New Challenge: Epic 80s
This month's challenge features hundreds of fresh prompts from the bodacious decade of the 1980s.

Fëanor did not know how to explain the ill-defined uneasiness and the almost instinctual dislike he felt, how impossible it was to reconcile the impression he had gotten from the tapestry in Mandos to the reality of Daeron in person, in life. “He seems careless,” he said, because he did not know how else to explain.
“That is certainly not true,” said Nerdanel, “though I know well that I cannot expect you to take my word for it. It is long since you placed any trust in anyone’s judgment aside from your own, flawed though it is.”
Midwinter is meant to be a time of feasting and merriment, but Fëanor does not find it so, especially with Daeron of Doriath in attendance.

Fingolfin died. Or so he thought. Until he suddenly, disorientingly finds himself reliving one of the worst days of his life.
This time though, it goes differently.

The birth of Tylekormo Turkafinwë had been a joyous occasion.
But a memorable one.

“He is my brother,” Ñolofinwë says once more, willing her to understand. “He is half of me. What is a fëa worth if half of itself is gone?”
Ñolofinwë is scared that if he takes all that his brother is, and unravels the braid, takes out all of the love, winds what’s left back together — he is so terribly afraid that it will turn into a bitter hatred so dark and violent it may finally rival his brother’s.
He cannot risk that. He cannot. Better to die with love in his heart than live and become an angry, bitter version of himself.
Or: Ñolofinwë begins coughing up flowers and Fëanáro learns that hatred does not erase the duties of a brother.

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.

“If I did not know better,” he says in a low voice, patience frayed thin, “so close do you insist on being to me, that were you anyone else, I would think you are trying to seduce me.”
Ñolofinwë blinks up at him, eyes hazy and unfocused and so very, very blue. “Would it work if I were?” Ñolofinwë asks in the tone of one who is trying very hard to focus.
Fëanáro stares. Locks his jaw and does not allow his mouth to drop open in shock. "I know you are drunk, but do be serious, Ñolofinwë," he snaps after a tense moment of indecision on how to respond to such an absurd statement. "You cannot seduce those you share blood with, no matter how little it may be."
“Should not,” Ñolofinwë says promptly, one hand coming up to clutch at Fëanáro’s shirt. “You should not seduce kin. But it is possible if one wishes to.”

All written for SWG instadrabbling sessions. Updated in January 2026 with Aredhel.

Finarfin makes it a rule for his life to stay as far from Tirion and the mess that is his brothers, but during an important festival the house of Finwë gathers to celebrate together. As he tries to cope with the resulting headache, he helps Finrod make a new friend.

“Come on.” Maedhros grabbed his hand and pulled him along down the path, both of them quickening their pace now, until the trees opened up into a wide meadow filled with flowers, bright yellow celandine and dandelions and sweet-scented pale chamomile mingling with cornflowers and irises. On the other side of it was a larger party than Maglor had ever seen in Lórien—five figures sitting in the grass. Huan barked again, and they all looked up. “It seems everyone has come to fetch us home,” Maedhros said, laughing, as all their brothers scrambled to their feet.
After years in Lórien, Maglor and Maedhros are ready to return to their family and to make something new with their lives--but to move forward, all of Fëanor's sons must decide how, or if, they can ever reconcile with their father.

...everyone here seemed to think Daeron should return to them equally unchanged, the same merry minstrel he had been long ago before the Girdle had been breached. He was yet a minstrel, and he was often merry, but he had seen and done so much that so many here could never even imagine. He had come very close to death more than once, and yet survived. He did not care what others might think of him, really—except for a select few—but it would be tiresome to be always catching them off guard, and his love for one of the sons of Fëanor would catch many very much off guard, he knew.
Daeron settles back in among his own people, travels to Tirion--and meets Fëanor.

Three intrepid stellar explorers witness a crack in the edge of the universe and are guided by an ancient spirit animating an automaton to a strange and unexpected place where they hope to rescue their kidnapped cat. A cat who may hold the future--or its inevitable end--in his far-too-ancient paws.

Findekáno, son of Fëanáro, and Maitimo, son of Nolofinwë, have always been close. A pity, then, that their fathers' relationship trickles down to them.
A role reversal fic

The mood in Maitimo's house has been dark these last few years, and his father's eyes have been following him.
Inspired by the fairytale Donkeyskin

After his exile to Formenos, Feanor locks himself in the vault with the Silmarils. Makalaure goes to him.

Well, Fëanor frightened him. Fëanor frightened them all, still, in one way or another.
Fëanor's sons receive letters from him, and try to decide what to do.

In Aman, no one dies (unless they are related to Fëanor).

Fëanáro is reembodied as the Fourth Age of the Sun commences, and he has to deal with several things. But there's one thing he cannot quite manage to fix. That is, his relationship with his wife.
Or: five (but more like six) times Nerdanel doesn't reach out, and one time she does.

Ñolofinwë makes a pained noise and pulls back enough to look him in the face, before his eyes seem to get caught on Fëanáro’s collar, on his chest, his shoulders. “You are in my colors,” Ñolofinwë says softly, traces his finger along Fëanáro’s collarbone and down the front of his tunic. His eyes, when they meet Fëanáro’s once more, are blown out with a disgusting, greedy desire, and understanding strikes Fëanáro.
“Oh,” he breathes, thinking that he should likely have guessed at the reason on his own. He had anticipated that the outfit would garner a reaction from Ñolofinwë, this is true. He cannot say that this was ever one of the reactions he had anticipated. “How shameful of you,” he says quietly, watching the way Ñolofinwë’s eyes drop down to his mouth as he speaks. “Does it not shame you that you should want me in such a way?”

He knows that he’s supposed to say, if he’d known what would happen, he wouldn’t have done it. That he wouldn’t have paced through the halls, watching the tapestries appear, and seen his brother poised in front of Morgoth, preparing to fight, preparing to die, and gone a bit mad with grief.
He knows he should say he would not again go find a tapestry of where it all went irrevocably wrong and begin shredding it apart.
But he is suddenly standing in the middle of the library, treelight dancing through the windows, and staring at him with open mouthed shock is Ñolofinwë. So no, he finds he does not regret it at all.

A Noldo follower of Fëanor laments the First Kinslaying and the Flight of the Noldor

Now a great crowd of spirits, both Elves and lingering Men, were gathered before the newest tapestry as it fell open down the wall, luminous, gold and silver threads glittering in the pale light of Mandos.

Fëanáro thinks of many things during his exile for he has nothing but time and a chest full of fury.
He thinks of his hatred for Melkor. He thinks of his children and the toil the exile is taking on them even if they will not voice it. He thinks of his father and the disappointment he’d just barely been able to see hidden beneath the concern. He thinks of Nerdanel and cannot help but wonder if she saw this coming. More often than not though, he finds his thoughts dwelling on Ñolofinwë.
On how wide and endlessly blue his eyes had gone when Fëanáro had set the point of the sword to his throat.

"You should tell me to stop," Fëanáro says softly, taking the last step and pressing himself flush against Ñolofinwë.
Ñolofinwë swallows with some difficulty, tilts his head back against the door to meet Fëanáro's eyes. "You are my brother," he says, voice wavering. "We should not."
Fëanáro smiles wryly. "That is not telling me to stop."

Little moments of connection with Maedhros. A collection of drabbles and other short writings to accompany One in the Fires of the Heart of the World.

“You said,” Fëanáro says quietly, taking a step forward, “that I shall lead, and you shall follow.”
Ñolofinwë bites down the urge to take a step back as Fëanáro takes another step forward. “I said those words and I meant them. You are my brother and now my king, why should I not follow where you go?”
Fëanáro is regarding him far more seriously than he had that night as they stood in front of Manwë and Ñolofinwë wishes to know what brought this on. “And if I were not your king?” Fëanáro asks. “If I were your half-brother only?”
Or: Fëanáro does not steal away with the ships in the middle of the night, leaving Fingolfin to brave the bitter cold. Whether what he does instead is any better depends on who you ask.