The vision behind Mereth Aderthad 2025 is one where, as Tolkien fans, we build our understanding and appreciation for his world through both study (scholarship) and creativity (fanworks). Both are valid ways of "knowing," and most members of the SWG community engage in both in a process where they are so intertwined that it is hard to separate them from each other. As we wind down our interviews of the scholars presenting their research at the event—Dr. Zara Ashkenazi-Khan's interview this week is the next to last—we begin speaking with the artists, authors, poets, and performers whose work for Mereth Aderthad will respond to these presentations and the ideas they convey.

Saelind spoke to Dr. Zara Ashkenazi-Khan about her presentation "Exile, Ruin and Resistance: Beleriand as Postcolonial Palimpsest." To say that The Silmarillion is a violent work is like saying the ocean is wet, but as Zara discusses with Saelind, there are particular acts of violence in The Silmarillion that stand out as ruptures, events that upend the dominant order. "The acts at Sirion mark a moment of rupture in that they expose a faultline in the narrative’s presumed moral and civilisational order," Zara explains, bringing the third kinslaying—one of the most discussed and controversial events in the Silmarillion fandom—into focus as the subject of her paper.

Like all of the scholars presenting at Mereth Aderthad, Zara also creates fanworks. In fact, as she explains, the idea for her paper came from a longfic. Zara spoke about the role each plays for her as a Tolkien fan, concluding that "through fiction, I can step inside the ruin" at Sirion in a way that isn't permitted through the more precise approaches required of scholarly inquiry. Both have their place and result in different modes of understanding the legendarium.

You can read Saelind's interview with Dr. Zara Ashkenazi-Khan here.

With that in mind, we also feature two interviews this week by creators whose fanworks will accompany Shadow's presentation "The Aromantic in Tolkien." I had the honor to speak with both chrissystriped and Silmalope, the respective featured author and featured artist for Shadow's presentation, about their work and the pieces they've created for Mereth Aderthad specifically.

Shadow's presentation is a prime example of a fan who doesn't identify as a scholar (yet!) finding an area where fanworks have gone but scholarship has not (yet): aromantic characters in Tolkien's work. Both chrissystriped and Silmalope, who identify as aro-ace themselves, spoke of being excited by the possibilities to foreground aromantic characters in their work and the importance of being able to see characters like themselves in their work.

"We are so much freer in fanworks than mainstream media because we do not have to cater to what big publishers or studios think is their reader-/viewership and we should use that freedom," chrissystriped told me. She is one of the SWG's most prolific and wide-ranging writers, and if you can't find one of her stories about a character you like, you probably don't like Tolkien! We also spoke about her process as a writer that allows her to achieve such an impressive range.

Silmalope also makes art about a diverse array of characters (they credit "a very short attention span"!). The art featured alongside their interview includes characters as different as Goldberry and Túrin. We also spoke about the importance of seeing more aromantic characters in fanworks. "I know firsthand how impactful it is to see yourself in a story and feel recognized," Silmalope told me, but they also emphasized the importance of fiction and art as ways "to empathize with and relate to characters whose lives are different from ours, in a way that we don’t necessarily have the opportunity to do in the ordinary scope of our day-to-day."

You can read the interview with chrissystriped here and the interview with Silmalope here.

We also started a new challenge this week: Period Drama, a Matryoshka challenge where the prompts are tropes from period dramas. And Mereth Aderthad is two months and two days away! We'd love for you to join us! You can register for Mereth Aderthad here.