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.
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.
[Writing] No Time Have I by Flora-lass
A Silmarillion acrostic.
[Writing] I called it Fate that I should fail by AdmirableMonster
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…
[Writing] All of you by chrissystriped
Elrond and Celebrían celebrate their anniversary with their family.
[Writing] Lament for the Singer by daughterofshadows
A short thing about Maglor, death and grieving.
[Writing] Cosmological Poems of Arda by AaronAzrael
I would like to share my revelations of Tolkien's Universe in the form of narrative and emotional poems.
[Writing] Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael
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…
[Artwork] Map of Valinor by Aprilertuile
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
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 ...
Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]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.
Passing Ships by Simon J. Cook
[]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.
Fanfiction and the Serious Business of Writer's Craft by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]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.
[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.
[Writing] From whose bourn no traveller returns by losselen
[]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.
[Writing] Sand Sorcery by StarSpray
[]It is well known that Psamathos does not leave his cove. He does not like to get his feet wet, and prefers to spend his days dozing under the sun.
Fellowship of the Fics: Summer Stories 2024
Fellowship of the Fics offers four weeks of summer-themed prompts during the month of July.
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.
July 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals
Conferences and publications that have open calls for papers and proposals in July 2024.
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.
I liked how you portrayed Princess Vanimelde in this piece--there is a feistiness and political savvy underneath all that veneer. Very curious about who the author is and I appreciate that you let us see Atanacalmo's thinking process. It's a bit alarming though reading about the "death" of the main character and then the king but I consoled myself with the thought that the King wasn't deposed and didn't die--perhaps Azruhar won't meet an untimely death.
Yes, it would be a mistake to underestimate her (as Atanacalmo starts to realise).
I could tell you who I think it is, but I'm not sure you really want to know! ;) And of course, it might end up being someone else after all.
It was nice being permitted to show Atanacalmo's thought processes (some of them, at least) for a change! :D
I waffled over whether or not this should need a spoiler warning for TEA, but since none of the future events in TEA are mentioned (except for the sudden appearance of the play, which may or may not make it into the actual story), I ended up not doing that. But yes, as you observed, no kings were deposed; and no gravediggers (or embalmers!) were killed in the making of this play. The author probably felt that exile would've been too obvious.
Thank you!
I enjoyed this. How surprised Azruhar would be (I think)!
Quite a headache for Atanacalmo.
But he was relying rather a lot on nobody being nearly as good a political chess-player as him, I guess. So, good for him, in a way?
Surprised is one way of putting it. (Who knows? Maybe we'll see his reaction, a few years from now? ;))
Yes, he isn't getting paid nearly enough for this kind of hassle.
It's definitely good for him to realise that there are other players growing into their own - although it'll probably just make him come up with more complicated schemes...
Thank you for your comment!
Heh, what a nice piece of meta! Darkly amusing and incisive at the same time.
I love this portrayal of Vanimeldë, I must confess I've had enough of Tolkien's collection of incompetent and/or dysfunctional Ruling Queens. The proposed changes to the script reminded me of all those plays and operas of the XVIII century ending in a happy resolution involving the sovereign's clemency. The craziest stuff of this genre I'm aware of is an obscure opera from Mozart's teen years, called "Lucio Silla", where the evil tyrant literally makes a 180 degree turn in the last 5 minutes of the script. Perhaps you could write the play and have Atanacalmo pull something jarringly over the top like that. :P
Aw, thank you!
I have to admit that using Tolkien's uncomplementary descriptions of certain (particularly female...) characters for more sympathetic descriptions has become a bit of a hobby-within-a-hobby for me. ^^
I definitely had those kinds of stuck-on happy endings in mind! I recall a 18th century version of King Lear in which (of course) everything turns out for the best and nobody dies, except for the evil sisters of course. I expect Atanacalmo (or the anonymous playwright) would do a better job, though - that's why he discarded the first idea of making the king change his mind and instead opted for one where the king was never wicked in the first place... although a bowdlerised version of the "original" play would also be fun! :D
Site © Dawn Felagund
Logo © Bunn
All copyrights for creative work hosted on this site are retained by their creators.
This site is built using Drupal and the theme W3CSS.
Characters and stories associated with J.R.R. Tolkien's works remain the property of his estate. Creative work using this material has been written solely for the enjoyment and enlightenment of its creator and their associates. No profit is made on the materials shared on this site.
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.