse fic is a treat that's not to be missed, and you more than delivered! Sad, of course, in the first two chapters - but convincingly so, and the backdrop of their love scene did leave me with a lump in my throat.
But the two of them as girls were adorable and I loved the idea of dwarven clockwork toys as well as the impromptu trip to the forges - I'm sure that meeting turned out to be formative for them both!
And of course you're very welcome to future language help, whenever it's needed. Wonderful work, Pandë.
Thanks so much, Elleth! Oh, yes, you are definitely part of that limited (and high quality!) audience. :^)
These ficlets are a bit rough and maybe less developed than some of my other stuff, but with a little downtime yesterday, I fiddled around with the drafts a bit and decided what the heck, why not post it? That decision might have been prompted by coming across a certain Tumblr-post bemoaning the lack of female characters and femslash *whistles innocently*. Because Mél and Dísa are OFCs, they are of limited appeal (versus, for example, some of the more prominent pairings of canon characters like Aredhel and Galadriel or Lúthien and Galadriel or [my favorite] Lúthien and Thuringwethil), but I'm way too fond of them not to give them their own series of ficlets.
I know I have read some version of this before. It's absolutely fantastic.
The sense of loss, so clear at the beginning of the story, the rich and sweet eroticism conveyed so vividly without any graphic detail in the next part is heartbreaking. And just when the heartbreak is most intense, you give the reader the momentary relief of the humor and mischief of that first meeting of the two girls, Dwarf and Elf, with such lovely hints of their grownup selves shining through sharp and vibrant.
It leaves me longing for more. Really great stuff. So happy that you decided to share it now!
Oh, wow, thanks so much, Oshun! Yes, indeed, you read the chapter about the two little girls when they first meet. I posted that on my f-locked LJ a good while back. As I noted to Elleth, this is a bit rough, and I'm not engaging in a lot of world-building here, but want to focus on Dísa and Mélamírë. It's also a way for me to keep exploring the ramifications of relationships between the quasi-immortal Elves and mortals.
These drafts have been rattling around on my hard drive for a while now. With a bit of downtime this weekend, I was able to fiddle around with them a bit and post them. It will be sort of a series that I'll add to when I can.
Really like seeing Mélamírë basically drop (almost literally) everything, knowing her mortal friend has so little time. Also noted the public formality between Mél and Aldis, though they actually know each other.
I appreciate that she keeps herself open to close relations with mortals, both here and in later stories, rather than insulating herself from the inevitable loss. Though with the violence of some eras of the history of the Elves, even associating only with immortals will not prevent grief...
It's so good to have women interacting on different levels! Mél, Dísa, Aldis, Culinen--I love them all.
I remember the third bit, when Mél and Dísa meet; it's such fun!
Thanks so much, 'Wench! One of the motivations I had for giving Mél that Maiaran blood was my notion that the latter confers an exceptional ability to adapt to change, far better than the Elves can (with reference to Tolkien's concept that the Elves of Eregion were seeking a kind of stasis or "embalming"). She's a vehicle, in a sense, for progress forward instead of looking behind in regret. Had I the courage to do so, my alternative story line for Mél was to have her lineage "captured" in mortal Men (and thus on to Oppenheimer, Hypatia, et alia) by the same means as Lúthien - finding a mortal Man as a companion and having children with him, but then losing her life in the downfall of Númenor, but...well, I just couldn't do it. Probably would have been the braver choice on my part.
"Also noted the public formality between Mél and Aldis, though they actually know each other."
Thanks so much, Himring, and definitely understandable that one needs to be in the right place for sad stories (or chapters). It was fun to write that bit about the two little girls.
I think the order you've placed these in is highly effective. The yearning sense of loss in the second one lends to the third, which is otherwise a fun romp, a bittersweet sense.
The image of two girls from different cultures bonding by disassembling and reassembling clockwork toys is priceless.
"The elf-girl opened her mouth, but snapped it shut, as if she meant to say something but thought better of it."
Not sure what she was really going to say, but I swear in my head it was 'superstitious nonsense'!
Hey, thanks, Huin! When writing the third chapter, I wondered what kind of toys a young Dwarf-girl might have, and it took me about 5 seconds to come up with "Clockwork (or wind-up to be accurate)!"
"Not sure what she was really going to say, but I swear in my head it was 'superstitious nonsense'!"
HA! Well OF COURSE that was what she was about to say! :^D
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.