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!
Sign-Up to Hand Out Scavenger Hunt Prompts Our May challenge will be a Matryoshka built around a scavenger hunt. If you'd like to hand out prompts (and receive comments on your work for doing so!), you can sign up to do so.
New Challenge: Everyman Create a fanwork about an ordinary character in the legendarium using a quote about an unnamed character as inspiration.
Cultus Dispatches: Fanworks, AI, and Resistance by Dawn and Grundy The fan studies column Cultus Dispatches returns with a history of how Tolkien fanworks fandom has reacted and resisted generative AI by drawing strong boundaries in a way that is not typical for the fandom.
Inspired by collecting the prompts for the Everyman challenge, this essay considers how ordinary people are subsumed and silenced in The Silmarillion, which begins a three-book arc that ends with the rise of the humble and ordinary.
A Teleri fishing boat captain turns to farming on abandoned Noldor lands after her ship is stolen. A Noldor farmer returns with Finarfin to find that his land belongs to the Teleri now.
In his old age, Isildur's former esquire Ruinamacil, known to later histories only as Ohtar, writes his own account of his escape from the ambush at Gladden Fields and journey to Imladris, and the history of his friend whom Isildur ordered to flee with him.
These were simply flashes, a hint of a wider, greater world. A tantalizing glimpse of more, always at the edge of awareness, never within reach. Míriel would grasp it, if something as intangible as the concept of color could overflow in bounteous wonder over her hands.
By definition, fanworks fandom does not draw a lot of boundaries, but community archives and events have taken a strong stance against AI-generated fanworks due to ethical considerations and member input.
In a book as full of death as the Quenta Silmarillion, grief and mourning are surprisingly absent. The characters who receive grief and mourning—and those who don't—appear to do so due to narrative bias. Grief and mourning (or a lack of them) serve to draw attention toward and away from objectionable actions committed by characters.
This presentation for Mereth Aderthad 2025 discusses the parallels between the concept of abnegation in the scientific work surrounding the atomic bomb and in The Silmarillion. The relinquishment of self-interest in favor of the interests of others, abnegation was identified by Tolkien as a powerful act of spirit and reason. The legendarium has many examples of the complexities of abnegation, which parallel similar discussions held by physicists during and after World War II.
Bilbo, the strange old hobbit with the wandering feet, senses something special in young Frodo the first time he sees the lad; as they become close, they find in each other a cameraderie not well understood by other hobbits. Five poignant moments between Bilbo and Frodo Baggins over the course…
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.
I loved this, Oshun. This is your Maedhros and Maglor, I think, and this does read to me like something from your verse. Elrond is a gem in this, bird-bright and audacious. There is humour, but there's sadness like a continuous background note in Maedhros which really pulls my heartstrings. What a smashing gift for your Slashy Valentine recipient.
Thanks again! I hope I don't get carried away, but I am thinking a sequel in the POV of Elrond. It would be fun to try the completely different voice. Plus, I'm dying to tell people what he saw when he looked at Maglor and Maedhros--I've only done that in what I call cute-'lil-elfing fics to date.
Oh this was delicious! You managed to put all my doubts about this particular pairing to rest, in way that was both humorous and emotionally effecting.
Thank you so much! I am so happy you enjoyed it. I love Fingon and Maedhros, so it was some work for me to make it fit into my head in a way that would not offend me. I had less trouble once I started thinking about it with the age and foster father problem. I worried more about Fingon! It was fun. Thanks again.
What a beautiful story! Elrond was wonderful in this - bright, sensual and full of life. Maedhros was, as your Maedhros always is, magnificent. It seems to be a very light hearted story but there is a very sad undertone to it. Thank you for sharing this piece. Also, I am sure this incident left a positive impact on Elrond's life:)
You are so incedibly kind! Comments like this make all the hard work of writing these stories seem worthwhile. I am so glad you were able to appreciate the light and shadows in the story. It was very important to me to convey both.
So, things I like about this: all the thought you put into the setting and the background, both the general situation, how you sketch in the near-normal but not really normal character of the village and the near-normal but not really normal upbringing of the twins, and lots of small touches and details dotted all over, but especially in the first half: Maedhros responsible for sewage (I'd suspect an allusion but the theme has been cropping up all over the place after all!), sarcastic remarks about Turgon and Luthien and so on, the parody of Barbara Allen aka Sweet Lindir, etc.
I also like how you've shown what a complicated decision process for Maedhros this is, under the circumstances. Even when he's made up his mind, he still hasn't quite made up his mind, so to speak, and he's got his hesitations and doubts right until the end, as of course he would.
Elrond, of course, is special, despite being so ridiculously young! I suspect that at the end of the story he is about to become very, very angry, despite his relatively philosophical attitude... You said you were going to write a sequel from his POV, weren't you?
Well, to sum up: I liked both the funny bits, some of which are very funny, and the sad bits, some of which are very sad indeed. I liked the whole thing, and I think you did a sterling job with a very tricky subject.
Thank you so much! I actually had thought enough about the characters over the years that I was lucky to be apply that to a one-month deadline. The thing I hate about fic swaps is the requirement to invent a world and backstory for various characters in a few short weeks. Anyway, having that in my head made it a little easier to write.
The hard part was trying to imagine my Maedhros in-character making such a choice. I surprised myself that I could believe it. You are right. Elrond will be angry and yet Maedhros is also right, it's better to love and be loved, even if it is not the lifelong, earthshaking one that one hopes it will be, than not to love at all.
I am so happy you were able to enjoy it. I think one's hardest audience is always the writer who writes the same major characters. Thank you again for your kind words!!
I'm not sure exactly how I missed this story when I archive cralled through your work, but I'm glad I found it now. I was actually looking for this paring specifically, but the only other fic I found was an abuse fic that I had read a long time ago. Do you know of any others our there?
Anyway, I loved the pacing of the romance between them. As usual, you had some great one liners in there, too, and I absolutely adored the bit with Maglor intentionally singing badly.
Comments on Renacimiento
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.