Taboo

All cultures have behaviors that are forbidden. And frankly, our beloved Silmarillion characters get up to quite a lot of them.

This month's theme is Taboo and features a bingo card for participants to self-select a prompt or prompts to inspire their fanworks. To participate as a creator, you need only to create a fanwork using one prompt; however, for the more adventurous among us, we encourage you to combine prompts, complete rows, or attempt one of the dozen variations of card patterns. You may use multiple prompts in a single fanwork or use prompts to inspire multiple fanworks.

This challenge opened in .

Prompts

Choose your prompt from the collection below.

View Prompts

Taboo challenge bingo card - see below for text-only prompts

Taboo Bingo Text-Only Prompts

If you need assistance at any time, including devising prompt combinations that fill rows or other bingo patterns, please email the SWG moderators at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org.

B1: bad language
B2: violate Laws and Customs among the Eldar
B3: murder
B4: sexual deviance
B5: ethnocentrism and prejudice
I1: food taboos
I2: laws
I3: acceptance and change
I4: table manners
I5: culture shock
N1: [obscene] gestures
N2: unclean things
FREE SPACE
N4: stigma
N5: euphemism
G1: political correctness
G2: weddings and funerals
G3: curses
G4: ostracization and exile
G5: incest
O1: cannibalism
O2: etiquette
O3: consequences
O4: religious taboos
O5: found out

Fanworks Tagged with Taboo

This is a Writing fanwork

Downfall by Lferion

Downfall of a land o'erburdened by travail - a sonnet.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Fire and Worms by Tyelca

The ground is wet and rotten and the fire is wasteful, and madness slowly turns vices into virtues. Or is it the other way around?

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This is a Writing fanwork

100 Days of Silence by just_jenni

Amras, realizing that he cannot bear to continue fighting, ostracizes himself from his family.  Choosing to retreat into the forests of Beleriand, he meets someone unexpected.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Assignation by Dawn Felagund

When Turgon discovers a forbidden affair between his sister Aredhel and cousin Curufin, he has all intentions of telling his father. But Aredhel and his cousins devise a way to keep safe the secrecy of an affair that will span ages. Aredhel/Curufin/Celegorm

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This is a Writing fanwork

The Vala, the Hound and the Elfling by Tyelca

Of how Huan came to be in Celegorm's care. Features a Vala without a sense of time, a puppy that does not yet know how to behave, and a curious little Elfling wanting to speak with birds and foxes.

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This is a Writing fanwork

By Any Other Name by Tyelca

After Fëanor’s death, Curufin writes a letter to his father and ponders with which name to sign.

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This is a Writing fanwork

religious taboos by hennethgalad

Tuor tells his son that he will sail with Idril to Valinor.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Table Manners. by hennethgalad

Maeglin is envious of the beauty of Tuor.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Stigma. by hennethgalad

Tuor is helped to fit in in Gondolin.

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This is a Writing fanwork

sexual deviance by hennethgalad

Tuor seeks the aid of Voronwë in preparing for his wedding.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Solitude by Erulisse

It is written that Melkor was imprisoned in the depths of Mandos for Three Aeons after his capture in Middle Earth. Studies in modern times have proven that true solitary confinement leads to madness and that interaction with others is essential to mental stability and healing. Yet, Melkor sat isolated and alone - was he already insane, or did his extreme solitude tip the balance and plunge him into deeper madness. I present a conversation between Melkor and Namo written for the Taboo challenge categories of Murder, Cannibalism, Ostracism and Exile and Consequences. 

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This is a Writing fanwork

Pariahs by LadyBrooke

The Sindar will not conform, in names, trust, or Kings.

Elu, Nimloth, and Oropher are reborn rulers in a society that sees them as primatives. 

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This is a Writing fanwork

In Between by Himring

Thengel of Rohan and Morwen of Lossarnach had two daughters that were born in Gondor, before Thengel's father died and he returned to Rohan to take up the kingship.

Such a daughter might have found it easy to adjust--or she might not...

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This is a Writing fanwork

Long Pork by Fernstrike

Galadriel attends the wedding of Beren and Luthien, newly returned from their journey to Angband. There, a roast boar is cause for the resurgence of old, bad memories - and consideration of what truly makes one an outsider in Doriath.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Aftermath by Lyra

After the Darkening, Nerdanel struggles to pick up the pieces of her life - a difficult job with the legacy her husband has left her.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Dancing In The Dark by Grundy

History remembers Curufin as the villain. There are a few who think better of him. 

Written for the Taboo challenge. First chapter hits 'consequences' and 'ostracization and exile'. Upcoming chapters will mark off other squares. Will give warnings on chapters as appropriate.

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This is a Writing fanwork

The End of All Things by Tyelca

An Orc dies; what happens when he wakes up again in the Halls of Mandos and is forced to remember that he too belonged to the race of the Eldar?

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This is a Writing fanwork

Mirror Image by Tyelca

Curufin is troubled, and Fëanor decides to talk to him. Fluff!

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This is a Writing fanwork

My Heart on My Skin by oshun

Written for the SWG January 2017 Challenge: Taboo. Fingon and Finrod provide material for the sub-part, “Religious Taboos,” with references as well to “Culture Shock,” “Table Manners,” “Found Out,” “Consequences,” “Sexual Deviance,” “Etiquette,” "Incest," and “Ethnocentrism and Prejudice.” (I might be overlooking more—this month's prompts were rich indeed. Once I choose the first prompt, the others fell into place effortlessly.)

Fingon wants a graphic symbol of his love. In this world—Tirion, Age of the Trees, my personal canon—Fingon is in a committed relationship. He is of age, although barely, and his cousin Finrod (Ingo herein) is only a few years younger. But despite youth and questionable judgment, Fingon is his own man and does not need this ploy to attract and hold the attention of his beloved.  (But Fingon never gets tired of trying ever more extreme stunts to prove his love to Maedhros.)

This story is multi-purposed also. The biggest aider and abettor of my ficcish meanderings, IgnobleBard, asked me for a Finrod and Fingon friendship fic. Here ya go, writing buddy, hope you enjoy it!

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This is a Writing fanwork

Hymn to Disturbia by Tyelca

Gondolin falls, and Maeglin has one last mission to fulfill: kill Tuor and claim Idril as his own.

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This is a Writing fanwork

Taboos Were Made To Be Broken (January 2017) by Kaylee Arafinwiel

A collection of Silmfic written for SWG’s January 2017 ‘Taboo’ prompts. Some will be co-written with, or perhaps solely written by, my co-author and dear friend Emma, and those will be noted.

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