#silm adjacent

[sesamenom]

highlights from Hobbit-Era Worldbuilding:

according to tolkiengateway these were-worms are never again mentioned (occupying a similar mythological space as mermaids and turtle-fish and dumbledors/hummerhorns), and the Last Desert is in fact the Gobi Desert

dragons established a breeding population sometime between the end of the War of Wrath and the beginning of the Hobbit

dragons have an innate sense of the market value of precious metals

one troll has a talking purse, which is also never again mentioned

The entirety of the moon-letters?? and also the riddle-game

lol bilbo

gollum has pockets, apparently

okay so at this point in the lore chances are this is either irrelevant or metaphorical. but imagine if gollum survived 500 yrs with the ring because he randomly has a fire-fea, like some weird ancient hobbit equivalent of feanor

gandalf's "also naughty little boys that play with fire get punished" sounds very much like it was tacked on there as part of the bedtime story edition lol.

the Eagles regularly random shepherds' flocks

matches exist and are commonly in use, except for by dwarves

eagle pleasantries

the Lord of the Eagles might not be gwaihir on account of the lack of a crown in gwaihir's later descriptions

forget bombadil, where did beorn come from. he's probably related to the tompolle dancing bears of numenor, but where did *those* bears come from. and who are these ancient giants (the thunder-battlers?)

beorn's weird dogs

how many dancing-bear skin-changers are there in rhovanion?? or is beorn just hosting dance parties with regular bears

The sleep river and eyes and white deer are probably the mirkwood equivalent of the nan dungortheb too-many-ainur-in-one-place weirdness

Thingol mention!

also "his people neither mined nor worked metals or jewels, nor did they bother much with trade or with tilling the earth." what was doriath even doing

dragons do the dolphin sleep thing

...so this bit of dragon etiquette is definitely turin's fault

and come to think of it, the wearing-hoards-as-armor is definitely from azaghal stabbing glaurung

bilbo has coined a lot of proverbs

hey that was gandalf's original name. it's a noldorin/gnomish name now and not attributed to a numenorean, so was bladorthin like. gil galads successor or something.

i had forgotten how much this sounds like the Oath

lol

the Iron Hills dwarves have some sort of superfine maille?

sorry thorin, that's what you get for calling him a rat

imagine the Wars of Beleriand with added bilbo commentary

[sesamenom]

ulmo with turgon

If you like frogs. Or possums. Or cool builds. Or happiness. This is the video for you.

[sesamenom]

gender related words for quenya and sindarin respectively, based on some elfdict and eldamo rabbit holes i went on a while ago!

both quenya and sindarin have words for man/woman of unspecified species, and elf/Man of unspecified gender. the details of the middle stuff is a little more unclear with quenya, and sindarin doesn't seem to have a good word for "individual of unspecified species and gender who is not eru"?

funnily enough, basically all the words for "Man of unspecified gender" translate to "people who die a lot", and the only gender dwarves get is Stunted.

[eri-pl]

Anyone doing flowershop AUs?

Because if you are, I can tell you some things and probably will be able to tell you more things later.

Thing number one: lilies make your throat and nose hurt if you spend 3h doing things with them. I probably should have removed the… whatever it's called. Things with pollen. [TBH it may ba also hazwl I found at the swamp, it pollens a whole lot]. I'm not even allergic to them. It's just… I guess at this amount everyone is allergic.

Thing numbeer two: conifer plants hate you and they hate your tools especially. also, WD-40 is better to remove tree resin from tools than nail polish remover

Probably many other things. Send asks if you want something specific.

[sesamenom]

how have i never noticed that this is literally the inverse of beren and luthien

I love how in disney cartoons when a prince is like "father I have met a mysterious forest woman and she is the love of my life and I cannot possibly marry who you wish me to" the king is always like "No!!!!! you can't fall in love with a forest woman!!!!!! you must marry a princess!!!!!" instead of what a king would have said in real life, which is "why are you telling me about the forest woman. this has no impact whatsoever on your marriage to the princess. we all have a forest woman. it's 1183 and we're barbarians"

[sesamenom]

browsing stormlight art on tumblr and ran into a post about how different dalinars life would have been with a somewhat healthier childhood and i think someone tagged it 'kaladin adopts young dalinar au' or something

anyways i propose a Make Everybody Worse au. teenage dalinar and gavilar get dropped directly into formenos and unofficially adopted by feanor a few years before the flight of the noldor. they both participate in the First Kinslaying/Oath/Losgar and then feanor dies. maedhros adopts them and then thangorodrim happens. maglor adopts them for a few years until mae gets rescued. they participate in the first few decades of the wars of beleriand, after which they get dropped back into the middle of alethkar.

on the noldorin side of things, m&m assume the random children they sort-of adopted (300some years before Secondborn were awakened) got killed somewhere in the battle. the kidnap fam situation now has the additional context of m&m having known even more pairs of children who died because of the Oath - one pair killed in the Second Kinslaying, one pair who presumably died in battle because they swore the Oath

on the alethi side of things, dalinar & gavilar are now Oathbound kinslayers who just lost five-to-ten parental figures and all their friends, and spent most of their lives being actively encouraged in war and military strategy. they also skipped the entirety of the navani-related conflict and are probably somewhat closer because of that. violence ensues.

[edennill-archived]

Comparative Studies, or Twice on the Verge of Falling  

The Rimôn fresco of Elwing is considered to be one of the greatest artworks of the Late Classical Era. Found in the courtyard of the old Helcaril Villa (itself a marvellous example of architectural trends during the reign of Tar-Elendil), it occupies a relatively modestly-sized, but excellently exposed niche across from the entrance. Aside from the considerable fame the artist had later gathered, it remains remarkable both for its vividness of emotional expression, contrasting to the usual art style of the era, and for the number and fame of its copies.  

The best known of these is the one gracing the lesser courtyard of the villa Surë-or-Falmar. Indeed, the glory of the two is so closely interwined that it seems impossible to ascertain which had contributed to the fame of the other more. And yet the effect of the copy wildly differs from that of the original artwork.

The Rimôn Fresco depicts the figure of the young Elwing standing on the cliff with her back to the churning waters below. She is poised halfway toward the drop, as if on the verge of throwing herself in, one hand clasping the Silmaril at her neck. Wind whips at her torn dress and loose hair. A rarity among artworks confronting the subject, it depicts neither the enemy she is facing, nor the the transformation into bird itself. The figure stands alone - and seems strikingly young. Beholders oft remark that it is hard to believe she is meant to depict a wife and a mother.  

The wild and violent atmosphere of the fresco, even though, as with most Classical works, it depicts no blood, and despite the aforementioned lack of actual fighting shown, made its artistic quality fall under scrutiny in its day. From diaries, journals and letters of the period we can, however, see that it proved intriguing enough that people would come visit the Helcaril Villa only to see it in person - and that it won over many of those who were originally critical. Thus it is difficult to ascertain whether the changed nature of the Surë-or-Falmar villa Fresco was intentional on the part of the copyist, or the sign of an inexperienced hand.  

The name of the copy's painter has unfortunately escaped history. The style is typical to the reign of Tar-Meneldur, though an exemplary of its genre rather than a dull attempt at imitating fashion. The colour combinations are soft, slightly more so than in the Rimôn Fresco, the lines clean, and the light hazy. The figure depicted is in the exact same position as that in the original artwork.  

Viewers of both frescoes predominantly agree, however, that despite the technical skill the painter has exhibited, the Surë-or-Falmar Fresco lacks something of Rimôn's Elwing. The posture is just a little less dynamic; the cliff's edge (perhaps unconsciously or accidentally) removed slightly father from Elwing's feet, making her situation seem something less desparate. The wind's effects hardly seem those of a real gale, and more an aesthetic choice. One of the most interesting judgements has been pronounced by Herunimon of Eldalondë in a letter to his cousin, Rilendur, son of Verahil, dated 24th Nárië, 901: "The S.o.F. figure seems less the Lady Elwing fenced in by foes and making a tragic choice, but more the heroine of one of those new romances, unsure whether to flee the scene after a man has confessed his love to her, or to accept his proposal - or, I hardly know, perhaps such heroines lead more exciting lives than I would guess (...) - but anyhow, the fresco seems more like a coloured plate in a rich novel, than a mural depcting a tale of the Elder Days. All in all, there is not one element which does not fit. But taken together, the effect is incongruous." (Collected Letters, volume II, as accessed from the Royal Library in Romenna)  

(from the Romenna Journal of Artistic and Literary Studies)  

***

Editor's note: Remembering the considerable public outcry after the publication of Songs of the Elder Days: Lyrics, History and Analysis, the University of Romenna along with its subsidiary organisations seek to make it understood that the views of authors, as regards the addition or not of Lord and Lady before the names of Lord Eärendil and Lady Elwing, do not necessarily represent its own. Were the University to be flippant, it might also seek to ask why proper respect being accorded to the Lord and Lady seems to be held in greater importance than that it be accorded to the Valar, but the University understands that this would bring on public outcry against it from people on both sides of the moro-political divide, so it shall keep its silence.

[waitingforsecretsouls]

*Pushes aside Calaquendi Maeglin and Eöl*: Fëanorian-aligned Aredhel! Kinslayer Aredhel!

Source: Tolkien Gateway: Aredhel, Other versions of the legendarium

[sesamenom]

pangurbrimbanner

alright so Pangur got her claw stuck while rolling over in bed, and then just GAVE UP, which led to her being horizontally flattened in a way that gives her impossible girth and...... I'll share, but just know that it's an optical illusion. please. I swear to god she's a healthy weight. I mean, a little chubby, but not like this.

[eri-pl]

The feeling when halfway through a quite big fanart post I realize it's not Stormlight Archive, but some fandom I never heard of. :D

Also when my friend (on main, not even on the Silm blog) posts some art and I'm like "hmmm, Maedhros? It does have the star of Feanor surely, so---" and no, it's just classical literature. (yes Therese, 'twas you) and I am again reminded that the word "comet" used to be a guy in Polish (now it's female, because it ends with -a), and this fact is so Morgoth-coded to me (DD-adjacent).

But no, the comet is just [an omen for] Napoleon. No offense to him, I mean maybe some offense, but he doesn't deserve the comparison. Napoleon was more like Fefe anyway: famous, charismatic, allegedly short but not really, stressed, overhyped and caused many wars but not, like, a main villain. And Morgoth would never wear such an overcomplicated uniform (sorry, Napoleon!). Sauron would. Including the hat. He would have a huge eye embroided on the hat, it has the right shape.

Anyway, I should do a period of immersing myself in non-Silm stuff for a change. And maybe actually read/reread some of the classics...

[happy-pearlae]

galadriel and the rewind au

(rewind au , if you are confused check the other posts under the same tag )

as some of you may know , the chance to change the events of the past in a similar yet different reality , is given to galadriel at the beginning of what we consider as canon

she had the memory of the last song and acted accordingly to improve the events which she did

the silm is tragic , yes , but she didnt fail , she had an impossible task and did her best and bore quite the impressive results since both morgoth and sauron end defeated

so for conveniance i will name 3 timelines :

timeline 0 : the original song where thing go way worse

timeline 1 : canon events , galadriel have past song memories

timeline 2 : the au , the fanfic , maglor have pat song memory

but how was she given the chance

well in timeline 0 , she failed the test of the ring , and fell to the corruption of sauron

But she have a devoted husband who love her dearly which mean stopping her from doing things she will regret and dont align with moral goodness , support your beloved's rights but call out their wrong

so celeborn try to stop her for her sake more than anything and he manage , but he dies because of it , making galadriel snap out of it in horror and she flee lothlorien out of guilt

and therefore miss the last ships , she lingers in middle earth longer than maglor since he has been doing the slowly fading of guilt and sorrow 2 ages before her , so while she diminishes he does too and run out of fea before her

making her the lone survivor on the shore of ME

then nienna appear to her with a proposition and she take it and promise to herself to never align with evil or evil adjacent , also she have a grudge against feanor because in timeline 0 they got along very well like daughter and father at one point , and then he deeply betrayed her , making her have resentment and hate toward him for two lives and never trust him ever again

she is still flawed in timeline 1 or canon , she is arrogant and prideful but wiser much wiser than most

[sesamenom]

and this doesnt even cover half the Took lore

the Tooks are rumored to have some mysterious Elvish Ancestor (given the geography, it's most likely either a Dunedain Numenorean or whatever branch of the House of Finarfin that gildor comes from, so either way those hobbits are distant Finweans)

the Old Took was gifted magic diamond cufflinks from Gandalf that may or may not have from Celebrimbor/the general magic-ring-making era of Eregion

Bilbo

Pippin's older sister Pearl Took probably murdered the Took matriarch for her heirloom necklace, and is thus the only hobbit to have committed jewel-motivated kinslaying

Pippin's son is named Faramir and married Sam's daughter Goldilocks (who happens to have the same name etymology as Glorfindel)

Bandobras Took invented golf by killing an orc-king at the Greenfields

he also was originally supposed to invent chess along the way, but that got removed because it was too obscure of a linguistic joke to make sense

Bandobras Took was also maybe inspired by Tolkien's possible-ancestor George von Hohenzollern of the 1529 Siege of Vienna

the Tooks and Brandybucks were most likely the main force of the hobbits that fought in Cirdan's army in the Angmar war

the Oldbucks were the original Thain family but passed the title to the Tooks when they crossed the Brandywine and became the Brandybucks

during the Scouring of the Shire, the Tuckborough Tooks successfully fought off Saruman's takeover by fortifying the Great Smials (which is basically a hobbit castle, as far as hobbit-holes go) and conducting guerilla urban warfare, killing three ruffians in the process

approximately six months after Pippin fought in the Siege of Gondor, his dad Thain Paladin II led the defense of Tuckborough in the Siege of the Great Smials

historically, the North-tooks and Brandybucks have been the closest thing to a warrior class/warrior caste the Shire hobbits have had

as well as sharing gubernatorial duties with the elected Mayor and the Master of Buckland, the Thain is also the commander-in-chief of the Shire military forces

this is how Pippin's dad brought one hundred Took soldiers (mostly archers?) to the Battle of Bywater on a one day notice

the Tooks deviate significantly from the standard hobbit and Shire-hobbit naming customs, with male Tooks in particular having warfare-related Germanic, French, or Anglo-Saxon names, often with generational titles

see: Isumbras I-IV (iron-arm, Anglo-Saxon) Ferumbras I-III (brave-arm, Frankish legends of Roland) Adalgrim (noble-grim, Germanic, Pippin's grandfather) Isengrim I-III (iron-fierce, Anglo-Saxon, medieval folkloric/epic wolf) Hildigrim (battle-fierce, Germanic) Hildibrand (battle-sword, Germanic heroic legend) Sisigmond (victory-hand/protection, Germanic) et cetera

conclusion: the Tooks are essentially the canon version of that one Hobbit Silm AU

I love the concept of Tooks. "Everybody in the Shire is very very businesslike and respectable and has no use for adventures except for this one entire family of mad lads who also run the municipal government"

[sesamenom]

practicing painting. i kind of like how this little guy turned out

[elluendifad]

what do you think are good resources for someone who wants to get into Elf Religion?

there's quite a lot floating around out there, luckily! most of the effort comes in hunting it down and winnowing out what works best for you! there's also lots and lots of mixed or multi-source elf stuff out there, i just work primarily with tolkien sourced stuff. i can't comment much on other sources, so what i list here will be tolkien based or tolkien adjacent at the least! reading the fullness of the legendarium, not just the silm but also HoME and other texts, will also help you find what feels right.

so before we get to the long stuff, i really recommend you go through t-e/wal's website first and look at the statement of faith, valar page, and loa page. that's a pretty good summary of the most basic parts as far as belief goes. practice is something you can make unique to you! t-e/wal has a very modern-festival-paganism vibe to their rituals. i-v is doing modern western 'shamanism' (quotes bc that is a stolen name and i don't condone its use, but the alternative 'imaginal gnosis' is unwieldy and not commonly used).

if you already have your own favorite magical practices, you could find ways to adapt them to the loa and the valar! have fun with it! some of us do lots of magic, some of us mostly do worship. it can be as complicated or as simple as you want. this list comes from a collection i have been working on since 2022 and lists both orgs and individuals posting their own experiences.

T-e or wal : a shortening for Tie Eldalieva which changed its name to Way of Arda's Lore in 2024, which is a religious organization based in the usa for tolkien religionists. They (meaning a few of their loremasters with high overlap wth I-v) have worked on the loa and astronomy of the legendarium extensively. their resources are great and pretty universally used and tweaked by tolkien spiritualists of all kinds.

main website link https://elvenspirituality.com/

facebook , old name and older content https://www.facebook.com/elvenspirituality

facebook, new name and newer content https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61559024296013

youtube link https://www.youtube.com/@elvenspiritualpath

they currently have years of public virtual rituals and discussions on essays or white papers written by their lore masters. their membership overlap with i-v means i-v lore masters will sometimes appear in their videos.

I-v : a shortening for Ilsalunte Valion, a gnostic group closely related to T-e but with different motivations which has done a lot of the imaginal work and loremastery to make tolkien religion a rich possibility for many people. Their approach is less public, but deeper and more personal, than T-e. they focus a lot on gnosis and meditative exploration and use different ritual techniques than t-e/wal.

ilsalunte-valion main website http://westofwest.org/

the main feature is the forum, which you will need to register as a member to see most of.

Dave, a founding member and loremaster of both t-e/wal and i-v has a collection of more recent writing that is relevant to both organizations and people curious about them. found here https://hackmd.io/@EriolElwin/rJrwhaDaR

hewal : a shortening for High Elven Wisdom and Love, which is the youtube channel of Kmberiel Eventide. Kimber-el/Kimberel/Kimberiel is a starseed and mystic, and overlaps with tolkien religion enough that she joined and assisted T-e in getting legal religious recognition before parting and going her own way again.

while hewal has been inactive for several years, some of her videos are tolkien-specific and she made and posted the vala-specific informational videos for t-e/wal when she joined them. in those videos (still on t-e/wal's youtube and i think on hers as well) she goes through each mention of the vala in the legendarium texts book by book. this can be very helpful for someone that isn't absorbing the same summaries from the tolkien gateway website.

hewal youtube tolkien specific playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbW2r96baVJy1_ItxeeuFKrfde3HdgAH8

she has tolkien relevant videos not in that playlist so make sure to snoop around.

ES : a shortening for Elven Scholar, which is the youtube channel for Earendil Spindelilus, who was once of T-e but does his own work for loremastery and runs an online school. looks like he stopped posting youtube videos about a year ago, but his facebook group and school still have some activity.

youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/@ElvenScholarMusings

his online school http://www.elvenscholar.org/

warning: there are no state or federal agencies that license herbalism in the united states. his claims that his courses will award you the title 'certified herbalist' are vanity titles only. all those interested in herbalism should thoroughly investigate the legal licensure status of herbalism, naturopathy, and nutrition and dietetics for their nation and state. (afair naturopathy and nutrition/dietetics are licensed in the usa and cannot be practiced without legal license.) if your nation and state has no licensure process for herbalism, look for the self-regulatory bodies developed by professionals of that field and learn the base standards of education assumed for that field by that body. in the united states, this would be the american herbalists' guild and the american botanical council.

this last one is a little controversial in that alyras was formerly a founder and treasurer of t-e, and due to usa incorporation laws, was considered the only remaining board member of t-e when they ousted her, which is the reason t-e had to change their name to wal legally. i don't understand the situation but the tea is spilled lmao. i do still use and enjoy her reference book with lots of modification and ignoring what i dont care for. she also uses ai generated images for her website, which really rubs me the wrong way. i think her urls being so visually similar to t-e/wal's is on purpose.

her work is very new age and also centered in music. i do enjoy the tambour drones a lot for meditation!

her org website https://yanaeldalieva.org/about.html

there should be a link for her handbook somewhere in there, which is a gift in exchange for donation. dm me if you need help finding it, as the website has been re-arranged since i last saw it.

alyras/yana eldalieva facebook https://www.facebook.com/elvenspiritualpath

alyras youtube https://www.youtube.com/@elvenspiritualpathmusic/videos

[sesamenom]

exactly!! the Eagles are basically bird-shaped Maiar; a Ringlord Gwaihir would be the exact same situation as Ringlord Gandalf (or worse, since Ringlord Gwaihir is also twenty feet tall and can fly). having Gwaihir take the Ring to mordor would be like mailing it directly to sauron with a preorder bonus of a flying Umaia

I know that the nitpicking over why the Fellowship didn’t just ride the eagles to fly directly to Mordor has been talked to death, there’s more than enough answers. The Doylist answer is that would stop the whole book from existing, or replace it with a wholly different book all about eagles. The Watsonian answer is that a) the eagles are a noble independent people not a taxi service, b) the quest is a stealth mission and huge massive giant eagles are not stealthy, c) Mordor has air supremacy and the eagles could only fly to Mount Doom after Sauron was defeated and the Nazguls all gone.

But just now, option d) occurred to me: do we really trust the eagles to withstand the ring? If it tempts Gandalf and Galadriel, surely it tempts Gwaihir the Windlord. Do we want to create the Dread Lord of the Skies? He would wear the Ring on his lovely sharp claw! He would fly higher and swifter than the winds of the world! He would build a magnificent nest from the broken timbers of Edoras! He would eat so many people! All elves and men would be forced underground!

[narutoheretic]

hey, its been ages! like, we both were Silm fandom adjacent ages. just checking in, how are ya doing?

(assuming this is ok to post, lmk if not!)

hey!! I'm doing... roughly as well as can be expected whilst being (US)American in this current era, honestly glad my Naruto obsession revived to distract me. It's been a minorly eventful few years, got diagnosed with a chronic pain condition which explains the being in pain since my early 20s lol, also ADHD (surprising nobody), changed jobs (still retail so I'll hopefully change it again, but better than my former job), watched a bunch of horror movies from the 70s, spent time in the trenches in a different fandom stanning one of the most unpopular characters, and got way better at writing porn. So physically, not the greatest but I'm overall in a way better place than I was last time we encountered each other ^-^