Dipping The Ladle: Innumerable Stars 2023
Aug. 21st, 2023 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
narya_flameDear creator,
It's this time of year again and I for one am absolutely delighted. Thank you so much for making a gift for me; I'm so excited to see what you create.
Tolkien is the fandom of my heart – I dabble in others, but this is the one I always return to. I am very easy to please; I like lots of canons and characters (hence the ridiculous number of tags) and I enjoy all types of fanwork – brief character studies; quiet conversations; what-ifs; plotty adventures; horror; romance; smut; portraits; comics; moodboards...I'm happy with anything. I'd be equally thrilled to get something about any of the tags and characters I've selected so please don't read anything into the length of the prompts, or whether I've requested the characters or fandoms for previous exchanges.
Like last year, I haven't picked any "core" Middle-earth canons, not because I don't want to see those settings or characters, but the tags for the smaller canons were simply too delightful to resist! I am a huge lover of mixing up different Tolkien canons, though, and I'm always up for seeing my favourite characters in different settings, so feel free to play about with that if it's something that appeals.
I've made my choices with escapism in mind, so please make me something beautiful, magical, fantastical, sweet, bittersweet, mildly creepy, scary-but-hopeful, dark-but-cosy, happy-for-now, tragic-but-cathartic, fluffy, funny, uplifting or comforting. Any rating is fine. Don't feel you have to go out of your way to use my list of likes if they aren't your style or if they don't speak to you (I'm really not picky, they're only there for ideas), and feel free to combine requested fandoms and characters if you're so inspired. Just have fun, and thank you for making me a gift <3
(NB – all of the requests are for art or fic. If you are kind enough to be contemplating a treat, then any medium is welcome, including podfic, vids, fanmixes, etc..)
A Word About My Personal Interpretations and Preferences
One of the greatest delights to me as a fan is stumbling across interpretations of characters and plots and motifs that I'd never considered; in an exchange, I am always keen to know how other creators see the stories I love. Please write or draw the occupants of Tolkien's worlds in any way that you wish. Diverse skin tones; non-Western cultural influences; disabilities; different body types; trans, intersex and genderqueer headcanons – go for it.
I am also open to unrequested relationships.
If Maglor appears, I do have a preference for him being capable and compos mentis, rather than feral, broken, or weeping by the sea forever more.
General Likes
Art Likes
Fic Likes
In-Universe Meta
Relationship Likes
(A lot of my requests are for single characters but I am open to unrequested ships.)
General/SFW
Smut Likes
More ideas in my old Smut4Smut letters if your muse bends that way!
Darker Stuff
Characters I'm Always Happy To See
Selected Fandoms, Tags, and Optional Prompts
I've based most of my suggested prompts on the optional worldbuilding tags, but if you have a different idea for the character(s) we've matched on then by all means go with that!
There is some great potential for spooky, unsettling art here – I'm thinking corpse-strippers sneaking around in the shadows, or Totta and Tída in the wagon with their lord's body, holding a single lamp, perhaps with fog whispering around the wheels or a barrow-wight sneaking out of the dark. There's some wonderful imagery in The Battle of Maldon itself, too, that Totta and Tída reflect on – maybe you could draw Beorhtnoth on the causeway, facing the Viking hordes, while Totta and Tída remember in a corner, or the margins. Or for something quietly uplifting, how about the two of them approaching the abbey at Ely as the sun rises?
If you're making fic then I don't have any specific prompts beyond those I've pulled from the tag set – honestly, I'd be interested in anything you'd like to make. I feel this canon lends itself to unusual formats so if you want to continue in the verse drama mode, or tell a story through found documents, be my guest – I'd be delighted!
There is SO much to go at here; this text is so broad in scope! There are plenty of parallels between this canon and the published Silm, if that's something you feel like exploring, from the cosmic significance of Sigurd and Turin, to dark prophecies about seven princes, to Rohirric-sounding verse. You could go in all kinds of directions with this – mischievous gods; tragic incest; the tale of the end of the world; cute fluff about shapeshifting otters. If you feel like trying verse narrative then this is another canon that lends itself to that – or, for something completely different, you could take the OC tag and go Gaiman-esque, and have the mythic tales overlap with or impinge on our modern world in some way.
For art – a depiction of any of the characters or groups I've picked out would be fantastic. If any of the worldbuilding prompts make sense to include then that's an added bonus – an OC shapeshifter midway through changing form? Witches casting spells, or laying a curse? Valkyries going into battle? Up to you!
If you need further inspiration, and you have a little time, I highly recommend reading the discussion of this text in the dedicated channel on the SWG Discord (https://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/faq/discord-public-private). There are some fabulous recordings of sections being read aloud, too!
“Hapless Kullervo” makes Túrin Turambar look like a good luck charm. I feel like this small canon doesn't get the love it deserves, especially since there are BoLT levels of barmy brilliance going on...an eagle steals a baby cygnet from a mother swan and flies off with it, and somehow that cygnet grows up to become Kalervo, Kullervo's father!?!
There are plenty of more familiar notes too – a mysterious fay woman in a forest, sentient talking weapons, a loyal magical dog, a wicked sorcerer, tragic destinies, unwitting incest, and power in music. I don't mind what you want to play with here; I promise I'll be delighted with any of it.
I love this strange little folk-tale reworking of Beowulf. I have previously requested this canon in a number of darkfic and horror exchanges as I do feel it lends itself to that – I'm especially interested in depictions of monstrousness and otherness, so perhaps something about Grinder or his dam, their origins, and their perspective on events? You could get seriously into body horror, magical corruption, traumatic transformation, even cannibalism and so on if you wanted to – or go down the folk horror route, if that appeals.
That said, I would be just as delighted with something warmer and lighter in tone – an evening of storytelling in the Golden Hall? Feel free to re-interpret and re-frame the story yet again, or take a look at events from a different point of view – maybe through the eyes of the Queen, or an OC. If you want to draw on Beowulf itself as well, I'm more than fine with that; you could get really meta and explore how Tolkien's version solves some of the puzzling/tonally inconsistent elements of Beowulf.
For art, I would love an illustration of any scene that strikes your fancy, or if you wanted to render part of the tale in pretty lettering, that would be incredible!
This is certainly a smaller, quieter, reflective text; there's no cast of thousands, no epic adventures, but still plenty to explore. Who sent the Dream Vision? Who is the Pearl Poet – are they also the Gawain poet, or are they someone else? Is the poem an elegy, an allegory, both? Something completely different? Where is the Pearl-maiden, what is her name, and what are the circumstances where the boundaries between life and death might thin to allow for communication?
You could potentially go for some in-universe meta here, if that interests you; people much brighter than me have pointed out that part of the poem reads like a lapidary. For art, maybe you could do something like a medieval illumination, or an illustration in the style of a stained glass window? Or calligraphy of a passage you particularly like?
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms! Abducted queens! A very scary take on Faërie! Be still, my heart...what's not to love here?!
I'd be delighted to receive something about Heurodis's time in Faërie and would absolutely be down for smutty goodness with some ladies of the Faërie Court (participation of Orfeo and the King an optional and delicious extra). I'm a sucker for outsider POV and there are plenty of OC tags to pick from here, whether you'd prefer to explore further afield in Faërie or delve into life at Orfeo's court. Or how about a character from modern times ending up in Faërie, and interacting with its court and King? (If you feel like drawing on elements of Smith of Wotton Major here too, that would be very welcome indeed.)
If you want to get meta, I would be very interested in an exploration of different versions of this myth – I nominated the “influence of ancient Greece and Rome” tag but don't stop there, there are plenty of variants of this story from across the globe and throughout history.
Art-wise – I admit I am particularly fond of this passage:
"Sum stode withouten hede...
And sum were in water adreynt,
And some with fire al forschreynt."
A Faërie castle full of corpses feels like it is begging to be illustrated, but there are so many other options too – a depiction of the Hunt, or a recreation of a manuscript of the poem, perhaps?
Anything Arthurian is catnip to me, so you honestly can't go wrong here, whether you want to show me a steamy scene between Bertilak, his lady, and Sir Gawain, explore the identity of the Gawain poet, or delve deeper into the machinations of Morgan le Fay. (Or what about Guinevere? Is this the same fay, witchy Guinever we see in The Fall of Arthur?)
For art, I would love some illuminated lettering, or a portrait of the Green Knight, or a sketch of Gawain off on his quest. Feel free to lean into some of the darker and gorier elements, if that appeals to you – I'm hard to squick when it comes to violence.
This is such a sad and beautiful little story. I love its melancholy atmosphere, the sense of constantly searching for something, the longing that pervades it. For fic, how about an original character who dreams of Faery, and longs to go? Or how about the Queen of Faery? How does she feel about the "real" world changing as time goes on? Does it encroach on her realm, and if so, what changes?
For me, this is the perfect canon for anyone who loves setting as character. You could explore all sorts here - sentient mists; wondrous waters; trees with voices and specific powers... - and the descriptions are a gift to artists who love drawing landscapes. (This canon could also work beautifully for abstract art.) I'd also be really keen to see more of Wootton Major, and how its links to Faery manifest in daily life there. And what about Wootton Minor? Does anything of interest happen their? Do they hear rumours of their neighbours' Faery connections, and dismiss them as nonsense, like grumpy, comfortable Hobbits?
I couldn't fit the 'other bearers of the star' worldbuilding tag into my request slots, but if you want to include an OC star-bearer then go ahead, that could fit with plenty of the other tags I've pulled out. As for the bake-off tag...I've no idea what this would look like, so if you want to play about with that then go nuts! (Perhaps literally?)
This is a divisive canon, but I'm very fond of it. Carnán is one of my favourite characters; she feels like she belongs in the books! I'm intrigued by who and what she is. Something to do with the Entwives? One of the Ainur? Something else altogether...?
The phrase 'spidercraft' is a lift from The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, but I thought it was a nice fit for the sexy, shapeshifting, powerful version of Shelob we see here. Actually, this canon is a joy for lovers of dark, powerful female characters – plenty of fans like to speculate about female Ringwraiths, and this game seies has two of them! I'd love to know more about them, their backstory, their home kingdom, and their motivations.
I really love Eltariel's arc too. What was her history? What does it mean to be the Blade of Galadriel? What sort of relationship did she have with Celebrimbor? I want to know!
It's this time of year again and I for one am absolutely delighted. Thank you so much for making a gift for me; I'm so excited to see what you create.
Tolkien is the fandom of my heart – I dabble in others, but this is the one I always return to. I am very easy to please; I like lots of canons and characters (hence the ridiculous number of tags) and I enjoy all types of fanwork – brief character studies; quiet conversations; what-ifs; plotty adventures; horror; romance; smut; portraits; comics; moodboards...I'm happy with anything. I'd be equally thrilled to get something about any of the tags and characters I've selected so please don't read anything into the length of the prompts, or whether I've requested the characters or fandoms for previous exchanges.
Like last year, I haven't picked any "core" Middle-earth canons, not because I don't want to see those settings or characters, but the tags for the smaller canons were simply too delightful to resist! I am a huge lover of mixing up different Tolkien canons, though, and I'm always up for seeing my favourite characters in different settings, so feel free to play about with that if it's something that appeals.
I've made my choices with escapism in mind, so please make me something beautiful, magical, fantastical, sweet, bittersweet, mildly creepy, scary-but-hopeful, dark-but-cosy, happy-for-now, tragic-but-cathartic, fluffy, funny, uplifting or comforting. Any rating is fine. Don't feel you have to go out of your way to use my list of likes if they aren't your style or if they don't speak to you (I'm really not picky, they're only there for ideas), and feel free to combine requested fandoms and characters if you're so inspired. Just have fun, and thank you for making me a gift <3
(NB – all of the requests are for art or fic. If you are kind enough to be contemplating a treat, then any medium is welcome, including podfic, vids, fanmixes, etc..)
A Word About My Personal Interpretations and Preferences
One of the greatest delights to me as a fan is stumbling across interpretations of characters and plots and motifs that I'd never considered; in an exchange, I am always keen to know how other creators see the stories I love. Please write or draw the occupants of Tolkien's worlds in any way that you wish. Diverse skin tones; non-Western cultural influences; disabilities; different body types; trans, intersex and genderqueer headcanons – go for it.
I am also open to unrequested relationships.
If Maglor appears, I do have a preference for him being capable and compos mentis, rather than feral, broken, or weeping by the sea forever more.
General Likes
- A sense of history and wonder
- Animals
- Battle plans, battle scenes and/or aftermath
- Candlelight
- Castles, fortresses, palaces and grand houses
- Communication and travel between worlds and across time
- Cosy cottages (or hobbit holes!)
- Dragons!
- Elves/Ainur in history
- Fic, art etc. inspired by my own fanworks: remixes, based on, set in the same 'verse, using the same plotline, borrowing an OC, podfic recording, etc.
- Fog and mist
- Food, drink and celebration
- Forests; rivers; the sea
- Fusions of science and magic
- Ghosts, hauntings (literal and metaphorical)
- Learning a craft or skill
- Libraries, archives and other knowledge repositories
- Liminal places; the borders of the numinous
- Loyalty and sacrifice; carrying on against impossible odds
- Magic
- Music and musical instruments
- Myth, folklore and fairy-tale
- Objects and places with special significance
- Original characters
- Quiet moments
- Roaring fires
- Setting as character - feel free to take this literally, I love sentient nature and architectural horror
- Shining a light into places canon doesn't show us, or barely touches on – going off the edge of the map
- Starlight
- Storytelling, riddles and poetry
- Suggestion and implication, whether this is hints of backstory, a figure hiding in the shadows, or a slightly ambiguous ending – I love it when my imagination can get to work filling in the gaps
- The supernatural and the uncanny
- Unprompted appearances from characters in canons that aren't strictly their own (Silm characters rocking up in the Third Age; Middle-earth characters turning up in non-ME canons; characters from the other canons travelling to Middle-earth; characters from multiple small canons meeting up somehow...)
- Unprompted crossovers between requests
- Villages, towns and cities, especially their unusual defining features, like Esgaroth being constructed on wooden piles in the middle of a lake
- Witchy, fey and eldritch beings
Art Likes
- Abstract art
- Action shots
- Art as character study, or illustrating the dynamics of a relationship
- Basically anything that plays with colour, light, shadow, space and movement
- Beams of light; strangely shaped shadows
- Calligraphy/illumination/runework
- Close ups of tiny details like stitching, beading, engraving, etc.
- Clothing, jewellery and hair
- Comic panels; sets of linked drawings that tell a story
- Craft and sculpture
- Depictions of the natural world; tiny characters in vast landscapes
- Facial expressions conveying more than one emotion at once
- Fashion design
- Focus on a part of the body that isn't the face, e.g. a character's fingertips lightly brushing their lover's ear
- Group shots
- Intricate detailing on weaponry, armour, buildings, engravings, musical instruments...
- Limited colour palette; jewel tones; monochrome
- Maps, architectural drawings, floor plans, designs for a toy or new invention, etc.
- Portraits
- Unusual perspectives – through a window, over a gate, down a tunnel, from a distance...
Fic Likes
- Adventure and peril
- Anything to do with languages, linguistics and alphabets
- Canon divergence AUs
- Capable/competent characters being casually excellent
- Complex character dynamics
- Conflicting motivations
- Curious characters who just want to know things
- Fairy tale motifs
- Found families/families of choice
- Grief and tragedy
- Hope and reconciliation
- In-world myths and legends
- In-world meta (see section below)
- Mercy/pity/kindness
- Mysteries and investigations
- Philosophical musings; academic discussions and debates
- Politics, on any scale
- Solace
- Unexpected friends/allies/relationships
- Unreliable narrators and quirky narrative structures – for example, epistolary, fragmented narratives, stories told through found documents, framing devices, stories told out of chronological order; playing with canon narrative bias/intent
- Unusual perspectives, minor characters and textual ghosts
- Wry humour; finding something to smile over when times are bleak
In-Universe Meta
- “Filling in the gaps” e.g. fragments of documents complete with in-world commentary
- Bestiaries and spellbooks
- Catalogues
- Contracts and agreements
- Diary entries; project journals
- Essays
- Etymology
- History
- In-world scholarship
- Instructions and recipes
- Laws and proclamations
- Letters
- Literary criticism and analysis
- Marginalia
- Working papers and project notes
Relationship Likes
(A lot of my requests are for single characters but I am open to unrequested ships.)
General/SFW
- Ambiguous relationships
- Banter and teasing
- Bedsharing; huddling for warmth
- Characters being utterly fascinated by one another (doesn't have to be romantic; could be admiration of craft/skill, or being impressed by someone's intellect, or something else altogether)
- Developing friendships – especially unlikely friendships
- Emotional reunions after long separations
- Enemies/rivals to lovers/friends
- Fierce loyalty and devotion, to the point of one character doing something incredibly stupid to help or save somebody they love
- Fighting back-to-back
- Forehead kisses
- Grey relationships that don't sit neatly in a box
- Hurt/comfort
- Quiet moments between people who care about each other, especially during or after huge events shaking their world
- Situational relationships – enemies having to work together, or people who wouldn't normally be drawn to each other forming a bond through circumstance
- “The little things” - light brushes with fingertips, smiles across a room...
- Tempestuous, complex or unhealthy relationships (see section on darker stuff)
Smut Likes
- Aftercare
- Banter in bed
- Bathing
- Biting and scratching
- Blood play
- Breath play
- Comfort sex; sex between friends who are just having fun
- Differing experience levels
- Drinking wine in bed together
- Enthusiastic consent
- Gags; blindfolds; light bondage
- Hair brushing/washing/braiding
- Helplessness
- Knifeplay
- Neck kissing; collarbone kissing
- Nipple play
- Orgasm delay/denial
- Piercings
- Pillow talk
- Porn as character study
- Reading erotic literature together
- Sensation play
- Sex exploring power dynamics and/or deeply informed by characters' history together
- Sex in or near water
- Swimming
- “Thank god you're alive” sex; sex after serious injury
More ideas in my old Smut4Smut letters if your muse bends that way!
Darker Stuff
- Apocalypse
- Apotheosis
- Abandoned places; ruins; haunted houses/objects
- Being trapped in a small dark space, possibly with something terrifying lurking nearby
- Body horror. Especially pretty body horror, like flowers growing out of bodies, or being consumed from the inside by starlight.
- Body modification
- Dark magic and curses
- Dreams bleeding into reality
- Dubious consent
- Incest
- Malevolent ghosts and hauntings
- Memory loss, or memories being fake/unreliable
- Possession
- Resurrection and necromancy
- Ritual and sacrifice
- Seances
- Sentient nature
- Torture
- Unhealthy relationships/relationships with troubling dynamics, including obsession, jealousy and co-dependency
- Vore
Characters I'm Always Happy To See
(This is not me sneaking in additional requests and it's definitely not to say that I want these more than any of my other selected characters – most of them aren't even in my sign-up – but if they turn up uninvited or happen to go for a walk into a canon they don't strictly belong in, I can guarantee I will be delighted.)
- Maglor
- Glorfindel
- Celegorm
- Finrod
- Celebrimbor
- Fëanor
- Nerdanel
- Míriel
- Indis
- Goldberry
- Guinevere
- Morgan Le Fay
- Lalaith (especially ghost baby Lalaith)
- Gilmith
- Melian
- Nessa
- Vána
- Mairon
- Olórin
- Bilbo
- The Drúedain
- The Rohirrim and their predecessors
- Roverandom
- Artaxerxes
- Psamathos
- Father Christmas and his family and friends
- The Blue-Robed Lady of the Forest
- The Corrigan
- The Shadow-Bride
- The Watcher in the Water
- Goldberry
- The River-woman
- Nielíqui
- Carnán
- Gorgumoth
- Grinder and his dam
- Huorns
- Houseless Elves
- Barrow-wights
- Thuringwethil
- Ungoliant
- Uin
- JRRT himself
- The Inklings
- The TCBS
- The Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl
- The King of Faery
Selected Fandoms, Tags, and Optional Prompts
I've based most of my suggested prompts on the optional worldbuilding tags, but if you have a different idea for the character(s) we've matched on then by all means go with that!
The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son
- Group: Tídwald & Torthelm (HBBS)
- Original corpse-stripper character (HBBS)
- Torthelm (HBBS)
- Tídwald (HBBS)
- Worldbuilding: Barrow-wights and Bogies (HBBS)
- Worldbuilding: Food and Drink (HBBS)
- Worldbuilding: Maldon (HBBS)
- Worldbuilding: Minstrelsy (HBBS)
- Worldbuilding: New Weapons of Old Metal (HBBS)
- Worldbuilding: Ofermod (HBBS)
- Worldbuilding: Poetry and history – the role of chronicler (HBBS)
- Worldbuilding: Saxon Dialects (HBBS)
There is some great potential for spooky, unsettling art here – I'm thinking corpse-strippers sneaking around in the shadows, or Totta and Tída in the wagon with their lord's body, holding a single lamp, perhaps with fog whispering around the wheels or a barrow-wight sneaking out of the dark. There's some wonderful imagery in The Battle of Maldon itself, too, that Totta and Tída reflect on – maybe you could draw Beorhtnoth on the causeway, facing the Viking hordes, while Totta and Tída remember in a corner, or the margins. Or for something quietly uplifting, how about the two of them approaching the abbey at Ely as the sun rises?
If you're making fic then I don't have any specific prompts beyond those I've pulled from the tag set – honestly, I'd be interested in anything you'd like to make. I feel this canon lends itself to unusual formats so if you want to continue in the verse drama mode, or tell a story through found documents, be my guest – I'd be delighted!
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún
- Attila (LSG)
- Brynhild (LSG)
- Fafnir (LSG)
- Group: Grimhild/ Nameless Troll (LSG)
- Group: Sigmund/Signý (LSG)
- Group: the Nibelungs (LSG)
- Loki (LSG)
- Original Character(s) (LSG)
- The Midgard Serpent (LSG)
- Worldbuilding: Curses (LSG)
- Worldbuilding: Germanic Witches (LSG)
- Worldbuilding: Prophecy (LSG)
- Worldbuilding: Shapeshifting (LSG)
- Worldbuilding: The Role of the Gods (LSG)
- Worldbuilding: Valkyries (LSG)
There is SO much to go at here; this text is so broad in scope! There are plenty of parallels between this canon and the published Silm, if that's something you feel like exploring, from the cosmic significance of Sigurd and Turin, to dark prophecies about seven princes, to Rohirric-sounding verse. You could go in all kinds of directions with this – mischievous gods; tragic incest; the tale of the end of the world; cute fluff about shapeshifting otters. If you feel like trying verse narrative then this is another canon that lends itself to that – or, for something completely different, you could take the OC tag and go Gaiman-esque, and have the mythic tales overlap with or impinge on our modern world in some way.
For art – a depiction of any of the characters or groups I've picked out would be fantastic. If any of the worldbuilding prompts make sense to include then that's an added bonus – an OC shapeshifter midway through changing form? Witches casting spells, or laying a curse? Valkyries going into battle? Up to you!
If you need further inspiration, and you have a little time, I highly recommend reading the discussion of this text in the dedicated channel on the SWG Discord (https://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/faq/discord-public-private). There are some fabulous recordings of sections being read aloud, too!
The Story of Kullervo
- Group: Kullervo and Wanona's Brother and Sister (Kullervo)
- Group: Kullervo/Wanona (Kullervo)
- Group: The Blue-Robed Lady of the Forest/Wanona (Kullervo)
- Group: Untamo & Kalervo (Kullervo)
- Kalervo's Swan-mother (Kullervo)
- Kullervo (Kullervo)
- Musti (Kullervo)
- The Blue-Robed Lady of the Forest (Kullervo)
- Untamo (Kullervo)
- Wanona (Kullervo)
- Worldbuilding: Curses and Prophecy (Kullervo)
- Worldbuilding: Musical Enchantments (Kullervo)
- Worldbuilding: Musti's Origin (Kullervo)
- Worldbuilding: Runes and Carvings (Kullervo)
- Worldbuilding: Swans and their broods (Kullervo)
- Worldbuilding: The Great Knife Sikki (Kullervo)
- Worldbuilding: The Halls of Untola (Kullervo)
- Worldbuilding: The Magic of the Woods and Trees (Kullervo)
- Worldbuilding: The Men of Magic (Kullervo)
- Worldbuilding: Wanona and Kullervo's Wanderings in the Woods (Kullervo)
“Hapless Kullervo” makes Túrin Turambar look like a good luck charm. I feel like this small canon doesn't get the love it deserves, especially since there are BoLT levels of barmy brilliance going on...an eagle steals a baby cygnet from a mother swan and flies off with it, and somehow that cygnet grows up to become Kalervo, Kullervo's father!?!
There are plenty of more familiar notes too – a mysterious fay woman in a forest, sentient talking weapons, a loyal magical dog, a wicked sorcerer, tragic destinies, unwitting incest, and power in music. I don't mind what you want to play with here; I promise I'll be delighted with any of it.
Sellic Spell
- Beewolf (Sellic)
- Grinder (Sellic)
- Grinder's Dam (Sellic)
- Original Character(s) (Sellic)
- Original Giant (Sellic)
- The Queen of the Golden Hall (Sellic)
- Unfriend (Sellic)
- Worldbuilding: Beewolf's Ancestry (Sellic)
- Worldbuilding: Dreams and Drowsiness (Sellic)
- Worldbuilding: Fate (Sellic)
- Worldbuilding: Nixes (Sellic)
- Worldbuilding: Ogre Blood (Sellic)
- Worldbuilding: Ogre Magic (Sellic)
- Worldbuilding: Smithcraft (Sellic)
- Worldbuilding: The Golden Hall (Sellic)
- Worldbuilding: The Lair Under The Lake (Sellic)
- Worldbuilding: The Sword Forged By Giants (Sellic)
I love this strange little folk-tale reworking of Beowulf. I have previously requested this canon in a number of darkfic and horror exchanges as I do feel it lends itself to that – I'm especially interested in depictions of monstrousness and otherness, so perhaps something about Grinder or his dam, their origins, and their perspective on events? You could get seriously into body horror, magical corruption, traumatic transformation, even cannibalism and so on if you wanted to – or go down the folk horror route, if that appeals.
That said, I would be just as delighted with something warmer and lighter in tone – an evening of storytelling in the Golden Hall? Feel free to re-interpret and re-frame the story yet again, or take a look at events from a different point of view – maybe through the eyes of the Queen, or an OC. If you want to draw on Beowulf itself as well, I'm more than fine with that; you could get really meta and explore how Tolkien's version solves some of the puzzling/tonally inconsistent elements of Beowulf.
For art, I would love an illustration of any scene that strikes your fancy, or if you wanted to render part of the tale in pretty lettering, that would be incredible!
Pearl
- The Pearl Poet (Pearl)
- The Pearl-maiden (Pearl)
- Original Character (Pearl)
- Worldbuilding: Dream Visions (Pearl)
- Worldbuilding: Gemstones (Pearl)
- Worldbuilding: Grief and Mourning (Pearl)
- Worldbuilding: Madness Reigning in Mortal Minds (Pearl)
- Worldbuilding: Minstrelsy (Pearl)
- Worldbuilding: The Border Between Life and Death (Pearl)
- Worldbuilding: The Moon (Pearl)
This is certainly a smaller, quieter, reflective text; there's no cast of thousands, no epic adventures, but still plenty to explore. Who sent the Dream Vision? Who is the Pearl Poet – are they also the Gawain poet, or are they someone else? Is the poem an elegy, an allegory, both? Something completely different? Where is the Pearl-maiden, what is her name, and what are the circumstances where the boundaries between life and death might thin to allow for communication?
You could potentially go for some in-universe meta here, if that interests you; people much brighter than me have pointed out that part of the poem reads like a lapidary. For art, maybe you could do something like a medieval illumination, or an illustration in the style of a stained glass window? Or calligraphy of a passage you particularly like?
Sir Orfeo
- Group: Heurodis/Faërie Ladies (Orfeo)
- Group: The King of Faërie/Orfeo/Heurodis/Faërie Ladies (Orfeo)
- Group: The Sixty Ladies of Faërie (Orfeo)
- Heurodis (Orfeo)
- Orfeo (Orfeo)
- Original Character(s) (Orfeo)
- Original Character(s) from Faërie (Orfeo)
- Original Court Retainers (Orfeo)
- Original Handmaiden of Heurodis (Orfeo)
- The King of Faërie (Orfeo)
- Worldbuilding: Faërie (Orfeo)
- Worldbuilding: Faërie Hunts (Orfeo)
- Worldbuilding: Lineage and Genealogy (Orfeo)
- Worldbuilding: Manuscripts – transmission and corruption (Orfeo)
- Worldbuilding: Minstrelsy (Orfeo)
- Worldbuilding: Tales of Faërie (Orfeo)
- Worldbuilding: The Border Between Life and Death (Orfeo)
- Worldbuilding: The Border Between Our World and Faërie (Orfeo)
- Worldbuilding: The Influence of Ancient Greece and Rome (Orfeo)
- Worldbuilding: Winchester (Orfeo)
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms! Abducted queens! A very scary take on Faërie! Be still, my heart...what's not to love here?!
I'd be delighted to receive something about Heurodis's time in Faërie and would absolutely be down for smutty goodness with some ladies of the Faërie Court (participation of Orfeo and the King an optional and delicious extra). I'm a sucker for outsider POV and there are plenty of OC tags to pick from here, whether you'd prefer to explore further afield in Faërie or delve into life at Orfeo's court. Or how about a character from modern times ending up in Faërie, and interacting with its court and King? (If you feel like drawing on elements of Smith of Wotton Major here too, that would be very welcome indeed.)
If you want to get meta, I would be very interested in an exploration of different versions of this myth – I nominated the “influence of ancient Greece and Rome” tag but don't stop there, there are plenty of variants of this story from across the globe and throughout history.
Art-wise – I admit I am particularly fond of this passage:
"Sum stode withouten hede...
And sum were in water adreynt,
And some with fire al forschreynt."
A Faërie castle full of corpses feels like it is begging to be illustrated, but there are so many other options too – a depiction of the Hunt, or a recreation of a manuscript of the poem, perhaps?
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- Agravain (SGGK)
- Bertilak de Hautdesert (SGGK)
- Gawain (SGGK)
- Green Knight (SGGK)
- Group: Bertilak/Lady Bertilak/Sir Gawain (SGGK)
- Group: Green Knight/Sir Gawain (SGGK)
- Guinevere (SGGK)
- Morgan le Fay (SGGK)
- The Gawain Poet (SGGK)
- Wife of Bertilak de Hautdesert (SGGK)
- Worldbuilding: All Hallows (SGGK)
- Worldbuilding: Feasting and Festivals (SGGK)
- Worldbuilding: Heraldry (SGGK)
- Worldbuilding: The Founding of Britain (SGGK)
- Worldbuilding: The Green Riband (SGGK)
- Worldbuilding: The Nature of Magic (SGGK)
- Worldbuilding: The Plots and Schemes of Morgan le Fay (SGGK)
- Worldbuilding: The Role of the Church in Arthur's Court and Beyond (SGGK)
- Worldbuilding: The Round Table (SGGK)
- Worldbuilding: The Tapestries of Tharsia (SGGK)
Anything Arthurian is catnip to me, so you honestly can't go wrong here, whether you want to show me a steamy scene between Bertilak, his lady, and Sir Gawain, explore the identity of the Gawain poet, or delve deeper into the machinations of Morgan le Fay. (Or what about Guinevere? Is this the same fay, witchy Guinever we see in The Fall of Arthur?)
For art, I would love some illuminated lettering, or a portrait of the Green Knight, or a sketch of Gawain off on his quest. Feel free to lean into some of the darker and gorier elements, if that appeals to you – I'm hard to squick when it comes to violence.
The Father Christmas Letters
- Cave Bear (TCFL)
- Father Christmas (TCFL)
- Grandfather Yule (TFCL)
- Green Brother (TFCL)
- Group: Cave Bear & The North Polar Bear (TFCL)
- Group: Original Goblin & Original Snow Person (TFCL)
- Group: The Great Bear & The Great Seal (TFCL)
- Man in the Moon (TFCL)
- Original Gnome Character (TFCL)
- Original Goblin (TFCL)
- Original Snow Person (TFCL)
- The Great Bear (TFCL)
- The Great Seal (TFCL)
- The North Polar Bear (TFCL)
- Worldbuilding: Gnomes (TFCL)
- Worldbuilding: Goblin Steeds (TFCL)
- Worldbuilding: North Pole Cave Art (TFCL)
- Worldbuilding: The Flow of Time on Christmas Eve (TFCL)
- Worldbuilding: The Nature of the Green Brother (TFCL)
- Worldbuilding: The Northern Lights (TFCL)
- Worldbuilding: The Powers of Bears (TFCL)
- Worldbuilding: The Realm of the Great Seal (TFCL)
Yes, yes, I am shamelessly predictable. I have SO MANY thoughts about this canon and have pasted in a random selection from previous exchanges, but if you have a different idea then please feel free to explore it.
- I can't help wondering if the Green Brother is an “older” version of Father Christmas – the version we see dressed in green and crowned with holly, before being replaced in the popular mind by our modern red-clad version? Or maybe he's some kind of summer spirit, or Green Man, or the leader of the Wild Hunt (is he Oromë!?). What's his relationship with Father Christmas like? Where is his domain?
- The Flow of Time on Christmas Eve - how does it work? Does Grandfather Yule help with this, or perhaps the Great Bear and Great Seal? (They sound like they might be Ainur-adjacent...)
- Who is in charge of Father Christmas's workshop? Do they still make everything by hand, or have they modernised? Who looks after all those letters? (Epistolary format could be a lot of fun here!) Maybe most importantly of all, how do they get around everybody on Christmas Eve!?
- I love the glimpses of lore and history that we get in this canon. What about the bats and weird sausage-dog things that the goblins ride on? Maybe you could explore what those are, or make art of them. And the Elves...Ilbereth uses Tengwar at one point, if memory serves, so are they Middle-earth Elves of a later Age? Or maybe you could write or draw the Gnomes (are they Noldor?!) or even explore the nature of Father Christmas himself, and the history of Christmas and its realm. What did the land at the North Pole look like before Christmas as we know it? Was it once a darker, scarier place? Who is Grandfather Yule, and what does he do these days?
- Anything with goblin tunnels (including The Hobbit) makes me think of George MacDonald's dark and magical fairy story, The Princess and the Goblin. I'd love to know what the goblins are planning, and whether they're related to the goblins of Middle-earth. Does Father Christmas know more about them than he lets on to the Tolkien children? Are the goblins hoping to reach the “real world” through Father Christmas's realm – and if they are, what for? If you're making art, pictures of their underground realm would be amazing, and for meta, maybe there are some dusty records somewhere at the North Pole of their historic invasions and attacks?
- The Northern Lights: If you're doing art then I would love a picture of these! If you're writing, then...they're turned on by a tap?!? How does that work? What powers them? Who made them first? Who built that tap – Father Christmas, or someone else?
Smith of Wootton Major
- Alf Prentice (Smith)
- Group: Alf Prentice & Harper (Smith)
- Group: Alf Prentice & Rob Rider (Smith)
- Group: Attendants of the Faery Queen (Smith)
- Group: Faery Queen & Nan (Smith)
- Group: Faery Queen/Attendants (Smith)
- Group: Faery Queen/Original female character from our world (Smith)
- Group: Ned Smithson & Alf Prentice (Smith)
- Group: Rob Rider/Rose Sangster (Smith)
- Group: Smith's descendants and kin (Smith)
- Group: The Faery Queen/The Faery King (Smith)
- Harper (Smith)
- Nan (Smith)
- Ned Smithson (Smith)
- Nokes (Smith)
- Original Character(s) (Smith)
- Rob Rider (Smith)
- Smith (Smith)
- Tim of Townsend (Smith)
- Tomling (Smith)
- Worldbuilding: Craft in Wootton Major (Smith)
- Worldbuilding: Elven Mariners (Smith)
- Worldbuilding: Great British Bake Off in Wootton Major (Smith)
- Worldbuilding: How Master Cooks choose their Apprentices (Smith)
- Worldbuilding: Items from Faery (Smith)
- Worldbuilding: Memories of Faery (Smith)
- Worldbuilding: Sentient Nature and Weather (Smith)
- Worldbuilding: The Borders of Faery (Smith)
- Worldbuilding: The Living Flower and its Casket (Smith)
- Worldbuilding: Wootton Minor (Smith)
This is such a sad and beautiful little story. I love its melancholy atmosphere, the sense of constantly searching for something, the longing that pervades it. For fic, how about an original character who dreams of Faery, and longs to go? Or how about the Queen of Faery? How does she feel about the "real" world changing as time goes on? Does it encroach on her realm, and if so, what changes?
For me, this is the perfect canon for anyone who loves setting as character. You could explore all sorts here - sentient mists; wondrous waters; trees with voices and specific powers... - and the descriptions are a gift to artists who love drawing landscapes. (This canon could also work beautifully for abstract art.) I'd also be really keen to see more of Wootton Major, and how its links to Faery manifest in daily life there. And what about Wootton Minor? Does anything of interest happen their? Do they hear rumours of their neighbours' Faery connections, and dismiss them as nonsense, like grumpy, comfortable Hobbits?
I couldn't fit the 'other bearers of the star' worldbuilding tag into my request slots, but if you want to include an OC star-bearer then go ahead, that could fit with plenty of the other tags I've pulled out. As for the bake-off tag...I've no idea what this would look like, so if you want to play about with that then go nuts! (Perhaps literally?)
Shadow of Mordor
- Carnán (SoM)
- Eltariel (SoM)
- Group: The Nazgûl Sisters (SoM)
- Shelob (SoM)
- Worldbuilding: Replacing Ringwraiths (SoM)
- Worldbuilding: Shen (SoM)
- Worldbuilding: Spidercraft (SoM)
- Worldbuilding: The Forest of Carnán (SoM)
- Worldbuilding: The Nature of Carnán (SoM)
This is a divisive canon, but I'm very fond of it. Carnán is one of my favourite characters; she feels like she belongs in the books! I'm intrigued by who and what she is. Something to do with the Entwives? One of the Ainur? Something else altogether...?
The phrase 'spidercraft' is a lift from The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, but I thought it was a nice fit for the sexy, shapeshifting, powerful version of Shelob we see here. Actually, this canon is a joy for lovers of dark, powerful female characters – plenty of fans like to speculate about female Ringwraiths, and this game seies has two of them! I'd love to know more about them, their backstory, their home kingdom, and their motivations.
I really love Eltariel's arc too. What was her history? What does it mean to be the Blade of Galadriel? What sort of relationship did she have with Celebrimbor? I want to know!
