#Simaetha

[stshloop]

Well, this is quite the stunning fellow.

Meet Irura bidenticulata, a spectacular, purple-and-gold jumping spider.

Look at that purple sheen!!

It’s a pretty small spider, at around 6mm long. This species was once thought to belong in the genus Simaetha, and in an 2011 paper finally describing the spider, it was found that it belonged in the genus Irura, and thus Irura bidenticulata.

They seem to be found in Southeast Asia and Southeastern China, but never seem to be common anywhere, except, for this little paradise known as Hong Kong. From April to May, I got to meet these little beauties many times on Hong Kong Island.

Curious enough, all of these that I found happen to be males. Females tend to be gold and black, and fluffy pedipalps. I was hoping to breed them someday, but I never got to find a female.

When June came along, I was actually quite sad to no longer find them. They are my absolute favourite arachnids and I doubt much could top them.

Hope everyone learnt something new today, and have a little more appreciation for the tiny critters around us (:

[shadow-turtle-234]

Meet my SpiderSona/OC, Marinette Williams AKA the Puppeteer

__

Art & Marinette (c) @shadow-turtle-234

Spider-Man (c) Marvel

Reblogs & Likes are appreciated!

No reposting onto other sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.,)

[edennill-archived]

Quick question, but since we're looking at it from a legal POV, does the fact that Sauron is technically on the run from the law since the second age started (because war crimes) influence the property rights dispute in any way?

so on the subject of stolen property, i’ve seen various arguments on this point but it is in fact true that inheriting something from a relative, when you know full well that it was stolen, does not make it yours.

this clearly goes doubly so for powerful magical artifacts, and especially for artifacts which are strongly implied to contain part of their creator’s soul!

you can talk about consequences - maybe the artifact in question has benefits for you, maybe you’re not convinced its rightful owners would use it responsibly - but talking about the consequences doesn’t erase the fact that whatever benefits you think you’re getting are achieved through wrongful means.

which is why i, too, think Frodo should have given the One Ring back to Sauron. thief.

[owlwinter8]

My first bookbind!!! This is a back-to-back bind of call it peace by simaetha and fractal by Ias. I fell in love with how these two time loop fics foil each other, so I bound them together as a quarto! Parts of this bind are super janky but dang if I'm not proud of it anyway <3 Cover inspo: Infinite Day, Penabranca, Screenprint, 2018

[emyn-arnens]

2024 Fic Roundup

Thanks for tagging me @hobbitwrangler! 💛 2024 is over, but I spent the past week in Galadriel fic lockdown, so I'm doing this now.

Total Words Published at end of year: 73,559 (including a handful of fic from other fandoms)

Fandoms: Mostly LOTR and Silm with some brief forays into Narnia, the Sevenwaters series, and Timeless.

Highest Everything (raw kudos, hits, comments): Keeping this to Tolkien fics:

Kudos: Like a Wave That Should Engulf the World (G, Faramir/Éowyn, 0.7k)

Hits: Across So Wide a Sea (G, Galadriel, Finrod, Celeborn, Celebrían, and more, 33.1k)

Comments: Across So Wide a Sea again

New Things I Tried: Quite a bit! I dug deeper into writing horror; wrote a number of characters and relationships I'd never written before; wrote my first all-OC fic; wrote my first epistolary fic; and wrote about the Second Age and early Third Age, which I had previously avoided because they're time periods I wasn't as familiar with. And, best of all, I finished a long fic for the first time! 🎉

Fic I Spent the Most Time On: Across So Wide a Sea, by far. I spent about three quarters of the year on it, between researching and writing. I hadn't initially planned on the fic covering such a sprawling length of time (end of the First Age to end of the Third Age), so I had to give myself some crash courses on parts of the Second Age and early Third Age that I wasn't as familiar with.

Writing it also brought up a lot of questions about things I had previously taken for granted and not thought much about, including things like "did the Elves try to figure out what happened to the Ring after Isildur's death and its subsequent vanishing from history? If they didn't, why, and if they did, how did they do so? And didn't they wonder why the Istari showed up in what was largely a time of peace (about one hundred years before Sauron took over Dol Guldur for the first time)?" And so on and so on. I spent a lot of time working out what Galadriel would have plausibly known and how she would have reacted to some of Tolkien's less-described events.

Fic I Spent the Least Time On: Any of my ficlets for the Three Sentence Ficathon, really, but probably either As Watchful As Any Living Thing (G, anthropomorphic Nargothrond, 0.1k) or As Thunder Echoing in the Deep Hills (G, Oromë, 0.1k).

Favourite Thing I Wrote: Not to keep going on about Across So Wide a Sea, but Across So Wide a Sea. I spent a lot of time digging into Galadriel's mind this year, and I'm proud of what I created. She's a hard character to capture (and I'd avoided writing her for a long time just because of that), but I feel like I truly understand her now. Who knew first person POV could be just the thing for getting into the heads of characters who intimidate you!

Favourite Thing(s) I Read:

the plain sight of our destiny is the cruellest thing of all by @hobbitwrangler (T, OCs, 4.3k): A fascinating, horrifying look at Umbar during Sauron's takeover, with a rich cast of characters and perfectly claustrophobic horror.

The Manner of His Return by @thelordofgifs (G, Faramir & Denethor, 1.6k): An aching depiction of Faramir's complicated relationship with Denethor.

call it peace by simaetha (G, Celebrimbor & Galadriel, Celebrimbor & Sauron, 3.6k): A hard-hitting timeloop fic about Celebrimbor's attempts to undo what he's started.

One day, but not today by @hobbitwrangler (G, Elros/Elros' wife, 3k): Do you want a thousand feelings about Elros and his unnamed wife and the inevitability of death? If so, read this.

with every seed you sow, let is wash away, wash away by @rarepairnation (G, Faramir & Éowyn & Legolas, 4k): The Faramir, Éowyn, and Legolas in Ithilien fic everyone needs, with a delicious chaser of the specter of Denethor and Minas Tirith hanging over Faramir.

Chrysalis by @cuarthol (G, Andreth & Bregor, 1.3k): The sweetest, tenderest depiction of Andreth and Bregor's relationship.

The Spinner by @searchingforserendipity25 (G, Galadriel, 1k): A proud, ambitious Galadriel who is just so determined to stick it to Fëanor. What more could you want.

A Sea Change by @sallysavestheday (G, Curufin & Finrod, 0.7k): A beautiful depiction of Curufin and Finrod's relationship, post-reembodiment, lyrical and full of forgiveness.

Writing Goals for 2025:

Finish some of the WIPs that have been wallowing in my WIPs folder for two or three years or more.

Really, just kick some WIPs out of the WIPs folder. Any WIPs.

Tagging everyone previously mentioned as well as @dreamingthroughthenoise @thescrapwitch @camille-lachenille if you're interested in doing this!

[elronds-library]

strategic behaviours

by simaetha

As if it were the creature’s own will, you think, amused, and smile at Tyelperinquar, observing the slight dilation of his pupils.

Explicit, No Archive Warnings

Words: 3,186

[yavieriel]

So I am tipsy and probably won't express this perfectly

but

I think this is where like - if you're in a long-term mono, married relationship, you live together and share finances and decisions about having or not having children and etc. etc.

you should know each other well enough to know where the boundaries are?

Like. My wife and I have talked about non-mono as a theoretical thing. We talk about if we find other people hot. And idk I suspect some people would consider at least one of my friendships to be an "emotional affair" but again my wife is very aware of it and positive about it, so it's not an issue.

So I think if you're having to directly ask your long-term mono partner if they're interested in an open relationship and they weren't anticipating this question, then there's some kind of failure state already happening.

It's like asking someone to marry you without already knowing they'll say yes, if that makes sense? You're not supposed to pop the question without first talking about how you both feel about marriage and what your mutual expectations about relationships are and whether you're mutually interested in being married to each other in specific. The "when" and "where" of a proposal might be a surprise but the fact of it happening shouldn't be. Asking a long-term partner if they're willing to open your shared relationship feels like it should be like that, something that's not a surprise but an articulation of something that the two of you were already moving towards.

Plus the advice-seeking bias - people who are positively engaged with their partner in moving towards a nonmono paradigm for their relationship aren't going to show up on Reddit going "what the fuck how do I deal with this".

One of the wildest ideas that bounces around the Reddit relationship advice echo chamber is the idea that merely asking your partner if they would go for an open relationship is perfectly reasonable grounds for divorce.

[aipilosse]

Was Tuor granted immortality when he went to Valinor? I thought it was just some of Luthien’s descendants who got to choose. Yet they say Tuor was counted amongst the Noldor in Valinor? Was that just a way of saying that he was so close to them that they thought of him as one of them? Not really granted immortality? Sorry for the lore type question but I’m genuinely undecided as to what happened to him in canon.

Don't apologize! this finally gave me the impetus to crack open Arda Reconstructed which I'd checked out from the library.

Anyway, my interpretation of the Silm had always been that Tuor was granted immortality. Which I didn't think made sense when I was 11 and still doesn't make sense now, but that's what it sounds like to me:

But in after days it was sung that Tuor alone of mortal Men was numbered among the elder race, and was joined with the Noldor, whom he loved; and his fate is sundered from the fate of Men.

That last part, "his fate is sundered from the fate of Men," is what makes it sound like he was given immortality, and was not merely sort of adopted into the Noldor.

Arda Reconstructed pointed me towards The Quenta II in the Shaping of Middle-Earth for where this comes from. And, yeah, it's pretty similar:

But Tuor alone of mortal Men was numbered among the elder race, and joined with the Noldoli whom he loved, and in after time dwelt still, or so it hath been said, ever upon his ship voyaging the seas of the Elven-lands, or resting a while in the harbours of the Gnomes of Tol Eressëa; and his fate is sundered from the fate of Men.

I think the gist here is the same, and the 'sundered from the fate of Men' also still implies he's become immortal.

What's different here is it seems that Tuor cannot actually set foot in Valinor, maybe not even on Tol Eressëa. He's in a fairy-tale like situation of perpetually sailing the enchanted seas of Aman.

As the end of legend, it's good. Very mythic, he's forever sailing with Idril, suitable for the forefather of Númenoreans. But considered in the light of Tolkien's more metaphysical musings, especially about the sundered fates of Elves and Men, it doesn't fit imo. I really go back and forth and whether I like for things to fit the mythic sweep or the metaphysical details, but in this case, I tend to go with Tuor dying, having never set foot on Valinor, which isn't explictly in any version (in the BoLT era story, I think he's lost forever, but that's a bit different).

Anyway, I'll leave you with a very short rec (600-ish words) that explains exactly why I, a lover of Tuor, prefer him to have died at sea:

[polutrope]

weird and controversial ships hmmmm.... elwing/maglor, feanolo, indis/nerdanel?

[ship bingo]

Elwing/Maglor

Yes. They're both hot (to me), she hates him, he would do anything (anything) to redeem himself in her eyes. He won't but she'll still fuck him. Dynamic is Maglor guilt-fucking, Elwing like, "Yeah, I deserve this. Please me, kinslayer -- also don't talk." They are both surprised to find they have amazing chemistry and it gets pretty kinky. Earendil backs it, sometimes watches, rarely partakes. Elrond and Elros think it's funny as hell.

I need them to kill each other = I need her to kill him. With hotness.

That's my take, but for another great (and darker) one, may I recommend: Elwing/f!Maglor by simaetha.

Feanor/Fingolfin

@ettelene is gonna be mad at me for not saying Soulmates but I'm still in my toxic sibcest era lol. UST more than hatefuck though. I do think kissing could fix them though, and I like a Feanor Lives AU where they fuck-to-fix-it.

Some Fave Feanolos:

The Revolutionary and the Usurper by Encairion (imo a masterpiece of Feanor characterisation, complicated relationships, and super hot smut scenes)

All of them by Ettelene but A Clash of swords is so much fun and showcases her talent for group dynamics as well as smut.

hell is empty and we are here by @crownlessliestheking. More pre-slash but their dynamic here is so perfectly spiky.

Indis/Nerdanel

100% sold on this by you. Prefer it to Mindis. Everyone, may I highly recommend stone toys by welcomingdisaster.

[yavieriel]

Sorry if the question is a bit weird but do you think theoretically any ainu could be a 'father' or a 'mother'? Purely from perspective of having an ability to potentially partake in, well, procreation.

Oh almost certainly. I was just talking this over with @simaethae, actually. Personally I go with the version of canon where the Great Eagles are maiarin spirits, and Huan is descended from maiarin Hounds. My interpretation of this is that most Valinorean horses, hounds, etc. are descended not from mundane animals but from maiarin spirits who chose those forms during the process of creating Arda. They essentially have a mutualistic relationship with the elves - they like elves, and interacting with the elves is emotionally/psychologically beneficial to them, and the elves get the benefits of having working animals who can generally be relied on to exercise a large degree of autonomy. Valinorean sheep dogs for example would need almost no oversight, the only reason they'd really need a shepherd would be for things that require hands, like helping with lambing. They like having a shepherd around though, for the same reason you'd like having a friend around who is also a dependable coworker. Shepherd and sheepdog or horse and rider or hunter and hound are peer relationships, teammates, not superior-inferior. Valinorean stables and kennels have latches that can be operated from both sides of the doors, using mouths and/or paws, because they're basically just houses for people who are animal-shaped and get to make their own decisions.

For example, I headcanon that Nahar was The First Horse and is in fact THE Horse, the template for all horses, the most horse it is possible to be, the Platonic ideal of "horse", and that a number of other maiar similarly chose to Be Horses, becoming the First Herd. Their descendants are not themselves maiar, and are unable to be anything but horses, but they are horses with many similar abilities to their maiarin forebears. As long as they're not interbreeding with non-maiarin descended horses they retain all those characteristics, think something like Narnian talking horses except instead of talking they have telepathy, and also supernatural stamina/strength/etc. Rochallor is probably the best examples of this type, and Huan is the dog version of this.

However, these Valinorean horses and hounds and so forth are biologically entirely compatible with ordinary mundane animals, because the maiar patterned themselves off of said mundane animals down to the cellular level. What gives them their unique qualities is primarily metaphysical. Offspring of matings between Valinorean animals and their mundane counterparts inherit some of the physical qualities of their Valinorean parentage, like height, strength, etc., because those are a result of the genetics having been deliberately optimized when the maiar initially took those forms. The inheritance of metaphysical aspects of maiarin ancestry however is less predictable, and tends to be a coin flip - some descendants get it, some don't, there's no real in-between, and it kiiiind of looks like genetics if you don't look too close and/or are from a society who's still only aware of like, basic Mendelian concepts of heritability and has no concept of DNA. Which is to say that mystical inheritance works for animals pretty much the same way that it does for the Dunedain; Shadowfax is a throwback to his maiarin-descended ancestors the same way Faramir is, but both of them have brothers who are physically comparable but entirely mystically ungifted.

[thatpyroblogs]

The Goddess Angelos

So I’ve probably spent too much time looking into the whole minor goddess Angelos, but today I decided to try and approach researching them from the Hecate angle. Angelos is supposed to be a potential proto Hecate. Right away I can see where people are drawing that conclusion. Hecate is a goddess involved in death and childbirth. Given the only known myth of Angelos involves a pregnant woman and a funeral procession I can see how the association can be made. There is also the fact that Angelos’ myth associates her both with the living world and the Underworld which is another thing that ties her to Hecate.

Now a thing I skipped over in my first post talking about Angelos was that she is also associated with Artemis. I skipped that bit of information because it really was only mentioned in passing in one sentence on her Wikipedia page when talking about how she might be proto Hecate. The line of thinking, presented by the Greek grammarian Hesychius, states that in the city of Syracuse Angelos is used as a surname for Artemis and, since Artemis is often identified with Hecate, that one must than identify Angelos with Hecate. Pretty much an if A=B and B=C therefore A must = C kind of situation.

Looking at that Wikipedia page again after having reread Idyll II; I now noticed that reference number 3 helpfully provides the line from the scholia it is referencing. This scholia points out that the character Simaetha (the girl whom is the focus of the poem) goes from calling the goddess she is calling upon Hecate to Artemis. Which is used to further build the idea that Angelos = Hecate = Artemis.

I had also mentioned in the previous post that the German encyclopedia, Pauly’s Real Encyclopedia of Classical Antiquity, (helpfully preserved by Wikisource) had a page on Angelos which itself mentioned having a second page on the subject. I believe I found that page which goes on to put forth the idea that one should not count Angelos as a goddess but instead observe the name as a way to group individuals who have a relationship with Underworld together. This page of the encyclopedia goes over the origin of the name Angelos and its usage.

The most important bits of information here (for me) are the fact that Hermes and Artemis (in connection with Hecate) both possess Angelos as a nickname. This page also helpfully ties Artemis/Hecate back to Syracuse with mention of a cult of Persephone that gives them the Angelos surname. The other important helpful bit of information on that the page also reiterates the Angelos myth, BUT it specifics that the daughter of Zeus and Hera is Hecate herself. It also concludes that there is too little supporting evidence that Angelos was ever a divine being themselves and instead should be viewed as a way to indicate when beings have a connection with the Underworld.

So in conclusion I spent way too much time looking into a goddess that likely never existed but instead is a unique birth myth for Hecate’s connection to the Underworld. But, as a good consolation prize, I was introduced to the amazing resource which is that German Encyclopedia. Seriously, if you have any interest in classic Greek mythology it is a treasure trove of information and resources and the entire thing is available to read for free thanks to Wikisource!

[micechicken]

I'd be a liar if I said Simaetha didn't inspire Wolfie's design

[thatpyroblogs]

Once again I find myself discovering some small obscure piece of mythology and going down a rabbit hole of trying to find whatever information I can find. In this case it is the desire to find out more about Angelos, supposedly a daughter of Zeus and Hera.

First, let me just say what an absolute pain it is to find information on a goddess that has a name still in use to this day. Every attempt to try and find research papers on the topic is hindered by the fact that most searches tend to think I'm trying to find papers using the author's name. Attempting to use advanced settings has thus far told me there are zero papers about Angelos. Or at least zero papers accessible to someone without academic access.

Now for what I was able to find. There appears to be only one surviving story on Angelos written by the Greek poet Theocritus. Except that's not entirely true. From what I can understand the surviving story isn't actually the original story, but instead commentary on the original story. This commentary is on Theocritus' poem Idyll II.

Okay so let's look at Idyll II before we get into the commentary. The summary isn't super helpful in my opinion because it says the poem is a monologue by a girl named Simaetha who is laying a fire-spell upon her neglectful lover and that feels like a major simplification of the poem if you read it. Reading the poem yourself you find that Simaetha seems to imply that she slept with this lover after he courted her and, once he got what he wanted, he ghosted her and is pursuing other loves so now she's calling upon Hecate to curse him.

Alright, so now the question is how does this relate to Angelos? Well from what I understand the commentary likely has to do with the mention of Hecate in the Idyll II. Supposedly Angelos might be a proto-verison of Hecate. Of course I can't be 100% certain what the commentary says because the only source for it is the book Scholia in Theocritum Vetera by Carl Wendel. Now good news is you can read this book for free here. Bad news, it is only readable if you can read ancient Greek, which is why a lot of what I've written on the commentary is speculation gleamed from what others have said about it.

This circles back to the one English source I found on Angelos which is Wikipedia. Wikipedia claims the one myth for Angelos involves her stealing Hera's anointments and giving them to one of Zeus' lovers (Europa). Hera does not take kindly to this and Angelos is forced to flee and hide from her mother. She first hides with a woman in labor before hiding among some people are carrying a dead man where Hera finally gives up chasing her. Zeus than orders Angelos to be cleansed by the Cabeiri (another rabbit hole I am pointedly looking away from) in the waters of a lake tied to the Underworld.

The scholia commentary I am unable to read apparently cites this myth when talking about possible origins for Hecate, which seems to imply that after Angelos is cleansed in the Underworld's waters she becomes Hecate. Also if I'm understanding the references on Wikipedia correctly they all seem to imply that the ancient Greek write Sophron is the one who wrote down the Angelos myth the scholia refers to.

Overall Angelos seems like a really interesting character that appears to have become the unfortunate victim of the passage of time and a lack of interest in lesser known Greek deities.

EDIT: I had ignored the 4th source on the Angelos Wikipedia page because it was an old German encyclopedia which I had zero hope of finding. Except apparently the full text that is being referenced is on Wikisource and can therefore be read. I completely forgot that Wikisource exists. This source appears to corroborate that Sophron is the source of all the information we know about Angelos. The notes indicate there may be more information about Angelos in another part of the encyclopedia so I've got more researching to do.

The world if girls would project their mommy issues on Clytemnestra and Electra, Helen and Hermione, Cassiopeia and Andromeda, Hera and Angelos etc. instead of Demeter and Persephone:

[hirazuki]

Would you do 3, 4, and 11 for the ask game, please?

3. One of the best takes you’ve ever seen

The one right here, about how Gandalf would handle being a small-time Maia in Valinor post-canon after having grown used to smacking rulers upside the head and doing things however he pleased for so long. He's not a character I really focus on, but I'm absolutely feral for any take that has to do with the reintegration of those who lived in Middle Earth into Aman in the 4th Age, particularly the clash between the fierce independence gained through centuries of charting one's own course with the kind of baseline subordination needed to exist, successfully, in a society like Valinor's.

4. Link to a great meta you’ve read

This! One of my favorite time periods to think about is the end of the First Age, right after actual fighting of the War of Wrath concludes but before everyone parts ways, to go east further into Middle Earth or west back to Aman; the victory that is no victory, the melancholy that is far more bitter than sweet, and how everything is lying in ruins. This post captures that essence and proposes a physical landscape for post-WoW Beleriand exquisitely ♡

11. Recommend a fic with an unusual/original headcanon or characterisation that you loved

OKAY, now that AO3 is back up, I can finish answering this XD all this light, by simaetha So, it's not exactly an unusual characterization to me, as this is my default interpretation of Nan Elmoth vs. Gondolin vibes, and it's very common in fandom to talk about Gondolin in terms of sunlight/brightness/white stone/etc., but it is incredibly rare for me to see someone else treat Gondolin's quality of light as the straight up, honest horror element I consider it to be. Typically when I see it in fanfic, even when it is from Maeglin's POV, there's kind of this undercurrent that most authors can't seem to shake off, that he's fundamentally wrong for thinking of light negatively; that there is something wrong with him. It is so, so refreshing to see the abundance of light portrayed with such rawness and feverish physicality (not to mention the complete inability to comprehend/alien-ness that Idril treats him with) and it really captures what sensory overload due to light feels like, as well as how out of place you feel among others who seem to be unaffected by it. Highly recommend checking out the rest of this author's works, their writing is lovely!

[soracities]

Thou art wine, Simaetha! When mine eyes drink thee / My blood flames—

Frederic Manning, from ‘Simaetha’, in Poetry

[itsy-cutesy-spidey]

Does anybody have a pretty hat I could wear?  *pat pat*