SWG News

AI Policy Open for Public Comment

Posted by SWG Moderators on 13 May 2023 . Last updated on 27 May 2023 .

As artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly evolving, we wanted to be sure the position of our group on AI is clearly expressed. The SWG moderators have put together a draft AI policy, which we are opening for comment through 26 May 2023.

Share any comments, questions, or concerns about the draft AI policy on the #⁠town-hall channel on the SWG Discord or by emailing the moderators.

Character of the Month: Tar-Míriel

Posted by SWG Moderators on 5 May 2023 . Last updated on 3 June 2023 .

Tar-Míriel is a tragic figure. That seems almost an understatement. As Grundy explains in this month's Character of the Month biography, "The most written of Míriel besides the facts of her birth, forced marriage, and usurpation is the description of her death."

As the (unwilling) wife of Ar-Pharazôn, Míriel had a ringside seat to some of the key events in one of the most cataclysmic episodes in the legendarium: the downfall of Númenor. Yet we hear remarkably little from her. Nonetheless, despite the minimal page-time she receives, she remains one of the more intriguing characters of the Second Age to fanworks creators. (We have more than fifty fanworks about Tar-Míriel here on the SWG!) This month's biography details her tragic life, considers the broader context in which she lives, and explores the textual history of her inclusion in the legendarium.

You can read this month's biography of Tar-Míriel here.

Tolkien Fanartics: Interview with Busymagpie

Posted by SWG Moderators on 29 April 2023 . Last updated on 14 July 2023 .

Busymagpie's art shows eloquent and expressive character portraits, most often depicting characters in moments of comfort and bliss. In this month's Tolkien Fanartics column, Anérea interviewed Busymagpie about her work: her approach to art, her evolution as an artist, and of course, her OTP, Maedhros/Fingon, all accompanied by a selection of her work.

Having started serious work on her art at the age of fourteen, Busymagpie has been drawing every day ever since. Mostly self-taught, she says of her work, "Art, and fanart in particular, is a way for me to tell stories." And her work does exactly that. Whether a cozy family gathering, a tender moment between a couple, or sometimes something spicer, her grasp of character and expression brings Silmarillion characters to life on the screen.

You can read this month's interview with Busymagpie here.

Fanfiction Book Club: Second Age *UPDATE*

Posted by SWG Moderators on 26 April 2023 . Last updated on 13 May 2023 .

The Second Age is receiving renewed interest in the Tolkien fandom, and we are pleased to offer a fanfiction book club for discussing stories focusing on the Second Age. The book club will be held on April 29 and April 30 in time slots from 12:00 til 21:00 UTC. Discussions are held on the #fanfiction-book-club channel on our Discord server. Stories should be set to at least 75 percent in the Second Age, and be no more than 5,000 words long. It is acceptable to submit a single chapter from a longer story. We'll discuss each story for about one hour.

Sign-ups are now closed! See below for the discussion schedule.

Your mods for this event are daughterofshadows (@Shadow) and maglor-my-beloved (@maglor-my-beloved).

You can participate in the discussions without signing up as an author if you prefer—there's no need to submit the form, and no minimum time commitment. We will post the schedule here as soon as it is available.

If you've never participated in one of our fanfiction book clubs before, our book club FAQ has more information. If you're not a member of our Discord server, you can join by using the invite link in the site footer (logged-in SWG members only) or email the SWG mods for an invite.

Schedule

If you need to convert UTC to your timezone, you can do so here.

April 29

14:00 UTC: Yávië by AdmirableMonster
15:00 UTC: Send in the Clowns by Himring
16:00 UTC: I promise you I'm not broken by maglor_my_beloved
- break -
18:00 UTC: for Stargazer by elennalore
19:00 UTC: Stay, Forever by Melesta
20:00 UTC: Through Valleys We Can't Walk Alone by Drag0nst0rm (this fic contains discussions of Death, but no deaths on screen)
21:00 UTC: Submerged by silver, decayed by delusion (Chapter 3) by tomefaired

April 30

19:00 UTC: Find your roots and grow (Chapter 1) by Shadow/daughterofshadows
20:00 UTC: Elegy of Numenor Volume 1 (Chapter 6, "A Wolf in the Wain") by elfscribe (While this chapter is SFW, the whole work isn't. Mind the warnings.)
21:00 UTC: Midsummer Memories by Zhie (Zhie welcomes both critical and constructive feedback on this piece)

Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Voices - Defining Canon

Posted by SWG Moderators on 22 April 2023 . Last updated on 27 May 2023 .

Tolkien's canon is complicated. That's an understatement. There are dozens of books presenting multiple versions—some of them contradictory, difficult to date, and sometimes hard to even read—and that's before one considers the many adaptations, fanworks and fan interpretations, scholarship, and myriad other "takes" on Middle-earth.

This month's Cultus Dispatches column is one of our Fandom Voices columns, where we present a question or two to the community in an attempt to capture a range of fan experiences with a topic. We asked participants how they define canon and, if they make fanworks, how they use that canon in their fanworks. We received a record number of responses, many of them going into great depth, and so will be dividing this iteration of Fandom Voices into two columns, beginning with how fans define Tolkien's canon. However, you can read all of the responses now.

How Tolkien fans define canon mirrors the complexity of the canon itself. We agree on very little (although many people noted the value of different approaches and the importance of tolerance), but the result is a decades-strong fandom where vibrant discussion and creative interpretation of the legendarium have lulled but never completely ceased. Respondents wrangled with how to handle the canon's many contradictions, the place of Christopher Tolkien's editorial work, the historical and mythical framework of the legendarium and the impact of that approach, and where adaptations and fanworks belong in terms of canon, among many other issues raised and discussed.

You can read the first part of "Fandom Voices: Defining Canon and Using Canon in Fanworks" here.

Also note that our Fandom Voices surveys never close. If you didn't get a chance to share your views and want to, it is not too late! We will continue to add new responses to the collection as they come in (including pulling from new responses for the second part of the article. You can respond to the "Defining Canon" survey here.

Finally, we are in the midst of a series of Cultus Dispatches articles focusing on canon in the Tolkien fandom. Cultus Dispatches is always open to contributions from all members of the fandom, so if you know of a creator or fanwork that takes an interesting approach to canon, or if you have another idea related to canon and fandom, contact our moderators and pitch your idea! Our reference editors will support new researchers and writers through the process, so don't let unfamiliarity with research writing dissuade you from sharing your ideas with us.

New Challenge: Rejects

Posted by SWG Moderators on 15 April 2023 . Last updated on 15 May 2023 .

Not every idea makes it into a finished piece in its original form! J.R.R. Tolkien worked on his legendarium for decades, and while a few things didn’t change much, over that time some of the early ideas were altered considerably. In this month’s challenge, we invite you to consider some of the rejected concepts from the early legendarium.

Prompts for this challenge can be used in any way that you want. You do not have to create something about the specific "rejected canon" that is in the prompt. You could consider another character's perspective if this canon detail was true, or you could consider what happened in the story on either side of the event: the history leading to the rejected canon, or the history that came after it. The prompt can factor in to your fanwork as much or as little as you would like. If a prompt is not a good fit for you, let the mods know, and we'll pick something new for you.

To receive a prompt, comment on our Dreamwidth, send us an ask on Tumblr, post in the the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord, or message us through the SWG site.

In honor of Poetry Month, we will have a special stamp for fanworks that are or include poetry. In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 May 2023. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

Many thanks to Zdenka for creating this month's banner and stamps!

Character of the Month: Salmar-Noldorin

Posted by SWG Moderators on 8 April 2023 . Last updated on 5 May 2023 .

Salmar is only mentioned once in the published Silmarillion, but it was not always that way. As our Character of the Month for April, Salmar shines brightest in his earliest roles in the legendarium, which were a muddle of ... almost everything. He was a sea god, a musician, a mentor to the not-easily-educable Noldor, and a warrior-bard. Perhaps this was the reason that Tolkien quickly dismantled Salmar's character, passing off his various roles to other characters in the legendarium (there are even germs of the stories of Maglor and Fingon in Salmar's earliest histories!) but retaining him as the character who made the sinister and powerful Ulumúri. (Although the Ulumúri, too, changed as Tolkien's writing evolved.)

You can read Dawn's biography of Salmar-Noldorin here.

Cultus Dispatches: Who Gets to Say? Canon and Authority

Posted by SWG Moderators on 26 March 2023 . Last updated on 22 April 2023 .

If you write Tolkien-based fanfiction, you've probably thought about and likely discussed questions about canon and authority. Do you give preference to the Silmarillion or the History of Middle-earth version when they differ? Do you go with Tolkien's "final word" or the version he appeared to have thought through and developed most carefully? And where do the various adaptations—the film trilogies, the new show, the decades-worth of Tolkien-inspired games—fit in?

Over the next several months, our Cultus Dispatches column will be looking at issues of how Tolkien fans define and use canon. This month's column by Dawn Felagund looks at Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data around five possible canon authorities: Tolkien himself, other fans, scholars and experts, Christopher Tolkien, and Peter Jackson and other filmmakers. What emerges from looking at these five survey items is that the matter of canon and authority is complex. Fans vary—and widely—in who they regard as an authority and how that impacts their practice, but a few trends emerge, which Dawn looks into in some detail.

You can read the column "Who Gets to Say? Canon and Authority" here.

We are also collecting responses on the question "How do you define Tolkien's canon?" for our Fandom Voices project. You can learn more about the project and contribute your response here.

How Do You Define Canon?

Posted by SWG Moderators on 25 March 2023 . Last updated on 22 April 2023 .

How do you define the canon of Tolkien's world?

This question forms an undercurrent throughout the Tolkien fandom, not only shaping individual fans' responses to the texts but forming the basis for communities within the fandom, which often differ in their approach to Tolkien's canon.

Fandom Voices is a project that is part of our monthly Cultus Dispatches column where we ask fans to contribute their views and experiences around a topic. For an upcoming column, we will be looking at how fans define canon in Tolkien's world.

All Tolkien fans are welcome for this project, whether or not they create and read/view fanworks, though there is a special section for fanworks creators. You can write as little or as much as you'd like. Responses will be published in an upcoming Cultus Dispatches column. You are of course welcome to remain anonymous if you prefer.

If you'd like to share your views on how to define canon, you can find the response form here.

Tolkien Fanartics: Interview with ArlenianChronicles

Posted by SWG Newsletter Staff on 18 March 2023 . Last updated on 29 April 2023 .

This week, we are thrilled to introduce our newest newsletter column, Tolkien Fanartics, which will focus on everything that is art-related to do with Tolkien. For the inaugural article, the column's lead writer, Anérea, had the chance to chat with the artist ArlenianChronicles (Cassandra) about her artwork, her approach to her work, and her journey to becoming an artist.

If you've spent any time in the #silmarillion tag on Tumblr, you've seen Cassandra's art: its vivid, luminous quality fairly leaps from the screen, and her willingness to tackle some of the most emotionally fraught scenes in the legendarium gives her work a narrative quality that invites contemplation of the stories and relationships behind her characters. You can read Anérea's interview with ArlenianChronicles here.